Fallen Women

The implication, of course, was that Kate was so busy in the fast lane that she never spared her poor old widowed mother a second thought. Kate glanced across the hall into the kitchen. The door was ajar, framing the supper party. The fast lane looked remarkably like a coffee advert, all low lights and soft autumnal tones. Behind the low babble of voices someone had put Gabrielle’s new CD on the hi-fi as a soundtrack.

‘So where did you say Mum is now?’

Bill was busy uncorking another bottle of red. Joe was holding court. Chrissie was looking pale and interesting.

‘The local hospital. They’re keeping her in for observation overnight. I’ve been over to see her, obviously. Unfortunately, I couldn’t stay because of the girls, but she’s in plaster up to the knee and her face looks awful, dreadfully bruised, lots of stitches. It could have been very nasty. I thought you ought to know. I didn’t want to say anything to Daniel, didn’t want to upset him.’

Kate sighed. Presumably Liz had put on her best telephone voice so that he wouldn’t recognise who it was. There was that silence again, the one into which Kate guessed she was meant to leap head first.

In the kitchen, in the lamplight, Joe was rolling a joint while at the same time going on about how bloody terrible the parking was getting. The terrible dichotomy of hippiedom finally meeting middle age.

She stood still for a few moments after hanging up the phone; from upstairs Kate could hear the boys playing – the bass beat of Danny’s music overlaid with the ping-ping of a video game from Jake’s room. Where would they be when they got phone calls like this? Never mind getting married, giving birth, or signing up for a mortgage, the realisation that your parents don’t have the secret of everlasting life is the real ticket into adulthood.

Kate had been totally incredulous when her dad died. How the hell did that happen? How could it happen? He hadn’t even been ill. Part of her was still outraged.

Even after five years, the first thought Kate had whenever she thought about her dad was that he couldn’t possibly be dead, it had to be a trick of the light, he was there somewhere if only she knew where to look. He was just hiding, maybe in the next room, and along with a residual ache of loss was a terrible nagging frustration that he kept giving her the slip.

‘Who was that then?’ Joe asked, topping up his wine. ‘Not one of your clients again? You need to get them to ring in office hours, Kate. I’ve told you before. You’ve got this cosy cottage industry attitude towards business – boundaries, that’s what you need. I’ve always said that if you want people to consider you as a professional you have to –’

‘Actually, it was Liz. My mum’s had an accident. I’m just going to go and put a few things in a bag.’ For some reason saying it out loud made Kate feel shaky and weepy. ‘I ought to go and – well, just go and make sure she’s all right. Keep an eye on her. You know.’

‘You’re not going to drive to Norfolk tonight surely?’ Joe asked incredulously. ‘Can’t it wait until tomorrow?’

‘No, I don’t think it can, I’m not sure what sort of state she’s in – and I’ve only had one glass of wine. I’ll be fine. They’re keeping her in overnight. I want to be there for her, sort the place out, pick her up tomorrow. She can hardly come home to an empty house and Liz’s girls are still little –’

‘Of course you’ve got to go,’ said Chrissie, on her feet, instantly sober, and instantly supportive. She was always calm in a crisis, or at least always calm in someone else’s crisis. ‘We can see to everything here, can’t we, Joe?’

‘Well, yes,’ he began more hesitantly. ‘But I’ve got stuff to do; there’s some Yank flying in for a breakfast meeting tomorrow. I need to drop in to the office – I did tell you, Kate – it’s important.’ And then he looked at her. ‘And you said you’d be able to pick my suit up from the cleaners –’ He blew out his lips and shook his head as if all this had nothing to do with him. ‘And what about the boys?’

Kate stared at him.

Joe had polished off several glasses of Merlot. He had a patch of high colour on each cheek, like a Punch and Judy rouge spot, a little flush that only ever appeared in two situations: when he was drunk or in the first throes of post-orgasmic bliss; not something there had been a lot of just recently.

She felt a flurry of annoyance; she needed him to help her and here he was busy passing the buck before it had even landed. Joe returned the stare, obviously expecting her to come up with something that didn’t include him the equation.

Kate looked away first. In lots of ways Joe was a really good man. But recently they had been stumbling through the raw bickering no-man’s-land of some itch or other.

