The Fifth Rapunzel Part 4

It didn't occur to her that she looked like a stereotyped country housewife. Bland. Tending towards plumpness. Rea.s.suringly ordinary.

And it didn't occur to Rhoda, who opened the door dressed in an old green caftan of Lisa's, that she looked like a mediaeval looter of clothes of the dead.

Meg, recognising the caftan as the one Lisa used to wear when she was painting, and the woman inside it as the one who had dropped the camera in the church porch, felt a hot rage burn up in her cheeks and for a moment she couldn't speak. How dare this woman come here and take possession?

Rhoda, mistaking the flush of anger for a blush of shyness, was reminded of Simon. She asked the caller with the basket of goodies if she had called to see him. Meg, still speechless, nodded.

Rhoda graciously asked her in. "Simon's down in the orchard doing some scything. Apparently there used to be a regular gardener but he hasn't been recently. Shall we go through to the kitchen?" She led the way and suggested that Meg should put the basket on the table. "All those nice things. That chutney looks lovely. Everyone is so kind to him." "Are they?" said Meg drily. Not. overtly, hostile. But almost. She introduced herself. "I'm Meg Maybridge. My husband and I have been friends with Simon and his parents for many years."

Rhoda began emptying the basket while she rea.s.sessed the situation. One of the eggs rolled out of the carton and cracked. She picked it up and wiped the slight ooze with her forefinger. Maybridge. One of the policemen who carried Peter's coffin. "Your husband is the superintendent who gave the address at the funeral?"

"Detective Chief Inspector. And - yes - he read the excerpt from the Bible."

"Very sympathetically. It was well chosen." No gush this time. Total honesty.

Meg relaxed a little. "It was important to choose something that wouldn't hurt Simon. Some pa.s.sages are too full of doom and d.a.m.nation. It's an Eastern ethos, of course. Difficult to relate to." Mentally she cautioned herself: Don't be sidetracked. She hasn't told you her name yet. You're not supposed to know it. See if her story tallies with Simon's.

"And you are?"

Rhoda removed the jam. "Home made? He'll enjoy it."

Meg smiled. Said nothing.

Rhoda stopped stalling. "Rhoda Osborne. I'm a journalist. I thought Simon had told you last time you called. Or maybe it was another visitor." Simon had referred to her as Meg and she hadn't made the connection. This lady was no p.u.s.s.ycat. A little gentle stroking wouldn't do. Her position here would have to be made tenable - somehow.

The kitchen smelt of soup spilt on to the electric burner. It had splashed on to her jeans and s.h.i.+rt, too, but luckily hadn't scalded her. Her clothes were tossing on the rotary drier in view of the window. She indicated them and explained. "That's why I'm wearing this. With Simon's permission, of course. I haven't brought much in the way of spare clothes - didn't intend staying more than a few days. The caftan happened to be handy - it was up in the studio where I'm working." Stalling an immediate a.n.a.lysis of her 'work', she hurried on. "I've never worn anything of Lisa's before. You must have thought it shockingly insensitive of me, but there wasn't any option. I think her clothes and Peter's should be packed away and given to a charity. Would it be cra.s.s of me to suggest it? Would it be more acceptable coining from you?"

A neatly turned conversation. A necessary statement made.

Meg, not fooled but mollified, went along with it. The trespa.s.ser trespa.s.sed within limits. "It wouldn't be cra.s.s coming from either of us, but it's up to Simon to say who's to do it - and when. How long have you known him?"

It was the obvious question and she had been expecting it. As far as Simon was concerned, it had to be honest. "Briefly. His father used to mention him quite a lot - Lisa, not so much. I suppose you know he's not going back to Collingwood - and he's not taking up his place in medical school?"

Meg hadn't known. She sensed it was another devious twist in the conversation away from Rhoda, but was genuinely upset by what she had been told. David had chucked university, too, and had been in and out of jobs ever since. A stint on an oil rig. A season on a trawler. Courier with a travel firm. And now, and for the first time, an indoor job portering for Christie's. Humping antiques, he called it, a prelude to selling them at a million a bid.

"Does Kester-Evans, Simon's headmaster, know?"

