Fish Tale (Cliffhanger Book 2)

by T. J. Middleton

  I looked over at Torvill. I knew how she felt.

  ‘May sound funny Carol, but it’s probably the best place for him, his mum looking at him every day.’ She blew her nose.

  ‘Funny they never found his scrabble set. I would have preferred that as a memento.’ I sat forward, pushed the dictionary down between the cushions. Out of sight, out of mind.

  ‘It was strange, wasn’t it? It must have fallen out of his pocket. He did bounce a bit on the way down.’

  She started to cry.

  ‘There, there sweetheart. I’m sure he didn’t feel it, not after the first bang on the head.’

  ‘It’s not that, it’s this place. There’s nothing of me here, dad. I spent the first sixteen years of my life here and it’s like I never existed, nothing, not even a photo.’

  She was right. That’s how I had felt too, coming back. We had a connection after all, a feeling for this place. I was almost glad to see her.

  ‘You know I felt the same way, coming back from prison after four years, finding our home like this. Your mum got rid of everything when she left to set up home with that woman. Yours, mine, everything. But the good news is there’s loads of boxes and stuff up in the garage. Your old sledge, the one me and Kim made for you, that tin drum you used to drive us all mad with, loads of things. I bet that photo is up there of you wearing my chauffeur’s cap. You remember? I was going to work through them this weekend, see what’s there, bring them out, hang them up on the wall, on the mantelpiece, whatever, like…like an exhibition of things of our past, pickled so-to-speak in memory.’ God, where did I get all that from? Sometimes it just comes out even better than you would think possible. Carol’s bottom lip was quivering.

  ‘That would be nice,’ she said, wiping her eyes. ‘You know if I really thought you hadn’t done it…I mean why do you think I left so sudden with Malcolm.’ I patted her on the knee.

  ‘Fair enough. I’ll just have to convince you won’t I? I’ll admit, I don’t know how, apart from going into the next world and bringing Robin back, but if I could I would.’

  ‘Would you?’ Her eyes were all wide and watery.

  ‘Course I would. I’ve too much hanging over me darling. I’m trying to get back, with you, the community, even the fish. You remember Torvill?’ I pointed to the mantelpiece. Judging by her expression she looked real pleased to see Carol back. ‘I know. Let’s take a turn in the garden, a late night ramble. I’m restoring the pond, fish, fountain, everything. It’s going to be even better. Come and take a look.’

  We walked out into the evening. It had gone much better than I thought possible. Christ she even had her hand on my arm. What did she really think then, that I had done old Robin in, but perhaps it didn’t matter after all? The moon was up, lighting up the nymph. She might have been stone but Christ she had a figure.

  ‘Good isn’t it,’ I said. ‘Wait till I get some carp in.’

  Carol stared hard for a moment.

  ‘What’s that?’ she said, pointing.

  ‘That’s the nymph. You must remember her. Mum used to cover her up when she had her coffee mornings.’

  ‘Not her dad, that.’

  ‘Oh him. It’s my shark. My first sculpture. What do you think? I’m thinking of taking it up professionally.’

  ‘What’s it doing there?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘It’s attacking her leg, dad! Jesus Christ, you’ve got a shark biting her right leg off. Have you no feelings at all!’

  She gave me a push and stomped off.

  I walked across, patted the nymph on the head.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘There’s no pleasing some people.’

  I waited until her light went out and then snuck out, knocked on the door. Poke Nose answered almost straight away.

  ‘Al. The night owl on patrol again.’

  ‘Evening, Mrs B. Carol’s come home, did you know?’

  ‘I didn’t. That’s nice.’

  ‘Isn’t it. All the way from Australia to help her old man get back on his feet again.’

  ‘She must be tired. It’s an exhausting flight.’

  ‘That’s just it. Would you believe it. She fancies a game of scrabble. It’s the time clock thing. Doesn’t know which end the day’s up.’

  ‘Oh Al, I don’t think I’m quite up for an all night game. I’m not as young as I was.’

  ‘Not you Mrs B. Just me and her. The trouble is, we don’t have a dictionary, and she’s a stickler for the rules. I was wondering if you had. One of them pocket ones would do.’

  She went upstairs, came back down in about three minutes. It was different from Robin’s but it would have to do.

