CHAPTER 2

Katie

July 1985

A blackbird was singing its heart out in the apple tree outside the French doors, thrown open to let the afternoon breeze drift through the house. It brought with it the scent of new-mown grass and a whiff of the honeysuckle rambling across the Cotswold-stone walls of the cottage Harry and Katie had rented for the summer.

The blackbird was competing with Bono, who was belting out “Bad” on the TV. It was Live Aid, and they’d been watching on and off all day, between popping into Oxford to buy more baby gear.

“That chap’s good,” commented Harry, massaging Katie’s bare feet where they lay in his lap.

“The blackbird’s better,” said Katie, wiggling her toes. “That tickles.”

“Should I get that haircut? Do you think I’d look cool?”

Katie regarded Bono’s black mullet with something blond going on at the front. “I don’t think it’d work in ginger, darling.”

“It’s not ginger, it’s strawberry blond. What the fuck’s he doing?”

Bono had leaped down off the stage—a not insignificant drop—and was trying to haul someone out of the crowd.

“Language, darling. You’ll have to stop that when there are little ears listening.”

“Sorry. Cup of tea?”

“Lovely, thanks.”

“English breakfast or mad pregnancy flavor?”

“Raspberry leaf, please.”

As he gently lifted her feet off his lap, Katie wondered if the cup would runneth over. Could life be any more perfect? Her tall, golden-haired Adonis there, busy in the kitchen of this idyllic cottage. Baby kicking in its appreciation of U2.

They’d been monitoring its responses to the bands. Status Quo had provoked the liveliest reaction so far, and Harry had wondered if denim rompers were a thing. That afternoon they’d spotted a pair of denim booties in Mothercare, and those were now sitting on the mantelpiece, along with a number of invitations, all of which they’d ignored since moving into their summer bolt-hole.

One of them was, in fact, a pair of tickets to Live Aid, with a note from Harry’s best friend, Charles. Like Harry, he was so well connected he could get tickets for absolutely anything: cricket at Lord’s, Centre Court at Wimbledon, the Royal Enclosure at Ascot.

Katie idly wondered if Harry had missed going to the summer events this year. He wanted to go to Live Aid, but Katie, eight and a half months pregnant, had preferred to stay home and watch it on TV. They’d had a near row; apparently this was going to be the rock concert of the eighties. Surely she could manage a first-class train journey and a taxi ride to Wembley, Harry had said.

Katie had cursed inwardly when they’d spotted Charles and his wife, Cassandra, sitting two rows behind the Prince and Princess of Wales. Harry’s jaw had tightened. He really hated to miss out, especially when his best mate, who was also something of a substitute older brother, was around. To distract him, she’d wondered out loud what Prince Charles and Bob Geldof might talk about between acts, but Harry had only grunted and left the room.

Charles probably considered Harry under the thumb. Katie got on well with him but suspected he wasn’t in favor of Harry taking up with someone older, quieter, more sensible. Possibly boring. Someone who’d been old-fashioned enough to expect Harry to marry her when she got pregnant.

Rock concerts weren’t really Katie’s thing. At twenty-seven, she already felt too old. The only performer she would have enjoyed was Paul McCartney. And maybe Elton John. The argument had been the first time she felt that the five-year age gap between them mattered.

She started as Harry put the mug down in front of her.

The Beach Boys were now playing, and the baby had gone quiet.

Katie picked up her tea. “Baby’s not a Beach Boys fan. I loved them when I was a girl.”

“Before my time,” remarked Harry, putting his feet up on the coffee table.

Katie looked sideways at him, but his face was expressionless. As he bent to sip his tea, a lock of hair fell forward—he’d let it grow longer on top, and the floppiness suited him.

The sun, now lower in the sky, slanted through the window, throwing puddles of light on the rugs and illuminating a vase of red roses she’d picked from the garden.

Katie’s heart constricted as she contemplated Harry’s profile. Her husband was outrageously beautiful. The sun was catching his long, thick eyelashes and his silky mane of hair, lightened by summer. Beneath fine blond hairs, the skin on his arms was sun kissed to a golden brown.

It was like sharing the sofa with a lion.

Unable to resist, she lifted a hand to stroke back the lock of hair, but Harry was already jumping up and pulling a curtain across. Then he sat down in an armchair, stretching his long legs out in front of him.

“That’s better. Couldn’t see before.”

She felt the empty space beside her. The silence that had been so comfortable all at once felt awkward. It was as if she could sense Harry’s thoughts, turning from rock concerts and lazy summer days to the responsibilities of fatherhood and supporting her, his wife of two months. She sat up straighter, aware of her enormous bump. Oh, to have a waist again.

