Fiddleback

by Mark Morris

  I dozed for maybe twenty minutes beneath the comforting barrage of water. When I emerged I felt better, more together. Grabbing my mobile, I found Keith’s number and dialled it, when the answerphone message cut in, I hung up and dialled again. I did this four times before the phone was picked up and a voice blearily said, ‘Hello.’

  ‘What happened yesterday, Keith?’ I said.

  ‘Pardon? Um … who is this? Ruth?’

  ‘Don’t piss me about, Keith. I want to know what’s going on.’

  There was a pause, then Keith said, ‘Um … I don’t know what you’re getting at. Have I done something to annoy you, Ruth?’

  ‘What happened yesterday?’ I said. ‘Tell me what happened after I found the photos in the Fargo box.’

  ‘The Fargo box?’ Keith said, still sounding bemused. ‘Oh, you mean when we went to Alex’s flat on Friday?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I said. Stop pissing me about, Keith.’

  ‘I’m not, I’m sorry. It’s just … it threw me when you said yesterday.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I said, feeling as though the conversation was slipping away from me.

  ‘Well, yesterday wasn’t Friday, was it?’ Keith said. ‘Yesterday was Sunday.’

  For a moment time seemed to stop dead. ‘What?’ I said quietly.

  ‘What do you mean, “what”?’ said Keith.

  ‘What … what day is it today?’

  ‘It’s Monday, of course. Are you OK, Ruth?’

  Monday! So I hadn’t lost sixteen hours, after all. I’d lost three whole days! What the hell was happening to me? My head spun, and for a few long seconds I felt as though I was going to faint.

  ‘Monday?’ I managed to say, my voice sounding as though it came from a long way away.

  ‘Yes, of course. Ruth, are you OK? You sound really strange.’

  I tried to pull myself together, reminded myself that Keith may well be in on this with the rest of them, that he may be revelling in my confusion. I summoned up all the conviction I could muster and said, ‘I’m fine. I’m just tired, that’s all. Now are you going to answer my question or not?’

  ‘Um … s-sorry, Ruth,’ stammered Keith. ‘I’ve forgotten—’

  ‘What happened after we found the photos in the Fargo box the other day?’ I snapped.

  I’ve got to give it to him – Keith sounded genuinely mystified. ‘Right, well … um … well, you got upset, really upset, and you started crying, and you were swaying about as if you were going to faint. I steadied you and led you over to the settee, and we sat down and I gave you a hug. You were crying for a long time. I thought it was all the stress and strain you’d been under just coming out. I kept telling you to let it all go. Afterwards you were exhausted, you could hardly speak. You said you wanted to go back to the Solomon Wedge, so I drove you. I saw you in and asked if you’d be all right, and you said yes, you just wanted to sleep. I told you to call me when you felt better, and you said you would.’

  ‘And that’s all, is it?’ I said, my voice curt but my resolve evaporating a little.

  ‘Yes, that’s all. Why do you ask?’

  ‘It’s not how I remember it,’ I said.

  Sounding baffled, Keith said, ‘I see. So how do you remember it?’

  ‘I remember you … taking advantage of me.’

  What?’

  ‘I remember us taking our clothes off, having sex.’

  There was a brief pause, and then Keith said quietly, ‘What is this, Ruth? What are you trying to do to me?’

  ‘I’m not trying to do anything to you,’ I said. ‘I’m just trying to find out the truth.’

  ‘The truth is that you got upset, I comforted you, and then I drove you back to the pub. We didn’t have sex, Ruth. I’m gay, for Christ’s sake!’

  ‘You say you are,’ I said.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘You say you’re gay. You say your name is Keith. You say you’re Alex’s boyfriend. But I don’t have proof of any of this, do I?’

  There was a longer pause this time. If Keith really was who he said he was, then I could guess what he was thinking. Who was this crazy woman he’d become lumbered with? What the hell was she up to? At last he said, ‘All right, Ruth, if you want proof then I’ve got proof. I’ve got my driver’s licence, my passport. I’ve got photographs of me and Alex together. I’ll come round to the pub to show them to you now if you like. All I want to do is help, Ruth. I love Alex too, you know.’

