Recovery and the Return of Ethan Hart

by Stephen Benatar

  Yet in that case what’s become of me?

  What am I doing here?

  Five minutes later, I am standing at the front door.

  “That carpet? That was hers, wasn’t it?”

  “The one upstairs?” She doesn’t even question how I knew. “Yes, I forgot about the carpet.”

  But then I just don’t get it, ma’am: how could you ever have allowed…?

  She replies as if I’d spoken.

  “I sold most of her belongings, gave the money to some charity. But I felt there should be one or two things left to commemorate her presence…or her passing. But, it’s true, I oughtn’t to have left the carpet: an act of vandalism against the very person I loved best in all the world. Are you certain you’ll be well enough to travel?”

  “I’m truly sorry to have put you through all this.”

  “We could always ring to get a taxi.”

  “No, ma’am, you’ve been very kind. I’m fine. I appreciate your hospitality.”

  I’m fine. Yes, ma’am, only one thing wrong with me now—even if that one thing does, as it happens, threaten to be terminal.

  You see, ma’am…I’m remembering.

  23

  I don’t know how I get back to Tom’s office. Was it by taxi? Or was it by tube? Or bus?

  Or even on foot?

  And I don’t know what time I arrive. It could have been a year since our parting in Grosvenor Square—whereas it’s not yet a full week since I first walked up this steep and narrow staircase.

  “You’re earlier than I expected,” says Tom. He sounds preoccupied.

  “Why? You told me you’d leave at half-past. Or probably leave at half-past.”

  “Yes. Half-past-five. Not four.”

  “And now it’s—?” I look at my watch. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding!”

  Yet this is addressed only partly to Tom. Partly it’s addressed to the watch itself—which has obviously gone haywire. Says nine-forty-five. Clearly, I can’t have looked at it in some while…although I definitely recall having done so in Pilgrim’s Lane, when it had given me two-thirty. I slip it off, in disgust.

  But it’s a service it requires, not a shake. I leave it on a corner of Tom’s desk.

  “I’m sorry,” he tells me. “I’m not sure about your watch, but I think my brain could benefit from a shake. Otherwise, instead of saying you were early I might have asked what’s taken you so long.”

  He pauses.

  “Because going by your expression, I’d guess you didn’t have much joy.”

  “Joy?”

  “But then we never thought you would. Not really.”

  “No, Tom, you’re right. I didn’t have much joy.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s a pity.” It suddenly strikes me he isn’t looking all that great himself. “Although as it turns out…”

  “What?”

  “Although as it turns out,” he says, “it doesn’t matter.”

  It doesn’t matter! I’m tired. Surely I can only have imagined he said that?

  But he sees my astonishment. He rapidly explains. “I mean—because we now know what happened to her.” He gives a sigh.

  “Oh, yes? And how? How do we now know what happened to her?”

  He starts to fiddle with a paperclip. He’s always fiddling with some goddamned paperclip.

  “I went to St Catherine’s. Looked for a death certificate. Found one.”

  “You can’t have.”

  “I’m sorry, Tex. 1946.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. I’m afraid so.”

  “Then you’ve made a mistake, that’s all. If she’d really killed herself the police would have gotten in touch with Mrs Farnsworth. She’d been reported missing.” I remember the mix-up over names. “But, anyhow, she’s not dead.”

  Tom doesn’t answer immediately. “Tex, I didn’t mention that she’d killed herself. Who’s Mrs Farnsworth? Tell me what you found out.”

  “Why? You said it doesn’t matter.”

  He waits for me, in silence.

  “Landlady,” I mumble. “Still living at the same address. What I found out…”

  “Yes?”

  “…was how her child got killed.” I find it difficult to think about, let alone to say it.

  “Whose child? Rosalind’s?”

  “And how she blamed herself for this and ran away from where she’d been secure. How she went to live in squalor because she thought she needed to be punished.” It occurs to me I’m babbling.

  “Where, in squalor?”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake. Why’s that important?”

  “What I mean is, if it were known where she had gone to, why was she reported missing?”

