by Susan Moody
‘When she died, it was the end of our lives,’ Mr Johnson whispered. According to the crime reporter, half the jury was in tears.
Farnham’s defence team did their best, calling upon his war-record, his exemplary teaching career, the dangers he had faced during the war, citing an incident where he was pulled out of a burning tank with thirty per cent burns to his body, an incident which his wife testified still gave him nightmares, but in the face of Farnham’s confession, there was little they could do except plead mitigating circumstances.
Counsel for the Prosecution summed up in a moving speech, which ended as follows:
You have heard how this little girl, trembling on the brink of womanhood, went back to the house where she felt entirely at home, in order to recover the scarf she had left behind. Once inside, she encountered the defendant, the father of her best friend, a man she had known virtually all her life.
Imagine her shock as he lunged at her. Imagine how helpless she must have felt as he tore at her clothing. Imagine her terror as he slowly squeezed the life out of her. Imagine how she must have scrabbled in vain at the iron band of the scarf around her neck – her own scarf, Ladies and Gentlemen. We have heard that she loved her friend, the defendant’s daughter, that she loved and was loved by her parents, that she was a gifted young artist who hoped one day to turn her talent into a career. I wonder what her last thoughts were as consciousness faded. Did she think of her parents, or her friend, or of the life she would never now live, the dreams she would never fulfil? I ask you to bear in mind that only a timely phone-call from his deputy headmaster saved this child from further degradation.
Imagine the grief and shame Geoffrey Farnham has brought upon his family. The only mitigating factor in what is otherwise a senseless and appalling crime, is that the defendant has pleaded guilty in order to spare his loved ones from a long, drawn-out ordeal.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, if you feel that beyond any reasonable doubt Geoffrey Farnham bears full responsibility for the unlawful killing of Valerie Anne Johnson, it is your duty to find him guilty.’
Which, in record time, they duly did.
After the verdict, after Geoffrey Farnham was led down to the cells, and then transferred to prison to serve his sentence, the papers let rip with think-pieces by the columnists.
Valerie Johnson died at the hands of a sexual predator. This must not happen again . . .
Is it time that Parliament introduced legislation in order to vet our teachers? . . .
. . . this appalling double betrayal of innocent trust, for not only was Farnham an adult entrusted with the well-being of our youngsters, he was also the father of the victim’s best friend . . .
Who Can They Trust? . . .
I turn the last page and read a further paragraph, cut from the Maidstone & Rochester Times:
MURDER VICTIM BURIED
Valerie Anne Johnson, 11, was interred today in the graveyard of St Peter & St Philip, Madden, in Kent. The ceremony was quiet, and attended only by family and close friends. Mrs Louise Farnham, wife of the man now serving a twenty year jail sentence for Valerie’s murder was also briefly present.
A final paragraph mentions the fact that Valerie’s maternal grandparents, Mr and Mrs Herbert Treadwell, farmed nearby, that he was a Justice of the Peace and that his wife was highly regarded for the active part she took in the community. Valerie was also well known in the village, since she had spent many holidays on her grandfather’s farm. There are photographs of the churchyard, the grandparents’ farm, the sorrowing parents, holding hands each day as they attend the court hearings. And Valerie herself, a snapshot of her sitting in a deckchair somewhere sandy and rocky, with the usual anonymous features of pre-adolescence: round face, slightly protruding teeth being straightened by a brace, hair kept back in a velvet band. She wears a thin gold chain round her neck as Nicola did, a similar white blouse with puffed sleeves, she grins at the camera. I wonder if the two girls saved up, went together to buy the chains, vowed eternal friendship. It seems dreadful that both of them were dead within two years of each other.
There is a lump in my throat as I reach the end of this sad and shocking story. Perhaps it was no wonder that Nicola had been so disturbed a personality. Not only to have found her best friend dead in her bedroom, but to discover further that her own father was responsible for the crime . . . Anyone might be slightly unbalanced after having suffered two such devastating traumas.
