Susie would be watching this without him. What if she believed it? Despite all of his reassurances, she was still scarred by whatever the hell Rachael Jones had done to her a decade ago. And look how he’d behaved this morning!
George counselled himself to take deep breaths. He found a glass of whisky shoved under his nose from Michael. He shook his head. He was driving as soon as Porsche uttered her last word. He’d make it her last breath, the way he was feeling.
‘Surely you’re not saying George’s emotional outburst, made while in that very chair, was a ploy for promoting his films? He was totally smitten and had my wife in tears at home.’
The audience clapped and cheered.
Susie closed her eyes, hoping to stem her own threatening tears. It had seemed so real. They’d been in love … hadn’t they?
‘He’s a good actor, Porsche, but not that good. And the photos of them in the papers this morning would indicate they’ve really got something going there. That was another excuse for my wife to have a go!’
Audience laughter.
Had it all just been for promotion? But if an act – why her? ‘Because you’re Ms Ordinary,’ that sensible part of her brain jeered at her. ‘What better promotion could there be?’
Turning to the audience now, Jonathan James cried, ‘One for the men! How many of you have suffered serious grief from your wives and better half’s because of George Silbury’s courtship of a certain woman we cannot name for legal reasons?’
Cheers and clapping and several hands going up.
The silent tears flowed now and Susie could no longer see the screen.
‘Glad to see I’m not alone. If you’re watching George – cut it out! We’re mere mortals and can’t compete on this romantic front. I hate to think what you’re like at home together.’
Susie found herself being pulled into Rachael’s arms. She wouldn’t uncross any of her limbs. She just couldn’t.
‘Susie Moo, cut it out. You two are so made for each other and you can’t possibly believe her. She’s speaking crap.’
Susie shook her head, stiffly.
‘Porsche, it’s difficult to see what he said on this show as anything other than a declaration of love for Susi … Ooops! Can’t say that!’
Audience laughter.
Susie’s hand went to her mouth and she took deep breaths to try and regain control. Oh God. How was she going to live without him?
‘George refuses to confirm Susie is the girl he didn’t get his horn out for. So, to the lawyers watching at home, please don’t write a nasty letter. I’m very, very, sorry. And to George and Susie, of course. I beg not to be crossed off any wedding guest list you may be preparing.’
‘As if.’ The mutter was clearly picked up on Porsche’s microphone.
‘So, Porsche. You’re saying all this is to promote his films. And what? You and him are in a relationship? I thought I was just being a bit naughty with the dumping stuff. He insisted his relationship with you has always been professional, despite all the gossip in the press.’
‘Have you never heard of the saying … I don’t know if you have it over here, but where there’s smoke, there’s fire? So where there’s gossip, there’s …?’
He’d never been hers. How could he have been? Why hadn’t she listened to her head? It had told her.
‘There’s …?’
‘I’ve said too much here already, Jonathan. I promised I’d keep the lid on things and play my part.’
Susie was only vaguely aware of the words now. She had no idea how everyone was responding in the room. She’d long shrugged Rachael’s arms away.
‘Is this just sour grapes, Porsche?’
‘Well all I can say is, does she honestly believe we are “filming” until ten o’clock at night?’
That was it. Susie couldn’t take any more. Somehow she found the strength to rise to her feet. Porsche still spoke, somewhere in the back of her head.
‘George and I being seen together … publicly … would be inappropriate at this current time.’
Susie had to get out. She couldn’t be here when he got home – if he got home. Susie and George’s cloud nine had just blown away.
‘Suse?’ That was Rachael, sounding concerned.
‘Susie? You don’t actually believe her? She’s delusional. She’s in fantasy land. Michael could well be feeding her lies about George. None of it is true!’ That was Cassie.
The phone rang in the background. She just had to get out of there. She turned, trying to work out the way to the door. She finally exited the room and headed towards the main door and … Tom, Dick and Harry. She really wasn’t in the mood for them.
