A Gift of Poison

by A Gift of Poison (retail) (epub)

  ‘I won’t respond.’

  ‘Won’t you?’

  ‘But you’re not going to do it, are you?’

  ‘No,’ she says sadly. ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘Inge, you know it’s very common for clients and therapists to have feelings for each other.’

  ‘I know, it’s called transference and counter-transference,’ she says impatiently. ‘You explained it to me. And I’ve read about it.’

  ‘We can use it, we can work through it, but we can’t act it out.’

  ‘But that isn’t what I feel. This is real, Michael. You’re not representing Richard or my father or anybody else. I want to touch you. I want to make love to you. I want to have a glorious affair with you. You’ve always been honest with me. Can you honestly say you wouldn’t like that?’

  Silence, while she waits, holding her breath.

  ‘I’d love it,’ he says.

  She is so happy she just sits smiling in her chair, feeling the smile getting bigger and bigger until she thinks she will become all smile, like the Cheshire cat in the story she used to read to Karl and Peter.

  ‘I find you very attractive and I also find you very special. But I can’t be your therapist and your lover. That would be most unethical.’

  ‘Be my lover,’ she says promptly. ‘You’ve been my therapist. We’re finishing. That’s why I waited till today to say it. Be my lover, Michael, please.’

  ‘Oh, Inge, Inge.’ He smiles, just a little, nothing like her wide expanding grin.

  ‘Please, Michael. You won’t regret it. I make a wonderful mistress, I really do. Felix would tell you. And I’ve been looking for you all my life, only I didn’t realise.’

  ‘You see,’ he says, ‘the problem is, I know far too much about you and you know almost nothing about me. I’m in a position of power. If we have an affair now I’ll be abusing your trust and using that professional knowledge. I can’t do that.’

  ‘But I want you to. Isn’t it all right if I give you permission?’

  ‘No, I think it’s a little more complicated than that. I think we have to be equals and at the moment we’re not. And we have to wait and see whether what we feel is real or just part of working together and getting close.’

  ‘Wait?’ she says. ‘Wait how long?’

  ‘Well, some people think it’s never ethical to get involved with an ex-client. But I think it’s all right if we wait. I’m going to suggest a year. Anything may happen to you in that year and I won’t know anything about it. So you’ll regain some of your privacy. Then we can meet again and if we still desire each other I’ll tell you whatever you want to know about me so we start on equal terms.’

  ‘Have you done it this way many times?’

  ‘No, never.’

  ‘Does it mean no letters and no phone calls?’

  ‘I think so, don’t you? If you need a therapist I can refer you to a colleague of mine.’

  ‘Oh, Michael. A whole year. What if we get knocked down in the street? All right. After all, I waited eight years for Richard.’ She looks at her watch to check the date. ‘I’ll ring you in a year’s time and you can come to my house for a fifty-minute hour. How much shall I charge you?’

  ‘I should think a ten per cent increase by then to keep pace with inflation.’

  ‘Perhaps we should make it longer than a year.’ She is gratified to detect disappointment in his eyes. ‘If we’re going to be equals I have the right to choose too.’ She pauses, to tease him. ‘I suggest a year and a day, like in fairy tales.’

  He smiles. They shake hands.

  * * *

  Kate invites him for Bonfire Night, first to watch the public display in the park, afterwards for fireworks in her garden. ‘We always do it. It’s a sort of family tradition,’ she says. ‘I try to pretend it’s for the children but they’re just an excuse. Really it’s for me.’

  He’s pleased and surprised. It’s a side of Kate he hasn’t seen before, a new, playful Kate. He likes it. And he’s flattered to be included in her plans.

  They leave early to get a good place. ‘Mum’s not very grown up,’ Annabel explains. ‘If she can’t see properly she makes a scene and we get terribly embarrassed. We have to pretend we’re not with her.’ He’s not sure if this is entirely a joke.

  They put on warm old clothes and join the crowds surging into the park, families good-humoured in expectation of a treat, scrunching leaves underfoot, pausing at fast-food stands, waving sparklers in the air to form circles and figures of eight. Hot-dog and hamburger smells fill the damp evening air, somehow contriving, Richard thinks, to entice and repel at the same time.

