The Art of Friendship (35 page)

He jolted in surprise. A little frown nested on his forehead and he said, ‘Why…yes. It’s obvious. His pictures are everywhere.’

He held out a hand, stained with dirt, in a sweeping gesture. It came to rest, pointing, at the picture of Scott and the boys hanging on the wall on the other side of the room. Kirsty looked at it and at the photograph on the counter. He was right. They were everywhere: on the walls, clustered on the dresser in the lounge, on each boy’s bedside cabinet. Their wedding picture had pride of place in the porch as you came in the front door. There was even one of Scott’s football team from his student days hanging in the loo. They were part of a desperate attempt to keep Scott’s memory alive – but they were not there for her.

‘They’re there for the boys, Chris, and Dorothy and Harry too, if I’m honest. I want the boys to remember their dad and to know how much he loved them.’ She paused, and
added sadly, ‘But it doesn’t work, you know. Every day his memory fades a little more and I wonder sometimes if Adam remembers him at all.’

She shook off the melancholy and tried to smile. ‘But the photos aren’t there for me, Chris. In spite of what you, and everyone else, might think.’

His eyebrows came even closer together. ‘What do you mean?’

Kirsty took a deep breath. ‘If I tell you something, Chris, will you promise you’ll not tell another soul?’

He considered this for some moments, staring at her. The sound of children playing in the street drifted in through the back door. Somewhere, a dog barked. And when Chris finally said, ‘I promise,’ she knew he meant it.

She glanced at the doorway that led into the hall, checking that one of the boys hadn’t sneaked in unnoticed. ‘I want the boys to be secure in the belief that Scott and I had a happy marriage.’

‘I see,’ he said slowly, tilting his head to one side as though to hear her better. ‘And did you?’

‘To start with, yes. But we drifted apart. It wasn’t anybody’s fault.’ She rubbed her hands, damp with nervous sweat, on her hips. ‘When the children came along, and we weren’t doing things as a family, we seemed to spend less and less time together. Scott loved his cycling.’

She picked up the photograph and ran her fingertip over the glossy surface. ‘He was obsessed with it, you know. He would go off for hours on these long rides with the cycling club, all year round, and I used to be left with the kids. At first I resented it and then I realised that, actually, I quite liked being on my own with the boys. Don’t get me wrong,’ she added and glanced anxiously at Chris. ‘He did spend time with the boys and he was a good father. I think he
would’ve grown into even a better one. But that was when I realised our marriage was in trouble. In the end, the only thing we had in common was the children.’

She paused. ‘I’ve never told anyone that before, Chris. I’ve never been able to. When he died everyone just made…assumptions and I couldn’t bring myself to correct them.’

‘What assumptions?’ he said gently.

‘That our marriage was a match made in heaven. How could I tell Dorothy and Harry the truth? They adored Scott. It would’ve caused too much unnecessary pain and hurt – and believe me, there was more than enough of that going about already. For a while they blamed themselves for his death because they encouraged him to get into cycling when he was a teenager. I felt it would be wrong to start discussing our marriage when Scott wasn’t there any more to give his side of the story.’

Chris nodded gravely.

‘People wanted me to be the grieving widow, so I was. I should’ve been honest but I could never bring myself to do it. Now, with the passage of time, I don’t think I ever will.’

Chris shook his head. ‘You did the right thing, Kirsty.’

‘You think so?’ She held her breath, waiting for his answer, realising how much she needed his approval.

He nodded. ‘I do.’

Kirsty, choked with emotion, managed to say, ‘I’m so glad I told you, Chris. You’ve no idea how guilty I’ve felt about it.’

‘Oh, Kirsty, you have no reason to feel bad. You’re a good person.
You
might have felt better if you’d been honest about your marriage, but the people that loved Scott would’ve felt a whole lot worse. In my book, that’s an honourable thing to do.’

‘Thank you.’ She managed a smile.

