The One That Got Away

by Jennifer Palgrave

  ‘Oh, yes. The redhead with the flannel shirts. Good historian, but her dress sense!’

  Lauren ignored this and went on, ‘Ro’s discovered a plot to kill David Lange back in the eighties. Seems like it was money men egging on a really nasty backbencher. The surprising thing is that I once met the guy. His parents were friends of Grandma and Grandpa’s.’

  ‘How extraordinary. What’s she going to do about it? Is the guy still alive?’

  ‘Yes he is, he’s an immigration consultant in Auckland. I’ve promised to help Ro investigate when I get back.’

  ‘Mum! Why would you get involved in Ro’s obsessions. You know what she’s like. And if she’s right, it might be dangerous.’ Julia frowned at her mother. ‘Don’t get yourself into anything you can’t handle.’

  Lauren was offended but made a joke of it. ‘Don’t you remember the time I accidentally tossed your little brother across the room? When I’d done a self-defence course, I asked him to rush at me. Then I stepped quickly aside and helped him on his way. He didn’t really come off the worse for wear.’ They both laughed and the topic was closed.

  For the rest of the weekend Lauren didn’t have time to brood on the election and what was likely to happen back home. Nor on the Lange plot. She enjoyed her grandchildren and when she said goodbye to them early on Monday morning, she was pleased that she’d see them again so soon. They were taking the train back to Brighton. Lauren decided to catch her train to Cambridge early in the day, well before the beginning of the alumnae event. She was looking forward to it immensely.

  6

  ‘Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look; he thinks too much; such men are dangerous’

  The London-Cambridge journey felt familiar, although in the old days Lauren wouldn’t have taken a taxi from the station. Her college had offered rooms for alumnae in a new accommodation block. The taxi dropped her and she checked in at the porter’s lodge. She was directed to a grey concrete building which had all the charm of student accommodation anywhere. Unlocking the door to her room, Lauren tossed her unopened suitcase onto the floor, pulled off her shoes and trousers and lay down flat on the single bed. The bliss! So the jet lag hadn’t completely gone. As her eyes shut she decided that everything could wait. Meeting up with old friends, finding her way to the first event. Unlikely to be getting around on a bicycle, she thought, as sleep overcame her.

  She woke just in time to get to the briefing, making her way down a winding cobbled street to a modern building and then following the hubbub to an upstairs lecture theatre. There was no time to look around for old friends. She spotted an empty seat and squeezed past a couple of women, both wearing silk scarves flung over their jackets and discreetly expensive jewellery. With her tailored trousers, collared shirt, pinky ring and short hairstyle, Lauren supposed she might be the odd woman out. Mind you, there might be a silver lining, perhaps she’d show up on someone’s gaydar.

  ‘Lauren!’ The woman she found herself sitting next to turned towards her. ‘Goodness me, I hardly recognised you.’

  Lauren was at a loss. Peering beyond the dyed hair and makeup, she said, ‘Ginny, is that you?’

  ‘Of course it’s me, darling and don’t say you haven’t changed at all since the seventies.’ Ginny cast an eye over Lauren, registering the difference. No longer long hair tied back into pigtails, the short, shapely cut with its streak of purple accentuating the grey perhaps sent a signal about Lauren’s lifestyle.

  A shushing went round the room as a young man walked up to the podium. He began fiddling with the screen display, prompting another outbreak of chattering.

  ‘Where are you staying?’ whispered Ginny loudly. ‘At the college?’ Lauren nodded.

  ‘See you outside the porter’s lodge at 12.15 tomorrow. We’ve arranged to go to Fitzbillies for lunch. All the old gang will be there.’

  A smartly dressed woman, probably in her forties, walked up to the lectern and tapped the mike to get their attention. ‘Welcome to the first meeting of participants in the Cambridge Women Ageing Well Project,’ she said.

  ‘Ageing?’ Ginny whispered loudly, ‘I’m trying very hard not to.’ Her words were loud enough for those around to hear and giggle.

