Twisted Agendas Read online

  “Not quite getting what you’re asking me, Sonia,” Piper said.

  The doctor cocked her head. “You have moved forward. Todd is living here, now?”

  “No, he just spends more time here, is all.”

  Sonia winked at Danny.

  “Did I hear somebody talking ’bout us?” Todd handed Danny a glass of wine.

  “I was just telling people we’re beginning to write our dissertations soon.” Piper started toward the table. “Let’s eat, folks.”

  Because he was from San Francisco and wanted the guests to sample that city’s fare, Todd had baked sourdough bread, which Danny thought judging by its name alone would taste vile. It was one of the most delicious breads he’d ever tasted. Sonia was clearly of the same opinion, devouring three slices slathered in butter before the main course, fresh scallops that still tasted of the sea, and prawns in a pink vodka sauce over angel hair pasta. After dinner, Piper suggested they go to the living room. She put on a CD of baroque music while Todd fetched dessert.

  “Your new house is pleasing to you?” Sonia said.

  The dessert looked like wedges of a spongy apple cake they used to serve at Danny’s old high school.

  “I love living there,” Danny said, as he took a plate of dessert.

  “Julia is also wery pleased,” Sonia said.

  “How do you know?” Danny asked.

  Piper assumed the lotus position in front of the television and began to eat.

  “She said this was so at the gym,” said Sonia.

  “I didn’t know she was working out,” he said.

  “It has been a long time for her.” Sonia laughed. “During the buttock tightening exercise in the aerobics, she was puffing so hard like… oh, how you say the train that makes much smoking.”

  “A steam train,” Piper said. “Jeez, what a visual.”

  “And Katie finds you handsome.” Sonia winked at him slyly.

  “You know about her girlfriend?”

  “It is not so wery serious, I think. The woman has childrens and Julia is not so fond of childrens.”

  “Wow, it’s all happening in Chumley Street,” Todd said.

  Sonia moved to the edge of her seat. “You do not approve, Danny?”

  He looked about the room and saw everyone was watching him, Piper very intently.

  “I don’t care if Julia’s involved with a woman, but it’s not right for her to have an affair with a married woman with kids.”

  “What if Katie’s relationship with her man is not satisfying?” Sonia asked.

  “Sexual problems can be worked out, can’t they?” Danny asked.

  “Bad sex is not always the ground,” Sonia said. “In Bonn, for example, I have counseled many womens who have all kinds of relationship problems with their mens. Sometimes the mens are too controlling. Sometimes it is the money. And yes, sometimes it is the sex.”

  “And I always thought it’s only bad sex that destroys relationships,” said Todd.

  As Danny shifted in his seat, he saw Piper look at Todd with a peculiar expression on her face.

  “Katie’s responsibilities are to her children and Julia should tell her that,” said Danny.

  “I agree,” said Pat.

  “Women with women is dead disgustin’,” said his girlfriend.

  “Hey, anyone up for some more of Todd’s awesome cobbler?” Piper asked. She sat beside Todd on the couch and began to run her fingers through his hair.

  A man wearing a navy baseball cap stood on the bottom step leading up to Piper’s front door when Danny left an hour later. The stranger turned around and started hurriedly down the street. There was something familiar about him but Danny couldn’t remember where he’d seen the man before.

  Danny started walking slowly. The man was now thirty feet away. He was tall, about six foot, with a neck as muscular as a rugby player’s. A car engine started up ahead. The passenger door was flung open. The stranger ran across the street, climbed inside and the car swiftly pulled away from the kerb. Danny watched it speed down the street and turn the corner toward central London.

  Only after he’d climbed into bed did it occur to him where he’d seen the stranger. An icy chill froze Danny to the bed and held him prisoner. He was the tourist, the man in the handsome denim shirt with the lion motif he’d seen that day at Saint Giles church and later again across the road near the house where Benjamin Franklin had lived. Was someone watching them?

  Puppy non grata

  It was a mewl, the same sound he’d heard five minutes earlier. It was the same mewl he’d heard on the first day of class. Danny looked around the room. No-one looked guilty. Nothing seemed out of place. Most of the students were still focused on Hilary, the rest staring at their textbooks. Finty was searching for something in her bag at the far side of her desk.

