House of Straw

by Marc Scott

  The small girl with the front row seat at the circus was still watching the star attraction as she finished her tea and zipped up her bomber jacket. Poppy thought she might try something approaching an act of comic humanity in a bid to get a reaction from the child. She poked out her tongue and pulled back the sides of her eyes, making something of a scary face. But the girl was not amused. Her facial expression remained unchanged, she simply chewed on her straw. Maybe she was disappointed with this act, maybe she would be asking for her money back. After all, the real Poppy Jarvis was meant to be a lot more entertaining, much more brutal, a psychopath. The real Poppy Jarvis screamed at people and held broken bottles and knives in her hand. The small girl in the pretty yellow dress would surely not be recommending this tame version of the show to any of her friends.

  The fresh air hit Poppy hard in the face as she made her way out of the pavilion. She still felt a little nauseous and was conscious that she may bring up the mug of tea that was making its way through her system. She still felt slightly unsteady on her feet, so sat on one of the large wooden benches overlooking the lake. It had something of a familiar feel about it. She felt as if she had sat in this place before. She watched on as the small boats moved gently through the water, small cries of laughter echoing out from the other side of the island. A couple with a very small child, no older than two years old, were breaking bread and feeding the ever-growing number of ducks down in front of her. She smiled to herself. She never did like those bloody ducks at the lake, they always seemed to get in the way of her father’s boat. To her right, Poppy could see a man walking his dog. She perked up for a second. It wasn’t the sight of his four-legged friend that brought her to her feet, he was smoking, he had cigarettes. Poppy did her best to tidy her hair as she approached him. She didn’t want to give him the impression that she was just some homeless scrounger. The man was getting on in years, somewhere in his early seventies, maybe older. He was small in stature and had a tiny grey moustache which looked in need of a serious trim. He wore a quarter-checked flat cap and large boots as if he was going hunting rather than for a simple walk around the fields. His dog was a Golden Labrador. He was lying down, taking in the view and the gentle breeze from the lake. Poppy stood beside the pair for a moment or two. She watched them closely. The man spoke to his dog as if it were his child, patting his head and praising him each time he sat or lay down at his request. But Poppy wasn’t interested in the good behaviour of his animal friend, she desperately needed a cigarette. She approached the man from the side, so she would not alarm him. Sorting through her bag, she found a couple of pound coins amongst the mess of tissues and held them outwards in the palm of her hands. ‘Can I buy a couple of those ciggies off you?’ she asked. ‘They don’t sell them in the canteen.’ The man looked her up and down, his wise old eyes studying her weary face and scruffy appearance for a few seconds. Poppy thought that maybe he had not understood her. She offered him the money again.

  The man reached into his pocket and pulled out a packet of Marlboro cigarettes. He checked inside and saw that there were half a dozen left. ‘Here, have these,’ he said. ‘You look like you need them.’

  Poppy offered him the money, but he shook his head. ‘Don’t worry about that,’ he said. ‘Do you need a light?’ Poppy nodded and he lit up her cigarette. She breathed in deeply. That first intake of tobacco felt heavenly as it raced around her lungs. ‘If you don’t mind me saying so, you look a bit lost,’ the elderly gentleman observed. ‘Do you need any help?’

  Poppy took another long drag on her cigarette before replying. ‘No, I know this place, I used to come here when I was young.’

  ‘It hasn’t changed much,’ the man said, looking out across the lake. ‘Apart from the fact that the bloody tea has gone up to two quid for a tiny mug and they don’t let Toby in the pavilion anymore.’

  ‘Toby?’ she asked and then quickly realised that he had meant his four-legged companion. ‘Oh, Toby, yes I see.’

  ‘It is none of my business, but you look like, well, like you might have been in a fight or something.’

  Poppy wasn’t sure what to say, so she said nothing. She appreciated the fact that he had given her the cigarettes, but she wasn’t going to share her thoughts with this stranger.

