by Dominic Luke
Dean ground his teeth, straining every fibre to think of a crushing riposte, but nothing would come. How did she do it? How did she always manage to have the last word? One day he’d—
He would have liked nothing better than to put her straight, tell her that he wasn’t a virgin, that he’d done it (copulated): but that would let too many cats out of too many bags. He decided to make himself scarce instead, before Basil saw the mess on the table (ground pepper everywhere). But as he made his getaway he ran slap-bang into Basil coming out of the kitchen. Basil had a flask in his hand.
‘Ah, Dean. Your mother has forgotten her coffee. Take it down to her, will you?’
‘Do I have—’ Dean stopped himself just in time. How easy it was to slip back into bad habits! He grabbed the flask. ‘All right, I’ll do it.’ He curled his lip disdainfully (you couldn’t be civil to Basil, it wasn’t appropriate).
As he skulked down Well Lane, Dean tried to come up with a way of murdering Amanda without anyone suspecting – though it might, he thought suddenly, be better to deal with Richard first. Why did Richard have to stick his oar into everything? You couldn’t even be raped without that bastard wanting a slice of the action (a slice of the panther). And what if Cally…? Oh shit! It didn’t bear thinking about!
That miserable old git Mr Wetherby was sitting outside the door of the village hall on a camp chair, representing the forces of darkness (the forces of Lady Darkness, that was). Dean loitered, gathering courage to run the gauntlet. Old Wetherby was sure to make some sort of remark. Several remarks, knowing him.
Dean debated. Did his mother really need a flask of coffee? Perhaps if he shouted loud enough she would come out and get it. Or was she not allowed to leave her post inside the door? Would old Wetherby take advantage, nip into the hall and start demolishing the Exhibition? As he dithered, he saw Charley and Ash unexpectedly walk up.
‘All right, Morley! What you doing with that flask?’ said Charley.
‘Got any crème de menthe in it?’ asked Ash, grinning.
‘Crème de menthe?’ said Charley. ‘What you on about?’
‘Didn’t you see him, man? At your party? He got wasted on crème de menthe! It was wicked!’
Dean scowled. ‘What are you two doing in the village?’
‘We’ve come to see the Exhibition.’
‘It’s famous, innit. It’s been on the local news and everything: village at war over art Exhibition and all that.’
‘We’ve heard—’ said Charley, lowering his voice but going no further.
‘Yeah, man, we’ve heard—’ Ash looked all round and whispered, ‘They say there’s pictures of naked women on show: muffs, tits, clits, the lot. Oh man, if I could just—’
A voice behind them said, ‘Hi, boys. What are you plotting?’
All three turned. Charley and Ash looked very shamefaced. Dean suspected he did too, but it wasn’t his fault; he wasn’t the one who’d been talking about naked women.
‘Hi, Sandra.’
‘All right, Sandra.’
‘Charley and Ash have come to see the Exhibition.’ Dean got in first, hoping to drop them in it. ‘They think there’s—’
‘Shut up, Morley! We haven’t come for the Exhibition, don’t be a dork!’
‘Oh, but you should!’ exclaimed Sandra. ‘There are some fantastic pictures, you’ll love it. Come on, I’ll take you. I’m going in anyway, to see if Mrs Collier needs anything.’
‘She needs this.’ Dean offloaded the flask, shoving it into Sandra’s hands.
‘Oh. OK.’ Sandra looked expectantly at Charley and Ash. ‘Well? Are you coming? It’s not just paintings, there’s pottery too, and needlework, and there’s a lovely picture of Princess Di made out of foil.’
Charley and Ash were backing away.
‘We gotta go, we’re busy.’
‘Busy doing what?’ Sandra enquired.
‘Yeah, Ash, busy doing what?’ Charley put the onus on his friend.
‘We’re … er … we’re going swimming.’
Sandra raised an eyebrow. ‘The swimming pool’s closed. Demolished.’
‘Yeah, I know that,’ stuttered Ash, ‘but … er … we would have gone swimming, if it was still there: that’s what I meant to say. I was being ironic, innit. We’d have gone swimming if Morley’s dad hadn’t tarmacked it over.’
‘He is not my dad!’
‘Dad, stepdad: same thing.’
