A Great Deliverance (41 page)

“Mr. Clarence was very good to me, Bobby. I was like part of his family. I … I married his son Jonah. You’d love Jonah. He’s so gentle. So good. When I’m with him, I feel as if nothing could ever … nothing ever again,” she concluded.

It was enough. It was what she had come to do. Gillian looked at the psychiatrist beseechingly, waiting for direction from him, for his nod of dismissal. He merely watched her from behind the protection of his spectacles. They winked in the light. His face told her nothing, but his eyes were very kind.

“There. That’s it. It’s done nothing,” Jonah concluded decisively. “You’ve brought her up here to this all for nothing. I’m taking her home.” He began to get to his feet.

“Sit down,” Lynley said, his voice making it clear that the other man had no choice in the matter.

“Bobby, talk to me,” Gillian begged. “They say you killed Papa. But I know that you couldn’t have. You didn’t look like … There was no
reason
. I know it. Tell me there was no reason. He took us to church, he read to us, he made up games we could play. Bobby, you didn’t kill him, did you?”

“It’s important to you that I didn’t kill him, isn’t it?” Dr. Samuels said quietly. His voice was like a feather floating gently in the air between them.

“Yes,” Gillian responded immediately, although her eyes were on her sister. “I put the key under your pillow, Bobby. You were awake! I talked to you! I said ‘Use it tomorrow’ and you understood. Don’t tell me you didn’t understand. I
know
you did.”

“I was too young. I didn’t understand,” the doctor said.

“You had to understand! I told you I’d put a message in the
Guardian
, that it would say
Nell Graham
, remember? We loved that book, didn’t we? She was so brave and strong. It was the way we both wanted to be.”

“But I wasn’t strong, was I?” the doctor queried.

“You were! You didn’t look like … You were supposed to come to Harrogate! The message told you to come to Harrogate, Bobby! You were sixteen. You could have come!”

“I wasn’t like you at sixteen, Gillian. How could I have been?” The psychiatrist hadn’t moved in his chair. His eyes travelled between the two sisters, waiting for a sign, reading the underlying messages in body movements, posture, and tone of voice.

“You didn’t have to be! You weren’t supposed to be! All you had to do was come to Harrogate. Not to London, just to Harrogate. I would have taken you from there. But when you didn’t come, I thought—I
believed
—that you were all right. That nothing … that you were fine. You weren’t like Mummy. You were fine.”

“Like Mummy?”

“Yes, like Mummy. I was like her. Just exactly like. I could see it in the pictures. But you weren’t. So that made you fine.”

“What did it mean, to be like Mummy?” the doctor asked.

Gillian stiffened. Her mouth formed the single word
no
three times in rapid succession. It was too much to bear. She couldn’t go on.

“Was Bobby like Mummy in spite of what you believed?”

No!

“Don’t answer him, Nell,” Jonah Clarence muttered. “You don’t have to answer him. You’re not the patient here.”

Gillian looked at her hands. She felt the burden of guilt heavy upon her shoulders. The sound of her sister’s ceaseless rocking filled the air, the sound of tortured breathing, the beating of her own heart. She felt that she couldn’t go on. She knew she couldn’t turn back.

“You know why I left, don’t you?” she said hollowly. “It was because of the present on my birthday, the special present, the one …” Her hand went to her eyes. It shook. She controlled herself. “You must tell them the truth! You must tell them what happened! You can’t let them lock you away for the rest of your life!”

Silence. She
couldn’t
. It was in the past. It had all happened to someone else. Besides, the little eight-year-old who had followed her round the farm, who had watched her every movement with eyes shining with adoration, was dead. This gross, obscene creature before her was not Roberta. There was no need to go further. Roberta was gone.

Gillian lifted her head. Roberta’s eyes has shifted. They had moved to her, and in that movement Gillian saw that she had indeed broken through where the psychiatrist had failed these last three weeks. But there was no triumph in that knowledge. There was only condemnation. There was only facing, one last time, the immutable past.

“I didn’t understand,” Gillian said brokenly. “I was only four or five years old. You weren’t even born then. He said it was special. A kind of friendship fathers always had with their daughters. Like Lot.”

“Oh no,” Jonah whispered.

“Did he read the Bible to you, Bobby? He read it to me. He came in at night and sat on my bed and read the Bible to me. And as he read it—”

“No, no,
no
!”

