“I guess so.”
Those first few days flowed by, relaxed and easy. It rained a little, but soon cleared. For the moment the garden needed no attention, and the vegetables thrived. Michael and Jasper seemed tired and inclined to do little but eat and sleep, chat to the Boutins, and hang around the house. Jasper spent many hours in his room, mostly, I suspected, asleep. Michael got up and went to bed at regular hours, but more than once I found him sleeping in a garden chair, under a sunshade, a cold cup of coffee on the table. Asleep, he looked younger and less harassed, the furrows between his eyes smoothed out. But, I thought with an inward grin, he still looked like a gangster: he only bothered to shave when we were going out, and his jaw was dark with stubble. Because he had been to the barber more strands of silver were visible in his dark, almost black, hair.
On Thursday the phone rang just before lunchtime and Michael answered it. There followed an animated conversation – in English – with much laughter. When he had hung up I heard him mutter, “That’ll please Jasper.”
“What will?” I asked. I was washing salad stuff at the sink.
“Oh, that was a friend from church,” Michael said. “Jill Bowman. Inviting us to a barbecue at their house after the service on Sunday. She and her husband Roy have a big house with a couple of acres of garden about fifteen minutes’ drive from St Luke’s. Plus, they have a good-sized pool which we can use.”
“No wonder Jasper will be pleased,” I said. I dried my hands on a small towel and opened a cupboard to find a bowl.
“That’s not the only reason,” Michael said, and when I turned to look at him I saw he was grinning. I raised my eyebrows enquiringly. “The Bowmans have five children, ranging from nineteen to seven. They’ve lived in France for years – Roy works here, and Jill has a business. Somewhere in the middle is a very fetching daughter called Genevieve. I suppose she must be fourteen now, and Jasper likes her a lot.”
“She’s fifteen, Dad, and thanks for giving away my secrets.” Jasper appeared at the foot of the stairs, rubbing his hair with a towel.
“Oh, sorry, JB. I didn’t know it was a secret.” Michael didn’t look sorry at all, nor did Jasper look really annoyed.
“Changing the subject,” I said, “why do you call Jasper JB?”
“Family tradition,” Jasper said dismissively. “All the Wells oldest sons get called Something Ballantine. Dad has it too. Someone told me why – maybe Grandma – but I’ve forgotten.” He crouched down to greet Dulcie, who’d limped to him from her spot under the table. He stroked her velvet ears. “Morning, dog. No girl’s as beautiful as you, so don’t be jealous.”
“Poor Genevieve,” I murmured.
Jasper straightened up. “She hates that name,” he said. “Last time I saw her she was calling herself Gen.”
“When was that?” I asked idly.
“When we were here last summer,” Jasper said.
“Oh, so it’s a long-distance romance, then?”
Jasper wrapped the damp towel round his shoulders and looked at us both impassively. “Hardly that. Anyway, she’s a temperamental girl who likes to change her mind every five minutes, so I might be either her best mate or just an annoying nobody. Also, my school is admitting girls to the sixth form, as of next term.” He rubbed his hands together in self-parodying glee. “Much more interesting, and in the right country. Now if you’ve quite finished dissecting my love life, can we please change the subject? I’m starving.”
The weather continued fine, and the temperature rose. Michael decided to mow the lawn again, and rode round the grass wearing only shorts, sandals, and a grubby old hat. Jasper lay in the sun, turning pink then brown, sometimes reading, sometimes snoozing, a flash pair of sunglasses shielding his eyes.
“Do I look like a gangster too?” he asked me hopefully.
“Not half as much as your dad does,” I told him. “Bad luck.”
“I suppose that must be Mum’s genes, then,” he said. “She’s very blonde. If she was out in this heat she’d be red and crisp.”
“What a horrible description.”
I began to wonder if all this could continue. We were at ease and content, the weather was reminiscent of more southerly latitudes, and I, for once in my life, was simply happy. It was as if I had neither brain nor memory, and no shadows.
