Finding You (21 page)
Authors: Giselle Green
‘No,’ his voice warns, and I fall silent. Because I have to. ‘We can’t afford to be split on this one.’
27 - Charlie
‘All sorted.’ Rob’s got a smile in his voice. My brother is on the golf course, he’s just informed me, making this call, and he’s just putted a birdie. ‘Those papers you wanted will finally be on their way to you from Spain next week,
hermano
. Eva asked me to let you guys know she’s sorted it.’
‘I appreciate that, Rob.’ I had to take a moment there to reconnect with what he’s talking about. It’s seven-thirty a.m. here, Saturday morning. His phone call just woke me up from a dream where I know I was back arguing with the paediatric team we saw yesterday. I don’t remember much about it, but I know I’ve woken up cranky. What we encountered when we took Hadyn in for assessment was nothing more than what I’d expected. They’re all good people, professional people, and yet something about that whole experience must have gotten under my skin.
‘And you? Everyone good?’ he enquires. There’s a pause and I hear a distinct
thwack
as someone who must be nearby him takes their turn, sends the ball sailing off. A faint cheer goes up from the crowd milling around them.
‘Everyone good,’ I return carefully. But they are not really, are they?
‘My nephew settling back home all right?’ he presses. ‘You have him going to nursery and so on ...’ It’s polite banter, nothing more, just idle chat he’ll be able to feed back to his wife later on, and I know my brother’s got more than half his mind on the golf at the moment.
‘Hadyn can’t go to nursery just yet, Rob. There’s a psychologist at work who has advised us against it.’
There’s a pause while I feel my brother adjusting the pat response he’d been about to come back with, taking on board the unexpected fact that I’ve just mentioned a
psychologist
...
‘Really?’ his voice sounds a little more strained. ‘You’ve taken him to see a psychologist, Carlos. What for?’
Now I have his attention. ‘He’s distressed, Rob. He’s not settled back with us yet. She thinks he might be suffering from the effects of trauma.’
‘Trauma. Ah.’ He’s quiet for a moment, digesting this. ‘Why?’ he asks now. ‘What from?’ he comes back after a bit.
‘Living with Illusion,’ I tell him. What else? My feet are cold. I’m standing on the conservatory tiled area watching the fog billowing in my garden like smoke signals outside, talking to my brother with nothing on my feet. In my mind’s eye, I’m trying to distract myself, picture my brother playing golf on the new green they’ve built on the ragged hill we used to race up together as children, but I can’t do it. My mind’s too taken up with my own concerns this morning, too distracted by the growing realisation that I’ve had the brightest light in my life granted back to me, only to discover that my poor boy is not the same child as he was before we lost him.
Now the paediatric team are seeing the effects of that. Of course they are. How could there be no effects? But they aren’t really seeing my son. They’re talking about Hadyn having problems that they say must always have been there, lying latent, hidden under the surface but
they are missing him
, just as Pippa warned me they might. They are not seeing him, only what their training has taught them to see and however well-intentioned they are, they cannot help.
‘So he was traumatised,’ Rob comes back to me, all ears now, though I know he does not understand, he doesn’t really have any clue what I am talking about. He’s moved a little further away from the others, I can tell from the muted sounds of laughter, away in the distance. ‘But ... this woman—she’s advising you what to do to fix him, yes?’
‘Yes, yes she is.’
‘And Julia—poor woman. Still, she’ll soon get him sorted. You know what she’s like, very determined and so on, eh?’ he cheers himself up a little.
‘Julia’s having some trouble coming to terms with it.’ I tell him candidly, surprising myself at coming out with it. We’re not usually confidantes this way, me and my brother, but there aren’t too many people I feel I can talk to about this. Julia’s the one I should be able to discuss things with, but right now ... something’s slipped. Somehow, once again, we’re not talking in the way I know we should.
‘She hasn’t spoken to the psychologist yet but she’s already convinced herself that the woman’s wrong and Hadyn’s missing Illusion or some such ...’ I give a half-laugh, and Rob’s surprised snort encourages me to say a little more. ‘You know what women can be like,’ I put it in terms that he’ll best understand. ‘They get these ideas into their heads.’