She felt tears prick her eyes once more – this time tears of release. She had not understood how heavy the burden of the lie had been. ‘I think,’ she said bravely, feeling that she had nothing now to lose, ‘I think that I might be in love with you.’

Chris’s arms dropped suddenly to his sides. He took a step forwards, the glass crunching under his heavy boots. ‘But you can’t be. You’re so beautiful and clever, Kirsty. Why would you want to be with me?’

She found that she was shaking. She put her arms around herself and held tight. She pulled her gaze away. Her voice, when she spoke, was croaky. ‘I know you don’t reciprocate my feelings, Chris. But I promise you that, after today, I won’t mention them again.’

He took another step towards her and this time they were only inches apart. He put a work-roughened hand under her chin and raised her face up to his. His breath was warm on her face, his eyes felt like they were connected to hers in such a way that it was physically impossible to look away. When he spoke, his expression was grave and his eyes were full of tenderness.

‘But that’s where you’re wrong, Kirsty.’ His eyes, restless, searched her face all over, as if looking for something. ‘In fact you couldn’t be more wrong.’

Kirsty closed her eyes. The words crashed over her like the tide, washing away all the anguish and sadness of the last few months, and bringing with them healing and the feeling that this, right now, was the most perfect moment of her life.

‘We’ve been good friends, Kirsty. But the more I got to know you, the more I realised that I couldn’t stay here and see you, week out and week in, knowing I could never have you. That’s why I took the job in Dubai, Kirsty. I wanted
more than friendship. And when I saw you dating other guys, I knew I didn’t stand a chance.’

‘Oh, Chris, how could you think that? The only man I’m interested in is you.’

He smiled when she said that, and a single tear crept out of his right eye. She reached up and touched it with her hand. The tear was warm like blood and his face felt rough like fine sandpaper. He went on, his voice hoarse, ‘I wanted to get as far away as possible. I thought I could forget you. But I know now I never could.’

‘Ssshh,’ she said and placed a forefinger over his mouth. He cupped her face in his hands and she wrapped her fingers around his forearms, hard and sinewy under the shirt. He bent and placed his lips on hers. They were softer than she’d expected, the kiss urgent and gentle. It lasted a long time and, when they pulled apart, still holding onto each other, Kirsty’s legs were weak. Chris’s chest rose and fell in shallow, rapid breaths.

He enveloped her suddenly in his arms and she pressed her face into his hard chest that smelt of grass and sweat and hard work. His hands were restless, touching her everywhere – on the back of the head, the shoulders, arms, all the way down her back, her buttocks – mapping out the contours of her body. She placed her hands gingerly on his back and pulled him to her, pressed her body against his. They lost their footing somehow and stumbled against the kitchen counter, glass screeching on tile, marking the floor. She did not care. She ran her hands through his short, wiry hair, across his broad shoulders, down the muscles of his upper arms. Then his lips were on her neck and he was pressing against her, hungry with lust.

‘Oh, Kirsty,’ he breathed into her ear, making her head spin with happiness. She stretched her head to the left, felt
his lips on the thin, tender skin of her neck and closed her eyes in ecstasy.

And then she remembered who she was and where they were. She pulled away suddenly. ‘We mustn’t, Chris,’ she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Her pulse was racing. She glanced anxiously at the door that led into the hall. ‘The children might come in.’

He released her immediately, and both of them leant with their backs against the counter side by side, slightly out of breath.

When she’d composed herself, Kirsty said, ‘What are we going to do?’

‘Come with me, Kirsty,’ he said, his voice like a lure. ‘Come with me to Dubai. You and the boys.’

‘I can’t do that. You know I can’t.’ She was shaking her head, avoiding eye contact.

‘Yes you can.’ He stood in front of her once more, this time at a little distance, and brushed her right cheek lightly with the back of his hand. Her skin where he had touched her burned like a fever.

