Guilt at the Garage

by Simon Brett

  Jude always found the ambience claustrophobic. The residents thought they had inherited the earth and all that was beautiful in it. They were not people who ever doubted their own entitlement.

  She had heard that certainty in the voice of the woman who had summoned her to the Shorelands Estate earlier in the day. Natalie Kendrick was the name announced on the phone. She had heard Jude’s services praised by ‘people round the village’ (though she didn’t name any names) and she would like her to ‘take a look at my son’ to see if she could ‘do something for him’. The request was made in the manner of someone ordering curtain fabric, and Jude had been initially tempted to refuse it. But her instinct for helping people in trouble – not to mention her natural curiosity – found her magnetically drawn to the Shorelands Estate.

  Troubadours occupied one of the favoured plots whose garden gave access on to the beach. Its architectural style was 1930s seaside villa, white-painted with curved walls and metal-framed windows, reminiscent of an ocean-going liner. On the gravel drive stood a Land Rover Discovery and another red car that Jude recognized as a Triumph Tr6. (This familiarity did not reflect any knowledge of cars, just the fact that she’d had a brief affair with a man who’d owned one. His pride and joy. She had very rarely been allowed to drive it – usually when he’d had too much to drink – but she had enjoyed its power. The man in question had turned out to be the kind who was much more interested in cars than he was in women. The Triumph was flashy, unsubtle and unreliable. Which, given its owner, had been – she realized later – entirely appropriate.)

  The top half of Troubadours’ front door was coloured glass, dark blue for the sea, light blue for the sky, with a white yacht nearly keeling over at their intersection. Jude rang the bell and the speed with which it was answered suggested that Natalie Kendrick had been waiting for her.

  She matched exactly the image that her voice on the phone had conjured up. A thick-set woman probably in her sixties, she wore sensible black leather pumps, a denim skirt and one of those fawn padded gilets which imitate the contours of a woodlouse. The steel-grey hair was parted in the middle and curled in at the jawline to frame her broad face. Her make-up was uniform pinkish beige. She was one of those women who formed the rather unbending spine of England, the affluent middle class.

  ‘You must be Jude,’ she said forcibly. ‘Sorry, I didn’t get your surname …?’

  ‘Most people just call me “Jude”.’

  ‘Right.’ Natalie Kendrick’s tone suggested the response had not been entirely satisfactory. ‘Anyway, come through to the sitting room and have some coffee. Hang your coat over there.’

  The décor of Troubadours was as predictable as its owner’s wardrobe. Beige fitted carpet, custom-made parchment-coloured curtains with a subtle design of foliage, matching pale green velvet sofa and armchairs (all of whose cushions had recently undergone a regimental plumping). One entire wall was windows, curved at the edges, providing, beyond the garden fence, the much-prized sea view.

  Coffee was ready on a low table. Tray, cafetière, nice china. Posh, correct.

  After the obligatory pleasantries about the weather and recent Fethering events (not many of those), Natalie Kendrick started the proceedings proper by saying, ‘As I mentioned on the telephone, it’s about my son.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Tom.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He’s been going through a difficult time.’

  ‘What kind of “difficult”?’

  ‘The fact is that my husband died three years ago.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

  ‘And Tom took it badly.’ Somehow there was the implication in her voice that she hadn’t taken it as badly as her son had.

  ‘That kind of bereavement can be very difficult for teenagers,’ said Jude. ‘Everything’s difficult for teenagers.’

  ‘Yes.’ There was a silence. ‘I should perhaps say that Tom wasn’t a teenager when his father died.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘He’s twenty-five now. Twenty-two when Gerald passed.’

  ‘Ah. Well, losing a loved one is difficult at any age.’

  ‘Yes.’ For the first time, Natalie Kendrick looked a little flustered. ‘I think his father’s death definitely made things worse, but Tom’s behaviour had always given cause for concern.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘He always had trouble, kind of … fitting in, I suppose one could say.’