‘Well, in fact, she could be right,’ he comes back unexpectedly. ‘But don’t encourage her to think that way,’ Rob counsels. ‘Best thing is to leave Spain behind for now. You were the same, remember?’ I hear a collective
aaaahhhhh
behind him now as someone must have hit a beautiful shot. He’s quiet. I imagine he’s watching it, transfixed like the rest of them by the trajectory of the small white ball over the wide blue sky, and I wish for one moment I was there with him, totally focussed on nothing much more troubling than where that ball was going to land ...
‘I was the same?’ I pull him back to me.
‘When our father sent you away to Hillstones. They tell me you took a long while to settle.’
‘They told you that, eh?’
‘
Si
.’ My brother gives a short laugh. ‘He used to say you broke his heart every time he had to leave you at your school. You accepted it in the end, though,’ he adds cheerily.
‘True.’ You had to, back then. You manned up or you went down; that’s how it was.
‘How
is
the old man, anyway?’ Rob tires of reminiscing, returns to the present. ‘You’ve spoken to him? I had a phone call from his carer last week and he warned me—it’s not good, eh?’
‘Not brilliant ...’ I begin, but Rob hasn’t finished yet.
‘I spoke to Dad as well. He told me you’d be seeing him soon. You’re going up, at last?’
‘I saw him earlier this month,’ I protest. ‘We spoke about Hadyn.’ Does Dad have no recollection of that, then? I feel a faint disappointment at that. All those hours I spent travelling up to see him and he didn’t even register that I’d gone?’
‘Did he say much when you spoke to him?’ I prompt.
‘He was telling me he’s heard from some old colleagues of his, and he seemed upset over what they were relating to him about the latest developments in the Middle East.’
‘Really?’
The last exchange I had with our dad, he was telling me that he’d just been talking to our
mother
and she wanted to know what time I’d be home for dinner.
Pause. ‘He’s always kept himself up on foreign affairs, hasn’t he?’ I say to Rob.
‘All his life, he considered himself privileged,’ Roberto comes back now. ‘He told me once that the price of that privilege was he felt duty-bound to help those worse off than himself. He’s a good man. People around here still remember that,’ Rob tells me and I hear something in his voice, an unexpected pride now. ‘They still ask me after him, you know. They remember him, here in Spain.’
‘Do they?’ I feel a lump in my throat when he says that. ‘He seemed to think he was with our mother, last time we spoke.’
Rob laughs softly. ‘He soon will be, I think. He’s going. We’re losing him,
hermano
. One way or another, it won’t be long now. Has he ever mentioned to you where it is he wants to be buried?’ he puts in, matter-of-fact.
‘Buried?’ I swallow. The sadness in my voice surprises even me. Our father is dying. I’m a surgeon, I know this, and yet ... there’s still a part of me that refuses to accept it. Is it because I have too much else to attend to right now, too much that still needs putting right in my life, that I can’t contemplate the prospect of Dad’s failing health, too?
I can’t.
Because I still need him. I need ...
something
from him, even though I recognise that the special bond we once shared dissolved many, many years ago, I guess—round about the time when I manned up.
I stretch out my memory and my father arrives at Hillstones late one rainy spring morning in his car. I’d been waiting for him since dawn. He’s driven a long way and it’s the days before air conditioning and heating in motor vehicles, and the insides are all steamed up and hot with his breath and he looks cold and tired but still so excited to see me, so
proud.
I remember how we walked through the wet park, him telling me about the work he’d been doing with refugees, how he’d saved so many of them and how sad he’d been at all the ones he could not save. Then he had listened to me; how well was I settling in, he’d wanted to know. He wanted to hear that it was going well, I knew that, so I told him ... I told him everything but the truth about how much I’d hated it there. How much I wanted, so desperately, to be allowed to go home.
Soon
, he had promised me as he’d got into his car,
your mother will be better and you’ll be able to come back to Spain.
And I had believed him.
In those days, when I was ten, eleven or so, my father had seemed to me tall like a giant. Whenever I thought of him, I saw his head brushing against the sides of the low-hanging branches at the park. I remembered that when I was younger and he’d carried me on his shoulders, how much taller I had been then, higher and prouder than anybody else.
