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while.

      ‘Um …’ he began.

      He paused again.

      ‘Mum?’ he continued.

      He paused again.

      At last he managed a sentence.

      ‘Beth has pleaded with me not to do this.’

      ‘I’ve heard you talking in low voices.’

      ‘Oh God, have you?’

      He topped up both their glasses.

      ‘Tonight, alcohol is definitely a crutch,’ he said. ‘Beth thinks what I’m about to do is wrong, and I have no idea if it’s right.’

      He looked so pale, his cheeks were so hollow, his eyes were so intense – the bags under them looked as if they had been waiting for years for him to slip into them. Sally was overwhelmed with love and pity. She reached out and pressed his hand. She could find no words.

      He took a letter out of his pocket, held it with a shaking hand, tried to steady it by using both hands, failed.

      ‘You’ve said so much about there not being a suicide note,’ he said. ‘It’s worried you so much. You’ve told me so many times how you yearn for closure. I haven’t slept properly since I got it. I’ve even taken advice about closure and its value from a psychiatrist. I’ve shown this letter to him, and told him all I know about you, how strong you are, how brave.’

      Sally looked at him in amazement. She still didn’t speak.

      ‘He advised me, very cautiously, covering himself in caveats, to show it to you. This is Dad’s suicide note, Mum. He sent it to me.’

      ‘Oh God.’

      It was barely a whisper. Sally could scarcely breathe.

      ‘Read it,’ she whispered. ‘Read it, Sam, please. I don’t think I could bear to see his handwriting just now.’

      ‘Right. I’ll read it. I wondered if you might prefer that.’

      He cleared his throat.

      ‘“Dear Sam,

      ‘“This is a letter that I never expected to have to write, and it is one that I wish with all my heart that I did not have to write now. In one hour’s time I will walk out of my office for the last time, and drive home, stopping only to post this letter. When I get home I will hang myself. In posting this letter I am, in a way, committing myself to the act. I am very frightened, but I am also extremely vain – see how carefully I compose this letter, taking care to put ‘extremely’ in place of a second lazy ‘very’!” He puts an exclamation mark there.’

      Sally, the blood draining from her face, made an impatient gesture, which said, Never mind the punctuation. Get on with it.

      ‘“I’m very scared, but I’m much too conceited to allow even my son to see how weak I am.

      ‘“The obvious reason for my killing myself is very simple. I’m losing money hand over fist and will soon have to declare myself bankrupt if I live. I cannot bear the disgrace. I cannot bear the thought of meeting our wealthy friends at the Rotary lunch and the golf club after such a disgrace. I dread the thought of even facing you, and Alice, after such a disgrace.”’

      Sally listened with a stony face. It would have been impossible for even the cleverest psychiatrist in the world, who undoubtedly was not Dr Mallet, to see what she was thinking. Was she turned to stone by the horror, by sympathy, by disgust, by simple pique at her children being mentioned in the letter before her?

      ‘“But there is another reason, sadly also not very original. In death, fittingly, I reveal the reason that my life has failed. I am indescribably ordinary, a lawyer of no great talent or imagination, a husband with no real tenderness or warmth or understanding, a father bringing up his children as if from the pages of a manual.

      ‘“I look at myself in a mirror and I see a little man, a dull man. I hate myself. I don’t fear not existing. I look forward to it. I will be glad to be gone.”’

      Sam paused. He looked up at his mother. His hands were shaking as much as ever, the paper trembling as if being held in half a gale.

      A single tear, a harbinger of floods to come, ran slowly down his mother’s face.

      ‘It gets worse, Mum. Can you take it?’

      She nodded fiercely, almost angrily.

      ‘“The one unusual thing that I am doing in this last act of my unmemorable life is sending this, my suicide note, to you and not to your mother. I feel a tiny, ridiculous, entirely callous twinge of pride at doing this. It will mean an inquest. My little life can entertain Potherthwaite just for a moment at the last. Potherthwaite, dear God, how did I end up there?

      ‘“But no. The main reason for my sending you this letter is that I cannot send it to your mother. There are things I find I cannot die without saying. I want to say them. I want to tell you, which is very unfair on you, but you see my hatred of myself has made me a very unpleasant man. I …” I don’t think I can go on, Mum. I think I’ve made a dreadful mistake.’

      ‘Go on!’ She tried to keep the sudden irritation out of her voice. ‘You can’t stop now.’

      ‘No. No.’

      He gasped. The simple, naked words came out very fast, as if he feared his voice would break.

      ‘“I haven’t said anything truly meaningful, or meaningfully true, to your mother for about ten years.”’

      He couldn’t look at her now.

      ‘“It’s just … it’s become … as if neither of us are real when we’re together. It’s as if we were holograms. There is no connection. It has turned into a dead, dull drama, a dismal fiction. I tried to write this to her, I just couldn’t think of any words. I couldn’t move my hands. The last few times …”

      ‘I can’t read this bit, Mum.’

      ‘You must. You can’t stop now.’

      ‘Oh God.’

      He went bright red. He was shaking. He came out with the words very fast.

      ‘“The last few times we made love, I pretended that she was somebody else. Who, you may well ask. Sam, I can’t tell even you that. That must remain my sad little secret shame.

      ‘“There is no need to reveal the existence of the letter at the inquest. I haven’t a shred of respect left for the law.”’ Sam was beginning to cry. ‘“And please don’t tell your mother. She hasn’t the character to survive this letter. Lies are almost always so much better than the truth.

      ‘“This letter comes to you, Sam, with, if not love, the nearest perhaps that I can come to love.”’

      He was rushing now. The tears were coming. She could hear them approaching.

      ‘“Do better in life than I have, Sam.

      ‘“Your wretched, late father.”’

      As he read the last words Sam dissolved into tears.

      ‘Have I done wrong?’ he wailed. ‘Mum, have I done wrong?’

      She was crying too. She shook her head.

      ‘You see, Mum, I don’t think lies are better than the truth.’

      Sally tried to smile.

      ‘You see, Mum, I think you do have the character. I think you’re marvellous.’

      They clutched each other, then, mother and son, both with tears streaming down their faces.

      ‘Beth’ll kill me,’ he said.

       TWELVE

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