The journey back up to Yorkshire the following day was very different from Thursday’s journey down. We had fully intended to stay in Surrey until the Sunday, spending all day Saturday recovering from the excesses of the wedding before travelling back the following day. Nick had promised to take Sylvia and Colin to Gatwick Airport, where they were taking a flight to Barbados for what appeared to be a very long honeymoon. Judge Colin had friends in high places and also, seemingly, in warm places, and he and Sylvia had been given several weeks at a fellow judge’s holiday home as a wedding present.
We had all agreed that Liberty should be the one to give up her seat in the Westmoreland Express on the way back, and she’d happily packed her gear into her rucksack, ready to catch the train from Epsom up to London. She’d said it was a great opportunity to visit the Royal Observatory at Greenwich for her A level physics work and then meet up with Georgina, a school friend whose parents had moved down from Yorkshire to South London earlier that year. I’d spoken to Georgina’s mother, who I knew well, and who was more than happy to have Libby at such short notice – and Libby had arranged to meet her friend in Covent Garden, spend the night at her house and then catch a train back north the following day. We had to spend a lot of time online checking train times for the Sunday, as the service to Yorkshire seemed pretty erratic, and I tried to persuade Liberty that she’d be better just doing her Observatory visit and then catching a train later that evening to coincide with our arrival back in Midhope. She was adamant, however, that she wanted to stay the night, and Nick dropped her off at the station before continuing on to Gatwick with Sylvia and Colin.
One might reasonably have come to the conclusion that Anna Fitzgerald, now that she was back in the bosom of her family, would have spent the Saturday night after the wedding in Epsom at her old family home. Thank goodness she hadn’t. I really wouldn’t have known what to say to her over toast, bran flakes and coffee that morning. Once I’d recovered from the shock of her verbal attack on me, I’d gone back down to the hotel lounge to find Nick and tell him what I thought of his ex. How dare she have a go at me like that, especially when I was looking so rough? I’d have coped a lot better, I now realised, if I’d been looking my best – or had even had my shoes on so I could have at least looked down at her as she spewed out her venom. A regal look and a sardonic smile would have said a thousand words… but unfortunately, caught on the hop, pulling faces at myself in the mirror cannot be described as having a queenly bearing in anyone’s eyes. Anyway, according to Nick, who still continued to appear shell-shocked at Anna’s dramatic reappearance, she’d come back downstairs and immediately driven off in her hired car, back to the hotel in London where she’d apparently made her base. I couldn’t see anything less than The Savoy or Claridge’s being appropriate for Anna Fitzgerald.
I really ought to stop calling her that. She hadn’t been a Fitzgerald since she married Conte Francesco Cialdini di Montova almost twenty years earlier. I didn’t know much about Italian royalty but Sylvia, more than happy to diss her new stepdaughter after being quite royally snubbed by her throughout the proceedings at the hotel, went to great lengths to explain that Italian titles of nobility were no longer legally recognised by a republican country and, in reality, Anna was no more a contessa than she, Sylvia, was. Cue for me to then say, ‘You are so right, Lady Sylvia.’
I didn’t.
The twins and India were fractious on the journey back home. India wanted to stay in Surrey another day, as promised, and was most put out that Liberty was off up to London and having a sleepover as well. Kit, whose infected ear had been bathed in copious amounts of Dettol at the hotel and back at the house, was also in a foul – adolescent – mood, probably for no other reason than that he was a foul adolescent. I think he resented being bundled together with the younger children and the nanny-granny while his elder sister was off swanning it.
‘Wish I could have gone home on the train,’ he kept muttering, while repeatedly shoving India’s arm from their shared armrest at the very back of the car.
As I say, a very different journey from the one down to Surrey two days previously. I didn’t want to talk too much to Nick about Anna’s flinging her arms around him, and her subsequent behaviour towards me, while Lilian was sitting just behind us. Tired, I was happy to feign sleep and have illicit thoughts about Alex while Nick drove the two hundred miles or so back north. Totally illogical, I know, but the whole thing with Anna had the effect of making me feel less guilty about my behaviour with Alex the day before.
