A Friend of the Family (7 page)

‘What do you think of Thea?' she asked him.

‘Now are you trying to throw me off the scent?' he pondered, putting the bowl down for the salivating Gus. ‘Or was this the subject of all your whispering? I like her very much. George is a lucky old devil, isn't he? Can't think what these young girls see in these old men.'

‘George and your father are the same age,' said Cass repressively, making coffee.

‘That's what I mean,' said Oliver, unperturbed. ‘Positively ancient. It's almost indecent. She'd be much better off with a young virile chap like me.'

‘That's a mistake that young men often make,' said Cass, who had always treated Oliver as an equal rather than her child. ‘A girl some-times
prefers an experienced older man to a callow youth who has no idea how to treat her and is only interested in bolstering his own ego.'

‘I hope,' said Oliver reprovingly, ‘that you are not implying that I am a callow youth?'

Kate burst out laughing. ‘She wouldn't have the nerve,' she said. ‘None of us would.'

‘Well, all I can say is that marriage is doing wonders for old George,' said Oliver. ‘Not nearly as boring as he used to be. Speaks to me and Saul as if we're actually members of the human race. He's full of the milk of human kindness and I put this pretty shirt on specially to wind him up. Saul and I took bets on how long it would take him to remark on it. And he hasn't even noticed it. Too busy leering at Thea and trying to hold her hand when nobody's looking. I shall have to pay Saul twenty pence now!'

He picked up the coffee tray and set off towards the dining room. Cass and Kate looked at one another.

‘Could Felicity have been trying to wind you up?' asked Kate. “After all, it must be positively humiliating to lose George after twenty years to a mere child like Thea.'

Cass shrugged. ‘All I can say is that she sounded very convincing. And it was you who said that she was biding her time and it would all end in tears. But she might have been. They certainly look happy enough at the moment and I simply can't imagine George running a wife and a mistress and behaving like he is this morning. Come on. We'd better join the mob.'

 

Seven

 

WHEN POLLY WICKAM TELEPHONED
Thea and suggested that they meet in Exeter for lunch, Thea was delighted to agree. All her fears seemed, after all, to have been unfounded. George was still a loving companion and she hadn't seen Felicity since before Cass's lunch party. This last was a little surprising as Felicity had become a very regular visitor but, after some thought, Thea had decided to let sleeping dogs lie and enjoy her happiness with George. They had spent two peaceful weeks of leave in Shropshire and returned with pleasure to the Old Station House where Thea felt that she had lived for years and which was now so much her home.

On the morning that she was to meet Polly at Coolings, the wine bar behind Queen Street, she drove across the moor to Two Bridges and turned left on to the Moretonhampstead road. It was a clear bright day and the moor was almost gaudy with its stretches of purple heather contrasting with the gold of the autumn-flowering gorse. The berries of the hawthorn and the rowan were ripening and the beech leaves showed a hint of bronze. The bracken was beginning to die away in shades of rust and flame and the whole glowed and dazzled beneath the early-autumn sunshine.

In Exeter, Thea parked the car in the Mary Arches car park and, following Polly's instructions, made her way through narrow streets until she stood outside the wine bar. Suddenly feeling rather shy, she pushed open the door and peered in. It was dark inside after the brightness of the day and Thea stood for a moment, blinking, as her eyes accustomed themselves to the gloom.

‘Thea! Hi! Over here.' Polly was gesticulating from a dark corner and Thea smiled with relief and went to join her.

‘This is fun.' She slid into the empty chair and looked around her. ‘Is it always as busy as this?'

‘Well, people come in for coffee, stay on to have a drink and then find that it's lunch time. I was lucky to get a table. Now you're here I'll go and get us a drink and you can be deciding what you want to eat. The menu's written up on blackboards. See?' Polly gestured to the boards fixed above the bar to the whitewashed walls. ‘What will you drink? I generally have the house white. It's cheap and cheerful.'

‘Fine. Whatever you usually have.'

She watched Polly threading her way to the bar and noticed that she had meant it when she told Thea not to dress up. Since her marriage to George, Thea had discovered that women did not always strictly mean this and she had turned up in her jeans to find that the other women were looking very smart indeed. Polly, however, was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt and Thea felt almost smart in her best cords and one of George's better jerseys. She felt, suddenly, that it was fun to be sitting here in Coolings with a girlfriend of her own age getting her a drink, surrounded by laughing talking people, while some music with a verv strong beat played in the background. She looked around her, alert and interested, and completely unaware that she was arousing a certain amount of interest in one or two quarters. She grinned at Polly when she came back bearing two glasses. Polly grinned back.

