Jude could have observed that she hadn’t got him started, that he seemed quite capable of self-starting without any help from anyone. But she didn’t. Instead, she asked, “Ricky, thinking back to that Sunday, the one before the fire, could you – ?”
He looked at his watch. “Got to be on my way or I’ll miss the train. Good luck with Mother. Oh, by the way…” He stepped closer to Jude and spoke with a new earnestness. “Don’t worry if she says anything odd.”
“What kind of odd?”
“Well, if she starts making accusations about anyone. She’s a wonderful woman, in very good nick for her age, but occasionally she does get confused. Usually when she’s had a shock of some kind. And what’s happened with Polly has really knocked her sideways. As a result, Mother may say some strange things. Just ignore it. As I say, she’s confused. I’m sure she’ll soon be back on an even keel.”
“But what kind of – ?”
“Sorry, Jude, must be off. Just don’t take any notice of anything Mother may say about Polly’s death.”
Twenty
Even on her bed of pain Flora Le Bonnier did look rather magnificent. Though the white hair was ruffled from her attempts to get into a comfortable position amidst the piled-up pillows, nothing could spoil the fine bone structure of her face. There remained a theatrical grandeur about her.
Jude had been fully prepared for the old woman’s attitude to be imperious, but in fact it came closer to humility. “It’s so good of you to come and interrupt what is, I’m sure, a well-deserved break for you.”
“It’s absolutely fine, don’t worry about it.” Jude’s voice had taken on a soothing tone, already part of the healing process. “Now, let’s just find where the source of the pain is.”
In spite of Flora’s assertion ‘I can tell you that – it’s in the small of my back’, Jude ran her hands over the woman’s whole body. She didn’t touch, didn’t even remove the duvet, just let her fingers flow up and down an inch or two above the bedclothes. When she stopped, she said, “Yes, I can understand where you’re feeling the pain, but, in fact, the tension that’s causing it is in your shoulders. Our bodies have an amazing ability to refer pain, just as our minds can refer anxiety.”
“What do you mean by that?” asked Flora, intrigued.
“Often when we’re worried about something, we refer that worry to something else.” Jude had done enough acting in her life to risk a professional parallel. “Like when you’re going on stage. What you’re afraid of is exposing your skills in front of a large audience, but that’s very rarely what you worry about in the moments before curtain up. Instead, you worry about throwing up, having an attack of diarrhoea, bringing the most primitive kind of shame on yourself. You worry about the possible symptom, rather than the real cause.”
Flora Le Bonnier was silent for a moment while she assessed this claim. Then she said, “You’re right. And in the same way, when you’re really, genuinely ill and you have to give a performance, suddenly you stop feeling pain for the duration of the show, and it all comes crashing in again the moment the curtain’s down.”
“‘Doctor Theatre’,” Jude agreed, knowing that her use of the actor’s phrase would increase the bond between them. “So, right now your body is reacting to the tension in your shoulders by giving you a pain in the small of your back.”
Flora seemed to accept the logic of that. She shifted in the bed and winced. “More importantly, though, can you do something to relieve that pain?”
“Yes, I think I can. If you get into the least uncomfortable position you can find and just slip your nightie down off your shoulders…”
Having been used to the constant attention of dressers in theatres and on film sets all over the world, the old woman showed no coyness about revealing her bony body with its skin the texture of muslin. Jude anointed the shoulders with the smallest amount of oil, and let her fingers flicker gently against the flesh. There was no physical strength required for what she was doing, just immense mental energy and concentration. Jude could sense the heat emanating from the woman’s body and focused her mind on melting away the tight knot of pain that was causing it.
After about twenty minutes both women felt the same flood of relaxation as the pain ebbed away. Flora sank back on to the pillows and Jude, totally drained, as ever, by the effort of healing, subsided into a bedside chair. A long, relieved silence stretched between them.
Then Jude said, very gently, “And of course our bodies and our minds go on playing tricks on us all the time, don’t they? Something that’s troubling the mind expresses itself in a bodily ailment.”
“Yes. Something which doctors – in the days when I still foolishly wasted my money consulting doctors – never seemed to understand. They seemed to regard the body and the mind as totally separate.”
“I think they’ve got a bit better about that kind of thing over recent years.”
“Huh. Well, I’ve yet to meet the traditional doctor who could do what you’ve just done for me.”
“Luck, I think. It seemed to work this morning.”
“Are you suggesting that your healing doesn’t always work?”
“I certainly am. Sometimes the magic’s just not there. I rarely know the reason…some fault in my concentration, scepticism from the patient…? I’ll never fully understand it. Still, so long as it works sometimes…” There was another silence, then Jude continued, “Well, then, Flora, what was it in your mind that was so dreadful it could completely immobilize your body?”
“Obviously it’s related to Polly’s death.” Flora seemed to feel some relief from making that statement. Jude didn’t prompt her, she let the old woman take her own time. “I think for me what happened was the culmination of many years of anxiety.” Another silence, while she gathered more of her thoughts. “What I’m going to say now may sound rather fanciful, but it is true. As you may know, the Le Bonnier family has a long history in this country dating back to the Norman Conquest.”
“I had heard that, yes.”
“And amongst the inheritances of that long history are certain advantages, of looks, of intelligence, of resilience, of bravery even. But there are also less welcome family characteristics which have been passed on. It may sound melodramatic, but in this context I cannot avoid the expression ‘Bad Blood’. Bad luck, anyway.”
Jude maintained the silence until Flora Le Bonnier felt able to continue. “I refer to what in earlier days might have gone under the blanket description of ‘madness’. In these supposedly more enlightened days we speak of ‘manic depression’ or what’s that new phrase they’ve come up with? ‘Bipolar Disorder’? Whatever you call it, I’m referring to a tendency, all too common amongst creative people, towards violent fits of self-loathing, a self-loathing which in its most extreme manifestations can lead to self-destruction.
“There has been a suicidal streak, a flaw, whatever you want to call it, in the Le Bonnier family. Some people have even been melodramatic enough to refer to it as ‘the Le Bonnier Curse’…anyway, it’s been mentioned for as far back as their history is recorded. And the fact that those family records are incomplete is due to that very flaw. In the early nineteenth century a certain Giles Le Bonnier not only killed himself but also destroyed the ancestral family home in Yorkshire when he burnt the place to the ground. Invaluable family records were also lost in the inferno. Because of that tragedy a contemporary historian would have trouble piecing together the distant history of the Le Bonnier family.”