Ralph’s Children (27 page)

‘No intrusion,’ Kate said, politely.

She was still on automatic, going through the motions. Not allowing herself to think about her loss, about the months wasted in their last year. Visitors came but soon left again, unnerved, Kate
realized, by the invisible but solid wall they encountered, perhaps afraid of being the ones to finally penetrate the force field and release the grief dammed up behind it.

‘I didn’t come to the funeral,’ Marie Coates went on, ‘because I felt I might be the last person you’d want there.’

‘Why?’ Kate asked. ‘You and Rob were friends.’

‘But it was my doing,’ the other woman said. ‘Which is why I’ve come now. To ask for your forgiveness.’

‘It was an accident,’ Kate said.

‘But Rob wouldn’t have been there,’ Marie Coates said, ‘if I hadn’t talked him into it.’

Which was true.

‘He wanted to go,’ Kate said.

Because being unkind would not bring him back, and anyway, it was true, he had wanted it.

‘Have they told you,’ the older woman asked, ‘that it was me Rob was trying to help when it happened?’

Kate wished now that she would not go on, because her own courtesy was, in fact, utterly sham. Because ever since she had heard that Rob’s body had been crushed because of his courage,
she’d wished with all her strength that this woman had died instead of him.

‘You mustn’t blame yourself,’ she managed to say.

Hauling up the last dregs of her own kindness.

And then, abruptly, she realized that Marie Coates seemed familiar.

‘Have we met before?’ she asked.

At school, perhaps, though she’d seldom gone there, had not been in the habit of meeting Rob after work. And in any case, since Rob had said Marie Coates worked in the school office,
she’d probably kept different hours, so Kate was even more unlikely to have met her there, and yet . . .

‘Briefly,’ the other woman answered her question. ‘At a self-help group meeting in Reading some months back.’

Kate remembered. ‘You were the organizer, when—’

‘When one of our members behaved very badly towards you.’

‘And you intervened,’ Kate said. ‘I don’t think I ever thanked you.’

‘It was my job,’ Marie Coates said. ‘It was nothing.’

It came to Kate then – for she hadn’t given it a thought till that moment – that Sandi West had come to the funeral and spoken to her, just a few trite words, kindly meant, she
supposed, and she recalled now, with mild surprise, that she’d felt no animosity towards her – nor towards Delia, who had, of course, been there. Though then again, feelings of any kind
had been at a premium that day, and any that had slipped through had been, in any case, for Rob.

She offered tea, finally, politely, realizing that for some reason she no longer needed this woman to be quite so swiftly gone.

‘I thought my mother told me,’ she said, ‘your name was Mary.’

‘That’s how Bel knows me,’ Marie Coates explained. ‘Another member called me Mary my first time there, and I didn’t like to correct her, so that’s who I
remained.’ She smiled. ‘It didn’t seem important.’

Kate found, despite herself, that she liked her, understood why Rob had admired her. Her deftness with her wheelchair and her attitude was such that her disability seemed almost invisible most
of the time, certainly irrelevant. She seemed calm, a woman of common sense and candour, which had, Kate presumed, to make her especially effective with children.

‘Your volunteer work must be rewarding,’ she said.

‘Very,’ Marie said. ‘Rob told me you don’t like horses.’

‘I like them well enough from a distance, but getting on board scares me.’

‘You’re not alone there,’ the older woman said.

‘If that weren’t the case,’ Kate said, ‘I might have been with Rob that day.’

‘And he might not have been riding with me.’

Kate shook her head. ‘There’s no point to that.’

‘None at all,’ Marie agreed.

They spoke for a while about Rob, and Kate could tell how much this woman had liked him, which warmed her. Their cottage had been full lately of people who’d both liked
and respected Rob, none of them managing to reach Kate’s penned up senses; but there was, as he had expressed, something special about Marie Coates.

‘I hope you know,’ the older woman said, with great gentleness, ‘how very happy you made him.’

Others had told her that too, yet now the words seemed to rip at Kate’s insides, brought tears to the surface.

‘I’m sorry.’ She wiped at her eyes.

‘Nonsense,’ said Marie Coates.

‘I’ve hardly cried,’ Kate said, which was true.

‘Then let it out,’ Marie said, softly. ‘You won’t lose him.’

