Read Online The High Flyer by Susan Howatch - Free Book Online
Authors: Susan Howatch
Tags: Fiction
Ads: Link
unimaginable.
Meanwhile Kim was saying tentatively: “Will you tell me some day what happened?”
“What happened when?”
“When your parents split up.”
“Oh, that! Well, I’ll tell you now—it’s no big deal. The bailiffs came again and my mother decided that was one visit too many, so she and I took a bus across Glasgow to stay with her sister. In the flat next door lived this old man, and the old man’s son used to come up from England twice a month to visit him—the son had gone to Newcastle to find work and he’d actually found it, he was employed. Better still, he was respectable and decent and never went near a gambling shop. The next thing I knew I was being shovelled off to primary school in Newcastle and all the bloody awful little Geordie kids were trying to use me as a football because I spoke broad Glaswegian.”
Kim silently slipped his arms around me and pulled me close to him. As I pressed my face against his chest I heard myself add in a rapid voice: “I just wish I’d been allowed to take my cat but my mother said no, she couldn’t cope. So I made my father promise to look after it but of course he didn’t and it disappeared. He never kept a single promise he ever made. End of story.” Raising my face from Kim’s chest again I managed to say: “We don’t have to talk about the past any more, do we? After all, it’s only the present and future which matter now.”
But unfortunately this statement proved to be mere wishful thinking.
Less than two months after our return from the honeymoon Sophie’s phone calls began again.
VII
I did not tell Kim the trouble had restarted. He was in the midst of a high-powered deal and working morning, noon and night. He did not need any more stress. I was working hard too but I did not find Sophie as upsetting as he did because by this time my prime emotion was neither rage nor nausea but bewilderment. Why was she still calling me even now I was married? Was the woman so obsessed that she had no idea when to stop emoting and face reality? At this point I considered the possibility of labelling her a stalker.
The first time she phoned she said: “This is Sophie Betz. Forgive me for calling again, but—”
I had no intention of forgiving her, not after her feet-dragging over the divorce. Both my sympathy and my patience had long since been exhausted.
The second time she called she did not announce her name but said in a rush: “I really do think it’s my moral duty to—”
I hung up. I was not about to listen to yet another attempt to deliver religious nutterguff.
The third time she said: “Look, I must see you!” and the fourth time she said simply: “Listen!” but I managed to slam down the receiver before she could utter another syllable. After that she rang several times but did not speak; it was as if she hoped to lure me into a conversation by arousing my curiosity. How did I know it was her? Well, who else would it have been? It was hardly likely that a second nutter had started to pester someone who had an ex-directory number.
Naturally I considered the possibilities of either changing my number or having a second line installed, but I did not see how either of these plans could be accomplished without telling Kim the whole story, and I was not yet so desperate that I felt driven to share the bad news with him. Anyway if Sophie’s PI could find out unlisted numbers, any changes I might make to my telephone line would be pointless. I did toy once more with the idea of getting an answering machine, a move I could explain merely by saying I wanted to be up to date, but I felt unwilling to risk the chance of Kim pushing the playback button and hearing loony messages from his ex-wife.
By this time we were well into 1990 and my irritation was greatly increased when my much younger half-sisters wrote a joint letter criticising me for not trekking north at Easter to check the pulses and display my husband. What impertinence! I was
Meanwhile Kim was saying tentatively: “Will you tell me some day what happened?”
“What happened when?”
“When your parents split up.”
“Oh, that! Well, I’ll tell you now—it’s no big deal. The bailiffs came again and my mother decided that was one visit too many, so she and I took a bus across Glasgow to stay with her sister. In the flat next door lived this old man, and the old man’s son used to come up from England twice a month to visit him—the son had gone to Newcastle to find work and he’d actually found it, he was employed. Better still, he was respectable and decent and never went near a gambling shop. The next thing I knew I was being shovelled off to primary school in Newcastle and all the bloody awful little Geordie kids were trying to use me as a football because I spoke broad Glaswegian.”
Kim silently slipped his arms around me and pulled me close to him. As I pressed my face against his chest I heard myself add in a rapid voice: “I just wish I’d been allowed to take my cat but my mother said no, she couldn’t cope. So I made my father promise to look after it but of course he didn’t and it disappeared. He never kept a single promise he ever made. End of story.” Raising my face from Kim’s chest again I managed to say: “We don’t have to talk about the past any more, do we? After all, it’s only the present and future which matter now.”
But unfortunately this statement proved to be mere wishful thinking.
Less than two months after our return from the honeymoon Sophie’s phone calls began again.
VII
I did not tell Kim the trouble had restarted. He was in the midst of a high-powered deal and working morning, noon and night. He did not need any more stress. I was working hard too but I did not find Sophie as upsetting as he did because by this time my prime emotion was neither rage nor nausea but bewilderment. Why was she still calling me even now I was married? Was the woman so obsessed that she had no idea when to stop emoting and face reality? At this point I considered the possibility of labelling her a stalker.
The first time she phoned she said: “This is Sophie Betz. Forgive me for calling again, but—”
I had no intention of forgiving her, not after her feet-dragging over the divorce. Both my sympathy and my patience had long since been exhausted.
The second time she called she did not announce her name but said in a rush: “I really do think it’s my moral duty to—”
I hung up. I was not about to listen to yet another attempt to deliver religious nutterguff.
The third time she said: “Look, I must see you!” and the fourth time she said simply: “Listen!” but I managed to slam down the receiver before she could utter another syllable. After that she rang several times but did not speak; it was as if she hoped to lure me into a conversation by arousing my curiosity. How did I know it was her? Well, who else would it have been? It was hardly likely that a second nutter had started to pester someone who had an ex-directory number.
Naturally I considered the possibilities of either changing my number or having a second line installed, but I did not see how either of these plans could be accomplished without telling Kim the whole story, and I was not yet so desperate that I felt driven to share the bad news with him. Anyway if Sophie’s PI could find out unlisted numbers, any changes I might make to my telephone line would be pointless. I did toy once more with the idea of getting an answering machine, a move I could explain merely by saying I wanted to be up to date, but I felt unwilling to risk the chance of Kim pushing the playback button and hearing loony messages from his ex-wife.
By this time we were well into 1990 and my irritation was greatly increased when my much younger half-sisters wrote a joint letter criticising me for not trekking north at Easter to check the pulses and display my husband. What impertinence! I was
Similar Books