Dean sighed, but it wasn’t worth the bother pointing out to them that he and Basil Collier had no genetic connection whatsoever. They could believe what they liked, he didn’t care. What was the point in anything, anyway, when you’d been dumped? He turned to go, drag his heels back up Well Lane, but Sandra called him back. She wanted news of Richard. Richard, bloody Richard, who stuck his oar into everything, who could charm any girl into bed. But not Cally. Surely not Cally.
Dean grimaced, bunched his fists. ‘Richard is a bastard.’
‘No he’s not!’ said Sandra indignantly. ‘He’s funny and exciting and—’
‘And he’s been copulating with Miss Taylor,’ Dean interrupted, fed up of hearing how wonderful Richard was. (Copulating? That was Amanda’s fault, her and her hoity-toity words.)
Sandra blanched, staring at him.
Charley’s eyes were popping out of his head. ‘No way, Morley! Your brother’s shagging Miss Taylor? This is brilliant!’
‘You all right, Sandra?’ Ash was peering at her. ‘You’ve gone a funny colour.’
Sandra ignored Ash, and said to Dean, ‘I thought you were all right, Dean. I thought you were different. But you’re just as bad as the others, making sick jokes and … and … and telling lies!’
‘I’m not telling lies, it’s….’ Dean dried up, the look on Sandra’s face giving him pause for thought. He wondered if he should take it back about Richard and Lydia Taylor, admit that it wasn’t a fully fledged scientific fact, but if there was one thing you could say about Amanda it was that she knew it all. If she thought it was true, then it probably was.
‘Miss Taylor!’ Sandra’s voice rose, wavered, cracked. ‘Miss Taylor! But she’s so … so old! She wears charity shop clothes! And … and I liked her, I thought she was really nice!’
‘Now then, Sandra,’ said Charley, putting an avuncular arm round her shoulders. ‘Don’t upset yourself—’
‘Get off me, you creep!’ Sandra twisted away from him, eyes blazing. ‘You are such a pervert, I don’t know why I ever wasted my time on you! And you—’ She turned on Dean. ‘I hate you! I hate you!’ She flung the flask at him, went running down the hill past the church and around the corner.
Slowly Dean bent down to pick up the flask. It made an ominous tinkling sound. Broken. Guess who’d get the blame for that? What was it with people, why did they have to shoot the messenger? And with Charley and Ash lapping it up – that old git Wetherby, too – it would be all round the village, all round college before you knew it. Richard, showing him up yet again.
Dean turned his back on them without another word and set off for home.
‘It’s not my fault,’ he muttered as he retraced his steps up Well Lane, clutching the broken flask to his chest. ‘It’s not my fault.’
TWENTY-EIGHT
GWEN THOUGHT LONGINGLY of her warm and comfortable bed as she headed down Well Lane for the late shift. Most of the houses and cottages were in darkness. Lights showed in a couple of windows. Street lamps were few and far between.
She would never have admitted it to Basil, but she was having serious doubts about the wisdom of carrying on with this siege or stand-off or whatever one liked to call it. It was all very well sitting on the door during the day. One would have had to do that anyway, and one was kept busy, the Exhibition being something of a hit. Guarding the place at night seemed rather excessive and was horribly inconvenient – although, unfortunately, she could see why it was necessary. Lady Darkley, being on the village hall committee, was bound to have access to a spare set of
keys and she might strike at any time, night or day. It was such a nuisance.
Gwen took over from the Stasi, as required by the rota. Watching the landlady toddle back to the pub, Gwen said, I must stop calling her the Stasi. It will slip out in conversation one day and that would be disastrous.
Gwen unpacked her little bag, placing her pillow on the plastic chair, pulling out her packet of sandwiches along with a blanket, a torch and a flask of tea (a new flask, Dean had broken the old one: typical Dean). She took a peek outside where Jean Wetherby was sitting on a camp chair huddled in her duffle coat. Gwen could not fathom why the forces of darkness thought it necessary to keep vigil all night as well. Poor Jean looked perished. It was only April, after all. Being so thin and bony, one would feel the cold. Was it really fair to lumber her with the late shift at her age? All the same, Gwen took comfort in the older woman’s presence: it was much preferable to being alone.
