Play Dead

by Peter Dickinson

  She was looking more drawn these days, Poppy felt, sadder, disillusioned. The decision to leave Sabina Road must have been a wrench

  The reverie was interrupted by Laura, bursting into Sue’s epic.

  ‘You don’t have to go on!’ she snapped. ‘They’re all like that, all of them! I could tell you things!’

  They looked at her, startled. Just as clearly as Poppy she didn’t belong to the culture which finds itself being harried by the police. You’d have thought her main experience of them was having the traffic held up so that she could push her pram across the road. She faced their stares undaunted.

  ‘Once they’ve decided to pick on you you’ve not got a hope,’ she said.

  They waited.

  ‘That’s all. I’m not saying any more. Take it from me! And that’s enough of that rubbish for the children. We don’t want them getting square-eyed, do we?’

  Without waiting for assent she rose and switched the TV off, leaving the video running. There were cries of protest from the children—even those whose vocabulary was still at the ‘More’ and ‘No’ stage contributed their vehement monosyllables. She faced them down with the full authority of the Victorian nursery.

  ‘That’s enough of that,’ she snapped. ‘One hour a day is all you get. You know what will happen otherwise? Your brains will go soft and your willies will fall off.’

  Four of the nine infants were girls, but the tone of the threat was enough to quell the rebellion. Grumblingly they began to disperse to other amusements. The adults glanced at each other. There was something uncontrolled about Laura’s behaviour, quite different from the release into wild laughter earlier. Was she drunk, Poppy wondered? On the verge of a breakdown? Didn’t she, in this day and age, understand what she might be doing, saying things like that? Poor little Nick watching his favourite programmes, desperately clutching his crotch as he did so to keep everything in place? Had Toby understood? If so, would his fear of the event outweigh his interest in observing the phenomenon? Perhaps one worried too much.

  The rain became heavier, and the drip increased to a thin stream into the bucket, which needed emptying every ten minutes, an activity that attracted the children’s attention—indoor water-games—so that conversation became impossible until fresh rules were evolved and understood. During this process Mrs Simpson appeared, all charm and laughter.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ she said, gazing at the leak from the ceiling, ‘I thought it was supposed to have been fixed.’

  She gave a lively little shrug, like a comedy actress, and turned to the children. At least she was able to recognise her own son, though Pete seemed in some doubt about who she might be. Mostly the children ignored her advances but Sophie, Laura’s older charge, responded gravely to her questions. Poppy caught a snatch of the conversation.

  ‘… a theatre designer! How fascinating! And does Mummy take you to a lot of lovely plays?’

  ‘Not a lot.’

  It was a bit like a royal visit. Though the nannies didn’t actually line up to curtsy and shake hands the introductions had some of that stiffness and unreality, as though Mrs Simpson, with her yacht and her winter tan, belonged to a world too alien for the others to contemplate. Laura, indeed, glared at her hostess as though she was about to burst out with some wild rambling grievance, like one of those eccentrics who believe that a few words from the monarch will right their own ancient and intolerable wrongs. Mercifully she managed to hold her peace.

  Still smiling, but now concerned and sympathetic, Mrs Simpson turned to Poppy.

  ‘And you’re the one this silly man tried to follow?’ she said. ‘I wonder if you’d mind coming and having a few words with my husband. He’s a bit worried. And with us being here so little …’

  ‘Of course. I’ll just explain to Toby.’

  They crossed the garden under Mrs Simpson’s umbrella, which she managed to share in such a way that drips from its rim fell on Poppy’s shoulder. She led the way upstairs, and opened a door. From higher still Poppy caught the plop of leakage into yet another bucket. A man was standing at the window, staring out over the roof of the playroom at the sodden park beyond.

  ‘This is Mrs Tasker, darling,’ said Mrs Simpson. ‘She’s the one Sue was telling us about at breakfast.’

  He turned. You would have known he was a sailor, Poppy thought, wherever you’d met him and whatever he was wearing. It wasn’t just the weathered face and under-the-chin beard (no shaving the tricky bits with the boat heaving around). There was also something about the stance, and the strong, half-contemptuous look. He was older than she’d expected, fiftyish, so a dozen or more years older than his wife. Bald on top, the scalp sun-mottled. Plump, wearing an old grey jersey, slacks, sandals on sockless feet.

  ‘Lovely climate,’ he said.

  ‘The playroom roof’s leaking too, I’m afraid,’ said Mrs Simpson.

  ‘I’ll get up there if I’ve got time. Hello. And what can you tell us?’

  ‘You’re worried about Pete, Mrs Simpson says.’

  ‘If she says so then I am. She’s the boss.’

  ‘I don’t think you need be. Sue is an absolutely first-class girl—she’s really fond of him and very responsible …’

  ‘Wouldn’t have hired her, otherwise.’

  ‘And, well, men who are interested in small children—I’m afraid you’re never going to stop that, and of course they turn up at the playground from time to time. As soon as it’s clear that’s what they are the play-leader rings the police, who get someone along almost at once. It’s upsetting, of course, but …’

  ‘One of them tried to follow you home.’