  ‘Mum, I’m hungry,’ Thomas complains.

  ‘So am I,’ says Annabel. ‘Starving.’

  ‘No junk food, kids, you know the rules,’ says Kate briskly, and then to Richard, ‘He threw up one of those things once and I’ve never let him forget it. A gruesome experience for everyone in the vicinity. Besides, I believe all that stuff about it making them hyperactive and he’s quite active enough already.’

  The bonfire heats their faces. He is transported back to childhood, seeing shapes in the flames, remembering history lessons, thinking of victims burnt at the stake. There is always something sinister and pathetic about the guy that makes him uneasy. How long did it take to die in this way? How soon did you suffocate from the smoke or faint from the pain?

  ‘Imagine,’ says Annabel at his elbow. ‘They used to do this to people.’

  It’s as if she’s picked up his thought and it makes him feel closer to her. He’s been rather wary of her so far because she reminds him of Sally at the same age and he doesn’t want to get involved again with someone else’s daughter. Even in the short time he’s known her, her voice has changed from breathless little girl eager to please, nervously laughing, to something more confident and off-hand, a woman with opinions of her own. Girls’ voices break too, he thinks.

  ‘They’re doing St Joan this term,’ Kate says.

  ‘I’m the page,’ says Annabel. ‘It’s not much of a part.’

  He still remembers his surprise that Kate, militant Socialist Kate, sends her children to private schools, financed by her parents. How nearly they had argued about it, when he gently suggested that made her a bit of a champagne Socialist. ‘I wouldn’t sacrifice my children for my principles,’ she’d said, ‘would you?’ But all he’d been able to think of then was that he had sacrificed them for Helen. ‘They didn’t learn anything, they were being bullied senseless, and there were drug pushers at the gates,’ Kate went on. ‘It’s enough that I teach in the state system. There’s no room for any more sacrifice in this family, I’ve cornered the market.’ He had teased her that she would be into private medicine next and she answered sharply that she already was. ‘While I’m working to change the system,’ she said, ‘I’m damned if I’ll let my kids suffer from it. Wouldn’t you jump the medical queue for your children if you could?’ He’d hesitated and said finally perhaps, but he hoped not. Kate had looked quite shocked. ‘I’m a pragmatist,’ she said. ‘I don’t believe you should inflict your ideals on everyone else.’ He wanted to tell her that was exactly what Socialism at its best was all about, but it suddenly occurred to him, thinking of Kate both as a woman and as his head of department, that this was an argument it might be prudent not to win.

  Now, standing beside Kate and her children, he remembers such moments tenderly, like fragments of a shared past, and he thinks that anyone in the crowd who sees them all together would assume they are a family.

  * * *

  The display begins and colours erupt into the night sky. There are little gasps and murmurs of approval from the crowd. After a while some become blasé, begin to have favourites. His neck soon aches from straining back so he can stare upwards; he listens to the people around him. ‘That’s a good one,’ or ‘Don’t reckon that much.’ More often they just sigh with satisfaction. He glances across at Kate, watching silently with rapt attention, lips p
arted, face lit by the fire; she looks young, almost childish, as he has never seen her before. Smoke drifts; the pungent acrid familiar smell of gunpowder floods the air and he breathes it in. There are set-pieces across the no-man’s land in front of him: beyond the wire, fountains cascade down a trellis, Catherine wheels spin in perfect circles, the way they never do for him in the garden. He thinks of St Catherine revolving in death. More images of torture and martyrdom; strange how they run like a theme through all this pleasure. Rockets penetrate the sky. The bangs are very liberating, taking him by surprise each time, sharp firecracking explosions that seem to release a little of his own anger at Helen, at Felix, at himself. Colours dance in the air, flashing like splinters of jewels, forming shapes in the dark, falling like flowers through space. He wonders what it would be like to make love to Kate.

