Kate's Progress

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  ‘Were you? Well, I just wanted to say – to tell you … I don’t mean this in a bad way – I don’t know what goes on between you—’

  ‘Just say it,’ she suggested to get him out of trouble. ‘Whatever it is.’

  He looked at her. ‘It’s easy to read more into what he says than he really means. He’s very open and full of fun, and sometimes people think – women think … Well, he’s broken a lot of hearts, without in the least meaning to. I just wanted to put you on your guard.’ In the darkness inside the car she could not read his expression; there was just the warm black velvet of his voice. She wanted desperately to touch him; and as if in answer to her thought, he laid his hand over hers, and she almost started at the sudden warmth. ‘I hope you aren’t offended.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m not offended.’

  He withdrew his hand. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Well, goodnight, then.’

  And so there was nothing to do but say goodnight and get out. Her moment with Ed alone was over.

  Twelve

  She woke on Monday to a grey world, low cloud and fine, drifting rain – what her grandfather used to call an Exmoor Special. Kate moved her activities indoors, and spent the day filling in the cracks and gaps in the sitting room, to ready it for the lining-paper – the walls were not good enough to paint straight on to them. She worked in a languorous, almost listless rhythm, the radio on in the background, her thoughts far away, and not very coherent.

  Her head was populated with a jumble of people who all seemed much more real and vibrant than she did to herself. Ed – that glimpse of his profile at the crossroads – was the most vivid of all; the touch of his hand on hers in the car kept replaying itself. Like the early warnings of an approaching cold, she had all the symptoms of falling for him. She ought to have roused herself and dismissed him firmly from her mind, taken a large dose of mental vitamin C by reminding herself that she was here to get away from all that hopeless, painful man-malarkey; but in the dreamy languor that prevailed she allowed herself to yield, and drifted with her thoughts like the misty rain drifting over the soaked heather.

  Kay popped in at lunchtime with the intention of inviting her over for a sandwich, so that she could hear all about how she had spent her Sunday, but finding Kate so distracted she had gone away without issuing the invitation, and had further prevented Dommie from dashing over after school. She recognized a girl with things to think about when she saw one. She could see Kate wanted to be alone. She supposed it must be something to do with Jack. She hoped Kate was not falling for him, because Blackjack was a noted hound, and only safe to be let out because everyone knew he was. There had been girls in the past who had got hurt – younger, unsophisticated girls – but she had assumed Kate was savvy enough to avoid the trap. Anyway, she’d find out all about it at some point. Kate liked to talk, and who else was there for her to talk to?

  In the evening, Jess and Lauren phoned, and Jess soon noticed her lack of liveliness.

  ‘What’s up? You’re not brooding about Mark, are you?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘No “of course” about it. Oh no, don’t tell me it’s new love problems. You said you weren’t going to get into all that, but you did talk rather a lot about this Jack person last time.’

  ‘No, it’s nothing,’ Kate said. ‘I’m just a bit listless after all the jollification yesterday.’

  ‘What jollification?’ So Kate told them about church, Camilla, the invitation and the lunch. ‘And did Blackjack make a move on you?’ Jess asked.

  ‘No, he didn’t. It wasn’t like that. It was a family occasion.’

  ‘You aren’t glum because he didn’t make a move on you, I hope?’ Lauren put in sternly.

  ‘No! Anyway, I’m not glum – just a bit jaded. Too much to drink, probably.’

  ‘Debauchery,’ Lauren said wisely. ‘I thought better of you. Haven’t you seen those pictures, The Rake’s Progress?’

  Kate laughed. ‘Roast beef and Yorkshire, and a bunch of County people talking about planning applications and school governors. I’ve hit rock bottom!’

  ‘So you’re not getting serious about this Jack bloke?’ Lauren demanded.

  ‘No,’ Kate said. For some reason she didn’t want to mention Ed, so she didn’t pass on his warning about Jack.

  ‘I’m glad to hear it.’

  ‘Maybe I’m a bit homesick for you guys,’ Kate added, to distract her.

  ‘Funny you should say that,’ Jess jumped in, ‘because it’s probably escaped you, cut off from civilization as you are, that next weekend is Bank Holiday weekend.’

  ‘So we thought we might come down and see you,’ Lauren finished.

