Truestory

by Catherine Simpson

  I lunged at the tunnel, grappling with the plastic sheeting, but it was thick and heavy and hard to hold and it was as if the wind was doing what it wanted with it – playing with it for fun.

  ‘Larry!’ Duncan shouted. ‘Where the fuck is Larry? Sam!’

  I let go and ran towards the caravan. ‘Larry!’ I yelled. Larry could sort this out. ‘Larry! Quick!’

  Before I could reach the caravan there was a tremendous noise and I looked over my shoulder. Duncan had lost his grip on the sheeting and it was rising straight in the air and doing a slow twist. In trying to grab it Duncan was trampling on the small cannabis plants that were shuddering in the wind.

  Duncan crashed over the plants as he chased the sheeting. Eventually as it snagged on the apple tree he lunged at it and, dragging it to the floor, he threw himself on it.

  ‘Alice!’

  I ran over and stood on it too and together we grappled it into a huge bundle.

  ‘Keep a good grip,’ yelled Duncan. ‘Don’t let go. Get it to the workshop.’

  The wind whipped my hair across my face blinding me and sticking it to my lips and my teeth but my hands were full of sheeting.

  Where was Larry?

  We dragged the sheeting across the grass and yard and into the workshop. The relief of getting out of the buffeting wind was immense; the noise and force of it stopped you thinking, and I needed to think because I was panicking.

  Where the hell was Larry?

  ‘The useless bastard,’ said Duncan. ‘He doesn’t anchor the thing down like I told him and then does nowt to help us rescue it. Fucking useless bastard.’

  ‘I think there’s something wrong,’ I said.

  ‘Well, he can fucking stew. The useless bastard. I told him to use them extra flagstones to weigh it down. And he fucking said he’d done it.’

  We left the workshop and Duncan strode back to the house, still swearing and cursing.

  I legged it to the caravan.

  The cannabis plants looked as if they’d had it – pretty much what you’d expect after a thirteen stone man and a force eight gale had finished with them.

  I hammered on the caravan door. ‘Larry! It’s me.’ No answer. I turned the handle and it gave. ‘Larry, for God’s sake . . .’

  I stuck my head round the door. It was empty. The only traces of Larry were umpteen cigarette butts squashed in the ash tray and two empty, crumpled cans of Carlsberg Special Brew. Everything else had gone: his rucksack, his books, his Golden Virginia tin, his clothes. Everything. I froze, half in and half out of the caravan.

  ‘Larry,’ I said ‘What the fuck . . . ?’

  I went into the caravan and pulled the blankets off the bed as though I expected to find him hiding under there. I strode round the caravan in a panic looking for clues. But there were no clues. Larry had gone. Larry had done what he always did – he’d moved on. I grabbed my phone from my pocket. My hands were shaking. I called his number.

  ‘The number you are calling is not available. Please try again later.’

  I chucked the phone across the caravan and it crashed against the metal sink and thudded on to the floor. He could be anywhere. I had no forwarding address, no way of getting in touch, nothing except that phone. I grabbed it and rubbed it against my jeans and checked it was still working. I called his number again.

  ‘The number you are calling is not available. Please try again later.’

  I took the blankets off the bed and held them in a great big armful and buried my face in them. They smelled of Larry’s cigarettes.

  My legs shook as I blundered down the caravan steps. I half ran, half walked back to the house.

  In the kitchen Sam was drawing his map and Duncan was staring over Sam’s shoulder. He straightened up as I came in and the look of rage on his face stopped me like a punch.

  ‘The fucking bastard, I’ll fucking kill him,’ he said.

  I was gasping for breath even though I’d only come across the garden. ‘He’s gone,’ I said.

  Duncan grabbed me by the shoulders and manhandled me out of the way and headed for the back door.

  ‘He’s gone,’ I said again. ‘Anyway, it’s only a polytunnel.’ But he shot out the back door.

  I slumped onto a kitchen chair and glanced at Sam’s map. He had his arm around it but I could see what he was drawing. Usually there were no people on Sam’s maps and each map was the same – but today’s was different. Today’s map had two stick figures on it.

