by Nick Thripp
‘I was sure she’d be in touch with you Alison. I know how close you two are and how much she values you.’
Alison didn’t say anything. I waited for a few moments.
‘Perhaps you could tell her, if she does make contact in the next few days, that I’d really love to see her. I’ll give you my new mobile number to pass on.’
‘Right.’ Alison still sounded doubtful.
Rachel phoned me that evening.
‘Thank God, Rachel,’ I said. ‘You’re all right. I was so worried about you. It’s been so long.’
‘I’m so sorry. I wanted to contact you. It was the police who insisted I remain incommunicado.’
‘By police, you mean my old chum and your new lover Neil?’
‘He’s not my lover, well not any more. Too many shavings in the washbasin and toenail clippings on the bathroom floor. The man’s barely housetrained.’
‘I think he’s missed out on the civilising influence of a good woman.’ I was secretly delighted at this turn of events. ‘Any chance of our getting together in the next few days?’
‘Have you still got a car?’
‘Yes, why?’
‘I want to go to John’s funeral tomorrow and I’m struggling to think how I can get there without taking a taxi, which would cost a fortune. The bus service has atrophied and there’s no station nearby. I know it’s a long way for you to come.’
‘Only three and a half to four hours, depending on the traffic.’
‘Is it really? That’s too far. Please forget I asked.’
‘Not at all. I’d be delighted, although I’m surprised you want to go. Are you planning to drive a stake through his heart to stop him re-incarnating?’
‘Might be a sensible precaution, if they found his heart. In fact, I’m not sure how much of him is in the coffin. They probably shared out the body parts as most of them were pretty well unrecognisable.’
‘So why do you want to go? To dance on his grave?’
She hesitated as though pondering my question.
‘Do you know, I’m not quite sure. It’s a terrible phrase I know, though it does seem to fit what I feel. I guess I want closure. He was such a big part of my life, and I know he ruined me, but still—’
‘Well, we can talk about it tomorrow,’ I interrupted. All this nonsense that people talked about closure irritated me. As far as I could see she didn’t have a sensible answer. Perhaps she could come up with one overnight.
‘Where are you living?’
She gave me an address.
‘Solhurst High Street?’ I said. ‘Sounds like the arsehole of the universe. Has it got any redeeming features?’
‘It’s cheap,’ she replied, ‘and very anonymous.’
*
After we’d returned from Beart’s funeral and demolished Rachel’s wine, I was on the point of leaving when, with the smell of spices and onions from a nearby restaurant tantalising my digestive juices, I decided to invite her out for a curry instead.
‘You’re offering to buy me two meals in one day,’ she said, ‘and you still run a BMW. This gardening business must pay pretty well.’
‘It’s had its ups and downs.’ I saw no need to share the vicissitudes I’d experienced. ‘Now it seems to be on a bit of an up. In fact, I could do with some help. Do you fancy coming in with me?’
‘Me? You know my gamma ray fingers kill any plant I touch.’
‘Could be very handy for weeding. In any case, you’d only be hacking, hewing and trundling wheelbarrows full of muck.’ I looked her up and down. She’d put on some weight since we were married, though nothing a bit of exercise wouldn’t shift. ‘You still look pretty fit. I reckon you could handle it.’
‘You’re seriously offering me a job as a gardener’s mate? You must be joking.’
‘Why, have you had a better offer? I didn’t see any head-hunters queuing at your door.’
‘I’m planning a book about everything I’ve been through, a full exposé. You wouldn’t believe the way these guys stick together.’
‘Sounds very worthy,’ I said. ‘I still can’t see why you couldn’t help me during the day, part-time if necessary, and write your memoirs in the evening. Anyway, let’s go and discuss it over a jalfrezi. I’m famished.’
*
‘The strangest thing,’ Rachel said, spooning curry onto her pilau rice, ‘is the way Suzie’s been behaving recently.’
