Thick and Fast

to behave more or less as she had liked because that way there were no scenes, no tears, no hard feelings. She had been prepared for her present life conscientiously throughout her childhood, blinkered from a harsher reality of sacrifice and uncertainty that had nothing to do with her, was not her lot. School had been a breeze, she had been taught so many things by some of the finest teachers, although she had retained virtually nothing. Her parents had defended her - she should not be judged on exam results alone, that would be too unfair. University had been fun, except for the studying part, though she had been spared the humiliation of not completing her course by a timely change of plans. Unfortunate, her parents had argued, and such a shame, but we have to prepare ourselves for life’s little upsets, and the situation has been extremely well assimilated by Andrea given the circumstances. Such was their daughter.

  Now her father was dead. A heart attack had carried him off, despite daily pills, by-passes and pacemakers, one Sunday afternoon when she was twenty-two. She had been at a friend's house at the time, and had only been given the news on her return, more than a little drunk and still high on half an ecstasy she had shared with Aylissa. The surgeon has died at home, she remembered thinking, as if there were something terribly ironic, even tragic, about that. 'Mother' had been distraught, rushing around and swearing as if her husband had played some nasty, unforgivable trick on her by just popping off without so much as a goodbye, leaving her to sort out the mess. Typical of him. Two years later she had remarried a jet setting hotel owner who tirelessly flew her all over the globe, which was a godsend as it gave both her and Andrea the perfect excuse to see as little of each other as possible.

  She pulled her long, dark hair back into a pony tail and studied her face for imperfections. Her reflection revealed a not unattractive woman, with a determined look, especially round the mouth, but with an air of sadness too, due to her slightly drooping eyebrows which had always made her look forlorn, someone to be pitied. Then she put on her bikini, covered herself in a kind of sarong, and went to greet Anne for breakfast as Harvey pulled in to Galbury for petrol and a coffee. He would phone her from there.

  Harvey too was used to getting what he wanted. Most of the time he simply had to desire something for it to fall into his hands like a ripe fruit, but if necessary he would go to any measure to obtain the object of his fancy. As a boy that had meant tantrums, pretence, lies. His parents had lived in fear of his temper and had done their best to appease the beast they had unwittingly created, their pet Frankenstein. The word 'no' could send him into a rage, 'not just now' would lead to hours of sulkiness, 'don't do that' always spelt tears. As he matured so did his repertoire. He learnt how to cajole, how to ingratiate himself. He became the master of subtle threat, sycophantic agreement, feigned nonchalance. Armed with such powerful tools, and an unhealthy amount of tenacity, he virtually always achieved what he proposed.

  Sydney Haute's death had genuinely shocked him. The Haute family was one of the oldest and most respected families in the area, and although Harvey had never been a close friend to Sydney, he had met him on numerous occasions, shaken his hand, admired his vintage cars. That he should have lost his life in such an absurd way had irritated Harvey, had made him feel both gloomy and short-tempered, though he could not say why. Apparently the funeral had been discreet and private. Harvey's re-insurance company had sent condolences. Matter closed. Life goes on.

  Until one dark, rainy evening in November, at the Rajah, when Harvey had been entertaining some of his office staff as part of an incentive programme, and Andrea had entered the select restaurant with two of her friends. Harvey had watched her through the leaves of palms or reflected in Indian mirrors, how she would let down her hair only to deftly roll it up again into a pony tail, or a bun, or a halfway house effect, exposing her suntanned nape, her perfect, delicate ears. He had stared and stared, but she had remained totally oblivious to his interest, and that had attracted him even more. Finally she had left, and he'd found out from the head waiter that she was none other than Andrea Haute, not only to Harvey's eyes tremendously desirable, but a wealthy widow, Sydney’s widow, heiress to one of the largest fortunes ever amassed on those shores. He decided it there and then – she would be his.

  The phone rang, so Anne slid off towards the living room.

  ‘Harvey?’

  ‘You're up.’

  ‘Hmm. Having breakfast.’

  ‘Didn't want to wake you. Did I?’

  ‘No. Where are you?’

