Good Thing Bad Thing

by Nick Alexander

  “Well of course I know about it… That’s the point, isn’t it?”

  There’s a long pause.

  “I’m sorry Tom,” I say. “This conversation makes no sense to me. Can we rewind and just start again?”

  “Jesus Mark!” Tom says. “You’re really starting to piss me off. Why the fuck did you do that? Answer me. Are you trying to freak me out? Because if so, well, it’s worked.”

  “I… Look Tom,” I say. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to have done. Honestly.”

  “You stole the page from my newspaper,”

  “Jenny did. She thought it might upset you,” I say. “That’s all.”

  “Whoever stole it, I don’t really care. What I want to know is why you posted it here.”

  I frown and shake my head as I try and work this out. “I… didn’t,” I tell him. “I mean, I have it here. I’m holding it. Jenny gave it to me in the van, after we dropped you off.”

  “Well I have it too,” Tom says. “And it looks like your handwriting on the envelope.”

  “Well it isn’t babe,” I say.

  “Look if this is some kind of a…”

  “Tom,” I interrupt. “Listen to me. I’m telling you the truth. Jenny saw the article. She hid it – so it wouldn’t upset you – and then she gave it to me this evening. End of story.”

  “Read it to me,” Tom says.

  “What do you mean, read it to you?”

  “Read it! If you have it.”

  “Tom, this is ridiculous.”

  “Read it. Please.”

  “New twist in Italian murder mystery,” I say, my voice flat with restrained anger. “Terrorised inhabitants of a sleepy town, more used to lost tourists …”

  “Okay. Read the other side,” Tom says.

  “Why?”

  “Please,” Tom says.

  I flip the page and shake my head. “Jesus Tom!” I say. “Which bit? Tech stocks crumble as Nasdaq falters? Or hottest summer for fifty years…”

  “Okay, Okay,” Tom says. “It’s not a photocopy.”

  I take a deep breath and wait angrily for Tom to continue. “Sorry,” he says eventually. “But something weird is going on …”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Well…”

  “I tried to read my newspaper on the plane, and there were pages missing. And then when I got home they were posted through the letterbox.”

  “Pages?” I say. “Did you say pages?”

  “Yeah, well, it’s in two parts,” Tom says. “The main bit and the end of the article is on like page seventy or something.”

  “I haven’t seen that bit,” I say. “It must still be in your newspaper.”

  I hear Tom rustling the pages of the newspaper. Then Tom says, “Okay, so I have two page seventy-two’s… My own, and the one you… the one someone else sent. So I believe you.”

  “Well thanks,” I say.

  We sit in silence for a moment, and then Tom says, “So he’s dead.”

  I nod silently, and then say, “Yeah.”

  “I can’t say I’m sad.”

  I shake my head. “No,” I say.

  “But who could know that I’d be interested?” Tom says. “I mean, why send it to me?”

  “Maybe whoever killed him,” I venture.

  “But how would they know. How would they have my address for fuck’s sake?”

  “Where was the letter posted Tom? I mean, where’s the postmark?”

  “In France somewhere…” Tom says. “That’s why I thought… Oh, no, hang on. Sorry, it was posted in Italy actually – Milan. I was so angry I didn’t look properly…”

  “Do you know anyone in Milan?” I ask.

  Tom sighs. “No,” he says. “Not really …”

  “Not really?” I repeat.

  “Well, we have an office there. But I don’t know them or anything.”

  “So, did you ever tell anyone about Dante?” I ask. “Anyone at work?”

  “No,” Tom says. “Not really…”

  “Again, those words… What do you mean, not really?”

  “I might have mentioned it vaguely… in an argument about the death penalty. But I definitely didn’t give any specifics. Not enough to know what happened, or who, or where…”

  “Humm… Are you really sure Tom, because…”

  I let him think about it. After a minute or so, he says. “No, definitely not. I’m not that proud of it all, really, if you know what I mean.”

  “And you never told your uncle,” I say.

  “Mark, this is ridiculous,” Tom says. “My uncle may be a bit of a roughneck, but he doesn’t go about executing people.”

