Out of Sight (24 page)

‘I can't. I'm sorry.'

He twisted away from her, pushing her aside, then immediately tried to atone for his ungentle reaction. ‘I'm sorry, sweetheart. But it just won't happen.'

Belinda didn't move. ‘At least let me hold you,' he said, attempting to pull her back into his arms. She did not entirely turn away, but drew up her knees, her arms guarding her chest. They lay like that, their bodies touching only where her head rested unnaturally on the elbow of his outstretched arm, saying nothing until both pretended to fall asleep.

Patrick's final session with Amanda was fixed for almost the precise moment when, in France, Agnès and Geoffrey were laying Josette to rest. It had been readily agreed between them all that it would be futile for Patrick to attend his grandmother's funeral. Nonetheless, he felt some regret, if merely out of a dutiful respect; all the more so
when Geoffrey had rung to say that Josette had left her house and its contents to Patrick. He was perturbed by this unexpected gesture, but Geoffrey was glad to be relieved of responsibility for disposing of everything, and it appeared that Josette had discussed and agreed her decision with Agnès long before, when she had first drawn up her will. In any case, the matter would have to be considered another time: he was unable to make room right now for anything to do with Josette.

Patrick was irritated, therefore, when Amanda's first question brought his grandmother to mind. ‘You told me last time that you upset people. I'd like to talk about that.'

He nodded, resigned.

‘Who made you think that you upset people?' she asked.

He shrugged. ‘People are better off without me.'

‘Did someone use to tell you that?'

‘My grandmother.'

‘Grandma Hinde?'

‘No. My French grandmother, Josette.'

‘Is she still alive?'

‘No. Though she lived to a good age.'

‘Were you close?'

‘I never saw much of her once I left school. Even my mother only visited once or twice a year.'

‘But when you were a child?'

He nodded. ‘In the holidays.'

‘And she made you feel as if it was you who were to blame when people were upset?'

‘Yes.'

‘Can you give me an example?'

‘Sometimes my mother had to go back and be with my dad, and I'd stay on with Josette. Maman hates having to say goodbye, gets distressed when people leave. Josette used to say it was my fault.'

‘Your fault that your mother hated leaving?'

‘My fault that she left me. That she didn't want me with her.'

‘I see. What else did Josette say?'

‘She'd ask what I'd done. Go on at me to own up to why they never wanted me with them. Sometimes, for fun, I'd imagine what terrible deeds I might've committed. It was almost easier to pretend they were right, like I was secretly a werewolf or a vampire or something, rather than admit that adults are all just crazy and useless.' Patrick tried to laugh, then shifted in his chair and sighed heavily. ‘Even then I knew that Josette was fucked up. She'd had to be tough to survive, but she hated me. Why should she hate a defenceless kid for no reason? I must have done something.'

‘Tell me how you felt about your mother leaving.'

Patrick examined his hands in his lap as he answered, ‘I didn't like it.'

‘Did you show that you were upset?'

‘No. That would have made her worse. Made everything worse.'

‘So at least, by looking after your mother, you could do some good?'

Patrick stared at her. ‘I guess,' he said at last.

‘But you never asked not to be left?'

‘What good would it have done?'

When Amanda failed to ask another question, he looked up to find her observing him with a sad expression. ‘I'm not going to feel sorry for myself,' he responded angrily. ‘This shouldn't be about me. What about Belinda? She's the one who matters now. I want to think about her, not go on bleating away about my childhood!'

‘You don't think that perhaps unravelling a few things from your childhood might ultimately help Belinda too?'

‘No! Look, do I actually have to be here? Because if I have a choice, then frankly I'd rather pack it in. This just feels to me all rather like wallowing in self-indulgence.'

‘The door's not locked,' said Amanda evenly. ‘And you don't have to come again.' Patrick stared at her, torn. Unable to conjure up any honest justification for walking out, he stayed put. After a moment's silence, Amanda nodded, and asked, ‘You feel guilty towards Belinda?'

