Singled Out (6 page)

‘Yes. Yes.'

‘Look, they're calling the flight. I must …'

‘Mm.' Laura, knowing that the flight hadn't really been called, that he just wanted to get off the emotional hook, reverted to polite small talk. ‘Well, nice to hear from you, Philip. Do keep in touch, won't you?'

He caught the impersonal tone. ‘Yes, yes, of course. And hope all continues to go well for you.'

‘And you. Your work still OK, is it?'

‘Yes. They've made me head of documentaries, of all things.'

‘Congratulations.'

‘Thank you. Well, I must … Really, the flight …'

‘Yes.' Suddenly her restraint burst once more. ‘Philip, I can't believe I'll never see you again.'

‘No, well, I … Maybe one day. I must go. Goodbye, love.'

‘Goodbye.'

The tone droned in Laura's ear for a full minute before she put the Trimphone down. She pushed her salad to one side and turned up the Elton John. ‘Candle in the Wind' mourned away in the background.

Hearing Philip's voice had brought it all back. The iron lid she had crammed down on the whole episode lifted in an instant. She remembered the touch of his skin, even the musky smell of his aftershave.

Her mind filled with that first afternoon when he'd come to her flat. She'd known when she'd seen him in the doorway that they had both been fighting the same impulses. For six weeks they'd each tried to argue them away, tried to convince themselves their feelings weren't reciprocated, that any declaration would only be met by embarrassing incomprehension. Neither had said anything. And they had said little at the beginning of that afternoon. It hadn't seemed necessary. They had just come together, neither one making an advance to the other. Everything had been mutual.

And the love-making that followed had shown the same egalitarianism. For Laura, whose only previous experience of sex had been adversarial, it was a revelation. Compared to Michael's rough and inept pursuit of his own gratification, Philip showed infinite patience and gentleness. For him the touching seemed at least as important as the orgasm. That first time, though time had been a hazy concept while it was happening, it must have been hours before he came. But he used those hours to worship her body, to learn its contours, its triggers, its curves and crevices. His hands, his lips, and just the silky contact of his skin, brought her to levels of pleasure she would not have believed possible. She came and came and came again, and each climax washed away a little more of the accretions of bad sexual experience.

With him it all seemed natural, all continuous, all different. There had been no orders, no compulsion except the mutual desire to touch and be touched. Instinct had taken over. Each seemed to know what the other wanted and when they wanted it. It was not love-making that stopped and started. Michael's sexual offensives all ended with his climax. Then all Laura got was the turned shoulder and a gruff ‘Goodnight' or, if it was in the morning, his immediate silent departure from bed to bathroom. But with Philip one encounter flowed seamlessly into the next.

‘Where did you learn to be such a wonderful lover?' she had asked in one of the lulls as they lay gently entwined.

‘I didn't learn,' he said. ‘I've never thought of myself as a wonderful lover. It's only with you. I knew it'd be perfect with you.'

‘And I knew it'd be perfect with you. The moment I saw you, Philip, I just knew.'

And it remained perfect. The love-making, that is. They were two people physically designed to complement each other, two people who could never be in the same room without wanting to make love to each other.

But. The old familiar ‘but'. Philip was married. He had a wife, Julie, and two small children, Paul and Tammy. He loved them all. It wasn't a case of a man dissatisfied with his wife who was on the look-out for a bit on the side. He loved Julie, but had been totally bowled over by his passion for Laura.

From the start he had made the situation clear. He was not a liar. He told Laura that he had never been unfaithful before, and he was definitely telling the truth. He never pretended that he didn't love Julie or that he would ever contemplate walking out on his family.

He stated all this the second time they were alone together. ‘It doesn't mean I don't love you and want you,' he said, ‘but there's nothing long-term in it for you, Laura. I'll never leave them. So if you say now that you want me to go and that we'll never make love again, I'll fully understand.'

