‘I think you’d make a really fine pilot,’ she said, and the way she held my gaze at that moment led me to signing up right then and there on the spot.
My father was over the moon when we got together. Lesley’s own parents were both in the forces and her dad was field marshal in the Royal Irish Regiment, which almost gave the old Reverend Campbell a multiple orgasm. I can only imagine how utterly thrilled he is going to be when he hears his own grandchild will be part of such a prestigious lineage. Hell, he might even hug me again like he did after he had dinner in Cardiff with John and Josephine Taylor, her parents, when Les and I first introduced them all a few years ago.
Lesley is going to wake up soon and she’ll have a range of emotions to go through now too as we readjust our lives to what this year will bring – in the best possible way, I hope.
I hope.
‘Kate,’ I whisper to the person who, deep down, I reallywant to be with. ‘I should probably get back to Lesley so I’m there for her when she’s ready to go home.’
I wait for Kate’s response, but she’s gone quiet.
‘Are you still there?’ I ask.
‘Yes, I’m here,’ she says, her voice cracking a little. She doesn’t say any more than that which is really not like her.
‘Kate?’
She takes a moment before she answers.
‘It’s fine, David,’ she sniffles then there is more silence. ‘Yes, you go and see to Lesley. She has had a rollercoaster of a day. You both have and it’s a lot to absorb, I’m sure. It will all work out for the best.’
So this is it, then. This is the hammer blow I’ve been waiting on, the sign I’ve needed, the wake-up call, the wise-up moment of realization that I’ve been playing with fire and just how much I could have let Lesley down. But Kate? I’m letting her down too and it’s not fair on her either.
‘Look, this isn’t going to change our friendship, Kate,’ I tell her, standing up now. ‘We’ll still be as close as ever. In fact, maybe you could be godmother to the baby. Would you like to—’
Oh my God, what am I even saying?
‘Stop, David, please!’ Kate tells me in a tone I’ve never heard her use before. ‘This baby has nothing to do with me so don’t say that. It’s your baby, yours and Lesley’s. I don’t want to be godmother!’
She waits. I can hear her breathing and I’ll swear she is crying. I don’t know what to say.
‘You can’t even introduce me to your parents, and Lesley knows very little about me, for God’s sake,’ she says with a touch of laughter through her tears. ‘I don’t want to be godmother. Thanks, but no thanks.’
‘Kate, I’m sorry, that was so stupid of me to suggest that,’ I plead with her. ‘I’m not even thinking straight, sorry. I’m just trying to say that we’ll still be close after this. We still have something amazing between us.’
‘Between us?’ she says. ‘What exactly is the something amazing that’s between us, David?’
‘What?’
‘Look, I’m sorry, but it’s about time I tried to protect my own feelings instead of always looking out for yours,’ she tells me. ‘Yes, do go to Lesley and stay by her side where you should be. I’m happy for you, deep down I really am, but I need to look after myself too.’
‘Kate, but—’
‘I have to get ready for work.’
‘OK, we’ll talk tomorrow at lunchtime as usual?’
She doesn’t answer.
‘Kate?’
‘I can’t, David,’ she whispers. ‘I’ll check in with you in a while, all right? I think we need some time out from this, whatever it even is. I don’t know any more.’
She hangs up and I fall back down onto the two-seatersofa behind me, throw the phone down and lean my head in my hands.
I can sit here and pretend to wonder, but I know exactly what Kate means when she asks what exactly is between us.
I’ve asked the same question to myself so many times. We are more than friends and there’s no point denying it. I want to call her back and say how sorry I am for leading her along on this road to nowhere with me. I guess I’ve been on autopilot, plodding along as time ticks by to my wedding day, taking too long to find the courage to tell Lesley I don’t want to do it and trying to make sure my mother is feeling as good as she can and trying to hold on to Kate like she’s some sort of security blanket when I’m having moments of darkness; yet, she is expected to just sit on the sideline and cheer me on from afar as I now move on in my life with Lesley.