  I felt the new fragile membrane that had formed around my emotions threatening to crumble again. Trying to sound brisk, but succeeding only in sounding strained, I said, ‘Not now. Maybe later. I’ve got something to do first.’

  ‘All right, Ruth,’ Keith said, ‘whenever you’re ready. Give me a call, OK?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. I was going to switch the phone off, but before I could Keith asked, ‘Are you going to be OK?’

  He sounded genuinely concerned. Confusion was grinding inside me. I wanted to shout, Don’t do this to me. I don’t know whether I can trust you! Instead I said, ‘I’ll be fine. See you later.’ Then I snatched the mobile from my ear and jabbed at the disconnect button, as if the phone were a trap I had lured him into and now sprung.

  Despite not having apparently eaten for three days, my appetite was still non-existent, though I thought it wise to try to get something down before I flaked out. I went downstairs and nibbled my way through several rounds of toast and butter. Tony, who was serving today, brought me a pot of tea and looked at me strangely when I requested bottled orange instead and stipulated that I personally wanted to open the bottle. After breakfast I felt stronger, more centred, felt as though my wildly fluctuating thoughts were settling, wavering back into alignment.

  I needed to talk to Liz, find out what had happened between us. I wasn’t relishing the prospect, but I couldn’t ignore it, not if I wanted to try to salvage the only real friendship I’d made in Greenwell. I sat in my car and started dialling the number of the school, then killed the connection. No, it would be better to give her no forewarning of my arrival.

  It was only when I got to the school that I realized I’d got the timing all wrong. The school day – a new school week after the weekend I’d lost – had only just begun. Liz would be teaching. I couldn’t just barge in and demand to speak to her. I thought about driving round for a bit, seeing a bit of the countryside, but then I remembered the grey figure who’d been standing by the side of the road the other morning, who had begun to slowly turn to face me as I approached. I decided I didn’t want to tempt fate, didn’t want to turn a corner to find the figure there waiting for me again – or worse, in the middle of the road this time, its arms perhaps outstretched to halt the car.

  I was giving myself the willies. I pulled into a layby just beyond the school and turned on the radio in the hope of banishing my demons with pop music. Finally, over the DJ’s increasingly irritating patter, I heard the trilling of the school bell. Break-time at last. Suddenly, aware that I had no more than fifteen or twenty minutes before Liz would be teaching again, I started the car and drove round to the car park at the back.

  I fought my way through hordes of children in the corridors, whose main purpose in life seemed to be to hamper my progress. At last I reached the staff room and knocked on the door. I felt dishevelled, breathless with urgency – but maybe that was the best way to face her; she might take pity on me when she saw what sort of state I was in. When the door opened my heart skipped as I thought at first my knock had been answered by Liz herself. I almost instantly realized that this woman was taller and thinner and older than Liz.

  ‘Can I help you?’ she said.

  ‘Is Liz … um, Liz there?’ I asked, her surname popping out of my head just as I was about to say it, making me feel stupid.

  The woman scrutinized me for a moment, and I wondered whether Liz had confided in her about me – I squirmed with embarrassment at the thought. I half-expected her t
o tell me curtly that Liz didn’t want to see me, but instead she said, ‘I’ll see,’ and retreated into the room, making a point of closing the door enough so that I couldn’t see inside.

  As I waited I was aware of the seconds until the end of break ticking by. Already it seemed an age since the school bell had gone. I considered walking away, thought that maybe it would be better if I came back later, caught Liz just as she was about to go home and suggest we go for a drink. Yes, that might be the best idea. But even as I thought this the door was plucked open. The expression on Liz’s face was not encouraging.

  ‘Why have you come here?’ she demanded. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

  I felt like a child, not just wayward but inadequate. I was the same height as Liz, possibly even taller, but I felt I were looking up at her.

  ‘I need to talk to you,’ I said, then immediately wished I’d rephrased it, had said instead, We need to talk.

  ‘Well, I don’t think I need to talk to you,’ Liz snapped. ‘There’s nothing to say.’

