The Delusionist

by Rachel Mathias

  From his messages alone, the tension was palpable and contrasted so sharply with our happy times that I felt lost, grappling for reassurance in a vacuum that offered nothing more than curt put-downs. Harry was tired and grumpy and not his usual self when we next spoke. By now we hadn’t seen each other for four days and nights and I couldn’t sleep. I’d look at when he was last online, fret about why he was up so late. Finally, he rang, and I answered much too quickly. It was 10.25 am.

  "I tried calling you last night"

  "I know baby, I was out with my Dad and Neil"

  Neil was by all accounts his father’s lapdog and IT fix-all.

  "Where did you go?"

  "Out for dinner"

  "Was it okay?"

  "Not really, no. Nothing’s okay right now babe. You’ve just got to bear with me."

  "Things will work out. You were up late. Trying to calm him never worked. I don’t know why I thought it would."

  "What do you mean?"

  "WhatsApp – last seen 3.30 am"

  "I’ve told you about that babe. What’s going on with you?"

  "Nothing. Sorry, I was just worried about you."

  "Look, it might be a few more days until I we can see each other, with all this stuff going on. I can’t tell you how long, but you need to bear with me."

  "You said that already."

  There was the familiar sound of a ring pull, the pop and fizz of a can being opened.

  "Thirsty?"

  "Jack Daniels and coke."

  "Harry, it’s half past ten in the morning."

  "Is it?" Then in a more muffled tone I heard "Oi mate, you got a light?"

  Harry didn’t smoke. I let it go. This wasn’t a normal situation, so normal behaviour couldn’t be expected.

  The phone rang again a few minutes later, before I’d had time to gather my thoughts. The ringtone put a smile on my face and banished the tension from my shoulders because it was my Charlie Dimmock friend and soulmate.

  “Sal, what a lovely surprise. How are things?”

  “Fine, well, not entirely, if I'm honest.”

  “Go on.”

  “Have you got a minute?”

  “I’ve got plenty of minutes. Next student isn’t till this afternoon. Knock yourself out.”

  Sally hesitated. “Okay so I did what you suggested.”

  “What did I suggest? Sorry, I can’t even remember.” I thought back to our last conversation. It seemed like an age ago.

  “About asking Sylvia, the woman who lives at the end of the road in the big house, you know, to be my spy.”

  “Oh, okay, that was brave. What happened?”

  “She did it. She was delighted to do it in fact. Said lots of stuff about women sticking together, swore herself to secrecy without even being asked. It was great, just having that conversation, feeling supported.”

  “I’m sensing a but.”

  “Yes, there is a but. It sounds a bit worrying.”

  “Worrying how? God I feel bad now for suggesting it. I didn’t actually think anything would come of it, just reassurance for you I guess, and for me.”

  “Obviously she couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation, couldn’t even hear Graham clearly, but it was more the body language. She said he was pacing up and down, hands through his hair, seemed really stressed. Raised his voice saying something like ‘I know. I’m doing my best. It won’t be for long.’ And hung up the phone without saying goodbye, then rang back to apologise, said he missed her, thought about her all the time.”

  “What are you thinking? I mean, it could be his daughter, she’s 14, might have been giving him some grief?”

  “That’s possible, I suppose it could have been Chloe, although it seems a bit tempestuous and romantic for a father daughter chat. It’s just, when he came back, and this was obviously before I heard back from Sylvia, he was all jolly and saying how he’d had a lovely chat with Jack about his school project.”

  “No mention of Chloe?”

  “No mention.”

  “Maybe don’t read too much into this. It is hearsay, after all.” I was deeply regretting my suggestion of involving a third party, but it was too late now.

  “There is one other thing.”

  “Go on.”

  “Apparently the ex has bought tickets for Disneyland next month. Happy families and all that.”

  “Hang on, didn’t you say he’d lost his passport? Wasn’t that the reason he couldn’t go away with you?”

  “Yes – and he says she’s applying for a new one for him.”

  “Fair enough. Look Sally, I know it’s hard, but what choice do you have but to go along with it? I mean, unless you want a big screaming row, which I can’t imagine leading anywhere. If you want to be with him, well, this is him, and you have to either trust him or have it out with him and let things take their course.” I felt I wasn’t making any sense.

  “I tried to broach the subject, but he was vile to me. Told me it was none of my business, that his life was complicated enough, and then went out to the pub on his own. I just sat there in tears until he came back. Then he told me he’d been sitting there with all my friends and had the shock of his life, when his wife’s brother walked in.”

  “So…”

  “Exactly. I asked him if he’d said hello and he asked me if I was some kind of idiot. How could I not realise that was a problem for him.”

  “He didn’t want word to get back to her?”

  “I assume so, and he is now saying he’ll never go back to that pub again because it’s too risky.”

  “Who does he think he is? Lord Lucan?”

  “And he won’t hold my hand in the street anymore. Told me off the next day when I tried to. Said no more PDAs. I felt so ashamed.”