  ‘Fitting in socially, making friends? Has he always been a bit of a loner, is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘To an extent, yes. Though he can be quite a gregarious boy. But …’ Natalie Kendrick looked the picture of middle-class angst. ‘It’s the kind of people he likes to mix with that’s the problem.’

  ‘Bad company?’

  ‘I’m not sure that they’re exactly bad, but definitely unsuitable.’

  ‘Ah.’ Jude was puzzled. She wasn’t sure whether Natalie was building up to some great revelation about her son. Everything she’d said so far sounded pretty imprecise and innocuous. ‘Could you explain a bit more about what’s wrong with Tom’s behaviour?’

  ‘Well, it’s just … I suppose the problem is that he doesn’t really appreciate all the advantages he has.’

  ‘This lovely house …’ Jude gestured around the room. ‘That kind of thing?’

  ‘Yes. More than that, though. Gerald saw to it that the boy went to his own old prep school and public school, and yet Tom didn’t seem to realize how fortunate he was. It was almost as if he always wanted something different from life.’

  ‘There’s a long history of young people rejecting their parents’ values.’

  ‘I am aware of that. But, with Tom … I mean, he actually had to leave the public school … under something of a cloud. Gerald was mortified. And, since then Tom’s been … I don’t know … a drifter. He never settles to things. He’s done all kinds of training courses and started jobs. Oh, goodness, there have been so many of them. I mean, it was clear at school that Tom was never going to be university material, so the professions were sort of barred to him. But Gerald and I reconciled ourselves to that.’ Something in her tone implied it hadn’t necessarily been an easy process.

  ‘So, we – well, I – started looking out more practical forms of training, you know, apprenticeships, that sort of thing.’ She couldn’t keep a slight edge of distaste out of the word. ‘We enrolled Tom in computer courses, electrical engineering, carpentry, you name it. He even started learning auto mechanics. But none of them worked out. We considered the hospitality industry. Tom has an easy manner with people, he’s well-spoken, we thought he might fit in there. But again, after a few months, for some reason or another, it came to an end. He never seems to stick at anything. Something always goes wrong.’

  Jude was beginning to think that she should end the interview. She hadn’t exactly been brought to the Shorelands Estate on false pretences. But the ‘people round the village’ who had recommended her services to Natalie had, not for the first time, misunderstood what she actually did. To the average person, healing was a very vague concept. Though it inevitably encroached on mental distress, the primary focus of Jude’s work was dealing with physical ills. And it sounded as though Tom Kendrick, if he required any therapy, needed the help of a psychiatrist rather than a healer.

  She spelled this out to Natalie, hoping to make good her escape, but the widow was not diverted so easily from her purpose.

  ‘I think you should at least meet Tom, talk to him. Maybe you will be able to find some common ground.’

  Jude shrugged. ‘Well, if you like. Since I’ve actually come here, I’ll do that. But I’m not very optimistic that it’s going to work.’

  ‘What did Mummy say about me?’ Tom Kendrick poshed up the word ‘Mummy’ to give it a satirical edge.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘For example, did she tell you that I was adopted?’

  ‘No. No, she didn’t.’r />
  He nodded. He was a tall, large-limbed creature dressed in jogging bottoms and a hoodie, open to reveal a T-shirt advertising the tour of some band Jude had never heard of. He spread himself across a sofa in a posture of indolent ownership.

  ‘No, she tries to avoid telling people if she can. I think that was on Mr Kendrick’s orders, actually. He hated telling people I was adopted. Maybe he thought the fact that they couldn’t have children was a reflection on his virility. He was very old-fashioned in many ways. Always liked to have his ducks lined up in a row. Didn’t like things that didn’t fit in.’

  ‘Like you didn’t fit in?’

  ‘Oh, well done, yes.’ He slowly clapped his hands in dry appreciation.

  ‘Your father had a clear idea of the person who he wanted any son of his to be … and you didn’t fit into that stereotype?’

  ‘You’re good,’ he said with some surprise. ‘Most of the shrinks I’ve had have taken half a dozen sessions to work that one out.’

