“Summink to say?” says Teenth.
“You ever hear the word ‘smutter’?”
Teenth says nothing; he just looks at me intensely, with his piggy eyes, waiting for it to begin. He is not interested in the talk element.
“I first heard it when I arrived in Wormwood Scrubs in 1968. American fella was one of the big fish in there at the time and he used the word to describe your kit, your prison clothes. Your smutter is what Frank inadvertently spilled his spaghetti on the other day. Angie, his name was, the yank I mean – girl’s name – and he took a real shine to me. Unfortunately, the feeling was not mutual and I had to break open his head in the end to get the message through his thick skull. Course, that then made me a big fish and I’ve been a big fish ever since. If you want to be a big fish, you might need to crack open my thick skull before the folks round here believe you’ve got what it takes.
“But we’ll come back to that, and don’t worry; I’m as eager to see what’s in your hand as you are to show me, I’m sure. Smutter,” I say slowly, relishing the word, “I liked the word, so I kept it. I looked it up and the dictionary had a different meaning; said a smutter was a machine used for separating out the impurities found in harvested grain and I thought that maybe that was a little bit like me, now I’d become a big fish. From then on I decided it was my duty as a big fish to police the inmates and make sure to keep those nasty elements separated out from the good grain, so to speak.” I check the clock and then continue.
“That’s not all though,” I say, my finger in the air, as I begin to pace slowly left to right just out of Teenth’s reach. “Yesterday I discovered even more meanings for the word smutter – I know, hard to believe a word that up until now you’d probably never even heard of could have so many meanings. Apparently ‘to smutter’ is to use profane language under one’s breath, so that those nearby cannot hear you, which is exactly what I was doing only a moment ago, when you asked me whether I had ‘summink’ to say and – you’re not going to believe this – but what I was saying also relates to another meaning of the word smutter. I know, crazy! My final meaning of the word smutter, as defined by Roger’s Profanisaurus, is one who has sexual relations with many gentlemen.” I check the clock and then check the viewing window. “And what I was smuttering was that you, Teenth, are going to be a smutter, because when I said that I didn’t take a shine to Angie all those years ago, it wasn’t because that wasn’t my style; he just wasn’t my type. But you, Teenth, you’re exactly my type, and I’ve got a whole bunch of friends who’d be just over the moon, so to speak, about making you their smutter too.”
That’s enough for Teenth. He moves in fast and I see the glint of whatever it is in his right hand. I open my arms, as if welcoming a loved one home and, as a burst of blood jets into my eye, I look over Teenth’s head and smile at the warden who is standing at the viewing window, staring down in horror as Teenth punctures me again and again.
You don’t need to spend too many years in Belmarsh to know that the warden always looks in on the gym at 3pm on Sunday.
Smoking Jacket
It was as I was scraping the old floral wallpaper off that I realised that the plaster covering the entire internal wall of the Gallery Room would need pulling down and plastering again. Some areas would come off after a good steaming, but in others the patterns of gardenias seemed to have laid roots of their own and were inseparable from the soft crumbly plaster beneath. Initially, bits of this plaster came off in small lumps, but by the time I’d reached the end of the wall, some significant sections had fallen off and it was clear that papering over the cracks really wasn’t going to be possible. In order to get the job done properly, the whole lot would need to come off.
I put up the plastic sheeting around the doors and over the few large pieces of furniture that I couldn’t move out for the decorating and began to pull it down. The internal walls had clearly absorbed some dampness over the years and they came down in great dusty blasts with ease.
At the back of the lower ground floor there is nothing but the earth and rock of Royal Hill, but the front looks out over the long landscaped garden that slopes down towards the Connelly’s house, before the view finally opens up north towards the Isle of Dogs and Canary Wharf. The Connelly family have owned Elm Rise for practically as long as Ted’s family have owned Apple Tree House, and the gentle rivalry between the families, about whether the more elevated location is of greater merit for its views or the lower for its closer proximity to the pub, is alleged to have been debated for over a century.
