Alexandra went up to her bedroom and stared at the bed. She pulled back the bedclothes and sheets and examined the mattress where it had troubled her shoulder. She thought, yes, a spring might well have broken. She got a pair of scissors and cut through the fabric and revealed the strange concoction of wadding and wires within, now bulging out like a hernia. It was like opening a body, like cutting skin: without the flawless restraining surface everything fell to pieces. Yes, a piece of wire had snapped. Now how had that happened? The strenuous efforts of Ned and Lucy Lint? She got the scissor blade beneath the fabric of the mattress and sheared it wherever she could. She found one broken spring, at buttock level.
Alexandra went out to the barn and brought back the axe with which Ned had split logs. Diamond followed her.
She went back upstairs again with the axe and began to chop away at the base of the bed; some wood, some of it metal. She stove it in, in its middle. Diamond, witness to the life, barked and barked. She aimed savage blows at the curlicued brass rods which composed the headboard; they at least buckled and broke. That was satisfactory. But for the most part the bed just stood there, defying her. The axe blade merely slipped and slid where it met the metal of the frame. She would be lucky to avoid hacking herself by mistake. She didn’t care. Destruction was harder than she thought. But at least the bed was now unusable. The mattress beyond repair.
Hamish was trying to restrain her arm. She whirled on him, axe held high. Then she dropped her arm, dropped the axe.
‘Are you on drugs?’ he asked.
She had to laugh. She went through the house finding everything of Ned’s she could: raincoats from the hall, binoculars, Wellington boots, the guitar left over from his hippie days, T-shirt from the ‘Save the Roman Cemetery’ campaign, his entire Ibsen collection, the CDs, the old 78s, the video tapes he liked and she did not and flung them into the bedroom. She carried up the stairs, on her own, the easy chair he favoured, far too heavy a task for anyone in a normal state of mind. She shoved that on top of the wrecked bed. She smashed the bathroom mirror because Ned had looked in it too often, and threw that in with the rest. She went to the linen cupboard and found the green sheets that Abbie had laundered, and tore them hem from hem with a little help from the scissors, and flung them in too. Then she locked the door and turned to see Dr Moebius facing her, Hamish behind him.
‘Shall we calm down, Alexandra?’ he said. ‘I could have you sectioned.’
‘I am perfectly calm,’ said Alexandra. ‘And please call me by my proper name: Mrs Ludd.’
He was taking notes. She could see she should be careful. She was a widow with a child; a woman without a husband to give her authenticity. She was an actress, which suggested promiscuity and profligacy. If Social Services got involved she could end up with Sascha in care, at best with her mother, at worst with abusing foster parents. She was vulnerable. Society now required from her as a mother emotional correctness: she must subdue anger; she must practise understanding and forgiveness. She had better go to the funeral – hand in hand with Lucy Lint, if required. She smiled at Dr Moebius. ‘On second thoughts,’ she said, ‘do by all means call me Alexandra. I know you’re here to help me. And you’re right, I need help.’ A show of gratitude always went down well, when dealing with authority.
It appeared that Hamish had called Dr Moebius. After all, she had been running wild with an axe, a danger to herself and others.
‘I’m so sorry if I alarmed you, Hamish,’ said Alexandra. ‘I was just trying to move the bed: I thought I’d give Sascha the bigger bedroom. Then the brass bed turned out to be too wide to get through the door. I wanted it in bits the better to reassemble it, that’s all. As for the rest, I’m just getting Ned’s things in one place for sorting. Oxfam will be round any moment. There’s a lot here can be recycled.’
Dr Moebius was smiling now, and nodding. Even Hamish seemed pacified. It was easy, once you understood what was going on.
‘I’m seeing Lucy Lint this evening,’ she told Dr Moebius, easily. ‘Poor thing, she’s had such a hard time. I’ll try and persuadeher to get round to see you. She and I really must be friends. We have so many memories to share. We can help one another through this hard time: make the journey through grief together. Perhaps we should give her a lift to the funeral, Hamish?’
‘That would be generous of you, Alexandra,’ said Hamish, though he looked at her a little suspiciously.
‘I thought perhaps it would be best if little Sascha doesn’t come to the funeral,’ Alexandra appealed to Dr Moebius. ‘But what do you think?’
‘Seven is the lowest age we recommend for funerals,’ said Dr Moebius. ‘You’re right. Keep him away. Divert him. Then take the little chap aside, talk him through what happened. A mother’s instinct is often best. He’ll need extra mothering now. What we used to call TLC. Tender loving care.’
‘What do we call it now?’ Alexandra asked, without thinking, but heard tendentiousness in her own voice and quickly continued, ‘I have some borage in the garden. Shall I make tea? You know the Ancient Greeks drank borage in times of bereavement? Borage is the solace for grief.’
‘So where is the child now?’ asked Dr Moebius, sipping his tea, which was not, as it turned out, unpleasant if taken with enough organic honey, though heaven knew how control was exercised over the bees so they supplied only the relevant purest nectar. His notebook was still out, but at least closed. ‘I see no sign of him around. Is he asleep? Through all the furore?’
‘He’s with my mother,’ said Alexandra. ‘I’ll be driving over to see him tomorrow. I do miss him so much! I’m making his new room ready for him. I thought if the house changed in little respects, the major respect – his father not there any more – wouldn’t be so horrendous for him.’
‘Very wise,’ said Dr Moebius. ‘But I do think perhaps you should see a grief counsellor.’
‘I know a good one in Bristol,’ said Alexandra. ‘Leah someone or other.’
‘Leah?’ said Dr Moebius. ‘Does she do grief as well? Well, I’m glad. She’s very good.’