The Son-in-Law (42 page)

‘I’ve bled on you,’ I gasped, getting control of the tears. ‘Sorry.’

‘Worse things happen at sea. Now, I think you’re going to need a few stitches. We’ve tried your home number, and your grandmother’s mobile, and got no answer.’

‘They’re all in court.’ I felt very sick all of a sudden, and damp on my forehead. ‘They’re arguing over where we should live.’

‘Ah. That was today, was it?

‘Mm. Excuse me, I think I’m going to be—’ She didn‘t hang about. She bundled me through a door and into a tiny room with a toilet and basin. I made it just in time. It’s horrible, being sick. It burned my throat. Eventually I managed to stop long enough to wash my face and rinse my mouth in the miniature basin. The room was painted in pale lilac; even the air seemed to be pale lilac. I sat on the floor and leaned against the wall, which felt cool, and shut my eyes. I could see pale lilac behind my eyelids. My arm had started to throb. It really hurt.

Mrs Grayson came in with a glass of water. She had a new wound pad too, and this time she taped it onto my arm. The cuts had nearly stopped bleeding.

‘Thanks.’ I said, and drank all the water. ‘Sorry.’ The pale lilac was like a mist. I couldn’t see very well. It was frightening to be half-blind, so I shut my eyes again.

‘I suppose I’ll be expelled,’ I said.

‘I doubt it.’

‘Say sorry to Mr Hicks from me.’

She got to her feet. ‘We still can’t raise your grandparents; nor your aunt, who we have down as an emergency contact. So I’ll drive you to casualty and just ask whether you’d be best to have some stitches. All right?’

I felt knackered, but I managed to stand up and together we walked out to her car. It was a very flashy soft-top. Any other time, I’d have been happy to ride in it.

‘I’m sorry to give you all this trouble,’ I said, as she checked my seatbelt.

‘Never mind. You’ve got me out of two meetings, both of them exceedingly tedious.’ She started the car. ‘So today’s a big day, is it?’

‘Mm-hm. The fight to the death.’

‘That must be hard.’

‘It is,’ I said, and burst into tears yet again. I just didn’t seem able to stop crying. It was pathetic. ‘I just wish this wasn’t happening. It doesn’t matter where we live, does it? Why the hell does that matter so much?’

Miss Grayson didn’t answer, but she made a sympathetic sound. She reached into her handbag and handed me a little packet of tissues, and I sobbed into one of those. The traffic was gridlocked that day so I had time to tell her all about Dad and my grandparents. I was still talking when we turned into the hospital car park.

‘It’s a miracle,’ she said. ‘There’s a parking space for us.’ She manoeuvred the car, and turned off the engine. We sat for a minute. Raindrops began to speckle the windscreen.

‘Do you have parents?’ I asked. It sounded like a silly question—of course she had parents. It’s physically impossible not to have parents, even if you’ve never met them. But Miss Grayson knew exactly what I was getting at.

‘They divorced when I was ten,’ she replied, her voice matter-of-fact. ‘My father was in the diplomatic service and my mother fell in love with an Egyptian businessman. She ran away with him. You could say it was romantic, though it caused quite a scandal.’

‘But what happened to you? Did she take you with her?’

Miss Grayson smiled. ‘She wasn’t that sort of woman. I was at boarding school at the time, so I stayed on there. In the holidays I shuttled around between parents, aunts, friends of aunts . . . anyone who would have me. I got to travel the world.’

I tried to imagine a girl of about Theo’s age, suddenly finding she had no home.

‘That’s awful,’ I said.

‘It was awful, at times. But bad times do not last forever, Scarlet. There are other moments.’

I hoped she was right.

The casualty department seemed busy. There were rows of plastic seats, and quite a few people sitting in them. Miss Grayson said that was ‘par for the course’. She got me a cup of sweet hot chocolate from a machine, and then a nurse arrived. After she left, another woman turned up. Miss Grayson walked away with her and they had a long conversation; I was pretty sure it was about the fact that I’d cut myself.

We were being taken in to see a doctor when Miss Grayson’s mobile phone rang. She flipped it open.

‘Aha,’ she said, looking at the number. ‘At last.’

Thirty-six

Hannah

We were back in that ghastly little room, sitting round the same table, but this time we had a still more immediate terror.

‘Scarlet was cut by some glass,’ said the school secretary who’d answered the phone. ‘On the arm.’

