Suspicious Minds

by David Mark

  ‘Dreamy?’

  ‘Aye. Sitting with a smile on your face. It’s nice to see. This farmer chap, is it? Bit of a handsome devil, I’m guessing. I mean, you’re a woman with needs, aren’t you? And I suppose now you’ve got used to the idea that I’m a one-woman man, it’s only fair to have a new fantasy …’

  Liz shakes her head, smiling; a smudge of blush creeping into her cheeks. Glen likes teasing.

  ‘One-woman man?’ scoffs Carly. ‘Which woman’s that? Anyway, leave our Liz alone, she’s had a hell of a day, I told you at dinner.’

  ‘Still can’t see how you end up almost at Allenheads when you set off for Corbridge. That’s a skill and a half.’

  Liz pulls a face. ‘I got turned around.’

  ‘We don’t need to hear the gory details,’ grins Glen. ‘However you and your farmer made friends, I’m just pleased it’s put some colour in your cheeks. It’s a nice part of the world out that way. Weird, like. Old. Not much changed in centuries, really. I’ve delivered out that way a few times and it does feel like driving into the past. Plenty money out that way though. There’s an Arab prince owns a great big mansion. Got some of the best grouse shooting in the country, so I’ve heard.’

  ‘I don’t like grouse shooting,’ declares Liz, with feeling. ‘They get fed to bursting then scared into the air so rich men with guns can blast them to smithereens. Loads of other animals die. Rare birds. It’s cruel.’

  Glen puts his hands up in surrender. ‘I think I may have run over a grouse or two but until they find a way to coat a dead one in breadcrumbs, I’m not to blame. Didn’t know you felt so strongly about it. I heard about that lass who got shot. On the news this morning. Lost an eye and had to move away but somehow it’s her fault for, well, I dunno … not having a bulletproof face, I suppose. Somebody’s slipped some cash into a pocket or two, don’t you think?’

  Liz’s face fills with Campion Lorton-Cave. She thinks of what Sylvia shared on the journey. Remembers the red kite, nailed to the doorframe and the look of pure cold rage in Jude’s eyes. God how she wants him to call.

  ‘Don’t listen to him,’ advises Carly. ‘He’s just pleased to see a happy face in his living room.’

  ‘He likes his girls to smile,’ grumbles Suki, sitting in the armchair in her hooded dressing gown, playing a game on her phone. ‘Apparently I’ve got a face like a slapped arse. Or a cow with indigestion. What’s the other family favourite? Oh yea, like I’m hiding a turd under my tongue. That’s a real treat, that one. Said it when Nev was here.’

  Glen grins, delighted with the memory. ‘He’s the same age as her and he’s called Neville. I mean, who does that to a baby?’

  ‘Here he goes …’ warns Carly, smiling at him indulgently. ‘Off on a roll.’

  ‘I’m in no position to talk, not when I’ve got to order birthday cakes with Happy Birthday Elemental-Chi once a bloody year. Suki, of course, is a proper treat for the social media generation. She may have eight thousand followers but most of them think her name rhymes with ducky.’

  Liz sips her liqueur. Glances to where her phone is charging, plugged into the wall by the magazine rack: home to an Argos catalogue, the TV Times and the phone book. If Liz didn’t know better she would think Carly was trying to make her living room a near-replica of the foster home where she had felt happiest. A quiet, spacious house; an older couple, churchgoers – eager to do their bit by this angry, vengeful little girl who’d been moved around so many care homes and foster placements that she rarely knew where she was waking up from one day to the next. They did well by her. Got her into a nice local school and got her grades up. Helped her make some decent friends and supported her in her extra-curricular passions. They even came to watch her judo matches, wincing theatrically each time she hurled a bigger, broader opponent to the ground. They only let her down when she fell pregnant, urging her to give herself the best chance at a future by taking the difficult, un-Christian path. Carly had told them to shove it. Had her daughter, called her Suki, and forged her own path. Liz has never been able to decide whether she would have been better served in life if the couple had taken her too. Sometimes she wakes up and she’s still at that window, watching her little sister leave with the purple-haired social worker who had promised, faithfully, that she would never stop looking for a placement that would allow the sisters to stay together. This was temporary, she said. And even without Carly, she was better off at The Abbeyhouse. She was safe, and clothed, and her grades were exceptional; she was making friends and her artwork was amazing, and, well, surely this has to be better than the way things were …

