Daughter of Riches (50 page)

‘No. I think he's gone.'

‘Oh my God!' She tried to take a step towards him and could not. She was frozen, repelled by the thought that he was dead, afraid of the change that even she could now see had come over him. She didn't want to touch him, didn't want to feel his flesh cool and stiff – not her brother, not Nicky!

But when she had phoned for the ambulance she crept back into the room drawn to him now by love and pity that were stronger than the revulsion had been. She ran to her brother, dropping to her knees beside him and burying her face in his useless legs. And her tears were for all of them – and for the shadow that it seemed would never leave them.

Of all the Carteret family it was Catherine who was most deeply affected by Nicky's death.

Lola was scarcely able to grasp what had happened – she tended to shut out everything but her immediate concerns – and Sophia had become almost philosophical about the cruelty of fate. It was not that she did not care that Nicky was dead, she did, very much, and at first she felt that she could simply not bear yet more sorrow. But she no longer had the capacity for the total grief that had overwhelmed her when she had known Dieter was dead, she had been through too much and for the time being at least her sensibilities were blunted. Besides, she had Bernard to support her now, and two babies dependent on her. She could not afford to go to pieces.

Paul was shocked by the news of his brother's death and at first suffered the agonies of guilt that came from knowing it must have been his letter which had pushed Nicky over the edge. But soon his strong instinct for self-preservation took over. He had had nothing to do with Viv leaving Nicky, he told himself, their romance had been over long before he had met up with her again, so he could hardly be held to blame. And, although he was rather ashamed of it, there was also an element of relief tangled up with the other emotions. For one thing he had not been looking forward to facing Nicky with Viv at his side, for another Nicky's death removed for ever the dread he had never been quite able to banish that Viv might choose to leave him and go back to her former love. He had never forgotten his hurt and humiliation that long-ago night when she had confessed after their love-making that she had been using him as a substitute for Nicky. The fear that something similar might still happen again had hung over him like the sword of Damocles so that although he grieved for the brother who had been his hero, at the same time a small part of him gloried in knowing that never again would he have to fear him as a rival.

Catherine, on the other hand, was inconsolable. She had adored Nicky; to her he had been a hero, the big brother who had spoiled her and teased her. And whilst Paul managed to suppress his guilt, Catherine was overwhelmed by it, holding herself entirely responsible for what had happened.

‘You mustn't blame yourself, Catherine,' Sophia had said kindly. ‘It wasn't your fault.'

But Catherine had shaken her head. ‘It's no use you saying that, Sophia. It
was
my fault. If I hadn't told him about the baby …'

‘That wouldn't have been enough to make him take his own life.'

‘Not on its own, maybe, but it was the last straw. Oh yes, it was. And nothing will ever convince me otherwise.'

‘We all have to share the blame,' Sophia said. ‘I shouldn't have left him that afternoon. And I should have realised the state of mind he was in and made sure he didn't have the chance to store up his pain killers, but I didn't. That in itself absolves you: he must have considered it before otherwise he would never have had that many tablets in his possession. He must have been repeating his prescription far more often than he needed to in order to build up a store like that – he had them tucked away as a sort of insurance against the day when he simply could not go on any longer.'

‘But it was me who drove him to that point,' Catherine said. In spite of her terrible grief she was dry-eyed. In the beginning she had not allowed herself to cry because she had thought that once she began she would never be able to stop and now, though her whole body felt heavy with the weight of tears, they simply refused to come. Catherine went about in a daze of wretchedness which etched the whole of her world in darkness and destroyed all coherence of thought.

On the day before the funeral the guilt and grief built up to such a pressure inside her that Catherine felt she was going to explode. She could hear Sophia on the telephone making yet more arrangements and unable to bear being in the house a moment longer she walked out without a word.

Although it was now October the air still held an echo of the warmth of summer. Catherine walked steadily, her head bent against the stiff breeze from the sea, without any clear idea of where she was going, and it was only when she found herself on the esplanade that she realised; she had wanted to go back to La Maison Blanche where they had been so happy, all of them, in the old days.

