by David Mark
‘Something fabulous for my friend here,’ says Candy, giving the barman an indulgent smile. ‘Enough to make her comfortable but not horizontal, if you catch me.’
Freddie gives a big smile. ‘Oh yes, I understand, and as you English say, “challenge accepted”.’ He sounds like an Englishman doing a bad impression of a Parisian motivational-speaker, all big movements and huge vowels. He’s so French it seems like he’s putting it on.
‘We don’t say that,’ mutters Candy, to herself. ‘I mean, we do, but it’s not exactly a saying.’ She shakes the thought away. Looks up, brightly.
‘What do you want?’ asks Betsy.
‘Sit yourself down,’ instructs Candy, pushing a small, upholstered stool across the floor towards her; wood screeching against stone. Petulant, huffing, Betsy plonks herself down. Gives Candy a hard look. She’s more curious than cross. Wants to know what the hell is going on.
‘So,’ says Betsy. ‘I’m here. Can’t say I’m happy about it but I’m trying to tell myself that country folk have country ways, and maybe this is normal.’
Candy raises her glass. Takes a pull of Guinness and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. She looks at her guest appraisingly, making Betsy feel like a paint-blackened carthorse inspected by a trainer of thoroughbreds.
‘Shall I strip?’ asks Betsy, unpleasantly. ‘Do a little dance? I could lie down and you could do a brass-rubbing …’
‘He was right about you,’ says Candy, decisively. ‘Pretty as a picture. Bit common, but something in there worth polishing.’
‘Common? You can go fu––’
Freddie the barman appears from nowhere, proffering a tall glass full of a near-luminous orange concoction, garlanded with fruit, paper straws and crushed ice. ‘Et voila, mademoiselle,’ he says, with a flourish. ‘Do not ask me the secret ingredient, eh? But tell me if you enjoy – I put on my list to give special customers.’
Betsy, mentally off-balanced, takes a sip through the paper straw. It’s potent and fruity and makes her mouth water. ‘Fab,’ she says. ‘Tastes a bit like Skittles.’
‘Mademoiselle?’ asks Freddie, unsure. ‘Skittles? Like in tenpin bowling? I not understand …’
‘Run along, Fred,’ says Candy. ‘Grown-ups are talking.’
He does as instructed. Bows, like a footman. Betsy gets the impression that everybody does as instructed when it’s Candy giving the orders.
‘He said I was pretty?’ asks Betsy, surprising herself. ‘Jude?’
Candy grins. ‘Smitten, he was. Deep smit. Never seen him like that for anyone, though he’s not one who tends to give much away.’
The choice of tense jars with Betsy. ‘Like that, you said. What, moved on already, has he? Had his fun? That’s what you want to tell me, is it? Is this going to get all playground? You’ve been tasked with telling me it’s all over, have you? Wants me gone? Found somebody else?’
Betsy realizes that the very thought of it is an agony like no other. A fist is squeezing at her heart, a foot on her throat. She feels sick and lost and her cheeks burn.
‘I need to speak to him,’ she says, gabbling. ‘He doesn’t need to do this. We’re meant, I know it. Whatever I did wrong, I can do it differently. How am I supposed to know …’
Across the table Candy starts tapping her solitary gold ring against the wood, the sound getting louder with each beat. Betsy stops talking, realizing how mad she must sound. Takes a slurp of drink and has to fight to stop it coming straight back up her gullet.
‘My goodness but he knows how to pick them,’ says Candy, shaking her head. ‘Not quite so full of histrionics as Maeve, but then you haven’t been with him as long, have you? Maybe this time next year you’ll be as much of a howler monkey as she was.’
‘Maeve?’ asks Betsy, wiping her nose with her sleeve. ‘Is that what this is about? Because if you’re going to say he killed her then I don’t want to hear it.’
Candy rolls her eyes. ‘You have your suspicions, do you?’
Betsy screws up her face. ‘I have no reason to doubt him about anything.’
‘No, but you do,’ says Candy, her voice dropping a little. ‘There’s a voice in your head says there’s something wrong. You don’t believe everything he says. You’ve got a million questions but you don’t want to ask them in case the answers pop the fantasy, am I right?’
