by Gary Fry
Needless to say, at the nightclub last night, Martin had bonked her in the bloke’s bogs.
Here was a problem, all right. In just two days, one of my best friends was marrying another of my best friends, and now Alice Simmons threatened to jeopardise the event. There was surely only one thing I could do: go see the girl.
Alice lived in the north of Leeds, and I had to skilfully manoeuvre my hatchback along litter-strewn streets before finding her pad. She worked as a P. A. somewhere in the city, yet lived like a penniless student. Answering my terse knock at her front door, she looked as good as could be expected, given that it was noon and she’d clearly just got out of bed. Her thick hair was gypsy dark, her eyes sparkling like small stones at the bottom of a freshwater pool. She obviously knew what I’d come for, because before I could speak, she said, “Oh look, it’s Mr Uptight. Come to slap the cuffs on me, have you? Come to arrest me on a charge of…moral indecency?”
I managed to rise above this, like a scuba diver coming back to the surface of some oily, stagnant pond. “I think you know what I’ve come for, Alice, ” I said, striving to remain calm. “Martin and…Trish are good friends of mine. We all go way back. So don’t spoil their big day. You’ve had your bit of fun. Now what say you leave it there, eh?”
“Move along, please? Nothing more see here?” She laughed horribly. “Is that what you’re saying to me, mate?”
Something about the way she lampooned my profession got under my skin, but I controlled myself. “If that’s the way you want to think about it, yes. ”
And without waiting for a response, I turned to head back for my car, hoping this impish girl wouldn’t add more.
But of course she did. People like her always did.
“I would have thought you’d have been pleased, Mr Creep, ” Alice called, stepping back from the doorway with more cruel laughter. “If Martin was a free man, it would clear the way for you, wouldn’t it?” Whatever she’d been implying, I tried not to dwell upon until the words had ceased rolling around my skull. And soon, believing my job was done, I set about preparing for the Lake District.
I’d booked a single room at a B&B in the charming town of Bowness, on the lip of Windermere. I’m very fond of reading, and on this trip— between attending to my duties as best man and taking in a few touristy activities—I thought I might get round to a couple of books I’d been hoarding lately. I chose a collection of M R James ghost stories and a non-fiction guide to Cumbria. I looked forward to a few creepy sessions with the Master’s spooks, as well as learning something about the region, which I’d visited several times in the past.
Trish and Martin gave me a lift there in their bright new BMW. Martin’s business had been doing well lately, and with Trish’s steady income from mobile hairdressing they were hardly short of cash. That was how they’d managed to hire such a desirable hotel. Once we’d parked up in the place’s forecourt, the sight and sounds of Windermere brought back memories—of day trips during my youth, of my parents’ tense coexistence. I remember swimming regularly, and how once, after re-emerging from the lake, it was clear that my mum and dad had been arguing again. They’d always kept these squabbles private, fearful perhaps of corrupting their only child. I sometimes wonder, however, whether hiding such rancour had resulted in more damage than the blazing alternative.
These unwelcome ruminations were cut short by the sight of something breaking the water’s surface. A fish, had it been? Certainly something dark and slippery, which promptly plunged back into the depths of the lake…
I glanced away and returned my attention to all my responsibilities this weekend.
Alice Simmons had of course been invited to the wedding; after all, it would have been impossible to uninvite her without arousing the curiosity of Trish. I imagined part of my role would involve keeping this vampish predator from both bride and groom, at least until the day after the wedding when they’d flee in a hired limousine for the airport and then Barbados. This honeymoon location was a surprise Martin had arranged for Trish, and I hoped she’d experience no others on what should be the happiest few days of her life.
Look, I need to be honest here. I’ve always had a thing for Trish. We go way back, she and I—even further back than Martin goes with the two of us. Trish and I had grown up in the same street, bonded by an absence of any other children to play with in such a bland neighbourhood. For many years, before the inevitable turmoil of puberty, the issue of a sexual liaison wasn’t part of our friendship. We were simply pals, playmates, sometimes rival soldiers, often fellow nurses; whichever game took our fancy, we could improvise with almost intuitive familiarity. We were, in short, like brother and sister…or at least that was what Trish once told me, when we were fourteen or fifteen, that oh-so-difficult age, with hormones zinging around like sprats in a deep blue sea. For me, however, our relationship had grown into something more than platonic affection. But by that time Martin had blundered onto the scene, and I’d lost Trish for good.
