The Other Half Lives aka The Dead Lie Down

by Sophie Hannah

  ‘So what if the painter in the article’s Mary Trelease?’ Simon demanded. ‘So what if Trelease and this Martha Wyers woman were part of the same colour supplement feature in 1999? So fucking what?’

  ‘Liv’s trying to help, Simon.’ To her sister, Charlie said, ‘A connection between Martha Wyers and Mary Trelease doesn’t really help us. If we need one, we’ve got it already: they both went to Villiers School. They were contemporaries there.’

  Olivia looked angry, then puzzled. Then she laughed. ‘You both seem to be assuming that the young visual artist The Times chose was Mary Trelease.’

  Simon moved towards her, ready to snatch the papers she was holding from her hand. ‘Was it or wasn’t it?’

  ‘No, as a matter of fact.’

  Charlie pursed her lips. ‘Liv, whatever you’re…’

  ‘We’ve pissed about enough here already,’ Simon called over his shoulder, halfway to the door. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘It was Aidan Seed,’ said Olivia, holding the printed-out article for Charlie to take. ‘Now do you want to see this? Yes,’ her face set in a hard smile as she watched Simon’s about-turn, ‘I thought you might.’

  15

  Wednesday 5 March 2008

  ‘When did Gemma die?’ I ask.

  ‘The police wouldn’t tell me much, but from the questions they asked, it must have been Monday night,’ says Mary. ‘They wanted to know my movements.’ She walks over to the window, opens it, flicks ash out. The cows are still moaning in the fields, as if they’re in pain.

  Forty-eight hours ago, Gemma was alive.

  ‘Why did the police speak to you?’

  Mary tucks her hair behind her ears. It springs back, like dark thunderclouds enveloping her thin face. ‘I didn’t believe Charlotte Zailer when she told me you were Aidan’s girlfriend. I thought, no. Can’t be. When I had it confirmed by First Call, my heart nearly stopped. Once I’d got myself together, I drove to Aidan’s workshop, waited outside in my car. A bit later, Zailer turned up with another cop I recognised-DC Waterhouse. He’d been round to see me on Saturday, also about Aidan. The two of them went inside.’

  ‘I was there,’ I tell her.

  ‘They stayed for a while, then left, except Waterhouse didn’t go far. He sat in his car and waited at the top of the road. A few minutes later, Aidan came out, got into his car and drove away. Waterhouse followed him, and I followed Waterhouse. The three of us drove to London in convoy. To Muswell Hill.’ She watches me for a reaction. ‘I started to have a feeling, then, that I knew where he was going, except it made no sense.’

  ‘Where?’ I ask, breathless. All those times Aidan was away, when he told me he’d been in Manchester, working for Jeanette Golenya. Lies, every time.

  ‘I knew Stephen Elton and Gemma Crowther had been paroled. My First Call guy-he’s thorough. He’d given me their new address, details of their new jobs…’

  ‘What jobs?’

  Mary frowns. ‘Do you really want to know?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Stephen Elton works for the Ford dealership in Kilburn. He’s some kind of mechanic. Gemma Crowther works… worked for an alternative health centre in Swiss Cottage called The Healing Rooms. My friend visited her there. She gave him a hot-stone massage.’ She’s talking about the man with the red bobble hat and the dog. Someone I used to know. I’ve hired him before-that’s what she said. Finally, those words filter through. ‘Proud as punch, he was, when he told me that. Said it was a perk of the job-charged me for his treatment, cheeky sod.’

  ‘Stone,’ I repeat blankly.

  Mary opens her mouth, says nothing. It hadn’t occurred to her.

  Gemma Crowther, a healer. ‘Stephen was a chemist, a pharmacist, ’ I say. ‘She was a primary school teacher.’

  ‘Yeah, well, obviously they’d have had difficulty getting similar jobs after what they’d done. And not so much difficulty getting taken on by a garage, or some quack outfit like an alternative healing centre. Some places check out prospective employees’ backgrounds more diligently than others, presumably. ’ Mary throws her cigarette butt out of the window and rubs the small of her back with both hands.

  ‘Their new address-it was in Muswell Hill?’

  She nods. ‘23b Ruskington Road. That’s where Aidan was going on Monday.’

  ‘But he didn’t know about…’

  ‘Yes, Ruth. He knew.’

