Snake in the Grass

by Dominic Luke

  Switching off the TV, Dean slipped out into the hallway, but then disaster struck. He was nowhere near the stairs when his mother popped her head round the kitchen door.

  ‘Oh, Dean, just answer the door, would you?’

  ‘Mum! I’m busy!’

  ‘For goodness’ sake, Dean! It won’t take a moment. It’ll only be Imelda Darkley, come to have a word.’

  Her head withdrew, giving him no time to argue. He shuffled towards the door. Having to open it – even if Lady Darkley was on the other side – was definitely the lesser of two evils. The alternative was to risk one of his mother’s moods: the sighs, the shaking of the head, the glances of disillusion and despair: it was more than he could bear. Why couldn’t she just lose her temper and yell, like any normal parent?

  He opened the door. Lady Darkley swooped in without waiting to be asked. She thrust her umbrella at him as she passed.

  ‘Dreadful weather! Absolutely filthy! Put this somewhere for me, would you? I’ve come to see your mother. Let her know I’m here.’

  Dean muttered, ‘If you’d like to wait in the …’ but she swept past him and sailed into the front room, her coat tails flying. Her head was wrapped in a paisley scarf.

  He stuffed the umbrella up a corner, conscious that she’d taken no more notice of him than if he’d been a slave, but on the whole he thought he’d got off lightly. He prepared once more to retreat to his room.

  Once more he was thwarted. His mother emerged from the kitchen, straightening her skirt, patting her hair, a flustered look on her face.

  ‘Dean. There’s a tray with tea and biscuits. Will you bring it through to the living room?’

  ‘Do I have to?’

  ‘Yes please.’

  ‘I’m not … not a slave!’

  ‘I know, dear. I don’t need a slave. I’ve got you.’

  Ha-bloody-ha. Did she think she was funny or something? He went through to the kitchen, grumbling to himself, feeling hard done by; but he also made a note not to use in future the phrase do I have to? That sort of thing – whining and moaning – was all very well when you were a kid, but he was eighteen now and it was beneath his dignity.

  The cups rattled in their saucers as he carried the tray across the hallway. It was the best china, he noticed. Why was his mother using the best china? In honour of Lady Darkley? It was about time his mother realized that she was living in the modern world – the twenty-first century. All this bowing and scraping was an anachronism. There was no need to treat Lady Darkley differently just because she was a lady. It was nonsense, in this day and age. The French had the right idea: they’d chopped the heads off all their lords and ladies, leaving no one to bow and scrape to, no one to treat you like a slave. They probably used their best china all the time in France.

  He kicked open the front room door, flinched at the sight of Lady Darkley ensconced in Basil’s easy chair, tried to blot out all thoughts of guillotines and the like, hoped that she couldn’t read his mind (he wouldn’t put it past her, the old witch). He had to kneel so that he could slide the tray onto the low table.

  Lady Darkley was in full flow. ‘… and so I’ve made it absolutely clear to Smithson: we’ve accepted his resignation this time and there’s no going back. He retires in May and there’s an end to it. Not a moment too soon, if you ask me. Man’s going senile.’

  In the hair’s-breadth pause which occurred here, Mrs Collier said quickly (but firmly), ‘Will you pour, please, Dean.’

  ‘Do I have—’ Dean gulped back the words, remembering his dignity just in time.

  ‘No sugar, plenty of milk,’ Lady Darkley barked in an aside before launching on another monologue. ‘What happens, Gwen, is this. We co-opt you, put a notice to that effect in the parish magazine, and then it’s all done and dusted. There’s only one meeting a month – I won’t tolerate any more that that – so it won’t take up much of your time. But I do think it’s important to have the right people for the job. When I came to consider the alternatives – such as they are – I realized that we can’t possibly do without you.’

  Dean poured tea, surly, feeling demeaned. It was a mercy Ash was not around with his phone/camera. This was far more degrading than being caught in his Morris kit. Pouring tea! From a teapot! Into cups and saucers! ON HIS KNEES!

  He ground his teeth, wishing he had some arsenic at hand with which to lace Lady Darkley’s sugarless, milky tea.