‘What the fuck do you think?' he responded belligerently, then held up his hands. ‘I'm sorry, I'm sorry. But feeling guilty doesn't even begin to—' Patrick waved his arms to express the inadequacies of speech. He groaned, fighting the urge to curl into a ball and hide from the world for ever. ‘I don't know what to do, how to go on,' he told Amanda. ‘She wants me to, but I don't think I can. I'm totally lost. No way to go forward.'

‘I suspect it would help you to be punished?'

He smiled wryly. ‘Be nice to be in a prison cell!'

‘What about thoughts of suicide?' she asked gently.

‘Of course. All the time. But I can't, can I?' He met her steady gaze and sighed. ‘But then, I think maybe it's the best thing I could do for her. I'm sure her family would agree.'

‘Has she ever said so?'

‘Never. The opposite.' His heart clenched and he had to look away into nothingness as the image of Belinda crying with guilt at the kitchen table washed over him. ‘She blames herself for his death.'

‘That must be tough.'

‘She doesn't deserve this. How could I do it to her? I don't understand how she can forgive me.'

‘Maybe you need to let her.'

Patrick shook his head. ‘I have to find a way to make it up to her. It's all I can do now.' Sensations from the previous night flushed over him, and he tried to calm himself before going on. ‘But what if I can't? However much I want to do what she wants, no matter how hard I try, I'm not sure I can.'

‘What do you fear might happen if you fail?'

He stared at her, unable to find words. ‘There's something bad in me,' he said at last. ‘I'm no good for people.'

An hour later, on the train, a young woman caught Patrick's attention and smiled. Though he seldom responded, he was used to women putting out signals that they found
him attractive. Now, however, he wondered how this girl would react if someone told her the truth about him, if she had been witness to what he had done. He shrank back into his seat, staring instead at the unfolding view through the window. It was a walk of a mile or so to Ditchling, which had no station of its own. As he neared his office, Patrick tried not to imagine how the occasional passer-by must be pretending not to notice him, then afterwards turning to stare. He kept walking, facing straight ahead.

At the entrance to the enclosed yard behind his building, he hesitated, then, his mind long made up, straightened his back and walked purposefully up the blind alley. He had never really looked at nor committed to memory this nondescript, convenient space where he had regularly parked his car. The August sun cut a diagonal line of shadow across the uneven ground. A couple of self-seeded elder saplings thrived in one corner, straw-like weeds grew out of cracks in the dry mortar of a flanking wall and bright green algae glistened below a pipe dripping from the empty flat above his office. What Patrick at first thought was litter turned out to be a rotting bunch of flowers that someone had laid on the ground. He could see a small card stapled to the cellophane wrapping, the message written in florist's biro by an immature hand, but he did not approach close enough to read the words. The air enclosed between these red-brick walls was innocent of what had happened here. Patrick remembered a teenage visit to the Coliseum in Rome when he had endeavoured
to extract from the stones some tangible trace of all the years of fear and savagery they had witnessed. But they were just stones: any awareness of what had taken place was in his own head.

He went back down the alley and turned out onto the narrow pavement. He stopped at his office doorway beside the brass plate. He had his key ready in his pocket, but it was a few moments before he could will his arm to move. He had to push the door open against a small mound of mail collected on the mat. His half-drunk mug of tea was on the desk where he had abandoned it. Thick mould covered the surface of the once milky liquid. The message light on the phone flashed. When he touched the keyboard, the computer screen sprang to life, the cursor blinking at the end of the sentence where he had left off writing up his notes on a new patient. He could still remember his thoughts about her. For a second it seemed as if time had stood still, and his heart gave a wrenching leap – It was not true! It had not happened! – before jolting him back into reality. He bent to pick up the post. Among the bills were quite a few handwritten letters that he assumed would be abusive.

