Beneath the Surface (21 page)

‘I’d like to take you out again,’ he said at the end of the evening. He hadn’t asked her, rather assumed she would want to go on another date with him as if she had nothing better to do. Which it turned out she hadn’t because to her frustration she found herself agreeing to see him again.

They had nothing in common but Eleanor’s interest was sparked whenever his name arose and Kathryn felt an unbearable need for her mother’s approval. Ever since she had lost Robert her days were getting darker and she found herself clinging, like a life raft, to Eleanor. So if Eleanor liked him, Kathryn thought she probably would too one day.

As time went on and she continued seeing him, Peter spent more and more time talking about work and taking her to places she didn’t particularly wish to go to, such as fancy wine bars, shows, the opera. Then when he asked her to marry him, she couldn’t really think of a reason to say no. Other than the fact she didn’t love him, or particularly enjoy his company, but for some reason that didn’t affect her answer.

Kathryn knew she shouldn’t have agreed and that he didn’t love her either, but she had already lost her soulmate and she would never love another man anywhere near as much as she had Robert, so there was no point in waiting for anyone else. She might as well make do with Peter.

*****

Kathryn lay on the bed facing the ceiling. Whenever she closed her eyes she felt the nausea washing over her. It came in waves, rolling across her body and then subsiding, making her believe it was over only for another bigger swell to drown her again. It was better to keep her eyes open.

Her hands rested on her stomach cradling the piece of paper with Peter’s number on it. He had sent it to her a year ago, attached to a cheque. She had been tempted to throw it in the bin when she’d pulled it out of the envelope. His brief note explained he had changed his number and thought she should have it, just in case. Just in case of what, she had no idea. Just in case they moved maybe. Just in case she didn’t need his money any longer, or needed more. Instead of throwing it away, she had tucked it at the back of her bedside drawer. Just in case.

Kathryn didn’t conceive that one day she’d be calling that number. For over an hour now she had been lying on the bed, playing out the phone call in her head and second-guessing his reactions. Taking a deep breath, she picked up the phone and slowly tapped in the numbers. Her heart thumped as she listened to the ringtone. She could feel its force beneath her chest, almost burning through her skin each time it pounded. Pulling herself up, she leaned back against the pillow and waited for him to answer.

‘Hello?’

The sound of his clipped tone took her by surprise. Had she tried to remember how he sounded she wouldn’t have been able to, but as soon as she heard his voice it was like they had spoken only yesterday.

‘Hello?’ he asked again, the edge to his voice showing faint irritation. ‘If this is some foreign call centre—’

‘Peter,’ she eventually said, ‘it’s me, it’s Kathryn. I need to see you.’

*****

Three days later, Peter was sitting on a sofa at the far end of Costa Coffee. His face was obscured by
The Times
, which he shook as he turned the pages, but Kathryn recognised him as soon as she entered the coffee shop. The top of his head was visible above the paper, his hair bouncing in curls both greying and receding. As he bent his head forward she could see a balding patch. How confident he must be, not needing to look out for her, when he knew she would be arriving any minute.

Kathryn steadied herself by gripping a chair.
Half an hour
, she reminded herself.
That was all this needed to take
. Then she could be out of there and never see him again. For the last two hours she had been telling herself that over and over as if it were a mantra: get what you need and get out.

Peter dipped his paper and gazed up at her, holding up his hand in a half-wave when he saw her. Although he stirred in his seat as if about to stand he remained seated. He wasn’t smiling, and so Kathryn didn’t smile back, just walked towards him muttering under her breath,
Get what you need and get out
. On reaching him she saw the hint of an amused smirk and it crossed her mind she had been talking aloud.

‘Can I get you a coffee?’ he asked, gesturing to the chair opposite.

‘No.’ Her voice shook. She needed to compose herself but already she could feel the heat rising beneath the light shirt she had chosen to wear. She needed to flap its collar and cool herself down, but then he would know how uncomfortable she was, so instead Kathryn sat down on the seat opposite and took deep, steady breaths.

‘Straight to business it is, then.’ He smiled at his own joke, eyeing her carefully as if she might do something strange any moment. ‘You look … well.’

