‘Gone? Gone where?’
‘I dunno,’ said Felicity in exasperation. She looked squarely at Anthony. ‘He said he needed some time to himself and that he wouldn’t be in for a few weeks. That was it.’
‘You’re joking.’
‘I wish I was. He’s dropped me and Henry right in it. I’ve spent all morning on the phone to solicitors, trying to bluff my way out of things. There are some things that won’t wait - in fact, there’s an arbitration next week that Freshfields want you to take over. I’m trying to juggle your diary around to fit it in. All the solicitors are mad as hell. Whoever said clerks spend their entire lives spinning a load of bullshit was right. Pardon my French.’ She shook her head and sighed. ‘Mr Davies certainly isn’t doing himself any favours. Some of his work might even have to go out of chambers, and you know how Henry feels about that.’ She made a throat-cutting gesture and raised her eyebrows meaningfully.
‘But when was this?’ asked Anthony.
‘Yesterday morning, after he came back from court. I thought you’d’ve heard by now.’
Anthony went up to his room, digesting this information. That Leo should just walk out of chambers, leaving weeks of carefully arranged work - arbitrations, conferences, court hearings - up in the air was extraordinary, entirely out of character. Clearly there was something wrong. The last time he had spoken to Leo was when Leo had asked him for a game of squash last week. Anthony realised with a pang that Leo must have been in need of someone to talk to then, and he had turned him down, possibly when he had needed Anthony most. He’d been aware that Leo hadn’t been himself recently but had been too preoccupied with his own affairs to do or say anything to help. Too busy screwing Sarah every night, then bemoaning his weak character and nursing his conscience ever since Camilla’s return. God, how he detested himself of late.
Anthony picked up the phone and dialled Leo’s number in Belgravia, and listened as the phone at the other end rang a few times, then clicked into Leo’s answering machine. He hesitated, thought of leaving a message, but put the phone down. If Leo had problems, maybe he had gone away to sort them out. He had a house in Oxfordshire somewhere. The memory of going there with Leo to spend the night after a chambers cricket match surprised Anthony with an ache of tenderness. How infatuated he had been with Leo in those days, how much he had wanted to be able to respond to him. Perhaps he should have. Perhaps he wouldn’t have made such a God-awful mess of his relationships if he had just let Leo be the focus of his life. He thrust the thought aside. That was all history. The point was that Leo was in trouble and he, Anthony, had neglected his friendship. He sighed. Had Leo gone to ground in his house in the country? Even if he had, Anthony didn’t have the phone number and didn’t think he could find the house if he tried. He couldn’t even remember the name of the village. He would just have to keep ringing his flat throughout the day and, if he couldn’t reach him, he’d go round there tonight. Other than that, there was nothing anyone could do but wait and see. For how long, Anthony had no idea, but he knew that if Leo let too many weeks go by, people - clients, solicitors - would grow impatient, his reputation would inevitably suffer and his practice would begin gradually, but steadily, to crumble away.
That evening after work Anthony and Camilla went for a drink with David.
‘I told Sarah to join us later,’ said David, bringing drinks over to the table. ‘She’s presently slogging away digging up authorities for a hearing tomorrow.’
‘Slave-driver,’ remarked Anthony. ‘Still, I don’t think I’d much enjoy having a pupil. I imagine it simply makes more work for you.’
‘Initially, yes,’ said David. ‘But Sarah’s actually very useful. Got off to something of a sticky start, but she’s pretty sharp.’
‘Oh, yes, she’s that, all right,’ murmured Anthony. Conscious of Camilla’s eyes on him, he tried to move the subject away from Sarah. ‘So, what do you make of Leo’s disappearing act?’
‘I couldn’t believe it when Michael told me,’ said David. ‘I know he’s had a pretty rough year, what with his divorce and so on, but I never thought of Leo as the kind of man just to drop everything like that. I mean, I’ve known him for ten years now, and he’s always put his work first. It’s just not like him to land everyone in it like that. Henry’s going mad.’ David shook his head. ‘I must say, I never thought Leo could behave so selfishly, whatever problems he might have in his personal life.’ David glanced at a group of people who had just come into the pub. ‘Ah, there’s John Wright. I’m just going to have a word with him. Back in a minute.’
