Strange Allure

by Susan Lewis

  It was long, slightly repetitive, and by an author she didn’t recognize at all, though she presumed it was one of the French classicists, probably from the Age of Reason, as opposed to the later Romantic Movement. Until now he’d always quoted authors they’d discussed, and even read together, but this was a piece that seemed to have no place in her memory, and without his letters to guide her she wasn’t even sure where to start looking.

  Letting her head fall onto the back of the sofa, she picked up her wine and took a sip. Then she ate some nuts, giving a couple to Eddie, and before she knew it she was mulling over everything she had to do tomorrow, from the meeting at eight with the company accountant, to the lunch she’d been pressed into by a particularly aggressive agent, to the script changes for Zanzibar and story developments for Greece and India. But that wasn’t even the half of it, and she could only thank God she’d managed to persuade Marjie to come and help out, otherwise there was no knowing what kind of mess she’d end up in.

  Her thoughts drifted on, taking her to Christmas, which she’d no doubt spend with her family, then to New Year, which Avril would hopefully be around for, and finally to Zanzibar. Though her heart contracted, she was soon smiling as she recalled the way John had handled the read-through this morning, and if this first experience of him in production was anything to go by, then she had much less to fear from his rumoured ego and tantrums than she had from the wayward inclinations of her own mind. Even now, as she sat here thinking about how she’d addressed the meeting, in her fantasy scenario there was no-one in the room but her and John, in the exact same positions they’d been in this morning, though now his hand was moving under her dress, up over her thighs … Snapping the thought off, she took another sip of wine and ruffled Eddie’s ears.

  ‘Maybe I should get Avril to give me the number of her escort service,’ she sighed wearily. Then, grimacing, she turned back to the email and began puzzling over it again.

  ‘Oh God,’ she groaned, after a while, ‘what am I doing, sitting here trying to work out a message from one man, while fantasizing about having sex with another, with no real hope of ever achieving either? Why aren’t I having a life, like everyone else?’

  For one intensely awful moment she almost picked up the phone to call John, on the pretext of wanting to discuss the script, when what she really wanted was him to flirt with her again.

  ‘How pathetic am I going to get?’ she murmured to Eddie. ‘And it’s not only me he flirts with, it’s all women, like Phoebe, Verna, Marjie, definitely Avril … I wonder who he’s really sleeping with. You’ve got to pity her, whoever she is, because it must be hell living with a man who practically every woman alive wants to get into bed.’

  Looking down at the email in her lap her heart gave a long and painful wrench as she came back to earth. What was she talking about? She didn’t want John Rossmore, any more than she wanted dear freckly-faced Frazer … The only one she wanted was Richard, and she wanted him so badly that the wires between her mind and body were getting so confused by lust, that, if she wasn’t careful, she’d end up doing something she’d bitterly regret.

  ‘Darling,’ she wrote, back at her computer, ‘though I haven’t yet worked out the significance of your last message, I just wanted you to know that I’m sitting here thinking about you, and feeling the need to see you so fiercely that I’m wondering if the time has come for me to let go of my caution and allow myself to return completely to your heart, where I belong. My day-to-day life is so full of the programme now that I’m afraid of it coming between us, though I know that in truth nothing can. I feel so confused about where we are going, how we can be together and not hurt other people, though of course I only mean your daughter, because I still find it so hard to forgive Chrissie for stealing you away. I ask myself so often, why, oh why, did you go? The answer, whatever it is, probably means nothing now, as time has moved on and I must accept that mistakes are possible, even between those who love each other as much as we do.

  ‘The success I’m enjoying now is so heady that at times I feel more attached to it than I do my own heart. But that is only because it’s here, at my fingertips, and you are … Where are you? I wonder that all the time, as I look around, expecting to see you, or feel you, or hear you. What does your last message mean? Where can I find the answers? Even as I ask I hear you telling me to look inside my heart, then I will know what you are saying to me, which has nothing to do with who wrote the words, only with what you are using them to convey. Good night, dream of me, as I shall dream of you.’

