But Mr Parfait dozes on. What the folks upstairs get up to is none of his damn business.
‘So where do we go from here?’ Rory asks eventually, too depressed for the energy of anger.
‘I suppose I’ll have to disappear. Perhaps you can find the original author.’
Oh Jesus Christ. Wouldn’t that give the literary world something to split their sides over? He can hear them now, ‘What’s this then, Rory? A new quiz game? Pick your author?’ And Bentley is not renowned for his loyalty to losers. Success is what turns Bentley on—success and power.
‘Can this one manage to write a letter without a thesaurus?’
‘Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am.’
‘I hear there’s a horse down the road swears he’s written a book.’
Rory sits with his head right back, easing his taut neck muscles. ‘That is out of the question.’
‘Of course, I could keep pretending if I was given more help,’ lisps Bernie.
Rory manages to lift his head and look his lost prodigy in the eyes, such curious, devious eyes, the eyes of a mischievous faerie.
‘Explain,’ he says, wearily.
‘Well, I might be able to struggle on and carry it off if you helped me. It was a very old book, the author is probably dead…’
This is one manipulative woman. Don’t say she thinks he will carry on the scam. Don’t say she’s that ignorant. ‘Explain,’ he orders again.
‘I’d have to be with you,’ Bernadette goes on, lowering those smudgy eyelids, and the end of her tongue curls and briefly touches her upper lip. ‘You’d have to be near me all the time.’
‘Oh yes, yes, of course. I see. Just in case you dropped a clanger, got caught off balance on the phone, or were suddenly tempted to destroy me.’ He rises from his chair in anger and hangs over hers, fists pressing on the arms, and his body threatens her curled-up space. ‘You brainless little twat.’ His voice rises. ‘And how the hell do you imagine I could trust you for one second? One wrong move and I’d be straight in the shit.’
‘No, no,’ cries Bernie, ‘I’d never do that. I would never let you down. I swear.’
‘I expect you told that to Dominic, and God knows how many others. What do you want, Bernie? Men chained to your wrist like dogs? And how do you imagine I’d feel? Don’t you think I would despise you more than I already do?’
‘You don’t despise me, Rory.’
But Rory gives a contemptuous laugh. ‘You don’t despise me, that’s the trouble. You’re driven by some twisted obsession, some screwball afraid to grow up. Don’t try to deny it, because it’s there for any cretin to see in your eyes; it’s sickening, fawning stuff, the way you gaze up at me like some beaten puppy, and you’ve not stopped flirting since I came in.’
‘Who the sodding hell d’you think you are?’ Bernadette pushes him off in humiliation and fury. ‘How dare you say that, you pompous bastard! You cocky sod, with your daft airs and graces.’
Rory stands by the fireplace calmly, smiling at the result of his challenge. ‘I don’t think any arrangement between us would last very long, Bernadette, do you?’
‘Have it your way then,’ she says, her face still flaming with mortification, her secret so obviously out. She has been exposed, helpless and out of control, swamped by violent emotions, humiliating and weak. ‘Go public then. Tell everyone. Let them laugh in your face. It’s no skin off my nose. Admit you’ve been conned by an Irish barmaid with only art and RE GCSEs.’
‘Quite frankly,’ says Rory, smiling sadly, ‘I don’t know what to do. But what you’re suggesting is ludicrous.’
Extraordinary. She seems to think he’s changing his mind. ‘I’d never let you down, I swear.’ Her stare is rapt and helpless. ‘What I feel for you is so strong, Rory. For the first time in my life I’m in love. Don’t make fun of me just because you’re clever.’
‘But, Bernadette, hold on, get real. I don’t feel the slightest thing for you, I never have and never will. All I feel right now is disgust.’
‘But that might change.’
‘For Christ’s sake, what books do you read?’
‘I don’t read books, only magazines.’ She tosses the hair from her face, shaking her head so the long swinging mass of it springs and bobs behind her. Still playing games.
‘What? You have quite seriously never read one book in your life?’
‘Only Roddy Doyle in English.’
