“Over the moon,” he said. “Richie was always a bit shy with the ladies. I used to try and get him to look for a date on match.com like I do but he wouldn’t hear of it. Said he’d meet the right girl when he was meant to and he was right.”
“You find women on the Internet?” I was staggered.
“Of course, darling. You ought to try it. You too, Vanessa.” He flung an arm round my mother’s shoulders and to my amazement, she didn’t push him away. Just stood there beside him, smiling and going a little pink.
“I couldn’t possibly,” I said. “It’s too risky. I might get murdered.”
Sonny looked at me and shook his head. “With that kind of attitude, you probably will,” he said. “Bit of a nervous type, are you, love?” Now he drew me into his embrace on his other side and stood there between my mother and me. He gave us each a big fat kiss on the cheek and I noticed he gave my mother a little slap on the behind, which she didn’t seem to mind at all.
“Now then,” he said. “I’m going to need some music while I work. Some Motown would be nice, and some of that Atlantic Stax. Got any of that?”
Over the next couple of days he put our house to rights, turning us out of our bedrooms every morning but leaving them immaculate for us to return to in the evening. I was impressed by the way he put dust sheets down everywhere and ran up and down stairs with endless bin bags of fallen plaster. He rang the damp people, told them they’d done a rotten job and furthermore it wasn’t finished and when they returned, he stood over them like a contractor until he was satisfied their work was done.
My mother made him and his coworkers endless cups of tea and ham sandwiches, and played him nonstop sixties soul music—“I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” “River Deep Mountain High,” Aretha, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Ben E. King. She put Stevie Wonder’s “Uptight” on repeat and it resounded throughout the house over and over again till I thought I would scream. And all the time she danced about like a demented rock chick. I’d been here before. As long as I could remember, probably as far back as my playpen, her only real form of relaxation had been reliving her sixties moments and when she found she could compare reminiscences with Sonny Cross, there was no stopping her. To make matters worse, Sonny scored some grass one lunchtime from A chap I met in the market and they got stoned out of their minds at the kitchen table while I huddled in my office and thought This could have been Tommy and me. And of course once the grass appeared, the work stopped. It seemed the top floor of the house was doomed to remain a crumbling health hazard.
I’d been putting off going to Tesco, doing most of my food shopping in the market, buying a ton of vegetables at Chris’s stall every day, which scored me an equal number of brownie points with him.
“If only more people were like you,” he told me. “Seems like you’ve turned yerself into a vegetarian over the last few days. I’m proud of you, girl. ’Ere, ’ave a pound of French beans on me.”
In the end, he sent me back to Tesco himself without realizing what he was doing.
“So that Angel you took in after the fire in her summerhouse, how’s she doing? She become a vegetarian and all?”
“Actually she’s not living with me anymore.”
“Oh yes?” He seemed interested and I recalled Angel telling me how he’d hung about waiting for her outside Tesco. “Where’d she go then?”
“I’ve no idea,” I said.
“Well, well, well. Looks like she’s gone and left us.”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s done a runner on her job. They haven’t seen her at Tesco for two or three days. Her mother’s worried sick. Didn’t your mum tell you? Mrs. O’Leary called your house to find her and your mother said she’d left.”
I rushed to Tesco and stocked up on all the things I normally bought there like yogurt and cheese and the disgusting frozen meals Tommy seemed happy to live on—although who knew when I’d be catering for Tommy again.
In the evenings I found myself on my own while Cath was at the hospital with Sonny and my mother was God knows where and instead of relishing the solitude I’d craved so recently, I hated it. I felt guilty about how little work I was doing. Genevieve was beginning to leave rather sharp messages asking if I was making any progress. I knew I should call Selma but I was terrified of encountering Buzz.
