The Heartbreaker

by Susan Howatch

  Asherton’s been charged after all in relation to my stabbing, even though there were no witnesses and even though he’s bound to say he stabbed me in self-defence. But the Crown Prosecution Service is much more interested in nailing him for that incident when I was starting out with Elizabeth and had to be taught the lesson in obedience. It turns out that this lesson was recorded on tape, although I never knew it. (I was blindfolded a lot of the time or else granted only limited vision.) Anyway, the tape was neatly filed under BLAKE in Asherton’s S&M library. Brilliant! Of course Asherton will counter-charge that I was into S&M and consenting to everything, but the tape will be so revolting no one will believe him, particularly when the prosecution points out I had no connection with his S&M group and never did S&M parties when I was a prostitute. At least the tape will show how Asherton tortured waifs and strays—it’ll be a big nail in his coffin as he tries to wriggle out of the charge of murdering Jason and Tony and the other poor bastards who wound up buried in his dungeon.

  I can’t wait to testify about what that villain did to me. Put me on that witness stand and he’ll be totally fucked. And so will those Big Boys who carried out the “choreography” of sadism he “designed” for me. They’re all talking now, all betraying him and betraying Tommy in their desperation to avoid murder charges. Tommy’s still insisting he was never involved in the filming, but there are too many witnesses to say he was, and he’ll go down for a long, long time. He’ll never say a word against Elizabeth, though, because she owns him body and soul. I’m the one who’s going to nail Elizabeth as I testify to the Asherton–Delamere axis. Nigel will be backing me up, but he’s a fragile witness, and it’ll be left to me to make sure the prison door slams shut.

  Carta would like to testify too, but there’s no hard evidence now which would prove Elizabeth was implicated in the criminal mess which destroyed Kim Betz. My evidence from the safe that she was involved with GOLD was certainly helpful to the police, but it wasn’t enough for them to reopen the Betz file. Luckily Carta accepts this. She says at least I came up with answers to the questions which had been tormenting her, and at least Elizabeth’s being brought to justice.

  When I look back now at my life with Elizabeth I see it all with abnormal clarity, as if I’m a bystander watching this woman for the first time. I hear all her cosy little endearments and her relentless stream of euphemisms which translate the vile into the acceptable. I see her making shopping lists for Nigel and trundling off to the hairdresser, I see her wearing frothy negligées, odes to conventional femininity, I see the gleam in her eyes as she plays bingo at that arch-conventional hotel in Bournemouth. I’m even watching her chatting idly with Norah over Sunday lunch about the Royal Family. It all seems so normal—normal to the point of banality. Who would have thought that evil would present itself in such a banal way? Even Asherton looked like a typical City suit. More creepy still, he knew all the right people—he slithered in and out of those smart clubs and houses and was always judged, as old Mrs. Thatcher used to say, “one of us.”

  It makes me realise that evil’s not just something out there in another country. It’s crawling all over everywhere, constantly, but most of the time we don’t see it, can’t see it, don’t dare see it because it’s too bloody frightening. Not everyone has the balls to look evil straight in the eye and name it, as Colin did. But Colin always saw the wood from the trees, didn’t he? He only faltered with me, but he didn’t falter for long. Once he realised I was conning him he kicked me out of his life. I know now I never saw Colin as he truly was—I just saw him as meat to be manipulated and mocked. But he had his principles and he saw the truth. He was one of the good guys.

  The trial, blitzing into the media like a comet colliding with the Earth, catches up all our hidden fear of evil and exposes the dreaded darkness to the light. It dawns on me that this is part of justice. You bring in the light and the darkness recedes. The more light you bring in the less dark there is. The Bloke’s the light, and he wants everything that’s now dark to be made light—he wants everything to be healed and redeemed, yes, I see what he’s getting at—or at least I think I do—it’s a sort of vision where reality is both now and not-yet . . . And meanwhile here we all are at the Old Bailey, and Ms. Justice, with her sword and scales, is finally on the loose.

