by Clare Boyd
His eyelids were slumping. With his shaky, weak arms, he wheeled himself to his bedroom, where he wanted to sleep, and maybe never wake up. All his gargantuan efforts in physiotherapy, every single day, to gain a small twitch in his little toe or a tiny movement in a thigh muscle, or some sensation on a small patch of his calf, which had been previously numb, seemed pathetic to him now. Dilys – everyone – must be laughing at him. Poor John, he thinks he can walk again, poor, poor John. He imagined Robert, up there, all seeing, all knowing, looking at him and telling him he had got what he deserved. And he agreed with him.
Slowly, he passed Beatrice’s room, and then Olivia’s, and then Harry’s door. He stopped abruptly. He had forgotten about Harry’s iPad, which had used to be his. It had all of his contact details stored on it.
The doorway into Harry’s room was tight for the wheelchair, but he managed it, grazing his knuckles in the process. Thankfully, there were only a few clothes on the floor in a puddle by his chest of drawers. Otherwise, there was a clear path to his desk. The iPad was in his desk drawer, lying in wait for him.
His fingers trembled as he typed in the four-digit code. The home screen flashed open. Triumphantly, he pressed Harry’s mobile phone number and waited, feeling nervous, worrying about how he would ask his son for help, deciding it would be best to ask to speak to his parents directly.
When he saw Harry’s face on the screen, he wanted to cry.
‘Harry! Oh, hi! Thank god. I managed to FaceTime from your iPad! Can you believe it?’
Harry looked surly. ‘You can do that from your phone, you know, Dad.’
‘Can I talk to Grandma?’
‘We’re just starting lunch.’
‘How are Fran and Alice?’
‘They’re good. What’s up? Are you feeling better?’
‘Much better. Hand me over to your grandma.’
‘Grandma!’ he shouted, walking into a noisier room, where he could hear Alice’s voice. His chest expanded.
‘Grandma, Dad’s calling.’
The device was transferred from Harry to Camilla.
‘Why are you FaceTiming, darling? Are you okay? Shout hello to Uncle John, Alice!’
Alice called out, ‘Hello, Uncle John!’ and John’s insides melted. He wanted to see her, but he couldn’t see anything except the ceiling.
‘Mum, can I talk to you in private?’ he asked.
Dilys piped up. ‘Do you want me to talk to him?’
‘No, no. It’s quite all right. I’m quite capable of talking to my own son, thank you, Dilys.’
John wanted to hug his mother, who was now walking Harry’s phone into another room. Judging by the beams, it was the sitting room. He heard her grunt as she sat down, and then she positioned the phone facing her string of pearls.
‘How are you, darling?’ she asked in her ‘sweet’ voice, usually reserved for the children. Before he had a chance to answer, she said, ‘It’s okay, Dilys explained. There is no need to worry about today. You can see Francesca and Alice tomorrow.’
Exasperated, he said, ‘No, Mum, I’m fine. Really. I wanted to come today. Dilys got the wrong end of the stick and she left without me.’
How could he possibly explain that Dilys had locked him in? She would never believe it.
Her chest heaved. ‘Yes. Dilys did say she had to.’
‘What do you mean “had to”?’
‘She said you were being unreasonable.’
‘By wanting to wear a coat?’
‘What? Nothing about a coat, darling. She was worried about the car journey.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Well, you know, your accident, darling, she was very worried, you know, with the children in the car, well… I’m sure you would never do such a thing, but…’ She sniffed.
‘Are you serious? She thinks I’d pull at the steering wheel or something? In some mad attempt to kill us all?’ John laughed.
‘Well, you’ve been through so much. We wouldn’t blame you if you were depressed.’
‘I’m not depressed, Mum! I know everyone would assume I was, but I’m not! I’m perfectly okay!’ John shouted.
‘Stop shouting. The children will hear.’
He took a deep breath and calmed himself down. ‘I’m not depressed,’ he repeated quietly. He wanted to add, I’m not Robert.
‘Dilys says you keep repeating this.’
‘Repeating it? I’ve never had to say it before, not once, and if you were living with me, it would be obvious I’m not depressed. Ask Martha. Ask Harry.’
