White Goods

by Guy Johnson

Realising the only course of action I could take was to go home and confront them, I left the derelict shell and took myself home, unaware of the events that preceded me, of the hellish bedlam I was about to enter…

  Adrian Tankard’s bloody arrival had the oddest effect: it calmed everyone down. The roaring blaze of fury was extinguished; the screaming and the wailing stopped in an instant, as if it had been switched off at the source. Instead, a stunned silence reigned, as we all looked on at what Adrian Tankard had brought to our door.

  It was Dad who broke the silence.

  ‘We need to hide that corpse,’ he said, wiping his brow, moving forward to take the lifeless body from Adrian’s arms.

  But it was Auntie Stella’s chilling, practical suggestion that restored it, leaving us dumb with astonishment.

  ‘I know just the place,’ she suggested, calmly walking past me, leading the men up the garden path, like she knew what she was doing.

  Like she had done this kind of thing before.

  20.

  Thursday.

  The aftermath of Wednesday.

  A day for calm being restored, I had hoped. A day for answering the questions I still had; a day for the rest of the truth. Yeah, that’s what I had hoped for, but it didn’t turn out quite like that.

  I woke early. The house was quiet, like a Sunday church before the congregation arrived. Ian was still sleeping. I crept out of our bedroom, tiptoed downstairs, and headed towards the loo at the very end of our home. Passing through the squashed-up backroom, appliance-heavy kitchen and bright pink bathroom to reach my destination, there was little evidence of what had occurred the night before. An empty whiskey bottle lay on the dining table, on its side; any slight movement, and it would have rolled onto the floor. A big glass ashtray balanced on the arm of a chair, overflowing with little orange butts, floating on a sea of grey powder.

  Because my new navy parka was still a bit big, I had to unzip it in order to have a wee. It was the first time I’d undone it since my visit to Mum’s the afternoon before. I’d kept it on all night, sleeping on top of my covers, relishing the security I imagined it gave me.

  ‘Off!’ Auntie Stella had instructed the previous night, once Adrian’s mess had been cleared up. Adrian’s mess – that’s what they were calling it. Like it was a spillage, something that required a cloth and soapy water. ‘Off!’ she repeated, an authoritative iciness in her tone – a mix of impatience and don’t-think-I’ve-forgotten. ‘It’s got blood on it, for goodness sake!’

  In the end, she’d handed Della a wet sponge.

  ‘Deal with your brother, please.’

  So, the parka had stayed on, keeping the good in, shutting the bad out, shutting everything out until I had to unzip it to have a wee the next morning.

  With the flush still hissing as the cistern refilled, I moved back into the bathroom and began to run a bath. I liked my bath to be a certain way, a particular way that no one else could get quite right.

  Do it yourself next time! A memory of Mum ticking me off, furious at my lack-of-gratitude when I’d complained there was too much froth, that it wasn’t hot enough.

  I had a ritual for the whole thing – from the twist of taps to the draining away of the water at the very end. The cold went in first – just a couple of inches – then I turned it off and just let the hot flush in, gushing into the surface of the shallow cold, creating an instant steam. I didn’t add anything: no bubbles or smelly salts. Just left it pure. I liked to get in whilst it was still filling up. I didn’t sit down straightaway; it was a gradual thing, as my body got used to the increasing heat of the water. First, it was just my ankles and the bottom half of my calves. Itchy bubbles appeared on my legs and the small hairs there would stand up, as if shocked by the temperature of the flow. Then, once the bath was just over half full, I began the rest of my body’s gradual lowering into the still, burning waters. Bending at my knees, the rest of me followed in this order: bum, back, then shoulders and head, keeping as still as I could the whole time. And I had to go slow, had to expose my skin to the boiling pool bit by bit in order to endure its searing impact. Goosebumps and air bubbles spread across my skin like a rash. Once I was fully submerged, I just sat still; I couldn’t move for a long time. The water would be too hot; I had to wait whilst my body adjusted, whilst the water cooled off a little. Then I could finally begin to move my arms and legs again.

