The High Flyer

by Susan Howatch

  “Shall we sit down for a moment?” she was saying. “It’s so lovely here by the gardens, isn’t it, and they’ve even got goldfish, I see, in that pond, although I don’t suppose they’ll last long, poor little loves, they’re bound to be kidnapped for catfood. Well, I was just on my way to see a friend of mine who lives in Ben Jonson House”—she indicated the long block of low-rise flats nearby—“but I found I was early so I thought I’d pause to admire the beauties of nature, somehow managing to flourish even in the most peculiar places, and you can’t get anywhere more peculiar than the Barbican, can you, nearly forty acres of brutish concrete dreamed up, I’m sure, by a bunch of men entirely unaided by women—women would have softened all those straight lines and put the whole thing on street level, much more practical for shopping, but men never think of the needs of housewives, do they, which is why they designed a huge housing estate two floors above the ground—or is it three?—and then finished off their fantasy by putting all the low-rise blocks on legs. What did they think they were doing, I ask myself, but that’s men all over, isn’t it—minimum self-knowledge and maximum capacity to cause trouble!”

  As she paused for breath I was finally able to say in my hardest voice: “You’ve been messing up my flat.”

  “Well, I heard about the trouble you’ve been having, but—”

  “I mean today. Just now. You bust in and blitzed around.”

  “Not me, dear, although I admit I’ve just come from Harvey Tower. Harvey Tower! Named after William Harvey, I’m told, who made all those discoveries about the circulation of blood when he was working nearby at Bart’s Hospital—I love the way the Barbican blocks are called after historic City celebrities, I really do, but why are all these celebrities men? Lauderdale, Shakespeare, Cromwell, Ben Jonson, Defoe, Thomas More—”

  “If you didn’t trash my flat what the hell were you doing at Harvey Tower?” I was finding her rambling, elliptical style curiously exhausting; I began to feel as if I were wrestling with toffee.

  “Your husband left his organiser at my house last night, dear, and when he rang me this morning to check it was there I said I’d be visiting my friend Pauline this afternoon and could drop the organiser off at the porters’ desk.”

  I said very clearly: “I put it to you that you talked your way past the porter. I put it to you that you then entered my flat with a key which my husband had given you last night. I put it to you—”

  “Put it where you like, pet. It’s a fantasy.”

  “But—”

  “Here’s what happened. I arrived at the Barbican tube station. I trotted down the Beech Street tunnel, which runs under this lovely, lovely garden where we’re busy enjoying the beauties of nature. Your husband had already phoned the lobby porter to tell him I’d be coming, but of course Harvey Tower, being designed by men and therefore hugely unpractical, has its entrance at podium level, so I had to go in from Beech Street through the car park, explain my errand to the attendant there and wait while he phoned the lobby porter to check I wasn’t some nasty IRA terrorist. What a kerfuffle! But at least you can tell yourself the security’s excellent. Anyway, once the attendant heard I was expected he allowed me to take the lift up to the porters’ desk, and then—”

  “You went straight up to the thirty-fifth floor without pausing at podium level!”

  “No, dear, I went straight to the lobby where I left the organiser, snug in its little Jiffy bag, with the porter, and then I went straight out into the gardens. If your flat’s been disturbed again, the culprit wasn’t me.”

  “I don’t believe you!”

  “Well, suit yourself, dear,” said the woman serenely, “but you really should calm down—your stress levels are much too high and I’m not surprised you were driven to leave work early. Suffering from a tension headache, were you? Feeling groggy from lack of sleep?”

  “Now look here, Mrs. Mayfield—”

  “I see big health problems ahead if you go on like this, pet, I really do, and I said as much to Jake last night. I hope you don’t mind me calling your husband Jake, but that was the name he used when he first came to see me and I always thought he instinctively knew it suited him better than Kim. ‘Jake’ sounds so strong and tough, and of course he’s ever so keen on the macho.”

