“I’m busy,” I say before he has a chance to speak. “I …” He goes to reply, but I hush him down. “I’m on the phone to someone right now. It’s important. Okay?” I add. I can tell from the look on his face that he is taken aback by my raised voice and abrupt words.
“So, unless your house is on fire …” I say. He looks blank-faced, but goes to answer. I just carry on over his hesitant “No.”
“You’ll excuse me, then, as I’m going to finish my conversation.” I shut the door in his face. I don’t wait to see if he stands there or trudges back down the path and away. I go back to Rosie and the computer in the kitchen.
I am about to comment on the Lump. But she has her head down, looking at the screen, concentrating.
Turns, seems flustered, clicks a button, and the page she was looking at is gone. I could not see what it was.
“I’m looking at other recipes,” she says, flushing red. “I’ve lost the page.”
She gets up out of the chair; I slip in and see that Google is no longer there. I go back in again and bring it back. I resist the urge to click further to history, and instead re-enter a search for “spaghetti bolognese” and work my way through to where we were.
Rosie has gone over to the fridge and the larder in the corner and comes back with two tomatoes and two carrots and two onions. One each, I guess. She hands them to me.
I laugh and put them on the desk beside me. “We can do better than that,” I say. I go to the cupboard and get two tins of Tesco minced beef and onion, a bit dusty but perfectly usable, and a packet of spaghetti from under the sink.
“We boil this,” I say, showing her the dried spaghetti, “for twenty minutes. In fifteen minutes, we put these two tins into a pan and heat them through. We can then mix in some tinned vegetables and sweet corn, and there we have it.”
She laughs. “That simple?”
“That simple,” I reply. “When you’ve got tins … always have a stack of tins.”
We both laugh.
With the spaghetti bubbling away and Rosie putting on make-up in her room and changing her lipstick for the umpteenth time, I am back at the computer, Fluffy at my feet. I want to know what Rosie was searching for. I am not sure what I expect to see.
Signing in. Clicking on Google. Going to history. There are only a handful of searches on the list. I clear it every time I finish. Habit, I suppose. The last but one is what I am looking for. I glance and see “Martin Beech”.
I sit back. Thinking. She still believes he is alive. Wants to find him. I am not sure how I feel about that. Not good. But I don’t quite know why. Maybe it is because I am distracted right now. My mind keeps returning to the Lump. He is a problem. And I do not think he will go away.
The Lumps are – were – an odd family. All six foot plus, with identical long arms and legs and large heads. The mother and father were so similar they could have been brother and sister. Maybe they were. “Suffolk born, Suffolk bred, strong in arm, soft in head” was never more apt. And Felixstowe is notorious for its rabid inbreeding. Cousins are fair game hereabouts.
The Lump was the strangest child. I first noticed him as a teenager, walking to school and back again with his long, marching stride, always alone. Other times, I’d see him in the garden, from my bedroom window, staring into space. Occasionally, I would hear him singing in his curious, high-pitched voice. Hymns, mostly. After leaving school, that was it. He seemed to spend all of his time at home. Hard to imagine anyone employing him. This half-witted fool.
As he became a man, in body anyway, I heard him in the garden one day with his parents. He must have been about eighteen. It might even have been his eighteenth birthday. I sat there listening quietly. His childlike, excited talk of getting his own place, of marrying, of living a happy life. The father laughed, not in a nasty way, and said something to suggest that could never happen. A nonsense. There were more words. Raised voices. The Lump flew into a rage. I heard chairs being kicked over, glasses and crockery breaking and the mother screaming.
Rosie comes back in. She smiles at me. Then points at the oven.
I smile back. Pretend I am doing something and nothing on the computer.
She goes across to the tins of mince and onions. I nod for her to go on, to empty the contents and heat them up.
There was a terrible struggle between father and son, with the Lump swearing furiously, using the F- and the C-words over and over again and threatening to kill him. The father was knocked to the ground, and I heard the mother’s voice, trembling but defiant, shouting, “Don’t you touch me, Andrew, don’t you touch me.” A moment when I thought he was going to attack her. But then he was out of their gate, slamming it hard, and was storming along the alleyway and was gone.
Still I sat there silently, too scared to move. I heard the mother talking to the father as he came round. His muffled incoherence turned to words of anger as she helped him up and into the house. I expected to hear the sounds of an ambulance and a police car as I went back inside. But I heard neither, and later than night, I watched the Lump striding back home as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Whistling, he was. Life resumed. I never heard anything else. But I remember. I’ll never forget.
And I fear what he is capable of. Driven by a mix of childlike dreams and man-sized urges.
I must keep him away from Rosie.
As I get up to sort out our home-made spaghetti bolognese lunch, I have to think how to do that. To stop him before it all goes too far. Before it spirals out of control.
After lunch, I walked Fluffy across the fields and beyond. An hour, maybe more, the longest walk we’ve had since the snow fell. I needed to clear my head.
Over near the farm where I buy home-made sausages and beefburgers. To gather my thoughts. To work through my worries. Calm down. Get things in proportion.
