by A J Waines
It’s raining as I clamber into the taxi and everywhere I look is obstructed by trails of water rolling down the windows. Even though I can barely make out a thing, I find myself shifting from one side in the back to the other, searching for her.
So much has been shattered in the last few weeks, I don’t know what’s real anymore.
My bond with Beth has been ripped apart at the seams. We’ve had little niggles over the years and fallen out now and again, but we’ve always been interwoven with each other like threads in a tapestry. Nothing like this has ever happened between us before.
Is it salvageable?
With the wedding due on Saturday, it’s not my priority at this moment in time.
As the taxi draws to a brief halt at the next crossroads, there’s not even a verge along the side of the road. I wind down my window and stare out into the darkness, but there’s nothing out here other than overgrown hedgerows and trees, their spindly branches scratching the sky.
When I get back home, I race upstairs calling Beth’s name, but I can sense straight away that the house is empty. I can’t believe at a time like this, she’s taken off on some Nancy Drew mystery expedition. Either that, or she’s seeking refuge with one of her friends.
Going straight to her room, I track down Beth’s address book – it’s probably out of date, but it’s all I’ve got. I ring two of her Southampton pals, but neither have seen her.
I sit on the bed and sigh. She can’t have gone far – all her gear is still here and she only has a few clothes, a spare washbag and other bits and bobs she always leaves at Adrian’s. I’ve just got to wait this out.
The next day, I’m punching the round hole into a box of cheese and onion crisps behind the bar, when Marvin appears beside me.
‘The police are here,’ he says. I jerk upright. He adds something else, but abject panic that something awful has happened to Beth blocks out his words. Only as we stride towards the officers do I realise he mentioned the word ‘Skoda’. This isn’t about Beth, they’re asking about Marvin’s car.
I recognise them both from before. PC Atkins, the pretty blonde one, addresses me first.
‘We understand that Mr Henson left his Skoda with you while he was away…’ She glances down at her notes, ‘…between February 19th and March 12th.’
It isn’t exactly a question, but they’re both looking at me, waiting for a response. Everything has to be done by the book.
‘That’s right,’ I say.
‘Can you tell us where the car was kept?’
‘It was parked outside my house on Barnes Road,’ I say, relaxing a little, ‘either there, or in the next street.’
‘Was the car ever left here in the car-park?’ PC Atkins swings round to point to the rear exit. As she raises her arm, a surreal image of an air stewardess comes to mind.
‘Here?’ I shake my head. ‘No, I always walked to the pub, if there was anything that needed doing – it’s quicker on foot. In any case, with so many trucks coming and going for the refurbishments, it seemed best to keep it out of the way.’
‘Was it parked here at any time during the period Mr Henson was on holiday?’
‘There was just the once, a couple of days before he came back, when my daughter and I gave it a once-over with a hose. Parking outside my house is bumper to bumper, so it made sense to wash it here where there’s more room. There were plenty of buckets and cleaning materials lying around.’
PC Atkins presses her point. This is clearly important. ‘You never used the car to bring anything here or take it away?’
I shiver and rub my arms. Had someone spotted the car at the back, the night we took Carl’s body away? The CCTV was down right through that period, but had someone been prowling around?
‘No.’ It comes out sounding scratchy and I clear my throat. Surely, they won’t want to check inside Marvin’s car, will they?
Marvin pipes up. I’d forgotten he was there. ‘It’s here now,’ he says, taking a step towards the back exit, ‘if you need to take a look.’
I’ve swung from feeling a chill to terribly hot all of a sudden. I reach out to hold onto a chair and swallow hard.
PC Dean responds. ‘That won’t be necessary at the moment.’
I take a deep breath in through my nose.
The two officers turn to each other. PC Atkins points to a line in her notes and PC Dean nods, but nothing else happens; no warrant is produced, no arms reach out towards me, there are no handcuffs. They’re merely checking they’ve asked all the right questions. It’s routine.
