Out of Sight

by Isabelle Grey

  ‘What sort of things did your parents tell you about yourself when you were growing up?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, like your father told you that his parents preferred his younger sister. He must have got that belief from somewhere. I wonder what sort of beliefs you gained about yourself from your parents.’

  Patrick stared at her, feeling a rising antagonism towards her. He knew it had nothing to do with her, but was nonetheless unable to subdue the stubborn anger and resentment that lodged in his chest. Amanda clearly sensed his change of mood, and, in return, regarded him steadily.

  ‘They never wanted me,’ he said at last. ‘They wanted rid of me.’ He recalled the bombshell Agnès had dropped the other day, about the infant sister he had never realised existed. He didn’t think he could face explaining all that to Amanda. He sighed. ‘I’m not stupid,’ he told her instead. ‘I realise it was to do with their problems, their inadequacies. Not me. Not really.’

  ‘And if you had let them be upset, what’s the worst that could happen? What were you afraid of?’

  ‘This,’ he said. ‘This is what could happen. My son is dead.’

  Amanda pulled a stapled bunch of papers out of the file on the table before her. She searched through the pages until she found the one she wanted. ‘Here it is. That morning, before you left, your father picked Daniel up, handed him to you and told you to get rid of him. Is that correct?’

  ‘Yes,’ Patrick confirmed warily.

  ‘How did that make you feel?’

  Patrick shook his head in despair. ‘Everyone keeps asking me that. I don’t know. I don’t remember. I’m sick of it. Of them. Of course they’re mad, and I ought to deal with them, but there’s never been any point. It just makes them worse.’ He looked at her beseechingly: why could no one ever understand the futility of trying to change anything to do with his parents? ‘How is any of this going to bring Daniel back?’ he asked. ‘It’s not. It can’t.’

  ‘That’s true,’ agreed Amanda. ‘But having to deal with your parents appears to make you very upset.’

  ‘I’m used to it.’ He looked stubbornly at the floor.

  ‘Used to the fact that your parents don’t care how badly they upset you?’

  Patrick closed his eyes, tried to clear his head by shaking it.

  ‘What do you do with your feelings when other people fail to care about you?’ Amanda persisted.

  ‘Nothing. Just forget about it.’

  ‘When you left with Daniel that morning to drive to your office, what did you do with your feelings?’

  ‘Nothing! Put everything to the back of my mind as soon as I was in the car. Forgot about it.’

  ‘You forgot that you were distressed and angry?’

  ‘Yes. So what?’ Patrick glared at her ‘What’s your theory? That my repressed anger at my father made me lock my son in the car? Made me want to kill him?’ His voice shook, an hysterical flush rising on his cheeks. ‘That’s bollocks!’

  ‘No. Not at all. I think it was your forgotten feelings that you left in the car. Your own inner child, if you like. Not Daniel. It had nothing to do with Daniel. I think you locked the most vulnerable part of yourself up in that car, went away and forgot all about it.’

  Belinda regarded Patrick strangely when he walked into the kitchen. He braced himself, not sure he could take much more in his present state of mind. He thought of descriptions in Victorian fiction of raving lunatics frothing at the mouth, and thought that very soon that would be him, then immediately berated himself. He had no right to consider himself a victim.

  ‘Your grandmother has died,’ Belinda said. ‘Agnès telephoned. It was very swift, probably her heart. Agnès said you’re not to worry about arrangements or anything – they’ll take care of everything.’

  Patrick slumped into the nearest chair. ‘Poor Maman.’ He disliked Belinda’s scrutiny. ‘Josette had little enough pity for me,’ he told her. ‘Frankly, it’s hard to dredge up much for her right now.’

  ‘All the same, she was a big part of your life,’ observed Belinda.

  He nodded. ‘As a kid, sure. I’m sorry she died alone, but she chose to live that way.’

  Belinda shrugged and turned back to the sink where she was peeling some potatoes. ‘I begin to wonder what you’d say if I died,’ she said quietly. For a moment, Patrick was unsure whether he’d actually heard her words.