  ‘Yes there is, there’s plenty to say!’ I protested.

  She folded her arms. ‘Like what?’

  I looked around. Passing pupils were casting curious glances in our direction. ‘I just want a chance to explain myself,’ I said. ‘Look, isn’t there somewhere more private we can go?’

  She was silent for a moment, arms still folded tightly as if to provide a buffer against me. Then she said, ‘Come on, then,’ and stomped past me and down the corridor, not bothering to check whether I was following.

  She ran up a flight of stairs and I ran after her, past lingering pupils whose furtive glances made me uneasy. Down another corridor we went, Liz moving so swiftly that I thought she was trying to lose me. Abruptly she came to a halt outside a closed classroom door and shoved it open. I arrived at the threshold in time to see a teenage couple glance up startled from the snog they’d been having, the boy whipping his hand quickly out from beneath the girl’s skirt, both their faces flushed.

  ‘Out!’ Liz snapped, and the couple scrambled to obey, the girl wiping her mouth guiltily on her sleeve, the boy mumbling, ‘Sorry, miss,’ as he passed with his head down.

  I closed the door and then Liz and I were alone. She perched on a desk and folded her arms again. ‘Well?’

  For a moment I felt too flustered to think. Everything I’d rehearsed silently in my head, the different approaches I’d considered to deal with whatever mood Liz might be in, had either fled from my brain or were jammed in there so deep I was unable to extricate them. I raised my hands in a vague gesture of conciliation.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Is that it?’ Liz placed her hands on the desk as if to push herself upright prior to leaving.

  ‘No!’ I said. ‘Of course not. It’s just … I’m so confused, Liz. I don’t know what’s happening to me. Please don’t be angry. You’re the only friend I’ve got here.’

  ‘I’m not surprised if this is the way you treat them.’

  ‘I know, I know, it’s just that … Oh, this is going to sound so feeble.’

  ‘Try me,’ Liz said curtly.

  I took a deep breath. ‘When I opened my eyes and saw that you were in bed with me, I freaked out because … well, because I didn’t expect to see you. I thought I was in bed with someone else.’

  Liz looked at me with contemptuous disbelief. ‘Come again?’

  She hadn’t moved, but I raised my hands as if to prevent her leaving, or perhaps to protect myself against physical attack. ‘Look, I know how mad this sounds, Liz, believe me. I don’t know what’s going on myself. I was hoping you might be able to tell me. But the truth is, the reason I reacted like I did is because I honestly thought I was in a different place with a different person.’

  ‘I see,’ she said heavily, disbelievingly. ‘So who did you think you were with?’

  ‘Keith.’

  ‘Keith! Alex’s Keith?’

  I nodded.

  She looked angry and confused. ‘I don’t know what the hell you’re on about.’

  I was desperate for answers, but I thought it best to tell her my side of the story first. I took her through my encounter with the grey figure at the side of the road, my meeting with Keith, my lost weekend. ‘The thing is,’ I said when I had finished, ‘I’ve got no proof that the man I met even was Keith. I’ve never seen him before, so I don’t know what he looks like. All I know is that the man I met said he’d been to the school and you’d sent him to find me at the pub.’

  ‘That’s right. Keith did come to the school. I told him you’d stayed over with me the night before, but that you had a room at the Solomon Wedge, and that if he went there he’d catch up with you sooner or later.’ She fell silent.

  ‘So,’ I said nervously, ‘you tell me what happened.’

  ‘You seduced me,’ Liz said bluntly. ‘You called me on Saturday morning and said you needed to see me straight away. You said it was important. When I arrived you hardly said anything to me, just that you’d been thinking about what had happened between us, and you wanted it to go further. Then you started kissing me …’ Her voice trailed off.

  I pressed my hands to my cheeks. They were trembling, the fingertips cold. My heart was thumping hard and fast with fear. ‘I have no memory of that,’ I whispered. ‘No memory at all. Oh God, what’s happening to me?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Liz said almost coldly.

  ‘So where does this leave us?’ I asked. ‘Are we still friends?’

