by Jo Bannister
‘Oh, whoopee,’ muttered Will.
Mrs Venables had a sense of propriety. Tessa and Sheelagh found their rooms on one side of the conference room, the men on the other. Two more rooms were in use on the women’s side, presumably for the psychologist and the housekeeper. Beyond were some unfurnished rooms. Then the corridor turned a corner and ended in a blank wall.
‘We must be the first people to stay here,’ said Sheelagh. Her door squeaked on its new hinges.
Tessa had practical concerns: whether there was hot water in her bathroom, whether her cistern worked. She gave her bed an experimental bounce. ‘Seems OK.’
Sheelagh was in her own room. ‘Do you have a phone?’
‘No. Nor a fridge, nor a radio, nor a trouser-press. I meant, what we have seems to be OK.’
‘I thought there’d be phones.’ Sheelagh sounded troubled.
‘Miriam may have one.’
Sheelagh appeared in the doorway, shaking her head. ‘I looked.’
‘Does it matter?’
The younger woman gave a sudden smile that chased the thunderclouds out of her face. ‘If you must know, I arranged to be rescued. Someone was going to phone after lunch and say I was needed in the office. There was a number on the letterhead. I assumed it was this place.’
Tessa laughed. ‘You really weren’t keen on this, were you?’
‘It’s a bit beside the point now.’ She gave a snort of self-deprecating laughter, half-annoyed, half-amused. ‘If I’m stuck here for the duration perhaps I’d better stop biting people’s heads off and try and get something out of it.’
‘Nobody’ll raise any objection to that.’
Sheelagh eyed her sideways. After a moment she said, ‘I do know, you know. I am aware that I have a foul temper. That even Jesus wouldn’t want me for a sunbeam.’
‘Well,’ Tessa said thoughtfully, ‘knowing’s a start.’
It was the mildest reproof possible, but enough to push up Sheelagh’s adrenalin level. A steely edge sounded on her voice. ‘Tessa, you don’t know me well enough to criticize.’
The doctor was unruffled. ‘Sheelagh, none of us knows one another at all, and you’ve done nothing but criticize since we arrived. Now, it’s no odds to me whether you join in or sulk, but don’t expect people to be grateful because you think you might stop behaving like a spoilt child.’
One of the prices to be paid for success is that people don’t tell you the unvarnished truth often enough. Sheelagh recoiled as if slapped and the cobalt eyes flared; but a split second before the Geiger counter raced off-scale the best part of her, her sense of justice, recognized the other woman’s words as fair comment and she diverted the burgeoning anger into a cackle of fishwife laughter.
‘You have a point,’ she admitted as it subsided into a rueful grin. ‘I’d try going out and coming in again if we weren’t so bloody far from the front door. Would you settle for an apology instead?’
Tessa was happy to meet her halfway. ‘No apology called for. Like I say, I’m only an observer here. But if you’re staying you might find the time passes quicker if you go with the flow a bit. If you can’t take it seriously, think of it as a rather protracted party game.’
‘What, like charades?’
‘Just like charades,’ agreed Tessa.
They obviously went to different parties. Sheelagh nodded. ‘Only you keep your clothes on.’
Not meaning to stay, she’d packed only enough to support the pretence. Fortunately, in the cause of authenticity she’d included a wash bag and nightdress. She put the latter under her pillow, the former in her bathroom. Then she ran the taps for a wash.
Blinded by soap, she heard the squeak of the door hinges and the mattress sigh. ‘Better or worse than yours?’ she asked through the open bathroom door.
‘Sorry?’ Tessa’s voice came from further away than she expected, and when Sheelagh dried her face and went back into the bedroom it was empty.
She stepped into the corridor. In the next room Tessa was still putting things in her chest. ‘What did you say?’
‘Oh – nothing.’ As Sheelagh looked round Mrs Venables emerged from one of the men’s rooms with a stack of towels. ‘Nothing at all.’ She returned to her room, her momentary unease forgotten, put her nightdress under her pillow and went back to the conference room.
It was someone else’s turn. Miriam picked on the man from Derbyshire. ‘Joe, tell us why you’re here.’
