A Private Haunting

by Tom McCulloch

  The rain let up. The Norwegian lay unmoving on the grass. Fletcher sat on the bottom step of the sun room and looked up to the lightening sky. He’d known the monsoon in Belize, streets turned to mud rivers, white eyes in black doorways. Bangkok too, always a troubling memory, on leave and stripped to the waist, full of Sang Som and Singha, screaming into the deluge. He remembered the sudden easing, the tension draining from his shoulders just as swiftly, leaving behind a vacant vulnerability, the odd sense of a question un-posed.

  He leaned back on his hands, watching Mortensen sit up slowly and look cautiously around, bracing for the next kick that wouldn’t come. Fletcher let his breathing settle and thought of Mary, a sentimental image of her dabbing at the Norwegian’s bruises with a clump of bloodied cotton wool, brushing back the wet hair. That kind of concern, it never lasted.

  Twenty-eight

  Sometime after five Mary got home. She’d just closed the front door when she heard a car in the driveway. Her husband, back from Saturday afternoon pub football. She rushed upstairs and popped three paracetamol, switched on the shower then stared at herself in the mirror.

  It was always other people who had affairs. Mary judged them, as everyone did, from a position of complete ignorance. Some she could understand and others just seemed tragic, a waste of years. Surely the guilty one (there always had to be a guilty one) must realise it and break down, knees hugged to the chest and a primal wailing no one would hear.

  We were once so happy...

  Mary wasn’t fussed about that. She didn’t wonder where it was all going to end up, as the over-sympathetic sofa matrons of daytime TV would ask the conflicted caller. At the moment she was preoccupied with sex. The Dirty Sex of the Toilet Tramp, as she’d decided to call it.

  Leaving the Pushwagner exhibition, she’d insisted they take different buses back to the village. These are such watchful days, she told Jonas, then winked. As soon as Jonas got on the waiting bus to buy his ticket she was gone. Waving him off seemed needy, too normal an aftermath of furtive sex. But when Mary got to the corner of the street she stopped to watch the bus drive past. It was only when she noticed people glancing at her that she realised she was smiling. There was a pleasant tingle in her groin. It was like being in a film.

  The thrill lasted as long as the buzz of the alcohol. The journey home administered the final blows, the relentless shaking as the bus jolted along the potholed road, slamming the afternoon against her cranial walls until it was a shatter of morose pieces and a headache.

  The mirror had steamed up. Mary decided not to have a shower. She wanted to face her husband. A defiant, passive-aggressive reaction that somehow made her feel better about herself.

  All this leaning she did, leaning and watching. She noticed it again as she leaned against the frame of the door separating the living room from the kitchen. Her husband was sitting on the sofa watching cricket on the amazingly stupid eighty-inch plasma TV. She heard herself say things like how was your day, dear, what do you want for dinner?, listening to his distracted replies.

  In reality, she’d said nothing. He hadn’t noticed her or maybe he had and was just ignoring her, no sudden fright when she said hello. His grunted reply made her feel equally invisible.

  Still invisible when she sat down and rested her shoulder against his. He didn’t turn, suspiciously, and ask about the alcohol on her breath or the smell of sex. He just edged away until they weren’t touching. Mary watched the TV. A man in white kept on carefully hitting a cricket ball nowhere at all. She felt a little bit like that man in white and almost burst into tears.

  Her headache had started to fade. She closed her eyes and imagined it was Jonas’s hand she was now reaching for, the same cool afternoon breeze and even the endless cricket was enjoyable. Because it was all a question of the lives we choose to inhabit. If we got it right then the details might remain the same but the responses would be so very different.

  ‘You heard about the magazines?’ her husband said.

  Mary opened her eyes. Her husband had pulled his hand away. There was a cat food advert on the TV.

  ‘The porn mags,’ he continued.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What’s he like then?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The Norwegian. Jonas.’

  ‘I don’t know that much about him.’

