by Thorne Moore
Most of our dads have patches here, so no one dares to order us off, in case we’re carrying messages or sandwiches. Dad has a strip and he grows cabbages and I hate cabbage, but sometimes I go to his wooden shed when he’s having a break, and help him wind twine or count beans. Mostly, though, I go with Janice up to the far end, where a lot of the strips are just weeds, and there are empty sheds, and one of them has fallen down. Helped down. Kenneth Dexter and his gang did a lot of pushing and jumping on it. They carted bits of wood off somewhere, and burned the rest in a great big bonfire, and they got thrown off for that.
Other boys bring their go-karts and bikes here and whizz around between the strips, really fast, so we keep clear, Janice and me. We’ve got our hideaway among some old raspberry canes. When the raspberries are ripe, no one comes to pick them, so we eat them. Angela and Denise come up here sometimes too. Angela’s always going to be in the sports races at school and she practises running in the straight bit down the middle of the allotments and Denise times her by counting out loud, because she hasn’t got a stopwatch like Miss Jones, the games teacher. I came up here with Ruth once, too, because we’re supposed to be friends, but she didn’t like it. She said it was too muddy. It’s only muddy when it rains.
Nigel Knight comes here. His dad has a strip, down by the gates, really neat and full of veg and flowers, but he’s got another one too, now, up among the weedy ones, for Nigel to work all on his own. Nigel likes things like digging. He goes a bit wild sometimes, digging really deep holes, but his father helps him fill them in. He’s been given lettuces to plant. He looks after them really well, like they’re his babies.
He hasn’t been given a shed. I think the other whiskery men are a bit annoyed about having him there, but they don’t like to argue with Mr Knight because he’s too nice. Nigel’s found a shed all of his own. It’s one of the really rickety ones that no one else uses any more, and there are apple trees in front of it, that have grown really big and straggly, so you don’t even notice it until you’re right up to it. Nigel has a chair in there. One leg’s broken short but he props it on bricks. He keeps comics there. He’s shown me some of them. He always laughs and comes out when we’re around, and then we watch him digging more holes, and we clap and we laugh with him.
*
‘It was a game,’ said Angela. ‘Hunt the thimble, hide and seek, hunt the bloody Nigel. Christ, I was a child. We were all bloody children. How were we supposed to understand? Even the murder. They said Janice Dexter was dead. We didn’t get it, did we? We didn’t really know what death was, or sex or any-bloody-thing. Murder was a thrill. The man hunt was a thrill. So I told them about Nigel’s secret shed. I just wanted to see the dogs go for it. All those bloody Alsatians, straining at the leash. I wanted to see him run. Didn’t everyone love running? Fuck it!’ She slammed the cupboard door and leaned on it, face screwed up.
Denise sobbed.
‘He ran,’ I said.
‘Of course he ran. Wouldn’t you? Seeing a hundred policemen and snarling dogs charging at you? He must have been scared shitless. But he was trapped. Those pig sheds, you know. They blocked his way out, so there was only one way to go. Onto the railway line. Rolled down, straight onto the track.’
The railway track. It ran straight as a plumb line east of Foxton Road. At the south end it was up on an embankment. Then it levelled out and by the time it reached the end of the allotments, it was in a chalky cutting. I’d ventured over the wire fence once, for a dare, I think, and a couple of men had come racing from their radishes to shout at me and haul me back. You don’t go on the railway track.
Of course you don’t. When the trains roared through, they sucked the air out of you, and the ground trembled under your feet. They were thundering dragons who sent you flying.
Kenneth Dexter climbed onto the track once. Men shouted at him too, but he didn’t listen. He ran across and off the other side and he didn’t get killed.
But Nigel did. I couldn’t remember the precise fact, but I could remember, even locked in my room, hiding from everyone’s sight, the squeals and clanks echoing through the winter air, the dragon screaming, as the train screeched to a long, squealing stop.
I could remember the general shock, my mother’s face screwed up in horrified disgust.
