A Traitor to Memory (78 page)

“He says no. But he would do, wouldn't he?”

“So you've had your answer.”

“Then who?”

“Perhaps the lodger. James Pitchford was in love with her. The day she walked into your parents' house, James fell hard and he never recovered.”

“But I thought James and Sarah-Jane … I remember them together, James the Lodger and Sarah-Jane. From the window, I saw them heading out in the evening. And whispering together in the kitchen, like intimates.”

“That would have been before Katja, I expect.”

“Why?”

“Because after Katja arrived, James spent most of his free hours with her.”

“So Katja displaced Sarah-Jane in more than one way.”

“You could say that, yes, and I see where you're heading. But she was with James Pitchford when Sonia drowned. And James confirmed that. He had no reason to lie for her. If he was going to lie for anyone back then, he would have lied for the woman he loved. In fact, had Sarah-Jane
not
been with James when Sonia was murdered, I expect James would have gladly given Katja an alibi that would have made her seem merely derelict in her duties and consequently responsible for a tragic death but not a malevolent one.”

“And as it was, it was murder,” I said reflectively.

“When all the facts were presented, yes.”

GIDEON

25 October

When all the
facts were presented, Raphael Robson said. And that's what I'm looking for, isn't it, an accurate presentation of the facts.

You don't reply. Instead, you keep your face expressionless as you no doubt were instructed to do as a psychiatric intern or whatever it was that you were as a student, and you wait for me to offer an explanation for why I have veered so decidedly into this area. Seeing this, I flounder for words. In floundering, I begin to question myself. I examine my motivation for what might prompt me to engage in displacement—as you would call it—and I admit to every one of my fears.

What are they? you ask.

You already know what they are, Dr. Rose.

I suspect, you say, I consider, I speculate, and I wonder, but I do not know. You're the only one who knows, Gideon.

All right. I accept that. And to show you how wholeheartedly I accept that, I'll name them for you: fear of crowds, fear of being trapped in the Underground, fear of excessive speed, complete terror of snakes.

All fairly common fears, you note.

As are fear of failure, fear of my father's disapproval, fear of enclosed spaces—

You raise an eyebrow at that, a momentary lapse in your lack of expression.

Yes, I'm afraid to be enclosed and I see how that relates to relationships, Dr. Rose. I'm afraid of being suffocated by someone, which fear in and of itself indicates a larger fear of being intimate with a woman. With anyone, for that matter. But this is hardly news to me. I've had years to consider how and why and at what point my affair with Beth fell completely apart, and believe me I've had plenty of opportunities to dwell on my lack of response to Libby. So if I know and admit my fears and take them out into the sunlight and shake them like dusters, how can you or Dad or anyone else accuse me of displacing them onto an unhealthy interest in my sister's death, in what led up to my sister's death, in the trial that followed it, and in what happened after that trial?

I'm not accusing you of anything, Gideon, you say, clasping your hands in your lap. Are you, however, accusing yourself?

Of what?

Perhaps you can tell me.

Oh, I see that game. And I know where you want me to head. It's where everyone wants me to head, everyone save Libby, that is. You want me to head to the music, Dr. Rose, to talk about the music, to delve into the music.

Only if that's where you want to go, you say.

And if I don't want to go there?

We might talk about why.

You see? You're trying to trick me. If you can get me to admit …

What? you ask when I hesitate, and your voice is as soft as goose down. Stay within the fear, you tell me. Fear is only a feeling; it is not a fact.

But the
fact
is that I cannot play. And the fear is of the music.

All music?