  ‘I’m stripping your house bare, Alice,’ I said, as she handed it over. ‘At this rate you’ll be nothing left.’

  ‘They’re only possessions Al. The moon is still the moon, whatever you own.’

  I went back, put Alice Blackstock’s dictionary where Robin’s had been, put Robin’s with the scrabble set in the wood burner, took a three-finger belt of whiskey and sat there in the dark, looking out. The stars were all twinkly. I’d thought about them in prison, the stars, thought about a night like this, with the moon high up and the warm summer dark and me somewhere in the middle trying to make sense of it all. Michaela’s light was still on. If Carol hadn’t been there, I’d have jumped the wall, chanced my arm, prised what I could from her, information, sex, maybe even a bite of warm steak. I was getting a taste for it all again, postcard or no.

  Her light went out. All that muscle and deceit had gone to bed, ready to dream its dreams. Somewhere out there Audrey was lying in her bed too, dreaming hers. Carol, Alice, little Mary Travers, there they all were, heads swirling in the dark. Only me and the nymph were awake, me and the nymph and Mini Ha Ha moving restless in her pool. If it was going to be done, it had to be done soon. A set-up like that was bound to start splitting at the seams if it hung around too long, especially if it had been stitched together with a lie or two. That was all right. I could handle lies, even ones sewn in by Audrey’s fair hand. In fact, I found it reassuring to recognise her handiwork. Just like old times.

  An owl called. Another one answered back. Michaela’s light went on again, then, a minute later, went off again. She was what, checking the time, reaching for a sip of water, reading a text from Nelson? Next time round it would be me that disturbed her beauty sleep. I finished my drink, went to bed.

  I was woken by someone shaking me. For a moment I thought it was my cellmate Victor, trying to get hold of poor Torvill again.

  ‘Where is it?’ he was shouting, ‘where is it?’

  I lashed out, wrapping my hand round his head, but it was all wrong, the scent and the thick head of hair. I pushed him away, my eyes adjusting to the light that came in through the door.

  ‘Carol?’

  She was standing over me, her hair all dishevelled, everything half hanging out her nightgown. I looked down. Her right leg was covered in a striped sock.

  ‘Where is it?’ She eyes were all bulgy, her face all screwed up.

  ‘Where’s what darling? Nothing’s changed here.’

  ‘The little dictionary!’

  ‘What you on about?’ Christ, that didn’t take her long.

  ‘Don’t give me that. I’ve just been dreaming about it. We were going to have a game, and we had an argument about which letter came first O or S and you pulled out the dictionary. You held it in your hands all smiling. I could see it, clear as daylight and I realised it was Robin’s. Robin’s! You had Robin’s dictionary, the one he lost along with the scrabble set, and I woke up, and knew that it wasn’t just a dream. It was Robin’s dictionary I saw last night. Robin’s! Where is it, dad? Show me! Show me!’ She grabbed at my arm again, trying to pull me out of bed. I had to wrench the sheet back. It had been too warm for the duvet.

  ‘Carol. For Christ’s sake. I’m not decent.’

  ‘I don’t care! Get up. Get up!

  I d
raped the sheet around me, followed her into the living room. She was buzzing round like a fly that’s just been squirted with killer spray, all jerky and crazy.

  ‘Where have you hidden it,’ she was screaming, spit flecking on her mouth. ‘It was here on the table! What have you done with it? Come on, show me.’

  ‘Carol. Carol. I haven’t hid anything.’

  ‘Have you chucked it out, thrown it away? That would tell me everything wouldn’t it, if you had. Out of my way. Do you know, the day Mum killed Miranda, was the same day Robin died? Same day, different year that’s all. Makes you think doesn’t it. Something in this family like a worm gnawing its way through.’

  She tried to push past me, her eyes bulging with anger and fear. I caught her firm, one hand on her, one hand on the sheet.

  ‘Carol. Let’s just calm down. I haven’t thrown anything away. It must be here still. If I haven’t moved it and you haven’t moved it, it must be here somewhere. It was on the table wasn’t it, and I remember pushing it to one side, ‘cause of the wine. Under one of these cushions? No. What about deeper down? Things can fall right down you know.’ I pushed my hand down one side of the sofa and then the other. Carol was watching me, breathing hard, like a dog after a fight. ‘Look,’ I said. ‘What’s this?’ And I brought out old Alice’s. Christ, I’m a clever bastard sometimes.