When he was gone, Camilla murmured, ‘In my experience, Leo’s capable of behaving extremely selfishly.’
Anthony glanced at her. ‘What do you mean?’ He felt a prickle of resentment. What understanding could Camilla possibly have of Leo’s character, given the limited dealings she had had with him?
Camilla, catching the sharpness in Anthony’s voice, thought for a moment, then said, ‘You remember I told you last February that I had the feeling that certain people in chambers might not altogether approve of the fact that I was seeing you, that we should cool things until I’d got my tenancy?’
Anthony nodded. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘It was Leo who suggested that might be the case. But it was just a bluff. He wanted to split us up. In fact, he even went so far as to take me out to dinner and spell it out for me. Stop seeing Anthony, or I might make life difficult for you. He didn’t say it in those words, of course, but the meaning was pretty clear.’ She took a sip of her drink. ‘He was jealous. He thought it might be an effective way of ending things between us. Don’t you think that’s pretty selfish behaviour?’
Anthony said nothing for a few moments. That Leo should go to such lengths to wreck things between himself and Camilla seemed astonishing, but at the same time it explained much about his behaviour since last Easter, when Camilla had got her tenancy and Anthony had started seeing her again. That must have been fairly galling for Leo. But what had he hoped to gain by such manoeuvres? This thought found voice. ‘I don’t see why he would do such a thing,’ said Anthony.
‘Don’t you? Then you’re pretty short-sighted. He’s very close to you—’
‘Was.’
‘All right - was. And I think he regards your time and affection as his special property. He’s never liked me.’
Anthony sighed. ‘I suppose you’re right. Okay, we’re all capable of being selfish when it comes down to it. But I don’t think Leo just upped and left through motives of selfishness.’
‘Well, it’s hardly considerate behaviour, is it? Poor old Henry and Felicity have to cope with the fall out, and the rest of us suffer, too.’
Anthony stared at her. He realised that it was all black and white to Camilla, that she was too young and callous to understand the complexities and difficulties of someone like Leo. The confidence she had gained over the past year, he saw, had brought with it a touch of arrogance. He felt suddenly protective of Leo, in the face of her lack of concern for Leo’s well-being. ‘Well, we can’t all be as brave and assured as you, can we?’ he replied.
At that moment David came back to the table, Sarah in his wake. She shrugged off her coat and sat down, while David went to get her a drink.
‘Nice to see you two together again. You must have missed one another.’ Sarah smiled enigmatically and glanced at Anthony. ‘Did the weeks seem terribly long?’
‘Oh, spare us,’ said Anthony. It was all very well, he realised, to agree that things stopped as soon as Camilla came back, but he was unable to behave with Sarah’s cool composure. This guilt thing, he told himself, was out of control.
‘Still, I’m sure you did your best to keep busy.’ She glanced up as David set her drink down on the table. ‘Thanks.’
‘So,’ said David, sitting down and turning to Anthony, ‘you said earlier you’d been trying Leo’s flat all day. No luck?’
Anthony shook his head. ‘I’m going to go round after this. Not that I expect to find him there. I rather think he’s gone to his place in the country.’
Sarah glanced from Anthony to David in surprise. ‘What’s this about Leo?’
‘Didn’t you know? He’s just dropped everything, told Felicity and Henry he was going away for a few weeks.’ David sipped his pint. ‘Seems he has a few problems that need sorting out.’
Anthony noticed Sarah’s troubled expression and remarked, ‘Why are you looking so worried? It’s nothing to you.’ He couldn’t help the slight brutality of his tone, a kind of revenge for her mischievous remark of a few moments ago.
