The long delay before Ivo’s trial made Irene feel as though she were trapped in an unending nightmare. She tried to find pleasure in the fact that The House on the Canal was doing so well that Richard was talking about a transfer to the West End, but it seemed unimportant in comparison with what might be done to Ivo – and what he had done. She made huge efforts to keep the family’s life as normal as possible, just as she sat down at her desk every morning to work fruitlessly on ideas for a new play. There were days when she felt that she could not keep going any longer, and she was almost always certain that she would never again be able to write anything worthwhile.
When she confided that to Richard, he told her with callous sympathy that her anguish would probably make her a better writer in the end but that she ought to wait to embark on another play until she had got a grip on her feelings. Her fury at his bracing attitude to her distress aroused enough of her old spark to give her a glimpse of a future in which she might be free of the nightmare, but it did not last long. There was so much guilt in her, and anger and fear, that the idea of controlling any of them seemed to be an impossible dream.
Ivo had been committed for trial in the Crown Court and granted bail. Fin, who had stood surety for him, had insisted that he leave Oxford and come to live in Herbert Crescent, but Irene had very little consolation from that. Ivo talked to her occasionally, but never about anything that mattered. When he was at home he spent most of his time up in his room, apparently working on his thesis against the day when he could return to Oxford to complete his doctorate.
Irene’s truce with Fin was holding, but he looked so ill and unhappy that there were times when she almost wished that they were back in the middle of a raging fight. They had once discussed what Ivo might be facing, but the maximum penalty for what he had done was so horrifying that neither of them wanted to torment the other by talking about it again.
Ivo knew what it was, too, but the only time Irene had ventured to raise it with him he had snapped at her, sounding not only furious but also contemptuous. The discovery of just what he was capable of doing, and how little she had understood him, had shocked her so much that she was afraid to find out what might lie behind his contempt. She had turned away from him in silence and left him alone.
He ate most of his meals out, occasionally admitting to having been with a girlfriend who had never been introduced to either of his parents, but he did sometimes appear for dinner at home. The conversation on those evenings was particularly stilted. All Irene wanted Ivo to talk about was why he had done it, how he had reconciled it with everything she had tried to bring him up to believe, and whether anything she – or Fin – could have done might have stopped him. She wanted to ask Ivo who his friends had been at school and university and whether any of them had forced, blackmailed or seduced him into setting up the drug factory. Most of the time it seemed impossible to her that her son could have done such a thing off his own bat, but there was no evidence that anyone else had ever been involved.
She told Richard that too, as she told him most things. He was easier to confide in than anyone else she knew. He had heard the whole story, knew who all the characters were, and yet was not emotionally involved in anyway. One day she told him about the horror of her discovery that Ivo was so different from the son she thought she had borne. Richard listened patiently and then said: ‘In a way, you ought to be proud of him. There aren’t all that many 23-year-olds who can set up and run such a profitable business. He’s made himself a tidy little fortune. Even if he’s convicted he’ll be out of prison again in no time and then he can turn his entrepreneurial skills to something legal. He’ll do well enough; you’ll see. I really don’t think you need be quite so tragic about it. It’s not as bad as you think.’
After that lunch Irene did not see Richard again for several weeks and she turned once more to Helena. She was her usual unfailingly kind self but could do little to help. Nothing she could say or do could take away any of the desperation Irene felt, and Helena’s own emotions were so complicated and so powerful that they got in the way of the old easy communication the two of them had once enjoyed.
Helena also found the waiting intolerable. She felt as though the whole family were living in limbo, not sure what they were facing but always afraid. Mike was steadfast in his support and they had had no more unhappy misunderstandings. He had asked her once whether she would be prepared to marry or move in with him and she had thanked him but said that she could not decide anything until after the trial. Later she had castigated herself for her selfishness, but Mike had seemed to understand and he had not raised the subject again. She was deeply grateful to him for that as well as for everything else.
Together they saw a certain amount of Miranda and a lot of Jane, who found the house in Herbert Crescent even more difficult to live in than usual. On the evening after Jane had taken the train back to Durham for the spring term, Helena and Mike went to Miranda’s house for dinner and Helena at last plucked up the courage to ask what sentence Ivo was likely to get.
