King of the World Page 7

  “He ended up kind of forgiving me, and giving me instructions for my future behaviour: ‘The important thing now, Norah, is that you leave him alone. Stop fussing. He is working out his own problems in his own way. Just get off his back, and he’ll be fine.’”

  Was it altogether wise, Norah was beginning to wonder, to be confiding all this in her companion? She didn’t really know Diana all that well, and what she did know – namely, that Diana had some sort of a job in television – was not entirely reassuring. Might she not, even at this moment, be planning how to use these admittedly colourful confidences for some future programme? Could she do this without the permission, or even the awareness, of Norah herself? Having no knowledge whatsoever of how programmes were put together, and having herself watched many a documentary in which personal problems of such hair-raising intimacy were aired that it was hard to believe that the subject had given valid consent – in view of all this, she found her hands actually trembling as she helped herself to more coffee. She envisaged the possibility that Mervyn might by chance switch on the set one day, and be confronted by the terrible and long-kept family secret being beamed out to an audience of millions. In a single moment his painfully-preserved illusion about his son’s normality would be held up to the mockery of the world.

  Norah could understand his attitude well enough – though understanding, as so often happens, was of no particular help. She understood that so much of his own ego had been invested in this super-brilliant child of his, that to discover the worm at the heart of all this brilliance would be an ego-shattering experience so fearful that he just wouldn’t be able to take it.

  And it would all be Norah’s fault, that was for sure. The disasters brought about by Christopher’s illness always had to be her fault. Because if they weren’t her fault, then there must be something the matter with Christopher, and this was unthinkable in Mervyn’s universe.

  Like the day of the dinner-party – the last dinner-party she had ever dared to give, incidentally, thus laying herself open to her husband’s reiterated accusations of being obsessionally inhospitable, never inviting people to their home “like other wives”.

  For some moments she wondered whether to tell Diana even about this. It had been so humiliating that she had never told anybody, not even Louise next door. But might it not, after all this time, be some sort of relief to share the memory with someone? Someone right outside her own neighbourhood, and yet interested, as Diana clearly was. She was leaning forward, eyes alight, all agog to hear more.

  To hell with the risk of publicity! Why should she suspect this sympathetic and warm-hearted person of planning to betray her confidences? By now – it was nearly two in the morning – they had moved on from coffee to white wine, and this too made the decision easier.

  She would tell Diana about the dinner-party.

  Chapter 9

  Christopher was fifteen at the time, and Norah had long realised that there was something very serious the matter with him, though in the face of Mervyn’s repeated and professionally-backed denials, she hadn’t yet given a name to it. She remembered praying, as she bustled about getting the party ready, that the boy would be in one of his quiet, unaggressive moods that evening. He hadn’t been too bad lately. Apart from being withdrawn and silent, and now and then muttering inaudibly to himself, he had caused no overt trouble for a number of days, and it seemed reasonable to hope that his behaviour tonight would at least be inconspicuous. Being quiet and withdrawn would be more or less O.K., for everyone knew that adolescent boys were painfully shy in the presence of adults. He might even opt for not coming in to the meal at all. This would save a lot of worry, as well as making the numbers round the table more manageable. Three couples had been invited – colleagues of Mervyn’s, with their wives. With Mervyn and herself there would be eight – a better number than nine from every point of view, even had the ninth been more of a potential asset to the gathering than Christopher was likely to be.

  Norah had taken a lot of trouble over the occasion, for she knew that all the guests were, in one way or another, important to Mervyn’s career. She’d planned a four-course meal, even though it was going to take all day to prepare, and she’d set the table with candles, vases of lilies, and glittering glasses for the three different wines that Mervyn was planning to serve. She had brought out the little-used canteen of wedding-present cutlery, and had polished each fork and spoon to a satisfying brilliance. When all was ready, some while before the guests were due, she stood in the doorway of the dining-room admiring her handiwork. The table looked lovely – she imagined the little gasps of admiration as her guests filed in.

  And little gasps there were, though not the sort that she had envisaged.

  The first thing she took in, as she led them all to the dining-room, was that the table no longer shone and glittered as it had when she last saw it. She took a few moments to grasp what had happened to those bright implements she had set out so carefully a few hours ago.

  They had been bandaged. Each knife, each fork, had been carefully and painstakingly bandaged, round and round, along its entire length. There they lay, like so many injured limbs in a surgical ward. And the lilies, tipped from their vases, now lay on their sides atop a pair of oblong cardboard boxes. In case anyone might miss the funereal effect, a large cardboard lid had been propped between the two coffin-like boxes, bearing in multi-coloured crayon the words “MEMMENTO MORI”

  “He can’t even spell any more!” was the thought that flashed idiotically through her mind while the full horror of the scene slowly sank in. She couldn’t even think how to run away, so she stood stock still, as indeed did everyone else, speechless and staring.

  Mervyn recovered first – if recovery it could be called, in a man whose face was as white as paper and whose teeth were visibly chattering.