And as I finally retired to bed, kicking my way morosely through the various piles of Tommy’s discarded clothing still lying on the bedroom floor, I added Selma and Angel to the list of people I was fretting about. Top of the list was Richie, and Cath by association, then poor Fred followed by my mother and lonely Max Austin as I always dubbed him. (Had he had his date? How had it gone?) And finally Tommy. By now I was seriously beginning to worry about not having heard from Tommy, that something terrible had happened to him and no one had told me. And after hearing about Angel’s disappearance from Chris, I found I had a strange sense of unease about her. After what she’d done, it was weird that I should even care but I did.
But Selma was the person who was creeping to the top of the list. For some reason I really had the spooks about her and as it turned out I was right.
When the doorbell went in the middle of the night, my first thought was that Richie must have died and they’d sent someone to deliver the news to Cath. But when I peeped into Cath’s room, she wasn’t there and I assumed she must have finally decided to keep an overnight vigil at the hospital.
I shouted, “Who’s there?” through the door and put the chain on. I heard a whimper from the other side and suddenly I knew who it was.
He’d really done a number on her this time. I was amazed she could even walk. Her right ear was bleeding and there were traces of blood around her nostrils. One eye was nearly closed and her right cheek was very swollen. And perhaps most horrible of all was that when she turned her head, I could see that her hair was matted with blood.
She fell into my arms as my mother came down the stairs behind me.
It’s okay, Mum, I mouthed. “It’s Selma Walker. I’ll take care of her—” And then I stared in total shock. Coming down the stairs behind her, his tanned body naked except for the briefest of underpants, was Sonny Cross.
CHAPTER 19
WITH THE IMAGE OF SONNY CROSS’S AMAZINGLY compressed abs imprinted forever on my mind—I wasn’t about to get into that now—I took Selma up to my bedroom and tried not to flinch every time I looked at the brutal evidence of Buzz’s attack on her face. I attended to her cuts and swellings and ran her a bath in my bathroom. I left her to have a long soak and set about making up the sofa bed in my office.
My new little office, bang next door to my bedroom, was the most private room in the house and why I hadn’t thought of working in it until the fire was a mystery to me. It could be reached either from the landing or by a small door in the far corner of my bedroom, not immediately visible as you entered the room. I was already making plans to offer Selma shelter and protection from Buzz. I would move the big cupboard on the landing in front of the door to my office. I deliberated whether to call Max Austin in the middle of the night and decided that I would wait till morning. If Buzz came looking for Selma tonight, I would dial 999.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to take you to hospital?” I asked when she emerged from the bathroom, her diminutive body somewhat dwarfed by my toweling robe.
“Not necessary.” She managed a smile. “Nothing’s broken, although I can’t quite believe it. He was in a terrible rage. He went out last night, I don’t know where. I’d gone to bed early, thought I was coming down with a cold. He stayed out all night, he wasn’t there this morning when I got up. He got home around eleven and he came to find me immediately. He had on a pair of boxing gloves. He bought them the other day because he’s taking lessons. And I was pleased about that. I thought it would be a way for him to find some kind of release for his anger so he wouldn’t have to take it out on me. I was really happy for him.” She paused, looked away from me and
said something that left me speechless. “You know, I love him so much.”
I love him so much. She said it with so much feeling, but I couldn’t believe it. I’d slept with the man she was talking about, I’d been infatuated with him for twenty seconds, but the minute I became aware of the violence he was capable of I had instantly begun to despise him. Yet only a short time after he had used her as a human punching bag, Selma was claiming she still loved him.
“It’s okay,” she went on, “I know I have to get out. Something set him off today and he was out of control. Once he was through hitting me he locked me in a closet and left me there all day. He’s never done that before.”
“How did you get out?”
“He thinks it’s just a closet but it’s actually a very small store room and there’s a tiny window at the back that was hidden by cardboard boxes. When I moved the boxes, there it was. I’m so tiny I was able to squeeze through. It was quite a drop down the side of the house but I think I’m okay. I just ran for my life—to you.”
