Patrick arrived early for his first meeting with Amanda Skipton, the police-appointed forensic psychologist. The tattered magazines and random signage about disabled access, toilets and abusive behaviour towards staff all seemed faintly derelict, yet the waiting area smelt incongruously of fresh paint. He was rather surprised to discover that he was almost eager to relate again to a stranger the events preceding Daniel’s death – events he already turned over constantly in his mind – longing to believe that speaking his endless questions aloud might grant him some momentary peace. Amanda came to summon him from the reception area. She was younger than he had pictured her. As she led the way to her small office under the eaves, he caught one of her sidelong glances and suspected she would turn out to be a shrewd listener.
‘Do sit down, Mr Hinde.’ She gestured to the chair opposite her own on the other side of a low table and regarded him pleasantly. ‘Do you mind if I use your first name?’
‘Not at all.’
‘Good.’ She gave a neat smile, observing him with a frankness that was neither judgemental nor falsely sympathetic. There was nothing in the narrow room to give any clue to her personality or home life, which Patrick knew to be a professional strategy – his own office was the same. ‘You’re here at the request of the police. Although what we do and say here won’t be like a police interview, you do understand that it’s not therapy? What is said here does not remain confidential?’
‘Yes, I realise that,’ Patrick answered.
‘That’s good. I’ll probably see you two or three times, and then write an assessment of how your thoughts and feelings and mental state contributed to what occurred. Are there any questions that you’d like to ask me?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’ He rubbed his hands on his jeans.
‘Well, please feel free to do so at any time.’
Patrick nodded obediently, as though he were about to take an exam. He cleared his mind of extraneous thoughts, just as he did when preparing himself to see his own patients.
‘I’d like to begin with your family history. Where you were born, your parents, siblings, grandparents, that sort of thing. Anything you’d like to tell me, really.’
Patrick waited for Amanda to ask a question, but when she merely observed him encouragingly he realised she expected him just to pitch in.
‘My mother’s French, my father British. I was born here but lived in various places. Dad worked for a couple of big multinationals. I’m an only child.’
‘So did you go to school abroad?’
Patrick nodded. ‘To start with. Then I boarded at a prep school in Hertfordshire.’
‘How old were you?’
‘Seven.’
She was making notes, not looking at him. When he did not continue, she looked up again interrogatively.
‘It was fine,’ he told her, well used to people expressing concern that he had been sent away so young. ‘It seemed the best alternative.’
‘Is that what your parents said?’
‘Well, it was true.’
‘You held that opinion at the time? When you were seven?’
Patrick shrugged. ‘I just accepted it.’
‘Can you remember how you felt?’
‘Homesick, I suppose. Though they’d just moved from Holland to Belgium, so there wasn’t really a home to miss.’
‘What about your parents?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Did you miss them?’
‘Of course.’
‘What did you miss most?’ When Patrick regarded her in puzzlement, she smiled. ‘It’s not a trick question. I just wondered if you could remember anything special that you missed? Things you did together. Bedtime routines. Food. Jokes. Smells.’
‘Routines,’ Patrick answered ironically. ‘Maman had a lot of routines.’
Amanda nodded sympathetically and scribbled a note. ‘Did you make friends easily at school?’
‘Sure. The other boys were all right. A decent bunch.’
‘Any special friends?’
‘At the next school, when I was older, a couple of guys. One I’m still in touch with. The others met up in the holidays, which could be a hassle for me. But I was never bullied or anything like that. I was fine.’
‘Have you talked to your friends about what’s happened?’
Patrick was taken aback. ‘No.’
She nodded matter-of-factly, making no further remark. ‘How were you academically?’
‘Did well enough to scrape into university.’
‘Languages, I suppose?’ asked Amanda, smiling. ‘You must have a facility, after living in so many countries?’
‘My French is fluent,’ Patrick agreed. ‘Thanks to my grandmother. But I liked human biology. Found it interesting.’
