Mary Kate

by Nadine Dorries

  ‘Stanley, sit down! Would you sit,’ said Michael, who’d rowed almost as far as the island.

  But it was too late. Stanley landed on the side of the boat, and as Michael stood to steady the rocking, the other boys got frightened, leapt to their feet, and made the situation worse.

  The boat rocked wildly from side to side. Michael, his hands grabbing the edges, shouted, ‘Jesus, sit down! Sit down now or we’ll all be in.’

  Those were the last words he spoke for some time as, with a large splash and many screams of panic from the five little boys, everyone tumbled into the water. The boat, very calmly and slowly, slipped beneath the surface of the lake.

  19

  ‘What in God’s name would you do with this heat? It feels to me like there’s a thunderstorm on the way,’ Joan exclaimed as she sliced a freshly cooked ham for the supper. ‘Will you be staying to eat tonight or what?’ she asked Mary Kate, who was ironing the boys’ freshly laundered clothes as the sweat dripped from her brow.

  Mary Kate lifted her arm to her forehead and wiped the strands of sticky hair away. She wondered whether Mrs O’Keefe would let her have a bath when she returned to the house. Back home in Tarabeg, there was no end of hot water, heated by the fire and the range in the kitchen. She remembered how, every Sunday, Granny Nola and Seamus came down the hill to the house for a bath, and her heart folded.

  ‘No, I won’t be, thanks, Joan. Mrs O’Keefe and Deidra are keeping mine ready for me again.’

  Joan glanced up, the knife in her hand poised in mid air. ‘Will ye be coming back again tomorrow?’ she asked, her voice full of doubt. ‘Only I wouldn’t blame you if you weren’t. David has been a right little sod.’

  Mary Kate folded the last pair of shorts. ‘I will be back, and don’t worry about David. It’s a battle of the wills and he’s determined to win, only he won’t, I will, and the sooner he realises that, the better. I’m surrounded by little boys with more cunning than he has, back in Tarabeg.’

  As she placed the clothes into the wicker basket ready to take up to the boys’ room, she sighed. David had yet again done everything he could to make life difficult. He had let Jet out of the back gate and the dog had run away, sending Jack into the kitchen crying. Her late afternoon had been spent racing up and down the back entry shouting for Jet, whom she and Jack had eventually found in the park. She’d led the dog home by the collar, only to be met by Mrs Marcus stepping out of a taxi.

  ‘Mummy, Mummy,’ shouted Jack, hurtling himself at her and throwing his arms around her waist.

  ‘Jack, my skirt! Your hands are filthy – get off.’ She unpeeled his hands from around her waist and pushed him away. As she did, her eyes fell on Mary Kate, still crouched, holding on to Jet by his collar. ‘I thought I had employed you to look after my children, not the dog. Where is David?’ She snapped her handbag closed after putting her purse back inside. The taxi driver shot Mary Kate and Jack a look of deep sympathy as he pulled away from the kerb.

  ‘He’s in the kitchen with Joan and the boys from next door. The dog… escaped, so I had to find him.’ She resisted the urge to tell her it had been David who’d set him free, creating almost an hour of work for her and a distressed Jack.

  ‘Well, next time, leave the dog. If he wants to run off, he can. It was my husband’s idea to have a dog, not mine. Bring these up to my dressing room later, would you. And, Jack, it is time for your bath.’ She deposited a box and a bag on the ground and, turning on her heel, headed up the steps to the house.

  Mary Kate looked Jet square in the eye. ‘Don’t you dare even think about running away when I let go of your collar to pick up those bags, do you hear me? You just sit there. Jack, watch him, will you.’

  Jet wagged his tail and sat on the ground next to Jack, his ears pricked, ready for his next instruction. She picked up the bags with one hand and said to the dog and Jack, ‘Come on, both of you, it’s time for your tea. Joan has a nice bit of ham for you.’

  It was as if Jet understood English; he followed her and Jack tamely around to the back door, only to be greeted by David fighting with the neighbours’ son.

  It had been a difficult day, and if she were to survive, she would have to find a way to cope, to bring harmony into a house which appeared to be totally devoid of parents. Even so, David seemed to have exhausted his naughty streak by supper, and she said as much to Joan once the boys had sat down to eat.

