Daughters Of Eden: The Eden Series Book 1 (15 page)

It was the happiest of times, a holiday at home, despite Kate's having begun her secretarial course at an institution she described as being so dry it could self-ignite, and even though her fellow students were to a person unexciting, and notwithstanding the fact that Robert was waiting for his official summons to join whatever ship on which he was to serve.

Finally when their little holiday came to an end, and the professor returned, Kate, finding herself at a loose end, went for a long walk that somehow ended up in the grounds of the convent.

It being the holidays, it seemed there was no one about at all, other than a distant figure cutting the lawns. Before she knew it, Kate found herself standing on the number one tennis court, imagining she was playing a vital match as in fact she had done so often. She got so caught up in her fantasy that she began to hit imaginary shots with an imaginary racket, chasing imaginary balls over the court and even leaping up to smash back what she knew was a certain winner.

‘Good shot, Kate!' a familiar voice called from behind her. ‘Wish we still had you on the team.'

Kate turned to greet her old coach, feeling a little foolish.

‘Hallo, Mr Wilkinson.' She smiled. ‘I was just replaying some of the old matches.'

‘You certainly look as if you haven't lost your touch, young Kate.'

Kate cleared her throat and looked at the ground, before deciding to come clean.

‘I've been banned,' she said. ‘I'm not allowed to play any more.'

‘Not allowed to play? Who says so?'

‘My father. He says if I'm to go on playing I have to continue with my lessons – and since he can't afford to pay for the lessons, and neither can I—' Kate stopped and shrugged hopelessly. ‘My father's a firm believer in if a thing is worth doing it is only worth doing properly.'

‘That isn't the real reason, Kate, is it?' Mr
Wilkinson put down the tennis equipment he was carrying on the court chair, and took his jacket off. ‘He just doesn't want you to go on with the sport.'

He looked at her, then handed her one of the two rackets he had brought with him.

‘From what I remember of your father, he doesn't think much of women in sport.'

‘Well, there is that.'

‘Come on, enough of that. Let's have a game.'

Kate looked down at her feet.

‘I haven't brought my tennis things, just came by for old times' sake—'

‘Never mind, sandals will do.'

As they began knocking up, Kate got that old heady feeling of the power skill imbues. She had only been off court for a matter of a couple of weeks, but the knowledge that her father had forbidden her to play made it feel infinitely longer. In fact only the night before she had begun to wonder whether she still had any real ability left, which was possibly why her subconscious had directed her up to the grounds of the convent.

They played, and as they did so it became even more apparent that Kate was right at the top of her game. Mr Wilkinson, no mean player himself, found himself at full stretch to reach and cope with the fusillade of volleys, smashes and aces that flew at him, and as Kate extended her lead by two games, then three, then four to win the first set 6–2 he found himself smiling.

‘Right,' he said, collapsing on the chair by the net and towelling himself off. ‘Reckon it's time I started trying.'

‘Me too.' Kate grinned back at him. ‘If I'm to give you any sort of game.'

Kate had hardly broken sweat in the first set. She stood by the net, swinging her racket in practice, eyeing the imaginary balls and self-correcting any possible faults she thought she might have made. Mr Wilkinson cast an approving look at his former pupil, witnessing yet again her natural athleticism. Tall without being gangly or awkward, which so many tall girls were, Kate was also deceptively strong and able to move lightning fast. Most importantly she had the right mental attitude. If the game started to go against her, she never seemed to tighten up. She simply moved up a gear, stepped up the pace and attacked the net, taking the game to her opponent rather than seeking safety in the base line.

Realising Kate Maddox was not only going to beat him but beat him in straight sets Mr Wilkinson began to play as if his life depended on it. He played as if he were qualifying for the last available place at Wimbledon, putting the fact that he was playing a seventeen-year-old girl out of his head.

It wasn't enough. In spite of winning the second set 9–7, he not only lost the deciding set but found himself drubbed, going down 6–3. ‘Come on, Kate,' he sighed, collapsing with exhaustion on the bank of the lawns that rose above the grass court. ‘Out with it – because I no longer believe a word you say. You haven't been not playing – the way you're playing I'd say you've been taking lessons from Dan Maskell.'