  ‘You think I have no feelings? You think I don’t care?’ he burst out.

  ‘Do you?’ She had turned to look at him again, observing him closely.

  He jumped up and grabbed her shoulders, shaking her. ‘I love you!’ he shouted. ‘I loved Daniel! You know that!’

  ‘Then what were you busy thinking about all that day instead of him? What was so much more important?’

  He dropped his hands helplessly.

  ‘Not just some split second slip of attention, an accident, but hours. Hours while he – while he was all alone.’

  ‘Do you want me to leave? I’ll go. I’ll go now, if that’s what you want.’ Part of him longed for her to condemn him, express vehemently all her anger and blame, order him to leave the house for ever. He knew the contempt she must feel and wanted to see it blazing in her face.

  ‘Is that your answer? To duck out of it?’

  He felt slightly sick with disappointment. ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘It’s not about you! Stop making it all about you!’

  Patrick was shocked. Walking home, he had mulled over all that Amanda had said. The notion that there was some part of himself that he had learnt to lock away flickered with the distant prospect of making sense, of leading perhaps to a first glimmer of understanding. But now he hung his head. Belinda had every right to condemn such self-indulgence – what could it matter whether he understood himself or not? No amount of getting in touch with his inner child was ever going to bring Daniel back to life. There was no point trying to learn anything from Amanda’s psychological theories about him.

  ‘I’m sorry if I do that,’ he told her humbly. ‘Really.’ All he wanted in that instant was to offer whatever she needed from him. He forced himself to look steadily at her, willing himself and his feelings to disappear so that she might see how, from now on, he would live for her. She returned his gaze, but, as if searching for something in him that she failed to find, looked away at last with a despairing shake of her head. ‘What?’ he asked her. ‘Please. Tell me.’

  An image sprang into his mind of when they first met, only a few years earlier: she, a willowy figure with huge eyes and a mass of unfashionably thick and luscious hair, was seven years younger than he, but already far more sure and capable, a free spirit, full of plans, up for spontaneous, last-minute dashes to see movies, live performances, check out some new bar. Now, her eyes were too big for her face in a gaunt and unnatural way; she was too young, he thought sadly, to look like this. He reached out for her. ‘Tell me,’ he begged. ‘Please. Let me try.’

  She looked at him doubtfully, but began to speak. ‘At some point,’ she said, ‘at some point we have to go on living. I don’t know how or when, or whether I can. Whether we can do so together. But in the end we’ll each have to find, or invent, some way to get past this.’ Patrick started to speak, but she held up her hand. ‘Maybe it’s callous of me, to want that. Maybe I’m simply too shallow to die of grief. I don’t care. I can’t—’ Patrick could see that thoughts of Daniel threatened to engulf her, but she shook her head at him to obey, and he waited for her to go on. ‘I can’t say goodbye to Daniel without something to cling to. Something else to live for.’

  Patrick nodded, fighting back his own feelings.

  ‘You’re going to have to feel the same. To find some way, for yourself, to begin again.’

  Patrick felt sick. She had asked the one thing of him that he was certain he could not do.

  ‘What I need to know,’ she continued, ‘is whether we can ever dare to have another child. Even to co
nsider it, I have to be able to trust you again. And if we don’t dare,’ she went on in a rush, ‘if we can’t, then why struggle to stay together?’

  Patrick swallowed hard. ‘It is a struggle, isn’t it, for you to stay with me?’

  Belinda nodded, sucking in her lips as she fought back tears. ‘There are times I want to tear you to pieces. Just seeing you walk around the house, being alive when he isn’t, when it’s because of you that he isn’t here, I want to rip you apart. When I feel like that, I can even believe it’s a totally sane reaction.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘But it’s not what I want,’ she cried. ‘And you’re the only one who can stop it. That’s what you have to do. You have to stop me hating you.’

  ‘Okay.’ He put his hands on her shoulders. She wouldn’t let him pull her to him, but he kept hold of her. ‘Okay. I don’t know how, but I’ll try. I promise.’

