“Have they seen the vermin?”
“I’m afraid not,” I’d begun to feel as I used to when slyly deluding my parents. “I’m sure everyone who’s heard them will be on your side,” I said.
“Have they had the pest control in?” When I shook my head as vaguely is possible the woman said “We’ve had them twice. They’re as much use as a nun in a brothel.”
I saw that I wasn’t expected to laugh. “Then I think you should all get in touch with your councillor.”
“We’ve done that too. They’re all too busy taking on the government, and they say we should be glad we’ve got a house.”
“I’d keep after them and make sure everybody who’s affected is involved. Are there many who are?”
She stretched her arms wide as if she were mimicking a crucifixion, indicating the terraces that adjoined her house. “Everyone along there,” she said, “and down the side as well.”
I was afraid she might ask the names of my imaginary relatives. In some haste I said “Perhaps you could get your councillor to find out what used to be under the houses.”
Suppose this made someone dig too deep, historically or physically? I could hardly take back my advice, and so I turned away, to be confronted by the dead cat in the gutter, it looked worse than it had from across the road—eyes bulging nearly clear of the sockets, teeth bared in an agonised grimace, body twisted and legs drawn up in a convulsion that put me in mind of the death throes of a spider. “Has someone been using rat poison?” I said.
I had to look around when the woman didn’t speak, though I found her silence rather more than ominous. “We never,” she declared, and I was making to apologise when she said “That’s how my man looked when he had his stroke.”
My unease must have been obvious, because she held out her hands as though offering an invisible gift. “He’s not like that now.”
Despite my lack of faith, I very much hoped she would confirm “You mean he’s gone to a better place.”
“No, he’s here with me. I feel he is.”
I wouldn’t have dared to ask how. I wanted to think her defiance was a means of fending off the threat of disbelief, not denying or ignoring any aspect of her experience. I profoundly hoped she wouldn’t encounter any transformation of the sort that had driven Mrs Norris out of her mind. “So long as it’s a comfort,” I mumbled, retreating to the car.
Before I was halfway home I’d managed to rationalise everything I’d heard and seen. I preferred to think the woman’s sense that her partner had returned was just a consolatory fantasy, not least because I hadn’t heard her start to talk when she’d withdrawn into the house. Why shouldn’t the streets be infested with rats as she and her neighbours believed? Surely the state of the dead cat suggested they were right; it didn’t prove anything else. I thought of telling Lesley that I’d visited Joseph Street, but even though I would have said I’d found nothing to worry about, I suspected that she would have felt I was still too obsessed. Since she didn’t ask why I was a little later home than usual, I put the whole incident out of my mind.
I’d brought home an afternoon’s worth of essays to mark—not a great many, but I liked to take my time. I would have dealt with them while Toby was at Safe To Sleep so that I had Sunday free for the family, but that Sunday he’d invited a friend round: Claudine, another of Phoebe Sweet’s patients, who lived just a few miles away in Woolton. She was a slim long-legged redhead with large eyes in an otherwise small face that conveyed an impression of drowsy alertness. As I read the essays, where I was always happiest to find surprises—Katy thought the donkey Balthazar in Bresson’s film was meant to show that all creatures had souls, Alisha suggested that its name evoked the member of the magi who became ruler of Damascus after visiting Christ in the manger and defeated Herod in battle, Brendan maintained that the animal was supposed to recall the donkey Christ rode into Jerusalem and to embody Christ’s humility in its purest state—I heard the children playing in the garden. Their voices seemed as bright as the clear blue April sky and the birdsong that ornamented tree after tree in the suburb. I heard cries of “No peeking” and “You’re it” and “Can’t catch me” like childish annotations of the material I was reading. They fell short of distracting me until a new game led to a minor argument, and Toby’s protest was odd enough that I glanced up. “You bit off,” I thought he’d said.
