A Traitor to Memory

He said, “Can I do anything, Frances? I know you want to go to him.”


She'd raised one of the ribbons against her cheek, and she lowered this slowly to the top of the table. “Do you know that,” she said, not a question but a statement. “If I had the heart of a woman who knows how to love her husband properly, I would have gone to him already. Directly they phoned from Casualty. Directly they said, ‘Is this Mrs. Webberly? We're phoning you from Charing Cross Hospital. Casualty. Is this a relative of Malcolm Webberly that I'm speaking to?’ I would have gone. I wouldn't have waited to hear a word more. No woman who loves her husband would have done that. No real woman—no adequate woman—would have said, ‘What's happened? Oh God. Why's he not here? Please tell me. The dog came home but Malcolm wasn't with him and he's left me, hasn't he? He's left me, he's left me at last.’ And they said, ‘Mrs. Webberly, your husband's alive. But we would like to speak to you. Here, Mrs. Webberly. Can we send a taxi for you? Is there someone who can bring you down to the hospital?’ And that was good of them, wasn't it, to pretend like that? To ignore what I'd said. But when they rang off, they said, ‘We've got a real nutter here. Poor bloke, this Webberly. No wonder the old sod was out on the streets. Probably threw himself in front of the car.’” Her fingers curled round a navy ribbon, and her nails sank into it, making gullies in the satin.

Lynley said, “In the middle of the night when you have a shock, you don't weigh your words, Frances. Nurses, doctors, orderlies, and everyone else in hospitals know that.”

“‘He's your husband,’ she said. ‘He's cared for you all these miserable years and you owe this to him. And to Miranda. Frances, you owe it to her. You must pull yourself together, because if you don't and if something should happen to Malcolm while you're not there … and if, God, if he should actually die … Get up, get up, get up, Frances Louise, because you and I know there is nothing God help me nothing at all that's wrong with you. The spotlight's off you. Accept that fact.’ As if she knew what it's like. As if she's actually spent time in my world, in this world, right inside here”—savagely, she rapped her temple—“instead of in her own little space, where everything's perfect, always has been, always will be world without end amen. But it's not like that for me. That is not how it is.”

“Of course,” Lynley said. “We all look at the world through the prisms of our own experiences, don't we? But sometimes in a moment of crisis, people forget that. So they say things and do things … It's all for an end that everyone wants but no one knows how to reach. How can I help you?”

Helen came back into the room then, a wine glass in her hand. It was half-filled with brandy, and she placed it on the dressing table and looked towards Lynley with “What now?” on her face. He wished he knew. He had very little doubt that with every decent intention in the world Frances's sister had already run through the repertoire. Certainly, Laura Hillier had tried reasoning with Frances first, manipulating her second, inducing guilt in her third, and uttering threats fourth. What was probably needed—a slow process of getting the poor woman once again used to an external environment of which she'd been terrified for years—was something that none of them could manage and something for which they had no time.

What now? Lynley wondered along with his wife. A miracle, Helen.

He said, “Drink some of this, Frances,” and lifted the glass for her. When she'd done so, he laid his hand on hers. He said, “What exactly have they told you about Malcolm?”

Frances murmured, “‘The doctors want to speak with you,’ she said. ‘You must go to the hospital. You must be with him. You must be with Randie.’” For the first time, Frances moved her gaze from her reflection. She looked at the joining of her hand with Lynley's. She said, “If Randie's with him, that's nearly all he would want. ‘What a brave, new world that's been given to us,’ he said when she was born. That's why he said she'd be called Miranda. And she was perfect to him. Every way perfect. Perfect as I couldn't hope to be. Ever. Not ever. Daddy's got a princess.” She reached for the wine glass where Lynley had placed it. She started to pick it up but stopped herself and said, “No. No. That's not it. Not a princess. Not at all. Daddy's found a queen.” Her eyes remained motionless, on the brandy in the glass, but their rims slowly reddened as tears pooled against them.