The Moon At Midnight

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘How do you think I look?’ Waldo eyed Judy from the looking glass over the mantelpiece as he went back to trying to finish tying his fashionably large bow tie.

  ‘You repay dressing, Mr Astley. Très elegant, if I may say so.’

  ‘To play cards well, it pays to dress well. Cheers.’ Waldo picked up his own martini.

  ‘So, you wanted to see me?’

  ‘Don’t I always?’ He looked across at her with his sudden intense gaze, and suddenly the space between their two sofas, which was covered by a beautiful eighteenth-century style rug, seemed to Judy to be very much smaller, perhaps only the size of a small hand towel.

  ‘Not always, no, you don’t always want to see me,’ Judy stated factually, quickly trying to replace their relationship in the file marked ‘friendship’ while she lit a cigarette which she had taken from the silver box beside her sofa.

  ‘That’s true. I stand corrected, I don’t always want to see you, nor you me, but now there is a matter of some urgency, Judy.’ Waldo cleared his throat. ‘It’s Kim.’

  ‘I thought you were going to say that,’ Judy said, quickly, which wasn’t actually true. ‘Kim is my business, or rather our business, Walter’s and mine, really she is, and believe me, we have her best interests at heart, Waldo.’

  There was a short pause while Waldo examined this put-down intently from every angle, shrugged it off, and then decided to return to the fray.

  ‘Quite so, of course Kim is your business, Judy, but please remember that without my help there would be no Kim.’

  Judy blushed instantly, remembering.

  ‘That’s all a long, long time ago, Waldo, and you know it,’ she protested.

  Immediately seizing his advantage, Waldo jabbed a teasing finger towards her, relishing the moment.

  ‘If it hadn’t been for me I dare say you would never, ever have had Kim, or Hubert. Remember it was I, Waldo Astley, who helped you make Walter jealous, and risked life and limb to do so, if you remember; and look what happened as a result? I’m proud to say what happened was – Kim. So, sorry, Mrs Tate – Kim is my business, because of me she is here, on this earth. And I have now proved it, and you can’t deny it, not for all the fish in the harbour.’

  ‘All right.’ Judy started to laugh. ‘Very well, I give in, this is absolutely true. Kim would probably not be here if it wasn’t for you, and neither would Hubert. So what exactly do you want to say about your Kim?’

  ‘She needs to get out of Bexham.’

  ‘She does get out of Bexham. She goes to school.’

  ‘In that case she needs to leave her school, and Bexham. She has to have some kind of radical change.’

  ‘She’s just a bit run down. She has developed a rather painful eczema, inherited from her grandmother. She’s just a bit run down. Lost weight, a bit listless.’

  ‘No, Judy.’ Waldo’s voice was very firm. ‘Not a bit run down, she’s literally a shred of what she was.’ For some reason his eyes strayed towards Meggie’s portrait, and then back to Judy. ‘Sometimes, you know, you have to be away from someone to see what everyone else can see, sometimes it takes someone from the outside to point out what you can’t see, because you’re too close up. Believe me, Judy, Kim has to go – away.’

  He had allowed his voice to take on an urgency which startled Judy, as it was meant to do.

  ‘I know, Waldo, I know.’ Judy looked across at him, giving in suddenly, while feeling both helpless and hopeless at the same time. ‘But where? And anyway, Walter will never hear of anyone giving up school. She’s miserable, I can see that, but what can I do?’

  ‘Do what we all have to do, do what you think is right.’

  Judy thought of all this now as she struggled to serve up Sunday lunch for herself and Walter, and wondered when she could introduce Waldo’s plan.

  Walter really liked Waldo, which was a good thing, but Judy knew that Waldo might be a paragon of virtue, the saviour of England, King Arthur and his knights rolled into one, and it would mean nothing to Walter when it came to his family. No one ever told Walter Tate what to do about his family, not even Judy. As far as his family went when Walter spoke the waves parted, and they all had to kneel before his advancing paternal figure.