  My hour’s come. I feel like a French aristocrat two hundred years ago. Up I walk to the guillotine—and there’s Madame Defarge, longing for my head to bounce into the basket.

  But I’m going to be all right. It’s Madame Defarge’s head that’s going to roll. Walking into the witness box with The Bloke right behind me, I finally turn my back on all the years of lying and swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

  And I do.

  The part I’m ashamed about now is how I secretly loved being the centre of attention as Gavin Blake Star Witness. I hated myself for loving it, but you see, it made me feel powerful again, it was like taking a holiday from being a worthless drop-out. In my temporary fairy tale, crafted and hyped up by the slavering media, I was still high-octane sex personified, the superstud who shagged men for outrageous sums of money by day and shagged gorgeous girls for free by night. The conservative wrinklies were writing disgusted letters to the Daily Telegraph, the middle-aged liberals were simpering in the Guardian that I was a “free spirit” (yeah, pull the other one, you silly wetsies) and the voices of Yoof Culture (a bunch of dorks brain-mangled, obviously, by E) were gabbling incoherently on TV that I was cool. Looking back I can see clearly how unreal all this hype was, but the escape it offered enabled me to get through my ordeal without cracking up.

  Did I ever feel a twinge of sentimental nostalgia when Elizabeth and I were together in that courtroom? No. To get through that trial I had to shut out all the emotions she roused in me, even the most trivial—I even avoided the risk of being overwhelmed by taking care never to look her in the eyes. It was Nicholas who gave me this tip. He said she had such a powerful and malevolent personality that she would try to hypnotise me and break my will if I gave her half a chance. So I just sneaked glances at her now and then when she was looking the other way.

  Although I knew she’d changed her appearance, it was still a shock when I saw this grey-haired, dowdy-looking woman who looked as if she was the pillar of her local church. I just couldn’t connect this run-of-the-mill granny-figure with my steamy, curvy, ageless, blonde femme fatale— and this was good. It made it easier for me to shut down the emotions which might have slaughtered me on the witness stand.

  Carta made things easier for me too. She was always there, her presence giving me courage, and as our paths merged again after the months of separation I thought: I’m finally ending that unfinished business of hers. She’s been crucially important to me and now I’m being crucially important to her.

  So the trial achieved its purposes, both the obvious ones and the private, hidden ones, but it’s all in the past now. It’s over.

  Asherton and Elizabeth go down for life for multiple murder, for the attempted murder of me at the end of my Lambeth life and for that bloody assault on me at the beginning of it—and “life” is going to mean life and not a fifteen-year stretch with full remission for good conduct. Asherton’s judged guilty but nuts, so he winds up at Broadmoor, the top-security hospital for the criminally insane. It’s Elizabeth who goes to prison, though of course she’s not sane either, can’t be. However, apparently you’ve got to be more than just a psychopath to get a meal-ticket for life in a place like Broadmoor.

  For three days after the end of Elizabeth’s long career as Mrs. Pass-for-Normal, I’m badgered by the media but I give no interviews. I know it’s time to fade into obscurity, the male Cinderella who’s heard the chimes at midnight and has to pad home in his sweatshirt and jeans from the ball. The tabloid press froth at the thought of my memoirs and a famous PR man offers to handle the negotiations, but I turn down all the amazing sums of money I’m being offered. I can no longer be the per
son these vampires think I am, and anyway the word “vampire” hardly does justice to their pervy greed. They even expect me to reveal the names of my clients! Don’t these slimeballs understand that I was always famous for my discretion? No, I’m having nothing to do with them. I know better than anyone else by this time that when you sup with the Devil you need more than just a long spoon to survive.

  Luckily the media monsters soon move on to their next vat of blood and they stop camping outside the Rectory where Susanne and I and the cat have been staying during the trial. We’re finally free from all the hysterical scrutiny. It’s celebration time. After we’ve moved back home to Docklands, Susanne and I knock off a bottle of champagne, make love for hours and wake up still in ecstasy.

