Authors: Jo Bannister

Charisma (22 page)

BOOK: Charisma

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She stayed where she was, silent, ambivalent, cloaked in a shadow that was more than just the setting of the sun. He peered for her as if through fog. âJenny? That is you, isn't it?'

Finally she spoke. âIt's me.' Her voice was as strange as her manner, seeming to reach him over a distance.

He kept wheeling towards her, as if it were a distance he could reduce. âWhat's the matter, Jenny? Why are you hiding?'

It was a figure of speech, he didn't mean it literally, but she answered as if he did. âI'm waiting.'

He was puzzled. âFor what?'

âFor you.'

He thought then that she must have heard his outburst at the tent, had come to remonstrate with him. It was typical of their relationship that he still thought of her only as an adjunct to himself. âI'm not going back, Jenny. I'm not talking to anybody tonight. I don't know about the future yet. I don't know if I want to go on doing this or not. Tell them to go to the pub. Tell them to go to the cinema. You can tell them to go to hell for all I care. This time I'm putting me first.'

There were a lot of things she could have said to that. By accident or design she picked the most hurtful.
âThis
time?'

Like most things said in argument, it was neither wholly fair nor quite unjustified. Most of all it was unexpected. Davey flinched as from a blow. His voice was a plaint. âJenny! That's notâYou can't think that.'

âMichael,' she said, and a hushed power was in her voice, âI've been with you for five years. I've done everything you needed, everything you wanted, everything you asked of me. But don't presume to tell me what to think.'

âI'm not, I only meantâ' But of course that was exactly what he meant. One hand made an irritable, dismissive gesture. âWhat's got into you, Jenny? You're not usually thisâ'

She supplied the word he was groping for. âSensitive?' He nodded. Even knowing him, seeing him clearly at last, she was amazed at his selfishness. âMichael, you have no idea how sensitive I am. You've never wondered.'

He was puzzled by her rancour. He couldn't know what she hadn't told him, and they'd never talked about her feelings. It didn't occur to him that in five years they should have done. Then his face cleared. âI know what this is about. Liz Graham, and the fact that I was prepared to ditch the crusade for the love of a woman. Well, you'll be glad to know it isn't going to happen. She turned me down.'

âI know,' Jennifer Mills said softly.

âShe acted as if the whole damn thing was a figment of my imagination. As if I was a schoolboy who'd mistaken ordinary kindness for affection. But it was more than that, Jenny,' he went on, warming. âI saw her eyes. She wanted me. But she wasn't prepared to give up for me a fraction of what I'd have given up for her. It was easier â safer â to pretend I'd made the whole thing up.' A bitter laugh reverberated in his throat. âShe told meâ'

âI know,' Mills said again.

âNo, just there now,' he explained, thinking she'd misunderstood. âShe told meâ'

âI know what she said, Michael. I was there.'

Unseen in the growing dark, his expression slowly crumbled and fell apart. âAt Liz's house?' She nodded, the movement visible though her face was not. âYou followed me?'

âYou made a fool of yourself, Michael.' There was a grain of something like satisfaction in her voice. âShe never loved you. She was being polite: a nice woman being kind to a cripple. There was never any question of love. You made a mistake. Understandable, of course: you wouldn't know love if it bit you in the leg.'

He stared at her across the gulf of darkness. âShe also saidâ'

âShe was right about that, too,' the woman said calmly. âThat was my mistake: loving someone with the emotional capacity of a shark. You devour people, Michael. You don't give, you only take.' Her voice hardened. âThis image you project: the man of God ministering to the frightened masses. It's an illusion. Anything they get out of your meetings they bring there themselves: their own strengths, their own decency. All you supply is ego. It's quite a turn-on, isn't it, rows of avid upturned faces hanging on your every word. You're a power junkie.

âIt's a little like being a god yourself, isn't it? People don't go
to a missionary for logic, they go for diatribe. They don't need to be convinced: the suspension of disbelief is their willing sacrifice. Hit them with the old charisma and they'll roll over and die for you. But don't mistake that for the real thing, Michael. It's a trick, that's all. Like a dog walking on its hind legs.'

From amazement Davey grew quickly to anger. He never could deal with criticism in an adult way. He thought Mills was mocking his achievements because her own life lacked fulfilment. A man of real moral worth would have been gentle with her because of that. Davey went for her heart.

âFive years you've been with me. Why, if you thought it was all a charade? Because you loved me? I wonder you'd waste your precious feelings on a crippled egomaniac! Or was that the point? Maybe you think a cripple's man enough for you. You're probably right: a whole man probably wants more than an old maid has to offer.'

She gave a low animal cry and lunged at him; he repelled her with a swing of his forearm. His cheek stung and he felt the cool of blood on his skin. âUse your claws on me, would you, you cat? You don't want to be so touchy. After all, you saw through the mask, didn't you, you know exactly what I am. A trickster, an illusionist.

âWell, you're entitled to your opinion, Jennifer Mills, but there's thousands of people all across Europe who wouldn't agree with you. They think I have something to say. They think it's more than a cheap trick. They come to me in despair and they leave with hope. Now, you can make fun of me and you can make fun of them, but the fact is they get something they need, something they're looking for, or they wouldn't come. And they do come, and keep coming. Hundreds of them. Thousands.'

âThey come,' she cried, shrill with exasperation, âbecause they're scared shitless about the horror stalking them and willing to try anything, even a bucket-mouthed Welsh prophet, for a promise of better things to come. Give you your due, Michael, you're good at meaningless promises. I should know.'