  The stick woman had brown frizzy hair and boobs sticking out of a tight T-shirt, the stick man wore a bandana round his head and had a gold earring in. The stick couple were lying in the polytunnel and the stick woman had her stick legs wrapped around the stick man who was on top of her as they had sex. Both had big smiles on their faces.

  My insides flipped and my scalp prickled. I grabbed the kitchen table.

  Sam coloured the stick man’s bandana in blue, concentrating on keeping his felt pen inside the lines.

  I was shot-through with energy but I didn’t know what to do with it. I jumped up and walked to the door then back again and collapsed onto the kitchen chair. Then I strode to the washroom door. Through the window I could see Duncan kicking hell out of what was left of the cannabis plants. Swiping and kicking and stamping on the plants which looked to be smashed to smithereens.

  I searched around the armchair Larry was sitting in when I last saw him. Had he left a note? I couldn’t believe he’d upped and left without a word.

  There was nothing. I grabbed my car keys off the hook.

  Duncan stormed back into the kitchen breathing heavily and with his fists clenched.

  ‘Is this true?’ he said nodding towards the map. Then when he saw the car keys: ‘Where the fuck are you going?’

  ‘I’m going,’ I said. ‘I’m not staying here without Larry.’

  Duncan charged round the table and lunged for the keys, but I snatched them away and shoved them under my arm.

  ‘Give me those keys.’

  ‘I’m going,’ I said again. I had no idea where, but I had to get out. The kitchen walls were pressing in on every side. I couldn’t breathe.

  ‘I brought him here. It’s my fault.’ Duncan covered his face with his hand. ‘I’d like to break his fucking neck.’

  I grabbed the back door latch.

  ‘We’ll be all right, Alice. We’ll sort it.’ Duncan was crying but my heart was full of Larry and I couldn’t help him. I opened the door. ‘Don’t go, Alice,’ Duncan said. ‘We’ll sort it out.’

  I ran to the car and jumped in. The door flew out of my grip as a gust of wind snatched it away. The hedgerows blurred past as I headed down the lane, and my face was slippery with snot and tears however many times I wiped it.

  When I reached the T junction at the main road I looked left to Lancaster and right to Preston. I had no idea where Larry was. And even if I knew, what difference would it make? He’d run away from me and Sam. He hadn’t even left a note.

  I didn’t want to go either way. There was nothing for me to the right and nothing to the left. I had no friends in either direction, no family to speak of, none I wanted to see anyway. I had nowhere to go and no one to go to. I took my foot off the clutch, the car stalled and I rested my head on the steering wheel.

  A car pulled up behind and tooted.

  My heart was broken into pieces. It was a physical ache – an actual pain in my stomach and chest and throat that took my breath away.

  The car tooted again, longer and louder. I felt for the ignition and turned the engine back on. I did a U-turn and, avoiding the other driver’s eye, headed back down the lane.

  I sat in the yard and saw Duncan briefly come to the window to watch me. I knew I had to find Sam. I’d blurted out that I wouldn’t stay at the farm without Larry, right in front of Sam, and I felt sick about it.

  Duncan jumped up when I went inside.

  ‘Alice, sit down.’

  ‘Where’s Sam?’

  He
glanced around the room as though Sam might be perched on the units or the range or something.

  ‘I don’t know. Sit down, Alice.’ Duncan sat down and pointed to the chair opposite.

  ‘I need to see Sam.’

  ‘Alice, do you love him? Do you love Larry?’

  There was a crack in Duncan’s voice but I couldn’t talk to him now. I needed Sam. I walked past.

  ‘Alice, don’t walk away from me!’

  ‘I’m looking for Sam.’

  I ran up the stairs.

  ‘Alice!’ I heard Duncan’s chair clatter backwards as he stood up. He stuck his head up the stairs as I knocked on Sam’s door. ‘Alice. You will fucking talk to me about this. I want to know what the fuck has been going on.’

  I put my ear to the door then pushed it open. The bedroom was empty.

  ‘He must be at Jeannie’s.’ I headed downstairs and tried to squeeze past Duncan part way down. He grabbed me and held me against the wall.

  ‘How long’s it been going on? Ever since he got here?’

  ‘No.’ I said.

  ‘Tell me, Alice.’ He shook me by the shoulders. ‘I want to know. Do you love him?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. Duncan’s face fell and his hands dropped from my shoulders. I couldn’t look at him. ‘Well, I thought I did,’ I said.

