Aphrodite's Hat (10 page)

‘OK, but they change.' Judy sounded complacent. ‘So if she's not taken money before and now she does, you'll know it's drugs.'

Laura, feeling like a traitor, left her purse with a twenty-pound note in it on the sideboard, on an occasion she knew Nell would be alone in the house. She spent the evening at dinner with friends, almost sweating with anxiety, and became ebullient when she found on her return that the purse had been left untouched.

‘Hey, what's got into you?' Simon asked that night. ‘Wild woman.'

But the short period of elation passed. It became impossible to ignore the fact that Nell, when not angry and snarling, or, somehow worse, dissociated and vague, was rendering herself comatose. It was some comfort, Laura supposed, that, at any rate, Nell showed no disposition to rob anyone in the household for her habit. A remnant of her former being, stiff and honest, still hung painfully about her and Laura sometimes thought she glimpsed a wistfulness in her daughter's eyes. But when she tried to hug her, Nell's body still seized up.

And there was no one to talk to about it. Unable to commune with Simon, Laura held back from confiding elsewhere. It was as if, were she to speak her terror, her whole life might spin out of control. She took to praying, furtively at odd moments, and to lighting candles. She threw silver coins into wishing wells, gave money to gypsies selling ‘white heather' and sent sums of money, larger than she could afford, to charitable organisations – as if by virtue of the anonymity of the gift her daughter might be granted grace.

But Nell just grew less and less like the child Laura remembered. Maybe I was wrong about her? she thought. Maybe all along she was like this? But she knew she wasn't wrong. Over the years she had become shaky – her confidence in her own judgement diminished. But she clung fast to the conviction that she knew her own child.

Laura was up in Nell's room, which had become something of a fetish for her, one chilly summer evening. Simon was giving one of his ‘late' seminars and Luke had gone over to a friend to spend the night. Laura, unable to resist the allure of the chaos of her daughter's room, was on her knees piling together some scattered papers when her gaze became transfixed by some words on the page before her.

Dear Daddy
, she read.
Please, please trust me. I am fine. Mum, of course, as you say, is mad. She's quite barking and I have to ignore anything she tells me or I will go mad too.

There was more but Laura did not want to read it. She walked out of her daughter's room and down the stairs and into the garden.

It was a large garden, for London, and Laura had taken pride in the way she had planted it. A tree, a shrub, a scented plant, a herb for every birthday, every anniversary – every important family occasion. She went and lay face down now under the white lilac tree she had planted for the third anniversary of her meeting with Simon.

‘Nellie, Nellie.' She found she was crying and scratching the ground. Earth was in her mouth and the damp grass was soaking her clothes. ‘Nellie, Nellie, Nellie – my little Nellephant – What have I done to you? Oh, Nellie!' For it was she, she – she couldn't any longer avoid the frightful knowledge – she who had done this to her own child.

She had left Terence so that Luke might have a chance – and in doing so had destroyed her daughter. No. That was a lie. She had left Terence for her own selfish interests – because, frankly, she could no longer bear – had loathed, in fact, his way of pulling down all that seemed good to her. But she had had children by Terence. By the inescapable law of nature she was not entitled to leave. And for what had she left, after all? Rolling over on to her back she thought about Simon.

She had known all there was to know about her and Simon from the beginning: the poem she had sent had told her. Simon had no clue what ‘The Buried Life' might mean. And she had gone on, knowing he had no clue, forcing her child into a picture of a life which suited herself for the time being. And in return for this her child had turned on her – and who could blame her? ‘Oh, Nellie, Nellie,' she cried, and from the cold grass and white London skies no answer came to give her comfort.

Some vestige of strength, some particle of the years of early care, must have remained in Nell, for she got herself into university. Simon was delighted; he even offered to help her transport her things. Laura could not banish the notion that his enthusiasm was fuelled by his desire to see Nell out of their house. ‘D'you think she's ready for it?' Laura asked him, as they prepared for bed the night before Nell's departure.

