The Lost Daughters: A moving saga of womanhood

by Whitmee, Jeanne

  Far below his hotel window was the street, asleep now and grubby with the day’s traffic. But it would be washed clean by morning before anyone was up. What bliss if one’s life could be washed clean of cares and guilt each morning.

  The pavement was bordered by shops, neat and clean, their windows tempting with artistically displayed wares. Above the little town the mountains rose in a majestic, snow-capped sweep, proud and protective. In the quiet of the night he could hear the sound of water as it flowed from the springs high in the mountains to feed the lake below. He imagined it, chuckling over smooth stones as it rippled along the channels carved out over the centuries; falling in sparkling cascades over rocky crags to run finally, tamed and subdued, gurgling under the roads through the little man-made culverts on its way to the lake. When the springs froze in winter, the lake gradually dried up and became a snow-filled hole in the ground bereft of its lifeblood until the warmth of spring released it and the little town laughed with the sound of living water once again.

  Gerald felt his own lifeblood freeze as the words of Doctor Gruber echoed inside his head. Gruber was the consultant he had seen that morning at the clinic in Zurich. He had undergone all the tests and now had the initial diagnosis confirmed by two consultants, the finest in their field in the world. One in Edinburgh and one in Switzerland both recommended to him in New York by Dr Brewster. Could he really turn his back on the truth any longer? He was still comparatively young. In his prime some might say, certainly at the height of his career. Everything in him railed against the prospect of winding down, as he had been advised. To bow out now, just when he was getting rave notices; just when he knew the exhilaration of being considered the cream of his profession. It was unthinkable. But every time he rebelled against it he was pulled up sharply by the memory of that concert in New York. The terrifying night when his memory had failed him and his fingers had turned into useless lumps of dead flesh. That must never happen again. He dare not risk the shame, the humiliation. But what to do?

  Still reeling from the shock in the clinic this morning he had vaguely heard Doctor Gruber telling him that with the proper drugs and treatments, a healthy diet and sensible lifestyle, he could still lead a full and useful life. He had wanted to shout, asking what a full and useful life meant when the whole purpose of one’s existence had gone. Now he remembered the man’s voice as he made his calm pronouncement. Soothing, placatory. His eyes all compassion as he handed out what to Gerald amounted to a death sentence. Oh yes, the man had a good bedside manner, he’d give him that, Gerald told himself bitterly. No doubt he could turn it on and off at will, like a tap. Well, so he should. God knew he was paid enough for it.

  He sighed. Drugs. The proper treatment. A sensible lifestyle. What did all that add up to? A regimen of pilltaking or injections that would reduce his brain to a senile pulp? A boring diet of lettuce leaves, lentil casseroles and non-alcohol wine? No parties or late nights? No cigarettes? No driving? What was the point? He might as well be dead, he decided hopelessly, blinking back the bitter tears that scalded his eyes. He pictured his friends’ shocked faces. Oh, they would show compassion. Some of them might even be sincere — to begin with. They would certainly feel sorry for him, but in spite of their pity they would eventually drop him. Poor old Gerald. He’s finished, you know. Cant play any more. Can’t do anything really. So sad at his age, isn’t it? It was difficult and embarrassing, being around sick people. He should know. He’d avoided them himself in the past.

  There were other things in his past that he wasn’t proud of. Was this illness some kind of retribution? he asked himself. His past misdeeds catching up with him? What was it the mystics called it — Karma? He thought of Daniel Oldham, the person who had been his best friend in their student days. He had treated him badly all those years ago, yet the man had come to him for help when he needed it. Perhaps this was his chance to redeem himself.

  This morning after his consultation he had left the clinic like a man in a dream. All he had wanted was to get away from the bustle of the city and be alone to think. He had taken the little mountain train and come here to the only place where he could relax in familiar surroundings. Now he must make himself think about the future. Face up to what was left of his life and decide what to do with it.

