Another Woman (9781468300178)

by Vincenzi, Penny

  He turned to the phone and called reception: where was his chauffeur?

  ‘In his room, Mr Buchan. Shall I call him for you?’

  ‘Yes please. Tell him to get up here fast and send up some tea, would you?’

  ‘Certainly, Mr Buchan.’

  ‘And have you seen my wife?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Buchan. She went out about half an hour ago. She said she was going for a walk.’

  A walk? Sasha’s idea of a walk was from one department of a shop to another. What the hell was going on?

  There was a knock at the door; it was Brian, the driver. He looked nervous; he was wearing his dressing gown.

  ‘Yes, Mr Buchan?’

  ‘Brian, where the hell is my car?’

  ‘Your car, Mr Buchan?’

  ‘Yes, Brian. You know what a car is? Motorized vehicle, four wheels, engine, that sort of thing. I have a few. Special favourite parked in the courtyard here last night. Any suggestions, Brian?’

  ‘Well, Mr Buchan, I do have one.’

  ‘Well, one is better than none, Brian. Come along, let’s have it.’

  ‘I think Mr Mungo might have it, Mr Buchan.’

  ‘Mungo? Took the Bentley? Brian, I do hope not. For both your sakes.’

  ‘I’m afraid that is what has happened, Mr Buchan. I’m sorry.’

  ‘But why did you let him, for Christ’s sake? And when did he take it and where?’

  ‘Well – he took it last night, Mr Buchan. Very late.’

  ‘Brian, for Christ’s sake why did you let him? You know that car is priceless. And that Mungo drives everything as if it was his Maserati. What was he doing taking it, late at night? He’d had at least a bottle of champagne and God knows how much wine at dinner. Sweet Jesus, if anything’s happened to that car I shall personally drive what is left of it over first him and then you.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Buchan.’ Brian looked as if such a course of action would be welcome.

  ‘OK. Let’s get some sense here. Why did you give him the key?’

  ‘I – didn’t. Well, not at first. He’d had rather a lot to drink as you say, and he said he felt like a drive. I told him he couldn’t have it, no matter what, and he said he’d win it off me. At poker.’

  ‘Oh really? You embarked on a game of poker, with my car as stake. Brian, you are fired. As of this moment.’

  ‘Mr Buchan, of course I didn’t. I said he couldn’t have the car whatever he did. And then he said quite right, Brian, spoken like a man. Let’s have a game anyway. He said he couldn’t sleep. So I said all right, and he went off and came back with some cards and a bottle of Scotch and young Mr Headleigh Drayton.’

  ‘Rufus? So he’s in on this as well.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Buchan. Well, we started and we played for – oh a couple of hours. Then the phone rang. It was reception. They said was Mr Mungo here, and I said yes. He took the call, and he seemed very upset. Genuinely upset. He was very white. He asked me to excuse him and Mr Headleigh Drayton for a moment, and they went outside the door. When they came back, he said “Look, Brian, I absolutely have to go somewhere. It’s a real crisis, I swear. Let me have the car.” He’d left his in London, as you know, and came down with Mr Headleigh Drayton. I said he couldn’t and that I didn’t trust him, told him to get a taxi. He said how was he going to get a taxi at two thirty in the morning in the middle of the country. He did seem terribly upset, Mr Buchan, they both did.’

  ‘Dear me. I suppose they were in tears.’

  ‘Mr Headleigh Drayton was very near tears, sir.’

  ‘Good God,’ said Theo, concerned for the first time at something other than his car. ‘And they wouldn’t tell you what it was about?’

  ‘Well – not really. They said they couldn’t, but they had to get over to see someone, that it was literally life or death. I said they should call an ambulance, but they said they would do less damage by dealing with it themselves. “I swear to you, Brian,” Mr Mungo said, “I swear on my mother’s grave I’m telling you the truth.” Well you know as well as I do, Mr Buchan, he just wouldn’t lie in such a way.’

  ‘No, no, I daresay he wouldn’t,’ said Theo impatiently. ‘All right. So did they say where they were going? Give you any clue? Or say when they’d be back?’

  ‘They said whatever happened, they’d have the car back by this morning, Mr Buchan. But that was all. And I believed them. So I – I let them have it. I’m very sorry, sir. But I felt it was worth the risk.’

