The Camp

by Guy N Smith

  ‘You beat Wild Bill to the draw then?’ she laughed with her damaged lip.

  ‘The second time. I was just killing time.’ Sod it, I’ve told her I’m not in a hurry. Oh, Jesus Christ! ‘What’s your problem?’

  ‘This!’ She tapped her wounds. ‘I’m Cindy, by the way.’

  ‘Hi, I’m Jeff.’

  ‘I’m a whore.’ She spoke emotionlessly, a plain statement of fact. She might just as easily have said, ‘I’m a shop assistant.’

  ‘Eh?’ He started in surprise, thought perhaps he had not heard right.

  ‘A prostitute, I sell my body.’ Speaking slowly, he thought he detected a slight slurring of her speech, as patient as a playschool teacher explaining something to a class of infants. ‘I charge thirty quid but you have to wear a condom. That’s only sensible these days, isn’t it … Jeff? Oh, and you’re only allowed to orgasm once.’

  ‘No thanks.’ He was half out of his chair but she grabbed his arm, firmly but kindly, an apologetic, pleading expression on her face.

  ‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t soliciting, I shouldn’t have said it like that. It was just that I was trying to explain about myself. You do understand, don’t you?’

  ‘Too right, I do.’ He sat down again, was angry with himself for not having left. ‘I don’t go for that kind of thing. I’ve got a regular girl.’ At least, I think I have.

  ‘Oh, that’s fine,’ she smiled, ‘I wouldn’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do. But if you change your mind, you’re welcome. I was watching you playing that shooting game. You see, there aren’t many single guys about, except teenagers, and I have to talk to somebody because I’m in trouble. Big trouble.’

  Here it comes, he thought. In spite of her cultured speech she was childish. A middle-class misfit, maybe a bit simple. No, she was on drugs, he was sure of that now. She was on a high, confused, oversexed and her boyfriend had walked out on her. Desperate for it. Perm any three from four; he wasn’t really interested.

  ‘I’m scared to go back to my chalet because my boyfriend will beat me up again.’ Her mood had changed dramatically, there was terror flickering in one dark eye, the other was completely shut now. And her hand resting on his arm shook.

  ‘Why go back then?’ He spoke sharply, too much sympathy could land him in trouble. ‘You’re free to leave. Or you can go to the camp authorities, even the police, if he’s been knocking you about.’

  ‘Oh, I can’t do that!’ She was aghast. ‘I can’t just run out on Alan. He needs me.’

  ‘Then he’s got a funny way of showing it.’

  ‘I suppose it’s the drugs,’ she was whispering now. ‘And he’s been under a lot of stress lately. He has hallucinations. He thinks I’m somebody else, keeps calling me Donna, and he’s holding me a prisoner in the chalet in case I go to the police. Which I wouldn’t anyway. But I had to sneak out for some tobacco and now I’m frightened to go back. He’ll swear I’ve been to the pigs and he might do just anything!’

  ‘In which case you ought to seek protection before he does!’

  ‘I want you to protect me, Jeff!’

  Jeff’s brain reeled. This was like a crazy dream. He had wandered idly into the amusement arcade, taken on a gunslinger, and now he was sitting drinking tea with a girl who claimed to be a prostitute and wanted him to protect her from her violent boyfriend.

  ‘No, thanks. I don’t go for the strong-arm stuff.’ He tried to push her hand away but she tightened her grip. He didn’t want to cause a scene in here.

  ‘You don’t have to get into a fight.’ There was sheer desperation in her whisper now. ‘Look, all I want you to do is to walk back to my chalet with me. You can stand and watch whilst I go in, and if things get really nasty, I’ll scream.’

  ‘In which case I shall fetch the security men right away and disappear.’ Oh, God, I’m pandering to her again.

  ‘All right,’ she nodded, smiled again. ‘That’s fair enough. See me home, hang about outside, and if you hear nothing then you can just walk away. Please!’

  ‘Let’s go and get it over with.’ He stood up and she came up with him, still clinging to his arm. ‘But I’m not doing anything more than that. I’d do it for anybody, not just for you, get it?’

  He wished she would let go of his arm as they walked down the line of shops and headed for the chalets on the Green Camp. His overriding fear was that they might meet Ann. Or worse, that she might observe them unseen. An episode like this could have disastrous results. In any case, he decided, he would tell Ann all about it, just to safeguard himself.

