The team went to the pub to celebrate the conclusion of the case. It was a Thursday, so Cross went to his usual organ practice at Stephen’s church. Even if it hadn’t been a Thursday he still wouldn’t have gone to the pub. He never did. He found it too noisy and on occasions like this, way too rambunctious. His mother would be at the church tonight. He couldn’t believe another month had passed. He’d been so wrapped up in the case and the fixing of St Eustace’s organ he hadn’t noticed time sweeping by.
He let himself into the church and put his bike just inside the door. His way of celebrating the satisfactory end to the case that night would be to play an uplifting piece. He’d chosen Jehan Alain’s Litanies. He put the sheet music out, set his stops and began to play. For the next hour he stopped and started as he tried to learn the piece. He became completely lost in the music. Thoughts of the Brother Dominic case, something which would normally occupy his thoughts for weeks after its conclusion, drifted out of his consciousness. He was in his place, the organ loft at Stephen’s church, which at times like this seemed to be the safest and most enjoyable place for him to be in, in the world.
At the end of the hour, he was satisfied with the progress he’d made. The fact that there was more to learn and finesse made him very content. It meant he had something to look forward to next week. He walked down into the nave of the church and found Stephen there, alone.
‘Have I got my weeks wrong? Shouldn’t my mother be here?’ he asked.
‘Yes, but she thought she wouldn’t come this week,’ Stephen replied.
‘Oh, very well. Goodnight,’ replied Cross and started to make his way down the aisle to his bike. No thought of asking why she wasn’t there or indeed, more importantly, perhaps, how Stephen was feeling, not just about the successful conclusion of the case involving his brother’s murder, but also about how he might be dealing with his loss.
‘Why don’t you stay for a cup of tea and some cake?’ said Stephen.
Cross stopped.
‘What kind of cake?’
‘A rather spectacular lemon drizzle cake, even if I say so myself,’ replied Stephen who had already turned and was walking towards the side door, confident that Cross would follow. His lemon drizzle cake was pretty famous.
When he walked into Stephen’s kitchen Cross noticed the cake was already centre table on a doily and cake stand. There were two cups of tea set out. He rarely stayed for tea or even a chat after his Thursday practices, unless his mother was there. Something about the situation – his mother’s absence, Stephen’s expectation he would stay for tea – suddenly struck him as being both orchestrated and premeditated.
‘What do you want?’ he asked as he sat down warily, as if he wasn’t sure whether he was going to have to make a bolt for the door at any given moment.
‘Why should I want anything?’ Stephen asked innocently.
‘My mother’s unexplained absence from her regular monthly visit, together with your preparations for tea and cake in the obvious certain knowledge that I would be staying after practice, would suggest you want something,’ Cross replied.
‘Which of course is why you’re a detective.’
‘It has nothing to do with why I’m a detective. I attended Hendon, spent years in uniform before graduating to CID. That is why I’m a detective.’
‘I thought we’d talk about, or rather I’d give you the chance to talk about, how you feel with your mother being more present in your life,’ said Stephen.
‘I have no feelings about it, one way or the other,’ Cross replied.
‘We both know that’s not true.’
‘In point of fact only I can know that. You can merely surmise,’ said Cross, taking his first bite out of the lemon drizzle. It was sublime. Certainly worth ten minutes of his time, while Stephen tried to engage him in this emotional twaddle.
‘You’ve seemed quite discombobulated since Christine reappeared,’ Stephen pointed out.
‘Well, I think that’s hardly surprising, bearing in mind you kept springing her on me unannounced,’ Cross protested.
‘That’s true. But you still seemed a little put-out after that.’
‘I’m not one for change, as we both know. I find it quite difficult and disconcerting. It takes me a little while to adjust. I’m in that period of adjustment at the moment.’
‘You don’t like change and yet it was you who reached out to Christine after forty years.’
‘I did. I had some – misguided in light of what later transpired had happened – notion that I needed to demonstrate to her that everything had worked out for me and Raymond. I can also see, now, that I didn’t think it through entirely,’ Cross agreed.
‘Do you regret it?’
Cross thought for a moment.
‘I don’t regret it as such. I just didn’t consider the possibility that, from that moment on, she would want to be a part of my life and see more of me.’
‘And how do you feel about that now?’ asked Stephen.
‘What I feel is neither here nor there. She wishes to see me, and we’ve made arrangements so that she can do that. I have no objections to it.’
‘Do you want to see her?’
‘I don’t think I can answer that yet.’
‘Okay.’
Stephen now decided to change tack in a way that he knew could possibly bring the conversation to an abrupt conclusion.
‘What do you think about the circumstances which led to her leaving you?’ he asked.
‘I think she was in a difficult situation. Impossible even. I can’t and certainly don’t blame her for that decision.’