‘GET OUT OF MY WAY!’ she screamed at the top of her voice.
‘Susie?’ sounded from behind her and from an uncertain-sounding Cassie. ‘George is on the phone and desperately wants to talk to you. He says it’s all rubbish and is on his way home now. He believes you about the photos. He always knew they weren’t real. He loves you. Talk to him.’
Susie spun around and focused on Cassie, lamely holding the phone out. ‘Tell your brother, if he loves me, he can recall his dogs and let me out of his prison. NOW!’
Cassie slowly returned the handset to her mouth. ‘George … Yeah. You heard. Okay.’ Cassie ended the call.
‘He’s calling them off, but you have to give him an opportunity to explain, to apologise. He’s no more than half an hour away.’ She added, pleadingly, ‘Please Susie. They’re trying to separate you. Don’t let them.’
Rachael, now at Susie’s side, held out her coat to her, while saying to Cassie, worriedly, ‘Save your breath. The cycle or whatever it is, is still to break.’
Talking to Susie now, Rachael said, ‘Come on then. Back home. It was on the cards. I actually tidied up this morning especially for you, although I warn you, I’ve yet to brave the supermarket.’
My darling Angel,
Can you ever forgive me? It was a moment of lunacy! Indeed an aberration, but of the very worst kind. The thought of you in another’s arms took me to the brink of insanity in an instant and you saw me thus. Whatever my sister might say, I know you to be true. As I am to you, now and forever.
Miss Argylle’s evil lies – and they are ALL lies my love – will be stopped. I am pursuing legal channels, but my fury is such that I would take extreme pleasure in throttling her!
I pursue you now to the Misses Barratts and pray you will receive me. Should you not, I will request they pass this letter to you.
I must have the opportunity to put this right. I beg of you not to deny me. Forgive me my idiocy, my sweetheart.
Your imbecilic Freddie
Chapter Twenty-Five
‘I’m going to my room,’ Susie muttered on entering the flat.
‘Hold up, Suse!’ Rachael addressed her back. ‘We should talk. You need to believe in George and realise nothing the bitch said is true, otherwise they’ve won and …’ Her words trailed off before she cried, ‘Cassie! I’ve got it! If we could break them up now, it couldn’t end how … No! There’s the Soul Mate thing! Flaming Nora! There’s not a chance we can—’
Susie slammed the bedroom door, silencing the words. She had long stopped listening to Rachael and Cassie in any event. How could they possibly know she and George would sort things out? Thankfully Rob hadn’t added to their nonsense, remaining quiet as he drove them here. The hug he’d given her though, before heading off to work, and his words, had so nearly shattered whatever composure she’d managed to put into place. ‘Prove to me there can be happy endings,’ he’d said into her hair.
Susie moved to her old bed, picking up the empty cardboard box that sat on it, dropping it to the floor. She sank down in its former footprint, amidst her scattered belongings yet to be packed. She was so confused. George beli
eved her? She clutched onto that. So he bloody should!
But there was Porsche. Susie’s whole being cried out for George, urging her to believe in him. But her head? Oh, her head was a disastrous place to be.
Could this all be for publicity? Could he and Porsche be …?
She recalled how Porsche taunted her when Susie was on that killer horse. Susie had dismissed it then, but …? And Porsche was so beautiful.
But her gut cried out to believe George. He’d loved her. He really had. She knew that … didn’t she? How good an actor was he?
Susie’s instinct was to run, but she wasn’t brave enough. How pitiful was she? While there was still hope, she had to clutch onto it for dear life because without it, without him …
She looked around at the contents of her bed and then at the near empty dressing table and the windowsill. The photo she was looking for, of her mum and dad, was no longer here. It had been taken over to George’s on the very first trip. It currently sat in pride of place on the chest of drawers in their bedroom. George had suggested she order some copies, along with others, including the last picture she had of her mum, so they could be hung on the walls amidst his family pictures. She and George had been so happy. She had finally found home.
