“Hiya,” I said. “Have you come to say good-bye? Have you sorted something out for yourself? Moving on?”
“Trouble, Jess,” he said. “Friend?”
“Listen pal,” I told him. “I’m sure you’ve got a hard luck story. Who doesn’t? And I’ve heard them all. But Ros is gone, you’ve got your friend’s beads and Bible, and there’s not much more I can do.”
That was the moment I found out it wasn’t a love story after all. He took the Morry’s carrier bag that was tied shut with its own handles out from inside his jacket and started undoing it. I was wiping the kitchen cupboards, but I kept half an eye on him. Ruby and Dillon went back to the bedroom for Dill to bounce on the bunks while Ruby stripped the pillow cases for me.
Kazek unfolded the bag so slow and careful it was maddening. It looked like a book. Another Bible? Wrong shape. Then he tipped it up and what was inside fell out onto the breakfast bar. The Queen’s face looked up at us from the top note of a bundle. He shook the bag again. Another bundle just the same. Two neat, solid blocks of fifty-pound notes. Or maybe they were fake. I wouldn’t know.
“I’ll have my twenty back then,” I said, picking up the nearest and flipping through it. They crackled, new and crisp, and gave off a smell you wouldn’t mind smelling, not like the stink of money at all. “Are they real?” I asked him. “Real, Kazek?”
He nodded, picked up the other bundle, and showed me the number on the top one, then the next number on the next one. Then he made the farting noise again like when he’d told me he wasn’t a good Catholic boy and he threw them over his shoulder, like so much dross.
“Got it,” I said. “Real but stolen.”
“Jessie-Pleasie,” he said, and he took my hands in his. “I am a good. I am not a bad. Believe me.”
“But you’re in big trouble.”
“In Little China,” said Kazek. He wrapped the money up again, tied the handles, and returned it to its hiding place. Then he turned to me. “I phone?”
He had tens of thousands of pounds and he was living off stale shortbread in an empty caravan. If he was a villain, he was a really shit one. I handed him my mobile.
“Two minutes,” I said. “And it better not be Poland, pal.”
The only word I understood was Jaroslawa. Other bits sounded like English—powered zinnias, jamboree—but Ros’s name was the only thing I knew for sure he was saying. He said that plenty times, talking very slowly, explaining something to someone, then talking faster, interrupting, getting interrupted, then almost weeping, nodding his head and shaking it—saying what sounded like shuprasham over and over again. He finished up with saying something slow and clear, sounded like a number from the tune of it and the zero-sounding word—zero jeden szesc cztery cztery, cztery dwa, zero dwa, jeden trzy—and then he hung up, wiped the phone on his jeans, and gave it back to me.
Ruby and Dillon had rolled the dung-ball bin bag as far as the living room and were standing staring at us.
“Cztery,” said Ruby.
“Cze cze,” said Dillon.
“Mówisz po polsku?” said Kazek to Ruby, bending down.
“Czy Ros umarl?” said Ruby. “Dead? Tak jak Mama?”
Kazek sat back on his heels on the toxic orange carpet and began to cry.
So I gave him the rolls and margarine that the folk in the Spindrift van had left in the fridge and let him use the tin opener to open the tin of tuna they’d left in the cupboard and told him I’d see him tomorrow.
“Forgive me,” he said. “Has to be.”
The phone was ringing when I opened the cottage door and let the kids run in. No sign of Gus, and so I thought it was probably him on the line, telling me he’d be late. Again. God’s sake, Jessie. I told myself I should be glad he phoned at all and didn’t just turn up at midnight. But still I let it ring. So the answer machine clicked on. I should have seen it coming but I didn’t, of course.
