A Trick of the Mind (21 page)

‘We met through friends in Southwold,’ Patrick said quickly. ‘Ellie and I hit it off straight away.’ He smiled, pulled me towards him. ‘And when I had my accident
she was the only person who came to see me in hospital. The only person prepared to put herself out to help me recuperate.’

‘Your accident?’ Chiara asked. She glanced quickly at me. ‘Is that how you . . .?’

‘Yes,’ said Patrick, smiling. ‘It’s how I lost my leg. Don’t worry, we call a spade a spade, don’t we, Ellie, because there’s no point hiding your head
in the sand.’

‘Of course,’ I said. I could feel Chiara’s eyes on me.

‘Ellie’s like my guardian angel,’ Patrick said. ‘She came to me just when I needed her. She’s the first person I’ve really loved since I lost my
wife.’

‘
Lost
your wife? You mean . . .?’

‘She died,’ said Patrick.

There was an awkward silence during which even the bustle at the bar seemed to fade.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Chiara said. ‘Was she. . .?’

‘No, she wasn’t in
this
accident,’ Patrick said, waving his hand over his right leg.

He squeezed my hand under the table. ‘It’s OK. It was two years ago now. Babe’ – he was looking at me – ‘get me a bag of crisps, will you? I need something to
disguise the flavour of this horrible wine.’

‘Of course.’

I got up to go to the bar and left Chiara and Patrick chatting.

Later, after we’d had a few drinks and the conversation had moved on to more casual topics, Chiara made a gesture and I realised she wanted me to follow her to the
loo.

‘Are you OK?’ she asked as we stood in front of the mirrors in the women’s toilets.

‘Of course.’

‘He’s traumatised,’ she said. ‘He’s lost a leg. And a wife. Aren’t you a little out of your depth?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘I hope you don’t think you’re somehow responsible for healing him emotionally, or even physically – it would be just like you . . .’

‘What are you getting at?’

‘He seems very needy. You quite often feel you have to rescue people. Like Frank, with Pepper.’

‘He’s not needy,’ I said. ‘He’s incredibly positive and in control. And don’t you think he’s pretty damn hot?’

‘Well, yes, he’s nice-looking.’

‘And buff.’ I felt a little drunk. I felt as if I was the cat who had got the cream. Chiara was jealous. Everyone was jealous.

‘OK. Yes, Ellie, he’s nice. He’s fit and he looks like he’s got money. And if you’re sure you’re happy, that’s all that matters.’

‘I am. I am happy.’

‘Good.’

‘So let’s get back. You wanted to meet him, so let’s go and talk to him.’

I started to walk away from her out of the loos.

‘It’s just losing a wife to meningitis is shocking, so sudden, so unexpected,’ Chiara went on, coming after me. ‘He can’t possibly be completely over it.’

We had come back into the noise of the pub now, the roar had got louder, it was hard to hear yourself speak.

‘It wasn’t meningitis!’ I shouted. What on earth made Chiara think so? She must have misheard Patrick. ‘What makes you think it was meningitis?’ But she
couldn’t hear and was waving towards the door.

‘Look! There’s Ben and Caroline!’ she cried. The noise of the pub halted any further conversation between us as she went ahead and I let the comment go. I felt the usual sense
of grounding my brother Ben always brought with him and a kick of pleasure at the thought he would be able to meet Patrick, share my joy at meeting this amazing man.

We zigzagged our way through the crowds in the bar back to our table, and I put up a hand to wave to Ben and show him where we were sitting. Then I turned to tell Patrick he was about to meet my
brother.

His seat was empty.

His crutches were there, leaning up against the pew. I looked around, but couldn’t spot him. The crowds had thickened and the noise was deafening.

‘Where did he go?’ I asked Louise. She shrugged. ‘He got up suddenly. Said he had to go.’

‘Go? He hasn’t got his crutches! How could he go?’

‘Hey, Ellie!’ Ben and Caroline had come up to me and Ben flung his big brotherly arms around me.

‘Sorry,’ I said, disentangling myself. ‘I’ll be back, just a second.’

I pressed my way through the crowds towards the door. He couldn’t possibly be leaving. His crutches were here. We had only arrived about an hour ago.

But Patrick was outside, flagging down a cab, looking quite confident without his crutches.

‘Where are you going?’

He swung round.

‘I’ll see you later,’ he said, ‘I’ve done as you asked, met your friends and now I want to get home.’

