Dry Bones

by Sally Spencer

  I change costumes on the way, and when I get out of the van at the Three Fiddlers public house, I’m wearing a fussy black-and-white jacket and skirt, a starched white blouse and flat shoes. My hair is pulled back tightly, and tied in a strict – almost severe – ponytail.

  Oh yes, Poppy James – the bubbly and enthusiastic amateur painter – is gone, and in her place is Linda Moore – a slightly round-shouldered introverted bookkeeper – who ninety-nine percent of the population would classify as a virgin the second they laid eyes on her.

  I enter the pub, and look around with fake nervousness. It is one of those hostelries that the brewery has decided should turn its back on its honourable late nineteenth-century origins and, by the addition of a few fake beams and numerous horse brasses, it has assumed the unconvincing disguise of an eighteenth century coaching inn.

  I walk up to the bar, and the man standing behind it smiles at me, and says, ‘Good evening. What can I get you?’

  The smile is genuinely friendly, and I appreciate the fact that he’s been tactful enough not to call me ‘Miss’. I’m sure he’ll be more than willing to do all he can to help me, but given his age (he looks to be in his early forties) he’s unlikely to be of any use.

  I feel this strong temptation to ask for a double gin and tonic, but that doesn’t go with the image I’m trying to project, and so I force myself to say, ‘Do you have any bitter lemon?’

  ‘Of course we do,’ he says encouragingly, like the nice man he so obviously is.

  As I’m reaching into my big black spinster’s purse to pay for my drink, I say, ‘I was wondering if you could help me.’

  ‘If I can,’ he promises.

  ‘I’m looking for a man called James Makepeace,’ I tell him.

  ‘Would that be one of the Makepeace’s from up at the hall?’

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘Well, let me see now, I know Jacob Makepeace, and I’ve met his brother, Clive …’ He scans the bar, and his eyes come to rest on a group of four men in their fifties. ‘Do any of you know a James Makepeace?’ he calls out.

  The men look at each other questioningly, then one of them says, ‘You’re going back thirty-odd years when you ask a question like that.’

  ‘Maybe I am, Walter,’ the landlord agrees. ‘I wouldn’t know, being an offcomer, now would I?’ He turns to me. ‘I’ve only been here fifteen years, you see, and in this village, that’s just like arriving yesterday.’ He looks back at the group of men. ‘So what’s the answer?’

  ‘We knew him,’ Walter concedes, reluctantly.

  ‘Go and join them,’ the landlord says to me, encouragingly, and when I look dubious he adds, ‘they won’t mind – really they won’t.’

  Then, addressing the group at the table again, he says, ‘You won’t mind if this nice young lady joins you, will you now, lads?’

  It has to be said that none of them look overly enthusiastic at the prospect, but it’s a foolish customer who turns down a request from the man who he depends on to pull his beer for him, and so they indicated that yes, they supposed it would be all right, if I felt I absolutely must.

  If I’d really been the character I was playing, I’d probably have taken the hint and drifted away, but the pushy Jennie Redhead who lurks beneath Linda Moore’s self-effacing veneer chooses to take their nods and grunts as a real show of welcome.

  I walk over to them, sit down, and do a panning smile around the table. None of them smile back, nor does Walter make any attempt to introduce me to the others. They’re like a colony of seals, resentful that some other creature – possibly a mermaid? – has had the temerity to climb onto their rock.

  ‘So what can all you fine gentlemen tell me about James Makepeace?’ I ask brightly.

  ‘He used to live here in the village, a long time ago, and now he don’t,’ replies one of the men.

  ‘What do you want to know for, anyway?’ asks another, in a tone which identifies him as the alpha male of this particular seal colony.

  I had anticipated precisely this kind of reluctance to talk to outsiders, which is why I have come to this pub dressed as Linda. And now it’s time to put Linda to work.

  ‘My mother met James during the war,’ I say. ‘She told me he was a very nice man.’

