by Sue Nicholls
Wandering about in his empty house, he flicked through TV channels and started unsuccessful maintenance projects on the Matchless. At work, he kept his head down to avoid the attention of his boss.
One day, missing Kitty, he rang Gloria ‘I’m round the corner,’ he said, ignoring her displeased tone. ‘I want to see Kitty.’
‘Well, er, she’s not here at the moment.’ Gloria hesitated then blurted, ‘She’s havin’ tea with a friend.’
If he had not known how very Christian Gloria was, Paul might have thought she was lying. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘tell me where and when and I’ll pick her up.’
Gloria let out a great breath that whistled down the line. ‘Paul, you’d better come round; I’ve got somethin’ to tell you.’
~~~
She made him sit on the sofa in the lounge, the very same sofa where he and Twitch… he veered from the thought. Gloria sat opposite him and put her hands together on her knees. In a gentle voice, she said, ‘Kitty’s in Mauritius. She’s with Fee and Will.’
He frowned in confusion, thinking not the Lake District then. ‘Did they take Kitty with them, then?’
‘No,’ Gloria shook her head and looked at her hands, ‘I drove her to the airport and put her on a plane. The thing is, it’s not Fee’s fault.’ Gloria made to stand up. ‘Let me make you a drink and I’ll tell you what I can.’
‘No. Tell me now.’
She subsided and concentrated on her fidgeting fingers. ‘They’re gettin’ married - Fee and Will. It’s a surprise. Fee knows nothing about it - Will arranged it with me on the telephone. Kitty and I kept it a secret, and Kitty left this mornin’ to be their bridesmaid.’
Behind Gloria, ‘family’ photographs smiled out from their frames on the sideboard. In one, Fee, Millie and Twitch sat round a table outside Fee’s beach hut. The wind was tossing Twitch’s long and wild hair across her face, and the others were holding theirs in place with their hands, laughing into the camera. Who had taken that? Another shot showed the five children, all grinning, squeezed together along a park bench, Josh with a finger up his nose. As Paul stared at the photos, he was processing Gloria’s startling revelation, trying to make sense of his thoughts and feelings. He had been semi-prepared for a new relationship, but this…
Gloria stood up. ‘I’ll make that tea.’
With a mug in her hand, she told Paul that Will had rung her some weeks ago - around the time Fee had broken the news of his existence to Paul. He asked Gloria to get Kitty ready to come out to Mauritius - made them part of his conspiracy.
‘She was so excited Paul, and she looked such a sweetheart in her outfit. I’ve been waitin’ to hear from Fee. When you called, I thought you might be her.’
‘So, you’re not sure if she went through with it?’
Gloria was silent.
He gave his tea a blow. ‘What’s he like?’
‘I’m not sure. I haven’t met him. He seemed nice enough on the phone. Well spoken, and he smiled a lot.’
‘You said you hadn’t met him.’
‘I haven’t but you can hear someone smilin’ in their voice, can’t you?’
In his pocket, Paul’s mobile phone vibrated and rang. Mick was calling in after a business trip on the continent. Paul glanced at his watch. He must have landed and be driving towards home. Paul forced a light voice. ‘Mate! Couldn’t wait to talk to me?’
Mick snorted. ‘Don’t flatter yourself. No. I called to tell you something.’ Gloria beamed at the faint sound of her son’s voice.
‘Yeah?’ Paul said.
‘Yeah. You remember that guy we saw in the deli years ago? Your neighbour?’
They had been shopping one day and encountered Max in a shop. Not wishing to share details of his counselling, Paul had told Mick and Maurice that Max was a neighbour.
‘Vaguely,’ Paul lied.
‘I saw him on my way to the airport, the day before yesterday. I didn’t remember who he was for a while… Anyway, I thought you’d want to know. He was with Fee - heading for Terminal B. Well, they weren’t moving at the time. They were repairing a puncture on the slip road.’
Paul swallowed, his brain searching for an explanation.
Mick said, ‘You still there?’
‘Yeah. You sure it was them?’
‘Pretty much. It was pissing down with rain, so we were going slowly. Listen. Where are you?’