The beginning of their relationship had been anything but typical. No meeting down at the pub or at a university party for them. In fact, they had first met properly, as adults, at his father’s funeral. Harry had been in his final year at Eton when Henry Rose unexpectedly died of a lung infection that should have been easily curable. Harry suspected his father had never recovered from losing both his wife and eldest son within a year of each other.

Harry and his two sisters had suddenly found themselves orphans, and Harry had looked like a little boy lost.

Katie had known the family from when she dated Harry’s older brother, Art. Their mothers had been friends, and the two families shared a villa in the South of France in the summer of 1974. On the third day, Art had shyly asked if he could kiss her, behind the bougainvillea.

Katie remembered Harry, already wickedly good-looking at the age of eleven, full of life, cannonballing into the swimming pool. He was as tall as Art, and while the older brother had been quiet and thoughtful, the younger had been full of exuberant self-confidence.

When Art died in a freak skiing accident, Katie had been terribly sad. He’d been her first proper boyfriend. And Harry was heartbroken—she remembered him sobbing at the funeral.

Then, less than a year later, Harry’s mother had died. The two families lost touch after that, and rumor had it that Harry’s father, Henry, had turned to drink in his grief and rarely left his country pile. A few years later, he too had died.

Katie’s family had attended Henry’s funeral, and there she saw Harry, almost eighteen years old, shattered by the loss of his parents and brother. He’d turned his sad, deep blue eyes on her, and she was lost.

Sometimes she wondered if it was a sound basis for a relationship. “Are you sure you’re not a mother substitute?” a friend had said at the time. She’d spent the summer of 1981, before Harry went up to Oxford, coaxing him back to life, getting him to talk about his feelings (not something he was used to doing), until the hurt began to dull, that devastating smile reappeared, and the easy charm resurfaced. And as it had, she allowed the attraction that had been building to see the light of day.

She’d been a lot older than him, but Harry was tall and broad-shouldered, could pass for twenty-one or twenty-two, while she’d looked younger than her twenty-three years, being tiny and favoring the ubiquitous Lady Di hairdo and frilly collars.

Having had a sweet, celibate relationship with Art, and no boyfriends since, Katie had been poleaxed by the strength of feeling that swept through her each time she met up with this beautiful, damaged boy, all at once appalled and excited by the emotions and physical goings-on that overtook her.

“KATIE!”

“Sorry . . . what?” She’d zoned out again.

“I said, shall we walk to the pub?”

“I . . . want . . . my . . .” sang Sting as Dire Straits readied to rock.

“Oh, I like this one,” said Katie. “Why don’t we stay here and I’ll cook us something. They don’t have a TV in the pub. Thank goodness, actually. Dreadful trend.”

But as the crowd rocked along to “Money for Nothing,” Katie wondered if watching it on TV was just reminding Harry of what a good time Charles would be having without him.

“OK, we can go to the pub if you want.”

Trouble was, she knew what would happen. After several weeks in this village, they now knew many of the regulars, and she’d sit there, uncomfortably wedged behind a table, sipping her sad little orange juice while Harry downed pints of Hook Norton ale and yarned with the locals. It wasn’t his fault; people just liked being around Harry, and in a village you couldn’t be unsociable. In less expectant times she’d gladly have joined in, but right now she couldn’t work up the energy.

To the villagers, who’d never known her sans bump, she was just a mum-to-be. Sometimes she’d chat with a wife or girlfriend, but the older ones only wanted to share their childbirth stories, which were invariably terrifying. Did she really need to hear yet again that it was like trying to poo a watermelon? Why did women assume that just because you had a baby bump, you wanted to hear their own grisly experiences?

They’d say, “No one tells you how hard motherhood is, you’re just expected to know what to do.” Actually, no. Everyone had told her how hard it is.

Harry must have read her mind. He moved back to the sofa, put one arm around her shoulders, and gently stroked her bump.

“Sorry, I can see you’re knackered.” The softness in his eyes banished the negative thoughts. “Why would you want to sit in a smoky pub sipping a boring drink while your husband talks rugby with Farmer Thing from Thing Farm?” He kissed her hair, then rested his head on hers. “How about a takeaway? Chinese? Probably not Indian.”

“Actually, they say a strong curry can bring on labor,” said Katie. “And right now, I’d like to get it over with and drink a cider down the pub without taking up space for four people.”

But that wasn’t strictly true. As Harry fetched his car keys, she knew that if she could freeze time, she’d probably do so right now.

“If you hurry, you’ll be back in time for Queen,” she called. And then sang to herself, “Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?”