Strange Allure

by Susan Lewis

  ‘Oh, so that’s the reason for the dressing gown at nine o’clock in the morning. Maudie just told me you had a fancy man here.’

  Carla’s eyes widened, partly with surprise, partly indignation. ‘Did she really say that?’

  ‘Not a one to gossip, me,’ Faith told her, digging into her sack for Carla’s mail.

  ‘But.’

  ‘But that’s what she said.’ She was all business now, as though the passing on of gossip was as serious a duty as the delivery of mail. ‘Said she sees him coming out of here regular, like.’ She winked in a conspiratorial fashion. ‘So, come on then, who is he?’

  Managing to swallow her annoyance, Carla said, ‘Can’t tell you, I’m afraid. He’s a married man.’

  Oh, Faith liked that – a lot. ‘Really,’ she said darkly. ‘See what you mean. Got to keep it under wraps if he’s married. Well, you don’t need to worry about me, my lips is sealed. Won’t tell a soul.’ She glanced both ways over her shoulder, then leaning in closer said, ‘No-one from round here, is it?’

  Carla tapped the side of her nose, and turning back inside closed the door quietly behind her, knowing very well that the rumour of her married lover would be all over the village before the church clock could strike the half-hour. She wasn’t sure now whether she was pleased she’d done it, or not, but it was hardly important, since the only man who was ever in and out of here was her brother, and well Maudie knew it. But it was all soon forgotten when she flicked through the mail to find an envelope bearing the Channel 4 logo. Her heart did several flips, as, in a state of mounting unease, she wrestled with the decision of whether to open it or not. She knew that it very probably contained a cheque, and a new broadcasting contract, since she’d done the deal a week ago – the day after she’d got the email from Richard – and had no reason to believe they had changed their minds. The trouble was, once she took their money, there’d be no going back. A return to London would be imminent, and the setting up of a new series would be obligatory. Which would be great if she was ready for it. Maybe she was, but her confidence was so low it was hard to believe that she still had what it took to produce. And what about the courage to go it alone? It was all so intimidating, but she had to admit it was exciting too, at least it was until she thought of how lonely she would be, back in the city, avoiding her old friends and too nervous to make new ones. However, the alternative, of just giving up, sending the cheque back and forgetting about her programme, simply wasn’t an option, because she’d never forgive herself if she did that, and she knew it.

  The cheque and contract were exactly as discussed, and the relief that flooded her heart was immeasurable.

  ‘Thank you, God,’ she whispered, the genuineness of her smile feeling strange on her face. ‘Thank you, thank you.’ Then she picked up the phone to call Sonya, who’d worked so hard to help her achieve this that the celebration had to be hers too.

  After joining in with Sonya’s shrieks of delight, as though Sonya were teaching her how to do it, she ran upstairs to shower and dress, then she was back on the phone again, speaking to Graham.

  ‘Congratulations,’ he said warmly when she told him. ‘That’s the best news you could have given me. So how long do we have to wait to see the first programme?’

  ‘Three weeks!’ she cried. ‘Only three weeks. Can you believe it? They’ve put it straight into the schedules, just like they said they would. Oh please God everyone’s going to like it, if they don’t there won’t be a second series and if there’s no second series …’

  ‘One step at a time,’ he said, laughing. ‘And everyone’s going to love it. Now, can I buy you a drink this evening, to celebrate?’

  ‘Of course. Oh God, I’m sorry, I’ve interrupted you working, haven’t I? How thoughtless. I just got carried away … Oh, there goes my other line. I’ll see you at the pub later.’

  After taking a call from the garage quoting her an exorbitant price for a new gearbox, she quickly wrote out a cheque for the electricity – an expense she could justifiably put down to the company – then turned on her computer to search out the preparations she’d made in anticipation of this momentous event in her life. Of course, when she’d been drawing them up, she’d just been going through the motions, pretending to herself, and everyone else, that she really would make a comeback, while never actually believing she would. Yet somehow it seemed to be happening, and all those dreaded dark thoughts and memories of how it had been the first time around, when Chrissie had been there to share it, would just have to be overcome.