Sarah turned and stared coldly at Anthony. He was reminded suddenly of the unpredictability of her temper. ‘Dear Anthony, you must think you have a monopoly on concern for Leo. For your information, I probably know him far better than you ever will. Don’t look so surprised. We go back a long way. I regard him as a friend, and at least we’ve always treated one another with honesty. That’s not exactly your speciality when it comes to relationships, is it?’ She glanced at Camilla, then took a swallow of her drink and stood up, preparing to put on her coat. ‘I don’t feel like staying, somehow.’ And she left.
‘Phew!’ said David. ‘I’m not quite sure I understood what that was all about. I didn’t know she and Leo were more than passing acquaintances. Well, well. Other people’s lives, eh?’
Anthony said nothing for a few seconds, trying to fathom the implication of what Sarah had said. A strange quiet fell over the group. Anthony drained the remains of his pint and said at last, ‘If I’m going round to Leo’s, I’d better not leave it too late.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ said Camilla.
They left David sitting alone at the table, slightly baffled. Clearly there was much that went on in chambers of which he knew absolutely nothing.
Anthony and Camilla walked in preoccupied silence along Fleet Street. It was drizzling and all the taxis which flashed past them were taken, their ‘for hire’ signs unlit. At the corner of Waterloo Bridge they stopped and waited.
‘What was Sarah getting at in the pub?’ asked Camilla suddenly.
Anthony, lost in his ruminations over Leo and Sarah, turned to glance at her. ‘What do you mean?’
‘About honesty in relationships not being your speciality. Why did she say it in that particular way?’
Anthony suddenly felt everything come to a head, his anxiety about Leo, his guilty conscience, his exasperation with Camilla’s arrogance over Leo’s problems - that and the impossibility of finding a taxi cab in the rain. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he muttered. He spoke incautiously, knowing as he did so that it would have been better and easier just to fob her off with some explanation concerning the time that he and Sarah had been seeing one another. But something - perhaps weariness at the concealment, or self-disgust - tempted him to let it all come out now. Then it could be dealt with. If she loved him enough, she would forgive him. Everyone made mistakes.
‘What doesn’t matter?’ She looked at him, her eyes large and fearful. ‘It’s got something to do with the way you’ve been behaving recently, hasn’t it? Something happened while I was away and you haven’t told me.’
He turned to her. ‘Yes, it did and I wish to God it never had. It meant absolutely nothing and I’m truly sorry about it. You’ve got to believe me.’ He hesitated. ‘I slept with Sarah. It was after a drinks thing in chambers. I suppose I’d had too much to drink, but beyond that I’ve got no excuses.’ Already he was lying, he realised. By making it sound as though it had happened just once, he was hoping to lessen the crime, mitigate the effects. He waited, helplessly, his eyes on her face. ‘I’m truly sorry.’ She looked away, her expression unreadable. A taxi with its yellow light on came towards them and Anthony automatically lifted his hand. The cab drew up by the kerb. ‘I’m glad you know now, in a way. It meant absolutely nothing and I’ve been feeling guilty as hell. Please, come on. We can talk in the taxi.’ He opened the door, waiting for her to get in.
But Camilla remained motionless on the pavement. Then she shook her head. ‘I can’t come with you to Leo’s. I’m going home.’ She turned and walked quickly away through the rain, almost breaking into a run. Anthony called after her, his hand still on the handle of the taxi door.
The cabbie slid down his window and leant over. ‘Come on, mate! You getting in, or what?’
Anthony hesitated, watching her hurrying off down Fleet Street. Maybe it would be better to let her go, talk to her later. It was done now. He got into the cab and gave the driver Leo’s address.
When they reached the square in Belgravia, Anthony asked the cabbie to wait. He got out, glancing up at the darkened windows, and went up the few steps to the front door, where he pressed the bell. There was no answer. He waited for a few minutes, then rang again. At last he turned and went back down the steps to the cab.
He took the taxi home, had something to eat, and after an hour or so rang Camilla. She sounded weary, but at least she was prepared to talk to him. Reproach, he thought, was a good sign, the first step towards forgiving him.