‘I’m at Crispin Road with Gloria. You won’t believe what’s happening.’
‘I’m coming over. I was planning to drop in on Mum, anyway. See you in about an hour.’
‘Cheers.’ Paul put down the phone, thinking fast. ‘Gloria, is Fee’s mobile at home?’
‘Yes. It’s in her room. She was going to buy a cheap local one to use over there.’
He took the stairs two at a time, not sure which room was Fee’s, but it was obvious. The compulsive tidiness and the faint smell of her favourite perfume. He found her mobile in the bedside drawer, a fancy thing; better than anything he could afford. With the remaining fraction of battery, he managed to search her calling record. One number leapt out. A number he recognised straight away. A number that he had called many times. A number that would reach his counsellor, Max.
Max and Fee. He struggled to process the information. Max - his counsellor, in whom he had confided his most intimate secrets, and Fee his disdainful ex-wife.
Deep hurt made his knees shaky, and he dropped onto the bed and threw the phone back into the drawer. He had trusted Max. He had trusted Fee. He’d bet they were having a good laugh at his expense right now. Gradually, his hurt turned to fury, and with a cry of anger he launched himself from the room and charged down the staircase into the street without a word to Gloria.
~~~
Gloria rang him while he was waiting for his plane. She was worrying about him, but he had no time to feel grateful for her concern. The bloody woman had enabled this situation. However, he was calmer now, and realised he had left without finding out where Fee and Max were staying. This, at least, Gloria could help him with.
The departure gate was besieged by families, baggage, and coats. Paul’s knee beat up and down as he sat among them, thinking back to his time working with Max to calm his anger and open up his life again. Months of talking. And all the time, the man had been pumping him for information about Fee.
Hunched in his seat on the aeroplane, Paul stared with blind eyes at the in-flight magazine, his resentment building, trying to ignore the sounds of restless children, and the irritating attention of the trolley dollies. He did not care how high the bloody aeroplane was flying; he wanted to be left alone to stoke up his rage.
When the flight landed, he stepped from the plane, grubby and tired. Heat shimmered from the tarmac and smacked him in the face. The clothes he wore were unsuitable for this trip; and those he had thrown into his gym bag - not that he ever attended a gym, but those bags were useful – were no better. Now, sweat prickled his armpits and dripped down his back as he marched through passport control, uninterrupted.
A taxi driver outside the airport knew the hotel, and Paul climbed into his cab, relieved to find it air-conditioned. He rebuffed the man’s attempts at conversation and stared out of the window, barely noticing the charcoal coloured cliffs and the lively shops and bars. When they arrived at the expensive looking hotel, Paul shoved some notes at the fellow and strode off without his change.
The manager of the hotel was a stuck-up prick, who refused to tell Paul anything about Fee and Max. Paul’s language almost got him thrown out, but he managed to propel himself from the gleaming building without physical assistance, driven by the man’s cold courtesy.
Storming along the white pavement in his jacket and pullover with sweat bathing his body, discomfort soon distracted him from his fury, and he began a quest for cooler clothing. Half an hour later he stepped from a souvenir shop sporting flip-flops, a tee-shirt, and knee-length shorts. He flapped past jewellery shops, bars, and restaurants to a cheap litt
le pension about a mile from Fee’s hotel, and after checking in with the refreshingly pleasant female proprietor, Paul set about finding a bar.
Soon he was seated at a pavement table behind a potted palm tree - the perfect spot, right opposite Fee’s hotel. He watched the entrance between the fringes of the plant’s leaves and was so preoccupied that when a girl approached to take his order, he hardly noticed the clarity of her skin and trimness of her waist. He ordered breakfast - a beer - then lit a cigarette and settled back in his chair to wait.
After twenty minutes, his patience was repaid when his ex-wife clopped up the hotel steps in a strappy dress, the outline of her slender legs visible through its diaphanous fabric. A dainty handbag swung from one rosy shoulder as she vanished inside. Paul ordered another beer.
