Face The Wind And Fly

by Jenny Harper

  ‘No? It’s all right for you to have a full-on affair, but my one brief encounter is to be judged differently?’ She was trying not to raise her voice. She didn’t want this kind of row with Andrew, and she didn’t want Ninian to hear them arguing.

  He stood up. ‘It shows, doesn’t it, that we’ve come to the end of our road together.’

  ‘No.’ She jumped to her feet and glowered up at him. ‘It shows we have to address some problems we have between us. That’s what we committed to, isn’t it? For better and for worse? No-one ever said it would be easy and I’ll be the first to admit I should have paid more attention to my marriage, but you’re wrong. You’re absolutely wrong. Running off to Sophie isn’t going to solve the problem you’ve got.’

  ‘And exactly what problem is that?’

  She said wearily, ‘There’s no such thing as eternal youth. You certainly won’t find it by looking for new flesh to caress. Whatever you think you have with Sophie – don’t you see? It will still be pots and pans and dirty dishes, and you can add in nappies and broken nights too, if she gets her way? It’s not love. It’s—’

  ‘Don’t try to tell me what it is. You have no idea.’

  ‘Oh, I think I do, Andrew. I think I have a very good idea indeed.’

  Outside, the wind was getting up and the moon had slid behind a cloud, so that she could barely see Andrew’s face at all. All at once, she felt desperately weary, so tired that the bones in her body felt as though they were disintegrating. She had no spirit left to fight.

  ‘Go, then,’ she said. ‘Go to her if you must. But you must be the one to explain to Ninian.’

  A little to her surprise, he baulked at that. It offered them a chink of hope, though she knew it might be only the smallest of respites. Their marriage was caught in a spider’s web, trussed up with a thread that was at once strong and extremely fragile. Andrew began to wilt, and spent even longer closeted in his room. She could hear the soft clack clack clack of his keyboard keys followed by pauses so long that she wanted to scream, Write! Write, damn you!

  There was little else for her to do. She had finished painting the kitchen – and made a good job of it – but she rather regretted redecorating it at all. She missed the scuff mark by the back door and the greasy area above the cooker because these were chapters in their life here.

  She longed to go to the community garden, but the digging was finished and the fund-raising team was at work and besides, autumn was turning into winter and now was not the time to do anything in the garden.

  She missed Ibsen, but she had no excuse, now, to contact him.

  Ninian escaped the house whenever he could and Kate knew that he was spending a great deal of time over at the Banks’s. Striking up a relationship with the twin sister of your best friend must pose its own complications, she reflected, but she was pleased for him – and more relieved than she could say that he seemed to have stopped consorting with Stephen Cousins.

  One day, Mark Matthews called. ‘This is strictly off the record, Kate,’ he said, ‘but I wanted you to know that I believe we were wrong to put you in charge of the Summerfield project.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘The senior team believed that it would be a strength, but I recognise now that it put you under intolerable pressures.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And besides—’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Jack Bailey has explained about the confusion over the access road. That it was his error, not yours.’

  ‘That’s good news.’

  ‘Of course, it still leaves the matter of the incident at the eco protest.’

  ‘Yes. It still leaves that.’

  ‘But there is a growing recognition that you were under undue pressure and that this was the company’s fault, not your own.

  ‘I’m grateful to the company.’

  ‘You’ve probably already heard that there will be a disciplinary hearing? The investigator reckons he’ll be finished taking all the evidence in two or three weeks. Sorry it’s taking so long - fixing diaries, getting people together, you know what it’s like.’

  ‘I know,’ said Kate, who had almost forgotten about diary hell.

  ‘I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I think things will go in your favour. I expect you’ll be reinstated.’

  ‘Who is running the project now?’ Kate asked, though she knew the answer already.

  ‘Jack. Don’t worry, if the hearing goes in your favour, you’ll be put back in charge of Summerfield.’

  ‘I guess if I’m reinstated,’ she said with heavy emphasis, ‘that will be my right.’

  ‘Don’t be so prickly. I had no alternative other than to suspend you, you know that, but I’m on your side.’

  ‘I know, Mark. I’m grateful.’

