Acts & Monuments

by Alan Kane Fraser

  The toddler ran about with great enthusiasm, but with no real sense of purpose. What he wanted was people’s approval, but he offered them nothing in return. He wasn’t interested in what they were doing or whether he was interrupting them; he just wanted them to notice him and tell him how wonderful he was. And, once they’d done that, he’d toddle off to the next person and do the same thing. The more she watched the child, the more he annoyed her, and the more he annoyed her, the more she realised that it was because he was just like Molloy.

  It was hours since they had been hauled into Inspector Davis’ office and had a strip torn off them, and yet, not once since then had Molloy indicated, even obliquely, that he thought an apology might be in order. But, more than that, he gave no indication of even having considered for a moment that a person who had died – Shana Backley – might still be alive if he had listened to her. The only thought that had occurred to him since they’d been advised of their enforced transfer was the impact of the whole situation on him. Even now, he was spending his lunch break in a meeting with the Police Federation rep down at the station. An innocent woman lay dead, but Molloy seemed to think that he was the principal victim. He was trying to claim a starring role in the drama, but, in doing so, was pushing the central figure to the sidelines.

  Only Molloy, Gemma mused, could try and claim that his career was more important than the life of a highly vulnerable woman.

  But it was not only Molloy at all.

  Twenty-Three

  To get from Solihull back to Walmley involved doing battle with rush-hour traffic, so the fifteen-mile journey took over an hour, but, for once, Barry wasn’t frustrated. The long, slow drive meant that he didn’t arrive back home too early, and he had also had a chance to think about what he might want to say to his wife. He obviously couldn’t tell her about the money, but he needed to convey to her that things would be different from now on.

  Barry had felt like a loser for so long that, somehow, the feeling had soaked into his bones. So it was only natural that his wife appeared to regard him with the kind of exasperation usually reserved for small puppies that refused to be housetrained. But now he wanted her to see him in a new light.

  Eventually, Barry pulled up on his drive, the loose chippings crackling under his tyres. He checked his wallet. It was still there: £250. He knew that it would be prudent to start putting some money away for the deposit on a new car. But, he decided, this first withdrawal would be spent on new art materials. The new Barry Todd was going to reward himself with something to nourish his inner life. He was going to start painting again. He would go up into the loft and see how much of his college art stuff was still useable and how much needed replacing, but, at the very least, he knew that he would need some paints.

  The moment he came in, his wife jumped up from the sofa and stood, bolt upright, arms folded, like an exclamation mark at the end of a sentence. “You’re home early.”

  There was definitely a suggestion in the tone of her voice that Barry could only be home at this point because he’d done something wrong – which, in a sense, was true, but not in the way that she seemed to suppose.

  “I had a meeting in Solihull that finished early. It wasn’t worth going back to the office.”

  “I’ve had Lauren on the phone.” She snipped at the words like a pair of scissors.

  “And…?”

  Her arms dropped to her sides and she looked at him truculently, as though challenging him to prove her suspicions about him wrong. “She was in tears, Barry; in absolute floods of tears.”

  Barry found this very hard to believe. It felt like the kind of detail his wife would add to a story to make him feel more guilty. “Oh, that’s not good. Did she say why?”

  There was a slight pause, during which his wife’s eyes expanded to the size of saucers.

  “I can’t believe you sometimes!” She slapped the words down like an accusation.

  “Sorry…” was all Barry could think to say.

  “You don’t know, do you? You don’t even know what you’ve done – or not done.”

  Barry couldn’t argue with her on this point. “Sorry…”

  “You’ve not sent her the money, Barry!”

  Barry quietly closed his eyes. She had caught him bang to rights. He had indeed failed to send Lauren the money he should have – the money he had promised to send her.

  “No, I haven’t—”

  “Oh Barry…” she said. And the space she left was filled with her silent disappointment. It spread out across the room until neither of them seemed to know quite what to do to stop it. Eventually she continued in a voice that could not have sounded more tired or more let down. “She’s our daughter, Barry. She needs that money to live on.”

  “I know, and if you’ll just—”

  “You said you’d send it last week. The poor girl’s running out of money!”

  Barry had set his heart on some kolinsky-hair paintbrushes, but now realised that desperate times called for desperate measures.

  “If you’ll just let me explain,” he said, withdrawing his wallet from his pocket like a magician withdrawing a rabbit from his top hat. “I had to wait until I got paid today, but I’ve withdrawn a couple of hundred quid in cash and I’ll post it to her special delivery tomorrow. That way she won’t have to wait for a cheque to clear.”

  “A couple of hundred? We already owe her 400!”

  “Yes, and I’ll withdraw another couple of hundred in cash tomorrow morning and put that in the envelope too. But there’s a limit on how much you can withdraw each day,” Barry explained, as though this had always been part of his plan.

  There was the slightest of pauses, which suggested (to Barry, at least) that her ire might be beginning to assuage.

  “Well, just make sure you do!” she said.

  “I’ve not started tea yet,” she continued, apropos of nothing in particular.

