The Outcast (32 page)

Claire came out occasionally and checked on the workmen and at one o’clock they stopped and went away.The gong rang for lunch and Kit got up and stretched herself and went down the garden.

There was nothing to look at now and Lewis was warm and let himself sleep. It wasn’t a real sleep, it was a half sleep and in it his mind kept going over and over familiar things and changing them and he began rebuilding the picture he had of the world. His mind, freed up with not eating, seemed to lose its edges and he saw that the assumptions he had always made were false, and broke apart when he looked at them. His thoughts ran away, and flowed away, and made pictures.

It was an odd feeling, a looking-glass feeling, that he had, that

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all his life he had been on one side of the glass with everybody else on the other and now the glass had broken and the thick, broken pieces were at all of their feet.

That morning Gilbert had left for work at the normal time, but he was only at his desk for an hour before leaving for his appointment with Dr Bond. He took a taxi to Harley Street and found that he was checking nobody was looking as he entered the building.

There was a lift with a metal gate you pulled across to take him to the third floor and he watched the red-carpeted land- ings passing him. He felt terribly embarrassed giving his name to the receptionist and hated waiting. He looked at the closed door and the brass plaque with‘Dr W. Bond’ that was screwed onto it.A woman came out of the door and she held a handker- chief up to her eyes as she went by. She was wearing a suit and a little hat tipped forward and Gilbert didn’t know if the hand- kerchief was just to hide her face, because she didn’t want to be seen either, or if she’d been crying.The whole place seemed to be fake; pretending to be respectable when it was full of damage, pretending to be quite open when it was full of shame.

He fidgeted and waited and got angry about waiting. When he finally went in, he was surprised by the size of the room.The big net curtain on the window shone bright white with diffused sunlight and the air was stuffy. He sat opposite Dr Bond, who had the light behind him so that his face wasn’t quite clear. Gilbert put his briefcase down.

‘This is about your son, isn’t it, Mr Aldridge?’ ‘Yes. Lewis.’

‘Tell me about Lewis.’

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‘. . .What do you mean?’ ‘He’s having a difficult time?’

‘Yes. He’s—’ It was still horrible to say it out loud, ‘He’s recently come out of prison. He was in prison for two years. For arson. He’s nineteen now.When he came home, it seemed at first that he was better. He seemed to want to behave and he got himself a job, or I got him a job.’

‘When was this?’

‘Just over two weeks ago.’ ‘When you say better?’

‘He has problems. He drinks—’ ‘How much does he drink?’

‘He drinks secretly. He wasn’t drinking at first. Then he started to. But I haven’t explained.’

‘It’s all right, Mr Aldridge, take your time, you’re doing very well.’

Gilbert felt patronised and irritated and wondered if this man had any proper qualifications. He looked professional enough, he was in his fifties and had grey hair and a neat suit and held his glasses in one hand as he made notes with the other. Gilbert felt scrutinised and judged and he wanted to say: don’t look at me, it’s my son we’re talking about. He had a silly fear the doctor would suddenly accuse him of some mental problem and recommend that he be treated immediately.

‘I need to explain. He . . . when he was younger he had a habit of, well, he would – if things went wrong at all – he would cut himself.With a razor. On the arm.’

‘I see. Not his wrists?’

‘No. It wasn’t like that. Here,’ he showed him,‘on the arm.’ ‘You say when he was younger?’

‘Yes. We think he didn’t do it while he was away. He seems

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not to have got into any trouble there. Then, just recently he did it again, very badly.’

‘Do you know what could have caused him to do it?’ ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, what might have happened that made him do it?’ ‘He was arrested. It was when they let him go. He took a girl

into the woods and he – hurt her – he didn’t, well, it wasn’t like that, at least I don’t think so, but he – he gave her a black eye and he ran away, he stole a car and he ran off with another girl

– her sister, who is very young – and he was arrested again.’ ‘And then he was released?’

‘She didn’t want to press charges against him.The family are our neighbours. Her father has a lot of influence. It could have been much worse.They’ve been extremely understanding. But now he’s run away—’

‘Let’s go back a little. When would you say this behaviour started? What sort of a boy was he?’

Gilbert felt impatient again; this was all the sort of nonsense he had expected.

‘He was a normal boy. Like any boy.’ ‘Until?’