‘Were your parents proud of you, going to university?’
‘Well, it wasn’t Oxbridge. Only Sheffield.’
‘What about romantic relationships?’ she asked next.
‘I hardly got near a girl before I left school. But my first term there, a girl I sat next to in lectures asked me out. Annie.’ He glanced at Amanda shyly, looking away as he enlarged. ‘She’d had boyfriends before, at school, so I just went along with what she wanted. Seemed to go okay.’
‘You don’t find sexual relationships difficult?’
Patrick blushed. ‘No.’
‘How long have your relationships generally lasted?’
‘A few months. I was never into one-night stands.’
‘Nothing longer?’
‘Not until I met Belinda. Then she fell pregnant.’
‘Do you think you’d have stayed together if she hadn’t?’
‘I’d like to think so. She wasn’t even that keen on having a baby to begin with. Her music’s very important to her. One thing led to another, I suppose.’ Patrick grew sombre. ‘She should’ve steered well clear,’ he said quietly. ‘She deserves better.’
‘Up until now, would you say you’ve made Belinda happy?’
Patrick considered the question. ‘Yes. We made each other happy.’
‘After you graduated, what did you do?’
‘I did a year of further training, then dropped out. Kind of drifted for a while.’
‘Tell me about that.’
‘Nothing much to tell.’
She looked at him, waiting, and Patrick, embarrassed, nonetheless saw that he had to offer more. ‘I got into the whole New Age thing. Raves, eco-protests, tribes. All that stuff.’
‘What was the further training in?’
Patrick heaved a sigh: he always hated making this admission, the explanations that inevitably had to follow. No one could ever seem to believe that he simply hadn’t wanted to be a doctor. ‘Medicine.’
Amanda’s eyes widened. ‘At what point did you drop out?’
‘I qualified. Just never applied for any jobs. Walked away.’
‘After what, five years of training?’
‘I wasn’t the type. Too many hoops to jump through, a lot of stress. I only did it to please other people.’
‘Then it must have taken guts to disappoint them.’
Patrick snorted in derision. ‘Dad’s never hard to disappoint!’
‘And your mother?’
‘Maman tends to get wrapped up in the small stuff. That I’ll go out in the cold without a scarf, not eat properly.’
‘So what did you do after you dropped out? Where were you living? Were you working?’
‘Bits of casual labour. Moved around. That whole grunge, traveller thing, remember?’ Patrick was mildly surprised at how Amanda let his well-rehearsed answers pass without comment.
‘You were a crustie?’ Amanda looked amused.
‘Well, I don’t think I ever actually slept in a doorway. But you’re right. It wasn’t much fun.’
‘Were you depressed?’
Once again, Patrick was taken aback. ‘Never thought. I guess I was a bit lost, if I’m honest. Most of the people I hung out with then were.’
‘How long did this go on?’
‘A while,‘ he said curtly. ‘Until I began training in homeopathy.’
‘And that gave you direction?’ She leant forward slightly, interested in what he would say.
‘It was like I’d finally found what I wanted for myself,’ he answered truthfully. ‘Something I could do well.’
‘And you’ve never been tempted to go back into medicine? Not even to call yourself a doctor?’
Patrick shook his head. ‘Why would I? I’m a homeopath.’
‘Okay. Tell me how you feel about your work. About yourself when you’re working.’
‘Good.’
‘In what way?’
Patrick blushed again. ‘Like a good person. Safe.’
‘Safe from what?’
‘No. Like I’m safe. Can’t harm anyone.’
Amanda regarded him steadily, but Patrick resisted the sense that she was waiting for him to make some connection.
‘You said it was easy to disappoint your father,’ she went on after a moment. ‘Could you imagine a time when your son might have disappointed you?’
‘Never!’
‘Did you fuss over him, like your mother did over you?’
‘No. Poor Maman, her fears are irrational. An illness. Growing up with that, I’ve never let things get to me.’