Kate wondered, even as she wept, how this stranger could know that was one of the reasons she’d been holding herself together so tightly; because of her irrational fear that by opening up
too much, a little more of Rob’s essence – the last, most precious stuff of all hoarded inside her – might escape through the cracks.

There was something else that Kate had been holding on to tightly.

A secret, hers and Rob’s, though he hadn’t known about it
before
.

He knew now, if he was anywhere at all, for she had whispered it to him a thousand times or more.

It confused Kate that she should be on the verge of telling this woman, this
stranger
, something she hadn’t yet shared with her own parents. Perhaps it was because Marie Coates
had been Rob’s friend, or perhaps because she was the last person he had spoken to in his life.

‘I’m pregnant,’ Kate said.

Fifteen weeks, give or take.

She’d had not even the slightest suspicion, before Rob’s death, that she might be pregnant. Her periods, ever since Caisleán, had been erratic, her body confused by shock, she
had assumed, still settling down into her new life back with Rob.

The recent absence of PMS ought, she eventually realized, to have flagged some kind of alert, but it was, she supposed, a little like removal of pain; once you were free of it, you didn’t
go in search of it, didn’t ask for trouble.

Her regret that Rob had not known was vast and all-consuming.

‘I don’t want any special tests,’ she had instructed her GP and midwife. ‘No AFP test – or at least, if you have to do anything like that, please don’t tell
me if anything’s wrong – and
definitely
no amniocentesis.’

She was adamant. Everything necessary to protect the baby, but no deliberate hunt for problems, because nothing and no one would persuade her to consider termination under any circumstances, and
she wanted no negative thoughts to scar their child’s growing processes.

None of that had anything to do with what the Caisleán gang had claimed to stand for. She spat on their brand of fanaticism, whatever might ultimately be claimed by some defence lawyer to
have been their fundamental motivation.

This was the one and only thing she could still do for Rob.

Their baby, due in mid-March.

Their
baby
.

* * *

T
he inquest, in November – opened soon after Rob’s death and then adjourned for reports – seemed to hit Kate harder than the funeral
had.

Keeping her grief so rigidly locked down had been a semi-subconscious act. Initially, for self-protection, and because the events at Caisleán had taught her that it was possible to block
out horror, to pick oneself up and skate over the surface rather than delve into what lay beneath. Then, once she’d learned about the pregnancy, she had hung on to that same mechanism because
of the new life growing inside her, because now all that mattered was protecting their child.

‘Better to let it out.’

She’d lost count of how many people had said that.

She did not believe it.

When it came to the Coroner’s Court, however, with the protective numbing of early shock long gone, Kate found that, when Marie Coates and one of the attending paramedics gave their
accounts of the accident and Rob’s injuries, she felt as if she was hearing the horrifying description of his death for the first time.

‘Be over soon,’ Michael, beside her, told her softly.

Only if she blotted it out again, buried it deep.

The verdict, as had been anticipated, was straightforward.

Accidental death. No one to blame.

Kate’s emotions were far more complicated. Not least those relating to Marie Coates, for whose new friendship she found she felt grateful, despite her part in Rob’s accident. As
sociable as she could be in the right frame of mind, Kate had never been a chummy person, had, she supposed, many more acquaintances than real friends.

‘Never underestimate the value of a good woman friend,’ Bel had once told her.

Another sample, Kate thought now, of her mother’s wisdom.

And felt, some twenty-two weeks into her own pregnancy, quite overwhelmed by a suddenly intense gratitude for her, too.

* * *

T
he call from Martin Blake came first – at nine thirty in the morning a week after the inquest – to let Kate know that the trial was
scheduled to begin on the eleventh February, but to reassure her that she did not, at this early stage, need to concern herself with any preparations.

Bel telephoned, five minutes later, to ask if Kate had heard Marie’s bad news.

‘There was a terrible fire,’ she said. ‘Her flat’s been completely gutted.’

‘Is she all right?’ Kate was dismayed.

‘She’s fine,’ Bel told her. ‘She was out, thank God, but still, you can imagine.’