  ‘You look a bit smitten, actually,’ says Glen, returning to his favourite topic. ‘That’s how Carly looks when we’re watching X-men and Wolverine takes off his top. It suits you. So do Carly’s clothes, actually. I’d best put a cushion on me lap or you’ll be getting an eyeful …’

  ‘You are a pig,’ snorts Carly, punching him on the arm with enough force to leave a bruise. He doesn’t flinch. This is how they talk. How they play. How they love.

  ‘It’s the whisky and the paracetamol, I’m sure,’ smiles Liz. She looks again at the phone. There’s a blue light flashing on the top. She almost throws herself on to her belly. Manages to stop herself from wriggling towards it, Commando-style. ‘That’ll be Jay …’ she mumbles.

  ‘Aye, he’s a proper Mr Charisma your fella,’ laughs Glen, draining his cider. ‘Last time he was here he started talking about that bike of his. Not a motorbike – no, there I would have something to say. A bicycle. A bloody bicycle, at his age! What’s next? Skateboard? Space-hopper? A bike is for the under-nines to go and get milk from the shops for their mam.’

  ‘Millions of people love bikes,’ says Liz, instinctively rising to Jay’s defence. ‘Look at all those Olympians. He’s really into his fitness.’

  ‘Yeah, but I can think of better ways to spend two and a half grand. I don’t care if it is light enough to lift up on a finger, he’s been had.’

  Liz furrows her brow, a pulse twitching at the corner of her mouth so it seems as though she is smiling and itching her cheek at the same time. ‘It wasn’t that much, no way …’

  ‘He said it was. All that Lycra too. I mean, no man looks good in Lycra, do they? Least of all somebody who looks like a half-sucked breadstick. Me, on the other hand, I’d be a right bobby-dazzler.’

  ‘You’d look like a bag of mixed veg,’ says Carly, absently, as she glances at Liz. ‘Don’t listen to him, it’s none of our business …’

  Liz slithers to her knees. She’s looking forward to her bed. She fancies Anya must be feeling pretty tired too. She ate enough to give a hippopotamus heartburn at tea-time and the rustle of packets coming from the kitchen-diner suggests she and her semi-cousins are snacking heavily while watching Netflix on the laptop. She pulls herself up and straightens her skirt, crossing to retrieve her phone. She’s never been this good at pleasure-delay before. Normally her impulses outweigh her sense and she will embark upon long text conversations or notes-to-self with only three per cent left on her battery life. She’s let the phone climb to full capacity, delaying the exhilarating bliss of checking her messages until she has the energy. She looks at the screen. Half a dozen emails from companies offering discounts and vouchers or enquiring about whether she wants to renew memberships. An alert to inform her that an Instagrammer she likes has uploaded a new video. Facebook notifications, reminding her that she hasn’t uploaded anything to the page she started months ago when she was briefly thinking of becoming a party planner. And a text. A text from an unknown number.

  ‘Back in a jiff,’ says Liz, brightly. ‘He won’t come in. Jay, I mean. Apologies in advance but he’ll just honk and we’ll have to come out …’

  ‘Go on, you’ll ruin your pelvic floor,’ says Carly, waving a hand. ‘I’ll get her stuff together.’

  Grateful, Liz almost bounds up the stairs, closing the door behind her and wiggling the little bolt into place. Her heart is raci
ng, head spinning. She feels sick and giddy, as though she has sprinted uphill after drinking too much pop. The backs of her knees are clammy, her palms so sweaty she can barely grip the phone.

  She suffers a paralyzing flash of clarity. Sees the words on the BPD forum; the instruction to people like her to make good decisions; to learn from the mistakes of the past and not jump in with both feet. She knows herself well enough to identify her own triggers. She does this. Falls fast and hard. Gets hysterical with excitement then tumbles into depression and ennui. She fixates. Idealizes people to the point of obsession, then dismisses them as nothings and nobodies as soon as they show her some attention. She doesn’t want to admire anybody who would be friends with somebody like her – even while considering herself far too good to waste time on the myriad people who would like nothing more than to be a bigger part of her life. The fact that she has a name for the condition doesn’t change a damn thing. Having BPD is an explanation, not an excuse. She still has to try and modify her behaviour. She owes it to Jay to try and get better – to see things his way; the right way. Owes it to him to stop being so bloody unmanageable. She should just call the therapist, reschedule, knuckle down to getting better, and start thinking about the future. Maybe start another college course. A night class. Something.

