The Dilemma

by Penny Vincenzi

  ‘What you’re saying,’ he said, ‘and rubbing my nose in it, is that the only person who can support us is you.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘that is what I’m saying. Who else is there?’

  ‘You have a very charming way of putting things,’ he said, and walked out of the room.

  She was right, of course. He didn’t have a lot of choice. He continued to apply for jobs, and the jobs continued to go to other people. The whole thing was a bloody nightmare.

  The article in the Sunday paper had made him angry and upset. There had been a long paragraph about him, in bold type, headed ‘Bard Channing’s Son and Heir’, informing the Graphic’s readers that Liam Channing was a barrister, living in a small house in North London with his wife Naomi and their two children. ‘He has not spoken to his father for years; his mother died when he was a small boy and Bard Channing has not had a lot of time for him since. He was sent away to school at eight, just about the time Channing was remarrying: a foretaste of what Kirsten was to endure. Life has not been easy for Liam Channing; he gets very little work and they are forced to live on what his wife earns.’

  It had made his situation official, famous, public. It had been true, yet of course presented an entirely false picture, making him sound like a fool, a no-hoper, some kind of a moron. They had had to go to a lunch party that day; Naomi had refused to cancel, saying there were important contacts for her there, and it was obvious most of the other guests had read the article. There was an embarrassment in the air, a false heartiness, a reluctance to talk to him for more than a few minutes at a time. He got through it somehow, went on smiling politely, being charmingly interested in everyone, their high-profile careers, their glossy lifestyles (because they might of course be useful to him, as well as to Naomi), pretending he was one of them, as secure, as smug as they. And hating them, and hating Naomi who was only temporarily not a success, and hating Kirsten who was resonsible for his misery that day, and most of all hating his father and longing for revenge on them all.

  He was lying on the study sofa reading at midday when Naomi came in and looked at him rather coldly. ‘I presume you can collect the children after school,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a lunch and I’ll probably be late back.’

  ‘Yes of course. I’m glad I have my uses,’ he said, trying to sound cheerful. ‘Who’s the lunch with?’

  ‘Dick Marsh.’

  ‘Why on earth are you meeting him?’

  Dick Marsh was an erstwhile colleague of Naomi’s; noisy, excitable, cheerfully vulgar. He found her very attractive and was fond of telling Liam so. Liam loathed him.

  ‘Because it might be fun.’

  ‘I’m sure it’ll be fun. Is that a reason to have lunch with him?’

  ‘I think so. And I want to talk about this job offer with him.’

  ‘I see. So you talk to him about it, but not me.’

  ‘I think his opinion is rather more relevant,’ she said coolly.

  ‘Naomi, for fuck’s sake – ’

  ‘Don’t swear, Liam, please.’

  ‘I’ll swear if I want to. Why should you talk about your future – our future – to that dickhead?’

  ‘I want his view on the job. And the effect on my career.’

  ‘Jesus bloody Christ,’ he said, hurling his book across the room, standing up, ‘you are totally out of order, Naomi. Do you realise how you treat me? Like some kind of servant, the paid help, ordering me about, ignoring my views, not just about this but bloody everything. I am sick of it, absolutely sick of it.’

  She looked at him in silence for a moment, then said coolly, ‘The paid help is a bit more useful, Liam.’

  ‘Thank you for that. Thank you very much. If you wanted to humiliate me further, you could hardly have done a better job.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but it’s hardly my fault. What’s happened to you.’

  ‘I daresay not. But your attitude is appalling. I feel you have no respect for me whatsoever.’

  She was silent.

  ‘Well, do you?’ he said, and rage was rising in him now, choking, ugly. ‘Do you? Answer me, please.’

  ‘No,’ she said slowly, ‘no, I don’t think I do. I can’t respect you, Liam, because there’s nothing to respect. It’s not that you haven’t got a job, that you don’t contribute much financially, it’s your attitude. You’re so terribly sorry for yourself, you feel it’s everyone’s fault but your own. On and on you go about your miserable childhood, your bastard of a father, your wicked stepmother. Nothing’s down to you, is it? The fact of the matter is you’re a lousy barrister, you’re never going to make it as far as I can see, and it has nothing to do with your bloody father. I’m going out now, and I don’t know when I’ll be back. And maybe, Liam, we should consider a separation. There doesn’t seem much of this marriage left.’

