Exposure

by Avril Osborne

  Brenda nods. She was due to collect Dave on the morning of his discharge. When the doorbell rang, she answered it right away and found a pleasant faced man on the doorstep. ‘Mrs Ramsey?’ She nodded, waiting. He told her that his name was Jeremy Skidman and that he worked for the City Tribune. He asked if he could have a word with her about her husband. Brenda’s first thought was that this was something to do with the church where Dave worked. Then the man said that he was trying to quash a rumour about her husband. It was pretty unpleasant really but he was sure that she would be able to clear it up. He said that Dave was having an affair with the well-known TV personality - Susan Blakely.

  Susan just looks at Brenda and then groans as if she is every bit as stunned and shocked as any innocent victim of false rumour that has run loose would be. Brenda goes on. At first, she slammed the door in Skidman’s face. It was a reaction from the shock, she tells Susan. But he knocked the door again and she refused to let him in. Skidman called through the letterbox. He was just trying to help. He would come and see her again. Would she ask Dave about it? He could probably clear this up. She said nothing and in a few moments heard footsteps receding down the hall. The man was rude enough to try to talk to her about it on a second occasion when she was having lunch in the university canteen. But she said nothing and asked him to go away.

  “Very wise,” Susan comments, as if as a by-the-by.

  Susan takes her opportunity.

  “Brenda, do you have any doubts at all that it was all false allegations?” She asks in such a way that the answer should surely only be ‘no’.

  Brenda looks at her and slowly shakes her head.

  “Dave is so proper – disinterested, almost, in that sort of thing. And how on earth would he know someone like you, Susan, other than as an acquaintance, let alone have a relationship with you? You are an important person – fronting TV news and current affairs programmes and all.

  Susan does not try to discourage Brenda’s arguments, but puts on a semblance of modesty.

  “No,” Brenda insists, “You are such a sophisticated person - so smart by comparison with Dave and me. And you have been so kind and now look. All you’ve had in return is Dave’s ridiculous dreams.”

  Susan leans over and touches Brenda’s hand. Brenda is not to worry. No harm has been done and she knows that Dave is an ill man.

  “How is Dave now? Is he any better? He’s home, you said?”

  Brenda nods, sadly.

  “He is home, yes, but everything’s different.” She hesitates and looks at Susan

  “I’m being excluded from Dave’s life in so many ways. He is polite, of course, and he appears grateful for the practical things I do like laundry and cooking and so on. But he just won’t discuss anything. He says that he has moved on from wanting to die and is beginning to face the future.”

  She looks at Susan as if deciding to say something else. She rather blurts it out.

  “There’s something missing now in my own feelings.”

  Susan listens to her and seems sympathetic but she is much more concerned to ensure that there is a reliable home base for Dave to return to. Brenda’s presence is one way to keep that man away from her.

  “Maybe he is just getting back to normal. It’s been a terrible time for him, Brenda.” Then as if as an idea has struck her she says, “Maybe you should look to expanding your outside interests, go to night classes or take up a sport or something. Give Dave a home base but be a bit less available?”

  She thinks quietly to herself that this would be a way of making mousy Brenda more interesting to Dave. Or perhaps in truth it might make her less dull.

  “Had you thought much about the future?”

  This stumps Brenda. Susan suspects that she has not thought in these terms, taking life until now very much on a day-to-day basis. But once the question has been asked, Susan knows that Brenda will engage her mind on finding an answer.

  “Perhaps,” Brenda ponders aloud, “Having children is still an option?”

  Susan agrees

  “You are both young enough. You and Dave would make caring parents.”

  “Anything,” she thinks privately, “to get this couple off my back.”

  Brenda looks distressed as she now sighs.

  “I had such high hopes for Dave’s return and for how life would be. I thought we would shop and cook together, share plans for the future and maybe,” she blushes,

  “Rekindle the private side of things. It would be nicer to have a girl but a boy would be fine, too. I would learn how to cope with a boy.”

