by Jenny Colgan
Ross was lying on the ground, yelping in pain as the police and ambulance crew competed to take information from him.
‘I didn’t mean it, Arthur!’ he screamed, as Arthur floated past him. ‘I didn’t mean it!’
The noise, with people shouting and the flap flap flap of the helicopter’s rotors, was immense.
But Arthur was looking for something, and he couldn’t think what. He was aware of his body moving, but couldn’t possibly have said why. It did a tour of the area outside the castle, then headed back in again.
‘I’m afraid you can’t go up there, sir,’ said the policeman. ‘We’ve sealed it off for now. Might be a crime scene.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Arthur, again aware of his voice speaking the words, but not knowing how they were coming out of his mouth. ‘I must. It is my will.’
And the policeman stood aside.
He was back in the octagonal room again, empty now except for the ghastly, livid red and yellow cascading down the walls.
He walked round the room three times, quite unable to articulate what he was doing there. Finally, on his fourth repetition, he saw it.
If you hadn’t looked very closely, you wouldn’t have seen it at all. There was simply a snip; a smidgeon of black peeping out from the corner, underneath the slab table where Fay had lain.
Arthur knelt down on his hands and knees and pushed out his hand.
‘Sshhhh,’ he whispered. ‘Sssshhhh.’
Although, of course, Sandwiches wasn’t making any noise at all.
Arthur gently touched the dog on the neck, not entirely sure he wouldn’t get bitten. On one level he would have welcomed that; something to break through the terrible numbness that seemed to have taken hold of his body.
But Sandwiches didn’t bite him. Instead, he nuzzled his nose forward and looked straight into Arthur’s eyes, as if trusting him to help him understand exactly what had just happened.
‘Oh,’ said Arthur. ‘Oh, Sandwiches. Oh, Sandwiches.’
And he began to weep, big tearing sobs that ripped through his whole body and caused his upper half to shake and convulse.
Sandwiches shuffled himself forward just enough, and put his head in Arthur’s lap.
Arthur couldn’t go home. The others had, Cathy and Rafe as shocked and disbelieving – almost more so, for they had seen the helicopters but had no idea what had taken place – as they were. Ross had been taken to hospital; there would of course be no charges. This was undoubtedly an accident, not even, Arthur was stunned to find out, a massively uncommon one. And if he hadn’t got Fay out of the way, it could have been worse.
It wasn’t easy to track down Sven’s parents. The Danish embassy were on to it, but in the meantime Arthur had to identify the body, sign the paperwork and liaise with Mountain Rescue to take the body to London, where it would be shipped on to Copenhagen.
It didn’t help that he was getting no sleep; partly from the horror, and partly from having Sandwiches in the room at the local inn. The little dog was refusing to sleep at all, and paced in front of the door the entire night, waiting for his master to come home, his nails click-clacking on the cheap linoleum. At every car’s headlights which passed through on the road he would immediately stiffen and hold himself to attention; every door closing, every toilet flushing. It was driving them both crazy.
He wouldn’t eat either, although Arthur couldn’t blame him for that; nor was Arthur. He could barely think; get up, move around. His concentration was shot and he completely ignored the messages that were piling up around him.
The kind landlady tried to go out of her way to make palatable meals, to look after this heartbroken-looking man. She also gave him the newspapers which had been sent from Coventry, and he glanced at them. On the cover of the Coventry Herald was Howard’s exclusive, with an exceptionally flattering picture of Sven and Sandwiches taken at least five years ago – Sven’s beer gut was less than the size of a space hopper, and Sandwiches was only a pup. Looking closely, Arthur realized it was his graduation photograph. Sven hadn’t even been thirty when he died.
‘Brave Coventry Man Dies in Tragic Accident Trying to Save Town’ ran the all-new headline.
A member of the planning committee for the European City of Culture bid for Coventry has been killed in a tragic accident on an outward bound course.
There were details, then the leader column, right on the next page.
Sven Gunterson loved this city. A foreign national, he came from far away, but settled here and proceeded to dedicate his life to improving it for all its residents. We owe him our deepest debt of gratitude, from his wonderful plans for an ice festival imported from his native Denmark, to his support of the maze currently in the planning stages for Chapel Fields.
His loss is a tragic one for Coventry, but must not deter us from our aim. This paper has always supported the application. But now we go one further; we at the Herald say we WILL be the European City of Culture. And we will do it for Sven.
Arthur read this and almost smiled to himself. Of course, the paper wouldn’t realize it was over. All was lost, surely. They couldn’t possibly consider continuing to put themselves forward. It had all been for nothing. Less than nothing; much, much worse than nothing.
He walked out onto the tiny airstrip, which was barely more than some concrete plonked in a field. In the helicopter was the coffin containing Sven’s body, which Arthur was accompanying to London, where Sven’s parents were now waiting to take their son home for the last time. He couldn’t bear to think what he would say to them. After all, he was Sven’s boss and this had happened on his watch. He had been in charge; he had told Sven not to touch Fay, but he obviously hadn’t told him strictly enough … The guilt bit deeply. He stepped up into the side of the helicopter, carrying Sandwiches, who was noticably thinner and quiet as a lamb. He probably thought they were going where Sven was.
