Local Poet

by Paul Trembling

  “A criminal, a philanderer. A trophy collector. We learned all about them, in time: the blonde woman up in Newcastle, the Chinese girl in London. One in Ireland, another in Wales – a whole family in Spain… Elizabeth was his token black girl. But we didn’t realize that until too late. She was so in love with him, but she wouldn’t be with him unwed. So they married, and for a while everything seemed good. Of course, he was away a lot on his ‘business trips’, and that was lonely for her, but she accepted that, looked forward to him coming back. Then she got pregnant.”

  “He wasn’t happy?”

  “Irritated. It was an inconvenience. He wanted her to have the baby aborted, but she refused. It was the first time she had argued with him about anything, and she saw the darkness in him then. He was violent, slapped her, then threw her out of the house… they lived some miles from here. It was a wet night, cold. She was knocking on my door at midnight, bruised and cold and soaked to her very bones. But the worst injury was the one to her soul.”

  We sat in silence for a while before she resumed the story.

  “He came round the next morning. He had a suitcase with some of her things, and he said he was going away and she was to stay with me. And he told me not to make trouble; that he had friends in the police, and if I stirred things up he’d know about it.

  “We didn’t see him again until after Laney was born. Then he turned up one day, no warning, all smiles and jokes, kisses and cuddles, playing the proud father for all he was worth. Of course, we didn’t believe it, but she went back with him anyway. She didn’t have a choice.

  “It was like that for the next few years. He came and went as he pleased; she lived in fear of him. He didn’t bother to hide his violent side, and she didn’t dare to cross him. Sometimes he made a fuss of Laney, mostly he ignored her. One time he threatened her, and that was more than Elizabeth could take. Next time he left the house, she packed a bag and ran. Her and her little girl. Laney was just four years of age then.”

  “What was she like as a child?”

  Roshawn smiled at that memory. “Such a serious little thing. Oh, she laughed and played and cried and was fussy about her food, just like other children. But sometimes she would sit and stare at things, just watching for as long as we’d let her. Sunshine in the leaves, raindrops on the window, ants going in and out of a crack in the path. And when she learned to talk, the questions never stopped!”

  She stood up again, went over to the mantelpiece, and picked up a framed photo. “This was her that time they ran away from him.”

  A slender little girl in a bright red anorak, glancing up at the camera, face full of wonder. She had an ice-cream cone in her hand, but the ice-cream was all gone, apart from a smear round her mouth. But she wasn’t eating the cone. The photographer had caught her in the act of scattering pieces of it in front of her, and the view was wide enough to show the gulls gathering to squabble over the crumbs. In the background, past some railings, was a stretch of beach and the sea.

  “She loved the seaside,” Roshawn said. “And especially the seagulls.”

  I nodded. “I saw that from her poems. And I heard the story about the crow as well, that she called the Black Gull.”

  A look of pain crossed Roshawn’s face at that. She took the photo and put it back in its place.

  “That’s not the full story. When Andrew Grey found them again – it didn’t take him long, just a few weeks – when he came and forced them to go back with him – after that, Laney started calling him the Black Gull. Or maybe Elizabeth started it first. I don’t know. I didn’t get to see them for months. He kept them prisoners in their own home. They weren’t allowed out of the door, not even into the garden. I didn’t even know they were there for a long time. When I did find out, he wouldn’t let me in the house. I sometimes stood and waited nearby for hours, just to manage a few minutes’ conversation through the window while he was busy elsewhere.”

  I shook my head. “How could that happen? You’d think someone would notice something.”

  She shrugged. “If they did, they didn’t say anything. Perhaps, like me, they were afraid of the consequences for Elizabeth and Laney if they spoke out. Or if they did, nothing came of it. He had friends in the police, remember.”

  “Not good enough to get him off an armed robbery charge! Wasn’t that the same year?”