“Hiya!” it said in a woman’s voice. A girl’s voice, young as my own. “This is the Kings, but we’re at the beach. Leave a message!” I hit the button and played it again. “Hiya!” She didn’t sound like someone speaking into a machine. She sounded like someone calling out when they’ve just spotted a friend. “This is the Kings, but we’re at the beach.” A bit of a sing-song lilt to it. This is the Kings, but we’re at the beach. To Market, to market, to buy a fat pig. The corn is as high as an elephant’s eye. She must have recorded it when they’d just moved in. When it seemed like a novelty. When she’d got over feeling low after Dillon and thought she’d never go through it again? Except Gus had said she’d only just got over Dillon. So maybe she’d just met Ros when she recorded it. Maybe Ros was the one she thought would be phoning her. “Leave a message!” And that was why she sounded the way she did. There was no reason for her to sound like that if she was depressed and missing the town and stuck in a marriage with someone she’d never loved, not brave enough to live her real life.
I hit the button and listened one more time, looking at my reflection in the hallstand mirror. I couldn’t help smiling at her voice. She sounded so happy.
So that’s why I was still standing there when Gus came in. I turned and smiled even wider, but all he did was that flick-flick look that makes me think of a camera taking snapshots. Blink and he’s looking down at the phone. Blink and he’s looking at me again. Flick-flick.
“Don’t let me stop you,” he said. I shook my head, still smiling. “Whoever you’re phoning,” he went on. “Don’t mind me.” He came and stood right behind me to hang his coat on one of the pegs, reached round me to put his keys down but he didn’t touch me. “You never talk about anyone,” he said. “Friends. I’ve never heard you mention a single one. It’d do you good to have a good natter with a pal.”
His face was unreadable, not scowling, not smiling exactly, although he had a twinkle in his eye. He looked … smooth. He looked like you would look if you had a black widow spider crawling on your cheek and you didn’t want to get it angry. I shuddered. Where the hell did that thought come from?
“I have so,” I said. “I’ve mentioned Steve. How could you forget him coming up, eh?”
“Oh yeah, that’s right,” said Gus. Finally, he put his arms round me, hooked his head over my shoulder, still looking at me in the mirror. “Go ahead and phone him.”
“I wasn’t phoning Steve!” I said. “I wasn’t phoning anyone.”
“What’s wrong with Steve?” His eyes were dancing now and I smiled at him, crinkling my nose. I couldn’t follow what was going on here.
“Nothing,” I said. “He’s a nice bloke.”
“So why don’t you phone him?” said Gus.
I turned. Maybe I could see him more clearly face-to-face. Maybe the mirror was twisting things.
“Gus,” I said. “I wasn’t phoning Steve. I never mentioned Steve.”
“Yeah, you did. Where are the kids?”
“Kitchen. Okay, yeah, I did, but only after you accused me of—”
“I didn’t accuse you of anything. I said go ahead and phone him.”
It was happening again. It happened one way round and Gus said it happened the other.
“You said I never mentioned anyone from work. I said I did, I mentioned Steve. But I never mentioned phoning him.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Keep your voice down. I don’t want the kids to hear you shouting.”
“I’m not shouting,” I said.
He raised his hand like in some kind of surrender. “Okayyyy,” he said. “Whatever you—”
Then we both flinched, in formation, when the phone rang. I put my hand out to answer, but Gus grabbed my arm.
“I can’t face the cops tonight if it’s them again,” he said.
“I’ll tell them you’re out,” I said. I didn’t try to get my arm free. I didn’t want to find out how hard he would grip
if I pulled away. I didn’t want to know.
“Don’t you want me to hear his message?” he said. “I’m not the jealous type, Jessie. I was just trying it on for size yesterday. It’s really not me. If I come and visit the Project tomorrow, it’ll just be to see where you work. It won’t be to check him out.”
The ringing stopped and the machine kicked in. He didn’t even register Becky’s voice, just kept smiling at me. I kissed the end of his nose.
“No need,” I said. “You know Steve. Or he knows you anyway. He was in the Scouts with your brother.”
“Hello?” said the voice on the answering machine. “Yes, hello. My name is Eva Czerwinska. Kazek has given me this number. I am trying to find Jaroslawa. I hope you can help me. My number is 0048 32 413 5857. Thank you very much. Good-bye.”
“Who the hell was that?” said Gus.
“No idea,” I said.