Arthur prayed that no canine intuition was going to come into it, but he was thwarted – Sandwiches immediately climbed onto the coffin, lay down and started moaning. Arthur had never heard a dog moan, and this low crooning disturbed him immensely.
The nice man from the police liaison unit looked enquiringly at them both, but Arthur shook his head, and put his arm over the dog in lieu of a seat belt.
‘It’ll be about an hour into Heathrow,’ said the pilot; there was no separating curtain in the tiny aircraft. Arthur nodded numbly. Normally he would have been thrilled to be taking his first trip in a helicopter, but under these circumstances …
He sat as the bird lifted, the noise immense, rumbling right through him, and kept a close eye on Sandwiches, who seemed immune to the noise, mourning his dead master on a ride through the night sky.
Arthur watched the stars coming out, thinking of the horse he had once seen riding across the constellations, leaving destruction in its wake. He wondered if this was the horse.
Suddenly there was an exclamation from the pilot. ‘Fucking hell!’
Even in his state of shock, Arthur still registered that the one thing you never want to hear a pilot exclaim is ‘fucking hell’.
‘What is it?’ said the policeman.
‘Look at that!’ said the pilot, pointing downwards.
Below, beneath the clouds, was darkness, punctuated by motorway lights and the occasional fairy-tale cluster which marked a town or village.
This wasn’t a town, or a village, however. At first glance it might have been an airport.
‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ said the pilot.
Arthur craned his eyes. They were flying over what looked like, but couldn’t be – the scale was such it was extremely difficult to get his head around it – an enormous star.
The rows of lights went on for miles, tiny house lights and large streetlamps all turned on together by the people of the town below, spontaneously spelling out a great, shining star on the ground, a reproachful reflection of those above.
‘What the hell are they doing down th
ere?’ said the policeman. ‘That’s amazing. It’s great. People are going to love it, flying over that at night.’
The pilot nodded. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ he repeated.
They were moving away from it now, and it was twinkling, huge and beautiful, in the distance.
‘Where are we, anyway?’ asked the policeman. The pilot briefly checked his co-ordinates.
‘That was Coventry,’ he said, although of course Arthur already knew.
Chapter Seventeen
It was such a beautiful morning, and there was a lot to do. Arthur couldn’t stay in bed another second. It was too warm to wear a suit and tie – the weather was fantastic, even for July – but he did anyway, and headed outside.
There was so much to look at. Every day all year the town had been a hive of activity, after they’d won. Builders were everywhere, driving people crazy by digging up the main street to put the tramline back down that they’d only pulled up thirty years before. Every week different lighting schemes came in and were turned around, so that one night there might be a flower on the insurance building, or an arrow by the railway station; or all the lights down one street would be red. People’s desire to join in never ceased to amaze him, and he never failed to smile at their ingenuity. Flowers raged everywhere that could be seen. All the leftover monies – sponsorship and donations – that came flooding in once they had officially won the competition – they’d used to carpet the town. It had been Cathy’s idea to cover the roofs of the many, many low-level industrial buildings, warehouses and discount carpet stores in flowers. They looked like they were huddling under a huge colourful canopy, which could be seen from the bypass and motorways, poppies, dahlias, daisies and daffodils sailing away as far as the eye could see. That, and they’d made a hefty donation to the local renal unit.
He turned into Station Road, heading towards Chapel Fields.
Weeks he’d spent indoors, wondering over and over again what he had done to cause, or at least be there for a death; whether his absolute desire to take over this quest hadn’t … Part of him knew it was an accident, part of him couldn’t square it, not yet.
But the application had gone ahead. They had got the official confirmation from Brussels soon after Sven’s funeral. Arthur was amazed they had done it, but it seemed there had been little discussion; this would certainly be the last time it would be decided this way, but decided it had to be, and it would be Coventry. Arthur hadn’t known how he would take this news, but when it came he was very pleased. It felt in some way as though everything wasn’t a complete waste of time.
Of course, there was to be an enquiry into the methods of how the award was given, but that didn’t detract from this result; just closed down an outward bound company. The award had been so overwhelming, coming as it had in the depths of his grief, and Arthur had reached out to it – and the endless meetings; the paperwork, the administration; the fourteen-hour days; the hordes of new staff; the constant publicity – he’d even been on Newsnight – like a drowning man clinging to a life raft. Everything was work, and that kept him sane.
And now, it was five months on and here he was, walking to the park to open the maze. Finally. It was hard to believe it was here, that it would be even larger than the Sandwiches-savaged model.
The size of the thing, as he came to it over the path, completely threw him; it had been imported nearly full grown, and the rosebushes were taller than he was. The sides stretched away, further than the eye could see.
The maze man was there too, and like before he bowed gravely. ‘You are happy?’ he asked Arthur.
‘It’s beautiful,’ said Arthur, not answering the question.
‘Well, watch out for the thorns.’ The man looked at him. ‘But you know all about thorns, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Arthur.