  “Your sentence and pronunciation is good but ‘table’ is a masculine noun in this case,” Herr Fehler said. “It’s der Tisch not das Tisch.”

  “It’s all so terribly complicated,” Hilary said. She pushed a wayward lock of lilac-coloured hair behind her ear. “It’s an object. How can a dining table be masculine or feminine?”

  “You must not think this way,” said Herr Fehler, toying with his Prussian officer moustache.

  Another mewl occurred, more plaintive this time.

  “Who is making this hound noise, please?” Herr Fehler asked.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Danny saw sudden movement. Finty gasped. A fluffy white ball of fur scampered out from the left side of her desk.

  “Rexie!” Finty lunged but missed.

  The puppy raced into the middle of the room. It stopped abruptly, squatted and began to piddle. A chorus of coos swept around the classroom.

  “Rexie, come here at once.”

  Finty moved slowly toward him but, like a precocious child, the puppy did not intend to surrender the limelight. He scampered, yapping underneath an empty desk. She scuttled over. Before she could reach him, he bolted to the next desk where he lay down behind the woman’s crossed feet and peered out at her with big dark eyes.

  “I’m so sorry, Herr Fehler.” Finty wiped her forehead with the back of her hand as she squatted. “Come here.” Her face began to flush.

  Danny rose and went over to where he could see the puppy’s black eyes peeking out at him. He assumed a position between the woman’s desk and the adjacent one, knelt and attempted to coax him out by pretending he had a treat concealed in his outstretched fist. The woman, a dour executive at a private bank, tried to assist by gripping the sides of the desktop and raising her legs. Enjoying the game of hide and seek, the puppy broke for the next desk occupied by one of the Chinese Embassy employees.

  Danny lunged and scooped him up, encasing his hands around the puppy’s tight tummy. His coat smelt of shampoo and was silky to the touch, but the skin underneath was surprisingly elastic, as if already fully formed and just waiting for the puppy’s body to catch up. Danny planted a kiss on his head before handing him over to Finty. Taking a tissue, he then cleaned up the puddle of urine.

  “Class, we might as well learn the German for dog is Hund,” said Herr Fehler. “Puppy is Huendchen. Now Hund is masculine which means the definite article is… ”

  “Der,” the class called out.

  “Exactly so.”

  Hilary sighed loudly.

  Herr Fehler turned to Finty. “Your dog is very nice but he is also not allowed to come to class again.”

  “Shall I leave?”

  “That would be fine.”

  She placed the pup carefully into her bag and left.

  “Finty, wait for me,” Danny called down the hallway.

  She stopped and glanced over her shoulder. “Please go back. I don’t want you to miss anything.”

  “It’s nearly over and besides… ” Danny nodded toward the tiny head peeking out at him from a corner of the bag. “We’ve learned a new word we’re not supposed to know yet so I’m way ahead of the game.”


  She laughed.

  Danny scratched the puppy’s head.

  “I can see you really like dogs,” she said.

  “Mine died when I was seventeen.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I was so upset Mum let me take the day off school. I even put my school tie around his neck before I buried him.”

  “That’s sweet.”

  “I loved him.”

  They walked toward the stairs. “I had someone looking after him but she found a permanent job just as the course started. I don’t like to leave him alone. He’s only four months old.”

  When they got outside, Danny checked up and down both sides of the street to see if he was being followed again. He scanned the entrances to two side streets and a line of people standing at a bus stop. His eyes returned to an athletically built man standing beside a mailbox who seemed to be looking over. The man took a bundle of letters out of a satchel, dropped them into the box and walked away.

  “Do you want to go for coffee today?” he asked.

  “Somewhere nearby.”

  “And Hund friendly.”

  “Is something the matter?” she asked, as they started along the street.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “You keep looking over your shoulder.”

  “Habit. Sorry.”