  * * *

  Finally it is over, the word goodnight burning ahead of them. ‘Imagine how much all that must add to the rates,’ says Kate, smiling. ‘I must be mad to approve.’ The crowd begins to break up, drift away, head for home. ‘Just one go on the funfair,’ Thomas pleads. ‘All right, just one,’ says Kate. Thomas and Annabel go on the Dive Bomber, spinning and swooping relentlessly in their tiny capsules high on the end of its long arms while he and Kate stand and watch. He remembers the year there was an accident and involuntarily crosses his fingers. ‘Now you see what I mean,’ Kate says. ‘Imagine doing that after a hamburger or two.’ And then, in a different, private voice, ‘My divorce came through today. It’s also my wedding anniversary. You couldn’t arrange that if you tried, could you?’ He doesn’t know what to say; he feels honoured by her telling him, anxious to respond appropriately. He says, ‘How d’you feel about it?’ and she says, ‘Oh, fine. Absolutely fine.’

  * * *

  They go back to burnt sausages, baked beans and jacket potatoes in Kate’s kitchen. Afterwards he lets off pretty fireworks in her garden. Roman Candle, Chrysanthemum Fountain, Golden Rain, Mine of Serpents: the names often more elaborate than the contents, reminding him of the glorious names of paint and their almost edible beauty: burnt sienna, yellow ochre, cadmium red, ultramarine, vermillion. He feels it’s a compliment or a masculine privilege to be put in charge of them, like being asked to open the wine. ‘Mum won’t have bangers,’ Thomas complains. ‘Bangers outside and bangers inside,’ he adds, snorting at his own wit. ‘You’ve had enough bangs for one night,’ Kate says. Annabel watches the show with a tinge of boredom. ‘I think we should have fireworks several times a year,’ she says. ‘Like for birthdays and Christmas. Then it wouldn’t be such a big deal.’ The Catherine wheels stick as he knew they would, spitting their fire at odd angles as they fight to revolve and fail. He prods them vainly with a stick. He apologises. Kate says, ‘I think I like them better that way. They seem more angry. And less perfect.’ When he says goodnight to her at the door he feels they have shared an important experience but he is not sure what it means. ‘Well, I’ve had my fix for another year,’ she says.

  * * *

  Elizabeth knows at once it’s bad news. David’s face has that shut-down look that she has learnt to dread over the past few months. It reminds her of a house with its blinds drawn or its shutters closed for a siesta. It is not even openly hostile. Everything is blank and she is excluded. He doesn’t look at her but past her or down at the floor. His face has no expression. He is dressed all in black. Part of her wants to tell him not to be so theatrical, but part of her is scared.

  He says, ‘Hullo, Elizabeth, sit down, let me get you a drink.’ He doesn’t kiss her. Obviously there is no chance of massage or love-making tonight. It is going to be one of those grim evenings. She is quite disappointed: she has grown used to her treats.

  She says, ‘Is the book going badly?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ he says, ‘but I’m used to that.’

  He has given her brandy, without asking. She presumes he thinks she is going to need it. He is not having a drink himself, which somehow alarms her more, as if he is keeping himself sober for some precision work.

  She says, ‘D’you want to talk about it or let me look at it? Maybe I can help.’

  ‘Is that what you do for him?’ he says in a tone of deep disgust.

  ‘Well, yes. Sometimes.’

  ‘I never show work in progress to anyone. Anyway, that’s not it.’

  Outside there are sudden explosions and bursts of colour, the glow of a bonfire from someone’s garden. She thinks of the people enjoying themselves, families in a good mood, letting off fireworks, having fun.

  ‘My divorce came through today,’ David says.

  She has no idea what she is supposed to say to that. Obviously it must be a big event, but at the same time it can hardly be a shock when he knew it was coming.

  She says tentatively, ‘Are you very upset about it? I was hoping it might be a relief to have it finally over.’

  He is staring at the floor. He says, ‘It’s like a death after a very long illness. It’s a relief but it’s still a tragedy.’

  She keeps quiet then, out of respect for the bereaved. It feels appropriate, like the two minutes’ silence at the Cenotaph. She also has a suspicion that anything she says will be wrong.

  ‘And I’ve been thinking about Christmas.’

  This sounds really ominous. She can feel her heart beginning to race.

  ‘I don’t know how I could ever have agreed even to think about it. You and I and Felix, all together in Barbados. It’s a disgusting idea. I suppose I must have been desperate to be with you.’

