Mr. Flood's Last Resort

by Jess Kidd

  Doreen flicks her cigarette out of the window and pulls her dress up over her head. A cushion is tied around her middle with several woolen scarves. I watch as she unwinds them and lays them one after the other on the back of a chair.

  She stands in front of me, a thin young woman in an Iggy Pop T-shirt. “They prefer their mediums with a bit of padding. It lends gravitas. So, how do you know the book is for you?”

  “Those are my initials.”

  “Plenty of other people with those initials.”

  “Are you going to help me or not?”

  Doreen Gouge smiles.

  * * *

  HER REAL name is Eleanor Kemp, she says, and she struggles with her imagination. She tells me that she is brim-full of voices, songs on a loop. She sees faces daily, and sometimes all day, distorted as if pressed against a window, laughing, sobbing, or just looking in. Like the voices, the faces come and go, ebb and flow. On her worst days the dead are relentlessly real; they stand in front of her scratching their arses, demanding and bickering. On better days they dampen to a whispered word, the faint smell of lilac, then she can buy shoes and pay her gas bill. Eleanor sometimes wonders who is more alive, her or the dead, for she can lose days at the mercy of the dear departed.

  Then there are the sudden vivid pictures, memories that don’t belong to her: dappled shade on a veranda, the face of a sleeping baby, the whip and billow of sails against an Aegean blue sea. Or a hand that’s not her own: on a bottle, on a bridge, on a swing, on a knife.

  Sometimes she’s medicated, sometimes not. When she’s medicated, she sleeps more; the dead come either way.

  Wasn’t it always like this? She smiles wryly. The madwoman and the visionary dancing hand in hand, sharing the same tambourine?

  As for the practicalities, she knows how to work the room because her father was a market trader, selling knockdown crockery. It’s the same thing, only she’s selling dead people and she doesn’t collect the money now; someone else does that for her.

  “Do you ever see saints?” I ask.

  She frowns.

  “You know, martyrs, with robes, halos?”

  She looks at me blankly. “I know what a saint is.”

  “It doesn’t matter. What did you see tonight?”

  Eleanor pulls on her boots. “Red-haired woman, pale face.”

  I want to sit down but I can’t move. “The Red Queen?”

  “And a girl holding her hand,” she says, throwing her gear into a sports bag.

  I can hardly speak. “What did she look like?”

  “The girl?” Eleanor zips up her bag. “Big smile, blond hair.” She screws the lid on the quarter bottle and slips it into the pocket of her jacket.

  “And the well? You said something about a cat in a well?” For a moment I think of Beckett.

  Eleanor shrugs. “Most likely a metaphor; the dead like a metaphor.”

  “A metaphor for what?”

  “No idea.” She picks up her crash helmet. “One more thing: that guy you’re with.”

  “Yes?”

  “He’s not who he says he is.”

  CHAPTER 36

  My heart is submerged; she lies low. A tin can covered with barnacles, a wrecked submarine skulking through murky depths. I follow her, brushing the silty seabed with my hair. I see the tiles are still there. We swim in an octagon, my heart and I, past rusty arches. Above us little creamy moons shine with halos of light.

  When I catch my heart I will drag her to the surface and crack her open. I’ll take a flashlight to her dank leaking chambers. All blighted iron and worn rivets. I’ll find the skeletons and ripped-up ticker tape. Maydays unsent, warnings interrupted—she couldn’t get a message out; they came scrambled or not at all, salt water in the mechanism, bugs on the line.

  There’s a flash in the water. A woman swims towards me, sleek-limbed, white moon of a face. She hesitates in the water, dead-eyed; hair billows around her face. Then she barrels past, filling my eyes and nose with bubbles. Beyond there is an explosion of red, a cloud that spreads through the water, unfurling in swirls and curlicues.

  * * *

  THE BACKS of my knees are wet. I wipe my face on a corner of the sheet, tasting salt on my lips.

  I look at him, in the bed. I take it all in. His hair, a darker blond at the nape of his neck, the muscles on his back, and the shape of his spine narrowing downwards to the curve of his buttocks. His left hand is over the bedclothes. I lean forwards and study it again, closely, although I don’t need to. I know it well enough now. The scar on the bulb of his thumb, the freckles on the back of his hand, and the barely perceptible dip on his ring finger where his wedding band usually is.

