First Friends (34 page)

She missed Alex dreadfully. His companionship, his love-making, had burst upon her like a comet which had cast a revealing light on the dull landscape of her life, shedding a warm and comforting glow and encouraging her to expand and develop in its beneficial rays. Now, just as suddenly, it was gone and she was left to stumble about in the darkness of her old life. At least she had one stroke of luck. Her father had sold the house and land in St Just for a very good profit and, once again, had shared the money with his children. Kate didn't get so much as the others but her debt was wiped out and although she still had to earn enough money to live, a great weight was lifted from her mind.

With Alex so definitely out of the picture, the twins relaxed and life resumed its former pattern. Kate felt the spring to be more melancholy than ever, the cold light rainy days in odd juxtaposition to the
song of birds and blossoming of flowers, and was aware of a deep sadness settling upon her spirit. She remembered how, a year ago, she and Alex had been in the first deep joy of their love and she ached with loneliness and loss.

When he returned, he behaved towards her with an easy friendliness which to begin with hurt and repelled her. She tried to find another job but, with no qualifications and the difficulties of school holidays, nothing was forthcoming and slowly she hardened herself to being with Alex, unable to touch him, their precious intimacy gone. Slowly and painfully she adjusted, deciding that when the summer holidays came, she would take the whole time off, have a complete rest and decide how she planned to go forward. The twins would be off to Blundells in the autumn so there would be much to be done to get them ready. She decided to try to do more with the dogs and started to look at the breeding side more seriously whilst taking up her old idea of training retrievers to the gun and running obedience classes. She was considering the possibilities of starting a boarding kennels when her brother Chris, who was an electrical transmissions engineer, having finished a job abroad asked if he could come for a week or so. She was delighted to have him and the twins loved every minute of it.

He took them sailing and to the cinema and for long hikes over the moor. In the evenings, Kate poured out her ideas and at the end of a fortnight Chris made a proposal which completely took her aback.

They were sitting at the kitchen table over the remains of a late supper at the end of a long hot day. They'd taken the twins to Torcross to swim and on to Dartmouth so that Guy could look at the boats—his great passion—and Giles could wander round the town which he loved. It had been a happy lazy day and Kate, dividing the remains of the wine between them, sighed with pleasure.

‘I can't remember when I enjoyed myself so much,' she said. ‘Bless you for taking so much trouble with the boys. It's so good for them to be with a man with no stresses and strains.'

Chris lit a cigarette and inhaled thoughtfully.

‘I've been wondering,' he said, ‘if we couldn't make a more permanent thing of it. I'm away a lot which means that it's a bit difficult to keep a place going. You'd like to spread your wings a bit, become more independent. If you sold this place and we pooled our resources we could get a bigger place, with outbuildings for kennels and so on. I'd have somewhere to come home to and would expect to pay a fair bit towards the upkeep. What d'you think so far?'

‘Share a house?' Kate looked interested.

‘Why not? I've got some money tucked away and you'd get a good price for this. We could get somewhere near here with more room. You could really concentrate on the dog side of things and when I'm home I could take the boys off your hands a bit. They ought to have a man about the place.'

‘It sounds wonderful. But what about girlfriends? Or what if you want to get married?'

He shook his head and tapped some ash from his cigarette.

‘When Philippa went off I knew that I would never marry again. I get my entertainment when I'm away. Don't worry—I wouldn't fill the place with floozies! What about you?'

‘I don't think so. You can't legislate for everything in this life but I don't think I'll take any more chances.'

‘Well.' He shrugged. ‘If either of us do we'll have to re-think. Nothing's irrevocable. What d'you say?'

‘It sounds as if it could really be the answer.' Kate began to feel excited. ‘Oh, Chris, it could just work.'

‘Good.' He smiled and raised his glass to her. ‘Lots to discuss, of course. It'll have to be sorted out properly. Tomorrow we'll see what's on the market, look at prices and so on. Get a feel of things.'

Kate felt elated, as if her life had suddenly taken a new turn. She grinned at him.

‘D'you remember when you brought us down to Dousland in that van with the twins sitting in their pram in the back? And the General opened the bottle of champagne?'

