Could she be gay? It was a possibility, of course. But even if she was, she obviously had no firm commitments. Perhaps in time . . .
But I was getting way ahead of myself. I forced myself to calm down. It wasn't easy. I did something I have rarely done. I had a large Scotch at eleven in the morning.
***
The first month of Emma's stay in the house was both torture and delight. Torture because of the stranglehold I had to keep on my emotions, and a delight just because she was there.
At least I got to know her as I hoped I would. She was neither married, gay, nor in love with anyone else. She had been married once — at age nineteen, to a soldier. He was obviously a high-flyer, some years older than her and probably destined for the General Staff. She had adored him and had given up all thought of a career of her own to follow him on his postings. They had one child, William, who had been killed, aged five, by a hit-and-run driver in Germany. The driver had never been found.
In the way these things sometimes happen, the marriage had not survived the tragedy. Neither of them became involved with anyone else, but the special thing that had existed between them had gone. She was twenty-seven when they divorced.
She had done her best to pick up the threads of her life, but it was too late to realise fully the dreams of her youth. She had wanted once to be a doctor. She had done well at school and had been told it was a possibility. Now she settled for nursing training. The institutional life of hospital work had not suited her, but she had stuck with it for a couple of years. During that time she had an affair with a doctor. Then she had fallen ill with weakness and headaches.
The condition had turned out to be a viral infection which was quickly cured. However, in the course of diagnosis a rare genetic condition had been found. It in no way threatened her health or well-being, but meant that there was a 50 per cent danger that any future child she might have would be born blind, as Emma's brother had been. No one had suspected the reason until Emma's diagnosis.
Her relationship with the doctor had ended, because they had been talking of marriage and having children, but she refused now to take that risk. She had left hospital work and become a children's nurse.
That was her story to date. She adored children and was not unhappy. She did not think she would marry again.
'Oh, Emma, how wrong you are,' I said to myself, imagining the day, maybe ten months, a year in the future, when I would be able to say it openly to her.
I was proud of the fact that she had talked to me so freely, and encouraged by it. Clearly she trusted me. The fact that I made not even the most indirect of advances to her during those first weeks that she was in the house had given her confidence.
Of course there was talk among the neighbours, and she was as aware of it as I was. But we laughed it off and rose above such narrow-mindedness.
'But we'll give them something to talk about in time,' I promised myself. 'Just you wait and see, my darling Emma. Just you wait and see.'
***
Harold had redoubled his efforts to find the investment we needed, but without success.
I remained convinced in my old-fashioned way that stability, not growth, was the first law of business. Of course I didn't know what I was talking about, which only made me more determined to prove myself right.
Strictly speaking, we grew a bit. We added one new title to our list: the specialist journal for demographers that we had been talking about for some months. It was hardly a new plateau, but it was the sort of growth I felt comfortable with.
Inevitably the launching of a new title meant a good deal of extra work, but I was glad of that. It was a distraction from my loss — and from my new unspoken love.
Travelling also helped, and I had to do a lot. It felt good to be able to leave Charlie with the woman who would one day soon become his stepmother.
As the days and weeks passed, although still nothing had been said, I became increasingly convinced that Emma felt as I did. I sensed that same complicity growing between us that had existed in the other life. Sometimes I almost felt that, by some strange intuition, she already knew the whole story. But maybe that was wishful thinking.
The question of how much I should ultimately tell her became my main preoccupation. How much of my story would I share with the woman who was to share the rest of my life?
Would I take the risk — even though I was convinced in Emma's case it was an almost nonexistent risk — of having her think I was insane?
I turned the problem over in my mind as I flew back from a four-day trip to the west coast, where I had gone to sign up a UCLA psephologist as a regular contributor to the new journal. I would have to tell her something. Perhaps a hint before marriage, and the rest later.
Harold had insisted on meeting me at the airport. I quickly spotted him in the small crowd awaiting the flight, but as I approached I was surprised to see that Emma was with him. Instinctively I looked for Charlie, too, even though it was way past his bedtime. Then I realised that Emma's presence there probably meant he was staying over with a friend. I was happy to see her and touched that she'd made the effort.
I kissed her there at the arrivals' gate for the first time. Lightly on the cheek. She gave me a hug. Harold's being there made it all right. An affectionate but still innocent greeting.
But it set a precedent. A barrier had been breached. From now on physical contact between us would no longer be taboo.
On the drive from the airport Emma sat in front with Harold, leaving me room to spread out in the back. Harold, knowing that I never ate on planes, had booked a table at Chez Arnaud for a light supper. Emma confirmed my assumption that Charlie was staying over with friends. I suddenly realised with a shiver of excitement that she and I would be returning to an empty house together.
Harold ordered champagne while we looked over the menu. It was after we'd ordered that he dropped his bombshell.
