It’s almost as if someone has handed Michael the script. He certainly plays the part of the demented boy to perfection. Joking apart, this was a shocking incident, even on Wynhope’s new Richter scale of disturbance. Edmund is very shaken by the whole thing, but Diana is neither surprised, nor upset. She sees it both as evidence of his capacity for evil and as something of an opportunity.
‘Do boys his age get charged for crimes like this?’ Diana wonders. ‘I mean false imprisonment. He could get sent away to some institution just for this, let alone what happened with Valerie. What on earth’s going to happen to him, Edmund?’
Mikey locked up a little girl. At the end of morning break, he volunteered to tidy up and told five-year-old Aimee to help him carry the play things into the equipment shed, and then he locked her in. It was a very long time before she was found sobbing on a bed of footballs, entangled in the nets. Neither explanation nor remorse was forthcoming from Mikey, but everyone was very understanding. He received an exclusion until the end of the summer term and the chance to start afresh in September providing Special Needs pay for extra support in school. No mention of a young offenders’ place, quite the opposite. Sharing the police theory that it might have been the boy himself who inadvertently caused the death of his mother, everyone agreed it all made perfect sense and passed the story on like Chinese whispers until it became an accepted account of events for the teachers, the local authority, and the parents at the school gates. And, of course, Mikey didn’t deny it, did he? There was no question of Mikey being prosecuted: aged nine, he was just below the age of criminal responsibility; the little girl’s parents were not pressing charges; he’d never locked anyone up before; and there was no indication that he’d do anything like it again. ‘Mikey needs help, not punishment. When things are as bad as this, it’s a home we need, not an institution.’ Those were D.I. Penn’s very words, according to Edmund, who wholeheartedly agreed and decided that’s what we’re doing, Diana, we’re giving him a home, whatever the cost.
In that home, Diana feels very much like matron.
‘Mikey and I could do with a hot blackcurrant, we’ve both got the summer sniffles.’
‘If you’re making tomato soup for Mikey, that’s just what I feel like.’
‘I’m sorry, darling, I’m exhausted. I’ll go up after supper at the same time as Mikey.’
The more they both need, the less she gives them. As often as not, supper comes out of the freezer, there are no clean shirts ironed in the dressing room, and despite the fact that July is marvellous and the borders are on fire with lupins and purple cranesbills and the orchard is a waterfall of roses, there are no fresh flowers in the morning room. The deterioration in standards is partly due to Mrs H leaving, partly due to money being tighter than it was before (although they are hardly on the breadline), but mostly due to the fact that she is so, so tired and why does any of it matter anyway? She can barely get herself up in the morning and hours pass with her slumped alone in front of daytime TV, watching the disasters watching her. There are very few highs, mostly a grey dragging decline, a feeling that they are all sliding inexorably downwards, helpless on a bank above a dark quarry pond, clutching at trees whose branches snap as they slip and whose roots are shallow in sandy soil.
No longer at school, Mikey spends even more time in the nursery with his circus animals, winding Sellotape around their bodies over and over again and spreading them out, flat on their backs, sleeping or dead. School initially proposed sending a teacher but are grateful when Diana offers to collect and deliver work herself; after all, overstretched staff have more than enough to do at the end of the summer term. The boy completes pages and pages of maths, draws careful diagrams of plant parts, fills in the blanks in punctuation exercises, and everything is returned with green ticks and smiley faces. Against all odds, he is a very intelligent boy, which is part of the problem; a stupid child would be much easier to deal with. He writes a lot as well, and she reads the stories before handing them in, just in case, but they are also returned with banal comments: ‘Great imagination, Michael. You have organised your story into a clear beginning, middle and end.’
A Story by Mikey
One day Solomon found a letter with his name on the front. The letter says that Solomon should climb a very famous mountain and when he got to the top he should tell everyone his news. Solomon had a lovely yellow flat with a cat and lots of jigsaws but he was bored because he did not have a school or a job or nothing to do all day except watch television or go to funrals so he decided it would be exciting to climb the mountain!!!
It was sunny and cold! It was very hard work because the snow was very deep and he nearly fell over a very perilous cliff. He ate all his chocolate so he did not have any food left so he kept going anyway because he wanted to go as high as he can and tell everyone the news then one night an iceman came to find him and said I will climb the mountain with you and I know everything about the mountain because I am an ice man. Michael was very happy to have a friend and he went everywhere with the iceman the iceman did not have any eyes or any mouth and was much bigger than him but he did have a dog.
In the end nobody knows if Michael got to the top of the mountain because they only found his lunchbox because everything else was made of ice but there was two sets of footprints on the top and a pool of water in his bedroom at home that never went away and then Solomon’s mother was sad and so was his dog then they went to his funral but there was nothing to burn because you cannot burn water.