  His message the next morning said: ‘The words are Machiavelli’s, the message is from my tortured soul. You remember we read The Prince, together, in the gardens of the Pitti Palace? Read it again, my darling, and understand its sense as well as its cunning. Hear what I am telling you, listen with your heart, and feel with your mind. Immerse yourself in the success of your everyday world, and know that whenever you look around, I am there, in my spirit, that is joined to yours.’

  Carla’s shock was almost palpable. Machiavelli! How could he have used words from a man whose detachment from moral values was almost frightening to contemplate when given in this context? What sense? What cunning? Was he saying that his behaviour was based on some convoluted sixteenth-century philosophy? If he was, then didn’t that make her little more than an intellectual experiment, the human equivalent of a laboratory rat being tested by the unethical workings of a brilliant mind?

  She was so upset, and bewildered, by the message that she forwarded it immediately to Graham, then picked up the phone to let him know it was there. He rang back, a few minutes later, having read the message and weighed it against her reaction.

  ‘I think I can understand why you’re upset,’ he said ruminatively, ‘but it’s probably because you’re seeing Machiavelli only as an unprincipled manipulator, and forgetting the skilled politician he actually was.’

  ‘Which takes us where?’ Carla said, a little calmer now, and willing to listen to a less hysterical viewpoint than her own.

  ‘What about starting with Florence?’ he suggested.

  Carla frowned. ‘Because that’s where we read the book together?’

  ‘It’s just a thought.’

  She was quiet for a moment, staring at Eddie, but not actually seeing him as she thought about Florence, and those magical hours they’d spent in the gardens of the Pitti Palace. Then she recalled how she had ended her own message with ‘… nothing to do with who wrote the words, only with what you are using them to convey.’ ‘I think I’ve got an idea what this is about now,’ she said, finally, and started to smile. ‘The three days we spent in Florence were nothing short of perfect, but boy, what he had to go through to get the time off … It was in the middle of the Bosnian crisis, and in order not to jeopardize his assignment, but to spend his birthday with me … Well, you don’t need to know all the favours he had to ask, and promises he had to make, and even lies he had to tell … I probably don’t even know the half of it myself, but I think what he’s saying is that sometimes you have to detach emotionally from one situation in order to attend to another.’

  ‘Interesting,’ Graham responded.

  Carla smiled. ‘In other words,’ she said, ‘the reason he wasn’t in touch with me for a few days was because there was something going on at home that had to be dealt with. And it’s likely to happen again, but that doesn’t change anything about us, we’re still a single spirit that, just like a single individual, often has more than one task, as well as more than one loyalty. Does that make sense to you?’

  ‘Put like that it does,’ he answered.

  Carla grinned. ‘Great,’ she said, and after thanking him she hung up, closed her laptop and ran downstairs to where the office was already coming alive for the day. The fact that Richard hadn’t responded to her veiled suggestion that they should meet was OK, because she still wasn’t sure about it either. However, she had to confess that nor was she thrilled by the idea that it was now hi
m holding back, rather than her, since the reversal could have adverse effects on the strength she had been drawing from being the wanted, rather than the wanter. Alarming, even frightening, how vulnerable, and unreliable, such strengths as resolve, self-esteem and confidence could be, when dealing with a difficult love.

  There were two police cars outside, one in front of Richard’s BMW, the other behind it. Only one had official insignia, the other was a dark red saloon that had brought a man in a smart black raincoat and a woman in a green eider-padded jacket. There were other cars there, but Chrissie wasn’t sure who they belonged to, except the woman who’d got out of one, about fifteen minutes ago, had been carrying Ryan.

  Who exactly had found her, in Kensington Gardens, Chrissie didn’t know. She had no recollection of leaving her there, she couldn’t even remember taking her out. She only recalled being in the park, surrounded by trees and people and skaters and birds as she drifted weightlessly in another realm of consciousness where fear didn’t exist, and inadequacy was never measured.

