Having It All (35 page)

‘I wasn’t away,’ Liz corrected coldly. She didn’t know what to make of this new development.

‘No.’ Liz heard the bitterness in David’s tone. ‘But I thought you were.’

‘You don’t need to lie, you know, David, just because you forgot to get them a present.’

David turned on her furiously. ‘I didn’t lie! Do you need the bloody receipts before you believe me?’

‘OK, so you came tearing down here, dripping with gifts, leaving Britt pregnant and alone, and found me, as you thought, away. So where did you go?’

‘To Logan Greene’s flat. I have a set of keys. I needed time to think what I wanted from my life.’

‘And what did you decide?’ Liz carefully kept her voice neutral.

‘I decided that Britt and I would never be happy together, in spite of the baby, and that
I
could never be happy without you and the kids.’

Listening to him, Liz felt explosively angry. She’d actually begun to believe this stuff before Christmas. Then five minutes later she heard Britt was having his baby and that half London
knew about it! Now he wanted to come back to wifey the moment something was actually expected of him.

‘Lucky old us.’

Hearing the scathing sarcasm in her voice, the dismissal of his own pain, the refusal to even consider that
he
might have suffered too, David began to feel as angry as she did. ‘I
can see there’s no point going on with this conversation . . .’

‘No, there isn’t. And do you know what the trouble is with you, David? You think that by deciding you want us after all, you can simply wipe away the pain and the hurt. But it
isn’t like that. The baby still exists. The pain you caused me is still there and it changes things. I’m sorry, David, but it’s true. I don’t trust you any more.’

David struggled with a white-hot anger that made him want to take hold of Liz and shake her. Yet when he finally spoke his voice was dead and calm.

‘Maybe we should think about a divorce, then?’

Liz was caught off guard by this unexpected change of direction, but she was damned if she was going to show it.

David watched her closely. But she showed neither surprise nor regret. And there was an almost teasing quality to her voice when she finally replied.

‘Good idea. We could sell Holland Park at the same time. Maybe the lawyers would give us a reduction.’

As David slammed the door of the Mercedes he could hardly contain his fury. She hadn’t even given him a chance to explain anything. She’d simply decided, as he knew
she would, that he was a selfish shit running away from responsibility and that was that. Lady Justice Ward had convicted and passed sentence. No appeal allowed.

It was only as he sped through the village, realizing that he might never see it again, that he remembered that in the heat of the moment he hadn’t even told her he’d resigned from
the
Daily News
.

‘Oh, go on, Liz, let’s do it! I’ve always wanted to!’ Mel grabbed Liz’s arm and propelled her towards the Palace Pier. ‘Come on! Everyone in
London is consulting clairvoyants now!’

Liz thought about it for a moment. She wasn’t sure she felt up to looking into the future just at present. And for the last hour she’d been dreaming of putting her feet up with
something long, cold and preferably alcoholic.

On the other hand, since her bitter parting with David this morning she needed cheering up. She’d hoped shopping would do it, but they’d spent all day traipsing round the sales and
though Mel had bought an off-the-shoulder cashmere sweater, an extremely little black dress to add to her collection, and a jumper with a neck so low that Liz suspected anyone she met at parties
would be tempted to dive into it, Liz hadn’t seen anything she really liked. And, determined not to make more mistakes, she had therefore bought nothing, a deeply unsatisfactory outcome. As a
result she was now almost as depressed at the waste of a whole day as she would have been had she paid a vast sum for something disastrous. With shopping, Liz was convinced, you couldn’t
win.

And now Mel wanted to go to a fortune teller. She decided to try and talk her out of it.

‘Come on, Mel, it’s a load of rubbish. Clairvoyants are just old scrubbers dressed up as gypsies who charge you a tenner and predict you want to be rich, happy and live a long
time.’

But Mel persisted. ‘It’s not like that any more. They’re real pros now. More like shrinks, really. Except that they let you record the session and take the tape away. Come on,
I’ll treat you!’

Reluctantly Liz let Mel pull her away from the sea-front on to the pier. The wind picked at her coat and almost tore Mel’s many carrier bags from her hands. It was bitter but wonderfully
reviving. As they walked along gingerly holding on to each other, Liz looked down through the slatted wooden floor at the grey sea below and remembered how, as a child, she had been frightened of
going on the pier, convinced she might fall down the cracks. No one had been able to convince her of the physical impossibility of a four-year-old child falling through a half-inch space.

