by Heidi James
When I switched the TV back on, Blue Peter had finished. That upset me more than the news about my father because, I reasoned, surely he wouldn’t be long at Jesus’s house? Wouldn’t he be back soon? I told my mother as much when she came in later to say good night, and she pressed her lips tight together and briefly closed her eyes, before running from the room. Of course, I never mentioned my father coming home again, though I continued to hope for a long time that one day he’d be back, playing the piano, or reading in his study, or in the back garden, waiting to bowl for me, and I wouldn’t have to look after Mother any more.
1990
He watched her lift her hand and brush her hair from her forehead, mentally rehearsing the gesture so he could better copy her. He followed her out of the brightly lit library into the dark. He was taller with longer legs, but somehow always a few steps behind, unable to quite catch up, as if the universe went easy on her and made shortcuts through space just for her.
Her smile was warm in his guts, keeping out the chill. He’d said, ‘You’re my best friend,’ because she’d asked him why he was always so good to her, so kind.
‘No matter what?’ she’d said.
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Unconditionally, no limits?’
‘Absolutely. No doubt.’
‘Honestly? I’m hard to love you know.’
‘No you’re not! Who told you that?’
‘My mother says so.’
‘She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.’
‘What if I killed someone? Would I still be your best friend then?’
He laughed. ‘You won’t kill someone, but yep, even then.’
He didn’t notice the shadow of a bruise under her skin or the blank look on her face.
All These Questions
I drove back to see Charlie, checking that no-one was following me. They weren’t as far as I could tell, but it was hard to know. It was possible they were switching cars or changing who was watching me. It was possible that no one was watching, I understand that and I understood it then, maybe, though it’s hard to remember precisely. I’d had no response from Neil Mason or anyone else. Nobody wanted to touch the story: it and I were dead, finished. Even David was ignoring my calls and my source had vanished without trace.
I parked and sprinted up the concrete slope to the door. The warden was standing there, as if she was waiting for me, as if she knew I was coming. She opened the door and I stepped inside.
‘Back for Charlie?’ I nodded. ‘Best come with me.’
She had thin legs, spindly really, and had that awkward gait of a wading bird, knock kneed and flat footed, raising the knee and placing the foot down as if climbing an invisible stair. I followed her into her office.
‘Take a seat.’
I sat. Her desk was neat, an ashtray half-full of butts (against the rules, though she had the appearance of someone who upheld all rules), a phone and a desk diary sat alongside a photo of her and what I presumed was her family of husband and two teenage kids. A row of numbered hooks organised the spare keys to the residents’ flats. There was no visitors’ book visible. She unclipped a small black device from her waistband and put it on the desk. She noticed me looking. ‘The receiver for the residents’ alarms.’
‘Oh, yes.’ I nodded.
‘So, Charlie. I have some bad news, I’m afraid.’
‘Is he alright?’
‘He had another stroke. A serious one this time, I’m afraid. He’s in the hospital but they don’t think he’ll recover. I’m so sorry.’
‘When?’
‘Sorry?’
‘When did this happen?’
‘Right, yesterday afternoon, not long after the police had been to see him. He was obviously upset, poor old dear. Why they bothered an old man I can’t imagine. Dreadful.’
‘What did they want?’
‘How should I know? They wouldn’t speak to me. Just barged in.’
‘How long did they stay?’
‘At least an hour or so, I’d say, around lunchtime. Disturbed all the residents, of course.’
‘And they didn’t speak to you?’
‘No. You’re as bad as they are. All these questions.’
‘But you said they didn’t ask you any.’
‘They didn’t, you know what I mean.’
‘Did you speak to Charlie after they’d gone? Did he say anything?’
She squinted at me, assessing my criminal potential. ‘I didn’t see Charlie again until I responded to his alarm call. Then I found him, on the floor, when he was beyond chatting, let me tell you. It was awful.’
‘Of course it was. I’m sorry.’
‘It’s funny, he’s had nobody visit him for years, then all of a sudden you all turn up. You, the police and that other fella; no wonder he had a turn. Probably too much for him.’
‘What other fella?’
‘Another old friend came, after the police had gone. You’re all creeping out the woodwork now, it seems.’
‘Did he give you his name or anything?’
‘No, he didn’t. And I’m not sure I’d tell you if he did.’
‘So he didn’t sign the visitors’ book?’
‘What visitors’ book?’ She shifted in her chair, turning to face me full on. ‘What’s going on here? This seems a bit fishy to me.’
‘I’m sorry, you’re right. I’m in shock that’s all, He was fine when I saw him and I’m just trying to get my head around it.’
She nodded, she understood: I was shocked, upset. It’s natural. ‘Right then, I don’t suppose you know of any of Charlie’s friends or family? We don’t have anyone listed in his file, you see, and we need a next of kin.’
‘I don’t, I’m sorry.’
‘Well, at least he isn’t suffering. It happened so fast, he wouldn’t have felt a thing.’
‘How can you tell? Sorry, stupid question.’
