Breach of Faith

by Andrea Hughes

  Who said that?

  I glanced around at the three men in the room and frowned. A ringing telephone cut through the silence and I focused again on my baby.

  “Bloody hell!” A tiny, perfect little Frank was smiling back at me. I opened my mouth and screamed.

  *

  “Kate? Kate, wake up.”

  I mumbled and felt my shoulder being shaken again. The delivery room faded, taking the men and the baby with it, leaving me with a vague sense of loss coupled with an overwhelming feeling of liberation. With relief I opened my eyes to find my worried mother looking at me.

  “Kate? Is everything all right? You were moaning and calling out in your sleep. Sounded like you were being murdered up here.”

  Disorientated, I shook my head, trying to get my bearings and shake the images of my dream from my mind. I rubbed hard at my face and looked at my mum, smiling wanly. “Just a bad dream.”

  “Oh?”

  I grimaced, “it was a bit creepy.”

  “Well, it’s about time you woke then. Tea’s almost ready, your dad’s putting the kids in the bath and Will’s on the phone.”

  “Tea?” I grasped the most attractive of the three options in front of me and I threw back the bed covers. “Food sounds good. How long have I been asleep for?”

  “A couple of hours. Now, come on, Will’s spoken to the kids, he’s waiting for you.”

  “Will?”

  “On the phone.” Mum started back down the stairs. “Go and speak to your husband, Kate.”

  Go and speak to your husband, I repeated to myself as I followed my mother down the stairs. And say what? Dream residues filled my mind again; the birth, the baby, Frank.

  It’s time, the little voice informed me. It’s time for the truth.

  My heart skipped a beat and I took a deep breath, smiling thanks to my mother as I took the phone. Watching as she left the room, I turned inward for a moment.

  “Just for once,” I muttered to my conscience, “just for once, you smug self-righteous bastard, you could possibly be right.” Pulling myself together I put the phone to my ear and made ready to come clean.

  Chapter twenty three

  26 December

  Dry mouth, sweaty palms; I was close to panicking and only the sound of giggling and splashing from the bathroom next door kept my feet firmly grounded and my heart from popping out of my mouth. I bit the inside of my cheek, trying to encourage the flow of saliva; all the better to speak to you with, my mind sang gaily.

  “Hello? Is anyone there?”

  The disembodied voice floated out of the phone. Startled, I gasped and almost dropped the handset.

  “Kate? Is that you?”

  “Oh, um, yes,” I croaked and cleared my throat explosively. Maybe that would help.

  “Bloody hell, what was that?” Will’s voice was faint and I realised he was holding the phone away from his ear.

  “Sorry,” I tried again, “my mouth’s a bit dry.”

  “Your mum said you were sleeping,” I could hear the smile in Will’s voice, “baby still tiring you out, is he?”

  “Or she,” I reprimanded without heat, “actually it’s the other two terrors that tired me out. They’re enough to exhaust anyone.”

  “They sound like they’ve had a fabulous Christmas,” Will sounded wistful. “Kensie loves her new scooter and Tommy just about managed to drag himself away from whatever a barket set is to say hello.”

  I laughed, “he means basketball.”

  “And what about you,” Will asked gently, “did you have fun?”

  “Yes I did, heaps. Did you do anything special?”

  “Not really. I missed you all. I wish you’d been here.”

  I chewed on my lip, not really knowing what to say. I can’t tell him, I thought suddenly, not now, not like this.

  Excellent idea, wait for a while. Maybe until he comes over next month, maybe even wait until the birth. Catch him at his proudest moment with, “by the way, Will, it’s not your baby.”

  “Are you there, Kate?”

  I nodded, steadfastly ignoring the truth I had just heard. “I’m here.”

  “I said I missed you.”

  I felt a tear trickle down my cheek and furiously scrubbed it away. I didn’t have the right to feel sorry for myself, not after what I’d done. And the least I could do for Will now was to say the words he wanted to hear.

  “We missed you too,” I whispered. “I missed you. I wish you’d been over here with us.” I hesitated, “what did you do for Christmas?”