Joe was not merely a volunteer but a zealot, a man pursuing a quest. Personal Discovery may not have been the obvious answer to his problem but he’d already tried the things that were. ‘I’ve had a right bugger of a couple of years, the sort of time nobody’d blame you for sticking your head in a gas oven.’ He gave a fractional jowly smile. ‘It’s harder with an Aga. I’m not looking for sympathy, but to explain why I’m here I’ll have to tell you some of it.
‘Two years ago I had a wife, a daughter and a good job, and I was about as content as a man’s any right to be. Then Martha got cancer. It wasn’t a total surprise. She’d had treatment six years earlier. We thought she was in the clear, but it came back and this time the treatment didn’t work so well. After six months we knew there was no long-term solution.
‘She was home most of the time. I quit my job to be with her. It was funny – we weren’t scared, either of us. I knew I was going to lose her. Somehow that seemed less important than making the most of the time we had left. We visited places we used to like, caught up on old friends. We had a lot of fun. I don’t know if you get marks out of ten for these things, but I reckon we earned an eight and a half for sheer style.
‘Then one day the police were at the door. Our girl had been in an accident and she was dead.’ He looked up with tears in the seams of his cheeks, gravel in his voice. ‘More than Martha’s illness, that broke us. You expect to die, don’t you? You hope it won’t be soon and you hope it won’t be hard but you know your time’ll come. But you don’t expect your children to go first. It’s the consolation for your own mortality, that your children will be there after you’re gone, and theirs after them.
‘Losing a child makes a mockery of the seasons of life. I think after that Martha saw no point in hanging on. She couldn’t bear the pain of grieving when she knew she wouldn’t live long enough to come out the other side. Four months after our girl went, Martha went too. So now I’m a widower, childless and unemployed, and I can’t seem to deal with it. I was a family man for forty years and I don’t have the instinct, the behavioural vocabulary, for being single.’
He heard himself saying that and gave a self-deprecating grin. ‘Oh yes, I’ve seen all the experts. My GP sent me to a psychiatrist who sent me to a grief counsellor who said I was grieving just fine and it would take time for things to fall back into place. That was all right for a few weeks, even a few months. But it’s a year since Martha died and I’m still living one day at a time. I can’t seem to move on. I could live another thirty years – I need to make some plans but I can’t seem to get started.’ He raised one bushy eyebrow. ‘Does that make any sense?’
Miriam nodded. ‘You were very happy. The happier we are, the more we have to lose. You don’t want to let go of the time in which your family still exists.’
Joe nodded ponderously as he considered that. ‘What do I do?’
‘You’re already doing it. You look for a way out. Looking creates the door. You want to move on so you will. All you need is the confidence to stop hugging your memories. They’re like a dog on a lead – at some point you have to let them run free and trust them to come back. And they will. They’ll always be there. You don’t have to live in the past to hold on to your family. Joe, you couldn’t forget them if you tried. They’re part of you. Go on, enjoy your thirty years. Your wife and daughter will come with you.’
Joe stretched stocky legs into the circle, vented a deep sigh. There was the sense of a burden lifting, of his thick body unknotting and letting go.
Richard
watched in fascination, half-embarrassed to be a witness at something so personal but more impressed than he could have said. This was what he’d come for: this process of exploration, understanding, catharsis. Maybe Fran was wrong, maybe he’d been right to hope. Maybe with a few perceptive sentences Miriam Graves could spear the worm that was eating the heart out of Richard Speke. Yearning sharpened his eyes as he searched Joe’s face for confirmation. And though there was nothing to see he thought the grieving man had found what he’d sought.
In fact he hadn’t. What he’d got might have been better than what he came for, but Joe’s quest remained to be accomplished. Though he hadn’t lied he had told only a fraction of the truth. He was not merely a man in mourning: he was a bitter, angry man seeking both answers and retribution. His mind spun with images – laughing faces and sombre faces and the stolid faces of people posing for photographs – that mocked him and gave him no peace, and he craved their erasure as an insomniac craves sleep.