  “This is the start of my new life!” I yell, bounding out of bed and flinging back the curtains. “I’m going to get married, buy a boat and live happily ever after!”

  An hour later I’m having a complete nervous breakdown.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Carta

  Furthermore, at some points of Christian growth people can find themselves “blocked” . . . (perhaps) with a deepening awareness of the need to address an event, maybe from years previously.

  A Time to Heal

  A REPORT FOR THE HOUSE OF BISHOPS

  ON THE HEALING MINISTRY

  The essence of sin is “other people telling me who I am and I believing them.” Collusion with inauthentic images of myself can only be a denial of the irreducible originality of the given self, and thus an offence to God. In this sense sin is linked to a great deal of ill-health; for to believe and to enact a lie about myself, however unconsciously or for whatever noble motives, can only be conducive to sickness.

  Mud and Stars

  A REPORT OF A WORKING PARTY CONSISTING

  MAINLY OF DOCTORS, NURSES AND CLERGY

  I

  I first heard something had gone wrong with Gavin in the summer of 1993. I had survived my wedding (unexpectedly enjoyable), my honeymoon (well up to expectations) and the initial weeks of married life (not much different from unmarried life as Eric was on a creative binge and spending most of his time at the studio). I had also survived the trial. What I was having trouble surviving was the last lap of the St. Benet’s Appeal. We needed another fifty thousand to cope with rising costs and unforeseen extras, but I was suffering from fundraising fatigue and felt exhausted by the thought of this extra mountain to climb. On the morning Gavin became ill I was sagging in my office swivel chair and wondering again how I could restart my campaign. Having done almost no work during the trial I was feeling oppressed by guilt, and the buzz of the Rectory intercom came as a welcome diversion.

  “Susanne’s just phoned,” said Alice upstairs. “Gavin’s had some sort of collapse. Nicholas and Val are on their way out to him.”

  I was stunned because this was the last thing I would have predicted. At the onset of the trial Gavin had become a peculiarly sanitised version of his old self: charming, confident and extroverted but with his language cleaned up and his hypersexual aggressiveness tuned out. I had assumed he was finally on the mend and that the trial would be as much a catharsis for him as it was for me.

  I had wanted to be at the Old Bailey every day, and through the Crown Prosecution Service team I had managed to arrange that two seats were reserved for me in the public gallery. Realising how traumatic it would be for me to see Mrs. Mayfield again, Nicholas had insisted that someone should always come with me, and in fact he himself was at my side at the end. When Mrs. Mayfield stood in the dock for sentencing, he reached out and took my hand.

  I saw judgement passed upon her for her crimes.

  Her smooth, surgically altered face was eerily expressionless, but she looked up at the public gallery and stared not at me but at Nicholas. He stared back, and she was the first to look away. Then she glanced at me but her time in the dock had run out and she was taken away, taken out of my life for ever. When Gavin and I met up afterwards we flew into each other’s arms and wept, like the survivors of some huge disaster.

  Yet now he had collapsed. As Alice told me this latest news I began to realise that although I was home and dry at last after my long ordeal, Gavin’s ordeal had merely moved into a different phase.

  “What exactly happened?” I demanded.

  “I’m not sure. Susanne didn’t say much, just asked Nicholas to come over as soon as possible.”

  I called the house in Docklands.

  “Oh, it’s you,” said Susanne, sounding neither friendly nor unfriendly but merely businesslike, as if she were making one of Gavin’s appointments. “He’s not available, he’s gone unsociable again. Sorry.”

  “Alice tells me that Nicholas—”

  “He just left. All that praying stuff’s weird—imagine talking to God as if it’s a person! It’s almost as creepy as Gavin talking about that Jesus thing-y as if he lived just down the street.”

  “Does he? I mean, does Gavin—”

  “Yeah, mental . . .”

