Damage (17 page)
‘She’s in Paris.’
‘Uncontactable?’
‘I think so.’
‘The wedding aspect … they’ll make a lot of that.’
‘Yes. I’m sure they will.’
‘Do you want me to talk to the people in the block of flats — try to silence them?’
‘No. Those who are going to talk will do so. The post-mortem will require them to give evidence, so it’s pointless.’
‘That won’t be held for at least three months, maybe longer.’
‘The cause of death is very clear. Martyn died instantly as a result of breaking his neck in the fall. I believe we can hold a private funeral in the next couple of days. Andrew, nothing in life prepared me for this conversation. It is as incredible to me as it no doubt is to you. I am trying to stay in the world of arrangements and information and planning, because I must get Ingrid and Sally on to safe ground. Then, I can perhaps go mad. That is the right, the fitting response. But not now, Andrew, not now. I need your cold professional guidance. Please.’
‘You’ll get it. Rely on it.’
‘Thank you, thank you. Now I must go. I’m going to send Ingrid and Sally to Hartley with Edward. He said he would try to make arrangements for Martyn to be buried in the cemetery there.’
‘And you?’
‘Edward has said I can use his London flat. From there I’ll contact everyone who needs to keep in touch with me.’
‘How is Ingrid?’
‘What can I say to that?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Safe ground, Andrew. I’m trying to help them reach safe ground.’
‘And you?’
‘Oh me. My life is finished. But that’s irrelevant now. Andrew, I’m grateful. I’ll let you get on with it then.’
‘Yes. Goodbye.’
‘Goodbye, Andrew.’
Though it may arrive with shocking suddenness, horror devours its prey slowly. Through hours of days and years, it spreads its sullen darkness into every corner of the being it has conquered. As hope drains like blood from a fatal wound, a heavy weakness descends. The victim slips into the underworld where he must search for new paths in what he now knows will be a permanent darkness. Horror claimed me. Ingrid and Sally would suffer terrible grief and pain. But I must keep horror from them. Then perhaps they would have a chance.
‘Sally and Ingrid would like to go to the hospital before we go to Hartley.’ Edward had come into the study.
‘I’ll take them, Edward.’
‘Without you. I’m afraid Ingrid wants to go without you.’
‘I see. Edward, it’s very hard. I’m worried about them.’
‘A little late I think, don’t you?’
‘Nothing you can say has any effect, Edward. I’m beyond pain at the moment. I can help Ingrid through this ordeal.’
‘You will make it worse by being there.’
‘Have you asked her, Edward?’
‘No. But I am sure.’
I went to the sitting room.
‘Ingrid, I’m going to take you and Sally and Edward to the hospital mortuary.’
Ingrid was sitting straight and tall in her chair. Her feet looked awkward, as though they were planted in the carpet. Her back was hard against the chair-back. It was a body without slack, as if it knew that the slightest weakening of muscle or line would lead to total disintegration. Her face, from which the swelling had drained, was again delicate and pale, and held itself awkwardly on her neck.
Holding together a body, preserving a face, first steps on the road to survival. Grief trapped within the steel cage of the outer being is still grief trapped. Tearing at muscle and bone in a frenzy, and unable to escape, it inflicts its slow-acting wounds. Internal injuries taken to the grave, which no post-mortem can reveal. Slowly, grief tires and sleeps, but never dies. In time it grows used to its prison, and a relationship of respect develops between prisoner and jailer. I know that now, only now. Ingrid had borne me Martyn. And last night I had embraced his death and had borne it away from her. I would treasure it. And she was free of rage, and anger, and the guilt of the guiltless. Ingrid’s battle now was with grief. And though grief would finally win, she would have a life. That is no mean achievement.
‘I think it’s better if I take you.’ Edward spoke.
‘You too must come, Father. But I wish to go to see Martyn with his father.’
Edward sighed and turned away, weeping. He was an old man defeated at the end of his life. No chance for Edward. The wound was mortal. He would not survive. I remembered an old Chinese proverb, ‘Call no man happy until he’s dead.’ Edward’s long stretch of time with only one wound — the death of his wife — had ended with this last brutality, and I saw life die in his eyes. The rest would follow.
