Dr Lane took to holding long conversations with Jamie as the evenings drew in, and quickly conceived a profound respect for the boy's mind. He found himself talking to him for much of the rime as an equal, and often had to remind himself that he was talking to a fifteen-year-old when he had to retrace an argument to explain something to Jamie. Edith Lane for her part loved the boy unequivocally as if he was her own, and spoiled him as dreadfully as her husband allowed her to get away with. "You'll be giving him a swollen head," he complained from time to time. "He'll expect preferential treatment in school."
"He won't, John," she retorted. "He's not the kind of boy to get swollen-headed, and you know that as well as I do. Besides, who are you to talk about spoiling him and preferential treatment? You treat him like a favourite undergraduate yourself. I've heard the discussions you have with him. If you come to that there's more than a little of the favourite uncle about it, too."
One evening in a lull in a discussion Jamie became absorbed in reflections of his own. Dr Lane wisely did not interrupt his thoughts, but waited to see what they brought forth. When he emerged Jamie asked seriously, "Do you think I'll be able to stay with you for very long, sir? Or will they take me away soon?" Edith, who was coming into the room with tea, moving silently as usual, almost choked behind the door to hear his voice, flattened into a dead tone by anxiety. Her husband, who had been wondering when such a question would come, pursed his lips and hesitated before answering.
"I think," he said slowly, "that you are safe for quite some time. Clearly a time will come when some firm decision will have to be taken about your future. But, for the moment, I think we can safely say that you will be able to stay with us for some time yet - probably some weeks, at least." He hesitated for a long interval before going on. Jamie sat on the floor, as he preferred, and watched him anxiously. Edith touched him gently on the shoulder and indicated his mug beside him. "I'm not quite sure how to go about asking you, Jamie," Dr Lane eventually resumed, "but, do you miss your parents?"
"No, sir," replied Jamie promptly. "I hated my father. At the end particularly, but I realised after we'd had the fight that I'd hated him for a long time before then too. He's a bully and a tyrant, and he never had the time of day for me. Or for mother, either. But she deserved no better, sir. She doesn't care about me either, does she? I mean, she knows I'm here, doesn't she? She could have come to see me, but she's never even rung me up. I don't suppose she even misses me." He stopped speaking, and a variety of expressions chased each other across his face, ending with a grim look of resolution which sat unhappily on his young features.
"Well, sir, I don't specially blame her for not missing me. We never used to have much to say to each other - no more than dad and I did, really. So I'm not missing her, am I sir?" But Dr Lane noticed that he instinctively looked across to Edith for support. He shook his head sharply, as if in dismissal of an unworthy notion. "No, if I'm to be truthful, I haven't even thought about them since I came to you that night all that time ago..."
"Two weeks, and a day or two," put in Dr Lane gravely, carefully waiting for a pause so as not to interrupt Jamie's flow.
"Well it may only be a fortnight, but it seems a jolly sight more to me, sir."
"You're happy here with us, Jamie?" Lane asked quietly.
"Oh, yes. Of course I am. You must know I am, sir." Once again there was the appealing glance at Mrs Lane. She smiled encouragingly, and trembled inside.
"Yes, I thought so. I was sure you were, in fact, but one should ask these things from time to time. It precludes complacency. Now, Jamie, I've been waiting until you raised this subject, as I knew you must sooner or later, to tell you something, upon which I should like your comments. You haven't known this*, but I must tell you that your mother has spoken to me on the telephone several times; and after the last call she has sent me a cheque to cover our expenses in caring for you. It is, I may say, for a very large sum. I have the cheque, but I have as yet done nothing with it. What are your thoughts on that, please, Jamie?"
"It proves what I said, I think," the boy responded without hesitation. "She'll feel better about things if she can send money. That's them all over, sir. They hardly think about anything except money. They'll think that by sending you a lot of money they'll have made everything better. I expect they'll try to make out that nothing ever happened, now it's all been greased over with a fat cheque. Can I ask you something, sir?"
"Of course."
