by Lynne Graham
Her life had been in a mess, heading downhill at a seemingly breakneck pace. She had had the promising future of a kamikaze pilot. And then Harriet had come along. Harriet, so undervalued by those who knew her best. Harriet…in his exasperation, Drew had once called her a ‘charming mental deficient’. Yet Harriet had picked Catherine up, dusted her down and set her back on the rails again. In the process, Harriet had also become the closest thing to a mother that Catherine had ever known.
They had met on a train. That journey and that meeting had forever altered Catherine’s future. While they had shared the same compartment, Harriet had tried repeatedly to strike up a conversation. When you were locked up tight and terrified of breaking down in public, you didn’t want to talk. But Harriet’s persistence had forced her out of her self-absorption, and before very long her over-taxed emotions had betrayed her and somehow she had ended up telling Harriet her life-story.
Afterwards she had been embarrassed, frankly eager to escape the older woman’s company. They had left the train at the same station. Nothing poor Harriet had said about her ‘having made the right decision’ had penetrated. Like an addict, sick for a long-overdue fix, Catherine had been unbelievably desperate just to hear the sound of a man’s voice on the phone. Throwing Harriet a guilty goodbye, she had raced off towards the phone-box she could see across the busy car park.
What would have happened had she made that call? That call that would have been a crowning and unforgivable mistake in a relationship which had been a disaster from start to finish?
She would never know now. In her mad haste to reach that phone, she had run in front of a car. It had taken total physical incapacitation to finally bring her to her senses. She had spent the following three months recovering from her injuries in hospital. Days had passed before she had been strong enough to recognise the soothing voice that drifted in and out of her haze of pain and disorientation. It had belonged to Harriet. Knowing that she had no family, Harriet had sat by her in Intensive Care, talking back the dark for her. If Harriet hadn’t been there, Catherine didn’t believe she would ever have emerged from the dark again.
Even before his premature birth, Daniel had had to fight for survival. Coming into the world, he had screeched for attention, tiny and weak but indomitably strong-willed. From his incubator he had charmed the entire medical staff by surmounting every set-back within record time. Catherine had begun to appreciate then that, with the genes her son carried to such an unmistakably marked degree, a ten-ton truck couldn’t have deprived him of existence, never mind his careless mother’s collision with a mere car.
‘He’s a splendid little fighter,’ Harriet had proclaimed proudly, relishing the role of surrogate granny as only an intensely lonely woman could. Drew had been sincerely fond of his older sister but her eccentricities had infuriated him, and his sophisticated French wife, Annette, and their teenage children had had no time for Harriet at all. Greyfriars was situated on the outskirts of an Oxfordshire village, a dilapidated old house, surrounded by untamed acres of wilderness garden. Harriet and Drew had been born here and Harriet had vociferously withstood her brother’s every attempt to refurbish the house for her. Surroundings had been supremely unimportant to Harriet. Lame ducks had been Harriet’s speciality.
Catherine’s shadowed gaze roamed over the homely kitchen. She had made the gingham curtains fluttering at the window, painted the battered cupboards a cheerful fire-engine red sold off cheap at the church f;afete. This was their home. In every sense of the word. How could she persuade Daniel that he would be as happy in a tiny city flat when she didn’t believe it herself? But, dear God, that flat was their one and only option.
A light knock sounded on the back door. Without awaiting an answer, her friend Peggy Downes breezed in. A tall woman in her thirties with geometrically cut red hair, she dropped down on to the sagging settee by the range with the ease of a regular visitor. She stared in surprise at the cardboard box. ‘Aren’t you being a little premature with your packing? You’ve still got a fortnight to go.’
‘We haven’t.’ Catherine passed over the solicitor’s letter. ‘It’s just as well that Drew said we could use his apartment if we were stuck. We can’t stay here until the end of the month and the flat won’t be vacant before then.’
‘Hell’s teeth! They wouldn’t give you that extra week?’ Peggy exclaimed incredulously.
