A Haunting Compulsion

by Anne Mather

  Rachel drew away unsteadily, her hands clasped together and pressed against her throat. The passion burning in his eyes was like a living thing, the savage emotion of a night in torment.

  ‘Per-perhaps you’d like to tell me what—what happened,’ she stammered, needing to say something in the face of his violence, and he pushed back his hair with shaking fingers.

  ‘The operation came too late,’ he muttered harshly. ‘It was no one’s fault. She must have known how the odds were stacked against her. I guess that was why she wanted you to tell me. She knew I might suspect the truth.’

  ‘She didn’t want you to worry,’ said Rachel gently. ‘You know what Liz—was like.’ It was hard to use the right tense, and her own breath faltered. ‘How—how did your father take it? I expect he’s shattered!’

  ‘Oh, Dad will survive.’ Jaime rested his chin on his fist. ‘I think he was more prepared for it than I was. I—I was stunned!’

  Rachel licked her lips. ‘Did—did she come round?’

  ‘After the operation, you mean?’ Jaime shook his head. ‘No. They said her heart had failed her. It was quite a major operation. And she’s—she wasn’t—a young woman.’

  Rachel nodded. ‘And Robin?’

  ‘Oh, you know Robin.’ Jaime slumped back on the sofa. ‘He cried a lot, and I guess he got it out of his system.’

  Rachel could believe that. Robin was the type who wasn’t afraid to show his emotions. With Jaime, it was different. He tore himself to pieces, but inside. Where no one else could see.

  ‘So how did you get here?’ she asked now, trying to act naturally, and Jaime sighed.

  ‘I caught the mail train,’ he replied flatly. ‘I told Dad I’d fly back later today, but I said I had—things to do.’

  ‘And—you came here?’

  ‘It looks like it, doesn’t it?’ he enquired curtly.

  Rachel moved her shoulders helplessly. ‘I’m glad.’

  ‘Are you?’ His mouth curled with self-derision. ‘I’m not sure I am.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Rachel allowed her hands to fall into her lap. ‘You said—you said you—needed me.’

  ‘I know.’

  She hesitated. ‘And—don’t you?’

  Contempt marked the lean line of his mouth. ‘What’s that supposed to mean? That you’ll sacrifice yourself one more time, just to appease my grief?’

  Rachel caught her breath. ‘That’s uncalled-for!’

  ‘Is it? Is it?’ He pushed himself up from the couch again as if he couldn’t bear to sit near her. ‘Well, relax. It wasn’t for your body I came here. I came—I came because I needed someone to talk to, someone who’d known Ma, who’d cared for her. And—all right, I’ve always found your company—sympathetic.’

  Rachel looked up at him. ‘Is that all? Sympathetic?’

  Jaime eyes darkened. ‘What do you want me to say?’ He turned aside from her, slightly dragging his wounded leg across to the screened fireplace. ‘What kind of confession do you want from me?’ he demanded. ‘That I loved you—more than I thought it was possible for one person to love another; that I wanted you, and needed you, and felt like killing myself when you broke up with me? God, you know all this! So don’t tease me now!’

  Rachel got unsteadily to her feet. ‘I—I’m not teasing you, Jaime,’ she said, acting purely on instinct, knowing that this might be—would be—her last chance to heal the breach she had augmented. The feelings she felt, the decision she had unconsciously made, had manifested themselves. She had not chosen the way, it had been chosen for her. And whatever was in the past, she could not deny this man—or herself—the fulfilment they could only find together. ‘Does that mean—you don’t love me still?’

  Jaime glared at her across the width of the room. ‘Love dies,’ he said brutally. ‘Without care and nourishment, everything dies!’

  ‘But has your love died?’ she persisted huskily, and his jaw tensed angrily.

  ‘What do you want of me, Rachel?’ he grated. ‘I’ve done everything I could to show you how I felt. But you don’t want me, you don’t need me! You’ve got your flat, your career, your tidy little life—’

  ‘It’s not enough!’ said Rachel tautly. ‘I—I’ve discovered. It’s not enough.’

  Jaime looked at her through eyes dark with suspicion. ‘What am I to glean from that remark? That you’ve decided to make a change? That you’ve met someone you’re prepared to share your life with?’

