The Art of Friendship (27 page)

‘I’m sorry, Liam.’

He shook his head. His crumpled suit looked shabby, his hair untidy. His face was a picture of misery. ‘The damage is done.’ He turned and looked upon her for the first time and she squirmed under his scrutiny.

‘What can I do to make things right?’ she said.

Liam held the car keys in his right hand as if weighing them. ‘I have to go and get your car.’

Her eyes filled with tears. How she longed for him to hold her and tell her everything was going to be alright. ‘Talk to me, Liam.’

‘No,’ he said sharply and she winced. ‘I think,’ he went on, ‘that if this conversation continues, I might say something I regret.’

Clare bowed her head and suddenly realised that, amidst all the chaos, neither she nor Liam had had anything to eat. ‘You must be starving,’ she said and stood up. He loved her cooking – when she could be bothered to make something good. She would rustle up a nice supper and start the process of making up for what she had done. ‘I’ll have something ready for you when you get home.’

‘Don’t bother. Why don’t you just go to bed and get some sleep?’

He walked to the back door.

‘I’ll see you soon,’ she said lamely.

He opened the door and paused with his hand on the doorknob. He looked at the floor and said quietly, ‘Don’t bother waiting up, Clare.’

And then he was gone.

‘Last exam today,’ said Pete, almost skipping across the slate floor in the kitchen. He was wearing black socks and his school uniform. He looked handsome, clean-cut, smart – everything a mother would want in a son. Only Janice standing by the sink, measuring out teaspoons of ground coffee, knew it was a façade.

Unusually Keith was going into the office late. He was seated at the table in a shirt and tie eating a piece of toast and jam. He looked up and smiled at Pete. ‘It’s been a long slog, son, but it’ll be worth it. You’ll see.’

A little shiver went down Janice’s spine. Since they’d found out about Laura she could hardly bring herself to speak to Pete civilly. But Keith hid his anger and disappointment better than she did. Or perhaps he didn’t feel it as keenly. Either way, he was capable of interacting with Pete the way he had always done. As though nothing had changed.

Pete sat down at the table and helped himself to corn flakes.

‘How do you think you’ll do in this one?’ asked Keith pleasantly. ‘Maths, isn’t it?’

‘Mmm,’ said Pete, his mouth full of food. He finished chewing and added, ‘Yeah. Should do alright. I think.’

They had only talked with Pete about Laura twice since the night Patsy and Martin visited them, and both times Pete
had been uncommunicative and withdrawn. Keith said Pete was traumatised by the whole affair – he needed time and space to sort out his feelings towards Laura and the idea of fatherhood. And, with exams coming up, it was vital they gave him the space he needed. Janice thought Pete couldn’t give a fig about Laura or the baby. And yet still she shared Keith’s anxiety that he should do well in his exams.

If he didn’t, she worried that he might fail to get into university and end up living at home indefinitely, the way so many young people seemed to do these days. So they had let the matter drop, for fear that pressurising him might affect his results.

And now the time had come, almost, to tackle the issue again. And, of course, to tell him that Keith was his adoptive father. Janice stole a glance at Pete and mentally steeled herself for both events.

She set the cafetière in the middle of the table and sat down in the seat opposite Pete. She couldn’t help but feel that he was getting off too lightly. Of course she concurred with Keith’s argument about not upsetting him at exam time. But she
wanted
to see him upset. She wanted to see him hurting in the way Laura and her family were hurting. She wanted to see him suffer for destroying her friendship with Patsy.

Janice glared at Pete and there was an awkward silence. Pete, his eyes fixed determinedly on the morning paper, continued eating. Janice pushed the empty cereal bowl in front of her away, her appetite gone, and poured herself a cup of coffee.

‘Look,’ said Keith. ‘Why don’t we all go out for a meal to celebrate the end of your exams, Pete?’

Janice stared at Keith in amazement. She wasn’t sure she could sit across a table from her son and make small talk.

Pete looked up from the paper. ‘Sure.’

‘We can go to The Mill,’ said Keith. The Mill was a popular
restaurant on the Old Glenarm Road. It served good, traditional food and they used to go there quite often when Pete was younger. Before he grew up and decided it was no longer cool to be seen out with his parents. ‘How about Sunday night?’

‘Okay,’ said Pete.

Janice’s heartbeat quickened. Sunday was the day they had agreed to tell Pete that Keith wasn’t his real father. Surely Keith wasn’t planning on telling him in public? She didn’t know how Pete would take the news – he was bound to be upset, angry even. He might cause a scene.

Pete pushed back his chair and got up, leaving his dirty dish sitting on the table. ‘Gotta run,’ he said.

‘Good luck,’ said Keith.

