by Susan Lewis
‘Yeah, sure I am,’ he sighed, ‘I’ve been here with this pre-mix all night. It’s not going so well and I’m not too sure we’re going to make it at this rate. I got to tell you, Corrie, that it sure doesn’t help with you being over there. I miss you so bad it’s creating hell with my concentration.’
Corrie smiled. ‘I don’t believe it.’
‘You better. I want you so much it’s driving me crazy. What are you doing to me, woman?’
‘Obviously driving you crazy.’
‘Damn right you are. Shit, Corrie, can’t you say you want me too?’
‘I want you, Cristos,’ she said softly, ‘I want you just as badly.’
‘Then come over.’
‘For a holiday?’
‘Call it what you like, just come.’
‘All right,’ she said, ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
The next morning when Corrie asked Bob for the time off he didn’t even stop to think about it, ‘Why the hell not?’ he grumbled. ‘Every fucker else around here’s on holiday, why should you be any different!’
‘I’ll book the flight for next Monday, so I’ll be here to help out until the end of the week,’ Corrie said, trying to sound generous. In fact Paula’s baby was being christened on Sunday and Corrie was Godmother, so she wouldn’t have gone until Monday anyway.
Then, to her amazement, on Friday afternoon, while she was helping out with telephone calls for another researcher Luke and Annalise walked into the office.
‘You weren’t due back until next Tuesday,’ Corrie said, embracing Annalise. ‘What happened?’
‘Luke has an appointment he’d forgotten,’ Annalise answered, distractedly.
‘But everything’s all right, isn’t it?’ Corrie pressed.
‘Yes, it’s fine,’ Annalise answered, walking over to pick up her mail.
But it was obvious it wasn’t, and Corrie suddenly felt so resentful she wanted to scream. Why did Annalise have to come back like this now? How could she just go off to Los Angeles and leave her, when things had clearly started to go wrong again? But she would, she told herself, vehemently. Damn it she would.
She started to wonder though, when Luke sent for her, if her leave wasn’t about to be cancelled, but to her surprise he simply said,
‘Bob tells me you’re taking some time off and going to Los Angeles?’
‘Yes,’ she said, a challenging light springing to her eyes.
‘OK. Well, I guess I’ve given you a hard enough time over Cristos in the past, so how about to make up for it I drive you to the airport.’
‘That won’t be necessary, thank you,’ she said. ‘I can take a taxi.’
‘Then at least let one of the secretaries book you a car, courtesy of TW – it’s the least I can do given the way I’ve tried to interfere in your life before.’
Shrugging her acceptance Corrie went off to a secretary, then gathering up her belongings left to go to Paula’s for the weekend.
As she watched Corrie go Annalise’s heart was breaking. Never in her life had she needed Corrie more than she needed her now. But she knew if she were to tell Corrie the real horror of what she had discovered in Spain then Corrie would never go to Cristos, and Annalise didn’t want to do that to her. Besides, Corrie staying here would change nothing – it was too late now, nothing in the world could alter what had been done. She thought back to the night, all those months ago, when she had first suspected that her mother was having an affair with Luke. Well she knew now that her mother was, and dropping her head in her hands Annalise felt the tears burn across her eyes. If only it were as simple as that, but it wasn’t, and all she could think of was that if she lost Corrie to Cristos now then she wouldn’t want to go on living.
Picking up her bag she wandered aimlessly out of the office and down to the street. She had nowhere to go, no one to turn to – she couldn’t even tell her father what she had learned because were she to repeat those heinous, vile words she had heard from her own mother’s lips, then Annalise knew that Phillip’s world would come to an end too.
When Corrie arrived back at her studio on Sunday night there were two messages waiting on her answerphone. The first was from Cristos telling her that Jeannie would pick her up from the airport the next day and take her straight to where he was dubbing. The second was from Phillip saying that he had a meeting near Heathrow in the morning so would come and have a coffee with her before she flew off.
