The High Flyer

by Susan Howatch

  I said: “I’ve changed my mind about that. I don’t want the Porsche to be sitting in the car park when we arrive because Kim will immediately recognise it and realise I plan to bail out, so I’m picking up a hire-car and driving it down tomorrow evening. Tucker will follow in Gil’s car and bring me back.”

  Lewis said after a pause: “I hope young Tucker’s not intending to involve himself any further in your plan.”

  “He accepted a ban from the scene once he knew about the bodyguard.”

  The conversation ceased but Lewis made no move to indicate I should leave. We were in the area of the Rectory’s ground floor known as “the bedsit,” a pair of interconnecting rooms which Lewis had colonised some years ago; his bedroom was in one half of the area, and his sitting-room was in the other. Both rooms were crammed with old-fashioned furniture, photographs of his daughter and her family, religious pictures, icons, a mini-altar, masses of hi-fi, and floor-to-ceiling shelves of books, vinyl records, tapes and CDs. The air was strongly infused with various smells; I could identify not only cigarettes and whisky but the air freshener which the cleaner managed to spray whenever she tricked her way in to dust any exposed surface and reintroduce the threadbare carpet to the vacuum cleaner. I was sitting in an armchair on one side of the sitting-room fireplace and trying not to sneeze. Lewis had just lit a cigarette and we were both nursing glasses of whisky-and-soda. Although his expression was benign, the coolness with which he had spoken of Tucker had put me on my guard, and I was reminded of that poem about the fly which had so graciously been invited into a spider’s parlour for purposes which it had utterly failed to anticipate. Uneasily I shifted in the battered old leather armchair.

  “Last year Eric started coming here to talk to me every now and then,” Lewis remarked at last, “but in fact I haven’t seen him on his own since that evening when we went on to Clerkenwell to dine with Alice and I met you for the first time. I suspect that at present he’s confiding only in his brother.”

  “I understand you and Gil don’t get on.”

  “We have our differences. However, I’m sure Gilbert is a good enough priest to realise that he’s too emotionally involved with his brother to be able to give him the kind of spiritual counselling which Eric would seem to need at this time.”

  “Obviously this is all to do with the fact that Tucker and I are good friends, but—”

  “That’s a subject which Eric apparently doesn’t want to discuss with me and so it’s none of my business. What is my business is this meeting between you and Kim. I want it to go well. I want you to be in the best possible position to make the right decision about your marriage, and that position’s not likely to be achieved if Eric’s tempted to act out in real life a storyline which he would be much wiser to confine to the pages of one of his novels.”

  “Lewis, I don’t know what you’re implying, but—”

  “My dear Carter, you know exactly what I’m implying! Don’t insult both our intelligences by playing the ingénue!”

  “But this is just wild speculation! You can’t have a clue what’s been happening between me and Tucker!”

  “No? I think you asked him, just as you’ve been asking all of us, to give you an opinion on the current crisis, and I think I can imagine all too clearly how he would have responded. It’s extremely traumatic when a man finds himself powerless to protect a woman who’s sought his help, and I’m sure Eric blames himself—even hates himself—for emerging from the scene as a victim instead of a hero. But he doesn’t want to hate himself. He’d much rather hate Kim instead. It would be far easier, far more comforting and infinitely more satisfying.”

  He paused for me to comment but I was unable to speak.

  “His sense of failure, I suspect, is one of the reasons why Eric feels driven to help you at present,” continued Lewis at last. “It’s not the only reason but it’s an important reason. We won’t speak of the other reasons.” And when I remained silent he added briskly: “It would be natural in the circumstances if Eric chose to demonise Kim. But unfortunately this very forgivable psychological reaction is going to make what he says about Kim unreliable—and you don’t need the marital waters to be mud-died in that way, Carter. You need them to be crystal clear.”

  This time the silence lasted a full twenty seconds. It was so quiet in the house that the ticking of the clock on the mantelshelf seemed abnormally loud.

