by Susan Lewis
‘I told you, it can wait.’
‘No,’ she said shaking her head. ‘I want to know now.’
He turned round and when Kirsten saw the look on his face a debilitating numbness started to creep into her heart. ‘Laurence, tell me, please.’
‘There’s nothing to tell,’ he said.
‘Laurence! Don’t lie to me. Something’s happened and I want to know what it is.’
‘Kirstie, you’ve been through enough for one day. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.’
‘No! How the hell do you think I’m going to sleep knowing that you’re holding something back from me. I want to know now – whatever it is.’
‘Kirstie, don’t make me do this. For your own sake . . .’
‘Oh God, Laurence, you’re frightening me. What’s happening to Tom? You said you saw Pippa? Did she say something?’
‘Yes, she said something.’
‘Then what!’
‘She’s decided that Tom should stay here in England,’ he said, unable to meet her eyes.
‘But that’s fantastic, isn’t it?’ Kirsten said uncertainly. ‘Aren’t you pleased?’
‘Yes, of course I am. It was what I wanted. Well, you know that . . .’
‘But?’ she said.
At last he turned to look at her and reaching out to take her hand he pulled her gently to her feet. ‘Kirstie, you know how much I love you, don’t you?’ he said.
‘I thought I did,’ she breathed her eyes darting between his.
‘I do. I love you, Kirsten, and I don’t ever want you to doubt that.’
‘Then why am I starting to?’
His head fell back. ‘Oh God, I don’t know how to tell you this,’ he groaned. ‘Not now, not ever.’
‘Laurence, please,’ Kirsten whispered, feeling the numbness in her heart turning to ice.
‘Pippa’s agreed to let me have custody . . .’ he said. ‘But not quite the way we wanted.’
‘Then in what way?’
‘She wants to come back. She wants us to be a family again.’
For a long time Kirsten just stared at him. She knew that the pain was there, struggling its way through, but for the moment all she knew was the incapacitating shock that now, after all they had come through, she was going to lose him anyway. In the end she gently extracted her hands and said, ‘Then that’s what you have to do.’
‘Oh God,’ he murmured. ‘I shouldn’t have told you, not tonight.’
‘It’s all right,’ Kirsten said calmly, but deep down inside she knew it wasn’t. ‘If that’s how you get to keep Tom, then that’s what you must do.’
‘I love you, Kirstie. I’ll always love you.’
She smiled shakily. ‘I think you should go now,’ she said.
‘I’m not leaving you tonight . . .’
‘Laurence, please. I . . .’ her voice faltered, but mustering her courage she tried again. ‘I think it would be best if you did. Please, don’t argue. There’s no point dragging this out, it’ll only be more painful for us both. Laurence please,’ she said as he started to argue again. ‘You’ve made your decision, I understand the decision, but I want you to go.’
She turned away, so desperate to cling to him, to beg him to stay and so filled with pain at the knowledge that for the second time in her life she was losing him while carrying his baby that she couldn’t look at him any more. For one fleeting moment she almost told him, the words were there on her tongue crying out to be spoken, but she stopped herself. She couldn’t do that to him. She loved him too much to want to see him so torn apart by the agonizing choice she would force on him.
A few minutes later she heard the door close behind him and at the sound of it she knew that her whole life was breaking irreparably apart.
38
‘I can’t work out what’s going on,’ Campbell grumbled, throwing his coat down on a chair as he came in through the door.
‘Did you speak to Laurence?’ Helena asked, removing her feet from the table, putting down the paper and handing him his coat back.
‘No. He wasn’t there,’ he answered taking his coat and hanging it up.
‘But surely his mother told him you were coming,’ Helena cried. ‘Where was he?’
‘God knows. No one was in, not even his parents. Did you call Kirsten?’
‘Yes. I left a message on her answerphone, but she hasn’t called back.’
‘So where the fuck is everyone?’ Campbell complained.