  Liam lay down again on the sofa for a while, when she had gone, feeling rather sick, trying not to think about what she had said, hearing it over and over again, hammering against his brain. Not about wanting a separation, but his blaming everyone else, being a lousy barrister. He included her now in his hatred, the source of his misery. The injustice was mind blowing. He was not a lousy barrister, he knew that; he could be, was indeed, a brilliant barrister, lucid, swift thinking, stylish, eloquent. He had lacked much opportunity, but when it did come, he was not found wanting. And Naomi had no idea, nobody did, exactly what he had endured, had to live through, all the time he had been growing up. Of course it had had an effect on him, on every area of his life. The loneliness, the rejection, the loss of love, the dreadful sense of injustice. He had loved his mother so much, and she had gone and taken everything with her: happiness, laughter, tenderness, care, and he had been left, all by himself, just seven years old, alone in the world, sent away by a father who had no time, no love for him, away to a school where he had been mocked, bullied, beaten. And Naomi dared to dismiss that. He looked at his watch; God, he wanted a drink. He hadn’t got much money, but enough for a pint. He picked up The Times, went into a pub and ordered a pint of bitter, sat drinking it, trying to concentrate on what Bernard Levin was talking about. It was very difficult. He hadn’t had any breakfast and he felt slightly dizzy when he stood up. Better clear his head. The walk home – he was up at Highbury – might do him good. But it didn’t; when he got back he was completely shattered. He went straight to the drinks cupboard, and got out the whisky bottle – plenty left; they’d carefully saved it in case of unexpected visitors. He poured out a very large slug, added ice, lay down and switched on the television. If they were all so intent on casting him as a layabout, a no-hoper, he might as well start behaving like one.

  Mr Moreton-Smith was less easy, more formal, than Mr Lauder: he was tall and very thin, with a rather forbidding expression, and he talked very fast, but with huge energy and intensity. He was altogether most patently filled with energy; even when he was sitting still at his desk, he constantly moved things about on it, doodled vigorously on his pad, shifted in his chair, stood up to answer his phone, sat down again when he had finished. Francesca wasn’t at all sure if she liked him, but she could see Bard did.

  ‘Yes, well, I’ve studied the tracings and so on, and listened very carefully to your baby’s heart, and I’m going to tell you exactly what I think. No certainties, mind you, we can’t ever go in for those’ – Francesca looked at Bard anxiously, but his face was politely blank – ‘much as we’d like to, of course. Now this is quite a small hole. Quite.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Francesca. ‘We were told – that is – ’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, that it was very small.’ It was a how-long-is-a-piece-of-string observation: how ridiculous, she thought, to be talking in such vague terms about something so crucial.

  ‘It is, of course. But these things are relative. The heart itself is pretty small’ – he smiled at them both, and at Kitty – ‘like its owner. But it is there, and it is causing her some problems. Although she is holding her ow
n. Very well, under the circumstances. She’s a tough little thing. But she is very small, she is failing to thrive, and when she starts moving around, she will quite possibly be short of breath. Now it is possible that the hole will close of its own accord. Very possible.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Francesca. She felt rather sick, looked at Bard. He was looking at the floor.

  ‘But in time, it is very – possible that we shall have to operate. However, I wouldn’t dream of doing that at the moment, while she is so tiny and while it is not crucial. So I don’t want you thinking this is a really urgent situation. It isn’t.’

  ‘I see,’ said Francesca. This seemed much worse than she had somehow expected. Bard still didn’t speak.

