Mickey Take: When a debt goes bad...

by Steven Hayward

  ‘What is it?’ I say. She doesn’t seem to hear me and turns the page over. She finishes reading and hands it to me.

  It’s the front page of the Epping Forest Evening News dated Tuesday, 6th December 1983. I read the day’s leading story:

  FATAL COLLISION: ‘A TRAGIC ACCIDENT’

  Essex Police have today dismissed earlier speculation that yesterday’s high-speed car crash on the Epping Road was the result of drink-driving. One woman died in the head-on collision that happened in the early hours of Monday morning on the A414, east of Epping. The condition of a second woman, believed to have been conscious on arrival at the Princess Alexandra Hospital, Harlow, is reported to have deteriorated overnight. She has since undergone emergency surgery at the Essex Neurosciences Unit at Queens Hospital, Romford where she remains in intensive care. A spokeswoman for the ENU this afternoon described her condition as critical. Police are yet to release the names of the two women, both believed to be in their mid-twenties, and of a third person, a man, who was also involved in the incident. The man escaped with injuries described as serious but not life-threatening and is recovering at Princess Alexandra Hospital.

  In a police statement issued today, the traffic officer first on the scene has confirmed the drivers of both cars were women. It remains uncertain whether either driver had been wearing a seat belt, however, preliminary tests have now ruled out alcohol as a factor in the collision, whilst the poor road conditions at the time are considered likely to have played a significant part. The accident happened at a notorious black spot along a remote stretch of the road that runs from Chelmsford to Harlow. The police statement did confirm that the male passenger, whose injuries were less severe, had been wearing a seat belt.

  Describing it as a tragic accident, Clive Armstrong, Police Commander of the Epping Forest District, took the opportunity, in keeping with the Department of Transport’s national ‘Clunk, Click, every trip’ campaign message, to stress the importance of wearing seat belts for even the shortest journey.

  At the bottom of the article there’s a footnote link to an editorial on page 1. I turn the paper over and find it at the bottom of the left column.

  Apology – Fatal Accident

  Yesterday’s editorial referred to allegations purporting to relate to the driver of one of the vehicles involved in the fatal collision in the early hours of Monday morning. It was reported that a man, seen drinking heavily during an after-hours lock-in at The Wheat Sheaf public house near the village of Stapleford Tawney, had driven away at high speed with a female passenger in a white Astra GTE at around 1:30am, shortly before the crash happened. The editorial noted that The Wheat Sheaf is less than four miles from the scene of the collision and that the description of the vehicle matched one of the cars involved. The eye-witness account was believed to have originated from a reliable source.

  Following the release of new information, confirming that the drivers of both vehicles were women, Essex Police are treating these accusations as malicious and we are assisting them with their enquiries into this aspect of their investigation. The Epping Forest Evening News accepts that in reporting these claims, it fell short of its usual rigorous standards of journalism and regrets any implied credibility that its editorial may have given to these unfounded allegations. We apologise unreservedly for any distress caused to the victims and their families.

  ‘Wow!’ I say, putting the newspaper down. ‘I’ve never heard of Stapleford Tawney, have you?’ I look across at Grace who’s studying the loose photograph intently. I wait for her to look up. When she does her eyes are glazed.

  ‘What is it?’ I ask. ‘Does she look familiar?’

  ‘You tell me,’ she says, holding the photo alongside her face. I’m drawn more to her expression than the photograph. Her mouth is trembling and her eyes are watery.

  ‘Grace?’

  She closes her eyes and tears roll down her face. ‘I think it could be my mum,’ she says.

  Come Again

  We manage to find a pub open nearby and I settle Grace into a quiet alcove. She sips at the whisky I’ve bought her in the hope it will help snap her back into life. She’s not said a word since I took the photo from her and replaced it in the frame. She held out her hand and I gave it back. She wrapped it carefully in the advertisement and put it back inside her jacket. She’s still holding the newspaper article. I decide it’s probably best to wait for her to speak, and so we’ve sat here for a good ten minutes.