  “How dare he treat you like that?” It was a rhetorical question, to which I knew the answer. People only treat us badly if we allow them to, and if there was one lesson I had learnt from the Archers, as well as my own life, to a lesser extent, it was that abuse can take many forms besides physical violence.

  “Then the next minute he’s all sorry and loving and making me laugh. It’s so weird. I feel so miserable. One minute I think he’s got to go, and the next, he seems back to his old self and things are better again. But I am feeling so down. I feel unworthy, ugly, not good enough, and then just when I want to give up hope, everything changes and there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.”

  “Then the light goes out, right?”

  “It’s all about whether or not you make the grade, and more often than not, you don’t.”

  “Just like that.”

  “They call it gas-lighting. It’s a powerful tool, hard to prove, no bruises.”

  “Oh God, how did we get here Rach?”

  I noticed the we and felt instantly guarded, because where she was and where I was were clearly, in my view, completely different places. Harry would never try and control me like Graham did. He was completely open about his past, and certainly wasn’t hankering after an ex who wasn’t an ex. Things couldn’t have been more opposite.

  “I don’t know, Sally, but I think it sounds like you need to get rid of him.”

  “I know.”

  This was the first time she had let that idea stay on the table, and we spent a minute or two sitting with it, in our different houses, sitting on our different sofas, and I remembered the opening line of Anna Karenina – something about all happy families being alike and all unhappy families being unhappy in different ways.

  Chapter 13

  Whatever people say I am, that’s what I’m not

  Harry and I got through our week apart, talking late into the night and sending each other YouTube videos of songs that spoke about us, or at least I did. Macy Gray The time of my life, Carly Simon Nobody does it better. He sent me Would I lie to you and a song by Arctic Monkeys called Fake Tales of San Francisco. I know now that the album it’s from is called Whatever people say I am, that’s what I’m not. On t
he Wednesday, he Face-timed me again from his house that would soon be in the hands of strangers. It was the family home he’d brought up his children in and it was time to move on. It was too grown up for him, I could see that. And I was excited that he was going to be nearer me.

  On the Friday, he said he couldn’t wait any longer and was coming to see me. Work could wait. The lackeys could handle it on their own for a day.

  I’ll be at New Malden station in half an hour.

  See you there.

  I raced back from walking Cosmo and jumped in the shower, pulling up at the station in my car just in time to see his train arrive. He climbed into the passenger seat, and after the usual “You okay baby?” told me what had happened to him on the way. He spoke without drama or emotion, looking straight ahead, strangely unfazed, with the occasional glance in my direction. With my eyes on the road, I didn’t think anything of it, but I know I wouldn’t have been that calm if it had happened to me. At Godalming station, he had just put his laptop bag down on the bench, when someone asked him if it was the right platform for Guildford. As he spoke to one of the men, his laptop was snatched by the other. He didn’t actually realise he’d been robbed until he was getting on the train, whereupon the scam fell into place. He said he felt stupid, but he had things on his mind and lost all concentration.

  “That’s awful. What are you going to do? Did you report it?”

  “Yes they’re looking at the CCTV already I think. Apparently, it’s happened before and they think they know who the little fuckers are. It’s such a classic MO.”

  “It’s easily done. Such a shame we can’t trust people.”

  “They won’t be able to get into it either. And it’s traceable, so they’ll need to get rid of it quick.”

  “I’m sorry. Horrible start to the day.”

  “I was going to show you the app, baby.”

  “How are you going to manage? How are you going to do your meeting next week without the laptop?”

  “Oh, it’s all on the cloud and it’s all insured. My cards get replaced within 24 hours. There was only about £150 in cash in there.”

  Only? I would have been in bits if I’d lost that much.

  I thought this man is strong and brave and rich and not attached to material things. I forgot about the Mercedes, the Ducati, the Kawasaki and the Rolex, none of which I had ever seen.

  “Actually, there is something.” He had just come off the phone with his Dad. They seemed to be talking all the time now, cooking up plans to rescue the ticketing app in time for the following week.

  “Anything.”

  “If you could get me a few hundred quid out of the bank, my Dad can make a transfer to you online.”

  The logic of this suggestion failed to compute.

  “Why him? Can’t you do a transfer to me online?”

  I don’t think he answered my question, but nothing more was said about providing a bridging loan, so I let it go.

  We spent the day in Putney looking at properties for him to spend a proportion of his substantial rental income on – concierge-serviced apartments overlooking the Thames with gyms, pools and underground car parks. From time to time, there were phone calls to and from the police, giving more details, getting crime reference numbers and updates on the search for the scoundrels in question. I paid for lunch at Carluccio’s – salads and Sauvignon Blanc in the sunshine, while in the back of my mind I pictured where we’d be in a few weeks' time, in the beach bars of the Costa Blanca, sipping sangria in the sunset at restaurants he described in detail that only a regular would remember. What goes around comes around, and I would have my turn. Harry was the very epitome of charm with the estate agents, making each one feel like their property had that special something he was looking for. Effusive in gratitude, he left them smiling and hopeful. He pointed out the flat where he was going to be staying in the interim - a kind of accommodation bridge. Paul Rathbone, godfather to his son and a business colleague of his father’s, had a spare room. We talked about what it would be like when he was living just a few minutes from me, how we could go out to a riverside bar, meet for breakfast at the Putney canteen. I could even do my lessons in his new flat. He wanted me to move in with him.

