Sheer Abandon (40 page)

“I can’t, Gideon, if being careful means not telling you what seems to me so obvious. What might help. My father was empire-building, making money, moving round the world. There wasn’t any room for me. Little girls don’t belong on business trips. God, how many times was I told that!”

“I’m sorry you had such an unhappy childhood, Jocasta. You must write about it someday.”

“Oh shut up!” she said and, horrified, found herself on the edge of tears. “Look, don’t you see, you have a daughter who doesn’t know you. Who probably thinks you don’t care about her. Who has no happy memories of you, except maybe the occasional week here and there, who feels your business is much more important to you than she is. Can’t you see how much that hurts? Can’t you see it makes her want to do anything—anything at all—to make you take notice of her?”

“Oh please,” he said, “spare me the pop psychology.”

“The thing about pop psychology is that it has quite a lot of truth in it. And common sense.”

“Well,” he said, “at least I acknowledge my daughter. Your father seems to deny your very existence. You’ll be telling me next he abused you. That seems to be a prerequisite for most successful young people of today. Perhaps you could work that into this piece, Jocasta. Make it even more moving and dramatic.”

“You bastard!” she said and then the tears did come, strong, choking tears, and the memories with them, crashing in on her, horrible, miserable memories. She turned and ran out of the room, found the playroom, rushed in, slammed the door, sat on the sofa, her arms folded across her stomach, bending over them as if in physical pain, sobbing helplessly.

She heard the door open, turned, and saw him standing there, just staring at her, with an expression on his face that was somehow close to fear.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said that. Please forgive me.”

She said nothing, continued to sob; he sat down beside her, put his arm round her shoulders, tentatively. She shook it off.

“Did he? Is that what he did?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Of course not. Well, not sexually. I never quite know what abuse is,” she added with a watery smile. “I mean, does it have to be sexual? Or even physical? It’s such a hazy area. Ironic, isn’t it, and me a tabloid journalist.”

“It is indeed. I would personally define it as something permanently damaging. Which I am clearly guilty of. In your court at any rate.”

“I don’t think you are,” she said slowly. “My father was cruel, terribly cruel, and I know you’re not. I’m not comparing the two of you, just our situations, Fionnuala’s and mine.”

“I think I deserve a few lashes. I have clearly made what is known here as a complete dog’s dick of fatherhood.”

In spite of herself, she giggled.

“That’s better. Do you want to talk about your father? It might help. It might even help me. You never know.”

“You don’t want to hear about my relationship with my father.”

“I have nothing else to do at the moment. And it might be relevant. As you say.”

“He just—bullied me,” she said, “right from the beginning. Not physically, he never hit me once, but he mocked me, put me down, diminished me. He humiliated me in front of people, said, ‘Oh, it’s kinder to ignore her, she’s only got half a brain’ when they tried to talk to me, and then laughed and said it was only a joke. And there was endless comparison with Josh, even when I rode better, did everything better. ‘Why can’t you be more like your brother?’ he’d say. God, that’ll be engraved on my heart. And he made a big thing of planning treats and then cancelling them at the very last minute, and holidays, and ignoring my birthday, things like that. I tried and tried to please him but it never worked. I can never remember him saying anything kind to me, or even smiling at me. Then, when I was about seven, I changed, started standing up to him, arguing with him, and that made it worse, made him terribly angry. Josh never did that, he just went along with it all.”

“And you’ve no idea why he disliked you?”

“Some drunken old uncle of ours told Josh our mother had trapped him into marrying her, got pregnant on purpose. He certainly hated her. Which is probably why he hated me, if the story’s true. I’ve often thought he’d planned to have the son and then leave her, and I was a daughter and he was stuck with her, waiting for the boy. The minute Josh was born, almost, he left her.”

“He could have got the son from someone else, surely?”

“Yes, I know but—Oh, he’s just a bit mad, I think.” She sighed and then, wiping her nose with the back of her hand, said, “Do you have a hanky?”

“Of course,” he said, and rummaged in the pocket of his bathrobe. “Here, and in fact, here is another.”

“Thank you.” She took one, blew her nose on it, then looked at him and managed a weak smile.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I never in a million years meant you were like my father.”

