by Skuse, C. J.
She’s like a retriever who’s got the whiff of a dog biscuit in my pocket. She knows something. I have to front this out. I have to throw her off the scent. I have to pretend to throw it far away so the bitch’ll run after it. I wish Mac was here. He’d know exactly what to say to shut her down. Nothing fazes him.
“I think I know the difference between Venice and Nuffing High Street,” I say. “Why would you even think that?”
“Well, two reasons really,” she says. “For one thing, at the front of your picture there’s a flyer on the ground for the Italian Market in Nuffing.”
“Uh . . .” She must have held that photo under a pigging microscope.
“And two, the Italian guy standing behind him in the photo? He runs the pizzeria in Nuffing High Street. I grew up in Randle and I went to school for a time in Nuffing. Me and my friends always used to go down to Salvo’s at lunchtime, you know, how girls do, go in just to sip Cokes at the bar and ogle the waiters? Well, that man in the photo is Salvo. He’s well known in these parts.” She giggles so shrilly it’s sending electric shocks up and down my back. “So, do you think you could help me figure this one out?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t think I can,” I say, reaching behind me for the door.
“Jody, wait, please. I just want to know which parts of the photo are true and which are falsified, that’s all.” She’s talking to me so soothingly, it’s like she’s telling me I’ve got a tumor or something. “We just need to know the truth. His fans deserve to know where he is, don’t they?”
“If you want to know the truth, no, I don’t think they do,” I snap. “Why can’t you leave him alone?”
“Because he is a major celebrity and that makes him public property. And because the public is worried about him and it’s my job to find out if he’s OK. He has a history of depression. Drugs.” She says it quietly, as though saying it will offend our neighbors.
“So?”
“I have insider information that when he supposedly went into rehab a couple of years ago, he actually tried to commit suicide. Threw himself off a bridge. He was fine but . . . well, there was brief talk that he’d tried it again but with the arrival of your photo it’s given everyone hope that he’s OK, happy even. That he’s just taking a break from it all. Do you know what I mean?”
I nod, praying that neither Mum nor Halley comes out of the kitchen to see what’s keeping me. I hear the clink-clink of plates being scraped.
“I mean, wouldn’t it be great to finally find him?” she says. “To be the one to tell all his fans he’s all right, happy even.” She’s looking at me like I’m an abused puppy on one of those anti–animal cruelty commercials. “Just have one final think, Jody. I’ll give you another chance, OK? Where is he?”
Where is he? Not where was he, or what do you think happened. Where is he, she asked me. She knows!
“It’s OK,” she says, “no one’s going to be angry. If you’re protecting his privacy, that’s very honorable. But why are you protecting him? What does he want with you? Do you owe him something? Are you related to him in some way? Did he threaten you just after the photos were taken? Did he get violent? Where’s the phone the pictures were taken with? Did he break it?”
“No . . .”
“Look, I’d probably do the same if Michael Bublé decided he wanted to leave showbiz and join some circus or something. If I found out where he was and he asked me to keep his location private, I would.”
“Michael Bublé?”
“My mum listens to him in the car.” She laughs. “Probably a bit old for you. But listen, if you’ve seen Jackson Gatlin in Nuffing, though God knows why he’s in Nuffing, then you can talk to me. I will tell everyone exactly how it is. And who knows, maybe I can get hold of some tickets for their American tour? Maybe plane tickets? Bit of swag? Yeah?”
She’s onto something, she knows she is. She’s pulling every trick she can think of. Strumming on my heartstrings. Interrogation. Bribery. She’s like a kid reaching for a bite of a cookie. She’s going to keep coming back until she’s got a bite and, when she’s got a bite, she’ll want the whole cookie. She’ll want to speak to Jackson, she’ll want to break the story. She’ll want to bring him back to the world so he can go back to where he was before I took him away from it. But he won’t want that. He’d rather die. I can’t think what to say. I have to speak to Mac.
And at that moment, I love my mum more than anything else in the world.
“Jode, d’you want custard or cream on your crumble?” she calls. For once, her voice sounds like a thousand beautiful notes rising into the air, not one dirty black cannonball falling on my feet.
