So she picked up after the fifth ring.
‘Fiona Barnes,’ she said. She had a scratchy, rough voice from a life of chain-smoking.
Silence on the other end of the line.
Fiona sighed. She should get a new phone, one with caller display. At least then she could see when Leslie was calling and leave the rest.
‘Who is it?’ she asked.
Silence. Breathing.
‘You are starting to get on my nerves,’ said Fiona. ‘You obviously have some problem with me. Perhaps we should talk about it. Your strange approach is not going to get us any further, I fear.’
The breathing became heavier. If she had been younger, Fiona might have thought it possible that she had caught the eye of someone who was now satisfying a primal urge as he listened to her voice on the phone. But as she had turned seventy-nine in July that seemed rather unlikely. Nor did the breathing seem to suggest a sexual stimulation. The caller seemed excited in a different way. Stressed. Aggressive. In extreme turmoil.
It was not about sex. What was it about then?
‘I’m hanging up,’ Fiona said, but before she could make good on her threat, the other person had already interrupted the call. Fiona could only hear the monotonous beeping of the phone.
‘I should go to the police!’ she said angrily, slamming down the phone and immediately lighting a cigarette. But she was afraid that the police would fob her off with excuses. She had not been verbally abused, showered in obscenities or threatened. Of course everyone would understand that repeated silences on the phone can also be considered a threat, but there were no clues as to who the caller might be. This case was so extremely vague that the police would not try to trace the calls. In any case, no doubt the caller was clever enough to use only public payphones and not to use the same one each time. People today had gained experience from detective series on TV. They knew how to do things and which mistakes to avoid.
What was more …
She stepped over to the window again. Outside it was a wonderful, sun-drenched October day, windy and clear-skied, and Scarborough Bay lay there, flooded with a golden light. The deep azure-blue sea was rough. The waves had shining white crests. Seeing this view, anyone would have been in transports of delight. Not Fiona at this moment. She did not even notice what was in front of her window.
She knew why she was not going to the police. She knew why she had not told anyone yet, not even Leslie, about the strange calls. And why, for all her worrying, she kept the whole story to herself.
The logical question of anyone hearing about it would be: ‘But is there someone who might have something against you? Someone who you could imagine might be involved in these calls?’
If she was honest, she would have to say ‘yes’ to this question, which would inevitably lead to further questions. And required explanations from her. Everything would come to the surface again. The whole of the horrific story. All the things she wanted to forget. The things that Leslie, more than anyone else, should not hear about.
If however she played dumb, claimed that she did not know anyone who could have something against her, who would torment her like this, then there was also no point in telling anyone about it.
She took a deep drag on her cigarette. The only person to whom she could open herself was Chad. Because he knew in any case. Maybe she should talk to him. It would also be a good idea for him to delete the emails she had sent him. The attached files in particular. It had been careless of her to send them via the internet. She had thought she could risk it because it was all over so long ago. Because it was all so far behind her, behind both of them.
Maybe she had been mistaken about that.
Perhaps she should also remove the extensive material on her computer. It would not be easy for her, but it was probably better like that. After all, writing it all down had just been a hare-brained idea of hers in the first place. What had she hoped to achieve? Some relief? To clear her conscience? No, it seemed instead as if she had hoped to work something out, for herself and Chad. Perhaps she had hoped to get to know herself better. But it had not helped. She did not understand herself any better than before. Nothing had changed. You could not change your own life by analysing it afterwards, by trying to find a form for it that would relativise events. Mistakes were still mistakes, sins still sins. You had to live with them; you would die with them.
She stubbed out her cigarette butt in a flowerpot and went into her study, to boot up her computer.
2
The last viewer was the worst. He had not stopped complaining once. The parquetry floor was worn, the door handles looked cheap, the windows were not double-glazed, the rooms were awkward shapes and badly planned, the kitchen was not modern, the view of the little park behind the house was charmless.
‘Not exactly a bargain,’ he said angrily before he left, and Leslie had to force herself not to bang the door shut behind him. It would have done her good, but the lock was not in the best of conditions -like so much else in the house, to be frank – and the violent action might have been too much for it.
‘Lousy bastard,’ she said from the depths of her heart. Then she went into the kitchen, lit a cigarette and turned the coffee machine on. An espresso was just what she needed now. She looked out of the window at the rainy day. Of course the park did not look especially appealing in this grey drizzle, but this tree-covered patch in the middle of London was the reason why Stephen and she had fallen in love with the flat ten years ago. Yes, the kitchen was old-fashioned, the floors creaked, many things were a little shabby, but the flat had charm and character, and she asked herself how anyone could not see that. Swanky so-and-so. But they had all complained. The old lady who was the second person to look around had complained the least. Perhaps she would take over the tenancy … Time was short. Leslie was moving at the end of October. If she did not find anyone by then to take over her current tenancy agreement she would have to pay double, and she would not be able to afford that for very long.
Keep your nerve, she told herself.
When the phone rang, she was about to ignore it, but then she reconsidered. It could be another viewer. She went to the hall and picked up.
‘Cramer,’ she answered. She found it more and more difficult to say her married name. I should use my old name again, she thought.
