And my surroundings didn’t help, sitting as I was in a pseudo-Edwardian dining room, with gilded mock gas lamps, dark and looming oil paintings of long-dead notables peering down at us from the walls, a log fire blazing in the mouth of an ornate white marble fireplace, and the three of us sitting around a long, deeply polished table that had the patina of real age on its surface and was laid with elegant silver and delicate porcelain and china, as if we had been transported back a hundred years and we had cast off our mundane, modern guises.
It was all at odds with how I was feeling, this sense of the unreal, the false. If this meeting had been under any other circumstances I should no doubt have stormed out, leaving some of my pride intact. But this was no ordinary circumstance. I was aware I was playing a game of sorts, Max’s game. That’s the perverse thing. The fact was I had somehow ceased to be the me I knew. I was this other guy, knocking back wine, sitting in his luxuriously appointed time capsule far removed from the rest of blundering humanity. I was a voyager in a theme park where anything goes and nothing of your previous life that you’d willingly abandoned at the gates mattered at all till you picked it back up again, like dirty laundry, on leaving. Only it did matter. I was fighting with this overwhelming desire to throw off my drab previous life and enjoy what this place had to offer. I was fighting so bad my head throbbed with it.
And the weather had indeed worsened, as Ruby had predicted. Every now and again I would anxiously lay down my knife and fork as the wind and rain battered at the walls and windows. I had never before heard such a sound, such an awesome beating like the pummelling of fists, and I had the uneasy impression that at any moment the entire house would be ripped from its foundations and flung over the cliffs into the fuming sea, carrying us with it. Through the corner of my eye I saw Max smile at me. Ruby’s meal had somehow soaked up all her attention for the past three quarters of an hour.
“I’ve known it get far worse,” Max said. “It can sound as if hell itself is knocking at the door.”
“Is that intended to make me feel better?” I said.
He raised his wine glass and took a sip. “I take it as a sort of lesson – just when you think things couldn’t get any worse, things get worse. Nature does that, you know. Surprises you. Never take it for granted. It’s like a sweet little kitten one minute, and a ruddy great tiger the next that’ll rip you to pieces as soon as look at you. Sitting here in the midst of it, it gives you a certain buzz, don’t you think?”
“I’m buzzing,” I replied, forcing in another mouthful. I had no appetite. For anything.
“Ruby doesn’t like it too much. That not right, Rube?”
“In small doses,” she said, darting him a meaningful glance.
I caught sight of the security man flitting past the doorway. I couldn’t be certain why, but his presence disturbed me. “Why the guards, Max?” I asked. “Expecting Raffles?”
“They give me a sense of security,” he said, laughing at his little pun. Then he shrugged. “I guess they’re like my own private army. I always had a hankering to be king of the castle. All the king’s men, and all that.”
“So who else lives here? I mean, there must be others. A chef by the looks of it,” I remarked, poking a lump of meat with my fork. “Does he miss Paris?”
Max laughed. “I think there might be a compliment under there somewhere. Yes, there are others. Of course there are. A place like this doesn’t run itself. I just keep them locked away when I don’t need them, in my dungeons. It’s what all warlords do.” He drained his glass and refilled it. As he did so the electric lights dimmed alarmingly, then crept slowly back up to full power. “She tries every time,” he said, “but she’s not succeeded yet.” He picked up on my unease and here he offered a smile. “If the generator goes down we’ve got another backup. And, I add, it hasn’t gone yet.” He raised the full glass to the window. “Hard lines, old girl. Must try harder. There, I’m sounding like old Mr Walton, aren’t I? Must try harder you lazy so-and-so. Remember Walton, Collie? Mr Walton? Ruby never had Mr Walton as a teacher, did you? Only the boys. Only us poor male sods. Ain’t that right, Collie?”
I nodded. “Yes. Only the boys.”