  The three of them stood there in silence for a moment or two, Poppy, the elderly man and Toby, all looking out across the water, all with different thoughts on how the coming hours were going to play out. Despite his ageing years, the man seemed astute. He had already identified the bloodstains on the sleeve of her jacket and was becoming more inquisitive. ‘Are you in some sort of trouble?’ he asked. ‘I know it is nothing to do with me, but, well, it might help to talk to someone about it.’

  Poppy shook her head. ‘No, I am fine, I just had a bad night, that’s all.’ The man did not believe her, but said nothing more. He knew deep down that the girl with his cigarettes in her jacket pocket was troubled, deeply troubled. It did not take a genius to work that out. They stood in silence as Poppy finished the remainder of her life-saving shot of nicotine.

  The lake was alive now. Around twenty boats had been launched onto the still waters. The family of ducks had been fed now and moved backwards and forwards across the water, much to the annoyance of some of the revellers in the boats. The elderly man took in a deep breath of the country air and ushered his four-legged companion to his feet with a simple call. ‘Come on, fella!’ he said. ‘You and I can get some exercise now.’ Poppy decided to stay a little longer, after all, it was becoming easier for her to deal with the reality of her past than that of her future.

  Despite the fact that the stranger had been a little too interested in her personal problems for her liking, she felt somewhat obligated to show her gratitude. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘For the ciggies.’

  The man pulled out a disposable lighter from his pocket and passed it to her. ‘No problem,’ he said with a small look of concern on his ageing face. ‘You will probably need this too.’ But before he turned to leave, he gave Poppy a simple piece of advice. ‘Take it from someone who has probably made more mistakes than most in their life, you can’t hide from them. If you don’t own your mistakes, they will follow you around, until they wear you down.’ With that he gave Poppy a friendly smile and walked away with his faithful companion in tow. ‘Be lucky, girl!’ he said. ‘Be lucky!’

  Poppy lit up another cigarette and stared into the tranquillity of her surroundings, the place where everything was peaceful, no shouting or screaming, no plates being thrown across the kitchen, no fighting, nothing, just a pure and simple place where she once felt at peace with the world. She was still trying to work out how she had arrived here, to the ghosts of her past, back to this place. There was nothing spectacular about it, it was a couple of dozen wooden boats floating their way around a small island in the middle of an ordinary stretch of water. But as those images of her childhood swayed through her consciousness, one dark thought came back to haunt her. It was always lurking there, somewhere at the back of her mind. Is this where her father hid her? Is her mother’s body lying somewhere at the bottom of that lake?

  Poppy was in something of a daze as she walked back to her car. The sight of Nikita in the toilet mirror was still with her. She was finding it impossible to get the girl’s image out of her head. As she sat in her Omega, she looked over the missed calls and text messages in her mobile. The calls from the withheld number seemed to have doubled since she last looked. She knew that it would be the police, they would be giving her chapter and verse on the benefits of a voluntary surrender. She did not want to hand herself in, but it was rapidly looking like her only option.

  Her head was still throbbing. It didn’t make things any easier for her. She was trying to remember exactly what happened the day before, some of it was still a blur. Was he dead, had she killed Cameron? She knew that she had hit him with that bar, hard, hard enough to hurt him, but had she killed him? T
he voice of reason told her that he couldn’t be dead, he was invincible, Cameron was invincible. What about the time he took a pasting from the motorcycle gang? They beat him black and blue and just a few days later he was kicking a football around on the green. Her mind was working overtime now. No, he must be dead, she thought, he wasn’t moving, when I left him, he wasn’t moving. She changed her mind again. Was he moving? Maybe a bit, maybe she heard him groan when she was leaving. Yes! That’s it, their neighbour would have heard the noise, they would have called an ambulance, he would be alright, it was Cameron, he would be alright. Maybe he didn’t even tell the police what really happened, he wouldn’t have grassed her up, not Cameron, he was no grass, he hated the police. Maybe he did, maybe he did grass her up. He hated her now, maybe the big hard man told the police everything. But she could tell the police that she hit him in self-defence, tell the police he started it, it was just a row that got out of hand. Poppy could not decide what the best outcome for her would be. Maybe it was better if he was dead, maybe that would be better for her after all.

