Betrayal (42 page)

This was an alien sea, and I was floundering. ‘But she’s been perfectly –
clear
with me. She’s never been confused about anything.’

‘Oh, she expresses herself articulately, certainly,’ he agreed with alacrity. ‘But she’s clear on an interpretation of events that deep down she’s really quite confused about – if you appreciate the distinction. She would like certain things to be true, but she’s not sure whether they are or not. It’s not simply a matter of blotting things out, of suppressing unpleasant events, but of having painted herself an alternative picture of events and being unable to distinguish this version from the real thing.’

I was still struggling. ‘Are you saying she’s not telling the truth?’

‘I’m saying she’s telling the truth as she sees it, which, as I’m sure you’ll appreciate, is rather a different thing. It may well
be
the truth, there’s nothing to say it isn’t, but she has no way of determining whether it is or not, no way of sorting it out in her mind, you see. And in the end that’s what might disturb her.’

I felt as though I had stumbled into an emotional bog, a murky impenetrable place with no points of reference. ‘She’s told you, then, about Sylvie’s death?’ I asked, half afraid of what he might say.

‘She’s told me something,’ he said guardedly.

‘She’s told you she’s innocent?’

He made an apologetic gesture. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Wellesley, I would be breaking her confidence if I were to discuss that.’

I suppressed a bubble of frustration. ‘But what I’m trying to understand is how you’ve arrived at this view of her? How do you
know
she’s getting things muddled?’

‘There are certain procedures one can use to determine a patient’s state of mind, to establish his or her grasp of reality. These techniques involve discussions of all sorts of existing situations – relationships, family, work, whatever. Now in the course of these discussions Virginia has consistently revealed a confused grasp of existing realities, even of everyday truths. And if someone loses their grasp on mundane matters in this way it’s invariably symptomatic of a general and pervasive loss of reality. The delusions they show in small matters extend
to
, and stem
from
, the original trauma and its attendant delusions.’

Delusions. One of those terms like paranoia or psychosis which belong to other people, to strangers with real problems, not to someone you know and love. Fighting my own sense of confusion, I asked fretfully, ‘But what sort of things does she get wrong?’

‘Wrong is too strong a word,’ he commented in his measured Welsh tones. ‘But let me think . . . Well, to give you an example, she told me she was an expert sailor, that she’d sailed a lot with you, gone over the Channel many times. But that’s not quite accurate, is it?’

He read the answer in my stricken silence.

‘I guessed it wasn’t, from something she’d said earlier. Now I never dispute her on these matters – I’m very anxious not to undermine her confidence in any way – but if I should inadvertently question something she gets very disturbed. She cannot deal with the idea of being challenged, even on the smallest things. She becomes quite agitated.’

I looked into his bland benevolent face and felt as Ginny must have been feeling, caught between several baffling truths, each distinct, each so fatally blurred that there was no way of knowing which to believe. A man I had only just met was telling me that my wife was mentally unwell and, in trying to gauge the validity of this, all I had to go on was the fact that he had a clutch of qualifications and seemed reasonably well-intentioned.

‘Okay,’ I sighed. ‘Okay. So Ginny wants to pretend. So what does it matter? What’s the harm?’

‘There’s no harm for the moment,’ Jones said kindly. ‘But if the situation is allowed to continue she will start to find the strain unbearable. Delusions may seem like an excellent self-defence mechanism, but they carry an enormous burden of guilt and confusion. And the real risk comes when and if she is forced to confront her delusions before she is ready, before she’s able to come to terms with them in her own way.’

‘Risk? What do you mean?’

Jones said in a voice that was suddenly very professional, ‘She could become seriously ill.’

The room seemed to crowd in on me and, clambering to my feet, I went to the window and stared unseeing into the back yard. ‘So I mustn’t say anything to upset her?’

‘That’s one thing, certainly.’

I turned back. ‘What else?’

The light was in his eyes and he blinked up at me from his desk like a dazzled owl. ‘It would help if she could get to see me more often. Three times a week if that’s possible.’

‘But what can I do?’

‘You could look for signs of distress. Obsessive behaviour. Worrying excessively and continuously about insignificant problems, like whether the windows are properly closed or an object is correctly placed on a shelf. And repetitive behaviour. Going back to the same task time and again. Frequent hand washing, showering, skin scrubbing.’

