She was forced to realise how much of her energy had been swallowed up by the black hole of trying to second-guess a deeply hidden man who covered his tracks to an impenetrable degree. Nevertheless, she retained a nagging curiosity about how Patrick would react to his secrets being uncovered, and, as Stella pointed out, why should she, out of consideration for his feelings, relinquish a final chance to put her own emotional affairs in order? And so she waited here, ready to ambush him, before her flight to Bergerac the next day.
Patrick came out more or less when Leonie expected and headed up towards Highbury. She crossed the road and fell into step beside him. ‘Patrick?’
He swivelled, eyes wide with alarm.
‘I came to say goodbye. I’m going back to France tomorrow. I’ve accepted Gaby’s offer.’
His alarm subsided but he glanced at her doubtfully. ‘I’m sure that’s a good decision,’ he said carefully.
‘Yes, I’m certain it is,’ she said with emphasis. ‘Do you have time for a drink?’
He checked his watch, then forced a smile. ‘Of course. Come with me.’ He turned and led the way determinedly back in the opposite direction, turning into a side street where a small pub sported several picnic tables on the wide pavement outside. ‘Why don’t you grab a seat and I’ll get you a drink. White wine?’
‘Thanks.’
He disappeared inside, and she pictured him breathing a sigh of relief at the moment’s temporary respite, imagined him trying to work out what she might want from him. She wondered if he had any suspicion how much she knew, whether the receptionist at the Angel Sanctuary had said anything to him about the conversation with Stella.
To Leonie’s surprise, her own hands trembled and she felt dry-mouthed with tension. Why had she always been so porous to his emotions, so compliant when he wished to avoid topics or situations? She had wondered recently if it were to do with her parents’ divorce, her desire to please her largely absent father, her sense of abandonment at her mother’s decision to emigrate. If so, then Patrick had picked her because he had recognised an innate ability to tolerate and excuse his whims in a way in which a Stella or a Gaby would never do. She looked down at her sequinned slippers, which she had worn deliberately as a small act of defiance, curious to see how their conversation would go once he saw that she was no longer prepared to play along.
Patrick returned with two glasses of wine, and climbed onto the bench seat across from her. He raised his glass: ‘To Riberac. And your return.’
‘Thanks. There’s something I wanted to talk to you about before I go.’
‘That sounds serious!’ He tried to make a joke of it, but there was already a wariness in his expression.
She spoke softly. ‘I know more about you than you probably think I do.’ She saw a glint of repudiation in his eyes, even the hint of a snarl in his hunted smile. ‘You’ve let me believe things that aren’t true,’ she told him.
‘I never made any promises to you.’
‘No, but you let me think you had no children.’
‘I don’t.’
‘That you never had a child.’
He gazed at her, blinking rapidly. She could almost see his mind working, turning over phrases that he could use, desperate for some form of words that would fend off the truth, keep her close, but not be a lie.
‘Patrick, I know what happened.’
He looked down, his head jerking slightly. It struck Leonie that, in the same way that her map of the world had altered irrevocably when she discovered his betrayals, maybe what she was witnessing now was him being wrenched into having to reconfigure his world in the light of her knowledge of his past. She watched, almost too fascinated to be angry, waiting for him to find words. Finally he looked up, and she could not help being moved by the sadness in his expression.
‘I should have told you,’ he said. ‘But I couldn’t. It was impossible, even when I wanted to. And I did want to. I never set out to mislead you.’
‘And now?’
‘It’s in the past. I can never atone. Though I can go on.’ He paused, regarding her intently. ‘I have you to thank for that,’ he went on. ‘Seriously, it was you who brought me back to life. Showed me how to go forwards again.’ He leant across and took her hand. ‘I’ll be for ever grateful.’
Leonie beat down the bitter memory of his abandonment, the hurt and loss and disappointment of her miscarriage, and forced some composure into her manner. ‘Will you tell me now what happened to your son?’
