Strange Allure

by Susan Lewis

  After three rings Avril’s machine at the ménage picked up the call. Sonya waited for the greeting to finish, then said, ‘Hi, it’s me, I was wondering if you’re …’

  ‘I’m here,’ Avril’s voice came down the line. ‘You just caught me. I’m on my way to the airport to pick up some clients. So, how are you?’

  ‘OK. But I have to see you. It’s important. Is there any chance you can come down here?’

  ‘What, this weekend? Believe me, I’d love to, but I’ve got a producer and his wife flying in from LA.’

  ‘How long are they staying?’

  ‘All week. If they weren’t such important clients I’d leave them to fend for themselves, but they like being looked after, and yours truly is nothing if not good at showing the folks a good time. Anyway, what’s so important?’

  ‘I don’t want to tell you over the phone.’

  Avril laughed. ‘Why ever not?’ Then, ‘Oh God, you’re having an affair.’

  ‘No! It’s nothing like that.’

  ‘All right, keep your wig on. What about talking to Carla?’

  ‘She’s the last person I can talk to.’

  ‘Well, you’re being very mysterious,’ Avril told her, ‘and though I’d love to stay and play guessing games, I need to be there when that plane gets in.’

  Sonya hesitated, trying to decide how much she could reveal on the phone. She was just about to say she’d found a letter, when the door opened and she spun round to find Mark, hair on end, pyjamas rumpled, padding dolefully in. She hadn’t even heard him on the stairs, so had no idea how long he might have been outside. But it was OK, she hadn’t said anything to alert him, at least she didn’t think she had. ‘You made me jump,’ she laughed nervously. ‘I was just chatting to Avril.’

  He didn’t seem very interested, and gave only a nasal grunt as, going to the kettle, he set about making himself some Lemsip.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said to Avril. ‘Where were we?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Avril answered dryly. ‘But I’m presuming you can’t carry on now.’

  ‘No,’ Sonya responded. ‘So when are you coming down?’

  ‘Hopefully next weekend, unless I have to fly back to LA.’

  As sweetly as she could Sonya said, ‘Don’t you dare go back to the States without coming to see us first. I mean it. Don’t you dare.’

  Laughing, Avril said, ‘OK, I’ll try not to. Now, I have to go or I’ll be late.’

  ‘Just one last thing,’ Sonya cried. ‘How did it go between Carla and John in Zanzibar? Did they end up getting it together, or …?’

  ‘Oh, they did,’ Avril confirmed. ‘But they’ve got a few things to straighten out before they go any further. Namely Richard.’

  Sonya’s heart turned over. ‘Is she going to see him?’ she asked.

  ‘She’s supposed to be, but don’t ask me when. Now, I really do have to go. Give my love to everyone, and I’ll do my best to come next Friday.’

  After she’d rung off Sonya sat Mark down in a chair and carried on brewing his Lemsip. She wasn’t sure what to make of Carla seeing Richard, though what was concerning her more at that moment were those letters of Richard’s that had gone missing. She wondered if they had any bearing on what she’d found out, and decided that there was a very good chance they did, though exactly how was beyond her limited powers of deduction. That was why she needed Avril to take charge. Avril always knew what to do in a crisis, and whichever way Sonya looked at it, all she could see was them standing right in the middle of a colossal crisis with only her being aware of it.

  Having Eddie’s cute little face and fluffy body trotting along after her wherever she went was definitely one of the best parts of being home. She’d missed him even more than she’d realized, and the slobbery, tail-thumping welcome he’d given her had amply demonstrated how much he’d missed her too. He’d never been one of those sulky dogs who liked to punish their owners for going away. He was just ecstatic to discover she hadn’t left him for good, then content to return to their normal routine, which for the first couple of days had involved a lot of long walks, cuddles by the fire and drinks at the pub with Graham and the rest of their neighbours.

