by A J Waines
‘She’s been listening to audiobooks,’ said Vincent, ‘now that she can’t hold a novel in her hands.’
‘Oh…’
Sophie blinked back tears of shame and remorse. There was so much tragedy in her parents’ lives already and now she’d gone and added to it. In the last few days, the clouds in her mind had parted and the truth about what had actually taken place in her own kitchen had finally burst forth into the light. She was still in a state of shock, but she’d admitted to Dr Marshall that she did, indeed, remember stabbing her husband. Despite her earlier protestations, it had been her, after all.
‘I’m so sorry, Dad. I did a terrible, terrible thing. I don’t know how––’
‘Shh…’ he hummed, as if she was a child he was lulling to sleep.
There was so much left unsaid between them. Questions her father must want to ask. Surely. Poor Dad, he wouldn’t know where to start. He hadn’t a clue about navigating his emotional world. It made him seem like he didn’t have one.
True to form, he changed the subject. ‘Oh, she’s written another letter, by the way.’ He pulled a crumpled envelope out of his pocket. ‘She was sorry she couldn’t come today, but––’
‘It’s okay, Dad. I understand. Send her my love, won’t you?’
Sophie heard a sharp cry beside her. It was Ben laughing. She turned to look at him, but he didn’t look up. Totally spellbound. The story must be better than she first thought.
Ben took an interest in Shareen, running his fingers along the scars and tattoos on her forearm, exploring the rings and stud in her ears and nose. Then they were on the floor, using the empty chairs around them to play a game of hide-and-seek. Sophie asked more about her mother, letting herself relax at seeing Ben so absorbed. Before long, a bell rang to indicate visiting time was over.
‘I’ll ring you in the week,’ said Sophie, wrapping her hands over her father’s. ‘Don’t worry about coming back for a while.’
She couldn’t bear the thought of dragging him all that way, again. Anyone could see he was in pain and not at all well.
Shareen joined them, holding Ben’s hand.
‘You’re a natural,’ Vincent said to her.
‘I like kids,’ she said. ‘I had one once, but they took her off me. Breaks your heart, don’t it?’
She shrugged and moved away towards a group of women huddled over a jigsaw.
‘She seems friendly,’ said Vincent. ‘Looks like she’s had a hard life.’
Sophie turned to watch her. Shareen had her hand on the shoulder of a woman who was known to have committed child abuse.
‘I suppose so,’ she said.
Once they’d gone, Sophie walked over to Shareen. She waited for her to turn round.
‘Ben liked you.’
‘I’m good with kids,’ she replied dismissively. ‘It’s adults I’ve got problems with.’
‘My father liked you, too.’
Shareen sniffed as if she hadn’t heard. ‘You on for a game of pool later?’ she asked.
‘Why not?’ said Sophie.
Chapter 13
Daniel broke the surface of the water with a gasp. The pool hadn’t worked its magic that morning. Ben was annoying the other children. Splashing wildly, he accidently kicked one boy in the face. It wasn’t like Ben. The ensuing nosebleed turned the water a bright shade of pink and everyone had to get out.
Daniel had spent an awkward few minutes apologising to the boy’s irate mother, then carried Ben, squealing and writhing, into the changing room.
He hadn’t wanted to go into detail about Ben’s difficult circumstances, but he made a mental note to get hold of some child psychology books from the library, to gen up on what to expect when toddlers are separated from their mothers. He’d have to support Ben through this. He hated the idea of him suffering as a result of Sophie’s irrational behaviour.
Today’s tantrum would never have happened if Ben hadn’t been so self-assured in the water, although it wasn’t long ago that his confidence had been severely challenged.
For Ben’s third birthday, he and Sophie took him to the beach at Brighton. Ben was one of those children who was fearless around water and he had already mastered a robust doggy paddle in the shallow end at the local pool.
That day, it was windy, and bits of their picnic kept blowing away as they tried to set everything up; first the napkins, then Ben’s plastic drinking cup, then the paper plates. Ben was preoccupied building sandcastles a few feet from the water’s edge with a couple of older children.
