Strange Allure

by Susan Lewis

  She closed her eyes and prayed for him to be right.

  It wasn’t until late the following morning that she finally woke up, in bed, with the curtains closed and only a hazy recollection of him lifting her from the bath, drying her, then carrying her to their bed and tucking her in. It wasn’t the first time he’d done that, nor was it the first time he’d slept in another room so as not to disturb her.

  Dismayed by how she’d let him down again, she pushed back the covers and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. The house was quiet, the only noise coming from the muted hum of the traffic as it roared up and down the distant main road. Going to the window she peered out at the rain-soaked gardens that formed the centre of their exclusive Knightsbridge square. The smart town houses were three-storey Regency dwellings, with a secluded mews at one end, and another garden square at the other. They’d been here for six months now, in this beautiful home, with its blue front door, black railings, white stucco front and large, high-ceilinged rooms.

  Everyone had said she was crazy moving while she was suffering such a difficult pregnancy, but worse would have been continuing to live with the fear that Carla might turn up any minute and start threatening her again. God knew she understood Carla’s pain, she didn’t even blame her for wanting to kill her, but by the sixth month of her pregnancy Chrissie just hadn’t been able to cope with it any more. Anyone who would listen knew how agonized she felt about falling in love with Richard, and how desperately she wished it hadn’t happened, but it had, and in the end there just hadn’t been a way to spare Carla all the pain she had gone through. Chrissie had tried a hundred times to tell her how sorry she was, how she’d never meant it to happen, but Carla had never been in a calm enough state to listen. And who could blame her for that, when she’d lost her mother the way she had, and when the terrible, terrible timing of Chrissie’s visit that morning had sent Chrissie over the edge too?

  Chrissie wasn’t sure now whether it had been her or Richard’s idea to move, but once the subject was raised it hadn’t taken long to find this house, and as far as Chrissie knew Carla still didn’t know where they were. It had been awful asking all their friends who might still be in touch with Carla not to reveal their new address, for it had felt like a whole new betrayal on top of the one they had already committed. Even worse was finding out that virtually no-one was in touch with Carla now, though not because they hadn’t tried, but because Carla didn’t want it. It made Chrissie’s heart ache to think of her all alone in that cottage, cut off from the world she had known, estranged from the friends she had trusted, probably afraid now of trusting anyone ever again. The isolation was almost certainly a way of protecting herself from any more hurt, like hearing someone tell her how close Chrissie and Richard were, or how they’d been seeing each other for almost a year before Carla had been told. But no-one knew that, possibly not even Carla, because she’d never asked and Chrissie had seen no reason to tell her. And, as time went on, Carla would have been afraid of hearing about the birth of the baby, or how proud Chrissie and Richard were of their beautiful daughter. It would all be much too painful, and Chrissie knew that the day would never come when Carla would welcome any news of her and Richard.

  Unless, of course, Richard himself delivered it. The very thought of him being in touch with Carla made Chrissie feel sick, for she could easily guess what he would say: that his marriage to Chrissie was a mess, and would never even have happened had she not forced him into it by getting pregnant. It wasn’t true, she hadn’t done it on purpose, at least not consciously, but looking back … Maybe she had always been this afraid of losing him. Maybe she really had believed that having his baby was the only way to sever the bond between him and Carla. God knew she hadn’t wanted to hurt Carla, but how was she to avoid it when she loved Richard so much herself? Never in her entire life had she known a man who could make her feel so adored, and special, and necessary to his existence, as Richard could. For her there had been only pain and rejection and the most brutal betrayals. Twice she had tried to take her own life, terrified that the future might hold even worse than she’d already known. Not until she’d met Carla and they’d begun developing their programme had she dared to start believing that life might be worth living again. It was Carla who had turned everything around, who had shown her what a success they could make of their lives, and what triumph could be theirs if they dispensed with caution and believed in themselves and their dreams. Carla, with all her confidence and spirit, her energy and ambition, the laughter that was so infectious, and passion that was so inspiring. She was always exhilarating to be around, so demanding of herself and others, yet so generous too, with her affections, her praise and most of all with the way she drew those she cared for into her family and gave them a sense of belonging, the way she had with Chrissie.

