“Could it wait until tomorrow if it isn’t urgent?” I was tempted to stride past before he reached the intersection. “I’m rather in a hurry to get home,” I said.
“As I say, I’ll be brief.” He paused as if he’d finished, and stared at me until I came to a reluctant halt. “I assume,” he said, “that you were amused by my gaffe.”
Bewilderment made me wonder if I should be wary. “I don’t think I knew you’d made one, vice-chancellor.”
“It would tax me to believe that, Dominic. Imagine my surprise when I caused great hilarity by referring to the picture we discussed.”
“I’m sorry, which picture was that?”
“Not a painting,” he declared, though I hadn’t meant to suggest it was. “Your specialty, Dominic. A film. It required some effort on my part to establish that the troupe who were responsible for it call themselves Monty Python.”
I recalled his mistake now, and had to clench my face to keep it mirthless. “Isn’t that what you called them?”
“I rather think you know the name I had for them.”
“Vice-chancellor, I wasn’t sure what you said and I didn’t like to make an issue of it.”
“You might have known that others would.” The reprimand sounded almost wistful, and I was about to take it for a dismissal when he said “I gather you were elsewhere today when your students watched your film.”
“I had to take my son to, to a place where they’re supposed to be helping him.” This roused all my ill-defined fears for him, which made me angry enough to demand “Who told you I wasn’t there?”
“His mother.”
“Then surely she’d have told you why.”
“That was the case, yes. I simply wondered what was taking her to your department.” As I attempted to decide whether he meant to defend Lesley or himself he said “She summarised the film for me. I gather it concerns a priest who achieves nothing of significance and then dies of cancer.”
“Is that really how she put it?” When he gave the question a weary wordless look I said “It’s a film about suffering and grace. Most accounts of it find it deeply religious.”
“So long as you do.” Apparently my nod was insufficient, because he said “Challenge your students and stimulate their thoughts by all means, but I don’t believe we’re here to undermine their faith.”
My fears and my impatience to be home provoked me to speak before I had time to consider. “That depends what they have faith in.”
“I hardly think that’s up to us to judge. I rather suspect the student body might raise a protest if we did.” Having weighted this with a stern look, he said “I see you’re anxious to toddle off home, but I trust you’ll keep my observations in mind.”
I left all this behind as I hurried to my car. I was far more concerned about talking to Toby—so concerned that I was scarcely aware of driving home. I’d just about decided on a question to ask by the time I parked next to Lesley’s car. I was letting myself into the house when the question deserted me as I heard Toby’s voice.
He was telling somebody about a fall—as far as I could tell, about falling into infinite darkness. He was saying all of us at home would think he was brave—I had to assume this included my father—but wondered whether something would ever end. I didn’t know if he meant the fall or some other reason for disquiet, because I could hear just enough to make me nervous. I eased the front door shut and stole across the hall to listen, but Toby had grown silent. I inched the door of the front room open without hearing any more, and couldn’t keep quiet any longer. “Toby, what were you saying?
“How long have you been listening out there, Dominic?” Lesley said with a sketchy laugh. “Don’t you remember it from your childhood?”
For a moment I thought she was reminding me how I used to eavesdrop as a child, not least on Christian Noble’s father and the headmaster. Remember what?” I said and advanced into the room.
Lesley looked puzzled if not concerned, and I saw why. Toby had been reading to her the first of Alice’s adventures, the fall down the rabbit hole. Was I so obsessed that I hadn’t even realised he was talking about someone other than himself? I couldn’t let this bother me when there was so much else that I needed to establish. “Well done, Toby. You were making it sound as if you weren’t even reading,” I said in the hope of placating them both.
“Shall I read to you as well now, daddy?”
“Let’s leave it until later. I’d like to have a little talk.”
Toby shut the book but held it on his lap, where it looked like impatience embodied. Lesley’s reproachful blink made it clear that he wasn’t done in willing me to be concise. “Toby,” I said, “what’s the baby’s name?”
“Which baby, daddy?”
“The one Chris brings to sleep with you all,” I said and belatedly thought to ask Lesley “Do you know?”
“I’ve no idea. I don’t believe I’ve ever heard his name.”
“You mean you’ve never heard her call him anything.”
“She says her little one, I think. Does it really matter?” As she saw I would say that it did Lesley shook her head at me or at herself. “No,” she said as if she hoped to close the subject, “she calls him her little toff.”
“Like the baby in your game with Claudine, Toby.” I was finding it hard both to speak and to be careful of my words. “Toph short for Christopher.”
“Is it, dad? We didn’t know.”
“No, but you knew what you were playing at, didn’t you?” I had an unhappy sense that he was no less devious than dealing with Christian Noble had made me as a child. “Just tell your mother,” I said.
“Why don’t you tell me, Dominic, instead of—” Lesley suppressed whatever she preferred our son not to hear. “You tell me,” she said.
“Your game was about the sleeping room, Toby, wasn’t it?” When not even his silence denied it I said “What exactly do they do to you there? You haven’t really told us.”
“They help us have a sleep. Isn’t that what you and mummy want?”
“You know we do. We’re glad you can. I’m asking how they help.”