  “I worked,” he replied wryly, “earned a bloody fortune working on Christmas day. That’s some consolation I suppose.”

  “Must have been terribly lonely.”

  “Actually, it wasn’t too bad,” he laughed suddenly making me jump, ‘some of the younger blokes were in and out through the day. Jason, you remember him? Brought me in a plate of his mum’s Christmas dinner. Said she felt sorry for me having to work all day.”

  I snorted in amusement, “did he bring you in a beer as well?”

  “A bit of the old Christmas spirit? No such luck, Carl wouldn’t allow it.”

  Had that been a slight hesitation, just before Carl’s name?

  “Yeah, we all got a mince pie instead.”

  A mince pie?

  “We ate too much and compared our wretched situations. You’ll be pleased to know I won hands down and was voted the most pitiable bloke there because I was deserted by my wife and children.”

  “So you weren’t alone,” I hesitated, “with Carl?”

  “No, there was a group of us. Why?”

  Pictures flashed through my mind. Pictures of Will and his boss, viewed through the darkness of the night; touching, maybe and kissing, possibly. I shook my head, all at once feeling irrationally angry and inordinately relieved that the two men had not been alone that night. I took a deep breath.

  “Oh,” I lied, “bigger parties are always better, aren’t they.”

  A mischievous chuckle drifted down the line, “I think I can safely say that a good time was had by all. I do have a confession to make, though.”

  “What confession?”

  “Well, I had a wee bit too much to smoke,” Will explained, an embarrassed smile in his voice, “I’m afraid I made a bit of an idiot of myself.”

  “Smoke? You don’t smoke.”

  “A smoke, Kate. Not cigarettes, if you get my drift.”

  “You got stoned.” Not a question.

  “I … passed out,” embarrassment was oozing down the telephone line and it was all I could do not to laugh at him. “The last thing I remember is Jason telling a really bad joke, I went to take a pee and fell over doing up my fly. When I woke up, Carl had covered me with his cat’s blanket; took me ages to get all the cat hairs out of my clothes.”

  I giggled, “what happened then?”

  “Well, I felt like crap and there was no way I was going to be able to drive home. I had visions of myself passing out again in a taxi and waking up ten hours later with a bill from the taxi company running into the thousands.”

  “Don’t tell me you walked home?”

  Will laughed, “God, no. I was hard pressed to climb up the stairs into Carl’s flat.”

  “Carl’s flat? You stayed with Carl?” Alarm bells were ringing again and I breathed deeply; there was no proof at all that he was having a homosexual affair with the man.

  “Well, I didn’t have a lot of choice really. Poor bloke had to lug me up two flights of stairs.”

  “What then?” The sharpness was back but I was beyond caring. All the worries of the last few weeks were threatening to overflow and my resolve to finally tell Will the truth was forefront in my mind. Irrational I may be, scared I most definitely was but determined to be honest … well, that would depend on what was to happen next.

  “I dunno.”

  “What do you mean?” Exasperated, I rubbed hard at my face. This conversation wasn’t going quite as planned.
<
br />   “I can’t remember. Thank God for Carl, that’s all I can say.”

  “Oh? Why?”

  “He looked after me,” Will said simply. There was an inflection in his voice that I couldn’t quite put my finger on; admiration, maybe, or respect. No, it was more than that. Appreciation? At Will’s next words it all became clear.

  “He’s one in a million is Carl.”

  Affection. Warmth. Devotion. The words flew rapidly around my head, bouncing off my brain, crashing through my skull. I felt nauseous and leaned heavily against the telephone table.

  He’s in love, that’s passion, desire, lust that you can hear.

  “No,” my head was spinning.

  Love. He’s in love.

  “No.”

  “Kate? Are you okay?”

  I stumbled and tightened my grip on the table. I could feel my gorge rising, taste the vicious sting of acid on my tongue and forcibly swallowed the sudden glut of saliva my mouth had produced.

  “Kate? For God’s sake, is something wrong?”