Laura could no more have said that at that moment than she could have flown. They fell into each other's arms and the second time the love-making was even better.

So the affair continued. They both knew its duration was finite. Laura's contract in New Zealand was only for six months. Then she would have to return to London, and to Michael. But both of them managed to shut their minds to this fact. What was happening was too wonderful, too consuming, for them to look ahead.

In fact the affair ended before Laura went back to England. Two weeks before her departure, Philip's wife Julie was diagnosed to be suffering from multiple sclerosis. The disease was in its very early stages, but, barring some unexpected advance in medical science, it would undoubtedly get worse. Philip, a sensitive and honourable man, was thrown into agonies of guilt by the news. In spite of logic and reassurances from Laura, he could not help seeing his wife's illness as a punishment for his own behaviour. He announced that the affair must end instantly.

Laura, whose love made her far more selfish than he, argued desperately against the decision. She wouldn't impose on their family life. She would somehow arrange to stay in New Zealand. She wouldn't make demands on Philip, she'd just be there for him. As Julie grew more ill, he'd need her more than ever. But Philip was adamant. He was hurting at least as much as she was. His upbringing, however, left him no alternative but to do the decent thing. Their parting was ‘the right thing to happen'.

Even through the sleeplessness of her grief and bereavement, Laura could recognize the irony of the situation. Part of Philip's appeal for her, aside from their sensational physical symbiosis, was his goodness and honesty. It was those qualities, the qualities for which she loved him, that would always keep him supporting his wife and family, and keep him out of Laura's life. Often she wished he had more of the bastard in him, but then a Philip with more of the bastard in him wouldn't be the Philip she loved.

Laura was distressed at how instantly after his phone call all these thoughts had returned, and it required enormous energy over the weekend to reassert her self-control. But by the time she went into the
Newsviews
office on the Monday morning, she was back on track. She was Laura Fisher. She had put the past – all of the past – behind her. And she was going to continue making her own life.

After the morning editorial meeting the following Thursday Laura lingered while the other producers, directors and researchers filed out. Dennis Parker squinted up at her, his temples tight with that morning's hangover (shortly to be alleviated by a quick slurp from the bottle in his office). A couple of inches of ash hung from the end of his cigarette.

‘What?'

‘Dennis, I can't be in tomorrow. I've got to take the day off.'

The ash dropped. He brushed it brusquely off his lapel. ‘What, women's problems, is it?'

Sometimes Laura could hardly believe the depth of her boss's misogyny. Though he escorted a succession of young actresses around expensive London restaurants – and presumably went to bed with them too – Dennis was one of those men who genuinely hated women. His distaste for the processes of their bodies, particularly for menstruation, was almost pathological. The thought prompted a flicker of excitement in Laura. Her period was due in a couple of days, but she wasn't feeling the familiar bloated restlessness.

‘No,' she replied evenly. ‘It's my father's funeral.'

‘Oh.' Even Dennis couldn't argue with that, but he still managed to come back on the offensive. ‘Pity you couldn't have given me a bit more notice. I'll have to reschedule everything.'

Laura knew this to be untrue. Each edition of
Newsviews
was prepared from scratch on the morning of its transmission. Even the designation of the day's studio director could be changed at short notice. But she didn't take issue, simply said, ‘I've only just heard the date myself. There had to be a post-mortem.'

‘I see.' Even Dennis Parker realized that the situation required some token gesture of condolence. ‘I hope you're not too cut up about it – your father … “passing on”, I mean.' It was odd that someone as professionally blunt should hide behind a euphemism like that.

‘No,' said Laura, ‘I'm fine. We weren't close.' Though even as she said the words, an involuntary tremor ran through her.

Dennis Parker, realizing he was in danger of being gracious, reasserted his customary boorishness. ‘Good. Because the last thing I bloody need is one of my directors sobbing her eyes out over the control desk.'

Laura often wondered what triggered this obsessive hatred of her sex. She generally concluded it was fear.