London is no place for death. We drove through streets noisy with cars on their way to offices, cars on their way to school, buses unloading ribbons of people down grey corridors of buildings, past the violent colours of places to clothe the body, and places to feed the body. No fit route to a mortuary. There, all that remains of a life you have loved is a body you must bury.
Small emblems of respect remained from my old world. We were met discreetly. We were guided silently to what was to be our last vision of Martyn. Awe and silence are necessary in the face of death. For the tears and cries are not real — they are only echoes of a sorrow that began with the first death. And will cease with a sigh at the last.
We stood quietly, this woman and I, looking at the frozen beauty of our son. Noting how death almost became him. His pallor and his black hair, his chiselled features, were now like the marble head of a young god.
I do not know how long we stood there. Finally, Ingrid moved. Slowly, with dry eyes and lips, she kissed her son. She looked at me, and with her eyes gave me permission. But I would not. The Judas kiss is for the living. I would not defile my son further.
We did not go home again. Bags had been packed by Jonathan. Drivers had been contacted, and with the soft protective cloak of wealth wrapped around them, Ingrid, Sally, Jonathan and Edward sped to Hartley, and to the gentle blessing of the country. To a new life. Life after Martyn. The first lap of their journey had begun.
I
WENT TO
E
DWARD’S
flat. Later my Minister visited me there. A private letter from the Prime Minister was handed to me. Decent kindnesses, humanitarian acts of distant sympathy. There was the slow realisation by discreet visitors from my lost world that the man before them, their old protegé or rival or colleague, was falling faster and faster away from them; falling through layers of power and success, through the membranes of decency and ordinariness into a labyrinth of horror. And in its paths lurked depravity, brutality, death. And most frightening of all — chaos.
But decent men will try to do the decent thing. And they were decent men. They tried to tell me what a loss I would be. One of them even spoke with desperate sincerity the decent lie, ‘You can survive this. Rescind your resignation. You acted too hastily.’ Then his voice, full of pain, trailed off into truth.
Andrew rang. ‘The papers will follow their normal pattern. Your house has about ten journalists and photographers outside it. They will soon go to Hartley and also possibly find out where you are now.’
‘Should I tell Edward to lock the gates at Hartley?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘So what can I expect?’
‘The usual. The quality papers will concentrate on your career and your resignation. Martyn’s paper will home in on the tragedy happening just before the wedding. Quite a lot of innuendo. Didn’t they find you naked? The others will have a field day. They’ll stop short of calling you a murderer. But you and Anna will be front page news. There’s some implication of … how can I put this … sexual games, I don’t know. Oh God! Anyway I’m warning you. This side of libel, they’ll crucify you.’
‘How long will it last?’
‘Well, you’ve resigned. Anna’s disappeared. After the funeral it will die down. Of course, there will be further press coverage at the inquest.’
‘Yes, probably.’
‘The other angle which one bitch brought up was your marriage. Were you and Ingrid still together? Would you be getting a divorce? Investigative reporting for the good of society, you know the kind of thing.’
‘So it will last a week to ten days?’
‘Yes, about that.’
‘And then, for the rest of my life! Andrew, there are many issues I will need to talk to you about, but after the funeral.’
‘Is there anything I can do between now and then?’
‘No. I’m grateful to you for all you’ve done already. I’m afraid I must go now. I still have a lot of things to arrange.’
To strangers I spoke of the burial of my son at Hartley. With Edward’s help, times and dates were set when his body would be for ever lost to us. Then I spoke again to Anna’s mother. She had decided it was best not to attend the funeral. We said our goodbyes.
Edward arranged for someone to let me in via the farm. Late that night I set off for Hartley. Images of death and horror lurked behind the ghostly shadows of the trees on the road. The pain of Martyn’s loss was equalled only by the pain of longing for her. The name that my voice cried out was Anna, Anna, Anna. But the tears that I shed were for him.
