Tattletale

by Sarah J. Naughton

  I push through the inner door, my chest tight.

  ‘She lies about everything. Everything.’ Her voice is drowned by the wind. ‘She’s dangerous!’

  Inside the sanctuary of the stairwell I stop and lean against the wall, breathing heavily. My head is spinning.

  Jody lied to me about Helen.

  The light through the stained glass is subdued, a dull red wash darkening the concrete.

  What else has she lied about?

  I run back outside. Helen is hobbling along Gordon Terrace now, hunched against the wind, the basket wobbling in her hands.

  Dodging the piles of dog shit and ridges of bursting tarmac, I set off after her. I need her to tell me exactly what happened with this alleged rape. Did Jody make it all up, or are Helen’s maternal instincts blinding her to the unpalatable truth about her son, the rapist junkie?

  I step out onto Gordon Terrace, my Converses slipping on a discarded crisp packet – or maybe they’re Abe’s Converses: I’ve started wearing his clothes without a second thought, as if they are my own.

  Helen is almost at the high road but to get there she must run the gauntlet of a gang of youths in low-crotch jeans and pulled-up hoodies. They’ve separated into two lines on the pavement to let her through, but they are clearly saying something to her. Their laughter’s like the yapping of dogs. One of them reaches out for the parcel and she yanks it away, breaking into an awkward trot, making them laugh all the harder.

  I think about calling out to her, but that will attract their attention.

  What’s the point anyway? I slump against a lamp post. Who’s to say Helen will tell me the truth any more than Jody? What was it Daniel said? There’s no such thing as truth, only what you can make someone believe. Helen will want me to believe Jody is guilty so her son can be innocent.

  She reaches the end of the terrace and turns onto the high road, the awkward parcel still clutched to her chest. The youths have noticed me, so I turn and head back to the church. But the idea of passing another evening in gloomy, wine-fogged solitude is pretty unappealing, so against my better judgment I take out my phone to call Daniel.

  I sit, revolving slowly on the roundabout, as we talk for almost an hour. He had a good time with his boys. So good that when he describes how they cried as he dropped them off, his voice cracks.

  ‘They love you, Dan,’ I say softly, cupping my hand over the receiver to protect it from the wind. ‘That’s why they’re upset. Isn’t it worth it to know that?’

  It’s not like me to issue words of comfort, but I’m desperate to keep him on the line.

  He sniffs. ‘Sage words from the mistress of the heart.’

  I guess he feels he has to lighten the tone or risk spooking me.

  ‘How was it with … your wife?’ The pause is almost imperceptible.

  ‘Donna? She wants me to move back and give it another go.’

  To my utter surprise my heart lurches and it’s hard to catch my breath.

  ‘Mags?’

  ‘Sorry, I can’t hear you very well over the wind.’

  ‘Go inside then, you nutcase.’

  ‘I will.’ I glance over at the church, becoming blacker and more forbidding by the moment. If I don’t go now I may just chicken out and book into the hotel again. ‘In a minute. What did you say to her?’ I keep my voice light.

  ‘What, you mean did I say, Sorry, I’m in love with someone else?’ His tone is mocking.

  ‘Hey, look, I should really go. Good luck with everything. I hope it works out for you.’

  ‘Mags.’

  I hang up, feeling inexplicably wounded.

  The roundabout makes one more slow revolution and I find myself face to face with the group of youths.

  ‘You got a joint, sexy?’ says the tall one at the front.

  ‘No.’ I stand.

  ‘Can I have a look?’ He fingers the zip of my bag.

  ‘Like hell you can.’

  ‘No need for that, bitch,’ says one of the others. I glance back at the church but the windows are all dark. On Gordon Terrace the few functional street lamps are flickering into life. The street is deserted.

  ‘Gimme the bag,’ says the tall one conversationally.

  ‘No.’ It’s hanging across my body. He will have to physically assault me to get it off. Unless he cuts the strap.

  He produces a knife. It has a shiny blue handle with a spider graphic. The blade has holes down the blunt edge, and is jagged from halfway down the sharp side. I find myself wondering about the holes, then I realise. They’re like the ones in a cheese knife – to prevent them from sticking inside the thing you are trying to slice up.

