First Friends (3 page)

‘I'd like some fillet steak, please. Enough for two.'

‘Well, you're going it, aren't you?' The butcher beamed at her, used to her orders for half a pound of mince, one lamb chop or a few slices of ham. He was a fatherly soul and always felt sorry for these young naval wives, miles from their homes and families, struggling to manage alone. He leaned across the counter, resting his weight on hands almost as red and raw as the meat in his window. ‘Celebrating, are you? Old man coming home?'

‘Yes. Tomorrow.' She beamed back.

‘Been away long?' He flopped the steak down, cut two thick slices and threw them on the weighing machine.

‘Two months.' She tried, unsuccessfully, to hide her pride in managing for such a long time alone.

He winked at her as he passed her the parcel and her change. ‘Don't go overcooking it,' he said.

Back home, Kate put the food away and cleaned the flat thoroughly. She put clean linen on the bed and laid the fire in the grate in the sitting room. Like Cass, she only had this one big, elegant room but at least her kitchen was big enough to eat in. For this occasion, however, Kate polished the big mahogany table in the sitting room and went to find her candlesticks. When everything was ready, she bathed and washed her hair and then wandered from room to room wondering if she'd forgotten anything.

She went to bed early to lay awake almost sick with excitement. She felt terribly shy at the thought of seeing Mark again. It was as if he had become a stranger to her and she could hardly bring his face to mind. She remembered their first meeting in the bar at the Royal Castle in Dartmouth when he and Tom had arrived to escort them up to
the College for the Ball. They had looked so formal and glamorous in their Mess Dress uniforms. Mark had gone to get drinks and Tom and Cass had chattered away like old friends. Kate thought that Mark, with his tall, sleek, dark good looks, was much more dashing than Tom who was short and solid and whose brown hair was thick and tended to curl. Mark was much the quieter and more serious of the two and Kate felt rather flattered that he should find her interesting. Having been through three years of military training, these young men seemed years older than their contemporaries in civilian life. Her subsequent meetings with them underlined this impression although never in the year before their marriage did Kate spend enough time with Mark to enable her to discover what lay beneath the veneer that the Navy had given him. She and Cass had been to balls and parties, all imbued with an aura of glamour and a sense of sacrifice and even danger. They were so proud to accompany these young men who were prepared to give their lives for their country.

Kate remembered, too, their first clumsy attempts at lovemaking. Mark had once bragged about his various sexual exploits in Sweden which hadn't helped, serving only to make Kate feel more shy, afraid that unfavourable comparisons were being made. It was only afterwards that she realised that it couldn't have been of much benefit to Mark either since he seemed as inept and nervous as she was. She tried now, staring into the dark, to imagine him beside her but it was quite impossible. It would be like starting all over again from the beginning. A guest at the wedding had said that all the homecomings would be like lots of honeymoons which, at the time, had sounded exciting. Now it seemed merely terrifying.

She slept fitfully, waking suddenly at intervals having dreamt that she'd overslept. Finally, wrapping herself in her dressing gown, she went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea and to struggle with the solid fuel stove. It was just six o'clock.

By eight o'clock, she had prepared all the vegetables, made a pudding and had even set the table for dinner lest there should be no time later on. She dressed carefully and forced herself to eat some toast
while she wondered how early she could telephone the base. Mark had told her that although the date of the submarine's return was known, no one would know the time that it would actually arrive until the last moment. The form was, he explained, to telephone the hall porter in
Dolphin
, tell him who she was and give him the name of Mark's submarine. He would give her the latest ETA to which she must add an hour to allow Mark to get away from the boat and reach home. He had not suggested that she should come to meet him.

By nine o'clock she could contain her impatience no longer. She pulled on her old duffel coat and walked out to the telephone box at the end of the road. The hall porter's voice was brisk and efficient as he took her call.

‘That's right, ma'am,' he said. ‘She's due back any time, isn't she? Hold on a moment.' She could hear the rustle of papers. ‘Here we are. Oh, dear.' His tone changed to one of regret. ‘I'm sorry, her programme's been changed and she's spending forty-eight hours in Middlesborough on the way down. She won't be in for another two days.'

Kate tried to grapple with this totally unforeseen situation.

‘Hello? Are you there?' The hall porter sounded concerned. ‘It's very disappointing but you'll get used to it, ma'am. Didn't your husband warn you that they rarely keep to their first ETA?'

‘No. No, he didn't mention it.' She barely recognised her own voice. ‘Thank you so much. I'll telephone on Thursday.'

She went back home, barely aware of her surroundings. This moment had been the focal point of her existence for the last few weeks and the shock of the disappointment had the power to make her feel as though she had stepped into thin air, all her sense of purpose gone. In the hall she stood quite still, listening to the silence.

How could she possibly exist through another two days? And why did two days seem so much longer and more impossible to survive than the two months she had already lived through? She went into the sitting room and put away the table settings and then changed out of her smart clothes, pulling on an old tweed skirt and a Guernsey. Finally, letting herself out of the flat, she walked slowly towards the sea.

_______

‘Y
OU'LL GET USED TO
it,' said Mary nearly a week later when, after more delays and disappointments, they drove along the sea wall and up to
Dolphin's
main gate. ‘I'm kicking myself for not warning you. Never mind.'

The sentry popped out of his little box and Mary showed him her pass. The car also had a pass which was stuck permanently on to the windscreen. The young sailor bent to peer in at Kate.

‘New wife,' said Mary briskly, with her fierce frowning smile. ‘Hasn't had time to get organised yet. I'll look after her.'

