2004 - The Reunion

by Sue Walker

  He let Danny’s unfinished and crudely put question fade.

  Truth be known, he was glad to be able to articulate what had now become off-limits with the person he most needed to share it with. Rachel had set her face against any discussion with him of Katie’s ordeal, instead emphasizing that she preferred to talk to Debbie Fry. “Someone sympathetic and knowledgeable” as she tersely put it, who’d been available to her ‘day and night’ to talk things through on the phone, in person, any time. “Absolutely invaluable.” The message was clear. He was surplus to requirements.

  He shook his head slowly at Danny. “It may seem…difficult to understand this but…the physical…sexual assault side of it…well, frankly, it could’ve been worse. It was limited to occasional touching, exposure, and…but…look, I thought it would be easier to talk about this. Y’ know with someone a bit removed? But…I really don’t want to go into it now, okay?” He paused to look at Danny, who had dropped his eyes, and was sitting stiffly hunched in his chair, clearly not daring to move. “There’s something else. Evidence that he might have taken some photos. Katie’s talked about him saying he took some ‘holiday pictures’. Apparently the others were photographed. Christ! As for everything that went on…we haven’t got to the bottom of it yet. Katie’s therapist is doing that sort of work with her. My big worry is about her long-term psychological and emotional health.”

  “These…these abominations can be got over. I mean, clinical research shows that, given the right treatment…but Jesus! Listen to me! I hate talking about my little girl as if she were some case…it’s, it’s just that I want her to be all right again. The man who took her managed to convince her that he was…well, a friend of mine and of Rachel. I mean, Jesus! The fucking manipulation. And of course what I’m worried about is the trust issue with her. She seems to be okay with Rachel but…I don’t know how she’s seeing me at the moment. It’s very…uncomfortable. And her sister too. I can’t help feeling that in some way Lily blames me. Y’know, “why-did-Daddy-let-this-happen’ sort of thing. It’s a nightmare, Dan. A nightmare.”

  “I’ve thought and thought and thought about it. Trying to make sense of it. We were convinced she was dead. Her clothes were found, and we thought the worst. And then she’s returned. We find out what went on. And then there’s the other, puzzling, chilling stuff. You know, she was given toys, sweets, even a puppy to play with. She was left with the puppy, but we’ve had to give it away because it wouldn’t get on with our other dog. She thought she was in some kind of fucking game. She thought she was on holiday, and that Mummy and Daddy had to go away for a while because of work. Wicked beyond belief!”

  “I can’t tell you…it’s so strange…so terrifying, to have your child taken and kept. Like a trophy or something. The police are really worried. They think he’ll kill next time. I keep saying to myself, she came back, alive. She will get back to normal eventually. She’s young and getting expert help. But…but I don’t know about me. It’s made me think so much. Look back. Remember. I can’t stop think-, ing. I tried to get my mind back together again. On the straight and narrow of everyday life. I gave myself a few months. It’s no good, though. That’s why I waited so long after you wrote to me. I tried not to need to talk about anything to anyone.”

  Danny was offering him an uncertain smile in reply. “Aye, I wondered ‘bout that. I mean, I’m happy to meet up wi’ ye and everything under the circumstances, but I don’t understand. Yer Katie’s back. Alive”

  Christ! He refused to believe that Danny could be so doltish. This was a bloody high-IQ’d guy sitting in front of him. Maybe he dealt with some things in life by blanking them out. Just like himself. He tried again.

  “Look, Danny. Rachel, my wife, has left me and taken my two daughters with her. Oh, she said that she thought they could benefit from the time together, and that I was catching up on my backlog of work so she never saw me anyway. They’re going to our house in France. She doesn’t want me there. She’s leaving me, I know it.”

  “But? But, how’s that, then? I would’ve thought you’d all want, need, tae be together right now.”

