The Longing

by Jane Asher

  ‘Hey, Jules, don’t take me seriously. I’m only joking! What’s going on with you?’

  ‘He loves me, Harriet.’

  Her friend hadn’t called her ‘Harriet’ ever since she could remember, and the formality of it was chilling.

  ‘Well, great. Good for you. It’s always nice to have someone after you. But he hasn’t said this has he? I’m sure they’re not allowed to, you know. Doctor-patient relationship and all that – he could be struck off. Jules?’

  ‘No, you don’t understand. He really loves me, desperately. And I love him. It’s the most important thing in my life now. It’s extraordinary. I knew it some time ago, you see, but now it’s time to do something about it. I’m going to have to leave Michael, of course, and then I’ll be free for Anthony. It’s all terribly special.’

  She wore a gentle, serene smile, and it was this, more than what she had been saying, that suddenly brought home to Harriet the fact that Juliet was serious. ‘Jules, what is this? Look at me – this is weird. What about the baby? I can’t believe you’re really telling me this. This should be the most wonderful time of your life; you’re having the baby you’ve always wanted; Michael adores you and is as thrilled about the baby as you are; and now you’re coming out with all this rubbish. Whatever this stupid doctor has said to you, you must forget it, right now.’

  ‘Oh Harriet, you just don’t begin to understand,’ smiled Juliet. ‘There isn’t a choice in this – there isn’t a decision to be made about forgetting it, not forgetting it. He’s been making moves ever since I first went to the clinic, and he doesn’t want to wait any longer. I have to be with him. You see I can’t be complete until I am. Don’t look so worried, it’s just something beyond your experience, that’s all.’

  ‘Don’t see him any more. Jules – I mean it. This is very important. You must not see this guy any more. You don’t need to go back to the clinic now, just keep checking in with your midwife until it’s time for the delivery. Keep well away. Are you listening to me? I don’t know what the hell’s going on in your head, but this craziness could really screw things up for you.’

  Juliet laughed and put her hand on Harriet’s. ‘No, no, no—’

  ‘Juliet,’ Harriet went on, ‘just one thing I beg you; don’t tell anyone else about this. I expect your emotions are completely messed up at the moment. All the hormone treatment and stuff they’ve been giving you – just think what you were always like before your periods – you were hell on earth – well, this is just an extension of that, I reckon. A sort of antenatal fever. You do know you’re talking complete crap, don’t you? But some people aren’t going to understand all this, you could get yourself into big trouble, you know. Now, Juliet, I want you to tell me, seriously, has this guy said anything to you? Anything at all?’

  ‘He looks at me,’ smiled Juliet.

  Ah, thought Harriet, there’s the rub.

  ‘So this is entirely something you’ve decided for yourself, is it? Even if there’s a grain of truth in it, you’ve exaggerated it, my dear, I can tell you that for nothing. This guy has been mildly chatting you up and you’ve got it all out of perspective.’ Harriet knew she was talking too fast, but she felt a desperate urge to get through to her friend, to penetrate the viscous barrier of self-deception that she could now see was covering Juliet like an invisible caul. ‘You’ve invented all this; you must be able to see that, surely. I don’t know why, but obviously something has tipped you over the edge, old girl, and your neurons have got a bit crossed or whatever. Jules, look at me – where have you gone? What’s happening?’

  ‘How foolish I am,’ said Juliet. ‘Of course I should have realised you wouldn’t understand. How could someone who’s been abandoned by her husband possibly appreciate how I can be so very much loved by this beautiful man? I sympathise with your jealousy, Harriet, but there’s no need to treat me as if I were as stupid as you are.’ And with that she stood up from the kitchen table and calmly made her way out of the flat.

  In an elegant conference room in the Intercontinental Hotel eighteen children dressed as chickens were standing in a line awaiting the press. Each of them held a large card with one letter boldly inscribed on it in red, spelling out along the line from left to right: ‘CENTRE FARM CHICKENS’. Andrea stood well back from the line and eyed it through narrowed, critical eyes. The words bobbed uncomfortably up and down with the varied heights of the letter bearers, and Andrea conferred with her assistant, Jennifer. ‘It’s not too good, is it? It’d look much better if the letters were all on the same level. Couldn’t you get them all the same height?’

