[This is a sequel to
An Apology in the Morning
.]
It was late on a Saturday morning when the knock came at the door, not loud but repeated persistently. Ed Friar wasn't expecting visitors, and wasn't sure who would knock like that, but he went to answer the sound without any concern. Barely had he opened the door, though, when Kate Jones pushed through it and into the flat. She was three years older than his fifty-two, and six inches shorter than him, but she was clearly in a state of barely restrained fury, and she moved him and the door aside by sheer force.
"Kate?" he said, "What brings you..."
"This!" Kate snapped, pushing a small item into his hands, then standing back to stare at him accusingly through her thick-lensed glasses. Ed looked at the item in puzzlement, and saw that it was a disc of some kind β a CD or DVD β in a plain transparent envelope. The only marking on it was hand-written:
TO MUM, WITH ALL OUR LOVE. (WATCH IMMEDIATELY!)
With a sinking sensation, Ed recognised his son Nicholas' handwriting, and guessed what the disc must contain.
"How did you get hold of this?" he asked.
"It was posted to me. Anonymously." Kate snapped.
"Oh, Christ." Ed's shoulders slumped. "It must have come from Fiona. Look, you'd better come through and sit down."
Kate did as she was invited, although her manner made it clear that she wanted no pleasantries from Ed. Once she was seated, she stared at him hard. "You do know what it is, then?"
"I've got a pretty good idea, although I never would have expected Fiona to pass it on to you. That's twisted, even for her."
"
Twisted
? Twisted is what's on that disc."
"You've watched it, then? Has anyone else?"
"I couldn't move to stop it playing, though I wanted to be sick. But don't worry, nobody else..."
"Hey, Ed, how would you fancy... Oops, sorry, didn't know you had visitors."
Ed didn't think that he would ever be unhappy to see Gina Carlyle fresh from the shower and wearing nothing but a skimpy towel, but he had to admit to himself that this was probably not the best time for that vision to manifest. Fortunately, Gina turned on her heel and disappeared in haste, with just a flash of buttock as she went.
The room was in frozen silence for a some seconds, and then Kate stared at the door. "That," she began, "That was one of the girls from β from that disc."
"I'm afraid so" Ed admitted.
"You know," said Kate, breathing deeply, "I was really holding out some sort of hope that this might be some kind of sick joke. That somebody had discovered some sort of blue movie with an actor who looked just like you, and had decided to make trouble for you."
Ed sighed. "I don't suppose that anyone anywhere makes blue movies with actors who look like me," he said. "and anyway, I assume that Nick β ah, that Nicholas is on there too."
"Yes he is, you β you pervert!" Kate was nearly shouting now, but the exchange was broken by the return of Gina, who had hastily donned a pair of leggings and a t-shirt with a surreal artistic design on it. She smiled sweetly as she entered the room.
"Hi," she said, "very sorry about that."
"Ah, Gina, this is Kate, an old friend. Kate, this is Gina, a..."
"A new friend," Gina supplied. She sat down and found Kate staring at her.
"It
is
her" Kate snarled.
"I'm who?" Gina asked, puzzled.
"Kate has seen you on this, I'm afraid," said Ed, gesturing with the disc.
"Oh what? Is that Nick's DVD?" Ed nodded sadly. "How did that happen?"
"I assume that Fiona passed it onto her" Ed explained.
"Why would she do a thing like that?"
Ed sighed. "You know Fiona. We might have guessed that she'd spread trouble around."
Gina was meeting Kate's glare with an artless expression. Suddenly, she nodded. "Oh yeah, you must be Kate Jones, right? The one who Ed wasn't screwing?"
"I
beg
your pardon?"
Gina giggled. "Oops. That came out all wrong. But Nick told me about things, though β how Ed was lending you a hand when your husband was in hospital, and his cow of a wife decided that you and him were up to something and chucked Ed out, despite that Ed was being a perfect gentleman as usual."
Kate nodded, admitting the truth of the summary despite her rage. "It was all thoroughly unpleasant," she said.
"I'll bet. I've had Mrs Friar being a bitch to me, too, so I know what it's like. Anyway, how is your husband now?"
This was typical of Gina, Ed thought. She was a mistress of the slightly skewed conversational follow-on. It was part of her charm.
"He's home now" Kate replied, falling into the pattern of stock social responses, "but he's still bed-bound. Fortunately, I've got help looking after him β one of his sisters is there today..."
She trailed off, evidently realising that she'd been diverted for her reason for coming here. There was an awkward silence.
"Look," said Ed, "I'm extremely sorry that you saw that disc. It was my son's idea to send it to Fiona; he has a bit of a twisted sense of humour, I'm afraid, and he decided that this was the best way to persuade her that the mind games she'd been playing with all of us weren't going to work..." But then he trailed off, seeing that Kate was weeping. Gina quickly moved to sit beside her, passing her a box of tissues.
"Ed," Gina said, "go make us all some tea, why don't you?"
Ed was happy to obey. When he returned, however, Gina intercepted him in the corridor, lifting two mugs off the tray he was carrying. "It's okay," she said, "I reckon she just needs someone to talk to."
"Fine" said Ed. "I can handle that again..."
"No," said Gina, "not this time. I think that she's a bit confused about what to think about you, now that she's seen that disc. Hard to treat someone as a brother who you've seen being fucked brainless by two crazy girls."
"You were on the disc too!"
"Yeah, but I'm still a stranger to her, and I think that's actually helping. Plus, I think a bit of girl talk might help. You go and put your feet up; I'll take it from here."
Ed obeyed, slumping in his bedroom with a book as the hum of female voices came from the living room. Then, after nearly an hour, Gina put her head around the door.
"We're going out for a bit," she said, "catch you later."
"Where are you going?"