13
Bonnie and Clyde
She looked good and she knew it. Someone once said she had the figure of Bridget Bardot and the face of Sophia Loren, compliments she lapped up like a cat at a bowl of cream. But she couldn’t argue with them, even if she’d wanted to, because the mirror didn’t lie. She was beautiful and if anyone knew how to spend the currency that is beauty then it was Katherine. Kat for short.
She applied her eye-shadow her lipstick, pouted at her reflection, ran a combing finger through her dark, glossy hair. She hankered after slightly bigger breasts, if she had to be honest, but that was perhaps being a bit too picky. She smiled at her reflection. As Mary Poppins said, practically perfect in every way…
Katherine had always been aware of her looks, ever since she was a kid at school, and she found she had an early talent for playing the opposite sex like they were toys laid on for her amusement. Precocious, a teacher had once said. Forward, said another, older than her years. Better watch her with the boys, one had joked, perhaps a disguised warning to her parents.
She soon learned she could hide behind her prettiness – how could such a sweet thing do something like pour a full pot of paint over a fellow pupil’s head? She hasn’t got a cruel bone in her body. Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. Saint Katherine.
She smoothed down her dress, hands sliding into the hollows of her waist, out across the mound of her ample hips, down to her thighs.
Practically perfect.
But in spite of her aching beauty, the army of men willing to fall at her feet at her merest command, love had been hard to find. It worried her for a time that love was a game in which she got enjoyment only in breaking other people’s hearts, treating them as something disposable like plastic bags, which once they were emptied of their contents, could be trashed like so much rubbish. And she’d worked her way through a lot of plastic bags, wondering why, at the end of the day, she felt desperately lonely and unfulfilled.
Lonely till she met him. Till she met Felix – the most beautiful man she had ever seen. For the first time she knew what it felt like to experience love, not to use and abuse it. They were soul mates, if such a thing exists; shared so many things it could only have been Fate that threw her into his path. Because, for one so beautiful, he too had that same cruel streak running through him. Not with her. Never with her. But when she saw how he used his looks, his unresistingly believable charm as emotional weapons to get what he wanted she knew she had found her Mr Right. Together they laughed at the pitiable vulnerability of others, at their weaknesses, at how gloriously easy it was to eat and spit them out. He jokingly called her the Bonnie to his Clyde. United in their robbing others of their love and the murdering of their delicate emotions.
Felix would be home soon, she thought excitedly. He could still do that to her, get her excited, even after four years together; get her all worked up, like a schoolgirl. She couldn’t wait to see him again.
Yes, she thought, cocking her head at the mirror; together they were practically perfect in every way
It was an anxious time for Laura. She found she could not sit still, kept gliding to the window to stare out even though she knew he wouldn’t be back from the hospital yet with the results of his tests. Casper had phoned once that morning to say his appointment had been delayed by an hour or so but he’d come though to Devereux Towers just as soon as he could. He told her again not to worry, everything would be alright. But that was like telling the rain to stop falling; worrying came naturally to Laura Leach.
She attempted to fix herself something to eat but couldn’t manage the sandwich she made. It sat on the plate with scarce a bite taken from it. Finally she heard the sound of his car crunching to a halt on the gravel out front, and with her nerves ripped almost to shreds Laura all but ran to the door, swinging it open as Casper turned from locking the car door. He looked at her, his face pale, serious, troubled.
‘Casper, what’s wrong? What did the consultant have to say?’ she said, going to his side and linking her arm through his. She led him inside. He felt disconcertingly heavy against her, like he needed to be physically supported.
‘How about a cup of tea, eh, Laura?’ he said, managing a thin smile and squeezing her hand.
‘Never mind the tea,’ she said. ‘Tell me what the results were. They’re not bad, are they? Tell me the news isn’t bad.’
Casper shook his head gravely. ‘I wish I could, Laura. Truth is the news isn’t good. It’s not good at all. In fact it’s…’ He faded into ominous silence and gripped her shoulders. ‘Laura, it’s terminal lung cancer. They’ve given me six months to live.’
She felt faint, her head going all giddy, and she thought she might collapse in a heap. The words caused her mind to spin with their implication and she felt suddenly very sick. ‘No, Casper, they’ve made a terrible mistake. You’re so young, so fit and well, so healthy. Look at you! They must have mixed your results up with those of someone else. It happens all the time.’
‘No, Laura, I’m afraid it’s true. They’ve made no mix-up. We went through all that at the hospital.’