We were sitting in one of the dark alcoves of the otherwise empty restaurant and, had it not been for a guttering candle and the night-lights keeping the dishes warm, I would have struggled to see the food in front of me. A waiter lolled behind the counter, absorbed in his smartphone. While the décor was traditional, the music was discordantly modern pop. I tried unsuccessfully to catch his eye to order another glass of lager and had to resort to calling out. He seemed surprised we were still there and strolled over to take our order with an air of cultivated ennui.
‘I’m sorry, what were you saying about Suzie?’ It was odd to think Suzie and I’d once been in a relationship. When I looked back, like my marriage, like so much of my life, it was like a distantly and imperfectly remembered film.
‘My sisters say she’s got lots of money now and won’t say how she came by it. She’s also talking about emigrating.’
‘Emigrating? Where?’
‘South America somewhere though she wasn’t very clear exactly where. She mentioned Paraguay and Uruguay interchangeably and didn’t seem to know the difference. They think she meant Paraguay because she kept referring to a place she called “Ascension”. She says she wants to make a new start after John.’
‘Perhaps she does.’
‘I’d be surprised if she could organise a weekend in Brighton. What’s she going to do when she’s out there? Is there a big market among geriatric ex-Nazis for having their dobermans’ portraits painted?’
Rachel stabbed at a chunk of Bombay potato.
‘But the really intriguing questions are why is she doing it, and where is she getting the money? She’s a tapeworm. She’s spent her life sponging off others. Who’s she going to latch onto in Paraguay? And how can she afford to set herself up in any style? Only a couple of months ago, she was trying to borrow money from my aunt.’
‘Perhaps she discovered John’s secret cache and helped herself. The reason she’s emigrating to a country without an extradition treaty is she thinks the law will catch up with her and confiscate it unless she makes herself scarce.’
‘Similar thoughts went through my head,’ Rachel said. ‘Do you think we should tip the police off?’
‘You could always exchange some pillow talk with your friend Neil.’
‘Oh, for goodness sake!’ Rachel looked needled. ‘He’s not sharing my pillow. We spent a few nights together, that’s all. It’s all over now. Anyone would think you were jealous.’ She calmed herself. ‘I like your suggestion of telling Neil.’ She pulled out her smartphone. ‘In fact, I think I’ll e-mail him now.’ I kept a serious expression fixed on my face. Inside I was jubilant. It was great fun winding Rachel up and her denials were very reassuring.
‘Go ahead,’ I said, ignoring the fact she was already keying in letters furiously. ‘Not a moment to lose.’ I took a deep draught of my lager. It was turning out to be a most enjoyable evening.
*
It was a surprise when Richard knocked on the door of my cottage. I’d just got back from a hard day’s work planting a garden composed completely of pink flowers for a balding young bond trader and his blonde, pink wife. Every muscle and every sinew ached. I couldn’t wait to run myself a bath and sink into the hot water.
He didn’t smile when I opened the door. More portly than ever, his stomach protruded so far you could have balanced a pint of beer on it, and the thought went through my head that he’d been indulging too
much in his company’s products. His hair had receded to a clump around each ear, with only a few outlying wisps clinging doggedly to the weather-beaten scalp in between.
As he followed me into the low-ceilinged sitting-room, my warning came too late to stop him bumping into the oak beam that ran across its length. He rubbed his head.
‘Can I offer you tea or coffee?’ In my endeavour to clean up my life I’d stopped keeping alcohol on the premises.
‘No thanks.’ He was still massaging his skull. ‘I’ve come to warn you. Some of the investors in Beart Enterprises are planning to sue AP for negligence, and the former AP partners think you should be the one in the firing-line, not them.’
‘Is that what you think too, Richard?’
‘I’m not joining them, or anyone else in any action against you, if that’s what you mean, but you did make a right mess of it, didn’t you?’