  ‘I’m not a shrink.’

  ‘Aren’t you?’ He didn’t sound that interested.

  ‘I’m a healer.’

  ‘Oh God, not another one!’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Mrs Kendrick brought in another healer’ – the word was larded with contempt – ‘to sort me out. Jeremiah, he called himself. He’s local. You know him?’

  ‘We’ve spoken on the phone. I haven’t met him yet.’

  ‘That’s a treat in store for you. Then you can get together to chant and throw your special ingredients into the same cauldron.’

  Jude had heard enough misinformed slights against her calling not to rise to this one. The lack of reaction didn’t seem to bother Tom. He went on, ‘I should be flattered, shouldn’t I, to be such a rare and incurable case? Having exhausted the resources of the conventional stuff, NHS and private, Mrs Kendrick is turning to alternative medicine. Remarkable, given the views she’s expressed on the subject over the years. It’ll be Tarot cards next. I must’ve really got her scared this time.’

  ‘I prefer to think of what I do as complementary medicine rather than alternative medicine.’

  ‘Fine by me. Call it what you want, the fact remains – it’s not going to work.’

  ‘Did the man you called Jeremiah help you?’

  ‘No, he was bloody useless. Kept talking about my “aura”. And I kept telling him I haven’t got a bloody aura!’ He looked at Jude pityingly. ‘Do you really think that you can heal me?’

  ‘It depends rather on what you think within yourself needs healing.’

  ‘Good answer … to which my answer would be that I don’t think there’s much that needs healing. I think I’m all right as I am.’

  ‘You mean you’re happy?’

  ‘Now, come on. I didn’t say that. No, a lot of the time I’m as miserable as sin, but I don’t think that’s something that can be healed.’

  ‘Are you saying you get depressed?’

  ‘I don’t know. A lot of the shrinks have asked me that. Then I ask them what they mean by “being depressed” and they describe it to me … and usually I come to the conclusion that … no, I’m not depressed. But I am pissed off.’

  ‘And what pisses you off?’

  ‘Everything, pretty much. My situation here. The fact that I’m living on the Shorelands Estate in Fethering with bloody Mrs Kendrick.’

  ‘Can’t you move away?’

  He shook his head wryly and made that finger-rubbing gesture which is recognized throughout the world to refer to money. ‘Can’t afford to, can I?’

  Jude was increasingly of the view that she was the wrong person to have been called in to sort out Tom Kendrick, but she decided to get a bit more information before she left. ‘Your mother said you’d started lots of courses and jobs and none of them had worked out. Why?’

  ‘Because none of them interested me.’

  ‘A lot of people start out doing jobs that don’t interest them.’

  ‘Yes, but they have to, don’t they? I don’t.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Mrs Kendrick gives me an allowance. So long as that continues, why should I bother?’

  ‘Didn’t your father think you should make more of yourself?’

  ‘Maybe. At first. But his idea of me making “more of myself” was doing exactly what he’d done. He’d been Head Boy at prep school, Captain of Cricket at public school, studied Law at university, qualified as a solicitor and settled for a comfortable life of conveyancing, divorce, probate and golf. When it became clear that I wasn’t going to go down any of those paths, Mr Kendrick rather lost interest in me.’

  ‘So …’ asked Jude, ‘what do you do all day?’

  ‘Sometimes I go out. Mrs Kendrick has been kind enough to supply me with a car.’

  ‘The Triumph Tr6 outside?’

  ‘That’s the one. But I spend most of my time in my bedroom. Got Netflix, Sky Sports, computer games. My needs are simple.’

  ‘What about seeing other people?’

  ‘In my experience, “other people” are very rarely what they’re cracked up to be. There are some I get together with in Brighton, but not that often.’

  ‘Girlfriends?’

  ‘Why bother? There are a lot of porn hubs available out there.’