‘I can tell you where Kirsten is,’ Helena said, going to sit down again. ‘Or at least where she was this afternoon.’
‘I can tell you where she was this afternoon,’ Campbell stated looking at the untidy shelves of paperbacks. ‘She was at the hospital with Jane Cottle, where she’s been every day this past week. I listen to the news, too.’
‘OK, don’t get antsy with me,’ Helena said.
Campbell turned round. ‘Why don’t you go round there?’ he said.
Helena’s luminous eyes regarded him for a moment, then shaking her head she picked up the paper again.
‘But why, for God’s sake? If it’s true she and Laurence have split up then she could probably use a friend right now.’
‘If she wants me she knows where I am,’ Helena answered.
‘Shit, you and that pride of yours!’ Campbell seethed. ‘You can’t still hold a grudge against her for thinking you were trying to set her up, not after all she’s been through.’
‘I’m not holding a grudge,’ Helena responded tartly. ‘I’m just saying, if she needs me she can call. And I for one don’t believe that she and Laurence have split up.’
‘Then why is he at his parents’ house and she’s still there in Chelsea? And why is Pippa over here when she should be in Tuscany with Marigliano?’
‘And why has Dyllis Fisher been remanded in custody when Billy Fields got bail? I don’t know, Dermott. I’m as much in the dark as you are. Now quit hassling me will you? I’ve tried calling her because you asked me to and she hasn’t bothered to call back. So why don’t we just let them get on with their lives, God knows they’ve had enough interference.’
‘Mmm,’ Campbell grunted. ‘You were prepared to go and see her the day you found out she was bailed,’ he reminded her.
‘And I changed my mind.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know, I just did. Look, if we’re going to get into another fight about this then I’m out of here. I’ve about had it with your obsession over what’s happening between those two. If they have split up then they’ll get back together, you can bet your life on that. So, can we talk about something else?’
‘Yeah, you can tell me how Jane’s doing. I only caught the last part of the news, did they say anything about her condition? Is she getting any better?’
‘Stable, is all they said. And I don’t call that changing the subject.’
Campbell was shaking his head. ‘You’ve got to be just about the only person in this country who’s not interested in what’s happening with that family. Why?’
‘I don’t see what difference it’s going to make to my life what the hell is happening to them. You’ve got a new career to start over, I’ve got to find myself another job. Life goes on, Dermott. Now tell me about your meeting with Phillip Lowe today. Is he going to give you a column?’
‘Yep. I turned it down.’
‘What! Why did you do that?’
‘Because I’ve decided to freelance, that’s why. I’m tired of doing assassination jobs on people, which is what he wants. What I want is to earn a decent living for once in my life. I want to be one of the good guys,’ he grinned. ‘Do you have a problem with that?’
‘In believing it, yes,’ Helena answered with an ironic smile. ‘But you do what you want, it’s none of my business.’
‘Then you’d better start making it your business,’ he retorted, ‘because I don’t want a wife who’s not interested in what I do.’
‘Then you’d better
go find yourself someone else,’ she said.
Campbell rolled his eyes. ‘This hard to get act of yours isn’t washing with me,’ he said. ‘I’ve already booked the register office, we’re getting married a week on Monday.’
‘Then you just better go and unbook it, hadn’t you?’ Helena said, smiling sweetly.
But Campbell wasn’t listening. ‘I wish to God I could get hold of Laurence,’ he said. ‘I want him to be my best man.’
‘Hah!’ Helena cried. ‘If you think I can’t see through that then you’re an even bigger dickhead that I thought you were.’
Campbell looked at her mystified.
‘You, Dermott Campbell,’ she said, walking towards him and poking him in the chest, ‘are just using me and this farce of a wedding as an excuse to get to Laurence without seeming the nosy, interfering, scandal merchant you are. “Hello, Laurence. How you doing, Laurence? Want to be my best man, Laurence? Oh and by the way Laurence, is that right you and Kirsten aren’t an item any more?” You, you double-crossing, underhanded, transparent little jerk, are looking for a scoop to start off your new career. And what better scoop is there right now than the inside story on Kirsten and Laurence? So, if you think I’m going to marry you just so’s you can set the ball rolling by asking Laurence to be your best man, then think again, buddy.’
