Sheer Abandon

by Penny Vincenzi

“Stove’s here,” said the warden, who seemed about the same age as she was, leading her into the large room behind the veranda, half filled with long tables and benches, the walls covered with surfing posters. “And here’s the fridges; just bag one of the empty compartments, put your name on it, and it’s yours till you leave. Everyone eats in here.”

  Martha smiled nervously at the boys on the veranda; they grinned back, asked her where she’d come from, where she was going. She felt very happy suddenly; she would like it here.

  She did: it was absolutely wonderful. She loved Avalon, the villagey atmosphere, the small shops, and the French restaurant, with its red-and-white-checked cloths, where they very occasionally ate. There was a book-shop called Bookoccino, the Gourmet Deli, where they couldn’t afford to shop (but an excellent Woolworth’s supermarket where they could), and astonishingly, a cinema, which was apparently owned by someone who had a midday TV show. Whoever he was, he took the cultural life of Avalon seriously and showed foreign films on Sundays. Not that going to the cinema was a priority: it was January and very hot.

  She made two good friends there, a boy called Stuart, inevitably named Stewpot, and a girl called Dinah. Dinah came from Yorkshire, and her father was also a vicar. “The worst thing I think,” said Dinah, passing Martha the joint she was smoking, “is being so poor and having to be posh. And the whole bloody parish watching you, of course. Can you imagine if you got pregnant or something, what on earth they’d do?”

  Martha shuddered, then laughed and passed the joint back.

  The three of them became a tight little unit. Stewpot had tried surfing and had a bad fright, caught in a rip, and was content to swim with the girls in the safety of the rock pools, the natural swimming pools filled every day by the sea. Together they roamed the lovely white beaches, went up to Palm Beach, to the exclusive, tree-lined shore of Whale Beach, and to Newport and Mona Vale and Bilgola. At night they sat on the beach at Avalon and smoked and talked with all the others, cooked on the beach barbecues, swam in the black-and-silver sea. Martha preferred this life to the self-indulgence of student Thailand; she liked the colder sea, the comparative order of the hostel, the more familiar food. She loved the Australians too, so easily friendly, upbeat, absolutely lacking in pretension. Looking across from this golden place at the dark, rainy English winter, she even considered, briefly, staying herself.

  She told Dinah this as they sat on the beach one night in the warm darkness; she was horrified.

  “Martha, you couldn’t. It’s so unsubtle. And the men are such chauvinists.”

  “They may be chauvinists, but they’re very kind,” said Martha. “I’d rather have them any day than some stuffy public-school wally, thank you very much.”

  “Plenty of those in your prospective profession,” said Dinah. “Are you sure you’ve chosen the right career?”

  “Oh yes,” said Martha. Without knowing why, she had an absolute certainty that the law would suit her. “But you’re right. Especially the barristers.”

  “Which you’re not going to be?”

  “No, I’m not. Can’t afford it for a start, you need very rich parents for that. You can be years waiting to earn any money. And no thanks, no more beer. I feel a bit queasy. Don’t know why. I did last night, as well.”

  Dinah laughed. “Don’t tell me the nightmare’s come true, you’ve got a baby to take home to the vicarage.”

  “Of course not,” said Martha, almost crossly; and then—although she was not remotely worried, she told herself—when she got back to the hostel, she got out her diary. Her periods had been chaotic ever since she had arrived in Thailand. But no, it was all right, she’d had one in Singapore—very light, but nonetheless, a period—and that had been well after Koh Tao. And since then: no sex.

  At the beginning of February, Stuart and his harem (as the other boys called them) set off for the north. They got a bus from Sydney, all the way up to Ayers Rock: two and a half days of jolting on the long, endlessly straight roads. It was only moderately uncomfortable; the bus was air-conditioned and it stopped every four hours or so. The worst thing was the boredom: the unchanging scenery for most of the way, the red earth, the flat scrub, the unvarying speed.

