Mud Pie

by Emma Lee Bole

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Roofless

  “It’s that idjit Martin’s fault,” said AnneMarie with satisfaction. “He’s a crap builder. You should see our porch.” She pulled her fur-trimmed coat tighter around her and lit a cigarette.

  “Why did you let him build it, then?”

  “He’s Niall’s brother, isn’t he? Now it’s all cracks, and the window panes are loose.”

  I stared at the ravaged clubhouse. I wasn’t going to argue with her, despite the fact that it was Niall’s roof that had flown off the annexe and that Martin’s walls, however crap, were still firmly in place. Most of the roofing felt was on the far side of the pitch, skewered and dying on the fence. Other shreds were strewn around the grass. I watched a lad pick one up and kick it into touch.

  “What about KK?” asked Rhoda anxiously.

  “Homeless,” said AnneMarie with a hint of gloat. No, more than a hint. “Niall’s managed to get a few of the boys round to help. They’re putting a tarpaulin up.”

  The tarpaulin was a large plastic sheet, which was trying to take off from KK’s flat. I could see a pair of hands inside grasping vainly as it escaped and swooped across the pitch like a great flapping bird to join the felt impaled on the fence. It began to rain.

  “Bloody hell,” said Brendan, and he and Rhoda hurried off to help Drop-goal retrieve the plastic sheet. AnneMarie mooched away to smoke in the main clubhouse, which still had a roof. I went up the stairs to KK’s flat to see what needed doing.

  Half-way up I met Niall galloping down, roaring, “Boxes! We need boxes!” Inside the flat, a section of plasterboard ceiling had fallen in and was lying on the sofa. Rain spattered through the gap. KK was emptying a kitchen cupboard into a drawer.

  “Christ, what a mess,” I said. “Where are you going to go?”

  “Stevo’s, for now.”

  “Not Niall’s?”

  “It’s his bloody roof,” rasped KK. “Not that he’ll admit it. Never admits to bloody anything.” He dropped a bag of flour which split open in a soft explosion. When I moved to scoop it up, he ordered, “Leave it. Doesn’t matter.”

  “It’ll turn to dough when it gets rained on.”

  “So will everything.” KK straightened up and looked at me. His beard was getting longer and wilder. “Breaking and entering?” he said. “I couldn’t make head nor tail of that message, but Ashley filled me in.”

  “You shouldn’t keep drugs in the house, KK, even if they’re not for your own use. The courts don’t discriminate. What on earth did you take her purse for?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Isn’t it obvious? So her parents wouldn’t know about it. Christ, they had enough to cope with.”

  “Do you know what all that stuff was in Becki’s purse?”

  He shook his head. “Don’t want to know. I wasn’t aware that Ashley had cottoned on to that hiding place, or I’d never have kept it there. Lucky he’s got more sense than Becki.”

  “You were withholding evidence.”

  “I didn’t destroy it, though.”

  “Maybe you should have.” I thought of that little bag of powder, tucked deep into my holdall back at the pub. Rhoda would throw a fit. “You’re too honest.”

  “No, I’m not. I nick drill bits from work,” said KK.

  “And you admit to it! That’s daft. Is Ashley all right?”

  “He was excited about Frank getting arrested. Relieved too, I suppose. He doesn’t know Frank.”

  “Frank didn’t do it,” I said hopelessly.

  “I hope not,” said KK, his dark eyes serious.

  “What did they get him for? Do you know?”

  “Niall spoke to his lawyer. Blood on his clothes or something.”

  “Christ, they took their time finding that.”

  “It was Becki’s blood.”

  I wanted to cry. KK put his hands on my shoulders, smoothed my hair and said, “Nothing we can do about it, Lannie. If they’ve got it wrong it’ll be sorted out.”

  “They’ve got it wrong.” My voice cracked.

  “Aye, but you can’t climb into jail and rescue Frank.”

  We heard Niall and Stevo bounding back upstairs with cardboard boxes, and KK drew away. Stevo began filling his box with CDs while Niall took one into the bedroom. KK carried drawers out.

  I shovelled the contents of a kitchen cupboard into a third box, then went to ask Niall, “Where are we taking it all?”

  “Down to the drinks store.” Niall was bundling up bedclothes.

  “We’ll never fit the furniture in there!”

  “We’ll just cover it up, once Drop-goal’s managed to catch that fecking tarpaulin.”

  “It’ll all go rotten.”

  “It’s only temporary.” Niall had pulled the bed away from the wall and now keyed the combination into the exposed safe. He tossed the plastic wallet carelessly on to the bed and frowned at the empty cavity.

  “Did you take anything out of here, now?”

