by Peter James
In the daytime, under makeup, no one could see them. It was only at night that they were more clearly visible. Ross insisted he didn't notice them and that was all that mattered. But they bothered her. They were the tell-tales that this was not her natural face.
Sometimes she wondered if Ross had deliberately made the scars more prominent than they need be, as insurance that she would be prepared to have more surgery. He told her that the next time he operated on her he would be able to make them less visible. There were scars under her breasts also, from when he had put in the implants, and he had said he could deal with those when she was older and needed a breast-lift. Besides, as he had told her, 'No one other than me is ever going to see them — so what's your problem?'
Back in the waiting area, Faith perched on the edge of a sofa that was more comfortable than it looked. In front of her was a small indoor Zen garden with a fountain trickling water down an assembly of round, flat stones. She glanced at the other people here: an emaciated man in his late thirties, his clothes hanging loose, eyes sunken, an Aids sufferer, perhaps; a smart-looking man working feverishly on a Psion computer; a rotund earth-mother garbed in what looked like an Inca blanket, sitting with her eyes closed, holding a baby with an inch of green snot hanging from its nose; a young, neatly dressed, Asian woman in a pin-striped two-piece reading Health and Fitness magazine.
Faith glanced at the magazines strewn on a side-table. There were several alternative- and complementary-medicine newsletters, and a whole stack of Cabot Centre leaflets. Then she noticed a copy of the Hypnotherapy Research Society magazine, flagging an article by Dr Oliver Cabot on the front cover. She picked it up and turned to the article. It was titled 'Remission of Cancer through Circadian Reprogramming'. She began to read but had difficulty concentrating. A phone warbled faintly in the background.
She had taken a lot of care deciding what to wear today. Informal but not sloppy. Casual smart, but not too smart. Eventually she'd settled on a thin grey cashmere polo-neck, black sueded cotton jeans, black boots and her long camel coat. She looked good today, she thought. Good hair day. Good face day. Looking good but not feeling good. Nausea and nerves. Great.
A shadow fell, then a harried woman with two small boys, all three with streaming colds, sat down beside Faith.
'Mummy,' one of the boys said, 'I want to go to the toilet.'
'You only went half an hour ago. You'll have —'
'Mrs Ransome?' Faith turned. A woman in clothes identical to the receptionist's greeted her with a smile. In her early thirties, she had short brown hair, Latin good looks and, like the receptionist, she had a complexion so healthy it was unreal. 'Dr Cabot can see you now.'
The woman floated up a flight of stairs as if she were weightless; Faith felt the drag of gravity in every molecule in her body.
If he's surrounded by women like these, what chance do I have?
Then she chided herself, I don't want any chance. This is purely a courtesy visit. I'm here because of my nausea — because so far my own doctor doesn't seem to have been able to diagnose anything. That's all. That's why I'm here.
She followed the woman along a corridor, past a sign that said, 'Relaxation Therapy', and another, marked, 'Hypnotherapy'.
'Faith!'
Oliver Cabot was standing in a doorway dressed in a black jacket, grey collarless shirt, black chinos and black suede brogues. He was even better-looking than when she had last seen him, but he seemed more serious. It felt as if she was visiting Oliver Cabot, doctor, rather than Oliver Cabot, friend. Yet as she reached him, his expression changed to one of joy. And as she shook his hand and looked at that craggy, equine face beneath the tangle of grey curls, he gave a huge lopsided grin. Instantly all her anxieties melted away and she felt a surge of excitement.
'Faith!' he said again, staring directly into her eyes, making her feel that she was the most important thing in his life. 'Faith! This is so great, I can't tell you! Great that you came! Hi!'
'Hi!' she said.
'How are you?'
'Fine, thank you,' she said.
They were still holding hands, Faith realised, but it seemed the most natural thing in the world to be standing in the doorway, soaking up the warmth from those sparkling, crystal-clear grey eyes.
Happiness flooded through her. It was so good to be standing here with this man, so absurdly good. She felt something she had not felt for many years.
She felt free.