  There was a brief silence, during which Kate was shouting in her mind, Oh no! No, no, no! What lousy timing! She really wanted to see the guys, but there was no way on earth she was going to miss that house party.

  ‘I’d really love that,’ she said, ‘but the thing is, I’ve been invited somewhere, to stay, for the weekend. What about the weekend after?’

  But she didn’t get away that easily. She had to explain, and it sounded nutty over the phone to be staying at a place so close to where she lived. There were suspicious questions about Jack, and some hurt feelings, and when she’d smoothed those down and made a tentative arrangement for the following weekend, and managed to turn the conversation to Jess’s and Lauren’s lives, and listened to their news, she said goodbye feeling exhausted. Her involvement with the Blackmore family was complicating her life, and it was her own silly fault for getting mixed up with them. She ought to end it. She ought to telephone Camilla and tell her that she wouldn’t come.

  But somehow, even as she thought it, she knew she wouldn’t. Wouldn’t Gaga have said it was a feeble soul that avoided adventure because it might interrupt routine? Live life to the full, that was her maxim, because you only passed this way once.

  And anyway, she had to find out how this story would end.

  On Tuesday the rain had passed, leaving behind a day of sunshine and sharp, fast-moving showers. Still too wet to work outside, though. She checked the filled places from the day before to see if they had hardened all right, rubbed down a few of them and, since she was over her cultural hangover, or whatever had ailed her the day before, she decided to start papering. It was a fiddly and time-consuming job, because the ceiling and the floor weren’t parallel with each other and the walls weren’t plumb – actually, there wasn’t a straight line or right-angle in the whole blessed house! – so every piece, not just the bits round the doors, window and fireplace, had to be cut in. And each length had to butt perfectly against its neighbours so as to leave no visible seam when it was painted afterwards.

  It was slow and painstaking work, but quite satisfying in its way. She worked happily without any sense of how much time was passing, until she was roused from her concentration by the sound of a car drawing up outside. She had left the front door open to get a through-draught to dry the paper once it was hung, and a moment later Jack darkened the doorway, rapped facetiously on the open door and carolled, ‘Knock knock! ’Ello, missus, can Kate come out to play?’

  She looked over her shoulder at him. He looked big and handsome and completely out of place in her shipwrecked cottage in his smart, dark business suit, even though the top button of his shirt was undone and his tie had been loosened. He started towards her, and she cried, ‘No, no, no! Hang on, wait a sec until I’ve finished setting this piece, or it’ll go all over the place.’

  He stopped dutifully, and ostentatiously held his breath until she had butted it, smoothed it down and trimmed off a sliver along the skirting board. ‘Wow!’ he said as she straightened up and turned to him. ‘’It’s incredibly sexy watching a woman do something skilled like that. Come here, you gorgeous little handyman, you!’

  He opened his arms for a bear-hug, but she made a fending-off gesture. ‘You’ll ruin your suit,’ she warned. ‘I’m filthy.’

  He groaned. ‘Stop,
stop! I can’t take any more. I adore filthy women!’

  ‘You ass,’ she said kindly, and reached up to kiss him lightly on the lips while keeping her body arced back away from his natty tailoring. ‘No Chewy?’

  ‘She asks after the dog,’ he observed to the invisible witness. ‘No, no Chewy because I’ve been to the office. Can’t you tell from the suit?’

  ‘Why aren’t you still there?’

  ‘Cruel slave-driver! Because I was there before eight o’clock and it’s now after two, and six and a half hours is a decent working day by any standards.’ She laughed at that. ‘Anyway, I’m hungry, I need lunch, and more than that, I haven’t had a drink since Sunday night and I’m gagging for one.’

  ‘Why no drink? Have you taken the pledge?’

  ‘Ed’s on the warpath,’ he said succinctly. ‘Hence the virtuous day at the office, showing him I’m pulling my weight. By the way, I’m sorry I couldn’t drive you home on Sunday, but he’s very anti drinking and driving, and once he gets into his pantomime Tyrant King role, there’s no earthly use arguing with him.’

  ‘That’s all right. I could see you were almost asleep.’

  ‘No such thing – I was just comfortable.’

  ‘So where is he now?’ Kate asked, trying not to sound wistful.