  The gentle breeze wafted across the beautiful greens surrounding the lake, reaching Poppy in her moments of reflection. It was all coming back to her now. All her brutal actions of the previous day were being replayed on a big-screen television in her troubled mind. I hurt Danny, she thought, I didn’t mean to, it was her fault, Danny, it was that bitch who says she is my sister, it was her and her trouble-making friend. That smarmy cow deserved everything she got, but not you, Danny, not you. You saw her, Danny, she is crazy, she wanted me to cut her with that bottle, that broken bottle. My god, she walked right up to me, she wanted me to slice her up, you saw her, Danny, you saw her, she is a mad bitch, she was asking to be hurt. Why did she have to come back? I told her not to. She did this, her and her big-mouthed bitch of a friend. They caused all these problems, them and Matt. Yes, Matt, he started it all. Poppy was struggling now, she began to realise the amount of people that she had hurt the previous day, but she still tried to find some reasons to justify her actions. He was fucking her, Danny, Matt, he was fucking Chantelle, that squeaky-voiced little slut, he was fucking her. God, she is only about fourteen or fifteen years old, I don’t know, maybe older but not old enough. He is a pervert, Danny, I hope you have sacked him, he started all of this, he made me angry, he made me so fucking angry, he started the voices off inside my head.

  Poppy reached into her jacket pocket to light up another cigarette but just as she did her phone rang, causing her to jerk backwards and drop the lighter. She knew the time had come. This was the withheld number. She knew deep down inside that she could not run away from this. Let’s talk to the police, she thought, let’s just get this shit over and done with. She answered the call. ‘Hello.’

  ‘Oh hello, is that Poppy, Poppy Jarvis?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Thank goodness, I have been trying to reach you for the past couple of days.’

  ‘OK.’

  Poppy had spoken to many women police officers and court officials in her time. She sensed that this woman on the phone was not one of them. She was right.

  ‘You are related to Dean Jarvis, is that correct?’ the woman asked.

  ‘Yes, I am…’ She didn’t want to use the words, but she felt that she had to. ‘I am his daughter, who am I speaking to?’

  ‘My name is Angela Napier, I am the hospital administrator from St Andrew’s Hospital in Southwark.’

  ‘Is it about my father?’

  ‘Yes, it is, Miss Jarvis. I am afraid I have some bad news for you.’

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Maybe, when you can’t accept that reality is the only truth and that everything else means nothing, nothing at all, maybe then you must begin to accept the fate that lies ahead of you.

  But Dean Jarvis still believed that if you simply don’t tell someone something, then it is not a lie. He had lived by this rule for most of his life, but if ever there was a time to find some peace in this world and the one that lies beyond, the time was now. This might be his final chance.

  The currents surrounding the sinking man were growing ever stronger, pulling him deeper into the abyss. His hopes of survival were fading fast as the tides of his self-despair carried him further away from the shores of redemption. Any help he received at this late stage would be the equivalent of a small rubber ring fighting the rage of a tidal wave.

  The drowning man was still looking for solace, not that anyone was likely to believe his tales of woe, least of all his companion in that hospital room. He tried again, however, to justify himself to that lonely figure beneath the bedsheets. He began with a lie, one he had told himself many times over. It was not a convincing lie. ‘I tried my best for Poppy, I did everything I could, but she was better off with them, better off in care. They had professional people, you know, ones that could help her with her problems. I know she was better off with them.’ The flashing monitor beside the man in the bed registered a few small bleeping sounds. Maybe it was a way of acknowledging the fact that he was listening, maybe it wasn’t.

