Double Vision

Twenty-one

Sunday dawned bright and clear. After a good morning’s work — he was on the home straight now, beginning to relax — Stephen set off to the farmhouse. He knew Justine was going to be there because she’d mentioned it, but he wasn’t sure if there were to be any other guests. It had crossed his mind that a family lunch, just the four of them — and Adam, too, of course — might be Beth’s way of acknowledging the relationship.

A tight-lipped Justine met him at the door. She’d seemed doubtful about the invitation when she first mentioned it, but evidently something had happened to disperse the doubt. She was now unequivocally livid. ‘You’d better wait in the conservatory,’ she told him rather ungraciously. ‘Beth’ll be along in a minute.’

She was wearing an apron over her dress, and he supposed that was what had made her angry — being forced into the dual role of guest and kitchen assistant. She bustled off. Looking at that rather broad and firm backside, he thought, God help the patients who don’t watch their cholesterol levels — she’ll give them hell.

Adam was in the conservatory, his freshly brushed hair sticking up in spikes, and, beside him, glass in hand, was Robert, chatting to a man in black with silver hair. When he turned round, he revealed an intelligent sheep’s face, the eyes at once keenly alert and innocent.

‘Alec, this is my brother, Stephen,’ Robert said. ‘Stephen, Alec Braithewaite.’

They shook hands.

‘Justine’s father,’ Robert added.

‘Yes,’ said Stephen.

‘Justine’s talked about you a lot,’ Alec said.

Stephen took the glass Robert held out to him, noticing that without being asked Robert had poured him an extra stiff whisky. Alec was on sherry. Stephen raised his glass, looking intently into Robert’s eyes, trying to relay the message, ‘If you think a double whisky’s going to get round me, you two-faced, treacherous, lying, conniving bastard, apology for a brother, you can think again.’

‘Oh?’ Stephen said.

‘She admires your work. Bit of hero-worship, I think.’

The doorbell rang. Robert was about to move off when ‘I’ll go!’ Justine called from the hall.

Feminine flutterings and flutings and cooings, though a bit one-sided — Justine seemed to be growling — and then Angela came into the room, looked at Alec, blushed, looked down and said in reply to Robert’s question that she might just have a glass of white wine. But only a small one, she was driving.

‘You can leave your car here,’ Alec said. ‘If Robert doesn’t mind. I can’t drink anyway. I’ve got Evensong.’

‘Oh, dear.’

Much to Stephen’s relief, Alec and Angela had eyes only for each other, and he was able to withdraw from the conversation and corner Robert. ‘He’s an intelligent man,’ Robert said blandly. ‘You’d like him.’

‘Is that why he’s here?’

Robert raised his eyebrows. ‘He’s here because he’s Beth’s vicar and our neighbour and we like him. Don’t be so bloody paranoid. Here, have another whisky.’ He looked round the room. ‘We don’t do this often enough. It’s bad for a marriage when you get too isolated.’

‘Is it?’

An awkward pause.

‘Well, isn’t it?’

‘I think the trouble comes first. The isolation’s just a symptom.’

‘All I know is, it’s bad for mine,’ Robert said, wincing.

‘You’re hardly an isolated couple. You’re never here.’

That wasn’t tactful, but Stephen couldn’t help himself.

‘I thought I might take Beth away for a few days. Try to sort things out.’

‘Oh, where are you going?’

‘Paris, I thought.’

‘Oh, very nice.’

‘Paris in the spring.’

‘Don’t spend all the time arguing about stem-cell research, will you?’

‘No-o, I thought we’d do the sort of things people normally do in Paris.’

‘Eat croissants in bed.’

‘That sort of thing. Bed, anyway.’

‘“Not tonight, Josef.”’

‘You’re a cruel bastard, Stephen.’

A wisp of cloud drifted across the sun. The shadows of the trees in the garden lay in a network all over the black-and-white tiled floor, gleaming and dancing.

‘The right time of year for it, anyway,’ Stephen said, feeling a stab of envy, not of Robert and Beth but of some ideal couple — himself and Nerys twenty years ago, perhaps. Not as they actually were, but as they ought to have been.

Robert turned. Stephen became aware of a very tall, red-haired youth, all angst and acne, hesitating in the doorway. The doorbell hadn’t rung, so he must have been in the bathroom or somewhere else in the house. Robert waved to him and he came across, head down, taking his time.

‘Mark, this is my brother, Stephen. Stephen, Mark Callender. I’m supervising Mark’s Ph.D., which’ — a broad smile — ‘is going very well.’

