by Peter James
'Need to see it with shoes,' he called, watching her in the mirror, razoring away the last of the foam. 'And your bag.'
Ten to seven and he was dressed, dabbing at a fleck of blood on his chin. On the bed were laid out the dress, the shoes, the bag, the necklace, the earrings. Alec was still asleep.
'OK, fine, good. Wear your hair up.' He cupped her face in his hands, kissed her lips lightly, and was gone.
* * *
Life's a bitch, and then, thought Faith, it's not that you die, you just start, without even noticing it, to become someone you never wanted to be.
All those dreams you had at school, all those glossy lives you looked at in magazines, of people who seemed to have it all. But she had never minded that, never envied them. Her father, a gentle, uncomplaining man, had been bedridden throughout her childhood, and she'd worked since as far back as she could remember to help her mother keep the family. Weekends had been spent on the living-room floor stitching thumbs to mittens for the local glove factory where her mother worked part-time, and every morning, from the age of twelve, she'd left home at a quarter to six to do a paper round.
Faith had never been ambitious for wealth. All she had ever sought to do with her life was to be a caring person, and to try to make a difference to the world. There was no Grand Plan, it was just her simple philosophy. She had always hoped that when she had children, she could teach them to respect the world around them, try to give them a happier childhood than she'd had, and to make them decent people.
But now, at thirty-two, her life was as remote from her modest origins as it was from her dreams. She was married to a plastic surgeon who was a seriously wealthy perfectionist, and they lived in a house that was absurdly grand. She knew she ought to count her blessings, as her mother told her. But she and her mother would always see things differently — she hoped.
She decided to avoid the chemist in the village, and drove instead to Burgess Hill, the nearest town, where there was a large Boots.
As she waited in the queue at the car-park barrier, she stared out at the cloud-laden sky, could almost feel it pressing down on her. She tapped a fingernail against her front teeth, aware that she was shaking slightly, her nerves jangling. That indefinable dark fear that was part of her depression, along with slack energy and the occasional, very frightening sensation that she wasn't quite inside her body, never stayed away for long. She was glad she kept the Prozac capsules in the bathroom cabinet. If she had had them in her bag she would have taken one now.
There was just one car in front of her, driven by an old woman who had pulled up too far from the machine and was having to open her door to reach out and get the ticket. Faith glanced at the Range Rover's mileometer: 8.2. She mentally doubled it for the return home. Then doubled it again for the return trip to the station this evening, to catch the train to London for the medical dinner with Ross: 32.8 miles that would have be accounted for — Ross checked the mileage every day.
To justify this trip to him, she stopped at Waitrose and did a major groceries shop. It was easier this way — best to find ways to sidestep the mines and booby traps Ross planted in her daily life. That way there was some kind of peace, at least in her waking consciousness if not in her troubled dreams. Dreams in which the same theme recurred endlessly.
When did my life with Ross start to change?
Had there been a point in the past twelve years at which Ross, the kind, caring, fun-loving young houseman she had loved to death had turned into the vile-tempered monster whose arrival home she dreaded? Had that side of him always been there? And, in those early, heady days, had her love for him, or the prospect of a glamorous life, blinded her to it?
Or had he masked it?
And why was it only she who could see it? Why couldn't her mother, or her friends? But she already knew the answer to that. Ross never gave them the chance — he could charm the birds out of the trees. Even though the medical world had been able to do nothing to ease her father's slow, painful and undignified descent into death over twenty wretched years, her mother had remained in awe of doctors. She adored Ross — was even perhaps a little in love with him herself.
Sometimes Faith wondered if the fault lay with her. Did she expect too much of her husband? Did her depression cause her to see only the bad and ignore the good? Because even now there were happy moments and good days with him, although in the end his temper or his criticism usually soured them. She had tried on this recent holiday in Thailand, as if it had been a last attempt at salvaging their marriage and getting back to how they had once been. She'd given it her best shot, but in the end could feel nothing for him.
There was a borderline in life. You could push people up to it, but then no further. Beyond that everything changed irrevocably. Airline pilots called it the point of no return: that critical moment when you were too short of runway to abort take-off, when you had no choice but to become airborne. That or crash. And that was where she was now. That was how far Ross had pushed her.
In those early days Faith had loved him so much she'd let him do anything. She had believed in him so completely that she'd endured the pain and discomfort of six operations, and he had transformed her from being plain into someone, well, less plain. And in a way it was flattering. As his reputation began its rapid ascent, she had enjoyed being taken to conventions where he had pointed out the reshaping he had done on her lips, eyes, mouth, nose, cheeks, chin and breasts. That, at least, was one of the bonuses to have come out of twelve years of marriage, the huge boost to her confidence, which was now being almost as thoroughly undermined.
Hidden in an attic bedroom they rarely used, she kept a pile of books and magazine articles about marital problems. She'd read and reread Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, and even left it lying around the house in the hope — or, more likely, delusion — that Ross would pick it up and read it. Also, recently, she'd discovered an Internet chatline for abused wives. Her head was full of advice. And plans.
Life can be good again, she thought. Somehow I'm going to find a way to make it good — for Alec and for myself.