  “Yes it was, and how glad I was to see some justice done at last. Though even then he should have got longer. But at least he served his full time. There were a good many people who believed he was the one responsible for that poor young policeman getting shot, one way or another, and they made very sure that he didn’t get off too lightly.”

  She walked round the room again, and I got up and followed her, looking at the photos she indicated. Images of Laney growing up. In school uniform. Curled up with a book. Blowing out candles on a birthday cake – a whole montage of these, from five candles all the way to fourteen. Unwrapping Christmas presents, waving from a fairground ride, digging on a beach.

  “Those were the good years. The best years,” she said. Not to me.

  She finished by the picture I’d looked at first: three generations together, Laney with her plaque.

  “We knew she was good with words. We didn’t realize how good, till then. Two weeks after that, he was released.”

  “And he came straight back?”

  “Not immediately. We hoped he’d stay away; that after ten years he’d forgotten us.” A weariness seemed to touch her at that point, her posture changing as though a heaviness had come on her. She went back to her chair. “Andrew Grey was not a man for forgetting. Or forgiving, either. And the fact that Elizabeth had defied him, had tried to escape – I think that was an insult. Perhaps a threat? I don’t know. How can you understand a man like him? He was a different sort of being…” Her voice trailed off.

  “You don’t have to say any more.”

  She looked at me and sat upright. “It’s good that someone else should know the story, and you have more cause than most, Mr Seaton. You are part of that story now.”

  I nodded, and she continued.

  “Andrew Grey had not wasted his time in prison. He had been preparing to go into a new line of business. Armed robbery had proven to be too risky; drugs were safer and more lucrative. When he returned here, he had already obtained his first supply, and he used it at once. On Elizabeth. He made her an addict.”

  “His own wife?”

  “It was a means of controlling her. She was dependent on him after that. And there was always the threat he held over her: that he would do the same to Laney if she ever crossed him again.” Her voice remained calm, but her eyes glistened. “I saw very little of my daughter after that. He moved them several times. His new business was successful; he had a new house every year, always bigger and more luxurious. I was not welcome in any of them, and Elizabeth was rarely allowed out. As the drugs worked their evil in her, she lost her desire to leave. He had beaten her. Laney was given some freedom; she still went to school and we met whenever we could. But that was all the social life she had. He didn’t want her having any contacts outside the family. No friends – definitely no boyfriends! He had men watching her all the time. She would be taken to school, picked up from school, taken shopping. Once she was seen talking to a boy outside the school gates. He told her that if she spoke to that boy again, he would have his legs broken.”

  “And she stopped writing poetry.”

  “He’d heard about her award. He didn’t like her getting public attention, and he told her to stop wasting time on ‘silly scribblings’. He threw the plaque out, and told her to forget it and move on. As soon as she was old enough, he made her leave school. She had wanted to go on to university – her teachers wanted her to as well – but he wouldn’t consider it. And of course, Laney couldn’t defy him. She knew that her mother would suffer for it if she did.”

  “I can’t imagine what it must have been like to live like that.”


  “No, you can’t. No one can. No one would want to. But they did live like that. We did – for years – while my Elizabeth died slowly, a little bit each day.

  “He used Laney as a housekeeper after she left school. Cooking, cleaning, looking after her mother. By then, Elizabeth was no longer capable of doing anything for herself. One small mercy: at least he never molested Laney. Even he wasn’t that depraved. But he often brought women back to the house, and she had to be pleasant to them and wait on them like a servant, and keep her mother quiet.

  “After a while, he began to involve her in his business. He had her run errands. Deliver packages, take messages. He let her take driving lessons because ‘a pretty girl doesn’t arouse suspicion’. It gave her more freedom, but she hated being part of it. She said she was giving people the Black Gull’s poisonous eggs.”

  I nodded, thinking of her last poem.