  ‘Now what I am going to do is give her some medication. Which will help her a great deal. Number one, we’ll put her on some diuretics. The thing about a dicky heart, even a slightly dicky heart, is that fluid tends to be retained in the body, so that should help her a bit for a start. And then we’ll give her something called Digoxin. Now what Digoxin does is strengthen the heart. Helps it to do its work.’ He smiled at them again, a quick, reassuring smile. ‘This will improve her circulation, get rid of the problem of the cold little feet and hands. And I think she will generally improve a lot. What I want you to do is to bring her back in three months’ time: we’ll do another echo cardiogram, take stock generally, and take it from there. Hopefully no surgery will be necessary for a while, and certainly not until we have a chance to assess her further. Of course if she gets a cold, a chest infection, anything, it must be treated very seriously. I want you to inform your GP immediately and tell him to get in touch with Mr Lauder or with me if he is in the least anxious. Is that clear? It’s very important.’

  ‘Yes of course,’ said Francesca. She couldn’t imagine seeing so much as a frown passing across Kitty’s small face without rushing her off to Casualty. Mr Moreton-Smith looked at her and smiled: a kind, if rather distant, smile.

  ‘What is important,’ he said, clearly recognising exactly how she felt, ‘is that she – and all of you – lead as normal a life as possible. She won’t benefit from over-fussing. If she gets a cold we can deal with it, so don’t keep her away from other children. Try to enjoy her, try not to make any brothers or sisters feel she has to be treated like fine china. Babies are very, very tough: even slightly poorly ones. The quality of her everyday life is extremely important.’

  ‘Yes, I see,’ said Francesca. She smiled at him; his old-fashioned language, words like ‘dicky’ and ‘poorly’ were for some reason reassuring, he seemed to be setting Kitty’s illness in some kind of normal context; the nightmare quality was just slightly receding.

  ‘Right. Well, good luck. Please try not to worry. She’s not done badly for such a tiddler. And I’ll see you in three months’ time.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Francesca. ‘Goodbye.’

  Bard was still silent.

  Back in Reception he smiled at her slightly awkwardly. ‘Nice chap. I liked him.’

  ‘Yes. So did I,’ she said, trying to believe it.

  ‘And not too bad. What he had to tell us.’

  ‘No,’ said Francesca, perversely irritated. ‘Not too good, either. It’s obviously more serious that Mr Lauder implied. And I hate the thought of all those drugs pumped into her.’

  ‘Yes, I know. But if they do the trick for now, does it matter?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know. Who knows what they do, those things? But – well, yes, I suppose it could be much, much worse.’

  ‘Much.’

  She looked at him; she knew the signs, he was impatient to be gone. We’ve had our percentage, she thought; no point asking for more.

  ‘I suppose you’ll go, then? On your trip?’

  ‘Yes, if that’s all right with you.’

  ‘Yes, of course it is.’ Of course it isn’t: not at this time, not now.

  ‘I mean, you can cope? On your own, with all this?’

  ‘I’m quite used to coping, Bard. On my own.’ She tried to sound less cold; it didn’t work. He recognised it, stopped trying so hard.

  ‘Francesca, you heard what he said. She is to lead as normal a life as possible. We all have to do that. I’m as worried as you are, but – ’

  ‘I don’t think you are. Actually.’

  ‘That’s unfair,’ he said. ‘And I don’t like your – ’ He stopped abruptly, obviously still anxious to make an attempt at conciliation. ‘Look, Francesca, our quarrelling isn’t going to help.’

  ‘No, of course it isn’t.’

  He put out his arm, touched hers. ‘So – ’ His mobile rang, shrilly, into the tension, increasing it. ‘Yes? Yes, all right. Yes, I know that. Yes of course. I’m on my way.’ He looked at her, smiled slightly shamefacedly. ‘Sorry. Have to go.’

  ‘Who was that?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said who was that?’

  ‘Marcia. Meeting’s about to start. I’m already late.’

  ‘Well, that won’t do,’ she said lightly. ‘You’d better go. You’ll leave an address? In Stockholm?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘And you’ll be back – when?’

  ‘Oh – Friday. Early evening.’

  ‘Good. I’ll – I’ll miss you,’ she said, and knew the words sounded slightly false.

  ‘I’ll miss you too. Goodbye, Francesca.’