“They say things like mummy used to sing when she was trying to get me to sleep.”
“A lullaby, you mean. They say them or they sing them?”
“It’s like both.”
“What are they? Can you tell us some of them?”
“I don’t know what kind of words they are. They’re not like ones we say. They get inside your head and help you, like Dr Phoebe says.”
“It sounds like a mantra to me, Dominic, I hope you don’t object to that, even if your father would.”
I might have retorted that she’d stopped taking care what our son heard, but I needed to keep up the questioning. “Who says them, Toby? Does Chris?”
“Dr Phoebe and the others do. You’ve seen them and mummy has.”
This struck me as less than an answer, but before I could pursue it Lesley said “Dominic, I think that ought to be enough.”
“Just bear with me a moment.” As her gaze weighed on me I said “Toby, what do you dream when they put you to sleep?”
“We don’t, daddy.”
“You’re saying you don’t dream there at all.”
“That’s what he said, Dominic.”
“How can you say the other children don’t?” When he only added his gaze to his mother’s I said “Then where did you get the things you and Claudine were saying in your game?”
“He’s already admitted that, Dominic. From the book in your desk.”
“Is that what you said, Toby?”
“I’m sorry,” he said and turned his eyes from me to his mother. “I promised I wouldn’t do it again.”
Once more I felt cheated out of an answer, a trick in which Lesley was unwittingly complied. “Now I’m certain that’s enough,” she said before I could speak. “Come and set the table for me, Toby.” She followed him to the hall and then glanced back to say low but urgently “We need t
o talk.”
I was at least as anxious to have a discussion, and so Toby’s presence felt like a barrier between us at dinner and until he went to bed, where he insisted on reading Lewis Carroll to us. I couldn’t help feeling uneasy when Alice changed size in her dream, even though she retained her shape. I heard how Toby relished the episode, but at last he nodded over the book. Once Lesley had eased it out of his hands we each left him a kiss on his smooth forehead. When we reached the downstairs hall I murmured “Shall we have a drink?”
“I just want a talk.” Lesley carried the baby monitor into the front room and shut the door as soon as I was past it. “What do you think you’re trying to do to Toby?” she demanded.
“I’m trying to establish the truth, I’m sure we both want that for him.”
“What truth are you talking about, Dominic?”
I tried to ease her towards realising what I knew. “Have you noticed anything about Chris’s name?”
“Just that it’s a very common one, so I can’t imagine what you—”
“Her last name.”
“It’s Blone,” Lesley said and sat in the nearest armchair as if fatigue had overtaken her. “What do you think you can make of that, Dominic? Why are you bringing it up now?”
“I’ve only just discovered what it is. I didn’t know until I rang the hospital.”
“Don’t hover over me like that. Sit down.” When I did so opposite her Lesley said “You’re telling me you called the hospital about her.”
“Only to confirm her name. I didn’t say anything about her.”
“I’m glad of that at least, and I hope you won’t even think of it.” Lesley’s gaze grew sadder as she said “Is this more of your obsession? I can’t even see how it fits. Please just tell me what on earth you have in mind.”
“Think about that name and I believe you’ll understand.”
“I’m thinking.” Lesley tried to add a smile but couldn’t keep it up. “I’ve thought,” she said, “and I still have no idea.”
I was unable to hold back any longer. “Lesley, she’s Christian Noble’s daughter.”
On the far side of a pause that felt as though we were both holding our breath Lesley said “What makes you say that, Dominic?”
“I ought to have known her as soon as I saw her. She’s put on weight since she’s grown up, but I should have spotted the family trait.
“Which do you mean?”
“The way they come at you like snakes. Her father always did, and she used to when she wasn’t even Toby’s age.”
“I still don’t know what you could mean.”
“Like this.” I inclined my top half at her from the edge of the armchair, hoping that I didn’t sense her determination not to flinch. “Maybe she doesn’t do it as much as him,” I said, “but believe me, it’s there.”
“And that was your excuse for interrogating Toby?”
“It was my reason for trying to get at the truth, but it wasn’t the only one. Can’t you see how she and I don’t doubt her father have done their best to hide their names? Only at the same time they’ve tried to be clever. It’s as if they’re mocking the rest of us, challenging us to notice what they’ve done, except they think we can’t because they believe they’re superior to everybody else.”
Lesley gazed at me as if willing me to finish. “Which names?”
“Her own for a start. I wouldn’t have realised when I used to know her, but of course it has to be Christina. Her father always called her Tina. You might think he was trying to hide how much the name he gave her is like his.”
“I wouldn’t, no.” Lesley held out a hand towards me, though not far enough to touch. “Dominic…”
“Not just her name, her son’s. It must be Christopher, and yet they’ve done their best to make it sound nothing like.” At once I had an insight too disturbing to keep to myself. “Didn’t you read what Noble wrote about them?” I said. “She was his second person and there’d be a third. Now we can see he meant her child.”
Lesley let her hand fall on her lap as though it had proved useless. “What are you trying to say he meant?”
“I’m not entirely sure, but it must be connected with that church of his. I need to find out where that’s operating.”
