Strange Allure

by Susan Lewis

  Rosa shrugged. ‘He is. At least, so far. But we’ve still got a way to go, you know, with the filming and everything … We’re going to Zanzibar, did I tell you that?’

  Chrissie’s eyes widened, then her mouth gave a slight tremble as she said, ‘No, you didn’t mention it. When are you going?’

  ‘January.’

  Chrissie leaned closer to Richard, who covered one of her hands with his own, and squeezed it. Rosa glanced at Jilly, who was still engrossed in the baby, so probably wasn’t noticing all the weird body language taking place on the sofa. Pity, because Rosa wanted to get her take on it after they’d left.

  ‘Did I tell you,’ Chrissie was saying to Richard, ‘that the man with the grey hair’s back? I saw him yesterday and today, walking past with his eye on your car. He loves it so much I think we should ask him if he wants to buy it.’

  Richard smiled. ‘I saw him earlier,’ he said. ‘He was telling me about his trip to North Wales.’

  ‘You spoke to him?’ Chrissie said, surprised.

  ‘Not for long.’

  Chrissie turned back to Rosa. ‘There’s a man we see outside sometimes,’ she said, ‘we think he might be a reporter.’

  Richard’s eyes were back on Rosa, and she felt the tingling heat of indignation burn right into her cheeks. ‘You know, I’d almost forgotten that spread in one of the Sundays,’ she declared stiffly. ‘Makes you sick, all that stuff they print that’s none of their damned business, especially when they got into those really sensitive parts of your past … Of course they made half of it up, we all know that, but those things Carla said about you … Well, all I can say is, if we didn’t know she was a bitch before, we certainly do now.’

  Richard’s lazily raised eyebrow made her want to shout in his face. Just what was his problem, sitting there staring at her like that? But of course she didn’t ask, possibly out of fear of him telling her.

  Jilly was getting to her feet. ‘Got to go to the loo,’ she said, passing the baby to Richard.

  As Ryan settled down with her daddy Rosa made a mental note to go to the bathroom too, if only to get a better look round, though she was already pretty certain that the big cream leather furniture and Oriental rugs and cushions in this room, and the futuristic design of the kitchen, was about as far as they’d gone towards making this dream house a home. ‘She really is lovely,’ she said, smiling at the baby, and hoping her words might do something to soften Richard’s attitude towards her. ‘How old is she now?’

  ‘Almost eight months,’ Chrissie answered, as Richard’s arm drew her into a picture of perfect family bliss, with Mum and Dad gazing adoringly at their perfect creation.

  Rosa twitched with impatience. If it was all so damned perfect, then why did Chrissie look like hell?

  ‘Her bottom teeth are almost through,’ Chrissie said to Richard.

  Smiling, he said, ‘Why don’t you hold her?’

  Chrissie took the baby awkwardly in her arms, then almost shoved her back as Ryan gave an ear-piercing screech.

  Rosa’s curiosity mounted, for she hadn’t missed that split second of panic which suggested that despite their efforts to cover it, Chrissie was in as bad a state as the last time they’d seen her, she could even be worse.

  ‘Would you like anything to eat?’ Chrissie offered.

  ‘Oh, no, thanks,’ Rosa answered. ‘Jilly and I are going on for dinner after. There’s a new restaurant, just opened, on Kensington High Street. Everyone’s going there, so we thought we’d try it.’ She looked at Richard, and gave a quick, reflexive smile, which elicited no change in his own expression. ‘Do you manage to get out much?’ she asked, certain the answer had to be no.

  ‘Richard does more than me,’ Chrissie answered. ‘His research takes him all over the place, though thankfully not out of London any more.’

  ‘So how’s the book going?’ Rosa asked him.

  ‘I’m still roughing out a first draft,’ he answered. ‘And it’s proving more challenging than I expected, but there are a lot of foreign correspondents and film crews based in London who I can use to double-check dates and detail.’

  Surprised, and encouraged by the lengthy reply, Rosa said, ‘Have you limited yourself to a certain number of crises to write about, or are you approaching it as an autobiography, you know, from the cradle to the campfire where you sit down and look back over the whole of your life?’

