The White Shepherd

by Annie Dalton

  ‘Everyone thinks Owen wrote that to Audrey,’ Laurie said.

  Anna finally felt able to look him in the eye. ‘But it was to you.’ She couldn’t deny that Laurie’s revelation had surprised her. Like Kirsty, Isadora and everyone else, she had bought the popular myth of Owen Traherne as the rampantly heterosexual lover-poet who constantly had affairs but always came back – was ‘lured’ back – to his beautiful siren-like Audrey. Not so much a myth as an outright lie, she thought.

  ‘How long were you and Owen …?’ She didn’t know how to phrase her question.

  ‘Fifteen years,’ he said. ‘From three months before I turned sixteen until his death ten years ago.’

  Anna did her best to keep her expression neutral as she registered that Owen Traherne had not only had a clandestine gay love affair, but he’d also had a love affair with an under-age boy. She couldn’t have succeeded though because he said quickly, ‘It wasn’t like it sounds. I think I’d always known I was gay, certainly from my early teens. And believe it or not I never had any illusions about Owen.’ Laurie gave a rueful smile. ‘Even when I was a besotted adolescent in the grip of raging hormones I pretty much knew what I was getting into. I’d grown up around that man, Anna. I knew he was a selfish egomaniac, that he drank too much, that he was careless with his own talent, that he’d been spoiled – paralysed, really – by all that early adulation he had from the critics when he was just starting out. But I loved him. I loved Owen body and soul.’

  Laurie held her gaze, willing her to understand. ‘And OK, part of me hated that he was too weak, too attached to his image to acknowledge our love in public. But in another way I didn’t care, because when we were together it was like this private magic world that just the two of us inhabited together.’ He shook his head. ‘I know I must sound like the deluded other woman! But I believe I had the best of Owen. Everything that was good and fine in him, everything he’d hoped and dreamed he would grow up to be, when he was enduring his shitty childhood in that grim back street in Cardiff, came alive in him again when he was with me.’

  ‘But how could you bear to keep your relationship hidden for so long?’ Anna asked.

  ‘Owen believed that it would kill Audrey if she found out. She’d always been emotionally fragile. Then, after she died, you know, the way she did—’ He briefly closed his eyes again before continuing. ‘Their son Huw went off the rails for a while, and Owen was worried that telling him would tip him completely over the edge.’

  ‘But you think Eve knew?’ Anna says.

  ‘She had to know!’ Laurie said angrily. ‘She controlled his diary. I think she thought she controlled his life. She made all his travel arrangements, she knew where he was and when and with whom. In her head I think she saw herself as closer to him even than Audrey.’

  ‘But if she knew about you and Owen, how could she ever believe—?’

  His face twisted with distress. ‘Oh, I was just the queer boy, an aberration, didn’t count. She’s unstable, Anna. I’ve seen her lose it. You know she actually accosted Naomi?’ He passed his tongue over his lips. ‘Sorry, mouth’s getting dry.’

  Anna poured him water from a jug so he could drink, and then replaced the glass on his nightstand. Casting around for a less distressing topic she said, ‘I had to study some of Owen Traherne’s poems for A level. I don’t remember much from my English lessons, but I do remember those poems, they were so strong.’

  He nodded. ‘At his best he’s up there with Heaney and Hughes.’

  ‘Have you got a favourite poem of Owen’s?’

  ‘“The Tree of Sorrows”,’ Laurie said without the slightest hesitation.

  ‘I think that’s in the collected love poems,’ Anna said, remembering the ominous tree with its tiny shimmering scrolls instead of leaves. ‘I was at the launch,’ she explained.

  ‘I heard they were publishing them all in one collection,’ Laurie said. ‘I find it interesting though that they categorized “The Tree of Sorrows” as a love poem.’

  ‘You don’t agree?’

  ‘Let’s just say it’s not the kind people read at weddings,’ he said with a wry grin. ‘I set it to music, actually,’ he added. ‘I might play it for you one day if you come again.’

  ‘I’d like that,’ Anna said.

  They fell silent for a few moments, then Anna asked, ‘How did you come to know Naomi?’