  Under undue pressure? Whatever pressure she had been under then, she was considerably more weighed down now. Andrew’s refusal to talk to Ninian had placed them into stalemate. Harry would be the last person on earth she would take into any kind of confidence, so she had become completely isolated. Willow Corner had become her world.

  The evening after Mark called, it occurred to Kate that she had not seen Charlotte for some weeks. In fact, she’d seen more of her when she was a full-time working mother than she did now that she was at home. Why hadn’t she called? She picked up the phone.

  ‘Charlotte? It’s Kate.’

  There was an infinitesimal pause before she said, ‘Hi! How are you?’

  ‘Still in disgrace.’

  ‘Poor you. I’m sorry.’

  ‘I thought we could go for a drink.’

  ‘Mike’s away at the moment.’

  ‘Then I’ll come round there.’

  Again there was the tiniest of pauses. ‘I’m a little busy, Kate.’

  In her state of disconnection, the easiest thing would have been to have put the phone down and pick up another thriller, but Charlotte was her oldest friend, so she persisted. ‘What’s wrong, Char?’

  ‘Nothing. Why do you ask?’

  ‘You’re being very peculiar.’

  ‘Really? Do you think so? I’m just—’ She seemed to be floundering. ‘It’s difficult, Kate,’ she came up with eventually. ‘With Dad and everything. I need to support him and you’re—’

  ‘Suspended,’ Kate said dryly.

  ‘—on the other side,’ Charlotte ended feebly.

  ‘I can’t believe there’s anything you can be so busy with that you can’t spare time to sort out a problem with an old friend. I’ll bring a bottle round and be with you in ten minutes. Okay?’

  ‘Kate, I told you, I’m—’

  ‘Rather busy. Yes, you said.’ Kate hated defeat. ‘But I miss you, Char, and I know you. Something’s wrong and we need to talk about it.’

  She heard Charlotte’s sigh and was resigned to another knock-back. ‘You’re right,’ Charlotte said surprising her. ‘Okay then, come on round.’

  ‘Good.’

  Kate dropped the phone back on its cradle and marched to Andrew’s study. ‘I’m nipping round to see Charlotte,’ she said, ‘so if you want to talk to Sophie, now would be a good time.’

  She couldn’t be bothered waiting to unpick his reaction. Ninian was out, Charlotte was in, and she had found a spark of resolve. She needed to know what was bugging Charlotte, because right now she could do with a bit of support and she wasn’t getting any. She pulled a bottle of wine out of the fridge and marched out of the kitchen door and down the side path to the gate.

  ‘Have I done something? Is it my fault?’ Kate thrust the bottle into Charlotte’s hands.

  ‘Oh hell, Kate,’ Charlotte grimaced, ‘you don’t change, do you? You never did know when to call time.’

  ‘Time on what?’

  Charlotte went to the cupboard in the kitchen, pulled out two glasses. ‘Thanks for the wine. I suppose we’d better go and get comfortable.’

  In the front room she flicked a switch and the fire flared into life. She eyed Kate
warily. ‘So.’

  Kate said, ‘Remember when you burst into my room at uni. It was my very first day. You were a skinny will-o-the-wisp, all cheekbones and flying blonde hair. “I’m Charlotte,” you announced, ‘”and I’m next door.’” Kate was looking at the pale gold liquid in her glass, but she was seeing the young Charlotte’s greeny-gold eyes. ‘Then you said, “I can tell we’re going to be friends.” Just like that.’

  ‘We’ve shared a lot of fun, haven’t we? Tribulations and tears, too.’

  ‘We got legless together—’

  ‘Shared clothes, even though you’re taller than me—’

  They both fell silent, remembering. They’d lusted over men, too, and swapped unrepeatable tales of intimacies. For a while Kate had dated Mike Proctor, before they’d parted amicably and Charlotte had swooped on him with glee. ‘If you’ve really finished with him, Katie-K,’ she’d said delightedly, ‘would you mind if I had a pop? He’s so sweet.’

  ‘I know you almost as well as I know myself. At least, I thought I did.’