  In his hometown the day is dawning with a chill in the air.

  In a while his wife will make breakfast and get the children up for school. Maybe they’ll ask where Daddy is. Maybe she’ll cry into their lunch boxes or slam the door of the fridge too hard. Or maybe she’ll just stand at the sink, staring out of the window, a cup cradled in her hands. How would she not know about the other women, that there would be other women? You only need to look at him: his smile, his body, and the wolf behind his eyes.

  For he is a wolf, a snaggle-fanged, handsome wolf, easy-limbed and gray-eyed.

  He’s not who he says he is, not that he’s doing much saying.

  I slip out of bed and pick up his jeans. Closing the bedroom door behind me, I pull out his wallet and open it.

  A wad of cash. Nothing else.

  No photos of the twins or the son he takes to the park for a kickabout every Sunday. No driving license, cards . . . I should be surprised, but I’m not: it’s the wallet of an adulterer. I close it and push it back into his pocket.

  When I steal back into the bedroom he’s rolled over, his breathing slow and regular. Loping feral in some dream forest, his flank twitches in his sleep. Or maybe he’s pretending that too.

  I see a movement out of the corner of my eye.

  A dim hand comes around the bedroom door holding a spectral rose, long stemmed, glowing red.

  * * *

  I HOLD a finger over my mouth and St. Valentine follows me into the living room.

  “Well now, isn’t love grand?” he gloats. “There’s Johnny Quicksilver back in your bed, like he never left. A fine-looking man and a handsome man, with those brilliant gray eyes and all the skills he has in the sack. A fierce and energetic lover, and imaginative. God, the things—”

  “Do you ever stop?”

  St. Valentine sits himself down and pats the sofa next to him. On the coffee table I notice the local paper opened at the lonely hearts column. The page is covered with iridescent golden circles.

  “Did you do that?”

  “It’s good to keep your options open, for when your man moves on. How about a widower with a semidetached in Hounslow? Likes walks.”

  I sit down, narrowing my eyes. “Get to the point, little man.”

  “And have you figured out who he is yet, himself in the bed?”

  “He’s Sam Hebden.”

  St. Valentine snorts. “And here you are a great one for the collecting of evidence and the prying into all the corners of a person’s life.”

  I maintain an aloof silence.

  “Wake him up and ask him.” St. Valentine has a steely look of challenge in the eye that’s fixed on me. The other is drifting towards the living room doorway. “Give his credentials a thorough inspection.”

  “I’ll do no such thing.”

  St. Valentine frowns and picks at his ear. Then his face brightens as a thought dawns on him. “You’re scared, Twinkle.”

  “I am not.”

  He grins and his halo momentarily glows with a sickly light. “He already thinks you’re a bit touched, doesn’t he? Seeing mysteries where there are none, aren’t you? Turning your cracked little mind onto him, are we? That could dampen a man’s romantic antics, couldn’t it?”

  “That isn’t it at all.”

  St. Valentine
stops grinning and looks thoughtful. “Then you’re scared of what you’ll find out.”

  And there’s that thought again. The wife in the kitchen, staring out of the window, a cup cradled in her hands while the twins bray for their breakfast and the boy kicks a ball down the hall.

  “Ignorance is bliss, Twinkle,” proclaims St. Valentine.

  “If you’ve had your say—”

  “I haven’t. All in all, your one had some premium messages last night.”

  “What of it?”

  “She saw Mary and Maggie, didn’t she? Anything else, Twinkle?” St. Valentine assumes a patronizing air. “Then I’ll give you a clue: it has a bucket and a whole rake of wishes, and there’s one at Bridlemere.”

  “Jesus—she spoke about a well.”

  St. Valentine grins from ear to ear. “Ding-dong.”

