Where There's Smoke, Page 4

  She was acutely aware that Lucy was still not eating. There was a silence. Kate kept her attention on her food. Then Lucy spoke.

  "You're not."

  "Not what?"

  "Thinking about having it!"

  Kate tried an incredulous laugh. "me? Oh, come on!"

  "You are, aren't you!"

  "No! Of course not!" She tried to look Lucy in the eye, but couldn't. "Not seriously. I was just, you know…Look, will you stop staring at me like that?"

  "I'm sorry, Kate, but what do you expect?" Lucy set down her knife and fork, the moussaka forgotten. "Well, this is one for the diary, isn't it? What's brought this on? Not what I said the other night, surely?"

  Kate felt relief that the subject was finally broached. "Only partly. But when I thought about it, you were right. It is time I decided what I want."

  "I didn't mean you'd got to rush out and do something straight away, though." Lucy was looking at her with disbelief. "And certainly nothing like this!"

  "I know you didn't, but when I saw that article, it just gelled. I mean, I do want children. I even tried talking about it once to Paul, for all the good that did. Then, after we broke up, there didn't seem any point in even thinking about it." She leaned forwards, warming to her argument. "Because I'm single, and want to stay that way, I've just assumed that having a baby isn't an option. But why shouldn't it be? You know, it isn't as if -"

  Kate broke off as a shadow fell across the table. She looked up. The tramp she'd seen earlier was standing in front of them. His hair and beard were wild and matted, his clothes rags. He stank. He held out his hand in supplication, but didn't look at either her or Lucy. His eyes stared at a point above them, remaining fixed on it even though his head was constantly moving from side to side in a syncopated twitch. "Jesus loves you. Jesus loves you. Jesus loves you.) The words were delivered in a flat mumble. Before Kate could react the waiter came rushing out of the cafe, began hustling the man away. The tramp slowly moved off, his mantra and twitch uninterrupted. Shaking his head, the waiter watched him go. "They should be locked up," he said, giving them a grin as he went back inside. The people at the other tables returned to their food. The incident seemed to be ignored by common consent.

  Lucy turned back to Kate. Her forehead was tucked into a frown. "You're not serious, are you?"

  Kate felt her enthusiasm begin to dampen. "I've not actually decided anything, if that's what you mean. I wanted to see what you thought I should do."

  Lucy sat back. "Lord, Kate, I can't believe you even have to ask! Don't get me wrong, I've nothing against artificial insemination in itself. For a couple who can't have kids, like Jack's cousin, I suppose it's a godsend. But not for a single woman."

  "You think it's a bad idea, then?" Disappointment uncoiled in Kate's stomach.

  "Of course I do! I mean, raising kids is hard enough when there's two of you. It must be a nightmare for a single parent! Any woman who'd voluntarily get herself into that mess wants her head looking at. And what about the agency? You've only just got that big account you've been chasing for ages. They'll be really pleased if you spring maternity leave on them!"

  Kate noticed that the woman at the next table was sitting perfectly still, her head cocked in their direction. She lowered her voice. "It wouldn't be for nearly a year yet. And I wouldn't need that much time off. I could work from home. Besides, I thought you said I should have a life outside the agency? What happened to deciding what I want and then doing something about it?"

  "Yes, but within reason. All right, if you want a baby I can understand that. But don't you think this is leaping to extremes? What's wrong with trying the normal way first? You know, husband first, baby second?"

  Kate glanced at the woman at the other table, who had now edged her seat nearer. She leaned closer to Lucy. "Because I don't want a husband. And I'm certainly not going to get involved with someone just so I can have their baby. I've been on my own since I was nineteen. I like being independent. Why should this be any different?"

  "Because it is different."

  "Why is it? Just because I don't have a partner doesn't necessarily mean I can't still have a baby. I can afford it. I'm not some naive teenager. So why shouldn't I?"

  "Come on, Kate, you know as well as I do! If you'd got yourself knocked up accidentally, that'd be one thing, but you're talking about letting yourself be…be impregnated by a complete stranger! These clinics don't even tell you who's sperm they're using, do they?"

  "No, but they're careful."

