House of Silence (35 page)

Viv broke off, covered her face with her
hands and burst into tears.

‘
We could say Hattie smothered him,’ said
Frances. ‘Threw him out the window in one of her awful
tempers.’

‘
It wouldn’t work. Rae would never
swallow it.’

‘
She might. After all, she swallowed the
idea that the baby exists!’

Deborah broke a long silence. ‘Who’ll tell
Ma?’

‘
I will.’

Vivien and Deborah stared at Frances. ‘What
will you say?’

‘
I’ll tell her I saw Hattie do it. I’ll
tell Ma I know what happened... I know how the baby died.’

‘
Poor thing.’

‘
The baby?’

‘
No, Hattie.’

‘
Oh, Deb, don’t be ridiculous! Hattie
need never know I’ve told Ma! None of us will ever mention
it.’

‘
But Rae will never forgive her,’ Deborah
persisted.

‘
Rae’s never forgiven her for being born.
I can’t really see this makes much difference,’ said
Frances.

‘
Poor Hattie...’

‘
Oh, do shut up, Deb! Ma’s sanity is at
stake here! She must face up to the truth. She has to accept that
the baby is dead! For all our sakes.’

‘
I know you’re right. It just seems so
harsh... I mean, you’re actually going to tell her Hattie killed
her brother?’

‘
Yes. But she didn’t know what she was
doing. It was just a game, a child’s game that got out of hand.
Hattie wasn’t really to blame. A six year-old can’t be held
responsible for murder.’

‘
Not in the eyes of the law perhaps,’
Vivien said. ‘But Ma might not see it like that.’

‘
Yes she will,’ Frances said firmly.
‘Once she’s got over the shock. Ma will see reason in the end. But
she has to be told. We can’t put up with this charade any longer.
It’s driving us all crazy.’

‘
Poor Hattie,’ said Deborah and started
to weep.

‘
No, we can’t do that,’ said Viv putting
an arm round Deborah’s shoulders. ‘It would be wicked! Worse than
that, it would be criminal. I’m going to talk to Freddie. I’ll
choose my moment... He’s got to make Ma see reason. And if he
won’t, then I will. I’ll tell her the baby’s dead. That he never
lived. And that this... this wretched fantasy is over.’

‘
Viv’s right,’ said Deborah, wiping her
eyes. ‘Someone has to confront her with the truth. I mean...’ She
laughed nervously. ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’

‘
She’ll go barking mad!’ said
Frances.

‘
She’s already mad!’ Viv exclaimed.
‘Maybe if we remind her what actually happened Ma will go
sane!’

Gwen

When Viv had composed herself I got to my feet and,
for something to do, drew the kitchen curtains. The sky was light
and clear now. Snow still lay on the ground, but it looked as if it
might be a fine day. Somehow, that made me feel even more
depressed. I turned away from the window to find Marek watching me.
He regarded me, unblinking, with an intensity I’d come to realise
was characteristic of him and which reminded me - briefly, but long
enough to bring a flush to my face - of our lovemaking the night
before. I felt a sudden surge of happiness then, of
rightness
. I thought how very glad I was Marek had been
here, in this kitchen with me, witnessing the family’s story. His
support, though mostly silent, had meant a lot to me. To Viv and
Hattie too, I suspected.

I made Viv some fresh tea and persuaded her
to eat a piece of toast. She chewed dutifully and said, ‘I presume
Tom told you the rest?’

‘Hattie told us her version of it. And then
Tom arrived... and he told us how he came to be involved.’

‘That was a disaster,’ said Viv, shaking her
head. ‘A complete disaster. Though I must say, Rae seemed much
happier once she had a real person to pin her fantasies on. I
suppose what I’m saying is, she was happier once she’d finally
retreated into her delusions. She’d hovered between two worlds -
fantasy and reality - for years. Freddie had tried to put a stop to
it, but he couldn’t. Rae just wouldn’t let go of her dead child.
Her determination that he should exist wore us down. In the end we
all gave in and accepted Alfie. Colluding with her seemed the
easiest thing to do.’ Viv nibbled at her toast, swallowed and then
continued. ‘Rae set out the toys in the nursery again. She’d go and
sit there every day - sometimes she’d ask me to sit with her - and
she’d talk to this imaginary child. Read stories to him. Sometimes
she’d make up stories for him... I think that was probably the
origin of the Tom Dickon Harry books. Alfie - or the
idea
of
him - seemed to spark her imagination. Rae had only ever written
adult fiction before and she’d never been very successful. Her
novels were all out of print and the literary establishment had
forgotten her. She was quite bitter about that and had been looking
for a new direction. So I suppose there was a plus side to the
Alfie business, in a way. The death of Alfie led to the birth of
TDH and the rebirth of Rae as a writer.’