  ‘That’s the one.’ She stopped, seemed to pull back as though in terror, and he thought for one moment that she might flee. ‘Number 24. The curtain in the living room isn’t closed properly, perhaps we can see inside first.’

  He did not want to look but she was pulling him on to the sidewalk alongside the chalets. Checking the door numbers as they walked past them. 26 … 25 … 24.

  This was ridiculous; she pulled him against the wall, flattened herself against it and edged forward like an overacted scene from some pre-war spy movie. Up against the window frame, peeping through the glass into an unlit room. He felt the way she trembled, heard her breath being expelled in a huge sigh of sudden relief.

  ‘He’s asleep!’ she breathed. ‘Alan’s spark out. Just look, Jeff.’

  Jeff didn’t want to see but he looked all the same, saw the huge man sprawled on the settee. A thick black beard blended with the matted torso, rising and falling rhythmically in a deep slumber.

  ‘He won’t be troubling you for a bit, anyway.’ This time Jeff managed to shake off his companion’s hand. ‘Just let yourself in quietly and I’ll guarantee that when he wakes up he’ll never even have missed you. Go on, now, whilst the going’s good.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know how to thank you, Jeff.’

  She was going to kiss him but he dodged back, turned and broke into a fast walk. He did not look back. Whatever happened, it was none of his business.

  Only when he was back in the hub-bub of the camp did his thoughts return to Ann Stackhouse.

  Ann was over an hour late. Jeff was beginning to panic, the niggling worries of the day building up to a climax. She had jilted him, taken the easy way out, let him come to his own conclusions; I have to look after my job, don’t I, Jeff? The Paradise Camp isn’t really your scene, is it? Yes, I did see you with that girl this afternoon. I spotted you in the tea bar, followed you back to the Green Camp, saw the way you were holding hands. Fair enough, if you want to screw a tart, then that’s up to you. But I’m not risking you after you’ve been with her, not these days.

  Oh, Jesus Christ! The curry from the takeaway had been under the grill for over an hour now keeping warm; it was surely dried up. And Blue Nun tasted sour when you drank it on your own. Well, if she didn’t turn up then he would check out tomorrow, head for home, and they could keep the bloody change. This holiday camp idea had been a disaster right from the beginning, Gemma had been right. But he wasn’t going to start raking all that up again in his mind. 11.20 and she wasn’t here; she wouldn’t be coming.

  And then he heard her tap the door. Despair turned to instant elation, he only just managed to stop himself from running to answer the knock. Play it cool, you’ve been pandering to too many women just lately. But I just hope to God she didn’t see me with that girl this afternoon.

  ‘Hi.’ Ann looked dishevelled, tired, but smiling the way she always did. ‘Christ, what a bloody day!’

  ‘Problems?’ He couldn’t keep the relief out of his voice.

  ‘We always have problems.’ She draped her jacket over a chair. ‘Something smells good, Jeff.’

  ‘Curry from the takeaway.’ He began ladling it on to two plates, it wasn’t as bad as he had feared.

  ‘Sorry I’m late,’ she kissed him. ‘It wasn’t my fault, believe me.’

  ‘I believe you,’ he poured some wine, ‘but I must admit I was getting a little concerned.’

/>   Suddenly everything was all right, like banging your head against a wall and it was wonderful when you let up.

  ‘I’ve had rather a trying day, too.’ The plates were in the sink and he had decided to tell her about Cindy. Just in case. Better to explain now than later, in case word got back. All in the mind, but at least he would clear his conscience.

  ‘Oh? I didn’t think holidaymakers had problems.’

  ‘Neither did I, until this time.’ There was a trace of nervousness in his laugh. ‘You see, there I was, minding my own business, idling round the camp, thinking of tonight, when, hey presto, this scruffy but well-spoken bird comes up to me …’

  He related the events of the afternoon, was a little concerned at her expression, her deep interest, the way her brow furrowed and her cheeks lost a little of their colour. And when she sipped her wine the fingers holding the stem of the glass trembled so that the contents slopped from side to side.

  ‘What did she look like?’ There was an urgency to her question.

  ‘Dark and small, but like somebody who had been sleeping under the hedges. Of course, a black eye and a split lip doesn’t enhance one’s looks, does it?’

