When Juliette painted Marine, she did so with blazing gold, darting orange, and vivid red. I watched her frenetically paint one afternoon, Marine toying with a farm set beneath her, as she threw colors across the canvas. In this fitful burst of creativity Juliette’s red satin dress fell around her elbows. A lattice of dark hair obscured one side of her face. Juliette was never more alive than when she was painting her daughter.
Phillip had moved onto a nearby street with his girlfriend Christine. He had recently completed a stand-up tour which had seen him win awards at The Edinburgh Fringe. It seemed remarkable that Phillips professional career bloomed at the same time he met his partner-in-crime. During a dinner at ours, Phillip’s usual stories about uncompromising positions he’d ended up in were less frequent. He now concerned himself with attending to Christine’s every wish, taking her stylish wrap from her shoulders, offering to top up her wine, and encouraging her to tell us about her sculpting. He only revealed his true former ebullience in a spiky anecdote about media types he’d recently met. Christine’s poised interjections seemed to keep Phillip on a leash, and I think he had finally realized that he needed that. I decided that Christine’s louche demeanor concealed a secret lack of confidence, permitting her to only speak when she was sure of her remarks. On the occasions that I saw Phillip and Christine together they were even wearing the same colors.
Marine had inherited her mother’s love of art, and her brightly colored daubing’s illuminated many surfaces of the house. But her exuberance wasn’t only limited to her pictures. Her Primary School teacher, an aquiline blonde called Katy Fergus, would occasionally contact us with news of the rather unusual ways Marine had drawn attention to herself in class. On the parents evenings where I met Katy she would describe the latest incident, in a voice that sounded at once charmed and increasingly panicked.
There was the sewing lesson when Marine swallowed a large bead, then convinced two of her friends to do the same, as it was ‘a pill that would make them fly’. I had to negotiate my way through some fraught phone calls with some distressed parents after that. Marine told the other children vivid stories about a moaning ghost that rose from under their beds if they didn’t sleep, ensuring insomnia in various homes. Marine’s teenage years were a long way away, but I couldn’t help dreading what kind of an adolescent she would become.
It was early summer when I decided to start to take Marine out on my own. A clutch of new fairgrounds had opened on the nearby coast. As we walked into the array of flashing lights, whirling rides and neon candy, Marine’s eyes danced. All around us roller coasters clacked and cornered; hot dog stands sizzled and spat. Marine’s excitement entranced me. I started to see the world as a playground, a heady mix of colorful pleasures.
She insisted we shoot pellets at the Rootin’ Tootin’ shooting range, where a direct hit on a bobbing Indian could earn you a fluffy Simba. While we were playing, I completely bought into the tiny world that each ride created. With Marine next to me I could almost believe I was hunting for Indians in The Wild West. That the ‘Snake of Death’ (a tunnel slide about fifteen feet high) really did defy the boundaries of mortality, or that a direct hit from another dodgem might be the end of us. When we rode the dodgems Marine implored me to avoid the impact of other cars, but she collapsed in giggles when someone hit us. She flung her hands into the air when the buzzer signaled the end of the ride, and leapt from the car like a cowboy off a horse. Marine threw herself into every ride, sang along with every melody, and shot her way to victory on every gala.
She liked the dark arcade booths most children would have been scared of. I had to gently usher her away from the likes of Terminator 2, in favor of Star Wars. As we entered that booth together I felt like we were entering a dark universe, as father and daughter. Marine insisted that with me at her side she wouldn’t be scared of anything. I’d watch her face, with her waggling the joystick as she ducked and dived in and out of spaceships on the screen. I thought how one day my precious girl would have to navigate journeys without me, outside of the safety of this booth, and my heart ached. At vital moments in the game I grabbed the joystick or made a shot on her behalf, to keep her in it. But I couldn’t help wondering how I could protect her when she took on the real world. In there we could take on the forces of evil, just the two of us, and win every time. But what would it be like out there, when the ride was turned off, and the bright lights had faded. When the cold wind of the outside world blasted onto Marine?
