QC:
I was there with him.
HIM:
All day?
QC:
All day.
HIM:
Why?
QC:
Does it matter?
HIM:
Yeah. Quite a bit.
QC:
Someone’d lost the main section of the house. We had to build a new one, make it a chimney breast and put in a fireplace. But the designers couldn’t find the fireplace—period details and all that. So it took all day, waiting there while they sent out a couple of assistants to get one that looked the same and the scenic painters fixed the colour. We were sitting on our arses. Huge waste of money. Pissed off Declan Palmer no end. These things happen in TV.
HIM:
And you were with me the whole day?
QC:
Well, I didn’t follow you into the bogs or anything. But yeah. I’d say we were together for most of it. I think you dropped me home that night.
HIM:
Which is funny, when you think about it. ’Cause that’s not what Chloe said now, is it?
QC:
No, mate.
HER:
[. . .]
ME:
[. . .]
HIM:
Tell him what you said to Declan Palmer, then. Go on, let him hear it.
HER:
I saw you with someone else.
HIM:
Come on, who? Don’t leave out the important bit.
HER:
Eve Quilter.
HIM:
Eve-Quilter-from-the-show, Eve Quilter?
HER:
Yes.
HIM:
Which one is Eve Quilter again, Daniel?
ME:
Charlotte.
HIM:
Sweet, isn’t it? He knows the whole cast, even the minor characters.
HER:
Right. It’s sweet. It’s sweet.
HIM:
And if you had to guess, Dan, how old would you say Charlotte is in the show?
ME:
I don’t know. She’s the oldest sister.
HIM:
Have a guess.
ME:
I think she’s meant to be sixteen.
HIM:
Yeah. I’d say that’s about right. Sixteen. So, go on then, Chloe. Here’s your chance. Tell him what you said I did to her. Tell him what you think you saw.
HER:
Oh, I know what I saw.
HIM:
You don’t know fucking anything.
HER:
You had your hands up her skirt.
HIM:
Complete and total lies, Dan, by the way.
HER:
Eve was on the counter in her dressing room. Her legs were wrapped around him.
HIM:
She’s making all this up. And let me tell you how I—
HER:
His hands were right up her skirt. He was kissing her neck, right here.
HIM:
Sit still. I didn’t say you could move.
HER:
[. . .]
ME:
[. . .]
QC:
[. . .]
HIM:
See, Dan, this is what she reckons. You tell me if this makes any sense to you, and if it does, we’ll stop the car and go our separate ways . . . She reckons that I went into Eve Quilter’s dressing room—you know, just wandered in there on my own and put my hands on her in broad fucking daylight, with all the fucking cast and crew waiting round on set with fuck all else to do. And she reckons that she saw all this when she was passing through the busy fucking corridor, because not only was I standing in a young girl’s dressing room with my hands right in her knickers, I was also so completely fucking stupid that I did it with the door wide open so every jumped-up make-up lady who knew my face could walk right by and see me. That’s what she reckons.
HER:
I didn’t say knickers. I said skirt.
HIM:
Same fucking difference.
HER:
You’d know.
HIM:
Shut the fuck up now. It’s time for him to talk. You tell me if that makes any sense to you, Dan.
ME:
[. . .]
HIM:
Daniel?
HER:
[. . .]
ME:
Did you really not do it, Dad?
HIM:
I can’t believe you even have to ask me that. Of course I fucking didn’t. That girl is sixteen years old. Sixteen. I might be many things, son, but I’m not that. I’m not that. What kind of person would that make me, eh? If you never accept another word I tell you in my life, then please hear this: I didn’t go anywhere near Eve Quilter. Not once. Ever. And that’s the simple truth of it. Tell him, QC. Did you see me go anywhere near the dressing rooms that day?
QC:
Yeah. I did, actually.
HIM:
That’s right. You did. Because we went together. And was I in Eve Quilter’s room?
QC:
Yeah. But she wasn’t in it.
HIM:
Right. Because she wasn’t even on the set that day.
QC:
No, I’ve got to say, as I remember it, she wasn’t.
HIM:
Never mind remember it. Check the call sheet. It’ll show you.
QC:
Yeah. Someone ought to do that.
HIM:
So why the fuck did we need to go to her dressing room, then, if she wasn’t there?
QC:
She told you to meet her there. Chloe did, I mean.
HIM:
Ah. Chloe told me to meet her there. And you came with me. Let’s just underline that part. Make sure Daniel knows. Tell him again. Tell him why.
QC:
Yeah, I went with him. Because—
HIM:
Keep going. Don’t choke up on me.
