Fiddleback

by Mark Morris

  ‘Oh, she’s great about it all,’ said Liz. ‘In fact, she seems to take a huge delight in whatever new things I do to the place. And the brighter colours I use the better as far as she’s concerned.’

  We wandered through into the narrow, cluttered kitchen, and as Liz busied herself with the food, I leaned against the door jamb, sipping wine. I told her about my parents, about Alex turning up at my cousin’s wedding with his then-boyfriend, Joe, which was when Mum and Dad had discovered he was gay. ‘It was a bit fraught at the time, but it’s funny in retrospect,’ I said. ‘Joe was a sweetie. I was sad when he and Alex split up, but he couldn’t cope with Alex zipping off around the world all the time. He turned up with Alex at Lucy’s wedding in a brown leather suit with shoulder-length, bleached-blond hair. You should have seen my dad’s face. In the bar before the reception, he sidled up to Alex and me when Joe was in the loo and said, “I don’t want to get personal, son, but are you sure that mate of yours is all right?”

  ‘Course, I knew what he meant straight away and I’m sure Alex did too, but Alex said, “Yeah, he’s fine, Dad, he’s just a bit nervous. Why, what’s he doing? Throwing up in the toilets?”

  ‘So Dad gave Alex this look as if he was being facetious and said, “No, son, I mean is he all right? Is he normal?”

  ‘And Alex said, “As normal as you are, Dad,” and at that moment I knew he was going to tell him, that it was going to come out, and part of me wanted to run away and part of me wanted to be there for Alex, to back him up.

  ‘Anyway, Dad snorted and stood up very straight and thrust his chin out like an army colonel or something, which is a stance he always adopts when he’s getting on his high horse about something. And he said, “I doubt that,” and Alex went very still, and then in this quiet voice which sent a shiver through me he said, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  ‘And Dad said, “Well, let’s just say that if he was a friend of mine – not that he would be, mind, but if he was – I certainly wouldn’t bend down to tie my shoelaces if he was behind me.”

  ‘For a moment I thought Alex was actually going to hit Dad, but then he smiled and said, “Don’t worry, Dad, you’re not his type.”

  ‘Dad looked surprised for a moment, then he said, “So what are you telling me, son? That your friend really is a woofter?”

  ‘And calm as anything, Alex said, “Well, either that or he’s been faking it every night in bed with me these last three months.”’

  Liz whooped with horrified delight. ‘You’re kidding! So what did your dad do?’

  ‘Well, at first he didn’t realize what Alex had said. He sort of half-laughed, and then suddenly realization dawned and his face went all red, and he took a sudden step back as if he thought Alex was going to leap on him and he said, “What the bloody hell are you talking about?”

  ‘And Alex said, “What do you think I’m talking about, Dad? I’m gay. I’ve always been gay. It’s no big deal.”’

  ‘Good for Alex!’ Liz said. ‘So what was your dad’s reaction to that?’

  ‘Oh, he blew his top as you’d expect. Said Alex was disgusting, that he’d brought shame on the family, all the usual crap. He tried to get me on his side, but when he found out I’d known for years he had a go at me too, said I’d encouraged Alex. It was all very depressing, all very predictable, but that’s Dad, he’s like a walking cliche. All he does is repeat what he’s read in the papers or heard on the telly.’

  ‘So did he create a scene in front of all the guests?’ Liz asked.

  ‘Not really. He just told Alex to keep out of his sight and then he stormed off. Alex turned to me and said, “Well, I think that went rather well,” but I could see he was upset and angry and trying not to be. Joe came back from the toilet and freaked out when he heard what had happened and thought Dad had gone off to get a lynch mob or something. He wanted to leave, but Alex told him that they were staying, that they had nothing to be ashamed of.

  ‘And so it went on, Dad furious but trying not to show it in front of our relatives because he was terrified that they would find out and think it was somehow his fault, Mum getting all upset and snivelling a lot, Alex defiant, Joe getting more and more nervous, and me stuck in the middle, getting flak off my dad, calming down Mum and Joe, and trying to be supportive to Alex. I was knackered by the end of the day, I can tell you.’

  ‘I bet you were,’ said Liz. ‘So what are your parents like now?’

