Suspicious Minds

by David Mark

  Candy begins to stand. All of her poise, her confidence, has left her. ‘Jude, please, I have to try … this is becoming too much … she deserves to know the truth …’

  Jude turns away from her. Looks at Betsy, eyes aflame. ‘Do you want to come home?’

  She doesn’t hesitate. Nods. Takes his hand in hers. She feels the stickiness of freshly-spilled blood, and rubs at it with her thumb, staining her own skin.

  ‘Jude, please …’

  Candy is starting to stand. A look from Jude puts her back in her seat. He swivels back to the bar. Freddy gives the slightest of nods.

  Tench is starting to get to his feet. Jude’s face twists in anger: an animal sighting a wounded foe. He takes a step towards him, bringing his boot back like a rugby player attempting a penalty.

  ‘Jude, don’t …’

  He turns back at the sound of Betsy’s voice. Gives a little nod of thanks, as if she’s saved him from himself. Then leads her back up the stairs and out into the light.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Evening comes and goes. Betsy says little. Jude tries to make her laugh. Tries to stroke her shoulders as she sits, static, at the kitchen table. She flinches as if touching cold metal. He offers a massage. Asks if she wants tea, or cake, or whether she would like a hot bath. Perhaps he could read to her. He writes a poem – dashing off a few lines about the way her mouth reminds him of ripe fruit; his longing to reach up to pluck her juicy lips from the vine. She gives a dead-eyed smile and returns to her position: a statue glaring at the same whorls in the old wooden table.

  He doesn’t lose his temper. Keeps himself busy, pottering about the house and the garden. Takes a bath. Shaves himself a goatee, the way she had suggested, off-the-cuff, a couple of weeks back. Changes into one of the stripey collarless shirts that she always seems to like peeling off him. She barely registers the change to his appearance. Doesn’t even look up as he takes down the saxophone from the hook on the wall and plays the solo from ‘Careless Whisper’ – something she has been begging him to do since that first night.

  Eventually, beaten, he takes himself to bed. Her bed. When she does not join him, he pads down the hall and returns to his own room, climbing under sheets that have grown cold these past weeks.

  A little after two a.m., she comes and sits on the foot of the bed. Watches him. He’s not breathing right. He’s not asleep. He’s just lying there in the dark. She can hear the din of his thoughts even over the racket of jumbled conversations playing in her own head. She’d feel sorry for him, if she were capable of feeling anything.

  ‘This is how it’s going to be, is it?’ she asks, in a voice she barely recognizes.

  He struggles upright, reaching out to click on the bedside lamp. It illuminates a room that still carries traces of Maeve. African batiks on the wall; little perfume bottles on the dresser; patterned sleeves dangling out of the coffin-sized ottoman at the foot of the bed. Her books are still piled up against one wall; academic tomes and biographies of people Betsy hasn’t heard of. She feels overcome with loathing for the woman who used to sleep here; who built this place; who used to curl up with Betsy’s man in this big brass bed; who climbed on to him and slipped under him and bent over in front of him as fancy took her. It makes her want to set fire to the bed. Makes her want to burn the whole place to the ground and piss on the ashes. She is not Betsy, now. Not Liz. She is the teenager that got taken away because her mum used to beat the shit out of her and used her as a debit machine to pay off her creditors. Each time she let some nasty, sweaty man touch her in places she shouldn’t be touched, Mum owed a tenner less. Usually, the sex hurt less than the beating she would receive if she acted up. Usually. Not always.

  ‘Betsy, I know this must have been the most horrible day …’

  ‘I don’t want to hear it,’ she says, flatly. ‘No. You listen to me.’

  He seems to bristle a little, unused to being spoken to like this. She delights in the feeling. Seizes on it; a dog chewing on a heart. ‘Feeling pissed off, Mr Punch? Not like being talked to like that by your fairy-tale princess? Yeah, welcome to reality.’

  He looks like he wants to speak. Presses his lips together in case anything comes out that can’t be unsaid. She knows, now – knows for a fact that he’s been reading the how-to guides. He’s been on the BPD forums, just like Jay. Been trying to work out how best to manage the unmanageable; to get his half-mad, half-bitch girlfriend to toe the line and behave like a normal human being. She hates him, suddenly. Hates him completely. It is as if there are spiky tree branches pushing out through her ribs and through her skin; as though she is transforming into something that is all sharp edges and snarled roots.