By Monday, the whole wedding episode seemed just that – an episode. An episode of a drama you watch on TV after the nine o’clock watershed, and discuss at work the next day before returning to the reality of your own mundane life. On the Sunday, Nick and I had both slept in as long as possible and then taken the twins and India for a long walk, where he’d finally admitted to being totally shocked by Anna’s outpourings to both me and also himself. He’d had no idea that she could still be feeling like this about him after twenty years and, being the lovely man that he was, was feeling dreadful that he’d been the cause of her misery all these years. The whole thing had left him feeling guilty and ashamed.
‘Oh, don’t be daft, Nick,’ I’d scoffed. ‘It’s not your fault. She’s obviously mad as a coot. Are you seriously trying to tell me she said the reason she’s kept away from England and her father is because of you? For the last twenty years? Do you not think that being married to a rich Italian count – oh, and by the way, according to your mother, there is no such thing – with all the trappings of such a marriage might not have had something to do with keeping her away? Stop blaming yourself. As your Auntie Barbara said to me at the wedding, water under bridges, Nick.’
Feeling particularly flat on this November Monday morning, I did some of the mundane, Monday morning things a housewife with five children has to do, before allowing myself a glance at my mobile.
A couple of weeks earlier Nick had laughed when, with his own phone left in his car, he’d tried to use mine in its stead but had been unable to get past the password I’d now installed. ‘What are you hiding? I bet it’s porn, isn’t it? You little hussy… you’ve gone very pink. Or is it some lover you don’t want me to know about?’ He’d laughed again and gone off to the garage to get his own phone as I’d muttered something about wanting to keep India’s grubby little hands off my phone.
Nothing… of importance… from Alex.
Nick was off to Russia once again the following day, and was spending this particular Monday sorting things out at home before leaving for the airport in the morning. Lilian, having spent her weekend with us, was having a day off with Sam, the dog, and not coming in until the morning. I felt restless, not knowing what to do with myself. There was a mountain of ironing I should be scaling, food to prepare for the family evening meal and a trip to Sainsbury’s to replenish the fridge after Kit had been let loose in it. Norma was due any minute, and I really didn’t feel like answering her questions about wedding hats and fornicators, large and small.
I’d tried to ring Grace several times while we were away, leaving messages for her to call me, but she hadn’t. I went into the utility room to fetch the ironing board and was just setting it up in the kitchen… I tuned in to Today, and was deliberating between coffee or Earl Grey when my mobile rang.
Like Pavlov’s dogs, all I needed was a simple ringing of a bell to set my heart doing the flippy thing once more. I was desperate to hear Alex’s voice, but terrified at the same time.
‘Harriet, it’s David. We seem to have a bigger problem than we thought with Grace. I wonder if you can come over.’
Adrenalin, set racing at the prospect of Alex on the phone, surged at the seriousness in David’s voice.
‘David, what is it? What’s happened?’
‘Just come over, Harriet. I’ll explain when you get here and what we think we need to do.’
‘Is Jonty all right?’ Oh, God, what if she’d harmed him? Shaken him?
‘Jonty is absolutely fine, Harriet. We can’t get hold of Grace’s parents in Australia, and you are the closest person to her. I just need to confirm with you what you think is best.’
‘Best? David, you’re frightening me. Tell me what the matter is.’
There was a significant pause from the other end, but eventually David sighed and said, ‘Not on the phone, Harriet. Best to explain when you get here.’
‘Right. I’m on my way. I just need to make sure Nick’s still here and hasn’t gone off to the office, otherwise I’m going to have to bring the twins with me.’ I glanced across the kitchen to where Thea was stirring in her little bouncy chair and a red cheeked Fin was spark out after yet another night with tooth trouble.
My pulse was still racing as I rushed down to the other end of the house, shouting to Nick that I had to get over to the Hendersons’ as there was an emergency and he’d have to look after the twins.