But Kathryn had noticed the dark shadows under her eyes that morning, the gauntness of her cheeks. She didn’t answer Peter.

‘So, it’s been what, ten, eleven years and you don’t have time for pleasantries?’ he asked, raising his eyebrows.

‘Fourteen years, Peter. It’s been fourteen years. The girls will be seventeen this December.’ She winced at her mention of the girls. She hadn’t wanted to say anything personal about them so soon.

‘Seventeen. Wow! Have you got any photos?’

‘No, I don’t, I’m afraid,’ she replied coolly.

He nodded. ‘So how are they? Are they why you’re here?’

‘They’re fine,’ she said, volunteering nothing more.

‘Well, come on, Kathryn,’ he said, leaning forward, placing his elbows on the coffee table between them, clasping his hands together as if in prayer and resting his chin on his fingertips. ‘What is it that’s brought you here so urgently?’ His eyes widened mockingly as he said the word
urgently
. ‘Don’t keep me in suspenders.’

That awful expression he used. It had always irritated her. How quickly a few words had taken her back to a time she didn’t want to be in. Already Peter had knocked her off-balance and she had to pull herself together to regain control.

‘I need to know something, Peter,’ she started, ‘the truth about us.’ Kathryn waited but he didn’t respond. Shuffling in her seat she tried to focus.
Get what you need and get out
, she told herself again. ‘How come you suddenly left us when we moved to the Bay?’

Peter leant back into the sofa, his eyes wide, his head hung to one side as he contemplated her.

He’s got a wonky mouth
. Abigail’s words came flooding back to her.
Two thin lips and when he opens them up his mouth looks as if it’s filled with crooked tombstones
. She had scolded her daughter at the time for being so rude but as she regarded him now she could see what Abigail meant. Peter wasn’t attractive when you broke his features down into separate parts. His mouth was a strange shape and his eyes were too round and small.
They look like buttons that are the wrong size for his face
. She couldn’t remember where this ranting of Abigail’s had come from, but it was making the process easier for her now. Really, why on earth had she married him? It wasn’t his money. And his ambition had driven her mad, all those nights listening to how successful he considered himself to be.

‘And why’s the past so important to you now?’ he asked, breaking her thoughts.

‘I just want some answers.’

‘Because Eleanor can’t give them to you anymore or because she’s been saying things you don’t want to hear?’

‘What do you mean?’ Kathryn gasped.

‘I know she’s in a home, Kathryn. I know what’s happened.’ She could feel the sting of tears pricking her eyes. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea – she would never have the upper hand over Peter and it really was getting unbearably uncomfortable.

‘Maybe I should go,’ she said, grabbing her handbag from the floor.

‘Oh, Kathryn, you’ve only just got here,’ he laughed. ‘But if that’s what you want …’ He waved a hand in the vague direction of the door. ‘Remember me to your mother, won’t you?’

Kathryn stopped. ‘Do you know what, Peter? I’ve never asked much of you. I put up with everything you threw at me. You wanted to leave me, fine. You could have. You changed your mind, fine. I let you stay. Then you decided you’d go again and that was no problem either. You went. All I’m asking of you is to tell me the truth. What actually happened?’

‘OK, take it easy,’ Peter said through clenched teeth, leaning in and glancing around at the few customers engrossed in their own conversations. He paused and seemed to consider his answer. ‘You weren’t too bothered by my leaving, Kathryn. Neither of us were happy, were we?’

‘I’m not talking about how happy we were. I’m not saying it wasn’t the right decision, I just want to know how come you were suddenly confident it wouldn’t affect your career?’ She knew she was right about him only staying in the marriage for his own good, yet once she had moved to the Bay and he had left, Peter had still taken over Charles’ business. And that’s what Kathryn had never understood. ‘What did my mother have to do with it?’ she asked.

Peter picked up his coffee cup, swirled it around in his hand and then settled it back on the table without taking a sip. He gazed up at her, even had the decency to look slightly ashamed, she thought.

‘I’m not proud of myself,’ he said. ‘I didn’t intend to hurt you. When they introduced us I thought you were beautiful, you know. I didn't ever expect to have a wife that looked like you. Of course I knew they were keen for us to get together. Eleanor wanted a son-in-law to take over the business and the fact they knew my uncle—’ He paused and looked back at his coffee cup. ‘I had hoped we might work out but obviously we didn’t. We’re far too different really, aren’t we, Kathryn?’

