Bedtime, dark spinning sky behind the treetops and the spangle of stars, and Sylvia yawned, stretched, rolled from the hammock, scrambled up and discovered Arthur facing her. She tugged down her navy silk skirts and hoped she hadn’t been showing her navy woollen knickers. “It’s very late, Arthur. What do you want?” Too close to the house to be nervous. Only puzzled.
He looked at her, frowning. “You bin thinking I’s a pig?”
She almost smiled. “Not a pig, exactly. But I have long suspected that you’re a bully to your son.”
He shook his head which made his eyes disappear behind a fringe of dull matt hair. The night’s chill crept through the trees and shivered along the gravel paths. Sylvia pulled her cardigan tighter, and Arthur mumble into his fringe. “I loves the lad, y’know, Mrs. Greene. But he gets all wobbly and says fings what I ain’t never done. I don’t whack ‘im often. But tis hard when he reckons I beat him and all I tried to do were give the lad some toast.”
Blinking, Sylvia stared back. “I find that hard to believe, Arthur.” It would explain many things if true, but seemed too strange to accept. “It’s my bedtime. Thank you for searching me out, Arthur, but I’d prefer to talk in the morning.”
“Good night, then Missus. But reckon you should know as how David bin talking of you too, saying stuff as I don’t fink is true.” Arthur stood his ground and Sylvia turned back to face him.
“What things?”
“I gives him cake but you takes it off him and eats it yerself.”
She nearly hiccupped again. “I shall talk to David in the morning.”
Chapter Seven
It was not so much the kiss there had been, as the one there had not been, which had delayed his return to the manor for nearly two months.
During those two months, he had achieved many things, but the long evenings and the longer nights were filled with snug dreams of closeness, understanding, touch and naked imagination. He loved the delicate slim length of her hands, and their tracery of pale blue veins. He’d seen her bare toes once, fascinated by their length and clear white nails, the curl of the smallest toes against the next, and the narrow sweep up into the ankle. Most of all, he dreamed of his own fingers in her white silk hair, and the welcoming warmth of her body against his.
Finally he told himself to stop being a pessimistic and cowardly fool, and drove back to Rochester Manor at top speed.
Having achieved the initial courage, Harry found the woman he wanted waiting on the doorstep. It was plain enough that she also wanted him. He promptly planned a number of things that sadly never happened. There was Arthur, young David, and Lavender Dawson. The discussion fell back to talk of violence, brutality and death. No personal intimacy managed to find either time or place. Finally Harry drove home again, hoping for the energy to make tea and toast and tumble into bed, but was deeply disappointed to find Isabel waiting for him, hand upraised, ready to knock on his pale blue chipped-paint with the iron eagle-wing knocker.
Tony’s wife turned in a hurry, letting the knocker fall. “It’s a little late. I shouldn’t have come. Are you tired? It’s not important, but you were so understanding last time. Shall I come back in a few days? You’ll be wanting your bed.” Embarrassed and covering her confusion, she talked too much. “I don’t mean what that sounds like – I just wanted to talk. But if you’re tired?”
“Come in,” said Harry reluctantly. “It’s not really late.”
“I can put the kettle on if you like.”
Surrendering to the inevitable, he smiled. “I’ve a bottle of red, and that’s what I want. So you prefer tea, or wine?”
She chose the wine and they sat, slightly sedate, in the living room and surveyed each other. Knees together, edge of the chair, hands neatly in her lap. Isabel looked as though she had forgotten what she wanted to say. So harry drank his wine and finally prompted, “No rush. Take your time. But Tony is becoming difficult?”
Looking up as though startled, Isabel stuttered, “As for that, Harry, he always has been. Just recently I’ve been thinking, it won’t be easy of course, but perhaps I should leave him.”
“I know someone who could help.” But would Sylvia be in the remotest particle interested? “Are you thinking of a break, like time to think on your own? Or a permanent separation? Divorce?”