I thought: Or table scrubbing, and wished the idea hadn’t flown quite so smoothly into my head.

I thanked him before he could come up with any more unsettling thoughts.

As I was leaving I asked: ‘She will get better, won’t she?’ and saw from his face that this was the one question he could not answer.

‘Hello, darling.’ Ginny planted a kiss somewhere close to my left cheek. ‘You’re early.’

It was four, precisely the time I’d said I’d get back. ‘The meeting went well,’ I murmured. Taking on a life of their own, my eyes strayed inexorably to the kitchen table, examining the bare pine surface for signs of recent scouring. I couldn’t see anything, no patches of damp, and, though this proved nothing, it seemed to postpone the moment of reckoning.

‘Julia had to leave half an hour ago,’ Ginny reported as she slid the kettle onto the Aga. ‘There were lots of messages. George called at least twice. And several business people – lawyers and accountants, so Julia said. Oh – and
Mary
. She wants us to go down on Sunday to have lunch with them and look at a cottage.’ Ginny turned to face me and said in a voice sharp with some emotion I couldn’t read, ‘You’ve been plotting behind my back.’

‘What – the cottage? Mary offered to keep an eye open, that was all.’

‘I’d rather you hadn’t asked her,’ she said tightly. ‘I’d rather you didn’t involve Mary in anything to do with us.’

‘But she volunteered.’

‘She would. She enjoys interfering.’ I’d never heard Ginny voice such strong criticism of Mary before. Her eyes narrowed with sudden suspicion. ‘You haven’t talked to her about
us
, have you?’

‘No,’ I said unconvincingly.

‘My God, if you
have
. . .’

‘No, I told her about Sylvie, that was all. Nothing else.’

‘About
Sylvie
,’ she gasped. ‘What did you tell her, for God’s sake?’

‘Ginny, does it matter?’

‘
Ye s
, it matters!’

I sat wearily on a chair. ‘I told her about the summer. I told her what happened.’

Ginny’s chest started heaving. ‘What –
everything?
’

‘More or less.’

Ginny clamped her lips together and, holding on to her self-control with an effort which distorted her face, she shook her head at me. ‘How could you!’

I lifted my hands helplessly. ‘Mary’s a friend. She was
there
. I needed someone to talk to.’

‘But – God, you just don’t see it, do you?’ she cried through the pull of her breathing. ‘You think Mary’s so
special
. You think she’s such a
friend
. Well, let me tell you, she’s no friend of ours and she
never
has been!’

‘Oh,
Ginny
—’

‘No,
no!
’ And suddenly she was in a fury. ‘I tell you, she gives this great impression of being so – so –
saint
-like, so sympathetic, but it’s all a big act. It’s all a front! Oh, she seems like the great Lady Bountiful all right, she seems so caring – but only while it suits her! She’s not Howard’s sister for nothing, oh
no
. It runs in the family – all this getting people where she wants them, all this playing one off against the other.’ She gave a gasp of frustration. ‘Oh, you can’t see it, I know you can’t! For you she can do no wrong. For you she’s this perfect person. But let me tell you, she
uses
people, she worms her way into people’s confidence as a way of keeping a hold over them. It’s
all
about control.’ She glared at me. ‘You look at me as though I’m mad, but it’s true! You just can’t see it. Good old Mary! Generous kind Mary! All that charity stuff, up on her high horse. But there’s only one thing Mary really cares about in the whole world, only one thing she even
thinks
about – and that’s her beloved David, and how she’s going to hang on to him. Everything after that – well, it’s all a front.’ She waved a fierce hand at me. ‘Oh, I can see what you’re thinking. You think I’m just jealous of her or something. You think I just hate her! But it’s not that – it’s . . .’ She seemed to pull the thought out of the air: ‘It’s that I’m
frightened
of her. I’m frightened of her little schemes. She’ll go behind your back without a second thought, she’ll use anyone and anything to keep herself up there as the great and good Mrs Wellesley. She’ll—’ Words and breath failed her simultaneously, and striding to a drawer she opened it with a bang, pulled out an inhaler and drew on it.

After a long pause I said quietly, ‘I have to say I don’t agree, I think Mary’s always been a good friend to us. But if that’s the way you feel . . .’ I stood up. ‘I assume you don’t want to see them on Sunday?’

