Detachment Theory by Richard Woolley

Author:Richard Woolley [Woolley, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781665598040
Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
Published: 2022-05-12T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Joy stares out of the train window at a large expanse of water which has come into view after emerging from a tunnel. This local train to Oakham reminds her of the commuter trains in Auckland. More of a glorified bus than a train, she thinks, though the express from London to Peterborough was smart and quick enough to impress a Kiwi, whose own country had no long distance trains at all – apart from for tourists.

She has learnt over the past two weeks to use here-and-now, physical-world-oriented thought processes like this to hold back the huge volume of grief, anger, confusion and despair that threaten to overwhelm her most of the time. It is a tip from her sister Sue in London – officially a child psychiatrist, but well versed in adult issues like grief management and post-traumatic stress disorder. The same sister Sue who has saved the day and prevented an otherwise probable breakdown, by taking Joy in hand after her arrival by plane from Dubai. Mum and Dad had wanted to fly over to help, but Sue, after consultation, between a bout of tears, with Joy, had said no. Better for them to remain part of the untainted New Zealand world that offered Joy both memories of a secure childhood, and hope for the future post tragedy, than be associated with Stephen’s family and the often false emotions, surface subterfuge and emotional suppression that characterised old England.

Joy sometimes thinks she should have gone back to Auckland, but in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy on the ship, she had been consumed by a desire to get to the bottom of Stephen’s history and find out what lay behind the accusations of murder and foul play in his childhood. She has no indication that his accidental drowning had anything to do with the now silent male tweeter, and so, and again on the advice of sister Sue, she sees the whole sequence of events as a tragic accident – a storm at sea, a deck railing gate without a padlock on its bolt (lawyers were already working on the compensation implications of that) and Stephen’s desperate attempt to prevent a woman from hurling herself over the side. Who this woman was, this Anna Chan from Hong Kong, Joy has no idea. But, knowing Stephen as she does, did, if he had encountered someone in distress – got into conversation with a deck walker as he had once before on the trip – a deck walker, who for whatever reason was at the end of her tether – then he would have tried to help regardless of any danger that he might have put himself in by staying on deck during a storm. Of course, this was supposition and an official enquiry by Empress Cruises was still to come, but imagining Stephen may have been murdered by some unseen third party merely made life seem more unreal than it already was.

She turns to the expanse of water once more, willing herself to stay in the here and now.

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