They hadn’t invited him, but out of the blue, Rick turned up, claiming he’d come to take a look at a second-hand car and had caught sight of them from the promenade. Daniel knew it was too much of a coincidence; he must have mentioned their plans to him at some point.
Daniel couldn’t miss Sophie’s look of thinly veiled horror when Rick came jauntily across the sand, all dressed up in a black dinner suit. Aside from being dressed entirely inappropriately – which wasn’t unusual in the least, for Rick – he looked like he was all set to join them.
‘Would you believe it, I’ve actually got Ben’s present in the car,’ he told them, ‘I was going to pop round with it later on.’
A few months after he’d come back from his long stint teaching in Australia, he’d been showing up like a bad penny. There was the lecture Daniel had given at Kew at the beginning of September and up he popped at the drinks do, afterwards. Then there’d been a barbecue at Sophie’s publisher a couple of weeks later. There he was again, although no one seemed quite sure who’d asked him to come.
Sophie had always made it clear how she felt about Rick, regarding him as a dysfunctional distant relative she felt obliged to put up with, because Daniel felt indebted to him. When Daniel explained his reasons for staying in touch, she made light of it. ‘I can see why the lads picked on you at school,’ she’d said. ‘Being so quiet, studious, good-looking and cute, you were too much of a threat to the other boys!’
Sophie respected his decision and did her best to hold her tongue when Rick was an idiot and downright rude.
‘Won’t stay long,’ he’d said, ‘don’t want to intrude on the “family outing”.’
As things turned out, they were both shamed into overwhelming gratitude over his fluke appearance that day.
Daniel had lost the plastic cutlery and Rick said he’d head over to the beach café to get more. With Sophie chasing flighty airborne food wrappers and Daniel now searching for Ben’s lemonade, no one was watching their son. It was one of those awful moments when one parent thought the other would be keeping an eye on him.
Having grown tired of building sandcastles, Ben had been desperate to float on a little boy’s blow-up alligator, bobbing around on the water. When he made a fuss, an older boy helped him onto it. Ben was too young, but there was no parent on hand to intervene. He fell off straight away and within a split second got into difficulty. The shallow end of the local pool was one thing, but this was far beyond his capabilities. Ben was too inexperienced to know there were choppy waves and slippery pebbles. And the water got deep so quickly.
Daniel heard shouts and screams and looked up, but Rick was already there. By the time Daniel got to the water’s edge, Rick had waded in, still in his suit and best brogues. He scooped Ben under his arm, wrestling him from the water just in time. A few seconds more and it would all have been over. Daniel and Sophie both knew if Rick hadn’t acted so quickly, Ben would have drowned.
Since then, Daniel felt he owed him even more.
Ben’s tug on his sleeve brought him back to the here and now.
‘I’m dry, Daddy,’ he said, with a whine.
‘Sorry, little ’un. Let’s go.’
On the way out of the changing room, Daniel caught sight of his face in one of the mirrors. He stopped to run his hands through his untamed hair, then drew in close when he spotted the half-circles, like bruises, blossoming under his eyes. He really did need a decent night’s sleep. He
tapped his pockets and found the sleeping tablets Rick had slipped inside when they were at the pub. Maybe tonight he’d have to try one.
Chapter 14
The receptionist called Daniel’s name and he was shown through into Dr Marshall’s office. Daniel pulled up a wooden chair. They’d spoken several times on the phone since he’d been discharged from hospital, but the psychiatrist didn’t look at all how Daniel had expected. He was older, smaller, fatter than he imagined and moved stiffly as though his joints needed a thick spray of WD40.
‘Your wife is showing signs of improvement – her memory is returning and she seems more lucid,’ he said.
‘Right – good… that’s good.’
The smell of Extra Strong Mints in the room was so strong he could almost taste it.
Daniel looked down at his interlocked fingers. ‘She won’t see me at the moment, I’m afraid.’
Dr Marshall nodded.
