Obsession (13 page)

‘Your heart isn’t hard enough to carry a grudge like that,’ Paula told her when Corrie finally came clean as to how things really were at TW.

‘Don’t bet on it,’ Corrie snapped.

‘I will. I know you, remember. You’re not capable of hatred, or revenge, much as you might like to think you are.’

‘I’ve changed.’

‘Not that much. OK, this might be toughening you up a bit, and who knows, maybe you need it. But being tough doesn’t have to mean being hardbitten and vicious. It means standing up for yourself and showing them that you’re bigger, better than them. The last thing you want is to be like them, to stoop to their level.’

‘But you don’t know what it’s like,’ Corrie protested.

‘I know I don’t. But listen, Corrie, if I were you I’d find a way to disarm them. Do something to
make
them like you. After all you’re not a horrible person, and in the end that’ll be a much more satisfying, not to mention healthy, victory than festering away there on how you’re going to chew them up and spit out their bones – and you can do it if you put your mind to it.’

‘Since when did you get to be so wise?’

‘Since I was old enough to understand the advice Edwina always gave us. You reap what you feel. And if you feel bitter and lonely, hard done by and sorry for yourself, then that’s the way you’ll end up, no matter how successful you become. Don’t let them do that to you, Corrie, they’re not worth it – and you’re worth a great deal more.’

There was a long pause before Corrie grudgingly whispered, ‘I suppose you’re right,’ and Paula instantly heard the tears in her voice. She knew it had been the mention of Edwina that had done it.

‘We all love you, Corrie,’ she said softly. ‘We’re rooting for you. You can do it, you can get there. But just bear this in mind. All you’re thinking of at the moment is material success, of “getting there.” But a fat lot of good that’s going to do you without personal success. That is the kind of success it is impossible to be happy without. So don’t be too proud to forgive, and think before you go blindly into some kind of revenge trip. Ask yourself, who are you going to end up hurting? You. That’s who. So, for your own sake, don’t do it.’

‘I wish it were as easy as that,’ Corrie sniffed.

‘I know. But just promise me that you won’t go getting yourself all screwed up over this, over them, and how you’d like to pay them back – at least not until you’ve tried another way.’

Paula waited, and finally Corrie’s voice came across the line, ‘OK, I’ll give it a go,’ she said. ‘But if doesn’t work then I’m telling you now, I’ll …’

‘Save the threats,’ Paula interrupted. ‘You don’t know what might be around the corner. And let’s face it, since things can’t get much worse …’

‘I know, they can only get better. You just better be right, that’s all I can say, because this is going right against the grain with me, putting myself out on a limb to be nice to those fuckheads.’

‘You can do it,’ Paula laughed. ‘You can do anything.’

‘Says who?’

‘Me. Who else?’

‘My mother, who seems to be living on in you,’ Corrie smiled. ‘That’s who else.’

Phillip Denby was watching his wife. From where he stood, in front of the mirror arranging his bow tie, he could see only her profile, until she tilted her face to the light. She moved her head from side to side before discarding yet another pair of priceless earrings replacing them with another. Again she raised her face to the light, and his eyes followed the curve of her long, slender neck to her delicately bronzed shoulders. Her complexion was as flawless as the diamonds clipped to her ears, her ice-blue eyes as hard and translucent.

She was sitting at her own mirror, in her dressing room. The door was open, Phillip had left it that way after being summoned inside a few minutes ago for his opinion on the dress she had chosen for their cocktail party. As usual her taste was impeccable. She was wearing an off-the-shoulder, knee length black velvet creation from an Italian designer, with matching long gloves and black suede stiletto heels with fake diamond clusters. Her silvery blonde hair had been dressed earlier in the day, semi-precious stones studding the black lace snood holding the chignon. At her throat was the peardrop diamond he had given her three weeks before on their wedding anniversary.

Catching him watching her Octavia stood up and turned
to
face him. ‘What do you think?’ she said, smoothing her hands over her hips.

‘Very nice,’ Phillip answered, assuming, correctly, that she meant the earrings.

