The Wedding Day

by Catherine Alliott

  I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I breathed at the windscreen, tears burning my eyes. I’ll make it up to you, I swear I will, we’ll put this all behind us!

  We’ll move, I thought determinedly as I raced up the motorway, joining it at full throttle, my heart revving madly too. Get married and then move away, that was it. We’d go … well, maybe to Yorkshire, or somewhere quite remote, where no one knew us. David could join a little country practice, and we could buy a lovely stone farmhouse on the – what were they, the Moors? Or the Dales? Anyway, James Herriot country, with winding lanes and sheep-flecked hillsides, and I’d bake and have hundreds of children and Flora would play with all the village children and we’d be terribly, terribly happy. I had a feeling I was deep in Sunday night telly land now, complete with flower-print dresses and 1950s hairdos, and I also seemed to recall the TV wife became rather disillusioned with her domestic lot, stamped her foot and tore off her pinny before fleeing to London, but I put that from my mind. ‘We’ll be fine,’ I repeated to myself like a mantra as I tore along the M5. ‘David and I. We’ll be absolutely fine.’

  When I got to London, some hours later, I wove my way through the busy streets to the Fulham Road and parked behind the hospital, in the underground car park. I ran up the ramp and then, not wanting to look too desperate, made myself walk along the bustling pavement, through the jostling crowds, to the main entrance. Taking a deep breath, I pushed through the plate-glass doors and went into the cool, marble, minimalist interior.

  I’d been here before on a couple of occasions to pick David up on our way out to dinner, usually when he’d popped in after surgery to see how one of his patients was doing. He’d often done that, I thought with an aching heart. Followed up his patients after they’d been admitted to hospital. He didn’t have to, but he was so caring. Of course, I thought with a pang, he was well known here. Well known by the medical staff.

  When I asked the girl on reception, she looked at me in surprise.

  ‘Dr Palmer?’

  ‘Yes, he’s – a patient.’

  ‘Oh. Yes, of course.’ She flushed with recognition, embarrassed. ‘He’s in the Parthenon ward, fifth floor.’

  The lift took for ever to come, so I ran up the escalator and then down the shiny linoleum corridors flanked by vast floor-to-ceiling windows. I arrived panting at another desk. Clutched it.

  ‘Could you tell me, I’m looking for Dr … Oh. No, don’t bother.’

  A tall figure rose from a chair at the far end of the corridor. Gertrude was coming slowly towards me, her usually erect figure slightly stooped, dressed in a midnight-blue velvet cloak, a lace hanky clutched in one hand. I ran to her.

  ‘Gertrude!’

  We embraced. ‘Annabel, my dear,’ she said softly. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Is he all right?’ I gasped.

  ‘Asleep,’ she said, motioning her head to a room behind us. ‘We won’t disturb him. Come. Sit by me.’

  She took my arm and led me wearily back to a line of grey plastic chairs outside his door, sat down and patted the one beside her.

  I stood though, staring through the round glass pane in his door. I saw his face, a face I loved, pale on the pillow, turned to one side, his eyes shut, mouth slightly open. His shoulders in the white hospital gown looked narrow and vulnerable, his hands limp and sensitive on the white blanket. How he must hate to be here.

  ‘Oh David,’ I moaned, my hand shooting involuntarily to my mouth.

  ‘Come,’ Gertrude repeated gently, standing up and taking my arm. This time I went. Sat beside her. Numb. Horrified.

  ‘I blame myself,’ I whispered, realizing I did. I really did. This was all my fault.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said crisply. ‘This has nothing whatever to do with you.’

  Her words stung, almost like an insult. I turned. She laid a hand on my arm. ‘And everything,’ she went on more gently, ‘to do with David being David. So much of which he should have told you.’

  ‘Oh but he did, Gertrude, he did!’ I insisted. ‘He told me about the patient dying, about the possible court case, the family suing him – I know all about that. And he told me all about Hugh, too, his reservations about David becoming a doctor, David’s own worries about not being good enough. I know all of that.’

  She nodded. ‘And you think that could be enough to tip him over the edge like this?’ She regarded me keenly. I blanched.