That one goes in the bin, the truth is starting to leak out of him.
When August comes, the City of London sleeps, along with Westminster and anything decent on the television, the entire establishment still behaving as though it is on school holidays. Edmund certainly does. He is home most of the time at last, the summer evenings are long and light, and the two of them should have been on the lawn with friends, eating strawberries and drinking Bellinis, the glow of the low sun bringing warmth to their faces and colour to the old brick of the house, the marigolds spread at its feet like a cloth of gold. Instead she finds herself, pale and raw, cooking sausages which stink out the kitchen, and after supper it’s fishing, another exclusive activity in their men-only club. In the dusk, they saunter down the drive towards the river, an ink etching, silhouette of man and boy, through the musk mallow and yellow mead in the meadow they wander, later leaving their dead fish on the kitchen counter in the way that cats leave baby birds for their owners.
Even the dog prefers the boy to her now.
If she were to walk with the boy to the river, she would push him in.
It’s white hot outside. It hurts her eyes. She keeps the curtains closed.
If it rains, Edmund and Michael play inside. Sometimes chess in the study, more recently engrossed in a box of magic tricks Edmund brought home. Presents from town are no longer flowers and velvet-boxed surprises, but tacky gadgets from toy shops he has had no excuse to visit for forty years.
‘Mikey’s got a trick to show us,’ says Edmund. ‘He’s written a series of instructions.’
1. I am going in the drawing room. When I bang three times on the door, you lock me in from the outside.
2. Leave the key in the door on the outside.
3. I will escape!
It is the tedious, age-old trick of the coat hanger, the key and the newspaper under the door.
‘Encore, encore!’ calls Edmund from his seat in the gods on the stairs. ‘Bravo!’
‘He does it on purpose,’ says Diana.
‘It’s just a game, Di.’
‘Do you think it feels like a game to me?’
Edmund catches up with her in the garden. Ever since the earthquake she lives in fear of thunder; it’s close now, pulling on its boots. Deadheading the roses, she is aware of the steady throb of bees on the thyme and the way her head pounds continuously nowadays no matter what pills she takes. The scent of lavender, which once would have evoked memories of their holidays in Provence, now reminds her of the sachet in that drawer and all that it contains.
‘I’m sorry about Mikey’s tricks, perhaps you’ve got a point,’ Edmund is saying. Something unusual in his tone of voice causes her to pause. He’s not usually a sarcastic man. ‘Does he ever talk to you about what he’s up to? Because he does talk to you, apparently.’
Carefully, she resumes working, snip-snip-snipping away.
‘You see, Sarah phoned earlier about the special guardianship date. We had a little chat, and she wondered how his therapy was going? I said fine, as far as I know, not that I’m ever told.’
‘Yes, it’s fine,’ confirms Diana. She does not know how long she can get away with sitting in the public library every Thursday morning, Michael in the corner reading on his own while he is meant to be at a therapist she cancelled weeks ago.
‘And,’ Edmund continues, ‘she was surprised, to put it mildly, that you hadn’t told me Mikey talks to you. Long conversations, I imagine, all about the meaning of life.’
The boy is winning, the flag in the middle of the tug-of-war rope inching inexorably over the winning line towards Edmund, her feet sliding away beneath her.
Unable to differentiate between the bud and the dead, Diana is cutting blind. ‘He doesn’t talk to me, you know that. But I wanted it to be true. That social worker looks at me so critically, so patronising, I feel so ashamed and hopeless. Crapmother dot co dot uk, that’s me.’ She hopes he might love her for her apparent honesty.
‘I don’t know what to believe any longer, Diana.’
‘What you mean is that you don’t believe me, or should I say believe in me?’
‘I didn’t say that.’ The loose mortar on the garden wall flakes as he picks at it.
‘You don’t need to, it’s obvious.’ Full house: mother, sister, husband, none of them believe. ‘I’m not the only one who has been economical with the truth, am I?’ she retaliates. She’s holding one of the beautiful, undamaged roses in her hand and doesn’t know what to do with it. ‘Why were you so worried when the police came here? Don’t deny it. I could see it in your face.’ She chucks the yellow rose in the wheelbarrow, along with all the sodden petals and the thorns.
‘So it’s all about me, is it?’ Edmund is walking away. ‘Typical.’
‘Well, it’s not just all about me. If you didn’t hide away in London, if you supported me more with Michael, instead of ganging up and undermining me maybe he would bloody well talk.’ Diana screams after him, ‘You aren’t even listening to me now! I’m a nobody here now.’
