Trouble (9 page)

‘What marital difficulties?’ asked Gilda.

‘I have no idea. It was just somehow assumed I had them,’ said Annette. ‘And I thought perhaps he’s right. Perhaps Spicer doesn’t fancy me any more. Then I thought no, that’s absurd, the way Spicer’s been carrying on lately: if I’m tired it’s because of Spicer. So I fought back, Gilda. I said why are you trying to humiliate me? And do you know what he said? He said because the more I identified him with my father the better. He said he had to rework the trauma and then I’d be cured.’

‘Oh dear God,’ said Gilda.

‘And I was still puzzling over that when he began to palpate my breasts—you know how the nurse does it at the Clinic, checking for lumps so you don’t have to have the mammogram and be slammed up between those metal plates—by that time he was standing behind me. And I somehow came to, and said what are you doing: is that really necessary? He just snapped that it was, because pregnant women can get a galloping form of breast cancer, did I know that, so I had to be checked. I couldn’t work out whether he was a doctor, my father or this horrible man with black hairs coming out of his nostrils. Then those long, long arms were hugging me from behind: the way he’d done the week before, but now he was talking this junk about undoing the trauma; about how I had to love the touch of the father in adult life, as I had learned to loathe it in infancy, and this long, hard thing was pressing into my back, so I shrieked and turned round and hit his face, and grabbed my clothes and ran. I suppose that counts as an indecent assault but who’d ever believe me? He’d just deny it and say it was therapy. His wife was in the hall, arranging roses, can you believe? Dr Rhea Marks. The one Spicer so adores. I bet she’d been listening in. I pushed past her and let myself out of the front door, and she just stared after me. I had to stop to put on my shirt, can you believe it? In the street? Then I ran on down to the station and called you. I don’t think anyone saw me. Are my nipples really so horrible?’

‘They look quite ordinary to me,’ said Gilda, ‘though they have kind of spread, I suppose. Some women at the Clinic have far worse. Theirs are kind of chocolate brown, yours are coffee.’

‘That’s something,’ said Annette. ‘I suppose.’

‘You don’t think you imagined it?’ Gilda asked. ‘Women do fantasise about doctors.’

‘Of course I didn’t imagine it,’ said Annette. ‘Would I imagine phrases like the homeopathy of humiliation? The rebirth of response? I’d be ashamed even to make them up.’

‘I don’t know, Annette. It does seem unlikely, but then so does being assaulted by a therapist. The human brain is very strange, especially when it’s pregnant.’

‘Whose side are you on?’

‘Yours. I was just theorising,’ said Gilda. ‘For all we know, what Dr Herman Marks was doing is a perfectly accepted form of therapy. It sounds reasonable to me. Sexual rehabilitation via the therapist. A cure for child abuse trauma. Identify the therapist with the father, relive the original experience as an adult, and bingo.’

‘It sounds disgusting to me,’ said Annette, ‘especially as I wasn’t traumatised as a child.’

‘That’s what you say. But supposing this doctor is right, and you’ve buried the memory? And now he’s cured you anyway. You’d never know. Well, if it’s orgasms, orgasms, orgasms from now on in, I suppose you will. Are you going to tell Spicer?’

‘I don’t think he’s going to want to know,’ said Annette.

‘I can always tell Steve,’ said Gilda. ‘And Steve will go round and beat Dr Herman Marks up. He would if it happened to me.’

‘Spicer will only think I led the doctor on,’ said Annette. ‘Spicer will only blame me. Or he’ll say I was fantasising. Perhaps I was? But what was I doing at Finchley Road station trembling and my bra in my pocket if it didn’t happen?’

‘It’s a hot day,’ said Gilda. ‘Your bra might have got too tight and you just took it off.’

‘I’d never have taken off my bra just because it was hot,’ said Annette. ‘My breasts have got so big they bounced all the way down the hill. I hated that. Of course it really happened.’

‘I’ll bring you some champagne,’ said Gilda.

‘Well, just a glass. More would be bad for baby,’ said Annette.

‘What was your blood-pressure,’ asked Gilda, ‘as a matter of interest?’

‘He never got round to taking it,’ said Annette. ‘And the other reason I can’t tell Spicer is because you’re right: he’d be more anxious to protect Dr Rhea Marks than he would me. If he didn’t believe me he’d be angry because I was causing unpleasantness: if he did believe me he might decide to rescue Dr Rhea Marks from Dr Herman. She wasn’t exactly pretty: just sort of helpless, and she has a very little voice, with which she puts you in your place. And I can just see her gazing up at Spicer with her pale pop eyes, and flattering him by talking about his soul.’

‘I suppose not many people talk to wine merchants about their souls,’ said Gilda.