  Barry realised that he was being accused of always coming in and expecting his dinner to be on the table. However, her tardiness in preparing their evening meal presented him with an opportunity, and it was one upon which he pounced like a cat on string.

  “That’s good actually, ’cause I was going to suggest we went out for dinner tonight.”

  “Out?” She looked at him as though he had suggested something strange and wondrous.

  “Yeah. There’s that new Indian I thought we could try. The one at the end of the road. What d’you think?”

  The frown on her face slowly dissolved as she considered the idea. “I suppose so. If you want to,” she replied. “But I warn you, Barry, if it’s like that filthy Thai place you took me to, we’re not staying.”

  Two-and-a-half years on, the ‘filthy’ (but highly recommended – and expensive) ‘Thai place’ still loomed large in his wife’s thoughts.

  “I tell you what, though,” she added, a warm smile suddenly beginning its weary passage across her face. “We could ask Alun and Sue if they wanted to come with us. What do you think?”

  Alun and Sue Evans were the Todds’ neighbours. Alun was a retired police officer who – having spent thirty years tapping the side of his nose and muttering darkly about how, “I’d love to tell you, but you know how it is…” – now felt no need to hold back on telling people exactly how it was. Barry found this incredibly boring, so his immediate reaction was to demur at his wife’s suggestion. Besides, the whole point of his plan was to engage in The Conversation They Needed to Have, and it was not the kind of conversation he felt he could have if Alun and Sue were there too.

  But then it occurred to Barry that, in view of the legal risks associated with his recent cash withdrawal, Alun’s tendency to be fabulously indiscreet to all and sundry about the inner workings of the police force might actually be quite helpful for once. And he also thought that being seen to accede to his wife’s request might gain him some cr
edit when he did eventually try to have The Conversation They Needed to Have. So he graciously agreed, and she phoned Sue to see if she and Alun were free.

  “Alun’s not back from the golf club yet,” she said after hanging up. “But Sue says she’s definitely up for joining us, so she suggests we go down now and have our starters and they’ll join us for the main course – if Alun gets back in time. I’ve said we’ll let them know how we get on. If it’s no good, we’re only five minutes’ walk from that nice place – the one I like.”

  Barry declined to rise to the bait. Whatever his wife’s misgivings, from his perspective, the Evans’ delayed arrival sounded just about perfect. The Conversation They Needed to Have was back on.

  Twenty-Four

  The restaurant, whilst not exactly full, was busier than one might have expected on a Monday evening. Barry took this to be a good thing – it was a sign that his proposed choice was not quite as hare-brained as wife’s initial reaction had suggested. He was also reassured by the fact that the restaurant’s decor was pleasingly contemporary and the waiting staff smartly dressed – it demonstrated a degree of classiness in his selection that might not have been immediately assumed by his wife.

  The comforting scent of turmeric and coriander, of cardamom and paprika, warmed his nose as they were escorted to their table. He hoped she would be impressed. And, indeed, she agreed to take a velour-covered seat without protest, and had not immediately suggested going on to “that nice place – the one that I like”, even after their waiter left them alone with the menus. So at least Barry’s suggestion had passed the first test: Furnishings and General Ambience.

  She surveyed the menu silently, casting a matronly eye over the options, withholding final judgement until she had fully apprised herself of the choices on offer. Finally, after an apparent age and without lifting her eyes from the menu in front of her, she concluded simply, “Seems nice.”

  Bingo! Barry knew from this that he had passed the second test. The restaurant had met her fairly exacting standards for Menu Range and Presentation. There was just one more thing she would need to check.

  “I’m just popping to the ladies’.”

  Excellent, Barry thought. He knew, of course, that she wouldn’t actually be availing herself of the facilities on offer – that would be too much to expect on a first visit to a new restaurant – but the fact that she wished to view them was a good sign.

  The habitual ‘visit to the ladies’ served two purposes in his wife’s mind. Firstly, it allowed her to satisfy herself that the toilets themselves were of an appropriate level of hygiene and general comfort. But secondly, it was also the case that in most restaurants (for practical reasons of plumbing, as Barry understood from his basic building design knowledge) the toilets tended to be next to the kitchen. This meant that whilst checking out the toilets, his wife could also cast a quick glance into the kitchen to establish the conditions under which her food was being prepared. These were the final tests to be passed before any food or drinks could be ordered.

  Three minutes later, she returned and took her seat. Barry took this as a sign that she was satisfied, but he thought he’d better just check.

  “Everything all right?” he asked.

  “Yes. Fine.”

  ‘Fine’ was OK, Barry decided. Not as good as ‘good’ to be sure, and certainly nowhere near as helpful as ‘lovely’, but ‘fine’ was enough for Barry to be able to catch the waiter’s eye, confident in the knowledge that his wife was happy to eat there. Maybe, in time, she would even be happy to use the toilets. But that was an issue for another day. Tonight was about crossing the threshold and eating the food. And, of course, it was about the conversation: The Conversation They Needed to Have.