‘I can’t believe that you would do something like that, take advantage of the fact that I was away and sleep with someone else.’ On her way home, after leaving Anthony standing by the taxi, Camilla had resolved that she would end things between them. Hurt and anger had been uppermost. It seemed that what Anthony had done was unforgivable. Now, hearing his voice, she felt a fatal reluctance to let it all go, just like that.
‘I told you. It was a mistake, a really stupid thing to have done, and I’ve been regretting it ever since it happened. It meant nothing. We’d had a lot to drink, and you know how Sarah can be—’
‘Oh, please, Anthony! Don’t try to blame it on Sarah! Credit me with a little sense.’
‘No, no, you’re right. I mean, I’m just trying to explain how it happened. I’m so, so sorry. What else can I say?’
‘Anthony.’ She sighed miserably. ‘You sound as though you’re apologising for breaking a window, or something. We’re talking about trust here. About feelings. What you’ve done changes things.’
‘It mustn’t. You mustn’t let it. That’s the last thing I want. That is what I’m afraid of more than anything else. Please. I love you. I’m asking you to forgive me.’
Camilla didn’t speak for a few minutes. Then at last she said, ‘I don’t know. I’m feeling very tired and upset, and a bit confused. What you’ve done has really hurt me. I don’t think you realise that.’
‘I do. Of course I do.’
‘Well, anyway, I’ve got a lot on tomorrow, so I’m going to bed early.’
‘Will I see you tomorrow evening?’
‘I don’t know. Let’s just leave it for now, shall we?’
It wasn’t entirely satisfactory, thought Anthony when he hung up. But he had a feeling that, with a little time, it could be made all right again. Okay, so he hadn’t been entirely honest with her. But how could he possibly tell her the whole truth? She might overlook one single act of infidelity, but a whole series, night after night? He doubted it. And he didn’t blame her. He could look back on his brief fling with Sarah and know it was unforgivable, but on the other hand he knew exactly why he had done it. Because Sarah had been there, on offer. Not that it was any excuse. He just had a weak character where sex was concerned. He sat pondering the deep and contradictory mysteries of sexuality and morality for some time.
A week later, Charles announced that he was going to Romania to film some footage for his latest documentary.
‘How long will you be gone?’ asked Rachel.
‘Only a couple of weeks. Though why an entire television crew has to be transported all the way to the foothills of the Transylvanian Alps just to film me talking about the formation of the anti-Ottoman coalition is beyond me. I could as well do it from the bottom of our back garden. Still—’ he embraced Rachel and kissed her nose ‘—tell me you’ll miss me.’
‘I shall.’ It was true. She felt a hollow pang at the thought of being without his steady, loving, cheerful company even for a couple of weeks. The whole custody business seemed to keep her nerves in a constant brittle state and Charles was important to her sanity. She wanted it all settled, finished, so that she could sort out her contradictory feelings about Leo, relegate him to his proper place in her life. Then she would feel that she and Charles and Oliver were a safe unit. ‘Oliver will miss you most, I suspect. He has you around all day.’
‘I’ll bring him back a Vlad the Impaler doll. I’ll bet the shops in Bucharest are bursting with them.’
Rachel laughed helplessly. ‘Don’t you dare!’ She hugged him. ‘When do you leave?’
‘Tomorrow afternoon. I wish I could take you with me.’ He paused, then looked suddenly inspired. ‘In fact, why don’t you come? I’ll bet if we slip apple-cheeked Margaret a serious wad of money she’d be prepared to move in for the duration. Then Oliver would be regularly fed and watered, and all would be hunky-dory. What do you think?’ The idea was growing in attraction at top speed in Charles’s mind. Oliver took up so much of Rachel’s time and attention when she was at home - which, given her work, was not as much as Charles would like. He longed to have her to himself, without all the responsibilities and distractions that Oliver involved. Sometimes just having a sustained conversation seemed like hard work with Oliver around. He was, without question, the number one man in Rachel’s life, a position which Charles very much wanted to occupy, even if only for two weeks.