  Rachel nodded. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘So why in heaven’s name are you asking me?’ he demanded savagely, crossing the room towards her in three painful strides, taking her by her shoulders, and shaking her until her head drooped pitifully and her hair was a tangled mass about her shoulders. Then, and only then, did he seem to come to his senses, and with a groan of anguish he gathered her close against him. ‘Don’t tell me,’ he muttered, burying his face in the scented hollow between her shoulder and her neck. ‘Don’t tell me about some other man. Not now, not today. I—just don’t think I can stand any more.’

  ‘Oh, Jaime!’ Her arms slid round him, beneath his jacket, against the heated skin that seemed to burn through his shirt. ‘There is no other man,’ she told him chokily. ‘It’s you! It’s always been you. Only I was too proud to acknowledge my weaknesses!’

  Jaime’s fingers gripping her upper arms were unknowingly painful. ‘What?’ he breathed hoarsely. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘That I love you. That I want you. That I need you,’ she confessed, cupping his stubbled chin between her hands. ‘Oh, Jaime, I know it. I’ve been such a fool!’

  Jaime was shaking. She could feel it through her fingers, she could see it in the unsteady stance he was adopting. ‘This—is—pity!’ he said tautly. ‘You’re only saying this because you feel sorry for me.’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head, trying to move closer to him, but impaled by his fingers. ‘Jaime, I’m sorry about your mother, you know I am. And if there was anything I could do to make it easier for you to bear, I would. But,’ she sighed, ‘this is you and me, Jaime. This is our life. And if you still want me—’

  ‘If I still want you!’ he groaned, pulling her close to him then, pressing her face against the thudding beat of his heart. ‘Oh, Rachel, I’ve never stopped wanting you. You know that.’

  He kissed her then, deeply and passionately, but without hunger, the sealing of a spiritual, as well as a physical, relationship. But then weariness got the better of him, and he sank down on to the sofa again, with her in his arms.

  ‘You must go to bed,’ she said, snuggling against his shoulder, then sat up again at the ironic sound he made. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I mean you must get some rest. You can’t fly back to Newcastle in this state.’

  ‘Will you come with me?’ Jaime’s eyes caressed her.

  ‘To Newcastle?’

  His lips twisted. ‘Where else?’

  ‘If you want me to.’

  ‘If I want you to!’ he echoed. ‘My darling, I want you with me always, from now on. Day and night.’ He paused. ‘You will marry me, won’t you? This is for keeps.’

  ‘If that’s what you want.’

  ‘It’s what I want,’ he agreed. ‘It’s what I always wanted.’ He hesitated. ‘About Betsy—’

  ‘Not now,’ said Rachel, laying a finger across his lips. ‘You can tell me about Betsy later. Right now, you must get some rest, and I must get ready for work.’ She smiled. ‘After I’ve made you breakfast, of course.’

  Jaime stilled her as she would have left him. ‘And—Betsy’s pregnancy?’

  Rachel’s shoulders sagged. ‘If you tell me you weren’t responsible, then I believe you,’ she said simply, and he relaxed.

  ‘I was not responsible,’ he repeated flatly.

  Rachel bent her lips to his. ‘I’m sorry. Will you forgive me?’

  ‘There’s nothing to forgive,’ replied Jaime, returning her kiss with interest. ‘Now, go make some coffee, before I lose my good intentions.�
� Rachel left Jaime sleeping in her bed, and went to work with a lighter heart than when she had left it. Liz’s death was a terrible tragedy, and she would be badly missed, but she couldn’t help thinking how pleased Jaime’s mother would have been to know that their differences had been resolved at last. Rachel determined not to think of Betsy any more. She and Jamie were divorced. Their relationship had been over before Jamie sought her company, and if her father was to be believed, she had not been a good wife to him.

  But whatever her faults, Rachel couldn’t help thinking about Betsy later that morning, when a call came through to her from Jack Morrison at London Westward Television. He had never telephoned her before, and apprehension feathered like a butterfly’s wings across her skin as she answered his polite greeting.

  ‘I expect you’re surprised to hear from me, aren’t you, Rachel?’ he commented, as an opening gambit, and Rachel had to confirm that she was. ‘Well, after I spoke to you yesterday, I had a think about our conversation, and I decided that perhaps I ought to explain a few things for myself.’

  ‘Oh, really, Mr Morrison, that’s not necessary—’

  ‘I think it is,’ declared Mr Morrison firmly. ‘I’d like you to have lunch with me, if you will.’