W
E QUIETLY OCCUPIED
the small corners of the next day that still seemed normal. Eating and drinking, bathing, walking. We gave these activities more time and attention than usual, almost ritualising them. We found it possible to make preparations for the church service and funeral in short intense bursts of phone calls and meetings. Edward had two private lines and the main phone was off the hook.
Tired, bored men with cameras, and young colourful women were glimpsed at the end of the drive. The press. I felt no animosity. My son, after all, had been one of them. Anna too had no doubt stood outside homes to report on the stricken faces of mourners. So that between the Kellogg’s and the toast, eternity might clamour across the minds of her readers.
In black, shiny chariots of metal, on the following morning we drove past the weary recorders of our little story; they were frustrated by their failure yesterday to photograph or talk to anyone. The clicking and the flashing of their cameras, and the questions that the journalists mouthed through the glass, seemed as much part of the ritual of death as the chaplain, who with concerned features greeted yet another family to his house of ancient words and symbols.
Our small family, a black chorus round the grave, witnessed the impossible. The burial of Martyn. Into this scene of black, I dreamed Anna. I created her standing by the grave, dressed all in white. So white. And she threw armfuls of red roses into the open grave. The thorns as they ripped her arms, released drops of blood into the earth and on to the white, so white, of her dress. White. White. For a second, everything was blotted out by white light. Then it was over. We sped in our black chariots back to Hartley.
Ingrid sat with me that night in Edward’s study. Two people, tired unto death.
‘I don’t want to live with you again,’ she said. ‘Ever.’
‘What do you want to do?’
‘I want to go away for a few months to Italy. Arthur Mandleson has offered me his place outside Rome. I’m asking Sally to come with me for a month. Jonathan can fly out to see her. Then I think she’d like to live in London with him.’
‘I understand. They are clearly right for one another. And after that?’
‘I’ll live at Hartley, I think. Maybe I will get a small place in London as well. I’ll ask Paul Panten to contact Andrew and arrange whatever is necessary.’
‘I’ll tell Andrew.’
‘One other thing.’
‘Yes.’
‘After tomorrow, I never want to see you again in my life. It would help me greatly to be certain of that. It will mean sacrifices. Sally’s wedding … other family occasions … like funerals.’ She laughed bitterly.
‘You have my word.’
‘Do you understand?
‘I do.’
‘That night, that strange night when you said, “Give him to me. Give him to me,” some terrible anger left me. It flew to you. I want it out of my life for ever. You must take it with you, and go away.’
‘Can I see Sally sometimes?’
‘Of course. But ask her not to tell me.’
‘I will.’
‘I do not ask your plans. Keep them secret from me.’
‘I will.’
‘You never loved me, you know.’
‘No.’
‘Deep down I knew that. But it seemed to suit both of us at the time.’
‘Yes. Oh yes, it did … so well.’
‘Is this love’s revenge, do you think? Its lesson? It will not be cheated.’
‘Perhaps.’
‘I’d like to find that certain kind of love too.’
I remained silent.
She sighed.
‘You’re right. I doubt I ever will. It may be too cruel for me. I’d be too frightened. I liked you a lot. In my own way I loved you. I don’t think you realised how much.’ She smiled sadly. ‘All my old life is buried here with Martyn. At Hartley I will find my own way, as long as …’
‘I’m out of your life.’
‘Yes. I’m so, so tired now. It’s extraordinary but I know I’ll sleep. And you?’
‘I’ll sit here for a while, I want to talk to Sally and Edward, then I will leave.’
I watched her as she walked towards the door, her body still aching from the brimming pain of grief. She turned and smiled at me. ‘Goodbye. I don’t mean this to sound cruel, but what a pity you didn’t die, in some accident or something, last year.’
‘My tragedy is that I don’t agree. Goodbye, Ingrid.’
She closed the door behind her.
After some time I too left the room. With coffee and tears and watched by the uncomprehending eyes of Edward and Sally, I cut myself out of their lives as I would a cancer from their bodies. With a silver thread of words I tried to sew up the wounds.
I left for London. In Edward’s flat I laid down my plans for the rest of my life.
‘I
HAVE POST FROM
Hampstead.’ It was Andrew on the phone.