“Well, that is a relief,” he said, “considering how much you dislike him. Would you like a good strong cup of tea? With a lot of sugar. My mother’s remedy for everything.”

“No, thank you.” She was silent, then: “I was just thinking earlier, how you once said I reminded you of your mother. And that you would never say that now.”

“On the contrary. She, too, was very brave. Like a little lion. She is the only other person who has dared to tell me those things.”

“What things?”

“About how I treated Fionnuala. She said I neglected her, tried to win her over with material things. Of course I ignored her. As one does with one’s mother. But yes, I did say you were like her. I remember saying it. And I meant it. It was true.”

“Oh,” she said, and wondered how much of the conversation he actually remembered, the qualities he had attributed to her.

“Well,” she said, with a sigh, “I still have behaved horribly. I should never have come. And I certainly shouldn’t have said all those things to you. It was nothing to do with me.”

“I daresay it was good for me,” he said. “One of the things about being an important person”—he smiled at her, to show that this much, at least, was intended as a joke—“is that very few people are brave enough to tell you the facts of life. The real ones, that is. And you live in a rather comfortable little bubble, thinking how clever you are and how right about everything. So you’ve possibly done me a great service, Miss Jocasta Forbes. And Fionnuala, too. Now I must go, if you will forgive me. Aisling is going down to collect her and bring her back here. So that we can speak, with a capital S, to her together, find out what’s actually happened. And then, I suppose, Aisling will take her back to that horrible island she lives on. The half term is nearly over, and she’s leaving that school anyway, in a few weeks.”

“Does Fionnuala think Barbados horrible?”

“I really don’t know. I think she has quite a nice time there. She’s learning to play polo—Aisling is friendly with the Kidds.”

“I see. Well, you’d better go. You can’t arrive at a police station dressed like that.”

“Oh I’m not going,” he said. “She has made it very plain she doesn’t want me there. She hates me; she told me that last night and would no doubt have done again this morning, had you not intercepted her. She’ll probably spit in my face if I turn up.”

“Gideon!” said Jocasta. “You haven’t taken in a word of what we’ve said, your mother and I. Go, for God’s sake. If she spits in your face, at least while she’s doing it she’ll know you could be bothered to come.”

He was silent for a while, staring out at the mist. Then: “I don’t know if I should,” he said.

“Oh get a grip,” said Jocasta, and she was smiling at him now. “Go on. Go and get your clothes on.”

He came back in ten minutes; he was wearing one of his perfectly cut tweed suits, under a long Barbour. He looked very stylish: a caricature of a country gentleman. “I’ve shaved as well,” he said, “the better to receive the spittle.”

“Good. I promise you it’ll be worth it. Is she really coming back here?”

“Oh yes.”

“Good. Then I might meet her.”

“Jocasta, you must go. I can’t detain you any longer. People will be worried about you. And you have a story to write. I’ll tell Mrs. Mitchell to take you, when she goes down to the village. I’m sure your car will still be there.” He bent down, kissed her briefly on the top of her head. “Go a little easy on me,” he said. “If you can.”

It was late afternoon when they came back. Jocasta was watching from her bedroom window. The clouds were finally breaking up and a washed-out sun was gleaming through them. The landscape eased into colour, the black-and-grey of the trees and mist turning slowly green again. The drenched grass gave way a little as the helicopter landed; Gideon got out, then Aisling, and then he turned and reached up his hand to the top of the steps. A girl got out: slight, dark-haired, dressed in jeans and a leather jacket. That was all Jocasta could see: except the way she shook her father’s hand off and then stalked ahead of him towards the house, after her mother. She was hunched into her clothes, hands in her pockets.

Two hours passed; there was the sound of shouting, first from the ground floor, then outside on the terrace; mostly indistinguishable words, occasionally the predictable phrases, slung out like stones: “What do you expect?” “After all we’ve done.” “How could you be so stupid?” “You’ve ruined my life!” “I hate you both.”

