They switched him off?”
“He was taken off the ventilator… earlier this week.”
“He’s dead?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“When? When did they do it?”
Tuesday.”
“But that’s only three days ago.” He fell back against the doorpost behind him and closed his eyes, feeling the tears start into them. “Only three bloody days.”
FORTY-NINE
They found him a chair in a rest room and gave him a cup of tea. Staff Nurse Kelly was sent for to have a quiet word with him. Embarrassed consolation was tentatively plied. But none of it made much impact on Harry. The shock drained into a grief sharper than anything he would have expected to feel for somebody he had strictly speaking never even met. Then a darker thought filled his mind. He had kept his word. But Iris had broken hers. “I’ll do nothing until I’ve heard from you,” she had assured him. Yet she had brought herself to end their son’s life. And she had not heard from him. Only now she would. By the time Staff Nurse Kelly arrived to offer her starched brand of sympathy, Harry was on his way out.
“Mr. Barnett?”
“Sorry. Can’t stop.”
“Wait a moment. Let’s sit down and ‘
“Waiting’s over, Rachel. Didn’t they tell you? Three days ago.”
He hailed the first taxi he saw outside and demanded to be taken to Chorleywood. The driver declined, quoting some regulation or other, and suggested Marylebone station. “You can get a train out to Chorleywood from there, guy.” Harry did not bother to argue. He had twenty minutes to wait at Marylebone. These he spent in the Victoria and Albert bar, drinking scotch at a rate the barman clearly found alarming. He remembered meeting Zohra there years ago, in a different life, in a world he had not known he shared with David and had forgotten he shared with Iris. “I’ll do nothing without consulting you first.” She could not shrug off this breach of faith and nor could he. This was worse than all the disappointments of his life gathered and surveyed. This was the extinction of what might have made every one of them worthwhile.
The 14.57 to Aylesbury crawled out late through the suburbs into the patchy beginnings of Home Counties countryside. The sallow light thinned. The day faltered. The chill of a premature dusk crept into Harry’s soul. Just after half past three, the train reached Chorleywood, a well-bred commuter town consumed by the eerie stillness of a workday afternoon. There were no taxis to be had. He gleaned directions from a fishmonger’s shop opposite the station and started walking, fast and hard, uphill along select residential streets.
Chalfont Lane represented another degree of selectness again, large tree-screened family homes spaciously lining a broad-verged road. About halfway along, he found the one he was looking for: Squirrels, a gabled pile with lamplight already gleaming warmly in the windows, a scent of woodsmoke drifting out to him across the immaculate lawns. He marched straight up to the deep-porched door and yanked at the bell-pull.
The woman who answered was plumper and redder-haired than Iris, but unmistakably her sister. She had the same dress sense, the same cautious bearing. In her gaze, enlarged by the violet-framed lenses of her glasses, there was an appalled hint that she knew who he was as well, without need of introduction.
“Mrs. Tremaine?”
“Yes.”
“I’m looking for Iris.”
“Oh. I’m sorry, but ‘
“I’m Harry. I expect she’s told you about me.” It was obvious she had. Not least because of the glance Blanche Tremaine cast over her shoulder and the blush of confusion that came to her face. “Is she here?”
“No. No, she isn’t.”
“I won’t leave without seeing her.”
“But you can’t. I’m sorry, but it’s quite impossible.” She stepped back and was about to close the door when Harry moved into its path. “Please, for goodness’ sake! If you don’t go at once, I’ll call the police.” (
“Fine. Do that. I know how reluctant they are to become involved in family disputes.”
This isn’t a family dispute.”
“No? Will they agree, do you think, when I tell them my son was allowed to die this week at his mother’s bidding and Iris is the mother who did that to him?”
This is outrageous!”
Too right. And I’m the one who’s outraged.”
Blanche’s resolve faltered. It seemed for an instant as if some part of her shared his indignation at what had been done. Maybe his opinion was not the only one Iris had failed to seek.