But Charles could tell from her expression that she didn’t feel the same enthusiasm as he did for the idea. ‘Oh, Charles, it’s a lovely idea … But two weeks is a long time. I couldn’t just leave Oliver. He’d miss me dreadfully. He’s too little to understand, and he might think I was never coming back, or something awful like that.’
‘Well, a week then,’ urged Charles, feeling the impetus slipping away. ‘One week’s not long.’
‘It would be to him. And there’s my work, you know. It’s not that easy just to drop things.’
‘What if you were suddenly taken ill, or something? You’d have to drop it then. And the world wouldn’t come to an end because of it. Someone else would hold the fort. Come on - live a little. Come with me. Just for a few days. We could have a great time, just the two of us.’
The last five words were the wrong ones. Although Rachel trusted Charles’s affection for Oliver, she harboured a subconscious feeling that he might prefer it if Oliver did not exist. It made her react defensively, as she did now, grabbing at an excuse. ‘Charles, it’s not that easy. Frankly, I don’t think I have any holiday time left, not after the three weeks I took over the summer and the time that I want to take off at Christmas.’ She made a rueful face. ‘I’m sorry, darling. It’s a nice idea, but for all those reasons, I really don’t see that it’s possible.’
Charles sighed. He was fighting a losing battle here. It happened whenever he suggested that they should spend some time away from Oliver, even if it was just dinner together in Bath. Rachel was always reluctant. And on the odd occasions when they were apart from the child - such as the times when Leo took him for the day - she was on edge, constantly thinking about him, waiting for the hours to pass until she was with him again. Charles had to admit to himself that he very strongly hoped that the court would decide in Leo’s favour in the matter of contact with Oliver. Not just for Oliver’s sake, or for Leo’s, but for his own.
‘Okay,’ he said with a rueful smile. ‘It was just a thought.’
The week after Charles’s departure went by in a humdrum fashion. Rachel made sure that she left work promptly every night so that she would be home in time to bath Oliver and read to him before he went to bed. Margaret, the nanny from the village, had to come in earlier than usual in the mornings to be there when Rachel went to work. Often Oliver was still asleep when she left. Guy Fawkes Night fell in the middle of that first week, and Rachel wheeled Oliver in his pushchair down to the village green to watch the fireworks in the evening and wished that Charles could be there. She realised then, as she stood watching the rockets explode into crystalline stars against the black night, how much she loved and relied upon Charles as a part of her peace and order and security. He was her bedrock. The feelings she had for Leo were something much darker, to do with pain and rejection, and experiences she did not care to revisit. Still he persisted in her thoughts, and in her love, despite every effort she made to excise him.
Thoughts of Leo were still in her mind next morning at work and, when the switchboard put through a call from him, the coincidence of it startled her. ‘Leo,’ she said, ‘I was just thinking about you.’
‘Were you?’ His voice sounded tired.
He said nothing more, and after a pause she asked, ‘Are you all right? You sound a bit low.’
‘Yes - no - I’m fine. I just wondered if I could see Oliver this weekend, maybe on Saturday. If that’s all right with you. And Charles, of course.’
‘Well, the thing is, Charles is away at the moment, and—’ She stopped, realising that she was letting herself be panicked by the idea of being on her own for a day at the weekend. Absurd. Unhealthy. ‘Still,’ she went on, ‘I don’t suppose that makes any difference. Yes, if you like. Saturday’s fine.’ She could get a few chores done while Oliver was away, things which always got slowed down when he was around, and perhaps go into Bath to do some shopping. It would fill in the time. Better than Sunday, when the hours would just drag. ‘What time will you pick him up?’
‘About ten. I’ll have him back by six.’
There was an odd lifelessness in Leo’s voice, as though some subtle strength had faded from his personality. The change left Rachel at a loss. All their recent exchanges had been charged, often vitriolic, but there had always been life in them.
