Victory Disc

by Andrew Cartmel

  She peered at me in fear, and I realised she had good reason to be afraid of strangers at the door. “Don’t worry,” I said, “it’s no one.”

  “No one?” said Stinky, attempting jocularity as he took advantage of the fact that I’d turned around to shoulder past me and enter the house. He goggled at Opal—nubile young girl wearing a clinging silk robe and nothing else—and she stared warily back at him.

  “It’s just a… friend,” I told her. The truth would have taken far too long to explain.

  “Okay,” said Opal uncertainly.

  “Stinky Stanmer at your disposal, citizen-sister,” said Stinky. Did someone come up with this stuff for him? If so, they needed to be fired with extreme prejudice.

  “Okay,” repeated Opal, nodding at him vaguely. She turned and went back into her room.

  Stinky glanced at me. “A bit shy, is she? She’ll come out later and ask for my autograph, when she’s summoned up her courage.”

  “Look, Stinky,” I said, “I’m just on my way out the door.”

  He lifted his arms in the air. “No problem, no problem.” He walked into the living room and sat down on the sofa.

  “You really can’t stay.”

  “That’s fine, that’s fine,” he said, hastily looking through the books on my coffee table. Turk came in through the cat flap and stared at Stinky. She must have heard our voices. And recognised his. There had been a time when Stinky had bribed her on a regular basis with salmon and prawns. Clearly there was nothing wrong with Turk’s memory.

  She came over to Stinky, who grinned and said, “Hello, Fanny!” He tried to pat her and she retreated, coming back however to sniff his fingers. But as soon as she failed to detect any hint of expensive seafood, she very sensibly went back outside.

  I looked at Stinky, sitting on my sofa in my house, utterly uninvited, and felt myself getting angry enough to tell him exactly what I thought of him, preferably while dragging him to the front door and physically projecting him from it. Then I remembered that Stinky Stanmer had once almost certainly saved our lives.

  So it seemed the minimum possible civility to at least offer him a coffee. It went against every fibre of my being, but there you are. Then I had an inspiration. “Listen, Stinky. I’ve got to go out. We can’t stay here. But I can buy you a coffee. There’s a very good café in the high street.”

  With a bit of luck I could get rid of him before I rendezvoused with Nevada.

  “Fine, fine,” said Stinky. But he’d risen from the sofa and was now heading towards my turntable. This was far from fine, and I moved in to intercept him, but then the door of the guest room opened behind me and Opal stepped out.

  She said, “Can you help me get something down from a shelf in here? It’s too high for me to reach.”

  “The Charles Sharp 6,” sneered Stinky. He was now standing at my turntable and staring down at the record on it. “Never heard of them.”

  I hardly registered what he was saying. I was too distracted by Opal’s sudden request. It had thrown me considerably, because there weren’t any shelves in her room, at least no high ones. None above waist height, as it happened. “Weird instrumentation,” said Stinky, reading the record sleeve.

  “Perhaps the only welcome instance of the vuvuzela in modern jazz,” I said. “Excuse me.” I went into the guest room where Opal was waiting for me. She immediately closed the door behind us. She was still wearing her dressing gown. It was a bit big for her and had an alarming tendency to fall open below the neck, so I kept my eyes studiously on her face.

  “There’s not really anything on the shelf,” she said. She had unusual eyes. They were a pale shade of brown. Almost amber. Almost gold. “I just wanted to say something. I haven’t had a chance to see you on your own since the other night, and I wanted to say thank you. For saving me. The other night.”

  “That’s fine, I just—”

  “And not just that. For letting me stay in your home. And cooking for me…” She stared up into my eyes. She was still warm from the bath. I could feel the warmth coming off her.

  “Okay, that’s great. I mean, you’re welcome. I mean, I just have to get back to my friend.”

  “Of course.”

  I got out of there and back with Stinky. He was sitting on the sofa, holding his phone and trying to look casual. But the cover of the Charles Sharp 6 album was in front of him, and I knew he had just photographed it. “Stinky, listen, I’ve just got to quickly throw some clothes on and then we can go for that coffee.”