  ‘Well … no. I didn’t really think so, to be honest. I’m surprised. Which is why I thought maybe it was me …’ I trailed off.

  ‘No, Annabel, it’s not you. It goes further back than that.’ She sighed, rearranging her cloak around her. She was silent for a moment. I waited.

  ‘You know I brought him up, of course. So I know him well, hm?’

  ‘Of course. Of course you do.’

  ‘And you know, too, that I inherited a little eight-year-old boy who’d lost his parents. A very bewildered, frightened child.’

  ‘Yes, I know that. They died in a boating accident. Gertrude, I know that must have been awful for him, but –’

  ‘One died in a boating accident,’ she interrupted quietly. ‘His mother. She dived off a boat far out in the middle of the Camel estuary one evening. Never came back.’

  ‘The Camel –’ I stared. ‘But I thought … David said it was abroad. At least I thought it was. Or someone said …’

  ‘Well, he never really says, if you think about it. Never talks about it. And if you ask directly, he says they drowned at sea on holiday, then clams up and you don’t ask any more, but you’re right, one assumes a ship somewhere, overseas. He deliberately keeps it vague. And I do too, for him. For his sake. But I should have told you where it happened when you came to see me to ask about the house. Nearly did, as a matter of fact, as we were standing there looking at that painting in the dining room. But he’d expressly asked me not to.’

  ‘So … Taplow House? It happened there?’

  ‘On a family holiday. David was on the boat with his parents one evening; they had a little dinghy which they kept in the creek. His mother was swimming from it, and David and his father were fishing. Pammy obviously got into difficulties, and they didn’t notice. She was a strong swimmer, and she’d said she was going to swim out to a rock. Had done it before, apparently. Well, David caught something, and Angus, his father, was helping him reel it in. When they turned round, she’d gone. There was no sign of her, just empty sea. Angus dived in and swam around desperately, and finally he found her, floating amongst a mass of driftwood and seaweed, face down. Somehow he managed to haul her back on board, and then rowed like crazy back to the shore.’

  ‘Was she alive?’

  ‘Just, apparently. Angus tried to resuscitate her on the shore but failed, so he carried her up to the house, up to their bedroom, sobbing, panicking completely, demented with grief, trailed by David. He laid her on the bed, still desperately trying to resuscitate her, shutting David out of the room when he tried to come in. He should have been calling the emergency services, but he was still clinging to her as the life drained out of her, grief-stricken. She was his whole life, you see. A strong, beautiful, vibrant woman, and he of course was a brilliant man. Brilliant doctor. But he couldn’t save her. It was David who finally dialled nine nine nine, downstairs on his own, trembling, terrified.’

  ‘Oh God … how awful!’

  ‘But then when the ambulance came, ten minutes later, the sirens wailing up the lane, which Angus must have heard, there was a loud bang from upstairs. David ran up, and found his father lying in a pool of blood. He’d shot himself. Propped his shotgun up against a cupboard door, and used his foot as a lever to shoot himself in the mouth.’

  ‘Oh dear God!’ I shot out of my chair. Flew to the window opposite and gripped the handrail hard.

  ‘David was there for a few minutes on his own with them before the ambulance men arrived.’

  I swung around, appalled. ‘Gertrude, how awful! He never told me. I neve
r knew!’

  ‘I know, and he should have done. Of course he should. Except …’

  ‘Except what?’

  She hesitated. ‘Well, if you had known, at the beginning, might it not have put you off? Might you not have thought: Golly, he must be a thoroughly mixed-up individual, and then watched for every sign? Every irrational move he made, every surface he obsessively wiped, every time he raised his voice, might you not have thought: Ah ha, traumatic childhood, when in fact it could be a perfectly normal character trait? David hated the idea of that. The idea that every move he made could be traced back to that seminal moment in his childhood. It revolted him, so he kept quiet.’

  ‘I don’t blame him for that,’ I murmured. ‘I think it’s brave of him not to use it as an excuse. Some people would. Do. Take no responsibility for their own actions and hang everything on a hook in their past, but … surely later, Gertrude, when he asked me to marry him. Surely then, when we were committing our lives to each other?’