I could remember the ringing of an ambulance and Mr Cartwright, our next door neighbour, in the front garden like everyone in the street, straining to hear, and saying, ‘Don’t know why they’re bothering with an ambulance. A shovel and bucket’s what they’ll be needing.’
‘Stupid fool,’ said Angela. ‘Stupid, poor, pathetic, innocent fool.’ She came unsteadily to stand before me, and looked down at me, swaying. ‘And you really don’t remember what you saw?’
‘No.’
‘You lucky, fucking cow!’
She was shaking. Denise was at her elbow, trying, solicitously, to guide her back to the sofa, but Angela pushed her off, angrily. ‘Why can’t that happen to me? Why can’t I forget? Ever seen someone dismembered and disembowelled by a train? It sprays, you know, right up in the air, and a head can roll—’
‘Don’t!’ Denise screamed, covering her ears. ‘Don’t talk about it. It’s horrible!’
‘Yes, that’s exactly what it was. Horrible. The sort of thing you’d really like to forget. Only I can’t! But lucky old Karen has the magic gift. She has forgotten what she saw. Assuming, of course, that she really did see it at all.’
They both turned looks of accusation on me.
‘I don’t remember any car. I don’t remember Nigel. I don’t remember what I told Serena, but I think I must have made it up.’
A mutual glance of satisfaction.
‘All I can remember…’
It shot straight back into my vision, the image of Janice, looking up at me, howling with fear.
‘I remember blood on her cheek. Janice. I remember water. Dark water. That’s all! I don’t know what I did! I remember being so scared. Terrified of that spirit message.’
Denise moaned. ‘You see, it was the Devil at work. Punishment for us toying with satanism.’
‘Jesus! It was a bunch of kids larking about, having fun!’ said Angela. ‘Stupid fun. I don’t know who moved the bloody glass. Someone who didn’t stop to think how scared you’d be, Karen. It wasn’t me, but it had to be a joke. It was stupid, but we were kids. We’re not responsible.’
‘Yes; we are,’ whispered Denise, beating her breast.
‘Anyway, what were you doing, hanging round with Stinky Jan? You were our friend. You had us. You didn’t need her. You should have told her to push off then—’ For a moment it was the child, Angela, speaking. We were all back in 1966.
*
‘She was supposed to come with me.’ Ruthie is crying. Snivelling into her handkerchief. I wonder what she’ll do with it, because Ruthie’s hanky is always dead clean.
I am guilty, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I was supposed to go round Ruthie’s house. I don’t know why I was supposed to go there, but I went to the allotments with Janice instead, like I always do on Saturdays.
‘She’s always with that Janice. She doesn’t really like me.’ Sob, sob.
‘I do!’ I’m not just guilty but ashamed now. It’s true. Secretly, I don’t like Ruthie very much, but she’s Serena’s friend so I really ought to love her.
‘I don’t know why you keep bringing Janice along,’ says Barbara. ‘You’re our friend, not her. Serena doesn’t want her tagging along all the time, do you?’
Serena smiles at me, a sad smile. ‘I don’t mind,’ she says, and puts her arms round Ruthie, resting her lovely cheek on Ruthie’s hair. ‘Poor Ruth.’
‘I’ll go next week!’ I promise. Cross my heart.
*
‘We were all just children,’ repeated Angela.
But none of us felt that was exoneration enough.
‘Did you really like her? Janice Dexter, I mean. Or were you just trying to wind us up. Because I
can’t see why anyone would really want to be her friend. Smelly, flea-ridden didicoi.’
‘Shut up!’ said Denise. ‘Don’t pretend to be all horrible and callous, Angie. You know it made you sick. You cried like anything. Poor Janice, poor little girl. We should have been nice to her, like Karen…’ She turned towards me as she spoke, and then dried up.
‘I was her friend.’ I didn’t say it defiantly. It was simple truth. Janice was my friend the way Angela and Denise and Ruth and Barbara never were and never wanted to be. ‘I loved her.’
‘Then why did you kill her?’ asked Angela.
‘We don’t know that!’ said Denise.
‘She does, though,’ said Angela.
