Still utterly charming. ‘No, I do not believe in drinking and driving.’
‘You mean you can drive as badly as any drunk when you’re sober? Is this your vehicle, sir?’
‘It is.’
‘And who is the registered owner?’
‘I am.’
‘And your name is?’
‘Dr Goel. Dr Terence Goel.’ Thomas spelled it out for him.
‘Right, Dr Goel, the manner of your driving leads me to believe you may be driving while under the influence of
alcohol, and I’m going to ask you to take a breath test. Step out of your car, please.’
Thomas climbed out; the officer shielded him from the passing traffic and ushered him onto the pavement. He noticed a woman police officer sitting in the car that had pulled up behind him. She was talking on the radio. Probably checking his licence plate. Thomas had no worries there.
‘Are you a resident of this country, Dr Goel?’
‘Yes.’ People were looking at him and he didn’t like this.
‘Do you have an English driving licence?’
‘Yes, I do.’ A whole group of people had stopped and were gawping. They were irritating him. The clammy air was irritating him. This policeman was irritating him. He had the square, bony face of a flyweight boxer.
Now the policeman was shining a torch in through the passenger window of the Ford Mondeo. ‘Where have you been tonight, Dr Goel?’
Thomas figured it was best to stick as close to the truth as possible. ‘Visiting friends in Barnes.’
‘This is a bit of a detour if you’re heading for Cheltenham, isn’t it?’
Thomas silently cursed his error. ‘Uh, you know, I’m like – I get real confused in London.’
The officer opened the passenger door, reached in and picked up the two tape cassettes off the passenger seat. He held the first one to the interior light, then turned to Thomas. ‘A Ray Charles fan?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘“Georgia On My Mind” – great song.’ The officer gave him a brief, stiff smile. Thomas was not sure whether to read anything into it. Had someone reported him playing it outside Dr Michael Tennent’s house?
‘And this other tape, sir? What does it contain?’
‘Work.’
‘What do you do?’
‘I’m a scientist – I work for your government. The information on that tape is classified. I have to insist you put it down immediately.’
A fraction chastened, the officer put the cassettes back on the seat. Thomas enjoyed the moment. He dug a hand into his pocket and closed his fingers around his coin. Then as he followed the policeman towards the car, and waited as he reached in and removed the breathalysing equipment, Thomas flipped the coin and trapped it on the back of his hand.
Tails.
‘It’s your lucky night, Officer,’ he said.
The breath test was negative. The policeman asked Thomas to blow a second time and it was still negative. He gave Thomas a brief lecture on road safety then released him with a caution and detailed instructions to the M4.
The cemetery was only a small deviation from the route.
It was half past midnight. Thomas borrowed the torch Dr Goel kept in his glove-box. The gates were locked and he had to clamber over them; then he dropped down onto the drive. It was light here, close enough to pick up some of the glow of the street lighting, but ahead the centre of the vast cemetery lay as black as a lake, beneath the stars.
He switched on his torch, and swiftly made his way through the car park, past the chapel, and along one of the well-tended paths.
The newer graves were towards the rear. He didn’t need to look at the dates on the headstones: he could tell from the glints of Cellophane that wrapped recent bouquets, from the scents of flowers and recently turned earth.
It took him a full five minutes of walking fast to reach the ragged strip where his mother lay. Then he stood still, his anger rising as he scoured the grass with the beam of the torch.
Bitch
.
She was here, under this soil, stiff and silent, the way she had been when he had last held her in his arms, the way all the rest of the people in here were. Dead. Gone. No longer a person, reduced to the state of
cadaver
.
He stared down at the ground, then suddenly shouted,
‘You stupid bitch, why did you have to die? Why?’ His voice rose to a scream. ‘
Why? Why? Why?
’
Then he sank to his knees. The moon was riding high in the sky, it was nearly full, but there was one bit missing; it looked like a bent coin.
He pressed his face right down into the grass and breathed deeply, trying to catch just a small trace of Chanel No. Five. But all he could smell was earth and grass. He got to his feet, kicked the strip of grass sending a divot skimming into the shadows.
Lie there, you bitch, what do I care?
Then, aloud, he said, ‘Lie there all fucking night!’
