The Redeemed (14 page)

Jenny lay curled up in bed in one of Steve's T-shirts with
Alfie lying on the floor next to her while Steve drove back to her house to
fetch her handbag, some clothes and sleeping pills. It was no longer anxiety
she felt, but the leadenness that closely follows the shock of bereavement; and
the dread of having to face a dark and buried past she had almost convinced
herself was a fiction. Exhaustion dragged her from consciousness and she sank
into a dreamless sleep.

She woke, disorientated, to the touch of Steve's hand on her
shoulder. Blinking against the sharp sunlight beating through the undraped
skylight, she tried to remember where she was.

'It's all right. It's still early. You can go back to sleep,'
Steve said.

The previous night's events came back at her in a rush. She
groaned and pulled the sheet over her head.

'Hey. You're OK. I got your bag. And there was nothing on the
path. I walked up and down it ten times with a torch. Not a mark. You imagined
it.'

'I didn't imagine a birth certificate.'

'No. I paid to download a copy, and one of the death
certificate too.'

Jenny threw back the sheet and swung out of bed. 'Show me.'

He retrieved a piece of paper from the floor. It was a
printout of a scanned copy of a death certificate issued by the North Somerset
District Registry. Beneath the section containing her uncle and aunt's names,
the informant was cited as C. R. Benedict, North Somerset District Coroner. In
the box titled 'cause of death' was the single typewritten word, 'accident'.

'Her death was accidental,' Steve said. 'You can forget what
your father said.'

'That could mean anything. I just returned an open verdict in
a case where the man clearly killed himself.'

Steve said, 'We know the coroner dealt with it. There must be
files there somewhere.'

'I can hardly ask for them, can I?'

'I could.'

'No. Someone will find out.'

'There must have been something in the local papers. I'll
look them up. There's no danger in that.'

Jenny snatched her handbag from the sofa and tipped it upside
down. 'Where are my pills? What have you done with them?'

'In the car. I'll fetch them in a minute, but first we're
going to make a deal.'

'What are you, my mother?'

'Jenny, stop it.'

She turned, ready to bite his head off. Steve got in first.

'You came to me when you were in trouble. You know how I feel
about you, now how about some trust?'

'Does your father have lucid moments?'

'Rarely.'

'And the rest of the time?'

'He's like a child. He has tantrums, strange outbursts,
throws things at the TV.'

'And are there periods when he is wholly unresponsive?'

'Yes. The nurses say he'll stare at the same spot on the wall
all afternoon.'

Dr Allen nodded calmly, noting this down. If he resented
giving up his Saturday afternoon he was hiding it well. He seemed more at home
here in his consulting room in the Whitchurch Hospital in Cardiff than in the
borrowed room in Chepstow. His other-worldliness fitted perfectly with the
grand Edwardian building surrounded by parkland. Jenny found it intimidating.
Making her way along vast corridors, passing semi-catatonic women drifting
aimlessly in their nightdresses, she was struck with the fear that she could
become one of them. She had wanted to turn and run, but Steve had gripped her
arm and steered her to their destination, insisting she do it for Ross if not
for herself.

'A patient with Alzheimer's as advanced as your father's is
not a reliable witness of anything, Jenny,' Dr Allen said. 'The brain is
disintegrating. The connections it makes are broken and nonsensical. I
appreciate it's difficult, but you must treat his accusation as nonsense.'

'But now I know she existed. We were virtually the same age.
No one ever mentioned her.'

'It's not unusual for families to draw a veil of silence over
a tragic event.'

'They weren't silent about much else.'

The young psychiatrist put his notebook aside and looked up
with a bright, optimistic expression. 'The good news is that we've been
pursuing exactly the right course. There is an event in your past which I'm sure
we can now expose, and that opens the way to recovery.'

'I can sense a "but" on the way.'

'It's like any medical treatment. There's always a likelihood
of short-term pain.'

'How much?'

'I couldn't predict, exactly.'

'I can't stop work, not now.'

'A week or two, surely—'

'And what would it say on my sick note? How many times do I
have to tell you? When I'm working, I'm fine.'

'It's up to you, of course, but if you're hallucinating, even
mildly-'

'It was a trick of the light.'

Dr Allen sat back in his chair and frowned. 'Let me put it
this way. When a patient starts to see things, it tells me that we may have
crossed the threshold from anxiety neurosis into something a little more
serious.'

'It was one minor incident. It was late. I was exhausted.'

'There are other signs: delusional beliefs, difficulties in
social interaction — '

Jenny gave a dismissive shrug. 'I don't have any of those.'

He gave her a searching look. 'You told me you genuinely
believed the man and child your partner saw outside your house were ghosts.'

