Truestory

by Catherine Simpson

  ‘She came to my barbecue party for sausages and marshmallows on Sunday but had to go home before the lightning bolt because Elvis had an ear infection and may well have been stuck behind the sofa.’

  PC Dale’s pencil hovered over his notebook.

  ‘So she was here and seemed fine on Sunday?’

  ‘Yes. She ate some of my beautiful sausage and said I’d done a wonderful job.’

  ‘Sausage,’ repeated PC Dale jotting stuff down. ‘So, when did you see her next?’

  ‘On Wednesday but she did not want to talk about her wish list or her time travel and even though she was old she said she did not know anything about the creation of the 19th century toll roads.’

  ‘Right,’ said PC Dale.

  I interrupted. ‘She didn’t look well. The cottage was upside down – even worse than usual. She said she’d been searching for her lost pills. For her angina.’

  ‘Well, she found them,’ said PC Dale. ‘The paramedics said they were in her pinny pocket. She hadn’t taken any though – the box hadn’t been opened. Was it like her to lose her meds or forget to take them?’

  ‘My mother said that Jeannie had a bit of a screw loose,’ said Sam.

  I shook my head.

  ‘I doubt it,’ I said. ‘She was an eccentric but she was all there.’

  ‘Okay. Was that the last time you saw her alive?’

  ‘According to Chocolate Moustache it is not easy to tell if someone is dead or alive.’

  ‘Well . . .’ PC Dale grimaced a bit.

  ‘Thursday the 19th of June was the lucky day that was unlucky and I did the strongest magic you can find on the internet and the goose fell from the sky and I found Jeannie cold and she did not speak. The goose got up and went again but Jeannie was not like the goose. She did not get up and go again.’

  ‘So . . .’ the policeman’s gaze hovered between me and Sam. ‘So, Sam, when you arrived at Jeannie’s cottage on Thursday, was she sitting in her chair by the stove exactly as we found her today?’

  ‘Yes. My magic went wrong.’

  ‘Okay,’ said PC Dale. ‘And did you tell anyone, Sam?’

  ‘No, I did not tell anyone.’

  ‘And since then you’ve been . . .’

  ‘Since then he’s been looking after her, waiting for her to wake up,’ I said. ‘He’s been giving her water and covering her in blankets and stoking the fire.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Deary me,’ said PC Dale and he shook his head.

  We sat in silence as he carried on writing. ‘Deary me,’ he said again.

  ‘Do you think she didn’t take her tablets on purpose?’ I said.

  PC Dale pulled a face. ‘Fraid I can’t say, Mrs McCabe. Toxicology tests will show what meds she’d taken. All I can say is she told you on Wednesday that she wasn’t well but that she’d found her tablets. She apparently died that night or the next day without opening them.’

  ‘My Name is Magic said his magic was the strongest on the internet but my mother says that did not kill Jeannie.’

  PC Dale gave a little laugh then, seeing Sam’s deadpan face, he stopped.

  ‘Magic? No, I don’t think magic did it, Sam.’ He smiled in what he must have thought was an encouraging way, but Sam did not smile back. ‘Is My Name is Magic a friend of yours?’

  ‘Yes, I have twenty-seven friends, but I have never met them. I also had two other friends, Jeannie and Larry, but Jeannie has died and Larry has left his caravan after having sexual intercourse in the polytunnel with my mother.’

  PC Dale had a rictus grin on his face. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Right, well I think that’ll be all.’ He closed his notebook and tucked it in his pocket. ‘I’ll leave you folks in peace.’

  ‘I did not like the polytunnel. It smelled funny and I never wanted to go in there. It was hot as a . . .’

  ‘Okay – ’

  ‘Right – ’

  PC Dale and I stood up in a great clattering of chairs. Somehow I managed to show him out without either of us catching the other’s eye.

  ‘Alice, sit down and talk to me.’

  I cleared the lunch pots into the sink and picked the kettle up.

  ‘Forget coffee. Come here.’