Nothing lasts for ever. On Saturday morning I emerged from my shower and heard music from downstairs. Jasper had spent a few moments here and there fooling around on the keyboard, but not for long; and this, as I crept down the stairs in my bathrobe to listen, was different, something I knew, something out of a past I wanted to forget. I stood in the doorway of the living room and watched him play. He was concentrating too hard to have heard my bare footfall, and I was unprepared for the huge upwelling of feeling that engulfed me, a fountain of rawness spreading from gut to face, so that I felt a flush of heat. My mouth opened, I heard a moan of pain, and realized that it was my own voice.
Jasper stopped playing and turned towards me. “Oh, Rachel! What’s the matter?” He pushed the seat back and stood up. By this time I was sobbing uncontrollably, and he loped across the room. Before he reached me my nose started to drip blood, and mixed with my tears washed down my face in a red tide. I must have looked horrifying, but Jasper didn’t flinch. He took my hand and led me to the sink, grabbed some kitchen paper and held it against my face. “Pinch the bridge of your nose,” he said.
Michael came down the stairs, humming quietly, and strolled into the kitchen. He saw me leaning over the sink, Jasper bending over me. I found I could hardly breathe; I was gulping air in strangled gasps and the paper wad was soaked in blood. Michael was at our side in seconds. “What happened?” he said to Jasper.
“I don’t really know,” Jasper said. “I was playing the piano, and suddenly Rachel was there, looking at me, I don’t know, as if she’d seen a ghost or something, and then she started crying, and I got up to help, and she had a nosebleed. It doesn’t seem to want to stop.”
“OK, throw this paper in the bin, JB, and we’ll see what’s going on.” He’d slipped into doctor mode, brisk and authoritative, and both Jasper and I were comforted. “Look at me, Rachel.”
I was reluctant, because I knew I looked a sight, but I complied. “Bleeding’s more or less stopped. JB, can you get a clean flannel from the linen cupboard, please. And a small towel.”
Jasper scampered away and returned moments later. He handed the flannel to his father, and Michael ran it under the cold tap, wrung it out and gently cleaned my face, avoiding setting the nosebleed off again. He took my hands, which were smeared with blood, and held them under the water, then took the towel from Jasper and dried them. “Make some coffee, please, son.” He pulled up a chair. “Sit down, Rachel.” I sat. My face was burning, and I felt horrible. The sobs had calmed, but now I was hiccupping as my diaphragm spasmed. Michael found a glass, filled it with water, and handed it to me. I sipped until the spasms subsided. He looked at me for a few moments, his face radiating concern. “What happened?” he asked softly.
I shook my head. “It was the music,” I croaked. “It was, it was… from West Side Story. ‘Somewhere’ – one of my father’s absolute favourites. He loved Bernstein. I haven’t heard it in years. It just brought everything back in a huge flood. I’m sorry.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry for.” He turned to Jasper, who was hovering anxiously. “How’s that coffee, JB?”
“Just coming.”
A moment later he set a steaming cup on the table in front of me. “Are you all right, Rachel? I’m sorry – we did West Side Story at school last year, and I got the piano version afterwards. I didn’t know it would upset you.”
“Of course you didn’t, Jasper. It’s not your fault. I feel like an idiot for being such a drama queen.” I bit my lip. “Am I still bloody?”
Michael smiled. “Only a few streaks. Don’t worry.”
I took a sip of coffee. It was very strong. “I’m OK now,” I said
. “Thank you.”
Jasper and Michael sat down with me at the table.
“Would now be a good moment,” Michael said, “to talk to us about your dad?”
Jasper stood up. “I’ll go if you’d rather.”
“No need,” I said. “But I understand if you don’t want to be involved.”
Jasper sat down again, leaned over the table and took my hand in his. “Rachel, you’re silly. I thought we were friends. I want you to be OK, right? I’ll go or stay – it’s up to you.”