  I slid sideways away from him and headed downstairs into the kitchen. Duncan followed slowly and stood at the bottom of the stairs. He looked stunned.

  ‘I need to find Sam,’ I said.

  Duncan was staring back at that bloody map.

  ‘I’m going for him,’ I said.

  ‘You were with him in the polytunnel and Sam saw you,’ he said, as though he was talking to himself. ‘He reckoned he was a friend.’ He looked at me and said: ‘But then you reckoned you were my wife.’

  ‘I’m going to Jeannie’s,’ I said.

  Duncan snatched Sam’s map and took it to the bin and I thought he was going to ram it in, but he hesitated and seemed to think better of it. He took it back to the table and turned it face down.

  That was the first time I’d seen Duncan do anything he didn’t want to just to avoid upsetting Sam.

  ‘I’m coming with you,’ he said.

  We struggled down the lane. I flattened my hair to my head to stop myself from being blinded by it. The wind fought us all the way – buffeting us and roaring in our ears. At Sam’s Pile of Rubble Covered in Weeds, the wiry tufts of grass were flattened by the force of the gale. A group of heifers crowded under an oak for shelter from a world that seemed to have gone a little bit mad.

  I tapped on Jeannie’s door and stumbled straight in.

  ‘Hi, Jeannie, it’s me. It’s us.’

  Without waiting for a reply, I went through the porch and into the living room.

  Sam was there but before I could get any words out I was struck by the stink and the unholy mess. The dogs had scattered their food all over the carpet and there was dog mess mixed in among it. There was a hum of flies.

  ‘God, what’s going on?’ Then I focused on Sam and the breath froze in my body.

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ said Duncan.

  Sam was standing beside Jeannie’s wicker armchair. He was holding a comb and was gently brushing her hair.

  Jeannie’s face was dark purple. Her eyes were open as was her mouth; her lips had shrunk back in a grimace and her top set of false teeth were skew-whiff in her mouth. She was piled with blankets and had five or six cups of tea and plates of biscuits on the table in front of her and beside her on the floor.

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ said Duncan again.

  She must have been dead for days. Sam was holding one of her clawed hands that rested on top of the blanket and with his other hand he continued to comb her grey hair.

  ‘Sam, come away,’ I said. I wanted to scream, I wanted to run, but most of all I wanted to get Sam away from the disgusting spectacle in that armchair.

  ‘Put the comb down, Sam,’ I said. ‘You’ve helped Jeannie enough. Come here to me.’

  Sam’s comb hovered in mid-air and a bluebottle darted across Jeannie’s eye.

  ‘You can’t help Jeannie now,’ I said to Sam. I walked over to him, holding my hand out. ‘You can’t do anything more for Jeannie. Come on.’

  ‘I cannot,’ said Sam.

  ‘Yes, you can.’ My teeth were gritted and I had one hand covering my nose and mouth.

  ‘Sam, do as you’re told and come here,’ Duncan’s voice was raised.

  ‘I cannot leave Jeannie. I did this and I must put it right.’

  I looked at Duncan and saw my own horror reflected in his face.

  ‘You didn’t do anything, Sam,’ I said. ‘What do you mean? What did you do?’

  Sam’s eyes filled with tears. A bluebottle walked across Jeannie’s hand and onto Sam’s and I longed to dash it away but I stayed still. The fly’s back shone iridescent blue as it washed its face, then it took off and buzzed towards me and I flapped my hands. ‘No!’ I said, knocking it away.

  Sam took a cup of water and held it to Jeannie’s cold drawn-back lips and let a snail’s trail of water slide from the corner of her mouth down her chin and onto her blanket.

  ‘She’s dead, Sam. We can’t do anything for her now.’

  ‘She may not be dead,’ Sam whispered. He looked closely at Jeannie’s mottled fingers. ‘This may be a near-death experience.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake’, said Duncan. ‘She’s dead all right.’

  Sam turned on Duncan. ‘That goose looked like it was dead,’ he said and he looked at me, searching for agreement. ‘That goose’s head was twisted and its body dropped from the sky. But it got up and went.’

  ‘What, that dead goose I threw on the midden?’ said Duncan.

