Easy Freedom - Chapter 3

Most of the guests and all the media came back to Cox's Farm. There were too many people. Perspiring waiters thrust through the crowds. The caterers worked desperately to refill the plates of canapés and smoked salmon.

Now it was all over, the action taken, Cathy felt light-headed, manic with the release of tension. She stood laughing and talking with the famous faces she had only ever seen on the television or newspapers, Dev's arm clamped round her tightly as though she would run away if he let her go. She drank the wine and drove the silver knife deep into the towering wedding cake, Dev's hand bearing down on hers. They all cheered, and were very kind to her. The legends about the generosity of show biz people were all true, Cathy thought.

As it got later and the more respectable guests and the media went, the party got progressively wilder. The music seared the ears with sound, the champagne flowed too freely and more than one of the famous faces were stoned on something other than drink. She watched some of the guests outside throwing others into the flood-lit, heated swimming pool and hoped they could swim. It had turned into the sort of wild rock party she had heard about.

'That is the secret of life, young Cathy,' said Tom Gibbon, tall and lean, behind her, breathing drunkenly into her ear.

She laughed at him. 'Throw other people into the swimming pool first?'

He stared into her eyes solemnly. 'Learn it fast and learn it young and don't forget it: This is the ballroom of the Titanic.'

'Right,' said Chris, putting his arm around Tom's shoulders and swaying with him. 'Remember good ol' Jim Morrison.'

Tom and Chris shouted together loudly, ' "NO ONE HERE GETS OUT ALIVE!"'

For a moment Cathy felt an icy warning spiral up her spine, then Tom swept her into a frenzied dance routine, which had nothing to do with the music being played. He was a superb dancer.

Cathy felt wild and reckless.  She laughed and danced, and danced, closing her mind to her anxiety and doubts, determined to enjoy herself. Tom Gibbon was right - just live for the present and enjoy it.

She changed from the beautiful gold dress, afraid it would get spoiled, to her black skirt and sea-green, see-through top, and stood for a while in the entrance hall with Dev. He was talking to people who were leaving. She couldn't hear what they were saying through the crashing, amplified rock, but she smiled and nodded like a wind-up doll.

Across the hall she saw Chris arguing with Julie. Julie was shaking her head fiercely, but when he put his arm around her and whispered in her ear, she leaned her head against his shoulder helplessly and went upstairs with him.

At the bend, where the staircase turned, Chris looked back, as though feeling Cathy's gaze on him. He smiled at her mockingly and went on up.

Cathy was furious and something deep inside was hurting very much more than it ought. Her exhilaration drained away, and suddenly she was conscious of her bone tiredness. She thought that if she didn't sit down soon she would collapse.

Dev turned to her, laughing.  For a moment they were alone in the entrance. 'I don't know how he does it.'

She realised he too had been watching Chris and Julie. 'Very clever.'

'You're jealous, Cathy.'

'No I'm not. I'm not jealous. I don't like him using my friend, that's all. She was engaged and happy before he came, and now she's in love with him and he doesn't care. It's not fair.'

'He can't have what he wants so he takes the next best thing. Somebody near you.'

'Dev...'

'It's no good pretending, Cathy. I saw him kiss you in the vestry. Besides, he's never made any secret of it.'

'Do you tell each other everything?' Her voice was sour.

'Pretty well. We've been together so long, we know anyway. Now you're jealous again. Of me, this time.' She flushed. 'How do you feel about him, Cathy? How did you feel when he kissed you.'

She refused to look at him, and he turned up her face, reading the answer. He exhaled slowly. Just don't let him kiss you too often, that's all. Do you hear me? You're my wife now. He's not going to get you.'

He put his arms around her and held her gently against him.

'You looked so beautiful today, Cathy. I never saw anything so lovely. I want you so much.'

He kissed her until he felt her trembling. She tried to put her arms around his neck, but he saw her skin was a queer greenish white and damp with perspiration. He let he go at once and stood away.

'Dev - I'm sorry.'

His voice hardened. 'All right. I said if you married me I'd wait for the loving. Nothing's changed.'

'I'm sorry,' she said again, formally.

He spun round. 'I need a drink. Where is everyone.'

It seemed as though the party would go on for ever. Exhausted, Cathy found a refuge in the kitchen with Mrs. Kaye, the housekeeper and cook. She was a placid, quiet woman, apparently undisturbed by the party raging outside. Cathy was not to worry, she said, the mess would be cleared up very quickly next day with extra help from the village. She talked about her grown-up children and Christmas presents, and when she went off-duty at two o'clock, back to her cottage next to the entrance gates in the drive, Cathy felt more human than she had felt all day. She stayed in the kitchen, curled up in a chair by the Aga, half-hidden by an oak dresser and dozed off in the warmth and quiet.

She was awakened by the sound of one of the guests moving around, making tea. Dark, glossy hair, dark eyes, dramatic craggy face. She groped in the recesses of her mind and came up with his name. Dave Hampton. One of the inner circle of Dev's friends, a superb guitarist with a band called Night Mission. She remembered that he had tried to help her once.

'Hello, Dave.'