‘It’s impossible to say for certain,’ Miranda said, refilling their wine glasses. ‘The maximum for supplying a Class A drug is life imprisonment, and as you know Ecstasy is a Class A drug.’
Helena felt as though she had been punched. Some of the elliptical comments Fin had made about Ivo’s future began to make more sense to her than when she had first heard them, as did his increasingly bleak expression and greying complexion.
‘I’m afraid so,’ Miranda went on, seeing that Helena could not speak. ‘It’s not mandatory, but it is possible. I thought you knew or I’d have told you months ago. I can’t think of any mitigating circumstances that Ivo’s counsel can raise except that it’s a first offence and that he is of previous good character. It all depends on the judge.’
‘Surely,’ said Mike, who was sitting opposite Helena and wishing that he could wrap his arms round her and hang on to her so that he could stop her drowning in the waves of anxiety that he knew were washing over her again, ‘no-one’s going to send a fellow judge’s child to prison for life?’
Miranda shrugged delicately. She was almost as uninvolved as Richard. Fin’s unspoken rage and fear aroused her sympathy, as did Helena’s misery, but she herself did not care very much what happened to Ivo. Her opinion, which she had expressed only to Mike in private, was that Ivo was a nasty piece of work who had conned almost everyone he had ever met and that even if he never tried making drugs again he was unlikely ever to be entirely honest in anything he did.
‘It all depends,’ she said, turning to Helena even though it was Mike who had asked the question. ‘Some of them might not; others might think that someone brought up with all Ivo’s advantages and knowledge ought to be punished more severely than some uneducated product of a hopeless inner city housing estate.’
‘I wonder if Irene knows it could be life,’ said Helena, who had not been listening.
‘Of course she does,’ answered Miranda impatiently.
‘No wonder she looks as though she’s on the rack.’ There was a note in Helena’s voice that made Mike glance quickly at Miranda, nod to her, and then say brightly that he thought it was about time for him and Helena to be getting home.
The trial eventually took place in March. After long discussions with Fin, the solicitor and his counsel, Ivo had decided to plead guilty and express profound remorse in the hope of a lighter sentence than he might get if he fought every inch of the way and put the Crown to the expense of a long trial.
On the day he was due to be sentenced his family was sitting in the public gallery, looking down at him. There were no clouds at all that morning, which Helena tried to believe was a good omen, and sunlight poured into the court from windows high up in its walls. As Ivo stood between his warders in the dock he seemed to be gilded in brightness, his dark hair outlined by light, his skin glowing, and his eyes looking soft and honest.
He had hardly ever raised them during the proceedings and then only when he had been looking at the judge, acknowledging his fault with a beautifully calculated air of regret. The judge was a youngish, dark-haired, caustic-sounding man with a strong northern accent, who had looked anything but sympathetic through most of the proceedings, but even he had occasionally responded to Ivo’s performance.
He took off his spectacles and laid them on the papers in front of him before calmly looking across the court towards the dock. Mike took hold of Helena’s hand.
‘Ivo Henry Webton, you have pleaded guilty to a charge of manufacturing and supplying a Class A drug.’
The voice was calm enough to give Helena another scintilla of hope. She turned her hand in Mike’s and held on tight.
‘This is such a serious offence that, although it is your first, only a custodial sentence is suitable.’
Irene leaned against Fin and waited. In spite of the importance of keeping his dignity in that of all places, Fin put his arm round her. Irene softened her muscles so that he could feel her gratitude.
Jane looked at them coolly for a moment and then turned back to watch the judge again.
‘Ecstasy is an extremely dangerous drug, which has led not only to illness and distress in the people who take it, but also to many deaths. Your counsel has spoken most eloquently of your regret for the pain you have caused and of the remorse you will feel for the rest of your life. He has also spoken of your previous good character, your intelligence and hard work, and your potential for leading a useful life as a law-abiding citizen.
‘Praiseworthy though your academic career has been, it cannot excuse or mitigate the seriousness of your crime. Indeed, with your background and your brains, it makes that seriousness even greater. You were fully aware that what you were doing was wrong; you went to great lengths to disguise your activities and the profits that you gained from them. You had no material, medical or psychiatric reason to do what you did. You did it from wickedness and a desire for profit. I have therefore no option but to sentence you to life imprisonment. Take him down.’
