by Gary Fry
8
The sale had gone through in a week, fast-tracked at considerable expense by Gayle’s new lover, Justin. The man had decided to put tenants in Mark’s previous home, having switched its mortgage to a buy-to-let arrangement. He’d handed most of this tenancy management responsibilities to Addisons. Given the awkward situation, he was obviously trying to be as decent as possible. And when, a few days after they’d moved into the Nester Street property, Mark and Nina received an invitation through the post to a housewarming party, Mark realized he must put aside his misgivings like the toys of childhood and get on with his own life.
He was even feeling comical as he and Nina talked over the prospect of attending the party.
“I think I’ll invite my mother,” he said, as his girlfriend smiled her usual smile. “I’m sure she’s got plenty to discuss with my ex. They haven’t seen each other since…well, since Gayle did what she did with Justin the Property Tycoon.”
“I’m glad to see you’re cooler about it all now,” Nina replied, her smile broadening. “You’ve been quite sullen since you heard about their move.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry about that, darling. I guess it just took a while for the news to sink in. I’m okay, though.”
“But will I be? I’ve only ever spoken to your ex-wife on the phone. I’m a bit nervous about meeting her.”
“You’ll be fine. I mean, she hardly has a right to bear a grudge, has she? You and I didn’t meet until after Gayle and Justin had got together.”
Nina nodded, looking a little uncertain, but then smiled again. “Well, I’m afraid you’re going to have to take me shopping. I need a new frock.”
He laughed. “Frock? What kind of Olde English is that?”
And then she laughed, too. All was well in their lives, with no hint of anything to compromise this happy truth.
On the day of the party, while his girlfriend dressed and put on makeup, Mark phoned his mother and asked what time she’d be ready. The plan was to pick her up on the way over to Nester Street. Mark would drive there and back; he’d never bothered much with booze, and despite feeling as if he was suppressing more troubling thoughts than were good for him, he wouldn’t lapse now. He was determined to remain focused this evening, and that included not entertaining such stupid notions as a haunting.
Nina and Mark’s mom had met many times and always got along well. Once the older woman had climbed into the back of the car—having taken a while to descend her bungalow’s drive, because of one damaged hip—she leaned between the two front seats and kissed them both on the cheeks.
“You look delightful, dear,” she said to Mark’s girlfriend. “Beside Gayle, you’re like an exotic villa in Spain compared to a council semi in this godforsaken town.”
“I’m not sure Nina wants to hear such things,” Mark replied in a stilted manner. He was feeling a bit cooped up in his shirt and tie, having worn another similar outfit all day at the office.
“You’ll be surprised how receptive I am to compliments,” his girlfriend added, and that set off his mother in the rear.
“Doesn’t he pay you enough, sweetheart? His…father was the same, alas.”
As Mark found his gear, the car went silent, as if the reality of where they were headed had just hit home. But everything would be fine. After all, Gayle’s mother and father wouldn’t be there to cause friction among Lewis’s grandparents, would they?
But Mark erased this thought and drove on, not letting up on the accelerator until he’d reached their destination.
He hadn’t returned since his valuation for Eric Johnson. He’d spoken once more to the vendor since the sale was completed and they’d agreed that their hotel chat had been fuelled by stress. The man’s wife and son simply needed a rest, away from the place in which they’d experienced whatever familial strife had invaded their respective psychologies.
And now up ahead was their former property. Mark felt his stomach perform a death-defying circus act.
The eaves seemed to have too much shadow packed into them. The windows, curtained and aglow with spectral light, did little to illuminate its darkened façade. The property appeared more sinister than ever…but surely Mark was simply projecting such impressions onto the building, ascribing his queasy feelings to its aloof comportment. He was anxious about the forthcoming party; this was the first time all the people in two newly created families had come together.
After climbing out of his car and drawing a deep breath, he escorted the two women up the house’s driveway. Several other vehicles were parked ahead of his own, each presumably belonging to Justin’s well-to-do friends. Here were a Mercedes, a BMW, and even a stately Bentley.
