Mud Pie

by Emma Lee Bole

  *

  The Woolpack was full. Grimshaw had made his excuses and left, but everyone else crowded around the TV and grumbled half-heartedly at the game, saving their main expenditure of emotion for England v. Ireland the next day. I watched with one eye as I helped at the bar, where Brendan and Bob were diagnosing the faults of the England team with earnest care and deciding where surgery was needed.

  Sue was restless. “Are you really interested in this, Frank? I’m going to sit in the snug where it’s quieter,” she said, getting up.

  Frank, being a gentleman, retreated to the snug with her. She called out, “Come and talk to us, Lannie.” I went down to the snug end of the bar and leaned on it. She was cuddling up to Frank, holding his hand.

  “We thought we’d better warn you that we’ll be coming round to have a clear-out,” said Sue. “Prior to putting the house in order.”

  “Oh, right.”

  “I’ll come and paper the parlour soon,” said Frank. “Not fair to leave you living in that state.”

  “I don’t mind it.”

  Sue raised her eyebrows. “Yes, you’ve been very good about it, but the thing is, we do need to sell the house at some point. Preferably sooner rather than later.”

  “Upstairs needs rewiring,” I said.

  “Yes, we are aware of that.”

  “And there’s some mould on the north wall of the spare room.”

  “Is there? Bugger,” said Frank.

  “There wasn’t a problem there previously,” said Sue sharply.

  “It’s been a wet winter,” I said.

  “Well, we’ll have to sort that out as well, won’t you, Frank? We’re hoping to get it onto the market soon after Easter, May or thereabouts.”

  “Are we?” said Frank.

  “That’s what we agreed, Frank.” She patted his hand and I had to look away.

  “That’s fine,” I said. “I may well be gone by then anyway.”

  “Will you?” said Frank.

  “I thought of going up to the Scottish Highlands. Seasonal work will start about then.”

  “That would all fit in nicely,” said Sue. “That would be convenient all round, wouldn’t it?” She snuggled some more, while I hurled darts of silent exasperation at Frank. She’s all wrong for you, Frank. You don’t want to sell the damn house! Assert yourself! Tell her how upset Nan will be!

  I cleared my throat and asked, “What did your Nan want you to do with the house, Frank?”

  “She wanted me to live in it,” said Frank.

  “So why not live in it?”

  “We can’t always take the deceased’s wishes into account, much as we’d like to,” Sue pointed out.

  “We could try, though.”

  “I’m not keen on a memorial match, but Becki would have liked it,” said Frank.

  “Frank!” said Sue.

  “Do you reckon?” I asked.

  Frank considered. “She would have liked all the fuss. And any excuse for a party.”

  Sue elbowed him gently. “I don’t think you ought to talk about Becki in that way, Frank.”

  “In what way?” said Frank.

  “Quite so bluntly.”

  “Why? Who’s going to be offended?”

  “Me,” said Sue. There was iron in her voice. “I hope you don’t speak ill of Becki in front of the police, Frank. I was on tenterhooks when you were talking to that nice sergeant.”

  “I say what I think, that’s all,” said Frank.

  “But you don’t want to give them the idea you had anything against Becki.”

  “Why not?”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Frank! Don’t be so obtuse! The police are so desperate they’ll pick on anyone who gives them an excuse to. I’d just die if they arrested you.”

  “They won’t arrest me,” said Frank. “And if they did, I don’t see why you should die. Anyway, who says they’re desperate?”

  “Well, the way they keep on coming round to re-interview people. Do you know, they’ve interviewed Frank three times? And all that clothing they took away and we’ve not seen since. When are we going to get that back?”

  “Grimshaw gave me mine back today,” I said.

  She looked disgruntled. “And how many times have they interviewed you?”

  “About two and a half, I think.”

  “Well, you must be in favour, then,” said Sue. “But then Sergeant Grimshaw likes you, doesn’t he. Doesn’t he, Frank?”

  “No reason why he shouldn’t,” said Frank.

  “No, but I mean he likes her.” Sue was smiling at me coyly. This was more than I could stand. Luckily Bob was calling for more beer, so I could escape. I didn’t know why Sue had bothered to come back here with Frank, unless it was to stop him enjoying the rugby.

  “I see she’s establishing ownership,” said Bob when I reached him.

  “You what?”

  “Sue. She’s just making sure you know.”

  “Know what?”

  “That’s Frank’s hers. That’s what she does. Especially if she thinks Frank’s got his eye on someone.”

  “Well, he hasn’t.”

  “Whatever you say, Lannie. And three packets of cheese and onion.”