  She opens the message from Jude.

  Hi. This is Jude. Hope you’re feeling as well as can be expected given the incident. Just checking Sylvia got you home OK. Don’t know why but the place seems noticeably empty since you went. Sorry, rambling on. I’m in the pub. Had to get a decent mobile signal and stopped for a wee one. I’ll be here a while longer yet, I reckon, so if you’re able, or fancy it, do message me back. Sorry if I’ve woken you, or anything. Marshall sends a woof. X

  Liz has to suppress a squeal. He’d gone out just to be able to message her. He was concerned for her. Worrying, even. And the place was empty without her! She feels suddenly exhilarated: high on him. She rubs at her hair, pushing it back from her face, ignoring the pain that darts along her hairline and crown. She checks the time the message came through. Twenty-four minutes ago. He’ll still be there. Waiting. Maybe sipping from a whisky, reading a paperback, glancing at his phone every few seconds to check for a reply. She can see him so clearly it’s almost eerie. Can see a barmaid, motherly and big-haired, gently probing about his thoughts being a million miles away tonight. And she can hear him confessing, quietly, that he’s met somebody he can’t stop thinking about.

  She thinks about how best to compose a reply. Who she wants to be. What she wants to happen. Her head doesn’t cooperate. As soon as she starts to type the words come out like projectile vomit: feelings and confessions and wishes and regrets. By the time she’s done, Jay has been honking the horn for over five minutes, and Carly has resorted to throwing items of footwear at the bathroom door from the foot of the stairs.

  Oh wow, I really didn’t think I’d hear from you again! Sylvia is just so lovely and she gave me a full rundown on valley life, so rest assured I know all about your dirty secrets now! Sorry, that’s weird. Do you have dirty secrets? I sort of hope that you do. Sorry again, I’ve been drinking. There’s a licquer/liquor/lickewer I like called Stag’s Breath, which doesn’t look very feminine now I see it written down. Blame the painkiller combo for any weirdness that comes out. I need to thank you properly for all that you did to help me this afternoon. I normally have to know somebody a bit longer before I let them see me face down in a puddle, ha-ha. And you’re in the pub, are you? Bit jealous. I’m at my sister’s. We have one of those weird relationships. I love her one minute then want to cut off all ties the next, but I guess that’s all part of my condition. Did I tell you about that? Probably should. It’s called BPD, and means I’m basically halfway between neurotic and psychotic, but at least I’m not dull. Anyway, I’ll let you look into it, if you’re interested, so you know what you’re letting yourself in for if we do start talking. Incidentally, how’s the car? And how’s Marshall? He’s so lovely and totally in love with you. It must be the eyes! Thanks again, and soz for being weird. x

  Then she presses Send.

  In the car, on the way home, she gets a reply. It sends a vibration right the way through her. Jay scowls at her from the driving seat as she looks, eagerly, at the screen. Has to bite her cheek to keep from smiling.

  You are fascinating. Feel free to message me your deepest and darkest. Really pleased we have met, Betsy. You’re a poem. Xx

  In her stomach, the glow of liquid gold.

  TEN

  It’s a little after midnight and Liz is sitting at the kitchen table with a full pot of tea and a packet of biscuits. She’s changed into her nice pyjamas; the soft pink, cotton ones with the dark-blue piping, which always makes her feel a little bit glamorous. She’s wearing slipper-socks: largely so the sight of her feet doesn’t make her feel suddenly hideous and trigger an episode of nuclear self-loathing. She’s brought a lamp in from the dining room so she can sit in an appropriately soft-yellow light, rather than the harsh white glare of the strip-light overhead. She feels naughty. Indulgent. The only thing spoiling the atmosphere is the smell of Deep Heat muscle spray, which she doused herself in when she caught sight of the purpling bruise across her shoulder and down to her chest. It looks nasty enough to be checked out by a doctor, but Liz is pretty good at self-diagnosing. Most times, pain is nothing more or less than itself. It’s not an indicator of something else. A bruise is just a bruise, a break is break. It all heals. Skin is more resilient than the soul. If nothing else, Mum taught her that.