Patrick withdrew his hand, retreating inside himself for a long while. ‘I’m not sure I can add to what I assume you’ve already been told,’ he said formally. ‘I can’t explain my actions. I forgot that Daniel was in the car, and as a result, he died.’
‘What did make you remember he was there?’
He licked his lips. ‘I didn’t. Not until they tried to rescue him. Not even then. I never realised he was there. Didn’t understand what they were doing. And then it was too late.’ He paused. ‘I loved him very much. He was a perfect, adorable little boy.’ He crossed his arms, closing his eyes for a few seconds. ‘I’ll never forget the feel of him.’
Leonie waited, rocking the wine in her glass, putting no pressure on him, but he said no more.
‘Is that how you could leave Riberac the way you did?’ she asked finally. ‘No warning, no explanation, just two lines in a letter? Did you manage to forget about me, too?’ Leonie watched as Patrick pensively rubbed at the dry wood of the picnic table with his fingertips.
‘I failed you,’ he said at last. ‘I was wrong. But I was afraid something terrible would happen if I stayed; that I’d be punished again.’
‘But was it the same? Forgetting I was pregnant by you? The same as forgetting about your son?’
‘Possibly,’ he admitted, shamefaced.
‘And your wife,’ Leonie went on. ‘You told me you walked, when you left England. Walked to France.’
‘I didn’t want to do any more harm.’
‘Did she know you were leaving?’
‘She knew I’d inherited Josette’s house. Eventually she got in touch with me there.’
Leonie heard the familiar evasion slide underneath his words, and was overwhelmed by a rush of both pity and distaste. ‘And what happened to her?’
‘I was no good to her. To anyone. Her sister said so, told me to go. I make people unhappy. And I was only capable of putting one foot in front of the other, my belongings reduced to what I could carry on my back. That’s all I was, for a long time. That and, in time, my work, my patients.’ Patrick gave a twisted smile and reached across the table again to touch her arm. ‘I warned you I wasn’t reliable. Not a good bet.’
His touch depleted her and she moved her arm. He didn’t seem to notice. ‘I know I hurt you, and I’m sorry,’ he said, circling the surface of the wood once more with his finger. ‘You do believe that?’
She nodded. And it was true: she did not doubt his sincerity. But it felt woefully inadequate, and she had nothing to say in response.
‘I’m glad you’re going back to France,’ he went on. ‘You were happy there. It suited you. And Gaby and her husband seem like good people.’
‘What about you?’
Leonie’s heart beat against her ribs with the urgent wish that he tell her everything, tell her the truth – that he was already with another woman, a family. If he could only do that, want her to share in his life, trust her even to be glad for him, then she felt as if some old and malign enchantment would be broken and she could depart in peace, could feel that he had proved himself worthy of how desperately she had loved him.
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry about me. I’ll get along.’
‘Will you be happy here in London?’ she persisted, striving to keep the quaver of disappointment out of her voice.
‘Yes,’ he smiled. ‘Thanks to you.’ He raised his glass to hers, his gaze seeking reassurance.
Leonie held tightly to her glass, feeling the letha
l chill of contempt. She knew this was the best she could expect, that Patrick’s habits of guardedness and misdirection were too ingrained, but she suddenly felt she owed it to herself to rebel, to rip to shreds his carefully constructed web of untruthful silences. ‘Only me?’ she demanded scornfully. ‘No one else?’
Patrick, surprised, shook his head, as if trying to shake some tinnitus irritation from his ears. ‘It was you who saved me,’ he answered, giving her a wounded look. ‘No one else.’
‘You’re such a liar!’ Leonie pushed her wine glass away, swung her feet around, free of the narrow seat of the picnic bench, and, relieved now that she was unlikely ever to see him again, walked away.
IV
Rob reclined on the settee, looking out of place against the boldly patterned cushions. His plastered leg was stretched out ahead of him and he tucked enthusiastically into Patrick’s vegetable lasagne. Patrick watched, amused: enforced inactivity made the boy restless but had done nothing to diminish his appetite.
