Strange Allure

by Susan Lewis

  When Carla and Richard arrived at Valerie’s late that Friday afternoon, Mark and Sonya’s children were already there, and since it was an unusually sunny winter’s day they were on the grass next door playing rounders. Valerie was playing with them, so was Eddie, the dog, and since Valerie had Eddie as a fielder she was winning. However, the moment the kids spotted Richard and Carla bats were hurled over shoulders and their two little bodies came haring across the green to be swept up, swung round and roundly embraced. Not to be outdone Eddie was jumping up and down, licking anything he could get his tongue on, then in a final spurt of glee he grabbed his own tail and ran round in circles.

  ‘Where’re Mark and Sonya?’ Carla asked, finally getting to hug her mother.

  Valerie nodded towards an upstairs window. ‘Siesta,’ she answered.

  ‘Who’s Esther?’ the five-year-old Kitty wanted to know, much to everyone’s amusement. Turning to Richard, Valerie wrapped her arms around him, saying, ‘How are you, darling? Welcome home.’

  ‘It’s good to see you,’ he said, hugging her. ‘We’ve just called in to see my old grandpa, he said you’d been over.’

  ‘Last week,’ Valerie confirmed. ‘He seems to be doing well.’

  ‘So he should be, with all those women vying for his attention over there,’ Richard laughed. Since his grandfather had gone into community housing about twenty miles from the village Valerie had become a more regular visitor than Richard, and in a lot of ways a more welcome one, considering the old boy’s eye for the ladies.

  ‘Could you bear to take a look at my thesis later?’ Valerie said, as they strolled back towards the green. ‘Your comments were really helpful last time.’

  ‘I’d be happy to,’ Richard answered, laughing as the children started dragging him off to join their team.

  ‘You’ve got to play with us,’ Courtenay, the seven-year-old, told him. ‘And you’ve got to whack the ball so hard that even Eddie can’t find it.’

  ‘You can play on Nana and Eddie’s team, Auntie Carla,’ Kitty announced. ‘It’s our innings. Eddie, where d’you put the ball?’

  The game went on until well after Mark and Sonya had finished ‘seeing Esther’, by which time a few more villagers had been roped in to play, then it was all down the pub for lemonade and crisps, and a thousand million pushes on the swings.

  Choosing a table next to the roaring log fire, while Richard went to get the drinks, Valerie said, ‘I’ve been thinking about what to get Chrissie for her birthday, and thought maybe we could treat her to a weekend at a health farm.’

  ‘Great idea,’ Carla agreed, holding her hands out to the fire. ‘I take it you’re intending for us to go with her.’

  ‘Of course. How is she, by the way? Did you get to the bottom of that Ivy thing?’

  Carla rolled her eyes. ‘It turned out to be much what I expected. She was actually meeting Bob, but didn’t want to tell me because she’s ashamed of the way she lets him treat her. Needless to say he stood her up again.’

  ‘She’d have had some explaining to do if you’d accepted her invitation and gone along,’ Valerie remarked.

  ‘With Richard around she knew she was pretty safe. She’s off to Zanzibar on Tuesday,’ she added, as Richard arrived with their drinks.

  ‘Zanzibar!’ Valerie exclaimed. ‘How exotic. Now I’m going to embarrass myself by having to ask where it is, exactly?’

  ‘East Africa. Off the coast of Tanzania. Did you get the photos Chrissie sent you, by the way?’

  Valerie groaned and laughed. ‘I certainly did. Has Richard seen them?’

  ‘Seen what?’ he asked, slipping an arm round Carla as he sat down next to her.

  ‘The photos from the ski trip Mum, Chrissie and I went on in February,’ Carla answered. ‘No he hasn’t seen them. They’re hysterical.’

  ‘Well, at least she’ll go skiing with you,’ Richard grumbled. ‘I can’t get her to come with me.’

  ‘Because you’re so brilliant,’ she retorted. ‘I never get to see you, whooshing your way down the black slopes, while I’m making a total idiot of myself on the end of some gorgeous instructor’s training pole. But I’m getting better. Chrissie’s terrible. Mum’s pretty good, though. She managed to arrive at the bottom twice, still on her feet.’

  ‘Do I stand a chance of getting us all to go together one of these days?’ Richard wanted to know.