  Now it was time to go back to London and Eddie was standing in Carla’s bedroom doorway, his food bowl in his mouth, which he’d very helpfully brought up the stairs for her to pack along with everything else. Since he had another bowl in London, this was pure theatrics, guaranteed to get him an extra hug and maybe even a biscuit, and after receiving both he settled down in a watchful bundle, making sure she didn’t move anywhere without him.

  Tomorrow would be the first time she’d been into the office since returning from Zanzibar, as she’d come straight down to Somerset from the airport, while the rest of the unit had taken a long weekend break too. Now she was extremely eager to get the next programme under way. They were due to fly to Athens in the middle of February, and though the script was more or less ready they had yet to cast it, and firm up all the complicated scheduling and travel arrangements that their trips entailed. At this moment she was working on the assumption that John would be directing. However, all the discussions they’d had about this programme had taken place before Zanzibar, and though he’d said it was her call on whether they could continue working together, she had a horrible feeling he was going to tell her he’d decided to opt out anyway. If he did, it would be a disaster in every way, which was why she couldn’t really imagine him doing it, but since there were no guarantees she intended to let him know as soon as possible that she wanted them to carry on working together, at least for the rest of the series.

  Regarding their personal relationship, though she was still certain she wanted it, now she was back she was even more determined to put some closure, as Avril termed it, on her relationship with Richard. During a few moments together on the plane she’d told John that was what she intended to do, and his response, though guarded, had suggested he thought it a good idea. Which was more than she could say for Graham, who’d seemed delighted to hear about her and John, despite ‘this little hiccup’, but hadn’t understood at all why she needed to see Richard just to confirm it was over.

  ‘I’m probably being old-fashioned,’ he grunted, ‘but people in my day never really went in for all the angst-airing you go in for now, and sometimes I think you all get a bit too involved with the why, when the what next can be so much more therapeutic, not to mention enjoyable.’

  Carla had laughed at that. ‘You’ve probably got a very good point,’ she told him, ‘but this is something I feel I have to do, not just for my sake, but for John’s too, because he needs to be as sure as I am that I don’t have any lingering feelings for Richard.’

  ‘And you really don’t think you have?’

  ‘Well, I don’t suppose they’re all completely dead, and I’ll always wish it hadn’t ended the way it did, but there’s nothing I can do to change that, it just might help to understand it.’

  ‘What’s to understand?’

  ‘Well, for one thing, why he’d never discuss it. Not once did he ever agree to see me to explain what happened …’

  ‘But Carla, my dear, you know what happened. He had an affair with Chrissie, got her pregnant and left. How on earth’s he going to explain that when his actions have already said it all, and when no-one’s ever been able to explain love anyway? Which throws up how hurtful some of what he says might be to hear.’

  ‘But much less so now than it would have been at the time,’ she responded. ‘So maybe it’s a good thing he wouldn’t speak to me earlier. Anyway, I’d quite like to talk to him about the way things have been since, you know, all the emails and what they were really about. Was it both of us being unable to let go? Or is there really something holding us together?’

  ‘You still think there might be?’

  She shook her head. ‘Not really. Though it certainly felt like it at the time.’ She sighed. ‘There’s so much I’d like to find out.’

&nb
sp; And she supposed she would once she got Richard to agree to see her. So far though he was proving extremely reticent, saying it would only hurt them both, and make the parting so much more difficult than it already was. In many ways she was tempted just to accept what he was saying and forget it, but in others she just couldn’t let him get away without answering at least some of the questions he’d left dangling these last few months.

  Right now though, as she prepared to go back to London in the morning, she was more concerned about John, and how it was going to be when she got there. Since he was about to start editing at a facility house in Soho she knew she wasn’t going to see much of him, and when she did everyone else would be around, which was why she’d started toying with the idea of inviting him to dinner one night, at the ménage. OK, it would be jumping the gun a bit, if she didn’t manage to persuade Richard to see her, but did that really matter, when she was already so convinced that her feelings for John were much stronger than any she might still have for Richard?