  ‘I can’t.’ To Rachel’s relief, it was true. She had arranged to leave work at lunchtime that day, and she and Jaime were flying to Newcastle in the late afternoon. There was no way she could have lunch with Jack Morrison without arousing Jaime’s suspicions, and that was the last thing she wanted to do now.

  ‘Are you afraid of me, Rachel?’ Mr Morrison was asking now, and quickly she denied it. ‘Then why can’t you have lunch with me?’ he inquired. ‘I assure you, it is rather important.’

  Rachel sighed. ‘Jaime’s mother is dead,’ she said, without preamble. ‘We—Jaime and me, that is—are flying north this afternoon.’

  ‘I see.’ There was a moment’s silence, then Morrison said: ‘I thought Jaime flew up yesterday.’

  ‘He did. But he came back again.’ Rachel sighed. ‘Oh, I’m explaining this badly.’

  ‘I assume you mean—he came back to tell you.’

  Rachel bit her lip. ‘In a manner of speaking.’

  ‘And you’re going back with him?’

  ‘Yes.’ Rachel hesitated a moment, then said: ‘I suppose I owe it to you to tell you, Jaime—Jaime and I are going to be married. We—we decided this morning.’

  ‘I see.’ Mr Morrison sounded impressed. ‘Well, I can’t say I’m not relieved. He looked pretty bad yesterday.’

  Rachel uttered a nervous laugh. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘And Betsy?’

  ‘Wh-what about Betsy?’

  ‘He has told you about Betsy, hasn’t he?’

  ‘Mr Morrison—’

  ‘Hasn’t he?’

  ‘He will.’ Rachel moistened her lips. ‘It’s not important.’

  ‘I think it is,’ he said firmly.

  ‘Mr Morrison, yesterday you said you approved of Jaime’s behaviour—’

  ‘Oh, I do.’ Mr Morrison was very definite about that.

  ‘Then why should the question of Betsy arise?’

  ‘Because—oh, because I doubt Jaime, being the man he is, will tell you the whole story, and you, being the girl you are, will always—wonder.’

  ‘Not necessarily.’

  Mr Morrison sighed. ‘Rachel, listen to me. I understand how you feel, believe me. But believe me also when I say you wouldn’t be human if you didn’t have doubts.’

  Rachel shook her head. ‘What do you want to tell me, Mr Morrison?’

  ‘Meet me, and you’ll find out.’ He paused a moment, as though consulting his watch, then said: ‘Look, it’s nearly twelve now. Meet me for a drink, if you won’t have lunch. Surely you can spare me thirty minutes of your time.’

  Rachel slumped in her chair. She didn’t want to go. She didn’t want to meet him. She didn’t want to hear about Jaime’s relationship with Betsy. But she was also practical enough to realise that there was an element of truth in what Mr Morrison said. The reason she didn’t want to talk about it was because she was afraid.

  ‘All right,’ she said at last, in a tight voice. ‘I’ll meet you in fifteen minutes. But not for a drink. I’ll meet you in the park. We can talk more easily there.’

  ‘As you like.’

  The arrangements were made, and Mr Morrison rang off, and Rachel got up jerkily from her desk. She wondered if she should ring Jaime and tell him where she was going, and then decided against it. He would find out soon enough. She would tell him. There was no way she was going to start her married life with deception; she had had enough of that.

  Jack Morrison was waiting by the bridge, where they had arranged to meet. He looked much as usual, bluff and hearty, and with a gruff gentleness that had endeared him to the girls in the typing pool.

  ‘Shall we walk?’ he asked, and she fell into step beside him, hardly aware of the biting wind and the occasional flurries of snow that marked their solitary progress.

  ‘So,’ he said at last, ‘how much has Jaime told you? I assume you know about Pollendale.’

  ‘Pollendale?’ Rachel shook her head. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Pollendale, in Buckinghamshire. Where Betsy lives.’

  ‘Oh. Oh, yes.’ Rachel nodded. ‘Yes, I know about that.’

  ‘Good.’ Mr Morrison sighed. ‘Now, where to begin.’ He frowned, and then thrusting his hands into his coat pockets, he said: ‘I suppose I should start at the beginning, when Betsy was a teenager. She was always a problem child, always getting into scrapes. And when she got involved with a rather undesirable group of young people, it was only a matter of time before she got involved with the drug scene.’