‘Sure. She'll have a whale of a time. Do her good. Get her away from her mama's beady eye. You'll see – it'll be cool!'

But Laura, who tried not to object to the over-youthful turns of speech that Simon increasingly tended to use, remained uneasy. Nell had displayed uncharacteristic signs of nerves about her impending experience.

‘C'm on! That's normal,' Simon had said. ‘Give the girl a break!' And the following morning, when Nell was looking green over her breakfast coffee: ‘What about a nip of whisky for the university girl? Get you into the student mood.'

With Nell gone, the household, it was true, grew calmer. The effort which had gone into Luke's care had brought compensations. He was popular, and there were few weekends Laura and Simon did not now have to themselves. Laura felt guilty to find that life without Nell was pleasanter. And of course, much of the relief came from the effect her daughter's departure had on Simon.

‘It's great to be alone together again,' he said one night in the bath. And as she climbed out of her clothes to join him, ‘This is like old times.'

So when Simon asked Laura to marry him she was not much surprised, only at the form she found her answer taking.

‘I always said we should marry,' said Simon. ‘D'you remember? Thirteen years and I've never wanted another woman.'

Perhaps by an association of ideas (she was thinking of his ‘late' seminars) Laura found herself asking, ‘Whatever happened to Trish?' The flat-mate with the baleful eye had caused some trouble when asked to make way for Laura's children. But the departed Trish had continued to send Simon a Christmas card each year, until one year they had stopped.

Simon flushed suddenly and looked angry. ‘Why d'you want to know about her all of a sudden?'

‘Just wondered,' said Laura lightly. She was amused, and for some reason rather relieved, that her intuitions about Simon were accurate.

Although it is surely barmy to be feeling this over a man you are about to marry, she said to herself later as, Simon downstairs watching TV, she settled down in bed to read.

Laura and Simon were to spend their honeymoon in Greece. It was a country they had visited often, a place where they had had happy times. Simon was at his best talking about the anthropology of ancient cultures and Laura liked the bareness of the landscape and the ancient sites.

It was at Epidaurus, staying in a modest little hotel, that the call came. A knocking at the bedroom door and Laura, summoned from sleep, found the proprietor outside.

‘Forgive,' he said, twisting his hands. ‘I do not wish to wake you but there is a telephone.' He gestured down the dimly lighted stairs.

‘For me, or my husband?' asked Laura, also making explanatory gestures.

‘For lady called Ken – er, please?'

Kennedy was Terence's name. ‘What is it, darling?' Simon called from the bed.

‘It's OK – it's for me, I think – he wants me to go to the phone downstairs.'

‘Oh, Christ! Get him to put it through.'

‘Please?' said the fat proprietor, gesturing again.

‘No, look, it's easier if I go with him.'

She knew already who it would be.

‘Mum?'

‘Nell? Whatever time of night is it?'

‘Sorry. Did I get you up?'

‘Nell, what time is it? Where are you calling from?'

‘Dunno the time – ‘bout one o'clockish?'

‘What's happened? Are you OK?' But of course she wasn't. Nell of all people would not phone unless she was in trouble. Big trouble.

‘Look, don't get excited, but it's the police.'

‘What?'

‘I'm in a police station.'

‘Oh, Nell!' Nellie, my little girl, my Nellie. ‘Darling, what's happened?'

‘They let me call you.'

And Nell had had the number. Laura put away for later contemplation the knowledge that her daughter had kept about her the means of finding her mother. ‘Darling, shall I call you back?'

‘No,' said Nell. ‘You might not get through. I'm scared I mightn't get you again.'

It was getting light when she returned to the bedroom. Simon was snoring and she had to shake him.

‘What's up?'

‘Terence, I have to go home.'

Simon sat up in bed rubbing his forehead. ‘You called me Terence!'

‘Sorry. I'm a bit frantic.'

‘Jesus Christ, Laura, you called me Terence!'