“—his hand would find me underneath the covers. ‘Do you like that, Gilly?’ he would ask me. ‘Does it make you happy? It makes Papa very happy. It’s so nice. So soft. Do you like it, Gilly?’”

Jonah pounded his right fist against his forehead. With his left arm he hugged himself tightly across his chest up to his shoulder.
“Please,”
he moaned.

“I didn’t know, Bobby. I didn’t understand. I was only five years old and then it was dark in the room. ‘Turn over,’ he would say, ‘Papa will rub your back. Do you like that? Where do you like it best? Here, Gilly? Is it special here?’ And then he’d take my hand. ‘Papa likes it there, Gilly. Rub Papa there.’”

“Where was Mummy?” the doctor asked.

“Mummy was asleep. Or in her room. Or reading. But it really didn’t matter because this was special. This was something fathers share with daughters. Mummy mustn’t know. Mummy wouldn’t understand. She didn’t read the Bible with us so she wouldn’t understand. And then she left. I was eight years old.”

“And then you were alone.”

Gillian shook her head numbly. Her eyes were wide, tearless. “Oh no,” she said in a small, torn voice. “I was Mummy then.”

At her words, a cry escaped Jonah Clarence’s lips. Lady Helen looked at Lynley immediately and covered his hand with her own. It turned, grasping her fingers tightly.

“Papa set up all her pictures in the sitting room so I could see her every day. ‘Mummy’s gone,’ he said and made me look at them all so I could see how pretty she was and how much I had sinned in being born in the first place to drive her away. ‘Mummy knew how much Papa loved you, Gilly, so she left. You must be Mummy to me now.’ I didn’t know what he meant. So he showed me. He read the Bible. He prayed. And he showed me. But I was too little to be a proper Mummy to him. So he … I did other things. He taught me. And I … was a very good student.”

“You wanted to please him. He was your father. He was all you had.”

“I wanted him to love me. He said he loved me when I … when we … ‘Papa loves it in your mouth, Gilly.’ And afterwards we prayed. We always prayed. I thought God would forgive me for making Mummy run away if I became a good enough Mummy to Papa. But God never forgave me. He didn’t exist.”

Jonah’s head sank to the table, cradled in his arms, and he began to weep.

Gillian finally looked at her sister again. Roberta’s eyes were on her, although her face remained without expression. The rocking had stopped.

“So I did things, Bobby, things I didn’t understand because Mummy was gone and I needed … I wanted my Mummy again. And I thought the only way to get Mummy back was to be her myself.”

“Is that what you did when you were sixteen?” Dr. Samuels asked softly.

“He came to my room. It was late. He said it was time to become Lot’s daughter, the real way, the way the Bible said, and he took off his clothes.”

“He’d never done that before?”

“Never all his clothes. Not like that. I thought he wanted … what I usually … But he didn’t. He … spread my legs and … ‘You’re … I can’t breathe, Papa. You’re too heavy. Please, don’t. I’m afraid. Oh it hurts, it hurts!’”

Her husband swayed on his feet, scraping his chair back viciously on the linoleum floor. He staggered to the window. “It never happened!” he cried against it. “It couldn’t! It didn’t! You’re my
wife!
”

“But he put his hand over my mouth. He said, ‘We can’t wake Bobby, darling. Papa loves
you
best. Let Papa show you, Gilly. Let Papa inside. Like Mummy. Like a real Mummy. Let Papa inside.’ And it hurt. And it hurt. And I
hated
him.”

“No!” Jonah screamed. He threw open the door. It crashed against the wall. He ran from the room.

Then Gillian began to cry. “I was just a shell. I wasn’t a person. What did it matter what he did to me? I became what he wanted, what
anyone
wanted. That’s how I lived. Jonah, that’s how I
lived!
”

“Pleasing everyone?” the doctor asked.

“People love looking into mirrors. So that’s what I was. That’s what he made me. Oh God, I hated him. I
hated
him!” She buried her face in her hands and wept as the grief overcame her, tortured tears held in check for eleven long years. The others sat motionless, listening to her weeping. After long, painful minutes she raised her ravaged face to her sister’s. “Don’t let him kill you, Bobby. Don’t let him do it. For God’s sake, tell them the truth!”

There was no response. There was absolutely nothing. Only the unbearable sound of Gillian’s personal torment. Roberta was motionless. She might have been deaf.

“Tommy,” Lady Helen whispered. “I can’t bear this. She’s done it for
nothing
.”

