2004 - The Reunion

by Sue Walker

  Even Simon Calder, despite his achievements, was struggling. Something that Debbie said about him was nagging at her. She needed to find out more. She headed back to her office, photograph in hand, and returned it to its locked drawer. She threw the filing cabinet keys on to her desk and slumped down in her chair. She should have known. The spectre of the Unit was rearing its head after all these years. Given a lifetime of avoidance and denial, she had no choice but to follow where it led.

  THIRTY-THREE

  “You know the drill. Strictly observed feeding times.”

  “Yeah, yeah. How many hundreds of times have I cat-sat for you, Deb? Now go. See you in a couple of days. I’ve got your return-flight details. I’ll pick you up on Friday night. Enjoy the conference. It’s in Barcelona, for God’s sake. You’ve got to enjoy it. I bet it’ll be a junket. Oh, and bring me back an excellent Rioja!”

  —Sarah stood in the cold at the front door, smiling and waving, watching the taxi’s brake lights flicker and disappear round the corner into the night. She double-locked the outer and inner front doors and wandered back into Debbie’s living room. The two Siamese were lounging imperiously on one of the sofas. She settled at the dining table, sipping at the wine they’d been sharing at dinner. She had decided on tonight’s course of action as soon as she knew Debbie was going away.

  It was outrageous, wrong, breaching every ethical boundary. After tidying away the dinner things, she made her way through to the back of the house, clutching a large brandy—Dutch courage for what she was about to do. Debbie’s office was spacious and looked out on to her wild garden. Tonight it was in darkness. No outside lights on. Although the garden and, in their turn, the back rooms of the house couldn’t be overlooked, she pulled the blinds down anyway. An irrational act, born out of guilt. The keys to the locked patient files were kept elsewhere. She knew where.

  The filing was logical. All patients had an ID number only. But the key to cross referencing the numbers with names was also readily at hand in a different locked drawer. Patient number 1,571. Katie Calder. She scan-read through the session notes, looking out for any mention of Simon Calder, and then she came to the most-recent entries.

  *

  It is altogether common for there to be marital difficulties following the kind of pressures that Rachel and Simon Calder have experienced with the abduction and assault of their daughter. From previous discussions with Rachel Calder—again already recorded -it has been clear to me for some time that Simon Calder had no intention of taking part in the family-therapy sessions. My invitation for him to come to see me was readily accepted, somewhat to my surprise. I found him in an intense mood, though making a reasonable show of appearing relaxed.

  However, when it came to it, he was extremely forthright and implacable about not attending Katie’s sessions. I intentionally let it be known that I had been speaking to his wife about him. This surely cannot have surprised him. Also, I made him aware that Sheena Logan and I had also been talking and made reference to his past. In essence, Sheena knows very little about his psychiatric past, other than what she had to know when he accepted the post. It is a very long time ago, and records will no longer exist. However, the uncanny coincidence of Sarah being a member of staff in the APU during Simon Gaidar’s time there is useful.

  Though Sarah herself, understandably, could not remember enormous amounts of detail, she did scotch Sheena’s and my speculation that he had suffered sexual abuse as a child. No, he had a complex mix of psychiatric disorders associated with his unloving and domineering mother, tied to having been a twin, the other sibling having died at birth and the mother somehow blaming him. I imagine that led to some fairly serious disturbance in adolescence.

  It is through Rachel Calder that I have gained my best intelligence on Simon Calder. It seems that, unbeknown to him, his wife is aware that he keeps a daily journal. He apparently writes it every night once she is in bed and keeps it under lock and key. Recently she managed to sneak a look at it—no easy task, since she says that her husband is ‘obsessively secretive’ about everything to do with his study. Over the years she’s assumed that this is because he may have confidential patient files there, and so the room is effectively out of bounds. However, she has said, with stark honesty, that her trust in her husband has completely broken down. She has taken advantage of his distraction of late and managed a glimpse at a couple of the journal entries and felt so concerned that she had to talk to me about it. She related the following: He talks about memories of something he calls ‘that time before’. I don’t know what he means. He says that time has always been ‘buried deep but constantly nagging’. He talks about nightmares that have come back, ones he had years ago. About something I think when he was very young. And he talks about drinking too much. In secret. I didn’t even know he was! Simon’s never been a heavy drinker in all the years I’ve known him. He doesn’t like being out of control. And he says a strange thing. “All is deceit. Lying. Guilt.” He talks about how no one can know why what’s happened to Katie has hit him harder than anyone else, including me. I think it’s to do with this…this thing that happened when he was young. Anyway, he goes on to say something really odd. “There are others’ meaning, others who know. Know what? And there was another entry. Something about a game that had gone wrong and that would stay with them all—whoever ‘all’ are—for ever because what ‘they’ did was ‘the absolute unforgivable…irreversible’. ”