As Peggy’s mobile features set into depressingly familiar lines of annoyance, Catherine turned back to the breakfast dishes, hoping that her friend wasn’t about to climb back on her soap-box to decry the terms of Harriet’s will and their imminent move to city life. In recent days, while exuding the best of good intentions, Peggy had been very trying and very impractical.
‘We have no legal right to be here at all,’ Catherine pointed out.
‘But morally you have every right and I would’ve expected a charitable organisation to be more generous towards a single parent.’ Peggy’s ready temper was rising on Catherine’s behalf. ‘Mind you, I don’t know why I’m blaming them. This whole mess is your precious Harriet’s fault!’
‘Peggy—’
‘Sorry, but I believe in calling a spade a spade.’ That was an unnecessary reminder to anyone acquainted with Peggy’s caustic tongue. ‘Honestly, Catherine…sometimes I think you must have been put on this earth purely to be exploited! You don’t even seem to realise when people are using you! What thanks did you get for wasting four years of your life running after Harriet?’
‘Harriet gave us a home when we had nowhere else to go. She had nothing to thank me for.’
‘You kept this house, waited on her hand and foot and slaved over all her pet charity schemes,’ Peggy condemned heatedly. ‘And for all that you received board and lodging and first pick of the jumble-sale clothes! So much for charity’s beginning at home!’
‘Harriet was the kindest and most sincere person I’ve ever known,’ Catherine parried tightly.
And crazy as a coot, Peggy wanted to shriek in frustration. Admittedly Harriet’s many eccentricities had not appeared to grate on Catherine as they had on other, less tolerant souls. Catherine hadn’t seemed to notice when Harriet talked out loud to herself and her conscience, or noisily emptied the entire contents of her purse into the church collection plate. Catherine hadn’t batted an eyelash when Harriet brought dirty, smelly tramps home to tea and offered them the freedom of her home.
The trouble with Catherine was…It was a sentence Peggy often began and never managed to finish to her satisfaction. Catherine was the best friend she had ever had. She was also unfailingly kind, generous and unselfish, and that was quite an accolade from a female who thought of herself as a hardened cynic. How did you criticise someone for such sterling qualities? Unfortunately it was exactly those qualities which had put Catherine in her present predicament.
Catherine drifted along on another mental plane. Meeting those misty blue eyes in that arrestingly lovely face, Peggy was helplessly put in mind of a child cast adrift in a bewildering adult world. There was something so terrifyingly innocent about Catherine’s penchant for seeing only the best in people and taking them on trust. There was something so horribly defenceless about her invariably optimistic view of the world.
She was a sucker for every sob-story that came her way and a wonderful listener. She didn’t know how to say no when people asked for favours. This kitchen was rarely empty of callers, mothers in need of temporary childminders or someone to look after the cat or the dog or the dormouse while they were away. Catherine was very popular locally. If you were in a fix, she would always lend a hand. But how many returned those favours? Precious few, in Peggy’s experience.
‘At the very least, Harriet ought to have left you a share of her estate,’ Peggy censured.
Catherine put the kettle on to boil. ‘And how do you think Drew and his family would have felt about that?’
‘Drew isn’t short of money.’
‘Huntingdon’s is a small f
irm. He isn’t a wealthy man.’
‘He has a big house in Kent and an apartment in central London. If that isn’t wealthy, what is?’ Peggy demanded drily.
Catherine suppressed a groan. ‘Business hasn’t been too brisk for the firm recently. Drew has already had to sell some property he owned, and though he wouldn’t admit it, he must have been disappointed by Harriet’s will. As building land this place will fetch a small fortune. He could have done with a windfall.’
‘And by the time the divorce comes through Annette will probably have stripped him of every remaining movable asset,’ Peggy mused.
‘She didn’t want the divorce,’ Catherine murmured.
Peggy pulled a face. ‘What difference does that make? She had the affair. She was the guilty partner.’
