I went into the kitchen. It was quite bare now. The only thing I recognised was the Lady Diana Commemorative Wedding mug up on the top shelf that Audrey had bought to get Blind Lionel, Wool’s foremost unisex barber, to cut her hair in the same style. Big mistake that had been, on account of Blind Lionel had made her look like Prince Charles, who was also on the mug, but on the other side. God, did I laugh.
The Bowles had stripped the cupboards clean, save half a pot of raspberry jam. I stood by the window, digging what was left out with a knife. I thought I’d walk down to the cove, see who was there. Later I could drive over to Dorchester. I had some shopping to do too. Audrey had got rid of every stitch of clothing I ever owned, even my best driving gloves. There were other things I had to do, make an appointment to see Rump, see if I could get him to talk, see if there were any clues as to who might have been up there that Sunday afternoon. He’d done a load of interviewing when Miranda disappeared. There’d been that woman working the car park kiosk, Mickey Travers’ daughter. She’d seen someone walking up the Beacon around the right time. Maybe she’d said something he’d missed. Maybe there were others he’d talked to. Of course I had to be careful. I couldn’t come straight out with it. I’d have to get to him sideways, so he would hardly notice it, and there was only one certain way of doing that. Fish. The genus carp. Well it was bound to happen.
Over in the garden, where the pond had been, the grass was a different colour from the rest, lighter, weaker, the nymph standing in the middle, like she was stranded. She was looking at me out of the corner of her eye. I knew what she was thinking. I was thinking it myself
I went into the hallway, picked up mum’s old suitcase and lugged it back into the main room. There wasn’t much I’d brought with me, a couple of drawings what I’d done, the set of crayons I’d blagged off Bernie, a book on this Henry Moore geezer that Miss Prosser had given me for Christmas two winters back, the photo of Miranda standing by the Vanden Plas, the frame all bent where Victor had tried to slice my ear off, and in the middle of it all, all rolled up, my spare shirt, Torvill safe inside. I unwrapped her, held her in my hands. Her colour had faded a bit over the years, and there was a dent just below her gills where Audrey had stuck the heel in, but she still looked lovely, still had the body to make a koi man’s hands itch. I crossed the room and set her square on the mantelpiece, underneath where the photo of the two of them used to be, her lips puckered forward, like she was still trying to reach out and kiss him. But her dancing partner was long gone.
‘Just you and me girl,’ I said. ‘Just you and me.’
She looked at me out the corner of her good eye, both of us conscious of the empty spaces around us. Then the phone rang.
I moved across, staring at it, wondering who the fuck it could be. I hadn’t told anyone I was coming here, and anyway who knew the number? Perhaps it was because of the house, the emptiness of it, like there was nothing there, no present, no future, only past, but it was loud, really loud, louder than I’d ever heard it before, loud like if it kept on going the glass in the window would start to crack. I looked to Torvill, but she wasn’t saying nothing, just staring ahead, pretending she couldn’t hear it at all. Then I clocked it. It wouldn’t be for me, it would be for those pillocks I’d just turfed out. Or it could be hubby himself asking for their jam back. I picked it up, almost cheerful.
‘Al Greenwood At Your Service. The Ride of your Life, just around the Corner.’ That’s what I used to say when running the taxi business, least I did when I thought a woman was on the other end and Audrey wasn’t in earshot.
‘Hello Dad.’
I couldn’t believe it. Miranda! Miranda was calling. It had all been a horrible mistake. Audrey hadn’t killed her at all, just as I hadn’t killed Audrey or Michaela or maybe anybody. Audrey must have just bashed her unconscious, that was all, bashed her unconscious and carried her over to the gunnery range, where we all thought she’d been blasted into little bits. But no, she must have woken up all dazed and confused, suffering from memory loss, wandering about, not knowing who or what she was. A bash on the bonce can do that, everyone knows that. But here she was, back from the dead. And she’d just called me Dad! The first time ever! Christ, life is three-quarters paradise sometimes.
‘Miranda!’ I said. ‘Monkey Face! I can’t believe it. You’re alive!’
There was a gasp. I could hear her breathing hard, the shock of it, hearing my voice. Me and her, back together again, but this time like, official. Then she came back.