  He felt it was time to ram the message home. “It’s all my fault, Danny! It’s me. I can’t go back to how I was before Katie was taken. You’ve got to be able to see that. Surely? It’s changed me. Or rather it’s reminded me of the person I should have been…it’s ju—“ He felt himself faltering, verging on tears, and took a swig of his whisky before he could go on. Danny was staring at him, apparently impassive. So bloody cool while he struggled on. “It’s just that I can’t get that time in the Unit out of me now. I can’t sleep, I can’t work, I can’t fucking live. I don’t think the Unit’s ever really been out of me. I’ve just blocked it off. You don’t have to look a million miles away to see why I became a bloody psychologist! It was an act of recompense. But whatever, it’s come back on me. I’m fucking drowning!”

  Danny was letting the silence hang for a moment. What was he thinking, for God’s sake? Couldn’t he understand what he was saying? This was serious. Nothing more so.

  “Si? Does Rachel know? ‘Bout the Unit?”

  “Course not!”

  “Nothing? I me’an, she doesn’t even know you were ever in there?”

  He shook his head again. What the fuck was Dan going down this track for? “No. Nothing. I never got round to telling her. Rachel’s a very…very strong person. When we were getting together, I did think of telling her but somehow…it…felt weak. And that’s just it. If I could’ve maybe told her something about it in all the years I’ve known her…well…well maybe, just maybe it might have helped. But she never would’ve understood what went on there. Even the sanitized, edited highlights. Rachel’s from a different universe than us. Mentally clean and stable.”

  “Besides, Mother would never want her to know. Too shaming by far. Mother was always trying to deny that there was anything wrong, right up until I went into the Unit and even when I was in there! I’m still a coward sometimes when it comes to my mother. At least I’ve got that amount of insight into myself. She was always adamant that I should ‘tell no one, ever’, as she put it. And, there’s one other very simple reason why Mother never wanted anything like this to get out. She’s a class A snob. The last thing she wanted when I was going through university, then my postgrad and ever since, was any ‘stain’ on my character that would be seen to reflect badly on her. And she saw my marriage to Rachel as a ‘good marriage’, meaning Rachel’s family had money and…and ‘breeding’. Christ. I used to hate it when she used that word. Sounding like some Victorian matriarch! Though she had a point of sorts in me not telling. I’m not sure how Rachel would’ve reacted to any news of my past vulnerability. Like I say, she’s strong, mentally robust. So we started out as a lie and the Unit days slowly, effectively, got buried. But, to be honest, with Rachel, I didn’t need to be encouraged not to tell her. Anything about the Unit would’ve seemed alien to her. She really is from a different universe.”

  Danny was reaching over to him, placing a firm hand on his forearm. “I’m sorry, pal. Really. No one could ever have predicted what was going to happen to you, to your wee girl, your family. But Katie’s back. You need tae put this behind you. Get Katie better. Find a way to get Rachel back. I understand that you can’t tell Rachel ‘bout the Unit. You know we’re all in the same boat. We’ve all got our secrets to keep.”

  He leaned back out of Danny’s comforting grasp. “But that’s just it. I don’t want to keep any fucking secrets any longer! Keeping stuff inside is killing me. I want…I need to see the others.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “I want to speak to Alex and Isabella, maybe everyone. I don’t have to worry about Carrie. It’s nigh on twenty years since she hit that one too many heroin highs, isn’t it? What a bloody waste! Anyway, you see, it’s time. Time to deal with things out in the open. There’s always a price to pay in life and my one’s come up. Nov.”

  Danny’s face had tight
ened. He was stretching over the table at him again, voice now rasping, losing its calm edge. “Simon? You crazy, pal? You can’t just do something like that. It affects us all. Not just you. Anyway, it’s over a quarter of a bloody century since we last saw them. The others could be anywhere. How the hell you goin’ tae find them? Apart from Alex, of course. Our November letters ensure we’ll always know where she is. Fuck! You’ve not told her, have ye? I hope she’s not been reading the papers.”

  “Calm down. No, I’ve not been in touch with her. I wanted to talk things through with you first. And no, she won’t have read about it. She’ll have been in the Med at the time, getting a bloody expensive tan, no doubt. Remember, she’s told us about that. Showing off. She always goes away for three months. She’ll have missed all the coverage about my Katie.”

