by Peter James
She stared at him dully. She'd heard this speech so many times and, yes, she knew he meant it. But it had long ceased to mean anything to her.
'You know how scared I get when you aren't well, don't you? I want you to see a doctor, see Jules tomorrow. I'll have Lucinda call him first thing.'
Lucinda was Ross's secretary, and Jules Ritterman was their family doctor, whom Ross had known since being lectured by him at medical school. Faith did not care for him, but right now she felt too weak to argue. She just wanted to lie down, to sleep.
Her head was swimming. 'I'll be OK,' she said. 'I'll be fine.'
'I want you to see Jules.'
Something in his tone caught her. Insistence.
'I'll be fine. Probably just jet-lag from Thailand still catching up with me.'
'You've been feeling sick for a week and it's not clearing up. You may have picked up a bug in Thailand and if so it needs to be knocked on the head. Capisce?'
She went into the bedroom, sat on the bed, removed her lenses and put them into their container, then gratefully leaned back. Ross stood over her and she tensed, warily, but he had become again the gentle, caring Ross.
'Capisce?' he said again.
She tried to think it through. It meant going back up to London tomorrow. But it was Ross's birthday in a few weeks and it would give her a chance to do some shopping for him.
'Ok,' she said, reluctantly.
'Besides,' he said, putting his arms around her and holding her tightly, 'we've got to get you right before we go into surgery.'
8
It was 6.05 in the morning, 13 May. Five weeks away from the longest day, yet it felt cold enough to be February. On the news it had said there had been falls of snow overnight in some northern parts of the country.
Oliver Cabot, dressed in a tracksuit, gloves and trainers, removed the padlock and chain from his dark red Saracen hybrid, opened the front door and wheeled the bicycle out of the communal hallway of the apartment building, shivering. There was a dampness in London that seemed to drive the cold deep into your bones, he thought, and corrode whatever warmth you'd ever had in your body. It had been a shock after life in southern California, and he still hadn't got used to it, and doubted, now, that he ever would.
He pulled on his crash helmet, mounted the bike, zeroed the mileometer, then pressed down on the pedals. He built up speed along the Portobello Road, quiet and empty on weekdays, and at the end swung left into Ladbroke Grove.
The air felt glacial against his face, and he pedalled hard to work up a sweat. In spite of the cold, he always liked London at this hour. There was something special about being out in a city ahead of the rest of the world. He liked seeing the street-cleaners, the paper-boys, the milkmen, and the occasional woman, bleary and dishevelled, climbing out of a cab still in her evening wear.
Today the street seemed even emptier than usual. A couple of cars passed him, then a cab rattled by, its occupant an anonymous silhouette in the rear window. A line of a poem about London, came into his head and he tried to remember the name of the poet. Thom Gunn, perhaps?
Indifferent to the indifference that conceived you…
He kept up his fast pace. The anonymous world he was passing remained just as indifferent to him as it did every morning. But there was a change inside him today. The memory of that woman at the dinner last night. Faith Ransome. Her glances across the crowded room towards him. Those glances weren't indifferent. They were —
She's married, Oliver Cabot. Get her out of your head, man.
He pedalled along handsome terraced side-streets up towards the Bayswater Road, crossed into Hyde Park and headed for the Serpentine. He cycled around it, watching the ducks, the reflections.
In those immediate days, weeks, months after Jake's death, he had gone out running in the early morning along the canals of Venice, California, along the beach beside the ocean, running before the sun came up, measuring distance by the lifeguard towers that rose eerily out of the darkness ahead, like the watch-towers of a concentration camp.
That was how he had felt. A prisoner in his own life. A prisoner of his own thoughts. Waking every morning from the escape of sleep and dreams to the overcast reality of having to live in a world in which Jake had been ripped from his life. From their lives.
Now eight years on, the paralysing pain of grief had gone, but the feeling of dumb helplessness remained, and there were reminders everywhere he turned his head. That was another reason he liked this hour: he had started going out early in those immediate weeks so as not to see other children.