  The tall one’s eyes are black and pitiless. ‘Gimme the bag.’

  ‘Or he’ll cut your tits off,’ another adds.

  I have no choice. No one is coming to help me. I’m about to lift the strap over my head when, from behind me, comes the characteristic creak of the church door opening. The security light blares on

  The boys’ attention is diverted. This is my chance. I glance back to see whether whoever has come out will retreat rapidly when they see what’s going on, or whether they might hold the door open for me to flee into the block.

  To my surprise it’s the old lady from Flat One. In the harsh light her hair is the colour of Fanta, moulded around her head like a crash helmet. Even from here I can see the splodges of rouge on her cheeks and the ragged slash of shakily applied lipstick. She’s holding up a tablet in a fluffy pink case, the camera trained at our little group.

  Over the wind her voice is quavering but strong. ‘Can you see, Martin? Are you recording? There are five of them.’ She describes them in turn. ‘Yes, I’ve already called the police. They’re only in the high road.’

  ‘She FaceTimin’ us, isn’t it,’ one of the boys says.

  ‘Should teach that old bag a lesson,’ another says. He takes a few steps in the direction of the church. The old woman doesn’t move. The pink fluff ripples in the wind, but her hair remains utterly still.

  A police siren wails in the distance.

  ‘Feds comin’, man.’

  The tall one flicks his chin contemptuously in the direction of the church. ‘Bitch lives here. She ain’t got no shit worth havin,’ then he turns and starts walking back across the grass to the low fence that stops the Staffies getting in.

  I have the satisfaction of seeing one of them trip over the fence. As he stumbles his hoodie rides up, revealing an expanse of white underpants and the crack between his pale buttocks.

  I resist a jeering laugh – that might be pushing my luck – and set off quickly in the opposite direction.

  The old woman holds the door open for me and we hurry into the foyer, making sure it’s shut firmly before passing through to the stairwell, where we pause, panting.

  She extends a hand. ‘Lula Lyons. Pleased to meet you.’

  ‘Mags Mackenzie.’ Her hand is paper-dry but the grip is firm. ‘I think my brother was your carer.’

  She nods, her milky eyes bright. ‘Do you know, the first time I saw you coming up that path, bumping your case over the bodies, your hair all tied back, I thought you were him. Gave me quite a turn.’ She shakes her head. ‘He was such a pretty boy.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say, nodding at the tablet, hanging slackly from her grasp, ‘for what you did. And please thank the person you were talking to as well, for recording them.’

  ‘Martin?’ She gives a wheezy laugh. ‘Martin Scorsese was my cat. Died last year. And this bloody machine,’ she waggles it contemptuously, ‘hasn’t worked for weeks. Your brother always sorted out my technology. Taught me how to FaceTime my friend in Catford. Not that we really want to see one another’s faces these days. Come in and I’ll give you something to settle your nerves.’

  She moves haltingly, as if in pain, but her clothes are that of a woman sixty years her junior: a gold lamé top with sequined sleeves, a fitted black skirt with a thigh slit, royal blue fishnet tights, and a pa
ir of crocodile skin, kitten-heeled ankle boots. I smile as I follow her in, then make my face serious again as she turns and asks me to sit down.

  Her flat must have the same dimensions as Abe’s, but you’d never know. The place is decked out like a Persian bazaar. Silk throws billow from the ceiling, studded here and there with silver lanterns, and what I took to be net curtains at the window are actually pieces of antique lace. The floor is layered with what look like flying carpets at rest. The sofa’s a huge mahogany thing, piled with cushions and a slightly chilling rag doll with green paste jewels for eyes. I sit down in the opposite corner to the doll as Lula hobbles to the kitchen behind me. Again, it’s similar in layout to Abe’s, but instead of cabinets, there are rows of open shelves heaving with bric-a-brac: old tins and bottles, jars of multicoloured pulses, copper pans, stacks of old pudding basins, flowery jugs of utensils.

  ‘Whisky? Or brandy? I think I’ve got some schnapps here somewhere.’

  ‘Christ, yes, please. Whisky.’