  She grabbed it off me, flicked through the pages.

  ‘This isn’t Robin’s.’ She waved it at me, like a Chinaman with his little red book.

  ‘I never thought it was.’

  ‘I mean this isn’t the one we saw yesterday.’

  ‘Of course it’s the one we saw yesterday. How many dictionaries do you think I have?’

  ‘But the one I saw yesterday was Robin’s.’

  ‘You didn’t think it was Robin’s yesterday. You just thought it was a dictionary.’

  ‘It was Robin’s! I know it was!’ She was half shouting, half crying. ‘It was blue and green with a waterproof cover that had a little crease in the corner, where I’d sat on it.’

  ‘Carol, darling. You dreamt it, you said. It probably was Robin’s, the one in your dream. But this is the one we looked at yesterday. This business of Robin has got you all mixed up. You see what you want to see. This has got a crease too, see?’

  I took her arm, sat her down. She let the dictionary drop from her fingers, all the anger drained out of her. She was alone and worried and helpless. I didn’t like it, what I’d done.

  We sat there, the two of us, me holding her like I hadn’t held her for years, like I hadn’t held anyone for years, like someone needed me, just to be there. I don’t know how long I held her. All I know is that my arm began to ache with her head and shoulders resting on it, a small ache at first but one that began to seep out into my whole body. Bigger and bigger it got, me desperate to shift her weight, but not daring to move, not wanting for the feeling to break. I had a daughter again. I didn’t want to let that go. Was she asleep, awake? It was hard to tell. Somewhere in between I think, like she was suspended between two feelings, not daring to move herself for fear of disturbing the little patch of peace she’d found. ‘Songs of Love and Hate’ eh? Leonard knew what he was talking about.

  8

  Blind Lionel’s railway sleepers were delivered early the following morning. I dragged them round the back and onto the patio. Any further down into the garden and I’d get sawdust into the pond when carving them up, and that wouldn’t do my water filters or Mini Ha Ha any good at all. Mickey was dropping the chainsaw off in the afternoon, time for me to get the sixty quid out of the cash dispenser next to our little supermarket. An avenue of carp, that’s what I was planning, set up on whatever I could find. There was the old glass cold-frame all overgrown with weeds up down by the cess pit, that Audrey had bought in one of her gardening fits that came over her on the first day of May and ended on the second. I could stuff one up in that, close the lid, beat young Damien at his own game. Then there were those old cattle troughs I’d come across on the way up to the pimple. A couple of carp leaping in and out of those would give them some real zip. Monty’s old kennel was another prospect. One could be sticking his head out, a dirty great chain wrapped about his neck, a visual comment on the natural world around us and man’s place in it, which was what Miss Prosser was always banging on about. Apparently Henry Moore’s sculptures had that in spades, though I never understood what shoving holes in lumps of stone women was a comment about, unless of course it was that he just liked holes, which told you a lot about him, I thought, and not in a nice way. We used to have a hammock too, that Audrey used try and climb into every now and again. Watching her was a bit like watching a greenhorn trying to get on a horse, like it wouldn’t keep still, kept shying away from her every time she raised her leg up. Brought tears to our eyes, Carol and me, Kim too if he happened to be in his back yard. As I pointed out to him, there wasn’t much point in Audrey getting in there in the first place, because every time she’d reach down for her gin and orange, she’d tip over. Still, if we still had it, the hammock, I could have a koi lounging in that, like a plump young mermaid with shiny spangled skin, waiting for a some sailor to come along, give her tail a tweak. I was getting quite excited by all the different possibilities. Once you get started, there’s no end to this artist carry-on.

  Carol hadn’t showed yet so I took the opportunity of prising the shark off of the nymph’s right leg. It was weird. It took quite an effort. He didn’t seem to want to let go, his teeth in sunk good and proper into a nice fleshy bit up top. I didn’t blame him one bit. I wouldn’t have minded a bite myself. I carried him over to the conservatory. There were two plant stands there, set behind the sun lounger, the plants long gone. I pulled the lounger out a bit and plonked him down on those, his head to the right, looking out towards the Stokies’ place. One of his teeth had come off in the struggle outside, and he was lying on his back rather than his front, which gave him a cosy, tucked-up-in-bed look, that didn’t fit in with what I had wanted at all. It was while I was squatted down, trying to correct his posture, I saw Michaela’s pink hat peeking over the top.

