Long Goodbyes (5 page)

Mr Benjamin huffed. ‘Might have stolen it. Who can say? In any case, you’re here now. Best forget about the whole episode. I’ll make some enquiries. We’ll get to the bottom of it, never fear.’

‘Please don’t go to any trouble,’ I said quickly. The last thing I wanted was to have it spread about that the new tenants were flighty and fearful types prone to panic and all kinds of fanciful notions - although of course I knew there to be a degree of understanding in the village regarding Jack’s condition.
 

‘No trouble,’ Mr Benjamin said. ‘I’ll ask around - discreetly, of course. In any event I’m sure no harm was meant by it, whatever the motive.’

‘It’s a damned impertinence,’ Jack said. ‘If I catch the so-and-so responsible, I’ll-’

‘No, my dear,’ I said. ‘We don’t want any upset. Let’s just enjoy our evening. I’ll go and see if I can be of any help to Orla.’

‘Well, if you’re sure, Jenny.’ Mr Benjamin frowned. ‘But Orla can manage well enough. My advice would be just to relax and - dear me! Are you all right?’

As Mr Benjamin had been speaking I felt a spasm of pain in my stomach, and I cried out at the unexpectedness of it. Jack rushed to my side. ‘What is it?’

The pain subsided as quickly as it had begun. ‘Nothing,’ I told the two men. ‘I am quite well.’

‘You’re pale.’ Jack’s face was all anxiety. He hovered next to me, unsure what to do to help.

‘I’ll get you a glass of water.’ Mr Benjamin hurried from the room.

As I sat facing the fireplace Jack was standing directly in front of me. Behind us was the large picture window which looked out onto the grounds. I saw him glance up, puzzled, as if he had seen something outside. I was about to speak when he gave a short cough and took a step back. His legs caught the armchair and he fell into it with a thump.
 

‘Jack?’ I knew something was wrong straight away. His eyes were wide and unfocused. I thought perhaps he was experiencing another hallucination, but this seemed different to the previous occasion. His mouth opened and closed, as if he were trying to communicate, but nothing came out. His eyes widened a second time and I turned to see what he might have been looking at. I had a fleeting impression of a movement at the very edge of the window frame, but then all I could see were the hedges and the wide lawn.

‘Jack!’ I felt for his pulse, which was weak but beating.

Mr Benjamin came back into the room and sized up the situation immediately. He went straight to the telephone, tapped for a line and spoke urgently into the mouthpiece. Orla joined me in my attempt to communicate with Jack, but to no avail.
 

The doctor arrived ten minutes later. We left the room while he made his examination.

Orla hugged me. ‘He will be fine, Jenny. You’ll see.’

We waited in silence for what seemed an age.
 

When the doctor eventually emerged, Mr Benjamin went into the hall to speak with him. He called us over presently.
 

‘I am very sorry,’ the doctor said gravely, and my heart sank, ‘but regrettably I have not been able to improve upon his condition.’
 

‘Is it a stroke? A heart attack?’

‘No. But I have seen something like this before.’ The doctor shook his head as if to dispel an unwelcome memory. ‘An older patient, though.’
 

I remember that the doctor then cleared his throat rather self-consciously before continuing. ‘The symptoms are not dissimilar,’ he declared.

‘A recurrence of his experiences in France perhaps?’ I prompted. ‘But he has never been as bad as this.’

The doctor nodded. ‘A trauma of some sort, certainly. But whether the trauma originates in his military experience or not is impossible to say.’

‘But what else could-?’ Then I remembered the look on Jack’s face, the movement outside. I looked first to Mr Benjamin and then to Orla, whose eyes were downcast, her hands clasped upon her apron.

‘Hard to be sure,’ the doctor said. ‘My advice for the immediate future is to keep him warm, keep talking to him. He’ll need to know you are near. Your voices may help bring him back.’

Bring him back…
Such a hard thing to hear after all we had been through, but I feared that, this time, he would be too far away for me to reach.