Catherine made the tea, reflecting that it was no use looking to Peggy for tolerance on the subject of marital infidelity. Her friend was still raw from the break-up of her own marriage. But Peggy’s husband had been a womaniser. Annette was scarcely a comparable case. Business worries and a pair of difficult teenagers had put the Huntingdon marriage under strain. Annette had had an affair and Drew had been devastated. Resisting her stricken pleas for a reconciliation, Drew had moved out and headed straight for his solicitor. Funny how people rarely reacted as you thought they would in a personal crisis. Catherine had believed he would forgive and forget. She had been wrong.
‘I still hope they sort out their problems before it’s too late,’ she replied quietly.
‘Why should he want to? He’s only fifty…an attractive man, still in his prime…’
‘I suppose he is,’ Catherine allowed uncertainly. She was very fond of Harriet’s brother, but she wasn’t accustomed to thinking of him on those terms.
‘A man who somehow can’t find anything better to do than drive down here at weekends to play with Daniel,’ Peggy commented with studied casualness.
Unconscious of her intent scrutiny, Catherine laughed. ‘He’s at a loose end without his family.’
Peggy cleared her throat. ‘Has it ever occurred to you that Drew might have a more personal interest at stake here?’
Catherine surveyed her blankly.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ Peggy groaned. ‘Do I have to spell it out? His behaviour at the funeral raised more brows than mine. If you lifted anything heavier than a teacup, he was across the room like young Lochinvar! I think he’s in love with you.’
‘In love with me?’ Catherine parroted, aghast. ‘I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous!’
‘I could be wrong.’ Peggy sounded doubtful.
‘Of course you’re wrong!’ Catherine told her with unusual vehemence, her cheeks hot with discomfiture.
‘All right, calm down,’ Peggy sighed. ‘But I did have this little chat with him at the funeral. I asked him why he’d dug up another old lady for you to run after—’
‘Mrs Anstey is his godmother!’ Catherine gasped.
‘And she’ll see out another generation of downtrodden home-helps,’ Peggy forecast grimly. ‘When I ran you up to see the flat, that frozen face of hers was enough for me. I told Drew that.’
‘Peggy, how could you? I only have to do her shopping and supply her with a main meal every evening. That isn’t much in exchange for a flat at a peppercorn rent.’
‘That’s why I smell a big fat rat. However…’ Peggy paused smugly for effect ‘…Drew told me that I didn’t need to worry because he didn’t expect you to be there for long. Now why do you think he said that?’
‘Maybe he doesn’t think I’ll suit her.’ Thank you, Peggy for giving me something else to worry about, she thought wearily.
Peggy was fingering the solicitor’s letter, a crease suddenly forming between her brows. ‘If you have to move this week, you can’t possibly come up home with me, can you?’ she gathered frustratedly. ‘And I was absolutely depending on you, Catherine. My mother and you get on like a house on fire and it takes the heat off me.’
‘The news isn’t going to make me Daniel’s favourite person either,’ Catherine muttered.
Unexpectedly, Peggy grinned. ‘Why don’t I take him anyway?’
‘On his own?’
‘Why not? My parents adore him. He’ll be spoilt to death. And by the time we come back you’ll have the flat organised and looking more like home. I’ve felt so guilty about not being able to do anything to help out,’ Peggy confided. ‘This is perfect.’
‘I couldn’t possibly let you—’
‘We’re friends, aren’t we? It would make the move less traumatic for him. Poor little beggar, he doesn’t half take things to heart,’ Peggy said persuasively. ‘He won’t be here when you hand Clover over to the animal sanctuary and he won’t have to camp out en route in Drew’s apartment either. I seem to recall he doesn’t get on too well with that housekeeper.’
Daniel didn’t get on too terribly well with anyone who crossed him, Catherine reflected ruefully. He especially didn’t like being babied and being told that he was cute, which, regrettably for him, he was. All black curly hair and long eyelashes and huge dark eyes. He was extremely affectionate with her, but not with anyone else.
‘You do trust me with him?’ Peggy shot at her abruptly.
‘Of course I do—’
‘Well, then, it’s settled,’ Peggy decided with her usual impatience.
