Obsession

by Susan Lewis

  Corrie was grinning sheepishly. ‘Looks like I’ve made a proper fool of myself, doesn’t it?’ she said.

  Luke was laughing. ‘A bit,’ he said. ‘But there’s no harm done. So, are you going to accept the position of researcher?’

  ‘Of course. And … I’m sorry …’

  ‘Forget it.’ He got up from his desk and started walking to the door with her. ‘Before you go,’ he said, ‘you can do one thing for me. You can promise me that the next time we spend the night together you’ll tell me if I’m making you feel that way.’

  Corrie’s cheeks flushed hot with confusion. How on earth could she promise him that now that she and Annalise were going to be working so closely together? But how could she deny him either, when right at that minute she wanted nothing more than for him to take her in his arms and kiss her?

  Fortunately she was saved from answering by a loud knock on the door.

  Luke pulled it open.

  ‘Fucking hell!’ Alan Fox exclaimed when he saw Corrie. ‘Just look at you. You undergone some kind of metamorphosis at the weekend, or something? You look fantastic!’

  ‘Control yourself, Fox,’ Luke laughed, ‘and keep your groping hands off her too. We don’t want you up on a sexual harassment charge, though how you’ve got away with it this long beats me. Anyway, I’ve just given her the news that she’s to be a researcher, so you can be the first to congratulate her.’

  ‘And some,’ Fox grinned. ‘You deserve it babe, you’ve worked hard, put up with a lot of shit around here and survived.’

  Corrie was smiling. Since the set up with the transmission tape it was as if nothing had gone before, and though she guessed she’d never really like Alan Fox too much, there seemed little point in bearing a grudge now. The main thing was that she was at last accepted. Her colleagues spoke to her, laughed and joked with her, and even invited her to the cinema or parties they were going to. Life really had changed so much for the better these past couple of weeks, that what was the point in dwelling on the pyrrhic victory of revenge? What she needed now was to concentrate her energies on the new hurdles already confronting her – hurdles that were every bit as emotional as they were professional.

  – 10 –

  CORRIE AND ANNALISE were shooting interviews all over the country with prostitutes, MPs, policemen, health and social workers and campaigners for women’s rights. Carol had given them plenty of names and already they had some excellent footage in the can. They’d even been to Amsterdam and Hamburg to take a look at the way the laws governing prostitution and brothels worked there. Not that they saw much of either city, they simply weren’t there long enough. And while they were there they spent their time either in a brothel, or in law offices or a hotel room. The only language Corrie learned – other than the colourful jargon used by the prostitutes – was film language, and she was quite proud of the way it was already beginning to slip so easily off her tongue. Though she had little choice but to learn fast, since Annalise was proving something of a problem.

  It had been Corrie’s idea that Felicity Burridge should conduct all the interviews, and it was one, everyone agreed, that was working well. However, Annalise was jealous of the friendship Corrie had struck up with Felicity, and the fact that both Felicity and the crew were starting to look to Corrie for instructions irritated Annalise even more. Corrie was in no position to point out to Annalise that if she would only exert a little authority of her own, shake herself out of this stupor she seemed to have fallen into, and concentrate a little harder on what she was supposed to be doing, then there would be no reason for everyone to turn to her. Annalise was the producer, but not only that she was so unpredictable in her moods lately, was all too often hungover and so clearly resented spending so much time away from London, that Corrie was afraid of an irreparable flare up if she so much as uttered one word of criticism. Instead she went out of her way to stress to Felicity that she must consult with Annalise, and if the cameraman conferred with her on anything she made sure to steer him in Annalise’s direction too.

  Understanding the problem, Felicity did all she could to make things easier on Corrie, but still there was no doubt whom both she and the camera crew respected. Corrie might have been flattered, and in a way she was, but the trouble was, as far as the technical aspect of making the programme was concerned, she was blatantly inexperienced. The content she could handle, without any problem, she knew the message she wanted to get across, but she needed Annalise to tell her how to shoot it.

