The Truth

by Peter James

  Maybe he was being too hasty. Perhaps this was the perfect solution: Susan could experience motherhood without them having to bring up a child. They would be out of their financial mess. And she wouldn’t have to worry about Casey – neither of them would.

  He followed Mr Sarotzini into the street with a mounting sense of panic. Without even turning to acknowledge him, the banker was getting into the back of his Mercedes. John realised he had no fax or phone number, no e-mail address for this man. His last chance to save his business, his home and, perhaps, even, his marriage was about to glide away into the London traffic.

  As the chauffeur closed the door, John ran forward. ‘Mr Sarotzini! Wait, please. We’ll do it!’

  For a moment, as the chauffeur climbed in behind the wheel, John thought the car was going to pull away. Then the rear window began to slide down. Mr Sarotzini peered through it, staring into John’s eyes with an intensity that scared him.

  ‘Let us be absolutely clear on this, Mr Carter. I will give you one and a half million pounds. Your wife will bear the child my wife and I are unable to have. The day the baby is born you will hand it over to us. You will never see it again. We have a deal?’

  ‘We have a deal,’ John replied.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  ‘Nietzsche said, “That which does not kill me makes me stronger.” ’

  On channel 4 on the monitor in Kündz’s attic, John Carter, leaning against the kitchen table, said to Susan, ‘What time do you have to be there?’

  Kündz, in his armchair, read several more paragraphs of the book on the German philosopher, Nietzsche, that Mr Sarotzini had recommended to him, then looked at the television screen again.

  This was the shape of his life now. He watched, he read, he sketched, he reported. Sometimes, at his discretion, he hired extra people to maintain surveillance on Susan Carter when she travelled. Nothing could be missed, no place that she visited, no people she met, no conversation she had.

  ‘Ten,’ Susan Carter said.

  ‘And you really don’t want me to be there, you’re sure, hon?’ John Carter asked.

  Susan was wearing jeans, a white T-shirt and yachting shoes. Kündz liked her in this casual outfit. She was making supper, roasted peppers with anchovies, then grilled lamb chops, followed by raspberries and fromage frais. John Carter did not appreciate the effort his wife made each evening, cooking for him, and this angered Kündz. Susan’s job was just as demanding as her husband’s, yet she was the one who always had to work at home too. He hoped Mr Sarotzini would allow him to teach John Carter a lesson for this.

  And now, while she worked, John Carter was doing nothing except drinking whisky. He was still drinking too much, Kündz thought. This was weakness: he didn’t need to drink this much, not now he had got what he wanted.

  Kündz was concerned about the amount John Carter drank because sometimes it made him snap at Susan, and Kündz could see the pain in her face when he did this, and the pain hurt him. Burned him. This made him hate John Carter even more than he already hated him.

  John Carter switched on the television in the kitchen, but he didn’t watch it. Instead he flicked through the pages of a magazine.

  ‘I’m sure,’ Susan said. ‘I’m really sure, OK?’ She’d left off cooking the meal and was watering a row of plants in pots along the window-sill. They might have been herbs, Kündz couldn’t tell. Although he was becoming an expert on poetry, philosophy, painting, opera, he knew nothing about plants. One day Mr Sarotzini would teach him about plants, but not yet.

  And there was only so much that could be taught, Mr Sarotzini said. That which is truly important had to be learned.

  Mr Sarotzini had explained this to him, telling him always to carry inside his head the words: ‘I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand.’

  Kündz read these words now. Then he looked at the date on his watch. It was the twenty-first. And tomorrow was the twenty-second: 22 July. Yes. For three weeks he had watched John and Susan Carter, had listened to them day and night, and all the time they kept on talking about it, debating it, discussing their visits to the clinic.

  They had been to the clinic eleven times now. On five occasions John Carter had gone with Susan, on the rest she had gone on her own for the injections to improve her chances of conception. Kündz had listened to them discussing the doctors they had met there, and they were impressed with the clinic, there was no doubt about that.