"I bet it was for a thousand, sir. I know how they think," he said bitterly. "They'll have sat there deciding they owe you for my keep, and one of them'll have said a figure. 'That'll cover it', whoever it is will say. And I can just hear them at it, holding a bloody auction over me. I'm sorry, sir," he added as he noticed what he had said.
"Never mind," said the head gently. "I confess myself horrified, but humbled also, to see a boy of your tender years brought to such a pitch of cynicism, but I cannot, I fear, disagree too much with your assessments. However, there is more that you don't yet know."
"May I say something, please?"
"Of course. What is it?"
"I'm not trying to be clever, sir, but somebody I read about said that a cynic is a name an idealist gives a realist. I can't remember who it was, but I think I'm a realist, not a cynic, sir."
Dr Lane almost smiled, but decided it was not appropriate. "Are you sure you know the difference, Jamie?"
"John, don't patronise him," murmured his wife from her armchair.
"I shouldn't dream of it, my dear. But when one sees the words in use in the adult world and realises from the percentage of solecisms how many men old enough to be Jamie's grandfather lack any notion of the distinction, I think it's a fair question to ask. I think it's a distinction that one ought to know. Do you agree, Jamie?"
"Yes, sir, and I think I know the difference."
"Very well, then, Jamie. How would you define a cynic?" He looked keenly at the boy as he waited for an answer, and Edith could see that the real purpose of the discussion was in danger of being forgotten in the pleasure of academic exploration. She had heard several discussions of this kind in the short time in which Jamie had enlivened their house and their lives. She waited, intensely curious to see how Jamie dealt with a fairly fast ball.
"I'd say a cynic is someone so hard-bitten that he's never willing to credit anybody with honourable motives, sir," he said almost without pausing to think about it. Dr Lane raised his eyebrows. "Mmmm. Very good, Jamie. Very good indeed. I don't know that I could improve on that."
"Yes, sir. And that's not what I'm doing, is it? I mean, I'm only not crediting people with honourable motives that I know haven't got any, aren't I? If you see what I mean, sir."
"I see perfectly, Jamie, and I don't think I can find fault with your logic; though I might in one of my more critical moments find one or two with the syntax of the last..."
"John," said his wife in a warning tone. "I'm sorry, my dear. Carried away. Very well, Jamie. I said that there is more for me to tell you. We must postpone further investigation of the cynic to a more suitable moment. So, then, you don't feel any sense of loss by your - ah - estrangement from your parents?"
"None at all, sir. I've seen things in my mother that I don't like one bit. And I'm just scared of father. I think since this blew up he'd like to kill me. I thought he was going to, when we - you know, sir." The sidelong glance at Mrs Lane again.
"And you feel inclined to believe also that your parents for their part are feeling no great sense of missing you?"
"As I said, sir, I don't think they'll be missing me at all, unless father's wishing I was there so he can take all - all that business out of me."
"Dear, oh dear. What a state of affairs. Still, I find myself forced to agree with you. Now, then. Your mother is not for the moment living at home. Does that surprise you?"
"Not at all. I think she's probably as frightened as I am. Has she gone to live with Angela? Mrs Turnbull, that is? She lives at Howle
y Bend."
"Yes, she gave an address there, and I believe the name she mentioned was a Mrs Turnbull."
"I thought so. She helped Angela through her divorce years ago. I expect Angela will help her through hers now. She'll enjoy that. She's always hated the sight of my dad. She refused to come to our house. She said she wouldn't be able to stop herself hitting father with a croquet mallet." He giggled, and suddenly looked like a small boy. "She told me that once, sir, when mother took me to see her. I liked her. She's very jolly, and drinks a lot. But she - er - she doesn't like men much."
"She sounds positively formidable," said Dr Lane, greatly amused by Jamie's description. "And if I may say so an admirably succinct - ah - encapsulation of a character. Have you ever thought about a career as a writer? I think you'd have them fighting for tickets to your latest West End smash."
"I want to be a writer, sir. It's the only thing I've ever wanted to do."
