Trial by Fire

by Frances Fyfield

  Amanda Scott left the Blundell house well pleased, sober on one glass of wine and three coffees, high as a kite otherwise, a tentative date with a rich widower and a plausible account for Bailey bubbling in the back of her mind.

  J. Blundell made for the whisky and forgot his office once he closed the door on her, equally pleased.

  Then Amanda made for The Crown and a rapid descent to earth.

  Yes? What the hell do you want? Oh, I know you. Old Mr Bailey's sweetheart, isn't it? The unofficial one. Dear God, have you only got one suit?' Bernadette Featherstone smirked in satisfaction, quick eyes recognizing the same navy blue suit at the kitchen door she had seen weeks since, and only briefly then.

  `Hello, Mrs Featherstone, sorry to trouble you.' The pleasantry was like an armour.

  'Superintendent Bailey asked me to call and ask you —

  `Don't hello me. There's no bloody need. And I'm busy.'

  What a contrast of kitchens. Bernadette's kitchen was invisible to the downcast clients clinging to the bar outside and waiting for evening company, abused by Harold or ignored. It was as large as the Blundells', but twice as antiquated, extremely dirty, and currently full of the smell of baking bread and washing. Amanda, who had an eye for domestic detail, wondered how Bernadette could take such obvious trouble to make her sheets that dusty grey.

  She also wondered if the smell of the bread was going to be the only enticing quality about it. The washing machine in the corner was churning suspicious suds. Both of them were shouting about the noise; Bernadette was used to shouting, but it was awkward for Amanda.

  Òh, for God's sake, sit down. Stop gawking like a tourist at a monument. What do you want, and where's your bloody leader? Lets you out on your own, does he? In my opinion, policemen should be blokes.' Bernadette cackled. Flattery was obviously not today's menu. 'Have you come about William?

  `Well, yes, in a way.'

  `What do you mean, "in a way"? Harold!' she yelled to no response. Bernadette picked up a cloth, dried dishes quickly and absently. 'Get on with it, then.'

  `Well, Mrs Featherstone — '

  `You're a bit worried about William, I expect,' Bernadette interrupted. 'Nicking from shops, little sod. Don't know why he did it. But you needn't worry. Harold's going to give him seven pounds a week, and we'll be keeping him busy. We've solved the problem Ìt wasn't so much the stealing, Mrs Featherstone.'

  `Well, what, then, woman? You suspect him of rape or something?' Another snort of laughter while Bernadette lit a cigarette, her instinct well informed enough to realize how much it would irritate while at the same time hiding her own jangled nerves behind the smoke. She had censured William as gently as she knew. He had erupted; she had withdrawn. He was beyond her control, but it was their battle, their very own, not for anyone else. She might have trusted Bailey with the worry of it, but not this peaches-and-cream piece of neatness who could go and boil her head for all Bernadette cared.

  Amanda Scott could sense she was being intrusive. Even she could sense Bernadette's controlled rage, and she wondered if the reputed fits of William Featherstone were really an inherited mental deformity from a mother whose secret pastime was foaming at the mouth.

  Bernadette was smoking at the mouth, deliberately exhaling a ragged cloud in Amanda's direction. Amanda opted for the businesslike approach. Keep this as short as possible.

  `What does William do with his time, Mrs Featherstone?' The snappiness of her tone brought silence, followed by reluctant cooperation.

  `Do with his time? I don't know. He's a grown man now. Everyone knows what he does with his time. I told Mr Bailey ages ago. He loves the buses. He goes shopping. London sometimes, Epping, Stratford, Waltham . . . well, you know about Waltham. That's where you booked him. And . . . ' She scratched her head and thought. 'Oh, and he sits in his room thinking about things. And I don't know what else. Apart from making things. Jewellery, as it happens.' Nothing else to be proud about.

  She pulled open the drawer in the scrubbed kitchen table, a drawer full of assorted rubbish: tap washers, screwdrivers, receipts, fuse wire, wadded-up paper, and half-finished candy packets. The kind of drawer Amanda Scott itched to clear.