"I couldn't say. I haven't discussed it with Simon. He just told me he'd written to the medical school -Bart's, or wherever - and that was that. It's his life. His decision. He'll be happy in his own way. Eventually." She noticed the book in the bottom of the basket. "Is this for Simon?"

"It was his mother's. I suggest we take it to Peter's study and put it with the rest of the books. Perhaps you know Housman's poems?"

Rhoda didn't. "Quite jolly little country pieces," she said, flipping through the pages, scarcely glancing at them. "Should cheer him up."

Meg looked at her thoughtfully. If this woman were the journalist she professed to be, then her knowledge of literature was sadly lacking. Or was she, Meg, being unfair? What had journalism to do with literature, anyway? Precious little. Some of the poems were deeply depressing. Death on the gallows and dust to dust - and so on - and so on. If Rhoda had been one of her students she would have told her so. "Not as happy as they might seem," was all she could politely say. "He might like to read, them later on. Not yet."

The two women were in the study when Simon came in from the garden, hot and sweaty, with wet gra.s.s on his shoes. Rhoda was leaning against his father's desk, her head tilted back, her long hair brus.h.i.+ng against a silver penholder. There was nothing aggressive in her att.i.tude; she was, in fact, smiling. Meg, seated, looking up at her - a disadvantaged position - was smiling, too. There was an aura of combat in the air. "Lisa," Meg was saying, "was a very private person. It's hard to imagine she'd want to be featured in a magazine or newspaper - or whatever you intend. She shunned publicity when her book was published. She's that kind of person."

"Was," Rhoda reminded her softly. "Simon will have the last word about this when the profile of his mother is completed." She turned and saw him standing by the door. "My being here isn't bothering you too much, is it Simon? Mrs Maybridge thinks perhaps it is. That the whole idea upsets you."

Meg, about to protest that she had said nothing of the sort, bit her lip and was silent. She hadn't said it, but obviously she had implied it. She waited for Simon's answer.

His anger grew slowly as he realised what was happening. Meg Maybridge had come here to pry. She had come to get Rhoda out. "No," he said, trying to keep his voice calm, "I'm not upset. Not about anything. This was my parents' home. Now it's mine. I say who is to come and who is to go. You don't have to worry about me. Rhoda is here because I want her to be here. What she is doing is okay."

He turned away from Meg and went over to stand by Rhoda. A declaration of alliance. "You'll knock it over." He moved the penholder and touched her hair. An excuse to touch it. He could smell her scent and his own sweat. At this worst of moments, fuelled by anger, embarra.s.sment and sheer proximity, he found it hard to control himself. Oh, G.o.d, Meg thought, observing him, he's in love with the b.i.t.c.h!

Rhoda took a few paces away from him and picked up the penholder. "Engraved. T.B.' Peter Bradshaw. Nice present from someone. Your mother, perhaps." She put it down again. "Go along and get yourself cleaned up, Simon. You're walking gra.s.s and mud into the carpet. And when your hands are clean, put the kettle on. I'm sure Mrs Maybridge would like a cup of tea."

It was brusquely dismissing. The bubble of emotion p.r.i.c.ked with a sharp pin.

"It must have hurt him," Meg told Tom later. "She could have been kinder but at least she's not leading him on." She had declined the tea, making an excuse of having to do some shopping. "I went to fetch my basket from the kitchen, hoping to see him, but he wasn't there. He'd left the study, looking abject like a kicked dog. I wanted to give him the photo, but not in front of her. Luckily he was on his own, doing something to the car, when I was leaving, and I handed it to him then. It was in an envelope. He looked at it as if it were a subpoena, he was still very uptight, but he took it graciously enough when I explained. I told him to come round and visit us sometime. And have a talk. I suppose I should have said for a meal - or a drink - or a round of golf with you. The word 'talk' seemed to shrivel him up. He hardly said goodbye."

Maybridge tried not to smile. Meg's 'talks' could spark off bonfires. He wondered what was worse - a frigid indifference to other people or too much concern. "You can't wade in and sort out his love life for him," he told her. "If his parents were around, they couldn't either. At eighteen, an obsession with an older woman isn't unusual. She's probably harmless. If she isn't, it's up to him to sort her out. And if he can't then he can come to me and I'll do all I can. But he must come to me first. Friends can be too intrusive. As for his chucking medicine as a career, he's probably right. It amazes me how he got through the interview. Candidly, if I were mortally ill in hospital, seeing Simon approaching with a stethoscope around his neck would hasten the end."