‘So when are you planning to move back in?’ Rob asked between mouthfuls.
Vicki, sitting with Patrick at the table, glanced across at him. Caught up in Rob’s surgery, and the logistics of bringing him home from Brighton, neither of them had yet re-visited Patrick’s promise of commitment. Struck by the poignancy of Vicki’s expression, Patrick grinned at them both.
‘Still sure you want me?’ he asked.
Vicki looked to her son, who waved his fork in the air. ‘Your call, Mum. Nothing to do with me!’
‘What about your flat?’ she appealed to Patrick.
‘The lease still has a few more months to run, but I don’t suppose that matters.’ Patrick reached for her hand. ‘Whenever suits you.’
‘If you wait till I’m out of plaster, then I can give you a hand with your stuff,’ offered Rob.
‘Great.’
Patrick was rewarded with a smile from Rob that lightened some of the flatness he’d felt since his leave-taking drink with Leonie. Her final anger had been well deserved, but what lingered in his mind was speaking about Daniel. Apart from his parents and a couple of work colleagues, it had been years since he had even been in the company of anyone who knew what had happened. Although a part of him felt absolved by her knowledge, for a day or so it had made his present life seem unreal, made the guy-ropes that attached him to it feel dangerously frail. Rob’s easy hold on life renewed his confidence.
‘We could throw a party,’ suggested Rob. ‘A kind of house-warming.’
Vicki looked to see Patrick’s reaction. ‘Easy, tiger!’ she rebuked her son. ‘One thing at a time.’
‘No, why not?’ asked Patrick. ‘Be good to meet your friends.’
‘I’d like you to meet my brother,’ said Vicki shyly. ‘He lives in Northumberland, but he’s all the family there is left now.’
‘And I’ll take you to visit my mother, if you like,’ offered Patrick. ‘Not sure I can face socialising with my dad and his lady friend. We haven’t seen eye to eye for a long time.’
‘That’s a shame,’ Vicki observed. ‘But you must do exactly as you please.’
Patrick felt comfortably encircled by her determination to make everything easy for him. While it made defection impossible, it also relieved him of responsibility. ‘Let’s have a party! Invite as many people as you want,’ he promised her gaily. ‘I want you to be happy.’
Hearing the slightly too-high note in his voice, Patrick realised he was attempting to skirt his sense that his gesture that evening in the guesthouse now seemed to him faintly ridiculous. He wasn’t sure what he wanted – wasn’t even sure whether it mattered what he wanted. His mind flashed back to his younger self, moving in with Belinda, going along quite naturally with plans to get married once she became pregnant. He remembered how, waking up and finding her beside him, he had felt for the first time in his life as if he had not a care in the world. Perhaps that’s how he would feel again if he allowed himself once more to go with the flow of other people’s wishes.
‘Is there anyone you want to invite over from France?’ asked Vicki, her mild tone nonetheless betraying a twinge of anxiety.
As Patrick hesitated, Rob blithely interrupted. ‘I’ll have some more, if there is any.’ He held out his empty plate. ‘And don’t forget Elizabeth,’ he reminded his mother before turning to Patrick. ‘She’s my godmother. Lives in Ipswich. You’ll like her.’
Vicki jumped up to take Rob’s plate, laughing at him. ‘You just want as many people around as possible to wait on you hand and foot!’
‘Sounds good to me.’ Rob lay back, smiling at them like a well-fed cat.
The following week, as Patrick left the Angel Sanctuary at lunchtime, intending to grab something to eat between patients, he remembered to stop and tell the receptionist to block out his appointments for the dates when he and Vicki had booked a week’s holiday together.
‘Oh, lovely!’ exclaimed the girl when she heard the reason, then drew a sharp breath. ‘By the way, did that woman ever get hold of you?’ She flicked back through the large appointments diary. ‘Stella Deacon. She came in asking for you. Sorry, I completely forgot. It was while you were down in Brighton.’
