Going Too Far

by Catherine Alliott

  I tore along the corridor and down the stairs, nearly breaking my ankle in my ridiculous shoes. Should I go by train or collect the car? But the car was – heavens, where was the car? I racked my brain as I hobbled down the stairs. Oh Lord, the car was still in Harrods car park, wasn’t it? I couldn’t possibly go and get it now. I probably owed them about a million pounds! No, I’d just have to ring later and explain I’d had a terrible accident, been hit by a truck in Knightsbridge or – no, a Bentley – and hadn’t been able to pick it up. It would take much too long to go along and lie my way out of it now, though. I’d get the train.

  I ran through the lobby, looking straight ahead and hoping to God I’d be spared the indignity of being stopped to pay the bill. No one batted an eyelid so I pushed through the revolving doors and ran out into the sunlit street. Cars screeched around me, honking their horns madly.

  ‘Taxi!’ I yelled, as a proximate one nearly bowled me over.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ bellowed the driver. ‘You want to die?’

  ‘Wouldn’t mind,’ I muttered, climbing in. ‘Paddington, please, I’m in a tearing hurry.’

  ‘So I see.’

  I sank back in the black leather and caught my breath. I looked around. Mayfair. Definitely Mayfair. A discreet yet expensive little hotel just off Dover Street, a stone’s throw from Annabel’s – he probably used it all the time, the bastard. I ground my teeth miserably. It was all becoming horribly plain. He’d deliberately got me plastered – hadn’t he been tipping gin down my throat all evening? Then he’d got rid of everyone else, and just when I was more or less unconscious he’d taken me back to a hotel and violated me – raped me even!

  ‘Rape!’ I yelped, clutching my mouth. The taxi driver looked at me in horror in his rear-view mirror.

  ‘I never bleedin’ touched you!’

  ‘Oh, no, no, it’s all right, not you, um, someone else.’

  ‘Blimey,’ he said shortly. A second later he looked in the mirror again. ‘What, you mean you’ve been …?’ he asked nervously.

  ‘No, no, forget it,’ I said quickly. ‘I’m rehearsing for a play, learning my lines; forget I said anything.’

  ‘Ah.’ He looked faintly reassured.

  I stared out of the window, wishing it were true, but this was no rehearsal, this was real life. Perhaps I should go to the police? Get him arrested, bound over, imprisoned – anything to keep him off the streets, to keep him from doing it again. I frowned. From doing what again? What exactly had happened?

  I rummaged around in my bag and pulled the note out. ‘It was worth it, wasn’t it?’ Crikey. That sounded very much as if I’d been a willing participant, as if I’d enjoyed it. Would that stand up in court? I mean, I couldn’t remember a damn thing, so perhaps I had enjoyed it? And had he really been tipping gin down my throat? I had one or two hazy recollections of him actually trying to restrain my alcohol intake. I hastily stuffed the note back in my bag. Perhaps I wouldn’t go to the police after all. And perhaps I’d burn that note, or eat it even, before it was used in evidence against me.

  At Paddington I bought a ticket, raced over to a kiosk for some cigarettes, and belted over to platform six. By some lucky chance a train had just pulled in and was throbbing away impatiently, waiting to set off again. I climbed aboard. It was relatively empty so I found a window seat and sank down into a corner. The train chugged slowly out of the station.

  With shaking hands I took a cigarette from my pack, lit it, and managed to spill the rest of the packet on the floor. As I scrambled around under seats picking them up, someone tapped me on the shoulder.

  ‘No smoking in here, young lady!’

  I looked up from beneath a seat. A bumptious little man in half-moon glasses was glaring over his pinstriped stomach at me, thumbs lodged in waistcoat pockets. He was a dead ringer for Captain Mainwaring. I stared at him. This was no ordinary cigarette – this was keeping me from throwing myself off a moving train, didn’t he know that?

  ‘I’m an addict,’ I informed him. ‘Have to have one every ten minutes or I pass out; I’ve got a doctor’s certificate to prove it.’

  He looked a little taken aback, but soon recovered. ‘Well, you shouldn’t be travelling by train then, should you? Go on,’ he waved his hand imperiously, ‘put it out.’

  ‘I also get very sick – it’s the withdrawal symptoms, you see.’

  He went purple. ‘Just put the blasted thing out or I’ll have you thrown off the train!’

