“It’s a pity you weren’t taken further. You’d have been better prepared.”
“I just want my son back.”
“Why, Mr Sheldrake, I think you have him.”
Noble’s gaze had strayed to my car. In a moment I heard Toby voice a protest that fell short of words. As I snatched the door open I saw him struggling within the confinement of the seat belt as if he had no idea what it was. “It’s all right, Toby,” I murmured, gripping his shoulder. “I’m here.”
He blinked at me and then at his surroundings. I’d begun to fear he had yet to return to himself when he said “Are we going home, dad?”
Before I could respond, Christian Noble was beside me. He’d descended the steps so rapidly and silently that I was reminded more than ever of a snake. “Is that what you want, Toby?” he said.
“I want us all to be together.”
“Us, do you mean? My family and you and all the other children?”
I let go of Toby’s shoulder in case my grasp hurt him. As I straightened up to confront Noble my son said “You left Doctor Phoebe out.”
“Her too, of course,” Noble said, “and anybody else who’s with us.”
Toby took a breath that dragged at the seat belt, and I saw he was working on a decision. I couldn’t make my aching lungs function until he said “I was going home with dad.”
“Just as you wish.” Noble had already fixed his gaze on me. “It isn’t important,” he said.
I had to clarify the situation, however much this might provoke him. “You mean you’re letting him go.”
“You can’t see me trying to hinder you, can you? Believe me, it matters much less than you imagine.”
I was dismayed to think he meant one child made little difference. “Now if you’ll excuse me,” he said, “I must rejoin the faithful.”
I hoped the gibe the last word seemed to hide didn’t trouble my son. As I climbed into the driver’s seat I realised Noble was loitering at the foot of the steps. He watched me drive away, and I saw him shrink in the mirror until he resembled a doll, not least in his stillness. It felt like a threat—a reminder that he didn’t need to move. I remembered what had followed me last time I’d visited Safe To Sleep, and felt a reminiscent hint of writhing inside my eyeballs. Beside the avenue the mounds looked surreptitiously restless, another reason why all the way to the gates I felt almost too apprehensive to breathe. They took their time over letting me out, and even on the road I felt vulnerable, far too isolated beneath the wide thin sky. Safe To Sleep was well over the horizon before I felt even slightly safe, by which time Toby’s silence had begun to bother me. I was uncertain what to say to him, but kept glancing in the mirror to make sure he was conscious. He seemed content to watch the passing scenery until he caught me watching him. “Did you see it, dad?” he said.
Despite the empty landscape all around us, I found the question ominous. “See what, Toby?”
“The head that feeds on stars.” Before I could think how to answer he said “I liked taking you to see.”
Dealing with this was harder still. I felt devious for meaning more than he might grasp as I said “I’m glad you did.”
“We’ve been to see lots better than that. Lots bigger than it too.”
“Toby, we’re going to leave all that behind now.”
He looked pensive, but he hadn’t spoken by the time I glanced back at the road. “I suppose I can,” he said, “if we’re all together.”
“Us and mummy, you mean,” I was distressed to have to establish.
“Mum as well, dad.” The words included a surprised laugh that sounded hearteningly childlike. He might have been waiting for me to meet his eyes before he said “I wanted you to come and fetch me.”
I felt as if we’d rediscovered the bond we ought to share, and perhaps Toby had given me more of a reason to hope. I must proceed carefully, but surely anything I might have to do was worthwhile if it protected him, not to mention putting his life back together. I checked that the straight road ahead was clear for hundreds of yards, and then I met his eyes again. “Will you say that to your mother, Toby?” I said.
22 - Something Like The Truth
“Lesley.” Anyone but I might have been unaware of how she paused before adding “Sheldrake.” Apparently it made our son giggle to say “Toby Sheldrake.”
“Toby.” His mother had no time to be amused. “What’s wrong?” she said.
“Nothing, mum.”
“Then why aren’t you asleep with the other children? Aren’t they still asleep?”