‘Here's to us.' She raised her glass to Thea. ‘So what's the news from the Wild West? I haven't been over to see Harriet for a while. She came here last time. How she can bear to live in that isolated cottage I can't imagine. The silence at night positively terrifies me when I stay with them. And if it isn't creepily quiet there are peculiar sounds that frighten you to death. I remember being woken up with this really weird noise. Terrifying, it was. I lay awake for hours, rigid with fear. When I told Michael in the morning, he said it was a sheep coughing. Jesus! What with that and the owls roaring away, not to
mention the foxes screeching, who can possibly hope to rest quiet in their beds? Give me the nice normal sounds of the petrol engine revving and jolly people rolling home drunk in the early hours.'

‘I think it's what you're used to,' said Thea, laughing at Polly's description. T m used to the quiet and can't sleep in towns. Do you stay with Harriet and Michael often?'

‘Not what you'd call often. Sometimes when Paul's away lecturing on the life cycle of some deadly boring insect. Did you know she's expecting a baby?'

‘Harriet? No, I didn't. How lovely for her.'

Polly raised her eyebrows and pulled her mouth down at the corners. ‘If you like that sort of thing. She's thrilled. Better not say anything if she hasn't told you. She's loving telling people and I don't want to spoil her fun. I'm to be godmother.' She made another face. ‘What a positively terrifying thought. Drink up and we'll get another when we order the food. What do you fancy? The cauliflower cheese is really good.'

Thea found herself being swept along, finding Polly's lighthearted approach refreshing and infectious.

‘Do I gather,' she asked cautiously, when they were back at their table with heaped plates of cauliflower cheese and delicious-looking fried potatoes, ‘that you and Paul don't want children?'

‘Not yet.' Polly attacked her food with enthusiasm. ‘I'm not the maternal sort and I simply can't see Paul with a baby. He probably wouldn't notice it. Now if I could give birth to a completely new mayfly . . . '

‘Oh, Polly!'

‘I mean it. You don't know him. He's always reading or down at the lab. He's hardly aware of my existence. It's lucky that I'm a very self-sufficient person.'

‘Sounds a bit lonely,' ventured Thea.

Polly shrugged. ‘Could be worse. Look at you. You're alone all week. At least Paul comes home every evening. How do you manage, all alone in that big house? What's it like being a naval wife?'

‘Oh, it's not too bad at all. I'm told by the old hands that I don't know I'm born. Apparently having a husband away only five days out of seven is luxury, especially when I could be with him in London. It's nothing to him being away at sea for months on end whilst you're left dealing with sick children, trying to move house and all the other traumas. I've come in on the jammy bit so I can't complain. Mmm! This food is absolutely delicious, Polly! Anyway, I go up midweek to see him and there's an awful lot of garden to keep me busy. And there's lots of really kind people, well, you know them, people like Cass Wivenhoe, who've been so friendly. I'm very luckv.'

‘And George, so I hear, is very dishy.'

‘Oh, well.' Thea blushed and then laughed. ‘Well, I think so. He's quite a bit older than I am, actually.'

Polly, who knew all about George from Harriet, made big eyes across the table at her. ‘An attractive, experienced older man sounds pretty good to me. Do you ever lend him out to friends who are in need?'

‘Certainly not! I've had quite enough of that with Felicity . . . ' Thea stopped abruptly and bit her lip.

Polly's eyebrows shot up and, pushing aside her empty plate, she rested her elbows on the table, glass between her fingers, and looked at Thea quizzically.

‘Now that sounds rather interesting. Come on, you can't possibly stop there.'

‘It's nothing. Really. Well, at least, it's all over now. It's, oh honestly!' Thea shook her head, laid down her fork and looked at Polly almost beseechingly. ‘It's nothing. Honestly.'

‘In that case,' said Polly firmly, ‘it won't matter if you tell me about it. I'll go and get some coffee and then you can tell me all!'