  He probably would, too. ‘Well, don’t blame me if I throw up on your shoes,’ I warned icily.

  He flinched but sat down opposite to spy on me, tucking his highly polished shoes well under the seat. I took one last, lingering, defiant drag, then threw it out of the window. I glared at him. Yet another member of the smoking police with nothing better to do than persecute people who just wanted a quiet fag in peace. Unbelievable. He shook his Telegraph out noisily and peered over it every now and then just to make sure I hadn’t lit another.

  I ignored him and stared out of the window. My mind boomeranged back to Sam. What the devil was his game? Wasn’t he supposed to be a happily married man? What about his sacred marriage vows? I mean, for goodness’ sake, it had just been a harmless little flirtation, not a full-blown adulterous wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am, hadn’t he realized that? Hadn’t he? I squirmed in my seat. I had a nasty feeling in my waters. Had it, I wondered, been in any way my fault? Had I, perhaps … led him on? I’d certainly been aware that he fancied me and – well, yes, OK, I probably had led him on, but had I led him on so far that it was inconceivable we wouldn’t go all the way? Was I in fact … to blame?

  ‘Oh God …’ I groaned, and hid my face in my hands.

  Tears began to trickle down my nose. I let them fall unchecked. I peered through my fingers. Captain Mainwaring was spying on me, looking rather alarmed. Yes, I thought savagely, this is what you’ve done to me, this is what an addict looks like deprived of her fix. I’ll be having a cold chicken next, or a turkey, or whatever it’s called. I hope you’re thoroughly ashamed of yourself.

  I stared out of the window, my cheeks sopping wet. Would Nick guess? Would he find out? And, if he did, would he ever feel the same way about me again? And even if he didn’t find out, it would still be hanging over us, wouldn’t it, because I’d know. I gazed out at the tower blocks, the graffiti, the inner-city decay. It all swept by in the drizzling rain.

  Odd, I reflected, resting my forehead on the window, how one night can change your entire life, especially one you can’t even remember. Yesterday I hadn’t a care in the world, now I had a truckload. I felt numb with shock, with shame, and with the pain that was still rattling around in my head. I also felt desperately tired, which was odd, considering I’d just woken up. Clearly, it had been an eventful night. I shut my eyes and listened to the wheels rattling beneath me. Faster than fairies, faster than witches … I let my mind go blank and let sleep wash over me, a defence mechanism I’ve always been able to employ, no matter how dire the circumstances.

  I think I must have slept for a long time because when I woke up there had been quite a dramatic scene change. Inside the carriage Captain Mainwaring had disappeared, and outside the rain had stopped and the sky was clear and blue, with only the odd wispy little cloud racing through it. Green hills swept up from the track, horses nodded and flicked flies with their tails, cows tugged at the wet grass. It looked a lot more like home. Suddenly London and all its horrors seemed a long way away. I sat up. My head had stopped throbbing and I didn’t feel sick any more. In actual fact I felt a lot better. I got the note out of my handbag again and spread it on my knee. I dissected it word by word.

  ‘7.00 a.m.,’ it read. Yes, well, OK, there was no escaping the fact that he’d spent the night with me, but how exactly? Shouldn’t we be careful not to jump to conclusions here? Shouldn’t we, in fact, read between the lines just a smidgen more? For example, thus:

  ‘Darling Polly’ – well he would call me darling,
wouldn’t he? I mean, all those luvvie types do, look at Richard Attenborough, he probably calls the milkman darling, so nothing odd about that. ‘Thank you for a wonderful evening’ – evening, mind, not night – why hadn’t I noticed that before? My heart lifted a millimetre. ‘Sorry you missed your train, but it was worth it, wasn’t it?’ – i.e., the fun we’d had that evening, the party at Quaglino’s, the dancing at Annabel’s, the laughs, the jokes. ‘Had to dash off early this morning’ – no inclination to stay, note – ‘but I’ll ring you soon. Love always’ – luvvie language again – ‘Sam.’

  I stared at the paper as if I’d never seen it before. No mention of a night of debauchery, no mention of sex, no mention of anything other than the fact that we’d had a good evening. I’d missed the train and he’d kindly deposited me in a hotel room and stayed with me. Why had I automatically assumed the worst? I mean, after all, if I couldn’t remember doing anything, it was pretty unlikely, wasn’t it?

