Dying to Write

by Judith Cutler

  I fished out the Guardian. That should while away a tedious half-hour. Even at nine, however, it was too dark to read easily. The sky was brown with the gathering storm. A car radio would have been an asset, and a cassette player. George had always insisted that anything electric was an obvious invitation to break in, but I might buy one of those systems you can unplug and carry with you. Not that I’d be doing this sort of thing very often. But company – if you wanted it – was not such a bad thing. Perhaps I wasn’t such a puritan as George. No, indeed. Not if I could indulge in a fairly erotic fantasy in which Hugh and I went camping together. I imagined the azure sea, golden sand, blue skies and a brown Hugh. Naked.

  And then I saw someone leave Eyre House. In this light, and with the hooded top up, it was hard to tell the gender. Perhaps the walk suggested a man. He walked unhurriedly across the car park. As soon as he could no longer be seen from the house, he broke into a steady jog. I watched him until he merged with the darkness. Then I started the van and headed up the drive. This meant I might overtake him. I’d have to take the risk. If he turned and recognised me, I could simply turn right at the gates and give up altogether.

  What I meant to do was not necessarily foolish. All I could hope to do was get some general idea of where he went, and then encourage Chris to concentrate his search there. I certainly didn’t mean to tackle him with my bare and bruised hands; I didn’t think the rest of my body was up to heroics either. Keeping fit is one thing; being Superwoman at thirty-five is another. Damn it, I teach English, not PE.

  I was in luck. Just before the main gates, he struck off left, down the path which runs parallel to the wall, and thus to the lane outside the grounds. If I waited at the end of the lane, perhaps I’d get another sighting. I waved to the duty PC and drove off rather faster than courtesy suggested.

  At the end of the lane, where it dwindles into a bridle path, I pulled the van on to a wide verge on the far side, tucking it under some trees. Despite the rain earlier in the week, the ground still seemed firm: perhaps the trees sheltered it from the worst of the rain. It would be embarrassing to have to trail back to Eyre House on foot to demand a tow.

  Again, I was in luck. After I’d waited some seven or eight minutes, a figure hauled itself over the wall. The man set off down the bridle track: I wouldn’t risk taking the van down that. I valued the sump and springs too much. I could have followed on foot. And done what? I told myself the most sensible thing to do was to stay put.

  Instead I got down quietly from the van and followed. And lost him after about thirty yards. A stile one side, a gate the other. At this point I saw sense. If Ade could lift footprints from carpets, he’d certainly be able to follow the prints made in mud by trainers. I turned back to George’s van. Sanctuary.

  One day I might fit it out as George intended, with a tiny kitchen, even a loo in a cupboard. Since as yet I had no loo, and I did have, what with the fear and the excitement, an urgent need to pee, I squatted behind a bush. As I got up, I sensed, rather than saw, someone by the van. He opened the driver’s door and the interior light came on for a second. Darkness again. And movement. What was he doing at the back of the fan? Suddenly I could see him. A torch? The light flickered too much for that. And then I knew. He’d made a firebrand from the paper I’d brought. Or from the book. And he was going to shove it, whatever it was, into the fuel tank.

  Diesel. How fast does diesel burn? Petrol, I’d not have a chance. Petrol, he might not have a chance either.

  And what, Sophie, did you want a chance to do? Put out the flames? How? Pee them out, like Gulliver? If he found me, he’d throw me into the van, and no one would be there to save me.

  While thoughts chased haphazardly through my head, I heard the crepitation of paint burning. Soon the whole thing would be alight. He’d be able to see me.

  There were two choices. To stay and wait till I saw where he was before making a move. Or to risk it now, and maybe bump into him.

  A sudden whoosh of flame. The driver’s seat, perhaps. And there he was, his back to me. A rumble of thunder stopped me hearing him. But I could see his shoulders shaking with laughter.

  I picked my way slowly to the lane. As gently as I could, I started to pad away. Over the wall? I had a better chance of dodging across country. Or the lane? Safer, surely, to stick to the smoother surface? And there were policemen at the gate. I could call, I could scream.

