A Friend of the Family

by Marcia Willett

  She poured some into the glasses and pushed one towards Felicity. She raised her own and Felicity nodded and lifted hers, trying to smile, before she sipped at it.

  ‘The twins have been taking a year off,’ said Kate, deciding that it would be kinder to chat mindlessly and let Felicity relax. ‘They’ve gone off backpacking across Europe. I’m just praying that they’ll be OK. At times like these I’m grateful that there are two of them and that they get on so well together.’

  ‘You must miss them.’ The thought of Kate’s loneliness reminded Felicity of her own and she swallowed once or twice.

  ‘Oh, I do.’ Kate smiled a little sadly. ‘I thought that they might stay home for a bit but there’s not much excitement for them down here and they wanted a holiday before they start work.’

  She didn’t expect Felicity to ask what work they intended to take up. She knew that Felicity, having no children of her own, had not the least interest in those belonging to other people. She was not prepared, however, for Felicity’s next remark.

  ‘Why didn’t you marry again?’ she asked.

  Taken aback, Kate raised her eyebrows and laughed a little. ‘It takes two,’ she said. ‘And nobody asked me.’

  ‘What about that chap from the bookshop?’ Felicity drank some more wine in an attempt to wash down the pie which threatened to stick in her throat. ‘Alex, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Oh, Felicity.’ Kate shook her head. ‘That’s going back a bit. It didn’t work out, I’m afraid. I couldn’t put him before the twins and he, quite rightly, resented it.’

  ‘But the twins will go away and leave you. They already have by the sound of it. You’ll be left alone. You should have thought of that.’

  ‘I did think of it. It didn’t seem all that relevant then. At times like that you live so completely in the present.’

  ‘Yes.’ Felicity gave up and pushed her plate aside. ‘How terribly true that is.’

  Kate looked at her thoughtfully. ‘I was terribly in love with him,’ she said. ‘I had no idea that such depths of emotion existed. Nothing mattered but him. It was like I was ill, like an obsession.’

  Felicity stared at her. Her breath came quickly, she nodded and her eyes were wide and bright. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I know just what you mean.’

  ‘I lived like that for three months until the twins came home for the holidays. And then it began. It was like having a bath of cold water emptied over me. Being torn in two pieces. Alex got tired of it in the end and it finished.’ Kate, too, pushed her plate aside and rested her elbows on the table. She looked at Felicity and her eyes were cloudy with memories. ‘I can’t forget him,’ she said. ‘Funny, isn’t it? It still hurts like hell but I can’t get him out of my system. I really loved him, I suppose that’s why. Thank God he sold up and moved away. At least I don’t have to see him any more.’

  ‘Oh, Kate.’ Felicity reached out and took Kate’s hand. ‘I’m so sorry. I had no idea. At the time I simply didn’t understand. And I was so beastly to you.’

  Kate came back to the present and looked with surprise at the pain in Felicity’s eyes. Their hands gripped for a moment and then Kate reached for the bottle.

  ‘Come on. No good sitting here crying. Has that friend gone that you had staying with you? Did you say that he was an artist or something?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Felicity attempted a casual tone. ‘He was on a sketching holiday, getting a portfolio together. It was . . . it was great fun. I miss him.’

  ‘Nice?’ Their eyes met.

  ‘Mmm.’ Felicity nodded, not trusting her voice. Her lips trembled a little.

  ‘That nice?’

  Felicity swallowed, nodded and began to cry.

  ‘Oh, dear.’ Comprehension dawned and Kate grimaced sympathetically. ‘Married?’

  Felicity shook her head, still crying.

  ‘So what’s the problem?’

  ‘He’s been gone a week and I haven’t heard a word. Not a thing. He hasn’t telephoned. I’ve left messages but he doesn’t reply.’ Felicity lowered her head to her arms and began to cry in earnest.

  Kate, guessing what a terrible blow this must be coming so soon after George’s rejection, reached across the table and gently stroked the black hair. She considered and discarded various remarks and sat in silence, simply stroking. After a while, Felicity raised her head and began to search for a handkerchief. Kate watched her for a moment and then shook her head.