Once they’ve gone, Marvin turns to me as we head back to the bar.
‘I was rather hoping I’d get to see a real CSI team in action, in their white bunny suits, crawling all over my motor.’ He’s laughing. ‘They’d probably turn up something embarrassing dropped months ago behind the seats.’
I force a chuckle, but secretly I’m wracking my brains trying to figure out what they would find if they do decide to make a full forensic search. There was no blood, but did Carl leave a tiny piece of himself behind? And fragments from the rug? Even though Beth and I gave the interior a comprehensive going over with the vacuum cleaner, microscopic traces could have been left behind, linking the body to Marvin’s car.
He’s still rattling on as he wipes off yesterday’s specials from the menu board: ‘…but forensics is expensive, so I don’t suppose they’re going to scour random vehicles without any concrete leads.’
‘They’re probably talking to everyone who had access to the rug,’ I say conversationally, collecting up the damaged beermats that customers always seem to want to peel apart. ‘Now that they’ve got a list of workmen, they’ll be trying to match registration numbers with CCTV on the high street.’
I know for a fact that Marvin’s car won’t come up on any traffic footage; my meandering route through the city avoided all the official cameras.
Marvin adds a curly flourish in chalk at the bottom of the menu. ‘They’ll catch whoever did it eventually.’ He rubs his hands together, as though the whole situation is rather exciting. I glance at my watch and flinch. Peter is going to be turning up in less than four hours. I try Beth’s phone, but it goes straight to voicemail, just like before.
I’ve tried Beth hourly since then, but it’s always the same result. There’s no time left. I pull my last pint of real ale and rush out to meet Peter at the station.
As he comes through the ticket barrier his eyes spark into life for a second, clearly thinking it’s Beth waiting for him on the other side. His expression wilts when he realises it’s me.
‘Hi,’ he mutters listlessly, pulling me towards him in a cursory embrace. He’s got the fatigued and harrowed body language of someone who has come a long way, expecting a funeral.
‘How was your journey?’ I ask superficially, unable to come up with anything better. He mutters a few words that include ‘fine’ and ‘quiet’.
I’m feeling depleted, mortified. He’s here to try to shake some sense into Beth. He’s expecting to have a heart-to-heart with her. He doesn’t know that she’s nowhere to be found. I glance up to the skies as we turn to leave the station. I have no idea how I’m going to handle this.
We walk awkwardly to the house, making inelegant small-talk about the sandwich he had for lunch, the weather, the traffic. We don’t mention Beth or the wedding.
As I open the gate, I wonder if it’s kinder to tell him now that Beth’s not here. That she could be in Southampton – but no one knows for sure. But it sounds so feeble when I say it in my head that I don’t dare. It would make his visit a complete waste of time.
I genuinely thought she’d be back by now, but she’s well and truly slipped through my fingers.
I take him into the kitchen and he clears his throat. He can see how tense I am and it’s making him nervous. I offer to make some tea to soften the mood.
We sup in silence at the kitchen table like strangers.
‘Shall I go up?’ he says fina
lly, ‘or are you going to bring her down?’
‘I’ll go up,’ I say, getting to my feet.
I get to the foot of the stairs and dither, out of sight. What am I going to do when I get upstairs? Come rushing down, putting on a big show of shock pretending she’s gone?
I open Beth’s bedroom door and step inside, locking the door. Instantly I’m swept up in the aroma of her floral perfume and see her before me in her belongings – the chiffon scarf she wore yesterday, the swimsuit from Friday dry, on the radiator.
That’s when the idea comes to me.
I stand at the top of the stairs and call out: ‘Peter, do you want to come up?’
There’s an abrupt screech of the chair leg across the kitchen floor and he bounds up the stairs. I stop him on the landing.
‘She’s locked her door; she doesn’t want to see anyone, but she says she’ll speak to you. I’ll leave you both and sit in my bedroom,’ I point to the adjacent doorway, ‘to give you some privacy.’