The hotel was no longer at full stretch now it was the end of the season. The annexe, which had been their home, had been shut up, and those guests requiring a late holiday were being catered for in the main building. At this time of day the lobby was quiet, with only Brenda, the clerk/receptionist, sitting behind the desk and surreptitiously reading a paper novelette. She looked up as Catherine came in, embarrassed to be caught reading and also uncertain what to say to someone so recently bereaved.

‘Oh, Miss Carteret, I'm sorry, I …'

‘It's all right,' Catherine said. ‘ I don't want anything. I just …'

She wandered on without completing the sentence and Brenda stared after her anxiously. Catherine was usually so ready to chat!

Catherine walked straight through the hotel and out of the back door, left open because it led now to the small swimming pool that had been installed in what had once been the kitchen garden. There was no one in the pool; the water looked very cold and very blue in the October sunshine. Catherine walked across the lawn heading for the end of the garden. It was planted now with flowers and shrubs, but the apple tree was still there – the tree Nicky and Paul used to shin up, and which Charles had often threatened to cut down because it drained all the goodness out of the soil. She looked up, remembering how they had picked the last remaining apples to take with them when the Gennans had turned them out of their home and feeling that the events of that year had somehow marked the end of her childhood. Until then everything has seemed to be bathed in sunshine like the endless Jersey summers and what problems they had were solved as easily as a kiss had taken the sting out of a grazed knee. Catherine went to the tree, throwing her arms around its gnarled trunk and pressing her face into the cool rough bark. But still the tears would not come, only the bittersweet rush of memories and the pain of her own guilt.

The snap of a dry twig invaded her thoughts and Catherine looked up accusingly to see a young man, casually dressed, on the lawn behind her. So lost in memories was she that she forgot for a moment that hotel guests now had access to the garden, so startled that she demanded angrily: ‘ Who are you? What are you doing here?'

‘I'm sorry, I …' He broke off, looking at her. ‘It's Catherine, isn't it? I'm Jeff McCauley. I was a friend of Nicky's. I've come over for the funeral.'

Jeff McCauley – who had been in hospital with Nicky. Sophia had written to ask him to visit in the hope of pulling Nicky out of his depression but he had not come. Catherine felt a rush of animosity, as if he was personally responsible for Nicky's death.

‘It's a bit late now isn't it?' she said bitterly.

Jeff McCauley looked shocked. ‘Yes,' he said quietly. ‘I suppose it is. Look, I'm really sorry about what has happened. I didn't mean to intrude. I'll leave you in peace.'

He turned to go but suddenly she did not want him to. He was a link with Nicky, someone who had known her brother in the years she had managed to miss. ‘I shouldn't have said that,' she apologised. ‘Please don't go. Tell me about Nicky – when he was in the army. Talk about him – please!'

‘Well, there's not a lot to tell,' he said a little awkwardly. ‘I didn't know him in the army, just in hospital. I knew it had hit him pretty hard, being paralysed. I guess it's one of the things we were all afraid of, and I was one of the lucky ones. But all the same I never thought that Nicky would … he had such guts. It just goes to show you can never tell …' He broke off but she was silent, waiting, and after a moment he went on: ‘I had a spinal injury too but mine wasn't permanent, thank God. When I was in my chair Nicky and I used to have races, round and round the grounds.'

‘Who won?'

‘Oh he did usually. His arms were so strong. He said it came from all the rowing he used to do and the swimming. Christ, I can't believe he's gone.'

‘No,' Catherine said. ‘Neither can I.' The bursting sensation was there in her head again but this time the pressure was hot and hard behind her eyes.

‘He was a good bloke, a really good bloke,' Jeff went on. ‘And he thought the world of you, well, all of you really, but he never stopped talking about his little sister …'

Catherine barely heard him. I'm going to cry, she thought. All this time the tears refused to come and now in front of a stranger I am going to cry.

