by JL Merrow
He didn’t ask how Cherry was, which might have been an important clue but more likely just meant he was a thoughtless bastard. I thought about shouting out a progress report on her to annoy him, but I was supposed to be in stealth mode and that probably wouldn’t have been very stealthy. “Yeah, cheers for telling me about this group.”
Morgan glared literary daggers at me. “I didn’t know you wrote.”
“Oh, it’s a new thing. See, I was talking to this lady—Edie Penrose, she’s a lovely old girl—and she reckoned I ought to get a hobby. Something intellectual. So I thought I’d give writing a go.” Not bad, I thought, for a total bit of improv. Maybe I’d fit in better here than I’d thought—I seemed to be a natural at making stuff up.
“And what do you write?” Margaret demanded. I snapped out of the self-congratulations and general musing. With a nose that sharp, she’d stab me if I didn’t stay on my toes.
Excrement, meet air-moving device. “Gay literature,” I said with a smile, and braced myself for the outrage.
It didn’t happen. All around the room, heads were nodding in, dare I say it, approval.
“Oh, excellent. Such a rich vein of tragedy,” Margaret murmured with a suitably mournful expression.
What?
“I take it you are, yourself, of that persuasion?” she carried on.
“Er, yeah.”
A sort of collective sigh went around the place. With a kind, almost motherly look on her face, she took my arm. “Do come and sit down.”
She led me to a seat next to Grey-Lady, who gave me a sad smile. “You must have a great deal of tragedy in your own life to draw upon,” she said in a barely audible voice.
“Er, yeah? Still, mustn’t grumble.” They were all so bloody sombre and sympathetic I felt I had to be extra bright and breezy to compensate.
“Do you write poetry too?” Raz asked, pushing his glasses back up his nose and staring at me with big, earnest eyes. He had the sort of beard that looked like it had started out as designer stubble and still wasn’t sure it hadn’t preferred it that way.
“Does the odd naughty limerick count?”
They all laughed politely, despite the fact I hadn’t been joking. “So tell us about your novel, Tom,” Morgan demanded.
Bugger. I hadn’t expected anyone to actually want to know more about gay literature. “Well, it’s about this plumber, see,” I began. They always said you should write what you know, didn’t they? So that probably applied to making up stuff on the spur of the moment. “He shows up at this bloke’s house to fix the washer, and of course, the bloke’s not got any clean clothes because his washer’s kaput, so he’s just wearing a tea towel…” Too late, I realised I was reproducing the plot of one of Darren’s pornos. The Plumber Always Comes Twice, if I recalled correctly.
Luckily, it didn’t look like anyone here had seen it. They were still nodding along in unison like a row of those dogs you see in the backs of people’s cars. Half of them even had the jowls to complete the illusion. I breathed a sigh of relief.
“And what’s the central theme?” Margaret asked, jabbing her beaky nose in my direction.
Theme? I thought fast. “It’s, um, about the shallow, empty nature of casual relationships?”
“I imagine the washing machine is just a metaphor, then?” Grey-Lady suggested timidly.
“I like that,” Raz threw in while I was still struggling with that one. “Like life, it goes in cycles. And you could go one of two ways with it. Either the machine gets fixed, or it doesn’t. Whichever you choose, it’s a strong statement.”
“No, no.” This was Morgan Everton, butting in with an air of authority. “The machine has to be fixed. Otherwise it’s just too obvious. And I think the tragedy is more poignant that way.”
Nods all round. Even from Raz.
“So,” Hannah asked hesitantly. “Do we ever find out what’s wrong with the machine?”
“I’m still working on that bit,” I said firmly. “So what’s everyone else writing?”
Everyone else, I discovered, was writing literature. Funny how nobody could actually define it for me. There was a lot of woolly bollocks about themes and allegories. Oh, and none of their books had made it into Waterstones yet, although some of them had had some really encouraging rejections.