In certain areas, some of the wooden slats behind the plaster are also rotten and I snap these off too, pulling out the rusty nails that were left behind by the fickle wood with the hammer claw. There are old newspapers stuffed in the cavity as insulation, ancient old copies of The Times from 1968 – I am fascinated to read headlines and fragments of stories from when I was 23, mainly about the assassination of Martin Luther King, but also the successful test flight of the Apollo 6 space shuttle. Underneath the newspapers, as I sweep out the deep dust drifts, I find a small green circular tin, a wooden ball about the size of a golf ball and a little hand-made wooden whistle. There appears to be a mouse hole behind the insulation cavity and I can feel a slight draught coming through, but I think that if I keep on digging, I might not stop until I get to Lewisham! I decide it is time for a cup of tea, so I take my discoveries along with some of the more interesting fragments of the newspaper through to the kitchen.
On the tin is written ;T. J. Pickering & Sons Peppermints’. It is empty. The ball is roughly made and unadorned, and the whistle was the same as the ones my father showed us how to make when I was a child. He would take his old, very sharp, immaculately kept pocket knife out of its small canvas sheath and cut a short length of willow stick, then, using the handle, he would tap the stick evenly up and down its length until the bark was loosened from the wood. Next he would slide the wood out from the bark and cut it into two lengths, one long and one short. Taking the short piece of wood, he would slice away a thin reed along its length and then insert the remaining piece of wood back into the bark casing. Finally, he would cut holes along the length of the bark and then, sliding his longer piece of wood beneath the holes and blowing through the end, he would play ‘March of the Animals’. He always cleaned the blade of his knife for several minutes after use. It was extremely sharp and shiny.
Whenever I think of my father, I always imagine him in his pinstripe black and red smoking jacket, standing in the conservatory with my mother, Uncle Henry and Auntie Sarah. He always stood very erect and moved well.
I look again at the newspapers, dominated by two headlines: one terrible and one hopeful. Both would pave the way to momentous events – the passing of the civil rights act in the US, and humankind landing on the moon. There isn’t much else of note – a child sex killer is jailed at Woolwich Crown Court and an elephant escapes from London Zoo, but is caught munching grass on Primrose Hill. There is a grainy black and white photo of some bemused picnickers and a nonchalant elephant.
I must zone out for a while, because I suddenly notice that my Lapsang Souchong is cold and I am still holding the tea-stained paper.
*
The next day Ted and I pick up our grandson, Paul, who is 10, who we are looking after for a few days. Carole and Graham have decided to go and spend a long weekend away with just the two of them to see if they can work things out. I let Paul ride in the front seat as he enjoys identifying the different makes of cars with Ted as we drive along and, besides, I like to talk to Millie, who calmly sits in her basket in the boot and watch out of the back window at the world receding behind us. Sometimes I feel the future is becoming less important to me than the past.
When we get to Blackheath, Paul takes out his kite and I help him to get it launched, while Millie scrambles around at our feet, making a general nuisance of herself. Once he has it in the air, I walk over to Ted, who is hunched over on a bench, staring intently at
his Blackberry phone. I look at the screen and note the grimy edges and multitude of scratches. There are a few other kite flyers out and watching the lines against the cloudy sky seems to stir something long dormant within me. A shaft of sunlight is moving over Lewisham to the south of us and gulls are crying. So many gulls in London now.
Ted has been a councillor for most of his working life and it has always been extremely important to him. I remember when he was first elected. I had just given birth to Carole. There was a distinct moment when Ted was forced to choose between being at my side for the birth and making the final push with the election campaign. I never queried his decision, but he would often justify it afterwards by saying those final efforts had made all the difference. He never really explained how exactly. Truth be told, he always kept a barrier between me and his work. I had once complained about the amount of time he put into his job and how it would be nice if he could spend more time with his family. He had responded by saying that perhaps I didn’t care about my community, but he did and, if his work bothered me, the best he could do was try and keep it out of my hair by working more from the office. I tried to explain that this was not what I was saying, but he steam-rollered me. After this, he spent more time working than ever. I often felt that the words I spoke to him landed on angular ground and were frequently upended by the time they settled. He was, and still is, an excellent politician.