A shy quiet voice on the other end of the line said, ‘Leslie? It’s Gwen here. Gwen from Staintondale!’
‘Gwen from Staintondale!’ said Leslie. She had certainly not expected a call from Gwen, her childhood friend. It was a pleasant surprise. She had not heard from her in ages. It might have been a year since they had seen each other, and at Christmas they had only spoken briefly on the phone, not much more than the usual best wishes for the new year.
‘How are you?’ asked Gwen. ‘Is everything all right? I phoned the hospital first, but they said you had taken holiday leave.’
‘Yes, I have. For three whole weeks. I have to find someone to rent out the flat, and get ready for the move, and … oh yes, and I had to get divorced. Since Monday I’m on the market again!’ She listened to her own voice. She certainly did not feel as comfortable about it as she sounded. It was astonishingly painful. Even now.
‘Oh, my goodness,’ said Gwen in dismay. ‘That … I mean, we all saw it coming, but somehow there’s always a hope … How do you feel?’
‘Well, we’ve been separated two years now. So nothing has really changed. But it’s still a turning point in my life, so I’ve rented a new flat. This one is too big in the long-term, and anyway … somehow it has too much to do with Stephen.’
‘I can understand that,’ said Gwen. She sounded a little uncomfortable when she spoke again. ‘I … I feel completely tactless now, but … I really didn’t know that you had just got divorced, otherwise … I mean, I wouldn’t have …’
‘I’m fine. Really. So don’t beat around the bush. Why are you calling?’
‘Because … now, I hope you won’t be offe
nded, but … you should be one of the first people to hear: I’m going to get married!’
Leslie really did not know what to say for a moment.
‘Married?’ she then echoed, thinking that the amazement in her voice must hurt Gwen, but she simply had not managed to conceal her surprise. Gwen was an old maid if anyone was: an old-fashioned girl living in isolation in the countryside … Gwen, for whom time seemed to have stood still, to have stopped in a past century where a young lady would wait at home until a gentleman rode up on his horse and asked for her hand … Marry? Just like that?
‘Sorry,’ she said quickly. ‘It’s just – I always thought you weren’t all that keen on marriage.’
That was a lie. She knew that Gwen had pined for the stories which she devoured in romance novels to become true in her own life.
‘I’m so happy,’ said Gwen. ‘So unbelievably happy … I mean, I had just about given up hope of still finding someone, and now I’ll be married this year! We thought the beginning of December would be nice. Oh, Leslie, suddenly everything is … so different!’
Leslie had finally got a grip on herself.
‘Gwen, I’m overjoyed for you!’ she said sincerely. ‘Really, you have no idea how much! Who is the lucky man? Where did you meet him?’
‘He’s called Dave Tanner. He is forty-three years old, and … he loves me.’
‘How wonderful!’ said Leslie, but once again there was a slight feeling of amazement. Her first thought had been of a considerably older man, perhaps a widower, a sixty-year-old with no great expectations, who as much as anything was looking for someone to take care of him. She was ashamed to think it, but she really could not imagine anything other than a selfish reason for a man to get involved with Gwen. Gwen was a dear woman, sincere and warm-hearted, but there was little about her to make her desirable in the eyes of a man. Unless that person was only looking at her inner character, which in Leslie’s experience was something few men did.
But perhaps I’m completely wrong, she thought.
‘I’ll tell you everything,’ said Gwen, whose voice was trembling with joy and excitement, ‘but first there’s something I want to invite you to. On Saturday we’re going to celebrate a kind of … engagement, and it would be the most wonderful present for me if you could be there!’
Leslie thought quickly. The journey north was too long and difficult just for the weekend, but luckily she was on holiday. She could drive up on Friday morning and then stick around for three or four days after the weekend. She was from Yorkshire. She had grown up in Scarborough and it had been far too long since she had last been there. She could stay with her grandmother, who would be glad to see her. Of course she did not really have the time, as she had to find a tenant soon. Yet it would be nice to pay the past a visit again. And if she were honest, she was bursting with curiosity about the man who wanted to marry Gwen (her friend Gwen!).
‘You know what, Gwen, I think that could work,’ she said. ‘A divorce is … well, anyway, the trip would distract me and that wouldn’t be a bad thing. I could come tomorrow. Would that be all right?’
‘Leslie, you don’t know how happy that makes me!’ cried Gwen. She sounded different to how she used to, optimistic. ‘By the way, the weather here is great! It’s all working out so well.’
‘It’s raining here in London,’ said Leslie. ‘Another good reason to take the trip. I’m looking forward to seeing you – and Yorkshire!’
No sooner had the two women stopped talking than Leslie’s phone rang again. It was Stephen this time.
As every time he spoke to her now, he sounded sad. He had not wanted the separation or the divorce.
‘Hi, Leslie. I just wanted to see … you aren’t here again today, and … well, is everything OK?’
‘I took three weeks’ holiday. I’m moving house and searching like crazy for someone to take on the tenancy of our flat. You don’t by any chance want it?’
‘You want to leave our flat?’ asked Stephen, shocked.
‘It’s just too big for me on my own. And also … I need a new start. New flat, new life.’