‘How do you do that?’
Patrick shrugged. ‘Dunno.’
‘Ever think you’re a little too laid back?’
‘Hope not.’
‘But you’re able to block things out? Concentrate on what’s before you – your patients, for instance?’
‘Cut off, would you say?’
‘Not really.’ Patrick heard the slightly aggrieved tone in his voice and shifted in his chair as if to disown it.
‘Forgetful?’
Patrick dropped his head and did not answer.
‘I believe your GP is organising some neurological tests? To rule out any physical cause for your memory loss.’
Patrick nodded, miserable.
‘You’re still unable to remember your drive to work; parking the car and leaving Daniel?’
‘It’s like there’s no memory there to be retrieved.’
‘Do you think you might have emptied your mind in order to block something else out? Some uncomfortable feeling, perhaps?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Maybe you’d like to think about that for me.’
Patrick swallowed on nothing and stretched his lips into a smile. ‘Okay.’
‘Before this happened, how do you think you might have felt towards another parent who forgot his child, the same way you did?’ Patrick stared at Amanda in surprise. ‘It has happened to other people. You’re not unique.’ She nodded at him encouragingly. ‘In America there are about twenty-five cases a year accounted for by parental memory lapse. I suspect such forgetfulness is fairly common here, too, but not often fatal, thanks to our climate. In France a few years ago two children died in hot cars within a week of each other. Both had intelligent, diligent and devoted fathers, whose attention was somehow fatally distracted. Just like you.’ She watched his reactions carefully. ‘How does it make you feel, knowing you’re not alone?’
‘Better. No.’ Horrified, he corrected himself instantly. ‘Not better, I don’t mean that. There is no better. But – it helps,’ he ended lamely. ‘Thank you.’
‘How do you feel towards those other fathers?’
‘I pity them.’
‘Are you able to pity yourself?’
‘No.’
‘Would you forgive them?’
‘Maybe. I know what you’re going to say.’ Patrick felt his hostility to her rising into his throat. ‘But it’s not the same,’ he exclaimed. ‘I’ll never forgive myself. Never. Daniel’s dead. There’s no excuse for what I did.’
‘Well, I’ve read the police statements, Patrick. From your wife, Daniel’s childminder, people in the emergency services who attended the scene, the patients you treated that day. None voiced any suspicion that you intended to harm your son.’
‘I did harm Daniel.’
‘Deliberately?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Then why should forgiveness not be possible? In time, of course.’
‘But it’s obvious, isn’t it? It’s me. There’s something in me that harms people. I’m not safe.’ At the back of his mind he heard a distant echo of Josette’s voice.
Amanda sat back, saying nothing. The compassion Patrick could read on her face angered him. ‘My son is dead because of me,’ he told her coldly. ‘It’s not up to you or anyone else to forgive me. I allowed him to come to harm. I don’t deserve forgiveness.’
An hour later Patrick sat down on a bench in a small park laid out in formal beds and paths around a war memorial. He felt as worn and exhausted as the dusty brown grass, as meaningless as the carved names of the long-ago dead. He could not picture what route had brought him here from Amanda’s office. He couldn’t face going home, going anywhere. All sorts of disconnected memories chased through his mind, of drab school dormitories, of listening late at night to his mother stealthily testing door handles and window locks in foreign apartments, of the way the light slanted in between the shutters as he sat on the floor at his grandmother’s house, playing solitaire with an old wooden board and heavy citrus-coloured glass marbles. He wondered why he should think so vividly of that when he had barely mentioned Josette to Amanda. Josette had no bearing on any of this, and he pushed her out of his mind. He wondered what Amanda thought of him. He liked her, even though she had made him feel so gritty and irritable.