  He seemed amused by the question, which annoyed her, when she’d considered it to be a good one. ‘Actually, I’m focusing on three crises in the Nineties,’ he answered. ‘The Gulf, Kosovo and East Timor.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ Rosa responded, knowing already that she wouldn’t be buying, and by the look on his face he knew it too, and cared not a jot. Again she felt irritated, and couldn’t work out for the life of her why women like Chrissie and Carla seemed to find him so compelling, when all she found him was arrogant, aloof and downright condescending. He wasn’t even sexy if you asked her, though it seemed she was in the minority, because, if the gossip she’d been hearing lately was true, he was not only supposed to be screwing some female producer over at the Beeb, but, according to a freelance cameraman she knew, he’d recently restarted an affair with the same air stewardess he’d been seeing while he was living with Carla. Fleetingly Rosa wondered if Carla knew about that now, or even if Chrissie did, since he must have been sleeping with Chrissie as well at the time, so it could be said that he’d been cheating on Chrissie too. However, if you were the air stewardess you might view it that he’d been cheating on you. Whatever, Rosa would lay money on every word of it being true, and she happened to know that Jilly thought so too.

  As Jilly came back into the room, Rosa decided to let her take over for a while, and merely listened and watched as Jilly declared, ‘I must say, you’re not like most other couples with their first child, who just can’t stop talking about them.’

  Richard seemed amused. ‘Believe me, we can talk about Ryan all day, if that’s what you want.’

  ‘Certainly Richard can,’ Chrissie said teasingly. ‘He’s totally besotted, in case you hadn’t noticed. And it’s mutual, because Ryan’s so mad about her dad that her mum hardly gets a look-in.’

  Jilly continued to smile, so did Rosa, while Richard and Chrissie made silly clucking noises at Ryan, who produced adorable gurgling noises back, while waving her chubby little arms and legs.

  At last, after a further half-hour of excruciating pauses and ludicrous politeness, Chrissie closed the front door behind Jilly and Rosa and went back into the sitting room to find Richard lying on the sofa with Ryan hoisted in the air above him. She watched them for a moment, then, going to sit in the chair Jilly had vacated, she said, ‘Was I OK?’

  Richard lowered Ryan on to his shoulder, then holding out an arm to Chrissie he waited until she was sitting on the floor beside him before he said, ‘You were more than OK. They’re a couple of old witches, at least Rosa is, and you handled it beautifully.’

  Chrissie’s blue eyes softened with pleasure. ‘It was a bit of a shock finding them on the doorstep like that,’ she confessed. ‘I almost shut the door on them. In fact, if you hadn’t been here, I probably would have.’

  Richard said, ‘Did you know Rosa was working for Carla?’

  Chrissie shook her head. ‘If I had, I would definitely have shut the door,’ she responded. ‘What about you? Did you know?’

  ‘No. But I think we did her a favour, because she was obviously bursting to sound off to someone.’

  Chrissie smiled, and waited for the sound of a passing motorbike to fade before slotting a finger into Ryan’s fist and saying, ‘I’ve got a confession to make. It wasn’t Carla who always blocked Rosa’s casting, it was me.’

  His eyebrows went up. ‘Sounds like a wise decision,’ he remarked. ‘So how come she thinks it was Carla?’

  Chrissie grimaced. ‘Because I told her it was. I know that’s terrible,’ she rushed on, ‘but I’ve known her for years, we’re suppose
d to be good friends, and Carla only met her when we started the programme. And believe me, I would have happily given her a part if I hadn’t known what a menace she can be …’

  His finger on her lips stopped her as, laughing, he said, ‘It’s OK, I get the merits of the decision. I’d probably have done the same myself. But there’s something else that occurs to me here – do you think she could have been behind the newspaper story?’

  Chrissie looked at him. ‘What makes you think that?’ she asked cautiously.

  ‘Well, for one thing, her tone was much too defensive when she talked about it, as though she was trying to justify herself, and if she’s got a grudge against Carla, which she obviously has if she thinks Carla’s had it in for her all this time …’

  Chrissie’s colour was deepening. ‘As a matter of fact I do think it was her,’ she admitted. ‘I did almost as soon as we saw it. Which means that it was my fault that Carla had all those horrible things said about her …’

  He smiled and stroked her cheek with his fingers. ‘She’ll survive,’ he said gently.