  “I …” Swallow bile. “No, I mean …” Sigh, spin. “Yes, Will. Yes, there is something wrong.” Swaying alarmingly, I closed my eyes.

  “Kate, what the bloody hell is going on?”

  “It’s not yours, Will.”

  “You’re not making any sense. What –”

  “It’s not yours,” I repeated, louder this time. Everything had gone black and my knees felt like jelly. “The baby, Will, the baby’s not yours.”

  As the vomit shot forth, my knees finally gave way, the telephone forgotten in my hand and a tinny voice calling my name in the darkness, over and over again. The receiver fell from my nerveless fingers and the voice faded as I disappeared gratefully into oblivion.

  Chapter twenty four

  27 December

  I’d imagined it over and over in my mind. Hundreds of times, each one slightly different from the last. Some scenarios were routine, run-of-the-mill. Others had been radical in their approach, revolutionary in the outcome. Some had even been complimentary or understanding, trivialising the deficiencies in my character and raising him to an unhuman level of compassion towards me.

  Most of the mental scenes had been unrealistic in the extreme but not once had I imagined a jealous outburst of the truth followed by a dead faint into my own vomit.

  Pulling the blanket tighter across my shoulders, I stared out the window, watching as the raindrops trickled down the pane, leaving tiny clones of themselves behind as they dribbled ever lower, merging and falling, hypnotising and clearing my mind.

  Now that Will knew the truth …

  What the hell was going to happen next?

  Footsteps on the stairs, threatening the sanctity of my hide-away, my haven, the only place I could sit and feel sorry for myself. Pulling the blanket up under my chin, I watched one final suicidal raindrop careen helter-skelter down the smooth glass and as the footsteps reached the top, I turned to face my mother.

  Mum stood for a moment at the top of the stairs, holding two steaming cups and wearing a deprecatory expression on my face. I took one look and closed my eyes tight, hunching up under the blanket; maybe I could pretend to be asleep.

  “Cuppa?” The soft thump of mug on wood then a sudden jolt as mum sat beside me on the bed. I peered out from behind the barricades and met my mother’s direct gaze.

  “Thanks, mum.”

  “Kate, it’s not that I mind you being sick, of course you can’t help that. I don’t even mind cleaning up after you, even though you vomited all over your father’s new painting.”

  I cringed, ‘sorry.”

  Mum waved the apology away with a flap of her hand, economically using the movement to snare her cup of tea from the table. “I must admit, the hysterical call on my mobile phone from Will, telling me you had disappeared and he thought you were dead, was pretty disturbing. Although thankfully all turned out to be okay; a bit smelly, maybe, but basically sound?”

  I nodded.

  Mum smiled, “good, I’m glad.” Then the stern expression returned. “What I do object to is being forced to clean up your other mess, especially when I’ve been told little more than your husband. What on earth were you thinking? Blurting it out when it must have been as clear as the nose on your face that you weren’t going to last out the conversation.”

  I held out my hand, “mum –”

  “I haven’t finished yet!”

  I withdrew the hand as if burnt, avoiding my mother’s fiery gaze.

  Mum’s cup rattled on the table, “Kate, look at me, it’s time you told me the whole story. Will told me you finally mentioned the baby isn’t his. He wanted me to confirm or deny the statement.”

  I gulped, “what did you say?”

  “I told him he should ask you, and it’s non of my business.”

  “Oh. What else did he say?”

  Will had phoned again earlier that day, not quite twenty four hours after hearing the news. I hadn’t trusted myself to be calm and rational and had taken what I believed to be the most prudent course of action; I’d crumpled and hid in the garage.

  “A couple of things. He wanted me to tell you that he’d call back later. More importantly, he asked me to warn you that he’d changed his travel date and would be here sooner. He also politely questioned the paternity of Kensie and Tom and wondered if you’d been playing him for a fool all this time.”

  I put my head in my hands.

  “My thoughts exactly,” my mother’s voice was wry and for the first time, I could hear a smidgen of sympathy in the older woman’s voice.

  “What am I going to do?”

