Another Woman (9781468300178)

by Vincenzi, Penny

  The phone rang, sharply; Rufus answered it.

  ‘Hallo. Yes, she’s here, Felicity. Hold on. It’s for you,’ he said to Tilly. His voice was very heavy.

  ‘Hi,’ said Tilly. ‘What? Oh I see. Well –’ She looked at Rufus, and he was picking up her clothes from the floor where she had thrown them as she had feverishly dragged them off an hour earlier; he was folding them up very carefully and neatly, and then he suddenly sighed and sat down, hugging them to him, staring at them as if he was holding her for the last time, and ‘Felicity,’ she said, ‘Felicity, I don’t know quite how you’re going to take this, but I’ve changed my mind. I’m not going to New York. Please tell them how sorry I am, will you? And – what? Oh, I see. Well, let’s just put it this way, Felicity, I’m going to get married. Rufus, for fu – for heaven’s sake, Rufus, that’s a Joseph T-shirt you’re blowing your nose on …’

  Chapter 35

  Harriet Midday

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ said Jennifer Bradman. ‘How dreadful for you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Harriet. The morning had taken on a surreal air; she was having difficulty in properly realizing that the rather dazzling and glamorous Mrs Bradman, who did not conform too closely to the traditional image of a gynaecologist, was referring to Cressida’s disappearance rather than the death of her company. ‘It was – is – terrible actually.’

  ‘Your parents must be so upset.’

  ‘Yes, they are. We all are. And I’m here because – well, I’m just looking for clues really. To where she might have gone. And why. I know you’re not supposed to talk to me but –’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about that,’ said Jennifer Bradman. ‘This is an exceptional case. Besides, I won’t be giving away any secrets, or indeed helping you very much, when I say first that your sister was a very mixed-up girl, and second I’m afraid I don’t have the faintest idea where she is.’

  ‘But she was – pregnant this time?’

  ‘Oh, definitely. About fourteen weeks. And wretchedly sick, poor girl.’ She looked at Harriet sharply. ‘Why do you say this time?’

  ‘Because I found a letter from you, saying that she wasn’t pregnant last year. That’s how I found you. Not that any of us knew anything about it.’

  ‘I see. That was a very strange thing,’ said Jennifer Bradman. ‘It was a genuine phantom, if that is not a contradiction in terms. They do happen, you know. She had every symptom, her periods had stopped, her breasts were swollen, she was being terribly sick –’

  ‘She’s always had a dodgy tummy,’ said Harriet. ‘Ever since she was quite a little girl. Anything remotely difficult and Cressida started throwing up.’

  ‘Yes, well, it goes with the syndrome.’

  ‘What syndrome?’

  ‘Of a hysterical personality. Which is what I would say she suffered from. Did she have other health problems?’

  ‘Oh God, yes,’ said Harriet. ‘She was allergic to dairy products, she could only wear cotton next to her skin, you name it, she had it.’

  ‘Ah yes. And the dysmenorrhoea – painful periods –’

  ‘Yes,’ said Harriet, thinking of the countless dinners, tennis games, picnics, cycle rides that had had to be cancelled while Cressida lay white-faced, unarguably in pain, a hot-water bottle on her tummy, Maggie sitting by her, stroking her head. ‘So – um, what happened with the phantom pregnancy?’

  ‘Well, she was desperately upset. When it proved not to be a pregnancy. She came to me, telling me she and her fiancé were about to be married anyway –’

  ‘This was last September or thereabouts?’

  ‘Er – October,’ said Jennifer Bradman, consulting her notes. ‘She was just off to New York to see him anyway. She was excited, happy, in spite of feeling so wretched. But when I examined her, I found that in spite of the other symptoms her uterus was not at all enlarged. I did a test – negative. She broke down. Became actually quite hysterical. I couldn’t understand it at all. She told me there was a history of infertility in her – in your family, that your mother had had to have all kinds of treatment before becoming pregnant, and she was terrified that the same thing was going to happen to her.’