‘Emergency? What sort of emergency?’ Nick, hearing my voice, came out from the playroom where he’d been at work on the computer. ‘What is it? Are the kids all right?’
‘It’s Grace. I don’t know what’s happened, but David sounded pretty worried.’
Nick came back to the kitchen with me, handing me my jacket and bag before ushering me out of the door. ‘Let me know what’s going on and, for heaven’s sake, drive carefully.’
*
‘Look, Harriet,’ David sighed, once he’d let me in and led me through to the kitchen. ‘I know you don’t want to hear this, but it appears Grace was trying to end it all last night.’
‘End it? End what?’
David frowned and, when he seemed unable to carry on, Amanda interjected. ‘Her life, Harriet. Her life.’
Icy fear ran through me. Grace. My best friend. It was so bad she would rather be dead than be with Jonty and Seb? And me? ‘What happened?’ I asked.
‘We heard Jonty crying. Usually Grace is very good. The minute he stirs she’s up with him. I’ve told her to leave him a while and see if he will go back to sleep by himself. But she insists on seeing to him immediately. Anyway, it was about two a.m. and Jonty just wasn’t stopping.’
‘Well, that’s fairly normal, you know, at this age,’ I said, remembering the awful night I’d had down in Surrey with the twins.
‘Well, we left her for a good twenty minutes and then I went to see if I could help.’
‘Where were you?’ I turned to Seb, who’d just come into the kitchen from upstairs. ‘You’re really good with Jonty. Were you sleeping through it all?’ I wasn’t being in the least bit accusatory, but Seb looked uncomfortable.
‘No, no,’ Amanda butted in. ‘Seb wasn’t here. That’s the point. He’d gone off for the weekend; he’d been invited down to some do on the Saturday. Some reunion with friends from Oxford. That was it, wasn’t it?’ Amanda looked at Seb for confirmation and he nodded.
‘We’d assured Seb that Grace would be fine and he should go and not to worry,’ David said. ‘We weren’t going anywhere all weekend and would be here for Grace if she wasn’t coping. Told him we’d make sure she was OK.’
‘So,’ Amanda continued, ‘as I said, after some time, when it seemed Jonty was in a total frenzy, I went to see if I could help.’
‘And? Wasn’t she coping?’ I had an awful picture of poor Grace, her hands over her ears and her head under the pillow, trying to shut out Jonty’s cries.
‘She wasn’t there, Harriet.’
‘Where was she? Downstairs?’
‘Well, obviously, that’s what I thought,’ Amanda said, ‘so I took Jonty from his cot and went downstairs to find her. She wasn’t there.’
‘Not there? Where was she?’
‘Harriet, we had absolutely no idea. We looked all over the house and outside. Her car was still there. I’d have rung you then, but knew you weren’t coming back from Surrey until yesterday.’
‘Actually,’ I said, ‘we were back. We had a change of plan and decided to come back on Saturday. So where was she?’
‘Well, David got dressed and went out in the car, looking to see if he could find her. He drove to her parents’ house because she’s been going back there a lot lately. He obviously didn’t have a key and it all seemed dark. He knocked on a few doors but it all seemed really quiet. So then he drove to their farmhouse, but it’s so dark down that lane…’
‘And such a long way from here. I mean, I didn’t really think she’d have walked all the way out there,’ David joined in. ‘So eventually, after a couple of hours of driving round and calling back to Amanda to see if she’d turned up, I went down to the police station in Midhope. They weren’t overly interested, I have to say, to begin with ‒ probably thought she’d just walked out on her husband or something ‒ but when I told them she’s been suffering from post-natal depression and had left the baby by itself they woke up a bit.’
‘Oh, God, David, where was she? Who found her?’
David suddenly sat down. ‘Apparently a young couple who’d missed the last train back to Manchester were in the waiting room at that little station at Biddington… do you know where I mean? and saw her on the platform. They thought it was a bit strange, as she was by herself at four in the morning and didn’t have a coat on. She was crying and the young chap saw that she was heading for the tracks and went out to speak to her.’