‘As a matter of fact, Mr Wilkinson, I'm not sure
where all that came from. Maybe that game came from not being able to play.'

She gave him back his racket.

‘I think I'd better go home now,' she said quietly in her deep voice, at the same time untying her hair and letting it fall.

‘Maybe I should have a word with your father,' Mr Wilkinson decided, getting up and following Kate off the court.

‘I'd rather you didn't, if you don't mind,' Kate said politely, but Mr Wilkinson had already caught sight of the look in her eyes which was quite at odds with her quiet manner. ‘It's very kind of you, but there wouldn't be any point.'

‘You could go all the way, Kate,' Mr Wilkinson insisted. ‘There aren't many young women players of your calibre.'

‘That's really very kind,' Kate replied carefully. ‘But I'm being sent to secretarial college, to learn typing and shorthand.'

‘Typing and shorthand?' Mr Wilkinson stared at her in sheer disbelief. ‘No. No, that is just ridiculous.'

‘It might be, but that's what I'm doing. Now I really must go. Thank you so much for the game.'

Before he could say another word, Kate turned and hurried away from the courts. Peter Wilkinson watched her go, shook his head, then in a fit of uncharacteristic pique kicked the slatted wooden chair by the net.

Kate ran home, fearful now that she was going to be too late to bathe and change after her unexpected exertions. As she ran she could not help
thinking that if war broke out tomorrow she would not sigh, or cry. Her young life had already ended in a cul-de-sac. She knew now there was only one way to go, and that was forward, although to what exactly she could not have said.

Chapter Six

While Marjorie had become so unconcerned by the whereabouts of her mother that had she received news of her death she would have found herself only mildly interested, she had become more intrigued by her aunt's so-called business days, the three days a week she left the house for a still unspecified purpose, disappearing after breakfast and sometimes not returning till late in the evening. The reason for Marjorie's fascination lay not only in the unnamed nature of her work, but also in the irregularity of the hours she kept.

‘If she was working in a shop, or an office, Billy,' she would remind them both over and over again as they tried to puzzle it out, ‘she'd go out at the same time and come home at the same time.'

‘Which she don't,' Billy would always add, his eyes running round the ceiling as he tried to visualise what it was that Aunt Hester did exactly. ‘Maybe we should follow her one day and see for ourselves, Marjorie.'

‘She's too smart for that, Billy. She'd be on to us by the end of the road, and then where would we be? I can just see us trying to explain to Aunt H what we thought we were doing.'

‘Maybe she got one of those – what they call 'em?' Billy scratched his head. ‘Part-time job things. You know, helping out with something, somewhere that's not
necessarily
some shop nor office.'

The dilemma stayed with them. Sometimes they'd pick it up and chew it over when Marjorie went to collect Billy from the school he was now attending. The pair of them would amble back to Number 32, Billy kicking stones in the gutter or chasing pigeons while pretending to be a fighter aeroplane, his copy of the
Magnet
firmly tucked under his arm, while Marjorie would amble along the pavement trying to imagine herself plucking up the courage to ask Aunt Hester the Tuesday, Thursday and Friday question.

‘She could be a spy!' Billy suggested one afternoon as he finished circling Marjorie with his arms spread out wide like an aircraft. ‘She could be, though, couldn't she? We was all talking in class the other day just about that. About how we all got to be dead careful of who we say anything to and all. 'Cos the teacher said there's spies everywhere! That's what Aunt H could be, Marjorie! She could be a
spy
!'

‘Don't be daft,' Marjorie replied, completely unable to entertain the idea of her aunt's being a foreign agent. ‘If she was a spy she'd have to be a German spy, wouldn't she? And I can't imagine Aunt Hester being any such thing. I mean there are Coronation mugs everywhere on her dresser. And cake tins. Coronation cake tins I mean. And a picture of the new King and Queen, so I really can't see Aunt Hester being some sort of German spy. It doesn't make sense.'

‘That's what she is!' Billy insisted, still circling and buzzing Marjorie. ‘She's nothing but an old spy.'

‘Aunt Hester isn't old, Billy,' Marjorie interrupted.

