A Risk Worth Taking

by Robin Pilcher

  Dan placed his knife and fork down on his plate. “Are you sure you don’t feel like eating anything?”

  Katie shook her head and took another drink from her wineglass. “I had a ham roll at the hospital. That’ll do me.”

  “You’ve eaten nothing else all day, though.”

  “For goodness’ sakes, please stop worrying about me, Dan. I’m fine.”

  Dan flicked his head to the side. “Okay.”

  Katie let out a long sigh. “I’m sorry. That was rude. I’m just so . . . keyed up about Patrick.”

  Dan finished off a mouthful of steak, and then pushed the plate to one side. “You don’t have to apologize. I can imagine how you’re feeling.”

  “It just goes on and on, and I know that there’ll be no respite for me, until . . .”—she bit at her bottom lip—“until something pretty final happens to Patrick.” She paused to take another drink of wine. “No, I don’t think you can ever imagine how I’m feeling. Patrick has been my protection, my rock, ever since we were married. I was never cut out to take over that role from him. He knows it too and that’s one of the reasons he feels that he has to keep going. But sometimes, it just makes me feel very vulnerable and very lonely, and I long for him to be whole again.” She gazed at her wineglass as she spun it around in her fingers. “The worst are the nights. I lie in that huge double bed by myself and listen to him moving restlessly about in that poky little room downstairs. I long to just get up and go to him and lie down beside him and let him wrap me in those big powerful arms of his and hear him say, ‘Don’t worry, Kate. I’ll look after you.’ But, of course, I can’t.” She let out a hopeless laugh. “The bed’s too narrow and his arms are too weak.” The unhappy smile slid from her face. “And then, the following morning, I’m supposed to leap out of bed and be strong and resolute and supportive of my family.” She shook her head as she took another sip of wine. “I can’t really describe it, Dan, but I do know that you can never imagine how I’m feeling.”

  “No, you’re right. I don’t think I probably can.”

  Katie rocked back in her chair and threw her hands up in the air. “But this is so unfair. I shouldn’t be saying that kind of thing to you. All you’ve done is help us, Dan. Both you and Josh came out of the blue and you’ve been our . . . saviours. We could never have survived these last few months without you. So what gives me the right to come out and say something like that?”

  Dan leaned forward on the table and rubbed at the two-day’s worth of stubble on his chin. “I hope it’s because I’m a friend.”

  Katie smiled and reached over and gripped his forearm. “You are, Dan. A very dear friend, both to Patrick and to me.” She pushed back from the table and pressed her fingers against her eyes. “I am just feeling so tired. I didn’t sleep a wink last night, and all I really want to do is to crash out for about twelve hours without interruption.” She picked up her canvas bag from the floor. “Would you mind if I went back to the hotel now?”

  “Not at all. I’ll come over with you,” Dan replied, catching the eye of a waitress and signalling for the bill. He then glanced at his watch. It was just before nine o’clock. He smiled across the table at Katie. “If we’re quick, you should just about make your twelve hours.”

  Thank God hotels cater for unprepared travelers, Dan thought, as he made use of the disposable razor that he had found, neatly packaged, in the bathroom cabinet. He had already had a deep, luxurious bath and the empty sachets in the soap tray were testament to the fact that he had used every freebie that the hotel supplied. Throwing the razor into the waste bin, he toweled off what was left of the shaving soap on his face, and feeling clean and revitalized, he walked naked from the bathroom, flopped down on the bed, and rang the house in Clapham.

  It was Jackie who answered. He had hoped that his decision to send the girls back to Alleyn’s might have helped solve some of their differences, but he only managed a stilted conversation with her before she handed him over to Millie. Talking to his elder daughter was the complete antithesis. Over the telephone, Millie sounded loving and buoyant in spirit, and he had to hold the receiver away from his ear at her reaction to the news that he had bought their train tickets for Christmas. The call lasted a further ten minutes, during which time Dan hardly uttered a word.

  He began to watch a film on the television but it wasn’t long before the events of the day caught up with him as well. During a lengthy and deeply meaningful conversation between the two main actors, stuck in a wind-blown bivouac somewhere high up in the Himalayas, his head slumped on the pillow and he fell into a deep sleep.

  It was the long, continuous beep of the empty screen that woke him. He fumbled for the remote, eventually finding it on the floor beside the bed, and turned off the television. He glanced at his watch before pulling the bedclothes over him, plumping up his pillow, and settling himself for the rest of the night. He angled his wristwatch to catch the glare of the streetlights coming in through the window. It was two o’clock in the morning. He had at least another six hours’ undisturbed sleep to enjoy.

  As he became accustomed to the quiet, he heard what he thought was the sound of someone talking in hushed tones in one of the adjoining bedrooms. He switched on the bedside light and sat up, and turned his head one way and then the other, trying to work out from which side of the room the voice was coming. He threw back the bedclothes and got to his feet and walked across to the wall that separated his room from Katie’s. The sound was coming from her room. He pressed his ear against the wall, and then immediately took a couple of paces back. He stood, scratching a finger thoughtfully down the side of his face as he fixed his eyes on the spot where his ear had been. Katie wasn’t talking. She was crying.

