Dr Bensimon saw me two hours ago. I telephoned him as soon as I had returned from Eastbourne.
‘I wish I could say it was an effort fitting you in at such short notice,’ he said. ‘But you’re my only patient today.’
I lay on the couch and told him bluntly and with no preamble that my mother had killed herself.
‘My god. I’m very sorry to hear that,’ he said. Then, after a pause, ‘What do you feel? Do you feel any guilt?’
‘No,’ I said immediately. ‘Somehow I want to feel guilt but I respect her too much for that. Does that make any sense? It was something she thought about and decided to do. In cold logic. And I suppose she had every right.’
‘It’s very Viennese,’ Bensimon said, then apologized. ‘I don’t mean to be flippant. Choosing that option, I mean. You’ve no idea how many of my patients did the same – not spontaneously – but after a great deal of thought. Calm, rational thought. Have you any idea what made her do it?’
‘Yes. I think so. It’s connected with what I’m doing myself . . .’ I thought again. ‘It’s to do with this war and the work I’m doing. She was actually trying to protect me, believe it or not.’
‘Do you want to talk about her?’
‘No, actually, I want to ask you about something – about someone else. Do you remember that first day we met, in Vienna, at your consulting rooms?’
‘The day Miss Bull was so insistent. Yes – not easily forgotten.’
‘There was another Englishman present, from the Embassy – a military attaché – Alwyn Munro.’
‘Yes, Munro. I knew him quite well. We were at university together.’
‘Really? Did he ever ask you anything about me?’
‘I can’t answer that,’ he said, apologetically. ‘Very sorry.’
I turned my head and looked at Bensimon who was sitting behind his desk, his fingers steepled in front of his face.
‘Because you can’t remember?’
‘No. Because he was my patient.’
‘Patient?’ I was astonished at this news. I sat up and swivelled myself around. ‘What was wrong with him?’
‘Obviously I can’t answer that, either. Let’s just say that Captain Munro had serious problems of a personal nature. I can’t go any further than that.’
I sit in 3/12 Trevelyan House with a bottle of whisky and a cheese-and-pickle sandwich I bought from the pub on the corner of Surrey Street. I telephoned Blanche and told her what had happened and she was all sympathy and warm concern, inviting me to come round and stay with her. I said that day would come soon enough but I had to be on my own at the moment. There will be an inquest, of course – so we must wait before we can bury her – my mother, Annaliese. I want tears to flow but all I feel is this heaviness inside me – a leaden weight of resentment, this grinding level of anger that she should have felt she had no more choice than to do what she did. To take her jewels off and walk into the sea until the waters closed over her.
17. A Cup of Tea and a Medicinal Brandy
The next day passed slowly, very slowly, Lysander felt, as if time were responding to his own desultory moods. He kept to himself as much as possible, staying in Room 205 with the door closed and locked. At midday he sent Tremlett out to buy him some pastries from a luncheon-room in the Strand. He ran through the plans he had made for the evening again and again. He was trying to convince himself that this exercise would be significant, possibly revelatory. At the very least he would be wiser – one step closer, perhaps.
In the middle of the afternoon, Tremlett called him on the telephone.
‘The White Palace Hotel on the line, sir.’
‘I don’t stay there any more.’
‘They say your wife has been taken ill.’
‘I’m not married, Tremlett – it’s obviously a mistake.’
‘They’re very insistent. She had a fainting fit, it seems.’
‘All right, put them on.’
He waited, hearing the clicks and buzzes as the connection was made. Then the manager came on the line.
‘Mrs Rief is in a very, ah, agitated state.’
‘There is no “Mrs Rief”, as it happens,’ Lysander said. Then he realized. ‘I’ll speak to her.’
He heard the receiver being held away and footsteps approaching.
‘Hello, Hettie,’ he said.
‘You’ve moved,’ she said accusingly, angrily. ‘I couldn’t think how else to find you.’
‘I’ll be there in ten minutes.’
He took a taxi to Pimlico and found her in the resident’s lounge of The White Palace with a cup of tea and a medicinal brandy. He locked the door so they wouldn’t be interrupted but Hettie took this as an invitation to intimacy and tried to kiss him. He pushed her away gently and she sulkily sat down again on the sofa.
‘I‘ve got three whole days,’ she said. ‘Jago thinks I’m on a sketching holiday on the Isle of Wight. I thought being on an island would convince him more.’
‘I can’t see you, Hettie,’ he said. ‘There’s a flap on – I’m working day and night. That’s why I sent you the telegram.’
She frowned and tucked her knees up underneath her. She pouted and tapped her forefinger on her jawbone – one, two, three – as if counting down, mentally. Then she pointed the finger at him.
‘There’s someone else,’ she said, finally. ‘I’m right, aren’t I?’
‘No . . . Yes.’
‘You’re a swine, Lysander. A bloody fucking swine.’
‘Hettie. You went and got married. We have a child but you didn’t even bother to tell me.’
‘That’s different.’
‘Please explain how.’
‘What have you done to me, Lysander?’
‘Hang on a second. Can I remind you of events in Vienna in 1913? You had me in prison with your damned lies. How dare you?’
‘I was helping you. Well, maybe not at first, but I was later.’
‘What’re you talking about?’
‘Those men persuaded me to drop the rape charge so you could be set bail. Udo was furious, practically threw me out –’
‘What men?’
‘Those two at the embassy. The attachés – I forget their names.’
‘Munro and Fyfe-Miller.’
‘If you say so.’
Lysander began to think fast.
‘You saw Munro and Fyfe-Miller?’ he asked. ‘While I was under arrest?’
‘We had a few meetings. They told me what to do – to change the charge. And they gave me money when I asked for some. After you escaped they were very helpful – offered to take me to Switzerland. But I decided to stay – because of Lothar.’ She looked at him aggressively, as if he were somehow to blame for all the mess. ‘They asked me lots of questions about you. Very curious. And I was very helpful, I can tell you that. Told them all sorts of interesting titbits about Mr Lysander Rief.’
Was she lying again, Lysander wondered. Was this pure bravura? He felt confusion beginning to overwhelm him once more. He reached over and finished off her brandy. First Munro turned out to have been Bensimon’s patient and now there seemed to be some form of collusion between Munro, Fyfe-Miller and Hettie. He tried to see what the connections and consequences might have been but it was all too perplexing. What had really happened in Vienna in 1914? It made him very uneasy.
Hettie leapt up from the sofa and came over to him, sliding on to his lap, putting her arms round his neck and kissing him – little dabbing kisses on his face, pressing her breasts into his arm.