  They were now nine days into filming, and again, as the crew set up outside one of the more dilapidated buildings in a Birmingham street, Annalise was nowhere to be found. Corrie, tucked in behind her sunglasses and a woollen scarf, was looking at their notes as the camera crew, Felicity and two prostitutes waited.

  ‘Well,’ she said, looking up at last, ‘I think perhaps we should see the girls walking down the street here first – they can start somewhere up there, by the pub, I’ll time the shot to forty-five seconds and Felicity can fill it with voice over.’ She glanced at Felicity who smiled her encouragement. ‘Then perhaps we can go in for singles for the interview,’ she added, looking at the cameraman hopefully. He nodded. ‘Then come round here to do the reverses on Felicity?’

  Darren, the cameraman, shook his head. ‘You’ll be crossing the line doing it that way. But if this is just your standard interview you can leave it to me.’

  ‘Crossing the line?’ Corrie mouthed to Felicity.

  Felicity shrugged.

  ‘Oh, just one other thing,’ Corrie said, turning back to Darren who was readjusting his tripod. ‘I think we’ll want to intersperse the interview with shots of where the girls work.’ She paused. ‘Will that make a difference to the line?’

  Darren laughed. ‘It very nearly makes it redundant,’ he told her. ‘But not quite.’

  ‘OK, Polly and Danielle, if you can take up your positions,’ she said to the prostitutes, ‘we’ll get to it. I’ll just run through your questions with you, Felicity, before we turn over.’

  ‘You should be getting paid a producer’s salary for this,’ Felicity remarked, as Corrie took her to one side.

  Corrie pulled a face and continued flicking through her notebook.

  ‘Where is she?’ Felicity asked.

  Corrie was now stealing sidelong glances at the crowd starting to gather across the street. She hoped they wouldn’t start bawling and shouting once the camera was rolling, like the people of Newcastle had. Or come beetling over to ask Felicity for her autograph half way through a take. ‘I’m not sure,’ she answered, distractedly. ‘Anyway, let’s go through this, and once it’s done you can go back to the hotel. No reason for you to stay for the cutaways. I wonder if the line matters with them? I’ll have to get Darren to explain to me what it is. Oh, by the way, the sound guy asked me earlier if we wanted to record your voice wild. What the hell does that mean?’

  ‘I think it means do we want to do it here, on location, or do you want to dub it on in editing?’

  ‘Editing sounds safer. But I’ll have to come clean and tell him I don’t know. He’s a grumpy old sod, but hopefully he’ll give me the benefit of his advice. Anyway, let’s take a look at what we’re doing here. The fact that two prostitutes sharing a house or a flat together constitutes a brothel in the eyes of the law we’ll handle in the voice over, so don’t worry too much about that now. This is the list of questions you should ask for the interview, get one of them, Polly I think, she seems the better speaker, to explain why she and Danielle break the law by sharing the house, you know, about it being safer and all that. Then ask Danielle to tell you about the time she was beaten up and ended up in hospital for three weeks, which was why she and Polly decided to live and work together … Well, you can read what I’ve written. Run through it a minute and see if there’s anything you want to add.’

  An hour later, with mercifully little disruption from the crowd, the crew were ready to move their equipment inside the house,
and Felicity took the hire car she and Corrie were sharing back to the hotel. The unit finally wrapped at five thirty, and though Corrie was buzzing, she was exhausted too and badly in need of a drink.

  ‘I’ve found her,’ Felicity said, when Corrie turned up in the hotel bar with the crew.

  ‘Where is she?’ Corrie asked, flopping down in a chair and unzipping her Barbour.

  ‘Upstairs in her room. She’s been on the phone to Luke again. Surprise, surprise.’

  Corrie rolled her eyes, but as she made to get up again Felicity caught her arm and pulled her back. ‘You can’t keep covering for her like this,’ she said. ‘She’s a big girl now, she should be facing up to her responsibilities, like everyone else has to.’

  ‘I know,’ Corrie sighed. ‘But you’ve seen the state she gets herself into.’