  On a mother-of-pearl inlaid table beside me is a lamp, draped with a fringed shawl. It casts an ethereal glow over the photograph next to it – a large version of the one in Abe’s file. It looks like a film studio shot from the forties or fifties. The eyes of the woman in the picture are emerald green, like the doll’s.

  ‘Are you an actress?’ I say.

  ‘Was,’ she snorts. ‘Last job I did was a corpse in Casualty. But now I’m too old even for that!’ She gives a wheezy laugh.

  With her gnarled fingers she fills two greasy tumblers to the brim and brings them over, then sits down on the club chair opposite with a grunt of effort. Cataracts have turned her green eyes milkily opaque.

  ‘What did you mean, when you said you saw me bumping my case over the bodies?’

  She sips her whisky. I notice her lips pull up at each side, Joker style, perhaps from a primitive attempt at a facelift.

  ‘This is a church,’ she says. ‘So, where’s the graveyard?’

  ‘I assume they moved it.’

  ‘They moved the headstones, but left the bodies. Over the years, they’ve been gradually coming to the surface. Sometimes the dogs dig up a bone.’

  I grimace, thinking of what I have been walking over every day and she laughs again. With the draperies muffling all sound, it seems eerily close to my ear.

  ‘Isn’t there anyone you want to call? It can really shake you up, that sort of thing.’

  There is. I want to speak to Daniel so badly my chest aches, but that’s precisely the reason I can’t. Relying on someone else as an emotional crutch means I’ll just end up like Jody.

  ‘If you don’t mind my just sitting here for a bit, I’ll be fine.’

  ‘Not at all, lovely. It’s nice to have a visitor. Especially one who reminds me so much of my beautiful boy.’ She sips her drink, leaving a scarlet semicircle on the glass.

  ‘Did you see Abe often?’

  She sighs. ‘Every Monday evening he’d come down and have supper with me. Meatballs, or smoked haddock with mash, and liquor, half a bottle of whisky and sherry for afters. Lovely. I miss him.’

  I smile at the thought of them getting pissed, then maybe dancing together to some music hall tune.

  ‘He’s not going to wake up, is he?’

  My smile fades. I shake my head.

  ‘I could tell when I saw him, that night. All that blood. I didn’t want to look but you can’t help yourself.’

  ‘Did you see what happened?’

  ‘I heard footsteps on the stairs and then that poor girl screaming. By the time I got outside she was kneeling by his side, all covered in blood like the one in that Stephen King film … Carrie.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘If there’s anything I can do, then please—’ I bite my tongue immediately. I don’t want to be spending my Monday nights down here eating smoked haddock and discussing Lula’s past glories.

  ‘He was your brother, darling,’ she says gently. ‘I’m sorry for you.’

  ‘And Jody,’ I say. ‘She’s the one really suffering. Abe and I barely knew one another.’

  There’s a beat of surprised silence.

  ‘Jody?’

  I can’t read her expression. My heart pounds faster. Did Abe tell her something about their relationship? Some secret? But she called Jody that poor girl, so she can’t think Jody had anything to do with his fall.

  ‘He wasn’t … violent towards her, was he?’

  She raises her drawn-on eyebrows. ‘Your brother didn’t have a violent bone in his body. Though I wouldn’t have blamed him.’

  I put the tumbler down, half finished. ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Ah, she just wouldn’t leave him alone.’ She rolls her eyes and a flake of crusted mascara drifts down onto her blouse. ‘Whenever he turned around, there she was, like a bad smell.’

  Sounds like the old lady’s jealous. Perhaps she was hoping those drunken Monday nights might turn into something else. A friendly fuck now and again, to remind her of the beauty she used to be.

  She’s watching me and there’s something about that heavy-lidded gaze that makes goosebumps spring up on my arms. I’m not sure I like her, or the dismissive way she talks about Jody. I find myself bristling on Jody’s behalf.

  ‘She was his fiancée. It’s not abnormal to want to spend time with the person you’re about to marry.’

  Lula laughs then, loud and ringing, like the crowing of a cockerel. ‘Fiancée? Abe didn’t have a fiancée! He didn’t have a girlfriend at all, my love.’

  The way she’s staring at me, with an expression of pitiful disbelief, makes me feel like slapping her.

