Obsession

by Susan Lewis

  ‘You don’t really think he pushed her, do you?’

  Paula shrugged, ‘Who knows?’ She winced as Beth bit hard on her nipple. ‘So you reckon you’d like to work in films do you?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘What, over there in America?’

  Corrie thought about that for a minute, then turned up her nose. ‘Not in America, no. The place is full of nutters and psychos.’

  ‘What about London?’ Paula interrupted, laughing. ‘You’ve just been reading about what’s going on there.’

  ‘True. But they’ve got all those dreadful women in America too. You know, with their Hollywood legs and silicone boobs, I could never compete. Besides, from all you read about them they’re about as skilled at being real people as Kevin Foreman is at foreplay. So, no, I’ve no desire to go to America. London would do me just fine, thank you.’

  She turned back to the story on Angelique Warne.

  ‘Speaking of Kevin,’ Paula said, trying to arrange Beth a little more comfortably, ‘I saw Linda Farrow in Safeway’s earlier. Did you know she was going out with Kevin?’

  Corrie shook her head. She was looking at the picture of Bennati again. ‘Good luck to her, is all I can say,’ she mumbled.

  ‘She told me they’re getting engaged next month.’ Paula waited for a reaction from Corrie.

  ‘Bit quick, isn’t it?’ Corrie remarked, still not paying much attention.

  ‘Well apparently she’s been going out with him for ages, they just haven’t told anyone until now. She didn’t want Jerry to find out, you know what he’s like. He beat Kevin up before, remember, when we were at the disco in the village hall? That was just for looking at Linda. Anyway, it seems like Jerry’s got himself someone else now, someone he met in Benidorm last summer.’

  ‘Just a minute,’ Corrie said, looking up at last. ‘Are you telling me that Kevin Foreman was going out with Linda Farrow when he and I …?’

  Paula nodded.

  ‘The bastard! The filthy, lying cheat … To think that that revolting goose-pimpled little wart had the gall to tell me to give him a call if I ever fancied doing it again. Anyone would think he was the superstud of the century. Ugh! He makes me want to vomit. Those spindly legs and concave chest. And all the time he’s been sticking it up Linda Farrow. Look after the shop for me will you, I’m going over there to put his willie through the mincer.’

  Laughing, Paula handed her the baby and tucked herself back into her bra. ‘Sorry, I’ve got to go,’ she said. ‘It’s Saturday and Ipswich are playing at home.’

  Corrie grinned, knowing all too well the relevance of Saturday afternoons and Ipswich’s home games to Paula. While her Dad was at the match and her mother was out shopping, Paula and Dave would have the house to themselves.

  When Paula left Corrie retrieved the three outsize dresses Mrs Cunliffe had left in the changing room earlier and put them back on the rack. Then, glancing at the photograph of Cristos Bennati again, she muttered to herself, ‘I’ll bet he did push her. He’s a man. All men are bastards.’ Closing the paper and tossing it in the bin she went into the office at the back of the shop to wrestle with the new computer she’d bought a few days before to do the paperwork on. The damned thing was driving her insane, but what a sense of triumph when she got it to do something she wanted it to. ‘Oh, the little highs of life,’ she said chirpily, making herself laugh.

  After a while the bell rang and she went back into the shop to find a woman who, given her appearance, and the chauffeur outside, could only be from one of the big houses nearby. Corrie hid her surprise well, but immediately felt shabby and parochial beside this elegant woman even though she must have been twice Corrie’s age. To her unutterable disgust Corrie heard herself putting on a voice that made her sound like a prize idiot, and unable to stop herself she began treating the woman as though she were some kind of royalty.

  The woman was there because a zip on a dress she’d bought in London, which she wanted to wear that night to the Denbys’ ball had broken. Could Corrie fix it?

  ‘Of course,’ Corrie answered, after she’d given a sublime rendition of orphan Annie in admiring the dress. ‘Well, actually my mother can. If I did it I’d be sure to leave a pin in somewhere, and the last thing we want is you getting a prick in the bum.’ She looked at the woman aghast, unable to believe what she’d just said. ‘Pin in your bum,’ she said quickly.