Chapter Six
At the other end of the conference room was a dining table. ‘I hope nobody’s expecting cordon bleu,’ said Mrs Venables coyly. ‘I haven’t much of a kitchen here.’ Then she produced a lunch any of them would have been proud to give their mothers.
Personal discovery was not suspended while they ate but Miriam took steps to lighten the mood. ‘Love and hate,’ she announced briskly. ‘Everyone, quickly, no thinking – one thing you love and one thing you hate. Starting with … Tessa.’
‘I love my job, helping people, getting them well. I hate bureaucracy.’
Larry said, ‘Courage and laziness.’
Will said, ‘Generosity and injustice.’
Joe said, ‘Compassion and treachery.’
Sheelagh said, ‘Strength and cowardice.’
Tariq said, ‘Frivolity and dogma.’
Richard wanted to say, ‘I love my job too. I hate being too scared to do it any more.’ Instead he said, ‘Diversity and intolerance.’
Miriam made notes on a paper napkin. ‘All right, comments. Tessa loves her job. Does that surprise anyone? What does it tell us about her?’
Will said tentatively, ‘Isn’t it a bit obvious? Nobody’s going to go “Ah-hah!” on the strength of that.’
Miriam smiled at Tessa’s expression, an amalgam of amusement and indignation. ‘What conclusions can we draw from that?’
‘That she didn’t want to answer the question?’
‘She’s here in a professional capacity,’ suggested Richard. ‘She doesn’t see herself as part of the group – she’s responding as an observer rather than a participant.’
‘Excellent.’ The psychologist’s enthusiasm was infectious. Whatever doubts her clients might have, Miriam believed in what she was doing and something of that confidence was beginning to rub off. The tensions between them diminished as they opened themselves to the process. ‘I think I’ll go home now and let you develop one another.’
‘Just a minute,’ interjected Tessa amiably. ‘Do I get a right of reply?’
‘Of course. Do you dispute Richard’s assessment?’
She thought for a moment, then laughed. She had a strong, musical laugh and humour skipped in the hazel eyes. If he hadn’t already known, Richard would have guessed she was a doctor. That degree of poise, of composure, of almost masculine confidence came from certain knowledge of her own worth, measured in qualifications and independent of anyone’s opinion. But though she came across as cool, self-possessed, slightly detached, she had the kind of presence that generates magnetism much as a wire coil and a pulse of electricity do. Not a woman to have men buzzing round her at social gatherings, perhaps, but one for whom a few men would gladly give up everything else.
‘Actually, no,’ she said. ‘He’s right. But Richard should understand better than anyone. I’m here to report, not to get involved in the story.’
‘You’re not interested in a voyage of self-discovery then?’ Miriam pitched the question just the safe side of impertinence, watching for Tessa’s reaction.
The doctor responded professionally: smiled composedly, went straight for the jugular. ‘Miriam, that’s what I’m being paid to assess – if you do help people discover themselves, or just separate them from their money.’
Miriam roared with laughter, vastly amused. She was frustratingly difficult to insult. ‘I’m glad you’re not letting yourself be overawed by the responsibility. I’ll be most interested to read your conclusions. All right, Will, how about yours? Generosity and injustice – isn’t that a bit obvious too?’
Will looked surprised. ‘Is it?’
‘For a man in your line of work. I expected you to say you hated heights.’
‘Oh yes,’ he admitted readily. ‘I’m useless on anything higher than a barstool, but there’s no point hating a fact of life. I regret being’ – he gave a Puckish smile – ‘elevationally challenged, but I hate injustice precisely because it’s not an Act of God: it’s the strong profiting at the expense of the weak. Actually, that’s a major handicap to a lawyer. You need to be able to absorb the frustration, accept that some you win and some you lose.’
Not an accountant then, thought Richard. Solicitor? – near enough.
‘And generosity?’
Will frowned. ‘What’s wrong with that? Oh come on, everyone admires that. Nobody sits grinding his teeth going, “If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s a generous bastard!”‘
‘Sheelagh might.’
She startled at the sound of her name. ‘I opted for cowardice.’
‘You also said you loved strength. Are they compatible, strength and generosity?’