But I don’t want any sympathy. I truly believe I’m better off alone in life. I’ve seen what love can do to people, and it rarely involves only champagne and roses.
That afternoon I strolled through Bowness with my travel case, admiring the snaking high street and all its shops, pubs and restaurants. I had a coffee in a small tearoom, while soaking up the atmosphere and watching boats glide across the lake. Later, I checked into the B&B I’d sourced online. It was a poky building, sandwiched between a confectioner’s and a quaint row of handicraft stores. Once its buxom landlady had shown me upstairs, I noticed that my room was cramped, but after being left alone, I decided that I’d enjoy my stay. The place was cosy and charming. An old-fashioned sash window looked out onto Lake Windermere, and if there was a little evidence of rot in the room—a fetid smell of damp—this only added to the place’s aged ambience.
After all the week’s tensions, I napped almost as soon as I lay on the single bed. My dreams were of squelchy things, flopping forth from water, multi-limbed and slimy…When I awoke, I detected that rank odour again, forceful and acrid. Over a cup of tea, I read a few M R James stories, followed by a chapter about the town in which I was staying. The Cumbrian guide was interesting; before the weekend was over, I hoped to get through more of it.
That evening, the last before the couple’s big day, I met Martin and Trish and a group of their guests at a restaurant in town (these were mainly family members, the company of such people on a weekend like this being unavoidable). The meal was enjoyable, three belly-rupturing courses. A spring sunset bestowed its brightest wishes on the forthcoming nuptials, and the waiters—swarthy Italians with darkly brooding faces—served us dutifully with knowing glints in their eyes.
I was just beginning to relax (apparently a splinter group of guests was also out in the town, headed up by the indefatigable Alice Simmons) when something went terribly wrong…for me, at any rate. After dessert and coffee, we’d all ordered nightcaps, though sensible to the last I’d asked for only a mineral water. I didn’t want to have to deliver my best man’s speech the following day with a headache; I was nervous enough as it was.
When the glass of transparent liquid arrived, I suspected nothing untoward, despite having seen Martin follow one of the waiters to the bar a few minutes earlier. I’d assumed he’d been going to the toilet, but the cloying heat in the restaurant had been affecting me and I’d been unable to observe him properly. Then I knocked back a mouthful from the glass…and discovered that I’d been given vodka.
For one dreadful moment, as the spirit burnt my gullet, I was torn between swallowing the lot and spitting it out at several well-dressed guests at our table. In the event, I got half back into the glass, yet habitual decorum—the kind drilled into me by fiercely proud parents—prevented me from dispensing with the rest in any other way. I was forced to swallow it, almost choking in the process. Seconds later, I saw Martin approaching the table, chuckling like some demented creature adrift in a stormy sea.
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br /> He’d angered me. For a minute or so, I even found myself hoping that Alice Simmons would arrive and tell the bride-to-be her sordid secret. This wasn’t because I wanted to hurt poor Trish, but to get back at Martin, and not simply on account of the nasty trick he’d just pulled on me. I wanted to make him suffer for having stolen my…my…
But no, I prevented my mind from running that way. Instead I laughed as the alcohol started feeling for my thoughts, like a sea monster’s tentacles reaching for prey. And moments later, I made my excuses, offered Trish an awkward kiss on one cheek, scrabbled out a few notes to contribute to the bill, promised everyone that I’d see them tomorrow, and finally swayed for the exit.
The stroll back for my accommodation—was it really a stroll? Perhaps stagger covered it better—involved many reminders about why I never touched booze. Reaching the lakeside, I thought I heard things too unsightly to show themselves, fumbling at the frothing fringe, eager to wriggle ashore…I looked away and simply kept on walking, stumbling, righting myself, and then walking again. After returning to my B&B, my mind churned like an ancient geezer, like the earth opening up to let in something terrible which didn’t belong here at all…
Then I looked up at my room’s window…and saw a face glaring back, its features half-consumed, as if by ragged-toothed sea-life.
