First Friends (32 page)

‘William's told me that I must have a boy this time,' said Abby, yawning a little. ‘Ever since his father died, he's become very feudal. I don't see why poor old Sophie shouldn't inherit the estate but it's entailed. Does Tony mind what you have, Liz?

‘I don't think so.' Pregnancy made Liz look drawn. ‘Nor do I, really. I'm just glad that it's due before we go to Faslane.'

‘I must say that I'm very glad not to have to move around any more,' said Cass, going round the table to fill up the coffee cups. ‘Liz off to Faslane and Harriet going to Gosport. Mind you, I always enjoyed it there. Dear old
Dolphin
, always something going on. We shall miss you. I know that Tom will especially.' She noticed the flush on Harriet's cheek as she bent to fill her cup. ‘He always looks for you at parties. You must keep in touch. Come and stay when Ralph's at sea. You too, Liz, although it's a bit of a way from Faslane, especially with a sprog. Never mind, you'll both be back before long.' She sat down again at the table.

‘When William came out of the Army to take over the estate,' said Abby, ‘I was a bit miffed. Life in the country seemed terribly dreary. But I like it now. I don't think I'd like to be on the move all the time.'

‘The excitement tends to wear off after a bit,' agreed Cass. ‘We all
settle down in the end, though. The question is, where?' She seemed to be addressing Harriet and it was she who answered.

‘Ralph thinks he'd like Lee-on-Solent. He's mad on sailing and it's perfect for it there and only just down the road from
Dolphin.'
She looked even more depressed at the thought and Cass drank her coffee thoughtfully.

‘I think that Tony will come back here if he can,' said Liz. ‘I hope we will. All my family's here and I love Devon.'

‘Well, we'll have a little party before you go. Chaps as well. What do you think?' Cass smiled at Harriet. ‘Tom would be very upset if you went off without saying goodbye. Give these two chance to whelp down and we'll have a farewell thrash.'

Harriet looked as if she might burst into tears and Cass got up.

‘The children seem very quiet. I can always trust Charlotte but I think that we'd better check that all is well. Let's have a wander into the garden.'

O
NCE AGAIN, BEFORE THE
summer holidays were over, the twins were asked to Cheltenham and Kate, taking the General's advice, gathered up her courage and told them that she and Mark would never live together again.

‘The trouble was,' she told them, ‘that we weren't suited but we were very young when we got married and we didn't realise it until it was too late. I know it's very upsetting but I hope that he and I can still be friends and that it won't make your lives too difficult. It's not as if you've ever seen much of him and you can still visit him whenever you want to.'

‘Does that mean we needn't go to Cheltenham if we don't want to?' asked Giles, looking hopeful.

‘Does that mean you're going to get a divorce?' asked Guy, looking wary.

‘Yes. No,' said Kate and she laughed. ‘Sorry. I mean that there's no talk of a divorce as yet although I expect we shall sometime, and yes, I think that you should go to Cheltenham to see Mark and Granny and
Grandpa. I think that they'd be hurt if you didn't. After all, just because Mark and I don't live together any more doesn't mean that you need feel any differently about him.'

‘Does anyone at school know?' asked Guy suspiciously.

‘Will you ever marry anyone else?' asked Giles anxiously.

‘No. Yes. Oh, dear. I'm sorry. No, I don't think anyone knows at school. I've never discussed it with anyone so I don't see how they could know and yes, I probably will marry again one day but you'll know all about it and it's nothing to worry about yet.'

‘Why can't we just go on like this?' asked Guy, sounding belligerent.

‘What if you marry someone who isn't right again?' asked Giles, sounding frightened.

‘We shall be going on like this,' said Kate as calmly as she could. ‘Nothing will be changing. Why should it? We've been separated for nearly two years. I just thought that the time has come when you should know exactly where we all stand. You'll carry on at school as usual and we'll go on living here and I shall go on working with Alex. If I get married again, I shall think about it much more carefully than I did before. I'm much older now and I hope that I know what sort of person I can be happy with—and you, too, of course. It will be important that it's someone we all like but it won't happen while you're at Mount House so don't worry about it.'

