by Judy Nunn
It was a rhetorical question and Julian remained breathlessly still as Alex leaned back in his chair with his hands behind his head.
‘It started out as a dare,’ he said.
As Alex carefully recounted every detail of that summer’s day nine years ago, Julian tried as hard as he could to contain his horror. It was only when the image of Tim’s white, drained body was indelibly printed in his mind; when the image of the broken man kneeling in the blood beside the boy was more than he could bear; when little Lexie’s voice was ringing in his ears … ‘he killed himself, Dad’ … it was only then Julian managed to tear his attention away from Alex.
He concentrated on a squashed cigarette butt beside his right shoe, wishing he’d never heard what Alex had just told him, realising that he’d listened compulsively and now, compulsively, he had to know more.
‘Why did you tell your father Tim killed himself?’
During the telling of his story, Alex had wondered whether he’d made an error of judgment, whether he’d chosen the wrong listener. He’d been wanting to tell one of the three people who loved him about Tim for quite a while now. Maddy was out of the question, of course, she’d never have coped, but Alex now thought that maybe he should have chosen Harold.
‘Why did you tell your father Tim killed himself?’ Julian repeated the question.
‘Because he did kill himself,’ Alex replied.
Julian didn’t pursue it further. He had too many other questions. ‘Why didn’t you go for help?’
Alex relaxed. No, he hadn’t chosen the wrong listener. Julian was riveted. He was shocked and repulsed and he would see Alex through different eyes from this day on, but he was riveted.
Nevertheless Alex decided it was time to soften the blow a little. He frowned slightly as he considered the question. ‘I suppose I must have been in a state of shock. That’s what everyone said, anyway. And I was sent to psychiatrists for the next couple of years.’ Julian waited for him to go on and Alex shrugged obligingly. ‘They didn’t find any answers.’ His smile was deeply apologetic. ‘I guess I was a pretty weird kid.’
It was true that psychiatric treatment had been of no use to little Lexie—there had apparently been nothing to treat.
Psychiatric treatment had also been of no use to Brian Rainford who agonised over why his ten year old son would want to take his own life.
Everyone told him it had been an accident but when the inquest report stated that the boy had fired the gun himself and when young Lexie, the only witness to the event, stood firm in his conviction that Tim had killed himself, Brian Rainford was tormented by massive guilt.
The inquest report also revealed that it had taken an hour and a half for Tim to die. The thought that Lexie had sat and watched and the knowledge that the boy might still be alive if he’d received instant medical attention was more than Brian could bear. He’d failed his eldest son who’d suicided and he had to face the fact that his youngest son was a monster.
Two months after the shooting Brian Rainford was retired from the police force on medical grounds. His resilient wife Trish, who at times so wanted to give in as well, had no option but to grit her teeth and fight to preserve what little was left of her family. She convinced herself it had all been a terrible accident and that Lexie was anything but the monster his father believed him to be. Indeed, she told herself, the child was so traumatised that even the psychiatrists couldn’t analyse the depth of his shock. She fought with every fibre of her being to preserve her husband’s sanity and to create a secure environment in which Lexie could grow up feeling loved. But it was no good. Brian’s analysts eventually agreed that he needed to be institutionalised for his own safety as well as that of his son.
When he was released nine months later Brian Rainford got a job as a security guard at one of the large hotels but he only lasted six months. He was dismissed on the spot when he was discovered to be the reason for the hefty increase in theft from the bottle department. It was only the plea from Trish and her revelation of the family tragedy that saved him from prosecution.
There followed a procession of security guard jobs which, together with Brian’s police pension, kept the family financially solvent but, as the black moods and the bouts of drunkenness increased, even Trish gave up. She stopped pretending everything was going to be all right some day, and learned to suffer the occasional beating and the pathetic remorse of the following morning. One day, when Alex was seventeen and announced that he was leaving home, she found she had no more feeling left in her except a vague sense of relief. Perhaps, ungoaded by the constant presence of his son, Brian’s black moods would abate a fraction. Perhaps, every now and then, there might be just a little peace and quiet. All Trish wanted was a little peace and quiet.
