Vengeance

by Susan Lewis

  He turned to the news-stand intending to pick up a paper before heading back into London. It was almost midday and most of the morning editions had sold out, but there was one tabloid left which he would have bought had it not had a picture of Kirsten Meredith in the top left-hand corner. Immediately Laurence’s jaw tightened. She was one woman he sure as hell didn’t want to read about, didn’t even want to think about, and scooping Tom up into his arms, he started out to the car park.

  2

  It was just before midnight. The wind was picking up again, swelling through the narrow streets of Chelsea in a gentle roar. The rain will soon follow, Kirsten was thinking absently to herself as she looked out of the window, but maybe tomorrow, if only for an hour, the sun might shine. How she missed the sunshine.

  She was sitting alone in a pasta bar on the Fulham Road waiting for a take-away and huddled into the large raincoat that had belonged to Paul. By anyone’s standards she was a beautiful woman. With her wide, slanting green eyes, impossibly sensuous mouth, delicately flared nostrils and rich, olivey skin she was a sublime mix of the exotic and erotic. Yet when she laughed there was such a freshness, perhaps even a naivety about her, that it never failed to affect those she was with. It never seemed to matter how she dressed for the tantalizing fullness of her figure and the superb contours of her long, shapely legs were all but impossible to disguise; and despite the fact that right now a paisley silk scarf was wound tightly round her abundant coppery curls defiant tendrils had escaped their imprisonment to rest gently against the flawless skin of her forehead and neck.

  Following the quick glance through the window Kirsten had once again bowed her head to look down at her loosely knitted fingers on the table in front of her. There were several reasons why she kept her head lowered when in public these days, and one of them was to conceal her lovely face. Though it was a face that any other woman would have been proud of, for Kirsten it, perhaps more than anything else, was the cause of the terrible and seemingly endless pain locked so deep inside her that sometimes she wondered if it was only that which held her together now.

  A wave of choking misery threatened to overwhelm her. It would be the easiest thing in the world to join hands with self-pity, to allow herself to be led to that longed for sanctuary of oblivion, to a self-inflicted end to the pain. So many times during these past weeks she had come close to giving in, to surrendering herself to the beckoning arms of release, but she hadn’t. She didn’t know why she was resisting it, for there was nothing here for her now, so wouldn’t it be better to put an end to this intolerable, interminable farce she called her life?

  Abruptly she swallowed hard and squeezing her hands tightly she forced her head up. Sometimes it was so hard to remember that she had nothing to be ashamed of, that the whole world was wrong about her and that she had every right to hold her head high. But being the victim of a campaign so powerful and so unjust did that to a person. You started to forget your own innocence, sometimes you even reached the point of believing all the lies yourself.

  Dear God, she sighed inwardly, how has this happened to me? So alone at thirty-six. No friends, no job, no anything. Maybe she could endure that if only Dermott Campbell would leave her alone. But she knew already that Campbell’s campaign had hardly begun. Day after day he printed stories about her. Stories with little foundation and no mercy. And to Kirsten’s dismay the other newspapers had immediately picked up on those stories, adding, of course, their own scurrilous embellishments.

  She’d been a fool to come back, she should have known that Dyllis would use the might of her great newspaper empire to wreak her revenge.

  Kirsten felt tears welling in her eyes at the injustice of it all. Right now all she wanted was to be able to run back to Paul, to have him make her feel safe and secure the way he had over the past five years. But there was no going back now, those wonderful days on the Côte d’Azur were over.

  She and Paul Fisher hadn’t had many friends on the Riviera, but they’d been happy with each other, even though Paul had tried many times to make Kirsten return to England and live a normal life. It was true that there were times when she’d wanted to, but her feelings for Paul had kept her at his side – she just couldn’t bring herself to walk out on him when he loved her so much.

  No one understood that, because no one wanted to. All they saw was that their darling Paul Fisher – the great Shakespearean actor, the great movie actor too – had, in his old age, been bewitched by the Kirstie Doll, as the media had taken to calling her, whose only ambition in life was to take him for every penny he had.

  When they’d first gone to France Paul had done everything he could to shield them both from the press, but it hadn’t been easy. The scandal was as titillating as any rag could wish for – at the age of seventy-six Paul Fisher gives up stage, screen and wife to run off with a thirty-year-old TV producer. Not that the press ever referred to her as a producer, in fact they’d only just stopped short of calling her a whore. No one had been interested in the truth then, no more than they were now. What did it matter to them that she, Kirsten Meredith, had, for the first time in her life, found someone who truly cared for her, who had made her feel as though she mattered and wanted to do all he could to repair the damage of her early life? More to the point what did they know of Paul’s marriage? Of how for over twenty years he had been subjected to his wife’s megalomania, had been forced every day to show his gratitude for what she had done for him. She wanted nothing more from him than the glory of being married to a man who was so adored, respected and revered by all. But Kirsten had made him happy in those last years and to her he had been everything, friend, brother, father and, yes, lover.

  And now he was dead.