  ‘Well I hope for your sake, Brian, that it was. I very much hope so. Oh, incidentally, have you seen Mrs Buchan this morning?’

  ‘Yes, sir. About an hour ago. I saw her going out of the front of the hotel. She had low-heeled shoes on, sir, she looked as if she was going for a walk.’

  ‘The world’s going mad,’ said Theo, ‘that’s what they told me in reception. I’m going back to my room. Let me know the moment they return, Brian.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Buchan.’

  Theo went back to his room, and was about to get in the shower when the phone rang. ‘Brian? What –’

  ‘No, Theo, not Brian. It’s me. James. How are you?’

  ‘I’m about as all right as could be expected under the circumstances. My car, my son and my wife have gone missing, but otherwise everything is normal. They’re not there, are they? Any of them?’

  ‘No,’ said James, ‘no, not as far as I know.’

  He sounded very odd; strained, his voice under tight control. Nerves, Theo supposed; he’d seemed all right last night at dinner.

  ‘Jamie, are you OK?’

  ‘No, not really,’ said James. There was a silence, then he said, ‘Theo, I’ve got to talk to you. Could I come over?’

  Theo had heard those words, in that desperate over-controlled tone, twice before. ‘Sure,’ he said, trying to sound reassuring.

  ‘I’ll be there in ten minutes.’

  ‘Fine. I’ll put the kettle on. Suite 2. First floor. Come straight up.’

  That was an old joke of theirs about the kettle. He ordered some more tea and coffee and sat back to wait, remembering, remembering the first time, thirty years, a whole lifetime ago.

  James had walked in the door, looking terrible. His face was white, drawn, as if he was bleeding internally. He looked a lot older than his twenty-nine years.

  ‘I’ve got to do something terrible,’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean, you’ve got to? If it’s upsetting you that much, don’t do it.’

  ‘I do have to. I don’t have any choice.’

  ‘What sort of something?’

  ‘Finish with Susie.’

  ‘I’ll have her,’ said Theo cheerfully.

  ‘Theo, don’t. Don’t joke about it. It’s not funny.’

  ‘No, I can see that. I’m sorry. Tell me about it.’

  ‘Well – it’s quite simple really. I have to finish with her.’

  ‘But why? I thought you and she were finally getting it together. After all these years.’

  ‘Christ Almighty, Theo, don’t make it worse.’

  ‘Well, why are you going to finish with her when it’s clearly making you so extremely unhappy?’

  ‘Because I’m getting married.’

  ‘Good God, Jamie, who to?’

  ‘Maggie Nicolson.’

  ‘Oh Jamie, Jamie, no.’ Theo was surprised at the depth of emotion in his own voice. ‘Don’t do it. Please. I’m deadly serious, you can’t do that. You can’t.’

  ‘Of course I can, Theo,’ said James. His voice was calmer: it was as if Theo’s reaction had steadied him. ‘I’m going to.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Because – because I want to. Because I love her.’

  ‘Bollocks.’

  ‘Theo, don’t be offensive. Maggie is a great girl. I’m very lucky.’

  ‘Uh-huh. So great you’ve hardly been near her for weeks. Hardly out of Susie’s bed.’

  ‘Don’t be filthy,’ said James wearily.

  ‘I feel filthy.
It’s filthy news. What are you up to, for God’s sake?’

  ‘I’m not up to anything. I’m getting married. Christ, Theo, give me a drink. A very big, very strong one. Then I’ll go and see Susie.’

  ‘Not if I can help it you won’t. This is suicide, Jamie. Suicide of the soul.’

  ‘Yes,’ said James, suddenly. ‘I know. Christ I’m a shit, Theo.’

  And he sat, drinking Scotch after Scotch, turning the glass in his hand, his voice increasingly blurred; and Theo sat listening to him, also drinking hard, trying to grasp what James was saying, what he was going to do, and to work out what he could do to help him.

  In the end, all he could do was support him. James’s mind was made up, irrevocably; he had asked Maggie Nicolson to marry him and she had accepted. Plump, sweet-natured, dull little Maggie, whom he had known for a couple of years now, whose father was the senior consultant gynaecologist at St Edmund’s Hospital (where James was a registrar), who had an undoubted crush on him, whom he had taken out from time to time, flirted with, danced with, and even (James now confessed to Theo) had taken to bed a few months earlier – ‘Don’t look at me like that, Theo, she’s a lovely girl, and actually quite – how can I put it –’

  ‘James, don’t tell me she’s sexy. I can’t bear it.’