  I put the kettle down and slid onto the chair opposite him. Neither of us spoke.

  ‘So, are you going to tell me what’s been going on?’

  I shrugged.

  ‘Don’t do that! Talk to me!’

  I ran my fingers through my hair and blurted out:

  ‘He was kind. He liked Sam. He was good with Sam – you could see that, it was obvious.’

  He waited for more. When I didn’t say anything else, he shouted, ‘That didn’t mean you had to sleep with him.’

  ‘I know. I don’t know. It was a mistake. It was stupid.’

  ‘You can say that – ’

  I cut him off. ‘You fight with Sam all the time. It’s exhausting. With Larry I felt like he was on my side. I felt like he understood me. Like he wanted to help and support me.’

  ‘Well I want to help and support you.’

  ‘It doesn’t feel like it. Ever since Sam was a baby – a really difficult baby – we’ve been fighting on opposite sides. Everything I do is wrong. Everything Sam does is wrong.’

  ‘That’s not fair. I’m working this farm to support you and Sam.’

  ‘It doesn’t feel like it. You’re here because you want to be here. Sam’s here because he daren’t be anywhere else. And I’m stuck here.’

  ‘Well that’s no reason to sleep with the first man who comes along.’

  ‘That’s not fair.’

  ‘Fair! Have you been fair?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Duncan. I didn’t plan it. It was mad. I thought I knew him. I didn’t.’

  ‘Have you spoken to him today?’

  ‘No, I . . . His phone’s turned off.’

  ‘So you’ve tried?’

  ‘I did this morning.’

  ‘And if he gets in touch – what then?’

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t even know who he is.’

  ‘Is that how you feel – that you are stuck here? Don’t you want to be here?’

  I put my face into my hands. That was the crux of it.

  ‘I want to be able to choose. I’m in a straitjacket here. It’s killing me. I just want to be able to choose.’

  We sat in silence, and then Duncan said: ‘What are we going to do about Sam?’

  We both looked at each other. I shook my head.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  The weather turned. Over the next few days the sun came out and burned my face when I went to hang the washing or put the rubbish out. The glare of the sun made everything unreal – like the three of us were going through the day-to-day motions but were suspended, waiting for something to happen. We hardly spoke, any of us.

  Duncan worked outside all hours – finding jobs to do until it went dark – mending and fixing. One day I saw him attacking the weeds growing through the cobbles, going at them with a trowel when all he needed to do was spray them.

  We were scrupulously polite, especially in front of Sam, who seemed to be carrying on exactly as he always had done. My heart was in my mouth every time he produced a sheet of paper to draw another map. I’d watch him smoothing and straightening and preparing the paper and think: ‘Oh God, what will he draw now?’ But there were no more couples having sex in the polytunnel. There was no more polytunnel – not in the orchard nor on Sam’s maps.

  Outside, the wreckage of the plants had been abandoned and any that had survived Duncan’s rage were withered and wilting as one hot day passed into another.

  I kept being struck afresh by the shock of it all: discovering Sam giving Jeannie’s corpse a cup of tea; finding the caravan empty and abandoned; seeing Duncan’s expression as Sam drew the couple having sex in the polytunnel.

  The couple having sex in the polytunnel.

  If I could change anything it would be Sam knowing about me and Larry. And ho
w could I have shouted in front of him about not staying another day without Larry? It made me sick to remember. I’d been on the point of apologising to Sam once or twice; I’d never got very far, though. I didn’t have the nerve.

  When Duncan did come inside, exhausted and filthy, we spoke to each other like guests in the household, skirting round each other, awkward and largely wordless. The only time I said anything was when I noticed him staring at my phone which was lying on the kitchen surface.

  ‘I’ve not spoken to him,’ I said. And it was true. I hadn’t spoken to Larry since he’d strolled naked across the landing.

  I’d checked my phone a lot, more than usual, although I was pretending that wasn’t the case. But I wasn’t sorry he hadn’t phoned.

