by Andy Tilley
‘Rose, where is the ladies room?’
You have got to be joking June. You just went, less than ten minutes ago. I saw you! And why are you using my name? Why can’t you just ask generally where the toilet is? Why do you have to be so bloody specific June!
‘It’s er…..’
‘Well I think it’s best if she uses our room Rose, don’t you think? It’s closest. That door just to your left June, through to the other side and the en-suite is on the right. That okay love?’
‘Yeah sure, use our room June and please, excuse the mess.’
I can see now why Sam wanted throwing lessons from my man. Two birds with one stone. Good shot Cristian. Three birds actually, if you were also aiming to turn me into a jellied mess of anticipation that is, Mr Chevalier. My whole body has been charged by the thought of ‘our’ unseen bedroom and what happens in there. Every sense heightened. I can smell him so powerfully now and I want him. I touch him, my skin tingles and I want him more. I want him more than I have ever wanted anything and getting to know his friends and family isn’t so important anymore. I wish they’d all declare how tired they are from the journey and go to bed right this minute. But they don’t, because we are soon back downstairs where there is food to be eaten, liqueurs and coffee to be drunk and past lives to reminisce. Horny hours to waste.
Breakfast is served in the conservatory. It is a delicious, lonely affair as I am the only reveler who has to go to work today. Cristian had made me promise to wake him but I simply didn’t have the heart (or the strength!) to rock him from his deep sleep. The boy is very tired, and I can’t help but grin as I remember my role in his exhaustion. No, it was definitely the right decision to leave him there and I’m sure that my note will be understood and take the heat out of any protest he may have about me sliding off like this. God I am so happy! I actually physically have to pinch myself and it hurts a lot but when I’ve finished rubbing the red away I am still here; sat with breakfast looking out across a huge expanse of manicured lawn that only begins to reclaim meadow flowers and seed husks beyond a huge gazebo set at the edge of Hartford Manor’s unbridled nature. That must be a lovely place to sit, looking back at the house. The thought widens my grin.
‘Well someone seems happy today. You sleep okay Rose?’
I’m not even going to try and hide how ecstatic I am about last night. Aunt May has already seen it and understands perfectly well.
‘Oh it was fantastic May, really it was. I’m still a little sore though.’
I am referring to my niggling headache but the double entendre of this expression is draining the warmth from Aunt May’s face and refilling it with cold scorn. I need to explain quickly but in a way that won’t dig me in any deeper.
‘Champagne always gives me a hangover.’
Instantly warm again, Aunt May takes a seat and butters some toast whilst she waits for James to finish her scrambled egg and smoked salmon. Small talk is the order of the day; the weather, my job, her plans for the rest of her stay if she can drag John away from the bar for long enough. Then something arrives at the table that I certainly didn’t order.
‘There is no camera Rose. Did you know that?’
No camera did she say? Does she want to borrow one? I mean, I’d be happy to oblige but I don’t have one with me and she’ll have to wait until lunch time. Aunt May has sensed my confusion and explains.
‘At the gate house. You mentioned something about them whilst you were telling your squirrel story last night, that you thanked who ever it was who had opened the gate by talking to the camera. Well there isn’t one, not at the moment. Cristian had a hiccup with some contractor or other and, oh I’m not sure about the details but the bottom line is that they won’t be here until January at the earliest.’
Is she calling me a liar? Is this what this is about? A little prod perhaps, to let me know that she’s seen a chink in my character and that I’m not good enough for her nephew.
‘Really May? I’d just kind of assumed that there was I suppose. I feel even more ridiculous now!’
‘Oh no, please don’t Rose. And I don’t mean anything by it, honestly. After all, it’s only natural to assume that there had to be somebody watching, what with the gates opening like that, before you had time to announce yourself to the intercom.’
Aunt May is all together serious about what ever it is that she is trying to tell me so I think it’s best to stop the pretence, risk offending her and get this out in the open. She’s got me far too intrigued to be able leave this issue unresolved at the breakfast table and my driver will be here in less than five minutes.
‘May, are you trying to tell me something?’
Of course she is. Her awkward, fidgeting hands tell me so and all I need to do now is wait for the silence to finish the interrogation and break her. Shouldn’t be long either; her hands have steadied, planted on the table either side of her plate.
‘There was a period when there were always dead animals around Cristian. His first summer with us in fact. Mostly they were field mice, perhaps the odd bird. I started to notice them not long after he came to stay with us. I’d collect the milk from the doorstep and find a small body trapped between the bottles. Or perhaps in the garden, by the shed where we stored our bikes. During picnic visits to the park too, but not where you might expect to see dead creatures, in the woodland for example. No, they’d always be on the tarmac or gravel paths, sometimes it seemed around every corner. The phenomena lasted no more than six month and then stopped just as quickly as it had started. And yes yes, I know that animals do die, of course they do but we never really see them do we? I mean, occasionally we do but how often have you seen a wild, dead but whole animal, one that hadn’t been flattened by traffic Rose?’