  “Just bear all that in mind when you meet Kim on Monday,” said Lewis. “It’s very important that you meet the real Kim then and not someone else’s psychological projection.”

  I lost my nerve. “Do you think I haven’t realised that?” I stormed at him, although I knew I had been blind to the dimension of reality which he had exposed. “What do you think I am—some kind of brain-dead bimbo bombing along in hormonal overdrive?”

  “I think you’re a vulnerable woman,” said Lewis, not turning a hair. “I think too that deep down you know this, and it’s making you very frightened. But Carter, if you accept your vulnerability instead of denying it you’ll be much better equipped to deal with Kim on Monday—it’ll make you more in touch with your emotions and in consequence more perceptive, more aware of what’s really going on.”

  “What a put-down! How you have the nerve to tell me I must be a vulnerable female in order to make two and two equal four, I just don’t know!”

  “You misunderstand. I said you should recognise your vulnerability because to do so will make you less vulnerable.”

  I swallowed, again unable to speak.

  “And anyway,” said Lewis, “if I have to choose between political correctness and the unvarnished truth, you know very well what choice I’m going to make. Carter, you can certainly be forgiven for not trusting any man at present, but as a Christian I have an absolute commitment to truth. Trust that.”

  My eyes filled with tears. I stood up and stumbled away.

  XIII

  “Hey, Tucker—”

  “Ah, I was hoping you’d phone! Come on out and have a drink!”

  “My liver’s keen for a quiet life. Listen, I’m calling to say I’ve decided to make my own way back from Reigate tomorrow after taking the hire-car to the hotel. The train journey won’t take long.”

  “But wouldn’t it be easier if—”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Why the change?”

  “Got to psych myself up. No distractions.”

  “But seriously, is there nothing I can do?”

  “Light a candle for me somewhere.”

  “But I’ve been doing that all day! St. Eadred’s is a mass of well-ordered little flames!”

  “Oh Tucker . . .”

  “Let me bring you back from Reigate tomorrow. Let me take you out for a non-alcoholic drink tonight. Let me—”

  I hung up and started to cry.

  XIV

  He called back straight away. “Sorry,” he said, “but I’m just so concerned and I keep remembering something Edmund Burke’s supposed to have said. It’s not in any of his writings but there are several versions of the quote around, and the one I like best is—”

  “Edmund who?”

  “Burke. The politician. Don’t tell me you missed out on the entire eighteenth century in addition to a huge chunk of Victorian literature!”

  “What’s the sound-bite?”

  “ ‘All that’s required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.’ ”

  I managed to say: “I’ll call you as soon as I get back to London after seeing Kim,” and without waiting for a reply I again ended our conversation.

  XV

  “Sweetheart!”

  Kim was walking towards me. I was at the hospital. It was eleven thirty on yet another brilliant summer morning. I was wearing slimline navy-blue stretch-pants, a hot-pink skin-tight tank-top and the small silverish cross which I had borrowed from Nicholas’s collection on the night of my melt-down. Kim was wearing a red sports shirt, complete with black designer logo,
fawn trousers and his latest watch acquired on a recent trip to Switzerland. He was carrying a suitcase; his devoted PA Mary Waters had been to the flat soon after the disaster and packed some clothes for him to wear at the hospital.

  “Hi,” I said, sounding as awkward as a teenager on her first date.

  I had spent some time wondering whether or not I should kiss him. I thought I probably should, so as not to arouse his suspicions, but on the other hand a willingness to kiss after all we had been through in recent weeks might have seemed even more suspicious. However, when the moment came, the choice was taken out of my hands. Dumping the suitcase he flung wide his arms and enfolded me in a hug. There was a kiss but it was planted somewhere around my left ear. No chance was given for me to kiss him. I moved from being swept into his arms, crushed against his chest and released in the space of five shuddering seconds.

  “This is really good of you,” he said. “I can’t thank you enough. And sweetheart, before we go a step farther let me say how very, very sorry I am about all the disasters, but I’m going to make amends and turn my life around, I swear it . . . How’s that kid?”

