Neurotica (30 page)

C H A P T E R     T W E N T Y-O N E

A
NNA WASN'T DUE TO SEE ED until Monday night. Barely able to contain her excitement at the thought of being with him again, she
filled Sunday with relentless activity. This included writing the
hen-party piece, which was scheduled to appear the following
Sunday, cleaning out the bathroom medicine cabinet and binning a
packet of condoms which had expired in 1994. She also made a
dozen chocolate Rice Krispie cakes for the school bring-and-buy
sale.

Keeping busy meant that she didn't have to give any thought
to what Brenda had said to her on Saturday night. It wasn't until
she arrived at Ed's flat in Notting Hill that she began to question
the wisdom of letting Dan walk out.

The flat was small and a bit shabby, the kind of place
twenty-two-year-olds rent when they get their first job. This didn't
bother Anna. She knew Ed was broke. He was paying maintenance as
well as the mortgage on the house he'd bought with Tilda. What
moved Anna almost to tears was going into the living
room and coming across the piles of legal correspondence covering
his desk. She picked up a handful of letters. Some appeared to be
from his solicitor, others were from Tilda's. Each related to his
battle with Tilda over the children. It hit Anna that if she pursued
her relationship with Ed, she would find herself being drawn into
the battle. She would have to live it with him and support him
emotionally, maybe even financially. What hit her even harder
was realizing that if she allowed her marriage to end and
Dan fought her for Josh and Amy, she would find herself fighting a
similar battle. She could face months, if not years, of Dan's
vitriol, legal brawling and court appearances. Christ only knew
what effect it would have on the children.

“You seem miles away,” Ed said, coming in from the kitchen
with two glasses of wine.

“Sorry. I'm OK, just a bit knackered. It's only beginning to
hit me that Dan has actually gone. I've also been worrying about
what to tell the children. I've said he's away on a story, but I
can't keep on lying. I keep imagining their little faces when
they find out the truth.”

“I know, it'll be nasty, but you mustn't do it alone. Dan's
their father. He should be there too. Come on,” he said, putting
his arm round her shoulders, “I've got something that'll cheer
you up.”

Anna followed him into a tiny, windowless room. A naked bulb
mounted on the wall cast a soft red light. She recognized the acrid
smell of photographic fixer from school, where she had once dabbled
vaguely in photography.

“This used to be a walk-in larder, but I turned it into a
darkroom. Take a look in the tray.”

Anna took a sip of wine and bent over the white plastic tray.
Floating in the colorless chemical were a couple of ten-by-eight
black-and-white prints. They showed Anna, her face swathed in
panic, being led up onstage by Tor the Lover Boy.

“God,” she said, putting down her wineglass and picking up
one of the photographs with a pair of tongs, “it's Imelda Marcos and
she's just discovered Freeman Hardy Willis have gone bust. You
really are a bastard, Ed.”

“I know,” he said softly.

As she continued leaning over Ed's workbench, looking at the
prints, she felt him rub his hand slowly over her bottom. The
weather had turned very warm and she was wearing a summer
dress and no pantyhose. He pulled the straight skirt up to her hips
and began stroking the inside of her thighs. She inhaled deeply
and let go of the tongs as he made her lean even farther over the
bench. He slipped his hand inside her knickers and began stroking
her bare behind. A moment later her panties were round her knees
and he was sliding his fingers between her buttocks towards her
clitoris.

At the time Anna had no idea what made her do it. All she knew
was that in a split second her feelings towards Ed had changed. The
only person she could think of was Dan. She reached out and grabbed
Ed's wrist, forcing him to stop.

“Ed, I'm sorry. I can't do this just now,” she said, turning
round and reorganizing her clothes. “Please forgive me. Suddenly
this, us, doesn't feel right. I need to go home.”

She barely glanced at Ed's face. She knew it would be full of
shock and anguish. Instead she pushed past him, grabbed her bag
from the living-room floor and tore down the stairs into the
street.

It was only as she sat in the black cab on the way back to
Richmond that the penny dropped and she understood why she had
run out on Ed. She knew she'd started to have doubts about getting
involved with him the moment she saw all the legal correspondence
on his desk, but that was only part of the reason.

She had run away because, unlikely as it seemed, in that five
minutes in the darkroom, she had begun to recapture her feelings
for Dan. As Ed had started to caress her and touch her, she had
suddenly been reminded of the afternoon Dan had dragged her away
from Amy's birthday party to make love to her.

She remembered it vividly. The day had been baking, just like
today. In her mind she could feel the way Dan had lifted up her
skirt, bent her over the desk in the bedroom—just like Ed
had forced her over the workbench—and tugged at her pants.
She remembered Dan reaching for the baby oil and dripping it onto
her buttocks.

Anna swallowed hard, trying to force back the tears. She wished
more than anything that she was going home to Dan. She wanted
him to hold her, to make love to her. She'd always wanted Dan
to make love to her. If it hadn't been Dan she'd wanted, why had
she nagged him for so long about going into therapy? He knew as
well as she did that she'd only taken lovers out of frustration and
desperation. Now it was too late. She'd made the crucial mistake of
believing she was in love with Ed. High on romantic euphoria, and
virtually ignoring the possibility that Dan could be seriously ill,
she'd allowed him to leave. When she should have been offering him
her love and rocklike support and trying to share his burden, she
was letting him walk out of the door. Anna had never really
understood the meaning of self-hatred, but she was coming close.