‘Excuse me,' she tried to say, intending to run and hide somewhere but all that came out was a sob and she clapped her hands over her face, turning away as the tears escaped from her eyes and her nose in an unstoppable torrent. The pain inside her creased her like a stomach cramp and she doubled up against it whilst he stood helplessly by.

At last the great tearing sobs began to quieten though her shoulders still shook and her hands still covered her face.

‘I'm sorry,' he said. ‘I didn't mean to upset you.'

She shook her head wordlessly, still not looking at him, then after a moment she fumbled unsuccessfully for a handkerchief. Jeff took out his own, clean and unused, and passed it to her. She took it without speaking, blowing her nose, sobbing some more, then blowing it again.

‘I'm really sorry,' he said again.

‘No,
I'm
sorry.' She turned, looking at him with red and swollen eyes. ‘I don't normally burst into tears in front of someone I don't know.'

‘This is pretty exceptional.'

‘More than you know. That's the first time I've cried since it happened.'

‘Has it helped? Do you feel a bit better?'

‘Not yet.' She blew her nose again. ‘But perhaps I will.'

‘I hope so. Look, I'm staying at La Maison Blanche, but I don't want to intrude …'

‘You're not,' she said and she meant it. It was like a breath of fresh air to talk to someone who had known Nicky well, yet was not family, who cared, but not with the same overwhelming emotional involvement, and his vitality seemed to compensate a little for the terrible emptiness that Nicky's passing had left inside her.

‘Don't go,' she said. ‘Unless you really want to. At least, not yet.'

Miraculously he seemed to comprehend her need.

‘I'm not in any hurry,' he said.

He told her that he came from Yorkshire and like Nicky he had been wounded in the last ditch fighting before the fall of France. Since the war he had done all kinds of jobs because he seemed unable to settle to anything and now he was in London, servicing office machinery.

‘I don't know how long I'll stick it,' he said. ‘I'm an open-air man really but I still have problems with my back and at least it's a living. What about you? What do you do?'

‘I'm still at school but I shall be leaving soon and I hope to go to college and train to be a teacher.'

‘Clever, eh?'

She flushed. ‘ No, not really. But I like children and it's what I've always wanted to do.'

‘I wish I was clever. I was never much good at school. Always in trouble.'

She smiled. Being clever is really not so very important, she wanted to say, but she was afraid it might sound patronising. And then the conversation was back, inevitably, to Nicky.

‘I wish I'd come to see him when Sophia wrote to me,' Jeff said. ‘I feel dreadful about it but I was so tied up with my own problems. Maybe if I'd come to see him, I could have helped. After all, I've been there. I'd have understood. I'll never forgive myself for not making the effort.'

‘It's no use thinking like that,' Catherine said forgetting that she had hated him a moment ago for the self-same reason. ‘I've been blaming myself too, terribly, for something I said. But I expect the ones who are left behind always feel like that when someone dies. That if you'd done or said something different then perhaps they would still be alive. I doubt if it's true. No person is to blame.'

‘Maybe you're right.'

‘I'm sure I am, though I didn't realise it until just now. And I've been so angry. Angry with myself for what I said, angry with Paul and Viv, angry with God for letting it happen, even angry with Nicky.'

‘And now you're not angry any more.'

‘Not at the moment. At the moment I feel kind of released. Maybe I'll be angry again tomorrow.'

‘At the funeral.'

She nodded. ‘Jeff – thanks for being here. I don't know what I'd have done without you.'

‘That's OK.' He looked awkward suddenly. ‘I didn't do anything. Look, Catherine, if you come over to England to teacher training college, you will look me up, won't you? I'd like to see you again, only …'

He broke off. She knew exactly what he meant. They could be friends, very good friends, but this was not the time nor the place to pursue it.

‘I'd like that, Jeff,' she said. ‘And thanks again.'

He smiled briefly, nodded, and left her there. Catherine cried a little more but now the tears were softer and healing. Then she went home.