Gwen settled on her chair in the pool of light by the door. Glancing over her shoulder, she thought of all the exhibits in the darkness of the hall, her own paintings amongst them. There was no doubt the Exhibition had been a runaway success. People had come flocking, as the Stasi had predicted. Lydia had been the star, of course. One couldn’t really begrudge her. Her work was rather impressive – such use of colour, such intricate detail, such imagination – though what had possessed her to paint Richard in the … well, in the nude (not to put too fine a point on it), what had possessed her was a mystery. Something to do with the dignity of man, one gathered, but, really, one couldn’t even begin to understand; and one didn’t like to be caught staring at a picture like that. Luckily, Richard’s name had been kept out of it despite all the fuss and palaver (and despite the Stasi’s best detective work). One had to be thankful for small mercies. Basil would have—
But one did not like to think of what Basil would have done.
Gwen yawned, covering her mouth with her hand. What time was it? Not yet one o’clock. Hours to go. And poor Jean outside: she had to be chilled to the marrow. How long was she here for? One could ask her … couldn’t one? They might be on opposite sides, but that didn’t mean one had to be churlish.
‘Jean?’ Gwen opened the door a little wider. ‘Jean? What time do you finish?’
‘I? Oh. Five. Hmm. Yes. Five.’
‘Five o’clock! Oh, poor you! I’m off at three. I hand over to Sandra at three.’
‘Ah. Hmm.’
The ice broken, Gwen moved nearer the door, and Mrs Wetherby shuffled her chair a little closer too. They were able to conduct a conversation of sorts (Jean Wetherby was hard work at the best of times). It was better than sitting there yawning and trying to prop one’s eyes open. It helped pass the time.
The clock struck one, then two. It grew very cold, very still. Their whispered voices sounded loud, so they lowered them yet further – as if afraid of disturbing … what? Not people, not at this time of night. Everyone with any sense was locked away, tucked up in bed. The pub lights were off, the cottages opposite all in darkness. There might, perhaps, be ghosts abroad, with the churchyard so close, but one didn’t really believe in ghosts. What else might be lurking in the shadows? Dean had said something about panthers. One wouldn’t normally take any notice, but this was a different world, a world one barely recognized. Even the street lamps seemed dimmer at this hour, the circles of light round them slowly contracting, the darkness closing in.
Gwen would have liked to have shut the hall door, but it would hardly be fair on poor Jean.
‘I do think it’s a bit off, Jean, making you sit here all night in the cold and dark.’
‘Oh. Hmm. Yes. But Donald … and Imelda….’
Yes, thought Gwen impatiently, pulling her blanket closer round her shoulders. Wasn’t that always the way? There was always a but. But Donald, but Imelda – but Basil, too; not to mention Lydia and the Stasi. Why did one try so hard to please people all the time? In the bright light of day, one hardly gave it a thought, it seemed eminently sensible. It was only now, in the middle of the night – two o’clock – that one began to wonder if it was worth it. But how did one put all this into words?
‘All this fuss, Jean,’ Gwen hazarded. ‘And over what? A little Exhibition. Nothing.’
‘Not nothing. I—’
‘Well, I suppose you’re right, it’s not exactly nothing.’
‘And, hmm, yes.’
‘Oh, I agree, Jean. But, you see, we didn’t set out to….’ Gwen paused, tried to put her thoughts in order. If one wasn’t careful, one could easily end up like poor Jean Wetherby, never a sentence finished. ‘It was not part of the plan,’ Gwen said, picking her words, ‘to upset anyone.’
Mrs Wetherby raised a bony claw, pointing into the shadows of the village hall. ‘That painting.’
‘I know what you mean, Jean. I have my doubts about it too.’
‘But it’s … I….’
‘You?’
‘Had.’
‘You had?’
‘Mastectomy.’
‘Oh, Jean! I didn’t know! I’m so …’ So sorry? Was that the best she could do? Gwen shook her head, exasperated. Words at this time of night were so small and hollow, scraped clean of almost all meaning. Yet what else could one rely on, when even the street lamps didn’t keep back the creeping darkness? ‘I’m so sorry. I can see why that painting would bring it all back.’