A dying drumbeat of fear rolled through the fading dream.
The darkness was loud, deafening, pressing in on him. Michael burst out through it, from deep sleep to instant thrumming consciousness.
Someone was walking across his bedroom floor. A shadowy figure appeared by the window.
Oh, Christ
.
In his confusion he remembered a car. There had been a car outside and Amanda had been freaked out by it –
Amanda?
It was coming back fast now.
Amanda was here, they were sleeping –
Where was she? He put out an arm and felt empty sheets. Fear roiled through him.
Phone the police. Find a weapon
.
A clank. Brass curtain rails rattling on the rod. A strip of streetlighting exploded into the room and the figure shone like a ghost.
A naked woman. Amanda, peering out of the window.
In his relief, the whole room seemed to lighten up. Michael held his breath, watching her in silence, drenched in her musky smells and his own perspiration.
The curtains rustled back together, not quite as tightly as before, leaving an orange chink.
‘No one there,’ Amanda said, turning towards him as if knowing he was awake.
She slipped back into bed and he felt the hard goose-bumps on her flesh as they worked their arms around each other and kissed and held each other close, lying on their sides, their faces up close, resting on the same pillow. Her breath was minty, she must have just brushed her teeth, he
thought, hoping his own mouth didn’t taste too bad. He loved the feel of her nakedness in his arms, pressed against his own body.
‘You’re still worried about that car?’ he asked.
‘It’s OK. I – I just wanted to make sure that it . . .’
‘Wasn’t your ex?’
‘I couldn’t see clearly but I didn’t think it looked like Brian. I wouldn’t put it past him to have me followed though.’
‘I have some binoculars. If the car does come back we can take a closer look.’
She raised her eyebrows with a grin. ‘Are you the neighbourhood Peeping Tom? Is that what you have binoculars for?’
‘Horses, actually.’
‘Horses? You like racing? Flat or jumps?’
‘The jumps. Katy liked –’ He stopped abruptly, not wanting to get drawn, and instantly regretted mentioning her.
There was a brief, uneasy silence, and sensing it, Amanda gently pushed some hairs back off his forehead, then changed the subject. ‘Tell me more about yourself. Do you have any brothers or sisters?’
‘I have a brother, three years older than me.’
‘What does he do?’
‘He’s a metallurgist. Works for Boeing in Seattle.’
‘Are you close?’ she asked.
‘No, not really. We get on when we meet up, but we don’t know each other that well – three years is a big age gap when you’re a kid.’
She kissed each of his eyes gently. He tightened his hold on her, and she moved closer still against his body as if silently comforting him, slipped one hand down his stomach, let her fingers drift through his groin and then began, with incredible tenderness, to stroke him. ‘Are your parents alive?’
‘Yes.’ He breathed in sharply from pleasure.
‘What do they do?’
This woman is incredible
, Michael thought. Their love-making
had been beyond anything he had ever experienced. And now he felt an extraordinary sense of ease and peace with her. He realised he had never, ever felt so comfortable with any other human being. Nor so horny.
I could fall in love with you, Amanda Capstick. I could fall seriously, utterly and hopelessly in love with you
.
‘My father’s retired – he was a doctor – a GP in Lymington – down on the edge of the New Forest. My mother was his secretary.’ He was growing further in her hand, and she continued the light, tantalising strokes.
‘Beautiful part of the world. Is that where you grew up?’
Clenched teeth. ‘Yes.’
‘Does he still practice?’
An even sharper intake of air.
You are driving me crazy!
‘No, he’s eighty-four. He married quite late. Just potters around with his little boat. My mother gardens, plays bridge and worries about me.’
‘My mother worries about me, too’ she said. ‘We always remain little children to our parents.’
‘Yup. That only changes at the very end when they turn into the helpless children we once were.’ He caressed her hair. ‘Tell me about your parents?’
‘My father was an artist – a painter. He left my mother when I was seven because he wanted to go and sit on a mountain in India in search of enlightenment. He was in a motorcycle accident out there and died of septicaemia in a hospital in Delhi.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I barely knew him, he was hardly ever around when they were together. And my mother – she’s nuts.’ Amanda smiled, her face all blurry. ‘Nicely nuts, she’s lovely, but she’s always been eccentric – rather bohemian. She lives in Brighton and she’s fifty-four and she still hasn’t decided what she wants to do in life.’