She struggled to think clearly but her brain was fogged and slow. She looked around her kitchen, and tried to break free of the spell he cast over her. ‘But…but what about the house?’

He stepped closer, pressed his lips to her forehead. ‘Rent it out.’

He moved his lips across her brow, down the bridge of her nose, his touch light like a feather. She closed her eyes. ‘My job?’

‘Resign.’

His lips were on her neck now – she fought against the pleasure, tried to think rationally. ‘But what about the boys?’

‘They’ll adapt.’

‘And Candy.’

He laughed into her neck, his breath like warm steam on her skin. ‘Your friend Clare’ll take her, you know that. She’s always fussing over her when she comes here.’

Suddenly, Kirsty pulled away and buried her face in her hands. ‘Oh, I don’t know. It’s such a big step, Chris. Uprooting the boys, leaving this house, my job, everything.’ She removed her hands from her face and pleaded, ‘Can’t you just stay here?’

He shook his head solemnly and released her. ‘It’s too late for that. I’ve signed a contract. I’ve got tenants for the house. I’ve sold most of my equipment, or promised it to people.’

‘But Dorothy and Harry would never get over it,’ she blurted out, vocalising, at last, the stumbling block which she could not see a way around.

Chris sighed and stepped back a little. He took both her hands in his and regarded her severely. ‘They might surprise you, Kirsty. I’ve noticed them slowing up of late. I saw Harry out walking with a stick the other day.’ It was true. Harry had damaged a disc in his lower back and it was causing him terrible pain in his right leg. ‘They’re not going to be able to keep up with the boys for much longer, Kirsty. They’ll not be able to mind them as much as they do.’

‘I know,’ said Kirsty with a heavy sigh. ‘They are getting old. But they still want to see the boys, every day if they can. It seems…unfair to Dorothy and Harry to take the boys away from them now, after all they’ve done for us.’

He raised a hand and stroked her hair, tucked a stray lock behind her ear. She arched at his touch, like a cat. ‘All Dorothy and Harry want is for the boys to be happy, Kirsty. And the boys can’t be happy unless you are.’

Kirsty smiled sadly. ‘Those boys are their life.’

‘ know that,’ he said. ‘But you can’t put your life on hold
for them. And it’s time for them to build a life that doesn’t revolve entirely around you and the boys.’

She nodded, not entirely convinced, her heart which moments before had soared with happiness, now mired in anxiety.

Chris took her right hand. ‘Please don’t worry. We will find a way to be together, Kirsty. Because believe me, now that I’ve got you, I’m never letting you go.’

She smiled at him weakly, torn between elation and sorrow. Feeling that no matter what she did it would not be the right thing. That she could not win. ‘Say it again.’

‘Now that I’ve got you, I’m never letting you go.’

He pressed her palm into his cheek, his fingers over hers like a net. ‘Kirsty, do you think I can make you happy?’

‘I know so.’

‘Then you have to believe. In us.’

She blinked. ‘I do.’

‘Things will work out, you’ll see. When something’s right, they always do.’

She closed her eyes. ‘Promise me, Chris.’

‘I promise.’

And though she could not see how, Kirsty tried very hard to believe that she could have what she wanted, without breaking the hearts of her in-laws.

Alone in the house on a wet and miserable October day, Janice stared at the pictures spread out on the table in her work room – snaps of her and Keith’s August holiday on the Italian Riviera. One of them, a picture of her standing alone on the hotel balcony overlooking Portofino harbour, caught her eye. She picked it up.

She couldn’t remember the photograph being taken but she recognised the strained smile, a reflection of how she’d felt the entire holiday, unable to shake off thoughts of Patsy, who had been constantly on her mind. Along with Pete.

After Keith told Pete he wasn’t his biological father, Janice and Pete had hardly exchanged a word. Pete had started his new life at Manchester University a month after the holiday. And Janice had been filled with a sense of relief that made her feel all the more guilty.