I think of my childhood. Of Mrs Miniver. Geoffrey Farnham was only one of thousands who returned from the front struggling with an inner disturbance. I think of Gordon Parker, the fatherless boys and their genteelly desperate mothers, of Bertram Yelland, Miss Vane, Ava, Fiona. For them and countless others, the years of deprivation and ever-present danger were probably still having some kind of effect.
I never think of myself as particularly subtle or sensitive to other people, but as I close Ava’s album, I wonder just how effective the police investigation had been. Although they had extensively interviewed everyone who had been at the party, they had no way of assessing the ebb and flow, the rivalries and subterfuges which existed between us all, or even being aware of them. Did they know that Julian was infatuated with Nicola? That Orlando hated her? That I was frightened by her or that Yelland was sexually abusing her?
Back then, so many people who appeared to be coping with life in post-war Britain were in reality made quietly desperate by the years of hardship that they had endured. When we were growing up, how sane were any of the adults in our lives?
How sane am I, holding a torch for a man I have only seen once in twenty years?
How sane have I been, attempting to flee my memories?
EIGHT
Gordon is waiting for me when I walk into the library the next morning. ‘I was so afraid you didn’t get my message,’ he twitters, bustling me into his office. He seems hyper-excited, eyes wide with anticipation of my reaction at whatever it is he wants to tell me. For a while he fusses about with kettles and tea bags, mugs and milk, until finally he sits down opposite me in a chair so low its seat is practically on the floor.
He sips his tea, grimaces, puts his mug down on the bleached wood coffee table between us. ‘My dear, you’ll hardly credit this . . . talk about coincidences!’
‘Gordon, would you please get on with it before I expire from curiosity.’
‘Well . . . you know when we had lunch the other day, I gave you a ticket for the concert in the Town Hall?’
‘Tomorrow night,’ I say, nodding.
‘Well, we had a phone call yesterday afternoon, to say that Helena Warburton’s accompanist has gone down with the dreaded lurgie, and they’d have to find a replacement. And guess who they came up with!’
I look blank, but my heart begins to thud painfully.
‘None other than . . . ta dah! . . . Alexander Elias! Isn’t that the most amazing thing you ever heard, especially after you were asking about him such a short time ago!’
I don’t want to disappoint Gordon. ‘You’re absolutely right. It’s totally amazing.’ It is more than that. It is fate, I am sure. I find that my hands are trembling.
‘So you’ll be there tomorrow?’
‘I wouldn’t miss it for worlds.’ At the same time, I feel suddenly nauseous, apprehensive. ‘Are there any spare tickets? I have someone coming down for the weekend. You might even remember her– Erin O’Grady. She used to come and stay at Glenfield House in the holidays.’
‘The American girl? From California, wasn’t it? Yes, indeed I do remember her. She always wore such elegant clothes, a nice touch of glamour for us shabby survivors of clothes rationing! Do please bring her along. There’s a little reception beforehand, where they usually serve a pretty good hock and some delicious nibbles. Made by Diedre, our musical director’s wife – she’s Cordon Bleu trained so they’re not to be sneezed at.’
‘That’s good to know,’ I say.
‘And after the concert, we usually ta
ke the visiting artistes out for dinner – or back to Diedre and Malcolm’s place. I asked about inviting you as my guest and they’re delighted to have you along. So we’ll get a chance to have a good old natter with Elias.’
I don’t want a natter, I want an explanation. I want . . . what do I want? A renewal, a conclusion? I’m not sure.
‘Ghastly old Bertram’s also going to be there,’ Gordon continues. ‘I ran into him – or, rather, his belly – in the High Street yesterday, and he assured me that I could count on his presence.’
‘So basically it’s going to be Old Home Week at the Town Hall tomorrow.’
‘Old Glenfield House Week. Maybe we should start a club.’
The sea lies flat as paper, barely moving. Where the tide chews at the pebbles, gulls wheel and dive, descending in crowds on the intestines of a fish at the edge of the water, tearing at sea-distressed milk cartons, empty crab shells, with their rapacious beaks.
I walk across the sand dunes with a gathering breeze in my hair. Clouds are assembling low on the horizon, the first I’ve seen for weeks. In the middle distance, golfers move here and there, backs bent as they drag golf carts across baize-smooth grass, or stand cursing in the rough, beating at overgrown summer weeds in the hope of finding lost balls.