  ‘Total garbage,’ said Harriet. She felt very angry suddenly, without being sure why. ‘I’m absolutely sure my mother never had to have any kind of fertility treatment, and Cressida wasn’t even engaged to Oliver then. She really is – oh, I don’t know –’

  ‘I can see this is all very hard for you,’ said Mrs Bradman gently. ‘As I told you, she has, I believe, a very complex personality. She displayed a lot of what I think the psychiatrists would call histrionic behaviour. Even this flying is a classic indication. Of a desire for escape, for getting away from everything.’ She smiled at Harriet suddenly. ‘It sounds very corny, I know, but it’s true.’

  ‘So what does that mean exactly? With relation to what happened yesterday?’

  ‘It means, I would guess, that she simply couldn’t cope with life. All of it. Not just with regard to yesterday, but to everything. Running away like that – I think again the technical term is a hysterical fugue.’

  ‘You seem to know a lot about it,’ said Harriet.

  ‘Yes, well, I’m married to a psychiatrist. It tends to rub off. Oh dear, I’m rather aware I’m not being very constructive. I do wish I could help more. I wish I could have helped your sister more. I did suggest she had some sort of help, counselling perhaps, but she refused.’

  ‘Really?’ said Harriet.

  ‘Yes. I even suggested she came to see me with her mother, or you – she spoke about you quite a lot.’

  ‘Really?’ said Harriet again, genuinely surprised, almost startled.

  ‘Oh yes. She’s terribly fond of you. She admires you a great deal. And I would say she’s very – what shall I say? – overawed by you. By your success. She feels she has a lot to live up to.’

  ‘I can’t think why,’ said Harriet, ‘she was always the favourite, always the perfect daughter. Never in trouble.’

  ‘That’s not the impression I got. She seemed to feel herself a failure.’

  ‘Well, that’s absurd,’ said Harriet, ‘of course she wasn’t. And she was making this wonderful marriage, everyone was over the moon about it, and her –’

  ‘Miss Forrest,’ said Jennifer Bradman, ‘whether or not we are failures depends on our own self-perception, our self-image. And I would say your sister’s self-image was not very good.’

  ‘I see,’ said Harriet slowly. Cressida seemed to be falling into fragments, in front of her eyes, re-forming differently, awkwardly.

  ‘You see,’ said Jennifer Bradman, ‘this kind of thing, this running away, is very often a cry for help. An alternative to suicide if you like.’

  ‘But –’ Harriet paused. She didn’t really want to get into a complex discussion with the slightly daunting Jennifer Bradman, to confess to any more perfidy on Cressida’s behalf, start telling her about the photograph, the other wedding.

  ‘I’m simply trying to help you find explanations – understandable explanations,’ said Mrs Bradman. ‘The human personality, Miss Forrest, even at its most healthy, is a very complex thing. And Cressida’s was not entirely heathy.’

  ‘No,’ said Harriet, ‘no, I can see that. But – she didn’t give you any indication that there was a problem with – with this pregnancy?’

  ‘No, not at all. She seemed very happy about it. In spite of feeling so unwell. Mind you, the approaching wedding must have been something of a strain for her. Under the circumstances. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Oh, nothing,’ said Harriet. She suddenly felt sickened by the whole thing, wanted to get away from Jennifer Bradman and her reasonable, pragmatic approach. ‘I just wondered. But you did say she was happy about it –’

  ‘Oh, very happy. And her fiancé was delighted too, I understand. Hoping for a boy!’

  ‘Oh really?’ said Harriet. ‘I didn’t know that. I don’t think he did either.’

  She reache
d Covent Garden just before one; her studio, converted from one of the old warehouses, was on the first floor, just off the central piazza. She stood outside it looking up, thinking how much she loved it, how much it meant to her, how it was truly home to her (and she was going to mind losing it a great deal more than she would her flat), and that this was the last time she would ever come back to it as hers, that in future it would be literally barred to her, the locks changed, strangers inside, and – ‘Shit,’ she said aloud, recognizing the car parked on the double yellow line outside her door, recognizing the large figure at the wheel, and turned away, ready to run, but he was out of it, had grabbed her arm.

  ‘Harriet,’ he said.

  ‘Theo, go away.’

  ‘Harriet, I just have to talk to you.’

  ‘Theo, there’s nothing to talk about.’

  ‘There’s a great deal to talk about.’