  ‘Betsy, just look at me, sweetheart – I’ve been trying to talk and you won’t listen.’

  ‘Is that what you called her?’ she spits. ‘Maeve? Your sweetheart. Or what about all the others, eh?’

  ‘Betsy, listen to yourself,’ he says, moving towards her.

  She lashes out, cat-like. ‘Stay the fuck back. Mr Punch, isn’t it? Yeah, makes sense now. You knew what it meant and you didn’t tell me.’

  ‘I didn’t want to scare you …’ he begins. ‘We’ve talked about this …’

  He’s looking exasperated now. Looks close to rolling his eyes. She needs to push him that bit further – needs to get the reaction that will prove her right in despising him.

  ‘I’ve heard things,’ she says, and she is clenching her jaw so tightly that she barely moves her lips as she growls at him. Her eyes are hot pokers. He disgusts her, now, sitting there letting her talk to him like this. Why doesn’t he stand up for himself? Why doesn’t he tell her she’s a nasty bitch and boot her out the door?

  ‘Don’t go down this road, Betsy,’ he says, quietly. ‘I don’t deserve all this. You’re all I care about, I swear.’

  She shakes her head, appalled at his weakness. ‘Jay came to visit me,’ she says, with a flourish and nasty leer. ‘Today. Dropped off my stuff and delighted in telling me what a disgrace of a human being I was. Did it in front of Anya too, just so the one person who actually thinks I’m worth something gets to see the truth.’

  ‘Jay came here? Did he touch you? Hurt you?’

  ‘Oh yeah, that’s right, get all fucking alpha male on me. You can do that, can’t you, Mr Punch? You can hurt people, as if that’s something to be proud of. Well, he got to see as Brendon and his mates picked me up like I was a parcel and then dropped me off for my little sit-down with that grotesque little gargoyle who thinks the sun shines out of your arse. And oh yeah, she told me things. Things that have made me realize what an idiot I’ve been. How reckless and irresponsible I was coming here instead of listening to Carly. I don’t know you and I’ve just let myself be hoodwinked again. I always said I’d never be so stupid to let myself be led astray and let my heart do the talking. I knew in the beginning it was off. All the bullshit about waiting and not pressuring me into doing anything I’d regret later was all just to seem the perfect guy …’

  ‘Betsy, you need to slow down – this is all coming out of nowhere.’

  She presses on, ignoring him. She’s not even speaking to him now. Just letting words smash together in the air; all venom and rage. ‘You knew how to be exactly the opposite of everything that had come before – to seem as though you were right. I know I’m a shitty person for going and digging around but you are such a closed book!’

  He starts shaking his head. She can see him fighting with himself. He knows the right thing to say is nothing at all but he’s so bloody cocksure of his own power to make everything better that he’s going to ignore everything he’s read. He’s going to say it, she thinks. He’s going to blame the BPD.

  ‘Betsy,’ he says, softly. ‘Please, look … do you not think maybe some of this is down to your condition? I mean, it’s textbook splitting, isn’t it? Something’s triggered you and now all this venom’s pouring out and I know it has to go in one direction and I’d rather you threw it at me than
at yourself but maybe if you just lay down for a bit and let me talk to you properly you’d feel differently. We’ve got such a good thing going, it doesn’t have to be like this.’

  The scream that erupts from Betsy’s throat is a roar of pure, unadulterated rage. She has never felt so disgusted, so let down. How dare he! How dare he suggest that she is not really feeling what she thinks she’s feeling! She sees at once how he is even more controlling than Jay. Every time he tells her he likes her in a certain outfit; likes her hair a certain way – he’s trying to mould her. To make her something she’s not. He even dressed her in his dead wife’s clothes! Suddenly she cannot stand to be here. She needs to be alone. To think. And sleep. She’s bone-tired, suddenly, her eyes red and aching. She needs to sleep. She looks at him, eyes half-closed, and decides that tomorrow will do. The bed looks comfy. Jude looks all sort of grumpy and sad: little marcasite tears sparkling on his dark eyes. She suddenly wants to be held. Wants nothing more than to fold herself inside his arms. She slithers up the bed. Pushes his arms apart with her head. Lays a cheek against his chest and feels the beat of his heart. She is asleep in moments.