In a sudden fit of extravagance in the supermarket, she bought a couple of frozen lobsters — Ross's favourite — for their dinner tomorrow, some spicy chicken wings, for which Alec had acquired a taste in Thailand, as well as his favourite caramel-crunch ice-cream. Then she remembered to buy a couple of tins of Ambrosia rice pudding with sultanas for her mother, who was coming to babysit tonight.
Oh, Ross, why do I still keep trying to please you? Is it just to buy a few moments of peace? Or do I delude myself that if I'm sufficiently nice to you, you'll release me from this marriage, and allow me to take my son with me?
She turned the Range Rover into the drive, past the grand stone balls topping the pillars and the smart brass sign, Little Scaynes Manor. The approach to the Elizabethan house was stunning, down the tree-and-rhododendron-lined gravel drive, up to the gabled, ivy-clad facade — her heart used to flip with excitement each time she drove in.
It was a grand place, no question, in a beautiful location, close to the foot of the soft, rolling hills of the South Downs. Ten bedrooms, drawing room, library, billiards room, a dining room that would seat thirty, a study, a huge kitchen with oak planks on the floor, and an acre of utility rooms. Yet none of the rooms — except perhaps the dining room — felt too big when it was just the two of them on their own. The house was just small enough to be homely, but large enough to impress Ross's colleagues and the occasional reporter or television crew.
There were fourteen acres of garden and grounds. Once, when it had been a true manor house, several hundred acres of farm and downland had belonged to it, but over the past couple of centuries previous owners had gradually sold off outbuildings and parcels of land. What remained was more than enough, though: fine lawns, a mature orchard filled with apple, pear, plum and cherry trees, a lake and dense woodland badly in need of coppicing. To visitors who came for an evening, or a weekend, it was idyllic.
Yet there was an atmosphere about the place that prevented Faith from feeling entirely comfortable, enhanced by the narrow, heavily leaded windows with glass that seemed black from the outside, the timbered exterior, the impossibly large and ornate chimneys — and the rumour that a woman had been bricked up inside one. She had been the mistress of the man who had built the place, and, as local village lore had it, could be heard hammering away at night, trying to get out. Faith had never heard her, although she had an open mind on ghosts, and felt bricked up in some way here herself. Sometimes, entering the house when it was empty, the large gloomy hallway, the sharp tick of the grandfather clock at the foot of the carved stairs, and the slits in the helmet visors of the armour Ross collected gave her the creeps big-time.
Today it was OK. It was Wednesday and the cleaning lady was here: Faith could hear the whine of the vacuum-cleaner up in one of the bedrooms. She was glad Mrs Fogg was in, but equally glad that she was upstairs: although the woman was an excellent cleaner, she could talk for England, mostly about how it was only a series of disasters that had led to her being forced to take this job, that she wasn't really a cleaning lady, not by a long shot.
Speedily, Faith lugged the groceries into the kitchen then, before unpacking them, removed the pregnancy-testing kit from the Boots bag and squinted at the instructions.
Above, Mrs Fogg was still Hoovering.
Faith removed a small plastic pot, a pipette, and the plastic test disc from the box, carried them into the downstairs cloakroom, and locked the door. She urinated into the pot. Then she drew some urine into the pipette and, following the instructions carefully, released five drops of urine onto the indent in the disc.
The nausea was back and her head felt warm as if she were running a slight temperature.
A red minus sign.
She was praying for a red minus sign.
She looked everywhere except at her watch. She looked at the horse prints on the wall, the old-fashioned brass taps on the brilliant white sink, the emerald wallpaper, the pile of National Geographics on the shelf by the seat. She noticed a spider's web up in a corner and made a mental note to tell Mrs Fogg. Then she looked down and raised the stick.
She had to look at it twice to make sure, then checked the instructions.
Minus!
A red minus sign filled the central window of the disc. And, with her relief, the nausea was gone.
4
Oliver Cabot was distracted by several things tonight, but principally by the woman at the next table, who had caught his eye twice and looked as bored with her companions as he was with his.
He had accepted the invitation to this dinner at the Royal Society of Medicine, hosted by the pharmaceutical giant Bendix Schere, not out of love for his profession, or admiration for his host's company — an organisation that he despised. Rather, he was interested in keeping up to speed with every advance being made in medicine, and staying in the frame in a profession of which he was becoming daily more mistrustful. But right now this woman, on the far side of the round twelve-seater table behind a jagged skyline of wine bottles and water jugs, with her streaky blonde hair framing her face — a cute face, pretty rather than classically beautiful — was reminding him of someone and he couldn't think who. Then at last he got it.
Meg Ryan!
'You know, Oliver, it took us twelve years to develop Tyzolgastrine.' Johnny Ying, Vice-President, Overseas Marketing, a Chinese-American with a Brooklyn accent and spiky hair, probed his meringue basket. 'Six hundred million dollars of research. You know how many companies on earth can afford to spend that kind of dough?'
Tyzolgastrine was being hailed as a revolutionary ulcer treatment. It had recently been listed by the World Bureau of Ethical Medicine as one of the hundred most important medical advances of the twentieth century. Not many people knew that the World Bureau of Ethical Medicine was wholly funded by Bendix Schere.
