Pantheon (10 page)

He pedalled maniacally, trying to keep his thoughts at bay. And yet they refused to be halted. He could almost feel them in his head, speeding around his cerebral cortex; as soon as he had blocked off one neural pathway, they re-routed and hurtled down another, shouting at him inside his head, forming into words.

He smothered them with another idea. It was Thursday, nearly seven o’clock in the evening and it was summer. Ordinarily, this was when Florence would be out with her friend Rosemary for the weekly walk of their rambling club. As far as James could tell, most were communists, all but ideological in their zeal for strenuous exercise in the British countryside.

The group would probably be walking back by now and, if they were sticking with their usual routine, he knew just where to find them.

And so, for the second time that day – though it felt like another era – he was back by the river, cycling along the towpath towards Iffley Lock. And, sure enough, there they were: Rosemary at the front, in sensible shoes, her sensible brown hair in a sensible bob, carrying one handle of a picnic hamper, the other taken by a strapping young female undergraduate. James let his bike slow, then swung one leg off it, so that he was perching on just one pedal, before hopping off, trying to look calm and composed. No red mists now, he told himself.

‘Hello there,’ he called out, giving a wave.

‘Is that you, James?’ she asked, peering through spectacles which, while no match for Magnus Hook’s, consisted of two substantial slabs of glass.

‘Yes, yes it is. I was just—’

‘Don’t worry, I can guess.’ She nodded at the young woman on the other side of the picnic basket who immediately and deferentially yielded her handle to James, falling back to join the chattering group of women a few paces behind. How Florence fitted into this group, James could not imagine, except that it was a pretty safe bet that several would have had a strong ‘pash’ for her. Perhaps Rosemary too. He took the basket in one hand, wheeling his bike in the other, and waited for her to speak first.

‘So, you’re looking for Florence?’

‘I am, as it happens. I don’t suppose you know where she—’

She cut him off, her gaze fixed straight ahead: ‘How long has she been gone?’

‘Since,’ he made a gesture of looking at his watch, ‘this morning, as a matter of fact.’ He was carrying the hamper in his left arm, which was already buckling under the strain. But he was reluctant to say anything, lest he distract Rosemary whose brow was fixed in concentration. But it was she who stopped.

‘Audrey!’ she shouted, turning to address one of the walkers behind. ‘Could you and Violet take the hamper? There’s a love.’

Two of the girls rushed forward to do as they had been told. Rosemary supervised the handover, then waited while the rest of the group overtook them, ensuring that she and James were well out of earshot. ‘Gone since this morning, you say,’ she said at last.

‘Yes.’

‘And you thought she might be with us.’

‘Well, it’s Thursday evening. She never misses her weekly walk, rain or shine.’

‘Ramble, Dr Zennor. We call it a
ramble
. And, you’re right, Florence is a stalwart. She hated missing the last couple of weeks.’

‘Missing them? She didn’t miss them.’

‘Well, she wasn’t here.’

‘I think you must have that confused. I remember it distinctly, Florence left at five o’clock, walking boots on. Same as always. I can picture her coming home, telling me about it.’

‘Well, I run this rambling club, Dr Zennor, and I’ve never missed a week. Not one. And I can tell you that Florence was absent last Thursday, as she was the week before. She’s not the kind of woman whose presence goes unnoticed.’

James was baffled. ‘Did she give any explanation?’

‘Only that something had come up. Something important. She was very apologetic.’

James was working through the different logical possibilities, trying to rank them in order of probability: that Rosemary was lying; that Florence had joined some other group and lied to her friend in order to spare her feelings; that on both Thursdays Florence had indeed been somewhere else, somewhere important, and had lied to him about it.

Rosemary spoke again. ‘This is very awkward, Dr Zennor. When speaking about the affairs of others, one never knows how much one is meant to know. Or how much the other parties themselves know.’

‘Affairs? What do you mean, “affairs”?’

‘Sorry. That was a very poor choice of word. Sorry about that. When one is speaking about the lives of others, let’s put it that way, one is never quite sure where the boundaries lie.’

‘Look, Miss—’ he ran dry, immediately regretting the attempt at a name.