“But you knew they were going to phone,” he said. “You were waiting.”
I shook my head. “I’m just in the door. I was looking in the mirror. I was listening to the message. Becky’s voice, you know.”
“How did they get this number?” said Gus. “Who was that?”
They got the number from a homeless guy with a wad of money. And he got it from me.
I said nothing.
“I’m not phoning Poland,” he said. “Cost a fortune. Not just to tell them she’s gone home.”
“You could report her missing,” I said.
“Again?” said Gus. “You don’t think they’d think that was a bit much? Two in one week? Different with Becky—she left a note.”
“She’ll phone back, probably,” I said.
“Who?” He spun me round and held my arms tight enough to make the flesh squeeze out between his fingers.
“Gus, God’s sake, you’re hurting me.”
“Did you say you’d been listening to Becky?” he said. “Christ, I just got that. Who’ll phone back? What are you trying to say?”
“Her,” I said. “That Polish woman right there. Let me go! I was listening to Becky’s recording—leave a message we’re all at the beach. Let me go!”
He dropped his hands and stared at me. Then he turned and banged the answering machine so hard it bounced on the table.
“Message deleted,” said the voice. He banged it again, twice. “Outgoing message deleted.”
“No!” I said. “That was Becky’s voice. You wiped Becky’s voice!”
“Why the fuck would I want Becky’s voice answering my phone?”
“Not on the phone,” I said. I was scrabbling at it, punching buttons. “Just the tape or whatever it is. For the kids. Her voice sounding so happy. For the wee ones.”
And there they were, summoned by the raised voices, sidling round the living room door. Dillon solemn and soft like he always got when he was tired, his mouth hanging open and blue smudges under his eyes. And Ruby like a sitcom housewife, arms folded, mouth set. “What’s all this then?” her little face seemed to say, and I smiled at the sight of her.
“What’s for tea?” she asked. “We’re starving, by the way. Mummy always used to give us a snack when we came in even if it was nearly teatime, eh Dill?”
“Mummy?” said Dillon.
Gus turned away to face the hall stand mirror. He bent his head until it was pressed against the glass. The stand rocked back on its little ball feet and creaked with the strain. He wasn’t knocking, but he was pushing so hard it might splinter the wood or break through the plaster. And he was whispering. I leaned close.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he was saying. But it wasn’t an apology. It was a mantra. It was stupid bitch with different words. And now he was saying something else. His voice was strangled from keeping it quiet. “Please, Becky. Please, don’t. I can’t take it again. I can’t take it anymore.”
“What did she do to you?” I whispered. Slowly, the pressure of his head on the mirror lessened. The glass creaked in its frame, the front legs came down onto the floor again.
“Kids,” I said, “I’ll make you sugar fingers if you wait in the kitchen.”
“Wot dat?” said Dillon. But Ruby knew sugar anything was great and she dragged him away.
“Gus,” I murmured to him, smoothing his hair back. “Go through and wait in the bedroom, eh? I’ll be as quick as I can.”
Sugar fingers was only buttered toast, dipped in brown sugar and cut into strips, but Dave had some cinnamon in his cupboard and I sprinkled that on. I left them trying to work out whether they liked it or not and hurried back through.
He was sitting on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands. I went over to him, eased his hands away, and let him rest it on my shoulder instead.
“What did she do?” I said again.
“She hit me,” said Gus. “Go on and laugh.”
“Why would I laugh?”
“Size of her,” he said. “Size of me.”
“Did you hit her back?”
He shook his head. “I was getting there, though. I was so angry. I’m so … ” he pulled away a little and turned so he could look at me. “I’m so angry, Jessie. I’m scared of how angry I am. I’m cracking up.”
“No, you’re not,” I told him. “But of course you’re angry.” Angry enough to pound the answering machine, grab me by the arms.
“I’m acting like she did!” said Gus, as if he had mind-read me. “I feel as if she’s inside me. I feel like, when I speak, it’s her voice—
sniping and sneering.”