‘Probably not,’ said Annette. ‘I’d better get dry and go home, and face whatever happens next.’

‘Annette?’

‘Oh hi, Spicer.’

‘You were a long time answering,’ said Spicer on the phone. ‘Have you just come in?’

‘Yes,’ said Annette.

‘Where were you?’ asked Spicer. ‘Out gadding with your beloved Gilda? I had your friend Ernie on the phone. He was trying to get hold of you. You didn’t even put the answerphone on.’

‘I forgot,’ said Annette.

‘If you forget, there’s very little point in owning one, wouldn’t you think?’

‘I was out seeing my therapist,’ said Annette. ‘I got nervy.’

‘“My therapist”! I knew it would happen,’ said Spicer. ‘You have joined the ranks of the ladies-in-treatment. Now at last my Annette can hold her head up in the cafes and coffee shops! She will be equal in the beauty parlours and the hair salons. Oh to be a lady of leisure and the doors of the soul held open wide.’

‘You’re very lyrical, Spicer, considering it was your idea I went in the first place.’

‘I think you misremember it, Annette. You misremember so much.’

‘Anyway, Spicer, you go to a therapist too.’

‘It’s hardly the same,’ said Spicer.

‘I don’t understand why not,’ said Annette. ‘Unless it’s different for men.’

‘You’re very sharp and edgy today, Annette,’ said Spicer. ‘Let me put it like this: men, unlike women, seldom seek therapy for trivial reasons. Rhea Marks is a Jungian: a transcendentalism Herman Marks, her husband, is an eclectic: a behaviourist. I am seeking treatment from the first, you from the second. How did you get on with him this time?’

‘Not very well, actually,’ said Annette. ‘I don’t think I like him very much. In fact I think I’ll stop seeing him.’

‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ said Spicer. ‘Oh, the whims and fancies. First I will, then I won’t. You do find it difficult to persist in anything, Annette. Not even our baby’s welfare has done anything to steady you down.’

‘For God’s sake, Spicer—’

‘If you’re going to be unpleasant there’s very little point in ringing you.’

The phone buzzed. Spicer had cut her off. Annette switched the yellow button over to save the battery. She sat down. She could see her ankles: they were indeed puffy. She took off her shoes.

The phone rang again.

‘Spicer?’

‘No, Mrs Horrocks,’ said Wendy. ‘It’s me. Mr Horrocks said to say he’s sorry he had to go and asked me to tell you to call Mr Gromback at once. Apparently Oprah Winfrey are interested and Mr Gromback needs a yes or no from you as soon as possible.’

‘Oprah Winfrey? You mean the TV show?’

‘Yes. She’s over here doing a series on literary women worldwide.’

‘But that’s extraordinary. Why should they want me?’

‘I don’t know why, Mrs Horrocks. Mr Horrocks just asked you to call Mr Gromback. Isn’t it exciting!’

‘I suppose so. Can I speak to Spicer?’

‘He’s in a meeting. I always watch Oprah Winfrey if ever I’m ill which is hardly ever. Mr Horrocks says he doesn’t know who in God’s name she is, but I bet he does. Well, everyone does. Must go!’

‘Ernie?’

‘Thank God you called back, Annette,’ said Ernie Gromback. ‘Where have you been? Where do you housewives get to? I was worried. You’re meant to be resting.’

‘As it happens,’ said Annette, ‘I was out being indecently assaulted by a mad therapist.’

‘There’s a lot of it about,’ said Ernie Gromback. ‘Anyone can do a weekend course and set up in business. Or not even bother with the course. Marion’s thinking of setting herself up as a counsellor.’

‘She’s not!’

‘She threatens to,’ said Ernie. ‘But enough about Marion, are you okay?’

‘Just about,’ said Annette.

‘Not traumatised?’

‘No,’ said Annette. ‘I don’t think so. It was a long way this side of rape.’

‘Spicer didn’t say anything about it,’ said Ernie, suspiciously.

‘Spicer doesn’t know.’

‘Funny kind of relationship you and Spicer have,’ said Ernie Gromback.

‘It’s a very good relationship,’ said Annette, automatically. ‘We’re very close and we love each other very much.’

‘Now that’s settled,’ said Ernie, after a short pause, ‘Oprah Winfrey wants you to be on her show next week. Literary schmiterary, but she’ll shift a book or two.’

‘But, Ernie—’

‘Look, publishing’s hit hard times. This is a first novel. You turn down Oprah Winfrey, you do Gromback Partners a bad turn. And yourself. I have a feeling you need all the good turns you can get.’

‘But why would anyone be interested in a book called
Lucifette Fallen?’