  Nothing will make me believe it. Aidan, seeing Stephen and Gemma behind my back? No.

  ‘When he turned on to Ruskington Road, Waterhouse overshot and carried on down the main road. By the time he’d realised his mistake and come back, Aidan had parked outside number 23. Right outside it, as if the space belonged to him. Waterhouse didn’t see me-and he was too busy concentrating on Aidan, who by this point was walking back to the main road. Neither of them saw me.’

  ‘Why?’ I blurt out. ‘Why would he park outside the house and then walk away?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ says Mary impatiently. ‘All I know is, Waterhouse followed him.’

  ‘Did you follow them?’

  ‘No. On foot, it was too risky. My hair’s hard to miss. Once they were gone, I went for a snoop. The bell for Gemma and Stephen’s flat had their names on it. Surnames only: Crowther and Elton, like the newspapers called them.’

  Dong. Their doorbell at Cherub Cottage was called Dong.

  Disgust warps Mary’s face. ‘Underneath the names, in tiny writing and in inverted commas, was the word “Woodmansterne”. ’

  I clear my throat. ‘They lived on Woodmansterne Lane. In Lincolnshire. You mean…?’

  ‘If I had to guess, I’d say they decided to call their rented flat after their old street name.’

  ‘Yes. They’d do that. She would.’

  ‘I rang the doorbell,’ says Mary. ‘I was bloody amazed at my own nerve. Don’t ask me what I’d have said if someone had answered. I had no idea-it was an impulse thing. No one was in, though.’ She fumbles for another cigarette, lights it. ‘There’s a bay window to the right of the front door. Through it, I saw a framed photo of the happy couple, one of the ones you described in your letter: him kissing her cheek.’

  Bile rises in my throat. That picture. Standing in Cherub Cottage’s pristine white sitting room, Stephen trying to kiss me…

  ‘I knew it was them. First Call had sent me press cuttings from the trial, photos, the works. I recognised their faces. Easy to see why you made it your mission in life to save him from captivity-that little-boy-lost look.’

  ‘They’re still together. He testified against her, she tried to pin the whole thing on him, and still they’re together, with those pictures on the walls.’ As if I never happened.

  ‘Tacky studio photos weren’t all they had up on the walls,’ says Mary with venom in her voice. ‘I saw something else go up.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ She made me write that letter, reliving everything I went through, when she knew. She already knew.

  ‘I waited, on the street. In my car. I’d gone as far as London-I wasn’t giving up that easily. After a while Simon Waterhouse came back.’

  ‘Did he see you?’

  Mary shakes her head. ‘He was only interested in Crowther and Elton’s house. He had a snoop around, then went to sit in his car. Like me. At about half nine, Gemma Crowther and Aidan Seed walked up the road together.’

  I try not to flinch.

  ‘Aidan opened the boot of his car, took something out, carried it into the house. I couldn’t see what it was-I wasn’t close enough, and there was a big white van parked behind Aidan’s car, blocking my view.’ Mary twists her hair round her hand. ‘The lights went on inside. Gemma closed the curtains. That’s when Waterhouse called it a night.’ Her smile is full of scorn for anyone who could give up so easily.

  ‘You didn’t?’ I guess.

  ‘No. There was a small gap in the curtains, but big enough to see through.’

  Gemma Crowther and Aidan in a room together.


  Mary waits for me to ask. When I don’t-can’t-she says, ‘There was a banging sound. He had a hammer in his hand. He was hanging a picture for her. Guess what picture?’

  I freeze. It has to be, otherwise Mary would tell me. She wouldn’t make me guess. She blames me.

  ‘Yours,’ I say. ‘Abberton.’

  ‘My painting,’ says Mary, unemotional. ‘Yes. In the home of strangers. In the home of those strangers.’

  ‘I gave it to Aidan to prove to him that he couldn’t have killed you,’ I try to explain. ‘He kept insisting he had, no matter what I said. Abberton had your name on it, and the date: 2007. He told me he’d killed you years ago.’

  ‘How did you know I’d signed and dated it?’ Mary turns on me. ‘I hadn’t when I brought it in to Saul’s place last June.’

  I tell her, as coherently as I can, about the Access 2 Art fair.

  ‘My God,’ Mary mutters, chewing her lip until drops of blood appear. When she next takes a drag of her cigarette, it comes away red at the end, as if she’s wearing lipstick.