  Takes me right back, thought Lauren, giggling in lectures. How awkward she’d been as a teenager, newly arrived from New Zealand with her outlandish accent, clothes and demeanour. But her fellow students had been friendly and it hadn’t taken long for her to fit in and become one of the gang.

  ‘Today I’m going to introduce the study to you and I hope by the end of the session you will agree that this is a wonderful opportunity to capture the lives of a group of well-educated women. You’re mostly from fortunate backgrounds and we think we can learn a lot from you about ageing well in the twenty-first century.’ Hmph! thought Lauren, we didn’t all go to English public schools.

  The study did sound interesting. Lauren realised they were going to be busy all of Tuesday and on Wednesday morning, what with physical examinations, photographs, all kinds of measurements, bloods, DNA sampling, various tests and questionnaires and an interview. There was a long lunch break on the Tuesday, so the date at Fitzbillies would work.

  The first night reception, after the briefing, was in the Great Hall of Lauren’s college. It looked splendid. The chandeliers were sparkling and the wooden floors sported a high polish. Portraits of bygone women scholars, hung around the walls, looked down impressively at the graduates who were all dressed up. The wine was sparkling too, and Ginny and Lauren were drinking and chatting when one of the sprinkling of men in the room came to stand by Ginny.

  He smiled at Lauren. ‘You’re looking pretty good after more than forty years.’

  Brett! She had been hoping to run into him. Now was her opportunity and she still hadn’t decided how she could steer the conversation. And he was definitely flirting. For sixty-something himself, he looked pretty good too. Still a full head of hair, now streaked with grey, still those arresting pale blue eyes and full mouth twitching into a smile. More lines on his face, but an imposing presence with his height and heft, his air of self-assurance–and his beautifully tailored grey suit.

  ‘Hello, Brett.’ Lauren couldn’t bring herself to return the compliment. Had he never realised she thought he was a ratbag? They’d had a lot of fun in that run of Julius Caesar, it was esprit de corps, she supposed. But she had tried to warn Charlotte against having a fling with him, and it hadn’t been long before she was mopping Charlotte’s tears.

  Back then Lauren had noticed how Brett used his smile and his height on his next victim. Victim might have been an odd word for girlfriend but there was always an air of held-back menace about him. Still, she needed to recognise his generosity on this occasion.

  ‘I believe we have to thank you for our airfares. That was extraordinarily kind of you?’

  The implied question was clear. Why would you help women come to a women’s event? He chose not to answer, instead began to ask her about Kiwi and Aussie friends and acquaintances who had hung out together in those old days at Cambridge. His reaction was revealing. He seemed most interested in those who had made money or been successful in business. Academics, scientists, public servants, he didn’t dismiss exactly, just didn’t want to hear more. Competitive still, thought Lauren, and very pleased with himself for his wealth.

  He did enquire politely about Lauren’s career, but was more interested in telling her about himself. ‘After Cambridge I worked in the City–lucky for me they were prepared to take on a brash young Aussie. It was a great job, they sent me to do some more study in the States, and I got into the new economics. After that, I did international monetary policy for the firm. So I spent some time in New Zealand in the eighties, all eyes were on New Zealand. I met up with…’–he named a couple of people that Lauren thought of as captains of industry. ‘Gave a couple of talks, too. Your Business Roundtable invited me to speak at a seminar in Auckland. They were exciting times, your Finance Minister was a remark
able man!’

  Well! She didn’t need a conversational ploy to introduce the topic, here it was! So Brett had definitely been pursuing business interests in New Zealand at the time of the Lange era, just as Ro had suggested. She had no need to feign interest in his self-congratulatory spiel. She smiled and murmured something like assent and that encouraged him to go on.

  ‘Your government was very bold, selling off so many state assets and getting streamlined–not many countries were as committed. Actually, that’s where I made my first real money. Struck out on my own, borrowed a bundle from the old man. It was easy to get loans and I hooked up with the Americans to buy a couple of the state-owned enterprises being sold off.’ He smiled reminiscently. ‘But I don’t think you were around at the time?’ he asked.