‘I don’t. I don’t know anything. I think I did kill her. I must have done. I can see her face. But I can’t remember.’
Silence.
‘Well,’ said Angela at last. ‘It’s all irrelevant now. You may have told Serena some hogwash about a car, but you never said another word. We never saw you again. You didn’t come back to school, and you’d moved away by the end of term. Someone told us you were dead and it really didn’t seem all that surprising.’
I breathed deeply. ‘I was, nearly. Dead, I mean. Still am.’
‘Not dead, just gaga.’
Not the only one, I thought. Just the only one diagnosed. Officially, medically, certifiably gaga.
‘What are you going to do now?’ asked Angela, slumping back. The lancing was over for the day.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. Except that I did.
So did they. ‘She’ll be going to see Serena,’ said Denise.
‘Yeah. Of course she will. Serena, the fount of all goodness, knowledge and hope. Good luck with that.’
I cleared my throat. ‘Do you have her address?’
‘Oh, I don’t know – I’m not sure – I think…’ Denise fussed in a fluster.
‘Give it to her,’ said Angela.
Denise faced her in tearful defiance for a moment, then ran from the room. She returned with an address book, but she was reluctant to pass it over.
‘For God’s sake, Denny, give her the fucking thing,’ said Angela.
Trembling, Denise held it out, open, so that I could copy down the address.
Inisfree, Braxton Lane, Thorpeshall.
‘Thank you.’
— 16 —
‘Eat the soup. It’s lovely soup.’ Denise was sobbing into it.
‘It’s not. It’s shit. Eat your own bloody soup.’ Angela opened the bottle and topped up her whisky with an unsteady hand. ‘Just get off my back, for God’s sake.’
‘I made it especially for you.’
‘I didn’t ask you to. Why can’t you just leave me to rot quietly, on my own?’ Angela sank down on the sofa, and pulled a cushion over her eyes. ‘I don’t want saving.’
‘I have to pay…’ wailed Denise.
‘You can’t. I can’t. Maybe she can. Karen Rothwell. Pay our debts for us. What d’you reckon? We could offer her up as a sacrifice. All our sins around her neck.’
‘Don’t say such horrible things! Wicked things!’
‘I think we should. Tie her down and cut out her heart.’
‘How can you even think of such horrible ideas?’
‘Wasn’t that exactly what we did?’
Denise stared at her, without replying.
‘Anyway.’ Angela pulled the cushion tighter over her eyes. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed, she’s gone. Must have got tired of us. Can’t think why. She’s gone to Serena. Maybe she’s on the run from your soup.’
Denise bit her knuckles. ‘We should warn Serena.’
‘You warn her.’
‘I daren’t. Serena’s had so much awfulness to deal with, in her life. She doesn’t want to live through all that again. I don’t want to be the one to open things up.’
‘It is open! Idiot. Creaking open wider and wider by the minute. And when Karen gets to Serena, maybe it will be blasted wide. She talked to her once, didn’t she? God knows what she’ll do, this time. So someone had better warn Serena there’s a psycho on the way.’ Angela lowered the pillow and met Denise’s eyes.
‘Barbara,’ they both said, together.
‘Yeah, sick it onto Barbara. She’ll know what to do. Let the cold cow deal with it. Not me. Not me.’
— 17 —
‘Table for one?’ The waitress, on automatic pilot, looked round to see if there might possibly be a vacant table.
There was. Every table was vacant, because they’d only just unlocked the doors and the café – diner – whatever it called itself, was totally deserted. It was a minute or two after six, on a dull, grey morning. Parked up nearby, I’d watched a couple of bleary-eyed boys pulling on kitchen whites as they stumbled to the back door and then, a short while later, the waitress had been dropped off by her boyfriend. I’d given them five more minutes, to get things switched on, then I’d headed for the door.
Still, without thinking, she checked for an empty table. It might have helped if she’d laughed, on realising her folly, but she didn’t. She wasn’t paid enough. She came in at dawn, went through the motions, served her time and then went home to real life.