‘All I want,’ Ginny laboured, ‘is for you to stop telling her about
us
and our private life. That’s all. I don’t
mind
going to see them, I haven’t
minded
all these years, have I? I can deal with her so long as she doesn’t start interfering. And I certainly don’t want to get the blame for stopping
you
from seeing them.’

I rubbed my face ferociously and said nothing.

She came back to the table. ‘Perhaps I should have said all that a long time ago.’ She gave me a redeeming look, subdued and penitent.

‘Perhaps.’

‘It’s what I feel.’

‘Yes, I can see that.’

Her lids began to flutter, she twisted her fingers into a knot. ‘It would be nice . . . if you felt you could tell
me
all those things.’

‘I would. I do. Really.’

A silence, during which her eyelids continued their feather-dance. ‘Will you tell me what Dr Jones said then?’ Catching my expression, she said, ‘Oh, I guessed that’s where you’d gone. He phoned last night, didn’t he?’

I didn’t attempt to deny it. ‘Oh, he didn’t say a lot really,’ I began. ‘He just wants me to keep an eye on you, that’s all.’

‘He doesn’t think I’m going barmy?’

I smiled. ‘No.’

‘What
does
he think, then?’

‘He thinks . . .’ I shrugged while I struggled to find something approaching the truth. ‘. . . that the strain might get to you.’

Her expression softened. ‘You know one of the things I love about you, Hugh? You always try to protect me, don’t you?’ She cast me a crooked smile that managed to contain affection and rebuke in equal measure. ‘Oh, I know what Dr Jones thinks,’ she stated robustly. ‘Dr Jones thinks I’m a total case. He thinks I’m making it all up. He thinks that I won’t face up to what I’ve done. He thinks I killed Sylvie but I’m suppressing it all, or whatever you do when you’re a basket case. He made up his mind right at the beginning. I
knew
it, I sensed it, and now when I see him it’s like talking to a brick wall.’ She gave a ragged sigh. ‘Nice to have your shrink believe in you.’

‘He wants to see you three times a week.’

‘Oh, does he?’ Her voice wobbled. ‘Yes, I bet he does.’

‘You don’t have to. The bail condition is only for twice.’

‘But twice a week is quite enough for what he wants!’ she exclaimed darkly. ‘That’s all he needs to wear me down.’

‘Can we let you know about Sunday?’ I asked Mary when I called her. ‘It might be rather last minute.’

‘Of
course
,’ she cried. ‘Don’t even think about it. I’ve booked a restaurant but it can easily be cancelled. But you just
have
to see this house some time! It’s absolutely sweet. Beautifully furnished, wonderful view, gorgeous garden, and only a few miles from the motorway.’

‘Well, if not Sunday . . .’

‘I heard about it through a friend, someone who owes me a favour. The owners want some people who’re going to take good care of it while they’re abroad. They won’t expect much rent.’

‘Sounds good.’

She gave a knowing murmur. ‘But you’re doubtful.’

‘Well, it’ll be up to Ginny.’

‘Of course.’ And her tone managed to convey both sympathy and pity.

‘Any luck with that address?’ I asked.

‘Address?’ She knew perfectly what I was after. ‘Oh, the long-haired creature, you mean? Look, I did try, Hugh. As much as I could without getting into trouble anyway. I found the people who own the cottage. Live in Somerset somewhere. Phoned them, but all they did was put me on to the letting agents and – well, it was
difficult
, Hugh. I mean, I couldn’t very well say what it was really about, could I? So I waffled on a bit about the last tenants owing me money and could they let me have an address for the chap, Joe whatever-his-name-was, and they told me they didn’t know anything about him, that the place had been let to the lady who was now deceased. That’s how they put it –
deceased
. So there we are. Sorry.’

‘Thanks for trying.’

‘Will you try another way?’

‘Tingwall’s got a private investigator on it.’

‘Ah, that sounds better,’ she said approvingly. ‘Best to keep your distance, Hugh. Best to keep well clear.’ She added brightly, ‘What’s his name, this chappy?’

‘Umm, Pike. Based in Bristol.’

‘
Pike
.’ She made thinking noises. ‘Don’t know the name. But keep me posted, won’t you? Let me know how he gets on. You never know, I might be able to help somewhere else along the line. You
will
keep me posted, won’t you?’