House. Tree. Person.

by Catriona McPherson

  “Bastards,” muttered Lars.

  “So,” said Dr. F, “I think it’s fair to say that Howell Hall’s number is up. My wife is AWOL and she appears to have left her office open to the outside and her computer unprotected.”

  “Her computer was on?” I said. I hadn’t even checked. I almost laughed thinking about the page ripped out of the phone book.

  A frown flickered over Dr. F’s face, but he wasn’t really listening to me. “And so, while the cat’s away, the mouse has just reviewed Sylvie’s details. Something I’ve been meaning to do for a while now. Something, if I’m honest, I’ve always meant to do and never found the courage to.” He sniffed deeply, a rich liquid sniff and a big swallow at the end of it. He walked over to Sylvie’s bed and looked down at her, with that same kind smile that had beguiled me. Julia moved her arms more closely around Sylvie’s shoulders so that one elbow poked straight at Dr. F’s chest. “I’m Paul, Sylvie,” he said. “I’m going to help your sister take care of you tonight and then tomorrow—”

  “Hang on,” I said. “How—”

  “How do you know you can trust me?” said Dr. F. “That’s the wrong question. You should be asking yourself ‘Do you trust me?’ and the answer is … ”

  “Yes,” said Lars, without a pause. “The answer is yes.”

  “My answer is ‘What choice have I got?’,” I said.

  “Pragmatic,” the doc said. “Practical to a fault. How about you, Julia? What do you say?”

  “What happens tomorrow?” said Julia. “That’s all I’m bothered about.”

  “I’m going to help you and Sylvia get settled somewhere new. Howell Hall is finished.”

  “You don’t think you’re finished too?” I asked him. “Seeing as how you knew what was going on?”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t know a thing. I put it together when I saw the records just now. I was negligent and I might be reprimanded, but it’s my wife going down and I’m not going with her.”

  “But … tomorrow?” said Julia. She spoke in a whisper. “You think they’ll take her away as quick as that?” Maybe she hoped Sylvie wouldn’t hear her.

  “I think either everyone will be leaving tomorrow,” Dr. F said, “or they’ll be bringing someone in. I knew my wife had pulled some strings to get us started, and I knew she didn’t always play the straight bat. A little collusion here, a convenient assessment there. But I honestly had no idea about Sylvie till I saw it in black and white.”

  “She wrote it down in her records?” I said.

  Dr. F raised his chin a little at that. “Of course she did,” he said. “She’s not completely lost to goodness. She’s still a doctor.”

  “And what exactly does ‘being a doctor’ have to do with anything?” said Julia. She was wriggling out from under Sylvie, who had fallen suddenly and deeply asleep, her mouth hanging open and her breath dragging on her palate.

  “We’re talking about two different things,” Lars said. “Doc, you’re talking about her drug regimen, aren’t you?”

  “What else?” said Dr. F. “She’s been sedated for years. And now the sedation is being lifted. What are you talking about?”

  Something about what he said bothered me. Because I remembered that first day and how disturbed Dr. Ferris was when Sylvie looked at me. Well, maybe she just didn’t know how quickly the girl would start to come out of the fog when the sedation was lifted.

  “Didn’t you wonder why?” I asked him. “Didn’t you wonder why a woman would want her daughter tidied away into this room for keeps?”

  “I’ve only known for half an hour,” Dr. F said. “But of course I wonder.”

  “Julia will tell you,” I said. “Lars and I have got to go.”

  I didn’t bother asking the doc where his daughter might be. No matter how quickly he was willing to stop covering for his wife, a daughter is different. I wouldn’t have told him anything to help him find Angel, would I?

  Lars and I made our way as fast as we could move and still look casual, out of the front door and into his car.

  “Did you know about Sylvie’s drugs?” I asked as we moved off up the drive.

  His silence told me everything I needed to know, but he followed it up with an answer eventually. “Not out loud,” he said. “I wondered and I knew wondering would get me out on my ear, so I let it go. At least now I know it was that or jail for her.”

