Julia Chapter 22 contd / 23 / 24

Mother cannot or still does not want to see the truth but she has to know. ‘It appears that Geoffrey was involved in all sorts of dodgy deals and this looks like yet another. Poor Lucy was brought in from the Philippines following the Hurricane last year. She was a slave, mother, everything she earned went to someone else.’ The moment I say this I recall that night several weeks ago when Lucy went out into the garden. Was she handing over her money?  Was she reporting back to someone in control of her comings and goings? A stab of guilt hits me as I realize I missed the opportunity to help her, I was too concerned with my own well being. ‘That man is evil, I hope they catch him and put him away for life’ growls mother.  ‘Unfortunately as far as this and the money issues are concerned even if they catch him he will probably get a short sentence in an open prison and be out in three years.  That’s the way the system works.’ ‘But he’s ruined peoples lives, he’s taken everything they have.’  ‘It doesn’t mean a thing.  White collar crime is not considered to be as bad as other forms.  Bankers, politicians, solicitors never suffer in the way they should. They are treated like naughty boys who have just slipped up. You read the wrong newspapers mother, you always have.’

‘You don’t need to give me a lesson in politics.  I’m not sixteen you know.’  ‘I’m not trying to give you a lesson in anything, I’m just trying to get you to face the fact that unless Geoffrey is convicted of Brian’s murder then he will effectively serve a very short sentence and will be out before you know it. That’s life.’  I expect a retort, but none comes. She looks daggers at me but holds back on whatever she is thinking.  I leave her to her thoughts.  Where do we go now? One less bill to pay, but now I am trapped. For the time being I shall have to take on the role that Lucy fled.  I’m to become an unpaid carer for my mother.  My caste is due to come off in a week’s time but I feel as if I have been given a new one that covers my whole body.  There is no money to employ anyone else and I am the only one left here to pick up the pieces.  I try desperately to think of anything I might do to avoid the inevitable. I take my mobile and the telephone directory and phone the local Council to see if any help can be arranged.  The call centre is the first line of opposition and despite the fact they know they can’t answer my actual enquiry I am stubbornly made to go through a list of questions designed to weed out callers through a process of attrition.  Eventually I am put through to someone in Social Services who informs me that due to cut backs in Council funding, day care support is not available for someone who owns their own property.  When I tell them she doesn’t own it anymore they ask to whom she pays rent. ‘She doesn’t’ I reply, and so it goes on until it is quite clear that no help is available and either I or the Council employee are going to say something inappropriate so I end the call.  That’s it then, all of a sudden I have become one of the hundreds of thousands of unpaid careers living forgotten lives on a subsistence budget.  What is someone trying to tell me?

I need a walk, I call up to mother, but she has the TV on and doesn’t reply.  The sun is still trying to pierce a thick morning mist as I close the front door on my troubles.  As I do so however, the deep throated blast of the lighthouse at Niton point calls out like a mother cow bemoaning its stolen calf.  On days such as these, mournful blasts echo along the coast hour after hour as a reminder of shipwrecks and drowned souls from ages past.  Some god somewhere has conjured up appropriate mood music and set the scenery. Today it is a grey cloak under which things are secretly wrapped.  The path is shrouded and all signs of modernity are hidden, I could be walking on the edges of a medieval wood or about to meet smugglers back from a wreck.  As if someone has read my mind a stout figure appears dressed in fisherman’s clothes. It is George the longshoreman.  ‘Mornin’ he says. ‘Hello George how are you?’  ‘Better than that there maid of yours.’ He replies.  How does he know so soon? ‘What makes you say that?’ ‘She took off like a bat out of hell this mornin. I though she were goin to pass out when she saw me. Almost screamed. Is she alright?’ ‘I don’t really know George.  It seems she shouldn’t have been working for us because she didn’t have the right papers.  We had a visit from the National Crime Agency this morning.’‘Who are they when they are at home?’ ‘They look out for criminal gangs, that sort of thing.’

‘Is she in a gang then?’  George smirks as if the thought of Lucy being in a gang is amusing. ‘Never thought of her as Al Capone or one of his mates.’ He chuckles to himself. I try to explain how gang masters operate but George being George cannot get away from his original vision of Lucy totting a machine gun and running an illicit whiskey still.  He would not make a good recruit for Amnesty International.   ‘So who is looking after Mrs. nowadays?’  He suddenly gives me one of his stern looks. ‘It looks as if I am’ I reply.  ‘Didn’t think you two got on that well.’  ‘No, well you don’t have to apparently, you just need to be related.’ ‘Seems right’ he says. ‘My missus had to look after both of hers before they died. Walter went barmy before he died, pissing up the wall, eating potting compost, drove her to distraction he did.’