I look back at Ted: white wispy long strands of hair flail around restlessly on his large pink shiny head, strands that will be combed over for council meetings, neighbourhood regeneration events and children’s club launches, which he does voluntary support work for. His long years of bad posture have given him a slightly hunched back but done nothing to conceal his large flabby belly. He licks his moist lips often and he puffs occasionally, despite the fact that he has been sat for some time now.
I do not love him. I have fought to hold this thought at bay for forty-six years; after all, we were married and our first son was on the way within six months of meeting each other, so what good was it to think of such things? But now I do not care; our children have all grown up and are busy loving and not loving people of their own. I sit there for a moment and watch Paul, our grandson, as he runs backwards, jerking his arms to try and generate lift, and I accept that I do not and never have loved my husband.
I know I should be feeling anxious, considering what I am planning to do. I do not have considerable financial resources at my disposal. Aside from annual visits to France and one family holiday in Crete, I have never left the UK. I imagine verdant green fields after the monsoon rain, with the towering Himalayas behind.
I feel a tremendous sense of relief and with it comes a burst of childlike joy and excitement.
Seemingly unbidden, an Indian Elephant lumbers across my vision – something disturbs me. Its trunk seems to have sprouted tree roots and is overlong and dragging on the floor. Its teeth are hidden, but I imagine them to be broken and bloodied. It is very dark against the azure Indian sky and its skin seems broken into huge plates that weep crimson at the boundaries. The black elephant sees me with its hollow, empty eye, turns and begins swaying towards me.
The sky has darkened and rain begins to fall on the heath. The kite is wound back in.
We get back to the house and Ted goes to his study. Paul is happy reading his book up in the spare room, i.e. playing some sort of Warcraft computer game, so I make tea, go to the drawing room and switch on my tablet. After a little digging, I find the story. The name of the man that was convicted at Woolwich Crown Court for the child sex killing back in 1968 was Seamus O’Hara. I knew it – this was what had been playing on my mind all day. The murder had shocked the whole community and really fired up tensions between local people and travellers. I remembered Seamus from the few times he’d come to school round about when I was 13. He was handsome and wild; too wild, in fact, for Abbey Wood School, where I’d seen him punch Mr Astley after he tried to stop him from walking out of his class because he said his brother was in trouble. Strange thing was that his brother Jed had actually been run over and rushed to hospital that afternoon. Justified or not, he’d been expelled, and the only time I heard about him after that was in the court briefs and then eventually the little Annie Reed murder, for which he was convicted. After Annie Reed’s abduction, the local community searched for her for three weeks before her emaciated, tortured and sexually abused body was found on wasteland near the traveller’s site. In the eyes of the law, Seamus fitted the crime so well there was no real room for other possibilities. He always maintained his innocence, but the police were doubtless happy to get Seamus off the streets by then, regardless of his guilt. Due to the nature of the crime, the judge instructed the jury to lock him up and throw away the key.
I realise I’ve been sat like this for a while and outside the room it’s gotten dark. For a moment, the room seems menacing, as if it turned down the lights and is now watching to see how I’ll respond. This house has always felt dark.
I make my way up the creaky stairs to check on Paul. His light is off and he is turned to the wall, but when I go over to tuck him in, his console on his bedside cabinet is still warm.
“Go to sleep now,” I say.
“I can’t sleep,” he replies in a wide-awake voice.
“What’s the matter?”
“The house is making noises,” he says, turning to me and sitting up.
“It’s just the wind, my love.”
“I don’t know.” Funny how he says ‘I don’t know’ when he doesn’t believe you.
“Well, I do. It’s just an old house and old houses make funny old noises. Would you like me to read you a story?”
