by Gill Mather
“But we’re going to your home now.”
“I mean home where my parents live. Where I used to live. And my brothers still live at home with them even though they’re both older than me. They like being taken care of.”
“Well maybe I won't have to trouble you for much longer. I’m trying to do some research at the university to see if it’s possible for me to get back.”
“Get back?”
“Where I came from. I don't like it here.”
“Oh. I suppose you’re homesick.”
“Not in your terms no. But I don't like this physical life. Having to eat and drink and watch where I walk and getting hurt sometimes and having to do things like defecate and sweat and bleed. Maybe having to have a surgical procedure some time. My teeth eventually decaying. My body deteriorating. All that.”
“But everyone has to. It’s unavoidable.”
He shook his head. “If I had to find a word for it all, it’d be nauseating, although that of course involves a physical process too. And incidentally I didn't like having to void my stomach either. It was disgusting.”
“OK. I give in. When we come back from salsa tonight, I’ll have to wash your clothes again. They’re getting a bit smelly.”
“And that’s another thing.”
“Look we’re nearly home. Could you try to avoid talking about this sort of thing in front of Georgie. It drives her mad.”
CHAPTER 6
ORIELLE WAS GLAD to be leaving the office. Working on a Saturday morning was a nuisance but as Hugh had suggested, Brad wasn’t available for interview during the week. There were at least half a dozen others there working away including Hugh who introduced Orielle to Brad and then went off and left them. Brad appeared on the one hand rather put out to be seeing someone he clearly regarded as a junior member of staff. On the other hand he took every opportunity to eye up her breasts, legs and bottom though his attitude was less lascivious, more considering. Perhaps, she thought, he already had her in his mind appearing in a porn movie. Had he been a little more friendly and laddish and less sinister, she would probably have thought it funny. She was used to plenty of laddish behaviour having two older brothers but Brad's attitude was far from friendly and unaccountably he had an air of superiority about him.
She had the delicate task of telling him it wasn’t going to be possible to use Pandora as his alibi and why but he just shrugged and said "Whatever."
She didn't get much out of him. He said he made a few calls during the evening while Pandora was at his flat. He made them from his landline therefore there'd be a record of that showing that he was at home at those times. He was vague about who he had called or what was discussed. He also sent a few emails to family and friends. And he made some online purchases. They’d be timed. He only had the one PC and no laptop. He assumed emails could be traced back to a particular machine. Orielle wasn’t sure. She'd certainly emailed using her own email address from all over the world.
As soon as Brad had left, she gathered up her notes, grabbed her coat, went round and said goodbye to everyone and trotted downstairs to the street. She would type it all up later at home. She’d barely set foot on the pavement, when Tristram was suddenly there at her side. He must have been waiting for her.
“Thanks for letting me use your computer and printer today,” he said. “I’ve put some quiz night questions together. Will you go over them with me when we get back to your home?”
"Yes OK."
"Were you seeing that man who just left the office?"
"Yes I was. He's on a charge of drug dealing at a school function a few weeks ago."
"He's a very bad man Orielle."
"How do you know?"
"I know."
"In what way? I mean in what way do you think he's bad?"
"He makes films. Unpleasant films."
"Well, he was supposed to have an alibi of giving a girl guitar lessons, but instead it turns out he was taking nude photos of her. So we're not going to be able to call her as a witness now since she's only fifteen years old. Anyway how do you mean unpleasant films? Pornographic films or what?"
"Worse than that. You call them snuff movies. He doesn't…."
But Orielle had stopped in her tracks. The medieval castle was to their right, the semi-spherical roof of the tower looking no different probably to the day the original tiles had first been hung. The attractive timeless stone and mortar of the restored round wall of the tower witness to many bloody conflicts. Ancient tunnels, quite possibly beneath the very ground they were standing on right now, in former times providing a means of getting to and from the castle, of travelling from the town walls to the interior of the castle and vice versa and a diversionary amusement more recently, had been closed down by the council as too dangerous to use these days. Death, torture, intrigue, love trysts were no doubt cemented and prevented by the use of these tunnels. Horrible, terrible things were done to people within the walls of the castle in the name of religion, for the purpose of betterment, furtherance. Blind desire or ambition was usually the cause and a good enough excuse to the perpetrators so that they would not have to account eventually to the Almighty for their misdeeds.
Orielle was staring at Tristram wide-eyed. "How could you possibly know that?"
"It's hard to explain."
"So if you knew, why didn't you do something about it?"
"That would have been impossible before I came over."
Orielle sighed but was silent.
"And before that, I didn’t realise what pain and suffering and fear were like. It's hard to explain but matter is just an illusion. Everything around you is held together by almost nothing. And yet you think it's real. And it does seem real, very real now I'm here. Before I came here I regarded the pain and fear and suffering as part of that illusion and therefore of no real account and indeed actually it is. Of no real account. But now I'm here, I can appreciate what it feels like even if it is an illusion. Though I wouldn't have been able to do anything about that man Brad anyway. I wouldn't have been able to interact with anything in this world."