QC:
You thought that she was getting a bit obsessed with you. Clingy. You were trying to let her down gently. I was there for—I don’t know. Moral support, I suppose.
HIM:
Sounds right to me. Does that sound right to you, Chloe?
HER:
[. . .]
HIM:
Chloe?
HER:
Yes.
HIM:
And what happened in the dressing room, QC? Did you see me do anything?
QC:
No. Nothing really happened. She tried to make you go out for drinks with her, after we’d wrapped, and you said no.
HIM:
Did she take no for an answer?
QC:
Not to begin with. She went off a bit upset with you.
HIM:
There you are, see. Where was Eve Quilter while all this was happening?
QC:
No idea.
HIM:
No fucking idea. She was probably in school.
ME:
[. . .]
HIM:
Now, tell Dan what you told me the day before. The day before I met you in her dressing room.
HER:
[. . .]
HIM:
You know what I’m talking about.
HER:
[. . .]
QC:
Don’t, Fran. Come on. She’s admitted it. Stop now. There’s no need for—
HER:
I said that I loved you.
HIM:
More than anyone. That was what you said. More than anyone.
HER:
Yeah. More than anyone.
HIM:
You said you couldn’t concentrate on anything.
HER:
Yeah. I said that.
HIM:
And what did I say back?
HER:
[. . .]
QC:
Come on, Fran, you’ve put her through enough.
HIM:
It’s not half what she’s put me through. Not even close.
ME:
Dad, she’s terrified. Please.
HIM:
I just wanted you to hear it from the horse’s mouth, son. Tell him.
HER:
[. . .]
HIM:
Tell him or I’ll slice your fucking ear off.
HER:
You said you didn’t.
HIM:
Didn’t what?
HER:
Love me.
HIM:
I said you meant nothing to me, actually.
HER:
Yes. You said that.
HIM:
I told you to get over it, didn’t I? Move on in a hurry, I said.
HER:
Yes.
HIM:
And what did you do?
HER:
I’d already moved on.
HIM:
Nope.
QC:
Fran, Fran, come on. Put it down.
HIM:
You went to Palmer with your made-up little story, didn’t you?
HER:
Yes.
HIM:
To get me in trouble.
HER:
Yes, yes. Yes.
HIM:
Your word against mine.
HER:
Yes.
HIM:
And whose side did they take?
HER:
Mine.
HIM:
Yours.
QC:
Leave her, mate. Come on.
HIM:
You see how easy that was? I should’ve done this months ago. We should’ve done this right in front of Palmer. Stop moving. Stop fucking moving.
ME:
I get it, Dad. She got you sacked. You didn’t do anything. I get it.
HIM:
Yeah, you’re fucking right I didn’t. So you can blame her for all this. Not me.
ME:
You should’ve just told me this before.
HIM:
I couldn’t.
HER:
[. . .]
HIM:
Apologise, then. Apologise to my son.
HER:
I’m sorry.
HIM:
I’m sorry who?
HER:
I’m sorry, Daniel.
HIM:
For ruining everything.
HER:
For ruining everything.
ME:
It’s all right.
HIM:
What?
ME:
You should’ve just told me.
HIM:
[. . .]
HER:
[. . .]
QC:
So now what, Fran?
HIM:
You’re going to pull over.
QC:
Here?
HIM:
No. When I say.
QC:
You’re going to let her go, right?
HIM:
[. . .]
QC:
Fran, you’re letting her go, right?
HIM:
Shut up. I’m thinking.
The road became undulant. A few miles back, we’d started to encounter farm vehicles: tractors towing rotary tillers that engulfed the lane and caused regular traffic to bunch and overtake on half-blind bends. The land was mostly fields studded with sheep. Now and then, a clutch of woodland would rise and disappear, and we went by so many grey-brick cottages and farmsteads that I stopped noticing them by the time we reached Giggleswick. There was a train station there, set back from the main road, out of view. I watched the rusty steel tracks emerge from the hedgerows as we passed, and followed them in parallel, over the lush green pasture till they vanished. There was a bright blue ‘P’ sign on the verge just after that, and my father said: ‘Here. Park up when you get to it.’ A few hundred yards and there it was: a sliver of track the length of a swimming pool, the width of a supermarket aisle. QC slowed and steered us into it. For a while, we sat there in the empty lay-by, waiting. Cars flashed by on the road, heading south, heading north. ‘We’ll leave her here,’ my father said. ‘She can walk to that station we passed.’
‘Okay. That’s good,’ QC replied. ‘That’s good.’
‘I don’t have any money,’ said Chloe.