‘No Dad. This isn’t Miranda. This is Carol, your legitimate daughter, you remember, the one that escaped to Australia with her intended all in one piece, the one you haven’t seen for eight years.’
Carol! I’d forgotten all about her, well not all about her natch, I mean you don’t, do you, not your own flesh and blood, however much they grate, but she hadn’t been in the front of my mind, not for a long time. It wasn’t always like that. Back when she was a kiddie, we was like peaches and cream, Carol and me. On Sunday mornings, when I used to give the Vanden Plas the weekly waxing, she’d follow me round in her little white socks with a fluffy yellow duster the size of her head, like she was carrying a giant dandelion. She loved it, helping her Dad polish his big black car, up on my shoulders, leaning out so as to reach across the roof, her arms going like windmills. Magic them mornings, just me and her and the smell of Audrey burning the Sunday roast wafting out the window. And then, what, thirteen or so, one morning she appears all different, not the Carol I knew at all. Didn’t want nothing to do with me or the car, like she was embarrassed with what I did, with my suit and my gloves and the way I tipped my cap opening the passenger door. Four years of her squinting down her nose at me I had after that, four years of nose-squinting and slammed-door silences and her taking her mother’s side when me and Audrey were going a few rounds. Then she was seventeen and it was secretarial college and up to the big city. Couldn’t wait to leave. And that was that. Even when she came back I hardly recognised her. We grew apart, I can’t deny it, but still, I thought she might get in touch when I got sent down. But not a word, not once, not even on my birthday. It wouldn’t have taken much, a scrawl on a postcard every now and again, a photo or two. Not of herself of course, ‘cause unlike Miranda, Carol didn’t take a good photo, ‘specially after she lost her leg off the Great Australian Barrier Reef. No, something I could put on the wall, like one of them Koala bears eating leaves or Kylie Minogue up a tree, something to keep my spirits up. Not a lot to ask, you would have thought, but we’re talking about families here. They’re built to bring you down.
‘Carol, sweetheart! Of course it’s you. I’d recognise that voice anywhere. I’m just a bit confused that’s all, the truth coming out what mum did to that poor girl. She’s been on my mind. As have you, natch. Where are you?’
‘I’m at Heathrow. I’ve just come through customs.’
Christ on a kangaroo, she was here? What was she after? Hoping some of my money would jump into her pouch? It had all been in the papers. Fifty grand compensation minimum, the lawyers were saying, possibly a quarter of a mil. She must have jumped on the plane as soon as she’d heard about it. I could just picture her, smarming up to me like I was her one and only. ‘Come and live with us, Dad. Start a new life.’ Well she wasn’t getting a blind penny. She could stuff that in her tin leg.
‘All this way to see your old dad. I can hardly believe it. I’m all churned up sweetheart, smack me in the gob if I’m not. I mean, it must hard for you, one parent going into prison just as the other one comes out - a bit like those weather clocks they have in Switzerland. Still. No reason why can’t we celebrate. What are your plans? Are you coming straight down?’
‘Not exactly. My first stop is Scotland Yard. I want them to look into Robin’s death again. I know you killed him, you bastard, and this time I’m going to prove it. I’ll have you back inside Dad, if it’s the last thing I do.’
And she put the phone down. Not the best of phon
e calls to get on your first full day of release but there you go. Torvill was looking at me, all reproachful.
‘Perhaps she’s had a bad flight,’ I suggested. ‘Perhaps Audrey put her up to it. Yes, that’ll be it. Couldn’t stand the thought of me back home where I belong. Well, no one’s getting me out of here again, I can tell you, least ways Master Parker. It was his fault. He should never…’
I stopped. I wasn’t ready to tell her everything. We’d been mates for too long, me and Torvill. She’d kept me going through some dodgy times inside. Prison does that too you, makes you realise who your friends are, who you can rely on. Torvill was special. Telling what I’d done could put her right off.