  Her eyes dropped, then, turning her face into his hand, she kissed it, while still circling her fingers round Ryan’s. ‘Did you mind hearing all that about her?’ she said. ‘I mean, what Rosa said about John Rossmore. Does it bother you that Carla seems to like him?’

  He gave a laugh of surprise. ‘Darling, it’s been more than eighteen months since I left Carla to be with you, so I’d be more upset if Carla hadn’t met someone else by now, than I am to find out that she might have.’

  Chrissie’s eyes dulled. ‘So you do still care about her?’ she said.

  ‘You know I do, but that doesn’t mean that I’ve ever regretted my decision to leave her and marry you. I know you find it hard to believe, but I love you, Chrissie. You’re the only woman I’ve ever wanted to marry, and you’re the only woman I will ever marry. It’s true, I could wish that you hadn’t found it all so hard to cope with, but it doesn’t make me love you any the less. If anything it makes me love you more, because you need me and because I know deep down that you love me too.’

  Her eyes were shining with emotion. ‘I do,’ she whispered. ‘And Ryan. I love you both.’ Then she laughed, for it seemed incredible that little more than a week ago she’d actually thought he was plotting to kill her.

  ‘So how about that dinner you promised to cook tonight,’ he said, ‘while I go upstairs and bath Ryan?’

  It wasn’t a difficult meal to prepare, just some fresh pasta to put into a saucepan and a readymade sauce from M&S to heat in the oven. She even lit some candles, and found some pretty mats and napkins to liven up the table. When everything was ready she was about to go upstairs to see what progress was being made there, when a terrible, debilitating sadness washed over her and tears began streaming down her cheeks.

  ‘Oh God, it’s awful, just so awful,’ she sobbed, and, slumping into a chair, she buried her face in her arms and wept as though her heart would break.

  ‘Darling, what on earth’s the matter?’ Richard cried, coming into the kitchen some ten minutes later. Lifting her up from the table, he cupped her face in his hands and searched her watery, red-rimmed eyes with his own. ‘What is it?’ he said, his voice gruff with concern.

  It was a moment before she could catch her breath, and even then the words were fragmented as she finally forced herself to say, ‘I was … just thinking … about Eddie, Valerie’s and Carla’s dog.’

  Laughing, he held her tighter, and said, ‘And there was me thinking that hell was other people, not their dogs.’

  After a moment she drew back, and looked uncertainly into his face. ‘Was it …’ She sobbed. ‘Was it Jean-Paul Sartre who said that?’ she asked tentatively. ‘That hell is other people?’

  Laughing and hugging her again, he said, ‘Yes, my darling. Yes it was.’

  Carla was humming tunefully to herself as she stepped out of the bath and reached for a towel. It seemed absurd to have been so nervous about coming back here to the cottage, for nothing was in the least bit scary about the place, it was the same old home she’d always known, and even the creepy sensation of being watched had obviously just been a figment of her overactive imagination, for she certainly didn’t feel it now. Which was why she’d been careful to avoid Maudie all weekend, not wanting to get her started with her spooky stories again, especially now she had more important matters on her mind.

  It was incredible, and exhilarating, how this strange allure she and Richard shared seemed to continue working its magic even when she’d stopped believing in its existence. Though in truth she never really stopped believing, it was just that sometimes she was so busy it slipped from focus.

  However, now, with the recce crew in Zanzibar, she had more time on her hands, and the response she had received when she’d told him she wanted to see him was causing all kinds of chaos inside her, for he’d told her to name the time and the place. She hadn’t answered yet, but knew she would sometime today.

  In fact, she didn’t go online again until she returned to London, when she checked the email on her laptop to find yet another message waiting from Richard. ‘The space inside me for words is taken up with emotion,’ he’d written, ‘leaving me bereft of expression, and abundant with feeling. I need to share all this with you, but you’re denying me, and I love you for it, because your resistance is sharpening my desire, and plunging me into oceans of longing that I could never hope to fathom without knowing you will be there in the end. Keep me in suspense, punish me as I deserve, but know that you are mine, as I am yours, and nothing, not even you, will be able to keep us apart for very much longer.’

