Running to Paradise (28 page)

17

That evening, after a couple of Scotches and a fairly run-of-the-mill dinner, I felt too restless to stay in the hotel. Knowing I was taking a risk — insurance managers don’t get nicked for drunken driving, not if they wish to remain insurance managers — I decided to take the car and visit one of our old haunts. There was a pub in a tiny hamlet, somewhere near where old Mrs Osborn had lived, that Char and I used to go to. I couldn’t remember the name of the hamlet, but the pub was called The Rising Sun, and after the amount I’d had to drink, I thought I could, at a pinch, remember the way there. The Rising Sun was ours exclusively; no one else in the family went there, or even, I’m pretty sure, knew of its existence. Char had first come to use it years before; it was the nearest pub to her mother’s house, and after a salutary hour or so spent in the company of Ma, all she wanted to do, she said, was make a bee-line for the nearest bar and there hope to recover her equilibrium.

It
was what used to be known as a ‘hedge tavern’, its principal alcoholic beverage being a particularly lethal rough cider. It had khaki-coloured oilcloth on the floor and walls to match, the only concession to decoration being a bunch of plastic roses crammed tightly into a vase that looked as though it had been won at a fairground rifle range, and a large, yellowing, framed photograph of the Chippenham Rotary Club dinner,
circa
1925. For light relief a flock of geese would peer balefully at you through the tiny, rather dirty, windows, and when you emerged, reeling slightly from the effects of the cider, not infrequently chase you to your car. Char and I loved the Rising Sun; it was one of our favourite places.

I
was right, I did remember the way, and found the turning quite easily. It was a cold and windy night, the moon emerging now and again from behind the clouds racing across its surface to light up the surrounding fields. I drove slowly along the twisting lane, remembering, the past more alive to me now than the present.

The
last time I had visited the place it had been high summer, and Char and I had made love in the long grass at the edge of a cornfield bright with poppies, a few hundred yards along the road from where I now was. At the climax of our lovemaking a hare had burst out of the bank behind us and fled away into the growing corn. And I remembered how I’d stood in the gateway watching Char as she picked her flowers — she loved wild flowers, and would always pick a bunch wherever we went, if she could — wishing that this moment might go on for ever, or that I might die there and then and never know what came afterwards...

‘
Don’t ever hark back, darling; don’t you
ever
hark back. If I’ve learned anything in my misspent life, it surely must be that.’

Suddenly,
and for the first time since her death, I heard Char’s voice, and so clearly she might have been sitting in the car beside me. I’d tried to remember the sound of her voice, Christ, how I’d tried, in all those weary months since her death, but the memory of it had gone as absolutely as she herself had gone. Now, suddenly I heard it again: loved, utterly familiar and — right.

I
put my foot hard down on the brake, bringing the car to a slithering halt; I seemed to be shivering and sweating at the same time. I switched off the engine and opened the car window.

‘
Thank you, my love, I’ll not forget again, and thank you for coming back to me.’ It was my own voice I heard shouting into the icy wind. Then I switched on the engine, turned the car round and drove slowly back to Corsham. That night I slept as long and deeply as I can remember.

In
the morning I rang George. ‘Hullo, George, it’s Guy. I’m in the vicinity. Had to visit our Bath office on Friday and thought I’d make a weekend of it.’

‘
Terrific.’ He sounded like an excited schoolboy. ‘Did you know we’d sold the house? Not quite the price I wanted, but bloody good all the same.’

‘
Oh,’ I said, feeling deflated. ‘I didn’t even know you’d put it on the market.’ Was everyone getting on with their lives but me — even old George?

‘
Months ago, I thought you knew. As a matter of fact, we’re moving out next week. We’ve found our dream cottage in Wales. It’s near Bronwen’s sister, on the edge of the Brecon Beacons, a perfect spot...’ He burbled on, superlatives spilling off his tongue at the rate of ten a minute.