  The four men chuckle to themselves.

  ‘Are you sure it was James Makepeace she met?’ Walter asks. ‘Because when I think about him, “nice” ain’t the first word that comes to mind.’

  ‘Oh yes, it was him, all right,’ I say. ‘He showed my mother both his identification card and his army pay book. Anyway,’ and here I lower my voice and look down at the table, to indicate how difficult all this is for me, ‘they became very friendly, and one thing led to another …’

  ‘Go on,’ says one of the men – and whilst he doesn’t actually lick his lips in anticipation, it’s a damned close run thing.

  So now, realising they’re having a real life soap opera played out before them, they’re interested!

  ‘When James finished his training, he was posted somewhere else,’ I continue. ‘My mother wrote to him – several times – but she got no reply. And then … and then …’ We are approaching the dramatic climax of my tale now, and the audience is listening, open-mouthed. ‘… And then she realised she was pregnant,’ I gasp, glad to finally get the words out.

  ‘Pregnant? With you?’ asks one of the men, and I can tell he’s doing his best not to sound as if he’s getting salacious pleasure from the whole narrative.

  ‘That’s right,’ I admit. ‘Pregnant with me.’

  It is now that I notice the man sitting on the next table. I guess that he is probably around the same age as my little group, but he hasn’t weathered half as well. It is not just that his clothes are so obviously uncared for. His hair is unruly, he could really use a shave (and quite possibly a wash) and his eyes have a bloodshot sheen, which he must have worked at attaining. But the important thing about him isn’t what he’s wearing or how he looks – what bothers me is that he’s been listening to what I said, and is now slowly shaking his head from side to side in a meaningful manner, which could well be signalling either wonder or despair – but is probably just expressing disbelief.

  I turn my attention back onto my captive audience, because we’re about to reach the dénouement of my tale thus far – and I don’t want to spoil it through lack of concentration.

  ‘Two months ago, my mother learned she had cancer,’ I say, bravely suppressing a sob. ‘She hasn’t got much longer to live, and her dearest wish is that I should find my father and make friends with him. She says if I can just manage that, she can leave this world at peace with herself.’

  I am great – and there’s not a dry eye among my listeners. But soft, I deceive myself, for the man at the next table not only refrains from shedding tears of pity, he is actually smirking at me.

  ‘So you can understand why it’s vital that I find my father soon,’ I say, the plaintive waif on turbo-drive.

  The men all look at each other again.

  ‘We’d like to help – we really would,’ says Walter, much affected by my performance, ‘but there’s not much we know. Being from the big house, James Makepeace didn’t mix much with us peasants from the village.’

  ‘And when he did, he usually caused trouble – and made damn sure that we got the blame for it,’ one of his friends adds.

  ‘And then he went away to that fancy university, and never came back,’ says a third.

  ‘Never?’ I repeat.

  ‘Never,’ they agree.

  ‘Everybody round here watches everybody else,’ Walter says, and then, as if he feels that is open to misinterpretation, he adds, ‘they’re not being nosey, mind you, they just like to know what’s going on.’

  ‘I’m sure they do,’ I agree.

  ‘So you can take it from me that if James Makepeace had been within ten miles of this place, we’d have known about it,’ Walter says.

  Well, that’s not
definite confirmation that the body in the cellar is James Makepeace’s as such, but it’s considerably better than nothing. I thank my colony of (now) trained seals, and am gratified when they tell me I’ll be welcomed back any time.

  It is only when I stand up that I notice that the cynic who had been sitting at the next table has already left.

  He is waiting for me in the car park, leaning against my blue van, though whether that is a deliberately chosen pose of nonchalance, or a requirement if he is not to fall over, is far from clear.

  ‘Can I help you?’ I ask.

  ‘Who are you, and what do you want?’ he asks.

  ‘I’m James Makepeace’s daughter and …’

  ‘No, you’re not,’ he says, and he speaks with such conviction that I know there’s no point in sticking to the story.