  ‘She’d seen pictures of me with the Trahernes on family holidays and figured out that I’d been a school friend of Huw’s. My parents were mostly overseas, and Huw’s house in Oxford had become like my second home. Anyway, about eighteen months ago Naomi tracked me down. She was hoping I might be able to offer a new slant on the Trahernes for Kit’s book. I refused.’ He pulled a face. ‘I’m sure you can understand why.’

  ‘Yes, I can,’ she said very softly.

  ‘Then it became increasingly obvious that recent symptoms I’d been trying so hard to ignore weren’t another manifestation of my long-term anxiety disorder or whatever my psychiatrists called it. On top of everything else I was genuinely physically ill. Unfortunately, by then it was too late.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and meant it from the bottom of her heart.

  ‘Don’t be.’ He smiled without a trace of self pity. ‘It turns out that being close to death brings a certain unexpected clarity. It hit me that Kit’s book was out there pedalling all these lies about Owen – who he was, what his writing was about. Both Owen and Audrey are dead. Huw is an adult now with a wife of his own – who absolutely can’t stand me, by the way.’ He grimaced. ‘Though, to be honest, after our teens Huw and I had already started to drift apart.’

  ‘Because you had to keep your relationship with Owen secret?’ Anna said.

  ‘That was a contributing factor,’ Laurie said with a sigh. ‘But after Audrey killed herself, there was a period when Huw was extremely vulnerable, and I suspect I was a painful reminder of happier times. He got in with a rather unpleasant crowd. I’m sure you know the type – over-indulged, over-privileged, avid for any new thrill or sensation. Anyway, soon afterwards, he met Sara and became the pillar of shining rectitude that he is today, but ever since then … Fuck, completely lost my thread,’ he said abruptly. He passed his hand across his eyes.

  ‘You were telling me that dying brings new clarity,’ Anna said quietly.

  He flashed a tired but humorous smile. ‘Not so good for the short-term memory though, apparently! But yes, I’d been basing my life on the premise that my relationship with Owen had to be hidden at all costs from people who would otherwise be badly hurt. Then it dawned on me that there was nobody left to be hurt.’

  ‘Is that why you got in touch with Naomi? You wanted the world to know the real Owen.’

  ‘No. Christ, no! It was more like I was desperate to share it with one other person. That way it wasn’t just some story in my head. I needed one other person to know it was real.’

  ‘Weren’t you, I don’t know, worried Naomi might go public with yours and Owen’s story? I mean, something like that could have made her career, and who could blame her?’

  ‘That was the wonderful thing about Naomi. Researcher or not she had complete integrity. She knew when a secret had to be kept.’

  ‘She was an amazing person,’ Anna agreed warmly. ‘You know, she did this lovely thing. Did you feel those little scars Bonnie’s got under her coat? Naomi had only just met me, but she offered to do some digging around, and she found out that Bonnie used to belong to a soldier – a Navy SEAL, actually – who was serving in Afghanistan. She got hurt trying to protect a small child.’

  Sensing that she was being talked about, Bonnie ambled over to them, before collapsing with a contented sigh at Anna’s feet. ‘Past her bedtime,’ Anna said. ‘Probably past yours too?’ she suggested.

  ‘Let me tell you this one last thing,’ he begged.

  ‘OK, then we really must go and let you rest.’

  Laurie took a breath. ‘After Naomi’s thir
d or fourth visit, Eve was lying in wait for her. I mean literally skulking in the bushes. She started ranting about how Naomi wanted to dirty Owen’s name with “that perverted filth”. She’d already refused to cooper-ate on the biography with Naomi and Kit.’

  ‘Because she considered Owen was hers?’ Anna suggested.

  ‘Fuck knows,’ said Laurie. ‘Naomi just jumped in her car and drove off, leaving her ranting. Next time she visited she asked me what Eve could have meant, and that’s when I told her. Owen loved me, and I loved him. I wasn’t just the quirky bachelor people asked to dinner just to make up the numbers. I was in a passionate relationship with another man for over fifteen years. Along with music, Owen was my life.’

