Sofka Zinovieff - Putney

He heard about her downfall, mainly via Nina, whose Greek friends and family passed on doom-laden stories about drink, drugs, divorce and disasters of all sorts that she apparently brought upon herself. He had not seen her then, or at least not in a context where he could ask. There had been a few meetings in the intervening years, but always in a crowd. There was a rerun of Oedipus Blues and she had shown up at the opening night looking like a tramp. He had seen Ed’s discomfort at being confronted by a daughter with matted hair and a face as pale and grimy as if she was sleeping under a bridge. She had greeted him and Nina as though she only just remembered who they were. It was disconcerting and he kept his distance, ignoring her for the rest of the evening. At the end, the audience cheered and he and Ed went up on stage and then there were several fantastic reviews: ‘Astounding,’ he remembered.

The next time he encountered Daphne was when Edmund returned from France for his seventieth-birthday dinner. By then, she had undergone a remarkable transformation and, though she must have been forty, she looked more like thirty – untamed, dark hair piled on her head, glinting gold earrings like a Persian princess and a contented relaxation to her slim body.

As Ed’s guests gathered in a private room at the Garrick Club, Ralph felt an almost embarrassing nostalgia for the old days. By the time they were on to the port, he had to wipe away a tear of joy. He noted but didn’t care that Nina was sitting next to Margaret, Ed’s Canadian wife, and that they both looked stolidly bored, unable to keep a conversation going. Across the table from him, Daphne was exquisite – a worthy inheritor to the wild thing he had venerated. He gave her no wink and, needless to say, there was no kiss, but he felt their old secret was safely concealed – wrapped in precious silks and stored in a carved, wooden trunk for private contemplation.

In the end, the police kept him in overnight. He suspected it was revenge for his stubborn repetition of ‘No comment’ to their dogged questioning. They took him to an interview room twice, playing the ‘good cop, bad cop’ game. The first detective had a breezy air of someone who’d seen it all before and wasn’t particularly bothered. He was tall, with the unremarkable features of a man who might advertise DIY tools. ‘So how about you help me out here and just confirm a few things. And then we can all go home?’ He was less cheery by the time Ralph was led back to his cell, having given his retort of ‘No comment’ over and again so that it came to seem like a poem. I could turn this into a song, he thought, along with ‘the accused’s penis’ and those haunting legal phrases uttered by Jeb. I’ll call it Habeas Corpus and there’ll be a chorus of policemen chanting, ‘And then we can all go home.’

The second interrogator was a thin-lipped, dried-up lizard of a woman, who called him back to the interview room as it was getting dark. ‘Mr Boyd, is it true that on Tuesday, 20th July 1976, you had sexual intercourse with Daphne Greenslay? She claims that you inserted your penis in her vagina on that day and on various other occasions.’

They brought him a blanket and he curled up on the repulsive bench, but it was impossible to sleep. The shock and misery hardened into anger about what Daphne had done to him. What happened to the free spirit of my sparkling Ariel, he thought. What transformed her into an embittered, narrow-minded hausfrau out to destroy me? All these decades later? Why did she turn sour and vengeful? Even their lunch, only weeks earlier, was mysterious. Everything had seemed fine until she abandoned him without a word, and blocked his calls. He was still unable to comprehend the terrible scene at her flat when she’d treated him like vermin. Then the madness of her wading into the river like a melodramatic Virginia Woolf figure about to end it all, the grotesque indignity of his fall into the mud, his failure even to stand up, the jeering men on the boat. What did she want? It was a nightmare.

He pulled himself up and shuffled the few steps between the door and the bed and repeated it until he felt ridiculous. When he lay down again, he was aching all over and furious. It took a long time before daylight turned the glass window tiles a mustard-gas, yellowish grey and at 7 a.m., Matron (less rosy-cheeked today) passed him coffee and a plastic tray of watery scrambled egg, bacon and sausage through the hatch in the door. He couldn’t eat, but drank the weak coffee that reminded him of American diners, where you could put away pints of the stuff without noticing any effect.

Nina was waiting at the front desk and he could tell she hadn’t slept either. She had aged since yesterday – an old woman. And I’m an old man, he thought. She opened her mouth to speak as she saw him and then stopped as though words would make things worse.

‘Thank you,’ whispered Ralph and she nodded. A wise old woman, he thought. ‘Speech is silver, silence is golden’ was a preferred saying. If much of his time was involved in the noises of music, many achievements in his life had been attained with silence.

Numerous forms had to be completed before he was released on conditional bail. No contact was to be made with Daphne Greenslay and the terms of his release included a ban on unsupervised meeting with children, including his granddaughter Bee. He was not allowed to work with children until further notice and the names of several youth choirs and musical organisations he was associated with were listed. They’d done their homework. He was given a plastic bag containing his confiscated belongings and he sat down to thread his shoelaces, grunting with the effort as he bent forward. I should be put down like a dog, he thought.

In the car, Nina said, ‘They came again, those two policemen, and took away your computer and my laptop. And all the papers from your desk. They spent hours going through the books and DVDs. It felt like rape. You have to tell me what’s going on, Ralph. What happened?’ When he didn’t reply, she continued, ‘Jeb said it’s Daphne.’ He coughed then groaned, attempting to find appropriate words that still hadn’t arrived when Nina’s phone rang and transferred through to the car’s loudspeaker. ‘Jason – Spain’ was displayed on the screen in front of them both.

‘Agapi mou,’ said Nina carefully, her driving becoming even more erratic; she hated cars and brought to England a Greek disrespect for road signs and rules. ‘Are you OK, my love?’

‘What’s going on?’ Jason’s voice broke up as it left Madrid and arrived in England. ‘I just read that Dad’s been arrested. It was on the BBC website. It says he’s accused of child sexual abuse. What the hell’s happening? Are you there?’

‘Yes, Jason, I’m here. And your father is here, so maybe it’s better if he tells you.’ Nina used the exaggeratedly calm tone that denoted fear. She was splendid in a crisis, holding herself and everyone together, but he knew it would come out later.

‘Hello, Jason.’ Ralph waited.

‘Dad, what happened? Is it true?’ He was shouting and there was a rumble of street noise in the background. Ralph pictured his son walking along in the sunshine of a Spanish morning, about to face his colleagues in the sleek design company. Son of a paedophile. Disgrace. It was the first point he realised that there was much more to ruin than just his own miserable life. What about Lucia? How would she deal with having a pervert for a father? And little Bee… not allowed alone in a room with him! Shit!

‘What did they say?’

‘Dad, what did you do ? That’s what’s important.’

‘I didn’t do it. It’s Daphne…’ He stopped, wondering if Jason even remembered her. ‘You know, Daphne Greenslay. I don’t know why she’s doing this, but it’s like a fixation here, this child-abuse business. They’ve all gone mad. Listen, don’t worry. It’ll be all right. I can’t talk now. We’ll speak later, OK?’