Meg, who hadn't been expecting that sort of response, was annoyed. If students had academic ability, and Simon had, it was enough to be going on with, she pointed out. Students grew into their chosen profession as time went by. All they needed was a chance to start. "He's sabotaging his future, and she knows about it and doesn't care. I can't help being worried."

Maybridge didn't answer. He'd had rather a b.l.o.o.d.y day. Literally. A lad of fourteen had stolen a motorbike and crashed it through a plate gla.s.s window. When you arrive on that sort of scene you tend to put other matters into perspective. At that particular time, Simon's affairs seemed of little consequence.

Later that evening Simon showed Rhoda the photo. It was a gesture of reconciliation. Her gesture had been to pour him a large whisky on the rocks. It had always zoothed his father and though it might not be a good idea in Simon's case it was, by implication, a man's drink and she couldn't think of anything else. She was sorry she had belittled him in front of the Maybridge woman, but it had seemed the only thing to do at the time. In retrospect she should have handled the visit better. In retrospect one can usually do most things better. She had changed out of the caftan as soon as her jeans and s.h.i.+rt were dry. It was a pity Mrs Maybridge had seen her wearing it. The wolf in grandma's gear. Red Riding Hood, alias Simon s.e.xually transformed, standing by her bedside, anxious to jump in.

Not so anxious now, thank G.o.d. They were sitting looking at a nineteen-forties Western on television. He on the sofa. She on the chair that had probably been Lisa's, a squashy fawn-coloured recliner. Peter would have favoured the upright brown leather, more supportive for his back. Lumbago, he had told her, was an occupational hazard of pathologists and missionaries. Bending over countless cadavers or rec.u.mbent ladies in old-fas.h.i.+oned positions took its toll. She had liked his humour - wry - not always kind. His son showed no vestige of humour whatsoever. But, given the drum-stances, what could she expect?

He got up and turned the television sound down before handing her the photo. "My parents," he said laconically. And then he turned up the sound again so that the room was filled with the rattle of gunshot, thudding of hooves and blaring music. He closed his eyes, listening to the din, being anaesthetised by it. He should have felt some pain on seeing the photo - or, perhaps, pleasure - instead he felt guilt. His mother had looked very trim and young in a green dress and matching shoes, the same dark green as the gra.s.s. His father, three rows behind, had his head turned towards a blonde woman, a little shorter than he, standing next to him and at the end of the row. It was windy and she was clutching a red straw hat. The only one there with a hat. And the only one he didn't recognise. The others were local people. Teachers from the village school. A couple of librarians. Doctor and Mrs Francome. The vicar and his wife. Steven Donaldson. He couldn't think why they were all grouped there together. Some village event, probably, and his mother seemed to be the star of it, whatever it was. Or Meg Maybridge must have thought so when she'd taken the snap. She stood out from the rest and seemed confident though unsmiling. The centre of attention. Why couldn't she have been calm like that all the time? Socialised. Been ordinary. What had been wrong with her?

Rhoda was saying something and he couldn't hear above the din. Didn't want to hear. Consoling words, probably. He had carried the photograph around in the pocket of his jeans for some while before deciding to show it to her. His mother's ma.n.u.scripts hadn't meant very much to him. It hadn't mattered that she was reading them. To him they hadn't felt personal. This was the only photograph of his parents he had; if there were others he'd never seen them, and he had been reluctant to share it. Even with Rhoda.

She turned the television off and her voice was sharp in the silence. "Is this your mother standing in the front?"

The question surprised him. It was a good likeness. She had met his mother, hadn't she, at a publisher's party?

"Yes. I thought you would have recognised her."

"I do, of course ... but ..."

He noticed her hand holding the photograph was trembling. "What's the matter?"

She ignored the question. "This was taken here in Macklestone, wasn't it?"

"Yes, by Meg Maybridge. She gave it to me when she called."