‘Hyde, it’s Rosemary Hyde. And that rather makes my point, Dr Zennor. I have been your wife’s friend for at least ten years, since we were at school together. I suspect I am her closest confidante. And yet you are not entirely sure of my name.’

‘That’s not true,’ he said, without much conviction. ‘It’s just that I always thought your friendship was … well, I just left you two to get on with it.’ He was still preoccupied by the notion of his wife pretending to have gone out walking the last two Thursdays, putting her boots on, arranging for Mrs Brunson to look after Harry. Why would she have done that? Where would she have gone?

‘It’s not a criticism,’ Rosemary was saying. ‘Rather it might illustrate your problem.’

He could feel the red mist descending. ‘Yes? And what exactly is my “problem”, Miss Hyde? Because as far as I can see my only “problem”
is that my wife and child are missing. I have been sent on a wild goose chase to the Bodleian library that proved no use at all and now you want to play games with me – suggesting that my wife has been lying about her recent movements – rather than just spitting out where the hell she is. That’s all I want to know, Miss Hyde. Where
is
she?’

It came out as more of a plea than he had intended, his voice desperate and imploring. That much was apparent from the change in Rosemary’s expression. Her features had softened into a look unnervingly close to pity.

‘I don’t know where Florence is,’ she said quietly. ‘That is the truth.’ She resumed walking. ‘But I am not surprised she’s gone. I expected it.’

‘You expected it?’

‘Didn’t you? If you’re honest. Given everything that’s been going on?’

‘I don’t follow.’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘I really don’t, Miss Hyde. And I’m getting pretty damned irritated with people speaking to me about events I know nothing about.’

‘These are not “events”, Dr Zennor. This is about day-to-day life. At home. You and Florence and Harry.’

‘Our day-to-day life is fine, thank you very much. We’re a very good family. I love my wife and I love my son.’ His eyes widened in sudden understanding. ‘Oh, so that’s why you spoke about “affairs”. Well, let me tell you, I have always been faithful to Florence, from the very first moment—’

‘Nothing like that,’ she said, looking at her feet. She lifted her eyes and met his gaze directly. ‘Tell me, how well do you sleep?’

‘I don’t see this is any business of—’

‘It’s no business of mine at all. But your wife needed someone to talk to and that turned out to be me. So: how well do you sleep?’

‘And if I answer you, is that going to help me find my wife?’

‘It might.’

‘I go to bed late and I get up early, and I sometimes wake in the night. There, I’ve told you. Now, what can you tell me?’

‘Florence told me that you often wake up in the dead of night, shouting and screaming.’

‘I know the incident you’re referring to. It was—’

‘Incident? Florence said it happens all the time. You’re in a sweat, sitting bolt upright, bellowing out—’

‘I really don’t see …’

Rosemary ignored the interruption. ‘Night after night. And that would set Harry off. He’d be crying so hard, he couldn’t be settled. And if he did fall asleep, he’d only wet the bed an hour later. Then there was the time she found you sleepwalking.’

‘I don’t remember any—’

‘She found you in the kitchen, holding a knife. She said you just stood there, your eyes staring, frozen still with a knife in your hand. She was scared half to death.’

‘You’re making this up!’ he roared suddenly.

Rosemary turned and faced him, her teeth clenched tight. ‘And this is what she said was making life utterly impossible. Your constant pretence that nothing had happened. And your aggression. “Is he lying, Rosemary – or does he just not remember?” That’s what she would say to me. And she didn’t know what was worse: the thought that you would deny what she had seen with her own eyes or that you were so ill you couldn’t remember your own actions.’

‘
Ill
? I’m not ill.’

‘I know about this too. Your refusal to see a doctor. She’s been begging you to see—’

‘Oh, for heaven’s—’ He struggled to get to the end of the sentence; the bright light in his head was becoming unbearable … but he couldn’t stop her. Not if she knew something he needed to know. He tried to speak calmly. ‘I did see someone. About the insomnia.’

‘Yes, but you didn’t tell him the truth, did you? You just said you had “the odd bad night”. You said—’

‘How the hell do you know all this?’

‘Because your wife had no one else to turn to. She didn’t dare speak to her parents. She knew how much you resented them for—’

‘Resented them?’

‘—for the help they had given you.’ His puzzled expression prompted her to be more explicit. ‘Resented the
money
they had given you.’