  ‘You know he just appeared out of nowhere. A few years back.’

  ‘You mean he moved here.’

  ‘Yeah. Out of nowhere.’

  ‘Isn’t that what most people do when they move somewhere new?’

  ‘He’s an odd bod.’

  ‘An odd bod?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Says who?’

  ‘People.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Just people. Why are you defending him?’

  ‘He says they weren’t his.’

  ‘Well he’s not going to admit it, is he? I wouldn’t!’

  ‘Yeah. You wouldn’t want the police taking a look at your internet search history.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘I’m not an idiot!’

  ‘Have you been drinking?’

  ’Ten out of ten, Sherlock. Why don’t you offer your services to the police and help find Lacey?’

  ‘I told you I hurt my leg and couldn’t help out with the – ’

  ‘You know I’ve got another job?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Another job. I clean. I’m a cleaner. For the man with the porno mags. Jonas.’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘You know those two things in your face. Just above the nose. They’re eyes. Why don’t you try opening them?’

  This time she did have a shower, long and very hot. He’d followed her, of course, stood outside the cubicle and rambled on with his questions that she let stream away with the water. In time he got bored and left. After drying herself she chose her best underwear and left by the front door. He appeared again as she closed it, more ramblings cut off by the slam.

  She’d primed Jonas about the underwear. Back in the gallery toilets, legs on his shoulders. I’ll come round later, dress up for you. A strangulated voice that surprised her and made him push harder.

  Agent Provocateur, a black lace bra and matching thong with mesh front. She didn’t know why she’d bought them and had only ever worn them for herself. Standing in front of the mirror, considering the angles, how it could be better but so much worse. I’ll come round later... Cringe-worthy, but a relief she hadn’t blurted out other embarrassments; oh you like that, don’t you? and right there baby, right there, things they said in the film playing in her head.

  She felt ill at ease as she hurried through the village. The heavy rain had emptied the streets but there was still the possibility of bumping into someone she knew, who would study her from under their umbrella and just know that under her jeans a pair of £50 panties chafed her bum crack. Then a bird dipped across her path, making her flinch. She followed it into the bruised sky and when she lost sight of it found herself thinking about Jonas and Lacey. A sudden uncertainty settled across her. For a moment she almost turned and went back home. Instead, she considered the best approach to End Point. Not the route to take but the attitude to assume when she got there. She decided on nonchalance, a confident walk right up to the door. She was just the cleaner, doing her job. But she didn’t have the key ready in her hand and had to pause, rummaging in her bag looking for the damn thing, trying to keep the umbrella above her head and failing, rain now trickling down her neck.

  When she did find the key the door wouldn’t open. She panicked, felt a heat in her cheeks, sure that a crowd had appeared on the other side of the road. She waggled the key then realised the door must have been open and she’d just locked it. She finally stepped inside the house just as a car passed. Supermarket Meg stared at her from the passenger window.

  Jonas wasn’t in. She checked the living room, kitchen and back garde
n, noticing that the lawn was all churned up and muddy. Sudden inspiration brought a shy smile but when she went up to the bedroom to strip for the naked man waiting on the bed he wasn’t there. So she had a pee in the en-suite toilet, expensive knickers at her ankles, wondering what to do next.

  ‘Hello?’

  The voice came from the bedroom. Mary smiled. She quickly stood up and stripped to her bra and panties. A quick 360 in the mirror told her to go for it and she threw open the bathroom door.

  ‘Sorry, sorry!’

  ‘Christ sake!’ Mary slammed the door closed and leaned against it, heart hammering. She quickly dressed and sat on the bed, shaking her head and fuck it, fuck it, fuck it. When she had composed herself she went downstairs and found Fletcher sitting at the kitchen table.

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know – ’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘It’s my fault for creeping about.’

  ‘Have something to eat.’ He nodded at the plastic bag on the table. ‘I always get too much.’

  ‘What’s on the menu?’