Ruby looked at me uncertainly. I couldn’t be sure what she was thinking. Every time I took in her face I was visited all too painfully by past memories. I was incapable of halting them. And every word I ever said wrong to her, every threat, all the sad episodes I’d spent many years reviewing during my self-enforced isolation, over which I’d picked and sorted like the bones of some dead animal, all of it came back and threatened to choke me with its attendant guilt and remorse. This was agony. How could I make small talk? This woman had been my wife once. And she’d never stopped being my wife. Not to me.
“Did you ever tell Ruby about the coconut?” he asked.
“Sorry?” I returned, snapped back from my bleak thoughts.
“The coconut. Surely you must remember Mr Walton’s coconut.”
I scratched my eyebrow, a little puzzled. “Oh, yes, of course I do,” I said. “As plain as day.”
“And you never told Ruby?”
“Sorry, no. Should I have?”
“No, no! We’ll not tell her now, shall we?” he said, smirking. “We’ll keep it just between us, eh?” He fingered a point just above his forehead, on the hairline.
I nodded, curious as to why he should bring up the affair of the coconut. It wasn’t a pleasant memory, not one I could look back at with any degree of humour. The passage of time had done nothing to make it even remotely funny. And, judging from Max’s face, he thought the same. So why he brought it up was a mystery. His gaze lingered on me for a moment or two longer, but if he intended to carry deeper meaning along with it, it was lost on me.
However, he did set my mind to wandering back to our youth, and in the silence the image of Max clambering over the garden fence came back to me as bright as if the episode played right there in front of me, unfolding exactly as it had all those years ago.
We were boys again. And Max was being Max.
“Max!” I whispered. “You can’t!” I did not attempt to screen my obvious sense of alarm. “It’s stealing!”
He sneered in contempt, poised to drop over the other side of the wooden fence. “How can it be stealing? He doesn’t want it.”
“We shouldn’t even be going into his yard,” I added. “That’s trespassing.”
“Gimme a break, Collie. It’s not as if it’s the railway lines or anything. It’s only Walton’s back yard. No sign up, is there? No sign up saying ‘Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted’, eh?”
“What do you want to go in there for anyway? It’s nothing but a crummy old birdhouse. Let’s go.”
I could see my pleading was having no effect on him. It was only six months or so after his run-in with Walton and the blackboard full (or not so full) of maths questions and Max had simmered like a pan on the boil all that time. He was out to get even, though he never quite admitted this. Looking back on that day, Max wasn’t being particularly vindictive; all he’d planned to do was steal the half coconut that Mr Walton had hung out for the birds, and I had agreed to the escapade more because I’d never ever seen a coconut, let alone eaten one, and my curiosity was whetted. But I was always a coward, and even though I’d committed my support as far as the base of the fence, I had second thoughts just as soon as Max eagerly clambered up the palings and looked set to drop down. This was getting serious, I said to myself, expecting Z-Cars to come hurtling around the corner and nab us red-handed – or coconut-handed.
“I’m going!” I hissed urgently.
“Coward!” he said, and dropped over the side. I heard him rustling in unseen undergrowth. It fell worryingly quiet.
“Max!” I said. No reply. “Max, come on, let’s go home, please.” I was rooted to the spot, afraid to leave my friend, afraid to stay in case Z-Cars, or their near equivalent, arrived with sirens blaring and lights flashing. In the end I launched myself over the fen
ce, looking far more ungainly in the attempt than Max. I almost fell on top of him. My voice was shrill and shot through with panic. “This is stupid! I don’t want any stupid coconut anyway! It’s all stupid!”
He pointed, and through the gaps in a clump of waving campanula stems we saw the half coconut, swinging pendulum-like and enticingly from a piece of string. It hung beneath the bird table, turning ever so slightly to reveal its pristine white flesh. I held my breath. It didn’t seem so stupid anymore.
“What do they taste like?” I asked.
“Like Bounty bars, I guess.”
I sucked in a breath. A Bounty bar was a rare treat anyhow, but this was coconut in the raw, and I imagined the sweet taste on my tongue, building it up into something wonderful. “So how’re we gonna get it?” I asked, sure he had a plan, my eyes fixed on this treasure and perhaps learning at that moment that more sins are committed through the tongue than anywhere else.