Forty-two and Joe was only just coming to terms with the fact he was never going to be Sting, that writing the odd jingle and helping out with the sound and light systems for corporate dos was probably the closest he was going to get to the big time or the bright lights of Wembley Arena, and that he was unlikely to be asked to guest at an open air concert in Hyde Park because some roadie had spotted him mingling with the hoi polloi, trying to blend in.

It was Kate who found a lot of Joe’s work – the radio jingles, anyway – and who’d introduced him to the guy who ran the light and sound company. They’d met when she was doing a trade show at the NEC in Birmingham and got talking. He had needed someone who knew something about sound, they had needed the money. How was it Kate could feel guilty about that? Because unfortunately somewhere down the line it had turned from a good thing into her fault; Kate felt as if she’d stolen something from Joe.

At the moment things between them were tense for no particular reason that she could define. But they’d been there before and would probably be there again. Kate had no doubt they’d sort it out; on the whole they were good together.

‘Danny is nearly fifteen, for God’s sake, he should be able to get himself and Jake up and stay out of trouble till you get home,’ Kate said coolly.

Joe didn’t look convinced. ‘I’ve got no idea what time I’ll be back.’

Across the table, Chrissie shook her head. ‘Oh please, Joe. This is an emergency. Jake and Danny can come round to mine. Robbie’s at home tonight. They’ll be fine. Now is there anything else you need?’

The question was aimed squarely at Kate but Joe was in like Flynn. ‘Any chance you can pick my suit up from the cleaner’s tomorrow?’

It didn’t take very long or very much to unravel what remained of the evening. Within half an hour Kate had packed a bag and sorted out Joe and the kids.

Chrissie, arms crossed over her chest, gathered a cardigan up around her shoulders. She leant in through the driver’s side window to say her goodbyes. ‘Now don’t you go talking to any strange men, and give me a ring as soon as you get to your mum’s. And don’t worry, there’s nothing here that we can’t handle between us.’

‘Thanks, Chrissie. What on earth would I do without you?’

‘Christ only knows. House train Joe maybe?’

Kate laughed. ‘Give me a break. I haven’t got that many years left.’

Chapter 2

M25, M11, A10: Kate’s parents’ house was in Denham, a small Norfolk market town a few miles inland from King’s Lynn, set on a rise of land high above the black rolling Fens. She could make it home in around two and a half hours, always assuming there were no major hold ups.

Once she was away from familiar streets, Kate stretched and settled herself in for the long haul home. The night seemed unnaturally dark outside the tunnel of lights. It was hard not to yawn. Hard not to let her mind wander. Resisting the temptation to rub her eyes, Kate tried to relax her grip on the steering wheel and settled into the drive.

Less than an hour up the road and already her neck ached with tension and tiredness and an odd nagging fear. Taillights like demon eyes headed away from her into the dark. Kate loathed driving on motorways, nervous of getting so caught up and so tangled in the system that she’d never be able to find her way out again. Which was one of the reasons she told herself, pulling up hard behind some moron with a death wish, why she didn’t get home as often as she would like, why she hadn’t been to see her mum in, in – in – was it months or was it closer to a year? Surely it couldn’t be that long?

Kate pulled a face, trying to add up the time. Work had been crazy, which had been good, they could certainly use the money. The boys had both had flu at Christmas so they hadn’t gone home then, they stayed in front of the TV, sniffing, sleeping and drinking Lemsips, but Kate and her mum had talked a lot on the phone. New Year’s Eve, Kate and Joe had gone to a party in a flat overlooking the Thames with some of the guys Kate freelanced for while Chrissie had kept an eye on the boys. But they always rang each other once a week, most weeks, Kate’s conscience protested. And besides Mum liked her independence; Kate always felt that Maggie – her mum – was busy making a new life for herself. That was it. Her own life. She’d raised her kids and moved on, got herself a part-time job, always sounded really chirpy on the phone. They loved each other but that was no reason to live in each other’s pockets, no reason at all.

Kate squared she shoulders as her argument steadily backed itself up. Re-run over and over again in her head it still sounded like a series of pathetically weak excuses.

The traffic in front slowed to a bad-tempered unpredictable crawl and Kate forgot just how long it was since she had been to see Maggie and concentrated instead on trying to stay focused and not let sleep seduce her.