Janice stirred her coffee disconsolately, set the spoon down and pushed the cup away, the smell of the coffee, for some reason, suddenly repellant. ‘I’m not sure I’m up to a celebratory meal, Keith. It doesn’t feel like there’s much to rejoice in at the minute.’

Keith nodded his head and looked at the table. ‘I know how you feel.’

Janice doubted that he had any idea. And she could not tell him. For what would that make her? A vengeful witch? Or, worse, some kind of monster – isn’t that how women who despised their own offspring were regarded? Mothers were meant to love in spite of, no matter what, always and for ever. An unconditional love that, try as she might, Janice had never been able to muster for her son. It wasn’t that she didn’t love him at all. She did – but not fulsomely, unreservedly. Not like a mother ought.

Keith cleared his throat, brightened a little. ‘But it would be wrong to let a milestone in Pete’s life like this go unmarked. I wouldn’t want us to look back and regret it, Janice. I wouldn’t want this business with Laura to overshadow his achievements.’

‘Well, it kind of does, Keith. And no pretending can make that otherwise.’

Keith pressed his lips together, and looked sad. Immediately she regretted what she had said. Not because it wasn’t true but because of the effect her words had on Keith. Optimistic, cheerful Keith, who didn’t deserve any of this. All he wanted was a happy family.

‘But I suppose you’ve got a point,’ she said and his head lifted just a little. ‘A neutral venue might make for a better atmosphere.’ She listened for the sound of Pete’s car engine revving and when she heard it drive away from the house she said, ‘You weren’t thinking of telling him about being adopted at The Mill, were you?’

‘Lord, no. Let’s tackle one thing at a time. We’ll have an early dinner and maybe try to talk to him about Laura – in a non-threatening, supportive way?’ He cast a meaningful look at Janice but did not wait for her to respond. ‘And then I think we should tell him about being adopted when we get home.’

Janice nodded, resigned to the fact that this was going to happen whether she liked it or not. In two days’ time Pete would know that Keith wasn’t his birth father. ‘Okay,’ she said bravely. She squeezed her sweaty palms together under the table so hard it hurt. The pain helped to distract her brain and stopped the panic in its tracks.

‘What are we going to do about Laura?’ she blurted out, anything to stop having to think about Pete’s father.

Keith paused, then said in a low voice, ‘In some ways it might be better if she had an abortion.’

‘Oh, Keith. How can you say that?’

He leant back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. His Adam’s apple moved in his throat, an indication that, though his features were hardened and his voice was even, he was upset. ‘I’m thinking of Laura as much as Pete,
Janice. A baby at her age would ruin her life. And Pete’s not ready to be a father. He’s not going to be any support to her. She’ll be on her own and poor Patsy and Martin’ll end up pseudo-parents to the baby.’

‘It doesn’t have to be like that,’ said Janice quietly. ‘I managed on my own.’

Keith put his hand out and covered hers where it lay on the table. ‘I’m sorry, love. That was insensitive. I forgot for a moment that you were a single mum before I met you. It can’t have been easy for you.’

‘It wasn’t.’

He put her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it. In all their years of marriage they had rarely discussed Janice’s life before she met Keith. She had told him once that it was something she wasn’t comfortable talking about and he had respected that.

Keith stared at her, his nut-brown eyes softening. ‘So we’re agreed. We tell Pete on Sunday, after the meal.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Janice, withdrawing her hand from his grasp and seeing a way out. ‘I’m having second thoughts. Maybe it’s not a good time with all this bother with Laura. Maybe we should wait until it’s blown over. It might be very…upsetting for him.’

‘I do worry about that. I’m afraid that he…that he might reject me.’

Janice rushed to reassure him. ‘Oh, Keith, that’s not going to happen. You’re the best father in the world and he loves you.’

‘Thanks, love.’ He paused and went on, ‘But we’ve been putting it off for years. There’s always a reason not to tell him. I don’t think we can let it drift any longer. If he’s old enough to father a child, he’s old enough to hear the truth, don’t you think?’

Janice stared out the window. ‘I guess so.’

‘Anyway, I want to get it off my chest. I don’t like lying to him. Well, it’s not lying exactly. I don’t like misleading him. I never did. I’d rather he knew the truth, even if it hurts both of us.’

Janice got up and went over to him, kissed the top of his head and rested her hands on his broad shoulders. ‘It’ll be alright, Keith. You’ll see,’ she said, without much confidence. Keith was such a good man. Pete was lucky to have him as a father. She just hoped her son had the maturity to see it that way.

She sat down again and folded her hands in her lap. She twisted her wedding ring round and round her finger. ‘I’m afraid too,’ she said, and she started to tremble. It wasn’t often she confided the true nature of her feelings to her husband. And yet the extent of her terror was such that she felt compelled.

‘I know,’ said Keith.

