Out of Sight

by Isabelle Grey

Belinda elbowed him aside. ‘I’ll do them.’

  ‘Don’t worry. It’s fine.’

  ‘You made the pasta.’

  ‘So? Let me do it.’

  ‘Stop it!’ she exploded. ‘For God’s sake, act normally!’

  ‘I’m only trying to—’

  ‘Well don’t!’ She pushed him roughly out of the way. ‘Stop trying! Just let me do the fucking washing up!’

  ‘I have to do something.’

  ‘No, you don’t.’ She grabbed wildly for the plastic brush. ‘There’s nothing you can do. That’s just it. That’s what you have to live with. There is nothing now that you can do. It’s all too fucking late.’

  She flung the brush into the soapy water and slammed out of the kitchen. Then, from the sitting room, for the first time since Daniel’s death ten days before, Patrick heard the sound of her violin. Her playing was awful, jerky and off-key, reflecting the way she drew breath in jabbing bursts. After a while, during which he finished the dishes, her breathing eased and the melody began to flow after a fashion. The music was hardly her best effort, but clearly marked some moment of transition and release. Patrick took it as a sign that Belinda might yet survive this tragedy. His instinct was to leave her alone but, remembering what she had just yelled at him, decided he must simply enter the room and sit listening until she finished playing, just as he would have done ‘normally’. As he crossed the hallway he was struck by how absurd it was no longer to possess a natural unconsciousness about how to act. That too was forfeit.

  Belinda ignored his entrance. She turned the pages on the music stand and began playing the piece again from the beginning, as she always did after a poor performance. Patrick sat on the sofa and listened, but his mind wandered as it began to dawn on him that the true damnation of what he had done lay in the simple repetition of days that lay ahead.

  He remembered a tale he had once heard about animals trained to lead others calmly into the slaughterhouse. A Judas goat had no choice but to go on living amidst the flock, the only one to hold the secret of what the future held for its fellows, and alone with the knowledge that, to secure its own survival, it must repeat its betrayal. How did such an animal live out its days? Patrick still hoped for legal punishment, though he knew that his wish, like the temptation of suicide, was selfish. Belinda had given no sign that his imprisonment would relieve her in any way, and, however much a gaol sentence might assuage some tiny part of his own guilt, he couldn’t wish for something that would inevitably further complicate her life. He struggled not to dramatise his predicament, not to concentrate on himself, but he wished he knew how to go on living. He had never imagined the answer to such a simple question could be so impenetrable.

  III

  Patrick arrived early for his first meeting with Amanda Skipton, the police-appointed forensic psychologist. The tattered magazines and random signage about disabled access, toilets and abusive behaviour towards staff all seemed faintly derelict, yet the waiting area smelt incongruously of fresh paint. He was rather surprised to discover that he was almost eager to relate again to a stranger the events preceding Daniel’s death – events he already turned over constantly in his mind – longing to believe that speaking his endless questions aloud might grant him some momentary peace. Amanda came to summon him from the reception area. She was younger than he had pictured her. As she led the way to her small office under the eaves, he caught one of her sidelong glances and suspected she would turn out to be a shrewd listener.

  ‘Do sit down, Mr Hinde.’ She gestured to the chair opposite her own on the other side of a low table and regarded him pleasantly. ‘Do you mind if I use your first name?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Good.’ She gave a neat smile, observing him with a frankness that was neither judgemental nor falsely sympathetic. There was nothing in the narrow room to give any clue to her personality or home life, which Patrick knew to be a professional strategy – his own office was the same. ‘You’re here at the request of the police. Although what we do and say here won’t be like a police interview, you do understand that it’s not therapy? What is said here does not remain confidential?’

  ‘Yes, I realise that,’ Patrick answered.

  ‘That’s good. I’ll probably see you two or three times, and then write an assessment of how your thoughts and feelings and mental state contributed to what occurred. Are there any questions that you’d like to ask me?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’ He rubbed his hands on his jeans.

  ‘Well, please feel free to do so at any time.’

  Patrick nodded obediently, as though he were about to take an exam. He cleared his mind of extraneous thoughts, just as he did when preparing himself to see his own patients.