‘Shall I ever forget it? I forgot where I'd put the screws for their
blasted cots and I thought we'd have to bed them down in the chest of drawers.'

‘When we get our new house he'll be our first guest,' vowed Kate.

‘I'll drink to that,' said Chris.

O
NE MORNING IN LATE-OCTOBER
, Kate drove through the back lanes to Tavistock. Alex was up country valuing and buying and, as it was early closing day, she had decided to take the dogs to the shop with her, giving them a run on both journeys. It was a clear glowing autumn day, the sky a pure cloudless blue. The rowan berries burned like drops of bright blood, the bracken was touched with fire. As usual at this time of the year Kate felt exhilarated and strong, positive that difficulties could be surmounted, problems overcome. She slowed the car to watch a buzzard circling above her, the air currents bearing him upwards. He seemed a symbol of freedom on this wonderful morning and Kate sighed with pure pleasure. She stopped to walk the dogs on Plaster Moor, enjoying the resilient springiness of the sheep-bitten turf beneath her feet.

The plans that she and Chris had made were going slowly forward and Kate felt at peace for the first time for years. The twins had gone off happily to Blundells, delighted with the new arrangements, and Kate had been able to put her affair with Alex more firmly in the past. She had told him that when she moved she would give in her notice and if he found the idea upsetting he didn't show it, merely saying that he was glad that things were working out for her.

She breathed in great lungfuls of the sparkling air. This weather surely couldn't last much longer and she was glad now she had taken yesterday off, bundled the General into her car and driven him on a full circle of the moor; visiting all the places that he had shown her in those early years.

Crossing to Moorshop, they had taken the Tavistock road to Princetown, turning on to the Moretonhampstead road at Two Bridges, beneath which the East Dart runs, past Believer Woods and through Post Bridge, over Statts Bridge and up on to the open moor.

They stopped where the road crosses the Two Moors Way, a track ancient in Roman times, to enjoy the panoramic sweep of countryside away to the north where Okehampton lies and, far beyond the moor's eastern boundary, to Exeter.

They made a diversion to Fernworthy Reservoir, hidden away and half circled with forest, before winding down into the old moorland town of Chagford for coffee in the cafe-cum-antique-shop with its room upstairs full of second-hand books. They'd wandered by Hamel-down Tor to Widecombe-in-the-Moor, turning off to look at Hound Tor and to spend a moment at Jay's Grave where fresh wild flowers stood in a little pot at the head of the grave. They pondered, as so often before, the mystery of these flowers which, winter and summer alike, were always there. Driving down past Saddle Tor and Haytor they could see the sun shining on the sea away at Teignmouth in the blue distance.

After lunch, they'd taken the lanes behind Ashburton and cut across to Holne, passing Venford Reservoir and pausing at Hexworthy—just beyond the bridge—to watch a dipper on the river, before climbing back up to the Princetown road to have tea at Two Bridges. Lastly, they circled the reservoir at Burrator and dropped down through Sheepstor only a few miles from home where Mrs Hampton was waiting with a delicious macaroni cheese for supper.

It had been a day full of quiet joy, their minds in accord, feeling the other's pleasure in the sheer magnificence of the land: these hills covered with purple heather, these with bracken, and yet others with mile upon mile of bleached tall grasses. They'd marvelled at a dry stone wall that looked like granite lace against a sky of golden light and watched two crows seeing off a buzzard who was always one lazy flap of the wings beyond them. They smiled at the immobility of a moorland pony, shaggy and heavy-headed, standing in the road, indifferent to the motorists and they saw a sheep grazing with a magpie riding on his back.

They ate supper before the study fire, talking peacefully of this and that: Oliver's amazing panache, Saul's determination to be a soldier,
the fact that the twins should be so alike and yet so different. Kate sat curled in the corner of the sofa, where Cass always sat, and the General knew that things were on an even keel at last and thought that she looked happier than he had seen her look for many years. She had talked over her new plans with him and he had felt quite sure that she was doing the right thing, relieved to see her set on a course that would bring her a calm, sharing relationship whilst giving her the freedom to be herself. He saw that there were grey hairs in the brown but in the firelight the worry lines smoothed away and she looked contented, confident, as if she had emerged from the dark into the light. The Collect for Advent came into his mind. ‘Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness and put on the armour of light . . . '

When she had gone he wrote a few letters, knocked the logs apart and went upstairs. Before he got into bed, he opened his curtains and looked out on the night; moonless but with a great shawl of stars flung across the deep darkness. The owl was hunting in the Manor Woods and across the fields a vixen barked. He found that the rest of the Collect was still in his mind. ‘ . . . that in the last day . . . we may rise to the life immortal through Him that liveth and reigneth with Thee . . . and he added his own prayer of gratitude. It had been a perfect last day.