But of course this was fanciful, just a consequence of all the nebulous thoughts I’d been suppressing all day. Indeed, after blinking rapidly, I glanced again at the uncurtained window and saw nothing other than the moon’s reflection, half-concealed by unstable shadow.
I went quickly inside, using the stairwell to defy gravity and reach my room upstairs.
There were damp footprints on the carpet. This was the first thing I noticed after sitting on the bed and kicking off my shoes. Then I stood back up and switched on the light I’d failed to activate upon entry. Yes, faint and yet inarguably present, a number of wet patches moved from one side of the room to the other, halting in front of the solitary window. I first thought that surely I’d brought in this water—it had been raining this evening—but then my attention was switched elsewhere.
I’d heard a splash of something to my right, from the tiny en suite bathroom. Its door was closed, but emboldened by all the vodka sloshing around my brain like petrol in a drum, I quickly turned the handle and made its hinges scream.
There was nothing inside other than a neurotic spider in the bathtub, its angular legs pumping as it fled my shadow. Looking around and seeing nothing else, I ascribed the noise I’d heard earlier to the toilet’s cistern filling up, and then returned to the main room to fall on the bed.
I decided that a little reading would sober me up before sleep. I reached for the book I’d been browsing earlier, the detailed guide to this fascinating county. The chapter I’d begun was about the Lake District, and there was a whole section devoted to apocryphal legends, local traditions, infamous tragedies and even ghostly sightings in the area—the usual sensationalised regional fare.
Nevertheless, I read on eagerly, desperate to rid myself of spirits of a more tangible nature.
In 1834, after discovering that a foreign business venture in which he’d invested his life savings had resulted in bankruptcy, a man had drowned his family in Lake Ullswater. By questionable accounts, the family members’ restless lost souls were supposed to roam the lanes alongside the lake, each seeking warmth and shelter.
In 1902, a pair of young lovers had been murdered in Grasmere. Their bodies had been dumped in the nearby lake from the killer’s boat. This man had been a well-respected resident of the town and had gone on to murder six other people before being captured by the police. And yes, the victims’ spirits still roamed the lanes where blah de blah de blah.
I was struggling to remain awake. However, I knew that nodding off with so much booze inside me would make me feel dreadful in the morning. A curse on you, Martin, I thought, and then felt even angrier about what he’d done to me. I pitied Trish all over again, but keenly aware of the dangers of thinking this way, I turned my attention back to the book’s squirming text.
In 1934, a young woman had drowned herself in Lake Windermere. The reason had been tragic: she’d been jilted at the altar by her fiancé. A sad and familiar story. The spirit of this girl, however, wasn’t reputed to roam the lanes of her native town, which had of course been quaint Bowness. In fact, she was said to haunt a bedroom in the house she’d once occupied with her parents. There was an old photograph of the property in which this blighted room was located.
And I was dismayed to realise that it was this B&B, the one in which I was staying.
Jerking up from my prostrate position, I glanced down at the damp patches on the carpet. Then I panicked, feeling sick. My head swam, as if gallons of water were coursing through it.
After a minute or so, however, I managed to calm myself. Even though the photo in the book displayed my room window, I reasoned with inebriated haste, it wasn’t necessarily true that I was staying in the girl’s former bedroom…was it?
There was also another thing, perhaps one I should have considered first: the tale of the jilted bride of Windermere was just a ghost story, surely no more real than any of M R James’ sheeted ghouls. The wet on the room floor might be just seepage from a leaky ceiling. And surely the sounds I’d heard from the bathroom earlier could be ascribed to faulty plumbing.
I should try and suppress irrational conclusions. Tomorrow was a big day and I needed rest. I’d just have to take a chance on not waking up with a hangover.
Soon, before I’d had chance to remove my daytime clothing, sleep claimed me with a lover’s embrace and held me there all night.