  “Obviously, it wasn’t. Can’t you understand? It wasn’t known where she had gone to.”

  Tom lays aside his paperclip. Lets out another sigh.

  “Tex, why have you let it get to you like this? Last week, you didn’t even want to go to Southwold; it was I who had to push. But since then… Well, since then it’s become…”

  “What?”

  “An obsession.”

  This time the silence lasts longer.

  “There are things that I’ve remembered. Things I wish I hadn’t.” I shrug.

  “I see,” he says. “I’m sorry.” He picks up the paperclip again. “Do you want to talk about them?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t think it might help?”

  A further pause.

  “Things like…oh, for instance…like I’m married. We don’t much care for one another. Not sure we ever did. I remember she wouldn’t have children. Partly it was fear; partly it was the sheer inconvenience of it. Worry that she’d lose her figure.”

  But it isn’t necessary to elaborate—to burden him with more. I recall a time when she’d believed she was pregnant: the hysteria, the recriminations, the demands for an abortion. As it happened, her period had been about a week late, but she’d miscalculated and thought that it was two. Afterwards, no apology. No hint of shame.

  I can’t go back to this.

  “All the same,” I say, “the rotten state of our marriage… I suspect that in some ways it may have been my fault more than hers.”

  “In any case, it’s not so tragic. People do claim there’s life after divorce.”

  “Yes—and another thing they claim: that if you’re born to wealth, then money’s not important. Untrue. It seems I’ve always let the dollar sign dictate.”

  Yet though I can remember this, although I can remember many things, there are still a number of gaps in my knowledge. Serious gaps. For example, I don’t yet know my full name. I don’t yet know the name of my hotel.

  “Well, damn it, Tex, you’re young. You talk as though it were too late for children or for working out priorities. You talk as though you were an old man.”

  “And that’s the way I feel right now.” I give a wan smile. “Perhaps I’m older than I look.”

  “‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’? Now there was a fellow who had trouble with priorities.”

  “And you know something? I guess I could be nearly as despicable.”

  One thing I do remember is a dream. Or, more accurately, a nightmare. I must have had it often; it’s vivid and insistent.

  And amazingly prophetic—concerning as it does a hired detective. Yet he’s not at all like Tom. Nor does his office compare with this one. It’s far shabbier; less welcoming.

  But the snapshot I show him is the same, even if my motive for tracing the woman in it has also changed. (It appears I’ve turned into my father. However, I don’t plan to see Rosalind—I only want to find out if she’s happy. Because, if she isn’t, I must do whatever I can to set things right, while remaining completely anonymous.) Nor does the search proceed along the same lines. It’s confined to London. A London of some forty years ago.

  Yet, although the motive and the search are different, the outcome’s similar. I discover that she’s dead.


  Flattened beneath a tube.

  Suicide, but not premeditated. She was standing on the edge of a platform. She had no thought of death—well, certainly no more than usual—only of the awfulness of life.

  Then suddenly she saw the train.

  She didn’t even think. There wasn’t any time to think.

  But how do I know what she was thinking? Or wasn’t? Somehow, there had taken place a terrifying fusion. Terrifying…yet utterly desired. In my dream, although I hear about her death only in the office of a private detective, suddenly I am transported back—transported back screaming—to watch it happen.

  And not simply to watch it happen. Even to feel as though it’s happening to myself.

  And to wish I could have saved her.

  “But how did she do it, Tom?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Tell me!”

  “Tex, it was forty-four years ago.”

  “Maybe. But I still need to hear.”

  So finally he gives in.

  “When I left St Catherine’s I went to the records office of the borough in which it occurred.”

  “And?”

  “Strangely enough, it was this one.”

  “Well, how very convenient! But—believe it or not—that wasn’t what I was asking.”

  He tells me then without preamble.

  The telling doesn’t take long, however. As soon as it’s over—and perhaps only to end the silence which follows—he asks me wearily if I’d like him to make coffee. “Sorry. I wish there was something stronger I could offer.”

