Julia chapter 15 / 16 / 17

She looked above the clothes rail for the suitcases, and they were gone. Geoffrey had stripped the place bare and taken all the suitcases, not just his own.  She looked in his dresser, and again there was nothing! Her mind tried to comprehend the thought that he might have left her, but it was too huge.  So she struggled to find alternative explanations.  He’d taken his clothes to the cleaners, someone had stolen them, there had been an accident of some sort and they’d been removed elsewhere.  Her imaginings were ridiculous, crazy, wild, but they were no more so than the idea he had actually left her. She ran back downstairs and telephoned his office again. 

‘Hello it’s Mrs Mitchell, Geoffrey’s wife again. I need to speak to someone who can tell me where Geoffrey is.’  The receptionist asked her to wait whilst she found someone to help.  The phone went dead for a while and then she heard Paul Klien’s voice.   ‘Hello Valerie, it’s Paul.’   ‘Paul, oh good, you’ll be able to help me. Where’s Geoffrey?’ There was a pause before Paul spoke.  ‘Valerie has Geoffrey been in touch with you over the past two days?’  ‘No why?’  ‘Well I wish I wasn’t the one to tell you this but we had a visit from the Police yesterday’  ‘The Police?’  ‘Yes, they were looking for Geoffrey.  It appears he’s wanted for questioning in respect of the death of Brian Spenser. Geoffrey wasn’t at the office when they arrived and we haven’t seen him since. I was rather hoping you knew where he was.’

‘But when I phoned a few minutes ago your receptionist said he was in Dallas?’

‘That’s what we told her to say to placate any clients phoning in and she must have just thought you were a client.  Look I’m really sorry Valerie, but we are all as shocked as you are.  I think I should tell you that since he left there are a number of irregularities appearing in client files that don’t look good.’  ‘What do you mean?’

‘I can’t say too much Valerie but it appears as if Geoffrey has been helping himself to some of the clients money.’ ‘Oh my God.’ ‘I suggest you get in touch with Sergeant Laidlaw,  the officer who visited us.  Let him know you’re looking for Geoffrey too.  He may be able to update you.  I’m so sorry to give you this news.’  He gave her a number which she wrote down on the telephone pad before ending the call. 

So, Geoffrey had gone, run away, taken to his heels and vanished and left her to face what?  The doorbell rang she took a deep breath imagining more bad news was heading her way.  Opening it she found a man in smart overalls, clipboard in hand and a set of keys.  ‘Mrs. Mitchell?’ he asked.

‘Yes’ replied Valerie ‘have you brought Geoffrey’s car back?’  The mechanic said he had parked it round by the garage and needed a signature before handing over the keys.  Valerie signed the form without even looking at it.  At that particular moment she would have signed her own death warrant without a second thought.  Her mind was racing, twisting and turning like a snake on hot coals.  It went anywhere and everywhere trying to collate everything, desperately trying to grasp a single thing that she could think of that might make sense of the situation.  She went over the past few months attempting to pick out moments where she might have known something was wrong but try as she might she could find nothing.  It was becoming evident Geoffrey, her husband for so many years, was an enigma, and unknown entity.  The man who had grunted on top of her, come within her, whose underwear she had washed and breath she had smelt more times than she cared to remember was someone who did not really exist.  The man so quick to criticize benefit cheats and illegal immigrants, black market operators was in truth a thief and liar, and even a murderer.

Valerie reached into her bag, fetched out the packet of cigarettes and pulled one out.  Going over to the cooker she lit it and took a deep breath.  She did not bother going outside, there was no one to hide anything from anymore.  Then she heard someone tapping on the window and she jumped, but it was just the start of the rain reminding her that storms were on their way.

Chapter 16   I’ve been painting again, and, despite the daily onslaught of mother it’s enough to keep me sane.  So far I have three satisfactory oil sketches I intend to progress into larger paintings and for the first time in months I feel a sense of things shifting. The sketches have the distinct feel of the St Ives school but I’ve not deliberately adopted their style so I don’t feel any sense of guilt.  Art, music, literature would not exist were it not for the incorporation of the style of former artists.

My foot and I have come to love one another as I realize had it not been for the limitations it presents I might have taken off for a warmer climate and run away from life.  Running away is not a satisfactory option in later life. You know you have to return. In a very strange way my relationship with mother is changing.  She still finds me wanting in almost all directions but I’ve come to realize that she thinks the same of everyone. It is just that I was never around long enough to hear it, or perhaps didn’t want to. Lucy, Valerie, Brian, my father, they all come in for her wrathful sniping as the days go on, and I am beginning to see it is not theirs, but her own inadequacies that surface all the time.  The things she complains about in others are those in which she herself fails. I am teaching myself to listen to her but at the same time calm the raw nerve she used to hit.  As the Buddhists have it I am ‘opening the back door, opening the front door,’ and letting the harsh comments go through. After all if there is no one to receive them, they have nowhere to go.  The thin mouse like woman she has become is running out of energy and the noticeable shift has allowed me to take this approach.  I am considering this fact when Bonnie Raitt starts to sing. It is Michael’s ring tone on my mobile.