‘You don’t know me,’ says Betsy, scratching at her arms. She doesn’t notice how hard she is scratching until red welts start to appear on her skin. Panicking, she covers the affected area with her palm. When her skin goes red it shows the white lines she carved on herself in her teens: each fine white scar a reminder of past pain.
‘I know Jude,’ says Candy, simply. ‘Known him since he moved in with Maeve. By God she was into him. Obsessed doesn’t even cover it. Never seemed the sort for a relationship – liked being a free spirit too much – but she fell for him the way animals do. Hungry. Savage. Willing to fight and die to safeguard their territory.’
Betsy feels her stomach heave. Sips at her drink then pushes the liquid back down the straw rather than swallow it.
‘He fell for her too, of course,’ says Candy. ‘Must have done to come and move in to that knackered old place. She never saw what other people saw when it came to the bastle. Thought she was a queen in a fairy tale if you ask me. Half-killed herself making it habitable and did things she wouldn’t thank me for talking about in order to get permission to build.’
Betsy catches her eye. ‘Your husband, you mean?’ she asks, pink spots burning on her cheeks. ‘Toad of Toad Hall?’
‘Touché,’ says Candy, raising her glass in salute. ‘He’s told you about that, has he? Ah, he must have fallen for you properly if he’s opened up about all that nasty, mucky business. Yes, it would be fair to say Campion and I come at life from different directions, though we do meet in the middle from time to time. I believe that’s known as successful marriage. I keep him from indulging to excess, I think. Marriage keeps him relatively respectable, though he does enjoy himself when opportunity arises and I have the good grace not to mention it. He’s grateful for that. For me. Most of my advice pays off, in the end.’
‘So romantic,’ sneers Betsy, feeling the scars sing with pain beneath her hand. ‘You should write romances.’
‘It wasn’t a match made in heaven,’ says Candy, licking her lips. She has strange eyes, up close. They’re bigger than they should be, as if somebody has drawn a person from a description alone. There’s a stillness about her that Betsy finds unnerving. It seems as if she’s conserving energy for when it might be required.
‘Why do I care about you and your husband?’
‘Maeve and Jude – not Campion and I. She was very set in her ways and he was … well, I suppose you would say it all got a little Lady Chatterley for a time. She always rather looked upon him like he was a servant who’d done well. She was from old money, was Maeve. Good stock. Turned her back on it, but it was still all boarding school and lacrosse and humping on the riverbank with the sons of curates and cabinet ministers. Living in squalor didn’t change that. And she was jealous beyond anything you can imagine. Wouldn’t leave him be. Wouldn’t trust him. I was her friend, as much as she had such a thing, and there was no comforting her. She convinced herself he was screwing half the valley.’
Betsy can’t help herself. ‘And was he?’
‘Not then, no,’ she says, without softening her delivery. ‘After she died, he was like a prisoner let out on day release. Broke a few hearts. Flattened a lot of grass, shall we say. But he really did try to make things work with her, even as she treated him like he was something she ordered in the post.’
Betsy glances towards the bar. One of the men has gone. One of the dogs, too. Freddie, polishing a glass, gives a somewhat incongruous wave.
‘This is what you wanted to tell me?’ asks Betsy, at last. ‘That his relationship sucked and that he’s shagged half the valley? Well, thanks. For the drink, too. Think I’ll
leave it there.’ She starts to rise, tempted to run. Candy waves her back into her seat, mildly exasperated.
‘Just wait a moment, will you?’ asks Candy. ‘Jesus, no wonder he’s looking all doe-eyed and dozy – poor sod’s brain is probably battered insensible. Look, just be quiet for a moment and listen, OK? Jude and I have a sort of understanding. I don’t want to sound like a Smart Alec but here’s the thing – I’m a lot cleverer than most people. I don’t ask to be this way, but one doesn’t get to pick one’s strengths and weaknesses.’
‘No, one fucking doesn’t––’
‘Maeve was a very intelligent lady as well,’ says Candy, without pausing. ‘One of the cleverest I’ve known. Bookish. Would have made a wonderful lecturer had she taken that path. Taught Campion a thing or two, and not just to get her own way over the planning application.’