  “No—not for me.” I stand up. “Anyway, I’ve got to go.”

  “Got to? Why got to?”

  I can’t give any answer. Almost from the start, haven’t we been aware of intangible compulsions?

  “What will you do?” he asks. “First you’ll go and have something to eat, obviously. But after that…why not see a film?”

  I nod—knowing that I’ll do nothing of the kind. “But, Tom? Why d’you think she was here? In this neighbourhood? She wasn’t working at that store any longer.”

  “What store?”

  “Department store. Bourne and Something.”

  “Hollingsworth. Closed down years ago. Why was she here—well, who can say? She may have found herself some other job in the area.”

  “No,” I reply. “Too close to the one where she’d been happy.” But oddly I’m not suggesting this; I’m asserting it. “Well, yes, that’s it, of course! That’s why she came back. To have a look at the place where she’d been happy. To have a look at it for the last time. To stand somewhere in a doorway and watch them coming out, the people she’d been working with. That’s it—isn’t it?”

  “What film do you think you might see?”

  “No, I’m not in the mood for any movie. I may just wander round a bit. Window-shop. Or simply head for home.” Again, though, I’m secretly aware it won’t be that.

  He jumps up. “Come on, then! Why do I suppose I have to stay? What’s so beguiling about the booming stroke of half-past-five?” Then he sees my expression; misinterprets it. “Oh, it may have been getting on for six when you found me here last Monday! Okay, I admit it. But in any person’s life there’s got to be one moment of supreme foolishness.”

  “No, you don’t follow me. I wasn’t surprised you might be wanting to leave early, I was only—”

  “Yes?”

  “I was only thinking I’d like to get away on my own.”

  I’m unhappy about having to say this. I’m scared it will come out sounding all wrong. Hurtful. Insensitive.

  And—for a moment—it seems as if it has. “Hey, listen. That’s the second brush-off in a single day! I may start to feel rejected.”

  “You’ve been good to me, Tom. I’m sorry I’ve been difficult.”

  Now he really has been fazed.

  “Tex, I was teasing. Why shouldn’t you want to get away on your own? That was a joke! I’m aware it was a pretty feeble one.”

  “Sure. But I still mean it.”

  “Well, I’m glad you still mean it.” He pauses. “And, by the way, ‘difficult’ I could almost be persuaded to accept. ‘Despicable’—never in a month of Sundays.”

  “Thanks.” I give him a hug. Although it’s short, it aims to express more than just my gratitude.

  Then I make for the door.

  “Au revoir, Tom. Take care.”

  “And you, Tex. See you later.”

  After a moment he calls out.

  “No—wait—you’ve forgotten your watch!”

  I gesture that I can’t be bothered to return. By then I’m nearly at the next landing. He says that—all right—he won’t forget it when he comes.

  “That’s barbed,” I say. “You’re talking to someone who’s recovering from amnesia.”

  “Poor fellow,” he laughs. “You call that an excuse?”

  It seems we’re struggling for normality.

  24

  Out in the street I feel so utterly alone.

  I turn back abruptly, thinking to rejoin him.

  However, a woman comes out of the main door, blocking my retreat. A minute earlier I’d been vaguely aware of her standing at the entrance to the textiles company, trying earnestly to gain admittance. She’s thin and sandy-haired, wearing a sleeveless dress and sandals. She asks me something which I don’t quite catch.

  “Excuse me?” It’s stupid, but it’s automatic.

  She’s been holding out a leaflet. Now she thrusts it in my hand. She repeats the last part of her question. She has, maybe, a Scottish accent.

  “…born again?”

  “Oh, Christ.” Normally I’d have caught on sooner. “Yes!” I say. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

  I crumple up her leaflet—toss it down—turn back to the sidewalk. Not, in all likelihood, her idea of born-again. But who cares?

  Oxford Street one way, Regent’s Park the other. Heat and fumes and traffic; or water and greenery and the chance to think? I head for Oxford Street.

  Yet, once arrived, I stand irresolute. Left or right? Tottenham Court Road or Oxford Circus? As little point to either.