‘Harry wouldn’t notice such a thing. And Martha is paid to be polite.’
‘Of course he would notice!’ John felt desperate. ‘Go on, ask him! Ask him how excited I was to come today! Ask him about the haircut he booked for me. Ask him, go on.’
‘I’m not going to ask him. Calm down. You don’t sound yourself at all. Now I see what Dilys means.’
‘Mum. Please. Please,’ he begged, clenching his jaw, forcing the frustration down. ‘Just jump in the car and come and fetch me. And ask Dilys for the front door keys. She locked me in. By mistake, I’m sure,’ he added.
‘Valentina has just served lunch. We’re about to sit down. I’m sorry, John, but I have to think of the children. They’ve been very disrupted lately and I want this to be a lovely, normal family lunch. They’ll still be here tomorrow, so have a good night’s sleep and get yourself better for then. I’d better go, darling. You get some sleep.’
The view of her neck moved to the floor, and John could hear the rustle of her trousers as she walked. ‘Harry, darling? Harry, how do you turn this blasted thing off?’
John called out, ‘Mum! Mum! Harry?’
Then the line went dead.
‘Mum!’ he cried, staring at the blank screen. ‘Francesca…’ John sobbed.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Francesca
‘Crumble, Francesca?’ Dilys asked, dangling a large spoonful over my head.
‘Yes, please.’
Dilys slopped it into my bowl, and a piece of burning-hot apple flicked onto my cheek and flecked my jumper.
‘Whoops!’ Dilys said, trying to mop me up with my napkin.
Of course, Dilys had got what she wanted and she was lording it over me.
Her smugness did not bother me as much as John’s absence.
I had not been able to get over my fury about his no-show. I was devastated that he had not made every effort humanly possible to make it here to see Alice. Perhaps it was heartless to judge him, but I could not quite settle on a good enough excuse for him. John had been the only reason I had agreed that Alice could stay for the weekend, the only reason I had agreed to the monthly visits. For weeks I had craved to see his face, to touch his hand, to hear his story. I had even brushed my hair, and scrubbed my fingernails and worn clean jeans, ridding myself for once of the paint in my hair and on my clothes and skin. I was permanently splattered with ‘Dove Grey’ since Jo had given me some work painting and decorating four rooms at Sea House.
John had been the reason I had motivated myself to find work. John was the reason I got out of bed in the mornings. John filled my thoughts all day, every day. I reckoned that if he was managing to cope, after everything he had been through, then I certainly could.
My face ached with my smile. I was play-acting my way through the hearty traditions of Byworth End and I hated myself for it. We were sitting around their kitchen table, behaving as though nothing had happened. In a warped way, I should have felt at home. There were shady lies that bound us together, their ties stronger than normality, more effective than functionality. But I wondered how much longer I could sit there with them playing happy families. Tomorrow, after breakfast, I would be able to make my escape, but it seemed like a very long way away.
‘This is delicious, Dilys,’ Patrick mumbled through a mouthful, having already tucked in.
‘How did you make it, Mum?’ Harry piped up, with a strange aggression in his tone. His
teenage nonchalance had disappeared, as if he’d had to grow up overnight since John’s accident. He seemed wound up like a spring.
‘One of Mum’s recipes from the valley,’ Dilys sang. ‘I can make it with my eyes closed.’
‘Wonderful,’ Camilla agreed, taking a small bite.
Her enthusiasm for Dilys’ cooking was a hint that this horrible lunch was anything other than normal. In the past, I would have expected Camilla to stir it up with a competitive remark. I almost willed it. But the conversation remained upbeat and jolly.
‘Mummy! Can I have your phone?’ Beatrice yelled across the table.
At this point, Dilys was deeply involved in a property conversation with Patrick and absent-mindedly replied, ‘Yes, it’s in my bag.’
Beatrice ran to the kitchen island and dragged Dilys’ huge red tote bag across the floor. Bits and bobs began to fall out. Two phones slipped out of the side pocket.
‘Stop it, chicky-dee,’ Valentina huffed. ‘It’s all coming out.’
Beatrice grabbed one of the phones, huge in her little hands.