‘Yes, aren’t they?’ she purred, turning back to the mirror and pouting her lips. His face was expressionless as he continued to watch her. She was probably as beautiful now – at forty-six – as she had been the day he married her. She should be, the surgery had cost him a fortune. Was there an area of her body that hadn’t yet been subjected to the surgeon’s knife, he wondered. Probably not. Everything that could be tucked had been. That could be lifted, replaced or rebuilt was, that needed to be removed had vanished. Her hair was highlighted regularly, she took a sunbed once a week, had her nails manicured twice a week and worked out every morning with her personal trainer in the gymnasium Phillip had had installed in the basement of their Chelsea home.

How many times during the evening ahead, he wondered idly, would he be told what a beautiful couple they made? Friends and strangers alike remarked on it, with tedious regularity. The perfect couple, was how they had been written up in
Harpers
a few months ago, and if one judged them by looks and material wealth alone, then he couldn’t deny that they did appear to have everything. Even they never discussed what was missing from their lives – he guessed that as far as Octavia was concerned nothing was. She was incapable of love, he’d discovered that only weeks after they were married, just as she was incapable of understanding the bitterness he felt on the occasions she demanded he make love to her.

She had never had an orgasm, at least not with him, and Phillip had given up trying when she’d told him she really didn’t want one – it was undignified, she’d said.

She was dabbing herself with expensive perfume as he walked into her dressing room. Standing behind her he put
his
hands on her hips and looked at their reflections in the mirror. ‘Mmm, smells good,’ he murmured.

‘Phillip, please,’ she said, wriggling away, ‘you’ll muss up my hair.’

‘Sorry,’ he mumbled, not quite sure why he had touched her anyway.

‘Shouldn’t you be going downstairs to check on things?’ she said, replacing her perfume on the dressing table and picking up a lip brush.

Swallowing the urge to sweep his fist across the dressing table and smash every bottle on it, he nodded. ‘Is there anything I can get you before I go?’ he said. ‘Anything I can do for you?’

‘No. Nothing,’ she answered, seeming hardly to have heard him.

Why, oh why, he asked himself savagely as he crossed the room, was he so servile with her? Why couldn’t he find it in himself to stand up to her, to tell her what he really thought of her and get the hell out of this farce of a marriage?

As he reached the door his nerves started churning up his stomach. For the past two hours he had been trying to pluck up the courage to tell her he was going away the following week for a few days, but as yet he’d been unable to. He frequently travelled on business, and she never minded, the trouble was, the trip he had planned for next week wasn’t business and he was very much afraid that she was going to say she wanted to come too.

He was almost out the door when suddenly the words tumbled from his mouth. ‘Oh darling, I almost forgot to tell you. I’m going to Spain for a couple of days next week.’

‘Really?’ she said, retouching her lips. ‘What’s in Spain?’

‘Golf.’ He smiled nonchalantly, but his hand had tightened on the door handle.

Her lip brush stopped in mid-air, and she turned slowly to face him. ‘Golf?’ she repeated, almost allowing a frown
to
crease her perfect brow. ‘You’re going to Spain to play golf?’

Phillip laughed awkwardly. ‘Well it’s not unheard of,’ he said. ‘Plenty of others do it, all the time.’

‘I’m sure they do,’ she said, ‘but you don’t. At least you never have before. So why suddenly now?’

It was over. There would be no trip to Spain. She was suspicious, she would never allow him to go when she didn’t believe his reason for going. He felt a quick stab of sadness – and resentment – that he would have to let Pam down, yet again. ‘A few of the chaps from the bank are going,’ he said dismally. ‘They’ve invited me along – it seemed like a good idea.’

When he looked up to his amazement he saw that she was smiling, and his hopes suddenly soared.

‘How nice that you have some leisure time available to you,’ she drawled. ‘I’m so pleased, Phillip.’

He could hardly believe his ears and for one fleeting moment was tempted to thank her, but her next words stopped him.

‘The de Whitneys have invited us to their cabin in Gstaad next week for a spot of skiing,’ she said. ‘Of course, I told them it was out of the question, with you being so busy. But now … Well, I’ll get right on the phone and tell them we’ll be there next Tuesday. Oh, darling, how simply splendid. You didn’t really want to play golf, did you? No, of course you didn’t. Such a dull game. And aren’t I clever, I’ve managed to rescue you from all those middle-class oafs who will insist …’

‘Actually,’ Phillip interrupted, ‘I didn’t need rescuing. I rather
wanted
to go.’