Mr Benjamin helped me to lead Jack to his pony and trap and together we saw him to bed. With an assurance that he would look in on us in the morning, he took his leave and I sat quietly in our parlour, lost in thought and worry, listening to the
clip clop
of the pony’s hooves recede like a castanet’s
diminuendo
along the narrow lane.

chapter six

The next few days came and went and Jack showed no sign of improvement. He would sit in the armchair staring fixedly ahead with only the occasional blink of his eyes to indicate his state of consciousness.

Orla was a frequent visitor.

‘You must not despair’, said she, taking hold of Jack’s limp hand. ‘We must all trust in the Lord and not give up hope.’

‘You care for him,’ I said.
 

Orla turned to me and her expression did little to hide her distress. ‘Of course. I care for you both. You have become dear to me in the short time we have known you.’

‘I must tell his family,’ I said. ‘I did not want to alarm them unduly, but now it is clearly my duty to let them know.’

Outside I could hear the gentle buffet of wind against the windows. The spring had turned cold once again, as had my heart.

‘He has siblings?’ Orla enquired with the slight lift of her eyebrows I had come to know well.

‘An older sister, Grace. And his parents are alive, but infirm.’

In truth I had delayed breaking this news longer than I should. I knew in my soul that Jack was lost to me, but I also knew that his sister, Grace, would react in an unhelpful way. I knew that she would insist upon a visit. More, that she would also press for Jack’s repatriation to the family bosom where, she would no doubt inform me in her usual punctilious way, he may best be cared for.

‘What is it?’ Orla asked, reading my pained expression.

‘We do not see eye to eye, Grace and me. But I will have to be hospitable at the very least.’

‘Dear Jenny. I will be here for you.’

And she took her leave, but her last, lingering glance was for Jack alone.

Grace arrived the following Friday. In her heavy dress and bonnet she appeared even more formidable than I had remembered.
 

‘Where is he?’ were her first words to me as Mr Benjamin helped her dismount from the trap.

‘It is good of you to come, Grace,’ I said. ‘Jack is inside. In the parlour, as always.’

She breezed past me into the cottage. Mr Benjamin gave a sympathetic shrug before he tapped the pony’s rump. ‘Walk on.’ As the trap moved off he called over his shoulder. ‘We’re here if you need us.’

I remembered our arrival then, and his comment as he had departed: ‘
I trust all will be well.’

I could hear Grace’s voice, grating and impatient. I took a deep breath and went in.

She was bent over Jack’s prone form. She took hold of his shoulders and shook them. ‘Jack? Really, it is time to come to your senses.’

I watched quietly until she had exhausted her patience. Then she turned to me as if I were to blame. ‘Well, what’s to be done?’

‘We must treat him gently, Grace.’ I stood beside my husband and stroked his fine hair. I felt him tremble a little at my touch.

‘He’ll be better off back home,’ she replied testily. ‘Where is my room?’

‘Follow me. It is small, but comfortable.’

As her tread came behind me I heard her mutter under her breath. ‘The middle of nowhere. I ask you.’

From that point onwards, ours was an unhappy household. We took Jack for walks, along the beach, and out into the countryside. All points of the compass appeared disagreeable to Grace.

‘It’s no use,’ she announced one morning. ‘He must come home with me. Perhaps the familiar will jog his memory.’

‘Grace, what is familiar to Jack is a dugout half-filled with water, with food suspended from the ceiling to avoid contamination by the rats. What he remembers is the endless noise of the guns and the wrecked bodies of his men.’

‘Nonsense. I’ll walk him along the promenade, take him to chapel on Sunday mornings. Mother and father will be able to spend time with him. They are old, you know. They would welcome his homecoming.’

‘And what of me?’ I asked. ‘Am I supposed to simply hand him over to your care? What is here for me if Jack is gone?’ I tried to steady my voice. This woman would not see me cry.