  ‘Don’t, Kate—’

  ‘Maybe even better, because right now, I’m not convinced that I know what I want from life at all.’

  Charlotte didn’t answer. After a few minutes she said, ‘So what’s new?’

  ‘Oh, you know, still out of work and stuck at home.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘What do you mean? Of course I am.’

  ‘But while I’m suspended I can’t work on the wind farm, and that must make you very happy.’

  ‘Oh, Kate. You know it’s not as simple as that. I’m boxed in here. Dad’s becoming more and more militant – Dad!’ she gave a rather forced little laugh, ‘in combat gear. Can you imagine?’ She swilled half her wine at a gulp, then studied the glass.

  ‘You can make your own mind up about things, surely. You’re a big girl now.’

  ‘And you know Mike’s not in favour of wind farms either.’

  ‘Doesn’t stop you talking to your best friend, surely?’

  She wouldn’t meet Kate’s eyes. She crossed her legs, then wriggled and switched them back again, then almost finished the wine in another couple of quick gulps. It takes six cranial nerves to carry out the act of swallowing, and Charlotte’s seemed to be working in perfect unison rather than chronological progression, so swiftly did the alcohol slide down her throat.

  ‘There’s something else, isn’t there?’

  ‘Is there?’

  Kate tried another tack. ‘Do you remember I talked to you a month or two back about Andrew?’

  Charlotte looked even more uncomfortable. ‘Still playing away, is he?’

  ‘Is he? You said you wouldn’t know if he was. “I’d hardly be likely to know about it if he was screwing the entire Scottish membership of the WRI,” if I remember your words correctly.’

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘So what do you mean, is he still playing away?’

  Charlotte topped up her wine, splashing a little onto the coffee table, where it spread into a small pool and glistened unnaturally under the light of the lamp behind her head. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘that’s Andy, isn’t it?’

  Kate stared at her, speechless and the silence dragged on into a long, uneasy pause. Eventually she said, ‘You make it sound as though he’s serially unfaithful.’

  ‘Oh come on, Kate,’ Charlotte was suddenly impatient. She sat up with a swift, jerky movement. ‘You can’t have lived with him all these years and not know that Andy likes his “fans”.’ She used her fingers to describe sarcastic quotation marks in the air.

  Her words barrelled into Kate and knocked all the wind out of her. She fought for breath, shocked beyond comprehension. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘You’re not that naive, Kate, are you? Andy’s vanity feeds on young flesh.’

  ‘That’s horrible.’

  ‘But true. Did he resist you?’

  ‘He fell in love with me.’

  ‘Never stopped him from testing his pulling power.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Kate, he has always wanted to feel irresistible. I was jealous, I admit it. You were always so bloody perfect, you got top marks in everything, you were sexy as hell and had bags of personality. I was fed up being second best to you. Even Mike was a hand-me-down, for heaven’s sake.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I slept with him, you dolt. Your precious Andy, your oh-so-handsome, oh-so-adoring teacher-lover. I went to bed with him while you and Mike were out at some bloody engineering do.’

  The breathlessness was back. ‘You slept with Andrew? Soon after I met him? I don’t believe you.’

  ‘That’s why I never told you. I knew you wouldn’t. And anyway, what would have been the point?’

  Andy. It was a diminutive she’d thought nothing of – but now the familiarity was explained. ‘Andy! You’ve always been chummy with him, haven’t you? Why did I never see it?’ She rubbed her temples. They were starting to throb. ‘So why tell me now?’

  ‘I never meant to. It was years ago. It just came out. I suppose I was surprised that you didn’t realise what Andy was like.’

  Best friends are anchors. They listen to problems without making judgements, they want the best for each other, they know the worst things about each other and love their friends anyway. Deep friendships take years to build because they are the sum of ten thousand shared experiences. Years to build, and a moment to shatter.

  Charlotte’s triumphant little secret. The thought of her friend in bed with the man she loved made her feel sick. She stood up. ‘Thank you, Charlotte.’

  ‘What do you mean? What for?’ Charlotte stood, wobbled, caught hold of the back of the sofa to steady herself.

