Everyone had gone home; I could hear nothing but the wind in the trees, once or twice the faint shriek of a bird out at sea. If I put my hand to Elsie’s chest I could feel her heartbeat. Her breath blew warmly against my neck. Every so often she would murmur something indistinguishable.
Michael hadn’t stayed long that evening. He had opened the wine and poured me a glass, which I’d knocked back without tasting, as if it were schnapps. He had spread the butter he’d brought with him on to slices of the bread and covered them with smoked salmon, which reminded me horribly of raw human flesh, so I nibbled a bit of the crust and left it at that. We didn’t talk much. He mentioned a couple of details from the Belfast conference he thought might interest me. I said nothing but stared at the dying embers of the fire my father had made. Anatoly wrapped his black length around our legs and purred loudly.
‘It seems unreal, impossible, doesn’t it?’ he said. ‘I’ve known Finn for years,’ he said. ‘Years.’
I said nothing. I felt unable even to nod.
‘Well.’ He stood up and pulled on his coat. ‘I’m going to go, Sam. Will you be able to sleep? I could give you something.’
I waved him away. When he had gone, I went upstairs. I held Elsie against me and stared, wide-eyed, dry- eyed, at the silent dark.
Twenty-Five
‘It’s a bad business, these suicides.’
‘I’m coping.’
‘Bad for us, I mean.’
‘No, I don’t know what you mean.’
Geoff Marsh fingered the knot of his tie as if attempting to establish by touch alone whether it was in the centre of his neck. This meeting had been arranged a fortnight earlier to discuss some possible new sources of funding that had arisen. These we had disposed of over a cup of coffee. I had stood up to go, but he had gestured me back into my chair and started to look worried.
‘This couldn’t have come at a worse time,’ he said.
I bit back a retort and said nothing.
‘You should have told us, Sam.’
‘What should I have told you, Geoff?’
Geoff reached for a pad and looked at some jottings in a display of bureaucratic efficiency.
‘You were technically in our employment, Sam,’ he said after a pause. He gave that shrug of helplessness that I had come to know well. It was an acknowledgement of the implacability of the political and economic climate which cruelly constrained him. He continued, ‘The last thing I want to do is make anything of that, of course, but you should have told us that you were doing sensitive work that would impact on our project.’
I was going to have to work with this man for a long time, so it was difficult for me to think of what I could decently say. I took a deep breath.
‘I thought I was being a good citizen. The police asked me for help. They insisted on secrecy. I didn’t even tell my own family.’
Geoff placed his two hands delicately on the edge of his grossly oversized desk. I felt like a schoolgirl in the headmaster’s office.
‘It’s going to be in the papers,’ he said, with a frown.
‘It’s already in the bloody papers,’ I said. ‘My front lawn is like Greenham Common.’
‘Yes, yes, but so far there has been no mention of, well…’ Geoff gestured around him vaguely. ‘Us, all this, the unit.’
‘Why should they mention that?’
Geoff stood up and walked over to the window and stared out. I tried to think of a way of bringing this tiresome meeting to an end. After a couple of minutes’ silence, I couldn’t bear it any longer.
‘Geoff, if there’s nothing more, I’ve got things to do.’
Geoff turned suddenly as if he had forgotten I was in the room.
‘Sam, do you mind if I am entirely frank?’
‘Go ahead,’ I said drily. ‘Don’t spare my feelings.’
He joined his hands in a pose of statuesque gravity.
‘The whole subject of post-traumatic stress disorder is still controversial. You’ve told me that enough times. We’re creating a new centre for it here and at the same time I don’t want to tell you how many wards I’ve been closing over the past couple of months. And the Linden Report – you know, into that photogenic six-year-old girl who died in Birmingham after we’d turned her away – that’s coming out in a couple of weeks. And I’m just waiting for some bright medical correspondent to put all that together with your thing…’
‘What do you mean,
Geoff’s face had become pinker and harder.
‘Since I’m looking into the abyss,’ he said, ‘maybe I’ll tell you. We chose you to superintend the largest project of my reign… my tenure, whatever you like to call it. Sir Reginald Lennox on my committee says that post- traumatic stress disorder is an excuse for weaklings and nancy boys, to use his expression. But we’ve brought in the famous Dr Samantha Laschen to fight our corner. And about a month before taking up her post, she has shown the world what she can do by treating a traumatized woman in her own home. An irresponsible journalist might point out that the result of Dr Laschen’s personal brand of treatment was that the patient fell in love with Dr Laschen’s own boyfriend, they absconded and then both committed suicide.’ Geoff paused. ‘Any such summary would, of course, be most unfair. But if such an argument were to be made, it would in truth be difficult to argue that the treatment of Fiona Mackenzie was one of your great successes.’
‘I wasn’t treating Fiona Mackenzie. She wasn’t my patient. The point was to provide her with a safe and secure – and temporary – refuge. And as a matter of fact I was against the idea myself.’
I was whining and making excuses and I despised myself for it. Geoff looked unimpressed.
‘It’s a subtle distinction,’ he said, dubiously.
‘What is all this, Geoff? If you’ve got anything to say, just say it.’
‘I’m trying to save you, Sam, and save the unit.’
‘
‘Sam, I’m not expressing a personal view, I’m just putting forward a few pertinent facts. If this trust becomes embroiled in a public scandal in the media, things will be awkward for everybody.’
‘I don’t want to be belligerent about this, but are you making some sort of threat? Do you want me to resign?’
‘No, absolutely not, not at present. This is your project, Sam, and you’re going to see it through, supported by us.’
‘And?’
‘Perhaps we should consider a strategy of containment.’
‘Such as?’
‘That was what I had hoped we could discuss, but it occurred to me that one possibility might be a judicious interview with the right journalist, a sort of pre-emptive strike.’
‘No, absolutely not.’
‘Sam, think about it, don’t just say no.’
‘No.’
‘Think about it.’
‘No. And I’ve got to go now, Geoff. I’ve got doctors to talk to. Lest we forget that the point of this project is to provide a medical service.’
Geoff walked with me across his vast office to the door.