In a moment I grasped that he’d told Claudine “You be toff.” Though I couldn’t interpret this either, it reminded me how Bobby used to direct games with Jim and me, dictating our roles and actions. I turned my head towards the window in time to hear Claudine say “You’re missed a blown, then.”
This didn’t seem to make much sense, even if I interpreted it as “You’re Mr Blown.” Were they borrowing characters from a children’s book I didn’t know? I eased my chair away from the desk and made for the window between Lesley’s work area, where her analysis of Under the Volcano kept company with copies of the book she’d annotated, and mine. As I peered around one of the floor-length curtains I felt like a child in a game myself.
I almost made an inadvertent sound, because at first I thought Claudine had suffered a seizure. She was supine on the lawn with her limbs outstretched in the position I knew all too well. Toby stood about a foot behind her head, and I thought he was murmuring under his breath—in fact, both children were. As Toby began making an odd slow gesture that suggested he was raising a virtually weightless burden off his friend, Claudine widened her eyes. “You don’t do that to toff.”
“So you can’t be him.”
“I can if you’ll be you.”
I expected this to lead to further disagreement, but my son lay down readily enough, splaying all his limbs. He looked close to holding hands with Claudine, and I was unnerved by fancies their position brought to mind—that they were about to rise hand in hand into the sky, perhaps, though they could equally have been participating in a seance. I was trying to find the sight as peaceful as it surely ought to be, the children lying on the grass framed by rockeries and flowerbeds and shaded at the far corners by a pair of apple trees, when Claudine spoke. “Now we’re going in the big dark.”
She sounded younger than her age, and I could tell this was intentional. Toby closed his eyes as he said “Where the dead people grow.”
“We won’t turn funny cos we’re still alive.”
“We can just look and come back.”
This time I didn’t quite manage to stifle a noise, whatever word it might have aimed to be. The children rolled over in unison and raised their heads to gaze at me as though I’d wakened them from an afternoon nap. I unlatched the central pane and leaned out of the window. “What was all that about? What made you say those things?”
“I was talking how the baby talks,” Claudine said.
“The baby in our game,” Toby said. “We were only playing.”
His eyes were as wide as Claudine’s, and I wanted to think they were as uncomplicated as the cloudless sky, but I’d heard too much. “What game?”
“It hasn’t got a name,” Claudine said. “We were making it up.”
I was distressed to feel they were competing to sound innocent. “Making what up, Claudine?”
“It’s a story like you’ve got in your desk, daddy,” Toby said.
“Then how does your friend know it?”
“I’m sorry,” my son said and gazed towards the kitchen, which was next to the workroom. “I know I promised I wouldn’t tell any more stories, mummy, but I told Claudine before I said.”
I gripped the windowsill and leaned out to see Lesley at the kitchen window. “Lesley,” I called, “have you been hearing all this?”
She was turning to me when the phone rang. I saw her prompting me to answer the one in the hall, though she was closer to the extension in the kitchen. When I kept hold of the sill she sent me a faint reproachful frown before stepping back. I waited until the phone finished ringing, and then I said “What did Toby tell you,
Claudine?”
“His story like he said.”
“I heard that, but which story? Can you tell me what it was about?” In a bid to hide the urgency of my concern I said “I’m just interested, that’s all.”
Both children opened their mouths. I could have thought they meant to answer in chorus, but they hadn’t made a sound when behind me Lesley said “Dominic.”
“In a moment,” I said without turning. “I just want—”
“Dominic, it’s your father.”
“Ask him to wait. I shouldn’t be too long.” The children closed their mouths as if they’d been spared the interrogation, but I said “No, tell him I’ll call him back.”
“He isn’t on the phone. It’s about him.” Lesley had lowered her voice, which made me turn at last to meet her anxious look. “He’s had a fall,” she said. “They’ve taken him to hospital.”
7 - Subterfuges
“There’s some right miseries in here,” my father told me. “And I don’t just mean the ones in bed.”