  ‘Good. I don’t want to talk any more.’ She turned back to the sink, twisting out of his grasp, but her shoulders dropped as if released of tension.

  Patrick looked around the room, searching for some clue as to what to do next. His attention was caught by a cupboard door that hung too loose on its hinges and never shut properly, impeding the drawers in the fitment beside it. He knew it annoyed her, and he had been meaning to fix it for ages. Fetching his tools from the cupboard under the stairs, he set about unscrewing the hinge; the material from which the door was made had flaked away, making it impossible for a new screw to get a fixing. It was a relief to set his mind to solving a practical problem, and he spent the rest of the afternoon searching out other jobs around the house, allowing himself the delusion that, in sanding and planing, fitting and glueing, he was at least in some small way serving Belinda and easing her path.

  That night, the lights were off as he slipped into bed beside her; he lay with his back to her, letting his vision adjust to the darkness. Suddenly she sat up, and he turned his head to watch as she raised her arms above her head, pulling off the cotton tee-shirt she was wearing as a nightgown. Her breasts were back-lit against the frail grey light that entered the room around the edge of the blinds. She turned to face him, and he was struck once again by how young and vulnerable she was. Belinda wriggled back down to lie beside him. ‘Hold me,’ she whispered.

  Patrick obligingly took her in his arms, his fingertips lightly touching her naked back; he could not refuse to offer comfort, but his confused rush of sensations was paralysing. At first, to his relief, she lay still, her head tucked under his chin so that his nose was buried in her warm, scented hair. Her hand rested on his chest, her fingers gently roving across his skin. He ordered himself to relax, to doze, trying to let the undemanding physical sensations float him away from consciousness and towards sleep. But her hand strayed down his belly, and, almost with horror, he was jolted by an unbidden, deceitful jab of desire. He lay very still, forcing his breath to sound as if he were already asleep, experiencing a clear sense of salvation when she remained still, allowing his faint erection to fade. But after a little while she straightened herself alongside him, pressing her body against his. As her fingers reached lower and her stroking began to show clear intent, he shrank back, unable to prevent himself curling inwards, away from her.

  ‘Relax. It’ll be all right,’ Belinda murmured into his ear, her lips touching his cheek as she raised herself to seek his mouth. He kissed her chastely, allowing her tongue to slip into his mouth as her hand softly began the attempt to tease some life into his penis. He moved her hand gently away, placing it safely around his waist, then freed his mouth from hers.

  ‘Never mind about me,’ he apologised. ‘Let me concentrate on you instead.’ He stroked his hand down the curve of her hip, slipping familiarly down between her thighs. She pressed against him, her lips seeking his. He kissed her back, and she moaned as he touched her, but then shifted her hand once more, hoping to find him aroused. He caught her wrist, lifting her arm up to rest upon his chest.

  ‘No, let me,’ she murmured into his ear. She pushed him back into the mattress and began to kiss his chest and stomach as she moved down the bed. In the past he would have surrendered voluptuously, weaving his fingers through her hair as she licked and sucked, awaiting the moment when she would choose to roll back, drawing him on top of her. Now the thought of such intimacy was terrible, unimaginable, so he drew her back up level with him, kissing her neck and cheeks, stroking her hair, trying to will his body to do what she wanted. After a while, as nothing happened, she straddled him, leaning down to kiss him while trying once more with her hand to arouse him.

  ‘Please,’ she said. ‘I want you inside me. Just for a little while.’

  ‘I can’t. I’m sorry.’

  He twisted away from her, pushing her aside, then immediately tried to atone for his ungentle reaction. ‘I’m sorry, sweetheart. But it just won’t happen.’

  Belinda didn’t move. ‘At least let me hold you,’ he said, attempting to pull her back into his arms. She did not entirely turn away, but drew up her knees, her arms guarding her chest. They lay like that, their bodies touching only where her head rested unnaturally on the elbow of his outstretched arm, saying nothing until both pretended to fall asleep.