The taxi continued along the Upper Richmond Road. As they
drove through Sheen, Anna stared out of the cab window. She could
see couples eating and laughing in the Café Rouge.

She grimaced and made a tight fist. Her agony was turning to
fury. There was only one person who had got her into this
mess—Rachel fucking Stern.

Anna was ready to write her article for Alison O'Farrell.

Her original plan, eight weeks ago, had been to disguise her
personal account of becoming a clitoris-centered woman by
inventing three women who committed adultery for fun and pretending
to have interviewed them.

Suddenly, Anna had changed her mind. It was fear of losing her
professional dignity which had persuaded her in the beginning to
fictionalize the article. Two months on, she'd lost her husband
and could even lose custody of her children. Her dignity was of
no consequence.

Anna was ready to go public. She wanted the whole world to feel
her agony and torment. She wanted the whole world to know that
Rachel Stern was a liar and evil trickster who was conning women
into believing they could spend their lives committing adultery
without ever paying the price.

When she got home, she managed to hold back the tears long
enough to say cheerio-see-you-in-the-morning to Denise, her
baby-sitter. Then, sobbing almost loud enough to wake the
children, she went into the kitchen and made a pot of coffee.

She put the coffee down on her desk, switched on the Anglepoise
and began to get undressed. Dan's dressing gown was lying on the
bed. She picked it up and held the soft, worn cotton to her face.
As she breathed in his smell, she realized her entire body was
aching for him.

Sitting at her desk wearing the dressing gown, Anna waited for
the computer to boot up. Moments later her fingers were darting
over the keyboard.

C H A P T E R     T W E N T Y-T W O

A
NNA PUT DOWN HER KNIFE AND fork. Her amuse-gueules were
distinctly unamusing. She'd chewed on dental X-ray plates
which possessed more humor.

Alison O'Farrell had insisted on taking Anna out to lunch to
cheer her up. She also wanted to discuss the
Clitoris-Centered
Woman
article, which Anna had modemed to her at the
Daily
Mercury
first thing that morning.

Alison had suggested trying the Bisto Tower, an expensive and
oppressively trendy restaurant in South Kensington which had won
awards for its ultramodern interior design.

Anna glanced round the crowded room and then back at the
remaining bits of chopped charcuterie on her plate. Clearly nobody
had pointed out to Mr. Bisto, or whomever, that cold, hard and
minimalist didn't work for food.

“This is an absolutely knock-out piece of writing,” Alison
said, putting down Anna's article and downing the last of her kir
royale. “I don't know what to say. This is the third time I've read
it and I still think it's outstanding, truly outstanding. I've just
got a few teensy thoughts.”

Anna always felt bilious when features editors said this. It
usually meant they wanted a complete rewrite.

“Look, Anna, I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but
although it's brilliant—and it is absolutely
brilliant—it's just a tad miserablist.”

“Of course it's bloody miserable,” Anna exploded. “The
bitch has just destroyed my marriage.   .   .   .”

“Anna, please try to calm down .   .   . I also
think it needs toning down a little. The bit about Rachel Stern
being a rank pus-filled boil on feminism's rotten underbelly really
is a bit OTT. But don't worry, I'll sort it. I think all we need
to say there is that, just like the rest of us, she gets the odd
pimple at certain times of the month. I'll get somebody to phone
her to find out about her beauty routine. Maybe we could include
a few of her skin-care tips at the end of the piece—or even
better, get someone from Clarins to advise her on concealers. We could
do some before-and-after pictures.”

Anna nearly choked on her spritzer. She'd always credited
Alison with being bright. Suddenly it was like talking to Campbell
McKee. Worse: in Campbell's case, buffoonery was an act. Alison
didn't seem to realize she was being stupid.

“Alison, we're meant to be exposing Rachel Stern, not
exfoliating her. The woman is a quack academic and a cheat. People
need to be told.”

“Yes, I understand that,” Alison said, lighting up, “but
what you've given me is so heavy. I was expecting something a bit
more racy. Originally you were going to interview three adulterous
women and I was going to have an entire page of bonk-and-tell.
I have to be honest, Anna, in this piece you sound like one of
those angst-ridden middle-class tarts on the
Guardian
women's page debating whether or not to get their kids grief
counseling now the gerbil has died.”

“So you're not going to use it then?” Anna said curtly.

“Anna .   .   . Of course I'm going to use it.
But I will have to make some changes. You'll just have to trust
me.”

Realizing that she had no option, Anna shrugged her
agreement.

Their gazpacho arrived. It was all ice cubes and virtually no
soup.

For a few minutes they ate in awkward silence. Anna was
suddenly in a serious quandary.

