Chain Reaction

by Gillian White

  ‘And she never returned?’

  ‘No, she never did,’ said Vernon sadly.

  ‘And so you told the story about her moving into the flat in order to protect your children?’

  ‘I did, yes,’ admitted Vernon, ‘although I know now I should have confided in them. It was just that Joy was always covering up for herself, for me, for the plight we were in, and I suppose I automatically did the same thing.’

  ‘That’s understandable, Mr Marsh. You have nothing to blame yourself for.’

  ‘Perhaps if I’d been honest with myself and gone to you people earlier…’

  ‘There was nothing you could have done, sir. Your wife was probably killed quite quickly after her disappearance. You must not be so hard on yourself.’

  Everyone is so kind. Everyone has always perceived Vernon as a nice, gentle man; all the neighbours in the cul-de-sac, all his fellow sufferers in the arcade, they all told the police what a lovely person he was. Happily, they can’t see into his head.

  And he is, really.

  It’s just that he was pushed right over the edge, lost his marbles for a hellish few seconds, reached the end of his tether and Joy happened to be in the way when he picked up that iron. The police have not found the murder weapon although they have scoured the area, and of course poor Jody can’t help them out although they spend hours interrogating him.

  All around Swallowbridge is an atmosphere of excitement and carnival, with the savoury smells of food wafting from the stalls, the arc lights, the sense of expectation and the comforting feeling of so many people uniting as one against the enemy. What will happen next? Will the Queen put in an appearance? In spite of their mother’s tragic death, both Suzie and Tom have flushed faces and delighted eyes tonight. Joy, of course, would have rebuked them for joining in with the rabble: ‘What’s the matter with staying at home and watching it on TV? You don’t need to go there in person in order to show your support. You can phone it in, look, there’s special phone-lines set up for the purpose.’ No, Joy wouldn’t be seen dead at a public event such as this. ‘Making a spectacle of yourself,’ she would have told Vernon, ‘among the hoi-polloi.’

  Much as he is loath to admit it, Vernon is gradually finding life without Joy a happy release himself. A blessing. He had always believed that he loved her, and maybe he did, but being without her has its plusses which he is beginning to appreciate, and it is rather like a rebirth. He is looking forward to selling the house if it all goes through, eager to rid himself of all those expensive and, he suspects, tasteless knick knacks. Naturally he offered her clothes to Suzie and she rummaged through them with alacrity. Vernon hopes she will take them with her when she goes because they are just too irritating to have cluttering up his bedroom cupboards. He has already pulled out of the deal to buy Flat 1, Albany Buildings, and under the circumstances everyone understands. Even the estate agent with his five gold rings managed to be courteous. The press were trying to pull him to pieces for his perfectly innocent behaviour, but these days anyone who is not 100 per cent behind Mrs Peacock is against her. Vernon was relieved to pull out. The prospect of a rented room to keep as spartan or as messy as he likes appeals to him greatly after his life of furniture polish, lavatory fresheners and plastic sheeting on new suite covers. He will furnish his new home with old chairs from junk shops, comfortable chairs you can pick up for a song, and a homely old bed with a creaking mattress.

  ‘Oh Dad, how awful,’ declared Suzie when he shared his new plans. ‘Just because Mum’s dead you still need a home to call your own.’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ said Vernon decisively. ‘That is just what I don’t need. I intend to make my new life free of possessions and responsibilities.’

  ‘That’s just the shock talking.’

  ‘No, Suzie, it’s not. I have worked for a lifetime to accumulate the things that I have, and they bring me no pleasure. They brought your mother pleasure, yes, but now she is gone there’s no point in cluttering my life with stuff I no longer need. I am opting out of the consumer society, Suzie, I am turning my back on it for good. I shall pick up the dole if necessary and go for long walks every day by the river, or play cards with friends, or sit in the pub and put the world to rights. I might even get myself a dog if my landlord will allow it.’

  ‘Oh God, how awful, Dad,’ proclaimed Suzie sadly.

