The Writer

by RB Banfield

  “That ‘closed for business’ sign looks kind of old,” Craigfield said about another building. “Wonder how long they’ve been closed?”

  “I don’t know who owns it,” said Sophie, mildly annoyed that he made no comment about her story. She hoped it was not because she mentioned the word starting with L. “Might be having insurance trouble.”

  “That a common thing here?”

  “Insurance trouble? Can be.”

  “Oh really? No, I meant fire closing down businesses. That happen much?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Yeah, the reason I ask, I know of this other town, a long way from here, that entertained this firebug arsonist-type. Turned out he was just a local shopkeeper who devised this devious scheme in ridding himself of his competition. By burning them out of business. Worked good for him too, until he accidentally burnt down his own place. Not a good idea to drink and set fire to things.”

  “We don’t have anything as interesting as that here, I’m afraid.”

  “The man did have a plan. I guess he should take some credit for that. Took a long time to catch him, too, as he was also the local fire chief.”

  “Huh!” she said with surprise.

  “You didn’t hear about that story? I thought a town like this would be alerted to stories about small-town crooks. It seems the sleepier the town is, the more likely something’s amiss.”

  “No, I wouldn’t know; I’ve been living in the city, last few years. The only news I get to hear about is national controversy and slash, or international politics.”

  “‘Slash’? What’s that?”

  “Hate crimes. Serial murders, that kind of thing.”

  “What do you do?”

  “Currently I’m doing data entry, but I’m actually a journalist.” She noticed that he hid a laugh. “You’re laughing?”

  “No, no. Just a little, sorry. You really missed the firebug story?”

  “I can understand your mockery. It may sound like I’ve lost touch with my roots. If there was a story concerning Gendry in the news, my ears would have pricked up. But it never is. Gendry’s never produced anyone famous, or been the centre of the nation’s attention. I wish it would gain some attention, believe me, but only as long as it was about something nice.”

  “It’s a good old fashioned quiet town,” he said after they had walked for a while without feeling the need to talk.

  Both soon wondered why the other was still there.

  “I’d like to ask what brings you here, but I’m afraid you might be offended,” she said.

  “Not at all. I’m a little embarrassed by the reason, and I didn’t want to go announcing it at the party.”

  “What is it?” she asked with a sympathetic smile.

  “I need the peaceful laid-back climate, that’s all.”

  “Are you shy?” she asked playfully. “Or is there some other reason for keeping your big secret?”

  “All right. I’m trying to write my first novel, that’s all.”

  “Really?” she responded, taken by surprise. “You know, so am I!”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “Not at all. I’ve been planning this for a full year. Have all these notes I don’t know what to do with, but I know they have to fit in somehow. I have a room in the top floor of Grandmother’s, the old attic. You haven’t heard me hitting that old typewriter? Loud thing, it is.”

  “You ... you use a typewriter?” he asked with disgust. If she said that she used the entrails of a dead cat to do her writing he would have had the same reaction.

  “Uh-huh,” she said, not knowing what his problem was.

  “Haven’t heard a thing sounding like a typewriter. I don’t think I’d know what one sounded like anyway. It’s a laptop for me. Couldn’t use anything else.”

  “Guess that’s why I haven’t heard you, way down in the basement. Laptop keystrokes don’t echo and carry on out the window.”

  “That and the fact I haven’t actually written anything yet.”

  “You haven’t? Are you having trouble starting?”

  “Yes and no. It doesn’t help when you keep getting called back to the office every few days. Hey, I just realised something …”

  “What?”

  “Sal. That’s short for Sally.”

  “Yeah, that’s right,” she said with a laugh. “What did you think it was short for?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, also amused at himself. “What else could it be short for?”

  “Sal-ette?”

  “I can’t think of anything.”

  “And you call yourself a writer?”

  “I told you I was struggling. What’s your story about?”

  “Why, so you can steal it?”

  “Maybe.”

  “It’s about the break-up of a marriage.”

  “What’s it, a comedy?”

  “What a dark sense of humour you have. No, it’s a sad story. Like real life.”

  “Based on your own experiences? If you don’t mind my asking?”

  “No, it’s not. I’ve known some people to get divorced, but it’s not about them. I guess, if you really wanted to pin a label on it, it’d be the meaning of life. Like, why we’re here, what if we’re spending our lives with the wrong person, things like that.”

  “I take it you’re not married?”

  “You’d be right.”

  “I never see the point of it, myself. Why be tied to one person when the world is full of so many interesting people?”

  Sophie was sad to hear that. “Is that your life philosophy?”

  “Marriage is for fools, if you ask me,” he said, not noticing how appalled she was. “Of course, you thinking the same, since you’re writing about its failings.”

  “Not marriage’s failings. People fail at marriage but that doesn’t mean the concept of marriage is at fault, more the people not reacting to it the way they should. I think if you can find the right person, it’s the greatest thing in the world, to be with your soul mate and not thinking of anyone else.”