  ‘Cindy, you say?’ It was as though Ann was talking to herself. Then her eyes bored into his and she snapped, ‘Did you notice the number of the chalet?’

  ‘Yes. Twenty-four.’

  She was visibly shaken. Damn, he should have kept quiet about the whole business, but why was Ann getting so worked up over it? It made him angry, it had cast a cloud over their evening.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘although it’s none of my business I feel I have a moral duty to report it.’

  ‘Report it!’ She set her glass down. ‘You haven’t said anything to anybody, have you?’

  ‘No, not yet.’

  ‘Then don’t!’

  ‘Hey, come off it, Ann. If that bastard beats her up, maybe maims, even kills her, then I’ll have it on my conscience because I didn’t do anything about it. I’m not one of these people who look the other way and walk on when somebody’s getting mugged on the other side of the road, you know.’

  ‘It … isn’t like that at all,’ she had averted her gaze from his, ‘I assure you. But you mustn’t report it, do you understand?’

  ‘No, I bloody well don’t understand. You know something about this. Is that girl, Cindy, a friend of yours? What’s it all about?’

  She was silent for a moment, took a deep breath as though to steady her nerves. ‘Jeff, I want you to trust me implicitly. I only wish I could tell you, believe me, I do. But I can’t. All right, if it makes you feel any easier, I’ll report it. But, please, please trust me and don’t keep on asking me questions I can’t answer!’ Her arms were around his neck, her face was buried against his shirt and he felt her fighting to hold the tears back. ‘Jeff, don’t you realise, I love you!’

  Words that were worth everything he had gone through. They echoed in his mind, had him holding Ann tightly to him. Euphoria beyond his wildest dreams. But that did not alter the fact that something very sinister was going on in the Paradise Holiday Camp.

  ‘All right,’ he murmured, ‘I won’t say a word to anybody. But only because I’m in love with you, too, Ann. But there’s trouble of some kind and you’re in the thick of it. If I can help, I will. If you want to tell me, then I’ll listen. Oh, darling, I’m so worried for you.’

  Suddenly Ann Stackhouse was unable to hold back her tears any longer.

  Chapter Nine

  Gwyn Mace lay in bed for a long time trying to remember exactly what was worrying him. He had awoken with one of those uneasy feelings that something had happened the previous day, had given him a restless night’s sleep, but when morning came he was damned if he could recall what it was.

  At one stage he had to fight down a rising panic. Maybe he had suffered a stroke and it had affected his mind; or a brain tumour. And he did not recognise this very ordinary little bedroom, either. He certainly wasn’t at home at The Firs, his spacious country house with its three acres of landscaped garden and the paddock where Sarah kept her piebald pony. Where was it? Some kind of institution, a cell in a mental hospital or a prison? Oh, Jeez!

  He was afraid to get out of bed. Bed was a nice safe place, you could pull the sheets up over your head and divorce yourself from the rest of the world; that way you did not have to face anybody. You could hide. He was trembling and sweating, too. He wanted to go to the bathroom but he was scared. If the worst came to the worst, he would pee the bed and sod ’em, whoever they were who were keeping him a prisoner here.

  ‘Ruth?’ Mace’s voice was squeaky, a shrill whisper. His wife had to be around, surely she would not desert him in his hour of need. He thought he could hear her moving about in the adjacent room beyond the partly-closed bedroom door.

  Gwyn Mace was in his mid-forties and about a stone and a half overweight for his 5ft. 9 inches. Dark wavy hair and a rotund face, a manner that charmed and yet at the same time was unscrupulous. A hard businessman, his chubby appearance often led colleagues to underestimate him. Genial but cunning. Likeable, unless you disagreed with him.

  ‘Ruth?’

  He heard footsteps, the door was pushed inwards, a flimsy hardboard one which thumped back against the partition wall because there was no stop. Ruth Mace stood framed in the doorway, her short dark hair neatly brushed, those few strands of grey seeming more prominent as a ray of morning sunshine slanting in through the partly-drawn curtains fell on her. Her posture was stiff as though, perhaps, she suffered from arthritis but she had always been that way. She was wearing a blue summer dress and sandals, and the fact that there was a knife in her hands smeared with butter was a sure sign that she was in the midst of preparing breakfast. Pretty, but her smile was always so formal, her words carefully chosen before she spoke. A cautious woman, a girl who had not yet freed herself from a strict upbringing. Religious, she insisted on going to church every Sunday morning and, as far as her husband was concerned, her most annoying habit was her readiness to apologise for almost everything. ‘You’re a bloody apology for yourself,’ he had told her the week after they were married, and she had burst into a flood of tears and apologised.