  ‘Galbury Services. Just for some petrol and a quick coffee. Should be ok, pretty much on schedule.’

  There was a short silence. Andrea said nothing, so Harvey signed off.

  ‘I'll lunch at La Barraca if all goes as planned, then on ….. from there. Back by mid afternoon tomorrow. Phone me if you need me, o.k.?’

  ‘O.k.’

  And he hung up. He didn't like talking to Andrea on the phone, she always sounded curt, almost rude. She could do with a course in customer service, he thought, like the one he sent his staff on. He imagined her examining her nails or pulling faces as he spoke. Compare that to the tact and diplomacy he employed so as not to injure her sensibility. He had deliberately avoided asking 'how did you sleep?', because it was a Pandora’s box question best avoided. He replaced it with fact. You're up. Then the charitable lie about not wanting to wake her up, sidestepping the fact that he had been dying to hit the road, get out of that idle holiday home, do something that wasn't lolling around pools pretending to be relaxed, as if the months spent there were a well-earned break from their stressful lives in the city. But the worst of it all was how he had to avoid mentioning Haute House, his destination. After all these years she still had to be treated like a child on this issue, as if they were characters in an old melodrama where they would say 'we don't mention... that... any more'. Harvey had no time for such sentimentality, for Harvey the past was dust and dry bone. No good could come from reminiscence or regret. Plans and projects belonged to the future, action to the present. The rest was gone forever, to be forgotten as soon as possible. Still, he had phoned her, fulfilled his obligation, concluded the nicety, now he could get on with making some money.

  Andrea felt herself slipping, she recognised the symptoms. There was a kind of high-pitched buzzing sound in her ears that only she could discern, coupled with a vague dizziness, a subtle impairment of vision. It was the past moving in its sleep. She would have to tread lightly and make as little noise as possible, busy herself with trivia until it repositioned itself and fell back into heavy slumber. And Harvey was the cause, Harvey and his damned deals, Harvey and his unquenchable thirst for wealth, Harvey and his infatuation with that place that called to him like a siren. She heard her memories groan as they rolled over, so called for Anne to keep her company. If she made herself invisible they would sleep on. She had it on doctor’s orders -they should not be disturbed.

  Canadian Anne was such excellent therapy for Andrea that she could almost have been prescribed. Her mother had died of cancer when she was twelve, leaving her in the hands, literally, of her drunken father who abused her until she ran away. At seventeen she fell in love with a married man who gave her nothing more than torment and her only child, a dull-eyed boy now eleven years old. She was plump, plain, covered in freckles and moles which meant she could never sit in direct sunlight, and diabetic. Yet she sang merrily at the top of her voice like a modern day Cinderella. She never passed judgement or criticised, rarely complained, and accepted her past as if it were a cheque in her name, something personal and non-transferable. Just as a walk through the oncology department will blow away vanity and self pity, so it was that when Andrea began to sink, Anne provided the perfect lifeline. Now she needed her to talk incessantly about her neighbours, her son, food prices and TV gossip, anything to keep from waking the dead.

  La Barraca restaurant, specialising in Spanish cuisine though not closed to other tastes, had been chosen by Harvey not only because it was almost half way on th
e way to Langley, but because it was safe – Sydney had never been there with Andrea. He had soon found out that the country was like an old map, stained with hotels, concert halls, and beauty spots that had been visited by the happy couple, and which were now taboo. At first he had made the mistake of rebelling against this, of deliberately proposing venues that he knew were strictly out of bounds, hoping that by so doing he could shake her out of her absurd attitude, the way some parents try to teach their children to swim by tossing them in the deep end and leaving them to thrash it out alone. He had obtained V.I.P. seats for the ante penultimate final farewell concert of one of her favourite bands, an extravaganza with lasers and symphony orchestra, only to be told, minutes after he had sprung the surprise on her, that the lady was not for turning. That had been a critical moment in their relationship and had almost led to a rupture. He could not believe that she would have the nerve, the bloody-mindedness, to refuse him. Those tickets had cost him a fortune, it was a fucking surprise, damn you! She clammed up and disappeared into her room. He went alone, and spent the best part of the tedious affair in the lounge bar.