“OK, look, I’ve really got to go, that’s my mum.”
“I’ll come by tomorrow, then. Perhaps we can grab a coffee in town? Or maybe a pizza?” She winks.
“Yeah, all right,” I force out. I don’t know what else to say.
“OK, I’ll meet you at the Whistling Kettle in the High Street. About one o’clock.”
“Yeah. OK.”
“Great, oh, that’s so great, Jody. You won’t regret it. And it’s on me, OK? Least I can do,” she says, with another patronizing wink.
No, it’s on me, I think. It’s all on me now.
• • •
“Who was that?” says Mum when I reenter the kitchen. “You’ve been gone ages. I put the rest of your dinner under the grill.”
“Jehovah’s Witnesses,” I blurt. “One of them was cross-eyed. I felt bad.” It usually was Jehovahs whenever I answered the door, so this was a nice neat excuse to throw out on this occasion. I never had the heart to tell them to leave or to slam the door in their faces. Except when one of them tried telling me Grandad was wanted for an angel and I had a right go at them. “I don’t believe in angels,” I told them, “I just believe in Jackson.” And then I shut the door in their faces.
Now look where my religion has got me.
My last potato and few carrots have gone all shrivelly under the grill, so I gollop down my strawberry-rhubarb crumble and race straight upstairs to call Mac, only his phone goes to bloody voice mail. Rehearsals tonight, I forgot. It’s the performance on Friday.
“Shit,” I say, my frantic heartbeat the only sound in my ears. She bloody knows!
I can’t go out and check on Jackson until after ten o’clock cos Mum is fannying about at the dishwasher and Halley’s doing the laundry from her camping trip in the utility room. He’s OK, though. I take him out some leftover dinner and crumble with custard and a couple of games to play — Connect Four and Operation. I’ve been trying to rotate his toys like we do with the children at work, to keep him entertained. When I go in, he’s drawing on a sketchbook I’ve given him.
“Oh hey,” he says. He accepts the food and scarfs all of it down, apart from the pieces of soggy rhubarb in the crumble, which he leaves lined up around the edge of the bowl. I just watch him and listen to his guzzling sounds. There is no good way to tell him about Dinkley so I don’t think I’ll mention it. He’ll have another sick-fit. I don’t want to see that crumble again.
He has a little bit of color in his cheeks when he’s done eating. “Any news?”
I shake my head and smile. “No, no news.”
I have to wait until the next morning on my walk to work before I can talk about the Dinkley Bombshell to Mac. After the ninth attempt, he answers his phone.
“Mac, thank God, where have you been?”
“I’m at the Playhouse,” he says. “We’re so busy. We were doing this scene last night and there was this almighty crash and half the scenery came down. We’ve spent half the night fixing it. We all had to pitch in and —”
“A reporter came to the house yesterday. Jackson saw her through the window. She came back last night and asked me about a billion questions. Mac, she knows, she knows he wasn’t in Italy.”
“Whoa, how?”
“One of the photos. There was a bloody flyer for Nuffing Market on the ground and she recogn
ized the Italian bloke at the counter. What the hell am I going to do? She’s staying at the Torrance. She’s determined to sniff him out.” There’s a long silence. I can hear Mac’s breathing. “Hello?”
“Yeah, I’m still here, I’m thinking. What did she look like? She might have been in the pub.”
“Bleached blonde hair, a yellow Primark jacket like Halley’s got, five-inch heels, skinny . . .”
“Tell me everything she asked.”
“I can’t, I’m already late for work. She wants to meet me for lunch at the Whistling Kettle. Can you come to the day care center before one?”
“Yeah. I’m at the Playhouse ’til then, anyway. Then I’ve got Cree so she’ll have to tag along as well. I’ll try and nip out to check on Jackson in a bit. Nobody’ll be home, will they?”
“No. Mum’s in Cardiff of all places at some work seminar and Halley’s at school until seven for netball.”
“Right, I’ll be at the day care about twelve, then. ’Kay?”
“’Kay,” I say and off he goes.