  She pours the tea. Adds a splash of milk. Dunks a biscuit. She looks like a piano player preparing to attempt a complex piece by Debussy.

  Then she types his name, carefully, into Google. She finds what she’s looking for on the second page: an article in the Northern Echo, four years ago, under a headline that makes her catch her breath.

  Death of Weardale Activist ‘Could Have Been Avoided’, Says Coroner

  By Alison Willison

  A well-respected environmental campaigner found dead by ramblers at a Weardale beauty spot ‘should never have been left alone’, according to a coroner.

  The body of Maeve Ducken, 41, was discovered in August at Swinburn Falls – a waterfall hidden in secluded woodland between Wearhead and Sparty Lea, a mile from where she lived with her husband.

  Ms Ducken was well known in the community. She stood for the Green Party in recent elections and had led a campaign to block a proposed housing development in the isolated valley, as well as being an activist for animal rights. She was a noted anti-hunt saboteur and gave evidence at several prosecutions for contraventions of the Animal Welfare Act.

  Ms Ducken, who had suffered from epileptic seizures since undergoing an operation on a head injury, was taking strong painkillers at the time of her death. She had been warned about being left alone, operating machinery or taking on too much work.

  However, on the day of her death, she left the family home following a ‘petty row’ with her partner. She is thought to have suffered a seizure, which caused her to fall and hit her head. She was found by ramblers staying in a holiday cottage nearby.

  Erin Potts, of Kirmington in Lincolnshire, told the court: ‘She wasn’t responsive. She was white and wasn’t moving and as soon as I saw her I knew there wouldn’t be a happy ending. There was blood on the moss that coated the rocks. We’d almost gone over on the moss ourselves a few times that day, it was very, very slippy. It took some time to summon help because of the remoteness of the location and we had no phone reception. My husband stayed with her while I went to get help, which is when I saw the man who identified himself as her partner. He was in a terrible state having been out looking for her. I didn’t know how to tell him but it would have been wrong to keep him in the dark. When I told him we’d found a body he just went to pieces in front of me.’

  Partner Jude Cullen, 43, who shared Wolfcleugh Bastle with Ms Ducken, said: ‘She was always so stubborn. That’s
what I loved. It was who she was. When she set her mind to something there was no stopping her. It didn’t matter how many times I urged her to slow down, she only ever did what she thought best. I think she thought she was too busy for anything bad to ever actually happen. I all but pleaded with her just to have a quiet day: not to walk the dogs or muck out or go and try to save the world. I thought she’d taken my advice but when I came back from taking a shower she had already left the house. She’d do that sometimes – she had her favourite places to go. I was worried because she’d been getting such awful headaches. Then I went looking. I met the lady on the track coming from the wood. The way she looked at me it was clear she’d seen something awful. Nothing’s been the same in my life since.’

  Coroner Suzanne Bramall said: ‘I’ve seen the medical report and am satisfied this death was a tragic accident, but it’s an accident that could have been avoided. The doctors were quite clear about the importance of keeping on top of her medication and taking as much rest as she could. Had she been adequately looked after or taken to hospital when her headaches began to get worse, I’m sure she could have still been here today.’

  After the hearing, Mr Cullen was involved in a confrontation with members of the victim’s family. Speaking to the Echo afterwards, Ms Ducken’s mother, Evelyn, said that her daughter’s death had devastated her.

  She said: ‘Our relationship wasn’t always an easy one but she deserved better than to die alone in that miserable place. She was always headstrong but when you love somebody you sometimes have to do what’s best for them rather than what they want and her partner simply didn’t do what was required to keep her alive. Look after her – that’s all we ever said to him when they got together. A light has gone out in the world.’

  Mr Cullen, approached for comment at the rundown farmhouse that Ms Ducken converted from a ruin, told the Echo he had no comment to make, and asked to be left alone.