Hardly ever. Perhaps a handful of birds, nearly always late chicks that had been pushed from nests at the end of spring but the squirrel was certainly my first furry corpse. Aunt May doesn’t wait for my answer as we both understand it to be a rhetorical question.
‘At first John and I thought that perhaps Cristian had been so unbalanced by what had happened that he was doing something, catching things and killing them and leaving them for us to find, like some cry for help. But the more we thought about it the more this didn’t make any sense. After all, at some of the places we were first time visitors and yet there they were. Dead animals.’
I have no idea what to say but I ‘m desperately hoping that this story has a happy ending.
‘So what was it then?’
Aunt May sits back and adopts a more relaxed posture which goes someway to dispelling the weirdness of all this. Open palms turn toward me to let me know that she isn’t holding anything back as she gives me her answer.
‘Rose, I have no idea. But when Cristian told me about you and the squirrel, well I couldn’t help but think that maybe something is happening again, like before.’
Finally some light at the end of this rather dark and depressing tunnel that has so far managed to shut out what was shaping up to be a beautiful and crisp autumn day. Because here’s the thing; I saw the animal die. One minute it was alive, the next it was dead and so, even if Cristian had been somehow responsible as a child for what happened to those other creatures, he absolutely had nothing to do with killing that squirrel. And so what if he was a little screwed up as a kid? Is it really any surprise that he spent a summer snuffing out a few little rodents? If that’s what he needed to do to start to fix himself after losing everything in such horrible circumstances, then that’s fine by me.
Aunt May nods as I explain the flaw in her conviction that some unspoken, mouse murdering evil has risen again. Nods, but as it turns out, not in acceptance of new evidence because my rebuttal actually reinforces her position, a position that she (rather sneakily I might add, given the open handed gestures) hadn’t yet fully developed.
‘And Rose, I would happily leave it there, truly I would because I love Cristian just as much as you do, believe me. It’s just I can’
t, not until I’ve told you one more tale about Cristian as a boy.’
Chapter 8
‘Tell you what Pete, I‘ve been in some shit holes in my time but this really does take the biscuit mate. What on earth have you been doing in here dude!’
The voice in Pete’s head is his own. Maybe a little deeper and with more of a gruff edge about it but it’s easily recognizable as his own; like he sometimes sounds after a heavy come down. And unnerving as it is, the appearance of the voice this morning is no real surprise. Pete is well versed about the possibility that he would hear it one day. The cocktail of narcotics that he had taken over the past three years, whilst existing exclusively inside a continuous haze of marijuana, had made it inevitable. Still, surprising or not, the clarity and lucidness of the voice is shocking enough to stick him to his sofa.
‘Yep, I haven’t seen a head this trashed for a long long time. Have to go way back to the absinthe dens to find a mind so truly in need of such a complete rewire pal. Then again, it’s not like you didn’t know what this shit was doing to you is it? So don’t expect any sympathy from me, no sir.’
Pete hasn’t got the capacity to understand what is happening fully or the courage just yet to speak out loud. He does know though that if he did talk (tell it to go away) and the voice talked back, then that would constitute a conversation. Such a dialogue couldn’t be risked as that would lead him one step further down the road that leads to the nut house. It’s a step that Pete isn’t ready to take so he stays still, pinned to his settee and listening with wide open eyes.
‘Anyway Pete, I ain’t here to bum you out so I’ll cut the crap and get to the point. Here’s the deal. In about, ooh let me see, ten minutes or so, there’s gonna be a copper knockin’ at your door. Now don’t panic dude, he ain’t looking for your stash or nothing, he just wants to chat to you about that bitch Ruby. See he, and a few others come to mention it, think you might know more than you’re letting on about what’s happened to her. That slag Rose has got ‘em all wound up you see, got ‘em thinking that you did something to her Pete. Imagine? Don’t they realise how much she meant to you and that it’s her that’s done the dirty on you, runnin’ off like that without so much as a goodbye? Anyway, they’re reckoning that it would be a good idea for you to help ‘em out, get in the car and go for a drive up to Hartford Heights to show ‘em stuff. But we don’t want to do that do we Pete.’
Pete really doesn’t. He hates the police and at the moment, he hates Ruby too. He allows himself the slightest of nods.
‘So here’s what we’re going to do instead Pete. But before I take you through it, we’re gonna need some paper and a pen.’
Pete doesn’t move.