‘Thanks George, that’s just what I needed to know.’ ‘Sorry love, I’m sure Mrs. wont give you no trouble like that.’ ‘Well if she does you might find her floating in the bay one morning.’  George chuckles and says, ‘Why, are you goin’ to get that Lucy to gun her down then?’      The conversation, crazy though it was, has cheered me up.  I realise that life seen through a slightly mad man’s eyes is less threatening than seen through my own.  I need to lighten up or I shall go mad.  I end up on the rocks at the edge of the bay. Once imported from abroad they have now weathered enough to look as if they should actually be there encrusted with barnacles and tethered seaweed and all manner of other sea creatures.   My mothers house gathers people. Some come and go whilst others stick to it like Limpets.  I hope that if I am to become one of the latter it is through choice and not necessity, and that is the paradox that I now face. If the house was mine if I were there on my own, painting, walking, watching the ocean season to season I would be perfectly happy. It is only circumstance that brings on this feeling of oppression.  It is a state of mind and I know it, but I have no way of changing the feeling whilst mother and I grind at each other like a pair of millstones.

Chapter 23 The news of Geoffrey’s capture came via the radio whilst Valerie was listening to the Morning programme on Radio 4. She was polishing the coffee maker for the second time and absent mindedly listening to the news prior to the first viewing of the day. The presenter blandly announced that ‘police in Christchurch New Zealand had apprehended Mr. Geoffrey ………. Wanted for the suspected murder of Brian ………. two years earlier. Mr……….. had been on the run since Mr……….. death. Mr ………. Was also wanted in connection with a number of financial irregularities at the firm for which he’d worked prior to his disappearance.  He was expected back in the United Kingdom within the next week to face charges.’     Valerie’s hand stopped polishing but began to shake before she felt herself feeling unwell and dashed to the sink where she ruined the bowl she had only just cleaned.  Her head swam with the thought of Geoffrey and his return.  In the time since his departure she had reconciled herself to the fact that he would never be found. In her mind she felt it would be better never to see him again. He’d become a stranger and far from wanting explanations she just wanted him to disappear. Nothing he could possibly say would make amends for the damage he had done to the family.  The children were still having counseling and mother was clinging on to Cove House by the skin of her teeth due to the massive legal complications surrounding it’s sale and purchase by Geoffrey’s company.  Her head full of a thousand and one thoughts, she drew breathe and began to put right the mess she had made.  They would be there within the hour and she wanted the house to be perfect.

She had just finished re-cleaning the sink when the phone rang.  It was the police. They expressed their regret that they had not been able to contact her before the news had broken publicly and asked whether she would like an officer to visit her to update her on the position regarding her husband. ‘I don’t think that will be necessary’ she replied ‘I have nothing to say to him.’

Since his departure she had had the feeling her phone was being monitored in case he called her.  Certainly her mail seemed to be taking a day longer than it used to.  She no longer trusted the authorities since they had accused her of collusion in respect of his financial dealings and there was no way she was going to have them think she was keen to see Geoffrey. Within the hour the prospective purchasers arrived with the agent who took them upstairs to begin their tour of the house in which Valerie had lived for the past thirty years.  Houses such as theirs sold within hours of going on the market so she knew the inevitable outcome of the visit. She could have left the polishing, scattered dirty clothing all over the floor, not cleaned the place at all and it would still have been snapped up.  Living in a very comfortable part of the commuter belt drove a high demand and high prices.  With any luck she could pay off the mortgage Geoffrey had borrowed on the house and have half of the remainder to buy a small flat somewhere. In the time since he’d gone she had already started divorce proceedings and had sold her jewelry and the shares that she’d planned to keep for her children’s wedding days.  She could not claim to be destitute but she was as close as she could imagine being.  Even her forthcoming journey down to the Island was an unwanted expense, petrol, ferry fare, coffee and cake. She would not have thought about these small things one time of day, but now they played a part in every decision she made.

