Faith

by Peter James

  'I'm curious,' Faith said. 'Why the Shell pump?'

  He turned to look at it, as if he had totally forgotten its existence. 'I saw it in a junk store. I guess its true purpose here is that it has no purpose. We get too hung up on meaning. I like the spontaneous, the irrational. I try to do something irrational every day. Are you irrational, Faith?'

  She used to love the irrational and the zany. She'd been a total addict of Monty Python from the first series. But there was no room in Ross's life for the irrational. She tried to remember the last spontaneous thing she'd done, and realised, with dismay, that it had been years ago. Years since she'd unzipped Ross's trousers while he was driving down a German autobahn, years since she'd stolen that great big brass ash-tray from a hotel foyer late one night, right under the nose of the night porter, and crammed it into her suitcase, light years since the days of getting drunk and dialling people with silly names, like Smellie, in the middle of the night, and saying, 'Hallo, are you smelly?' then collapsing in giggles.

  God, how serious life was these days.

  'I never wanted to be a grown-up,' she said.

  He hunched his shoulders and gave her a big grin. 'There are times when I think life's too short to grow up. Part of me just wants to remain a kid. I get the sense you're still a kid at heart.'

  'I wish,' Faith said.

  'Is that what you'd wish for,' he asked, 'if you could have one wish granted? That you could be a kid again?'

  'No. Older, early twenties, maybe.' Her memories told her she had been happy then, in those early heady days of courting — such a quaint word. She had been happy then, in love, and with her whole life ahead of her.

  They were interrupted by the rising cadence of a phone ringing. Oliver shot a glance at his desk. Then Faith realised it was coming from her handbag. She pulled out her Nokia, embarrassed, and glanced at the dial. It was Ross at the clinic. She pushed the end button with her thumb, killing the call. Then she dropped the phone back in her bag, surprising herself at finding the courage for this small act of defiance. There'd be hell from Ross later, but right now she did not care.

  Not one bit.

  22

  'This is where I come most days in my lunch-hour,' Oliver said.

  In the distance below them, the rooftops of London stretched far away, fading into a grubby smudge beneath the threatening charcoal sky. The wind tore at her hair and ripped through her coat, a savage, glacial wind, but she scarcely noticed as she walked alongside him, down the path between the gravestones.

  Oliver, in his long black coat, hair streaming, holding the small carrier-bag containing their sandwiches and two bottles of mineral water, strode at an easy pace. She glanced at the names on the tombstones. Mary Elizabeth Mainwaring, beloved wife. 1889–1965. Harold Thomas Sugden, 1902–1974. William Percival Leadbetter, 1893–1951. At Peace in the Kingdom of the Lord.

  Then she looked up at him. 'Does death fascinate you?'

  He stopped and pointed down at the headstone of William Percival Leadbetter. 'You know what fascinates me? It's the dash. That little mark between the dates. I look down at someone's grave, and I think, That dash represents a human being's entire life. You and I are living out our dashes right now. It's not important when someone was born or when they died, what matters is what they did in between with their lives. And all we have here in this graveyard are just thousands of anonymous dashes. That makes me sad.'

  'You think people should have their entire biographies etched on their tombstones? Or some kind of video hologram that replays all their achievements as you pass the gravestone?'

  'There has to be something better than this.' He walked on.

  'Do you think about your own death?'

  'I try to think about life. I try to think what I can do with my little dash to make a difference. I —' He fell silent and they walked for some moments without speaking. Then he said, 'You lose someone close and you realise how helpless we are. We can put people into space, we can map the entire human genome, we can plot the floor of the ocean with a little sonar device, and sometime soon we'll be able to make the rain fall wherever we want it to. But so many diseases still defeat us.' He tapped his head. 'We have the ability to beat any disease if we could just find the way to harness the power we have inside our heads.'

  'I think that too,' she said. 'Is it true we use only a very small part of our brains, something like twenty per cent?'

  'Around twenty per cent of what we know to be there. What we don't know is what else we are connected to that we could draw from.'

