Rottenhouse

by Ian Dyer

  8

  Simon had expected something a little more from Mr Rowling. Perhaps a defence of his actions. Perhaps a little fisty-cuffs for being called thick or a cunt or a prick (and in the heat of it all Simon thought he had called him a fucktard, but couldn’t be sure). But there was none of that. He was sat in his chair just looking at Simon with that blank look he was so good at giving.

  Lucy on the other hand had a mouth that was wide open, jaw to the floor with hands that were either side of her cheeks like a shitty actress in a low budget horror flick acting as if she had just seen a ghost. Simon clutched his hands together they were shaking so wildly. He was both scared and exhilarated at the same time. There was something satisfying about what he had just done. The truths weren’t out, but the ones that counted were, and all parties knew what Simon was feeling. It was the same feeling Simon had when his father had been killed in the house fire and he was finally able to tell his mother what he had been through as a child.

  9

  ‘I’m still Lucy.’ She whispered.

  Mr Rowling placed his hand upon hers.

  ‘It’s alright, Barbara, truths out now and we is all better for it. He’s right about a few things I suppose, but it don’t change what we do and I am not going to apologise. He’s said some things I know he regrets but that’s pebbles in a stream as far as I’m concerned.

  ‘Besides, looks like you’ve found yerself a husband. Shame I had to find out that way, would have preferred something a bit more traditional…’

  Lucy leant over and hugged her father then. Wrapped him up like a mother swaddling her child. Simon watched as Mr Rowling closed his eyes and eased his body into the cuddle, allowed himself to be cuddled, and then wrap his own arms around his daughter. She mumbled something to him and him to her, words lost but by no means worthless for they made Mr Rowling squeeze tighter and hold his daughter closer for a moment longer.

  ‘Best you go off tabed, Barbara. I would like to talk with Simon for a while.’

  ‘Okay dad.’ And she moved away from the cuddle and kissed him on the cheek and wiped the tears from her eyes. Simon expected her to come to him, but she did not, and he felt a little sad.

  10

  ‘Take a seat, Simon. Time we had a chat, man to man. And don’t hold back, Simon, let’s be open and honest no matter what needs to be said. I can feel you have things to say, I can see it in yer eyes and in the way you keep your head down when you are near me. Don’t be worried about what yasay, how yasay it either. I am a man that don’t care for swearing much, but now that the lady is up in bed I’m thinking we can let a few of em slide, if ya know what I mean.’

  Simon did as he was told.

  ‘Look, Mr Rowling, what I said, I didn’t mean to go off like that…’

  ‘A man doesn’t apologise for speaking truth or doing what was right, Simon, he simply carries on doing what he does. Much like what you’ve seen the last couple a days. We do those things because they are right, Simon. Take old man Johnson. I know what you saw in the dark, Simon. I know you saw him, hanging from the light fitting all burnt and beat to bugger. I know you thought it wrong to hang a man and then burn his house down taground. But I also know what you saw written on the wall.’

  ‘Nonce.’

  ‘That’s right. Nonce. You know what a nonce is, dontya Simon?’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘They do things to kids Simon. Dirty things. And I don’t mean play Tonka trucks or football in field or build brick castles in the garden. I wish it were that, but no, they fuck em, Simon. Like a man would do to a woman on a Saturday night after MatchatheDay had finished, nonces do to kids. They groom em and then ruin em.’

  ‘Okay, I get the picture.’

  ‘Johnson was a nonce, so because he were a nonce we beat the piss out of him and strung him up. So yasee it were justified what we did. Wouldn’t you do the same thing?’

  ‘I guess, but why did you burn his house down?’

  ‘To make sure he were dead, Simon. Like when we hacked apart his boy.’

  ‘But he had a knife literally dug into his skull. The guy couldn’t have been anymore dead. Besides, I thought it was for ease of transportation.’

  Mr Rowling smiled.

  Simon said, ‘I can’t forget what I saw. I can’t accept it all like you can, like everyone else here can. There’s a part of me that just wants to jump in my car and get the hell out of here. I had planned to do that. Even if Lucy said otherwise I was out of here and I didn’t care if Lucy came with me or not.