‘Stella Deacon?’ It took Patrick a few moments to place her as Leonie’s friend, whom he had met in Riberac. His spine tensed.
‘I told her we weren’t sure when you’d be back,’ the receptionist continued. ‘She wouldn’t say what she wanted, but she seemed rather agitated.’
He became aware that the young woman’s radar for gossip was on high alert. ‘Oh, yes. She did find me, thanks.’
Patrick went out, pausing on the pavement as the lunchtime crowds surged impatiently around him. His appetite forgotten, he made for Islington Green where he managed to find space on a bench. He sat down, thinking hard. He had seen Leonie after his return from Brighton. Was this why she’d called him a liar? It hurt him that Leonie might feel betrayed. By denying her such a mundane, simple truth – that he was seeing someone – he had repaid her generosity with a meanness of spirit that she would rightly despise. At least she was now back in France, safely away from him. He wondered how long his inability to speak would go on inflicting damage on others?
A new thought stabbed him: did Vicki know about Leonie? Might Stella, or Leonie, have felt it her duty to track Vicki down and warn her? He could not bear that Vicki and Rob might also be hurt by his dereliction. Josette’s voice echoed in his ears, and he felt pursued again by the monstrous Doppelgänger that was his worst self. Vicki had shown little curiosity about his marriage or past relationships. It was one aspect of what he found so restful about her. So why had he not simply been open with her about his past, about Daniel, about seeing Leonie again? He had wanted to live with Vicki because of the self he saw reflected in her eyes. A self he wanted to be. He didn’t want that reflection to be spoiled. He was tired of being this monster who upset everyone, who left his own son to die in a hot car.
Patrick slowly became aware that people around him were scrunching up their sandwich bags and heading back to their jobs. He had a patient due at two o’clock, but he sat on, exhausted. A filthy pigeon with a dismembered claw pecked about the ground beside an over-flowing rubbish bin. He could not bear it if his life were to be reduced again to the simple act of heaving himself to his feet and putting one foot in front of another. Where would he go this time? Josette’s house was sold. If he were in Brighton he might consider walking into the sea.
The thought of his two o’clock appointment tugged at him. He struggled to focus his attention, to remember who he was due to see. Yes, Rebecca, a ‘yummy mummy’ with two small children, a borderline anorexic who ricocheted from one type of therapy to another. But he had seen her twice and believed his remedies had already made a difference. He might help her yet. He should go. It was all he could do. It was unfair to keep her waiting.
That evening, although due to see Vicki, he called to say that he wasn’t doing very well, that maybe he was going
down with something. He went back to his own flat where he occupied himself catching up with domestic chores.
The following day he called her as he left work, said he was going to get an early night, then, instead of taking his usual route home, he crossed the road and made his way down to the canal, heading east. On this high summer evening there was an attractive desolation about the unfolding vista of crumbling Victorian brick, ramshackle industrial units and cheap-jack new-build flats. Every so often a cyclist coming up behind him would ring their bell, which, even in his distraught mood, Patrick couldn’t help experiencing as a particularly merry sound. For the canal was not a lonely place: he passed moorhens, ducks, runners, young office workers in business suits carrying backpacks, lovers, gossiping friends. He slowed his own pace, determined to fight the compulsion to enter the trance-like state that his walking so often induced. Something in him recognised that if he disappeared from himself, this time there would be no return.
He forced himself to leave the tow-path at the next set of steps, and found himself on a busy main road. The noisy traffic confused him and for a moment he felt helpless and overcome. But he no longer wanted to feel like this, and it was his determination not to yield to the siren voices that whispered to him to surrender that propelled him to a bus stop and onto a crowded bus that took him close to Vicki’s house.
She had returned to him the key he’d had previously as her lodger, yet he rang the bell before letting himself in. Rob craned forwards to look into the hallway from his position on the settee.
‘Oh, hi,’ he greeted him. ‘Feeling better?’
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