‘How on earth did Hattie cope with having an
imaginary brother?’ I asked.

‘We told her the family had to play a sort
of game to help Rae get over Alfie’s death. Hattie had an imaginary
friend, the way children do, so it wasn’t too much of a stretch for
her to imagine that Rae had an imaginary child. Of course we didn’t
realise then what we were asking of Hattie. I shudder to think
now... Deborah was away at university, so she wasn’t affected that
much. Then Frances left home and went off to college. She’d always
kept herself pretty aloof anyway. Freddie was the one who found it
hardest. He felt as if he’d not just lost his son, he’d lost his
wife as well. He was convinced Rae would never get well all the
time she believed in Alfie. He waited, hoping she’d make a full
recovery, but of course she didn’t. For years she lived a kind of
dual existence. At one level she knew exactly what had happened -
she remembered the miscarriage, she knew there was no child - but
at another level, the fantasy was completely
real
to her.
And therefore unassailable.’

‘A fantasy life can be lived as intensely as
real life,’ said Marek. ‘In some cases the fantasy can seem more
real.’

Viv nodded. ‘That’s exactly how it was for
Rae. She wasn’t interested in her real children. She wasn’t even
interested in Freddie. He found that very hard of course and he—
well, he looked for consolation elsewhere. Can’t say I blamed him.
Mental illness is absolutely exhausting to deal with. It casts a
shadow over the whole family. There’s no normality. You can never
really relax. And eventually you run out of compassion.’

‘From the sound of it, Viv,’ said Marek, ‘I
don’t think you ever did.’

She waved a hand dismissively. ‘Oh, I did my
best. I had to keep going, for Hattie’s sake. The poor child looked
on me as a surrogate mother. But Freddie reached the end of his
tether and he left. It wasn’t a marriage any more, not in any real
sense. And Freddie was still an attractive man, not even fifty. He
went abroad, so I decided to have one last stab at laying the ghost
of Alfie to rest. I told Rae that Freddie had taken Alfie with him,
that Alfie had wanted to go and live with his father. She was very
upset and confused to begin with, but then she appeared to accept
the news. She actually used it to develop her Alfie scenario! She
concocted this story that faithless Freddie had deprived her of her
only son on the grounds she was an unfit mother. That’s when the
photos started to appear. Rae cut photos of boys out of magazines
and newspapers and stuck them in frames. She said they were photos
Freddie had sent her from abroad. Fanny couldn’t bear to see these
awful things scattered around the house - they were so obviously
clipped from magazines - so she took some photos herself and gave
them to Rae. I suppose that was another mistake on our part. But
Fanny was so clever. Over the years she managed to photograph boys
who looked similar to each other
and
similar to Freddie -
blond and brown-eyed. But their faces were never very clear, or the
boy was photographed at a distance, so it wasn’t immediately
obvious they weren’t the same child. Though I gathered from Tom,’
said Viv, turning to me with a rueful smile, ‘that
you
spotted they were fakes.’

‘I happened to notice one of the boys was
left-handed. And Tom isn’t. That was the first thing that made me
wonder about him.’

‘We put up with the fake photos to keep Rae
happy. I even sent her fake letters from Alfie. She went on and on
about how she never heard from him, not even a Christmas card, so I
started to send a monthly letter home, supposedly from Alfie away
at boarding school in the north of England. Deborah, bless her,
faked his school reports! I remember she made Alfie good at sport
and English and hopeless at maths. I’m ashamed to say that, after a
while, Alfie began to seem almost as real to me as he did to Rae. I
used to quite enjoy writing those letters. And they gave her so
much pleasure! It was hard to believe what I was doing was wrong,
but now I look back, I can see it was. But we didn’t have a master
plan, we just made it up as we went along. What else can you do if
someone simply won’t accept a death? The only advice we’d ever been
given was to play along with her. So we did. Rae just wore us down
- me, especially. Alfie’s existence made everything easier somehow.
Calmer
. Because Rae was calmer. And of course happier.’

