A Traitor to Memory (57 page)

“She was upset.”

“That was obvious. As were her feelings about your work, by the way, which is something you might want to consider should you wish to carry on with her.”

I didn't want to discuss Libby with him. He's made his attitude plain from the start. There's no point wasting energy trying to change it.

We were in the kitchen, where we'd repaired once Libby left us on the steps. She'd said to him, “Richard, stay out of my way,” and had pushed open the gate to her steps with a clang. She'd pounded down and into her flat, from where the volume of her pop music was now illustrating the state of her mind.

“We went to see Bertram Cresswell-White,” I told Dad. “Do you remember him?”

“I had a look at your garden earlier,” Dad replied, canting his head towards the back of the house. “The weeds are starting to go rampant, Gideon. If you aren't careful, they're going to choke out the rest of the plants, what few there are. You know, you can hire a Filipino if you don't like gardening. Have you considered doing that?”

From below in Libby's flat, the pop music blared. She'd opened her windows. Distorted phrases pounded up from the lower ground floor:
How can your
man … loves
you … slow down
, bay-
bee
…

I said, “Dad, I asked you—”

“I've brought you two camellias, by the way.” He walked to the window overlooking the garden.

…
let him
know …
he's
play
ing around!

It was dark outside, so there was nothing to see except Dad's own reflection and mine on the glass. His was clear; mine wavered ghostlike as if affected by either the atmosphere or my inability to manifest strongly.

“I've planted them on either side of the steps,” Dad said. “They're not quite what I want yet in the way of blooms, but I'm getting close.”

“Dad, I'm asking you—”

“I've weeded both planters, but you're going to have to see to the rest of the garden yourself.”

“Dad!” …
a chance to feel … free to … the feeling grab you
, bay-
bee
.

“Or you can always ask your American friend if she wants to make herself useful in ways other than verbally assaulting you in the street or entertaining you with her quaint choice of music.”

“God damn it, Dad. I'm asking you a question.”

He turned from the window. “I heard the question. And—”

Love him. Love him, baby. Love
him.

“—if I didn't have to compete with your little American's auditory entertainment, I might actually consider answering it.”

I said loudly, “Ignore it, then. Ignore Libby as well. You're good at ignoring things you can't be bothered with, aren't you, Dad?”

The music suddenly stopped, as if I'd been heard. The silence following my question created nature's enemy, a vacuum, and I waited to see what would fill it. A moment later Libby's door banged shut. A moment after that the Suzuki fired up in the street. It roared as she angrily revved its motor. Then the sound faded as she spun out of Chalcot Square.

Dad leveled a look at me, his arms crossed. We'd arrived at dangerous territory, the two of us, and I could feel that danger, like a live wire snapping in the air between us. But he said evenly, “Yes. Yes, I suppose I do that, don't I? I ignore unpleasantness in order to get on with living.”

I side-stepped the implication behind his words. I said slowly, as if speaking to someone who did not understand English, “Do you remember Cresswell-White?”

He sighed and moved away from the window. He walked into the music room. I followed him. He sat near my stereo and racks of CDs. I remained by the door.

“What do you want to know?” he asked me.

I accepted the question as acquiescence, saying, “I've remembered seeing Katja in the garden. It was night. She was with someone, a man. They were—” I shrugged, feeling heat in my face, aware of the juvenility of that heat, which only made it seem to grow stronger. “They were together. Intimately. I can't remember who he was. I don't think I saw him clearly.”

“What's the point of this?”

“You know the point. We've been through it all. You know what she—what Dr. Rose—wants me to do.”

“So tell me, is this particular memory supposed to relate to your music in some way?”

“I'm trying to remember whatever I can. In whatever order I can. When I can. One memory seems to trigger another, and if I hook enough of them together, there's a chance I can get to whatever it is that's causing the problem with my playing.”

“There is no problem with your playing. There is no playing.”

“Why won't you just answer? Why won't you help me? Just tell me who Katja—”

“Are you assuming that I know?” he demanded. “Or are you really asking if I was the man with Katja Wolff in the garden? My relationship with Jill certainly indicates a predilection for younger women, doesn't it? And if I have that predilection now, why not then?”

“Are you going to answer?”

“Let me assure you that my current predilection is recent and directed solely at Jill.”

“So you weren't the man in the garden. The man with Katja Wolff.”

