First Friends

by Marcia Willett

  How to explain it all to Kate? She had a very good idea that Kate had gone through exactly the same process with Alex. She had been knocked sideways by it all. The fact remained that when it came to a choice between Alex and the twins there had been no contest. And Alex wasn’t a married man. She knew that Kate would not encourage her to put her marriage at risk for a man who was obviously very attached to his wife. Sarah was the big fly in the ointment. He never discussed her with Cass but she couldn’t help but wonder why he remained with an older, plain and apparently rather dreary woman when he could have had almost any woman he chose. It was a mystery.

  Cass turned back to the house. Kate would be here at any moment so at least she could get the kettle on. As for the rest, she would have to play it by ear.

  KATE WAS DRIVING THOUGHTFULLY across the moor. She couldn’t decide whether to present Harriet’s dilemma to Cass or to pretend that she was assuming that all was well and see what transpired. It would be an ironic manifestation of poetic justice if it were to be Tom, after all this, who broke up his marriage. Kate shook her head. She simply couldn’t believe that after all this time it could come to that. However Tom and Cass might behave, they had a very stable relationship and a great deal to lose. Surely they wouldn’t throw it all away? Kate wished that the General were still alive. Although she couldn’t have discussed this particular situation with him, he had a knack of saying things, quoting passages that on reflection had great relevance to life and had the effect of clearing her brain. She missed him every bit as much as she had known she would and still caught herself talking aloud to him, usually when she was walking on the moor. The mere thought of him was enough to calm her fears and give her thoughts a sensible direction. When she drove up the drive and parked by the front steps she was still thinking of him and, when she slammed the door and looked round and saw Cass standing by the door, all her inhibitions fell away.

  They grinned at one another and the next moment were hugging as they had for the past twenty-four years. Kate held Cass away from her and knew at once that she was in the throes of something momentous. She looked at her for a long moment.

  ‘I have a horrid feeling that whatever it is, it’s a great deal worse than Russian roulette,’ she said, and Cass burst out laughing.

  ‘I should have known that I couldn’t fool you,’ she said. ‘Come on. Let’s have a drink. I don’t think that coffee will be nearly strong enough.’

  ‘Oh, Cass. What’s going on?’

  Cass went ahead into the kitchen. She fiddled with mugs and spoons and then, abandoning them, she turned to look at Kate who had sat down at the table.

  ‘With my track record I don’t expect you to take this seriously but I’ve met someone and,’ she clasped her hands, rubbed her face and finally shook her head, ‘well, I’ve just fallen for him. Really, I mean. Don’t you dare laugh, Kate.’

  But Kate was showing no inclination to laugh. She watched Cass compassionately knowing that this was exactly what she had always feared would happen. Cass’s lighthearted amours had carried with them the risk of backfiring and injuring her. Kate felt no desire whatever to laugh.

  ‘Does Tom know?’ she asked.

  ‘Tom,’ said Cass with a little snort, ‘is far too wrapped up in Harriet Masters to have the least idea about anything else.’

  Well, that at least answered the question about whether Cass knew or not. Kate hesitated a little.

  ‘Is it because of that?’ she began tentatively.

  ‘Good grief, no,’ said Cass at once. ‘I pushed Tom into Harriet’s arms to keep him off the scent. You know she’s always had a thing about him.’

  ‘Oh, Cass.’ Kate put her head in her hands. She rubbed her forehead with her fingers and looked up to see Cass watching her. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know. Nothing desperate at the moment. I love him, Kate.’

  ‘I’m sure you do,’ said Kate gently. ‘Just don’t do anything in a hurry. Don’t go throwing the baby out with the bath water. You’ve got so much to lose, Cass.’

  ‘You don’t need to tell me that.’

  Kate had never seen quite that mixture of despair, joy and fear on Cass’s face and she got up and went to her.

  ‘Remember your old pa,’ she said, putting her arm round her. ‘Remember how he used to tell us “think each problem through twice and then don’t do it”? I know it was a joke but it’s not a bad rule.’

