Widows & Orphans (37 page)

Now it was Neil who was charged with possessing indecent
images, but the CPS lawyer requested that in the first instance he be sent for psychiatric evaluation. After examining the report, the CPS decided that no public interest would be served by putting him on trial and that a prosecution might endanger his already fragile mental and emotional state. It ordered instead that he be referred to the social work and psychiatry team at the North Francombe Child Development Centre (the venue intensifying Ellen’s sense of shame). Duncan, severely shaken by Neil’s pathological malice, was grateful at least that he was to undergo treatment. Ellen persisted in the belief that Barbara was to blame for having poisoned Neil’s mind, but Duncan was less convinced. It was patently clear that Neil had set out to entrap him, feigning a reconciliation to gain access to his computer and then damaging its hard drive so that the images would be exposed.

He tried to be as angry as so many others were on his behalf, but his overriding emotion was grief. How could someone so young be so full of hate? This was far more than the routine resentment of a boy for a man whom he suspected of trying to take his father’s place. While loath to pre-empt the experts, Duncan saw it as an attack on men – or at any rate father figures – in general. He had been wondering how he would ever repair a relationship with a person who detested him so much, when Ellen relieved him of the need. In the two weeks since Neil’s arrest they had met only twice. Although he had more time than ever at his disposal, she was determined to devote each spare moment to her children, as if somehow the freedom she had allowed herself over the past five months had been the root of all their trouble. She invited him to tea at the Sea Breeze Café, which, despite being on the Promenade, boasted a vast photograph of a tropical beach across its back wall. Extracting his promise to hear her out, she told him that she had decided to leave Francombe in July.

‘But you can’t!’ he said, stirring his glass cup so violently that coffee splashed on to the table.

‘You promised,’ she said quietly. ‘I’ve discussed it with the team at the Centre and they’re happy as long as Neil continues his treatment elsewhere. I shan’t do anything until after Sue’s GCSEs. Ruining one person’s life is enough –’

‘That’s not true. You’ve ruined no one’s life. What’s more, you’ve transformed mine!’

‘You promised! I thought we’d find somewhere near Bedford. The psychiatrist thinks Neil needs to rebuild his relationship with his father.’

‘In a prison visiting room?’ Duncan asked bitterly.

‘At first, yes.’

‘What does Matthew think about it?’

‘He doesn’t know.’

‘And Sue?’

‘She wants to live with my mother in Dorset,’ Ellen said, taking a deep breath. ‘She says if I don’t let her, she’ll leave home and become a … Let’s just say that recent events have left us all scarred. And whatever my own feelings about Barbara, I can’t deny how well Sue gets on with her. Besides, she’s much more mature than I was at her age. She won’t let any of her grandmother’s nonsense rub off on her. And I don’t seem to have any other options.’

‘I can think of one.’

‘Don’t, please!’

‘Marrying me and staying here where we can make a home for us all.’

‘With a boy who hates you so much he contrived to have you charged with the most abhorrent crime? Be reasonable, Duncan, it’s not going to happen.’

‘If I can forgive him, surely you can?’

‘The only person I can’t forgive is myself. I’ve spent my life claiming that I put my kids first. It’s been my credo … my rationale. Then the first chance that comes my way, I blow it.’

‘They’re not babies. They don’t need twenty-four-hour care. In a few years’ time they’ll leave home and lead their own lives.’

‘That’s their privilege, not mine. I’m going now. I don’t know what else to say.’

‘Say nothing. Take some time – as long as you need – to think it over.’

‘I already have. I’ve beaten myself up till I’m black and blue. I do love you, Duncan – not respect, not like, not fancy, though all of those things too – but love. Yet you know that isn’t the be-all and end-all. If you love me, you won’t make it hard.’

‘No, that’s not fair. “Give me up, Duncan, because it’s the honourable thing to do.” But I won’t. I’ve given up too much in my life. I won’t do it again now.’

‘You don’t have a choice. I must go. Will you get the bill or shall I?’

‘Fuck the bill! I’m sorry … No, I’m not. Fuck the bill and everything else.’

‘I want to make a clean break. This is a small town and we may – we’re bound to – bump into each other. I’ve finished working with Rose so it won’t be at Linda’s. But if we do meet, I hope it can be as friends.’

