Thorn in the Flesh Read online

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ve got your spare key, remember?’

  Nicky unlocked the door, settled Kate into the living room and bustled away in the direction of the kitchen.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Kate called after her. ‘I don’t need anything.’

  ‘But I do,’ Nicky responded. ‘I won’t be a moment and then we’ll ring the police together.’

  Alone, Kate drew in several deep breaths and tried to relax. She’d always been the strong one, hadn’t she? The one Nicky had leaned on in the past, at school and then later during the university vacations. Now everything was different.

  When her friend returned, she brought with her a shot of Courvoisier, two glasses of orange juice and soda water, a pack of Café Noir biscuits and the new mobile telephone on a tray, a gesture that made Kate smile.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I should be the one getting you the drinks, but thank you.’

  ‘Not a problem,’ Nicky shook her head. ‘I did wonder about hot, sweet tea, but discounted it as we’re too young. Unless you …?’

  ‘No. I don’t believe I’m there yet. I assume the brandy’s mine?’

  ‘Of course. My driving’s bad enough. Now … the police?’

  Nicky picked up the telephone and began to punch the number, but Kate jumped to her feet. ‘No, please. Let me, I’ll call them.’

  When the half-halting conversation with the duty sergeant was over, she slipped the phone back onto the tray in the middle of the coffee table and sat down again. Nicky pushed the brandy nearer and Kate took her first fiery sip. The swift journey of the liquid warmed her throat and stomach, and she blinked.

  ‘Better?’ Nicky asked.

  ‘Yes. Much, thank you.’

  ‘What did the police say?’

  ‘They’re sending someone to see me. I don’t think they were intending to at first, but when I told them my name … well, you understand.’ She paused to take another sip and felt more muscles relax. ‘I think it’s one of those who interviewed me in the hospital, though I can’t remember his name. The older one, I hope. The other one wasn’t pleasant. Not that it matters. Whoever it is will be here in half an hour at most.’

  ‘Good,’ Nicky said. ‘I’ll ring David and tell him I’ll be late.’

  While Nicky rang her husband, Kate sat back and tried to go through in her mind what had just happened. When the police came, she would need to be clear. Whatever she said would be placed on a report somewhere and be open to interpretation. She must seem calm.

  ‘That’s fine,’ Nicky said as she finished her call. ‘It sounds as if the twins are rioting, but I think David will round them up in the end. He’ll be content to see me whenever I turn up tonight.’

  ‘Are they all right?’

  ‘Yes. They’re having a week of quarrelling but that’s usual. It always seems to be the way when I’m coming up to an exhibition. Well, in six weeks or so, anyway.’

  ‘Oh? Another London gallery?’

  Nicky laughed. ‘I wish! I only get a couple of those a year, if I’m lucky. No, this one is much more local. The Pepperpot. Did you know it has a ghost? Sometimes late on a Monday night, after our art class, the floor creaks and there’s the noise of someone moving around, though there’s never anyone there. Very strange. Anyway, local artists and their visions is the theme for the exhibition. I’m working on a series of paintings of Winkworth Arboretum. If the twins will give me a moment, that is. It must be post Bank Holiday blues or something. But Charlotte’s beginning to fight back, which is nice. We can’t have Louise winning all the time.’

  Kate smiled.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said.

  ‘Whatever for?’

  ‘For not asking me what happened just now. For being prepared to wait and, most of all, for not drowning me in compassion. You don’t know how much sympathy kills.’

  For a moment the two women gazed at each other and Kate noticed for the first time the addition of lines around her friend’s eyes. Where had they come from? The fact of growing older, she supposed, but still something in her wanted to stretch out and try to smooth the signs of age away. Instead, she picked up her glass and drained it.

  ‘No, I don’t know,’ Nicky said. ‘But I do know you. You’ll tell me something when you’re ready to, no sooner, no later.’

  The tone of her friend’s voice made Kate look at her again. ‘I’m sorry. Does that matter to you?’