I recognised the symptoms of brain-dead work mode. She was me in the office, just younger. So I followed her solemnly to the table she selected, in the sea of empty tables, and settled myself, while she adjusted the dish of sauce sachets and handed me a huge, laminated menu.
‘I’ll give you a minute, right?’ Her voice was sing-song as she repeated the line she’d be spouting a hundred more times that day.
I nodded and let her retreat to the privacy of the till and whatever occupied her there. Then I resolutely applied myself to the menu. As far as I could tell, every item seemed calculated to turn my stomach. Fried bread. Black pudding. Pancakes with maple syrup, sticky pastries. My instincts screamed ‘Run!’ But I was going to conquer my instincts. I was determined to eat.
The young waitress sauntered over as soon as I laid the menu down. ‘Ready?’ She had notepad in hand.
‘Orange juice, scrambled egg, coffee, toast…and jam.’ I forced myself to go the whole hog.
She shrugged in reply and sloped off to the serving counter, where the boys were already busy frying. No need to call in reinforcements, she was probably telling them. Just a mini-breakfast for this one.
She couldn’t know – how could she? ‒ what a monumental milestone this was for me. I was going to eat. Voluntarily.
I’d reached the stage of eating fairly normally when I was with Malcolm or Charlie, but left alone, in my flat, I’d quietly unleash my revulsion for anything that threatened to add substance to my physical existence. Doctors and helpful acquaintances talked about anorexia nervosa, but that was just one of their much-loved labels. I have no idea what anorexic people are seeking, but I knew what I’d been seeking for thirty-five years. Nothingness. I wanted to be nothing. That’s why I ate nothing.
But today I needed to be strong and sane. Not buzzing, not giddy, unable to concentrate or see straight. I needed my blood sugar levels up, my energy level static, my pulse steady.
And one meal would make no difference to my substance. It was the last meal of the condemned. Execution time. I was going to Serena, who only ever told the truth, who would never scoff or toy with me or dismiss me as the others had done. She would tell me precisely what I had said and how I’d said it, thirty-five years earlier. Not as later reported and reinterpreted by over-fertile imaginations, but my actual words, with all they conveyed and betrayed. It never occurred to me that she might not remember as accurately as I was hoping, or that a few precise words might not provide the complete explanation I needed. I was convinced that they would. Very soon, I would remember exactly what I’d done.
I hadn’t really eaten since Malcolm’s cereal bar, the morning before. The moment I’d made it clear I was determined to be on my way, Denise had reverted to gushing hospitality, insisting I stay to lunch. All, ultim
ately, to no purpose, beyond giving me further insight into their fractious relationship. Denise produced a wholesome, glutinous soup, so wholesome it had no salt or taste, and bread that had the texture of sawdust and possibly no yeast. Angela declared it all to be inedible shit, opting for a bottle of whisky instead, which Denise tried to wrestle off her. While they were struggling over it, I made my escape.
The abortive luncheon party meant it was mid-afternoon by the time I drove out of Llanyfain. I decided to head across country, instead of trusting my frayed nerves to the motorway. A labyrinth of country lanes, interspersed with city centres designed by the Devil, and I had to stop every few miles to consult the atlas, but I still managed the usual mix-ups. I realised I was passing through Aylesbury for the second time. Or possibly the third. I was beginning to recognise a certain roundabout, even though I kept approaching it from a different direction, and it was then that I acknowledged I simply wasn’t functioning any more.
I was going to have to stop. I couldn’t afford to face Serena with my mind on a merry-go-round. Better to pause, take time to breathe, and clear my head. So, since the sun was already down and the light fading fast, I found another lay-by and switched off, engine and brain.
Not quite the brain. I slept but I had more dreams. More visions of a bloody Janice. More vision of Serena, pleading with me to speak. Once more a sense of drowning, as I struggled and failed to pull myself out of dark water. But this time, when I woke, stiff as before, my head was astonishingly clear and calm.
Sense ruled, as it had never ruled with me before. I’d start by getting myself physically on track. I’d have breakfast.