  ‘I think we should have a little talk after lunch, Walter,’ she began as she sat down, and they both started to eat the delicious roast beef, roast potatoes and fresh vegetables with an eagerness belied by the atmosphere in the dining room, which was about as cosy as damp sheets.

  ‘Judy. I will not speak about this. Do you understand? I will not speak about it. I am fed up with people talking about Kim, to Kim, and all the rest of it. Very well she has a little bit of eczema, it’s a nervous disease, not a death sentence; very well she’s lost weight, and her headmistress is worried about her, but quite frankly, at the moment what’s making me bloody nervous is I have a murderer to defend tomorrow, and I can’t do that effectively while listening to you moaning about Kim.’

  Judy put down her knife and fork quite carefully, and having taken a sip of wine to give herself courage she breathed in and out and began again.

  ‘Yes, of course, Walter, and I do understand, and I hope you win, really I do. But you see, tomorrow you will be in London, and I can’t really discuss this sort of thing on the phone with you, and yet I feel I must. I am, after all, Kim’s mother, and quite frankly I am so worried about her, Walter. She looks terrible. It can’t go on. Kim has to start again, or something dreadful will happen to her. I know this, don’t ask me how I know it, but I do.’

  ‘Kim has to stop being such a thorn in our sides, Judy. Kim has to go back to school, settle down, and generally resign herself to being a proper person again, Judy, that’s what Kim has to do. She is not a nice person to have around the house any more, she drips sorry-for-little-me attitudes, and it’s time she stopped. We fought a war, Judy, our generation fought a war, lost our friends and family to defeat the Nazis. Kim isn’t fighting a war now, she’s being asked to become a civilised human being, and frankly I don’t find that’s too much to ask of someone.’

  ‘It’s no good lecturing me, Walter. I can see how you feel, we all can.’

  Walter put down his knife and fork.

  ‘What do you mean by “we all”?’ he asked ominously.

  ‘Nothing really, it was a way of speaking, that’s all.’

  ‘Judy.’ Walter stared down the table at his wife prior to picking up his knife and fork again and continuing with his lunch. ‘If you want us to be happy, just don’t mention our daughter any more, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Kim, you mean? And I think I probably will, Walter, although not, for your sake, this afternoon.’

  After that Walter just went on eating, while Judy pushed her plate away and stared out of the window behind his head. She knew that Walter had a big case coming up that week, many things to read and attend to after lunch, which meant that she would be able to go for a walk on her own, really think things out for herself, thank God.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To wash up.’

  ‘We haven’t had coffee.’

  ‘I’ll bring it through to you in your study.’

  Walter put his napkin down and stood up. It was always Kim, always, always Kim that made the trouble between them. They were as happy as it was perfectly possible to be, until Kim came into view, and then, inevitably, they fell out.

  ‘What are you going to do now?’

  Judy could almost see Walter with his wig on frowning round the court in his new dark-framed glasses as she set the coffee beside him on his desk.

  ‘I don’t know, really. Read the papers, that kind of thing.’

  She’d hardly finished speaking when he returned to his own legal papers, already preoccupied by his work for the next day. She went out closing the door quietly behind her.

  In the event she did go for a walk, out of the village, up the familiar road to Cucklington House once more. She knew exactly how it would be
at Waldo’s house, she would disturb him at work on his many charitable projects, but she also knew that, unlike Walter, he wouldn’t mind, that he would spring up to greet her as if he’d been expecting her all the time, which was exactly what happened. He pointed towards the tea table.

  ‘I knew you’d call round and help me out with this cornucopia of teatime delight – cucumber sandwiches, cucumbers from our own greenhouse, home-made scones, chocolate sponge cake fresh from Maria’s oven, what more can one ask?’

  ‘Speaking personally? I would like to have Walter at least listen to me – even if he does end up disagreeing.’

  Waldo placed a cup of tea beside his guest, and hurried back to heap up a plate with cucumber sandwiches for her.

  ‘You’re not like that, Waldo, and you never have been.’

  ‘If I was Walter I would be exactly like that, but I’m not. I’m a widower who lives only for his hobbies. If I had a family I’m sure I’d be different. More stubborn and more intransigent than you could possibly imagine.’

