Freeing Grace (25 page)

I had to go and shanghai your wife back from Kenya. And, as you very well know, I wouldn’t have agreed to go if you’d told me the truth.’

He became absolutely still, the glass in his hand arrested in midair, watching me with eyes like glittering black slits. An owl hooted, out in the dark.

‘Truth?’

‘Yes,’ I said savagely. ‘
Truth
. What you tell when you’re not trying to mislead someone into travelling halfway around the world to do your dirty work.’

‘Out with it, then, Jake. What, precisely,
is
the truth?’

Perhaps it was sleep deprivation or the effects of the whisky, or maybe it was indignation at the way I’d been duped. I found myself leaning forward, meeting his eye. ‘The truth is that Deborah wasn’t on an assignment, and you knew it. She didn’t want to be found. The truth is that you didn’t look for her yourself because . . .’ I ground to a halt. Even Deborah hadn’t opened the box on this one.

Perry raised his eyebrows. ‘Because?’

‘Well . . . you
can’t.

’ He laughed without humour, showing his teeth like a yawning cat. His cheeks looked hollow tonight, and I reckoned he’d lost weight in the short time I’d been away. His shirt hung off him in artistic folds, as if he were an oil painting.

‘Let’s start with my anxiety,’ he said calmly. We might have been swapping recipes. ‘Since someone’s clearly been so good as to enlighten you.’

‘It wasn’t Deborah.’

‘It really doesn’t matter who it was.’ He played with the liquid in his glass. ‘What do you know about agoraphobia?’

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Absolutely nothing.’

‘You believe it means fear of open spaces, I imagine?’

I’d started this conversation, but I wanted to stop him. He’d regret it in the morning. Perry, sober, was good company, if a little off-centre. Charismatic. But with about a pint of Scotch inside him, his intensity was a bit spooky.

‘Forget it, mate.’ I could hear my words slurring, despite my best efforts. ‘Honestly. Forget it.’

‘Now, where to begin . . . I was married before, as you know.’

I nodded dumbly, and he went on. ‘Yes. I was married for ten wonderful years to Victoria. Her death came out of the blue—it was a matter of weeks from diagnosis to the end.’ He shook his head, squinting at me as though he still couldn’t believe what had happened. ‘She was so
angry
.’

‘I guess none of us know how we’d cope,’ I said. ‘I don’t think
my
upper lip would be very stiff.’

‘She didn’t seem . . .’ he began, and then stopped to knock back more whisky. ‘She didn’t seem to have space left in her soul for me. The last time she went to hospital, I carried her into the ward—like this, in my arms—and then I felt her turn away, as though I’d abandoned her because I wasn’t coming all the way to death with her.’

He blinked, staring right through me. ‘She wasn’t conscious, at the end. There wasn’t much to show she was alive at all. But at the instant of her death, the feeling I had of being abandoned was . . . One second she was still there, with me. The next, I was alone.’ He looked dazed. ‘She just wasn’t
there
any more. The finality of it was unbearable. I wanted to run after her, like a child running alongside a train. D’you know what I mean?’

I could see Sala’s head beside mine as I lay, snotty-nosed and sobbing, on the filthy ground under the dog kennels. Her kind brown eyes were already empty, turning opaque, and the farm dogs had gone deathly quiet. Dad said they were licking their lips because they could smell the blood and he was going to feed her to them, and if I didn’t stop fucking snivelling he’d give me something to cry about. He said the other barrel would be for me. We were never allowed to cry.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I think I do know.’

Then Dad stumped off to the house for tea and brownies, and I fetched a spade. It was hard to dig a hole in the stony ground. Her ears were still warm and soft when I lifted her in, and I wanted to stroke them for the last time, but I didn’t dare because I had to cover her up before he came back. I lifted a spadeful of earth and tipped it into the hole, and Sala began to disappear, and I knew I’d never touch her again.

Perry was swinging the drink around in his glass. ‘Once I’d buried Victoria, I relied on the bottle to keep me going.’

I glanced at the whisky bottle, almost empty now.

‘You’re right. I still do.’ Perry sighed. ‘God wasn’t in his heaven. All wasn’t right with the world. One time I had a real blinder. Got absolutely rat-arsed. Staggered home in the middle of the night, had to get up four hours later because we were going on exercise. Awful night. The dreams. The
dreams
.’ He ran a shaky hand down his cheek. ‘Victoria came banging on my window, rotting, raging. She’d come for me.’