After calling Paula to tell her she’d arrived back safely, Corrie put on some music then set about packing. She was grinning to herself as she wondered whether she would be able to hold off telling Cristos she loved him over the next ten days. Perhaps she wouldn’t even try, after all it was a futile game she was playing that was fooling no one, least of all him. Oh what the hell, she laughed to herself, she would tell him, and not only because she so desperately longed to hear him say it again, but because she was just being obtuse in not accepting the fact that she’d already given one hundred per cent of herself to him anyway. Whether or not she said the words couldn’t change that, and now she’d had a taste of what it was like not to have the reassurance of hearing them she realized that she didn’t want to inflict it on him any longer.
Having reached her decision she was sorely tempted to pick up the telephone and tell him now. But no, she’d wait until they were together, she wanted to see the look in his eyes when she said it.
Before she went to bed she tried calling Annalise, but the answerphones were on at both Luke’s and Annalise’s. Deciding to try again in the morning Corrie rang off without leaving a message on either machine.
Just after ten the next morning, having woken up in the night thinking about Annalise, Corrie called the office. Annalise wasn’t there so Corrie tried her at home. Again she got the answerphone, but as she started to leave a message, Annalise’s voice cut in.
‘Yes, of course I’m going in to work today,’ Annalise assured her when Corrie asked. ‘In fact I was just on my way out of the door.’
‘Did you have a good weekend?’ Corrie asked.
‘Mmm, not bad. How did the Christening go?’
‘Beth was wonderful. How come you didn’t stay with Luke last night?’
‘Oh, we had a bit of a tiff, nothing serious. Anyway, I’d better go seeing as I’m already late, but you have a great time, and don’t forget to ring me if you get the chance.’
‘I’ll do that,’ Corrie said, and they rang off.
At her end Annalise, who was hunched into an armchair, gathered her knees into her arms as though trying to collect the crumbling pieces of her life. She was still in her nightgown and doubted she’d get dressed all day. If she did she certainly wouldn’t be going to the office. For a moment she was tempted to call Corrie back and ask if she could go with her to LA. But Corrie wouldn’t want her there, so Annalise remained as she was – the way she had been the entire weekend, frozen in the nightmare of her life.
At eleven o’clock Corrie’s doorbell rang announcing the arrival of the taxi.
‘Coming!’ Corrie called out, snapping her suitcase shut. She checked around to make sure she had everything, and that all that should be was switched off, then hitting the button to turn on the answerphone she picked up her bags to go. She’d get Phillip to check on Annalise later, she was thinking as she opened the door, and heaving her suitcase onto the top step she turned back again to lock up. At that very moment the telephone rang, and just in case it was Annalise, Corrie ran inside to answer it, but whoever it was rang off before she could get there.
Pressing his foot hard on the accelerator Phillip’s car all but flew up over the ramp in Terminal Four’s short-term car park. As he swerved around the corner he had to break hard to avoid an old couple with three luggage trollies who were suddenly barring his way. Hooting loudly on the horn Phillip tore past them and squealed the car to a halt in a nearby parking space. Ignoring the pensioners’ remonstrations, he pressed the remote on his key chain, locking and alar
ming the car, then ran towards the stairs. The damned meeting had gone on much longer than he’d expected, and now, if it wasn’t too late already, he was going to miss Corrie.
Dashing into the terminal building he took the escalator three steps at a time up to the check-in desks. Pausing to read the TV screens above him, his heart sank when he saw that the last call for the BA 283 to Los Angeles was already up. Still, she was flying first class so might not have gone through yet. But knowing that she almost definitely would have, there was less urgency to his step as he continued to press his way through the crowds.
Twelve hours later Jeannie was at Los Angeles airport watching the arrivals as they filed through from customs. She was searching the faces and smiling to herself as she listened to the British accents of those who passed. She felt like a voyeur as she witnessed the tears and whoops of joy that went along with the greetings, and was so affected by the emotion as it ebbed and flowed around her that she guessed she was probably going to cry when she saw Corrie.
