(1998) Denial Read Online Free PDF Page A

took a more challenging one at 20–20 Vision. Yet she had found it impossible to break with Brian. Determined to try,she had spent a miserable three months without him, but after a boozy lunch they had ended up back in bed together.
    She watched him now, sucking hungrily and edgily on his cigarette. ‘You’ve had seven of the best years of my life, Brian. I’m twenty-nine, OK? My biological clock’s ticking. I want a life, and you have to be fair to me. I want a husband. I want children. I want to spend my weekends with the man I love.’
    ‘Let’s start a family right away,’ he said.
    The waiter brought their coffee. Brian ordered a brandy. She waited until the waiter was out of earshot.
    ‘Great,’ she said, reproachfully. ‘Your wife’s seven months pregnant and now you want your mistress pregnant as well. What planet are you on, Brian?’
    He looked at her balefully. ‘Are you seeing someone else?’
    ‘No.’
    He looked relieved. ‘So – is there hope for us?’
    ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, Brian, there isn’t.’

Chapter Six
    thursday, 10 july 1997. 3.12 a.m
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    from: [email protected]
    Usenet Newsgroups
.
    Fan Clubs
.
    Posting to alt.fan.Gloria_Lamark
.
    I am deeply sad to announce the death of my mother, Gloria Lamark, on Tuesday 8 July, at her home in London
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    The funeral will take place at Mill Hill Cemetery next Wednesday, 16 July at 12.00. This will be followed by refreshments at 47 Holland Park Villas, London W14
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    All her friends and fans are welcome
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    It is recommended you arrive early to avoid disappointment
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    Details of a memorial service to accommodate those unable to fit into the church will be announced later
.
    Don’t forget to check out the Gloria Lamark Website!
    http://www.gloria_lamark. com

Chapter Seven
    ‘I have a secret,’ the old man said, then fell silent.
    There were often long gaps between his sentences, and Michael Tennent was used to this; he sat in his comfortable chair, holding his patient’s file and straightened his back a little. Katy used to tell him his posture was lousy.
    Katy.
    Her photograph was still on his desk and she was still in his mind, part of her in his every thought. He wanted her out of it, and yet at the same time, perversely, he did not. What he really wanted was to be free of the pain, to be able to move forward. But always the guilt stopped that.
    The office was a long, narrow, attic room in the elegant Palladian mansion that had once been the London home of a tea-importing tycoon, and was now the Sheen Park Hospital. It housed the consulting rooms of six psychiatrists and four psychotherapists, as well as thirty private bedrooms for in-patients. It was approached via a rhododendron-lined driveway that wound for a quarter of a mile through well-kept parkland that stretched right down to the Thames. The view was denied to Michael and his patients. His office had just one small round window, like a naval porthole, set above head height, just below the eaves.
    The office was a tip. His desk, a couple of tables and a row of filing cabinets were pushed up against the walls, and almost every inch of their surfaces was covered in files, letters, medical magazines or books waiting for his review. Even the computer monitor had a pile of stuff on top of it that had been there so long Michael didn’t even notice it any more.
    He needed therapy himself, he knew, and that was ironic. He ought to be able to handle his grief. But the fact that he still had Katy’s photograph on his desk told him otherwise. One moment they’d been driving along a road, Katy crying, himself feeling a shit, and the next moment –
    Blank.
    Amnesia. The same defence mechanism that protected some murderers. You could do the most appalling thing to another human being, and when you woke up the next day, hey, you’d forgotten all about it.
    The notes on the index card were a blur. He lowered his head a fraction, hit the bottom sector of his varifocal lenses and the