The Caxley Chronicles (37 page)

To Sep's generation, insanity in the family was something to be kept from the knowledge of outsiders. One pitied the afflicted, but one kept the matter as quiet as possible. So often, he knew from experience, attacks passed and, within a few months, rest and perhaps a change of scene, brought mental health again. It might be so with Robert.

He disliked the idea of calling in a doctor to the boy. Suppose that Robert were sent to a mental home? Would he ever come out again? Did doctors really know what went on in the human brain, and could they cure 'a mind diseased'? Wouldn't the mere fact of consulting a doctor upset his poor son's condition even more?

And yet the boy was in need of help, and he was the last person to be able to give it. How terrible it had been to hear that awful indictment of himself as a father! Was he really to blame? Had he loved him less? In all humility he felt that he could truthfully claim to have loved all his children equally—even Leslie, who had betrayed him.

And those fearful indications of a deluded mind—the assumption of omnipotence, of grandeur, to what might they lead? Would he become violent if he were ridiculed in one of these moods? Sep remembered the menacing glitter in his son's eyes, and trembled for him. What did the future hold for Robert?

He took his milk with him to the bedroom. The blinds were drawn against the familiar view of the market square and the indomitable figure of Queen Victoria. Miss Taggerty had turned the bedclothes back into a neat white triangle. Sep knelt beside the bed and prayed for guidance.

When he arose his mind was clear. He would sleep on this problem and see how things fared in the morning. There was no need to rush for help to the rest of the family. This was something to be borne alone if possible, so that Robert should be spared further indignities. He had suffered enough, thought Sep, torn with pity.

For a few weeks things went more smoothly. Robert never referred to that dreadful outburst. It was as though it had been wiped completely from his memory. For Sep, the incident was unforgettable, but he said nothing.

Nevertheless, it was obvious that the young man was in a precarious state of mind. Sep did what he could to relieve the pressure of work at the restaurant, and Michael's efforts ensured the smooth running of the place. His cheerfulness and good looks soon made him popular, which was good for trade but not, as Sep realised, for Robert's esteem.

Kathy, knowing that staff were hard to get at the restaurant
offered to help whenever possible. She and Bertie realised that Robert was under strain, although they had no idea of the seriousness of his malaise.

'You'd be more use, my dear, in the shop,' said Sep. 'It would leave me free to go across to Robert's more often, and you know exactly where everything is at home.'

'I was brought up to it,' laughed Kathy. 'I'd enjoy it, you know, and now that the children are off my hands, it will give me an interest.'

Her presence was a great comfort to Sep, and meant that he could keep a discreet, if anxious, eye on affairs across the square.

During these uneasy weeks Joan's baby was born. It was a girl, and the family were all delighted. She was born in the nursing home to the north of Caxley, on the road to Beech Green and Fairacre, where so many other Caxley citizens had first seen the light. Michael was enormously pleased and visited his wife and daughter every evening.

Joan remained there for a fortnight. It Was decided that she should go for a week or two to Rose Lodge to regain her strength, and submit to the welcome cossetings of her mother and grandmother. The house was certainly more convenient than the flat, and the baby would have the benefit of the garden air as well as the doting care of three women. She was to be christened Sarah.

'No hope of the poor little darling being christened at St Peter's, I suppose?' sighed Mrs North.

'You know there isn't,' replied Joan, smiling at her grandmother's naughtiness.

'I never seem to have any luck with family ceremonies,'
commented the old lady. She brightened as a thought crossed her mind. 'Perhaps Kathy's girl one day?'

Soon after Joan returned to the flat trouble began again. Robert's antagonism towards Michael was renewed in a hundred minor insults. Despite his easy-going disposition, Michael's Irish blood was roused.

'The fellow's off his rocker,' declared Michael roundly one evening in the privacy of the flat. 'He's beginning to talk as though he's the King of England. Sometimes I wonder if we should stay.'