Norah Hogarth’s introductory improvisation class flashed through Julian’s mind. That first day at NADA when he had been drawn to Alex like a magnet: ‘My father’s a security guard with a hefty drink problem and my mother’s a housewife who puts up with it’ … Christ, no wonder! The poor bastards!
And now Alex was flashing that devastating smile of his and shrugging off the destruction of his family with an apologetic, ‘I guess I must have been a pretty weird kid’.
‘So that’s my sordid past, Julian.’ Alex’s contrite smile broadened to a confident grin and Julian knew that there was now a bond between them. An insidious but inescapably magnetic bond.
Later that night Julian started recording the first of many notes on the complexities of Alex Rainford. He wasn’t sure why. Whatever the reason though, his study of Alex was to become a lifetime occupation and was destined to have a vast impact on both their lives.
Julian went through a brief agony of indecision as to whether he should tell Maddy about Alex. But one had only to look at Maddy to realise that she was totally in love. Julian couldn’t bring himself to shatter her dream. He could only watch, wait and hope that somehow she might escape, that her affair with Alex would not lead to her own destruction.
Surprisingly enough he didn’t have to wait long. Maddy’s ‘escape’ came far sooner than he’d anticipated and in a manner he’d least expected.
It was a hot spring afternoon exactly one month before the last day of their first year at NADA. Maddy had dashed off to the Family Planning Association at lunch break to check out why she’d missed a period and to enquire whether she should change her brand of contraceptive pill if it was going to continue giving her these strange side effects. She was understandably stunned to find herself part of the one per cent failure rate attributed to the birth control pill.
‘Geez, Mad, that’s not fair.’ Alex was dutifully sympathetic but didn’t appear to be particularly fazed by the news. ‘I mean, how unlucky would you have to be?’
‘What am I going to do, Alex?’ Maddy was holding her tears in check. He was right—it wasn’t fair. ‘I’m halfway through NADA, I’ve been working hard and doing well. I can’t drop out to have a baby.’
‘’Course you can’t. Here, have a sandwich.’ Alex unwrapped the lunch he’d bought her and gently offered her half a chicken and avocado sandwich, her favourite.
Maddy barely heard him. ‘What am I going to do?’
‘Get rid of it, of course.’
Maddy heard him that time. She ignored the sandwich and stared at him, bewildered. ‘Have an abortion?’ she whispered after several seconds that seemed like an age.
‘Sure.’ Alex registered her horror but couldn’t for the life of him understand it. ‘Oh, come on, Mad, it’s the only thing to do and it’s no big deal.’ He put the sandwich in her hand and gently wrapped her fingers around it. ‘There you go. I got double avocado. God, you’ve got expensive tastes.’
Maddy stared down at the sandwich, feeling numb. ‘Lots of top doctors do abortions on the side these days,’ Alex continued. ‘Doesn’t matter what it costs—we’ll get the money from your father.’ Maddy’s eyes left the sandwich and she looked at him blankly. ‘Or I’ll get it out of
Harold,’ he corrected quickly. ‘No one needs to know what it’s for.’
Maddy wondered for an instant why Alex’s easy way so shocked her. Then she realised. It wasn’t the influence of her father’s devout beliefs, it wasn’t her Catholic schooling. It wasn’t even the idea of abortion itself. It was the sudden knowledge that Alex couldn’t truly love her as she had believed he did. And, in that instant of recognition, the innocence of Maddy’s own love died. Her unquestioning belief that her love for Alex was equally reciprocated disappeared.
Over the next few weeks Alex, convinced that Maddy’s depressed state was due to the prospect of an abortion, came up with a series of more ‘natural’ abortive procedures than an illegal visit to a doctor. He got two sets of pills ‘bound to bring about a miscarriage’. Both failed. He insisted she try the old housewives’ remedy of the hot bath and the bottle of gin. Maddy threw up copiously, just as she had with the pills, but nothing else happened. Heavy exercise and overlong saunas failed to do the trick and eventually there was nothing for it but to make the appointment with the doctor.
