The Echoing Stones (12 page)

Arnold recognised the quote; his attention was caught in spite of himself. The confused old man must have
been imagining himself to be Judge Morgan, Justice of the Common Pleas.

“It was Judge Morgan who condemned Lady Jane Grey to death,” he explained to Flora. “He was said to have been haunted by her ever after, and on his death-bed, in his delirium, he imagined that she …”

“Yes, well. Anyway, she was too heavy, like I said, and so don’t look like that, Arnold, nothing has happened to her. She’s
exactly
as you left her, prayer-book and all –”

“Bible,” Arnold couldn’t help interposing; “you see, at that time the Protestant Prayer Book …”

Not surprisingly, Flora gave an impatient sigh.

“O.K., Bible, then, what’s the difference? The point is, everything is safely back exactly the way it was. Nothing has
happened
…”

Nothing that could be explained to someone who is incapable of understanding, anyway. Arnold sighed, and contented himself with extracting a half-hearted
promise
from his daughter that she would never take the keys again.

“Not without asking you,” she amended casually,
drawing
from him a sharp rejoinder:

“No,
never
,” he insisted. “Not
at
all.
Not in any circumstances whatsoever.”

“Well, O.K.,” she agreed, evidently humouring the old fuss-pot; and pushing her hair back from her eyes picked up the T.V. Times and began idly leafing through it.

It wasn’t good enough. Arnold resolved then and there never again to trust the keys to their old hiding-place – or indeed to any other. They must be on his own person, at all times.

It was a week or so later when Arnold received his first intimation that all was not going quite smoothly in Joyce’s household, and that his daughter’s self-appointed role as ministering angel was beginning to cause problems. October was already here; the leaves were yellowing on the great trees and beginning to fall, and as he made his way along the Avenue towards Joyce’s kiosk, he could feel them damp and slippery under his feet. This was one of the best bits of his day, this coffee-break with Joyce after his morning rounds were completed, and before the visitors began to arrive. There was always a good hot cup of Nescafe for him, brewed by Joyce in her little cubby-hole behind the brown hessian curtain at the back of the kiosk. She kept a large, well-filled tin of biscuits, too, including always a generous proportion of custard-creams, his favourite. The idle chat that accompanied this repast was always pleasant and relaxing, no matter what it was about, from nuclear war to Arnold’s latest tiff with Norris the gardener; from the foibles of the visitors and their ill-behaved children to last night’s T.V. programmes. Restful, undemanding, and always enjoyable.

But on this particular morning there was an uneasiness between them, a tendency to talk about the weather.

“A bit chilly this morning,” one of them said; and, “Yes, autumn’s not far off,” the other one answered: and already Arnold could tell, from this small exhange, that something was wrong. Joyce’s lips were unsmiling; the preliminary
platitudes fell between them heavy as stones, and didn’t lead to any interesting bits of gossip or exchange of views. Sipping his coffee in silence, and taking the first biscuit that came to hand – he hadn’t the heart to search for a custard-cream in this uneasy atmosphere – Arnold waited for Joyce to tell him what was the matter. With dull resignation, he felt sure it would be something to do with Flora: and it was.

*

It wasn’t that Joyce didn’t feel grateful for Flora’s kindness to the old man; of course she did; it was just ripping of the girl to go to so much trouble … but, well … the thing was …

And then it all came out. At the beginning, admittedly, Flora ministrations had done nothing but good.

“It’s been wonderful for him, having someone young to talk to. He missed his students, you know, terribly, when he retired, and he used to come back from these strolls with your daughter all lit-up, and his memory better than it’s been in years. She got him talking about his work, you know, I suppose it activated some bit of his brain that still works, in a way, and he’d come in talking quite sensibly – you know, about the restoration of the stone work in the West Wing – that sort of thing. Not that I know much about it, but I can tell when someone’s talking sense and when they aren’t. And he
was
talking sense, he was getting things right; and what’s more, he knew it. It was as if some sort of cloud had lifted from his mind, and he seemed so excited about it.