‘Shit, you’ve got one convoluted mind, Helena,’ Campbell said incredulously. ‘It didn’t even occur to me to do anything like that. But now you come to mention it, it’s not such a bad idea.’ He nodded thoughtfully. ‘Mmm, it’s not a bad idea at all. Yeah, I can see we’re going to work pretty well as a team you and me.’
‘Forget it. I just told you, I’m not marrying you. And I sure as hell am not encouraging you to use our friends and whatever traumas and tragedies they might be going through to further your sordid little ends.’
‘As a matter of fact,’ Campbell said seriously, ‘I happen to care a great deal about what’s going on between Kirsten and Laurence. I even care about that kid lying there in hospital and what she’s going to go through once she comes out. And you can tell me different until you’re blue in the face, but I happen to know that you care too.’
Helena turned away, but not before he’d seen the telltale anguish darken her eyes.
‘Come on, what is it?’ he said gently, putting a hand on her shoulder. ‘What’s the real reason you won’t go to see Kirsten?’
‘If I tell you, you’ll end up despising me,’ she answered. ‘Not that I care about that. You can despise me all you want . . .’
‘Helena, let’s just get to the bottom of this, shall we?’
She took a deep breath, shrugged his hand from her shoulder then walked back to the table and sat down. ‘The truth is,’ she said, running her finger around the rim of her wine glass, ‘that I reckon Kirsten and Laurence have split up. He’s gone back to Pippa and I just know what that will have done to Kirsten. Right now she’s doing all she can for Jane, but sooner or later she’ll have to face up to the fact that it’s over for her and Laurence and . . . and if she cracks up, the way she did last time, if she goes under the way I reckon she will . . . well, I’m not the one to handle it. Don’t get me wrong, I want to. God knows I want to, but I’m afraid. I’m afraid that one day I’ll walk into that house and find her . . . find her so pumped full of pills or floating in a bath filled with blood or . . . Oh, I don’t know, but if she did something like that I just don’t know what I’d do. I’m not a good enough friend to her, I never have been and . . .’ She looked up and her eyes were pleading with him to understand a deficiency in herself she was finding it impossible to justify. ‘Dermott, it’s not me she wants, it’s Laurence. It’s always been him and nothing I do is going to change that. I can’t watch her fall apart, I just can’t. I’m no Paul Fisher. I can’t hold her together the way he did, I can’t bring her through it and I don’t want her to think I can when I know I don’t have it in me to do it. So please, don’t ask me to call her any more, don’t ask me to go round there and don’t let’s talk any more about getting married. I’m a selfish bitch, I know, but I can’t help her and I can’t help the way I am either. She’s got to face it alone. I don’t want to be there to see it and have to deal with the fact that it’s all my fault.’
‘How is it your fault?’ Campbell challenged.
‘You, of all people, need to ask that question,’ she cried. ‘You were the one, Dermott, just over a year ago now, who gave me her phone number just after she’d got back from France. And I was the one who went round there, who pretended to be her friend, who persuaded her into going to that goddamned party at Laurence’s. I was the one who didn’t have the guts to say no to your blackmail and I was the one who sold her down the river to save my own skin. OK, I know all that changed later, but I was the one who set it all rolling. And look what’s happened. Two people are dead, there’s a kid lying there in hospital in God alone knows what state and despite the way you and I both know they feel about each other Laurence and Kirsten haven’t made it through. No, I’m not getting involved in her life again, Dermott, she’s better off without me and it’s hard enough handling the guilt without having it stare me right in the face.’
‘And if she does end up killing herself? How are you going to feel then?’
‘Fucking awful. But she won’t. Something will happen to save her at the last minute, it always does with Kirsten.’