  She thinks the word disgusting is a bit strong. And she feels threatened by his use of the past tense.

  ‘We could stay in different hotels, of course,’ she says mildly, placatingly. ‘It’s just a way for us to be together over Christmas.’

  ‘There is another way,’ he says, looking at her for the first time. ‘You stay here.’

  ‘You mean here,’ she says. ‘In this flat?’

  ‘Would that be so terrible?’

  ‘No, of course not, it’s very nice. But what about Felix?’

  ‘Well, what about him?’ he says.

  It’s like a phrase in music she thinks, Wagner probably, an ominous chord, a leitmotif of terrible hostility or even death. It’s at that moment she realises his feelings go far beyond mere resentment or jealousy: he actually hates Felix. She is flattered and frightened.

  ‘I can’t leave him alone.’

  ‘Why not?’ he says.

  ‘Well, I can’t. I mean, I never have…’

  ‘Of course you have,’ he says in a most alarmingly even tone. ‘You had a three-month separation earlier this year. You actually threw him out. Surely you haven’t forgotten? I did my best to help you through it but I don’t flatter myself I could have made you forget it completely.’

  She takes a deep breath. ‘Please don’t be sarcastic.’

  He gets up and stands over her. She feels quite threatened. She has finished her brandy and she wants another one but she doesn’t like to ask: she thinks it would put her at a disadvantage.

  He says, ‘I’m sick of being used, Elizabeth.’

  ‘But you told me that was all right, that’s what people do. You said you didn’t mind, we were using each other. You said it was mutual.’ She particularly remembers that conversation: she had found it very touching.

  ‘Oh, that.’ He sighs impatiently, as if she were a stupid child. ‘I might have known you’d remind me of that. The things one says at the beginning, in the first flush of love.’

  There is something about his use of the word one that makes her extremely angry. ‘Don’t be so pompous,’ she says. ‘Anyway, I haven’t been using you. I’ve always been honest with you. You knew exactly what you were getting into when we met.’

  He laughs. ‘I expect your husband makes speeches like that to all his women. He never deceived them so that makes it all right. It doesn’t matter what harm he does so long as he warned them in advance. He’s really trained you ve
ry well.’

  She says firmly, ‘I’d rather you didn’t talk about Felix like that.’

  ‘I’m sure you would. But what about me? What about what I’d rather? I’ve lost my wife and kids and now I’m going to lose you too. Why shouldn’t I say what I like? I’m losing everything – I’m going to have nothing left soon. I can’t even write the bloody book.’

  As he gets more agitated, he sounds younger and younger, more like a sulky little boy, and she feels less threatened, more in charge. She says, ‘It’s all right, darling, you’re not losing me.’ She frowns; she doesn’t like to think his distress can pull out of her a word reserved for Felix. ‘I’m just going to Barbados for Christmas and I’d like you to come too. That’s all it is.’

  He looks really shocked and backs away from her. ‘You haven’t heard anything I’ve said.’

  ‘Look, David, I’m sorry, but I can’t stay here at Christmas and leave Felix alone at home or let him go to Barbados without me. You must see that. I know it’s very difficult for you but I just can’t do it. But if you come too we can all be happy.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ he says, ‘why don’t we all share a bed and have done with it. That’s probably what he has in mind.’

  She can feel herself blushing: he has got uncomfortably close to one of Felix’s favourite fantasies.

  ‘You’re blushing,’ he says. ‘I’m right, aren’t I?’

  ‘For God’s sake stop watching me, you’re like the bloody thought police.’

  They both pause, breathing rather fast, and look at each other, like boxers judging where next to strike. Hoping to break the tension she says, ‘Could I have another drink?’

  ‘No, you drink too much. It stops you listening. I know about drink. You get all blurred at the edges and you don’t hear what I say. I can’t live like this any more, Elizabeth. Your life with Felix is a cesspool and I’m trying to drag you out of it. Can’t you see that? Don’t you feel anything for me? I’m offering you love, real love - d’you really want to go on living that mucky life? Haven’t you had enough pain? Haven’t you let him degrade you enough?’