they were all together, while they were on holiday together, while the kids were playing cricket on the beach, or at a barbecue, and long to be alone? Did they brush past each other in the kitchen, and smile knowingly while Kate was outside turning the beefburgers; did they talk about her when they were in bed together? Had they got secret jokes and magic words that she had heard and yet never recognised?
She and Chrissie had often talked about sex, life, kids. Kate couldn’t think of a single area of life where they hadn’t been in conversation. Years before, over a coffee, or maybe a bottle of wine, Kate had told Chrissie, amongst a million other things, how Joe had once grabbed her in the kitchen, dragging her off for a quickie in the coal shed where they stored the bikes. How they’d screwed like rattlesnakes, giggling and half cut, trying so very hard not to make too much noise, while Kate’s parents and the kids were sitting inside waiting for them to dish up Christmas dinner. What was it Chrissie had thought as Kate had been telling her? Had she been there too? Stolen moments while Kate had been somewhere else, patiently waiting? Had it been better for her or worse?
Kate felt cold fingers track up and down her spine; a person could easily drive herself mad thinking about this stuff. She was so deep in thought Kate had almost totally forgotten about Maggie.
‘You were the one who suggested it would be nice to walk into town.’ Maggie sounded tense. ‘Guy thought it would be a good idea to borrow a wheelchair from the hospital. He took me down the pub for lunch yesterday.’
Kate snapped back to the present; good for bloody Guy. There was no way she could possibly compete with the bronzed boy wonder. Pushing the wheelchair was like trying to steer a human shopping trolley. Kate glanced over her shoulder wondering how the hell she was ever going to get Maggie back up the hill.
As if she could read her mind, Maggie said, ‘Kate, instead of struggling like this why don’t you park me over there under the trees and go back and fetch the car? I don’t mind. We could have a sandwich at home if you like? I’ve got loads of food in. Guy felt so guilty about leaving me he’s laid in enough for a siege.’
‘No, it’ll be fine. Don’t worry.’ Kate did her best to sound brisk and capable. ‘Now where did you say you wanted to go?’
Which was a stupid thing to ask because up until a quarter of an hour ago Maggie had been happily reading on the sofa with no desire to go anywhere whatsoever.
There was a pause and then Maggie, in that same kind of oh well we’re here now better get on with it way, said, ‘We could drop into the bookshop if you like. You can meet everyone, and then we could find somewhere for a late lunch – the brasserie? I’m sure they would be pleased to see I’m still alive. My treat.’
‘Sounds fine, although when we get back I really must get on with some work,’ Kate said, implying that coming home to Maggie’s had dragged her away from something vitally important.
Maggie nodded. ‘Okay. Did I tell you I’m thinking about remodelling the garden later this year? We’ve drawn it up and measured it. I’ve promised myself that while Guy’s away I’ll go through all those gardening magazines and books I’ve got. It’s really nice to have someone to plan things with again and he loves gardening –’ Kate could hear the enthusiasm in her mother’s voice and didn’t know what to say, but it appeared that she wasn’t expected to say anything, as Maggie continued, ‘I thought I’d do some textural things – cobbles, gravel and water. I’ve seen this wonderful water feature that was built into the top of a brick wall; you end up with this thin, rather elegant stream, dropping over different levels and then being pumped back. And then –’ Using her hands for emphasis Maggie started to wax lyrical about patios and pots and pools as Kate braced herself against the handles of the chair. ‘Maybe we could go to the local garden centre some time while you’re here? I’ve been thinking about building a pergola; Guy is very good with his hands.’
Kate decided not to comment.
In a funny way, Guy or no Guy, it was a relief to see Maggie so animated. This was the woman Kate thought about when she visualised her mother, self-contained, joy-filled, always with some scheme or project on the boil. It was reassuring that things weren’t so far out of kilter after all. Instead of playing nursemaid Kate could let go and give her mum some space. Part of her, she realised, felt that she was obligated to amuse and entertain and generally be with her mum all the time. For as long as she could remember Kate had never felt that way about Maggie.
Although, said the rogue voice in her head, wasn’t that the main reason she had volunteered to come back home? While protesting she needed time and space to think, wasn’t Kate really hoping that nursing Maggie would take her thoughts away from Joe and Chrissie, that somehow, in her absence, all those things that were broken would miraculously heal themselves?
While her mind was busy having an argument with itself, Kate steered the wheelchair in through the gates of the Memorial Playing Fields, a short cut into the town. After the rigours of Church Hill and the dash across the traffic lights before they changed, it was also blessedly flat and totally traffic-free.
The cricket pavilion was still there, where once upon a time, a long time ago, Kate had curled up against the peeling paintwork and smoked her very first cigarette. Head spinning, she had wondered why anyone in their right mind would ever want to smoke and then a few minutes later lit another one to see if she could pin it down.
It wasn’t the only rite of passage marked there. On the boundary of the cricket pitch, under a stand of copper beech, was the bench where she had her first real snog. It was with a boy in the form above her. Kate fished around for his name and found it tucked away under a pile of other dusty, neglected memories: Alan Hart. They’d had several half-hearted attempts on the walk home from school, but because he was so much taller than she was, to make it work he’d had to stoop while she stood on tiptoes. It wasn’t pretty. It most certainly wasn’t sexy.
So, by mutual agreement, they had taken a detour through the park, and found a bench somewhere over there under the trees. He had put his arms around her and pulling Kate close had kissed her with closed, dry lips, pressing his face hard up against hers, furiously, hungrily, as if he might be burrowing for something.
Kate smiled. For an instant the memory was so vivid that she could almost smell him, remembering a boyish mix of sweat and Brut. It made her shiver, how could it be that she had forgotten Alan for all these years? Glancing across the grass Kate wouldn’t have been in the least bit surprised to see a younger version of herself, entwined around Alan Hart, all arms and legs and inhibitions, despite having the waistband of her school skirt rolled over to show an extra couple of inches of leg. Kate tried hard to conjure up his face, but could only manage a long shot of him loping towards her across the playing field, hands stuffed in the pockets of his parka, shoulders slightly hunched against some long gone breeze.
By the end of the summer they had progressed to kissing with tongues and him alternately trying to undo her blouse and get his hand up her skirt. It was around then that Kate decided that whatever it was Alan was trying to do he wasn’t the one she wanted to do it with and called it a day. With the robust survivalism of youth she’d gone on to have a crush on a boy in the sixth form, while Alan, she seemed to remember, had been very upset and bombarded her with notes and cards.
What had happened to him since then? Did he ever think about her? Did he think about them walking hand in hand on the way home? Did her blame her still? Kate stared at the benches wondering what it was they had talked about then? What did they know then?
Unexpectedly, her eyes filled up with tears. The wind that rippled her hair did the same to the canopy of the trees overhead so that the sunlight dappled the tarmac ahead of the wheelchair, making it look as if Maggie and Kate were walking through a babbling, bubbling brook.
‘I’m so pleased you’re home, love,’ said Maggie, breaking into Kate’s train of thought and through the wave of melancholy that threatened to engulf her. ‘Seems a long time since you and I have had a chance to talk.’
Kate slowed down, wondering if they had ever really talked at all.
‘I know you’re busy,’ Maggie