“I expect they will be, but I don’t need to go any more. Mum, can dad bring me home?”
I hadn’t suggested the proposal, which threw me as much as it plainly threw his mother. Her silence seemed to loose a mass of static, amplified by the loudspeaker. The phone hissed like a snake until Lesley said “Who says you don’t need to go?”
“They do, mum.”
“You’re at Safe To Sleep, are you? Who’s there for me to speak to?”
Toby glanced at me but gave me no time to respond. “They’ll all be with the children.”
“Are you saying they’ve left you on your own? You stay right there and I’ll come and take you home.”
“No, mum,” Toby said urgently enough to keep her on the line. “I’m not at Doctor Phoebe’s.”
I heard a fierce breath and a surge of static. “Where are you, then?”
“At dad’s old house.”
“Your father’s there, is he? Let me talk to him.”
As I opened my mouth Toby said “I wanted him to get me.”
At last he’d reached the point I’d encouraged him to make to his mother. “Why, Toby?” she said.
“Because I want him with us like we were. That’ll let me sleep.”
I’d prompted none of this, which made it feel all the more hopeful. “Can you hear me, Dominic?” Lesley said.
“I’ve been listening.”
“Then please bring Toby home at once.”
“I was meaning to. I just needed to be sure you’d be there to let us in.
“Well, now you know. We’ll talk when you’re here.”
I wasn’t going to allow this to sound ominous. At least it meant I wouldn’t be turned away at once. Before I could speak Toby replaced the receiver, so vigorously that the table opposite the stairs wobbled on its scrawny legs. Perhaps he was eager to be home with both his parents or trying to ensure his mother didn’t change her mind. He hurried to open the front door and glanced along the faded musty hall. “It’s a sad house, isn’t it, dad?” he said.
“What makes you say that?”
“It hasn’t got enough people in.”
He sounded younger than he often did, which I couldn’t help taking as a sign that he’d left Christian Noble’s influence behind. I still imagined I could reconstruct the world as it had been—our world, at any rate. As I shut the front door I saw sunlight catch dust on framed glass, almost blotting out “Keep The Home Fires Burning” and “Thou God See All”. Toby strapped himself into the back seat while I was on my way to the car. As I drove along the wide main roads I fancied that the cloudless sky was as straightforwardly blue as it should be on a summer afternoon. The sky shrank to a suburban size when I turned along our road, and I was only just in sight of the house when I saw Lesley at the gate.
Her face wasn’t owning up to her thoughts. She stepped aside to let me onto the drive, where I parked beside her Victor. By the time I climbed out she was standing in the hall as though to reconfirm her ownership. “Come in now, Toby,” she said as soon as he left the car.
I could have thought this was meant to exclude me, and I moved towards the house when he did. “You said we were going to talk.”
“And we will.” Lesley retreated a step, which could have been making room for me or ensuring that we didn’t touch. “When I’ve had a word with somebody,” she said and turned to our son. “What time do the children usually wake up?”
“They’ll be awake now,” he said with a hint of wistfulness. “They’ll be having their drinks.”
“How are you feeling, Toby? Just tell me the truth.”
“I always do. I’m happy, mum.”
Lesley looked away from him, though not at me. “Be a good boy and play outside until I call you.”
“You won’t send dad away again, will you?”
“I’ll be doing what’s best.” As he made to speak Lesley said “Your father and I want to talk now. The sooner you’re playing, the sooner we can.”
Toby left us with a hopeful look not far short of a plea. Lesley didn’t move until we heard the back door shut behind him, and then she led the way into the workroom, where I couldn’t help thinking my empty desk looked vacated by someone who’d lost their job. Once she’d checked that Toby was out of earshot—he was pacing from corner to corner of the lawn while he murmured to himself, perhaps measuring the area in some fashion—Lesley sat at her desk. “You won’t object if I call Safe To Sleep,” she said.
