by Mark Morris
“Nothin’ ’ere now,” he said unnecessarily when he and Jack were standing in the hallway again.
“No,” said Jack with a shrug. “Thanks a lot, Gerard. I’m sorry to have interrupted your evening.”
The big man seemed embarrassed by the apology. “No problem,” he murmured. “No problem at all. Always glad to ’elp.” He clumped to the door and stepped outside. Before walking away he turned back and shyly offered Jack a few words of advice. “I’d ’ave a wander about if I were you an’ see if there’s anythin’ missin’, then you’d be best callin’ the police and lettin’ ’em know someone’s been ’ere. It’s probably nowt, just kids who’d heard about the old . . . yer dad, and thought the ’ouse’d be empty. But it’s always best to let the police know. We’re a bit isolated out ’ere.” He raised an arm and began to walk away. “Aye, well, it’s been nice seein’ yer. You’ll pop round again before yer go back, I ’ope.”
“Yes,” said Jack, doubting that he would. “Good night, Gerard. And thanks again. I really appreciate your help.”
He waited until Gerard was a vast lumbering silhouette before he closed the door. Too late, he thought about asking the big man for his phone number, and pulled the door open again, but Gerard had been swallowed by the darkness. Sighing, Jack pushed the door closed and, after a moment’s hesitation, locked it. He stood for a moment in the hallway, listening, but apart from the distant moan of the wind the house was silent.
He picked up the telephone receiver and tentatively placed it to his ear. All he heard was the idiot burr of the dial tone. He dialed Gail’s number and waited, half-expecting the connection to be broken at any moment, his father’s rasping voice to reach for him across the emptiness. But the phone simply trilled softly like before, on and on. No answering machine. No reply.
Where was she? She’d said she was going to be in tonight. He hoped she was okay. He made more tea and carried it through to the sitting room. If he didn’t feel so on edge, if this house didn’t have such bad associations for him, this room would have been cosy, despite the death of the fire. Jack wondered whether to build another, but decided to leave it for the moment. There was enough residual warmth in the room, and besides, he was feeling pretty beat—hardly surprising after all that had happened. He put the telly on, turned up the volume, then flopped onto the settee. He sat there for a long time, drinking tea and staring at the telly, watching whatever was on. The loudest programmes were the best—a quick-moving comedy with canned laughter, a debate about the social service’s handling of child abuse cases—for they allowed no other sounds to breach their voluble defences. So reluctant was Jack to move that he ignored the urge to pee for as long as possible. At last, though, heart beating quickly, he ventured upstairs, locking the bathroom door as he emptied his bladder. Downstairs again, he built himself a fire and stretched out on the settee to watch a late film starring Harrison Ford. Somewhere in the middle his eyes began to close. When he opened them again it was morning.
He felt cold, stiff and disoriented. Dawn was bleeding the curtains of colour, diluting the hard yellow glow of the table lamps with its own insipid light. Last night, despite his tiredness, he wouldn’t have thought he could have slept, or at least not deeply. However, the fact that he had managed a solid six hours seemed to have done him little good. He felt groggy and ponderous, his head ached, his limbs were sluggish. Sleep was a vampire that continued to cling to him and wouldn’t let go. He felt enervated rather than refreshed by it.
At least the daylight took the edge off his fear. The house was bearable with sunshine pouring through the window, especially if he filled the silence with music. Jack realised his hair was still matted with dried mud; there were flakes of it all over the settee. He dragged himself into the bathroom and ran himself a hot bath. He stripped off and sank into the steaming water, groaning at the sheer pleasure of it.
Almost immediately, his eyelids drooped closed. When he next woke the water was still warm, but only just. As though moving in slow motion, he leaned across and twisted the hot water tap. The water was cold at first; he tugged out the plug with his feet, allowing some of it to drain away. When he found his optimum temperature he washed his hair, then soaped himself slowly. After his bath he went into his bedroom and changed into fresh clothes, then went back downstairs. Despite his efforts to wake he still felt muffled, inert, as though trying to shake off the effects of an anaesthetic. He built a fire, smoked a cigarette in front of it as he listened to the birds. Anywhere else, he thought again, and this would be idyllic—the dawn light sharpening and brightening as it filtered through the window; the land awakening; the start of a new day, full of promise.