Blinking her eyes furiously, refusing to give into the tears, she visualised the image in that photograph now. The love between her parents sang out of the picture. It had been taken a couple of years before Mum first got ill. They’d been so happy. Dad was now a shell of what he once was. And there’d never been another woman since Mum. And it wasn’t that he kept that sort of thing away from his kids. She and her brothers were constantly urging him to date. It was simply that he never would. His heart had died with Mum. Was that the future before her? She knew the answer to that. And it was terrifying. How had Dad managed to keep going? If he suffered just a fraction of what losing George would do to her. Oh Dad. I never knew.
Susie looked around the room, plucking absently at the duvet cover as she continued to fight back the tears. This wasn’t home anymore. It wasn’t where her heart was. She needed to call George. She needed to hear what he had to say. If there was any hope …? But first … she needed the loo.
Susie raised herself from the bed, and made her way to the door on legs that quivered. What was the chance of reaching the toilet without being waylaid by Rachael and Cassie? She opened the door as quietly as she could …
Hannah.
The name whispered through her. Susie’s heart started pounding and that box in her head bled. She clutched the door frame. It had come from Cassie.
‘— and Hannah! I can’t bear seeing them going through this. And what help are bodyguards with this? When is it going to stop? It has to stop! I haven’t a clue what to do! These photos aren’t enough to lock Michael away, even though we know he’s behind them. And the drug use – it’s not enough! Tell me it’s going to stop. Please! This shouldn’t be happening. For pity’s sake, the photos shouldn’t have been Michael anyway. It was Kathryn who fed the lies about Hannah to Freddie, yet it’s still …’
Hannah and Freddie.
Susie collapsed against the door, slamming it noisily in the process, but somehow she remained on her feet.
Hannah and Freddie, Hannah and Freddie. The names were on a loop, echoing through her, all consuming in their intensity and in their demands that she acknowledge them. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t. She’d kept them at bay for ten years. She wasn’t about to surrender to them now.
Hannah and Freddie. Hannah and Freddie.
She became vaguely aware of being pushed backwards. The door was moving and she was moving with it because one of her hands appeared to be clutching the handle for support. And then she faced Rachael and Cassie.
‘Suse?’ There was a momentary pause before Rachael murmured, ‘Shit.’
Susie made herself focus on a horrified-looking Cassie. She swallowed so her throat would allow her to talk.
‘Hannah and Freddie?’ Her voice was a choked echo of that whispering through her. Why would Cassie be saying those names? Why would anyone say those names? Had Rachael told her? She shook her head. She’d never told Rachael, Freddie’s name. Why would …?
‘Suse, sit down before you fall down. We’ll talk when you’re sat down.’
Rachael appeared to be moving her backwards and then down. Her bed. She was sat on the edge of her bed.
‘I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,’ Cassie was saying.
Rachael crouched down on the floor before her, and held Susie’s hands between hers. ‘Can we do a rain check on this?’ she asked gently. ‘I think you’ve got more than enough to deal with here. You can’t seriously be meant to know about this now.’
‘Tell me!’ It was the only way Susie was going to stop the names going around and around in her head. There had to be a perfectly innocent explanation for why Cassie used them. Then she could get them securely back into that box and battened down. Perhaps if she worked harder on the locking mechanisms she could get them locked away properly this time, never ever to see the light of day. She hadn’t a hope with those, now constant, seeping emotions … but the memories themselves? Perhaps … Oh God, she was remembering something.
‘Tell me,’ she whimpered amidst flashbacks to Rachael’s consulting room.
She saw George. No Freddie! No. No. No. No. She recognised him. No. Please God no. Hannah recognised him.
This couldn’t be happening. Hannah and Freddie weren’t real. They were never real. It had been her poor intoxicated brain. It wasn’t real. She clutched her head and seemed to be rocking backwards and forwards.