Now that she was an adult she loved piers, loved all the trappings of seaside towns, especially in winter when the bands played to a smattering of pensioners wrapped in rugs, and the paint
peeled in the gales, and the little town waited, hugging itself for the next season to begin and the holidaymakers, and the deckchairs, and the ice-cream sellers to come back again.

At the end of the pier, next to the café, there was a small amusement arcade – which Liz found much more tempting than consulting a clairvoyant – a ghost train, gloomy and
closed for the winter, and a small, discreet sign announcing the premises of Susannah Smith, Clairvoyant.

Expecting cavernous darkness, and a Madame Arcati in gypsy earrings and fringed shawls, a cigarette hanging from the side of her mouth, Liz was astonished at the sight of both Susannah Smith and
her premises. Consulting rooms might have described them better. For Mel was right, the airy, brightly lit little room with its spotless beige carpet, its fawn leather armchairs and blond wood desk
were straight from the waiting room of a Harley Street dentist or a smart London shrink.

Liz found it oddly disconcerting. At least she could poke fun at Madame Arcati, but Susannah Smith made her feel like she had come for a smear test or some marriage guidance. And if she wanted
either, Liz thought in irritation, she would have gone to someone who at least knew what they were doing.

But the greatest surprise of all was Susannah Smith herself. She was tall and blonde, no more than twenty-seven, with air-hostess looks and one of those neutral, classless accents which meant
the speaker has had elocution lessons to camouflage their humble origins.

She wore a tweedy heather suit of the type sold by Country Casuals to aspiring businesswomen who wanted to hint at an aristocratic background.

To Liz’s disappointment nowhere in sight was there a crystal ball. Maybe she’d dispensed with it on the grounds it didn’t come in beige. Glancing round Liz had to suppress a
giggle. On a shelf near the window was a large leather-bound Appointments Diary. And, next to that, an expensive handset. Clearly predicting the future was good business.

‘Do you offer fortune-telling by phone?’ she asked Susannah as Mel elbowed her in the ribs for disrespect.

‘Good idea.’ Susannah smiled back unruffled. ‘I must look into it. Now who’s first?’

‘She is,’ said Mel.

‘She is,’ said Liz.

Susannah was clearly used to this kind of thing. ‘I’ll just setup while you fight it out amongst yourselves.’

Finally, after much arguing, Mel agreed to go first.

Susannah clicked on the tape recorder and Liz sat back to enjoy herself. She couldn’t wait to tell Ginny.

‘But you haven’t got a crystal ball!’

‘No. I don’t use one.’ Susannah looked at her narrow gold watch pointedly and Liz settled back for the fun as Susannah took Mel’s hand and closed her eyes.

No doubt there would be a few bits of guesswork to make Mel feel she was in safe hands.

‘You are thirty-six. Single. You live in London. You have a high-powered job. You love your job, but for the first time you want more.’

Mel looked on open-mouthed but Liz was unconvinced. Take any woman in their thirties, without a wedding ring, wearing clothes like Mel’s and odds-on all that would be true.

‘Let’s go back to your childhood. You had a happy childhood at first. You and your sister played together.’

Liz smiled to herself. Mel didn’t have a sister. Just as she’d thought the whole thing was a hoax. She felt an unexpected relief that the sham had been so easily exposed. Now they
could really have a laugh. She nudged Mel discreetly but Mel was looking intently at Susannah’s face and didn’t respond.

‘You used to play by the water?’

‘Yes,’ said Mel quietly.

‘Until the accident.’

Good God, what was the woman rabbiting on about?

‘Yes.’

‘After the accident your father changed. He went out a lot. Your mother looked unhappy. It wasn’t such a happy home any more.’

Liz felt a chill despite the warm brightness of the room. Why was Mel taking it all so seriously? It amazed her that someone as cynical and hard-bitten as Mel could possibly believe all this
rubbish about predicting the future. What was it about people, even the rational ones like Mel, that they still wanted, needed even, to feel life was beyond their control. She tried to move the
session on to a more light-hearted note.