“I was not.”

I studied him. I wondered if he was telling the truth. I thought of that picture of Katja and my sister, of the way she smiled at whoever was taking it, of what that smile might mean.

He said with a tired gesture towards the racks near his chair, “I had the opportunity to look through your CDs while I was waiting for you, Gideon.”

I waited, wary about this line of talk.

“You've quite a collection. How many are there? Three hundred? Four?”

I made no response.

“A number of different interpretations of some pieces by different artists as well.”

“I'm sure there's a point in this,” I said at last.

“But not a single copy of
The Archduke
. Why is that? I wonder.”

“I've never been attracted to that particular piece.”

“Then why were you going to play it at Wigmore Hall?”

“Beth suggested it. Sherrill went along. I had no real objection—”

“To playing a piece of music that doesn't attract you?” he demanded. “What the hell were you thinking? You're the name, Gideon. Not Beth. Not Sherrill. You call the shots when it comes to a concert. They do not.”

“The concert's not what I want to talk about.”

“I understand that. Believe me, I entirely understand. You haven't wanted to talk about the concert from the beginning. You're seeing this damned psychiatrist, in fact, because you don't want to talk about the concert.”

“That's not true.”

“Joanne heard from Philadelphia today. They wanted to know if you'll be able to make your appearance there. The rumours have traveled to America, Gideon. How much longer do you expect to be able to hold the world at bay?”

“I'm trying to get to the root of this in the only way I know.”

“‘Trying to get to the root of this,’” he mocked. “You're doing nothing but opting for cowardice, and I wouldn't have thought that possible. I only thank God your grandfather didn't live to see this moment.”

“Are you thankful for me or for yourself?”

He drew in a slow breath. One of his hands balled into a fist. The other hand reached to cradle it. “What exactly are you saying?”

I couldn't go further. We'd reached one of those moments when it seemed to me that irreparable harm could come from carrying on. And what good could have come from carrying on? What point would be served by forcing my father to turn the mirror from me onto his own childhood? onto his adulthood? onto everything he'd done and been and attempted in order to be acceptable to the man who'd adopted him?

Freaks, freaks, freaks, Granddad had shouted at the son who'd created three of them. Because I, too, am a freak of nature, Dr. Rose. At heart I have always been one.

I said, “Cresswell-White said everyone gave evidence against Katja. Everyone from the house, he said.”

Dad watched me through narrowed eyes before he made a comment, and I couldn't tell if his hesitation had to do with my words or with my refusal to answer his question. “That should hardly have come as a surprise to you in a murder trial,” he finally responded.

“He told me I wasn't called to give evidence.”

“That's what happened. Yes.”

“I've remembered speaking to the police, though. I've remembered you and my mother arguing about my speaking to the police as well. I've remembered that there were a number of questions about the relationship between Sarah-Jane Beckett and James the Lodger.”

“Pitchford.” Dad's voice was heavier now, weary. “James Pitchford was his name.”

“Pitchford. Right. Yes. James Pitchford.” I'd been standing all the while, and now I picked up a chair and moved it to where Dad himself was sitting. I set it in front of him. “At the trial, someone said that you and my mother rowed with Katja in the days preceding … preceding what happened to Sonia.”

“She was pregnant, Gideon. She'd become lax in her responsibilities. Your sister would have been a difficult charge for anyone and—”

“Why?”

“Why?” He rubbed his eyebrows as if trying to stimulate his own memory. When he dropped his hand, he looked up at the ceiling instead of at me, but when he lifted his head, I had time enough to see that his eyes had become red-rimmed. I felt a pang, but I did not stop him when he went on. “Gideon, I've already recited a litany of your sister's ailments for you. Down's Syndrome was only the tip of the iceberg. She was in and out of hospital for the two years that she was alive, and when she was
out
of hospital, she had to have someone to attend to her constantly. That someone was Katja.”

“Why didn't you hire a professional nurse?”

He laughed without humour. “We hadn't the funds.”

“The Government—”

“State support? Unthinkable.”

And something within me jarred loose at that, my grandfather's words, spoken in a roar over the dinner table: “We do not lower ourselves to ask for charity, God damn it. A real man
supports
his family, and if he can't do so, he shouldn't produce one in the first place. Keep it in your bloody trousers, Dick, if you can't face the consequences of waving it about. You hear me, boy?”