Chapter 6 #3
Conor had agreed to give them a lift, and Lorcan walked out to the car with them. ‘Carmen and I will be gone by the time you get back,’ he said, putting an arm around Kate’s shoulders. ‘It’s a pity you have to go to this thing – we haven’t had a proper chance to talk.’
‘I know,’ Kate said apologetically, ‘but we chat on the phone all the time.’
Brian and Conor got into the car. Kate kissed Lorcan and was about to join them, when he tugged at her hand. ‘Go easy on Will,’ he whispered urgently. ‘I think he’s got it bad.’ Then he bundled her into the car and slammed the door before she had a chance to ask him what he was talking about.
As they drove away, Kate looked back at her brother, waving to them. She was tempted to jump out and run back to ask him what he’d meant.
* * *
‘Just let yourself go. Trust your partner to catch you,’ crooned Joe, a stern-faced man in an Indian-style pyjama outfit.
Kate was standing barefoot in a circle of people primed to catch their partners, who formed an inner circle.
‘Very good work, Brian,’ Joe said softly, as Brian landed, a dead weight, in Kate’s arms. She thought it was a bit much that he was getting all the praise when she was the one doing the hard work.
It had taken all her strength not to drop him.
Joe paced around the circle as one after another, everyone swooned into their partners’ arms.
‘Okay. When you’ve all had a go, switch partners.’
‘Just let go,’ Brian told Kate encouragingly, as they changed places. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll catch you.’
‘Ready?’ she asked nervously.
‘Yeah, just let yourself fall.’
‘Okay, here I go. Ready?’ she asked, looking back to check.
‘Kate!’ Brian said chidingly, as all around her people toppled like ninepins.
‘Okay, here goes!’ Kate closed her eyes and tried to relax, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it.
At the last minute, she stepped back woodenly into Brian’s waiting arms and let herself go limp.
‘Pretend I did it!’ she hissed at Brian, flopping in an impressively jelly-like fashion when Joe turned to them.
‘Very good.’ He beamed at her beatifically, which made her feel even more of a fraud.
‘It doesn’t mean anything,’ Kate told Brian, as they settled on the carpet in a big sharing circle. ‘It’s just a game. You shouldn’t take it so seriously. It doesn’t mean I don’t trust you.’
Everyone sat in the circle, watching Joe, who smiled serenely at them.
The silence became unbearable. Kate wished someone would say something. She toyed with the idea of asking if anyone had seen the last episode of Desperate Housewives, to put them all out of their misery, but she didn’t think she’d get much of a response from this lot.
‘Okay, welcome everyone,’ Joe said. The relief in the room was almost palpable. ‘That exercise we just did was about trust,’ he continued.
Kate wished he’d kept his mouth shut.
‘When you really trust someone, you can let yourself go and know that no harm will come to you. You feel completely safe. It’s very liberating. I think you all felt that, didn’t you?’
Kate nodded eagerly with everyone else but she could feel Brian giving her a dirty look. Oh God, she thought. It’s going to be a very long day.
* * *
With Kate and Brian out of the way, and Will dropping Carmen and Lorcan off at the airport, Rachel took the opportunity to put Helen straight. ‘Will and Kate were never childhood sweethearts.’
‘Oh, really? Then why did you—’
‘It’s part of the plan for getting rid of the Tree-hugger,’ Grace explained. ‘We asked Will to help and I was just trying to give him a nudge.’
‘What’s Will supposed to do?’
‘Just flirt with her, lead her on a bit,’ Rachel said. ‘It’s true that Kate’s always had a crush on him – it just wasn’t mutual.’
‘Are you sure?’ Helen smiled thoughtfully. ‘Actually, I’ve always thought Will had a bit of a soft spot for Kate.’
‘You’re right!’ Grace agreed. ‘I’ve always thought so too.’
‘Mum,’ Rachel protested, ‘you have not!’
‘Maybe if she takes this job in Italy and he’s thrown together with her, it’ll make him realise he fancies her,’ Helen said.
‘Oh, wouldn’t that be wonderful?’ Grace pounced on the idea. ‘I could have Will for a son-in-law instead of the Tree-hugger.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Rachel snapped. ‘Will is way out of Kate’s league.’
‘Nonsense, darling.’
‘There’s no such thing as leagues,’ Conor added.
Typical Conor! Rachel thought. He was so gung-ho, he thought you could have anybody you set your mind to. And her mother, sweetly but unrealistically, believed her children were good enough for anyone. Will didn’t fancy her, for Christ’s sake. What hope did Kate have?