‘Now now Pete, come on. Time’s a tickin’ and Mr Plod’ll be here soon enough. Don’t want them crawling all over your dodgy dealings do we? And if that bitch Ruby turns up and gets to tell ‘em her side of what ever story she’s concocting, before you get a chance to give your side? Well who knows, you could be in a whole world of hurt don’t you think? I tell you pal, can’t be trusted, any of ‘em and especially not her. They are after you Pete, believe me when I tell you this. They want to put you away, for a long long time with whatever bullshit charges they can stick on you. You need to get ahead of the game Pete and the game starts in about nine minutes. So come on, shake a leg and let’s get on with it eh? There’s a boy.’
Pete shakes his head vigorously at the thought of prison. That particular nightmare, above all else, is the one he fears. Grabbing the arm of the sofa he pushes himself up to go to the kitchen. Not because he’s been told to do this though but because he has to do something different, something to re-occupy his mind and repel what ever it is that has invaded it. Convinced that he’s only going to the cupboards to get cereal and that he isn’t doing anything that the voice desires, Pete trudges off. He’s soon back, sat ready on the settee; paper on knee and pen poised with not a cornflake in sight.
‘Nice one dude and hey, I’m really sorry about this but I forgot to mention something else we’re gonna need. Don’t mind do you? Good lad. Now nip and get that rope for us will ya, the one in the cupboard under the stairs. Chop chop now Pete, they’re nearly here.’
Chapter 9
My head is in bits. This is no good at all. I can’t concentrate and it’s absolutely pointless me being here. Perhaps if I asked Mr Wainright nicely he’ll give me half a day’s sick leave. Then again, would I be any better off at home, sat alone and waiting for a seven thirty dinner date with Cristian and his friends? If I was to be honest with myself I can do without turning up tonight. Not that I believe Aunt May’s story. Well the story maybe, parts of t probably did happen as she told it but to imply that about Cristian? I’m not sure I could sit across the table and enjoy her company so soon, if ever. Then again, suppose I don’t show up and she chips in with her idea why I’m a no show. What would Cristian think then? I bet she is well capable of leaning him towards the idea that I did believe her and that I don’t want to see him.
‘Damn it!’
‘Rose, are you okay?’
For once my inability to keep my mouth from acting was a good thing and I decided to take the opportunity it presented to feign stomach cramps. I had been wishing that mum would be home but she isn’t back from her fortnightly raid on Tesco’s yet. It was a long shot anyway, hoping that she might have remembered some morsel of gossip to corroborate Aunt May’s assertion that there was something very strange about Cristian.
Okay, let’s look at the facts again. Aunt May’s ring had gone missing. Fact. She had looked for it for over three hours in the garden where she last remembers having it. Fact. She had returned to the house and found Cristian sat watching television having completed his homework. Fact. But would someone really bother to interrogate a kid about a ring that had been lost whilst he was at school? Wouldn’t a normal routine for a young lad (desperate to watch his favorite program) be to dash upstairs, scribble school work, dash to kitchen, collect drink and then dash to telly? Aunt May admitted as much when I asked her if Cristian had been in the garden and she told me that he hadn’t been outside at all, not even to say hi, I’m home. On the other hand, I suppose the art of straw clutching demands that a person leaves no stone unturned, no matter how unlikely it is that a nugget will be found there. I’ll put that down as a possible fact then but here comes the tricky bit. Cristian apparently, without looking away from the television, had given her a clue about where the ring was, and what a smoking gun that turned out to be. As best as I can remember, he’d said that she should look behind the apple tree where there are two holes in the dirt made by Uncle John’s ladder. More specific than that he had narrowed it down further by telling his aunt that the hole nearest to the shed is covered by a leaf and that the ring would be in there. Oh come on Aunt May, who the hell do you think you are kidding here! Bull shit lady, absolutely not fact! Of course though, according to the story the ring had been found exactly where Cristian said it would be and naturally there had been a dead mouse involved too, its paws stretched out stiff across the leaf Actually, I think Aunt May even mentioned having to move the mouse before recovering the jewelry. Fact? I’m not so sure. Putting the mouse right at the crime scene is a little too convenient, especially as this happens to be one of the most critical parts of the evidence. There is definitely motive to exaggerate here and thinking about this some more, wouldn’t she have noticed that furry little stiff earlier, during the three hours she had been searching? Surely this overly tidy woman would have been drawn to the hole by the dead animal and felt compelled to bin it immediately. Whether that would have uncovered the ring or not doesn’t really matter because either way, the mouse shouldn’t still have been there when she followed up on Cristian’s instructions. Now that is a fact lady! But then again, this little anomaly doesn’t quite live up to its early promise of being a bullshit busting show stopper because Aunt May wasn’t claiming that the mouse had taken the ring, only that Cristian had some how �
�sensed’ it there. Yes, that was the exact term she had used. Cristian had sensed where the ring had landed through some kind of connection with the mouse, just like he had connected with the squirrel that night to know that I had arrived at the gates. Brrrrr, this conclusion of Aunt May’s still makes me shiver and I’m on my way to the kitchen to get warming, comforting soup when the phone rings.