Local Poet

by Paul Trembling

  “I’m sorry to hear that, but I’m afraid it’s not unusual in cases like this. Feelings run high for a while. They should settle down quickly, though. But I’ll arrange a press release; make it clear that we’re not looking to bring any charges at present.”

  “Can’t you just come straight out and say it was an accident?”

  “Not until after the inquest, which might be a while yet, I’m afraid. It’s up to the coroner to rule on whether or not it was accidental death. But I’ll think about the wording – try to take some heat off you.”

  That was obviously the best I was going to get – unless the detectives had turned up something that would direct attention away from me. “What about the drugs angle?”

  “Drugs?” Henshaw sounded surprised. “What drugs?”

  “Well, it’s just that the two plain-clothes officers who came to see me seemed very interested in a possible drugs connection.”

  There was a short but significant pause. “Mr Seaton – do I understand that CID officers have talked to you in relation to this incident?”

  “Yes. The day after it happened. I thought you’d have known about it.”

  PC Henshaw’s reply had the feel of someone choosing their words with extreme caution. “Yes. I would have expected to be informed. There may have been a breakdown in communications. Do you happen to recall the names of the officers?”

  I had to think hard about it. They had told me, but I’d been more concerned at that point with the possibility of being arrested for murder. “There was a sergeant. DS Faden – something like that. And the one with him, unusual name, sounded Italian.”

  “Cadenti? DC Cadenti and DS Fayden, was it?”

  “That’s right.”

  There was a pause in our conversation, during which I could hear a few muffled noises. It sounded like someone swearing vigorously, having first covered the mouthpiece with their hand.

  The noises stopped, and PC Henshaw returned to the phone. “I shall have to get back to you on this, Mr Seaton.”

  She hung up rather abruptly.

  “A breakdown in communications, was it?” I said to myself, and reflected that it wasn’t just poets who didn’t mean what their words said.

  The evening dragged a bit. I had a bite to eat, watched some TV. My own company became oppressive, so I went to the gym.

  Sitting in a van all day will quickly turn you into a beached whale, especially on a fast-food diet, so I tried to do something healthy at least once a week. And there was something about a good sweaty workout that often lifted my mood. But not this time. Even after pounding the treadmill for half an hour, my thoughts still kept coming back to a broken body and blood soaking into the road.

  I showered and went down to the pub, where I had a couple of pints, chatted to some people, watched some more TV. A football match was on, some European league game. After half an hour, I realized that I had no idea who was playing and didn’t really care. I finished my drink and went home.

  Having picked up a takeaway on the way back, I started eating while I searched the TV for something to watch. Halfway through my chicken korma I’d searched the entire Freeview channel list twice. I didn’t want to watch TV. I didn’t want chicken korma.

  What I wanted was for the last few days to have never happened. I wanted Laney Grey to be alive and well, and someone I’d never heard of.

  DAY 4: OFFICE WORK

  Colin wasn’t keen that I should go and collect my van, though I insisted that I was OK to do it.

  “You can’t take it out on a job yet anyway,” he argued. “Our own mechanics have to check it over first.”

  “What for? There’s nothing wrong with it. The police said so.”

  He shrugged. “Policy. I’ve no say in it. You’re not even supposed to drive it till then.”

  “That’s ridiculous!”

  “If you want to argue with Head Office about it, feel free. In the meantime, I’ll arrange for the van to be picked up, and I’ll see if I can sort out a Fiesta run for you. Go and get a coffee or something.”

  When it came to matters of policy, Colin was immovable. I went and got a coffee.

  I sat in the main office and sipped it. The staff there were friendly enough, but had no time for chit-chat. They were too busy hammering away on keyboards, sorting papers, making phone calls. Processing orders, I supposed. Strangely, though I must have been in there thousands of times in the years I’d worked for the firm, I only had a vague idea what they actually did.

  Looking at the desks, it was clear that the terrible Mrs Howard had never been there. Mixed in with the papers and pens and other assorted officeware were a wide range of clearly personal items: family photographs, cartoons of office life, a solar-powered nodding dog.

  I’d never noticed any of that before, either.

  Presumably there was no company policy regarding what was allowed on desks, or Colin would have enforced it rigorously. However, lacking any guidance from higher authority, he seemed to have taken an “anything goes” attitude. In fact, now I thought about it, he had a couple of photos and a plastic flower on his own desk.

  One of the office girls had a framed picture of a mountain hanging on the wall next to her. Not a photograph, an actual painting. I got up and took my coffee over for a closer look.

  “Where’s that, Liz?”

  “Um?” She glanced up from the screen, followed my gaze, and looked at the painting. “Oh. Scotland. Had a holiday there a few years ago.”

  “Do you look at it?”

  “Of course!” Her normally pleasant features were creased into a frown.

  “Why?”

  Her frown deepened. “Because it’s nice to look at. And it’s better than staring at Tim all day!”

  Tim glanced up from his own desk, which faced Liz’s. “I like to look at it too,” he said. “It reminds me that there are better places. And nicer people.”

