by E. M. Brown
“Well, start the research, interview a few people.”
“As I keep telling you, there’s no market for biographies of English writers – or writers of any nationality, for that matter. I don’t know what you see in him.”
“A lot, Douglas. Not least that for thirty years he wrote middling TV dramas and radio plays, and then chucked all that in and wrote eight novels that dissected the modern Western world and foretold, with utter prescience, the rise of fascism.”
“And then he vanished.”
Ella nodded. “Then, five years ago, he disappeared without trace. That’s part of the allure, Douglas – what the hell happened to Ed Richie?”
Douglas sighed. “Right, you’ve got what you want. A month off. Arrange Kit Marquez to come and see me and we’ll be quits. Now bugger off!”
“I’m on my way, Douglas,” she said. She felt like kissing the foul-mouthed, miserable old xenophobe, but restrained herself.
She left the headquarters of ScotFreeMedia and rewarded herself with a coffee at her favourite café on Charlotte Square. She sat at a high stool in the window, looking out at the muffled, hurrying crowd outside, and contemplated the trip south. She hadn’t ventured over the border to the country of her birth for five years, and a part of her dreaded the prospect.
But Ed Richie’s story fascinated her – and she had a personal connection to the author that she hadn’t bothered mentioning to Douglas.
Her wrist-com chimed, and Kit smiled out at her. “Meeting over, El?”
“All sorted.”
“Great. Listen, we’ve just found a wonderful café on Nicholson Street, The Sorority, and it’s full of sisters. Get yourself over here, girl.”
Ella smiled. “I thought it wouldn’t take you long to find it, Kit. I’m on my way.”
From Ed Richie’s journal, 2nd August, 2005
FALLING… AGAIN. DEBS stars in CrazyMadLoopy. She’s thirty, small, crew-cut, feisty, tattooed, studs all over the bloody place. Not my type at all, but shorn of ironmongeryand tribal markings, just the ticket. I know what Diggers will say: he’ll call me a bloody fool and tell me to grow up. Anyway, Debs lives over in Manchester, and she’s meeting me in Leeds for dinner next week. We’ll see what happens. It’s three months since Ophelia walked out and I noticed the other week that I’ve started talking to myself again.
From a review of recent children’s programmes in Whazzup Kids? 25th November, 2005
AND BBC’S CRAZYMADLOOPY goes from strength to strength. The set up is bats-in-the-belfry: brother and sister Ben and Liz are packed off to their uncle’s rambling country pile by squabbling parents, only to find that mad uncle Montague is dead and his ghost is haunting Montague Hall. Rather than tell the authorities and have their holiday come to an end, Ben and Liz conspire with their uncle’s ghost to keep the hall running as a stately home open to paying guests. Madcap shenanigans follow. Super fun! We’ll have an interview with the show’s creator and chief writer Ed Richie in the next issue.
CHAPTER THREE
April, 2016
RICHIE WOKE IN the morning to find himself in his bedroom.
He must have somehow staggered up the stairs, undressed, and put himself to bed. That in itself was something of a minor miracle, and another was that he wasn’t suffering from a raging hangover. The last thing he recalled was stumbling into the house… After that, nothing.
He wondered how Digby was feeling, if he’d gone home and made inroads into the bottle of ‘something.’ He remembered what Diggers had told him about Caroline – and only then did he recall Anna leaving him.
He stared at the ceiling and tried to work out how he felt about her departure. If he was perfectly honest with himself, he was fine. He still felt the sense of liberation he had experienced last night, and none of the incipient loneliness. The last couple of months with Anna had been hell, so perhaps he would be spared the melancholy and regret, this time.
He glanced at the clock on the bedside table and was surprised to find that it was after eleven. Well, he deserved a lie in; he’d finished the damned script yesterday, and promised himself some time off. He’d mosey on down to the Black Bull, have a pint and a ploughman’s to celebrate regaining his freedom.
He looked back at the bedside table and wondered what was wrong. Then he had it: the novel he was currently reading was not in its usual place beside the alarm clock. He wondered if in staggering to bed last night he’d knocked it on to the floor.