  The bus was full of backpackers; they made friends, swapped chewing gum, cigarettes, and the sweets Dinah had christened anaesthetics. They stopped at Alice Springs for the night, and then in the morning caught another bus to Ayers Rock. Together they gazed in awe at it, at the great looming cliché, watched it turn purple at sunset, climbed it in the cold desert dawn, stood together, holding hands on the summit, faces raised to the sun, and felt—in spite of all the other tourists—alone in the world, while the desert stretched away from them, absolute emptiness in every direction.

  When they got down, Martha felt odd; she sat for a while in the shade, and then was extremely sick; and was repeatedly sick again on the bus, as they travelled endlessly on up north to Cape Tribulation.

  “Martha,” said Dinah gently, as she wiped her friend’s sweaty forehead by the side of the bus—it had stopped for her—“Martha, you don’t have anything to tell me, do you?”

  Martha said irritably that no, she hadn’t; a distant crawling fear had begun to trouble her. But once they arrived at Cape Tribulation, she stopped being sick—and she started her period.

  “You see,” she said, waving a Tampax triumphantly at Dinah, on her way to the loo, “it’s perfectly all right.”

  Two days later it was over; but that was surely fine?

  They stayed at Cape Tribulation, where the rain forest so famously meets the sea, for a month, and made friends with someone who had a boat. He took them out to the reef several times; they snorkelled and explored the underworld, the hills and valleys of coral, the sweetly smiling brilliantly coloured fish, the friendly baby sharks who swam up to investigate them. Martha was entranced by the silence and calm beneath the water, and the gentle slowing of time. She longed to try scuba diving, but couldn’t afford it.

  She and Dinah got work in one of the beach bars, and made enough money to get back to Sydney by train. It was March by then; the temperature was cooling just a little. The harem broke up: Dinah was going on to California and Stuart was planning to go to New Zealand. Martha planned to fly to New York. But they stayed a few days in Avalon, rediscovering the place, feeling they had come home.

  The second evening was quite cool. “I’m going to put on some trousers,” said Martha, and delved into her locker to find them, unworn for months. They wouldn’t go on. They weren’t just a bit tight; they simply wouldn’t go on.

  She told herself it was all the food she’d been eating up at Cape Tribulation and the beer; it was a well-established fact of travelling that you lost weight in Thailand and piled it on again in Oz, but this was different, her arms were still stick-thin, and, forcing herself, with a supreme effort of will, to look sideways at herself in the small bathroom mirror—she had to stand on the loo to do it—she could see a distinct doming of her flat stomach. She felt sick again, but differently: the sickness of panic. And then told herself that she was being hysterical, that she’d had two periods, after all. Just the same, she went into the Avalon chemist, bought a pregnancy testing kit, locked herself in the bathroom the next morning to use it. An unmistakably distinct blue ring told her that she was pregnant.

  Terrified, she gathered all her courage and went to the Avalon doctor.

  He was young, with brilliant blue eyes: brisk, cheerful, very Australian.

  “Those tests in the chemists aren’t always reliable,” he said and she could have kissed him. “But let me have a look at you and then we’ll know what we’re talking about.”

  He was quite a long time, gently palpating on her stomach, feeling her breasts, doing an internal. A nurse stood watching, her face expressionless.

  “All righty, Martha,” he said finally, “you get your clothes on. And then we’ll have that talk.”

  He told her she was about five months pregnant. “Bu
t I can’t be,” she said, her mind flying back in hot, black panic to Koh Tao, five months earlier. “I’ve had periods, one just about a month ago.”

  “Can still happen. Was it quite light?”

  “Well…quite.”

  “How long did it last?”

  “About—about two days.”

  “Martha, I’m sorry, that’s quite common. Have you had any nausea?”

  “A…bit. But not every day, just, well, for a few days. I can’t be pregnant, I really can’t.”

  “Are you telling me you haven’t done anything to get pregnant?” he said, his blue eyes twinkling at her.

  She managed to smile.

  “Well, I have. But only…only once.” Twice actually, she thought, thinking of the next morning, and the immeasurably increased pleasure of it.

  “It only takes once. I’m sorry, Martha. There really is no doubt. When was this one time?”

  “At the end of October.”

  “I’m afraid that exactly adds up. Exactly.”

  He was kindness itself: Did she want to go home to England, was there anyone with her who could help?