  ‘Ed? Gone back to London by the earliest train. That’s why I got into the office so early – set off at the same time as him so he could see I was really going.’ He grinned suddenly. ‘No sooner did she realize he was gone than Camilla decided she was going to London, too. Rang me up to tell me. He’d have had a fit if he knew, because he told her on Sunday night no more London trips this month. She took Jocasta – oh, by the way, before I forget, Jocasta’s put in an urgent request for you to go riding with her tomorrow. She wanted to ride today but her mother had other ideas. If it’s a “yes”, she’ll come over for you around nine o’clock.’

  ‘If it’s not raining?’

  ‘Oh, it’ll be fine tomorrow. These showers are the last of it,’ he said with the easy confidence of one who knew. ‘They’ll blow out by this evening. Well, come on, woman, chop chop!’ he added, clapping his hands. ‘Run and wash your hands. I’m taking you to the Ship Inn for lunch. No need to change – you look amazingly hot in those dungarees. Woof woof !’

  ‘Oh, Jack,’ she said, ‘I can’t. If I go out to lunch with you that’ll be the whole day gone—’

  ‘My idea exactly,’ he said with an evil grin.

  ‘And I wanted to get this papering finished.’

  ‘There’s no rush, is there? You’re your own boss.’

  ‘But there’s a certain rhythm to a job, and if you break it …’ She saw this was not making any impression. ‘And if I’m taking half tomorrow off to ride,’ she went on.

  ‘Oh, you’ll play with Jocasta but you won’t play with me,’ he said, pretending petulance. ‘Wait! I’ve got an idea! Don’t go away.’

  ‘Now where would I be going?’ she began, but he had dashed out of the house. She heard the car door slam and the engine start, so she went back to work, measuring and cutting the next length of paper. She was wondering if she ought to start pasting it, when she heard the car again, and a moment later he reappeared, carrying a brown paper grocery sack.

  ‘You have to eat, don’t you?’ he anticipated any protest on her part. ‘You’ll faint and fall off your ladder otherwise. So if you won’t come to lunch, lunch will have to come to you. I assume you have plates and glasses and things in your ’umble abode? Or should I say ’ovel?’

  He walked past her into the kitchen, and she shrugged and followed him, washed her hands at the sink, and watched him unpack the bag. ‘Ta-da!’ he fanfared. ‘Come on, girl, plates!’

  ‘Cornish pasties!’ she exclaimed. They smelled wonderful.

  ‘Just pasties,’ he corrected. ‘According to the EU, you’re not allowed to call them Cornish pasties unless they’re made in Cornwall, and these were made just up the road at Broad Farm. Freshly baked on the premises – they’re still warm.’

  ‘I’ve heard of Broad Farm cheese. They do pasties as well?’

  ‘They do just about everything. You ought to visit the farm shop. Ice cream, sausages, cheese, cakes. It’s the only way a small farm can keep going these days. And, to go with the pasties …’ He drew a tall slim bottle from the bag.

  ‘They sell wine as well?’

  ‘No, but the Blue Ball does. Hock. I know it sounds weird, but you’ll be amazed how good they taste together. Glasses? Now sit, sit, eat while it’s still warm.’

  They sat down opposite each other at the table, and Kate discovered she was famished. She’d had nothing since toast at breakfast and it was well past lunchtime. The pasty was delectable – ‘The best I’ve ever tasted,’ she said sincerely – with crisp, golden, melt-in the-mouth pastry and a rich meaty filling.

  ‘There’s just an intriguing hint of sweetness to it,’ she said enquiringly.

  ‘Maggie uses butternut squash instead of swede,’ Jack informed her.

  ‘And then that pepperiness to contrast,’ Kate went on. ‘And they both seem to go well with the wine.’

  ‘Didn’t I tell you? I don’t know why people don’t trust me,’ Jack complained. ‘And there’s Maggie’s famous strawberry-rhubarb pie for afterwards. With clotted cream.’

  ‘Oh, you hedonist!’ she teased.

  He smiled at her across the rim of his glass, and said, ‘Seriously, I really was impressed watching you hang that paper. You’re doing a really nice job. I had no idea – I thought you were just going to give the place a lick of paint and then sell it.’

  ‘Oh, well, I’m a bit of a perfectionist. I don’t like to do a bad job.’