Oh, you know the answer to that, Dr. Rose. You know it's fear of one piece in particular. You know how
The Archduke
haunts my life. And you know that once Beth suggested it as our performance piece, I could not refuse. Because it was Beth who made the suggestion, not Sherrill. Had it been Sherrill, I could have tossed out a “Choose something else,” without a thought, because even though Sherrill has no jinx himself and consequently might have questioned my rejection of
The Archduke
, the fact is that Sherrill's talent is such that for him to make the shift from one piece to another is so simple that even questioning that shift would have taken more energy than he'd have wished to expend on the matter. But Beth is not like Sherrill, Dr. Rose, either in talent or in
laissez-faire.
Beth had already prepared
The
Archduke
, so Beth would have questioned. And questioning, she may have connected my failure to play
The Archduke
with that other more significant failure of mine with which she was once all too familiar. So I didn't ask for a different choice of music. I decided to confront the jinx head-on. And put to the test of that confrontation, I failed.

Before that? you ask.

Before what?

Before the performance at Wigmore Hall. You must have rehearsed.

We did. Of course.

And you played it then?

We would hardly have mounted a public concert of three instruments had one of them—

And you played it without difficulty then? During rehearsal?

I've
never
played it without difficulty, Dr. Rose. Either in private or in rehearsal, I've never played it without a bout of nerves, of burning in the gut, of pounding in the head, of sickness that makes me cling to the toilet for an hour first, and all
that
and I'm not even performing it publicly.

So what about the Wigmore night? you ask me. Did you have that same reaction to
The Archduke
before Wigmore Hall?

And I hesitate.

I see how your eyes spark with interest at my hesitation: evaluating, deciding, choosing whether to press forward now or to wait and let my realisations and admissions come when they will.

Because I did not suffer
before
that performance.

And I haven't considered that fact before now.

26 October

I've been to Cheltenham. Sarah-Jane Beckett is Sarah-Jane Hamilton now and has been Hamilton for the last twelve years. She's not much changed physically since she was my teacher: She's put on a bit of weight but she's still not developed breasts, and her hair is as red as it was when we lived in the same household. It's got a different style—she wears it held off her face with a hair band—but it's straight as a poker, as it always was.

The first thing I noticed that's different about her now was her manner of dress. She's apparently moved away from the sorts of dresses she wore as my teacher—which were heavily given to floppy collars and lace, as I recall—and she's advanced to skirts, twinsets, and pearls. The second thing I noticed that's different was her fingernails, which are no longer bitten to the quick with chewed-up cuticles but are instead long and bright with polish, the better to show off a sapphire and diamond ring that's the size of a small African nation. I noticed her fingernails because whilst we were together, she made a great job of waving her hands when she spoke, as if she wanted me to see how far she'd advanced in good fortune.

The means to her good fortune wasn't at home when I arrived in Cheltenham. Sarah-Jane was in the front garden of their house—which is in a very smart neighbourhood where Mercedes-Benzes and Range Rovers appear to be the vehicles of choice—and she was filling an enormous bird feeder with seed, standing on a three-step ladder and pouring from a weighty bag. I didn't want to startle her, so I said nothing till she was off the steps and rearranging her twinset as well as patting her chest to make sure the pearls were still in place. That was when I called her name, and after she greeted me with surprise and pleasure, she told me that Perry—husband and provider of largesse—was away on business in Manchester and would be disappointed to discover upon his return that he'd missed my visit.

“He's heard enough about you over the years,” she said. “But I expect he's never believed that I actually
know
you.” And here she trilled a little laugh that made me distinctly uncomfortable, although I could not tell you why except to say that laughs like that never sound genuine to me. She said, “Come in. Come
in
. Will you have coffee? Tea? A drink?”

She led the way into the house where everything was so tasteful that only an interior decorator could have managed it: just the right furniture, just the right colours, just the right
objets d'art
, subtle lighting designed to flatter, and a touch of homeliness in the careful selection of family photographs. She snatched up one on her way to make our coffee and she thrust it at me. “Perry,” she said. “His girls and ours. They're with their mother most of the time. We have them every other weekend. Alternate holidays and half terms. The modern British family, you know.” Again that laugh, and she disappeared behind a swinging door through which, I assumed, the kitchen lay.