  Liz gave a small, bitter smile. ‘I hated you after the way you treated me. I haven’t been able to sleep since Saturday, I’ve been so twisted up with anger and humiliation.’

  I hung my head. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I mumbled. ‘I didn’t mean to make you feel like that. I would have done anything not to hurt you.’

  There was silence for a moment, then Liz sighed as if saddened by her own lack of sympathy. ‘Maybe it’s not your fault.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe you were drugged or something.’

  ‘By Keith?’

  She screwed up her face. ‘I can’t believe that.’

  ‘Who then?’

  ‘I don’t know. By someone at the Solomon Wedge maybe.’

  I thought about it. It was possible, I suppose, but for what purpose I couldn’t fathom.

  ‘What if I was right before?’ I said. ‘What if the man I met at the Solomon Wedge wasn’t Keith? What if someone intercepted him en route and took his place?’

  ‘It’s all a bit Jonathan Creek.’

  ‘It’s possible, though, isn’t it?’

  ‘Well … just about, I suppose. Hang on a minute.’ Liz was wearing a pair of silk, charcoal-grey combat trousers. She unbuttoned one of the pockets and took out a small, square, black leather wallet. She opened the wallet and teased out a photograph. As she did so, another one came free with it and fluttered to the floor. ‘Oh bugger.’

  I moved forward to pick it up. The photo was lying face down. When I turned it over I realized I was looking at the same girl who had been in the photo with Liz on her mantelpiece, the one who looked so familiar to me.

  ‘Who’s this?’ I asked, handing the photo back to Liz.

  Liz looked at it, a wistful smile on her face. ‘This is Jenny. My ex-partner.’

  All at once the door to my memory clicked open, the name Liz had provided like the last elusive digit of a combination lock. ‘Jenny Sayer?’

  Liz looked taken aback. ‘Yes, as a matter of fact. How did you know?’

  I laughed. ‘Jenny Sayer was my best friend at school when I was fourteen. Then her family moved away and we lost touch. I thought I recognized her when I saw her picture in your house, but I couldn’t place her. She’s changed quite a bit. She looks thinner and her hair’s a different colour. How is she?’

  Liz paused, and though it was just for an instant, I suddenly knew that the news would not be good. Liz’s voice was flat, emotionless. ‘She di
ed of stomach cancer fifteen months ago.’

  I hadn’t seen Jenny for almost two decades, but my body jolted with shock. ‘Oh, Liz, I’m so sorry. Oh no. Oh, poor Jenny.’

  ‘These things happen,’ Liz mumbled, and shoved the other photograph at me. ‘Here’s a picture of Keith.’

  I took it. It was the same man I had met in the Solomon Wedge, the same man I had gone to Alex’s flat with. He was wearing a basketball vest with a number twenty on it. He was grinning into the camera and he had his arm draped around Liz’s shoulder, dwarfing her. Liz had a black vest top on, and was laughing so hard you could see her fillings. It was a sunny day, light haloing their hair.

  ‘It was taken on one of our picnics,’ she said.

  ‘Alex took this?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I handed the photograph back to her. It was strange, but seeing them so obviously happy made me feel unbearably sad. ‘It’s the same man,’ I said, at which point the bell rang.

  Liz pushed herself off the desk. ‘I’ve got to go.’

  I looked at her with something like panic. ‘So what happens now? We are still friends, aren’t we?’

  She didn’t answer me straight away, and when she did she simply said, ‘Give me a ring. We’ll talk later.’

  ‘But we are friends, aren’t we?’ I said, aware of how pathetic I sounded but unable to help myself.

  Liz looked troubled. ‘I hope so. I need some time to think, though, Ruth.’

  ‘I’ll ring you at home,’ I told her as she moved to the door. ‘Perhaps we can go out for a drink or a meal.’

  She gave me a non-committal smile, then opened the door, and almost immediately stepped back. ‘Of all the cheeky …’

  Someone had been standing on the other side of the door, eavesdropping on our conversation – this much I understood. I stepped forward, past Liz, and caught the barest glimpse of Rudding, the headmaster, scuttling around the corner like some great black spider.

  twenty-one