Friends for Life

by Carol Smith

  • • •

  Catherine’s sole break for freedom had come after the fiasco of the baby and her subsequent breakdown, and she still marveled that she had ever had the strength even to have thought of making a bolt for it. They had wanted her home in Vienna to recuperate from whatever it was that was troubling her, but for once she had dug in her heels and removed herself instead to a nursing home in Hastings from which she had taken long, dismal walks and gazed out at the metallic-looking sea, trying to come to terms with her life and make vague plans. The future, like the seascape, had been gray and despairing, and she might well have gone under altogether had it not been for a friendly Australian nurse who had sat with her in the garden, helping her with her therapeutic knitting and trying to rally her spirits by telling her tales of home.

  “You really ought to go there,” enthused the girl. “See it for yourself. You’d love it, especially after all this. It really is the land of opportunity, all sunshine and wide-open spaces and marvelous views across the harbor. And friendly people who would give you a proper welcome, not like these stuffy Poms, if you’ll pardon the expression.”

  Catherine just stared at the sea with lackluster eyes, so her friend took things one step further and produced a copy of Nursing Mirror, which contained the advertisement which was to change her life, if only for a few short years.

  “Nurses wanted for private clinic in Sydney, NSW,” it ran. “Two years minimum. SRN essential. All usual references.”

  “Go on,” said the girl. “Why don’t you give it a go? There’s nothing to keep you here and it might be fun. Can’t be worse than rotting away in this godforsaken hole.”

  So she had done it and within a week received the offer of an interview. To her enormous surprise, she passed. Life had suddenly taken an upward curve and an element of bustle, and three weeks later, after a fast trip home to Vienna to see her parents, Catherine took off for Australia and a whole new future.

  Of course they disapproved, at least her mother did, but Catherine was twenty-one and there was nothing now to keep her in London or, indeed, Vienna. Sir Nicholas had actually rather taken her side and slipped her a secret five thousand pounds as a running-away fund, in case she couldn’t stand it when she got there and needed to come home in a hurry.

  “You’ll do fine,” he told her confidently on one of their walks along the Danube. “Just don’t go marrying an Australian. I must have my little girl back someday.”

  Alas, it was never to be, but neither of them could know that then.

  • • •

  The private clinic, in a suburb of Sydney, was attached to a convent. Catherine used to wander through the shady cloisters whenever she needed space to be alone and think. Somehow, now that she was so isolated from everything she knew and valued, Tom Harvey became an even greater presence in her mind, instead of fading into the background as she assimilated new experiences and generally broadened her horizons. She thought about him constantly and even kept up a correspondence with a couple of other nurses at St. Thomas’s in the desperate hope of hearing news of him. Which, indeed, she did. Within a year of his arrival at Harvard, she heard, he had married a girl from Boston, rich they said and well connected; and later that he was doing well, shooting up the Harvard ladder and making quite a name for himself in surgical circles. Again she wept for him and Ruth Ann, for their aborted love and what might have been had Fate and her mother not intervened.

  This secret sorrow ate away at Catherine’s soul and added to her introspection. Australia was everything it had been cracked up to be—bright, full of sunshine and opportunity, warm and welcoming. But Catherine never really got into step there the whole time she worked in the clinic. She remained a sort of walking zombie, forever looking inward, impervious to the initial offers of friendship, which eventually died away.

  On the whole she enjoyed the work. The patients were mainly young and some of them were troubled. Any spiritual reward she gained from this adventure came from nurturing those abandoned children, many of whom were homeless, and helping to build up their trust. Not for one second did she ever stop thinking of her own lost Ruth Ann and she poured all that thwarted maternal affection into caring for these damaged strangers.

  Just as she was beginning to relax, to enjoy the freer atmosphere and charm of Australia, even cautiously to make a few friends, she received an unexpected summons from home. Sir Nicholas, still only in his early sixties, had had a fatal coronary and Eleanor had collapsed from the shock of it all. Catherine was forced to abandon her new career in order to return to Vienna to sort things out, to move them out of the embassy and back to London for a new life in sadly reduced circumstances.

