Birmingham Friends (57 page)

Theo shifted awkwardly from foot to foot. He was dressed in a blue tracksuit and trainers and looked huge and muscular, but Anna could tell he felt terribly put on the spot, that there were things he couldn’t say in front of Olivia.

‘He’s not saying much,’ he told them, avoiding Olivia’s piercing gaze. ‘I think he’s still a bit – you know – sleepy.’

‘Well, he’s bound to be!’ Olivia’s voice held a note of desperate cheerfulness. ‘But he’s going to be all right, isn’t he? He’s awake and he’s seeing people. Let’s go on in.’

Theo looked at Jake. ‘He asked for you.’

As they parted, Theo gestured to Anna to stay behind. ‘Thanks for phoning me, Anna. This is . . .’ He shook his head again. ‘I’ll come again tomorrow, right?’

‘Thanks Theo. It’s an awkward journey for you.’

‘No problem. The bus is OK. I can get to the outer circle.’ He stared at her. ‘He won’t see her, you know. What the hell’s going on?’

‘I’ll tell you’ – Anna put her hand on his dark wrist – ‘when there’s time.’

She watched Theo lope off across the car park.

Jake and Olivia had waited for her just inside. She took Olivia’s arm as they climbed the stairs to the ward. Anna felt sick with nerves, and with sorrow at the sight of this little woman dressed up in her borrowed sense of identity, looking sad and eccentric in her sari, her gait wrong for the clothes, clinging to her hope that this costume might bring her closer to her son. She wanted to say something, warn Olivia that Krish still might not be ready, but it was too late before she could find the right words.

When they reached the middle corridor, Olivia took in a deep breath, preparing herself.

‘Perhaps Jake should go first,’ Anna suggested, as they pushed open the swing doors to the ward. ‘Tell him you’re here and you want to see him?’

Olivia hesitated, then nodded. ‘All right,’ she said, her voice husky.

But on looking through the window of the side room they saw that the chair next to Krish’s bed was already occupied by a tall, thin man, his white coat open to reveal a moss-green shirt. Krish was still lying down and they couldn’t see his face.

After a short time the doctor glanced round at the door. They saw a chiselled face with dark, serious eyes. Seeing them watching, he came out, closing the door softly behind him.

‘Good afternoon. I’m Dr O’Connor.’ His voice was soft, Irish. He looked from one to the other of them, trying to work out who to talk to.

Olivia could not contain herself. ‘I want to see my son,’ she erupted, harshly.

‘You’re Mrs Kemp?’

‘Yes, of course I am.’ She seemed suddenly enraged, as if she resented his presence there.

‘We’re friends of Krishna’s,’ Anna explained. ‘I’m Anna Craven and this is Jake . . .’ In confusion she couldn’t think of his name. For a second she saw the bizarre nature of the whole situation, that she was here with these people who a week ago she hadn’t even met.

‘Morrell,’ Jake finished for her.

‘Ah, Jake,’ Dr O’Connor said. ‘Krishna asked just now whether you were here. He’d like to see you.’

‘What about me?’ Olivia wailed, her fragile collectedness disintegrating. She went to the door again. ‘Krishna, my darling –
mamaji
is here!’

Anna felt Dr O’Connor observing them all. She went to Olivia and gently held her arm. ‘Livy, why not let Jake go in first, if that’s what Krish wants, and he can tell him you’re here and perhaps afterwards . . .’

Jake looked at Dr O’Connor who nodded at him. He slipped into the room and sat by Krish’s bed.

‘I should explain,’ the doctor said. ‘I’ve been called in to see your son. I’m the duty psychiatrist.’

‘No!’ Olivia recoiled from him. ‘No. We don’t need you. Don’t you go near him. Just let me talk to him. What he needs is to be home with me. We’re all right when we’re together. We’re safe. We don’t need anyone like you . . .’ Her voice was reaching higher, barely controlled.

The doors of the main ward swung open and a woman in a green overall pushed a huge, rattling trolley past them without giving them a second glance.

‘Mrs Kemp, let’s go into the side room here,’ Dr O’Connor suggested. ‘We can talk about this more privately.’

‘I’m not going anywhere with you,’ Olivia almost spat at him. ‘I’m not moving. I’m waiting here to see my son.
My
son.’