  ‘The twins each have a saying at the moment,’ she said as Felicity mopped at her face. ‘Guy says, “The light at the end of the tunnel is always an oncoming train” and Giles says, “Life’s a bitch and then you die.” I offer them to you as the only consolation I know. Ah hell! Let’s have another drink.’

  When Felicity left, Kate put her arms round her and held her tight. ‘Cass’s old pa used to say, “When you’re up against it, go and look at yourself in a mirror and imagine all your ancestors all down the centuries standing behind your shoulder willing you onwards and upwards.” It does work. You think of all that they might have been through and you feel you can do it, too. Whatever it is. You feel their support and their strength. You’re never truly alone, you know.’

  ‘Thanks, Kate.’ Felicity rested for a moment against her and then released herself gently. ‘And thanks for the lunch.’

  ‘Any time. Stay in touch.’

  Felicity nodded and got into her car. When she looked into the mirror as she reached the bend in the road, Kate was still standing at the gate looking after her As she drove through Whitchurch and into Tavistock she remembered Kate’s quote: ‘Life’s a bitch and then you die.’ It occurred to her that were she to die now, crash into a bus or something, no one would care. Except Kate. She knew that Kate would care and a faint rav of comfort touched her sore heart. Suddenly she realised that, should that happen, everything she owned would go to George. So certain had she been, after Mark’s death, that they would marry that she had changed her will and left everything to George. As she drove into Tavistock a resolve formed in her mind and seeing a space in the market square she parked the car and hurried into the town.

  MIRANDA WAS BECOMING MORE and more suspicious. However, since David quite deliberately shut himself away during the day— she knew better than to disturb him when he was working—and had spent a few evenings with friends, it was several days before she spoke to him about her suspicions. By this time she had taken two more calls from Felicity and listened to several more messages on the answering machine. She cornered him one evening before supper when, pleased with his day’s work, he was enjoying a gin and tonic and listening to a concert.

  ‘Daddy.’ Miranda stood looking down at his semi-recumbent figure. ‘What’s going on with vou and Felicity Mainwaring?’

  ‘What? How d’you mean?’ David hauled himself into a sitting position.

  ‘She keeps phoning. Why did vou give her our telephone number?’

  ‘Well, it was difficult not to.’ David had learned that a calm rational reply often allayed suspicion. ‘I was there for two weeks, you know. Damned awkward.’

  If he hoped to awaken sympathy he was to be disappointed.

  ‘But she knew the situation. You said that she was delighted to play hostess to a well-known painter.’

  ‘Perfectly true. Still, she was very kind. Couldn’t treat the place like a hotel, d’you see?’

  ‘She seems to think that you’re going back.’

  David’s heart sank. He hadn’t realised that Miranda had been monitoring the answering machine or that Felicity’s messages were becoming more frequent and less discreet.

  ‘Well'—David’s calm slipped a little-’obviously, in two weeks, we became quite friendly. Only to be expected. I might have said things, led her to suppose that I’d drop in if I was in the area.’

  ‘It sounds more than that to me.’ Miranda stared at him uncompromisingly. ‘I hope you didn’t lead her on. You know what a reputation she’s got.’

  ‘For heave
n’s sake, Miranda,’ said David testily. ‘Don’t talk to me as if I were a child. I’m not Tim. He was the one who dropped me in it and I dealt with it as best I could. If there have been misunderstandings I’ll deal with them. It’s none of your business. And don’t speak about Felicity like that. She’s a very nice person and I feel very badly that I used her as I did. She was very kind to me.’

  Suddenly the remembrance of those magic days engulfed him and he felt a stab of loss. Miranda’s face took on a half-contemptuous, half-fearful look that David recognised and dreaded.

  ‘You slept with her, didn’t you? She’s more or less implied it, anyway, so you needn’t lie. Oh, how disgusting! How could you?’

  David swallowed his drink and stood up. With an effort he controlled his temper but his hands trembled.

  ‘I have no intention of discussing my private life with you,’ he said quietly. ‘Yes. Felicity and I made love. It was comforting and generous and moving.’

  ‘At your ages?’ Miranda was pale with mortification and disgust. ‘It’s horrible.’

