by Penny Kline
Brigid Jesty gave a small nervous laugh which she changed quickly into a fit of coughing.
‘So,’ said Peter Jesty, ‘you felt that since my son is well below his chronological age in terms of emotional maturity it was wise to keep us informed of his — ’
‘No,’ I interrupted crossly. ‘I just thought you’d want to know what had happened.’
‘Of course. It was good of you to go to so much trouble.’
I stood up, taking my car keys from my pocket.
‘I’ll be seeing Luke tomorrow,’ I said. ‘I’ll tell him I’ve been to see you and of course if you want to visit … ’
‘But you say he’ll be back home in a couple of days.’
‘Yes, I should think so. It’s hard to tell.’
‘Good. Well, thank you for letting us know.’ He held out his hand once more. I took hold of it briefly and as our eyes met I realized that beneath the icy self-control he was very angry — and very upset.
Brigid Jesty followed me out of the front door and we walked together down the drive with the gravel crunching under our feet. I could sense her agitation and suspected she wanted to tell me something but not until she was well out of earshot of her husband.
‘Your garden’s beautiful,’ I said. ‘It must need plenty of work to keep it looking so good.’
‘Yes, I suppose it does.’ Her voice was flat, lifeless. Either she was very depressed and wanted me to go away as quickly as possible or she was afraid my attempts at pleasant conversation would make it more difficult for her to say whatever was on her mind.
Pausing by the car door I made an effort to produce what I hoped was a warm, sympathetic smile. ‘I’m sorry, this must be difficult for you.’
‘My husband,’ she said, ‘it’s just his manner. He doesn’t mean to sound so … He works terribly hard, often from eight in the morning to eight o’clock at night. Then when he’s at home he works on his book.’
‘He’s writing a book?’
‘The creatures that live on the salt marshes by the Severn Estuary.’
‘Are there any?’
‘Oh, yes, there seem to be.’ Against her better judgement she laughed, putting her hands up to her face to conceal her expression. ‘Froghoppers, leafhoppers, and a beetle with shovel-shaped legs for digging.’
Her voice trailed away. She glanced back at the house, then lowered her voice as though she thought the gateposts might be bugged.
‘I didn’t say anything before but Luke and I meet occasionally in Bristol. A little wine bar place in Clifton Village. My husband, it would only upset him, has Luke mentioned … ?’
‘As a matter of fact, he’s told me very little about his family.’
‘But you’ve been giving him some kind of treatment?’
‘At the moment my main aim is to gain his confidence. Later, when he feels safer with me, I’m hoping to — ’
‘Yes, I see. He’s always been quiet, secretive, but I didn’t think it mattered.’
‘It doesn’t,’ I said, ‘as long as he’s happy.’
‘But he isn’t, is he.’
‘It’s hard to tell. No. I’m afraid Paula Redfern’s death has affected him badly. I’m not sure how well they knew each other but Luke finds it hard to make friends and — ’
‘Yes, I know.’ Her fingers were rubbing the back of her neck, trying to relieve the tension. I wanted her to tell me as much as possible but I had a feeling that one false move on my part and she would clam up.
‘Luke doesn’t come home very often?’ I said.
She stiffened, blinking several times in quick succession. Then the muscles in her face relaxed.
‘He doesn’t drive.’
‘Perhaps he should buy a bicycle.’
‘No! They have those cycle lanes but I always think they’re worse than useless. When they come to an end the cyclists are forced back into the stream of traffic.’ She paused, replacing her dark glasses, then taking a deep breath and removing them again. ‘Luke’s told you about his sister, I expect.’
‘Sister? I know he’s got an older brother.’
‘Oh, yes. Michael.’ She had undone one of the buttons on her shirt, revealing the pale skin round the sun-tanned V on her upper chest.
‘He has a sister as well?’ I said.
She stared at me for a moment, then looked away and spoke slowly, mechanically, rather as Luke had spoken the previous evening. It was as though she had used the same sentence many times before. ‘Diana died a few days before her thirteenth birthday.’