  ‘He’s just hungry,’ Joan replied. ‘He’s been able to run about more now that you’re here. When it was just me, we went to the park every morning, but most of the time they were stuck in the kitchen while I had to get on with the jobs. I swear by all that is holy, Dr Marcus has no idea that she spends almost every day out of the house. On Sundays she puts on a different show altogether.’ She raised her eyes to the ceiling, in the general direction of Mrs Marcus.

  ‘Are you cooking their supper tonight too?’ asked Mary Kate.

  ‘No, they’re both off out to a party. But sometimes he doesn’t get home in time and when that happens, run for your life – you cannot imagine the way she gives out to the poor man. He was supposed to be home early tonight, he told me when he came down for some toast this morning, but I’ll believe that when I see it.’

  Mary Kate glanced up at the large kitchen clock suspended high on the wall over the back door. ‘I can’t be late or I’ll have Mrs O’Keefe giving out to me. What do we do with the boys then, if she goes out?’

  Joan shredded the ham from the bone, and as the steam and the smell rose, Mary Kate’s tummy rumbled. Joan wiped her hands on her apron. ‘After they’ve eaten, they can go up to the boys’ sitting room and watch the TV. Dr Marcus always goes in as soon as he gets home and spends half an hour with them, and it’s always him who puts them to bed. Loves those boys, he does. If he’s going to be late and miss it, he will always ring first.’

  ‘Right, well, while they’re finishing their supper, I’ll take this basket upstairs, shall I? Oh, and these flamin’ parcels she gave me.’ Mary Kate balanced the basket of ironing on her hip, gripped the handles of the box and the bag in her hand, and struggled through the door to the stairs.

  ‘A note was delivered for her an hour ago,’ Joan said. ‘I put it on the hall table – just check it’s gone and she has it, would you? The boy who brought it said it was urgent.’

  The letter tray on the hall table was empty. As Mary Kate reached the first-floor landing, she heard the water being run in the bathroom. Loud music from the radio spilt out from the main bedroom, along with a sweet, heady aroma. She thought it must be Mrs Marcus running a bath before her party. She filled her nostrils with the fragrance and smiled; perfume was a novelty to Mary Kate.

  Turning the brass handle on the white panelled door, she walked straight into the dressing room opposite the bedroom to deposit the bags. In the dimly lit room, what met her was disarray: clothes scattered across the floor, dresses half on hangers, a coat hanging from the corner of a French cheval mirror in the corner and stockings trailing over the edge of a stack of hat boxes. The room was the size of Deidra’s bedroom at Mrs O’Keefe’s, but without the window.

  Mary Kate fumbled on the wall for the brass light switch, with half an intention of tidying a bit of space in which to leave the bags. The central ceiling light flickered into life, revealing that the room was in a worse mess than the shaft of light from the landing had led her to believe.

  ‘Where do I put them?’ she asked herself. She spotted a pale pink velvet chair in the corner opposite the mirror. It was clear, with a small heap of clothes piled alongside it, as though someone had pushed them off the chair to make space to sit down. But there was something on the chair; an open note rested on the pink velvet.

  ‘Here we go,’ she said as she crossed the room.

  She lifted the note to set the parcels down on the chair and had every intention of placing the note on top of them, but her eyes were drawn to three words that leapt off the page: ‘my little kitten’.

>   Her skin prickled and tightened as she glanced over her shoulder. The music had filled the room and, apart from the splashing of water in the bathroom and Mrs Marcus humming along to Neil Sedaka, she was alone. Her eyes returned to the note and her hand trembled as she read.

  Hotel booked, my little kitten. I will collect you from the junction with Aigburth Road at 9.30 a.m. tomorrow. I’ve booked us into the restaurant in the hotel and I’ve taken a room with a romantic view – only the best for you.

  Forgive me if I deliberately ignore you tonight – better to not raise the slightest suspicion. Pity me, having to avoid you, when all I will want to do is wrap my arms around you and feel your beautiful silky skin beneath my fingers. As I look at you, I will see you not in your cocktail dress but naked, happy, lying in bed next to me, just as you so often do.

  Mary Kate’s face flamed with guilt and embarrassment and the letter fell to the floor. ‘Oh God, you wicked girl,’ she muttered to herself as she placed the bags on the chair and stooped to retrieve the note.