Lynley stared into the next room. His head was pounding, his throat ached, his eyes burned. He wanted to find William Teys, find him alive, and tear the man savagely limb from limb. He had never known such rage, such sickness. He felt Gillian’s anguish overcome him like a disease.

But her weeping had lessened. She was getting to her feet. She was walking unevenly, numbly, to the door. Her hand reached for the knob. She turned it, pulled it open. Her presence had been useless after all. It was over.

“Did he make you have the naked parade, Gilly?” Roberta asked.

As if under water, Gillian turned slowly from the door at the sound of her sister’s husky voice. “Tell me,” she whispered. She walked back to her chair, moved it closer to the other, and sat down.

Roberta’s eyes, heavy-lidded under their protective folds of fat, were fixed but unfocused on her sister. Her lips worked convulsively. The fingers of one hand flexed. “It was music. Loud. He would take off my clothes.” And then the girl’s voice altered. It became honey-toned, insinuatingly persuasive, chillingly male.
“Pretty baby. Pretty baby
and
Time to march, pretty baby
.
Time to march for Papa
. And he would … it was in his hand …
Watch what Papa does while you march, pretty baby
.”

“I left the key for you, Bobby,” Gillian said brokenly. “When he fell asleep that night in my bed, I went to his room and I found the key. What happened to it? I
left
it for you.”

Roberta struggled with information buried so long beneath the weight of her childhood terrors. “I didn’t … didn’t know. I locked the door. But you never said why. You never said to keep the key.”

“Oh God.” Gillian’s voice was anguished. “Are you saying that you locked the door at night but in the day you left the key in the keyhole? Bobby, is that what you mean?”

Roberta drew her arm across her damp face. It was like a shield, and behind its protection she nodded. Her body heaved with a repressed cry. “I didn’t
know
.”

“So he found it and took it away.”

“He put it in his wardrobe. All the keys were there. It was locked. I couldn’t get it.
Don’t need keys, pretty baby. Pretty baby, march for Papa
.”

“When did you march?”

“Daytime, nighttime.
Come here, pretty baby, Papa wants to help you march
.”

“How?”

Roberta’s arm dropped. Her face was quickly shuttered. Her fingers picked and pulled at her lower lip.

“Bobby,
tell
me how,” Gillian insisted. “Tell me what he did.”

“I love Papa. I love Papa.”

“Don’t say that!” She reached out, grabbed her sister’s arm. “Tell me what he did to you!”

“Love,
Love
Papa.”

“Don’t say that! He was evil!”

Roberta shrank from the word. “No.
I
was evil.”

“How?”

“What I made him … he couldn’t help … he prayed and prayed and couldn’t help … you weren’t there …
Gilly knew what I wanted. Gilly knew how to do me. You’re no good, pretty baby. March for Papa. March on Papa
.”

“‘March
on
Papa’?” Gillian gasped.

“Up and down in one place. Up and down.
That’s nice, pretty baby. Papa big between your legs
.”

“Bobby.
Bobby
.” Gillian averted her face. “How old were you?”

“Eight.
Mmmmm
,
Papa likes to feel all over. Likes to feel and feel and feel
.”

“Didn’t you tell anyone? Wasn’t there anyone?”

“Miss Fitzalan. I told. But she didn’t … she couldn’t…”

“She didn’t
do
anything? She didn’t
help
?”

“She didn’t understand. I said whiskers … his face when he rubbed me. Didn’t understand.
Did you tell, pretty baby? Did you try to tell on Papa
?”

“Oh God, she
told
him?”

“Gilly never told. Gilly never told on Papa. Very bad, pretty baby. Papa needs to punish you
.”

“How?”

Roberta gave no answer. Instead, she began to rock, began to return to the place she had inhabited so long.

“You were only eight years old!” Gillian began to cry. “Bobby, I’m sorry! I didn’t know! I didn’t think he would. You didn’t look like me. You didn’t look like Mummy.”

“Hurt Bobby in the bad place. Not like Gilly. Not like Gilly.”

“Not like Gilly?”

“Turn over, pretty baby. Papa has to punish you
.”

“Oh my God!” Gillian fell to her knees, took her sister into her arms. She sobbed against her breast, but the girl did not respond. Instead, her arms hung limply at her sides and her body tensed as if the proximity of her sister was frightening or distasteful. “Why didn’t you come to Harrogate? Didn’t you see the message? Why didn’t you come? I thought you were all right! I thought he left you alone! Why didn’t you come?”