Head Over Heels

by Felicity Price

  If only I could have turned back the clock and somehow prevented this happening. If only I could have saved her from harm.

  • • •

  Simon, unusually, wasn’t any help at all throughout the ordeal. Every time I phoned, he was still stricken with the stomach bug and said he should keep away from me in case I caught it off him again. He was so low that it didn’t seem fair to burden him further with my angst about Charlotte’s situation, especially over the phone. I really wanted to see him, to snuggle into him and hear him say everything would be all right.

  With Simon out of the picture, I worked out some stress at the gym and hoped a night out with the girls would cheer me up instead. The much-anticipated Ladies’ Philosophical Society gathering was scheduled just three nights after Charlotte’s operation which was good timing, as I’d not felt like a glass of wine or any company other than my own for some time.

  I went straight from the gym to the girls’ night and was, unusually, early. Since I was the first there, I purloined a large round table in a prime corner spot by the window, catching the late afternoon sun and a view over one of the city’s trendier streets. I settled down with a vodka tonic and watched the passing parade of young shop and office workers scurrying to catch buses and scuttle home with their shopping bags of yoghurt and fish fingers.

  ‘What on earth are you doing here so early?’ Fran laughed. Her dreadlocks had been gathered into a rather astonishing bun on the top of her head, out of which protruded what looked like bright red chopsticks. I tried not to look startled — Fran was forever changing her hair. ‘You’re always running late. What happened? You lose your job?’

  ‘Don’t joke about it, it could happen. I’ve hardly had time for work this week. My partners are probably planning to give me the sack as we speak.’

  ‘I doubt it. They couldn’t survive without you.’

  ‘Nobody’s indispensible, Fran, that’s one thing I’ve learned in business. No matter how crash-hot you think you are, there’s always somebody younger and hungrier than you waiting for their chance to step into your shoes.’

  ‘Some shoes,’ Fran said, pointing at my hot pink peep-toe stilettos.

  I turned my foot sideways to show them off. ‘Not bad, huh? I just love them, but I can hardly walk in them. They turn into instruments of torture if I have to stand for too long. It’s like having spikes through your heels.’

  ‘They are spikes on your heels,’ Fran said. She dumped her bag on the chair next to mine. ‘It’s always the way, isn’t it? The best shoes aren’t made for walking. I reckon the Indians had a good thing going when they invented those moccasins with beading all over the soles — just the thing for sitting on your horse but you never set foot on the ground in them.’

  ‘The original limousine shoes,’ I said.

  ‘That’s got to be the way to get around. I can think of at least four pairs of shoes I could wear if I didn’t have to walk in them.’

  ‘It’s tragic. They always feel so good in the shop. It’s only when you get them home that they pinch your toes and pitch you so far forward you fall flat on you face.’

  ‘I reckon there’s some special carpet in shoe shops that imparts a false sense of comfort.’

  ‘And mirrors that make your ankles look thinner and your legs longer.’

  ‘For sure.’ Fran picked out her wallet. ‘I’m going up to the bar. Do you want another?’

  ‘Not yet, thanks.’ I grinned, nursing my drink. ‘The last thing I need is a head start on you lot. You drink me under the table as it is.’

  While she was up at the bar, Liz and Helen arrived together, waved over to me and joined Fran in ordering. I sampled the spicy bhuja mix a waiter had brought to the table and soon we were sitting together, drinks in hand.

  ‘You’re looking so much better after your holiday,’ Fran said, looking me up and down. ‘I wish I could get away.’

  ‘Don’t we all?’ Helen said. She looked over at the door. ‘I’m sure Di won’t be far away.’ She raised her glass. ‘To the Ladies of the Philosophical Society,’ she said in our customary toast.

  ‘The thinking woman’s drinking society,’ I said, raising my glass.

  ‘Or is it the drinking woman’s thinking society?’ Helen said. ‘I can never remember.’

  ‘Long may we go on thinking,’ Liz chuckled, clinking her glass against the others.

  ‘I’ll drink to that,’ said Fran, raising her glass of tonic and bitters to ours. Fran was a woman with a past that none of us had managed to fully discover. She wore her sobriety like a badge of honour, yet never begrudged any of us getting stuck in.