‘Hang on. I wanted you to meet my brother and his fiancée, they’ve just arrived.’

‘Leave me alone, Ellie. I’ll call you later.’

‘OK. Well I’ll come with you.’

‘NO! There’s no need. Drop it!’ There was the same hard edge to his voice that he’d had when he found me looking at his photos. His eyes had gone hard too, his pupils
pinpricks in his icy blue irises.

‘You don’t get it, do you, Ellie?’

‘Please, Patrick, I want you to meet my friends, my brother, I . . .’

As he sat down on the back seat of the taxi, he looked up at me and his face softened.

‘Ellie, I can’t sit there being pitied by all your friends. I can’t let them see me so dependent on crutches. It’s humiliating to me. You stay and enjoy yourself, and
I’ll see you later.’

He reached out for my hand and dragged me towards him.

‘I need you,’ he whispered in my ear. ‘But I don’t need pity from strangers.’

‘They don’t pity you, Patrick, they’re not like that, and anyway you’ve left your crutches! How are you going to manage? It’s nothing to be ashamed of, needing
them.’

‘Bugger the crutches. I can manage. I’m not hobbling around on them like some loser. I’ll see you back at the flat.’

‘Are you sure? I’ll go and get them for you.’

But he was leaning over to tell the driver to take him back to Wapping.

He waved at me and winked and smiled and I had no choice but to go back to my friends in the pub. Disappointment mixed with hurt that he’d left so abruptly. But I was beginning to
understand that there was so much more to his injury than the physical demands of having to learn to walk again. It had affected his confidence, his self-esteem, his sense of self and his pride. I
was only just realising this. Only just taking in how vast the repercussions were for him.

‘Blimey! That was a speedy departure,’ Louise said. ‘What brought that on?’

I sat down. Ben was at the bar, Caroline with him.

‘He gets pain sometimes,’ I lied, ‘since the accident. Has to deal with it. He sends his apologies.’

‘Hmph,’ she said. ‘He might have said goodbye. It looked a bit rude. I don’t mind, but it was a bit hurtful to you, Ellie.’

‘I’ll see him later. He didn’t want to spoil my evening. He was being thoughtful.’

Finn leant towards me.

‘So that’s the new man.’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He doesn’t look your type. Chiara says you’ve already moved in with him!’

‘Yes, I have, Finn. But in a way, it hasn’t anything to do with you.’

‘You haven’t known him that long. Are you sure it’s a good idea, to live with him, so soon?’

‘Finn! Please!’

‘But look at him. Designer clothes, buying everyone drinks, calling you his guardian angel? It’s not you, Ellie! It’s all so superficial. You’re deeper than
that!’

I looked at my ex-boyfriend, trying to form a response that wouldn’t sound defensive. This was typical of him, pigeon-holing me so there was no room for me to grow or change.

‘And there’s something fake about him,’ Finn went on. ‘I don’t trust him. He might only have one leg, and a chip on his shoulder about it, but he looks like a
player. You should be careful.’

‘You want to watch out you don’t start to sound bitter, mate,’ Ben said, sitting down on the bench next to Finn. ‘It’s sounding a lot like jealousy. Looked like a
nice guy to me.’ Thank goodness for my brother. ‘Where’s he gone though?’ he said.

I explained again.

‘There was something familiar about him, I thought,’ Caroline said. ‘I only saw his back, but he reminded me of someone.’

‘He’s called Patrick,’ I said. ‘Patrick McIntyre. He sails in Southwold. Perhaps you’ve seen him down there.’ Ben and Caroline had met in a pub in Southwold
five years before; she had grown up in Halesworth, nearby.

‘The name doesn’t ring a bell,’ said Caroline. ‘Anyway, poor guy. Sounds like the accident was pretty serious. It’s amazing he’s up and about at all. Does he
realise he’s left his crutches?’

‘He felt ashamed,’ I told her quietly. ‘He didn’t want to be seen on them. I suppose that’s part of it. Getting used to how people see you.’

‘It must be hard. Especially when he was obviously so fit before – he’s pretty athletic-looking,’ Ben said.

I could feel something well up in me now my brother was here. A need to share my happiness, but also to shed all the anxiety I was still carrying about my role in Patrick’s accident. I
wished we could find somewhere to talk, on our own.

Ben put his arm around me.

‘The cottage is looking great, Els,’ he said. ‘It’s so nice now it’s de-cluttered.’