  “Sorry about this,” he managed to enunciate; and went on, his voice beginning to recover a semblance of professional poise and coolness: “Norah, dear, I think you had better go and lie down, while I see to things.” And then, addressing the non-plussed company: “I’m afraid my wife hasn’t been very well lately. You must forgive her.”

  But Norah heard no more. At his words, her power of movement returned, and she fled. Not to lie down, of course, but into the kitchen, from whence, come what may, the meal must be served.

  How Mervyn contrived to “see to things” she never learned; but quite soon all sorts of willing hands were flapping around her in the kitchen, helping, hindering, doing their well-intentioned best, while into her ears poured a flood of remarks intended to console, plucked at random from the familiar repertoire of platitudes. “Never mind, dear,” “It’s the heat, you know.” – and even that hoary old chestnut, “It could happen to anyone.” Which it manifestly couldn’t.

  That night, Norah’s career as an object of pity, a target for sidelong glances, began.

  She did not reappear in the dining-room, how could she? And who would have expected it? Instead, as soon as everything had been dished up, and assorted hands were carrying dishes here and there, mostly in the right direction, she fled upstairs, and found herself confronting a serene and unusually communicative Christopher, preening himself on what he had done.

  “Too dangerous, you see, Norah, all those sharp knives and sharp prongs of forks. So sharp – they could have hurt themselves. So I decided to pre-empt the woundings by bandaging them all up beforehand. I mean, better safe than sorry. Prevention is better than cure – all that stuff. I was a bit late for some, I’m afraid, several of the forks were already dead. You’ve never seen anything so sad – a little pile of dead forks! Luckily, though, I came across a whole lot of white lilies, so I was able to give them a decent funeral …”

  Too shattered to reprove or argue, or even to cut short this flow of deluded and terrifying nonsense, Norah just slumped onto the boy’s bed and let him rattle on in this strange, high voice which wasn’t quite his own. She queried nothing, not even his elaborate expl
anation of why he hadn’t bandaged up the spoons as well as the forks and knives.

  “The spoons aren’t sharp, you see. It stands to reason they aren’t a danger to themselves or to the others, so I left them alone. Well, it would have been silly, wouldn’t it, to bandage a spoon!”

  He gave a little laugh at the absurdity of the idea, and waited good-humouredly for his mother to share his amusement.

  At last, the high-speed delivery of explanations and self-congratulations began to subside; and eventually the boy fell into a dull, semi-lethargic state that was not quite sleep. Meanwhile, Norah heard at last from downstairs the unmistakeable sounds of departure: footsteps back and forth: doors opening and shutting; and even the bright prattle of “Thank you for a lovely party” – a phrase so deeply ingrained from earliest childhood as to survive even a gathering like this.

  And afterwards? The whole thing had been too embarrassing too traumatic, for an ordinary marital row. Norah and Mervyn were both very silent as they went about the aftermath of clearing up and preparing for bed. At one point, Mervyn had said: “We must see about getting you some treatment, Norah,” but apart from this clear indication that he assumed her to have been the perpetrator of the catastrophe, he voiced no reproaches. Not that evening, anyway. Nor, during the ensuing days, did he follow up his own suggestion of getting “treatment” for his wife. Under such treatment (perhaps he had asked himself?), what might she not reveal to whatever therapist he decided to send her to?

  She wondered, as the days passed, whether he had spoken to Christopher about the catastrophic evening; and, if so, whether he had given his father the same bizarre explanation that he had given his mother.

  Probably not. Even in his most wildly irrational state, the boy seemed to retain some sort of subliminal awareness of what should be kept from his father, and what it would be O.K. to mention.

  And so, what with Christopher being wary about what he told his father, and his father being wary about what he asked, they managed to set up between them a wall of incomprehension strong as steel and thin as glass, and to maintain it successfully through almost any hazard.

  And hazards there were, in plenty as the months went by. Christopher was managing somehow to continue attending school without bringing down on himself any dramatic reproofs or interrogations. Perhaps he deployed at school the same subliminal awareness as he exercised with his father, and so got through the days without any overt displays of insanity. His work, though, had drastically deteriorated, and this his teachers did notice. Distressed and anxious notes from class teachers would arrive, and also a note from the headmaster; all to be scornfully dismissed by Mervyn as the work of little minds baffled by an intellect far superior to their own, and one with which they were quite unable to cope.

  Once, Norah had ventured to go and see the headmaster herself, without Mervyn’s knowledge; but this had produced such fury in her husband that she never ventured on any such initiative again. Though the headmaster had, in fact, been sympathetic and helpful, and ready to reinforce the view that the boy was going through an identity crisis not uncommon in adolescence, and might benefit from some form of counselling …

  “Though of course, Mrs Payne, your husband knows much more about this kind of thing than I do, and if he feels that Christopher would benefit from some course of treatment, then of course the school will co-operate in every way it can – letting him off classes to attend his therapy sessions and so forth …”

  She had imagined that Mervyn would be relieved rather then upset when he heard what the headmaster’s reaction had been. After all, hadn’t Mervyn himself diagnosed an “Identity Crisis” as an explanation of their son’s odd behaviour?