  ‘You said get kids between four and twelve so I did. I thought you wanted a good range. I could easily have ordered them by height, if you’d said.’

  ‘Shit. Never mind. I think they’d look better in order of height then, don’t you? D’you think the words should go up from the left or down? Which is more positive?’

  ‘Well, chicken is our operative word, isn’t it? So maybe that should be highest. On the other hand the client might feel the brand name shouldn’t be any lower than the product. How about high each end and lowest in the middle?’

  ‘Try it. But quickly.’

  Jennifer clapped her hands and in the best authoritative tone she could muster shouted at the children. ‘OK, everyone, we want you to make a new line. Shortest in the middle and bigger each end, so you sort of dip in the middle. OK?’

  Jennifer wasn’t used to dealing with anyone under eighteen. The bemused children made a game effort to shuffle themselves about into the required new order, but it was quickly apparent that the milling throng was incapable of finding its own redesigned format, and Andrea impatiently stepped forward and began to manhandle them into position, briskly exchanging their letters in an attempt to keep the order intact. This proved to be easier said than done, as no sooner had she placed two or three of them together in ascending footage, than one of the younger ones would inevitably start wandering about and confusing the measurements, until Andrea was horrified to find that she had left herself with no discernible line – and no readable words – at all, and that if she didn’t sort something out pretty quickly, the press would be greeted by a sea of aimlessly wandering chickens. She decided to abandon the swooping arrangement and concentrate on a simpler pattern of highest on the left, reading in descending order to the right.

  Tallest over here,’ she barked, wishing she could pinion each child to the floor as she moved them, ‘and give it the “C”.’

  She had six positioned in a reasonably ordered line and was just moving the seventh into position, when out of the corner of her eye, she saw a fluffy wing shoot up in the air from the ‘E’ standing second in line.

  ‘Can you keep still a moment, please,’ she called over to it, ‘it’s really hard to get this organised and have a good look at it if you keep fiddling about.’

  But the wing stayed in the air, and some muffled words came from its owner.

  ‘Oh, for goodness sake,’ Andrea muttered irritably, ‘what is it? I can’t hear what you’re saying.’ She moved across to the number two, who was tightly gripping an ‘E’ with one wing and still holding the other in the air.

  ‘Please, Miss,’ said a small voice from within the white feathers, ‘I need the toilet.’

  ‘Jennifer!’ shouted Andrea. ‘Please take this child to the Ladies. I thought you’d done all that?’

  ‘I did,’ countered Jennifer, moving briskly forward in her smart navy suit, brown bob swinging, to collect the child, ‘but you did say to make sure they all had plenty to drink so we didn’t get any problems like last time, and I think some of them have drunk masses of orange squash. I knew this would happen. Now, listen children,’ she raised her voice as she turned to confront the other chickens, ‘are there any more of you who want to go to the loo, because it’s now or never, and we haven’t got much time.’

  Six more wings shot in the air, and Jennifer hurriedly escorted the feathered troupe out of the
conference room, while Andrea tried to arrange the remnants into order.

  The lavatories proved to be up two flights of stairs. Jennifer’s competence at dismantling just enough chicken costume to allow for their use was strained to its limit, and when two of the inhabitants proved to be boys, she almost despaired. She managed to persuade a grudging male attendant in the cloakroom next door to cope with them, then returned to the female flock awaiting her in the Ladies. By the time she had undressed and dressed each one and then indulged their insistence on washing their hands slowly and carefully with soap from a reluctant dispenser, and drying them under the single electric blow drier, nearly twenty minutes had passed.

  She returned to the ground floor to find the press already there, holding glasses of wine in one hand and briefing packs in the other, looking rather disinterestedly at a haphazard line of ruffled chickens bearing the mysterious words: ‘CTR FAM CKENS.’

  ‘Oh no,’ she heard one of her party of birds say in dismay from out of a yellow felt beak, ‘they’ve started already. We’ve missed it!’

