by Shawna Lewis
Nevertheless, the red and green baize, bright beneath the lamps, exuded an allure that few of the guests could resist. Roulette wheels caught the light as they spun and there was something about the noise that drew a crowd. Few knew much about the games but their remaining cash yearned to be spent. With the primary colours of the chips on the blackjack tables, the cards in their shoes, the music, the clothes… it was easy to get drawn in. The stud poker tables attracted the more reserved characters.
Being an experienced croupier, Bud had taught his trainees well. Leaving behind their shopkeeper selves as they donned tuxedos, they became smarter, more suave and sociable. Fools and their money were as soon parted that night as always. The more sensible transvestites stayed in the bar.
As he moved from table to table, Bud got his first real opportunity to study his clients properly. He was struck by the range of accents he heard and the social backgrounds suggested. He knew from his work on the doors at city clubs that drunkenness is a great social leveller; beyond that, he’d never given class much thought.
In these parts, Received Pronunciation stood out like a crow in an aviary. In Sallby tonight, a few jarring tones and snatches of caught conversation hinted at professions and high status. Bud was watching a game of hold ’em poker when, from the bar, one voice in particular caught his ear. Its owner was out of sight but clearly identifiable.
At the first opportunity Bud changed position so he was facing the bar. It was difficult to keep his eyes on the game. His chest constricted. He foresaw disaster.
By this time, many of the colourful outfits and stately hairdos were deranged and unkempt but, still in pristine condition, a silky, strawberry-blonde bob sat atop impressive shoulders draped in a stole of bronze voile appliquéd with butterflies. Beneath the voile, a low-cut evening gown in velvet of the deepest green stretched across a broad, masculine back.
Millicent was engaged in a tipsy conversation with a meagre, bored-looking crowd. As she turned, Bud made out the slight, gingery fuzz on the jowls, for Millicent, like her brother Daryl, was a two-shaves-a-day man, and it had been twelve hours since the last one. There was no doubt about it: Millicent and Miles Baxter-Hatton were one and the same person. Self-absorption being a trait common to both personas, neither had paid any attention to the bouncer. This evening had not been about other people, after all.
Daryl Baxter was shocked and, initially, not amused. What would their father be thinking as he looked down from his cloud on high? Never a tolerant man, the idea of his poncy, public-school son also being a cross-dresser would be explosive… would have killed him if he hadn’t pre-empted the discovery by dying a few months earlier. And how did Bud himself feel about this new facet of his half-brother’s personality? Disturbed, bewildered and, yes, happy that fate had dealt him such a winning hand for a change.
Miles had certainly not been on the original list of invitees, compiled by Bud and passed to Marnie. Email addresses had been elicited as Bud worked the doors of the clubs. After a quiet word in the ears of a few regulars at the tranny nights in town, the social networking sites had done the rest. Each had made individual contact with [email protected] to ask for an official invitation to this private function.
Try as he might to resist, Bud’s eyes were drawn to Millicent’s lustrous bob as she pontificated about the classless society to a dwindling group of loners. Eventually, that feeling of being stared at won out over the pull of an audience, and she turned. Eyes locked with her big brother’s, recognition undeniable.
Both men were rigid with uncertainty. How to respond? Who had most to lose from an outing? Like the icons on a fruit machine, calculations spun in each brain. With uncanny synchronicity, Daryl and Millicent strengthened the stare, inhaled, stood tall, and turned away. Millicent strode past her brother, brushing his shoulder with her stole. Daryl tried to become Bud again, but in all honesty, his grasp of the game had gone.
He wondered if Marnie had spotted Miles, but couldn’t leave his place to find her.
Marnie had in fact spotted Miles early on in the proceedings and had taken him outside for a stern talking-to. The MP had made compliant assurances that he would keep schtum about the event in return for similar discretion on her part. Marnie had not mentioned Daryl’s presence – it would only have muddied the waters, especially as the illegal part of the night was Bud’s responsibility. So she relied on crossing her fingers in the hope that the brothers’ paths would not cross.