‘That’s what you always say, but one of these days, Helena, you might just find out you’re wrong.’
Kirsten was sitting beside Jane’s bed in the private ward she’d had her moved to as soon as the doctor had declared her out of danger. It had been almost two weeks now since the day Jane had attacked her and Laurence had left, two weeks in which Kirsten had tried hard to accept that the nightmare was reality, but it was as though her mind could only hover over the truth, occasionally grazing it, then pulling back sharply as it found the pain. She knew that sooner or later she would have to let it in, to face it and deal with it and already there were times when it came, unbidden and unprepared for, closing around her like a vice as though to crush her. But mainly she was able to hold herself away from it and think only about the hour she was living, to take herself steadily through each day and not think about the future.
She gazed down at Jane’s hand lying limply on the stark white sheet and covered it with her own. It was hard to say what her feelings towards Jane were now, all she knew was that being here and doing all she could to see Jane through was giving her a sense of purpose she badly needed.
There was a tube inserted into Jane’s wrist another into her nose. Her face was deathly pale, her lips were cracked and dry, her feathery lashes were fluttering gently as she struggled out of a deep and dreamless sleep.
Kirsten knew it would take some time, it always did, but she would come round eventually and they would talk some more. Not for long though, Jane tired so easily. The doctor had confided to Kirsten the day before that by now he’d hoped to be seeing more signs of recovery. But she was a little stronger than when she’d first regained consciousness, he’d said, and that she was talking now was a good sign.
Kirsten was her only visitor, if one discounted the detective who had taken over the case since Kowski had returned to New Orleans. He was a kind man, but a busy one. He only ever stayed long enough to listen to Kirsten’s reports on what she and Jane had talked about then he went, leaving a uniformed officer on duty outside.
There had still been no sign of Frank and Amy Cottle, the people who had adopted Jane at a year old and had never cared enough even to take a photograph of her childhood. There were flowers though, from Kirsten, from Ruby, from Thea and Don – and from Laurence and Pippa. The ones from Laurence and Pippa had arrived three days ago and even now Kirsten could still feel the terrible ache in her heart that she’d felt when she’d seen their names together on the card.
She’d spoken to Laurence that morning. He’d called to find out how Jane was and to ask
if he could come over and pick up his and Tom’s belongings.
Kirsten glanced at her watch. He’d probably be there now and as the pain raked itself through her she silently prayed that he understood why she’d asked him to come when she wasn’t there. It would have been hard enough facing him, but watching him take everything of himself from the house would have been too much to bear. As it was just hearing his voice on the phone, hearing the dark intimacy of his tone that told her he was suffering just as much as she was had caused her such indescribable pain that she had made him promise never to call her again. Staying in touch was only going to make it worse for them both. Laurence had argued, had reminded her that there was still a great deal to do to clear up the film, but Kirsten had told him she was putting it all into the hands of her lawyers. When at last he had given his promise Kirsten had felt as though a part of her was dying, but she knew it was for the best.
She started to smile as at last Jane’s eyes came open. ‘Hello,’ she whispered. ‘How are you feeling?’
Jane’s fingers tightened slightly on hers and gently Kirsten returned the pressure as Jane tried to smile. ‘Is Laurence here?’ she croaked.
‘No,’ Kirsten answered. ‘It’s just me.’
Jane’s eyes drifted closed as the disappointment she felt showed in a tiny spasm across her brow. ‘Can I have some water?’ she whispered.
Kirsten stood up, poured some into a glass then raised Jane to hold the drink to her lips. She didn’t take much, most of it dribbled from her mouth and dripped on to the pillow. Kirsten took a tissue and wiped her face. ‘Better?’ she said.
Jane nodded. ‘I was thinking,’ she said after a while, her voice so frail Kirsten had to lean forward to hear. ‘After you left yesterday, I was thinking. All those things Billy told me, when he said that you and Laurence didn’t want me . . . None of it was true, was it?’