  ‘She is. She’s potentially very sexy. I’m – very lucky.’

  ‘So you proposed, did you?’ said Theo. ‘Just like that? Swept off your feet?’

  And ‘Yes,’ said James, ‘yes I did.’ And went on to say that the Nicolsons were delighted, were cracking champagne all over the place, the announcement was going in The Times and the Telegraph in a matter of days, and that Maggie was a lovely girl, she would make a marvellous wife, he was a lucky sod, and Theo had to be happy for him.

  ‘And what’s in this for you?’ asked Theo, in a pause in this soliloquy. ‘Apart from gaining a wonderful wife, I mean?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said James.

  ‘Of course you bloody well do. Old man Nicolson’s bought you, hasn’t he? Look at me, Forrest, and tell me he hasn’t. You can’t. Come on. What’s he offered you?’

  Jamie was silent. He stared at the floor for a long time. Then he suddenly got up and rushed to the bathroom. Theo heard him vomiting. He went in after him, and sat with him, proffering him tissues, towels, glasses of water.

  ‘You silly bastard,’ he said equably, ‘here, come on, come back into the other room. Look, I don’t give a shit what you do, Jamie, as long as you’re happy. But you’re not going to be.’

  ‘I might be,’ said Jamie.

  ‘No, Jamie, you won’t.’

  ‘Well I have to try to be. That’s all.’

  ‘What exactly is it? That he’s giving you?’

  Jamie walked into the sitting room again and sat down heavily on the sofa. He didn’t look at Theo. Finally he said ‘His full support, as he puts it, for Senior Registrar at St Christopher’s Cambridge. That means a hell of a lot. Almost a guarantee, you could actually say. The medical profession is just as open to politics as any other. And the same thing for junior consultancy at Teddy’s when he retires from the NHS in three years’ time. Honestly, Theo, I listened to him, and it was like Christ in the wilderness. Temptation beyond endurance. My whole life set up for me. Success, money, status – guaranteed. I’m getting bloody nowhere, Theo. And all I have to do is marry a sweet girl I’m terribly, terribly fond of. Who will make in any case the perfect consultant’s wife. Which Susie wouldn’t.’

  ‘Of course she would. She’d be very good at it, chatting up all the patients.’

  ‘No she wouldn’t. Too frivolous. And she is so appallingly extravagant, she needs a seriously rich husband. Which I’m never going to be. It just can’t work, Theo. Not ever. And she’s putting a lot of pressure on me. We had a terrific row about it only two days ago.’

  ‘How convenient for you. Or rather for Maggie.’

  ‘Oh, go screw yourself, Theo. I really can’t even think about marrying Susie. Ever. Anyway, sitting there, at the table at Simpsons, with a lot of claret poured down my throat, I was suddenly looking at a golden future. And I just couldn’t turn it down. Of course it was all very subtly done. I mean not like I’ve made it sound at all. But it was made very clear that none of it would happen if I didn’t marry Maggie.’

  ‘And you want it that much?’

  ‘Yes,’ said James, sounding slightly surprised. ‘Yes, I suppose I must do. Bloody hell, Theo, you’ve no idea what a jungle the medical profession is. Everyone thinks it’s all so gentlemanly, but it’s just as corrupt as everything else. Jobs for the boys, all fixed long before you go for interviews, the boards going through the farce of talking to you, pretending to consider you. Six senior registrarships I’ve applied for in the past nine months, and sixty-six ahead I’d say. I want to be a consultant; to earn some money, to have some status before I’m an old man, Theo. And without a helping hand I’m not going to get any of it.’

  ‘I still can’t believe it,’ said Theo, looking at him morosely. ‘It’s disgusting. And I can’t believe any man would sell his daughter like that. They must both be desperate. She’s not in the pudding club is she?’

  ‘No, of course she’s not,’ said James wearily. ‘And neither of them are desperate, as you put it. But Maggie and I are very fond of each other and I think he can see I’ll be the sort of son-in-law he wants. Shit, Theo, half the world runs on arranged marriages. Look at the French even. They work very well. You ask Janine.’