  “I’ll have to have a termination,” she said immediately, ignoring his questions. “It’s the only thing.”

  “Martha, I’m very sorry,” he said, and his voice was gentle and almost hesitant, “it’s much too late for that.”

  Chapter 27

  The wheeling and dealing that goes on between politicians and the press, their mutual dependence, their ruthless pragmatism towards each other, is one of the most crucial ingredients in political life.

  “We don’t have any power without the politicians,” Nick Marshall had explained to more than one fascinated dinner party, “but we have a hell of a lot of influence over political events. And they’re frightened of that influence. Mostly because they don’t know where it’s going to come from next.”

  He often said nobody outside the business would believe his life: the mysterious phone calls with anonymous tip-offs, the invitations to meet politicians in the bars of London pubs (most notably the Red Lion halfway down Whitehall, opposite 10 Downing Street, a favourite haunt of the Gordon Brown mob), the offers of leaked documents, the waylaying in the busy corners and corridors of the House of Commons to have a piece of gossip of extraordinary sensitivity whispered in his ear. Or the exclusive stories from high-ranking cabinet ministers and senior civil servants, either in return for his ongoing loyalty to their party’s cause or to buy his temporary silence over something that might have caused them embarrassment.

  The phone call he got quite early that Monday morning, as he ran across Hampstead Heath, didn’t seem particularly intriguing. Theodore Buchanan (Tory MP for South Cirencester) invited him to lunch at the Ritz and told him he might have a nice little story for him. Nick knew Teddy Buchanan quite well, a nice old buffer, traditional Tory, who had a soft spot for Nick because he was a country boy and understood about things like foxhunting, and its importance to the life of the countryside.

  Nick was at the Ritz, in the absurdly overdressed restaurant, ten minutes early; he sat there alternately studying the menu and the clientele, who seemed to be getting older and older. The food was as fussily got up as the restaurant itself, everything encased in something else—rich pastry, truffles, double cream—nothing simple at all. He ordered himself a gin and tonic, which seemed in keeping with the place, and reflected rather sadly that nothing seemed much fun at the moment. God, he missed Jocasta. She had left a dark and silent void in his life, and he couldn’t imagine how he was ever going to get over her.

  The thought of commitment, of marriage even, no longer seemed so terrifying; indeed a life of ongoing bachelorhood seemed a great deal worse. He wondered how long her affair with bloody Keeble would last, and if she’d get over it and come back to him.

  He sipped his gin and tonic, and sat back in his chair, trying to distract himself by watching a very pretty girl who had just come in: tall, slim, with long dark hair and wonderful legs; she was wearing what even Nick could recognise as Chanel. Rich then. No, rich daddy, that was more like it; he had come to join her, had kissed her, sat down opposite her. Or rich sugar daddy, more like it still. How could they do it, these lovely things, sleep with these old men? He had heard it referred to by a girl on the paper as antiquing—it was extraordinary—and then realised that Jocasta had done exactly that. Shit! Why had he let her go, why, why? He was thirty-six, more than old enough to settle down; silly bugger that he was, running around like some pathetic adolescent.

  A dazzling smile came at him from across the room, a slim, elegant figure crossed towards him, shook him by the hand; it was Fergus Trehearn.

  “Hello, Nick. What a wonderful surprise. What are you doing here?”

  Nick liked Fergus. He had met him six months ago when he had been handling some sixteen-year-old who had been propositioned by a Tory MP. Of course he was as ruthless and devious as all the others, but he was a lot more pleasant to be with.

  “Hi, Fergus. Waiting for my lunch date.”

  “A beautiful young girl, no doubt?”

  “A rather portly middle-aged politician.”

  “Well, that’s a terrible shame. I’m doing a little better than that. As you will see. She’ll be here any minute. With her mother, let me add, before you get any unpleasant ideas. You’ll have heard about Baby Bianca, no doubt? The abandoned baby, found at Heathrow.”

  “I certainly have,” said Nick. “Jocasta had some dealings with her. You’re not handling her, are you?”