  *

  The hit as she threw die entire triple brandy-shot down her throat almost induced immediate vomiting. She stood up, consciously trying to slow her breathing and counteract the nausea, and then, when it had subsided, she eased herself back into the chair. She read and reread the entry three times. She’d understood the significance of every word. There was no mistake. With a shaking hand, she closed the file. Hurriedly, she put the file and the keys back in their rightful places and switched off the office light. Suddenly aware of a scratching at the door, she moved into the hallway and padded her way down the stairs to the kitchen, die cats hungry and noisily insistent behind her. She ignored them, instead looking for the bottle to refill her glass. A foolish act, she knew, but the only answer at that moment. As she sloshed the liquid in, the smell of it turned her stomach, decisively this time. She leaned over the sink and vomited. The shock had been too much. But from that moment onwards, she knew exacdy what she had to do. To be sure.

  §

  She walked into the freezing winter sunshine of Lochgilphead, gasping in lungfuls of air. The local newspaper office behind her had been small, stuffy and cramped. But her sense of claustrophobia had nothing to do with that. She carefully folded the photocopied articles and headed for her car. She looked at her watch. She’d get there, as planned, by twilight.

  She’d never returned to this exact spot since the camping holiday. She’d driven down to look at the outward-bound centre. Still there and, unbelievably, looking exactly the same. Nobody in residence. Four twenty. The sun had almost had enough for the day. She parked on the high road, pulled her backpack out of the boot and set off. Within half an hour she thought she was there. A compass and plastic-covered, weather-proof map had been easy to find in town. She squinted at where she thought she was. She was going to need the torch soon. It was foolhardy coming out on her own at night, no one knowing where she was. But it had to match the timings of before. For greater verisimilitude. Besides, she wanted to feel again what it was like for her. More importantly, what it must have been like for the others. Two in particular.

  She couldn’t be sure that she was on exactly the same path. Chances were she wasn’t A forest path was a forest path. She was no expert hiker. But she knew where she was heading. She’d mentally marked on the map where they’d peeled off. Carrie and Simon. And where had they rendezvoused with the others? Where had Alex, Abby and Danny given Ranj the slip? They would have to have gone down to the loch-side and doubled back. It was the only answer. She would do the same. The torch was need
ed now and she smiled to herself as she patted the reassuring shape of the Maglite back-up in her breast pocket. This wasn’t going to be like last time. The cut down to the loch was slippery, and she must have slithered more than walked. But she made it. She took her bearings again and then pulled out the photocopied cuttings. She wanted to be sure she was heading to the right place.

  She couldn’t be certain this was it, but shortly after the village of Minard she saw a path to her left. It ended in a clearing right by the loch-side. She looked around. Yes, on a moonlit night all would be visible, and even if you had a few torches about the place, the thickly forested pathway would hide them from the main road. She walked towards the water’s edge, toeing a few loose rocks with her boot. She bent down to touch the surface of the water. Freezing. To her right was a raised bit of rock and moss, almost like a natural diving board. There was even a ready-made little flight of rocks like steps leading up. She jogged up them. The height was surprising. She shone her torch downwards. It was quite a drop. To her right, someone had hung a monkey rope from an overhanging tree bough. For swinging and jumping into the loch in the summer. Kids laughing. Kids playing. Kids…

  She shivered and carefully picked her way back down. She’d seen enough. The walk would be tiring, but she’d stay on the main road and maybe hitch a lift to her car a few miles on. It was remarkably still on the loch. No wind. No moon. The opposite of last time. There were owl hoots and rustlings like before. But this time she wasn’t scared of the journey. Only scared of what she now knew. And what she should, what she could, do about it.

  With a final backward glance at the blackness of the loch, she headed up the path to the main road, tears beginning to burn at her eyes. Burning with her own shame and guilt.

  REUNIONS II

  The same few weeks

  Handover note from Sister Anna Cockburn to Charge Nurse Ran jit Singh

  22 December 1977

  RE: Patients, Danny Rintoul (d.o.b. 5.3.62) and Isabella Velasco (17.6.61)

  Probably due to the other disruptions currently infecting the Unit, I think we have all missed yet another shift in patterns here. I have become aware that the previously close relationship between Danny and Abby has cooled, distinctly.