  ‘Oh for Christ’s sake,’ said Theo. ‘Jamie, you’re crazy. I just hope you know what you’re really doing, that’s all. And I hope Maggie doesn’t. Poor cow.’

  ‘Maggie is very happy,’ said James slightly pompously. ‘Very.’

  ‘At the moment, I daresay she is,’ said Theo. ‘It’s all the other moments I’m worrying about. All the rest of her life. I hope she never gets to find out about Susie.’

  ‘She won’t because there’ll be nothing to find out,’ said James. ‘I’m going to finish with Susie. Completely. Obviously.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ said Theo.

  About three weeks before the wedding, he had dinner with Maggie. James had been going to join them, but got caught up at the hospital. Theo sat and became extremely drunk as he listened for what seemed an extremely long time to Maggie telling him how wonderful James was, how happy she was, how perfect their life was going to be. She really didn’t deserve what was coming to her, he thought; she was such a sweet, pretty girl, so extremely naive, so desperately in love. Well James was right about one thing: she would make the perfect consultant’s wife. She was a well-bred English rose, twenty-four years old, she did all the right things, knew all the right people. She had been a deb, done a history of art course, (and a cookery course) and worked at a gallery in Bond Street. She shared a flat in Kensington with four other girls, and was busy decorating and furnishing the charming little Fulham cottage she and James were going to move into after the wedding. Her father had put down a very large deposit on it as a wedding present. ‘I still can’t believe it all, Theo,’ she said, helping herself to a second dollop of whipped cream to go on her trifle. ‘It’s all too good to be true. Of course I always knew Jamie liked me, and we’d had some lovely times together, but I thought he’d gone off me actually, until a few weeks before he proposed. I mean I did think there was someone else. But it was just that he was so busy. They work the most horrendous hours and days at that hospital, you know.’

  ‘Oh I know,’ said Theo. He kept his eyes firmly on his plate.

  ‘Theo,’ said Maggie suddenly, ‘I want to ask you something.’

  Christ Almighty, she’s going to come out with it, thought Theo; what on earth am I going to say?

  ‘Yes, Maggie,’ he said.

  ‘Theo, look at me.’

  He raised his eyes reluctantly, met her candid blue ones, anxious in the candlelight. ‘I hope it’s not serious,’ he said lightly.

  ‘It is. Well,
it is to me.’

  ‘Ask away.’ He poured himself another glass of wine. Maggie was on water.

  ‘It’s just that you know Jamie better than anyone in the world, I should think. And so I thought you’d know.’

  ‘Know what, Maggie?’

  ‘Well – if he minds about my father.’

  Jesus Christ, this is getting worse every minute. ‘What about your father, Maggie?’

  ‘Well, the thing is, Theo – oh dear, this is so difficult, so embarrassing –’

  ‘Maggie, I’m not easily embarrassed.’

  ‘It’s just that – well, there are some things we never talk about. And –’

  ‘Maggie, maybe I’m not the person to talk to about this.’

  ‘Oh Theo, I think you are.’

  She leant forward suddenly, her hands clasped. Her face was flushed, her eyes brilliant. Her fair hair with its loose curls was tumbled on her shoulders; her dress was quite low-cut and a very pretty full white bosom swelled up from it. He could smell her, feel her warmth; for the first time he understood how James could be marrying her. She was, in her own way, very attractive, quite sexy even. He smiled at her.

  ‘Go on then.’

  ‘Well, you see my father is quite – dominating. He likes to control things. And people.’

  She had guessed. She knew. Not so stupid after all. And very brave. Theo put his spoon down, took both her hands in his. ‘Maggie, I can’t tell you how –’

  ‘Let me finish, Theo. Please. Then you can have your say. It’s hard enough anyway. Now the thing is, Jamie’s parents are quite hard-up. They’re lovely people, but they really haven’t got any money. Well, you know that. And my father has a lot. And he’s just throwing it about all over the place, buying the house, paying for the honeymoon. He’s so tactless. And I just wondered if Jamie minded. He’s never said anything about it – in fact if I try and ask him he changes the subject.’

  I bet he does, thought Theo, I bet he bloody does.

  ‘And I don’t want him to feel – well, humiliated. Or his parents, come to that. It’s all so delicate, Theo, don’t you think?’