  Mum shook me; hard. “Well, first of all you can stop feeling so bloody sorry for yourself. Snap out of it, Kate. You’ve brought this on yourself and managed to hurt other people in the process, so stop thinking about yourself all the time and grow up.”

  My mouth dropped open and I stared at my mum; damn that woman, always harsh but fair. I closed my mouth, picked up my coffee and took a sip. “You’re right. What must poor Will be thinking? And Frank? He’s the father but he’s no idea what’s going on.”

  Mum leaned over and patted my knee, “I know there’s more to the story, it’s not in your nature to just run off and spend the night with another man for no reason. Talk to me; I might actually be able to help.”

  I sighed heavily and took the bull by the horns, telling my mother everything. My baby’s conception; Frank, his wife and his leukaemia; and, hesitantly, all my suspicions about Will. I even mentioned the dreams at which my mother, in shocked amusement, wistfully expressed a desire to experience a dream just like that one day.

  I grunted, “you’re welcome to them.”

  Mum looked shrewdly at me and frowned. “You don’t really think Will’s gay, do you? It does seem a bit extreme.”

  I shrugged and stood up, dropping the blanket and stretching the muscles in my back, leaning against the cool glass of the window. The rain had stopped, the clouds were breaking up and a cold, fresh breeze was blowing the dullness away. A few people were already braving the chilly winter’s day, wrapped up warm and snug in woolly coats and scarves, taking the opportunity for fresh air and exercise. I shrugged again.

  “I honestly don’t know. I’ve been through it so many times in my mind and each time I end up more confused than when I started. We’ve been married over ten years and I’ve never noticed him … checking out other men. On the other hand, I have known him to speak overly fondly of a couple of the blokes he’s been friends with. When we lived in the city he used to get together with a friend of his from work. They’d go out once or twice a week,” I grimaced at the memory, “I was pregnant with Kensie at the time and didn’t think much of it.”

  I hesitated, lost in the past, and mum nudged me gently, “go on.”

  I glanced at my mother then turned my attention back to the window. “One day he told me that Trevor, his friend, had moved away and they wouldn’t be going out any more.” Absently I
ran my finger down the inside of the window, following the slowly drying track left behind by one of the more adventurous raindrops.

  “But one day I saw him. Trevor. He told me that he’d never been away and when I asked him about his wife, Trevor said that he had never been married and had no intentions of ever getting married and that I must have been thinking about someone else. I’m positive Will had said he was married.

  “I remember thinking at the time that Trevor was gay. I don’t know exactly what it was, his mannerisms maybe, or the way he spoke, but he definitely came across as homosexual.”

  Mum looked thoughtful. “But, Kate, having a homosexual friend doesn’t make a man gay. Would you be gay just because you might know a lesbian or two?”

  I shook my head, “of course not but why did he lie? Why not just tell me the truth if there’s nothing to hide? And anyway, now there’s Carl.”

  “Are you sure they were kissing?”

  “Not one hundred per cent, no. It really looked like it, though.”

  “But gay, Kate. It just seems so –”

  I waved my hand at my mother, “I know, weird, unbelievable, laughable, creepy. Anyway, if anything he’d be bisexual, wouldn’t he? He does seem to genuinely enjoy heterosexual sex.” I blew out heavily, watching the glass cloud up in front of my face. Putting out my finger, I rapidly drew a little smiley face on the misty patch of glass. A man was walking slowly up the street and I watched as he crossed the road and made his way towards to my parents’ house.

  “Well, that’s it,” I concluded bleakly, “and, I know it’s no excuse but maybe you can understand a bit more about why Frank happened too.”

  “So, what are you going to do?”

  I watched as the man stopped outside the house. He looked up and spotted me standing at the window, lifted his arm and waved cheerfully, gesturing me to come downstairs. I smiled and waved back. Turning back to my mum I reached over and grabbed my coat and gloves. “I thought I might go for a walk, could you look after the kids?”

  “Bloody hell,” mum muttered crossly, “when will she ever grow up?”

  And, with that, I ran down the stairs and through the house, calling a breathless farewell before slamming the front door behind me.