  Then, finally she asks Susan, in a sudden shift of thinking,

  “Should I ask Dave if he had an affair with someone? Not you, of course.” She blushes again.

  A tedious hour later, Brenda has talked herself to a position, shared with Susan, where not asking Dave about an affair would be the best option. She will put the past, whatever it contains, behind her and build their lives from here. She feels uneasy with this but she sees the logic of it.

  Finally, when it seems safe to pose the question, Susan asks,

  “How are you going to handle the real press, if they come?”

  Immediately, she realizes her mistake and covers it up.

  “Skidman was only small fry, of course.”

  Brenda decides, if any other reporter comes, she will take the ‘no comment’ route. This is her best way to support her husband.

  Susan leaves Brenda, knowing, she tells the troubled young woman, that Dave is very fortunate in his wife. She just hopes that Brenda will find the inner strength to truly support him. They have a difficult time ahead – this is a first test for them. A baby might be the best thing for them.

  The day seems to stretch endlessly ahead of her as she sits in the taxi on her way back to her flat. She is tempted to put the whole sorry saga of Ramsey out of her head but she makes herself do a little recapping.

  It certainly now looks as if there is no press interest. Shand and Skidman are one and the same. Jonathon has already dealt with the City Tribune. Dave has obviously not gone down the road of either going to the press or of confessing to Brenda and, all things equal, is going to keep up his no-communication stand with her. Shand is the only threat in terms of his enquiries and what he might tell Bill. But he has been warned about slander and, if necessary, Susan will carry out her threat to seek legal advice. There is nothing that Shand can prove and, even if Ramsey starts squealing, who would believe him? Brenda certainly does not and she is his wife. It looks as if she is safe.

  It would be good to celebrate.

  CHAPTER 20

  The flat is untidy – she has barely had time to unpack after her return from Rome. She should clear up, run a bath and decide what to do with the rest of the weekend. Linda and Jane are probably enjoying the heat of Santiago. Bill is in Elba now. She could pick up her idea of going to see Mike Moss, but she knows where that would inevitably lead.

  As she soaks in the bath in the room off her bedroom, her thoughts turn to her last indiscretion with the Italian. That was a nice encounter and so much safer than how things turned out with Ramsey. Alberto had all the sophistication of the international businessman who knows how these things are done. He sat with her, waiting for the same delayed flight from Rome to the city and engineered a seat beside hers on the flight when they eventually boarded. He was a man in his late forties, over to set up a new chain of executive hotels in the cities with flight routes to Rome. He knew how to seduce in the most charming of ways and she accepted his invitation to the hotel he was staying in, sure of her personal safety and of his confidentiality. It was as simple as that.

  She is glad that she told Linda a little of all this. She feels better, somehow, for someone else knowing what is going on in her life.

  And in her quiet moments, like now in her bath, she does have time for reflection. Her strongest feeling is that she has had a lucky escape over the Ramsey business. She feels an emotional frisson of fear at how differ
ently the whole business could have worked out.

  In her most private thoughts, she dwells on her sexual encounter with Ramsey, and with other men she has met on this basis. She does not profess to understand these sexual desires. But they have to be linked to a lack of affect in what she considers to be her real relationships – she does not know how else to describe the difference between her feelings for, say, Ramsey and, say, Bill. But she knows there has to be a connection between the lack of commitment she makes in her relationships and the anonymous sex to which she is attracted. Is it attraction, she wonders, or is it a compulsion, this anonymous sex?

  And what of her wanderings? She uses the word wryly, laughing to herself as she soaps her arms. Her conclusion is surprising, even to herself. If you can’t beat it, she concludes, don’t fight it. She knows she could think about this till the cows come home and convince herself that she will not have anonymous sex again. She has done that often enough in the past. But she does not hold to it. It is a switch in her that simply turns on, in a particular set of circumstances. Sure, she could try to avoid the circumstances but, at the end of the day, it will happen again. All she can do, really, is ensure her personal safety and protect her job. And keep it from Bill.