"Hmmm. We must give that some thought some time. But back to your mother. When she last spoke to me on the telephone, she suggested that you must be running short of clothes, and that there must be other things of yours that you're missing. She stated most emphatically that she did not feel it would be, well, safe, I'm afraid is how she put it, for you to venture back to your home, so she offered to go there herself and bring your things over here in the car. That was, in fact, when the redoubtable Mrs Turnbull's name was mentioned. I gather that she would be a member of the, ah, foraging party. What thoughts does this information prompt, Jamie?"
"It proves what I said, sir, doesn't it? She doesn't want me to get hurt, and she's as scared of dad as I am. But she doesn't want me with her. She's quite happy for me to be with you as long as you let me stay." He paused for several seconds. "So am I, sir. It's the first time I've ever had anybody at home I can talk to, or be with and feel... well, feel at home, sir. I always used to dread going home, and now I'm quite glad to. I've never felt..." he paused, groping for the word, "... relaxed, sir. That's what I feel here. Please let me stay."
Looking across at his wife Lane saw that her eyes had filled with tears, and suddenly became aware of a lump forming in his own throat. He hastily pulled out his handkerchief and blew his nose vigorously. Faced with such an appeal there was only one answer to be made. He was scarcely conscious that he was making a decision of great magnitude as he made up his mind. "Of course you will stay, Jamie, for as long as you like. There will be all manner of arrangements to be made, but no doubt we'll be able to cross those bridges as we reach them."
There was a loud sniffle from across the room, startling Lane and Jamie equally. Edith, unable to keep it in any longer, gave a loud sob and came to Jamie. He stood up and suffered himself to be embraced. After a moment she released him and looked embarrassed. "I'm sorry," she said with a vigorous snuffle, and busied herself gathering Lane's cup and Jamie's mug. Jamie, recovering with his usual rapidity from the bolt of happiness that had just jolted him from head to toe, looked up at the two of them and, at last, they saw the smile that Christopher saw.
***
Annabel Potten was quite happy in her own way. She had settled down after a series of heavy sessions with her friend Angela in various pleasant inns and hotels round and about, each followed by a drive back to Howley Bend in the Porsche which Angela Turnbull made with her eyes shut. "I don't want to die," she had commented when she rose, shaking, from the little car after one particularly hair-raising journey, "but if I've got to lay down my life for a friend, at least I don't want to see it bloody well coming. For Christ's sake let's get in," she had added quickly, "I need a sodding great drink. I think I lost most of what we've had on the way back!"
By now, though, their excursions were more for pleasure than for therapy, and Annabel was enjoying life more than she could remember for years. She had done what she conceived to be her duty by Jamie by sending the Lanes the sum of money which they thought very large but which was a trifle to her, she being worth at least as much as her husband, and, having thus silenced her conscience she more or less dismissed him from mind.
Indeed, one thing that Dr Lane had not thought fit to tell Jamie was that on each of the occasions when she had telephoned he had asked her if she wished to speak to her son, and each time she had declined, negligently dismissing the idea with some phrase about 'not wanting to upset him.' Lane had accepted that as best he could, and she hardly gave Jamie a thought nowadays, as Jamie himself had accurately surmised.
"Come on, Ange," said Annabel as, five miles away, Edith Lane, eyes still glistening, handed Jamie a refill of tea, "let's go and see Don and the gang at Steeple Wynton. I feel like drinking bubbly tonight. Let's buy a magnum."
"Suits me," said Angela Turnbull. "Two magnums?"
"Let's buy a case" cried Annabel. "I want this to be a night to remember."
"If it's anything like the last time we went to the Magpie," muttered her friend, "it'll more likely be a night we'll have forgotten by the time we wake up tomorrow afternoon."
"I don't care whether we remember it," said Annabel. "It's that bastard of a husband of mine that I want to remember it. I want him to remember tonight as the night I broke the bloody bank. I found our joint Access card this afternoon. This one's on dear David. We'll have two cases. I hope they've got something bloody expensive."