Amanda picked Jonty out of his little chair as he started to grizzle. ‘Harriet, she knew there was an early morning train at four a.m.. She’d looked it up.’
‘There’s a train at that time on a Sunday morning?’ I asked. ‘I’m amazed.’
‘Airport train, apparently. Anyway, she’d obviously planned what she was going to do. The young boy said the train was actually coming down the track towards the station. She’d have jumped, Harriet, if he and his girlfriend hadn’t got hold of her and pulled her clear. I suppose they didn’t quite know what to do with her then but, as luck would have it, there was a panda car and a couple of policeman actually outside the station, and the chap’s girlfriend went and had a word with them and they brought her back here.’
‘Where is she now, Seb? Upstairs? Can I go to her? I need to see her.’ I was so shocked at Amanda and David’s words I couldn’t quite get myself together and point myself in the right direction for Grace’s bedroom.
Amanda put her hand on my arm. ‘Look, before you go up to see her, we just need you to agree that we’re doing the right thing.’
‘The right thing?’
‘We think she needs psychiatric help.’
‘Well, yes, that’s obvious, Amanda.’ When she just looked at me, I understood her meaning. ‘Committal? Is that what you’re getting at? You want me to agree to committing Grace to a psychiatric unit?’
Amanda nodded, kissing Jonty’s downy head. ‘It’s actually called sectioning, and if that’s what it comes to, yes… for all our sakes, including this little man here. Basically, we could ask for a Section Four, which would detain Grace for seventy-two hours for assessment, or a Section Two where she would be assessed in a safe environment ‒ i.e. the clinic ‒ before treatment is commenced. Two doctors and an approved health professional are needed to carry it out and it lasts for twenty-eight days.’
I was really frightened: Grace’s future held, at the moment, in Amanda’s hands. Amanda must have already been ringing round her lawyer pals to find out exactly what the procedure was in these cases. And, obviously, as a trained lawyer, she was used to legal jargon ‒ albeit commercial law jargon ‒ and didn’t seem a bit fazed about what was necessary in order to have Grace sectioned and removed for her own good. Or was it for her own good? I looked at Amanda, who was standing against the kitchen table, arms still cradling Jonty. Was she being calculating to get Grace out of the way or was she really concerned? I honestly couldn’t tell.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, this isn’t necessary. David, Sebastian, tell her.’ When neither of them said anything, I took a deep breath, trying to be calm. ‘It won’t come to that, Amanda. Let me see her and persuade her that she needs some time in hospital.’
Amanda frowned. ‘We’re just trying to work out who her next of kin is. Her parents aren’t here and, at the end of the day, she is still married to her husband.’
‘She’s really part of your family now, Amanda. It’s almost like you’re washing your hands of her. I accept she needs to see someone, but not by being sectioned, for heaven’s sake. Is she up in her room?’
Grace was sitting in the window in a huge wing backed chair when Seb took me up to her. She reminded me of a cornered, hunted animal, eyes dark and huge in her pale face ‒ and I rushed over to her and hugged her, stroking her hair.
‘Why didn’t you ring me, Grace? Why? You know I’d have come straight over. I’ll always be there for you.’
She turned her face up to mine and tried to smile. ‘You are, Hat, I know you are. But you were away. I just felt I couldn’t bear one more minute in my skin. That Jonty would be so much better without me. Amanda adores him: she’d look after him a lot better than I ever can.’ Her lip trembled but she tried to smile again. ‘It seemed… it seems that just five minutes is an eternity and I kept thinking of all the five minutes I had to get through in this life. Does that sound weird?’
‘Grace, did you really want to… to die?’
‘I wanted to be dead, if that amounts to the same thing. I think I just wanted to be dead for a while. I wanted my mum, but she’s not here.’ Grace hesitated. ‘And you’re not going to believe this ‒ I wanted Dan.’
‘Grace, this has gone on long enough. You have got to accept you need proper help.’ I stroked her cold, dry hand and said as gently as I could, ‘Look, if you won’t go willingly to hospital, it’s quite possible you can be sectioned. Amanda knows all about it ‒ well, she would, wouldn’t she?’