  "I should hope they are, but it still doesn't alter the fact that you wouldn't know who the father was, would you?"

  That was something that Kate wasn't entirely happy about herself. But she wasn't going to admit as much to Lucy. "Hundreds of women have it done," she said, dodging the issue.

  "Yes, but as a last resort, not from choice! That's just asking for trouble!"

  Suddenly Lucy turned to the woman at the next table. "Perhaps you could give us your opinion, since you seem so interested. How do you prefer your sperm, hot or cold?"

  The woman reddened and quickly turned away. Lucy looked back at Kate with a hard smile. "What was I saying?"

  Kate had covered her eyes with her hand. She tried not to laugh. "Telling me it's asking for trouble."

  "Yes." Lucy looked at her plate, as though she'd just remembered it. "Well, what else can I say? I can't believe you're even considering it. I'm sorry, but you wanted my opinion and that's it."

  Kate said nothing. She sat with her chin resting on her hand, prodding with her fork at the salad.

  Lucy sighed. "Obviously that's not what you wanted to hear."

  "I just wanted your opinion, that's all."

  Lucy's eyes were very blue as she looked across at her. "I don't know why. You're going to please yourself anyway." She looked down at her plate, torn between further censure and the cooling moussaka. She sighed again. "If you're really set on the idea, then I don't suppose it can hurt just to talk to someone. They'll probably tell you the same as me, but at least you'll have got it out of your system." Lucy spread her hands. "There. Is that what you wanted me to say?"

  Kate grinned, but Lucy hadn't finished. "I just hope you don't do something you'll regret, that's all," she said. Then, before Kate could respond, she turned to where the waiter was wiping down another table. She beamed at him and held out her plate. "You couldn't be a love and pop this back in the microwave for two minutes, could you?"

  They walked to the tube station. The cafe was on a side road near Oxford Circus, a convenient mid-way point for both of them. Lucy was chatting about something, but Kate barely listened. She felt that even her fingertips were tingling with excitement. Now that she'd told Lucy it was as though a burden she'd been carrying around had been shucked off and left behind. Lucy was still talking as they started down the steps to the Underground. Suddenly she gripped Kate's arm. "Oh, shit."

  Kate looked up. Her excitement curdled and died. Paul Sutherland was walking up the steps towards them. A second later, he saw them and it seemed to Kate that a flicker of unease crossed his face before his customary arrogance replaced it. She faltered, but Lucy forced her to keep moving. "Come on. Too late for that."

  He stopped directly in front of them, blocking their path. Kate ignored the irate looks from the other people who had to jostle past. Her mouth was dry.

  "Hello, Paul," Lucy said, brightly. "Assaulted anyone else lately?"

  He gave her a cold look. "You've put on weight."

  "That's what having two children does for you. What's your excuse? Still taking lunch from a bottle, are we?"

  His cheek muscles worked, but he didn't respond. He looked at Kate. "You ruined my shirt and nearly cracked my head open. I hope you're satisfied."

  The impulse to apologise almost won through. She felt herself wavering, on the brink of reverting to a former self. Then her anger kicked in. "What did you expect?"

  "I didn't expect you to get hysterical, that's for sur
e." His tone was scathing and familiar. "You need to see a shrink."

  Kate felt gagged with fury. Lucy spoke for her. "One of you does, but it isn't her. And I think you'll find attempted rape's more a police matter, anyway."

  Heads turned as people streamed past. Paul gave Lucy a murderous look. "You stay out of this."

  Kate had regained control of herself. "There's nothing for her to stay out of. You're not worth bothering with."

  She took another step down, so they were almost touching. She stared at him. "Are you going to move?"

  There was a moment of stasis. Then he broke his gaze from hers and moved to one side. Kate brushed past without giving him another glance. She held herself tense as she walked, feeling him staring after her. Lucy followed a step or two behind. The sunlight was cut off as they entered the cool of the subway tunnel. Paul's shout reverberated after them.

  "Fucking bitch!"

  Kate carried on walking, her eyes fixed straight ahead. The shouts pursued her, bouncing off the hard walls.