  And Tom is as bad, accumulating, consuming, borrowing, worrying, working all hours to provide for his wife and baby. They have long discussions about cars and washing machines and microwaves and personal computers, the best models, the state of the art, and have you read the latest report from Which?.

  ‘If you’re not careful you’ll end up like me, working my guts out and making yourself ill, and for what, Tom—for what?

  ‘I would be proud to end up like you, Dad,’ said Tom, trained in politeness as well as in neatness and good manners. ‘These strange ideas of yours are just a natural reaction to the trauma you have suffered. Don’t do anything rash, Dad, take things one day at a time, and you really should try to give up smoking. It’s not going to help your health and it is so disgusting and off-putting these days.’

  ‘We’ll help you find another place to buy, Dad,’ said Suzie. ‘You might need to go into temporary lodgings just while you’re looking round, but we’ll come down again and help you look for somewhere permanent when everything’s sorted, won’t we, Tom?’

  ‘Well, it’s quite hard for me, actually,’ said Tom apologetically. ‘What with work and Sally finds it hard to cope with Baby alone at home for very long…’

  ‘I’ll come, any time,’ said Suzie kindly. ‘You and Mum wouldn’t have wanted to live in the middle of the town anyway. I don’t know what you were thinking of after this lovely house.’

  ‘I wonder if Miss Benson will come out and speak while we’re here,’ asks Tom, excited as a schoolboy.

  ‘I doubt there’s anything left to say. Now they seem to be waiting for the Queen. The ball is in Her court.’

  They mingle with the crowds; it’s a cross between the old VE Day newsreels and the miners’ strike. Discarded newspapers and litter flutter around like fallen petals. Some people are here for the fun of it and some to make trouble, and an odd camaraderie, a certain mutual respect, has developed between the two. People have come with their whole families, children of all ages and old people carrying banners and flags. All their differing colours in the bright night-lights are like sequins on ballgowns. Bodies move restlessly, arms wave, faces shine and one trumpet blares occasionally from the centre of the throng, the type of sound you hear from the terraces at a football match. Only a few hisses and boos are directed towards the police by a party of hooligans eager for mischief at the back of the crowd, drunk of course and a newsvendor cries, ‘Read the latest news on the Siege,’ or ‘Sensational Royal scandal brims over.’ There’s a sense of something extraordinary about to happen.

  ‘What if the Queen does come tonight?’ shouts Suzie. ‘I’ve never seen her. I’d love to see her. Shall we stay and have a baked potato?’

  ‘We don’t want to eat here in the street,’ Tom admonishes quickly. ‘For goodness sake, Suzie. You never know what germs are about, and those potatoes don’t look too healthy to me. Look at the state of the man’s filthy hands.’

  Suzie persists. ‘But do you think she might actually come?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ says Vernon, ‘not tonight. Give her a chance. She only got the letter this morning.’

  ‘Oh, I do think you are wonderful, Dad,’ says Suzie, infected by the exciting atmosphere and kissing him impulsively on his cheek. ‘We both think so, don’t we, Tom? Coping like you have. And with Mum being so difficult.’

  ‘Poor Mum,’ says Tom.

  ‘Yes, poor old Joy,’ agrees Vernon softly, and wishes he was innocent. He wishes that Jody had killed his wife, and then he could feel completely happy.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Penmore House, Ribblestone Close, Preston, Lancs

&nb
sp; BABS AND LENNY MIDDLETON are possibly the only couple in the land who are unaware of the dramas unfolding around them. They and their two persecuted daughters, Dawn and Cindy, are rigidly focused upon their own dire situation, faced not only with a rape charge but with murder, too. It feels as if it is they who have committed the crime; Jody, the perpetrator, is only one step further along the line of communal disgust. The excess flows over and drowns them.