‘That’s fine. I’ll have his things ready.’ She hesitated. ‘Leo, are you sure you’re all right? You don’t sound yourself.’
‘Yes,’ snapped Leo. ‘I’m absolutely fine. Just tired.’
That was marginally better, to hear him get tetchy. ‘Okay, okay. I’ll see you on Saturday, then. Bye.’
Leo said nothing, just hung up. Rachel put the phone down slowly. She thought of Leo coming to fetch Oliver on Saturday, of seeing him on her own, without Charles there. Charles’s presence always kept the atmosphere nice and even. Without him there, Leo might take the opportunity to go on the offensive. She hoped not. She didn’t think she could stand that. If the temperature rose, she might find herself giving way to feelings she hardly wished to acknowledge. She just wanted relations with Leo to stay neutral and safe. And then she realised that the thought of seeing him on her own made her a little afraid. Afraid and excited.
‘Good heavens!’ said Rachel. Then she laughed, putting her hand to her mouth. ‘I didn’t realise you were growing a beard.’
‘I’m not,’ said Leo. ‘I just can’t be bothered to shave.’ He stood in the doorway on Saturday morning in his battered leather jacket and old trousers, his shirt unbuttoned at the neck. After the initial shock of his week-old beard, Rachel realised that his hair was longer too. That, and the contrasting darkness of his beard, made him look younger and slightly sinister. His appearance sat at odds with his air of weary carelessness.
Oliver toddled towards Leo and clung to his trouser leg, waiting to be picked up. Leo hoisted him up to his shoulder and Oliver laughed and passed a small, fat hand over the dark bristles of Leo’s beard.
‘What do your clients think?’ asked Rachel, folding her arms.
‘I haven’t got any,’ replied Leo indifferently. He kissed Oliver and smiled at him. It was a smile solely for Oliver, clearly unrelated to anything else in life.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Rachel.
Leo turned to look at her again, as though seeing her properly for the first time. ‘I’m having a few days off. That’s all.’ He spoke calmly, as if in reassurance.
Rachel was still puzzled. ‘Your clerk can’t be very happy about that. Or was it planned?’
To this Leo made no answer, but wandered towards the kitchen table, Oliver still in his arms, and picked up the bag of Oliver’s belongings. ‘Six all right?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ replied Rachel, ‘that’s fine.’
‘Come on, mate, let’s hit the road,’ said Leo to Oliver. He walked to the door, then turned. ‘Where is Charles, by the way?’
‘He’s in Romania, filming.’
Leo nodded, then walked out to the car. Rachel stood in the doorway and watched them drive away. It was only when they were out of sight that it occurred to her that never for one moment had there been the slightest suggestion of tension or animosity between them. Whatever apprehension she might have had about betraying her perplexed feelings for him had been entirely unfounded. There had been simply nothing to which to respond. In fact, he had arrived and departed in what she could only think of as a kind of emotional vacuum. She thought about it for a while, about his altered appearance and manner, and wondered if she should have let Oliver go with him. Telling herself this was absurd, she went back into the house and set about filling the emptiness with domestic activity.
She had got a mere half an hour’s work done when the phone rang. The voice at the other end was a woman’s, one Rachel did not recognise.
‘Is that Rachel Davies?’ asked the voice uncertainly.
‘Yes.’
For a few seconds there was nothing but concerned, elderly breathing, then the woman went on, ‘My name’s Mrs Munby. I’m a neighbour of your mother’s.’
‘Oh … Mrs Munby.’ Rachel’s gathering recollection of a taciturn, large-bosomed woman from the house next door to her mother’s was almost instantly replaced with a sense of foreboding. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked. ‘Is my mother all right?’
‘Well, that’s why I’m calling. They took her into the hospital this morning, about half an hour ago. St Mary’s. I went outside when I saw the ambulance, and the ambulance people said did I know who her nearest relative was, and I said, well, she has a daughter, and I had a look in your mother’s address book and found your number. They said would I call you, and I said I would.’