But Grace was already fantasising about the wedding and what a perfect son-in-law Will would make.
He was practically one of the family already.
And she could use the occasion to bring him and Philip together, she thought dreamily.
She would be like the American President standing between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders, forcing them to shake hands.
For both their sakes, Grace wished Will would reconcile with his father.
Despite his bravado, she knew Will missed Philip.
She knew too that Philip profoundly regretted the way he had handled the situation when his first wife died.
However harshly Will judged him, it was nothing compared to how harshly he judged himself.
Grace had grown fond of Philip, with whom she had struck up a friendship over the years since Will had come to live with them.
They still spoke regularly on the phone, long, entertaining conversations which she faithfully relayed to Will, sometimes even mimicking Philip to give him the full effect.
She felt an inordinate sense of victory whenever she made him laugh with something Philip had said.
Will was stubborn and implacable, but Grace had proved herself his match in keeping Philip present in his life.
Lately she’d thought she’d seen a softening in his attitude towards his father – only a tiny chink in his armour, but it gave her hope.
‘Conor’s right,’ she said now. ‘And even if there are leagues, my children are good enough for anyone. But we’ve got to make sure Kate takes the job in Tuscany so she and Will are thrown together on a more permanent basis.
He needs a chance to discover his true feelings for her. ’
Rachel groaned. ‘Mum, Will told us straight out that he wasn’t interested in Kate, remember?’
‘He just doesn’t realise how he feels about her,’ Grace told her. ‘Once he starts pretending to be interested, he’ll soon discover he has real feelings for her. It’s like when you’re acting – you wouldn’t know about this, darling – and you find yourself becoming the person you’re playing.’
‘Yes, but when the play ends, you go home and become yourself again,’ Rachel argued, knowing from experience that this wasn’t necessarily true.
Her childhood years had been blighted by her mother’s stage success and they had had to live with a succession of tragic heroines from Lady Macbeth to Hedda Gabler.
The worst had been a long run of The Glass Menagerie when she was a teenager and had had to suffer the humiliation of bringing boys home to be confronted by Amanda Wingfield.
Her mother had only just stopped short of referring to the gauche, pimply youths as ‘gentlemen callers’.
‘You may be right,’ Grace conceded, ‘but that’s all the more reason to get her to Tuscany.
You said yourself the best way to separate her from the Tree-hugger is to get her interested in someone else, and, if not Will, then maybe one of the boys in his band will fall for her.
That Owen Cassidy, perhaps,’ she said dreamily.
‘Owen Cassidy!’
‘Yes, I know he’s a bit wild,’ Grace said, misunderstanding Rachel’s objection, ‘but Kate could calm him down and domesticate him. And the grandchildren would be stunning!’
Rachel couldn’t believe her mother thought Kate might actually land Owen Cassidy. Okay, so she couldn’t see that Will was out of her league, but surely she must know that Kate was definitely not rock-chick material!
* * *
‘You make me feel so small and helpless,’ Brian whimpered at Kate, who was lying on the floor in a foetal position while Brian hurled abuse at her. ‘You stop me doing all the things I want to do. You stop me being the person I could be. Why do you make everything so difficult?’ he whinged.
Kate buried her face in the carpet and tried to comfort herself with the thought that this would be over soon and she would be at home eating dinner with the family and having a normal conversation.
‘I’m sick of you!’ Brian was shouting now. ‘I just want to be free of you!’
Kate knew it wasn’t personal. She was supposed to be embodying Brian’s ‘fear’.
Earlier, she had watched Brian dance around in front of her like some kind of demented Village Person, then fling himself onto the floor in a foetal cringe, a performance she was required to replicate so that he could give his fear a good bollocking.
She was glad none of her family was there to witness it – she’d never live it down.
Why can’t I have a normal boyfriend who’s into football or something? Kate thought. She wished the ground would open up and swallow her. She imagined herself sinking through the floorboards like Ewan McGregor in Trainspotting.
Opening her eyes a slit, she was shocked to see that Brian was almost in tears. Still, she knew how he felt – she was close to weeping herself.
* * *
Tina called Will on his mobile as he was driving back from the airport.
‘How’s it going over there?’ he asked.
‘Boring, I’ve spent all morning sitting around waiting for the light to change. The photographer’s a total wanker. And I miss you, darling.’
‘Sounds like you’re having a ball.’
‘Martinique’s beautiful, though. We should come here together some time.’
‘Maybe we will.’