  “No,” I say.

  “He doesn’t!” Tom says.

  “Okay, okay!” I say. “But someone does.”

  “Yeah.”

  We sit in silence for another minute or so. I’m racking my brain for an explanation. Tom is no doubt doing the same.

  “And you?” he says. “Did you ever mention it to anyone?”

  I sigh. “What? To any of the hit men I know?”

  “Look Mark, I don’t know, but somehow…”

  “Well of course I didn’t Tom,” I say. “I mean Jenny knows.”

  “Yeah,” Tom says. “Jenny.”

  “Oh come on,” I say. “Anyway… Jenny hid the clipping from you. She wouldn’t hide it from you and send it to you.”

  “No,” Tom says.

  I think for a moment then say, “I guess we still don’t go to the police?”

  Tom snorts. “You guess right. You did read the article right? Mafia connections, summary executions … a police cover up…”

  “Right,” I say.

  I wait for Tom to reply but he says nothing, so eventually I prompt him. “You still there?”

  “Yeah,” he replies.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “Erm, I’m thinking that I’m scared,” Tom says.

  “Right,” I say.

  “I mean, someone knows about Dante, someone killed him. Someone thoughtfully sent me the newspaper article… It’s… It’s scaring me.”

  “Tom, your uncle. I mean, he does look rough,” I say. “How much do you really know about him?”

  “Mark!” Tom says angrily. “My uncle does not have people executed.”

  “Okay,” I say. “I just… I’m just trying to understand.”

  “And he didn’t know,” Tom says. “How could he know?”

  “No,” I say. “You’re right.”

  “Mark?” Tom says.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m shitting myself here.”

  I nod. “I know Tom,” I say. “Me too.”

  *

  I have been at work for less than half an hour when my phone rings. “C’est Tom,” the secretary announces.

  His voice is brittle, his stress crackles palpably over the line. “Mark,” he says. “Listen, something’s happened.”

  “Hi… Yeah, what?” I stumble.

  “I didn’t sleep, so I phoned in sick,” Tom tells me, his voice rising at the end of the phrase to let me know that there is more to come.

  “Yeah?”

  “And I got put through to Claude – my uncle.”

  “Right,” I say.

  Carol the secretary moves in front of me holding out a letter. She’s doing it on purpose. She has worked out that Tom is a personal call and bringing some work to me at this very moment is her dumbarse way of reproving me. I wave her away as I would an insect.

  “And… shit these units are going so fast. I’m in a callbox you see. I didn’t want to use my mobile. Just in case.”

  “So what did he say? Your uncle…”

  “Well, I told him I have some personal problems and I need more time off, and he asked if it was something to do with the letter.”

  “The letter? How did he know about the letter?”

  “Well exactly,” Tom says.

  “Shit Tom, I don’t like this. What did you say?”

/>   “Fuck, I only have six units left. I asked what letter… and he said, The letter the Milan people sent you.”

  “Tom this is so dodgy. Maybe you should go to the police or something.”

  “I didn’t want to hear any more. I thought I was going to throw up, so I pretended my battery was running out and I hung up. I need time to think… I’m, I’m afraid he’s going to tell me something, something incriminating, something I’m better off, you know, safer not knowing.”

  I want time to think about all of this too. “This is really fucked up Tom,” I tell him. “I knew there was something wrong with your family.”

  “Thanks,” Tom laughs dryly. “Anyway, the point is, I booked a flight. Can you pick me up at sixteen-forty?”

  “You’re coming back? Tonight?”

  “Yeah,” Tom says. “I didn’t sleep a wink in my place. Every time someone walked past I woke up… so I was thinking of booking a hotel, and then I thought… Shit Mark, I really have no units left.”

  “I’ll be there,” I say.

  “Thanks, sixteen-forty, I…” The line goes dead.

  I lower the receiver and stare dumbly at the phone for a moment. A huge lump has formed in my throat. I feel sick myself.

