The Tallow Image

by J. T. Brindle

  When at last she was limp and still in his arms, he laid her gently back against the pillow and covered her over. She never spoke to him, never once looked at him while she was in the throes of what he took to be a nightmare.

  In the morning it was as though it had never happened. ‘I must remember to get enough magazines for the journey,’ she said. ‘I’ll get them from the airport, they always have a good selection there.’ She bustled about, stuffing yesterday’s dirty washing into a carrier bag before laying it in the suitcase. ‘I’m glad we had our washing laundered each day,’ she told him. She sang while she emptied the toiletries from the bathroom, and while she was rushing about, she occasionally took time off to hug and kiss him.

  Matt was amazed. Cathy was her usual bright cheery self, teasing and tormenting. And he was loath to raise the issue of what had happened in the dark hours. When he asked her whether she had slept well, she hesitated and, just for a brief moment, he thought she would recall the nightmare. But then the frown went from her eyes and they were once again clear and untroubled. ‘I am a bit tired,’ she admitted, ‘but I can sleep on the plane.’

  Relieved, he said nothing. But it bothered him.

  7

  Matt shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He was tired, aching to be home, wanting to resume his everyday life and looking forward to the future, now that he was a married man. Not a great traveller, he was secretly afraid of being strapped in an aircraft many miles from the surface of the earth, with only clouds, fresh air and unpredictable engines to keep them from plummeting to the ground. He had told no one of his fears, not even his new bride. He was ashamed to admit it. Men were not supposed to have fears.

  ‘Are you comfortable, sir?’ The air hostess smiled down on him, her small firm breast rubbing against his shoulder when the plane lurched.

  ‘I’m fine, thank you,’ he lied. He watched her as she moved away, his dark eyes always appreciative at the sight of a lovely woman. His gaze swept her from head to toe, from the burnished sheen of her coiled hair, to the slim shapely ankles. In that moment before she went into the cabin and drew the curtain behind her, she turned her full magnificent smile on him. Embarrassed, he grinned and turned away.

  The flight from Perth, Australia was a long and tiring one. Already they had been in the air for over nineteen hours, not counting the hour’s stopover in the airport at Singapore. As though reading his mind, the captain spoke through the tannoy, his distorted nasal tones advising the passengers that the plane would be landing at Heathrow, London in forty-five minutes. ‘Thank God for that,’ Matthew muttered beneath his breath, ‘it can’t be too soon for me!’ He would not completely relax inside until his feet touched firm ground.

  He turned his head to glance on Cathy’s lovely face and a deep sense of pride surged through him. He knew how fortunate he was. From the very first moment he had set eyes on her, he was lost. He vividly recalled the day. It was a wet and windy afternoon in November, some three years ago. Still shocked and deeply angered by the accident that had recently taken his father’s life, he might himself have walked straight underneath a lorry, had it not been for Cathy’s warning shout. Certainly he had neither seen nor heard the articulated lorry as it thundered towards him. He had thought then how ironic it would be if he, too, met with a grisly end, just like his father.

  Cathy had been his saviour. She had come to be everything to him, and he could not envisage life without her. Now he gazed on her loveliness, his great need for her rising inside him. He thought how like a child she seemed, so small in that wide, encompassing seat, with her rich corn-coloured hair smoothly falling to the slim, straight shoulders, and the attractive classical features of her face so exquisitely lovely in repose. He imagined her eyes looking up at him, grey and striking, speckled with black; eyes that could turn his heart over, sometimes fiery with the rush of passion, sometimes softly enchanting, sometimes grey-steel with anger and impatience, but always uniquely beautiful. Like all women, Cathy was a creature of many moods. She was funny and serious, she was arrogant, impossible, engaging and often hard to understand. She was infuriating and wonderful. She was all he desired in life, and he thanked God for her. Suddenly, he could not resist the urge to reach out and touch her. Tenderly he traced his finger over her lips. When she stirred and opened her eyes, he smiled down on her.

  ‘All right, sweetheart?’ She nodded, her eyes still glazed with sleep, her senses not yet fully awakened. ‘Won’t be long before we land,’ he told her in a quiet voice.