  “Catatonic,” I said. “Oedema in her legs. Years drifting by. She was a kid, Lars. She was fifteen. She might have got a suspended sentence. And she’d have been out by now either way. What kind of mother … ?”

  “Mmmmhhmmm,” she said.

  “But Sylvie wanted to take the blame,” Lars said. “As soon as she came back to life she started trying to draw a flipping treasure map to the body. Her mum was only trying to save her from herself. Where am I going, by the way?”

  “Where did you go when you were a kid?” I said, looking both ways as we passed the checkpoint and stopped at the side of the road. “Did you ever go out with a posh bird? Where would she take you?”

  “Wimpy, ice rink, Loreburn Centre. Anywhere the grass was dry,” Lars said. “And no, there were no posh birds for me. Sharon and Tracy all the way till my wife. And by then we were old enough for pubs.”

  I nodded, letting his words wash over me. If it was Angel, if it was … if life had turned out different and it was my little girl … I would have got the best lawyer I could afford, made a stink, and tried to get her sentence down, visited her on remand, visited her in prison.

  “Mmmmmhhhhmmmmm,” she said.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered as I tried to shake her out of my head. Angel. I needed to concentrate hard on Angel. My boy. My only one. Why had Dido Ferris picked him up again and where would they be?

  “Dumfries then,” I said, pointing right. “They went to the Loreburn Centre one … time … before.”

  “Sure?” said Lars. He was a good driver for these back roads, sitting well back behind a tractor that was rumbling along in front of us. The farm worker saw us and pulled over, waving us past. Marco always tucked right up in the blind spot like a fly at a cow’s arse and then sat there fuming.

  “What?” I said.

  “You kind of stopped talking there. Let it out. There’s sense there somewhere. You’ll find it, Ali.”

  “How could she stand it!” I said. “She lives a mile away as the crow flies for fifteen years and never visits? She lives in that comfortless house—honest to God, Lars; you should see it!—she lives there for years waiting for the flesh to rot from her dead husband’s bones so she can move him and the girl she loves so much, the girl she did it all to protect, is silent and softening all alone just out of sight? Something is wrong with that story.”

  “Mmmmhhhhmmm,” she said.

  “Okay forget talking,” said Lars. “Listen. What does your gut tell you? What does your heart say?”

  “Mmmmmmhhhmmmmmm,” she said. “Mmmmmmhhhhuuuuhhhhmm,” she said, clearer than ever. Then she said something she’d never said before: “Mhhuuuuhhmmm?”

  “Lars, stop the car!”

  If he hadn’t been the driver he was, he’d have skidded off the road at the sound of me. We had reached the row of cottages at Dundrennan and he pulled in a hundred yards from my house.

  “What is it?” he said.

  “My daughter’s voice,” I told him. I knew I sounded insane. But I didn’t care. “I’m listening to my daughter’s voice. And Mona’s daughter’s voice too. Both of them.”

  “Ali,” Lars said. “I know daughters are a difficult thing for you to think about clearly. Especially when you’re so ups—”

  “Fuck that!” I said. “You can take that fucking shit and fuck the fuck off with it. I am thinking clearly about daughters today for the first fucking time in my fucking life.”

  Lars
had a light dancing in his eyes, but he knew better than to laugh at me. “Got it,” he said. “So what are the daughters saying?”

  “They’re both saying what Julia’s been saying ever since she came to Howell Hall.”

  “That she killed her father and she hurt his middle.”

  “Right,” I agreed. “But she knows she’s not repeating something she said all those years back. She’s repeating something she heard.”

  “She heard both things. She heard Sylvie say them.”

  “Of course she did. Okay, do your best Julia impersonation. Say it like she says it.” Lars grimaced at me, not understanding. “Go on.”

  “I killed my father?” he said, in a high-pitched voice that sounded nothing like Julia except that it was loud and crazy. “I killed my father?”

  “You see,” I said softly.

  Lars gave a long low whistle. “She’s asking,” he said. “She heard Sylvie asking. Who was she asking?”

  “Exactly.”