  ‘I think you could,’ Valerie responded.

  ‘We could ask you-know-who if he wants to come too,’ Carla suggested.

  ‘What a great idea,’ Richard agreed. ‘If he skis as well as he writes, I could have some company.’

  Valerie’s eyes were dancing. ‘Sssh,’ she warned, glancing round the pub, ‘someone might hear.’

  ‘Everyone knows,’ Carla reminded her. ‘Is he coming in tonight?’

  ‘He should be. If he can get away.’

  ‘What’s his wife like?’ Richard asked. ‘I’ve never met her.’

  ‘Very unassuming, very shy,’ Valerie answered. ‘But she’s a great support to him with his writing, so much so that I think he’s rather come to depend on her now.’

  ‘Are you sure she’s not writing them for him?’ Richard joked. ‘That sort of thing’s happened before, when someone’s too shy to take the credit.’

  Valerie’s eyebrows rose. ‘You’ve met him, and fenced your intellectual duels with him, so what do you think?’

  ‘Point taken,’ Richard conceded, picking up his drink.

  ‘Now, what about you two?’ Valerie said, giving a quick wave to a couple of neighbours who’d just come in. ‘How’s the new flat coming along? I was in London with you-know-who the other day, so we drove past to have a look. My goodness, it’s impressive.’

  ‘OK, Mum, we’re off now,’ Mark said, coming in from the garden where Sonya was attempting to prise her children off the swings. ‘You coming over tomorrow?’ he asked Richard and Carla.

  ‘Around twelve?’ Carla said. ‘We’ll take a boat trip down the river, shall we? And have lunch in the pub over at Bathampton, provided it’s not too cold, or raining.’

  ‘Great. Sonya’s seeing to the kids, so I’ll say goodnight for her,’ and stooping to kiss his mother and Carla, he shook hands with Richard and left just as Richard’s mobile phone started to ring.

  ‘I thought you were going to turn it off for the weekend,’ Carla grumbled.

  ‘I thought it was off. I’ll just take this one call, OK?’

  Since the pub was starting to get noisy he took the phone outside, and by the time he came back Graham Foster had arrived, whose wry, wicked sense of humour and warmth of spirit often made Carla wonder what it would be like to have him as a father. It was how he behaved, sometimes stern, always affectionate and unfailingly indulgent. And as he and Richard, with their gigantic intellects, got along like a house on fire, their cosy family image couldn’t have been more perfect.

  ‘By the way, who was on the phone earlier?’ Carla asked, as she snuggled down next to Richard in her mother’s lumpy guest bed later.

  ‘A guy from CNN. He’s in Italy, just got out of Kosovo. He’s going to meet me next Thursday and come in with me.’

  Carla was silent.

  He reached out for her hand, and for a while they lay quietly side by side staring out at the moon.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said finally, ‘but I’ve got such a bad feeling about this.’

  ‘I’ll be back by the end of the month,’ he whispered.

  Again she was silent. The end of the month was less than two weeks away, but it provided no comfort, for her instincts were like those of an animal who might have no idea what the danger was, just that it was imminent and unavoidable. ‘Is it out of the question for me to come with you?’ she said finally.

  ‘Completely,’ he answered. ‘You don’t know the territory, or the MO. You’ll just put us both in danger.’

  Of course, she already knew that. The question had been pointless. Almost as pointless as ask
ing him not to go. For a while she toyed with the idea of going to Zanzibar with Chrissie, anything to fill the time until he came back. But someone had to be in the office in case that idiot at the BBC managed to make a decision, and one of Chrissie’s fortes was going in first to forge the great deals they would need later when the crew arrived. In the meantime she, Carla, could start roughing out a script. Why not? After all, if Chrissie could think positively about their future, why shouldn’t she?

  Which meant that she could believe Richard really would come back, and that he would make it by the end of the month. She turned to look at him in the moonlight. ‘You know it’s because I love you so much that I scare myself like this,’ she said.

  He smiled. ‘“Eternity was in our lips and eyes, Bliss in our brows bent,”’ he quoted, and kissed her.

  Oh God, Antony and Cleopatra – another great love story with a tragic end.