  The anguished widow and her downtrodden companion, that was what they had become. It was a role that seemed natural for Catherine. She had been playing it with quiet resentment ever since.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  The rain was still tipping down but Sally didn’t care. She had the sort of hair that was only improved by the damp, and clear, healthy skin that looked its best in the British climate. She sat on a wooden bench outside a pub in Brook Green and waited while one of the boys got in a second round. They were a fun bunch these guys, Rory, Arthur, and was it Harry? They had picked her up in the pub on Thursday night and invited her out to their own local drinking joint. It was wet and a bit chilly but no one was going to mention it. Sally still sat there, just reveling in it. Her crazy denim hat kept some of the moisture from getting in her eyes and the jutting roof of the side veranda was protecting her from the worst of it. The blokes were not quite so fortunate but no one was going to be chicken enough to be the first to head inside.

  “What time’s the march start?” asked Rory at the bar, laying down fivers for the three pints of bitter and a gin and tonic and looking at the television mouthing wordlessly from the wall above his head.

  “Two-thirty,” said Arthur. “Or thereabouts. Where are we going to watch it, your place or mine?”

  “And what d’you think’s the chance,” said Rory, “of getting her to join us?”

  They both looked over their shoulder, out of the door to the bench where she still sat, surrounded by a group of stray men.

  “If we go to your place,” said Arthur, “we can do it in seven minutes, which means we’ve still got time for another round if we drink these quickly.”

  “By the look of her,” said Rory, “she’s a pretty dead cert wherever we go. Which means we can take it slowly and still score. Toss you for it.”

  Still guffawing, they carried the glasses back to Sally’s table and were put out to find there was no longer room for them to sit. She laughed, graciously accepted the fresh glass, and went on talking to the group around her, entirely unconcerned.

  Today had been a toss-up between staying in bed, which was her natural inclination, particularly on a Saturday morning after a hard Friday night; facing the pile of laundry which it was her turn to do; or striking off on her own, which had been her eventual choice, to this unknown pub in a different part of town, just for the sake of variety. One thing Sally never, ever lacked was invitations, and working in a bar put her in direct line for a lot of them. She’d always been able to pick and choose.

  She was bored with her own particular group, so this gang would do as well as any other, at least for the time being. They lived in Hammersmith but liked to drink in the King’s Road, and, as far as she had been able to suss, were all in the City, loosely speaking, scrabbling up the corporate ladder and trying to build their fortunes before they were thirty. Boys again, but amusing for the moment, so long as they paid for her drinks. But they were really too young and unworldly for her, so maybe, when she was good and ready, she’d introduce them to Georgy and then move on. How was that for altruism; she must be learning from Beth. Georgy wasn’t exactly fun but she was clever and ambitious, like this lot. And the poor kid really deserved a break, mooning around as she did so much of the time, eating her heart out over an uncatchable man. I
f only she wasn’t so sour so much of the time.

  At least these expeditions to new watering holes took Sally out of range of Sam, with his great, moony sheep’s eyes always on her. And Joe from the pub who was threatening to stifle her. Brook Green was quite a find; it was quiet and mellow and verdantly green on this dripping Saturday morning. She was more than ready for a change of scene so maybe she’d look for a place round here. It was classier than Lexham Gardens and farther from the Earls Court Road. And, from what she could see of the houses, ripe, she would suspect, for rich pickings.

  • • •

  Outside, a battered Bristol coupe drew up and two men sat talking and watching the pub from across the road. Denzil Davies, the driver, was swarthy and Welsh and middle-aged, while his companion, Kim, was a puckish, white-haired sixty, desperately hanging on to his fading youth in designer denim and aviator sunspecs. He had once been something in the fashion industry, only these days nobody remembered. They were both heavily hungover and bored. And fiercely debating this afternoon’s projected trip to Cherbourg.