  She stuck her tongue out at him and turned back to me. “Rob, I’d love to sit and discuss art with you all day, but I’m a bit busy at the moment.”

  “Of course. Sorry.”

  I went and sat at a vacant desk and finished my coffee. There was a good atmosphere in the office, I thought. People were busy, but there was a lot of banter, a lot of smiles and laughs and chatter. I’d never worked in an office myself, but now I thought about it, some places must be pretty miserable to work in. Such as any office run by Mrs Howard.

  I thought of Laney Grey working in an office. I thought of her looking at a picture of a wave. Not just glancing at it occasionally, as Liz did with her mountain, but staring into it, intent on seeing every detail. Building it in her mind – the sounds, the smells, the entire experience of the wave. Trying her best to be there…

  … And then having it abruptly snatched away, dumped into a waste bin.

  I felt it.

  For one brief fraction of eternity, Laney reached out from behind the words and touched me with her boredom and loneliness and aching desire to escape; with her loss and desolation as her escape route was snatched away. For a moment, I knew exactly what it felt like to work in Mrs Howard’s office.

  “You OK, Rob?” Tim called from across the room, and I realized that I was sitting with my mouth gaping open.

  “Yes. Fine thanks.” I got up, took my mug out to the kitchen, and washed up, then went back to Colin’s office and stuck my head round the door.

  “Col – doesn’t seem much point in me hanging round here. I’m just getting in the way. Call me if you need me back.”

  Colin glanced up. “Of course. Take any time you need, Rob.”

  “Thanks.” I started to leave, then had a sudden impulse and turned back again. “Colin – if you don’t mind me asking – why the plastic flower?”

  “The flower?” He looked embarrassed. “My daughter gave it me years ago. She said it would brighten up my office. Never thought to get rid of it.”

  I nodded. “Don’t. She was right. And by the way, Col – you run a
good office.”

  “Oh. Er, thank you.”

  I left, leaving him looking pleased but slightly bemused.

  I made a brief stop at my flat to find and complete the application form I’d been given, then made my way to the library, stopping at a florist’s on the way.

  To my disappointment, Sandra wasn’t at the reception desk. A younger woman peered at me rather dubiously over the top of her glasses, accepted the form, and informed me that the machine that produced the library cards was broken and they’d have to send it away for processing. Should be ready in a day or two.

  She became even more dubious when I asked after Sandra, and gave the bunch of flowers I was carrying a suspicious glance, but finally released the information that it was Sandra’s day off and she’d be back tomorrow.

  I was disappointed, since I was still bubbling with my revelation and desperately wanted to talk to someone about it. But today’s librarian didn’t seem likely to be interested, so I’d just have to keep it to myself.

  However, I did have another purpose for coming to the library.

  The pile of flowers had, if anything, grown slightly. I laid my own down with the rest and stepped back. I felt that I should say something, but I had no idea what. I continued to stand awkwardly for a few moments, increasingly aware of the dubious look from behind the desk.

  “Laney…” I began hesitantly. Then words began to come from somewhere. “I read your poems, Laney. Some of them. I’m not much of a reader, actually. But I got it, eventually. I got what you were saying. I heard you.” That was all I could think of. I left without looking back.

  The rest of the day was spent rereading Postcards to Myself. Armed with my new insight I expected to see more in them than I had before – and I wasn’t disappointed. There were no more sudden moments of revelation, but now I understood how to look behind the words, each one had a whole new layer of meaning.

  “The Chimney”, for example. The words were still the same, a vivid description of its old brickwork standing tall amid the devastation of the demolished factory. But behind the description was a feeling of bewildered loneliness. All that had given the chimney purpose was gone. It had been preserved for its architectural significance, but it understood nothing of that. Its world had changed around it, and left it without meaning.

  Of course, it wasn’t about the chimney at all. Chimneys don’t have feelings. But poets do. And this was Laney’s voice, speaking about her life, her feelings.

  The same sadness was in all the other poems as well. It came through more strongly in some – “The Seagull” was probably the best example, but it pervaded the entire collection. Even “The Party”. Although it was funny, there was a hidden sadness. Why was she listening to all these conversations? Because she wasn’t having any of her own. Even at a party, she was somehow the one who didn’t belong.

  It was early evening when I finally drifted back into reality, my mind still swirling with images I had never seen and emotions that weren’t my own. But I was cold and cramped from sitting hunched over the keyboard all day. And hungry. I checked the time, and shook my head in amazement. If anyone had told me last week that I would be spending hours at a time reading poetry, I would have told them to get a life.

  But now I was hooked, and before I shut down the laptop I downloaded the rest of Laney’s books. Also, having become aware of the potential discomfort involved in prolonged reading from a computer, I ordered paperbacks of all three.

  I stood up, stretched some of the kinks out, and went into the kitchen to dump something in the microwave. I switched the telly on in passing – it was about time for the local news, and I was wondering if June Henshaw had put out the press release yet.

  I was still trying to choose between chicken korma (again) or beef curry when a reporter said a name that got my immediate attention.

  My name.

  I rushed back into the living room with a frozen ready meal in each hand, and saw my own face staring back at me.

