Caring for cathy, p.18
Caring for Cathy, page 18
“Oh, yes! I suppose that’s selfish. I’m very happy. And you’re the one who brought it about, David, although you never intended to!”
“You could say Poppy brought it about … that’s why I was at your house,” he said.
But he thought, and could not mention to Anita, that you could also say, that in an indirect way, Cathy brought it about.
32
Three months after Cathy’s death, David was judged fit to leave Denby Hall. He had no say in this decision. He tried to be as cooperative as he could. Caroline Higgins said he was becoming institutionalised. Although the word seemed to David to mean enjoying life at Denby Hall, to Caroline it was like a creeping disease, which would disable him further. The disease could only be halted by severing his connection with the place. Caroline’s smooth face had a mask-like certainty on this subject.
Pat Harden, Denby Hall’s social worker, had a routine discussion with David about his relocation. Pat knew from the files that he would be returning to his father’s house in Somerset, and taking an information technology course in Bristol. They talked about the accommodation options for this. David said, by the way, that he would rather stay around the Denby Hall area for a while. When Helmut brought Poppy to Denby Hall, which was three, sometimes four days a week, he was able to walk her, and he was reluctant to give this up.
Pat seemed pleased that he had some thoughts of his own. “Well, let’s have a look at the possibilities,” she said. She mentioned that there were a couple of small, redecorated apartments coming up on the housing estate, and she thought that he might be able to get one of them. She said people who needed rehabilitation obtained some priority. With Pat’s help, he applied for an apartment, on the understanding with her that he would arrange a local venue for his computer course.
One of his daily activities in the past six months, had been as a volunteer in the kitchen at Denby Hall. He didn’t mind the messy work, and enjoyed helping to prepare the food, and learning a little of how the meals, for more than forty people, were assembled and cooked. Helmut heard that he was keen to stay in the vicinity, and he offered David a job in the kitchen for three hours a day, five days a week, for a small sum. Helmut made it clear that he would prefer that David had his father’s agreement.
When David explained to his father, on the telephone, what he wanted to do, his father listened without comment, sighed, and said he would come down to Denby Hall. He arrived the next morning, looking worried. His father had apparently called Helmut, and the three met in Helmut’s room.
David’s father began with a head of steam directed at Helmut:
“It’s monstrous, that after all the arrangements I’ve made for David’s welfare, your social worker brushes them aside and arranges local accommodation, so that David can walk a dog!”
“Ah, walking a dog is good … but it’s not quite like that, Mr Thurgood,” Helmut said.
“No. It’s worse. You’ve offered David a job!”
“When David had made up his mind that he would like to stay,” Helmut said, phlegmatically.
“You’re cutting across everything David’s psychotherapist, and I, have done.”
“Knots can be untied, Mr Thurgood. David will have to decide,” Helmut said affably.
“You’re making it more difficult, Helmut.”
“Giving him choices?”
David remained silent. His father fumed for a quiet moment, and then turned on him.
“I know you’ve enjoyed Denby Hall, David, but you have to break with a place like this. You’re getting well now. It’s not a place for well people.”
“I’m not sure what well is,” David replied.
“I am, my boy, believe me. Look, I’ll tell you what I’ll do by way of a compromise,” his father said, regaining some of his usual amiability. “You want to be a chef? Not at all in line with your abilities, but all right, it’s what you want to do. If you want to be a chef, I can get you a course with a Michelin star man in Bristol.”
David’s father gave a throaty chuckle, and gestured with his hands, as though he had performed a magic trick.
“This is a very valuable offer, David,” Helmut said.
“I don’t think I want to be a chef.”
His father’s face twitched. “But you said … what do you want?”
“To work in the kitchen at Denby Hall.”
“A kitchen hand?”
“Maybe, yes. I’ll learn some cooking.”
“A kitchen hand, oh no!”
“What’s wrong with that?” David asked.
“David, you’re refusing not one, but two great opportunities … the IT training, and a course with a decent chef!” his father said, incredulously.