  Tomorrow. He smiled wryly as a hackneyed phrase leapt into his mind. Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life. Well, it would be that all right. Whatever happened, whatever he decided, he had things to do and people to see. What was the term they used? Putting one’s affairs in order. His heart felt like lead in his chest. It wasn’t exactly something to look forward to.

  At last he slept. And when he wakened the sun was rising over the mountain tops. It was the way he loved to begin the day, which was why when he came here he always slept with the shutters open. Slipping out of bed, he pulled on his dressing gown and went out on to the balcony. The air was sharp and pure, clear as crystal as it hit the back of his throat. He breathed it deeply into his lungs and felt it strengthen him and lift his spirit. He watched as the sun outlined the mountain-tops in silver. The craggy peaks turned from grey through violet and rose to palest lemon, then to burning gold as the sun rose triumphantly above them into an azure sky. It was a sight he never tired of and his heart soared. He felt so well. He couldn’t be ill. It wasn’t possible.

  Sitting on the balcony in the quiet of dawn he made himself think. He’d let his agent go ahead with the coming season’s bookings. There were three Promenade Concerts booked; the tail end of his recording contract still to fulfil and a tour of cathedral cities with the LSO. He’d manage the recording but, as for the concerts, he would have to cancel them all. There was nothing else for it. He dared not risk another live performance. And the sooner he spoke to his agent about it, the better. This must be his priority. He took a leisurely bath and shaved, then rang down to room service for breakfast.

  Over hot coffee and croissants with his favourite black cherry jam he laid his plans carefully. So far no one knew about the diagnosis except of course the three doctors he had consulted. Only Carl Kramer had witnessed his lapse at the New York concert. He would write to him and thank him for his concern and for recommending the doctor, tell him it was caused by exhaustion and that he was fine now. No one need know the real reason for his retirement. No one at all apart from his doctors. He was damned if he would submit himself to the humiliation of their pity. He would find a place to live — a permanent home. That was the one thing he had never had. No more travelling. He found that the idea appealed to him. The moment he got back to England he would contact the estate agents and start searching. Somewhere in the Cotswolds perhaps — or Dorset; peaceful and serene. It would be something to look forward to.

  As soon as he knew that his agent, James Kendrick, would be in the office he rang down to Reception and asked them to put through a call to London for him.

  When the telephone rang James himself was at the other end. ‘Hi there, Gerry. What can I do for you?’

  When he made his announcement there was a silence at the other end of the line. Then James said incredulously: ‘Retiring? Are you mad? What the hell are you talking about, Gerry?’

  ‘What I say. I’m giving up.’

  ‘But — but for how long?’

  ‘For good. I’m taking an early retirement.’

  James spluttered incoherently at the other end. ‘Look, what’s happened to make you decide a thing like that? Has something upset you? Anyway, what the bloody hell are you doing in Switzerland? I think you’d better come home pretty damned quick and talk about this, don’t you? I mean, in case you’ve forgotten, you’ve got commitments.’

  ‘I know. I’ll do the album for Zenith, but I want you to cancel the rest — the concerts.’

  ‘Cancel? You’re out of your tiny mind! Look, what’s going on?’

  ‘Okay, okay. I’ll come home. I’ll see you tomorrow, but I won’t change my mind, James. So you’d better get on and cancel those concer
t dates right away. We don’t want anyone suing us, do we?’ An irate James was still demanding to know what was happening when Gerald hung up. It was going to be a damned sight harder than he’d envisaged. He might even have to confide in James after all, but he’d swear him to secrecy. He began to pack. There was a train for Zurich at midday. He could catch a late-afternoon flight and be back in London this evening.

  Chapter Seven

  It was summer before Cathy saw Gerald again. He kept in touch, of course. From time to time she would receive a postcard, a brief message scribbled on the back. Her allowance was paid into the bank regularly on the first of every month too. But then Gerald had nothing to do with that. It was arranged at the bank on a standing order.