“You can stay here as long as you want, Selma,” I said, going over to her to put my arms around her but I stopped at the last minute. There was something about her that didn’t encourage closeness. “You’ll be safe in this little room. I’ll be right next door. We’ll call Inspector Austin in the morning.”
“You call him,” she said slowly. “I know I won’t be able to bring myself to. That’s partly why I’ve come to you, so you can help me to stay away from Buzz. He’s going to be so sorry for what he’s done. The more brutal he is the sorrier he is afterwards. He’ll be desperate to find me and he’ll get down on his knees and beg me to come back and I cannot afford to let that happen. Our reunions, Lee, they’re the sweetest thing. I love him then more than at any other time. I start thinking maybe I’m responsible, maybe I provoked his anger in him in some way. When he tells me he can’t believe what he did, that he loves me so much, we are so close, it’s almost unbearable. That’s why I’ve never left, you understand, Lee? Because the reunions are so sweet.”
It was awful but I did believe her. I just don’t think I could ever condone violence on that scale. I mean, I know I provoke Tommy no end but he would never ever lift a finger to me. Not that it looked like I’d have much chance to provoke him anymore.
“Of course,” she went on, “everything’s rosy for a couple of months and then I do something and he hits me again. It never lasts. I know that. I keep hoping the rosy times will last forever and I just have to accept that they never will.”
I let her talk on and on. I hoped I’d retain everything she was saying. It would be invaluable for the book.
“It’s the most dangerous time,” she said, her voice gathering strength, “the contrition phase, because that’s when you tell yourself that one day they’ll change and that maybe that day has come. That’s what I want the book to focus on. I’ve been there, I know what it’s like, I can speak to them in such a way that they will identify with everything I’m saying. I’ll tell them how I’ve always thought I could change Buzz and never more than during the periods following a beating when he was so ashamed and begging for forgiveness. But I was deluding myself and I want my readers to understand they are too. I want to give them a book that guides them through an abusive marriage and out of it while showing them they can still love him—but they have to get away.
“And speaking of the book, I’m here to give you these.” She handed me a canvas tote bag I noticed she’d been clutching when she was standing on my doorstep. I looked inside and saw a stash of audiotapes, at least ten or fifteen. “Here’s the book. You’ll have everything you need on these tapes.”
“But when—?” I was speechless.
“Over Christmas. I have a little secret to tell you. I didn’t go away to America. I stayed right here in England but I had to say I went to the States so Buzz wouldn’t try to find me. I wanted to be alone to record these tapes out loud without interruption and without him accidentally hearing anything I said.”
“Where were you?”
“In a house by the sea in Devon. It belongs to one of the cast members in Fraternity. He lets me have the key so I can use it when I want to. That’s where I’m intending to go now. I called him and he said fine, no problem, didn’t even ask why.”
“What about Fraternity?”
“I’m on a two-week break. That’s why I’m down in London. Ironically, my character, Sally McEwan’s on a business trip to New York. I’ll go to Devon till I have to restart work and then I’ll ask for some kind of day-to-day protection in Manchester. That will be the time to tell the Fraternity production team the truth.”
“We’ll tell Max Austin first thing in the morning and have him contact the Devon constabulary. We don’t want you feeling vulnerable down there.”
But before I could call him, Max Austin was on my doorstep once again at nine o’clock the following morning. He was smiling and charming and back in the billowing overcoat that I found so romantic but when I told him about Selma, he switched to grumpy, moody Max in a second. He was furious with me for not calling him in the middle of the night.
“You’ve got my mobile number. I keep it switched on at night. What’s the point of waiting till this morning to tell me? I should have gone round and picked him up straight away. That bastard’s probably halfway to China by now. What were you thinking of?”
I took him upstairs to see Selma and he came down about twenty minutes later looking slightly mollified.
“Keep her up there. Don’t let anyone in. She’s insisting on going down to Devon—seems like she was there over New Year’s, gave me the address and everything. I’ll check it out.”