Now, the next morning, Kate whistled the dogs and shut them in the back of the car. It really was far too good to be stuck indoors but she couldn't take two days off. The telephone was ringing and she let herself into the shop and, tripping over the dogs, she hurried to answer it.

‘Kate? Is that you, Kate?'

‘Yes,' she said rather breathlessly. ‘Yes, it is. Sorry, who . . . ?'

‘ ‘Tis ‘Ammy, my lover.'

‘Hammy? Is it . . . ? What is it, Hammy?'

‘ 'Tis the General, my lover. Now be brave. He passed away in the night. He didden suffer at all, I'm sure o' that. ‘Twas a wunnerful way to go. Think of it like that. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you. I've
been phonin' since early, like, but Cass was takin' the children to school an' you must've been goin' to the shop. I found ‘im when I come in to do ‘is breakfast. Must've been ‘is old ‘eart just give out. I got ‘old o' Cass a minute ago an' she said to tell you. She's on 'er way down now.'

‘Oh, no . . . ' Kate could barely speak. She felt heavy and slow as if her emotions were slowly congealing in lead.

‘ 'E di d'n suffer. ‘E looked so quiet an' peaceful. Will you come?'

‘Yes. Yes, I'll come now.'

Mechanically she replaced the receiver, collected the dogs and her bag and, locking up, went back to the car. Mechanically, she drove the car out through the town, through Whitchurch and Horrabridge and on to Dousland and Meavy. She saw nothing now of the glory of the day. Between one moment and the next it had turned to dust and ashes. That was how death was, between one moment and the next. One moment a living breathing being. The next cold, lifeless, the vital spark snuffed out for ever. She thought of him yesterday, gazing out over his beloved moor, watching the dipper, laughing at the pony.

Parking behind Cass's car, she ran into the cottage and, hesitating in the hall for a moment, she called up the stairs.

‘Cass? Are you there?' She heard voices and Mrs Hampton appeared on the landing.

‘So there you are, my lover. Come on up. There's nothin' to fear.'

But Kate found that as she climbed the steps her heart was hammering with terror. Mrs Hampton took her by the arm; her eyes were red and swollen but her face was calm. ‘Don't be afraid. Cass's with ‘im.'

As she spoke, Cass appeared in the bedroom doorway. Kate went to her and they stared at each other in horror and grief. With one accord, they turned back into the bedroom and looked at last at the General.

Mrs Hampton had done all that was necessary and he lay as though asleep, his long hands folded on the quilt that covered him. He looked regal and aloof and quite irrevocably gone. The spirit that had given this spare, noble-looking statue its charm and warmth had fled. Kate
found that she was clutching Cass's hand and she turned to look at her. Cass's eyes were dark with pain.

‘I didn't have time to say goodbye,' she whispered and her lips shook. ‘And now it's too late.' She buried her face in Kate's shoulder and began to weep.

Too late. Kate stared beyond her at that quiet compassionless face and felt, like a hammer blow to the heart, the immensity of her own loss. She thought of him: opening the bottle of champagne at Dousland, showing her the moor, listening thoughtfully to her woes. She remembered how he had comforted her when he had told her of her own mother's death and all the other times when he had given her courage. And, behind it all, the generous, uncalculating love. Suddenly she remembered the Christmas tree. She saw again the baubles glowing in the firelight, the tinsel gleaming and the brightly wrapped presents. She remembered the children's rapt expressions, Cass's tear-bright eyes and his own face, full of the pleasure of giving and sharing, and she knew in an almost unbearable agony of pain that something priceless and irreplaceable had gone out of her life for ever. Slowly, lowering her cheek to Cass's hair, she began to cry too, her eyes fixed on his remote, uncaring face.