  She thought about him a lot during the early months of the year, remembering the way he had confided in her on Christmas Day. She wondered why he didn’t telephone or come to see her. Even if he was away he must come back to London occasionally. She wondered about his decision to retire too. Perhaps he had changed his mind by now. He had seemed a little depressed at Christmas. People often made hasty decisions when they were depressed. Maybe he had found a doctor who could cure this rare stiffness of the joints thing he had. By the look of the cards he sent he had been travelling again: Switzerland, Edinburgh, but she had no idea whether he was working or not. If he wasn’t playing Cathy could only guess at the reason for his absence, if reason there was.

  She’d said nothing to anyone about her conversation with Gerald on Christmas Day. Johnny had been surprised and slightly put out when she had discovered that he wasn’t taking up her invitation to spend Boxing Day with them. She’d remarked rather tartly to Cathy that she would have thought he had better manners than to wait until the last minute and then send a message with her.

  ‘He could have telephoned me,’ she said resentfully. ‘I daresay he’s got a better invitation from one of his famous friends. I suppose the likes of us aren’t exciting enough.’

  In her chair by the window Mrs Bains gave a meaningful sniff that said more than mere words ever could.

  Cathy burned to tell them that they were sadly misjudging him, but she had promised. Her lips were sealed.

  Her course in Home Economics was almost through its first year. In the initial few months it had all been new and interesting, but lately Cathy had found it becoming tedious. Long warm summer days spent learning how to apply physics and chemistry to household skills seemed endless when everything outside the window hummed with the glorious promise of summer. Environmental studies were more interesting, entailing visits to housing estates, both urban and rural, but while they stood grouped around their tutor, hearing about modern drainage methods and the horrors of Victorian sanitation, Cathy longed to be by the sea or in the countryside. Back in college there were lectures on the basics of architecture and the structure of the domestic house. A lot of it was very interesting but somehow it failed to absorb Cathy. Before long she began to feel that Miss Hanley had been right and she might have chosen unwisely. The course didn’t stimulate her imagination — didn’t stretch her enough.

  Her weekend job was pleasant enough. The Queen’s Head was a small hotel and Mrs Gresham, the manageress, and the rest of her staff were kind and friendly, patiently helping Cathy over her first fumbling attempts at waitressing and her ineptitude in the kitchen. It was a far cry from helping Johnny at home, but she enjoyed the work once she’d become accustomed to the routine. She even eventually grew used to Raymond, the frighteningly volatile chef, whose explosive and unpredictable bark, she soon learned, was much worse than his bite. But she couldn’t envisage herself choosing hotel work as a future career, unlike Rosalind Blair whose burning ambition seemed to be to run a hotel of her own.

  She and Rosalind had become quite friendly since they had started working together at the hotel. Rosalind was grateful to Cathy for tipping her off about the weekend job at the Queen’s Head and, more recently, she had been delighted when her temporary job was extended to a permanent one. She was so keen and eager to learn, which made her popular with the rest of the staff. She certainly seemed to have an aptitude for the work. She seemed a shy girl, hesitant and diffident, but her natural reserve seemed to disappear magically when she was dealing with people. It was almost as though she became a different person. Cathy grew to like her more and more as the months went by.

  Gradually coming out of her shell, Rosalind confided to Cathy that she was desperately anxious to earn some money. She explained that her divorced mother had recently remarried and she didn’t want to be a burden on her and the new step-father for any longer than was absolutely necessary.

  Hearing about Rosalind’s circumstances made Cathy wonder how she would have felt if her father had ever decided to marry again, and she decided that it would have been quite hard to accept, especially if she had resented the woman as much as Rosalind appeared to resent her new step-father. Since Daniel’s death she had thought about her mother a great deal, wondering at her father’s acceptance of her betrayal. She was convinced that if someone she loved let her down like that she would never get over it. She was sure she had not inherited Daniel’s sweet, forgiving nature.