  ‘I’m a private investigator,’ I tell him. ‘My name’s Jennie Redhead. And who are you?’

  ‘Fossington Gore,’ he says. ‘Julian Fossington Gore.’

  ‘As you’ve probably already gathered, Mr Fossington Gore, I’m trying to find out everything I can about James Makepeace,’ I say.

  ‘I can tell you a lot, but it will cost you,’ he replies.

  ‘How much?’ I ask.

  I can see it in his eyes that he is calculating what he thinks he can get away with asking for.

  ‘Twenty pounds,’ he says finally.

  ‘Tell me what you know, and then I’ll tell you if it’s worth twenty pounds,’ I say.

  ‘Money first,’ he insists.

  What the hell, I think – St Luke’s can afford twenty pounds.

  I take the notes out of my purse, and hand them to him. He scrutinises them carefully, as if he suspects forgery.

  ‘They’re real enough,’ I say.

  He puts the notes in a pocket of his none-too-clean trousers.

  ‘James and I were at prep school and Eton together,’ he says. He pauses. ‘It’s true!’

  ‘I never said it wasn’t.’

  ‘Looking at me now, you’d never guess it, but I come from a good family and I used to be somebody,’ he says, piteously.

  If I allow him to carry on whining, we’ll never get anywhere.

  ‘You haven’t done an awful lot to earn your twenty pounds yet, Julian,’ I tell him.

  ‘So what!’ he says, turning aggressive. ‘I’ve got it now, haven’t I? What are you going to do if I don’t fulfil my part of the bargain? Try to take the money back off me?’

  ‘Not try,’ I say. ‘I will take it off you.’

  He laughs. ‘Do you really think you could?’

  I say nothing, but just take one small step forward.

  ‘All right,’ he says holding up his hands, palms outwards. ‘I’ll tell you everything I know.’

  ‘Good idea,’ I agree.

  ‘James and I were thrown together for most our childhoods – if it wasn’t school, it was house parties or shoots. Schools like ours breed a fair number of nasty characters, but James was in a class of his own.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘He was very vicious, and he was very selfish, and he invariably ran all the rackets.’

  ‘What kind of rackets are talking about?’

  ‘You name it, he did it. If you wanted an essay written, then James could arrange it – for a fee. If you wanted one of the younger boys to jerk you off, James would supply him. Special food, tobacco, alcohol – James could lay his hands on all of them. He ran a book on the horses, and when you’d lost more than you could afford, he lent you money – at an outrageous rate of interest – so you could pay him what you owed him. Two or three of the boys I knew were expelled for their part in the rackets, but even though they suspected he was behind it all, the beaks could never touch James.’

  ‘What happened after you both left Eton College?’ I ask. ‘Did you go to Oxford too?’

  He shakes his head.

  ‘No, I … I’d started having my troubles by then. I wasn’t at all well, you see, and it seemed as if certain drugs would at least help to …’

  So it looks like twenty quid wasted, I think as I listen, but he’s done his best, and it certainly seems as if he could use the money.

  ‘Do you have any idea where he might be now?’ I ask, taking a shot in the dark.

  ‘Oh, he’s dead,’ Fossington Gore says airily.

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘Nobody – I just know.’

  ‘How could you just know?’

  ‘Because I know – or at least, knew – James. He conned me, back in 1943, into betting against him in a horse race. I think now that my horse was nobbled, but that’s neither here nor there. I accepted the bet, and the honourable thing (I cared about doing the honourable thing in those days) was to pay up when I lost. The problem was, it was fifty pounds I owed him. That was a lot of money in those days, and I couldn’t lay my hands on it immediately. But I promised him I’d raise the money and pay him the next time I saw him. And I did raise the money, and held onto it for years, but he never came to collect it.’

  ‘And from that, you assume he’s dead.’