I grimaced.

‘She did that a lot,’ he said. ‘Anyway, when I arrived at the barracks I started to sweat and shake and . . . well, it was more than just a hangover. Had to sit down before I fell down. The medic said it was some sort of viral thing, sent me home. No problem.’

He stood abruptly and went to the sink, filling his glass with water from the tap. ‘About a week later, same thing. It happened on the parade ground this time, witnessed by about a hundred men.’

‘Hell.’

‘I actually had a bizarre sensation, as though I was floating above myself. I thought I must be dying. Made a real spectacle of myself.’

‘What was it?’

He shrugged. ‘I felt . . . sounds stupid now . . . Victoria was doing it, calling to me to join her on the other side.’

‘Was Deborah around?’

‘Deborah was very young. Just the nanny, a friend’s daughter. I didn’t tell her. Anyway, the medics attached things to my chest and got me walking on a treadmill. They said I was fit as buggery. Suggested it was stress.’

He took a mouthful of water and made a face as though there’d been battery acid in the glass. ‘Stress! I don’t
do
stress. I don’t
do
fear. I’ve spent much of my career on active service. Fear isn’t something I have ever been afraid of, if you follow me.’

I followed him, but I wasn’t sure whether I believed him.

He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Anyway, the attacks stopped, and I almost forgot about it. I started spending more time at home, drank less, came to realise that Deborah was more than just a beautiful girl who loved my daughter.’

‘A beautiful and very
young
girl.’

‘Yes, young,’ he agreed, sitting down again. ‘But she wasn’t a child. She knew what she wanted from life. She . . . I felt secure with her. She made me feel safe, with her youth and her vitality. I very nearly found happiness again. Then—out of the blue—
wham
!’ He slammed his hand flat onto the wood, and I jumped. ‘It knocked me right down this time.’ He rested a hand across his chest as though he could still feel the agony. ‘Good God, the pain . . . I was suffocating, I couldn’t breathe. I believed my number was up, Jake. And I knew terror for the first time in my life. Pure terror
.
’

‘Sounds like a heart attack, doesn’t it?’

‘I still wonder whether it was my heart, whatever these bloody people say. Had to be stretchered off, rushed to hospital in an ambulance—the hospital where Victoria died. Deborah was there, beside herself. Tests, tests and more tests. Nothing!’

He stared at me, wildly. ‘It kept happening,’ he said hopelessly. ‘I longed for a diagnosis of some sort. Some explanation. I feared that I’d lost my mind. Eventually, the consultant told me he thought I was having panic attacks.
Panic
attacks!’ He grinned austerely, like a skull.

‘Doesn’t sound very British Army.’

‘Ah.’ He paused, the whisky bottle in his hand. ‘It’s interesting, your saying that. In fact there’s a fair old tradition of this kind of thing, if you go back to the old diagnoses of shell shock and battle fatigue and so on. You get some of it after every major engagement, even in modern warfare, although we don’t shoot the poor bastards as deserters any more.’

He sloshed more into our glasses. ‘So I’m not alone. I suppose my illness was triggered by personal trauma rather than military engagement, but the army didn’t like to acknowledge it and neither did I. So it was put down as an episode of general ill-health, and I was posted to Nairobi.’

I wondered what the gospel according to Perry would be when it came to Nairobi. At the same time, he must have been wondering just how much I knew.

He sat for a moment, gazing into his glass.

‘Nairobi.’ He nodded wearily. ‘All was well.’

My eyes just about popped out. All was
well
?

‘With Deborah by my side, I could face anything. At the end of my posting, I asked to go back to England. We had Lucy’s education to think of. I was sent to Colchester, and Deborah and I were married. Matthew was born. We were blissfully happy.’

I sat open-mouthed, awed by the scale of his whitewash job. Out in the hall the grandfather clock clunked, steadily.

‘It came back, the bloody thing, in the end.’ He spoke very quietly. ‘Hit me like a bullet in the chest. At the barracks, inevitably. I couldn’t go near the place any more. I knew then that my career was over.’

The clock whirred, and struck three. It sounded unnaturally loud.

‘The
terror
!’ he hissed. ‘I’d become an animal. A lynx, say, cowering in a trap, waiting for death as the hunter approaches with his club. My rational mind would tell me I had nothing to fear, but the message simply did not get through. My brain was paralysed by terror.’