Janice put her face in her hands and whispered, ‘I can’t tell him, Keith, who his real father is. You have to understand that.’

‘Hey, it’s okay. No-one’s going to make you,’ he said, reaching across the table and touching her arm.

She removed her hands from her face. He stared at her for several long moments, his black pupils dilated. ‘You know what I think.’

She closed her eyes briefly, opened them again, anticipating what was coming next.

‘I think you ought to tell him,’ he said gently.

She took a sharp intake of breath. Every muscle in her body tensed involuntarily, resisting this idea.

‘Listen, Janice, please. Not just for Pete. I think it might help you exorcise the ghosts of your past. It breaks my heart to see you upset like this. I can’t begin to imagine what
must’ve happened to cause you so much distress, even now, all these years later.’

‘Please, Keith. Don’t,’ she said firmly, unable to bear his kindness. She did not want to cry. She had to stay strong.

He raised his hands in surrender, and said, sounding defeated, ‘Okay. I won’t talk about it. If that’s what you want.’ He stacked the cereal bowls and stood up.

Janice knew her inability to confide in him hurt him deeply, but there was nothing she could do to change that. How could she make him understand? She hardly understood herself. All she knew was that everything she had built for them, everything she had worked for – a safe, loving and happy marriage – would be destroyed if she started burrowing around in her past. She had learned to cope and she would go on coping, if only she could keep her past where it belonged. It was a deadly virus that would contaminate, and destroy, everything it came in contact with.

Keith carried the dishes over to the sink and glanced out of the window. ‘There’s Clare.’

‘Really?’ said Janice, embracing the distraction eagerly. She stood up immediately and looked out of the patio doors just in time to see Clare stride quickly from the car to the studio, her hands in the pockets of her long grey cardigan. The wild part of the garden, down by the studio, was a carpet of flowers and wild garlic, each head a cluster of snow-white five-pointed stars, albeit past their best. Golden narcissi and daffodils, on the wane now, bobbed in the breeze. The summer was coming. But Clare, her chin tucked on her chest, looked at none of it. Janice sighed.

‘That’s the first she’s been here since the exhibition,’ said Janice. ‘I’d better go and talk to her. I haven’t seen her since the accident.’

‘I thought you’d spoken to her.’

‘Only on the phone.’

‘She had a narrow escape if you ask me,’ he said. ‘She’s lucky the police didn’t press charges.’

Janice sighed. She loved Clare and she felt sorry for her because of the marital difficulties she was going through, but it was hard to hide her disapproval. Clare had done an awfully stupid thing and one that threatened to tear to shreds what was left of their little group. Though of course Pete had dealt it the initial, far more deadly, blow.

‘Well, I guess there’s no time like the present,’ said Janice, reaching behind the linen curtain for the key to the patio doors that hung there on a hook.

‘Maybe she’s come here for a bit of peace and quiet,’ said Keith. ‘After all, if she wanted to talk to you, she would’ve come up to the house.’

Janice paused for a moment to consider this. But she knew, more than anyone, that it’s when people don’t ask for help that they need it most. She smiled ironically to herself. Of course, if anyone ever needed help, it was her. But the absolute last thing she would ever do was ask for it – or accept it. That was why she had kept her secret all these years.

‘Perhaps,’ agreed Janice. ‘But I reckon that if Clare ever needed a shoulder to cry on, it’s now.’ She opened the patio door.

‘You’re a good friend,’ said Keith. ‘And a good person.’

Janice looked over her shoulder and gave him a shy smile, trying very hard to feel worthy of his praise. Then she stepped out onto the patio into the sunshine, took a deep breath of the fresh morning air, and headed towards the studio.

‘It’s been a while since we’ve been here together as a family,’ said Keith.

It was Sunday teatime and Keith, Janice and Pete were sitting at a window table in The Mill looking out on a wet
and dismal scene. All day the wind had howled like a banshee and heavy showers, interspersed with fleeting, bright spells of sunshine, soaked everyone hardy enough to venture out. Now, black clouds were gathering for another downpour.

‘Yes, it’s been years,’ said Janice, toying with the stem of her wine glass, and trying very hard to get into the spirit of happy families for Keith’s sake. She had dressed carefully for the occasion, in spite of the weather. Her cream linen suit felt like armour.

Keith sat across from her at the rectangular wooden table in his usual smart-casual outfit of short-sleeved shirt, chinos and leather loafers. Pete was beside his father, in a crumpled t-shirt and dark jeans. He was slumped in a leather bucket chair, staring distractedly out of the window. Janice’s white leather handbag sat in the chair beside her, the place where the fourth member of their family – a girl, she had always imagined – would have sat. But they hadn’t been blessed with a child and Keith didn’t believe in interfering with nature. So they never went for investigations. It was something that she now deeply regretted.