‘You will come with us, of course. No doubt we can find a little
pied-a-terre
for you nearby.’

‘You will do nothing of the sort.’ I heard myself as though through a long tunnel, my voice flat and dissonant.
 

‘Well,’ Grace sniffed. ‘As you wish. My concern is for my brother.’

I turned on my heels and fled her presence. Out I went into the soft rain, running, picking up my skirts, not caring in which direction I went. All I could think of was Jack’s slack, unseeing expression, the new hope we had had on that train journey which now seemed so long ago, so far away.

My skirts were sodden by the time I came to a breathless halt. My hair hung in damp tendrils and my chest was heaving with emotion and physical effort. I bent double, hands upon my knees. When I straightened up I realised that dusk had fallen and that my flight had brought me to within sight of the grand house. It loomed like a crouching, overseeing, bird of prey, its ivy-clad trellises and stonework making it appear part horticultural, part architectural in composition. The rain had intensified and so reluctantly, but also curiously, I continued towards the crumbling steps which led to the ornate front door of the once-great edifice.
 

The steps were firm beneath my feet and the front portal opened easily at my touch.
So this is it
, I thought,
the subject of my darling Jack’s fascination
. I couldn’t help feeling, you see, that somehow, irrationally, the house itself - or something related to it - had in some way been responsible for what had happened to my husband.
 

My footsteps echoed on the bare floor of the grand hall. The light which filtered through the high, dusty windows was dim, but I could see enough to be impressed by the sheer size and sumptuousness of the interior. Jack had been right; there was life yet in this house, and it was certainly no ruin. Ahead of me the spread of the magnificent staircase captivated my attention. I could imagine, quite clearly in my mind’s eye, the lady of the house slowly descending, her ballgown shimmering in the candlelight while the guests waited expectantly in a hushed semicircle, the master of the house stepping forward to take her hand and present her to the revellers fortunate enough to have secured an invitation. And then my heart jolted as I remembered the nature of the master and the dreadful plight of the common people who had lived within sight of this testament to extravagance - barely enough food in their stomachs to keep them in this world, forced to watch the excesses of the lord and lady as they gave themselves to a life of scandalous excess so severely juxtaposed to the extreme poverty all around them.

And then, as if my thoughts had been read, the silence was broken by what I can only describe as a low chortle of amusement from the deepening darkness of the hall. I knew beyond doubt that the voice belonged to the nocturnal trespasser I had encountered that night in the cottage.

‘Hello?’ I clutched myself in fright. What was I thinking, entering this place at night on my own? But then I became suddenly convinced that something had drawn me here, that I had not come purely of my own volition, and this thought left me almost rigid with terror. I heard another movement, the gentle tread of well-heeled shoes upon marble. Even then I was rooted to the spot, held there by I know not what power.

As those dread footfalls drew nearer, all at once something inside me was released and I turned on my heels to flee. I was within a few feet of the entrance, but the door handle, a weighty iron circlet, would not turn at my insistence. I pulled until my wrists protested and still the door would not give way.

I cast about this way and that. Where should I run? I did not know the geography of the house, nor what dangers might lie in wait in such a neglected property; but the unseen, relentless footsteps drove me to action. I let go of the door handle and ran blindly for the staircase. As I gained the fourth or fifth step I felt a cold breath of wind fan my cheeks, as if a gust of winter had entered the building, and something touched my arm with a brief but firm pressure. Sobbing with terror I tore myself away from that invisible grip and continued to the top of the staircase to run blindly along a corridor leading who only knew where.

I came to a door, perhaps leading into a bedroom, and once inside I fumbled for the key in order to shut myself away from whatever stalked the house. To my immense relief there was indeed a key and it turned easily with a pronounced
click
. But what was I to do now? The windows offered a possible escape route, but when I scraped a square of grime from the first pane I could see how hopeless my proposed exit was: I was at least fifty feet above the ground, the drop a sheer one with no juts or projections to aid any possible descent.