He sat up and swung out of bed, expecting his head to start throbbing. To his relief he felt nothing – well, nothing aside from the twinge of arthritis in his ankles and right knee.
He stared at the dining chair next to the bed. His chinos, shirt and jumper were folded neatly along with his underwear on the chair. He had expected to find them strewn across the carpet. He reached out, picking up his shirt, and stared at it, and then at the trousers and jumper.
But he’d been wearing black jeans last night, a rugby shirt and a thicker jumper than this one. He must have ditched what he’d been wearing in the laundry and set out these clothes for the morning…
He dressed and made his way downstairs. He’d have a quick coffee to kick start his metabolism, then wander down to the Bull.
It was strange, after living with Anna for months, to have the kitchen and the morning to himself. She’d been an early riser, showering and dressing before Richie stumbled out of bed much later, and she’d always insisted on making breakfast and brewing the coffee.
He made coffee, marvelling at the well-stocked fridge; Anna must have been to the supermarket during the last few days, as he found his favourite cheeses and a fresh jar of piccalilli.
He poured himself a black coffee and drank it standing up, staring through the kitchen window at the farmer’s field rising towards the spinney.
The snow was gone and the sun was shining. That was unremarkable in itself – he’d become accustomed to rapid variations in the weather away from the city – but it was obviously warm out: old Alf was in his shirt-sleeves, mending a drystone wall next to the lane.
He finished his coffee and considered the weekend that lay ahead. When he got back from the pub he’d call Digby to see how he was after last night, maybe even suggest he drive over. Leeds United were playing and the game was live on TV. He’d pop down to the Bull at four and watch it with a pint or two, then stay on for an evening meal.
Anna had detested football, and in the early days of their relationship, with the hypocritical diplomacy of the freshly infatuated, he’d foregone the pleasures of the beautiful game; only later, over the past couple of months, had his abstinence begun to rankle, and he’d drifted back to watching the odd game and staying up on Saturday nights for Match of the Day.
He found his winter coat hanging in the hall – not decorating the floor, where he’d expected to find it – and picked up the Guardian from the doormat. He set it on the table beside the door, deciding to read it later rather than take it with him to the pub. He liked to absorb himself in the paper, not have his reading interrupted by conversation with regulars.
He locked the door behind him and set off down the drive, then stopped in his tracks. Hell, it was warm, and he was wearing his thick winter coat. He returned to the house, flung the coat on the table by the door, and set off again.
Maybe he’d call Diggers from the pub and see how he was, he thought as he strolled down the lane, marvelling at the unseasonable warmth in the air. It was more like spring than the bitter January of last night.
He still found it hard to credit what Digby had told him. Caroline, having an affair with a bohemian potter? That the homely Caroline would be unfaithful to Digby with anyone was amazing enough, but with a young, arty potter…? He recalled trying to reassure Diggers last night with platitudes like, “It’s just a fling…” and “It’ll blow over…” and while he’d fully believed his words, he knew they’d done nothing to reassure his friend. He really should drive over that afternoon.
&nbs
p; Old Alf was fastening the gate at the bottom of the field as Richie passed.
“Beautiful morning,” Richie said.
“Aye, ’tis that.”
“The snow didn’t last long.”
Alf gave him an odd look, said something in his broad accent that Richie didn’t catch, and climbed up into the cab of his tractor.
He expected the village to be busier than it was; there was usually a market in the square on Saturday morning, and people drove in from miles around to stock up on fresh provisions. This morning, however, there was no sign of the market, and only a few cars were parked in the street around the square.
The Bull was also quiet, with just a handful of regulars occupying their usual places.
“Place is like a ghost town,” he said to Cindy as she waited while he scanned the guest ales.
“Is it?”
“Usually bustling, and what’s happened to the market? Serve Nigel while I make up my mind.”
Nigel, a prosperous solicitor in a Burberry overcoat, asked for a half of Tetley and said, “You’re a gent, Ed. Spoilt for choice?”