  It is now quite out of the question that they should purchase Joyvern, totally unthinkable that they should move into the very home which has been shattered by the alleged murderous behaviour of their son. Vernon, unhinged by the whole affair, suggested foolishly that all should continue as if nothing had happened, but that is quite impossible. They must find somewhere else while hoping against hope that their own house-sale goes through. They are down in Devon for the committal proceedings tomorrow morning, staying at the Old Mill Hotel where Babs has remained since Jody’s arrest last week. Dawn and Cindy are with them although they have no intention of attending the court tomorrow. They will look round the shops, go to the cinema, take a trip down the river instead, anything rather than associate themselves with their contagious brother. At least, down here, nobody recognises them as they do up in Preston. At least here they do not suffer the slings and arrows of outraged locals.

  Plans have been drastically changed. Lenny has informed the estate agent that he no longer wishes to go through with the purchase of Joyvern, and, owing to the extraordinary circumstances the agent quite understood. He has so far, however, been unable to contact the vendor, Vernon Marsh, who, he understands, has abominable problems of his own just now. ‘What a ghastly mess,’ he says to his secretary Miss Bevan after Lenny leaves the office looking deathly. ‘You just don’t realise how lucky you are until you meet some of these poor souls.’

  But despite the fact they have nowhere to go, the Middletons have no intention of returning to Preston where they will now be hounded from pillar to post. They like this area, and Lenny is keen to take up his new job as store manager, so they have decided to look around for somewhere else. They will enrol Dawn and Cindy in a school with a good reputation (their education has suffered enough through no fault of their own), and rent a house while they wait for a suitable property to come on the market. This time they are decided on a house in the middle of nowhere, where nobody need know their name, and the excruciating stain of poor Jody will eventually, given time, given patience, be removed.

  Lenny has almost been converted. He now half-believes in the guilt of his son and is resigned to face the appalling truth. Dawn and Cindy are Don’t Knows, and they don’t care what their mother feels, they are not prepared to pussy-foot around the subject any longer. Jody should be denounced and disowned, eliminated even from memory. It would be better if he had never been born, and if he’s found innocent—well…

  ‘I want to change my name by deed poll,’ Dawn declared.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ Lenny said firmly. ‘There are thousands of Middletons in the country. Nobody is going automatically to associate you with our Jody.’

  Dawn sulked and said nothing. How could she explain to her father that she secretly believed that some lingering scent, some inflection of the voice, some unconscious mannerisms would always give her away as the sister of the so-called rapist, the kin of the possible murderer? She and Cindy were tarred with the same brush, leapt from the same womb, nurtured by the same breast that succoured the ‘Beast of Preston’.

  Yes, that’s what the press are calling him now. And she hates him.

  If approached, she is not even certain that she would stand up and support him any longer. She knows it’s awful. She knows she’s disloyal. But she hasn’t the courage, she hasn’t the strength to be despised and she no longer has the conviction that her brother is innocent. And perhaps, if they turned publicly against him, people would start to like them again.

  When their mother enters a room they both look away, they lower their eyes, they turn their faces, no longer prepared to share the communal suffering, to listen to her wailing protests, to endure the agony of a parent who is demented with grief. The sooner Jody is dead, dead to her and the rest of the world, freed or behind bars, the better.

  They are in the dining room at the Old Mill which is crowded with journalists. Every hotel and guest house, with vacancies limited anyway because of the season, is full to overflowing because of the Siege of Swallowbridge. Babs hasn’t bothered to tidy herself up; she looks as if she’s got straight out of bed with her clothes still on after a long and feverish sleep. But she hasn’t come from her bed, she has come from the police station.

  ‘That evil man, Vernon Marsh,’ Babs rants on, and nobody else is interested. ‘To think I trusted him, to think I went to his house and talked non-stop about Jody, giving him all the ammunition he needed to spring his wicked trap.’

  ‘Shut up, Mum, and let’s order some food. We’ve already been waiting for half an hour.’

  ‘Don’t say shut up to your mother, Cindy, please. That sort of attitude isn’t going to help. You know we must all pull together.’

  ‘I’m not pulling on her side, not any longer, and I don’t care what I say to her any more,’ says Cindy loudly.

  ‘Shussh,’ whispers Dawn. ‘People are staring.’

  ‘No, they’re not, it’s you who’s paranoid and no wonder,’ says Cindy, but she keeps her voice lower all the same.