I back into my room and close the door.
Then I hurry through the connecting door into the bathroom and straight through into Beth’s room.
There’s a faint tap on the door as Peter knocks.
‘It’s Peter,’ he says, keeping his voice low. ‘Why don’t you come out and speak to me, properly?’
I close my eyes and try to hear Beth’s voice, her intonation, the tone she uses.
‘I’m sorry, Peter. I’m in such a state. I can’t face anyone right now.’ My voice comes out shaky and uncertain.
‘You don’t sound right at all, why don’t you open the door?’
I lift the pitch up a little. ‘Please don’t pressure me…I’ve been…I’m not…’
‘What’s going on, Beth? You’ve been so weird lately.’
‘I know. Something hasn’t been right in my head, Peter, for the last month or so…more than that…I feel sort of numb and mixed up. Mum wants me to go to the GP, but I’m scared…’
‘What’s wrong, sweetheart…are you depressed, anxious…what is it?’
‘I’m not sure. I don’t even know how it started. One day I woke up and I didn’t feel right.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I didn’t want to bother you with all your important meetings and negotiations. I was shivery and lost my voice and felt all achy and then…I kind of got better. I thought it was just flu…you remember?’
‘That was about three weeks ago, but I thought you’d got over that.’
‘Yeah, but inside my head, I still felt all woolly and odd…’
‘Odd…how?’ There’s a short gap. I hear him rap on the door. ‘Let me in, Beth. I can’t bear this…not being able to touch you, hold you.’
I can’t believe how gracious he’s being. He doesn’t deserve this. I want so much to be able to make this right, to make everything heal and be harmonious again.
‘I can’t…not yet. If you come in, I’ll just breakdown and cry and I won’t stop. I want to try to explain it. You deserve that.’
‘Okay…okay…I’ll listen out here. Tell me more about how you feel. Is it the auditions? Has it been too stressful? Have I pushed you into doing too many?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Is it because of the wedding?’ he asks.
The inevitable question.
I don’t know what to say. Now I’ve got myself into this, I don’t know where to take it.
He’s speaking again, his voice raspy. ‘I just want the truth, Beth. If you’ve changed your mind about marrying me, I need to know.’
What am I going to do?
If I say I’m not sure, then everything will be over and Peter will be catching the next train back to London. I’m certain of it. If I encourage him, then Beth has to be there in the church on Saturday.
I’m struck dumb. The silence goes on and on and I wonder if he might have already given up and gone downstairs.
‘Peter…Peter are you still there?’
‘Yes.’ He sighs heavily. ‘Listen. My parents are leaving New York tomorrow to get here for our wedding. They need to know if it’s happening or not. I need to know. You have to make a decision one way or the other. Otherwise, I’m going to have to call it off.’
He’s not being unfair, he really isn’t. He’s been incredibly patient with Beth all through this, but now it’s crunch time and he’s not the kind of man to hang around while people make up their minds. He’s a straight-talker and a doer. I can see that. If he doesn’t get a clear answer, he’s going to walk right out of Beth’s life.
He bangs on the door again. ‘I’m not sure I can keep hanging on any longer, Beth. I’ve spent the last four weeks not knowing what’s going on with you. If you’re ill, you need to see a doctor. It might be something simple like glandular fever or it might be some kind of panic disorder, but you’ve got to do something. I’ll support you, of course, I will. Are we getting married on Saturday or not, Beth? It’s as simple as that.’
Somehow I find my voice again. ‘But if I’ve got some sort of virus or disorder, shouldn’t we wait until I’m better?’
‘No. I’m not postponing it, Beth. That’s just going to drag things on and on.’
‘But, if I’m ill?’
‘You’ve been well enough to get to auditions, to have a hen party. If you want to postpone it, I think what you’re really saying is that your feelings for me have changed.’ His voice starts to break. ‘Is that what you’re saying?’