  `Here,' Bernadette said triumphantly. 'See what I mean?' There was a rough bracelet in her hand, upheld for examination with something like pride. 'Fuse wire and glass, baked in the oven,' she said fondly. 'Don't know how he thinks of it, really I don't.'

  Neither did Amanda. There was a kind of primitivism in William's artistic efforts.

  Silver wire or fuse wire twisted, with small pieces of glass embedded in the twists, all melted to an uneven, unusual shine of colours, like crude enamel, the wire imperfectly smoothed by insufficient heat, the glass still uneven although no longer sharp. Rather uncomfortable Amanda thought. It might look strangely at home in some trendy fashion shop for punks where it could double up as an offensive weapon, but not on her own wrist or that of anyone she knew.

  `He didn't like this one,' Bernadette remarked. 'Said it was dull. I don't think so.'

  To Amanda the thing was distastefully bright; she did not like handling it, took it politely, put it down on the table with obvious distaste. 'What else does he do?'

  `What else should he do? This stuff takes him hours.'

  `Does he play any sport?'

  `No.'

  Àny other hobbies?'

  `No.'

  `Girlfriend?'

  A very brief hesitation while Bernadette bent to scratch her foot. `No.'

  Àny friends?'

  `No.'

  `Does he work at all?'

  `Not officially, no.' It was like a litany of negatives from which William emerged as blank as sky. The telling of it filled Bernadette with guilt.

  `Well, what does he do in the evenings?' Amanda asked.

  Mrs Featherstone rose in fury. 'Sits in the kitchen, sits in the garden, hangs around. Even talks sometimes. Helps me. Sits in his room and wanks, probably. Maybe he dreams of you, Miss fucking Scott. Harold!' she bawled again in the direction of the bar. 'Come here.

  There was a moment's silence, a heavy footfall, and Amanda felt the first trace of alarm. She was not proofed for insult from shabby, crabby Bernadette. She rose to her feet tight-lipped, Bailey's words in her ears: 'Always give up an interview if it seems entirely counterproductive. If they won't tell you, they won't. Wait for another time.' Amanda was content to wait for ever and to get out while the going was merely bad, preferably before the footfalls reached her vulnerable back. She moved, too late and too awkwardly.

  Àh,' said Harold behind her neck. 'It's Mr Bailey's moll. The pretty policeman. How are you, Moll?' And before she could turn, he wrapped his large, thick arms around her waist, wrists locked in embrace, his mouth in her ear. 'How are you, Moll?' he repeated softly, dangerously, but laughing, his breath whisky-laden, his skin damp and stale. 'Leave off our boy, Moll. Or we'll set him on you.'

  She pulled at the wrists in sickening panic, tearing them apart, grabbed her bag, crashed against the table en route to the open back door. William's jewellery fell to the floor; she heard it clatter on the broken quarry tiles, and for a reason she did not fathom she bent and recovered the bracelet, slipped it into her bag as she ran for the daylight, slowed herself to a galloping walk, remembering dignity too late. Soon enough to turn and smile back sweetly, more for her own sake than theirs. 'You've been very helpful. Thank you.' Sarcasm in each syllable, hating the last glimpse of two laughing faces.

  Rubbing her neck where Harold had touched her, feeling diseased.

  Uncharacteristically close to tears, pushing through bushes, she walked downhill on a slippery path, spitting into the shrubs at the side like an angry cat. Then stood still, momentarily lost in the garden.

  The straightest route to the car was the way she had come, through the kitchen, the bar, and the front door, but she could no more re-enter that furnace than she could fly over the moon. She paused, looking and listening. No choices as she drew breath and
calmed herself.

  Walk to the bottom of this dark, disgusting garden, get through to the field somehow, walk back up the side of it to the road and the front of the pub. In common with most of her fellow émigrés to these country zones, Amanda believed in sanitized country life, disliked muddy shoes, brambles, and the slime of ill-controlled nature. The shrubs visible at the end of the path over a fallen tree held little appeal for exploration, but torn tights and a pulled skirt were infinitely preferable to the alternatives.

  Swearing silently, she persisted down the path, branches spitefully teasing her face, and came on the summerhouse by surprise, and stopped.

