These Days of Ours (19 page)

Kate joined in. She had no choice. The quiet evening she’d planned had dissolved with the shout of ‘Surprise!’ At first she was doing her duty, but as one defiant heartbreak
anthem followed another, Kate was swept up by the music. By the time they were all caterwauling along to
These Boots Are Made for Walkin’
she was just a swaying body disconnected from
its fretful mind.

Suddenly, she slumped. As if somebody had pulled out her plug, Kate sagged against the fridge. She watched the seething mass of wrap dresses and up-dos, wondering where they got their energy. It
was easy to slip out unnoticed and climb the stairs.

Kate sat on the side of the freestanding bath and plonked her glass on the basin. The prosecco had made her head swim. Mild nausea swirled in the pit of her empty stomach.

Pretty and orderly, blue and white delft tiles stood in rows above the basin. Kate remembered Julian’s overexcited text from a second-hand shop.

Two floors above the music, Kate couldn’t hear the party goers. This house wasn’t a party house. It was too grand. She’d tried to cosy it up when they moved
in, lighting fires, rearranging the furniture; living in it alone she’d given up. The grand symmetry defied her. Ludwig House was a mausoleum. A beautiful one, carefully restored, with hope
in the grouting between the tiles.

‘Hurry up!’ The door shivered as it was banged from the other side. ‘I’m bursting!’

Becca, in a complicated gold dress, tore in and perched on the toilet, weeing ecstatically as Kate retouched her make-up at the mirror.

‘Thank God,’ said Kate, ‘for eyeliner.’ A sweep of brown and her weary eyes woke up. At her feet, Jaffa snuffled and grumbled, nose to the floor. ‘Why is Jaffa
here?’ She’d already tripped over the dim animal a couple of times.

‘Jaffa loves a good boogie.’

This was disingenuous. Jaffa, thanks to his habit of leaving small tidy poos as calling cards, was welcome nowhere, but Becca secretly harboured a hope that people talked of her as
that
glamorous woman who brings her little dog everywhere
.

‘Kate, change into something sexy. You’re back on the market.’

‘No I’m not.’ Kate was happy in her black silk shirt. ‘And even if I was, it’s all women at this party.’

‘So you’re saying you only make an effort around men?’ Becca loved taking pot shots at what she called Kate’s ‘so-called feminism’. ‘Those women are
your homies. They’re your crew.’

‘Actually, they’re my book club.’

Pulling up her thong, Becca said earnestly, ‘We’re all there for you, hun.’

‘One hundred and ten per cent?’ Kate anointed her wan cheeks with cream blush. She appreciated the gaggle of women currently conga-ing down her hall. Her friends were a broad church;
the twelve party guests included her new assistant, a young woman riddled with piercings, and a standard issue mum of two Kate had met at the gym. They all, in their individual ways, helped her
muddle through the current challenging era but, unlike Becca, Kate had never cultivated a gang. Kate needed only a small band around her. The band had shrunk when Dad was picked off by fate’s
sniper.

And then Julian went.

Kate had expected distance to lend perspective but no, her relationship with Julian still mystified her.

I still don’t know who let who down. Or if either of us did.

‘Giddy up, doll face.’ Becca slapped her cousin on the bottom. ‘You’re not hiding up here all night.’

‘I’m not hiding,’ said Kate. ‘I’m gathering myself.’

‘Whatever,’ laughed Becca, shoving her out of the (reconditioned) door and back to the raucous charm of the party.

‘I will survive!’ Cometh the hour, cometh the pop anthem. Gloria Gaynor defined the theme of Becca’s party, and the women drowned out the original majestic vocals as they
belted out the defiant, optimistic lyrics.

This time of night Kate would normally be stirring a risotto or settling down to ponder the week’s accounts. The banks of fairy lights Becca had strung up softened the room in the same way
as Kate’s preferred candles, but with more wattage, more oomph: should Becca ever become Queen of Everything she would illuminate the entire world with fairy lights.

Not convinced that the island’s worktop would withstand dancing heels, Kate left Becca up there: this time next week the house’s new owners would gut the entire building.

A text arrived.

Kate replied:

The response landed immediately.

