Exposure

by Avril Osborne

  “Ken and I must see you at the house soon. And you too, Harry, if you are in town again soon. We’d love to have you over for a meal.”

  The conversation drifts for a few minutes. Harry asks some questions about what holding the title of ‘professor’ feels like outside the academic cloisters and Linda says that she prefers to be called Mrs Pilar when in her private world. As she says it, she regrets it – Jane would be Doctor or Ms; certainly not Miss, she knows that. How conventional she is, to think of herself as Mrs in this day and age. Jane just smiles.

  She enjoys her exchange with Jane for all that it is anodyne. There is a rapport here and she feels at ease with her. She would like to go on talking. She leaves, vaguely disconcerted; aware that something else is somehow in the ether.

  She does not get home till nearly midnight but the following day is Saturday, and she can sleep as late as the children’s weekend diaries permit. Ken is waiting up for her, sitting with a whisky in the TV lounge. He stands to greet her, offers her a brandy and settles her by him on the sofa.

  But she does not want to talk much except to tell him about the lecture going well. For whatever reason, she does not want to talk about socialising with Jane and her brother Harry. She has already told him about the supper party – most of it anyway – and had a jesting remark back from him about women’s libbers. Best leave the subject alone, she decides. Fortunately, Ken has his own news to impart concerning the forthcoming summer. The kids are interested in a youth camp somewhere in the Pyrenees. Kenny found out about it on the Internet. If he, Ken, took them down there whilst she was on her summer dig he could go over to Llanes, on the north Spanish coast where his parents live, and spend that fortnight with them. He could collect the kids after their camp and take them into Spain. Linda could fly out to join them all when the dig was over. What does she think? It makes a lot of sense but Linda agrees with him that they need to know a great deal more about this camp before they make any final decisions. These days, she points out to Ken, you can’t be too careful. As a GP, Ken is only too aware of that and promises that they will be very careful indeed, especially for young Angela.

  But she likes the thought of a few weeks when she could be free of the dreadful feeling of being away herself whilst the family are at home waiting for her return. And she listens contentedly in bed as Ken describes some of the things that he would like to do in the time he might now have with his parents. They are at the age where a visit inevitably entails a check on any repairs or decoration in the house and a quiet ear to the ground on their health. And it would be good for Ken to have them to himself for a while. Yes, with the time that she will have with the children herself in the early part of their summer holiday, it is shaping up to be a good time ahead for them all. She drifts off to sleep, looking forward to the next day’s inevitable excited pleas from the children that they should go to this camp in France.

  Sure enough, the morning starts with an over-boisterous Angela appearing in the room, followed by Kenny. There is a tray of boiled eggs for Ken and her – the children’s traditional treat for their parents when they want to celebrate something, or, as this morning, when they want a family conference. She lets herself be persuaded very slowly as she eats her egg and toast, asking all sorts of questions about the camp and the costs and how they would cope without their parents there. It takes the kids an hour but they have moved her from “We’ll see” to “Well, perhaps” by the time the breakfast session is over. The kids head off, pleased with their negotiations and ready to divert their attentions to the day in hand.

  Ken is to take them, with their bikes on the back of the family estate, for a cycle around the vast public park and lake to the south of the city. They will all meet up in the afternoon for pizzas and a trip to the cinema. With sotto voce mutterings to his wife that he does not see when they will have their own private time and a riposte from Linda that there is always bedtime, Ken is off to the shower before ten o’clock and on with the business of the day.

  Linda is free for the day to shop for some clothes and to see to preparations for the Sunday joint. Tina is on a free weekend and the house is her own. She bathes rather than showers and takes her time, playing some operatic arias that would not have gone down too well had Kenny been in the house. Being on her own is a luxury that happens only seldom and she is in no hurry to be dressed and out. At twelve, she makes a jug of fresh coffee and is about to sit with the Saturday supplement to the daily paper when the doorbell rings.

  Susan is outside. Right away, Linda knows that there have to be more problems with the Dave Ramsey situation. She is a little disappointed in a selfish way at the loss of her peace and quiet. Susan does not usually call unannounced and seems to know that she is interrupting. She is full of apologies as she makes her way into the kitchen.

  “Nonsense,” Linda protests, genuine in her remorse that she was not more open and welcoming. Her friendship is not of much use if she does not support Susan when she needs it. “What’s the situation now?”

  “I saw Brenda again last night. It will be today before they know that he’s definitely going to pull through.”

  Linda gives no reaction to the fact that Susan must have gone to the hospital. What good would criticism do? Instead, she listens quietly to Susan’s account of how the minister seemed to know what happened between the two lovers and to the story of the two anonymous letters, presumably written by Ramsey.

  She can see how Susan hasdecided that it is now impossible to tell Bill about the affair, from the lurid account that she has had to deny. Linda would hate the mortification of anyone depicting her sex life, no matter its conventional nature, with Ken. She can imagine the stick drawings and the effect that they would have on Bill. Bill is such a nice, but almost straight-laced, person. He presumably will also be the jealous type. Privately, she still thinks that Susan should have come clean about it on the night of the attempted suicide. At least she would not now be struggling with it on her own without Bill. He would probably have backed her. Now, it might well be too late, if the truth somehow or other comes out.