‘Actually I think they are.’ In a man, even in a taller woman, that jutting jaw and the clarion note in her voice would have been called pugnacious. Sheelagh got away with being provocative because people who were bigger than her hesitated to seem like bullies. In fact she was as easy to bully as a bobcat. ‘Generosity implies strength – the weak can’t afford it.’
‘Fair comment.’ Miriam confounded her own argument by being both a strong and generous adversary. ‘So is Will right? Does everyone admire generosity?’
‘I don’t,’ said Larry bleakly. ‘And I can’t see that it’s the opposite of injustice. Generosity is a form of injustice. It isn’t fair putting people in your debt. If they can’t pay you back it’s patronizing. If they can it’s just another investment.’
Tariq gave a soft whistle. ‘Man, you are a sad individual.’
The athlete’s pale eyes turned on him like searchlights. ‘I believe in a market economy: pay the price and you get the goods. Generosity is the free lunch there’s no such thing as. I haven’t a generous bone in my body, but I’ve never short-changed anyone.’
Joe gave a disbelieving snort. Miriam glanced at him and quickly back. ‘That’s quite a boast, Larry. You never let anyone down? A colleague, a friend, a lover? Never delivered less than they were entitled to expect?’
‘I don’t believe so.’
Miriam sat back from her lamb chop with eyebrows still elevated. ‘I’m impressed. What about the rest of you? Any more paragons who’ve never let their halo slip?’
No one claimed a share of the accolade. But nor did they explain why.
Miriam returned to her meal, talking over her cutlery. ‘Two possibilities. Either Larry’s a wholly reliable person and the rest of you are not. Or his concept of obligation differs from yours.’
He was too much a competitor to miss that volley. ‘If you mean I don’t accept responsibility for those who’re old enough to be responsible for themselves, that’s right. If I say I’ll do something I do it. But I don’t consider myself bound by other people’s expectations.’
‘Isn’t that rather sterile?’ Tessa seemed to have no reservations about discussing other people’s motivations. ‘It’s a tidy arrangement but hardly a humane one.’
‘That’s a matter of opinion,’ growled the tennis-player. ‘Mine is that you’re doing people no favours b
y protecting them. Life’s full of knocks. You have to learn to take your own. You learn to see trouble coming, avoid it if you can, deal with it if you can’t. That’s what growing up is.’
Miriam nodded somberly. ‘It’s a point of view. Richard, you’ve gone very quiet. Where do you stand on this? Are people essentially responsible for themselves or should we accept duties towards one another? Do you feel badly when you let someone down?’
The professional communicator was a long time answering. Joe saw, because he was looking, that his eyes flinched as if he’d been struck. He forced out the word, ‘Yes.’
At a time when there was some embarrassment about consulting a psychiatrist, which was not very long before it became fashionable, people like Miriam Graves were referred to as trick-cyclists. Though meant as an insult, actually it described what she did quite well: the balancing, the pedalling like mad to stay in the same place, the sudden pirouettes when what seemed like progress suddenly turned volte-face.
And like a trick-cyclist, it was vitally important for her to know when to sit still and when to push. They could all see that this was difficult ground for Richard. Miriam said quietly, ‘Give us an example.’
He didn’t know why his mind turned to the accident. He might have failed the girl but the situation was not of his making. Mornings when he woke sweating he’d been out of his depth in Bosnia, not the Thames.
Taking his statement afterwards the police wondered why he was strolling beside the river at two in the morning. They searched his sodden clothes for drugs. He explained through chattering teeth that he was a journalist: constant switching between time zones played hell with his body clock and when he couldn’t sleep he walked.
Remembering where he’d gone into the water they expressed incredulity. ‘On muggers’mall?’
He shrugged. ‘Last week I was in Sarajevo. When you go for a walk there you put on a flak jacket.’
It wasn’t bravado; it was true. Before his present difficulties he’d done things like that. It wasn’t that he was unaware of the danger: they all knew they were in danger all the time, dealt with it on a professional level. They were there to do a job; doing it exposed them to risks; they took precautions and then got on with it.