'You didn't need to spend that kind of money,' Oliver remarked.
'How's that?'
With a wry smile, he said, 'You didn't discover tyzolgastrine, you ripped it off. You only started marketing it after you'd wasted four hundred million dollars trying to bury the concept of an antibiotic ulcer treatment. You don't have to bullshit me.'
Meg Ryan was listening to a lean, bald man who was talking enthusiastically while she nodded. Her body language told Cabot that she had not taken to this man one bit. He wondered what they were discussing. And as he did so she caught his eye again and immediately looked away.
* * *
'Normally aspirated — normally aspirated, right? — she'll give you two-eight-five BHP, but what I did, I took the heads to a firm in Tucson, had them polish them, skim an extra two thou…
Faith had to look at his place-card to remind herself of his name. Dighton Carver, Vice-President, Marketing. He had been talking about car engines for the past fifteen minutes. Before that he had talked about his divorce, his new wife, his old wife, his three kids, his house, his power-boat — more cubic inches of testosterone and grunt — and his workout programme. He had not yet asked her a single question about herself. Her companion on the right had introduced himself with a strong hand-pump at the start of the meal, and had then proceeded to talk to the woman on his right throughout the five courses they'd had so far.
Her dessert lay untouched on her plate. The queasiness she'd felt this morning had returned and she'd barely eaten anything. This was one of those occasions that Ross enjoyed and Faith hated. She liked the company of individual doctors, but en masse they seemed to unite in an elitist way that always made her feel an outsider.
Ross, the son of a Gas Board clerk, now a celebrated plastic surgeon, was being courted and feted by his profession. His name was there on the printed menu, on the left side of the sheet, opposite the lamb noisettes in onion marmalade, opposite the Batard Montrachet '93 and the Langoa Barton '86. It was featured alphabetically on the same column as the Queen's gynaecologist and a host of other distinguished medics. He was one of the guests of honour: Ross Ransome MS, FRCS (Plast).
In spite of everything, she felt proud to see his name in print on that menu, knowing that, in her own small way, she had contributed something towards his success. At Ross's insistence she'd had elocution lessons to change her suburban London accent into a more refined one. For years she'd dutifully read her way through the lists of books Ross had prescribed for her: classics, the great poets, Shakespeare, the major philosophers, ancient and modern history. At times she had felt like Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady — or, as Ross would have preferred, Shaw's Pygmalion (also ticked off the list). He wanted her to be able to hold her own at any dinner table.
Many times she had wondered privately what it was about her that he had fallen in love with. He'd changed her face, her breasts, her voice, and re-educated her. And sometimes she had wondered if maybe it was just that: he had been attracted to her because she was malleable. Maybe he'd seen her as a tabula rasa he could shape into his perfect woman. Maybe that's what the control freak inside him needed.
He was watching her now, seated diagonally from her across the large round table, next to a man with a perfect tan and even more perfect teeth, who was talking to him intently, underlining his points with a sideways slice of his hand through the air. On his right was a woman with big, peroxided hair, who'd had one face-lift too many. Her skin gave the illusion of defying gravity altogether, rising upwards from her facial bones and muscles to give her mad, staring eyes, while her mouth was stretched into a permanent humourless smile. No chance of Ross taking anything other than a professional interest in her, Faith thought.
A pity.
Casting her eyes around the room for familiar faces, Faith saw that a man she'd noticed watching her before was looking at her again. She glanced at Ross, but he was immersed in his conversation, then looked back at the stranger. Their eyes met, and he smiled. Flattered, she looked away, feeling like an excited child, and suppressed a guilty grin. It
had been a long time since she had flirted with anyone and it felt good, darkened only by the shadow of Ross and the anger he would take out on her later, if he saw.
She glanced back and the man was still looking at her. She lowered her eyes hastily this time, aware that she was blushing.
'Then what I did was I raised all the tolerances — suspension, shocks, brakes — we ripped out the whole lot and started again. Actually we used a racing matrix…'
Once more she tuned out her companion, then cast a furtive glance at the next but one table. Her admirer was engrossed in conversation with an Oriental man on his left, and she had a chance to study him. He was about the same age as Ross, mid- to late-forties, she guessed, and something else set him apart from everyone else, but she couldn't immediately decide what.
He sat straight-backed, tall and lean. He wore hip, wire-framed glasses and his face, beneath a tangle of grey curls, was serious and intellectual. He had a bigger, less perfect bow-tie than the neat little black satin numbers that seemed to be the uniform standard here, which gave him a rather reckless, louche air.
Who are you? she wondered. I really like the look of you.
He might be a scientist — maybe working in the research and development division of their pharmaceutical hosts.
The bang of the gavel snapped her out of her thoughts. A liveried toastmaster pronounced, 'My lords, ladies and gentlemen, please be upstanding for the loyal toast.'
As they sat down, Ross pulled a tube from his inside pocket, unscrewed the lid and shook out a large Havana. Now he watched her with a dry, humourless smile that said, 'I see you looking at him, sunshine. I see you looking at him.'