‘I certainly did. I wasn’t alone in that; several other partners agreed I was doing the right thing. I’m not going to hide behind them though. The truth is I wasn’t up to the job.’ I paused, feeling a weight lifted from my shoulders by the admission. ‘Look, you can tell whoever’s interested I take full responsibility, but do make it clear I’m the proverbial “man of straw”. I own the clothes I stand up in, I’ve a few hundred pounds in the bank and an ageing BMW. Other than that, nothing. Even the cottage is rented fully furnished. If anyone sues me, I’ll declare myself bankrupt and continue with my gardening jobs as though nothing happened. It won’t benefit them at all.’
Richard looked around, his eyes flitting across the sofa, the stained carpet and finally fixing on the damp patches spreading up the wall.
‘God, you have made a mess of things, haven’t you?’
I patted him on the shoulder. ‘On the contrary. Do you know, Richard, I’ve never been happier. I feel fulfilled when I plant something and see it thrive and grow, when I see a beautiful garden which existed only in my mind’s eye unfold in front of me. I get on well with the locals, and I’ve even started seeing Rachel again from time to time. There’s no need to feel sorry for me. It’s those, like you, who have managed to claw your way back into stressful jobs and are clinging on who deserve pity.’ I looked at my watch. ‘If you give me fifteen minutes to have a bath, I’ll take you down to the Jolly Throstle. They serve a lovely pint. Besides, I’d like to hear all about your family, and how they’re getting on.’
‘All right,’ said Richard. ‘I’m in no hurry. I quite fancy a beer.’
*
Rachel’s flat in Solhurst High Street was awash with paper, huge piles heaped on the table and chairs, and random pages lying thick on the floor or spreading like dust-sheets across the carpet.
‘What’s all this?’ I asked. Rachel was normally such a meticulously tidy person.
‘Sorting out what I want to put in my book. I’ve finished the first draft, still can’t quite decide on the order.’ She pointed at the piles. ‘These are sections; several of them could fit in any number of places.’ She looked down at the sheets lying on the floor. ‘And those are rejects.’
‘Was writing it easy?’ I was impressed that Rachel had knocked out the first draft in just over three months.
‘Not too bad. Editing will be the hard part. Once I’ve assembled it, you wouldn’t like to help me proof-read it, would you? For some strange reason, I tend to read what I thought I’d written not what I actually wrote.’
‘Happy to help.’ I put the kettle on and scanned the local free newspaper while Rachel wandered around rearranging wads of paper. Finally, she declared herself to be happy with the order.
‘I’m surprised so many parts of it are interchangeable. That’s unusual in a book, isn’t it? I thought there was always a beginning, a middle and an end. Something to do with some Greek chap or other.’
‘Aristotle. No, they’re all designed to link together. I’ve written it with an eye to serialisation in a Sunday newspaper, so each pile constitutes a self-standing story. You can make big bucks. And, even better than that, you get fantastic exposure.’ She noted down the sequence of sections she’d decided on and pushed the fat draft into my midriff.
‘Bloody hell, Rachel,’ I said weighing it in my hands. ‘You’ve written more than Tolstoy did in his whole career. This’ll take ages to plough through.’
‘Happy reading!’ She patted me on the back.
I didn’t start proof-reading until the following evening, planning to work on it for an hour at most and then drop in on the pub.
I didn’t put the book down until five o’clock the next morning. I wouldn’t have given Rachel any prizes for style. The whole work was written in a stilted, sometimes staccato manner reminiscent of a business report. In certain places, she’d even resorted to using bullet points. Nevertheless, the content was riveting. I don’t know how she’d managed it. She’d got hold of Beart’s diary and overlaid the timing of several of his appointments with UK Government ministers, with subsequent meetings with terrorists, in such a way as to suggest he might have been acting with the connivance of the British Government. I felt less comfortable when I came to the section dealing with the role of AP in the debacle, and extremely unhappy when I read Rachel’s account of my own part in the proceedings. She hadn’t been kind and I was exposed as a biddable incompetent in awe of my client. She’d even included reference to my affair with Mrs Beart, and cited it as the real reason why Beart, in an irrational fury, had decided to sack us as auditors
‘She can’t include this!’ I shouted, hurling the draft at the wall. Papers flew everywhere and I left them where they fell, scattered around my room.