  ‘Oh, Mum’s fine. She came round pretty quickly. Dad’s OK so long as it’s never mentioned. He and Alex can be civil to one another just as long as Dad can ignore the fact that Alex is gay. If the subject ever comes up, then they usually have a blazing row about it. Especially if there’s some family do coming up – Christmas or a wedding or whatever. Dad wants Alex to be there, but only on his terms, which means he doesn’t want Alex to bring what he calls “any of them poofs” with him. Oh, he’s a model of open-minded, forward-thinking liberalism, my dad. Bless his little cotton socks.’

  ‘Parents, eh?’ said Liz. ‘Who’d have ’em?’

  ‘Well, yours seem all right,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, they’re great. They’ve always supported me and Moira, whatever we’ve done. My gran too. I’ve been lucky, I suppose.’

  ‘I’m lucky to have Alex,’ I said. ‘He’s much more than a brother. He’s the best friend anyone could wish for.’

  At once I felt a lump in my throat and a moment later – to my own surprise – I was sobbing. I put my face in my hand and felt Liz stroking my hair.

  ‘Hey, come on,’ she said. ‘Don’t cry.’

  After a minute or so I brought myself under control. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘That kind of snuck up on me. I didn’t mean to go off like that.’

  ‘We’ll find Alex,’ Liz said. ‘You’ll see.’

  ‘Do you really think so?’

  She smiled, but her answer scared me because it was an avoidance of the question. ‘You’ve got to have faith, haven’t you? You can’t give up.’

  ‘I won’t give up,’ I said, ‘not until I’ve found out where he is.’

  She stared into my eyes and a strange moment passed between us, a brief hiatus where neither of us seemed certain what to say or do next. Then Liz reached for the wine bottle and said, ‘I think you need a refill.’

  ‘I think you’re right,’ I said, holding out my glass towards her.

  As she poured the wine she asked, ‘Are you ready to eat?’

  ‘Definitely,’ I said. ‘I’ve been starving myself for this.’

  ‘I’ve made vegetarian,’ said Liz. ‘I hope that’s OK.’

  I ate as if I hadn’t eaten for days, and as if I wouldn’t be eating properly again for quite some time. Liz had made aubergine and sesame pâté for starters, peppers stuffed with pine nuts and apricots for the main course and a raspberry meringue gateau for dessert.

  The two of us drank as if it was going out of fashion too. I’m not sure how much wine we had, but I remember Liz opening at least two bottles during the meal.

  It was only afterwards, with our empty dessert bowls in front of us, that I finally brought up the subject I’d been putting off since I got here.

  ‘So what did you think of what happened this afternoon, of what we found?’

  Liz sighed, reached for her glass and took a gulp of wine as if she needed it to fortify herself. ‘I’ve been trying not to,’ she said. She tapped her fingernail against the side of the glass, then looked at me. ‘Remind me again how you knew that we’d find something buried there.’

  I told her about the brooch, about my dream (I referred to it exclusively as a dream now, even in my own mind; anything else would have been too strange).

  ‘So the brooch led you there?’ Liz said.

  ‘My dream about the brooch led me there.’

  ‘But if you hadn’t had the brooch, you wouldn’t have had the dream?’

  I shrugged. ‘Who can say?’

  ‘But it was the police who planted the
brooch on you, wasn’t it? They put it among your personal effects, insisted that you take it.’

  ‘So what are you saying?’

  She gazed into the fire, a thoughtful look on her face, and for a moment I thought she was going to come up with some blinding insight, produce some vital puzzle piece I’d overlooked. Then she shrugged. ‘I don’t know what I’m saying. It’s all too weird.’

  ‘It’s not the only weird thing that’s happened to me since I’ve been here,’ I said.

  ‘No, you mentioned that before. So what else has been going on?’

  I hesitated, then said, ‘I’ll tell you, but only on the understanding that I’m not reading anything into these incidents – I’m just relating them as I experienced them. And I’m not one given to wild fancies. I’ve got an open mind, but I’m not gullible. I’ve never had any psychological problems, never taken any hallucinatory drugs – well, I once tried some magic mushrooms at college, but they had no effect whatsoever – and I was perfectly sober, on the whole, when these things happened.’