  ‘But there is this other part of me Mr Rowling. This annoying bit of my brain that gets in the God damned way all the time. It’s the bit that loves your daughter, Mr Rowling. So much so it makes me do stupid things; like put up with murder, put up with beatings and nightmares. Even nagging city girls complaining that their nails have cracked or that they have put on half a stone and am now morbidly obese even though they weigh less than a gnat’s dick is all water under the bridge as long as I have her in my life and she is happy. You know it’s funny, I always thought that there was this piece of Lucy, what I called her String, that whenever she got angry or upset or mad or annoyed this String of hers would tighten and keep tightening until finally snapping. A few times it snapped at me, most of the time though it was at colleagues or friends. I’m starting to think that I have one too. Maybe we all do in a way. Some of these Strings are tight all the way through our lives whilst others are slack and take a lot to tighten up.’

  ‘I appreciate that Simon and I’m happy that my little Barbara has found herself someone that will marry her. I have seen men fall for women, it’s not the greatest of sights but I understand it nonetheless. Never happened to me. The love I had faBarbara’s mother was a love forged through time and a need to fulfil the requirement’s we here hold dear. And your right about the String, though I think it more like a bridge that we put more and more people on until one day it breaks in half.’

  Silence.

  ‘Let me show you something, Simon. Won’t be a minute.’

  Mr Rowling left the kitchen and went into the locked room at the end of hallway. Until he was back, holding three photos in his hands, Simon expected to hear screams and yells of betrayal coming from that room as Mr Rowling sensed that someone other than himself had been in there; snooping and peeping at things that didn’t concern them.

  Before the two men continued their conversation Mr Rowling poured the two of them mugs of cold water. Simon drank his greedily, his throat parched. Mr Rowling merely sipped at his.

  The old man placed the photos picture side down, hiding the images from sight.

  ‘Has Barbara ever shown you her mother?’

  ‘No. She doesn’t really talk about her. Don’t think she even has a photo.’

  ‘Aye. Thought as much. They were close those two. Thick as thieves my father would have said. Did everything together which left me to pick up the dregs. Not that I minded, not one for child raising me. When she died of that cancer it was all that Barbara could take. Not soon after she up sticks and went.’

  Mr Rowling folded over the top photo and showed it to Simon. ‘That’s her. That’s the wife.’

  It was a simple photo taken on one of the first Polaroid cameras produced in the 60’s. It had that unique brown and orange and yellow tint that photos get over time that Simon loved so much. In the photo was a blurred background, possibly of the valley but it was hard to tell. In the foreground was Mrs Rowling. She was wearing a skirt down to her knees and a neat blouse. They were very basic clothes and spoke nothing of the 60’s era this photo had been taken in, however it was the woman that stole the limelight. She was gorgeous, a spitting image of the daughter she bore into this world. She had long dark hair, wide eyes which invited you in and a mouth outlined with full rounded lips. An ample bosom led down to a tight waist but not too tight, there was some meat under there. Her legs were athletic but still womanly. Simon couldn’t believe that Mr Rowling had not only caught such a
beauty in his net but that he didn’t even love her. How could something like that even happen. He had seen, was even sure he was one of them at times, men batting way above their average, but what Mr Rowling was doing was hither to unknown of unless you were a fat millionaire or a rich 90 year old oil baron.

  ‘You were a lucky man, Mr Rowling.’

  The photo was laid flat again, hidden from sight, a look of concern on the old man’s face.

  ‘What dya mean, Simon, lucky? ’

  ‘Well she was a good looking woman, Mr Rowling.’

  Mr Rowling flipped the photo back over and looked long and hard at it.

  ‘I was lumbered with that so called looker for nigh on 19 terrible years. That fat old lump trapped me 8 month into our shit begotten relationship by falling pregnant with Barbara leaving me no choice but to marry it. Christ, I pleaded with her father, my father as well. I would have done anything to be rid of it. I was willing to pay the Rag and Bone Man the money to set to her womb with a pointy metal strand but that fell on deaf ears. Our folks were having none of it and before I knew it my hog was tied I was married and living with that wretch.’