‘This isn’t real. Is this how it feels when the doctor tells you you’ve got terminal cancer?’

‘But you don’t. You’re going to live and find someone else, not someone who loves you more – I don’t think that’s possible – but someone who loves you more easily. Do you remember what Charlie Lyndon said when we went round after the show?’

‘She said a lot of things,’ he replied flatly.

‘But one thing in particular: that you had the memory of her youth on your face. It struck me as beautiful.’

‘It struck me as rehearsed.’

‘I wish I could have said it. I wish I’d known you in my youth, then all of this would have been very different. But you’ll always have the memory of my love.’

‘So that’s all we have left: memories?’

‘The most precious ones, at least for me.’

She stood up and walked away, taking a note from her purse and handing it to the manager at the counter. Duncan sat at the table, oblivious to his surroundings, until the waitress asked if there were anything else he wanted and he saw that he was still stirring his coffee. He hurried out and returned to Ridgemount, where he found scant consolation. What was to have been a temporary arrangement until his marriage had now become permanent. As Adele alternately petted and scolded him, welcoming the company and resenting the intrusion, he felt as if his life had turned full circle. With time stretching out before him like a physicist’s theorem, planning the party offered a welcome distraction.

Alison and Malcolm arrived on the eve of the big day. With her old room stacked with books and boxes from Mercury House, they were sleeping in what to Duncan’s embarrassment Adele insisted on calling the Egyptian room after the papyrus scrolls and basalt busts of Ramesses and Nefertiti. Tim and Graham came down with their parents but preferred to stay at the Metropole, ostensibly to use the power showers and functional razor points, although Duncan suspected that its proximity to the Sugarbaby nightclub was the true draw. Having absented themselves for the day so as not to ‘pre-empt the party’, Graham went kite-surfing in the squally sea and Tim, ever the asset manager, was taken on a site visit of the pier. They turned up at Ridgemount at six, greeting Duncan with outstretched hands as though to stave off the threat of familial kisses, while addressing him as ‘Uncle’, as though to account, if only to themselves, for an otherwise implausible intimacy.

Elated at seeing her two elder grandsons, Adele stood up unsteadily, kissing them and stroking their cheeks. ‘It’s not possible! You both get more handsome every day. You’re the spitting image of your grandfather, Graham. Doesn’t he remind you of your father, Duncan?’ Duncan agreed, eager to dispense with the compliments before the arrival of Jamie,
who was a carbon copy of Linda’s father, Jack. Indeed, he sometimes wondered if the weakness of Jamie’s paternal genes were nature’s revenge for his having thwarted it over the KS. At first he was disappointed to see so little of himself in his son, but having borne the burden of parental expectations all his life he had come to welcome the reminder that Jamie was his own man.

Jamie arrived a quarter of an hour after his cousins, face scrubbed, hair combed and liberally doused in aftershave, which Duncan suspected was less in honour of his grandmother than of his girlfriend. Linda had confided that Jamie had begun dating a fellow pupil from Francis Preston who, giving him added kudos, was in the year above. He had made Linda promise to say nothing to Duncan, which she maintained was out of shyness but which he imputed to lingering anger over his arrest. While his exoneration had been reported both in the
Mercury
and on its website (albeit with far less prominence than the original story), the ‘no smoke without fire’ adage seemed to strike a particular chord with teenagers. Jamie had been vilified and ostracised on account of Duncan’s alleged crime and, to make matters worse, the actual culprit was someone whom he had repeatedly warned his father not to trust.

Jamie’s new self-confidence was evident as he sauntered over to Graham and Tim and high-fived them. Even more notable was his unsolicited greeting of Chris, especially since he had refused all Duncan’s appeals to visit him after the attack. Across the crowded room Duncan was unable to hear what they were saying but, as Chris touched his collarbone and held out his hand, he appeared to be replying to a question about his injuries. The girlfriend might be vain, vulgar, empty-headed, tattooed and even a member of the BNP, nevertheless Duncan owed her a permanent debt of gratitude for so validating Jamie’s masculinity that he no longer regarded Chris as a threat.

‘Duncan,’ Adele called, rousing him from his reverie, ‘isn’t it time to serve the champagne?’

‘Of course, Mother, I’ll open it.’

‘Not you, darling. Knowing you, you’ll have somebody’s eye out,’ she said, with a genial laugh to mask the emasculation. ‘Leave it to Graham and Tim. They know what they’re doing.’