Kate typed:

As Kate waited for another text the phone rang and she took it into the drawing room. Seating herself on a packing crate, she put the mobile to her ear.

‘Silly to keep texting,’ said Charlie. ‘Seriously, do you hate the party?’

‘No,’ laughed Kate. ‘I love parties. Why would I hate it?’

‘Maybe because a divorce party is the worst idea I’ve ever heard.’

On the dancefloor, Becca had shouted over the music, telling Kate how she’d ignored Charlie’s attempts to talk her out of organising a surprise party.

‘Becca means well.’

‘I know that. But opening bottles of bubbly because you and Julian have broken up seems, well, flippant.’

‘I can do flippant.’ Although she was grateful for Charlie’s concern, she didn’t like the person it described. As if Kate was an old lady, too sweet and vulnerable for
the hurly burly of society.

‘You’re exceptionally good at flippant. But a divorce party . . .’ Charlie let out a frustrated growl. ‘I said to Becca, not
everything
is an excuse for a
bash.’

‘I love my divorce party. So there.’

‘Fibber.’

Kate
wanted
to love it. She wanted to be the Kate she once was, the fresh-out-of-the-box version, who couldn’t hear music without getting on down with her bad self. She sighed, half
laughing. ‘I just want to go to bed.’

‘Me too.’ Charlie gave a short laugh. ‘Not with you. That came out wrong.’

Laughing along with him – what choice did she have? – Kate found the idea of going to bed and finding Charlie in it rather lovely. ‘You know I’m travelling back with your
missus tomorrow? Unless you’re sick of me.’

‘Never. We can take Flo horse riding again if your bottom’s up to it.’

Kate closed her eyes and heard the rhythmic complaint of the saddle, the plod of hooves, Charlie’s involuntary fearful exclamations when his sleepy steed tossed its head, all to a backdrop
of non-stop commentary from five-year-old Flo: ‘Look a little bird hello birdy she’s flying about and now she’s gone.’

Miraculously, Flo resembled Charlie. As if he loved her enough to make her long straight hair grow darker, and her eyebrows arrange themselves as two orderly brushstrokes. ‘I can’t
think of anything nicer.’

‘I’ll let you get back to your posse,’ laughed Charlie. ‘I don’t really know what to say. Happy divorce?’

‘That’s a lovely sentiment.’
I wish you were here
, Kate added silently, as if hoping he would develop telepathic powers.

‘It’s going to be fine, Kate, really.’ Charlie changed the tone. ‘I believe you’ve done the right thing.’

Returning to the dancefloor, Kate welcomed the music and the movement and the ribald singing. They offered her some camouflage, a noisy place where she didn’t have to wonder about whether
she was doing the right thing or the wrong thing.
I did the only thing I could
.

A couple of hours later, with some of the ‘crew’ departed, the diehards kicked off their shoes and arranged themselves around the kitchen table.

‘To girl power!’ Becca lifted her glass in a toast.

‘To old bag power!’ Mum of Two lifted her glass; Kate liked her more and more.

The prosecco that seemed to spring spontaneously from rocks in Becca’s wake had mellowed Kate.
This
, she thought,
is what this kitchen is for: people coming together.

Her assistant read a text on her BlackBerry that made her shoulders droop. Only messages from her feckless boyfriend had that effect on her. ‘Men are gits,’ she said.

‘True.’ Becca turned to Kate. ‘Don’t make that face. They are. All of them have the potential for git-like behaviour. Even your perfect Charlie.’

‘
My
perfect Charlie?’ As Kate spoke, she buried her face in her glass, hoping her pinkness could be attributed to the wine.

‘St Charlie, who puts up so patiently with his loony wife. He has his moments.’ Becca folded her arms, a stance approved by the women in their family when complaining about the men
in their family.

Before Becca could go on, Kate’s assistant took down a framed photograph from a shelf and asked, ‘Who are these lovely people?’ Skilled at protecting Kate from tricky customers
in the shops, she was now doing the same thing at home.

I must sort her out a pay rise
, thought Kate, saying, ‘That’s the staff and children of Yulan House. That jeep they’re standing around was paid for with funds I raised
in memory of my dad.’