  The woman laughed uncomfortably, and said she’d send the Denbys’ chauffeur back to the shop around six that evening. Corrie walked her to the door, held it open for her, refrained from bowing, then watched through the window as the chauffeur helped the woman into the limousine. As they drove away Corrie, despite wanting to groan with undying embarrassment, was trying very hard not to laugh.

  Half an hour later Auntie Hattie came in to mind the shop while Corrie went home for her lunch, taking the dress with her. When she arrived back at the cottage it was to find Doctor Sands just leaving.

  ‘How is she?’ Corrie asked.

  The doctor smiled and patted her hand. ‘A little better today, I think.’

  Corrie knew he was being kind, but after stopping off in the kitchen and checking on the delicious aroma coming from the stove, she went outside to find her mother in the garden tidying up her rose bushes. She saw straight away that Edwina had a good deal more colour than usual in her cheeks and since Edwina hadn’t heard her come in, she watched her curiously for a moment. Yes, there was no doubt about it, she did look better, and there was a smile on Edwina’s face that Corrie felt reflecting on her own.

  ‘You look wonderful,’ Corrie told her.

  Edwina looked up in surprise. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  ‘So, what’s happened?’

  ‘Happened? Nothing’s happened. Except the sun is shining and I love my daughter more than anyone else in the world.’

  Corrie pulled a face. ‘God, you’re slushy sometimes. Still I have to tell you it’s a relief to know that’s all it is. For one minute there I thought you’d been bouncing about the bedroom with Doctor Sands.’

  Edwina laughed. She really did seem happy today.

  Corrie handed her the bag with the dress in then went to put the kettle on. When she came out again Edwina’s gardening gloves were lying on the table and she was holding up the dress admiringly.

  ‘This isn’t one of ours,’ she said.

  Corrie explained whose it was, then as she went back inside to make the tea she added. ‘She wants it for a ball tonight at the Denbys’. The chauffeur’s coming back for it, if you please.’ Since her mother was standing quite near the door she kept up her chatter as she made the tea. ‘You should have heard me in the shop with this woman,’ she said. ‘God, it was disgusting. There I was fawning around her like Uriah Heep, then you’ll never guess what I said …’ She was laughing away as she told her mother about her faux pas, by which time the tea was made and she carried it out into the garden. One look at her mother’s face and the laughter died on her lips.

  Corrie rushed to her side and asked what was wrong. Edwina said it was nothing, but Corrie was insistent. ‘You’re so pale all of a sudden.’

  Edwina looked into Corrie’s eyes and for a moment seemed about to tell her something, but then she shook her head and turned back to the dress.

  ‘Are you in pain, Mum?’ Corrie asked.

  ‘Not now, sweetheart. It’s passed. Now go on telling me about the lady in the shop …’

  At six o’clock the chauffeur returned for the dress, and Corrie, who was waiting impatiently by the door, handed it over and immediately locked up the shop. She all but ran back across the square, trying all the time to suppress the horrible foreboding that was threatening to explode into panic. She didn’t want to admit it, even to herself, but she’d heard how sometimes people with cancer seemed better in the days before they died.

  A week later Edwina was in bed. Corrie and Paula had spent the evening in her room with her, but Edwina was tired so Paula had lef
t early. Around ten Corrie went in to wish her mother good night.

  Edwina held out her hand and Corrie took it.

  ‘Would you like me to read to you for a while?’ Corrie asked.

  ‘Mm, yes. Why not?’ Edwina said. ‘But in case I fall asleep I’ll say good night now, sweetheart. And God bless.’

  Corrie started to read, but Edwina fell asleep very soon. It was in the early hours of the morning, with Corrie still sitting beside the bed, that Edwina died.

  – 4 –

  IT WAS A week after Edwina’s funeral that Ted Braithwaite asked Corrie to come and see him. She’d been expecting the call and was surprised Ted had waited this long. For her part she could have waited a lot longer.

  Since Edwina’s death she had been coping with each day as it came. She never allowed herself to think beyond what she was doing at any given moment; she wouldn’t allow herself to cry for more than a few minutes at a time; neither would she permit herself to be drawn into the vacuum of overwhelming senselessness that constantly threatened to engulf her. She made tea for the seemingly never-ending stream of visitors, comforted Paula and Auntie Hattie, who were as distressed, she knew, by her remoteness as they were by Edwina’s death, and listened patiently, silently, to Reverend Fox’s words of comfort.

