King of the World (8 page)

“So it all turned out to be this Mervyn fellow’s fault,” remarked Alistair, having listened in, eyes closed, on the summary of last night’s revelations. “But I don’t see why you girls are so shocked about it. I thought everything was always the man’s fault?” He yawned, stretching his long bulk even more luxuriously against the sofa cushions, and continued: “Isn’t anyone going to pour me another cup of coffee?”

It was Diana, of course, who reached for the coffee pot, and Bridget watched the eagerly subservient
movement
with her usual flicker of irritation. Why couldn’t the wretched man ever do anything for himself? The irritation, however, was a small thing – and she
recognised
it as such – compared with the enormous relief she was still feeling at finding life in the flat going on exactly as usual this Saturday morning. After Diana’s panicky telephone call last night, and her own
somewhat
dilatory response to it, she had travelled back this morning in an uncomfortable state of guilt and unease. Suppose something awful really had happened at the flat in her absence? Suppose she’d arrived back to find her flatmate dead, or abducted, or in hospital, because of something that would never have happened if Bridget had rushed back as soon as she was summoned? She’d
even felt relieved, as she walked up the road from the bus stop, to see that Acorn House was still standing.

She was even more relieved, as she mounted the
second
flight of stairs, to hear the sound of voices pitched at an ordinary conversational level, with no indication of trauma or crisis. She was actually glad to hear Alistair’s annoying tones, mocking something someone had just said. Normally she would have been distinctly put out to discover Alistair already here before midday on a Saturday, as it would almost certainly mean that they would have him for the whole weekend. This time, though, after all her fears and imaginings, his familiar provoking presence was positively reassuring. So much so that she even found herself smiling when he stretched out his arms towards her in idle greeting and lamented the fact that he was too lazy to get off the sofa to come and kiss her.

“If a man be a fool” she quoted, “Pray God that he may also be lazy, for it will keep him out of many troubles,” and soon she had joined them in what had obviously been something of a marathon coffee-break.

By now, Norah’s former reticence was quite gone. She seemed only too glad to tell and re-tell her unhappy story. After all the long months of secrecy, of trying to hide her tragic family situation from friends and
neighbours
, of enduring the social isolation which inevitably goes with hiding one’s real situation from absolutely everybody, she found it an indescribable relief to be confiding at last in listeners who were not only interested but, far more important, had never known her as the person she once was. Among strangers, there was hardly any pain involved in playing the role of victim, because they have never known any other
way; to
become
a victim, a “Poor Thing”, under the shocked gaze of old friends who had previously known you as an amusing, life-enhancing, top-of-the-world sort of person, was humiliating beyond all endurance.

So, having already told her story in such detail to Diana, Norah was now quite ready to repeat the salient points for Bridget’s benefit.

“So you see, Bridget,” she explained, “The reason I’ve run away like this isn’t just that I can’t stand it, though of course I can’t. What I think I’m really trying to do is to force Mervyn to realise that Christopher is mentally ill, so that he will be
forced
to do something about it. Get him treated somehow – get him into hospital –
something
. I
know
that that’s what he needs, and if Mervyn is left to cope with him single-handed for even a few days, then he’ll find it out for himself. You see, all the time I’m there he can get away with turning a blind eye to the awful things Christopher does, because I’m the one coping with the results. You see, the point is, Mervyn finds it intolerably humiliating to face the fact that he, a top-ranking psychiatrist, has a mentally-ill son. But if I’m not there, he’ll
have
to face it. When he comes home and finds that Christopher has wrecked something for some weird reason inside his head – and when he can’t blame it on me, whatever it is, because I’m not there – then he’ll
have
to face it, won’t he? He’ll
have
to do something about it.”

“Such as what?” put in Alistair drily. “Haven’t you heard of Community Care? Don’t you know what it means? It means
you
. On the job 24 hours a day, seven days a week, without any pay at all – what could be cheaper? And in the case of
your
son – you won’t even get anyone doing an assessment or prescribing the
appropriate pills for him to refuse to take. Since the patient’s father is some kind of a shrink, they’ll assume that
he’s
seeing to all that kind of thing, because he’s the expert.”