I knew that feeling.

‘Most people,’ said Perry, fixing his gaze on me, ‘have never truly felt terror. Not in our molly-coddled society, anyway.’

‘I guess not.’

Oh, no.

Oh, no. I can hear the quad bike roaring up the paddock. He’s coming.

‘You’re at . . . oh, a drinks party, say.’ He held up a clenched fist. ‘Suddenly, dread. Panic. You’re frantic. Make a complete idiot of yourself. Believe me, that’s the last drinks party you’ll ever go to.’

‘I don’t think I get it . . .
Do
you have a heart condition?’

‘Not at all, according to the medics. Wish I did. No, it’s all up here.’ He tapped himself on the head. ‘I’m barking mad, apparently.’

‘I’m sure that’s not right,’ I said, a little insincerely.

He leaned towards me. ‘Yes, I’m afraid it
is
right. I avoided anywhere connected with the army, since those places were the trigger. Avoidance worked for a short time, but it soon started up again. In the street, in a shop, in a theatre. Even sitting in a car. So I had to avoid those situations too. Now there’s only one place it doesn’t happen. Right here, in this house. So . . .’ Sip, swallow. ‘So here I rot.’

‘Christ, you must be bored.’

‘I have work—quite lucrative, actually, until the recent downturn— that can be done in my study. That’s my cell. The garden is my exercise yard.’

‘Isn’t there any treatment?’

‘I’m rattling,’ he waved his glass dismissively, ‘
rattling
with antidepressants and the Lord only knows what else. I’ve had bloody cognitive therapy and behavioural therapy and every other type of therapy, all with silly names. God. These people
.
They pretend it’s so easy.’ He emptied the last of the bottle into our glasses. ‘No, Jake, for me there’s no escape.’

‘No escape? Ever?’

‘Only one thing persuades me that my life is valid.’ He knocked the glassful back in one, banged it down onto the table. ‘Deborah. With her, I’m safe. Without her, I’m bewildered. But she’s often away with her work, and I’m finding it increasingly . . .’ He winced. ‘I’m afraid even this house will become unsafe. And then . . .’

I waited.

He met my eyes. ‘And then, I shall be finished.’

It was impossible for me to imagine such an existence. I sat looking at him, trying to understand. But I couldn’t.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he said. ‘You’re thinking that if I had an ounce of backbone I’d get out there. Just square the old shoulders and stride out through that gate.’

I held out my hands. ‘I don’t think I could live like this, Perry, completely imprisoned in my own home. Surely you could force yourself ? A little at a time?’

He didn’t answer. He seemed to be made of ash. I knew I’d said the wrong thing, and I didn’t care. I remember thinking that the man needed to wake up to himself. I’d rather top myself than wander around my home like a ghost, only half alive, swilling whisky and popping antidepressants until I rotted away.

‘Now I understand why you sent me to bring her back,’ I said, after a while. ‘
You
needed her. For yourself. It was nothing to do with that baby.’

He shook his head. ‘How would Deborah have felt if I’d let her grandchild go?’

‘I don’t know, but—’

‘Horrified.’ He was rallying. ‘Grace is our flesh and our blood! Try to imagine how it feels to be a grandparent. She’s not just any baby, she’s a part of us, you see. She must grow up with her family
.
There’s no substitute for that.’

‘But,’ I argued, without thinking it through, ‘you must be ready for a bit of peace and quiet by now, with your own kids grown up?’

Big mistake. Perry’s chair scraped as he leaped to his feet. He was like Matt, pacing in his bedroom, agitated.

‘Peace and quiet? Do you honestly imagine that I crave peace and sodding
quiet
? Good God, man! I’ve lived all over the world. I’ve led men into action, under fire, in eight different regions, in deserts and cities and jungles. I’ve been first down deserted streets, waiting for the sniper fire. And now I cower in the corner like an old dodderer in a geriatric ward, watching on a twenty-four-inch screen as the world explodes around me.’

Subsiding, he threw himself back into the chair. ‘No, thank you. I’m
not
ready for a bit of peace and quiet.’

That shut me up.

The clock struck the quarter-hour. Perry jerked his head towards the door. ‘It’s all right. Go on, Jake. I know you’re longing to get off to bed.’

‘What about you?’

‘I’ll just stoke up the stove. Then I’ll get my head down too.’