The Heartbreaker

by Susan Howatch

  But luckily I don’t have to see much of Norah. Elizabeth does drag me to the Pimlico house for Sunday lunch sometimes, but at least the roast beef’s always good. Even the chihuahuas agree on that.

  Having parked the XJ-S on its pad in front of the house I spring out, grab my bag from the boot and gaze for a moment at the night sky. There are stars up there somewhere beyond the neon glow and if I were at sea I could pick out the constellations. I freeze, remembering my times at sea with Richard and shuddering as the shock of his death hits me again.

  Unfair. Not right. No God. Nothing. The only philosophy worth a shit is “Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die,” and that’s why money’s all that matters—it’s because with money you can live it up before the big wipe-out. I’ve got a lot of money saved in my Cayman Islands bank account and I’m going to have more. (Isn’t it great to have an account in a smart tax haven like the Caymans? I mean, how upmarket can one get?) Then in two years’ time I’m buying a boat and sailing off into the sunset—with Elizabeth, of course. She’ll be ready to retire then herself. The collapse of her psychic healing business two years ago was really traumatic for her, and if I hadn’t been doing so well I think she might have retired at that point, but my success perked her up, gave her an incentive to keep going. She still misses the psychic healing, though. She’s made a mint from her leisure industry interests, particularly her 1970s chain of massage parlours (forcibly taken over by foreign pond-life in 1980), but it’s the psychic and the occult which really switch her on. It’s how she got hooked up with Asherton, who runs a weird pseudo-religious secret society in addition to the S&M group which would make the vice squad’s hair curl.

  As I get out my keys to open the front door, I wipe the memory of Asherton in case I start having flashbacks, and I focus instead on how brilliant it was when my business took off. I admit I needed Elizabeth to help me in the beginning, but after the first few clients were established my reputation spread at the speed of light all by itself. Then Elizabeth only had to put my career on a well-organised business footing and watch the money roll in. Most leisure-working’s done in the West End, but next door in the Square Mile of the City where the streets are paved with gold there are all these rich gay blokes who roost there every day of the working week and are usually much too busy to want to run all kinds of risks out west with God knows who. I offer them absolute discretion and top-class skills in AIDS-free upmarket surroundings right on their office doorsteps. Of course they’re happy to pay big money! They think I’m terrific value and they’re right.

  The best thing of all is that I’ve got control over my life. I’m young, I’m fit, I drive a luxury car, I shop where I like, I shag the sexiest chicks, I look good and feel great because I’m a smoke-free, drug-free zone— apart from alcohol, but I’m smart enough to go easy on the booze. Elizabeth thinks I’m wonderful. I’m never letting her out of my life, never, she’s mine for always. My amazing success is all due to her, and now life’s fantastic, life’s sensational, in fact there’s not a single bloody cloud on the horizon.

  Opening the front door I walk into the hall and dump my sports bag by the stairs to take up later. The living-room door’s ajar and Elizabeth’s talking to someone, but I know she hasn’t invited guests so I assume she’s on the phone.

  I glide in, hoping she’ll tell me how sexy I’m looking, and my muscles are tightening at the thought of a hot hetero snog after all the boring contact sport today with the sad sacks who can’t hack it with women. But nemesis awaits. Maybe I even deserve it for that knee-jerk put-down of the blokes who fuel my bank account, but whether deserved or not, this is where I get my comeuppance. For Elizabeth isn’t on the phone. She’s entertaining an unexpected guest, and the guest is none other than Mr. Mega-Monster himself.

  It’s Asherton.

  I stop dead. My mind goes blank. No more thoughts about how wonderful it is to have control over my life. All the hairs on the nape of my neck are standing on end and my heart’s banging at the double.

  Asherton says: “Good evening, my dear!” and his sugar-and-cyanide voice is silk-smooth. Creamily he adds: “How attractive you’re looking! Isn’t he looking attractive, Elizabeth?”

  “Ever so attractive,” says Elizabeth placidly, “but then he always does. Hullo, pet.”

  I mumble a greeting.