Here he sighed, and raised his eyes to the ceiling in mock despair.

“Nobody seems to understand what an expert is, and what can be expected of him. As an expert myself, in a small way, I can tell you. An expert is the man who can’t be expected to
do
anything. He’s there simply to criticise the people who
do
do things.”

“But, Alistair, he’ll
have
to do something! You don’t understand!” Diana interrupted. “The kind of things this boy gets up to when he’s in one of his bad spells – tell him, Norah. Tell him some of the things you’ve told me.”

And Norah, willingly enough by now, did so.

“I’d let him go out shopping,” she began. “I did that sometimes, when he seemed to be having a good day, and mostly he was very efficient. I was upstairs when he arrived back, and when I came down I found he’d brought home this load of groceries from the supermarket and had put it all in the
washing-machine
. With detergent, and switched on to “Hot”. If I hadn’t been there to cope with the worst of the mess before Mervyn got home – if he’d come in and found the butter and the Rainbow Dip and the soused herrings and bananas all whirling round, and no one but himself to do something about it … Mind you, he got involved in the end, because we had to get a man in to fix the washing machine. The works were all bunged up with gunge even after I’d cleaned it … Mervyn blamed
me
,
of course. He
said I didn’t understand that someone as brilliant as Christopher was bound to be a bit absent-minded at times.

“But it wasn’t absence of mind, I knew it wasn’t, it was full-blown delusion. Christopher explained it to me in his weird, logical-sounding way. He was afraid of food-poisoning, he said, from the modern methods of chilling and storing, and so he’d decided that all super-market food should be given a thorough wash before being eaten.

“But Mervyn
still
managed to blame me. And that’s why I think that without me there – with no one to blame but Christopher himself … Without me there, he’ll
have
to …”

“Hasn’t it occurred to you that he might walk out too? Just like you did? If
I
came home and found the washing machine churning up the muesli and the gorgonzola and the smoked salmon and the Mothers’ Pride, I’d be through the front door before you could even turn it to ‘Wool and Fine Fabrics’ …”

At Alistair’s throwaway contribution to the problem, Norah gave a little gasp of dismay.

“Oh
no
! Oh, surely he wouldn’t! Oh, I never thought of that! When I rang Christopher last night, he never mentioned his father at all. I wonder if that might mean … Oh, my God! If he’s been actually
alone
all this time …!”

She was actually biting her nails now, her restless brown eyes darting from one face to another; her whole body was tense and somehow shrunken, like a cornered mouse.

“Oh, he wouldn’t!” she said again, in tones which made it perfectly clear that he
would.
Or might. Or
already had. Who knew what a man would do when brought face to face with the unendurable?

“Oh, what shall I do? Oh, I should never have …! Oh, I must go back! I must see what’s going on … I don’t know
what
he might get up to, all on his own like that! And the neighbours …!”

It was impossible not to notice the eager, almost hungry look on Diana’s face while this exchange was going on, and Bridget realised that the possibility of interviewing Norah for the forthcoming Community Care programme was taking shape in her friend’s mind, in spite of her earlier protestations about it being unethical to interview friends.

Why should it be? What was wrong with it – if Norah was willing? Bridget recalled Diana’s disappointment on learning that Norah was a dead loss for the
Battered
Wives programme – but was there not a future programme already in the pipe-line on the subject of Community Care? And Norah’s predicament was not merely that of the run-of-the-mill carer of any mental patient. Hers displayed a new and intriguing angle: the problem of the carer whose partner refuses to recognise that there is a problem at all. Partnership difficulties were bound to be quite a feature of the new series, Bridget reflected. Diana had already mentioned cases in which marriages had broken up because one partner – usually the husband – simply could not stand the stress and the social stigma. But in Norah’s situation there was this new and piquant twist of the husband refusing to recognise the truth. Norah had already shown herself willing to reveal all to three near-strangers; might she not be equally willing – even eager – to reveal her problems to millions of viewers? It was amazing how
many people
were
willing to do just this. Why shouldn’t Norah be one of them?