  Gertrude sighed. Shrugged her shoulders wearily. ‘Should we own people so completely? Know every single detail, if they’re to be ours?’

  I considered this. ‘It’s not a detail, Gertrude.’

  She nodded. ‘I know. It’s a fundamental truth about him, and I agree, one he should have shared with you, ultimately. But who’s to say it’s still the genesis of all of this?’ She waved her jewelled hand despairingly at the door behind which David lay. ‘We’re now surmising, or at least I am, that because he was at that house again, it triggered all this off.’

  ‘But why go to the house?’ I said, baffled. ‘Why encourage me to take it – which he did, Gertrude, he really did – when presumably he hadn’t been back there since …’

  ‘No, you’re right, only once, since it happened. Hugh and I took him one year, hoping for the best, but it was a disaster, so after that, we always took him to France, and used Taplow House when he was at boarding school.’ She sighed. ‘Perhaps we should have sold it, but we loved it there. Felt guilty that we did love it after all that had happened, but we didn’t blame the house, you see. Still don’t. And yes, I was astounded when David rang me and said you wanted it for the summer, but you know, my dear, I think he wanted the day of reckoning.’ She turned to look at me. ‘Wanted to face up to the demons. Banish them. Because I don’t think he ever has entirely faced them, and he knew it. He certainly never talked to me, or Hugh, about the manner of his parents’ death, and although we tried – gently at the time, when he was young – he always clammed up. Wouldn’t speak of it. And of course in those days there wasn’t the counselling there is now. Wasn’t the emphasis, and we somehow felt, well, poor little scrap, he’s been through enough. Let’s leave him be. My fault, perhaps.’ Her strong face crumpled. I took her hand as she pressed a hanky to her eyes with the other. She suddenly looked terribly old and tired.

  ‘Nonsense,’ I said quietly. ‘Not your fault. All you did was take him into your house and love him and treat him as your own son. It’s no one’s fault, Gertrude. We’re both trying to blame ourselves, and it’s … well. It’s life. Tragic and raw.’

  I thought back to that little boy, standing over the bodies of his parents at that scene of horror. Suddenly my mouth dried. I swung around to her.

  ‘Gertrude, where – which bedroom was it in?’

  ‘The main one, with the big picture window, looking out over the bay.’ She regarded me squarely. ‘We always slept there, Annabel, Hugh and I. It’s the best room. We redecorated it completely of course, changed all the furniture, but it’s not the house. Never was. I had no qualms about knowing you were sleeping in that room, although I did wonder at David …’

  ‘Yes,’ I breathed, remembering our two nights in there together. How must he have felt? I remembered his bout of passionate love-making. Was that banishing the demons? I shivered.

  ‘I think I shall sell it now, however,’ said Gertrude, straightening up in her chair. ‘I’m getting too old. And after all this …’

  We were silent for a while. Each staring bleakly out of the window at the rooftops of London beyond. The sun hung in a misty haze over them. I felt my own mood, too, suspended, floating. After a while, I stood up.

  ‘I’m going in now, Gertrude. Going to see him.’

  She nodded. ‘And I’m going home for a bit. I’m exhausted.’

  ‘You must be.’

  I went to the door and stared through the circle of glass at his sleeping profile. Took a deep breath.

  ‘Remember,’ Gertrude cautioned, coming up behind me, ‘he didn’t want me to tell you. Felt it was too shaming. He doesn’t know you’re here.’

  ‘I know.’

  I turned and squeezed both her hands. She squeezed mine back and we traded brave smiles, both with watery eyes. Then I reached for the handle and went in.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  As I shut the door softly behind me, David’s eyes flickered. He was lying on his back, his head slightly elevated by the bed-head. It took him a moment to wake up and register, but then he groaned.

  ‘Oh God.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, crossing the room and slipping quickly into a chair by his bed. ‘Gertrude said you’d told her not to tell me, but she had to, David, you must see that.’ I took his hand, lying limp on the blanket.

  ‘Why?’ he said harshly, turning his head away. ‘Because …’ I faltered, then tried again. ‘Well, because if I don’t know, I can’t help you. Oh my darling, how are you?’ So inadequate, but what else?