  I saw Di come in and waved her over. She detoured by the bar and was soon sitting down beside Liz.

  ‘Did I miss the toast?’ she asked. So of course we all had to repeat it for Di’s benefit and take another sip.

  ‘Lord, it’s good to be here,’ Di said.

  ‘I’m much in need of therapy,’ Liz said. ‘And you’re the best therapists I know.’

  ‘I’ve given up on therapists you have to pay to see,’ Fran said. ‘The last one I went to told me if I wanted to be happier I needed to finish things I’d started for a change.’ She paused and picked out a handful of snacks from the bowl. ‘So I finished a bag of potato chips, a tub of ice cream and a packet of M& Ms. Instant gratification. But an hour later I felt much worse. And the next morning when I crept onto the scales, I felt like killing the damn therapist. I was stressed all over again.’

  ‘The best therapy I know is buying shoes,’ Helen said.

  ‘You should buy them a half-size too small,’ Fran said. ‘Tight shoes make you forget all your cares and woes.’

  ‘Somebody told me the typical symptoms of stress are driving too fast, impulse buying and eating too much. I must be stressed all the time, because that’s my idea of a perfect day,’ Helen said.

  ‘Oh to be like Tigger,’ I grinned. ‘Every time he’s confronted with a stressful situation, he pees on it and walks away.’

  ‘I still reckon the best way to beat stress is to eat. I go for comfort food every time,’ Helen said. ‘Give me a chunk of blue cheese to chase away the blues.’

  ‘Give me a chunk of any cheese,’ I said.

  ‘You know what they say,’ Fran chuckled. ‘A balanced diet is a cheese scone in each hand.’

  ‘My body and my spare tyre have become good friends — I’d hate them to be parted,’ I laughed.

  ‘Eat healthily, get fit, die anyway,’ Liz added.

  ‘They say that even if you eat healthily and don’t drink you don’t actually live longer — it just feels like it,’ I threw in.

  ‘My idea of exercise is walking up and down the mall stopping occasionally to make a purchase,’ Fran said.

  ‘I wish I had the luxury,’ Liz said. ‘I never seem to get to the mall without at least one of the kids. And then we have to go to all the shops with those racks and racks of cheap Chinese clothes.’

  ‘You’re lucky,’ Helen said. ‘The last time I went to the mall with James, we spent most of the time in Dick Smith’s looking at computer games and gadgets — a lot more expensive than a trip to Glassons.’

  ‘I still get hassled for computers,’ Liz said, shaking her head. ‘Abby has started a Facebook page and wants to keep checking it on my laptop.’

  ‘It’s crazy, isn’t it?’ Di said. ‘You can make hundreds of friends in a nanosecond without ever having met them.’

  ‘We don’t have to join Facebook or Bebo,’ Helen said, looking around our little group with an affectionate smile, ‘because we already know who our friends are.’

  What worries me,’ Liz said, ‘are all those dodgy men out there just waiting to be Abby’s friend.’

  ‘Send them my way, I’ll show them a good time,’ Fran joked. ‘At the moment, the only meaningful relationship I have is with my credit card!’

  ‘And what’s wrong with that?’ I laughed.

  ‘It gets a bit lonely when the lights ar
e out,’ Fran grinned.

  ‘Next thing you’ll be telling me you’re into internet dating,’ Helen said.

  ‘And what’s wrong with that?’ Fran folded her arms defensively. ‘A good man can be hard to find.’

  ‘And a hard man is good to find!’ Helen chortled.

  ‘Tell me about it!’ I cried. ‘So, Fran, have you found a good one yet?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Fran looked mysterious.

  ‘What’s he like?’

  ‘He’s a businessman and he likes getting out into the countryside and going fishing.’

  ‘Well, that’s a passion-killer if ever I heard one.’ Di chimed in.

  ‘What? Fishing?’

  ‘Yes,’ Di said. ‘Whenever Evan goes fishing, he and his mates stand on the riverbank and drink themselves silly while the fish swim past in complete safety. And then they have the cheek to come home and tell tall tales of all the fish that got away.’