It wasn’t that her mum ever complained, but Liz did. Frequently. Liz, who was married to Peter who did something incomprehensible in the City and who always did as he was told. Good old Liz, with her three perfect little girls, lived in Norwich, about an hour’s drive away from Denham.

Kate peeled a mint out of the packet on the dashboard. The accusatory voice in her head, the one that berated her for not caring, not ringing or visiting often enough, was hardly the best travelling companion she could have wished for. It sounded an awful lot like her sister on a bad day.

Kate crunched the mint into gravel, tuned in to Radio 4, and let it haul her through the long dark miles while the voice in her head carried on moaning about the play, the book, the news and the price of fish.

Just over two hours later Kate indicated and pulled off the A10 and into Denham. Driving up towards Church Hill, slowing the car to a crawl, she looked out for the landmarks, etched deep on the retina of an older eye. The family house was up in the good end of town, up the long slow rise from the town centre, near the high school and the church. It was a big rambling Edwardian semi, faced with dark Norfolk carrstone and an over-abundance of Virginia creeper.

Kate vaguely remembered her parents struggling to make the move up there – it was a big step up in the world for them, marking some promotion that now, Kate realised, had changed their lives for ever, taking her dad off the shop floor and into management. She remembered the huge battered sofas in the big sitting room covered with Indian throws, and her dad out in the conservatory, rubbing down a table that her mother had found in an auction, remembered the whole make do and mend ethic of people trying to do better for themselves.

Glancing up at the handsome old house, Kate wondered whether Liz was right, whether the time had come to talk about selling up and getting something smaller. It was crazy keeping such a big house for just one person, particularly a person who couldn’t manage. She shivered; had it come to that already? Surely it hadn’t come to that yet?

Pulling into the drive, Kate struggled with the perpetual sense of déjà vu that inevitably preceded her arrival. Was she late? Would they still be waiting up for her? Had she forgotten to do or pick up something important? The sensation was fleeting but always left a peculiar bittersweet aftertaste.

Her car crunched over the gravel. Beyond the arc of the headlights the house was in total darkness. It wasn’t that late, a little before midnight. Here and there in the borders the magnolias glowed creamy white in the moonlight. Kate parked up under the laburnums. Which were poisonous. How many times had Dad told Liz and Kate that? The whole tree, every leaf, every single bud, every last flower just waiting to strike you down dead.

Giving the laburnum a wide berth she locked the car and stretched, feeling the blood creeping back through her body. The night was warm and heavy with the perfume of honeysuckle and night scented stock. Kate drank it all in. On the surface it seemed that nothing had changed; the spare key was there, tucked under the stone cat by the conservatory door where it had been ever since she could remember.

Inside the air was cool and still and smelt of home.

Tick-tick-tick, the hall clock welcomed Kate in. She shut the door and finally felt the tension in her stomach easing. Home. Dropping her bag onto the chest by the hallstand, every sense was suffused by wave after wave of compassion and nostalgia. It seemed like a very long time since Kate had been there. Certainly a long time since she’d caught the house this unguarded, undefended by the bright voices of her mother or her sister and the kids. Pulling off her coat, Kate walked across the lobby and switched on the kitchen light.

‘Who the fuck is that?’ barked a male voice.

Stunned, Kate froze and looked up as the landing light snapped on. Peering over the handrail was a figure, a half-naked man, and behind him, leaning heavily against the doorframe and blinking down into the semi-darkness was her mother, Maggie.

‘I’ve rung the police,’ snapped Maggie, in a tough no-nonsense don’t mess with me kind of voice. ‘They’re already on their way. Stay exactly where you are and don’t do anything stupid.’

‘Mum?’

There was a peculiar little silence, and then Maggie said, ‘Kate, is that you? What the hell are you doing here?’

Which wasn’t exactly the sort of welcome Kate had expected.

‘Liz rang. She said you’d had an accident – she said …’ The words curled up and died in Kate’s throat. Her little sister, Liz, for whom every headache was a brain tumour, every chest pain a heart attack. It suddenly occurred to Kate that maybe it would have been a good idea to have rung the hospital and check on exactly how Maggie was and where she was before hurtling up to Norfolk.

Not that that explained everything.

As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, Kate could see the man on the landing more clearly. He was naked except for a small pair of very white pants. They were tight high-cut cotton pants that did very little to cover his nakedness – rather they enhanced it. Behind him Maggie was wearing a plaster cast to the knee, a dark silky chemise and not a lot else.

