Out of Sight (21 page)

Patrick was taken aback. ‘No.'

She nodded matter-of-factly, making no further remark. ‘How were you academically?'

‘Did well enough to scrape into university.'

‘Languages, I suppose?' asked Amanda, smiling. ‘You must have a facility, after living in so many countries?'

‘My French is fluent,' Patrick agreed. ‘Thanks to my grandmother. But I liked human biology. Found it interesting.'

‘Were your parents proud of you, going to university?'

‘Well, it wasn't Oxbridge. Only Sheffield.'

‘What about romantic relationships?' she asked next.

‘I hardly got near a girl before I left school. But my first term there, a girl I sat next to in lectures asked me out. Annie.' He glanced at Amanda shyly, looking away as he enlarged. ‘She'd had boyfriends before, at school, so I just went along with what she wanted. Seemed to go okay.'

‘You don't find sexual relationships difficult?'

Patrick blushed. ‘No.'

‘How long have your relationships generally lasted?'

‘A few months. I was never into one-night stands.'

‘Nothing longer?'

‘Not until I met Belinda. Then she fell pregnant.'

‘Do you think you'd have stayed together if she hadn't?'

‘I'd like to think so. She wasn't even that keen on having a baby to begin with. Her music's very important to her. One thing led to another, I suppose.' Patrick grew sombre. ‘She should've steered well clear,' he said quietly. ‘She deserves better.'

‘Up until now, would you say you've made Belinda happy?'

Patrick considered the question. ‘Yes. We made each other happy.'

‘After you graduated, what did you do?'

‘I did a year of further training, then dropped out. Kind of drifted for a while.'

‘Tell me about that.'

‘Nothing much to tell.'

She looked at him, waiting, and Patrick, embarrassed, nonetheless saw that he had to offer more. ‘I got into the whole New Age thing. Raves, eco-protests, tribes. All that stuff.'

‘What was the further training in?'

Patrick heaved a sigh: he always hated making this admission, the explanations that inevitably had to follow. No one could ever seem to believe that he simply hadn't wanted to be a doctor. ‘Medicine.'

Amanda's eyes widened. ‘At what point did you drop out?'

‘I qualified. Just never applied for any jobs. Walked away.'

‘After what, five years of training?'

‘I wasn't the type. Too many hoops to jump through, a lot of stress. I only did it to please other people.'

‘Then it must have taken guts to disappoint them.'

Patrick snorted in derision. ‘Dad's never hard to disappoint!'

‘And your mother?'

‘Maman tends to get wrapped up in the small stuff. That I'll go out in the cold without a scarf, not eat properly.'

‘So what did you do after you dropped out? Where were you living? Were you working?'

‘Bits of casual labour. Moved around. That whole grunge, traveller thing, remember?' Patrick was mildly surprised at how Amanda let his well-rehearsed answers pass without comment.

‘You were a crustie?' Amanda looked amused.

‘Well, I don't think I ever actually slept in a doorway. But you're right. It wasn't much fun.'

‘Were you depressed?'

Once again, Patrick was taken aback. ‘Never thought. I guess I was a bit lost, if I'm honest. Most of the people I hung out with then were.'

‘How long did this go on?'

‘A while,‘ he said curtly. ‘Until I began training in homeopathy.'

‘And that gave you direction?' She leant forward slightly, interested in what he would say.

‘It was like I'd finally found what I wanted for myself,' he answered truthfully. ‘Something I could do well.'

‘And you've never been tempted to go back into medicine? Not even to call yourself a doctor?'

Patrick shook his head. ‘Why would I? I'm a homeopath.'

‘Okay. Tell me how you feel about your work. About yourself when you're working.'

‘Good.'

‘In what way?'

Patrick blushed again. ‘Like a good person. Safe.'

‘Safe from what?'

‘No. Like I'm safe. Can't harm anyone.'

Amanda regarded him steadily, but Patrick resisted the sense that she was waiting for him to make some connection.

‘You said it was easy to disappoint your father,' she went on after a moment. ‘Could you imagine a time when your son might have disappointed you?'