He looks at Bernadette with curious speculation. He sighs. ‘I’m tired. I’ve had enough, I’m going home.’
‘Can I come with you?’
‘I don’t think so.’
She gives a gentle sigh and lowers her lashes. She still doesn’t get it. ‘Will you ring me tomorrow?’
‘I expect I’ll have to.’
‘Will you think about what I’ve said?’
‘I’m going to have to think about everything.’
And she stands gazing wistfully after him.
Why did she do it? Why did she self-destruct like that?
‘Follow your dreams and aspirations, never deny your emotions,’ Kirsty said when they last spoke. But Kirsty meant her to hang on to Rory. Rory and Bernie together would make a remarkable team, another bonus for Magdalene. Nothing else seems to count with Kirsty.
‘Who dares wins. Nothing is impossible.’ And her old friend, misled by Bernie’s romantic misconceptions, sounded so positive. Her words had had a profound effect, but if Kirsty finds out she’s blown it…
But she can’t blame this on Kirsty. Bernadette falls into bed and buries her face in the pillow. How she longs to follow him out, beg him to look at her, touch her and kiss her. She is engulfed by the clean, vigorous male smell of his body, the sheen across his white teeth, even the texture of his skin, which rouses a sudden, unbearable longing to touch it with her fingertips. His domination of her is so complete that she has only one wish, to please Rory in any way she can and gain his forgiveness and approval. Just the tone of his voice seems to stroke her arms, her back, her breasts, making her grow warm and luxurious. Even when she fails to understand what he means, she longs for him to go on speaking. Please him enough, push him enough, and he will give her what she so desperately desires.
But what fatal damage has she done, driven to this self-abasing confession by her own egotistical needs? She really believed she could blackmail Rory, force him to need her as desperately as she needs him. Tie him to her by deceit if necessary. Magdalene, like Kirsty, would stop at nothing to have her way. But what will happen to the book now if Rory decides to opt out? He can’t be allowed to—he can’t! He must feel something for her, surely it is not possible to love so fiercely without getting some of it back? She will never be able to face Kirsty or Avril. And she lied and told them she was engaged, beguiled into thinking she was jumping the gun by the odd day or two. Had she misread him so completely? What will happen to the money she is already so busily spending, and why couldn’t she have thought this through instead of acting on furious impulse?
He said he would ring her tomorrow, didn’t he? Well, maybe that is his way of leaving his options open.
He’ll be back, she assures herself, and when he’s ready she will be waiting.
Bentley is still not back when Rory arrives home, defeated.
It’s too late for sleep, and anyway, sleep is out of the question.
He broods on alone in his study, dazed in the silence, well into the dawn.
He faces a life of mockery, pity from some, open gratification from others, a hard slog to win back a reputation that has taken him a lifetime to build. It will probably be impossible for him ever to rise to the heights he is used to, to regain the respect he now takes for granted, to repeat the successes he has achieved. And Bentley will doubtless consider him finished. And all because of some ignorant barmaid who obviously obsesses over every man she meets.
You win some, you lose some.
Why can’t he just shrug his shoulders and square them to the burde
n of life?
Perhaps he could if it wasn’t for Bentley and his dark and reckless needs.
But the black mood grabs hold of him and Rory opens his desk drawer and brings out a bottle of barbiturates, which he’d removed from some suicidal author only weeks before. Slowly he crosses the room and picks up a full bottle of brandy. Ironically, the first proper proof of Magdalene lies proudly before him on his desk. He sits in the chair in front of it, leaning forward, both arms extended, fingers clasped. He does not sway or moan. Sometimes a shiver runs through him. Soon he will be done for ever with this crazy world.
Twenty-Eight
CANDICE LOVE IS MORTIFIED.
Rory Coburn, a broken man, attempted suicide last week.
He did, however, have the strength of mind to leave her a note before he finished his pills. She would have been happier not to have read it. She will have to go job-seeking soon, and when they hear who she is they will laugh. Perhaps she could be a librarian, or a teacher; change careers, change hairstyles.
Tragic. Because Candice is a good agent and her skills would be wasted.