A crowd had gathered – it had been well publicized in the press – and a small podium with a microphone had been set up. Sir Eglamore was positively beaming.
Arthur looked at the crowd that had gathered and coughed slightly.
‘I just wanted to say … thank you so much to everyone who’s here.’
Howard stepped forward and took a photograph.
‘Yes … thank you. The support that’s been shown to us in this town over the last few months, if not before …’ He thought about it. ‘Well, not before, but definitely since then, has been overwhelming. We …’
And Arthur surveyed the crowd to see who was there.
In fact, since they’d got back, there’d been a general diaspora of the office, even after the official awarding of their status.
Gwyneth had returned to her office in London almost straight away. They had barely spoken. He couldn’t bring himself to talk to her.
But there she was today, shyly standing at the back of the crowd. Her hair was a little longer. It suited her. Also in the crowd was Rafe. He had left the office too; he was off to pursue a PhD in international poverty and relations in Nairobi. Arthur had high hopes for it. He couldn’t tell if they’d noticed each other yet – but that was ridiculous; they must have. There was Cathy, already going up to Gwyneth, wearing her broad smile. Since they’d got back, she’d practically been a different person. She’d stood up for herself more and more around the office, refusing to take any shit – and, from the way she told it, taking less and less at home, too. She had confided in Arthur that conquering her fear of heights had made her think about what other fears in her life were holding her back for no good reason – and she had found more than a few.
Marcus had come back for two weeks, then, completely out of the blue, handed in his notice. He had returned to Wales with his boyfriend and started working for an outward bound company – not the same one – and, in the one brief postcard Arthur had had from him, was having a fabulous time, outdoors in all weathers getting cold and wet and helping people climb hills for no reason.
And Arthur had finally turned up one morning and given the temp an official certificate of permanent employment. Overwhelmed, she had broken down into tears and insisted on telling him her name. Since then she had been late or absent eighty-six times.
‘We – from the planning department – we put a lot into this maze; into this city. And it took a lot out of us. So we just hope that you enjoy this …’
He swallowed suddenly.
‘There’s someone who can’t be here, but who would have loved it very much. Well, he would have complained that it was boring and he couldn’t be bothered to walk round it. But underneath he would have liked it. Maybe. So, I’d like to welcome you all to the Sven Gunterson Memorial Maze.’
Everyone clapped loudly as he cut the ribbon, Howard took another photograph, and then the crowd surged forward, chattering excitedly.
Within moments, it seemed, everyone had disappeared into the maze, and he was left outside alone. The high walls muffled the noise, and it felt as if he was the only person in the park, except for the maze man standing there with him.
‘Aren’t you going to try it?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ said Arthur. ‘It’s just, last time, it seemed to have a rather strange effect …’
‘It’s a well-sited maze,’ said the man. ‘You should try it.’
The dark yew and rosebushes kept off the heat of the sun; it was pleasantly cool inside and ridiculously quiet. Fifty people must have disappeared inside here, thought Arthur. Where had they all gone? Occasionally he caught a high-pitched giggle, or a light footfall, but whenever he whipped round to spot where it had come from, there was nothing there.
He didn’t plan which way to go, but meandered, enjoying the scent of the bushes, the occasional buzzing of bees, the coolness of the deep green. His heart felt lighter than it had in many many months. He was surprised to suddenly turn a corner and find himself in the heart, the centre of the maze.
A small fountain tinkled there. A cherub stood in the centre, next to an elaborately carved bench, and white flowers carpeted the ground. Arth
ur went and sat on the bench to wait for her.
She was looking a lot less drawn, he noticed. In fact, she was looking well. As well as when they’d first met, at that personnel conference, six years ago.
‘Hey,’ she said softly.
‘Hello.’
Arthur stood up and walked towards her, and suddenly they found themselves hugging.
‘Oh, Fay,’ said Arthur. ‘I’m so sorry.’
They were both on the edge of tears.
‘Well, you saved my life,’ said Fay, as they pulled apart.
‘Yes, but …’ He forced himself to talk and not change the subject. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Why?’
‘Because we were in love … once. And I was … lazy. Complacent. I wouldn’t talk to you. And I pissed it up against the wall.’
‘Well, I was no barrel of monkeys. Wait, is that right? Well, you know what I mean. Maybe I was a barrel of monkeys. Hairy and hard to control.’
‘Well, a bit. But I – I should have fought for it.’
‘Seems like you do plenty of fighting.’
‘God, yes, it does, rather.’
She shrugged. ‘It suits you, taking the initiative.’
He grimaced, and there was a pause.
Fay sat on the bench. ‘Well, I did some pretty awful things too.’
‘You weren’t yourself.’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘I wasn’t, you know. You – you split my heart right down the middle. For nothing, Arthur. For some excitement, and some blonde bitch and …’
He raised his hands. ‘Again, already I know.’
Fay shook herself. ‘And I made myself a victim, too. But, it’s in the past. And, when it was really important, you came through for me.’
He looked at her, and remembered her as the girl she had been, not the shrew he’d pictured her as in the last couple of years. He pushed a stray strand of her hair, an oddly affectionate gesture. She looked up at him.