Jeannie waited for over an hour, at first groaning for Corrie that she was getting picked apart by customs. Eventually though, Jeannie’s concern took her to the information desk. Some five minutes later it was confirmed that Corrie Browne had, at the last minute, cancelled her flight to Los Angeles.
Jeannie’s only hope now was that while she’d been at the airport Corrie had called Cristos to explain, ’cos if she hadn’t Jeannie dreaded to think how Cristos would take the news. Aside from Cristos, Jeannie was the only person in the world who knew that Cristos was intending to ask Corrie to come to Los Angeles and live with him, because only to Jeannie had he confided how bad it had been for him since they’d come back from England. But how much worse it was going to be for him now that Corrie hadn’t shown, for in her heart Jeannie knew that Corrie hadn’t called Cristos to say she wasn’t coming. She’d had more than twelve hours to do it, and if she had then Jeannie would have known long before this – hell, she wouldn’t even be at the airport.
When she got back to the lot Jeannie went straight to Cristos’s private office and called him on the telephone. It was a while before he left the pre-mix, but when Jeannie saw his face come in through the door she could see he was ready to apologize to Corrie for keeping her waiting. He looked around the room and when his eyes finally settled on Jeannie she saw his dark skin turn pale.
‘She didn’t come,’ he said.
Jeannie shook her head. ‘She cancelled her flight.’
Knowing he’d want her to, Jeannie left him alone then, but it was only a few minutes later that she heard him on the telephone, leaving a message on Corrie’s answering machine.
‘I don’t know why you changed your mind,’ he said, ‘but just call me.’
Two days later Paula and Dave were sitting at the table in their little kitchen in Amberside. Dave was laughing as he was losing the struggle to feed Beth, who was determined to wield the spoon herself, but when he realized that Paula wasn’t paying any attention he let go of the spoon and turned himself round to face her.
‘I came in from work an hour ago and you still haven’t spoken to me yet,’ he told her.
Paula started, but when she made to apologize Dave said, ‘I take it she didn’t ring today either?’
Paula shook her head. ‘No. I know you’re going to tell me that she’s probably too caught up with what’s going on over there, but, well she said she’d call as soon as she arrived … I didn’t expect that, it would have been the middle of the night here, but I thought I’d have heard from her by now.’ She paused, looking down at her hands bunched on the table in front of her. ‘Dave, I know you’re going to say I’m daft or something, but I’ve just got this feeling that … Well, I can’t explain it really …’
Sighing, Dave said, ‘She gave you the number there, didn’t she?’
Paula nodded.
‘Then use it.’
Two minutes later Paula was listening to the single ringing tone at Cristos’s house in the Holmby Hills. When the answerphone clicked on, shy of leaving messages, Paula was about to ring off when she heard Cristos’s voice giving a number where he could be contacted. Quickly she dialled again and this time got through to where he was dubbing.
‘I’m sorry to bother you,’ she said, when he came on the line, ‘but I was hoping to speak to Corrie. Is she with you, by any chance? It’s Paula here, her friend from England.’
‘Paula!’ Cristos’s voice sounded incredulous.
‘Yes. It’s just that Corrie said she’d call me when she got to …’
‘Hang on,’ Cristos said, ‘you’re calling here to speak to Corrie? She’s got to have told you that she changed her mind about coming.’
‘No,’ Paula said, feeling a strange tightening in her chest. ‘When did she do that?’
‘I don’t know. All I know is she cancelled her flight. I’ve been trying to get hold of her ever since, I thought she was avoiding me.’
‘But why would she do that? She was really looking forward to coming.’
‘When did you last speak to her?’
‘At the weekend. She was here. Well you know that, you called her here on Saturday.’ Suddenly Paula felt the bite of panic. ‘Oh my God!’ she cried. ‘Something’s happened to her! I knew it! I could feel it. That was why I rang you.’ She turned to find Dave beside her, and taking the receiver from her hand he spoke into it, saying,
‘Mr Bennati, it’s Dave, Paula’s husband here. I take it Corrie’s not with you.’