  I fetched them, and said, “Bob, you’re seeing things. Frank has definitely not got his eye on me.”

  “Not while Sue’s there, no. He wouldn’t dare. Under her thumb.”

  “He chooses to be,” said Brendan unexpectedly. “He thinks it’s the right place for him.”

  “But he’s wrong,” said Bob.

  “He thinks he’s getting old,” said Brendan, “that’s the trouble. Time to stop hankering, time to start settling down. That’s what she’s telling him.”

  “Thirty-four.”

  “And still hankering.”

  “Well, it’s nothing to do with me,” I said. “Excuse me, Brendan, I’m going to sort out the veg.” I went into the kitchen, where Rhoda and Fay were making sandwiches, and began to scrape carrots with an abandon that raised Rhoda’s eyebrows.

  “You’re getting peelings all over the floor,” she pointed out.

  “So I am.” More peelings flew across the table. Fay retreated into the lean-to and pretended to hunt in a freezer. Rhoda opened and closed her mouth, said nothing, and buttered some more bread.

  “I’m going home as soon as I’ve done these,” I snapped. “I’ll be back at seven-thirty.” Home! Hah!

  “There’s no rush. Make it eight. We can cope.” Rhoda moved her plate out of my way as I attacked a cauliflower.

  KK came in to beg a pasty, which she microwaved for him and which he ate sitting on the table and being bombarded with flying florets.

  “?” said KK, his mouth full.

  “Don’t ask me,” said Rhoda, “something’s het her up.” She piled sandwiches on a plate and carried it through for the players.

  “That copper,” said KK.

  “No.” Though Grimshaw didn’t help.

  “Just tell him to bugger off.”

  “Like you did to Niall?”

  KK shrugged. “Can’t help it sometimes.”

  “Well, I just take it out on vegetables.” I tipped them into pans of cold water with rewarding plunks. “I’m going home now.”

  “Give you a lift,” said KK, swallowing the rest of his pasty.

  “Don’t you want to see the end of the match?”

  “It’s only Scotland.”

  “All right, then.” I wanted to get out of there. Frank had his eye on me, did he? It was bollocks. Frank was a nice guy, a good friend, and if he chose to fetter himself to an arse-mouthed iron-drawers that was entirely his own business.

  KK drove an old estate with a strangulated exhaust. As we pulled up outside Nan’s house and listened to it choking, I said on impulse, “Come in and I’ll cook you something better than pasty.”

  “Like what?”

  “I’ve got a fridge full of leftovers. Shank of lamb?”

  “Be my third tea to
day,” said KK, with a grin. “Why not?”

  He filled Nan’s kitchen. I fried up the shank of lamb for five minutes with tomato and black olives, did some saffron rice, and set the little drop-leaf kitchen table. It was nice to sit down and eat with company for a change. Even nicer to have someone wolfing down the food so appreciatively.

  KK twirled an olive on a fork in contemplation. “D’you think...”

  “Only in bread, KK.”

  “Soda bread?”

  “Possibly. Are your family Irish or what?”

  “Were,” he said. “We came over when Niall was six and I was four.”

  “Hence the part-time accent?”

  “Aye, that’s right. Martin and Kath, they’ve got the real thing. They remember Ireland. Niall doesn’t. That’s why he puts the accent on.”

  “I had an Irish grandfather,” I said.

  “Who hasn’t?” But talking about Niall had put a frown on his face. I tried to wipe it off again by offering pudding: mud pie or sticky toffee. KK accepted both.

  “That’s bloody good,” he said. “Had no lunch. Went to the club straight from work. I was hungry.”

  “Me too.” I hadn’t eaten mud pie since Becki got killed. It tasted better than I remembered. But watching KK scrape his plate, I was still hungry. And when he looked up at me and saw me watching him, I knew he knew what I was going to say.

  “Want anything else, KK?”

  He thought for a moment. “That depends what you’re offering.”

  “Anything you like.”

  “Well.” He was still thinking. When the time had passed for him to say No, I leaned over and kissed him. He kissed me back, so that was all right. He put his hands on my shoulders, and I knew he was hungry too. He pushed back his chair and we went upstairs, not talking.

  It was all all right. KK was a stickler for protocol. Ladies first and all that. He didn’t hurry, and he had tremendous legs. The only problem was it was so bloody cold in that bedroom that once we had stopped thrashing around we lay shivering under the duvet, running our hands up and down each other just to get them warm. KK was hairy. He felt good. I breathed in his alien sweat, and said,

  “Do you still wish you’d gone to New Zealand? I mean in general, not right now?” I didn’t want him to think I was getting personal.