  The call had come, only minutes after she’d returned home, telling her that Ryan had been found. Richard was in his study, so he’d had no idea, until the police turned up, that Ryan had even been missing. By then Chrissie had taken herself upstairs, into the bedroom, not wanting to see anyone, especially not Richard. Over the past fifteen minutes she’d heard snatches of the conversation below, so knew that if she wanted to avoid what they were planning she should go into the bathroom now, lock the door and never come out.

  Though tears rolled down her face, all she knew was the fear that was riveting her to the landing, and the awful loneliness that seemed to be descending from the ceiling, closing in with the walls and rising up with the floor. Something terrible was happening to her, and she didn’t know where to turn any more. She’d heard them explaining to Richard how the brain didn’t always make a full recovery from substance abuse, and that even years later, the after-effects of hallucinogenics could distort the mind and incite paranoia. When combined with a clear case of post-natal depression, and the natural exhaustion of being a new mother – and one who wasn’t quite so young any more – it must be understood that for her own sake, as well as her daughter’s, she had to have professional help.

  Richard was agreeing to everything, but was insistent that they didn’t take her away.

  Chrissie’s heart swelled with love and pain. He was still protecting her, wanting to keep her where he knew she felt safe, and where he could help her through this himself. He just needed Dr Philbert to carry on advising him, as he had been these past few months, and he would make sure that she was never left alone with the baby again – at least not until everyone was certain she could handle it.

  ‘I’m sorry to be so blunt,’ a woman’s voice said, ‘but you should be made aware that there’s a chance she’ll get worse. If that happens, she really will have to be hospitalized, you do understand that, don’t you?’

  ‘Let’s deal with that if it happens,’ Richard answered.

  ‘Have you any idea when she stopped taking the medication?’ another voice asked.

  There was no answer, which suggested Richard had shaken his head.

  ‘Mrs Crabbe, here, is from the social services,’ the woman’s voice said. ‘She’ll be calling on you regularly.’

  ‘There’s no need,’ Richard assured her.

  ‘I’m afraid you don’t have a choice,’ the woman told him. ‘When something like this happens to a child, we have to follow up. I’m sure you understand.’

  Again there was no answer.

  Chrissie turned round and walked back into the bedroom.

  A long time later she heard them leaving, the sounds of the car engines starting, and driving away. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, tight with the misery of her confusion, trying desperately to hold on to what little courage she had left. She had to tell him she’d see any doctor he wanted, she’d even go to the hospital if that would make him feel better.

  When he came to stand in the doorway she couldn’t look up. She was too ashamed of the pain she was causing him, and the terrible harm she might have done Ryan.

  ‘Look at me,’ he said after a while.

  She shook her head, so he came forward and knelt in front of her.

  ‘Do you remember leaving her?’ he said, taking her hands.

  For a moment she looked at his pale, stricken face, then, unable to bear it, she lowered her eyes.

  ‘Please don’t be afraid,’ he implored. ‘No-one wants to hurt you, or lock you away. We just want to help you.’

  A huge knot of emotion was trying to choke her. She opened her mouth and a terrible sob mangled the words as she said, ‘I know.’

  Taking her in his arms, he pulled her gently from the bed and sat her on the floor with him. ‘I keep telling you we’ll get through this,’ he said gruffly, stroking her hair, ‘but sometimes you frighten me so much that I start to despair.’ Holding her face between his hands he looked searchingly into her eyes. ‘Where are you?’ he whispered. ‘Where’s the woman I love?’

  ‘I’m here,’ she sobbed. ‘I’m still here.’

  ‘Then don’t leave me. We need you. Me and Ryan. We love you.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she choked, hardly able to speak.

  He pulled her back against him and rested her head on his shoulder. For a long time he merely rocked her and stroked her and whispered an occasional word of comfort. Then finally he said, ‘Do you remember now, where you went in the car the other day?’

