‘Your father had a clear idea of the person who he wanted any son of his to be … and you didn’t fit into that stereotype?’
‘You’re good,’ he said with some surprise. ‘Most of the shrinks I’ve had have taken half a dozen sessions to work that one out.’
‘I’m not a shrink.’
‘Aren’t you?’ He didn’t sound that interested.
‘I’m a healer.’
‘Oh God, not another one!’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Mrs Kendrick brought in another healer’ – the word was larded with contempt – ‘to sort me out. Jeremiah, he called himself. He’s local. You know him?’
‘We’ve spoken on the phone. I haven’t met him yet.’
‘That’s a treat in store for you. Then you can get together to chant and throw your special ingredients into the same cauldron.’
Jude had heard enough misinformed slights against her calling not to rise to this one. The lack of reaction didn’t seem to bother Tom. He went on, ‘I should be flattered, shouldn’t I, to be such a rare and incurable case? Having exhausted the resources of the conventional stuff, NHS and private, Mrs Kendrick is turning to alternative medicine. Remarkable, given the views she’s expressed on the subject over the years. It’ll be Tarot cards next. I must’ve really got her scared this time.’
‘I prefer to think of what I do as complementary medicine rather than alternative medicine.’
‘Fine by me. Call it what you want, the fact remains – it’s not going to work.’
‘Did the man you called Jeremiah help you?’
‘No, he was bloody useless. Kept talking about my “aura”. And I kept telling him I haven’t got a bloody aura!’ He looked at Jude pityingly. ‘Do you really think that you can heal me?’
‘It depends rather on what you think within yourself needs healing.’
‘Good answer … to which my answer would be that I don’t think there’s much that needs healing. I think I’m all right as I am.’
‘You mean you’re happy?’
‘Now, come on. I didn’t say that. No, a lot of the time I’m as miserable as sin, but I don’t think that’s something that can be healed.’
‘Are you saying you get depressed?’
‘I don’t know. A lot of the shrinks have asked me that. Then I ask them what they mean by “being depressed” and they describe it to me … and usually I come to the conclusion that … no, I’m not depressed. But I am pissed off.’
‘And what pisses you off?’
‘Everything, pretty much. My situation here. The fact that I’m living on the Shorelands Estate in Fethering with bloody Mrs Kendrick.’
‘Can’t you move away?’
He shook his head wryly and made that finger-rubbing gesture which is recognized throughout the world to refer to money. ‘Can’t afford to, can I?’
Jude was increasingly of the view that she was the wrong person to have been called in to sort out Tom Kendrick, but she decided to get a bit more information before she left. ‘Your mother said you’d started lots of courses and jobs and none of them had worked out. Why?’
‘Because none of them interested me.’
‘A lot of people start out doing jobs that don’t interest them.’
‘Yes, but they have to, don’t they? I don’t.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Mrs Kendrick gives me an allowance. So long as that continues, why should I bother?’
‘Didn’t your father think you should make more of yourself?’
‘Maybe. At first. But his idea of me making “more of myself” was doing exactly what he’d done. He’d been Head Boy at prep school, Captain of Cricket at public school, studied Law at university, qualified as a solicitor and settled for a comfortable life of conveyancing, divorce, probate and golf. When it became clear that I wasn’t going to go down any of those paths, Mr Kendrick rather lost interest in me.’
‘So …’ asked Jude, ‘what do you do all day?’
‘Sometimes I go out. Mrs Kendrick has been kind enough to supply me with a car.’
‘The Triumph Tr6 outside?’
‘That’s the one. But I spend most of my time in my bedroom. Got Netflix, Sky Sports, computer games. My needs are simple.’
‘What about seeing other people?’
‘In my experience, “other people” are very rarely what they’re cracked up to be. There are some I get together with in Brighton, but not that often.’
‘Girlfriends?’
‘Why bother? There are a lot of porn hubs available out there.’
Jude was struck by his negativity and cynicism but was finding it hard to see evidence of mental illness, or indeed of any condition that could benefit from her healing services. She put this to him in as graceful a manner as she could.
Tom grinned triumphantly. ‘See? There’s nothing wrong with me. I wonder who Mrs Kendrick will turn to next – a witch doctor?’
Jude left the Shorelands Estate that morning with her mind unchanged. Whatever problem Tom Kendrick had, it wasn’t one that could be improved by her skills. Indeed, she wondered if he actually did have a problem, except in the eyes of his mother. Tom’s lifestyle may not have fitted societal norms, but Jude couldn’t see that he was doing much harm to anyone.
SIX
‘Don’t get old, Carole,’ said Bill Shefford. ‘It doesn’t do you any good.’
‘I already am quite old,’ she said. She had always felt her age to the last second. Few things annoyed her more than contemporaries saying, ‘Oh, I still think like an eighteen-year-old’, or, even worse, ‘Age is just a number.’ Who did they think they were fooling?
‘Take my word for it, things don’t get easier with the passage of the years.’
‘What do you mean?’
It was rare to catch the garage owner in reflective mood. Rare, in fact, for him to talk to her about anything other than car-related matters. He looked unhappy, Carole thought, the heavy features of his freckled face weighed down with gloom.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he went on. ‘You think you have things sorted, you think you’ve got your life worked out, and then something totally unexpected comes in from left field and you realize it’s all chaos. Things happen at the wrong time. Good things happen when you’re in no position to take advantage of them. It’s all a mess.’
Carole wished she knew the right thing to say. Had it been Jude sitting on the plastic seat in Shefford’s reception area, she’d have come in with some formula of words that would have relaxed Bill, maybe encouraged him to further intimacies. Jude might even have been able to help him, soothe his despondent mood. Carole knew she didn’t have those skills.
She was tempted to ask how long he thought Billy would take replacing the wiper blades on the Renault, but she knew that would be copping out. For the first time in their acquaintance, Bill Shefford was opening up to her. She shouldn’t reject the overture.
‘Is there,’ she asked awkwardly, ‘some particular event that’s happened to throw your plans?’
‘Life’s happened.’ He grinned wryly. ‘Or perhaps I should say, death’s happened. Not that it’s happened yet. But it will.’
Though Carole didn’t know how to respond to this gnomic utterance, fortunately Bill continued without prompting. ‘I feel as if everything’s under threat.’
‘You mean someone’s threatening you?’
‘You could say that.’ He seemed to realize that they had strayed outside the normal parameters of their relationship. ‘Sorry, you don’t want to hear all this.’
‘No, I’m interested,’ said Carole, something of an understatement. Then she came up with a line she had probably never used before, but which would have made Jude proud of her. ‘Sometimes it’s better if you talk about things.’