Feminine exclamations of sympathetic delight showered down on Kate.
Women
, she thought,
are such a good audience.

‘They do amazing work there. Life changing things are routine. Some of the children they take in are abandoned because they have disabilities, or because of the Chinese one child law that
doesn’t allow families to have more than one baby. No matter what the reason, however ill the child is, Yulan House never turns anybody away.’

‘That’s so beautiful.’ Mum of Two was touched.

‘What’s even more beautiful,’ said Kate, ‘is the way the staff treat the kids. My dad got to know the owner quite well. From afar, obviously. Jia Tang makes sure
emotional needs are met, not just practical ones. So the children are safe and fed and warm and educated and, well,
loved
. She started the place thirty years ago and she’s still there
every day, devoting herself to them.’

‘
That’s
girl power,’ murmured Kate’s assistant.

Becca said, ‘Uncle John would be so proud of you.’

‘While he was alive I didn’t appreciate Jia Tang, how extraordinary her work is. I just went along with it because it made Dad happy. Now it’s part of my life. I’m
helping them scrape together the dosh for a new play area.’

‘I’ll help!’ said Mum of Two.

Becca said, ‘Kate, you’ve done enough. They can’t expect any more from you.’

‘They don’t expect a thing.’ Like Mum, Becca distrusted Kate’s commitment to the orphanage, believing it to be an unhealthy manifestation of mourning. ‘How often
can you feel like you’re making a genuine difference? When you see disaster and poverty and pain on the news, don’t you wish you could reach out and help in some small way? To say
You’re not alone; I care
?’

‘Calm down, cuz. You’re not saving the planet!’

When Kate’s assistant bridled, Kate quelled her with a look. Kate and Becca were as close as sisters, which meant that sometimes they were as rude as sisters.

Perversely (that could be Becca’s middle name) Becca had chosen to echo Mum’s attitude, treating Jia Tang as a rival, as if the love and care Kate showed Yulan House detracted
somehow from what she gave to those closer to hand.

The promise Kate had made during the funeral, to hold Mum tight, had been kept. She was a dutiful daughter, calling her mother every day, visiting often, sharing the heavy lifting as Mum
adjusted to life as a widow. Beyond a casual mention, they didn’t talk about Dad.

For proper, in-depth nostalgia, Kate went to Charlie, who was always ready to reminisce. The subject he avoided, with even more diligence than Mum avoided the subject of Dad, was the kiss.

The push-me-pull-you embrace on the bench outside the hospital had un-happened. They never mentioned it. It was the elephant in the room with them; it was the elephant that went horse riding
with them.

During their cousinly heart-to-hearts, Becca would sometimes say, ‘I always expected Julian to cheat on you. I would have killed him with my bare hands if he did.’

There seemed to be a tacit agreement underpinning these chats that Charlie would never do anything so low as betray his wife. He was, apparently, above suspicion. Kate had turned that over in
her mind as Becca castigated Julian. At times over the past year, Charlie had seemed ready to make a pronouncement, as if he was working himself up to proclaim something.

Spit it out!
she’d silently beg. Tired of translating signals, of dissecting that one outbreak of physical action, Kate needed words from Charlie. Something to chew on. The naked
truth without the dos and don’ts forced on them by their situation.

With the pathetic crumbs she had to go on, Kate veered from blushing at schoolgirlish notions that he could ever desire her to certainty that he loved her.

The obvious solution – to stop turning it over in her mind, to step away – was not open to her.

Speak to me, Charlie
, she pleaded, even as he was speaking to her.
I’m not fragile. I won’t break
.

No declaration had been made. Charlie was the faithful man his wife believed him to be, and Kate admired him for that. That she wanted him, at some deep level that was impervious to common
sense, was true; what was also true was that Kate needed all her loved ones to be safe and content. Or as much of either as is possible. She couldn’t build her own happiness on the broken
backs of Becca and Flo. And neither could Charlie.

This was one of the many reasons Kate loved him.

Perversely was also
her
middle name.

The music was over. The house was dark, apart from the fairy lights doggedly sparkling in the kitchen. Having waved off her last guest, Kate returned to the kitchen table and
Becca.