  ‘How long?’ She fidgeted and closed her eyes again. It had seemed like an endless journey.

  ‘Forty-five minutes, the captain said.’ Matt saw that she was not listening. He grinned and shook his head.

  Cathy shifted, making herself more comfortable. Her face was lifted to the window. The afternoon light streamed in, her hair shone like gold and the suntanned skin was smooth, soft as velvet. Matt could not draw his gaze from her loveliness, nor could he resist the urge to kiss the full soft lips that were partly open, always inviting. In the instant he pressed his mouth to hers, she pushed up to him, winding her arms round his neck, pulling him down. He drew away, gently laughing, acutely aware of the man seated to his right, and whose curiosity was evident by the way he reached across Matt and feigned to look out of the window. Turning away to settle into sleep once more, Cathy also chuckled. She knew how best to tease him. He was easily embarrassed, and she loved him for it.

  As she let the weariness ebb over her, Cathy’s foot touched against the small vinyl bag lying on the floor. Heeling it beneath the seat, she was pleasantly reminded of their trip to Australia. She would never forget the marvellous sights they had seen there, nor the experiences they had encountered. There was one particular experience that would stay with her to the end of her days. Thinking on it now… the brooding atmosphere in that tiny cell… a strangeness came over her, a kind of deep euphoria… just like when her probing fingers had closed around the tallow doll which was hidden in the emaciated wall padding. She smiled. The doll was hers now. Her smile deepened. She glanced sideways at her unsuspecting husband. He did not see how Cathy’s grey eyes seemed to change, growing darker, blacker, infused with long-ago hatred.

  Settling back in his seat, Matt closed his eyes. He was curiously lulled by the monotonous drone of the engines. It had been a wonderful honeymoon, everything he had hoped for, and more. His thoughts were drawn back to Fremantle and Perth. He had no recollection of his early years in that amazing land; he knew it only through his father’s memories. Matt had always vowed that one day he would go to Australia and see for himself the places his father had described so vividly… the orphanage where Abel Slater was raised, and the land he had first farmed, the round house overlooking the beach, the grand awesome buildings which the convicts had erected so many years ago… the prison, the old lunatic asylum.

  Cathy and Matt had visited them all, and they were overawed by the splendid sights and excursions which had enriched their time there. The whole experience had given Matt a deeper sense of his own family history. Yet, while he would always be thankful that he had seen these places where his own father grew from boy to manhood, Matt, like his father before him, was saddened by the fact that all knowledge of past generations was lost for ever. It had been his father’s greatest regret. It was his also. And it was a strange disturbing thing, because it seemed as though someone had deliberately obliterated all evidence that might have allowed a wider and more thorough investigation into the past; even the orphanage records were ‘lost’ many years ago. There was no explanation. The records were simply missing.

  All of Abel Slater’s enquiries, and now Matthew’s, had come to a dead end. There was nothing else now but for Matt to cherish his father’s memories, and to pray that he and Cathy would produce a son to carry on the name. Matt consoled himself with the fact that his own son, God willing, would at least have two generations of history to draw on. The thought gave Matt a great deal of comfort.

>   ‘Sorry, mate, I can’t stay and talk today,’ Bill apologised. ‘I’m collecting my daughter and son-in-law from the airport.’ He swung the parcel into his van and slammed shut the doors. ‘See you next week,’ he called, clambering into the driver’s seat. The engine had been left running, so he shifted it into gear and drove away, keeping his speed down to a steady ten miles an hour through the industrial estate.

  Once out on the main road, he pointed the van in the direction of Bedfordshire, and put his toe down. He would soon be home, washed and changed, and on his way to the airport, ‘If you don’t kill yourself first!’ he muttered, when a lorry pulled out in front of him, forcing him to slow down. But the traffic wasn’t heavy, and he quickly picked up speed.

  In less than two hours after leaving the industrial estate in Birmingham, Bill drew up outside his modest little house. Letting himself in, he dropped the van keys on to a shelf near the front door. After making himself a cheese sandwich and wolfing it down with a mug of tea, he bathed and changed, and was on his way out, this time driving Matt’s car, which had been parked in the garage the whole time Cathy and he had been away.