“You don’t believe her?”
“I’ll check it out,” he repeated. “Now I’m going to call a couple of the lads and go round the corner to pay a visit on your friend Buzz.”
“He’s not my friend—” I began but he’d gone before I could finish the sentence. I followed him out into the hall in time to get a glimpse of Sonny Cross’s backside—now fully clothed, mercifully—disappearing out the door behind him. Well, well, well.
There was no sign of my mother who was usually up before anyone else and when Cath came down she went straight to the phone to call the hospital. The way she slumped at the kitchen table when she’d finished the call indicated there was no change in Richie’s condition.
She looked totally exhausted.
“They let me sit by his bedside till four in the morning. I came home and tried to fall asleep but I don’t think I got more than a couple of hours.”
I set about making her breakfast. “You’ve got to eat,” I said firmly when she made a face at the scrambled eggs and bacon.
“Don’t say it. I know. I’ve got to keep my strength up,” she parroted in a weary tone. “I wish you’d all change the record. I’m grateful for everyone’s support except when it starts coming at me in the form of clichés.”
“Sorry,” I murmured.
“No, I’m sorry,” she said. “I really am. I don’t know what’s making me be so churlish. You don’t look too hot yourself. What’s up? Ah, I remember—where’s Tommy?”
“This is going to take a minute,” I told her. “Have you got time?”
“Of course,” she said. “I’m going to the hospital in half an hour or so—it was a mistake going to work yesterday, I couldn’t concentrate at all—but until then I’m all yours.”
I told her the whole story, starting with the discovery of the mist pot cit in Tommy’s medicine cabinet, which should have alerted me to what was going on. Cath shook her head in wonder. “I suppose it never occurred to you to ask him what it was doing there? No? Lee, this could only happen to you.”
I went on to describe how Tommy started speaking miraculous French when we visited my parents. I gave her the sad news about Noreen and I described the sighting of Marie-Chantal at her bedside. I finished with Tommy’s surprise revelations about his affair, going into malicious detail in my
description of Marie-Chantal. “She’s so neat, I expect she has a manicure every day and I doubt there’s a single hair anywhere on her body.”
“But she suffers from cystitis?” Cath reminded me.
“Yes,” I laughed, “there is some justice in life.”
I waited for her feedback on Tommy’s behavior but before she could say anything, Max Austin was ringing my doorbell for the second time that morning.
“He’s gone,” he said flatly. “No answer when I rang the bell and a neighbor saw him leave this morning with a suitcase. Hi, Cath,” he said, seeing her behind me. “How are you holding up?”
“Richie’s just the same,” she said. “I’ve got no option but to keep going. But what if he stays like this for months—?”
I knew she was going to say years and couldn’t bring herself to. Max shifted uncomfortably.
“Well, I guess we just have to face the fact that it might happen but on the other hand he may pop out of it this afternoon. Nobody could feel worse than I do, Cath. I was the one who told him to go and take a look round the arches behind my house. So I’m to blame, you want someone to shout at, shout at me if it’ll make you feel better.”
“It wouldn’t,” said Cath, “and you mustn’t feel responsible. Tell me, do you talk to him when you go and see him or do you think it’s a waste of time?”
“I do,” said Max. “I ask him questions. He was in the process of tracking down and interviewing as many of Buzz Kempinski’s old girlfriends as he could find. I ask Richie about his progress because I want to know every damn detail about that bastard. He’d seen one of them the day he was attacked, the last woman Buzz was with before he met Selma. He was telling me about her when he came over with the takeaway. He was pretty shaken up by the state of her and this was years after Buzz had been with her. But I didn’t get her name—I assumed I’d be seeing him at work the next day—and now I can’t find it. There’s nothing in his diary and I’ve searched his desk but I can’t find anything. He got this call in the middle of the afternoon and shouted to me that he was going off to South London somewhere but I don’t have the details.”
How to Seduce a Ghost Page 29
