Memories of the Storm (14 page)

It was as the train was approaching Reading that he
received a message from Lucy: Jerry was in hospital
following a severe cold that had set off a flare-up of
symptoms including fever, shortness of breath and
a rash. He'd been admitted for blood tests, she told
him. If all went well he might be home in ten days.
She sounded distressed and very tired, and Jonah
said that he would come straight to Chichester,
getting down as soon as he could. His train was on
time, he told her, and, with luck, he should be able
to catch the nine-seventeen from Victoria.

He arrived at Litten Terrace just before eleven
o'clock. Lucy was waiting for him. He gave her a
hug and she held on to him tightly for a moment
whilst Tess struggled out of sleep and left her
basket to come wagging to greet him.

'Bless you for coming,' Lucy said. 'It's been a
rather terrible day but he's fairly comfortable now.
On top of everything else, he's had the most
excruciating joint and muscle pains and no appetite
at all. They've had to put him on a three-day course
of intravenous steroid and even after that the daily
oral dose of prednisolone will be raised for a while.
Then there will be the withdrawal symptoms as he
struggles to decrease it to a safer long-term level.
God, I hate this vile disease.'

She made him some supper and they sat together
at the table whilst he ate it.

'So how was Hester?' she asked suddenly, rousing
herself from her unhappy thoughts and looking for
a diversion. 'Did you ask her about the Midsummer
Cushion?'

'Yes, I did.' He was glad to be able to distract her.
'She described it to me and said how much you'd
loved it.'

'Yes, I did. It was very beautiful.' She paused. 'So
did she say anything else about it?'

'Well, yes. I wondered whether to tell you,
actually. It's rather sad. The string holding it up
frayed through and it fell off the wall and smashed.
She said she was glad that you didn't know about it.'

She was staring at him. 'Didn't know about it?'

'It happened after you'd gone, she said. After you
and Michael went back to London.'

'Is that what she told you?'

Jonah looked puzzled. 'Isn't it true?'

'No.' Lucy was too tired to prevaricate: too tired
and too angry. Seeing Jerry in such terrible pain,
combined with her fear for him and of their future,
had all fused with her own exhaustion and, with
an almost luxurious violence, freed her from the
restraint and silence that the past had imposed
upon her. 'No, it isn't true.
I
broke the Midsummer
Cushion. I climbed up on the little stool and
touched it and it fell down. Of course it might
be true that the string was frayed and I simply
hastened the process. My God, how ironical!' She
struck her fist lightly on the table. 'All these years
I've felt as if I committed a terrible crime and that
what followed was a punishment and, after all,
Hester calmly says that she thought that the string
had frayed.'

'What d'you mean, "What followed"?'

'The fight. Did Hester tell you about the fight?'

'Yes, she did. She explained about Michael and
Eleanor, and how Edward found them together and
they fought. That was why it was decided that
Michael should take you away. Of course, she knows
that you never knew why you had to leave so
suddenly. You had to be woken up and taken away.
It must have been very frightening.'

Lucy laughed – an unexpectedly explosive sound
that contained no mirth. Jonah stretched out a
hand to her and held her wrist.

'What's wrong, Mum? Should we be talking about
this now, what with Dad and everything . . . ?'

'Yes,' she said angrily. 'Yes, we should. You've
always wanted to know the truth and now I want to
tell it. We didn't leave Bridge House because there
was a fight. Oh, there
was
a fight. Hester's telling
the truth about that. Daddy and Eleanor were
together in the drawing-room and Edward came in
off the terrace and found them. He was quite
distraught. He ran at Daddy and grappled him.'
She broke off to stare at Jonah with a kind of
horror. 'There's something so terrible about men
fighting,' she said. 'All that intense struggling and
their expressions of hatred.'

She fell silent, remembering; too distressed to
proceed.

'But how did you know about it?' Jonah asked at
last. 'Hester said you were in bed asleep.'

Lucy folded her arms on the table and breathed
deeply, composing herself.