  ‘I don’t know, Eddie,’ she sighed, looking down at him. ‘It’s all very confusing, when really it should be easy. Let Richard go, move on with John. There. That’s all I have to do …’

  Turning abruptly at the sound of a sharp noise outside, she felt her heart begin to pound as Eddie’s back arched and he started to growl.

  ‘What is it?’ she whispered, looking across the room at the dusk-filled window. ‘Is someone out there?’

  Eddie continued to growl, then, running to the window, he hiked his front paws up on the sill and stared out. He was still growling, but his tail was wagging, so Carla edged closer and silently prayed that nothing horrible was out there.

  ‘What? What is it?’ she said, as he started to bark. Then, to her relief, he cranked it up to the high-pitched tone he always used when he spotted someone he knew. Even so her heart was banging against her ribs as she moved in behind him and peered cautiously down into the garden.

  Everything was exactly as it should be. Shed over to the left, two spades and a fork propped up against it. Washing line empty, twirling gently in the wind. Trees, tall and looming, branches stirring, their shadows merging into night. Back gate closed to the lane, ivy growing over it. There didn’t seem to be anyone there, and Eddie had stopped barking, so whoever it was must just have been walking past.

  Eddie looked up at her, eyes bright, tail still wagging.

  ‘Was it Dumbbell?’ she said, stroking his head. ‘Is that who you saw?’

  Jumping down, he bounced across the room, picked up his bowl and swung it from side to side.

  Carla laughed. ‘Yes, I think it was Dumbbell,’ she said, going to fuss him. ‘You old romantic, you.’ Looking back at the window she felt herself shudder, then chuckle, as she thought of the story Fleur and Perry had brought back from their trip to the States. ‘Well,’ she said to Eddie, ‘whoever it was out there, I think we can rule out the CIA, come to knock off Fleur and Perry for having contact with aliens.’

  Eddie’s expression was curious.

  ‘That’s what they said,’ Carla assured him. ‘But there aren’t any aliens around here, are there? No matter what Fleur and Perry say. Or ghosts. Or strange women. Because everything’s got a logical explanation in the end, you just have to find it – or, in Richard’s case, force it.’

  Chrissie was staring down at an open drawer, full of its usual bits and bobs, though for some reason it didn’t seem to contain the rope Richard liked to use when they made love. It was always here. In the chest next to the bed. It was an obvious, and handy place to keep it, though it was true they hadn’t used it in a while. However, she was certain it had been there the last time she looked, and the only reason she could come up with for its disappearance now was one she didn’t want to get into. If she did, it could mess up all the good results she’d been achieving with her therapeutic medicines and counselling.

  Closing the drawer she perched on the edge of the bed, tensing herself, as though waiting for the panic to come. Instead, she felt only the calm, logical urge to search the other drawers to see if it had fallen down the back, which she did, but it wasn’t there either, and now she was starting to perspire.

  She’d been hoping, with the help of a little wine, and some naughty magazines, to surprise Richard tonight with the kind of treat he must surely be dying for. But if she was reading this correctly he’d taken the rope somewhere else, which could only mean to someone else, the way he used to take it to her place from Carla’s, right back at the beginning. Later, he’d kept a supply at her flat too, but when he’d first started cheating on Carla …

  She was panting. Fast, short, sharp breaths, then long, steadying cool ones. It was OK. There’d be another explanation, and she was a fool to start listening to suspicions that she knew very well were a Trojan Horse for paranoia. Just because the rope wasn’t here in their room didn’t mean he’d been using it in another room with Elinor, the nanny, or in any other place with any other person. All those visits he made to the library, the BBC, NBC, and countless other TV and radio networks, were for research. She knew that. They had nothing to do with sex, nor was he really going to hotels, or other women’s apartments, or even secluded spots in the park. He was doing exactly as he said. Checking details, trawling memories and catching up with old friends. They’d even entertained a few lately, because she’d been well enough to cope, and he’d been pleased to invite them. So thinking he was involved in illicit affairs was only her imagination, because he’d assured her time and time again that he was willing to wait until she was ready. OK, for a highly sexual man that would be hard, but she believed totally in his love, and though he had a history of disloyalty, she had only to look at the way he’d stood by her during this very difficult time, always remaining patient, never being anything but tender and understanding, even crying at times when he saw her confusion and despaired of ever being able to help her, to make her know how much she meant to him. So he’d never put her sanity in jeopardy again by betraying her. He’d fought too long and hard to pull her out of the depths to risk putting her back there now.

