She seemed to be particularly angry that her paintings were being shown to Desmond. And her earlier comments to David had shown that she thought Hilda paid too much attention to Desmond. David was uncertain what to do. He could hardly reveal this in front of Hilda, besides, he thought Cathy’s jealousy was unjustified.

  “I don’t think Cathy wants a cigarette,” David said, faintly.

  “Oh, I think she does,” Desmond said, beckoning a care assistant. “What else could be troubling her?”

  “She’s…” David began. He was going to say that Cathy hated the portfolio of paintings, but then he would have to add that Cathy hated them because Hilda had stood over her and practically painted them for her. This was another reason he couldn’t explain in front of Hilda.

  Desmond ignored David, and bulldozed on. “Ciggy time,” he said, dismissing Cathy.

  Cathy was wheeled away, protesting with all the volume of her lungs, and Desmond gave his attention to the portfolio.

  He looked down at Hilda warmly, “Cathy used to be very good with pencil and paint, you know. Quite a skilled watercolourist. All the accomplishments of a well brought up young woman.”

  He paused to concentrate on each of the paintings, one by one.

  “She’s still very good, Mr Marsden,” Hilda said. “Look at these.”

  What Desmond and David saw, was a series of bright, rainbow-like designs with a very blurred, and somewhat romantic feminine figure, dressed in flowing robes. The acrylic colour had been applied to wet paper. The paintings were all consistently, the same simplistic style. They showed a firmness of intention. There was nothing arbitrary or unconsidered about them.

  Desmond had an amused and questioning look. “Are you sure these are Cathy’s?”

  “Of course, why else would I show you? I have a written record of everything she did,” Hilda insisted.

  “I heard she quit the class, before she was dropped from the house timetable.”

  “That was very unfortunate, Mr Marsden. These paintings were done beforehand. I hope she’ll come back now for special one-to-one lessons.”

  “Why do you keep a record, Hilda?”

  “It’s for Cathy’s file. It shows what she can do.”

  “I’m not clear about this. When Cathy was at home, and attended the day centre, she used to paint. A few shaky lines, and blotches. A mess. I saw all her stuff. She’d always bring it home. She’d lost her capability to do anything realistic at all, let alone a considered abstract.”

  “Mr Marsden, I’ve been teaching her,” Hilda said, proudly.

  “With all the teaching in the world, I don’t see how she could have done these,” Desmond said, flatly. “I mean, they’re just not her. She never in her life did this sort of quasireligious, mystical thing.”

  Hilda looked up at Desmond as though his misunderstanding was childish. “She’s very talented. We used to read Ted Hughes together.”

  “The poet? Seriously? I can’t believe it.”

  “Yes, we had nice times.”

  “Nice times reading Ted Hughes together?”

  “Oh yes, we were really close.”

  “Tell me, why did Cathy quit the class?”

  Hilda blushed. “I thought you knew. Cathy thought we, you and I, were having an affair.”

  Desmond showed distaste. “But I’ve only talked to you a couple, or three or four times!”

  Hilda raised her eyebrows enigmatically.

  Desmond glanced at David, and smoothed his black locks in perplexity. “God alive! These paintings, Ted Hughes’ poetry, and an affair to boot. Were we having an affair, tell me that, Hilda?”

  Desmond thrust his face toward Hilda’s, and spoke in a melodramatic, theatrical voice.

  “You know the answer to that, Mr Marsden,” Hilda said shyly, gathering the paintings together in the portfolio.

  When she had gone, Desmond let out a loud moan. “David, am I going mad? Am I mad already? Cathy never painted those paintings. Never. And she wouldn’t know Ted Hughes from Dan Brown.”

  David grinned, “The paintings show what a good teacher Hilda is.”

  Desmond said he knew who Ted Hughes was, but he’d never read a line of his work. He couldn’t imagine how Cathy, who had hardly touched a printed page in twenty years, would have had the faintest interest in the poet.

  “I don’t know about the poetry, but for the paintings, maybe Hilda held Cathy’s hand, with the paint brush in it,” David suggested, remembering the will signing.