  ‘No, Theo, there isn’t. And let go of my arm, or I shall scream and have you up for assault.’

  ‘The way London is these days,’ he said, ‘no one would take the slightest notice of your screaming. I’m certainly prepared to take my chance on it. I don’t think I look too much like a rapist.’

  Harriet looked at him: he was immaculately dressed, as always, his huge frame oddly elegant in a grey pinstripe suit, cream shirt, silk tie – even in her rage and misery Harriet found herself noticing the print of the tie, half floral, half abstract, thinking how good it was.

  ‘That’s a very naive remark,’ she said coolly. ‘Rapists come in all shapes and sizes, you know.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, suddenly subdued, ‘yes, I do know.’

  There was an expression on his face Harriet had not often seen there; it was wretchedness. It was unlike him. Grief, fury, despondency, but not that absolutely dispirited near-defeated look. ‘Please,’ he said, sensing a softening, a concern, ‘please Harriet, come and have lunch with me.’

  ‘I couldn’t eat lunch, Theo, I feel as if I shall never eat again. I probably will never eat again, I won’t be able to afford it.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous,’ he said, ‘you’ll rise again from this little heap of ashes you’ve made for yourself, and –’

  ‘Theo, I didn’t make it,’ said Harriet.

  ‘Yes you did. You have to recognize that, it’s important. You overreached yourself, Harriet, overspent. You’re a brilliant designer, but you’re a bad businesswoman. I’ve seen the figures, don’t forget. I’m ready to help, but I’m not prepared to heap sympathy upon you, because you don’t actually deserve it. I stand by what I said to Hayden Cotton, you did massage those figures … a little …’

  Harriet looked at him, then up at the window of her studio, thought of what she had endured that morning at the bank, what she was to endure that afternoon, and a violent rage swept over her. She wanted to hurt him, really hurt him; she knew then what the expression ‘beside herself with rage’ meant, for she stood beside herself and watched as she drew back her fist and hit him, hard, twice, in the crotch. She saw him wince, draw back; then ‘I wouldn’t do that again,’ he said quietly.

  ‘I will do it again,’ she said, and did.

  He reached out, took hold of her, put his arms round her and pushed her into the car, then, with a speed extraordinary in so large a man, ran round to the other side, started the engine and drove off down Floral Street at some speed. He had been right, she thought, about people’s reaction: most of them had hurried carefully past, a few had stopped to watch interestedly, a couple had laughed, but nobody had been even remotely near to coming to her aid.

  ‘That was a foul, filthy thing to do,’ he said. He was obviously in pain; he was white, his jaw set.

  ‘So was what you did to me. Stop this car, Theo, I want to get out.’

  ‘I will not stop it.’

  ‘You have to. There’s a red light ahead,’ she said, looking at the traffic lights at the bottom of Bedford Street where it met the Strand.

  ‘Fuck the red light,’ he said and paused briefly to check, then drove through it, turning left up towards Fleet Street and the City. There was a screech of brakes; a van driver swerved violently to avoid him. ‘Bloody wanker,’ shouted the driver, his face distorted with rage, ‘bloody great poofter, look where you’re bloody going.’ Theo ignored him, put his foot down, drove through the next lights (orange) and extremely fast round the Aldwych.

  ‘Theo, for Christ’s sake, you’ll get arrested,’ said Harriet.

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ he said. ‘Just shut up. Leave me alone.’

  They had swerved back into the Strand, and were crossing Waterloo Bridge when a policeman came up behind them on a motorbike, blue light flashing, and waved them over to the side. Theo wound down his window resignedly.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Did you realize you just drove through a red light, sir?’ said the policeman. He looked about sixteen years old.

  ‘Yes, of course I did,’ said Theo. ‘I’m extremely sorry, I was in appalling pain and I really wasn’t concentrating.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that, sir. Would you mind telling me the nature of this pain, sir?’

  ‘Yes, certainly,’ said Theo. ‘This young lady here had just punched me in the balls.’

  Harriet looked at him in total disbelief.

  ‘Is this true, madam?’

  ‘No! Well – yes. Yes, I suppose so. In a way.’

  ‘Harriet,’ said Theo, ‘you can’t punch someone in the balls in a way. Either you do or you don’t.’