Her mother.

Kate took a deep breath and made every effort to rekindle her explanation. ‘Liz said you’d fallen down and broken your ankle and that you were all on your own and had got stitches and – and that she couldn’t stay here with you because of the girls. And …’ Those weren’t necessarily the things Kate really wanted to say, so she stopped. ‘What exactly is going on, Mum, and who the hell is that?’

Maggie didn’t miss a beat.

‘Kate, I’d like you to meet Guy, Guy, this is my eldest daughter, Kate.’

Guy nodded. ‘Hi, I’ve heard a lot about you,’ he said, as if this was the most natural thing in the world, and as he spoke pulled a bath sheet off the banister and wrapped it tight around his waist. He had no hips to speak of; a belly like the underside of a turtle, broad shoulders, what could surely only be a sun bed tan, but no hips. Kate felt that the towel was more to cover her embarrassment than his.

‘I’ll go and put the kettle on, Mags-baby, go and get yourself back into bed. Would you like some tea, Kate?’

‘Er, yes, please,’ she mumbled.

He had to pass Kate on the stairs. He loped. He smelt of something trendy and couldn’t be more than thirty-five if he was a day. And he had been in bed with her mother. Her mother. Kate was very tempted to slap him.

‘Come on up,’ said Maggie, without a shred of the self consciousness or the shame Kate felt she surely ought to be feeling. ‘Why didn’t you ring to let me know you were coming?’

Making every effort to compose herself, Kate said, ‘Because Liz told me that you were still in hospital. Did you really ring the police?’

Maggie laughed. ‘No, no, of course not. You were making such a lot of noise that Guy thought if you were a burglar you were probably thick and might be taken in if we bluffed it out.’ She eased herself back into the bedroom, wincing with every step, and then lowered herself down very gently onto the side of her big feather bed. ‘There’s no way I could have stayed in hospital, it would have driven me crazy, and Guy was here, so they let me come home.’ As she spoke Maggie set about rolling a cigarette.

‘I thought you told me you’d given up.’

Maggie looked up at her. ‘Give me a break, Kate.’

Caught in the lamplight Kate could see that Liz hadn’t been exaggerating about the damage; one side of Maggie’s face was shiny, taut and navy blue with great claret and gold highlights, a row of stitches adding a macabre Frankensteinesque codicil to the fine skin above her eyebrow.

For the briefest of instants Kate caught a glimpse of the woman her mother really was. Maggie Sutherland was small framed and attractive in a handsome rather than pretty way; she had good bones and her hair, styled into a shaggy chin length coupe savage and coloured to a warm glossy chestnut, was thick and wavy and framed a strong jaw line. It was a face shaped by time rather than worn down by it. She watched Kate watching her, ran her tongue along the sticky edge of the cigarette paper and at the same time lifted one perfectly plucked eyebrow.

‘Well?’ she said, picking up the lighter from beside the bed.

‘You shouldn’t smoke.’

‘I don’t, at least not very much these days. And?’

‘What happened – and who is that?’ Kate indicated the stairwell with a flick of the head, unsure what she wanted to ask first, unsure whether she really wanted to hear the answers.

‘Oh, come on, Kate,’ said Maggie, through a rolling boil of cigarette smoke. ‘What do you call them when you’re over fifteen? His name is Guy Morrison and he’s my lover, my companion, and yes, before you ask, he is living here. He’s letting his place while we see if this works out. Kind of a trial run.’

Kate felt her jaw dropping but was powerless to stop it.

‘So that’s who Guy is.’ Maggie stopped talking and concentrated on flinching as she lifted her leg, trying to find a comfortable spot on the bed.

Kate felt her colour rising. ‘Liz told me that you were seeing someone, but I thought – well, you know I was thinking more whist drives, grey hair and driving gloves. Days out in the country with a picnic and a corgi – but he’s, he’s –’

Kate was squirming now. What exactly was it she was trying to say and why was she trying to say it? That Guy was way too sexy? Too young, far, far too good-looking. God, she would have been pleased these days if someone like Guy gave her a second glance, let alone clambered into her bed. Kate glanced back over her shoulder thinking about the way Guy had looked on the stairs; she’d have to make love with the light off and perpetually hold her stomach in. Kate tried to shift the image, while making a sterling effort to nip that particular train of thought in the bud.