  ‘I don’t mean to sound disrespectful here, Mr Rowling, but are you totally mental.’

  ‘Hey?’

  ‘Your wife, ex-wife, whatever, she was gorgeous. Like insanely beautiful. Surely you are joking right. That’s it isn’t it, this is another weird joke that us southerners don’t get?’

  ‘No, Simon. This is no joke. What I married wasn’t gorgeous. She were a pig in a dress. Not like the other beauties that we have around here. And much like a pig she wouldn’t leave me be for a moments rest. Hung around me like a ghost she would. Christ, I couldn’t get a moments rest from it. She were a wrongn, Simon, in both looks and character, if yaknow what I mean?’

  ‘No I don’t see, Mr Rowling. Really I don’t. I wish I could, because what you are suggesting is that quite possibly the most beautiful thing on this planet loved you and wanted to be with you, had a child with you, which I have to add is just as good looking, but I can’t, so you are going to have to explain. From what I have seen of the women around her your wife was a rose in a field of rat shit. So please, do explain.’

  Simon saw a little grimace when he mentioned his daughter and that grimace turned to a frown when he spoke of the other women of Rottenhouse, like he had scratched at a scab and made it bleed a little.

  ‘Alright, Simon, calm down there lad. Just being honest withya that’s all. Let me explain what I mean then. Yasee she were sex mad, Simon. Couldn’t get enough of it. Now I aint no prude when it comes to matters of the bedroom but I couldn’t believe some of the stuff she would do. Weren’t right were it. Weren’t natural.’

  ‘Like what?’ Simon asked

  ‘Like dressing up as a school girl trying to look all innocent and telling me she is a virgin and wants to be punished; like I would want to have sex with a school girl, Simon, I aint no nonce. She would dress up like a nurse sometimes, her breasts all pushed up in a tight corset thing and her legs covered in those God awful French stockings. There were times she would almost force herself upon me when I were asleep or working in quarry. She would put make-up on or pretend she were one of those dirty bitch strippers. A couple of times, usually after a couple of drinks, Mrs Rowling would wait till I were asleep, yaknow, that deep sleep a skin full of ale puts you in, and then tie me hands to the headboard. She would wake me up then, either by kissing me or sitting herself upon my face; jy-rating her womanly bits against my mouth. One time, she even put things inside of her, Simon. Not just her finger, which I know happens, no, she would use my fingers to make satisfaction complete or she once put a cucumber up there. I were going to have that with me sarnies the next day. Couldn’t look at the bloody thing after that. One time, even the shaft of my favourite hammer were plunged into her wet hole. She would have sex with them all, Simon. God it were disgusting. I even had to throw away that hammer and buy new one from store in next town. Couldn’t use it, though she wanted me to mind you. Told me it would remind me of her and that if I wanted to I could taste her whenever I wanted.

  ‘She once tried to take my feller in her mouth one Tuesday morning over there by sink. I had to push her away it were so un-natural. She wouldn’t stop. Thought it were a game and tried again. Geroff I would yell, Geroff ya dirty sow but even then that wouldn’t stop her so I had to hit her. Punched her square on side of head and she went down like a sack a spuds. Now I don’t condone such behaviour, Simon, and I won’t tolerate it if it isn’t warranted, but sometimes it’s necessary when things are getting out of control.

  ‘I can see by yer face that you can’t believe what I am saying, Simon, that a woman could do such things and not be deemed a witch or some such things. But I tellya, it were so. And there be more too, that aint it, not by a long chalk. Sometimes, Simon, she wouldn’t wear any underwear and go out and about with me into town or up valley. I tried to get her to put some on but it were no good. She said she wanted to please me, make me happy and all this other sick twisted crap so she could get her hands on the chap down in my pants. I can see her now, she would sit opposite me on bus or in club or in town square and flash her lady parts at me. Licking her fingers and putting them up there. Now I don’t mind fresh meat Simon, but I don’t like looking at a winking clam on a Thursday afternoon whilst I try and enjoy the view of the moors. And that’s another thing, Simon, she shaved it so it were smooth like a babies backside. She told me that she did it for me, so it looked young and sweet and innocent. I didn’t like that, Simon, not one little bit.’