It would have to be done anonymously, of course. Bridget tried to visualise Norah in silhouette, with her back to the camera, and her voice scrambled into near-inaudibility.

Even so, Diana would have to go carefully, Bridget reflected. Her approach would have to be tentative, and very reassuring.

“I tell you what, Norah,” Diana was saying, as if as a footnote to Bridget’s speculations, “Why don’t I drive you down there this afternoon? I can see you’re anxious about how your son is managing; of course you are; but if you are planning to go and see for yourself, I think you ought to have someone with you. Someone to spy out the land, as it were. I mean, your husband may easily still be there, he might answer the door to you, and I gather that would be a bit of a disaster. So what I’m thinking of is this. If we went together, I could leave you in the car while I went ahead to your house and sussed it out. I could find out who’s in and who isn’t in, and roughly what’s going on. If it’s a boy who answers the door, and he seems to be alone in the house, then I’ll signal to you to come along. If it’s a middle-aged man, I’ll think up some plausible pretext: Market Research, or canvassing for the Labour Party, or something.”

“Jehovah’s Witnesses would be best,” contributed Alistair. “You’ll look perfect for the part, sweetie, with that moist and soulful look you always have in your eyes when you are on the trail of your next T.V. victim. We’ll borrow a Bible from the local vicar and confront Norah’s hubby with a suitable text – ‘He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it’ – something like that. You’ll be
an absolute wow, darling, I can just see you! When you tell him that the end of the world is nigh, he’ll positively shake in his polished Consultant shoes. The only thing is, darling, I thought your ricketty little clapped-out banger was having its MOT test this afternoon. Doesn’t that throw a spanner in the do-goodery? For today, anyway?”

“Yes … Well …” Diana hesitated. “They said it would be ready by three, and so I thought …”

“You thought it would be ready by three, is that what you’re trying to tell me? You really make me wonder whose head it is that wants examining. There’s no chance at all that you’ll get to this God-forsaken place before night. Somewhere in Hertfordshire, didn’t you say? Look, why don’t
I
take you both? And Bridget too. I’ll take you all out to lunch, if you think you can afford it. I’ve at least mastered the Women’s Lib principles about lunching with a chauvinist pig, and I heartily approve of them. Especially when it’s
three
of you.”

And lurching from the sofa with surprising agility, he donned his anorak, located his car keys, and stood waiting, apparently taking for granted the acquiescence of all concerned.

As they worked their way through the weekend traffic towards the M1, Bridget, sharing the back seat with Norah, was wondering what on earth had induced her to get involved in this hare-brained excursion. Partly, it was because she had nothing else to do. Having carefully and painstakingly organised herself a free weekend in which to pay a duty visit to her parents, she was now in the rare and delightful situation of having ahead of her a day and a half of totally uncommitted time. So rare and so unexpected was this situation that it had rather gone to her head, and put her in the mood to say “Yes” to things. Partly, too, she had been moved by Norah’s earnest and anxious persuasion. It seemed that Norah was actually frightened of going back to her house alone. She wanted to gather around her a sort of body-guard against whatever might be in store. Nothing that Bridget had heard so far of the unfortunate woman’s troubles had suggested that the schizophrenic son was given to violence. His behaviour as so far described seemed weird in the extreme, but in no way dangerous.

Was it her husband, then, that she feared? Not for the threat of actual physical violence – a man in his position, and with such exaggerated concern for his
status and reputation, would hardly risk the publicity of a summons for beating up his wife – but maybe his rages were in themselves terrifying; and rage undoubtedly could be expected by his runaway wife.