I did not see the Lump on the way out. Nor on the way back. I did tell Rosie not to answer the door whilst I was away. To lie low. Just in case. But I did not mention the Lump specifically. I did not wish to alarm her. I want to keep her safe. I wish her to feel secure as well. I am simply going to shield her from him. That is what I will do.
When I came back, she was in the dining room, looking out of the window towards me. Waiting. I think she must have missed me. She was restless and out of sorts. Fiddling about with knick-knacks on the side. Clearly bored. So I suggested on the spot that we make a cheesecake.
Cheesecakes are something of a speciality of mine. It all came about when I bought a so-called luxury one from a local supermarket (which I will not name). I had expected, given the word “luxury”, that it would be a light and fluffy, creamy affair. Something like squirty cream foam. With a soft and tasty base. But it was not. It was a stodgy, lumpy thing, and a large piece of the base got stuck in my throat, and I gagged on it. Fortunately, learning the Heimlich manoeuvre is about the only thing I can remember from first aid training during my workdays. And so I performed it on myself before anything untoward happened.
I threw the rest of the cheesecake in the swing bin straightaway and decided there and then that I would make my own. And I would make it to perfection! And I have done so, every fortnight or so, since then. My special mix of digestive biscuits, butter, cream cheese, sugar and double cream. You can put fresh strawberries or raspberries on the top. But in their absence, I have used strawberry jam, marmalade and – a particular favourite – lemon curd.
“Top or bottom?” I ask Rosie, pointing to the biscuits and butter in one bowl and the cream cheese and sugar in another, with a tub of double cream next to it. And an empty tin ready to take the cheesecake.
“Um,” she says. “Top?”
“Okay,” I answer, pushing one bowl towards her and pulling the other towards me.
We both start our spreadings and stirrings.
I think now may be the time to talk to her a little more about herself. I have waited. And waited. And waited some more. Not wanting to push nor pry. To risk damaging our growing,
loving relationship. But she has visibly relaxed so much with me lately. Letting me dry her hair. Revealing what happened to her. Admitting she cannot read nor write properly. Seeking my help. My advice. My love. It is now time for us to progress.
“We moved here twenty-five years ago this year, funnily enough,” I say conversationally, out of nowhere, looking about the kitchen. “I was from south London originally. But … there were jobs here then. We bought this place with an inheritance … well, that and a mortgage. Bit beyond us otherwise.”
She says nothing, just carries on stirring the biscuits and butter.
“Where are you from?” I say gently, almost in an it’s no-big-deal, just-something-to-say way, as I stir the ingredients in my bowl. “You have an accent, but I can’t quite place it.”
“Lutterworth,” she says, then adds, as she sees my quizzical face, “Near Leicester … the other end of the A14.”
I nod. That makes sense. The A14 is a long road, 120 or so miles, stretching from the Midlands to Felixstowe. It brings all the lorries thundering into the port and back out again.
“So that’s why you used to come here on holiday? Along the A14?” I ask.
“Yes.” She does not say anything more. Her head is lowered, and she is stirring the ingredients for the top of the cheesecake round and round and round.
I hesitate and press on carefully.
“Did you hitch-hike here? This time?” I ask.
She nods, but still keeps her head down, looking at the bowl. She stabs at the mixture with the wooden spoon, as if checking its consistency.
“Yes … but not from Lutterworth. I got moved around places a lot. I got released earlier this year … on licence … and was in a bedsit in Rugby. Doing a shit job. Packing stuff.”
She glances at me but does not add to her comment. Just pushes the bowl back towards me as if to say, There, it’s done.
I pass her my bowl and tell her to squash the mixture into the bottom of the tin on the table with the back of a spoon. I hand one to her.
As I do this, I hear a helicopter above. It’s back again. Searching.
I look at Rosie. She has not heard it. At least, if she has, she does not show it.
I ignore it. If it is there, above us, it’s just out doing whatever it’s doing. Nothing to do with me. Or us.
“Anyone know you’ve come to Felixstowe?” I ask quietly, finishing stirring the mixture and waiting for Rosie to press the rest of the biscuit base into place. “Anyone know you’re here?”
She looks at me, and it is an unsettling look.
“Friends you had in Rugby? The lorry drivers who brought you here? Anyone, anywhere, you’ve been asking about for Martin Beech?”
She pulls a face and shrugs. She says, ”No,” but her body language hints at a yes.
Rosie watches me as I pull the tin back towards me. Press one or two places a little harder with the back of the spoon. Then pour the cheesy mixture onto the biscuit base in the tin and spread it out evenly.
I am not sure what to say to Rosie. Someone, somewhere, knows she is here. A friend from the bedsit, most likely. And someone, somewhere, will come looking for her. The police, I would expect. She must have broken the terms of her licence, for sure. They will want her back.
And I wonder, as I put the cheesecake in the fridge and say we will have some for dessert after our tea, what that means for us.
The helicopter comes in closer.
I smile at Rosie. She smiles back at me.
Our rictus smiles.
We spent the rest of the afternoon together. We did some reading and writing. Then she drew, and I finished my book. I took Fluffy for another long walk whilst Rosie had a shower.
And we made some cheese on crumpets for our tea. I showed her how to add some onions to the cheese and melt them into the crumpets in the microwave oven.
