Fallen Women. Sue Welfare

stay longer, but don’t worry I’ll take good care of your mum.’ He kissed her on the cheek. ‘Safe journey home.’

      Kate nodded. It was sickening, Guy was so genuinely nice and pleasant that Kate was ashamed of herself for feeling so – so what? So jealous? So put out, so aggrieved? Angry? Disgusted, excluded? What on earth was it that was churning away in the bottom of her belly? Some odd out-of-the-cradle, pseudo-sibling rivalry? Was she jealous of Maggie or jealous of Guy? It was all far too Freudian to contemplate; she would glad to be safe in the car and on her way home.

      Breakfast had been almost more than Kate could bear. Guy loping round in the kitchen wrapped up in a white towelling robe, all buffed and puffed and pink from the shower, making up a tray for Maggie, with a bunch of daisies on it. He was way too gentle and funny. Tender, warm. There had to be a catch, surely to God no one could be that good? What must it be like to be loved by someone who did all that sort of thing and really meant it?

      ‘Don’t beat yourself up if you can’t make it next week,’ he was saying, as she buckled up her seat belt. ‘It’ll be okay, we’ll manage, don’t worry.’ He was standing alongside the car. ‘Viv next door has already said she’ll keep on eye on Maggie and help her out if I can’t reschedule the Germany trip. I should know later today –’

      Kate reversed out onto the road, managing to give Guy a smile and a perfunctory wave, wondering how her conscience would feel if she decided not to come back at all, ever. Her mind shuffled and reshuffled the possible permutations. Maybe Guy would be able to reorganise the trip. Maybe if she just went back for a day or two, arrive Monday and go home Wednesday morning. Maybe by the time she got home Kate would have worked out why she felt so bloody strange about the whole setup.

      The drive home wasn’t bad and as Kate turned off the main drag into Windsor Street it looked as though the houses had been waiting for her, all stretched out, basking in the summer sun, Bill’s red geraniums glowing like a beacon on his windowsill. It felt really good to be back. It was hard to believe she had only been away overnight.

      Joe’s car was still parked in the road outside their house, wedged tightly between a VW and a dark purple Ka. Kate sighed; back to reality, she thought, with something less than a wry smile. Silly bugger had probably been so drunk the night before that he hadn’t dared drive in to his meeting. Interesting combination, a raging hangover and the Underground.

      Kate found a space to park a little way up the road and as she walked back a peculiar thought appeared in her head. It sprang from nowhere, was totally irrational, and Kate had absolutely no idea what triggered it, but as soon it did, she tried very hard to unthink it. It was ridiculous and yet some part of her was absolutely certain that when she got in Joe and Chrissie would be together in her house.

      And the even more ridiculous thing was that she was right.

      Kate pushed opened the back door and there was Chrissie, as bold as brass, sitting at the kitchen table, all wrapped up in Kate’s favourite pale blue bathrobe, drinking coffee with Joe. Her best friend and her husband.

      It was around about lunchtime; the boys were nowhere in sight. Joe was sitting at the other side of the table, cradling a mug. He was dressed in an old tee-shirt and boxer shorts and hadn’t shaved. Kate knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that there was no innocent explanation for what she was looking at; Joe and Chrissie had slept together. More than that, she knew with the same degree of certainty, that they had done it before. Several times, lots and lots of times, enough times so they had stopped counting because they were in the kind of comfort zone that only comes with familiarity.

      For an instant Kate felt as if she was the one on the outside, an intruder, a stranger, excluded, and felt almost guilty for barging in on the pair of them.

      As fast as the thoughts bubbled up, Kate struggled to suppress them; it was crazy even though she knew she was right. In those few seconds which seemed to last forever it felt as if someone was squeezing every last breath of air out of her lungs and she was wading towards them through mud and treacle.

      There had to be some other explanation, except of course that there wasn’t. Instead there was a moment when Joe and Chrissie and Kate all looked at one another and everyone knew and everyone caught some glimpse of the enormity of what was going on and what had been discovered, and just as quickly all that knowing vanished beneath the waves. Chrissie papered a very convincing smile on over a look of complete surprise and shock, and said, ‘Hi Kate, how was the drive? I’ve just made a cup of coffee, do you want one?’

      Which was a preposterous thing to say but at least it was quick. Kate stared at her.

      Joe peered across the table, looking for all the world as if someone had hit him over the head with a baseball bat. His mouth had dropped open, his eyes bulged wide.

      ‘We weren’t expecting you back today,’ he said. She could always rely on Joe to state the obvious. And then he added, almost as an afterthought, ‘It isn’t what you think.’

      At least Chrissie had the decency to blush.

      ‘And what might that be?’ Kate said, very slowly, looking first at one and then the other, while something inside her contracted so hard that Kate thought there was a good chance that she might be sick.

      And then Joe laughed. It might have been embarrassment, or nerves or self-consciousness, Kate had no idea at all. But whatever it was the sound broke through into the stunned place where she was.

      ‘I think you’d better go home now, Chrissie,’ Kate said, mainly because she had no idea what else to say. For one awful moment Kate thought there was a chance that Chrissie might protest or say something smart, but she thought better of it, pulled Kate’s bathrobe tighter around her chest and headed off into the hall.

      Kate looked around the kitchen, her home, which now seemed and felt like an alien place, feeling slightly faint and longing to sit down. Unfortunately the most obvious chair was the one Chrissie had just vacated. The others were either side of Joe and she had no desire whatsoever to sit next to him. So she stood in silence, one hand on the sink to keep her balance, and stared out into the garden while Chrissie went upstairs and got dressed. The clock ticked. The tap dripped and she could feel Joe looking at her with those big doleful eyes of his. It felt like months before Chrissie finally came tap-tap-tapping down the stairs in her supper party clothes, opened the front door and let herself out.

      And then, as if the backdraft from the door closing ignited the fire that had been the smouldering inside her, Kate turned to Joe.

      ‘So?’ she said in voice that would have cut through sheet steel.

      Part of her was tempted to let the fire inside her roar. Sweep the remains of his adulterous little brunch away with a single swipe of an angry arm, maybe throw the cups across the room, punch his stupid, stupid lights out, but Kate reined the feelings all in because even in the icy cold heart of her, Kate knew that if anyone was going to storm out indignantly it would most probably be Joe and she had no desire to be left with the chaos to clear up after the maelstrom had passed. And so she looked at him, long and hard, trying to see all those things she had missed before.

      ‘I’m sorry, Kate,’ he said. He spoke in a throwaway, bumped into someone on the pavement kind of voice. It was a ludicrous thing to say.

      ‘Sorry for screwing my best friend or sorry that you got caught? Which is it?’ she asked icily. ‘How long has this been going on, Joe?’

      Along with every other thought clamouring around inside Kate’s head was this crazy fury that somehow Joe had managed to reduce their life to an excerpt from a daytime soap opera.

      ‘Kate, please,’ he said in a strangled tangled voice. ‘Don’t do this. I’m really sorry. Chrissie and I were just saying that we should never have let it happen.’

      ‘Oh well, that’s really big of you,’ Kate snapped back, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

      ‘We were drunk. It was an accident.’

      ‘An accident? What do you mean, an accident? Accidents involve cars, and crockery