His father slapped his hand down hard on David’s knee. The gesture was a surrogate for shaking David. He was causing a lot of worry. But the last few years had taught him that he had to speak from his side of the chasm.
“I know, and thanks, but...”
His father’s patience had worn thin. “You haven’t any ambition, have you?” he said, curtly.
The discussion ended there stiffly, and was followed by weeks of silence from his father. At last, he had a call from Caroline Higgins, saying that his father agreed with the employment at Denby Hall, as a temporary measure, but David should think carefully, and if he changed his mind, he should ring her immediately. David liked the kitchen hands at the Hall, and he was slowly learning to cook. He would also be able to continue to have lunch with Mark Demeter, and John Murdoch, and a new young woman at their table, Lorna, who had a raw hollow in her forehead from a motorcycle accident. Helmut said David was also welcome to continue to go to the Hall’s current affairs meeting, and he wanted to go, just to be part of the group. He never listened very carefully. What Keith – it was usually Keith in current affairs – was talking about was like an adventure story, or a fantasy film, which you pretty well forgot as soon as it was over.
David still had sessions, at his father’s insistence and expense, with Caroline Higgins. He was worried about Mr Temple, but decided not to mention it, either to his father or to Caroline. He had worked out what they would say, and was convinced nothing could be achieved by confiding in them.
For convenience, David’s sessions with Caroline were going to continue to be conducted at the Hall, rather than his flat. Caroline came in a gleaming 4WD Porsche, which she used to park off the premises, until it was vandalised by local lads from the housing estate. She may have parked off the property at first because her vehicle was so big, or because it looked incongruous beside the battered little bombs driven by the staff. David had seen her arrive on a number of occasions when he had been outside. She had the invariable practice of getting out of the vehicle, shaking her long, straight, blonde hair, and deftly fixing it in a bun at the back of her neck. And once, as she crossed the path to the door, he saw her slip a diamond ring off her finger, remove the diamond studs from her ears, drop them in her handbag, and wipe off her lip gloss with a tissue. By the time Caroline arrived at the doors of the Hall, she always looked simple and demure.
Caroline had long been troubled by David’s connection with Cathy Marsden, and had concerns about how it had affected him. She had seen the prominent coloured photograph in his room, taken at the party, showing Cathy with Poppy beside her, and a pyramid of residents, and staff, gathered around the wheelchair. Cathy looked like an Egyptian princess with her pet lion, and servants.
Caroline thought that his close association with a fiftyish woman, who eventually could not move or speak, was not entirely healthy. She had stressed to him in her low key manner, and quite obliquely, over a long period, the need to cultivate ‘healthy’ relationships. David inferred that in Caroline’s view, any relationship with a resident, and probably most of the staff, was likely to be unhealthy. He asked her what a ‘healthy relationship’ was.
Caroline replied, “I mean one that is uplifting, energising, even a little inspiring – as well as good fun. A relationship that adds a dimension to you.”
“That’s my experience with Cathy,” David said.
“But Cathy was very ill, with limited, and failing mental powers.”
“True… but what has that got to do with it?” he asked.
Caroline paused, watching him. “Yes. All right, David,” she had said, backing away from conflict.
“Can’t you give me an answer?” he asked.
“Certainly… you must choose your own friends, and some of them may be sick people. I’m only saying it’s good to have friends who are normal and well.”
When he asked, “How do you tell who is normal and well?” Caroline had given him one of her tranquil, pin-up poses, showing her shining, even teeth, and said they would talk about it another day. But they never did talk about it.
In the session, before he was due to leave the Hall, Caroline had asked, “Can you tell me if you have any feelings about the decision to move Cathy, David?”
“What happened, is what always happens.”
“How do you mean?”
He shrugged, and smiled at the obvious. “She had no say.”
Caroline gave the smallest frown. She usually never frowned at all. An instant later, her tanned forehead was as smooth as a ceramic glaze. “Poor Cathy couldn’t speak.”