Mike’s hand gripped Helena’s wrist as her other hand shot up to cover her mouth. She was afraid that she might be sick. Hearing a gasp, she looked towards Irene and saw that she was holding Fin in her arms. His face was terrifyingly grey, his breathing laboured and both hands were clasped to his chest. Jane went to hold his head, hissing at him: ‘Breathe. Breathe. Come on.’
‘I’ll get an ambulance,’ said Mike, already on his feet. ‘Keep them as calm as you can, Helena.’
A court official in a black gown was clearing the public gallery of all the other spectators, who lagged past the group around Fin, staring avidly. When the official had got them all out of the way, she urged Irene to lay Fin down flat on the floor and proceeded very efficiently to give him heart massage. Irene got to her feet and swayed. Helena moved forwards but Jane got there first and persuaded her mother to sit down and put her head between her knees.
Helena went to sit with them, holding Irene’s left hand until two paramedics in green overalls arrived with a stretcher and a portable defibrillator. Mike had followed them, and he bent down to whisper to Helena.
‘They’re going to take him to St Michael’s. There won’t be room for everyone in the ambulance. I’ll go and get the car and meet you in the street. Will you bring the others down with you?’
Helena nodded. ‘As soon as they’ve got him to the ambulance.’
Later, she and Mike followed the ambulance to the hospital and then stayed with Irene and Jane in casualty until they were told that Fin, who had been given all the latest clot-busting drugs, had been taken up to the intensive care unit. The nurse who brought them the news added that Irene would be allowed to see Fin in a few minutes.
‘I’ll be back in a second,’ Helena said as soon as the nurse finished speaking.
Neither Irene nor Jane reacted, but Mike nodded. Helena left them, found a telephone box and rang the number of her mother’s chambers.
‘Is Mrs Webton there?’ she asked when the clerk answered.
‘Yes. May I say who’s calling?’
‘It’s her daughter, Helena.’
A moment later they were connected.
‘I’ve heard,’ said Miranda. ‘Life. I am so sorry, Helena.’
‘It’s not that. It’s Fin. Have they told you yet?’
‘Told me what?’ Miranda’s voice was sharp.
‘He’s had a heart attack. Not fatal. He’s in St Michael’s. We’re all here at the moment and Irene’s about to be allowed up to see him. I thought you might like to know.’
There was a pause and then Miranda said: ‘That was very good of you. Will you … ? I don’t want to get in Irene’s way, but I’d like to see him, too, when I can. Will you let me know as soon as it’s feasible? And if anything happens before then.’
‘Yes, I will.’
Helena went back to the others and heard Irene saying to Jane: ‘And I didn’t even look at him as they were taking him down to the cells. Jane, what is he going to think?’
‘That he’s been an unutterable fool and that you’re deeply ashamed of him, I hope,’ she said. Then, seeing Irene’s face, she added less harshly: ‘They will have told him what happened to Dad. They’re not inhuman. He’ll understand. And you can write to him, too. And you’ll be able to visit soon.’
Helena waited, but neither Jane nor Irene said anything else. They just looked at each other with all the old antagonism fighting the kinder feelings they had been beginning to allow themselves. They did not seem to know what to do next. Helena moved to join them.
‘Life sounds awful, Irene,’ she said, hoping to help, ‘but I’m sure he can appeal. Anyway somebody said it’s usually a bit less than ten years with good behaviour. And Ivo will behave better than anyone. You know he will.’
Jane looked at her in silence and shook her head.
‘It’s not as easy as that,’ Irene said stiffly, as though her face was hurting. ‘It depends on the tariff the judge has put on it – and on the Home Secretary of the day, who could be anyone, with any sort of prejudice or vote-catching need to keep drug-dealers in prison. You know …’ Her voice quivered and she shook her head as though trying to force some kind of control into her mind. Then she shrugged, recognizing that there was nothing she could do. Tears seeped out over her lashes and she lay back against the plastic chair and let her eyes close.
Even Helena, who ached to comfort her, understood that there was nothing to be said and managed to hold her tongue.
Two days later, when Fin had begun to recover some of his strength, but was still in intensive care, Helena met her mother in the foyer outside the unit. Miranda had just left his side and Helena was on her way to see him, bearing a bunch of small yellow roses.