‘Mrs Kemp – ’ Dr O’Connor seemed to experience actual physical discomfort in bringing out his next words. ‘Krishna has told me very clearly that he is not ready to see you just at the moment. I know this is terribly difficult and I’m sure he’s not trying to hurt you deliberately. At a time like this people sometimes react most strongly against the people they’re closest to. I shouldn’t like to have to forbid you to see him. For Krishna’s sake it would be helpful if you could respect his wishes. He’s in a very low state and we’re assessing him to see whether he needs some more specialized. care. We may need to transfer him to a bed over in Rubery . . .’

Rubery Hill. The psychiatric hospital on the southern fringe of Birmingham. Olivia’s face froze. In no more than a whisper she protested, ‘No . . . No . . .’

Watched by Anna and Dr O’Connor, she moved to the door of Krish’s room, crumpling against it, her hands splayed on the wood each side of the window. ‘Krishna . . .
my Krishna
. . .’ His name spilled from her mouth over and over, as if she couldn’t stop, her forehead pressed white against the glass.

Krishna and Olivia both went to Rubery Hill Hospital: Krishna as a voluntary patient. Olivia was not given a choice in the matter.

Anna and Jake were Olivia’s only visitors over the next month. Theo went to see Krish with sombre faithfulness.

Krish’s first questions now were, ‘How is she? What’s she saying? Is she blaming me?’

It was only recently though that he had started to talk at all. At first he had remained in a paralysed state, almost completely dumb except for whispered replies to the most basic questions regarding his needs. Anna and Jake visited every other day and Krish sat in inscrutable silence. He had been assigned a psychotherapist, and stonewalled him for hours at a time. No one could detect any maliciousness in this, but simply a need to withdraw, to be out of things. He had refused absolutely, and was still refusing, to see his mother. The hospital staff deemed it right to keep them apart.

After three weeks he had gradually begun talking to Steven, the psychotherapist. Then to Theo. Then Anna and Jake. One day when they approached him, Anna carrying a box of Rose’s chocolates, Krish looked up and, very softly, said, ‘Hello.’ He looked exhausted, his face drawn, black shadows under his eyes. He told them he wasn’t sleeping. He talked in sudden jerks about his life with Olivia, sitting childlike in pastel green pyjamas, his voice so quiet they had to concentrate hard to hear.

‘I’ve hated her so much.’ He was weeping into his hands. He shook his head from side to side as if to dislodge the thought of her. ‘I do love her – but she makes my life impossible.’ He looked up at them through his fingers. ‘God, what the hell are we going to do?’

He held his hands out in front of him, palms down in a despairing gesture, watching their slight tremor. ‘Look at me. I can’t do anything any more. I can’t even make a cup of coffee by myself.’

Afterwards, gloomily, they drove away from the hospital in the van. Finally Anna said, ‘Well – at least he’s speaking.’

The last time they saw Olivia was in mid-October. Anna took flowers to her that day: a bunch of vivid blooms, blue, yellow, pink, deliberately chosen to shout at the pallid walls of the hospital. This outcry of colour was in part an expression of her own guilt, her protest against helplessness, despite the reassurance of Dr O’Connor and the other staff that they had done the right thing. The only thing.

Olivia looked old. Older than Anna had ever seen her, the skin of her face flaccid as if something in her very being had collapsed. She was brushing her hair. Brushing and brushing. It was newly washed, long and wild looking.

‘It’s so grey,’ she said, giving Anna and Jake no other greeting as they sat down. ‘So terribly faded. I’d be grateful if you’d buy a rinse for me, Anna. Something subtle of course. I don’t want to look cheap.’

In her mind there seemed to be only a small circle of illumination left, kept alight to pick out practical details. Everything else was off stage, out of sight.

‘Did Ben pay his rent before he left?’ she asked. She raised the brush over her head and strands of her hair lifted with it, crackling with static electricity. Her thoughts jabbed at Ben’s rent book. Then at the tap in the upstairs toilet. Could Jake be a darling and fix it? Because she was sure it was leaking, and it was the hot one: such a drain on the tank . . .

‘And Anna, I don’t seem to have my Access card here and I’m sure to need it. Could you check in my handbag when you get back to the house? It’s in the little cupboard at the side of my bed.’

These enquiries were low key, the drugs keeping her just a fraction away from calm. She didn’t mention Krish.

Two days after that, Olivia walked out of the hospital. Whether by luck or canniness on her part she chose a time during the morning when the ward was unlocked, the staff busy and there was a general air of bustle in the corridors. She may have followed an instinct which told her her only mistake would be to hesitate.