  “I am indeed. And I’m doing a very good job for her as well. We’re no nearer finding her mother, but we have fashion editors slavering over her and newspapers trying to sign her up.”

  “And you’re buying her lunch at the Ritz?”

  “It was her choice. We’ve just been to see the fashion editor of Style, and this is her treat, in return for promising to get on with studying for her GCSEs for the next six weeks or so. Then I hope she’ll be back in the public eye with a vengeance. She’s a sweetie—ah, here they are now. Do you want to meet her?”

  “I certainly wouldn’t mind,” said Nick, staring transfixed at Kate who had just walked into the restaurant. She was stunning; actually rather more striking than the girl with the sugar daddy. A wonderful mixture of tenderly gawky youth and innocence, and a slightly self-conscious sexiness. She was wearing a black trouser suit with a white vest top, very high-heeled boots, and her hair, her long blond curly hair, was pulled back in a ponytail.

  Fergus walked over to them, kissed both Kate and her mother, and led them over to Nick.

  “Nicholas Marshall, Kate and Helen Tarrant. My dates for lunch. Nick, aren’t I the lucky man?”

  Nick stood up briefly, shook both their hands, managed to mumble something at Kate, and then, as Fergus led them off again to a table on the other side of the room, sat down rather heavily. He felt slightly shaken, but not by Kate’s beauty or Helen’s nervousness: it was the fact that Kate did bear a considerable resemblance to Jocasta…

  Teddy Buchanan arrived at almost half past one, full of apologies. He had been held up in a committee meeting.

  “So sorry, Nicholas. Have you ordered? No? That a G and T? I’ll join you. Splendid idea. Let’s order straightaway, shall we, and we can get on with the matter in hand.”

  “Fine,” said Nick, but it was only as Teddy settled to his main course—steak topped with truffles in phyllo pastry—that he suddenly put down his knife and fork, picked up his glass of claret, and said, “Well, you’ll be wondering why I’ve brought you here, Nick.”

  Nick said yes, he was, but that he was greatly enjoying himself anyway. “Excellent,” said Buchanan. “Well, I’ve got a very good little story for you…”

  He leant forward, started speaking quietly in Nick’s ear. After a few minutes, Nick forgot all about Kate Tarrant, and the girl in Chanel with the sugar daddy, and even Jocasta. It was a very good little story indeed…

  Chad Lawrence and
Jonny Farquarson had been at Eton together; had been good friends, attended on each other’s weddings, were godfathers to each other’s children. They met occasionally over the years; while Chad fought his way up the political ladder, Jonny ran Farjon, the family engineering business. When the Centre Forward Party was formed, Farquarson asked if he could be involved in any way; he had always had an eye for the political scene. Chad told him yes, he could be a backer, and Farjon donated a million pounds.

  In the excitement and panic of the party launch, Chad failed to check on Farjon, as he should have done; the fact that it had gone bankrupt eighteen months earlier had gone unobserved.

  It got worse: Farjon, it transpired, had been acquired by a company operating out of Hong Kong. “Which means,” Theodore Buchanan had said to Nick, “the Centre Forward Party is being illegally funded by an overseas company, and far worse by one within the People’s Republic of China.” From every point of view it could not have been worse; there were ugly sleaze associations, the party was open to the dangers of blackmail, and it had been seriously negligent of Chad not to check on the company.

  “Would you mind telling me who fed you this fascinating piece of information?” Chad said, when Nick spoke to him about it.

  “Now, Chad, you know I can’t do that. Not possibly. And it’s a very good story.”

  “Yes, and that’s exactly what it is. A story. Load of bollocks.”

  “Good. Fine. Well, you won’t mind my checking it out, then?”

  “Of course I bloody well mind! Poking into my affairs—”

  “Chad,” said Nick almost sorrowfully, “that’s my job.”

  Chad glared at him. “I thought your paper was supposed to support our party.”

  “Of course. We do. But not against this sort of thing. Look, I’ve done you the service of warning you. I could have just published and been damned. I’ll speak to you soon, Chad. Sorry about all this.”

  He put his beer down, only half finished, and walked out of the Red Lion; when he looked back Chad was staring into his own glass, his expression murderous.