  Craigfield laughed at her. “Are you serious? Is that what you expect marriage to be? Good luck with that. And good luck with finding a guy who agrees with any of that. ‘Soul mate’? What’s that mean?”

  Sophie found that she no longer felt comfortable with him so she made an excuse to leave. “I have to get back to my room now. I’m expected. See you around. Hard not to, I guess, in a place this small.”

  “It’s been fun, Sophie.”

  Sophie nodded and then grimaced when she turned and walked away. No, it had not been fun. His last comments changed her entire opinion of him, and how she regretted wasting all that time with him. Instead of being angry at herself for wasting time, and at him for being so dismissive, she used her emotion to produce four good pages of writing. They were filled with misspelling and typos, but that didn’t matter so much. The fact that she was writing something, and hearing the typewriter run fast like a machine, made her feel better. She almost considered thanking Craigfield for helping her to get started.

  Safe in his garage, the sorrowful driver fought off his crushing hangover to clean his car. He had been sleeping for the past three hours only because he had passed out from the stress and the new bottle he started. When he arrived home he went into a panic and started rushing around, looking for detergents and rags. But then he saw a new bottle and thought that it couldn’t hurt to start in on it. Now he was three hours late in getting rid of the evidence. And there was a lot of it.

  The worst damage was on the front grill, which was bent. The side also had a large dent, probably from a letterbox or fence he might have brushed, but it had to be fixed too. Exactly how he would fix it, without anyone knowing, he had no idea. He started to plan on deliberately hitting something in the broad daylight, so people would see it and he would have a reason for it other than he had killed a guy.

  The hardest part of the car to clean was the back wheel. Minute traces of bl
ood splatter was hidden amongst the mud. He knew enough about crime labs to know a simple spray down with the hose wasn’t going to be enough. He covered his entire car with soap suds, and then carefully wiped it down, and then scraped out all the little tractions in the wheels; each one in detail. Blood still remained on the front grill, dried on, and it took a lot of scrubbing to get it to budge. He realised that there was probably more blood too small for his weak eyes to see, and that meant he would need to scrub down the entire car several times until he was happy.

  It occurred to him that perhaps it would be easier to get rid of the car and claim it as stolen. Perhaps he could even claim that it was stolen before the time he started his mad driving. But as he continued to think about that his head began to hurt and he decided he had been doing too much thinking and not enough drinking.

  After a few hours under the tin roof of the garage collecting heat from the mid-day sun, when he dared not open a window or door for fear of someone seeing him, he began to get sleepy again. He started talking to himself, saying that he could not afford to sleep until the car was clean. If he did it right, he said, no know would ever know what happened. He knew there would eventually be snoopers coming around, and questions asked, and perhaps even a few witnesses might pop up. He also knew that his best option was to play it simple and assume that he would get away with it and life would continue as normal. That was what usually happened in Gendry. It had sidestepped many scandals over the years, and here was another one. His confidence would be encouraged, however, if he only knew who it was he had killed.

  As Sophie walked back to her grandmother’s house she told herself that she would not allow any more distractions to interfere with her writing time. She hated the thought of seeing a day go by without being able to add anything to her work. It had been a nice day for a walk, and that was what brought her out in the first place. Most of the time with Craigfield had been nice, except when she realised that she didn’t like him. But that experience was for the better too, since it stopped her thinking about him. And the mousse was as delicious as she hoped, and she could never regret that. But she would not be satisfied with the day if she did not complete at least a few pages. It did not matter if those pages would be thrown out at a later date, when she had a stack to sought through and choose from. All that mattered was that she produced something with her time.

  Once she started typing she found that she started to flow with ideas and completed three pages before sitting back and admiring it. It suddenly seemed easy and she did not know why she thought it would be difficult. Then she remembered Craigfield’s appalling attitude towards married people and before she knew it she finished another page. Four pages of interesting story, completed in less than an hour.

  She was so happy with her achievement that she left the room to find someone to tell. When she got to the lounge she saw the twins outside the window, more excited than normal. When they saw Sophie they tried to suppress their laughter, which they couldn’t do very well since one made the other break.

  “What are you boys laughing about?” she asked them when she walked out onto the veranda.

  “It’s better you don’t know,” said Kerry or Jerry.

  “You have to tell me now you’ve said that. What is it?”

  “You’d just say it’s nasty,” said Kerry or Jerry.

  “You’d spoil it,” said Jerry or Kerry.

  “Saying it was nasty would ruin it,” said Kerry or Jerry.

  “We’ve only just found it,” said Jerry or Kerry.

  “We’re not ready to share it,” said Kerry or Jerry.

  Sophie smiled, knowing it was just another of their games and it was best to play along. “Secret spies, or something, are you? Jimmy Bond needs to watch out, does he? I always wanted to be Jane Bond, myself; and I don’t mean one of his floozies either. Perhaps his younger sister? His dangerous and yet glamorous younger sister who kicks the bad guys with a great dress and perfect hair.”

  “This isn’t a movie,” said Jerry or Kerry.