  ‘Yes. I admit that was rather more disturbing, but it’s only happened once, and now he’s …’

  ‘Not in a position to do it again. Good riddance. OK, begin at the beginning. There you all were, and the fellow turned up. What next?’

  He stared intently at Poppy while she explained, grunting impatient understanding every third sentence.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘That bit’s clear. So you didn’t see him again till yesterday. Then what?

  ‘Well, I only think it was him …’

  Again she explained what she’d seen, but this time not what Jim had told her. It was no business of his, and she resented his manner, his lifestyle, his neglect of his children. She’d already told Sue. She would explain again about it being confidential, and leave it to Sue whether to pass on the rest. What did it have to do with any possible threat to Pete?

  ‘And what are the cops making of it?’ he said.

  ‘They don’t tell you. They just ask questions.’

  ‘Haven’t got a clue themselves, of course. What did he look like, then? White? Yellow? Green? Any sign of drugs? I ask myself, you see, who’d do a thing like that? It’s not how I’d dispose of a body, nor you, neither. But a group of young layabouts on a high, and one of them takes an overdose and the rest are all pooped out of their minds, they might take it into their heads to ferry him along there. You follow?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know about drugs. He had bright red blotches on his cheeks.’

  ‘Did he now? Did he now? Then that’s something else. That’s a faulty water heater, maybe. Or maybe he did himself in with vehicle exhaust. Then you’ve got someone who doesn’t want him found where he is—drugs again, maybe, or some other reason …’

  He rasped his fingers through his beard, meditating possibilities.

  ‘Oh, that would make it all so much better,’ said Mrs Simpson. ‘I mean if it was an accident …’

  Reluctant though she was to agree with her about anything, Poppy felt the same. How long does it take to disinfect a horror? A murder on that very spot, with deliberate cruelty—decades at least, your own whole lifetime, maybe. A suicide in the place—a year or two, perhaps. An accident elsewhere, with the body brought to the play centre only as a kin
d of clownish aftermath to a life that could never have had much to offer … perhaps in a few weeks’ time she would be able to sit in the hut, oblivious among the clamour of lives just begun.

  ‘There’s still someone around with a nasty sense of humour,’ said Mr Simpson. ‘If the papers have got it right, what they’re hinting at.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Poppy, involuntarily forthcoming in her relief.

  ‘Not so?’ he said softly, staring her in the eyes.

  ‘Well … no … I don’t believe so.’

  He didn’t press her any further, apart from continuing to stare at her with a pleased, meditative hum.

  ‘And they still don’t know who he was?’ said Mrs Simpson.

  ‘Not as far as I know. I’m afraid that’s all I’ve got to tell you, and I really ought to go back and look after Toby. Look, shall I give you my telephone number? Then if you’re worried about anything while you’re away …’

  ‘Oh, that’s very kind of you,’ said Mrs Simpson, ‘but it’s all right. My mother’s only too pleased to have an excuse for a trip to London. Thank you so much for being so helpful. Can you find your own way down? Goodbye.’

  Poppy was glad to leave, if not to be so perfunctorily dismissed. She used the umbrella to get herself across the garden, and found only Laura and Little Sue and the four relevant children still in the playroom. Nick was in tears, Toby having apparently tempted him into a jumping-off-sofa competition and then jumped on top of him, but Laura was brusque and uncomforting with him. It was still comparatively early, but Poppy felt, as the others seemed to have done, that in this filthy weather it would be best to get home, dry off and snug down. Toby had other ideas, and by the time Poppy had cajoled him into his all-in-one and then into the push-chair Laura had her two ready. She herself seemed to have come in nothing but a head­scarf and light tweed coat, both still sopping from the outward trip, but Sue had found her a plastic mac with a hood. Sue opened the door out into the park and together Laura and Poppy made for the nearest stretch of tarmac path. The squelching turf was so soft that they had to turn and drag the push-chairs through it, with Sophie, in yellow sou’wester and scarlet boots, picking her way disdainfully between the puddles behind. It was hard work, but it didn’t stop Laura now, after almost unbroken silence in the playroom apart from her outburst about the police, suddenly wanting to talk.

  ‘What did they want, Mrs Tasker? What did they want with you?’

  ‘Just to find out if I knew anything. It’s their job, after all.’

  ‘Their job, indeed! They haven’t got a job! Not unless you count sailing around in that stupid boat.’

  ‘Oh, the Simpsons, you mean. I thought … Well, Mrs Simpson seemed a bit worried about Peter …’

  ‘Stuff and nonsense. She isn’t worried about anyone. Herself’s the only person she thinks about. They’re all like that. None of them care for anyone but themselves!’

  She spoke with savagery. Poppy was not as startled as she might have been, having read that Laura’s employer, the theatre designer Mary Pitalski, was far from easy to deal with. Many nannies, finding themselves expected, in addition to their practical duties, to become a stop-gap and dispensable substitute love figure for the children of under-involved parents, must have felt much the same kind of rage at times. To change the subject Poppy gestured with her head towards the play centre, now over to their right. A caped figure guarded the gate, the only sign of human life in the sodden park. Nothing seemed to be happening around the hut.

  ‘I wonder how long before we can have it back,’ she said.