  ‘From that, I’m sure he’s dead. As I said, you didn’t know him like I do. James’ guiding principle in life was never to give anything away. I can assure you, he’d have travelled halfway round the world – spending hundreds of pounds en route – to recover a mere sixpence that someone owed him. And I owed him fifty pounds! So when I say he’s dead, believe me, he’s dead.’ He fingers the money in his pocket. ‘Can I go now?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Thank you, you’ve been a great help.’

  He hasn’t actually – he’s really told me no more than my trained seals inside did – but I feel so sorry for a man in his fifties who feels he has to ask my permission to leave, that I want to say something to make him feel a little better.

  I watch him walking back towards the pub – where, I suspect, most of my twenty pounds will end up being spent – and suddenly remember there was something else I wanted to ask him.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ I call after him.

  He stops, and turns around. ‘Yes?’

  ‘You were so sure I wasn’t James Makepeace’s daughter,’ I say. ‘How could you have been so certain?’

  ‘James would never have seduced your mother and then abandoned her when she was pregnant.’

  ‘I thought you said he was a bit of a shit.’

  ‘He was a lot of a shit – a real king among the turds – but he wouldn’t have needed to run away, because he would never have got your mother pregnant in the first place.’

  ‘What do you mean? How can you be so sure?’

  ‘James Makepeace would never have impregnated any woman, because he was as queer as Dickie’s hat band.’

  James Makepeace was gay!

  James Makepeace was gay, and he was at St Luke’s at the same time as Charlie Swift!

  And Charlie Swift was at St Luke’s at the time James Makepeace disappeared off the face of the earth!

  What are the chances that Charlie’s path never crossed that of another gay man in a college which was already, as a result of the war, down to only a few students?

  None at all!

  So Charlie knew Makepeace, knew he had disappeared, and didn’t tell me.

  And where does that leave me? It leaves me with the suspicion that I’ve been deliberately manipulated, that General Charlie has sent me – his poor bloody infantry – into battle without even telling me what the enemy looks like (and perhaps even going so far as to provide them with a disguise).

  My heart is beating like a drum solo, my pulse is disturbingly rapid. It can’t go on like this, I tell myself.

  What are my alternatives? I ask my inner self in what I hope is a calm and moderate way.

  Simple, comes the reply, to trust Charlie or not to trust Charlie.

  The evidence would tend to point me towards the latter of those two choices, but I know I’m not prepared to accept any evidence, however damning it might be.


  Charlie is my rock – my foundation. If I don’t believe in him, then I don’t believe in anything.

  TWELVE

  9 October 1974

  I’m tied to the clapper of what just has to be one bloody big bell. I have no idea how I got here, and now really does not seem to be the best time to speculate on that.

  Now is not even the best time to think about how to escape from this predicament, because, given that the bell I’m inside is swinging through quite a deep arc, my immediate concern is to prevent myself from being battered to death.

  The trick is to fight gravity – never a plan with a long-term prospect of success in my view, but then, when you are living from moment to moment, you do what you have to do. So, while the bell is swinging, I keep as still as possible (marshalling my strength) and it’s only when it reaches one end of its arc (which is when the clapper and the inside of the bell interact) that I twist around so that it’s the other side of the clapper that hits the side of the bell.

  The sound of the bell – ring, ring, ring, ring – fills my ears, and clouds my mind.

  Wait a minute!

  Hold everything!

  Ring, ring, ring, ring?

  That can’t be right.

  Whatever happened to ding, dong, ding, dong – the sound that bells are supposed to produce?

  I open my eyes (I haven’t even been aware that they were closed until this point) and get my first blurry vision of the phone on my bedside table – the phone, it now turns out, which has been the source of all my confusion.

  ‘You bastard!’ I say to it.

  It doesn’t look ashamed. It doesn’t even look apologetic. It just keeps on ringing.

  Since there seems to be only one way to silence it, I go through the tedious procedure of lifting my arm, picking up the receiver, and mumbling, ‘Jennifer Redhead,’ into the mouthpiece.