âIt's not meaningless,' he shouted. âWhat I teach makes a difference. You know that. Whenever we go backâ'

âThings have settled down,' she agreed. âNo more killings. No more tarts with their throats cut. You still don't see, do you? The killings stop because they've served their purpose.'

Davey went cold. âWhat purpose?'

âFrightened people turn to men like you. I thought that was a
good thing. I thought, Does it matter if some little tart who's going to die soon â of Aids or drugs or at the hands of a dissatisfied customer â goes now, if it brings a whole town to its senses? I thought, It's probably the only chance this little whore will get to make a worthwhile contribution to society. If you're a surgeon or a teacher' â she smiled thinly â âor a preacher, your whole life's a contribution. But how many whores get a chance to change a community for the better? It wasn't hard to convince myself I was doing the right thing, even for them.'

Davey stared at her, and though he was deeply appalled it didn't occur to him to doubt. It fitted with what Liz Graham had said. It fitted in other ways too. âYou killed them? Those young girls? For Christ's sake, woman, are you mad?'

She considered that open-mindedly, then nodded. âPerhaps I am. It can't be normal, can it, to do something like that? And take pleasure in it.'

âPleasure?'

âSatisfaction then.' Her tone was conciliatory. âIt was at least that. They owed me that much. You did.'

âMe?' The echo was fainter this time.

âOf course you. I did it for you. Because you needed my help, and I've always given you what you needed. Even when I hated it. Even when I hated every shameful, sordid minute. I've prowled backstreets any decent woman would run a mile from, for you. I've dealt with the scum of the earth for you: pimps and madams and girls who make a cesspit of their insides for pay. And I've had to haggle with them, and tell them what you wanted for your money. I've had them in my car, bringing them to you, and an hour later with the stink of you still on them I've taken them back where I found them. Did you never wonder what that was doing to me?'

âI'm a man,' he mumbled, avoiding her gaze, âand a cripple. I have normal needs but I can't take care of them the usual way. You said you'd help. You said you didn't mind.'

âI gave up everything for you!' she cried. âI could have had anything I wanted: a husband, children, a nice house. Friends. I don't have any friends, do you know that? And I don't see my family any more because it upsets my mother to see what you've done to me.'

âMe?' he repeated, astonished. âWhat have I done? I've done nothing to you.'

âYou've squandered my life, Michael.' The bitterness in her
voice sank to a quiet accusation that pierced deeper. âI gave you everything I had â my time and my heart and my soul â and you used them and gave nothing in return. You let me waste my life on you. You said you needed me. I thought it was no distance from need to love, that if I served you faithfully you would love me. I could be patient. I didn't mind waiting.

âIn the mean time there was so much to do, so many ways I could help. When you talked about your vision for the crusade I could see what you were capable of but it wasn't going to happen the way you were going about it. That was my mission: to make your dream come true. I thought that, by doing that, working with you and being with you and earning your gratitude, I'd make my dream reality too.

âAnd do you know, I really thought it was working? I ran myself into the ground for you, but it was worth it because I could see you, feel you, changing towards me. There was a warmth there that was more than the mere friendship we started with. I thought it was, at least, affection. I thought all my investment was finally paying off.

âI don't suppose you remember Hastings, do you?' There was no more light on his face but she knew from his silence that he did not. She gave an odd steely sigh that was half resignation and half indictment. âNo, why would you? It was nothing very special to you. But I thought â God, what a fool! â I thought you were proposing marriage.

âYou came to my room in the hotel. You asked me to sit down, there was something you had to say. You apologized in advance for how clumsy it was going to sound but you were used to talking Grand Design, found it hard to discuss personal matters. And of course, being in that chair complicated the issue: it meant there were things you wanted but had no right to ask for â¦ And you were talking slower and slower, and your eyes were glued to your knees.

âI came so close to making an idiot of myself that night. I could see how embarrassed you were. I thought I could put you out of your misery by accepting your proposal before you even got it out. I actually had my mouth open to say Yes â yes, Michael, I'll marry you, yes, please â when? Only what you actually said was, “So could you round me up a hooker?”

âI loved you, Michael,' she cried in bitter anguish. âI'd have done anything for you. But you shouldn't have asked that. If it was comfort you wanted I'd have given it. Comfort, companionship,
whatever. I'd have done that for you, gladly. But it wasn't me you wanted, it was tarts â little tarts with their dirty minds and their dirty laughs. And always so young. Why, were you afraid a grown woman would despise your frailty? Do you think anyone seeing you in that chair would expect a perfect lover? Don't you think that a woman who loved you might not care about the bits that don't work?'

She was throwing too much at him all at once. He didn't know how to react. He stumbled, âYou said you understoodâ'

âI lied,' she said quietly. âI did that for you too.'

Since she first dropped this bombshell â and bombshell it was, he had genuinely never suspected â there had been something he'd needed to know but dared not ask. Now he forced himself. âYou said, killings. How many?'

More than anything she'd said, the fact that she had to work it out, that it wasn't branded in the forefront of her mind in letters of fire, impressed on him how utterly divorced from reality she had become. âSi-ix,' she said slowly, thinking. âNo, five â the one in Caen was a coincidence. I
was
going to do one of them â who knows, I might have picked her â but someone else had the same idea. I went to the cinema instead.'

âFive,' whispered Davey. âDoes that includeâ?'

âThe two here,' she supplied helpfully, âyes.'

âOne was a hooker. One was a schoolgirl on a pony.' His voice cracked. âWhat did you think killing her would achieve?'

BOOK: Charisma

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