‘Lydia, where’s your mother?’
‘Go away!’
‘Lady Standish, it’s Leo Young!’ I peer into the caravan; but Lydia blocks the view.
‘Go away! Go away! She has a dog.’ She snaps and growls.
‘It’s Leo, Lydia; you remember me. I’m a friend of Robin’s. Where’s your mother … mama?’ As a foetid smell wafts towards me, I fear that the reason for their not appearing is that Lady Standish is dead and Lydia living with her corpse. ‘Where’s your mother, Lydia? Oh God, why does it have to be you?’ I push past her and into the empty caravan.
‘She’s seen you on the programmes.’
‘That’s right; but we’ve stopped for the summer.’
‘You stole a little girl. Mama! Mama!’ She runs outside. ‘She won’t let you steal her.’ I follow her into the courtyard. She bangs on the door of the outhouse. Lady Standish emerges with a flush. ‘What is it? What’s the matter?’ Her words are slurred as though from a stroke. Lydia stutters and sobs. I intervene.
‘Lady Standish, please don’t be alarmed, it’s Leo Young. I need your help.’
‘You are a criminal. You are on the run,’ she barks through biteless gums.
‘My little girl is hurt. She’s fallen downstairs in your house. You must help me.’
‘“Must”? I am not a woman to be moved by “must”s. Oh do stop snivelling, Lydia. And fetch my teeth.’ Lydia stands bewildered. ‘My teeth, Lydia!’ She hurries into the caravan. I start to explain what has happened. Lydia brings her the dentures, which she inserts as smoothly as a party trick.
‘I need a telephone.’
‘We have no telephone here.’ A note of imperious mockery returns with her teeth. ‘The nearest is in the village. Lydia will take you while I attend to the girl.’ Lydia swallows her objections.
‘No, we can drive.’
‘You have a car?’
‘It’s parked in the stables. And – of course, what am I thinking of? – I have a phone!’ I dash to the stables and throw off the blankets. I grab the mobile and run back through the courtyard, just as Lady Standish comes out of the caravan in a coat.
‘Would you ring?’ I ask her, ‘would you say that a little boy–’
‘Boy?’
‘You could tell them that he was your grandson. Please. You know what it is to have children. They’re trying to take her away from me. It’s our only chance.’
‘Enough, Mr Young. It’s degrading to watch a man beg.’ She makes the call. ‘Lydia, an ambulance is coming to fetch a boy who’s hurt in the house. You must wait in the drive to show the men in. Say nothing, do you understand?’ Lydia nods her lumpish head like a puppet. ‘Except that your mother is on the stairs with the boy.’
‘But she’s wearing her pyjamas.’
‘They’re doctors. It’s what they expect.’
I take Lady Standish to Pagan, who is lying where I left her, clutching the torch like a teddy bear, its beam shining on her feet.
‘Darling, it’s me. Are you alright?’
‘You said no time. No time always takes the longest time of all.’
‘How are you feeling?’
‘Sleepy. It doesn’t hurt any more. Can we go for the toys?’ I ease the torch out of her hand and direct the light onto her face. Lady Standish gasps.
‘What is it?’
‘No, it’s nothing. It must just be seeing a boy in the house again.’
‘Will you go with her in the ambulance? Will you do this for me?’
‘I have been trying to remember whether I ended up liking you or despising you. Perhaps tonight will settle it once and for all.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I shall take Pagan –’
‘Paul.’
‘Paul – such an obvious name – to the hospital. You will wait with Lydia in the caravan. When I return, we’ll talk further.’
‘There may be a price to be paid for helping us.’
‘Do you suppose that someone who has gone from this to a caravan fears anything that the world can throw at her now?’
I hear steps on the stairs and dart up to the second floor.
‘Aren’t there any lights, lady?’ I catch the wheeze of resentment in the ambulanceman’s voice.
‘My lady, if you wouldn’t mind.’
‘We asked the … other lady, but she just laughed.’
