Page 47 of A Midlife Gamble

‘Heard me?’

‘At that stupid dinner party I had. I heard you and Lawrence. I heard what was said, Caro.’ She turned to Kay. ‘I’m so sorry, Kay. I really am. Ineverwanted this to come out, not now, not ever really, but I can’t sit here anymore and listen—’

‘What did you hear, Helen?’ Caro interrupted.

Helen stared at her. ‘Are you going to make me repeat it? You’re really going to do this?’

‘Whatever you heard—’

‘Lawrence had his hand on your knee!’

Swallowing hard, Caro nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes he did.’

‘And I heard him say, that you were both the same. You and him. That it wasn’t too late. That you should have told him how you felt. That he thought it was just a shag, but you should have told him… and that twenty-five years ago he made a mistake! It is… it was… Jesus, Caro! It’s one thing to find a marriage isn’t working anymore, but it’s something else to find it was a sham all the bloody time! And you… You slept with him! You were supposed to be my friend…You… I… You…’ As her voice finally failed, Helen shook her head. She was empty. As lifeless as any of the rocks scattered out there in the sea of desert beyond. What she had said to Kay was true, she hadn’t wanted to speak of this, she really hadn’t. Across the flames, she could see Caro’s face, the wide-open astonishment, and now the dark narrowing down that a reckoning brings. She didn’t, as she watched Caro, notice the black outline that was Kay stand and move away, and by the time she might have noticed, it was too late. The outline had gone, swallowed by the night.

Caro too was oblivious.

So they sat and the only light came from the flames between them, and the stars above; the stars that were dead, as luminous as those that lived. The night stirred a breeze, a lapping at their ankles, on the back of their necks.

And then Caro tipped her head to the sky and whispered, ‘I knew I should have told you. From the very beginning, I knew.’

Helen didn’t speak.

Dropping her chin, she pinched the bridge of her nose. ‘I’m sorry, Helen, and I always have been. I never intended to hurt you. It’s like I said… if I’d had an ounce of your courage, I would have told you a long time ago.’

‘Stop it!’ Helen shouted. ‘Please, just stop it!Stop going on and on about my courage.’ Tears streamed down her face. ‘You’ve hurt me, Caro,’ she cried. ‘Can’t you see that? Lawrence? Well, the more I learn about my husband, the more I can’t believe I ever loved him in the first place. Butyou!You were my friend. I expected more from you. Ineededmore from you because… because I need my friends! You…’ She bent forward, great wracking sobs folding her over. ‘I trusted you! I thought we’d always be friends. It hurts, and I’m sorry, Kay. I don’t know what I’m going to do without you. I thought… I thought I’d still have Caro.’ Hopelessly Helen looked up, her face stilled by confusion, her eyes straining to make sense of the empty space where Kay had been sitting.

21

Each step up the porch felt to Kay like a mountain climbed. She was drained. Wrung out. And the only thing she was sure of was that she couldn’t listen to another word of the argument about to explode between Helen and Caro. Years and years ago, when milk still got delivered in bottles, Caro had slept with the man that Helen had gone on to marry.

Kay had known about it at the time and, for maybe a week, had given it headspace, because within that brief window, it had seemed worthy of headspace. Lawrence and Helen had seemed serious, and when in the following months it had become evident that they were serious, Caro had come to her, and Kay had advised her to try and forget it ever happened. It had been easy and natural advice for Kay to dish out, because by some great fortune, she’d been born immune to the Lawrences of this world, the way they crossed her path with their bonhomie and magnetic charm and minuscule depth. She’d been happy enough to go along with theirwhat a great girl she wasact because they were nothing to her. Not that they ever suspected this. Their very worth depended upon making sure that even the plainest girl in the room knew just how unlucky she was not to be in serious contention, and yes, even Lawrence had tried. She’d shut his advances down faster than a Venus flytrap. But Caro hadn’t been able to, and although it had always been obvious to Kay that Helen was going to win, she’d never understood why Caro couldn’t also see this. From the little she knew about Caro’s family, Kay had put it down to appetite. Caro hungered for attention. At the time it had been mystifying, now it was obvious. Caro had been chronically undernourished, and who could blame a hungry child for lapping up crumbs? All this was a hundred years ago. Summer had come, as it always does. The lease on their student flat had ended. Parents had arrived in cars to pack boxes and suitcases. Caro took a job in the city and within two weeks had flown to New York to start a training course. Martin turned up in Kay’s life. They had all begun their grown-up lives and she hadn’t, if she was honest, really thought about the episode since.

She paused, turning now on the top step of the ranch to look out at all those far away stars, which, as Caro had said, might be dead, but whose light she could still see, whose beauty she could still appreciate. So, Lawrence was still manufacturing bullshit. Whispering sweet nothings into Caro’s ear. For a long time, Helen’s marriage had been a happy one and Kay didn’t believe in his talk of ‘mistakes’ any more than she believed her cancer was curable. She was almost sure that Caro didn’t either, but it was too late. She just didn’t have the energy to stick around and find out. Or the time. No, definitely not the time. Stones in her heart, she pushed open the door to the ranch-house and went inside.

Marianne and Tony were sitting at either end of a long couch. Tony leaned forward, elbows on knees, head in hands. Marianne ram-rod straight, lips tight as a bud.

‘Howdy partner,’ Tony said as he dropped his hands and smiled a lop-sided smile that was about as believable as Lawrence’s bullshit.

‘What’s the matter?’ Marianne shuffled to the edge of the couch.

Kay could have laughed. The difference between men and women. ‘Nothing,’ she said.

And of course Marianne wasn’t fooled. ‘Are they arguing again?’

Kay nodded. ‘A little.’

‘What about?’

Flopping into an armchair, she leaned her chin in her hand. ‘Helen’s husband. Apparently he said something to Caro that Helen overheard. I wouldn’t trust that man with a ten-foot barge pole, and I’d be very surprised if, after all this time, Caro did. But…’ She shrugged.

Standing up, Marianne shoved her feet into her sandals.

‘Really Marianne, don’t worry,’ Kay said watching as Marianne’s toes squeezed through the jewelled leather thong. ‘It’s probably best to let them talk it through.’

‘You know what, Kay?’ Marianne said archly. ‘I think I need some fresh air anyway,’ And as she passed, she looked older, more weary, heavier of body than Kay thought she’d ever seen her.

As the rushof cool night air swept in and the ranch door swung shut, Kay turned back to the room. It was soothing and comfortable and designed to reflect the desert terrain outside. The effect was that of an oasis. Every piece of soft furnishing bore the colours of the earth, cushions scattered on the chairs were robust blues and burnt orange. Tufted rugs, woven in bulky yarn, lay on the floor and every surface was a coarse wood; the stair-rail alone was a slender and whole trunk. Subtle lamps gave off pools of dreamy yellow light and pottery in fiery reds and yellows splashed colour. From the ceiling above the kitchen sink hung a feathered dream catcher. Loose-limbed in her armchair, Kay looked up at it. Alex had a dream catcher above his bed. She’d hung it there for him as a small boy and he still believed in it. She knew because when the bedroom had been re-painted a couple of years ago, he’d put it back up. Narrowing her eyes, she concentrated on the colourful beads, tied together with fine leather. What she wouldn’t give for someone to tell her that they worked. That trapped within those feathers and beads was every last nightmare and fear her son had ever had, with infinite room for all those still to come.

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