  ‘What shall I do, Waldo?’ Judy’s voice, even to her own ears, sounded desperate.

  ‘I think what you should do is what you think you ought to do, that’s the first thing. And then I think you should tell Walter what you’ve done, and hope for the best. At this moment, and I’ve thought about it a great deal – more than you might imagine – I think you really have to put Kim before Walter. It’s hard, but I don’t see that you can do anything else, that you have any alternative. It’s just how it is.’

  ‘Yes, but having done so – what exactly should I do for Kim?’

  ‘Send her to a place I know in Ireland, a healing place.’

  ‘Walter will have a fit.’

  ‘No, he won’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I won’t let him.’

  ‘Her grandfather will, too. Hugh will have a fit. They both believe in boarding school the way the vicar believes in God.’

  ‘Well now, Loughnalaire is, as the Irish say, a kind of a sort of a species of school, and yet it’s not a school at all. There will be other children there, all of different ages. Some of them are orphans, some of them have had problems at home, but they’re all happy, really happy.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  Waldo smiled his brilliant smile. ‘Let’s just say – I do.’

  Chapter Four

  Much as Judy would have liked to have taken Waldo’s advice about Kim and stood up to Walter, she didn’t quite dare, always putting off the moment until another weekend. It was not until the headmistress of Kim’s school rang up and suggested that should things continue as they were she would have to ask Mrs Tate to take Kim away from the school, that the penny finally dropped with Walter.

  Naturally he took the news very badly. As a matter of fact Judy had rarely seen him so cross.

  ‘They shouldn’t be running a school if they can’t deal with a troublesome teenager.’

  ‘She’s not been expelled, Kim’s not been expelled, Walter. We’re being asked to take her away. Because she is ill. Very ill—’

  ‘Eczema—’

  ‘No, she’s not eating, and she rarely even speaks now. She has regressed right back into something I can’t recognise, she’s just not our Kim any more. She’s – well, she’s gone into herself, it makes her seem sullen. It’s as if – as if she’s downed tools and given up on life. I thought we might be getting a bit of the old Kim back, after she went to lunch that day with the Sykeses—’

  ‘She what?’

  ‘She went to lunch with the Sykeses, Walter. She spoke to Tam on the transatlantic telephone, because he was feeling homesick.’

  ‘Now I’ve heard everything.’ Walter sat down, shaking his head.

  ‘Doubtless,’ Judy agreed, not understanding why her voice sounded so icy, so unlike her own.

  ‘If my father and mother get to hear of this. . .’

  ‘Walter.’ Judy faced him across the room, standing by the door, as if she needed to know the whereabouts of the exit. ‘Whether you like it or not, whether your father or mother like it, I’m taking Kim away from her school. I’m asserting my right as her mother to do as I wish with a child of mine.’

  Judy had never spoken so furiously to her husband, and she didn’t know why but she found herself placing her hand on her chest as she finished speaking, looking angrier than Walter had ever seen her.

  Walter breathed in and out. ‘You must understand, this is not what I want for my daughter, Judy.’

  ‘If you were a woman, if you’d actually given birth you’d feel differently—’

  ‘Oh, not women and childbirth raising its ugly head again.’

  ‘No – male indifference.’

  Walter stopped as if he’d been shot and for once he was quite silenced.

  ‘Miss Tufnell, the headmistress—’

  ‘I know who the headmistress is, thank you.’

  ‘Miss Tufnell has been told that I will collect her from the school tomorrow.’

  Judy put her hand to the handle on the door and started to turn it, because as far as she was concerned that was an end to the matter.

  ‘This is not what I want, Judy,’ Walter repeated, using his most ominous tone, and for no reason she could name Judy thought back to the war years that Walter spent in Norway, years when he had had to do terrible things in order to just survive, years which had hardened him, in the same way that her dear friend Meggie had been changed so terribly by the war, by the things she’d had to do.

  Judy turned from the door, advancing back slightly into the room.