‘What about the present? Is there a man in the picture?’

Susannah looked at Mel and raised an eyebrow in question.

‘Do you want to move on from the past?’

‘Yes.’ Mel looked relieved. ‘Yes, I do if you don’t mind.’ She tried to make herself follow Liz’s lead and lighten the session up. ‘
Is
there
going to be a man in my life?’

Susannah looked disapproving. ‘He’s there. You know he is. He’s there already.’

‘What kind of man is he?’ Mel tried to remember she was a feet-on-the-ground journalist. She shouldn’t be swallowing the line like some gullible punter, she should be trying to
catch the woman out.

‘He’s a free spirit,’ Susannah announced. ‘A man who isn’t tied by conventions.’

‘Is he a good man?’ Mel asked, hopefully, thinking of all the bastards she’d fallen for in the past.

‘He won’t beat you up or be unfaithful, if that’s what you mean, but he’ll always do what he wants, and that can be just as hurtful.’

Liz felt her impatience getting the better of her. This was just twaddle. She hadn’t given one concrete fact about this free spirit of Mel’s.

‘You seem a little vague on the detail if you don’t mind my saying,’ she interrupted. ‘Could you be a little more specific. I mean, does he have any distinguishing
characteristics?’

Liz waited, remembering Mel boasting about Garth’s attributes in the trouser department. That should test Susannah Smith out all right.

Unruffled by Liz’s derisive tone, Susannah thought for a moment. ‘He has a ponytail.’

Liz burst out laughing and elbowed Mel in the ribs with glee. But Mel was deadly earnest. ‘Will we get together again?’ she asked hopefully.

‘Perhaps. But not if you chase him. He’s running away from you now. The more you chase, the more he runs. You must leave him alone.’

‘But how can I?’ Mel wailed miserably. ‘If I do I’ll never see him again!’

‘He’s a free spirit, remember. He can’t be chased. He has to choose.’

‘But will he choose me?’

‘That depends on you.’

The small old-fashioned ticking alarm clock, oddly out of place in all this hi-tech, went off discreetly. Susannah opened her eyes and let go of Mel’s hand. She smiled politely and got up.
At the same time the shiny new phone began to ring.

‘Would you excuse me for a moment?’ She picked up the phone and took it into the adjoining room. Liz had the distinct impression they were being left alone together.

‘Well that was a load of tosh for a start. You don’t even have a sister.’

‘Yes I do,’ Mel contradicted.

‘You never talk about her.’

‘We don’t get on.’

‘And what about the ponytail. Don’t tell me. Garth’s got one.’

Mel turned and smiled beatifically at Liz, looking like St Bernadette being told she could go home with George Michael.

‘Yes. Didn’t I tell you. He has.’

Liz felt an unpleasantly creepy sensation. This wasn’t turning out to be as funny as she’d hoped.

There was a click behind them and she glanced round nervously. Susannah was back. She smiled at Liz with just a hint of frost under the chic make-up. Liz got the distinct impression that the
future Susannah was about to foretell was not the one she wanted to hand over £20 for.

‘Right.’ Susannah sat down behind the desk and reached for her hand. ‘You’re next.’

David drove down the winding country road trying to exorcize his anger by taking the bends too fast. If Liz had lost her temper with him, had thrown things and screamed and
shouted, he could have coped with it. He would have screamed and shouted back and eventually, the air cleared, the accusations all made and laid neatly on the table, they would have calmed down.
But what he could not deal with was bitter sarcasm, and the suspicion that she harboured more grudges than she even admitted to.

It struck him that men lost their tempers and were accused of being childish. But women fought dirty with the sarcastic jibe and the bitter put-down and now he knew with complete certainty which
was the dirtier weapon.

Overtaking an old lady in an ancient Morris Minor on a blind corner, he knew he was taking a risk, but he felt like doing it anyway. He was halfway round the bend when he heard the rumble of an
approaching tractor. For a split second he had to decide whether to press on or brake.

A great tide of fatalism engulfed him and, having always believed utterly and completely in free will and the individual’s power to control his own destiny, luxuriously he surrendered to
it.

He scraped by with inches to spare and when he looked back in the driving mirror he saw that the old lady was making the sign of the cross for his deliverance. Or for hers.