“And that’s where the trouble started, Arnold, he’s getting
too
excited. I hear him shouting out in the night, sometimes for hours on end, haranguing someone – or maybe some committee, it sounds more like that sometimes – about authorising grants for the Navy, or for the Queen’s Household – that sort of thing. As if he was really taking part in important political decisions of
Tudor times, not merely studying them, or giving lectures on them, which of course he used to do. The night before last it was a bit terrifying, he went on and on for an hour or more about Mary Tudor’s baby that’s been hidden away, and a plot to kill it to prevent the Catholics continuing in power. Oh, Arnold, he’s having delusions again, I can tell he is. I mean,
everyone
knows that Mary Tudor never had a baby, it was just her bit of wishful thinking, poor soul; and so it frightens me when every now and then my father seems to be taking it seriously. It worries me dreadfully, it’s such a bad sign. But apart from that, I don’t want it to come to the ears of his old colleagues that he’s gone to pieces like this. I don’t want him made a mockery of in his old age, after all the wonderful work he did when he was – well – when he was all right. Things get around, you see …”

She paused, frowning, and crumbling the remains of her biscuit into her saucer. Then:

“I’m not sure if I ought to tell you this, Arnold – but I can trust you, can’t I? You won’t let it go any further? Well, a few weeks ago a gentleman rang up, asking to speak to Sir Humphrey. Well, it’s a bit awkward, sometimes, bringing my father to the phone and getting him to answer – well – sensibly; and so I asked if I could give him a message. It turned out to be all rather complicated, but I got it down as well as I could – something about an article in an American journal which this man wanted to discuss with Sir Humphrey. Of course, I was a bit worried, because – you know – my father isn’t really up to this sort of thing any more. But naturally I didn’t want to admit this to a total stanger, so I said yes, I’d give him the message.

“And I
did
give it to him – thinking, of course, that he’d be too muddled and forgetful to do anything about it. But, my goodness, what a shock I got! As soon as I mentioned the caller’s name, he exploded into such a rage as I’d never
seen! He went quite white with fury, I was afraid he’d have a heart-attack, ranting and raving about this person having dared to phone him. He ordered me not to speak to this man ever again, but just to cut him off, instantly.

“And if he ever dares to set foot in this house, I shall kill him!” he said.

“And he meant it! I could tell he did! My goodness, was I terrified! He was obviously in the grip of one of his crazy delusions, and I felt I had to promise just anything to calm him down …

“But it was difficult, because this person rang several times more. I didn’t want to be rude to him, but what could I do? I just
had
to fend him off; and when he suggested that he would like to come and talk to Sir Humphrey – go over some papers with him – oh, I
was
in a quandary! I
had
to forbid it. ‘No,’ I said, ‘Sir Humphrey’s papers are not available for inspection, not by anyone.’ I was right, wasn’t I, Arnold, to be firm? Of course, after my father has passed, it may be another matter, but for the moment I have to protect him, absolutely, from this sort of thing. Getting upset like that is the worst possible thing for him, it triggers off his delusions, and there’s no knowing what he might do once one of these destructive delusions has got him in its grip.

“And this is what I want to talk to you about, Arnold. About your Flora. I hate to say it, but it seems to me that she goes out of her way to encourage his delusions in every way she can. And it’s not right, Arnold; it’s not right at all. ‘Let’s go and search for it in the wood,’ I heard her say to him one time when he’d been on about this imaginary Tudor baby. ‘We must find the poor little thing before the Comptroller learns that it is gone.’ And as soon as she’d said this, I saw that awful look come into his eyes, sort of thrilled and sly. So I called her back. ‘Flora,’ I said, ‘I know you mean well, humouring him about these things, treating his delusions as a sort of game you play together,
but, please, my dear, don’t let it go too far. It’s not safe, it really isn’t. You could be putting
yourself
in danger.’”

“And what did she say?” Arnold asked, his heart sinking.

Joyce’s lips tightened. “I’m afraid she wasn’t very co-operative,” she answered primly. “Some of the things she said – I was quite upset. I’m not used to being spoken to like that.”

Here we go again, Arnold found himself wearily
thinking
. One more potentially rewarding project which Flora has wrecked.

“So I suppose you won’t want her coming to your place any more?” he said, wondering how in the world he was going to prevent it. “I suppose you’ll …”

“Oh no! I didn’t mean that!” Joyce interrupted hastily, and in her anxious eyes Arnold could read the weighing-up of the damage his daughter might be doing against the blessed respites she provided: the minutes, the hours of peace: the occasional whole evening of freedom, when Joyce could go and see a film, or spend a few hours visiting a friend. If Flora was forbidden the house, all this would be at an end.

“No, I didn’t mean
that
,” she repeated, “I know she means well, and after all she’s only young. One mustn’t expect old heads on young shoulders, must one? All I meant was – I wondered if perhaps
you
could have a word with her”; and Joyce went on to list all the things that the said word should comprise. Like steering the old man’s thoughts away from his historical fantasies and onto the real, ordinary world: like not taking him outside the grounds, ever; like telling Joyce beforehand exactly where they would be going; like coming back punctually at the time arranged: like not letting him get into conversation with the visitors because he was liable to say such funny things, it sometimes upset people …

As the list of do’s and don’t’s continued, Arnold began
to feel more and more like one of those unlucky princesses in the fairy-tales, who are commanded on pain of death to perform a set of impossible tasks, such as spinning a roomful of straw into gold.