  Jude lies still as a corpse. He doesn’t want the breeze to change direction. Doesn’t want to summon up whatever vibration in the atmosphere caused her to turn into the raging, vengeful facsimile. Only when he knows she is fast asleep does he slide, silently, out of bed. He dresses without a word. Doesn’t make a sound as he moves down the stairs. Calls Marshall with the faintest click of his tongue. Freewheels the Land Rover down the track and doesn’t fire the ignition until he’s far enough away from the bastle not to be heard.

  His hands, on the steering wheel, white as snow.

  He is home before Betsy wakes. She looks embarrassed. Sorrowful. She holds him and he holds her and they both agree to try harder. He will talk more, she will listen more. It will get better. It will be like it was before.

  At eleven thirty, while she is making conciliatory cheese scones, the landline rings. It’s Anya. There’s been an accident. A terrible accident. Jay’s dead.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Now

  Christmas is coming.

  Above the valley, a full, ice-white moon: a drunken eye peeping through a curtain of sugar-sprinkled black.

  Inside the bastle, Betsy hunched over the laptop, Scrooge-like in her robe and fingerless gloves, stopping from time to time to warm her hands on her mug. In the grate, the fire is a rippling collage of reds and golds.

  Jude, pulling on his boots, fastening his padded work shirt and polishing off a bacon sandwich, flicking the crust for Marshall. At his belt, the knife. The handle is made from reindeer antler and the blade sits in a soft, deer-hide sheath. Unsheathed, the blade is so sharp that the air around it appears to hum.

  ‘Love you.’

  ‘Love you back.’

  She listens to the echoes of his departure, her heart beating faster, harder, increasing in intensity with each step he takes away from where she can see him, hear him, feel him. She listens, trying to steal one last echo of his footsteps from the uncooperative air. Hears Marshall, barking. The new chickens: clucking and squawking their way across the damp yard. The quad, its soft roar echoing in the still valley air. And then she is alone. Alone, with the voices in her head.

  What the fuck has happened to Mick? Why hasn’t he made good on his threats?

  Then, coldly: he’s killed him, you silly girl. he’s killed him, like he killed his wife …

  She sits at the kitchen table, staring at the laptop. Jude brought it home a month ago. Second-hand, but restored to its factory settings, so he claimed. She recognizes it, of course. She has no doubts about its origin. She unearthed it from the hole beneath the floorboards weeks ago. If he’s given her it as some kind of test, she passed with flying colours. Her face didn’t betray her, and there was nothing in his expression to suggest he was doing something sly. She doesn’t know when he pried up the floorboards but she has grown used to the idea that he can do things and get away with them.

  Betsy’s only money is still the untouched four thousand pounds from Campion. It lingers in the biscuit barrel by the sink. She intends to take it back to her bastard benefactor when she finds the right moment. She’s looking forward to throwing it in his fat smug face and telling him he can keep his filthy bribe. She’s been imagining it ever since watching the video – he and Maeve, rutting at the riverbank, tears and sweat and face contorted in passion and pain. She knows that giving the money back will make Jude happy. He hasn’t so much as taken a biscuit from the barrel since she tucked the cash away – as if to do so would risk contamination. But she does rather like having it handy. Her mother has only ever given her three useful pieces of advice: don’t rely on the withdrawal method as a contraceptive; don’t shave your legs above the knee, and always have access to enough stashed cash for a train ticket and a night in a hotel.

  She picks up her mug of tea and realizes it’s gone cold. Sets about refilling the kettle and placing it back on the stove, building up the heat in the Rayburn with another fistful of coals. She glances up at the clock – the one she found at the bottom of the bin liners that Jay had brought her the day before his accident. It’s an Alice in Wonderland timepiece; childish, blue and rather lovely. It doesn’t fit in with the faded grandeur of the Georgian and Regency furniture but it’s hers, and it matters to her.

  The accident …

  She grips the tabletop, overcome by a familiar wave of anxiety. Sweat oozes out through her pores. She takes a deep breath and exhales as slowly as she can. It emerges ragged, rasping. Spots dance in front of her eyes.

