Chapter 14 #2
Kate nodded silently, dredging up what she hoped was a reassuringly placid smile.
‘Unless there’s any reason he shouldn’t be.’
‘No, of course not.’
‘Look, I don’t know what happened between you two…’ He left the words hanging in the air.
‘No, you don’t,’ Kate said flatly.
‘…but Will was pretty gutted when you went off like that,’ Lorcan continued, almost accusingly.
‘Really?’ Kate said coldly.
‘Okay, none of my business,’ Lorcan said, seeing her set face.
‘Did it escape your notice that Tina was there when I “went off like that”?’ she said sharply, annoyed that she had been goaded into defending herself. ‘Or did Will forget to mention that little detail?’
‘Tina?’ To Kate’s astonishment, Lorcan had the nerve to guffaw at this. ‘Don’t tell me that’s why you hared off?’
‘Well, it’s a good enough reason, don’t you think? His girlfriend was moving in. What was I supposed to do? Hang around and help with her stuff?’
‘But that wasn’t Will’s idea,’ Lorcan said. ‘He was as surprised as you were when she turned up. He thought she was safely on the other side of the world, tormenting Cambodian orphans. He didn’t want her there at all.’
I don’t want her here. Get rid of her. Will’s words had reverberated around in her head for the past three months. Could he have been talking about Tina? And what could Tina coming back have to do with her mother and Rachel?
‘Apparently it was some hare-brained matchmaking scheme of Rachel’s, believe it or not,’ Lorcan said, as if in answer to her unspoken question.
‘I guess she must have believed all that guff in the papers about Will wanting Tina back. For some reason, she took it upon herself to try to reunite them.’
‘Rachel did?’
‘I know – most unlike her! Anyway, she got it hopelessly wrong. Will sent Tina packing straight away. I don’t think she even got out of the car.’ Lorcan laughed. ‘It just did a U-turn in the drive.’
‘God, poor Tina!’
‘Serves her right for believing her own publicity.’ He snorted. ‘I mean, she’d made up those stories in the papers and then somehow persuaded herself they were true.’
Or Rachel had persuaded her, Kate thought.
‘You created this situation, you sort it out,’ she had heard Will bawl into the phone.
He had been telling Rachel to get rid of Tina, not her.
It didn’t alter the fact that he had been faking it with her, but at least he hadn’t been talking about her in the awful, dismissive way that had haunted her ever since.
‘Poor Rachel got it from both sides.’ Lorcan chuckled. ‘Tina and Will were both furious with her for interfering. Will really put the wind up her – not easy with Rachel, as you know. Thankfully, I think the whole episode has cured her of matchmaking. There never was a stupider Cupid.’
She wondered how long Will would have let it go on before he dumped her, if things hadn’t come to a head. Maybe he felt he had painted himself into a corner and was trapped into keeping up the pretence, at least for a while. Maybe, like Tina, he had even started to believe his own bullshit.
‘So, if it’s because of Tina that you left—’ Lorcan was saying hopefully.
‘It wasn’t just that.’ Kate smiled sadly. ‘But there are no hard feelings. I don’t want anyone avoiding Will on my account. Or beating him up.’
‘Okay.’ Lorcan was clearly not satisfied, but was willing to drop it.
Kate had noticed her mother darting apprehensive glances at her while she was talking to Lorcan. Rachel’s eyes flicked warily in Kate’s direction, too, as though she was a wild animal that might attack at any moment. ‘Is Will coming to us for Christmas?’ she asked Lorcan.
‘No, he’s going to Antonia’s. She invited him, and I don’t think he felt able to refuse – not this year, at least. He’ll be back for New Year, though.’
‘Gosh, yes. Aren’t Walking Wounded playing the O2 on New Year’s Eve? That’ll clash a bit with your wedding, won’t it?’
‘Not really. He’ll be there for the important bits.’
‘So, how were your travels, Kate?’ Helen asked brightly.
‘Oh, great,’ Kate said, and tried to inject some enthusiasm into her voice as she told Helen about her trip.
The truth was that there had been something depressingly half-hearted about her aimless wanderings – as if she was just going through the motions.
It had unnerved her to feel so numb about something she usually found exhilarating, but her heart hadn’t been in it. It seemed to be AWOL a lot, these days.
When everyone moved off to the restaurant for dinner, Grace and Rachel cornered Kate.
‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell Lorcan about your plot,’ she said wearily.
‘Darling, you don’t have to make it sound so underhand,’ Grace quibbled.
‘Well, what would you call it? If you think it was above board and hunky-dory, why are you so worried about Lorcan finding out?’
‘You know Lorcan,’ Grace said fussily. ‘He’d overreact and make a big drama out of it. I don’t want him to fall out with Will.’