It struck me that Charlie would’ve wanted to know, to face up to what was coming. I can’t imagine anything more demeaning for a man like Charlie, to be blindsided by a stroke like that. A coward’s way out, ignorant and mute. I rolled my lips into in a sad unsmile.
She softened. Patted my hand.
‘What happens now?’
‘Well, if no family are found, then there are procedures the social services and the hospital follow and in the event of his death, the council will step in. Do you want to leave your name and contact details so we can let you know?’
‘No, it’s OK. I’m leaving soon anyway. I just wanted to see him while I was here.’
‘I understand,’ she said, hardening again, used to this: the feckless, criminal friends of the lonely elderly. ‘At least you got to say goodbye.’
‘True. I’d best go.’
‘Right you are, take care.’
I left and she didn’t follow me, nor was she watching when I got in the car. That was it then, if Charlie couldn’t speak, or didn’t recover. It was over. There were no other witnesses, no one else to tell tales. But what had Charlie told the police?
I started the engine, put the car in gear and then slid it back to neutral. Killed the engine. What if I was sent there to cover this story because someone knew what happened? What if it wasn’t coincidence but part of setting me up, destroying me, finishing the job? I dropped my head on the steering wheel. Think, think, think. Who? Edward? But how could he know about Melanie? About Charlie? I opened up the glove box to check on the locket. It was still there. It had to be a warning. What the fuck was happening to me?
I tried to slow my breathing and calm down. Told myself I was stressed, anxious. Things just happen sometimes, fate, luck, life. I swallowed hard. I looked around: there was the care home, solid red bricks, net curtains, fire escapes. There were cars, metal, heavy and durable. There were birds in
the trees; a pigeon tapped at the pavement. I was the only thing that wasn’t solid; I was the thing that was warping the world. Slow down, I told myself. Slow down. What could Charlie have said to them?
I phoned my solicitor.
‘It’s good you called,’ she said, cool, calm, expensive. ‘I’ve not been able to get hold of you.’
‘Yeah, I’ve been keeping my head down.’
‘Just as well.’
‘Any more news from the Sentinel?’ Sweat was pouring from me, so I turned the ignition and flicked the air-con on high.
‘No, no change there.’
‘There’s another thing.’
‘Which is?’
‘The story I should be covering, down here.’
‘The dead policeman in the orchard, I’ve heard about that. What about it?’
‘Did you? How? Who told you about it?’
‘Yes, it’s on the news, Marcus.’ Deadpan. She sounded honest. Of course she did, I paid her to sound honest.
‘Is it? Right. Well I might be involved, or I think they’re going to make it look like I was.’
‘What?’ She sounded less calm and cool. ‘Are you involved?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘You don’t think so?’
‘It was a long time ago.’
‘So how are you involved?’
‘I knew his step-daughter.’
‘And? I don’t follow.’
‘Neither do I, just really odd things are happening. I think I’m being set up.’
She sighed. ‘Have you spoken to Edward or another journalist and intimated that you are going to pursue the St Clair article?’
‘No, I haven’t spoken to anyone. I emailed a couple of people, but they didn’t reply.’
‘I made it very clear you weren’t to talk to anyone.’ Her voice rose in pitch as if it was being squeezed through the line.
So did mine, as if I was trying to harmonise with her. ‘I want to clear my name. This is my life. My life. Anyway, why is that relevant now?’
‘I didn’t say it was. I just want you to do as I tell you and sit tight and speak to no one. I’ll call you later, when I can. Alright?’
‘Fine.’ I hung up.
Princess Diana’s death made my career. Put me on the map. I was in Paris, covering a nothing story about an aging actor and his latest project as a restaurateur and professional gourmand. It’s fair to say that up to that point I’d not quite lived up to my promise: in the words of my editor I lacked the guts to chase down a story, and I was hanging on by the skin of my teeth writing fluff pieces, desperate to keep the job for as long as possible. Edward meanwhile was rising to the top and it was Edward who called me at two in the morning, his voice gruff and salty.
‘Where are you?’ he said.
‘In bed. What’s up?’ I was in the cheap hotel the paper had booked for me, foggy from the really cheap bottle of red I’d had at dinner.
‘Still in Paris?’
‘Yes, I’m back tomorrow.’
‘Princess Diana has been in an accident, a serious one. Get to the Salpêtrière hospital now.’
‘Are you sure?’ I sat up, my head spinning, the air conditioning hissing in the background.
‘Yes, I’m fucking sure! A contact in the French police just called me. Now do you want the fucking story or not?’
‘Of course I do, I just—’
‘Marcus, just get there.’ The line went dead.
I was in the right place at the right time, I knew the right people. I know, weary old tropes. But there I was, a serious journalist at last, waiting in a hospital corridor as police, doctors, diplomats and officials hurried back and forth, gleaning the details I needed to file a respectful but detailed piece about the tragic circumstances of Princess Diana’s death before anyone in the UK had woken up. Quickly followed by an exclusive interview with a source close to the Al Fayeds, and then I wrote my piece, Pride and Protocol, about the public’s fury at the Palace’s lack of evident mourning and I was in. Reputation established, feet firmly under the table.