After the game, I held her hand and walked her to the car. She got inside it and strapped on her seatbelt. Like many children, Marine was far more intuitive than people credited.
‘Are you okay, daddy?’ she asked.
I gripped the buckle of my seatbelt for a minute, and turned to her. ‘I just want you to know something,’ I said, to her.
‘What is it?’
I watched the children leave the fair, clasping in their fists bright clouds of pink candyfloss. The teenagers on their bikes eyeing them as they moved.
‘I - I want you to know that I love you.’
‘I already know that,’ she said.
‘Yes. But I want you to know that whatever happens, I’m always on your side. Do you understand?’
She turned to me, and I wondered if her nose was about to wrinkle.
‘I think so.’
‘What I’m saying is, that you could do anything - anything at all, and -’
I couldn’t find the words.
‘You could even find yourself in loads of trouble.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like say you accidently killed someone. You could still come to me and I would always be on your side. No matter what.’
Marine considered this.
‘Thanks. I would be on your side too.’
I waited until the children crossed the road.
‘Thanks,’ I said.
FOUR
EVERYTHING CHANGED on the 3rd October. We were holding a tea party. I took it as proof of how much confidence Juliette had gained, for her to suggest leaving Christian with a babysitter for the afternoon and hosting a party. To celebrate the success of Phillip’s most recent tour.
After a successful run in Edinburgh, Phillip gained critical acclaim for his stand-up show. It was a performance which saw him variously adopt the persona of a corrupt MP (too minor to fully exploit his post), a colonialist (talking fondly of a country that didn’t exist) and a zookeeper (in search of a zoo that we gradually learnt had no animals). The show veered between political satire and goofy physical comedy, and it had been strange to see his ever-lengthening quiff in more and more of newspapers as time went on. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to mock Phillip for being the new darling of the press, because I knew he could easily say the same about me. People occasionally stopped me in the street and shouted phrases I’d used on the show. A bloke in a bakery asked me if I had kept my nurses outfit. It was weird to have young, male students stop me in the street when I was out shopping, asking if I fancied a quick game of Halloween Booby Trap IV. When I mocked Phillip, for attending the opening of every envelope he was invited to, he responded by asking when my first appearance on ‘I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here’ would be.
Our repartee didn’t address the slightly scarier fact that Phillip was becoming even more famous. Juliette had insisted on us hosting the party when Phillip won a prestigious Aerial Award, said to be the British equivalent of an Oscar for comedy. Marine was on a school trip for the day so our house was filled with the aspiring actors, TV panelists and agents that Phillip had accumulated as his new coterie. To the assembled bodies, that sipped champagne in the living room, I gave a brief toast to Phillip. Asking everyone to raise their glasses for a man who ‘has paved the way for those using humor to evade meaningful employment’. Phillip, in turn, raised a glass to ‘a man who’s used teaching to avoid becoming a functioning human being’.
When the laughter had died down, Christine drifted to Phillip’s side as I
approached them. ‘Honestly,’ she was saying. ‘Ben and Juliette host a beautiful party for you, Phillip, and in return you say that your best friend is ‘barely functional’.’
‘Ironic really,’ I said, throwing a peanut into my mouth. ‘At university he always used to say I was too functional.’
‘Every day, you used to sharpen your pencils before lectures,’ he said. ‘And I’m sure I saw you iron your socks at least once.’
‘The hall of residence didn’t even have an iron,’ I said. ‘So that proves what you know.’
‘You’re the only student that asked for one,’ Phillip replied.
‘I’m with Ben on this,’ Christine said, patting Phillip’s arm affectionately. ‘Phillip still doesn’t iron. Before big occasions I’m sure he forces me to do it by pretending he doesn’t know how.’
‘Impressive, isn’t it?’ he said, wrapping his arm around his girlfriend’s neck. ‘I get into a relationship with a strident feminist, and persuade her to do my shirts for me?’
She rolled her eyes, smiling. ‘Oh yes. Very clever,’ she said.