‘No…’ It’s out of my mouth before I know it. And I know why. I’ve fought for this, I want this marriage for my daughter and I want it for my own future, too.
‘So…’ he says, his voice softer. ‘I need to get this clear. Are you going to be there on Saturday, or not? I need an answer. Now. You must see that. Is it yes or no? Which one?’
I can’t go back now.
‘Yes,’ I tell him. ‘Yes, I’ll be there. I promise.’
‘And you still love me?’
‘Yes!’ The tears come from nowhere, overwhelming me as I press my body flat against the closed door, my arms above my head, my palms reaching out to this man, my daughter’s lover, on the other side.
I’m living this moment for Beth. It’s about her. But it’s also about me. And Russell. The wedding we never had. The one I missed out on. The one I hadn’t realised I craved so much, until recently.
‘Yes, absolutely, totally, utterly. I do love you, I do and I can’t wait to be your wife!’
40
Beth
I’m not sure when I fell asleep, but I must have dropped off because there’s a jolt and in a flash I’m awake.
My eyes are open but I can’t see a thing. I blink a few times. The curtains must be drawn.
I’m disoriented. Feeling woozy.
Wait…this isn’t my bed.
Then I remember. Of course – I’m staying at Grandad’s. I got back after 10 p.m. from Southampton. Grandad had already turned in, but I decided to have a mint tea, first. Mum had left a note on the front door asking one of us to call her, but it was late by then. It would only have been another plea for me to get my act together before the wedding, so I decided to ring first thing this morning, when I was feeling more resilient. I must have gone straight to bed after that.
Except the blanket doesn’t feel right. It’s prickly, made of wool and everyone knows I’m allergic to it. The pillow is different, too, smaller, like a cushion. And I feel hot in a cooped-up, stifling kind of way. As though I’m in a room that has no windows. As I sit up, a wave of panic hits me. This isn’t the box-room at Grandad’s. It’s too dark – in fact, there’s no room in his house that gets pitch black like this. He still has the thin pastel curtains Vera chose, at every window, because she was afraid of the dark.
The smell isn’t right either. It’s oily, greasy – like a shed or garage.
Then I realise I’m moving.
Where the hell am I?
Shapes, fragmented and broken up, begin to fi
lter through the dense fog inside my head. Am I having some sort of crazy dream? I need to backtrack, go over everything that happened in the right order. I scrunch up my eyes. If only I could think straight.
I was in Grandad’s loft looking at photographs and came across the obscure newspaper clippings from over twenty years ago. With nothing better to do, I took off to the pub named in the news report and the trail led me to Bernie…
That’s when things started getting surreal.
As I turn over in the pitch black, in a bid to get more comfortable on the mattress, I let out a yelp. My kneecaps ache, as though they’ve been hit with a hammer. Gingerly, I sit up and wrap my arms around them. My hip bones, my elbows and my chin hurts, too. I feel like I’ve got bruises all over me, on top of a throbbing headache.
I swallow hard.
What am I doing here?
I gently reach up and find a tender bump on the back of my head. At some point someone must have hit me. There’s something gritty in my hair. Sand? A wave of dizziness catches me off guard. Someone must have given me something; drugged me.
I feel around with my hands. There’s a wall to my right and one directly behind me. At the edge of the mattress, my probing fingers drop a few inches to the floor; wooden, no carpet. I slide my feet onto it and get up only as far as a crouching position, raising my hand cautiously into the space above me. I’m not sure how much room there is and I don’t want to smash my head.
I reach up and up, gradually straightening until I’m upright. Then I put my hands forward, groping my way like a blind person. There’s a wall to the side, another wall in front, all wooden judging by the texture of the grain. I reach a door. Locked.
I wrench at the handle anyway. It rattles against the bolt, but stays fast.
What’s going on?
I go back in my head to the order of events as I last remember them. That’s the only way I’m going to get close to fathoming out what’s happened.