  ‘I’m not going there. Never again. Never,’ said Laura.

  Poppy glanced at her. The normally solemn face was like stone. Her hood had half blown back and the rain streamed down her face unheeded. This wasn’t anger at her employer, Poppy realised, or squeamishness at the idea of closeness to a stranger’s death; and after all he should have meant even less to Laura than he had to the others—he hadn’t been there on the day he’d come to the play centre. Still, unmistakably, and accounting for the rest of her behaviour that afternoon, this was grief.

  Laura straightened and shook the water from her face, like a queen turning from the body of her murdered lover to resume the dreadful destiny of empire.

  ‘I shall take the children to Holland Park,’ she announced.

  NOVEMBER 1989

  1

  The concert was sub-minimalist, slithering chords and plangent or spiky half-phrases dropped into reaches of silence. A cough from among the sparse audience was both blasphemy and relief. At the interval the stir and shuffle of release from stillness was the most satisfactory sound Poppy had heard for an hour. Mr Capstone glanced at her with a look of ferocious amusement.

  ‘Enjoying this?’

  ‘Not much.’

  ‘Let’s go.’

  Most of the rest of the audience seemed to be making the same decision. A large woman about Poppy’s age had fallen asleep—the composer’s mother? she wondered. Would her snores mitigate the silences in the second half? It wasn’t worth staying to see.

  The hall was in an unfamiliar bit of North Islington. They came out into a dark side-street. Late though it was in the year Poppy still couldn’t smell the coming winter. ‘Not a lot to say about that,’ said Mr Capstone.

  ‘I thought he was just teasing.’

  ‘His earlier work was more interesting. I saw a pizza place in the main road.’

  ‘There’s some food at home, if you’d prefer. I’m fairly sure no one’s been watching. I think it was probably that poor young man they found in the play centre, and he’s dead now.’

  ‘I have to meet someone in central London later.’

  ‘Then I’d love a pizza. You haven’t seen him again?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The man who tried to follow you.’

  ‘Wouldn’t recognise him if I had. Some drifter. Probably wanting to beg off me. I was more worried for you.’

  ‘That’s nice of you,’ said Poppy, though this had been far from her impression at the time.

  The restaurant was busy. It would clearly be a while before anyone came for their order.

  ‘You had to identify the body, I gather,’ he said.

  ‘Not exactly identify. They still don’t know who he was, I believe. His beard had been shaved, to make it harder, I suppose. But I’m fairly sure it was the man who’d followed us. How’s Deborah? Toby’s been asking for her.’

  ‘You haven’t seen her?’

  ‘Well, we’ve rung a couple of times, but … this is a bit awkward, I’m afraid. I’m probably just imagining things. I got the impression that your wife didn’t want to be involved with anyone from the play centre for the moment. Because of the publicity, I suppose. It’s quite understandable. I’m sure my daughter-in-law would feel the same.’

  ‘You’re mistaken. At least I know Deborah was asked to play with some children in Barnsley Square, because we picked her and the girl up from there yesterday on my way home. A house with a ridiculous, inappropriate mural on its garage door.’

  ‘That’s Mary Pitalski’s. You know, the theatre designer.’

  Poppy felt a twitch of irritable jealousy on Toby’s behalf. Deborah had nothing in common with Nick or Sophie, and Mrs Capstone’s brush-off on the telephone, though polite, had been unmistakable.

  He seemed to have read her thought.

  ‘Deborah has been going to the Holland Park play group,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, well, they’ll have met there. I know Laura was planning to go.’

  ‘Do you want me to intervene on your grandson’s behalf? I wouldn’t normally do so.’

  ‘Oh, no. I’ll try again when this has died down.’

  He nodded, apparently relieved, and changed the subject.

  ‘I’ve cheated you of your Polish conversation.’


  ‘Let’s leave it till next time. I’m not up to conversation yet. I can rattle away in German, though. That’s really coming back to me.’

  ‘You would outpace me then. I no more than get along in German.’

  ‘How many languages do you speak?’

  ‘Speak well? English, Romanian, Polish, Italian. Tolerably, French and Russian, and maybe German. I smatter a few others—Hungarian, Greek …’

  ‘What’s Romanian like?’

  ‘Latin-based. You wouldn’t find it difficult. You seem to have chosen a good time to learn Polish.’

  ‘Haven’t I? It’s getting even more exciting what’s happening there.’

  ‘In so far as anything extremely dangerous is likely to be exciting.’

  ‘I didn’t mean like that. I meant thrilling, wonderful. All those East Germans flooding across the borders. And the Czechs demonstrating like that. And even the Bulgarians, I saw. It’s like ice-floes breaking in the spring.’

  ‘Or like the groan of an avalanche about to loose itself from a frozen mountain.’

  ‘You don’t think it’s going to be all right?’

  ‘Politically, I agree with you. The sense of human freedom, human responsibility. But economically I fear the worst. The economies of all those countries are in a far worse state than even the most pessimistic official figures allow for. They are like starving men, and we are offering them the banquet of the West. They will never be able to digest it. I don’t know how this will affect your prospects—or have you already found yourself employment?’