  Christ. The shed was as mad as the couple in the hotel. No doubt a Featherstone project, with that drunken look, half done and then abandoned, like the kitchen. She was not interested or even disposed to look — the whole family could roast in hell, the sooner the better — but in passing silently she peeped into one of the windows, frightened but drawn.

  Through the damp grime on the glass, she could see a dim light, hear sounds of hammering subdued by earth as if coming from a great distance. From a hole in the floor, momentarily blocking the light, a head and bare shoulders, pale in the glow, rose away from her. Perhaps a Featherstone, perhaps an intruder, perhaps big William tunnelling out of the ground like a giant slug. Amanda could imagine white-skinned William, vacuous image of his father, an undressed grinning version of the lout she had met in court, but naked and rampant, lumbering towards her, a vision that was entirely in her mind, since only his back was visible.

  While she watched he remained terrifyingly still. She ran from the window, pushed through the shrubs, climbed a fence into the barleyfield, and thrashed her way uphill to the safety of her car. She drove well beyond view of The Crown before stopping, dusting down her muddy skirt, cleaning her shoes with tissue and grass, no longer trembling, feeling utterly foolish and simply angry.

  Remembering now, looking at the mud on her skirt, Amanda decided on a weak gin and tonic, normally reserved for guests, to make it look as if she tried. The problem with the mortgage race was that it left over so little money for self-indulgence of this or any kind. She drank in tiny sips with relish, forgetting the humiliation as she crunched the ice. She had to get on, whatever it cost, and never mind the drawbacks. A job was a job and this was a good job, a passport. Featherstones or not.

  She had come a long way from the back streets of north London, and she was not going back. And as for her visit to The Crown, she would tell Bailey all she had learned about William, but not quite how the learning had happened.

  `You did well, girl. Really you did. Saw her off nicely. I was listening at you, you know, before I added my three penn'orth.'

  Bernadette was lighting the fortieth cigarette of the day. `Thought you might be,' she said.

  'Harold, what are we going to do?'

  She put her head in her arms briefly. He moved to her side of the kitchen table, hugged her quickly. Harold was sober and trade was dead at ten o'clock. Amanda Scott's afternoon visit had raised a brief laugh, but dispelled the taste for whisky.

  `What are we going to do, Harold?' she repeated.

  He slumped into the chair beside her, hating emotional scenes of the noncombative kind as much as he hated responsibility, suspecting most of the fighting was the result of his evasion of his duty.

  `Do about what? The pub?'

  Òh, Harold, face up for once. Never mind the bloody pub. I mean William. Our son, William. I don't even know where he is.' She had a fair idea he might have been somewhere at the other end of the garden, and she was relying on the end of summer to bring him back, but even in this extremity she was not going to say. She knew Harold's limitations as well as his temper, felt she had betrayed William enough already for one day — she had even lost the bracelet she treasured, given her as reject gift from the pile of his creations, but still a gift.

  `Well, what can we do?' asked Harold, mildly belligerent. 'Why should we anyway?

  All right, he pinched some trinkets. I've paid the fine, given him more pocket money, and that's that. He's not done anything serious.'

  `Hasn't he?' asked Bernadette. 'Hasn't he, now? I wonder.'

  `Like what do you wonder?' Irritation, a self-defensive and guilty anger, as well as a plea for forgiveness rose in his throat.

  Òh, I don't know, Harold. He's so empty. I keep thinking of that body in the woods, that's what I keep thinking. I don't like it, Harold. Don't know what to do.'

  `There's a man in prison for the body in the woods,' Harold almost shouted. 'Stop thinking, Bernie. You're not good at it, honest you're not. And what the hell can we do anyway? If you stroke him he bites. If you pat him he scratches. Interfere now and we'll only provoke him. He's fine, Bernie, just fine. Look at him, always smiling.'

  She was too tired for conflict. It was the story of her life, this incessant fatigue kept at bay by quarrelling. Better do as Harold did, simply avoid it and hope for the best.

  Ìf he gets worse, pet, we'll take him away.'

  She turned to him with mild and hopeful enquiry. 'Where, Harold? Back to London where no one would know us? Suit me fine. I'm sick of it here. It's like living with a whole load of cuckoos feathering their nest. Just like we do. If we hadn't worked so hard, and I might add for so little, we might have had a better son.'