After waking the following morning, I was soaking wet. This always happened after drinking: terrible night-sweats. The stuff saturating my sheets smelled bad, too. I’ve always tried to keep my body free from toxins, but on this occasion there must have been some pretty nasty ones in my blood. When I rolled over to climb off the mattress, I noticed how the damp had formed a shape like another person in the bed, as if someone had moulded him or herself into the contours of my frame. I tried hard to ignore the impression that the scent of my perspiration was pungent and silty, like impure water.
I took a shower, willing the pounding liquid to slice the fretfulness from my mind. Whenever I opened my eyes to glance around the bathroom, however, I thought I saw fluid figures lurking and sometimes even stealing my way. Or perhaps there was only one, a shortish entity with streaks of wet hair, its face filthy and rotten…But I knew that nobody else was here and that these vague images must be just residue of dreams induced by what I’d read in that book the previous evening.
I dressed in my best suit and spent an hour rehearsing my speech. As ready as I’d ever be, I checked about eighteen times to make sure I had the wedding ring Martin had entrusted to me. It was a big diamond number that had cost more than one of my monthly pay packets. Satisfied all was well, I left my room. The sound of water dripping from behind once I’d closed the door was surely just patters of rainfall against the old window.
Bad weather looked likely to befall Martin and Trish’s wedding. Their relationship had been so stormy that I could almost believe some supernatural force was commenting on the impending nuptials…I wasn’t feeling too clear-headed as I walked toward the big hotel in which the betrothed couple and their family and friends were staying. In the past, such a delicate state of mind had often led me to entertain bizarre notions. Indeed, while skirting choppy Windermere, I struggled hard to eliminate a foolish connection between its restless waters and the moisture I’d found in my bed that morning.
I don’t have much to say about the ceremony, except to point out how divine Trish looked. One of her friends was a dress designer and had created a stunning outfit “on the cheap” (Martin’s all too typical description). I’m not ashamed to admit that I almost cried as, accompanied by her ageing father, Trish came to stand beside her intended and myself. However, I was s
urprised by how angry I felt. I imagined the jilted woman I’d read about last night suffering something similar after realising that her fiancé had abandoned her. If only that could happen today, I found myself thinking, and pictured myself filling the position vacated by another no-good man. Trish and I would live happily ever after, just the two of us at first, but then, a few years down the line, a couple of kids and…and…
As I’ve already said, I wasn’t in my right mind that day.
It happened—the thing that tipped me over the brink—later that afternoon, during the champagne reception. All the rejoicing guests were getting drunk as I stumbled through my best man’s speech. I’ve never been much of a public speaker—I’ve never been much of anything, in truth. But I’m steady and reliable, two good-enough qualities. However, what Martin did after I’d begun speaking was enough to override even my patience.
I’d opened my speech with a few select anecdotes based on our childhoods together, Trish and me. I’d told the giddy assembly about epic bike rides, a few pranks we’d played on neighbours, and even the time we’d stolen a fishing rod from the banks of a river, before spending the rest of that summer’s day trying to earn our lunch with limp and bobbing bait; we’d caught only colds.
There was laughter from the crowd—polite, alcohol-induced laughter. Still, this pleased me…until Martin said what he said.
I wanted to tell myself that my old friend was simply drunk, but knew this wouldn’t legitimise his behaviour. I understood as well as anyone that Martin often acted in the same way while sober. On this occasion, the offending article had been a comment, uttered sotto voce, yet nonetheless audible—at least to me standing beside him.
“Oh, get it over with, you boring sod, ” he’d hissed between teeth as tight as the strap on his wallet was reputed to be. And I knew this rumour was also true. Poor Trish had to go begging before he’d let her have any money. Why else had it taken them so long to get married? The reason was simple: Martin hadn’t wanted to pay for such an “expensive gig. ” As long as he had Trish in his bed, what did he care about “a bit of pointless paper”? These had been the words he’d used. It was how he saw his marriage to my oldest friend—the woman, if I’m honest, I secretly loved.