  Chapter 3

  CHRISSIE LEFT THE following Tuesday; on Thursday Carla drove Richard to the airport. She was in a good mood because one of the executives at Sky was interested in buying There and Beyond’s broadcasting rights from the BBC, and it was possible the BBC might agree to sell.

  ‘It’s going to be tight,’ she told Richard, ‘but there’s a chance I can tie this up in time to get the series transmitted straight after Christmas. God, I hope so. I can’t wait to tell Chrissie.’

  ‘Have you heard from her yet?’

  ‘No. I probably won’t, unless there’s an emergency, because it costs about ten US dollars a minute to call out from Zanzibar and her mobile’s up the shoot. I can fax the local tour operator who’s helping her though, if I need to get hold of her. Have you got your mobile? I’ll be able to get in touch with you, won’t I?’

  ‘It’s right here,’ he answered, patting a breast pocket. ‘It won’t be turned on all the time though. But if more than a couple of days go by without us speaking, I’ll manage to get hold of you somehow.’

  Her heart twisted with unease, but not wanting to dwell on it, she said, ‘Shame about Chrissie’s phone. I’d like to speak to her, if only to put my mind at rest, because I’ve got a horrible feeling she’s taken that damned Bob with her.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘It’s just a feeling. But if I’m right, and he’s carrying drugs … Well, I suppose the best we can hope for is that he only gets himself arrested. Oh great, look at the traffic,’ she declared, as they left the M4 and headed towards Terminal 3. ‘With any luck you’ll miss your flight.’

  But of course he didn’t, and even if he had, he’d only have taken the next one.

  ‘I cleared out all my old files yesterday, so they’re ready for packing,’ he told her, as she walked with him towards the departure lounge. ‘Be ruthless with the books, I’ve got far too many, I could do with shedding some.’

  ‘We’ll have the space in the new flat,’ she reminded him.

  He smiled. ‘Of course.’ Then taking her in his arms, he kissed her tenderly on the mouth.

  ‘Call me when you get to Italy,’ she said.

  ‘Of course. I love you.’

  He kissed her again, then she stood watching him walk in through the gate, showing his passport and ticket, then turning to wave before he merged in with the crowd.

  With Sky’s interest in airing There and Beyond, and the flat purchase starting to move forward, Carla was kept busy over the next week. Richard rang as regularly as he could, and Chrissie managed a quick shrieked call of congratulation when she received the fax telling her about Sky’s fantastic offer that the BBC had now accepted. Carla’s fear that Bob was in Zanzibar too was put to rest when she called his London number and he answered, though she started to worry again when she went to collect Chrissie from the airport, and discovered her looking worse than death. Not that she had any real experience of these things, but if she had to imagine the way someone on drugs looked, this would be it.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Chrissie said, leaving Carla to wheel her luggage out to the car, ‘it must have been something I ate. I had the most awful flight, I hardly dared leave the loo.’

  Carla didn’t feel now was the time to ask if she was suffering a relapse, she was too horrified by what it might mean, and thankful that Chrissie had made it through customs without being detected, presuming she was carrying, which please God she wasn’t.

  ‘So how was the trip?’ Carla asked, when they were in Richard’s BMW, heading back into London.

  ‘Fantastic,’ Chrissie answered, forcing a smile. ‘It’s going to be one of our best programmes yet.’

  ‘I’ve been reading up about it,’ Carla told her. ‘I’ve had a few ideas for the dramatizations, but I want to hear yours first.’

  Chrissie nodded, and yawned. ‘I’ll have to get some sleep,’ she said. ‘By the way, have Sky actually committed to a transmission date?’

  ‘I’m speaking to them later. It’s not finalized yet, but I’ve put Simon Flowers on standby for the launch party, and the publicists are reworking the guest list. Just make sure you get yourself better fast, because it could happen any time.’

  Chrissie smiled weakly, and let her head loll back against the seat.

  It was two days later that Carla’s life fell apart, so completely, and so devastatingly, that nothing, not even her worst nightmares could have prepared her for what was about to happen.

  The first blow came just after eight thirty in the morning as she was preparing to leave for work. The flat was a mess with packing boxes everywhere, and the remains of a rushed breakfast still on the kitchen table. She had a meeting with the lawyers at ten to finalize the transfer of broadcasting rights. After that, the six transmission dates through January and February should be set in stone. Chrissie was meeting her at the lawyers’, so was a friendly journalist who was going to announce the new deal in that evening’s Standard. She was so excited she’d hardly slept, and now she was in grave danger of being late if she didn’t get out of the door in the next two minutes.