  Anna said, frowning, ‘I can see why you might suspect Eve. But she must be in her sixties at least—’

  Laurie cut her off. ‘I know! I sound like a ridiculous old queen! I don’t have a shred of evidence. It’s just this horrible gut feeling that won’t go away. All I know is Eve threatened Naomi, and now Naomi’s dead.’ His lower lip trembled. ‘I’m not asking you to go to the police. I don’t even know what I’m asking.’ He lay back on his pillows, fighting tears. ‘I’m being pathetic, sorry.’

  At that moment Paulette knocked and came in. If she was dismayed by the sight of Laurie weeping, she hid it well. She said softly, ‘Mr Swanson, darling, you need to get some rest now.’

  ‘In a minute,’ he promised. ‘I need to ask Anna something.’ He dashed away his tears. ‘I need you to keep this box for me, Anna. Paulette, could you please find a bag so Anna can carry it home? Then I’ll rest for as long as you like.’

  ‘So you say,’ Paulette said in a disbelieving voice, but she went to find a bag.

  Anna was stunned. ‘I can’t take something so precious. You don’t even know me.’

  He managed a smile. ‘Naomi met you how many times?’

  ‘Just twice,’ Anna said.

  ‘But she felt the kind of instant connection that made her willing to go out on a limb for you? I trust that, and I trust Naomi.’ Laurie closed the lid of the box, and she saw his hands tremble. ‘I need these to be safe, Anna. If I die and Eve gets her hands on them …’

  Seeing he was on the verge of breaking down again, Anna said quickly, ‘I’ll take them because you asked. But if you decide you want them again, I’ll bring them straight over, day or night. Is that a deal?’

  ‘I might pretend I want them.’ Laurie’s face was suddenly drawn with pain. ‘Just to trick you into bringing your beautiful Bonnie to visit me.’

  ‘You won’t have to trick me,’ she told him. ‘I’ll bring her back to see you very soon, I promise.’

  As Paulette showed her out, Anna said, ‘Is he as bad as he looks?’

  ‘I won’t lie to you, darling. He’s bad. But he’s got his requiem to finish, that’s keeping him going at the moment. And he hasn’t needed any morphine so far today, so you picked a good day. I’m glad you came,’ Paulette added with genuine warmth. ‘I know he’s tired himself out talking, but I could see you’d put his mind to rest about something.’

  Anna was surprised and touched. ‘If that’s true I’m glad.’

  Walking back to Park Town carrying Laurie’s box with his precious papers, Anna felt that she had made a new friend. Laurie had trusted her with a secret that he had felt honour-bound to keep all his adult life, and he’d done it within a few minutes of meeting her. Maybe she could be this woman with the dog who had finally learned how to make friends?

  And this was all because of Naomi Evans. Because of Naomi, all these new people were suddenly being pulled into Anna’s orbit: Tansy and Isadora, Jake, Kit and now Laurie Swanson. As she walked through the dark silent streets with her White Shepherd at her side, Anna found herself imagining that the energy which had once been Naomi had not, after all, been destroyed on Port Meadow. Like an exploding star, the energy of her passing was still expanding, touching all their lives, reshaping their stories. It was thrilling and also frightening because Anna didn’t know where it was going to end.

  TEN

  She shot up in bed gasping and shaking. Her room was pitch dark, the kind of darkness that’s so dense it almost has a taste. Anna fumbled for her phone so she could see the time. She’d been asleep for five minutes max. She could still feel the blast of heat as Laurie Swanson’s box and everything in it went up in a sheet of white-hot flame. Her heart pounded in her chest. It was only a dream, but it had shown her something that her conscious mind had overlooked: the incendiary nature of Laurie’s secret. Suppose Eve Bloomfield got hold of those papers, or some mercenary media hack? Anna knew what it was like to have tabloid newspapers hounding you. She didn’t think they’d take pity on Laurie’s frailty, any more than they’d had pity on a traumatized teenage girl.

  She swung her legs out of bed. She took her flannel robe from its hook on the door, pulled on a pair of soft wool socks and hurried downstairs. When she turned on the light she was ridiculously relieved to see Laurie’s box unharmed exactly where she’d left it on the kitchen table.

