First Friends

by Marcia Willett

  ‘No,’ said Kate reluctantly. ‘Angela’s not going. She’s got something on, apparently.’

  ‘I bet she has.’ Mark gave a snort. ‘She’s no fool. She knows what these trips are like.’

  ‘Mary made it sound like fun,’ said Kate wistfully. ‘She said there were parties and things . . . ’

  ‘ ’Course she did! She needs your help. It’s a long trip up. Once you’re there you’ll be cast off like an old boot. Take my word for it.’

  ‘Well, it’ll be a bit embarrassing now.’ But Kate knew that she’d lost the battle. ‘I more or less said that I’d go.’

  ‘Well, tell her you’ve got to go home. Got to see your mother or something,’ said Mark impatiently, preparing to return to his newspaper.

  ‘But it’s almost as far to St Just as it is to Newcastle and I’d have to fight my way on a train then.’

  ‘But you won’t actually go, will you?’ Mark’s exaggeratedly patient tone made him sound like a schoolmaster trying to instil information into the head of a particularly dim pupil. ‘You’ll just tell Mary that you’re going. You can still stay on here. We’re only away for three weeks. Now,’ he shook his newspaper open, indicating that the conversation was closed, ‘are we having any breakfast this morning or aren’t we?’

  Three

  Cass pottered in her little cottage feeling relieved that Tom had gone back to sea. It was really so much easier just to have herself to worry about now that her pregnancy was advancing. Less than three months to go now and love-making was a bit uncomfortable and she didn’t feel up to washing and ironing Tom’s voluminous white cotton naval shirts or worrying about organising evening meals. Much nicer to laze about, eating and sleeping when she felt like it.

  She poured herself a glass of milk and stretched herself out on the sofa. Tom had been thrilled about the baby. He’d fussed over her like an old mother hen: she mustn’t do this and she mustn’t do that and she must put her feet up after supper while he brought her a cup of coffee. She knew how lucky she was. She took a sip of milk and grimaced to herself when she thought of poor old Kate stuck with her inlaws at that flat. Mark’s boat had just sailed for Nova Scotia and he had arranged for his parents to come and stay with Kate who had about a fortnight to go now before the babies were due.

  ‘The doctor says it’s almost certain to be twins,’ Kate had said, ‘but Mark won’t let me buy two of everything just in case it isn’t. His parents are coming to stay for the last few weeks so that, if it is two babies, they can rush off and duplicate everything while I’m still in the nursing home.’

  Cass sipped some more milk and shook her head. She’d like to have seen Tom wishing his father on her, twins or no twins. The trouble with poor old Kate was that she was too busy trying to please everyone around her. Having that grumpy old man with her was enough to make her miscarry and Cass had told her so. Not to mention that fussy old wife of his. It was no. wonder that, with parents like that, Mark was such a wet. Cass had nearly said that, too, but had restrained herself in time. She sometimes felt guilty that it was she who had introduced them. She was beginning to feel that she didn’t like Mark and it wasn’t just because he didn’t flirt with her and flatter her like all the others. At the start she had put it down to the fact that he was simply one of those quiet clever types but she had come to see that this was not the case. He had got lower marks than Tom at BRNC and on the Fourth Year Courses and there was nothing highbrow about his conversation—when he took enough interest to make any.

  Cass tried to analyse her feelings about him. There was no life in him, she decided, nothing to him and yet one never felt at ease with him. He wasn’t a jovial, friendly man like Tom—who was never happier than when he was one of a crowd—nor was he a devoted family man. He never did anything in the flat to make it more comfortable for Kate or gave the impression of being a companionable husband. He was often quite rude to her in public in a nasty sarcastic sort of way which Kate always tried to turn off with a laugh but which made Cass seethe.

  She finished her milk and sighed. Perhaps fatherhood would change him. Meanwhile it would be a kindness if she were to go round to see Kate and help to lighten the load with the in-laws. She picked up a magazine. But not today. They would barely have arrived and, after all, they would be there for another two weeks at least. Cass stretched herself comfortably. No, not today.

  THE TWINS ARRIVED TWO weeks early and the Websters had only been in the flat for forty-eight hours when Kate went into labour. It had been a hot September day and they had taken a trip to Bournemouth. When Kate woke in the night with backache, she had assumed that it was due to walking up and down the promenade, queuing endlessly for lunch and the long uncomfortable car journey. After a while, she got up and wandered into the stuffy sitting room. It was so hot. She had tried to persuade Mark that it would be sensible to move now that there were babies on the way. The flat, charming in summer, was hard work during the winter. Rising damp, an old-fashioned and temperamental solid fuel stove, nowhere to dry clothes; all these things had made Kate’s life difficult during the last winter.

