“As though he could see you were vulnerable, and he took advantage,” I said, thinking aloud.
“Exactly. And that’s what Alan’s wife, Kay, told me was happening with Anita, too. She went over there to see Anita and saw what was going on. She rang me and told me about it, and that’s what made me ring you. And then, when I heard that he’d tried to kill you, I realized it was partly because of all this. Because that day, after Kay rang me to tell me about Anita, and I told her that I would speak to you, she rang Kes and said that I was going to tell you all about how he’d tried to sleep with me. I think that’s why he tried to kill you. It’s strange . . . that he didn’t manage it, don’t you think?”
I told her I still wasn’t sure whether Kes wanted to kill me or scare me. The same went for his attack on Jacqui. Could he have killed his best friend’s daughter?
“I hope they’ll take into account what Kes did to Mike,” Alice said, “just for Anita’s sake. If only they could have each other back, they used to be so good together . . . she hasn’t been herself.”
“Sheryl had given her Valium, and she was taking that on top of whatever it was the doctor had given her for postnatal depression. I don’t think Sheryl realized what was going on, and I’m not even sure Anita did. She just took whatever pills were around.”
Alice chewed her lip and stared ahead of her. “I was thinking . . . ,” she said eventually. “You don’t think she knew, do you, that it was Kes who took Christopher?”
“Apparently she seemed genuinely shocked and upset when the police told her,” I said, and Alice looked relieved.
Shortly after that she had to rush off, and when she had gone I sat for a while on the bench in the sun. I remembered Anita lying in bed and saying that it was all her fault, and I wondered whether at some level she had realized what was going on. I didn’t want to think so, but the truth is that there is no way of getting at the secrets in another person’s head.
Later, while I was cooking pasta and broccoli for the twins’ tea, my mother called me.
“I’m at Heathrow,” she said. “I decided it was time to come home.”
“Oh no,” I cried, thinking of my father. Had he really gone from the house? Might he have returned? “I thought you were staying longer. What about Randy?”
“Randy is here with me, he’s come to visit,” Ma said. “Would you like to say hi?”
I rolled my eyes. Since when did my mother say “hi”? But I couldn’t say no. Perhaps this was payback time for all those people I’d forced to speak to the twins on the telephone.
“Hi,” I said, at a loss.
“Hi,” said a friendly American voice. “When do we get to see you?”
Without so much as an introduction.
“Perhaps tomorrow?” I said weakly.
“Sounds good. I won’t force you to make conversation. I’ll put your mom back on the line,” he said.
My mother told me how much she was looking forward to being in her own house again. I got off the line as quickly as I could and rang Lorna. She still sounded down, but I had no time to be sympathetic.
“Where is Gilbert?” I demanded.
“I think he’s in France,” she said. “He has some business interests there he has to see to.”
I was speechless. Business interests? He had nothing of the sort. He had a second family. For the first time I realized that I knew more about my father’s life than my sister, who has been his champion.
“You have to go round there at once and make sure he’s not there,” I told her, “and that none of his things are there. No toothbrushes, no laundry, nothing.”
“Shouldn’t we just tell her?” Lorna asked. “I never meant to do it behind her back.”
“Okay,” I said bluntly, “you tell her.”
There was silence for a moment, and then she said, in a low voice, that she would go round and check on the house. When I hung up I reflected that neither of us was used to me giving the orders, and we were even less used to her obeying.
When the children had eaten their tea, their paternal grandparents came around to baby-sit. The children were delighted. They knew there would be sweets. They knew they would not have to go to bed. They knew there would be endless games. I made a halfhearted plea for a reasonable bedtime, shut the door behind me, and thought that when I returned I might be changing life for all of us.
The last time I had visited Finney, the doctor had said to me, “You can take him home tomorrow,” and since then the question of where “home” was for Finney had vexed me. Was it my child-chaotic home or his bachelor pad? Because wherever I took him now was home, and home was where you stayed.
Finney was the world’s worst patient. To him, it was the greatest humiliation to be flat on his back. He had spent most of his time in the hospital annoying the nurses by refusing to turn off his mobile. I hadn’t visited the police station, but I assumed they were pretty pissed off, too, to find their boss, supposedly out of action, still sticking his nose into everything.