Harry’s living room was not the sumptuous cushioned luxury of the manor, but there were more comfortable chairs than the one Isabel had chosen to sit on. She managed a minute sip of wine. “I don’t know. It’s a spontaneous decision. To escape perhaps. But it’s not really spontaneous. I’ve been dreaming of it for years. You being so kind and understanding over the past few weeks made me realise I could actually do it. But I thought I’d come and – wondering, you see – ask you if I’m just being a fool.”
“For leaving? Or for not having done it sooner?”
“I sort of guessed you’d say that.”
“This modern world doesn’t castigate females from leaving unpleasant husbands, my dear Isabel.” He sighed. He would have been horrified had his own wife left him, but he’d called himself a good husband. Bored and boring perhaps, but dutiful. “But since Tony’s my friend it’s hard to advise you against him. It wouldn’t seem fair. But you have to do what you feel is right.” It sounded so clichéd, but he didn’t know what else to say. “That is, have confidence in yourself.”
“I feel like his slave.”
“Then leave.”
He refilled the glasses, although Isabel had drunk very little of hers. Harry, on the other hand, felt like drinking a considerable amount. He buried his nose, drank deeply, and looked up again. Isabel had taken off her cardigan.
She blushed. “A little – hot.”
Harry was cold. Too late for lighting fires, and having no central heating, he had turned on the gas fire in the corner, but it was tiny. “As I said,” he sat forwards, “I really can’t go into details since Tony’s supposed to be a friend. But no woman ought to feel she’s a slave. If you want to live without him, then do. Don’t you have a sister to go to, or a friend?”
“Only you, Harry.” She was slowly unbuttoning her blouse. The heavy straps of her support bra showed on either side of a deep creased cleavage. She smiled soft pink blushes. “I’m sixty one, Harry. I’m an old woman. But does that mean life’s over? Can you – contemplate – the warmth? The togetherness?”
Hoping he wasn’t blushing as much as she was, Harry drained his glass, and stretched out his hand, taking her hand from the buttons and clasping it tightly. He wished she was Sylvia. “You’re an attractive woman, Isabel, but I doubt I’m an attractive man. Tony’s younger. Doesn’t he –? I mean – well, you know what I mean.”
Isabel sat back, and the blushes were deeper, she hung her head down, staring at her own bra. “I miss affection. I miss comfort. No, Tony never touches me anymore unless he’s pushing me around. He shouts at me and orders me to do things. I don’t mean those sorts of things. Just things like making tea and cleaning up the mess he’s made. He goes off alone and when he comes back he ignores me. But when I want to go out, he slams me back against the wall and locks the door in my face. I’ve lost all my friends because he doesn’t approve of them.”
“That’s a control thing. He must feel useless somehow, to push the control, that is.,” Harry mumbled, “is he unfaithful?”
“I think he’s impotent.” She didn’t dare meet his eyes, but she started re-buttoning her blouse. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to try and seduce you. I wanted to say thank you. And I wanted to stay the night.”
“Stay the night by all means, I’ve a spare bedroom and it’s comfy enough. We can talk until you’re ready to sleep.” He grinned suddenly. “There’s a woman I fancy. I don’t want to insult you, that is. Actually she’s older than you but you must know about the illogicality of attraction. I’d love to carry her off to bed, but there’s no chance. So I’ll confess, and you can give me advice, while I work out how and when you should leave that i
diot Tony.”
Squeezing his hand, curling up and drinking her wine, Isabel said, “That’s nice. Very, very nice. So who’s the elusive female?”
“Oh well,” and he smiled down at her. “You have met her, but I’d sooner not, that is, she doesn’t know. I hardly know myself.”
“Women our age like to be wanted. Most of us feel unwanted. Unless she’s married.” Isabel paused with a soft sniff. “Even the married ones, like me, feel unwanted. Most of the time I feel – hated.” The sniff liquidised.