As the guests threw canapés down their throats, a squat man with fierce eyes cornered me by the breadsticks. ‘Art Golightly,’ he said, thrusting out a hand. ‘Phillip’s agent. You two have great chemistry.’
‘It’s not chemistry, its resentment,’ I said.
He threw back his head and laughed. It was a singular honk, the abrupt beginning to a bagpipe tune. ‘You see?’ he said, drawing glances. ‘That’s what I mean. You’re getting a lot of praise for that show of yours, what is it, Educating Croydon?’
‘Bristol,’ I said, imagining that my breadstick was a foil that I could ward him off with.
He nodded. His eyes darted around me, as if calculating the weight of the web required to capture me with. ‘Did you know, you were ‘Pick Of The Week’ in the Radio Times yesterday?’ he said. ‘Not the show itself, but the famous Mr. Pendleton. Champion of the underdog. We should talk. I could make you a rich man in a very short space of time. Think about it, you teachers earn peanuts. Not even peanuts - monkey nuts. Come on, what do you say?’
His voice had taken on an American tinge. I looked behind him, as Philip leant against a pillar. I noticed the collar of his dinner jacket was turned up, betraying that he’d been trying to act suave. He smiled rakishly at me, Christine hovering in the distance behind him.
‘So, what do you say?’ Art repeated.
I smiled. ‘I say, that you need a proper drink,’ I answered, taking his empty glass.
It was then that the phone rang.
For some reason, I glanced at the clock the moment it blazed to life. It was 3.05pm. I placed the glass carefully on a table and answered the call. I had not been prepared for the silence that greeted me as I picked up the handset. At first I wondered if it was a wrong number, but the voice on the end of the line that eventually spoke was panicked, almost hysterical. I struggled to make it out at first, given the cacophony of noise around me.
‘Who is this?’ I asked.
‘Mr. Pendleton, it’s about Marine.’
‘What’s happened?’
I tried to seal off the noise around me, and covered my free hand with my other ear.
‘I’m afraid - I’m afraid she’s taken a fall. A bad one.’
‘A fall? Off what?’
‘The school party was walking along the top of the moors and - Marine somehow fell behind the others. One of the assistants dropped back to see if she was okay, and I’m told Marine was found dangerously close to the cliff-edge.’
‘Jesus.’ I looked for my keys. ‘Is she okay?’
The voice didn’t answer straight away. ‘I’m on the phone to him now,’ she said, to someone else in her room. ‘Mr. Pendleton, I understand she has taken quite a fall. The paramedics have been called out and - they are trying to find her.’
‘Trying to find her? How far did she fall?’
‘We don’t know.’ Her note of panic in her voice terrified me. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘We don’t know,’ she repeated.
‘You don’t know where she is?’
‘They are locating her right now.’
‘Locating her? What do you mean ‘locating her?’’
Phillip collected himself at my side, and leant in to the handset.
It sounded as if someone was taking the phone from her. Chastising her vaguely under his breath.
‘Mr. Pendleton, Mark Reynolds. Can I ask that you and Juliette come into the school as a matter of urgency?’
I was grabbing my coat even as I hung up the phone.
Juliette appeared in the doorway, holding a dish. ‘What is it? What’s happened?’
‘It’s Marine. She’s taken a fall.’
The blood drained from her face.
‘Is she alright?’
‘I don’t know.’
The plate slid from Juliette’s hands. In the second after it smashed on the floor, an image lodged in my mind that, in the days to come, I couldn’t shake. Canapés stuck to her leg. Sliding down her calf as she stood there. Rooted to the spot.
We drove to the school. ‘We’ve got to get straight to Marine,’ Juliette said, as I drove the car into the first space.
‘I’ll get the address of this moor and we’ll go,’ I answered.
I made Juliette wait in the car. I ran into the school office.
As soon as I walked into the secretary’s office I knew it was serious. The office had the strained air of a crime scene. The man and the two women clustered around the phone all looked pale. At least two of them were shaking.
‘Mr. Pendleton, Mark Reynolds,’ said the man, his bald head glistening as he seized my hand.
‘Have they found her?’