  ‘Stop this!’ David’s voice rang with the authentic note of real anger and Miranda, on uncertain ground, backed off a little. David saw it and took advantage. ‘I refuse to discuss this any further. It is no business of yours and I will not have you sitting in judgment on me. I had quite enough of that with your mother. Now. Are we having any supper this evening?’

  At the mention of her mother, Miranda flushed a dark red and, biting her lip, fled from the room. David sighed a deep sigh and finding that he was still shaking poured himself another drink. He heard the telephone ringing and the noise cut off short as Miranda answered it. Perhaps it was Tim and she was pouring out her heart to him. Well, good luck to her. He knew that Tim would be on his side but prayed that he knew better than to let Miranda know it.

  Supper was a very quiet affair. Miranda was behaving rather oddly, which didn’t particularly surprise him, but she wore an air of triumphant defiance which puzzled him a little. It was only when supper was over and he was back in the drawing room that he thought to ask her if it had been Tim who had telephoned earlier. She shook her head and set his coffee down beside his chair.

  ‘Who was it then?’

  She looked at him, still with that strange expression. ‘It was Felicity,’ she said at last. ‘I told her that you didn’t want to speak to her.’

  David opened his mouth and shut it again. After all, what could he say? He had been going out of his way not to speak to Felicity for nearly two weeks. Miranda stared at him and David shrugged and turned away. The second half of the concert on the radio was just starting—Sibelius’s First Symphony. He sat down and picked up his coffee. He must have dozed a little for he had disturbing dreams and then Miranda was leaning over him and saying that she was going up to bed. After she had gone, David got up and stretched a little and then went to pour himself a brandy and soda. As the music of the last movement filled the room, he had a sudden vision of Felicity. He stood quite still on the hearthrug and stared unseeingly ahead of him. She was walking on the moor. The wind had whipped her hair over her eyes and she was laughing at him, her eyes alight with love. Clouds streamed across the granite peaks behind her and the sky in the west gleamed with golden light. Other intimate scenes formed and re-formed in his mind’s eye. His heart beat a little faster and he knew himself for a fool. As the symphony’s last notes died away, David swore quietly to himself, set down his glass and, going upstairs to his studio, found Felicity’s number and picked up the telephone receiver.

  WHEN FELICITY WOKE ON the morning after her lunch with Kate she felt so deeply depressed that she could barely find the will to get out of bed. She went downstairs feeling miserable and when she cracked her favourite cup on the tap she felt a wave of such black despair that she had to clutch at the sink. The day went from bad to worse. She dropped a bag of sugar that exploded all over the flagstones on the larder floor and banged her head on the low beam in the bathroom as she stepped back from opening the window. Suddenly she found herself screaming.

  ‘Bloody thing!’ She struck uselessly at the beam. ‘Bloody, bloody thing!’

  The screams became sobs and she collapsed on to the loo seat, weeping uncontrollably and nursing her bruised hand. Forgetting that during the last year her monthly cycle had become a very difficult time to live through, she imagined that she must be going mad, that life simply wasn’t worth living. Exhausted physically through lack of sleep, emotionally drained, it didn’t occur to her that she had felt rather like this every month of her adult life nor that for the last year it had got progressively worse, the depression blacker, the anger more violent. The possibility that she was in the grip of menopausal despair did not suggest itself to her.

  By the evening she had decided that she would take one more chance. If David refused to speak to her she would know that it was all over and she would never bother him again. She hadn’t eaten since the few mouthful s of shepherd’s pie at Kate’s and her head was beginning to throb but she poured herself a large gin and tonic to boost her courage and settled herself at her bureau. She felt her heart give its usual jolt when the ringing tone was replaced by the click and the voice gave the number.

  ‘Hello.’ Felicity felt breathless and her voice had a tremulous quality. ‘Oh, hello. May I speak to David Porteous please?’

  ‘It’s Mrs Mainwaring, isn’t it?’ The young voice was cool. ‘I’ve just been talking to my father about you. I have a message from him. It is Mrs Mainwaring, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, it is.’ Felicity clutched the receiver in her trembling hand. Her heart jumped in her breast as hope flamed joyfully within it.