  ‘Drugs?’ Rachel arched her brows in surprise. ‘Your daughter was a drug addict?’

  ‘Was? Is? Who knows?’ Mr Morrison heaved a heavy sigh. ‘Does anyone ever really get free of something like that?’

  Rachel’s initial apprehension was reluctantly giving way to sympathy. ‘You mean—she hasn’t?’

  ‘I don’t know. She’s supposed to be cured, but sometimes there’s that look in her eye—’ He shook his head. ‘But anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. In the beginning, I thought differently. I really believed that if I could get her away from those young drop-outs, she’d change, really change, I mean. That’s where Jaime came in.’

  ‘Jaime?’ Rachel’s apprehensions stirred again.

  ‘Yes,’ Mr Morrison nodded. ‘He was working at the studios, of course, and he and I got along well together. Fortunately, we still do. He used to work in features, you know, before he got involved in current affairs, and I think he shared my concern over Betsy. She was attracted to him, I knew that, and when he started dating her I was really delighted. Can you imagine? She actually gave up seeing those longhaired louts she’d been running around with, and she seemed almost—normal again. I encouraged their association, I don’t deny it. And I sometimes wonder if Jaime would ever have got as far as marriage, if it hadn’t been for me. But there, whatever the truth of that, he did marry her, and it was a disaster!’

  Rachel swallowed convulsively. ‘Why?’

  Mr Morrison shook his head. ‘Oh, because she was still hooked, on drugs, I mean. She’d managed to conceal it from me, her father, but she couldn’t conceal it from her husband.’

  ‘I see.’ Rachel was appalled, but she tried not to show it.

  ‘I doubt if you do,’ Mr Morrison said now. ‘Until you’ve lived with an addict, you can have no idea how foul being deprived of the drug can make them. They had terrible rows, terrible! And Betsy did some terrible things.’ He paused. ‘She had always been—how

  can I say it?—fond of the opposite sex. Unfortunately, I never realised how fond.’

  ‘You mean—there was another man?’

  ‘Another man?’ Mr Morrison’s lips twisted bitterly. ‘There was a stream of other men! Jaime never knew when he went on his assignments who he was go
ing to find in his bed when he got back.’ He sighed. ‘Believe me, it’s not easy for me to tell you these things. She is my daughter. But I know Jaime, and I owe him so much. And I also know you would never hear the more sordid details from him.’

  ‘Oh, Mr Morrison!’

  He brushed her sympathy aside and went on heavily: ‘Of course, she was killing herself—anyone could see that. Her health was failing, and she started hallucinating. She was taken into hospital.’

  ‘I had no idea.’ Rachel hesitated. ‘When—when she came to see me, she blamed Jaime.’

  Mr Morrison nodded. ‘I know. Jaime told me about that. He was shattered when you refused to listen to him. I think he was near to suicide at that time.’

  ‘But he was still living with Betsy,’ Rachel protested. ‘She told me. They had the house in Buckinghamshire.’

  ‘What house?’ Mr Morrison looked perplexed.

  ‘Pollendale. You mentioned it yourself.’

  ‘My dear Rachel, Pollendale is a psychiatric hospital! I thought you knew. Betsy has been there for the last—five years!’

  ‘But how could she be? She came to see me—she was pregnant!’

  ‘Pregnant, yes.’ Mr Morrison’s mouth tightened. ‘One of the other patients, I’m afraid. A nasty business!’

  Rachel gasped. ‘But how did she get to London?’

  ‘She walked out. She hit one of the nurses over the head, and stole her clothes. She can be violent at times. Sometimes I wonder if she’ll ever come out again.’

  Rachel could hardly take this in. ‘But she had her marriage lines,’ she cried.

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Mr Morrison was matter-of-fact. ‘She’s allowed to keep her own things.’

  ‘But me? How did she find out about me?’

  ‘How do you think? Jaime told her, of course. He wanted her to agree to a divorce. To begin with, he was advised not to broach the subject, but she’d seemed so much better, and he thought—’

  ‘Oh, God!’ Rachel wanted to die of shame and contempt for her own selfishness in jumping to conclusions. Even her father had said that things were not always what they seemed. He had been so right, and she so wrong.

  ‘Anyway,’ Mr Morrison cleared his throat now, ‘It seems you’re beginning to understand why I didn’t reproach Jaime over his association with you. I blamed myself, you see. I had—ruined his life. I—and Betsy.’