There was no hint of resentment or hidden meaning on his face. How was it he accepted everything with so little complaint? Our Aunty May – our aunt, both of ours – had died and left
me her house by the sea. Why wasn’t my brother green with envy, or at least a little angry? It wasn’t fair, even I could see that, but he didn’t object. Aunty May and I shared our
artistic interests, always had done, and I’d loved her, but so, I guessed, had Ben. I wondered what it was about Ben that must have convinced May she didn’t want him to benefit from her
the way I had done. Or what it was about me that meant she did. That photo came back to mind, the one I’d found in the cottage. With me cut out. Was May making up for something she’d
done to me maybe? She’d left Ben in the picture so perhaps leaving me the cottage was some kind of atonement.

I shuddered.

Ben was three years younger and six inches taller than me. When he was little and ill, or frightened, or just unable to sleep, I let him crawl into my bed, wrap his hot sticky limbs about me,
breathe into my ear. Now Ben lived in a kind of golden bubble, I sometimes thought, where bad thoughts and uncomfortable feelings such as envy, anxiety or guilt simply didn’t penetrate. That
was how it appeared anyway. So why had I been hounded by anxiety and a sense of guilt and responsibility all my life? I wanted to discuss all this with my brother, as well as my new relationship,
but we were surrounded by friends – it wasn’t the place.

Anyway, Ben had Caroline, who was smiling at him adoringly. She was like a thoroughbred horse – a Palomino, I thought, with her bronze skin and her blonde hair. Together she and Ben seemed
to skim over the surface of life, partying, drinking, laughing, working at jobs they felt neither a great vocation for nor frustration with, earning enough for a mortgage on a flat in Clapham,
spending their weekends throwing parties in their patio garden or going down to Caroline’s parents’ place in Suffolk to windsurf and sail.

‘Hey, cheer up, Els,’ Caroline said then. ‘Look, let’s finish this bottle of wine. You look glum. We’ll meet your guy another time. Here.’

And she refilled my glass. I needed it.

‘You and Ben,’ she said to me, ‘it’s hard to believe, seeing you together, that you’re brother and sister. Ginger Ben and Dark Ellie, did you get on when you were
kids?’

‘I did and she didn’t,’ said Ben, and Caroline laughed.

‘What’s that mean?’ she said.

‘It was just that I felt responsible for him,’ I said. ‘I was always made to watch him, even when I was quite little. I was terrified something would happen to him while I was
looking after him.’

‘It’s damaged her irreparably,’ said Ben. ‘Look at her, she has a need to save people.’

‘You were very lucky to have her,’ said Caroline. ‘I always wanted a big sister and I never got one!’

‘Actually, Ben keeps me grounded,’ I said. ‘Ben’s the calming influence now we’re grown up.’

‘I know what you mean,’ she said, and kissed his cheek.

‘Anyway, I’m so sorry, guys,’ I said when I’d finished my drink. ‘But I think I’d better go. Patrick will be waiting for me. I need to check he’s
OK.’

I couldn’t bear to be apart from Patrick any longer. And I wanted to know the real reason he’d left so abruptly.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

‘I didn’t want to go to start with,’ Patrick said when I got back to his apartment. ‘I hate those dives. They’re for losers. I need to drink in
decent places. Luckily I’ve got some champagne for when you get in tomorrow night. We’ll drink it before I take you to Moro’s. Nowhere is too good for us, Ellie.’

‘Patrick, I do understand how you feel, about being seen with your injury. . .’

‘It’s not an injury, Ellie. It’s a life-changing bloody disability.’

‘Yes, I know, but people aren’t going to judge you, especially not my friends. Or my brother.’

‘I was in top athletic condition before I was run over,’ he said. ‘You don’t think it’s easy for me to see people looking at me as if I’m sub-standard in some
way? You have to let me deal with it, you have to let me be.’

‘Of course. I wouldn’t make you do anything you weren’t comfortable with.’

‘Well I’m not comfortable meeting your mates. They’re a motley bunch anyway. You can do better.’

I looked at him, startled, but he was smiling, and I didn’t know if he was joking or not.

I settled on the joking.

The next day I managed to make some advances on the painting, adding a layer of light, leaving gaps so that previous layers could be glimpsed beneath. I deepened the lower part
of the picture, using thick paint here, and texture to suggest objects beneath, like the mud on the bed of the Thames when the tide was out.

I painted all day then went over to take Dad his shopping before driving back to Patrick’s through the Blackwall Tunnel. He was waiting for me with the champagne already poured, on the
balcony when I got in.