  Abe didn’t have a girlfriend, so what was Jody? A casual shag who got the wrong idea? No, no, it’s more than that, it has to be. What about the ring? The photograph? He didn’t tell Lula because he thought she’d be jealous.

  ‘Don’t tell me you didn’t know?’

  My heart is pounding now, with anger and with something else. I’m beginning to understand. Oh, God.

  The sequins on her sleeves shimmer, making me dizzy. Her red lips open, a string of saliva stretching and breaking. ‘Abe was queer as a nine-bob note!’

  ‘No,’ I say stupidly. ‘No, he … she …’ But even as my brain struggles to process the information I know it’s true.

  I’m looking into his eyes on the parapet of Eilean Donan castle and I know he’s different. The girls’ cooing means nothing to him, but his hidden heart yearns to open up to someone the same way mine does. Was he trying to tell me then? I could have guessed, if I hadn’t been so wrapped up in myself. I could have helped him, taken him with me. I could have stopped him having to pretend to be something he’s not.

  But he’s in London now, with a million other men just like him. There’s no reason for shame or fear. Our parents are five hundred miles away. What possible reason would he have to pretend?

  ‘Then why …’ I begin, and my voice is thread-thin. ‘Then why was he stringing Jody along? Why didn’t he just tell her?’

  ‘He wasn’t stringing her along. She knew perfectly well, just pretended it wasn’t happening. She’s mad, of course. You’re not going, are you? You haven’t finished your drink.’

  But I’m already up, hopping and stumbling over urns and Ali Baba baskets in my rush for the door.

  I take the stairs two at a time, thumping the light switches as I go. Bursting out onto the fourth floor I hammer on Jody’s door, hard enough for the splintered lock to crunch and give a little more.

  ‘Jody! Jody! Open the damn door, now!’

  23. Mira

  I have got what I wanted. I have made the sister think it is Jody that killed Abe.

  Bang, bang, bang, on the door.

  She is shouting and swearing and threatening. I crouch in the hallway, praying for Jody not to open up. The sister is so angry she will hurt her, I am sure. And it will be my fault. I should have thought. I was trying to protect you, Loran, and now that poor mad girl will suffer f
or it.

  There is a louder bang and the wall I am leaning on shudders. She has broken the door in.

  I hear her footsteps pound up the hall and another bang as she kicks open the inner door.

  I know I should keep away, look after the baby and you, but how could I live with myself if Jody was hurt because of what I did?

  I open the door of the flat, just a crack, to listen.

  There are no sounds of an argument. Perhaps Jody is out. Has the sister already gone away, or is she waiting inside the flat for her? Should I call the police and say there has been a break-in? Perhaps the sirens will frighten her off and I will have a chance to warn Jody.

  But when I return from getting my phone I hear something that makes my heart squeeze up in fear.

  Footsteps on the stairs.

  I pray that I will hear them stop and one of the other flat doors open, but they continue on, up and up and up.

  And then her face comes into view, behind the bars of the banisters.

  She is pale and sad, like always. She has no idea what has happened. What is waiting for her.

  She comes out on the landing. And still I am too much of a coward to open the door and stop her. I tell myself I am thinking of the baby, of my blood pressure, but it is just fear. Fear to admit what I have done. Fear of what will happen to you if I do.

  Then there is no more time. As she passes in front of my door the breeze from her skirt wafts against my face and then she is gone, into the flat.

  There was a time when the difference between right and wrong seemed so simple – before I met you. I was brave, then. I was brave because I was surrounded by people who loved me. Now they are very far away and all I have is you, and you do not love me.

  I stand up.

  I may have changed much from the girl I used to be. I may have become afraid, shameful, unlovable. But I will not let this happen. I will face whatever harm may come to me – and yes, the baby too – because I cannot live with the woman I have become. A woman who will allow others to suffer because of her own lies and cowardice.

  I go out on the landing.

  Now I hear voices

  They are speaking too fast for me to understand. But I can clearly make out the harsh anger in the sister’s voice and Jody’s trembling, high-pitched responses, like the fluting of a tiny kaval. She is afraid. I have passed my fear onto her because I could not stand the burden of it. I must have the courage to take it back.