For breakfast he ate cornflakes, toast with honey, and drank two cups of tea. He remembered the vow he’d made yesterday to go for a run this morning. The way he felt now, it seemed like a bad joke. Nevertheless, the breaking of his promise to himself niggled him. He decided to compromise; he’d go for a stroll, acquaint himself with nature. After last night it was just what he needed. He pulled on his leather jacket and let himself out of the house at 7:45 A.M. He thought of everything he had to do before the end of the day—solicitor, registrar, undertaker. Even without last night’s events he needed a few lungfuls of fresh air before dealing with that little lot.
The air was more than fresh, it was fragrant. The sky was so clear that he was filled with a delicious sense of insignificance, of his problems receding into its vastness. He breathed deeply, filling his lungs. He smiled; already he could feel his fear melting away.
He turned right outside the gate, towards the woods where he had played as a child. Patty Bates had soured the sanctity of this place for him, yet Jack could now sense its innate benevolence, its recuperative qualities. It was only the black souls of human beings that stained this place, and then only temporarily—their actions were petty and quickly consumed. When Jack turned off Daisy Lane into the woods, about a mile further on, he was immediately embraced by its calmness, the smell of its life, its verdancy.
The ground was lush, springy beneath his feet. Sunlight slanted through gaps in the trees, dappling the ground. Jack wondered how he would describe such an effect, how such beauty could be captured by the written word. Like interchanging coins of shimmering gold, he thought, and then shook his head; no, too clichéd. The textures were richer, more vibrant, the light was tenuous and yet, simultaneously, almost palpable, like honey. It was as though the trees had somehow distilled the light, drawn its essence down through their leaves in strands that pooled on the grass. Words, images, crowded Jack’s mind, all of which sold their subject woefully short. How, he wondered, do you describe the immaculate? There were no words, or combinations of words, that would suffice.
Walking, he felt a part of all this, part of the grand design. It was how he had always felt as a child, the only place where he felt he slotted in. Thankfully, that feeling was commonplace to him now. In London he felt he was a central piece in a jigsaw. The components of his life—his flat, his work, his relationships, London itself—fit snugly around him, forming a neatly interlinked pattern, a perfect self-contained circle. It was only Beckford and his memories of it that impinged on this circle, that scraped at the edges of it and occasionally drew blood. It was only his past that prevented him being truly happy.
He sat on a grassy bank beneath the languid trees, the winking sun, and told himself that this was the ideal opportunity to pluck the thorn from his flesh. So far he’d been backpedalling, had allowed his fear of this place to come at him. What he had to do was attack, to laugh in his father’s dead face and Patty Bates’ live one, to “lay a few ghosts” as both Gail and his aunt had termed it.
It was easy sitting here planning all this. The difficult part would be to defy the voice on the phone at the dead of night, to storm from room to room, throwing open doors, at the sound of footsteps. Now, in the daylight, he wondered again whether he really had seen his father. Though he’d always regarded the supernatural with an
open mind, even with sympathy, he found it hard to accept the existence of a real M. R. James/Algernon Blackwood-type ghost. He actually smiled at the idea, as though it were somehow quaint. Already he felt better, equipped to face whatever challenges the day held. He stood up, brushed grass seeds from his jeans, and began to stroll back the way he had come.
Later that morning he visited the solicitor, who explained that his father had died intestate and his affairs would probably take two to three months to sort out. Jack made a note of all the documents the solicitor required and promised he’d do his best to find them. Next, he went to register his father’s death, and watched as the registrar, a hunched gnome-like man with sparse stringy hair, scribbled down the details.
Jack found it scary and sad that what a life amounted to, in official terms, was simply three pieces of paper documenting details of birth, marriage and death. It all seemed so final and pointless, so unfeelingly efficient. It was a sharp reminder, if one was needed, that life was short and that there were no happy endings.