 

WHEN FELICITY TURNED UP
at the flat in London the second time, just after Cass's party, George was surprised but not nearly so frightened as he had been on that first occasion. She gave the same
reason as she had then but her rather strained air made him feel glad that he had an excuse for not being able to offer her hospitality. He was going to dinner with Tom and Tony and there was only time for a quick cup of tea before he said goodbye to her. On the third occasion he was prepared to let her see that he was surprised—and not pleasantly so—but she seemed so dejected that he let her in without demur. She had come up, she said, to visit a friend but there must have been a muddle because the house was empty and no message had been left for her. She looked rather tired and told him that she had one of her ‘heads' and George began to feel sorry for her. He took her in and gave her tea and she was very grateful and quiet and George was at a bit of a loss to know how to deal with this subdued, forlorn Felicity. He was very kind to her, remembering that she was all alone now whilst he had Thea. Always in his dealings with Felicity lurked the remains of his guilt at having deceived and abandoned her and he found it quite easy to be gentle with her. She huddled in the corner of his sofa looking so pathetic that he wondered how on earth he was going to turn her out. When the time came, however, she asked him to telephone for a taxi and when it arrived she got up to leave. At the door, however, she gave a little cry and stumbled, clutching her head in both hands and dropping her handbag. She looked so ill that George was obliged to send the taxi away and help her back to the sofa. She rummaged in her bag and found the Ergotamine tablets which were prescribed for her migraines while he went to fetch a glass of water.

When he returned she smiled up at him. Her face was paper-white, her eyes black and enormous, and George looked at her anxiously. ‘You can't travel like this,' he said. ‘I'm not sure that we can even get you to an hotel. You'd better stop here. I can sleep on the sofa. I'll go and sort the bed out.'

Felicity watched him go and then placed the tablets back inside her handbag and drank the water. She was trembling from head to foot and when he came back and touched her on the shoulder she
jumped violently. She stood up and followed him into the bedroom.

‘You should be quite comfortable,' he said, a little awkwardly. ‘Shout if you want anything.'

He didn't look at her and turned quickly away.

‘George.'

Her voice was barely above a whisper but to him it was like a clarion call. He hesitated but didn't turn back to look at her.

‘Please, George. Don't leave me. Please.'

It was as if his heart had turned to marble, a great cold weight in his breast, and despair clutched at his entrails. He put a hand out and took hold of the door jamb.

‘Please, George.'

She started to cry, hurt, whimpering little noises, and George gave a moan of desperation.

‘I can't, Felicity,' he whispered fiercely. ‘You know I can't.'

She was close to him, standing behind him. She pressed her face against his back and he felt her hand on his wrist.

‘Just this once. Don't leave me alone. I feel so awful and I'm so lonely. Oh, George, I've missed you so much.'

George swallowed hard. She lifted his hand and pressed it to her cheek which was wet with tears and he moaned aloud again in his distraction. She released his hand and began to cry in earnest, holding her hands over her face, and with dragging steps stumbled to the bed. She fell on to it, weeping. George stood quite still, gazing out into the hall and struggling with his conscience. Presently he went out and closed the door quietly but firmly behind him.

 

HERMIONE SAT IN HER
summerhouse watching Thea approaching across the lawn. She knew at once that all was not well with this beloved child and she clasped her hands tightly beneath the shawl in which Mrs Gilchrist had insisted upon wrapping her. The autumn day was dull but warm; nevertheless, in the absence of sunshine Mrs
Gilchrist always feared the worst and Hermione had to he shawled and muffled despite the actual temperature. She struggled a little to release her arms so that she could extend her hands to Thea. She scanned the girl's face anxiously. It had a drawn look with smudgy shadows beneath the brown eyes. Gone was the buoyant vivid look and Hermione felt her heart begin to tap a little faster.

‘My darling girl.' She clasped Thea's hand and drew her down to sit in the chair beside her own.

‘Something's wrong, G.A.'

It was so like Thea to come directly to the point that Hermione almost smiled.

‘I gathered that on the telephone. Can you tell me what it is?'

‘I don't quite know what it is.' Thea's face was troubled and unhappy. ‘Well. Except that it's George, of course. He's all different. Sort of distant and closed in. He's behaving like a terribly polite stranger and I can't break through, It's horrid. And frightening. I simply don't know what to do.'

‘But do you know why he's behaving like this?'

Thea, who had been clutching Hermione's hand, released it and turned to stare out over the lawn. Tt's Felicity,' she said. Τ'm sure of it. Felicity is the woman he had an affair with and I think she's made him go back to her. I think he's seeing her in London.' Her lips shook a little and she swallowed hard.

‘My darling girl . . . '

‘If I'd known at the beginning, you see, I wouldn't have encouraged her. I could have frozen her out. But I was so sorry for her, losing her husband and her mother, and it was only later that I guessed who she was. I do think that someone miht have warned me. Cass or someone.'