Thirteen
Flora's car smells like burnt plastic and old sandwiches, and Kitty gingerly moves a stack of books out of the way. "Sorry about the mess," Flora breezes around to the driver's side, opening the door, sliding in gracefully. "I'm in the process of clearing it out."
"It's alright," Kitty says, sitting down carefully and straightening her suit jacket. Rosalie said to dress formally. It makes the right impression.
"Are you nervous?"
"Terrified," she admits. Both Miles and Tom hugged her this morning before they left for work, telling it that it would all go fine, but she's not sure. They don't know her husband, they don't know what he's like. The chilly terror that pervades deep into her chest whenever she sees him, the fear like a thousand needles drilling into her skull.
"I think you're really brave," Flora says unexpectedly as they pull out into the street, soft March light raining down from a grey-blue sky.
"Me, brave?" Kitty scoffs. "Not likely."
"No, don't take that tone. You're brave because you're scared and you're still facing up to it."
"Is that something Charlie told you?"
Flora nods. "He hasn't written, still. I'm getting worried, you know, and I've been phoning his mother but she doesn't know either and I know it's probably all stupid and probably because he's kept really busy out there and all of that, but I just…"
"Flora, it's not stupid to worry. If I were in your situation, I'd be frantic by now."
"I'm going to phone his regiment's headquarters soon. See if they can do anything."
"Hmm. Does Charlie's mother know about the baby?"
"Oh, yes. I told her. She's completely thrilled – none of the reservations mine has about us not being married." Flora laughs. "She did tell me that she felt too young to be becoming a grandmother already."
Kitty manages a smile, but they're already turning off, into the court's car-park and there's a sleek black car that she recognises all too well and two men with cameras…
She grips Flora's arm. "I can't do this."
"You can." Flora gives her a level look. "You can do this. I promise. Look, there's Rosalie – she's waiting."
"You'll be right out here?"
"I'll be right out here. Go in, get it done, then the princess has got to get to her ball."
"Thank you for this. Really. Thank you."
"It's no problem. Now go."
"How are you feeling?" Rosalie asks, clipping down the steps in her heels to meet Kitty. The men with cameras are whispering quietly to each other.
"I'm fine," Kitty says, pulling a wan smile from somewhere inside herself.
"It'll only be half an hour."
"Yes, I know."
"Come on, then." Rosalie shoots a dirty look at the cameramen, and puts an arm around Kitty's shoulders, hustling her into the squat, brick building and along a labyrinth of corridors. They stop outside a door, where two other people are waiting for them.
"Katherine."
"Elliott." Kitty clenches her fists at her sides, takes in slow, deep breaths, the fear curdling deep in her stomach. She-cannot-show-it-she-must-not-show-it.
He doesn't say anything more, just stood there, looking at her until a clerk appears, and opens the door in a creaking of polish-scented air. "The judge is ready for you."
Kitty takes another deep breath, and follows him in.
Flora is sitting with her feet up on the dashboard and one hand on her stomach. It's just about started to show, and she's so incredibly excited to feel the baby growing and swelling beneath her hands, but worry for Charlie is tugging insistently at her thoughts. It's been weeks. Weeks and weeks and weeks and he always writes back within two weeks, never this long. She sighs, and looks down at the lesson plan resting on her knees. Numeracy using the counting cubes and the times-tables square…at some point she's going to have to talk to Roland about maternity leave and cover, he's been giving her looks lately as if he can read the signs of her pregnancy in her face, which he probably can having had two children himself.
There's a tap on the windscreen, and the two men with cameras have ventured closer, standing by her window, greedy expressions plastered across their faces.
"What is it?" she asks, rolling down the window to let in the icy March breeze.
"How do you know Mrs Katherine Vincent?"
"I'm not answering any questions," Flora says firmly, but then they're talking over each other and snapping pictures of her, and she puts her hands up to cover her face, but then a male voice is shouting at them to leave her alone.
She emerges from the safety of her hands to see a young man standing there, glaring at the retreating backs of the reporters. "Sorry about that," he tells her. "Damned photographers, we don't usually get them here but…" He seems to check himself, as if wondering if he's said too much.