Edmund has swung back and is face to face with her now. ‘What exactly do you mean? Economical with the truth? I’ve never done anything illegal. Life’s not black and white in business, Diana, you know that. It’s all lines in the sand. People overstep the mark the whole time but as long as it’s profitable and everyone wins, nobody minds. But then you get something like this earthquake and the whole thing comes down like a pack of cards.’ He grabs her arm. Her wrist hurts, and she’s frightened of him, for him. ‘But, one, I’m not unfaithful to you. Two, I’m not a liar. Three,’ he says, dropping her as if he’s been holding a leper.
‘Yes? What’s number three? You might as well say what you mean.’
‘Forget it.’
‘Oh, that’s right, run off back to Wynhope and your toys. Peter Pan in Neverland. And unfaithful, what’s that about? And a liar?’ Her voice is rising, higher and higher. ‘So it’s just me, is it? What about Michael? You think he always tells the truth on his little whiteboard? It’s easy, isn’t it, to hear no evil when you don’t listen and to speak no evil when you don’t talk. Come back!’
So he comes back. In the sunlight, his face looks like a caricature of confusion – grey round the edges, dark circles under his eyes – but he speaks very clearly and deliberately. ‘He’s a child, Diana, that’s the difference – a child. And, yes, I do believe him. He’s a very truthful boy.’ Edmund pulls his jumper over his head and rolls up his shirt sleeves as he talks. ‘I know he’s not mine, I know it’s not easy, especially for you, but you can’t say I don’t try. We go fishing, we take Monty out for hours, we go to the chapel, we play cricket.’
‘Oh yes, your boys’ own club.’
‘There you are. If I’m around, you’re jealous. If I stay away, you grumble. Heads I lose, tails you win. Listen.’ His voice changes, maybe he’s close to tears. ‘It’s silly because we’ve only had him a few months, but he’s the closest I’m ever going to get, and I never understood how that would feel.’ As he rubs his face with his hands, earth smears across his damp face. ‘And forgive me if it doesn’t fit in with your life plan, but I like to think of my parents having grandchildren, another generation, alive, here at Wynhope. Wynhope deserves it.’ His gesture encompasses the park, the coach house, the whole estate. ‘I’d like to think of leaving something good.’ Taking up the handles of the wheelbarrow, he calls Monty to follow him. ‘Something more than death and a pile of rubble.’
Death and a pile of rubble is exactly what it’s all about. In a suffocating courtroom, the inquest asks all the same questions and fails to find the answers. The four-day hearing exhausts them, the temporary nanny Diana reluctantly agreed to hire finds Michael delightful, but as soon as she leaves in the evenings he is defiant and abusive towards Diana, and they collapse into bed unable to find the words to process the day or comfort each other, night after night after night.
In summing up, the coroner’s initial comments are, as expected, regarding the effect of the pool on the foundations: the survey was inadequate and this will be pursued by a separate investigation by the local planning authorities. Equally, there is nothing new in the account of the physical details, the fact that Valerie survived the earthquake and died in the aftershock. It is the final conclusion which shakes Diana.
‘As the doors were locked by person or persons unknown and for reasons not established and as there is no clear indication as to why the key was not readily available to expedite the deceased’s escape between the first and second shocks, and bearing in mind that had the doors been unlocked the deceased may have escaped alive, the consequences of the doors being locked are both significant and enduring and therefore the jury in this matter records a narrative verdict.’
A narrative verdict. Are you sitting comfortably. In the beginning. Happy ever after.
‘Well, thank goodness that’s over,’ says Edmund, back at Wynhope. ‘It’s been hanging over us like the sword of Damocles. I’m not looking forward to the local authority snooping around, but at least they seem to think it’s the surveyor rather than me who’s at fault. And now we can get on with our lives. It might be a bit inappropriate, but I’ve opened a bottle of fizz, Di.’
‘Maybe not. But there’ll be no more questions either. Closure, I think that’s what Mikey’s therapist lady will say and I agree. Here, raise a glass. To the future. To the three of us.’
Clink. Clink. Silence. Narrative verdict. As she sips the champagne, it strikes Diana that it is a contradiction. A verdict is a final act, a definitive line and a shutting down of options, but a narrative? Where a narrative begins and ends is a different matter, and wherever this particular story began, Diana is sure it has not ended. Valerie’s death sits somewhere in the middle of a longer saga; like a box set, it has already outlived its original characters and future episodes are drafted, if not recorded. Edmund, of all people, should understand the long game.
Outside the lodge, the press love the present moment. It has it all, this story: family turmoil amongst the upper classes, a whole new take on the earthquake which ran out of steam months ago. Some of the reports move from Diana to Edmund, not only the property developer who failed to safely develop his own property but also the irony of his substantial investments in the oil company whose well is under investigation as one of the contributing causes of his own downfall. For two or three days a cluster of campaigners hang around the end of the drive with placards – hoot if you hate fracking. The horns sound a different song to Diana. She hears hoot if you hate wealth, hoot if you hate the upper classes, hoot if you hate me. Later, Edmund tells her the protestors are already behind the times, that he’s sold his fracking shares and taken the hit. Somehow it no longer appeals, pressurising the past to fuel the future.