  No doubt easier said than done, though nothing looked less surmountable right at that moment than the issue of promoting and marketing the series in three short weeks. Almost everything else she could handle herself, but such crucial matters simply had to be handled by experts, and there was no money to cover it. Of course, Channel 4 would do their bit, but Carla needed someone on her payroll to oversee the entire picture, the way the publicists had the first time around. Well, paying someone to do this wasn’t an option, so it seemed she had no choice but to take it on herself. She still had the old publicists’ files so maybe she’d better start researching the names of those she needed to speak to at all the relevant places. The list was endless, the incentives she could offer non-existent, and the task of making any of it work was so daunting that already it was dulling the shine on the thrill of actually getting this far. And what if no-one liked the programme? What if it turned out to be a dud? Then it would all have been for nothing, and she was going to have wasted a lot of important people’s extremely valuable time.

  But on she ploughed, making phone call after phone call, setting up meeting after meeting, as though going to London was something she did every day, and organizing the transfer and shipment of over a hundred cassettes as though they were coming free with cornflakes. Thank God the money was now available to cover that at least, or it would be as soon as she got round to depositing the cheque. Maybe she should leave that to Sonya, while she concentrated on re-editing the shows to reflect the current year’s prices, information she had still to co-ordinate, and tried to come up with some extraordinary inducement for the men in suits to part with their money for a follow-up series.

  By the end of the day her adrenalin finally started to wane, but she had every reason to feel proud of what she’d managed to accomplish. The email from Richard had only crossed her mind about three dozen times an hour, and each time it had spurred her on to even greater heights of determination and belief in herself. It was amazing just how much inner strength it gave her to know that she was on his mind, and that he wanted her back in his life. It was changing everything, for without that unexpected boost to her self-esteem she honestly didn’t know if she’d have gone so far as actually closing the deal with Channel 4, and she certainly wouldn’t be seriously contemplating a return to London.

  At six thirty she poured herself a glass of wine, then returned to her computer, intending, with her newfound energy, to respond to Richard’s email at last. However, it seemed taking that step forward was going to be even harder than she thought, for she still wasn’t clear what she wanted to say. The last thing she needed was to find out that she was wrong about him again, and that all he was really after was her forgiveness so that he and Chrissie could wrap up their guilt and get on with their lives. It would be another rejection, and she just couldn’t take it. Besides, while he was waiting, she was the one in control, and it had been the other way round for so long that she truly didn’t want to give it up so soon.

  Remembering that she had agreed to meet Graham at the pub later, she decided to go in search of her mother’s unfinished thesis. It was something she’d resolved, a while ago, that she would give to Graham, since it was he who had talked her mother into furthering her studies, and who had helped her with much of the research. So too had Richard, which was one of the reasons she’d been unable to face looking at it before. She guessed it was probably in the spare bedroom, where Sonya had stored all the
personal papers and photographs in the weeks after the funeral. It was a room Carla rarely went into, and whenever she did, to get towels or sheets from the airing cupboard, she left again quickly. The evidence of all her memories was shut up in this room, for Sonya had stored not only her mother’s and grandmother’s papers here but hers too. Three women, three different generations, and an emerging pattern Carla never liked to dwell on, for, after being deserted by the men they loved, both her mother and grandmother had come to live here, and both had died here alone.

  As she pushed the door open, the landing light spilled across the patchwork bedspread and on to the red-carpeted floor. There was nothing to be nervous about, it was only the room she’d slept in a thousand times as a child when Granny was here, and as a grown woman when her mother was here, often with Richard. That thought alone was enough to stop her where she was, but pushing it aside, she reached down to ruffle Eddie’s ears, then turned on the light. Everything was exactly as it should be: freshly made bed ready for when her niece and nephew came to stay, Granny’s Edwardian-style dressing table, with a glass top and swing mirror; a few family photographs from years ago, toys that the kids kept there; the Hoover; a clothes horse; and the tall double-fronted wardrobe where the memory boxes were kept.