• • •
All morning at work, Dinkley’s in my brain like a headbanger’s headache. Her words Where is he? Why are you protecting him? are on a constant loop. As bad days go, it’s another world-record-beater. Snotty noses and shitty arses a-go-go and Ashley barely speaks to me, except to bark orders. Even the part-timer is looking at me like she’s on the ghost train and I’ve just sprung out of some crevice. I think they’re all secretly glad I’m leaving. At least then they might get some enthusiastic college student filling my shoes who actually turns up on time. The children I’m responsible for today are Kezzy, Mitch, and Jaden. Lovely. All bases covered — one to cough in my face, one with chronic thrush, and one who screeches in my arms until his mum comes back for him at lunchtime. Superb.
In fact I’m holding Jaden (plus taggy blanket, teddy, blankie blanket, bottle, and sticky pacifier) when the door buzzer goes at 11:30 A.M. That’ll be Mac. I hand Jaden over to the part-timer, whom he promptly has a nice kicky tantrum on, and catch sight of Ashley glaring at me through her false eyelashes.
“I’m just saying hello to Cree,” I explain. She seems to accept this but, quite honestly, I wouldn’t care if she didn’t. What’s she going to do? I have like three days left so I’m zero bothered.
“Dody!” says Cree and her whole face lights up as she sees me. I can always count on her to make me feel good. I lift her up and she snuggles in, then pulls back and grabs my earlobes as usual when she wants to talk to me, woman to woman. “Dody, my brought my snell today.”
“Did you? Where is he?” I say, looking at Mac, who is carrying Roly’s see-through plastic animal carrier. All I can see is grass and a few twigs inside. “Is he asleep?”
Cree shakes her head.
“She thinks he’s d-e-a-d,” Mac spells out with a wry smile. “But she’s not sure. She wants to ask ‘the Man’ for his opinion.” He rolls his eyes.
“Man wants to see my snell,” Cree explains. “He won’t come out of his shail.” She sighs. “He just won’t come out.”
“Maybe the magic Man can talk him out, yeah?” I say to her and she snuggles in again. “Did you see him?” I ask Mac.
“Yeah,” he says, adjusting his beat-up black fedora on the back of his head and checking his hair in the porch mirror. “I looked in on him on my break. He wanted the loo but your back door was locked.”
My heart hurts. “Oh no. I forgot to leave it open for him.”
“He’s fine. He took a piss in the flower bed.”
“Stunning. On my mum’s polyanthus I suppose.”
Mac smiles. “Give me your key. I’ll go back and unlock the door for him.”
“No, I’m coming, it’s fine. Wait here a minute. . . .”
I go back into the classroom with Cree in my arms and stride across to the coat hooks to get my bag. “Is it OK if I take my lunch now, Ashley?”
“It’s not twelve o’clock yet,” she says, looking up from her Play-Doh birds’ nest, which Mitch proceeds to bash with his fist the moment her face is turned.
“It’s an emergency,” I say, which it kind of is. I mean, if Jackson’s got to go, he’s got to go, and there are limits when it comes to my mum’s flower bed. I hear no further argument, which doesn’t mean there isn’t any, since once the door is shut I would put money on the fact that they all start bitching about me.
We walk back to my house and look in on Jackson. Cree immediately runs in with Roly’s animal case and shows him. “My brought Roly.”
“Hi. Sorry, I forgot to leave the door open,” I tell him.
Jackson puts the book he was reading down by his side and takes the animal carrier from Cree. “Where is he? I can’t see him.”
She shakes her head. “He won’t come out. Fink he’s died-ed.”
Jackson peers into Roly’s carry case, squinting like he’s conducting an experiment. “Nah, he’s probably just asleep.” He looks up at me. “Is it OK if I take a shower?”
“Sure, yeah, of course, absolutely,” I say. “I’ll go and get everything ready for you.”
“Come on, Creature,” says Mac, holding his hand out for his sister, but she sidles up to Jackson. “No, my want Man to make Roly come out.”
Jackson gets to his feet and shakes off the feathers. “He probably just needs some new leaves or something, Cree. We’ll go and find some, okay?”