‘What?’
‘For the train.’
‘I’ll give her some,’ said QC. He started fishing in his jeans.
My father stopped him. ‘Hands on the wheel.’
‘I’m just getting my wallet.’
‘She doesn’t need your money.’
I blurted out: ‘I’ve got some. In my shoe. A twenty.’
My father snorted. ‘Oh yeah, since when?’
It was what my mother called my Safety Money, a little insurance just in case I ever found myself in need. A year ago, she’d written on it—CURRENCY OF AOXI—to prevent me wasting it on sweets, and would inspect it every now and then to make sure I still had it. I never had the heart to tell her that the only currency on Aoxi was a handshake. She liked parental tricks like this, ways of preparing me for serious things without me even realising. I think that she’d expected I would use it in a lesser crisis—something to pay for a taxi to my grandparents’ house after school if she got stuck with overtime at work. Instead, it would supply the train fare for a woman my own father had been holding hostage. ‘Go on then,’ he instructed, ‘let’s see it.’ I had to dig it out from underneath my insole. When I held the note out for my father, he squinted at it for the longest moment: ‘Toss it down there on the mat,’ he said, so I dropped it into the footwell. ‘A lot of money for a lad to keep secret.’ His eyes were still on it. ‘We could’ve used that before now.’ He let the twenty sit there. ‘All right, I’ve changed my mind. QC, you’re getting out.’
‘What?’
‘You’re going to leave the key in the ignition and get out the car. Then you’re going to walk all the way out there into that field, as far as that tree—you see it?’ QC stooped to gaze out my window. Where the rutted seam of the land met the low-hanging clouds was an oak tree walled off with grey stones. ‘As soon as you reach it, I’ll let her out, too. She’s going to walk over and meet you. You’re going to buy her a train ticket to wherever. I don’t care what either of you do after that, but if you don’t do exactly what I just said, then it’s you who’s responsible for the wounds I give her. Do you read me?’
QC sniffed. He sent a resigned look in my direction. ‘Yeah. What about him?’
‘He’ll be going home.’
I tried to gauge the distance to the oak tree. It was something like five hundred yards, about the same as the path from my front garden to the nave of St John’s church. I could walk it in six minutes, run it in just under three.
‘I think you’ve made it pretty hard for me to trust you, Fran, I’ve got to tell you,’ QC said. ‘How do I know you’ll keep your end of this?’
‘You’ll think of something.’
QC jounced his legs by the pedals. ‘No, sorry, you’re going to have to give me more than that. I want the knife. I’m not leaving them in here with you and that knife.’
‘I’ll give it to Daniel. You get out of the car, I hand it over, you walk to the tree. Fair?’
QC deliberated. ‘All right.’
Chloe writhed in my father’s grip. Her nostrils jetted sharply. ‘Shshhh now.’ He kissed the top of her head as she bucked against him. ‘Shshhh, settle down.’ If I hadn’t known better, it might have seemed like tenderness. ‘Let’s not take all day about it, eh?’
QC unclipped his seatbelt and it spooled back over his shoulder. He patted the steering column, glanced down at me, said: ‘Good luck with the rest of your life, lad.’ And he opened the door, stepped onto the bitumen. He stood at the back window and banged on the glass.
My father lifted the knife from Chloe’s side, his other arm constricting her. ‘Dan
, hold out your hand,’ he said, and I watched the Stanley knife approach the platform of my palm in near slow motion. It was hot, hefty, sweat-soaked. Afterwards, he spread his empty fingers on the window, and QC started walking.
I watched him step over the low steel barrier, into the thistles and brambles. He stood on the barbed wire sheep-fence and hurdled it awkwardly. Then, with a quick look back, he trudged through the tall grass into the open field.
‘He forgot about the child lock,’ my father said. ‘You’ll have to let us out.’
The bodily smells of the car were more present than ever: sour perspiration and breath. By now, I thought, my mother might have heard my message. I wondered if she would glean the trouble I was in from the dejection in my voice; I always thought that she could read my thoughts before they had occurred to me, so perhaps she was already on her way with the police.
Now his grasp on Chloe’s neck was double-tight and she was whimpering. Such grave and quiet sounds. I wanted to comfort her, but I didn’t know how. I studied the knife blade for traces of blood: there was nothing. I turned to her and saw there was tiredness in the white space of her eyes, a corruption of the colour. ‘Whatever you did, it doesn’t matter,’ I said to her. I was trying to raise her spirits, but it only made her cry. ‘You’ll be okay.’
A Station on the Path to Somewhere Better Page 15
