Honey-Dew

by Louise Doughty

  Tim was an only child who lived with his parents in the last house in the village, a bald semi with no exterior decoration but a forest of rusting cars out back. I went straight round the outside of the house, like I used to, and noticed that the wooden lattices on the side of it were empty. I wondered if they always had been. I thought, when I was a child, he and I had the same sort of life.

  As I rounded the house, I saw him at the back of the yard. The metal hulks around him had mostly lost their headlights and looked eyeless, malicious. He was bent into the bonnet of one. It looked as though the car was eating him.

  Hearing my steps, he straightened. His face was red and he was holding a cloth. He nodded, then came towards me.

  It is always a surprise when people you have known since childhood turn out to be particularly tall or fat. Tim Gordon had turned out both. He was well over six foot, large enough for his plump, moonish face to tip down towards you as he spoke. His chest described a waterfall, an uninterrupted curve plunging from his chin. He always seemed to be leaning forward a little too far, a trait which was noted by the tough lads at our comprehensive school who followed him around chorusing, ‘Tim-ber!’ It didn’t appear to upset him. He seemed to enjoy the attention.

  He stood holding the oiling cloth, passing it from hand to hand, and refused to look at me. His gaze appeared to be fixed somewhere to the left of my shoulder.

  It occurred to me, all at once, that it was not beyond the realms of possibility that Tim Gordon was capable of killing someone. Physically, he fitted a certain sort of brief, a hardy perennial of the TV murder story, The Simpleton Who Didn’t Really Mean It. How many people do really mean it? If most murders are impulsive, maybe anyone who has impulses is capable of it.

  Tim stopped pretending to wipe his hands and, still without looking at me, said, ‘Hello. Nice of you to come. I know you’re busy.’

  I searched his face for clues. ‘How are you, Tim? What is it?’

  ‘Can we go somewhere?’ he said. ‘Mum and Dad . . .’

  As we walked back to my car, I tried to picture myself dead, my throat cut, or strangled perhaps, lying underneath some undergrowth in nearby woodland. I tried to imagine fear, but fear is unimaginable. You feel fear, not imagine it.

  Is this how it happens? I thought. Do people do stupid things, walk into stupid situations, because of a lack of imagination?

  As we passed the side of the house, I glimpsed the dim figure of Mrs Gordon, moving past a frosted kitchen window.

  ‘Where do you want to go?’ I asked, as I unlocked the passenger door for him, and he waved a large arm in the air. ‘Do you want a drink?’ I said, as I shuffled myself into the driver’s seat and reached for my seatbelt. He shook his head.

  We drove until we came to a lay-by. The road was deserted. On either side were open fields.

  I pulled into the lay-by and turned off the engine. The handbrake creaked. ‘Here do you?’ I asked, sitting back in my seat and making it very clear that it did me.

  He nodded. I noticed his gaze flick towards a half-consumed packet of mints in the plastic well in front of the gearstick, wrapper spiralling haphazardly. I picked them up and offered him one but he refused, so I took one myself.

  ‘I know I ought to go to the police,’ he said hesitantly.

  The story of a lifetime unfolded before me. DOUBLE KILLER CONFESSES TO OUR GIRL.

  ‘I know I should’ve done,’ he continued, ‘but it was mainly Mum and Dad. Well, you know, I like to look after them and it would’ve given them a real fright. So I sort of kidded myself it wasn’t her. I knew it was, but I kidded myself. I thought it was just maybe a girl or someone. She didn’t look much like the picture in the paper. But I know it was.’

  I sat. I did not even dare to chew my mint, which was jammed in an uncomfortable lump against the roof of my mouth.

  ‘So then I thought, I’ll go see Alison, and she’ll tell me. Maybe you could go to the police with me. Or tell me who I’ve got to ring to go with me, if I need anyone that is. I don’t think I do. Was that okay?’

  I made a gesture which was an awkward combination of a shake of the head and a shrug.

  ‘Anyway, I feel a bit bad. I don’t know whether it’s too late now, whether they’ll still be able to find her . . .’