Still smarting from the ignominious discovery, and keeping her head well down for the moment, most days Candice still sits in a high, plastic, air-conditioned cubicle going through a big, fat slush pile, hanging on at the office till the shit hits the fan. Several of the manuscripts, dog-eared and smeared by their travels, she recognizes as those she has rejected in the past.
But she turns it all off when she gets home; she rarely picks up a book, she would rather watch the soaps on TV, particularly Brookside. But what is this? She has just settled down to an evening’s viewing when the doorbell jarringly interrupts. A kindly neighbour has taken in her parcel and now rings and deposits it on the step. It looks suspiciously like work to Candice. Some blasted client has had the nerve to post this directly to her home hoping for priority treatment. She will put it at the bottom of the pile, and why must authors use so much parcel tape? She knows these parcels are precious, many of them come recorded, but they don’t give a thought to the unfortunate receiver who has to battle with scissors and fingers to wrench the contents from the damn Jiffy bag.
The stale smell of age that seeps from this half-opened parcel is pungent in her modern home, dominated by computers, faxes, shiny new paper and print. Candice delves further and brings out a rust-coloured book with the title stamped simply on the front. ‘Magdalene by Ellen Kirkwood.’ The fatal title leaps out at her and her eyes narrow suspiciously. And the date inside—she hardly dares open it with these trembling fingers—is 1913. Published by Bryant, a publishing house she vaguely remembers, which disappeared decades ago.
She grabs the parcel and squints at the postmark. This was posted in Plymouth yesterday, first class, but why here, why her? She has never heard of Ellen Kirkwood and there’s nothing here about the author; the fly leaf has been left blank. Tentatively, forgetting to breathe, she opens the first page and reads fast. Is this it? The book that is about to make Coburn and Watts the laughing stock of the literary world? She thinks ruefully of the hyped-up blurb used by the excitable newspapers: ‘masterpiece for the new millennium’, ‘predicted bestseller of all time’, ‘read it next February and be changed for life’.
But it is the same. Shit. In the false manuscript these lovely descriptions had been cut short, but other than that it’s mostly the same. Candice flicks to the last few pages and reads them avidly. The characters are the same. The plot is identical. The beautiful style is a replica. My God, she cannot believe her eyes. So Rory’s revelations were true and she holds the original in her hands. So weird that nobody’s heard of it, a true literary masterpiece, a novel to equal any of the greatest and most revered classics.
1913. An unusual book for that era. Would the public have accepted a book as black and complicated as Magdalene back then? Weren’t they a protected bunch, cosied by heavy censorship? But no, this was a time, according to the young Bertrand Russell, when, ‘the barbaric substratum of human nature was being tapped’. People were in shock, their confidence low. The Titanic had sunk one year before, suffragettes were smashing shop windows and dying under the hooves of horses, the kaiser was rattling his bayonet, Kitchener was ready to point his finger; in other words, as usual, the country was in crisis.
Just ripe for a book like Magdalene.
Now she knows the name of the author perhaps she can salvage something from the ashes. It must be out of copyright. Maybe she can trace Kirkwood’s descendants and find out more about her, mollify the publishers, cash in on the wretched publicity. After all, there’s no real need for Candice to go under with Coburn and Watts. She wasn’t paid enough anyway. Candice will use her initiative. Anything to fill in time before the hideous truth comes out.
Who is Ellen Kirkwood? What sort of life did this genius lead? And why does nobody know her name?
How can Kirsty leave the area?
She hasn’t finished with Trevor yet.
No, not by a long chalk.
The messenger came with the bad news, a policewoman with her hat off, looking doleful.
‘I’m sorry to inform you of this, Mrs Hoskins, I can’t tell you how upset I am, but your husband’s hire car has been found on the cliffs at Pengellis Rock. We have only just traced the driver.’
‘Oh no!’ Kirsty said. ‘Don’t tell me!’
‘We don’t know for certain, of course, but we’ve been searching for his body and it honestly doesn’t look too good, if, as you say, you two had an argument on the day he came to see you.’
‘Poor Trevor,’ said Kirsty, wiping an eye. ‘He wasn’t always a good man, but I was used to him. Poor Trevor.’