"Really," Orielle said drily, though at the back of her mind she was clocking that she hadn't told Triss the name of the man they were discussing.
"You don't believe me. Of course you don’t. But you should take care regarding him. It would be preferable to have nothing more to do with him."
"It's too late now," said Orielle. "We're acting for him and short of his attempting to murder someone in the firm or similar, we can't get out of it."
"Ah yes of course. You're a member of a profession with endless obligations and duties towards others but no-one has any obligations or duties towards you."
"Very perceptive. That about sums it up."
"But seriously Orie, these movies are appalling. I haven't really experienced much in the way of fear yet but when I was on the internet the other night when you and Georgie were asleep, I came across films of executions in other countries. Some of the individuals were terrified. That's what snuff movies are like. The victims know what's going to happen to them and they beg and prostrate themselves. Even the babies; it’s obvious they’re really frightened and…."
"Triss. Please stop. I can't stand to think about it."
"All right. I'm sorry. This man Brad goes to other countries to make his recordings. Animals, babies, children. He has no sympathy for others. He'll use anyone he can to get his own way. I think he'll bring trouble to you or the firm."
"I thought you said you couldn't tell the future."
"I can't. Call it an educated guess. He's a sadist Orielle. Try to keep out of his way if you can."
"Could we talk about something else. This is really upsetting. I don’t know if I'll be able to get to sleep tonight."
"We haven't got far to go, then you can have a look at my quiz questions."
"That sounds much nicer."
ORIELLE SETTLED back into the saggy comfortable sofa with her cup of tea and Tristram handed her a
couple of printed sheets. He sat leaning forward expectantly with a pen poised over his copy. He had, she noticed, beautiful hands, the fingers long and artistic, the nails clean and white at the ends, clipped to an ideal length. “What do you think?” he said.
Orielle scanned the paper quickly a frown spreading over her forehead.
“You can't use these as quiz evening questions.”
“Why not?”
“They’re…well they’re impossible.”
“But it’s not meant to be easy is it? It wouldn't be interesting if it was. At the quiz night we went to the questions were far too simple.”
“Well I’m sorry but that’s about the level most people are capable of. These might be appropriate for teams of university professors or MENSA members, but for the average person, they’d just either laugh or leave.” She looked down again at the questions.
“ ‘What’s the linear thermal co-effficient of expansion of iridium?’,” Orielle read the question in Triss’s almost perfect hand-writing. She read out another. “ ‘According to Young’s Modulus what is the elasticity of copper?’ You can't ask questions like that!”
“Why not? They’re just GCSE questions. Sixteen year olds have to answer them.”
“Yes and then forget them forever. People, normal people, don’t go around with this sort of information in their heads. They learn it for exams and that’s it. Most people’s jobs don’t have anything to do with science so they don’t remember this stuff. Even scientists probably wouldn't remember specific information about specific substances. They’d probably have to go and look it up.”
Tristram shook his head and looked down at his copy.
“You’ll have to throw in a few from TV programmes like East Enders, or Coronation Street, or Hollyoaks or Made in Chelsea. Perhaps a few X Factor ones. That sort of thing.”
“But those programmes are infantile. They’re complete rubbish.”
“Sorry but you’ll have to make them easier for people or they won't pay to come. If you want to do science questions or history, you’ll have to make them more general. But you will need some lighter questions about things on TV or films or books. Plus some current affairs, ordinary general knowledge. Some people who devise quizzes, theme the whole thing like all the answers in a round begin with the letter M. Another round they begin with another letter. That sort of thing.
“Why don't you go and sit in a few pubs where they’re holding quiz nights and get some ideas. You’d only need to buy a Coke…sorry I forgot….a sparkling water or something. I’d lend you the money.”
Tristram sighed. “I suppose I could. And I thought this was going to be so easy. I wouldn't have realised that being dim and banal would take such a lot of effort.
“All right. What about the next section then,” he went on. “It’s based on numbers. A lot of people apparently work in accounts departments. They even become actual accountants, though why anyone would want to defeats me entirely. Look. Anyone can answer these surely.”
Orielle took a look. Her spirits plummeted immediately. But she didn’t want to put him off completely so she said nothing
“I see you have a section about animals here,” she said brightly. “Let’s have a look at that.”
She read a few. ‘What is the fastest declining species of ant in the world? When a common house fly mates, what quantity of semen is produced, with a range of suggested answers all in µL? If I was a Himalayan Nepalese Buddhist, what would I drink at festival time?’ The reply to the last one nearly made her throw up.
“Warm yak’s blood! From live animals! Triss, you simply can't ask people questions with answers like that.”
“Well you know there are at least fourteen thousand species of ants in the world.”
“That’s rather the point! Out of so many species, who in heaven’s name is going to know which ones are in decline. And as for questions about fly semen, well….” She started to laugh more or less uncontrollably.