  “Elizabeth began to get worse. He controlled her supply of heroin, kept her from overdosing, but her body was losing the fight. And of course, he wouldn’t let her go to a doctor. Then, one day, Laney found her dead. She had managed to keep back enough of the drug to overdose. It was her last chance to defy him and be free. She left a note. Just two words: ‘Run Laney’. And she did. Grabbed a bag and left the house that same hour. Took a car, drove into town, and left it. Caught the next train out. By the time Andrew Grey found out, she’d disappeared.”

  “She never stopped running, did she?”

  “Not for many years. And he never stopped looking for her. He had no grief for Elizabeth, but he was furious that she had killed herself, and even more that Laney had run from him. He came here, making threats, demanding to know where she was, but of course, I didn’t know. Laney hadn’t told me anything. And with both of them gone, there was little he could threaten me with.”

  “He might have attacked you. Killed you, even.”

  “Perhaps. But I wasn’t as isolated as he had made Elizabeth and Laney. I had friends, and if something had happened to me, there would have been questions asked. And besides, he knew I was his best chance of tracing Laney. He thought she would be in touch eventually. He used to come round, unannounced, to search my mail. I think he even tapped my phone for a while. But she never called me. I didn’t know where she was, or what she was doing, in all those years.”

  “There were the postcards.”

  “Never in her own name. Never saying anything about herself. She even changed her handwriting – wrote with her left hand or something. Of course, he was suspicious. He probably went to the places they were posted from. But she was never there. All the same, when I got a card I knew that she was still out there, still safe and free.”

  “Still running.”

  “Yes. Always running. Never settling.”

  I thought of the poems she’d written in those years, and now I understood at last where they had come from. But I also understood her later work. What it had meant when she could finally stop running and come home. I said as much to Roshawn, and she smiled. “You understand so well,” she said.

  “How did it happen – that she came home?”

  “About five years after Elizabeth died, Andrew Grey left England for good. I heard that the police had been passed information about him and were closing in. And there were rumours about rival gangs, but I don’t really know. By that time he had stopped bothering me. He’d given up on Laney making contact, and he no longer came to see if she had been here or to search my mail. He went to Spain, to his other family. And the police were right behind him, with a warrant for his arrest, so he couldn’t come back. Even so, I waited a few months to be certain. Then I sent Laney a message.”

  She laughed when she saw my frown. “I know I said I had no contact with her. But I had had all those years to think of how it might be done. And in the end, it was simple enough. I searched for poetry sites online – oh yes, I’m quite an accomplished ‘Silver Surfer!’ – and began leaving messages. Well, one message, in fact: ‘The Black Gull has flown.’ Perhaps more cryptic than necessary – I doubt if he would ever have looked at those sites, even if he was still searching for her – but old habits die hard, as they say.”

  “It worked, though.”

  “Yes, indeed. Laney phoned me. And hearing her voice again… It was so wonderful, neither of us could speak properly between laughter and tears. A week later she was walking through my door.”

  “Home again!”

  “Yes. You see that picture on the wall behind me?”

  “Of course.” It was impossible to miss, being the largest in the room, and not a photograph but a painting. Laney, Elizabeth, and Roshawn, sitting together with hands clasped. I’d assumed that it had been done before Elizabeth’s death, but looking at it now I realized that Laney was a little older than she would have been, and Roshawn a little greyer. The background, I realized, was this very room.

  “Laney had that painted last year. The three of us at home together. The way it could have been.”

  “The way it should have been.” “Yes. But we don’t get to write our own stories, do we? There was a time when I hoped that we might. I thought that at least Laney would be able to write her own life story. But it didn’t happen. Instead, we had a visitor. Just a few weeks ago. A handsome young man, and very like his father. When I saw him, I thought for a moment that it was Andrew Grey again, even though we’d heard that he died.”

  “It must have been a terrible shock.”

  “It nearly stopped my heart, seeing him like that. He told us he was Laney’s half-brother. Mateo Canoso, he called himself. Apparently, Grey had changed his name. He had his father’s charm as well, all full of how sorry he was about the past, and how his father had died in regret over Elizabeth, and how he wanted to heal the estrangement in our family. He was very plausible. I might even have believed him, if I hadn’t remembered how plausible Andrew Grey could be.