  She was thankful that her pregnancy had happened through the summer so that she hadn’t had to hump coal and ashes. Mark managed to avoid all household tasks.

  ‘You have to do it whilst I’m away,’ was his argument. ‘You may as well get used to it. I don’t ask you to come and do my work on the boat.’ This was undeniable. As to moving, his answer was simple. ‘I’ll be leaving the boat some time next year. I shall have done two years by then. I might get a boat anywhere: Devonport, Faslane, anywhere. No point in moving twice.’

  Kate sat down heavily on the sofa in the dark, put her head back on the cushions and closed her eyes. Goodness, how her back did ache! Pregnancy might have been such fun if there had been someone around to share her excitement, cosset her and cater to her occasional cravings. For a brief disloyal moment she envied the few civilian wives she’d met at the clinic, whose husbands came home every evening and who—apparently—were taking such an interest in the whole procedure. Presently she felt water trickling between her thighs. Her eyes flew open. She raised her head, stared into the growing light of early morning and clenched her stomach muscles. The water trickled on.

  ‘Hell’s teeth!’ she said softly.

  CASS, DRESSED IN A flowery cotton smock and wearing a floppy linen hat on her fair head, strolled along the esplanade at Stoke’s Bay watching the holiday makers. She especially watched the very young children, enjoying their absorbed concentration on their games and the way they moved about.

  They’re like little clockwork toys, she thought. What fun it will be to have one of my own! I’m glad that Kate and I are having them at the same time. If we have girls they can go to St Audrey’s together.

  She smiled to herself at the thought and then paused. Did she recognise the girl sitting on a huge striped towel rubbing sun lotion into her thin brown arms? Surely it was the one who had married Mark Main-waring. Cass and Tom had been invited to the wedding and George Lampeter had been best man. Cass racked her brains for a moment before she remembered that the girl’s name was Felicity. She also remembered that she had appeared to be totally lacking in humour and charm and if she had been like that on her wedding day she was unlikely to prove a congenial companion. Nevertheless, she was now a naval wife and if Mark had gone to sea his wife might be lonely. Cass made her way down the steps and across the shingly sand.

  ‘Hi!’ she said. ‘Felicity, isn’t it? I’m Cass Wivenhoe. We met at your wedding. Not that I’d expect you to remember. Tom’s a very good friend of your Mark. How is he? I didn’t realise that you were here already.’

  Felicity Mainwaring, shielding her eyes from the sun, gazed up at Cass.

  ‘Yes, I remember.’ She recalled, amongst other things, that Mark and George Lampeter had behaved in a very silly manner with Cass. They’d kissed her and flattered her outrageously and left Felicity quite out in the cold. Not what a bride expects at her own we
dding. ‘I remember,’ she repeated, rather flatly, surveying Cass’s bump. ‘How are you?’ She did not invite Cass to share her towel.

  Cass flopped down anyway, obliging Felicity to draw back her thin legs.

  ‘I’m fine. Gosh, it’s hot, isn’t it?’ She pulled off her linen hat and fanned herself with it. ‘Poor old Kate must be feeling it. She’s much bigger than I am. Any day now I should think. Do you remember Kate? She’s married to another Mark and she came with us. Mark Webster. He’s another friend of your Mark.’ She giggled. ‘We’ll have to call them Mark I and Mark II. Where are you living?’

  ‘We’ve managed to get a naval hiring in Privett Road. Quite nice, actually. A thirties semi with a good garden.’

  ‘Oh, I know. What they call in Alverstoke “one of a pair.” I shall come and visit. Is Mark at sea?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Felicity, quickly. ‘He sailed yesterday.’

  ‘Well, don’t be lonely. I’m in the village. Want to come back and have some lunch?’

  ‘No,’ said Felicity, after a tiny pause. ‘No thanks. Not today. I’ve brought lunch with me and I want to make the most of the sun.’ Her eyes ranged over Cass’s pale, pearly flesh. ‘Must be infuriating not to be able to sunbathe.’ She glanced complacently at her own tanned limbs.

  ‘Not a bit,’ said Cass cheerfully, getting to her feet. ‘Nanny brought me up to think that it was terribly common. Don’t want to end up looking like an old leather saddle. Pale and interesting—that’s me! Really pulls the chaps. See you around. ‘Bye.’