Robin Parker had been Carol’s first fiancée. She’d had a number of boyfriends before she settled on him, Australians mostly who she’d bring down just to wind me up. What they saw in her I couldn’t work out, but there they were, taking tea on the Easy-slumber Sofabed, legs like a tropical rain forest, going on and on and on about how marvellous it was, skipping round in the all-together on Christmas Day, Carol waggling her head like she couldn’t wait to join in. It was toe-curling, the way she carried on, hanging on their every word. That’s what put them all off in the end. I mean it’s not what you want in a girlfriend is it, a nodding limpet? Made my flesh crawl just to listen to it.
Robin didn’t have a drop of antipodean blood in him. Until he fell off that mountain I wasn’t sure if he had any blood in him at all. I mean, at least the Australians picked Carol up every now and again, took her somewhere quiet. Down Under didn’t just mean the Sydney Opera House. But Robin, Robin wasn’t interested in all that. He had his mind on lower things.
She’d met him up on the train coming down. She was out of work, flat share up the spout as a result. We weren’t allowed to see him for the first month, then he started coming round whenever I was out for the day on a job. I didn’t like the sound of him much. He was from university. He was a clever clogs with all these initials after his name. He liked cooking and hill-walking and had told Carol she had a hooter the same shape as this English queen from way back, Matilda the Unlucky, or someone. He’d come down to our neck of the woods to take a look at the pimple on the Beacon. He was thinking of slicing it up, finding out what lay underneath. Typical outsider, we-know-best sort of attitude, sticking their nose in where they’re not wanted. It’s our bloody pimple. If anyone’s going to squeeze it, see what pops out, it should be the likes of me and the lads down the Spread Eagle. I wasn’t impressed.
The first time I was allowed to meet him was on a Saturday. I’d had a long drive, collecting this bloke from Southampton who’d come off one of them cruise ships, all sun-tanned and relaxed, like he’d had his feet up for six months. Turned out he wasn’t a proper holidaymaker at all. He’d got free passage by teaching ballroom dancing and giving little lectures on the big band era with slides and records and bits of old film. Piece of piss he said. Got his leg over more times than he’d had hot lobster he said – and lobster came twice a day. Got me thinking that. I mean he was nothing in the looks department, nothing at all, and he knew it. We’d stopped off on the way back for a glass or two, while I questioned him about it, how he’d lucked into such a cushy number. Said cruise ships were crying out for it, entertainment that is, anything to occupy the passengers for an hour or two – so it was lectures on this, lectures on that, bee keeping, travels up the Orinoco, how to murder your wife. Caracas was his name. Johnny Caracas, gave me his card told me to get in touch. That’s what I needed, I thought, a two week cruise, hot lobster and no Audrey as ballast.
Anyway, I walked in the bungalow to find Carol sitting on the sofa, this Robin character sitting on her lap, his head swivelling from side to side, as she stroked his hair. I’d forgotten that he was staying for the weekend. For a moment I thought he was some sort of ventriloquist’s dummy. I mean what sort of man is it that sits on a woman’s lap? He was wearing one of those Norfolk jackets, all pockets and belts. He had tortoiseshell glasses and big feet and a straggly beard the colour and texture of Audrey’s opera house. Carol took her hand off his head and gave me a scowl.
‘About time. We’ve been waiting for you. This is my Dad, Robin, late as usual’ Robin levered himself up, held out his hand. It was thin and bony, red like a side of skate.
‘Very pleased to make your acquaintance Mr Greenwood.’
It took me a second to recover. I mean staring at Audrey’s eighth wonder of the world was one thing. Seeing it talk was quite another. I took his hand.
‘Charmed I’m sure.’ Carol puffed herself up.
‘Robin’s an archaeologist,’ she said, brushing her chest as if there was a medal on it. ‘That’s why he came down to this coastline to begin with. To look at all our fossils.’
‘And instead he found you. I hear you’re thinking of interfering with our pimple, too,’ I said. ‘Carol here isn’t enough for you.’
‘Dad!’
‘Just a joke, pumpkin. Well? Is it true?’
‘I wouldn’t describe it as interference, Mr Greenwood. More a voyage of discovery, finding out what lies underneath.’ It took me a second to realize what he was referring to. I was her father after all.
‘Nothing lies underneath. Me and Mickey Travers have been over that pimple with metal detectors more times that I’ve had hot lobster. If there was anything valuable worth finding, we’d have dug it out.’ Robin gave one of those little know-all coughs that doctors give, when you’ve trod on their territory.