  The weekend is too long and she knows before she is out of the bath that that switch in her psyche has just switched on once again. Perhaps Alberto is still in town? Seeing him for a second time would still be uncomplicated, after all. He will return to Italy as soon as his business is done and that will be the end of it. And Bill is safely out of the country. Why not?

  She rings the hotel. It as the biggest and the most expensive in the city and no questions will be asked there. Yes, her Italian friend is still a guest. His name transpires to be Senor Paccini. They put her through. She can hear the pleasure in his voice right away. She deliberately has not told him where she lives and he says that he so wants to see her again. Yes, she would love to join him for dinner. Eight o’clock would be fine.

  That gives her time to take Bill’s seven-thirty call from Elba and then to taxi into the centre. She chooses a short sleeved cream dress that is tight at the waist and swirls wide around her ankles. It would be hard for any man to resist this, she decides.

  She is at the hotel by eight to find Alberto sitting in the foyer lounge, waiting for her. He greets her with a smile and a kiss to both cheeks, and he escorts her through to the dining room bar. He checks whether she would like champagne and nods to the waiter.

  “I thought you might not come, Susan,” he smiles as the cork is eased silently from the bottle. He has more of a boyish grin than a smile. She is charmed by the Italian accent.

  “So did I,” she laughs, realizing that this man whom she met so recently and allowed to seduce her is actually a very attractive person indeed. She paid little attention to the tall, slim, dark Roman features on the evening of the flight home, already slightly befuddled by alcohol very soon after he introduced himself.

  Dinner is pleasant and becomes more intimate as the meal progresses. His knee manages to touch hers and he makes it very clear in what he says and how he looks at her as to how he would like the evening to end. When he asks her what she particularly likes to do to her men, she feels herself tighten and a rush of sensation between her legs. But she keeps him guessing, thinking that she will make the session different from their first and she turns the question back on him. He likes to have his women naked whilst he remains clothed – at first, anyway. He is much more to the point than any British counterpart she has met.

  Over desert, he simply announces,

  “Susan, I want to make love with you. Now. Come upstairs for brandy and coffee.”

  He stands up, expecting and knowing that she will follow and she appears at least to be subservient, obedient to the mastery of this sophisticated man. He leads the way to the second floor, unlocks his door to reveal a sitting room with bedroom beyond. Brandy and coffee are already set out. He sits her down in a fireside chair, sits opposite her and pours two glasses of amber liquid. She takes a sip and asks for the direction of the bathroom. It is through the bedroom.

  In the bathroom, she takes off all her clothes, leaving on only her heels and comes back to frame herself in the doorway.

  He stays sitting, and she watches him stiffen through his trousers.

  “Very nice, little girl. Come here.”

  As if obedient, she goes over, stands in front of him and then goes down on to her knees. Kneeling, she opens his zip and slips it down. She watches him watching, waiting for her head to go down. She keeps him waiting, teasing him till he is shifting in the chair. He holds her head in his hands, moving her up and down at his own speed. But he stops and she helps him out of his clothes, before rising on to his lap. Minutes later, he slumps and she comes off him. He holds her, cradled child-like, for a few minutes.

  He starts to mutter words of gratitude. But Susan freezes, emotionally closed down already, and wanting to leave. Alberto obviously thinks that this was just the start of their night together and he is stunned when she goes back into the bathroom and returns five minutes later, dressed and evidently about to leave. He protests and asks her to stay the night, to enjoy the bed together. She says she has to work next day, and has to leave. But he insists angrily, and, taking a decision to err on the side of safety, she allows him to put her on to her back on the bed and to take her again, her clothes around her waist. This is one way to be safe.

  She has closed down; has to be alone; wants away. She extricates herself with promises she does not intend to keep and knows that the Italian is close to fury at her hasty departure. A sense of relief comes over her as she sits in the taxi – relief that she has left; relief that she has not given him her address or telephone number.