Because Arnold knew very well that he wasn’t going to be able to make Flora do or not do any of these things. Anything he said was going to be entirely
counterproductive
. Should he admit this to Joyce here and now and be done with it, or should he encourage her in her pathetic delusion that he might have some sort of influence over his daughter? It is not only in dealing with madmen that the question of whether or not to go along with a delusion has to be faced.

“And most important of all,” Joyce was emphasising. “Do impress on her that she must
not
interfere with his medication. He’s on tranquillisers, you know, Dr Foxe has been prescribing them for months now to control his manic phases, and I must say they’ve been a godsend. My goodness, it used to be terrifying! One morning he attacked the milkman with a hatchet; I only got there just in time to prevent a ghastly accident. He’d got the idea that the milk was poisoned, that the milkman had been bribed by the Privy Council to poison it. He suffered from this obsession, you see, he thought he was the rightful heir to the throne, descended from Mary Tudor; which of course he couldn’t have been, she never had any children; it was just his poor mind, it was going all to pieces.”

Here she paused, and passed him the biscuit tin, shuffling the biscuits to get the custard creams to the top. Then: “The thing is, Arnold, these tranquillisers really have made all the difference. Right from the start – almost from the very first dose he became altogether calmer – less difficult and restless. He still does – well funny things, but he’s not been violent any more, not since taking them regularly. I really had to speak to Flora about that, because she has this idea that we ought to be
getting him off them. They’re dulling his faculties, she says, and I suppose, in a sense, they are. But when it comes to attacking people with a hatchet …! I tried to explain it to her, but perhaps I wasn’t very tactful … I was frightened, you see, and I may have put it badly. And so I did wonder, Arnold, if maybe
you
could talk to her? After all, you’re her father: she’ll listen to you.”

To which monumental non-sequitur Arnold found
himself
weakly acquiescing. Well, Joyce was obviously upset, he felt vaguely responsible for his daughter’s
misdemeanours
, and so what else could he do?

*

His interview with Flora that evening went every bit as badly as he had known it would. She thought it was very funny about the milkman, quite hilarious. “Can’t you just picture old Joyce, flapping her hands at the pair of them, in that tatty old housecoat of hers, all squeals and panic, and prim little gasps of horror? Enough to drive any man to murder!” And anyway, she enquired, how did Arnold know what had actually happened? He hadn’t been there watching, had he? He’d only heard Joyce’s side of the story.

True enough; but, stretch his imagination as he would, Arnold could not see that the other side of the story – the incident as seen by the wielder of the hatchet, presumably – was likely to be very reassuring. So he tried to bring the argument back to what he saw as the essential issue.

Doctor’s orders. If Sir Humphrey’s doctor had prescribed tranquilisers, it was because he judged tranquilisers to be necessary, and it was the height of arrogance for any unqualified person to question that judgement.

Once again Flora laughed, that special hard laugh of hers that she seemed to reserve for arguments with her father.

“‘
Judgement
’: You’ve got to be joking! Doctors don’t make
judgements
about prescribing tranquilisers, they just
chuck them at anyone who makes a fuss about anything. Like giving a baby a dummy: it’s easier than finding out what’s the matter.
I’m
the only one who’s bothered to find out what’s the matter with Sir Humphrey, and I can tell you exactly what it is: it’s those bloody tranks! Joyce and this Dr Foxe are in a conspiracy together to destroy her father’s intellect. Oh, not
consciously,
I didn’t say that.
Consciously
their intentions are all sweetness and light, I don’t doubt it. It’s just the way it says in
Manufacture
of
Madness
(here Arnold gritted his teeth, silently), they’ve decided that just because he’s ninety he’s got to be senile; it’s his rôle, and so they set to work to make him so. They didn’t manage to do it just by suggestion, the way most ‘carers’ do. and so they’ve resorted to pills to do the job for them. Three times a day Joyce stuffs the things down his throat in order to make him stupid. But not any longer, thank you very much! This afternoon I chucked the whole lot of them down the loo!”

*

She hadn’t, though; and when she saw her father leaping to the telephone to report this new catastrophe to Joyce, she admitted as much, with another of her chilling laughs.

“I meant to, though, I committed the sin in my heart. Isn’t that what counts? I looked for them everywhere, in the bedrooms – the bathroom – all over the place, but it turns out that Joyce keeps them in her pocket, always. Would you believe it? Whatever does she think might happen to them? What with that, and with
you
keeping that clanking bunch of keys in
your
pocket – I sometimes think that your generation suffers from a sort of mass paranoia …”