  But nothing of the sort. That Norah should have ventured to arrange an interview with the headmaster without consulting him, seemed to Mervyn such an outrage, such a reversal of professional etiquette, that his fury about this completely obliterated any consideration of the actual outcome of the interview;

  “He knows that I’m consultant psychiatrist at St Elmo’s Hospital! He must have thought it extraordinary that you, and not I myself, should discuss the problem with him. It’s not a problem! Christopher is going through a perfectly normal adolescent phase. It’s not a problem at all, and if it was, it would be for me to decide what to do about it, not for that chicken-brained nincompoop who knows nothing whatsoever about psychology! There is nothing the matter with Christopher, except that he is unlucky enough to have a mother suffering from an anxiety-state so severe that she smothers him to death with her phobias and obsessions. You hardly let him out of the house by himself these days – can you wonder that he rebels occasionally in the only ways that are open to him?”

  It was true that Norah worried about Christopher going out of the house by himself. On one of the recent occasions when he had done so, it had been for the purpose of dropping, through every single letter-box, on both sides of the road, an invitation to a party at his parents’ home that same evening. Quite an elaborate invitation, in exquisite though very tiny handwriting, with pictures of balloons and toys all round the edge. Having devised the card, obviously with considerable care, Christopher had contrived to obtain a hundred copies from the school photocopier, and had distributed them with carefree abandon.

  A large number of invitations had, of course, arrived through the letter-boxes of people who did not know the family at all. They were, no doubt, puzzled, but in some cases sufficiently intrigued to decide to go along.

  And so that evening, as Norah was settling down to the washing-up, there was a ring on the doorbell … and then another … and another. By nine o’clock, there were something like fifty people crammed into the sitting-room, with a tin of biscuits and two half bottles of sherry between them.

  “I’m afraid my wife is getting very forgetful,” Mervyn kept repeating, as the first shock of the situation began to subside. “I had no idea that she’d planned this …” and with admirable poise and dignity, he’d urged patience on the assembly and had driven off at speed to the local wine shop, coming back laden with bottles.

  Christopher, meantime, had been holding the fort at home, receiving the guests as if he was lord of the manor, bending his head to each, saying a few words and shaking hands. His fair hair, grown rather long of late, shone as it tossed back and forth on his forehead under the hall light. Norah, in the midst of her agonised embarrassment, had noticed suddenly how tall he had grown, and how handsome. No one would have dreamt, looking at him now, that there was anything at all the matter with him. Even Norah had found herself wondering, for one wild moment, if some miraculous recovery had suddenly come about?

  But it hadn’t. Day by day, things grew worse. Fired, perhaps, by the success of this first leafleting of the neighbourhood, Christopher plunged into an orgy of letter-writing, some of it far more offensive than an invitation to a non-existent party. Threats to sue over the barking of a non-existent dog were slotted through the street’s letter-boxes one weekend: complaints about overgrown trees went to householders who had no trees in their gardens at all. Vague accusations of “insulting behaviour” went to people who had had no contact whatsoever with the writer or his family.

  The neighbourhood, at first, had been fairly tolerant of these missives. After all, no harm was being done, and so no one lost anything by being polite.

  “Practical jokes, that’s all,” they would say pityingly to Norah, pretending to believe it; “You know what kids are.” A plausible comment, no doubt, had Christopher been seven years old. But he wasn’t. He was seventeen now, coming up to eighteen. Almost a grown man. Already a grown man in height, and in his burgeoning muscular power.

  “And so you see, Diana,” Norah concluded wearily, tipping the last dregs of wine into her glass. “That’s how it is, and I can’t stand it. I just can’t. I can’t even speak to the neighbours any more, all of them knowing, and whispering about it. People are beginning to avoid me in the street … No one drops in any more. They’re ki
nd of scared, I know they are. Even my neighbour Louise – my very best friend – even she is cooling off. It was the last straw, I just had to do something. Didn’t I?”

  Chapter 10

  “So it all turned out to be this Mervyn fellow’s fault,” remarked Alistair, having listened in, eyes closed, on the summary of last night’s revelations. “But I don’t see why you girls are so shocked about it. I thought everything was always the man’s fault?” He yawned, stretching his long bulk even more luxuriously against the sofa cushions, and continued: “Isn’t anyone going to pour me another cup of coffee?”

  It was Diana, of course, who reached for the coffee pot, and Bridget watched the eagerly subservient movement with her usual flicker of irritation. Why couldn’t the wretched man ever do anything for himself? The irritation, however, was a small thing – and she recognised it as such – compared with the enormous relief she was still feeling at finding life in the flat going on exactly as usual this Saturday morning. After Diana’s panicky telephone call last night, and her own somewhat dilatory response to it, she had travelled back this morning in an uncomfortable state of guilt and unease. Suppose something awful really had happened at the flat in her absence? Suppose she’d arrived back to find her flatmate dead, or abducted, or in hospital, because of something that would never have happened if Bridget had rushed back as soon as she was summoned? She’d even felt relieved, as she walked up the road from the bus stop, to see that Acorn House was still standing.