***
David Potten was also enjoying life more than he had done for a long time. The absence of his wife and son he regarded as a blessing in so far as he thought about it at all. He got the wife of one of his employees to come in and keep house for him every day, and spent his free time with cronies in the Golden Hind and various other pubs, or playing bridge or snooker at his club; calmly waiting for his injuries to heal over, biding his time, as paranoia bound him ever more tightly in its toils, for the moment when he would avenge himself for the devastating hurt that had been inflicted on him.
None of the cronies he drank with noticed anything unusual about him, and all would have been without exception dumbfounded had they been told, but his personality was rapidly disintegrating - indeed, he was very close to being quite mad. He concealed beneath the facade of normality a single purpose, deadly, clearly and steadily held in the sights, and utterly single-minded.
The very occasional moments when his attention drifted into some remote region and his eyes lost their focus, his friends put down to the understandable distress of a man whose wife had run off, taking his son with her, which was the story they had all been fed. His friends naturally sympathised, bought him lots of drinks, and confided to him that they had always thought she was a chancer and that he was well out of it. Only one or two, such as Harold Holdsworth, the doctor, knew a little more than the official version, and they sensibly kept their own counsel. Harold alone knew where Annabel was, and he kept that item especially to himself.
Meanwhile, every evening when he returned home and every morning when he rose, Potten inspected his face to see how much the great bruises had faded. On Thursday, two weeks and a day after the fight in which Jamie had inflicted the wound to his head and, unknowingly, a far more serious wound to his psyche, David Potten looked in the glass and saw that he was pretty well healed. The bruising was still visible, but only from fairly close. Although there was still a sizeable dark patch below his left eye, the eye itself was now down to its normal size, and hardly bloodshot at all.
Early that evening he made his move.
TWO
PC John Cook sat bored at the wheel of the car thinking, for the twentieth time since they'd booked on duty four hours earlier, that when he had impulsively sent off for application forms to join the police four years before he had been, temporarily but calamitously, out of his mind. 'What in the name of sanity was I thinking about?' he asked himself. 'Why did I think this would be interesting? Why did I decide to go ahead when they accepted me? Why the hell am I still in it now?' And, most of all, he asked himself, also for the twentieth time that late turn, 'Is anything, ever, going to happen tonight, bef
ore I leap out of this bloody machine, tear off all my clothes and run down the High Street, gibbering maniacally and assaulting passers-by?'
He lapsed into a reverie about the things he would like to do if he once made up his mind to put his papers in. Half his mind was still watchful, half an eye remained on duty, watching without any interest but with a certain professional attention, in case some motorist did something that could justify their pulling him to give him a flea in his ear, or even, perhaps, to book him for something, give them something to do and so make half an hour pass like half an hour, instead of half a decade. In the passenger seat his partner, PC Stuart Paget, slept peacefully.
Their companionable silence was suddenly shattered by the squawk of the radio. "Any unit, vicinity of Cross Oak Gardens, deal with a disturbance, over?" Paget was immediately awake, slipping his seat belt on and picking up the hand-mike in the same movement, as Cook started the engine and switched on the lights.
"Control from Tango Two," said Paget into the microphone as Cook swung the car round in a tight three-point turn and began speeding down the road, "we're just round the corner and on way. What's the SP?"
"Thanks, Tango Two," came the metallic voice of the radio man at the station, "it's a disturbance outside number nine, that's number nine, Cross Oak Gardens, informant a Mrs Howard at number six. She's apparently opposite number nine. All we have is several men fighting. Don't know how many. I'll get some back-up units to assist."
They rocketed round corners and along darkening residential streets, the revolving blue light above them illuminating their faces eerily every few seconds in the darkness of the car. The radio man was audible above the scream of their tyres, calling for any other units available to assist them in dealing with a fracas involving an unknown number of people. Their boredom was nothing more than a memory as the adrenalin jetted through them, faster and faster as they approached the scene of the unknown incident. Within ninety seconds of receiving the call they careered round a last right-angle bend and into Cross Oak Gardens.
Unnatural Relations Page 8