Winter at Medora Downs

Chapter One

March 1987

Sarah leant against the bathroom door, gazing blindly at the white, blotched face and anguished eyes that stared back at her from the mirror opposite. She was twenty-two and her world—her whole life, in fact—had just come crashing down around her to lay shattered at her feet. She flinched as the furious tirade and continued banging and thumping suddenly escalated. Oh, God! Will he never stop? ‘I can’t believe it!’ she whispered. ‘I can’t believe it!’ Yet, according to her friend Jo, just now bandying words through the closed door with gusto, the signs were all there and had been for some time.

Safely locked in the bathroom, Sarah moved to the basin. Safe? Am I safe? she wondered as a particularly savage blow battered the front door. Stifling another sob, she told herself fiercely, ‘I will not cry! I will not cry! He is just not worth it!’ Pushing back a curtain of pale gold hair, she leant over to splash cold water on her tear-drenched face. But a small voice within her, which would not be silenced, cried incessantly. What will I do? What can I do? How will I go on?

Head bowed over the basin, Sarah pressed a cool washer to her eyes and began to relive the nightmare into which she had so suddenly and disastrously been plunged.

Embracing with joy an unexpected opportunity to go out shopping for a wedding gown, Sarah had spent most of her evening in various boutiques trying on creations that ranged from elegant simplicity to frothy confections of embroidered lace, dripping with pearls and crystals. With a train or without a train? Off the shoulder or sleeves? High or low neckline? Waist or princess line? Unable to make a decision, she went out onto the street.

And then it happened: As she passed the door of an opulent restaurant, it swung open, held by an invisible hand for departing guests. Sarah involuntarily glanced inside and, gasping with shock, stood transfixed on the pavement, all colour draining from her face, her eyes dark pools of misery. There before her sat David. Her David! And he was holding the hand of his beautiful dinner companion across the table.

In those few confused moments, Sarah received an impression of chic elegance: black hair, shining and immaculate, and a flawless complexion enhanced by skilfully applied make-up. She recognised her, too: It was Chantal, David’s personal assistant. And she was wearing an orchid! David always brought me an orchid, thought Sarah. Because he said he loved me so much.

Sarah wanted to run, but she could not seem to move. She could only stand and watch the cruel tableau before her. And as she watched, David raised his glass in a silent toast and passionately kissed the fingers he was holding; a waiter ushered out the departing guests, and the invisible hand closed the door.

Sarah chewed her lip and tried to find a reasonable explanation for what she had just witnessed. David had told her he was working on a new curriculum and that Chantal was staying back to help him. Maybe she should give him the benefit of the doubt? After all, they work together and may have snatched a quick bite. What? said a cynical inner voice. In this cordon-bleu restaurant? Dressed like that? Don’t be a fool!

A woman murmured an apology as she brushed past. Sarah moved and began to turn away. Then, rocked by a fury completely foreign to her, she made a small exclamation, swung back to the door and swept inside.

Driven by the same impetus, she achieved an airy tone: ‘David, darling … Hello, Chantal. I was passing and I saw you, so I thought I may as well join you. Do you mind?’

‘Sarah!’ He so obviously did mind that it was laughable. Both of them looked as though they were sitting on an ants’ nest. ‘I thought you were tutoring …’

Tell me something I don’t know! ‘Did you, really?’ She smiled. By now she could see that his PA was not exactly dressed for work, in a low-cut, clinging lace evening gown that left little to the imagination: From top to bottom and everything in between! Sarah thought, glancing from one to the other with icy calm. I’m doing this well. I can’t believe it is me. ‘Well? Aren’t you going to offer me a drink?’ she asked, pulling out a chair and picking up David’s wineglass. She met his eyes. ‘What are we celebrating?’

A look passed between David and his assistant; a look that was as old as time itself. I’m not that much of a fool, thought Sarah. But she listened politely while he said with his charming smile, ‘Look, sweetheart, we’re working. We just stopped for something to eat. I don’t have the time to explain now, but I will see you later.’

Once, she would have believed the oily insincerities that dropped so easily from his lips, but as she saw through him, a sudden, gale-force gust of anger smashed her frozen calm. ‘No, you won’t,’ she said, leaping up and ripping off her engagement ring. ‘You’ve made it more than clear, already.’ Without hesitation, she dropped the ring into the wine and dashed it down the décolletage of the PA. Then, hauling the bottle out of its silver ice bucket, proceeded to empty the exclusive chablis over her fiancé’s well-groomed head.