  But sitting there, it occurred to Barry that he didn’t know what he wanted to say. Or rather, he knew what he wanted to say, but there was too much of it. The Conversation They Needed to Have felt like an ocean and all he had with which to attempt a crossing was an inflatable dinghy. He didn’t know where to start or how.

  She began talking to him about her day; about having to go and complain to the deputy head because one of the other volunteer classroom assistants had been offered a paid post when she had not even been told there was a paid post available. Or something. Barry hadn’t quite heard because he wasn’t really listening. And he wasn’t really listening because he was trying to work out what he needed to say.

  And then, all of a sudden, as if some divine force had entered her and made her see what the problem really was, his wife completely changed tack and opened up The Conversation They Needed to Have for him.

  “What do you want, Barry? Just say what you want!”

  It felt like a weight had been lifted from his chest. Of course, that was it. That was what he had to tell her – what he wanted. He had to tell her about the little boy in the coffee shop. Because as soon as he told her about him she would understand. And once she understood they could go back to being like they were before, when they were so close.

  But what pleased Barry even more was that he knew exactly what to say in response. He leant forward and grabbed her hands with relief.

  “I want people to see me as I really am, that’s all…” he said. And then, almost as an embarrassed afterthought, he added, “And I want to know that that’s enough for someone to love me.”

  It was, he guessed, what everyone wanted really – even tossers like Langley – so it was probably what his wife wanted too. And, knowing that, they could cross the ocean that separated them and be together again – not just in proximity to each other, but together in an altogether deeper sense.

  Except that it appeared that this might not be the case at all.

  His wife’s eyes flared in alarm and her cheeks flushed a deep red. She pulled her hands away from his and looked at Barry in horror. Her head snapped to the left.

  “He’ll have a samosa to start and the chicken jalfrezi to follow. He always has that.”

  “Very good, madam,” the waiter replied, as though Barry’s outburst of a few moments earlier had not happened at all.

  “And I’m terribly sorry for my husband. Just ignore him.” The waiter nodded discreetly and headed back toward the kitchen. “What was that all about? Are you trying to embarrass me?”

  “Sorry,” said Barry. “I didn’t mean to… I just thought—”

  “Thought? Thought? You were actually thinking when you said that? Well, you certainly weren’t paying any attention. What will that waiter think of us?”

  What, indeed. Barry was going to try to protest, but it would have been futile. The fact was, he hadn’t been paying attention, and, yes, he had committed the ultimate social faux pas and embarrassed his wife in public. If she hadn’t already ordered her own meal, she probably would have insisted on walking out there and then. As it was, it seemed unlikely they would be staying for dessert.

  But there was something else that made him realise the futility of trying to resurrect The Conversation They Needed to Have: the look on her face at that moment. She’d looked at him as if he had admitted to some unspeakable crime. Of course, he hadn’t – but he could have. He could have told her all about the money and where the £200 that he’d promised to send to Lauren had come from, as well as all the other £200s that he was proposing to send to Lauren. But that look seemed to Barry to contain a clear warning of what he could expect if he did.

  Barry needed her to give him the benefit of the doubt, but her look did not suggest she would be minded to give it to him. It was the look of a woman who had heard the second-most intimate thing that her husband could have chosen to share with her – and had found it utterly horrifying and revolting. Her reaction if Barry had chosen to share the most intimate thing that he could have told her didn’t bear thinking about. But what he knew was this: he had opened his heart up to her and had got a very clear response. She had seen him (very nearly) a
s he really was and had unambiguously declared that what he really was wasn’t enough for her to love him.

  “What do you want?” he asked, forlornly.

  “The balti chicken bhuna,” she replied. “Were you not listening?”

  And she went back to talking about The Great Classroom Assistant Scandal.

  And there, Barry reflected, was their relationship in a nutshell. He said, almost unthinkingly, that he loved her. But when he looked into her eyes – even really deeply – he couldn’t see her soul anymore. Not since Christopher. She was impassive now, like a sphinx; giving nothing out and expecting nothing in return. The Conversation They Needed to Have was deferred indefinitely.

  A few minutes later, however, her eyes did indeed light up. Sadly, she wasn’t looking at Barry as they did so, but rather just over his shoulder as an ebullient voice came from behind him. “Sue! Alun! You did make it. Oh, that’s wonderful!”

  The Evanses had barely taken their seats and placed their orders when Alun began regaling the Todds with yet another story of police incompetence that he had, apparently, been told on good authority. Barry immediately saw his opportunity to steer the conversation on to more helpful territory.

  “That’s very interesting, Alun,” he lied, “but I heard a story from a shopkeeper the other day and I just can’t believe what she said the police told her.”

  “Go on then,” Alun said, daring Barry to try to shock him.

  “Oh, don’t get him started, Barry. I get this every day,” said Sue despairingly.

  “Well, they had a cash machine in a shop, and they had a CCTV camera pointing straight at it, recording everything.”

  “Oh aye,” said Alun with a knowing smile.

  “You’ve got him started now. I told you not to get him started! Anyway, how’s Lauren getting on?” And with that the two women turned their heads and began talking about their respective families.