"Meg Maybridge," Rhoda said softly. "The wife of the local detective chief inspector. How apt."

She walked out of the room, still carrying the photo-graph, and Simon heard her going upstairs and into his mother's studio. Alarmed for her, she had looked odd and seemed to be talking rubbish, he followed her. He stood outside the door on the landing and spoke her name tentatively. She didn't answer. He tried the door. It was locked. "Rhoda, what's the matter? Are you all right?" "Go away, Simon. Leave me. Just go away." Echoes of his mother's voice. Go away, Simon. Go away. Go away.

Rhoda left the next morning for London. She borrowed Simon's car and left it in the station car park. She had been gone an hour when Simon got up shortly after nine.

He found a note from her propped up against the milk jug: "Have to go home for a few days. You'll find your car in Bristol Parkway near the taxi rank. Yes, I can drive. I won't wreck it. Sorry if I deceived you. Rhoda."

He was appalled she had gone. And then, gradually getting used to the fact, he calmed down. The house without her felt boringly normal. The air was scentless, her perfume removed. He was no longer thrust into an emotional strait-jacket. His body, quiescent in her absence, behaved. No longer in a state of s.e.xual turmoil, he was able to eat. A couple of rashers of bacon. One of Mrs Maybridge's eggs, fried hard. Toast. Strong tea. She had liked hers milkless, sugarless and weak. Afterwards he dumped all the dirty dishes in the sink and turned the tap on them and left them to soak. She had been tidy. "Without a woman to look after you," she had told him, "you'd turn the place into a piggery." Well, maybe. Pigs were placid creatures. He wasn't placid now but he'd stopped feeling as if his insides were being gouged out with a knife. Pain was ebbing.

He wondered if she had left the car key in the ignition. If so, would someone have stolen it? Why had she said she couldn't drive when she could? Were women always that devious?

He took the local bus to the station and was relieved to see the car still there. The ignition key wasn't visible but, after a panicky search, he found it in the map compartment. On the way back home he put the radio on loud. She didn't like music in the car. On the drive to Gloucester she had turned it off. Without asking. What was married life like? he wondered. Apart from going to bed and having s.e.x whenever you wanted it, what was the point? Did one partner always dominate the other? Rhoda was dominating him. All the time. It was zands off - stay at arm's length - don't dare come close.

Going back into the empty house was more difficult than leaving it. It was lonely. Unwelcoming. He went upstairs to the studio and sat on the couch. Rhoda's nightdress, short white cotton with sprigs of flowers on it, was on the pillow. A virginal-looking nightdress, not at all what he would have expected her to wear. He had always imagined her lying naked. He fondled it, sniffed its musky smell, then put it back on the pillow. She had never spoken of any other man in her life. But there must have been. He didn't want to know. Didn't want to think about it.

The morning sun was blazing into the room, making it hot. The rays spotlighted in the picture of the multicoloured bird pinned next to the mural. He imagined it burning then, phoenix-like, rising from the flames with its melancholy cry: Kywitt, kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I! The bird of his nightmares, mocking him.

He went over and ripped it from the wall. Tore it up.

And then he began looking around the room to try to find the photograph. She had brought it up here yesterday. He needed to look at it again. A happy picture of his parents in a group of happy ordinary people. No dark images.

He searched for a long time without success, turning over the papers of the ma.n.u.scripts, pus.h.i.+ng aside the pile of books on the floor by the cupboard, looking in the cupboard where the typewriter and reference books were kept, and then by chance he glimpsed the blue cardboard box half-hidden under the couch. The photograph wasn't there either, but three small books he hadn't seen before took his attention. He had found his mother's diaries.

Rhoda's conscience was an unbiddable animal. It roamed free. When she had moved in on Simon it was over the horizon somewhere, comfortably out of sight, but when she had left him it was snapping at her heels. She kept remembering his anxious voice outside the studio door. "Rhoda, what's the matter? Are you all right?"

No, she wasn't all right. Far from it. She had come to seek and she had found. And it was appalling and frightening and she'd had to get away and plan what to do - if anything could be done. All her anxieties were focused on her missing sister and what might have happened to her. She couldn't carry the extra burden of Peter's son.