The sentry nodded, saluted and swung up the barrier.

‘I hope Mark won't mind my coming.' Kate felt nervous.

‘Mind? Why on earth should he mind?' Mary drove past the museum and the little church and Kate looked with interest at the midget submarine displayed opposite the museum, wondering, as usual, how anyone had dared to go to sea in it. ‘It's very good for wives to meet the boat. Good for morale. Mark will soon get the hang of things. Very young officers are often afraid of stepping out of line.' She parked the car neatly in the square outside the wardroom windows.

Crossing over tramlines and avoiding cranes, they made their way to the edge of the dock where, below them, the submarines lay at their trots, rocking gently on the water in the dusk. A little group, including the Captain of the submarine flotilla and his senior officers, had already assembled. Mary approached them with confidence and Kate found herself shaking hands with Captain SM who seemed delighted that she'd turned out. Kate heaved a sigh of relief. If someone of such unbelievable eminence was pleased at her presence, who was Mark to take exception to it? She was aware of the tension as people glanced at their watches, talking in quiet voices as the water lapped gently below them and the dusk deepened.

‘Here she comes!' It was a sort of exultant, shouted whisper.

The cigar-shaped hull moved silently, dark against the oily, glinting sea. She turned slowly in from the main channel. The casing party, their white jerseys gleaming in the fading light, moved to and fro,
sure-footed. Up in the fin, on the bridge, stood the Captain and his First Lieutenant who passed instructions to the engine room and the casing party.

Slowly, surely, she slid alongside, some of the casing party jumping ashore to fasten the mooring lines. The hum of the engine was suddenly quieted and Kate realised that she'd been holding her breath, struck by the menacing quality of the submarine as it had slipped so quietly through the water. For the first time she really thought about what it must be like to be hundreds of feet beneath the sea, totally cut off, and of the close-knit unit of men dedicated to this way of life, and she felt a great surge of pride that Mark was amongst those to come ashore and that she was here to meet him. Presently, the Captain appeared at the gangplank and came ashore to shake hands with the senior officers. He acknowledged his wife with a smile and rather formal kiss on the cheek and Kate realised that restraint was the form here and determined not to display her emotions when Mark should appear. When this finally happened he affected not to see her and Mary was obliged to draw her forward, explaining that she had brought her along. Kate felt that she might suffocate with shame and disappointment and knew that she had been right to assume that Mark would not want her to meet him.

As soon as Mary turned away, he looked at her, his face unreadable in the dark.

‘So how are we getting home?'

‘I suppose with Mary and Simon.' She felt that she had managed somehow to ruin everything. But how?

‘That will be fun!'

His tone was heavily sarcastic and she turned away to gaze across the water to the lights of Portsmouth in an effort to hide the trembling of her lips.

Cass curled up in the corner of the sofa, watching her father blowing life into the fire with an ancient pair of bellows, and felt enormous relief that he looked so well and was evidently settling happily into his new home. It was a rather tiresome journey from Hampshire to Devon by train and she didn't get down as often as she would have liked.

‘This is fun, my darling. Quite like old times. When's that husband of yours going to get a submarine that runs out of Devonport? Then you could come and see your old pa occasionally.'

General Mackworth piled some logs on to the fire in the wide stone fireplace and sank back into his comfortable old armchair. His study was a charming room full of the treasured possessions that had been accumulated throughout his military career. Firelight gleamed on well-polished wood and the leather backs of much-read books and sparkled on cut glass and porcelain. Heavy brocade curtains shut out the damp February evening. In this room Cass felt a child again and she sighed with pleasure.

‘It would be lovely, Daddy, wouldn't it?' She sat, smiling at her father, wondering for the thousandth time why her mother had run away from him. She adored her tall, fair, handsome father who was such fun to be with and who was so popular with the ladies. Perhaps too popular? It might be rather horrid to be married to someone who stole all the limelight, thought Cass, and felt a tiny twinge of guilt. She tended to do the same herself. It was such tremendous fun and she so
enjoyed the admiring glances, the attention, the flirtations. She felt quite sure that Tom didn't mind a bit, in fact it boosted his ego, which was why he treated her conquests as huge jokes.

‘So how do you like being a naval wife? Bit lonely at times?' The General leaned forward to knock out his pipe against the stone. He started to pack the bowl with aromatic weed, his penetrating dark blue eyes fixed on his daughter.

‘Bound to be.' Cass shrugged it off. ‘But when the boat goes away you've got all the other wives who are on their own too. It's not so bad, really, and lots of fun when it's in. Parties and ladies' nights—you know the sort of thing. I'm getting used to it.' She gave him a grin. ‘After all, the men in my life have always gone away and left me! And how are you enjoying village life? Are you happy with your cottage?'

‘Love it. Got lots of space, plenty of room for all my things. And there's a wonderful woman comes in to look after me.'

Cass arched her brows. ‘That didn't take you long.'

‘Nothing like that. Nice little woman, lives by the church. Mrs Hampton. Her husband works up at the big house. Her cooking has to be tasted to be believed. In fact, we've got one of her casseroles for supper. When she heard you were coming she said that you must have something sensible to eat. Her husband is helping me to sort the garden out. I feel I've really landed on my feet.'

‘That's wonderful, Daddy. Perhaps I'll meet them while I'm here. Can't stay too long, though. Tom's back next week.'

‘Well, I must make the most of you. And how's that dear Kate?'

‘A great comfort, as always. I'm terribly jealous of her at the moment.'

‘Why's that?'