  She answered right away with an equally impassioned speech, designed to excite and torment him in ways that were cruelly erotic and almost angrily dismissive. Then she clicked over to her other email address to find a message from John. They’d been in regular touch since he’d left, though today’s report didn’t only convey details of some impressive early successes, but a closing comment that made her heart jump.

  ‘… so, thanks to Jaffah, our local chap, the availability of historical locations is really opening up, and things are progressing so well at the moment that the only thing missing is you.’

  Annoyingly, for the rest of the evening and most of the next day that remark kept returning to the front of her mind, until, in the end, it started to make her angry.

  ‘And you don’t know why?’ Avril laughed, when she rang to vent her wrath, or maybe seek help, she wasn’t entirely sure. ‘Come on, you know exactly what’s making you like this, you just don’t want to face it, is all.’

  Carla’s lips were pale and tight. ‘You always think you’re so clever,’ she snapped, ‘but believe me, if I knew why I was feeling this way …’

  ‘OK, stop!’ Avril interrupted. ‘You’re in some kind of denial over there, and it’s not only getting on your nerves, which is why you’re in this state, it’s starting to get on mine too. So let’s haul a few facts out into the open, shall we? First, you fancy the pants off John Rossmore, but you’re afraid to admit it. And why would that be? Because it feels disloyal to Richard. So let me tell you this, the hell with any loyalty to Richard, because that man’s playing some kind of sick game with your head, and you know it.’

  Carla was too furious to speak.

  Leaping straight back in, Avril said, ‘There’s no reality here, Carla. No physical affirmation of his feelings, or his commitment, or even his intentions. And every time you bring it up he either manages to avoid the issue, or waft off into some weirdly esoteric fantasy …’

  ‘I think we should end this call right now,’ Carla said through her teeth. ‘I always knew you didn’t really understand, but I never expected you to throw it in my face like this, or use it to ridicule me.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Carla, if I was doing what you’re doing, what would you say to me? You’d tell me to get my ass in gear and get on with my life. You wouldn’t just sit there and let me carry on fo
oling myself that there’s a future at the end of the yellow brick road. You’d have me back on the straight and narrow by now, which is what I’m trying to do with you – and not before time, because I should have got on your case months ago about this. It’s all bullshit, Carla. Complete and utter bullshit, unless he does something to prove he really does intend to find a solution to the unholy mess he’s created, which might not be a mess at all the way he’s seeing it, because he’s getting some kind of mind-fuck with you, at the same time as he gets the physical fuck with Chrissie, and what do you do but try to be as understanding and accommodating as you can to his poor, tortured soul, that’s as capable of making mistakes as the rest of us, but apparently more deserving of forgiveness.’

  ‘I can’t believe you’re sounding off like this,’ Carla raged. ‘In fact, it seems to me that you’ve got more of an issue with this relationship than I have.’

  ‘Oh, stick around, honey, I’ve only just got started.’

  ‘Well I don’t want to hear it. We all know you’ve got little or no respect for men, so …’

  ‘It’s got sod-all to do with how I feel about men,’ Avril butted in. ‘It’s how concerned I am about you. So now, let’s calm this down, shall we, and take a look at it once the hot air has cleared.’

  Carla was still too worked up to agree, but she didn’t disagree either, merely sat tightly in her chair, trapped by a punishing need to hear more, even though she was hating every word.

  ‘OK,’ Avril said, ‘let’s start by asking a few questions, shall we? Have you ever asked yourself why he never calls you on the phone?’

  ‘I know why, it would be too painful, too …’

  ‘Why? He’s asked to see you now, hasn’t he? Isn’t that going to be more painful than just hearing you?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re getting at.’

  ‘Nor do I, but there’s something odd in there, wouldn’t you say? Something that’s not quite adding up. And tell me this, has he ever mentioned anything about you becoming godmother to his daughter again, since that first time?’