‘Oh, don’t worry, Hat. I’m not going to fight going to hospital. I know what I need to do. It’s not a prison. And Mum and Dad are going to come back early from Australia. David managed to get in touch with them this morning, although it must have been the middle of the night there.’
I carried on stroking her hand. ‘Believe me, Grace, you will get well again.’
‘I know. I hope so. I will. I can’t imagine it, I really can’t, but I just want someone to make it all go away.’
Seb, who’d left both of us to talk, now came quietly back in and took Grace in his arms. He seemed so young. He was young, for heaven’s sake. ‘Grace, there’s a place in North Leeds that can take you now. Dad and I can drive you there. What do you think?’
She nodded submissively. ‘OK. Just tell me what I need and I’m ready.’
Seb found a small suitcase belonging to Amanda, and together Grace and I put into it what we thought she might need. ‘Not ever having been to an asylum before, I don’t know what a lunatic needs,’ she said, adding a cotton nightdress and, for some strange reason, a pair of yellow spotted flip-flops. She tried desperately to make light of it all, but her voice trembled and tears welled.
‘Are you ready?’ Seb asked and, taking her case, led the way back downstairs. Grace took Jonty from Amanda’s arms and hugged him fiercely, tears spilling on to his little yellow jacket. Then, without a backward glance, she went in front of David and Seb down the steps to the waiting car.
I felt bereft, shaken. And deeply ashamed that I’d not done more for her.
‘Hat? What’s going on?’ Nick rang as I reached the end of the Hendersons’ drive and I pulled over to speak to him. I explained what was happening but, while Nick reacted with the expected words of dismay and shock, he sounded somewhat distracted. ‘She’ll be fine, Hat, she’ll fight this and get better.’ When I didn’t reply he said, ‘Look, Harriet, I’m really sorry about this, but I’m on my way to Heathrow.’
‘Heathrow? You’re supposed to be going tomorrow, not today, for heaven’s sake…’
‘I know, I know. I’m really sorry, Hat, but I’ve just had word from David. He reckons that company from Leeds are making a move. They’re trying to muscle in on us and I need to get out to Kiev before they do. I need to be one step ahead.’ I could hear the animation in Nick’s voice: he loved the chase, loved the challenge.
‘But what have you done with the twins, for heaven’s sake?’
‘I took them down to Lilian.’
‘But it’s her day off. That’s really not on.’
‘I know, I know that, too. I did consider taking them over to your mum and dad, but it’s probably not the best place at the moment.’
While my mum’s dementia had, through medication, been put on a rather more even keel, I certainly didn’t trust her to look after one baby, let alone two. And poor old Dad had enough on his plate making sure gas knobs were turned off and that Mum hadn’t gone AWOL as, occasionally, she still did.
‘Lilian has a friend round at the moment, so she didn’t want to come over to our place, but she was more than happy for me to take the twins there. They’re off to Bigham Hall Park for the day, for lunch and a walk, so won’t be back until late this afternoon.’
I was cross. ‘That is so not on, Nick. I’ll go straight there now and pick the twins up.’
‘They will have set off by now and, honestly, when I dropped them off Lilian said her friend adored babies and couldn’t wait to get her hands on them.’
I wasn’t convinced, but didn’t really see what I could do at this late stage.
‘Look, you’ve had a real shock about Grace. Just go home and put your feet up. Read your book.’
‘On a Monday morning?’ It sounded terribly decadent.
Nick laughed, ‘I’m suggesting you sit and read your book, not indulge in an orgy.’
‘I’ll leave that until Tuesday, then, shall I?’
‘Got to go, Hat…’
‘But why are you going today and when are you back…?’ but he’d gone, presumably battling the traffic on the M62 to Manchester Airport.
Right.
I got as far as the country lane on to which the Hendersons’ long drive led when my phone beeped, indicating an incoming text. Thinking it could be Grace or Lilian, I pulled over once again to read it.
Just one little sentence.
Surrey seems to be the HARDEST word.