Afterwards, we’d eaten burgers at the chip shop. There’d been a ketchup bottle shaped like a tomato. I told him how I was going to be a surgeon one day myself, like him, and his eyes had glowed with pride, hearing that. How that pride had faded to sadness when I said I’d be such a good surgeon that I’d fix my mother, too, whatever was wrong with her, and he’d just patted my hand. I hadn’t known why then, but I knew he’d found that hard.
You can’t fix everyone, son
, he’d said to me then.
Many people, you can, and indeed, you will. But not everyone.
That bit, I had not believed.
‘Well. Try and find out his wishes,’ Roberto calls me back to him. ‘Hey. I’m on next. Give my regards to Julia for me. A kiss to my nephew from all of us. I am sure he will be fine.’ There’s a sudden grin in his voice. ‘And no messing around with your ex when she comes to town; you’re going to be a married man at the registry soon, I hear?’
‘Lourdes is coming to town? Why?’ I feel my heart give a thump now. If she’s coming to town, I don’t want to see her. Is that why she’s been texting me recently?
‘Who knows? Shopping. Travelling onwards from Heathrow, maybe? She’s bringing the papers over for you en route. Julia and Eva worked this out between them, this is what I’m ringing you about, didn’t she mention it?’
‘Sure,’ I tell him faintly. ‘I’d just forgotten.’
And no, she bloody well didn’t mention it
. She should have asked me first, sought out my feelings on the matter before rushing ahead and organising this ... I feel myself frowning into the phone. And then I realise; why, indeed,
wouldn’t
Julia have agreed to the suggestion that Lourdes could bring those papers over for us? We need the documents brought and Lourdes just happened to be coming over. Julia has no reason at all to be concerned.
I’m the only one who’s got any reason to be concerned.
28 - Julia
Shit, if I’d been expecting
anything
today, it wasn’t this.
I tuck my head down, feeling a whirlwind of emotions going on inside as we come out of Dr Killman’s office. I don’t want to see anyone I know at the clinic, don’t want to talk to any of them right now. Running across the road with Hadyn in the buggy, we’re both hit by a squally wind that’s going to drench us before we even make it halfway. He laughs, sticking his arms and legs out, determined to get as wet as possible and for once, I don’t care. I’m smarting. There’s no other word for it. After meeting with Pippa Killman just now, I feel a whole bunch worse than I felt coming out of that paediatric clinic nearly two weeks ago and I have
no
idea how Charlie could still feel so bloody enthusiastic about the woman.
He couldn’t be at the appointment with us because he had an operation scheduled for the only slot Pippa had free this morning, so he won’t be hearing my opinion on this till much later. And that’s not an encounter I’m looking forward to, either. I feel my innards tensing up just thinking about it, because—having finally had a chance to meet the woman Charlie’s been enthusing about these last few weeks—all I can say is I am not at all impressed.
Is it my fault, that I was expecting too much? She’s a woman; I thought we’d have at least that much in common. If she had any children of her own, I imagined she might understand what I was driving at when I spoke to her about my own concerns and theories about what Hadyn is going through. Pippa has no children, though. Just lots of certificates that apparently make her an expert on children.
Theoretically.
Oh, am I being unreasonable here? Am I? She told me that she would speak bluntly and ... bluntly, she did. Apparently, I
urgently need to change my mindset.
And I am
in danger of exacerbating an already very serious problem.
Doting parents are often the root of far more damage than they realise, she assured me. With the best will in the world, it has to stop. That’s what she and her colleagues have found, and that’s why they’ve opened up the Roseview Clinic (how many times did she mention the blessed Roseview Clinic?) to help parents who’ve suffered a terrible event and who have a whole lot of love but also a lot of anger and grief in them, with no idea how to put things right, themselves.
No, apparently, only highly trained professionals such as herself and her colleagues can do that. When we arrive at the car park, I do a sharp right turn and keep on walking. I’m not going home, I decide. We are going to carry on walking, even if it’s raining. Hadyn turns his head round to look at me in surprise. Does he imagine we’re going to go into the newsagents to get him some chocolate buttons like we’d normally do if we went by this route home? No. We are not. I brace myself for some reaction but for once, today, he doesn’t object when I sail on past the shop. He didn’t object to any of her cognitive tests today, either. Today, my son behaved like a perfect angel. Is that why Pippa got the impression that it’s me, his mother, who’s a large part of his problem? I can still feel my heart racing as I recall her expression, part sympathetic but quite detached really as she told me all the things she had. She seemed determined to quite forcefully put her point across. Unlike with the paediatric team, I didn’t really feel she was listening—even interested at all—in mine. Oh, she is pleasant enough, appeared professional, polite, but underneath it all, she has a will of steel. Didn’t Charlie see this? Why didn’t Charlie see it?