  Harry, Harry what were you thinking…?

  And from there I think it began to fall apart.

  PART 3

  Chapter 14

  Packers

  Everyone with a teenage daughter knows where they were the morning after the Manchester bombing. I was in my bedroom throwing clothes into my cupboard, unable to process the news, when the phone rang. I flopped onto the bed to answer it.

  “You okay baby?” It was his usual opener, but he seemed genuinely concerned this time.

  “Well, I’m a bit shocked. Aren’t you?”

  “Why what’s up?”

  “The news.”

  “Oh that. Well I’m not, to be honest.”

  “What do you mean?” My heart missed a beat, even before he explained.

  “I mean, it was always going to happen. And it makes my product that much more valuable.”

  I stopped in my tracks. I am ashamed that I didn’t just hang up on the spot, finish it, walk away, but I just said: “I can’t believe you said that.” There was a pause before he replied, and he seemed almost as astounded at my disbelief as I was at his lack of concern.

  “Oh, come on baby, you know me. I don’t mean it like that. But I ‘m always looking for the angle, you know I am.”

  “Imagine if your child had been there. Imagine for a second how you would feel if one of your children was killed.”

  And then there was another silence that just made me think I’d made my point.

  I drove Sadie to school. It is only a twenty-minute walk, but driving is an opportunity to be together, to talk facing forwards, without the confrontation that eye contact can imply to a self-conscious teenager. I listened to her talk about terrorism, how incomprehensible it was to her that someone could want to kill children. She doesn’t cry easily, but tears were filling her eyes as well as mine as she spoke.

  It was a sickening coincidence that Harry had his meeting with the FA that day, at which he would demonstrate the workings of the Seatseller app, along with the underlying message that football stadiums around the country would be safe from terrorist attacks if the Association endorsed and enforced this state of the art technology. It wasn’t far from blackmail, and he wasn’t afraid of admitting it.

  I called him back because I hated how we had left things teetering on a precipice. I wanted to coax him down, placate him, show him that I was there for him.

  Meanwhile the removal company was coming to empty his house ahead of the new family moving in. When he answered, I couldn’t hear anything in the background. I wondered if he was outside, or in the bathroom, but then there would be the sound of traffic, or an echo. I hesitated for a second before I said anything, in case I provoked a bad reaction.

  “It’s very quiet.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The packers are quiet. Are they just wrapping cotton wool in feathers or something?”

  “They’re upstairs. I’m in my office.”

  “How does it feel?”

  “How does what feel?”

  “Getting all your stuff packed up in boxes, giving your home away?”

  “It feels good! I’m going to get four and a half grand a month for it. That’s good, huh?”

  “But don’t you feel sad? I would.”

  “What are you saying baby?”

  I stuttered some weak reply, but I must have given away that I just thought something wasn’t right. Someone or something had taken the blindfold off and I was dazzled. When he was at my side, in my house, kissing me, loving me, making me tea, trimming the hedge, stacking the dishwasher, I questioned nothing, but on the phone, with the pauses and the questions and his strange reactions to things, I was walking on eggshells. His voice was slurred. Alarm bells rang in my head but I have pu
shed them aside and soldiered on with blind trust.

  The journey from New Malden to Godalming takes about forty minutes. There was no traffic and I would be there in good time, although I hadn’t asked him what time he was leaving for the meeting. I could have told him I was coming, but I didn’t. I could have stayed at home, but I didn’t. Our awkward phone calls were plaguing me. Now, only a face to face chat would do.

  I told myself I was going down there because I wanted to see for myself what was happening, wanted to see him there, in the house he said he was in, the real-life version of the picture he had painted.

  But I went there without telling him I was going, because at some level I didn’t trust him anymore

  It was a long and hard forty minutes. With every second that went by I wondered what I would find, and the thought of what he might do or say if he knew I was coming kept my heart in my mouth for the whole journey. Adrenaline pumped around my body, surging in my stomach like a tidal wave with nowhere to go. I felt sick, my head pounded, and voice in my head said turn back. Pulling off the A3, I almost headed home, out of the firing line and back to where I was expected to be, but the need for answers was too great. I did two loops of the roundabout and followed signs to the station. He lived near the station.

  I knew the name of his road but had forgotten the number, despite trying to memorise it when he took me on a Facetime tour of it during one of our early phone calls. I think at the time I was too busy scanning the rooms for evidence of a woman, because that’s how these things always end in books isn’t it – he turns out to be married…

  “Can I come and see you?” I texted him. “I’m in Godalming.”

  “But baby I’m not there anymore. I’m in London.”

  The phone rang. It was him, his voice edgy, anxious.

  “I’m in London babe. What’s going on?”

  “Where in London? I thought you were at home. You were there less than an hour ago.”

  “What’s this about? I’m at Yo Sushi at Waterloo station. What’s going on with you?”