He pedalled past a group of workmen unloading road-mending gear from the back of a truck. The air no longer felt cold. Faith Ransome. I like your name. Faith. Something tells me you are not happy in your life, Faith. You were flirting with me last night. There was desperation in your face. So lovely, yet so desperate.
Dismounting, he leaned his bicycle against a tree and walked the few yards to his usual spot beside a massive laurel bush, with the reflection of the trees on the far bank rising like shadows from the flat water in front of him.
Three words went repeatedly through his mind like a silent mantra. Man. Earth. Heaven. He stood as still and silent as a tree, allowing Chi, the universal life energy, to flow through him. And as he entered into his state of meditation, he thought of just one person. What are you desperate about, Faith? Will I ever get to meet you again?
9
On the hard couch behind the screen in the Wimpole Street consulting room, a strap tight around her arm, Faith held her breath. She'd never liked injections. The needle was touching the skin now, indenting it. She watched and did not watch at the same time. Then she flinched as it pierced the skin. A sharp prick that felt as if it had gone right down into the bone, followed by a duller ache. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the hollow tube of the syringe steadily fill with crimson blood.
Two faces above her looked down in stern concentration. Dr Ritterman's nurse, a sour woman of about fifty, and Dr Ritterman himself.
'OK, Faith,' he said, walking round to the far side of the screen. 'You may get dressed now.'
A few minutes later, Jules Ritterman, seated behind a desk the size of a small country, was studying her notes. A solemn, diminutive man of sixty, his face had the texture of parched leather, criss-crossed with deep, horizontal trenches and shallower creases, which gave him the air of a sagacious tortoise. With his grey, pinstriped suit, crinkly hair and unfashionably large glasses, he could have passed for a chartered accountant or a lawyer, if it wasn't for the flamboyance of his salmon pink shirt, and a bow-tie the colour of a roadkill frog.
The room was far larger than it needed to be, and Faith, in a wing chair before the desk, glanced around at the walls, the alabaster mantelpiece, the gauze of rain across the window and the greyness of the May morning beyond. According to Ross, Jules Ritterman was the top socialite general practitioner in London. He was GP to anyone who was anyone. It was typical of her husband, in his craving to distance himself from his humble roots, to have courted this man and made him a close friend.
Perhaps Ritterman, too, had begun with nothing, Faith thought. Maybe he'd been the child of penniless Jewish refugees and had created this grand practice through his own determination, talent and strength of character. She had never warmed to him, nor to his equally cold wife, but she could understand why he appealed to Ross, and also that to have established such an A-list clientele he must be a fine doctor. She just wished she had a doctor she could talk to. But every time in the past when she had tried to discuss this with Ross, he became furious. In his eyes, Ritterman was the best; he refused to see how she could want someone inferior.
Ritterman leaned forward on his elbows. 'Well, Faith, I don't think there's anything to worry about. Probably a little hostile bacteria from your trip to Thailand. That's one of the hazards of travel, I'm afraid — encountering bugs our immune systems aren't familiar with. It'll probably clear up of' its own accord. But I'm going
to have some analysis done on your blood and urine, just to make sure, and I'll let Ross know if they show up anything.'
'Why can't you let me know?' she asked, a little sharply. It was always the same with Ritterman: she felt he treated her like a schoolgirl.
'Don't you think you're fortunate to have a husband who is able to explain medical things to you?'
'Actually I don't,' she said. 'I'd really rather you did.'
He gave her a placatory smile that failed to signify compliance. It infuriated her, but she said nothing. This was how it always was with Ritterman. Even when they had been trying for a child, and the test revealed she was pregnant with Alec, it was Ross whom Ritterman phoned, not her.
'It's been a while since I've seen you. Other than this, how have you been feeling?'
'My depression?'
'Yes.'
'A lot better. I haven't taken any Prozac for over a month.' She couldn't read in his expression whether he approved of this or not.