  I didn’t dare look back. I didn’t dare. Lightning was now playing closer and closer. If he was looking my way, he must see me. The thunder might be masking his footfall.

  There was an almighty bang. Without looking round, I knew what it must be. The explosion woke birds, made copper the sky. It was George’s van.

  I started to run.

  The first police car almost ran me over. I was nearly at the main gate, and staggering with fatigue, when it roared along the lane, klaxon blaring. Perhaps they even saw my face, blue in the flashes of their light. Certainly the next car came more circumspectly, but I had fallen on to the verge by then. I stayed there, feeling the earth shake under the wheels of a quite redundant fire engine.

  At last I scraped myself up. Only another couple of hundred yards. I could crawl it.

  And then I thought of Chris’s face if I did. I pulled my back straight, made my knees and ankles flex. If I breathed properly I might even manage a feeble jog.

  But as I did so, I knew it wasn’t pity for Chris that inspired me. It was the thought of the man with the torch, and the knowledge that it would be another two hundred yards before I was in sight of the gate.

  The first of the team to arrive at the stables was Tina. The rain was now so intense that the short trek from the car park had left her anorak streaming.

  ‘Fucking hell, our Soph! What you been doing now?’

  ‘Playing Brünnhilde,’ I said, and wished I’d saved that response for someone more appreciative, like Chris. I was so tired I could almost feel the little electric sparks making ideas – and count them, they were so few. The police had wrapped me in a duvet, given me thick, sweet drinking chocolate, and despatched a PC to tell Hugh I might be a little late.

  ‘OK, tell us all about it then,’ she prompted.

  But everyone had heard the explosion, it seemed, and seen the flames, and Hugh had arrived hard on her heels.

  ‘Yes, do just that,’ said Hugh. ‘Tell us what the fuck you’ve been up to.’

  ‘When I’ve had a bath,’ I said. And stuck to my guns. The shock had made me dither, I was soaked to the skin, quite literally, and I couldn’t identify many places that didn’t ache. Both my knees were bleeding properly, not just with gravel rash.

  In the end, I made my statement in the bathroom. Tina had come to keep an eye on me, she said. What she really wanted to do was talk about Courtney. There were signs that his coma was less deep. I expressed cautious delight. I could make all the right noises, all except the one she wanted to hear: that Courtney might love her. Courtney was gay. And that wasn’t something you could change like a haircut. It was what Courtney was. I didn’t say it out loud. I let my silence say it.

  Eventually, she pulled herself straight and managed a courageous smile.

  ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Since we’re in here having a natter, we might as well natter to some purpose. Let’s get down that statement of yours, shall we?’

  I agreed willingly. I’d have to correct half her spellings later, of course. While I patted myself dry, Tina went off to hunt for dressings and – at my insistence – some clothes.

  I’d unfastened my watch and left it on the windowsill. Eleven twenty, it said. Time for my tryst with Hugh. At least now he’d seen me, he’d understand if I was a little late. Tina patched up my legs, and a surprisingly deep cut on the palm of my left hand, with Melolin and micropore. Then I dragged on my winter-weight tracksuit, the one I’d slept in that first night. My hair was a drooping mess, my make-up had steamed off. If Hugh fancied me now it must be love indeed. I trusted him to be inv
entive enough not to tangle with the damaged bits.

  He certainly looked at me with great tenderness, standing up and putting out his hands to steady me as I strolled with ill-assumed nonchalance into the stables.

  Chris turned too, and Ian.

  ‘Pity about your van, Sophie,’ said Ian, gently.

  ‘George’s van,’ I said automatically.

  And then I understood that there would be no van, no George, ever again. And I started to cry.

  Chapter Twenty

  I felt bright and well, so I looked out of my bedroom window and found a dazzingly clear sunny day. Pathetic fallacy, said my English-teacher brain. The view included a constable in shirtsleeves prowling up and down by the rubbish bins. I was being guarded. There was an armed policeman outside my door, too, as I discovered when I set off for the loos.

  It did not surprise me particularly to see Chris waiting with him when I returned.

  ‘Two minutes,’ I said to him, smiling.