  "you think you're so fucking clever, don't you? Well, ask your friend who she used to shag. Go on, you smug bitch! Ask her!"

  The shouts became indistinct as they went further into the station. Kate was conscious of Lucy beside her, but didn't look at her. Neither spoke. She walked through the crowded foyer and stopped by an out-of-order ticket machine. A few feet away the turnstiles rattled and clacked as people pushed through. Lucy cleared her throat. "Look, Kate…"

  "Is it true?"

  Lucy hesitated, then nodded. The rigidity that had supported Kate so far ebbed out of her.

  "Why didn't you tell me?"

  Lucy's face was uncharacteristically distressed. "Because it was ages before you started seeing him. I didn't even know you then. I hadn't even met Jack. It wasn't anything serious."

  "So why keep quiet about it?"

  "What else could I do? I couldn't say anything once you'd started seeing him, could I? You'd have thought I was just being catty!"

  "But why didn't you tell me afterwards?"

  "What, in the state you were in when you split up? How could I?"

  "Lucy, that was three years ago! Why haven't you said anything before now?"

  Lucy shrugged, helplessly. "There didn't seem much point. And the longer I left it, the harder it got. I always meant to, Kate, honest! I just…well, I never seemed to get around to it." Her forehead creased in consternation. "Sorry."

  Kate turned away. Coming on top of her earlier excitement, the revelation had left her drained. But, as the initial shock wore off, she realised that if Lucy had confessed to having had a relationship with Paul—to having fucked him—it would have ended their friendship. Even up to a year ago, perhaps less, Kate knew she probably couldn't have coped with it. So how could she blame Lucy for keeping quiet? More to the point, if it had been before Kate even met him, what business of hers was it anyway? Suddenly, it all seemed too long ago, involving people she could barely remember. Lucy was watching her, anxiously. Kate gave her a tired smile. "Don't look so grim. I'm not going to excommunicate you."

  Lucy was still unconvinced. "You're not cross?"

  "No, I'm not cross."

  Relief lightened Lucy's face. "Oh, thank God for that! I thought, God, if that bastard's gone and stirred things up after all this time, I'll kill him!" Sudden doubt presented itself. "He hasn't, has he? You really mean it?"

  "Of course I mean it."

  As she spoke, Kate wondered if that was true. There was no jealousy or resentment, but a kernel of disappointment had begun to form. Lucy's contempt for Paul had always been a reassuring constant. Now it seemed unreliable. Abruptly, Kate wanted to be alone. "Look, you'd better go," she said. "You'll be late for the kids."

  Lucy gave her a hug. "I'll ring you."

  Kate watched her disappear into the crowd, then went through the turnstile and made her way to the Victoria line. She stood on the escalator, letting it carry her at its own speed instead of walking down as she usually did. Lucy and Paul. Even the words didn't seem right together. A movement caught her eye. A bearded man was coming up the opposite escalator, carrying a baby in a papoose on his back. The baby was goggling across at the people on her side, and Kate smiled as it spotted her. She turned her head to watch it go past, and a sudden thought took the smile from her face. She could have had a child by Paul. The thought made her go cold. She reached the bottom of the escalator and stepped off. Around her, people were rushing for the platform where a train had pulled in, but Kate barely noticed. She walked slowly, lost in the narrowness of her escape. If, if, she decided to have a baby, she would make damn sure it had a better father than that, even if he was only a father in absentia. Faceless donor or not, before she committed herself she would want to be sure he wasn't another Paul. Or someone even worse. She shuddered to think of it. She'd made a bad mistake once. This time she would be more careful.

  CHAPTER 4

  When she was six, there had been a suburban cinema not far from her home. It had been run-down and struggling even then, on a downslide that would end with it becoming first a bingo hall, then a supermarket, and finally a car park. But for Kate, who had never been to any other cinema, the chewing-gum-patterned carpet and threadbare seats didn't matter. They were part of the darkened atmosphere, along with the rustle of crisp bags and the cigarette smoke that meandered in the flickering beam of light overhead. The images on the screen were a window to another world, and once lost in that technicolour glamour, the shabby theatre, school, and even home itself became insubstantial as ghosts. Her visits to the old cinema were rare, but all the more treasured because of that. When she found out that Jungle Book was being shown again, it became her mission in life to see it. The film wasn't new, but that hardly mattered to Kate, who had missed it the first time around. Her mother told her they would go to see it "soon", a typically vague assurance that she was already coming to interpret as "never", unless she pushed. Which she did, until finally her mother agreed to take her on a Saturday morning. First, though, there came the ritual of Weekend Shopping.

