Simon Brett - A Shock to the System

‘What about the children? You are Henry and Emma’s father. You can’t just abandon them.’

‘I am confident that Henry and Emma will be well looked after. Better looked after than by me. By someone who really cares for them.’

‘Oh, I see.’ Sarcasm now overcame the self-pity in her voice. ‘You’re just relying on me to come up trumps. You throw them over and you know their grandmother will cope. Well, of course I will. But I can’t cope without somewhere to live.’

‘You have somewhere to live. Your flat.’

‘There’s not room for Henry and Emma in my flat.’

‘I am not suggesting that there is. You live in your flat. They don’t.’

‘But where do they live? You said they were going to be looked after by someone who really cares for them.’

‘Henry and Emma are going to live with Charmian.’

The words were softly delivered, but their effect could not have been more devastating. Her jaw did what only the cliche describes, and dropped. She mouthed, as if the whole world contained insufficient oxygen for her needs. Graham wondered idly if she was about to have a heart attack. In many ways it might simplify his life if she did.

But eventually her voice returned. ‘Graham, you’re mad,’ it whispered. ‘Quite, quite mad. Certifiably mad.’

‘No,’ he replied gently.

‘Yes, you talk as if you’ve planned this for years.’

‘Not exactly planned it — certainly thought about it.’ Which was an accurate assessment, he reckoned. There had been a bit of planning, yes, but there had also been strokes of pure luck, like Charmian’s offer, symptoms of the fact that everything was going his way.

‘Oh yes, planned it.’ Lilian’s voice was recovering strength; her theatrical training never deserted her for long. ‘You were just waiting for Merrily’s death. In fact. .’ her eyes widened as the thought struck home, ‘. . perhaps you even planned Merrily’s death.’

A week before this would have really rocked him; now he felt confident to field any accusation. ‘What, you mean murdered her?’

Lilian nodded, wordlessly.

Graham smiled. ‘I think for me to have murdered her, Lilian, I would have had to be here at the time of her death. Don’t you? Also the police did make rather exhaustive investigations. Didn’t they? Had there been the slightest suspicion of anything other than an accident, I think it might have come up at the inquest. Don’t you?’

There was a long silence. Lilian regarded him with acute distaste. Then she changed direction, and changed style. The first impact of the shock had limited her histrionics, but now it was fading, and her customary manner reasserted itself.

‘I can’t believe how cruel you’re being,’ she sobbed. ‘I’ve never been so hurt, never. Just after Merrily’s death, to hear what you’ve said. . I’ve suffered a lot in my life, but never like this. Even lovers have never hurt me like. . Even when William Essex broke off our affaire , I didn’t feel like this.’

‘Well, you must have seen that coming.’

‘What?’

He knew he was being vindictive, but he felt she deserved it. The accusation about Merrily had been nasty; a revengeful home truth was therefore justified.

‘You must have known why William Essex broke off your so-called affaire. ’

‘Why?’

‘If indeed it ever started.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that William Essex was gay. Was always gay.’

‘No!’

‘God, it wasn’t just people in the business who knew. It was virtually admitted in The Times obituary. He was one of the country’s most famous old theatrical queens.’

‘He may have turned strange as he got older, but when we were lovers — ’

‘If there ever was a moment when he made advances to you, it must have been just a test, a challenge to himself, to see if he could make it with a woman.’

‘No. We were in love.’ She broke down in tears.

He knew it was cruel, but he was sick to death of her. All her posturing and embroidered reminiscences seemed irrelevant. Irrelevant and annoying. Now the confrontation had come, he was prepared to use any trick to hurry her out of his life.

The sobbing subsided, and when she spoke again, the subject had changed. She sniffed. ‘I must repair my face before I get the children from school.’

He said nothing as she moved across the room. At the door she turned back to him. ‘Why?’ she asked softly. ‘Why Charmian?’

‘Because,’ he replied in a logical tone, ‘I think she’ll bring them up better than you will.’

‘I see.’ The voice was very small, just like the little voice Merrily had always used in reproach.

It was that which prompted his next callousness. ‘Besides, you talked of their stability. Charmian’s forty-five. Just from the practical point of view, she’s going to be round a lot longer than you are.’

‘Yes,’ Lilian riposted defiantly. ‘You don’t know how right you are.’

Graham had difficulty in getting to sleep that night. It was not his conscience that was troubling him. Any conscience he had ever had had been removed from him over the past weeks as effectively as if by a surgeon’s knife.

Nor had there been any further outburst from Lilian. She had behaved quietly, fetched the children from school, given them tea, played board-games with them and put them to bed. Both had gone without fuss. They were still taking the mild relaxants the doctor had prescribed to help them over the shock of their mother’s death.

Lilian had then cooked supper for herself and Graham. The meal had been consumed in silence, the television tactfully on to provide an alibi for the lack of conversation. After washing up, Lilian had retired for an early night.

Her behaviour had been exemplary. And if her expression had been too martyred or she had drawn too much attention to how good she was being, such gestures were so much part of her normal repertoire that Graham had long since learned to ignore them.

No, it was something that she had said in the afternoon’s confrontation that had disturbed him. Not the moment when she had accused him of Merrily’s murder; in retrospect he had rather enjoyed that. Her coming so close to the truth gave him the frisson of playing chicken; it partially satisfied that craving in him for confession, for sharing the knowledge of his crimes with someone. And the wildness of her accusation, and the skill with which he answered it, gave him a feeling of inner strength.

What had upset him was the moment when she had described him as ‘mad’.

The word hurt and unsettled him. The slur of mental illness had never before been cast on him. He remembered acquaintances at university and at work who had ‘cracked’, proved unequal to the system and gone under. He had always felt mild contempt for them and a righteous sense of his own immunity from their disease. His behaviour had always been logical and positive; it was not in his nature to brood or feel self-doubt.

At least it had not been in his nature until recently. The compound batterings of losing the job and committing the first murder had rocked his equilibrium for a time, he was prepared to admit that; but he now felt back on an even keel, perhaps more logical and positive in his approach than at any previous time in his life.

What worried him was the knowledge that a frequent symptom of mental illness (madness, call it by another name, he knew what he meant) was delusion, a conviction held as strongly as in sanity, but a conviction based on a scale of values that are false.

He questioned himself about this. Certainly he had changed. Two months previously he would not have contemplated murder, yet now he had committed it twice without remorse, and drew strength from what he had done. Was that madness?