  Mr Sarotzini had been very pleased to hear that.

  July 22. The centre of her ovulation cycle. Tomorrow.

  And that was more than good.

  Susan walked out of the kitchen towards the living room and Kündz switched to channel 3, picked her up, watched her carry the glass vase she was using as a watering can over to a plant, a potted palm perhaps, he wasn’t sure. Susan knew about plants: maybe she would teach him about them.

  He carried on watching her, in no hurry to return to Nietzsche, although he was enjoying the book. But he was enjoying Susan Carter in her jeans, white T-shirt and yachting shoes even more.

  John Carter came out into the living room now, put an arm around her and kissed her cheek. ‘It’s not too late, darling. We don’t have to go through with this, OK?’

  ‘Everything’s signed.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  Susan wished – and neither John nor Kündz could read this – that John would take his hands off her. She wished he would stop kissing her, stop giving her the option to quit, every five minutes.

  She had made up her mind, she had come to terms with all the voices inside her head that screamed at her not to do this, and now all she wanted was her own space. She wanted to make a box and hammer a label on the outside of it that said, NINE-MONTH BOX, and she wanted to climb inside it, close it, bolt the hatch, have this baby, and let Mr Sarotzini take it away. Then she could climb out and get her life back.

  But it wasn’t going to be like that, however much she wanted it to be. And it was this that made her angry, this fear that she was not going to be in control, that Mr Sarotzini was already in control and, from tomorrow, doctors would be in control too, and then the baby, if she conceived, would be in control, too. And what was going to happen to her emotions – and to her marriage?

  Layered beneath those fears lay her curiosity. She had convinced herself that she was doing this for Casey. But she knew, also, that she was doing it for herself. A few days ago in a magazine she had read that it was important for health reasons for a woman to become pregnant at least once. She had shown the article to John, taking consolation in it.

  She was dying for a drink, although she’d been told strictly no alcohol tonight.

  Kündz watched in dismay as she poured herself a glass of rosé wine. This gave him a problem he would rather not have had, because he should report it. But if he did, what would happen? Would they delay?

  And the timing, he reflected. If he reported this one glass she was now drinking, so much would have to be changed that it hardly bore thinking about. And Mr Sarotzini might be angry with him, might blame him for not stopping her from drinking.

  Just one glass, Susan Carter, that’s all.

  He remembered something Mr Sarotzini had taught him, the story of the strong man who said, ‘Give me a firm place to stand and I will move the world.’

  ‘We can all be that man,’ Mr Sarotzini had told him. ‘We can all push the lever that moves the world, it is inside us, we just have to learn how to recognise it, how to use it, that is all we have to do.’

  Susan moved to the dining room and Kündz turned the channel selector to 6. There wasn’t much in this room, just a trestle and some rolls of wallpaper. Kündz wasn’t sure why she had come in here.

  She walked to the window and stared out at the garden. Now he understood: she had come in here to be alone.

  And Kündz, watching her so closely, almost breathless with adulation, knew. He knew. He was certain that Susan was the lever that woul
d move his world. But there was a lack of clarity that bothered him. There were events going on, wheels turning. He thought again of Mr Sarotzini’s words, ‘I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand.’

  July 22.

  Tomorrow.

  The excitement was rising inside him, it had an operatic quality, yes, like Don Giovanni, the music of the excitement was erupting inside his head, and he had to struggle to contain himself.

  Now the Carters’ phone was ringing. Susan had heard it and hurried through into the living room shouting to her husband that she would get it. She picked up the receiver.

  Kündz punched a button on the control panel and immediately heard the caller. He knew this voice: Susan spoke to this man regularly – she was editing his new book.

  ‘Susan?’ The writer sounded anxious, Kündz thought. ‘I’m sorry to bother you, I need to see you urgently. Are you free tomorrow, for lunch or a drink?’

  Susan sounded friendly, she liked the man, but she was evasive. ‘Oh, Fergus, I’m sorry, it’s not possible. I’m out of town for a couple of days.’