  I relished the feel of the heat. Somehow, it made me feel completely clean; cleaner than a normal bath with bubble bath, or washing up liquid in it, when we’d run out of Matey. It was a burning sensation that left no trace, a blistering heat with no blisters. I guess it felt like it was burning away the dirt, inside and out.

  Sometimes I would be in there for hours, staying in the water for its complete transformation from a boiling, bubbling pool to a cold, stagnant pond. I’d get knocks on the door, people wanting to know what-I-was-getting-up-to-in-there. Or desperate for the loo, getting cross and twitchy-legged about it all; hurry-up-for-bloody-God’s-sake!

  On that Thursday, however, I was left alone. Everyone gradually got up and the house came to life, but no one tried to come in. By some miracle, bodily functions were being kept under control and there was no desperate knocking, no hurry-up-for-bloody-God’s-sakes at all.

  They knew I was in there and they knew I was doing my weird-bath-thing, but they wanted me out the way. I’d seen too much and they all wanted a chance to clear up the rest of their mess without me looking on. So, no one bothered me, no one minded how long I spent in there and, if anyone got desperate for the loo, they must have gone somewhere else.

  So, I was left in peace, allowed to wallow in my specially prepared bath; given a chance to think about what had happened the day before. Allowed to piece together more of the puzzle.

  There’s still some things I should explain. Now that other people’s secrets are tumbling out of their closets, I should release a few things I’ve held back.

  The day of the funeral – Nan Buckley’s funeral – the police didn’t take Dad down to the station because he’d done anything wrong. They took him there because Mum had turned up. She had been missing for weeks; just disappeared from the house one day, whilst the rest of us were out. I now knew that Ian had been there, that he knew more about her disappearance than he was letting on, but I didn’t have the full details, just the bits I had pieced together from Della’s ranting. You were there! You were fucking there! You’ve known all along, all along, and you’ve said nothing. She’s gone because of you! Nothing else had been said to shed further light on this, but now I knew that Jackie had disappeared too, around the same time, I couldn’t help but believe that the incidents were linked.

  Dad had never explained why Mum had taken herself to the police station, instead of just coming home, but we all knew something wasn’t right. Something terrible had happened to her; a dreadful transformation that meant she wasn’t safe to live with us anymore.

  ‘She’s going to stay in a hospital for a bit,’ Dad had explained to me, a week later. I’d been distracted throughout his explanation by the clean, pink scars on his face. Scars that had formed from the scratch marks Auntie Stella had cleaned up in the bathroom the night of Nan Buckley’s funeral. ‘Those are nasty cuts, Tony. Jesus. What you gonna tell the kids?’

  ‘How d’you get those again?’ I’d asked, once he’d finished telling me about Mum, about how she was still our Mum despite everything.

  ‘Coppers,’ he’d replied, looking me straight in the eye, knowing I knew the truth but, like me, not being able to say it. Instead, he found a more comfortable truth and hid behind it. ‘Coppers,’ he repeated.

  It wasn’t the first time she’d been ill. She’d been up and down before; sad and moody. And she’d acted strangely, too, like when we were on that last caravan holiday and she’d dressed up in her fancy blue wedding outfit for Ian’s talent competition, including the hat. Or when she’d insisted on buying me that first, over-large parka, not that I min
ded in the end. Acting over-the-top; that describes it best, I guess. But usually she just popped to the doctor’s, popped a few pills and everything was alright. Not this time, this was worse. Uncontrollable. That was what Dad told Auntie Stella, not realising little ears were listening. Sectioned was another word he used, which sounded like she’d be chopped up into little bits in an experiment.

  But it was something else he said that really stuck with me. Something he said that night Auntie Stella attended to his wounds, not knowing we were listening in.

  She’s better off dead, he had said, not really thinking about it, not really meaning it. But I’d latched on; and that’s when it started. That’s when I killed her off and brought Nan Buckley back to life. It was easier; it made more sense. And it worked for a bit. Like Dad, I had found a more comfortable truth to hide behind.

  As I lay in the bath, letting the water slowly drop in temperature, I could hear activity on the other side of the door. People were in and out, milling about, dropping by to talk business with Dad; just like any normal day in our house. Auntie Stella had come back and I heard her confiding in Della.