‘Donald….’
‘Donald found it difficult, I presume.’
‘He never …’
‘Never?’
‘Touched me. Afterwards.’
‘Oh. Oh, I see. Well, it … it takes time, I suppose: time to get used to it, I mean.’ And yet, thought Gwen, when one looked at that picture of Richard one didn’t really notice the afflicted area – one didn’t notice his private parts (to put it bluntly). There was, in fact, something rather majestic about the way he gazed out of the painting (the sharp, clear eyes were most definitely Richard’s eyes, despite the rather blurred face). He looked like some primeval explorer surveying a wide vista of uncharted lands, lands never trodden by the feet of man. One felt that it would never have occurred to such a heroic figure to worry about being, well, nude. But one could hardly say something like that out loud – not when one was reputedly so sensible, a woman who kept her feet on the ground. And, it had to be admitted, there might be people who didn’t see the painting in quite the same way, people who didn’t think of the wide vistas but who looked for the flaws and imperfections, for something to criticize; someone like Donald Wetherby, for instance. He had never been the most tolerant of men. But surely even Donald would come round in the end, when it was his own wife; when one had made a vow, a commitment; when common decency came into play?
‘But it must take time to adjust,’ Gwen murmured. ‘How long is it, Jean – if you don’t mind me asking – since…?’ (One had never heard a whisper; even Mrs Pole must be in the dark about this.)
‘1974.’
‘1974! But … but Jean! That’s nearly forty years ago! And in all that time Donald has never … never…?’
‘Mmm. Forty years. Never.’
Mrs Wetherby folded her hands in her lap, sitting upright in her chair. Dignified, thought Gwen. And once upon a time she had been proud, too – rather too proud, by all accounts: a snooty woman. Had they cut away all that, too, when they sliced into her with their knives all those years ago? And to think that Donald, that lecherous little gnome—
But one shouldn’t judge. One didn’t know the particulars. One’s own marriage must look very different to outsiders.
Gwen wondered if Jean had ever spoken about this before; or had she been waiting forty years to do so, waiting for a sign? It might never have happened had they not been sitting here in the dead of night, alone. It might never have happened but for Lydia’s painting. That had been the sign Jean Wetherby needed. Was that what Lydia had intended: to strip away the surface and expose the flaws and disfigurements in everyone? It was remarkably clever
– and terribly dangerous. But one had to admit that one saw the world in a different light because of it. One saw Jean Wetherby in a different light. One would never have guessed what was behind the familiar facade. One had thought of Jean as an emaciated old sparrow who had not completed a sentence for – well, for forty years.
‘Oh, Jean! What are we doing? We should …’ Gwen groped for the right words, but what was the use when they were all so hollow and scraped – when Jean was out there and she herself in here? ‘We should all be on the same side. We are on the same side, really.’
‘But—’
‘Yes. Yes, I see.’ It always came down to that in the end: but Donald, but Basil, but Imelda. And yet they were people too: Donald and Basil and Imelda. What had Donald seen, looking at Lydia’s powerful painting: his own wife, perhaps, who he hadn’t been able to bring himself to touch for forty years? What had Imelda seen? What had been reflected back at her? One would never know. That was the tragedy of it.
‘There are no sides, Jean: that’s how I see it. There are no sides. It’s more like … like a web we fall into. Threads attach. We are caught – cradled, yes; but there is no escape either.’ I am talking nonsense, Gwen said to herself. Even I don’t know what I am trying to say. Oh Lydia, you have a lot to answer for, stripping us bare like this!
Mrs Wetherby, leaning across, patted Gwen’s hand as it rested on the arm of her chair: a curiously decisive gesture for one who was usually so hesitant. Her skin was cold to the touch, and papery; her fingers bony.
She is comforting me, thought Gwen with surprise. And there was I, feeling sorry for her. But she has had the right idea all along. What is the use of saying anything – of finishing a sentence – when a pat on the hand is more eloquent than all the words in the world?
‘My word!’ Gwen gathered herself, spoke brightly, clearly, defying the shadows. ‘The things one finds oneself talking about at half past two in the morning! I feel quite parched after all that. How would you like a cup of tea, Jean, and a sandwich?’
Gwen reached for her flask.