  ‘You’ve opened my eyes. I can’t say I like what I see, but I suppose I asked for the truth, and now I’ve got it.’ She turned and marched to the door, Charlotte stumbling and stuttering behind her.

  ‘Kate, wait! Let’s talk about this, it was years ago, I didn’t mean it. Christ, Mike’ll kill me. Oh, fuck.’

  The expletive was the last thing Kate heard, because she slammed the front door behind her and strode off down the drive, leaving the stone face of The Herons staring emotionlessly after her as she was engulfed by the night.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Kate had assumed that her idyll with Andrew would go on for ever. When you are twenty two and in love, you believe that this state will never change. But nothing stays the same for ever – nothing and nobody. She hadn’t understood that, but Andrew should have. Andrew, who had already brought up one child. Andrew, who had watched countless not-quite teenagers come into school as children and emerge, six or seven years later, as young and sometimes frighteningly mature adults. Andrew, who had fallen in love with a teenage Val himself, then out of love again just as easily, when it suited him.

  ‘But it wasn’t like that,’ he’d told Kate during one of those endless, lazy conversations you have in bed with a new lover, sated with sex and blissfully drowsy with the headiness of proximity. ‘It happened slowly, over a long time. It happened, I dare say, because we did both change, Val into a mother and me into—’ He paused at that point and spent some blissful moments tracing the contours of Kate’s body from her navel to her nipple and up her throat to her lips. He didn’t finish the sentence, so she never did hear how he thought he had changed. Instead, he returned again to Val. ‘I don’t know where the exuberant, madcap girl I married went to.’

  Maybe he kissed her then and they probably made love once more. She would have been exhilarated with the feeling of power, because she set him alight and she knew it. She hadn’t given much thought to Val, though.

  She let herself into Willow Corner.

  ‘Ninian called,’ Andrew said, emerging from his study. ‘He’s staying the night at Elliott’s.’

  She said, ‘Good. It will give you time to pack some things and go.’

  ‘I’m
sorry?’ He stared at her incredulously over his half-moon spectacles.

  ‘It’s not too late.’ She glanced at the clock in the kitchen. ‘It’s only nine thirty. Plenty of time to find somewhere to sleep tonight.’

  He followed her into the kitchen. ‘You can’t be serious.’

  ‘Oh, but I am. Deadly serious.’

  ‘I thought we were going to work at our marriage. That’s what you said.’

  Kate swung round, so abruptly that he almost cannoned into her. ‘You slept with Charlotte,’ she hissed. ‘And that’s unforgivable.’

  ‘No I didn’t.’ The puzzlement on his face seemed absolutely genuine.

  ‘Cast your mind back, Andrew. Sixteen years. One night, a few months before we were married. I’d gone to an Engineering lecture with Mike and—’

  ‘Oh that,’ he said dismissively. ‘She practically begged me. I’d completely forgotten.’

  ‘It wasn’t important.’

  ‘Right.’ He tried to take her face between his hands but she shoved him away, so violently that he hit the table and a chair went flying. ‘Jesus, Kate!’

  ‘You slept with my best friend and you didn’t think that mattered?’ Her voice had risen to a shrewish shriek.

  ‘Not ... no—’

  ‘Have you got any morality at all, Andrew? I’ve lived with you for all this time and I thought I knew you. How many women, Andrew? How many times have you been unfaithful to me?’

  ‘It’s not like that. I don’t—’

  ‘Oh, spare me the stories. Time’s ticking. Take the big suitcase, then you won’t need to come back for a few days. And that, believe me, is about the only way I can guarantee your safety.’

  ‘Ninian—’

  Her anger yielded to anxiety. ‘We’ll talk to Ninian together and you’ll find the words – because you’re very good at words, isn’t that so? – to help him through this. Until we agree on what and where and how we will do it, however, you won’t make any attempt to contact him. Is that understood?’

  She glared at Andrew’s shocked face and added, more gently, ‘I’m not trying to undermine you. I promise I’ll never do anything to compromise his view of you, so long as you agree to do the same. Where Ninian is concerned, we are – and always will be – his parents, equally loving, equally fair, equally concerned about what is best for him.’