  But it is not so much the letter that Bill received that is worrying Susan. She clearly thinks that she handled that and that it is under control. No, it is the letter to her boss, Jonathon.

  “How did he react, Susan?” Susan’s job could be on the line.

  “He was very good. I stonewalled him, really; just looked at him to see how he was going to respond. He didn’t even ask if it was true. He just said it must be the troubled work of an equally troubled mind and to forget it as far as the TV Company is concerned. If it gets out any further, though, he thinks it could be more serious.”

  “So, you are OK as far as the programme is concerned?

  “It looks that way, for now. At the end of the day, they need me on that show, Linda. The ratings are good and it’s something of a flagship. Silence, that’s the best policy” Susan sounds as if she is quoting her boss. And she probably is.

  “I agree. Who would believe the word of a mentally deranged suicidal minister who is so out of your sphere and league that it’s not true? It’s hardly credible, Susan. You just need to say nothing and hope that it’s over - whether he lives or dies.”

  Linda is about to pour Susan some more coffee when she realizes that tears are trickling down her friend’s cheeks. It has not occurred to her that Susan might be feeling the strain of all this to the point of distress. She puts an arm around her.

  “Come on. It will be OK, you know. It’s got to you, hasn’t it?”

  Susan’ tears overwhelm her for a few moment. Linda has never seen her anything other than cool-headed and in command.

  “Linda, I would give anything sometimes to just be ordinary and settled – like I said in the bistro the night all this started.”

  “Come on, Susan, you know that that’s not really true. You would hate an ordinary life. You would be bored, frankly.”

  This makes Susan smile and Linda laughs. “Perhaps it co
uld be a little less dangerous than it is just now, but you like excitement, Susan. Admit it. And there is always a time beyond a bad time, you know. You will get through this.

  “I suppose. I envy you, you know, Linda. You seem to have it all.”

  Linda looks at this friend of hers, crystallising in a flash just what it is that is on her mind and tempted to tell her. Instead, she says, simply,

  “If only I did.

  CHAPTER 10

  When it comes down to it, she really only has two friends – Linda and Bill. Of course, she has many acquaintances, met mainly through work, and she never needs to worry about spending time on her own if she does not want to. It is rather the reverse; that she has to make the time in the week to see to the mundane things of life – bills, cleaning, shopping for food. But when it comes to having people with whom she can really relax, there are only these two.

  For all that, Susan is finding that her life is a lonely place to be, indeed a lonely and vulnerable place. It is lonely because she cannot entrust the whole story of her background to either Linda or Bill. She could not tell Linda because she has always seemed to be such a conventional person; nor could she talk to Bill because that could cost her this relationship.

  Linda has been a stalwart during the early days of the attempted suicide. Susan knows that, without her, she would have burst at her own seems as first one letter and then the next smashed into her life. Linda has steered her through these days of crisis even though Susan has hardly, at the end of the day, followed her friend’s words of advice. She was in touch with Brenda, after all. Without her friend, she would have been a neurotic mess by the end of that week. Somehow, some of Linda’s calm has filtered into her own psyche.

  As the days pass, and as the world goes on without anything tumbling from the sky onto her crown, she begins to relax again and to find more of her old self-confidence. She stops looking back at her past and her need to talk with Linda begins to dissipate. Besides, she reasons, you can only go on off-loading onto friends for so long and Linda is a very busy woman. Susan has the distinct impression that Linda has her own preoccupations at present, although she has not said what they are.

  Bill is a different matter. By the end of the week she knows that she is very fortunate in having him. His acceptance of her word over Ramsey has been reassuring, especially as she knows how hurt he would have been had he known the truth. She knows that in Bill she has someone who seems to genuinely love and support her. Her thoughts are beginning to turn slowly but with greater certainty to the prospect of marriage. She likes this man enormously and said just that to Linda at one point – that she was very much in like with him. Linda just asked if that was any basis for marriage. Susan did not reply; just shrugged her shoulders with a hint of indifference – or was it defiance?

  She is not in love; she knows that. Then again, she knows that she never really has been – not with anyone. At times of quiet thought, maybe on her own with a glass of wine and some background music, she thinks about this. She never does so without a fleeting picture of her father entering her mind – a picture that causes her momentary grief and which she dismisses as quickly as possible. Just once, with too much drink inside her, she cried out, “Why did you leave me?”

  As the weeks of late spring pass, life at the TV Studio moves forward. The series is due to end its run in a few weeks and she will be free to get out of the city or perhaps start some negotiations for new work with some other TV networks. After all, this city is nice but it is not the be all and end all. But promotion will probably entail a move to London and she is not sure that she could tolerate life in the capital again. She did that in her early career and hated it as much as she thrived on it. Whatever else, professional thinking time lies ahead, as well as some leisure time.