  “Kid? Oh, you mean—”

  “Tucker. Now that I’m better I’m going to write to him to apologise. Is he fully recovered yet?”

  I spotted the trap. “I believe he is,” I said, speaking as if I had only heard news of Tucker through other people. “He’s been convalescing on the Algarve.”

  “So Lewis said. Lewis! My God, what a man! Okay, let’s go, there’s so much to talk about . . . Where’s the car?”

  “Street-parked around the corner.”

  We set off, he steaming happily out of the hospital without a backward glance, I aware of no emotion except a queasy surprise. What startled me was how well he looked. I had expected him to look more haggard.

  “You seem pretty fit,” I heard myself say.

  “Well, it may sound strange, but the enforced rest really did do me good—and I benefited from time without alcohol as well.”

  “So you’re feeling well?”

  “Great!” he exclaimed buoyantly, smiling at me. “That’s why I feel so sure I can get on top of this situation. Lewis said—ah, there’s the car! Wonderful—I’ve missed my Merc! Where are the keys?”

  “Keys?”

  “Well, I can’t drive without keys, can I?” He was laughing at the absurdity, his face radiant with the pleasure of being a free man again.

  “But Val Fredericks said your medication didn’t permit—”

  “Oh, forget the medication! The nurses weren’t checking on me as I was about to be discharged, and since I wanted to be bright and sharp for you I flushed the pills down the lavatory.”

  “You flushed the—”

  “Sure, good riddance to bad rubbish . . . Why, what’s the matter?”

  “Well, I really think I ought to drive—after all, you’re still convalescing—”

  “Nonsense, if I’m well enough to be an out-patient I’m well enough to drive a car! Come on, sweetheart, let’s have those keys—I can’t wait to get going!”

  Knowing myself outmanoeuvred I mutely did as I was told.

  EIGHTEEN

  Almost any aspect of life can give rise to overpowering desires. Eating, drinking, health, exercise, physical appearance, sport, sex, drugs: those are just a few of the areas directly to do with our bodies which can give rise to compulsions and addictionsthat fundamentally affect our whole lives.

  DAVID F. FORD

  The Shape of Living

  I

  I was trying to think clearly, but my thought processes, the ones which dealt with imagination and resourcefulness, appeared to have closed down. My fingers were so stiff that I could hardly fasten my safety belt.

  “It won’t take long to hit the A3,” Kim said, starting the engine. “We just have to head west through Clapham.”

  “But Kim, I was planning to drop down to the M25 and—”

  “The M25? What do you want to go there for?”

  “Well, you see—well, the truth is—well, I had a surprise planned. I thought we could have lunch at that hotel by the Reigate exit. I thought—”

  “That’s a great idea,” he said, pausing to smile at me before he angled the car away from the kerb, “and I like the thought of going back to a place where we were so happy, but not today, okay? Today I just want to get home.”

  “Home!”

  “I’m sorry, what am I saying, of course it’s not home, is it, but in some ways that house still feels like home, particularly as I now own it again—”

  “Kim,” I said, “darling, I don’t want to be tiresome about this, I really don’t, but I just can’t stand the thought of going back to that place, not after what happened.”

  “I thought of that,” he said seriously. “I discussed it with my psychiatrist, and we both felt it would be therapeutic for you to go back and see what a beautiful peaceful place it really is. You don’t want to have to carry around a terrible memory of a dead body in a creepy house, and this way the memory gets to be exorcised—as Lewis would say. God, I must tell you about Lewis. That is one hell of an extraordinary man.”

  “Look, please don’t think I don’t want to spend some time with you—I’m keen to talk, but I’d really, truly prefer it if—”

  “Okay, I’ll level with you,” he said. “I’ve got a surprise planned there. I fixed it with Mary, and she’s organised champagne and smoked salmon sandwiches. As you’ve made this generous gesture of turning up with the car, I thought the least I could do would be to offer you a treat on our arrival!”