I was still trying to wrap my head around this last concept when Margaret announced it was time to break for a cuppa and some biccies. Not that she put it that way, obviously, but that was what “refreshments” turned out to mean. Morgan’s tea, I noticed as he took hold of my arm, had a bit of a funny smell, as if he’d somehow managed to slosh some rum in on the sly. He certainly didn’t offer any to the rest of us.
“I wonder if I might have a word?” Morgan murmured in my shell-like. Or, to be more accurate, seeing as he was so much taller and stooped with it, he murmured it into the top of my head.
“Course,” I said, although I’d been hoping to nip out for a bit of snooping around. Not a lot of chance with old Morgan’s iron grip on my sleeve.
He steered me to a corner, presumably so he could loom over me more effectively. Then he coughed. “I felt it would be better not to advertise your connection with Cherry. The other members of the group are…unaware of the circumstances of her departure from our circle.”
“Right…” I wasn’t sure what he was getting at. Or why, for that matter.
“I thought it best you weren’t plagued with questions that would only serve to embarrass your sister. What’s done is done, and I don’t believe in giving a dog a bad name and hanging him. Or her, as it might be.”
Had he just called my sis a dog? I frowned.
Morgan straightened his cuffs. Even in his own house, he was wearing the tweed jacket. I wondered if he had little tweed jim-jams he changed into for bed. “We’ve always kept to first-name terms within the group, and I feel that’s a tradition that should continue.”
“Fine by me, Morgan,” I told him breezily.
His eyes got a bit of a pinched look, like he was wondering what the world was coming to when oiks like me called him by his first name. Maybe I’d try shortening it to Morgs next time. “Excellent. Well, I must move on.”
“Yeah, don’t let me keep you,” I agreed. I stayed in the corner a minute, watching him. Both Margaret and Hannah, the Grey Lady, seemed to want to speak to him, but he blew them off and headed back to Raz, who was apparently the golden boy right now. Margaret had to make do with Peter, and they bent their heads together, muttering occasional words to each other I didn’t catch and wasn’t sure I wanted to.
Hannah, for her sins, got me. “You been coming here long?” I asked as she stirred three sugars into an anaemic cup of tea. I thought she must be pretty new, judging from how scared she seemed to raise her voice. Although mind you, there was something about the dimly lit room we were in that seemed to muffle conversation. Sort of like a thick tweed blanket.
“A couple of years,” she whispered. “I tried another circle first, but I couldn’t get on with it. Too much banging.”
“Er, what?” I had brief visions of highly educated orgies, everyone quoting Shakespeare as they shagged.
“It was the chairman. He was a little overenthusiastic with his gavel. It used to give me terrible headaches.”
“Ah. Right. Well, you’ll be fine here, love. Old Morgan doesn’t believe in banging.”
The pink tint to her cheeks came back in full force. “He’s very good, isn’t he? He’s going to be the next Kazuo Ishiguro.”
“Bless you. Kaz who?”
She giggled, then clapped a hand to her mouth and glanced around nervously. No one was looking at us, though, and she relaxed. “I’m so glad you’ve joined the Literati.” Her voice lowered so far I had to strain to hear her. “It’s been so flat here, since… You won’t believe it, but sometimes I think we get just a little bit pretentious here.”
“Never,” I said with a wink, and she choked on her Rich Tea biscuit.
I didn’t get a chance to ask to use Morgan’s loo before he was coughing politely but firmly, signalling the break was over. Maybe he wanted to stop us eating all his biccies. Sod it. I knew I should have had a poke around at the start.
We had to sit through a few of Raz’s poems after that. I’ve never been a big fan of poetry, not since they made us learn it at school, but I tried to keep an open mind. I soon realised he wasn’t likely to win me over. None of his stuff even rhymed, and he was a bit too fond of the word “shards” for my liking. Still, give him his due, he was obviously pretty passionate about his subject. Only trouble was, by the time he sat down I still wasn’t sure what the subject actually was. Unless it was shards.
Margaret’s voice cut into my thoughts like a viciously sharpened paper knife. Or, as might be, some shards. “Tom, perhaps you’d like to read us something now?”