  A short silence followed and then Nicky made a sound halfway between a laugh and a groan. ‘Sometimes, yes. Because it’s you I care about. You know that. Here we are – you’ve just nearly been attacked again, and still you clam up on me. How are David and I supposed to try to protect you when you won’t tell us – or the police – what’s going on? Because there is something going on, isn’t there?’

  When Nicky finished speaking, the silence flowed back. But Kate could feel the difference in it. She clasped her hands together, feeling her nails digging into her palms, and swallowed. How should she start? And what should she say?

  ‘Bruges was beautiful,’ she said, and then hurried on when Nicky sighed and ran her fingers through her hair. ‘No, please, let me finish. Bruges was beautiful. All the things I saw gave me the time I needed to think. They made me come to a decision. About what I’m going to do now and, in fact, what I’ve just done. This morning, I went to London and met a man I used to know when I was at Durham University. You don’t know him, Nicky. I never talked about him to you. I never knew how to. His name is Peter McLeod and when I was eighteen, when you were away on your gap year, I became pregnant. It’s because of him that I had a child.’

  The echo of her words, all the emotions behind them, faded into silence. Neither of them spoke. Kate couldn’t bear to look at Nicky, so she stared fixedly ahead as if her life depended on it. She hadn’t meant to say it like that, it was a mistake to have spoken in this way, but she couldn’t take it back now. The deed was done. She saw the coffee table, with her brandy glass perched in the middle. The carpet underneath it needed Hoovering, she noticed. She might even get it professionally washed. She saw and thought all these things almost at the same time, but she couldn’t work out what to do next.

  She had to do something.

  ‘Nicky?’

  The word rasped through her throat, dragging the past and its secrets with it. She sat up. She half-turned to face her friend. Nicky was gazing at her, her face pale and the lines around her eyes more pronounced.

  ‘Nicky,’ Kate began again. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that much. Not at this point. I meant to tell you, but not in this way. I’m sorry.’

  Her friend shook her head, as if shaking herself free from an enveloping mist.

  ‘You have a child?’ she said. ‘You never told me before. I …’

  Whatever Nicky was about to say was cut off by the piercing interruption of the door bell. Kate sprang to her feet and her skirt swept the brandy glass off the table into the carpet’s deeper seas. It didn’t break and she ignored it.

  ‘Damn,’ Kate swore for the second time that evening. ‘It must be the police. I’m sorry. I should let them in. Please, we have to talk later, we …’

  Nicky looked from left to right as if the police were already there. ‘Yes. Yes of course. The police. Don’t worry, I’ll let them in.’

  Before Kate could object, her friend had slipped past her and was gone. She heard the sound of her footsteps in the hallway, the opening of the door and the murmur of enquiring voices. She was an idiot. How could she have told her secret in such a way? How could she be so hurtful? Shivering, she bent down and picked up the stray glass. The smell of brandy almost made her gag. Then the sound of voices grew stronger. Nicky’s, a second female voice and that of a man. They were coming back. She didn’t know what to do, how or where to be.

  The next second the living room door opened and Nicky entered, a smile on her lips that didn’t reach her eyes. Behind her, Kate could see two young police officers, neither of whom she
could remember meeting before. The woman, a slim blonde, smiled, but not too much, and Kate wondered if that was something she’d been taught to do in cases such as hers. The man, however, glanced at her, then at the empty glass still clutched in her hand and back to her face again. Kate felt her skin redden and looked away. Cursing her stupidity, she blinked back tears. She knew now what they would think.

  The interview lasted only twenty minutes and Kate noticed that neither officer wrote down very much. Nicky sat next to her as she told them what had happened, but didn’t make any move to touch her and, on her part, Kate didn’t look at her friend. She was afraid of what she might see. All the time, her heart was hammering in her chest as if it would never be still. When the police left, it was Kate who showed them out. She watched them walk side by side down the path towards their car. The policeman unlocked the driver’s door and got in. The girl paused and half raised her hand in farewell. Kate nodded but didn’t respond in kind. She waited until the sound of the car had disappeared into the distance before she moved again. More than anything she was aware of the touch of the night breeze on her skin.