  “What do you think?” asked Kim, staring over his tinted lenses the better to appraise the voluptuous bimbo seated, oblivious of the drizzling rain, amid a gang of hopeful hoorays.

  “She’ll do,” said Denzil shortly. Saturday morning with a head on him like this was no time to be worrying about the comparative merits of female flesh. She was young, she was relatively toothsome, she was obviously available. One dolly was much the same as the next so far as he was concerned.

  “Let’s get on with it,” he said, getting out of the car.

  They called to her on her way back from the Ladies, stopping her in her tracks as she passed the fruit machine.

  “Can I offer you something to drink? On a nasty wet morning like this one?”

  Kim always got to do the initial pick-up; that was his specialty and he was an expert. He was slightly built, good-looking, and he dressed dead cool. Definitely worth a closer look. Sally strolled over to join them and plonked her butt on a spare bar stool. Kim grasped her hand in one simian paw as he tucked his aviator glasses in the top pocket of his denim shirt. Close up he was really rather dishy, though older than she had realized, with his chest hair turning white. She saw now why he preferred not to sit outside.

  “A bottle of Dom Perignon, I think,” he said to the startled barman, ignoring her request for another g and t. Then he settled back on his stool and looked her up and down appraisingly. She would indeed do, and slightly better than he had hoped. The body was excellent and the skin was good. He hardly needed to examine the teeth since they were very much on show in a wide, welcoming grin but, if need be, he would have done that too. He had been breeding horses for a long time now and could instantly spot a goer.

  “Kim Butterfield,” he said, “and this is my good friend, Denzil Davies. Up from the valleys for the match, you know, and looking for a little excitement in the great metropolis.”

  The Welshman nodded curtly, still looking a shade sour, slumped on his stool like an overblown walrus. Sally returned her attention to his sprightly companion. Bored as she was with all the young men, she thirsted for a spot of sophisticated company and this seemed to be as good as she’d get this damp Saturday afternoon when all they could talk about outside was rugby. She took off her soggy hat and raked strong fingers through her springing hair. Kim studied her breasts approvingly.

  The champagne arrived, dusty from the cellar but already chilled, and the barman poured it into fluted glasses. Kim raised his in a toast to Sally.

  “Here’s to you, Sally Brown,” he said, “and I hope you’ll join us for a spot of adventure this afternoon.” He lingered on the breasts, making his meaning clear. “What do you say?”

  Sally smiled. It was an obvious come-on but she had known worse. And she liked the way he looked and dressed, and noticed the expensive watch and the gold chains round his neck.

  “What about the match?” she asked. She wasn’t going to risk getting roped in to watch that.

  “We thought we’d give it a miss. It worked as a wheeze to give Denzil’s missus the slip but now we’re here, we’d thought we’d do something a little more adult.”

  “Okay,” she said, tasting her champagne. “I’m not doing anything else. What exactly do you have in mind?”

  Denzil Davies raised one heavy eyebrow in surprise and dragged himself up into a less supine position. He could say this about Kim, he hadn’t lost his touch. One brief flirtatious remark and a touch of the bubbly and the bird was snared. A looker, too. It hadn’t been this easy in years; he was prepared to enjoy the rest of the weekend. Sally looked him up and down, for this was a two-way street. He had a gross beer belly but sensitive eyes and she guessed that in different circumstances he might be less of an obvious pain. In an odd way he complemented his lither, slicker companion, and she was glad.

  “What we were thinking of doing,” said Kim, “is taking my old tub from its moorings in Lymington and tootling over the Cherbourg this afternoon for a weekend’s sailing. Care to join us?”

  “Great!” said Sally. This sounded distinctly promising.

  “Have you been on a boat before?” asked Denzil, wheezing painfully as he lit another cigarette. “Do you know what you’re about with all those ropes and things?”

  She grinned. Don’t patronize me, sucker.

  “My dad owns a boatyard in Tasmania,” she said. “I was sailing practically before I could crawl.”