He was pleased to see Georgina at lunchtime, though she commented immediately on how tired he looked. Jack admitted that he hadn’t slept well, and simply grunted noncommitally when she remarked that she too always found it difficult to sleep in a strange bed for the first time. He told her about his morning, relayed as succinctly as he could what the solicitor and registrar had said. She nodded airily, as though it was all routine, but Jack suspected she was relieved he was dealing with the legalities.
For lunch she made gammon steaks, roasted potatoes, green beans, carrots and gravy. Jack couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten red meat; nowadays he found it heavy and salty. Nevertheless, he was touched by the trouble she had gone to and ate with gusto, murmuring sounds of appreciation. By the time she produced an enormous rhubarb crumble and a vat of custard, he was sated, but forced himself to exclaim, “Oh, wonderful!”
Over tea, he steered the conversation toward Tracey Bates. “I met her last night,” he said, “when I popped in to the Seven Stars for a drink.”
“Oh, yes? And what did you think of her?”
“She’s . . . ,” Jack dithered an instant between adjectives, “very headstrong, isn’t she?”
Georgina laughed, as if Jack had made the understatement of the year. “Yes,” she agreed, “she is headstrong. Wild, some would say. I expect you’ll have found out who her dad is then?”
“Patty Bates,” said Jack, grimacing.
Georgina nodded. “He used to bully you at school, didn’t he?”
“Yeah.” Jack ran a finger around the rim of his teacup. “I guess he must have changed now, though? I mean, he’s grown up, hasn’t he? He’s got responsibilities.”
“Oh, he hasn’t changed that much,” said Georgina. “He’s still an oaf and a bully. I’ll say this for him, though—he dotes on that daughter of his. She wants for nothing, that one, can twist her father round her little finger like a piece of string.”
“And what about Mrs. Bates?” Immediately an image came to Jack’s mind of Norman’s mother in Psycho, a mummified husk in the fruit cellar.
“Oh, she was a real beauty,” Georgina said. “She came from York, I think. Goodness knows how the two of them started courting. Whenever I saw her, even just shopping in the village, she’d be dressed up to the nines and plastered with makeup as if she had something to prove. From what I hear she and Patrick didn’t get along very well—I don’t expect they had very much in common. There were all sorts of stories: screaming matches in public, physical violence, even talk of her having had an affair with some businessman from Leeds. I never actually spoke to the woman, but from all accounts she was very high and mighty. She hated being referred to as a pub landlady, and she regarded Beckford as a horrible little backwater and the villagers as nothing but peasants. I think she wanted Patrick to pull up his roots and move back to York with her, and when he refused she left him.”
“When was this?” Jack asked.
“Let’s see—Tracey was about . . . ten then, and she’s seventeen now. I’d say around ninety-seven, give or take a year.”
“And Patty got custody of the child?”
“Yes. You see, the pub was in Patrick’s name and Mrs. Bates didn’t work except for behind the bar. Besides, this is where Tracey was born and bred. She was at school here, she had all her friends here, and it was not as if Mrs. Bates could provide Tracey with a stable environment. I think she went back to live with her parents. I don’t know what became of her after that.”
“Tracey never talks about her?”
“I don’t know her that well. She only got in touch and offered to help with the house because she heard that you were coming back to Beckford and she’d read all your books.”
Jack nodded, a little troubled. He couldn’t make Tracey out. From what he had seen of her, her behaviour was erratic, and dangerously so. His aunt made it sound as if she was simply a harmless fan, all eager and starry-eyed, but in the pub last night she’d been offhand, even arrogant. Such behaviour could perhaps have been seen as a defence against shyness if it hadn’t been for the incident later that evening. Had he upset her in some way to make her act like that? Or had she been trying to prove something? Maybe the business with the condom was intended to be some kind of clumsy sexual advance. If so, her seductive methods left a great deal to be desired. He thought briefly of John Lennon, of fans so obsessed that they would kill the people they adored so their names would become inextricably linked with their hero’s. If the thought wasn’t so alarming it would have been hilarious. Him, Jack Stone, the idol of a deranged sex kitten? Come off it!
