Keeping Sam (11 page)

She followed Patrick across the walkway into the tree house, enjoying the sensation of being on top of the world. While Patrick went to fetch the picnic, shimmying down the rope ladder with ease, Kate stood at the round window and closed her eyes again, allowing the rising breeze to cool her face and lift her hair, feeling so alive, so animated, she wanted to capture the moment and keep it with her for all time. She imagined bringing Sam up here, and decided to ask Patrick if he thought it would be safe.

They ate their picnic in silence, but the silence was companionable, and Kate felt as though she had known Patrick all her life. She was glad he didn’t bombard her with questions the way Marie did; she only wanted to savour the moment.

‘I suppose we should be going,’ Patrick said after they’d wolfed down all of Marie’s sandwiches and posh crisps and home-baked sausage rolls. ‘I heard you tell Marie you were busy. I don’t want to take up too much of your day.’

‘Can’t we stay just a little longer?’ Kate heard herself asking. ‘I mean, only if you can spare the time.’ She swallowed, aware all over again of the effect his proximity had on her. ‘It’s just that it took so much effort to get up here in the first place – it seems a shame to go back so soon. Maybe we could just ... sit for a while?’

Patrick nodded, then settled back against the side of the tree house and closed his eyes. Kate studied him for a while, tracing the faint lines on his face with an imaginary finger, wondering what he was thinking, what secrets he kept, what he thought about her. She snuggled deeper into the blankets that lined the floor, and leaned back against one of the giant cushions. The tree house rocked gently, and Kate felt like a baby in a cradle, swaying, safe, up here on the top of the world.

‘Kate?’

She awoke with a start to find Patrick leaning over her. He was smiling, but the smile was strained. She looked around, disorientated.

‘I must have fallen asleep,’ she told him, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands.

‘You haven’t been asleep for long, but the storm came over really quickly.’

‘Storm?’ she said, but already she was becoming aware of the pelting rain on the roof of the tree house, the water lashing in through the window, the violent rocking of the tree tops. ‘Oh, my God. Are we okay up here?’

Patrick didn’t answer. He was pulling at the blankets, searching for something. The light had all but gone, although it couldn’t be more than three or four o’clock, and everything inside the tree house looked rubbed out and blurry. Kate shook her head, trying to clear it.

‘Did you fall asleep too?’ she asked him. ‘What time is it?’

‘We need to get back to the car,’ he said. ‘We don’t want to get stuck out here in a storm.’

‘Why? I mean, it’ll be okay, won’t it? It’ll blow over.’

He stood up, holding two blankets and a torch. His face was deadly serious. ‘Kate, you do not want to be stuck on top of a tree in the middle of a lightning storm. Now, it’s getting dark, it’s absolutely hammering it down out there, and the storm is getting closer. We need to get you down, and fast. Those steps are going to be slippery as hell, and it’s harder going down than up, even in good conditions. It’s even harder when the light starts to go.’

‘Oh.’ Kate swallowed and looked out at the darkening sky. He was right. The climb down would be treacherous, especially for someone whose legs were already tired and not used to such strenuous activity. She stood up gingerly, wincing at the stiffness in her thighs. Patrick watched her, his expression grave. A blast of icy rain blew in through the window and hit her in the face. She reeled back, catching her breath.

‘It’s my fault,’ she said, wiping her face on her sleeve.

Patrick turned to the doorway, gesturing for her to follow. ‘No, it isn’t. Right, when we get outside you’re going to be soaked quite quickly, so here’s the plan–’

‘I saw the storm coming.’ She had to shout above the wind now to make herself heard. ‘Earlier, when we first came up here. I saw the cloud formation coming in over the sea. I know the signs, Patrick. I grew up here.’ She shook her head angrily. ‘I should have said something.’

‘Kate, it’s weather. There’s nothing we can do about the–’

A sudden flash and an almighty crash of thunder sent them both reeling back inside the tree house. Kate blinked; she could only see red, then black, then her vision began to clear.

‘Did you see that?’ Patrick shouted.

‘What was it?’

‘The lightning. I think it hit the staircase. Hang on.’

‘Wait!’

Kate reached out after him, but Patrick was already running across the walkway. Kate stood in the doorway, sheltered from the driving rain, and watched him check the other supporting tree. He ran back, already drenched to the skin.