  15

  In all the time David knew Cathy, her brother visited only once, and her sister, never. Simon Hurst arranged a visit with Helmut close to Cathy’s fifty-second birthday. Simon arrived by taxi, on a sunny Monday afternoon in July, bearing a bulging bunch of lillies. He also had a box of chocolates, and a gift-wrapped present in his arms. He swung clumsily about in the lobby, shaking hands with Helmut. The pollen from the lillies stained Helmut’s fawn jacket.

  Simon was small and slender, with a tan and a welldeveloped chest. Youthfully dressed for a man in his late fifties, he wore scrubbed blue jeans, brown cowboy boots with slightly raised heels, and an open-necked shirt. Helmut had told David that Simon was a chemist in Norwich, with his own business. David could see no family resemblance to Cathy.

  Helmut introduced David as a resident, who was a friend of Cathy, and could assist with the wheelchair, and information about the Hall. Simon had a look of slight concern at this.

  “It’s all right. David’s nearly recovered, and he’ll be leaving us soon,” Helmut said reassuringly, and then Simon seemed grateful for the promised help.

  “How is my sister?”

  “She’s a very complex case,” Helmut said.

  “We thought we should see her,” Simon said

  His expression implied that this was very difficult. Cathy was inaccessible, but despite the difficulties, an inspection had to take place.

  “We?” Helmut asked, looking out towards the porch.

  “The family, in my position as eldest,” Simon said, paternally.

  “Cathy’s general health is good, but there’s no remission,” Helmut said, mechanically.

  “Quite. The family wanted to remember her birthday.”

  “Good.” Helmut gave an embracing smile.

  “We can’t get down here easily, you know.”

  “From Norfolk? It’s a long way.”

  “Very, but her birthday …” Simon drew himself up positively.

  His pectorals flexed, and tightened his shirt.

  “Certainly, her birthday….” Helmut nodded the conversation along.

  “Does she have many visitors?” Simon asked, with deliberate casualness.

  “Her husband, quite regularly,” Helmut, an expert in non-disclosure, said.

  “Yes, of course. Her husband … but we brothers and sisters, you know…”

  “Don’t feel the same?”

  “I wouldn’t say that … It’s very hard for us, and such a long way to come.”

  “What iss hard Mr Hurst?”

  “Well, the …” Simon said, raising his arms uncertainly. “Having this in the family…”

  “It’s difficult to accept,” Helmut conceded.

  “Will she know it’s her birthday?” Simon asked, suggesting that he assumed Cathy wouldn’t know.

  “Mr Hurst, it’s your visit that’s important to Cathy,” Helmut said. “Even if there’s no occasion.”

  “But if she doesn’t know…”

  “She knows,” David said firmly, and they both looked at him, surprised.

  David wheeled Cathy into the sitting room to meet her brother. She spent only a moment of her attention on him. He sprang up from the couch, kissed her brow, and fondled her arm. David saw that Simon was affected by what he saw. The once slenderly mobile, amusing and clever sister was now a forbidding bust in a chair.

  “It’s wonderful to see you, Cathy, and I’ve brought this for your birthday.”

  Simon turned to the couch behind him. He picked up the gift wrapped parcel with a flourish. He placed it on the soft tray, which was fitted over the arms of the wheelchair, across Cathy’s lap. Cathy looked from the parcel to Simon, and then out of the window. The pigeons were flying.

  “Please, open it,” Simon said.

  Beverly was standing near, watching. “I don’t think she can, Mr Hurst. Would you like to do it?”

  “It’s ladies’ stuff, you know…”

  Beverly accepted the task. She ploughed through layers of bright wrappers, and plastic covers, while Cathy watched the pigeons. What was eventually revealed was a purple cashmere sweater, a pair of black silk slacks, and a pyjama set, with blue and pink teddy bears embroidered on the chest.

  “Aren’t they stylish?” Beverly said, holding them up in front of Cathy. “And super quality.”

  Cathy had no eyes for them. Her bleary, inexpressive stare swept round the room, and then to the movement of the pigeons outside the window.