'And you are feeling more positive?'
'About life?'
'Generally.'
'I — I think — a little, yes.'
'I wouldn't worry about staying on the Prozac longer if it makes you more positive, it —'
'I'm doing OK without it,' she said.
'Right.' He nodded. 'I'll have my secretary telephone a prescription for your tummy-bug through to Ross.'
'Why can't you give it to me?'
Chiding now, he said, 'Much easier. It will save you the bother of having to queue for it.'
'I don't mind that.'
His eyes slipped to his watch and the signal could not have been clearer.
She left, feeling dissatisfied and belittled.
It was half past eleven. Outside, in the teeming rain, she took a cab to the General Trading Company in Sloane Street. Ross was a stickler for smart labels. Shirts and ties had to come from Jermyn Street, and only from Turnbull and Asser, Hilditch and Key or Lewin's, food from Fortnum & Mason, Jackson's or Harrods, anything to do with smoking from Dunhill. The General Trading Company was on his approved list for a broader band of gifts.
Faith loved the rich atmosphere of the General Trading Company. It felt like being in a private club, its small interconnecting rooms packed with treasures, and tinkling with the cut-glass accents of the staff. Silk scarves were de rigueur for every female customer here, draped around their necks and shoulders, like totems of rival tribes: Cornelia James versus Hermes versus Gucci.
Faith wore one herself, the Cornelia James signature proudly displayed across the front of her black MaxMara raincoat. Before she had met Ross, she had had little interest in fashion or in designer labels, partly because she had always been short of money. Ross had turned her into a label snob, but she enjoyed it. Retail therapy, she had joked with him. When she had been at her lowest ebb with the depression, she had raised her spirits by coming to London and having a blitz in expensive designer shops. Ross never minded how much she spent — he even encouraged it. He wanted her always to be dressed in the latest and best. But she never really felt at ease in her fabulous outfits.
She knew that outwardly she blended in here, that there was no trace of her stark origins and state-school education, yet she felt an outsider. Half the people in this shop seemed to know each other, as if they'd grown up together. And that was the difference, she thought. You could tell in their faces the confidence their upper-crust breeding gave them, and that was something you could never buy, and never change with a surgeon's scalpel. You were either born into it or you weren't.
Faith tapped a glass display, pointing at a crocodile-skin wallet, and asked an almost absurdly handsome male assistant if she could look at it.
'It's a wonderful wallet,' the Adonis told her, as he unlocked the cabinet. 'Awesome.'
She turned it over in her hands, brought it to her nose and savoured the rich aroma of the leather. Then she opened it and checked out the compartments inside. 'Would you know if it takes dollar bills? My husband has always complained that English wallets are just that bit too narrow.'
'I'd better go and check up on that one,' the young man said.
But before he could move, a hand reached from behind Faith, and laid a crisp, brand-new-looking one-dollar bill on the counter. 'Here,' an American voice said, 'want to try this?'
Faith turned round, then stared, in a mixture of amazement and disbelief, at the tall, lean man in a black greatcoat. 'Er — thanks — er — hi,' she said, awkwardly, fighting her excitement, in case she was mistaken.
He smiled. 'Hi! How did you enjoy the dinner?'
It was him. Her admirer from two tables away last night.
10
'The dinner was fine,' Faith said. His smile told her he did not believe her. She liked his face. It wasn't handsome in any conventional sense: it was long, almost equine, and his nose, which was also long — and craggy — looked like it had been plucked from a box of spares in a tool shed as an afterthought. But it was filled with warmth and sparkle, a wise, yet playful face beneath a tangle of curls that, although grey, seemed youthful. She had the strange but comfortable feeling that somehow they already knew each other well. His eyes, titanium grey and hypnotically strong, were flirting with her, yet somewhere in them, she saw sadness.
'Actually,' she confessed, 'I didn't have that great a time. In fact, it was incredibly dull.'