‘Mr. Walker has just phoned us again. He is the one who saw her fall.’
‘Who’s Mr. Walker?’
‘Agency staff. He was helping Katy with the children today. He’s given me an address. The paramedics are with Marine now.’
‘Is she alive?’
He looked down, pushing his hands hard into his pockets. ‘We don’t know anything yet, I’m afraid she took a nasty fall.’
‘You need to tell me what that means.’ I heard the words echo in the room, and fade. I felt as if my soul had been hollowed out in one, ruthless cleave.
A thin woman burst in, clutching a rucksack. ‘Mark, here it is,’ she said, handing it to him. Mark grabbed the bag.
‘My keys,’ he said, looking frantically inside. ‘Jesus Christ, you left the keys on my desk,’ he said, bolting out of the room.
‘Can I call this Mr. Walker?’ I said, to the two secretaries standing mute nearby. ‘It seems he was the last member of staff to call her.’
‘Mr. Walker? Oh, God,’ said the thin woman.
I took her in, the white-blonde hair and the glassy expression.
‘What does that mean?’ I said, stepping closer to her. ‘Why ‘Mr. Walker, oh god?’’
I looked over at the plump, red-faced secretary holding the phone. She shot a hostile look at the thin woman, who finally answered. ‘Only because … we don’t even have his number.’
‘Lorraine,’ said the plumper woman, ‘let’s keep a level head. This is not the time for gossip. Mr. Pendleton needs your help right now. Come on.’
Lorraine suppressed a grimace.
From outside, Colin barked the name Rose, and Lorraine’s accuser ran to him. The natural authority of her heft was undermined by the clear tremor of her head as she departed.
‘Why did you react like that when I asked about Mr. Walker?’ I asked Lorraine. ‘Who is this man?’
‘He’s agency. With the strike, he came in at the last minute.’
Rose appeared in the doorway. ‘Lorraine, Mr. Reynolds’ office. Now. Mr. Pendleton, Mark is ready to go.’
We trailed behind Mark in the car. Rain streaked the window as we drove out to the moor. Juliette remained silent all the way there. When we were stopped by lights, she exha
led loudly. Glancing over, I noticed her lips had lost their color. As we drove out of the city, the grey surroundings merged into a wet green blur. I was almost glad of the sound of the passing rain. It was the only relief I got from the utter hatred I felt for every car in front of me.
We followed Mark’s car into a car park, where a wet signed advertised ‘The Tanners Moor Trail’. I drove the car into the nearest bay and yanked the keys from the ignition. We tore the doors open, and ran to the knot of people gathered in the car park. At the far end of it, I could see Marine’s teacher Katy, talking to a coach driver. Behind its misted windows could just about make out the children inside. I tried to pick out Marine’s face amongst them. When I couldn’t, I told myself that it didn’t mean anything.
We ran to where Katy pointed, a part of the hill evident only by a flickering piece of white tape. ‘Why the hell is there tape?’ Juliette asked. It hurt to consider reasons. Rain slashed at us as we clambered towards the white flicker. Juliette’s party dress was wet through by the time we reached the crest of the hill. The slime from the canapés had mixed with mud on her leg. We hurried towards a group of people, a good fifty yards from the footpath where the grass had grown long, and the landscape was obscured by vegetation. Amongst them I recognized the uniforms of policeman and paramedics. I could see where the grass ended, into a presumably sharp fall. Police were lining the crest of the hill. To our horror everyone was looking down into the ravine. ‘Where’s Marine, where’s Marine?’ Juliette shouted. She addressed everyone in turn as we drew level, her voice growing shrill. ‘Where is my daughter?’ she screamed.
My heart pulsed so hard I was sure something inside would break. I desperately hoped that when I peered over the edge I would see Marine on a ledge just under it. Sat there, with a scratched knee and a brave smile. A paramedic looking over her, with one hand on her shoulder. As I looked vainly over the edge I saw thick tangle of thorns, and through them a hundred foot drop, broken by the odd chalky ledge.
An Honest Deceit Page 4