“Why should I?” I felt as if Toby’s scheme to reunite the family had superseded mine or at the very least subsumed it, so that my only option was to play it out, however much bravado this took. “Can I hear?” I said.
“I want you to, Dominic.”
Her tone was as inexpressive as her face was determined to be. Both of us were silent while she keyed the number. The speaker filled the room with the repetitions of a bell, and I thought Toby must be able to hear, although his pacing didn’t falter. He was at the far end of the lawn when the bell gave way to a voice. “Dr Phoebe Sweet.”
“Phoebe, this is Toby’s mother Lesley.”
“Mrs Sheldrake.” Almost as neutrally Phoebe Sweet said “Yes.”
“Can you tell me why my son has come home early?”
“He said that was where he wanted to be.”
“How is that going to help his treatment?”
“That’s completed, Mrs Sheldrake. He needn’t attend any more.”
“May I ask how you reached that decision and when?”
“Just today. Let me assure you it’s the right one.”
“Shouldn’t you have discussed it with his parents first?”
I wanted to feel encouraged by Lesley’s reference to both of us, however brisk it sounded. “He just seemed very eager to go home,” Phoebe Sweet said.
Lesley glanced at me, but her eyes conveyed no sense of how she meant to proceed. “His father took him,” she said.
“I believe so.”
“How did that come about?”
I found I was holding my breath while my ears began to ache. “That’s what Toby wanted,” Phoebe Sweet said.
“Perhaps, but how did you contact my husband? I assume he was at his old house.”
As she spoke Lesley turned her gaze on me, and I had to nod. “Toby doesn’t know his number there,” she said.
Now I couldn’t exhale, and my ears were throbbing. Phoebe Sweet’s voice sounded a good deal more remote as she said “The name will be in the phone book, won’t it? I didn’t call Mr Sheldrake myself.”
She was playing a game even more devious than mine. She must have grasped that my version of events at Safe To Sleep had been cautiously partial, and was trying to say nothing that might contradict my account. Even if she was concerned only to protect the Nobles and their secrets, I couldn’t very well reject her help. “So are you saying our son’s cured?” Lesley said.
“As I say, there’s no need for us to see him again.”
“Then thank you, Phoebe. Thank you very much from all of us for everything you’ve done, and please thank anyone who was involved.”
“I’ll do that, and remember me to Toby.” With a pause terse enough to betray haste Phoebe Sweet said “Goodbye, Mrs Sheldrake.”
I didn’t know if I would have achieved anything by speaking to her, and before I could think of a remark she’d gone. Lesley planted the receiver on its cradle, silencing its hollow drone, and rested her hand on it as she gazed at me. “Is it over, Dominic?”
I had a sense that misinterpreting the question would put an end to my hopes. “Is what over?”
“Have we heard the last of your Mr Noble and all the rest of it?”
Keeping quiet about the Noble family and their activities needn’t mean ignoring them or letting them flourish unhindered, I told myself as I said “Will that give Toby what he wants?”
Lesley glanced towards the window to make sure he was still preoccupied with his game, and then she trained her gaze on me. “Are you really going to do that to me, Dominic?”
“I don’t know what else I can do. Anything that brings all of us back together.”
“I won’t bargain with you. Have we heard the last? The answer’s yes or no.”
“Then of course it’s yes. The biggest yes I’ve said since we got married.” I felt like a child with his fingers crossed behind his back, not least since her scrutiny didn’t abate. “No more interrogating Toby and his friends,” she said.
“None of that and no car accidents either. Believe me, I’ve been driving twice as carefully since then.”
Was I overstating too much? Lesley looked determined not to blink until she’d extracted every answer she wanted to hear, and even then they would be subject to examination. As I searched for truths she would find acceptable, she closed her eyes. “All right,” she said and opened them, though only to gaze at the phone. “I’ll make one more call.”