  As he passed Lady Darkley her tea, he stole a glance at her, looming over him like an Amazon. Except he’d always imagined Amazons to be beautiful, whereas Lady Darkley looked like a cross between a walnut and a horse: a long, tanned, wrinkled face, great sturdy legs, big feet. She was not looking at him, which was something of a relief, but she didn’t say thank you either as she accepted her tea. Perhaps such a word did not exist in her plummy dialect. Or were slaves undeserving of such notice?

  He handed a cup and saucer to his mother, realizing by the look on her face that she was not sold on this idea of the parish council. Why didn’t she say so? Why act like a doormat?

  He shuffled backwards on his knees, made ready to stand up, but at that moment Lady Darkley’s eyes swept over him briefly before returning to fix his mother with a terrifying penetrative stare. One glance was enough. Dean found he dared not move again, in case he attracted her attention. And that was not all. A new and insidious fear gripped him: what if she really could read his mind?

  The idea was irrational. Idiotic. Human beings did not have the ability to read minds. It was scientifically impossible.

  But what if it was possible? What if it was a secret known only to a select few, kept hidden from science – kept hidden from him?

  You’re being a moron, he told himself: there are no secret mind-readers, just as there are no panthers roaming the countryside.

  He couldn’t quite convince himself. There was a million-to-one chance that mind-readers did exist – and it would be just his luck if Lady Darkley was one of them. What if she could see right through him? His blood ran cold, thinking of all the things she would see: guillotines, arsenic, walnuts, horses, sex, sex, sex—

  Oh shit! Why did he have to think about sex at a time like this? As if Lady Darkley wasn’t enough to put you off for life!

  Except that nothing put you off, not if your name was Dean Morley and you were burdened with a runaway libido – even more of a slave to it than you were to Lady Darkley. It was all down to his genes. They were tyrants. He could almost hear them at times. ‘Now look, sunshine: we only built this body of yours so that we could replicate ourselves. When are you going to get on with it? Because if you don’t…. Well, let’s just say we have our ways and means. We can ensure that your instincts drive you round the bend, don’t think we can’t.’

  Agh! This was worse than a nightmare! He was trapped here on his knees with his brain going into meltdown, and there was nothing he could do about it! Or was there? Perhaps if he listened in to the conversation, it might anaesthetize the worst of the pain. After all, that was the effect his mother’s conversations usually had on him.

  Lady Darkley had been going on and on non-stop for about an hour, raising her cup towards her mouth, lowering it, never letting it actually touch her lips. Finally his mother got a word in edgeways (no mean feat). She was asking about the village hall, seemed to want to book a slot for some reason – some exhibition or other.

  Lady Darkley’s cup hovered near her lips. ‘Hmm … I’m not sure. Is it really the sort of thing we want to encourage in the village? And Easter is our busiest time.’

  ‘I was rather worried about that. But you see, if I could just get it settled – get somewhere booked – I would then have more time for other things … the parish council, for instance.’

  ‘There is that, I suppose.’

  ‘And we were hoping … I mean, naturally we thought … if you would do us the honour … a small opening ceremony…?’

  Dean looked at his mother in some wonder. Had he actually just
witnessed her being devious? Had she really just bribed the old battleaxe with the offer of opening the exhibition whilst simultaneously dangling a carrot in the form of the parish council? That was clever. Too clever. It couldn’t possibly be intentional. It must be serendipity.

  The alternative – that she was actually capable of manipulating people like that – was rather too worrying to contemplate.

  ‘Well, of course, I would be quite willing to play any little part that was required, as it were.’ Lady Darkley put her cup and saucer on the table. Peering into it, Dean was astonished to find the cup was empty. How on earth…?

  ‘We would only require a week at most. The exhibition would not go on beyond that.’

  ‘I see.’ Lady Darkley selected a biscuit, bit into it with implausibly white teeth (fangs), and chewed thoughtfully. ‘Now that I think of it, I may be able to fit you in after all. There is a sixtieth birthday booked for Easter Saturday – the Morrells – but I will tell them to rearrange….’

