Pat Barker - Double Vision

Beth went upstairs to check on her jewellery, and came down saying there were one or two things missing, but only pieces she’d left lying on top of the dressing table. Anything valuable she kept in a shoebox in the wardrobe. It wouldn’t have taken them long to find that, Stephen thought, but then he remembered they hadn’t found the key under the urn.

She sat down heavily on the sofa, staring round her like somebody unsure of her welcome in a stranger’s house. ‘It’s the shock,’ she said, ‘more than anything.’

‘The police want a list of what’s missing, as soon as you can. I couldn’t remember.’

‘I’m not sure I can.’ She was staring blankly at the empty mantelpiece.

‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ Stephen said.

Robert followed him into the kitchen.

‘Justine seems to be all right,’ Stephen said, with a slight edge.

‘I know. Beth rang Angela from the airport.’ He sat down at the table, looking round at the thickly clustering fingerprints. ‘God, what a mess.’

Stephen looked round too, at a patch of dried blood on the work surface near the sink. The air seemed to hold a suspension of fear and pain.

Robert asked, ‘How did they get in?’

‘Utility-room window. The glazier’s coming round to fix it.’ A pause. ‘The alarm wasn’t on. That’s my fault, not Justine’s. I was the last out.’

Robert shrugged. ‘I don’t suppose it would have made much difference. It’s connected to a security firm, but they’re forty minutes’ drive away. You can clear a house in half that time.’

‘Beth seems very calm. I thought she’d be more upset.’

‘Shock.’

Stephen didn’t think it was shock. ‘This is your incident number,’ he said, handing over the slip of paper. ‘And now, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll leave you to it, unless you want me to collect Adam?’

‘Would you mind?’ Beth said.

‘No, of course I —’

‘It’s just I don’t think I can rest until I’ve got things straight again.’

Robert followed him to the door and out on to the path.

‘I’m sorry, Robert.’

‘Not your fault. We’ve all been careless. It could just as well have happened another day when I hadn’t set the alarm.’

A brief embrace, and Stephen was walking down the path to his car, thinking how much he liked his brother. That was new. And Beth’s toughness — he’d started to sense that quality in her, but the last few minutes had confirmed it.

He glanced at his watch. He’d be in time for Adam, though only just.

Children were spilling out into the playground as he parked the car and opened the window. A knot of people, mainly women, were waiting outside the gates, some of them — he realized as the first children arrived — collecting children of ten or eleven. He and Robert had been walking home alone by the time they were eight. Where children were concerned, everything had changed, and not, he thought, for the better. The kids were red-faced, running, shouting, waving pictures, all over the place. If you saw an adult moving like this, you’d know they had St Vitus’s dance. C’mon, Adam. He was tapping the flat of his hands on the dashboard, tempted to ring Justine’s mobile again. But she might have gone to sleep.

At last Adam appeared, also carrying a painting, but walking along at a sedate, professorial pace, and alone. He didn’t show any surprise when he saw Stephen, though, as he climbed into the back seat, he asked, ‘Are Mum and Dad back?’

‘Yes. They’re at home.’

He looked in the rear-view mirror at Adam’s round unhappy face. ‘How was it?’

‘Bloody awful.’

‘It doesn’t last for ever.’

But the trouble is, he thought, waiting for a gap in the traffic, it does — virtually — at that age. We daren’t let ourselves imagine children’s lives. Anybody as trapped in a job as they are in school would go mad. He wondered if he should tell Adam about the burglary, and decided it might be as well to warn him. Adam listened, but showed no particular concern. ‘One of them hit Justine, so she won’t be looking after you tomorrow.’

‘Does that mean I won’t have to go to school?’

Egotism was natural in children, but he found it slightly surprising when Adam made no further reference to Justine, though he did ask if they’d stolen his Playstation and whether he would still be able to fly Archie on Friday after school.

‘Justine’s back home now,’ Stephen said. ‘She had to go to hospital to get some stitches put in, but then the doctor said she could go home.’

No comment. Stephen gave up, though he was beginning to think it quite odd. Back at the house, he said, ‘I won’t come in. But don’t worry, Mum’s —’

Adam was already out of the car. At the last moment he thrust his painting into Stephen’s hands. ‘Give her this.’

Stephen looked down. It was the scene every child paints: a house with a smoking chimney, curtains at the windows, a tree in the garden, Mum, Dad, child, dog standing on the lawn, and behind them all, filling the whole sky, an enormous, round, golden sun.

He’d never been to the vicarage, never seen it except on the one occasion when Beth had asked him to drive Justine home from work. Then it had been too dark to see clearly, though he’d had the impression of a large gloomy house set back from the road behind tall trees.

Why not cut them down? he wondered, as he parked the car. They must make the front rooms intolerably dark, but then some people can’t bring themselves to cut down any tree, however ancient or badly positioned. A pair of wood pigeons broke cover as he walked up the drive, startling him with the clap of their wings. He rang the bell, heard it clang deep inside the house, and stood there waiting, feeling a fool with his bunch of daffodils.

Alec opened the door. Angela stood behind him, peering over his shoulder. He thought for a moment they might not let him in, but then Alec stood to one side. Stephen had stopped the burglars doing whatever they were thinking of doing next. Which was probably to run away, but you could never be sure. People with limited intelligence and low impulse control come up with some pretty disastrous solutions to problems. Alec had known a great many such people, presumably, over the years, and he could have no illusions about the danger Justine had been in.

‘She’s in bed,’ Angela said.

‘They gave her a sedative,’ Alec said. ‘She’s very drowsy.’

‘I won’t stay long. I just want to give her these.’

They stood together in the hall, reflected, all three of them, in a small bevelled mirror on the wall.

Justine’s voice from upstairs called, ‘Stephen?’

‘Coming.’

They parted in front of him, and he went up the stairs which had a threadbare strip of carpet in the centre of the treads held in place by stair-rods. He’d thought stair-rods were a thing of the past, along with floral pinnies and stottie cakes and bombers’ moons. Apparently not.

Justine’s bedroom was huge. Angela followed him in and hovered as he walked across the floor to the bed, which was small and single, lost in the vast space. Two tall uncurtained windows let in a fretwork of shadows, moving and shifting perpetually, as a breeze, not perceptible at ground level, ruffled the leaves.

He got a chair and sat down by the bed, wanting to kiss her, but aware of Angela behind him. Aware too that most of Justine’s face looked as if a kiss would hurt. Her nose was in plaster. It looked rather like Norman armour and, incredibly, suited her, bringing out something in her that he’d only dimly sensed before. The skin round her eyes was beginning to turn black. She had two bald patches in her hair, each with a ridge of suture lines like black spiky caterpillars crawling across her white skin.