  He sat for a full quarter of an hour on the edge of his bed, listening to her intermittent sobs and wondering whether he should do anything about it. Maybe she was still asleep. Maybe she would wake up in the morning and she wouldn’t know anything about it. Then he heard a definite change to the pattern. He stood up and went back to the wall and listened. The volume was fluctuating, sometimes distant, sometimes close to the wall that separated them. He knew then that Katie was awake and was moving about in the room.

  He went into the bathroom and took one of the white toweling dressing gowns from the back of the door. He put it on and walked out of his bedroom into the corridor, knotting the tie on the dressing gown as he went. He stood outside Katie’s door, listening intently, his knuckle raised to knock. He thought for a moment that she had stopped, and he was about to turn and go back to his room when he heard her sobs of despair much clearer than he had done before. He gave two quiet taps on the door.

  “Katie?” he whispered.

  There was no reply.

  “Kate, it’s Dan.” He knew as soon as he had said it that he shouldn’t have done so. He had only called her Kate because it sounded softer and less likely to disturb the other hotel guests. But it was Patrick who called her that. No one else.

  The door flew open and Katie appeared and she threw her arms around him. The action opened up the top half of his dressing gown and she pushed her spiky brown hair against his bare chest.

  “Oh, Dan! Oh, Dan!” she said in a voice that echoed down the corridor.

  Dan glanced around him. “Ssh, Katie. You’ll wake everyone up.”

  She reached a hand behind his neck and pulled his face down towards her and kissed him on the mouth and he felt her tongue trying to prise open his mouth. He flinched away.

  “Stop it, Katie. Don’t do that. It’s not the answer.” He looked down at her tear-stained face, and his eyes settled unwillingly on the curve of her breasts, exposed by her half-open pyjama top.

  “I’m Kate,” she sobbed, “I’m Kate.” She turned her head and kissed his chest, and then pushing back the front of his dressing gown, her mouth sought out one of his nipples.

  “For God’s sakes, Katie, don’t do this,” Dan exclaimed, trying to push her away from him. “We’ll only regr
et it later.”

  Katie stood back from him, her eyes flamed with defiance. “No, I never will. I never will.”

  She took hold of his hand and tried to pull him into her room. Dan used his strength to disengage himself from her grip. “We’re not going to do this, Katie.”

  She stood watching him, a bewildered, hurt expression on her face, and then she slowly raised her fingers to the front of her pyjama top and undid the three remaining buttons before letting it slip to the ground. “My name is Kate, and I want to be held, and I want to be loved again.” She reached out and took his hand once more, and with a shake of his head, Dan allowed himself to be led into her room.

  And while Katie began to take from him the long-lost sensation of physical comfort, a large figure appeared from the service room in the corridor and stretched out his aching limbs before setting off with heavy, tiptoe steps towards the lift.

  26

  Why did you leave?” Katie asked as she walked quickly past Dan into his bedroom the following morning. “There was no need to.”

  Dan scratched at the back of his head and closed the door. “Katie, we shouldn’t have done that last night.”

  “Oh, and why not? It was my decision. You have no reason to reproach yourself for what happened.”

  Dan pushed his hands into the pockets of the dressing gown. “We’re both married, Katie. That’s why.” He let out a long sigh. “Patrick also happens to be one of the best friends I have ever had. And I have just slept with his wife.”

  Katie raised her eyebrows. “Well, bully for you,” she said quietly.

  “Come on, Katie, can’t you understand what—”

  “No, Dan,” Katie interjected. “It’s you who has to understand. I’m not one of those women who can be comforted with a few kind words and a little friendly hug and a pat on the top of my head. I boil up inside every time that happens. I want to grab whoever’s said it and tell them that I am bursting with anger and frustration and all I want to do is—shout at them, ‘Don’t give me your . . . kindly condolences. Give me back my husband!’ ” She sat down heavily on the edge of his bed. “You gave me, Dan, the one thing that could give me any small comfort at all, and that was physical love and physical protection. So don’t start trying to envelop me in your own guilt.”

  Walking over to the window, Dan swept his hands through his hair and linked them behind his head. “Oh, Katie, I don’t know what the hell I’m meant to say about all this.”

  “You don’t have to say anything.”

  “But what about Patrick?”

  “Patrick need never know it happened, and if it’s any small comfort to you, it won’t ever happen again.” She got up and went to stand beside him, and put a hand on his shoulder. “But I needed it, Dan. I feel . . . different this morning. I feel able to cope with what’s to come. And that’s your doing, so I thank you from the bottom of my heart for helping me.”

  Dan shook his head slowly. “But it has changed everything, Katie.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I can’t stay up here now.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I couldn’t face Patrick again.”

  “Oh, come on, Dan!”

  He spun round to look at her. “No, Katie, you listen this time. I am not a liar. I am physically incapable of keeping something like this under wraps. Okay, I played games with the reality of situations in the City, but the truth behind them was plain for all to see, if they bothered to work it out. If a trader saw through a deal that I was trying to push onto him, I’d just give him a wink and say something like ‘Oh well, it was worth a go.’ Don’t you see, Katie? I’ve always had to have people trusting me, otherwise I would never have been able to succeed in my job.”