  He tailed off and I realised I was supposed to prompt him. The mint was still stuck. My words came out thickly. I tried to think of a phrase which contained no hint of moral censure. ‘What happened?’ I managed.

  He blew air out through his mouth and pulled a face. ‘I was driving through Nether Bowston, on my way to Braunston, you know my uncle lives there now?’ He looked at me and I nodded, although I had no idea he had an uncle. ‘It was the Monday. I’d seen you at the Castle. Well, I’d just got through Bowston, over the humpback, and I was pulling round the corner, and I nearly ran her down. I had to pull over. I wasn’t going that fast. She was almost in the middle of the road.’ His voice had taken on an anxious tone, as if it was important to convince me he hadn’t been speeding. ‘I stopped the car and I wound down the window. I was going to tell her to watch it.’

  He paused, then frowned. ‘She came over, and looked at me. I think I will have a mint.’

  I stared at him. He picked up the packet and fiddled with the remaining string of paper. ‘You’ve had these a while, they’re all stuck together.’ He prised one away and popped it in his mouth.

  ‘She had a weird look on her face, a look like I’d never seen before. Sort of set. She was wearing a coat that was too big for her, somebody else’s coat, and she held it wrapped round her as if she was cold, which was pretty odd because it was that warm evening we had. And she said, Will you give me a lift? Where to? I says. Anywhere, she says, Oakham. And then she goes round to the other side and without so much as a by your leave she gets in. I hadn’t said yes or anything. And she just sits there without moving. I thought, she’s probably ill or something, and I started the car.’

  His mint was clearly bothering him as much as mine was bothering me. He gave a gulp and swallowed it whole.

  ‘It’s the wrong way for me but by then I was scared of her. So we got to Oakham and I’m glancing over at her saying, where do you want to be dropped off? She hasn’t said a word the whole time and I’m just wanting shot of her and I’m looking over and suddenly she says, keep driving, please, just keep driving.’

  He paused and sighed. I saw that he was close to tears. His voice dropped and cracked. ‘I know I should’ve pulled over and gone and got someone, I know . . . my Dad’s going to be disappointed in me because I didn’t do what I should’ve done. I should’ve, but I kept driving and by then we were down the High Street so I took the Stamford road and we were out and coming up past the reservoir, Rutland Water I mean, and it was just then I looked over and saw. She was wearing trousers, and there was blood on her socks, blood round the ankle, quite a lot, not like she’d hurt herself or anything either.’

  He began to cry, his big face crumpling and his breath coming in heaves, a big, dry sort of crying, the worried harrumphing of a man who doesn’t cry very often.

  ‘I just lost it, Alison, I just thought, I don’t want her in my car. And I pulled over. We’d just got past Burley Woods and I pulled into that stony bit by the Spinney at the top end and I said, get out. I’ve taken you far enough. You’ll have to get someone else, get out.’

  ‘What did she do?’

  He stopped harrumphing. ‘She went. She looked at me, then she turned and opened the door and she just went. That was it. She ran off, just took off.’

  ‘Which direction?’ I asked calmly.

  He shook his head. ‘I didn’t want to know. I just turned the car round and came back. When I heard, I thought, it’s her, I know it’s her. Then I thought maybe not, but it was, wasn’t it?’

  He gave me a pleading look. ‘Will the police think it’s me? Will they think I done it? What if there’s blood in the car? That’s how people get put away for things they never d
id, you know, I’ve seen it on the box.’

  I breathed out loudly, looking at the fields, then I turned and patted his forearm. ‘It’s okay,’ I said vaguely. ‘You were right not to tell anyone. It’s okay.’

  ‘Can you sort it out for me? Can you? I couldn’t think who else. I don’t know any solicitors. How do you get a solicitor?’ His large face was pink with anxiety and his mouth had formed a childish moue.

  I should have told him not to worry. I should have said that he wouldn’t be in any trouble, that I would help him sort it out.