“Perhaps,” ventured Triss, “if people found the questions and answers as funny as you seem to, they’d enjoy coming to the quiz evenings whether they got the questions right or not.” He looked seriously at Orielle who dried her eyes on a piece of loo roll she had up her sleeve and tried to focus on what he’d just said. Actually, it wasn’t such a bad idea really. An oddball quiz. “The Oddball Challenge!” Why not? It was different. So many quizzes she’d been to were deadly dull and mundane. Why not something so bizarre that it tickled peoples’ sense of the absurd?
“You know you may be onto something Triss,” she said. “ ‘The Oddball Challenge’,” she said dramatically holding up an imaginary banner. “Stuff about reproduction for example usually interests people.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s about sex!” she said as though that explained everything.
“Hmm. Another of your unpleasant bodily functions!”
Orielle was silent. What could you say to someone who was probably a virgin, who claimed to abhor bodily functions and who even seemed to think sex was disgusting. It was odd that a man would think that whatever his general views were. Usually, men couldn't help liking sex whatever they thought about anything else. Nevertheless, she’d noticed him avidly watching love and sex scenes on the television. But thoughts of sex and Triss at the same time seemed inappropriate somehow.
She went back to the general subject of wacky quiz questions and warmed to the subject. “You could do a section about defecation. Or maybe the varieties of yeast found between peoples’ toes or in their belly buttons or behind their ears!” She went off into peels of laughter again.
Triss looked down at his hands.
“Yes I could probably come up with some such quiz questions. But I suspicion that you’re not being serious. Well, of course you’re not being serious; you’re laughing. But I mean you’re not being serious enough. You’re deriding what I’m trying to do. And that’s what other people would do too. They’d think what Georgie thinks of me. That I’m out of place here, a sad case, an object of derision as I said. And they’d be right.” His normally placid, unconcerned often aloof expression took on a look of dissatisfaction and sadness.
“Triss. Triss I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make fun of you. Honestly I didn’t.”
“But that’s what I am isn't it. An object of fun. That’s what I’d be if I tried to put on a quiz evening. People would just come to see an oddity, a oddball. In your terms.”
His bitter, forlorn expression looked in fact more normal than she’d ever seen it. She wanted to put her arms around him and hug him but she wasn't sure how he’d react to physical contact. Nor her for that matter.
“Triss,” she said gently. “You are learning. You understand how people react. Or might react. You could try to pull it off, you could try….”
“I’m not going to expose myself to out and out ridicule. I’m not prepared to become a side show, an object of mirth. I’ll have to think of something else.” And he got up and strode off into the garden, taking a duffel coat with him from the kitchen.
Orielle sighed. She really thought the Oddball Challenge was a good idea but if Triss wasn’t prepared for a little hilarity at his expense, then it wouldn't work. She wondered if she could rope someone else in to ask the questions and take the flack. And of course share the spoils. She’d have to rack her brains. Perhaps Georgie could think of someone.
But she decided also to sit Triss down and get him to watch some stand up comedians performing on TV so that he could see that they wanted to make people laugh, that it wasn't belittling, that they were celebrities that other people envied. Maybe it would work.
CHAPTER 7
THE EVENING WAS unusually mild for November and as Orielle neared the back gate, she heard soft talking. Quite often these days Triss came to meet her before she got to the park so that she wouldn't have to walk through it on her own. However today, presumably because there were plenty of people in the park getting ready for an event that evening
, he hadn't. The quietly spoken voice she decided was Triss's and she peered through the hedge to see who he was with but there was no-one there but him. Probably communing with the other side, she thought irreverently as she marched through the gate and up the path which Triss had recently cleared of the worst of the encroaching brambles and weeds. He was sitting on one of the unmatched metal chairs at the small wooden table apparently having his dinner. She stared at his plate. Beside his usual helping of potatoes and vegetables sat a piece of steak. Triss saw her and got up, something he had started to do to greet her. He must have been watching those daytime programmes about etiquette and manners that were on at the moment she thought. Raised with two brothers who were more likely to burp when someone walked into the room and having attended a comprehensive school where such niceties would have been laughed from here to Sunday, she found the old-fashioned gesture quite distinctly appealing. Looking at his plate she speculated that perhaps he was experimenting with how to deal with steak in social situations. No! That couldn't be right! He'd never bother. And he didn't eat meat anyway. Then she heard a mewing from under the table and a tabby short-haired cat walked out into the open and slinkily wrapped itself around her legs. Triss glanced at the house.
"Fyodore! You're back!" Orielle said taking up the cat in her arms and cuddling him. "Er Triss. What are you up to?"
"I was just feeding this cat that turned up with that old piece of steak in the fridge."
Orielle squinted at the steak and now she was looking harder, she could see blood on the plate and that it wasn’t cooked at all. It just looked as though it might be from a distance because it had gone brown with age.
"Oh, yuck," she said "You can't have that on your plate. You'll catch e coli or something."
"I'll be all right. But I didn’t want Georgie to see me feeding it to the cat. She keeps saying she's saving it for something. You know, there's quite a lot of food in the fridge going mouldy and rotten. She won't throw it out."
