The Code

by Nick Thripp

  ‘Received funniest love letter from BG. Almost forgotten our brief fling. Would like to frame it but it would upset J. Nice to have an admirer, even if so gauche. Very different from father.’

  The muscles in my neck became rigid and a steel band tightened round my head. My father? She knew my father? I scrabbled frantically though her diary until I found an entry from a couple of months earlier.

  ‘April 14th

  Saw Bank manager. Pompous. All eyes and hands. Said loan would be very difficult, no security but could work on it with Head Office. Would need more information. Touched me up on way out and asked whether I’d meet later for a drink to discuss further. Suggested he drop in for a cup of tea instead. Arrived at 5.30 sweating like a bull waiting to enter the ring and put hand up my skirt. Secretly checked TR before letting him MLTM, objecting, but not enough to put him off. Over in seconds. Asked whether loan now possible. He said v unlikely still, and that we would need to meet again tomorrow and left. Hateful man. Needs sorting.’

  An image of Mrs Beart spread-eagled under my father, his purple-veined bottom pumping up and down as she stared impassively over his shoulder waiting for him to finish, filled my mind. That bastard! Feelings of loathing and contempt consumed me. I wished I’d hit him that evening, I wished I’d killed him. Though my hands shook, I forced myself to read on.

  ‘April 15th

  Took copy tape into bank. Suggested BM listen to it before I decided whether to pursue with police and the Bank. Suggested as well as loan he might like to make personal donation to my relocation fund. Most accommodating to both and most generous. Once secured, lectured him on his disgusting behaviour and sexual inadequacy, then gave him two copies of tape. Still have one. Insurance.”

  Rachel was right. Mrs Beart had been a ruthless woman. While no doubt she’d had little choice if she wanted to survive in a world populated by the likes of Smallwood and my father, she wasn’t the woman I thought I knew.

  I let the diary slide onto the floor. She, or at least my idealised version of her, had haunted me throughout my life while I had barely been a footnote in hers. I heard Rachel’s footsteps and the door handle turning. I plucked the diary up and thrust it back on the desk.

  Rachel was talking. I had difficulty concentrating on what she was saying. ‘Another bloody publisher…last hope… shit…’

  Rachel sat down heavily. ‘Shit, shit, shit, shit.’

  I stood up, staggered to the window and pushed it open, breathing the stale Solhurst air deeply into my lungs.

  ‘You all right?’ she asked.

  ‘Feeling a bit faint.’ I walked back to my chair and slumped into it.

  ‘Would you like a glass of water?’

  I shook my head. She looked at me intently.

  ‘I think I’ll go and make us a cup of tea. You look as though you need it and I certainly do.’

  That image of my father, more graphic every time I replayed it, kept recurring.

  ‘Where were we?’ she said, coming back with two mugs. From the pale colour of the tea, it looked as though we’d shared a teabag.

  I drew a deep breath. It was essential I acted normally. I needed to make Rachel do the talking while I steadied myself.

  ‘Catching up on John and Suzie. Did you have any inkling what Suzie was up to?’

  Rachel looked out of the window at the grey, cloud-laden sky, and then down at her hands, which she spread out in front of her.

  ‘I’ve told you what she did to Mummy over the years. It got worse. She managed to find Mummy’s PIN at my sister’s house and emptied her bank account before she buggered off. She took over £6000 in all. So, in answer to your question, no I didn’t know what she was up to but I’m not surprised. She has the morals of an alley cat so it’s also in keeping with her code of behaviour to two-time people, or was it three-time, counting you?’ She smiled again. She was enjoying her cruelty.

  I remained expressionless, refusing to be hurt by her taunt. ‘Probably more than that, but hey, who’s counting?’ I decided to twist the knife a little myself and looked at the pile of brown envelopes.

  ‘Looks like you’ve got some debts mounting up. What are you living on?’

  ‘What’s it got to do with you?’ Then her face softened. ‘Well, actually not a lot. I was banking on getting an advance for this book. I lost most of what I had when Beart Enterprises’ shares cratered and now I’ve spent what was left. In short, I’m broke and unemployable.’

  A tear had formed in the corner of Rachel’s eye. She was sitting so stiffly upright it looked as though the slightest breeze would have sent her toppling. I moved over to her and put my arm around her shoulders. She let my hand rest on her for a moment, and then shrugged it off. The tear rolled slowly down her cheek.

  ‘I’m fine.’ She wiped her face with her finger. It was the closest I’d ever seen her come to crying. ‘Well, actually, I’m not fine. I’ve made a complete mess of everything. I should never have allowed myself to be taken in by John. Deep down, I never trusted him. He was so charming, so persuasive and I was a fool, a complete bloody fool. Now I’m nothing and I’ve got nothing, and it’s all I deserve.’

  She stood up slowly, walked over to a kitchen cupboard, and pulled out a bottle of white wine with about quarter of an inch left in it.

  ‘I haven’t even got enough to offer you a drink.’ She slopped the wine into a tumbler, and drank it in a single gulp. She inclined her head towards the pile of bills. ‘It’ll just be my luck if the government brings back debtors’ prisons.’

  Her movements were deliberate and clumsy and I wondered whether she’d been drinking before I arrived. However, the dampness around her eyes had disappeared and, drunk or not, Rachel was back in full control of herself.