‘I don’t know. He seemed all right. His mother died a few years ago. Of course it affected him.’

‘How old was he when his mother died?’ ‘Ten.’

‘How did she die?’

He didn’t have time for this.

‘She drowned. In the river near our home. Lewis was the only one there.We don’t know what happened.’

‘I imagine it was a terrible shock.’ ‘Of course.’

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‘Would you say it was after that he became difficult?’

‘Not really. He was quiet. He got on all right. I remarried. It was when he was fourteen or fifteen that he became unman- ageable, with the things he did and the drinking.’

‘This terrible event. This drowning . . . Tell me about your wife.’

‘I don’t see why.’

‘It must have been very difficult.’ ‘Of course.’

‘You say he was the only one there.’ ‘Yes.’

‘He never said how it happened?’

‘He wouldn’t speak. He was quiet. He was oddly quiet.’ ‘What are you saying?’

‘I’m not saying anything.’

‘You appear to be saying the events were mysterious in some way.’

‘I don’t know what you mean. Mysterious. It was very sad. Lewis was a little boy. He was a strong swimmer. The water wasn’t very deep. I don’t know. I wasn’t there.’

‘You seem upset.’

‘I’m not at all upset. My son is missing. He may go back to prison. He’s not a child now. He’s nineteen and he’s violent and he’s a drunk and he’s harming people, and you seem to want to talk about an unpleasant event that happened many years ago.’

‘I don’t want to upset you.’

‘I would like to keep to the point.’ ‘Are you all right?’

‘Will you, please!’

‘Would you like some water? Would you like a drink?’ Gilbert checked his watch.

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‘A brandy?’ said Dr Bond.

Gilbert had a drink, and thought how excellent it was that medicinal drinking in doctors’ offices allowed you to break the not-before-twelve rule. He felt a little better. He told Dr Bond about Lewis attacking the Carmichaels’ house and disappearing. He told him about the blood on the bathroom wall and that he had seenTamsin and how shocking that was. He told him about Lewis’s blankness and sudden, unprovoked rage.

‘We don’t know where he is,’ he said.‘That was yesterday. He ran away after that and we don’t know where he is now, or what may happen to him if he’s caught.’

‘What are your thoughts?’ The question was weighted with significance. Gilbert felt very emotional suddenly, and found it hard to speak.

‘I’m very concerned for him.’ ‘And?’

‘I’m very concerned for my wife. My second wife. And for the other family I told you about, my neighbour and his daughters.’

‘When you say concerned . . .’ ‘I fear for them.’

‘Would you say your son was a danger to himself?’ ‘Yes.’

‘Would you say he was a danger to others?’ ‘. . . yes.’

‘Sometimes . . . when a person doesn’t accept they need treat- ment, a committal order can be a way of initiating the process.’ There, he’d said it; Gilbert had wanted him to say it, but now that he had he felt sick with himself, and frightened. He looked down at his glass and waited. The doctor’s voice was very

gentle.

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‘It’s a legitimate route to take.’

Gilbert nodded and didn’t look at him. ‘You’re not betraying your son, Mr Aldridge.’ ‘. . . no.’

Lewis’s sleep was like diving into something. The layers were pushed back, his mind kept dropping, deeper and deeper, and when he woke it was a sudden waking and it was much hotter. He didn’t feel peaceful any more, he felt restless.The workmen were at the windows again, and it seemed so dogged and stupid the way they were putting back each little diamond pane he’d broken.

He had always thought he had been wrong. He hadn’t been wrong. His heart got faster and he felt weak and strong together. He wanted Kit out of there and didn’t know how he could stand it or what he was going to do. He looked at his hand shaking in front of him and willed it to stop and it did stop, and he lit his second-last cigarette with a steady hand.

He smoked and tried to make it enough, so that he wouldn’t be so hungry, and watched the smoke, and imagined his father at work in his office and what he might be doing.