We had some cheesecake, too. Then spent the rest of the evening drawing and writing again. We talked a little bit, now and then, but about nothing of consequence.
And then we went to bed.
I have stayed awake tonight, sitting up in my bed, duvet across my lap, blankets round my shoulders.
Waiting for him. The Lump. Whilst Rosie and Fluffy lie sleeping, safe and sound, in the nookery.
I know he will return, and I know what he will do. And I know what I will do. If I have to.
I sit here with a poker from the fireplace across my lap. It is a heavy one, with a ball at one end resting in my palm and a twist of metal at the other end for poking the fire. It could be used in a number of ways. You could, for example, hit an intruder – a menacing burglar – on the back of the head with it. That would bring them to their knees. A second blow, by an innocent homeowner fearing for his life in the dark, could fracture their skull. Self-defence, really.
Or it could be useful as something like a sword, with the twisty end being used to parry, to jab or to stab. If someone broke into your home in the dead of night, you could use it to defend yourself and others too. If you had to, for protection, you could hold it up straight and true as the burglar ran towards you in the dark. No one could blame you for that.
The Lump will come here. For Rosie. At some point soon. This strange man-boy with his big slab head and dull, lifeless eyes, and with the childlike obsession of a fifteen-year-old boy. The wants and desires of a grown man. Standing there aroused and touching himself, almost as if he does not know what he is doing. If he breaks in, to force himself upon her, I will need to act. And I will do whatever I have to do. I do not know what will happen after that. I do not want the police here.
I get up and move to the front window, looking out of the darkness towards the snow-lined trees.
I stand there a while, listening to my measured breathing, in and out, waiting for him to arrive. And he will. Any time now.
He is not at the front. There is no sign of life at all, just a slow and steady sprinkling of dust-like snow falling.
I move to the back window, looking down its full length towards the fields beyond.
And there he is. Already. As I knew he would be. He has pushed the back gate open, into the snow. He is by the glazed window of the shower-toilet room at the back of the nookery. He has his hands up above his head as though he were surrendering to armed police. In reality, he is leaning his hands on the window, his face pressed childlike to the pane. Hoping to see what is already in his mind.
A minute passes as I stand there watching him. He moves, very slowly, to the nookery door that opens into the little kitchenette. And I do not know if the door is locked or not. I locked it last. I think. But Rosie may have opened it to come outside at some point, to let Fluffy out. If the door opens, he will be in the nookery, and I will have to act fast. I wait, my mouth so dry. I suddenly feel frightened at the thought of taking him on. But what else can I do? I won’t have the police here.
I imagine, can almost see, his hand on the handle. He pushes it down, and I wait for the door to swing open and for him to disappear inside. He will push his way through into her bedroom and be upon her as she wakes. There will be little she can do to protect herself. As he pins her down and rolls his great heavy body onto her, I will have to force my way in and confront him. Now it is almost upon me, the moment. I do not know if I can do it.
Suddenly, he is stepping back and away. It is over before it even started. The door must be locked. He’s turning and leaving, pulling the gate shut behind him.
I can sense his thwarted lust as I see him disappearing into the passageway and through his own back gate.
He will return. I am sure of it. And I fear for what will happen then.
The tanker still blazes, its flames up into the sky.
And the sun is so hot and beating down.
And the cars are crashing and burning.
The shapes are melting, and I can hear the screams fading away.
Before the next car crashes, and it starts over again.
There is a shape coming out of the infe
rno.
And this melting thing walks towards me.
It is speaking, but I cannot understand what it says.
And it is pointing at me.
And it beckons to me.
It wants me to come into the flames.
To burn and die with it.
And I move towards it, to embrace death.
I awake with a start.
Another nightmare. My recurring sorrow. This endless night.
I lie here, thinking.
I loved my wife. Laura. Once upon a time. Unreal, fairy-tale times, when our lives lay ahead of us and everything seemed possible.
I told her so, too. That I loved her. In the early days. More lust than love, really. Young men are driven by their desires.
There was no real chance of a happy and long life together. Too young. Too ill matched. It is as simple as that.
We met at university in the Midlands. I studied for a business degree. She did English literature. Mine was practical. Hers was artistic. Mine led to a job, a series of jobs really, in low-level marketing in local authorities. Never well paid. Not even half decent. She had dreams of creativity. Poetry. Amateur dramatics. Singing. But nothing came of any of it.
She did a teacher training course after university and worked at various dead-end pub and restaurant jobs. She then spent years teaching in one primary school after the other. I think she was frustrated. Teaching the same things to the same children at the same times, year after year. The children always the same. Her forever changing – ageing steadily.
But I get ahead of myself. We met through mutual friends at university. I forget who they were now. Started going out in a crowd. A couple of times, just the two of us turned up at the pub or the cinema, and we kind of fell into seeing each other. I found her attractive. Tall and slender and seeming so comfortable in her own skin. I was always worried about fitting in and being seen as normal. I don’t think I ever have been. I have always felt an outsider. She knew I went out drinking some nights, and did not seem to mind, but never came along. Parallel lives, even then.
The Girl Downstairs Page 15