  Liz held up a hand. ‘And do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?’

  ‘Now you’re making fun of me.’

  She laughed, though not in a vindictive way. ‘Sorry, Ruth, but you seem so serious.’

  ‘I just don’t want you to think of me as a crank,’ I said.

  She looked upset that I could even think she would, the alcohol making her face more mobile, her expressions more exaggerated. She tilted her head in that cute, coquettish way of hers. ‘I’d never think that, Ruth, whatever you told me.’

  The wine was making my own head swim, but even I could tell that Liz was heading rapidly towards rat-arsed. Maybe she wasn’t as used to it as I was, or maybe she’d been more than a couple of glasses ahead of me when she’d opened the door. Whatever, her drunkenness gave me the confidence to relate all that had happened since I’d arrived in Greenwell, if only because I half-hoped she might have forgotten it by the morning. Liz watched me with wide, slightly glazed eyes, swaying slightly on her seat and taking occasional sips from her glass. When I got to the end of my story I marked it with a simple shrug. Liz still didn’t respond, just continued to stare at me. I left it for fifteen seconds or so, then twitched a hesitant smile. ‘Well, aren’t you going to say something? Get out of my house, you mad-eyed loon? Something like that?’

  Liz blinked slowly. ‘It’s a lot to take in,’ she said. ‘I’ll have to think about it for a while.’

  ‘Right,’ I said and stood up. ‘While you do that, I’ll make some coffee.’

  I went into the kitchen, and as I did so the intruder light came on in the back garden, making me jump. I looked out of the window, which had framed only blackness before. More apple trees, ashen and eerie in the half-light, raised their myriad spiny limbs to the moon as though in proclamation of some arcane god. I thought of Rudding earlier that day, his arms upraised as he pressed himself against the window, face twisted with rage.

  I told myself that an animal must have activated the light – there was certainly no sign of an intruder – but I shuddered nonetheless. I felt vulnerable standing there in the brightly lit kitchen, and wished there was a blind I could pull down to shield myself.

  Because the kitchen was unfamiliar it took me a good ten minutes to make the coffee. I half-expected to emerge from the kitchen to find Liz face-down on the table, snoring quietly, but she looked up almost alertly when I came back in with a tray. ‘There’s some after-dinner mints in the cupboard above the fridge if you’ve got room for one,’ she said.

  ‘I saw them,’ I said, ‘but I didn’t want to presume, so I left them where they were.’

  ‘I’ll get them.’ Liz clutched the edge of the table for balance as she stood up. ‘Do you want to carry the coffee through to the lounge? We might as well sit on the comfy seats.’

  I did as requested, placing the tray on the floor by the hearth and putting a couple more logs on the dying fire. I lifted the poker from the companion set and jabbed at the glowing embers until they responded with a lick of angry flame.

  ‘Good move,’ Liz said, offering me an after-dinner mint from the box in her hand. We sat at opposite ends of the vast, comfy settee, our legs tucked beneath us, sipping coffee and nibbling chocolate mints.

  ‘So?’ I said. ‘Any thoughts on what I said?’

  ‘It’s scary,’ Liz said. ‘It gives me the shivers. I can’t explain any of it.’

  ‘But do you believe that I’m telling the truth?’ I asked.

  ‘I believe that you think you are.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean? You think I’ve been imagining things, hallucinating it all?’

  ‘Please don’t get mad with me, Ruth,’ Liz said plaintively.

  ‘I’m not getting mad. I just know what I’ve seen. But I’ve got no explanation for any of it either.’

  Liz paused a moment, blinking sleepily into the fire, then said, ‘The thing is, it’s all so strange that the most normal explanation is that you’ve been hallucinating it all, or at least misinterpreting what you’ve seen.’

  ‘Or it could be that I’m being manipulated,’ I said. ‘Everything I’ve seen and heard and experienced may be an attempt by the people of Greenwell to scare me off.’

  ‘Except it hasn’t, has it?’ said Liz.

  I smiled. ‘I’m made of strong stuff, me.’