  In typical Sonya fashion all three sets of papers were separately stored, so that Carla soon realized that everything in the first box she opened belonged to Granny. For a while she flicked curiously through the photos, smiling and remembering, until feeling herself sinking a little too far into the sadness of nostalgia, she put the photos back and set the box aside. Returning to the wardrobe she raised the lid of the second box. Recognizing the photo albums that were lying at the top as her own, she dropped the lid and lifted the box clear of the small wooden tea chest at the bottom. Inside the chest she found her mother’s diaries and personal records, old letters, treasured drawings from her children in their early years, dozens and dozens of photo-wallets, old school reports, award certificates, medals, all kinds of memorabilia, and, in a large brown envelope, the first hundred and seventeen pages of the thesis she’d been working on during the year before her death.

  Carla’s breath was shallow, and the grief very close to the surface, as she opened the envelope and pulled the pages free. Beside her, Eddie whined, then laid his head in her lap and sighed. Seconds ticked by as she struggled with her emotions, seeing her mother’s dark, shining eyes, and the smile that was so beloved. She had been so proud of this thesis, had been working so hard for the degree that would open all kinds of new doors. She’d got so far … Carla’s eyes closed as she tried to squeeze back the pain. She swallowed hard. It was an awful, bewildering feeling, holding this unfinished work. It was like seeing the futility of life in material form, for what did any of it matter now that it had been so randomly and needlessly cancelled? The abruptness of her mother’s death was as pointless as the incomplete paragraph on the final page, which in itself was as perfect a symbol as Jung could have given.

  She flicked slowly through it, occasionally pausing to read the typewritten lines. She could see her mother, sitting night after night at her treasured Olivetti laying down the interpretation of her findings, the recommendations drawn from her conclusions, the challenges inspired by her learning. Carla’s heart ached with a heaviness she could hardly bear. She recalled so vividly the eagerness in her mother’s eyes whenever she’d discussed her thesis with Richard. His broadness of intellect was such that he could easily debate the issues her mother raised, and in ways that often stretched her mind around entirely unexpected areas of learning. It had created a bond between them, one that Carla had been so proud of, and could almost feel as she sat there now, remembering. A knot of emotion began tightening her throat as she thought of how much her mother would have missed him too, and how devastated she would have been by the unexpectedness and depth of his betrayal.

  With a tremulous sigh, she let the pages fall closed. This document was such an intrinsic part of her mother, and so manifest in its power to evoke happier times, that she knew already she wouldn’t be able to give it away, not even to Graham.

  Opening the large brown envelope again, she was about to slide the thesis back inside when she noticed a small, handwritten page that had been squashed in the bottom. Pulling it free, she smoothed out the creases and held it up to the light. It appeared to be part of a letter, written in her mother’s untidy, forward-sloping hand, but with no first page it was impossible to know who she’d been writing to. It was only as she read it that the steady beat of Carla’s heart began decreasing to a slow, dull thud of horror.

  ‘… and ever since she told me I’ve been agonizing with myself, day and night, over what to do. Of course, the truth will have to come out, there is no question of that, but I cannot feel happy with the responsibility she has left me with. That we have all been so taken in is what makes it so much more troubling, because lies and deceit on this level, and covered so well, are very unsettling indeed. But I don’t want to get into the calling of names, or apportioning of blame, there will certainly be time enough for that later. How I go about dealing with it now is uppermost in my mind, but of course Carla must be told first, so I would ask you to be there with me when I break it to her. I know that like the rest of us, she has no idea …’

  Carla’s face was ashen when finally she looked up. There was no more, it was where the single page ended, but she didn’t need any more to understand what it was about. Her mother had known about Richard and Chrissie. Chrissie had told her, then left her with the responsibility of breaking it to Carla, and this letter was to Richard, asking him to be there when she did. Or was it to Graham?