It occurred to Patrick that he had forgotten to discuss his return to work, as he had promised Belinda he would. He recalled what Amanda had said about the supportive statements his patients had given to the police. The idea that it might after all prove possible to see patients again gave him his first unmistakable inkling of reprieve. This joined itself to the small and exquisitely painful spring of hope that had uncoiled inside him on hearing the simple fact that other men shared his guilt. The information that he was not uniquely capable of his act of lethal aberration released a tiny trickle of warmth that suddenly began to flow through his veins. But even such a minuscule sense of relief produced an overwhelming rushing sensation that made him panic. He leant forwards on the bench, bracing himself against the flood. He looked wildly around the little park, but saw he was alone. He tried to stand, to walk away, but his legs trembled and he sat back down on the hard bench, gasping for air.
He wondered if he were having a heart attack, and for a moment hoped he was. He felt no pain, but his head was swimming and he felt sick. His right hand gripped the edge of the wooden bench and, slowly, all his consciousness focused on the single sensation of touching its worn surface. His thumb began to circle rhythmically, and he recognised something to which he was accustomed in the dry grey dust working its way into the whorls of his fingerprint. Its familiarity began to calm him, and he was able to let his mind empty as his thumb continued to rub the desiccated wood, the feel of which reminded him more and more of aged, dusty linen. He remembered now that he knew all too well how to subdue hope, how to endure alone, to accept that he deserved no better. These things came to him more naturally than kindness, forgiveness or reprieve, and he welcomed the memory of how he had always survived before.
The next day, Geoffrey called and informed Belinda that the offer he and Agnès had made on a house in Esher had been accepted; meanwhile they would return to Switzerland until their lease in Geneva expired towards the end of September. Geoffrey attempted to sidestep Belinda’s invitation to lunch, but she insisted, and they came over two days later. Patrick welcomed them. Geoffrey refused eye-contact, pushing past his son to present Belinda with a box of expensive chocolates. Agnès kissed his cheeks and clung to his arm, and he gathered her to him in a hug. In the sitting room Geoffrey requested a gin and tonic and launched into small talk about the house they’d found, garlanded with jovial asides about the estate agent and one or two totally unsuitable places that they’d also viewed. Agnès nodded and laughed at appropriate moments, her eyes never leaving her son.
Observing them both, Patrick felt despondent at how little real pleasure his parents had ever found in family life, and now never would. The old gloom of responsibility settled on his shoulders. Even as a boy he had never succeeded in lightening their spirits, never managed to work out where the insurmountable difficulty lay that prevented them from being happy. He felt a tearing wound of pity for the three of them.
Belinda called them to the table, where Geoffrey attempted to continue in the same vein. He talked randomly about their Channel crossing the next day and what route they would be taking through France, about farm shops and window cleaners, until Belinda cut across him, saying without preamble, ‘Did Patrick tell you he‘s seeing a psychologist?’
Agnès’ fingers flew to her earrings, but, when Patrick leant across to press her hand, she looked directly at him, signalling her support. Geoffrey stared at Belinda in incomprehension.
‘Maybe, before you leave again for Geneva, you have things you’d like to say that might be helpful,’ Belinda suggested, looking calmly at each of them in turn. ‘Maybe now is the time to discuss things you don’t generally talk about.’
Geoffrey looked petrified, but Agnès nodded cautiously, and Belinda waited for her to speak. ‘Agnès?’ she prompted.
‘Patrice knows how much we love him,’ she said, patting his hand.
‘I’d like to understand more about why you sent him away when he was so young,’ said Belinda blandly, though Patrick could detect how she struggled to keep her tone neutral. Such directness was unlike his wife but, he thought, looking at his father’s drawn face and his mother’s over-bright eyes, none of them were any longer like themselves. ‘How you imagined he’d react to that,’ she went on.
‘You sent your boy to a childminder,’ Geoffrey accused Belinda. Agnès reacted with immediate alarm.
‘No one is criticising you, Dad,’ cajoled Patrick. ‘What matters now,’ he appealed to Belinda, ‘is to support one another.’ But she returned his look with a resoluteness that was foreign to him.