‘The affair was all in her head,’ Daniel said, louder than he meant to. He cleared his throat. ‘I just wanted to make that clear.’
‘Yes, you did mention that over the phone, Mr Duke.’ He peered at him over his half-moon glasses. ‘The nature of your marriage isn’t under scrutiny here,’ he said, ‘I can only comment on your wife’s symptoms.’
‘Sure.’
‘I can’t give a name to your wife’s condition, Mr Duke,’ he said, standing the pages of the file in front of him on end, as though he wanted to shake more information out of them. ‘Not simply because labels for people with psychological disturbances are often nebulous and misleading, but because your wife’s situation is rather complex.’ He laid the pages flat again. ‘The closest I can get is to suggest some kind of temporary emotional dysregulation. It appears that the stress of the situation at home led to a psychopathic disorder that may be resolving, now that she has been removed from that environment.’ He rapped the cap of his fountain pen on the blotter on his desk. ‘I did want to check something out with you, however…’ Daniel lifted his head. ‘Has she ever, to your knowledge, shown any signs of delusional or otherwise erratic behaviour before?’
Daniel chewed on the inside of his bottom lip – giving the question some genuine thought – and slowly shook his head.
‘No. It started when she first decided I was having an affair – around September time – I wasn’t, as I said. After that, she changed beyond all recognition.’
‘In five months?’
‘Absolutely. It was hard to see when I was in the thick of it. She’d always been easy-going and soft-hearted, but with hindsight, she turned into this brittle, defensive and angry creature during that time.’
He felt like he was talking about someone else; a delinquent neighbour or an elderly relative with Alzheimer’s – not Sophie, his sparkling, creative, adoring wife.
‘I know that Sophie was taking antidepressants before she was admitted, but has she ever taken recreational drugs?’
‘Definitely not – she has very strong views about that sort of thing.’
The psychiatrist leant back and squeezed the flesh at the top of his nose between his forefinger and thumb.
‘Hmm. Sophie’s father gave me a complete history and he said the same.’
‘What are you getting at?’
‘How long have you been married, Mr Duke?’
‘Eight years.’
‘How many times have you seen your wife behave aggressively towards anyone?’
‘Never. I mean, really… not once. She snaps at me, now and again. Raises her voice. But that’s it. She’s never raised a hand to Ben, our son, nor has she ever looked remotely like she was going to slap or punch me.’ He laughed at the absurdity of the idea. ‘Normally, Sophie can’t even bring herself to pull the petals off a daisy in a game of “love me, love me not”.’
Dr Marshall tipped his head from side to side.
‘People react abnormally under extreme stress, as I’m sure you know. It would explain the hallucinations, the fugue states, and the neurological imbalance when she first came in. But, her condition seems to be improving.’ He showed Daniel the palms of his hands. ‘I’m sorry I can’t give you anything more concrete.’
Daniel jumped to another question that had been on his mind for days.
‘What will her sentence be, do you think?’
Again, the doctor’s head tipped from side to side. It was making Daniel feel like he was watching a Punch and Judy show. ‘I can’t really speak from a legal point of view, Mr Duke, but I don’t believe we’re looking at attempted murder. We’ve reviewed her situation and she’ll be kept here for the time being. With a spur of the moment attack of this sort – grabbing a weapon that was to hand – the charge is more likely to be GBH without intent. It’s known as section 20; it carries a lesser sentence than section 18, where harm is deliberately inflicted.’
‘And how long is this sentence – this section 20?’
‘Again, I don’t want to make any sweeping judgements here, but in my experience, with GBH 20, you’re looking at a maximum of five years…’
Daniel blew out a raspy breath.
Dr Marshall carried on. ‘But in Sophie’s case, as we’re having trouble diagnosing her mental state, the situation is still inconclusive and her case won’t go to court for the foreseeable future.’
Dr Marshall closed the file on his desk to indicate the discussion was over.
Daniel couldn’t resist pulling up a stool beside Ben, asleep in his cot. He was lying on his side, his furry rabbit clutched against his chest. Daniel watched his eyelids flutter, listened to his breathing, taking in the vanilla smell of talcum powder.
