Singled Out (18 page)

Tom felt himself to be alienated, a misfit, unable to cross that seemingly insuperable bridge which separates one human being from another. ‘No man is an island …' Well, maybe the Fisher family were the exceptions that proved John Donne's rule. Was Tom doomed to live for ever in isolation? And were his words about his mother true? The words that were a paraphrase of what Kent had said the previous evening? Was Laura also incapable of relating to another person?

Suddenly she felt ridiculous about the hopes she had been unable to suppress for her meeting with Philip that weekend. There was no chance at all, no chance that there would be anything left for two people of their age after twenty-five years. Particularly when one of them was an emotional cripple, incurably damaged by the horrors of her childhood.

Laura kept hearing again sentences and phrases from Tom's denunciation. What really struck her was how long he had kept it all in. She had never for a moment suspected that he harboured any such thoughts. But then, as Tom had asked, ‘What do you know about what goes on inside my head?' And he had supplied the answer himself. ‘Nothing.'

Another of his sentences came back to her, something that had struck a strange, discordant note at the time. ‘I can't think of anything more selfish than going out to pick up a man to get you pregnant.'

Maybe it had been a shot in the dark. Tom knew that someone must have fathered him. Equally, he knew of no continuing sexual relationships in his mother's life. Perhaps he had put the two facts together and guessed at a solution. But something about the way Tom had spoken suggested a more detailed certainty.

How could he know, though? No one knew. There were few secrets between Laura and Rob, but she had not even told him. And Kent could have no inkling. Even when she first found out the man's identity from Kent's newspaper in Queen Charlotte's Hospital, Laura had suppressed all reaction to the shock.

She had often wondered how she would have reacted to the straight question from Tom: ‘Who is my father?' She had decided she would have replied, ‘He was someone whom I met and was very attracted to. We only spent one night together, but I didn't get pregnant by accident. I wanted to get pregnant. You were wanted, Tom.'

She was determined that that was all she would say. She could not bear the idea of Tom knowing that his father had been a murderer. That knowledge would have put far too much strain on a growing boy. The direct question, however, had never come up. Tom had remained apparently incurious about his origins. And yet now it seemed that he did know something.

Laura thought about her son and realized how depressingly right he had been. She did know very little about him. Only the externals. He was nineteen years old. He frequently seemed passive and lethargic, which got on her nerves. And he was doing a degree in media studies, with ambitions to be a journalist. Until Emily came along, except for his occasional unexplained absences, he hadn't seemed to have much of a social life. When he did go out, it was either to lectures and tutorials or with some vague, throw-away remark about ‘research'.

Research … Was it possible that Tom had actually been researching his own background? That, secretive as ever, rather than asking for information, he had set out to find it himself?

Laura started to search his room. She eventually found what she was looking for in a box-file under the bed. She sat on the duvet, unclipped the file's lid and took out a sheaf of photocopies.

Mostly they were newspaper cuttings, neatly sorted into bundles clasped by bulldog clips. Full marks to Tom's tutors. He was being well trained in journalistic efficiency. The subject of the cuttings, though, sent an appalling chill through Laura. The first group, palely photocopied from fading newsprint, dated back to 1958. They all concerned the trial of Richard Fisher for the murder by strangling of his wife.

Laura had not seen many of the reports before. At the time she had been protected from them by the social workers who were looking after her. Now she read dispassionately of the violent marriage painted by the prosecuting counsel and her father's unconvincing protestations of innocence relayed by the defence. His claim that he had found his wife strangled when he got home from work was given short shrift.

What struck Laura forcibly was how wrong a picture of her mother emerged from the proceedings. Of course Mrs Fisher had been the victim of the crime, but she came across as all victim, nothing more, an innocent crushed by the cruelty of an evil man. No impression came across of her glacial self-control, her obsession with appearances.

Though Laura hadn't been aware of it at the time, she had since rationalized that her mother had probably been frigid. Mrs Fisher had always had a distaste for the messiness of bodily functions, and probably regarded the production of two children as the complete and final discharge of her sexual duties. Though Laura was disinclined to accept any mitigation for what her father had done, she could recognize that his wife's coldness might have been a trigger for his behaviour.

And she could never forgive her mother for the passive acceptance of what was going on. No, it was more than passive acceptance. It had been the positive closing of Mrs Fisher's mind. She literally did not know what she did not want to know. She ignored all evidence of the abuse her children were suffering. So long as her husband kept his hands off her, and so long as she was able to maintain her well-dressed and well-heeled middle-class lifestyle, Mrs Fisher had been content.

She had laid down the ground-rules for their marriage, and Richard Fisher had conformed to them. Contrary to the impression given at the trial, he had never – until the final explosion of anger – turned his violence against his wife. The public image they always projected was of a perfect couple, which was why the murder produced such shock-waves amongst their acquaintances. At social events they were much given to overt displays of affection, and only their children knew that they never touched each other when they were alone.

Laura had often wondered what it was that had broken this arrangement, which parent had stepped over the boundaries of their circumscribed relationship and exposed the violence that lay beneath. But she would never know what had been said that day, what had driven her father finally to put his hands round his wife's neck and choke the life out of her.

There had been no doubt in the jury's mind that that was what he had done. His conviction had been inevitable. So, in 1958, had been his death sentence, though on appeal that had been commuted to life imprisonment. The fact that Richard Fisher had not been hanged had caused considerable outcry at the time from those of less liberal persuasion, and prompted argument in leaders and correspondence columns. All of these too had been neatly photocopied and added to Tom's archive.

Laura put the cuttings down, still trembling with shock. So … Tom knew about his grandfather. All her attempts to keep the truth from him had been in vain. Her son was aware of his inheritance of bad blood.