  She stared blindly down at the page. It had to be to Richard. Her mother must have slipped the letter into the thesis when she’d asked him to look at it, and he, without realizing, had left this single sheet behind. So what had happened then, after he’d read it? Presumably he’d refused her mother’s request, because Chrissie had broken it to Carla in the end, before knowing that Valerie was dead. But surely to God he wouldn’t be so callous, or cowardly, as to turn her mother down, then hide behind Chrissie … No! Not even the fact that Chrissie had come to see her on that fateful morning, or that Richard had never spoken to her since, could make her believe that he’d refused her mother’s request. So maybe he’d never seen the letter, though if he hadn’t, she could only wonder where the rest of it was now.

  Her heart was pounding as she loaded everything back into the wardrobe and left the room. A few minutes later she was at her computer, typing an email to Richard. It was brief, and straight to the point. ‘Did my mother know about you and Chrissie? Did you get her letter asking you to be there when she told me?’ After clicking on send, she sank back in her chair, and breathed deeply in an effort to calm her shaking nerves.

  ‘I think I was probably in shock,’ she told Graham later, after she’d recounted what had happened. ‘Reading that letter was … Well, it was like it was happening all over again. I might have overreacted, I’m not sure, but if she did know about Richard and Chrissie …’ She turned to look at him. ‘Did she?’ she asked, swallowing hard. ‘She’d have told you if she’d known, wouldn’t she?’

  He shook his head helplessly. ‘She never mentioned it,’ he answered.

  Carla’s eyes went down. ‘… Carla must be told first,’ her mother had written, so no, she probably wouldn’t have told Graham.

  They were sitting by the fire in the pub, the only ones in, apart from Teddy Best and Joe Locke who were playing cards over in the corner, under a darkly dramatic painting of a coach and four horses in full flight. ‘So you think the letter was to Richard?’ she said.

  ‘It would certainly seem to be,’ he responded.

  After a while she laughed dryly. ‘You know, I’ve had so many horrible thoughts going round in my head since I read it. So much hate and anger … It’s like I’m right back at the beginning …’ She took a breath and expelled it in another humourless
laugh. ‘What a day. There I was heading off down the road to a new future at the start of it, and now this jolt back to the past at the end of it.’

  Reaching out for her hand he gave it a reassuring squeeze. ‘The past often jams out a foot to trip you up,’ he responded. ‘I sometimes find it’s a way of stopping you moving ahead too fast when there are still issues to be dealt with.’

  Carla picked up her drink.

  ‘Deal with them now,’ he said, gently, ‘that way you can leave him behind, and move on with the rest of your life.’

  Carla’s insides churned. She couldn’t even think about those words, for there wasn’t a bone in her body or a wish in her heart that wanted to move forward without Richard, and she couldn’t imagine a day ever dawning when she would. Though precisely how they were going to fit into each other’s lives now he was married she hadn’t yet worked out. Maybe she’d have a clearer idea once she knew if he’d received her mother’s letter, though now she was recovering from the shock of it, she had to ask herself what difference it would make if her mother had known about him and Chrissie? None. It had all still happened. Chrissie was now his wife, and they were the proud parents of a bouncing baby girl. Each of those facts twisted her heart with a seemingly unending pain, for how hard it was to think of their joy and togetherness this past year while she’d struggled alone in the depths of despair. Could she ever forgive that? Did she even want to? Would she hate him if she found out he had been afraid to face her, even with her mother? In truth, the answers changed with the irregular pattern of her moods, but one thing she did know was that she was still a long way from being ready to let go.

  So all she said to Graham was, ‘It certainly prompted me into answering the email, and not with anything like the response he might be expecting.’

  Graham’s eyes twinkled, which made her smile. ‘What’ll be interesting now,’ he said, ‘is to read his response. And by the way, please don’t worry about the thesis. I understand perfectly.’ Then his face suddenly brightened as the door opened and Perry and Fleur Linus, Cannock’s new-age geriatric couple who had kitted out their old motor-home like a spaceship in the hope of contacting other planets, and whose approach to logic was like a search for the Holy Grail, came bundling in from the cold. ‘Oh good, I’m just in the mood for a spot of alien folklore,’ he declared, rubbing his hands. ‘How about you?’