  “Stuff that—what I want to talk to you about is—”

  “Names are so important, aren’t they?” continued Mrs. Mayfield, effortlessly ironing out my interruption. “For instance I never allow myself to be called ‘Betty’ or ‘Lizzie’ or ‘Ellie’ or any of those other nasty abbreviations, I’m always ‘Elizabeth’! It’s a question of tone, a question of class. ‘Elizabeth Mayfield’ sounds so pretty, doesn’t it, so elegant, so English—oh, I just love my name, I really do, it makes me so happy just to listen to it! But your name, dear, if you’ll pardon me saying so, is a mistake. Flaunting a masculine name to conform to a masculine lifestyle means that a large part of your true nature’s being suppressed, and I think poor Jake is just beginning to realise this. ‘Carter Graham’—no, no, no, dear, it won’t do—it won’t do at all! Have you ever thought of calling yourself Kate?”

  “Mrs. Mayfield,” I said, so infuriated by this time that I could cheerfully have consigned her to an acid bath, “let’s cut the crap and get down to business. I know for a fact—”

  “Pardon me, dear, but I don’t think you know anything for a fact, you’re absolutely out of your depth—which is why you’re mishandling this conversation. I’m perfectly willing to be friendly! Why do you keep jumping down my throat?”

  “Because you told Kim not to marry me! Because you spun him all that guff about how I’d start ‘flirting with the enemy’! Because you forecast sexual problems in an attempt to bust up my marriage!”

  “Well, pet, I never think it’s a good idea for people to rush into a second marriage the moment they get their divorce, and as for flirting with the enemy, well, it wasn’t guff, was it? You fancied that young man who came to work for you! You fancied him and you flirted with him and—”

  “I absolutely, categorically deny—”

  “—and I’ll tell you something else, my love. You’re not through with the enemy yet, not by a long chalk.”

  “Look, it’s no good trying to pull this psychic stunt on me because I just don’t believe in—”

  “It was quite dark,” she said dreamily, gazing out over the flowerbeds. “It was a lovely, plush, velvety darkness, not inky, not grimy, but voluptuous. I loved it, I was entranced by it, I was luxuriating in it, and as I watched I saw you running down this dark, dark street. But you didn’t like the dark at all—silly, ignorant little girl that you are beneath all that pseudo-masculine, pseudo-sophisticated, pseudo-intelligent modern nonsense—and when you got to the house you started banging on the front door in hysterics. I couldn’t see the house properly because everywhere was so dark, but I knew there was a church nearby because the next moment . . . well, it was all symbols, dear, you wouldn’t understand, but I read the symbols and I knew you were knocking at the closed door, the one with no handle, and I knew that the next moment he would be there—you know who I mean, I won’t say his name—”

  “I don’t know who you mean, I don’t want to know who you mean, and all I can say is—”

  “A clergyman answered the door but of course he was just standing in for that other person, and then I saw beyond the symbols and realised you’d be sucked up by the enemy, absorbed by them, eaten alive by them—”

  “You’re certifiable.” I started to struggle to my feet. “You ought to be locked up.”

  “Really, dear? Are you sure you’re not projecting onto me all the worries about your own mental health which you never dare to acknowledge?”

  “What the hell do you mean?”

  “You’re breaking down under the strain of maintaining this masculine lifestyle, pet—the disorder in the flat is just mirroring the disorder in your mind, and I predict there’ll be other signs of derangement too before long
. That flat must have ever such a lovely view, but you’re very high up, aren’t you, and one day soon you’re going to go out onto that balcony and you’re going to look down on that concrete podium thirtyfive floors below and you’re going to want to smash yourself on it— SMASH yourself on it—you’ll long to smash yourself on it, long to, it’ll be an urge you’ll never, never be able to resist—oh, you’ll try to resist, of course, you’ll fight and fight against it, but in the end you’ll go out on that balcony and you’ll move to that rail and you’ll—”

  “You’re evil,” said my voice as every drop of blood in my body seemed to turn to ice. “You’re wicked. You’re obscene.”