The comment that she had never been apart from Daniel before, even for a night, died on Catherine’s lips. Daniel loved the farm. They had spent several weekends there with Peggy in recent years. At least this way he wouldn’t miss out on his holiday.
Six days later, Daniel gave her an enthusiastic hug and raced into Peggy’s car. Catherine hovered. ‘If he’s homesick, phone me,’ she urged Peggy.
‘We haven’t got a home any more,’ Daniel reminded her. ‘Africa’s getting it.’
Within minutes they were gone. Catherine retreated indoors to stare at a set of suitcases and a handful of boxes through a haze of tears. Not much to show for four years. The boxes were to go into Peggy’s garage. A neighbour had promised to drop them off at Drew’s apartment next week. She wiped at her overflowing eyes in vexation. Daniel was only going to be away for ten days, not six months!
* * *
Drew met her off the train and steered her out to his car. He was a broadly built man with pleasant features and a quiet air of self-command. ‘We’ll drop your cases off at the apartment first.’
‘First?’ she queried.
He smiled. ‘I’ve booked a table at the Savoy for lunch.’
‘Are you celebrating something?’ Catherine had lunched with Drew a dozen times in Harriet’s company, but he had always taken them to his club.
‘The firm’s on the brink of winning a very large contract,’ he divulged, not without pride. ‘Unofficially, it’s in the bag. I’m flying to Germany this evening. The day after tomorrow we sign on the dotted line.’
Catherine grinned. ‘That’s marvellous news.’
‘To be frank, it’s come in the nick of time. Lately, Huntingdon’s has been cruising too close to the wind. But that’s not all we’ll be celebrating,’ he told her. ‘What about your move to London?’
‘When will you be back from Germany?’ she asked as they left his apartment again.
‘Within a couple of days, but I’ll check into a hotel.’
Catherine frowned. ‘Why?’
Faint colour mottled his cheeks. ‘When you’re in the middle of a divorce you can’t be too careful, Catherine. Thank God, it’ll all be over next month. No doubt you think I’m being over-cautious, but I don’t want anyone pointing fingers at you or associating you with the divorce.’
Catherine was squirming with embarrassment. She had gratefully accepted his offer of a temporary roof without thought of the position she might be putting him in. ‘I feel terrible, Drew. I never even thought—’
‘Of course you didn’t. Your mind doesn’t work like that.’ Drew squeezed her hand comfortingly
. ‘Once this court business is over, we won’t need to consider clacking tongues.’
She found that remark more unsettling than reassuring, implying as it did a degree of intimacy that had never been a part of their friendship. Then she scolded herself and blamed Peggy for making her read double meanings where no doubt none existed. She had inevitably grown closer to Drew since he had separated from Annette. He had become a frequent visitor to his sister’s home.
In the bar they received their menus. Catherine made an elaborate play of studying hers, although she did have great difficulty with words on a printed page. The difficulty was because she was dyslexic, but she was practised at concealing the handicap.
‘Steak, I think.’ Steak was safe. It was on every menu.
‘You’re a creature of habit,’ Drew complained, but he smiled at her. He was the sort of man who liked things to stay the same. ‘And to start?’
She played the same game with prawns.
‘I might as well have ordered for you,’ he teased.
Her wandering scrutiny glanced off the rear-view of a tall black-haired male passing through the foyer beyond the doorway. At accelerated speed her eyes swept back again in a double-take, only he was out of sight. Bemusedly she blinked and then told herself off for that fearful lurch of recognition, that chilled sensation enclosing her flesh.
‘Take one day at a time,’ Harriet had once told her. Harriet had been a great one for clich;aaes, and four years ago she had made it sound so easy. But a day was twenty-four hours and each of them broken up into sixty minutes. How long had it been before she could go even five minutes without remembering? How long had it been since she had lain sleepless in bed, tortured by the raw strength of the emotions she was forcing herself to deny? In the end she had built a wall inside her head. Behind it she had buried two years of her life. Beyond it sometimes she still felt only half-alive…
‘Something wrong?’