  Stepping back into the house was like stepping into a universe that had shifted slightly since she was last here. For a moment this reminded her of the night of the attack, but she shook the thought away. This time, the only other person here was Nicky. For tonight, she was safe. But this too would be a new thing to face.

  In the living room, her friend was sitting where she’d left her, hands resting on her lap as if posed. Kate’s throat felt dry and she coughed to clear it. But it was Nicky who spoke first.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she said.

  Kate gazed around the room, hardly noticing the paintings, the carved wooden springbok or the shelves crammed with books.

  ‘I was frightened,’ she said.

  ‘Of having the child?’ Nicky asked.

  ‘No. I didn’t want a child. I never have. No, I was frightened of how strongly I felt about Peter, how much I wanted him and how terrified I was at the thought I might lose him. By the time Stephen was born …’

  Kate glanced up and stopped mid-sentence. Her friend was sitting upright, her hands forming tight fists on her lap and her face twisted. She was crying.

  ‘Oh Nicky, I …’ Kate hurried to help, but Nicky waved her away, grabbing a couple of tissues from a box under the table and brushing her eyes in quick, jerky movements.

  ‘No,’ she said again. ‘I’m fine. Really.’

  ‘Can I get you anything?’ Kate asked, hovering above, as close as she dared, wanting to help but not knowing how.

  ‘No. Thank you. I’m fine. I shouldn’t be … after all, it’s you who … Tell me about Peter. Tell me what he was like.’

  It wasn’t the request Kate had expected and the shift in conversation left her stranded. She had to think for a moment. She sat down opposite her friend rather than next to her and ran one hand through her hair.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell you. It sounds strange, but I was never entirely sure. Not then, at university, and not now. Somehow it didn’t matter what he was like. I loved him. And that fact took me over even though I never thought of myself as being the sort of person who could fall in love like that …’

  As she talked on, Kate found that the words fell out of her mouth as if they’d been waiting for expression for a long time. She relived the feelings, the way Peter and she had been together, as if it had only happened yesterday. She didn’t flinch even when she spoke about Penny and the brief time they’d spent together before she’d met Peter. Nicky made no comment at any of the story although, as the time flowed by, Kate could see her friend begin to relax. Her hands unclenched and she rested in her seat again, rather than being upright, ready for action, even though Kate couldn’t think what such action might be. Nicky’s face also became calmer and her eyes were dry.

  When the story was over, Kate glanced at the clock and saw it was gone 11.30pm. The day was almost finished. In the silence, it was as if the past was beside her, changing the patterns in the air. She felt exposed, as if the slightest movement might cause her to bleed again. When she raised her hand to her cheek, her fingers came away wet.

  ‘I should have told you, I know,’ she whispered. ‘But I think I was too proud. And too frightened. I’m sorry.’

  ‘I would have liked to have been there to help,’ Nicky said, her voice almost as low but this time without the shock of accusation in it. ‘I wish you’d felt able to tell me before. And I’m sorry too, Kate. I’m sorry for the way I reacted earlier. It was … Tell me about your child. What happened to Stephen? That was his name, wasn’t it?’

  Kate glanced at her friend. Nicky’s face was unreadable, but had no judgement in it.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘His name was … is Stephen. Stephen Williams. Or at least Williams was the name of the adoptive couple who took him. He was born on the first of June 1986. A month early. In Durham Hospital. He arrived so quickly. There was a lot of pain but I don’t remember any of it now. But of course you know about that. You’re a mother yourself. The first of June. So tomorrow, if he’s still alive, he’ll be nineteen.’

  She hesitated, the knowledge of what tomorrow would be only just being understood, but Nicky didn’t interrupt and, after a moment or two, Kate carried on.