  ‘I’d like to begin with your family history. Where you were born, your parents, siblings, grandparents, that sort of thing. Anything you’d like to tell me, really.’

  Patrick waited for Amanda to ask a question, but when she merely observed him encouragingly he realised she expected him just to pitch in.

  ‘My mother’s French, my father British. I was born here but lived in various places. Dad worked for a couple of big multinationals. I’m an only child.’

  ‘So did you go to school abroad?’

  Patrick nodded. ‘To start with. Then I boarded at a prep school in Hertfordshire.’

  ‘How old were you?’

  ‘Seven.’

  She was making notes, not looking at him. When he did not continue, she looked up again interrogatively.

  ‘It was fine,’ he told her, well used to people expressing concern that he had been sent away so young. ‘It seemed the best alternative.’

  ‘Is that what your parents said?’

  ‘Well, it was true.’

  ‘You held that opinion at the time? When you were seven?’

  Patrick shrugged. ‘I just accepted it.’

  ‘Can you remember how you felt?’

  ‘Homesick, I suppose. Though they’d just moved from Holland to Belgium, so there wasn’t really a home to miss.’

  ‘What about your parents?’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Did you miss them?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘What did you miss most?’ When Patrick regarded her in puzzlement, she smiled. ‘It’s not a trick question. I just wondered if you could remember anything special that you missed? Things you did together. Bedtime routines. Food. Jokes. Smells.’

  ‘Routines,’ Patrick answered ironically. ‘Maman had a lot of routines.’

  Amanda nodded sympathetically and scribbled a note. ‘Did you make friends easily at school?’

  ‘Sure. The other boys were all right. A decent bunch.’

  ‘Any special friends?’

  ‘At the next school, when I was older, a couple of guys. One I’m still in touch with. The others met up in the holidays, which could be a hassle for me. But I was never bullied or anything like that. I was fine.’

  ‘Have you talked to your friends about what’s happened?’

  Patrick was taken aback. ‘No.’

  She nodded matter-of-factly, making no further remark. ‘How were you academically?’

  ‘Did well enough to scrape into university.’

  ‘Languages, I suppose?’ asked Amanda, smiling. ‘You must have a facility, after living in so many countries?’

  ‘My French is fluent,’ Patrick agreed. ‘Thanks to my grandmother. But I liked human biology. Found it interesting.’

  ‘Were your parents proud of you, going to university?’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t Oxbridge. Only Sheffield.’

  ‘What about romantic relationships?’ she asked next.

  ‘I hardly got near a girl before I left school. But my first term there, a girl I sat next to in lectures asked me out. Annie.’ He glanced at Amanda shyly, looking away as he enlarged. ‘She’d had boyfriends before, at school, so I just went along with what she wanted. Seemed to go okay.’
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br />   ‘You don’t find sexual relationships difficult?’

  Patrick blushed. ‘No.’

  ‘How long have your relationships generally lasted?’

  ‘A few months. I was never into one-night stands.’

  ‘Nothing longer?’

  ‘Not until I met Belinda. Then she fell pregnant.’

  ‘Do you think you’d have stayed together if she hadn’t?’

  ‘I’d like to think so. She wasn’t even that keen on having a baby to begin with. Her music’s very important to her. One thing led to another, I suppose.’ Patrick grew sombre. ‘She should’ve steered well clear,’ he said quietly. ‘She deserves better.’

  ‘Up until now, would you say you’ve made Belinda happy?’

  Patrick considered the question. ‘Yes. We made each other happy.’

  ‘After you graduated, what did you do?’

  ‘I did a year of further training, then dropped out. Kind of drifted for a while.’

  ‘Tell me about that.’

  ‘Nothing much to tell.’

  She looked at him, waiting, and Patrick, embarrassed, nonetheless saw that he had to offer more. ‘I got into the whole New Age thing. Raves, eco-protests, tribes. All that stuff.’

  ‘What was the further training in?’

  Patrick heaved a sigh: he always hated making this admission, the explanations that inevitably had to follow. No one could ever seem to believe that he simply hadn’t wanted to be a doctor. ‘Medicine.’

  Amanda’s eyes widened. ‘At what point did you drop out?’