Mark was so shy he needed all the boosts Robert could give him. Unless he had something dreadfully wrong with his bladder, he must have been hiding in the bathroom rather than visiting it. Watching Robert with him, turning the full force of his attention on Mark, making him feel at ease and eventually even risk a smile, Stephen saw what only a few days before he’d tried to see, and failed: Robert as he might appear to a stranger meeting him for the first time. Charismatic was the word that sprang to mind, not because he made a parade of charm and intelligence, or tried in any way to attract attention to himself, but because he didn’t. His whole attention was focused outwards. At the moment, this awkward young man felt himself to be the centre of the universe, and he blossomed. With women, the technique would be devastating.

Beth appeared, presumably leaving Justine to put the finishing touches to the meal. She looked tired, and again he had the sense of somebody who was being gently and persistently erased. She and Angela were evidently close and were soon deep in conversation, leaving him to talk to Alec.

‘I met a friend of yours in Newcastle the other day. Peter Wingrave.’

‘Ah, Peter, yes.’

‘I gather he’s been in prison?’

Alec blinked rapidly. ‘Did he tell you that?’

‘No, I —’

‘Ah. Justine.’

‘No, not Justine. I guessed. It wasn’t particularly difficult — he gave me two stories to read, one of which could only have been written by somebody who’d been inside.’

‘I suppose he might have worked in one?’

‘He might.’

‘What did you think of the stories?’

‘Very good. Very disturbing. And both of them — it’s only just struck me — were about stalking.’

‘Yes, he’s interested in that. Because it’s a pattern of behaviour that’s been known about for centuries and has only quite recently been declared pathological. He’s interested in the way psychiatry’s expanded and laid claim to previously… neutral, or… anyway non-pathological areas of human behaviour.’

‘There was nothing “neutral” about the behaviour in his stories. Torture. Mental and physical. Murder.’

Another sip of the sherry, another blink of the mild but far from stupid blue eyes.

‘What did he do?’ Stephen asked.

‘I can’t tell you.’

‘You mean you don’t know?’

‘No.’

‘No, you don’t know, or no, you won’t tell me?’

‘No, I can’t tell you.’

‘Stalking?’

‘I can’t tell you.’

Stephen stayed silent, and, as he’d rather expected, Alec cracked. ‘I doubt if he’d use his personal experiences in his stories.’

‘Why not? People do. He certainly used the setting.’

‘I just don’t think he would.’

Beth was looking in their direction, aware of some exchange going on that went well beyond pre-Sunday lunch chat.

‘You won’t mention Peter’s prison record to anybody else, will you? I mean, it could be very damaging, and’ — a deep sigh caught and held — ‘I do think he deserves some credit for the way he’s rebuilt his life.’

‘Oh, don’t worry, I won’t go round blabbing.’

‘Good.’

‘Of course, you’re committed to the idea that people can change. I mean…’ Stephen’s gaze lingered almost insultingly on the dog collar. ‘Professionally.’

‘Can be changed. As an act of individual will, no, I’m not sure I do believe it. I think that’s actually quite a secular belief. Therapy. Self-help books… It’s an industry, isn’t it?’ A pause. ‘And what about you? Do you believe people can change — or be changed?’

‘I think they can learn to manage themselves better.’

‘Sounds a bit bleak.’

It was strange to be forced to delineate his beliefs in this way. A taboo was being broken. ‘I believe people can heal themselves.’

‘Themselves?’

‘Yes.’

‘How?’

‘How?’

‘Ye-es. How?’

Stephen spread his hands. ‘Create something. Almost anything. Get your body moving. Have sex.’

‘Sex? Not love?’

‘Love’s a bonus.’ He’d forgotten, as he spoke, that he was having this therapeutic sex with Alec’s teenage daughter, and that in the nature of things Alec was unlikely to be pleased.

Beth appeared at his elbow and he turned to her with some relief. ‘I hear you’re off to Paris.’

‘Yes.’ She flushed and looked sideways at Robert, who was chatting to Mark and Angela. ‘I just hope things’ll be all right here.’

‘I’m sure they will,’ Stephen said. ‘Justine’s very competent. You’re a lucky man,’ he added to Alec, raising his glass.

The doorbell rang again. So that’s what they’d been waiting for. Another guest.

Robert went this time, and came back into the room with Kate Frobisher, almost unrecognizable, to Stephen at any rate, in a smart dress, earrings and make-up. She looked around the room as Robert gave her a drink, and her eye lighted first on Stephen. He moved towards her and, aware of being the focus of all eyes in the room, kissed her on the cheek. When he looked round, he saw Justine standing inside the doorway watching him.

A couple of minutes later Beth announced that lunch was ready and they all trooped along to the dining room.