In the days when she and Peter were together, sharing his flat for a while, he had accused her of having an exaggerated sense of duty towards Clare. "She's not your everlasting responsibility," he'd pointed out. "When your parents died you quit college so that you could get a job and pay her school fees - for G.o.d's sake, what was wrong with the state system? Okay, with an eight-year age gap between you, you felt responsible, I understand that. But she isn't a child any more. Your duty is done." He'd got it all wrong, she'd told him. She hadn't behaved the way she had out of a sense of duty. She had never felt dutiful to anyone. It was a blood tie, but not the sibling stranglehold he imagined. She hadn't used the word love to Peter. It wasn't a word that came naturally to her. Caring for Clare had been a mixture of resentment, exasperation, tenderness, even a touch of maternalism on account of the age gap. When Clare went off on her own and started messing up her life by marrying a ski instructor with better biceps than brains, there hadn't been much she could do about it. But when she had divorced him a couple of years later and had needed a roof over her head for a while and someone to be with her, Rhoda had moved back to her own flat and invited her to stay. Peter had been furious.

His att.i.tude had changed when he met her. Her siren songs were sweet and persuasive and - more surprisingly - she meant them. Clare besotted? Undoubtedly. Peter captivated? It seemed so. She had started hinting to Rhoda - maybe to Peter, too - that she should move into his life permanently. Being with him when he came up to London to lecture at the university wasn't enough. How Peter had responded had been hard to guess. He rarely mentioned his family, but his description of Lisa as 'slightly disturbed' had sounded like an ominous euphemism. It was unlikely he would leave her. Rhoda had warned Clare to watch what she was doing. Peter's domestic set-up with his wife and son was private territory. Keep away.

But Clare had trespa.s.sed. Shortly before the Bradshaws' silver wedding anniversary, according to the date Mrs Maybridge had scribbled on the back of the photograph, she had moved right in on to Lisa's home ground.

Lisa's anger must have been intense when she had painted the picture of the long-haired blonde with red slashes of paint across her head and running in long streaks from her throat to her thighs like wounds. When Rhoda had come across it in the loft, it had just seemed an artist's dissatisfaction with a crude piece of work -a crossing-out in crimson. But the photo had given it significance. Clare, in her red hat and red and black striped dress, standing next to Peter. A provocative, daring, stupid statement of involvement. Lisa, standing at the front of the group. Alone.

Rhoda's going and not coming back, despite her saying It would be just for a few days, was hard for Simon to come to terms with. At first her absence was bearable. He got out. Went for long drives. Drove fast. The weather was blowy and the air smelt good. He felt as if his emotions had been vacuumed and everything inside his head was very neat. And then the weather closed in, rain clouds obscured the sun, the wind no longer blew. The house was grey and murky and Rhoda-less. He longed to smell her musky perfume. Touch the warm skin of her hands. Listen to her voice, exasperated, bossing him. He took her nightdress to bed, wrapped it around one of the pillows and hugged it to him. Dreamed of making love to her. And succeeded. In the morning, ashamed, embarra.s.sed, he washed the nightdress sketchily and dried it indoors. Rhoda. Rhoda. Rhoda.

It was during a period of dull despair that he started reading his mother's diaries. They were the three early ones when Lisa had been at her worst and referred directly to him. He read them in the summerhouse with the doors closed against the rain that was slanting down through the leaves of the almond tree, frail leaves that fell soggily into the sodden gra.s.s.

He read them guiltily, apprehensively, and with a growing awareness of the maternal bond that would be there for ever, no matter what. In some aspects of her he saw Rhoda, but she overshadowed Rhoda. Her diaries made flesh of the shadow as if she were alive again. Alive and indifferent to him. Or alive and accusing. The bland, smiling, bored, trying hard to be maternal and failing presence was hard to exorcise. Talking about her to Donaldson might help. His note: "If there is anything I can do, then please call on me," had been polite rather than warm, but he might have meant it. Perhaps he could see her medical records - if he dared to ask for them - if he dared to know.