  Groaning when a sharp pain stabbed at his chest, Bill chuckled wryly. ‘Serves you right, you silly old bugger! You should have taken your time eating that sandwich, you know how prone you are to indigestion!’

  It seemed an age before he arrived at the airport, but once there he had little difficulty in parking, though there were people with trolleys pushing and shoving their way in and out of the airport, and taxis by the dozen queuing up on the kerbside.

  Rushing into the arrival lounge, he saw from the overhead screens that the plane from Perth had been in for almost an hour. Pushing through the crowd, he searched the many faces, hoping he hadn’t somehow missed Cathy and Matt, and cursing himself for taking on that last job. ‘Shouldn’t have done that last delivery,’ he muttered, still frantically searching. ‘But if you hadn’t done it, they’d have found somebody else.’ He was the first to recognise that the competition on deliveries was fierce. Let a company down just once, and they would probably never ask you again.

  His eyes lit up on hearing Cathy call out, ‘Dad!… Dad!’ He swung round. In the surging throng he had missed them.

  Now, when Cathy left Matt’s side and came running towards him, Bill Barrington hurried to meet her. Two weeks his daughter had been gone; two long weeks when he had missed her far more than he had anticipated. Since Doreen had walked out on him and their darling daughter some ten years before, he had tried so hard not to lean too heavily on the girl. He liked to think he had done a good job of raising her. Now, as she threw herself into his arms, it was like a flood of sunshine had brightened his life.

  ‘Did you miss me, Dad?’ she asked, curving her arm into his, her mischievous grey eyes smiling up at him.

  ‘Of course not!’ he exclaimed, a returning twinkle in his eye. ‘What makes you think I’d miss you, eh?’ She would never know how much, he thought. ‘You’ve deserted your old dad now… Mrs Slater!’ he teased. ‘You’ve your own man to take care of.’ He added in a more serious voice, ‘I expect I shall have to find myself a good woman now, somebody to fill the space you’ve left behind.’

  For a moment, and in spite of his ready smile, Cathy sensed the very real loneliness in her father’s words, though she knew he would deny it to the end. She had never really understood why her mother had walked out on them. A letter had arrived a few days after, but as soon as he read it, her father threw it into the fire. That same night she heard him crying himself to sleep. She suspected the letter might have mentioned a lover. Cathy had never forgiven her mother. She never would. Her father was a fine man; he had been a good husband as far as she could tell, an excellent father and a conscientious provider, having run his own modest delivery service for as far back as she could remember.

  ‘Welcome home, Matt.’ Cathy’s father kept one arm round his daughter while extending his other arm to shake his son-in-law by the hand. ‘Look at the pair of you,’ he laughed, glancing from one to the other, ‘brown as berries and looking disgustingly healthy. Married life suits you, that’s for sure.’ An expression of confusion shaped his face. ‘I thought May was coming up to the winter season in Australia?’ He began manoeuvring the cumbersome trolley along, still holding Cathy, and his eyes on Matt, who was helping to keep the trolley in a true direction.

  Matt nodded. ‘You thought right,’ he confirmed, ‘the weather was beginning to deteriorate when we left. But it’s still in the eighties.’

  ‘Did you have a good time?’

  ‘Fantastic. You wouldn’t believe it.’

  ‘We’ll talk later,’ interrupted Bill as they joined the queue at the parking-ticket desk. People were jostling for space, and in the background could be heard the intermittent announcements. ‘It’s like bedlam here!’ he groaned, digging into his back trouser pocket and withdrawing a small folded ticket which, together with a ten pound note, he handed to the clerk. ‘Let’s get the cases loaded first.’ He looked at Cathy. ‘Hungry, are you?’

  ‘No, I just want to get home and soak in a hot bath,’ she replied. Suddenly, she felt exhausted and curiously depressed. She supposed it must be the long flight. The airport was so crowded. She was surprised to feel herself beginning to panic. When her father pushed on ahead, she pressed closer to Matt.