  He rose to his feet, ostentatiously putting his phone away. “No, don’t worry, mate. Not to worry, I’ve got to shoot off. Things to do.” He gave me a big phoney smile and a broad wave of his hand, as though cleaning a window. “So long, citizen.” He ambled down the hallway to the front door.

  I stared after him. He really had just come to check up on what I was currently listening to. And, now that he’d found out, he was gone. I don’t know why I was surprised. Surprise was as futile, and as irrelevant, as the sudden fury rising in me.

  The front door closed, signalling Stinky’s exit.

  Opal immediately came out of her room.

  “Is he gone?”

  I sighed. “Yes, thankfully.”

  “Who was he?”

  “If you don’t know, you’re better off never finding out.” I wandered back into the living room, worn down by this encounter. I picked up the phone and tried Miss Honeyland’s number again. Voicemail. I hung up. Opal came and sat beside me on the sofa.

  She said, “I never finished what I wanted to say to you. I wanted to thank you.”

  “You already have.”

  “No, I haven’t. Not for cooking for me, and taking care of me.” Her head was close to mine on the sofa and her hair smelled nice. I started to get up and she caught hold of my arm. “I really mean it,” she said. She leaned towards me and her robe fell open. She kept moving towards me, and before I knew it she was in my arms, treacherously fragrant and warm. She drew my head down towards hers.

  Her robe was fully open. She gently guided my head down and all at once her bare, warm breasts were soft against my face.

  A terribly bad idea suddenly began to seem like a terribly good idea.

  Her nipples brushed across my lips and they felt like electricity. It was the second most difficult thing I’ve ever done in my life not to just open my mouth and begin kissing and gently nibbling at them.

  The most difficult thing was putting my hands on her shoulders and pushing her away from me. I forced her back. We stared at each other. I felt a writhing pain in the pit of my stomach as physical desire did a handbrake turn in my body. I said, “Look, I’m sorry—”

  But my rejection had not gone down well with Opal. She rose from the sofa and lurched away. Then she stopped and turned, her hair swinging, a look of pure savagery on her face.

  Hell hath no fury, I thought glumly.

  Just then the front door opened and Nevada’s voice announced, “You have no idea what a complete disappointment that new charity shop is.” With a few strides she was in the room with us. We stared at her. She stared at us.

  Opal started to close her robe, then abruptly she let it swing open. Her pert breasts jiggled as she pointed at me. “Nevada,” she croaked. “He just screwed me.”

  Nevada stared at us.

  “Or rather,” said Opal, “I just screwed him. I started it because he was too timid to try. He wanted to, oh so badly. But he was too timid. But then once he got started, once I got him started, he couldn’t get enough of me. I’m sorry it happened under your roof.” She shrugged and decorously closed her robe, putting her breasts away. “But there’s no point trying to hide it from you now it has happened.”

  Nevada looked at us both, her expression unreadable. Then she said, “Really?” Her voice was cool. “That’s very good of you.”

  “Is it?” said Opal. “Well, good or bad, it is what it is.”

  “He couldn’t get enough of you, you sai
d?”

  “Yes.”

  “You just had passionate sex with my boyfriend?”

  “Yes.”

  Nevada shrugged dismissively. She set her bag down on the table. “I don’t believe you. Do you know why? Because a silly little schoolgirl like you would have been put off by his tattoos.”

  “I love tattoos! I love his tattoos. I kissed them, and licked them—”

  I relaxed. Nevada relaxed. She smiled at the girl.

  Opal immediately sensed the shift in mood between us. She looked at me bitterly. “He doesn’t have any tattoos, does he?”

  “You’ll never find out,” said Nevada.

  Opal fled into her room, slamming the door behind her in classic teenager fashion. We heard the muffled sound of sobbing. Nevada looked at me. “How on earth could you have been foolish enough to allow yourself to be alone in the house with that creature? With neither of you dressed?”

  “Stinky Stanmer.”

  “Enough said.”

  * * *

  “Why don’t you have any tattoos?” said Tinkler. “Is it because you’re a total wimp?”