He couldn't remember his last visit to The Mount. His mother's garbled account of taking him there on his sixth birthday was a confusion of anecdotes concerning Hans Andersen and the 'loonies' who wouldn't play with him. His mother's world in those days had been an extraordinary place in which the centuries merged and the past became a grotesque, fairy-tale present. Writers like Andersen and Grimm were a peculiar breed, and ill.u.s.trators of their sick dreams were probably worse. And she had revelled in them. Caught their virus, perhaps, as she had studied their work. Had she done something else, followed a different career, would she have been all right? And what did he mean by 'all right'? She had been all right, hadn't she, most of the time? Probably all the time when he wasn't around. So the fault must lie with him, mustn't it? There must have been a reason for rejecting him. Had he looked different, had a different personality, would he have pa.s.sed whatever test she had set?

And would he have pa.s.sed whatever test Rhoda had set?

Confused, longing for Rhoda, and with his self-esteem about as low as it could be, he walked up the long gravelled drive to The Mount's pseudo-Gothic front door. And Sally let him in.

Sallys are nice girls. Cheerful girls. Therapeutic girls. They bring suns.h.i.+ne into psychiatric hospitals and are a joy to all.

Or almost all.

Steven Donaldson had started having reservations about Sally Loreto a few weeks after employing her. She had done nothing wrong. On the contrary, she had done everything right. Her domestic duties weren't performed to perfection, but were performed well enough. The domestic staff liked her. The professional staff liked her, too. And so did the patients. Especially Creggan. Possibly it was Creggan's warmth towards her that had made Donaldson uneasy. "An attractive young woman," Creggan had said, "but where did she get her surname from - a convent or a saint?" Donaldson had replied brusquely that as far as he knew she wasn't a Catholic. An illogical response to a silly question There were times when he felt as irrational as his patients. Creggan had smiled at him with a degree of sympathy.

Sally was twenty-two years old and looked younger. She was small, narrow hipped, but with well rounded b.r.e.a.s.t.s which were bra-less. Her hair, albino fair, almost white, crisply curled at the nape of her neck, and her eyes by contrast were a deep turquoise blue. She jogged around the grounds every morning before the day's ch.o.r.es and then sat for a few minutes on the bench in the hall, her arms crossed over her chest and her head bowed. Not a yoga position, just a rather graceful slump that probably eased her pectoral muscles. Later, rested, she changed out of her green and white jogging suit into a floral overall and brought the patients their morning cups of tea.

Creggan's morning cup of tea, taken off the premises in his tepee, took rather longer to deliver. Just how much longer was reasonable was difficult for Donaldson to a.s.sess. s.e.x before breakfast might be good therapy for Creggan but it wasn't part of The Mount's therapy and he had a duty to protect Sally. He had been a fool to employ anyone so young, but there hadn't been anyone else. Domestic work in a psychiatric hospital - or nursing home as he had described it in the advertis.e.m.e.nt -doesn't attract applicants. He had believed he'd been lucky to get her. He wished he could still believe it. A growing anxiety neurosis was an occupational hazard and external events of the last few months hadn't helped. Physicians might heal themselves if they suffered from organic disease, psychiatrists had a harder time trying. Here, where the lush came to be dried, it was folly to be seen seeking solace in neat whisky. Vodka and tonic, however, was almost as good and didn't linger on the breath. To seem to practise what he preached was vital. He owed that much to his patients.

And he owed Simon a courteous reception when Sally showed him into his consulting room. Which she shouldn't have done. An open invitation to his patients to come and chat any time wasn't open to visitors. They first encountered his secretary, Miss Bailey, who informed him they were there, or told them he wasn't there, or otherwise engaged.

"Miss Bailey has gone to the dentist's," Sally told him and smiled her little girl smile at him, "so I brought him straight.along." She eyed bis gla.s.s of vodka and tonic on the desk, not fleetingly but for several seconds. "Is there anything I can get you, Doctor? Would your guest like some coffee?"

Simon said quickly that he wouldn't.

The air zinged with irritation.

Donaldson knew that Brenda Bailey had gone to the dentist's, but Sally should have left Simon in the outer office. And she shouldn't look at his drink like that or act the gracious hostess, offering coffee to his guest. She was a domestic, d.a.m.n it. He thanked her crisply and waited for her to close the door after her before offering Simon a chair.

"I'm sorry you were out when I called on you, Simon. I should have called again. I'm really delighted you've come to see me."