  “So the letter was from the Milan people,” I murmur to myself. I stare at the phone as if this might reveal some clue I have missed. I desperately want to call him back, but of course if his phone’s switched off, and he isn’t at work and he isn’t at home either…

  Carol reappears holding the letter. She frowns at me in concern. “Ca va?” she says. “T’as l’air tout pale…” You look really pale.

  Action precedes thought. I shake my head. “A… A friend died,” I tell her. “A very, very good friend.” My quick thinking almost makes me want to smile but I’m stressed to snapping point and the result is a strange grimace, it probably looks quite mad.

  Carol eyes widen. “Vraiment?” she says.

  I stand and grab my jacket from the stand. Carol eyes me nervously.

  I blink at her slowly. “An accident he says… I… I have to go home,” I say. “Tell him… tell him I’m sorry,” I add nodding towards the boss’s door. “Tell him, I’ll call.”

  Carol nods and helps me on with my jacket. “Je suis vraiment désolée,” she says. I’m so sorry…

  *

  As Chateauneuf D’Entraunes comes into view, Tom leans forward and shouts, “I can’t believe we’re back here already!”

  I lift up my visor and lean back towards him, all the while keeping my eyes on the winding road. “I know,” I shout back. “Weird!”

  The road transforms into the final series of hairpin bends, winding back and forth up the hill. The air is cooler up here – it’s late afternoon, and the engine of my bike is purring contentedly as I power out of the bends. “So much more fun than in a car,” I think.

  I pull up on the gravel outside the gite, and Tom climbs off, then I park the bike on the side-stand and pull off my crash helmet. The motor makes metallic twanging noises as it cools.

  “Wow, that was great,” Tom says. “I always feel so… I don’t know. So free I suppose. It’s like flying somehow.”

  I grin. “I was just thinking how much more fun it was too.”

  “And the smells… every town, every field has its own smell, and on the bike… well, it’s great…” Tom’s voice fades; he nods behind me and I turn to see Chantal standing in the doorway, the habitual sleeping baby under one arm.

  “Déjà de retour!” she says. – Back so soon. “Il va vraiment falloir que vous achetiez la maison!”

  I grimace and glance at Tom, but he hasn’t understood or isn’t listening. In fact he’s swinging his crash helmet from side to side and staring at the Alps – the sun is just starting to set beyond the peaks. “Beautiful,” he says.

  “I nod. “And remote…” I say.

  Tom sighs and turns to enter the house. “Yep, good thinking,” he says.

  “I thought it was as good a place as any for you to catch up on your sleep, and for us to try and work out what’s going on,” I say.

  Tom nods and steps through the doorway, which Chantal is holding open for us. “Yeah…” he says, glancing sideways at Chantal and giving her a smile. “Let’s leave that till tomorrow though, can we? My brain’s numb with it all right now.”

  Chantal makes us omelettes and a simple green salad, followed by a single slice of Tarte Tatin she has left over from yesterday. The food here is pretty bad really, I could actually cook a much better meal, though possibly not with a child under one arm… Anyway, food isn’t the reason that we’re here.

  We turn in immediately after dinner, returning to our old room. Tom pulls off his shoes and we sit, side by side and watch through the window – through the tiny glass pane set in these thick stone walls – as the sky turns blood-red – the mountains in stunning silhouette – then fades to purple.

  “Imagine waking up to that view every morning,” Tom says as the purple finally starts to fade to grey.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Imagine.” Imagine indeed.

  *

  Over breakfast the next morning, I make Tom repeat, word for word, the exact conversation he had with his uncle. It pains him to do this – he’s a great one for summing up – but my own brain works differently; my own brain thinks that there are clues in the words people choose, in the intonation even, that mean more than what is actually said.

  But at the end of the walk-through, which Tom performs in a monotone voice and with a pained expression, there are no clues, there is no new information.

  “None of it makes sense,” I say. “I mean, none of the pieces fit. If your uncle had Dante killed and sent the letter then how did he know about you and Dante in the first place? And if he didn’t send the letter then how did he know about it and how did whoever did send it get your address?”