‘Did she remarry?’
‘No, she’s had a succession of lovers, mostly unsuccessful artists, or actors or writers. She was a graphic artist by training, but has always dabbled in other things. She’s into
Feng Shui at the moment. Large companies pay her a fortune to rearrange the furniture in their offices.’
‘Is there good Feng Shui here?’
‘I think she’d approve of your living spaces.’
‘That’s a relief.’
‘You’d like her. Everyone does.’ She paused, then added. ‘I think she’d really like you.’
There was another silence, but now it was an easy, secure space they had made for each other. Michael lay still, scarcely able to believe this was real, that Amanda Capstick was here, naked in his arms, pressed up against his erection, her warm, minty breath on his face.
‘Are you worried about Brian?’ he asked. ‘Is he violent?’ As he spoke, he ran his hand lightly over the flat of her stomach, then with his fingers began to tease her pubes.
‘He has a vile temper. But I don’t think he’s going to be turning up here at three in the morning with a pickaxe – that wouldn’t be his style.’
‘I’m OK with axes,’ Michael said. ‘I got attacked by a mental patient with one.’
‘Why? What happened?’
He wanted to make love to her again. ‘Later.’
‘Tell me
now!
’ She squeezed him hard and he exhaled a blast of air, laughing, then kissed her forehead.
‘OK! I was an expert witness in a child-custody case. I told the court the mother wasn’t fit to look after her children. A year later, she was waiting for me in the hospital car park with a logging axe.’
‘Did she hit you?’
‘She tried to hack my leg off, but luckily she hit my briefcase. Then I managed to disarm her.’
‘I didn’t realise psychiatry was a contact sport.’ she said.
Michael grinned. ‘I hadn’t either, when I went into it.’
She was quiet for a moment and then she said, ‘Why did you become a psychiatrist? Did you always want to be one?’
It was a question he was asked often.
‘I was always interested in biological things as a kid – I suppose partly from my father being a doctor. I did a degree in psychology, then realised that psychiatry is much more
biological. I’ve always been interested in people, in what makes us tick. Psychiatry is the natural combination of the two. I just wish the public image of psychiatry was better.’ He gave her a quizzical look.
‘I think the public image is good,’ she said. ‘In fact I’m getting more impressed with psychiatrists every moment.’
‘Actually, we’re pretty much at the bottom of the food chain in medicine. We’re the last resort for GPs, when all else fails. We’re just one rung above snake-oil salesmen.’
‘Are you angry with me, for what I told you I was doing with my documentary?’
‘Did you ever hear the saying that, when you have their balls in your hands, their hearts and minds will follow?’ he murmured.
Their eyes met again, explored each other and, as if in reply, she slid her head beneath the sheets, took his balls in her mouth and closed her lips around them.
Then she began to hum.
‘Open your present!’
She couldn’t sit still either! Spangles of April sunlight darted like fish in the deeps of her emerald eyes. ‘Go on, yes, open it, Tom-Tom, open it now! Happy birthday!’
She was even more excited than he was!
The folds of her silk dressing gown rustled as she sat, a Peter Stuyvesant cigarette burning in the ashtray, her blonde tresses shimmying; she was leaning across the table towards him.
The present was for him, but he knew how much it meant to her that he liked it.
She was imploring him to like it!
And he knew how angry she would be if he did not.
Thomas always wore his best suit on his birthday, with a tie, a plain shirt and black shoes. He was sitting in these clothes now at the large table in the breakfast room, which overlooked the garden, secluded from neighbours by tall trees and dense, immaculately tended bushes and shrubs.
He liked to go out there, but it was only rarely that his mother gave him permission. She had explained many times the dangers. Bad people could be hiding in the shrubbery waiting to snatch him and take him away for ever. Sunlight corroded human skin. London air was unhealthy to breathe. There were insects that could bite or sting, animal faeces that could make him blind. Horrendous stuff came out of aeroplanes when they flushed their lavatories and just hung in the air, slowly dropping down on people.