‘My daughter is an innocent. Why do you need lights? We want you to take the child to hospital not to operate on him here.’ She trains the torch on their faces to pre-empt any show of protest and then onto Pagan, who makes no sound, as they strap her in the stretcher. ‘You remain in your room, Lydia, like a good girl. Should you require anything, ring the bell. You men, follow me.’ For a moment, my fears are lost in admiration as she is once again chatelaine of Crierley, striding steadfastly down the stairs, as though to live in darkness were a minor eccentricity and she had never heard of the phrase ‘unpaid bill’.
I wait for the blue light to disappear down the drive, before emerging to join Lydia in the caravan.
‘She wanted to go to hospital. Lydia likes hospitals. People are nice to her there. They show her pictures and ask her to do drawings. They always say “very good”.’
‘Would you like a drink?’ I ask, ‘a cup of tea or coffee?’
‘You’ll burn yourself on the water.’
‘I’ll take the risk.’
She cowers and covers her ears, as the water boils and kettle bounces. ‘It sounds cross, like the fire is biting a hole in its bottom. One day, it’s going to burst out.’ I prepare the coffee and let her words roll over me. ‘You came to see her with her brother.’
‘Yes. Do you remember?’
‘Her brother’s a bird. He’s flown away, but he’ll come back. Birds always come back in the summer.’
I black out the Christmas card robins. ‘Yes, I’m sure he will’
‘Why did you steal the little girl?’
‘I didn’t. The television made a mistake.’
‘Do you want to marry her?’
‘She’s a child.’
‘Do you want to marry Lydia?’
‘What?’
‘Mama’s going to die soon. And no one’s going to marry her; so what will she do?’
‘She … you mustn’t worry.’ I tangle myself in her pronouns. ‘Your mother is strong.’
‘Why won’t you marry her? Is it because she’s ugly?’
‘That’s not true. You’re very pretty.’
‘She’s not pretty; she’s ugly. They measured her face in a machine. They put a hat on her head that held it hard and counted why she was ugly. All down here and along here.’ She traces a slow path over her bulbous forehead, across the lost line of her eyebrows, down her squashed nose to her harelip. I feel an overwhelming rush of pity for her maimed self-awareness, mingled with hatred for the father who passed on his disease in place of the family profile. The ‘fatherhood is in the blood’ line looks even less tenable when that blood is ninety per cent proof.
‘She’s ugly, ugly, ugly,’ she squalls, as she tears at her cheeks with a vehemence that might do damage, were her nails not bitten to the quick. Pulling her hands from her face, I try to project warmth without encouragement. She starts to spout gibberish – ‘She wants to be a swan, she wants to be a swan’ – and I fear that my coming may have unhinged her. But snores replace sobs, as she sinks slowly into sleep, lolling her misshapen head on my shoulder.
I drift in a sleep-waking void as I wait for Lady Standish to return. Guilt weighs as heavily on me as Lydia. As dawn seeps warily through the window, I realise that my only course is to admit defeat. My rescue attempt has exposed Pagan to worse dangers than your father. Even if she escapes tonight without serious injury, both of our identities are sure to be revealed.
I snap into alertness as a car crosses the courtyard. I free myself from Lydia, who slips onto her side. Numbness grips my shoulder and I revolve like a giddy sheep. Straining to make ou
t the voices above the snores, I seize on the peremptory ‘That will be all, we can manage the rest ourselves.’ So they are back … I give thanks to the gods of temple, church and forest; what is more, she can walk … As she confirms a moment later by stepping into the doorway, her left arm in a sling.
‘Pagan has fractured her wrist.’ Lady Standish forestalls my question. Guilt turns to relief and then back to guilt at feeling relief.
‘I was sure that she must have broken her back.’
‘She has some very nasty bruises, but she’ll live.’
‘Darling, let me help you.’ I lead her by the undamaged elbow. She feels as fragile as a bird that has been winged.
‘You may use my bed.’
‘Does it hurt?’
‘They gave me a drink of blackcurrant and two needles, but they said not to look. And they took pictures of me, but I didn’t let them take my pants down’ – she drops her voice to a whisper – ‘so they can’t tell the police. Was I good?’
‘You were very good.’
‘They said I was a soldier. That’s even better than a boy!’