  If she put the note on top of the bags, Mrs Marcus would know that she’d read it. The realisation of what the note revealed was filtering through. Mrs Marcus was having an affair. Mary Kate and Roshine had heard of such things. She knew they happened. One of the girls at the convent had had just such a catastrophe occur in her family and she’d disappeared from the school overnight, with her father collecting her in his car. Not a word was spoken, but Mary Kate remembered his stony, ashen face and the shame of his tearful daughter as, with her head bent low, she slunk off down the stairs into the hallway and out of the door her father held open. The whispers had flown around the dorm like wildfire: her mother had had an affair with the cowman and run away to Roscommon, where no one knew them. In that moment, it occurred to Mary Kate: was that what Bee had done?

  Was Mrs Marcus having an affair with a cowman or a man like Captain Bob? Was it more common than she thought? What if lovely Dr Marcus should read it? His heart would be broken – what then?

  She was about to slip the note under the bags, to make it appear as though she hadn’t noticed it at all and had simply dumped the parcels on top of it.

  ‘And just why are you a wicked girl?’ A voice came from behind her and she screamed as she jumped around to look into the wryly smiling face of Dr Marcus.

  Her mouth opened and closed, and the note in her hand burnt her fingers. She could think of nothing to say as she quickly hid her hands behind her back, trying to conceal the note. She wanted to throw it to the floor and kick it under a pile of the scattered clothes, but it was as if it were glued to her fingers.

  ‘Well, wickedness is a great sin, is it not?’

  She could see now that he was half joking; he couldn’t keep the mirth from his eyes. He hadn’t noticed the note – his gaze was fixed on her face.

  ‘What is this terrible thing you have done, Mary Kate?’

  The Neil Sedaka song had finished, to be replaced by ‘Three Steps to Heaven’, and she heard the gurgle of the bathwater disappearing down the plughole. Mrs Marcus would be in there any moment to collect her clothes – maybe she’d want to wear whatever was in the parcels she’d bought today. Mary Kate’s heart beat faster and beads of perspiration sprang up along her top lip. She blinked furiously, her mind racing, looking for a way out of the predicament she was in, but she could find none. She was trapped. Mrs Marcus and the despicable cowman were about to be exposed and Dr Marcus would be put through the shame of finding out, all because of her.

  A quizzical look crossed Dr Marcus’s face as he tucked his hands into his pockets and nonchalantly leant against the wall.

  The thought went through her mind that he was the most attractive man she had ever met. Her emotions were in such turmoil, her mind froze.

  ‘Come on then, Mary Kate. I’m waiting,’ he said, and she could see that his eyes were laughing at her.

  ‘Well… it was a thought, Dr Marcus, not something I have done as such. Like, just a thought I had. It was nothing, really.’ Her hands unconsciously gripped the note harder and her heart sank as the sound of crinkling paper filled the space between them.

  ‘Oh, a wicked thought indeed? I like that even more.’ His mouth lifted at the corners and broke into a wide grin, which had the effect of melting her heart.

  Mary Kate felt faint with relief. He was smiling. She could get out of this. ‘Well, I am entitled to keep my own thoughts private,’ she said as she flicked her hair over her ears with her free hand and pulled the hand with the note further up her back.

  ‘You are indeed – as are we all,’ he said. Changing the subject, he pushed himself away from the wall and smoothed his grey flannel trousers. ‘How have my boys been today? Did they behave themselves?’

  Mary Kate had no idea where the words came from as she blurted out, ‘No, they did not. Well, actually, Jack was an angel, and David, he was a little devil, but I will get the better of him, I can tell you. He will be behaving like an angel too, just give me a week. I was thinking of paying a visit to see Cat and taking them with me. Would that be all right with you?’

  She was chatting nervously, consciously diverting his attention, wary of his reply, well aware that the neighbourhood Cat lived in was a million miles from Fullmore Park. She hadn’t intended to do any such thing – the notion had just flown into her head. ‘I haven’t asked Mrs Marcus yet,’ she said, ‘but I thought that as you know where and what I mean when I talk about visiting Cat, ’twould be better to ask you first.’