Letters from his family in Dublin had also unsettled him. His father was in failing health and it was plain that lie longed for his son to return to carry on the hotel, although he did not press the boy to come if his prospects were brighter in Caxley. Joan did not know how to advise her husband. She herself half-feared the uprooting and the break with the family, especially with a young child to consider. On the other hand it was right that Michael should obey his conscience, and she would do whatever he felt was best. Certainly, as things were, there was nothing but petty frustrations for Michael in his work, and he had obviously learned all that could be learned from the comparatively small Caxley restaurant. It was time he took on something bigger, giving him scope for his ability.

She told her problem to her old friend Maisie Hunter, who was to be godmother to Sarah. Her answer was straightforward.

'Michael's trying to spare you. Tell him you'll be happy to go to Dublin, and then watch his face. I'm sure he wants to go back home, and he's bound to do well.'

She was right, and the couple had almost decided to break the news to Sep and Robert and to write to Michael's father, when two tilings happened to clinch the matter.

Joan had put her daughter to sleep in the pram in the little garden sloping down to the Cax, when Robert burst from the restaurant in a state of fury.

'I won't have that thing out here,' he said, kicking at a wheel. 'This is part of my restaurant, as you well know. You can clear off!'

'Robert!' protested Joan, much shocked. 'I've always used the garden. What on earth has come over you?'

Two or three curious customers, taking morning coffee, gazed with interest upon the scene from the restaurant windows. Joan was horribly aware of their presence, and took Robert's arm to lead him further away. He flung her from him with such violence that she fell across the pram. The child broke into crying, and Joan, now thoroughly alarmed, lifted her from the pram.

'You'll use the garden no more,' shouted Robert. 'You're trespassing on my property. And if you leave that contraption here I shall throw it in the river!'

At this moment, Michael arrived, and took in the situation at a glance.

'Take the baby upstairs,' he said quietly. 'I'll deal with this.'

He propelled the struggling and protesting Robert into the little office at the end of the restaurant and slammed the door, much to the disappointment of the interested customers. He thrust Robert into an arm chair, and turned to get him a drink from the cupboard. He was white with fury, and his hand shook as he poured out a stiff tot, but he was in command of himself
and the situation. He was facing an ill man, and a dangerous one, he realised.

Robert leapt from the chair, as Michael put the glass on the desk, and tried to make for the door. Michael administered a hard slap to each cheek, as one would to an hysterical patient, and Robert slumped again into the chair.

'Drink this slowly,' commanded Michael, 'and wait here until I get back.'

He left the office, turned the key in the lock, and told good old John Bush who had been in Sep's employ for forty years, to take charge while he saw to his wife and let Sep know what was happening.

Later that evening, Sep, Bertie and Michael held counsel.

'We must get a doctor to see him,' said Bertie firmly. 'I'll ring Dr Rogers tonight.'

'I blame myself,' said Sep heavily. 'He has not been himself for months. We should have got help earlier. It must be done now. I fear for Joan and the child if he is going to get these attacks of violence.'

'I want them to go back to Rose Lodge, but Joan is very much against it,' said Michael. 'But it's going to be impossible to stay over the restaurant, if he doesn't change his ways.'

'Let's get the doctor's verdict before we do anything more,' said Bertie.

Dr Rogers said little when he had examined his patient, but his grave looks alarmed Sep.

'Will he get better?' he asked anxiously. 'He's such a young man—so many years before him. What do you think?'

Dr Rogers would not commit himself, but provided various bottles of pills and promised to visit frequently. Meanwhile, he
asked the family to call him in immediately if the symptoms of excessive excitement occurred again.

A few days later a letter arrived from Ireland from Michael's invalid mother. His father was sinking. Could he return? And was there any hope of him taking over the hotel?

'This settles it,' said Joan, looking at Michael's worried face as he read the letter again.

'But what about Howard's Restaurant? How will Sep manage?'

'John Bush can run the place blindfold. And Aunt Kathy would help, I know. Go and tell Sep what has happened. Take the letter.'

She knew full well how Sep would react.

'Of course you must go, my boy. Your father comes first, and your mother needs your presence at a time like this. You've been of enormous help to us here, but it's right that you should start a life of your own.'