  ‘Don’t take any notice, Fran,’ Helen said. ‘Your internet mystery man sounds perfectly normal. At least he’s not into expensive hobbies like fast cars. Have you met him?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Fran was unusually coy.

  ‘Come on, you can tell us. Chatham House rules.’

  ‘Well, yes — we had a coffee together a couple of weeks ago.’

  ‘And? What did he look like?’

  ‘Not too bad.’ Fran smirked appreciatively. ‘Not too bad at all. And he was younger than me.’

  ‘Just remember,’ Liz said, waving her index finger warningly, ‘every good-looking, unattached male is some poor woman’s ex.’

  ‘You’re welcome to my ex,’ I laughed.

  ‘And mine!’ Fran cried. ‘Married in haste, repented at leisure.’

  ‘They’re right when they say “I do” is the longest sentence in the English language,’ Helen added.

  ‘I approve of your internet discovery being younger,’ I said to Fran.

  ‘Yeah, men never mature anyway, so what’s the difference?’ said Helen.

  ‘That’s why it’s so easy to analyse men,’ Di said. ‘You don’t have to go back very far to find their childhood.’

  ‘Too true,’ Fran said, joining in the laughter.

  ‘Now tell us all, Penny,’ Di continued, after we’d stopped chuckling, ‘what is it that’s kept you so busy all week that you’ve hardly had time to work? It sounds intriguing.’

  I gulped. I wasn’t sure I was ready to talk about Charlotte’s narrow escape, let alone whether I should mention it at all. But I knew they would keep it a secret. Our track record was impeccable: all our shared secrets had remained locked in our collective memories forever, never to be shared outside our group.

  ‘Chatham House rules?’ I said. ‘Swear?’

  ‘Chatham House rules,’ they all said as they laid their hands on the table on top of each other.

  So I told them about Charlotte’s sorry love affair.

  ‘I thought that sort of behaviour had been brought to a halt years ago,’ Di said.

  ‘I can’t believe it’s still going on,’ Liz said. ‘I mean, it’s against all the rules.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ I said. ‘But the university obviously doesn’t know about him. And the last thing Charlotte wanted to do was kick up a fuss and have everyone know she was a fool. Besides, until she found out he’d moved onto another girl, she reckoned she was madly in love with him. I owe a great debt to poor young Justine. If Charlotte hadn’t seen her hooking up with him, she’d probably still be up the duff.’

  ‘Isn’t it typical!’ Fran exclaimed. ‘I mean, look at what poor Charlotte had to go through. And that bastard at the university escapes scot-free.’

  ‘You know, I heard something like this not long ago,’ Helen said. ‘I’d forgotten all about it, but you just reminded me. About one of the lecturers in the fine arts faculty.’

  ‘Really?’ I turned to her intently. ‘Did you catch his name?’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘Was it Peter Mortimer? Was that the name?’

  ‘It could have been.’

  ‘What did you hear?’

  ‘One of our student volunteers was talking about him. He also has a shift on the student radio station. He said there’d been some innuendo made about him on air.’

  ‘Oh my God, no! If this gets out …’

  ‘There were no names named, I do know that.’ Helen reached over and took my hand. ‘Look, Penny, I’ll find out everything I can tomorrow. I can give the boy a call and ask him what was said. But I can’t do anything until tomorrow. Sorry.’

  Chapter 31

  Tomorrow was a long time coming. I was too anxious to eat dinner when I got home, then I lay awake in bed worrying about what the student radio jock might have said, about what they might still have to say, about whether they were as careful as mainstream radio about defamation, and whether they might have identified Charlotte, even unintentionally.

  And what if the mainstream media got to hear about it? It would make a juicy front-page story — sex, abuse of power and an innocent, pretty young girl: all the makings of a scandal that could be dragged out over several days. I’d asked Charlotte when I’d arrived home if she ever listened to student radio and she said yeah, a lot, so I figured she’d have heard if something had been said openly. But if, on the other hand, she’d missed it while she was unwell, her friends were hardly likely to tell her, because none of them knew about the baby.