‘Some researcher picked up an early review. “The archetype of the matrimonial row: God and Lucifette, sub-title Lilith in her new appearance”.’

‘Why haven’t I seen this review?’ asked Annette.

‘Because it came out in some nutty New Age journal,’ said Ernie Gromback. ‘Winfrey must have got hold of a proof copy. Probably by way of Marion. Marion’s into the New Age: she goes to a self-discovery group: so do all sorts of TV people. Drives me nuts. I’m the only rational man left in the universe; everyone else has gone Carl Gustav. Personally, I’d rather put my faith in a rabbi, but even they are gazing into crystals these days and telling their fortunes by the stars.’

‘Lucifette Fallen
is nothing to do with the stars,’ said Annette. ‘It’s all cosmos, darling,’ said Ernie. ‘All cosmos. At any rate I’m glad they think it is. There’s money in the New Age.’

‘Can you be more precise about the magazine?’ asked Annette.

‘I’ll put it in the post to you,’ said Ernie Gromback.
Jungian Eclectics, Astrologian Psychonuts,
I can’t remember. So I’ll ask the Oprah Winfrey people to get back to you as soon as possible. That’s decided?’

‘But Ernie,’ said Annette. ‘I don’t think Spicer would like me going on a chat show. We never look at things like that on TV.’

‘Does Spicer want you to earn any money out of this book or not?’

‘Well frankly, Ernie,’ said Annette, ‘possibly Spicer doesn’t. And possibly I don’t, because I can see trouble ahead, and family is more important to me than anything else, and I love Spicer, as you know.’

‘Perhaps it’s because you’re pregnant,’ said Ernie Gromback, ‘that you’re slightly out of your mind.’

‘I am so not,’ said Annette. ‘I’ve waited so long to have this baby, and I mean it to be born into a happy, settled family. Now you know all that, Ernie.’

‘I suppose this baby of yours is Spicer’s? It isn’t mine?’

‘Ernie!’ protested Annette.

‘Well, Annette?’ asked Ernie Gromback. ‘It’s a reasonable question.’

‘Babies have a gestation period of nine months,’ said Annette. ‘The last and indeed the only time you and I had any association of a carnal nature was two years and one month ago.’

‘You make it sound rather bleak,’ said Ernie, ‘but at least you’ve been counting. So have I, if you want to know. And I wish Spicer would be better to you, but what can I say? Do this one small thing for me, Annette, since you won’t do anything else—appear on the Oprah Winfrey Show, in the full flower of lovely motherhood, tribute to Gromback’s knack for picking talent. Literary talent, that is.’

‘But what angle are they going to take?’ enquired Annette. ‘I’ll have no control over any of it. Supposing my mother sees the programme, and thinks
Lucifette Fallen
is all about her and my Dad. Which it is. Oh God, Ernie, couldn’t I just unwrite this novel? And it has such an embarrassing title.’

‘The title works, Annette,’ said Ernie Gromback. ‘I rather doubted it would but since
Astrojunk
has picked it up you were spot on in your judgement. So you’re going to say yes to Oprah Winfrey?’

‘I’ll think about it, Ernie,’ said Annette. ‘I’m going to look dreadfully pregnant and I’ve had such a terrible day.’

‘Husbands are for telling about terrible days,’ said Ernie Gromback. ‘Keep it for Spicer, since that’s the way you want it. When exactly are you having this baby?’

‘On Christmas Day,’ said Annette.

‘Ah, a little goat,’ said Ernie.

‘What?’

‘A little Capricorn,’ he said. ‘Marion has me well-trained. I’m on the cusp between Scorpio and Sagittarius, did you know that? Wildly attractive but a sting in the tail! Marion’s a Gemini. We were born for each other; but Scorpios simply have to scuttle from out of their rocks from time to time to see what they’re missing. Marion knew that when she took me in. Perhaps in the spring, when your waist has returned, and you’re a world-famous author, I could scuttle past your door and you would look out from your Virgoan isolation—’

‘Ernie, I have to go,’ said Annette.

‘But never forget the sting in the tail,’ said Ernie Gromback. ‘Oprah Winfrey?’

‘Oprah Winfrey, Ernie,’ said Annette sadly. ‘I can see I have no option.’

‘Not really, no,’ said Mr Gromback of Gromback, Little & Peach: Gromback since 1982, Little since 1921, and Peach since 1810, and doing nicely, even in this year of recession.

‘Annette,’ said Spicer, ‘I’m trying to read.’

‘But you haven’t had your supper, Spicer,’ said Annette. ‘Straight in the door, hardly a word to anyone, and into your study. Aren’t you hungry?’ The evening sun shone in the window and made all things gold.

‘I had some fruit,’ said Spicer. ‘That’s all I need.’