‘Thank God you’re safe,’ he whispered. ‘Out of this terrible mess, I’ve still got you – the most important thing in my world.’
Ben shifted an arm above his head and let out a little whimper and Daniel left him in peace.
He was about to head downstairs when something on the landing caught his eye. There was a gap on the wall between two small paintings. He touched the bare hook and looked down, checking to see if there were any signs of glass on the carpet. Maybe a frame had fallen off the wall during the time he’d been in hospital. Except who had cleared it up? He shrugged his shoulders. It wasn’t a big deal.
Chapter 15
Daniel’s first thought when the phone rang was to ignore it, but he glanced over to check the number and decided to pick up.
‘Hi, Mum.’
‘Not disturbing you, am I?’
Franciska was sixty, going on forty-five. Everything about her was passionate and colourful; her richly ornate wrap-around skirts, her desire to make people feel important, her indefatigable devotion to Ben. Daniel put it down to being Hungarian. He wondered how much of it had rubbed off on him. He hoped it ran deeper than just his thick black hair.
‘I got the roses – they’re lovely,’ she said. ‘You shouldn’t have bothered. I adore having Ben – you know that.’ Someone significant was gunned down in the film he had on in the background, but Daniel couldn’t remember if he was a good guy or a bad guy. He thumbed the volume down on the remote.
A silence hung between them. There was something else.
‘Are you seeing people again, darling?’ she said tentatively.
‘I’m back at work. And I’ve been out once or twice.’ That didn’t seem enough for her. ‘Are you worried I’m turning into a recluse?’
She didn’t answer him. She was an extrovert who coped with concerns by talking, non-stop, to an array of friends or neighbours. He was the opposite, an introvert, much happier working through things either with Sophie or on his own.
Since the attack, it had become obvious that in the last few years, he’d done what a lot of men do and focused almost entirely on his family. He was ‘friendly’ with lots of people from university days, his work and through Sophie, but they weren’t people he’d call, out of the blue, to invite over for supper, or to arrange a night out. Since getting together, all his ‘nights out’ had
been with Sophie. All his ‘nights in’, with Sophie, Ben or friends who knew them as a couple. Now that he was on his own, he was in a kind of no-man’s-land. He was confused and had a lot on his mind. Probably not good company.
‘Why not get back in touch with Yvonne?’
Daniel yawned. Yvonne was his ex-girlfriend. Their last meeting had turned out to be highly embarrassing. He’d been to see her sing in a jazz club, and after the show, he’d gone backstage to be polite, as she’d got him the tickets for free. Sophie had flu and had stayed at home with Ben.
Yvonne offered him champagne, exuberant in post-performance euphoria, and in a moment of abandonment she’d cupped her hand over his. ‘I’ve missed you,’ she’d said. ‘I never stopped loving you.’ Judging by the subsequent look of horror on her face, the words had slipped out before she realised what she was saying.
He’d withdrawn his hand amidst her profuse apologies. During their relationship, it had always been clear that she was the one who had loved him more. For him there had been no real spark; too much like siblings, he’d said to her once – the sister he’d never had.
‘Not sure that would be a good idea, Mum.’
‘Gordon, then.’ A mate from university who sent ‘we must meet up’ emails every year at Christmas, then never got back to Daniel when he suggested a time and place.
‘We’ve lost touch, more or less.’
‘What about Frank, your best man?’
‘Moved to Edinburgh.’
‘Or Sophie’s friend Greta – is that her name? Or Cassandra, that other woman from Otterbornes?’
‘They’re not people I’d see socially, Mum. Certainly not on my own.’ Having said that, getting in touch with Cassandra wasn’t such a bad idea, as it happened. For no other reason, however, than to get some answers. He’d spoken to Greta already, but she hadn’t thrown much light on Sophie’s state of mind. He wanted to know more about his wife’s last weeks at work; her behaviours, anything she might have said to help explain what happened. Maybe he’d have more luck with Cassandra.