The Sin Eater(39)

Michael took Nell out to dinner that night and later, in bed, she cried and clung to him.

‘It’s the first time I’ve been parted from Beth since Brad died,’ she said. ‘I feel as if I’ve lost her.’

‘Oh, Nell, of course you haven’t lost her.’

‘I know that really – logically. But things do become lost,’ said Nell. ‘I lost Brad, and now I’ve lost Beth, even though it’s only for a while and . . . Michael, I won’t lose you, will I?’

It was so rare for her to display this kind of sudden and intense emotion and she sounded so much like Beth seeking reassurance that Michael’s heart turned over. He put his arms round her. ‘You won’t lose me, my dear love.’

‘You called me that right at the start,’ said Nell. ‘I do like to hear you say it. And of course I lose you some of the time, and that’s natural. When you’re absorbed in Andrew Marvell or Byron for instance – you aren’t really in the present day at all. That’s fine – it’s what you are. And I like you looking like one of the nineteenth-century romantics, and I like hearing about all the things you work out for your students.’

‘But none of that’s losing me, any more than I lose you when you’re absorbed in Chippendale or Hepplewhite.’

‘I wish I could get absorbed in Chippendale,’ said Nell, clearly feeling better. ‘If I found a set of his chairs or a desk I’d be so absorbed I probably wouldn’t speak for days. I’d love to find something really rare.’ There was a pause and Michael thought: now she’ll say something about that macabre chess piece from Benedict Doyle’s house.

But she did not. She smiled suddenly, and said, ‘Sorry for the high drama. I’ll try not to do it again. I know it fazes you a bit. You’re more at home with the emotional yearnings of eighteenth-century poets, really, aren’t you? The ones who languished over locks of hair or draped themselves over marble vaults.’

‘I can usually explain the languishings of the romantic poets quite well to my students,’ said Michael, rather apologetically. ‘What I can’t do is help them with their own entanglements.’

‘That’s because they’re part of the modern “Your place or mine?” culture,’ said Nell. ‘They probably don’t go in for sonnets or elegies.’

‘I think the girls might quite like a few sonnets. Do you know,’ said Michael, getting out of bed to refill their wine glasses, ‘far more girls than boys turn up in my study, to ask if I can explain a particular aspect of a poem or a sonnet to them.’

Nell said, ‘Do they really?’ and there was such amusement in her voice that Michael looked at her doubtfully. But she only said, in a more serious tone, ‘It’s all right, isn’t it? I mean – we’re all right, aren’t we?’

‘Yes,’ said Michael. ‘I think we’re very all right.’

She grinned and her eyes slanted so that she was no longer an insecure waif; she was a very mischievous imp.

‘Would you like to prove that with a demonstration?’ she said.

‘What a beautiful idea,’ said Michael, and got back into bed.

But two days later, the air of abstraction was back. Nell was not exactly distant, but her eyes seemed to be focused on something that was either deep in her mind or hundreds of miles away. Distant horizons, thought Michael. What’s that line about my soul longing to touch the dim distance? That’s how she looks – as if she’s longing to touch a dim distance. Am I going to lose her to a memory or a ghost?

But a few days after Christmas Nell asked, a bit diffidently, if Michael would like to come with her to visit Benedict Doyle.

‘He’s staying with Nina, and I ought to go and see him – if nothing else to meet him properly and talk about what we do with the contents of that house. But I think it might be a bit easier if you were there, as well.’

‘Of course I’ll come.’ Michael was pleased to be asked.

‘You’ll probably like Nina – you can’t always get a word in when she’s in full pelt, but she’s quite good company and she means well. She wants to meet you anyway.’

‘Does she?’ said Michael, surprised.

‘Well, I may have mentioned you to her,’ said Nell, offhandedly. ‘So she’s curious. Don’t smile like that; you look like Wilberforce when he’s stolen somebody’s fish supper.’

‘Have they got a diagnosis for Benedict yet?’ asked Michael, suppressing the smile.

‘Not quite, but Nina says they’re favouring – let me get this right – dissociative personality disorder. It sounds a bit sinister, doesn’t it?’

‘It sounds extremely sinister. What on earth is it?’

‘I think it’s sort of schizophrenia by another name.’


‘Other personalities seeming to take over?’

‘Yes – one personality in particularly, apparently.’

‘What kind of personality?’

‘I didn’t like to ask.’

Benedict Doyle appeared to be a perfectly ordinary young man with intelligent eyes and a sudden, very sweet, smile. He was not dissimilar to a good many of Michael’s own students and Michael liked him. Benedict seemed pleased to meet Michael and grateful at being able to thank Nell properly for rescuing him at Holly Lodge.