  ‘But surely it can’t be worth all that effort, if you’re just getting rid of it anyway?’

  She raised an eyebrow. Had he been talking to Phil Kingdon? ‘I suppose it’s a sort of project,’ she said. ‘You know, the Cinderella thing – the transformation. That’s always irresistible.’

  ‘Cinderella? This place is more of an ugly sister.’

  ‘Don’t insult my house, please.’

  ‘But it’ll never be worth what you put into it.’

  ‘Well, it’s worth it to me,’ she said firmly. Why did everyone want her to go? She changed the subject. ‘What’s Camilla gone to London for, that Ed wouldn’t approve of ?’

  He shrugged. ‘What she always goes for – shopping. And lunch. And the spa. Add in the train fare – and she likes to go first class – and she can drop a couple of thousand in one day. Of course, with Jocasta along, there won’t be the spa. But still … I tell you, if there was an Olympic event in getting through money, Camilla would be up there on the podium.’

  ‘Oh dear. But isn’t it her money to spend?’

  ‘That depends on your point of view,’ Jack said, not smiling now. ‘You see, when Dad died, he left the estate to her for her lifetime, which means she can spend the income but not the capital – that’s the theory, anyway. But with land, you can’t really separate the two. If you want to keep the estate in good heart, you have to keep ploughing money back in, maintaining it, building it up. It should support the family, but it’s not a cash cow to be endlessly milked. If you run it down beyond a certain point, the whole thing collapses – and it’s not hers to collapse. Camilla doesn’t understand that, though Ed tries to make her see it. She just spends, and runs up bills, and Ed won’t let her be in debt so he has to find the money somewhere to pay them. Clothes, shoes, handbags, lunches – club memberships – a personal trainer … it just goes on. She can spend two hundred quid just getting her highlights done.’

  Kate cast a look at his own artfully tousled, skilfully highlighted locks. To his credit, he did manage a rueful smile. ‘Oh, I know. But mine’s fifty quid a touch, not two hundred.’

  ‘I’m sure the European Monetary Fund will find that reassuring,’ Kate said gravely.

  ‘I know I’m not exactly a paragon of frugality – Ed’s
the one for that. But I do understand the limits. To an extent. From time to time. Or at least, I understand what the estate is for, and I wouldn’t want to see it broken up and sold. Camilla wouldn’t give a damn. She hasn’t got land in her blood.’

  ‘You sound as if you hate her,’ Kate suggested cautiously.

  He looked shocked. ‘Not hate her, of course I don’t! She annoys me sometimes. But it was hard when Dad first brought her home. I mean, she’s only two years older than me. It’s hard to take when your father marries someone your own age. I was twenty-one and Ed was twenty-five, and Camilla was twenty-three. You don’t like to see your father make a fool of himself.’

  ‘You don’t remember your mother, I suppose?’

  ‘No. I was only two when she died, so I don’t remember her at all. I’ve seen photos, of course. She was beautiful – not glamorous like Camilla, but beautiful in her own way, a sort of timeless, classical beauty. Dad adored her. She was the daughter of the Earl of Bastwick, so she understood the land and the way of life, and local people looked up to her. She was a great lady.’ He brooded a moment. ‘And then Dad brings home someone Ed or I might have dated, for our stepmother!’

  ‘Well, he didn’t dash straight out and remarry,’ Kate pointed out. ‘He waited until you were grown up. Wasn’t he entitled to a bit of pleasure after that?’

  Jack shook off the frown. ‘Oh, well, of course! All power to the old man. God, I hope I can still pull the birds like that when I’m his age. Poor guy didn’t get his money’s worth, though. They were only married three years before he died.’

  ‘That must have been hard. Hard on Camilla, too,’ she added. ‘I’m surprised she hasn’t married again, when she’s so attractive.’

  ‘She can’t,’ Jack said. ‘Another result of that dopey will Dad made. She only gets the income from the estate if she doesn’t remarry. Dad thought it wouldn’t be fair on us to keep supporting her if she had a husband to do it. Fair enough, except that it means she can’t marry anyone who isn’t rich enough to replace what she gets from the estate – which, the way she goes about it, is a lot. To date, no-one’s come up to scratch. She has a string of admirers, but none of them’s rich enough.’