  Katie dropped her hand from his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly.

  “Oh, Katie, don’t feel sorry. Listen, it takes two to tango. Maybe I should pretend that I didn’t enjoy it, but that would be way too far from the truth. Yet it has changed everything.”

  Katie walked slowly over to the bed and sat down again. “So what are you going to do?”

  Dan turned and leaned against the window sill. “I’ve found out that there’s a bus leaving for Fort William at ten o’clock. Once I’m there, I’ll have a word with Pete and tell him that I have to go. It’s only another couple of weeks before the chap from Ocean Produce starts, so I’m sure he can cope until then. After that, I’ll get Josh to take me back to the cottage to pick up my gear.”

  “What will you tell them both?”

  “The first of my lies. That I have been called back to London to start a new job.”

  “Will Josh go with you?”

  “That’s up to him.” Dan let out a short laugh. “I doubt it, though. Everything he loves is up here. His job, Marie José, and, of course, the Trenchard family.”

  Dan saw a tear trickle slowly down Katie’s cheek. “What do I say to Patrick?”

  “I would suggest that you say exactly the same to him and to Max and to Sooty as I’m going to say to Pete and Josh. The trouble with subterfuge is that stories always have to match exactly.”

  “He’ll miss you so much, Dan.”

  “As I will him.”

  She looked up at him, a pleading look in her eyes. “Could you not just see him for a moment before you go?”

  Dan shook his head. “No, Katie. We are pretty much alike, Patrick and I. He would be able to tell immediately that something had happened. We must never give him any reason not to get well again.”

  She stood up and hurried towards him and encircled his waist with her arms. This time, Dan responded without reservation. He placed his arms around her neck, and leaning forward, he kissed the top of her spiky head. They stood holding each other for a minute before he turned her around to face the door. “Now, go and see your husband, Katie. He needs you as much as you need him.”

  Katie walked out of the doors of the hospital and stood beneath the canopy, looking up at the cold grey skies. She had noticed the first flurries of snow out of the window when she was sitting beside Patrick’s bed. Yet, despite the bleakness of the weather, she felt contented, almost happy. Once more, Patrick was fighting back, and whilst in the presence of the doctor, he had slid the oxygen mask off his mouth and said in a laboured voice that he wanted to get the hell out of that bloody mausoleum as fast as he possibly could. The doctor, who had overheard every word, simply smiled at her and said that Patrick had progressed well enough to move him out of the High Depency Unit and that he would discharge him into Katie’s care as soon as possible.

  She pulled her coat around her and clutched the collar closed at the neck, then ran across the car park to the Golf. As she reversed out of her parking space, she took care not to clip the rear bumper of the red BMW that was parked beside her.

  It had been pure devilment on Maxwell Borthwick’s part to slot his car into the parking space next to the Golf. There were many other spaces available in the car park, but as soon as he saw her arriving, he moved his car adjacent to hers so that he could see her close up before he ruined her life forever.

  He watched as the Golf turned out onto the main road, then he got out of the car, and wrapping his blue serge overcoat around him, he walked delicately across to the entrance door, taking care not to slip on the newly fallen snow. He approached the reception desk with a friendly smile on his face.

  “Good morning,” he said in a bright, cheery voice. “I wonder if you could direct me to the ward where I might find Patrick Trenchard.”

  The woman clattered speedily on her keyboard, and then picked up the telephone and dialed an extension number. “Hullo, this is reception,” she said. “Could I speak to Staff Nurse, please?” She smiled at Maxwell as she waited for the staff nurse to come to the telephone. “Hullo, yes, this is reception here. Do you still have Patrick Trenchard with you? . . . Right, I see. And how long will that be? . . . Right.” She cupped her hand over the receiver. “They are in the process of movin
g Mr. Trenchard from the High Dependency Unit into a day ward. He won’t be ready for visitors for about half an hour.”

  Maxwell slapped his hands down on the desk. “Not to worry.” He turned and pointed to an empty bench in the foyer. “I’ll just go and have a seat over there. Maybe you could let me know when he is ready.”

  He walked over to the bench and sat down, and immediately let out a long, shuddering yawn. He hadn’t had a moment’s sleep all night. As soon as he had left the hotel in the early hours of the morning, he had gone back to the office to write the report for Cyril Bentwood. It had been a difficult task, because his mind had kept imagining with relish the conversation he was going to have with Patrick Trenchard later on in the day. But at seven o’clock on the dot, he had placed the report on Bentwood’s desk, and at that point he had sworn to himself that, once he had disposed of Trenchard, he would then turn his attentions to the wretched little man with the sheepskin car coat and the porkpie hat.

  It was a full hour before the receptionist walked over to him and woke him gently with a tap on his shoulder. “That’s Mr. Trenchard ready for visitors now.”

  Maxwell pushed himself to his feet. “Thank you. Which way do I go?”

  The receptionist gave him directions and he set off hurriedly along the corridor towards the ward. Not only was he desperate to see Trenchard’s reaction to his revelations, but he was also keen to get back to the office before Bentwood saw fit to move him to a “lesser” office.