During the day, the starkness of my recollection softened, and I allowed myself to imagine I hadn’t read those things or, if I had, they weren’t as blunt and brutal as I’d first thought, so I carefully collected the pages up, arranged them in order and put them aside. A day later I read and re-read the work. It was worse each time.
I arrived unannounced at Rachel’s flat the next day with the marked-up pages in my hand.
‘That was very quick. Thank you so much. What did you think of it? Would it make you buy The Sunday Times?’
‘It was great, Rachel, really well researched and very powerful, but—’ I paused.
‘Yes?’ she said, raising an eyebrow and fixing me with a stare, ‘but what?’
‘You can’t print all this personal stuff.’
‘You mean the bit about you?’ She gazed at me impassively. ‘It’s all true, isn’t it? He always thought you didn’t know what you were doing. When we got together, he assured me he was just trying to help you out even though I suspected he didn’t like you very much. Then he let slip he’d always wanted to make sure he had tame auditors who weren’t going to bark. And later still, of course, when he’d read that diary, he just wanted to destroy you. Unfortunately for him, his anger sowed the seed of his own downfall. He should never have sacked AP. It was the beginning of the end.’
‘No. That’s not what’s bothering me, though it does make me sound feeble. Do you really have to include those reference to poor Mrs Beart?’
‘What does it matter?’ Rachel replied. ‘She’s dead, and you don’t exactly have much reputation to lose, do you?’
‘Kick me when I’m down, if you must. Just take the passage about Josephine Beart out. Please.’
She looked at me quizzically. ‘Why, I do believe you’re still carrying a torch for her after all these years. Talk about three in a marriage. I suppose she was the one you really loved when you married me.’ She gave me a gentle shove. ‘Come on, admit it.’
‘I don’t see any reason to drag her name through the mud, that’s all. What’s she done to hurt you? We had a very temporary fling, which should by rights be consigned to history.’
‘Because she’s the reason the whole edifice came tumbling down. If it hadn’t been for her involveme
nt with you, John wouldn’t have acted so irrationally and he’d still probably be the darling of the establishment.’
‘My take on it is that the reason his empire crashed was your jealousy of Suzie. As soon as he took up with Suzie, he was done for. You’d be bound to get even.’
Rachel sat back.
‘You’re probably right. I would have gone for him, with or without the new auditors’ help, and I’d have found out what he was up to. It’s funny though. Even before he found the diary, he seemed to have some sort of grudge against you, though he always denied it. I really believe the only reason he took up with Suzie was to get at you, like an alpha wolf proving all the females are at his beck and call.’
‘So, you admit Mrs Beart wasn’t pivotal to his being found out. Then you can leave the part about her out.’
Rachel’s eyes narrowed. ‘Sorry. I’m not changing my book for anyone, not for you, and certainly not for Mrs Beart. What I’ve written is my unvarnished, honest and complete account of what transpired. If I’m attacked for writing it, and I expect to be, what defence do I have if I’ve deliberately falsified some aspects?’
‘Don’t be so bloody pious.’ I slammed my hand on the table. ‘You’re the author. You can do what the fuck you like. You’re choosing to drag your ex-mother-in-law’s name through the dirt. No one’s making you do it. There are plenty of ways you could get round it. Leave the stuff in about me and what an arsehole I was. I don’t care, but take Mrs Beart out. It’s not a lot to ask, is it?’
Rachel fixed me with her gimlet stare. ‘The truth is the truth. It stays in.’
‘There must be more to it than that. What have you got against Mrs Beart?’
‘If you must know, I loathed the woman and she detested me because I stood up to her. John was always in awe of her, always doing her bidding. I persuaded him to do what he wanted for a change, so she excommunicated us both. John had barely seen anything of her in the weeks before she died, and the guilt nearly cracked him up.’