I felt a chill run down my back. At the thought of losing a thirteen-year-old daughter? Or was it because Luke had failed to tell me what must certainly have been the most traumatic event in his childhood?
‘I’m terribly sorry.’ I couldn’t bring myself to look her in the eye.
‘It was a long time ago. Nearly six years.’
I wanted to say that six years was no time at all, that losing a child was the worst thing that could happen to anyone. But any words would have sounded trite. A helicopter was flying overhead. The noise of the rotor blades made conversation impossible and provided a short relief.
As the sound faded in the distance we both started talking at once.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘No, do go on.’
‘I just wanted to explain,’ I said. ‘Luke hasn’t talked much about himself yet. We’ve been concentrating on finding ways of reducing his symptoms. Breathing exercises, methods of diverting the thoughts that disturb — ’ I broke off. It all sounded so irrelevant, so inadequate.
She nodded vaguely, turning to inspect a climbing plant that had attached itself to the gate. ‘Thank you so much for coming to find us. And on a Sunday too.’
‘That’s all right. Anyway, I hope we’ll meet again some time. Try not to worry about Luke. He’ll be making a new start in the autumn and I’m going to carry on seeing him as long as he needs it.’
‘Yes, of course.’
She was swinging her dark glasses in her hand, screwing up her eyes against the sun. Just for a moment she looked quite panic-stricken. Was she afraid her husband might want to know what we had been talking about? Or was there something important she hadn’t yet told me? I waited a moment but she seemed miles away.
‘Goodbye, then.’ I held out my hand.
‘Anna McColl,’ she said, ‘and you’re a psychologist. You work at the hospital, do you?’
‘No, I work in Bristol. Look, if you like, I’ll give you my phone number.’
I found an old credit card receipt and scribbled my number on the back. She hesitated for a moment then took the scrap of paper and pushed it behind the waistband of her skirt.
I watched her start back up the drive. She didn’t turn to wave goodbye and long before I started the engine she had disappeared into the house. Winding down the window I strained my ears, listening for the sound of raised voices. But there was nothing. Silence except for the noise of a lawn mower in one of the gardens nearer to the centre of the village. The lane was idyllic. Green, peaceful, edged with great swaths of tiny blue flowers. I couldn’t wait to return to the city.
4
Ten to four on Monday afternoon and I was finding it difficult to concentrate on my client’s detailed description of his symptoms. In the next street someone was digging up the road. Drains or the gas main, it had been going on all day and would probably continue for the rest of the week. I thought about Luke, then forced him out of my mind.
Mr Farrell was telling me again about the chest pains that woke him up in the early hours of the morning.
‘I know it’s not my heart, but I keep wondering if you can make yourself ill just by thinking about it.’
‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘You may have psychosomatic symptoms but you won’t give yourself heart disease.’
He relaxed a little, but next time he would ask me the same question all over again.
‘Tell me about your father,’ I said, ‘did you see much of each ot
her in the months before he died?’
‘No, that was just it. It was all so sudden. He’d seemed so fit. If I’d known what was going to happen … ’
Now we were getting somewhere. Almost the end of the session but next week he might agree to stop talking about his symptoms and tell me instead about his relationship with his father, the inevitable regret that they had not been closer, spent more time together. Mr Farrell was in his early fifties and his father had been over eighty, but it was the first time he had experienced a death in the family.
After he left I went downstairs and sat in Reception talking to Heather while she photocopied Martin’s new hand-out describing the work of the Psychology Service.
She straightened up, rotating her shoulders to ease the muscles in her back. I noticed a few grey hairs near her temples and it occurred to me that I had no idea how old she was. Divorced with two daughters in their early teens. That made her anything between thirty-five and forty, perhaps a little more. She had the kind of face that must have looked older than she really was in her early twenties but had remained much the same for the next fifteen years or so. As usual her clothes were a hotch-potch of conflicting shades. I liked her. She had a healthy scepticism about many of the psychological theories we discussed during our coffee breaks, but she was kind and considerate to the clients — and to the rest of us come to that.