  ‘Perhaps you yourself would like to contribute to the show, Imelda?’

  ‘Well, let me see. There is a Stubbs you could borrow.’

  ‘Oh, no, you misunderstand: it has to be your own work.’

  ‘My dear woman, I hope you’re not under the impression that I’m in any way artistic. I don’t go in for that sort of thing, goodness me, no! One needs to be soft in the head to be an artist.’ She selected another biscuit, forged on. ‘I trust that this exhibition is not going to be modern art, Gwen. I can’t be doing with all that rubbish – pickled sharks and so on. Modern it may be, but art it is not. In my book, pickling is something you do in the kitchen, not for display in a gallery. Why they wasted all that money on the Tate Modern is beyond me. Tate tripe would be nearer the mark.’

  Dean’s knees were killing him. He would be crippled for life, he could just see it. At the very least he’d get housemaid’s knee. (What were the symptoms of housemaids’ knee? He must look it up on the internet.) He was just plucking up courage to move – to ease his aching knees – when, without warning, Lady Darkley’s eyes swivelled round to fix him with her piercing stare. Dean cowered. Being looked at by Lady Darkley was akin to being physically assaulted. There ought to have been a law against it.

  He would never recover from this ordeal. He would need therapy.

  ‘I believe,’ said Lady Darkley thoughtfully (he knew she was still looking at him, even though he had his eyes firmly fixed on the carpet), ‘that your son attends the college in town?’

  ‘Yes, he does, he’s—’

  ‘My silly granddaughter has got it into her head that she wants to go there, too. Don’t ask me why. I gave up trying to understand her long ago.’

  ‘Teenagers can be—’

  ‘I can’t see what’s wrong with the school she attends at the moment. It costs enough. But this college, now: is it quite comme il faut, as it were?’

  ‘It’s a very good college, from what one hears. Dean is doing very—’

  ‘Yes, yes. But it was always my impression that such places were for children whose parents could not afford anything better.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think … at least, I’m sure….’

  Dean stole a glance at his mother, wondering how she liked being lumped in with parents who could not afford any better. She looked demure – humble almost – sitting there with her hands folded in her lap like some old granny.

  His eyes darted recklessly across the room to Lady Darkley. Was she going to say any more about her granddaughter? But for the moment she was quiescent, like a sleeping dragon. Her keen gaze had receded; she looked thoughtful.

  He took the opportunity to shift his position so that his weight was not falling so directly on his knee caps. At a pinch he felt he could have crawled out of the room (like a worm), but, on balance, he decided to hang around, just in case Cally cropped up in conversation again.

  He was in luck. Lady Darkley stirred, spoke in a distracted way, almost as if talking to herself. ‘I shall have to keep a close eye on that gal. I don’t want her going down the same road as her mother. She was impossible. Always smoking dope. She was a dope, in fact. There was something not quite right. But that’s the way it is. One gets these anomalies, even in families with the most impeccable pedigrees. I suppose you know, Gwen, that my daughter ran away to Italy with some feckless hippy. They lived in a campervan. Cally was born there: in a campervan, in Italy, if you can believe it. In Calabria, to be exact. That’s how she got her name. Calabria! Typical hippy name. They weren’t married, of course.’ Lady Darkley snorted with contempt.

  Calabria, thought Dean. Her name is Calabria.

  ‘Of course, as soon as I heard about the child I went straight out there, I flew to Italy. I told my daughter in no uncertain terms that she was free to waste her own life – I’d washed my hands of her by then – but that no grandchild of mine was going to be brought up in a campervan by a man with dreadlocks. “You’re not fit to be that gal’s mother,” I told her. “I’m taking her with me.” And I did.’

  ‘Oh. I see.’

  ‘She’s illegitimate, of course, but that can’t be helped. We all have our crosses to bear.’

  Illegitimate, thought Dean reverently. Born in a campervan, in Italy. It couldn’t get any better, any further from the boring norm. Why had he never heard about it before? How come he’d never known? No wonder Cally was so fascinating!