"It's okay, I'm Kitty Vincent's friend. It feels so strange to be using the other surname for her, I'm used to calling her Kitty Trevelyan."
"Okay."
After a moment of awkward silence, she extends her hand through the window. "Flora Marshall."
"Peter Foley," he says, shaking it.
"So what do you do? I assume you work for the court in some way."
"Junior clerk. I'm attached to Mrs Vincent's case, actually, because I know her solicitor."
"Are they coming out soon?"
"Yes, shouldn't be more than a couple of minutes."
"Great."
"How do you know her?"
"I used to teach her daughter. She was in my class at the school where I work."
"A teacher?"
Flora glances down at the lesson plans again. "Yes, a teacher. Primary 2b."
"Hmm. Couldn't stand the thought of all those children myself, but each to their own."
The back doors of the court open, then, and Kitty comes out, clutching her handbag and walking as though she's aged a hundred years in the space of half an hour. Without a word to Peter Foley, who steps back as she approaches, she slides into the passenger seat.
"Bye, then," Flora calls to him, putting her lesson plans back in her bag and starting the car. As soon as they're on the road, she turns to look at Kitty.
"How did it go?"
"I don't want to talk about it."
They spend the rest of the drive to Flora's flat smothered in thick silence, and it's not until they're safely ensconced in the bedroom with the dress hanging on the front of Flora's door and make-up aligned on the table next to their hot chocolate and toast that Kitty starts to cry.
"Kitty?" Flora says, putting an arm around her friend's heaving shoulders.
"I'm so stupid, I should just go back to him then I wouldn't have this mess!"
"Don't you dare talk like that."
"But I'm right. I'm making such a fuss over this, and if I dropped the proceedings I'd see Sylvie again, God, Flora, I miss her so much, I want my baby back."
"You will get Sylvie back. I promise. None of us are going to let that vile, abusive scumbag keep your daughter away from you."
Kitty sniffs, dabs at her eyes with the proffered tissue. "You must think I'm so weak for breaking down like this all the time."
"It's hardly all the time, Kitty, honestly. And in any case, none of us have never had to live with what you're going through – you have every right to break down once in a while."
"Thank you."
"It's no problem. Now, come on – it's half six already. You don't want to keep the prince waiting."
"I'm hardly his princess."
"I beg to differ. The way that man looks at you Kitty, it's like you're the sun, moon and stars all rolled into one."
Kitty laughs weakly. "Okay, then, fairy godmother."
It's seven forty-five, and Thomas is still waiting. Fifteen minutes is hardly late in polite society, but he can't help but worry that something went wrong at the First Appointment, that something happened and he wasn't there to help Kitty when she needed him.
Yelland has already started making loud comments, and the shrill woman in the turquoise dress on his arm only eggs him on, her laughs and titters like fuel for his fire. It's only fifteen minutes into this whole damned thing, and already Thomas feels like throwing a well-deserved punch into Yelland's face.
Twenty minutes. Twenty-five minutes. Half an hour. Forty minutes.
"Do you really have a date, or is it just a figment of your imagination?"
Thomas doesn't deign that one with a reply, but Yelland continues and the anger is lava, rising in his throat.
"Because you just don't have the charm to attract the ladies. There's an art to it that an oaf like you won't ever be able to get down properly."
Just as those words have left Yelland's mouth, there's a gentle pressure on his arm and he turns to see Kitty, smiling, the first time he's ever seen her shy. "Hi," she says. "I'm really sorry I was late, the appointment ran over then you know what Flora's like."
He can't even speak. She looks like she's stepped from the pages of a fairy story that his father used to read to him and his two sisters when they were little, there are no words that describe how beautiful she is. Hair pinned up, bits straggling loose, the dress hugging her slender frame.
Even Yelland has fallen completely silent, gawping.
"It's alright," he manages, and she beams at him. "Shall we dance?"
"Yes, I'd love that."
He takes her hand, winding his fingers through hers and leading her out onto the chessboard floor of the ballroom to join the other couples dancing, whirling like a scene from a long-lost era. She clasps his hand, and they start to waltz, and inside he is giving Miles a thousand thanks for teaching him to dance in their university days.