“She didn’t want to go.”
“How do you know that, David?”
“She told me.”
Caroline rested her long, immaculately oval fingernails on the tabletop in a row and contemplated them. “Are you sure she could tell you?”
“Yes.”
“I see. Very well. But you know, the doctors and other people caring for Cathy knew what was best for her.”
They were back to the same old thing again.“That’s what I said … that’s what always happens.”
“Do you feel that’s what’s happened to you? What always happens?”
“Yes.”
“Didn’t you have a say?”
“I nearly didn’t. If you can’t speak much, you don’t have a say. Even if you can speak, it sometimes doesn’t matter.”
There was a long pause while Caroline considered her own involvement. “Are you annoyed with anybody about this?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“It’s the way it goes.”
“Good. Do you have any feelings about Cathy, now, that you can tell me about?”
“She’s fine.”
“David, can you explain that a little more?”
“Well… she’s out of her body, which wasn’t much use.”
“Do you have any feeling about that, her being out of her body?”
“If she had stayed here, the last brick wouldn’t have been put in the wall yet … maybe not for a while.”
“Which wall is that?”
“The wall around Cathy.”
“She had a wall around her? How do you know?”
“She told me.”
“Does anybody else know about the wall?”
“I don’t think so.”
“I see … Can you tell me who put the last brick in the wall?”
“The people caring for Cathy.”
“David, I don’t want you to let what happened to Cathy upset you. We can talk about it, and you’ll see that everybody was trying to do their best for a very sick person.”
“I’m not upset… Things happen this way.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m fine because Cathy’s fine.”
Caroline was silent, thinking, and although she did not say it, David could see that what he had said was not acceptable to her.
“David, I’m going to tell your father that we need to go on seeing each other. Agreed?”
David let Caroline take his silence as assent, because it was useful to have a telephone line into another world.
33
David didn’t read newspapers, but Keith did, when he was in charge of the day shift, and had to review current affairs. Shortly before David was due to leave Denby Hall, Keith came to his room with a copy of the local paper, The Enquirer, in his hand.
“Do you see this, David? About the husband of that snotty bitch in Eccleston Street.”
David had a sick feeling. “What’s happened?”
He had thought much about his blundering intervention into Mr Temple’s life. He remained unhappy with Anita’s robust verdict that Graham Temple would soon recover. If it had not looked like interfering, he would have gone to see Mr Temple, but he was afraid that in some way, which he was not clever enough to appreciate, he might provoke another firestorm of emotion. He had, nevertheless, taken to walking Poppy, when Helmut brought her to the Hall, past the Eccleston Street property, half hoping that he might meet Mr Temple casually, and they could talk.
“He’s won a prize,” Keith said. “Apparently he’s a historian. Written a book about Christian missionaries in Japan in the seventeenth century. Now there’s a topical subject for you. Quite a learned old geezer…What’s the matter?”
“I … met him, that’s all.”
David liked Keith, but he wasn’t the sort of person he could tell about Mr Temple. Nobody knew what had happened except Anita and Desmond.
Later in the day, he made his slow pace to Eccleston Street with Poppy, and stood for a while across the road under the trees, looking at the house. He remembered the plush reception room with the big smoky mirror, the Filipino servant, Poppy galumphing down the hall and, on his last visit, Mr Temple, at first jovial, and then bent over in the chair, in agony.
“What have I done?” he had asked himself a dozen times.
Poppy began to bark, lurching out onto the road in the direction of number 73, and jerking David so hard that his back hurt. Mr Temple was on the doorstep, and he had seen them.
“Ha! The lad that pricked the balloon!” Mr Temple shouted. “And the superb Justina!”
Poppy obviously knew and liked Mr Temple, and she strained hard towards him. David followed willingly. The tone of Mr Temple’s shouts was friendly. Mr Temple made a fuss of Poppy, slapping her, rubbing her muzzle, and letting Poppy take his hand in her mouth.