I heaved a sigh. “You might as well hear it, then.” I took a big gulp of coffee and began to feel more human. “I’m not sure where to start.” Michael and Jasper were silent, waiting for me to collect my thoughts. They both looked at me, that same dark intent gaze, full of kindness. “That music… I remember being very small, before I went to school, maybe only three or four. I wandered into my father’s workshop – I wasn’t supposed to be there, because it was full of sharp tools. He was sawing something very vigorously – I remember the pencil behind his ear – and he was singing that song: ‘Somewhere’. Very sentimental, I suppose. He had a loud, tuneful voice but he couldn’t hold the key. He noticed me standing there, sucking my thumb. He stopped what he was doing, put the saw down, and picked me up, whirling me above his head, still singing at the top of his voice, and I was squealing with laughter.” I looked up at them: they were both listening. “Perhaps that’s why I flipped just now. Memory’s a powerful thing, and we don’t always know what’s going to come and batter us over the head.” I paused, but they said nothing. “Well, I’ll tell you what happened in 1990. I would have been fifteen that November. You weren’t even born, Jasper…” I paused. “That was the year I lost my father.”
“What was wrong with him, Rachel?” Jasper asked quietly.
“It started a few years before that, when we’d all thought he’d just caught the flu. I was eleven at the time, just started at senior school. But he was really ill with it, took ages to get over it. It turned out his heart was inflamed, and he developed something called dilated cardiomyopathy, where the heart muscle becomes stretched and thin, unable to pump blood efficiently. At first we hoped he would get over it by himself, because he was a strong man – I couldn’t remember his ever being ill before – so strong it took him three years to die. In the end what he needed was a transplant, but it wasn’t available at that time, in that place, and anyway he was too ill to withstand such a major operation. Not only that, but with his kidneys beginning to fail he couldn’t have coped with all the immunosuppressive drugs. I didn’t know this at the time – I researched it all later. And now, of course, I’ve seen what a heart in failure looks like. When I first started to operate it was hard for me, working with patients in that condition, but I just had to set all thoughts of my dad aside and get on with the job. At the same time I thought, I hoped, perhaps I could save someone else’s father.” I swallowed, feeling a tear dribble down my cheek. “If we’d lived in the USA, or even if he’d been ill a few years later, he might have survived; by then he might have been given a VAD – that’s a Ventricular Assist Device – giving his heart time to recover. The heart is an amazing organ.”
Jasper squeezed my hand. “You should know.”
I sighed deeply. “Well, he got slowly, steadily worse. He saw numerous doctors, but the reality then was that there simply wasn’t the technology available in the UK. Someone in end-stage heart failure has a travesty of a life – they can’t do anything. My dad looked grey. His pupils were dilated, his skin was damp, he had a crackly cough, his jugular vein was distended, his stomach was swollen. He complained of nausea. Worst of all, this strong, vibrant man started to suffer from anxiety and confusion, like someone much older. He told me what the problem was, and he told me he wouldn’t make it. Of course, I refused to believe it, and I prayed – oh, boy, how I prayed! – that he’d get better.” I shook my head. “Even with all this going on I did all right at school; I suppose it was a way of keeping myself distracted from him and his illness. But I couldn’t ignore it when I got home.”
“Who looked after him?” Jasper asked.
“My mother did, or if she was working, we sometimes had paid carers. That was in the beginning, before the funds started to run out. After that, if my mother had work, I looked after him, when I wasn’t at school. My brother wasn’t around much – he was away at college. So I saw a lot. At the end, nurses came, but I wasn’t always there when they were.” I paused, thinking. “Well, fast-forward to 1990. I told you my dad was a fan of Leonard Bernstein. He loved music and had plenty of favourites but Bernstein was special, and of course then he was still alive, still working, still in the public eye. In my father’s view he was a great man, a musical polymath, and my dad was fond of quoting some of the things he said. ‘Music can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable.’ Yes, that was one, or something like it. In August that year Bernstein conducted his last concert. My dad and I listened to it on the radio – Beethoven’s 7th. It was magnificent. Bernstein was already a very sick man – he had a lung condition. That made my dad very sad.