The third reason for her being in the back of the car – and this was one which Bridget did not enjoy admitting, even to herself – was sheer, vulgar curiosity. Something dramatic, exciting, was almost bound to happen, and she wanted to be in on it. Exactly like those crowds that gather so eagerly round a road accident. Surely she, Bridget Sadler, was above such crude impulses?

“What superior thoughts are you thinking right now, superior little one?” Alistair enquired suddenly,
half-turning
over his shoulder; “Why so quiet?” – but before she had time to answer, he had hastily turned his attention back to the road ahead, where an enormous lorry seemed about to move into his lane.

“Careful, darling!” Diana murmured nervously into his ear; and a moment later they all pitched forward in their seats as he braked violently.

“The damn swine – he’s crossed on the yellow –
I’ll
show him!” he swore, and for the next few minutes Bridget kept her eyes shut. He was an awful driver. She heard Diana’s little gasps of dismay – not that it took much to make Diana gasp – and at one point the driver himself exclaimed “Oops!” and the car lurched this way and then that.

Presently, however, Alistair’s speed steadied, and Bridget opened her eyes. The suburbs were thinning out now, the rows of houses giving way here and there to a tired field or two, or a building site. They were in Hertfordshire now. Almost in the country. Great trees lined the road, and beyond them could be glimpsed
occasional pastures and herds of cows. Alistair looked about him with satisfaction.

“Nearing Loony Land, aren’t we” he queried, tossing the remark backwards towards Norah, who cowered silently in the back seat. “Aren’t there more loony bins to the square mile here than anywhere else in Europe?” Then, when Norah failed to respond, he continued: “This is your home ground, isn’t it? I’m going to need your guidance. Where do I turn off?”

“Oh! I – well – that is …” Norah, who hitherto had scarcely spoken, looked almost as frightened as if it had been her husband himself suddenly addressing her. “I – well, you see, I don’t drive … But I know the way from the station,” she added placatingly. You could tell that she was a practised non-map-reader, who had evolved, more or less unconsciously, such skills as were necessary for getting out of the task. “I should think there’ll be a signpost, won’t there?” she suggested timidly, and then fell silent.

“Women!” snorted Alistair, and over his shoulder shoved a road map into Bridget’s lap, as if she wasn’t a woman herself.

Quickly, she found the relevant page, directed him to the right turn-off, along a country road with soaking grass verges and leafless hedgrows, into an area that Norah recognised, and finally into the actual road where she lived. As they slowed down, nearing No 20, Norah clutched Bridget’s hand, and all the long unhappy years glittered in her eyes.

“No – Oh please! – Not quite so near!” she begged “Can’t you park a little way further on?” And Alistair, with an expressive shrug of his shoulders, by-passed number 20 and parked at the far end of the road.

“Now what?” he said; and they all looked at each other.

Bridget was determined not to be the one to make any suggestions. None of it was anything to do with her, and so she turned her face away and looked determinedly out of the window.

It wasn’t a very attractive road, and on this damp autumn afternoon it was looking its least attractive. It was respectable enough – clipped hedges, neat front gardens, each with its square of wet lawn and its row of savagely-pruned roses. From well-weeded strips of dark earth rose clumps of unidentifiable dark foliage, perennials, presumably, from which, come summer, bright blossoms might emerge. The houses were
bay-windowed
, semi-detached, not at all handsome but neat and well-kept, with recently painted gates and front doors. Almost all the bay windows were shrouded by net curtains, giving the impression that all of them, not just Number 20, had some uneasy secret to keep.

“Well, here we are,” Alistair pointed out again. “Come on, Norah, do your stuff. It’s for you to allot the parts. Just remember, though, that I’m not going to do anything macho about these crazy men-folk of yours. Not my scene.”