‘No more talking now,’ Lady Standish insists, ‘it’s time to rest.’ She covers her with all the warmth of one who is given too little licence to be gentle. As she kisses her shyly, I see a long line of longed-for grandchildren. ‘Remember what you promised me.’
‘What was it that she promised you?’ I ask a few minutes later as, leaving Pagan and Lydia to sleep, we cross the lawn in the brittle morning light.
‘That if she did what I asked, I would tell no one about you.’
‘And have you kept your word?’
‘Are you trying to insult me?’
‘I’m sorry, I’m still in a state of shock. I’m amazed that you were able to fool the staff.’
‘We weren’t. Of course, they saw nothing on the X-rays; but they had to check for internal injuries. I gave her name as Pauline … known to her friends as Paul. Luck was with us. The doctor wanted to keep her in hospital. She said it was the rule for children injured at night to see a social worker in the morning. I directed her attention to the portrait in the hall. “My husband’s grandfather founded this hospital,” I said; “his father endowed it; for twenty years, I was President of the League of Friends” She gave way, on condition that we came back to the fracture clinic. Remind me to let you have the card.’
‘You’ve been brilliant.’ She shivers. ‘But you’re exhausted. How thoughtless of me! You’ve been up all night; you need to sleep.’
‘I never sleep; I just dream differently.’ She walks on. ‘You haven’t yet told me why you came here.’
‘I tried to explain: her grandfather –’
‘No, not why you left London; why you chose Crierley.’
‘It sounds fanciful, but it was almost as though something drew me here. I pictured the grounds … the isolation.’
‘And what about the rain? Did you seek shelter in the house?’
‘There’s a temple in the woods … I spent a night there once before.’ Her face clouds with a long-suppressed memory.
‘I should never have come between you and Robin. You were the one person whom he loved.’
‘We were very young, finding our way through our feelings.’
‘He assured me.’
‘We were finding our way through our words.’
‘I put blood before nature. It was the greatest mistake of my life.’
‘But …’ I temper my question with discretion; ‘you didn’t appear to object to his friendship with Duncan Treflis.’
‘Duncan was a family friend. We hoped to flesh out that friendship when Robin married his niece.’
‘Only he wouldn’t have it.’
‘I put it to him that it was his duty, but he refused to see. He talked of his duty to himself. I told him that there was no such thing. Duties, by definition, are to other people. He claimed that I needed him to sacrifice himself in order to justify my own wasted life. Men are so melodramatic. How could my life ever be wasted when I had him? He accused me of thinking only of Crierley and not of him. I tried to explain that they were one and the same. Duncan is a very wealthy man. With the money that he was prepared to settle on Robin and Jenny, the house would have come alive again. Instead, it has been left to decay.’
‘And it almost claimed Pagan as its victim.’
‘Which would have been doubly ironic, considering that her mother was the cause of the rot.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I don’t expect you to. I didn’t myself until it was too late … Instead of sending him to a Catholic school, where he would have grown up with boys from his own faith … his own background, his father insisted on sending him to one where he came under the influence of a girl … a girl who’d sneaked in by the back way … a girl who, because she hated her own family, taught him to hate his. She left him to care for nothing and no one but himself.’
‘Please don’t forget that she was my dearest friend.’
‘She was no friend of yours.’
‘What?’ She does not elaborate; I dismiss her hyperbole. And yet it pains me that Robin’s mother should think as ill of you as mine.
‘And now you are on the run with her daughter?’
‘Hardly on the run.’
‘Another few steps and she might have broken her neck, then where would you be?’ I say nothing; she does not seem to expect it. ‘You’ve had a very narrow escape.’
‘I know. I came to a decision while you were at the hospital. As soon as it’s civilised – I’d like to rephrase that – I’ll call my solicitor. I’ll ask his advice, frame my doubts in the form of questions. Of course, I shan’t say where I am.’
‘Say whatever you choose. Who will pay any attention to us: a crabbed old woman and her crazy daughter? In the village, they call us witches. I often wish that we were.’ She shivers. ‘We should go back; I’m starting to feel the chill. Besides, I have to wake Lydia. She’d sleep her life away if I let her … perhaps I should.’