Richie indicated the ranked beer pumps. “I can’t decide between the Landlord and the Goose Eye.”
“The Landlord’s good today, Ed,” Cindy said.
“In that case make it a pint. I was going to limit myself to a half,” he said to Nigel, “but what the hell?”
“That’s the spirit, Ed. Whenever have you stinted yourself in the ale department?”
“Had a bit of a bender last night with old Diggers. Thought I’d better take it easy today. But the head’s feeling fine, none the worse. Oh, and I’ll have a ploughman’s too when you’re ready, Cindy.”
He looked around the snug and saw the globe intact on the shelf beside the empty hearth.
“I see your father’s mended the globe,” he said to Cindy as she placed his pint before him.
She looked confused.
“The globe,” he said. “I had an altercation with it last night, knocked it for a Burton. Bob’s obviously fixed it – or do you have a stock of the things?”
“Last night? But you weren’t in here last night.”
He stared at her, pint poised before his lips. “Are you kidding? You served me and Diggers all night.”
Cindy looked at Nigel and raised her eyebrows. “Ed,” she said as if talking to a child, “you weren’t in here last night. And neither was Shakespeare.”
“You’re joking, right? Taking the proverbial? I was blathered. Old Diggers insisted on whisky chasers. We left around one, but not before I shattered the world.”
Cindy braced her arms on the bar and leaned forward. “Ed, I don’t know what you’re talking about. You weren’t here last night, but I was. It was dead – the usual Sunday night –”
He interrupted. “Sunday? Did you say Sunday night?”
“Of course I did.”
He shook his head as if to clear it. “Sunday…? So what day is it today?”
She made her eyes massive. “Duh. Monday?” She moved off to serve another customer.
“Sweet Jesus…” Richie breathed.
Beside him, Nigel chortled. “You ought to write a film about it, Ed. Call it The Lost Weekend – or has it been done?”
“Monday,” Richie said in wonder. “Bloody hell. Well, that’d account for how quiet it is.”
So he’d got home pissed to the gills on Friday night – or rather in the early hours of Saturday morning – stumbled his way to bed and miraculously slept all Saturday and Sunday, waking up this morning, Monday… No wonder he didn’t have a hangover – but surely he would have woken up at some point to go to the loo, or had he been so paralytic that he’d relieved himself on amnesiacal autopilot?
“My God,” Nigel said, “that session must’ve been a corker. I knew you liked the sauce, old boy, but you really ought to go easy. Losing complete days like that? Not healthy, not healthy at all, Ed.”
Richie said, “You know who you remind me of when you sneer like that? Your namesake, Nigel Farage.”
Nigel hoisted his half. “I’ll take that as a compliment, sir.”
Richie took a delayed sip of his Landlord, sighing. “Bloody hell, that’s good.”
“Now not too many of those, Edward. Don’t want you losing the rest of the week.”
“Ha-bloody-ha.”
“So how’s the delectable Sam, these days?” Nigel asked.
Richie sighed. Surely he’d seen Nigel since Sam walked out. He lodged a shoe on the foot-rail and stared at upside-down bottles of spirits behind the bar. “Sam? I wouldn’t have a clue.”
“What do you mean?” Nigel said, then, “My God, don’t tell me you two have…?”
“She walked out on me many moons ago, Nigel.”
He saw the solicitor exchange a worried look with Cindy, who was pulling a pint further along the bar.
Nigel stared at him. “But… but, bloody hell, Edward. She was in here just the other day. Both of you –”
“You must have mistaken her for Anna,” Richie said.
Nigel looked mystified. “Anna? Who on earth is Anna?”
“Are you taking the piss?” Richie said, becoming annoyed. “Anna, the blonde whose cleavage you’re always drooling over.”
“Sorry, old boy, you’ve lost me. You were in here last Wednesday with Sam, celebrating the part she’d landed in a police drama. That’s where she is now, Edward – or have you forgotten? Filming in London? Ring any bells?”
His pulse hammering, Richie stared at the solicitor, then turned his back on the bar and gazed across the room without seeing a thing.