  The old man sighed, a great intake and release of air like a hot air balloon readying to soar high into the sky. Mr Rowling then said, ‘I tell yaSimon, she wouldn’t leave it alone and to be honest, though it does pain me her being the mother of my daughter, but I were a little happy when she was taken from me such were the relief from her dirty ways.’

  He took a sip of water then. There was a visible relief in him and his shoulders were held a little higher now that that weight had been removed.

  Simon knew, like he knew that he wasn’t going to be leaving here tomorrow and that he was apt to stay for the rest of the week and make a go of this place, that Mr Rowling had never before spoken of his wife in that way. He had never told anyone, not even the Chairman or whoever his closest chum was in this place, of those things. He supposed, but in an awful and all-consuming comical way, that he should feel honoured to be the one Mr Rowling chose for such a great and honest debriefing of all things concerning his ex-wife and what she wanted to do to him.

  11

  ‘Yaseem to have nowt to say, Simon. You’ve been sat there as silent as the grave for 5 minutes.’

  Simon covered his mouth as he tried to talk but coughed instead. With a struggle he managed to speak. ‘I don’t really know what to say. You’ve told me things that, in all honesty Mr Rowling, most men would give their left nut for. Stuff that your wife wanted to do to you is what dreams are made of, for the most part anyway. Plus, it’s just weird, right? You and me having this conversation. What is it that you want from me?’

  Mr Rowling rubbed the back of his neck; agitated. He wasn’t used to this.

  ‘We are going to be family,’ Mr Rowling said finally, ‘you and me and her upstairs. I suppose that I thought it best to warnya of what could be. Yaknow, Simon, they say like father like son, but in our cases it could be like mother like daughter. I wouldn’t wish what I went through on any man.’

  Confused and somewhat dismayed Simon used his fingers against his closed eyes to try and rub that frustration out of him. But it was doing no good.

  ‘Ahhhhh, Christ,’ Simon said as he dragged his hands down his face stretching his eyelids and cheeks. ‘I appreciate the warning, or whatever it was supposed to be, Mr Rowling, and as much as it makes me want to tear out my own guts in embarrassment I can only say that if Lucy offered a slither of what you were put through I would die a happy man.’ Simon flung his han
ds into the air, ‘There I said it. By all that’s wrong in this world I am telling the father of the woman I want to marry that I wouldn’t mind if she dressed up like a school girl and wanted me to spank her let alone want to suck me off on a Tuesday morning or whatever. Mr Rowling, really, are you really telling me that you think this woman,’ Simon pointed to the stunning female in the vintage photo with a finger that stabbed the air, ‘that this Goddess that you thought was ugly not only was besotted with you but offered you things of the carnal variety that are like the sodding Holy Grail of sexy time. Is that what you are telling me? Because if it is I may as well drown myself in that stream out there.’

  Mr Rowling picked at his ear, plucking an errant hair and flicking onto the floor. Shaking his head he said, ‘Not one for all this Simon. You can probably tell that and maybe I went too far with what I went through with Mrs Rowling, but it needed to be said, if yaknow what I mean.’

  The old man looked at Simon then and that usual blank expression was gone. Instead it was replaced with one that Simon had never thought possible. It was the same look of love and sorrow and care and comfort that his mother had given him when he had told her about the way in which the man she loved and married and took to bed and treated like a king had abused him sexually, as well as physically.

  ‘I know it weren’t the way you wanted it, but nonetheless, you have my permission to marry my Barbara. If you still want her, despite the looks.’

  ‘Despite the looks.’

  ‘Aye, Simon. Yaknow, she’s like her mother int she; nowt going for her apart from the cooking that is. Now you is a good looking feller. Shiny Bait my father would have said. Yadon’t have to settle for the burnt and bony bit a meat. Not that I am that way inclined, Simon, I aint no poof-ter like that beshitted cock sucker down in Heather Cove.’