I
listened gloomily. ‘I had thought of popping in for a couple of minutes on my way back to London,’ I said, when he paused for breath.

‘
Frightfully sorry, old boy, no can do,’ he shouted. ‘We’re out to lunch — so many goodbyes, you know how it is. Come and see us when we’ve had a chance to settle in. I’ll send you a card with the new address. I can’t give it you over the phone. It’s one of those unpronounceable Welsh names,’ and he roared with happy laughter.

‘
Great, I’ll do that,’ I said. I wouldn’t, though, would I?

‘
I’ll be in touch, then,’ he said, and as an afterthought: ‘Sophia OK?’

‘
As far as I know,’ I said. ‘She’s in Tokyo.’

‘
Oh,’ he said. ‘Well, tell her our news, will you, when she gets back.’

‘
OK,’ I said, ‘goodbye,’ but he had already gone. I replaced the receiver; somehow I felt cheated. It seemed almost obscene that old George should be so happy. But then he’d paid already, hadn’t he? George was a fraud and a bit of a bully when he got the chance, but the old devil had suffered alright, no doubt of that; he’d paid his price. And now, there he was a schoolboy in the throes of first love; the nightmare years over, the wicked witch was dead, and what was wrong with that? Except that Char wasn’t a witch, was she, she was Char.

I
decided to drive back to London at once and eat when I got there. I couldn’t face Sunday lunch in the hotel; besides, there was no point in staying any longer. I’d come to look for Char and I’d found her: I needn’t worry any more, she’d always be with me now.

*

I remember dreading my first visit to Locksley Mental Hospital. I lost my way in the labyrinthine corridors of the place and was hot, flustered, and more nervous than ever by the time I arrived at Char’s room and timidly put my head round the door. She was seated in an armchair by the window of the bright, cell-like bedroom, wearing a neat, blue dress, doing some tapestry. No longer the panting, blaspheming, hunted creature she had been when I last saw her, she looked completely sane and very pretty. I was so surprised, I could think of nothing to say, but stood in the doorway, a complete fool, with my mouth open. Then she looked up, suddenly aware of my presence, and held out her arms. ‘My Warrior,’ she said. ‘I’ve missed you so.’

‘
I’ve brought some flowers,’ I said, ‘and the new book on Charles II,’ and burst into tears.

Char
’s first stay at Locksley lasted nine months. Every week I drove down from London to spend the day with her, until there was no corner of that damned place I didn’t know. I would arrive each Saturday, laden like Father Christmas, with lengths of wool, matching cotton, drawing books, history books, notebooks, once even a pair of pants from Marks & Spencer’s, all commissions from the week before.

‘
Georgy chooses to keep me a prisoner here,’ she would say. ‘It’s the least you can do...’ I would return to London equally burdened; this time with an assortment of raffia mats, pottery jugs and strange little pen and ink drawings, all bought at Char’s instigation and at a prohibitive price, from the shop in the hospital therapy centre. As the months passed she became quite knowledgeable on the different forms of mental illness and would lecture me at length on such topics as drug therapy and the evils of the old closed ward system.

‘
Isn’t it time she came out? She seems saner than most people,’ I asked Dr Weil at one of our monthly interviews.

‘
It won’t be long now, I think,’ he said. ‘But we have to be completely sure. You only see her at her best, Mr Horton, you must know that.’

Meanwhile
there was Bronwen...

It
was during Char’s first stay at Locksley that George sold Maple and bought the house in Belton, and on her first night home after nine months in hospital, told her that he wanted to leave her and marry Bronwen Mallory.

‘
He doesn’t really,’ Char told me, ‘he’s only saying it to upset me.’

A
couple of months after that she was once again admitted to Locksley, this time on a twenty-eight day order. She’d started undressing in the local pub one Sunday morning and when the landlord objected, had thrown a glass at him.