  ‘I know it’s not what you want, Walter, and I’m very sorry, but things have gone too far already, really they have. Quite frankly I had rather take Kim away from her school than be facing her funeral.’

  ‘What nonsense—’ Walter started to say, but then stopped, looking less certain about everything, less of a patriarch, and more of a human being.

  Judy turned back to the door.

  ‘It’s all gone so wrong, everything’s gone so wrong since the accident,’ she muttered, and was gone before Walter could think of anything else to say.

  Kim was home within twenty-four hours, not entirely sure of what was going on. Once she was home Judy did her best to help her with her medical problems, taking her to see Dr Farnsworth, but the doctor was unable to prescribe much except emollients, and a better diet, with plenty of fresh air.

  ‘Perhaps when the young lady comes back from her new school, we shall find a vast improvement. I’m sure we will,’ he added, giving Kim an avuncular smile, but Kim, as was her permanent habit nowadays, didn’t even seem to notice it, her eyes being fixed somewhere between the doctor and the floor. ‘Personally I’m a great believer in a change of scenery for these kinds of conditions,’ he went on, having received no encouragement from his young patient. ‘Now, Kim, I want a word with your mother, if you wouldn’t mind sitting outside for a few minutes?’

  Kim having taken herself back to the waiting room the doctor faced Judy alone, and took from Kim’s file a letter whose heading rang more than a bell with Judy, as it should, since it was a letter written on Walter’s town writing paper, and in his own hand.

  ‘Kim’s father has written to me, in his absence, voicing his concern about his daughter, and I have to say that I take a great deal of what he says quite seriously. In his opinion, the current manifestations we are witnessing with Kim – loss of weight, inability to communicate properly, the eczema on her arms and legs, and so on – are just the result of some sort of shock after the appalling accident that happened to her cousin. He may, of course, be right, her father may well be right, that Kim is merely suffering from some long-term shock.’

  ‘Then I have no more to say on the matter to you, Dr Farnsworth, because I don’t happen to agree with my husband.’

  The doctor nodded as if Judy hadn’t spoken, a male habit which Judy always found peculiarly irritating.

  ‘On the other hand he may well be
wrong.’ The doctor stood up and walked to the window. ‘I myself think that Kim may actually be having quite a serious breakdown. You see, when we say “breakdown” we mean just that. Her mental and physical health has broken down under the stress of seeing the awful result of the prank that resulted in her cousin’s accident. The mind has a huge influence on the body, as we are all increasingly aware. It is not a myth, people, and animals, do die of broken hearts.’ He turned to face Judy. ‘Your husband doesn’t think she should be sent away, but after giving it some good deal of thought, I think you’re right, I think she should go away, to somewhere quite other, somewhere where she could run about and not be “Kim Tate” any more. I think that might just pull her back from the brink, you know?’

  ‘Is she that bad?’

  Judy found herself standing up, her hand again on her chest, and as always at times of panic hardly able to swallow, let alone breathe.

  ‘She’s very bad, Mrs Tate, you and I can see that. Always provided that you place her in safe, reassuring, above all happy hands, I think we can win this one. But believe me, you have stepped in just in time, and only just in time too. Nevertheless, we are in time. And that, after all, is all that really matters.’ He smiled reassuringly at Judy. ‘Take heart, Mrs Tate, you’ll win, I know you will.’

  As they walked back home with Kim silent by her mother’s side, her eyes on the ground, the doctor’s words came as a great comfort to Judy, and she found herself trying to memorise some of the phrases he’d used so that she could repeat them to Walter, but then, remembering that Walter had written to the doctor to try in some way to persuade him that Kim didn’t need to be sent away, she resolved just to make all the necessary arrangements to book their passage to Ireland, and on to the place recommended by Waldo, whatever it was called – Loughnalaire.

  Kim didn’t know it, but the moment she stepped on to the boat and, turning, waved to Hugh and Loopy who were standing on the quay, she could feel Ireland stretching out its arms to her. She could feel its wild, assertive spirit, its gentle, moody humour, its air of being cut off from the rest of Europe, of being its own person, always sweetly summed up by its friends in the words ah – Ireland.