‘On the arm? Has she damaged an artery?’

‘I doubt it. Miss Grayson didn’t call an ambulance. She drove her in her own car, didn’t seem to be rushing at all. I think she’s got a soft spot for Scarlet.’

She gave me Gilda Grayson’s mobile number, and I called it. The headmistress sounded relieved to hear from me.

‘Dr Wilde? Just a moment while I find a quiet spot.’

‘How is she?’

‘Now, the first thing to say is that Scarlet is all right. We’ve seen a triage nurse, and she thinks stitches are necessary so we need your permission for that. Scarlet has two quite deep cuts on the upper part of her forearm, but she’s in no immediate physical danger.’

‘Thank God,’ I breathed. I passed on the good news to Jane and Freddie. Jane immediately set off to tell the opposition, who were waiting in their own little hellhole.

‘I said no
physical
danger,’ added Gilda Grayson meaningfully.

‘What d’you mean?’

She hesitated. ‘How are things going in court?’

‘We’ve hardly started. Look, I’ll come straight round to the hospital and—’

‘Hang on. Don’t do anything until you’ve heard me out. Dr Wilde, what happened to Scarlet today was caused by an emotional overload. She screamed, she threw glass objects onto the floor. Then she cut herself with a broken test tube.’

I was silenced. I could actually feel the hairs rising to attention on the back of my neck, because the person she was describing was Zoe. It couldn’t be happening all over again. It just couldn’t. That would be too cruel. Frederick must have seen my horror, because he took my hand.

‘Her mother,’ I whispered. ‘She was diagnosed . . .’ I couldn’t say it.

‘I know about the family history.’ Gilda Grayson dropped her voice. ‘But as I have just told the hospital social worker, I really don’t think Scarlet’s outburst was caused by mental illness. I think she’s overwhelmed.’

‘Overwhelmed?’

‘Stressed. She’s been trying to please everyone, trying to keep you all from being hurt.’

‘I see.’

‘Do you? I wonder. You know what she told me in the car? She said she feels she and her brothers are the rope in a tug-of-war, and they’re being stretched.’

‘I’m coming to the hospital,’ I said flatly. ‘I’m on my way. I must be with her.’

‘Yes, you could do that—but I am here, and I will deliver her home later, if necessary. Why don’t you stay right where you are? If you would only talk to Scarlet’s father and agree on a plan for her future, you could spare her further distress. She doesn’t care where anyone lives! She just wants the anger to stop.’

‘Can I talk to her?’

‘She’s actually with a doctor at the moment. She’ll call you when she’s free.’

‘How does she seem?’

‘Upset, crying from time to time, but calm in herself. I’ve seen girls her age have meltdowns before. Given the appalling stress she’s under, this one isn’t so surprising.’

I thanked her numbly and said I’d call back. I needed time to think. Jane had returned, so I relayed the whole conversation to her and Freddie. He seemed to retreat into his own mind, blinking slowly as he pulled his handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket and blew his nose. I could tell he was terribly disturbed, as I was. Jane hurried away to put everyone else in the picture.

‘I don’t know what to do,’ I moaned in bewilderment.

Freddie’s arm crept around me, and I leaned against him. He was still my strength and shield. When Jane returned, I went to splash water over my face and commiserate with the crone in the mirror. She didn’t even try to smile. She looked as though she’d never smiled in her life.

‘You were so taken up by your own pain,’ I told her accusingly. ‘Did you fail to notice hers?’

There was nowhere for me to hide while I gathered my thoughts. No haven; though it was at least quiet in the lobby. We were the last case standing. All other battles had been lost or won, or perhaps the bloodshed had been adjourned to another day. I found myself a corner, half-obscured beside the humming drinks machine
.
Behind me, a door opened and closed. I heard footsteps, but didn’t glance around. If it was Scott, I certainly didn’t want to catch his eye.

Then a swirl of purple skirt swam into the periphery of my vision.

‘I didn’t introduce myself before.’ I recognised the voice. Steady, but warm. ‘Rosemary Sutton. I’m a friend of Joseph’s. I’ve met your grandchildren.’

I looked at the skirt, not at the face. ‘I didn’t realise.’

‘Me neither.’ I heard her sitting in a chair near to mine.

‘Do you know about his past?’ I asked, with genuine curiosity.

‘I do.’

‘Then why are you his friend?’

She hesitated. ‘I hear Scarlet’s harmed herself,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry.’