‘Jules, you’re drenched right through!’ Alys’ face as she opens her front door twenty minutes later is a picture of surprise. ‘Were we meeting up today?’ she asks mildly. It’s a fair walk. Not one I’d usually make without checking she was in first, especially not in this weather.
‘We are now.’ I let myself in and she folds up the buggy while I pull off Hadyn’s soaked raincoat and his red shoes, all darkened by the rainwater. Outside, the rattle of thunder precedes a sudden darkening of the sky, the hiss of another downpour onto her roof tiles, and Alys hurries to shut the front door. She turns the hall light on.
‘Problems, hon?’
The tension I’ve brought into her house is palpable. I’m so upset I can hardly catch my breath. ‘I need you to do me a favour, Alys,’ I puff. ‘Look after Hadyn for me for a few hours? I need to go up to London.’
‘You mean to go
now
?’ Her eyebrows go up.
In this weather. In the state you’re in
? Yes, now. Before I change my mind. Before I forget the significance of what I’m being pressured to let us all in for and someone else changes it for me. ‘Where?’ she demands. Then she moderates her voice a little. ‘I mean,
why,
Jules?’
‘Why?’ I pull out the leaflet Pippa Killman foisted upon me almost as soon as we entered the clinic this morning and hand it over for Alys to read. ‘Because of this, Alys. I took Hadyn to see Charlie’s psychologist just now, and it did
not
go well.’
Alys looks at the leaflet.
Roseview Trauma Clinic
Specialist assessment and rehabilitation through a choice of packages designed for the individual. Includes psychiatry, psychology, speech and language therapy, play therapy, hypnosis and paediatric neurology
.
Our sister clinic in Atlanta offers an even more specialised package of care for intensive trauma rehabilitation in infants.
‘Jeez.’ She blows out a breath through pursed lips. ‘Would Charlie really go for this?’
‘
This
is a very specialist centre for trauma rehab. I’m told there’s nothing remotely like it anywhere else in Europe. And yes, Charlie will go for anything that promises him a fix for this situation.’
‘I’m so very sorry, Jules ...’ Alys looks at me, eyebrows raised, but there’s a distinct look of sympathy in her eyes.
‘But
what
?’
‘Well ... Hadyn’s just been seen, you say? So this ...’ she peers at the leaflet again, ‘this Dr Killman, she’s made an assessment. And Charlie—he’s a doctor, isn’t he? Charlie wouldn’t just jump at the first solution that was offered if he didn’t think there was some hope there. Shouldn’t you be, too?’ Alys wonders apologetically. I take in a breath, biting back my first response. I’m already on edge and I need Alys to support me today. Not to support
them
.
She’s reading over the leaflet a second time, and I see her do a double take now. ‘Whoa. What’s this bit it says here about
Atlanta
?
’ She frowns. ‘They want to send him out there? It does seem a bit extreme, I’ll grant you.’ Alys hands the leaflet back to me. ‘Are you sure this woman knows her business?’
Am I sure? I give a dull laugh. Charlie would never take on anyone who didn’t know their business, would he? I fold my arms. ‘Apparently, her credentials are flawless. Charlie says it’s an amazing stroke of luck that she happened to be in on the case because this kind of thing is so unusual, it’d have been very easy to misdiagnose.’
‘But ... you’re not fully on board with it?’ She shakes her head regretfully, knowing I’m in choppy waters.
‘I’m not on board, I’m afraid.’
‘So ... what are you planning to do about it? Why the sudden need to rush off to London, may I ask? Have you at least time for a cuppa so we can talk this over?’
‘Uh-uh,’ I shake my head. ‘No time, Alys. I just contacted Lourdes. She’s in Oxford Street till lunchtime, then after that, she’s got some appointments for flat viewings, so if I don’t go now, my one opportunity to see her will be lost.’