She waited for him to carry on, not knowing how to answer him.

‘I knew you’d never love me. You never stopped loving Robert, did you? Only I soon realised I didn’t like being married to someone who wasn’t really there half the time.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

Peter shrugged. ‘We didn’t talk, you showed no interest in me or being with me. You were more like a housemate than a wife.’

‘This isn’t what I came for,’ Kathryn said. ‘I don’t need to know why the marriage went wrong.’

‘I never liked the way you let your mother control you,’ he went on. ‘I always wished you would stand up to her, but we both know what she’s like, don’t we? I let her control me too in her own way.’

‘Because you were getting something out of it,’ Kathryn added. ‘My father’s business for one thing.’

‘Yes of course there was that,’ he said. ‘But with you –’ he shook his head – ‘I always wanted to do more but I’m afraid I never did.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘I wanted to tell you what she was doing but I couldn’t. I would have lost everything.’

‘Tell me what? You’re not making any sense,’ she said.

Peter pushed his cup away and shuffled in his seat. His eyes flickered between Kathryn and the table as he took a deep breath. ‘The reason I still took over the business was because we made a deal. She let me go and I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone what I had found out.’

Kathryn opened her mouth to speak but he held up a hand to stop her. ‘Just let me finish now,’ he said. ‘There was a time when I couldn’t take any more of your moods, the way you regressed into yourself, wouldn’t let anyone near you. At first I put it down to grief or depression.’ He shrugged. ‘I had no idea what was going on with you but it was getting me down too, so I went to see my uncle about you. Of course Edgar wouldn’t talk to me, told me he couldn’t, patient confidentiality and all that, but I knew there was something he was keeping from me. He was too similar to my own father, an appalling liar.’

Kathryn shifted nervously. The hairs on her arms were beginning to stand on end; she had a feeling she didn’t want to hear what Peter was going to tell her.

‘So I started to look into things myself, like the drugs you were taking. The ones they told you were for sickness. Things just didn’t feel right and then you got pregnant, and I went back to see Edgar again, begged him to tell me the truth. I said I was worried about how the drugs might affect the pregnancy, that I’d spoken to a doctor friend of mine who told me that sickness wasn’t the only thing they were used for. Edgar told me that when you were twelve, he had diagnosed you with schizophrenia, Kathryn.’

‘What?’ Kathryn’s mouth dropped open. ‘You’re making this up.’

‘I’m not, I’m afraid. Less was known about it then and your mother freaked out, saying she couldn’t let it get out she had a daughter with such an illness. As always, Eleanor was consumed by what people would think of her. So Edgar agreed to hide it. Keep it from the world and the press. They told you the drugs were for sickness.’

‘But…’ Kathryn didn’t know what to say, what it all meant. Whatever she thought he might tell her it wasn’t that level of deceit. ‘I don’t believe you.’ She shook her head. It couldn’t be true, there was no way her mother would have hidden the fact she had an illness from her for all those years. Not just because she was ashamed.

‘I’m telling you the truth,’ he said earnestly.

‘No.’ Kathryn shook her head again, the air around her was thinning and even the motion of moving her head was making her dizzy, but she had to try and focus. ‘I can’t be, I don’t even know what it means. Isn’t that when you have two personalities?’

‘No, it’s nothing like that,’ said Peter. ‘You need to talk to someone and get the facts, get the help you need—’

‘No. I don’t believe you,’ Kathryn cried. ‘Why the hell did you never tell me?’

‘I believed it was under control. And I knew if I said anything my uncle would lose his job over it. I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Like I said, I’m not proud of all my decisions.’

‘Jesus.’ The air was closing in on her again, she didn’t want to have another panic attack, not in the middle of Costa, not in front of Peter. Flapping herself with a napkin, Kathryn made a move to get up but her feet couldn’t hold her steady and she fell back onto the sofa.

Peter stood up, leaning over the table, and reached for her arm to help steady her. ‘I’m sorry, Kathryn,’ he said again.