  “I hear you’re about to meet a very wealthy gentleman,” says Asherton tenderly, “and I’m hoping he’ll prove to be a suitable candidate for GOLD. You’ll make sure you’re particularly nice to him, won’t you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “There’s a double-slot tomorrow afternoon which has unexpectedly fallen vacant,” says Elizabeth to him. “I’ve offered it to Sir Colin but he says the appointment has to be next Tuesday and it has to be in the West End.”

  “Ah, one of the cautious ones!”

  “It’s a bloody nuisance—it means clearing the late shift. If only Sir Colin would take Mr. Slaney’s double-slot tomorrow at the flat!”

  Asherton says idly: “What happened to Slaney?”

  “Dropped dead, dear—and just after he’d promised the boy ten thou in stocks and shares! I was ever so miffed!”

  Asherton looks suitably shocked at Richard’s lack of consideration. “My love, refresh my memory: why did you decide Slaney was unsuitable for GOLD?”

  “Gavin reported that Slaney had zero interest in religion, and I could see there was virtually no spiritual awareness worth cultivating. The only thing Slaney worshipped was . . . now, what was it? Something very nonnuminous . . . Oh yes, his boat. He liked sailing.”

  It suddenly dawns on me that if Richard left a legacy to the St. Benet’s Healing Centre—an idea which I know had occurred to him—I could be in deep shit. Word travels fast in the City, and wills get to be made public. I start to sweat. I’ve never told Elizabeth about Richard’s connection with St. Benet’s because she’s paranoid about the bloke who runs that place. She says he destroyed her psychic healing business. She says he came close to wrecking her entire life. She says she’ll never forgive him, never, she’d like to raze that church of his to the ground, she’d like to fire-bomb the Healing Centre, she’d like to crucify all Christians. Elizabeth can get very worked up if she feels she’s been hard done by.

  “Gavin?” I suddenly realise Elizabeth’s sensed my anxiety. Shit! I’d better get my mental skates on PDQ.

  “Gavin, what’s the matter? Why are you looking as if you’d forgotten to tell me Slaney was on the road to Damascus?”

  In panic I spew out a spiel. “Oh, he still didn’t give a toss for religion! But apparently—and he only admitted this to me last week—he was feeling benign towards the Church of England. His daughter was having problems and his wife had taken her to a clergyman for counselling and the counselling had been sort of, well, successful, know-what-I-mean, so Richard—”

  “What clergyman?”

  “Uh . . .” I see with horror that I’ve got to come clean. If I invent an imaginary clergyman at the other end of London and word gets out that Richard’s left a hulking great legacy to St. Benet’s, she’ll be so livid with me for lying to her that anything could happen.

  “Gavin!”

  “Sorry, darling, just trying to work out how to break the news so you don’t get upset. You see, it was a City clergyman, a clergyman at one of those Guild churches which have special ministries such as healing—”

  “I don’t believe I’m hearing this. Are you seriously trying to tell me that Slaney was mixed up with—”

  “Oh, Richard was never directly involved with what’s-his-face! As I said, it was Moira Slaney who—”

  “What was wrong with the girl?”

  “Anorexia.”

  “That means family therapy. Of course Slaney must have been involved with Darrow!”

  “I tell you he wasn’t—he refused to go because he was afraid of being outed as a gay! He never even met Darrow, I swear it!” This is a lie, but if I can keep pluggin
g the fact that Moira was the St. Benet’s fan, I might just possibly survive this braindead dive of mine into deep shit.

  The next moment it dawns on me that Asherton’s been maintaining the deadest of dead silences, and suddenly I realise that he’s just as appalled as Elizabeth—although as far as I know he had no connection with the disaster of 1990 when the Reverend Nicholas Darrow, Rector of St. Benet’s-by-the-Wall and bête noire of the psychic con-trade, managed to close down the healing business which Elizabeth ran under another name out of a house in Fulham.

  But before I can ask myself just why Asherton should be so gobsmacked at the thought of Darrow, Elizabeth stands up. Not a muscle of her face moves, but I know that what she minds most at this particular moment is not Richard’s tenuous link with St. Benet’s but the fact that Asherton’s seen she’s not in control of me.