  “Rattled you, have I? Well, it’s about time someone did! You’re living in a state of illusion, my girl, and if you don’t shape up soon and realise that Jake’s quite the wrong husband for you, I promise that one day you’re going to step out on that balcony and—”

  I shouted her down. I was sweating and faint but I drummed up the strength to yell: “Fuck off! You leave me and my husband alone or I’ll get the police to arrest you!”

  “I’ve broken no law, dear, and as for your husband, why shouldn’t he see me if he wants to? I can do him more good than any doctor!”

  “The right osteopath would have fixed his back trouble without battening on him afterwards like a bloody vampire!”

  “Pardon me, pet,” said Mrs. Mayfield in a voice oily enough to undulate under all my defences, “but did you say back trouble?”

  I sank down abruptly on the bench.

  II

  There was a vile silence. I knew I should end it at once but no words came.

  “Fancy!” said Mrs. Mayfield placidly at last, reverting to her cosier manner. “Well, if he wants you to think his problem was back trouble, far be it from me to interfere!” She glanced at her watch. “Gracious me, look at the time—I must fly!”

  “Wait.” I was fatally entangled at last, and suddenly I saw I had been wrestling not with toffee but with a tarantula who had now trussed me up in its web. “What was really wrong with him?”

  “Oh, nothing serious,” said Mrs. Mayfield, daintily adjusting the cuff of her coat after the glance at her watch. “Just the usual masculine trouble, but I knew Jake would be fine once I’d introduced him to the right group to restore his confidence.” She produced some skin-tight gloves from her handbag and slowly drew them on while making sure every wrinkle in the material was smoothed away. I was reminded of a pathologist preparing to disembowel a corpse.

  My voice said numbly again: “I don’t believe you.”

  “That’s because I did such a good job of curing the impotence, dear, but of course the problem could recur if his relationship with you were to get as fraught as his relationship with Sophie—and that reminds me, pet, do stop talking about having children! He doesn’t want them, never has, never will, and once he thinks you only want him for fertilisation purposes he’ll never get an erection and you can guarantee he’ll be looking elsewhere for sex in no time flat. After all, that’s what happened before.”

  “You’re saying—you mean—”

  “Well, of course he doesn’t want you to know that his first marriage was far more of a mess than he ever told you it was! No wonder Sophie’s panting for revenge now that he’s ditched her—she stuck by him all those years when she could have been having children by someone else! No wonder she can’t wait to tell you about his impotence and his efforts to cure himself with other women and finally about all the lovely, healing, fun-times he’s had with my group! No wonder she’s bursting with the desire to tell you that unless you agree to do without children your marriage will be on the rocks in no time!”

  “But he’s told me he’s willing to consider having children!”

  “Well, he would, wouldn’t he? He’s ever so keen on you at the moment, but it won’t last, can’t last, because your sex-life’s inevitably going to go to pieces—well, of course I could see this problem coming a long way off! He thought you were so wedded to your career that you wouldn’t want children, but I said: ‘Don’t make me laugh! That girl’s suppressing a huge part of her femininity and one day she’s going to get fed up with being a pseudo-man. She’ll go domestic, take cooking courses, fall in love with a Hoover and—naturally!—want a baby. It’ll be nature reasserting itself,’ I said, ‘and she’ll not only hear the biological clock ticking but she’ll ditch the job, shed the masculine identity and get pregnant faster than you can say “mother’s milk.” You mark my words,’ I said, ‘this is not the kind of girl you want to marry. You want a woman who married young and got all the maternity stuff done at an early age.’ But he couldn’t see it! The silly little love was so infatuated that he took you at face value! I could hardly believe he was capable of being so naïve!”

  I levered myself to my feet. My legs felt as if they were only flimsily attached to my body and I had to grip the edge of the bench to steady myself. Stiff-lipped I said: “What happened last night when he said goodbye to the group?”

  “Oh, was he planning to say goodbye? That’s news to me . . . And now I really must be on my way! Lovely to have met you, dear, although I’m sorry you were so edgy and under the weather. Don’t hesitate to contact me in future, will you, if you decide you want help in curing that little orgasm problem you have—I’ve got another group you’d do very well with, and I’m sure they’d be ever so happy to meet you!”