This evening, Finney has a visitor. She is blond. Looking shifty—inasmuch as anyone can look shifty when they’re propped up pathetically in bed—he introduces her as Emma. She has a slightly ditzy look to her, dimpled cheeks, attractive, and unreliable, and I can see at once how he fell in love with her.
“Hello.” I nod at her and try to smile, looking her up and down.
“Hello.” She nods back, grinning brightly. “I’ve heard all about you.”
“I wish I could say the same.”
Finney winces, and she looks uncertainly from him to me and back again.
“I have to go,” she says, and then something occurs to her. “Oh, I’m sorry, I think I forgot to pass on a message one day when you phoned.”
“It doesn’t matter. I hope we’ll get a chance to talk later,” I say, trying to make up for my rudeness.
“No, I mean I really have to go. I have a plane to catch. I’m going to Italy. I’m not very good at being in one place too long.”
She leans over and kisses Finney on the cheek and says, “Get well.” Then she flaps her hand at me in a wave and leaves the room.
I sit on the edge of Finney’s bed. “Is she going to come back?”
“She’s not stupid. She didn’t get what she wanted, she won’t waste her time again.”
“So,” I say, “I’ve come to take you home.”
I look into his eyes and see that his mind has been working on the same problem.
“And where is that?” He speaks slowly. “I’m at your mercy.”
“Can you cook?”
“I can shop.”
“Can you iron?”
“If I have to.”
None of this is the point, of course, but I have to work myself up to this question.
“Can you live with my children?”
There is a moment’s silence.
“Will William always stick spaghetti up his nose? Because seriously, I can’t face that.”
“Not always, no.”
“Will Hannah always kick me?”
“Very possibly.”
“Well, I can try,” he says lightly.
I force a smile, but I’m not sure it’s good enough. I cannot force him. I cannot blame him, either. He is joking, but these things—the kicking, the spaghetti hanging, ketchup dripping, from the nose—are not much fun. It is so much, too much, to ask, to take us all on. He would try, but to try is to admit the possibility of failure, the possibility of giving up and leaving. And what my children need is not someone who will endure them only as long as he can. There is never any guarantee of safety and security, and God knows neither Finney nor I have much experience of either. But still, it’s what I need. He can see all this on my face. For an eternity, neither of us speaks.
“I have no intention of leaving,” he says, touching my face.
My eyes search his. He smiles tentatively, and I smile back, and I know I will settle for this.
Epilogue
&
nbsp; SHE walked from room to room. Randy had gone out to get the newspaper, and she was glad to be on her own for a little while. She needed to reacquaint herself with her home before she introduced Randy into it and it all changed.
She sat experimentally in her favorite armchair, then got up and shoved it into its proper place, just a few inches more from the wall. It was funny, she thought, how everything looked fresh and different after her time away. It was as though her things had dissolved on her departure and reconstituted themselves for her return.
She passed the mirror in the hall and stopped and looked more carefully at her reflection. Surely she had changed, too. Perhaps her molecules had melted down in the sun of California and rearranged themselves. It was not, of course, that she was looking at a blond twenty-year-old in the mirror. But she looked ten years younger. Her orange blouse was more color than the house had seen in a while, and there was a glint in her eye that she did not recognize.
And then she saw it. An envelope, her name written on the front in a hand that brought memories flooding back. She reached for the envelope and opened it, pulling out and unfolding a single sheet of notepaper. As she read, her knees gave way, and she sat down hard on the stairs.
My dear,
I wanted to thank you for your hospitality at a time when I was badly in need of it. You are a gracious and forgiving woman.
I also wanted to bring Lorna to your attention. She has had her heart broken and is in need of her mother. I have tried to comfort her, but I am afraid circumstances mean I shall have to pass the mantle of parental care back to you.
Yours truly,
Gilbert
She did not know how much time passed as she sat on the stairs. Only that eventually Randy rang the doorbell and that she let him in, his arms full of newspapers. She rallied herself and greeted him with a smile. She folded the letter and put it in her pocket. She must get on with life, even if it had altered in her absence.
Out of Mind Page 28