  “You like that theory, don’t you,” Tom splutters, his mouth full of long-life-croissant. “The Gambinos as Mafia murderers.”

  I shrug. “You take the piss, Tom. But until you come up with a better theory as to why he knew about the letter.”

  “Or you come up with a theory as to how he knew about Dante,” Tom says.

  I shrug. “Touché,” I say.

  Tom fingers his mobile.

  “Is that bugging you?” I ask. “Do I need to take you into Guillaumes?”

  Tom wrinkles his nose. “Yeah, not being contactable is part of the attraction I suppose… but I would like to at least know if I have messages.”

  I nod. “We can go now if you want…” I say.

  Tom smiles weakly and drops the remaining half of his croissant on the plate. “We can get some proper breakfast too,” he says.

  Outside the bakery, Tom is sitting on a wall in the sunshine. I pull a croissant from the bag as I walk towards him and hand him the bag. “Here you go,” I say. “They’re still warm.”

  Tom takes it, puts his nose inside and breathes in deeply. “Wow,” he says. “That’s more like it… I was just thinking, how strange it must be to live somewhere where the sun shines all the time. Where you can plan what you’re going to do every day because the weather does what it’s supposed to do.”

  I nod. “Well, it’s not sunny every day. This place is covered in snow in winter.”

  “I guess,” Tom says. “But I bet at least when it snows, it really snows.”

  I sit down beside him and our thighs touch – we’re both wearing three-quarter length shorts.

  “So?” I say, nodding at the phone beside him. “Messages?”

  Tom bites into his croissant, makes an mmm sound, and nods. “Five,” he splutters.

  “From your uncle?”

  Tom nods, swallows, then replies, “Yeah. All five. I think he’s really worried about me to tell the truth… I’m going to have to call him.”

  I flick a dead insect from my sweatshirt – a victim of our short ride down the hill. “I was thinking that too,” I say. “It’s the on
ly way you’re ever going to find anything out… We could stay here forever, but you still wouldn’t know what was going on.”

  “Yeah,” Tom says. “I know, I’ll do it from there,” he says, using his croissant to point at a phone booth across the square. “As soon as I’ve plucked up the courage. My batteries aren’t that hot, and I’d hate to run out for real.”

  I sit on the wall and watch Tom’s feet shuffle beneath the phone booth. After a while – it seems that this isn’t going to be a quick call – my attention drifts and I study the life of the square.

  The facades have all been repainted, the pavements recently replaced. It gives the town an artificial, stage-set kind of atmosphere. Doors open and people appear from the butchers, the bakers… I bet there was a candlestick maker here at some point. And then they wander slowly along to another door and disappear, sliding behind the reflections of the glass doors. It reminds me of some TV toy-town from my youth, Trumpton maybe.

  After about half an hour the wall becomes uncomfortable and the sun a little too hot, so I cross the square to the shady side, and stand, then sit, with my back against a closed Ski-Shop.

  From here I can see Tom who has also slid to the floor and is half crouching, half leaning against the stem of the phone booth – the cord of the telephone stretched taut. He has put his sunglasses on so I can’t see his eyes. He is nodding soberly and occasionally scratching his knee.

  My eyes wander around the square again, and I wonder how rural economies like this continue to function, what people actually do here. As far as I can see, this place continues to survive on the simple basis that the butcher buys beer in the bar, and the bar owner buys bread from the baker and the baker buys meat from the butcher. And everyone goes to the tobacconists.

  A bead of sweat rolls down my arm, and I glance up at the sky wondering how hot it can get. It’s the gentlest baby blue colour, dabbed with fleecy clouds, tiny and equally spaced throughout.

  I fix the corner of a building and watch as the clouds drift behind it one by one. I yawn and notice that the pavement is starting to shimmer in the heat. I glance at the motorbike and realise that it is now in the sun – that the black plastic seat will be scalding, probably too hot to sit on. I stand to move it, but see Tom walking towards me across the square. He is shielding his eyes with one hand and flapping the bottom of his t-shirt with the other.