  “It’s all right, Ash,” she says quickly. “I’ll deal with this. Gavin just made an honest mistake, that’s all—he saw Slaney’s connection with St. Benet’s as minimal so he didn’t mention it for fear of upsetting me.”

  “Yes, my love. But a church connection could have altered Slaney’s religious views. It should have been reported.”

  I feel I must try to insist that although Richard had come to respect the St. Benet’s ministry of healing he was still nowhere near being a religious believer. “I think—” I begin, but this is where I get zapped.

  “You’re not supposed to bother your pretty little head with thinking, my dear,” says Asherton, his voice now all cyanide and no sugar. “Your job is to fuck and do as you’re told.”

  My tongue seems to have been instantly transformed into wood but I manage to say: “Yes, sir. I’m very sorry I messed up. It won’t happen again, sir, I promise.”

  There’s a pause. Then Elizabeth relaxes and murmurs hospitably: “Another drink, Ash?”

  “No, thank you, my love. I must be on my way.”

  “Gavin,” says Elizabeth, “show Mr. Asherton out, would you?”

  I turn on my heel, cross the hall and with unsteady fingers open the front door.

  “Close that,” says Asherton behind me.

  I close it. My scalp crawls.

  “Kneel down.”

  I kneel immediately, head bent, and wait for the blow. But it never comes. He’s just getting a kick out of making me think I’m about to be walloped.

  “That’s a good boy!” he croons approvingly. “I do so like obedience . . . You haven’t forgotten how much I like obedience, have you, my dear?”

  I’m now having a hard time breathing. I feel him caress my hair and again I wait for the blow, but in the end he only pats my head as if I’m a dog.

  “Open the door.”

  I stagger to my feet.

  “Good night, Gavin,” he purrs as I somehow get the door open again, and without waiting for a reply he walks to the curb where he signals to his chauffeur. The car’s parked at the top of the nearest side road in order to avoid the bus lane which runs past the house.

  The Rolls glides along, pauses to pick up its owner and melts away towards glitzy SW1 on the other side of Lambeth Bridge.

  I’m left feeling shit-scared and subhuman, like a circus animal who’s messed up a trick in the ring and can think of nothing but the trainer with the big whip. Wiping the sweat from my forehead I close the door and slump back against the panels.

  “Gavin!” calls Elizabeth sharply. “Come here!”

  Obediently I scuttle back into the living-room.

  Elizabeth pats the empty space on the couch to signal I should sit beside her, but I’m not taken in by this cosy approach. She’s still furious, and in despair I ask myself why I let the idea of Richard leaving a legacy to St. Benet’s drive me into a confession. He might well have left the place nothing—in which case I’d have been off the hook. And even if the legacy had shown up in the will I could always have marvelled at it and claimed total ignorance of Richard’s St. Benet’s connection.

  Looking back I can hardly believe I made such a balls-up, but of course it was Asherton who skewered me. I only have to see him and my brain goes on the blink. He treats me as an animal so automatically I act as if I have an animal’s IQ.

  I draw breath to embark on a massive apology. “Elizabeth, I’m really, really sorry I came out with all that shit in front of—”

  “Face it, pet, I gave you a helping hand, didn’t I? I should have kept my mouth shut when I saw your eyes glaze over at the mention of Slaney’s religious interests!”

  But I know she’s shovelling on the sympathy to screw the whole truth out of me. Then she’ll unleash the big blast, but meanwhile I’ve got the chance to give my story a makeover, and this time I’d better be bloody sure I get it right.

  “It’s wonderful of you to be so understanding,” I say earnestly, “but I’m sure you want to know the real reason why I kept quiet about Richard’s St. Benet’s connection. It was because when he mentioned it to me last week he also asked me later on in that same session if I’d go sailing with him. So I think: oh boy, if I tell Elizabeth about Richard and St. Benet’s she’ll axe him from the client list and then my chance of sailing goes down the tubes.”

  “Ah, now we’re getting somewhere!”