  Bonnie’s dark-rimmed eyes appeared to be tracking Anna’s movements as she heated milk in a pan, stirred in spoonfuls of drinking chocolate and poured everything into a flask. But Anna wasn’t convinced she was genuinely awake, as her White Shepherd often slept with her eyes partly open. ‘Want to keep me company?’ she asked, picking up the box and the flask.

  One hundred per cent awake now, Bonnie bounded out of her basket and followed Anna upstairs and into her study, a room she had never been allowed inside. She had a quick sniff around then settled down in her favourite sphinx position, interested and alert as Anna switched on her printer and her desktop computer. Anna removed Owen’s letters and cards from the box, leaving the notebooks till last.

  Although Laurie had invited – begged – her to read his letters, Anna had no desire to go pawing through other people’s love lives. She just wanted to scan everything on to her hard drive. That way if something happened to the originals, there would at least be copies. But as she scanned the papers that represented everything that was most precious in Laurie’s life, a passage jumped out:

  I remember that first time, the light of a midsummer morning, catching fine gold hairs on your arms so that you looked as if you’d been dusted with pollen. I still couldn’t believe what you were offering. And so it was you who made the first move; you shyly reached for me and—

  Cheeks burning, Anna hastily turned to the next page and found an explicit, though exquisite, drawing of an obviously adolescent Laurie. This was flammable stuff all right. It didn’t bother her that Owen had belatedly discovered he was gay. It did disturb her that he’d had sex with an under-age boy. Just a few weeks under-age it was true, and if Laurie had been experimenting sexually with someone his own age – Huw, for instance – Anna wouldn’t have batted an eyelash. But Owen had been in loco parentis to Laurie while his own parents were overseas. Owen was Laurie’s friend’s father and a well-respected poet. Yet he’d described their first encounter as if he was the shy fumbling virgin and Laurie the strangely knowing boy who had initiated it.

  Laurie had told Anna he knew what he was getting into when he fell in love with Owen. Thinking of some of the things she’d got into at fifteen, she doubted it. Had he genuinely appreciated the devil’s bargain he’d made? That he’d be forced to live a lie for the rest of Owen’s life – and beyond? Anna wondered if, having given up so much for Owen, Laurie had felt the need to rewrite history, making something magical out of something that was actually exploitative, sordid and cruel.

  But then Anna would come across a passage of such naked vulnerability that she was moved despite herself:

  With you I could be beautiful and innocent again. No, not ‘again’. Nobody who grew up in my household could be either of those things. You gave me back my original face, Laurie. You gave me back my body and with it my soul.

  Anna no longer knew that she was tired. She was only aware of the whirring of the sc
anner and the gradually diminishing pile of pages, punctuated by reviving swigs of hot chocolate. At four a.m. she started on Owen’s notebooks. The first notebook initially seemed to consist only of rough jottings, phrases, ideas for poems, observations from the natural world, small sketches. But five or six pages in, it had turned into an unofficial diary that Owen had started confiding in when work or family kept him away from Laurie.

  Do you remember that afternoon when I had to pick you up from school? It was the first time I’d really talked to you alone. You’d received a letter from your father, haranguing you about your future, that music was no career for a Swanson. You just poured it all out. Your face was white, pinched. I felt such rage at this blind blustering bullying man, and I had this shocking and overwhelming need to protect you from all future hurt. That was the day I began to love you.

  The last notebook was only half full, its scrawled entries often incoherent. Anna suspected Owen had been drunk when he’d written most of them. He talked about his guilt about Audrey, his son, his inability to write. His publisher was waiting, increasingly impatiently for new poems for a long delayed collection. He felt he was being punished – for betraying his family with his muse, Laurie. Laurie, a successful young composer by this time, seemed to have given him good advice.

  Laurie wants me to go to some writers’ retreat in the States. He says I’ve made a kind of false god out of my younger self, the golden boy poet. He says I’m trying to re-enact my past successes instead of writing from my guts. ‘You need silence. You need birds and trees and rivers. Then you’ll hear the poems singing in your head the way you used to do.’ The power of his belief in me almost brought me to my knees. I felt that I would give anything to be the man he described, to shed that fraudulent public persona and be reborn as the man and poet I always—