  ‘If it’s a game of scrabble you want, or nefarious pool activity,’ I said, ‘you’ll have to wait. There’s been complications. Still we can think of something to pass the time, eh?’ I reached under, ran my hand up the calf of her leg and gave it a good squeeze. It was rock hard. These cyclists aren’t half fit.

  ‘Scrabble?’ she said. ‘Pool activity? What are you on about Dad?’

  I jumped up, catching my head on the shark’s teeth on the way. Carol was glowering at me, Michaela’s hat plonked on her head.

  ‘Carol sweetheart! How did you sleep?’

  ‘How do you think? Scrabble?’ It was bitter, her laugh. She wouldn’t let go.

  ‘Thought it might help with everything. I thought I might drive into Wareham, get a set in. We could have a match in Robin’s memory, down by the pool. See, I’ve removed the shark. What do you say? We were quite evenly matched, you and me.’ I dusted my hands down.

  ‘You’re bleeding.’

  Am I?’ I touched the top of my forehead. It was warm and sticky. My hand was wet with the stuff. I felt a bit giddy.

  ‘I should have worn that hat.’ It was a joke but she didn’t smile.

  ‘I found it under the bed. Any idea whose?’ She had that Audrey, come-on-let’s-hear-it, look on her face. I wiped the blood out my eye. Something dark swept over me. I had to blink to see straight again.

  ‘Must be the last tenants,’ I said. ‘They left in a bit of a hurry.’ I gripped the back of the lounger to steady myself.

  ‘Not one of your cheap conquests then.’

  ‘Carol, please! I’ve only been here a two days. Do you think I need stitches?’

  ‘A stick of rock and a ride on the dodgems. That’s what mum used to say it took you. Sit down. I’ll dab it clean.’

  I sat down on the lounger, waited while Carol went into the bathroom. I never liked it,
seeing my own blood. Even a little nick with a razor makes me all wobbly. She came back with some cotton wool and a tube of antiseptic cream.

  ‘I didn’t know I had that in the house.’

  ‘You didn’t. I’m used to travelling. Me and Malcolm take the kids camping everywhere.’

  ‘That must be nice.’

  ‘Yes. He hasn’t fallen off a cliff once.’

  ‘Carol.’

  ‘All right. Hold still.’

  I held still. She fussed over me, her hands careful, tender, like she must be with her own kids, my grand kiddies. And I couldn’t even remember their names.

  ‘Not too many bad dreams then.’

  ‘Not too many.’

  ‘It must be hard for you, what’s just happened.’

  ‘Not easy.’

  ‘And let’s face it, you were closer to your mother.’

  ‘Wasn’t my choice dad. You were somewhere else most the time. Even when you were here.’

  ‘Was I? Don’t answer. That was then Carol. I’m not the man you think I used to be. Look, why don’t I get fix us breakfast, start the day off as I’d like us to carry on. I’ll pop down and get some rolls from Harry’s. I haven’t called in yet. He must be wondering what’s keeping me.’

  I was glad to be out, despite the pain in my head. Christ if I’d grabbed hold of her other leg, I’d have had some explaining to do. Near misses like that aren’t good. They’re warnings, warnings that things are slipping out of control. I had another nasty shock five minutes later. Harry’s bakery was no more, the windows all boarded up, rusty padlock on the door. Four years and it had closed down. Made me wonder. Was it me? Was it not me not buying my two rolls every morning that finally tipped him over the edge. It was lovely going in there every day, seeing his bald pate sweeping up, the air warm with all the fresh baking cooling on the wooden slats. He made all sorts, all shapes, all sizes, but his rolls were prima. All you had to do was break them open and the morning just wafted out, smelling sweet and good, like all your troubles had just floated away. It was the best way to start the day, had worked for years. And then what, the little supermarket down the road opened. I remember his face after their first week. He didn’t say anything, but he knew, the tough times ahead, how he’d have to trim his cloth, everyone knew. Don’t worry, we all said. We won’t let you down. And now he wasn’t there anymore.