‘Good for her,’ mumbles Betsy.
‘She thought she’d got a bit of rough in Jude. He’s tough, you’ve spotted that, I presume. Fists like hammers. You know in the old cowboy films when the new kid tries to make a name for themselves by challenging the old gunslinger? Jude’s had that since he was growing up on his dad’s farm. People have always wanted a piece of him. That’s men for you. Just apes in shoes. She knew that about him, right enough. Maeve, I mean. Knew he was a bit handy to have around the place. Introduced him to me and I expected to see this great bruiser of a fellow. Saw through it all in about five seconds. He’s smarter than she ever was. Smarter than me. You can see it in his eyes.’
Betsy stays silent, unsure whether to be proud or angry.
Across the table, Candy is lost in memory. ‘I watched him in here one night,’ she says, dreamily. ‘There was a party of American academics in – we get a lot of them here, hiking the Roman wall and looking for their roots. Chess players. That was how they knew each other. Good ones too. Maeve had been a whiz at university so she challenged them to a friendly match. Beat three in a row and then came up against this loudmouth with a beard who loved nothing more than talking himself up. He backed it up, too. Wiped the floor with her. Jude sat there, barely speaking, watching as this big-mouth beat his partner eight games in a row. He’d have let her carry on losing if she hadn’t had one of her episodes. She couldn’t accept she was losing, and Jude did his best to mollify her. He said she hadn’t lost. She’d kicked their arses and now she’d had one too many drinks to be at her best. And Big-Mouth laughed at him. Said he was pronouncing the word wrong. Said it was ‘asses’. Jude was calm as you like. Told him he’d play him, if he had no objections. Winner would pay for the other’s bar tab. Ordered himself a bottle of sixteen-year-old malt from the cellar, just to show he was serious. Then he told the Americans that if they were really as confident as they seemed, he’d play them all at once. The bar staff rustled up six boards and all the Americans chucked money in the pot. Jude took them all on.’
‘Seriously?’ asks Betsy. She can’t stop herself smiling.
Candy grins at the memory. ‘Won inside twenty minutes. They couldn’t understand it. They thought he’d cheated somehow but there was no way to prove it.’
‘They paid his tab?’
‘Tried to weasel out of it but the locals weren’t having that. Drank like kings and queens that night, I tell you.’
Betsy chews her lip. ‘I didn’t know he played.’
Candy shakes her head as if sorry for her. ‘I don’t think you know very much about Jude other than the fact you go all wibbly on the inside when he looks at you. But I know him. I know he’s always half a dozen steps ahead of everybody else. I know he wasn’t happy with Maeve, but I don’t believe any of the rumours that he killed her. She died because something in her head broke. If Jude had wanted her dead, there wouldn’t have been any suspicion. He’s the sort who could get away with murder without a stain on his character.’ She pauses, seemingly unsure whether to continue. ‘I’ve warned Campion to let things drop. He doesn’t believe me about Jude. That’s why I want you to talk to him.’
‘To Campion?’
‘No, to Jude. That’s why I wanted to talk to you.’ She spreads her hands on the table. ‘Look, it was as much of a shock to Jude as it was to everybody else that Maeve left him the house and the land. Campion thought he was doing him a good turn by offering to take it off him for a decent price but he played it all completely wrong. Told him things nobody should hear about their dear departed. And Jude, God love him, well he’s his own worst enemy. Stubborn as a bull that won’t go through a gate. He told Campion he owed him nothing. Told him to do his worst. Gave him a little bit of a bloodied nose.’
Betsy finishes her drink. Shivers. ‘What, figuratively, you mean?’
‘No, I mean he smacked him like he was a puppy who’d pissed on the carpet. Campion doesn’t get treated that way. Only person who doesn’t do what Campion says is me, and I’ve earned that particular right. And ever since, Campion’s had one thing in his mind – getting Jude out of the bastle, whatever the cost. I’ve been stuck as peacemaker. I’ve always got on with Jude, much as my husband hates our friendship. I’ve tried time and again to get him to see sense – accept a decent offer and go start again somewhere. He won’t have it. He’s driving himself mad.’
‘Your husband?’