  And stealing Richard was the way Chrissie had repaid her.

  Would the guilt ever go away? Would there ever come a day when Carla might forgive her? It was hard to imagine, almost as hard as conquering the fear that Richard regretted his decision and wished he was still with Carla. Intellectually she had been much more his equal, and spiritually Carla had always believed they were one. It was nothing short of hell for Chrissie to think of that, but even worse was that he’d never said he didn’t love Carla any more, he’d only admit to loving Chrissie too. So was it any wonder she was in such a crucifying state of anguish, so terrified of losing him, not only to the dangers of his job, but to the much greater threat of his seemingly indestructible love for Carla?

  By the time he came back with the baby Chrissie was dressed, made up and looking as attractive as she could manage considering the lankness of her hair, and the swollen bags around her eyes. But the unbroken sleep had helped, and the way her heart melted when she saw him with his tiny daughter, so entranced and enslaved by her, boosted her too, for surely not even Carla mattered more than Ryan.

  ‘Sssh, she’s sleeping,’ he whispered, gingerly lifting the pushchair up over the three front steps and into the house.

  ‘I don’t know how you do it,’ Chrissie grumbled, though she was smiling, and pleased that he could.

  After closing the door, and slipping off his Barbour, he turned his attention to Chrissie, allowing his eyes to fill with the love she prayed so desperately that he really felt. ‘Is this for me?’ he murmured.

  She nodded, and hoped that the dress she had chosen, which was much too tight for her really, didn’t make her look ridiculous rather than seductive.

  ‘You look beautiful,’ he told her.

  She smiled. ‘Beautiful enough to distract you from the computer for a while?’ she teased.

  His mouth came down on hers and as he pulled her hard against him, desire suddenly washed through her with an urgency she hadn’t felt in months. Or maybe it was panic? But did it really matter, when he was responding with an equal passion?

  Whisking her into the dining room where packing boxes were still stacked up around the walls, he pushed her down on the floor, shoved her dress to her waist and yanked down her panties. As he entered her his mouth was crushing hers, and as he rode her, he gazed into her eyes and told her over and over how much he loved her. And when he came, she came too, her arms and legs around him, and the belief in his love, for the moment, shadowing the doubt. But this one overzealous encounter on the dining-room floor wasn’t enough, their needs had been neglected for too long, and Richard’s exotic tastes had to be indulged.

  Smiling shakily, she got to her feet, pulled down her dress so he wouldn’t see her nude in the daylight, then, telling him not to move, she went to get the rope. When she returned he was still on the floor, his trousers open, a new erection already beginning. She knelt down beside him, and began telling him exactly what she was going to do to him when she had him at her mercy, but even before she’d finished looping the rope round one wrist Ryan started to scream.

  ‘It’s OK,’ he said when she looked at him in panic.

  But it wasn’t
, she knew in her heart that it wasn’t. ‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled.

  He kissed her, then, leaving her kneeling on the floor, he went to pick up the baby. She knew she should go too, that Ryan would be hungry and her breasts were so full they hurt. Looking down at the front of her dress she saw the large, damp patches the milk was making. Milk she should give to her daughter, but there was too much resentment, hatred, confusion and despair racing around in her head to make it safe for her to move.

  Richard came to stand in the doorway. Ryan was in his arms, whimpering. Wasn’t he angry at having their love-making interrupted that way? Didn’t it matter to him?

  ‘Are you going to feed her?’ he said softly.

  Dumbly she nodded, and got to her feet. For once, as she took the baby, Ryan didn’t cry, though the tears in Chrissie’s eyes were blinding. She loved her daughter more than she’d ever loved anything or anyone in her life, but she was afraid of her too, and the conflict was tearing her apart.

  ‘It shouldn’t take long,’ she said to Richard, starting up the stairs.