Activity at the gaming tables slowed down in the early hours of Sunday morning, and by one-thirty they were being stowed away as the passengers boarded for the return journey, laden with carrier bags and rucksacks full to overflowing. They sank into the plush-covered seats, no chat left and, almost to a man or woman, fell asleep. Miles was a little longer dropping off, and when he did, he dreamt of Sunday headlines and dirty linen. The driver looked forward to a peaceful drive up the motor-way, back to the city and a Sunday morning snuggle with his missus.
In the empty hall, Bud and Marnie swept and mopped the floor, washed glasses and stuffed rubbish into the wheelie bin outside. Neither had much to say. Counting the profits and talking things over would wait till the following afternoon. At last they climbed into the truck’s cab and pulled away from Sallby Village Hall.
As the van headed for the motorway, a half-full tub of curry sauce fell from the overflowing bin and rolled down the path to the gutter. Half a dozen rats galloped after the chicken chow mein clinging to the polystyrene container blowing in the wind. Later, a vixen found the open bin and strewed its contents along the road.
7
The visit to Wales had been a disappointment. Deep down, Belinda, Doug and Melanie had to face up to it: they were not essential to Aidan’s happiness and wellbeing. The boy seemed happy. He loved the place, the people, the staff and even his chosen course. The accommodation wasn’t up to much but it was the best his parents could afford and he accepted that. The prices in the union bar were a bit steep too, but hey! He was an eighteen-year-old, well-balanced lad, away from home, footloose, fancy free and happy to stay that way.
It had been nice to see Mum, Dad and Mel, but, “My parents are always a bit of an embarrassment,” he told his flatmate Jude when they’d gone. Jude was quite posh and Aidan wished his dad was something more impressive than an electrician.
“Yah, mine too. My mother’s on so many committees that people think she’s Prime Minister of Bath or something, but she’s never had a job or read a book in her life.”
That sounded quite cool to Aidan. Jude thought Aidan’s sister looked a cute kid.
It was a subdued journey home that Sunday evening as the family tried to come to terms with the student’s independence, but he would be home for the Christmas vacation in a couple of weeks’ time and all would be well.
It was dark when the car passed the village hall. Belinda had no intention of inspecting the building that night – surely Anita would have done that already. But she couldn’t help noticing the litter, and that no one had put the refuse out for tomorrow’s collection.
“Stop the car,” she told Doug.
She stepped out and dragged the wheelie bin to the kerb.
*
Long before 7am, Doug shouted goodbye on the way to his van and another week of work and chilly caravan nights further north. The mood in the house sank lower. Melanie had to be prodded out of bed, then slunk off to school breakfastless, complaining that her weekend homework had not been done, thanks to her mother’s insistence on dragging her all the way to Wales when she didn’t even want to go in the first place. Belinda watched through the front window as her daughter pattered off down the street, still moaning as she met up with Chelsey from a few doors down.
Nothing to look forward to, Belinda made herself another round of tea and toast. It was a sunny winter’s morning. Slipping her coat over her pyjamas, holding the toast between her teeth sh
e carried the hot mug into the garden. The wooden snail was weathering now: it looked a more natural part of the scene. She sat on the snail’s back warming her hands on the cup and stared into the little pond’s black shallows. There was no sign of the five or six goldfish put in when Doug re-stocked back in the summer. Maybe the heron had been back. Belinda sometimes thought the money they spent on fish was a waste: they might as well feed them to the herons direct. All efforts to keep the birds at bay with nets or decoys had failed. Just as everything Belinda touched failed, she thought to herself, sliding into depression.
She hoped the robin would appear to peck up her toast crumbs, but no. She remained totally alone in the garden, wallowing in melancholy. Stiff and weary she sat, getting stiffer and wearier as the chill entered her bones. There must be a way forward, a way less lonely.
Leaning to the side, she laid her face against the snail’s head and stroked along the grain of the wood, recalling the lovely days of summer and the exultation of creation. Memories of her criminal act made her smile. She had got away with it, and for a time it had brought her alive, yet the experiment had fallen into abeyance like her pre-Christmas diet. Even her exercise regime had slipped. It was time to pull herself together. Picking up her plate and mug, Bel walked purposefully back inside.
