Bodleian library that proved no use at all and now you want to play games with me — suggesting that my wife has been lying about her recent movements — rather than just spitting out where the hell she is. That’s all I want to know, Miss Hyde. Where is she?’
It came out as more of a plea than he had intended, his voice desperate and imploring. That much was apparent from the change in Rosemary’s expression. Her features had softened into a look unnervingly close to pity.
‘I don’t know where Florence is,’ she said quietly. ‘That is the truth.’ She resumed walking. ‘But I am not surprised she’s gone. I expected it.’
‘You expected it?’
‘Didn’t you? If you’re honest. Given everything that’s been going on?’
‘I don’t follow.’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘I really don’t, Miss Hyde. And I’m getting pretty damned irritated with people speaking to me about events I know nothing about.’
‘These are not “events”, Dr Zennor. This is about day-to-day life. At home. You and Florence and Harry.’
‘Our day-to-day life is fine, thank you very much. We’re a very good family. I love my wife and I love my son.’ His eyes widened in sudden understanding. ‘Oh, so that’s why you spoke about “affairs”. Well, let me tell you, I have always been faithful to Florence, from the very first moment-’
‘Nothing like that,’ she said, looking at her feet. She lifted her eyes and met his gaze directly. ‘Tell me, how well do you sleep?’
‘I don’t see this is any business of-’
‘It’s no business of mine at all. But your wife needed someone to talk to and that turned out to be me. So: how well do you sleep?’
‘And if I answer you, is that going to help me find my wife?’
‘It might.’
‘I go to bed late and I get up early, and I sometimes wake in the night. There, I’ve told you. Now, what can you tell me?’
‘Florence told me that you often wake up in the dead of night, shouting and screaming.’
‘I know the incident you’re referring to. It was-’
‘Incident? Florence said it happens all the time. You’re in a sweat, sitting bolt upright, bellowing out-’
‘I really don’t see…’
Rosemary ignored the interruption. ‘Night after night. And that would set Harry off. He’d be crying so hard, he couldn’t be settled. And if he did fall asleep, he’d only wet the bed an hour later. Then there was the time she found you sleepwalking.’
‘I don’t remember any-’
‘She found you in the kitchen, holding a knife. She said you just stood there, your eyes staring, frozen still with a knife in your hand. She was scared half to death.’
‘You’re making this up!’ he roared suddenly.
Rosemary turned and faced him, her teeth clenched tight. ‘And this is what she said was making life utterly impossible. Your constant pretence that nothing had happened. And your aggression. “Is he lying, Rosemary — or does he just not remember?” That’s what she would say to me. And she didn’t know what was worse: the thought that you would deny what she had seen with her own eyes or that you were so ill you couldn’t remember your own actions.’
‘ Ill? I’m not ill.’
‘I know about this too. Your refusal to see a doctor. She’s been begging you to see-’
‘Oh, for heaven’s-’ He struggled to get to the end of the sentence; the bright light in his head was becoming unbearable… but he couldn’t stop her. Not if she knew something he needed to know. He tried to speak calmly. ‘I did see someone. About the insomnia.’
‘Yes, but you didn’t tell him the truth, did you? You just said you had “the odd bad night”. You said-’
‘How the hell do you know all this?’
‘Because your wife had no one else to turn to. She didn’t dare speak to her parents. She knew how much you resented them for-’
‘Resented them?’
‘-for the help they had given you.’ His puzzled expression prompted her to be more explicit. ‘Resented the money they had given you.’
‘Look,’ he said, his voice firm and steady. ‘All I want is to know what information you have. You need to tell me that. Now.’
She paused, looking out over the river unwinding ahead, gazing at the top of Christ Church Cathedral in the middle distance. ‘All right,’ she began. ‘The important thing is Harry. Florence wanted to protect him.’
‘From what?’
‘From you, of course. Initially. ’
He was about to object, but the throbbing in his head was getting too insistent. It was easier to be quiet, to walk and to listen.
‘She said she had almost got used to you being angry all the time. After the-’ she glanced at his shoulder. ‘After the, um, accident. But once Harry was born, it began to worry her. The truth is, she was frightened.’
‘Of me,’ he said quietly.
‘Yes, James. Of you. Of what you might do. She was worried that you might hurt Harry.’
At this, his heart seemed to cave in, a physical sensation, felt in the muscle and blood. He could say nothing.
‘You once left him by a boiling kettle. Do you remember that, James?’
He shook his head, unsure.
‘Well, you did. You’d left the boy on his own, in the kitchen. You’d put the kettle-’
‘That’s enough,’ he said softly.
‘That’s what I said,’ Rosemary said, sardonically. ‘I told her it was enough. That she should leave you. Several times. Especially after you hit her.’
‘After I did what?’
‘Oh, don’t pretend you don’t remember that. You’d had an almighty row. And you slapped her, clean across the face. Her cheek was stinging. I had to soothe it with cool flannels all evening.’
‘That’s a damned lie!’
‘Don’t shout at me. All I am-’
‘It’s a damned lie and you know it.’ He felt giddy, as if he were about to topple over. It could not be true. It could not. Could it?
Everything else she had said had sounded some distant bell in his head, a distant but undeniable ring of truth. But not this. Yes, he had a temper, that was a fact. But the target of his rages was always himself. It was his own wrist that had been slashed when he punched his fist clean through the French windows onto the garden, his own head that had been bruised when he had rammed it into a bookcase in an eruption of fury. But he had never harmed his wife. No real man would ever do such a thing. His voice quieter now, he said once again, ‘It’s a lie.’
‘So you keep saying. But how can you be sure? Your memory seems a touch unreliable in my book.’
‘And you say she came to you?’
‘Straight away.’ The pride with which this was declared sent the rage surging through him once more, rising like mercury in a thermometer.
‘But she’d never do it. Leave you, I mean. Absurdly loyal, Florence. I hope you appreciate that.’
‘But she’s left me now.’
‘For Harry’s sake. She feared for his safety with you in the house. That was at first. Florence no longer sees you as the biggest threat to her son. Not directly anyway.’
James spoke quietly, more to himself than to her: ‘It’s the war.’
‘Yes. She’s been getting gradually more terrified since the day the war started. The sirens, the air-raid shelters, the gas-masks, that thing you’ve just built in the garden-’
‘The Anderson shelter.’