And so, within two days, Michael returned to Dublin, and Joan and the baby were to join him as soon as possible. It was Bertie who drove them to Holyhead to catch the boat to Dun Laoghaire. Saying farewell to the family had been ineffably sad.

'I'll be back soon for a holiday,' she told them all bravely. It was hardest to say good-bye to Sep and Grandma North. They looked so old, so shattered at the parting.

'You are doing the right thing,' Sep assured her firmly. 'I'm sure you have a wonderful future in Ireland.'

Her grandmother was less hopeful and inclined to be tearful.

'Such a
long
way off, and a very wild sort of people, I hear. The thought of all those poor babies of yours being brought up in such
strange
ways quite upsets me. Do boil all the water, dear, whatever you do.'
Joan promised, and kissed her, hardly knowing whether to laugh or cry. Funny, exasperating, old Grandma! How long before she saw her again?

Dr Rogers' treatment seemed to have only a small sedative effect on Robert, but Sep tried to assure himself that the cure was bound to take a long time, and that his son's youth and a lessening of his work would finally ensure his recovery.

Kathy insisted on taking over the financial affairs of the restaurant while John Bush coped with the practical side. She was as quick at figures as her mother, Edna Howard, had been, and soon proved a competent business woman.

It was quite apparent that Robert resented her intrusion into his affairs, and Kathy ignored the snubs and sarcastic comments which punctuated the day's work. Robert was sick. Soon he would be better, and he would be happy again, she thought.

She was totally unprepared, therefore, for a sudden attack of the mania which had so appalled Sep months before. It happened, luckily, soon after the restaurant had closed and Kathy was checking the money. Perhaps the clinking of the coins reminded him of the fact that the business was not his. Perhaps the sight of his sister, sitting in the chair which had always been his own, inflamed him. No one would ever know; but resentment flared again, his voice grew loud and strident as he screamed his hatred of his family and his intention to get rid of them.

'My voices told me,' he roared at the terrified Kathy. 'They told me I would triumph, and I shall! Michael and Joan have
gone. Old Bush will go, and you will go! There will be no one left but me—the unbeatable—the true heir!'

His lips were flecked with saliva, his eyes demented, as he bore down upon her. Dropping the money on the floor, Kathy tore open the door, and fled across the square to find help, the jingle of the rolling coins ringing in her ears.

The next day an ambulance took Robert and his attendants to the county mental hospital some twenty miles away. Sep, shattered, sat trying to understand Dr Rogers' explanation of his son's illness. He heard but one phrase in four and many of those were inexplicable to him. 'A progressively worsening condition,' he understood painfully well, but such terms as 'manic depressive' and the seriousness of 'hearing voices', as symptoms, meant nothing to the desolate old man.

To Sep, who knew his Bible, 'the voices' were simply Robert's demons—the outcome of the twin evils of jealousy and self-pity. Robert had been weak. He had succumbed to the temptations of his demons. His madness was, in part, a punishment for flying in the face of Providence.

When the doctor had gone, Sep stood at the back window and looked upon the row of willows lining the bank of the Cax. Three sons had once been his, gay little boys who had tumbled about the yard and moulded pastry in the bakehouse in their small fat hands.

One was long dead, one long-estranged, and now the last of the three was mad. Sep's life had been long and hard, but that moment by the window was the most desolate and despairing he had ever known.

E
DWARD HEARD
the news about Robert in a letter from his mother. He was deeply shocked, and very anxious about the effect this blow might have on his grandfather. He was thankful to know that his Aunt Kathy and John Bush were coping so ably with the restaurant, and glad to give permission to the faithful old employee to use his flat on the top floor. It would be some relief for Sep to know that there was someone reliable living on the premises.

He telephoned to the mental hospital that morning to hear how Robert was, but learnt very little more than his mother's letter had told him. He had the chance, however, of talking to the doctor in charge of the case, and asked to be kept informed of his progress, explaining his own relationship and his desire to do anything to spare the patient's very old father.