Chapter 24    Valerie is due to arrive later this morning and so it is with a sense of shock I hear on the news Geoffrey has been found and is due to be extradited from New Zealand.  Does she know? Should I call her up and tell her?  I decide against it. What is the point, sooner or later she’ll see a newspaper or turn on the radio herself, and I don’t want to be the bringer of this bad news.  I know she doesn’t want to hear of Geoffrey again and would rather he was never found.  His arrest will only start the whole process up again and she’ll have people phoning her from news papers and programmes. The police will no doubt wish to talk to her, and she will become embroiled in the proceedings whether she likes it or not. Poor Valerie won’t know how to cope with it all and her sedative dosage will have to go up.  As for me, I shall be fending off the wrath of mother who will want to pass her anger on to someone. During the past months we have learned to live with one another, but only just.  The loss of Lucy brought us together like boxers in a ring, adrenaline pumping, dancing around each other with words, waiting for the other to attack. Unlike a fight however we knew we had to resist the urge to enter the fray in earnest.  She needed me and I needed her, our mutual dependence was a burden to us both. We turned into sparring partners.  I gave her the odd jab about her behavior towards others and she swung a right hook at me about always having to be right.  Sometimes our heads came close to clashing but we always drew back at the last moment.  It was tiring and my portrait of her was the only way I managed to survive the ordeal.  At least we stopped for a while when I was sketching and she was watching TV.  I’ve begun to paint the final picture on canvas downstairs in the conservatory.  Mother cannot smell the oils from her room and the light is ideal for me.  As she emerges from the initial sketches and the early washes I am intrigued to see what form she takes.  For me it is a process of stepping aside and letting the work happen.  Like any creative process you do the groundwork, put in the time and effort, and then you let go.  True creativity is giving way to the greater gift that you are temporarily given, which is beyond the self. So I stop thinking and just ‘do’.  The results so far are good, ‘Julia’s mother watching TV’ will be one of my better paintings, if not my best.  I am looking at the current incarnation of the picture when there is a knock on the door.  Upon opening the door I find Valerie standing there. ‘You’re earlier than I thought’ ‘Yes, well once the viewing was over I didn’t want to hang around.  It isn’t my house any more.’ ‘You sold it?’  ‘First people to step in the door’ she replies dully. I am jealous, but not in a bad way, it is just that ours took so long to sell and is still going through the motions.  ‘Have you heard the news?’ asks Valerie. I play dumb, but she sees through it.  ‘Don’t worry, I have calmed down on the journey here. It has shaken me up but I realize the sooner he is tried and put away the better.  I shouldn’t say it I suppose but it was as if he died but hadn’t been buried. Similar to someone missing in action I guess, only without the heroic undertones.’  ‘Very poetically put Valerie.’  She allows herself a brief laugh. ‘Yes well one day I shall produce an anthology called ‘Poems for betrayed wives.’   ‘I'm sure it’ll sell like hot cakes.’  ‘Changing the subject slightly, how is she?’  Valerie points to the stairs.  ‘Come into the kitchen and I’ll make us a cup of tea and tell you all.’    We sit talking with our mugs of tea too hot to drink.  ‘She’s mellowed’ I say. Valerie’s eyebrows rise slightly.  ‘I’ll believe that when I see it’ she replies.   ‘I think she’s fading. She can still be pretty mean and spiky, but that old hard energy has gone.  Nowadays she just moans rather than attacking all the time.’  Valerie looks at me apologetically.  ‘I’m sorry you’ve been landed with her Julia.’  ‘Well it wasn’t exactly your fault was it. If Michael and I hadn’t split up and everything else hadn’t happened then I wouldn’t be here. I am lucky, at least I have somewhere to live.  Look at Lucy and her life.’  ‘Have you heard any more about her?’  ‘The last I heard she was in a detention centre waiting to be sent back home.’ ‘Oh God, that’s grim. There’s nothing for her if she gets sent back.’ ‘That doesn’t matter apparently.  I’ve argued with the authorities but you hit a brick wall. They always end up with the same argument ‘if we allowed everyone to stay the country would collapse.’

‘But she was a hard worker! For God’s sake where’s the sense…..’  I didn’t think I would ever hear Valerie saying such things but then it seems that that is often how views are changed, personal experience overcomes the impersonal irrational views of prejudice.  ‘I’ll keep trying, I’ve been in touch with a support group who say they will do their best to help her.’  ‘You always do try to help out don’t you? You always have, whereas I’ve let people get on with things.  That is one of the big differences between us.’     During the past few months I’ve learnt the art of silence.  I just smile. Valerie’s politics have always been the laissez faire politics of the right, the ‘I’m all right jack’ view of life, but I know she’s beginning to see another side of things since Geoffrey left.    ‘So what happens next, about Geoffrey?’  ‘I don’t know. He’s hardly likely to get bail having skipped the country once.’ ‘Well that’s a relief anyway.’  ‘But what if he wants to see me?’ Valerie looks scared and starts fidgeting with her hands.   ‘You don’t have to see him.  After all, he left you without a word and hasn’t been in touch. He has no right to expect anything from you.’  ‘I know, but there’s a part of me that still feels I owe him allegiance.’ ‘Jesus Valerie! You don’t owe him anything. Just think of the mess he’s got you into, think of the children.'  ‘That’s just the problem Julia, they’ll want to see him.They don’t believe he killed Brian. They refuse to even talk about it.