When she reappeared, she had changed her shoes to a pair of sensible pumps. Paul threw down the last of his beer and more of his cash and hurried after her. Their route took them along the road and up a broad, gritty path. Loose volcanic chippings collected inside Paul’s flip-flops, and he dodged behind some bushes to flap them out. Ahead, Fee took a right, and when Paul reached the same spot, she was crossing a wide area of scrubby grass, walking towards a cliff edge where it was bordered by a low chain-link fence. Paul paused, wary of stepping into the open. Some distance ahead a restaurant with a long, deserted veranda looked cool and inviting. A path snaked close to the building and into the distance along the cliff top beyond. To his right, between Fee and the restaurant, a dramatic mass of volcanic rock climbed into the sky and jutted into the sea forming a steep promontory that interrupted the smooth line of the cliff edge. Paul expected Fee to head for the restaurant, but instead, she scrambled up the rugged mound. Max was nowhere in sight, and Paul glanced over his shoulder, but there was no sign of the fucker behind him, and he blew out a breath.
When she reached the towering peak, Fee smoothed her skirt and sat down, dangling her legs over the edge. She leant on her arms and threw back her head, letting the sun warm her face.
Paul’s furious blood pumped in his ears, and he became deaf to the screaming gulls and roar of the sea. How dare she be so content? Without a plan in his head, he discarded his flip-flops under a tree and charged across the open space towards Fee. He pumped up the rocky hill, scree tumbling behind and sharp projections stabbing his feet. When he reached her, Fee opened her eyes. They widened when she realised who he was. ‘Paul, what…’ but those were the last words she ever spoke. With one hard kick, Paul shoved her off her perch with his bare foot. Her scream echoed from the wall of rock and ceased abruptly. Paul turned, panting.
Then he saw him - Max Rutherford - emerging from the restaurant with two wine glasses. When Max spotted Paul, he dropped the glasses and with a look of pure terror, charged towards the spot where Paul was poised to run, and where Fee had so recently been sitting.
Paul grinned at him once, skidded down the outcrop and back the way he had come.
Under the tree, his breath came in gasps as he fumbled for his phone. ‘Er bonjour. Er police?’ He watched Max in the near distance reach the spot, peer over the edge then drop to his knees with his hands over his face.
~~~
Paul glanced at his friends, both of whom wore weird expressions - not the shocked faces he might have expected after such a revelation. He poked out his chin and said, ‘Something you want to say to me?’
Sweating, Mick swivelled his eyes to Maurice then back to Paul. ‘Paul, there’s something I should tell you.’
Maurice swallowed. ‘Me too…’
76 KITTY
The horrible contraption fixed to Kitty’s hips had been replaced by a kind of girdle, and with the help of gruelling physiotherapy, her legs were growing stronger, but she was still confined to her room, and her patience and temper were fraying. Jim, the Editor of the newspaper that provided her with most of her income, visited occasionally, bringing grapes or biscuits; uncomfortable, not wishing to upset her by discussing the newspaper that was their usual topic of conversation. He said he was not great with blubbing women, and Kitty smirked to herself. She was not that great at blubbing, so she did not see the problem.
Although being an invalid was tedious, it was safe here. Her confidence had taken a bashing and more than that, there was something in people’s faces, something she was not being told that fed her insecurity. She thought about the Matchless. She had ridden that motorbike for years. Like a lover, she knew every part of its engine and body. Never had she imagined she might crash it.
Her memory of the accident was zero, but she understood that she had been in collision with a car, and the driver had left the scene. This event, amazingly, had not upset her. It seemed like a fairy tale - something that had happened to someone else. Even though she was lying here in a terrible state, she could not connect her condition with this story of the accident.
It would be months before she was well enough to ride her poor bike. Sam had rescued it from the police garage and, bless him, found a specialist restorer. The old girl would survive - that would please Dad. The thought of her father reminded her that Paul had not visited for days. Cerys and Anwen visited regularly, but apparently, his virus had spread to his chest, which made everyone worry that he would bring bacteria into the hospital. Fair enough, but he might have rung her. She hoped he would come today.