  “Ah. Yes. Well, that would certainly be a treat—and one which I never anticipated—”

  “That’s the point about surprises!” he said cheerfully. “One doesn’t anticipate them! Now sit back and relax, sweetheart, and let’s just enjoy being together again . . .”

  We drove off into the traffic of Denmark Hill.

  II

  I did think of insisting that he drop me at the nearest tube station, but I knew that once I had acted in a way which he could interpret as a rejection, my attempt to appear benign about the marital future would be washed up along with all hope of learning the full truth about his past. I did think too of requesting a stop at a petrol station; under the pretext of using the lavatory I could sneak off to the garage payphone to report the complete failure of my plan, but there was no guarantee that the payphone would be near the lavatories and the risk of Kim becoming suspicious was too great.

  As far as I could see, the choice was stark: either I went on in the hope that I could achieve deliverance from all my tormenting speculations, or I bailed out and settled for living in torment. The only reassuring feature of this searing situation was my conviction that Kim would never harm me so long as he believed the marriage could be saved. So provided I did not make some asinine remark such as: “Reconciliation? You’ve got to be kidding!” I hardly needed to fear that I was about to drink my last glass of champagne.

  I told myself that I was rationally satisfied by this sane, sensible conclusion.

  But the trouble was I still felt irrationally scared out of my skull.

  III

  “Now, I want to hear all you’ve been doing, sweetheart,” said Kim, “but right now there are certain preliminary things I want to say so please excuse me if I hog the conversation for a moment.

  “First of all I want to stress how glad I was that you found sanctuary at the Rectory and were even able to share a flat there with that nice girl Alice. (Haven’t forgotten that sexy uniform of hers!) It made a lot of difference to me to know you were being cared for properly after all you’d been through; I’d have worried myself sick about you otherwise. Oh, and of course I understood why you weren’t able to face seeing me or writing letters. You needed time to heal too, Lewis explained all that, and anyway I’d have been no fun to visit when I was drugged to the eyeballs.

  “I know it must seem now as if I’ve never been ill, but I really did get to
the end of my tether. That final scene with Mrs. Mayfield . . . all that business about the balcony . . . I felt—but I’ll get to that later. Suffice it to say that I knew I couldn’t cope with the aftermath of the stabbing— I’d been under stress for too long and my brain just closed down. I confess I did fake a few symptoms of schizophrenia in order to get admitted to hospital, but it was the only way I could cope with reality by that stage. The Maudsley doctors soon realised that the schizophrenia was faked, but they recognised that I did have genuine problems—which is why they’re keen for me to continue as an out-patient even though I’m now basically okay. Well, I don’t mind going back there for a chat every couple of weeks! After all, I can always drop out, can’t I? And I could see that promising to be an out-patient was the best way to extricate myself from that place once I’d decided I’d had enough.

  “Anyway, there I was, not mad but definitely well beyond the end of my tether, when Lewis arrived for his first visit. I was so addled by the drugs that I could only say: ‘I don’t get it—why are you here?’ But he answered straight away: ‘My job’s to turn up from time to time to signal that no matter what happens you don’t have to face it alone.’

  “Then suddenly my memory clicked and I understood. Did you ever see that film Days of Wine and Roses? No, you’d have been too young. Well, Jack Lemmon plays a man who’s sliding down into the dark—into alcoholism, it was, but he couldn’t admit it, he was in denial. Down and down he went but finally he hit rock-bottom and ended up dead drunk in jail. He came to, hung over and humiliated, feeling like death was the softest option available, and then this stranger turned up. It was a very powerful moment, because of course the stranger was the man from Alcoholics Anonymous who had stopped off just to be there and share the pain.

  “Lewis and I didn’t talk much at first. I was feeling too ill. Then the doctors altered the drug cocktail and I felt better, talked more. At last I got sufficiently interested to say: ‘I’m sure there are different types of job in a corporation the size of the Church of England. What’s your speciality?’ And he just said straight out: ‘I’m a retired exorcist.’ Need I say that after that I was hooked?