  I could imagine it all now, in that ugly glass cube of a house. A fifteen-year-old girl asking I killed my father? and the sound carrying into the bedroom of a three-year-old child. I killed my father? she asked. Yes, her mother answered. Yes, you did.

  And what kind of mother tries to make her child believe such a thing? The sort of mother who would leave her in an empty room for fifteen years to keep her quiet. The sort of mother who’d rather have her dulled to a shadow by drugs than risk her talking. The sort of mother who’d put her other daughter in the same place, under the thumb of the same people.

  “Mona Swain killed her husband,” Lars said.

  “Yeah, I think so,” I said, nodding. “He was abusing Sylvie. She ‘hurt his middle.’ And so once he was dead Sylvie was all set to take the blame.”

  “But Mona would have stopped her,” Lars said. “And even Mona … If she killed him in a maternal rage because of what he was doing to Sylvie, no jury would blame her. She’d probably get a round of applause.”

  “Maybe that wasn’t the problem,” I said. “Mothers aren’t all saints, you know. Maybe her rage wasn’t maternal. Maybe it was jealousy and so she punished both of them.”

  We sat silently and tested it.

  “And then the floods came,” Lars said. “And Mona knew what might happen.”

  We had seen it on the news: subsoil washed up, wrecking farmers’ fields; corners of coffin lids poking through the dead grey grass of that cemetery on the edge of the South Downs. Nothing buried was gone for good, not once the waters went down.

  “And if it did,” I said, “the cops would ID him, and they’d want to know where Sylvie was.”

  “And once she was in the spotlight, sent to a police psychiatrist for evaluation … ” Lars fell silent.

  “Her oh-so-convenient catatonia would have to stop. They’d have to see her drug list, wouldn’t they?”

  “And so … ” Silence again for even longer this time but eventually he roused himself. “How does Julia fit in?”

  “You really don’t know?”

  “The only thing I can think of is so insane I can’t believe it. I can’t even say it.”

  “I’ll say it for you,” I told him. “I’ve got no trouble believing it. It was set up to look like Julia killed Sylvie and then herself while under the care of an unstable woman who lied on her application. Dr. Ferris hand-picked me.”

  “How the hell did Dr. Ferris even know about you?”

  “Because she’s having an affair with my husband,” I said. It was interesting to say it and feel nothing. True things don’t hurt at all when you finally face them. “She’s moved him in—to the family business, among other things—and now he moves me out. Three birds, one stone. Dr. Ferris gets rid of Sylvie, Mona Swain gets rid of both kids for good so she can stop worrying about what they know and what they’ll say, and Marco finally gets rid of me.”

  “And Angelo?” said Lars. “How does he fit in?”

  “Marco would never let anyone harm him,” I said. “I think … I think … I think Dr. Ferris told her daughter to find a stooge with a phone.”

  “Just a coincidence that she chose your son?” said Lars.

  We stared at each other. We both knew that was too much to swallow.

  “Okay, so it wasn’t that innocent,” I said. “Dr. Ferris told Dido to get in with my son and steal his phone. Marco probably didn’t know that bit of the plan.”

  “But Angelo could have dropped Dido right in it. Told the police she’d made a beeline for him, told them that she’d nicked his phone.”

  “She’d deny it and her lawyers would say he was trying to protect me.” I wrapped my arms around my body and squeezed. “He does that. He’s been doing it for years.”

  “So … you’re supposed to have just generally gone off your rocker? Is that it?” Lars said.

  “I think so.”

  “But why are they together again tonight?” said Lars.

  “Because she’s a teenage girl and Angel’s got his dad’s eyes, is my guess,” I said. “She decided to phone him up again and have some more fun? I think Marco’s right on this one. He’ll be in by eleven, crunching Tic-Tacs to hide the booze on his breath, all zipped up to the neck if she’s a biter.”

  Lars nodded. “Did Marco actually say she phoned him?” he said. “Is that definitely how they hooked up again today?”

  “I think so,” I said. “I think he phoned her yesterday and told her he had a photo of the hand. At least, he definitely phoned someone, someone who knows the names of designers, but if it was Dido, she resisted him. He was in all last night.”