Then slamming doors, pounding footsteps, up the stairs and along the corridor. And then more slamming doors. Gideon walked out, across the drenched grass, his head bent, down out of sight towards the lake. A solitary, wretched figure. Jocasta observed it all, phrases drifting into her head; it was a perfect story, with every possible element in it: not merely love, lust, and lawlessness, but riches, power, beauty, and wilful youth. Even, should she care to mention it, her own incarceration.

And then she saw them, walking back across the lawn, Aisling and Fionnuala with Gideon following behind them; the helicopter blades began to spin, and the mother and daughter ran under the wind, climbed into it. Slowly it lifted, tilting dangerously, then began to climb. All that could be seen was a small white circle in the window, Fionnuala’s face looking down. Gideon waved—please, please, Jocasta thought, wave back, please—but the circle did not move and there was no sign of any response. He turned and walked back towards the house, looking as if he was the last person in the world.

Jocasta turned also, and for the first time since early that morning, left her room.

He was in the study, as she had known he would be, staring at his laptop screen, his huge hands moving with odd deftness over the keyboard. She tapped on the door.

“Not now, Mrs. Mitchell,” he said.

“It’s not Mrs. Mitchell. It’s me.”

He swung round; his face ashen with strain, his eyes red-rimmed.

“Why haven’t you gone?” he asked, and his voice was expressionless.

“Mrs. Mitchell didn’t want to take me.”

“Well, she should have done. I’ll call her now.”

“Do you have to? Can’t I stay a bit longer?”

“I’d rather you didn’t. I’m sorry, Jocasta, but I’m terribly tired and—”

“How did it go?”

“What?”

“I said how did it go?”

“Not well,” he said, “not well at all…But I really don’t want to discuss it. You must have quite enough for your piece. Especially if you’ve been here all day.” He looked at her and said, “Are you sure Mrs. Mitchell refused to take you? That you haven’t just stayed here, gathering material all this time? Because—”

“Gathering material for what, Gideon?” she said, and carefully made her voice childlike and innocent.

“Your story,” he said, “that’s what. Your bloody, undoubtedly brilliant, story. Are you happy with it now, Jocasta? I expect you are.”

“Very happy,” she said, “and it is undoubtedly brilliant.”

“Perhaps it will even win you an award. I hope you’re not going to ask if you can file it from here. There are limits, you know, even to my good nature.”

“Of course,” she said, “I realise that. And there are limits even to my ruthlessness. Actually.”

“Well, good for you,” he said, and half rose. “I’ll go and find Mrs. Mitchell.”

“Yes, thank you. But, well, you see, Gideon—”

“Yes?”

“It isn’t ready to be filed. It hasn’t been written. Except in my head.”

“Well, you’d better get on with it,” he said, “or it’ll be late. And all those exclusives will be wasted.”

“I’m not going to write it. I’m not going to file it. There is no story as far as I’m concerned. OK?”

“What?” he said, staring at her, sitting down heavily. “What did you say?”

“I didn’t realise you were that decrepit,” she said, smiling at him, moving slowly across the room towards him. “I didn’t realise your hearing was faulty. I said”—and she was quite near him now—“I said, can you hear me all right now, Gideon, there is no story. Not from me, anyway.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Then your brain must be failing as well. And your animal instincts, come to that. I can’t do that to you, Gideon, I just can’t. I care about you too much. It’s perfectly simple. Now you’d better get that”—she gestured towards his ringing phone—“it might be important. I’ll leave you in peace. I’ll be in the playroom, if you want me.”

A few minutes later he came in; he sat down beside her, and studied her as if he had never seen her before. Then he reached out his hand and pushed back her hair, leant forward and kissed her, very gently on the cheek.

“Thank you,” he said.

“That’s all right. Honestly.”

“It’s more than all right, Jocasta. Much more than all right. I can imagine what that cost you.”

“Not as much as you might think.”

“Oh really? I’m surprised.”

“Then you don’t know me very well, do you?” she said. “Not yet, anyway. Who was that on the phone?”

“It was—it was Fionnuala.”

“Oh really? And what did she say?”

“She said—Do you really want to know?”

“Of course I do.”

“Well, it wasn’t much. She just said”—and he had clearly been playing and replaying it over and over in his head and there was a slight shake in his voice—“she just said, ‘Hi Dad. Thanks for coming today.’”