  Sniffing, and wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, she shook her head. ‘I only remember you coming to get me,’ she said, haltingly.

  ‘But you don’t know where you’d been?’

  ‘No. I think … I was in Chiswick.’

  ‘That’s where you were when you called me,’ he told her. ‘You don’t remember where you were before that?’

  She considered telling him she’d just been driving around, but didn’t, because he’d know it wasn’t true, and it would only worry him more if he thought she was starting to lie. The problem was, she had no recollection of how she’d ended up in Chiswick, or of how long she’d been gone.

  ‘Did you see, or speak to anyone?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t think so.’ She wondered why he was so concerned, when his life would surely be so much easier if she were just to get in the car and disappear for ever. Perhaps that was secretly what he wanted, and he was trying to find out now how likely it was to happen. In fact, she was able to read his thoughts so clearly he could almost be speaking them aloud, as he willed her to take the car and crash it head-on into a motorway bridge. He wouldn’t have to worry about her then. She’d be dead, and he would be free. He probably had no idea that she could see through what he was doing, how he was making her think she was mad, pushing her to a point where she’d take her own life, rather than have to do it himself. The show he put on of loving her and wanting only to help was all very convincing, but she knew that what he really wanted was to get rid of her for good. And he was clever enough to trick them all into believing his act, even her. Or so he thought … But she wasn’t quite so stupid. She knew what was going on here, but if she let on that she’d worked out his plan, she’d be putting herself in even graver danger than she already was. So for the time being she’d continue the charade of believing he loved her, until she managed to think of a way to get herself and Ryan to a place of absolute safety.

  Chapter 15

  CARLA WAS AT her computer discussing the latest rewrites for Zanzibar, while John stood over her, watching her type them in, and making it hard for her to ignore the male scent of him, not to mention the omnipotence of his stance that was only inches away from a full embrace. In the end, feeling much more unsettled than she’d like to admit, she hit the save button and rolled her chair back so that he was forced to stand upright.

  ‘You’re a genius,’ he told her, referring to her last suggestion. ‘And if you want to be the one to t
ell Yale Winfield he’s lost another half-dozen lines, don’t let me stand in your way.’

  Grinning, she said, ‘Speaking of denting egos, have you told Rosa her two-hander scene with Phoebe has gone yet?’

  His dark eyes started to dance. ‘Actually, I have,’ he answered. ‘And she took it quite well, considering.’

  Carla was immediately suspicious. ‘Considering what?’ she challenged. ‘No, don’t tell me. She thinks I made the cut. John Rossmore, you told her …’

  ‘No! I swear I told her it was me who cut it, but she won’t believe me. She’s convinced it was you, and that I’m just trying to cover. And then I thought if one of us has to be the villain, it might as well be you, since you seem to fit the role so much better than I do.’

  ‘Tell me about it!’ Hugo piped up, his wide, boyish eyes and apple-round cheeks oozing indignation. ‘She’s just refused me a two per cent increase in budget, two per cent!, and Frazer tells me we’re having to fly economy. I tried to resign, but she won’t let me do that either. The woman’s not a villain, she’s a tyrant!’

  Carla turned to John. ‘He’s your assistant, teach him some respect. And while you’re at it, educate him in the use of loudhailers and vocal enhancement, they’re cheaper than all the walkie-talkies and mobile phones he’s asking for. Now, where’s Marjie? Felicia!’ she shouted across the office. ‘Have you appropriated my assistant again?’

  ‘She’s on the phone to Avril, in the kitchen,’ Felicia shouted back. ‘Have you spoken to the photographer from Maxim yet?’

  ‘Yes,’ Carla answered, reaching for the phone. ‘There and Beyond,’ she sang into the receiver.

  A woman’s voice said, ‘Can I speak to John Rossmore? It’s Karen.’

  Carla put her on hold, and to John, who was now back at his desk opposite, she said, ‘Another lady for you, Mr Irresistible. This one’s called Karen.’