  “… named by police as Robert Seaton, of 14 Windsor Road…”

  Not just my name and my face, but my address as well.

  “… helping the police with their enquiries.”

  The picture switched to some footage of the high street, zoomed in on bunches of flowers lining the pavement and cable-tied to lampposts. I hadn’t been there since it had happened; I hadn’t realized the strength of feeling over Laney’s death. Finding out like this was a kick in the guts.

  The voice-over finished reiterating the story, the announcer moved on to the next item. I became aware that my fingers were becoming uncomfortable, so I dumped the packets back into the freezer and snatched up my phone. Between frozen fingers and a surge of adrenaline it took me a few minutes to find the number Henshaw had given me. That allowed me time to move from shock to anger as it rang unanswered before switching to voicemail.

  I swore and tried again. This time it was picked up by a male officer whose name I didn’t catch.

  “I need to speak to PC Henshaw. Now!”

  Police officers don’t take kindly to being ordered around by members of the public. There was a distinct frost in his voice as he informed me that PC Henshaw was not available.

  “Well, make her available! She promised me anonymity and now my name’s been plastered all over the news. Do you know what people have been saying about me already? They’re calling me a murderer, and now they know where I live. What the hell’s going on!”

  Fortunately, the officer was sufficiently professional to pick out the important point in my little rant and not just hang up, as I would have done in his place.

  “Sir, I need you to calm down and tell me what your name is, please.”

  I took a deep breath, already feeling embarrassed. Obviously my fame had not yet become so great that any random copper would know at once who I was. “Yes. Of course. Sorry. My name is Robert Seaton, and I’ve just seen my name and address on the news!”

  With a bit more patient probing by the officer, I explained about the accident and the messages on the website; about the press release that Henshaw had promised and what had actually just appeared. The process helped me to get over the initial shock and I found myself agreeing that there was no immediate danger to either my life or my property.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know what’s happened here. I understand your concern, and obviously this needs looking into.” The officer, who had introduced himself as PC Baker when I gave him a chance to get a word in, was doing his best to project calm and reason down the line, and it was having some effect, at least in making me feel embarrassed by my panic. “I will send PC Henshaw an email now, and ask her to get in touch with you ASAP. In the meantime, I’ll log your call as a ‘Concern for Safety’ incident so that our control room is informed, and obviously if any threat develops you should call 999 at once.”

  When he’d hung up, I switched on the laptop and went onto Laney’s site. Someone had posted a link to an online local newspaper. My picture again, with the headline “The Man Who Took Our Laney”. I switched off again, and sat staring at the blank screen. I might not be in any immediate danger, but I felt like a target.

  I wasn’t very surprised when my phone rang. With my name and address out there, anyone could find my landline number.

  The first caller was some drunk, mumbling incoherent threats and accusations. He sounded so far out of it, I was amazed he’d managed to dial properly. I didn’t even try to have a conversation with him.

  The next call was more difficult. A woman, sobbing softly, asking me if I understood what I had done. I tried to explain. Several times. But she wasn’t listening. She didn’t want an explanation, just an excuse to dump her grief onto someone. I hung up on her as well.

  The third time it rang, it was a reporter wanting my reaction to the story that had gone out. At last, an opportunity to put my side. I started to explain that the police had already confirmed it had been an accident, and that I wasn’t being charged with anyt
hing, but it became clear he wasn’t interested in that.

  “But how do you feel about it?” he kept asking. “Do you feel guilty? Ashamed?”

  I was struggling to understand how I felt myself. Explaining it was way beyond my ability, especially when caught on the hop.

  “I’m trying not to feel guilty. Because it wasn’t my fault. There was nothing I could do. She just stepped out in front of me. Of course I feel sorry about it. I…”

  “So what would you say to her family?”

  “What family? I didn’t know she had a family.”

  “Her friends then. All her fans. Have you got anything to say to them?”

  “Well, of course I’m desperately sorry, and I understand how much we’ve lost. She –”

  He interrupted again. “Did you know Laney Grey? Have you read her poetry? Are you a fan of hers?”

  “No, I never met her, but I have read one of her books and I’m starting to understand what a talented writer she was.”

  “Do you read a lot of poetry?”

  “No, but…”

  “How fast were you going?”

  “What?” The sudden change of subject caught me by surprise.

  “When you hit her. How fast were you going?”

  “About forty. The speed limit.”

  “About. So you’re not sure. How long have you been driving? Had you driven that vehicle before? Are you familiar with that stretch of road?”

  I had had more than enough by now. “Yes, I am sure, and I’m an experienced –”

  He interrupted again. “Had you been drinking, Mr Seaton? Or were you on something? Did you take any medication that day?”

  “No, I didn’t!” I shouted down the phone, and hung up.

  It rang again almost immediately. I stared at it, but the ringing went on until I pulled the wire out. I barely restrained myself from smashing the thing into the wall then stomping the remains into the carpet. I’d seen people do that on TV, and thought it was a bit over the top. I understood now. The adrenaline rush made me desperate for physical action. I wanted to deal with my fear and anger by breaking something.