  He noticed Danny’s face relax and then tighten up again as he pressed his original question. “But look, Simon, how are ye goin’ tae find the others? It’ll be impossible, after all this time. You’re mental, man! Mental!”

  Simon felt a strange smugness as he answered. Dan was out of order calling him mental. No, it was just the opposite. It was time to start behaving sanely. He leaned back again, away from Danny’s intensity. “I’ve always known where the others are. Where the whole bappj family is. Call it a safety net.”

  He watched with a tinge of satisfaction as Danny slumped back, shock at what was unfolding registering at last. “I…I…fuckin’ hell!” He stopped. Simon could see the thought passing over Danny’s features before he asked his key question. “And what about Isabella? You’re not going to try and contact her? I mean, she’s not important. She’s got nothing to do with this. You know that.”

  His answer was firm. “She might have. We don’t really know. We never really knew. Did we? I mean, given your relationship with her…I…I thought that you might have…have…kept track of her. Maybe even spoken with her.”

  Danny almost lunged at him now, banging the table and splashing his pint all over the place. “No, pal. Absolutely not! Abby’s got nothing to do with this. Nothing!”

  Simon held up an appeasing hand and moved the drinks back to the centre of their table. He believed him. Almost.

  TWENTY-THREE

  The meeting with Danny had exhausted him. He was grateful to be home. He was beginning to get used to the silence of the house. The silence from fellow humanity anyway. The wind and sea still kept him company. For that he was grateful. He glanced into the small, normally cosy living room. He’d brought down both the girls’ night-lights. They didn’t need them now since Mother had provided them with replicas for the bedrooms in her house and for the house in France. Typical empire-building and territory-stealing. He shoved the thought away and sat down. Watching the children’s lights with their soft gentle glow and amusing cartoon characters emblazoned on the sides could become a nightly ritual for him. It was calming. And it made him feel somehow closer to both his daughters. The lights usually gave some semblance of warmth to a room, making it seem more welcoming.

  But tonight everything felt cold, stale. He leaned his aching head back on the sofa, cradling one of the girls’ soft toys that they’d grown out of, forgotten in that afternoon’s excited rush to pack and leave. He was happy they’d left it. The tatty blue elephant had become his constant companion these few months. He’d got used to it. He roused himself and stood up, settling the toy back on the sofa, upright, as if it was watching the blacked-out television. The wind wasn’t giving any quarter tonight, and he moved through to his beloved study and threw the window open. But the gusts were too strong and he pulled it to, but not all the way. He wanted to keep chilly. The journal lay open before him. Tempting and ready.

  I’m not sure what I feel about tonight. Seeing Dan so strong and easy with himself mas in part inspiring and in another depressing. How a man such as he could have rehabilitated, no, reinvented himself so successfully leaves me fighting for breath. I believe that he has never given a backward glance to that time in the Unit. Maybe living in isolation as he does makes that possible. He’s at one with the land, with nature. Maybe he can console himself with that.

  But for me? Well, every day of my life since then has been spent in attempts at denial, reparation, despair, a handful of moments of happiness and, above all, GUILT. Undeniably so. I ache to unburden myself. It’s clear that Dan does not feel the same. How could he? He has no children. He is a different creature from me, A different species, psychologically! I can’t help but envy him that in some way.

  Abruptly, he stopped, screwing the top back on his fountain pen. There was something else he had to do. Fumbling through his uncharacteristically untidy desk, he retrieved it. He slid the photocopied letter towards him. Funny he’d felt the need to copy it.

  Dear Alex,

  My first task must be to apologise in advance for contactingyou. I know what we promised all those years ago, but events in my life have taken a turn that affects us all.

  I don’t know if you read the newspapers. However, even if you do, you may have missed the story about me and my family. Or, equally, it may not have regstered, so much time havingpassed since we all last met together.

