Chapter Text
The drive had been a little awkward, but masked by questions and chatter about the choir, the soldiers’ tour, Frankie – anything that wasn’t too delicate or personal, anything that was polite enough as a preface to the conversation they knew they were about to have.
Honestly, the hardest thing for both of them had been sitting so close to each other in the car. The scent of Kate’s undeniably expensive perfume was so strong Lisa thought she was about to sneeze. It coated her Barbour jacket with some kind of carelessness she’d forgotten Kate had. Kate wouldn’t admit it, but she could smell Lisa’s hair. She tried desperately hard to drown out the flashbacks from when she could last smell it. It had felt like forever, but after fifteen minutes they had arrived in the town’s car park. Both were relieved to have been spared from the potential awkwardness that could have arisen from walking into town.
Lisa offered to pay for their drinks, feeling it was the least she could do before whatever was about to happen between them. They both sat at the table Kate suggested, not speaking as they took off their jackets and placed them on their respective chairs. The café’s atmosphere had a warmth and friendliness, which thankfully meant it wasn’t too quiet that they would be heard by everyone. It also meant that there were enough people in that they couldn’t end in a screaming match.
Between sitting down and their drinks arriving, they once again engaged in conversation about the choir; it had barely taken off, but at least they had established who could sing. Kate noticed the way Lisa was toying with her wedding ring – she still had a terrible habit of fidgeting when she was nervous.
Lisa was nervous. Kate knew she was nervous, because she was exactly the same, if not more.
After several run-ins over the past month or so, they knew that they had to do this – it was the only way they were going to actually be able to work together, for the sake of the choir and the other wives, and maybe for the sake of each other, too.
The waitress brought over their beverages, and Kate clung to her cup of tea like it was all she had to protect her from the woman across the table. Lisa, never cautious, took a sip of her boiling coffee and gasped as it burned her tongue. That was all the ammunition she needed.
“You left. I was in love with you, and I know you were in love with me, but you just left.”
Almost surprised by herself, the way in which she hadn’t even waited for more superficial small talk, Lisa couldn’t say any more. Instead, she tucked her hair behind her ear with a rush that felt filled with fury and anxiety all at once. Taking another sip from her coffee, she watched the startled expression on the older woman’s face turn to one of dread.
Kate’s eyes were focused intently on the tea below her, as if it would give her a worthy response. But she knew there was nothing she could say to soften the pain, nothing that would diminish the damage she caused Lisa nearly twenty-five years before. It was as if she wanted to speak, but everything she knew held her back. That image of the Colonel’s wife she’d spent years maintaining, holding in her feelings about so many things that upset her. Look where it had got her: stuck on a military base married to a man she barely knew anymore, silently struggling to grieve for her son yet unable to escape her pain because her whole life was the military. She had nothing of her own, not anymore. Lisa was the last thing that had ever felt like hers.
“Well?”
Looking up into Lisa’s eyes, everything came flooding back to Kate in a way that was so overwhelming she could barely catch her breath. The woman across from her had been on the base for a couple of months now following her husband’s transfer, but this was the first time that she felt she was really seeing her, and it killed her. No matter the time that had elapsed between them, Lisa hadn’t changed, not really. Her face still reminded Kate of a quiet youthful optimism she hadn’t felt in so long. And she supposed that it hadn’t changed for the fact that there was the same kind of devastation written all over it as there was when she had left her all those years ago.
“I’ve never forgiven myself, you know,” was all she managed to utter before having to clear her throat. She was giving Lisa so little and she was aware of that, and yet she felt as if she’d poured her heart out on the table between them. The younger woman’s face changed from its silent rage to something Kate couldn’t quite determine, until her mouth opened slightly and her eyes were prised shut a second longer than one would consider normal – she was trying to hold it together. “I know it was wrong, how I left, the fact that I left at all, but I had to, Lisa. There were expectations, I-”
“Don’t start with me on that bullshit, Kate.” Lisa’s interruption was harsh and ruthless, but she wouldn’t apologise for it. “The expectations, the pressure, ‘society’” – she was keen to use air quotes for the last word – “it doesn’t justify leaving me after the time we spent together.” Lisa could barely believe she was being forced to relive one of the most painful times of her life in front of the very person who broke her heart. However, she had waited too long to say this to Kate; it wasn’t as if she had anything to lose.
Taking a deep breath, she continued. “We were in love, Kate. You were the first person I had ever truly loved, I shared everything with you and I wanted to be with you, and I believed with my whole heart that you felt the same. You leaving destroyed me. How could you do it? How could you pack your stuff and leave me sobbing on the floor in my own flat with the shittiest fucking explanation?”
Her tears were bold, unapologetic as they streamed down her flushed cheeks. She looked into Kate’s eyes and was surprised to see not tears, but a subtle anger in them. Her lips were tightly shut, as if speaking would result in her saying something she regretted. But then Lisa looked over to the group of three at the table nearest them, who were just finishing their glaringly obvious glances before returning to their own conversation, and she realised people could hear them. Worse, she realised Kate was embarrassed.
“I can’t do this,” Kate was careful to be quiet, but firm.
As she watched her begin to get up and leave, Lisa could have screamed. However, out of some weird respect that she couldn’t understand herself (because why did Kate deserve her respect?), she simply asked, “Are you kidding me?”
“Here. I can’t do this here.” Kate put her coat on gracefully and left the café, whilst Lisa frantically grabbed her own jacket from behind her, put some change on the table because Kate was a lousy tipper, then followed her out onto the main street. It was hard for Lisa to pretend she wasn’t scared of losing Kate all over again. Although, she was quick to remind herself that she had never returned to her.