'Cathy.' He turned, smiling at her. 'What are you doing here?'

'Sleeping.' She stretched and yawned and came to the table. 'You're not drunk like the others.'

'I get sick, not drunk.' He grinned.

'So do I,' she said, and laughed bleakly at her own private joke.

He looked at her, curious. 'This is a funny place to spend your wedding night.'

'Is there a cup for me too?'

'You don't mind, do you? I've got to drive back to Earl's Court soon. We've got a gig in Glasgow tomorrow night. I mean tonight now.'

'I don't mind. It's not my kit...' she stopped dead and went red.

He laughed. 'You'll get used to it.'

They sat drinking the tea companionably.

'Dev said you'd painted a picture of that gig we did together at Azra's. I'd really like to see it.'

'You mean, now?'

'If you've nothing else to do.'

She laughed. 'No, I've nothing else to do. Come on then, I think they put my paintings in Dev's studio.'

The entrance was deserted now, and the sounds of revelry concentrated around the garden room and the pool. They went up the wide, scarlet-carpeted stair and Cathy looked uncertainly along the corridor of heavy doors.

'I'm not sure where it is. I've only been here once before.' She switched her mind away, refusing to remember what had happened to her then, and began opening doors quickly.

They found the paintings easily enough, in a big empty room at the end of the corridor, with windows facing north. They were propped against the walls. She turned them for Dave to see and walked away, not wanting to look at them herself.

Dev's few canvases were on the other side of the room, probably dating from the time he had been a student at the London College of Art before he had become a professional musician. She looked through them curiously.

They were abstract paintings, showing a strange, original vision. Nothing in them was substantial. They were all in a state of flux, and it was impossible to identify the shapes. Diamonds, fire, light, always it was changing, slipping, escaping from a shape like a stretched-out hand. She stared at the paintings, trying to understand. Was this his experience of life? Things forever sliding away as he grasped them, everything dissolving so quickly that nothing remained permanent? His life as a touring musician must have made that feeling worse. Was that why he had grabbed at her so fiercely, why he could not risk her getting away?

She wanted to go to him and ask, but the idea seemed ridiculously impossible. The last time she had seen him, some hours ago, he was having a drinking contest with Tom Gibbon and another young man, Leo Field, Easy Connection's bassist. They were yelling with laughter, surrounded by a shouting crowd, and the wine was running out of their mouths, down their chins and chests, staining their white wedding shirts like blood, and dripping unheeded on the pale carpet. Not a good time to choose.  He must be very drunk now and she had no illusions. Dev, drunk, was very dangerous indeed.

Behind her, she heard Dave speaking. 'I'm sorry?'

'I said, I had no idea you were so good.  This painting - it's brilliant. How did you know I feel like that when I play? It's me, and it's my music as well. And Azra's. How I felt in that special place on that special night, playing that special music. You've got it all.' He sounded rueful, shaken. 'You've blown my cover.'

Cathy flushed with pleasure. 'I'm trying to paint people, how they think and feel, in their places.'

He hesitated. 'I want to ask a question, but it sounds big-headed. I mean, why me? Where's Dev? He was there that night.'

'We had a row about that. It was just that I had sketches of you. I was drawing you all through the set before Dev arrived. I've been drawing musicians for months. You can stare at them, you see, and it doesn't matter. I do Zen drawing. Relaxation and meditation. But that night, it was special.'

'This painting, is it for sale?'

'It's sold. Caleb Crow of the Arundell Gallery owns it. He just hasn't collected it yet.'

He turned another painting. 'Is this one sold too?'

'Yes, I'm contracted.'

'You were with this guy at Azra's.' He looked at her sideways. She forced herself to look at the painting. Nick, lying on the sofa in Hamilton Square one quiet Sunday afternoon, his body brown and loose. Nick had said he wouldn't come to the wedding and she was grateful. If she had married Nick - if he had asked her - where would she be now? In a small country hotel, probably, somewhere quiet to suit both of them, lying in his arms warm and safe.

Suddenly she found she was nearly crying.  What was she doing here, wandering in a fog of unreality in a big rich house, full of drunken strangers?

She turned her head away, but not before he had seen.

'I said something wrong?'

'No. It'll work itself out. It's got to.'

He looked at her for a few moments longer and saw she really did not want to talk about it. 'What are you working on now?'

She shook her head, her eyes frightened. 'It'll be hard, working here. The atmosphere...I'd forgotten it was so...imprisoning.'

He looked at her with concern. 'It'll be better when we all go. A rock musician's life - it's kind of strange. But you'll get used to it. We all do. Well, most of us. You're too good to stop painting. That crazy artist friend of Dev's, Tom Gibbon, was toasting you as the best thing since Hockney.'

'He said that?' She smiled, her sense of humour reviving. 'He must be as drunk as Dev.'

He grinned at her. 'Drunker. Can you imagine that bunch at art college together - Dev, Chris and Tom?'

She laughed aloud. He took her hand and smiled at her. 'I hope you'll be happy, Cathy. Dev is a hard case, but there's a lot there when you get through the fortifications. And I'll bet you will work here. Because you have to, don't you? It's an obsession.'