  ‘Neither do I remember much about him,’ she said. ‘The nurse who helped me give birth asked if I wanted to hold him, but I said no. What was the point? I’d already made arrangements for him to be adopted, and I knew I’d go through with that if Peter didn’t come back to me, so I’d chosen not to know too much about those who would give my son a home. I only knew their surname. All I could think was that Peter didn’t want me or his child, and so there was no love to spare for anyone else. I remember Stephen had a scattering of dark blond hair, feathery to look at, and his eyes were just like his father’s. His fists were clenched tight, as if holding onto something I couldn’t see. He didn’t look like me and I was glad of it. I swore I would never love anyone again the way I’d loved Peter. It makes you too vulnerable.’

  ‘Was it you who named him?’ Nicky asked after a pause.

  ‘No. The Williamses asked me, via the agency, but I told the social worker to let them choose; I said it was up to the people he’d be living with, not me. They said they were keen on the name, “Stephen”, and I just nodded. One name seemed very much like any other, to me.’

  ‘What did you do then?’

  Kate took a deep breath. ‘I waited for Peter to come, change his mind about us, ask for my forgiveness, but he didn’t. I was stupid to expect it. If he had, I think everything might have been different. We could have been together, we could have been a family, but the time for any of that was over. Perhaps it was never really there; it was my dream, not his. And, besides, I didn’t love Stephen. I never did, not then and not now. I don’t have that capability within me. Perhaps if we’d been a family, I would have destroyed him because of it, I don’t know. You may think I’m cold, unfeeling, but, to me, I’m simply being honest. No more, no less. I loved Peter. I had a baby which I didn’t love. That, Nicky, is the truth of it and sometimes I believe everything in my life since has sprung from those two facts. You ask me what happened next. It’s simple. When Peter didn’t come, I left the hospital, took a long holiday travelling on my own through Europe and then I went back to university as if nothing had ever happened.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Kate,’ Nicky said again. ‘I’m sorry you had to go through all that. I wish I’d been able to help you.’

  ‘You did,’ Kate answered. ‘In a way I didn’t anticipate but which allowed me to deal with the storm in my head I couldn’t control back then. You helped by being yourself, someone familiar from the life I’d had before I met Peter. I’m sorry too. For not being able to tell you what was happening. Please believe me; it wasn’t that I didn’t want to. I did. But loving him in the way I did terrified me. There was no control, no boundaries to it. I was afraid th
at if I talked about him to anyone, even to you, then the fire might destroy me.’

  ‘And now?’

  A light touch on her arm and the nearness of Nicky’s voice made Kate realise that her friend was kneeling next to her chair. She hadn’t seen her move; she’d been too much caught up in her own thoughts.

  ‘Now,’ she said, ‘Now I want to find my son.’

  ‘Why? If what you say about how you feel about him is true?’

  ‘Because,’ Kate said, hesitating, ‘because after what happened, after the rape, it seemed as if all my present and future had been snatched away. Searching for Stephen will give me back something I haven’t had in a long time. It will give me back my past.’

  There was more of course. Much more. The letters, the threats, the things her attacker had said, what he had known. The things that Stephen might have known and told others. She needed to find him. Yet more of the truth which she couldn’t tell Nicky. Perhaps no friendship was ever entirely open. Still she hoped one day it might be. One day she hoped she would be able to tell this woman everything.

  ‘How will you do it?’ Nicky asked, turning her wedding ring round and round on her finger. ‘Where will you start?’

  ‘I don’t know. I imagine I’ll have to go back to the agency who took charge all those years ago. I haven’t dared look into it yet. I was hoping … I was hoping I would have your help. Please, Nicky, will you help me find my son?’

  Kate reached out and took Nicky’s hand in hers. Her friend seemed to shrivel.

  ‘I can’t,’ she said, the breath catching in her throat as she tried to speak. ‘I can’t. I’m sorry. I will do anything else in the world for you, Kate. You’re my oldest friend, but I can’t do that. Please don’t ask me.’

  Kate’s stomach twisted and she sat back, although her hand remained clasping Nicky’s. She’d so much hoped for her friend’s help in the search but, after this evening, she couldn’t object to the refusal. ‘All right, I see. Is it because I’ve only just told you about him tonight? I’m sorry, really I am.’