  ‘How am I? I’d have thought it was perfectly obvious to even the most casual observer that I’m recovering from a little bout of stomach irrigation. I’m feeling the effects of an internal explosion having tampered with the self-destruct button.’ His voice was almost militant in its detachment.

  ‘But – but why, David? Why did you do it?’ I squeezed his hand. ‘Was it just the court case?’

  ‘Just the court case?’ he said with heavy emphasis. He turned his head back to me. ‘My professional reputation dragged through the mud? My good name in tatters? My practising certificate taken away from me, unable to work as a doctor again, everything I’ve worked for – just the court case?’

  ‘I – I know,’ I stammered. ‘Awful. But it hasn’t happened yet, David. They’ve only threatened legal action, haven’t they? And you’re innocent until proven guilty, and they may not even find you guilty!’

  ‘They will,’ he said flatly, turning away again. ‘But it wasn’t just that,’ he added bitterly. ‘Since you ask. It was everything.’

  I felt scared. Licked my lips. Tried again. ‘David, Gertrude told me about your parents. I’m so sorry. So sad and sorry for you.’

  He didn’t bring his head back this time. Stared resolutely at the opposite wall. ‘But, you see, that’s not what I want,’ he said quietly. ‘Your sympathy.’

  ‘N-no, I – I’m just saying.’ I swallowed, hunting for the words. Everything I said sounded wrong or trivial. ‘I’m just saying I couldn’t come in here and pretend I didn’t know.’

  ‘Why not? I did. For years. Why does everything have to be put out and aired on an emotional washing line? Examined for stains, held up for general inspection?’

  I inhaled sharply. Everything about his demeanour was hard and knowing. He was so composed, despite his evident physical weakness. I squeezed his hand. Tried a different tack.

  ‘I’m so glad you didn’t do it, David,’ I said warmly. ‘So glad you called an ambulance.’

  He turned to face me. ‘I didn’t. My neighbour in Islington found me. She’d taken delivery of a registered parcel. She’s a key-holder, and because I’m never there, always at your place, she used her key to let herself in and put it on my kitchen table. She walked past me lying on the sofa. Dropped the parcel and screamed the place down, apparently. Then called an ambulance.’

  I stared at him, horrified. ‘You were going to do it?’

  ‘Oh yes. I was.’

  ‘And …’ I tried to
scramble my thoughts together. ‘N-no note, or anything?’ I stammered. ‘I mean – what about me?’

  Awful. He’d wanted to end his life, and all I could think was: What about me? It hung in the air, suspended. I couldn’t take it back.

  He kept the expressionless mask in place as he stared at the ceiling. Suddenly it buckled. ‘That’s what I said,’ he gasped, ‘when it happened to me. What I said when my father did it. What about me!’

  Tears began to flood sideways out of his eyes, streaming down on to the pillow. He covered his face with his hands. I swooped to hold him, cradling his head in my arms as he sobbed.

  ‘Don’t, David, shush!’ I rocked him. ‘I’m so sorry, Annie,’ he choked. ‘So sorry!’

  ‘Don’t. Don’t!’

  He sobbed on and on, and we stayed like that, me holding his head tightly, like a rugby ball, as he cried into my shoulder. At length, he recovered. Nodded to show me he was fine. I unclasped him. Took his hand as he rested his head back on the pillow.

  ‘And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,’ he said, wiping his face roughly with his forearm. ‘I wanted to, so many times. Wanted to go to the house with you, tell you there. Tell you what had happened there so long ago. Wanted to get over the past once and for all, and I thought I could do it with you beside me, you see. Thought I could draw strength from you, because I loved you so much. And I thought I loved you more than I loved them, my parents, so it would work. That one love would triumph over another. But … I discovered it’s not necessarily the ones you love the most that have the most effect on you. I didn’t know that.’ He was quiet for a moment. ‘And anyway,’ he added bitterly, ‘how was I to know I was comparing one delusion with another?’

  I felt stricken. A delusion. They hadn’t loved him enough to stay, and I hadn’t loved him enough to … But how could I protest?

  ‘And that’s why you did it?’ I whispered. ‘Tried to kill yourself?’