“You never hit her back,” I told him, slow and sure. Was I trying to make him hear me or was I telling myself? Assuring myself it was all going to be okay?
“And she called me a wimp for it,” he said. “She told me I was a coward and a joke.”
“And now,” I said, “she’s gone. But she’s left a big echo. You’re not turning into her. And I’m not going to turn out to be like her. It’s just an echo. It’ll fade.” I was soothing both of us now.
“I can’t believe she’s gone,” he said. “You said you were listening to her—I thought she was back. I can’t believe she’s gone to stay.”
And it was at that moment that we both heard the car, trundling along the track, turning in, stopping. Gus’s eyes flared and I felt my breath come quicker. Crazy. I don’t believe in ghosts—certainly don’t believe in ghosts that can drive, anyway. But if the ghost of Becky King was here, it would feel my boot up its arse for what she’d done to this guy and those kids, and for all the nicey-nicey stories she’d shovelled at everyone else. Miss Colquhoun, I meant, but I bet there was more of them.
It wasn’t, of course, the ghost of anyone. It was the cops. Again. The sergeant and the woman one called Gail.
They sat with Gus in the living room and I went to take whatever was coming when Ruby and Dillon sussed the sugar fingers recipe. Of course, I took a tray of tea through, so I got to hear some of it. I was all ready to weigh in. Pretty clear I didn’t need to though.
“The Fiscal himself is satisfied,” said the sergeant. “Since there was a note and after what you’ve told us about your wife’s … lifestyle. But we want you to understand that if you yourself have any doubts, Mr. King, any doubts at all, you’re quite within your rights to request a full PM and inquiry.” He stopped and looked at me, standing there like a frozen idiot with the tray. I came back to life and put it down on the coffee table.
“If I thought there was any chance of the inquest coming back with ‘accident’,” Gus said. “Jesus, ‘murder’, even—I’d say go for it. But that wouldn’t happen, eh no?”
“Fatal accident inquiry,” said Gail. “No, there’s no chance of that, Mr. King.”
“No inquest?” I said.
“Fatal accident inquiry,” she said again. Her partner made some kind of movement. My guess is she said it te
n times a day and it drove him mental. “Not when the case is as clear as this one.”
“Unless the family requests it,” the sergeant said. “Same with the full post-mortem. Just tell us, Mr. King.”
“Gus?” I said, looking down at him. He was staring into the fire. He’d lit it, as usual, on auto, and it was just beginning to glow. I’d thought he would snatch at any chance at all, no matter how slim. The way he’d been talking. And now, when it came to the crunch, he was going to let the record say suicide after all?
“I forgot the milk,” I said and went back to the kitchen. Ruby and Dillon had sugar fingers hanging out their mouths like dogs’ tongues. They were sucking and giggling. Surely soon they’d be choking. “Nice, eh?” I said.
“Yummy yummy in my tummy,” said Dillon.
“Except they’re really just toast, though,” said Ruby.
Becky grew cabbages and had her own car and these two kids and a cottage by the seaside and she looked happy in the pictures with Ros. And if she loved Ros she could follow her, and if she didn’t want a baby she didn’t have to have one. Maybe she was turning the car. Maybe it was an accident. How could Gus not want an inquest? What had changed since he was wild for one, desperate to try anything to keep that word away from the children? The door opened behind me and the WPC appeared, as if she’d heard what I was thinking and had come to tell me it was fatal accident inquiry.
“A word,” she said. “We’d better step outside.” All right for her in her coat and shoes, but I followed anyway. The back of the cottage was a different world from the front. It was sheltered, what with the trees and the rise of the land, but somehow the endless wind—too strong in October to call it a breeze—at the front made it feel alive. That and the sparkle off the sea, the gulls, the long high sweep of the sky. Back here, the dark was darker and, despite the shelter, the cold was colder. The ground felt damp instead of whipped dry and there was no salt in the air. Just that rotten leaves smell and the soft moss underfoot. I had taken a dislike to the back of the house the night of the wheeliebin and nothing would change my mind.
The Day She Died: A Novel Page 17