Side-stepping what Guy might or might not be, Maggie continued, ‘You and I don’t see much of each other, Kate. We’ve both got busy lives – it’s not always easy to explain things over the phone.’ In contrast to her earlier conversation with Liz it was a statement with not the barest hint of accusation in it. ‘And anyway I assumed you knew. Liz met Guy when she was here at Christmas.’

Oh, Liz would have met him, thought Kate ruefully. How was it Liz knew all about her mother’s fancy man and why hadn’t she rung and told Kate? How could she have kept something like that to herself; Maggie was living with the man for God’s sake.

But her mum was still talking and still looking at her. ‘Who really knows how serious these things are going to be and, Kate,’ she said, taking a long pull on the roll-up, ‘when we get right down to it it isn’t really any of your business who I’m sleeping with, is it?’

Kate flinched and then blushed. ‘But you fell over,’ she said, in a tone that implied that somehow the two events were quite obviously linked.

‘Which was my own fault, which was why I didn’t ring. Guy and I went out to lunch – it was Taz’s birthday – I don’t think you’ve met Taz. She works in the bookshop with me? Anyway, there’s a great new brasserie opened in the high street. They do the most fantastic food and cocktails and we all got there about twelve and didn’t leave until three and I –’

‘Came back here, pissed as a whippet, tripped over her handbag and fell down the steps round the back. Don’t be taken in by all this poor me stuff,’ Guy said warmly. ‘Besides nursing those bruises she’s also got a stonking great hangover. Do you take sugar?’

Kate hadn’t heard him coming back up the stairs. She looked up into his big brown eyes and wished she hadn’t. Guy was truly gorgeous. Worse still, he loved her mother.

He grinned. ‘Actually you look as if you could do with something a bit stronger. I know it must be a bit of a shock but she’s going to be fine. Do you fancy a drop of brandy, there’s some in the kitchen?’

‘No, thank you. Tea, no sugar, will be fine,’ Kate managed in a clipped tone, realising that she sounded uncannily like Liz.

‘Okay.’ He vanished back downstairs and Kate turned her attention back to her mother.

‘Embarrassing, isn’t it?’ laughed Maggie

She could say that again, thought Kate, except Kate was almost certain that she and Maggie weren’t talking about the same thing.

‘I lay there for God knows how long. Guy had gone back to work. When I finally managed to get my act together I rang him on my mobile.’

‘Liz didn’t say anything about you being drunk.’

Maggie snorted. ‘Good God, you think Guy told her?’

Kate looked Maggie up and down, sitting there in her chemise, hair all mussed up, smoking a roll-up, and suddenly – amongst all the other emotions – was really proud of her.

‘Liz told me she thought it was a very good idea your mum taking me in,’ said Guy, returning with a tray. He sounded mischievous rather than cruel. ‘Someone to keep an eye on her, it put Liz’s mind at rest knowing that your mum wouldn’t be on her own at nights.’

This time Maggie giggled.

It was not the kind of giggle you would naturally associate with your mother.

‘It’s a damned good thing it happened today and not next week,’ Guy was saying. ‘I was supposed to be going to Germany first thing Monday morning.’

‘And you still will be. Stop worrying, I’ll be perfectly all right, I’ve already told you,’ Maggie said. ‘I can manage.’ She couldn’t, it was quite obvious, but that didn’t stop her sounding certain.

Guy looked at her. ‘Sometimes I think that Liz is right, you are such a stubborn cow. I’m going to cancel and that’s final.’

‘Don’t be silly. It’s only for a few days. I can sleep downstairs if you help me make the bed up in the sitting room. It’ll be fine. I can use the loo downstairs and the shower.’

Kate took the mug Guy offered her and tried not to concentrate on their bickering or ogle Guy’s exquisite body as he clambered back into bed, very gently lifting Maggie’s foot as he did so that she could settle back amongst a great heap of pillows. It occurred to Kate that he had probably carried her upstairs too. Damn him.

Guy pulled the duvet up around them both. He had a tattoo, a dark blue Celtic knot that wrapped itself around his suntanned biceps. Kate looked away because her mouth had started to water and because she knew she was staring.