  I must have fallen asleep some time near dawn because I remember seeing the half light of a new day and the next thing I knew the bedside radio was going full bore and the clock was saying it was nine-thirty. Nine-thirty!

  I don’t think I’ve ever got up and dressed so quickly. I skipped the shower, dragged the brush through my bed-hair, threw on some clothes, skipped the make-up, gave Tigger some biscuits (which were gone in seconds) and filled up his water bowl.

  Dad was pottering in the kitchen while I was feeding the dog. He said something about not going to see Mum until much later today because he had to catch the bus into town and see his lawyer, which I thought was a bit odd, but didn’t have time to quiz him. He hardly ever went further than St Joan’s and the local shopping centre so I figured it must have been pretty important for him to venture into town. I checked that he knew where the bus went from and how often but he waved me away impatiently. He informed me that he’d been catching buses long before I was born — did I think he was some kind of fool who couldn’t look after himself?

  ‘Okay, Dad, sorry. Have a good day.’ I pecked him on the cheek and flew out the door without even stopping for a coffee. Luckily I hadn’t had too much to drink at the Philly session; I snatched a water bottle from the bench and took a long swig.

  I’d just reached the traffic lights at the end of our road when I realised I’d forgotten my mobile so had to screech to a halt — another thing Rosie doesn’t like, causing her to veer sharply to the left — and turn back. It never ceased to amaze me that leaving the house without my mobile phone — something I managed to do perfectly well without for the first forty or so years of my life — was now cause for a major panic. But it had become as much a part of my life as my air-points-gathering credit card and the thousand or so loyalty cards that fell out of my wallet every time I opened it.

  Needless to say, I was late for work: it was after ten-thirty when I arrived at reception, pink-cheeked from running up the stairs from the basement car park.

  ‘What’s the rush?’ Tracey asked with more than a hint of sarcasm. ‘You’ve missed morning tea. It’s almost time for lunch.’

  ‘I know, I’m sorry. I slept in.’

  ‘That’s so not like you. Is everything all right?’

  ‘Not really, no. But nothing I can share right now. It’s way too complicated and awful.’

  ‘It’s not Simon, is it?’

  ‘No, he’s just fine. Apart from tossing his cookies every other day. He’s my one piece of sanity in a crazy world.’

  �
��It’s just as crazy here, as usual,’ she said, handing me my mail and phone messages. ‘Oh, your friend Helen has been trying to get hold of you. Must be urgent. She’s rung twice. She said she tried your cell but it went straight to message.’

  ‘Oh, how stupid of me! I was in such a rush this morning I forgot to turn it on.’ I fished the offending gadget out of my bag and switched it on. It immediately began beeping at me with messages. ‘I’ll phone Helen right away.’

  I gathered up my bag, mail and the morning’s paper and scooted into my office before Ginny or Nicky could waylay me. Closing the door behind me, I punched in Helen’s direct dial number. She picked up on the second ring.

  ‘Helen speaking.’

  ‘Hi, it’s me, Penny.’

  ‘Oh, there you are. I’ve been trying to get hold of you.’

  ‘I know. Sorry, I’ve been incommunicado. Do you have any news?’

  ‘Yes, Matt — that’s our volunteer — has been asking questions for me. He says the station’s weekly name-and-shame session had an item about an unnamed lecturer who was rumoured to have got one of his students pregnant. There were all sorts of allusions to who it was — they got as far as mentioning the name of the faculty but not the people.’

  ‘How on earth would anybody know about it?’

  ‘Beats me. Maybe the creep’s been bragging? Matt says you’d be amazed how quickly rumours get round a campus. They’re a hotbed of gossip — half of it completely wrong, of course.’

  ‘I can’t believe it could happen.’ I thought about it for a moment. ‘Well, it could have been worse. They could have named him.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said guardedly. ‘But Matt said pretty much everybody who’s been around a couple of years or more knows what Peter the Babe-Eater gets up to, so they’ll guess it’s him.’

  ‘Peter the Babe-Eater?’

  ‘Yes, crass isn’t it? But that’s his nickname apparently. Pity Charlotte didn’t know before he devoured her and spat her out.’