She cleared space at the end of the bed and lay on the carpet, which was grubbier now. Stretching gently, limb by limb, she extended muscles still cramped from the weekend’s journey until she was ready for the more testing moves. Clothing was jettisoned piece by piece until she reached a frenzy of exertion. At last, spent, she draped herself forward over her dressing-table stool, eyes closed, head, arms and breasts hanging forward and legs extended behind. Her breathing slowed until, gradually, she reached that state of relaxation which is not quite sleep.
*
Bare buttocks catching the morning light greeted Dave the window cleaner as he reached the top of his ladder that morning. Was that a dead body slumped over the stool? He could see his own reflection in the mirror behind, so it appeared that he was not only viewing the scene from both sides, but examining his own reactions as well. He wobbled unsteadily on the rungs, bracing himself before taking another look. It was a strange pose and he could see no movement. The face was out of view. He wondered at the possible cause of death. There was no blood. The woman had been strangled, he surmised.
The ladder shook as he descended and signalled to his oily assistant, Steve.
“Take a look through that window.” His voice trembled.
Steve went up the ladder, caught the same eyeful, and quickly came down again.
Dave took his phone from his pockets, but decided to have one more look. His heart was pounding. What if he had a heart attack or a stroke up there?
Reaching the top, he braced himself. The corpse had not moved. He was sure now. It was dead, but he rapped on the window with his phone anyway.
The body convulsed and fell sideways, toppling the stool. The head hit hard on the wardrobe corner. Nude legs flailed rudely in mid-air as Belinda struggled to understand what was happening.
At the first, horrifying convulsion, Dave’s instinctive backward jerk yanked the ladder from the wall just an inch or two. At the same time, its right foot slipped on the mossy path beneath. The window cleaner teetered, gasped, and clung to the toppling ladder, managing to jump at eight feet from the ground. He landed awkwardly the other side of the little gate, one foot on the wall of a raised bed, the other on concrete. The falling ladder dealt a glancing blow to his left shoulder, and felled him proper.
Steve was quick off the mark with his own phone, dialling 999 without delay. He mentioned both the naked female body upstairs and the fallen fenestrator, but didn’t know the house number. He would stand at the gate and wave as the emergency services arrived. Having checked that Dave was conscious and not bleeding, he jogged to the roadside to wait.
The double glazing provided effective soundproofing; Belinda, in her somnolent state, was unaware of the drama outside. It seemed that she had fallen asleep and fallen off the stool as she relaxed… she’d been using images of the summer sessions in the sculpture park in her visualisation, with the tap-tapping of mallets on chisels in the background. Her head was sore where it hit the wardrobe but she was quite comfy on the carpet. She rolled onto her stomach, dragged her discarded dressing-gown from the bed to cover her middle, and fell asleep.
*
“Squeeze my hand if you can hear me.”
What was going on? Belinda struggled to remember where she was, let alone comprehend why she was lying naked on the carpet with a dark-eyed paramedic holding her hand. Had she been taken ill? Had a stroke? And how had he got in?
Eyes rolling, she squeezed the hand.
“That’s really great. Can you tell me your name, love?”
“Belinda.”
“That’s a nice name. Now try not to worry, Belinda. Can you tell me what day it is?”
She paused for thought.
“Never mind, Belinda. It will probably come back to you. Now, Belinda, take it slowly and tell me what happened.”
“How do you mean, what happened?”
“Well, Belinda, an ambulance was called because you were seen to have collapsed over a stool and appeared to be unconscious.”
“I was asleep.”
“Hmm. Asleep? Do you think you can sit up now, lovey? Slowly does it.”
Belinda’s yogic calm was fleeing.
“I’ve got a colleague from the police here with me, Belinda. He helped us break the door down and sort out one or two other issues. He’d like a word if you’re feeling up to it.”
Feeling up to it?
“How did you get in?”
“Like I said, Belinda love, this is Constable Stuart Willis and he broke the door down.”