‘What’s wrong with her?’ Rachel felt oppressed by a sense of guilt and dread.
‘I don’t know, to be honest, dear, but I think it must be her heart. I thought I’d better find out how she was before I called you, but when I spoke to the hospital all they would say was that you should get there as soon as you could. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings.’ She waited, breathing stertorously, for Rachel to speak.
Rachel managed to keep her voice calm. ‘Thank you for calling me, Mrs Munby. I’ll go to the hospital straight away.’
‘Is there anything you want me to do? I’ve locked the house up for her, taken the keys and so forth.’
‘No, no, thanks. You’ve been very kind. I might call round later, depending on how my mother is. Goodbye.’
Rachel hung up and glanced at her watch; her immediate thoughts were for Oliver. Damn, Leo wouldn’t be at Stanton yet. She could try his mobile … But when she tried, the maddeningly sweet voice of a female automaton informed her that the mobile phone she was ringing was switched off. When she called the house at Stanton and tried to leave a message, the phone at the other end merely rang and rang. Had Leo suddenly taken against modern technology? Rachel wondered, as she replaced the receiver. Anyway, she would just have to go to her mother and try Leo later. She grabbed her coat and her keys, locked up the house and hurried to the car.
‘So, baby boy, where shall it be?’ murmured Leo as he drove, glancing at Oliver in the car seat next to him. ‘South America? France? Where can we bury ourselves out of sight? Just think of all the people Daddy knows, all the lawyers and the business men and the wheelers and dealers … do you think they’d help us?’ Oliver glanced up at his father, following the sound of the words with brief wonder, then became absorbed once more in the little plastic plane he was playing with. ‘But what would I do with you? What kind of a time would we have, and what would become of us both?’ Leo sighed, turning off the motorway on to the road to Stanton. ‘And what would your poor mother do if I were to spirit you off somewhere? Go demented, no doubt, and turn into a hysterical wreck for the rest of her life. I couldn’t do that to old Charles, now could I? No, nor to Mummy, I suppose. So we’ll all go on as we are …’
He carried on talking all the way to the house, unaware that he was doing so, his mind flitting from thought to thought, unable to fix on anything. He did not care to think much at the moment. At least he would have Oliver for company today, something to focus on, a reason for living. Each day seemed painfully empty of such reasons.
Rachel drove the fifteen miles to Bath, forcing herself to think about her mother, something which she usually avoided doing. The weight of guilt was heavy. She thought about the woman her mother had been when Rachel was a little girl - slim, pretty, fairly quiet but cheerful and affectionate in an absent-minded kind of way. She remembered murmurings among her aunts about her mother having had ‘a difficult time’ when Rachel was born, so Rachel had always supposed this to be the reason why her mother had had no more children. Rachel, even then, had felt herself in some vague way responsible for making her mother suffer - though how, she did not know. But the mother of her childhood had been transformed by the events of Rachel’s adolescence. Even as she drove, Rachel found herself physically flinching at the recollection of her mother’s tearful anger, the shouting, the blame, when Rachel had finally summoned up the courage to tell a teacher at school about what her father had been doing to her. Then the awful blackness of that time, being disbelieved, then believed, her father going to prison and out of her life for ever. She had never wanted that.
Rachel found her face wet with tears as she took herself back to the pain and difficulty of those days, about which she so rarely thought and never spoke. She had told no one except Leo. Oh, God, Leo … How much he had helped, how much he had done to restore her faith and her belief in people - and then how utterly he had undone all that with his lies and deceit. She wiped the tears quickly away, but still they came, blurring her vision. She could look back now, she realised, and understand why her mother had been so angry, why she had blamed Rachel for everything that had happened, rather than her husband. She could trace now, in her memory of all the things her mother had called her, the tracks of her mother’s own shame and guilt. Had she known what was happening and ignored it? Rachel had always wondered about that. It had not been a question she could ask. After her father had gone to jail, the lines of communication went dead between Rachel and her mother. Oh, they had an outward relationship, they spoke of mundane matters, life went drearily on, her mother still made her packed lunch every day, ironed her school blouses, saw to it that Rachel was fed and clothed. But from that time, Rachel had been alone.