‘This is Daddy’s phone!’ she cried, dropping it back into the bag and picking up the other phone. She trotted off to Alice with it.
Both Valentina and I stared down at the phone. No one else had noticed. The phone was switched off but it was definitely John’s. I recognised its brown leather cover. By the puzzled look on Valentina’s face, I imagined she, too, was thinking the same: what was Dilys doing with John’s phone? If he was at home without a mobile, was he safe? He had called Harry earlier via FaceTime, which suggested he was safe, but when I thought back to the tone of his voice when he had asked Camilla to talk to him in private, I began to worry. There was something about that phone being in her bag that was not right.
Valentina was not in a position to ask Dilys. But was I? Even less so than Valentina.
Quietly, I said to Valentina, ‘She must have put it in there by mistake, thinking it was hers.’ I put it back in the bag.
Valentina offered an upside-down smile. She said hurriedly, under her breath, ‘I no see John these days. We put the rolly-ramps, and do the toilet seat, voce entende? Si, si, but he never come.’ And she bustled off.
When Dilys came up behind me, I jumped and dropped the bag’s handles. ‘Sorry! Beatrice dropped all your stuff out and we were just putting it back.’
‘Beatrice!’ Dilys bellowed. ‘Come here!’
The whole family fell silent. Beatrice’s little face blanched as she looked up at her mother.
‘I’ve told you to keep out of my bag.’
‘But you said…’ Beatrice began.
‘Don’t answer me back,’ Dilys hissed, in a vicious tone, and she sat back down again next to Patrick, who pushed his chair a little away from her. He was sitting up straight, seemingly as perturbed by Dilys’ nasty outburst as I had been.
Unnerved, and unable to plaster the smile back onto my face again, I slipped out of the room, my phone in my pocket.
Once I was safely locked away in the downstairs loo, I tapped into FaceTime and tried to call John. The call failed.
I looked around me. The walls were papered in a floral meadow pattern. Hanging in wooden, artfully mismatched frames were dozens of childhood photographs of John and Robert. Grinning, grazed knees, muddy faces. And Camilla on stage, looking tragic in Shakespearean costumes. The pictures seemed to close in on me. The suffocating atmosphere of this house, with its low beams and small windows, smothered any of its beauty and luxury. Robert’s and John’s childhoods here – with their parents’ false bonhomie and rigid traditions and repressed feelings – must have been a nightmare. I could not wait to get out tomorrow; and, in the light of John’s absence, I had a strange feeling that I might never come back here again.
When I returned to the kitchen, they were chatting about a plan for tomorrow morning.
‘Can we go swimming, Grandma Cam-Cam?’ Alice asked.
‘The heating has been off all winter and it’s still freezing out there.’
‘We could put it on now and it’ll be warm for tomorrow?’ Patrick suggested.
Camilla looked out of the window, and said whimsically, ‘We’re late heating it this year. The daffodils are on their way out already.’
‘Please, Grandma Cam-Cam. It would be such fun,’ Olivia said primly.
‘If we must. As long as I don’t have to get in with you.’
‘Daddy can go in with us!’ Beatrice cried.
There was a stiff silence in the room. I caught Dilys’ eye, and waited for her to explain to her daughter that John would not be able to swim. But her face had frozen solid.
Olivia jumped down from the table, trotted over to her little sister and put her arm around her. Softly, she explained, ‘Daddy can’t swim any more, Buzzy Bea. But it’s okay, I’m big enough to swim with you.’
Tears came to my eyes.
I looked over at Camilla, who was fixated on her two grandchildren. The extra-heavy eyeliner blackened her sagging under-eyes. Her face was ravaged, in spite of her red lips. How much effort she had made to try to hide its cracks, and how little she had got away with. On the surface, yes, she was free, she was functioning, she was upholding the family traditions, maintaining the beautiful family pile, and the family reputation, beyond Byworth End’s walls; but I hoped that her inner life was a hellish turmoil, seething with regret and self-hatred.
‘Maybe your daddy can be the judge for a diving competition?’ I suggested, wanting to bring John into the plans somehow.