  One of the others began to cry. Jennifer squatted down beside the whimpering bundle of polyester feathers and whispered at it that if it would just stop crying and be a good little chicken it could have a hag of sweeties at the end of the afternoon. As she stood up again, pleased at the apparent success of this simple strategy, she saw a smartly dressed blonde woman walking across the deep pile red carpet towards her.

  ‘Oh hello,’ Jennifer greeted her, ‘have you come for Centre Farm? Do help yourself to a press pack from the table. We’ll be starting the presentation very soon now.’

  ‘Are you Andrea?’ the woman asked, smiling at her.

  ‘No, I’m Jennifer. Andrea’s just over there – in the blue suit. I’m sure she’ll be happy to see you. You are from. . .?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. I’ll wait until she’s free. Thank you.’

  ‘And then just as I was about to start the video presentation this ghastly woman came up to me and calmly told me you and she were in love and going to set up house together. Not exactly what I was hoping to hear at the first promotion for an extremely important client, I can tell you. I had to hand the whole thing over to Jennifer – who, as you know, has about as much talent for presentation as a gnat – and take the bloody woman out into the corridor. I’d be grateful if you could keep your screwballs away from me in future. That is, if she is a screwball; I have to say I’m not at all sure. She was horribly convincing.’

  Andrea hadn’t even bothered to remove her coat, but had accosted Anthony as soon as she entered the house, bearing down on him with a breathless and furious account of her extraordinary encounter with Juliet.

  Anthony looked shocked, and grasped her hand in his as he answered. ‘Oh Christ, Andy. This is a nightmare! I had hoped I’d scotched this one. I did tell you about this woman, didn’t I? You do remember that I told you about her? I knew she was a bit odd, but I must say I hadn’t foreseen anything like this. She phoned me up yesterday and was rattling on about the weirdest things.’

  ‘She phoned you up? What for?’

  ‘Well, this. For all of this. For what she told you.’ He put down the Evening Standard he had been reading and sat forward in his armchair.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  There wasn’t any point. You know I have plenty of traumatised patients and they—’

  ‘Yes, maybe, but you don’t have plenty of patients with whom you’re madly in love and going to live with and going to fuck – or already have fucked, perhaps? Yes, of course, silly me, why am I assuming this is all fantasy? You have, haven’t you? You have fucked her. Good, was it?’

  ‘Oh Andy, for God’s sake, shut up. Don’t be pathetic. I’m very sorry she ruined your presentation but she’s obviously sick and you really can’t blame me for it.’

  ‘Why not? You obviously encouraged her or she wouldn’t be thinking this way in the first place.’

  ‘Bollocks. I’m not enjoying this, you know. This is all a complete and utter fantasy.’

  ‘How did she know about me then? How did she know where to find me?’

  ‘For God’s sake – I must have talked about you, I don’t know, when I was in theatre or something. Probably told her about your work. It would have been easy for her to— look, Andy, we’ve had this before, haven’t we, and laughed about it? This one is just a bit more over the top, that’s all. I’ve even had to tell her husband.’

  ‘You’ve what?’

  ‘Well, I had to. She was telling me all sorts of crazy things, Andy, and nothing I could do would put her off. It was really strange. Everything I said just sort of bounced off her, and she just listened to me in that calm way, as you said, and then went on spouting all her nonsense. I had to tell him – supposing she’d gone home and repeat—Well in fact I know she was going to – I know she was going to repeat all this to him and then what sort of trouble do you think I’d have been in? The woman needs treatment.’

  ‘God, this is so humiliating. You’ve been discussing her infatuation or obsession or whatever completely behind my back. Ugh! It’s so revolting, it makes me creep. This affects me too, you know. She’s dangerous. You should have told me.’

  Anthony suddenly felt frightened. Not only had he had to put up with a ridiculous scene on the telephone from a woman he was finding it increasingly difficult not to hate, but he’d also had to cope with a jealous husband followed by a disbelieving and accusing girlfriend. It was all unnerving him considerably, and he had a horrible feeling that Andrea was loving every minute of it; using her knowledge of his need for her to make him beg, plead, cling. How was it that she always managed to get the upper hand in this sort of situation? He was the one being chased by another woman; it should make him feel desirable, sought after. He tried to muster the manly forcefulness he needed, but heard himself whining instead of sounding masterful.