  Instead, I said, ‘You definitely haven’t told anyone else?’

  6

  And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said . . . Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?

  Genesis 22: 7

  At what point did she know that the baby was evil?

  She knew when it was still in the womb. From the moment the doctor had announced her pregnancy, Joyce Akenside had felt a coldness inside, a solid lump of knowledge in her stomach that told her this was wrong.

  ‘But I’ve got two already,’ she heard herself saying to Dr Carter, as if he didn’t know. ‘A boy and a girl,’ she continued lamely. She already had a boy and a girl. That was enough, more than enough. She had one of each. What did she need another one for?

  Dr Carter was a genial man, never short-tempered like some other doctors. There were decorative handles on his filing cabinets. China cups and saucers teetered on the edge of his battered wooden desk – a touch of unprofessionalism which endeared him to his women patients. He drank tea. He was a man with human needs.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘two isn’t really that many, you know, although I know it’s common to have only two these days. You’ll probably be surprised how easy it is now you’ve got the hang of it. I wouldn’t worry.’ Silenced by his clumsy reassurances, her tongue burned with the unuttered.

  On her journey home, she stopped at The Teapot and ordered a coffee. Normally, she did some shopping before going to collect her youngest from nursery, but normality had come crashing down. She needed to break her routine in order to prove to herself that this was really happening. She chose a window seat and sipped automatically, not realising she had drained the cup until she tipped nothing but air between her open lips.

  Outside, the High Street was almost empty. The occasional young mother hurried by, raincoat-clad. Opposite The Teapot was Christopher’s Hosiery and Fancy Goods and it occurred to her that the corners of her husband’s handkerchiefs were tatty. The window of the shop announced that many items were reduced. She felt a fleeting rush of annoyance that it didn’t say which. She would go in to buy handkerchiefs and come out with tea towels, which would be no good to Gordon at all.

  People don’t wear headscarves any more, she thought aimlessly. By ‘people’ she meant other mothers like herself. The vagaries of fashion did not often penetrate Oakham but she felt the whole pressure of the changing world in this one small detail. Now we must all walk around with unprotected heads, her thoughts continued, so that anything can get at us. She fingered the small gold cross she wore on a fine chain round her neck. It had been a Confirmation present from her father.

  Dear Lord, she thought distinctly, and it was all she could do to prevent herself from bowing her head right there in The Teapot. I have asked for very little. I have done what I was supposed to do. I have given Gordon first a son, then a daughter. I have learnt how to make pastry. My one selfishness is the long baths I take and pretending to Gordon that Dr Carter told me they were necessary for my bad back. Perhaps you have done this to me because you thought I was becoming smug. I am twenty-six and things have turned out more or less how I expected. If so, I apologise and I can honestly say that I have learnt my lesson. But please, God, do not make me go through with this. You can stop it if you want. There are ways and means which will not be my fault. I will give you until the end of next week.

  She opened her eyes. It was only then that she realised they had been closed. The world outside the window had not changed. The women still strode down the pavements, legs scissoring purposefully. Christopher’s Hosiery and Fancy Goods was still holding its sale.

  She rose from her seat, unclipping her purse and fingering the cold coins inside. The price of a cup of coffee had gone up to thirty new pence. It seemed appropriate that it was costly.

  All babies were the same but different. This was what Joyce found so disturbing. Certain gestures were archetypal; the balled-up fist, the arching back – every baby in the history of babies had done those things. Each time one of her own children did, she was filled with irrational affection. But you’re just a baby, she would think, gazing at her infant in surprise. That’s all you are, after all.

  The individual traits were more difficult to come to terms with, for then she was reminded that another person had entered her home, uninvited, through the portal of her unwilling body.

  Her first-born was solid and sullen – everything a boy baby should be. When Andrew cried, his face reddened and his nose seemed to flatten, his mouth became twisted and ugly. He seemed as angry with himself as with the world around him. He fed furiously and screamed with colic every evening. You couldn’t do a thing with him. He might have slid into the world at eight pounds exactly but having him around was like having a little hippo in the house, a noisy little hippo.