  He leant forward to kiss her; she turned her face just a little so that he only caught her cheek, not her lips. She met his eyes and saw the hurt in them and still she couldn’t make the emotional move, tell him she didn’t mean to be hostile, that she needed him, wanted him with her. Looking at his retreating back, she felt as if something had been physically broken between them.

  Gray had driven to the office much too fast on the bike; he knew it was silly, that if he were stopped he would probably not even pass the breath test, he’d drunk so much and so late the night before, when Briony had left. He knew several people who’d been done in the morning recently. He actually felt so miserable, so heartsore, he didn’t think he’d care. He wondered who on earth he could talk to about all this; it really wasn’t something he felt he could handle on his own. No-one at the office, that was for sure; it would be all over the building by mid-morning. He supposed he couldn’t really be the new man because he didn’t have any of the sort of friends he could have late-night locker-room chats with over the cocoa; his friends, his confidantes had always been women. And they would all take Briony’s side. At least he supposed they would. Anyway, if he couldn’t even think who to talk to, there was certainly no-one close enough.

  ‘Bloody hormones,’ he said aloud for the hundredth time as he parked the bike.

  He walked into his office, shouted at Tricia to get him some tea, and switched on his answering machine. Perhaps Briony would have relented, phoned to say she hadn’t really meant it.

  She hadn’t. Three people had phoned; one was some very persistent PR who wanted to have lunch with him, one was Kirsten Channing, saying his friend had taken her on, and could she buy him a drink to say thank you; and the third was Teresa Booth.

  Gray promptly shed his lethargy, his depression, his sense of outrage that life was being so tough on him. Teresa Booth, eh? Or if you liked to think of her that way, Teresa Didcot, MD of Home Time. Previously Teresa Carfax.

  He dialled the number; it was picked up immediately. The voice that said ‘Teresa Booth’ was slightly husky, carefully refined.

  ‘Mrs Booth, it’s Graydon Townsend.’

  ‘Ah. Yes. Mr Townsend, what are you playing at?’

  He was slightly fazed, and at the same time almost relieved, by the directness of her approach. It was going to save a lot of pussyfooting around.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘First you call me, under my business name, at home – how did you get that number, by the way?’

  ‘Directory enquiries,’ said Gray smoothly.

  ‘Mr Townsend, I’m ex-directory.’


  ‘Really! Well, I do assure you – ’

  ‘Private eye, I suppose. Ex-cop. They’re always good for a few ex-directory numbers.’

  ‘Mrs Booth, I really – ’

  ‘And then you spin my partner some complicated story about an article about timeshares – ’

  ‘It’s true. I was planning one.’

  ‘I doubt that greatly. But I hope you got the literature the poor girl sent you.’

  ‘Not yet. But no doubt it will arrive. It all sounds very interesting, your company.’

  ‘And then you start pumping her about whether I am or am not actually Teresa Booth – what possible relevance could that have had, Mr Townsend?’

  ‘Quite a bit. Duggie is one of your directors, after all.’

  ‘Will that appear in the article?’

  ‘I’m not sure. It might.’

  ‘If the article appears at all.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Mr Townsend, I really wasn’t born yesterday. As you would see if we were to meet. I don’t think you have very much intention of writing anything about my company. Actually.’

  ‘Well, you’re wrong,’ said Gray. ‘I am interested in these timeshares. The way the market for them has upped and downed.’

  ‘Oh yes? And that’s your only interest in me, is it?’

  ‘No, of course not. I’ll tell you why I was interested to know if you were Teresa Booth. You phoned me at home, one Sunday, a couple of months or so ago, and then rang off. Do you remember?’

  She hesitated, just too long, then said, ‘No. I don’t think I do. It must have been someone else. It’s not such an unusual name, is it?’

  ‘No, of course it isn’t. Well now, look, I really would like to hear more about your company.’

  ‘Oh really?’

  ‘Yes. I think it’s interesting.’

  ‘Well,’ she said, and he could hear from her voice she had decided quite suddenly to go along with him, to play ball, ‘I’m free this evening, for a drink.’

  ‘Great,’ said Gray, ‘Where would you like to go?’