  And smiling radiantly she gave a little wave in the style of the Queen Mother before tip-tapping away across the podium in her elegant high-heeled shoes.

  The sun was still shining on all the flowers nearby but I felt as if I were suffocating in a cloud of darkness. Slumping down on the bench again I buried my face in my hands.

  III

  I felt butchered. Indeed I felt so beaten up that I could barely believe my clothes remained untorn and my body unmarked. My entire personality felt as if it had been slashed to ribbons and spat upon—and not just my everyday personality which I had become so accustomed to projecting but also the secret self which I kept safe, tucked away behind hard-hitting Carter who could wipe floors with whippets and dynamite every dinosaur in sight. Dimly I understood what had happened. Carter had been shredded, and now, with my prime line of defence destroyed, I was exposed, fragility personified, on the edge of a cliff overlooking a bottomless void. And who was this mysterious “I” who could look at the ruins of Carter and experience unprecedented terror? I knew it was me, but it was not an “I” who could survive except behind the walls of a heavily defended fortress.

  I set to work to rebuild Carter. What would she do next? I thought she would say: “Shit!” in fury or: “Screw the bitch!” in order to generate the adrenaline necessary for survival, but although I gave the words a try they merely sounded pathetic. Apparently Carter was still out to lunch. I found myself crying. This was pathetic too—pathetic, shaming and horrifying. I was going to pieces, fulfilling the woman’s vile predictions . . . Terror overwhelmed me again. I pictured myself plummeting from the balcony and being smashed to death, but before I could pass out at the thought of how I had been programmed to self-destruct, Carter’s voice said shakily: “Get lost, nutter-person!” and I knew she was announcing her return.

  I wiped the tears away and when I opened my eyes again I was Carter. I clenched my fists to test the power of my will and at once a vital sentence surfaced in my mangled brain to give me additional hope that I was on the road to recovery. I said aloud to myself: “That was the Mayfield story. But I don’t have to be stuck with it.”

  My thoughts became more organised. I staunched the wounds which had been bleeding from the devastating knowledge that Kim’s deception had extended much further than I had ever suspected; I taped up the deep gash I had sustained on learning that he had discussed with Mrs. Mayfield even the most transient of my sexual shortcomings; I dug out the shards of shock which had speared me after I had learned that Mrs. Mayfield’s group was sexual in nature and purpose; I w
iped from my mind the consequent possibility that Kim had been unfaithful to me last night, perhaps after toking up on drugs. The healing words: “That was the Mayfield story. But I don’t have to be stuck with it” gave me the strength to put the worst of her allegations on hold. There were only two facts, it seemed to me, that I had to face in order to avoid sliding into a state of denial. The first was that Mrs. Mayfield was determined to destroy Kim’s second marriage as ably as she had destroyed his first, and the other was that I had severely underestimated the lethal nature of the corrupt mess from which Kim was now trying to extricate himself.

  Or from which I hoped Kim was trying to extricate himself. I thought Mrs. Mayfield had probably been lying out of spite when she claimed to have no knowledge of his intention to part from the group, but of course I only had Kim’s word that a parting had ever figured on his agenda.

  I decided that in order to keep sane I had to operate on the assumption that Kim really did want to extract himself both from the group and, ultimately, from Mrs. Mayfield. Kim had revealed some unpalatable facts about himself the previous evening, but as the result of the pressure I had put on him I thought he had been telling the truth about his activities: he had said goodbye to the group, and although he had wanted to give up Mrs. Mayfield he did not yet feel strong enough to do so.

  A number of observations then became clear, and I was relieved to find that they were a lawyer’s observations, cool and rational. The first was that as a healer she had committed an appalling breach of confidence by talking of a patient’s case-history; even if she had invented the story about Kim’s impotence in order to undermine me, she had gone through the motions of violating confidentiality. The second observation was that by attempting to plant a compulsion to self-destruct in my mind Mrs. Mayfield had committed an act of psychological warfare which any right-thinking person would consider deeply malign. And the third observation was that it was now more important than ever that I should find out the true facts from Sophie.