Certainly Kate could imagine. The ramifications for anyone would be dreadful enough, but for a disabled person who must, presumably, have had special equipment fitted in her home, who’d
probably taken years to get everything just
so
for her safety and comfort . . . And such a loss was bound to be an added burden for a woman as independent as Marie Coates.

‘I wonder,’ she said, on impulse, ‘if she might like to come and stay here.’

‘Goodness,’ Bel said. ‘You need to think about an offer like that.’

‘I know,’ Kate agreed. ‘But we do have a sofa bed in the office.’ Conscious of the ‘
we
’ she moved swiftly on. ‘And the shower’s
downstairs, isn’t it, so it should work in theory.’

‘I thought,’ Bel said, ‘you wanted space.’

Said with remarkably little irony, Kate thought, considering how often her offers to come and stay through her daughter’s pregnancy had been rejected.

‘This does sound like an emergency,’ she said.

‘And it’s very kind of you to offer,’ Bel said. ‘But you have to be absolutely sure you could stand it. Having a disabled person to stay could be complicated, though
clearly you’re already considering that.’

‘It’s quite likely,’ Kate said, ‘that Marie might hate the idea.’

‘Knowing how well she thinks of you,’ Bel said, ‘I rather doubt that.’

* * *

A
s another, infinitely bleaker, Christmas came and then mercifully departed, Kate sensed that some of the illusory calm she’d just about been
managing to keep wrapped around herself, was beginning to disintegrate.

Grief, pregnancy and apprehension about the trial – now less than a month and a half away – were still preventing her from working properly. Her research for the Duval biography had
all but ground to a halt, and in mid-December Fireman had told her that he could no longer put off the decision to bring in another columnist.

‘I wish to Christ I could have held on a bit longer, Kate, and I wish I could say this is temporary.’ His youthful face had been regretful. ‘But the fact is, I think we both
know that circumstances aside, you’re not really the
Short-Fused Female
any more.’

‘So who am I exactly, do you think?’ Kate enquired.

She felt no shock, nor even sadness, certainly no resentment.

‘I think you’re a been-through-hell, not-quite-back, bloody brave mother-to-be.’

‘Do you think I’m ever going to be able to write again?’

‘You won’t be able
not
to,’ Fireman said. ‘Once the hormones have settled, or probably before, who knows? You’re a good writer, Kate. It’s just time
to move on.’

Nicest sacking she’d ever had.

Marie, who had been staying with her by then for almost a month and from whom Kate had refused to take rent, said it was high time she started paying her way.

‘Not necessary,’ Kate had told her.

‘It would only be for as long as you want me here, of course,’ Marie said. ‘After the baby’s born, you’ll probably want Bel or a nanny.’

‘I shouldn’t think I’ll want either,’ Kate had said.

The fact was that then, and still now, with the festive season over and with Martin Blake telling her she needed to meet with a barrister to discuss her evidence, Kate couldn’t seem to
really think about the birth at all, could scarcely even seem, for the moment, to relate properly to the tiny girl growing inside her – healthily, thank God, they kept reassuring her.

‘Anyway,’ she’d told Marie, ‘money’s not a problem yet.’

Rob’s life insurance policy was cushioning her, along with his pension fund, and to date Kate had been managing to keep at least that side of her life ticking over, paying bills and
dealing with Rob’s estate, though each successive stage of that was another harsh reminder, rocking her with fresh sorrow and intense bitterness, seeming to leave her a little weaker rather
than stronger.

Marie had been an easy house guest, taking care of herself as much as possible, taking pains not to get in Kate’s way more than necessary; three days a week she drove herself to
Rob’s old school in her modified Nissan, then spent hours at a time seeing friends, running errands, monitoring progress on the restoration of her flat and, for the most part, refusing offers
of help.

‘You’ve given me a home,’ Marie said. ‘No one could do more.’

An almost perfect house guest, in fact. Yet still, Kate had begun to wonder if she might not start feeling just a little more like a mother-to-be if she had the cottage back to herself again for
the remaining weeks before the birth.

‘You mustn’t feel you can’t leave when your place is ready,’ she’d said to Marie between Christmas and New Year, ‘because you think I won’t be able to
manage alone. Any time you’re ready to move back, I’ll be happy for you and absolutely fine.’ She’d paused. ‘As it is, for the moment, I can’t seem to see beyond
this damned trial.’