‘I don’t know how I can ever thank you.’
‘By not trying. In my position, gratitude is too great an encumbrance.’
She makes her way back to the house like a miner’s widow lost in the shadow of a pit. Touched by her frailty, I want to take her arm, but I am afraid of causing offence. I wait while she catches her breath.
‘May I ask if you’ve remembered?’ Her eyes fill with a confusion of memories. ‘Whether you ended up liking or despising me?’
‘Oh that!’ She dismisses my foolishness. ‘Yes.’
4
As The Judges returns for its third and, we trust, final series, the producers have instituted changes. The plot-lines are tougher; the mood on the set is more sombre. Some of our old favourites are missing. The Usher has been written out – or perhaps died – and replaced by a far more photogenic young woman. Rebecca, too, is absent (engaged in a long-running saga in the Strand), so I am being represented by her junior, who seems confident in the face of his first leading role. Digby-Lewis is back, his sour smile suggesting a dearth of alternative offers, along with all the other principals: your parents, their solicitor, and Max. But, as we wait for the entrance of Judge Flower, I pray that someone – anyone – will take over from me.
My only surprise is that I am not in the dock. But, far from being arrested the moment that I deliver Pagan to Max, I find that I am charged with no offence … not even abduction. Liberty is as unsettling as it is unexpected, and I return to Holland Park like a man who, having been cured of cancer, has lost his reason to live. Meanwhile Max takes Pagan to your parents who, from the evidence of the tabloids, see her fractured wrist as a perfect photo opportunity. Captions range from Patience Shows Her Hand and In Plaster and Tears to a shot of her reunion with your mother dubbed The Patience of a Saint.
The Nation may have canonised your mother, but her catalogue of virtues fails to include forgiveness (to my mind, a far more appropriate caption wo
uld be The Plaster Saint). Two days after my return, I receive your parents’ application for an Order to revoke my contact, together with an affidavit in which they couple a long list of my failings, ranging from negligence to insubordination, with the claim that I have shown that I cannot be trusted and will undoubtedly take the first opportunity to ‘kidnap’ her again. They state that she has come back both physically and mentally scarred, citing a horrific incident, only a few hours after her arrival, when she rushed into the kitchen and grabbed a scalding pan from the stove … Am I the only one who can read between the lines?
My own affidavit is made mealy-mouthed by Max. Insisting that, if I continue to produce such ‘wild allegations’, I will turn the Court against me and lose any hope of retaining contact, he tries to excise all reference to my suspicions of your father, even though they constitute my entire defence. We eventually hit on a compromise, whereby I agree to preface each charge with ‘of course I now realise that there is not a shred of evidence’ or ‘at the time I believed that something was amiss’, which I cannot believe has fooled anyone. I sign my name as though to a blank cheque.
I wish – how I wish – that I had followed my instincts, especially when I receive your parents’ second affidavit, which is as outspoken as mine is restrained. They claim that I have made my imputations against your father in order to provide a smokescreen for my own activities and then proceed to blow – no, blast – it away. They base their case on the changes in Pagan’s behaviour after her weekends with me. They produce evidence: physical … the rawness around her vagina; psychological … her violent mood swings; verbal … the ‘fellatio’ (which they fear may now have gone beyond words). They save their gravest concern for our ten days in hiding; the potential for abuse was immense. Pagan has volunteered nothing and they respect her silence (being loath to remind her of an ordeal which she longs to forget), and yet the question remains: for what reason other than perversion would a man cut off a girl’s hair and dress her as a boy?
I feel as though I have fallen into a septic tank … I may climb out, but the smell will always cling to me. How can your parents suggest that I would ever do such a thing to Pagan? I love her; I have never abused her. I truly believe that I have never abused anyone in my life … except perhaps myself. I glance to where they are sitting, so much more composed than on previous occasions … your father even sports a cravat. I ache with exhaustion; I shrink from the prospect of another hearing. I would offer to give her up, if only I could rely on a judge with the wisdom of Solomon rather than the prejudice of Judge Flower.
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