Delighted - no. Disconcerted - yes. He bore more than just a fleeting resemblance to his mother. It was impossible to look at him and not see her. He felt very tired, suddenly. Why had he come? What did he want?

He remembered asking Lisa the same questions just a few months ago. She had walked in unannounced on a rainy afternoon, seated herself in the same tub chair in the window recess and gazed out across the garden, silently. Her face had been in profile and her brown and cream headscarf, very damp, was slowly working loose from its knot and slipping on to the collar of her mack. She'd seemed withdrawn, hardly aware of her surroundings. He'd thought she might be close to tears and had asked the questions gently and with concern, but when she had turned and looked at him, her eyes had been very bright and clear. "Soon," she said, "Peter and I celebrate our silver wedding anniversary. Marvellous, isn't it? He wants me to go to the Istrian Peninsula with him - where we went for our honeymoon. Who is he running from, do you suppose? The latest lady love getting too close - like that other b.i.t.c.h, Trudy Morrison? Or is it the male menopause? A change of heart?"

Questions that couldn't be answered were better ignored. Bradshaw's lady love, as she had so quaintly put it, had been the girl in the red hat who had turned up at the opening ceremony of the new library extension looking as if she were attending Ascot. There had been rumours that she had something to do with the art world and had come as a guest of Lisa's. Other rumours had, correctly, linked her with Peter. His att.i.tude towards her had been carefully cool, his face a stiff expressionless mask as if he'd had a night of heavy boozing and was nursing a hangover. Peter had the knack of putting his emotions on ice, according to Lisa, but could be lethally charming when warmed up. A sardonic appraisal of a husband she had never stopped loving.

Love - a trick of nature to procreate.

But Lisa hadn't wanted a child.

Donaldson started talking to her son. Inconsequential talk. A spider's web of words to stem the bleeding of an old wound. The wound, he knew, couldn't fail to be there. The ills of most of his patients went back to childhood days, to s.e.xual abuse in some cases, neglect in others. There were more problem parents than problem children. The former, unfortunately, produced the latter, but it didn't always show until adolescence. Sometimes a lot later.

He asked Simon if he was looking forward to a career in medicine.

"No."

"You'd rather do something else?"

"Yes."

"Any idea what?"

"No."

Donaldson hesitated before asking the next question. A leading one. "Are you troubled about anything?"

Troubled' is a down-beat word. He used it frequently, along with 'a little concerned', 'rather bothered', 'somewhat worried'. A soothing approach followed by a period of silence, carefully calculated. If properly timed the patient opened up. If he'd got it wrong, he clammed up. In this case, getting it wrong might be getting it right. Simon wasn't the type to make a social call so he had come for information of some kind and was finding it almost impossible to voice his question. He was rigid with tension. It might be better not voiced. Donaldson sat back in his chair. Waited. Had Simon been anyone else, his professional instinct would have nudged him to grab the moment before it was too late; instead he stayed silent, glanced at the diary on his desk, pushed it to one side. When he looked at Simon again, he saw he'd calculated it perfectly. The boy's hands were no longer clenched into fists and he wasn't breathing so rapidly. His resolve to speak had ebbed. Whatever it was he'd come to say, he'd thought better of it. A possible indiscretion had been averted. What would Simon have asked him? he wondered. "Was my mother paranoid?" "Can paranoia be inherited?" Or would he have come out with the less traumatic worries of adolescence, more easily a.s.suaged by a calming speech about the human condition being a mixture of moods and reactions suffered by everyone in different degrees and at different times, all perfectly normal? A glib, meaningless word, normal. But soothing.

Simon said he wasn't troubled about anything. He had realised in the last few minutes that a request to look at his mother's medical file would have been refused. Donaldson would have said that it was private. Or destroyed. It probably had been, and it was better so. Why keep records of the dead? It was difficult to imagine his mother having anything to do with this elderly goat-like man with his long bony head crammed with psychiatric jargon. Had he let his defences down, asked him anything, told him anything, he would have spouted Freud at him. Or ferreted away until he had dug up his s.e.xual fantasies and - worse - his making love to Rhoda's nightdress. It had been pointless coming here. He got up to leave.