'She would have assumed that. The truth is that I
couldn't sleep that night; the wind and the river
were making so much noise. So I got up hoping I
might persuade Hester to read me a story. Her
bedroom light was on but the room was empty and
I went in to look at the Midsummer Cushion. I
climbed on a stool and overbalanced and that's
when I broke it. It made such a mess and so I went
downstairs wondering if I should tell Hester or
whether I could clear it up. Something like that,
anyway. I was very frightened because I believed I'd
done something very bad. I heard voices in the
drawing-room and I went in. That's when it all
happened. I hid behind the sofa and saw it all.
They struggled and Eleanor rushed at Edward and
he let go of Daddy and took her by the throat. By
this time they were near the French doors and my
father pulled Eleanor away and punched Edward in
the face. He reeled backwards across the terrace
and fell over the low wall into the river.' She
glanced at Jonah. 'Hester didn't tell you that?'

He shook his head silently.

'Hester rushed out and leaned out over the river,'
she continued, 'but Eleanor seized her and held her
by the shoulders. Daddy stood quite still, as if
dazed, and then he raced out along the terrace and
over the bridge. He was shouting for help. Hester
went after him. She was calling, "Michael, wait.
There's no point." No point, you see,' repeated
Lucy rather desperately, 'in trying to save Edward
because he was already dead. And she and Daddy
came back together, and Eleanor brought him into
the house. That's when I ran upstairs and got
into bed. I was afraid that they would see me and
that it was all my fault because of the Midsummer
Cushion.'

Jonah remained silent. He was remembering now
the detail missing in Hester's recounting of the
fight. She hadn't spoken about Michael running out
of the house and over the bridge.

'So then Eleanor appeared by my bed,' Lucy went
on. 'She shook me but I was curled up tight in a
ball, pretending to be asleep, and she had to shake
me quite hard. "We've got to go to London," she
said. "Get up, Lucy. Be quick." And I said, "I'm not
going," and her face grew quite angry and she said,
"Oh yes, you are." But I fought her and began to
cry, and suddenly she took me by the shoulders and
began to speak very quietly and venomously and I
was hypnotized by her and by the pain of her
fingers digging into my shoulders. "We're going to
London," she whispered, "because your Daddy has
killed Edward. Now do you understand? If he stays
here he'll be caught and taken to prison. Now get
up and get dressed quickly and never say a word of
this to anyone. Not anyone, not even your father.
Do you understand?" And I was so frightened that I
did as she told me and we went downstairs and as
soon as I saw Daddy's face I knew it was true. He
looked as if someone had broken him. All the way
to London I was waiting for a policeman to catch us
up. And Daddy tookme to AuntMary in Chichester
and a few months later he was killed exploding a
bomb. I was almost glad. It took some of the strain
away, you see. At least he wouldn't be caught and
put in prison. I was almost
glad
. . . Oh my God!
Can you imagine how horrible that was? To feel like
that about someone I loved so much?' She stared at
him. 'So Hester didn't tell you that bit?'

'No. Hester didn't put it quite like that.'

'I'm sure she didn't,' said Lucy bitterly. 'They
wanted to hush it all up. I suppose, after all this
time, Hester simply looks back on it as a kind
of tragic aftermath to war, which is why she is
prepared to tell you about it. At least, the edited
version. That was the other thing that was so
terrible to me: that Hester was prepared to go
along with it. To collude with it.'

'But it's impossible,' he burst out – yet he
suddenly remembered Hester's words: '
I want you to
feel familiar with the cast . . . so that you don't misjudge
any of us
' – and he fell silent.

She watched him. 'I still can't decide, you see,'
she said at last, 'which is the worst: to know that my
father – who was my idol – was an adulterer or a
murderer or a coward. I could forgive him for
wanting Eleanor and, to be strictly truthful, it was
manslaughter not murder. But when I remember
his face that night, with its expression of self-disgust
and humiliation, then I believe that running away
was the worst act of them all. Eleanor and Hester
between them turned him into a coward and he
allowed them to do it.'

They sat in silence together.

Presently Lucy stirred. 'I'm going to bed,' she
said. She glanced at Jonah and was struck by his
bleak expression. 'Oh, darling, I'm so sorry. You
see now why I kept silent about it all.'