  But by the time she came back more than three hours had gone by, and the door to his study was firmly shut. He hated being interrupted while he was working, so Chrissie wandered out to the laundry room, and hoped that the washing and ironing might take her mind off the jealousy she felt of all the hours he spent on the computer, because, God knew, there were times when that machine seemed to be turning into the biggest threat of all.

  Chapter 4

  THE RAIN THAT had slammed down in torrents for the past week had finally stopped, leaving the morning basking in a crisp, shimmery sunlight, and the fields that sloped to the woods at the heart of the valley rolling in a white, gauzy mist. Behind Carla’s cottage the birdbath her mother had installed was being put to vigorous use by a pair of jays, while Eddie watched from a window and tried to contain his excitement.

  In the end Carla let him out and smiled as he bounded towards them, expecting to join in the fun. In an instant the birds had fled, and spotting a squirrel scurrying along an overhanging branch of the horse chestnut, he got himself into a frenzy trying to work out how to jump up there. As she watched him, Carla let her mind wander back over the chat she’d had with Graham at the pub last night, when, not for the first time, they’d discussed the email she still hadn’t answered.

  Graham’s advice, on the whole, was to do nothing until she was ready, which made sense, of course, but this past day or so she’d started to feel annoyed with herself for her indecision. Still, at least she wasn’t feeling quite so spooked any more, though certain questions Graham had asked her last night were coming back to her now and causing her insides to shudder in other ways.

  ‘Do you honestly think Chrissie knows about that email?’ he’d said gently.

  Her heart had jumped, and her eyes showed her pain as she dealt with what that might mean.

  ‘Of course, I’m only guessing,’ he continued, ‘but I think there’s a good chance she doesn’t, and that Richard has attempted this in the hope of jolting you into a response.’

  It had been so hard, yet so wonderful to hear that. ‘But why would he do that?’ she said.

  ‘I think you know,’ he answered. Then he said, ‘Would you take him back? If he wanted to come?’

  Her heart turned over. How could she answer that when even she was appalled by how desperately she wanted it? So, forcing a smile, she’d said, ‘Sonya thinks I should just ignore the email. Part of me thinks I should too.’ Even as she’d said it her heart had folded in two, for though she knew Sonya was right, she simply couldn’t bear the idea that he would never be in her life again. No matter what he had done, or that he was married to someone else now, after all these months of hoping and praying with such utter and painful desperation that he would get in touch, how could she just ignore him when it was as though God himself had relented?

  Graham’s face was creased with concern, and not for the first time Carla noticed that his beard had acquired more grey since her mother’s death. ‘I suppose it depends what you’re thinking of saying if you do respond,’ he eventually answered.

  She shook her head. ‘I’m not sure. I mean, I certainly don’t want to be godmother, but I don’t want him to think it’s because I’m still angry, or hurt.’

  ‘Then what do you want him to think?’

  Carla’s cheeks coloured as she looked away. The truth, the real truth, was that she wanted him to think he’d made a terrible mistake with Chrissie and that he should come back to her. ‘If Chrissie doesn’t know about that email …’ she said. ‘In fact she can’t know. She’d never … I mean, put yourself in her shoes. You remember what it was like back then, the terrible things I said …’

  His gentle eyes showed that he remembered too well, and Carla’s cheeks flushed. As dear a friend as he was, and as forthright and honest as she was trying to be, she was still embarrassed by how she had behaved in her demented state, when she hadn’t only threatened to kill Chrissie and Richard, but their baby too. ‘I wouldn’t do it,’ she said softly.

  ‘Of course not. I know that.’

  Carla stared down at her drink. After a while she said, ‘How does he know I’m not going to ring up Chrissie and tell her what she can do with her invitation?’

  ‘He doesn’t. But you know Richard, the man thrives on danger.’