  Simon looked pleased. “We know how fond Cathy is of teddy bears.”

  Beverly began to examine each piece more carefully. “Oh, dear. They’re all size twelve,” she pronounced.

  “That’s right,” Simon said, smoothing his hand over the slacks proprietorially. “My sister told me. She actually purchased them.”

  “Oh, dear,” Beverly said, again.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Cathy’s size eighteen now.”

  “Size eighteen?” Simon said, his voice going up a note. “What’s happened to her?”

  Simon glared at Cathy. Seated in her wheelchair in a loose sweater, with the tray across her knees, and her thin, rather long neck, Cathy showed no easily discernible increase in weight.

  “She has a special high calorie pulp diet, Mr Hurst, and she’s put on the weight in the two years she’s been here.”

  Simon huffed, “You should be controlling her weight!”

  “We are, Mr Hurst. She’s right for her condition.”

  “We should have been told.”

  “I don’t think we have your address.”

  “Marsden should have told us. He’s always wanting to rub our noses in Cathy’s problems in his dreadful emails.”

  “Cathy’s weight isn’t a problem,” Beverly said.

  “What are we going to do with them?” David asked, holding up the pyjamas.

  “One thing’s sure, you’ll not get Cathy into any of those garments,” Beverly said.

  “You could give them to Eva,” David said, mentioning a small, and not very well off resident.

  “Wait on, David,” Beverly said, “that sweater cost a bomb. Mr Hurst might want to take it back, and change the sizes, or buy something else.”

  David watched Simon wriggle between uninviting alternatives – giving away valuable presents, or taking them back to his sister, to be changed, and then returned to Cathy.

  Cathy seemed aware that, in some way, her brother’s visit had been spoiled. She watched him distantly, with dead eyes. He snatched the clothes, and bundled them into one of the discarded wrappers.

  “I’ll have to think about it. What do you expect me to do? I come to the end of the earth, to see my sister, and now… How are we to know?”

  “We?” David asked.

  “The family!” Simon spat.

  To David, Caroline was like a doll, made in a factory; slender, blond, with a thousand lookalikes, polished and near-perfect. Her oval fingernails shone, and her white hands were moulded in plastic. He could find her image in every Sunday newspaper and magazine. Often he thought he saw her walking on Brighton High Street, but when he looked again it wasn’t her.

  David talked with Caroline at first in a small room at the front of Denby Hall, looking out towards the drive and the road. He liked this room, because he could watch what was happening outside. One of the tenants of the apartments across the road had a wooden eagle on his balcony, which was meant to scare the pigeons away. Cars and buses rumbled past. Teachers, nurses, and carers whom David knew, were walking up the drive, or leaving the Hall. He could see people moving according to the timetable of Denby Hall; doctors, plumbers, electricians, refuse collectors, and therapists. It was reassuring to verify this while Caroline asked her questions. When she realised David’s interest was focused outside the window, Caroline said nothing, but had the room moved to the back of the Hall for the next session.

  David then looked out at a bank overgrown with creeper. There was a small lawn on top, which he could barely see because the room was below ground level.

  Seeing that he was uncomfortable, Caroline said, “I thought we could avoid distractions better here.”

  “I don’t think it’s really a distraction to look out of the window. Although you and I talk about every s-subject, in a way we only talk about one s-subject – the gap between in here, and out there. Dwelling on what’s out there is quite a good background for our efforts.”

  Caroline rarely showed any reaction except relaxed acceptance, but David thought she looked embarrassed.

  “Oh, I want our talks to be as natural and easy as possible. Having the blind down in the front room would be …”

  “Unnatural,” he said. “But isn’t it… unnatural to be sitting here staring at the creeper?”

  Caroline didn’t comment. She moved them back to the front room for their future sessions, without drawing the blind. David could watch the traffic of the day revolving around Denby Hall. He believed that what Caroline would really have liked was a cork-lined consulting room, without windows.