‘I'm sorry. It's Nell.' The blue Greek bedspread was an ocean between them in the hardening light. I hate you, she thought. I actually hate you, God forgive me!

‘Of course it's Nell.' As if reading her thoughts his voice had taken on a hateful sneer. ‘Ickle Nellsiewellsie calling her mumsy-wumsy home.'

Laura stared at him. His face looked peevish and infantile. Men are like wine: the best mature, the rest turn to vinegar. Who was it said that?

‘Nevertheless, I'm afraid I have to go.' There was something in the ‘Nevertheless' which gave her courage. ‘She's been detained by the police on drugs charges. Her father is out of the country and there's no one to help her. I'm afraid I must go back.'

‘You're out of the country too! In fact, you're out of your fucking mind.' There was nothing to say to a man who needed such a thing explained to him. Her daughter, in trouble, had called on her; it was as simple as that. She stood there, looking at him, noting the receding hairline with a kind of satisfaction. ‘Well, you'll have to go without me, I'm afraid.'

Poor Simon. His veiled threat was pathetic. She didn't really hate him. ‘I know that.'

Downstairs, the proprietor's wife gave her bitter coffee and a dry-as-dust roll. The woman placed a bowl of honey carefully on the table, as if to communicate her awareness of a trouble fallen on her guest. ‘Excuse me – a car – could you tell me how to hire a car?' The car they had hired was in Simon's name.

The woman looked concerned. ‘Here was cars but now …' She shrugged, indicating some incommunicable local calamity. ‘No cars.'

‘But the nearest one? I need to get to Athens urgently.' She nearly said, It's my daughter. The woman gave every sign that she would understand.

The proprietor's wife said something in Greek and then went and fetched her husband with the black and mournful moustache.

‘There is no car here for hire, but if it is an emergency I give you the number of Mr Acton. He is an English gentleman, very nice. He live up there.' He pointed to a stone house set back a little way up the hillside.

An Englishman. Well he would understand her need at least. He might help her get to Athens.

‘Would he mind if I called?'

The proprietor nodded as if he was in the habit of setting his more problematic guests off on Mr Acton.

Hurrying along the road, Laura wondered what she was going to say. The door of the house had the appearance of being locked and she had to steel herself to bang loudly. But there was Nell waiting for her, in a cell in Camden Town.

‘Forgive me. You don't know me from Adam. I'm Laura Kennedy.'

He was a big man with a shabby-looking face and bedroom slippers. ‘You need help?'

She nearly kissed his hand. ‘I need to get to Athens urgently.'

‘And there is no car. So, is it a particular flight you need?'

‘Any flight to London – but as soon as possible.'

The man indicated she should come inside and she entered, behind him, into a stone-flagged room. He picked up a phone and spoke into it in Greek.

Finishing the conversation, he said, ‘There are no cars to hire here at present but mine will be available in thirty minutes. It will take six to eight hours to reach Athens, which means you may catch today's three o'clock flight to Heathrow. I cannot promise, but I will do my best.'

‘Is it the only flight? I'm sorry, that sounds churlish …'

She was shaking and perhaps observing this he said, ‘Won't you sit down? I'm afraid it's the last, until the following morning, that is. Please, sit. Unless you have baggage to fetch …?'

That would mean seeing Simon again. She had her bag, her passport. ‘I have all I need.'

‘That's good,' said the man calmly. He had the slight old-fashioned tinge to his English which comes from living many years abroad. ‘May I offer you coffee? Some ouzo?'

‘Coffee would be marvellous.'

He moved about the kitchen filling a kettle. His movements, Laura noticed, were slow. ‘Excuse my discourtesy – I have failed to introduce myself. I am Matthew Acton – Matt to my friends. I have lived here thirty years.'

‘The travel writer?' She had heard of him.

‘Indeed. Although nowadays I don't travel so much. These days I spin yarns.'

‘About the travel?'

‘About whatever comes to mind. I sell old memories – or rather my agent sells them for me. It keeps body and soul together and life here is, or has been, anyway, still fairly cheap.'