She uttered a tiny shriek and put her hand to her mouth. ‘That can’t be so, Casper. I’ve only just found you. I won’t have you taken away from me. They can do all sorts of things these days, can’t they? You said so yourself. There must be some kind of operation, surely?’
‘It’s pretty bad, Laura.’ His voice was on the verge of breaking up, crisping into nothing like a dried-up leaf.
‘I won’t accept that, Casper! There are all manner of treatments. I’ve read about them.’
‘Well,’ he said quietly, ‘there is one, but it’s out of the question.’
‘Why? Tell me about it.’
‘It’s no use, Laura, it’s far too expensive.’
‘That doesn’t matter. Tell me about it.’
‘The doctor said there was this clinic in Philadelphia. They’re specialists in lung cancer and have perfected a procedure that they say has ninety-five-percent success rates. It’s something we can’t do in this country yet. It’s not even available privately, even if I had the money, which I don’t.’
‘That’s it, then. We’ll get you to Philadelphia,’ she insisted.
He grasped her tighter. ‘No, Laura, we won’t. Don’t get your hopes up. It’s too far out of my reach.’
‘How much, Casper? Tell me what it costs.’
‘The doctor said the full treatment was around twenty-thousand pounds. So you see, you’ll have to put that out of your mind. We must resign ourselves to spending what time is left to us in the best way we can.’
‘I have money, Casper. I can afford it.’
‘I couldn’t possibly take it, Laura. ‘It’s what your father left you.’
‘Then all the better I use it for something good. What use is money to me if you are gone?’ She hugged him close, burying her head into his chest and he stroked her hair tenderly. ‘Please say you’ll let me pay, Casper. I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you. We’ve been so happy together. We can still be happy.’
He kissed the top of her head. ‘If it pleases you,’ he said, ‘I will consider it.’
‘We’ll contact the clinic; send them a cheque straight away, whatever it takes.’
‘It would be better if we arranged something else. Perhaps a bankers’ draft, or maybe even cash so I could process things faster. Are you sure about this? It’s a huge amount of money. It will clear you out. We’ll have nothing but each other at the end of it.’
‘That’s all that matters,’ she said. ‘I love you. We’ll go to the bank today.’
‘No, there really is no need to rush.’
‘I’d feel a lot better if we could get things moving as fast as possible. We can’t afford any delays. You have to get over there to the clinic.’
He hugged her close. ‘Laura, you are a sweet angel, do you know that?’ He stroked her shoulder.
She sighed in frustration. ‘I forgot; I need to get my money together. It exists all over the place in various accounts and shares and what not. I couldn’t do it today even if I wanted to. It will take at least a week or so to sort out. That won’t delay things too much, will it?’
‘It will give me time to make arrangements with the clinic in Philadelphia. A week is fine.’
She started to cry, her body convulsing with her grief. ‘I love you, Casper,’ she said.
‘And I love you too, Laura Leach,’ he returned, staring into the distance.
It was late afternoon when she heard the car pulling up outside the house. Katherine peeled back the curtains. He was just getting out. He saw her, smiled and waved at her.
She dashed down the stairs excitedly just as the door opened and he came into the hallway. She flung herself at him, kissing him full and deep on the lips. She crushed her hips against him and he grasped her bottom and held her there.
‘God, I’ve missed you, Felix!’ she said.
‘So it seems!’ he returned. ‘You sure smell good.’ He kicked the door closed with the heel of his foot and he pushed her back so that she was pinned to the wall. His hand went up inside her blouse and cupped her breast. ‘Let’s go upstairs,’ he said.
‘Let’s do it here,’ she said breathlessly.
‘They might see us though the glass in the door,’ he warned.
‘So what? They shouldn’t be looking.’
He kissed her arched neck, his lips travelling down to her collar bone, down to the plump rise of her breast. ‘So, Kat, how has your day been?’ he asked.
‘So-so. How was yours?’
‘Oh it’s been a belter of a day!’ he said. ‘I’ve made twenty-thousand pounds.’
She pushed his head back so she could look into his gorgeous eyes. ‘Never! She fell for it?’
‘Hook, line and sinker, the sad bitch. She’s desperate to save her poor, doomed Casper.’
‘Felix, you certainly know how to work women, I’ll give you that.’
He grinned. ‘Yeah, Kat, I know just what they like.’ His hand ran up her stocking, then he inched it slowly up her skirt.
She moaned softly and closed her eyes. ‘I should say…’
* * * *