‘You look terrible,’ said Miranda. ‘What is it?’
‘My brother has been sentenced to life imprisonment and my father’s had a heart attack. He may – probably will – have another. Isn’t that enough?’
‘No. I don’t think it is. D’you want to talk about the rest?’
‘Not very much.’
‘Is Mike around?’
‘Well, he’s in the office just now, but he’s around in every other sense. I mean, he hasn’t dumped me or anything because Ivo’s gone to prison.’
Miranda smiled. ‘I never thought he would. So tell me.’
Helena hesitated. There were things that had to be said, but she did not know how to begin or whether anything would be different if she did find a way to say them.
‘Come and sit down,’ said Miranda, for once sounding almost as maternal as Irene. ‘Tell me.’
‘It’s more asking than telling,’ said Helena reluctantly. She put the roses on one of the grey chairs and sat down on another. Miranda seated herself beside her.
‘Then ask. I’ll tell you anything I can.’
‘Did you know what Ivo was doing when you got the Land Registry certificate?’
‘No,’ said Miranda at once. ‘As I told you, I was fairly sure that he was up to something, but I had no idea it was as serious as this.’
‘You do know that it’s because of me he was found out?’
‘I rather assumed it must have been and admired your courage.’
‘It wasn’t courage,’ said Helena, looking at the far wall. ‘If it had been, I might not be feeling quite so dreadful now. It was pure funk. I’d got myself into such a state of terror that I couldn’t bear to go on without knowing for sure. I had to find out. And so I … I shopped him.’ She held tightly on to her knees.
‘Who knows that?’
‘Only Mike. And now you.’
‘And you blame me for my part in making you afraid of what Ivo might be doing.’ Miranda sounded so sad that Helena had to look at her.
‘No,’ she said at last. ‘I’ve come to see that blaming people doesn’t do anyone any good.’
‘And yet you’re blaming yourself, aren’t you? For Ivo’s sentence and for Fin’s heart attack.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Because I know you. And because I know a lot about self-blame.’
‘Do you?’
‘Oh yes. Do you think that it is possible to give birth to a child and then leave her without blaming yourself?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Helena, looking away again.
‘Helena?’
‘I can’t talk about it.’
‘I think we must,’ said Miranda. ‘If we don’t do it now, I don’t think we ever will, and if we don’t, we won’t either of us be able to …’
‘What?’ asked Helena.
‘Heal, perhaps?’
It made sense. Helena picked up the roses and started pulling the petals off one of them. Miranda gently held her hand and took the flowers away.
‘What was it I did that made you go?’ Helena was so surprised by the ease with which the question emerged after all that she was able to look at her mother again.
‘Nothing,’ said Miranda passionately, taking both her daughter’s hands. ‘Is that what you’ve wanted to say all this time?’
Helena nodded.
‘I thought it was some kind of accusation. Helena, you should … No, I should have said it. Listen to me now. You were a child and you behaved as a child. Nothing you did was the reason for my going. It could not have been. I was not a good mother of a small child; for one thing I was ignorant and clumsy. For another, I had very little support from Fin. Looking back, I can see that was because he was ignorant, too. And like a lot of other people, he assumed that mothers are automatically fitted to care for their babies. But they’re not. Some lucky individuals seem to know what to do by instinct and are able to accept their baby’s obstinacy as something natural, something that is not directed at them. The rest of us have to struggle. And it is a struggle.’
Helena shivered.
‘But it’s not the baby’s fault,’ said Miranda, ‘however bad the struggle and however much it takes from the mother.’
‘I wasn’t a baby when you went.’
‘No. But you were only three, which comes to much the same. And I didn’t go because of you. I went because I wanted to show Fin what it was like. That’s all. I never meant to go for ever. I just wanted him to have the responsibility for a few weeks so that he could see why I couldn’t cope without his help. He’d always thought his career was more important than mine; it was certainly more successful.’
‘Well, he was older,’ said Helena angrily. ‘He must have been at it for longer. No wonder it was more successful then.’