  ‘I qualified. Just never applied for any jobs. Walked away.’

  ‘After what, five years of training?’

  ‘I wasn’t the type. Too many hoops to jump through, a lot of stress. I only did it to please other people.’

  ‘Then it must have taken guts to disappoint them.’

  Patrick snorted in derision. ‘Dad’s never hard to disappoint!’

  ‘And your mother?’

  ‘Maman tends to get wrapped up in the small stuff. That I’ll go out in the cold without a scarf, not eat properly.’

  ‘So what did you do after you dropped out? Where were you living? Were you working?’

  ‘Bits of casual labour. Moved around. That whole grunge, traveller thing, remember?’ Patrick was mildly surprised at how Amanda let his well-rehearsed answers pass without comment.

  ‘You were a crustie?’ Amanda looked amused.

  ‘Well, I don’t think I ever actually slept in a doorway. But you’re right. It wasn’t much fun.’

  ‘Were you depressed?’

  Once again, Patrick was taken aback. ‘Never thought. I guess I was a bit lost, if I’m honest. Most of the people I hung out with then were.’

  ‘How long did this go on?’

  ‘A while,‘ he said curtly. ‘Until I began training in homeopathy.’

  ‘And that gave you direction?’ She leant forward slightly, interested in what he would say.

  ‘It was like I’d finally found what I wanted for myself,’ he answered truthfully. ‘Something I could do well.’

  ‘And you’ve never been tempted to go back into medicine? Not even to call yourself a doctor?’

  Patrick shook his head. ‘Why would I? I’m a homeopath.’

  ‘Okay. Tell me how you feel about your work. About yourself when you’re working.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘In what way?’

  Patrick blushed again. ‘Like a good person. Safe.’

  ‘Safe from what?’

  ‘No. Like I’m safe. Can’t harm anyone.’

  Amanda regarded him steadily, but Patrick resisted the sense that she was waiting for him to make some connection.

  ‘You said it was easy to disappoint your father,’ she went on after a moment. ‘Could you imagine a time when your son might have disappointed you?’

  ‘Never!’

  ‘Did you fuss over him, like your mother did over you?’

  ‘No. Poor Maman, her fears are irrational. An illness. Growing up with that, I’ve never let things get to me.’

  ‘How do you do that?’

  Patrick shrugged. ‘Dunno.’

  ‘Ever think you’re a little too laid back?’

  ‘Hope not.’

  ‘But you’re able to block things out? Concentrate on what’s before you – your patients, for instance?’

  ‘Yes, when I need to.’

  ‘Cut off, would you say?’

  ‘Not really.’ Patrick heard the slightly aggrieved tone in his voice and shifted in his chair as if to disown it.

  ‘Forgetful?’

  Patrick dropped his head and did not answer.

  ‘I believe your GP is organising some neurological tests? To rule out any physical cause for your memory loss.’

  Patrick nodded, miserable.

  ‘You’re still unable to remember your drive to work; parking the car and leaving Daniel?’

  ‘It’s like there’s no memory there to be retrieved.’

  ‘Do you think you might have emptied your mind in order to block something else out? Some uncomfortable feeling, perhaps?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Maybe you’d like to think about that for me.’

  Patrick swallowed on nothing and stretched his lips into a smile. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Before this happened, how do you think you might have felt towards another parent who forgot his child, the same way you did?’ Patrick stared at Amanda in surprise. ‘It has happened to other people. You’re not unique.’ She nodded at him encouragingly. ‘In America there are about twenty-five cases a year accounted for by parental memory lapse. I suspect such forgetfulness is fairly common here, too, but not often fatal, thanks to our climate. In France a few years ago two children died in hot cars within a week of each other. Both had intelligent, diligent and devoted fathers, whose attention was somehow fatally distracted. Just like you.’ She watched his reactions carefully. ‘How does it make you feel, knowing you’re not alone?’

  ‘Better. No.’ Horrified, he corrected himself instantly. ‘Not better, I don’t mean that. There is no better. But – it helps,’ he ended lamely. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘How do you feel towards those other fathers?’

  ‘I pity them.’