19
Ross finished his round in the day-surgery unit and went into the staff room to grab a cup of coffee. It was small and narrow, with chairs on either side and a kitchenette. Tommy Pearman, his regular anaesthetist, followed him. A short, squat man with a figure like a bean-bag, his baggy blue surgical pyjamas made him look even more shapeless than he already was. A widower, he lived for his work and for his diverse hobbies. He was an avid collector of Etruscan art, vintage cars, antique navigational charts, medical textbooks and, bizarrely, diseases. He had accumulated over the years, through his medical-research connections, a terrifying array of bacteria and viruses, which he kept in a cold store at his baronial home in Kent. One Sunday when Ross and Faith had been having lunch there, he'd taken Ross down to the store and shown the collection to him.
Included among the hundreds of carefully labelled vials was a smallpox culture, five strains of hepatitis, viral meningitis, anthrax, bubonic plague and a Soviet virus called Marburg, developed for germ warfare, which would melt internal organs. When Ross had asked him whether he had any qualms about keeping these things — particularly smallpox which had allegedly been eradicated — Pearman had replied that he felt more comfortable knowing they were here, safely hidden away in his cellar, than at large anywhere else in the world. The anaesthetist was brilliant at his job, and Ross trusted him implicitly, in spite of the way he got into terrible flaps about things. And right now Pearman was flapping. 'I've just seen Mrs Jardine,' he said. 'She has a terrible cold, coughing up sputum. I'm not happy about her.'
Ross glanced at his list. Elizabeth Jardine was at the top for this afternoon. A full face-lift. She was fifty-seven, married to a film producer and off in mid-July to spend three months in Los Angeles. A nice woman, he had liked her when she had first come to see him. She was desperate to have the operation before going to the States.
He mentally timed the list. After Elizabeth Jardine, a seven-year-old girl with a burn scar on her chest, then another child, a nine-year-old boy with a patch of thickened skin on his scalp, preventing hair growth, a woman with a skin tumour on the back of her calf, another woman with a malignant tumour on her face, and a teenage boy with a penile deformity — erections were painful because too much skin had been removed during circumcision. It was a lot to get through. Even so, he said, 'I'm reluctant to postpone. She should have come in a month ago but she went down with 'flu — she's going to be very upset.'
Pearman shook his head. 'I really don't think it's wise.'
'How bad is she?'
'Bad. I think you should take a look at her, see for yourself.'
Normally Ross would have trusted Pearman's judgement. The only thing holding him back was his concern for Elizabeth Jardine. 'Yes, OK, I'll go and see her in a minute.'
As he poured himself a cup of coffee, he noticed a large, half-eaten carrot cake in a tinfoil box on the work-surface. The sight of it made him feel hungry. He'd been operating since seven fifty this morning and hadn't stopped for breakfast. 'Whose is that?'
'Sandra — her birthday. Thirty-seven. She doesn't look it but, of course, she thinks she does, poor thing.'
There was a tradition in the clinic that on someone's birthday they provided cake for the rest of the staff. Sandra Billington was the chief administrator. Ross cut himself a slice and picked it up. It was sticky and crumbled in his fingers.
'I hear Sandra's going out with Roger Houghton. Have you come across him? Admin, accounts, dull stick, but who knows, they might be suited?' Tommy Pearman was the clinic's matc
hmaker and conductor of gossip.
Ignoring the remark, as he ignored all gossip because it did not interest him, Ross crammed some carrot cake into his mouth, and said, 'Tommy, what do you know about Lendt's disease?'
The anaesthetist had a passion for the history of medicine. He'd written two books on the development of modern medicines and was currently working on a history of anaesthesia. His small stature, hunched physique and eagerness to please often reminded Ross of Ratty in The Wind in the Willows.
'Rings a bell. I was reading something on it recently — maybe in Nature. Umm, viral, I think. Inflammatory symptoms. Attacks the brain's neurochemistry. Very rare. I can do a bit of homework on it, if you like?'