  As we have discussed many times in our staff meetings, we all had a suspicion that this relationship was on the point of becoming sexual. For obvious reasons that could not be permitted. If it has already happened, then we haye not been monitoring both patients thoroughly enough. However, on balance, I feel that matters have not reached that state.

  I have discussed this further with Adrian and we agree that any emotionally bonding relationship that Danny can have with a female without an active sexual factor is to be encouraged. Danny is clearly very fond of Abby, who is of course extremely attractive, and on the whole we think that this relationship, if kept at friendship level, could be good for both patients.

  However, there has been an inexplicable change in atmosphere between the two. It seems that Danny has given Abby the cold shoulder. Rather surprising. Further, I don’t think it is because he no longer cares for her or admires her—I have seen those puppy-dog looks he still gives her when he thinks she (and everyone else) can’t see him. No, he seems to be under great strain and will not let Abby in (or any of us for that matter), hence his outbursts of pent-up frustration and anger.

  Heavy monitoring of both for the next day and night. Roll on the Christmas break!

  Copy to: Daily Nursing Log

  Copies to: patient files, D. Rintoul; I. Velasco

  THIRTY-FOUR

  The journey back had been hellish. Trying to cross the Minch at this time of year always was. Although he could count on one hand the number of times he’d gone back to the mainland since he’d setded in the Western Isles. He lived here for a reason. He liked the solitude, the idea of being cut off from the rest of the world. A feeling he enjoyed, especially during the winter months, when ferries and planes had their problems getting here. No, he didn’t enjoy the outside world. Even Stornoway was too loud and too busy for him sometimes.

  He’d just been over to his neighbour’s croft to thank him for seeing to his dogs and sheep while he’d been away. An ailing ewe had been found dead in the snow, but that had been expected, and he shooed away the neighbour’s apologies. The neighbour had insisted on immediately opening Danny’s gift of a single malt, and diey’d got through half of it before Danny could take his leave and make the very slow and careful two-mile drive through the snow, back to his croft.

  At home, he sat by the peat fire, sipping at his own supply of single malt. The journey, the whole couple of days, had unsettled him to the core. Could he really have fooled himself that they would never meet again, when they had all kept their bargain to keep in touch every year? Albeit in the most terse and tenuous way, as far as he was concerned. And hadn’t it been he who had initiated furdier contact with Simon? He’d thought long and hard about that. When he’d read the newspaper reports, he’d just about passed out. He’d been surprised that Simon hadn’t contacted them all. And Simon had taken such a long time to reply to his own letter of condolence about the wee girl. That had forced him to write to Alex. She’d responded in a devil-may-care way but, crucially, had supported his decision to get in touch with Simon.

  He worried about that. Simon mustn’t know about his telling Alex behind his back. Anyway, she’d been okay about it. She’d known nothing about the kidnapping of Katie Calder. Simon had been right. She’d apparendy been sunning herself somewhere abroad at the time. But, having met her now, seen her, he was sure she was as freaked out by it all as he was. She just hid it a bit better.

  He poured himself another drink and stared down at the photograph and the address list cradled in his lap. That random act of child kidnapping had set Simon, set him, set them all, on a journey he would like to get out of. Opt out, just like he had fifteen years ago, when, in his mid twenties, he’d decided to bury himself here. He’d done ten years hard working and hard playing on the rigs and he’d diought the life suited-him. But it hadn’t. Once here, he thought he’d found his paradise. But it wasn’t going to be that easy. That his fate depended, had always depended, on a few others had been easy to hide from this place at the end of the world. Except for those November 8th letters. He hated that date. So much so, that he usually spent the evening on that day in a Stornoway hotel room getting mindlessly drunk. A completely understandable ritual to him. At least it prevented his home, his croft, the few neighbours and others he saw regularly from being contaminated by that day.

  He marvelled at his ability to shut off, compartmentalize what was bad. He was very good at that. It had served him well. It allowed him to live. But he was involved now. It was only a matter of time before the wretched Simon would be calling him up, asking for advice, for a sympathetic listening ear. And Alex? That uncomfortable but ultimately useful drive back from Simon’s had been instructive. He didn’t trust her a bit, but he recognized some form of alliance with her. She’d been dragged into a situation she too desperately wanted to deny. He fingered the Unit camping photo, gently smoothing back its curling corners. The tip of his forefinger stopped on the face of Isabella. What would she look like now? What would she be like now? Her personality, her nature. People didn’t change that much, did they? Not people like them.