Sam had been a star, sitting here beside her every day, making her laugh with stories of Cerys and Anwen’s arguing over social media and Luc falling in love. She put out a hand and touched the iPad and a reporter’s notebook Sam had left for her. She had not tried to write. Some obstacle was preventing her. It was a problem she could not yet face, so she put in earbuds and tuned the phone to Classic FM. The music was soothing, and she closed her eyes, drifting to sleep amid the strings of Elgar’s Nimrod.
‘Knock, knock.’
She jerked from the beginnings of a dream and pulled out the earphones. Sam’s face smiled at her from the doorway. Was it her imagination or was he tense?
‘Hi.’ Kitty beckoned him in. ‘Everything OK?’
‘Not too bad.’ He pulled a chair close to the bed. ‘Bit odd to be honest.’
‘What is it?’ It was not like Sam to bring troubles to her room, and she clasped the fingers of both hands behind her neck, as if supporting her head would help her face whatever followed.
He hesitated. ‘Do you need anything?’
She glared at him. ‘Sam. Tell me. I’m not terminally ill or anything. I can take it. Tell me now.’
‘You won’t like it.’ Sam’s face was grim, and Kitty’s unease grew.
She dropped her hands into her lap and listened to his story of Mick’s death and Maurice and Paul’s arrests with increasing anxiety and disbelief. When he told her that one of their fathers was responsible for her accident, had driven straight into her as she came round the curve of the road, she found she could not breathe. Her lungs heaved but her breath would not come past a tight belt around her chest.
As she gasped, Sam flew to the door shouting for help, and a nurse hurried in. After a brief examination, she pronounced her opinion that Kitty was experiencing a panic attack. ‘Blow out slowly,’ she ordered. ‘That’s it. Now in again. Count to five. Good.’
Gradually, Kitty’s heart rate slowed, and her breathing became easier.
Sam shook his head. ‘I’m so sorry. I should have told you more gently.
Kitty said, ‘It’s OK. It was only a panic attack. Nothing broken. No permanent damage.’
Sam subsided into a chair. ‘There is one positive thing.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘Not positive, but I understand how you feel about Paul. We’re both in the same situation - Josh too.’
‘Yeah. And poor Lucas. He’s lost his Dad - they were so close. Has anyone told Olivia?’
‘Lucas rang her. They’re at his place now.’
In silence, Kitty struggled to organise her thoughts. She wished now that Max had left her
alone. But he was innocent of a crime he had served nearly thirty years for. Realisation hit her. ‘Sam!’
‘What? Are you OK?’
Yes, well, no, but that’s not why I yelled. Have you told Max?’
‘How could I? I have no idea where he is.’
Poor Max! Kitty fumbled for her phone, still attached to the ear buds. ‘Here’s his number. Call him. He doesn’t even know I’m in hospital. We have to tell him what’s happened, but not over the phone.’ Kitty pulled the sheet over her face and let herself weep; her tears feeding the pounding in her injured head. With one hand on her arm, Sam thumbed Max’s number.
~~~
When he crept into Kitty’s room, Max’s expression was wary. Kitty could not blame him for that. The last time they met, she was hateful to him. He had kept his promise not to interfere, had asked no questions, requested no progress reports. How he must have suffered.
‘Hi.’ Kitty’s voice stuck in the constriction of her throat.
‘Kitty. What’s happened to you?’ Max’s eyes travelled from her face, down her body, taking in the bruises, the bandage and the cruel, metal equipment.
Sam patted a chair. ‘Sit down, Max. Kitty and I have a lot to tell you.’
Kitty eased herself upright, grimacing at the pain that fired down her legs. ‘The first thing to tell you is that we have proved your innocence,’ she told him.
Max gave a whimper but kept his eyes fixed on Kitty. ‘Tell me.’
‘We went to Mauritius and found a witness,’ Kitty began.
Max laughed. ‘A witness. I can’t believe that. Who?’
‘A fisherman. He was in the bay, up to no good, so he hadn’t come forward before, but we managed to find him and, to cut a long story short, he recognised my dad.’
Max punched his palm, then he realised the implications. ‘Oh, Kitty. I’m so sorry. Where is Paul now?’
‘He’s in custody. So is Maurice.’
‘Maurice? Really?’