“I’ve been missing you, old girl!”
“I could bring Poppy – what we call her – round sometimes, if you like,” David said, seizing on the one positive contribution he could make.
“But it’s Anita’s dog. And I don’t think I’ll be seeing all that much of her, unless it’s in a solicitor’s office.”
“No, Anita and Desmond gave her to Helmut, the boss of Denby Hall.”
“I see,” Mr Temple said, nonplussed. “Very kind of them.”
“I get to walk her a lot and I could bring her round.”
“Would you do that?” Mr Temple asked, looking at David as though such a gratuitous offer could not be serious.
“Sure. It’s no trouble.”
“I’d like that. Really. I’ll give you my number. Anyway, come in, come in – David, isn’t it? – and bring… Poppy. Let’s call her Poppy.”
David followed Mr Temple, and Poppy, into the house. The atmosphere of gloom and neglect, which he had imagined, was not apparent. The stereo speakers in the rooms were playing a symphony that he remembered faintly, and could probably once have performed on the piano. Mr Temple saw his attention was drawn to the music.
“You know it? Mozart, 21 in C Major. A delight,” he said, whistling a few bars in tune with the pianist.
“I used to play …before my accident.”
“Well, have a cup of tea … no danger of being hit by flying vases today, eh? Ha ha!”
Poppy stretched out comfortably on the rug before the fireplace. Mr Temple fussed over the silver tea tray, with its Royal Doulton crockery, which the maid had brought.
“Beautiful stuff, this. Don’t you think? I mean, no point in making do with a cafeteria cup when you can experience the exquisite. I’ll play mum. I am the mum here now!” he said, pouring into the ornate pink and yellow cups.
Mr Temple’s long, silver hair was carefully groomed, and he looked bright and energetic in his smoothly ironed pink shirt. He asked a few courteous questions about David’s health, and then cut to a point that was bothering him. His gaze was alert, and much more youthful than his rather slow manner implied.
“Tell me why Poppy has come to Denby Hall.”
“She wanted to be there, when Cathy was there.”
“Ah, yes … but Mrs Marsden is not there now. Tell me why you’ve been coming past the house. I’ve seen you a couple of times before.”
“I … was thinking about you.”
“Why me?”
“Because I … upset your life.”
“Ha! That’s very thoughtful of you, but no need. Burden lifted, David. Burden lifted!”
Mr Temple stood, swaying thoughtfully to the music. When he sat down he focussed unblinkingly on David. He asked a lot of questions about how David came into the situation, and what he knew. David didn’t feel he was being interrogated, only that he was giving a necessary explanation of his friendship with Cathy and Desmond, and his words flowed easily in the cordial atmosphere.
“Mrs Temple also came to see me to say sorry about the row here,” David concluded.
“Quite right too. The least she could do. You seem to have been in the eye of the typhoon.”
“I just wanted Cathy to see Poppy.”
“What a dominant person she was.”
“I don’t think she intended that. It’s more what people did because of her.”
“Anyway, it’s good of you to think of me. If it will make things easier for you, I don’t mind telling you my side. It’s very simple, and no secret. I think we’ve washed the Temples’ grubby linen in the neighbourhood’s streets, and hung it out on the trees! We’re well known around here. My wife was in public life. Oh yes, I was hurt at first, the victim of long-term deception. How could my wife do this to me? But I simmered down in a matter of hours. I took an honest look at what I have endured. Anita and I were two people who found it convenient, for rather warped reasons, to share the same house. And for both us, in that, there was a strain. For Anita it was the tension of deception. For me it was the tension of fitting somebody into my life whom I should have left years ago. I never knew about Marsden, but I did think Anita could have had a lover, or perhaps lovers – this was a direction in which I preferred not to look. I ignored the possibility. I built a kind of mental barrier that cut me off from the possibility. Not much point in complaining when the possibility turns out to be a reality. Now I’m free!”