She saw Guy relax and smiled at them. ‘I don't want to upset you but I felt it was right you should know before you went to Cheltenham. Mark might have said something, thinking that you knew.'

‘I don't want to go,' said Giles tearfully. ‘If you aren't going to be married any more I don't see why I need to.'

Kate's heart sank. ‘They all like to see you,' she began.

‘They don't!' he cried in a high passionate voice. ‘ Granny does. But Grandpa and Dad don't. Grandpa just grunts and Dad says I'm a sissy!'

Kate pulled Giles into her arms and looked a question at Guy who still wore a closed expression.

‘He took us to the fair,' he said reluctantly. ‘And Giles didn't want
to go on the Big Dipper. Dad said he was a sissy and said he'd have to wait all on his own while we went on it.'

‘It was dark.' Giles looked up at her, his eyes huge with remembered horror. ‘And there were lots of strange people. He laughed and said watch out that I didn't get kidnapped.' A thrill ran through his body and Kate felt a hot surge of rage and hate twist her gut.

‘So he came with us,' said Guy after a moment when Giles seemed unable to speak. ‘And he was sick all over Dad's legs.'

‘Serve him right,' said Kate lightly. ‘Big bully. Do you want to go, Guy?'

He shrugged. ‘Don't mind. Granny's all right. Grandpa's boring. Dad's OK if you don't wind him up. I don't like it when he gets in a bate.'

‘Surely with Granny and Grandpa there he doesn't get cross?' Kate still hugged Giles.

Guy made a face. ‘Not really. It's when we go out on our own with him. He goes on about things. He's OK really.'

Kate thought quickly. She knew that if Mark felt that she was withholding the twins he might become unpleasant and the worse it would be for them. After all, she couldn't stop him seeing them unless she explained why in a court of law. It was an intolerable situation.

‘Do you think you could be terribly brave and go this time?' she asked Giles. ‘If you don't want to go out with him tell Granny that you don't feel well or something. You see, while he pays your school fees, he has a right to see you. If we divorced it might be a bit different.' She paused, not wanting to go into all the legal ins and outs.

‘D'you mean if I don't go to Cheltenham I'd have to leave Mount House?' Giles was staring at her in consternation.

‘Not exactly,' said Kate slowly, ‘but Mark would want to know why and then it might mean that it would all have to be done legally. I'd have to get the court to order him to pay the fees. The Navy pay a lot of it, of course . . . '

‘I'll go,' said Giles quickly. ‘Don't go to court. I'll go. It'll be all right, I expect.'

‘I'm sorry, darling,' said Kate desperately. ‘Guy will be there and it's only for a week.'

‘It's all right,' he said dully, pulling away from her.

Kate got to her feet. ‘I've got an idea. What d'you say we go into Plymouth to see
Star Wars?
If we get our skates on we just might make it.'

‘Oh great!' Their faces lit up, woes forgotten. ‘Terrific!'

‘Quick then. I'll organise the dogs and afterwards we'll go and have a Wimpy.'

Later, as she sat between the rapt twins who were engrossed in the exploits of Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, she wondered if she had the right to send Giles to Cheltenham. What were the rights and wrongs in such a situation? Which would be most harmful: to expose him to a bully for a week or to take him away from a school where he was happy and had lots of friends?

She sighed. At least the first step was over without too much trauma and, with Cheltenham behind them, they could go forward on the next stage of the journey.

T
HE BARBECUE FOR THE
twins' birthday had become an institution.

‘The trouble is,' said Kate who had dropped in to deliver her share of the goodies, ‘that when things happen on a regular basis they mark the passing of time so relentlessly. You start saying things like “this time last year so-and-so” and you realise that you're getting old and that the years are going so quickly.'

‘I always did say,' observed Cass, unpacking the basket, ‘that it should have been you who was named Cassandra. Nothing but doom and gloom. Anyway, it's been a good year. What with the Great Educational Debate and The Divorce Question all settled, we haven't done too badly.'