She saw no reason to hope, in the foreseeable future anyway, that her relationship with Pete would improve. The thing he wanted from her – the identity of his father – she could never give him. He mistrusted her and could she blame him? She had lied to him for the first eighteen years of his life, and even now she would not give up the truth.

In keeping the adoption from Pete, Keith had been culpable too but only on her insistence. She was the
architect of the deceit. All Keith had done, bless him, was to love Pete and be the best dad he could. Seen in this light, his actions were laudable, noble even. Thankfully Pete seemed to have divined that much. His weekly, or more often, fortnightly telephone calls home consisted of monosyllabic answers to her questions and long conversations with Keith. And Janice was glad that he and Keith had patched up their relationship.

Janice left the photographs where they were, strewn across the table, knowing that she would not scrapbook them today. She went down to the first floor and tiptoed along the landing, feeling like a trespasser in her own home. She stood outside Pete’s closed bedroom door. The house was quiet now that he was gone. No loud music blaring from his room, no friends popping by to watch football or rugby on the big screen in the den. No arguments either.

She placed the flat of her palm on the bedroom door, her nails the colour of coral, and closed her eyes. She prayed to God that her son would be alright. That He would protect him and care for him and keep him on the path of good-ness. God would have to, for left to his own devices, she feared that Pete was not innately capable of righteousness.

The doorbell chimed and Janice, startled, looked at her watch. It would be the man from Tesco – the highlight of her day. She went downstairs, stopping at the bottom of the stairs to check her appearance, then opened the front door.

When he had gone she stood in the kitchen, utterly forlorn, and stared at the mound of groceries on the island unit. Outside the rain pelted down relentlessly on the autumn garden and filled the gutters on the old house to overflowing. She sighed, and picked through the shopping, extracting perishables – milk, cheese, butter. She loaded these into the
door of the fridge and tried to think of something to look forward to. She could think of nothing.

It wasn’t that her diary was short on social engagements; it was just that her heart wasn’t in any of them. She didn’t care if she never went to another dinner party, or fundraiser ball or ladies’ charity coffee morning again. The glitter of the social scene on which she and Keith played out much of their lives suddenly seemed tawdry, superficial, like cheap tinsel. As did the people in it – she wondered how many of them would stick around if they knew the truth about her. Would they judge her somehow culpable? Or worse, treat her like a victim, for ever tarnished, spoiled by what had happened?

She slammed the fridge door shut and separated out the tinned and dried goods. She filled the larder cupboard with these things and filled her head with the happy times before she and Patsy had fallen out. And, before that, a time when Pete was a little boy and Keith and she were newly married and she believed anything was possible.

She ripped open three green net bags of lemons and layered them in a tall, straight-sided glass vase with green foliage she’d collected earlier from the garden, before the rain. She set the vase in the middle of the table, stood back to observe the effect, and smiled – it wasn’t quite the effort-lessly artistic display she’d tried to copy from
Good Housekeeping
magazine. The lemons were a bit small and wizened, not the plump, unblemished yellow ovals she’d imagined. And the foliage looked like someone’s hedge trim-mings. Altogether, it was a bit of a disaster. What
was
she going to do with all those lemons?

For a fleeting moment she pictured herself describing the fiasco to Patsy. How she would laugh! And then Janice remembered that Patsy hated her, and her heart brimmed
with despair. Only last month the girls’ trip to London had to be cancelled. How could they celebrate fifteen years of friendship when Patsy wasn’t there? How could they celebrate friendship at all when Patsy hated Janice so much?

Was this how things were to be from now on? It was unbearable. She no longer had a close girlfriend with whom to share the minutiae of her daily life, no-one to find humour in the mundane, to share the highs and lows of an ordinary, everyday existence. That was what best friends were for. But Clare and Kirsty, with young families, were too busy to spend the time with Janice that Patsy used to. And, much as she loved them, they could never fill Patsy’s shoes.