  But I daren’t relax yet. More earnestly than ever I say: “Okay, I hate escort work, hate working on weekends, but I figured it would be worth it to get back on board a boat again. Richard said he had one of the new thirty-footers from Hunter with a self-tacking rig and a twin-keel option—”

  “Fancy!” says Elizabeth dryly, but she’s smiling at me.

  “—and so I thought: well, I will tell Elizabeth about the St. Benet’s connection—but not just yet. I thought—”

  “You thought: screw Elizabeth, I’ll play my own game here!” She’s still smiling as she turns up the heat.

  But I stay cool. I’ve provided the missing motive for my decision to withhold information, and the motive has the advantage of being true— more or less. I mean, the truth’s just been a bit edited, that’s all. Of course I’ve known about Richard’s St. Benet’s connection for months and I’ve been sailing with him six times, but I’m hardly likely to trot all that out to Elizabeth, am I? No way!

  Meanwhile as all this edited stuff flashes through my mind I’m protesting innocently: “Elizabeth, I never thought of it as playing my own game! I just didn’t want you axing him from the client list before I’d gone sailing!”

  But Elizabeth turns up the heat another notch.

  “Listen, pet,” she says, and now the smile’s vanished. “You took decisions that weren’t yours to take. Slaney was infatuated with you already, and if you’d gone sailing with him he might well have lost it altogether, run amok and ruined your vital reputation for leisure-working discreetly.”

  “But—”

  “Can you really have forgotten Langley threatening to top himself and Petersen having the nervous breakdown and Perrivale—no, I don’t even like to think of Perrivale screaming down the phone that he’d kill me unless I let him see you every day! Slaney was about to become an unacceptable risk, that’s the truth of it, and I’d have terminated him just as soon as those stocks and shares were in our hands.”

  “But Richard wouldn’t have flipped out like the other guys! He was an okay bloke, he wouldn’t have harmed me in any way, I was his friend!”

  “Oh, grow up, dear! Smart, classy, wealthy, successful men like Richard Slaney don’t have leisure-workers for friends! He wanted you for one thing and one thing only, and it would only have been a matter of time before he tried to cut me out and wreck your business in order to have you all to himself. You his friend? Don’t make me laugh! If you think he was your friend just because he wanted some fun on his boat, you’re deceiving yourself in the biggest possible way!”

  I try to keep my face expressionless as she unleashes this big blast, but after her last words I have to struggle to keep focused.

  “Now just you listen to me,” says Elizabeth, keepin
g her voice level but making sure every word comes out rock-hard. “I accept that you’ve come clean now about Slaney, but you should have been upfront with me from the start, and if you’re ever economical with the truth again like that I’ll be bloody angry.”

  “Darling, I’ll never let you down a second time, I swear I won’t—”

  “Asherton pays me good money so that you can report on your clients’ religious interests. If you keep mum when you should be speaking out, he’s going to feel short-changed—and I don’t like to think of Asherton being short-changed, dear, I really don’t. Short-changing Asherton’s not a good idea at all—and as for short-changing me by keeping quiet about a client’s St. Benet’s connection—”

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”

  “Just remember that if Darrow ever finds out where I am, the whole bloody fiasco of 1990 will be raked up and the police will land on us like a ton of bricks. They may not be able to jail you for leisure-working but they’ll smash your business by tipping off the tabloids about the pretty-boy who’s got the City sussed, and don’t think either that your precious Cayman Islands bank account would survive! The police would drag in the Revenue to make sure you got done for tax evasion!”

  It’s no big effort to assume the required sober expression. In fact after all the facts I’ve edited during this conversation, assuming a sober expression is the easiest thing I’ve had to do for some time. Anyway, since I’ve heard this scenario before I’m a long way from being in total shock. On the contrary, the next moment my brain’s clicking into top gear again as all the neurons skewered by Asherton finally achieve realignment, and I’m realising that this could be my golden chance to find out more about the fiasco of 1990. I’m also realising how important it is for me to seize this chance with both hands because when I get going in a big way with Carta Graham, fundraiser extraordinaire for the St. Benet’s Appeal, it’ll be vital to know exactly what risks I’m running. Just how far do I believe Elizabeth’s nightmare scenario which she uses to beat me into shape?