  Bill remains as attentive as always, for a while almost at greater pains than usual to reassure her of his love and support. Sexually, he seems more demanding and this pleases her. There is now an erotic content to their weekends together that had begun to flag before the suicide week. If her mind drifts away from him during sex to other scenarios or to other men, real and imaginary, she lets it. What woman, she reasons, does not think private thoughts to break the tedium?

  Occasionally, though, Bill is moody now, saying little, and she might catch him looking at her across his lounge as they read the papers or, worse, when she is undressing or showering. He scrutinises her with a kind of puzzled enquiry in his expression. She knows what this is about. He is jealous of what might have happened with Ramsey. He said something late one night about imagining her behaving as the letter described and depicted. She knows that he struggles with the images of the stick people. She never talks about it, preferring to reassure him as best she can with her attention, personal and intimate, that the letter is false. But for whatever reason, neither of them broaches the subject of marriage or of moving in together, which were Bill’s suggestions just so recently.

  But she knows she would now say yes to marriage if he asked. It would offer protection and a haven at a time when she feels vulnerable to she knows not quite what. In all this, it is Bill’s occasional distance from her that gives her that feeling of vulnerability. She now has a sense of what life would be like without him – a lonelier place than before she met him and one in which she would be even more a prey to her own predilections.

  She saw Brenda only occasionally. The young woman rang Susan with the news that Ramsey would survive. Once again, they met at the Café Noir. Brenda entered the black, white and brown decorated café, looking sadly out of place in her bedraggled raincoat which was hanging open to reveal the same twin set that Susan had seen her wearing at the renal unit. Susan could see that Brenda was glad to see her.

  Brenda was keen to tell Susan the story. This new drug worked. But there was little enthusiasm in her tone and, if Susan detected flatness in Brenda, she dismissed it as probably caused by exhaustion. It was almost three weeks from when her husband’s life had hung in the balance before Dr Semple gave him the final clearance from the oedema from which he was suffering. Brenda told her that the consultant described him as a lucky man. It was a long and tedious three weeks for Brenda. Sitting with a man who was possibly about to die had drama about it. Sitting with a taciturn, uncommunicative patient on his way to recovery was stressful and, yes, tedious.

  Susan listened to Brenda’s account of how Dave had been transferred to psychiatric hospital. At the time that was music to her ears. Dave was out of the way and any attempt he might make to attack Susan with further letters or revelations could now be attributed to his disturbed mind.

  Brenda said she thought he would be fine now and really did not see why he had to go to a mental hospital.

  “The depressed person can be the last one to see his or her own symptoms, Brenda,” Susan said softly, looking up from her coffee cup.

  The psychiatrist, apparently, suggested that there was much more work for Dave to do before he would be well. He and Dave had talked and medication, counselling and rest were now vital to his recovery. Dave was still very ill in emotional terms and the medic did not think it was wise for him to go home just yet. Dave needed to take time to sort out what had happened and to prepare for the future.

  Brenda accepted this at the time but Dave protested. He was sure that he could cope at home. He mentioned then for the first time to Brenda that he was not to work for the moment – the church still had to decide what to do with him. In reply to Susan’s question, Brenda said she had no idea what it was all about except that Dave had been talking to the Reverend Graham and would not say any more. Privately, Susan surmised that the church would not want an adulterer and a suicidal personality leading God’s work in the city.

  They asked Dave to come into hospital voluntarily. But he was not to go out even into the grounds without a nurse with him. And if he would not agree to voluntary admission, they would make a decision about whether or not he was still a risk to himself. If he did not agree they c
ould admit him on a compulsory order.

  As she listened to Brenda’s account, Susan thought he might also be considered a risk to others – her. But she said nothing. This was all sounding better and better to Susan’s attentive ear.

  “So, he either agreed to go or he went anyway.” Brenda said this with a tone of finality. “Dave didn’t tell the doctor how much talk happened between him and Reverend Graham. Perhaps if he had, this might not have happened. Or perhaps he should have told the doctor and not the minister what was troubling him.”

  Sitting listening to all this, Susan felt as if some unseen threat was being lifted away from her. She reassured Brenda that it was probably for the best that Dave was in psychiatric care.

  After that she made a point of not being available when Brenda rang or of using the answer phone to block her calls. It was best, now, to let that link fade away and to leave that sad pair to their sad lives. The days passed and the calls from Brenda stopped. Just to cover her back in terms of a little apparent concern, she sent Brenda a final pleasant note in which she said that she was just hoping that things would now improve for her and for Dave.

  She is triggered into going to see Ramsey one day several weeks after her meeting with Jonathon Whitley. Nothing more was said about the stick people letter – as she now refers to it – till he again asked to see her. He came straight to the point. The City Tribune had been on to him. They were asking questions about Susan and some indecent sexual encounter with a church minister. She sat looking at Jonathon, saying that this was like a nightmare. She did not comment on the sexual encounter. Instead, she asked Jonathon how they had picked up the story.

  “Another letter, apparently, like the last one. It was anonymous but it was probably from Ramsey. And, Susan, I understand that it was recent.”

  “He’s still writing them? What do we do, Jonathon?” her choice of the word ‘we’ was deliberate – to unite Jonathon and her against the common enemy.