'Naturally we wanted you to be the first to know, Rick,' he began. 'You've been so busy these last couple of months that you probably haven't even realised how much Emma and I have been seeing of each other. Anyway the fact is that I've asked her to marry me and, well, I'm very happy and proud to tell you she's accepted.'
I was speechless. I looked from him to her. She was gazing at him with a glow of love in her eyes. He was looking at her the same way. I might as well have not been there. I felt like, and was, an irrelevance. Excess baggage that would be got rid of as soon as was convenient.
Obediently doing what was expected of me, I raised my glass and offered them my deepest and sincerest good wishes for their future together.
But inside I was screaming.
11
They drove by the house to drop me off. Emma was spending the night with Harold. She said she would collect Charlie from his friend's house on her way back in the morning.
I don't know how I had got through supper without betraying my feelings. Fortunately they put down the deadness in my voice and face to tiredness. And anyway they were too wrapped up in each other to pay me much attention. No wonder she could afford to kiss me now. She did it again when I got out of the car. Kissed me like a friend, an uncle, a member of the family you run into at weddings but otherwise never think about.
Almost the worst part was how I'd deceived myself into thinking that there was something between us. Had I become so totally out of touch with reality? Could I trust my judgment about anything any more?
That night, exhausted though I was, I didn't go to sleep for many hours. I wandered from room to room with a compulsive restlessness. I drank but didn't get drunk. At least I didn't feel that I was getting drunk, just blurring the stark fact of my humiliation.
I thought of them in Harold's bed. A kaleidoscope of pumping, lusting images of erotically charged flesh swirled through my imagination. As the night wore on I became convinced that they both must have known of my feelings towards Emma. It isn't possible to hide something like that, and I was foolish to have thought I
could.
There was no other explanation of their behaviour — meeting me at the airport and sitting me down at Chez Arnaud before I even had time to be five minutes alone with her. They meant to present me with a fait accompli to forestall the embarrassment of any declaration on my part, which they must have sensed was drawing near. I could hear them now, laughing. 'Did you see his face? I thought he was going to burst!'
Or, even worse, pitying. 'Poor Rick, let's hope he isn't too hurt. But it was best to get it over with.'
And so I went on, prowling endlessly from room to room, a bottle in one hand and a glass in the other, the whole house ablaze with lights.
I don't know when or where I fell asleep, but suddenly I became aware that I was dreaming. Somebody was trying to tell me something, but I couldn't understand what. A bunch of papers were put into my hand. I knew that they carried the same information I had been straining to hear, but I couldn't read the print. The harder I tried, the blanker the paper became.
'I'm dreaming,' I told myself. 'I'm angry and frustrated because I'm trying to understand something, and I can't.' I threw the papers down, refusing to be made a fool of.
Then I saw where I was.
I was in Richard A. Hamilton's luxurious drawing room. It was night and the man who had just been speaking to me was stocky, with an expressionless face and eyes that were set too close together. He made me think of a bouncer at the door of some low dive, but I knew that in fact he was a private detective. I don't know how I knew that, but I did.
With a terrible finality I also knew that something he had said had just signed Anne's and Harold's death warrants. I looked down.
The blank white sheets of paper on the carpet were no longer blank. They were covered now with closely printed paragraphs. Without reading them I knew that they gave dates and places, times and telephone numbers, credit card bills and plane reservations. He had done a thorough job, this stocky little man.
There were also, I could see now, photographs, their edges pointing out between the printed pages. I didn't want to look at them, because I had already seen them. I knew what was in them. Those pitilessly literal images of Harold and Anne danced with my nightmare imaginings of Harold and Emma. My hands flew to my face, uselessly covering my eyes against what was already seared into my brain.
The stocky man was saying something. I had to silence the gasping noises coming from my throat to hear him.
'It's up to you. You just have to say the word, Mr Hamilton.'
'I'm sorry?' I mumbled. 'What did you say?'
'Anything you want taking care of, Mr Hamilton. I mean anything. A private arrangement between you and me.'
I understood what he was offering, and shook my head. 'No,' I said. 'I'll take care of it myself. Just tell me how much I owe you.'
He shrugged as though to take a life, two lives, or not take them was all the same to him. He named a figure and I crossed to a table where my cheque-book lay open. I took out a pen, filled in the cheque, and signed it Richard A. Hamilton.
'Thank you, Mr Hamilton,' he said as I handed it to him. 'And remember, if you change your mind, the offer's good.'
He left me alone in the middle of the room and saw himself out. I waited until I heard the front door close, then I went into my study.
I knew exactly what I was going to do. I knew where I had hidden the key to open the drawer in which was kept the gun that I had bought ten days earlier. I loaded it exactly as I had been shown, and slipped it into my pocket.
As though in a dream, I left the apartment and took the lift to the garage.
As though in a dream?
I knew exactly where I was going. I drove calmly, carefully, totally in control. The awful finality of what lay ahead caused me no concern.
After all, it was only a dream.