‘I don’t hold with working mothers,’ insisted Geoffrey. ‘If you’d stayed at home with him, young lady, none of this would have happened.’
‘Oh, no,’ protested Agnès to her husband. ‘Don’t, dear. Don’t.’
‘See! Now you’re upsetting your mother!’
‘I don’t believe Patrick forgot Daniel,’ Belinda said passionately. ‘It was you he was trying to get away from!’
Geoffrey rose to his feet, his chair scraping against the floor. ‘Is this why you asked us here? So you could accuse us of – of something?’
‘Sshh, Dad. Of course not. Sit down. Please.’ Patrick appealed again to Belinda. ‘We don’t need to talk like this. Let’s just enjoy our lunch.’
Still standing, Geoffrey jabbed his finger across the table at Patrick. ‘You’re to blame! No one else!’
‘I know that, Dad,’ Patrick agreed contritely, ignoring Belinda’s flash of contempt. ‘Please, sit down. This isn’t helping.’
‘It’s not easy,’ said Agnès. ‘But we’ll all try, won’t we?’
‘Well …’ Geoffrey cast around for some face-saving formula and held his attention on the bowl of fruit salad on the kitchen counter. ‘Belinda’s gone to a lot of trouble,’ he conceded, sitting down. ‘Your mother doesn’t want to be ungrateful.’
‘We’re none of us ourselves,’ said Agnès. ‘How could we be?’
Belinda collected up their plates, rebuffing Patrick’s offer of help, and prepared to serve the dessert, the stiff line of her mouth and uncoordinated movements betraying the futility of her fury.
‘It was the same when your sister died,’ said Agnès, handing a plate of fruit salad across the table to Patrick.
He looked at her in confusion. ‘I never had a sister, Maman.’
Agnès turned to address Belinda. ‘She was two days old. The doctors warned me when she was born that she was very poorly, not expected to live.’
Patrick stared at her in bewilderment. ‘You never told me!’ He caught Belinda’s look of amazement. ‘I had no idea,’ he assured her.
‘They said it was all for the best,’ explained Agnès. ‘Your father was away on business.’ She glanced across at Geoffrey, a look of unexpected sympathy. ‘He couldn’t get back in time.’ Geoffrey sat very still, his head bowed, making no sign that he was even listening. ‘He never forgave himself.’ Agnès reached out to clasp his hand, but he recoiled from her touch, pushing his chair back clumsily.
‘Excuse me,’ he cried, blundering to the door. They heard him rush up the stairs, then turn the lock in the bathroom door.
‘Why did you never talk about this before, Maman?’
Agnès looked surprised. ‘Your father doesn’t like to. But it was never a secret.’
‘You’ve never once spoken of it.’
‘I feared it might upset you to talk of it. And you never asked, like other children, why you had no brother or sister.’ The simplicity of her reasoning clearly made perfect sense to her.
‘It never occured to me,’ said Patrick, staring at her in perplexity, combing his memory for any evidence that he had known anything of this.
‘How old was Patrick when she was born?’ asked Belinda.
‘Two. The doctors told us we should have another child right away. That’s how people thought in those days. But it was too difficult.’
Patrick was astounded at his mother’s demeanour. He had never seen her show such composure or resolve. He couldn’t determine which was greater, his shock at her revelation or the strange shyness that overcame him faced with her novel air of quiet authority.
‘Your father and I,’ Agnès continued, ‘we understand what it is to lose a child. Never forget that, mon petit chéri.’
Belinda’s eyes filled with tears. Patrick sat still, trying to process his astonishment, until they all heard the sound of the bathroom door opening, then Geoffrey’s reluctant tread as he descended the stairs. Patrick was not sure he could deal with his father any more today, but when Geoffrey re-appeared, Agnès reached for the jug of cream and offered it to him as if nothing exceptional had occurred. Geoffrey busied himself with his fruit salad; stunned, the others followed suit, making no attempt to break the exhausted silence. When, finally, Belinda suggested coffee, Geoffrey announced that Agnès had a headache, and ten minutes later, to everyone’s relief, they had driven away. The next day they would be in Europe.