Even Edward congratulated me for my ‘knack for knowing just what the punters want, for reading the crowd.’ But I can’t really claim that investigative accolade. Visiting my mother when I got back from Paris, I talked to Joyce. Royalist to the core and seething with anger at the Queen, she rocked back and forth on her feet: ‘You should tell ’em. Write it down in the papers. You tell ’em it ain’t good enough to hide away in them palaces of theirs. They should honour that poor girl. She’s worth more than the lot of ’em put together.’ So I did. I put it in the paper. Dumb luck, opportunity, connections, whatever you call it: how was I ever going to top that?
Memory, if we’re honest, is a servile, biased little beast, delivering up half-remembered scenes that cast, at the very least, a flattering light over even the worst moments. In my experience, one is either the hero or the victim in the reconstituted fragments we assemble as our memories, making significance out of coincidence, tying up loose ends, connecting the dots. Memory creates a story out of random events, a plot with a beginning, middle and end, scenes and a climax, dramas and tragedy. We hunt like toothy little animals for patterns, for meaning, scurrying about gathering our special tales to line our nests and keep us warm at night. Mel taught me that, but I paid no attention. It’s what I’d spent my life doing.
April, 1990
‘She was fucking her mother’s boyfriend.’
‘No way!’
‘Yeah. Her mum came in from work, and there she was, giving him a blow job on the sofa.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Her mum told my Auntie Jan. She kicked her out then and there – naked in the street.’
‘Yeah, that’s what I heard. Naked in the street, screaming her head off. Covered in blood. My brother saw her running towards the old people’s home.’
‘I heard her real dad was an Indian bloke, with a turban and everything.’
‘No way!’
‘Seriously.’
‘That would explain a lot.’
‘It’s not the first time, neither.’
‘What ain’t?’
‘She fucked her mother’s husband before. He’s got a BMW, he gave her lifts to school. Bold as brass.’
‘Didn’t she lose her virginity to Darren Shine’s older brother when she twelve?’
‘Wouldn’t surprise me. Paki slag!’
‘I ain’t seen him around neither.’
‘Who?’
‘Darren.’
‘Nah, working with his brother now. Lucky cunt.’
‘She right reckoned herself, didn’t she though? I went to Infants and Juniors with her and she was the same then. Weird. Too clever for her own good.’
‘I heard the police were coming in to interview us all.’
‘No way! Here? In class?’
‘Yep.’
They were laughing, four of them, hunched over their fags and cans of Lilt and bottles of Tippex thinner in the pale spring light on the grass behind the science block. Three girls and a boy gathered ten feet away to his right. Marcus sat with his back to a tree, a book in his lap, unnoticed by them as they continued their nasty little story.
‘Whatever happened, she was asking for it.’
‘Yeah. She’s a whore.’
‘Do you think she’ll come back?’
‘Fuck no! She wouldn’t dare. Everyone knows what she’s done.’
‘To her own mum an’ all.’
He got up and walked away. There was sniggering and a burst of laughter behind him but he didn’t look back, just kept going until he was climbing up the three flights of stairs to the school library. Library was a pretty grandiose title for the place. It was barely bigger than a classroom and the few shelves held little mor
e than set textbooks and one or two Catherine Cookson novels. After nodding at the librarian, he sat at a desk near the back and pulled out his books. There was no one else in the room. He crossed his arms on the desk and laid his head on them, careful not to catch his cheek on his watch. The swelling had gone down but it was still sore, and the bruises on his ribs and stomach were only just fading to a sick yellowy-green. Those kids were right about one thing: Melanie wouldn’t be back. Not after what he’d done.
River View
The phone rang and rang and rang, an old fashioned trill that I hadn’t changed. I ignored it, waiting for my solicitor to call back. I’d driven out of town, out past the industrial estate and into a newly created park with cycle routes and a kid’s play area and long walks marked out with signage and arrows and accessible pathways. I parked by the river, watching the water drag at the mud banks. I wondered how long I could stay afloat out there. It had finally clouded over, raw-edged stacks billowing up and out into the atmosphere, blocking the sun. My phone rang again and I turned it over to look at the screen, but didn’t recognise the number. The ringing was replaced by the chime of an incoming text message: MARCUS, ANNA HERE. I CAN HELP YOU, I KNOW WHAT THEY’RE DOING TO YOU. CALL ME.
She answered immediately. ‘Where are you?’
‘River View Park.’
‘Sounds gloomy.’
‘It is. So what do you know?’
‘Let’s meet, I’ll come over to you. Wait by your car.’
‘OK. Anna, how did you get my number?’ But she’d already disconnected.
She pulled up twenty minutes later in a sleek Prius, just as the rain started, the fat warm drops slick on the hard ground. I got in her car, making room for my feet in the pile of food cartons and drinks cans on the floor. She was wearing the same clothes she’d worn at the press conference, her hair in a knot on her head. She looked healthy and young, despite her diet of fast food and fizzy drinks. I was like her once, impervious and fearless. I think I was anyway.