'I'd be grateful. There's a lot of stuff on the web about it — I took a trawl through it late last night.'
'It's quite an exciting disease, actually,' the anaesthetist said, enthusiastically.
'Exciting?'
Detecting disapproval in the surgeon's voice, Pearman said, defensively, 'Well, yes. I think new diseases are exciting — medicine would be a dull profession without them. What's your interest?'
'Relative of — of a friend of mine has it.'
'I'll see what I can come up with.'
'I'd appreciate it.'
Pearman looked worried suddenly. 'You know, I still don't understand the Maddy Williams thing.'
Maddy Williams was the young woman patient who'd died during the small operation by Ross to correct the flare of her nostrils.
Ross pretended to be involved with the cake. 'Uh-huh?'
'Has an inquest date been set yet?'
'Yes, in about three weeks.'
'I mean, that was terrible luck.' He shrugged helplessly. 'The cardiac problem wasn't on her records, but her doctor wrote to warn you about it, and you never got his letter. I wasn't aware of it and it's not on her records. She could easily have died during one of the major operations. There's obviously a fault in our system if an important letter can go astray, don't you think?'
Ross glanced at him. The cake was good, he cut some more.
'The only thing is,' said Pearman, 'and this is absurd speculation, that someone deliberately lost the letter or wiped details of it from the computer. But I can hardly imagine anyone doing that, can you?'
Ross did not respond.
20
I thought you would be perfect. I thought you would live in a house that was all white and spotless and that light would shimmer around you when you walked. I thought you would be dressed in white furs and lie all day on a white sofa like a lady I saw in an ad on the telly.
The door to the bedroom was open just enough for him to see in. To see the woman lying on her back, her ankles scissored around the man's naked waist, as his bony white buttocks twitched up and down between her thighs. He couldn't see the man's face and he didn't care. The man wasn't important. It was the woman. He could see part of her face and that was enough.
You left me because you couldn't stand the mess I made, and yet you live like a pig and do dirty things with men.
You left me and you don't even have a picture of me anywhere on display.
Holding the can of petrol in his hand, he tiptoed away from the door and walked silently into the sitting room. The television was on, but the sound was right down. On the screen the Beatles were being interviewed. Several boys at school were wearing their hair in Beatle fringes.
Their mothers hadn't left them.
There were more dirty plates in here. An ash-tray on the floor was so full of lipsticky butts that some had fallen on to the carpet. Near them was a teacup lying on its side in a saucer. He saw a high-heeled shoe, then a nylon stocking under a side-table. Then another teacup, this one with a disintegrated cigarette butt floating in the bottom.
In the next-door room she was screaming, 'I'm coming, oh, God, I'm coming!'
Now he had only moments left. Gripping the cap of the petrol can, he gave it a sharp twist then unscrewed it and discarded it on the floor.
21
Oliver loved the way Faith looked around his office. When some people came into a room, it didn't look like they noticed anything. Faith seemed to notice everything. Her eyes were roaming the furniture, the walls, the pictures, the certificates.
He helped her off with her coat, and it was good feeling her firm shoulders, breathing in the perfume that rose from inside the coat. She looked even more gorgeous today than she had at their meeting a week ago. Faith Ransome, you are incredible!
He hung the coat in a cupboard behind his desk, placing it carefully on the hanger, still savouring the scent and the warmth that arose from it.
When he turned back, she was looking at the framed black-and-white photograph of Jake on the wall. Jake in his Bart Simpson T-shirt sitting up on the transom of their yacht, off Catalina Island, hair tousled by the breeze, grinning that big, cheeky, Jake grin.
* * *
And Faith was thinking, That's his kid. Oh, shit, he's married. Why the hell did I imagine he was single?
She caught Oliver's eye and he smiled, but she saw his deep discomfort. 'Jake,' he said.
'Your son?'
He nodded, his face wretched. Then he ushered her to a deep sofa and said, 'Get you a drink? We have almost anything.'
Wondering why mention of his son made him look so unhappy, she said, 'Yes, I'd love a…' She hesitated, not sure what she did want. Something to settle the queasiness. 'Tea.'