The machine hummed at us both.

I heard myself sigh. ‘Her headmistress wants us all to talk—but she doesn’t understand.’

‘What doesn’t she understand?’

The loss,
I thought.
The fear.
‘Joseph Scott has forfeited his role as father,’ I said bitterly. ‘He doesn’t deserve to be loved.’

There was no response from my companion; she didn’t even move. It’s rare to meet someone who doesn’t need to have the last word—or the nastier word—or the cleverest word. Very rare. I used to listen to conversations among my colleagues, or students as they sat waiting for tutorials to begin. Everyone is permanently standing on their own imaginary stage, playing to an imaginary audience. It doesn’t matter what any of us say; nobody is ever listening. Every minute, around the world, a billion words are swatted away to make room for a billion more.

This woman did no swatting. My words were left unmolested to take to the air, to swoop and holler like savage children.
He
doesn’t deserve to be loved
. I didn’t like them, seen so close up. They unsettled me. They were too brutal.

Images spun beside the words. A man caked in mud, letting two laughing sons tackle him. A bedtime story, and a small boy’s thin arm casually slipped around his father’s neck. Joseph Scott was loved. Whether or not he deserved to be, he was. I knew that. I had always known that.

I rubbed my cheeks. I felt impossibly tired. ‘The truth is that I simply can’t afford to lose anything else.’

‘No.’

‘Neither can my husband. He has already lost his only daughter. He’s lost his health. I think perhaps he’s even lost his future.’

‘I know. I’m sorry.’

‘Are you Scott’s girlfriend?’

‘No. Not.’ She shifted in her chair; clasped her hands in her lap. ‘I haven’t befriended him out of ghoulish prurience, if that’s what you’re thinking. I met and liked him before I knew his past, though it seemed to me that he was someone who . . . well, there was obviously some appalling sadness there.’

‘Huh.’

My enemy’s friend leaned a little closer. ‘He was in love with your daughter, you know. He still loves her. He thinks about her all the time. I don’t get a look-in.’

‘Do you want a look-in?’

A wry smile. ‘I’m not free.’

‘I warn you, he doesn’t know what love is,’ I said. ‘He’s far too selfish. He wouldn’t let Zoe express herself. He didn’t appreciate her brilliance. He wouldn’t even move back to London—though she was desperate to live there again—because his career was more important than her happiness.’

Once again, my companion didn’t argue with me. She didn’t need to. I knew very well that uprooting the family and returning to London had been out of the question. Zoe’s stability became more fragile once her children arrived; she was balanced on a knife-edge. We were keen for her to stay in Yorkshire, close to us.

My phone made its text noise. It was Gilda Grayson.

Scarlet doing well, being stitched now. She wonders if you are
talking yet?

‘Look.’ I held up the message. ‘Apparently, Scarlet wants to know if we’re talking.’

My companion’s lips twitched. ‘And what will you tell her?’

Vera chose that moment to barge through the courtroom doors. The clerk seemed pathologically noisy; she was a maelstrom even when walking on soft carpet. ‘Judge is thinking of adjourning until two. Wants to know what’s happening. What shall I tell him?’

I shut my eyes. I had never felt so tired. Never.

‘Tell him we’re talking,’ I said.

•

They filed wordlessly into the family court adviser’s room, a sparsely furnished space accessed through a keycoded door. The room must have adjoined the court, because its windows looked out towards Dick Turpin’s grave.

It struck Joseph that for three people who had gathered with the specific and stated intention of talking, they seemed remarkably tongue-tied. They’d been forced together by the shock of Scarlet’s desperation, and by their collective culpability; that didn’t mean they’d be able to overcome the bitterness of years.

‘She’s no dragon,’ Rosie had said, after speaking to Hannah.

‘Oh yes she is,’ protested Joseph. ‘On a good day she actually breathes fire.’

‘I think she’s exhausted. I think she’s frightened of losing the children forever, because they’re all she has left. Fear makes her defensive. But she’s a good, thoughtful woman at heart. I like her.’

Joseph didn’t want to think about Hannah. In his mind’s eye, he watched Scarlet using a piece of glass to mutilate her young arm. The image horrified him. It was with him still as he followed Hannah and Freddie into Lester’s room.

Lester gestured to chairs around a cheap wooden table. He seemed utterly relaxed, as though chairing a meeting of the steering sub-committee on court upholstery. ‘Take a seat,’ he invited.