  ‘How about breakfast before you go?’

  She laughed. ‘No way! I’m leaving at the crack of dawn.’

  And Kündz was impressed. She sounded so natural – she was a great liar, this lady was terrific.

  ‘Susan, it’s important, I really do need to see you.’

  She promised to call him over the weekend, when she was back. The writer again tried to persuade her to meet before she went, but without luck. He also tried to get a phone number out of her, but she didn’t have one to give him. She’d call him, she promised, the moment she was back.

  Good girl.

  Kündz’s adrenaline was racing. He needed to speak to someone, to share his excitement. Even if he was not allowed to say anything about Susan Carter, he could still share his sense of excitement.

  He picked up the phone and dialled Claudie at his apartment in Geneva. But there was no answer. He telephoned her own apartment, got the answering machine and hung up. She was out and he didn’t like that. He had not spoken to her for ten days, but he did not like the fact that she was out. Claudie was his woman, Mr Sarotzini had given her to him. Susan Carter was going to become his woman, but until then Claudie was his woman, and his woman was out.

  He replaced the receiver and began to read Nietzsche again. Mr Sarotzini’s words came back once more. ‘I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand.’

  He looked up from the book and watched Susan turning over the lamb chops, all the time thinking to himself, Tomorrow.

  Tomorrow I will understand.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  The WestOne Clinic was a modern, four-storey building that blended reasonably unobtrusively with the Victorian red-brick façades of Wimpole Street. Inside, it did its best not to look or feel like a hospital. The entrance was plushly carpeted, there were tapestries on the walls, vases bursting with fresh flowers, bowls of pot-pourri, and huge sofas. It could have been the foyer of a small, immensely luxurious hotel, except for the smell.

  The cocktail of disinfectant, fresh laundry and institutional food was ever present. Not even the huge bunch of flowers from John, and the even bigger bouquet from Mr Sarotzini, could mask it in Susan’s room, which was as plush and spacious as a hotel suite, and had a fine view of the street as well as a glimpse of Regent’s Park. Dusk was falling, and in a few minutes they were going to take her into the theatre. She was feeling nervous, and very alone.

  John had phoned a couple of hours ago to wish her luck, and again offered to come over. But she couldn’t have him here. She did not want him around while she was having this – this thing – done to her. She felt as though she was being unfaithful to him, and it was easier to be alone, not to have to see his face.

  The door opened and a nurse came in, followed by a doctor; neither wore a badge. She had been introduced to them already but she couldn’t remember their names – maybe, she thought, because she didn’t want to. There was something unreal about being here, and that was how she wanted it to stay. It was just a bad dream. In nine months’ time she would wake up from it. In the meantime no one, other than herself, John and Mr Sarotzini, would know the truth. Her friends and colleagues would see her pregnant, sure, but they wouldn’t know the truth. And in nine months’ time they would be telling her how sorry they were, that it was awful for her and John to have had a stillborn child. And she’d act out the charade, and John would too, and then it would be over.

  The nurse had a hypodermic in her hand. Susan hated injections, and it normally took all her courage to have one in the doctor’s surgery. She’d lost count of the number she’d had today and over the past few weeks.

  ‘Pre-med,’ the nurse said.

  ‘Pre-med,’ Susan echoed. ‘Right.’ It didn’t matter, they could do what they wanted. Her body didn’t belong to her for the next nine months.

  She felt the prick, and a lot of fluid went in. A build-up of pressure began to hurt her arm as the nurse kept pressing the plunger. There was a numb sensation in Susan’s hand, as if someone had whacked the nerve in her funny bone.

  The nurse jigged out of Susan’s line of vision and she saw the doctor’s face clearly now. He was good-looking, in a movie-actor-playing-an-American-senator way, with a Mediterranean tan, dark hair with jet black streaks, like highlights in reverse, and a perfect smile. So perfect. Maybe he was an actor? She thought he looked familiar. Had she seen him in ER? Was he that doctor – what was his name? – Dr Doug Ross?

