Echo

'You've left out your resentment at paying through the nose for Ma's private nursing care,' murmured Deacon. 'Doesn't that play a part in this complicated equation?'

'Yes,' Hugh admitted honestly. 'We accepted the trust money in good faith, believing it to be a gift, but the quid pro quo seems to be that Emma and I must fork out indefinitely for a live-in nurse, which we can't afford. Your mother claims she's dying, which means the expenditure won't go on for very much longer, but her doctors say she's good for another ten years.' He pressed finger and thumb to the bridge of his nose. 'I've tried to explain to her that if we could afford that level of private nursing care we wouldn't have had to use her money to pay the girls' school fees, but she won't listen to reason. She refuses to sell her nouse, refuses to come and live with us. She just makes sure the weekly bill is sent to our address.' His voice hardened. 'And it's driving me mad. If I thought I could get away with it, I'd have put a pillow over her mouth months ago and done us all a favor.'

Deacon studied him curiously. 'What do you expect me to achieve by talking to her? If she won't listen to you, she certainly won't listen to me.'

Hugh sighed. 'The obvious way out of the mess is for her to sell the farm, invest the capital, and move into a nursing home somewhere. But Emma thinks she's more likely to accept that suggestion if it comes from you.'

'Particularly if I hold Pa's will over her head?'

Hugh nodded.

'It might work.' Deacon reached for his coat and stood up. 'Assuming I was remotely interested in helping you and Emma out of your hole. But I have a real problem understanding why you think you're entitled to so much of Pa's wealth. Here's an alternative suggestion. Sell your own house and pay Ma back what you owe her.' His smile was not a friendly one. 'At least it means you'll be able to look her in the eye the next time you call her a bitch.'

*12*

Deacon selected a frozen turkey and chucked it into the supermarket cart. He had been like a bear with a sore head since they'd left the pub, and Terry had been careful not to antagonize him further since remarking in the car that it wasn't surprising Deacon's old man had shot himself if all the women in his family were such cows.

'What would you know about it?'' Deacon had asked in an icy voice. 'Did Billy make life so difficult for you that no one wanted to know you? Would it have mattered anyway? You can't get much lower than the gutter in all conscience.'

They hadn't spoken for half an hour, but now Deacon leaned on the cart and turned to the youngster. 'I'm sorry, Terry. I was out of order. It doesn't matter how angry I was, it was no excuse for rudeness.'

'It were true, though. You can't get no lower than the gutter, and it ain't rude to tell the truth.'

Deacon smiled. 'There's a lot lower than the gutter. There's the sewer and there's hell, and you're a long way from both.' He straightened. 'You're not in the gutter, either, not while you're under my roof, so choose your favorite foods and we'll eat like kings.'

After five minutes, he returned to something that had been nagging at him. 'Did Billy ever tell you how old he was?'

'Nope. All I know is, he was old enough to be my grandfather.'

Deacon shook his head. 'According to the pathologist, he was somewhere in his mid-forties. Not much older than me in fact.'

Terry was genuinely astonished. He stood openmouthed with a box of cornflakes in his hand. 'You've gotta be joking. Shit! He looked well ancient. I reckoned he was the same age as Tom, near enough, and Tom's sixty- eight.'

'But he said it was good to be young in the seventies.' He knocked the cornflakes out of the boy's hand into the cart. 'And the seventies were only twenty years ago.'

'Yeah, but I wasn't born then, was I?'

'What's that got to do with anything?'

'It means it was a long time ago.'

'Why did Billy say truth was dead?' asked Deacon, as they drove home after packing the boot with food. 'What's that got to do with a postcard?' He recalled a line from Billy's interview with Dr. Irvine: 'I am still searching for truth.'

'How the hell should I know?'

Deacon held on to his patience with difficulty. 'You lived with the man for two years on and off but, as far as I can see, you never questioned a single damn thing he said. Where was your curiosity? You ask me enough bloody questions.'

'Yeah, but you answer them,' said Terry, smoothing the front of his work jacket with satisfaction. 'Billy got really angry if I said 'why' too many times, so I gave up asking. It wasn't worth the aggro.'

'Presumably he said it in the present tense?'

'What?'

'Truth is dead so nothing matters anymore.'

'Yeah. I already told you that.'

'Another word for truth is 'verity,' ' mused Deacon, gnawing at it like a dog with a bone. 'Verity is a girl's name.' He glanced sideways. 'Do you think V stood for Verity? In other words when he said 'truth is dead' did he mean 'Verity is dead'?' I am still searching for Verity? 'And don't say: 'how the hell should I know?' because I might be inclined to stop the car and ram the turkey down your throat.'