‘No, Jude. For months he didn’t sleep. Up all night guarding his property, setting traps down by the river, neglecting the animals. It half-killed me seeing him like that and it was worse knowing it was my own family causing the mischief. It was my idea to get him to come work at the estate – to try to mend some bridges – but that all led to trouble. Jude knows the way things should be done and my husband, unfortunately, doesn’t like being told when he’s wrong – least of all by somebody who’s given him a thump. It all ended terribly – some of Campion’s men from the city heard they could get in his good books by walloping Jude, and Jude didn’t cooperate. Put them on their backsides. Then he took a chainsaw to the big oak – the one that’s stood in the grounds of our home since the Wars of the Roses. He didn’t even lose his temper. Just carved his initials in the bark and stuck the chainsaw in like Excalibur. It’s still there: a rusty handle sticking out to remind Campion that he’d been shown up. Again.’
Betsy pushes her hair from her face. Wonders if she has earned another drink.
‘You’ve made him whole again,’ says Candy, not unkindly. ‘That night he sat in here texting you all those soppy messages – I was the friend he was neglecting. He told me you’d wrapped yourself around him like ivy. Said as soon as he looked at you, he knew. And I swear, he’s been sprightly as a newborn foal these past few months. That’s why I know he’ll listen to you.’
‘Listen to me about what?’
‘He needs to come clean,’ says Candy, and the plummy tones sound momentarily strangled, as if there is some peach-stone of emotion wedged in her trachea. ‘Things can be fixed. We’ll still pay a decent price and we can take his secret to the grave but he has a family, Elizabeth. People who deserve to know the truth.’
Betsy feels as though she is reading a book and has turned over two pages at once. Her face twists in confusion. ‘You’ve lost me.’
Candy, agitated, rummages around in the small bag at her side and removes her mobile phone. She thumbs at the keys and then slides it to Betsy. She puts it on speakerphone and presses ‘play’.
‘… no more warnings. No more cautions. This is final. You come on my land, or knock on my door, or look at me or mine in a way I find objectionable, and I will burn your house to the ground. I will turn you into ashes and fucking bone. Send as many of your lads as you can afford and I’ll send you them back a piece at a time. Cut your losses. And tell Mick Hewson and his brother to say their goodbyes. He’s going in the ground …’
Betsy feels cold fingers running across her skin. She can’t seem to catch her breath. It had been Jude, but at the same time it had been somebody completely alien. His words sound not so much a threat as an unmistakable prophesy of what will follow. He
r mind is a blur of pictures and projections. When did he leave the message? It must have been after the fight at the pharmacy. He’d needed to put himself back together. To stand tall after what he viewed as a humiliation. What else might he have done in order to avenge a loss?
‘They’ve both played nasty,’ says Betsy, quietly. ‘He doesn’t mean it––’
‘Mick hasn’t been seen for fifteen days,’ says Candy, retrieving her phone. ‘His family are about one more day from going to the police. They understand the value of silence but they want answers. I can hold them back. I can stop them. All they need to know is where he is and then we can come up with a story that saves everybody’s blushes. You can sell up, start again – but you need to show Jude this is the only option open to him. His brother … look, just give him a different future. The only other way is more pain, more bloodshed, and him going away for however many …’
There is a sudden thud just beyond the arch; a sound like a bag of potatoes falling from a height. Tench tumbles backward through the door, nose bleeding, bloody spit on his chin: pinwheeling over in a crash of chair legs. There is a squeak, as if somebody has stepped on a mouse, and then the black gundog is skittering across the flagstones, yelping as if beaten with a stick.
Jude follows. His face is grey; there’s darkness beneath his eyes. He’s panting, as if he ran here. Betsy spies the red on his knuckles. Sees his fists, still clenched …
‘You don’t talk to her,’ says Jude to Candy, his teeth grinding together, jaw bulging at the hinge. ‘You don’t talk to me. You stay away. Your men – they stay away. Your men’s dogs – they stay away. A leaf from one of your trees blows across my garden and I swear to God I will bring it back and stuff a branch down your throat. You’ve played this wrong, Candy. So fucking wrong. There is now a gap on the map. My land. Mine. And by Christ if you stumble into it by accident then I will hurt you until your bones feel like damp cement.’