  And in her own bed, showered and cleansed, she knows that this was another Mr Anybody as far as she is concerned and not a relationship in any sense of the word. She does not want to see him again. Being rid of him is being rid of that part of herself that she does not understand and which is, ultimately, dangerous to her in every sense. At least, she thinks, she is rid of it for the time being.

  Susan Blakely does an unusual thing for her, that night – she cries herself to sleep. In those tears, tears of communication with her inner self, is grief. It is grief for the person that she now fully understands herself to be. In the grief, is acceptance.

  Over the next few days, she does everything she can to put the episode out of her head. She reverts to being business-like and to making a number of professional links that were outstanding at the end of the series. Her professional persona is the surest antidote that she has to the emotional chaos she experiences after an encounter like the one with Alberto. Being Susan Blakely, chat show host and social commentator, holds her safe from the memory of her behaviour and from the feelings of repugnance that they hold for her after the event.

  CHAPTER 21

  The TV contract when it came was for only ten, and not the usual twenty, programmes. She signed, of course, but could get no clear explanation for the intention to run ‘Live Tonight’ only till Christmas. She rings Bill to sound off about it all, and leaves a message for him. She is preparing to go off to bed when the call comes. She automatically lifts the handset, assuming that it is Bill, who is due back to the city this evening. He will be round to stay the night, provided that the flight is not too seriously delayed. Susan is more than ready to see him, to re-establish herself with him.

  But it is Brenda – sobbing down the phone and angry. Susan tries to calm her and to elicit from her what has happened. But it is clear very quickly that Brenda’s anger is focussed on Susan.

  Dave told Brenda about Susan after tea that evening. His reason for doing so, he said, was to clear his conscience. Susan does not get any of the details from Brenda – just that Dave told her that he was unfaithful to her on Mull with Susan. He has been so consumed by guilt ever since that he eventually decided he had no choice but to end his life; hence the suicide
attempt. He could not face her or the church.

  “Brenda,” Susan eventually interrupts, “You don’t believe any of this, do you?”

  The phone line is silent. Susan waits. She breaks the silence.

  “Brenda?”

  “I think I do, Miss Blakely. Why would he lie?” Brenda has reverted to using Susan’s surname and Susan knows that she has a fight on her hands to hold Brenda’s confidence.

  “He would lie, Brenda, because he is ill, and probably has come to believe it all himself. That will be why it all sounds so convincing. Can’t you see that?”

  Brenda is so easily manipulated. Within a few seconds she begins to calm and Susan can hear tears of certainty of Dave’s unfaithfulness change to those of doubtful relief. Susan encourages her to tell her what else Dave has been saying. Brenda begins to open up.

  “The church wants him to complete his post-graduate studies and to stay here with me whilst he does some academic and legal work for them. They think this will be a good way for him to get better and they obviously think he can be a minister again, sometime in the future. He has asked me to help him.”

  Brenda shifts tack again, checking something else out with Susan. She asks why Dave felt the need to be unfaithful.

  “He said that he felt sorry for you, Susan. He said you hadn’t done much work like the boat tragedy and that you were actually very upset. It was comfort, really, that’s how it started. Then when he realized what he’d done, he tried to stop you going to see him. But he says that you clung on and then when he got really firm you must have built up resentment till you tried to get revenge by going to the church authorities. He thinks that it’s very sad that anyone should be so desperate. Is it true, Miss Blakely?”

  Susan listens, seething at the twisted version of the facts designed to bolster up Ramsey’s image to his wife. Then she laughs, a sympathetic, pitying laugh.

  “Oh dear, Brenda, He really is not at all well, is he? He did say something, now that I come to think about it, when I saw him in hospital. It was about me going to the church on Mull. I didn’t give that much thought at the time. What a dreadful thing it must be to feel so, so paranoid, I suppose it would be.”