  Since the traumatic events surrounding Kim’s death I had actually thought long and hard about Jesus Christ, although of course I had never said so. One hardly wanted to be mistaken for some fanatical born-again, and anyway I had always felt that actions spoke louder than words; embarking on a totally new life had, for me, said all there was to say. But now I wondered if my reticence was further evidence of my spiritual inadequacy. If even Gavin could chat away about—

  “. . . so Val wants to get him to a hospital . . .”

  Abruptly I tuned in again to the rasping in my ear.

  “. . . but Gav says he won’t go, he’s afraid of being zombified and his head rearranged without his permission.”

  “For God’s sake! How did all this come about?”

  Susanne’s willingness to explain probably indicated how rattled she still was. “I’d taken another day off so that we could get settled back at the house,” she began, “and we were in the supermarket doing a big shop when suddenly some bloke bumps into him by accident, nothing major, just a short brush-past, but the next moment Gav’s white as frigging snow and starting to pant. Off he runs, and when I follow I find he’s flung himself into the car and he’s doubled up in the passenger seat with his hands over his face and he’s sobbing and shaking like he’s totally lost it. Which he has. Course I could see it coming a mile off. He was so hyped up fighting evil and seeing justice was done that now the trial’s over he’s crashed.”

  “But this is a catastrophe!”

  “No, it’s a nervous breakdown, I know, I had one. They take between six to nine months usually, maybe even a year. Then you’re okay.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “In the meantime Val’s given him some tranx—good ones, not head-shredders, and—”

  “But he must see Robin and have therapy!”

  “Nah, forget it. Gavin says he can only see men who are ultra-straight and even then they mustn’t be allowed to touch him. All the gays have done his head in, poor bastard, and now he can’t bear to think of anything connected with the Life—the reaction’s hit him with a mega-thwack and he’s zapped.”

  I was so appalled that I could only mumble how sorry I was. But although later I wrote to Gavin to send sympathy and offer support, he was apparently too ill to reply.

  II

  He was ill all that summer, unable to leave his house, unable to socialise, unable to do anything except watch television in his bedroom with the blinds drawn. Val found him a good local doctor, a woman who, like Val herself, at first recommended a short period of hospitalisation so that his case could be assessed and a more sophisticated drug therapy prescribed, but Gavin remained determined not to leave his house and as he was non-violent and non-suicidal there was no question of compelling him.

  Lewis eventually took over from Nicholas as Gavin’s primary carer from St. Benet’s. Nicholas was overwhelmed that summer by his private life; his ex-wife was pestering him for help because their elder son had falle
n in love with a lap-dancer while the younger one had dropped out of a legal training in order to start up an alternative comedy magazine called Bog. Eric said soothingly to Nicholas that this was very normal behaviour for two well-brought-up males who were under twentyfive, but I could hardly blame Nicholas for looking harassed. Alice, who was still not pregnant, confided to me that she thought Nicholas ought to change jobs and move well away from London before he too had a nervous breakdown, and I found he was heaving nostalgic sighs at the thought of his family manor house in the south-west. But I couldn’t see him stepping down from St. Benet’s when he was still in his prime.

  Meanwhile, as Nicholas floundered around with his family, overworked as usual at the Healing Centre and indulged in escapist dreams of his old home, Lewis had the time, the freedom and the single-minded dedication to attend to Gavin. He started to visit the Docklands house twice a week, and soon after this visiting pattern had been established he reported that Gavin wanted to see me.

  This was fortunate as I now had a special reason for wanting to see him.

  I had just had an extraordinary interview with Sir Colin Broune.

  III

  The return of Sir Colin Broune to the St. Benet’s scene began with a phone call from his secretary.

  “The St. Benet’s Appeal office,” I droned as I sat slumped at my desk in front of the morning’s post, but before I could go on to identify myself, an acid-voiced contralto was enquiring if I were Carta Graham.

  I confirmed that I was. My new marriage had not altered my decision to retain my maiden name at work.