‘Well, neither do I, so you can rest easy,’ Kate said, needled that Will seemed to be the person her mother was most concerned about in all this.
‘Have you heard from Will lately?’ Grace asked.
‘No – at least I haven’t spoken to him.’ He had bombarded her with phone calls while she was away, but she had never answered them.
It had been a relief to discover that there were still some places in the world where mobile coverage didn’t extend and you could be truly out of reach.
It had added to the already abundant charms of Vietnam.
‘Well, you’ll see him at Lorcan’s wedding,’ her mother said consolingly. ‘You can patch things up between you then.’
‘There’s nothing to patch up, Mum. There was nothing there in the first place, remember?’
‘Oh, that’s not true, Kate,’ Grace said briskly. ‘The poor boy has been heartbroken since you left, hasn’t he, Rachel? Moping around the place like a stray puppy.’
Kate looked up at her from under her eyelashes but said nothing. Grace sighed helplessly, which Kate found unsettling: her mother was rarely so timorous.
‘We just wanted you to be happy, darling,’ she pleaded. ‘I knew it would be disastrous for you to marry the Tree-hugger.’
‘Yes, it would – but I would have found that out for myself, Mum. And what’s your excuse?’ she asked Rachel.
‘She was only thinking of you, weren’t you, darling?’ Grace answered hastily, clearly not trusting Rachel to speak for herself.
‘I was thinking of the whole family,’ Rachel said sullenly. ‘None of us wanted you marrying that nobhead. And none of this would have happened if you hadn’t got engaged to him in the first place.’ Rachel was a firm believer in attack as the best form of defence.
‘Oh, so it’s all my fault?’
‘Well, poor Mum was desperate,’ Rachel said, ignoring Grace’s signals to shut up. ‘I was only trying to help.’
‘Anyway, it’s all turned out for the best in the end, hasn’t it?’ Grace said hopefully to Kate.
‘No, Mum, it hasn’t. How on earth can you think that?’
‘Oh, don’t be so coy,’ Rachel snapped. ‘You always fancied Will and now you’ve got him – thanks largely to me. You might be more grateful.’
‘Grateful?’
‘Yes, grateful.’
‘Will really does love you, Kate,’ Grace said.
‘As you’d know if you’d stuck around for five minutes,’ Rachel said, still smarting from the bollocking Will had given her.
It was enough to put you off good deeds for life.
She had only been trying to do something nice for Will and Tina, and in return, she had been lambasted by them both.
She had never seen anyone as angry as Will was that day – at least, not until Tina turned up.
Well, it was the last time she would try to do him a favour.
Infuriatingly, when she had said as much to him, he had asked if he could have that in writing. Sarcastic bastard!
‘If you’d seen how unhappy Will was—’ her mother began.
‘I really don’t want to discuss it any more,’ Kate said tightly. ‘We should go in to dinner. Lorcan will be wondering where we are.’
‘But, Kate—’
‘Please, Mum.’ She felt that one more word would tip her over the edge. ‘Look, I know you meant well, okay? Let’s just leave it at that.’
Her mother had convinced herself that Will had fallen in love for real – but, then, she had an uncanny knack for believing what she wanted to believe.
Kate wished she had that talent. Because, try as she might, she couldn’t block out Rachel’s words on the phone that day: He told us straight out that he wasn’t interested in Kate… we really had to twist his arm.
‘I hate to see you so unhappy, sweetheart,’ her mother said sadly. ‘I just think—’
Thankfully, Kate was spared any further torture by Lorcan and Freddie coming in search of them.
‘What are you three plotting?’ Lorcan grinned at them, unaware of any undercurrents.
‘Oh, just discussing what to wear to your wedding,’ Grace said, the consummate actress.
‘Come on,’ Freddie said, pulling Kate to her feet. ‘You don’t want to miss the chance to eat dinner with a knife and fork!’
* * *
‘I’m getting a strong sense of déjà vu about this wedding,’ Kate said to Freddie two days later, as they sat kicking their heels between takes on the set of Northsiders.
‘Yet another family wedding with no boyfriend when I want to be looking amazing with a fabulous bloke to make Will jealous. Plus, all my bloody aunts asking me pityingly if I’ve “met anyone nice”. ’
‘You can borrow Ken if you like.’
‘Oh, I couldn’t,’ Kate was touched. ‘Thanks for the offer, but I wouldn’t do you out of the chance to show off your boyfriend. Besides, Will knows him.’
‘True. Well, at least you’ll look fabulous.’
‘No, I won’t. It’s so close, I have no time to find something fabulous to wear – and in the middle of the Christmas rush, too, when I have so much work, and any time I do get to the shops I have to concentrate on buying presents.’
Freddie considered. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll make you something.’
‘Oh, please don’t bother. I’ll find something.’