  Her heart was back in her throat. Yes, that was the Richard she knew. The one she missed and longed for, the one she could never stop thinking about, and would do almost anything to have in her life again …

  The sound of voices coming from the next-door garden surprised her back to the present, and gave her a momentary jolt of unease. What was anyone doing next door? Unable to see over the dividing wall, which was no longer visible under its burden of ivy and brambles, she listened for a moment, but the voices stopped almost as soon as she heard them, and the sound of a door creaking closed returned the two gardens to their usual quiet. Carla walked a few steps down the path, ducked under the washing line, then looked up at Gilbert Marne’s house. It was gloomy and neglected, with two broken windows and a small, jagged hole in the roof. There appeared to be a few more bricks missing from the chimney too, and the creepers were so dense now that she guessed the downstairs windows wouldn’t be visible at all. If someone was there with a view to buying, they were certainly going to have their work cut out restoring the place to any kind of glory.

  Going back inside she moved quickly along the hall to the front door, glad she hadn’t taken in the paper yet this morning so she could use it as an excuse to see who was visiting next door. To her surprise, the only car outside the two cottages was her own. Then she jumped as a voice said, ‘Good morning.’

  ‘Oh, Reverend,’ she gasped. ‘I didn’t see you there. How are you?’

  ‘Jolly good,’ he answered, moving his ample bulk right out of Gilbert’s front door in order to make room for someone to follow.

  ‘Oh, hello, Mrs Taylor,’ Carla said, smiling past her dislike. ‘Not thinking of buying, are you?’

  Not as skilled as Carla at disguising her feelings, Maudie Taylor’s pinched, whiskery face remained embedded in rancour as she said, ‘I heard intruders in here last night. Did you hear anything? I told the Reverend, we don’t want squatters moving into our village. Did you hear them?’

  ‘I didn’t hear a thing,’ Carla answered, ‘and I was awake for most of the night.’

  ‘Well, I heard them.’ Maudie turned to the Reverend. ‘All that nonsense about ghosts,’ she snarled. ‘It was squatters, I’m telling you.’

  ‘Well, there’s certainly no-one here now,’ the Reverend responded. ‘No sign of anyone having been here either.’

  ‘Are you saying I imagined it?’ Maudie challenged, a nasty gleam in her eye.

  ‘Not at all. Must have cleaned up after themselves. Some squatters are like that.’

  Carla hid a smile as she waved to Beanie and Lloyd Lamar, Dumbbell’s owners, who were driving past in their ne
w Volvo Estate. Maudie glared at her, then stalked off down the path, leaving a quivering air of hostility in her wake.

  The Reverend smiled benignly. ‘Lovely morning,’ he commented to Carla.

  ‘Lovely,’ she agreed.

  He nodded, then after leaning over the wall to pat Eddie who’d come to investigate the voices, he set off after Maudie, who was now waiting outside her own garden gate.

  Enjoying the unexpected warmth of the sun Carla remained where she was for a moment, gazing along the village, which rambled in an uneven sort of crescent around to the church, forming the kind of shape an American dentist would want to straighten into a perfect smile. Actually, calling it a village was overblowing its status, for it really only qualified as a hamlet, which, along with the four bustling villages that surrounded it at a distance, made up the parish of St Martin-in-the-Glades. However, despite its mere dozen cottages, and few facilities, like the church, the pub, Teddy Best’s shop and an old-fashioned red telephone box, everyone always referred to it as the village of Cannock Martin. The few tourists who passed through generally only paused long enough to fatten up the ducks and admire the church, before pressing on to the quaint little tea shops and craft displays elsewhere in the parish. So, on the whole, theirs was a sleepy little outback unbothered by strangers, and few ever got to find out about the colourful troupe of Cannock’s inhabitants.

  Seeing Joe Locke, the pseudo-devil-worshipper, lugging out his dustbin reminded Carla that she had to put out hers, and by the time she was back with it Faith, the post lady, was standing at the gate growling at Eddie. It was a game Eddie loved, since it was the only time he was allowed to growl and bark at a human and get away with it.

  ‘Hear the ghosts was howling again last night,’ Faith remarked, her long, crinkled face with its random dabs of powder and cherry red lipstick appearing almost puppet-like in the sunlight.

  ‘Shrieking,’ Carla confirmed, dragging the dustbin into place. ‘Didn’t get a wink.’