He looked determined not to be one of them. His right arm and leg were both hoisted up in plaster casts, like a supine mime of striding, but his broad big-nosed face seemed set on ignoring his condition, at least to the extent of maintaining a loose thick-lipped grin. His eyes were sleepier than ever, which I took for the effect of painkillers. “Dad,” I said, “how did you do that to yourself?”
“Playing at Laurel and Hardy, son. Both of them rolled into one.”
The best I could do by way of a smile was more like a wince, and he raised his free hand in a feeble sign of reassurance before letting it flop on the blanket. “Caught my leg in the ladder coming down,” he said, “and did the arm trying to break my fall. Just them and a couple of cracked ribs. Like the medico says, it could have been a lot worse.”
“Dad, I asked you to let me know if you needed help with jobs around the house.”
“I wasn’t having you come all that way just to help me change a damned lightbulb. When I end up that helpless, God forbid I ever will, you can stick me in a home.”
“Surely you don’t want to end up like this either.”
“I’ll be fine once I can have a fag. Maybe they’ll let me have an ashtray till I can get to the smoking room.”
His head wobbled up from the pillow as we heard an eruption of coughing somewhere along the corridor outside the ward. I hoped he might take this as a warning against cigarettes, but apparently this didn’t occur to him. “Just so he doesn’t keep that up all night,” he muttered. “I’ve enough of a job getting off to sleep.”
His head fell back as if he meant to give sleep an immediate try, and when he kept his vague gaze on me he might have been clinging to consciousness. “Anyway, never mind me,” he said. “How’s our little man been sleeping? How are they treating him at his new place?”
I had to pick my way among my thoughts before I could risk answering. “We’ve had fewer incidents since he started going there, in fact weeks with none.”
“You don’t look as pleased as you ought to, son.”
I’d imagined my doubts were hidden. My mother might have sensed them, but I hadn’t expected it of him. “I wouldn’t mind knowing more about the treatment,” I said.
“Is that all? Don’t try fibbing to your old dad. I know my son too well.”
I felt not just guilty but childish, especially when he winked at the horizontal audience in the nearby beds. Having searched for a truth I could tell him, I said “I’d just like to watch a session.”
“Then you go and do it, son. You’re the boy’s dad.”
“They say having parents there distracts the children from the treatment.”
“Can’t you watch without them seeing? The powers that run things ought to be able to fix that.” He levered up his head with his free hand to scrutinise my face. “Are you having second thoughts,” he said, “about this Buddhist thing of theirs?”
“Lesley told you they weren’t Buddhists.” For a moment I was on the brink of saying more than “I’m not sure what they do.”
“You don’t think they’re Christian, I’m betting.”
“I’ve no reason to believe it.”
This might have sounded like a sly admission, but my father’s head sank back “Better see they haven’t brought it from abroad,” he mumbled. “I know you and Lesley like the flicks and the food, but just don’t go like the Beatles did, getting brainwashed with foreign beliefs.”
“I’m sure that won’t happen.”
“I know I can trust you after me and Mary brought you up right. You’d never betray your mother’s memory.” As I nodded, not least to hide my face from him, he said “Just don’t go letting your wife talk you round.”
“I’ve absolutely no reason to think she would.”
“I’m telling you, it’s like a foreign country round here.” He seemed scarcely to have heard me, and I thought drugs were involved in his speech. “It’s nothing like it was when you were born,” he complained. “I swear to God, I’ve seen more coloureds since they brought me in here than you ever see in town.”
“Dad, I don’t think you should—”
“Don’t worry.” Since he was unable to lift his head, he raised his voice, “Everyone along here agrees about the blackies,” he said. “They’re doing a good job for us, but they shouldn’t be here when we’ve got millions out of work.”
I felt as though he was driving me away from any observations I might have wanted to make about Safe To Sleep. I don’t know how I would have enticed him away from his subject if a woman hadn’t said behind me “Mr Sheldrake.”