  ‘He’s gone. All his stuff. Cleared out completely. Just like that.’

  I had feared that Auntie Stella would be moving back in with us, but it turned out Uncle Gary had handed over his keys, offering her a place to stay as his parting gift.

  ‘Just for now. Just whilst I sort myself out.’

  The night before, once the drama had subsided and the blood had been washed away, she came to see me. I was in the bedroom on my own, trying to get some sleep, but failing. At first, I wondered if she’d come to kill me off after all – seen her opportunity and sneaked away from the others to finish what she had started hours earlier. But all she wanted was a chat, an explanation.

  ‘I just want to understand,’ she had said, sitting on the edge of my bed, the anger from earlier all spent.

  And so I had sat up and tried my very best, explaining the letters, the favours, the money he’d started giving me. The fact I knew I had something on him; just didn’t know exactly what. And the fact that I’d used him to ensure she didn’t move in with us permanently, to stop her taking over as our mum.

  ‘I didn’t ask him to marry you, though,’ I said, in my defence, wondering if this would make her angry again. Instead, it made her feel sad.

  ‘Was it really that bad, having me stay here?’ she’d asked, looking me straight in the eyes.

  I saw no point in lying; there had been too much of that already.

  ‘It was a bit,’ I told her and then, after staring at me blankly for a little longer, she expelled a short, sharp laugh.

  ‘Well, at least one of you’s being honest,’ she said, standing up to leave. Her comment prompted a question from me.

  ‘Is someone going to tell me the truth?’ I asked. ‘Can you tell me the truth? About Mum? About Jackie?’

  Auntie Stella took a long in-take of breath, as if preparing herself and, for a minute, I thought she just might take her place on my bed again and tell me what I needed to know. Instead, she took the route Uncle Gary had hours earlier.

  ‘Someone will tell you, Scot, but that person shouldn’t be me. It needs to come from Tony.’ And with that, she had left my room, rejoining the others below.

  As well as Auntie Stella coming back the next day, Adrian Tankard also made a return. I was still in the bathroom, but I could hear him and Dad talking. The bathroom window was open and they were standing not far away – under the lean-to where much of their stock was housed. Adrian mainly came about Dontask business, talking to Dad about some sandwich toasters they were having trouble shifting and a shipment of hover lawnmowers he could get at a good price. Yet he also came by for something else.

  ‘How’s the boy?’ he asked Dad.

  How’s the boy?

  It was a reference to me, I knew. But it was out of character. Adrian Tankard never asked about our family. Whilst he and his family had attended Nan Buckley’s funeral and after-party in respect of our families’ long-term association, we didn’t figure in their general banter. I’d never heard Adrian ask after us before, not even when he knew Mum was ill or missing. But there it was, on that Thursday morning: How’s the boy?

  Dad told him I was fine. That everyone was keeping an eye on me. And that he was going to talk to me when the time was right.

  ‘Just let me know if you need anything,’ Adrian had responded, another first, and that had been the end of it. Back to business talk.

  I was quickly distracted from Adrian’s show of feelings by Dad’s declaration: he was going to talk to me when the time was right.

  It needs to come from Tony, Auntie Stella had said.

  So, feeling hopeful that the truth was just around the corner, I hauled myself out of the bath and wrapped myself in a bath sheet.

  As I dried myself off, rubbing the water off my now wrinkled skin, I realised there was one person who hadn’t come back from the night before: Russell. I’d last seen him ushered off by Della, whilst Auntie Stella had organised the swift disposal of Adrian Tankard’s victim. For a second, I wondered if that was it; if the events from the night before had put Russell off for good. I hoped not. I liked Russell. You could trust him.

  When I came out of the bathroom, Della and Auntie Stella were there to greet me.

  ‘Where’s Dad?’ I asked them both, hoping to nail down some time with him to discuss the truth. Nail down some time. The kind of phrase the old me would’ve pulled apart, pretending I didn’t quite understand, taking it literally on purpose. But my word games were over: from now on I was playing it straight.