  “No,” I said. “I told you, there’s no money here.” Pointedly I retrieved KK’s documents, then opened the wardrobe and began to pull out clothes. “You’re not still hunting for it, are you? We need to clear this place before any more of the ceiling falls in on us.”

  “That was a freak gust.” But Niall rolled up the bedclothes and carried them untidily out, trailing sheets. I carted my box, prickly with coat-hangers, down the stairs to dump it on the bar. Stevo stumbled in with the microwave.

  “We need to get all the electrical stuff out of there,” he said anxiously. “It’s getting soaked.” It was now raining hard. While we relayed the rest of KK’s possessions out of his flat, the plastic sheet was being slowly dragged across the pitch, flouncing petulantly in protest and trying to drag its captors back in turn. Eventually they pulled it upstairs and Niall instructed them to drape it round the flat.

  “That won’t keep the rain off,” objected Brendan.

  “We’ll stick the thing back on properly in a bit,” said Niall.

  “What, the roof or the plastic?” said KK. “No bloody difference as far as I can see. One’s about as much use as the other.”

  “It was a freak gust,” said Niall angrily.

  “It was a bloody shit roof,” said KK.

  Niall’s mouth opened wide in deliberate indignation. “How can you say that when you’ve had the benefit of that flat for six good years?”

  “Six crap years. It’s still a bloody shit roof.”

  “Well, that’s marvellous to be sure!” cried Niall, all Irish again. “That’s gratitude for you! Don’t you think you owe me a little gratitude at least?”

  “No,” said KK.

  “Well! As if I’d never got you the job here and got you all sorted out after Michelle left you. Which I can’t say I blame her for just at the moment!”

  “Leave Michelle out of this, you pompous bastard,” rumbled KK.

  “Now then,” said Brendan, stepping forward purposefully, and then not sure what to do.

  “Did you hear that, Lannie?” cried Niall. “Isn’t that a fine brotherly thing to say?”

  “Depends if it’s true,” I said. “Are we shifting this stuff or not?”

  Everyone except Niall began shifting. After a moment of indignant harrumphing he began to shift as well.

  I lugged the contents of KK’s fridge downstairs and into the club kitchen where AnneMarie was, amazingly, making cups of tea.

  “It’s quite nice, isn’t it?” she said. “Everyone pulling together. Like in wartime.”

  “Try telling that to KK,” I said. There was a small, damp explosion as the bottom fell out of Stevo’s rain-soaked carton. DVDs clattered to the floor, while the bits of hi-fi balanced on top of them went splat.

  “Oh, damn,” said Stevo. The CD drawer was sticking out and twisted like an impudent tongue, and one of the speakers had collapsed into bits, spilling a small pile of papers onto the carpet. Niall pounced on them with a triumphant exclamation.

/>   “There,” he said. “Letters. So, my saintly Brother Joseph, who’s been writing to you?”

  “Give those here!” said KK.

  “Well, well. Looks like Becki’s writing. That’s her i.” He unfolded one and began to read. “Well, my word!”

  “They’re private. Leave them be.” KK put his box on a table with a thump.

  “But it’s from Becki!” said Niall, his eyes wide. “And it’s a love letter! Do you know, I think I saw one of these on the bar not that long ago. Not long before she died. I did wonder what it was all about. Let’s have a dekko, shall we?”

  “Let’s not,” said Brendan.

  But Niall was unfolding, peeping. “Ooh, she wants your body. My word, Joseph, she’s promising to do things here that aren’t quite legal.”

  “Stop winding him up,” I said. “Letters are private.”

  “What Becki wrote was nobody’s business but her own,” said Rhoda sharply.

  “Oh, but my!” Niall was scanning the letters, surely too fast to read. “Just as well they’ve already got Frank for it! If he hadn’t been arrested, I would have been quite anxious about these. Very interesting reading. Ooh, my virtuous brother! Just listen to–”

  KK made a grab at the letters. Niall held them behind his back and jumped nimbly into the kitchen, slamming the hatch down after him.

  “Stand back there, Joseph! I think these should be made public! Couldn’t be any possible harm in them, you being such a righteous and high-minded man.”

  “Hang on there,” said Stevo, at a loss.

  “Not aloud,” growled KK. Or was it “Not allowed?” Either way, nothing was going to stop Niall, who looked as smug as a squirrel on a bird-feeder. AnneMarie, by contrast, was frozen. My heart sank.

  “Oh, but this is ripe stuff,” said Niall, his eyes flashing. “And did she bring a jar of honey, Joseph, and lick it off as promised? A touch of Winnie the Pooh there, I think. And lead you up the back passage? Actually, Joseph, this is quite disgusting.” He handed one of the letters over to Stevo who turned it over, not knowing what to do with it.

  “But it’s not signed,” he said.