She hadn't banked on Alison's less-than-euphoric reaction to
her piece. Over lunch, she had planned to drop the bombshell about
Rachel Stern's cosmetic surgery. It was now occurring to her that
Alison might not be particularly interested. She could see her
ignoring the feminist hypocrite angle on the grounds that
Mercury
readers wouldn't get it.

“Come on, Anna,” she could hear her saying. “The women who
read the
Mercury
are uneducated working-class girls with
a vocabulary of about two hundred words and most of those are
connected with alcohol. They do not understand words like
“feminist' and “hypocrite.' The only thing they would be
interested in reading about would be how Rachel Stern felt about
not being able to pull when she was a thirty-two A and how her life
changed after her implants.”

Anna took a mouthful of soup and crunched one of the pinkish
ice cubes.

The thought of Alison not being interested in Rachel Stern's
cosmetic surgery was particularly galling to Anna, since she'd
spoken to Alex that morning and he had agreed to go on the record
and tell his story.

He explained that if Stern complained to the General Medical
Council, he could get struck off for breach of doctor–patient
confidentiality, but bearing in mind that he had decided to give
up medicine because the strain had clearly made him ill, and go
back to Alabama with Kimberley to start a cotton farm, he didn't
give a monkey's about the GMC, and the two-faced bitch could do
what she liked.

A
nna finally decided that she should at least have a go at
convincing Alison that Stern's plastic surgery would make a cracking
story. She waited for Alison to stub out her cigarette.

“By the way, I discovered an intriguing twist in the Rachel
Stern saga which I thought might interest
you. .   .   . It's—”

She got no further. She was interrupted by a terrible din
coming from the next table. Anna and Alison turned to see a pretty
woman in her early thirties, with a large bust, a mass of
shoulder-length coppery curls and the cutest turned-up nose,
giving the waiter hell.

“For crying out loud.   .   .   .” The woman's New
York accent rose up through a throat full of ball bearings, “I'm
only gonna say this one more time, buster.” She thumped the table.
By now the entire restaurant was watching. The woman's female
companion retreated into the huge menu. “I would like some tofu
and vegetables gently sautéed in olive oil and garlic,
hold the tamari. I would also like a side order of quinoa.”

“Quinoa, madam? I don't think—”

“Yeah, you morahn, quinoa. It's a grain. Great for cleansing
the spirit. The Mayan Indians cook with it.”

“I'll see what I can do, madam.”

“Oh, and waiter, one more thing. The olive oil, how do I know
it will be extra virgin?”

The waiter, who was tall and had a certain Jeevesian air about
him, decided he'd had enough. “Oh, that's easy, madam,” he replied.
“All our olive oil is submitted to a rigorous vaginal examination
before use.” With that he walked away.

The American woman's face turned beetroot red, clashing
exquisitely with her hair. She looked as if she was about to bust
a gut with fury. Sensing this, her companion got out of her seat,
put her arm round the woman's shoulders and did her best to calm
her down.

“Christ, what a witch,” Anna said.

Alison looked at Anna and laughed.

“You don't know who she is, do you? Come on, Anna, look at
the hair?”

Anna looked.

“Christ, it's her, isn't it?”

“Yep. And she's three days early. According to the press
release she's not meant to be here until the nineteenth. Thank God
you've written the article. I'll probably run it tomorrow.”

While Alison disappeared, like she always did, to chuck up in
the loo, Anna glanced surreptitiously towards Rachel Stern's table.
Having been presented with her food, Stern produced a pair of
chopsticks from her handbag and began picking up individual
snow peas or slices of zucchini, scrutinizing them and then putting
them on the side of the plate. Every so often, a piece of vegetable
passed muster and made it to her mouth.

After a while, Anna's eyes were drawn towards Stern's
taut-expressioned companion. Anna realized she recognized her. It was
Bryoney Keen. Anna knew Bryoney from years ago when they were
trainees together on the
Hemel Hempstead Gazette.
Bryoney
had gone on to the
Guardian,
and left to do a course in
television production shortly before Anna went freelance. She now
owned her own production company, Keen Productions, which produced
a dreary but worthy breakfast show for Channel Six called
At
the Crack with Tim and Heather.
It was as plain as the plastic
nose on her face that Stern had been invited to appear on the
show.

Anna took a huge gulp of her spritzer. In a matter of seconds,
she'd made up her mind. Apart from getting her husband back, what she
now wanted more than anything else in the world was the chance
to confront Rachel Stern face-to-face about her cosmetic
surgery—not to mention her position on adultery.

Under normal circumstances the thought of challenging a woman
as combative and aggressive as Stern, particularly on live television,
would have scared the life out of Anna. Suddenly, buoyed up by fury
and adrenaline, the thought thrilled her.

She would give Bryoney a chance to get back to her office
after lunch and then phone her.

“So,” Alison said when she got back, “what was the other
thing you wanted to tell me about   .   .   .   ?” She
nodded her head discreetly in Stern's direction.

“Oh,” Anna said, barely hesitating. “Somebody mentioned
she gets all that volume in her hair using Velcro rollers rather
than Carmens.”

“Now,
that,
” said Alison, “is really fascinating.
We haven't done a how-to-achieve-perfect-big-hair feature for weeks… .”