The High Flyer by Susan Howatch

utterly refused, I told myself—now even sweating with fierceness—to feel any degree of guilt whatsoever.
    But in that case what was all the fierceness about and why did I feel so sick whenever I received a letter from Sophie that I could hardly wait to flush it down the Garchey?
    I decided finally that I should admit the guilt in order to surmount it. Fine. I was experiencing guilt. Not much. Just a bit. And there was no doubt that part of my mind did feel sorry for Sophie. It was no fun for a middle-aged woman to preside over the disintegration of her marriage, but on the other hand so often losers had only themselves to blame for their losses. Why hadn’t she shed thirty pounds, smartened herself up, sought therapy for the sex hang-up, made an effort to share Kim’s London life? Bearing these failures in mind I decided I could only feel moderately sorry for her—and considering she was currently bent on creating as much trouble for Kim as possible while pestering me with religious nutterguff, I considered I was being extremely magnanimous in feeling sorry for her at all.
    Meanwhile Kim and Sophie were communicating only through their lawyers who were enjoying many delicious hours of convoluted negotiations as they attempted to resolve the impasse. Their lavish bills provided lurid proof of what a fine time they were having; as Kim said drily to me once after receiving a bill from Milton, lawyers can be such swine.
    I was just thinking in despair that nothing would alter Sophie’s determination to make Kim wait the statutory five years in order to obtain a divorce without her consent, when she stunned us by changing course. Maybe she found the legal bills too outrageous to tolerate a moment longer or maybe she finally realised the long-term futility of her stand, but whatever her reason was she agreed to abandon the delaying tactics on two conditions: the first was that Kim should cede her the house at Oakshott, and the second was that they should divorce at once, using Kim’s adultery with me as the grounds for establishing the marriage’s irretrievable breakdown. No doubt this second condition featured on her agenda precisely because she had realised that Kim was far from keen to go down this route, and she still wanted to cause him as much inconvenience as possible.
    Kim was livid. I urged him to grab the divorce, ditch the house and wash his hands once and for all of this revenge-obsessed female, but his macho pride was interfering with his common sense and he hated the thought that Sophie was able to push him around. More time slipped away. More legal costs were incurred. However, this second impasse was again resolved by Sophie herself. She had left me alone ever since changing course earlier, but now she started pestering me again with phone calls and my patience finally snapped.
    “GET RID OF THAT WOMAN!” I yelled to Kim. “I don’t care how you do it, but if you don’t get rid of her right away and grab that divorce I’ll—” I was about to say: “I’ll climb every wall in this flat!” but I believe he thought I was going to say: “I’ll break off our relationship,” for he interrupted me so quickly that he stumbled over his words.
    “Okay, I’ll fix it,” he said. “I’m not going to let Sophie wreck us. I’ll call Milton first thing tomorrow morning.”
    So Sophie had her revenge and Kim lost all the money he had invested in the house at Oakshott, but at least the divorce now rocketed ahead and we were both too exhausted to care that adultery had been substituted for the two-year separation. In the December of 1989, a year after we had first met, Kim and I were free to whip through a registry office wedding before boarding a plane to Germany for the honeymoon, and I could tell myself the nightmare generated by Sophie was finally over.
    But I was mistaken.
    V
    Since I was a sun-and-sand holidaymaker Germany was hardly my first choice as a honeymoon destination, but Kim wanted to relax