First Friends Read Free Page A

the specialisation course is over? All the boys on the course have joined boats and none of them were married. Everyone will be terrifyingly senior.’ Kate was very sure that Mark would be deeply disapproving.
    â€˜George Lampeter will be there for one. I saw him in the village. His boat is in for a few weeks, apparently. He told me that it would be fine. He’ll be coming for us later to take us in.’
    â€˜Oh, well.’ Kate hesitated. George had been at BRNC with Tom and Mark and they were all good friends. Surely Mark wouldn’t object? The evenings were so long and empty and it would be rather fun.
    â€˜Well?’ Cass raised her eyebrows. ‘Squared it, have you?’
    â€˜Squared what?’
    â€˜That terrible conscience of yours. It must be hell having to worry all the time. Thank God I haven’t got one!’
    M ARY A RMITAGE INSISTED THAT Kate come with her to meet the boat when, finally, it docked at
Dolphin
. By this time, Kate had discovered the hard way that an ETA was truly only an estimated time of arrival and not by any means something to be relied on. Much to her surpriseand delight, she had learned that the submarine was due back on Mark’s birthday and had decided that she would make his homecoming very special indeed. On the day before he was due home, she walked into the village with the birthday supper shopping list: steak, mushrooms and a bottle of Mark’s favourite wine. She went into the butcher’s shop.
    â€˜I’d like some fillet steak, please. Enough for two.’
    â€˜Well, you’re going it, aren’t you?’ The butcher beamed at her, used to her orders for half a pound of mince, one lamb chop or a few slices of ham. He was a fatherly soul and always felt sorry for these young naval wives, miles from their homes and families, struggling to manage alone. He leaned across the counter, resting his weight on hands almost as red and raw as the meat in his window. ‘Celebrating, are you? Old man coming home?’
    â€˜Yes. Tomorrow.’ She beamed back.
    â€˜Been away long?’ He flopped the steak down, cut two thick slices and threw them on the weighing machine.
    â€˜Two months.’ She tried, unsuccessfully, to hide her pride in managing for such a long time alone.
    He winked at her as he passed her the parcel and her change. ‘Don’t go overcooking it,’ he said.
    Back home, Kate put the food away and cleaned the flat thoroughly. She put clean linen on the bed and laid the fire in the grate in the sitting room. Like Cass, she only had this one big, elegant room but at least her kitchen was big enough to eat in. For this occasion, however, Kate polished the big mahogany table in the sitting room and went to find her candlesticks. When everything was ready, she bathed and washed her hair and then wandered from room to room wondering if she’d forgotten anything.
    She went to bed early to lay awake almost sick with excitement. She felt terribly shy at the thought of seeing Mark again. It was as if he had become a stranger to her and she could hardly bring his face to mind. She remembered their first meeting in the bar at the Royal Castle in Dartmouth when he and Tom had arrived to escort them up tothe College for the Ball. They had looked so formal and glamorous in their Mess Dress uniforms. Mark had gone to get drinks and Tom and Cass had chattered away like old friends. Kate thought that Mark, with his tall, sleek, dark good looks, was much more dashing than Tom who was short and solid and whose brown hair was thick and tended to curl. Mark was much the quieter and more serious of the two and Kate felt rather flattered that he should find her interesting. Having been through three years of military training, these young men seemed years older than their contemporaries in civilian life. Her subsequent meetings with them underlined this impression although never in the year before their marriage did Kate