  ‘Was there a problem, madam? Was the gentleman making a nuisance of himself?’

  ‘Er – no,’ said Harriet hastily. Much as she hated Theo, she didn’t actually want him had up for sexual assault.

  ‘Not threatening you in any way?’

  ‘No. Not really.’

  ‘Do you know the gentleman well then, madam?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Harriet, wearily, ‘very well. Too well.’

  ‘So it was just a straightforward argument, was it, madam? Which caused you to strike the gentleman?’

  ‘Not straightforward,’ said Harriet, with dignity, ‘but an argument, yes.’

  ‘It’s very dangerous to engage in physical violence with the driver of a moving vehicle, madam. I’m sure you must realize that.’

  ‘Look,’ said Harriet, seeing she was rapidly becoming the culprit rather than the victim in this exchange, ‘he wasn’t driving at the time.’

  ‘He wasn’t?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What were you doing, sir?’

  ‘Standing by my car. Talking to her.’

  ‘I see, sir. So you were able to get into your car and drive it away. You were not incapacitated?’

  ‘No, not entirely.’

  ‘And you got into the car beside him, madam?’

  ‘I was pushed into the car,’ said Harriet, ‘and driven off. Abducted, I would imagine the word would be.’

  ‘I see,’ said the policeman. He was clearly out of his depth; he looked rather less than sixteen. ‘Do you have your driving licence on you, sir?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Theo gloomily. He produced his wallet, took out his licence.

  The policeman got out his notebook and started filling in what seemed to be a very elaborate form. Harriet sat staring straight in front of her; the sense of total unreality the day had taken on had intensified dramatically. Surely, surely, she thought, I shall wake up in a minute, find it’s all perfectly all right, that it’s yesterday morning, that Cressida’s in the next room, that Mummy’s bringing us both a cup of tea …

  ‘If I could just have your name and address as well, madam. You may be needed as a witness.’

  Harriet gave him her name and address. It certainly wasn’t yesterday, and she wasn’t dreaming. It was today and she was very much awake …

  ‘Right,’ said Theo, as they pulled round onto the Embankment, ‘now let’s have lunch.’

  ‘There’s nowhere decent to have lunch round here,’ said Harriet sulkily, �
�and I don’t want to have lunch with you anyway.’

  ‘There’s the Tate,’ said Theo, ‘restaurant there. Very good wine list. How would that be?’

  ‘Theo, it wouldn’t be at all. I’m not coming.’

  ‘We’ll have a bottle of the Bollinger,’ said Theo, handing back the menu to the waiter, ‘and just some smoked salmon and scrambled eggs. Thank you.’

  ‘How do you know I just want smoked salmon and scrambled eggs?’ asked Harriet irritably.

  ‘Because I know you so terribly well. Intimately would not be an inaccurate description. Look at me.’

  She looked at him. His almost black eyes were probing, intense. She felt a distraction from herself and her misery, a faint turning to him; memories stirred, physical memories. She looked resolutely away, pushed back her hair.

  ‘I felt that,’ he said, quietly, gently.

  ‘Felt what?’

  ‘You know.’

  ‘Theo, I don’t know. I don’t know anything any more.’

  ‘You look tired,’ he said.

  ‘I feel tired. Terribly tired. It’s been a fairly shitty twenty-four hours.’

  ‘It has indeed.’ The champagne arrived; he tasted it, nodded to have it poured. ‘Drink it, Harriet. It will do you good.’

  She drank obediently; the champagne hit her bloodstream, lifted her awareness.

  ‘That was terribly painful,’ he said, suddenly more light-hearted, ‘what you did to me back there. It’s like being hit all over, you know, very hard, very deep down. Did you realize that?’

  ‘No, but I’m glad,’ she said briefly. ‘That’s exactly how I felt when I heard about you. Telling your friend about me massaging the figures.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘we’d better leave that one for now.’

  ‘Fortunately for you,’ said Harriet, ‘you can. You don’t know a lot about humiliation.’

  ‘Now there you are mistaken,’ said Theo, refilling her glass. ‘I was well and truly humiliated about – oh, twelve hours ago. Do you want to hear about it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I think you should. Sit quietly and listen.’