“You watch the door and window,” he said. “I’ll make a dash and climb up the pole, then drag it off. It shouldn’t take more than a couple of seconds.” His voice was laced with confidence, and my own grew from it.
We shook hands, as if going into battle, nodded knowingly at each other and then I patted him on the back and he was off, running at a stoop past the palisade of rose bushes, across the narrow stretch of lawn. In a few seconds he was on the tall pole, shinnying up it and reaching out for the coconut. But it did not come away as easily as he’d predicted, being tied on securely, and it resisted his ardent tugging. In the end he grabbed at it with both his hands, leaving hold of the pole and hanging on to the coconut, swinging with his feet nearly twelve inches off the ground.
Something had to give. It was the birdhouse.
I watched in horror as the entire birdhouse, pole and all, tilted and then crashed down amongst a bed of wallflowers, Max falling with it, nuts, seeds and pieces of stale bread raining down like manna from heaven. The crude wooden house itself, coconut attached, bounced away onto the lawn and I was reminded of Dorothy’s house from The Wizard of Oz. Max rose in an instant, clutched the coconut to his chest, which remained fixed obstinately to the birdhouse. He yanked at the thing, his face red with the effort, but the string held fast. I stood upright, and was about to move to help him, when at last it came free and he lifted the trophy high above his head, the string wriggling beneath it like a dead snake.
With my attention fully occupied I failed to notice Mr Walton rushing out of his back door, a sturdy, varnished walking stick held aloft. It wasn’t until his familiar voice bellowed out thick with menace that I saw him, by which time he’d caught up to Max, who, attempting to escape, was stumbling through the sea of wallflowers which did their utmost to hold him back, and he looked like a rugby player headed for a try with the coconut planted firmly against his chest. It was at this point that a simple childhood prank turned into something far darker.
I had seen adults in the throes of anger. But I had never seen them crazed with it.
Mr Walton caught Max on the legs with the walking stick, tripping him up; the coconut made good its escape regardless and rolled away to a safe distance not far from me. Max lay sprawled in the flowerbed, and I heard him shriek in pain. But Walton’s temper was up. Blow followed blow in spite of Max wailing and screaming. I saw him scramble to his feet, trying to fend off the heavy stick, his hand going to his back where a particularly harsh blow landed. Briefly his eyes met mine, a silent pleading for my help. But I was frozen, locked to the spot by fear and uncertainty.
Walton’s face was contorted with a rage that appeared to boil beneath his skin, so that its entire surface bubbled with hatred, escaped his mouth in great expulsions of incomprehensible volcanic cursing. Perhaps he was remembering the verbal beating he took from Connie; perhaps he too had waited to enact revenge. But whatever was going through his mind it scared the hell out of me, for what stood over Max now was not a human being at all; it was a devil, and it was evil, and it fed on pain and misery. It continued to strike at Max, and I screamed something out at it, afraid for my friend, afraid for myself. And then there was the final blow, to Max’s head. I heard the crack, loud and sharp, a ball hitting a cricket bat. I can hear it now. I saw Max’s head appear to shiver, to vibrate, then loll onto his chest. From his hairline a stream of bright red blood gushed down into his wide, incredulous eyes. And he flopped down like a puppet whose strings had been severed. Right there, on the grass, a puddle of red beginning to form and stain the concrete path on which he fell.
“You’ve killed him!” I yelled. “You’ve killed him!”
Then the devil turned to face me, and its face displayed no remorse, only lingering hate. In my panic I snatched up the coconut and ran away, throwing it over the fence before launching myself after it. I did not stop till I reached Connie.
“Max’s dead!” I howled. “Mr Walton’s gone and murdered him!”
She was off at a shot. Mr Walton didn’t live far away, and she must have made the trip to his house in less than five minutes with me trailing breathlessly behind her, the coconut still in my hand. I did not think it possible I could witness an anger to equal that which had overtaken Mr Walton, but I hadn’t reckoned on Connie’s explosive reaction.