  Kirsten felt the familiar tightening in her throat. God, how she missed him, and dear God how she longed to talk to him now, to ask him how she should handle this. It had come as no surprise that he had remembered her in his will, he’d talked about it often enough, but Kirsten had been unprepared for the fact that he had left his entire fortune in trust for her until the end of her life, at which time the staggering sum was to be split between his own three children and any that Kirsten might have. Not a single sou had gone to Dyllis, who for the past month had been giving the performance of her life as the grieving widow.

  Dyllis, very cleverly, had decided not to contest the will – that may not have won her much sympathy when the whole world knew that she was richer than Croesus. Neither had she seen fit to make public the fact that her children were, in truth, beneficiaries. Instead, via the press, she had told Kirsten to keep the money and that she herself would see that Paul’s children were taken care of. And if she, Kirsten could live with her conscience, having wheedled herself into an old man’s will during his years of senility, then really, what could Dyllis say?

  Not surprisingly, the press went to town with this, and since, according to the press, Kirsten had no conscience, every columnist without exception was currently urging Dyllis to rethink the situation and get her children’s rightful inheritance out of the money-grabbing Kirstie Doll.

  What a manipulative and cunning woman Dyllis Fisher was. She had the world on her side, and no one had even thought to question her claims that Paul was senile – which of course Dyllis knew was nonsense and was also why she wasn’t contesting the will. She knew she’d never win on those grounds, and there simply weren’t any others. Paul had made his decision, and they all, including Kirsten, had to live by it. He had probably never dreamed of the pain it would cause her.

  Suddenly Kirsten realized that she had been waiting an interminably long time for her pasta. She looked over at the counter and at the same moment the lights dimmed in the restaurant.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said to one of the waiters. ‘I still haven’t had my take-away.’

  ‘I’m afraid it’s too late for take-aways,’ he answered avoiding her eyes. ‘The chef finished an hour ago.’

  ‘But I saw you serve someone long after I’d
. . .’ Kirsten started to protest, but her voice trailed off. She understood perfectly. The waiter had recognized her and hadn’t even bothered to put her order through.

  Saying no more Kirsten got to her feet and walked out on to the Fulham Road. It didn’t matter about the food, she had no appetite anyway, but what did matter was the continued and horrible snubbing she suffered every time she ventured from the house. Dimly she wondered if Dyllis actually knew just how successful her vendetta was proving.

  The cinema was just turning out, but thankfully the rain had come so most faces in the crowd were shielded by umbrellas. Nevertheless Kirsten lowered her head as she hurried by heading for the house Paul had also left her, in Elm Park Gardens.

  It was a wonderful house, much bigger than it seemed from the outside, yet every bit as cosy as the cottage-like exterior promised. There was no front garden to speak of, just a few paving slabs and no fence or gates. At the back however, was a beautiful and immaculately kept oval lawn with a little fountain in the middle and trees all around the high brick walls to keep it from being overlooked. Inside, the house was a little like a maze with hidden rooms on haphazard landings with low doorways and wooden floors strewn with ageing oriental rugs and any number of antiques and paintings.

  Locking the front door behind her Kirsten went into the sitting room, by far the largest room of the house, yet somehow the snuggest. She loved this room with its pretty marble fireplace, deep armchairs, kelim-covered sofa and soft lighting. The endless rows of books made her think of Paul and feel closer to him. How he had loved books. But then so did she, and how much reading she had done these past few weeks. It had been her only escape.

  She flopped down on the sofa, unravelling the scarf from her hair and shaking out her shoulder length curls.

  ‘I should cry,’ she said aloud to herself. ‘I should let it all out and stop bottling it up this way. There’s nothing to be afraid of or ashamed of in grieving for someone you love.’

  But the tears wouldn’t come and she knew that it was because she dare not let go, if she did she might never stop.

  She curled up in a ball, resting her head on the cushions and hugging herself tightly. Even if she could sleep she still wouldn’t have gone to bed. Lying there alone without the comfort and warmth of Paul’s body beside her was the hardest of all to bear.

  To her dismay, when the papers arrived the next morning she found a photograph of herself leaving the pasta bar. She hadn’t been aware of the photographer, but that was no surprise. They followed her everywhere these days and she rarely, if ever, saw them. The accompanying story was predictably by Dermott Campbell. It was as cruel as ever, pointing out her loneliness and the fact that even the friends she had had before she went to France had deserted her. She wondered if that were true. Had everyone really deserted her? She hadn’t tried contacting anyone since her return, but then who was there to contact? There never really had been anyone she could call a friend – except Paul. And, of course, Helena. There had always been a companion though, a companion as constant, as unrelenting and as cruel as Dyllis Fisher’s revenge. Loneliness was her companion. It had been with her for so much of her life that it was sometimes hard for her to remember a time when that dull ache wasn’t circling her heart waiting to steal into the precious moments of happiness and stifle them. Throughout the years she had known Paul though, which were ten in all since they had been friends long before they had become lovers, there had been no ache. With Paul’s help she had conquered her fear of people, of herself even, and had allowed herself to believe in happiness. She was already a successful woman by the time he came into her life, but it was he who had taught her how to enjoy her success, and most importantly of all how to trust in those who had already put their trust in her. He had made her understand and eventually believe that no one wanted to hurt her and in time that tightly knotted fear inside her had started to unravel, so slowly at first that she had thought it would never let go. But it had and she would never forget the years that had followed when she had led a normal, happy, and almost totally fulfilled life. There had only been one thing missing, but eventually, she had found that too. And then she had really known what true happiness was.