She turned with trepidation to the second bundle of photocopies. First to catch her eye was a photograph of Melanie Harris, the same portrait that had been pinned up in the
Newsviews
office the day after the girl's death. And the day after Tom's conception. The press coverage had been extensive and Tom appeared to have tracked down all of it. Why? Laura wondered savagely. What on earth had drawn him to the case? How could he possibly know it was in any way connected to him?

It was when she saw the
Evening Standard
clipping Kent had shown her in the hospital that she understood. Though legal ethics did not allow the identification of the man as Melanie Harris's murderer, there was an inference that could be drawn through the cuttings which might point to him. She felt certain that Tom had drawn that inference.

And she herself must have been guilty of bringing the case to her son's attention in the first place. Flying in the face of her instincts, Laura had found herself unable to destroy the cutting from Kent's paper. This had not been for reasons of sentiment, but of intrigued fascination. Over the years she had kept meaning to throw the clip away, but never got round to it. Tom must have found it one day. God knew, he had been around the house often enough when his mother wasn't there. He had discovered the photograph and been sufficiently curious to want to know more. It must have challenged his journalistic instincts.

So now Laura could safely reckon that Tom knew the history of bad blood on both sides of his family. She wondered how long he had known, and what kind of pressure that knowledge must have put on him. What had happened between Tom and Emily the night before appeared now in a harsher, more frightening light. Kent had been right. The past was inescapable. Patterns of violence are inevitably destined to repeat themselves.

The worst surprise of the box-file was right at the bottom. On a blank sheet of paper Tom had stuck five photographs. Three were photocopies from newspapers, two were ordinary snapshots. What was striking about the five faces was how alike they all were.

The first picture was a newspaper one of Mrs Fisher, a blurred version of the photo that used to stand on the mantelpiece of Laura's Pimlico flat. The second was of someone Laura had never seen before, though its likeness to the others gave the face an unnerving familiarity. The girl was probably about twenty. The cut of her hair and her make-up – black lines on upper eyelids set in relief by a paler tone above – suggested the picture had been taken in the late sixties. The original cutting had been snipped unevenly along the bottom, so that all that remained of its caption were the words, ‘Pauline Spanier, seen at a –'

The third was a snapshot of Laura, one which Rob had taken at a
Newsviews
Christmas party back in the early seventies. The fourth was the newspaper portrait of Melanie Harris. And the fifth was a colour polaroid photo of Emily.

Chris Gregory's voice was even more full of resentment when he rang the studios on the Friday morning. ‘Have you seen your son, Mrs Fisher?'

‘I saw him yesterday, yes.'

‘And I hope you told him how urgent it is that he should make contact with me.'

‘I'm afraid I didn't get the chance to do that.'

‘What? Oh dear.' Chris Gregory let out a long-suffering sigh. ‘So where is he now?'

‘I don't know.'

‘For heaven's sake, Mrs Fisher!'

‘I'm telling you the truth. I don't know.'

‘If you're trying to protect him, I have to tell you it won't work. Tom is going to have to take responsibility for his actions sooner or later.'

‘I am fully aware of that. And I'd be telling him so right now – if I knew where he was.'

‘Are you saying he's run away?'

‘He's left my house certainly.'

‘Oh …' A glimmer of hope came into the tutor's voice, as he saw the possibility of offloading his unwelcome responsibility. ‘So he's a Missing Person and we could call in the police to –'

‘He is not a Missing Person. I just don't know where he is at the moment. And I'm sure there are a lot of mothers who couldn't always give you the whereabouts of their nineteen-year-old sons.'

‘But the police could –'

‘It is not a police matter. Tom is not facing any criminal charges.'

‘But he may do. The girl Emily Howard certainly mentioned the possibility of bringing charges.'

‘And when she does so, I'm sure we can rely on the police to take the appropriate action. Until then, all we can do is to wait till Tom chooses to put in an appearance.'

‘Non-attendance at lectures and tutorials could jeopardize his future at the university, Mrs Fisher.'

‘I'm sure he's aware of that. And when he's calmed down, I am sure he will come forward to face the music.'

‘Hmm.' Chris Gregory sounded dissatisfied. He was under considerable pressure from Senior Common Room feminists and wanted the whole unpleasant business tidied up as quickly as possible. ‘So you're telling me, Mrs Fisher, that you're not worried about your son's disappearance?'

‘Exactly, Mr Gregory. That is exactly what I am telling you.'

In one way it was true. Laura had plenty of worries about Tom, but his present whereabouts weren't high on the list. She didn't think he was a suicide risk, and the manner of his packing and departure suggested he had some destination in mind. He was lying low and would reappear when he felt ready to do so.

But that was about the only aspect of her son's life that didn't worry her. His denunciation of the way she had brought him up still hurt Laura like a recent wound. Tom's words had struck at the heart of her philosophy of life, and dismantled the dynamo of self-confidence by which she had been driven since her early twenties. The damage might prove irreparable.

But darker than that anxiety were Laura's fears about Tom's personality. Not just because he was a loner or, as he saw himself, a social misfit. More terrifying was the implication of his words, ‘You can't change the nature you were born with.' It was Tom's ‘bad blood' that had led to his attack on Emily. As he had said, ‘These things are hereditary. You can't break the cycle.'

One thing was certain. Laura's current level of anxiety meant she was in no condition for lovey-dovey nostalgia with Philip. She rang him soon after her conversation with Chris Gregory to cancel – or at least postpone – their assignation. There was no reply from his number. She kept trying through the day with the same result. Probably he was off in one of the libraries researching his book.

But there was still no reply in the evening. Laura felt angry and frustrated, though aware that she had no justification for this reaction. She knew nothing about Philip's life in England. He was free to come and go as he pleased. He might be staying with his daughter Tammy and her cricket commentator husband. He might be anywhere.