  But the rope wasn’t there, and even if she managed to fight off the paranoia, she had to be careful of denial, because no matter how easy it might be to pretend she didn’t know it was missing, it was. So, she owed it to herself, and all the hard work she had done, to confront him with the question of where he had put it.

  ‘What do you mean, it isn’t there?’ he said later, distracted until then by the mail he was opening.

  ‘It isn’t there,’ she repeated, looking at him with strong, crystalline blue eyes, though inside her heart was pounding her resolve to pulp.

  ‘Then I don’t know where it is,’ he told her.

  ‘Well, if I didn’t move it and you didn’t move it, who did?’ she demanded.

  He blinked in surprise. It was unlike her to be this firm, though he didn’t appear put out, more curious, and even impressed. Then slowly he started to smile. ‘I have to ask,’ he said, softly, ‘why were you looking for it?’

  She felt her cheeks grow hot, as, unable to stop herself smiling too, she said, ‘I just was.’

  He looked at her with such a knowing expression, and with such obvious pleasure at what this might mean, that they both started to laugh. ‘I’ll tell you what,’ he said, dropping his mail on the table, ‘Ryan and I’ll go and take a look, won’t we, sweetheart?’ and, sweeping the baby out of her playpen, he carried her up the stairs.

  Chrissie listened, tense with dread that she might hear his footsteps go somewhere else before they went into their room, somewhere like Elinor’s room, where he would find the rope and quickly transport it to its usual place. But they didn’t pause until they were right overhead, when she even heard the drawer open, while he chatted to Ryan. Then Ryan screeched and he laughed, and before she knew it he was back in the sitting room, holding the rope in one hand and their daughter in the other.

  ‘It was caught up at the back,’ he said.


  Raising her eyes from the rope to his face, she felt such relief sweep over her that for a moment all she could do was smile. Then she started to laugh, and, throwing her arms round him and Ryan, she kissed them both, and told herself firmly not to be so absurd, of course it hadn’t been in his pocket. It had been exactly where he’d said it was, tangled up at the back of the drawer, because that sort of thing happened to rope, and besides, if he wanted to use it elsewhere all he had to do was buy more, so what an idiot she was to think that their little supply was being shared with anyone else.

  Chapter 22

  IT HAD NEVER crossed Avril’s mind, when she’d decided to start looking deeper into Richard Mere and what he might be about, that she’d find herself having to deal with the kind of shock she was dealing with now. Her mind was still reeling from it, and though part of her was ready to panic, she was holding herself tightly in check for fear of doing, or saying, the wrong thing, because if she was right about any of this then she didn’t even want to think of what it was going to mean for Carla.

  Sighing heavily, she shook her head and clasped her hands over her face. Nothing, but nothing, had prepared her for these horrendous suspicions, which was why she’d set this time aside today, free of clients, free of phones, to try working it all through again, to see if she ended up with the same horrifically disturbing conclusions.

  First she wanted to go back to exactly when, and why, she’d begun to feel uneasy about this cyber-seduction, which was hard, when she’d never really approved, but she finally settled on that peculiar visit Richard had made to the cottage one Sunday, when Graham’s wife had spotted him coming out. Of course they still didn’t know for sure whether or not it was him, but hadn’t it been around that time that Carla had first begun her fruitless search for his letters? It was also, Avril was certain, some time around then that she’d found Valerie’s thesis in a mess in the wardrobe – the very same thesis that Carla had found the page of a letter in, a letter they all presumed was to Richard.