Harry moved quickly to her side, offering a box of tissues. She took one and blew her nose. Then, face disappearing into soft paper, she collapsed into tears. Harry put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her from the little chair and onto his big grey sofa. Pulling her closer, he pushed more tissues into her hand, murmuring, “We’ll sort it out, my dear. Truly we will. I’ll talk to Tony if you like. You can stay here in the spare room for as long as you want. Oh – Hell, you don’t need to go back. Clothes, of course, and pack a case – oh, I don’t know. Just please stop crying.” One arm still around her, he helped wipe her eyes and she laid her head on his shoulder.
She was the wrong woman, but she was as miserable as he was, more so, and needed comfort. Her small body was warm, shaking with tears, and begging for sweet touch. He felt the push of her breasts against him.
There really wasn’t a lot of choice.
The girl was dead, but it had not yet made her unattractive to him. He sat beside her, tracing the sticky drying blood flow, inserting his fingers to trace her ribs, spine and groin. Where he had stripped back the skin, the bones were dark. They needed washing, which he would enjoy. The old barn would be the perfect boudoir.
He bundled her first into the boot of his car, retrieved her clothes and piled them on top of her, but took her underpants, sniffed them with satisfaction since they smelled of her fear as well as her intimacy, and stuffed them into his pocket.
Then he drove to the old barn. It was a considerable distance from his home and his wife, but he had been using it for some months now, and the rent was paid for the rest of the year. This rented building had changed his life. Previous delight had now turned to the electric thrill of paradise. Parking in the shadows at the back, he unlocked the door, then brought the body in. The rug in front of the small electric fire was heavily blood stained from previous sessions, but he considered that a benefit. The corpse tumbled from his arms, and he knelt, positioning her. There was no light, but the scarlet flicker of the electric bars added drama and lit the angles of the sliced flesh. He knew exactly what he wanted to do next and it would be a long night. Fine. He had no need to wake early in the morning for he had several days off work to come. It would probably be another three days or so before he dumped the body somewhere.
In the meantime, he collected the Chivas Regal from the cupboard, and the small chest of tools from the corner. The thrill was already as hot as it had ever been, but knowing he had three days to play made the throbbing knowledge of his own power and success even more vibrant.
Paul Stoker had long since changed his name. Although found entirely innocent of the old crimes, and released to live a free life, he had expected the newspaper coverage to stick. The new name was legally Hugh Trumpet, a name he had quickly regretted having chosen. He still felt like a Paul and if someone called ‘Hugh’ he rarely remembered to turn. Now there was an American Trump to share a similar name, and that caused giggles. So he used a variety of names whenever he felt like it and travelled as Hugh Trumpet only when obliged to use a passport.
A sedate life in the south of France, Menton near the Italian border, had been a happy one, the happiest of his endlessly bitter life, until over the years the partner he had adored had gradually turned fat, grumpy and utterly unadorable to him. The old loneliness slipped down the back of his collar, froze his mind, his backbone, and his lifeblood.
One day he punched her in the back and she fell forwards onto her knees. Through her teeth, she said, “That’s the final straw, and I’m leaving you. I’m going back to England and you disgust me.”
“You sound like my father.” Paul sat on the carpet next to her and gazed hopefully into her frown. “You know about my childhood. I’m sorry. I’ll come back to England with you. We’ll start again. I can get a job in Sainsbury’s.”
“How ambitious.”
“Shift work gets well paid.” He felt guilty. Not loving her anymore didn’t mean he loathed her.
Yet after the South of France, England did not glow with welcome, and the new house was a small box with a lawn that needed cutting, and a plumbing system that kept breaking down and delivering lukewarm water on freezing winter days. The bed was lumpy. It always had been, but he’d never thought it mattered before.
Life, however, slipped into the acceptable routine, dour skies split open to let through the sun, and Paul made friends at Sainsbury’s. Felicity took a part-time job at the local pub, and also made friends. They saw less of each other.
Isabel was tucked behind him when Harry woke, her dimpled knees beneath his dimpled buttocks. He had rummaged around and found pyjamas, whereas she slept in her underwear. Both now respectably covered, even if their memories of the previous night were far more licentious, they woke each other and stumbled from the bed to recover their clothes.