When we arrived at the yard Mr Walton was crouched over Max, one meaty hand under Max’s head, the other trying to staunch the flow of blood with a sodden handkerchief. Max’s eyes were still closed. I really did think he was dead and I began to cry out loud, finally tossing away the coconut in despair, vowing never to eat another Bounty bar.
“He’s been stealing,” Walton said as Connie came thundering towards him. “I don’t know what to do with him. He won’t open his eyes. I think he’s pretending.”
“Max! Max!” she yelled. “Oh, God, Max, speak to me! Speak to your mum!”
“And look at what he’s done to my birdhouse.”
“I saw him,” I said. “It was Mr Walton! He killed Max!”
“His head hit the concrete. He fell. Tripped,” Walton blustered.
“That’s not true!” I screamed: “I saw you kill him!” though I doubt the words came out quite as clear as that, smothered by emotion as they must have been.
Blood was smeared onto Connie’s arm like red gloss paint as she grabbed at her son. I heard the wail build up in her, almost like an air raid siren, growing in pitch and intensity till it erupted stridently and terrifyingly from her rounded mouth.
She flung herself onto Walton, her rage distorting her words, striking at him with her tiny fists, and he retreated from them, all the while his pitiful rain of excuses falling on deaf ears. If Walton’s face had metamorphosed into something demonic, then Connie’s twisted into something far ghastlier, the veins and tendons on her neck sticking out like rope, her beautiful face gone in an instant, her eyes no longer Connie’s but belonging to a saucer-eyed fiend. She picked up the walking stick that Walton had left on the ground beside Max and started to beat Walton with it, and Walton was powerless to stop her, the heavy stick whipping up and down with all the speed and blur Walton’s cane had done when he punished Max in the classroom.
But then fear crept into me again. Fear that Connie might actually kill Mr Walton. I ran to her, grabbing at her dress, tugging insistently but to no avail. I might well have been hanging onto the tail of a tiger. But I guess I must have acted like something of an anchor, because Walton made his getaway and ran into the house, Connie at last returning to Max, her eyes wet with anger and concern for her son. The walking stick clattered to the ground.
“Oh Max! Not the head again. Not the head.” She snapped her eyes on me. “We need an ambulance, Collie,” she said.
“Is he dead?”
“Wait here!” she returned, dashing away. “Watch him, Collie! Watch him!”
He wasn’t dead, of course, I could tell by his chest gently heaving. But apparently they were concerned about him for a while. He was out cold for nearly a full day. And he got his stitches, just like me.
Eventually I put it down to some kind of divine retribution for what he did to me. An eye for an eye, a blow to the head for a blow to the head. It had poetic justice stamped all over it. But I was still concerned for him. It hadn’t been a particularly nice experience.
Which is why I found it odd that Max should be so eager to bring it up tonight, especially as we’d never once broached the subject since the day it happened. The savagery of the event was so horrific to contemplate afterwards that we allowed the memory of it to slip into a kind of limbo, knowing it happened but all the same not knowing, as if it became an unspoken rule that we’d look on it as our secret, and our secret alone, so much so that I hadn’t even told Ruby about it. And Connie, now I look back at it, never mentioned it again either. It ceased to be a memory. Till now.
“What coconut?” Ruby asked after a silence that lasted some minutes.
Max lifted his head, and again fingered that same patch of hair. “It doesn’t matter,” he said, winking at me.
She saw the gesture and looked across at me. I shrugged. “It’s nothing, really. A silly childhood game, that’s all.”
“Yeah,” Max muttered, sinking his nose into his wine glass, “a game. A silly game.” Then he did the most curious thing. He rose from the table and sniffed the air.
“What’s the matter?” Ruby asked.
He frowned, saying seriously, “Do you smell burning?” He looked us both over as we considered the question, and I glanced at the open fire with a bewildered expression on my face. “Joke!” he said, laughing.
* * * *
31
Bernard
He guessed, because he was rubbish at virtually everything else in life, as some compensation he’d been given the gift of seeing ghosts.
Blood Bonds: A psychological thriller Page 28