  ‘Oh yes, I’ve seen it all right. So has everyone else. But she’s not a child, Corrie. She shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it. OK, I know it sounds hard, and ordinarily I’d be the last person in the world not to sympathize with what she’s going through, but there are times when one has to be professional, no matter what it’s costing you personally. I mean, how the hell did she get the job in the first place behaving like that?’

  ‘Connections,’ Corrie answered. ‘And besides, it’s only recently that she’s been as bad as this.’

  Felicity raised an eyebrow, as if waiting for Corrie to explain, and Corrie found herself suddenly unable to meet Felicity’s gaze. Had Felicity guessed that Corrie felt partly responsible?

  ‘She’s besotted with him, Fliss,’ Corrie said, uncomfortably, ‘you know she is, and I can’t help feeling sorry for her.’

  Felicity sighed with exasperation. ‘You’re too soft hearted for your own good, Corrie,’ she said. ‘And you’re not doing her any favours, molly-coddling her, mark my words. She’ll never pull herself out of it unless you make her.’

  ‘It’s not up to me, Fliss. I can’t tell her what to do.’

  ‘Like hell you can’t. That girl hangs around you like a shadow. She thinks everything you say is gospel, that is, when she’s not bitching about the way you’re trying to steal her job. Jesus Christ, she’d never survive without you …’

  ‘Oh, she’d survive without me all right,’ Corrie smiled. ‘It’s Luke she couldn’t survive without.’

  ‘Then she’ll have to learn. I mean the guy doesn’t want to know. He’s made that more than plain.’

  ‘Has he? I don’t think so. To be honest I think he’s just as confused about their relationship as she is.’

  ‘I can’t think why. I mean, he must know the way she feels about him …’

  ‘Yes, he does. But there are difficulties. Her father is his partner …’

  ‘I don’t call that a difficulty.’

  ‘You and I might not, but according to Annalise Luke does.’ She sighed. ‘I have to admit though, that I think there’s a lot more to it than Annalise is letting on.’

  Felicity eyed Corrie knowingly. ‘How about admitting,’ she said, ‘that there’s a lot more to it than you’re letting on?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Corrie laughed awkwardly. ‘Anyway, I’d better go up and see her. I’ll meet you back here in about an hour.’

  As Corrie rode up in the lift she was still smarting from the way Felicity had so easily detected her guilt. She’d never told Felicity about the night she’d spent with Luke, but Felicity knew that while they had been out on the road filming, while Annalise had been waiting in vain for his calls, Luke had on several occasions found the time to call Corrie. They never discussed anything other than how the programme was shaping up, but Corrie could sense from the tone of his voice, that the instant she returned to London he would be wanting to see her.

  As soon as Annalise let Corrie into her room Corrie knew she’d been drinking. Fortunately not too much, by the look of her, but she must have been crying for some time for her eyes to be so red. Corrie had intended, as gently as she could, to remind Annalise that she had a duty not only to everyone else to see this film through, but to herself too. But her words would have been wasted, she knew that immediately, for Annalise’s mind was clearly a long way from the shoot.

  ‘He’s with her, I know he is,’ Annalise exclaimed before Corrie even had a chance to close the door.

  ‘Who?’ Corrie asked.

  ‘Her! Whatever her name is. Look!’ Annalise dug into her bag and pulled out a birthday card. ‘I found this, last night on his desk …’

  ‘On his desk!’ Corrie interrupted. ‘Are you telling me you were in London last night?’

  ‘Yes. I took the train back. I had to find him, Corrie. I just had to. Please try to understand. I know I’ve landed you in it here, but I can’t think about anything else.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Corrie sighed. ‘Go on. Did you find him?’

  ‘No. But I found this, on his desk for all the world to see. I took it so he couldn’t sent it, but he’ll have sent another.’ She opened the card and started to read, ‘To my darling …’ Suddenly she flung the card down. ‘I can’t even pronounce the bloody name.’

  Corrie took the card and read the name Siobhan. ‘It’s pronounced Shevawn,’ she said. ‘It’s Irish.’