  Kate's mother had insisted that the best cuts of meat for her father's tea, and for Sunday lunch the next day (another ritual, equally sacred), would have gone by the time the film was over. So Kate had trailed around after her, agonising over each minute spent in the butcher's and greengrocer's as her mother intently considered each item before she either bought it or moved on to another. By the time they arrived at the cinema the feature had already started, and Kate's mother refused to pay for something they wouldn't see all of. The ticket clerk suggested coming back for the later showing, but her mother was already drifting out, the attempt made, duty done. They had gone home, where her mother had continued with the business of fretting over her father's tea. Kate watched as she chopped vegetables and carefully cut off every scrap of fat from the meat, so that her husband wouldn't have to face that chore himself when he ate it. Kate had waited until her mother was completely engrossed, and then quietly set off for the bus stop. The ticket clerk, a florid woman with badly permed hair, had recognised her when she slid the money she had taken from her piggy bank through the hole in the glass screen. "Let you come on your own, has she?" the woman asked, mouth tightening in disapproval. Kate let her silence answer. The woman pushed her ticket through the slot. "Don't deserve kids, some people," Kate heard her mutter, as she went inside. It was early evening when she arrived back home. Her parents were furious. Looking back, Kate supposed they must have been worried, but that didn't come through at the time. Only the anger. Her father had hit her and sent her to bed without anything to eat. Her mother, bewildered at her daughter's wilfulness, followed his example, as she always did. "Your father's tea was ruined! Ruined! You bad girl!" she had hissed before closing the bedroom door. Kate cried herself to sleep, hungry and with her father's handprint livid on the skin of her leg. But she had still seen the film. As she had grown older, the incident had passed into family lore, diluted and joked about, but never forgott
en. "Just took herself off, without a word to anyone," her mother would say at family gatherings. "Typical Kate. Even then she was always a stubborn little thing. Determined to do what she wanted."

  And, accepting the polite laughter, Kate would look at her mother and still see the perplexity in her eyes behind the social smile. She wondered what her parents would say if they had been alive to see what she was doing now. She told the taxi driver to stop as soon as she saw the gas tank she'd been given as a landmark. She knew it was irrational, but she didn't want him to know where she was going. The driver, a middle-aged Indian man, spoke to her over his shoulder through the glass partition as she handed him the fare. "Do you want a receipt?"

  It was her suit, Kate thought, that and the leather briefcase, marking her as a businesswoman. She had worn them as camouflage, she saw now, a pretence that her visit was official, not personal. "No, thanks." She wanted only to be away from the taxi, with its musty odour of cigarettes and worn leather. She climbed out quickly onto the pavement, delaying over putting away her wallet and smoothing her skirt until the taxi pulled away with a rattle of blue exhaust. The fumes trailed in the still, warm air, dissipating slowly. Squinting in the harsh sunlight, Kate looked around to get her bearings. The street was deserted. Nearby a newsagent's shop stood with a curtain of multicoloured plastic strips hanging in its open doorway, swaying slightly. Further along was a garage, wooden doors pulled back to reveal a shadowed interior. The tinny echo of a radio came from inside, but there was no other sign of life. The sun bore down on her shoulders. Its dry heat was hot on the back of her neck, contradicting the spring chill in the air. She could feel it pressing against her through the lightweight jacket as she began walking. The empty street made her feel as self-conscious as if she were on display. The clinic was on the opposite side of the road to the gas tank. It was set slightly back from the pavement, with spaces for car parking in front. Flat-roofed and brick, it was as unprepossessing as a warehouse. Kate felt a flutter of nerves as she approached. A single step led to glass-panelled double doors. On the wall at one side of them was a small white plastic sign. In plain black lettering it said, "Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology".