Plender (23 page)

“Somewhere other than here,” I said. “Somewhere I may even feel a little bit wanted.”

I pushed my chair back and began to button up my coat. He stretched his arm out and caught hold of my sleeve.

“Wait,” he said. “Don’t go.”

I looked at him.

“You want me to stay?”

He nodded. I sat down.

“What do you want me to do?” he said.

KNOTT

I didn’t go back to the studio. Instead I drove into the city centre and parked my car in the car park of the first cinema I came to and went inside. It must have been the big film that was showing when I went in, but it wouldn’t have mattered if there had been nothing in front of me but a blank white screen. I just wanted a black womb to sit inside, a soft darkness that demanded nothing from me, an auditorium big enough in which to free my thoughts without sending back any echoes. As it was I stared at the screen and allowed the meaningless shadows to fill my mind. I sat there for over two hours, letting myself be absorbed into the flatness of the lives that were being projected on to the screen.

At three o’clock I left the cinema and drove home. The Hillman wasn’t in the garage but I knew that wherever Kate had been all day, she would be picking up the kids from school at approximately this time. The only question was would she be bringing them home?

I went into the house and looked to see if any of Kate’s and the kids’ things were missing, but as far as I could tell everything seemed to be there, and none of the suitcases had been taken.

I went into the lounge and poured a drink and waited. Eventually I heard the Hillman turn into the drive, and a little while after the front door burst open and then the kids were rushing into the room and jumping all over me.

“Daddy,” Kevin said, “have you seen Mummy’s funny eye?”

“It’s all blue and purple,” said Nicola. “She walked into the kitchen door last night. Did you see her do it?”

“No,” I said, getting up.

“It must have been a hoot,” said Kevin.

“Where’s your mother?”

“In the kitchen, I expect,” said Nicola.

I left the kids in the lounge and walked through to the kitchen. Kate had started to prepare the kids’ tea. She didn’t look up from what she was doing.

I stood there for a few moments without speaking.

“Kate,” I said eventually.

She took no notice. I walked towards her.

“Kate,” I said, “look . . .”

She stood stock still and even though she had her back to me she threw up her hands, rigid, palms outwards, as though to ward me off.

“Don’t,” she said. “I don’t want you to say anything.”

“But I want to,” I said. “I want to . . .”

“All I need,” said Kate, “is a few days. Just give me that, Peter. Just a few days, so that I can think.”

“All right,” I said. “I’ll give you that. But I just wanted to say . . .”

“I know what you wanted to say, Peter,” she said, “and I don’t want to hear you say it. I mean that. I really do.”

I nodded my head, even though she wasn’t looking at me. There was a silence.

“And now,” she said, “please leave me alone. I have to get the children’s tea ready.”

I stood there for a few minutes longer, then I turned and walked out of the kitchen.

PLENDER

A few days later I phoned Kate Knott.

“Kate,” I said. “It’s Brian Plender. I’ve got some news.”

There was a pause before she answered.

“I see,” she said.

“Could I come out and see you?” I said. “I’d rather do that than discuss anything over the phone.”

“Yes,” she said. “That would be better.”

I took my time driving over.

All the leaves on the city’s trees had gone now. A cold light wind pecked at the awnings of the shops and the sky was a clear October blue. The afternoon traffic dawdled along the main roads leading out of the city and I felt relaxed and lazy as I drove towards Corella Way.

When I got to Knott’s house Kate Knott was standing behind the plate glass of the hallway, staring out at me as I parked my car in the drive. She watched me all the way as I walked to the house.

I nodded and said hello as she opened the door for me but she didn’t say anything—hardly even looked at me.

I was led into the lounge.

“Would you like a drink?” she said.

“Thank you,” I said.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Please sit down.”

I sat down. She walked over to the drinks cabinet and opened it and then turned to me and said, “I should have asked would you prefer tea?”

I shook my head.

“Scotch, gin, vodka . . . ?”

“Vodka,” I said. “With a little tonic.”

She poured the vodka.

“Ice?”

“Please,” I said.

“I mentioned the tea,” she said as she dropped in the ice, “because normally that’s what I have about this time. But today I thought a drink might be more appropriate.”

I didn’t say anything.

She poured herself a drink. Her movements were careful, precise, self-contained, each action like a brittle buffer, designed to absorb any outside pressures that might be waiting. She brought the drinks over and gave me mine and sat down opposite me. We faced each other in the same way that we’d faced each other in my office. We both drank. She set her glass down on the table and said, “You said you had some news.”

I nodded.

“I’d like to hear it,” she said.

I searched for my cigarettes but she slid a box across the table. I took a cigarette from the box and lit up.

“It’s very difficult,” I said. “The fact that I’m Peter’s friend, that I like you both . . .”

“You don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to,” she said. “But then why did you phone?”

“Would you rather I hadn’t?”

She shook her head.

“Remember,” I said, “it was you that came to me.”

“Yes, I know. I’m sorry.”

I didn’t say anything for a while.

“Do go on,” she said. “I didn’t mean to sound like that.”

“I know,” I said. “But before I do, I’d like you to tell me something.”

“What?”

“I want to know what you intend doing.”

“What about?”

“About what I’ve got to tell you. I have to know.”

“Then it’s what I expected.”

“You see you have to understand. I don’t want to be responsible . . . I mean I don’t want to feel. . .”

“You don’t want to be responsible for the break-up of an old friend’s marriage.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Well you’re not, are you?” she said. “I mean in that case the old friend’s responsible. It would be his actions that were responsible for any break-up that took place. The breaking-up would be his. You’re just an instrument. Without Peter there’d be nothing to tell.”

“Perhaps not,” I said. “I just wanted you to know how I feel.”

“And for that,” she said, “I’m responsible. God, what a bloody situation.”

“Yes,” I said.

She didn’t say anything for a moment or two. I looked round the room, as though I was trying to avoid her eyes.

“Tell me what you know,” she said. “Even though I do know already.”

I looked at my glass.

“Well,” I said reluctantly, “you were right.”

She nodded her head.

“It is a girl,” I said.

There was a silence.

“It’s serious, isn’t it?” she said.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Yes, it’s serious,” she said. “For him to behave this way.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Tell me about her,” she said.

“There’s nothing to tell,” I said. “I’ve seen them together on three separate occasions but I don’t know her name.”

“I expect she’s pretty.”

I didn’t answer.

“She’d have to be,” she said. “Pretty, and the younger the better.”

“She seems quite young,” I said.

“You see, it’s happened before,” she said, almost as if she was talking to herself. “At least three times. I mean, those are the times I know about. Well, only once, definitely, with real proof, I mean, the other times I just knew. I was certain, but I knew nothing. But at the same time I knew they
meant
nothing. Oh, they meant something to me. I felt. . . well, never mind. But they meant nothing to Peter. Just . . . what do they call it now . . . ego-tripping? He loves being liked. He needs to be liked, to be the centre of things, to be admired. But I expect you know all that.”

I didn’t say anything.

“So that’s what I’d try and remember,” she said. “To keep me sane—that whatever was happening was happening without meaning.”

I took another cigarette from the box and lit from the stub of the one I was smoking.

“But I made a promise to myself. I always said to myself that if he ever got involved, if he put what he had with me and the kids at risk, then I’d walk out on him. Because I’d hate him for loving someone more than us. Valuing something more than his children, more than me. I’d want to take everything away from him, make him forfeit everything. Make him realise the lie by bringing him face to face with the truth by showing him what he’d chosen to risk being rid of.”

For the first time she looked directly into my face.

“You’ve seen them together,” she said. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

I looked away.

“They’re in love, aren’t they?”

I gave a tired-world-weary-slightly-painful shrug of my shoulders.

“Yes,” she said. “I know.”

“Look,” I said, “don’t. Don’t do this . . .”

She began to cry. I got up and walked around the table and sat on the edge of the settee, next to her.

“Listen,” I said. “I shouldn’t have told you. I should never have . . .”

She began to shake her head.

“No,” she said. “No. I wanted to know. I had to know. I had to. I had to know.”

I took hold of her hand and her body tilted towards me so that the whole weight of her body was leaning against me.

“I had to know,” she kept on saying. “I had to know.”

I slipped my arm round her shoulders.

“I had to know.”

“Kate . . .”

“I had to. I had to.”

Very gently I pulled her even closer to me.

“Kate, listen, I’m sorry . . .”

“It’s not your fault,” she said, turning her face towards me. “It’s not your fault. I asked you.”

My fingers were at the nape of her neck, pressing her head slowly towards mine. Then I lifted my other hand and brushed the hair away from her forehead and then her forehead was resting against mine.

“What am I going to do?” she said.

Now was the time. I kissed her full on the mouth.

Slowly we fell against the back of the settee. I pulled away for a second to look into her face. She stared up at me. Then I kissed her again and she kissed me back. I felt her arms tighten round me. I pushed my hand down on to her breast and she kissed me even more fiercely. I moved my hand lower until my fingers found the warm nylon of her legs and I squeezed her thigh over and over and I felt her arms lock behind my neck and then I moved my hand upwards and slid my fingers in the top of her tights and her body began to writhe and squirm, pressing against me, and still she wouldn’t let my mouth leave hers. Now my fingers were amongst the softness of her hair, and soon—

She broke away as violently as she’d pressed against me. I fell away from her—my back touching the arm of the settee. She rolled off the settee, landing on all fours on the floor.

“Christ,” she said. “Bloody Christ.”

Then she began to cry even more, still on all fours, but letting her torso slump so that her bottom was sticking up in the air and her head was resting on her forearms.

“Christ, Christ, Christ,” she said.

I slid off the settee and knelt next to her, slipping my arms round her waist, pressing against her body with my body until I’d caused her to roll over on to her back.

“Kate,” I said.

Suddenly her face became calm, and her eyes filled with different thoughts. She stretched her arms above her head and slowly closed her eyes. I sank down on her and kissed her again. This time she was very passive. I kissed her for a long time. Her skirt was already up round her middle so I slid my hand to her waist and began to take off her tights and her underwear. To do this I had to stop kissing her and raise myself up on my elbow. I’d got her tights down as far as her knees when, in a flat voice, she said, “It’s no use.”

I froze.

Very quickly she sat up and tugged her tights back and slid away from me and then she was on her feet, walking away towards the window.

For a moment or two I stayed where I was, the fury burning white behind my eyes. Then I stood up too, picking my drink off the table as I rose. I drank what was left and then gripped the glass, turning it over and over in my fingers. I had to blank out what had happened, make her start believing in my role again.

Eventually I managed to speak.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

She was standing with her back to me, looking out of the window.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said.

“It does,” I said. “I don’t know why I . . . I mean, I didn’t intend for that to happen.”

She shrugged.

“I was to blame, too,” she said.

“I don’t want you to think that was planned. It wasn’t. But now you’re bound to suspect . . . to . . .”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I wanted a kind of revenge, that’s all.”

“Revenge?”

“On Peter. When we were lying on the floor. I wanted you to have me; it would have been perfect.”

“Perfect?”

“The irony—you of all people. The way Peter feels about you . . . I’m sorry. I shouldn’t say that. But I know you understand what I mean.”

I heard a car go by in the road. It sounded a long way away.

“But I couldn’t,” she said. “I thought I’d be able to do it. It occurred to me when you came to dinner. I knew you were attracted to me. I thought—just supposing I could. Just supposing I
could
go through with it. And then after he hit me, after the other morning when I came to see you, I really
thought
I could. But I had to have the excuse. I had to have the proof about Peter.”

She turned away from the window.

“Only the excuse wasn’t good enough,” she said. “I’m one of those stupid people the women’s magazines are always inventing. I love my husband and I can’t be other than faithful. I don’t know whether it’s love or guilt but whatever it is, I can’t alter it. In spite of what Peter might have done.”