“Shall I go first, like we said?” Diana offered. “I might say I’m looking for a Mrs Wilson, and I’m afraid I might have got the wrong address. Something like that. So long as there isn’t a real Mrs Wilson living nearby. I don’t want to get caught up in …”

“No … no there isn’t,” quavered Norah “Not that I know of, anyway. Yes, do that, will you Diana? And if Christopher
is
on his own …”

“Then I’ll wave,” Diana assured her, and climbed out
of the car. They all watched as she set off down the road, her high-heeled boots clicking on the damp pavement, and her loose scarlet jacket swinging as she walked. She walked briskly, purposefully, as if she really had got important business to transact with this Mrs Wilson.

They watched her turn in at the gate of Number Twenty, traverse the short gravel path and raise her hand to the bell when she reached the front door.

There was a pause of several seconds; long enough, anyway, to be too much for Norah. She turned away from the window and so had no glimpse of the person who finally answered the door. Not that the others could see much, either; just a tallist figure largely obscured by the shrubs around the porch and by the door itself, which was only partially opened, as if by someone uneasy about who the caller might be.

For a few moments they watched Diana speaking – making polite little gestures; and then, after less than a minute, she disappeared into the house, the door closing behind her.

“Did she – did she wave to me?” Norah at last ventured to ask; and when Bridget shook her head, and described what they had managed to see, Norah gave a little squeal of dismay.

“Oh! Oh, then, it wasn’t Christopher! It must have been Mervyn! Why hasn’t she come straight back? What is she
doing
?”

What indeed? A preliminary softening-up session with the father in the case? Bridget refrained from frightening her tremulous companion with the
suggestion
that a TV interview might be on the cards; and, in any case, a few moments’ reflection convinced her that the suspicion was unfounded. In the context of
a programme aimed at wrenching heart-strings over intimate family problems, a father who insisted that there
wasn’t
a problem would be a non-starter.

No point in guessing at this stage. Diana would explain it all when she came back.

But when
would
she come back? Already she had been gone for quite a long time – twenty minutes at least. Bridget consulted her watch; and presently, when a full hour had passed, and the winter daylight was already beginning to fade, she leaned forward and gave Alistair a sharp prod between the shoulder-blades.

“I think we ought to
do
something,” she said to the large, slumped back in front of her, watching it stir reluctantly. Either he had been asleep or he had been pretending to be – a good ploy for anyone who wanted to avoid whatever is going to happen next.

“Good idea,” he agreed. “Off you go. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be quite comfortable here on my own.”

Before Bridget had thought up a sufficiently stinging rejoinder to his pusillanimous suggestion, she was
interrupted
by a little cry of relief from Norah and a spasm of her slight body as she jerked bolt upright.

“Diana! She’s coming! Look, she’s waving … Oh, thank goodness!” and through the gathering twilight they could see Diana hurrying – indeed running, as much as she could in those stylish boots – towards them.

“Oh, he’s so handsome!” were her first words. “An absolute smasher! Photogenic to the N’th degree!”

Who was? Christopher, or the dreaded Mervyn? But Diana’s next words set Norah’s immediate fears to rest.

“Come on, Norah! He wants to see you, he really
does. I’m sorry I’ve been so long, but I had to make sure his father wasn’t there. I mean, he might have been in the garden or somewhere. But he’s not. Christopher isn’t expecting him back till quite late, so now is your time. He’s waiting for us.”

Still Norah seemed to hesitate. Her first surge of relief at Diana’s reappearance seemed to be fading, and once again she clutched at Bridget’s hand.

“Please come with us,” she begged. “I’m … That is, I wouldn’t like … But with
three
of us … Of course I know he wouldn’t hurt a fly, but …”

For the second time that afternoon Bridget found herself unsure of her true motivations. One of them, certainly, was to put Alistair to shame, there where he lounged, once again tactically asleep, behind the steering-wheel. How cowardly can you get? Not that accusations of cowardice would have succeeded in putting him to shame, not in the least. Alistair
treasured
his failings as if they were essential qualifications for the good life. Which perhaps they were? But by now the threesome were out in the street, hurrying to their destination, and Bridget had to abandon her self-searching.