  ‘Are you able to pity yourself?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Would you forgive them?’

  ‘Maybe. I know what you’re going to say.’ Patrick felt his hostility to her rising into his throat. ‘But it’s not the same,’ he exclaimed. ‘I’ll never forgive myself. Never. Daniel’s dead. There’s no excuse for what I did.’

  ‘Well, I’ve read the police statements, Patrick. From your wife, Daniel’s childminder, people in the emergency services who attended the scene, the patients you treated that day. None voiced any suspicion that you intended to harm your son.’

  ‘I did harm Daniel.’

  ‘Deliberately?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Then why should forgiveness not be possible? In time, of course.’

  ‘But it’s obvious, isn’t it? It’s me. There’s something in me that harms people. I’m not safe.’ At the back of his mind he heard a distant echo of Josette’s voice.

  Amanda sat back, saying nothing. The compassion Patrick could read on her face angered him. ‘My son is dead because of me,’ he told her coldly. ‘It’s not up to you or anyone else to forgive me. I allowed him to come to harm. I don’t deserve forgiveness.’

  An hour later Patrick sat down on a bench in a small park laid out in formal beds and paths around a war memorial. He felt as worn and exhausted as the dusty brown grass, as meaningless as the carved names of the long-ago dead. He could not picture what route had brought him here from Amanda’s office. He couldn’t face going home, going anywhere. All sorts of disconnected memories chased through his mind, of drab school dormitories, of listening late at night to his mother stealthily testing door handles and window locks in for
eign apartments, of the way the light slanted in between the shutters as he sat on the floor at his grandmother’s house, playing solitaire with an old wooden board and heavy citrus-coloured glass marbles. He wondered why he should think so vividly of that when he had barely mentioned Josette to Amanda. Josette had no bearing on any of this, and he pushed her out of his mind. He wondered what Amanda thought of him. He liked her, even though she had made him feel so gritty and irritable.

  It occurred to Patrick that he had forgotten to discuss his return to work, as he had promised Belinda he would. He recalled what Amanda had said about the supportive statements his patients had given to the police. The idea that it might after all prove possible to see patients again gave him his first unmistakable inkling of reprieve. This joined itself to the small and exquisitely painful spring of hope that had uncoiled inside him on hearing the simple fact that other men shared his guilt. The information that he was not uniquely capable of his act of lethal aberration released a tiny trickle of warmth that suddenly began to flow through his veins. But even such a minuscule sense of relief produced an overwhelming rushing sensation that made him panic. He leant forwards on the bench, bracing himself against the flood. He looked wildly around the little park, but saw he was alone. He tried to stand, to walk away, but his legs trembled and he sat back down on the hard bench, gasping for air.

  He wondered if he were having a heart attack, and for a moment hoped he was. He felt no pain, but his head was swimming and he felt sick. His right hand gripped the edge of the wooden bench and, slowly, all his consciousness focused on the single sensation of touching its worn surface. His thumb began to circle rhythmically, and he recognised something to which he was accustomed in the dry grey dust working its way into the whorls of his fingerprint. Its familiarity began to calm him, and he was able to let his mind empty as his thumb continued to rub the desiccated wood, the feel of which reminded him more and more of aged, dusty linen. He remembered now that he knew all too well how to subdue hope, how to endure alone, to accept that he deserved no better. These things came to him more naturally than kindness, forgiveness or reprieve, and he welcomed the memory of how he had always survived before.

  The next day, Geoffrey called and informed Belinda that the offer he and Agnès had made on a house in Esher had been accepted; meanwhile they would return to Switzerland until their lease in Geneva expired towards the end of September. Geoffrey attempted to sidestep Belinda’s invitation to lunch, but she insisted, and they came over two days later. Patrick welcomed them. Geoffrey refused eye-contact, pushing past his son to present Belinda with a box of expensive chocolates. Agnès kissed his cheeks and clung to his arm, and he gathered her to him in a hug. In the sitting room Geoffrey requested a gin and tonic and launched into small talk about the house they’d found, garlanded with jovial asides about the estate agent and one or two totally unsuitable places that they’d also viewed. Agnès nodded and laughed at appropriate moments, her eyes never leaving her son.