  ‘Oh God, I can’t stand it!’ Annalise cried, covering her ears with her hands. ‘He’s called me Siobhan, that’s the name he calls me. He’s even said it when we’re making love. Oh God, when he’s with me he’s thinking about her. What am I going to do, Corrie? Tell me, for God’s sake, what am I going to do?’

  ‘Do you know who she is?’ Corrie asked lamely.

  Annalise shook her head. ‘No. But it’s her he goes to see. When he disappears, it’s her he’s with. I know it.’

  Corrie was at a loss, and seeing the tears brimming in Annalise’s eyes she put her arms around her. ‘Come on,’ she said, ‘you’re only making this worse for yourself by dwelling on it. Why don’t you get into the shower then come and join us downstairs?’

  ‘I can’t face anyone,’ Annalise sobbed. ‘I’ve disgraced myself in front of everyone, I know I have, they’re all talking about me. They all hate me. I know you do, and I don’t blame you.’

  ‘That’s utter nonsense,’ Corrie told her firmly. ‘No one hates you. Least of all me.’

  ‘Oh Corrie!’ Annalise cried, suddenly clinging to Corrie so tightly it hurt. ‘What am I going to do? Please tell me. I can’t go on like this. I’ve got to make him understand that I love him. That I’ll do anything for him.’

  ‘I think he already knows,’ Corrie said as gently as she could.

  ‘Then why won’t he give her up? Why does he have to keep seeing her? And why does he always come to me straight after? He’s so cruel to me then … Oh Corrie, it’s so awful. You just don’t know what it’s like. He hits me. Sometimes he hits me so hard …’ Her voice broke off as she started to sob.

  Having seen the bruises on Annalise’s face this came as no surprise to Corrie at all. However, it was the first time Annalise had admitted to it. ‘Why does he hit you?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know. He just says that I ask for it. But I don’t. I don’t want him to hurt me, I just want him to love me. He says he does, he even makes me promise never to leave him. And I won’t. Oh God, who is she, Corrie? What is she doing to him?’

  Again Corrie didn’t have an answer. All she could do was hold Annalise as she wept into her shoulder, stroke her hair and whisper that it would be all right, that they would work something out in the end.

  ‘Stay with me while I shower,’ Annalise choked. ‘I don’t want to be on my own.’

  ‘All right,’ Corrie smiled, looking at her watch. She had a whole list of telephone calls to get through that night to check that everything was set up for the next day, but it seemed they would have to wait. ‘I told Felicity we’d meet her at seven, so you’ve got half an hour.’

  When Annalise had gone into the shower Corrie picked up the birthday card again and opened it.
To my darling Siobhan on your birthday, with all my love, Luke. So there was another woman, and Corrie could only feel relieved that it wasn’t her. During the past two weeks her feelings for Luke had become confused; she would, naturally, always be grateful for the promotion he had given her, however she had earned it – and she still wasn’t sure – but she couldn’t be anything other than disturbed by the way he was treating Annalise. A man striking a woman was anathema to Corrie, something which just couldn’t be forgiven, especially when that women was as fragile as Annalise. He knew how much Annalise loved him, how easy it was for him to hurt her, either physically or mentally, so why did he do it? Corrie herself had sensed the undercurrent of violence in him before he had made love to her that night, but even so she had come away still strongly attracted to him. She really didn’t think she was now though, not having seen how badly Annalise was suffering, but in truth she couldn’t say for sure how she felt.

  The following night, after a long, tiring and frequently hysterical day of shooting in a ‘torture’ chamber, Corrie was again sitting in Annalise’s room, this time listening to Luke yelling down the phone at her to get off his back and get on with her job. Annalise was pleading with him to listen, but Corrie heard him tell her to act her fucking age, before hanging up.

  ‘If he doesn’t want her,’ Corrie said to Paula on the phone later, ‘then why the hell doesn’t he just let her go? I can’t understand it. And if you could see her, she’s lost so much weight, she’s drunk half the time – he’s really screwing up her mind. She just can’t handle this, and I don’t know how to advise her.’

  ‘I think all you can do is listen,’ Paula said. ‘And think yourself lucky you’re finding out what he’s like before you got involved yourself.’