  ‘OK, that’s it. Think what you like. This is a time when I could really do with your support, you know, but if you want to make a fight out of it, go ahead.’

  Just then the telephone rang. Andrea was relieved to have an excuse to move, not knowing otherwise how to extricate herself from a scene she’d had no intention of making when she’d thought everything through on her way home from the hotel. She had imagined herself as the patient, understanding companion, sophisticated enough to treat the ludicrous allegations of the blonde with the contempt they deserved. Bitter unreasoning jealousy and anger had overwhelmed her during the conversation with Anthony and taken her completely by surprise. But, once started, she knew this emotional reaction gave her an intriguing power. For now she had got full juice out of it, so the phone had rung at the perfect moment to avoid weakening and ending up with a soppy scene of forgiveness on the sofa. There was a long way to go before she would be ready for that. As she walked over to take the call, she decided to pull herself together and use a cool approach for the next phase.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Oh, hello, Andrea, are you still there? This is Juliet. Can I speak to Anthony please?’

  Andrea threw the receiver down on the table. It skidded across the white shiny surface, slid off the edge and hung dangling from its curly cord. ‘It’s your lover,’ she spat at Anthony, ‘go fuck yourself.’

  Michael and Anna were walking through the grey landscape that surrounded her flat. With her was the pager that the police had given her to ensure she could always be reached in the event of there being any news, and she reached into her pocket, pulled it out and checked for the third time that it was on.

  ‘OK?’ said Michael, putting an arm round her shoulders and giving a little squeeze.

  ‘Yes, OK. It’s on. I can’t help feeling nervous, though. I always think they’ll forget I’ve got it and try to phone and I won’t be there, and then what would they do?’

  ‘Of course they know you’ve got it. That’s exactly why they gave it to you. We won’t stay out long, I promise. I just want to get you out of t
hat flat for a few minutes, that’s all. We’ll walk twice around the building and then go back, OK?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, all right.’

  Michael looked at the colourless stretches of deserted and filthy concrete that surrounded them. The only sign of life was a group of three boys of about twelve who were leaning on the pillars in the shadowed space underneath the block of flats, watching Michael and Anna silently and belligerently. Michael thought idly of asking them why they weren’t at school, but quickly judged better of it. Anna had told him of the gangs of youths that tended to roam the buildings, children as young as ten or eleven among them, dealing in drugs or indulging in petty crime, frightening the elderly people into barricading themselves in their homes, and making the lives of the other inhabitants as they came and went a miserable gauntlet-run. He looked at the boys, imagining, as he so often did when he watched children, that one of them was his son. What chance would such a son have, starting from here? What possible reason could Michael give to persuade him to go to school, when every probability was that, even in the unlikely event of his leaving with any decent qualifications, the chances of employment were minimal? What sort of life had they led up to now, these boys, to produce the expressions of jaded, cynical unhappiness that he saw etched into their faces? He remembered sitting in his comfortable armchair at home and reading in his comfortable middle-class newspaper of children of four or five, part of the growing so-called underclass, who had lived the whole of their short lives left alone for hours at a time in a world of TV and video. When handed a book, they would turn it over in puzzlement, literally not knowing what it was for or how it worked. Michael thought of the times his father had tried to get him interested in books that he himself had enjoyed as a child: books like Emil and the Detectives or The Wind in the Willows. Michael had scoffed at him and damned them, with all the authority of his eight or nine years, as boring and old-fashioned. It was only recently that such moments had started to come back to him, filling him with a sweet sad nostalgia and a desperate wish to be able to go back, to climb on his father’s knee and read about the adventures of Ratty and Mole or Emil, and to see the smile on his father’s face. How much he had taken for granted. These children would never be given the chance to be so dismissive; they were virtually unteachable, and would grow up to become as unhappy and inadequate parents as theirs had been before them.