  He’d as good as disappeared in a puff of smoke. It was as if he’d never been real – yet he’d changed my life and, even though he’d been a feckless waste of space who had done a runner, he’d changed me. He had made me look outside the family, look outside the farm and, for once, to think about me.

  The following week we decided I’d go to Jeannie’s funeral and Duncan would stay at Backwoods with Sam. It was to be a burial in a village churchyard about four miles away. She was to be put in with her parents. I thought there was something sad about an old person returning to their parents to be buried.

  I’d kept a close eye on Sam – his two best friends, Jeannie and Larry, had disappeared in the same week and I’d been waiting for a reaction.

  None had come. He’d carried on with his schoolwork and drawing his maps and going on his computer. The only time he’d mentioned Jeannie was to ask who was feeding her cats and dogs. I told her they’d all gone to good homes and then, in a panic, I phoned the police and tracked down one of her cats to a local cat sanctuary. I asked Duncan to get it.

  When Duncan carried it inside, Sam held his arms out and buried his face in its tabby fur. The cat put up no objection and blinked out at the world from Sam’s arms.

  ‘It’s Elvis,’ said Sam.

  Since then they’d been together all the time, the cat always purring and kneading Sam’s quilt or his lap – a noise which didn’t bother Sam at all. On the contrary, despite being given a bed by the range, the cat had taken to spending the night sleeping on Sam’s pillow or sometimes on his head and appeared to have replaced the bobble hat.

  The funeral fell on a Tuesday afternoon which was lucky; it meant I could leave home at my usual time and Sam didn’t need to think about it.

  We finished lunch and Duncan stood up and stretched.

  ‘Well I’ll get some weeding done while you’re out.’

  Sam, who was sitting at the table drawing a map with one hand and stroking Elvis with the other, announced: ‘I am going to Jeannie’s funeral.’

  I stared at him. Duncan was pulling his boots on and hadn’t heard.

  ‘What?’

  He must think Jeannie was being buried under one of the wooden crosses by her front door.

  ‘I am going to Jeannie’s funeral.’

  ‘It’s at Creighton. Down the lane.’ I’d nearly said down Hell Fire Pass. ‘It’s four miles away.’

  He drew the lane on his map.

  ‘I am going to Jeannie’s funeral,’ he said again.

  He coloured in the lane, and I waited for the inevitable, but for the first time he did not draw a skull and crossbones across the lane and no bright red sign in bold letters warning: DANGER.

  Chapter 48

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  The time is right.

  Truestory

  Date: 1 July 2014

  Time: 10.04

  My friend Jeannie Hope-Lamb (deceased) told me I would know when the time was right. She said when the time was right we would leave together. Jeannie is leaving today. So the time is now.

  Re: The time is right.

  Razzamatazz68

  Date: 1 July 2014

  Time: 10.08

  Great Album. Love Lou Donaldson. Got the CD only issued in Japan.

  Re: The time is right.

  Blood Bro

  Date: 1 July2014

  Time: 10.25

  Better a day too soon than a day too late I was told.

  Re: The time is right.

  AuntieMaud

  Date: 1 July 2014

  Time: 10.30

  Very wise advice! My mother used to quote Socrates on this one: ‘I would recommend you set off a day too soon rather than a day too late.’ I am sorry to hear that you have a friend who is deceased, Truestory, and I hope you are still having fun with that map of yours. Much love.

  Re: The time is right.

  Blood Bro

  Date: 1 July 2014

  Time: 10.31

  Nah, it wasn’t that Socrates bloke who said it to me, it was Mr Shulberg the veterinary when he put down my ferret.

  Re: The time is right.

  Fizzy Mascara

  Date: 1 July 2014

  Time: 10.34

  Go for it, Truestory, without going on about god or magic or spirits or anything else. Just go for it, whatever it is. We’ve got one life and one life only so it’s up to us to make the most of it. Doing something beats doing nothing every time. Go for it big time, Truestory.