  Jude was struck by his negativity and cynicism but was finding it hard to see evidence of mental illness, or indeed of any condition that could benefit from her healing services. She put this to him in as graceful a manner as she could.

  Tom grinned triumphantly. ‘See? There’s nothing wrong with me. I wonder who Mrs Kendrick will turn to next – a witch doctor?’

  Jude left the Shorelands Estate that morning with her mind unchanged. Whatever problem Tom Kendrick had, it wasn’t one that could be improved by her skills. Indeed, she wondered if he actually did have a problem, except in the eyes of his mother. Tom’s lifestyle may not have fitted societal norms, but Jude couldn’t see that he was doing much harm to anyone.

  SIX

  ‘Don’t get old, Carole,’ said Bill Shefford. ‘It doesn’t do you any good.’

  ‘I already am quite old,’ she said. She had always felt her age to the last second. Few things annoyed her more than contemporaries saying, ‘Oh, I still think like an eighteen-year-old’, or, even worse, ‘Age is just a number.’ Who did they think they were fooling?

  ‘Take my word for it, things don’t get easier with the passage of the years.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  It was rare to catch the garage owner in reflective mood. Rare, in fact, for him to talk to her about anything other than car-related matters. He looked unhappy, Carole thought, the heavy features of his freckled face weighed down with gloom.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he went on. ‘You think you have things sorted, you think you’ve got your life worked out, and then something totally unexpected comes in from left field and you realize it’s all chaos. Things happen at the wrong time. Good things happen when you’re in no position to take advantage of them. It’s all a mess.’

  Carole wished she knew the right thing to say. Had it been Jude sitting on the plastic seat in Shefford’s reception area, she’d have come in with some formula of words that would have relaxed Bill, maybe encouraged him to further intimacies. Jude might even have been able to help him, soothe his despondent mood. Carole knew she didn’t have those skills.

  She was tempted to ask how long he thought Billy would take replacing the wiper blades on the Renault, but she knew that would be copping out. For the first time in their acquaintance, Bill Shefford was opening up to her. She shouldn’t reject the overture.

  ‘Is there,’ she asked awkwardly, ‘some particular event that’s happened to throw your plans?’

  ‘Life’s happened.’ He grinned wryly. ‘Or perhaps I should say, death’s happened. Not that it’s happened yet. But it will.’

  Though Carole didn’t know how to respond to this gnomic utterance, fortunately
Bill continued without prompting. ‘I feel as if everything’s under threat.’

  ‘You mean someone’s threatening you?’

  ‘You could say that.’ He seemed to realize that they had strayed outside the normal parameters of their relationship. ‘Sorry, you don’t want to hear all this.’

  ‘No, I’m interested,’ said Carole, something of an understatement. Then she came up with a line she had probably never used before, but which would have made Jude proud of her. ‘Sometimes it’s better if you talk about things.’

  Bill Shefford grinned wryly. ‘And sometimes it’s better if you keep your trap shut. No point in burdening other people with your problems. Though, on the other hand …’

  He ground to a halt. Carole quickly posed to herself the what-would-Jude-do-in-these-circumstances question. And came up with the answer: nothing.

  Her silence was rewarded by a slight shift in the expression on Bill’s face. He fixed his gaze on her. His eyes, she noticed for the first time, were a surprising, almost innocent, blue.

  ‘Sometimes in life,’ he began slowly, ‘you get into a position where there’s nothing you can do that isn’t going to hurt someone. There’s a decision you have to take and, though you know some people will be very happy with what you’ve decided, some other people are going to be absolutely devastated.’

  ‘And that’s the position you’re in at the moment?’

  He nodded pensively. ‘So, it’s a kind of balancing act. A profit-and-loss account, if you like. Is the happiness I’m going to bring to one lot of people worth the pain I’m going to bring to the other lot? Not easy.’

  ‘No,’ Carole agreed very softly, afraid to break the fragile atmosphere of his confessional mood.

  ‘And also,’ he went on, ‘you never know how people are going to react, do you?’

  Another scarcely breathed, ‘No.’