  “Lucky for him he is,” said Nevada. We were back in Albert’s gastro-pub, sitting in our usual booth. She kissed me on the cheek. “Still, well done. Seven out of ten for resisting. I should have known I could trust you even if a hormonal little honey was waving her hot little fanny in your face.”

  “You paint such an attractive picture,” said Tinkler.

  “Her tits, actually,” I said. “Waving her tits in my face.”

  “Fanny,” said Tinkler forlornly. “Tits. Why does nobody ever wave anything in my face?” Nevada kissed me on the lips. “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” moaned Tinkler.

  Nevada kissed me again. She said, “I’m glad you didn’t complicate our lives by doing anything stupid.”

  I said, “Are you sure you don’t just think I’m boring?”

  “I think you’re boring,” said Tinkler.

  We finished our drinks and Nevada went to buy the next round. As soon as she was gone Tinkler said, “And she’s still living with you? Opal?”

  I said, “She’s not living with us. She’s staying with us.”

  “She’s still staying with you? After what happened?”

  “After what nearly happened.”

  “But, still, you’re letting her stay with you?”

  “She has nowhere else to go. No parents. No guardian. No aunts or uncles or close friends. Believe me, we’ve checked.”

  “And so she’s living with you for the foreseeable future?”

  I shrugged. It was true. Tinkler hitched himself closer to me. “Maybe you can have a threesome,” he said. “With both of them.”

  “Yes, that’s what a threesome usually means.”

  “When you say ‘yes’…” said Tinkler excitedly.

  From the bar Nevada called, “Hello, Tinkler, I can hear every word you’re saying.”

  “Well, somebody should,” said Tinkler. “Otherwise a great opportunity is going to waste.”

  “You’ve got threesomes on the brain,” said Nevada, returning with our drinks. “It’s too much Internet. That’s what it is.”

  There was a sudden burst of music from behind the bar. I looked over to see Albert standing there with his hand on the radio and a foolishly beatific expression on his face. The music blared out. It was a familiar piece, and normally I would have enjoyed it. But not now. Not by a long stretch of the imagination.

  “What happened to the no music policy?” said one of the drinkers at the bar. A question I would have happily seconded. But unfortunately I knew the answer all too well. Albert waved the drinker to silence. Finally the music concluded and the voice of Stinky Stanmer came over the airwaves.

  “Perhaps the only welcome instance of the vuvuzela in modern jazz,” he said.

  Albert switched off the radio and said, in an awestruck voice, “That Stinky, he’s always got his finger on the pulse.”

  Just then the door opened, let in a gust of wind and rain, and Opal came in. She walked across the pub, coming straight to us. Tinkler said, “Is that…?”

  “Yes.”

  “The brazen hussy,” murmured Tinkler. But he immediately moved over to make room for Opal as she reached the table, and she sat down beside him, smiling across at us.

  “I hope you don’t mind me joining you.”

  “Why would we mind?” said Nevada blandly.

  “I just had to get out of the house. I put some biscuits out for the cats so they wouldn’t follow me across the main road.” I could see this sincere concern for the wellbeing of our cats really getting Nevada riled, but luckily at this point Tinkler changed the subject.

  “My name is Jordon Tinkler.”

  “Hello, Jordon.” They shook hands.

  Tinkler waved a magnanimous hand at us. “My friends here have been telling me all about your dissertation. It sounds fascinating.”

  “It is,” said Opal. “It’s going to be dynamite.”

  “Oh, really?” said Nevada.

  “It must be, uh, fascinating,” said Tinkler, “to, uh, research it. It must be really hard work. Doing all that research.”

  Opal nodded. “Oh, it is. I’ve been driving all over the country. But it’s been worth it.”

  “You’ve made a lot of fascinating discoveries, I imagine,” said Tinkler. He seemed stuck on the word fascinating.

  “Oh, yes,” said Opal. “For instance, I found the barmaid.”

  For the moment I wasn’t sure I’d heard her correctly. “The barmaid?” I said.