‘It’s no good,’ he said, stepping inside the wooden structure and shaking off the water like a wet dog. ‘The lightning strike has split the trunk. There’s no way we can get down that way.’

Kate stared at him, open-mouthed. Patrick sighed, his chest heaving. ‘Kate, you’re going to have to go down the ladder.’

***

‘Are you ready?’

‘As I’ll ever be,’ Kate whispered. There was no one to hear her; Patrick had gone down first. His parting words – ‘All the better to catch you if you fall’ – had hardly been reassuring. He shouted up again now, but his voice was lost to the wind. Kate shivered, then moved her hands and feet in unison, the way Patrick had shown her, and began to descend.

She could feel him trying to brace the rope ladder from below, trying to keep it as stable as possible, but it was in the middle that it began to lurch wildly backwards and forwards, and here she began to lose her resolve. It was impossible. Her hands were frozen and wet and slippery; water was running down from her soaking hair into her eyes; every muscle in her body was shaking with effort. Somehow she kept on moving her hands and her feet, downwards, onwards, and then, suddenly, she was at the bottom, her feet hitting the ground, the wonderful stable ground, her body falling limply into Patrick’s waiting arms. He held her close for a moment, steadying her, his breath warm in her hair. Then he held her away from him and peered into her eyes.

‘Are you okay?’

She nodded. She really didn’t think she could speak.

‘Oh, my God, Kate. Well done. You were amazing.’

‘Thanks,’ she whispered. It was nothing, she thought. You should try learning to walk again.

‘Come on,’ Patrick said, slipping his hand into hers. ‘Let’s get you home.’

They half ran back to the jeep, Patrick navigating the way through the trees. ‘I know these woods better than I know myself,’ he told her, and Kate smiled at this. When they arrived back at the jeep, he helped her into her seat, treating her like a precious cargo. Then he ran around to the driver’s side and jumped in.

He looked across at her and grinned.

‘Not bad for an afternoon out,’ he said. ‘Do I know how to show a girl a good time or what?’

‘You certainly do,’ Kate answered weakly. ‘You sure gave me a big surprise.’

‘Here, put this over you. It will stop you getting a chill.’ He took the spare blanket out of a carrier bag and leaned over to wrap it around her. She turned. Their faces were inches apart.

‘Patrick,’ she said, ‘I ...’

He put his finger on her lips, then traced the curve of her cheek, brushing her wet hair out of her face, squeezing some of the water out of it with the corner of the blanket.

‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered. ‘For ruining our afternoon.’

He was so close Kate could feel his breath on her cheek, could see only his mouth, could hear only his voice. ‘I thought we couldn’t help the weather,’ she murmured.

‘True.’

Kate held her breath. The moment stretched out, frozen. And then Patrick leaned in and touched his lips to hers.

‘Thank you for a lovely day, Kate,’ he said. He met her eyes, then he moved back and started the engine.

Kate gripped the blanket close to her as they set off down the rutted track and headed out of the woods. It smelt of Patrick. The rain had eased a little, but the track was muddy and the headlights picked out fallen branches and wide flooded depressions, and once a scampering rabbit, confused and far from home.

‘Marie will be wondering what we’ve been up to all this time, won’t she?’ Patrick said once they were clear of the woodland track.

Kate let out a groan. She really didn’t feel like Marie’s special brand of inquisition right now.

‘Don’t worry,’ Patrick said, bouncing the jeep around a corner. ‘I’ll just tell her that we slept together and then I saved your life. That should shut her up.’

Kate smiled and closed her eyes. Yes, she thought. It probably would.

But when they arrived back at the house on Bow Hill, Marie wasn’t waiting with an expectant expression, demanding to know where they’d been all day, eager for the gory details. Instead, she was standing in the hallway, looking for all the world as though she’d been standing there half the afternoon.

‘Kate,’ she said, her voice small and apologetic. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘What is it?’ Kate rushed to her friend and grabbed both of her hands. She thought of Sam, only Sam. Please God, don’t let anything have happened to Sam.

‘There’s a man here,’ Marie said, her face crumpling with anxiety. ‘He’s waiting for you in your room. I shouldn’t have let him in, it was so stupid. But he said he was your friend, he said you were expecting him. Well, of course, I knew you weren’t or you would have said. I mean, you would have, wouldn’t you? If you were expecting someone?’