“Dad hung on for several more weeks. Then he heard that Bernstein had died; it was a Sunday, October 14th. I was sitting with him as he lay propped up in bed – he couldn’t breathe otherwise. I was doing some homework. He said, ‘Oh, Lizzie – he’s gone!’ I instantly knew who he meant. Then he said, ‘You know, Lizzie darling, I might as well go too. Follow the great man into the dark. Or maybe it’s the light – I’d rather it was the light. I can’t get better – you know that, don’t you? There’s no sense in hanging on in this half-life.’ I cried and denied it. He held my hand, and he said, ‘I’m counting on you, Lizzie. You’re a clever girl: you’ll do great things, just like him. Perhaps not in music, but in some other field. You’ll make your mark, and wherever I am I’ll be proud.’ A few days later he did die, and it was me that found him, when I got home from school that afternoon. I went straight up to his room, and I’ve never been able to forget what I found. He was lying on the floor, on his side, but with his head twisted round so I could see part of his face. This was a man who could barely move, and yet he’d managed to fall out of bed; I imagined him panicking, desperate to breathe, flailing, and falling in some final burst of failing strength, and all this time alone. He looked dreadful: his eyes were staring, his mouth open, and his skin was no longer grey, but blue. I remember I screamed the house down, as if my noise could somehow undo what had happened.”
I couldn’t say any more; my voice had become a croak, and the memory of it in the telling was too stark. His dead face was before my eyes, and I cried, my whole body seeming to convulse. I heard Michael’s chair scrape as he pulled it closer, and then his arms were round me and I felt his warmth and heard his heartbeat, strong and steady, as he held me close. I heard Jasper whisper, “What a story, Dad. Poor Rachel.” Michael hadn’t uttered a word.
After a while, with a great effort, I stopped crying and pulled away. Someone handed me a tissue and I blew my nose and wiped my eyes. I tried to smile, but it was probably more like a grimace. “When I think about the impact of Dad’s death, it’s as though all the colour, all the meaning in my own life had gone with him; nothing seemed to matter any more.”
Michael locked eyes with me, his voice low: “Ichabod.”
“Sorry, I don’t know what that means,” I said.
“It’s from 1 Samuel. Maybe you’ve heard the story?” I shook my head. Jasper looked equally puzzled. “The people of Israel have been defeated by their old enemies, the Philistines. The daughter-in-law of Eli the priest is in labour, and she’s dying. She knows that Eli and her husband Phinehas are dead and that the Covenant Box has been captured – the most sacred object the Israelites had, the symbol of God’s presence with his chosen people. She gives birth to a son, and before she dies she names him Ichabod. It means ‘No glory’. She meant that with the loss of the Covenant Box to pagan enemies God’s glory had left Israel.”
“But you did it, Rachel,” Jasper said.
“Mm. I did some research, took the right A levels, went to medical school. And so on. Any chance of some more coffee, Jasper?”
“Sure, I’ll make it.”
I looked at Michael. “I’m sorry. I guess this wasn’t what you had in mind when you invited me here.”
He shook his head. “It’s exactly what I had in mind.”
My brows contracted. “What?”
“Healing can sometimes be painful; you know that. And that’s what I wanted for you: healing, or at least a beginning.”
“You’re both very kind,” I said, hearing my voice break. “That’s healing in itself. Look, if you don’t mind, I’m going to go upstairs and wash my face. And then I’ll come down and have that coffee.”
“And some breakfast,” Jasper said. “I don’t know about you, but I’m a growing boy. Dad, I’ll do some eggs and you can drive into town and get the bread. Oh, yeah, and some croissants.”
Somewhere between two and three o’clock in the morning I woke suddenly. The first thing I heard was Dulcie, alternately growling and whining, and a moment later heard the reason: the harsh high bark of a night-prowling fox. I’d been struck by how few I’d seen or heard in France, and Michael told me that the local farmers were ruthless when dealing with such predators. I slipped out of bed and pulled back the curtains a few inches. Under a sailing moon a shadow passed boldly across the grass, a big dog fox with a fine brush. He quested among the shrubs and nosed around the dustbin at the corner of the scullery. Then, hearing or sensing something inaudible to me, he tensed and his head came up. In a moment he was away, loping silently across the garden and disappearing in the shadow of the trees. I let the curtain fall.
The Healing Knife Page 24