Last year Sam had been cast in a prestigious crime serial for the BBC. They had indeed spent a drunken Wednesday evening in the Bull, celebrating; then Sam had left for a month in London, filming the first couple of episodes.
And, when she returned, she’d dropped the bombshell that she was leaving him…
Cindy said, “Your ploughman’s ready, Ed. Where you sitting?”
Richie indicated a table on the other side of the room, well away from the bar and Nigel. He carried his pint to the table and sat down, and Cindy slid his plate onto the mat.
She paused, hovering. “Ed, are you okay? I mean…”
He looked back at the bar, where Nigel was sharing a joke with a farmer. “He was taking the piss, wasn’t he, Cindy?”
She bit her lip.
He went on, “I mean, about Sam. Me and Sam being in here…?”
“No… Look, Ed, you were in here with Sam last Wednesday. Don’t you remember? You ordered a bottle of champers.”
He nodded absently. “Oh, I remember. It’s just… Look, that was last year. Sam went to London, did the shoot… When she came back… she told me she was leaving… You must remember that, Cindy? I was in here, crying into my beer.”
Cindy gnawed at her lip, shaking her head.
“Then I met Anna, about six months ago. We were in here a lot, to begin with. You must remember her?”
“Anna?”
“Your height, blonde,” he said, almost desperately. “An accountant.”
“I’m sorry, Ed. Look, you’ve had so many women, I lose track.”
“But you must remember Anna? I recall you saying that you had a sister in Wales, not far from where Anna’s brother lived.”
Wide-eyed, Cindy shook her head.
Christ, he thought, what’s happening to me?
Cindy pointed vaguely over her shoulder. “I’d better get back…”
Alone with his ploughman’s, he found he’d lost his appetite. He bit into the pork pie and chewed without tasting a thing. Even the beer tasted flat.
At the bar, Nigel drained his half, said toodle-oo to Cindy, then gave an unsure wave to Richie as he departed.
They think I’m losing it.
He finished his pint and left the pub.
Head down, he hurried through the village. Without really knowing why, he didn’t want to bump into anyone he knew. The encount
er with Cindy and Nigel had been enough to destabilise him. He recalled his exchange with old Alf in the lane earlier, the farmer’s odd reaction when Richie had mentioned the snow…
He arrived home and let himself in. He saw his bundled winter coat on the small table, and knew the Guardian would be beneath it. Taking a breath, he pulled the paper from under the coat. Why hadn’t he noticed it before? The paper was not the Saturday edition, fat with supplements, but the thinner, Monday issue. He stared at the dateline beneath the masthead.
18th April, 2016.
His vision blurred. He dropped the paper on the floor and leaned against the wall, dizzy.
“Okay,” he said, “if this is really happening…”
He moved to the stairs and climbed, then stopped on the second step and backed down until he was staring through the door into the dining room. Last night, when Anna had walked out, he’d removed the landscape she’d bought him, leaving a yawning expanse of magnolia in its place. Now the space above the hearth was occupied by the Cretan coastal scene by Emmi Takala. He stared at the painting, suddenly sweating.
Slowly he climbed the stairs. He paused outside the bedroom, frightened at what he would find, now that he was really looking – or perhaps, he thought, afraid of what he might not find.
He pushed open the door and stepped into the room.
A superficial inspection suggested there was nothing amiss, that the room was as it had been when Anna had been in residence. He moved to the wardrobe and reached out, his hand shaking.
He opened the door and reeled.
He took a handful of dress and pulled it to his face, inhaling Sam’s scent. He unhooked the hanger from the rail, staring at the dress in disbelief: Sam’s yellow summer frock, with the shoulder straps and low hemline, which he always thought made her look like a Swedish schoolgirl, especially when she wore her hair in pigtails. He replaced the dress and pulled out another, and gave an involuntary gasp: the dress she’d been wearing on the first night they’d made love. He recalled turning her around, very gently, and pulling down the zip, easing the padded velvet epaulettes from her pale shoulders and kissing the nape of her neck. She had moaned, turning to him…