I opened my mouth before realising that I mightn’t want to learn who she meant to phone any sooner than I would. It would certainly be unwise to betray I was nervous. The clacking of the plastic keys beneath her fingernails put me in mind of a typewriter—of a stenographer recording a confession. A bell started to trill close to her ear, and she glanced at me as a preamble to switching the phone to speaker mode. The amplified shrilling sounded harsh, and static added a rough edge to the voice that did. away with the bell. “Colleen Johns and partner.”
Lesley turned away to speak, and I couldn’t see her face. “May I have a word with Colleen? It’s Lesley Sheldrake.”
“Of course, Mrs Sheldrake.” With more concern than I found applicable the receptionist said “Is everything all right?”
“It will be.”
Some inaudible communication must have taken place, but it wasn’t between us. Even the static had hushed by the time Colleen Johns said “Lesley, how are you? You were on my list to call.”
More hopefully than I could interpret Lesley said “Why was that?”
“Just to update you on our progress. We’ll be bringing you all you’re entitled to very soon.”
“It would have to be that, of course.” Planting her fists on either side of the receiver, Lesley leaned down to say “Please excuse me, Colleen, but I’ve decided not to proceed.”
The receiver emitted a sharp breath like a sniff in reverse. “I thought we had an understanding.”
“Certainly we have. You must charge me for all the work you’ve done on my behalf. I’m only sorry to have taken up your time.”
“I wasn’t thinking about money. We discussed second thoughts syndrome, if you remember. I told you how common it is and how much of a trap. Can I ask what’s undermined all the resolve you had?”
“I was too hasty, that’s all. I let my emotions get the better of me when I should have taken more time to consider the future.”
“Lesley, those are classic second thoughts, and just remember we’re allowed our feelings. We’ve finished letting ourselves be told they make us inferior to men. It sounds to me as if we need a proper talk. When are you free to come in?”
“There’d be no point, Colleen. I’ve made up my mind.”
“I thought you had before. I must say I’m very disappointed, Lesley. I wouldn’t have expected this of somebody like you. I’d have thought you would have wanted to set an example to victims who aren’t as educated as you are.”
“Excuse me, but I don’t
consider myself to be a victim.”
“Then that proves you are one. Surely you can see that’s another of the traps the dominant culture keeps us in.” As Lesley began to retort, having sat back to put some distance between her and the phone, Colleen Johns demanded “Why are you on a speaker?”
“Just for convenience.”
“Whose convenience?” When Lesley didn’t speak the lawyer said “Is he there with you?”
“Colleen, everybody I know has a name.”
“Your husband.” Without apparent irony Colleen Johns lowered her voice to ask “Can’t you speak as freely as you’d like?”
“Nobody stops me doing that, I assure you.”
“I want to believe you, but do remember what you said to me yourself.”
I saw Lesley hesitate. “What are you saying I said?”
“You agreed intimidation needn’t be physical or even verbal,” Colleen Johns said, and more loudly “If you can hear me, Mr Sheldrake, just remember that means I can hear you.”
Perhaps I shouldn’t have protested “I haven’t said anything for you to hear.”
“Thank you for proving the point I just made. Lesley, at least tell me you aren’t at home.”
“That’s where we are.”
“I specifically advised you not to allow him access. If you’ve yielded that much I’m really not sure how I can help you any more.”
“Just send me your bill, Colleen. That’s all you need to do, but please do realise that I’m grateful for all the trouble you’ve gone to.”
“I wish you were grateful enough to follow through on your commitment. Every successful case is a blow struck for all of us. I’m afraid I’ll have to leave you to it now. I’ve a client waiting who I think will make my work worthwhile.”
Lesley laid the phone to rest and spun her chair to face me. “Let’s put all that behind us,” she said at once.
“There’s not much I’d like better.”
When she gazed at me I thought I’d been too eager to assume everything was well until she said “Don’t ever make me feel like you did again, Dominic.”
“I wish I hadn’t, believe me. I don’t know what I’ve done in all my life that could be worse.”
Born To The Dark Page 24