‘Hello Julia’  ‘Michael, I didn’t expect you to call.’  He obviously wants something.  

‘I have just heard the house has sold’ he says.  He sounds happy and why not, it’s what he wanted. ‘What about the tenants, I thought they had a six month lease?’

‘They do, but they want to buy it.’  ‘Well, there you go, all your wishes granted’ I say somewhat ungenerously.  ‘Yes, well I wanted you to know, because I will have to send you the papers to sign.’ Aha, so that’s what he wants!  ‘You will sign them won’t you?’ he asks.  My inclination is to keep him hanging from a wire to repay him for his unkindness to me, but I don’t have a need for revenge anymore. Everything that’s happened has left me somehow humbled and I’ve no wish for anyone else to be unhappy. There is enough unhappiness in the world. ‘Yep, I’ll sign them.’

‘Thank you.’ I can tell from the tone that his thanks are genuine.

‘By the way, I think you should know that I am going to be a father.’  I stiffen.  Michael has hit a nerve.  What should I do? I take a quick breath but cannot congratulate him.   ‘Good luck with that one, its quite a commitment.’  Sour grapes or honesty, I’m not sure. He takes it in good heart.  I put the mobile down and a small tear squeezes through my defences.

‘You like a cup of tea?’  Lucy is standing in the doorway.  She has a habit of being wherever I am. That is disconcerting and one of the reasons I like to go out to paint so much.  Despite admiring her capacity to cope with mother’s demands I do wish she’d find things to do that don’t involve scrutinizing my every move. It’s almost as if mother has asked her to keep an eye on me in case I pinch the cutlery. I tell her I don’t need a tea but thank her all the same and she disappears back into the kitchen door like an old woman on an automaton clock.  Since the evening when I caught her in the kitchen I’ve had certain doubts about Lucy.  She is always smiling, always pleasant, always willing, fine attributes but I can’t be sure she always tells the truth and that worries me.   The post arrives and as usual most of the letters are for mother.  There is one for me in Michael's handwriting and I guess it's to do with the sale of the house. I put it aside. I can’t face reading it at the moment.  The routine with mother’s letters is they are placed on the table next to her bed and she’s left to read them.  I’ve never seen her do anything about them so I assume she gets Lucy to sort things out, however I notice what looks distinctly like a letter from Geoffrey’s law firm. In their pompous way their envelopes have a motif on them of the directors initials.  I turn it over in my hand and wonder why Geoffrey’s firm would write her a formal letter.  Curiosity may have killed the cat but it does not deter me. I slip it onto the table under my painting gear and take the other letters to her room. 

‘Some letters’ I say.  Mother’s watching a TV show where people are selling faux flowers in ghastly arrangements with gaudy pink bows. ‘Why are you watching this? You don’t want to buy fake flowers.’ ‘They look quite nice’ she replies ‘I might buy some.’ ‘But you hate silk flowers, you always have.’  ‘I can change can’t I?’  ‘If only,’ I think, but do not say.

She’s sitting up in bed and has a stern look on her face.  I try to remember who it is she reminds me of……Whistler’s Mother, that’s who.  I’ve never imagined painting her, and the thought should make me shudder but for some unknown reason it suddenly strikes me I need to do this. ‘I’d like to paint you’ I say, feeling as if I have given birth to a premature child.  The words left me before I could catch them and now have a life of their own. She appears not to hear. She has heard though.  ‘I don’t want those smelly oil paints in here.’  Is that a ‘no’ or is it ‘yes’ with conditions?

‘I’ll sketch you in pastels and paint it elsewhere’ I say assertively. ‘If that’s what you want to do’ she says without moving to look at me.  ‘I’m not taking my clothes off.’  The remark is so off the wall I start to laugh.  ‘Why are you laughing?’ When I am able to catch breath I say,  ‘Because you are too old for that sort of thing.’     ‘Nonsense, Lucian Freud would have painted me naked.’ I am totally dumbstruck.  Is this my mother talking, making conversation about a painter I thought she hadn’t even heard of.   ‘Yes, well perhaps he would’ I reply weakly ‘but I’m not Lucian Freud am I?’   ‘No you’re not!’  Her last comment has a powerful cutting edge that would have once sliced through my soul.

‘Good job then, it’s too cold for naked and I don’t have enough Burnt Umber.’ I reply.  She has switched off.  Her conversations nowadays have a limit.  I’m not sure whether they are measured in words or time but something inside her loses touch and she stops. I turn around and Lucy is at the door.  I try not to let her presence annoy me, but it prompts me to say, ‘I’m off to the beach again this morning’ I say ‘I want to finish my sketches and then I will paint you.’ She does not respond, she is lost in the shopping channel. It feeds her idling brain.