  'Some other dimension?'

  They were approaching a bench. 'This is a good place to sit,' he said. 'You're not too cold?'

  Faith was freezing, but the cold air, or maybe it was Oliver's company, had blown away her nausea. 'I'm fine.'

  He dug a hand into the bag and pulled out a tuna sandwich. Handing it to her he said, 'Guess I should really be taking you to some smart eatery. But —'

  'No, I'm happy we came here.' And she meant it. With every moment she spent with Oliver Cabot she grew more comfortable with him, and more intrigued by him. And felt more free.

  As she began to unwrap the Cellophane from her sandwich, her phone rang again. She checked the display, in case it was Alec's school, but it was Ross again. Once more she pressed the end button and dropped the phone back into her bag.

  'Where are you from in the States?' she asked.

  'LA.'

  'How long have you been in England?'

  'Seven years, coming up to eight.' He was unwrapping his own sandwich, with long, slender fingers. Pianist's fingers, Faith thought, watching them. Everything about this man seemed attractive to her, she realised, even the way he unwrapped a sandwich.

  'I came to get away from the memories of my son. California haunted me. And, you know, this is a good place to be. If you could just find a way to reconfigure the circuitry of your brain so that the weather seems tolerable.'

  She laughed. 'You mean so that when there's a biting wind your brain will tell you it's a really nice wind?'

  'I'm working on it.'

  She picked away at the wrapping on her sandwich. 'How did your son die?'

  'Leukaemia. He had a nasty virulent form of the disease. I knew there wasn't anything in conventional medicine that could help Jake, but my wife refused to go along with any alternative treatments because she thought it would be gambling with her child's life.' He gave a wry smile. 'I gave up practising conventional medicine after his death — too many vested interests at stake that don't care about the patients. Modern medicine has itself in a box and I decided to dedicate my life to trying to get it out.'

  'What kind of a box?'

  The quiet was suddenly broken with the clatter of a fast-approaching helicopter, and at the same moment, Faith's phone rang again. With an apologetic look at Oliver, she pulled it out of her bag. 'Just need to make sure it's not to do with my son,' she said. On the display no number was identified.

  She pressed the green button to answer it.

  'Where the hell are you?' Ross demanded.

  The helicopter was passing right overhead.

  'Can't hear you!' she yelled.

  The voice became a few decibels louder. 'Faith, please tell me where you are and what you're doing.'

  'I'm in town.'

  'Where?'

  She hesitated. 'Knightsbridge,' she said.

  'What's that sound?'

  'A helicopter.'

  'Why didn't you tell me you were going to be in London, Faith? We could have arranged to do something this evening. Les Sylphides is on at Covent Garden.'

  She wondered what Ross was on about: he had never before expressed the slightest interest in ballet. The noise of the helicopter was subsiding. 'Spur of the moment. I had to collect a birthday present for you.'

  'You should have told me. I don't like it when you don't tell me things, Faith. You know that, don't you? I always need to know where you are because I care about you so much, darling
.'

  'I was planning to come up next Monday, but it looks like I'm going to be tied up with the golf-course public-inquiry committee.'

  'Fuck that. How's Alec getting home from school?'

  'It's half-term this week. He's with Nico Lawson.'

  'He was with other people yesterday too. You should be there for him, Faith. It's unsettling for him to keep spending time with different people.'

  Seething, she glanced at Oliver, who was folding the Cellophane into a tiny ball. You damned hypocrite, Ross, she thought. In one breath you're telling me we could have had a night in town and in the next you're angry I'm not at home for Alec. I'm always at home for Alec. That's why I don't have a career. But she kept calm. 'It was his choice — he was invited and it happens to be Nico's birthday,' she said. 'I'm spending all of tomorrow with him. We might go to Thorpe Park.'

  'It seems to be happening more and more, these days.'

  She glanced again at Oliver, embarrassed now. 'I don't think so. How's your day?'

  'Fine, Faith. Who are you with?'

  'I'm on my own.'