  Shutting him out gently, I changed the tracksuit I’d all too obviously slept in for lightweight jeans, a jazzy T-shirt and a sweatshirt just in case the weather wasn’t as pleasant as it looked. And some make-up. My face didn’t look as well as the rest of me felt.

  Then I let him in.

  ‘Never thought you’d be awake this early,’ he said awkwardly.

  ‘What time is it, then?’

  ‘About eight. But after last night …’ He sat down on the chair.

  And then things began to come back to me. Gimson, for a start. He’d suddenly appeared, and there’d been a row. And Shazia.

  ‘What did I get up to?’

  ‘I take it you remember the van catching fire? The explosion? George’s van?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Well, a bit later you started to cry.’

  I nodded.

  ‘And you couldn’t stop.’

  I nodded.

  ‘And eventually we called Gimson in to see if he could give you a shot of something, and … shall we say, you didn’t want him to treat you.’ Chris’s intonation suggested a massive understatement.

  ‘My God! Was I very rude?’

  ‘You said something interesting, Sophie. You said he’d threatened Kate.’

  ‘Did I? Had he?’

  ‘You gave us chapter and verse. Overhearing him threaten her. And he denied it, at first. Then we reminded him that though you were not at your articulate best, you had overheard his conversation and, when you were able, you would no doubt oblige us by repeating it. He gave in, not with especially good grace, I have to admit.’

  ‘Go on.’

  He smiled and shook his head. ‘Confidential, Sophie. Between him and Kate, really. He shouldn’t have told us, of course. But he said he’d rather we had the truth than any garbled version you might offer.’

  ‘Did I offer one?’

  He hesitated.

  ‘Surely it wouldn’t be a breach of confidence if you told me what I’ve already said. I’ll probably remember soon anyway!’

  ‘Bloody Jesuit! OK. He performed some operation. She proved to have a blood clot.’

  ‘That’s right! The embolism. It moved. Right?’

  ‘He still insists it developed after the operation. And that Kate was, ah, mistaken. And that his threats were of legal, not physical, action.’

  ‘I hate to admit it, but I suspect they were. He’s more of a suer than a strangler.’

  ‘I have a feeling you may be right. Nonetheless, Dr Gimson –’

  ‘Mr Gimson –’

  ‘– is now talking to us about his activities this week.’

  ‘Waste of time,’ I said, with sudden conviction. ‘He was as surprised as anyone when you told us about Nyree’s barbiturate poisoning. And do you see him stealing tampons?’

  We started to laugh. I felt happier than I’d felt in his company all week.

  ‘What happened then?’ I prompted.

  ‘Shazia came along with some homoeopathic drugs, and she persuaded you to try them. Then you seemed to slow right down, so we carried you back here.’

  I wondered who’d done the carrying. Chris, if I knew anything about it. Hugh’s knight-errant act in the hospital would have given him the idea. And if Hugh had tried, I reckon Chris would simply have pulled rank. I could ask Shazia later, to satisfy my curiosity. Meanwhile there were other, more important questions: ‘How’s Courtney?’

  Chris shook his head slightly. ‘He’s a little stronger. But what worries me is Tina. He is gay, isn’t he? You’re sure?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Poor Tina,’ he said.

  We both sighed. But now was not the time to remind him that people don’t die of broken hearts. And then I had a pleasant thought.

  ‘You must have let Matt go?’

  ‘It was incontrovertible,’ he said slowly, ‘that whoever torched your van, it could not have been Matt. So he’s been released. He decided he didn’t want to come back here last night so we found a hotel room for him. And we’ll bring him back here when he’s ready.’

  ‘I suppose everyone has an alibi for last night.’

  ‘Every last one. And though you’d have expected someone to come in soaking wet, no one did. Apart from Naukez. No wet clothes in the building, at least.’

  ‘I suppose you couldn’t frame Toad for me?’

  ‘Everyone heard him playing that overgrown fiddle of his all evening. He insists on practising with the window open, apparently.’

  ‘That could be a dodge – maybe he’d made a tape of himself so he could go and do his nasty deed.’