“Granny, I’m 10!”
“10! Never! Come on, settle down and I’ll read you the one about the hungry caterpillar –”
“Granny! OK, OK, I’m going to sleep.”
“I’ll be just down the hall, OK?” I give him a kiss on the forehead as he settles back under the duvet.
“Night Granny.”
“Love you,” I say.
I pull Paul’s bedroom door shut and, moments after, I hear Ted closing a door downstairs. Millie whimpers in her basket in the kitchen. Rain is beginning to fall on the skylight above me. I go to our bedroom at the other end of the landing and find Ted is lying in bed, fast asleep, with his reading light still on. I shiver.
It’s just the wind, my love.
I don’t know.
Ted usually has meetings all day on Friday and the next morning Paul declares he wants to go and hang out with Adrian at the Connelly’s, so I have the place to myself. Despite sleeping badly, I am determined to crack on with the Gallery Room.
I stand back to look at the job with my steaming ‘World’s Greatest Granny’ cup of smoky Lapsang Souchong in hand. The rain increases with intensity for a moment against the thick glass wall behind me. My eye is drawn to the mouse hole. I place my tea on the stepladder and walk over and take a closer look. I squat down and put my finger into the dark hollow cautiously, not wishing to be nipped by any still-resident mice or rats: nothing. I pull away some more of the wooden slats and plaster and put my hand, then arm, into the dark: still nothing. I imagine my arm being watched from inside the darkness and quickly withdraw it. I stand slowly, my knees and back complaining after the short spell squatting, and look at the hole. The rain is so hard, it sounds like it’s trying to get in.
I remember my tea, go back to the stepladder and then head upstairs, through the kitchen, across the reception hall, into Ted’s study, and turn on his desktop. I take long hot swigs as I listen to the tiny components whirr and spin into life.
Password – APPLETREE
Incorrect – appletree
Incorrect – Appletree
Incorrect – APPLETREE1
Incorrect. This isn’t going to work – clearly he has not used the same passcode that we use for all of our joint bank accounts and emails. I try the desk drawers but they are locked. I look
around the study for inspiration, but draw a blank. I go upstairs and open Ted’s wardrobe. I rummage through the first row of clothes, finding nothing of interest, then push a little deeper. In amongst the older shirts, suits and coats at the back of the wardrobe, I see the familiar black and red pinstripe of my father’s old smoking jacket. I did not know that Ted had kept it. I take it out, remove the hanger and slip my hands down the silky arms, pull the jacket around me, close my eyes and there, beneath the musty smell of camphor and mothballs, is the sweet smokiness of my father’s tobacco.
I frown to think of my father’s smoking jacket spending all these years next to Ted’s clothes, growing steadily less immaculate, as everything of Ted’s does. Suddenly I’m thinking of Ted’s grimy, scratched mobile phone screen and I flush at the memory. I return to Ted’s study, still wearing my father’s smoking jacket, and type in SEAGULL68 – the screen leaps into life.
I sit at the desk for two hours until I can stomach no more, then I return to the Gallery Room and pick up the claw hammer.
I have made a hole the size of an elephant’s head when the phone starts ringing.
Scrubs
I pronounce Seamus O’Hara dead at 14.26. He had fought to hang on through the night but eventually succumbed to his injuries, which were grievous. It is a struggle for four of us to lift him from the bed in the prison ward. He is not an enormous man, but surprisingly dense, it would seem.
I inform the coroner (who, as usual, tells me to take a running jump, this time off a short pier – I have yet to adequately gauge the coroner’s sense of humour) and the police, though it is all something of a formality, since the attack was witnessed by the prison warden, the chief education officer and several other prison staff. Whether or not the instigator of the violence will be transferred to high security isolation or to a mental institution is yet to be determined, but either way he will not be mixing with the general population of inmates at Belmarsh again if the warden has anything to do with it. And he has a lot to do with it.
The Laundry Basket Page 23