  She wasn’t sure if the nurse had finished or not. Dr Ross from ER kept looking at her with that perfect smile. There were several questions she wanted to ask him about the show.

  She wondered whether she had her arm back yet. Not that it mattered, she was feeling nicely floaty. Like a boat, or maybe a lilo. And it was good that Dr Ross from ER was here. Could she bring Casey over and have Dr Ross from ER look after her?

  She was about to ask him this, but he had gone. The nurse had gone, too, and now the room didn’t look familiar any more. The walls were moving, they were changing colour as they slid past her and now she was fifteen years back, at Epcot, Disney World, in Florida, on a ride, travelling though a cave and they were going to stop at an exhibit in a moment.

  She tried to turn her head, but it didn’t move, and she was aware, although it didn’t bother her, that she couldn’t move it. Someone would be along in a minute to fix it, probably nice Dr Ross from ER.

  The motion of the ride changed, making her feel giddy. They were going up, or maybe they were going down. Her mind was rising up and her body was sinking downwards, and then the motion reversed and it was her mind that was sinking down while her body rose.

  Her eyes closed against the giddiness. They shut out one world but opened another inside her head. There were people all around her, gathered inside her head.

  She could see her mother and father, and Casey now, coming into focus. Casey was standing up, she was fine, they had fixed her. John was standing in here too but there was no light on his face and she was having difficulty identifying which one out of all these people he was. And Mr Sarotzini was here too – she could see him clearly and he was smiling at her, a great warm smile that told her she was doing just great and everything was going to be fine.

  And there was another man she had seen before, but she couldn’t put a name to him and she couldn’t place where it was she had seen him. It was recently, she knew that much. She had definitely seen this man recently. He was a big man, built like a quarterback.

  And then her brain connected. Yes, it was him, the man from British Telecom who had come to fix the ring tones in the phones.

  And this was a strange part of her head she was in, lights criss-crossing, sharp long slivers of cold white light, like knife blades. Lasers. Hundreds of lasers, their beams making strange patterns on the inside walls of her skull. And figures were moving in and out of the darkness between the beams.
Her parents had gone now, Casey too – and where was Dr Ross? Mr Sarotzini was still here and the man from Telecom, and there were others in here now, strangers inside her head, they were all looking down at her, but with the lasers behind them, it was impossible to see their faces. All she could see were the silhouettes of their bodies.

  Now the lasers were burning away the walls of her skull and she could see the room beyond them. She could smell burning, a pungent, aromatic smell that was both sweet and bitter. The room was large and packed with people, all back-lit by the lasers. She could see glints of shiny metal. The people all seemed to be wearing dark polo-necks, but she still couldn’t see their faces, just blackness on blackness.

  She could recognise Mr Sarotzini – even though she couldn’t see his face she could sense his presence. And in front of him this man from Telecom, a faceless silhouette carrying the strength of all these people behind him.

  Where was Dr Ross from ER? Well, if he didn’t want to be here, that was his loss. Suddenly she felt very important. All these people had come inside her head to see her. And the man from Telecom was standing in front of them, laser beams playing on his body now. He was huge, far bigger than she remembered, and he had this tremendous physique. But he wasn’t wearing his uniform and, unlike everyone else here, he was naked, and he was holding this serpent, and it was uncoiling outwards, reaching towards her, rising like a striking cobra towards her from this dark bush of hair that covered his groin.

  The serpent shone, it gleamed, and this man from Telecom, with his face in darkness, didn’t need to move towards her. The serpent was doing that, it was still growing, and he was standing between her legs now, and this serpent was reaching out with a hunger, and she wanted it. She wanted it desperately.

  She cried out for it.

  She prayed for it to come closer to her.

  And it did come closer. It was so close that now she couldn’t see its head, but she was starting to feel it, and it felt, oh, it felt quite incredible, probing around, so gentle, softly nosing its way, finding an entrance into her.