Her fingers on her lap drew inwards but stopped short of clenching. “Dominic have you any reason whatsoever to believe he’s involved in our lives?”
“We both have. You heard Claudine, remember?”
“Heard her doing what?”
“Telling Toby who he had to be when they were playing.” Since this only made her frown I had to say “He told her to be Toph and she wanted him to be Mr Blone.”
“Are you absolutely certain?” Before I could answer she said “And I don’t mean you should ask them.”
“Aren’t you? What do you think you heard if it wasn’t that?”
“Nothing at all like it. I didn’t hear anything until you started shouting at them.”
I felt as if language was no longer to be trusted. “I promise you that’s what they said.”
“Can you honestly say you couldn’t have misheard them?”
I thought this was a desperate suggestion, not least because desperate was how it made me feel. “Misheard what?”
“Couldn’t Claudine have said Chris Blone?” When I didn’t answer instantly Lesley said “But I’m telling you again, don’t you dare to ask them.”
If she’d shaken my confidence, it mostly held firm. “Just supposing she said that, it doesn’t explain much, does it? How closely are you saying Chris is involved in Safe To Sleep?”
“As closely as she needs to be, I should think. She referred all their patients.”
“More closely than that if she takes part in the treatment.”
“Who’s to say she does, Dominic? All we know is that Claudine may have put her in their little game, which I think you’re making altogether too much of.”
“We’ve seen Chris has something to hide. We need to know what she’s hiding.”
“You mustn’t tell me what I’ve seen, and I think you’re making too much of this business about names as well.”
“How much do you think we should make of it when it’s actually Noble?”
Lesley parted her lips without immediately speaking. “It isn’t, Dominic.”
“You know what I mean. The letters spell the name.”
“But they don’t. I suppose I can see where you got the idea.” As if I required sympathy she said “You heard it on the phone but you haven’t seen it written down, have you? It’s bee ell oh ay en.”
I was dismayed to think I’d tricked myself until I saw I had been. “That just proves how devious they are, don’t you see? It’s their old name twisted round but they can pretend it isn’t.”
Lesley looked as if she wished she needn’t speak. “Dominic, I really think you need to do something about this obsession. Maybe you should start by destroying that book in your desk.”
“It’s evidence, and so’s everything else that I’ve kept.” Although I saw this left her less than happy, I had to go on. “I need to find out what the Nobles are up to,” I said and tried to placate her. “If it turns out Chris isn’t involved in anything we should know about, surely you’d like me to establish that.”
“I don’t believe you need to. If she really is who you say, maybe it isn’t surprising that she changed her name when she grew up. Maybe it shows she doesn’t want to be associated with her father or his beliefs.”
“What about the things Claudine and Toby were saying in their game? Doesn’t that show he’s had some kind of influence?”
“That’s already been explained. Toby found them in that wretched book of yours.”
I was dismayed to realise that he hadn’t quite said so—that perhaps he’d inherited deceitfulness rather than imagination from me. Before I could risk hinting at any of this, Lesley said “If you do anything that makes him worse I’ll never forgive you, Dominic.”<
br />
“I hope you wouldn’t think I could.”
“I hope I’ll never have a reason.” As she stood up she might have been leaning her gaze on me. “Now I will have that drink,” she said.
I wanted to think she was right about me, even in her doubts—to think I was just obsessed with aspects of my past that were too remote to threaten us. In the kitchen I took a bottle of Chablis out of the refrigerator while Lesley planted a pair of wineglasses on the table with a solitary brittle clink, and then I tried not to scrutinise Toby’s crayon drawings that were taped to the metal door. One showed a yellow crescent moon that resembled a claw poised to close on a star, and another depicted a comet with a rudimentary grin approaching a dwarfed planet earth. Perhaps these derived from his favourite television programme, but the drawing that concerned me most was his view of the Safe To Sleep house. At the time he’d said he was putting himself in the picture, but I thought I’d interrupted him before he could. Now I didn’t want to look too closely at the shape floating above the roof. Of course it was meant for a cloud, and Toby had done his best to draw the kind of vague shape it would take. Only someone obsessed would imagine it was supposed to have embryonic arms and, at the broader end of the pale elongated form, the beginnings of a face.
9 - The Treatment
“Would you have a few minutes for a chat, Mr Sheldrake?”
“You be good for your teacher and I’ll see you when you get home. Look for mummy when you come out of school.” As Toby ran across the playground to Claudine, apparently the only other pupil who also went to Safe To Sleep, I said “What is it, Mrs Dixon?”
“Just about Toby. I suppose it can wait if you’re in a rush.”
She was a large-boned knobbly woman who always looked so earnestly concerned with the children that she had no time for taming her tousled hair. “I’m afraid I’m rather behind schedule,” I said, “but if you can give me some idea of what it is…”
“Don’t let me keep you if I’ll make you late for work.”
As patiently as I could manage I said “I’d like to hear.”
“It’s just about his stories, Mr Sheldrake.”
“I’m sorry, I thought he’d stopped telling them.” I glanced in his direction in case I could catch his eye, but he and Claudine were surrounded by children and had their backs to me. “What has he been saying now?” I said.
Born To The Dark Page 8