  “Yes. From The Feathers. You know, the pub in Kingsdown. Where my great-grandmother was murdered. The barmaid who was working there that night.”

  “You found her,” I said. “The witness?”

  “Yes.”

  “The missing witness?”

  “Yes,” said Opal. “She told me all about it.”

  24. THE BARMAID

  I said, “This is the barmaid who was supposed to have turned up at the trial, but didn’t? The crucial missing witness for the defence?”

  Opal sighed theatrically. “Yes.”

  “She was the one who put the bottle of whisky in the room,” said Nevada.

  “Yes.”

  “What whisky?” said Tinkler.

  I said, “Johnny Thomas claimed that they’d been given a bottle of drugged whisky. It knocked both of them out, and when he woke up, the girl was dead.” It occurred to me that ‘the girl’ in fact was Opal’s great-grandmother. It was a strange and somewhat unsettling thought. I looked at Opal. It was the first time I’d looked at her so squarely since our close encounter. She met my eyes with a level gaze. I was completely thrown. I’d lost my thread. “Uh,” I said.

  “So, while they were unconscious, someone entered the room and killed her,” supplied Nevada. “This was the cornerstone of Johnny’s defence.”

  “Such as it was,” I said.

  “Such as it was.”

  “So where did the barmaid get the drugged whisky?” said Tinkler.

  “She claimed it was a present from a mysterious stranger.”

  “The same one who killed Opal’s great-grandmother, presumably,” said Tinkler. He’d made the intellectual leap from anonymous victim to blood relative without having to be hit over the head, I’ll give him that. Opal rewarded him with a smile of approval. “Would you like a drink?” he asked her.

  “Yes, thank you,” said Opal. “A bottle of cider please. Organic, if they’ve got it.”

  “Oh, I’m sure they’ve got it,” said Tinkler, rising and scurrying towards the bar. This left me and Nevada alone with Opal, which could have been awkward, but it wasn’t. We all had something new to think about, something that effortlessly eclipsed recent events on our sofa.

  I said, “Where did you find her? The barmaid?”

  “Stoke-on-Trent.” Opal seemed pleased with herself, which she had good reason to be. “Just outside, in Shelton, near Newcastle-under-L
yme. I met her there and we went out for a walk, and I recorded her.”

  “You’ve got a recording?” said Nevada.

  “Yes. I’ll make a copy for you if you like. We talked for hours. We walked through the cemetery there, which is huge. Hanley Cemetery. We walked along Cemetery Road while she told me all about it. Which I suppose is appropriate. Cemetery Road.” I thought that indeed it was, rather spookily so. “Anyway, it’s nice and green in there. Lots of trees.”

  Tinkler came back with drinks for himself and Opal. I noticed he hadn’t got anything for us, but perhaps it had genuinely not occurred to him. The Tinkler in rut is a single-minded creature.

  “So what happened exactly?” I said.

  “Well, this man gave her the bottle of whisky—”

  “What did he look like?” said Nevada.

  “She said she never got a good look at him. And even if she had, after all these years—”

  Nevada snorted. “Never got a good look at him. That’s very convenient.”

  Opal seemed to take this personally. “Esmeralda was telling the truth.”

  “Esmeralda?”

  “Esmeralda Paynton. It was the name she assumed, after she dropped out of sight and started again.”

  “Great choice.”

  “It was easy to start again like that,” said Opal, “during the war. In all the confusion. She said she’d lost all her papers when her house was bombed out, and got new ones. Under a new name.”

  I said, “She claims she never got a good look at this guy? The one who gave her the whisky.”

  “Yes.” She was defensive again. “Why does everyone find that so hard to believe?”

  “Because he must have been near enough to her to give her the whisky. And hence near enough to get a pretty good look at.”

  Opal’s face took on a stubborn set. “She said it was night time. There was a blackout.”

  “Of course.”

  “And he was wearing an army cap. And goggles.”

  “Goggles?”

  “Like they used to wear when they were driving one of those old-fashioned cars with the open tops. Apparently they also used to wear them when they were driving jeeps and other military vehicles of the period.”