‘Not Graham,’ Alison interjected.

‘Don’t worry, Ma, I won’t have a wobble.’

‘What’s wrong?’ Adele asked. ‘Have you hurt your wrist?’

‘No, Granny, I’m on my twelve-step programme.’

‘Is that something you do for Lent?’

‘No, for life. I’m a recovering alcoholic.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. You’re twenty-three years old.’

‘Exactly.’

‘You shouldn’t say such things.’

‘But I’m proud of my sobriety. One hundred and eighty-two days.’

‘Young people today, they exaggerate everything,’ Adele said to Enid Marshall and Lillian Faulkes, who for years had been fed the myth of the perfect grandsons. ‘One bad hangover and, hey presto, they’re alcoholics.’

While Graham and Tim served the drinks, Duncan gazed affectionately at Alison who was talking to the two townswomen. Whatever their differences in the past, he was deeply grateful for her support over recent weeks. Catching her eye, he raised his glass before crossing the room to rescue Henry from Catherine Lightwood, who combined the presidency of the Francombe and District Horticultural Society with that of the East Sussex Humanists.

‘I owe you for that,’ Henry said, as they escaped into a corner. ‘She’s read a couple of articles about the discovery of the so-called “god particle” at Cern and seems to think that she’s penetrated the mysteries of the universe.’

‘Other than that, how’s the play, Reverend Lincoln?’

‘Meeting Chris wasn’t as painful as I’d feared. I wouldn’t go so far as to call him friendly but he thanked me for my witness statement.’

‘What did I tell you?’

‘I’m still watching out for ground glass in my food.’

‘We’ll swap plates.’

‘It’s the first party I’ve been to since … for a couple of months. You never know who’s heard the rumours.’

‘I feel much the same myself.’

‘Yes, but you weren’t charged.’

‘Neither were you except in the court of Henry.’

‘Not quite.’

‘But the hearing was closed; how did your name leak out?’

‘Your pals, the Weedons, I presume, or else the parents of the other children. The general reaction hasn’t been too hostile. A few raised eyebrows and lowered glances. A couple of poison pen letters and defamatory posts on my Facebook wall.’

‘Are you on Facebook?’

‘Not any more. Most of my congregation seem to be either unconcerned or oblivious, although one old dear, totally bewildered by
dogging
, told me that she didn’t mind what I got up to myself but I had no right to involve Brandy. On the plus side I’ve received support from the most unlikely people, including Benjamin Kabumba, pastor of the Switherton Baptists, who quoted a proverb he’d learnt in Uganda: “You don’t judge the sweetness of a chicken by the dirt on its feathers.” I expect it loses something in translation.’

‘So things are looking up?’

‘Up to a point. Last night I dreamt I was in hell. I say hell but it bore a distinct resemblance to the Pudsey Road estate, except that the houses were all in flames and the estate agents were devils straight out of a medieval woodcut. One, who was showing me round, said that he was sorry but every property was taken. “Don’t worry,” I replied, greatly relieved, “I have an
appointment to view some in heaven.” The next moment we passed a house with a large For Sale sign on the gate. “Look,” he said. “This one will suit you perfectly.” I turned away to find For Sale had been replaced by Sold and I was being sucked down the path into the flames.’

‘What happened then?’

‘I woke up in a pool of sweat.’

‘Sounds nasty,’ Alison said as she joined them. ‘Sorry to interrupt, but may I steal my brother?’

‘Of course,’ Henry said, moving away.

‘Are the musicians all set?’ Alison asked.

‘Should be,’ Duncan replied. ‘Last time I checked, they were having tea. I’ll pop back to the dining room.’

‘It’s the most generous, inspired present. I only hope Mother appreciates it.’

‘Me too. It might go some way towards absolving me for being the world’s oldest “boomerang kid”.’

‘She loves having you here; she told me.’

‘In principle, yes, but not when I put the plates back in the wrong place or grill when I should fry (or vice versa) or turn off the radiators in rooms we don’t use or leave her to watch TV on her own or … you get the picture. The fact is, of course, that she wants me here but as an obedient little boy, not a middle-aged man with a will – or, at any rate, a mind – of his own.’

‘If it’s not working out, you don’t have to stay.’