‘It’s not normally as easy as that.’
‘Stephen …’
He must have heard the growing impatience in her voice, because he immediately conceded. ‘I’m sorry. That’s none of my business, of course.’
‘Right. We should really try to keep out of each other’s lives. It’s hard enough that we cross paths so often at the hospital, but apart from that our lives shouldn’t touch at all.’
They both worked as doctors in the same hospital. Leslie had thought about looking for a new job for a long time, but she had found nowhere else that would be as ideal as in the Royal Marsden in Chelsea. And then her stubbornness had been awoken: should she also sacrifice her career to the man who had cheated on her and deceived her?
‘Excuse me, Stephen, I’ve got to go,’ she continued coldly. ‘I have to sort out a bunch of stuff, and tomorrow I’m driving up to Yorkshire. Gwen is getting married and the engagement party is on Saturday.’
‘Gwen? Your friend Gwen? Married?’ Stephen sounded every bit as astonished as Leslie had been when she heard the news. She thought, how humiliating that must feel for Gwen. Everyone to whom she tells the news is flabbergasted and can’t hide their surprise. Hopefully she doesn’t fully grasp what hurtful thoughts are concealed by the surprise.
‘Yes, she’s over the moon. And wishes for nothing so much as to have me there for her engagement. And of course I’m keen to meet her sweetheart.’
‘How old is she now? At least in her mid-thirties, isn’t she? It’s about time she left her father and started her own life.’
‘She’s just very attached to him. After all, she only ever really had him, so perhaps the close relationship is quite normal.’
‘But not all that healthy,’ replied Stephen. ‘Leslie, nothing against old Chad Beckett, but it would have been better if he had given his daughter a firm push out into her own life a long time ago, rather than let her wither away on that isolated farm. It’s nice that the two of them have a good relationship, but a young woman needs more in her life. Oh well, it looks like things are moving now. I hope the guy she’s hooked is all right. She’s so hopelessly inexperienced.’
‘I’ll know more by Saturday night at the latest,’ said Leslie, before abruptly changing the topic. Stephen was no longer so close to her that she would want to talk about a friend’s possible psychological flaws with him. ‘By the way, my new flat is quite a lot smaller than this one,’ she said. ‘So I can’t take all the furniture with me. If you’d like to take something, you’re very welcome.’
When he had moved out he had not taken anything with him. He had not wanted anything.
‘I have everything I need by now,’ he said. ‘What should I take?’
‘The kitchen table, for example,’ replied Leslie tartly. ‘Otherwise it’s going to the dump.’
The beautiful, somewhat wobbly old wooden table … their first joint purchase, back when they were students. She had been so fond of it. But it was at this table that he had admitted his slip-up – his short idiotic affair with someone he had met by chance in a pub.
Afterwards nothing was the same as it had been before. To this day Leslie could not look at the table without remembering with a knot in her throat the scene which had been the beginning of the end. The candle burning. The bottle of red wine. Darkness outside the window. And Stephen, who absolutely had to get it off his chest.
At times in the last two years she had thought that everything would improve once the table was gone. And yet she still had not managed to get rid of it.
‘No,’ said Stephen after a moment’s silence, ‘I don’t want the table either.’
‘Well then,’ said Leslie.
‘Say hi to Gwen from me,’ said Stephen, and without any further goodbyes they ended the conversation.
Leslie looked at herself in the round mirror that hung on the wardrobe in front of her
. She looked thin and rather weary.
Dr Leslie Cramer, thirty-nine years old, radiologist. Divorced.
The first social event that she would go to after her divorce was, of all things, an engagement.
Perhaps that was not a bad sign, she thought.
Not that she believed in signs. Foolish thought.
She lit her next cigarette.
3
The outside light shone on her as she walked up to him and he thought: Oh my God! She must have spent hours thinking about how to make herself pretty, but as usual the result was just horrific. He suspected that she had inherited the flowery cotton skirt from her mother. In any case, its material and its cut suggested it was from a different, long gone era. She was also wearing a pair of rather inelegant brown boots and a grey coat with an unfavourable cut that, although she was actually very slim, made her look fat. A yellow blouse could be glimpsed underneath the coat. With yellow she had managed to choose the only colour not present in the garish skirt. It meant that when they got to the restaurant and she took off the coat, she would look like an Easter egg.
On the spur of the moment he abandoned the plan to drive to Scarborough with her. It would be too embarrassing if they met anyone who knew him. Some country pub or other would be better … He wracked his brains but could not think of one – and it had to be cheap. As always he was completely broke.
She smiled. ‘Dave!’
He walked up to her, forced himself to envelope her in his arms and give her a peck on the cheek. Luckily she was so naive that until now she seemed not to have missed frantic petting or even sex. He knew that her favourite books were cheaply produced little romances and suspected that his reserve corresponded pretty much exactly to the romantic image she had already created in her head of her future husband. Sometimes he found her almost touching. And then he would ask himself again if it was all worth it.
‘Do you want to say hi to Dad before we go?’ she asked.
He pulled a face. ‘I’d prefer not to. He never hides the fact that he doesn’t really like me.’
The Other Child Page 3