  It had been early in the spring when Matthew had begun to invite Cathy out. Neither of them had much spare time and because of this neither of them had many friends, but they found they shared similar tastes in music and films. When West Side Story came to the Roxy, Matthew asked her to go with him. The beautiful, sad story made a deep impression on Cathy and the strong vibrant music of Leonard Bernstein reminded her sharply of the bitter-sweet melodies that used to echo through the house in Laburnum Close when her father was shut away on one of his creative sessions. She saved up and bought the album, playing it upstairs in her room on the record player Daniel had bought her on her fifteenth birthday. Somehow it reminded her of her father. If only he’d had more confidence in his musical abilities, she felt sure that he too could have been a famous composer.

  Since seeing West Side Story together, Cathy and Matthew had been to the cinema several times and once or twice to dances. He was good company. Quiet and thoughtful by nature, his reactions were comfortably predictable. But although the other young people they knew began to link their names together, looking upon them as a couple, Cathy never thought of him as anything but a friend.

  By the end of June she had decided that Gerald had slipped out of her life for good. She resigned herself to the fact that the novelty of having a ward had worn off for him. Sometimes she asked herself if he could have dropped her because of something she had said or done. When she remembered the brazen way she had kissed him at Christmas she went hot all over with shame. At the time it had seemed all right; a perfectly natural thing to do. Now she saw that she had revealed herself as naive and childish. It was just as well he had decided not to see her, she told herself. Remembering that occasion she would have been too embarrassed to look him in the eye.

  It was just two weeks before the end of term when she swung into the house one afternoon, calling out to Johnny, as she always did, to tell her she was home. She was hanging her jacket on the hallstand when the door of the front room opened and there he stood — Gerald, a wide smile on his face.

  ‘Cathy!’

  She felt the hot blood creeping up her neck and into her face, ‘Oh! Oh, hello,’ she said weakly.

  He laughed. ‘You look shocked.’

  ‘I’m surprised. I didn’t see the car.’

  ‘I parked it in the next street. I wanted to surprise you. Well?’ He took a step towards her. ‘You don’t seem very pleased to see me.’

  She blushed. ‘I thought I never would any more,’ she said stiffly. ‘I thought maybe you’d gone abroad — or forgotten about me, or something.’

  ‘If I’d known you were missing me that much I’d have come sooner.’ His eyes teased her. ‘Come on, admit it. You’ve been much too busy enjoying college to give your poor old guardian a thought.’

  She stared at him. Ho
w could he be so wrong about the way she felt? And how dare he walk in as though he had seen her only yesterday?

  Seeing the flush that coloured her cheeks and the expression in her eyes his smile vanished and he reached out to take her hand and draw her towards him. ‘You really are upset, aren’t you? I’m sorry, Cathy. If I’d known … ’

  ‘It’s all right. Of course I’m not upset,’ she said, panic sharpening her voice. ‘And you’re right. I have been busy. Time’s absolutely flown. So — what brings you here now? Were you just passing or do you have time to stay for a few minutes?’

  ‘Mrs Johnson has very kindly invited me to tea.’ He was looking at her oddly. ‘But actually I’ve told her I can’t stay.’

  ‘No? Oh, well, it can’t be helped. It was nice seeing you anyway.’ Her heart beating fast, she began to push past him towards the stairs, reaching for the newel post, but he stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.

  ‘Cathy!’ He looked seriously concerned and her anger faded a little. ‘Look, the reason I can’t stay for tea is because I’ve booked a table for two — for dinner.’

  ‘I see. Then we mustn’t keep you.’

  ‘For us, silly. For you and me. I want to talk to you.’

  ‘To me? What about?’

  He raised an eyebrow at her. ‘Why not come along and see?’ He looked into her eyes. I’m serious. I really do need your opinion on something. Something very important.’

  He was humouring her. Just as though she were ten years old. A truculent child who had to be indulgently coaxed out of a bad mood. Tears of angry frustration pricked at her eyelids. Did he really think he could ignore her for months and then come back and expect her to behave as though he’d never been away? Avoiding his eyes she said, ‘I don’t think I can make it this evening, Gerald. I’ve got some work to do. I’m afraid it won’t wait.’