It was all flooding back. No! It couldn’t be.
Her face was being stroked. ‘Suse. Just hear me here. George loves you. The bitch’s words were lies and everything else can wait. Now you need—’
‘I remember!’ Susie wailed. ‘I’m going mad, Rach. Tell me it didn’t happen. Tell me I didn’t call him Freddie. Tell me I wasn’t Hannah. Tell me they weren’t real. Tell me they never existed!’
George hung up on Tom. Susie was at the flat. He did a U-turn, ignoring the blaring horns that accompanied the process. He put his foot down. Speeding across a zebra crossing the roar of his V8 engine drowned out the expletives hurled at him by the pedestrians flinging themselves back onto the pavement.
He was going to sort this. He had to sort this. There was no way …
He frowned. There was something … He put his windscreen wipers on to clear the screen of hail. It appeared he was finally remembering the consulting room. Amidst the confusion of images flashing before him, something was beginning to …
Hannah.
The name whispered through his being. It was somehow familiar. His heart raced. And … he’d been regressed? Had he actually been regressed? His frown deepened while his windscreen wipers automatically upped the tempo to keep pace with the hail and his speed.
He may have been regressed. It seemed pretty real at the time, but that didn’t mean … For a moment there he thought he’d been someone called Freddie. And – wow! He couldn’t help but grin at the memory. And no headache! He and Susie had really gone for it. He now understood exactly why his body had been unable to forget.
But … Susie. Bloody hell! He’d thought she was Hannah? He’d recognised her and she’d recognised him? Freddie?
‘Shit!’ George exclaimed aloud. He didn’t believe such stuff, so why …? So why did Freddie and Hannah seem so familiar? Why were their names echoing around his head, demanding to be embraced as long lost friends? Why did he know they’d been in love? Deeply in love. Happy. So happy!
Actually it could be worse, George reflected. He wouldn’t mind …
He slammed on his brakes and a horn blared somewhere in his head. He counselled himself to take slow deep breaths. He couldn’t deal with this. He wouldn’t dea
l with this. He would not believe this.
The pain! Freddie had lost Hannah. It was too close to his own fears of losing Susie. He wasn’t going to accept this. Absolutely not.
George slammed his foot down on the accelerator pedal while fighting against the agony coursing through him – remembered and anticipated. He was not going to lose her. He was not going to lose her.
‘Tell me they never existed!’ Susie cried. Then she could go and get the professional help she’d known she’d needed for a decade. She’d been on the edge for so long. The problems with her and George had obviously sent her over it. And getting help would be bliss. She’d let all and sundry into her head now. Anything to stop what was ricocheting around it. And she had to have it stop. Because George could not have been Freddie. She could not have been Hannah. Because Freddie had betrayed Hannah. Just as she feared George had betrayed her with Porsche. Freddie had destroyed her. Destroyed Hannah.
Her head was like a broken dam. And there was no stopping the insanities rushing through the breach. Agonising memories. Agonising, insane memories that were not hers. That couldn’t be hers, which she’d managed to lock away in a box now blasted to oblivion, but which …
Rachael’s words abruptly intruded. ‘All right Suse. The timing’s so beyond crap, but you evidently need to hear this. Just know that whatever you remember, I love you so much and I’m here for you and … Shit. Shit. Shit! Look you did know George before and you recognised each other. What happened a decade ago was real. You were Hannah and George was Freddie.’
She’d known. She’d always known she realised on a sob. It had been there under the surface the whole time, but she kept it there. Suppressed. Locked away. And now? Oh God, she couldn’t deal with the now. It somehow all made the most ridiculous sense. Their connection and how it had all seemed so right. How she’d felt she’d known him forever and … the eye obsession!
‘But it’s not bad. It really isn’t. You guys are meant to be together. So meant to be together. You are Soul Mates and will move heaven and earth to find each other.’
Romancing the Soul Page 27