'I was frightened they
might
be. There's a
difference. They were probably just a father and daughter out for a walk.
Perhaps he's related to the old woman who used to live in my house; people are
always doing that, going back to look at a place—'

Dr Allen held up his hand. 'Calm down. Of course there will
be a logical explanation, but think objectively for a moment. You're dealing
with a number of cases all at once; how would the parties feel about your
involvement if they knew of your state of mind?'

Jenny thought of Paul Craven and Father Starr, and of the
worshippers spread-eagled in ecstasy on the floor of the Mission Church of God.
Compared with them, she was relatively sane. 'I think they'd take their
chances.'

'If you insist. But you do understand that I am obliged to
record my advice on your notes.'

In his quiet way he was telling her that this was a point of
no return. If she came unstuck, if for any reason the Ministry of Justice ever
requested a report on her mental health, the record would state that she had
willingly ignored doctor's orders. Her dismissal would be a formality:
inability in the discharge of duty.

Jenny said, 'Of course. Are we going to do the regression
now?'

As Dr Allen talked her down she sank with little resistance
into a state of near-unconscious torpor, neither sleeping nor waking. His voice
grew steadily more distant as Jenny descended deeper into the caverns of her
subconscious. She found herself in a warm, dark space and followed a pinprick
of light that slowly widened into a street scene. Neat rows of pre-war
semi-detached houses in a seaside town.

'Tell me where you are, Jenny.' Dr Allen's voice came to her
as if from the far distance.

'In the street where we lived when I was a child, in Weston.
I can see the houses, the sun shining on them. One of them is painted white
with a green roof. I can smell a bonfire, leaves burning.'

'Good. And how are you feeling?'

Jenny tried to isolate the sensation she was experiencing.
'Odd.'

'In what way?'

'I'm not sure.'

'Do you know how old are you?'

'Small. I'm wearing the buckled shoes, the blue ones that Nan
bought me.'

'What's happening?'

Jenny drifted for a moment. 'They sent me out. There are men
in the house . . . their car's parked outside.'

'Who are these men?'

'I don't know.'

'Did you see them?'

Jenny flinched, balling up her fingers into fists.

'What? What is it?'

'The shouting again. It's my mother. I can't bear it.'

'Stay with it, Jenny, stay there. What's she shouting?'

Her chin lolled from one side of her chest to the other, her
face creasing with pain.

'Tell me, Jenny. Tell me what's she saying.'

'"Don't take him! Don't take him!" There are people
coming out of their doors. The woman from next door, she's pulling me to her,
not letting me see.'

'See what?'

'It's my fault. It is. It's my fault.'

'What's your fault, Jenny?'

'What they're doing to Dad, what's happening to him. The
policemen are taking him away.'

Steve turned off the main road and threaded through single-
track lanes. Overgrown hedgerows brushed the sides of the car. The dipping sun
danced off the wings of a million insects. Jenny closed her eyes and felt the
warm evening air playing over her face, neither of them saying a word. He
pulled up at the entrance to a forestry track and led her along a winding path
through thickets of birch and hazel, emerging into a meadow that wrapped around
an oxbow bend in the River Usk. They waded through the long grass and sat at
the edge of the water, where fat turquoise dragonflies, more brilliant than
peacocks, came to sip in the shallows.

In no hurry, he waited for her to speak first, happy to smoke
a cigarette and gaze at the two swans on the opposite bank elegantly preening
themselves after a lazy afternoon swim.

When the heaviness of the hospital began to lift, Jenny found
her voice and told him what had happened in Dr Allen's consulting room. She had
regressed before, retrieved many snatches of buried memory, but nothing had
been as vivid as today. There was sharp detail: the gaudy orange flowers on the
neighbour's dress, the click of the detectives' shoes on the pavement, the raw
fear in her mother's voice.

Steve said, 'And that was it, just that scene?'

'It's like that. It's as if I can only bear to take so much
at once.' Jenny wiped her eyes, the tears stinging her cheeks. 'Maybe I'm
making it up, putting together pieces that don't belong together.'

'What did the doctor say?'

'He seemed pleased. I'm seeing him again next week.'

Steve tossed aside the blade of grass he'd been picking at
and tenderly touched her face. 'This is good, Jenny. You've started to open the
door. You're going to get free of all this.'

She looked at him dubiously. 'I don't know why you're still
here. Your last crazy girlfriend cost you ten years.'

He let his hand drop down to hold hers and kissed both her
eyelids in turn. 'You know why.'

'You're betting a lot on me. I hope you know what you're
doing.'

'What do you mean?'

'You don't believe I did it, do you?'

'You were just a witness to something upsetting, that's all.
A very long time ago.' He drew her closer. 'Don't let it poison your whole
life, Jenny. Try thinking about where you are now.'

He kissed her lightly, and with no demand, in a way that took
her back to more innocent times. She wished she could stay there for ever.