‘What happened to Freddie?’ I asked. ‘I
think Tom said he was dead by the time they filmed the
documentary.’

‘He died of a heart attack in 1989, when
Alfie would have been about ten. I wasn’t sure how the news would
affect Rae so I kept it from her for a while. When I finally told
her, she took it fairly well. Disappeared into herself, in fact.
She talked less and less of Alfie and spent a lot of time alone in
her room, scribbling in notebooks. One day she presented me with a
stack of them and said she’d written a book for Alfie - would I
type it up for her? That was the first of the TDHs.
Tom Dickon
Harry and the Haunted House.
I read it and realised it was
rather good and - just to humour her, really - I suggested we send
it off to a publisher. Well, the rest is history... I thought this
new interest would be marvellous for Rae, stop her mind wandering
back to Alfie. I didn’t bargain on her claiming her non-existent
son was the
inspiration
for her boy hero! Nor did I bargain
on the books being a runaway success. I suppose Tom told you how we
came to approach him?’

‘Yes. He mentioned his relationship with
Frances.’

‘Tom was another of Fanny’s bright ideas.
Seems lunatic now, but at the time it looked like the only way to
save Rae from public humiliation. By then she was a literary figure
of some standing, with seven or eight TDH books under her belt and
a huge fan base. There was a lot at stake, one way and another. So
we did what we thought was best - best for Rae, best for the
family. But looking back now, it seems like a series of disastrous
misjudgements. Tom’s impersonation - good as it was - was directly
responsible for Rae’s second breakdown and she’s never really
recovered. I don’t think she ever will. She’s nearly seventy-three.
Old age is taking its toll. God knows how she’ll cope if Tom pulls
out, as I imagine he will now. There was a time, early on in his
career, when he needed us - needed the cash and needed the kudos of
TDH - but I think that’s long past.’

‘I’m not so sure,’ I replied. ‘Tom also
needed a family. He’s attached to you all, in his way. Especially
Hattie. I think he might find it quite hard to make the break.’

‘You think so?’ Viv was thoughtful for a
moment, then said, ‘But he
will
make the break, won’t
he?’

‘Yes. If I know Alfie - and I’m not sure now
that I
do
- I think he will.’

Viv didn’t reply. She sat still, gazing into
space, her face tense with worry. I felt a sudden impulse to give
her a hug, but self-consciousness and common sense held me back. I
loved this family, but I didn’t understand them. I suspected I
needed them more than they needed me, so I held back. When Viv
finally met my eyes, I simply smiled and said, ‘If there’s anything
I can do—’

‘Thanks, Gwen. You’ve been a great help,
just listening. It was high time all this was sorted out. You’ve
given us the kick up the backside we all needed.’ She stood up,
cinched her dressing gown at the waist and said, ‘I’m going to go
and see Hattie. The poor girl must be put out of her misery. Though
God knows how you break news like this.’

Marek said, ‘Would you like me to come with
you? I wouldn’t want to intrude, but if you’re concerned about how
she might react...’

He left the sentence hanging in the air but
the relief flooding Viv’s face answered his question. ‘Oh,
would
you? I’m worried what might happen if she goes off the
deep end.’

‘I’ll leave all the talking to you. But if
things get out of hand,’ he added vaguely, ‘you can leave her to
me.’

‘Thank you so much.’ Viv’s eyes were bright
with tears - whether of gratitude or fear, I couldn’t tell. Both
probably.

As Marek followed her out of the kitchen, I
decided I would go up to my room and finish packing. I switched out
the kitchen lights and made my way along the passageway to the hall
where I found Viv and Marek standing at the foot of the stairs,
gazing upwards. Rae stood on the half-landing in her dressing gown.
One hand clutched the banister rail. From the other hung a doll
dressed in a blue babygro. A few paces behind her stood Hattie, her
face pale, but composed.