My stomach hit the Axminster. “Er, sorry, didn’t bring anything with me. Next time, maybe?” Shit. I hoped Phil wasn’t going to want there to be a next time. Maybe I’d better pull my finger out with the investigating. “Actually, mind if I use the loo?”
Morgan shot me a look like I’d just crawled out of it. “Down the hall, to your left.”
“Ta.” I got up and legged it out of the room.
I realised as soon as I reached the hall I was in trouble. Bloody echoing floor tiles. Sod it. I clattered down the hall as quietly as I could, paused outside the loo, opened up my spidey-senses and listened.
Jesus. There was hidden stuff here, no question about it. The air was thick with it. It left a foul, bitter taste in my mouth. Trying to work out what sort of thing it was, I got the impression of some horrible greasy stew of concealment. It was nasty.
Except…I didn’t get the feeling of anything serious. It was all petty stuff. Spiteful, not vicious. What Greg might have called a peccadillo—see, I know how to use a dictionary. (All right, I looked it up online.) And the tug from it was coming from upstairs, not down here.
Just as I was wondering if I could possibly get away with following the trail, Margaret’s pointy nose poked out from behind the living room door. “Are you all right? You’ve been taking rather a long time.”
“My mum always taught me to wash my hands thoroughly after I’d been,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound as rattled as I felt. That had been a close call. “Have I missed much?”
“We’ve finished.”
Oh.
Bugger. Phil was going to kill me. I made a mental note not to climb any ladders in his vicinity for the foreseeable. And to stop eating toast for breakfast.
When I followed her back into the sitting room, sure enough, it was now a standing room. Everyone was gathering papers and coats—all except Hannah, who was being talked at by Peter and looking like she wished her clothes would hurry up and finish the job of making her fade into the background so she could escape.
Ah well, at least I could accomplish something while I was here. I headed over. “Great evening, wasn’t it?” I said loudly over whatever Peter was ranting on about. “I really enjoyed it. Are we going to get treated to some of your stuff next time, Hannah?” I didn’t bother mentioning I wasn’t planning on turning up.
She’d already turned to me, and now she gave me a mousy smile. “Oh, I’m not sure about that. But perhaps you could read us something?”
“Yeah, maybe. So have you got far to go?”
Peter, who’d been lurking around like an angry customer trying to make a complaint, seemed to realise we weren’t going to be letting him back into the conversation any time soon, and stomped off with a final glare in my direction.
“No, I’m quite local really. Um, I hope you don’t mind my asking, but I, well, I’ve got this dripping tap—it’s not a big thing, really, so it’s not urgent, but…”
I gave her one of my cards. “Here you go, love. You get any more drips bothering you”—I gave a sly nod in Peter’s direction—“just give me a call.”
She glanced at the card, which had “Paretski Plumbing” on it in a pretty nifty font, and her face froze. My card fluttered to Morgan Everton’s Axminster carpet. “P-Paretski? Like Cherry?”
Oops. Or maybe not oops. “Yeah, she’s my sister.” I kept it light, but she still looked like the bottom had dropped out of her cosy little world. Her face had gone as grey as her cardi.
I picked up my card, seeing as she wasn’t making any move to do so. She took it again and shoved it blindly into a shapeless handbag so vast I was pretty sure it’d never see the light of day again.
“Is she… I mean, she was ill, wasn’t she? I mean, I heard she was.” Hannah wasn’t looking at me; her gaze went right over my left shoulder. Guilty conscience? Or was she just distracted?
“Yeah, but she’s going to be fine. Morgan told you about it then? The party?”
“I—yes. I mean… Yes.” I followed her fixed stare, and found myself face-to-face with Morgan.
He looked bloody furious. What the hell was that all about?
“I’ve got to go,” Hannah said and scurried out, her head down.
“Well, cheers for the evening,” I said with a wave in Morgan’s direction. “Maybe I’ll see you next week.” I clomped back down the hall and let myself out.
I was just about to get into my car when I looked up and saw a shape outlined in the security light. I blinked at it, startled. I hadn’t heard anyone behind me either on the tiles or the gravel.