‘Never!'

‘Did you fuss over him, like your mother did over you?'

‘No. Poor Maman, her fears are irrational. An illness. Growing up with that, I've never let things get to me.'

‘How do you do that?'

Patrick shrugged. ‘Dunno.'

‘Ever think you're a little too laid back?'

‘Hope not.'

‘But you're able to block things out? Concentrate on what's before you – your patients, for instance?'

‘Yes, when I need to.'

‘Cut off, would you say?'

‘Not really.' Patrick heard the slightly aggrieved tone in his voice and shifted in his chair as if to disown it.

‘Forgetful?'

Patrick dropped his head and did not answer.

‘I believe your GP is organising some neurological tests? To rule out any physical cause for your memory loss.'

Patrick nodded, miserable.

‘You're still unable to remember your drive to work; parking the car and leaving Daniel?'

‘It's like there's no memory there to be retrieved.'

‘Do you think you might have emptied your mind in order to block something else out? Some uncomfortable feeling, perhaps?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Maybe you'd like to think about that for me.'

Patrick swallowed on nothing and stretched his lips into a smile. ‘Okay.'

‘Before this happened, how do you think you might have felt towards another parent who forgot his child, the same way you did?' Patrick stared at Amanda in surprise. ‘It has happened to other people. You're not unique.' She nodded at him encouragingly. ‘In America there are about twenty-five cases a year accounted for by parental memory lapse. I suspect such forgetfulness is fairly common here, too, but not often fatal, thanks to our climate. In France a few years ago two children died
in hot cars within a week of each other. Both had intelligent, diligent and devoted fathers, whose attention was somehow fatally distracted. Just like you.' She watched his reactions carefully. ‘How does it make you feel, knowing you're not alone?'

‘Better. No.' Horrified, he corrected himself instantly. ‘Not better, I don't mean that. There is no better. But – it helps,' he ended lamely. ‘Thank you.'

‘How do you feel towards those other fathers?'

‘I pity them.'

‘Are you able to pity yourself?'

‘No.'

‘Would you forgive them?'

‘Maybe. I know what you're going to say.' Patrick felt his hostility to her rising into his throat. ‘But it's not the same,' he exclaimed. ‘I'll never forgive myself. Never. Daniel's dead. There's no excuse for what I did.'

‘Well, I've read the police statements, Patrick. From your wife, Daniel's childminder, people in the emergency services who attended the scene, the patients you treated that day. None voiced any suspicion that you intended to harm your son.'

‘I did harm Daniel.'

‘Deliberately?'

‘Of course not.'

‘Then why should forgiveness not be possible? In time, of course.'

‘But it's obvious, isn't it? It's me. There's something in
me that harms people. I'm not safe.' At the back of his mind he heard a distant echo of Josette's voice.

Amanda sat back, saying nothing. The compassion Patrick could read on her face angered him. ‘My son is dead because of me,' he told her coldly. ‘It's not up to you or anyone else to forgive me. I allowed him to come to harm. I don't deserve forgiveness.'

An hour later Patrick sat down on a bench in a small park laid out in formal beds and paths around a war memorial. He felt as worn and exhausted as the dusty brown grass, as meaningless as the carved names of the long-ago dead. He could not picture what route had brought him here from Amanda's office. He couldn't face going home, going anywhere. All sorts of disconnected memories chased through his mind, of drab school dormitories, of listening late at night to his mother stealthily testing door handles and window locks in foreign apartments, of the way the light slanted in between the shutters as he sat on the floor at his grandmother's house, playing solitaire with an old wooden board and heavy citrus-coloured glass marbles. He wondered why he should think so vividly of that when he had barely mentioned Josette to Amanda. Josette had no bearing on any of this, and he pushed her out of his mind. He wondered what Amanda thought of him. He liked her, even though she had made him feel so gritty and irritable.