  But all that was five years ago now, and Paul had been there to pick up the pieces, the way he always was, when it had all gone so disastrously wrong. And typically of him he had been filled with remorse that he had been the one to introduce her to the man who had, in the end, broken her heart. It was then that Paul had taken her to France and she had decided to devote herself to him and him alone.

  Now the ache of loneliness was with her again. It had returned with Paul’s death and seemed more oppressive, more suffocating than ever. And through it she could once again hear the laughing voice of her beloved father on that last morning when she had waved him off to work.

  Ever since Kirsten could remember her father had been the centre of her world. It was to him she had run when she’d fallen and hurt herself, and to him she would turn for praise when she’d tried so especially hard at school. Always his twinkling eyes were there, watching her, loving her and making her feel the most special person in the world. At night she would curl up in his lap and listen as he read her stories and in the morning he would always be there ready to lift her into his arms for a kiss before going off to work. She had been his little princess and he had been her father, the king.

  Kirsten had virtually no recollection of her mother during those times even though her mother had been there, for her tiny six-year-old world was filled by her father.

  And then one day he wasn’t there anymore.

  She remembered her mother telling her that he was dead, that he’d been killed in a road accident, but Kirsten didn’t understand dead. She didn’t realize that it meant he was never coming back, so day after day she had sat outside on the doorstep waiting for him. She’d begged her mother to tell him she was sorry, that whatever she had done wrong she would never do it again if only he would come home. But he never came and Kirsten’s mother had never really tried to explain death to the little girl. So in the end Kirsten, in her own quiet way, had managed to convince herself that her Daddy just didn’t love her anymore because she was a wicked, wicked girl.

  All those bitter and desperate feelings of bewilderment, rejection and failure Kirsten had relived during the first two years she was in France. They had been coaxed out of her by the analyst she was seeing following her breakdown and as always Paul had been there to see her through it. Just as he had when Kirsten had allowed the analyst to make her face the years that had followed the death of her father and all that had happened. The way her mother had continued to neglect her, and the terrible years of bullying she had faced at school when the other girls had teased and tormented her. And then there was the music teacher, Mr Phillpott, who had taken such delight in pulling down her knickers and spanking her bottom for crimes she didn’t even know she’d committed. There had been so much, too much already for one little life.

  But there was worse to come. Much worse. And it had started with the rape. It had happened when she was still only thirteen years old, when two boys from the lower-sixth had chased her into the buttercup field near her home and repeatedly forced themselves on her.

  Now, as Kirsten sat there in her Chelsea home, so far from the nightmare of her teenage years, that thirteen-year-old child seemed like a stranger, someone with whom it was impossible to identify, nevertheless it was that stranger who had mapped her life, who had created a security so false and so tragic that even to think of her now could almost move Kirsten to tears.

  She’d known the two boys who had raped her, at least she’d known their names; Danny Fairbrother, the school heart-throb, and his friend Christopher Ball, but in the months, years to follow, she came to know them a whole lot better, for Danny, in the moments following the rape, had suddenly realized the immensity of the crime he had committed. She was a minor and he was seventeen. Christopher, on realizing it too, had run awa
y, but Danny, as afraid and agitated as he was, had stayed to make sure she was all right. And it was because he had shown her that kindness that Kirsten had agreed to keep silent. Not only that, she had agreed to meet him again the following day.

  Kirsten was so grateful and so elated by Danny’s friendship that she was happy to let him do whatever he wanted. If she didn’t she knew he wouldn’t come any more and she just couldn’t bear to go back to the loneliness she had known before he had come into her life. Then Danny introduced her to a couple of his friends, then a couple more and a couple more. And as the number of Danny’s friends increased so the faces became blurred by the choking fog of confusion and pain closing in on her heart. But just so long as Danny kept coming, was kind to her and made her feel special was really all that mattered.

  Looking back now it was a miracle that she hadn’t got pregnant sooner, but it hadn’t happened until she was fifteen. And it was the day she had found out that she was pregnant that she also found out that Danny had a girlfriend. A real girlfriend whom he took to dances, let ride on his motorbike and took home to meet his parents.

  For the next month Kirsten knew such misery and desolation it even surpassed the fear of her pregnancy. Day after day she watched and prayed that Danny would call for her again. At weekends she even walked through the rain down to the hay barn where they went when the weather was bad in the vain hope that he might be there. Of course he never was, and she’d stopped going there with the other boys now too. Most of them were begging her to see them, were promising her anything, even engagement rings, if she’d just give them one more quick tumble. Always she refused, until one Sunday when Christopher Ball turned up for the third time that day and Kirsten’s mother insisted that she put the poor boy out of his misery and go for a walk with him. Naturally they went to the hay barn, but instead of taking off her jeans when they got inside, to Christopher’s annoyance Kirsten plumped down on the straw and started to cry. So it was to Christopher Ball that Kirsten finally confided her pregnancy.