  No, she tells herself. Don’t. Don’t think about it. It wasn’t your fault. It was an accident. An accident!

  It’s been weeks since Jay went into the garage to tinker with his beloved car. Autumn has made way for winter; the trunks of the trees cold as slate and a hazy, cobwebby mist huddles in the valley like milk in a saucer. She isn’t sure if she’s grieved for her ex yet. Isn’t sure whether she should, or if she has any right to. She’s run the details of the accident through in her mind countless times but can’t stop herself doing so again. Marie has told her what she knows. He hadn’t been able to sleep – too churned up over his visit to the bastle, and Anya’s desperation to see Betsy. He’d gone to the garage to check that the journey over the dirt tracks and gravelly roads hadn’t caused any damage to the underside of the chassis. He’d jacked the big SUV up on his treasured hydraulic pump, providing a crawl space underneath. Conscious of waking the neighbours, he closed the garage door. Turned the key in the ignition. Slid underneath the vehicle and began picking bits of gravel and shrapnel from its innards. All the while the space around him slowly filled with tasteless, colourless fumes. When he began to choke; when his vision began to fade, he tried to haul himself free from the space beneath the car. In so doing, he kicked the handle of the jack.

  It was Anya who found the body; legs sticking out like a shop dummy.

  Betsy glances again at the clock. It’s only 8.04 a.m. Anya will be arriving mid-morning. This is her first overnight stay. She’s visited twice. It’s gone well. She’s enjoyed the animals, visited the dingle, leafed through the old books. Hugged herself into Marshall’s sweaty fur. It has done her good, according to her mum. She’s got on with Jude better than Betsy expected. He hasn’t been awkward or shy. Hasn’t said the wrong thing. Just told her details about the local area; the types of trees; the best place to see animals. Anya has listened, and smiled, and laughed at his jokes. Jude never once mentioned Jay. Walked away whenever Betsy brought him up, as if it were none of his business. Anya’s doing as well as anybody has the right to expect. She’s quieter than she was. More inward-looking; more withdrawn. But the intelligence still sparkles in her eyes and it does Betsy good to know that she somehow appears to be the person most capable of cheering her up.

  Ting.

  Ting.

  She glances at the laptop. The new internet provider has worked s
ome kind of miracle on the broadband fibres and the bastle is now inescapably hooked up to the outside world. Betsy has largely resisted the siren call of social media – not really knowing how to tell her few Facebook friends about the changes to her life these past weeks and months. But she’s been back on the BPD forum. Even composed a post about self-sabotage and the compulsion to spoil her own happiness. It’s clearly struck a chord. She’s receiving thumbs ups and kind words from users across the world, all encouraging her to write more. She thinks she might take their advice, though for now she isn’t sure her brain is sufficiently elastic to be pulled in so many directions.

  Do it. Do it now. You’ve earned it …

  She gives herself a talking to. Tells herself to concentrate on the jobs she’s given herself. Buy the goat. Wash up. Put a wash on. Jet-wash the courtyard. Stroll up to the top field and endeavour to fix the sagging wooden poles that are dragging down the gates to the cow field. She doesn’t need to do anything else. Anything she looks up online will merely throw white spirit on the embers of paranoia, still smouldering away in her gut. There are so many questions she wants answered and she has no doubt that if she were to ask Jude, he would give her no end of replies. But she doesn’t want replies – she wants truths. Certainties. She wants to know if the man she has fallen for is deceiving her.

  Admit it, she tells herself. Admit what you’re really afraid of …

  She wants to know if Jude is a killer.

  She pulls up a search engine. Grabs an unpaid bill from the pile and rummages through the cutlery drawer until she finds a pen. Then she starts to jot down a list of words: names that she’s filed in the chaos of her mind.

  Campion

  Candy/Candace

  Maeve

  Mick/Michael Hewson

  Brendon?

  She loses herself for a time, thoroughly absorbed in the task of digging around in the digital world for any clue that could vindicate her paranoia. She finds no shortage of positive press about Campion and Candy: pillars of the community both and largely responsible for breathing financial oxygen back into the valley. There’s little mention of the methods they have employed or their rows with tenants over the rent increases. Little on their plans to open up a site of Special Scientific Interest to grouse hunters and their guns.