  'I hope you're telling me the truth.'

  'I'll see you tomorrow. Call me at home, later?'

  'I don't like the sound of your voice, Faith.'

  'The reception's bad here.'

  'The reception's fine. There's something about your voice, Faith. You sound different.'

  'I — I don't feel that brilliant.'

  There was a long silence. Again she glanced at Oliver, who was turning his sandwich in his hand, as if inspecting it.

  'Tell me how you're feeling, Faith?'

  'Just not brilliant.'

  'In what way?'

  'The same.'

  'The nausea?'

  'Yes. I don't understand why I haven't heard anything from Jules Ritterman. You haven't heard anything?'

  A little calmer suddenly. 'From Jules? No. I'll give him a call, chase him up. I love you, Faith. I really love you, darling. You do know that, don't you?'

  'Yes.'

  'I'll call you later,' Ross said. 'Love you.'

  'And you.'

  'Tell me you love me.'

  Good-humouredly she said, 'I do, you know that.'

  'I want to hear you say it. Say it to me, Faith.'

  One more glance at Oliver, and then, tersely, 'I love you.'

  'I love you, too.'

  He was gone.

  She put the phone back in her bag. Oliver looked at her. 'I'm sorry. Hope I'm not causing you any hassle?'

  'You're not.' She shrugged. 'My husband's very possessive.'

  'Guess I can't blame him. Think I'd be pretty possessive about you if you were my wife.'

  She glanced away, blushing but smiling.

  'You're not feeling too good?'

  'I feel — brilliant!'

  He grinned. 'You know, I once heard a great definition of a bore. It's someone who deprives you of solitude without providing you with company. I think that defines a lot of marriages.'

  'Ross is never boring,' she said, surprising herself by how defensive she sounded.

  'No offence — I didn't mean to imply —'

  'No, it's OK. What I mean is…' She wasn't sure why she'd sprung to Ross's defence. She hadn't wanted to say that at all. It was as if the shadow of Ross was all around her, a dark fear from which she could never be free, no matter how far away from him she was.

  Alec was part of that fear. Something churned inside her every time she allowed herself the luxury of thinking that it could ever be possible to end her marriage. Alec. The thought of what divorce might do to him. The knowledge that Ross would use him as a pawn and would fight tooth and claw over him. It was far, far worse than any fears about what Ross might try to do to her.

  Oliver took a bite of his sandwich. She looked down at her own, but she had no appetite. 'What I mean is,' she said, 'Ross isn't boring, but that doesn't…' Her voice tailed away.

  'Doesn't?' he echoed.

  She smiled. 'Tell me about you. Tell me about your life since your divorce.'

  'Well,' he looked coy, 'I've been celibate.'

  'Seriously?'

  'Eight years. So, before your husband gets too jealous, you can tell him that. It's true.'

  'Why?' she asked. 'Do you have a reason? Or you just haven't met anyone?'

  'You know about the Jing Chi?'

  Faith shook her head.

  'It's the name the Chinese have for sexual energy. They believe that if you control it through celibacy it transforms into a higher energy you can use at a spiritual level for healing. I wanted to try that,' he said simply, and bit into his sandwich again. 'I wanted to try to concentrate my mind and reach up into higher levels of consciousness. I did a lot of studying, and figured that was what I needed to do. So I made a decision. And I never met anyone who made me want to reverse that decision.' He looked at her again, focusing those clear grey eyes directly on her own. 'Until you.'

  23

  She was a mess. The seat-belt mountings in her mother's ancient, crappy little Russian car had sheared, and she'd taken out the last non-laminated glass windscreen on Planet Earth, face first, at forty miles an hour. The blades of a rotary mower, Ross opined, wouldn't have caused much less disfigurement.

  Leah Phillips was a teenager. Blind in one eye, most of her nose, lips and chin were gone, and her face, gridded with scars, looked as if it had been soldered back together. She was sitting in the consultation chair in front of his desk, constantly glancing at her mother on the sofa a few feet away.