‘Look,’ he said, his voice firm and steady. ‘All I want is to know what information you have. You need to tell me that. Now.’

She paused, looking out over the river unwinding ahead, gazing at the top of Christ Church Cathedral in the middle distance. ‘All right,’ she began. ‘The important thing is Harry. Florence wanted to protect him.’

‘From what?’

‘From you, of course.
Initially.
’

He was about to object, but the throbbing in his head was getting too insistent. It was easier to be quiet, to walk and to listen.

‘She said she had almost got used to you being angry all the time. After the—’ she glanced at his shoulder. ‘After the, um, accident. But once Harry was born, it began to worry her. The truth is, she was frightened.’

‘Of me,’ he said quietly.

‘Yes, James. Of you. Of what you might do. She was worried that you might hurt Harry.’

At this, his heart seemed to cave in, a physical sensation, felt in the muscle and blood. He could say nothing.

‘You once left him by a boiling kettle. Do you remember that, James?’

He shook his head, unsure.

‘Well, you did. You’d left the boy on his own, in the kitchen. You’d put the kettle—’

‘That’s enough,’ he said softly.

‘That’s what I said,’ Rosemary said, sardonically. ‘I told her it was enough. That she should leave you. Several times. Especially after you hit her.’

‘After I did what?’

‘Oh, don’t pretend you don’t remember that. You’d had an almighty row. And you slapped her, clean across the face. Her cheek was stinging. I had to soothe it with cool flannels all evening.’

‘That’s a damned lie!’

‘Don’t shout at
me.
All I am—’

‘It’s a damned lie and you know it.’ He felt giddy, as if he were about to topple over. It could not be true. It could not. Could it?

Everything else she had said had sounded some distant bell in his head, a distant but undeniable ring of truth. But not this. Yes, he had a temper, that was a fact. But the target of his rages was always himself. It was his own wrist that had been slashed when he punched his fist clean through the French windows onto the garden, his own head that had been bruised when he had rammed it into a bookcase in an eruption of fury. But he had never harmed his wife. No real man would ever do such a thing. His voice quieter now, he said once again, ‘It’s a lie.’

‘So you keep saying. But how can you be sure? Your memory seems a touch unreliable in my book.’

‘And you say she came to you?’

‘Straight away.’ The pride with which this was declared sent the rage surging through him once more, rising like mercury in a thermometer.

‘But she’d never do it. Leave you, I mean. Absurdly loyal, Florence. I hope you appreciate that.’

‘But she’s left me now.’

‘For Harry’s sake. She feared for his safety with you in the house. That was at first. Florence no longer sees you as the biggest threat to her son. Not directly anyway.’

James spoke quietly, more to himself than to her: ‘It’s the war.’

‘Yes. She’s been getting gradually more terrified since the day the war started. The sirens, the air-raid shelters, the gas-masks, that thing you’ve just built in the garden—’

‘The Anderson shelter.’

‘All of it scares her. She feels like it’s getting closer.’

‘They bombed Cardiff last week.’

‘Exactly. She was convinced Oxford would be next.’

A dozen times Florence had expounded her belief that Oxford was a natural target, not only because of the car plant at Cowley now converted into a munitions factory but also because of the university. ‘London is the nerve centre, but Oxford is the brain,’ she had said.

Rosemary was still talking. ‘I explained to her the statistical probabilities. As you know, mathematics is my subject: my specialism is statistics. Actually, you almost certainly don’t know: typical man, you probably think I’m a secretary. Anyway, I explained the probabilities, but it was no use. She kept torturing herself with the thought. “What if, Rosemary? What if?”’

The haze was beginning to clear in James’s mind. It was so obvious he couldn’t fathom how he had been unable to see it, why he had not thought of it till now. Still, if even half of what this woman was telling him were true, there was so much he was not seeing, so much he was forgetting, so much he had – what was the phrase in that book Florence had requested at the library? –
blacked out.

Rosemary had not stopped: ‘It made no sense, of course. If I told her once I told her a hundred times, Oxford is not an evacuation area. Children are being sent
to
Oxford, aren’t they? We were entertaining some of them just yesterday, lively little things from London. A few of the girls from Somerville went out to cheer them up …’