  ‘You really don’t like him, do you? But the poor man’s writhing in agony. He hurt his heel running yesterday and the tendon’s inflamed.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’

  ‘Gimson seems to think it’s bona fide. He’s limping like Long John Silver sans parrot, and popping anti-inflammatory pills. From a bubble pack,’ he said, grinning.

  ‘Shit! I’d like it to be Toad.’

  He laughed. ‘No chance! I suppose you couldn’t fancy some breakfast?’ he added shyly.

  ‘Only with a police escort. And preferably not here. Supper last night was gruesome. I know I’ll have to come back, but not on an empty stomach.

  I’d never known simple food taste so good. Chris had driven us to a caravan in a lay-by on a scruffy A road running parallel to the motorway. He’d ordered, from a drawn woman he called Eileen, bacon butties: crisp smoked bacon in buttered baps. To hell with cholesterol. The tea she offered us was so strong I’d settled for water, but those butties were grand.

  ‘A lot of the lads who’ve been on motorway patrol stop off here,’ he said, opening the glove box and passing me a box of tissues to mop my greasy fingers. ‘Good for food and gossip. Eileen ought to be on our payroll.’

  We ate in silence. A heavy lorry pulled up behind us, and then a patrol car in front. I suppressed a crack about fine and private places; I didn’t want to be embraced, after all. What I did want was another buttie.

  ‘Your wish is my command,’ said Chris, not altogether lightly.

  We joined the little queue by the serving hatch. While we waited for the next batch of bacon to fry, he turned to me.

  ‘That van – it was very special, wasn’t it?’ he said, very gently.

  Our turn to order. I waited till we’d been served. Then I walked not to the car, but to a gap in the hedge from which you could see the great sweep of the Birmingham conurbation. Even that looked impressive in the morning sun. It was my home, and Chris’s and George’s home. But the lay-by wasn’t after all a place for the finer romantic feelings: human turds and condoms occupied the foreground.

  We walked swiftly back to the car. He opened the door for me. Then he caught my eye. I hadn’t answered his question.

  ‘It was very special,’ I said.

  He walked to his side and let himself in. We sat for a moment in silence.

  ‘What will you get to replace it?’ he asked, in a suddenly impersonal tone.
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  ‘Replace it?’

  ‘The van. With the insurance money.’

  ‘Insurance money?’

  ‘It must have been insured. For third-party, fire and theft, at the very minimum.’

  ‘Fully comprehensive,’ I said, at last picking up his tone. ‘I suppose I’d better phone the insurances people and claim. It might be worth quite a bit brand new, after all, in terms of mileage. Only last year’s letter in real terms.’

  ‘What’ll you get? I must say, I see you in something sporty.’

  ‘On my salary? I might be able to buy it, but I couldn’t insure it.’

  ‘Get something second-hand.’

  ‘No: I’ve always had other people’s mistakes.’

  ‘I’ll take you round some dealers when we’ve got this lot sorted out.’

  ‘Great. You’d know the right questions to ask …’

  ‘That’ll make a change,’ he said. And bit into his buttie as if he were still starving.

  I felt at a dreadfully loose end, back at Eyre House. My knees were too sore for a jog and I had, of course, no writing to occupy me. Hugh had: other people’s writing. There was nothing to stop me interrupting, however.

  I trotted up the staff staircase as briskly as I could make my muscles work. If he’d been listening, however, he wouldn’t have been impressed by the lightness and delicacy of my footwork. By the time I reached the corridor I could achieve little more than a stagger. I could hardly blame the floor for screaming in protest.

  Hugh had pinned up a list of appointments on his door. Now was when he ought to be seeing Gimson. There’d be ten minutes before the next student was due. At the foot of the list, in capitals underlined three times in red, was a reminder that this evening – the last of the course – was when everyone would be reading their work aloud, and students would be well advised to rehearse their piece beforehand.

  Everyone except me. I’ve never failed so comprehensively before. Of course, later in the week I did have other things to occupy my mind, but I had no excuse for the dismal start. I could have relaxed more, I could have jollied up whatever bit of the brain it is that creates.