'Something herbal? Green-leaf? Ordinary English?'
'Ordinary English with milk, please.'
She sat down and looked around to see what other clues about Oliver Cabot she could pick up. She liked the feel of this room: it was airy and bright, the furniture modern, with clean lines. It barely felt like an office at all — a couple of large, green plants, horizontal Venetian blinds half closed against the view out across the street, a pristine antique phrenology skull on top of a white filing cabinet. Several framed medical certificates, one stating that he was a fellow of the Hypnotherapy Society, added an authoritative tone. There were several large unlit candles, an ioniser, a framed reflexology chart, a dramatic framed black-and-white photograph of Stonehenge, with beams of the rising sun bursting across the lodestone, another photograph of the same small boy dressed up as a vampire for trick-or-treating, and a battered, full-size Shell petrol pump, complete with nozzle.
No photograph of his wife.
She wondered why not.
Smiling again now, Oliver perched on the arm of a chair opposite her, crossed his legs and swung them up and down, like a big kid, Faith thought. 'So,' he said, 'did he love the wallet?'
She looked at him blankly. 'Wallet?' Then she realised what he was talking about. 'Oh, Ross doesn't get it for another fortnight, not until his birthday.'
'Lucky man.'
Faith smiled thinly. There would be something wrong with the wallet, inevitably: it would be too long for Ross's suit pockets, or not have enough space for his credit cards, or not be exactly the right shade. In twelve years of marriage to Ross she couldn't recall many presents he'd approved. But now she wanted to talk about Dr Oliver Cabot, not Ross. Looking up at the photograph of the kid in his vampire rig, she probed, 'Is that Jake too?'
That pain in his face again. 'Uh-huh.'
'How old is he?'
His legs stopped swinging. A long, dark pause, and then, 'He'd have been just coming up to sixteen right now.'
In the silence that followed she felt a tightening in her throat, as if he was transmitting his pain to her. 'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I had no —'
He patted his thigh a couple of times and stood up. 'Don't worry about it, you didn't have any reason to know. You have kids?'
'A son, Alec. He's six.'
His secretary came in with tea for Faith and a can of mineral water for Oliver.
Faith was curious to know about this son who had died, but sensed he didn't want to talk about it. When the secretary left, she tried to keep him on the subject of his life. 'What
does your wife do?'
'Marcy's a writer — she works in LA, writes television sitcoms, but we…' He grimaced, good-naturedly. 'Let's say we inhabit the same planet but that's about the limit of what we have in common, these days.' Then he added, 'We're divorced.'
'I'm sorry,' she said.
He shifted off the arm of the sofa and sat down on it properly. 'You want to know something, Faith? People are lucky if they change together. Mostly they don't. They either stay together for the sake of their kids, or for fear of being alone, living their lives of quiet desperation, or else they move apart. Those are the brave ones.' He smiled wistfully. 'Guess that's what I tell myself.' He thought for a moment, then said, 'Tragedy can bring people closer together, but sometimes it throws them apart.' He crossed his legs, then reached forward and gripped the toes of his trainers, and stayed there, like a coiled spring. 'How about you?'
'I suppose… I sort of fit into the quiet-desperation category.'
'Too personal if I ask why you feel that?'
She would have loved to pour it all out to him, yet a part of her was thinking, Not here, not now, too soon. Way too soon.
His secretary put her head around the door. 'Sorry to interrupt, Dr Cabot, Mrs Martyns is on the line. She wants to have an urgent word with you about her visualisations.'
He raised his eyes. 'Third time this morning. I'll call her back, Tina.'
'And a reporter called Sarah Conroy phoned from the Daily Mail. They're doing a piece on London's alternative clinics. Said she's interviewed you before, when she was with Focus magazine. I told her you'd call her back — she needs to speak to you before four o'clock.'
'Sure — remind me.'
She left and Oliver tore the tab off his can. Some water bubbled out, pooling on the top. He drank a little, then dabbed his mouth with the back of his hand.