  “This is real life,” said Kerry or Jerry.

  “What did you find?” she asked. “A dead animal? Or was it money? It was money, wasn’t it? I can see it in your faces, you’ve found a stack of money. You know if you’ve found a lot of money like that, you’d need to hand it in to Handisides. If no one claims it, you will get it back, so it’s worth it. How much is it? Is it a lot?”

  “It’s not money,” said Kerry or Jerry, and he was convincing enough for her to believe him.

  “We’d be off spending it, if it was money,” said Jerry or Kerry.

  “Split it fifty-fifty,” said Kerry or Jerry.

  “And you’d probably both buy exactly the same thing,” Sophie said and then wondered why they didn’t think she was funny.

  “We know what you’d buy,” said Kerry or Jerry.

  “You do? And what’s that?”

  “Something for your boyfriend.”

  “We saw you in town, walking around with him,” added Jerry or Kerry.

  “I think you both need to mind your own business,” Sophie said as she started to go inside the house, not expecting that and surprised at herself for being offended.

  “If you want, we can follow him?” suggested Kerry or Jerry.

  “Why on Earth would I want you to follow him?”

  “Duh! So we can find out stuff about him.”

  “Secret stuff,” added Jerry or Kerry. “Stuff to help Jane Bond.”

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “If there’s anything I want to know about him, I will just ask him. That’s what adults do. We don’t go following them around, spying on them.”

  “But we’re not adults,” said Kerry or Jerry with a raised voice.

  “And we’re really good at spying,” said Jerry or Kerry, also raised.

  “If you want to know if he’s telling you the truth or not, just ask us,” said Jerry or Kerry.

  “We’ll follow him and find out for you,” said Kerry or Jerry.

  “How devious,” she said as she stopped in the doorway and reconsidered their offer, thinking that they might just get away with it. “You know what? I think I like it. But only if you promise to not get caught. I would never be able to live that down.”

  The expected happy reaction did not come from the boys. Instead they just went quiet and looked at each other. It was like they were communicating with only their eyes in a secret language.

  “You don’t look too happy now I’ve agreed to your plan,” she pointed out. “Or have I called your bluff? Not really keen on risking life and limb after all? No little Jimmy Bonds here?”

  “We could spy on him and be very good at it,” admitted Kerry or Jerry.

  “If we hadn’t found this thing of ours first,” said Jerry or Kerry.

  “Don’t worry,” said Sophie. “I don’t really want you to go harassing one of your mother’s guests. That sort of thing can be bad for business. So, where is this mysterious thing of yours? Where did you find it? Or is that a secret too?”

  “We were deep in the woods,” started Kerry or Jerry.

  “Making one of our walks,” said Jerry or Kerry.

  “The tourist thing?” she asked. “I thought you were joking about that.”

  “We never joke when it comes to money,” Kerry or Jerry said like it was an obvious fact.

  “So you did find money out there?” Sophie asked, thinking she had discovered the truth.

  “No, he means all the money we will make from the tourists coming here to go on our walk,” said Kerry or Jerry.

  “It will be very successful,” said Jerry or Kerry.

  “Does your mother know about this little venture of yours?” she asked, impressed with them.

  “Of course she does,” said Kerry or Jerry.

  “She will get her share,” said Jerry or Kerry. “All the people going on the walk will get to stay at her house. That way she makes money too.”

  “I see you’ve thought this
through,” she said.

  “Please. Have you not met us before?”

  “We’re not going to waste our time,” said his brother, “with anything that isn’t going to pay off in the long run. If not, we’d be concentrating our efforts elsewhere.”

  “I have no doubt,” she said.

  “All this work on the Walk, and it’s just the first of many we have planned, will go toward starting our first business.”

  “And what business is that?” Sophie asked.

  “Spying!”

  “Private detectives.”

  “And all the criminals of the world,” Sophie said in all seriousness, “will shake with terror when they see you coming, I’m sure.”

  “There’s a criminal in town already.”

  “What are you talking about now?” she asked. “There aren’t any criminals in Gendry.”

  “How could there not be a criminal if there’s a dead man?”

  “If there’s a what?” she asked.

  “Why’d you say that?” Kerry or Jerry asked his brother, and then gave him an irritated shove.

  “To prove her wrong,” he said, shoving back.

  “Guys, you shouldn’t joke about something like that,” said Sophie. “Are you telling me someone in town has died?”

  “Violently.”

  “Hit by a car, by the looks of it.”

  “You have wild imaginations,” she said as she began to walk inside.

  “Yes, we do. But then, we don’t think of ourselves as Jane Bond.”

  “Handisides wasn’t like that, though. He commended us.”

  Sophie stopped. “You’ve told the police sheriff this story?”

  “We had to show him the body.”

  “Otherwise, he may suspect us.”

  “You can’t be too careful these days.”

  Sophie watched in stunned silence as they both decided to run out to the woods again, racing to get there first. She didn’t know whether to believe their story or be shocked at how cheeky they had become.