  ‘I’ve only ever been told,’ she finally whispers, ‘about a car accident. And that she didn’t survive.’

  ‘Didn’t you say you were put into care from birth?’ I’m trying desperately to understand why she sees such an unlikely connection with the photograph. I’m no expert in psychology. If I was I might wonder if this could be a manifestation of the symptoms of a life with no family and a childhood spent in orphanages and foster homes. Or consider that maybe any tenuous link to a mother she’s never met could provoke this kind of reaction. Or be concerned perhaps that she regularly seizes on even the remotest possibility in the hope it might provide clues to her own identity. But like I said, I’m no expert and, although I want to comfort her, at the same time I’d prefer not to say anything to validate what seems to me an irrational conclusion. However, at the same time, I can no longer ignore the screaming voice in my own head, insisting on the resemblance between Grace and the woman in the photo.

  ‘I was told she was six months pregnant,’ she says without looking up. ‘I was delivered by caesarean while a machine kept her alive.’

  ‘Why would her photo be in that house?’ As soon as I say it the thought occurs to me: why wouldn’t it? I’ve already found photos of Grace in there, but she doesn’t seem to hear me. She stares into space and carries on talking in a low voice.

  ‘My whole life I’ve struggled to understand how an unborn baby could have survived that. People talk about miracles, but there were times when I wished I’d died with her, when I thought I didn’t deserve to live because she died without ever knowing me.’

  ‘It’s okay. This is all a horrible coincidence. Don’t let it upset you.’ I can tell she’s still not listening, but then she looks at me and smiles.

  ‘Somewhere along the way, I started to realise how lucky I was. She died so young, but I’d lived for a reason. To her, my life would have been precious; she’d been alive long enough for me to come into the world. I started to believe I could let her live through me and so I decided to cherish my life and to live it to the full. I at least owed her that.’

  I want to ask her what makes her think this is her mother. To say there’s no reference in the newspaper to a baby. To point out the date that doesn’t even coincide with her birthday. To tell her all the reasons why it’s unlikely there’s any connection between her and this woman. Instead I move my chair closer and embrace her, and that seems to break the spell.

  ‘Mickey,’ she says, looking deep into my eyes. ‘There’s more I need to tell you.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ I say. ‘Take your time, sweetie.’

  ‘I really like you a lot,’ she says and I notice one of her eyelids flicker.

  ‘I like you too Grace.’ Even in my confusion I want to pinch myself, because I still can’t believe a girl like her would make all the running for a bloke like me.

  ‘It wasn’t supposed to be like this,’ she says. Her eyes are more intense than ever and I stare back into them waiting for her to elaborate, but she seems unsure how to continue.

  ‘It wasn’t supposed to be like what?’

  ‘I didn’t plan to get so…’ she pauses, ‘involved. I mean… emotionally.’

  ‘So what did you plan?’ I sit back into the seat, picking up on her anxiety, still with no idea what she’s getting at.

  ‘Mickey, please don’t hate me,’ she says. Her head tilts slightly to one side and half a smile settles on her face. I look back bemused and let her continue. ‘I’m sorry about my fit of giggles earl
ier,’ she says. I’ve completely forgotten about it and I’m relieved that’s all she’s worrying about.

  ‘Grace, if I hated you every time you laughed at me, I don’t suppose we’d be getting on so well.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re probably right,’ she says. ‘What I was going to say was the reason I couldn’t stop laughing earlier was because it may have been me who spooked you. That night you thought you heard a scream from the dungeon.’

  ‘What?’ I say, my narrowing eyes betraying the turmoil in my head.

  ‘I was there.’

  ‘I don’t get it. You were where?’

  ‘At the house.’

  ‘What, in that room?’ I say in disbelief.

  ‘No, not in the room, I was outside, at that kitchen window.’ She grimaces as if bracing herself for my reaction.

  ‘Grace, what are you talking about? What’s going on?’