Chapter 17  

I take the letter down to the beach.  I know it’s wrong of me to intercept her mail and illegal, but I have the feeling she is hoarding letters she doesn’t want to deal with, and it is so peculiar that Geoffrey’s firm have written to her.  I feel like a naughty child about to read Lady Chatterley’s Lover and look around to make sure I’m not being watched.  Lucy it seems has left an indelible mark on me. I expect her to pop up everywhere I go.  The envelope has those annoying cuts in the flap that mean that you cannot open it without ruining it’s integrity. I try to be as careful as I possibly can but still manage to damage it beyond repair.  The letter is short and to the point and shocks me.  It is an advisory letter stating that an investigation is underway into a member of staff who has been suspended and that certain client accounts have been compromised. The letter explains that mother’s is one of them. The final paragraph is a sincere apology.  The letter has to be about Geoffrey. Has Valerie done the brave thing, has she spoken up despite her initial reluctance to do so?  I hope she has. If not, her life is about to change despite her, and she’ll find that so much harder to accept.  I call her on my mobile. ‘Valerie, it’s Julia.’  ‘Hello Julia.’ Her voice is dull and lifeless.  ‘Have you spoken to Geoffrey about everything?’  ‘He’s not here.’  ‘Oh, where is he?’

‘I don’t know Julia’ she replies. I can tell things are wrong from her lack of response. ‘What do you mean?’   ‘He’s left me Julia!  He’s run away!  It seems that mother wasn’t the only person he duped, apparently he’s stolen other clients money and has disappeared.’ Despite the letter I am now in a state of shock. Hearing the words from Valerie suddenly makes the situation seem so real.

‘What are you going to do?’ I ask naively. ‘What can I do Julia? You tell me?  I went to the bank this morning because the credit cards have been stopped and I find all of our accounts have been frozen.  A man came around yesterday and demanded the keys for Geoffrey’s car. They’ve taken it away.  It’s such a mess!’ Valerie begins to weep uncontrollably.  I want to say something comforting but there is nothing to say.  No crumb of comfort I can offer other than I am sorry. Between short sobbing breaths she continues.

‘It’s even worse than that Julia.  The police are looking for him as the only suspect in connection with Brian’s murder.’  ‘Oh God, so you were right.’  ‘Who is this man Julia?  Who is he?  It’s not the Geoffrey I know.  It’s as if someone has replaced him with an imposter.  The person I know and love wouldn’t do this. What am I going to say to the children? How can I explain it all?’

‘It’s not your fault Valerie, you just have to tell the truth and not take Geoffrey’s guilt on yourself.’  ‘That’s your answer to everything isn’t it Julia, ‘tell the truth.’ Don’t you see that the world doesn’t work like that! If I go to the Golf club and tell them my husband’s a liar and a cheat and probably a murderer do you think they are all going to smile and say ‘well never mind we still want you here!?  If I go to Emily’s school and say to the head teacher my husbands a killer and I can’t pay the fees but that’s alright isn’t it, is she going to say ‘never mind it wasn’t your fault Emily can stay on for free! For God’s sake Julia the last thing I can possibly do is to tell the truth. I need to keep everything under wraps as long as I can so I can get out of this fucking mess.’ I don’t think I have ever heard Valerie swear before which speaks volumes about her distress. Her rebuke to me is understandable and it hits the mark, perhaps she is right and my crusade for the truth is naïve. However, in the current circumstances I have a feeling that anything I would have said could have upset her and accept I cannot possibly imagine what she is going through, so should not give her advice.  What she needs is an answer where there isn’t one, and who am I, penniless, on crutches, living with my mother, to suggest there is one?

‘I'm sorry Valerie. I didn’t mean to upset you. You’re right, everything needs to be kept quiet as long as you can.  Do you want me to come up?’ 

‘No, no thanks, there’s nothing you can do. I need to be here at the moment to try to sort things out, there are so many things that need to be done.  The police want to interview me of course but I don’t know anything about Geoffrey’s financial dealings nor his dealings with Brian so there’s not much I can say. The thing that worries me most at the moment is the financial situation, until it’s sorted I’m afraid I shall just have to go begging to mother. God I’m dreading telling her the news.’  My insides churn as I realize Valerie thinks mother still has a nest egg.  My suspicions are that her absent husband has done away with the lot.  I cannot tell her about the letter, not until I have managed to get it in mother’s hands first.  ‘Ok, well keep in touch, and if there’s anything……’  I don’t even bother to finish the sentence for I know there is nothing I can possibly do.  I’m no longer in the right frame of mind for painting so I return to the house and look in mother’s desk drawer for a replacement envelope and a stamp.