  “Oh, neither of them are,” said Niall. “I mean, would you sign your name to something like that? Putting her fingers where?”

  “I said, not aloud,” said KK quietly. Next to me, AnneMarie picked up a mug of tea, tried to drink from it too quickly, slopped it, and said to Niall,

  “For Christ’s sake, can’t we leave it alone? They’re private letters and Becki’s dead, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Yes, and I’d like to know why my pure and honourable brother was carrying on with her and keeping quiet about it. That’s immoral behaviour, Joseph.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “She was the immoral one,” said Rhoda. “But she’s dead and buried, so let’s leave it, Niall.”

  “Those were never lying on the bar,” said KK, still very quiet and distant. “You’ve been in my safe. I thought someone had. That’s why I moved them and changed the lock to my flat. Don’t you talk to me about immoral behaviour.”

  Niall flared up. “It’s not your flat, and it’s not your safe! It’s my safe! It’s the club’s safe, you bloody hypocritical ingrate! I thought I knew my own brother better! Honest to God, Joseph, I tried to find these before to protect you. Christ knows what the police would have made of them! They would have locked you up before you could say knife. Did you tell them about Becki’s little thing for you? And you always pushed her away – I bet you did, Joseph! Just as well they’ve got Frank for it now!”

  KK lunged explosively across the hatch at Niall. Brendan grabbed him round the middle in a bear hug, and the pair of them swayed together, panting.

  “Cool it,” advised Brendan. “There’s no need to go on, Niall.”

  “You were quite unpleasant to her, weren’t you, Joseph? In public. I daresay in private it was a very different matter.”

  “You bugger off!” roared KK.

  “Niall, I think you should stop this now,” said Rhoda.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Niall!” cried AnneMarie. “Just leave it, can’t you!”

  But Niall put his hands on his hips. “Oh, so you never acted on these suggestions, Joseph? Just kept them for private, ah, contemplation. Was that it?”

  “Actually,” said Stevo, frowning at the letter in his hand, “I don’t think it is Becki’s writing. She used to send me birthday cards. Doesn’t look like hers. What do you think?” He held the letter out to me.

  “Not Becki’s writing?” Niall was dumbfounded for a few seconds. “Well, of course it’s Becki’s writing! Who else do you know who dots their i’s like that?”

  Stevo shrugged. “Lots of girls, I expect.”

  “There’s still an IOU of hers behind the till,” I said. “Sammie kept it.” I reached for it and handed it to Stevo.

  “Hey,” said Brendan, peering over his shoulder. “You’re right. The letters don’t match.”

  “For Christ’s sake,” said AnneMarie through gritted teeth, “why the hell didn’t you throw them away?”

  KK just looked at her.

  “Jesus, you really would have, wouldn’t you?” spat AnneMarie. “Just like you said.”

  “What would he really have done?” asked Niall eagerly. “What was it he said?”

  AnneMarie turned on him. “You want to know who wrote those letters, Niall? I did, you great ignorant daft pillock. They were a joke. They weren’t real. They’re not from Becki, they were from me. I wrote them because I was so annoyed. Because I was so bloody angry.”

  Niall was staring, trying to work it out. Then he had to work out how to react.

  “Joseph annoyed you? How did he annoy you? Did my brother try it on with you?”

  AnneMarie raised her eyes to heaven. KK was silent. Niall had opened his mouth to roar some more, when I decided I’d had enough of this. So I said,

  “AnneMarie wanted to buy drugs off KK.”

  “Belt up,” hissed AnneMarie, trying to kick me on the ankle. I dodged her.

  “She’d bought drugs off Becki previously and she knew KK had taken Becki’s stash so that her parents wouldn’t find out.”

  “What the hell?” said Niall, staring.

  AnneMarie gave me a furious shove, knocking a mug of tea all over the counter. I escaped through the hatch and held it closed behind me just as Niall had, but on the other side, while I gabbled,

  “And AnneMarie wrote those letters to KK to try and bribe him into giving her some of those drugs, because she’s been hooked on tranquillisers ever since Aoife was born.”

  “No, she hasn’t,” said Niall.

  “Oh, my lord,” breathed Rhoda.

  AnneMarie spat at me, “You know nothing about it! It was nothing to do with the drugs!”

  “What drugs?” said Niall. She turned on him.

  “I wrote those letters because of you! Because I’m sick of seeing you – you – carrying on with other women when you think it’s behind my back, as if I didn’t know, as if I was too blind to even notice, you and that bloody receptionist and what about that Polish au-pair, and I’ve done my best all these years, God knows I’ve tried to turn a blind eye, but there’s a limit and why the hell shouldn’t the mice play while the cat’s away, and get their fucking own back?”

  “Oh, bugger,” I said.