“He was your nephew, Blanche. Your nephew and my son. Are you seriously saying there’s nothing for us to discuss?”
“It’s too late for discussion.”
“Where is she?”
Blanche closed her eyes for a moment, then stepped back into the hallway. “You’d better come in.”
He followed her the short distance to a flock-papered drawing room where a fire was burning and the light from numerous side-lamps was falling flatteringly on richly patterned rugs and deep-cushioned sofas, on the fittings and furnishings of stockbroker-belt respectability: his son’s world one he had only ever entered as a passing stranger.
Blanche went across to the fireplace and stood there, staring down at the burning logs to avoid his gaze. But her fretful fiddling with the ornaments on the mantelpiece defeated her evasiveness. She was not as sure her sister had acted for the best as she was likely to claim. Doubt and vicarious guilt squirmed within her. “David’s condition was quite hopeless. You do realize that, don’t you?”
“No. I don’t.”
The doctors were unanimous. There was nothing to be done.”
“Nothing can be done for him now. I realize that.”
“It was Iris’s decision, of course. It had to be. The rest of us … could only advise.”
“Except for those of us who weren’t allowed to advise.”
“I understood you’d… disappeared.”
“You all wished I had, you mean.”
“Your… relations… with my sister are none of my business, Mr. Barnett. I ‘
“She promised to do nothing until she’d heard from me again. Did she tell you that?”
Blanche looked up at him in surprise that almost amounted to shock. “No, no. That can’t be right. Ken said you’d… washed your hands of the matter.”
“Oh, Ken said, did he? Good old Ken. Well, it would suit him to, wouldn’t it? Since washing his hands of David is what was at the top of his agenda all along. I don’t suppose a stepson on money-no-object life support struck him as good business, do you?”
“Money was never an issue.”
“Sure of that, are you, Blanche? Absolutely sure?”
She flushed and pursed her lips. “This is pointless. David’s ‘
“Dead? Yes. I know. But what I don’t know is why.”
“I told you. There was nothing they could do for him.”
“Where’s Iris?”
Blanche sighed. “She’s gone back to Wilmslow to make arrangements for the funeral.”
“Give me her address.”
“I couldn’t possibly.”
“I’ll get it anyway. You may as well tell me.”
This won’t help anyone, Mr. Barnett. Surely you see… But the message was sinking in. Harry did not see. “I think I’d better telephone Iris and ask her to speak to you.”
“Yes. I think you had.”
She crossed to a bureau in the corner, picked up the telephone and dialled the number. Harry watched as she waited for an answer and he waited with her. “Iris? .. . Yes… Look, I’m sorry, but… Harry Barnett’s here… Yes, he’s with me now … He wants to speak to you… Well, of course, but… Yes, I think you probably should… Hold on.” Expressionlessly, she passed the handset to him.
“Iris?”
“Harry, I ‘
“Why did you do it?”
“I … I had no choice.”
“You promised to wait. You could have chose
n to keep your promise.”
There was no point.”
“Promises are never pointless.”
“You don’t understand.”
“No. But I intend to. I’m not going to let you or that bastard you’re married to walk away from this. Do you hear me?”
“I hear you.” She sounded subdued and weary, as if she had foreseen these exchanges. “Don’t come here, Harry. Please. You and Ken … I couldn’t bear any… unpleasantness.”
“You’re going to have to.”
“Please, Harry. What’s to be gained by it?”
“As little as there is to be lost.”
“For God’s sake ‘
“He was our son, Iris. Our son. Not yours alone.”
“You never knew him.”
“And you’ve made sure I never will. You and Ken between you.”
There was a lengthy silence. Then Iris said: “We could meet, perhaps. Next week. I could come down to ‘
“Now. We’ll meet now. Whether you like it or not.”
“I can’t leave here. Not as things are.”
Then I’ll come to you.”