All I had to do was play the role set out for me. Events carried me forward without effort. I did not know the building that I parked outside, yet I knew that the address had been provided by the stocky man.
I did not know why I took the elevator to the seventh floor, or how I knew to turn left and follow the corridor until I reached apartment 7b.
It was only as I stood outside it that I remembered a key I had been given by the stocky man. I took it from my pocket and slipped it silently into the lock. It fitted perfectly. In my other hand I had the gun.
The living room was empty, but there was a glow of light from the bedroom. And voices.
They looked up at me from where they lay, naked, astounded, their faces full of fear.
I did not pull the trigger. The double explosion was just another thing that happened in the dream. It must have come from somewhere else. A car backfiring outside. A window banging in the night.
Can dreams contain noises like that?
Surely not.
12
And now I sit in prison awaiting trial. I am writing this for you, Dr Todd. Emma.
I want you to believe that I am sane. I have told my lawyers that I will not contemplate any plea that attempts to use insanity as an excuse for what I have done. That is a final and unalterable decision.
It's true I had a breakdown for which you treated me. It's also true that I had a relapse after learning of my wife's affair with my best friend. My symptoms were exactly as I have described them in this document: the irrational conviction that I came from another parallel reality and that I was only temporarily inhabiting the mind and body of Richard A. Hamilton.
But I accept now that this was a delusion. There is no such thing as a parallel universe or alternative reality.
Yes, the idea exists on a theoretical level, but it has no meaning for our daily lives, our real lives. I am Richard A. Hamilton and I live in this world. Jack Kennedy died in 1963, when I was a child. Marilyn is also dead. There has been much speculation that the two events were not unconnected. I don't know about that. It doesn't concern me. I'm only trying to show you that I know what world I'm living in.
Lyndon Johnson became president after Jack Kennedy. Bobby was never president because he was murdered by someone called Sirhan Sirhan. Then there was Nixon and, after Watergate, Gerald Ford. Then Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George Bush. Lloyd Bentsen was Mike Dukakis's running mate in '88.
You see, we live in the same world. You're a psychiatrist and I'm in real estate. I'm going to ask if I can get this document translated into braille, because I'd rather you read it yourself than have anybody read it to you.
I guess — this is embarrassing and a little silly, but I'm going to say it anyway — I guess I am a little in love with you, Emma. But then I would be, wouldn't I? Isn't it called 'transference'? You became very important to me during my recovery from my breakdown.
Above all I don't want you to feel guilty for not having prevented what happened. There was nothing you could have done that might have stopped me killing Anne and Harold. The hurt and anger went too deep. Such things are primaeval. Reason and science have no power over them.
So forgive me, Emma, for being one of your failures. You got rid of my delusions and restored me to sanity.
Unfortunately I turned out to be more dangerous sane than crazy. But now I'm ready to pay the price.
It's all there is left.
PART TWO
FROM THE DESK OF EMMA J. TODD, M.D.
Mr Kenneth J. Schiff
Bronstein, Schiff & Hartman
Attorneys at Law
Dear Mr Schiff,
You will by now have read your client's account, written at my request, of his 'experiences' leading up to the double murder with which he stands charged. I would like to add this note of comment.
I first interviewed Mr Hamilton (hereafter 'the patient') at the Beatrice Davenport Memorial Hospital, where he had been admitted following an automobile accident. Although not seriously injured physically, he was manifesting symptoms of severe and persistent delusion — namely the disappearance of an imaginary child.
On that occasion I formed no opinion
as to whether this delusion was organic or otherwise in origin. Before I could interview him further, he had absconded from the hospital and been taken into police custody. Although released into the care of his wife, he was later admitted to the Dodge-Kesselring Psychiatric Clinic and placed under the supervision of my colleague, Dr Roger Killanin.
Four days after his admission, Dr Killanin invited me to interview him once again at the clinic. At Dr Killanin's suggestion, I informed the patient that I had personally taken the initiative in asking to see him. This was because the patient was exhibiting an irrational hostility towards both Dr Killanin and the clinic, which was making treatment difficult.
I found the patient lucid, although agitated, and manifesting elements of delusional paranoia. My reasons for suggesting hypnosis were twofold:
First, I felt that the further use of drugs could only be deleterious to the patient's stability and willingness to cooperate.
Second, in view of the detailed nature of the patient's delusions, I suspected some form of cryptomnesia, the origins of which were more likely to be uncovered by hypnosis than by other means.
The patient proved to be an excellent hypnotic subject. Using a standard induction technique, I was able to induce a medium deep trance without difficulty. Over the following three weeks, I conducted a total of seven sessions with the patient, inducing on each occasion a slightly deeper trance. At the end of this time, it was clear to me that the delusional phase of the patient's illness was currently inactive. However, I remained concerned that I had uncovered no causal factor for the specific nature of the delusion. None the less, it was decided to allow the patient to return home.
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