  Well! I sank back in my seat, quite weak with relief. What on earth had I been worrying about? Nothing had happened and Sam – bless him – had been an absolute saint! What else could he have done? He could hardly have taken me home, could he, burst in at midnight and called up the stairs to the wife – ‘Sorry, darling, this is Polly, we’ve been in Annabel’s having a mild flirtation, she’s a bit plastered and she’s missed her train, all right if she kips on the sofa?’

  No, no, that wouldn’t have gone down at all well, so naturally he’d booked me into a hotel and then stayed with me, just in case – well, just in case I swallowed my tongue, or some puke, or anything else that comatose drunks are wont to swallow.

  I smiled, I beamed, I almost laughed! Oh joy! It was all so simple! Sam had been a white knight! Why, if it hadn’t been for him I might have woken up on a bench at Paddington station with all the other inebriates. I had a great deal to thank him for, a great deal. I’d write, yes, I’d write him a little note when I got home, just to say thanks. I’d send it to his office, though, I thought hastily, didn’t want his wife to get the wrong end of the stick.

  At long last the train chugged into Truro station. With a much lighter heart I jumped off and dashed across to another platform, where I caught a slow, chugging, comforting train to Helston and then, eventually, a taxi home.

  As the taxi rounded the stone gates to Trewarren and swept up the gravel drive, I peered nervously over the driver’s shoulder from the back seat. Was Nick’s Range Rover in the drive? I hoped not. He wasn’t due back until this evening, but it was already four o’clock and you never quite knew with Nick. He was so bloody efficient; he could have gone to Yorkshire, bought the cattle and been back by yesterday lunch time. I breathed a huge sigh of relief as I saw the empty drive. Thank goodness.

  I leaped out of the taxi and ran up the stone steps two at a time. The front door was still double locked so he definitely wasn’t back, good. Feeling decidedly carefree for a girl who not so long ago had been perilously close to suicide, I raced around the house, turning lights on, drawing curtains and rolling around on beds. Then I threw bits of food on the kitchen floor, pulled all the loo paper off the rolls, flushed it down the loos, left the empty rolls hanging and generally made it look as if I’d been back for hours.

  When the house looked suitably chaotic I grabbed a Barbour from the back hall and scampered down to the farm to check the delivery. I swung back the huge Dutch barn door and flicked on the light. The whole place was piled high with sacks of grain, corn and maize and great black bags full of silage. I found the list that Nick had left me, pulled it off the nail in the wall and began the long, tedious task of counting the sacks and checking everything off.

  Half an hour later I emerged beaming and confident into the early-evening sunshine. All present and correct for once, definitely a first for Foxtons and a hell of a relief for me. I slammed the barn door behind me and skipped back to the house.

  In a fit of enthusiasm I got a couple of chicken breasts out of the freezer, defrosted them in the microwave, then poured a tin of tomatoes, a few mushrooms and a slug of wine over the top of them and shoved them back in the microwave. Could be interesting. Then I mashed up some bananas, poured cream on top, gave it a layer of sugar and browned it under the grill. Terrific! Gosh, cooking was tiring, though. I was just sitting down at the kitchen table and helping myself to a glass of wine, when the back door gave a familiar rattle. It stuck, as usual, then flew open and in walked Nick.

  ‘Darling!’ I sprang up much too guiltily and knocked over my glass of wine.

  ‘Careful!’ Nick grabbed it before it rolled off and smashed on the floor.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said breathlessly, mopping it up with newspapers. ‘I’m just so pleased to see you!’

  I threw my arms round his neck and hugged him hard, burying my face in his jacket and breathing in its gorgeous tweedy, Nick-like smell. I reached up and kissed his mouth.

  ‘Well, what a welcome!’ laughed Nick, giving me a hug. ‘I shall have to go away more often if it provokes such a homecoming. What’s the matter, didn’t you enjoy your little jaunt to London?’

  ‘Oh, it was OK,’ I said, turning away and busying myself peeling some potatoes, ‘but I really think I’ve had it with London, you know. I mean, restaurants and nightclubs are all very fine now and again, but I don’t think it’s really me. I’m much happier in the country, couldn’t wait to get home, actually.’

  ‘Well, you know my feelings on that score,’ said Nick, sitting down and helping himself to a glass of wine. ‘I wouldn’t care if I never saw the inside of a nightclub again as long as I lived. Which one did you go to?’