Patrick stood in limbo at his front door, able neither to re-enter the house nor to walk away. It took a moment for his mind to register the sound of Belinda sobbing behind him. With limbs of lead, he went to her. She sat at the kitchen table, her head in her hands, tears splashing onto the wood between her elbows. He sat next to her, not touching, and waited, not knowing what to say.
‘I want Daniel back,’ she wept finally. ‘I miss him so much. I can’t bear to think of him shut away in that hospital basement all alone.’
Patrick’s heart clenched tight, stopping his blood. ‘I know. I’d suffer every torment under the sun if I could only bring him back.’
Belinda’s body shuddered. ‘I keep thinking of him that day, all by himself in the car, frightened and crying. Wanting me. And I wasn’t there.’
‘I’m the one who should’ve been there.’
‘And that made me think of you. It made me understand how you must have felt as a kid, what they did to you.’
‘No. I was okay. It wasn’t that bad. Look at them – you can’t blame them.’
‘All these secrets, things never spoken about. And you all play along.’ Belinda stretched out her hand to him, the first time she had offered any physical sign of absolution. Patrick took it, the touch of her fingers jolting his every nerve. ‘Did you really not know?’ she pleaded, between gasping breaths. ‘Did you not even remember your mum being pregnant?’
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘Though it makes sense. Especially about Dad not being there when it happened. No wonder the poor sod can’t cope.’
‘Your grandmother must’ve known.’
‘I suppose so,’ Patrick sighed. ‘And I suppose I must’ve been aware at some level. I assumed it was just what grownups were like, not telling you stuff.’
‘How could Agnès have sent you away after losing her baby? What sort of mother packs her child off at seven?’
‘I upset her, made her anxious. She was ill.’ He shook his head in wonderment. ‘I can’t believe she spoke of it now.’
‘But think of you, alone at school, wanting your mum!’ Belinda looked at him with terrible sadness. ‘How come you never get angry at them? Always defend them?’
‘Because I’ve caused all this, not them,’ said Patrick. ‘I’m the bad one here. The only one responsible.’
‘No,’ she wailed. ‘Your dad’s right. I’m just as much to blame as you are. I should have paid more attention to how seriously those two stress you out. I should’ve taken the day off. Kept Daniel at home with me that day.’
The horror that Belinda should feel contaminated by his guilt had never crossed his mind. It pressed down on him, an unforeseen and insupportable burden.
‘I never looked at you properly before,’ she went on, beginning to sob again. ‘And I should. I should have seen what they’re really like. What they do to you.’
‘It wasn’t that.’
‘If I had, then he’d still be here, safe with us. It’s my fault just as much as yours.’
‘No!’
‘I can’t stop thinking,’ she wept, ‘if only I’d put his changing bag on the front seat, where you’d’ve seen it. If only I’d rung Christine.’
‘No!’ Patrick cried out in agony. ‘It’s not you.’
‘It is. It’s my fault. I left him there alone.’
‘Don’t say that. Don’t think it.’
‘Don’t tell me how to feel,’ she screamed at him. ‘You have no idea how I feel. You never did!’ Patrick recoiled from the hatred in her face. He sat in frozen penance while she choked and gasped through her tears.
Much later that night Patrick became aware of Belinda standing over him in the dark of the guest room, shaking his shoulder. ‘You’re having another nightmare,’ she whispered. She slipped into bed beside him. Half-awake, he rolled over automatically to make room for her and stretched out an arm to pull her closer. She lay still, and he fell back to sleep with his hand resting on her night-gowned hip. When he woke in the morning and found her there, he could not look at her for shame.