“Flash bastard,” Mark muttered under his breath, and his mother overheard.
“As I said, just like his dad,” she told Nina, who laughed briefly as Mark gripped her hand tighter.
“Don’t worry, dear,” his girlfriend said, even though it was surely him who ought to reassure her. “If things get a little, shall we say, pompous in there, me ’n ye mam’ll bring ’em darn t’ earth. Bit o’ wo’king class grit in their eyes, eh, Maureen?”
“Aye, lass,” replied Mark’s mother, jamming to Nina’s riff, despite clearly experiencing pain from her damaged hip. Rubbing the bone, she added in a similarly bogus commoner’s accent, “An’ if that dun’t work, I’ll call on some o’ me old rough’ouse friends to smash t’ place up.”
“Nina…mother…this is Lewis’s new home you’re proposing to wreck.”
He’d meant the comment only half-seriously, despite feeling apprehensive after knocking at the door. On their way up the drive, he’d deliberately avoided glancing at the upstairs window in which he’d seen…well, he simply hadn’t looked at it. Instead, he’d examined the gardens and noticed that work had already been done there. The lawn appeared less shell-shocked, the borders clearer of debris. Either Justin had green fingers or, more likely, paid someone who did this for a living. What a difference plenty of money must make to all the tensions involved in a long-term relationship…
But Mark suppressed these thoughts, preparing to respond to sudden activity ahead. His son had just opened the door and was grinning as broadly as Mark had ever seen him.
“Hiya, Daddy! Hiya, Nina! Hiya, Grandma!” When he spoke again, however, he sounded a little less excited. “This is my…new home.”
Perhaps Lewis was sensitive enough to realize that Mark would be upset about this. The boy seemed the only one here who was. Neither of his companions appeared mindful of the fact, their smiling expressions avoiding Mark’s needy gaze. But he realized this was unfair. Despite her acerbic wit, his mother had never been the kind of person who could talk easily about personal matters. And his girlfriend was simply nervous about the party, wasn’t she?
When Mark stooped to hug Lewis, he struggled to prevent moisture from stinging his eyes. “Hello, mate! Are you going to show me…I mean, show us around?”
From farther inside the property, Gayle stepped into the hallway, and although their son had already moved halfway towards those canted stairs, tugging his daddy by the hand as if he wanted to speak to him alone, the new lady of the house stopped them with a typically hectoring call.
“Hello! I’m so glad you could make it!” She sounded genuine—again, a marked improvement over her former sullen self. Then she looked at the two other women. “Hello, Maureen: long time, no see. And this…this must be Nina.”
Mark only had a chance to whisper to the boy, “Later, champ,” before he was pressed into action by courtesy, however much this made him feel uncomfortable. He quickly retook his girlfriend’s hand. “Gayle, this is Nina. Nina, meet Gayle.”
The two women shook, the younger’s slender fingers engulfed by the pregnant one’s larger hand. There was perceptible ice in the exchange, captured by a snort from Mark’s mom that she soon turned into words.
“Hello, Gayle. And where’s your new fella? Greasing palms elsewhere, is he?”
; Gayle didn’t respond. She simply straightened up by raising her shoulders (her belly looked enormous, much bigger than the last time Mark had seen her), and then said, “Justin’s in the lounge. Please come and join us. I’ll introduce you to our other guests. You come, too, Lewis. You can show your daddy your bedroom later.”
Then the four of them followed Gayle, like spectres at a feast. Mark reflected that, collectively, they represented complex familial relations, as canted as the steps they now passed. But were these circumstances unusual? Entering the lounge, Mark recalled a statistic he’d read in a magazine claiming that these days about forty percent of people were involved in some kind of step-situation, and that the traditional family was half-dead…But “dead” was not a word he wished to dwell upon right now. He had enough to tackle with what would follow.