I jerked my head in the direction of the hand-outs.
‘Who’s going to get a copy?’
‘Oh, local doctors,’ she said, ‘social workers, community nurses, psychiatrists.’
‘They know about us already.’
‘Very true, but Martin and Nick think we should specify which kinds of client are likely to benefit the most.’
‘It’s impossible to tell. It depends on the person, not the problem.’
She sighed. ‘I’m sure you’re right, Anna, but you must tell Martin and Nick not me.’
‘Sorry. I wasn’t criticizing.’
‘I know you weren’t. Take no notice. The copier’s been on the blink and I’ve wasted nearly an hour fiddling about with the paper-feeder.’
Martin came through the door, yawning loudly. He was wearing a jacket, which was unusual for him, but the rest of his clothes were as scruffy as ever. Shapeless cords and a grey open-neck shirt with frayed collar and cuffs. Not the typical attire of a principal psychologist but then Martin had a horror of becoming part of the Establishment.
‘I’ve just been visiting a hostel for ex-offenders,’ he announced. ‘I’ll tell you something for nothing, the staff are having more difficulty getting on with each other than with the residents.’
‘That figures,’ said Heather, smiling at me, then busying herself with a pile of envelopes.
‘Oh, come on,’ said Martin, ‘I reckon we make a pretty good team.’ He lifted the edge of his eyelid, searching for a piece of grit. ‘Something for every taste, wouldn’t you say, Anna?’
Sitting down heavily he swung his mud-stained shoes on to Heather’s desk and turned to face me. ‘Well, then. Luke Jesty, what’s the latest? Been back to the hospital, have you?’
I should have been grateful to him for taking an interest. Instead I assumed that he had picked up on my anxiety and felt it his duty to check up, just in case. Martin knew quite a bit about Luke. So did Heather, since she was the one who had told me about her neighbours, Doug and Elaine, and how they’d been looking for a lodger.
‘I’m going later on,’ I said, ‘after I’ve called on the Hargreaves. Stringer’s sure to think I should’ve referred Luke weeks ago.’ I was trying to pre-empt a telephone call behind my back between Martin and the chief consultant psychiatrist. ‘He won’t say straight out but I’ll know what he’s thinking.’
‘Stringer’s all right.’ Martin closed his eyes and leaned his head against the wall. ‘He’s just a bit world-weary like the rest of us.’
‘Speak for yourself!’ I snapped.
‘OK, OK.’ He stood up and put a hand on my shoulder. ‘What is it about this boy?’
‘Luke’s twenty-two. Hardly a boy.’
‘All right, but what’s so special about him?’
Heather laughed. ‘He’s the most beautiful looking young man I’ve ever seen.’
*
Doug answered the door. From the crumpled look I guessed he had been asleep. What hair he still had left, after the barber had been at it with an electric razor, stood up in a tuft on the top of his head. He was dressed in his usual trousers but with a thick ribbed sweater over his shirt. No wonder he was sweating.
‘Come in, Anna.’ He stepped into the porch and held the door open for me to pass in front of him.
‘Sorry to disturb you,’ I said. ‘I just called round to thank you for — ’
‘No need. Put it this way, we just did what we could, which wasn’t a great deal in the circumstances. How is the lad?’
‘I shall be going to visit him later on.’ He led me into the kitchen but didn’t offer tea or coffee. He looked ill at ease, as though he was making an effort to appear nonchalant, relaxed.
‘Elaine’s out, doing an extra shift. I worry in case she overdoes things, not that she takes a blind bit of notice of anything I say. Put it in a nutshell, we can do with the extra cash.’
He laughed, then took a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and blew his nose hard.
‘I shouldn’t worry,’ I said, ‘I think she enjoys her work. Anyway, she seemed pleased about the promotion.’
It was the wrong thing to say. When he squirmed on his chair I pretended not to notice. Now was not the time for a counselling session, with Doug breaking down and admitting that Elaine’s extra hours — and extra money — only served to make him feel even more of a failure.