From
then on a pattern was set in our three lives, Char’s, George’s and mine, which would last more or less until Char’s death. Gradually she came to spend longer and longer periods in Locksley and less and less time at home, eventually only returning to the latter for an occasional weekend ‘treat’. On these occasions it was considered obligatory that I should be there, George claiming, rightly, that he could not possibly handle her on his own. Then she had a series of strokes, culminating in bronchial pneumonia from which, miraculously, she survived. Also miraculously this resulted in a return to partial normality as far as her mind was concerned, although her physical strength was greatly impaired, and from then on she could only get about with the help of a walking frame. Following her recovery from the stroke, Dr Weil decreed it was no longer necessary for her to occupy valuable bed space at Locksley. As it was considered out of the question for her to live at home with an alcoholic and unpredictable George, who was patently both unwilling and unable to cope, she was found a place in St Hilda’s, the old people’s home, so providentially situated in the village of Belton itself, where she remained until her death.

George,
having abandoned the idea of escape into the arms of Bronwen — who nevertheless remained in the background patiently biding her time — spent those years in a more or less permanent alcoholic stupor. Char spent them carrying on intrigues with various elderly male inmates of St Hilda’s, trying to teach herself Anglo-Saxon and complaining about George and her children.

And
I? I spent those years looking after George and Char. I wrote to Char twice a week and visited her every other weekend. I endured interminable late-night telephone conversations with George, usually on the subject of his last visit to St Hilda’s. ‘She bit me, Guy. I tell you, she actually bit me: I nearly had to have stitches. That nice nurse, the one with the red hair and the teeth, you know — she said it wasn’t right I should have to put up with it. I can’t take much more, Guy, it just simply isn’t on. But when I ask for a word with Dr Weil, they say he’s on holiday. That damned man’s always on holiday: I wouldn’t mind his job...’ And I would listen patiently; eternally trapped, it seemed, between their two conflicting egos: neither son nor lover, but a simple beast of burden condemned for ever to take their troubles on his unwilling back.

During
that time my own mother died — my father had died some years before when Beth and I were still together — but her death, and I was fond of my mother, seemed to have little impact, for by this time my involvement with the Seymours was so complete, I had no emotion to spare for anything else.

*

Being a Sunday, there were no lorries on the M4 and very little of anything else; in fact for several miles at a stretch mine was the only vehicle travelling east: just a grey tin box under a grey sky, crawling through the featureless motorway landscape, a grey man inside. The last time I’d driven along this road on a Sunday had been the morning of Char’s death.

Suddenly
I began wondering if she’d been alone when she died, completely alone, I mean. I knew George was there, but had he managed, or indeed tried, to reach her? It seemed unlikely. Had she thought of those others, those other men who had loved her: Hubert, Algy, Barny, Dave? Most of all, Barny? And had she thought of me? For the first time since her death I allowed my mind to go back, back to the last time I’d seen her. Until now I’d tried to avoid thinking of it; as a farewell scene it had not been the one I would have chosen, but then I hadn’t known it was a farewell scene, had I, one seldom does, I suppose.

It
had been a warm, thundery day with frequent, heavy showers. Char’s bedroom in St Hilda’s was thick with cigarette smoke and stiflingly hot: she had refused, maddeningly, to have the window open.

‘
Can’t we sit out on the verandah, darling?’ I said. ‘It’s so damned hot in here.’

‘
You can, if you like,’ she said, ‘but I see enough of those freaks at meals. The last thing I want to do is sit with them as well.’ And she’d puffed away furiously at her cigarette, her eyes looking anywhere but at me, as I sat sweating on the plastic-seated chair in the corner of the room. Normally, I didn’t get fed up when she was like this, but would try, usually successfully, to coax her out of her mood. Today, however, for some reason I just wasn’t going to try. Instead, after about ten minutes, during which neither of us spoke, I got up from the chair, sweat by this time trickling uncomfortably down the back of my neck, and told her that if she wasn’t going to speak, there was little point in my staying any longer.