PC Willis leant forward, clutching his notebook and taking care not to look at Belinda’s nipples.
“It looks as if there’s been a spot of bother here, Belinda. We just want to help, that’s all.”
“I don’t need help. What sort of bother?”
“Well, the furniture is in disarray, you have a big bruise on your temple and your husband seems to have gone AWOL. Just tell us the story from the beginning.”
“He hasn’t gone AWOL!”
“Your neighbour told us his van headed off in a hurry at around five o’clock this morning. Then at approximately 10.15am, Mr David Simmons, your window-cleaner, witnessed what he thought was a naked corpse through an upstairs window. The shock caused him to fall from his ladder, sustaining injuries to his leg and shoulder. The emergency services were called and a forced entry made. Happily, Belinda, they found not a corpse but an unconscious woman, namely yourself, with severe bruising to the temple, and the furniture in some disorder. Are you telling us that your husband is not responsible for your injury?”
“Of course he’s not! He wouldn’t hurt a fly!”
“Can you tell me his whereabouts?”
She pulled the dressing-gown higher. “Why should I?”
“Because this is an official enquiry, Belinda.” She was beginning to hate the sound of her name. “The emergency services were called and it’s our duty to investigate the incident. Now, where is your husband?”
“At work.”
“And where would that be?”
“Up north.”
“That’s rather vague, Belinda. We’ll need something more precise than that.”
And so it went on. Belinda realised that, actually, she did not know her husband’s whereabouts. She knew he was rewiring a block of flats with a team of independent tradesmen from around Denswick, and that they’d travelled up to the north-east. With mobile phones these days, it wasn’t necessary to have an address to stay in touch. And why should she give them his mobile number? No reason at all.
“So you say Dou
g is in the north-east but can’t be more precise than that?”
“It might be Sunderland. Now I’d like to get dressed, please.”
The paramedic persuaded her to remain where she was until he’d assessed her condition. Satisfied at last that she was OK to stand, the two men withdrew onto the landing while she dressed. As bafflement faded, fury filled the space. Was it a crime to head off in a hurry at 5am? Was it a crime to sleep naked in one’s own bedroom? And she’d known there was something iffy about that window-cleaner’s mate!
It was obviously him who had put her dearest Doug in the frame for wife-beating /attempted murder. She’d known he fancied her back in the summer by the way he’d pressed her hand, but had never imagined he was such an obsessed fantasist.
And what about the neighbour? She must have been twitching the curtains every five minutes to spot Doug setting off so early. The woman, Patricia, had only moved in four months ago and they’d not yet got comfortable with one another, but Belinda had suspected a malicious turn of mind from the start.
*
The police at last decided to pursue their investigations back at the station, having taken note of Doug’s van registration and mobile numbers, reluctantly provided by Belinda to get rid of them. The paramedic encouraged her to pop along to A&E to get her skull X-rayed, or at least have the bruise looked at. He didn’t want any comeback for leaving a wound unchecked.
Meanwhile, the greasy assistant had accompanied his employer and the second paramedic into the ambulance, which arrived at the scene within ten minutes of the call. Steve was in a state of some shock, though whether the shock was occasioned by the buttocks, the corpse or his boss’s fall was difficult to say. Dave was in both shock and pain. His shoulder was tender, his ankle was killing him, and he feared his dancing days might be over. Belinda joined the two men in the ambulance.
On arrival at A&E they were triaged and sent to a large waiting area full of seats upholstered in lavender vinyl, with a payphone under a hood on the wall and a drinks machine. Behind a curved reception desk of pale wood, a bored receptionist took their details and told them to sit down. Dave remained in the wheelchair while Steve – or, rightly, Stevan – tremulously did his bidding. Belinda sat in a daze, trying to understand what she was doing here. She came to understand one thing quite clearly: her new neighbour, Patricia, had messed with the wrong woman. It was once more time for the malevolent mantras. She could do some in her head while waiting. Unobserved, she closed her eyes and relaxed her breathing, which calmed her down and made the pain in her head fade into the background. It also meant she didn’t have to be polite to Dave and Steve.