In the event, however, this didn’t prove too challenging. Despite understandable embarrassment, Justin turned out to be charming and friendly. Even Mark’s mother warmed to him as the evening drew on. The man was clearly dedicated to his work and obviously loved Gayle. Lewis seemed to get along with him as well, and although Mark didn’t like the way the man sometimes touched the boy (it was nothing lewd, just the act of contact), Mark soon entered into the spirit of the party. On the one occasion his ex-wife’s new lover spoke to him alone, Mark found their exchange effortless, despite its emotive subject.
“Thanks for all your help with the move,” Justin said after approaching Mark in one lounge corner. “It’s appreciated.”
“I’ll still be charging our usual fees.”
“And I’ll be paying them—promptly. Tell me, do we have any people interested in renting the…other place yet?”
“None so soon.” But now Mark had found himself thawing. What the hell, he thought; it was pointless prolonging any frostiness. He didn’t even feel particularly negative. “To be honest, it usually takes a few weeks to find suitable tenants.”
“Cool. Just tip me the wink when you have somebody in line.”
“Will do.”
Justin’s friends—intelligent Mr. and Mrs. Mercedes, lugubrious Mr. BMW, and affable Mr. and Mrs. Bentley among them (despite his profession, Mark had never been good at remembering names)—turned out to be levelheaded, down-to-earth types who worked respectively in accountancy, the insurance game, and local government. They all probably owned houses in the same price bracket as this one, but even so, when asked where he lived, Mark held Nina’s hand and told the truth about the flat. His mom also took this opportunity to talk about her own home, which her late husband had worked “bloody hard to pay for.” By this stage she’d already downed a number of neat sherries, and Mark was only half-annoyed.
The only guests Mark remained uncertain about were two younger men who worked at their host’s restaurant: the chef and the manager, he’d been told earlier. These guys were, as the saying went, full of themselves, and had clearly turned up to demolish a huge smoked salmon and many other expensive delights that Gayle had, at nine o’clock, announced were available in the kitchen.
Mark knew the way, and after leading his girlfriend into this plush room, he hoped he hadn’t seen a look of materialistic neediness appear on her face in response to such surface style. His ex-wife had worn such an expression too often, and he knew what it denoted: living beyond one’s means. But Mark understood Nina better than that. She was about as shallow as some of the finer books she must deal with at the town center library.
Once almost everybody had returned to the lounge to digest food over drinks and friendly banter, Lewis said he was tired and wanted his “daddy” to take him to bed. He’d been a bit quiet all evening, possibly because there were so many people inside a home he was still adjusting to. Mark now also felt anxious—not just on his son’s behalf, but because he’d been asked to go upstairs again. But he knew he was being foolish, and after glancing at his girlfriend’s and mother’s empty glasses, he told his son, “You go up, champ. I’ll follow once I’ve got Nina and your grandma a top-up.”
“I thought top-ups were for mobile phones,” the boy replied with a brittle tone, and everyone in the room laughed. But once this inebriated merriment died down, Lewis added, “Like the one you bought me.”
Surely Mark had imagined the look of disapproval the boy had cast Justin’s way, along with the emphasis placed on the word he’d used to refer to his daddy. Indeed, neither the restaurateur nor Gayle responded other than by encouraging the boy to hurry upstairs (up those canted steps, Mark thought with inexplicable fearfulness) and get into his pajamas before his daddy arrived.
Sobriety played havoc with Mark’s mind, because now he wondered why anyone should be concerned if he saw his son undressed. And then he thought: I wonder how often Justin sees the boy without clothes on…
Such foolish enquiry could be ascribed to being surrounded by many drunken people. The house was filled with a tipsy playfulness he was unable to share and he was simply off the pace in the conversation.
After Lewis had kissed a few selected individuals (including Nina) and then ascended to the property’s landing, Mark rose from his seat.
“Another Gee ’n’ Tee?” he asked his girlfriend, before feigning a teasing smile and turning to his mother. “And surely not another sherry for you?”
“Life in the old girl yet!” his mom replied, which also placed a ridiculous image in Mark’s uppity mind. But instead of dwelling on this, he headed for the exit and towards the kitchen. And he’d just paced through its doorway when he heard his ex-wife call out behind.