  ‘We’ll be home soon enough, sweetheart,’ Matt told her. He had seen Cathy nervously glancing about. That was not like her. It worried him. In fact, he had been concerned about her more than once in these past few days. But then, they were not used to the searing heat of Australia, and it was likely Cathy may have been affected by it. Still, in a couple of hours they should be home, providing the motorway was not too congested with traffic.

  It was six thirty p.m. by the time Cathy’s father nosed the car down the motorway slip road. ‘Looks like we’ve missed the tail end of the rush hour,’ Matt commented. He was glad that Cathy’s father had refused his offer to drive. It was far more agreeable just to lean back in this big comfortable car, relax and stretch out his long legs. A glance in the back seat told him that Cathy had already curled up in the corner, her eyes closed and a look of contentment on her face.

  He smiled when he noticed how she was cradling the small vinyl bag to her chest. He knew she had the doll in there. He didn’t like the thing, and he could not understand what possessed Cathy to want the wax image of an old woman. He thought it the ugliest thing he had ever seen. Memories came pouring back. Recollections of the day when Cathy discovered the doll. Now, when Bill enquired about the places they had seen, Matt spoke the first thing that came to mind. ‘One place I would rather not have seen was the old lunatic asylum.’

  ‘Oh, why’s that?’ Bill swore under his breath when a red Porsche overtook him on the inside. ‘Bloody yuppies!’ he snapped. ‘We’ve them to thank for the soaring house prices… greedy grasping buggers. Thatcher’s got a lot to answer for.’

  ‘Aw, she’s not all bad,’ Matt remarked.

  ‘Aye, well.’ The older man glanced sideways at Matt. ‘You were telling me about the old asylum. Not one of your favourite memories, I take it?’

  ‘The lunatic asylum used to house mad convicts years ago,’ Matt explained. ‘Now it’s been turned into a museum and craft centre.’ Matt was relieved the subject had moved on. He sensed his father-in-law was about to embark on a long tirade about the woman he loved to hate. Bill Barrington made no secret of his belief that it was Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her financial policies that had created this new breed of the ‘grab now and pay later brigade’.

  ‘Convicts, you say? How old is it, then, this lunatic asylum?’ Bill’s attention was wandering. Intrigued by a dark hatchback that had been behind them all the way from the airport, it occurred to him that the driver seemed to keep exactly the same distance all the time – even when he himself either slowed down or accelerated. Agitated, he wanted the car to overtake, but it sat behind him, like a shado
w on his tail.

  Matt saw his father-in-law glancing into the wing mirror, a look of irritation on his face. Inquisitive, he turned in his seat and looked at the car behind. His glance met that of the driver, who seemed surprised and oddly embarrassed. Suddenly, the hatchback gathered speed and went by them at an alarming rate; in a matter of seconds it was out of sight.

  Turning off the motorway, the driver of the hatchback pulled into a layby and took out a pack of cigarettes. Lighting one up, he puffed on it for a while. He was annoyed, angry with himself. Flicking the stub out of the window, he coughed and grumbled, ‘You’d best give these buggers up, before they ruin your lungs!’ Taking a notepad from the glove compartment, he scanned the instructions there. ‘You’re a bloody fool, Tomlinson! The old lady warned you not to arouse their suspicions!’

  After a while, he dropped the notepad on to the passenger seat, nosed the car back on to the motorway and drove like a maniac until he caught sight of Matt’s car. He then slowed down and kept a discreet distance between them. ‘If you blow this one, you blow next month’s mortgage!’ he muttered, darting behind a lorry when he feared he might be seen.

  Bill half-turned to Matt, reminding him, ‘You were saying?’

  In as brief and concise a manner as possible, Matt went on to explain how the lunatic asylum… ‘a grand old building’… was built in the 1860s by prisoners transported from England. ‘It was a huge task, by all accounts,’ he said, repeating the curator’s words and describing how the vast building was of Gothic design, having two wings with steeply pitched roofs, Dutch gables, and a central section linked by two arcades. ‘The limestone was quarried on site, and all ironmongery, hardware and even nails were made in the prison workshop.’