  ‘I’m afraid, Gwen, that one simply can’t let one’s feelings get in the way,’ said Lady Darkley. ‘One has to be firm with one’s children – and one has to learn when to cut one’s losses.’ Dean could not be sure, but he thought she might have glanced at him as she said this. ‘I do hope,’ she added, menacingly, ‘that there are no hippies at this so-called college?’

  ‘Oh, no, Imelda … I mean, I don’t … I’m sure….’

  ‘Anyway, Gwen, I can’t stay chatting.’ Lady Darkley got to her feet, knotting her scarf, retrieving her handbag. ‘I have to call in on the vicar. He does rather rely on my vetting his Sunday sermon. Now. My umbrella … my umbrella.’ She patted her pockets as if her umbrella might have fallen in one of them unnoticed, then swung round to face Dean, clicking her fingers. ‘You! My umbrella!’

  Dean scrambled, half-crawling, into the hall, scooped the umbrella out of its corner, and handed it over meekly with bowed head as Lady Darkley swept past and out into the squally afternoon.

  Gwen shut the front door. ‘Well,’ she said, letting out a breath, ‘so that’s over. And now, Dean, if you’d just help me tidy up a bit.’

  ‘Do I have—’ Dean bit his tongue, remembering not to use such a childish phrase, and, resigned, followed his mother back into the front room.

  THIRTEEN

  LYDIA HURRIED DOWN the smooth, newly resurfaced street past the smart wooden bus shelter, late for the meeting. But so what? It was their own fault, the rest of the committee. Saturday afternoon was a ridiculous time for a meeting. Saturday afternoon was when she did her shopping. Waitrose was less crowded on a Saturday afternoon, she could whip round in a flash so that Prize would not get impatient waiting in the car, looking forward to his run round the Country Park—

  She tripped over a pot hole, nearly fell, managed to keep her balance (so much for the resurfaced roads). Coming to a halt, she found anger was bubbling up inside her. She wanted to scream. She couldn’t go into the pub in this state. She needed a moment to herself, to gather her thoughts.

  She went back to the bus shelter, sat down (might as well use it, no one else would). Why could she not get it into her thick head that Prize was dead? He was gone. Finished. Incinerated. Forget him. Stop harping on. Move forward.

  But it was not her slip over Prize that was making her angry. It was something else entirely.

  It was Richard.

  Deep breaths … count to ten … eight, nine, ten … and relax….

  She looked out from the bus shelter at the damp, grey day: a dead sort of day at the fag-end of January, not a brea
th of wind to liven it up. But the smell of new wood was delicious. It was a very well-built shelter, very sturdy – even if had been constructed at the expense of the poor, downtrodden townspeople. (Was that what Terry had said? Something along those lines. But best not to bring Terry into it. She had enough on her plate as it was.)

  She sighed. It was no good. However hard she tried to stay calm, her thoughts kept spiralling back to Richard. He’d turned up out of the blue earlier whilst she was unpacking her shopping. (Waitrose had been heaving, she hated shopping on Saturday morning, and all because of this bloody meeting. But what did it matter now how long it took to get the shopping done? It was not as if Prize would ever again be waiting in the car.) Richard had turned up. They were still using the excuse that Richard was coming to model for her and that the … other stuff … happened each time by accident. To be fair, it wasn’t entirely an excuse. Although she never actually got any painting done when Richard was around, St George was none the less slowly taking shape and Richard had a starring role. The picture had become something of an allegory on the struggle of youth to escape the tyranny of the old. St George – Richard – represented heroic youth turning the tables on the aged dragon. The dragon looked suspiciously like Lady Darkley, but that was purely coincidental (wasn’t it?).

  Today, for the first time, Richard had begun to irritate her, swanning in like he owned the place, expecting her to drop everything (including her knickers), when all she had really wanted was to finish putting her shopping away. (Had she really bought tins of dog food? Surely she wouldn’t have been so stupid.)

  They had got down to it – not the posing and the painting, the other stuff – and her irritation had prompted her to take more of the initiative. She was, after all, a femme fatale (ho, ho). He was supposed to be putty in her hands, not vice versa.