It occurred to Patrick that he had forgotten to discuss
his return to work, as he had promised Belinda he would. He recalled what Amanda had said about the supportive statements his patients had given to the police. The idea that it might after all prove possible to see patients again gave him his first unmistakable inkling of reprieve. This joined itself to the small and exquisitely painful spring of hope that had uncoiled inside him on hearing the simple fact that other men shared his guilt. The information that he was not uniquely capable of his act of lethal aberration released a tiny trickle of warmth that suddenly began to flow through his veins. But even such a minuscule sense of relief produced an overwhelming rushing sensation that made him panic. He leant forwards on the bench, bracing himself against the flood. He looked wildly around the little park, but saw he was alone. He tried to stand, to walk away, but his legs trembled and he sat back down on the hard bench, gasping for air.

He wondered if he were having a heart attack, and for a moment hoped he was. He felt no pain, but his head was swimming and he felt sick. His right hand gripped the edge of the wooden bench and, slowly, all his consciousness focused on the single sensation of touching its worn surface. His thumb began to circle rhythmically, and he recognised something to which he was accustomed in the dry grey dust working its way into the whorls of his fingerprint. Its familiarity began to calm him, and he was able to let his mind empty as his thumb continued to rub the desiccated wood, the feel of which reminded him more
and more of aged, dusty linen. He remembered now that he knew all too well how to subdue hope, how to endure alone, to accept that he deserved no better. These things came to him more naturally than kindness, forgiveness or reprieve, and he welcomed the memory of how he had always survived before.

The next day, Geoffrey called and informed Belinda that the offer he and Agnès had made on a house in Esher had been accepted; meanwhile they would return to Switzerland until their lease in Geneva expired towards the end of September. Geoffrey attempted to sidestep Belinda's invitation to lunch, but she insisted, and they came over two days later. Patrick welcomed them. Geoffrey refused eye-contact, pushing past his son to present Belinda with a box of expensive chocolates. Agnès kissed his cheeks and clung to his arm, and he gathered her to him in a hug. In the sitting room Geoffrey requested a gin and tonic and launched into small talk about the house they'd found, garlanded with jovial asides about the estate agent and one or two totally unsuitable places that they'd also viewed. Agnès nodded and laughed at appropriate moments, her eyes never leaving her son.

Observing them both, Patrick felt despondent at how little real pleasure his parents had ever found in family life, and now never would. The old gloom of responsibility settled on his shoulders. Even as a boy he had never succeeded in lightening their spirits, never managed to
work out where the insurmountable difficulty lay that prevented them from being happy. He felt a tearing wound of pity for the three of them.

Belinda called them to the table, where Geoffrey attempted to continue in the same vein. He talked randomly about their Channel crossing the next day and what route they would be taking through France, about farm shops and window cleaners, until Belinda cut across him, saying without preamble, ‘Did Patrick tell you he‘s seeing a psychologist?'

Agnès' fingers flew to her earrings, but, when Patrick leant across to press her hand, she looked directly at him, signalling her support. Geoffrey stared at Belinda in incomprehension.

‘Maybe, before you leave again for Geneva, you have things you'd like to say that might be helpful,' Belinda suggested, looking calmly at each of them in turn. ‘Maybe now is the time to discuss things you don't generally talk about.'

Geoffrey looked petrified, but Agnès nodded cautiously, and Belinda waited for her to speak. ‘Agnès?' she prompted.

‘Patrice knows how much we love him,' she said, patting his hand.

‘I'd like to understand more about why you sent him away when he was so young,' said Belinda blandly, though Patrick could detect how she struggled to keep her tone neutral. Such directness was unlike his wife but, he thought, looking at his father's drawn face and his mother's
over-bright eyes, none of them were any longer like themselves. ‘How you imagined he'd react to that,' she went on.

‘You sent your boy to a childminder,' Geoffrey accused Belinda. Agnès reacted with immediate alarm.

‘No one is criticising you, Dad,' cajoled Patrick. ‘What matters now,' he appealed to Belinda, ‘is to support one another.' But she returned his look with a resoluteness that was foreign to him.

‘I don't hold with working mothers,' insisted Geoffrey. ‘If you'd stayed at home with him, young lady, none of this would have happened.'