  Sam’s eyes were glistening. ‘On the midden?’ he said.

  ‘Things don’t come back from the dead,’ I said.

  ‘But,’ Sam looked from me to Duncan and back again, ‘but Chocolate Moustache said it is sometimes impossible to tell if something is alive or dead.’

  ‘Who the fuck is Chocolate Moustache?’ Duncan asked me.

  I shook my head. ‘That might be true, Sam, but not when you’ve been dead as long as Jeannie has.’ I picked my way a step closer, avoiding a broken cup and saucer on the floor. I noticed that there wasn’t the usual ticking of clocks. Jeannie obviously hadn’t wound them up for a while. ‘How long has Jeannie been like this?’ I said.

  Sam did not answer but stared down at her.

  ‘When did Jeannie last speak to you?’ I said.

  ‘Wednesday,’ said Sam. ‘The day before I did the strongest magic available on the internet.’ He put the cup down and picked up the comb and started brushing her hair again.

  ‘Wednesday?’ I said. ‘Oh God. Five days.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake put that comb down,’ said Duncan, ‘and let’s get out of here.’

  ‘The magic got out of control and knocked the goose out of the sky,’ said Sam. ‘Then it did this to Jeannie.’

  ‘And have you been making her cups of tea and getting her biscuits and things ever since then?’ I looked at the table strewn with uneaten biscuits and cold cups of tea and lemonade and water. He nodded. ‘Did you give her all these blankets?’

  ‘She was cold,’ he said. ‘Even when it was warm outside.’

  ‘Oh, Sam, Jeannie was an old lady. She was eighty-two and hadn’t been well.’ I had a memory of her telling me she’d lost her pills and my heart lurched. What had she said? Did she say she’d found them again? I hadn’t really asked. I’d been too busy trying to escape real life with Larry.

  ‘You haven’t done this, Sam,’ I said. ‘Don’t think for a minute that you’ve done it.’ I held out my hand again. ‘Come on.’

  ‘But My Name is Magic said his magic was the strongest you can get on the internet. It might have done this.’

  My Name is Magic? Duncan and I exchanged looks again.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ m
uttered Duncan.

  ‘No.’ I shook my head. ‘It definitely did not.’

  One of Jeannie’s cats leapt from the dresser and crashed onto the table sending other cups flying onto the floor. I screamed and Sam grabbed my hand.

  ‘For Christsakes. We need to get these animals rounded up and sorted out,’ said Duncan. ‘I’ll call the police.’ He took his mobile out of his pocket and dialled 999. I saw the look of panic on Sam’s face.

  ‘Remember what I said, Sam. You have not done anything wrong.’

  We listened to Duncan repeating Jeannie’s address. ‘An old lady has passed away,’ he was saying. ‘Yes, she’s definitely dead. No, there is no pulse. Yes, she is definitely dead.’

  ‘Come on, Sam,’ I said. ‘Dad’ll stay here with Jeannie until the police come. We’ll go home.’

  I led Sam through the living room and gave Duncan a half-smile as we passed. ‘See you at home,’ I mouthed.

  He nodded at us. ‘No, I don’t need to check,’ he was saying. ‘She is definitely dead.’

  The wind grabbed the door as I opened it and I gulped a lungful of cool clean fresh air.

  Sam and I clung to each other’s hands as we struggled up the lane. If I let go of him for a second I was afraid he’d take off and fly away and I’d lose him forever.

  A policeman came back to the farm with Duncan after Jeannie’s body had been taken away.

  ‘I’ll see you in a bit, Alice,’ Duncan said and he went outside to feed the calves. I knew he was desperate to talk to me.

  The policeman introduced himself as PC Dale and hovered about, clinging to his hat, until I told him to sit down and I got him a cup of tea.

  ‘I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs McCabe,’ he said. ‘I know you and the deceased were friends.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. I avoided his eye; some friend I’d been. Her body had been rotting for five days before I’d even noticed.

  ‘It’s just routine, Mrs McCabe, I’ll need to take a statement from your son.’ He consulted his notebook. ‘Sam, is it?’

  He must have seen the look on my face.

  ‘I can come back tomorrow to see Sam if you’d prefer?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘No, let’s get it over with.’