Harry had surprised himself and a definite sense of pride had tickled at the edges of the pleasure.
Yet now, with the morning’s glare through the kitchen window, Harry regretted the night before and wished Isabel would go away. Instead she made tea and eggs on toast and smiled a lot over the kitchen table. “I’ll speak to Tony about his behaviour if you want me to,” he told her.
“Don’t speak to him about my behaviour, will you.”
Shaking his head vehemently, Harry piled the used cups and plates and shoved them into a clattering pile in the sink. “I’ll wash them later. And don’t worry, I’m not that much of a fool.” He regarded the tired eyes smiling back at him. “Are you going back to him? Or will it help if you pack a case and come back here? Stay by all means, but the definitely spare room I think from now on. Don’t you agree? It’s too soon – and if Tony discovers –”
She didn’t seem insulted. “It was a lovely evening and a beautiful night, Harry,” she told him as she started to wash the dishes, waving him away. “I wanted affection and had more than I expected. But most of all it clarified my mind. I shall pack a case and leave a note for Tony. Then I’ll get a train to Liverpool where my cousin Beatrice lives. I haven’t seen her for years, but we were close once. Then I’ll start divorce proceedings.”
“Good luck. We all need some of that. Let me know how things go.”
“And good luck with the woman you dreamed was in bed with you last night instead of me.”
He blushed, then laughed. “Who did you imagine I was, then?”
“Brad Pitt.”
“If only. But his wife left him too.”
“I didn’t say that.” David looked up, eyes wide and moist.
Having comforted David for most of the day, smoothing back the knotted hair from his eyes, calling for chocolate biscuits, encouraging him to relate his life’s story, and remember his fifteen years of difficulty in as much accuracy as he could summon, Sylvia admitted by evening that she had not the slightest idea whether he was telling the truth or not.
“He weeps through the drama. But then he sits up and munches biscuits and grins and asks for more.”
“Misery always increases appetite.:
Sylvia regarded Ruby Pope with a doubtful frown. “Really? It doesn’t work that way with me.”
“Then you’ve never been truly miserable.”
Sylvia remembered some of the bleakest times in her life and shook her head. “Can we compare misery? I doubt it. And we can’t compare chocolate biscuits either. But I’ve spent half the day with David and I’m really puzzled after what he’s been saying, and what Arthur told me yesterday.” She regarded Ru
by through thick glasses, for she had taken out her contact lenses for the night. Ruby’s vibrant blue hair was fading. “My beautiful Bluebell, we know David is odd. Autistic, probably. Something more than that possibly. Schizophrenic? So why do we believe him and not the frustrated father?”
“Arthur’s a pig.”
“Perhaps simply a demented and lonely sole parent.”
“Then go sleep with him,” Ruby said, standing in a flurry of blue gossamer Kaftan. “But don’t believe a word he says. It’s poor little David who’s the victim here, and Arthur is a bully.”
Sylvia and Ruby, both in slightly threadbare dressing gowns, sat in Ruby’s bedroom, which was decorated in crimson, black and white. The wallpaper was a regency stripe of thin red and white on a rich sheen of black, furniture was mostly white except for the bed which was crimson velvet beneath a chiffon canopy of black beaded black, the carpet was a luxury of ankle deep black, mirrors and silver lights doubled everything, and a small book shelf added the only contradictory colours. Ruby lay on her bed, propped by a dozen pillows. Sylvia sat on a white brocade armchair, fiddling with her buttons.
“David says his father murdered his mother. He says his father beats him and wants to kill him. He says he has to steal food because his father refuses to feed him. He says he’s always shouted at, pushed, hit, and kicked.”
Ruby nodded. “I’ve certainly heard Arthur shouting.”
Everybody within a mile radius had heard Arthur shouting. “But he says he loves his son and never punches him. Have you seen the bruises?”
She hadn’t. But Ruby said, “They’ll be in places we can’t see. How could a poor little fifteen year old autistic boy make up such stories? They have to be true.”
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