  “Could he have tried again?” said Lars. “Did he have anything else to offer? Anything new to tell—”

  “Fuck!” I was out of the car and running. “Of course he did!” I yelled back over my shoulder as Lars scrambled out and followed me. “He called her to say the watch was in her mum’s desk drawer. When she heard that she couldn’t get here fast enough.” I was fumbling with my key but my fingers felt like jelly. “Oh Jesus! Dr. Ferris is AWOL too. He might be with both of them.”

  Lars took the keys from me and fitted one into the lock. “So Dido didn’t know he took a picture. She only found out today that there was a way to tie him to the hand. And that would tie her to the hand and that would blow their story sky-high.”

  We burst in and both of us were panting. Marco was on the couch, a can of beer in his hand and the telly on.

  “Who phoned who?” I fired at him.

  “What?” said Marco. He frowned past me. “Liam, is it? Ali, shouldn’t you be at work?”

  “Close enough,” Lars said.

  “What’s going on?” Marco said. “Liam, you need to know, pal, my wife can get a bit—”

  “Give it up,” I said. “I know you’re at it with Tamara Ferris. I know that’s how you got your job and got me mine.” I held up a hand. “Don’t even bother. We’re past that. And let me tell you, Marco, I will never forgive you for letting our son get mixed up in all this. Even if we find him safe and sound, I will never forgive you. And if he’s come to harm, I will kill you.”

  “Angelo’s fine,” Marco said. “There’s no need to upset yours—”

  “NO!” I bellowed it at him. “You say that over and over like it’s some kind of slogan. And I never knew why it made me feel as if I was going mad. I don’t ‘upset myself,’ Marco. Things ‘upset me.’ Things ‘upset’ everyone unless they’re catatonic or drugged to their eyeballs. It’s called life.”

  “Do you think we could maybe … ?” said Marco, flicking a glance at Lars.

  “He’s a friend,” I said. “I needed one. So we’re done. We’re over. But I’m going to give you the chance to tell me the truth before I check for myself. Who phoned who?”

  “It was a long time ago, Ali,” Marco said. He was shifting from fo
ot to foot and not quite looking at me.

  “What the hell are you on about?” I said. I walked up close to him and dipped my head trying to scoop up his gaze. “It was today. It was this afternoon.”

  “What are you on about?” Marco said, meeting my eye at last. “Are you ill again?”

  My hand shot out without any particle of me choosing to move. “I was never ill,” I said, gripping his arm and squeezing. “That was all you. Now tell me: Did Dido Ferris click her fingers and have him come running for a laugh or did Angelo go running back to her with a big piece of bad news? Who phoned who?”

  “Ali,” said Lars. “You said he’s not got a mobile just now, right?” He sounded unfazed by the mini-drama playing out in front of him. But then I supposed a psychiatric nurse would be used to worse than a gripped arm and some hissed words.

  I turned to him and let Marco’s arm go. “You’re right,” I said. “It’ll be on the log on the landline.”

  “Is this Angelo?” Marco said. “What exactly does my son’s priva—”

  “Oh, fuck off,” Lars said. “And try redial too, Ali. Just in case.”

  Marco was swaggering over the few feet of carpet towards him. I grabbed the phone from the arm of the couch and punched the buttons. “It’s ringing,” I said.

  “Who do you think you are?” Marco said. He was squaring up, taller and heavier, inches away from Lars. “This is my house and my family.”

  “And this is my job,” Lars said. He didn’t step back and his voice was calm. “I diagnosed your wife the minute she walked through the door the first day. She’s had a chronic case of being married to a man like you. She’s on the mend, though.”

  Someone answered the phone. “What now?” It was Dr. Ferris. Of course it was.

  “Tamara?” I said. “Do you know where your daughter and my son are? I’m fussy about who he hangs out with.”

  The silence went on so long I wondered if the call had dropped. When she spoke at last her voice quaked with swallowed rage. “Alison, shouldn’t you be at work?”