‘True.’ Miranda longed to be able to thank Helena for her instinctive partisanship, but there were other things that had to be said first. ‘But he didn’t see it quite like that. His view was that since he was more successful and more important, no need of mine could be expected to take anything from him that he wanted to give to his work. I eventually understood that he had absolutely no idea how powerful the needs were. I decided to show him. That’s all.’
‘So you left.’
‘Yes. Planning to go back as soon as I could. But by then Irene was installed.’
‘It was ages before she married him. You had to go through the whole business of the divorce. Couldn’t you have told him before that happened? Explained to him before it got nearly so far?’
‘I had what in those days was called a nervous breakdown. It was some time before I was back on an even keel and could understand what had been happening. By then the three of you seemed so cosy, so well installed. There wasn’t much I could do.’
‘Did you try to do anything?’ Helena was hurting and she knew that it was making her sound accusatory, but she could not help it.
‘Yes. I needed to put things straight with Fin at least. I told him why I’d done what I’d done. He told me that Irene was pregnant. We talked it all over very calmly and sensibly and agreed that we couldn’t unpick anything, not least because you were at last settled again and apparently happy. Fin told me that you never said anything about me and appeared to believe that Irene was your mother. It was extremely hard, but we didn’t see that we had any option.’
‘I do love her, you know, and she has almost always been my mother,’ said Helena with difficulty, understanding at last why Fin had turned on Irene around the time Ivo was born.
‘I know. And although I’ve bitterly resented her for that, I’m grateful, too. At the time I could not care for you and she did – much better than I had ever done.’ Miranda was still holding her daughter’s hands. ‘D’you think now that you might be able to have us both?’
One of the lift doors opposite the chairs opened and Irene emerged at a run, stopping when she saw the two of them holding hands. Her hair was falling down her back and she was breathless but there was more light in her eyes than there had been for months.
‘Have they told you?’ she said.
‘What?’ asked Helena, pulling her hands out of Miranda’s. ‘They haven’t told us anything. We’ve been talking out here and no-one’s come anywhere near us.’
‘Fin’s going to be moved down to an ordinary ward this afternoon,’ said Irene in triumph. ‘They even think that he’ll be able to come home in about a week.’
‘I’m so glad, Irene,’ said Miranda.
‘Thanks.’ Irene took a great breath, let it out and smiled at them both. ‘I thought he’d never get out of this place. I was sure he was going to die here.’
‘But he’s not,’ said Miranda firmly.
‘No. He’ll have to live very carefully, and probably retire, which he’ll hate. And it doesn’t make Ivo’s hideous situation any better, but it does seem like the first step out of the horror.’ Irene looked at them, and a glimpse of her old exuberant self could be seen in her dark eyes. ‘I hope bloody Richard is right and all this does improve my work. Otherwise …’
Miranda gasped and looked so shocked that Helena was afraid she might say something unforgivable to Irene. After a tense second or two it seemed that Miranda had recognized the real courage that lay behind Irene’s bravado and she kept quiet.
‘I’m going in to see him now. D’you want to come?’ said Irene, adding when Miranda stood up to go with her: ‘Helena?’
‘You two go on ahead. I want to tell Mike.’
‘About Fin?’
‘Yes. But other things, too.’
‘We’ll see you later, then,’ said Miranda. Irene blew Helena a kiss.
She watched them go and then took the mobile telephone Mike had given her out of her bag and dialled the number of his direct line.
He said his name, sounding quite different from the man she knew so well.
‘It’s me,’ she said.
‘How’s Fin?’ said Mike, immediately sounding like himself again.
‘Pretty weak still, but they’ve told Irene they’re about to move him down to an ordinary ward, which must be good. I’d thought … Well, you know what I’d thought.’
‘Yes.’
‘Mike?’
‘Yes.’
‘I …’
‘What is it, Helena? Is something else wrong?’
‘No. Quite the opposite, but I don’t quite know how to put it. Perhaps it ought to wait until this evening. You must be very busy.’
‘Yes, but not too busy for this. It sounds important.’
‘I just wanted to say that something’s happened that makes me free.’
‘Free of me?’ he said warily.
‘No,’ she said with great urgency. ‘Free for you.’
‘That’s all right then,’ he said, and she heard him laugh. ‘That’s great. When can I see you?’
‘Whenever you want.’
‘I’ll come to the hospital. Wait there.’
THE END