'It's not your fault,' he said. 'It's just a shock,
that's all. I've felt so close to him; to Michael, I
mean. From the minute I arrived at Bridge House
it was as if he reached out to me and, from then on,
Hester made it all come alive for me.'

She watched him compassionately. 'I encouraged
you,' she said. 'Oh, yes, I did. I remember when you
phoned and said you were going down to Exmoor.
I should have kept my silence then. I had a feeling
that the time had come to face it all but I see now
that I was wrong. Perhaps, after all, it isn't wise to
attempt to confront the past. I'm just so sorry that
you've got involved. Do you have to contact Hester
again?'

'I don't quite know. I suppose I shall have to tell
her that I know the truth but that there's no
question of . . . going on with it.' He saw her look of
puzzlement. 'I'd wondered if I could make a play
out of it, you see. Different names and places, of
course, but she'd agreed to help me.'

'Make a
play
of it?'

She looked so shocked that he felt the need to
defend himself. 'I had no idea about Edward. I
suppose I was concentrating mostly on Michael.
And you when you were little. Hester was trying to
build up the characters of you all because I wanted
to know how the relationships had begun, that kind
of thing. We'd hardly talked about the ending. It
was my idea that I might make something out of
it but maybe she thought that it was a kind of
exorcism: a way of putting the past to rest.'

'It is quite unbelievable.' Lucy shook her head
blankly. 'That Hester could agree to it, I mean. Of
course, she's an academic, isn't she? She writes
about dead people and the past and, I suppose, in
the end she views everything with that same kind of
detachment, even her brother's murder. OK – ' she
saw his instinctive reaction – 'his manslaughter, if
you prefer it. Even so, I notice that she still wasn't
prepared to talk openly about it. She left that
to me. Perhaps she imagines that fictionalizing it
makes it more palatable.'

'I don't know what to say. Or do. I shall have to
think about it. I'm really sorry, Mum.'

'So am I.' Lucy stood up, kissed him and moved
to the door. 'Try to sleep. I'll see you in the
morning. And thanks for coming down, Jonah.'

Jonah continued to sit at the table. Eyes closed,
he tried to remember everything that Hester had
told him. He was surprised at how miserable it
made him feel to believe that she had lied to him
– or, at least, withheld the whole truth. He could
understand now why Lucy had been so devastated
and why she'd kept it secret. Even after such a
short acquaintance with Hester and with only an
embryonic identification with his grandfather,
Jonah nevertheless felt a keen sense of loss and an
odd sense of betrayal. He wondered how Hester
would react when he told her that at last he knew
the facts, though he shrank from the prospect. Her
words repeated themselves in his head.

'
It's a very familiar theme – just a love story that went
tragically wrong
.'

'
I want you to feel familiar with the cast . . . so that you
don't misjudge any of us
.'

'
Edward frightened all of us and I wouldn't have
blamed Eleanor if she and Michael had . . . simply gone
away together. Afterwards, I wished they had
.'

At what point, Jonah asked himself, would Hester
have finally disclosed the truth? He found that he
was thinking about Michael: the young man whom
Hester had described with such affection and who
had gone running out into the wild, streaming
night to fetch help for his one-time closest friend.
And Hester calling after him, 'Michael, wait.
There's no point.' She'd seen Edward's lifeless body
in the water, no doubt, and her one thought was to
get Michael and Lucy away. Jonah wondered what
Hester had done afterwards. How had Edward's
death been glossed over and explained? An accident,
perhaps? After all, it wouldn't be all that
surprising if Edward should fall into the river, given
his mental state. She might even have allowed it to
be known that he'd committed suicide.

'When Edward came back, and we saw that he was
unstable and deeply disturbed mentally, we should have
acted . . . Nowadays, he'd have been locked up.'

He tried to imagine exactly what had happened
after the others had fled away. Perhaps Hester
might tell him if he ever had the courage to confront
her. At least there was no question of Lucy
going to see her now. Jonah frowned, trying to
work out what benefit Hester could have imagined
accruing from such a visit.