‘And bear in mind,' Dennis added as a parting shot, ‘I won't forget. If you ever try to use your father's funeral as an excuse to get another day off work, it won't wash.'

This too was gratuitous offence. Laura had never missed a day since she had started working on the programme. But she knew the pointlessness of taking issue with Dennis on such a detail. He wasn't worth the effort.

‘I didn't even know you still had a father,' said Rob that evening, as he looked wistfully through his Campari at her.

‘I haven't seen much of him in latter years.'

‘No, but you might have mentioned him. Makes me feel very excluded, you suddenly springing a father on me. And I thought I was your
friend
.'

The emphasis showed that Rob was in one of his self-pitying moods. The public flamboyance often gave way to an emptiness bordering on despair. What Laura usually did when she caught him like this was to take him out for a meal and ply him with wine until the alcohol restored at least a façade of giggling outrageousness. But that evening she didn't think she had the energy. The events of the next day were weighing on her mind. She wanted time alone to prepare her reactions to them.

‘You
are
my friend,' said Laura, reassuringly rubbing the back of his hand. ‘Probably the best friend I've got.'

‘And the safest. At least you know I'm not going to spend all my time trying to get inside your knickers.' She acknowledged the truth of this with a little smile. ‘Still think you might have told me you had a father, though. I mean, it's not as if I don't tell you
everything
about my mother.'

‘That is certainly true.'

‘Never guess what the silly bitch did yesterday. Took her filthy smalls down to the launderette and only put
sugar
in the machine instead of soap powder. Honestly, stupid cow isn't safe to be let out on her own.'

The trouble was that his last sentence was true. Through all his bitching, Rob was absolutely devoted to his mother, and though he joked about her advancing senility, it clearly terrified him. How he would react when the old woman finally died Laura did not dare contemplate.

‘You going to spring a mother on me too, are you?' Rob asked suddenly.

‘No. No, my mother's dead. Died when I was in my teens.' Laura didn't elaborate. Partly this was from instinctive caution, and partly because she did not want to stir up the confused emotions thoughts of her mother always prompted.

There was a silence. Then Rob said dreamily, ‘Maybe you and I
should
get married.'

It was an old joke between them. His sexual orientation and her desire to be single offered the occasional dream of a platonic cohabitation. ‘Two old women growing even older together,' as Rob put it, ‘bitching about all the men we fucked, and every now and then having furious rows because we wanted to fuck the same one.'

Laura would play along with the joke, but it was Rob's fantasy, not hers. Much as she liked him, she valued her single state too highly to succumb to his possessive presence. Whereas for him the dream did offer an opportunity to stave off the terrible loneliness of the ageing queen.

On this occasion Laura limited her response to an affectionate ‘Maybe'.

Rob recognized it as a mild rebuff and looked hurt. He looked even more hurt when, shortly afterwards, Laura drained the last of her wine and said she must be going.

The Friday was markedly colder, one of those face-tingling late October days which bring a sudden reminder of winter's proximity. Kent drove them down from London to Southampton. They took the ferry to the Isle of Wight and went straight to the crematorium.

They said little on the journey. Kent confirmed that he was still working on the Melanie Harris case, but gave no further information.

Laura did not mind the silence. Their shared childhood had not involved many words, a factor which had perhaps strengthened the bond between them. Inside the family home words had been dangerous, words might have prompted painful reactions. And outside their home silence had been the rule, silence about anything that mattered, silence that maintained the myth of middle-class family normality. So being silent with Kent was familiar, even restful. And she felt that being with her gave him some kind of satisfaction which would have been spoiled by words. Words could only emphasize the differences between them, the divergence of their lifestyles and ambitions. Silence bonded.

When they got out of the car at the crematorium, the icy wind slapped at their faces. It carried an invigorating tang of the sea. Laura felt energized. In spite of the appalling memories stirred by the occasion, she experienced an optimism, a sense of change and progress growing within her.