“No. Ken would Listen. OK, we’ll meet. If we must. Tomorrow morning. In Manchester.” He could almost hear her mind plotting the lies she would tell Ken, the stratagems by which she would keep them apart. “Albert Square at ten o’clock. The benches in front of the Town Hall. Can you make that?”
“The time and place don’t matter. I’ll be there. You’d better be too.”
“I will be.”
“Be sure you are. If not, I’ll come looking for you, Iris. That’s a promise. And I keep my promises.”
FIFTY
Saturday morning in Manchester. The shoppers were out in force, defying a cold wind and the threats of a louring sky. Christmas was still more than a month off, but electronic carols were drifting out from tinselly shop fronts as Harry made his way from the cheap hotel he had spent the night in towards Albert Square and his rendezvous with Iris.
It was not yet a quarter to ten by the Town Hall clock when he arrived. There were plenty of people in the square, but they were passing through, intent on gift-hunting and queue-beating. The Gothic splendour of the Town Hall and the Albert Memorial facing it were of no interest to them. And it was too cold for idle occupation of the benches spaced around the perimeter of the square, even had they been able to spare the time. Harry, however, had time in greater abundance than any other commodity. And he found the chill of the air strangely comforting. He sat down near a statue of Gladstone, lit a cigarette and prepared to wait.
But he did not have to wait long. Iris too was early for their appointment. She approached from his blind side and sat down hesitantly at the opposite end of the bench. She was wearing a grey coat and a black fur-trimmed hat. Her shoes and tights were black as well. Why Harry should find these hints of mourning so jarring he could not have explained, beyond the sense in which it seemed perverse of her to mourn what she had herself brought about.
“Hello, Harry.” She looked pale and drawn, thinner than when they had last met. Her grief was genuine enough, he knew, but still he resented it. And his resentment forbade him to make any attempt to understand what she had done.
“I don’t know what to say to you, Iris. Do you know that? After what you’ve done, I just don’t know what to say.”
“It wasn’t easy, Harry. In fact, it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” She plonked a well-filled John Lewis carrier-bag on the bench between them as a kind of barrier. “But it was for the best. It really was. You have to understand that.”
“Why? Why do I have to?”
“Because … he’s at peace now. And he never could have been, hooked up to that machine. They weren’t keeping him alive. They were keeping my hopes alive. Well, I had to let them die. It’s as simple as that.”
“Oh no. Simple is one thing it isn’t.” He turned and looked at her directly for the first time. “Why didn’t you wait?”
“Because I had no idea how long I’d have to wait for. The papers reported Hammelgaard was dead and the Danish police were looking for an Englishman called Barnett. Can you imagine what Ken made of that? I couldn’t give him your side of the story because I didn’t know it. You ask why I didn’t wait. Frankly, Harry, I thought your silence meant I’d have to wait for ever before I’d hear from you again. Ken reckoned ‘
“Yes? What did Ken reckon?”
“That you’d got into serious trouble in Copenhagen and decided to go to ground.”
“Not far wrong. But that doesn’t let you off the hook. I’m back. As I said I would be. As you should have known I would be. And the Danish police had written off Hammelgaard’s death as natural causes long before you had David… what’s the word? .. . terminated. So that won’t wash, will it? Try something else, Iris. Try the truth.”
“All right.” She stretched her neck back as if it ached and gave a long sigh. This is the truth. David was never going to recover. I had to let him go. Reaching that decision and sticking to it took more out of me than I thought I possessed. But once I’d got there … waiting was impossible. I couldn’t have gone through the whole process again. I wouldn’t have had the strength to. I’m sorry I had to break my word. I’m not trying to deny I broke it. I’m just trying to explain why I felt I had to.”
“For David’s sake?”
“Yes. His suffering’s over now.” She stared straight at him.
“You’d have preferred me to prolong it indefinitely, wouldn’t you? To chase the dream of a miracle cure for ever because for you it was the dream of something you’d never had: a son. I don’t blame you for that. But I couldn’t indulge you or myself any longer. I had to put an end to it. And yes, if I’m really honest, I suppose I was afraid you might come back and talk me out of it if I postponed the decision.”