  * * *

  I DRESS quickly and bring a torch. St. Valentine insists on accompanying me; he enjoys a bus ride and delights when we pass over Richmond Bridge. He presses his nose through the window to gaze at the Thames, which is still and perfect and shrouded in mist. We watch a skein of geese fly over, dipping and rising, the ballast of their bodies carried by the long strokes of their wings. They adopt a V formation as they head downriver. St. Valentine takes it as a good omen. I say nothing.

  ST. VALENTINE says he will wait at the gate for me.

  “Go on, now, Maud, find the well and have a wee look in it.”

  He glances over his shoulder. A vague form is clanking along the empty early-morning street. As it draws nearer I make out St. George.

  I frown. “What’s this, a convention?”

  St. Valentine looks offended. “Here we are, showing our support.” He points at St. George. “Myself and this lad.”

  St. George shrugs; armor grinds. “I’d get on, if I were you. The old man will be awake soon. Don’t lean over too far and don’t fall,” he adds. “Like you did in the icehouse.”

  “If you can’t see anything, then throw a good roar in. That’ll rouse whatever’s down there.” St. Valentine glances at St. George. “She has a sharp class of voice that could wake the dead.”

  I narrow my eyes. “So you’re coming in with me, for moral support?”

  The saints shuffle and peer off in different directions. I turn on my heel.

  * * *

  THE GARDEN is silent and wet with dew. A few cats come running over to me. When they realize I’m not here to feed them they saunter off again, threading through rubbish and jumping up onto the roofs of sheds and outhouses. I pick my way between upended wheelbarrows, car parts, and broken furniture, black bags and rusted tools. I won’t know what I’m looking for until I find it or fall down it.

  * * *

  IT’S AT the edge of the garden, in a clearing of sorts, surrounded by rubble and covered with a sheet of corrugated iron held down by bricks. I put down my bag, clear the bricks, and slide off the cover.

  I lean over and the smell hits me: the cold seeping damp of deep wet places, of sunless, starless places. I can see into it several feet, a few curved rows of blown and ancient bricks, then the dark takes over. The torch does nothing; the beam is nowhere near strong enough. I pull a coin from my bag. Not for a wish, but something else, perhaps a tribute, or to pay the toll of some well-guarding sprite. I let the coin go and listen. I don’t hear it drop.

  A breeze strikes up, snatching sand from a pile of rubble and blowing it over me. Was Cathal planning to fill the well in? I look around; under an old tarpaulin I find bricks and cement bags, mostly empty, a few full and weathered solid.

  What was he trying to cover up?

  I lean over the edge as far as I dare and I shout.

  Is anyone there?

  My echo comes back to me, high and mocking.

  Is anyone there? There? There? There?

  I wait: there is no other voice. There is no one in the well.

  Then all at once the wind changes direction. It blows across the top of the well, like lips over a milk bottle, a fell high note. The kind a banshee would be proud of.

  CHAPTER 37

  Lillian has been busy today. She has dusted Renata’s collection of gemstones and arranged them in the new secondhand cabinet. She has wallpapered over the curaçao stains on the living room wall and cooked a casserole for Cathal’s birthday. She leaves as I arrive, taking the living room curtains to the dry cleaner after a brief but fierce skirmish over the alleged resurgence of Renata’s pipe.

  Renata, in a floral apron and headscarf like a housewife in a 1970s sitcom, gives me a resigned smile. She always has a shrunken, well-rinsed quality after Lillian has been round, like something delicate put on a boil wash with the dog’s towel.

  Renata sets about making coffee. “Is Sam joining us, to go through the itinerary?”

  I sit down at the kitchen table. “I haven’t invited him.”

  Renata glances at me. “He’s going to Dorset with you?”

  “No, he’s not.”

  Renata raises an eyebrow and sets the coffeepot on the stove.

  How can I tell her that I don’t trust the man I keep sleeping with? And, what’s worse, I don’t want to find out why.

  “I’d rather go alone,” I say.

  “You know best,” she says brightly, and wipes her hands on her apron.

  I look at the pad: a plan has most definitely come together.

  Trip to Dorset for the Purposes of Investigation

  DAY ONE:

  AM: LANGTON CHENEY

  Check into B&B (Castle View, Renscombe Road, double en suite).