‘And what about Raymond?’
‘That, I confess, is quite complicated. When it comes to life, I don’t like complicated. I don’t deal with it well. Which is ironic as I seem to thrive on complications at work, in other people’s lives, in investigations. Interpreting and unravelling those complications gives me a great deal of satisfaction. It’s also something I appear to excel at,’ said Cross, not realising that out of anyone else’s mouth, this would’ve come across as fantastically arrogant. Somehow with him it was different. ‘Complications in my own life are something else entirely,’ he finished by saying.
‘Why?’ Stephen probed.
‘Because I seem incapable of making sense of them when it comes to anything that affects me. I don’t react to them or seem capable of viewing them clearly, like neurotypical people. I have to make on-the-spot calculations about how to respond and experience tells us that more often than not I get it wrong. Sometimes terribly wrong.’
‘Can you explain?’ Stephen asked.
‘Take the situation with my mother and father. My father is one of the only people in the world who comes anywhere near to understanding how I am. He tolerates things other people view as objectionable or offensive in the way I behave and speak. At times when other people are upset by me he understands what I’m trying to do. He understands how difficult it is for me sometimes to communicate effectively with people in certain situations. But when I see him with my mother now, I find it complicated. I find myself wondering whether he, and by implication I, behaved badly to her. But I don’t know the answer to that yet. I find myself imagining what her life must’ve been like because of what happened.’
‘Wouldn’t it be easier just to ask her?’
‘Well, it’s very personal and possibly intrusive,’ Cross pointed out.
‘She’s your mother.’
Cross thought for a moment. He really wanted to articulate what he was about to say as best as he could, with as little chance of it being misinterpreted as possible.
‘When I look at them now, I see memories of a terrible time together in their lives, at the centre of which is me. Whatever they say, my being the way I was as a child, the way I am, had to have had a bearing on her decision to leave,’ Cross explained.
‘I think that is possibly true,’ Stephen agreed.
‘So, in effect I am responsible for the great sadness in their lives.’
‘This is where we disagree. Your parents’ marriage was an impossible situation because your father was in love with another man. He was incredibly brave to acknowledge it at the time. She was equally brave and immaculately behaved in a situation which was more about the times they lived in, than each other. But the decision they made ensured that they could go on and try to live fulfilled lives. Such a mature decision in two so young. They know now, and acknowledge the fact that, however terrible it was at the time, they both made the right one,’ said Stephen.
‘Do you think?’
‘I know.’
‘How can you know?’
‘Because I speak to them, George.’
‘I think my father feels terrible about keeping the truth from me for so long. Letting me believe she abandoned us,’ said Cross quietly.
‘Which was his way of protecting you. As a father he would do anything to do that, even if it meant not telling you the truth about who he was, what Ron was to him. Imagine the sacrifice that took for him. All because he’s your father. That’s what a lot of fathers do, George.’
Cross considered this for a moment. But in truth it actually made him think about the Brother Dominic case, and Julian Cubitt. Had he missed something there?
‘You should talk to him about it,’ said Stephen.
‘We did. Or at least I think we did,’ replied Cross, coming back to the present briefly.
They sat there for a while in silence as Cross thought about his father.
‘I think it’s probably best left alone. All of it,’ he said finally.
‘Why?’
‘Because that’s how I cope best. That’s how I deal with things.’
‘By not dealing with them at all? That’s just idiotic,’ said Stephen.
Cross looked genuinely shocked by this statement.
‘Can we just look at the current situation? Forget about the past,’ Stephen continued.
‘Isn’t that exactly what I just said?’ asked Cross, confused.
‘I don’t mean like that. I mean stick a pin in it.’
‘Stick a pin in what?’ asked Cross, getting more confused by the second.
‘Your mother likes to see you every month. She loves to hear you play the organ. She thinks it’s wonderful you taught yourself how to play. She loves to hear and read about your work in the local paper. She’s thrilled you love her cupcakes,’ Stephen began.
‘I wouldn’t go that far. I did express an admiration for them, admittedly. I think “love” is going a little too far,’ said Cross.
‘I don’t need to tell you about Raymond,’ Stephen continued, ignoring him. ‘You know him better than anyone. Does he have regrets about the way he dealt with the situation with your mother? Yes. He’s awash with guilt. But he’s actually been really pleased to see her after all these years and she, it turns out, is just as pleased to see him.’
‘But why? After all that happened?’ asked Cross.
‘It’s so simple. But you really don’t see it, do you, George? It’s because they, together, made you and that’s something they’re inestimably proud of. Something no one can take away from them. Not even you, George, old thing.’
When Cross left that night, he was thinking about his father and what he’d done to protect his son. This led to him wondering how far Julian Cubitt might go as a father to protect Nick.