  16

  David had made a shelter behind the garages, with a couple of used apple boxes, and Poppy seemed prepared to brave the cold of the Denby Hall garden at night. David had been out walking with Cathy and Poppy in the morning, and they were returning. They had just reached the point where the cliff path joins the drive to Denby Hall, when a gaudy police car came past them and stopped near the entrance. Two bulky officers extracted themselves from inside the vehicle. They placed their flat hats on, levelled them, and turned towards Cathy and David. They had crackling radios, and other gadgets strung across their chests.

  “Excuse me, Sir. I’m Officer Ryan, and this is Officer Bateman. Is that your dog?”

  “No … it’s Cathy Marsden’s.” David answered promptly, and without any fear of the police. Cathy had, to his mind, a claim to the dog. Getting into a temper like Mrs Temple, and calling the police, was what people did ‘out there,’ and David felt remote from it.

  Cathy watched the two men, but gave no sign.

  Helmut had seen the arrival of the police from his office, and soon came out of the front door, and approached them. David knew that Helmut had been worried that Mrs Temple would carry out her threat. In one moment, he had declared that she was a vicious woman who wanted blood; and in the next moment, he had said that she was momentarily a little overwrought. He said she would see how unreasonable she was. Helmut summoned a show of confidence to put the officers at ease, his hand in the pocket of his tan trousers and his breast-pocket handkerchief fluttering in the breeze.

  “Can I help?” he asked, amiably.

  The two officers turned to this more authoritative figure.

  “Yes, Sir. We’re investigating the theft of a dog, a golden Labrador, very much like the one this gentleman is leading,” Ryan said.

  Ryan reached for Poppy’s collar, and she jerked away, growling.

  “I’d like to see that collar, Sir.”

  “I can tell you what the tag says, officer. It says ‘Temple, Eccleston Street’,” Helmut said.

  “I see, so the dog doesn’t belong to Marsden, as this gentleman said. It belongs to Temple. And you, Sir, know that. What’s your name, may I ask, Sir?”

  “I am the proprietor of Denby Hall, Helmut Schniewind. The dog keeps running away from its owner, and coming here. We can’t help it.”

  “But you are helping it, Sir. It seems this gentleman here is restraining the animal with a leash, and he says the owner is Marsden, but the collar says Temple.”

  “You see…” Helmut’s explanation dwindled inconclusively, and his face puckered more deeply into lines of tension.

  “What connection is this gentleman to you, Sir?” Ryan asked, indicating David.

  “He’s one of the residents.”

  “So he lives under your management,” Ryan said.

  “I wouldn’t call it that…”

  “And he has the dog, which he says belongs to Marsden,” Ryan said, compiling his case.

  “Poppy doesn’t understand,” David said, interrupting the line of enquiry.

  “If you don’t mind me saying so, Sir,” Ryan said, turning to David, “It’s you who don’t understand.”

  “He’s a sick boy,” Helmut said.

  “Sick or not, it’s not a matter of what the dog wants. It’s the property of Mrs Temple, and she says that it has been stolen by a David Thurgood, whose description very much fits this gentleman.”

  “David means, officer, that the dog is still attached to its previous owner, Catherine Marsden, this lady here.”

  The two officers looked down at Cathy, as though they were seeing her for the first time. Motionless, she stared back at them. They were slightly baffled by the remote woman in the wheelchair. They appeared to understand that they could not address her, and returned their attention to Helmut and David.

  “It’s not about who the dog is attached to, Sir. It’s not about the emotional life of the dog. The dog is property. Valuable property. Specifically, the property of Mrs Anita Temple,” Ryan said.

  “Yes, I understand, quite,” Helmut said.

  David started at the name ‘Anita.’ Cathy remained calm, and may not have heard. Had David heard correctly?

  “What is the owner’s name, did you say?” David asked.

  Ryan repeated the full name and address. David had thought that Mrs Temple was an ordinary person in the street who had purchased a dog. Anita was a relatively uncommon name. It was too much of a coincidence that there could be two Anitas, one a stranger who bought the dog, and the other, Desmond’s woman friend. Perhaps he should have thought of the possibility that Mrs Temple could be Anita, but what had fooled him was that Mrs Temple lived altogether separately from Desmond, in her own house.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19