‘She's very old for a woman – as old as her teeth.'

‘She's not old. And stop buzzing me. It's making me fed up.'

‘Sorry.' Billy stopped being an aircraft, falling into step beside Marjorie, one foot on the pavement and one in the gutter. ‘You don't usually mind.'

‘Course I don't mind,' Marjorie reassured him. ‘Not usually. But I also don't mind a bit of a rest now and then. While I think. I can't think with you buzz-bombing and sky-diving me, can I?'

Billy shrugged and continued with his mock limp, one foot on the pavement, the other in the gutter. Marjorie glanced at him. He was such a twerp, really. Mind you, he'd settled so easily into Number 32, it now seemed as if there never was a time he'd not been resident there, just as there never seemed to have been a time when she had not known the white-faced, lead-hearted, melancholy boy, abandoned by his father, who quite obviously could see no real point in existing. Now, he was a quite changed child, his reflective moments seemingly not as introspective as they used to be. Sometimes she would catch him sitting at the kitchen window looking out to where the birds he had tempted with breadcrumbs and bacon rind had come down to eat, arriving at last to feast at the bird table he and Marjorie had made one weekend.

He would watch their flight with a dreamy smile on his face and a look of longing in his eyes as if he wanted to join them, as if their very flight suggested a freedom he could only imagine. At other times Marjorie would find him looking at her when she was making scones for their tea, or a jelly covered with his favourite hundreds and thousands for Sunday lunch, that same indefinable, far-way look in his eyes. Just as quickly he would change into one hundred per cent boy, tearing after rabbits on the nearby common, playing aeroplanes on the way home from school, trying to wrestle Marjorie in the yard behind Aunt Hester's back.

‘If Aunt Hester
is
a spy,' Billy suggested as they discussed their favourite topic yet again on the way back from Billy's school, ‘she will be shot when there's a war,'cos the postman told me all spies are shot in war.'

‘In that case, if you're so sure, Billy – ask her, for heaven's sake. Ask her at teatime. I dare you.'

‘Can't. I'm too frightened.'

‘I dare you.'

‘Please, Marjorie – you do.'

‘If you don't I'll – I'll send you back to the Dump.'

‘You don't mean that, Marjorie, do you?' Billy asked, suddenly stricken. ‘'Cos I wouldn't like that. I promise I won't be a pest any more, Marjorie. Promise.'

‘Course you're not a pest, you twerp.' Marjorie laughed. ‘You just go on like one, that's all.'

‘So do you.'

‘You do treble double with knobs on!' Marjorie laughed, grabbing him and tickling him.

‘Stop!' Billy yelled helplessly. ‘Please stop! Please! Please, I'll do anything! Anything, I promise, just please stop, Marjorie!'

‘You'll do anything?'

‘Anything! Anything, I promise! Cross me heart and hope to die!'

‘Right.' Marjorie stopped tickling him, getting hold of him playfully by one ear. ‘You can ask Aunt Hester what she does then, can't you?'

At teatime that afternoon Marjorie gave Billy a nudge with her knee under the table, prompting him to take up her challenge.

‘Aunt Hester?' Billy began very quietly, hoping that he wouldn't be heard. ‘Aunt Hester – Marjorie wants to know what you do when you go out.'

‘No I do not!' Marjorie protested. ‘I never asked such a thing.'

‘Gracious heavens, if ever there was a pair of nosy buggins it's you two.'

There was a short silence, while Aunt Hester carefully cut them all a slice of home-made sponge cake before pouring herself more tea.

‘So what do you do, Aunt Hester?' Billy tried again, quickly responding to a tap on his shins under the table from Marjorie.

‘What do you think I do, Billy?'

‘Go on buses.'

‘What do you think I do, Marjorie?'

‘She thinks you're a spy,' Billy said, smart as new paint and quickly moving his legs out of the way of the expected forthcoming kick.

‘A spy,' Aunt Hester mused, narrowing her eyes and turning to look at Marjorie, who was now looking quite at sea. ‘What sort of a spy, Marjorie dear?'

‘It's not me who thinks you're a spy, Aunt Hester,' Marjorie replied. ‘It's Billy what thinks—'