  They found a coffee shop two streets south of the Institut. As it had rained while they were in class, it was hot inside and a sour odour of damp woolen clothing hung in the air. Over coffee at an unsteady table commanding a full view of the street, Danny talked about his family. He decided not to mention he’d had a fiancée. Finty explained she’d taken German for a year as a schoolgirl, that she’d paid for the course at the Institut two years ago when her work had been steady and she was flush with cash, but had had to drop out after the second week. Although she didn’t say why.

  Taking out an unfiltered cigarette and lighter from her jeans, she patted the puppy’s head to calm him because he was growing restless. A silence arose. Danny grew uncomfortable when it began to stretch. He hated these awkward moments in the company of others and always felt tongue-tied. He tried to think of something interesting to say.

  “What sort of work did you do at the prison?”

  “I was still a psychology student and had to do field work as part of my course.”

  “So you counseled this Irish guy called Connolly?”

  The waitress arrived with Danny’s ham sandwich. Finty stopped talking until she left.

  “We became friends eventually,” she said. “I wasn’t supposed to. It’s considered unprofessional. But I liked Seamus. He had backbone. Took no shit from the prison officers.” Her lips were full and he liked that she didn’t wear lipstick. She opened them to permit the smoke to curl lazily from her mouth. “Poor guy was in for murder.”

  She’d said the word ‘murder’ so casually. He’d never known anyone who’d killed another human being. Danny looked instantly about the café. No-one had heard.

  “He killed a cop.”

  The crash of breaking crockery rushed from the kitchen. The café went quiet. People turned to look at the swing door leading to the kitchen.

  “Whatever she broke’ll be deducted from her wages.”

  “Is that what happens?”

  She nodded at the window. “You’re doing it again.”

  “What?”

  “You’ve checked outside at least six times and you look at the door every time somebody comes in.”

  “I wasn’t aware.”

  She took a long pull of her cigarette. “Seamus got me in a lot of trouble with the authorities.” The puppy began to whine. “Quiet, Rexie.” She looked about the café. “He asked me to do things for him and I wasn’t experienced enough to realise I was being used.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “I smuggled in a penknife for him.” She didn’t speak for a moment and looked past Danny’s face, her gaze suddenly introspective. “He was dead artistic. Some of these IRA men make fantastic Celtic crosses out of mahogany. He gave me one.” She took another drag and allowed the smoke to curl from her mouth. “I also smuggled letters out for him and got caught when the prison authorities did a spot check on all personnel. Special Branch got involved. It was a bloody nightmare.” She shivered. “In the end, they realised I hadn’t meant anything and let me go.”

  The puppy mewled again. Opening the lid of his sandwich, Danny took out the thin slice of ham and looked about the café. “He might be hungry.”

  A look of intense horror crossed her face. “Don’t! Rexie’s vegetarian.”

  Nanny’s mistake

  Traffic on the A3 had been light and she’d made excellent time. Sonia Berg’s advice to drink bitters before retiring to bed had been sound. Though she still had a hangover, its effects were negligible, reduced to a slight headache that bothered her only when she flitted her eyes too quickly. Her spirits had improved throughout the drive too, partly on account of the magnificent beauty of the Surrey countryside and partly because she’d managed to expunge the residue of guilt about leaving the house in such an untidy state for Danny. He was a good sport about it, but still it wasn’t right. Julia resolved to change her ways. She just hadn’t had time the previous night. Sonia had stayed very late. Then Katie rang just as she’d been about to start the washing up, to invite her down for the weekend because her husband Harry was going off to scout locations in the north of England for a production of Wuthering Heights. Before Julia realised it, they’d been chatting for over an hour.

  She turned into a gravel driveway flanked on one side by a high hawthorn hedgerow and white paddock fencing on the other. Three sleek horses and Charlotte’s piebald pony stood within the shade of the weathered barn. As she rounded the driveway’s only turn, she held her breath and strained to see if Harry’s Range Rover was parked in the yard. She didn’t expect to see it but caution was always wise. With the car’s absence she could breathe normally again.

  “Aunt Julia, you’re here,” Charlotte cried, as Julia entered the kitchen.