  ‘Gone out with Adrian,’ Della replied, grinning at me.

  Auntie Stella simply rolled her eyes and pursed her lips.

  ‘You got anything on under that?’ Della asked, and I shook my head, as I passed through the kitchen on my way upstairs.

  ‘That bloody coat!’ I heard behind me: Auntie Stella. But she had said it with a chuckle.

  Upstairs, Ian perched on the edge of his bed, pulling on trainers. He looked up at me when I entered, his face full of hurry. I recognised that look in his face, I’d seen it before on the day he went looking for Shirley White’s flat.

  ‘Where you going?’ I asked, pulling a pair of pants up under my parka.

  ‘Nowhere you need to know, okay?’

  I said nothing, just stared back at him through my furry snorkel hood.

  ‘You listen to me, Scotty. You need to stay out of trouble, okay? Stop asking questions. It’s not helping. You listening?’

  I shrugged. ‘I just want to know the truth, Ian. Is it so much to ask? I have so many questions. About Mum. About Jackie. About Dad and Shirley. And I don’t understand why you won’t answer me. And I heard Dad tell you to lie to me.’

  He sighed deeply, and it was a breath threaded with impatience: he didn’t have time for this. Standing up, he put his hands on my shoulders and looked right into me.

  ‘Just do as I ask. Just today. Stay here, okay? Out of trouble. Away from the Tankards. Away from Roy Fallick and that nasty crowd. Just stay away. Today. You’ll get the truth soon enough. Promise me you’ll do as I say: stay here, keep out of trouble. Promise me?’

  I let my head nod and I let Ian think I had promised. But I had no intention of doing what he said. He was still evading the truth, as was everyone else, and I wasn’t just prepared to hang about whilst they thought out their latest excuses, whilst they created new stories.

  When Ian left, I finished getting dressed, pulling on socks and trousers with the parka still on, only removing it in order to put on a shirt. With the shirt buttoned up and tucked in, I slipped my coat back on and descended. Dad was rushing back in, just as I reached the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘You said you’d talk to me. Heard you say to Adrian.’

  Halting for a second, he threw me a short, quizzical glance, and then continued on through the house.

  ‘It’ll have to be later, Scotty,
’ he said, picking up a couple of boxes from out the back and taking them through to the front. ‘Without Gary, we’re a man down. I’ll talk to you tonight. Properly. I’ll explain it all then, okay? Just can’t do it now.’

  With that, he left. Seconds later, I heard his Dontask van rev up and zoom along the road.

  I wasn’t prepared to wait. Everyone was telling me that in one way or another: wait, we’ll tell you later. But I had my doubts.

  My last hope was Justin. Maybe he’d picked up some nugget from Adrian? So, I pulled on my trainers and headed off for the Tankards. But the reception was similar there.

  ‘Bit busy today,’ Justin said when he answered the door. He didn’t invite me in; didn’t really want to open the front door. He just peered round it, keeping his body out of sight, as if he was hiding something.

  ‘Just thought we could hang out?’

  ‘Sorry. Can’t today.’

  And that was it. Door closed.

  With nothing else to do, I decided to head home. However, as I reached the Chequers pub, I had a change of heart. There was one other person I could see, someone who might just answer my questions. Turning on my heel, I pointed myself back in the direction of the Tankard house, intending to go past it, down Church Lane, past the dump and onto the short-cut through the crematorium until I reached Mum’s hospital. That’s when I saw them, the Tankard trio: Justin, Sharon and Stevie-the-little-shit. They were heading in exactly that direction. I considered running after them, catching them up. Bit busy today, Justin had said. So I knew I wasn’t welcome. Whatever they were doing, I wasn’t to be included.

  Instead, I held back, keeping my distance, as they made their way along Church Lane. They seemed to be heading in the direction I had intended for myself – Church Lane, Crinky’s, the dump. As I followed them, forgetting about my intention to visit Mum, I kept just out of sight. Their journey came to an end at the dump, when they reached the derelict house where I’d met Uncle Gary just the day before. Once there, they went inside.