  “Laney wasn’t taken in either. She’d known her father even better than I had. She asked him straight out what he wanted. That put him off. I don’t think he was used to people seeing through him so easily. But he told us that he’d moved to England, had started a business, and wanted Laney’s help with it. He knew all about her readings and workshops, and he wanted her to put him in touch with people and to help distribute his ‘merchandise’.”

  “Merchandise? Did he say what merchandise?” I asked, knowing full well that he’d meant La Paz.

  “No, he never spelled it out. But of course we knew it would be drugs of some sort. And Laney would have nothing to do with it. She told him that. Told him that their father was a criminal; that she blamed him for her mother’s death, and she wanted nothing to do with him, his family, or his business.

  “He started to get angry then and the charm vanished. He told her that they were family whether she liked it or not; that he was her elder brother and that he would have proper respect from her and for their father’s memory. Her mother’s weaknesses were not their father’s fault. He’d done everything he possibly could for her, and her ingratitude had broken his heart. So here he was now, prepared to put the past behind them and offer her a chance to make some real money, much more than she’d ever get from her scribblings.”

  “I don’t imagine that went down well.”

  “No. They were standing and shouting at each other by then, him half in Spanish, and I was afraid he would hit her. And she would certainly have hit him if it had continued. I pushed my way between them, waving the telephone, and told him I’d called the police. I wish now that I had. But that got through to him. He didn’t say another word; just turned and stalked out.”

  “But he came back.”

  “Not here. I never saw him again. Laney, though… I knew he must have been in touch with her. She wouldn’t speak of it; she didn’t want me involved. But I saw that she was carrying a burden. And of course, I knew what Canoso would be saying to her; how he would try to break her. He would be threatening to harm me. Just as his father had used L
aney to control Elizabeth, and Elizabeth to control Laney. I told her to ignore that; said she should run and hide, like she had before – he wouldn’t harm me if she was gone.”

  “She wouldn’t go, would she?” I knew it as clearly as if she had been in the room telling me herself. I had read the postcards to herself. I’d understood what they really meant. I knew her now, and knew she would never have gone back to that life.

  The tears were running down Roshawn’s cheeks now. Tears of grief, but also of pride. “No. She would not. She told me that she would not run any more. She would face it and finish it. And then she left. I did not see her again. And when the police came to my door, I knew why. It wasn’t a surprise.”

  We were both quiet then. For a long time.

  “I don’t know how…” When I finally spoke, I found I couldn’t finish the sentence. But she understood.

  “I take each day as it comes. Every day I think of them. Every day I grieve. And every day I remember the good times as well, and thank the Lord for them. That’s important. Those things happened as well – the good times were just as real as the bad ones. And they can’t take those away from me.”

  I stood up. “Mrs Skerrit. Thank you for sharing all this with me. I know it must be hard.”

  She shook her head as she stood. “It’s hard, but it’s also good. With all the pain, it’s still good to talk to someone about them. Especially someone who understands as you do, Mr Seaton. I’m just sorry that our family tragedy has involved you.”

  I struggled to find something to say. “I’m sorry too. I mean, that it happened. All of this.” I waved my hand, indicating the pictures, meaning the story behind them. It didn’t seem the right response, but I didn’t know what was.

  She smiled, understanding. “What are you going to do now?”

  “I think I’ll go back to where it happened. I’m not sure why, but I think there’s still something to learn.”

  “I see. You are welcome here at any time, Mr Seaton. Come again, and we will talk some more. There’s still a lot I’d like to tell you about Laney.” When I got back to the flat, I changed into my running kit and went for a long jog. I took my usual route: along the backstreets, through the recreation ground, and down the canal towpath. It curves around the edge of town and brings me back to within half a mile of home – a nice circular route that usually takes me an hour at a steady pace.