  The sound of the radio, a dog barking out in the road, the bathwater draining, and the squeak of a door opening and closing filled the long moment of silence and she imagined she could see the thoughts flickering behind his eyes as his smile turned into a frown. ‘I think it might be best…’ His words were spoken slowly, ponderously. He took a breath, blinked, folded his arms across his chest, repeated himself. ‘I think it might be best if you just tell my wife you’re taking them to visit a friend of yours. Don’t tell her where – although I’m sure she won’t ask.’ A cloud had crossed his face and he looked sad, lost, vulnerable.

  She stared into his eyes and realised that she knew exactly what she was doing. It thrilled her. And his eyes were speaking back.

  Neither moved and the moment seemed to last forever, until the voice of Mrs Marcus rang out. ‘Nicholas, is that you?’

  ‘Coming, darling.’ Looking embarrassed, he took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders. He seemed pale and tired. ‘I have to go,’ he said wryly.

  ‘Yes, me too. I have to put the boys’ clothes away.’

  Mary Kate followed him out of the room and stood on the landing, holding her breath as he closed the bedroom door behind him. A waft of Midnight in Paris drifted out. The latch clicked and she waited for a moment, stood stock still. She heard the sound of muffled voices, the opening and shutting of a drawer, and then, turning on her heel, she tiptoed back into the dressing room. She would return the note to the chair and deposit the parcels on top.

  Her heart was beating against her ribcage like a trapped bird and as she re-entered the dressing room, her breath was shallow; she was terrified of being heard. A floorboard creaked and she banged her toe against the protruding foot of the cheval mirror as she bent to pick up the parcels. The top box slipped and she cursed under her breath as she moved back to the chair and bent to replace the note.

  This time when the voice behind her called her name, she thought she might faint. The words trickled down her spine.

  ‘Mary Kate, would you pass me that note, please.’

  20

  Mary Kate froze as she looked down at the note in her hand.

  ‘Mary Kate, please.’ A muscle in his cheek had begun twitching uncontrollably as he held out his hand. His face was void of all colour. ‘The note – I take it it doesn’t belong to you, as you were hiding it behind your back and looking extremely guilty, if I may say?’

  Mary Kate was speechless. She still clung onto the note, which was
now vibrating wildly in her trembling hand. She was too scared to look up. Her tongue stuck fast to the roof of her mouth while her eyes stared at the note, willing it to disappear in a puff of smoke.

  This cannot be happening, she thought to herself. She was reminded of the occasions she’d been sent to stand outside Sister Magdalena’s office, which had been bad enough, but this was a million times worse. Had she really still been at St Catherine’s only a matter of weeks ago? She blinked furiously and tried to swallow. Oh God, Roshine, help me, she thought, but her old partner in crime was as good as a thousand miles away now. Mary Kate was in this mess alone.

  Dr Marcus’s voice cut through her panicked thoughts once more. ‘Would you pass it to me then, please. Is it addressed to my wife? I can see by your reaction that it is something you would rather I didn’t see.’ His voice sounded softer now. She detected no anger, only a hint of sadness.

  She knew the contents of the note would tear the Marcus household apart, would destroy everything – the home, the children and him. How would he survive the shame if it should get out? She felt lightheaded and, closing her eyes, reached out her free hand to the cheval to steady herself.

  A beam of pink light shone down from the fringed lampshade overhead, directly onto the letter, and exposed the menacing message. The back ink danced before her eyes and all she could see through her blurred vision were the taunting, incriminating words: ‘little kitten… naked… in bed next to me…’

  ‘Oh God,’ she groaned, and felt the note being tugged from her fingers by his outstretched hand.

  She opened her eyes wide to see him scanning the page. It was a moment that felt like a lifetime and her feet, rooted to the spot, only just supported her as her knees began to shake violently.

  Dr Marcus looked confused as he turned the note over, seemingly studying the handwriting or maybe checking that it really was addressed to his wife. He turned it back over and Mary Kate flinched to see the pain flashing across his face. His lips tightened into a line and the colour rose once more, his cheeks now bright red. His jaw was set rigid. His eyes reached the bottom of the page, then lifted, dazed, and locked onto hers, pinning her to the spot. She felt more humiliated than she had ever been in her life. The crime she’d committed, the words on the page, the like of which she’d never seen before, and now this, being caught.