  What a bastard he was, thought Lauren. He’d made money off a misguided policy in her country–and probably got his hands dirty doing so. She contained her anger, but thought she probably sounded acid as she said, ‘I was, but I clearly wasn’t moving in the circles you found yourself in. I don’t think you bothered to look me up. I imagine you were a young man in a hurry.’ Not that young, though. He must have been in his 30s, he was the same age as her. She elaborated. ‘I told you I was working in publishing after I graduated. I got back to New Zealand in the mid-80s. Headhunted to take up a senior role in the Government Printing Office in Wellington.’

  Brett smiled politely but a flick of his eyes across the room showed he was a little bored. Lauren went on. ‘Government Print was one of those assets that government decided to sell, not long after I arrived, in fact. Exciting times mightn’t be the phrase I’d use about the period.’

  ‘All for the good, though. I bet you found something else. A Cambridge degree wouldn’t leave you beached for long. Not in a small place like New Zealand.’ Lauren couldn’t believe the cheek of the man. But she needed to get to the point before he moved on to some other woman he’d seen across the room. She was thinking rapidly. Was Brett one of the business types that egged Kevin on? He may well have known him, but surely Brett wouldn’t have.... He might be greedy and unprincipled, but urging on a murderer is a different matter entirely. She tried to sound casual as she said, ‘By the way, did you know Kevin Driscoll? He was a backbench MP at the time, I believe he was moving in the circles you describe.’

  For no more than a millisecond, Brett went completely still. Then he wrinkled his forehead as if in thought and answered just as casually, ‘Doesn’t ring a bell. I knew some of the main players. Why do you ask?’

  Lauren was put on the spot. She had a strong feeling that Brett was lying. ‘No reason, really. Someone was talking to me recently about Lange’s Oxford Union debate. I drove over with a bunch of Kiwis, and Kevin was one of them. He was on a political junket, something to do with banking, and so he came along with our friend who worked in the High Commission. It was when Lange got offside with the Americans.’

  Brett didn’t seem interested in New Zealand’s nuclear policies. Lauren didn’t feel she could pry any further without it seeming odd. She needed to get away. Her skin felt prickly and she was sure she was breathing fast. Ginny, bored with talk about people she hadn’t known well, had already drifted off. Brett seemed ready to do the same. Lauren had just spotted her old friend Rachel across the room and so she took the cue and escaped. As she skirted around groups of women chatting noisily and happily, she wondered why she felt certain that Brett had been lying. And why did she feel so uneasy?

  The next morning was as busy as the briefing had suggested. The student common room was taken over by the research team and each woman put through a comprehensive physical. This involved blood and saliva samples and running on a treadmill to measure heart performance under stress. Knees were tapped for reflexes, hand grip strength was measured with a device that looked like a bicycle brake and balance was tested by walking around tippy-toed and then on heels. As well, there was a full medical history that took at least an hour. They were given appointments for CT scans at Addenbrookes, the university hospital, the next morning. It was a relief when they broke for lunch.

  Passers-by may have been surprised by all the sixty-something women spilling out onto the footpath outside the college gates. Lauren made her way to Fitzbillies with her friends. They were lucky to find a table for seven. Out of term time, but the place was still crowded with tourists. As they spread around the table, Lauren sat herself next to Charlotte.

  ‘Hi Charlotte, it’s lovely to see you again. How’s life treating you?’

  She was disconcerted when Charlotte’s eyes filled with tears. ‘It’s not been a good year. William, my husband, died of lung cancer eight months ago and I’m in the process of packing up the house. Probably I’ll move to Falmouth, one of my children is teaching there and I’ll be close to the grandchildren.’

  Lauren thought that could be a mistake. Uprooting herself, moving away from her network of friends. Lauren herself had been sure that she wouldn’t follow Kirsten to Auckland. And who knew how long Charlotte’s family would stay in Falmouth anyway? Was she going to follow them around anywhere they decided to go?