‘Our methods would be a good deal more scientific than that, I assure you. Sonic soundings, infrared cameras, detailed measurements, not to mention good old fashioned spade work.’ He coughed again. ‘And not everything in my world has a monetary value, Mr Greenwood. It’s all about understanding the past, how people lived.’
‘Well no one lived on that pimple, I can promise you that. Too bloody cold. Also, it’s a pimple. You sit on a pimple for a week or two, and you’d know about it. That’s why our ancestors lived in caves and when they could afford it, built bungalows. There’s no future in a pimple as a domestile residence, despite the view.’
‘I am aware of that, but what about an ancient Saxon chieftain, buried there?’
‘What about it? If he was buried there he was meant to stay buried and not dug up just when he was getting comfy. You start mucking about with a Saxon chieftain and Christ knows what would happen. They used all sorts of curses and spells, them Druids, just like the Egyptians. Pyramids, pimples, they’re all the same really. Leave well alone, that would be my advice.’
There was a bit of a silence after that. Robin went back to the sofa, sat on a cushion, started fingering his beard around his mouth, like he was trying to find the way in. I knew how he felt. It was horrible, simply horrible.
‘Robin’s a member of Mensa,’ Carol announced, fluffing her chest again. I didn’t like the sound of that. Still I didn’t want to show any prejudice. Being wrong in the head is just an illness, like having gout or herpes. Prejudice free zone, our bungalow.
‘Is he? Does he have to take anything for it?’
‘It’s an IQ thing Dad. An intelligence test. Only the very brainy can join. He’s been trying to get on those quiz games on the telly, but as soon as they know he’s a member of Mensa, they won’t let him on.’ Made sense to me. Robin held out his hands, looking for sympathy
‘If you know it, show it, that’s my motto,’ he said, swivelling his head, like his collar was too tight. It meant something to him, being frozen out of the big time.
‘I’m sure if they saw you in person they’d think otherwise. Have you had it long, Robin?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘The beard. Carol’s talked about you until my arse has stuck to my seat, but she never mentioned the beard.’ He didn’t know what to make of that.
‘Well, I can’t remember really. Ever since I left school really. Why, don’t you like beards?’
‘Well, there’s beards and beards obviously
. Some just sit on the face better than others. I’m just wondering, facially speaking, whether yours could be a hindrance, TV-wise. I mean the picture’s so much clearer now, all this digital malarkey. Ah, here’s Audrey, fresh from the kitchen. Evening, my own. We were just talking about Robin’s beard. Quite a distinctive growth I think you’ll agree.’ Audrey was standing in the doorway, an iron ladle in her hand.
‘You’re late,’ she said. ‘Two hours, ten minutes to be exact.’ I blew her a kiss.
‘Good job it’s casserole night tonight, then. You’re getting Audrey’s signature dish, Robin. Pork chops in tomato soup. Once tasted always remembered.’ He nodded. He’d probably seen Audrey open the tin.
‘Carol tells me you’re a taxi driver. Do you know the way to San Jose?’
He laughed. Carol punched him in the arm. It’s not where I would have chosen.
‘At last! A boyfriend with a sense of humour. Well, it’s taken you long enough.’ He carried on regardless.
‘And your name. Very like Al Green. ‘I suppose you get lots of people saying “Jesus is waiting “ or “Take me to the River.”
‘Not many, no.’
‘Still, it must be fascinating, meeting people from such different walks of life, such a window on humanity. You must have a fund of stories.’
‘Must I?
‘I suppose you know the story that T.S. Eliot used to tell.’ He raised his eyebrows. I knew what he was thinking. I didn’t know who the fuck T.S. Eliot was. I knew who he was. I had my mum’s copy of Bob’s second electric album to thank for that, T.S. and Ezra fighting in the captain’s tower. I had to know who they were after that. Nicked one of his books from the library. Didn’t think much of it, myself. April is the cruellest month? What about September then, when all the ready holiday talent suddenly decides to fuck off home, leaving you high and dry? April? April is very nearly May and the return of bare legs and the short skirt.
Fish Tale (Cliffhanger Book 2) Page 4