  I felt my colour rising. ‘Which what?’ I peeled potatoes furiously.

  ‘Which nightclub?’

  ‘Oh … er, Annabel’s.’

  ‘What, on Thursday?’

  ‘Y-yes, Thursday – ouch!’ I’d cut myself with the knife. Blood spurted out. I sucked my finger. Nick reached up and pulled the first-aid box off the top of the dresser. He took out a plaster.

  ‘Come here, idiot.’

  I held out my hand.

  ‘So who’s a member then, not Pippa, surely?’

  I met his eyes briefly as he bandaged my finger, then looked down. ‘Um, no, not Pippa. Sam, I suppose.’

  ‘Ah. Sam.’

  I looked at him quickly. ‘What does that mean? Ah, Sam?’

  He grinned and put the box away. ‘Nothing really, it’s just his name crops up quite a lot these days, doesn’t it? God, what’s this?’ He was peering into the microwave now.

  ‘Oh, it’s just a chicken casserole thing I made.’ What did he mean about Sam? Did he suspect anything?

  ‘Just a chicken casserole thing? Blimey. Chicken on its own is a major breakthrough in this kitchen and a casserole thing is positively a gastronomic delight. What’s happened to the fish fingers? Did they finally get up and walk away? And what’s this?’ He stuck his finger in the bowl of bananas and looked amazed. ‘Pudding? Good heavens, Polly, what have you been up to? Haven’t got a guilty conscience by any chance, have you? Any minute now the doorbell’s going to ring and a man from Interflora will thrust some roses into my hands!’

  ‘Don’t be silly!’ I blustered, pink with indignation and horror. ‘I just felt a bit peckish, that’s all. Aren’t you hungry?’ I put the casserole on the table.

  ‘Starving,’ he said, sitting down and helping himself to a chicken breast. He grinned. ‘Just winding you up, Poll, can’t you take it any more?’

  ‘Course I can!’ I declared, slipping in opposite him and helping myself with a cheery grin. I chewed grimly. Bit close to the bone, that’s all, I thought.

  After supper I collapsed on the sofa in the sitting room and flicked on the TV. I put my feet up and let the cathode rays wash over me. It had been a busy old day one way and another. Nick lit a fire. It was early May, but it cheered the room. A film had just started about a blind woman left alone in an enormous house, fumbling from room to room whilst unbek
nown to her a serial killer with a penchant for the partially sighted crept around after her, moving things so she tripped up and making creepy noises. It was right up my street, although I watched most of it from behind a cushion. I found half a bar of stale Fruit and Nut tucked down the side of the sofa and nibbled away at it, waiting nervously for the murderer to pounce. Nick watched for five minutes, pronounced it utter drivel, and went upstairs to have a bath.

  A few minutes later he was down again. The murderer had just cornered the blind woman in the airing cupboard, so I was well and truly glued to my cushion. I turned round and saw Nick’s face. It was as white as a sheet.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I whispered, ‘her brother’s just arrived in his car, he’s got a gun.’

  Nick didn’t seem to register this. He looked most peculiar. I put my cushion down and sat up.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  He stared at me, his face ghostly. ‘We’ve been burgled,’ he said.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I dropped the cushion. ‘What!’

  ‘We’ve been burgled. I walked past the blue room upstairs and the door was wide open. When I went in I noticed the cabinet was open too. It’s completely empty, cleared out, every single piece of porcelain has gone.’ His voice was odd, strained.

  ‘No! I don’t believe it!’

  ‘Go and see for yourself.’ He sat down rather abruptly on the sofa opposite. He looked shattered.

  I stared at him. ‘Nick, how appalling! Has anything else gone?’

  ‘I don’t know. I daren’t look.’

  He put his head in his hands. I jumped up and sat beside him, putting my hand on his knee. I’d never seen him like this.

  ‘You must phone the police,’ I urged.

  He raised his head and stared at me, looking a bit dazed. He didn’t seem to hear.

  ‘Nick –’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course, you’re right, I’ll do it now.’

  He jumped up, suddenly back to his normal, assertive self, and disappeared into the hall. I followed him, feeling suddenly cold. I pulled my jumper down over my hands and folded my arms tightly across my chest as I listened to him briefing the local police station. Fat lot of good they’d be, I thought bitterly. Directing the traffic in Helston was pretty much beyond them. Nick put the receiver down.