‘Sarah!’ he got out through gritted teeth, cruelly twisting her wrist to force her to drop the bottle. ‘You are making an exhibition of yourself!’

‘Oh, am I?’ she said, using her other hand to jerk the tablecloth so that all the expensive crystal and china—and the wine bottle—crashed to the floor. ‘What a shame!’ She threw the bundled-up tablecloth at the startled waiter who had arrived with all speed and an expression of ludicrous alarm. ‘A little accident, Garçon. I am so terribly sorry. Monsieur will pay for the damage.’ Then, she stalked out in a magnificent rage. Her fury sustained her all the way home where she collapsed just inside the door; her slender frame convulsed by great, racking sobs. Her flatmates, Jo and Wendy, found her on the hall floor when they came back from their session at the gym.

‘Sarah! My God! What is the matter?’ asked Jo, dropping down beside her.

‘Come on, love,’ said Wendy, tugging unavailingly. ‘Get up off the floor.’

‘Let me do that. You’re littler than she is,’ said the tall brunette, hauling Sarah to her feet and pushing her onto the couch. ‘She’s in shock. You get her a whisky.’

‘I … You know I d-don’t drink,’ mumbled Sarah, watching her diminutive red-headed friend pour a measure into a tumbler.

‘Shut up and do as you’re told,’ said Jo, taking the glass from Wendy and holding it against Sarah’s chattering teeth.

Sarah took a gulp, choked, coughed and doubled over. ‘No … more …’ she gasped, waving her hand like a drowning swimmer.

‘Sip it, you fool,’ ordered Jo, unmoved. ‘Now tell us!’

Jo and Wendy had been her friends since she was six years old. There was nothing they did not know about each other. Sarah took a deep breath, told them that her tutoring had been cancelled because her pupil was ill and gave them a brief account of what she’d seen, adding that she’d confronted David in the restaurant and given back his ring.

‘Perhaps it was innocent,’ offered Wendy when she finished. ‘They do work together.’

‘Innocent?’ scoffed Sarah. ‘Don’t give me that! She had enough make-up on for a drag queen! And you know that Zampatti number we saw last week? The one we thought was a little too much, or rather, not enough? Well, she was wearing it.’

‘Doesn’t sound like a work outfit to me,’ said Jo, frowning at the glass. ‘I mean, even if there was a school do, you wouldn’t wear that in front of your principal, would you?’

‘Not unless you wanted the sack,’ agreed Sarah. ‘Not to mention what the parents might say. I mean, I did wonder if they might have been grabbing a bite to eat, but they were in Bondi’s classiest French restaurant drinking two-hundred-dollar-a-bottle wine!’

‘Were they?’ said Jo. ‘Well, when you put it like that, it looks pretty grim. Look, I didn’t say anything, but I have seen him out to dinner with his PA. It was none of my business, and it may have been work related, but now, with the evidence stacking up … What did he say to you when you walked in?’

‘He said he could explain.’

‘Oh, yeah? Go on.’

‘And I said he couldn’t and gave him back his ring.’

‘And?’

‘He said I was making an exhibition of myself, and I walked out.’

‘Why?’

Sarah shrugged. ‘I didn’t think there was anything else to do.’

‘Not that, you nit! Why did he say you were making an exhibition of yourself?’

‘Oh, that!’ Sarah looked vaguely ashamed: pink and defiant. ‘Well, it was the way I gave back the ring.’

‘Oh, yes?’ Jo glanced at Wendy. ‘Tell us more.’

‘You didn’t!’ gasped Wendy, pummelling the chair arms with glee, when Sarah had told them just what she’d done with the ring.

‘Well, good for you!’ approved Jo, trying to keep a straight face.

‘I suppose it was a bit over the top. But something just snapped, you know.’

Her two friends looked at each other and fell about laughing. Sarah was so sweet and forgiving; she drove them mad with her saintliness. They’d even begun to think of her as a mouse. She was so meek that unconsciously, all their lives since boarding school, they had formed a protective cult around her. Both had deplored her awed obedience to David’s every decree.

‘I’d love to have seen their faces!’ Wendy got out, tears streaming down her cheeks. She shook her head. ‘Oh my God!’