Why, she wondered now as she drove, had she clung to the pathetic remnants of their relationship? When she had left home to go to university, she could have cut her ties, left her mother behind her. After all, she didn’t feel her mother wanted her any more, or regarded her as anything more than a reminder of shameful events, but somehow Rachel had never managed to do it. She still sent birthday and Christmas cards, she still made the occasional - very occasional - visit with Oliver. Not that her mother seemed to welcome these visits, or ever acknowledged the cards. So why did she do it? Why did she send out these forlorn little signals? Was she waiting for forgiveness? Possibly. Like every child who is the victim, but still feels itself to be the perpetrator, the culprit, she was constantly apologising. That was why she was driving to the hospital now.
When she arrived, Rachel was shown to the coronary care unit, where her mother lay in bed, oddly small and insignificant among the paraphernalia of monitors and drips and bedside equipment. She was unconscious, but Rachel could see the slight rise and fall of her thin chest as she breathed, and a little blip ran with bright regularity across the monitor screen.
‘The doctor knows you’re here. He’ll be along in a minute,’ said a nurse.
Rachel sat down at the bedside and stared at her mother, not sure what to feel or do. Her mother’s hand, with a patch of white tape holding the drip in place, lay on the bedspread, and Rachel felt she should touch it, hold it. But she had no wish to. She couldn’t remember how long it was since she had touched her mother. So she sat gazing at her mother’s face, trying to think about nothing.
The doctor came after twenty minutes.
‘Your mother has had a massive heart attack,’ he told her. ‘She’s very unstable, I’m afraid.’
‘So - so what is likely to happen?’
‘Well, we’re doing everything we can, but the chances of stabilising her aren’t very good, I have to tell you. There is a risk that she may have another heart attack within the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours.’
Rachel nodded. ‘I see. Can I stay with her?’
‘Of course. There’s a relatives’ rest room just down the corridor, where you can make tea and coffee.’
They spoke for a few more minutes, then he left. Rachel looked at her watch. It was half past eleven. She gazed helplessly at her mother, wishing she felt more, guilty that she did not. She must stay, that much she knew. However little life her mother had left, it was all eternity to her. She might wake up and, if she did, she would be frightened. Rachel couldn’t leave her alone.
She sat there for several long hours. Occasionally her mother stirred, and once she seemed to mutter something, but it was indistinct. The little pulse of light blipped over and over on the screen. Twice Rachel went to make tea in the rest area, and in the middle of the afternoon she purchased a sandwich from a vending machine. At five o’clock she realised that she would have to ring Leo. She took her mobile phone from her handbag, then hesitated. Wasn’t there something about not using mobile phones in hospitals, in case they interfered with the equipment? She went in search of a pay phone and rang the house at Stanton, and was relieved when Leo replied. She explained what had happened and where she was.
‘The thing is, I can’t leave her. The doctor seems to think she might not last the night out. Oliver will have to stay with you. He’s got no pyjamas, but I did put a change of clothes in with his things - Oh, has he? Well, he’ll just have to make do with those tomorrow. How many nappies have you got? I suppose he can do without cleaning his teeth for one night … Can I speak to him for a minute?’ Leo put Oliver on the phone and Rachel talked to him, finding comfort in his incoherent bubbles of noise. Then she spoke to Leo again. ‘I feel so guilty, Leo. Something in me just wants all this to hurry up. How can I feel like that? It’s her life, after all. But I just can’t help this awful feeling of impatience. And pity, I suppose. Anyway, look after Oliver for me. I’ll call you again when - well, if anything changes.’
Rachel hung up and wandered back to her mother’s room. On the way she passed the hospital shop and paused, wondering if it would be some awful betrayal to buy something to read, just to relieve the tedium of the hours. She bought a paperback, went back to the coronary care unit, and sat and read, and waited.