  ‘Lamb jalfrezi, prawn bhuna and chicken pakora. Keema naan and rice. Pilau.’

  ‘Bloody hell, you got worms?’

  ‘Saturday night take-away.’

  ‘You’re not supposed to take it all away!’

  Adam frowned and looked away. ‘I told you. I always order too much. Never seem to get it right.’

  Five minutes into the meal Mary knew she’d made a mistake. She should have gone back home. At least the rain gave her something to listen to, because Adam Fletcher certainly didn’t want to talk. He destroyed dialogue with monosyllables, looking at Mary as if waiting for her to ask the one question he would answer.

  Behind the rain came thunder, the gloom quick-falling. Adam didn’t get up and switch on the light and though Mary wanted to she just sat there, thinking about the rain pounding on the sun room roof. Like voodoo pandemonium, she wanted to say, don’t you agree?

  But Adam would say nothing. He’d just keep staring and chewing, waiting for that question.

  Mary began to eat more quickly. The chicken was dry and greasy at the same time. Sticky clumps in the throat. The underwear she was wearing sickened her, the realisation that the bra and panties had only ever been seen by her and Adam, this shadowed man who was forcing her to eat, even if that was ridiculous because she could get up and leave any time. But she kept on eating, avoiding his eye, wondering if to push her plate away would be to have him reach across and slap her, telling her to sit your arse back down and eat your dinner.

  ‘Why did you tell me that about Jonas?’

  He briefly stopped chewing. ‘Don’t you believe me?’

  ‘Well I…’

  ‘You heard about the magazines too, right?

  ‘I did but – ’

  ‘What’s not to believe?’

  ‘It just doesn’t seem like him.’

  ‘Why? Because you know him so well. What do you really know about him?’

  ‘Your cousin.’

  ‘That’s right. My cousin.’

  She looked at her plate, lamb shreds, oil separated from sauce. When she looked up he was smiling.

  ‘You really don’t remember me, do you?

  And then she did.

  As Fletcher told her, he wondered why it didn’t make him feel any better. No relief followed the confession. How he had changed his name from John Hackett in 1992, just after turning nineteen. Soon afterwards Adam Fletcher joined the Marines. Adam because this was a rebirth, Fletcher after the police chaplain, the one who held his hands across an interview table.

  ‘You’d think it would have been difficult, but it was the easiest thing I’ve done in my whole life.’

  He speared a piece of lamb. The curry wasn’t bad. He’d had worse, cross-legged on threadbare rugs, sharing meals, fatty mutton stews that left a film on your lips, like the forced friendliness that coated those evenings in mistrust. Hearts and minds was a joke, the punch-line a group of preternaturally calm men with plastic-tied hands, an IED hidden in a turban.

  ‘You had New Kids on the Block posters. All round your bed. I was into the B-52s and used to take the mick. You had a Wilson Phillips tape you played over and over. Remember that?’

  ‘I can’t believe – ’

  ‘You dumped me for Craig Adamson. He had an American flat-top haircut. Prick thought he was Vanilla Ice!’

  She stood up quickly, quick as the image that flashed in his mind. Mary in her posh underwear. He hadn’t seen anything like that back then. He wanted to do things but felt guilty. Every time he imagined it he saw his aunt, slapping him on the face and calling him a dirty little boy.

  He grabbed her by the arm as she reached the kitchen door. ‘I hated you. Not for long though.’

  ‘Let me go, John.’

  ‘Adam.’

  ‘Ok. I’m sorry. Adam.’

  ‘You didn’t know about this house, did you?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  Her voice was shrill. He wondered how soon it would become panic and how he would defuse it, as they’d been taught; re-establish control by slowing the situation, deconstruct into manageable pieces. He let her go and she hurried down the hallway. ‘No one knew.’

  She hesitated at the door. ‘Knew what?’