‘Lourdes?’ My friend looks a little mystified. ‘Charlie’s ex, you mean. What’s she got to do with this?’ She props Hadyn’s buggy up against the wall and gives me her full attention. ‘And ... does Charlie
know
you’re meeting with her?’
I pull some dry jogging bottoms out of my bag for Hadyn and put them on him as we speak.
‘Charlie already knew I was making plans to meet her about another matter,’ I mutter. ‘He wasn’t
thrilled
,’ I admit.
He’d probably rather keep the two of us apart, wouldn’t he?
I like to think that’s because he’s moved on. Still. ‘She has some sensitive papers for us that were left behind in Spain. It’s an innocent enough excuse.’
My friend just stands in her hallway, looking confused. ‘An excuse. Okay. So ... what do you
really
want to meet up with Lourdes about?’ I can see her desperately trying to put two and two together here and not coming up with any answer.
‘Look. Charlie doesn’t know, okay? He knows she’ll be coming over at some point, but he probably still thinks he’s got a while to dissuade me yet.’ I give Alys a significant look. ‘Lourdes wasn’t originally due in till next week.’
Alys’ eyes narrow a little as the penny drops. ‘Christ, Jules. You’re going to see her because you still want to find out about
Illusion
, is that it?’ Alys sucks in some air through her teeth. ‘You’re going to ask her what she knows. If she knows anything. Because this psychologist woman has spooked you with her Roseview Clinic spiel and you’re desperate to find some other way.’ She folds her arms and sighs. ‘And Charlie doesn’t even know you two are meeting today.’
I shrug. ‘No. He doesn’t even know she’s in London, as far as I’m concerned. But I have to get some more information on that woman Illusion. I
have
to.’
Alys, however has still got her sights trained on another problem. ‘You say Charlie
wasn’t
too thrilled when you originally mentioned the possibility of meeting with his ex, though?’ she worries.
‘Right. Despite the fact that a year ago, he couldn’t throw us together enough,’ I mutter. ‘Always hinting that she and I could work together on this and that to do with his charity work ...’
‘A year ago, Hadyn was still missing and he probably wanted to distract you from your loss,’ Alys points out. ‘A
year
ago ...’ she trails into silence before adding tentatively, ‘Look. I know you’ve told me that you believe those two never quite got back together again when you and he were apart but ...’ I look up at her, a little shocked, and she spreads her hands. ‘Tell me: is it really necessary or
wise
for you to go meeting with his ex now that you’re no longer in Spain and there’s no huge social obligation hanging over your head to do so?’
I’m silent for a bit, taking in her reservations.
‘Look, I don’t want to meet with Lourdes any more than Charlie or you want me to. I don’t! It’s awkward and uncomfortable and it feels just ... generally weird ... every time we have to see each other. When I caved in and went to her son’s party in Spain, I ended up regretting it, big time. The truth is,’ I admit, ‘I think ... I think she still loves Charlie, you know.’ My voice goes low. ‘I saw that envy and regret in her eyes when she looked at our son and ... well, it wasn’t comfortable.’
Alys spreads her arms. ‘So why the hell are you putting yourself through this now, Jules?’
Why?
I look at my friend askance. Doesn’t she see why? I’ve shown her that Roseview clinic pamphlet. She knows why. She knows what’s at stake.
‘You told me once that if you’d been in my shoes, you’d want to find out everything you could about the circumstances,’ I remind her. ‘You told me
you’d
want to find out about Illusion. And now ... now I have to.’
‘That’s true.’ She sees me glance at my watch, and we both know that my train will be coming in soon. I’ve got ten minutes to get to the station. I kiss Hadyn on the head and he saunters off to find her old box of Lego without a backwards glance. My friend sees me make for the door, undeterred despite her best efforts, and she throws me a wary look.
‘I know I said that, Jules, but ... I think we’ve discovered one or two things since then that might give you pause about getting your information via
this
route, at any rate.’ Alys knows about the pink t-shirt I found at the house that wasn’t mine. Lourdes’ t-shirt. My friend never said much about it, but I saw her face at the time. I know what Alys was thinking even if she didn’t share it.
‘Think about it, hon. Are you really willing to go stirring around in that hornet’s nest that is Lourdes just to find out?’