  Visit Holly Lodge residential home, for reasons we’ve yet to invent, to ask about Marguerite Flood and Maggie Dunne.

  Question the villagers of Langton Cheney.

  PM: DORCHESTER

  Meet with Frank Gaunt, retired police constable who was in charge of investigating Maggie’s disappearance and who thinks you are coming to buy a whippet.

  DAY TWO:

  AM: WAREHAM

  Attend Mass at Our Lady of Lourdes Roman Catholic Church.

  Interrogate congregation over tea and biscuits.

  I look up from the pad. “What’s with the whippet?”

  “When I phoned the station they told me that Frank Gaunt had retired and is only interested in breeding whippets.” Renata shrugs. “I told them that was exactly what I wanted to ask him about, so they gave me his number.”

  “That’s one way to do it.”

  “He has a fawn bitch; you can bring it back if it’s nice.”

  I stare at her. “You have a dog phobia.”

  “It’s more a dislike of rabies.” Renata tears the sheet off the pad and hands it to me. “Hydrophobia makes life very difficult—drinking, showering, that sort of thing. It’s best to take precautions.” She narrows her eyes. “On that note, pack your pepper spray for dinner tonight with Mr. Flood. I’m still not convinced it’s a good idea.”

  I glance at her; perhaps she’s getting soft. “This could be my last chance to speak to him. We could have the case solved tonight.”

  “Well, try not to provoke him at least.” She frowns. “This will also be his last chance to do away with you.”

  * * *

  I HAVE a casserole, an iced birthday cake, a bottle of Józef’s finest, and a gaudy cravat that belonged to the late Bernie Sparks. I pull them behind me in Lillian’s shopping trolley. In the front pocket, where the bus pass ought to go, there’s a fully charged mobile phone, a rape alarm, and a pepper spray. As I get off the bus I wonder if I ought to just keep walking. Forging onwards, over roads and motorways, hills and fields, to the edge of the land where I could sail away to sea. Bobbing along on the shopping trolley.

  The casserole would last me a few days, until I sighted land again. Somewhere hot, with lizards and outsized fruit. I could get a job in a bar and carouse every night with the locals. I’d be brown and thin from all those days at sea, and men would plague me like mosquitoes. I would keep the shopping trolley though,
battered and sun bleached, to remind me that whenever things get too much I could pack up and sail away again.

  * * *

  CATHAL GREETS me at the door with a raffish grin and a bow, like an unsavory butler. His white hair is neatly brushed and he is sporting his funeral suit, with a red-spotted handkerchief in the pocket. He wears no tie or socks and has his slippers on.

  “I’ve set this new agency one to work today. I had him running up and down, roaring at him. Wait until you see what I’ve done.” He points at the shopping trolley. “What’s in there?”

  “A bit of dinner.”

  “I’ve put the pâté and crackers out, but.”

  “We’ll have a bit of everything, will we?”

  He shrugs, then he’s off back down the stairs into the garden, bouncing the trolley behind him. I follow him through the bushes into a kind of twisted wonderland.

  In the clearing, in front of the caravan, a table is laid for a party. He must have plundered all the remaining flowers in the garden, for dozens of vases and teapots and jam jars are crammed with them. There are rusty storm lanterns, their candles burning with a slow-dancing flame behind glass, and an old oil lamp, its wick quick-burning and brilliant.

  The caravan has been decorated with fairy lights: colorful strings of bulbs that dip and ride along the roof. The door is still padlocked, but now two large dead potted plants stand on either side with tinsel wound round them.

  “It’s lovely,” I say.

  Cathal nods, his eyes bright.

  On a platter at the center of the table there are lines of crackers decorated with twists of cucumber. A nearby tray of pâté is attracting cats.

  Cathal gives a shout and they flee. “Feckers, all.” He inspects the pâté. “I’ll give it a wee scrape and it’ll be grand.”

  A record player is set up at the end of the table.

  He pulls out a chair. “Would you care to take a seat, Maud?”

  * * *

  THE SKY gets darker. It’s a mild night for the time of year but there’s a blanket on the back of my chair if I want it. We sit alongside each other. A few cats populate the empty seats ranged around the table.