  ‘I followed you. I watched you go inside the house. I saw you come into the kitchen and go straight to the table. You went back through the house and there was a loud bang. It made me jump and I fell into the bushes and screamed. I think that’s what you heard.’ She’s looking down at the table again, but no longer in self-pity. She’s hanging her head in shame.

  ‘You followed me? You didn’t even know me then...’ The thought trails off to the obvious conclusion she must have tracked me back to The Feathers too. I see a rabbit staring mesmerised into oncoming lights.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she says.

  ‘Why Grace? What the hell are you up to? What have you got to do with all this?’ Other questions come fast and furious in my head before she’s even started on these ones.

  ‘Please don’t be angry. I want to tell you everything. I don’t want to deceive you anymore. Like I said, I wasn’t planning on getting this close. Now I have I don’t want to hurt you. Please let me explain.’ I’ve already grabbed my coat from the back of the chair and start getting up.

  ‘No, please don’t go. I can explain everything,’ she says, reaching across and holding my arm. I stare back coldly into frightened eyes that plead for me to stay.

  ‘I’ll get us another drink,’ she says. ‘Please sit down.’ I drop back into the chair as if hypnotised by her touch.

  ‘Mickey, I need to visit the ladies first. Please wait.’ Her words are like white noise and she’s just a blur as she gets up and walks away.

  She’s been gone no more than a couple of minutes and I’m still slumped in the chair, jacket in hand, not wanting to stay but unable to move when I feel a tap on the shoulder. I assume it’s her checking what I want to drink and I struggle momentarily with the idea that I’m actually not thirsty. Before I can finish the thought and turn around a familiar voice whispers in my ear.

  ‘Hello Mickey, lad. Let’s go somewhere we can talk.’

  10.

  Long Division

  I follow Herb from the pub and around the side to where a silver Mercedes is waiting in the car park. We both get in the back and it pulls away sedately without a word to the driver. I’m sitting behind him and can see his massive scalp sprouting short, spiky hair that teases the car’s roof lining like a wire brush to a peach. I don’t have a clue where we’re going and so far I’ve been unable to say anything intelligible, even though I have a thousand questions. Moments ago I was stunned by Grace’s revelation she’d been following me around before engineering our first and, I had to assume, subsequent encounters. That shock, followed by feelings of relief and then anger at seeing Herb, seem to have counteracted each other and I’m left in a strange, inanimate limbo. I suppose all will be revealed so I say nothing and wait for him to speak. Instead, he gets his phone out and makes a call.

  I must be so out of it, my mind doesn’t even register surprise when it’s a foreign language he starts conversing in. Every now and again he seems to struggle and resorts back to English for a particular word or phrase, but not enough for me to get any sense of who he’s talking to and what about. All I can do is stare out of the window. Unable to focus on the landscape flashing past in a blur, I soon lose all sense of direction. Within half an hour we’re pulling off a quiet road in the middle of nowhere into a secluded driveway leading through trees and dense shrubs to a rambling country house I couldn’t see from the road. When the car eases to a halt outside the gabled stone porch, Herb finishes his call and my frustration boils over.

  ‘Herb! What the f—’

  ‘All in good time, Michael. All in good time.’ He cuts me off as he gets out of the car, walks to the porch and unlocks the heavy wooden door, leading me inside to a cavernous panelled hall. To the left, a sweeping oak staircase leads onto a balconied mezzanine. Straight ahead, a corridor extends off towards the rear of the building, reduced to little more than a passageway by the stacks of boxes lining the walls on both sides.

  ‘You’ll have to excuse the state of the place,’ he says, without any sense of irony, as he opens an ornately moulded door to the right. I follow him into a large square room with a vaulted ceiling, stone fireplace and frescoed walls, decorated tastefully with assorted works of classical art that Grace’s Mr Johnson would no doubt have died for. He sits down in a leather smoking chair at one side of the hearth and expects me to take the one opposite. I stay on my feet. When he looks up at me the shadow of a grin flits across his face and he holds out his palms in a conciliatory gesture. That’s when I notice his hand no longer shakes.