  At the mention of the General, Cass began to weep. Kate pushed her into a chair.

  ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘This calls for something stronger than coffee. Hang on. I’ll get us a drink.’

  HARRIET OPENED THE CUPBOARD that housed her clothes and gazed at them despairingly. She was sick to death of them. Michael had suggested that he drive her back to Lee-on-Solent to collect some of her belongings. They could pack the back of the Volvo with the smaller items and arrange to put the rest into store until she decided what to do with them. The house was already up for sale and, apparently, great interest was being shown in it. Harriet, however, was filled with a tremendous apathy. The mere thought of the drive to Hampshire was horrific to her, let alone all that packing up . . . Michael would help, of course. Michael. Harriet shut the cupboard and sat down on the bed. He had been wonderful to her, had made love to her with such tenderness that she’d been near to tears, but for himself it had been an appalling failure. In the end he’d given up, dressed and, bleak-faced, had gone downstairs. When she’d joined him, wrapping herself in his dressing-gown, he’d been hunched beside the Aga. He looked so vulnerable and unhappy that her heart went out to him.

  ‘Sorry about that.’ He didn’t look at her.

  ‘Michael, please! It couldn’t matter less. And anyway it was wonderful for me. You mustn’t blame yourself. After all, it’s not your fault if I don’t turn you on.’

  ‘For God’s sake!’ She jumped as he rose with a violent movement and slammed his hand down on the table. ‘It’s not your fault. OK? I’m just not very good at it. Not like Tom, for instance, who I expect is wonderful in bed.’

  ‘Michael!’ She stared at him aghast.

  ‘Sorry. I’m sorry. That was unforgivable.’ He rubbed his hand across his brow. ‘I’m in a disgusting mood. I think I’ll go and walk it off.’

  Ignoring her pleas he went into the utility room where she heard him talking to Max. Presently the back door slammed. After a few moments she went to sit where he had been sitting, huddling against the Aga for warmth.

  Now, sitting on the bed in the cottage at Moortown, she realised that she’d hurt him terribly. She knew she shouldn’t have asked him to do it, especially when she had known in her heart that he didn’t really want to. It had been an act of total selfishness. She knew now that subconsciously she had hoped that it would help her make up her mind and it had all backfired on her. Michael’s love-making had been a continuation of his caring and all that he felt for her, she’d been pleasured in every way possible, and she’d just lain there and loved it. With Tom it was like sharing a performance with an expert at the height of his powers, exciting, yes, and satisfying but not so moving. And what did any of it prove? That Michael was in love with her and Tom was not? And more to the point, how did she feel herself? Just when Tom was at last within her grasp, after years of longing for that very thing, she was now wondering if, after all, she was in love with Michael. It was like some terrible joke. She wondered if Michael could possibly continue to love her now that he knew about Tom. And, if he did, then why had their love-making been so disastrous for him?

  Michael had continued to behave exactly as usual, just as he had after the Tom incident, but Harriet hated to feel that there was anything unsaid between them. Certainly there had been no suggestion of further love-making and Harriet, who was no psychologist and had no idea of Michael’s fear of being found inadequate after Tom’s sexual feats, could only assume that perhaps he didn’t love her after all. And, given that it was Tom she was supposed to be i
n love with, should that matter?

  Perhaps a trip to Lee with Michael would be a good thing. They would have the opportunity to talk things over and if they stayed overnight on neutral ground—after all Michael need never know that Tom had ever been to her house in Lee—perhaps things may straighten themselves out. Was it possible to be in love with two men at once? Harriet sighed and started to get dressed.

  IN THE END, JANE telephoned Cass and asked her to come over. She said that she had a problem that she didn’t know how to solve and was hoping that Cass could help her. Cass, who now knew that she had Kate’s support and sympathy, if not her approval, and was rather surprised at the measure of relief at having been able to share everything with her, was only too pleased to help a fellow sufferer and agreed to come to coffee the next morning.