  She was sitting at the table on top of which was a wicker picnic hamper. Her brother Rupert was seated directly across from her, the pair of them sipping homemade lemonade through fat straws the colour of peppermint. Tresses of platinum blonde hair framed Charlotte’s cherubic face. Rupert didn’t greet her, just watched without blinking as he sipped.

  Every time she first saw the children on these visits, Julia experienced an unsettling feeling, the feeling she was equally licensed and illegally on their property. She couldn’t shake it. Katie told the children to call her ‘Aunt’ despite Julia’s mild protestations. Rupert never did. At eight, he was as sharp as Julia had been at his age, undoubtedly figuring out there was no blood relationship and therefore no reason to indulge his mother’s ridiculous fantasy.

  “Where’s your Mummy?” Julia said, as she set her overnight case by the door leading to the hallway.

  “Upstairs,” said Rupert. He sucked the last of his lemonade.

  “She’s searching for our pretty red and white tablecloth,” Charlotte added.

  Julia nodded at Mrs. Ratcliffe, a local woman who came in daily to do light housework and mind the children. “I’m Julia, a friend of the family.”

  “Pleased, I’m sure,” she said, though her face didn’t reflect it. She turned back to the sink and began to scrub the cooking pot with increased vigour.

  Katie came into the kitchen carrying a folded tablecloth. “What great timing. I was about to take the children to the river.”

  Wearing tight, cut-off denim shorts and a royal-blue top, her nipples jutting beneath the thin cotton, Julia had an urge to kiss her wide sensuous mouth. Every time she saw Katie, it constantly astonished her that such a petite, fragile-boned woman could be so passionate and demanding in bed. Of course, it bothered Julia that Katie might be just as demanding, just as energetic, with her husband, but she tried not to think about that.

  “Sally, woul
d you take my friend’s things up to her room, please?” Katie said.

  While the woman had been in the family’s employ for years, Katie told Julia she knew nothing of her affairs with women because she was very discreet in her presence.

  “Certainly, Mrs. Bennett.” She began to dry her hands on her apron.

  The most direct route to the river skirted the old barn. When they reached it, Charlotte’s insisted on petting her pony. Julia and Katie set the basket down. While they waited, Katie’s mobile rang.

  “Annabel, marvelous to hear from you,” she said, and then walked away toward the barn’s main entrance door.

  Her voice lowered. Charlotte called Julia to come and feed the pony with clumps of grass. She reluctantly obliged, immediately disliking the waxy feel of its facial hair on her fingers. Its teeth were enormous. She whisked away her fingers every time the pony’s muzzle jerked upward. She strained to overhear Katie’s conversation but only heard fragments because of Charlotte’s prattling.

  The call ended and Katie rejoined Julia. “Charlotte, that’s enough. Come along, darling.”

  Julia and Katie picked up the picnic hamper and began to walk towards a stile that led to a gently sloping meadow with a copse of oaks and thick undergrowth in its middle.

  Unable to contain her curiosity while at the same time hating the urgent need to know, Julia asked who’d called and was told it was an old school friend.

  “We were really close.”

  Julia pondered. “Close, as in… ”

  “Exactly.”

  They climbed over the stile and walked into the meadow. The grass was interspersed with fragrant clover and daisies and felt springy underfoot. The sensation evoked a hazy memory of being in a similar field with her father when he took Julia bird watching in the countryside as a girl. A sudden rush of elation at being among nature engulfed Julia and she pushed the petty jealousy out of her mind.

  As they drew near a copse of oaks, four Jersey cows sheltering from the hot afternoon sun walked out in single file from a clearing. Moments later, a massive rust-coloured bull emerged. Its hair was beautifully curly. The beast stopped. His ears flicked back and forth. He stopped chewing and watched the party advance with what Julia was certain was an irritated air. She stopped abruptly, causing Katie to lose her grip on the handle of the picnic hamper. It fell lopsided and a plate of sandwiches wrapped in cellophane and an assortment of oranges, pears and apples tumbled onto the grass. The bull jerked his monstrous head up and down. The thick brass nose ring glinted in the sunlight. He snorted, the reverberation filling the distance between Julia and him, and then he started to advance.