‘In fact,’ he says, ‘apart from the Riverside Development, things are falling into place at last. What with that and the inquest being over, I thought the timing was ideal, but given the state you’re in, now I’m not sure I should go away at all.’
Every year, Edmund makes a pilgrimage to an exotic location in search of the perfect fly-fishing experience. This year it’s Mongolia. It costs a fortune, which was never a factor in the past, but to some extent the pressure’s off now the market’s recovered and, anyway, it was paid for months ago, ‘before all this’, and it would just be money down the drain if he cancelled now. Just as he is hesitating, thinking he should stay, Diana is realising how very much she would like to be left alone.
‘Just go,’ she says. ‘God knows we need a break. Not just from here and Michael, but from each other. It’s all been too much and, yes, yes, I’ll be fine with Michael and Michael will be fine with me.’
The school will have Michael back for the new term, she reassures him, she’ll arrange for the cleaners to come more often so she can have a bit more support, and she might ask Sally to come and stay for a few days, or the temporary nanny, Michael got on with her so well. Yes, good idea to get back in touch with Mrs H, but he has more than enough to do, so she’ll see to it, she lies. And when he comes back, they can start again.
He kisses her for the first time for a long time. ‘I hope so, Di,’ he says. ‘I really hope so.’
Outside in the sunshine with Michael, Edmund prepares to leave. The two of them are sitting at the garden table examining his ten-foot number 7 rod, while, inside, Diana considers the possibility that she is in fact the one with the catch: the boy is hooked, she can reel him in. There will be no Edmund to release him, no visitors to Wynhope to see him flapping breathless in the net. Fourteen days. The silence cannot go on and he knows that. In a clear, undiluted way she allows herself the terrible thought that this heaviness she feels is the weight of hate: his face, thin and pathetic like his mother’s, like his grandfather’s; his latent sexuality with his feeble penis and sordid interest in her bathroom cabinet; his mutism, elective, deliberate and punitive. He is a thief, stealing Edmund away from her, and he needs to be caught. He will speak. They will sort it out once and for all. If she puts hatred at the top of her virtual reality flow chart and discounts carrots because she has nothing to offer, what sticks can she beat him with to break the silence? There is nothing she can take away that has not already been lost, except perhaps the dog. The threat to send Mikey away and the threat to keep him are both as self-defeating for him as they are for her. Long after he has left Wynhope and grown up, if he has not spoken, he will still hold all the trumps and be prepared to play them. Michael and Valerie, partners at the table in three-handed poker. However she solves the problem, it needs to be a solution which will hold. Be permanent in some way. If he was dead, for instance. Imagine that.
Footsteps on the gravel, they’ve finished their fishing game. In the mirror, she appears quite ordinary. Unthinkable things are helpful only in that they show where the full stop comes at the end of a sentence of spiralling thoughts. Or a comma, at least.
On the front of the card which Mikey has made for Edmund there is a picture of a fish, coloured in like a rainbow.
Dear Edmund
Have a nice holiday. I hope you catch loads of fish and take some photographs on your phone to show me when you get back.
Thank you for looking after me and taking me to the chapel and teaching me fishing. You are a very kind man and I love you a lot. I want to stay with you forever at Wynhope.
Mikey xx (and Monty woof woof)
A late summer storm is gathering, the back door slams shut in the wind, and the dog scratches at it restlessly, whining to be gone with Edmund. Children are like dogs, Mrs H said once, neither of them can cope with suitcases. Patting the card in his pocket, Edmund finds time to kiss Diana goodbye. He can’t wait to get away from her and, given the state of their marriage, probably wants to stay away as well. He spends longer hugging Monty than her. He is only reluctant to get in the car because of the dog, Wynhope and the boy; all he will be looking forward to is coming back to the dog, Wynhope and the boy. She is an extra in this scene, a walk-on servant. Fuck you, she shouts silently across the lawn, fuck both of you.
Side by side, Diana and Michael wave goodbye, her hair blowing across her face and heavy splats of rain falling one by one onto the gravel. The anger in her retreats, gets smaller and smaller, until it is out of sight, and then her love curls, swells and breaks over her, tosses her and leaves her bruised and gasping. It laps at her loneliness, leaves her shivering on the shingle. Diana understands. All she wants is Edmund back, but she cannot have Edmund without the boy and it is impossible to lose the boy without also losing Edmund.
Checkmate.