  She hesitated as she approached the gate. Was Jane a back-door person? When visiting most of her friends it would not occur to Cass to knock at the front door and then wait politely to be let in. Much more likely would be for her to let herself in through a back or kitchen door calling: ‘Hi! It’s me!’ Jane, however, was not what she would term a friend and Cass couldn’t imagine Jane walking into anyone’s house uninvited, however well she knew them.

  As it was, the problem was solved for her. As she advanced up the drive the front door opened and Jane stood waiting for her.

  ‘Hi!’ cried Cass, her glance travelling over Jane’s clothes and hair and wondering, as usual, where on earth she had found those awful old jeans—and that jersey. How she could go out and choose things like that was beyond Cass’s powers of imagination. And why did her hair look as if it had been attacked by a knife and fork? She could be quite attractive if she tried.

  ‘Hello. Go on in, it’s the room on your left.’ Jane shut the front door behind her wondering, as usual, why Cass always had to dress up. She obviously spent a fortune on her clothes which seemed so pointless stuck out here in the middle of nowhere.

  ‘What a cosy room!’ Cass turned to beam at Jane who was well aware that her lounge-diner could have been dropped into Cass’s drawing room quite easily and with room to spare. ‘I had no idea these houses were so nice.’

  You’ve only seen one room, thought Jane sourly, and then pulled herself together. She’d get nowhere if she let her antagonism overcome her.

  ‘Yes, they’re quite cosy but a bit on the small side. Actually the house is one of the things I want to talk to you about but I’ll make the coffee first.’

  She went off to the kitchen while Cass did an inventory of the small, neat room. Three-piece Dralon-covered suite at one end . . . a round coffee table with a glass top inset . . . television on its own table . . . various pot plants . . . a ghastly picture of a shoreline with big breakers turning to white horses. Cass shuddered and glanced through to the dining area. One oval teak dining table . . . four matching chairs (more Dralon) . . . another ghastly picture—this time of an Italian child with tears trickling from its improbably huge eyes. How incredibly clean and highly polished everything was; perhaps she ought to have Jane cleaning for her instead of Hammy. On second thoughts, that wouldn’t work now that Alan had been made up. One couldn’t have one officer’s wife cleaning for another officer’s wife—not at all the thing!

  ‘Come and sit down.’ Cass jumped as Jane, with a loaded tray, spoke from the doorway.

  ‘Right.’ Cass sat herself down in one of the armchairs. ‘Gosh, that looks good.’

  ‘Yes,’ Jane surveyed the tray glumly, despising herself for bringing out the best china and baking some special biscuits. She’d even bought lump sugar, though she hadn’t any tongs. The fresh coffee smelt delicious as she poured it from the glass jug. Why not just the usual instant in a mug?

  ‘Thanks,’ Cass accepted the coffee and took two biscuits. ‘Now, come on, what’s all this about? I’m dying of curiosity.’

  Silly cow, thought Jane, but at least it makes it easier than pretending it’s a purely social visit. ‘I’m in a mess.’ Might as well come straight to the point. ‘The only other person who knows anything about it is Mrs Hampton and she told me to ask you for advice.’

  ‘Did she really?’ Cass arched her brows. ‘It all sounds very mysterious.’

  ‘When Alan got made up,’ began Jane, somewhat desperately, ‘he became different somehow, bad-tempered, like, and sort of, well, unapproachable. He began to nag at me, said I’d never make an officer’s wife, criticised my clothes, you know what I mean?’

  Cass nodded silently—and who could blame him? she thought—and sipped at her coffee.

  ‘Well, things went from bad to worse. We were always rowing and I was very miserable.’ She paused and swallowed. ‘Alan’d gone off to sea and I met up with an old boyfriend. We’d nearly got married backalong but somehow it didn’t happen and when we met up again, well . . . ’

  Cass nodded. ‘I know,’ she said, ‘it was nice to find an old friend when you were so unhappy, someone who knew you well and was still fond of you.’

  ‘Exactly!’ cried Jane with relief. Cass made it sound very normal. ‘He was such a comfort, see? We could talk about old times and he made me laugh.’ She paused again.