She stared at him. 'Now you've blown my cover.'

'I read the tea leaves as well.'

They laughed, relaxing the tension, and went downstairs, holding hands lightly, and she felt better.

Dev was nowhere to be seen, but Chris, lounging on the leather sofa in the entrance hall, with a tall glass of colourless liquid in his hand, watched them narrowly, his eyes hostile.

'Where have you been, Cathy? Looking at the etchings?'

Dave raised an eyebrow. Cathy said, keeping her voice carefully controlled, 'I don't think it's anything to do with you, Chris.'

'Dev's my friend.'

'Meaning?' Dave's voice was edgy.

'You can leave our little baby alone. I thought you had your hands full with Janey Adams. Or has Jay Bird got his leg over permanently?'

Dave went white, and Cathy was aware of his hurt. He would be no match for Chris, vicious at in-fighting.

Dave said, with an effort, 'Dev's baby, surely?'

Chris' face changed and he swayed to his feet dangerously.

Cathy said, bitingly, 'You're drunk, Chris. Don't try to pick a fight. I was showing Dave my painting of Azra's. And now he's driving back to town and I'm going to see him out, especially as your good friend Dev seems not to be around. Perhaps you'd better go back to bed and sleep it off.'

She turned her back on him and went with Dave to the big front door. 'I'm sorry. Chris is good at going for the jugular, isn't he? I didn't know you were with Janey Adams. She's my favourite girl singer.'

'I thought everyone knew about us.' He smiled lopsidedly. 'She had a concert in Brussels or she'd have been here. We've been together a while, but it's rocky. Both of us in the music business. She's always working and I've got this Australian tour coming up...'

Cathy remembered Janey Adams on her television show, dark and intense, her voice honey gold, her long expressive hands, sweeping heavy hair. 'She's beautiful. I'd love to paint her one day.'

'I'll tell her.'

'I hope it all works out for you, Dave.'

He took her hand, but on impulse, bent and kissed her lightly.

'You too, Cathy.'

She shut the door and made her way back to the kitchen, ignoring Chris, stretched out on the sofa, watching her. As she passed he said softly, menacing, 'Keep away from Dave Hampton.'

She stopped, half-laughing. 'Or you'll do what?'

'I'll stop him.' His voice was quiet, expressionless, but Cathy was cold, suddenly aware of the tamped down violence in him. She remembered him hitting the policeman in Hamilton Square. How had she ever imagined that Chris was easy going and relaxed?

'Mind your own business, Chris.'

'You are my business, Cathy. Everything you do. Everything you think. Everything you feel. My business. And I'm your business. Me and Dev and you.'

'You're crazy.'

He smiled, cat and mouse. 'You'll see.'

At first light, she found a thick jacket and walked out of the house across the lawn and fields down to the stream running through the water meadow. She sat on a large stone and watched the sun come up. The early morning light was brilliant, glittering on the frosted grass.

She could see the strange tree trunk she had painted months ago when it had all started. But everything else had changed. The green had gone and the tangled undergrowth was a pattern of black interlocking lines with filigree edges.

Dev and Chris had stepped out of the trees like woodland spirits and stared at her. They were fair and beautiful in the evening sunlight, like the Elven Lords of an ancient ballad. And like the old ballads, they had been full of destruction and violence. She shivered.

She must try to put the past, what had happened, behind her. She must try to live each day as it came. No one here gets out alive. She must break this nightmare of unreality, this deathly dream state which kept spreading over her.

She looked up and Chris was there again, standing watching her, hunched. But he looked wild, dishevelled, unshaven, and there was a line of tiredness or pain between his eyes. She felt there was no kindness in him, only pain and malice.

'Dev's out cold, you'll have to wait. He must be mad.'

She turned her head away. So Dev had not told him about their bargain. Her heart lightened. She said, dryly, patting her stomach, 'The marriage has been consummated already, Chris.'

She saw his face then, and was sorry. She got up and walked to the stream, her back to him.

'Why did you kiss me like that in the church?'

'I felt like it.'

'Dev saw you.'

He shrugged. 'So what? He knows I want you. He knows everything I think.'

'Chris, please don't be like this. Julie saw too. I thought we were friends.'

'I don't like being on my own. I'm shut out.'

'You'll see Dev more than I will. Recording. Touring. You only want me because Dev wants me. You have plenty of girls.'

'You don't understand even now, do you, Cathy? Don't want to understand.'

Cathy's voice shook. 'Don't start talking about Karma again. You're just trying to make trouble. You never said anything to me before. Never kissed me even.'

'That day, when you found out we were Easy Connection, the door slammed shut. I saw it. You wouldn't have loved me or married me. But Dev was clever, or more desperate, maybe. And his timing was bloody lucky. He got you pregnant. And now I've only got to hang around and wait.'

'What are you saying?' she whispered, horrified.

'I'm warning you. Don't think of me as a friend, Cathy. You're not going to live happy ever after with Dev. Think of me as a vulture. I'm away up there, circling around. And I'm waiting. Watching and waiting.'

To be continued....

Copyright Liz Berry 2002. All rights reserved.

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