As a child, the idea of his father’s work life had been impres- sive – he imagined a leather-topped desk and important papers that needed attending to – but as he grew older he lost respect for it. He remembered one day when he was sixteen he’d got out of bed with Jeanie in the afternoon and gone out into the street. He’d walked away from her flat and down towards St James’s and bought a bottle of gin in an off-licence there. He had put it in his pocket and then seen his father coming out of his club after lunch. He had stood on a corner, with the bottle of gin in his pocket and Jeanie in his mind and on his body, and

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seen his father in his suit and hat, talking to some people. He’d watched him say goodbye and get into a taxi and his father hadn’t seen him, and Lewis had gone back to Jeanie’s bed and been with her until night-time. He had lain in bed while she slept against him and felt completely alone. He didn’t have any idea what his life would be like, and it had terrified him that he didn’t, but he knew it couldn’t be like his father’s, even if he had wanted it.

When he was in jail, and letting his mind go, he would think of the lives he had seen or heard about: businessman, barman, musician, cleaner, prison officer, policeman; but when he looked at the future, he didn’t exist. There was no place for him. He was a wrecked person.

The difference now was that all his life he had thought his father and Dicky and Alice andTamsin and all of the people who managed in the world weren’t wrecked people, and now he knew they were. It looked like everybody was in a broken, bad world that fitted them just right.

Kit wasn’t, though. Kit was too beautiful and too shaming, and he lost all his thought then.

Gilbert returned to his office after his meeting with the doctor. He worked hard and took the normal train home. When he came into the hall Alice was in the drawing room as usual, by the drinks cabinet with the broken doors. Gilbert couldn’t go in to her. He sat in a chair by the door and put his briefcase on his lap, and after a while she noticed and she came out.

‘Gilbert?’ ‘Yes?’

‘You’re home.’

‘Yes.’

‘What’s the matter?’

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He got up and went into the drawing room and she followed him and handed him his drink.

‘Did you see the doctor?’ ‘Yes.’

‘And?’

‘And?’

‘What did he say?’

‘Oh, he gave me a form to fill in.We talked about Lewis.’ ‘What form?’

He gestured at his briefcase and took his drink and sat down by the empty grate. She went to the briefcase and opened it, struggling with the lock because she wasn’t used to it, and got out some stapled pieces of paper. She knelt there, reading them.

‘What’s for dinner?’ he asked.

‘Gilbert – this is to have him committed.You can’t have him committed. Gilbert?’

‘For God’s sake, what?’ ‘You can’t do this.’

‘No.We have to bloody find him first.They think he may have gone to London—’

‘When he hurt himself this time—’ ‘It’s not just that!’

‘I know he didn’t hit Tamsin.’ ‘Have you seen her face?’

‘Please stop shouting.You can’t do this to him, Gilbert. It will break him.’

‘He’s broken already.’ ‘Gilbert—’

‘I’m not discussing this with you, Alice. You’re not his mother and it’s not your decision. Another topic, please, or if you can’t find one, why don’t you go to your room until dinner

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time?’ Alice stood up and she still held the paper in her hands. ‘Well?’

‘When we met,’ she wasn’t going to cry, ‘and you were so very sad, Gilbert, I thought I could make you forget her and be happy. But you’ve guarded your misery, haven’t you? . . . You’ve let it turn black. I’ve no idea how you can live with me and be so hard and so cold. Did I do this? I used to blame myself . . . and Lewis. But perhaps it’s just you. Perhaps this is just you.’

He didn’t look at her still, but made an impatient gesture with his hand, and she turned and went out of the room and upstairs, just as he had asked.

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C
hapter
T
welve
‌

When it was quite dark, the Carmichaels’ house was lit up like a doll’s house. Lewis was waiting until everybody had gone to bed so he could go back to his father’s house and try to find something to eat. He would have to break in and not be caught. The family were in the drawing room. He could see the maid and the housekeeper going in and out of the other rooms and doing things.A little later they all had supper and Lewis climbed down to see better. He watched them eat and smoked his last cigarette waiting for Kit to go up to bed. The night was dark and alive around him. He felt frightened for her, and disgusted, and couldn’t leave until her light was safely turned off. When her window was dark he started back through the trees.

Kit lay still and quiet in her bed. She had wanted all evening to be by herself and cry, but now she was alone she couldn’t cry, but felt small and hard and as if there was nothing left of her. She needed to get used to Lewis not being there in her heart with her any more. She wanted not to think about him, but she thought about him all the time. She didn’t know where he was and it obsessed her, not knowing, and it went around in her mind, fearing him, fearing for him, fearing his capture, fearing his return. She couldn’t seem to adjust to this new reality. She