  Liz wiped a hand across her face as if attempting to clear away cobwebs. ‘I’m a bit pissed,’ she admitted, ‘but it seems to me that if they are trying to scare you away then they could be more direct about it. I mean, all this stuff with the spiders and the pot and all that – it’s creepy, but it doesn’t exactly send you screaming all the way back to London, does it? There was the body in the station, I know, but then that doesn’t really make sense either. I mean, if they’re prepared to commit murder, then why haven’t they just done away with you and got rid of your body? If the police are in on it, then they’re virtually untouchable, aren’t they?’

  I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe they’re playing some kind of ritualistic game. I keep getting the feeling that there’s something I’m not seeing, that I’m too close to everything, and that what I really need to do is step back to see the bigger picture. But I can’t. I can’t tear myself away.’

  Liz took another drink. ‘Well, if it’s any consolation to you, I can’t either, and I’m not as close as you are.’

  I sighed. ‘But then again, maybe that’s because there’s nothing to see. Maybe I am just … seeing things that aren’t really there.’

  ‘It’s all to do with seeing and not seeing,’ Liz said a little blearily.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Her mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. Finally she said, ‘I’m not sure really. I’m rather drunk. I don’t quite know what I’m talking about.’

  We looked at each other and giggled. It seemed the only thing to do under the circumstances. ‘What about these stories you were going to tell me?’ I said. ‘About the school?’

  Dismissively she wafted the hand in which she was holding her glass, slopping wine on her black dress. ‘It’s not very interesting really. Just gossip. Sordid little stories about sordid little lives.’

  ‘Like whose?’

  ‘Well, Rudding’s mainly. It all stems from him.’

  ‘Don’t tell me – he’s the leader of a Satanic cult. He and his followers dance naked around the goalposts at midnight.’

  ‘It wouldn’t surprise me, the stuff I’ve heard about him.’

  ‘Like what?’

  Liz leaned forward as though afraid of being overheard. ‘It’s said he got a fifteen-year-old girl from the school pregnant, but that the pregnancy was blamed on a boy in her class. Apparently the boy’s father was a school governor and had had a bit of a run-in with Rudding earlier in the year. Because it was an under-age issue, the police got involved, and the boy ended up committing suicide. He was found h
anging from a tree in the woods behind the school.’

  ‘That’s horrible,’ I said. ‘Is it definitely true?’

  Liz shrugged. ‘Who knows? It’s all hearsay, whispers. But the bit about the boy killing himself is true. I remember it being in the local papers.’

  ‘So when was this?’

  ‘It would be about … yes, about six years ago. It was about a year before I started working at the school.’

  ‘So has anything happened since you’ve been there?’

  ‘One or two things. A fourteen-year-old girl who’d stayed behind in the school one night for some reason claimed that a masked man had chased her through the building, out into the playground and across the playing fields before she managed to lose him. I spoke to the girl at her home the next day and she was genuinely terrified, shaking and crying as she was telling me the story. Rudding, though, more or less called the girl a liar and refused to do anything about it. Then, about nine months after that, Rudding tried to rape my friend, Beverley.’

  ‘He tried to rape someone? You’re kidding,’ I said.

  ‘I’m not. Beverley was really sweet. She was from Newcastle. We got on really well. She taught drama, and she’d only been at the school about two months when it happened. She said she’d gone to Rudding’s office one lunchtime and when she got there he just attacked her. She said he didn’t say a word, he just went for her, he was like an animal. She got away by hitting him with the phone.’

  ‘The phone?’ I said, surprised. I had no idea why that detail should jump out at me, but I got a sudden, almost overwhelming sense of déjá vu.

  Liz nodded. ‘Again the consensus of opinion was that she was lying, but she wasn’t, Ruth. I spent time with her afterwards and I know she was telling the truth. Rudding, though, said it was her who’d come on to him and that she’d gone apeshit after he’d politely resisted her advances. He made her out to be some deranged nymphomaniac, he got everybody on his side. The newspaper headlines were sickening – “Beleaguered Headmaster” blah blah blah. And the things he said! He kept calling Bev a poor child and said that he bore no animosity towards her and that she obviously needed help. The really weird thing, though, is that Bev disappeared one day.’