She nods, staring up at him like he’s Santa Claus, and they both walk past us out into the yard, where they start foraging around in the flower bed for bits and pieces for the snail, Cree hanging on to Jackson’s hand all the while. I can tell Mac’s not happy about it at all as he follows me into the kitchen. “So who’s this reporter, then, and when are you going to tell him you’ve talked to her?” He jerks his head toward the yard when he says “him.”
“Her name’s Sally Dinkley. And I’m not going to tell him. Yet. One mention of the word ‘reporter’ will tip him over the edge, and I’ve only just yanked him back from it.”
“Sally Dinkley?” says Mac as we begin up the stairs. “That’s definitely her name?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“I went to school with someone called Sally Dinkley.”
“She said she went to Nuffing for a bit.”
“Yeah. She was a few years above me, though. Left before you came.”
“She’s just starting out as a journalist, apparently,” I tell him. “I‘ve seen her gossip column in the Chronicle — she just talks about the different lipsticks she’s tried and who she thinks the mayor might be shagging.” I search for fresh towels.
“I think he ought to know, Jode. So he can prepare if she comes around again.”
I walk into Mum’s bathroom and get some shower gel. Mac follows me in. He’s standing right behind me when I turn around. “You just want him gone.”
He shrugs. “Yeah. I can’t lie, I do want him gone. The longer he’s here, the worse this is going to be. For you, in the long run. But you should tell him about Dinkley. Just so he’s aware.”
“No, there’s no point. Anyway, he’s seen her. He’s already on high alert. If she comes around here again he’ll be able to avoid her.”
“Jody!” a voice calls.
I look at Mac. Mac looks at me. We both turn to stone. It’s not Jackson’s voice. It’s not Cree’s voice. It’s not even Mum’s voice. It’s Sally Dinkley’s voice. And it’s coming from outside.
I turn and peer through the bathroom window. You know that saying “speak of the devil and he appears”? That’s exactly how it feels. Like we have the devil herself standing in the middle of my backyard, calling up at the window. Except this devil wears Primark.
“Oh my God,” I say with the small amount of breath I can muster.
“Where’s Jackson?” asks Mac, peering slowly out the window.
“Where’s Cree?” asks Me.
We both leg it downstairs, through the kitchen and out the back door. It’s starting to rain. Dinkley�
��s standing underneath a pink umbrella in the center of the yard like a large scary garden gnome, still in her yellow jacket, her designer heels sinking slowly into the damp grass.
“Oh, Sally, hi,” I pant. There’s no sign of Jackson or Cree anywhere. “Sorry, I thought we were meeting —”
“At one o’clock, yeah I know, sorry, I thought I’d see if you were here first and walk down with you if that’s all right? Not quite sure where it is. I think it’s relocated.”
“No, it’s still where it’s always been,” I pant.
“Oh.” She does the doink thing with her hand on her forehead. “Should have known. Well, anyway, I’m here now. What a lovely house you’ve got.”
“Thanks.”
“And who’s this nice young man?” she smiles, shielding her hand over her eyes to look at Mac, who is just as out of breath as I am.
“Mackenzie,” he says, offering his hand like he always does when he meets someone new. “You used to go to Nuffing Comp, didn’t you?”
“Uh, yes. I thought I knew your face,” she says, batting her eyes.
Mac blinks. Droplets of rain hang on his eyelashes. “You were on the school magazine committee.”
And then she snaps her fingers like she’s plucking a thought out of the air. “Got it. On a poster I just walked past.”
“Oh yeah, Rocky Horror. We’re putting it on at the Playhouse on Friday night.”
I bring the conversation back to its point. “I’m sorry but I can’t talk to you now, I’m afraid,” I say to her, not in the least bit afraid or sorry. “Something’s come up, so . . .”
“Oh, Jody, you are quite a noodle, aren’t you?” She laughs but her eyes don’t. I can tell she’s getting pissed off with me.
Mac points at her. “You left Nuffing Comp a year early, didn’t you?”
“Good memory! My family moved.”
“Why was that?”