She must have made her way, unchallenged, right down the drive of the hospital, wearing her blue dressing gown and sheepskin slippers. From there she was walking along the bypass, a busy, fast-moving artery feeding the M5. Who would challenge a woman in a blue dressing gown and slippers on the A38 bypass?

Just over a mile and what must have been half an hour later, she walked on to the nearside platform of the railway station at Longbridge. Within five minutes an Intercity train, moving at shrieking speed past the back of the Rover car works, dashed into a body clad in a cornflower-blue dressing gown, which was lying with a neat sense of purpose across the track.

December, 1981

‘Off somewhere nice?’

Anna put her bag down and watched Roland’s rotund figure advancing towards her along the street, obviously anxious not to miss her.

‘A day out – with Jake and Elly. Sort of winter picnic. I’m sure you’ll tell us we’re mad.’

‘Not at all. It’s a marvellous day. You’ll be all right well wrapped up.’

They stood outside Kate’s house. It was a dazzling morning, water droplets on the grass catching the light as last night’s hard frost was beginning to melt. At one corner of the drive a freshly painted white post had been driven into the ground, topped by a ‘For Sale’ sign.

‘Any offers yet?’

‘It only went up yesterday,’ Anna protested. ‘Give them time.’

‘And have you started looking for a new place?’ Roland’s attempt to sound detached and cheerful failed miserably.

‘I’m not looking far away – just a little further into town, but still Kings Heath. I’d like something a bit older.’

Roland chuckled, his face reddening. Since Kate’s death his emotions seemed to come upon him even more overwhelmingly.

‘Look, you’re the only family I’ve got,’ she told him. ‘I don’t want to lose you – if you can put up with me, that is!’

Roland laughed delightedly. ‘I’m very relieved you’re not planning to take off and leave me again.’ He frowned. ‘What are you going to do, actually? Look for a new teaching job?’

Anna stared at the house opposite, giving an absentminded wave to a woman stepping out with a shopping bag. ‘I’m not sure what I’m going to do at the moment – and I’m rather enjoying not being sure.’ She took in a satisfied breath of the icy air. ‘I feel as if I can start again. Use some of my earnings I never had time to spend. I think Jake’s infected me with his travel bug.’ She turned to Roland. ‘What about you?’

‘Oh – I shall potter along no doubt.’ Without self-pity, he added, ‘Nothing will be the same now she’s gone.’

‘Oh, Roland,’ Anna said. ‘I’m so sorry.’ She went to him, and was taken up into one of his bear hugs.

She felt his breath on her hair as he spoke. ‘But my dear, nothing could make me happier now than knowing you’re going to be just up the road.’

Jake’s van grumbled along the curving roads out into the Warwickshire countryside. Bare branches spiked black against the untouched blue sky, the fields ploughed or left to pasture. Bright, low-angled sunlight gave the furrows and tree-trunks a hard edge of shadow so that the landscape looked vivid and assured.

Between Anna and Jake, strapped to the seat with her plump legs stretched out straight, sat Elly. She was wearing a little denim skirt with woolly red tights and a blue coat with a red lining, squeezed over layers of jumpers. Her round face was edged by a mesh of fine blond hair.

‘Daddy, where are we going? We’ve been driving for such a long time.’

‘Soon be there,’ Jake told her. ‘Just another mile or two, and then we can have our picnic.’

Elly turned to Anna and gave her a mischievous, trying-it-on smile which showed a deep dimple to the left of her mouth. ‘I want some of that chocolate.’

Anna grinned back at her. She’d taken to Elly immediately and already they’d had a couple of outings together. ‘Don’t worry. I expect we’ll leave you a little bit.’

‘Not just a bit!’ Elly was outraged. ‘I want lots. I want
this
much.’ She held out her arms wide, red mittens dangling on strings from her coatsleeves.

‘Sandwiches first though,’ Jake told her firmly. ‘Let’s hope we’re not going to freeze.’ He looked away from the road at Anna for a second, giving a smile which she returned. Happiness surged through her, made her feel like singing. She had woken that morning in his bed, held by him, their eyes meeting each other’s, and seeing she was loved.

They rounded the bend beneath the rise, from where she knew she had glimpsed Arden out of the taxi. She saw trees snagging at the blue, but between them a sudden shock: where the crouching shape of the hospital had stood before, there was nothing now but the naked sky.

‘It’s gone!’ she cried. ‘They’ve already done it!’