  ‘This was my grandfather’s house. A total recluse. Hated people and I’d never visited him. There was no way I was going back home after they let me go and he took me in. I used to watch people from the bedroom and none of them knew I was here. Even my aunt kept her trap shut.’

  ‘Everyone thought you’d left.’

  ‘I did. After a bit. It’s not easy when you know you won’t be coming back. He died years ago and left me the house. I thought that maybe enough time had passed. But here I am again and I don’t think it has. I keep seeing all these faces and none of them has changed. Apart from the way they look at me. They don’t see John Hackett. They don’t look at me that way.’

  ‘I never thought you did it.’

  ‘For what it’s worth.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That’s what you’re supposed to say. For what it’s worth I never thought you did it. It’s more poignant.’

  Twenty-nine

  Jonas, the exhibited man. Let them stare, let them all stare. First the startled bus driver, the same one who’d dropped him in the village less than an hour previously, eyes watching in the rear-view, following him down the slippery aisle. Then the passengers, who clocked him one by one, darting eyes as he slumped down, assessing the limp, the dirty clothes, the threat.

  Don’t you know he tried to kill me?

  But Jonas said nothing. Just a shout for himself, a scream, taking away the pain in his side, maybe a broken rib. Pull it out and plant it, grow another Jonas, a better one, one to replace the dying one, dying on his back in the mud and rain, Fletcher’s hands tight around his neck.

  He smoothed his hair and wiped the mud from his trousers. A stumble in the front door, the realisation Fletcher wasn’t home and hey ho, out with his stuff. Big Haakon, he could hear him going on about the vibes, you gotta listen to the vibes, man. The other voice chipped in too; never alienate the unknown. A biblical aphorism, maybe, the Bible he’d also thrown in the street. Some people reacted poorly to blasphemy. His mother with her hand-at-mouth horror.

  Fletcher’s violence.

  The bus pitched like the Larvik ferry before they got the stabilisers. He folded his arms and closed his eyes, shunted and shoved but somehow falling asleep, opening his eyes to wet city streets, multicolours of umbrellas through rain-dappled, foggy windows, hurrying people going who knows where but likely somewhere warm and homely, an arm around the waist, two lovers and a sweep of rain across their secret garden, all so comforting, easing through, like the bus now moving into the bus lane, overtaking all else as he was soon hurrying along King Street, into the shopping arcade and over-heated department store to find a toilet where he wiped away the dirt to reveal t
he mirror-face which may, just may, pass muster.

  Clean-faced, Jonas found a trendy bar called Axis, Saturday-night-crowded but a group just leaving and he snagged their table. Four twenty-somethings in identikit ripped denims appeared moments later and asked if they could sit at the other chairs. He watched them, sipping an expensive continental lager and trying to figure out what he was doing there. In the noise of the bar the village seemed reassuringly distant. He could, if he wanted, just disappear.

  He was an exile, after all. Get up that gangplank and cast off, ply the route and take the weather, a look to the horizon and the sea a mirror to walk on, back to a gentler time, collecting bonfire wood with Axel, Big Haakon’s delight at his first bow-drill ember, the first time he saw Eva’s face, looking back at his in Robinet’s that July night when they first met. Her first face, so different from the last, slashed forehead to chin, head on the Saab’s dashboard.

  He raised his face, closed his eyes for a long time. When he looked down again, the four people across from him were staring, wondering about this stranger who they sat with but didn’t join, despite the incontrovertible fact of their collective presence at this sticky table.

  Hey folks, we’re one. A revelation to shout above the MOR techno. Think about it. He’d have them all nodding in wonder, the first time they had realised that even the simplest of connections was still a connection and with connection there could never be true exile.

  The four people suddenly laughed. He looked across and caught the eye of the brunette with bad skin hidden under thick make-up. A deepening frown as her eyes flickered across his face. Only now had she noticed his swollen eye and cut lip, only now, meaning it was the first time she had noticed him, Jonas and his burst face being interchangeable.