  Chapter 49

  As Duncan drove us to the funeral, I peered over my shoulder at Sam in the back. He was slumped in his seat. He had his bobble hat on with his earphones on top, not plugged into anything. The hat had made a reappearance after I’d explained that Elvis would definitely not enjoy coming to a funeral.

  His eyes were open a chink and were on a level with the bottom of the window. He peeked at the world as it flew by.

  With his messy blonde hair and his slight frame he didn’t look so very different from the child I vividly remembered on our last journey down this lane – the child who had terrified me by stopping breathing. Now it was me who could hardly breathe.

  ‘I can’t understand what’s happened to my suit,’ Duncan said for the umpteenth time.

  ‘Mmm?’ I said, remembering brown paint splattering and dribbling all over the shiny lining as it disappeared under a pile of old floorboards.

  ‘It’s a good suit,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what can have happened to it.’

  There was only a handful of folk at the funeral, and I think most of them were from animal rescue places.

  The coffin was waiting by the lychgate, covered in foxgloves and rosebay willow herb, flowers that grew in the hedgerow down the lane near Wayside Cottage. Among the flowers there was a photo of a young glamorous Jeannie in velvet and pearls.

  The sight grabbed my throat and I felt my chin wobble.

  ‘They’ve put weeds on the coffin,’ Duncan said.

  ‘They’re wild flowers,’ I said, ‘resilient and untameable. They look lovely.’

  I led us to seats at the back despite there being rows of empty pews. It was an old technique: when you were out with Sam you always made sure you knew your escape route, you could never afford to be one of those complacent parents without an exit strategy.

  The organ wheezed into life and Sam clamped his hands over his earphones and pressed them hard and squeezed his eyes shut. He bent forward and leaned his forehead on the pew in front. I guessed if the pew hadn’t been there he’d have toppled off the bench and curled into a ball on the stone floor. As it was he looked like he was praying.

  My heart was in my mouth and I found myself praying, desperate words flooding my brain. ‘I know I’m only in church for a funeral. I know I never set foot here one year to the next. I never pray. I don’t even believe in God, but please, please make everything all right for Sam and get us through this next hour of our lives in one piece.’

  My eyes were tight shut and my hands were gripped together and sweating. I didn’t believe in God and I didn’t know who I
was praying to, but I meant every word.

  The old Danger UXB memories; of being vulnerable to the entire world, of everyone watching and judging and finding us wanting – they were so close to the surface.

  I took a deep breath and unclenched my fists. I had to hide my fear and concentrate on looking calm and in control and not infecting Sam with my nerves.

  The doors were fastened back and the bearers carried the coffin into church followed by the vicar.

  ‘I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live . . .’

  ‘What language is that?’

  Sam’s voice was loud; partly because he was wearing earphones but also because I realised he’d never been in a church before and certainly never to a funeral.

  I held my finger to my lips.

  ‘What?’ he said.

  ‘Old-fashioned English,’ I whispered.

  ‘Jeannie was old fashioned but she never spoke like that.’

  I held my finger to my lips again. I could feel the sweat starting to prickle under my armpits.

  The vicar recited a psalm and I counted the moments as he intoned his way through the funeral service. Sam watched and even pushed his earphones off one ear so he could listen.

  We shuffled to our feet for The Old Rugged Cross and I thanked my lucky stars there were hardly any mourners and no choir to make a racket. The singing was sparse, almost non-existent – and again I found myself saying thank you. Who to? I had no idea – possibly Jeannie – it didn’t matter.

  When the coffin was carried out of the church I thought we could do a runner back to the car but no such luck.

  ‘They’ll put her in the ground now,’ said Sam. ‘Come on.’ He set off after the coffin into the graveyard. ‘Jeannie had a wish list,’ he said. ‘She wanted to travel through space and time.’ His eyes followed the coffin down the path. ‘But she never mentioned going in one of them.’

  I bit back a smile and caught Duncan’s eye. He looked uncomfortable in his smart trousers and zip-up jacket.