So that’s it, Stephen thought, looking around the group. Beth and Robert, Alec and Angela, Justine and Mark, Kate and himself. The animals went in two by two, the elephant and the kangaroo. It wasn’t, to be fair, easy to see what else Beth could have done, but it had made Justine very angry. He wasn’t particularly thrilled about it himself. Ah, well, two hours, three at the most, and they could all go back home.

He’d have to watch what he drank, though. Three whiskies on an empty stomach had already loosened his tongue, and in retrospect he regretted the conversation with Alec.

*

Lunch was surprisingly pleasant, given that two of the guests were thinking of murdering their hostess. Beth appeared relaxed, though she listened more than she spoke. Stephen, observing her, thought that he’d never seen her properly before. He was still struck by that curiously blurred quality of her features, but he also noticed now a certain steeliness, even aggression. Robert, at the other end of the table, though he radiated energy, would be no match for her. Or at least not in this domestic setting, but then, like so many workaholic men, Robert was passive in his own home, content to leave everything to his wife, to be physically present and emotionally absent at the same time. He wouldn’t leave her. It would take too much time away from his precious research.

Kate was charming, and he spoke mainly to her. She looked ten years younger, and not merely because of the make-up. Her shoulder was better. The manipulation under a general anaesthetic had worked brilliantly. Even if it hadn’t been for the problems with Peter — here she lowered her voice — she’d have been able to manage on her own now.

‘Did Peter get back to you?’

‘Yes, he sent me a very nice letter saying how pleased he was I was better and thanking me —’

‘What was he thanking you for?’

‘The experience — he said it had been very important to him, and…’ A self-deprecating smile. ‘I gave him a month’s wages in lieu of notice.’

‘Kate.’

‘We-ell… I thought, in the end, what’s the point of having a confrontation? And when I look back, I think my own reaction was pretty odd. Mad. I must have been very low in confidence or something because I really felt that dressing-up thing was saying something about me. And, of course, it wasn’t — it was entirely about him.’

‘You think you overreacted? I don’t think you did.’

‘No, I think I was right to get rid of him. It’d… It was really peculiar. It’d turned into a kind of battle…’ She raised her hands. ‘Anyway, it’s over now, and my shoulder’s better, and… It’s great, just to be able to put on a sweater and not get stuck halfway.’

Faced with the mental image of Kate pulling on a sweater, Stephen became aware of her perfume, her closeness. Sunlight gilded the lines of her throat and neck where Ben’s amulet caught the light and glittered. She asked how he was getting on with the book, and he told her quite well. He was two thirds of the way through the final draft, though he might have to break off and go down to London for a few days to sort things out down there. ‘The money’s come through on the house. So we ought to be able to get the divorce settlement sorted out, and then…’

‘Will you move back to London?’

‘I don’t know. The obvious thing to do is rent and wait for the market to collapse. And I’m happy here, for the time being. I don’t know what it’s going to be like when the book’s finished and I’m trying to earn my living freelance. I know people say you can do it with just e-mails and faxes, but I’m not sure. I don’t know to what extent you really need to be a face on the scene.’

‘You won’t go back full time?’

‘Oh, no.’

‘Congratulations. You’ve actually done what Ben always said he would do.’ Her fingers strayed to the amulet round her neck. ‘And never did.’

Stephen said quickly, ‘Anyway, all that’s in the future. At the moment I feel everything’s on hold till the book’s finished. It’s ridiculous. I know I shouldn’t be doing it.’

‘What?’

‘Sacrificing life to work.’

She laughed. ‘Tell me about it.’

She seemed genuinely interested in his plans, and that meant a lot. If he only came away from his time in the north with Kate’s friendship, it would have been time well spent. Meanwhile, he really ought to cut back on the drinking. Robert, who was a generous host, kept replenishing his glass, which made it difficult to keep track. He was slightly drunk, not incapacitated, but floating on a golden cloud two or three inches above the carpet. He’d reached the stage of being in love with all the women in the room: the glint of down on Angela’s cheek, Justine’s ferocious blue-eyed stare — she seemed to be glaring at him, he couldn’t think why — Kate’s hands, which she was so ashamed of. Even with make-up on, and jewellery, she did nothing to draw attention to them, no nail varnish, no rings, except her wedding ring, and he wanted to say, ‘You’re wrong about them. They’re beautiful.’ Justine’s mouth was up to its usual trick of erasing lipstick. He found that incredibly erotic: the body rejecting artifice, so much sexier than any of the obvious things. He was trying to remember a time — he couldn’t even recall where, let alone when — he and Ben had been at some kind of lap-dancing club. God knows why, it wasn’t the kind of thing they went in for, but somehow there they were. Crowded room, smoke, drink, blue berets everywhere. Wherever two or three peace-keepers are gathered together in the UN’s name, there is a lap-dancer in the midst of them — not always voluntarily either. And despite knowing that many of these women were victims, he’d had a glimpse of why some men hate women. It’s demeaning to find yourself salivating like one of Pavlov’s bloody dogs just because some woman you don’t even fancy pushes her arse into your face. How much sexier the glimpse of a nipple under a white shirt blouse, especially when the girl doesn’t even know she’s showing it. Justine was now positively glaring, but when he raised his eyebrows and mouthed ‘What?’ she turned away and focused her whole attention on Mark, who was gazing at her like a love-sick calf.