  Gulping down the rest of her tea, she made a quick check in the mirror, brushed a couple of stray hairs off her black Hamnett trouser suit, mussed up her hair because it looked better that way, then grabbed her thick winter coat. She was already halfway out of the door when the telephone rang.

  ‘Damn!’ she muttered.

  She waited, listening to the machine as Richard’s voice announced their number and asked whoever it was to leave a message. The bleep sounded, then came the last person she expected to hear: her brother Greg. He never called, ever. She hadn’t even realized he knew her number.

  Reaching for the receiver she snatched it up, ‘Greg. I’m here. What is it?’

  ‘Carla, you’d better sit down,’ he said gravely.

  A gully of fear instantly opened up inside her. She stayed standing, even when his words reached her and the room started to spin. She tried to speak, but there was no air in her lungs. Her legs were like lead. Dimly she heard him telling her that he was on his way over, but the sound was distanced by the wall of horror that had suddenly risen up around her. At the end of the call she stayed where she was, holding the receiver, until it finally slipped from her fingers and fell to the floor. Then her legs buckled and she sank down onto the edge of a chair.

  She was still there, eyes staring sightlessly ahead, heart thudding like a distant drum, when an eternity later there was a knock on the door.

  She stood up and went to answer it.

  ‘Can I come in?’ Chrissie said.

  Carla let go of the door and walked into the sitting room. Everything was wrong. It was as though time had slipped its rails, and the day, as it was only minutes ago, was now on a parallel journey with the one she had been thrown into. Chrissie shouldn’t be here. They were supposed to be meeting at the lawyers’. She should be on the train, speeding through the dark, underground tunnels towards High Holborn, not trapped here in this alien other world floundering towards … ‘Did Greg call you?’ she said, her voice croaking. ‘
Is that why you’re here?’

  ‘Greg?’ Chrissie repeated. ‘Your brother Greg?’

  Carla started to speak, but the words wouldn’t come. Her hands were icy cold, her heart was like a scythe.

  Chrissie watched her, apprehension darkening her eyes. Did Carla already know why she was here? Was that why she was looking so pale, and acting so strangely? But she couldn’t know. It simply wasn’t possible. ‘I know we should be with the lawyers,’ she said, ‘but …’ She broke off as Carla fixed her with wide, haunted eyes. Unable to bear it, Chrissie looked away. If she knew, why didn’t she say so? ‘There’s something I have to tell you,’ Chrissie said, still unable to look at her.

  Carla sat down.

  Chrissie sat on the edge of the sofa opposite. ‘Oh God,’ she suddenly blurted. ‘I don’t know … There’s no easy way …’ She looked at Carla, barely able to see her through the tears swimming in her eyes. She tried to smile, but her mouth shook, and she bit her lips. ‘I … I’m going to have a baby,’ she finally managed.

  Carla looked at her. For some reason this didn’t seem to be the fantastic news it should be, so she said nothing.

  ‘It’s Richard’s,’ Chrissie said.

  Carla continued to stare. The words didn’t make any sense. Chrissie hadn’t just said that she was carrying Richard’s child. Greg’s call, and this strange state she was in, had affected her hearing.

  ‘Oh God, I’m sorry,’ Chrissie said, starting to cry. ‘I wish to God … I tried to stop it, we both did … But now there’s the baby and …’ She pressed a hand to her mouth. ‘Oh Carla, I’m sorry,’ she sobbed, ‘I’m so, so sorry, but I couldn’t go on lying to you, and Richard … He feels so bad about hurting you … He couldn’t bring himself to tell you …’

  Carla’s eyes were unblinking. Suddenly this new day was exploding into a terrifying nightmare beyond anything she could make herself believe. She was being sucked into a spiral of madness and couldn’t move to stop it …

  Chrissie was speaking again, saying something about Kosovo, that he wasn’t there, had returned to London … ‘Oh Carla, I know how much this must be hurting you,’ she sobbed, ‘but you’re my best friend, I can’t go on lying to you.’