“I expect her parents’ break up was hard for her,” Jack said.
Georgina nodded. “I expect so. But it’s becoming the norm, isn’t it? These days people treat marriage far too lightly. I don’t want to sound like an old duffer, Jack, but when I was younger, you only married someone if you were certain you wanted to spend your life with them. Divorce was a dirty word back then; there was a stigma attached to it. These days anything goes. I don’t know what the world’s coming to.” She shook her head, then released a croaky laugh. “Listen to me. I do sound like an old duffer.”
Jack laughed too. “Never,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned, you’ll always be fab and groovy.”
Their conversation drifted away from the topic of Tracey and Patty Bates. Jack reminisced about people he’d known and Georgina brought him up to date with potted histories and the occasional caustic comment. Beckford was not exactly Twin Peaks, nor even Coronation Street; the general trend seemed to be for a stodgy continuity that Jack found stifling. Not that he was opposed to community life—far from it—but the place seemed drained of all colour, all innovation. It had become so introverted that it had, in Jack’s opinion, disappeared up its own backside. People had got older, got ill, got married, had children, died, but none of them had actually done anything. No one had gone on a safari to Africa, become an Olympic athlete, had a sex change operation, robbed a bank. In Beckford, such movers and shakers were not encouraged, and indeed Jack felt as though his own achievements were generally frowned upon. He was an impudent upstart who had drawn unwelcome attention, albeit minimal, to the village in which he had been born. And now he was back like the prodigal son, come to weep crocodile tears at the graveside of a father he had never loved.
Jack wondered how much of this was in his imagination and how much was true. He looked at his watch and was surprised to find it was almost two-twenty. “I’d better get going,” he said. “I’ve got to see the undertaker this afternoon, make all the final arrangements.”
“I’ll come with you if you don’t mind,” Georgina said, pushing herself up from her chair as if Jack were already leaving. “I wanted to see your father again before Thursday.”
She made it sound like a social call. “Of course I don’t mind,” he said, though in truth he was reluctant for his aunt to accompany him. She had always been such a rock in his eyes that he
hated the prospect of seeing her grieve. It would be like seeing her naked, totally vulnerable, and what would make it worse would be his own inability to share her tears.
Locking the front door behind her, she asked, “Will you be wanting to see your father, Jack?”
It was a question he had asked himself. If he did see his father, it would not be to say good-bye, but merely to confirm that he was dead, and somehow that seemed like the wrong reason. “I don’t know,” he replied.
“Well, it’s your choice,” Georgina said neutrally. “Don’t feel as though you have to.”
They drove to the funeral home in tense and contemplative silence, Georgina squeezing a handkerchief in her right hand as if in readiness. The undertaker, Jeremy Coombs, had clear blue eyes and a snow-white beard; Jack wondered whether he hired himself out as Father Christmas at children’s parties. When he spoke it was softly, leaning forward so you could smell the Listerine on his breath. Perhaps, thought Jack, he was afraid that if he raised his voice it might rouse the dear departed from their slumber. He and Jack discussed the financial arrangements as Georgina sat mutely by. She had already chosen the wood for the coffin and the music for the ceremony. Jack concurred with her choice in a library-soft murmur. Final details were ironed out—flowers, cars—and then Coombs placed his hands together and asked if they now wished to view the deceased.
Jack hesitated, staring at Coombs. Then he became aware that his aunt was nodding her head and, almost grudgingly, followed her lead. Coombs led the two of them along a wood-panelled corridor, opened a door and ushered them inside. They found themselves in a tiny room that was simply furnished, austere even. A table supported two white candles and an arrangement of artificial flowers. The candlelight was supplemented by the light of a fluorescent strip along the far wall, which was itself muted by a wooden pelmet so as not to dazzle tear-spangled eyes. The coffin stood at waist height on a velvet-draped platform in the middle of the room. Jack approached it.