“Mark, I think the bottle of sherry Maureen began earlier this evening is now empty. I believe there’s another at the head of the cellar.”
He could only imagine how his mother would respond to this catty remark and was glad he wouldn’t get caught in the crossfire. If the older woman was using alcohol as a painkiller for her damaged hip, he could hardly expect Gayle to sympathize…But his ex-wife’s comment had troubled him in another way: during his first visit to this house, he hadn’t noticed any entrance to a cellar.
Of course he was only an estate agent, and not a surveyor; he’d often overlooked minor aspects of the homes he’d marketed. But then, after entering the kitchen, he spotted another door at the back of the room, this one surely leading down to a storage area beneath the house.
He went to the door and noticed it stood ajar. Then he tugged it open and entered the cold space at the head of a stone staircase no less crooked than the one his son had asked him to ascend later. God, were all the steps in this place awry? But this was none of his business, and he was about to reach for a bottle among many others when he heard a noise from the room underground.
It sounded like someone dragging what little was left of their feet across a hard floor; it was a dry, nasally noise, repeated slowly three times. Mark imagined what he had in the lounge earlier when his mother had said, “Life in the old girl yet!”—the corpse of a woman standing at the foot of a bed before shambling away, her rickety joints hardly stable enough to support such motion…
But it wasn’t long before he realized what the sounds were, because two people had now begun speaking down there. Justin’s chef and his restaurant manager had surely just snorted a line each of what must be cocaine and were talking about their boss in decidedly unflattering terms. Despite his unsettling misperception and the fact that the louts had brought drugs into his son’s new home, Mark was gratified to hear their comments.
“He’s a lucky cunt, i’nt he? Do you know how much he paid for this pad? Peanuts, man! Peanuts.”
“Yeah, I heard about that. How come it’s them who’ve got plenty who always get lucky?”
But then the men’s discussion grew too close to Mark’s fears.
“And why the fuck’s he saddled himself with a family when he has all that jailbait working for him?”
“That new un—Alice—works the tables like I want her to work on my big end. Whenever we pass in the corridor, I try rubbing myself against h
er.”
“Exactly. Play the field. Love ’em ’n’ leave ’em. You wouldn’t catch me bringing up someone else’s kid.”
“Yeah, he must be a paedo’ or summat.”
As the vile pair began giggling, Mark fled.
He poured the drinks, distributed them (without looking even once at the new man of the house), and was halfway up those canted steps before considering all the suspicions that, he now realized, had been mounting in his mind all evening.
No, he thought. Not true. Lewis had been quiet tonight for another reason, and not that one.
Indeed, Mark was about to discover the truth. After reaching the landing, he crossed to the room that, during his valuation weeks earlier, he’d assigned to the absent Johnson child, despite its asexual décor.
His son was in bed, dressed in Action Man pajamas that matched his duvet cover. Mark had bought him the set for Christmas last year, as well as the giant picture of Superman he had pinned above his headboard. The room looked more lived in than it had during Mark’s previous visit; there was no large red stain on any of the walls, either.
Mark stepped inside and closed the door behind him. Lewis had switched on a bedside lamp that cast a yellowish sheen around the room, prompting shadows to dance in gaps between furniture. Mark stooped to the boy’s side and after kneeling on what must be a new carpet (Gayle would have left little untransformed, with scant regard for cost), he leaned forward and said, “Hiya, big guy. Are you…okay?”
Lewis nodded, as if ashamed of what he wanted to tell his daddy. This hardly reassured Mark, but he’d lately grown wise enough not to jump to rash conclusions. He said nothing, merely waited for his son to reply. And all too soon he did.
“I’ve been having some bad dreams, Daddy.”
Mark’s mind was pitched back to the hotel outside Hantley, to all he’d been told by Eric Johnson, the previous owner of what Mark had bizarrely begun to think of as The House of Canted Steps. But he kept his voice calm as he asked, “You mean, nightmares?”