  He sighed dramatically. 'We'd be lost in London, Bernie. Wouldn't own a thing.'

  `That's exactly why I'd like it, Harold. So would William.'

  Harold hesitated, hating both the forward and backward trends of the conversation. 'You don't really think he's done anything more than thieving, do you, Bernie?'

  Ì don't know,' she said. 'I just don't know.'

  Better not to know, John Blundell had decided. If he did not look in her room, which was always carefully locked — 'I must have my privacy, Daddy' — he would not know if she was there or not, could kid himself she was, hunched over some encyclopaedia or whatever it was she did. Last time he had peeked in there, when Evelyn had permitted access to the cleaning lady, he'd seen a plastic skeleton, the only adornment visible in that Spartan room, before she'd caught him looking and frozen him off with her stare. She even supervised the cleaning.

  He had never really wanted to know anything intimate about her, and her eccentricities made more sense in the light of her recently confessed ambitions for a medical career. Thank God Amanda Scott had been fobbed off from searching. The sight of a small plastic skeleton in the room of a female teenager struck Blundell as a worse obscenity than a naked man. As for what was in the drawers of her locked plywood desk, he had a shrewd suspicion. There was something else of value as well as a lot of paper. She loved jewellery, and he had noticed how she hid the things she loved. Up here, she was forever writing and hiding. One day he would improve on his glimpses. Not now, later.

  But he cared if someone else knew. If darling child wanted to be secretive about her own bits of rubbish, and if he wanted to tear up his wife's clothes, they would do so. Family was family. They had come here to preserve family, whatever kind of shambles this one had been for years. With the careful calculation of two whiskies down, he waited until ten o'clock, dialled the number left by Amanda Scott. He knew enough about the inside of people's houses to hazard a guess at her life-style, saw her with cold cream, cocoa, and nightie, rather liked the thought. Two birds to be shot with a single stone: avoid prying eyes on the one hand and cast a lure for a new woman on the other. Not a bad prospect, Amanda. Might at least know the value of money and be grateful. Yvonne, the bitch, only liked the best.

  In the Bailey-West household, peace of a kind reigned. A single phone call from Amanda Scott, bursting with the desire to report something or other, but guarded and satisfied when Bailey had said he would hear it in full tomorrow. No information given or received.

  One of their neighbours was sitting on the sofa, complaining to Helen about her children. He was amazed at the picture they made, these two disparate women, eve
n more amused when he contrasted Helen's obdurate unclubbishness with her complete inability to close the door on a visitor. No, she would not attend a meeting, be seen dead on a committee, sign a petition, but she would listen, pour a drink, and extend a welcome, unable to resist. At home in far-off London, her phone had never stopped ringing. Bailey had been irritated by it then, but found he missed it here. Listening to the neighbour, the well-meaning but harassed mother of two, despairing over the decisions made by local school authorities, he wondered at the implications of these empire-building residents of Branston, questioned whether fresh air and keeping up with the Joneses was really an improvement over life in London.

  `He does so much worse than anyone else in his class,' the neighbour was saying. She was not tearful yet, simply indignant.

  Stop pushing him, then, Bailey added silently to the conversation, wishing she would go. The boy is healthy. No one else is sick. What's the problem? Push, push, push, an endless spiral of improvement. Better houses, better cars and schools, all lined with the same amount of discontent. People nagging away: it's so good now; it can't possibly be good enough. We've come quite a long way, Helen; it might be time to turn back.

  Bailey regarded the visiting woman with mild eyes she found slightly unnerving. He reflected that this brave-new-worlder was trapped economically in marriage, like a state-aided couple in a slum, neither with another place to go and no money to split up. The only difference was that one couple was more affluent and lived in a different cage where the padding didn't really help.

  There were plenty of murders in these situations, plenty of scope for them in cosy Branston. The upwardly mobile, striving for heaven, by some accident curtailing their choices rather than expanding them, leaving themselves no time to think. No time to see how the children thought, either. Would they prefer the posh schools or the concrete playground?

  Electronic toys or cardboard boxes? He didn't know. There was no time to judge your partner. Maybe Helen had time: she did not need him in the same way he needed her.