  She was murmuring her sympathy when Ginny called the group to attention, tinging a glass. She had always wanted everyone to listen to her latest pronouncement or plan. This time she said how special it was to see them all together again. ‘I never thought we’d need to be grateful to that self-styled heartthrob Brett Wilson,’ she said, glancing at Charlotte, ‘but you never know what life has in store.’

  She continued, ‘So tell me, girls (Lauren flinched, but decided Ginny was being ironic), what evil things are they going to find out about us this afternoon, when we have our one on one interview? Having bloods and measurements taken is one thing, but trawling through our student records is another. I do remember Rachel arrived at college swearing all her immunisations were up to date and then got whooping cough. The whole college had to have booster shots!’

  Rachel laughed and said, ‘But Ginny, you took your gown to be mended and they swore the most likely way it could have got that huge rip in it was from a piece of barbed wire on the top of a college wall…’

  There was a shout of laughter and they all began talking at once, trying to trump one another’s stories of misdeeds. Even Charlotte cheered up and joined in. ‘They did almost discover Brett in my room once. By the time they were knocking on my door, he was hoofing it out the gate and they couldn’t prove he’d been with me!’ She added, ‘I know you’re all snide about him, but he was actually a lot of fun and behaved well nearly all the time. He was just young and wanting to sow his wild oats.’

  There was a pause. Lauren thought that if they’d been friends back in New Zealand, someone would have said, ‘Yeah, right.’ No one did and the conversation turned to other topics.

  That afternoon Lauren had her interview. It began with a request that she scan through her own student records, and she was relieved to find there was nothing there to embarrass her–unless it was the personal essay she had had to write, giving her reasons for wanting to study at Cambridge.

  ‘Goodness, my handwriting was much neater then,’ she said to Ayida, the young graduate student conducting the interview, ‘But I thought I knew everything when I was young. Listen to this!’ She read an extract aloud. ‘“I plan to use my Cambridge degree back in New Zealand, engaging in some occupation useful for my country.” I didn’t do that, I stayed in England for quite some years.’ She grimaced and the student laughed.

  There were several other papers on file, including an application for a hardship grant, a request to take leave before a term had finished to return home to an ill father–she had got there just before he died, far too young–and a photo of a very youthful Lauren, her hair in plaits, looking determinedly at the camera. And what a find, a photo from the performance of Julius Caesar, all that time ago. A crowd scene. Lauren spotted herself at the edge of the stage. She examined it further but couldn’t see spear-holder Brett.

  ‘No prob
lem if you want to use any of this. I’m sure it’s all very boring.’

  ‘Not at all,’ Ayida replied confidently, tossing her long black hair away from her face. ‘Good baseline stuff and we’ll flesh it out now with a life events interview. That’ll join the dots between you at eighteen and where you are now.’

  Lauren felt positively wrung out at the end of the interview: career, marriage, children, coming out–life in a nutshell. What would Ayida make of it? Such a different generation. And what would her younger self have thought if she could have seen a life so different from her parents’ settled existence? A fortunate life, Lauren was well aware.

  She didn’t see Brett again until the final tea party in the Fellows’ Garden. It was a warm day, and she was enjoying a quiet moment, standing in the shade of one of the carefully cultivated trees, when she saw him making his way through the crowd towards her. She glanced round. Perhaps that confident smile was aimed at someone behind her, but no.

  ‘Hello again, Lauren, have you enjoyed taking part in the study?’

  ‘Yes, thanks,’ she replied and smiled, a glint in her eye. She’d keep it light for the moment, but somehow she’d get him talking some more about the eighties. ‘But I’m surprised to see you here again. I wouldn’t have thought that ageing women were your thing, even if we were your contemporaries.’

  He laughed. ‘Oh, come on, don’t act like a feminist harridan. That’s not the girl I remember. Although you always had a line in disparaging remarks.’