  Patrick’s final session with Amanda was fixed for almost the precise moment when, in France, Agnès and Geoffrey were laying Josette to rest. It had been readily agreed between them all that it would be futile for Patrick to attend his grandmother’s funeral. Nonetheless, he felt some regret, if merely out of a dutiful respect; all the more so when Geoffrey had rung to say that Josette had left her house and its contents to Patrick. He was perturbed by this unexpected gesture, but Geoffrey was glad to be relieved of responsibility for disposing of everything, and it appeared that Josette had discussed and agreed her decision with Agnès long before, when she had first drawn up her will. In any case, the matter would have to be considered another time: he was unable to make room right now for anything to do with Josette.

  Patrick was irritated, therefore, when Amanda’s first question brought his grandmother to mind. ‘You told me last time that you upset people. I’d like to talk about that.’

  He nodded, resigned.

  ‘Who made you think that you upset people?’ she asked.

  He shrugged. ‘People are better off without me.’

  ‘Did someone use to tell you that?’

  ‘My grandmother.’

  ‘Grandma Hinde?’

  ‘No. My French grandmother, Josette.’

  ‘Is she still alive?’

  ‘No. Though she lived to a good age.’

  ‘Were you close?’

  ‘I never saw much of her once I left school. Even my mother only visited once or twice a year.’

  ‘But when you were a child?’

  He nodded. ‘In the holidays.’

  ‘And she made you feel as if it was you who were to blame when people were upset?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can you give me an example?’

  ‘Sometimes my mother had to go back and be with my dad, and I’d stay on with Josette. Maman hates having to say goodbye, gets distressed when people leave. Josette used to say it was my fault.’

  ‘Your fault that your mother hated leaving?’

  ‘My fault that she left me. That she didn’t want me with her.’

  ‘I see. What else did Josette say?’

  ‘She’d ask what I’d done. Go on at me to own up to why they never wanted me with them. Sometimes, for fun, I’d imagine what terrible deeds I might’ve committed. It was almost easier to pretend they were right, like I was secretly a werewolf or a vampire or something, rather than admit that adults are all just crazy and useless.’ Patrick tried to laugh, then shifted in his chair and sighed heavily. ‘Even then I knew that Josette was fucked up. She’d had to be tough to survive, but she hated me. Why should she hate a defenceless kid for no reason? I must have done something.’

  ‘Tell me how you felt about your mother le
aving.’

  Patrick examined his hands in his lap as he answered, ‘I didn’t like it.’

  ‘Did you show that you were upset?’

  ‘No. That would have made her worse. Made everything worse.’

  ‘So at least, by looking after your mother, you could do some good?’

  Patrick stared at her. ‘I guess,’ he said at last.

  ‘But you never asked not to be left?’

  ‘What good would it have done?’

  When Amanda failed to ask another question, he looked up to find her observing him with a sad expression. ‘I’m not going to feel sorry for myself,’ he responded angrily. ‘This shouldn’t be about me. What about Belinda? She’s the one who matters now. I want to think about her, not go on bleating away about my childhood!’

  ‘You don’t think that perhaps unravelling a few things from your childhood might ultimately help Belinda too?’

  ‘No! Look, do I actually have to be here? Because if I have a choice, then frankly I’d rather pack it in. This just feels to me all rather like wallowing in self-indulgence.’

  ‘The door’s not locked,’ said Amanda evenly. ‘And you don’t have to come again.’ Patrick stared at her, torn. Unable to conjure up any honest justification for walking out, he stayed put. After a moment’s silence, Amanda nodded, and asked, ‘You feel guilty towards Belinda?’

  ‘What the fuck do you think?’ he responded belligerently, then held up his hands. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry. But feeling guilty doesn’t even begin to—’ Patrick waved his arms to express the inadequacies of speech. He groaned, fighting the urge to curl into a ball and hide from the world for ever. ‘I don’t know what to do, how to go on,’ he told Amanda. ‘She wants me to, but I don’t think I can. I’m totally lost. No way to go forward.’

  ‘I suspect it would help you to be punished?’

  He smiled wryly. ‘Be nice to be in a prison cell!’

  ‘What about thoughts of suicide?’ she asked gently.