  ‘What’s the matter, Gwyn?’ She squinted in the bright sunlight.

  ‘Where … where are we, Ruth?’ He gripped the sheets as if he might suddenly pull them up and hide himself under them.

  ‘We’re on holiday, Gwyn.’ She used his first name almost every time she spoke to him; he had long given up telling her about it. ‘You know how much you need a holiday, you were very close to a nervous breakdown. You’ve got to learn to relax, Gwyn.’

  ‘But where?’ He was glancing around the room disapprovingly.

  ‘A holiday camp. You knew all about it, Gwyn. Your memory’s playing you up again. Just you stay there and I’ll bring you your breakfast in bed. Goodness, you deserve it for once. It’s a wonder all these working breakfasts and lunches and social dinners in the evenings haven’t given you a heart attack. Stress, that’s what the doctor said was your trouble. For the next fortnight you’re going to do virtually nothing except get some exercise. Even a workaholic has to stop sometimes, Gwyn.’

  ‘A … holiday camp!’There was disbelief in his voice. ‘You mean one of those Ho-de-ho places, or whatever they’re called?’

  ‘They’re not like that at all these days,’ she smiled condescendingly. ‘They’re places where there’s plenty to do and you do just whatever you feel like doing. You can swim, play golf, bowls, whatever. It was Sarah’s idea. She wanted to go on holiday with Norman this year, but you and I talked it over and we thought it was unwise. I mean, it wouldn’t be right for two seventeen-year-olds to go away on their own, would it, Gwyn?’

  ‘If you say so. Where are they?’

  ‘Sarah’s gone for a swim. Norman won’t be arriving until Tuesday, he couldn’t get the time off work until then. Now, you just rest, and don’t you worry about a thing, Gwyn.’ Ruth turned, wa
lked with just too straight a back through into the kitchen.

  Gwyn Mace sighed, closed his eyes. Well, at least it wasn’t a loony bin or a prison, that was something to be grateful for. A holiday camp had to be one up on either of those but he was damned if he was going to participate in any silly games, fuck that for a game of soldiers! A nervous breakdown, that was ridiculous. All the same, he had hazy memories of a lot of worries recently; well, for a long time, actually. Things began to filter back into his confused mind. Maybe they were sedating him and that was why everything was so hazy.

  He was a business consultant by profession. No qualifications except experience and that counted more than a file full of certificates, and if you had the right manner, confidence and charisma, you were almost there. ‘Confidence breeds success’ was his favourite quip.

  Clients were no problem, they queued up; the difficulty was getting money out of them. You taught them how to play their finances, robbing Peter to pay Paul in the broadest sense, holding on to your cash for as long as possible, and they played the dirty on you by doing it on you. Gwyn was no ordinary adviser, he taught his clients all the tricks of the trade, legal and illegal. Tax fiddles, tax evasions; he called them tax ‘saving’ and VAT was wide open if you knew how to play it. He had studied company law, knew all the loopholes. He smiled to himself as he went back over his own various companies; when your creditors had reached the limit of their endurance, you went bust, started up under another name the following week. All perfectly legal, they couldn’t touch you. Abuse, threats, he was hardened to the lot. But there was that proverbial saying about giving a man enough rope and he’d hang himself. Gwyn Mace screwed the sheet up into balls in his hands, nearly dragged it over himself. They had given him plenty of rope and now he was tottering on the gallows. The Nine O’Clock Walk and it was now about 8.55. Christ, he’d snapped under the strain. Well, almost.

  Ruth didn’t know half of it, she would have left him, gone back to her mother if she had even guessed. Too bloody proper, that was his wife’s trouble. Respectability was all that mattered to her. If Sarah and Norman went away on holiday together they might screw. Sarah might get pregnant and for Ruth that would be the ultimate in shame. The neighbours, her fellow churchgoers, would find out, they would ostracize her. Or, more likely, they would gossip and titter amongst themselves.