When the time came to clear the table, Justine did it with such a startling bang and clatter he feared for the plates. Alec looked at her, reflectively, and then at Stephen. Stephen found it surprisingly difficult to meet his gaze. Are your intentions towards my daughter honourable? Somewhere, in the air above their heads, the ridiculous Victorian question hovered, and could not, despite the modern world with all its changes and complexities, be entirely discounted. No, not honourable, Stephen said, looking at the flicker of sunlight on the table cloth, but, at least, I hope, kind.

They went into the drawing room for coffee, and Stephen sat by Angela, who answered his remarks almost at random, her eyes never leaving Alec’s face. There were two hectic spots on her cheeks, she had a general air of recklessness and abandon. She’d grown tired, he could tell, of being the person she was, this silly menopausal woman who kept rams as pets and arranged flowers in the church and fell obviously, humiliatingly, in love with the vicar. What an identity to cart about in the twenty-first century. She had no possible grounds for believing in her own existence. Yet here she was, and he could sense her summoning up the courage to change or ruin her life.

Alec was talking to Robert about the ethics committee they both served on. Oh, God, Stephen thought, blastocysts again. Robert was unfailingly courteous, but he was off duty. Alec, of course, was not.

After a while Stephen became aware that Justine had not joined them. He went down to the kitchen to find her beginning to wash the dishes. Beth, he knew from previous visits, never trusted this particular service to the dishwasher. Justine squirted washing-up liquid at the bowl as if she were wielding a flame-thrower. A huge foaming monster drooped and glooped over the edges of the sink, and when she turned round to face him, shaking her hands, great blobs of foam flew off into the air, one landing on his cheek where it popped stinging bubbles into his eye.

‘Leave that. Come on upstairs.’

‘It won’t take a minute.’ Tight-lipped. ‘Anyway, I’m surprised you noticed I wasn’t there.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘You know what I mean.’

He put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Justine.’

‘Sober up, Stephen, you’re pathetic.’

‘What?’ He tried a cooler approach. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Your bloody sister-in-law, for one thing. She should concentrate on her own marriage, not go poking her nose into other people’s lives. I suppose you know Robert’s screwing around?’

‘I think he might have a girlfriend.’

‘A girlfriend? He fucks his way round the conference circuit like a rabbit on amphetamines.’

He was shocked. ‘Has he tried it on with you?’

‘Oh, come on. Do you really think your brother’s stupid enough to shit on his own doorstep? I don’t think so. Anyway, he’s never here. And neither of them’ — she jerked her thumb at the window — ‘pay anything like enough attention to that.’

Adam had slipped away from the table as soon after the pudding as he reasonably could and was now mooching about in the garden, poking a long stick into the pond.

‘What’s he doing?’

‘Getting dead leaves out.’

‘She wasn’t really interfering. She just invited a few people for lunch. That’s all she’s done.’

‘Bollocks.’ Another plate banged down on to the draining board. ‘She knows exactly what she’s doing. It’s bad enough having Romeo and bloody Juliet up there, without you slobbering over Kate as well.’

He couldn’t believe his ears. ‘Slobbering?’

Another clatter of irreplaceable Georgian glass.

‘Justine. Leave the dishes. Hit me.’

‘Don’t tempt me.’

There was a tremor in her voice that he hoped was the beginning of laughter, but he wasn’t confident enough to presume on it. He was right.

At that moment they heard an embarrassed cough and turned to see Mark Callender hovering in the doorway, red-faced and awkward, with a tray of coffee cups in his hands.

‘WHAT DO YOU WANT?’ Justine roared.

It was blindingly obvious what he wanted, the poor sod.

‘I brought these.’

Stephen pointed to the table. ‘Just put them down there, will you?’

Mark retreated to the safety of the hall. ‘I think Mr Braithewaite’s leaving.’

‘Right,’ Justine said, pulling off her apron. ‘I’m out of here.’

Stephen tried to take her in his arms, but she pushed him away. ‘Don’t burn too many boats,’ he called after her.

‘You’re the one who’s done that. The whole bloody armada.’