With an effort, she glanced away, aware she needed to stop the game. But it was good, just for a moment, to feel flattered by this man in his black polo-neck, black jeans and dramatic black coat.
To feel wanted.
Their eyes locked again.
Behind her, a triumphant voice said, 'Yes, look, a perfect fit!'
She turned and saw the assistant holding up the wallet with the dollar bill inside it.
'Fine, good,' she said. 'I — I'll take it.' She dug her purse from the entrails of her handbag, handed her gold card to him, then turned back to her admirer.
'Nice wallet,' he said.
'For my husband,' she said, then instantly regretted saying that.
'Lucky man.' The eyes were flirting again.
Fumbling for the right words, she said, 'Would you — um — think that was a good present for someone to give their husband?'
'Uh-huh.' He reached past her to pick it up, and she smelt his cologne, strong and masculine, a scent she didn't recognise but which she found appealing. Turning the wallet over in his hands he said, 'This is really neat. Beautiful, I guess, so long as you don't have any conscience about crocodiles.'
She couldn't tell whether he was joking or serious. 'Do you?'
He put the wallet down. His voice, deep and laconic, rumbled around inside his throat. 'I guess they make better wallets than bathing companions.'
Faith laughed.
'You have time for coffee?' he asked.
She looked back into those flirting eyes. Danger flags were running up inside her head. And she had more presents to buy today, including, she must not forget, Godiva chocolates. It didn't matter what else she got Ross, if she did not include those chocolates in his birthday packages he would sulk. She glanced at her watch: 11.45. She could spare half an hour. Her mother was collecting Alec from school today, so it would be OK if she was late back — and, anyhow, she would tell Ross she'd been shopping for his birthday. 'Sure,' she said. 'Why not?'
He put out his hand. 'I'm Oliver.'
'Faith.' She took it. He had long fingers and a firm grip.
'Faith Ransome,' he said.
She wondered for a second how he knew. Had he just read her name on her credit card?
His eyes again fixed on hers, he said, 'Faith. A good name. The writer H. L. Mencken defined faith as "illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable". Is that you?'
'Probably,' she said, with a grin, and signed her credit slip.
* * *
Downstairs, in the basement cafe, Faith considered ordering a cappuccino, then decided green-leaf tea would be more se
ttling for her nausea. As her admirer carried the tray to a vacant corner table, Faith followed at a distance, looking nervously around for any familiar faces.
Calm down, girl! she had to tell herself. You're not having an affair with the man, for Christ's sake, you're just having a cup of tea with him!
But all the same, her nerves were jangling. Jangling because of her attraction to this stranger, and jangling because if Ross discovered she'd been in a cafe with another man, she would never hear the end of it. She settled down in her chair at the tiny round table, her back pressed to a wall of plants, which smelt pungently damp. 'What's your surname?'
'Cabot,' he said.
'Like the explorer?'
'Uh-huh. I'm a distant relative.'
'You'd have to be pretty distant,' she retorted.
'Why's that?'
'He's been dead for five hundred years.'
He grinned. 'Touché.'
She never normally took sugar, but feeling in need of energy she tore open a packet and tipped the contents into her cup.
'The infusion of a China plant sweetened with the pith of an Indian cane,' he said, with a flourish, as if he were delivering a line of poetry.
'That sounds a lot more elegant than calling it a cuppa with one lump.'
He gave her a warm gaze, and she no longer cared if anyone saw her. She was beginning to feel deliciously liberated, as if sitting tucked away with this eccentric stranger was her own little revolution against the tyranny of Ross.
'So,' she said, 'what are you buying here?'
'I came to look at a wedding list — a work colleague's getting married.'
'Great place to have a wedding list.'
'Actually, I told him to have it here. This is my favourite store in the whole world. It feels so quintessentially English. More so than Harrods or Harvey Nichols.'
'What about Liberty's?'
'More than Liberty's. Don't you think?'
'It's always been my favourite shop too.'