Sitting down at his desk, he decided to deal with those first. The majority turned out to be letters of condolence. He read each one quickly before dropping them all into the waste bin. Some of the phone messages, too, expressed sympathy and regret, though most were about appointments that he had failed to cancel. To begin with the tone
was of annoyance, replaced by shock and embarrassment as the news spread, and finally by self-interest as concern for their own migraine or sciatica closed over the unnatural chasm of his personal tragedy. ‘Please let me know when you're coming back,' requested one voice with faint apology. ‘I'd much rather keep coming to you, Mr Hinde, but I do need more pills.'

Patrick found himself amused: for once, his patients' self-involvement was refreshing. Here at least he could be of use, could carry on with some aspect of his life that was not about him. He had not fully appreciated until now how vital a refuge his work provided nor how deeply he would have mourned its loss. If his patients were to go on entrusting him with their intimate troubles, then here was some vindication of his continued existence. For time was his real enemy now, his task to find some way to get through each of the thousands of days that lay ahead; without work, he wondered how on earth he would fill the void.

He felt the impact of the past thunder through him, all the weight of distant unresolved traumas, of other unforgiven deeds and insufficient atonements. Recognising in himself the destructive symptoms of inherited predispositions, he realised he must fight against becoming an outcast, a leper. Though he knew he lacked the objectivity to prescribe for himself, he could safely assume which miasmatic remedy a colleague would suggest, and went to fetch it for himself.

Swallowing the pills gave him enough courage to deal with the list of his patients' queries and complaints, and gradually he found an easeful distraction in the practical concentration on other people's problems. Although not yet ready to speak to any of his patients on the phone, he wrote the necessary messages in emails or on cards. Offering new appointments – though God knew whether they would be taken up – constructed a framework around which he could foresee himself building a future; which, he reminded himself, was what Belinda wanted. An hour later he found himself sticking stamps onto envelopes in a luxurious interval during which his mind had not once been snagged by pain. He silently blessed each and every patient for the gift they had unwittingly bestowed.

A short account of the inquest appeared in the local Brighton paper. It reported how the coroner had delivered a narrative verdict, finding no evidence of gross negligence or reckless disregard, and also confirmed that no criminal charges were to be brought. The following day, Belinda told Patrick, the parents of one of her music pupils withdrew their daughter from her private lessons and harangued the principal to dismiss her from the school. Although the principal refused, she felt she should not keep Belinda in ignorance of how the couple had vented their belief that Patrick was guilty of child abuse and that Belinda, in not divorcing him, must be complicit.

Despite the coroner's sympathetic handling of the
process, the inquest had left Patrick feeling wretched. Belinda had wanted her sister there, and by the end of the proceedings Patrick half-agreed with Grace's poorly concealed belief that Belinda needed to be protected from him. It had been hard enough giving his own evidence, trying to weave a meaningful account of his actions that day, but even worse to witness the strain on the faces of the young police officers, and even of the experienced paramedics, as they recorded, with valiant attempts at objectivity, their horror at discovering Daniel's body.

He had stared at the floor, burning with shame as each of these well-meaning and diligent people attempted to account for his crime of forgetfulness – a crime he remained unable to explain. When one of them happened to catch his eye, Patrick wondered how the man could so successfully hide the disdain he must surely feel. Listening to the pathologist recount the details of the post-mortem, with Belinda sitting rigidly beside him, Patrick had thought his heart would burst as she endured the list of atrocities inflicted on her child.

After the coroner's verdict, he and Belinda had emerged from the court into the oblivious September sunshine, standing like lost children, unable to comprehend the bizarre nature of their freedom.

Grace had shepherded Belinda across the road to a coffee shop, making it plain that Patrick might follow or not as he pleased. Belinda had sat staring into her mug, shut off from her surroundings, while Grace fussed over her,
helping her off with her jacket, offering to fetch more milk, urging her to drink before the coffee went cold. Grace had ignored Patrick until Belinda got up to go to the loo. Then she had immediately leant in towards him. ‘Why are you here?' she had hissed at him. ‘If you loved her at all, you'd clear off.'