  The girl was different; a slim baby, although not particularly pretty. From the start she hated to be cradled and was much happier upright against her mother’s chest. As soon as she could hold her head up she would peer over Joyce’s shoulder and look around, big-eyed, turning her head from side to side, like a prairie dog. Her favourite toy was a teething rattle made of ivory which Joyce had been given by Gordon’s mother. It had a little metal bell on the end, which Alison chewed endlessly, so much so that she cut her lip a couple of times, although it never seemed to dim her affection for the thing. Joyce could leave her with it for ages in the pram on the patio. When she went to the sliding door to listen, she would hear the tinny tinkle of the bell floating on the wind.

  Andrew screamed the whole morning long, a noise so loud and physical Joyce was surprised it didn’t flip the cat net off the pram.

  There was less than two years between them. Joyce was a firm believer in getting the toddler business out of the way as quickly as possible. If she had her children close together, they would at least be able to entertain each other at some point. Gordon had acquiesced. The babies had pleased Gordon’s mother no end – she was a widow desperate to leave her small amount of savings to a worthy cause. Joyce loathed Gordon’s mother but managed to conceal it until she was dead and buried, when she duly stood at the old bat’s graveside and prayed that God would forgive her for accepting whatever few measly items she might have been left in her will.

  Sure enough, the small amount of money went to the children. It was to sit in the Mowbray Building Society until they were both grown up, by which time it might possibly be worth something.

  Joyce was left a black sewing-machine with mother-of-pearl-trimmed handles which folded down into its own bureau. She stored it in the garage.

  The children seemed to like each other. Joyce praised the Lord. Andrew was strangely protective of his sister, leading her around as soon as she could crawl, as if she were a puppy. When he started school, he would rush across the playground when they went to meet him and say, ‘Alison, we did numbers today. We did the numbers. I’ll show you.’ He seemed entirely indifferent towards his mother, which suited her fine. Joyce had never really had any interest in boys.

  When Alison started nursery, she would come home solemnly and say, ‘New dress,’ if anything had been spilt on the one she was wearing. The first time she saw a cake with chocolate vermicelli on it she said, ‘Cake is dirty.’

  With Andrew at school and Alison due to go there in the autumn, Joyce had begun to feel that at last her life was taking shape. She had produced a son and a daughter, and both were
manageable. Her husband went to the pub a lot but usually slept in the box room when he came home drunk and didn’t bother her.

  With the family sorted out, she could now put her house in order. The pantry needed going through – there were tins of Golden Syrup that had been in there since she was pregnant with Andrew. The box room could be turned into her household room – maybe Gordon’s mother’s sewing-machine could be rescued from the cobwebs in the garage. She could make some new curtains for the lounge.

  It was 1974 and everything else was going to the dogs. First there was the three-day week, thanks to the miners, then fights breaking out in petrol queues. So much was going wrong in the world. Joyce knew that God was punishing everybody, because of all that free love and women’s lib. He had let that plane crash in Paris and hundreds of people had died, even if a lot of them were Turkish. Then there was that bomb on the bus, the soldiers and their children. The royal family was not exempt. But for the bravery of her husband and bodyguard, where would Princess Anne have ended up? Making omelettes for a lunatic in an underground bunker.

  Even in Rutland, they were up in arms. Joyce couldn’t understand the fuss. Cumberland and Westmorland had gone as well – the whole world was changing. It was God’s way of trying to get people to see how sinful they had become. On the very day that Rutland disappeared, Joyce noted in the Mirror, family planning was becoming available on the NHS. Everybody’s taxes were going to pay for the fornicatory habits of a few.

  She herself had an ordered life. She couldn’t help thinking how well she had made things turn out.

  Pride was a sin. Later that month she discovered what her punishment was to be. It was Dr Carter who suggested the pregnancy test. She had only gone about her back. She hadn’t had the curse for three months but that was not uncommon. Ever since Alison, things down there had been all over the place.