  Bourne & Hollingsworth.

  “Bourne and What?” asks the guy.

  “Large department store. Closed down now. Used to be someplace round here.”

  “Sorry, mate. Could tell you where John Lewis is.”

  So next I try a woman twice his age. “Yes, dear, you’re right—along here somewhere. Terrible how quick one forgets. This side of the road, though. Perhaps that gentleman selling papers might know. I once got such a lovely pair of shoes at Bourne & Hollingsworth.”

  The news vendor also points me towards Tottenham Court Road. But he’s busy and less patient.

  A short way further on, I’m standing at the kerb, outside a shopping complex called the Plaza. I’m craning back my head when a policeman stops in front of me. He’s fat and bluff and red-faced from the sun. His sleeves are rolled up.

  “Can you help me, please? I’m looking for Bourne & Hollingsworth.”

  “Are you indeed, sir? Sorry to have to break it to you. You’re about six years too late.”

  “I know. I’m looking for where it used to be.”

  “Then you’re standing in the right place. Took up the whole of this block it did.”

  “Somehow I had a feeling it was here. Thank you.”

  He moves on. I stare up again at the complex. After that I turn and look across the road. I experience a brief moment of sickness—even of faintness, almost of dislocation. I’m convinced of it: she’d have been standing in one of those doorways opposite.

  Except that the doorways then would all have been so different. Or in fact would they; how can you tell? To my untutored, obviously un-British eye, the one I’m gazing at right now could easily—in the aftermath of war—have looked pretty much the same.

  A bit rundown. Flaking paint. Rubbish blown in and left to settle.

  And jeepers! This suddenly strikes me w
ith the utmost force. If there is a God (and I seem to remember that, once, I may have thought there was) he must surely possess a sense of humour that’s—to say the least—ironic.

  Why? Because at present there’s a woman standing over there in that particular doorway. And she’s not simply standing there, goddamn it; she doesn’t simply bear a passing resemblance to Rosalind, goddamn it; she’s even—would you believe this?—she’s even wearing an eye-catching yellow coat. (I can’t remember if I saw in my dream that it was yellow or if this was something Mrs Farnsworth may have mentioned? In any case, it’s exactly the kind of coat Rosalind was given by her mother—even down to the tie belt and single button at the neck. That one, too, had been dirty and in want of a good press.)

  So, yes, God. You’ve an ironic sense of humour, all right!

  But tricks aren’t what I need at present.

  Neither tricks nor mockery.

  Though there is one merciful thing. At least this stranger doesn’t mean to stay. I’ve hardly set eyes on her before she starts moving off in the direction of Oxford Circus—moving off with the walk of a person totally defeated. Well, lady, I can identify with that. I know exactly how you feel.

  And my heart goes out to her. Amazing! At this moment, I wouldn’t have thought that I could empathize with anyone.

  I leave the shopping complex and head towards Tottenham Court Road, heaven knows why. And as I proceed, something bizarre crosses my mind, something just as bizarre as anything that happened earlier in Pilgrim’s Lane. (Earlier? Wasn’t it ten-forty when that song was playing on the radio?) “No, don’t be so stupid,” I tell myself. “Don’t be such an asshole!”

  But I can’t help looking back from time to time towards the opposite sidewalk. Now there’s only the odd flash of yellow as she swiftly gets absorbed into those rush-hour crowds: strangely colourless crowds in comparison to her. I give myself a mental shake and force myself forward, doggedly attempting to think of something else, anything, it doesn’t matter.

  So why then, again and again, do I find my footsteps faltering? Why am I still engaging—even as much as a minute, two minutes, conceivably three minutes later—why am I still engaging in that same mindless conversation?

  “Have you gone mad? She’s dead—you know she’s dead. And even if she weren’t, she’d now be old. That woman you’ve just seen…all right, dishevelled, ground down, helpless. But still young. Still young! So you can’t give in to this! You—cannot—give—in—to—this! For the sake of your self-respect, for the sake of your health and future well-being… For the sake of restoring the proper balance of your mind—”