  “Sometimes,” said KK. “But it’s past. No point dwelling on it. It was hard at the time, though.”

  I waited.

  “It was a hell of a shock, Michelle getting pregnant,” he said. His voice, so close, was just a low rumble. “We weren’t planning anything, we were always careful.” He gave a half-nod at the condom packet on the bedside table. A leftover from Salford time, a world and an age away.

  “It took me a while to get my head round it,” said KK. “Niall told me it was my duty to stay, straight off, but it wasn’t that simple. Ticket booked and everything. Michelle told me to go, but she kept bursting into tears.”

  “That can’t have made it easy.”

  “Well, it wasn’t. Brendan and Frank sat me down and made me think it through. Brendan said the kiddie would be more important than I could ever imagine, I should stay and make a go of it. Frank said I should leave and grab my chances while I could, because those six months might never come again.” He sighed. “They were both right.”

  “But you stayed and made a go of it.”

  “Aye. For a couple of years, before she got fed up of me.” His voice was wistful.

  “Did Michelle come down the club?”

  “For a while.”

  “What did she drink?”

  “Snowballs.” He rolled over and looked at me. “Somebody’s told you that daft bloody story, haven’t they?”

  “Er, yes.”

  He rolled back again and put his hands behind his head. “I thought that was all forgotten.” After a moment he added, “I bought a bottle of advocaat for her specially. No-one else drank the damn stuff. And then some stupid bugger went and put carpet cleaner in it.”

  “A workman?”

  “I have absolutely no bloody idea,” said KK. “More likely some prat having a laugh.”

  “A laugh? Not an accident, then?”

  “No. Why would you keep carpet cleaner in an advocaat bottle? It was a stupid bloody joke gone wrong.”

  “How do you work that out?”

  “There was a running joke at the club about snowballs being bad for you. Well, they’re hardly a rugby players’ drink, are they?”

  Or anybody else’s, over the age of seventeen. Not even my mother had stooped to snowballs.

  “So someone put carpet shampoo in the bottle to prove the joke true? That was a bit daft.”

  “Imbecilic,” KK said. “Michelle was probably supposed to spit it straight out again, but she didn’t. Then AnneMarie got the idea it was me, because I was the barman I suppose, I was in charge of the drinks. She convinced Niall.”

  “How could Niall think that of his brother?” The words died in my throat, but KK didn’t notice. He continued,

  “Anyway, it set up a barrier between me and Michelle. Never the same after that. I don’t think it was ever me she wanted anyway.” He sighed. “I tried to keep it going, but it just wasn’t working, I had to watch her getting more and more distant. Drifting away from me.”

  But she didn’t drift away because of the poisoning. So had that been deliberate? Had Michelle been wrong? Now I was confused. What sort of person would put poison in a drink for a joke? Some joke, I thought, played by a very nasty joker. If it hadn’t been a joke, however, that made it even nastier...

  I shook my head. I’d think about it later. And I wouldn’t mention my visit to Michelle. “You could still go to New Zealand,” I said.

  “I’m too old. It’s not thirty year olds they want,” said KK, “not from the junior leagues. No, it’s way too late for that. I might have never made it anyway. Might have made semi-pro.” He paused, pondering.

  “Was Ashley worth it?”

  “Ashley is worth everything.”

  “So that’s all right then?”

  “Yes and no,” said KK.

  We lay silent for a while. “You still love Michelle,” I said, my arm across his chest.

  “Aye. I suppose. Pointless really, I try not to, but she’s... imprinted. And you? Got anybody back in Manchester?”

  “Nobody.”

  It was gone seven, and gone dark. A full moon slid into the room past the curtains that we hadn’t bothered to draw, dipping the quilt in luminous paint. I felt Becki’s ghost slip between the sheets, giggling. Told you they were well fit guys, didn’t I? I shoved her out again.

  “You have a bit of a feud going with Niall?”

  “Don’t talk about Niall,” he said. So I didn’t. I kissed him instead, which was pleasant, though languorous, and when it became obvious neither of us was going to push for a repeat session KK flung himself out of bed and began pulling clothes on.

  “You could stay,” I said, unwilling to forgo another session altogether now I could see his legs again properly.

  “I couldn’t. Left Niall in charge of the club. He’ll moan.”

  “Let him moan.” But KK shook his head mutely. He halted to stroke my head and run a thumb along my cheek.

  “That was good,” he said. The kiss he gave me was different to the first: affectionate, not passionate. Then he left.