There was something, of course, that would almost certainly make a difference to Patsy. Something that, if Janice told her, would make her understand why Pete was the way he was. And in her understanding maybe Patsy would find compassion and charity. But it would require so much of Janice. It would reveal her, and the respectable life she had so carefully hewn out of the misery of her past, to be a sham. She would have to strip herself bare, to recount the thing she had never told, to reveal so much of herself that she knew she could not do it. It was impossible.

And yet she couldn’t go on like this.

It was not in Patsy’s nature to relent. She was good at harbouring grudges and Janice knew that if she was going to back down, she would’ve done so by now. Janice could not stand by and watch the circle of friends that meant so much to her fall apart. She had known all along that she held the key to fixing this. She just never thought that she would have to use it. It would mean speaking of the thing she had never spoken of before, and had sworn to herself she would never reveal to anyone. The years of keeping her past under lock and key had been exhausting. The prospect
of releasing that past, of giving it life and validity by talking about it, terrified her.

But it was the only way. She knew Patsy could be trusted with a confidence, even one as dreadful as this, and she knew also that Patsy was a hugely compassionate woman. She was quite certain that if Patsy knew the truth, she would forgive her. She would understand why Janice was such a bad mother and why Pete turned out the way he did.

She told herself all these things and still the fear haunted her like a stalker over the following days, silent and unseen but always present. She lived in fear during the day and at night, it crept into her dreams, disturbing her sleep and snapping her wide awake in the early hours. Drenched with sweat she would lie on the bed, with her stomach twisted like the bedsheets and her heart battering against her ribs. It was made all the worse because she could not share any of this with Keith, who lay asleep beside her, his chest rising and falling in peaceful oblivion.

It took her a full week to muster the courage to contact Patsy. And when she did, unable to trust herself to speak on the phone, she wrote her a letter in a spidery scrawl – she could not stop the pen from shaking. She begged her to come to the house when she knew Keith was away on business. And when it was written and sealed in a cream Manila envelope, Janice stood at the postbox for a full ten minutes with the letter in her hand, sweating, battling with her demons. It was only when Dr Jones from the house next door approached, hobbling on his walking stick and with his Jack Russell at his heels, that she let it slip from her fingers into the gaping red mouth of the postbox.

And then she waited.

By the time the allotted night came round, Janice had convinced herself that Patsy would not come and with that
certain knowledge came relief – she would not have to go through with this after all. So, when the doorbell rang at five past eight, Janice was both astounded, and horrified, to find Patsy on her front doorstep, smartly dressed in a black coat and heels. She looked like she had just come from the gallery. She entered the house without being asked and went straight into the drawing room. Not a word passed between them.

Janice stood stupidly by the open door for some moments, staring out at the blackness and the fine, silent rain illuminated by the lamp suspended over the door. Then she closed it and immediately started to shake. Her entire body was a spasm of nervous impulses, utterly uncontrollable. She paused in the hall, leant on the table against the wall and took several deep breaths. The jerking in her muscles eased sufficiently for her to make her way into the drawing room. She found her friend perched on the edge of a sofa, her back ramrod straight.

Janice took a seat opposite Patsy and sat on her hands. Her head was full of a rushing sound like a fast-flowing stream. Patsy said, ‘This had better be good.’

Janice blurted out, ‘How’s Laura getting on at uni?’ It was a stupid question, born from her frazzled nerves and a desire to talk about anything but what she must.

‘She’s not at uni, Janice.’

‘Sorry, college.’

Patsy carried on addressing the fireplace, as if Janice wasn’t there. ‘She’s doing a HNC in Early Education and Childcare. An odd choice, don’t you think, for a girl that aborted her own baby?’

Janice winced.

‘I think she might be trying to atone for what she did. Maybe she thinks that helping other people’s children will make up for what she – we – did. I don’t know. It’s not quite
the psychology degree she’d hoped for. But she didn’t get the grades, did she?’ Patsy brought her gaze, hard and cold, to bear on Janice. ‘And we both know why that was.’