  ‘I gave Aidan the picture and never saw it again,’ I tell her. ‘He wouldn’t tell me what he’d done with it. Mary, I’m sorry…’

  ‘A present’s a present,’ she says in a brittle voice. ‘I gave it to you, you gave it to him, he gave it to her.’

  ‘What did you do? When you saw it, I mean?’

  ‘What could I do? I got in my car and drove home. When I left, Gemma Crowther was alive and she was with Aidan Seed. That should tell you everything you need to know about your boyfriend.’

  ‘Why did the police talk to you?’ Why not me? Maybe they’d tried. I ignored everyone who came to the workshop yesterday; maybe one of those knocks was the police.

  ‘Some nosey bastard neighbour saw me and came and asked who I was-I should have lied but I didn’t think quickly enough. As it turned out, it was lucky she saw me. She watched me leave, and heard the two gunshots after I’d gone. Waterhouse had gone, I’d gone-the only person still there with Gemma was Aidan. Even the cops should be able to work it out.’

  Something hard and huge is welling up inside me. Why do I feel as if I’ve let Mary down? It’s crazy. I owe her no loyalty. Aidan’s the person I love and ought to trust. He’s never intentionally hurt me, and she has.

  It hits me then: I’ve forgiven her. If I can forgive Mary, then I can forgive Aidan, whatever he’s done. And after that? Where would I stop?

  ‘Ruth? What’s the matter?’

  ‘I’m the one,’ I tell her.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘All this time, I’ve had this… this fear. I was scared of not being able to forgive Aidan once I knew the truth-or rather, that’s what I thought it was, but I was wrong. It’s the exact opposite: I’m afraid I’ll forgive him too easily, and not only him-everything and everybody. Aidan, you, even Stephen and Gemma. Once you start to imagine what another person’s pain and terror must have felt like…’ My throat blocks. I can’t speak.

  ‘How can you stop yourself forgiving them? Is that what you were going to say?’

  I’m aware that I’m crying. It doesn’t seem to matter. ‘My parents used to say, “We’re Christians, Ruth. Christians forgive, always,” but I don’t want to forgive anybody!’

  ‘Why not?’ Mary’s voice is stern.

  ‘Because then there’d only be me who… who…’

  ‘You think you’re unforgivable. You don’t want to be the only one.’

  Her understanding strikes me as a small miracle. ‘I tried to brainwash Stephen against Gemma. I did everything I could to split them up, all the time thinking I was virtuous and honourable for refusing to have sex with him.’ I wipe my eyes with the palms of my hands. ‘I couldn’t see… Sex is just sex. Or, when it’s not, it’s love. Either way, it’s not toxic, like trying to control someone else’s mind. All the tactics my parents used on me, I used on Stephen. I know there’s no justification for what he and Gemma did to me-doesn’t mean it wasn’t my fault or that I didn’t deserve it.’

  ‘If you start forgiving everyone, you might get carried away and forgive your parents,’ says Mary. ‘Where would that leave you? They haven’t forgiven you, have they, in spite of their Christians-always-forgive slogans? You sent them an address and they’ve never used it. Quick to give up on you, weren’t they? And these are people who’ve devoted their whole lives to preaching mercy.’

  ‘Not only preaching it. Practising it too. After what happened to me, when they came to see me in hospital, they told me they’d forgiven Stephen and Gemma. They said I should too. In their whole lives, I’m the only person they haven’t forgiven.’

  ‘Which makes you the only unforgivable person in the world, right? The worst person in the world.’

  ‘Yes.’ Now that Mary’s said it, I feel deflated. As if something swollen inside me has been punctured. Is this what I’ve been so afraid of, this realisation? It’s a relief now that the fear’s gone and there’s nothing left except flat, grey exhaustion. My eyes start to close.

  Mary taps me on the shoulder. ‘Wrong,’ she says. ‘If you want a unique selling point, how about this? You’re the only person who’s ever laid into them personally. You yelled at them, said some things that were pretty hard for them to take-probably no one else has ever done that. It’s easy to forgive attacks when you yourself aren’t the victim. “Stephen and Gemma? No problem: all they did was nearly kill our daughter. Someone shouting at us and telling us we’re wrong about things? Sorry: unforgivable.” Do you see what I’m trying to say?’