  ‘The offer of a position in my firm is still open,’ I said. ‘You’d be doing the donkey work, all the heavy lifting and carrying. The orders are flooding in though, so at least you’d have a crust to eat at the end of a hard day’s toil, and you could shack up in my spare room, so there’d be no bills. Of course, there’d be one condition.’

  ‘If you think I’m going to sleep with you, forget it.’

  I laughed. ‘No, you wouldn’t have to do that, unless you wanted to, of course. It’s something you might find even more disagreeable. You’d have to take directions from me.’

  She screwed her face up into a grimace. ‘I see what you mean. Difficult to shut your eyes and think of England when you’re lugging half a hundredweight of soil.’

  *

  The grey Toyota with the crumpled wheel arch had been parked just down the lane for half an hour and, even with my binoculars, I couldn’t make out who was sitting in the driver’s seat.

  I got on with the housework. I’d put it off for long enough already. Every so often I would find myself near the window, glancing out to see whether the car was still there. It was. Finally, I switched off the vacuum cleaner and pushed it to one side, before opening my front door and stepping out. The smell of freshly rained-on vegetation and cow manure filled my nostrils. I walked slowly, avoiding the cow-pats covering the road surface like an outbreak of warts. As I approached, I heard the car’s engine start. The driver turned neatly and sped off. Despite his cap and glasses, his face, through the steamed-up window looked familiar.

  ‘No, too dark, too thin, chin was wrong,’ I muttered to myself. ‘But still…’

  I fumbled as I pulled out my mobile phone, nearly dropping it in a large puddle. Even though it was almost noon, Neil’s voice sounded sleepy.

  ‘Didn’t wake you, did I Neil?’

  ‘Been up for hours. What do you want?’

  ‘Beart is still in Brazil, is he?’

  ‘Probably being sodomised by some swarthy crime king from the favelas as we speak.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘That he’s being sodomised?’


  ‘No, that he’s still behind bars. Can you be absolutely positive?’

  Neil sighed. ‘Yes. Why?’

  ‘I’ve seen someone who looks a bit like him outside my cottage. He drove off when I went to confront to him.’

  ‘You must be imagining it. We still haven’t managed to get them to extradite him, but he’s definitely still banged up.’

  ‘But Neil, that face—’

  ‘Paranoia.’

  ‘He feigned death before and got away with it. Could you double-check? Rachel’s moving in here and I don’t want her to be in any danger.’

  ‘Rachel?’ Neil’s voice was icy. ‘Moving in with you? Why would she do that? She thinks you’re a plonker.’

  ‘Never mind that,’ I said, ‘what about Beart?’

  ‘Beart’s out of the equation. Say hello to Rachel from me.’ Neil hung up.

  *

  A crimson canvas laced with purple and pale blue streamers; sunset over the Wattock Hills was famous amongst visitors though barely noticed by residents who’d grown accustomed to its magnificence over the years.

  Even though I was now trying to pass myself off as a local, I was still awe-struck by its beauty and would stand on the old coppice gate and stare at it whenever I had the opportunity.

  The day she moved in, I took Rachel to Lewer Ridge, the best place to witness the sunset and, as the dark mantle of night gradually pressed the red glow beneath the horizon, I stretched out my hand to touch hers, and felt her cold fingers curled into a ball. She turned in the fading light, a half-smile on her face.

  ‘Don’t get any ideas,’ she said, withdrawing her hand gently. ‘I only agreed to be your tenant.’

  ‘And my labourer,’ I added. ‘Didn’t you realise that droit du seigneur is still part of the feudal code?’

  ‘In your dreams,’ she replied. ‘If you had a castle, or at least a sizeable manor house, I might consider it, but I don’t think letting me stay in your spare room makes you much of a seigneur.’

  ‘You may have a point,’ I conceded. ‘OK, in keeping with more modern management techniques, I’m going to propose an incentive scheme. We’ll go to the Jolly Throstle on a Friday evening. If we have a good week, we’ll have the rump steak and a decent bottle of wine. If it’s a bad one, it’s burgers and beer. Agreed?’

  ‘Perfect,’ she said. ‘I do hope this is going to be a good week. I don’t much like beer.’

  We stood in silence for a few minutes breathing in the cool night air before Rachel cleared her throat and looked up at me.

  ‘Actually,’ she said, ‘I’ve been thinking a bit about the business and I can see a way to reorganise how we do things, and maybe even bring in some hired help. I’m sure with your horticultural knowledge and my business acumen we can grow this into something really profitable.’

  ‘It’s getting a bit chill. I think we should go back now,’ I said as a shiver danced the length of my spine.

  THE END

  Acknowledgements:

  Cover design concept by Hilary Thripp

  My thanks to the following for their advice and encouragement:

  Tony Allen, Mohamed Asem, Ross Baglin, Michael Fleming, Mark Goldthorpe, Eva Hoffman, Roger Kohn, Cosimo Lopalco, Kevin MacNeil, John Marks, Tamzin and Meli Pinkerton, Iain and Ruth Richardson, Lissette Roberts, Dave Russomano, Fiona Sampson, Jane Wallace, James Whittaker, and students and faculty (Creative Writing course 2012-14) at Kingston University, London.