‘He’ll give me ten stars for mine!’ Beatrice cried.
‘I’ll probably come last.’ Alice giggled.
‘I always win,’ Olivia said.
Dilys came to life again, and spoke up. ‘Well, let’s not get our hopes up about Daddy coming tomorrow.’
‘You don’t think he’ll be better by then?’ I asked her, with a sharp twinge of suspicion.
She sucked her teeth and stretched her lips back. ‘Well, he was very poorly today.’
‘I’m sure he’ll be fine,’ Camilla barked, clearing some plates away.
‘I’ll look after him tonight and make sure he gets to bed early,’ Dilys said. ‘In fact, I should probably get back to him quite soon.’
There was a false note in her show of sympathy. She was trying too hard to play the loving wife. The insincerity slid through every word.
Considering her violent history and my discovery of his phone in her handbag, I decided that I would try to get hold of John that evening, just to make sure that Dilys was looking after him as she should.
Chapter Fifty-Five
John
When John woke up, he saw that Dilys had still not returned his wheelchair to his bedside. Without his chair, he had not been able to self-catheterise the night before. He was now lying in his own urine, which he could not feel on his legs, but could feel up his back. Hot shame and fear engulfed him, just as it had when Valentina had caught him as a boy, stuffing the sheet into the washing machine.
Worse now. He was a grown man. Worse still, it was Sunday. Martha would not be there to clean it up and fuss about bedsores and insist she inspect his backside with her professional lack of embarrassment. Instead, he would have to call for Dilys, who would tell him off and humiliate him. He would disgust her.
But he could not delay getting help. It was too dangerous. If his skin broke, it could get infected and he could be back in the hospital.
‘Dilys!’ he cried. ‘Dilys! Dilys!’
The thick oak doors must have stopped the sound of his voice from travelling.
He lay there staring at the ceiling, feeling the agonising ache in his stiff joints, exacerbated by his acute stress.
Why isn’t there any noise outside the door? he thought. He listened, barely breathing in case he missed a child’s chatter or footstep. They might have been instructed to leave him alone, to let him sleep. All three of his children had shown so much attention and sensitivity and nervousness aroun
d him, so they would be doing just as Mummy said, and leaving him to rest. He wished Beatrice would return to her naughty self and barge into his room, ignoring Dilys’ orders. Before his accident, she would ignore John’s orders all the time, much to his frustration. Now, all three of them were as good as gold for Dilys. He didn’t like it. It was unnatural. They were scared of her, jumpy around her, waiting for her mood to turn, on a knife-edge. He remembered his mother being similar. Her moods had made homelife stressful. John had always felt like an irritant to his mother. He was too dreamy, too slow, too disorganised, too whiney.
‘Harry!’ he yelled.
There was absolute silence in the house.
After another ten minutes of calling out, it finally dawned on him that Dilys had purposefully left him there to fester in his own warm piss. Had they gone to Byworth End without him again? Cursing himself for sleeping late, he slammed his fist into the wall and wailed into the chasm of his empty house, until he was hoarse and torpid.
Eventually, John sat up, groaning with the ache. The journey from the bed to the door was about twelve feet. Would he be able to fall out of bed safely? He knew he could bum-shuffle to the door, but he had no idea where Dilys had put his wheelchair and his panic alarm. His upper body wasn’t strong enough to carry the dead weight of his legs around too far. But he had to try. He had no choice. If he stayed in this wet bed all day, his skin would rub and rash and break, like a child’s skin in a wet nappy.
Having managed to roll off the bed, he shuffled over to the chest. From the floor, he couldn’t reach the drawer where his clean trousers had been neatly folded by Martha. He pulled off his pyjama bottoms, knowing he could not risk staying in damp clothes, but he kept on his mostly dry pyjama top for warmth.
As he dragged himself across the rough carpet of his bedroom to the corridor, his nakedness, his wasted legs, the smell of urine on his skin, his ungainly movement, shocked him. He stopped, confronted by the full impact of his own uselessness. He had never known it was possible to feel humiliated while nobody was there to see him. His gut roiled at the thought of this state he found himself in, and he experienced a vivid flashback of the accident.