"Who was that you were talking to?"
"That was Yelland."
"The meddling git?"
He laughs at that. "Yes, the meddling git. His face was priceless, Kitty, I don't think I've ever seen him so silent that he couldn't even get an obnoxious word out."
She smiles again, her hand light on his shoulder as they turn in time with the music. "This is lovely. You hospital don't do things by halves, do they?"
"No, they don't. They're very into the whole doing things properly, so when they say a ball, they mean a ball."
"Evidently."
The music changes, then, and they retire to the side-lines with two glasses of gently-bubbling champagne, watching the other couples, Thomas pointing out people to her. "That's Dr Purbright, he's my boss, and I'm assuming that's his wife Jane. He talks about her a lot."
"It's really good to be putting names to faces," Kitty says, leaning a little against his shoulder, and there's warmth trickling down his spine from her closeness, the smile that hasn't faded all evening.
They're just about to take to the floor again when Yelland appears, sans the woman in turquoise, weaving slightly on his feet with his sharp piggy eyes fixed on Kitty. "You don't want to be dancing with him. Come along, be a good girl and dance with a fellow who'll show you a good time."
Kitty's smile has completely faded, and Thomas is glaring, the anger rising onto the tip of his tongue, a flight of birds desperate to take to the wing. "Leave us alone, Yelland."
"Oh no. He's not any good for you. Insanity runs in the family, you see, leave it several years and he'll end up just like his darling old mum."
Before Thomas even knows it, his fist is flying and connecting with Yelland's nose, blood spraying in a fountain of crimson, and then he's turning and marching through the throng of guests who have all stopped to stare, ducking his head past the waiters and the doormen and out into the cold night air, the stars like freckles against the face of the sky.
"Tom, Thomas wait!"
The sound of clip-clopping heels. He doesn't stop, keeps walking, the river winding like a spool of silver-black thread to his right.
"Thomas Gillan, wait! Please!"
The tone of the voice stops him dead in his tracks, and he turns to see Kitty coming towards him as fast as her high heels will allow, radiant in the soft moonlight that falls from between the streaks of clouds. She doesn't say anything as she approaches, leaning on the rail overlooking the river with her eyes fixed on him.
He looks down for a second. "You want to know about my mother."
"Not unless you want to tell me," she says quietly. "That was quite an impressive punch."
He shrugs. "She had depression, for almost all of my childhood. When I was eleven, she committed suicide. My sister, Aggie, found her, lying in her and my father's room, and the sheets were soaked with blood and there was nothing we could do."
"Thomas…" Kitty says softly, taking his hand.
"I didn't understand. I was only eleven. I'd done first aid at school, I put her in the recovery position and phoned an ambulance and begged her to stay with us, but she was already gone, and I couldn't save her.
She says his name again, and there are tears swimming in her dark eyes, tears for his pain, and how the hell did he ever meet a woman as remarkable as Kitty Trevelyan?
"I suppose that's when I decided I wanted to be a doctor. Only God knows how Yelland found out about it. Pretty much you, Miles and my family are the only ones that know."
"All we need to say about Yelland is that as well as having a broken nose, he now also has a slapped cheek," Kitty says fiercely.
"You slapped him?"
"Yes, of course. No-one can get away with saying things like that."
He smiles, reluctantly almost, but then the barriers break and he puts his arms around her, holding her close, he can smell her perfume like spring air and sunshine. "I'm not sure if I've managed to tell you how incredible you look tonight," he tells her.
"Thank you," she looks up at him, her eyes like an oil spill, shimmering with colours, and he cups her face gently in one hand, and then before he can talk himself out of it, leans down and kisses her. She wraps her arms around his neck, and kisses back. She tastes like champagne, and her body is so warm against his, and her dress rustles.
The moon looks down on their entwined figures, and smiles.
A/N I'm sorry for the wait, but here's an absolute monster of a chapter. What do you think? The ball? The kiss? I know, I was so excited to write this, and now it's finally happened. I'd love to hear from everyone. Can you do that for me? And Guest, thank you for your kind review! N xxx