‘No,’ Cristos answered, and through the thousands of miles of cable Dave could hear the stress in Cristos’s voice. ‘What time is it there?’ Cristos asked.
‘Just before six,’ Dave answered.
‘Right, I’m going to hang up now,’ Cristos said, ‘I’ll get back to you.’
Yelling for everyone in the dubbing theatre to get on with what they were doing, Cristos dialled the TW number. It rang for some time, but then a man’s voice answered.
‘Who am I speaking to?’ Cristos demanded.
‘Who are you?’ Perkin said testily.
‘Never mind that, I want to speak to Corrie Browne.’
‘Then you’ll have to call her in Los Angeles, won’t you?’ Perkin responded.
The fear hit Cristos so suddenly it made him queasy. Uppermost in his mind was the night Fitzpatrick had called Corrie to his so-called deathbed. Fuck it, he should have known then that Fitzpatrick was up to something! ‘Put me onto Luke Fitzpatrick,’ he barked.
‘Sorry, he’s left for the day. If you want to leave a message …’
‘No message,’ Cristos said, and rang off.
Cristos was thinking so fast now his head was starting to spin, but picking up the phone again he dialled Fitzpatrick’s number. Wouldn’t he just have known it, the answerphone! He left a message for Luke to call him, then when he got no reply from his own office he got one of the sound assistants to go turf out Jeannie.
Not until midnight Los Angeles time did he finally catch up with Fitzpatrick at the TW offices, by then he had spoken to Paula and Dave again and got the full story of what had been happening to Corrie and her family at Fitzpatrick’s hands. Now fear was crawling around his gut like a living animal.
‘Where is she?’ Cristos demanded the minute he heard Luke’s voice at the other end of the line.
‘Who?’ Luke asked.
‘Who the fuck do you think? What have you done to her, you son of a bitch!’
‘Hang on, hang on,’ Luke said, ‘if you’re talking about Corrie I thought she was in Los Angeles with you.’ Luke’s surprise sounded so genuine that for a moment Cristos was thrown.
‘Are you telling me she’s not there?’ Luke said.
‘What the fuck do you think I’m telling you! Now where is she?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Luke said, ‘but I don’t know. All I know is that she was intending to go to Los Angeles. Shit, I even offered her a lift to the airport myself. She refused, but I can contact the car company
she booked through, if that’ll help.’
‘Do it!’ Cristos snapped. ‘Better still, give me the number, I’ll do it!’
‘Hold on,’ Luke said, ‘I’ll have to get it from the secretary who handled it.’
Cristos waited, then, when Luke came back onto the line he scribbled down the number as Luke said, ‘if you see her before I do …’ he hesitated a moment then chuckled, ‘yes, I’m sure you will, give her my love. And Annalise’s.’
As Luke replaced the receiver he looked up at Annalise who was standing in his doorway. Annalise’s eyes mirrored all the pain in her heart, but Luke knew, just as Annalise did, that it was too late now to turn back. Of course Luke had known it for much longer than Annalise had, he’d just never expected Octavia to tell Annalise. Neither, until he had discovered that Corrie was going to LA, had he suspected that Bennati still figured in Corrie’s life. But Phillip, the bastard, had taken care of that for him, hadn’t he?
As Annalise turned listlessly from the door Luke went to close it before calling Cristos back.
‘I think you should know,’ he said, when Cristos answered, ‘that Corrie’s father was due to have coffee with her at the airport before she left.’
As Cristos replaced the receiver he turned to Jeannie and Richard who were sitting in his kitchen with him. Jeannie was on the mobile phone speaking to the London car company. Cristos waited. At last Jeannie thanked the person at the other end then confirmed what they’d all suspected – Corrie had cancelled her car to the airport. Cristos told them then what Luke had said, but even before he had finished he knew what he had to do next. A quick telephone call to Paula gave him the names and numbers he needed.