  The blinds at the hospital window were closed now. The rain had stopped falling and the sirens of the ambulances were idle. The clock on the wall was still showing twenty minutes past the hour, but it was clear that the second hand was fighting to move forwards. Time was no longer on Dean’s side, it would be now or never. He decided to follow a different path. ‘Poppy thinks I did it, you know that, don’t you? Poppy thinks that I killed her mother. She asked me once, she asked me if she should stop hoping that her mother was safe and that she would come back home. I think that might have been the last time I saw her. She was in that shitty kids’ home, the one in Bluebridge, she hated it there. How could she think that I would have murdered her mother? I loved Hannah, maybe I never showed it enough, but I loved her, I just hated what she had become. All that booze and those pills she used to take, but deep down I still loved her. I stopped seeing her after that – Poppy – I didn’t want to see her anymore. It broke me in two, every time I held her tiny hand and had to let it go again. I don’t know why the police never found Hannah. I wanted them to, I wanted them to find her.’

  In his mind Dean was still convinced that he could reach the shoreline. The sinking man was fighting harder than ever to escape his destiny. But the small morsels he had offered in his final bid for forgiveness had fallen on deaf ears. By now, the tiny lights in those small houses were getting further and further away. The angry currents began to pull harder on Dean’s torso. His resistance would be futile. He realised now that he was getting weaker, much weaker. The colours on the small screen beside the man in the bed flashed rapidly for a few seconds and the machine made an unusual sound which distracted his attention. Dean reached into his pocket and took out his mobile phone, a relic from the 1990s, the Nokia C16 handpiece that he had owned for more than a quarter of a century. ‘I still think that it will ring, you know,’ Dean said. ‘I know it sounds crazy, but I still think that one day it will ring, and it will be her. They all laughed at me, all those fools with their shiny new iPhones. I suppose I just hoped, maybe one day, that she would find my number and call, just once, that’s all, she would only need to speak, to talk to me. I just wanted to hear her voice one more time.’

  Those that might choose to forgive him might assume that elusive call he had been hoping for was a call from his daughter or his missing spouse. It might have bought him some time, stopped him from plunging further downwards, to the bed of his ocean of regrets. But as usual his selfish thoughts had turned to Krista, they always turned to Krista, but Dean knew in his heart that call would never ever come.

  * * *

  If only the drowning man knew that it would not be so long that he would be joining his son, the one he never met, the one he didn’t want, another offspring that he had abandoned. Fortunately for his boy, the world had been a kind place during his short life. Although he never got to fulfil his dr
eams and ambitions, he was loved. For the twenty-two years that his beautiful soul was amongst the living, he was truly loved. Maybe, if by some miracle Dean’s final calling took him to the house of the righteous, he might meet him there. Maybe his son would reveal that he also had another child, one who could not be with them, not just yet, but maybe soon. He might tell him that his second daughter, the one he never even knew existed, was herself in turmoil. That his father had left behind two deeply troubled souls, who, for different reasons, were both crying out for their own salvation. Perhaps this would be his punishment, an eternity of never knowing the truths that had surrounded him all these years. If only he had looked sooner, if only he had looked harder, this union may well have been a happy one.

  The drowning man had almost sunk to the bottom of his sea of despair. Those distant lights were becoming dimmer by the minute. There were no life jackets being thrown in his direction, no outstretched arms beckoning him to safety. He was alone now, he was completely alone. It began to get darker, much darker. He had one final chance to reflect on his life. Maybe if he hadn’t been sleepwalking through his existence for the past twenty-odd years and could join the dots together, he might realise why he was here now, alone in this desolate hospital room. He might blame his drink problem for why he regularly beat his wife, or the two-year-long police investigation into her disappearance which caused the first of his two nervous breakdowns. He could say that there was someone else to blame for the sixteen jobs he gained and lost over the past two decades. Maybe it was the stress from that situation that caused him to be locked up in prison for nine months, for the accident he caused whilst under the influence of his beloved alcohol. And if he searched deep enough, maybe, just maybe, Dean could blame someone, anyone, else for what happened to Poppy. He could try to convince anyone who might listen that it was the fault of genes that his mentally unbalanced mother had passed down to him, the frenzied cocktail of out-of-control chromosomes that now raged like a wildfire inside the framework of his troubled daughter’s body. There would always be a scapegoat, always someone else to curse for his sorrows. He could always pass the blame onto someone or other.