‘No. And Cheltenham passed without any ructions. I can hardly believe that this will be the twins' last year at Mount House.'

‘You've definitely decided on Blundells?' Cass put the packets of beefburgers into the fridge.

‘I think so. If they pass their Common Entrance, of course. By the way, I saw Felicity in Creber's the other day. She overcame her fear of contamination to tell me that she's off to Dartmouth. Couldn't resist bragging about Mark II getting the submariner's job. It'll be nice to have her off my back for a year or two. She's got a little clique in Tavistock who cut me dead and then whisper furiously when I've passed.'

‘It's based on fear, really. Want a cuppa? Shove the kettle on then. You've broken out, you see. A woman living alone. They're probably all scared that you're going to set your cap at their boring old husbands!'

‘You can't be serious!' Kate went to fill the kettle. ‘Having escaped one submariner I'm hardly likely to seek out another! I'm not a masochist. Once is quite enough. Coming back with all their clothes ponging of diesel, ghastly cocktail parties . . . '

‘Do you remember when you dropped your pâté down Mrs Captain SM's dress?'

‘And what about that time we went to sea on Families' Day and you were in the heads when the submarine went to “Action Stations” and that sailor wouldn't let you out until it was all over?'

‘I got back to the control room in time to hear the Captain say: “Well, what did you think of that?” and his wife said, “Very nice, dear, but I think John Wayne does it better.” '

They rocked with laughter and Mrs Hampton, coming into the kitchen, smiled at them.

‘You'd better make that coffee an' go on out into that there sun. My assistant'll be along in a minute and then we've got a birthday tea to prepare!'

A year after Cass's party the effects of it could still be felt. Tony and Liz, tied together by the unwelcome baby, pushed down unspoken reproaches and regrets and lived in an unhappy truce. Even Liz's love was wearing thin and she was beginning to wish that she'd had the courage to remain unmarried and finish her accountancy exams. The baby girl was a whining, fretful little bundle and Tony longed to be back at sea. Liz, plain and tired, doubtful now that she could make him love her, wondered how long she could hold him and in her fear became snappy and withdrawn.

Harriet's infatuation for Tom, fanned by his attentions at the party and at various gatherings thereafter, was threatening to destroy her relationship with Ralph. When they had moved to Lee-on-Solent and she could no longer live on the expectation of seeing Tom, she became moody and Ralph, apparently unable to please her and not knowing why, spent more time in the Mess and on his boat.

Tom himself found the seeds of distrust after the Stephen Mortlake affair could not be so easily done away with and kept his eyes open. At least Charlotte was happy, settling in at her new school and always waiting to welcome him home on Friday evenings. Cass seemed her usual self and there was no sign that everything was not as it should be but still Tom watched.

George, having been dropped in it by Pat, had been confronted by an outraged Felicity and had had his character reviled and his honour impugned. Unwilling to be deprived of future favours and ready to
take to himself Felicity's beliefs that he owed her a great deal, he grovelled, abased himself and was finally, after a very uncomfortable period, taken back into her favour.

As for Kate, her affair with Alex having survived the year was still under stress. Since her talk with the General, she had tried to keep her physical passion from colouring all the other aspects of the relationship. The summer holidays had proved a testing time and, riddled with guilt, she made tremendous efforts to make up for it during the autumn term. Try as she would, she was still frightened of any rumours reaching the twins at Mount House and was pathologically worried about she and Alex being seen together publicly out of working hours. Fortunately the short dark winter evenings were soon upon them but Alex was becoming irritated at having to live in this hole and corner way and they had another row, during which he insisted that the boys should be told the truth. Kate, who wasn't sure what the truth was, promised to think about it. It was unlucky that the pressures were forcing Alex to show a much less sympathetic side and Kate began to grow nervous of him, finding that she was watching and waiting for warning signals and desperately thinking up ways and means of maintaining the status quo.