Kate could feel Patrick behind her. She had the feeling he was braced, ready to prop her up again at any moment. She focused on Marie, trying all the while to calm her thoughts. No, she thought. Please don’t let it be him.

But she knew, before Marie spoke his name, that her worst nightmare was already a reality.

‘He said he was Sam’s dad, Kate. He said you would want to see him. It’s Evan. I’m so sorry.’

Chapter 14

Barbara stood at the drawing room window and watched the car pull into her driveway. She looked at her watch, then back at the car. It wasn’t a taxi, but some kind of utility vehicle. A jeep, perhaps? Kate must have got a lift from someone, no doubt the man Evan had mentioned earlier. Although Barbara had known this was coming she didn’t feel prepared for it one bit. In the downstairs cloakroom she had just enough time to reapply her lipstick before the doorbell rang with its up and down tune. She raised her eyes to the ceiling, then went to let her daughter in.

Evan, Barbara was beginning to realise, was a bit of a liability.

‘I didn’t know it was supposed to be a secret,’ he’d said when he turned up on her doorstep that morning, looking her up and down appraisingly and laughing at her concern. She’d only just managed to usher him into the garage before David came downstairs for breakfast.

No, thought Barbara, neither did I exactly. But she hadn’t expected Kate to find out so soon either, and the fact that Evan had taken it upon himself to simply turn up at Kate’s and announce his presence had left her feeling sidelined. This was
her
plan, not Evan’s, and she, Barbara, was supposed to be calling the shots. But then she imagined Kate holed up in her grotty bedsit – Evan said it was a real dump of a place with paint peeling off the window frames and no central heating – and the image gave Barbara a faint buzz of pleasure. More ammunition for her case. He also said that Kate had no idea what he was doing here, only that Barbara had contacted him ‘for Sam’s benefit’.

Which was something, she supposed.

After sending Evan off with strict instructions to talk to no one else, Barbara had steeled herself for her daughter’s inevitable visit. She regarded Kate now with wariness, noticing that she was no longer leaning so heavily on the stick that Barbara found so disconcerting. She was getting better, getting stronger.

As they moved into the hall, Barbara could sense Kate scanning the house for Sam. ‘He’s on a play date,’ she said, not bothering to turn around. Kate said nothing.

In the dining room they took seats facing each other across the polished furniture. Barbara smoothed down her skirt, unable to keep her hands still. She noticed a patch of dust on the bookcase by the window; she must have missed it earlier. It was no wonder, really. Not when she had all this going on.

‘I must say, you’ve surpassed yourself this time, Mother. That was a master stroke indeed. You must feel very proud.’

Barbara flinched at her daughter’s voice. The level of disgust was unmistakable. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she countered. She fingered the antimacassar on the arm of the chair, shifting it slightly so the pattern matched that of the chair fabric perfectly.

‘It won’t work,’ Kate said. ‘Whatever plan you’ve got for Evan, you’ve bitten off more than you can chew.’

‘Oh, spare me the clichés. I contacted Sam’s father – what possible harm could that do?’

‘You know what kind of a person he is. You wouldn’t have done it if you didn’t think there’d be some benefit in it for you. Are you going to try and get him on your side? Get him to stand up in court and say he thinks Sam would be better off with his grandparents instead of me? Is that your plan?’

‘It’s none of your business what Evan and I have discussed,’ Barbara said. ‘Or with whom he thinks Samuel should live.’

‘It’s none of
his
business, you mean,’ Kate corrected. ‘Mum, he has a criminal record. You do realise that, don’t you? If Evan is your trump card then you are going to be sorely disappointed.’

‘Is that all?’ Barbara looked at her watch. ‘Well, if you don’t mind I need to put lunch on.’

‘Did you not think of me at all?’ Kate leaned forward, her head tilted to the side. ‘When you came to stay with me I told you all about Evan. I told you what he was capable of. How could you have brought him back into our lives like this? Back into Sam’s life?’

‘You know as well as I do the cards are stacked in your favour. Yes, the court will listen to the child’s mother, but it will give equal weight to the wishes of his father. What choice did I have?’