  I think I do. If I can bring myself to forgive Stephen and Gemma, I’ll be better than my parents, more Christian than they are, even though I’m not a Christian and don’t believe in God. Aidan, Mary, Stephen, Gemma, Mum, Dad, me. I can maybe forgive us all.

  ‘My point is,’ says Mary, ‘your parents are two great big stonking pieces of shit. Fuck them.’

  I manage a weak smile. ‘Tell me about Aidan and Martha,’ I say.

  Instantly, the gleam in Mary’s eyes starts to fade, as if she’s been cut off from her energy supply. ‘On one condition,’ she says. ‘This is my story, so I get to be judge, jury and executioner. If you’re tempted to exonerate anybody, do it in the privacy of your own head. I’m not as enlightened as you.’

  I nod. Mary is freer than I am. She doesn’t worry about balancing the blame books. She takes her unhappiness and does what she wants with it. Could I be like her from now on, or will I always feel as if there’s some kind of external moral arbitrator watching every move I make, unseen and infallible?

  Mary lights a cigarette. ‘Martha and Aidan met at a job interview. Fellow Commoner in Creative Arts, Trinity College, Cambridge. Aidan got it, Martha didn’t. She put a brave face on it, went on until everyone was sick to death of her about how she didn’t get it because she wasn’t common enough.’ She smiles. ‘We had a student teacher once who asked us how many television sets our families owned. Martha had the most: seven. The teacher was shocked. She was a bit of a luddite grow-your-own-vegetables type. She asked Martha what rooms the tellies were in, and Martha listed six: one of the lounges, the kitchen, her bedroom, her parents’ bedroom, her den, the summer house. The teacher was waiting to hear about the seventh, and Martha must have realised how it would sound, so she clammed up. The teacher asked her outright. Martha turned as red as a tomato, and had to admit that it was on the jet.’

  ‘A private jet?’

  ‘She was the only Villiers girl at the time whose parents had one. Loads of families had helicopters, but their own jet? They’ve probably all got them now. Anyway, Martha’s privileged background had nothing to do with her not getting the job at Trinity. Aidan was a better painter than she was a writer, and she knew it.’

  The room closes in on me. ‘Aidan was a painter?’

  ‘Didn’t he tell you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You never saw him painting? Never saw any of his work?’

  ‘He didn’t… he
doesn’t paint.’ I am listening to a story about a stranger, trying to match the details to someone I thought I knew. ‘I’d know if he did. He…’ I shouldn’t want to tell her, but I do. There’s no reason not to. ‘When I met him, he was living in one room behind his workshop. There were empty frames all over the walls, frames he’d made-they’re still there, but there’s nothing in them.’

  ‘So he stopped,’ Mary says softly, rocking back and forth. ‘Good.’

  ‘Why would he do that? Why would he frame nothing?’ Why didn’t he tell me he knew about Gemma and Stephen? How did he know?

  ‘How many empty frames?’

  ‘I… I don’t know. I’ve never counted them.’

  ‘More than ten?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘As many as a hundred?’

  ‘No, nowhere near that. I don’t know, maybe fifteen, twenty.’

  ‘I know how many. Count them when you next get the chance-you’ll see I’m right.’

  Everyone but me knows things they can’t possibly know. I don’t know even the things I could so easily have known. Should have known. Was Aidan’s family poor? Was he common, to use Mary’s word? I try to collect together in my mind everything he’s told me about his childhood: he loved animals, would have liked a cat as a pet but wasn’t allowed one. He never had his own bedroom, and wanted that more than anything: privacy. His brother and sister were much older than him, as remote as strangers.

  ‘There are eighteen,’ says Mary. ‘Eighteen empty frames.’

  The Times, 23 December 1999

  FUTURE FAMOUS FIVE

  You might not know these names yet, but you soon will. From novelists and painters to actors, from singers to comedians, Senga McAllister talks fame and fortune with the young British talent heading your way.

  Today I’m at Hoxton Street Studios to meet five unbelievably talented people. They’re doing a photo-shoot for a double-page spread in Vogue as part of its New Talent, New Style promotion, but they kindly spared a few minutes each, in between having their hair sprayed and their eyebrows plucked, to chat to me about how it feels to scale the dizzy heights of success.