  ‘He doesn’t want to speak to you. He says he’s sorry if he gave the wrong impression whilst he was staying with you but he assumed you understood the situation and felt as he did. That it was just a bit of fun. He knew your reputation, you see. My fiance is Thea’s cousin, that’s who my father was staying with, so he knew that you were a woman of the world and how you’d tried to break up Thea’s marriage and all that. He’s behaved rather badly, I’m afraid, but that’s how he is. I’m sure you’ll be able to understand that. He made my mother very unhappy so really you’re well out of it. Anyway, he’s made it quite clear that he doesn’t want to communicate with you, so I would be glad if you’d leave us alone now.’

  There was a long silence and then the little click and the familiar buzzing sound. Felicity sat on, clutching the receiver, her eyes tight shut against the appalling things that tried to show themselves to her: David knowing about George, knowing how she had behaved to Thea, using her when she thought that he was loving her. Her heart beat with thick heavy strokes and the shock and pain seemed to create a huge lump in her chest, threatening to suffocate her. Presently she put the receiver down and picked up her glass. She drank the gin back as though it were water and stood up. Things seemed to move and rock around her and she steadied herself before she made her way to the cupboard and poured herself another drink, Her head pounded rhythmically and she knew that she must take some of her tablets. She gulped back some more gin and made a noise that was somewhere between a sob and a cry. The cool voice seemed to have got inside her head . . . knew your reputation . . . woman of the world . . . break up Thea’s marriage . . . that’s how he is . . .’ She shook her head to try to dislodge the voice and winced at the pain. Mustn’t think about that voice saying those dreadful things. Think about something else. Tablets. Must get some tablets.

  The carpet seemed to be rocking up and down as she stumbled across it to the kitchen. She opened the cupboard, almost hanging on to the doors for support, and seized the bottle. After some difficulty with the lid, she shook out two tablets and looked around. Lightning seemed to flash behind her eyes and she saw that a glass of water was standing at hand. She took the tablets, washed them down with the gin and made a wry face. Oh, dear. Not water after all. She staggered back into the sitting room still clutching the glass and collapsed on
to the sofa. The voice started up again. ‘. . . doesn’t want to communicate . . . just a bit of fun.’ Felicity began to weep. He had never loved her. She had imagined it all. He had known about her and George and had thought her fair game. She cried out, ‘Oh, no,’ at the thought of it and, getting up, went to the drinks cupboard. She seemed to be holding a glass in her hand already and she sloshed the gin in untidily, spilling it. She poured in some tonic and staggered back to the sofa. The voice muttered in her ear. ‘. . . made my mother very unhappy . . . very unhappy.’ Mustn’t think about it. Think about something else. She closed her eyes against the pain in her head and tried to concentrate on the music. The second half of the concert had started. Sibelius’s First Symphony. She must listen, let it calm her. If only her head would stop. She simply couldn’t bear the pain. She must take some tablets. Yes. That’s what she had meant to do.

  She took another gulp from her glass and scrambled up. On her way to the kitchen the pieces of furniture seemed to come out of their places, looming up at her, bumping her knees. She stood for some time in the kitchen, leaning against the wall. Presently she opened her eyes and saw the tablets standing on the working surface. That’s it. That’s what she’d come for. She must have taken them out of the cupboard without realising it. She shook some out and took two. Oh, how her head hurt! She might just take one extra one, perhaps a few extra, and then she could sleep. She washed them back with the gin and staggered back into the sitting room, collapsing on to the sofa . . . just a bit of fun . . . a bit of fun.’ Don’t listen to the voice. Listen to the music. It filled her ears and rolled around the room. She saw herself with David on the moor, she could feel the wind blowing her hair and he was smiling at her, waving, and she was going towards him. He would take her in his arms and she would never be lonely again. She began to weep soundlessly, her mouth stretched open, tears streaming down her face. It seemed as though her head would burst and she felt sick. She found that she was clutching a glass in one hand and the bottle of tablets in the other. Had she taken them yet? Surely not. Her head wouldn’t be such agony if she had. She took some more, finished off the gin and lay back, closing her eyes, dimly aware of the last movement of the symphony. It lulled her and she began to lose consciousness.