Maddy had quietly accepted the rigours Alex put her through and her final acceptance of the inevitability of abortion appeared to be just as placid. She nodded when Alex told her one night that he’d been recommended an excellent GP who conducted abortions from his own practice at night with a nurse in attendance. ‘No back street job, Mad. He’s the best.’
As Maddy continued to nod, Alex thought it might be advisable to follow through with his suggestion that the money come from Harold rather than her father. Maddy’s strangely withdrawn mood had been unsettling and Alex didn’t want to do anything to unnecessarily rock the boat. The sooner they got rid of the baby, he thought, the sooner things would get back to normal.
‘No,’ Maddy said surprisingly. ‘I’ll get it from Daddy.’
‘What will you say it’s for?’
Maddy shrugged. ‘Doesn’t really matter: next year’s school fees, new gear—he wants to give me anything I’ll accept.’
It was true. Robert McLaughlan had been trying even harder of late to involve himself in Maddy’s life. He was desperately unhappy but Maddy hadn’t been able to discover why. Whenever she visited the family home her mother was as bright and effervescent as ever and her father was his usual considerate but withdrawn self. It was only when Robert rang to invite himself over to the flat, fortunately allowing time for Maddy to hide Alex’s gear, or when he invited his daughter out to dinner that he gave himself away. His eyes looked sad and defeated but when Maddy questioned him he got embarrassed and changed the subject.
‘Nothing’s wrong, dear. Now tell me about your classes: how are they going?’
When Maddy rang her father to suggest she call around for dinner on Saturday Robert said he’d rather take her out. ‘Your mother’s off to a charity function so it would only be the two of us anyway.’ Maddy was happy enough with the suggestion; her father would be less inquisitive than her mother about why she wanted 700 dollars, anyway.
‘Yes, of course, dear, I’m only too glad to be of some help. Is 700 dollars enough?’ Robert seemed preoccupied. He pulled his cheque book and his gold Sheaffer pen from his breast pocket and started writing. ‘Why don’t we make it a round thousand?’
‘All right.’ Maddy hadn’t even given a reason for her request and she watched with interest as her father handed her the cheque, cleared his throat and started poking his dessert spoon at the chocolate mousse he hadn’t yet tried.
‘I was glad you wanted to meet tonight. There’s something I want to tell you.’
Maddy had suspected as much. The comfortable silences that normally existed between father and daughter had been filled with nervous small talk as Robert McLaughlan had picked his way through half a dozen rock oysters and a broiled lobster. But what was he avoiding?
Now he dropped all pretence of interest in his chocolate mousse, pushed it aside and looked directly at her for the first time that evening. ‘Your mother and I are separating.’
Maddy stared back at him, dumbfounded.
‘I’m selling up the practice and going to England next month.’ Now that he’d broken the ice there was no stopping him. ‘I’m not granting her a divorce of course, I’d never do that, but she’ll be well looked after. The house’ll be hers and she won’t be short of money.’
Robert didn’t even wait for a comment from Maddy. ‘I’ve been offered a partnership in a Harley Street practice. Fellow called Bill Davenport. He’s on the board of The Royal College of Orthodontists and we’ve become rather pally at international conventions over the years so it’s working out quite well.’
‘Why, Daddy?’ Finally Maddy interrupted.
The waiter was hovering nearby and Robert nodded curtly. When the table was cleared and they were waiting for coffee he hesitatingly explained that he hadn’t realised how dissatisfied Helena had become with their staid lifestyle and how she craved more excitement than was in his power to give.
‘I thought her social life was enough of an outlet, but …’
It was only when Robert was towards the end of his second cognac—and he rarely drank—that he admitted Helena had been having an affair for several months now. ‘At least that’s all she’ll admit to,’ he said, draining his brandy balloon and nodding to the waiter. ‘Graeme Doyle, you’d remember him.’
Maddy did. ‘But he’s twenty years younger than she is.’