  The truth was that Corrie, even though she had known for a long time that her mother was going to die, was, now that it had finally happened, so devastated, so paralysed by shock and torn apart with grief that she didn’t dare even to attempt to fathom the depth of her loss for fear she would drown in it.

  She never minded talking about Edwina though, but only did so with Paula or Auntie Hattie, sharing her memories with them and more often than not laughing at some little thing she remembered that had been so characteristic of her mother. She pored over old photographs, giving many of them away to those who had loved Edwina, but keeping the special ones for herself. At night she would lie alone in the house wondering if her mother was happy now. She wondered too if Edwina could see her, could hear her speaking to her. She liked to think she could.

  Edwina’s clothes were already packed, and would soon be taken to the charity shop; her medicine cabinet had been cleared and the detestable wigs and breast pads disposed of. So it wasn’t as though Corrie was refusing to accept that Edwina had gone, it was simply that she was too calm, too self-possessed, and altogether too brave, for either Hattie or Paula to rest easy.

  But now Corrie had to face perhaps the most difficult test of all. Uncle Ted, she knew, had asked her to come over to tell her the contents of her mother’s will. To Corrie’s mind this, not the funeral, would be the final contact with her mother. After today there would be nothing more, Edwina would be gone forever. And Corrie knew, because she had known her mother so well, that there would be a special message for her in the will, and she wasn’t sure she could bear to hear it. Already, as she put on her coat to cross the square, she could feel tears of desolation and loneliness simmering dangerously close to the surface.

  Uncle Ted was waiting for her at the door, ready to pull her in out of the rain and fold her into his warm embrace. Corrie rested in his arms for a moment, then kissed him on the cheek and handed her umbrella to Auntie Hattie, before following them into Uncle Ted’s library. As she sat down on the upright chair in front of his desk Ted glanced at Harriet. Her mournful expression reflected Ted’s own. She knew how difficult this meeting was going to be for her husband, yet how much worse it was going to be for Corrie. They neither of them, Ted nor Harriet, could even begin to guess how Corrie was going to take what Ted had to tell her, but both were more than a little afraid. And seeing the glassy look in Corrie’s eyes, the innocence in her wind-reddened cheeks Harriet’s heart swelled with such pity that she had to stop herself sweeping Corrie into her arms.

  Corrie watched Uncle Ted as he took his pocket watch from his waistcoat, glanced at it nervously then settled into the vast leather chair behind his desk. She waited quietly for him to begin, her eyes never leaving his face, but by now a faint shadow of confusion was creasing her brow. It was unlike Uncle Ted to be at a loss for words, but he seemed so now. He smiled awkwardly, then his eyes strayed to the leaded windows, staring out at the rain spattered garden.

  Leaning forward Corrie covered his hands with her own. ‘We can always do this another time,’ she smiled. ‘I mean, I guess Mum has left everything to me, so there’s no real need …’

  Her voice hung in the warm air as Ted looked at her. Corrie put her head quizzically to one side, then with a glint of uncertain humour in her hazel eyes said,

  ‘I take it I’m not in debt?’

  At last Ted laughed. ‘No. No, my dear, you’re certainly not in debt.’

  ‘Now there’s a relief.’

  ‘But I think you should prepare yourself for a bit of a – surprise.’

  Instantly the humour retreated. ‘What kind of surprise?’

  Ted opened a file on the desk in front of him and stared down at it.

  ‘Uncle Ted?’

  He looked up, smiled briefly, then bracing himself, he once again lowered his eyes as he said, ‘Well, my dear, apart from the shop and the cottage, your mother has left you something in the region of a quarter of a million pounds.’

  He looked up and found the very expression he had expected – stunned disbelief.

  For a moment or two Corrie simply blinked. Then she laughed. ‘But the dress shop could never have made that much money. It didn’t. I know it didn’t, I do the accounts myself.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Ted told her. ‘It didn’t. The money, with the exception of twenty thousand pounds, has come from your father.’