  She pulled on her hat, waggled her fingers and made her way back across the beach. Felicity watched her proud, graceful progress, noticed the covert admiring glances—despite the lump—and gnashed her teeth. She thought of all the things that she might have said and dug her fingers into the sand with frustration.

  Cass went on her way smiling serenely.

  ‘FEELING TERRIBLE?’ THE LARGE dark girl paused at the bottom of Kate’s bed. The accent was definitely Australian. Kate tried to smile.

  ‘Awful backache,’ she admitted. ‘They’ve shaved me and given me an enema but they don’t really think I’m in labour.’

  ‘What do they know about it?’ The Australian girl leaned over the foot of the bed. ‘Take my advice, sweetie, have it quick and get out. If you get it over before noon you get to go home one day early. I’ve been in here forty-eight hours already. Back home they’d give me something but not here! The Matron’s a right cow!’

  ‘Are you on exchange?’ The nursing home was devoted almost totally to naval wives and Kate felt fairly certain that this girl was one.

  ‘Yeah. My old man’s in Dolphin. Where’s yours?’

  ‘At sea.’ Kate gasped with pain.

  ‘ ’Course he is! Never there when you need ’em. And if they are, they’re useless. Yesterday, one poor girl had her old man in with her. Come the interesting bit, he ups and faints right on top of her. The midwife drags him off and bundles him under the delivery table. When he comes to, he sits up suddenly and knocks himself out! Nothing but trouble, men.’

  ‘Please don’t,’ cried Kate, weakly. ‘It hurts to laugh.’

  The Australian girl looked her over judiciously. ‘Pain real bad, is it? Coming and going? You’re in labour. No doubt about it, I’d say.’

  Kate had to wait for the wave of pain to subside before she could speak. ‘But do you know anything about it?’

  ‘Sure do, sweetie. Back home I’m a midwife. Hang on, I’ll get Sister.’

  Kate closed her eyes and tried to breathe deeply as the pain laid hold and wrestled with her.

  ‘Bloody hell, Sister. You’re only just going to make it with this one.’

  Kate opened her eyes. Sister and the Australian were leaning over her.

  ‘She didn’t say that she was having contractions,’ said Sister, resentfully. ‘Only backache. I’ll get the trolley.’

  As Kate was wheeled out, the Australian leaned over her.

  ‘It’s only just on eleven. You could still make it, you lucky cow!’

  Four

  The submarine was notified of the birth of the twin boys through the usual naval channels but all Kate had was a brief telegram from Mark that arrived at the same time as a huge bouquet of flowers from the Wardroom. She was terribly touched by the latter—organised, of course, by the Captain’s wife—and was aware of the feeling of camaraderie that existed in these close-knit naval circles whilst feeling hurt that Mark had made no further effort to communicate. After all, she had told herself as she watched flowers and telegrams and husbands arriving for the other wives, I suppose there’s not much he can do when he’s nearly three thousand miles away. But at the back of her mind doubts lurked. If the Wardroom could arrange to have the flowers delivered to her, then so could Mark. Or he could have made some arrangement with his mother to buy some and left a letter with her to give to Kate after the birth. In her disappointment, she hinted as much to Mrs Webster who was obviously embarrassed by her son’s casual attitude although she hastened to Mark’s defence. Fortunately, there were several wives in the same situation which made her feel less lonely. Her parents had rushed up from Cornwall to see her and had rushed back again although Mrs Webster had pressed them to stay the night at the flat.

  “I simply couldn’t cope with him,’ admitted Kate’s mother, having kissed Kate, admired the twins and settled down to chat. ‘She’s not too bad but he manages to make me feel completely superfluous. I’ll come and stay with you when you get back home—if you want me to!’

  ‘Oh, Mummy! You know I will! I’m sorry that they’re here. It was Mark’s fault. You know I’d much rather have had you with me.’

  ‘Of course I know that.’ Elizabeth Beauchamp held her daughter’s hand tightly. ‘But we must allow them their moment. After all, Mark is their only child and this is their first grandchild—grandchildren, I should have said. I’m an old hand, remember, although it’s our first set of twins. Apparently, Mr Webster had a twin brother. Fancy there being two of them! His poor old mum!’ They chuckled guiltily. ‘Well, I suppose we must think of going soon.’

  Kate’s father had already left the ward, being constitutionally unable to survive for more than thirty minutes without a cigarette. The sight of all these lactating women and roaring babies had thrown him off his stroke and he had had to hurry out quite five minutes before his usual expiry time.