  Even Ross, who had been hardened by countless harrowing sights during his career, was moved by this one, and tried hard to let only reassurance show in his face.

  His office was designed to reassure. It was decorated in the same masculine style as his study at home. Rich, dark woods, leather upholstery, oil paintings of naval battle scenes, bookshelves lined with leatherbound medical tomes, a white marble bust of Hippocrates on a white Doric plinth.

  'And your date of birth, Leah?' he asked.

  She glanced again at her mother, who was clutching a large brown envelope and who answered for her, in a timid, nervy voice, 'Nineteen eighty-three.'

  He wrote down the details with his Mont Blanc. 'Can you tell me how you came to see me?'

  Again Leah left her mother to respond. 'Our doctor gave us a list of names, you see. My husband looked you up on the Internet, and he thought you seemed the most suitable for what Leah needs.' She was wringing her hands and smiling a desperate, for-God's-sake-help-us smile.

  He shot a glance at the Psion Revo lying on his desk. Ten past three. Surreptitiously, he tapped up the organiser's diary. This was the last of his afternoon consultation patients and he was due back in theatre at four. It was an effort to concentrate when his mind was on Faith. Where the hell was she today?

  In town.

  No, you're not in town. You're lying to me, you bitch. Where are you really, Faith? You might as well tell me because you know I'm going to find out anyway, don't you?

  He studied his notes to get his bearings. 'Yes, OK, the Internet.' He wrote that down, then looked up again. One of the skills he had acquired over the years was the ability to look at any patient, no matter how badly disfigured they might be, without giving away any emotion in his face. He crossed his arms and leaned forward over his desk towards the girl. 'So, tell me, Leah, what can I do for you?'

  Her mother nodded for her to speak. 'I want to look how I used to look.'

  'Leah was doing modelling work,' her mother said, 'with a top agency. She did a fashion spread for 17 magazine in the June issue. Everyone says she had — I mean, has — the talent to get right to the top.'

  All their eyes met for an instant, like the flash of a spark.

  She stood up and passed him the envelope she had been clutching. 'These — these are of her.'

  Ross opened the envelope and shook out several professionally taken photographs of a strikingly beautiful young brunette. Even with all his experience, i
t was hard to believe this was the same girl, and he felt a swirl of anger at whoever in the A and E department after the crash had done this botch-up on her. It looked more like she had been treated by someone apprenticing in sheet metal work than by a doctor.

  Putting the photographs down, he looked at the mother and then at the girl. As gently as he could, he said, 'I think I can improve you, Leah, but it's going to take a long time and several operations. I can't promise what the results will be, and it's very important you both understand that.'

  'How much improvement will you be able to make, Doctor?' her mother said.

  Not enough, he thought. He could give her some kind of life, but he couldn't give her her modelling career back.

  He told her the truth, all the while thinking, Faith, you bitch, you don't realise how lucky you are. I made you beautiful. I could just as easily make you look like this.

  When they left, the girl was sobbing. The knowledge that she would have to endure probably ten operations over the next couple of years was tough for a youngster of her age. But it was important she and her mother both knew the score: you had to have determination to go through what Leah was facing, and he didn't want them coming back angry and disappointed with the final result.

  Ross closed the door, then asked his secretary to hold any calls for a few minutes. He turned towards his computer, entered a command, followed by a password, and moments later was connected to his computer at home in Sussex. Soon he had in front of him on the screen a complete log of every phone call made and received by Faith at home in the past seven days. At a single click of his mouse he could listen to a recording of any of them.

  OK, my sweet little bitch queen, let's see who you've been speaking to recently.

  24

  'I have to get going,' Faith said, feeling a flash of guilt that, for these past few hours with Oliver Cabot, she hadn't given Alec a thought. It was as if she had been taken back fourteen years, to her late teens, to a time when her whole life had been ahead of her.

  As she sipped the last of the cappuccino, her body thawing now, the door opened. She looked up warily, returning to the real world. A guy and a girl in their twenties. Strangers. She relaxed again.