‘Oh, Sarah, it is about time!’ said Jo, when she could speak. ‘Wow! I can’t believe it. Grrr! Sic him, girl!’ She gave Sarah a considering look. ‘And now: what’s the plan?’

‘I haven’t had time to think of one. I would give back the ring if I hadn’t already done it.’

‘Yeah, it’s a rock,’ sighed Wendy. ‘If it were me, giving it back would be the hardest part about the whole relationship.’

‘Well, I’ve already done it,’ said Sarah, still in her defiant mood, ‘and I didn’t think twice about it!’

‘Yes, and what a way to do it,’ laughed Jo. ‘I wonder what Chantal thought about having to fish it out of her cleavage? She might never find it,’ she added, waggling her eyebrows. A thought crossed her mind, and she turned to Sarah, suddenly serious. ‘I suppose you do know that David is going to be furious?’

‘Yes, I feel a little uneasy about that,’ she admitted. ‘You see, I’ve never made him angry before.’

‘No, because you always do as he says.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Wendy. ‘We’ll protect you.’

‘She’s right to be worried,’ said Jo. ‘The man’s a control freak. He won’t take it well.’

‘But, surely …’

‘Have you ever crossed him?’

‘No, but …’

‘Well, I have. Over the way he treats Sarah. You’d be surprised how he can turn: A real Jekyll and Hyde.’ She turned to Sarah. ‘You’re well out of it, you know, little though you may think it now.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Violence, my child. Against women. He’s too cowardly to try it with someone his own size.’

Sarah had no time to question or challenge this accusation because the words were hardly out of Jo’s mouth when there was a frenzied banging on the door. ‘Sarah, you crazy bitch! I know you’re in there! Open the door!’

‘David,’ said Jo, raising her eyebrows. She leapt to her feet and snatched up a hockey stick out of the umbrella stand. ‘And he’s dead drunk, by the sound of him. Quick, lock yourself in the bathroom. Leave this to me.’ She looked back and mouthed, ‘I hope the door will stand it.’

‘Open the door, I said!’

This was followed by a string of epithets that made Sarah gasp. It was David’s voice, but she had never heard him say such words or speak in such fury. Shaken to her foundations, she allowed Wendy to propel her to the bathroom and leant against the locked door. When Jo had told her her assessment of David, she really hadn’t believed it. But she had to now! What a way to be enlightened! She listened, in shocked disbelief, to the altercation between her friend and her ex-fiancé conducted through the locked door.

‘Go away, David. You’re drunk!’

‘I want to see Sarah. And I am staying until I do.’

‘Sarah’s not here.’ She chuckled. ‘What happened to your dinner?’

David ground his teeth at the provocation. ‘Chantal was so upset that she had to go home. She told me I should come round and see Sarah.’

‘Big of her.’

‘Well, it was, considering Sarah ruined her dress and humiliated both of us.’

‘Oh, boohoo,’ mocked Jo, her eyes alight. She caught Wendy’s disapproving glance and subsided: as a one-liner, even she had to admit that it was pretty crass. ‘Sarah doesn’t want to see you.’

‘I want an explanation!’

‘You want an explanation? Oh, that’s rich!’

‘She tipped wine all over me!’

‘We know. I can’t think of anyone who deserves it more. Now, go away!’

An even more frenzied assault on the front door brought Sarah to her senses. What am I doing skulking in here like a coward? she asked herself. Leaving Jo and Wendy to fight my battles. I’ll have to go out and help them. Perhaps he’ll calm down if he sees me?

At this rate, it was only a matter of time until the latch gave. Sarah unlocked the bathroom door and stepped out into the hall.

Wendy caught her arm to hold her back as David shouted in a blind fury: ‘I’ll break down this door if she doesn’t come out!’

‘You can try!’ Jo beat a rat-a-tat-tat with her hockey stick. ‘But I’d be a bit careful if I were you. You know what will be waiting for you, don’t you? And, let me tell you, I’ll be happy to break the shoulder rule! Along with your head! Now, buzz off, or I’ll call the cops. In fact, they might already be on their way—if you’ve disturbed the neighbours enough.’

This gave him pause.

‘You have until the count of ten,’ warned Jo. ‘One … two …’

‘Okay, okay, I’m going. But I’ll be back. I am going to come every day until I see her. She’s not going to get away with treating me like that! Don’t think it! Do you hear me, Sarah?’ he shouted. ‘You will pay for this! I’ll make you pay—if it’s the last thing I do!’