“What if I told you I’d gone some way towards turning your dream into reality these past few weeks?”
“I wouldn’t believe you. I took the finest advice available. A second opinion. A third and a fourth. They all said the same.”
“I found Donna.”
“And what did she say?”
This was the moment he had secretly craved; the moment he crushed her excuses beneath the revelation of just how much he had gained only for her to throw the prize away before he could win it. Yet now, looking at her in the cold grey light, studying the signs of her age and weakness, he hesitated. What would the knowledge do to her? What would the realization leave her to treasure in her son’s memory? What was the point in taking his revenge on her?
“Well? What did she say?”
He bowed his head and opened his hand in a helpless gesture of concession. There was revenge coming for her all right, whatever he said or did. Once the truth about Globescope was out, David’s reputation was going to be a poor sullied tattered thing for any mother to wrap herself in. And that also would be Harry’s doing. Suddenly he felt so much sorrier than angry. Sorry for Iris and David and himself. Sorry for everything.
Thank you for trying, Harry. It’s not your fault you’ve come back empty-handed.”
“If only you knew,” he murmured, unsure from her lack of reaction whether she had caught the words but certain she could not have grasped their meaning.
“If you want to … see David… before the funeral … I could…”
“Wouldn’t Ken object?”
“He needn’t know. I could take you straight to the chapel of rest from here.”
“But then you’d be late home from your shopping expedition. Wouldn’t that look suspicious?”
“If you must know, Ken isn’t at home this morning. He’s putting in some time at the factory. Clearing things up so he can take Monday off.”
“For the funeral?”
“Yes.”
“Where’s it to be?”
“St. Bartholomew’s, in Wilmslow. Then … Manchester Crematorium. But Harry ‘
“I’m persona non grata for the even
t. Is that it? A hole-in-the-corner visit to the chapel of rest while Ken does his bit for the export drive’s just about acceptable. But shaking hands with the vicar while you explain who and what I am isn’t. Have I got the message, Iris? Or have I got the message?”
“Don’t be angry. Please. You know you never really…”
“Knew him? Or even met him, right?”
“Well, you didn’t, did you?”
Take a look at this.” He handed her the photograph he had found at Maple Place of David at the Taverna Silenou with Harry visible in the background. “It was at his house in Washington.”
“You’ve been to Washington?”
“I’ve been to many places. But you don’t want to know where or why. Believe me.”
“This photograph… When was it taken?”
“August eighty-eight. On Rhodes. He looked me up after all, you see.”
“But… you never mentioned it.”
“I never knew. He looked. But he didn’t like what he saw.” The photograph was shaking in Iris’s fingers. Gently, Harry retrieved it. “You don’t mind … if I keep it, do you?”
“No.” She frowned at him in her confusion. “Of course not.”
“It’s all I have of him. You have a lifetime of memories. I have … as much as you let me have.”
That’s not fair.”
“No. But life isn’t fair, is it? Nor’s death. You should have waited. You really should.”
There were tears in her eyes. A single photographic glimpse of her son as he had once been bizarrely juxtaposed with the father he had always disclaimed the slightest scrap of interest in had proved too much for her self-control. The realization that she had known David less well than she had supposed served only to sharpen her grief. She took out a handkerchief and dabbed away the tears. “I’m sorry,” she said. “So stupid. It happens… quite often at the moment.” She took a deep breath. Order was restored to her voice. “Do you want to … see him, then?”
“No.” It would have been more accurate to say he could not bear to see him. He would look as he had in the hospital, serene and untroubled. And that would only remind Harry of how close he had come to saving him. Besides, to accompany Iris now to wherever David’s coffin was standing really would imply he somehow accepted the justice of his exclusion from the funeral. Sparing her the bitterest portion of the truth was one thing; conspiring in the salving of her conscience quite another. “You kept me out of his life. Better keep me out of his death as well.”
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