I heard she was Jamaican before I turned around, and blushed on my father’s behalf. “The patient needs his rest now,” the nurse said.
“Come again when you can. Bring the family if they want to visit an old cripple. It’ll do me good to see some familiar faces.” A car with its radio turned up to thunderous sped past outside the windows at the far end of the ward, and as the bass thumps moved on my father said “Sounds like the natives are restless.”
I felt my face grow hotter as I held the door out of the ward open for the nurse. Once we reached the corridor I murmured “Truly sorry about that.”
“Not your fault, Mr Sheldrake. We shouldn’t argue with a parent.” As I left her a sympathetic look she said “He’s not the worst in here by a mile.”
I might have stayed to express more regrets—even though I wasn’t implicated, I felt pitifully apologetic—but I had matters to resolve elsewhere. I drove home as fast as I could, trying not to be distracted by thoughts of my father or concerns I hadn’t yet dared to define. I was in sight of the house when I saw Claudine’s mother’s car emerging from the drive. I hit the horn and waved and put on speed, all of which Judith appeared to take as a greeting followed by a farewell. She swung her car away from mine before she returned the wave without looking back, and I saw Claudine watch me dwindle in the mirror.
As I parked the Volvo next to Lesley’s Victor on the gravel in front of the house, Toby ran to me. “Has grandad gone to grandma?” he cried.
“Of course not, Toby.” I climbed out before adding “He fell and hurt himself, that’s all. It just shows you have to be careful however old you are. You’ll see him again soon.”
“I know, daddy.” As he dodged past Lesley into the house Toby said “Maybe we always will.”
I might have asked how he meant that, but Lesley was waiting to speak. “It isn’t too serious, then.”
“Any fall like that is at his age,” I said for only her to hear. “He won’t be going anywhere for a while.”
“So long as he’s in good hands,” Lesley said and stroked my arm. “I thought you seemed a bit distraught. You looked as if you were about to run into Judith’s car.”
“I just wanted a few words with her about Safe To Sleep.” I heard the kitchen door shut as Toby went into the garden. “I’d have asked if she’s seen them carry out the treatments,” I said.
“But we have.” Lesley looked as though she hoped to be no worse than puzzled as she said “I have twice.”
“We’ve just seen the children asleep, haven’t we? We don’t know how it’s done.”
“We know Phoebe Sweet and her people don’t use drugs. What do you actually want to find out, Dominic? Aren’t you happy with the results? I am.”
“You know I want whatever’s best for Toby. Why should anyone mind if we watch? As my father says, we’re the parents.”
“You’ve been discussing Toby’s treatment with him.”
“He asked after Toby. I couldn’t very well not talk about it, could I? I did try not to let him realise I had doubts.”
“I hope he won’t try to put us off the treatment.” When I failed to offer more than the space between my hands, Lesley said “What doubts?”
“I’ve already told you, Lesley. I’d like to watch a session and see exactly what goes on.”
“Suppose your being there stops them from sleeping? Suppose it makes them associate sleeping with being watched?” Before I could question why it should, Lesley said “And what’s made you so concerned all of a sudden? Has it something to do with the game Toby and Claudine were playing?”
I thought it unwise to risk a direct answer. “Did they say anything about it while I wasn’t here?”
“No, and I didn’t ask them. I think you quite upset them with all that interrogation, Dominic.”
“But how much did you hear? Did you catch what they were saying about the dead?”
“I heard nothing of the kind. Are you really certain they were talking about that?” She gave me no chance to answer. “And if they were, Toby said he was sorry. He did say he’d told Claudine a story before he promised us he wouldn’t tell any more.”
“So you think no harm’s done.”
“I hope not, but I think keeping on at him might cause some.”
“I wasn’t planning to.” However much I might have wanted to question Toby, I couldn’t now—not even, as I realised might have been a possibility, about Safe To Sleep. “We’ll forget about it and let him do the same,” I said.
Born To The Dark Page 6