‘I was wondering, Doug,’ I said cautiously, ‘when the police brought Luke back — Elaine said you’d just returned from your class.’
‘Been home about ten minutes., I’d say.’ His eyes met mine, then flicked away.
‘You go every Saturday, do you?’
‘That’s about it. Framing’s a tricky business. If you don’t get the corners exactly right there’s hell to pay. Need a special saw for the mitred edges.’
He stood up and went into the next room, returning with a large portfolio under his arm.
‘Been getting these together specially. Thought they might cheer up the lad when he comes home.’ He undid the strings of the portfolio and lifted out a set of black and white photos. ‘Pictures I took when the fun fair was up on the Downs. Luke was helping me develop them. Some of them have come out rather well.’
I lifted up the first photo and studied it carefully. It seemed to be part of the big wheel. A queue of people were waiting underneath and because the shot had been taken at an angle they looked as though they were in danger of falling on their faces.
‘It’s good,’ I said.
He nodded enthusiastically. ‘If you want the real effect you can’t beat black and white. That way you can control the tones. With colour you have to rely on the chemicals.’
‘Yes, I see. And Luke’s been helping in your darkroom.’
‘I thought it might give him a new interest. Used to stay up in his room most evenings, reading. I felt he needed taking out of himself.’
‘Yes, I’m sure you’re right. How’s he been the last few weeks? I mean, you haven’t noticed anything in particular, have you?’
I wanted him to convince me that Luke was sane, normal apart from his usual anxiety which I was certain must be connected with events in the past rather than any psychiatric disorder.
He took off his glasses, breathed on each lens, then rubbed them with a corner of his handkerchief.
‘Would you say a nervous disposition’s something you’re born with, or is it a question of upbringing?’
‘Could be a combination of the two.’
He thought about this for a moment. ‘I had an uncle with nerves. The War. Never got over it. Mind you, he’d been timid a
s a boy. Put it this way, he should never have gone into the navy.’
I nodded sympathetically. ‘Luke’s told you he’ll be starting at the university in October?’
‘But he’ll carry on living here with us.’
‘If that’s all right with you both.’
‘Course it is. Elaine thought he might be better off in one of those halls of residence but I told her what he needs is the security of a real home. Tell me if I’m wrong but I see myself as a kind of substitute father. Oh, I know he’s got a real father, but reading between the lines I’d say they’ve never really hit it off that well.’
‘He’s told you about his family?’
‘Had to drag it out of him. Even then I wasn’t much the wiser. Strange lad, but Elaine and I have grown quite fond of him. Like a son to us, I suppose.’
‘Did he tell you much about Paula Redfern?’
It was a harmless enough question but I sensed his discomfort.
‘Sorry? Paula — no, not really. Just that she’d been married but it hadn’t worked out.’
‘Married? She was older than Luke, then?’
‘Oh, I imagine so. Looked in her early thirties.’ He broke off, pushing his photographs back in the portfolio. Slowly, carefully, he tied the black ribbons that held it together, then lined up its edge against the end of the table. His hands shook a little and he kept touching his upper lip with the tip of his tongue.
‘I didn’t realize you’d met her,’ I said.
‘What?’ Sweat was streaming down his face. ‘Saw her once — in the shop. Best not to mention it to Elaine. She’d call it interfering. It’s just that I feel the lad likes us to take a friendly interest.’ He was breathing hard, in through his nose and out through his mouth. ‘Elaine thinks he’s been mollycoddled, needs to grow up, stand on his own two feet.’ He had gained control of himself. His hands were still, his face wiped dry. ‘You never met Paula yourself. No, I don’t suppose you would. But he’d have told you about her.’
‘Not very much.’
He smiled. ‘There you are, then, can’t have been very important to him, can she?’ And then, in case I thought he was being disrespectful to the dead, ‘Poor woman. Terrible thing to happen, God rest her soul.’