“You may think no one’s on to you, but you’re wrong,” it said. Raz. It was his voice, although I couldn’t make out his expression. He was entirely in shadow.
I swallowed. “Come again?”
“I’d suggest you don’t,” was all he said before turning and walking back to Morgan’s house as silently as he’d come out.
Bloody hell.
“So basically,” I concluded my sorry little tale of the evening’s activities back at Phil’s flat, “I found out bugger all.”
Phil didn’t look too obviously murderous. Mind, it was sometimes hard to tell with him. He had the mean, moody and magnificent look down to a T. “I wouldn’t say that. You found out Everton didn’t want people asking you questions about your sister—that bit about not wanting to embarrass her was bollocks. And you found out this Hannah woman heard about Cherry being taken ill. So Morgan must have told her, which means he doesn’t mind talking about your sister—he just doesn’t want you doing it.”
“Yeah, but why not? What’s he afraid of?”
“Something she told you about him? Or something he thinks she told you? And then there’s Hannah. From what you said, that was a bit of a funny reaction when she found out whose brother you were.”
“Or maybe just when she realised Morgan could see her fraternizing with the enemy.”
“Maybe.” He was silent for a moment. I leaned back on the sofa and pondered the ceiling. It was white, like the walls. Bit too clinical for my tastes, but it takes all sorts. And Phil hadn’t lived here long. For all I knew, he was planning to paint it rainbow colours as soon as he got a mo.
I wasn’t holding my breath, mind.
Phil leaned back too and made a move with his legs that looked like he was about to put his feet up on the coffee table but remembered his manners in time. He crossed one ankle over his knee instead. “Reckon she was there Friday night?”
“What, at Cherry’s party?” I frowned, thinking about it. “Don’t think so, but I couldn’t swear she wasn’t. I mean, she’s not that, well, memorable. And everyone and his bloody dog was at that party.”
“Yeah, but the dog’s stuffed, so we’re not counting him. What about the rest of them?”
“I don’t think Margaret was. Again, can’t be certain—she might have been in the other room all the time we were there, mightn’t she? It wasn’t like I was taking a lot of notice of anyone after Cherry keeled over anyway. And Peter—I can barely remember what he looks like now, to be honest. Bit of a type—just your average thirtyish office worker. Tell you one thing,
though, Raz wasn’t there. At least, not in the same room as us at any time. That crowd was so bloody white you could use them to advertise washing powder.”
“Yeah, it’d have to take a lot of nerve for the one non-white bloke at a party to try and kill someone. He’d have to bank on people noticing him more.”
“So what do you reckon that tender little good-bye of his was all about?” It might just possibly have had something to do with me heading straight over to Phil’s place after I’d left Redbourn, instead of going back to mine. Actually, it had been the first thing I’d asked Phil about, but him being him, he’d insisted on me going right back to the beginning before he’d condescend to offer an opinion on anything. Git.
That coffee table was looking well inviting. I thought, sod it, and put my feet up. Hey, I took my boots off first. I wasn’t born in a barn. Phil gave my only slightly holey socks a sidelong look, but all he said was, “Maybe he’s just watched more porn than the rest of them? Got a bit upset about you taking the piss?”
“Yeah, but he seemed to take it seriously at the time. I mean, if he saw through me, why not out me to the rest of them right at the start?”
“You reckon he heard you giving Hannah your name?”
I tapped my fingers on my leg, thinking about it. “Maybe. Not sure. I mean, I didn’t really notice where he was at the time. And other people were talking and stuff, it wasn’t like everyone in the room would have had to hear us. ’Specially the way Hannah talks, like she’d really rather nobody heard her.”
“Hm. Think someone in the group’s intimidating her?”
“I think the whole bloody world intimidates her. Anyway—Raz?”
“Maybe you fooled him to start with, but he’d had time to think about it by the end of the meeting and was pissed off because you made him feel like a twat?” Phil grinned. “Couldn’t you at least have ripped off Charles Dickens or Jane Austen or someone, not some bloody bargain-basement porno?”