  ‘Aren’t you even going to ask me how he was this afternoon?’ Babs, all twitchy and nervous, wraps her napkin round one hand as if to bandage a part of her which is hurting.

  Her daughters look away. Lenny consults the menu. Eventually he asks her politely, ‘Would you like some wine?’

  Babs looks bemused. ‘Would I like some wine? What sort of a question is that?’

  ‘Oh Mum, don’t start! Just answer, will you! Why must you always cause a scene.’

  ‘Oh!’ Babs sits up stiffly. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t realise I was. I must try to behave better in future.’

  ‘Oh Mum!’

  ‘It’s just that whether I would like wine or not doesn’t happen to feature very highly in my list of priorities at present. You,’ and she stares glitteringly hard at all three of them, ‘would not understand.’

  ‘Forget it, pet,’ says Len. ‘It was only a thought.’

  ‘I would like some wine,’ says Dawn.

  ‘So would I,’ says Cindy. ‘As an anti-depressant.’

  ‘If you two can’t be more tolerant then I think you’d better go upstairs and I’ll have something sent up to your room,’ says Lenny distractedly.

  ‘If Jody was innocent they would set him free,’ states Dawn suddenly.

  ‘And compensate him with millions of pounds for the damage they have done. Not just to him, but to us as well,’ said Cindy, just as coldly.

  ‘I know how you feel, pet, I know,’ said Lenny, lost for any more useless words. His daughters have been damaged, and it’s understandable they feel as they do. In addition, Babs’ almost fanatical behaviour since the murder is not making life any easier for any of them.

  So the girls stalk out of the hotel dining room and one more evening is ruined. How much more of this can any of the Middletons take?

  Babs is gradually losing her mind. Jody continues to protest his innocence and only she can tell that he is speaking the truth. Nobody will listen to her, either; she has defended him too violently and too often.

  ‘But this time I know beyond any doubt that he is telling the truth!’

  This afternoon even their solicitor Mr Goodyear looked at her strangely. ‘The odds are against him this time, I’m afraid.’

  ‘When haven’t they been against him? The odds have been against Jody since this whole nightmare started.’

  ‘I didn’t do it, Mum’, says Jody from the opposite chair in the mean little room assigned to him while he waits for his fate in the morning.

  ‘I know, love, I know. It’s not me you have t
o convince.’

  ‘I saw him!’ How many times has Jody said this, shouted this, shrieked this—and all to no avail? How many more times must he say it? ‘I saw Vernon Marsh drag the black bag up the front path, through the house and into the garden. It was wrapped in a tartan rug! I sat up there and watched him drop the body down the well. I kept quiet because I was frightened, terrified. He might have been mad for all I knew, I was hardly likely to go down and confront him. What was I meant to say—“What are you doing, Mister”?’

  ‘But Mr Marsh is a small, fat man with glasses. You are young and strong and athletic. What on earth did you think he would do if you did go down and face him?’

  Jody’s face turned puce. ‘I thought he might have a weapon, a gun or something. I was shocked. I didn’t want to be seen. I was on the run, if you remember. Why would I leap out of my hiding place just to find out what was going on and risk being caught?’

  ‘If Mr Marsh was doing what you thought he was doing, he would hardly be likely to inform on you…’

  ‘You don’t believe me either, do you?’ howled Jody in despair. ‘My own defence doesn’t believe me so where does that leave me?’

  ‘Don’t shout, Jody, it doesn’t help.’

  ‘Be quiet, Mum.’

  ‘And nor will it help you tomorrow if you are heard addressing your mother like that.’

  ‘Dear God! Here I am accused of rape and a brutal murder and you’re rattling on about being polite.’ Jody covers his face with his hands. ‘Somebody help me, PLEASE!’

  ‘I just need to get this perfectly straight in my own mind,’ said Mr Goodyear patiently. ‘The prosecution will want to know why you didn’t tackle Mr Marsh, and they will also want to know why you went round to his house after you’d seen what he’d done. Why didn’t you go to the police? Why not make an anonymous phone call?’