  Kim laughed and patted her knee. He liked her spirit already and looked forward to getting better acquainted with her firm young flesh. She was appealingly unworldly and deliciously naive. She’d do.

  “Well,” he said, when they’d finished the bottle, “guess we’d better get a move on. Do you live nearby? Is there anything you’ll need?”

  “Naah,” said Sally. She had her hairbrush, her dark glasses, and a pack of condoms. What else could she need for just two days? A toothbrush she could pick up anywhere, or even borrow.

  “Do I need a passport?”

  “Naah,” said Kim, patting her knee again. “You leave all that sort of thing to us.” He winked at Denzil and they were away.

  • • •

  Sam was concerned when Sally hadn’t gotten back by midnight, even more so next morning when he checked her room and the bed had not been slept in. Not that it was easy to tell; Sally lived the way she dressed, a consistent ragbag in a jackdaw’s nest. But her shoulder bag was missing, and that awful hat. And the truth was, he’d lain awake till the small hours like an anxious parent but hadn’t heard her key in the lock or her foot on the stair.

  “What’s it to you?” asked Jeremy icily, as he groped in the fridge for the milk. They had never actually had words about Sally but there had been a definite cooling-off since her arrival and both men knew they were rivals for her favors. But since the night of the opening of Autumn Crocus, when she’d dressed like a tart and managed to upset his friends, Jeremy had been having distinct second thoughts. Sexy was one thing but, where decent society was concerned, Sally was definitely beyond the pale. He had another girlfriend now which ought, by rights, to have left the way open for Sam. It didn’t quite work like that, however, certainly not with these Brits. Jeremy seemed to assume automatic droit de seigneur no matter who else he might be screwing. He hadn’t actually said as much but there was no need; Sam could see it from the contempt in his eye.

  But Sam was actually less concerned about who she might be with than whether she was all right. She was very much a creature of impulse, his Sal, but she was just a girl, when all was said and done, with a disposition that was altogether too trusting and might easily lead her into trouble. He worried about her, couldn’t help it. If he had his way, he’d be taking care of her properly. Since that first magical night she had only come to his bed occasionally, but his hope was undimmed and he remained bewitched.

  He even lowered his pride that night to drop down to the pub and see if she was working. She was not
and Joe was in a foul mood, not improved by the sight of Sam.

  “Haven’t seen her,” he snarled, “and she didn’t make the lunchtime shift either. If she does turn up, you can tell her she’s fired. I can’t run a pub without any staff.”

  The bar was packed, tribute no doubt to Sally, and Sam took his pint and sat miserably in a corner, hoping she’d come rolling in and that everything would turn out all right. He knew he hadn’t the right to feel this way, that she was a creature of impulse who preferred to travel alone, but he couldn’t help hoping. She was all he had ever wanted, so beautiful, so warm, so—vulnerable. Yes, that was it. She was like a friendly puppy who had never been kicked. She leaped up to everyone with a welcoming smile and Sam was terrified that one day someone really bad would try to take advantage of that innocence.

  By ten-thirty she still hadn’t appeared and Joe was making his feelings obvious by banging down glasses and generally making a noise. Humbly Sam approached him and offered to help but was greeted with such hostile rudeness that he decided to cut his losses and go home. Maybe she’d be there already. But, of course, she wasn’t.

  • • •

  Sally rolled in on Tuesday night, suntanned, exuberant, and wearing a whole new set of clothes, with several glossy shopping bags swinging from her shoulder. She’d been to France, she told them, with some guys she had met in a bar, and really had one whale of a time, just look at the booty she’d acquired. Designer-cut pants and a couple of striped sweaters, plus a Hermès silk shirt and a strapless satin slip of a thing that even Sam could tell spelled big money.

  “From Cherbourg?” he asked, suspiciously.

  “No, Paris, you dope.”

  “How did you come to be there?” he asked. “I thought you said you were on a boat?”

  “I went with Hector, a guy I met in Cherbourg,” she explained patiently. “He brought me home in his motor-launch. He’s a great guy. You must meet him.”