  ‘Oh, Mummy.’ Quite suddenly Kate felt that she simply couldn’t manage to go on being brave if her mother was going to leave. The loneliness of those long months of pregnancy and the sheer terror of the thought of coping alone with two new babies was unbearable. She looked at her mother’s beloved, worn, tired face and fear overwhelmed her. Elizabeth Beauchamp had a heart condition and Kate realised at that moment what it would mean to have to face life without this strong comforting love at her back. The tears she held back on other occasions, and especially in this last week, welled up and her chin shook. ‘Oh, Mummy!’

  Elizabeth gathered her close, ignoring the side glances of the other women in the ward. ‘Brace up, my darling. You can do it. Mark will be back soon.’ She wondered, as she had wondered before, why her warm-hearted, impulsive, sensitive daughter should have fallen in love with such a cold, undemonstrative and selfish young man. Should she have made more of her reservations? Kate had been so swept up in the romantic world of balls and parties and dashing young men in striking uniforms. ‘He’s the strong silent type,’ she had insisted when her mother had tentatively voiced her anxieties, but meeting Mark’s father had underlined Elizabeth’s fears. Her arms tightened around Kate and she sent up a little prayer. After all, Mark was very young and struggling with a new and exacting career. She sighed.

  Misunderstanding the sigh, Kate straightened herself and tried to smile at her mother. ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘I’m perfectly all right really and you mustn’t worry about me. Come and stay when I’m back at the flat.’ Not ‘home,’ her mother noticed. ‘We’ll have a lovely t
ime. Tell Daddy to drive carefully.’

  ‘I will. And we’ll certainly come. Or, if you prefer, when Mark goes off again we’ll drive up and pick you and the twins up and take you down to Cornwall.’

  ‘Oh, yes please!’ Kate’s eyes shone. ‘I’d love to come home. Just for a week or two.’

  Noticing the ‘home,’ Elizabeth kissed her and stood up. ‘That’s settled then, you’ve only got to say the word. Now, look what we’ve brought you.’

  She nodded to the window by Kate’s bed. Outside, on the gravel, flirting with Kate’s father and making him laugh, was Cass. Kate looked from Cass and back to her mother in amazement. ‘But how super! I’ve longed to see her but she can’t struggle about on buses in her condition. How will she get back?’

  ‘Don’t worry. We picked her up this morning and brought her with us. She’s been sitting out there on a bench in the sun. Daddy’s arranged, and paid for, a taxi to take her home. We didn’t want to leave you on your own. I’m sure you’ll both have plenty to talk about. Apparently, she suggested that the Websters gave her a lift but they’ve managed to evade it so far.’

  Kate smiled through the tears that would keep forcing themselves into her eyes. ‘They hate each other,’ she said. ‘She’s very naughty to them.’

  ‘Can’t say I blame her! And now I really must go before she captivates my husband totally. I don’t trust her an inch, even if she is seven months pregnant.’

  By the time Mark was due back from Nova Scotia, Kate was already at home with her twin boys—Guy and Giles—and adjusting to a completely different way of life. To be fair—although, as she later said to Cass, ‘Who wants to be fair?’—Major and Mrs Webster had proved very helpful in the two weeks after the twins’ birth. They had erected two cots in the spare bedroom and had doubled up on all the requirements necessary for the babies’ welfare. They had even found a huge pram, which blocked the hallway, in which they proudly pushed the twins down to the sea every afternoon, insisting that Kate should put her feet up. They moved into Kate’s bedroom and she slept in with the twins, grateful that Mrs Webster was within call should an emergency arise. None did and, after a very short while, Kate longed for them to be gone so that she might have her home—and her babies—to herself. She felt nervous when she inexpertly handled them under the critical eye of the older woman and, since it was not in her nature to assert herself in the face of experience and seniority, felt that the twins would become truly her own only when the Websters had gone home. Mrs Webster was a managing sort of woman who was delighted to have two new grandchildren and Kate felt that her independence was being taken away from her. Major Webster had no difficulty in containing his delight, muttering darkly about the cost of two children whilst Mark was still so junior, and seeming as relieved to set out for his own home as Kate was to see him go. During that two weeks, Kate had become a little fonder of Mark’s mother. Nevertheless, when their big Rover had pulled away from the kerb with Mrs Webster waving enthusiastically from the window, Kate sighed a huge sigh of relief.