Janice hung her head. ‘I’m sorry.’ She clasped her hands around her knees in an effort to hold her body together. She feared that if she let go she wouldn’t be able to stop herself falling apart.

‘Is that what you asked me here for? To say you’re sorry?’ The room bristled with Patsy’s rage like a boxing ring with testosterone. She looked fierce and proud, a lioness. ‘You said in your letter that you had something to say to me. Something,’ she added, looking about the room, ‘that you could only tell me in private.’

Janice nodded, and tried to form her lips into words but the muscles around her mouth were frozen with fear.

‘Well, here we are. Just the two of us. I’m intrigued. What is it you want to say?’

‘I…I…’ Janice put her hand over her mouth. She felt the rise of nausea in her stomach and rose from the sofa. She bolted out of the room and into the loo, fell to her knees and brought up the contents of her stomach in the toilet. Embarrassed, she kicked the door shut behind her with the heel of her shoe. She knelt there for some moments, sobbing quietly, before wiping her mouth with a piece of toilet roll.

Outside the door she heard Patsy’s voice, still hard-edged but tinged with concern now. ‘Are you alright?’

Janice stood up and said loudly, ‘Yes.’ She got to her feet, flushed the toilet and washed her hands. She splashed her face with cold water and rinsed the metallic taste from her mouth. She dried her hands and face, leaving smudges of black mascara on the fluffy white towel. She could not bear to look at her face in the mirror.

Patsy was standing in the hall with her arms crossed when
Janice came out holding her stomach. She could not stop shaking – she felt so cold.

Patsy frowned, looking more annoyed than concerned. ‘Are you unwell? Do you want me to call someone? Keith?’

Janice shook her head and looked at the floor. She concentrated on her breathing, taking long, slow breaths, pushing the air down deep into her lungs, holding it for three seconds, letting it go again.

‘What is wrong with you, Janice? You’ve smeared make-up all over your face, you know.’

Janice stumbled past her to the stairs where she sat down on the bottom step and looked up. ‘I don’t think I can do this.’

‘Do what, Janice?’

‘Tell you…tell you what happened.’

‘We all know what happened, Janice.’

‘I don’t mean between Pete and Laura.’ Her mouth dried up, her throat constricted so that she could barely breathe, let alone talk.

‘You’re not making any sense at all, Janice.’ Patsy looked at her watch and shook her head. ‘I don’t have time for this. I have to get home.’ She started walking to the door, her high heels like hammers on the wooden floor.

‘Please! Don’t go!’ cried Janice and she put her hands on either side of her head and squeezed hard. The pain helped her focus her thoughts and keep the fear at bay. It helped her differentiate between what was real physical pain and what was going on inside her head. ‘Let me say it,’ she breathed. ‘I can only say it once.’

Patsy stopped and turned around slowly. Something in Janice’s expression made her change her mind. Patsy’s demeanour altered – her shoulders slumped, and she lowered her eyes as the anger leached out of her. With the fury gone, she looked tired and wretched. The make-up under her eyes
did little to conceal the bags there and the deep laughter lines on her face made her look haggard. She walked tentatively over to the chair by the hall table, her heels clipping on the floor like castanets, and sat down. On the table was an old-fashioned white telephone that had belonged to Keith’s mother, and which Janice had had restored for his fiftieth birthday. Patsy looked at the phone, looked at her hands, and then waited, her head bent as if in prayer.

The grandfather clock ticked away the seconds, the rain pitter-pattered on the arc of stained glass above the front door and the old house creaked as if it was a living thing. Janice raised her eyes to the light coming through the stained glass. It bore an image, not of the burning bush, the emblem of the Presbyterian Church, but the secular crest of the family who had owed the house before it became a manse. Janice closed her eyes.