‘Oh don’t be silly, Phillip. You hate golf.’

‘I enjoy golf, Octavia.’

‘No, no, no. You detest it, and Gstaad will be such fun, even though skiing is a bit of a bore. But you know how hospitable the de Whitneys are. One can’t fail to have a
good
time with dear Ramona as one’s hostess. And you adore skiing, don’t you darling? You’re so adept at it.’

It was true, Phillip was a good skier, and of their countless number of friends he probably like Ramona and Ivan de Whitney the most. But right now he wanted to go to Spain.

‘I’ve already booked the flights to Barcelona,’ he protested weakly.

‘Flights?’ Octavia said, giving a little shake of her head indicating confusion.

Phillip coloured and was about to attempt an explanation when Octavia’s face lit up.

‘Oh, I see,’ she cried. ‘You were intending to take me with you? How sweet of you, darling. But really, I’m not cut out to be a golf widow, and I would so much prefer to go to Gstaad. You can always cancel the flights, can’t you? Yes, of course you can. Get that stupendously efficient little secretary of yours to see to it. Pauline, or whatever her name is.’

‘You know very well that her name is Pam,’ Phillip retorted.

‘So it is. Well get her to handle things. She can book us onto the flight to Switzerland at the same time. Oh, Phillip, you’ve quite made my day. I’ll start shopping first thing in the morning.’

She watched him, and he knew she was waiting for him to object further, but there was no point. She’d already guessed he was planning to take Pam away, the suggestion that Pam could change the flights told him that. Whether the de Whitneys’ invitation was genuine he had no idea, but it hardly mattered, they would be going to Gstaad now, come what may. He would arrange the flights himself however, asking Pam to do it would be vindictive and cruel, which was probably what Octavia had intended.

‘I’ll get onto it first thing in the morning,’ he said, and turned to leave the room.

By nature he was not a violent man, but there were times
when
the fantasy of feeling his hands tighten around that repellently exquisite neck was so vivid, so compelling it frightened him. It was only the thought of Pam that steadied him, as it did now. How often, since knowing her, had he thanked God for Pam? With her he felt like a man. Pam allowed him to love her, to cherish her, to lavish her with all the kindness he was afraid to show his wife, for Octavia regarded his tenderness and generosity as the most tiresome of all his weaknesses. What was more there were times when Pam actively encouraged him to dominate her, knowing that he needed to feel in control of a woman in order to reassert the manhood that Octavia’s indifference had all but destroyed.

He didn’t deserve such devotion, he knew it, but Pam insisted he did. She knew him in a way that Octavia never had, and never would. She knew how he longed to love someone, to feel that he could give his whole heart without fear of it being abused and ridiculed. Only with Pam had he ever really allowed himself to open up, to give of himself in a way that ordinarily would have shamed him.

He had been there for Pam when her husband died, had supported her through the worst months of her life, and most of all he had listened when she had needed to talk. She had seen, even then, during her darkest days of grief, what pleasure it had given him to be needed; to feel for once in his life that he had nothing to fear from a woman. Throughout that time she had come to understand him, to care for him, then eventually to love him – deeply and unconditionally. And now, following Corrie’s visit to the office, she wanted to help him.

Phillip sighed. It wasn’t going to be easy for him to come to terms with Edwina’s death, not when he had been carrying such a burden of guilt for so long – a guilt he had always believed that one day he could assuage by somehow making it up to her. Until Pam the only woman he had ever loved was Edwina, and Pam had tried so many times
to
persuade him to find her. But he was so bitterly ashamed of the way he had deserted her, he had been afraid to face her. He knew he couldn’t have stood it if she’d refused to forgive him, but worse was his terror that she would deny him access to their child. The child that had grown through the years in his dreams, the son – his and Edwina’s son – who, unbeknownst to Octavia, stood to inherit everything Phillip owned when Phillip died.

But now everything had changed – the son wasn’t a son at all. The shock and disappointment had been almost too much to bear. But before Corrie had come to his office, in the days following Ted Braithwaite’s telephone call, Phillip had done all he could to suppress the resentment and fear he had felt that there was now another woman in his life. Another woman to turn on him and despise him. He hadn’t succeeded: his guilt had overwhelmed him and he had used it as a weapon with which to hurt Edwina’s – his own – daughter.