Today, after she’s waved the children to school and dropped Avril at Safeways with a comprehensive list, she pops over to the Burleston with a packet of Jaffa cakes and a large bottle of Highland Spring water. Also in her bag are the ultra-sharp dressmaking scissors she removed from Avril’s knitting bag.
Glancing to her right and left, although this part of the gardens is rarely used, she lets herself into the cottage that was once to be her home. She and Avril are due to look round a little old three-bedroomed cottage tomorrow; they haven’t told the children yet in case they get too excited, but Jake and Gemma seem thrilled to bits with their new caravan home.
They don’t mention Trev any more.
Nobody mentions Trevor.
‘Trevor,’ Kirsty calls, ‘it’s me.’
There is a small rustle from the hole, nothing more.
‘I’ve brought you more water and something to eat. I expect you could do with something, after all, it’s been a long time.’
Four days.
Kirsty kneels where the lino slopes to the edge of nowhere.
‘But before I lower these down, Trev, I want you to do something for me.’ The smile on her face is a grim one, and her dulled eyes show little emotion. ‘Can you hear me, Trev? Are you going to do what I want?’
A throaty grunt is her only answer.
She ties the scissors to the rope and starts lowering them down. ‘Remember strip poker, Trev, and the way there was always a forfeit? That was the fun of the game, wasn’t it, having to carry out the forfeit? Well, I’ve got a forfeit for you because we want to make this fun. I’m not a miserable person with no sense of humour, as you used to describe me, and I’m going to prove that to you now.’
There is still no definite response from the semi-darkness of the hole.
‘In a minute these scissors will reach you. When you undo the knot I want you to cut off your left ear lobe, just the little fat bit at the bottom—it’s OK it’s mostly gristle; there aren’t a lot of nerves there—and wrap it in the bit of gauze you will find attached and then send it all back up to me.’
There is a terrible moaning sound. Kirsty edges forward to look. He seems to be squatting down in the sludge, his back against the wall. The golf club is leaning against it, too. He looks like a gnome with a fishing rod, and she is tempted to laugh hy
sterically. But the stench is overpowering; she has to move back slightly and cover her nose and mouth with a tissue.
‘Kirsty.’ Trev says her name gingerly, like someone who’s just found his memory.
‘Don’t bother to talk, Trevor, I know how hard that must be for you. Even painful. Just do as I say and I’ll send you the water straight after, I promise.’
The rope hangs limp for a while, a good two minutes but Kirsty’s got all the time in the world—before there’s a gentle twiddling on the end and she knows Trevor is unwrapping the scissors.
‘That’s it, Trevor. It’s probably easier if you do it quickly, don’t think about what you’re doing too much. In fact, think about something else completely; it works sometimes, I used to do it. I used to imagine all sorts of things while you were torturing me, you know. I used to pretend I was somebody else: Allis, or Melody out of my book, being wined and dined, or lying beside some lagoon with a cocktail and parrots flying overhead, monkeys gibbering in the trees, a gentle, handsome man at my side with eyes full of love for me.’
Still no reply from the sulking Trevor.
‘I don’t want to hurry you, that’s the last thing I want to do, but I have to get back to Safeways by eleven. I’m having lunch in town with my friend Avril and I daren’t be late.’
It sounds as if he’s getting up. That must be a good sign. If he has the strength to get up he has the strength to cut off his ear lobe.
‘I’ll do it with you if it would help,’ says Kirsty, ‘you know, like you pull a plaster off a child’s knee—one, two, three—it works better if you do it together. Come on, Trev, here we go—one, two… three.’
Kirsty leans forward again and listens.
‘Don’t be such a coward. People say they get shot and don’t feel the pain until later. And remember, you’ll be enjoying your water and your biscuits so much you probably won’t have any reaction.’
A muffled scream comes from below, raw with agony. Kirsty closes her eyes until it fades into silence again. Then, very slowly, the thin rope begins to sway and she knows Trevor is attaching something. She won’t make it worse by congratulating him, she won’t add insult to injury.
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