  ‘Who was that with you?’ he says with convincing indifference. It’s the last question I’m expecting and I immediately feel protective of the girl who’s just admitted screwing me over.

  ‘Don’t you think you owe me some answers before you start asking the questions,’ I snap back.

  ‘Yes. I suppose you deserve that,’ he says. ‘I haven’t been totally straight with you.’

  ‘Well that sure as hell goes without saying.’ I raise my voice to bolster my confidence, but in these surroundings Herb is self-assured, and I feel more than a little intimidated.

  ‘It’s all right, lad, you’re entitled to be angry.’ He nods respectfully enough, but he may just as easily be taunting me.

  ‘I thought you were in danger. I’ve been worried sick about you.’

  ‘That’s very touching Mickey,’ he says, putting his hand across his heart. ‘Really it is. But you know, it doesn’t pay to get too emotional in this business.’ He looks at me calmly, in control, his eyes brighter, alert, his hair darker, oiled and neatly parted on the side, the lines on his face relaxed. He looks ten years younger.

  ‘Don’t patronise me, Herb,’ I say. ‘I’ve been all over the place looking for you. I didn’t need any of this; it’s not what I agreed…’

  ‘You agreed…’ he cuts me off, ‘because you owed me and because you wanted it. End of story. I may have laid on the hard luck story a bit thick, but at the end of the day if I thought you were doing this out of sympathy, I would have pulled the plug. Your initial reaction was the rational one I’d expected, and I would have left you alone if that had been your final answer. That would have confirmed you were out of the game for good. When you left the door open… I knew you still wanted in.’

  He’s right and we both know it. It's like he’s holding a mirror to my face and the ugly truth burns like acid on my skin.

  ‘Maybe I did,’ I say. ‘But when are you going to tell me what the hell this is all about?’ I struggle to maintain my glare into his eyes, and yet when he locks onto mine I can’t pull away, even if I want to.

  ‘And when are you going to realise that Grace holds the key to all this?’ His words are a quiet, calm punch to my stomach.

  ‘You already know her name,’ I concede, groping for fragments of sense.

  ‘Okay, so it was her with you back there,’ he says with a stinging smile. ‘It’s been a few years since I’ve seen her. She was little more than a child. Even then she was beginning to blossom.’

  I want to ask why he’s so interested in her, to defend her. As confusion and do
ubt collide violently in my head, realisation begins to dawn: between the two of them I’m caught in a web of lies and deceit. I finally sit down, crushed.

  ‘I did what you wanted,’ I say. ‘Exactly what you wanted.’

  ‘Credit where it’s due, Mickey. You did the job.’

  ‘I did get a buzz,’ I find myself saying.

  ‘That’s more like it, lad.’

  ‘I’ve named it Bleak House. That dump you sent me to,’ I say, and a wry smile relaxes the muscles in my neck.

  ‘It’s a place we use occasionally. You know… for storage.’ He says it slowly and deliberately, accenting the last word with a knowing glint, getting the reaction he’s looking for, my eyes betraying the shudder rippling up my spine. ‘Clearly it’s not my usual home comforts,’ he adds, proudly looking around the room.

  ‘Smelled like someone… had died in there,’ I say, and a frown momentarily furrows his brow. ‘I even went back because I thought you might have been locked up in there. Instead, that must have been you who came swanning out the front door as I was leaving. All that, and for what? You were just testing me?’

  ‘I needed to know if you still had it in you,’ he says, ‘or if all that banking had made you soft. I needn’t have worried. You passed with flying colours. It was like you’d never been away.’

  ‘So, why the camera?’

  ‘Did you develop the film?’ he says.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is that what led you to her?’ He’s sitting forward in the chair. The question repeats itself in my head. Is that what he’d wanted? Was that his plan all along?

  ‘No, not exactly.’

  ‘We knew Gravesend was an obvious target so we started clearing out.’ He pauses and smiles. ‘That’s when I found that old thing. I was going to throw it away. Don’t know why I kept it really… stupid… after all those years…’