Tomorrow I shall see Sasha again. My palms perspire at the thought. Yet he and I have both moved on, we can now have nothing at all in common except a fugitive memory of long-passed summer weeks. Or has he been waiting for me, just as I have waited for him? The sensations I experienced in Paris inflate my heart. After all this time, shall I finally find what I have been looking for?
I feel optimistic for the first time in months, if not years. Yet, to my surprise, when I examine this sentiment, it has nothing to do with the prospect of seeing Sasha again. Rather, it is a sense of achieving something, as though I were building a house from playing cards and for once, they are not falling down as I attempt to place the next layer. Perhaps playing cards is too flimsy a metaphor. Perhaps I mean that I feel that I have built something on sand, only to find that the sand is in fact solid rock. But no single element stands out to validate this unaccustomed buoyancy. Maybe it’s the fact that at last, instead of running, I am turning to look my demons squarely in the face.
Back in my flat, I telephone Orlando in London. ‘Come down,’ I urge him.
‘Any particular reason?’
‘Sasha Elias is playing here at the Town Hall tomorrow.’
‘Ah.’
I ignore his sardonic tone. ‘Erin’s coming too, so you can liaise with her. We’ll have supper here first.’
‘Sasha Elias on his own isn’t nearly enough to drag me down there,’ he says. ‘But you and Erin are more than sufficient temptation. I’ll catch the four o’clock from Charing Cross.’
Orlando and Erin arrive at six, carrying wine, port, a ripe Stilton, a tender tart. Erin is wearing a tiny flared micro-skirt in pink and green checks, with green platform soles which make her long legs look even longer. She and Orlando make a handsome couple, both tall and striking, both people who stand out from the herd. It’s been a long time since the three of us were together, our various occupations sometimes sending us in opposite directions for months, if not years at a time, and an even longer one since we ate a meal together.
‘Alice, Alice,’ Orlando says, taking me into his arms. ‘You don’t know how I’ve missed you.’
I hug him. Safe at last. Mon semblable, mon frère. I know a measure of peace for the first time for ages. ‘I’ve missed you too, more than I can say.’
He opens the stripped pine cupboard set into the corner between two walls near the kitchen and takes out three glasses. He wrests the cork from one of the bottles and pours wine for us all. We toast each other, sit on the window-seat and watch the light fading down towards dusk, not saying much. Just above the horizon, the sky is the purest of crystalline duck-egg blues.
While I organize bread rolls, salad, bowls, Orlando prowls. He picks up the top sheet of a pile of papers on my work table, a copy of the report I’ve just completed for Brussels. ‘Jesus wept,’ he says, ‘this sounds boring.’
‘It is.’
‘Why don’t you do something more creative, for God’s sake?’
‘That’s what I keep saying,’ says Erin. ‘She should be translating art books or fiction or poetry, something closer to her real interests.’
I remove the sheet of paper from Orlando’s grasp. ‘I do this because coal and steel pays well.’
‘Nobody needs money that bad.’
‘Also, I have a reputation to maintain.’
‘If you do much more of this, honey, you’ll lose the will to live.’ Erin flicks a bronze-varnished fingernail at my work. ‘Face it, we only have one life so why waste it on teeth-itchingly boring crap like this?’
Orlando takes hold of my shoulders so I’m directly in front of him. ‘Alice, you’re in a rut. Do something else. If you’ve got a reputation, ask for something more stimulating. Biography, history, novels . . . there’s a world of fascinating work out there if you want it.’
‘Other translators have more of a literary standing than I have.’
‘Then find something that no one’s thought about translating yet. Or better still, why work for someone else at all? Why not set up your own business? You’re more than qualified to do so.’
I know he’s right. They’re both right. If I weren’t so mired in inertia, this is of course what I would do. ‘Actually, I’ve already had a feeler from a publishing house in Spain . . .’
‘Get in there, babes,’ Erin says.