  ‘My father! You mean…. But Mum never said anything about this. Uncle Ted, are you sure you have it right? I mean if Dad had left all that money for Mum when he died she would have told me.’

  Ted shook his head. ‘No, she wouldn’t have told you. She didn’t tell you. I think she wanted to, many times, but … well … The truth is, Corrie, your father didn’t leave the money when he died. You see, he isn’t dead.’

  Again Corrie stared at him, her cruelly bitten lips trembling with shock. Then to Ted’s dismay she started to recoil, as though he was playing her a cruel and tasteless joke.

  ‘As I said,’ Ted began, ‘I think your mother wanted very much to tell you the truth, but …’

  ‘What are you talking about? The truth is that he died. He died when I …’ she stopped as again Ted shook his head.

  ‘Your father is very much alive, Corrie. You don’t know how sorry I am that you have to find out like this …’

  ‘No! Stop, stop!’ Corrie cried. ‘You’ve made a mistake. My mother would have told me if he was alive. I know she would. I mean why would she keep it from me?’

  ‘She had her reasons, Corrie. I don’t think she was proud of them, but it was a decision she took before you were born.’

  ‘No, I don’t believe it. She wouldn’t have kept … We told each other everything.’

  Ted merely looked at her, his round blue eyes imbued with sympathy. Corrie turned away, absently shaking her head. Then suddenly her head snapped up and the look of anger and betrayal in her eyes was unbearable. ‘So she lied! All those stories she told me about him, none of them were true?’

  Taking a deep breath Ted removed his spectacles and rubbed a hand over his jaw. He suddenly looked very old and very tired. ‘They were true,’ he said, ‘at least partly, but …’

  ‘Why would she tell you and not tell me?’ Corrie cried. ‘I just can’t believe …’

  ‘She didn’t tell me, my dear. At least not at first. It was your father who told me what happened.’

  ‘You mean you know him?’

  ‘Yes. I was his solicitor – more accurately his father’s solicitor. Only here, of course, in the country, they had someone else to take care of affairs in London, but the matter of Edwina came to me.’

  ‘The matter of Edwina! Oh God, I can’t believe this is happening?
Are you trying to tell me he deserted her, that he paid her off? Are you saying she’s loved him all these years when all the time …’ Corrie couldn’t go on. Her eyes darted about the room, as though searching the shadows for the sense of all this. She felt suddenly weightless with the shock, lightheaded. It was as though she were drifting through the tangled, menacing branches of a dream – a nightmare.

  Ted waited for her to look at him again. She struggled to see him, to hear him, but her mother’s face, her mother’s words were besieging her. She stood up, circled the chair and went to press her head against the soothing coolness of the window. She looked out at the village she had known all her life but now looked so alien. ‘What, what did you say?’ she said, distantly aware that Ted was speaking.

  ‘I said that I am willing to tell you what really happened. But maybe we should wait …’

  Corrie shook her head. Her eyes were absorbed by the heavy grey clouds hanging oppressively over the village. ‘No, I don’t want to wait,’ she said flatly. ‘Tell me now.’

  Ted heaved himself to his feet and walked to the door. ‘Hattie!’ he called, ‘bring us some tea.’

  When a few minutes later Hattie brought in the tray Corrie was sitting down again. She looked up at Auntie Hattie’s anxious face. ‘Did you know?’ she said quietly.

  Swallowing hard Hattie nodded, and once again Corrie was aware of that strange feeling of weightlessness.

  ‘So,’ she said, when Hattie closed the door behind her.

  ‘So,’ Ted repeated. He handed Corrie a cup of tea then sat down with his own. For a moment or two he studied Corrie’s face, loving her and admiring the inner strength that shone so clearly now in her eyes. These past few years had not been easy for her, the past two weeks must have been hell. And now here he was, adding to her distress, and there she sat, perfectly under control again, chin raised, and the only sign of the strain she was under showing in the faint shadows beneath her eyes. He could wish that perhaps she weren’t so brave, that she would let go of her emotions and allow herself the release she needed. But that would happen in time, he told himself, he just hoped it would be sooner rather than later.