  KK took the letters from Stevo. “AnneMarie, you didn’t mean what you wrote,” he told her quietly. “You weren’t yourself. That was the drugs talking.”

  “You don’t take drugs,” said Niall. He looked dazed.

  “If you took any bloody notice of anything that goes on,” cried AnneMarie, “you might have noticed that I’ve been depressed.” Her lip began to tremble.

  “Oh, you poor girl,” said Rhoda, pushing past me to get to AnneMarie. “Hell, isn’t it? Niall, people don’t act rationally when they’re depressed.” She put her arms around AnneMarie who began to sob onto her shoulder.

  “My wif
e did not write those letters!” roared Niall. “My wife does not take drugs! My wife is completely faithful!”

  “Yes, of course she is,” said Rhoda.

  AnneMarie lifted her head. “Which is more than you bloody are,” she shouted.

  “Now then,” said Rhoda. “We’ve done all that.”

  “I have never been unfaithful!” shouted Niall.

  “Don’t give me that! All over Becki you were, you lecherous great ape, and she was no better, like a bloody baboon on heat, didn’t give a damn about my marriage or anyone else’s. And she wasn’t the first. I know why Katya left, I saw you together, and the worst, the bloody worst,” she was shouting again now, “was when I was in hospital and you were shagging that bloody slut Mi–”

  KK pushed his box off the table with a crash. Saucepan lids bounced out of it and wheeled around the floor.

  “None of this happened!” bellowed Niall. “It’s all in your imagination!”

  AnneMarie pulled free of Rhoda and yelled at Niall. “I saw you giving Becki a grope behind the bar! Is it any wonder I’m depressed? When I’ve spent the last month thinking I’m living with a murderer!”

  “What the hell are you going on about now?” roared Niall.

  “Because she came on too strong for you, didn’t she? And you couldn’t cope. You don’t like it when they get too clingy, do you?”

  “It was Frank! They’ve got Frank!” said Niall, waving his arms in the air in exasperation.

  “Yes, and lucky for you,” cried AnneMarie, “you great thick dollop of shite!”

  “That’s enough,” interrupted Rhoda firmly. “Stop it! That’s quite enough. Calm down and don’t start saying things you might regret.” I thought it was already too late. My fault. I’d set her off. I’d grassed her up.

  “Well, he is,” whimpered AnneMarie.

  “Be quiet. You too, Niall! Brendan, go and pour AnneMarie a small brandy,” commanded Rhoda. “Then take her into the side room. Niall, you’d better go upstairs and check that tarpaulin. Don’t say a word! Just do it!” She glared at him until he shambled away. “KK, are you going to leave all your stuff on the floor? Pick those up, Stevo. And Lannie, I think you’d better clean up that mess.”

  She nodded curtly at the pool of tea on the counter. I pulled a cloth out of the nearest box and began to mop it up. Brendan, looking a bit sick, led AnneMarie into the next room.

  “Jesus,” muttered Stevo, “where the hell did all that come from?”

  “It’s been coming for a while,” said KK. He sounded knackered.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I should have kept my big mouth shut. I feel like I just stepped on a mine.”

  “Well, that whole marriage is a minefield,” said KK wearily. “Lannie, you’re using my best shirt to mop up.” I looked at the cloth in my hand, and saw that it had sleeves.

  Oh, use it anyway, said Becki, doesn’t matter. I stood still with the shirt in my hand.

  Becki would have used it anyway. When did she? When had she?

  Becki slicing up a lemon with my knife, that first time she borrowed it. Blood pouring down her thumb.

  “Lannie? I’d like my shirt back,” said KK.

  Becki seizing up the nearest cloth that came to hand. Careless, like she was about everything. Something dark, big, woven. What the hell was it?

  “Jesus,” I said. “That bloody jacket.”

  KK took the shirt off me, folded it carefully and laid it back in its box.

  “I’ll get a tea-towel,” he said. I barely heard. Charcoal grey, flecked with rusty bits. That jacket. I’d last seen it slung over Nan’s banister, and Grimshaw had asked whose it was.

  “Oh no,” I said. “Oh no, no no.”

  “Too right,” said KK wearily. “I should never have kept those damn letters. I warned her I’d show them to Niall if she didn’t go and see a doctor. Now I wish I’d bloody done it... Lannie? What’s the matter, Lannie?”

  “I’ve got to go,” I said urgently. “I’ve got to ring someone. Where’s my phone?” I felt my pockets. “Bloody hell, I haven’t got my phone!”

  “Use mine,” said Stevo. I pushed it away impatiently. It was no use without the number. I made for the door.

  “Where you going?”

  “What’s up? Lannie?”

  I left their voices behind in the wreckage, unanswered. I ran.