  You will remember that time I am sure. It was 1979. It was another ragingly hot summer. We were having a picnic at St Monans in Fife, by the sea, where I now live. Looking back, I find it all a bit bizarre, surreal. A Unit reunion. A reunion of those who had been joined in illness and in…

  He slammed a hand down on to the paper. No need to read any more. He knew the thing line by line. He’d written it, after all. With slow deliberation, he ripped it into a dozen pieces. Then, for a reason he didn’t even bother analysing, he leaned through the open window and watched the pale, ragged squares sucked by the wind towards a gloomy, grey sea.

  Slowly, almost painfully, he moved his cold limbs and headed back to the living room. As he switched off the children’s lights, sobs tearing at his chest, he reached for the little blue elephant and prepared to weep the night away.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  He was freezing and getting wet. Each time a particularly hefty breaker hit the shore, it sprayed up over his garden wall and caught him hunched in the corner of his wooden bench. He didn’t care. It was only a bit of harmless sea-water. Besides, he enjoyed the taste of salt on his lips. It was sensation after all. Something to test his increasingly numb body.

  He surveyed his garden and the beautiful stonework of his house, perched right at the water’s edge, only yards from the church. He’d wanted to own this house, this garden, since the first day he’d set eyes on them in the sixties. That was when his parents brought him on the first of many and surprisingly—given the usual hell of family life—enjoyable summer holidays to this loveliest of fishing villages of the East Neuk of Fife. And he’d made no secret of his deske to live here. It had been back in…July maybe? Yes, July of 1979. That reunion picnic…

  “I mean it. I’ve always loved that house. I’m going to buy it one day.”

  “Sure you will, Si.”

  “I will, Carrie. I will.”

  Danny had slapped him affectionately on the back, making him cough into his can of beer. “I know you will, Simon. I believe you. You’ll soon be a better heid doctor than old Dr Laurie!”

  The waves of their giggling banter had made him almost happy. For a minute. But he’d had to have a moment alone. Take in what he felt. He’d gone down on to the pebble beach, just a few feet below the grassy headland where Anna and Sarah were sitting. And invisible to them both.

  It was weird. Everyone seemed the same. Carrie was more jittery than he remembered. But she was on something. Not just spliff. Lydia was significantly thinner but irritatingly jollier than ever. Alex had grown her hair. And scowled most of the time. Situation normal. He’d seen a bit of her and Lydia at parties during the past eighteen months. They were on the same social circuit, but he kept them at arm’s length. Best policy. Especially with Alex.

  He found a dry rock and sat, si
pping at his beer. None of them had talked, really talked since arriving. It was as if they were all on some superficial trip. Well, he’d have to wait and see. Above him, he pictured Anna and Sarah. Sarah, who was now apparently a fully qualified member of the Unit staff. No more ‘baby nurse’ for her. He saw that she and Anna had laid their blankets out in an area of no man’s land, where churchyard ended and spongy grass began. In front of them stood a line of black, jagged rocks. Beyond that was the flat, pebbled beach where he was hiding. Far along to his right, he, and the nurses, could watch Ranj playing a game of improvised cricket with Lydia. He listened as Sarah raved about the Auld Kirk—the very best example of darkly brooding Scottish ecclesiastical architecture—literally clinging to the headland, protected from the wildest seas by only a few yards of cemetery, holding the long-buried and the recently lost. He wanted this place. For himself. He gave a silent laugh and tuned into Sarah’s chatter…

  “This must be one of the most spectacularly placed churches in Scotland. It’s fantastic!”

  Anna was definitely in agreement. “Yes, it’s wonderful. There’s been a chapel on this site since at least the thirteenth century. The story goes that this one was built about a century later by one of the early Scottish kings, David II, allegedly as a kind of thank you.”

  “Thank you’?” Sarah sounded surprised.

  “Yeah. Apparently he was crossing the Firth of Forth in a ferocious storm that shipwrecked others. But, miraculously, he survived unscathed. So, bless him, he gave us all this marvellous church. The actual village is named after a medieval monk called Saint Monan. He worked as a missionary in these parts and was said to have been murdered by rampaging Danes.”

  “You’re bloody knowledgeable about local history!” Simon had to agree with Sarah there.

  Anna was laughing. “Comes from having a husband who drags you round any and all historic monuments at the drop of a hat!”