‘Fifteen, actually. He’s just turned twenty-nine.’
Maddy remembered Graeme Doyle vividly. He’d been one of her mother’s regular escorts for the past six years at least and had made a pass at Maddy when she was fourteen. Maddy hadn’t bothered telling her mother at the time because Graeme had turned it into a joke when he saw her reaction, and she knew her mother wouldn’t believe her anyway.
Graeme was Helena’s favourite escort and she treated him like a wayward child, teasing him remorselessly about his penchant for women old enough to be his mother and why didn’t he find a nice young girl his own age and settle down. Indeed, Maddy had decided very early on that Graeme preferred the company of older, prominent women because they were far more advantageous to his tenuous actor-model career.
Now the mature Maddy wondered just how long her mother’s playful banter had been that of a woman to her lover. Poor Daddy, she thought.
The depth of sympathy she felt must have been instantly readable because, as the fresh brandy balloon was placed on the table, Robert waited only seconds for the waiter to clear the previous glass and turn away before he lifted it to his lips and drained it in one gulp.
‘Yes,’ he said, the fumes catching at the back of his throat. ‘She says it’s only been going on for a few months and I suppose I’m to believe her.’ It was obvious he didn’t. His voice was harsh and rasping, due not only to the brandy fumes but to the bitterness and accusation he was fighting to control.
Maddy put her hand over his and for once he let it remain there. ‘Shall we get the bill?’ she asked. A fourth cognac and he’d write himself off driving home.
Later that night, Maddy showed Alex the cheque. When he asked if she’d had any trouble she replied, ‘No, it was easy’. And when Alex then said, ‘You’ll have to cash it in, Mad, he wants twenty dollar notes’, she made the decision she’d been agonising over for the past fortnight.
‘Helena, isn’t it? Helena Rainford?’ Maddy nodded. She didn’t know why she’d chosen her mother’s first name and Alex’s surname. But then, why not? The doctor’s smile was frozen and glassy as he went through the bedside manner motions and Maddy knew that he was just waiting to talk cold hard cash.
Sure enough, after he’d discussed dates, given her a physical examination and ascertained she was six to eight weeks pregnant … ‘You realise the fee is 700 dollars. Do you have the money with you?’
The glassy smile was gone and it was down to business as the doctor skinned the glove from his hand, threw it in the bin and turned to the sink.
‘Yes.’ Maddy felt weird, as if she wasn’t really there and this was happening to someone else. Everything was strangely remote, even the doctor’s hands as he’d felt her womb and pressed her abdomen.
After she dressed she didn’t bother sitting down but took the envelope from her pocket and placed it on the desk. ‘In cash, as agreed,’ she said.
The doctor finished drying his hands, sat at his desk and picked up the envelope. ‘Is tomorrow night convenient? Nine o’clock?’
Tomorrow. So soon. ‘Fine.’ Maddy started to leave. She didn’t want to watch him counting the money.
‘He told me I have to be on my own,’ she explained to Alex later that evening. ‘But I guess it’s OK if you wait outside.’
‘I’ll stay in the car.’ Alex kissed her tenderly. ‘Don’t worry, Mad. Everything’ll be all right. They say he’s the best.’
At five to nine the following night Alex watched Maddy walk under the street lamp and then up the darkened steps to the unlit front door. He felt a sense of relief. Soon it would all be over. Soon Maddy would be his again and they’d be able to get on with their lives. He switched the car radio on to the soft music station and sat back in the MGB to wait.
He was still there and hour later and starting to wonder whether he should do something when the door opened. A shaft of light streamed onto the front porch and Maddy appeared. For a second she swayed, unsteady on her feet, then the door closed and she was in darkness.
Alex raced up the steps. Maddy looked as if she was about to faint. He gathered her in his arms and carried her to the car, ignoring her protestations. ‘It’s only the anaesthetic, Alex. I can walk, really, I’m just a bit woozy, that’s all.’ But she slumped in the seat and, when they pulled up outside the flat twenty minutes later, she was almost unconscious.