‘Maybe I will. But meanwhile, let’s eat.’ I set a steaming tureen between us at the table, place bowls of rouille, croutons and grated cheese within easy reach. ‘You can pig out since, apart from cheese and a salad, this is all we’re having.’
Erin picks up her soup spoon. ‘It smells likes heaven.’
‘A fish-flavoured paradise?’ Orlando wrinkles his elegant nose. ‘Wonder how God would feel about that.’
As we empty the second bottle, I remember Vi Sheffield’s question. Slightly tipsy, I say, ‘Orlando, are you happy?’
‘How do we know if we’re happy?’ counters Orlando. ‘Are you?’
‘I asked first.’
‘Well, then . . .’ He looks down at the table, making it hard to read his expression. ‘Most of the time I am, I suppose, content. Sometimes, like right now, I might even be termed happy. And you?’
‘If I’m honest, I’m content a lot of the time, but not wildly happy.’
‘That’s me in a nutshell,’ says Erin.
‘I guess I’m getting a little tired of . . . of running away.’
‘So young and so jaded,’ Erin says.
‘Thirty-two isn’t young.’
‘Unless you’re thirty-three.’
‘On the other hand,’ says Orlando, ‘why ask the question? It presupposes that one ought to be happy and is somehow failing if one is not.’
‘Which just makes everyone even more hassled, because as well as not being totally happy, they’re also a failure,’ Erin adds.
‘You, of course, come from a country whose entire ethos is dedicated to the proposition that not only ought we to be happy, we deserve to be,’ says Orlando. ‘This is a concept I find difficult to hold on to for more than a minute. Why should we be happy?’
‘Why shouldn’t we?’ counters Erin.
Orlando looks at me. ‘What do you think, Alice-of-my-heart?’
I consider my position, slowly clearing away the bowls, bringing the salad and the cheese board to the table. ‘I . . . I think I might be happy – I mean I believe I have the capacity for happiness, whatever that means – if I didn’t feel the past standing over me all the time, with its foot on my chest, pinning me to the floor.’
‘Nicola’s murder, you mean,’ Erin says.
‘I suppose that’s it.’
‘“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back c
easlessly into the past,”’ Orlando says. ‘You’ve got to move on, Alice. I told you that the other day on the phone.’
‘I thought I had. But recently I’ve been having nightmares more and more often, ghastly dreams of blood and pain, waking up terrified of something, I don’t know what, with tears in my eyes.’
‘Maybe you need therapy, hon.’
‘Part of it has to do with the fact that they never got anyone for it. The murder, I mean. It’s still hanging there, unresolved.’ I look at Orlando almost pleadingly. ‘Don’t you feel that?’
‘Very rarely.’
‘Do you ever wonder who was responsible?’
‘Not really.’ He cuts into a softly oozing Camembert. ‘And even if I did, I’d find it hard to condemn. It’s a terrible thing to say, but I think Nicola got more or less what she was asking for.’
‘That sounds heartless,’ says Erin.
‘Of course it is. But that doesn’t make it any the less true. And although I’ll never get completely over seeing her lying there that morning, for me, the worst thing has always been the fact that if you analyse the probabilities, it’s almost got to be one of us, hasn’t it?’
‘Do you mean the family?’
‘Someone who was there that night, at the party.’
‘I wonder.’ I tell them about the squeak of the gate, Nicola’s surprised expression. ‘Someone she knew, but wasn’t expecting.’
‘Not a passing tramp, for heaven’s sake,’ says Erin.
‘Of course not.’
‘Just because you heard the gate doesn’t mean it wasn’t someone we knew.’ Orlando refills our glasses. ‘It was a gorgeous evening, as I remember, just like this one. Moon shining, balmy air, all that sort of thing. Several people walked down to the beach at different times. For instance, I saw Julian out there at some point, though I don’t know if he was with Nicola. I saw Gordon Parker, and Yelland, later in the evening. And Callum was on the beach with some girl, and I know Dougal organized a swimming party. I walked down there myself, as a matter of fact. The sea was like warm milk. So the fact that you heard the gate scraping open doesn’t eliminate any of the people in the house.’