  ‘How important that is,’ remarked Cass thoughtfully. ‘One is always so attracted to people who make one laugh. And so you found yourself in bed with him?’

  ‘Well, yes.’ Jane was taken aback, she hadn’t expected Cass to get to the point quite so quickly.

  ‘Understandable.’ Cass helped herself to another biscuit. ‘And now what? Do you want to leave Alan and go back to the boyfriend?’

  ‘No! No, it’s not that. I thought I did for a bit but it wouldn’t work, I can see that now. It’s taken me long enough to find out, mind, but I know it now. It’s Alan I want. We’ve talked it over and he’s changed again—come more like he used to be. We’re going to try again, see?’

  ‘So what’s the problem? Are you afraid to tell the boyfriend?’

  ‘I’m pregnant.’ Jane placed her untouched coffee back on the tray. ‘Alan thinks it’s his,’ she said, ‘I’ve let him think it’s his.’ She looked at Cass defiantly. ‘It could be his! There’s a fifty-fifty chance, see? Anyway, what else can I do? I’m not having an abortion.’

  ‘Of course not.’ Cass refilled her cup and ladled in cream and sugar absentmindedly. ‘I’d have done exactly the same in your place. We’ll just have to hope it doesn’t have ginger hair or something or Alan might smell a rat.’

  ‘I don’t think there’s any danger of that, they’ve both got the same colouring. In fact, they’re very alike. Probably that’s what attracted me to Alan in the first place, his being so like Ph ‘ She paused,

  ‘Like this other man.’

  Cass seemed not to have noticed the slip. ‘Of course, it still may be a problem genetically. After all, you don’t know what the grandparents were like.’ She caught sight of Jane’s puzzled face and stopped. There was no point in worrying her unnecessarily. ‘Yes, well, that’s OK then, but I must say that if that’s the case I can’t see what the problem is.’

  ‘You see it’s OK with Alan. He doesn’t know anything about . . . this other man and he thinks the baby’s his. That’s all right, but if . . . the other man finds out that I’m finishing with him he’ll probably do something dreadful. Oh yes he will!’ This in answer to the faintly quizzical expression on Cass’s face. ‘You don’t know him. He’s rough! And he’s got a really terrible temper, he’s been in trouble with the police and allsorts. If he finds out he’s quite capable of coming over and doing something bad, ‘specially if he’s had a few drinks.’

  ‘But I don’t see how he can help but know?’ Cass frowned in an effort to understand. ‘I assume you let this chap think that the baby was his and that you were going to go off with him. If you stay with Alan he must find out.’

  ‘Yes, but you see, he needn’t!’ Jane leaned forward, regaining her self-control. ‘Alan’s been appointed to Chatham. He joins in a few weeks’ time and I want us to get aw
ay quick before Philip finds out.’ It was no good, in her eager intensity the name slipped out. She did not notice and if Cass did she made no sign.

  ‘Right, I see what you’re getting at, but how on earth . . . ’

  ‘Exactly! You see the problem. I’ve got to sell or rent and get Alan away without anyone knowing. But how?’

  Cass sat still, concentrating hard. ‘Do you plan to move into a married quarter?’

  Jane shrugged. ‘Dunno.’

  ‘OK. Now look, I think I can help.’

  ‘Really?’ Jane gaped at Cass in astonishment. To be honest she hadn’t seen how Cass could possibly help but so far Mrs Hampton had been right. Seeing Cass giving her all to Jane’s problems, showing nothing but a willingness to help and offering no criticism, made Jane look again at her guest and she felt her dislike beginning to thaw.

  I think so. I know a couple who want to rent a place around here. They’re Navy, but they don’t want a married quarter. The husband’s already living in the mess in Drake so they could move in at any time. They’re so desperate that they’ll take what I recommend and they’ll jump at this house. So that’s this end sorted out. Chatham’s not so easy but I know quite a few people in the area and I may be able to find you a hiring there. I’ll make some ‘phone calls this evening. Now, when’s Alan home next?’