‘We certainly will,’ says Mrs Peacock exultantly, with her scrawny hand in the air, bestowing a smoky kind of blessing. ‘Because we have right on our side.’
TWENTY-SEVEN
Joyvern, 11, The Blagdons, Milton, Devon
NOW VERNON FINDS HIMSELF resisting the self-destructive urge to confess. In the past he has been victim to bouts of such masochistic whims, particularly at school when the compulsion to step forward and take the blame for something he had not done occasionally overwhelmed him. It was something to do with feeling guilty anyway, and knowing that he deserved punishment, if not for the crime in hand then for the secret thoughts in his head and the small misdemeanours he had successfully got away with in his past. Even before he committed the hideous murder of his wife, Vernon would feel a natural but inexplicable guilt when passing a policeman. He always hurried by wearing his most innocent expression.
Not that he had ever done anything for which to reproach himself, until his brush with bankruptcy, until he killed his wife. In his schooldays Vernon was a sturdy plodder who worked hard to the best of his ability and showed some talent on the games field which, lacking the necessary aggression, never blossomed.
Of course, it is the sturdy plodders, the ones who get stuck in the middle of the class, not through lack of trying, the reliable, the regular and the easy-to-please who annoy their masters so—unlike the bright and shining ones with their charm and promise who sit at the front, and the downright bad who sit at the back, able to command both sympathy and attention.
And therefore Mr Norman Mycroft regarded Vernon with distaste this morning as the offender sat down uneasily in the opposite chair while his case history was flashed up on the screen in front of the manager.
Vernon was early through nervousness, and had to wait twenty-five minutes, but as a branded failure he was well used to this treatment by now. In the chair at last he wanted to cry out, ‘I have just buried my wife,’ in order to save himself, but managed to refrain from doing so. ‘It was my wife,’ he said, instead. ‘She has been suffering from depression just lately and took it into her head to go on a spending spree without my knowledge. When I got home after your telephone call yesterday I had it out with her and she became overwrought and depressed and could give me no logical explanation for her behaviour.’
Mr Mycroft sat back in his chair and stared blandly at Vernon. The hard sheen of the man showed in his smartly pressed suit, his tidy desk, his still fingers and his cold fish eyes. It was a varnish on a painting, you’d have to scratch hard to get it off. ‘Ignorance is no defence in law,’ he said in a jocular fashion, but not expecting a laugh. ‘Naturally I am sorry that your wife is unwell, but I’m afraid that is not going to help us get to the root of this problem—which is how you are going to pay back the money you now appear to owe this branch.’ At this point he pushed a statement across his desk which showed exactly how much Vernon owed, at an increased rate of interest because he had not discussed the matter first.
Vernon swallowed and his dry throat hurt. ‘How could I discuss it? I didn’t know…’
‘That is beside the point, I’m afraid, Mr Marsh. Your account is a joint one. If you were worried about your wife’s mental state you should have taken the appropriate action and removed any such temptations from her.’
Vernon glanced at the heavy glass paperweight beside Mr Mycroft’s elbow and considered the pleasure it would bring to bash it down on the young man’s dry and sandy head. The violence of his feelings disturbed him; perhaps his recent outbreak had uncorked a murderous genie which once released will not go back.
Humbly, and with penitence, which is what Mr Mycroft wanted to see, Vernon presented the latest documentation which showed a shortfall of just £2,000, taking into account solicitors’ and estate agent’s fees, stamp duty, removal costs, the money he owed and every penny of the accrued interest should the sale go through a month from today.
‘Which it should,’ said Vernon nervously. ‘It all seems to be straightforward. Apparently there’s only five in the chain and everyone is going ahead, according to our agent who has given the transaction five gold rings.’
‘Five gold rings?’ Mr Mycroft, mystified, made it sound like stars given to the less able at school.
Vernon hurried on to explain. He’d been rather taken by the agent’s method himself, and much encouraged to hear it. In these uncertain times, estate agents made it their business to check a sale all the way down the line before recommending a deal to their clients. ‘Apparently that’s what he does if everything’s looking good. If it’s dodgy he rings the uncertain vendor in black, if it’s fair he used an ordinary blue biro and as I said, if it’s looking like a certainty he rings them all in gold.’
‘A very unusual circumstance in today’s depressed market,’ said Mr Mycroft authoritatively, as if he considered Vernon’s agent a fool with no clue as to what he was doing. ‘I will give him a call later if I may.’ Just in case Vernon was lying. ‘Let us hope, for your sake, that everything does go well, because if not you seem to be in very deep trouble, I’m afraid, Mr Marsh. Inextricable, I would venture to add.’
Vernon hung his head and said nothing. He couldn’t argue against that. If the sale failed to go through he was up the creek without a paddle and would have been, anyway, without Joy’s little extra push. But Vernon has already decided exactly what he must do. He has no intention of going ahead with the purchase of Flat 1, Albany Buildings. Just before it is time to sign the contract he will pull out, let it be known that Joy has disappeared without trace, back out of the deal and go into rented accommodation. In other words—give up. He has no need for a permanent home now he’s without a wife. He’d rather rent and keep the money; he just can’t struggle on against this sort of tyranny any longer. All Vernon wants in the future is a shirt on his back and a little part-time job. Surely there are opportunities out there for a qualified electrician willing to work cheap?
But he can’t let people know that Joy has disappeared yet. It is far too premature. He must allow a couple of weeks to go by before he starts fussing.
Mr Mycroft was flogging on, tugging at the matter like a dog with a festering bone. ‘The two thousand pounds’ shortfall, Mr Marsh. How do you intend to cover that?’
Vernon had his part carefully rehearsed. ‘Gradually, with part-time earnings and a less expensive lifestyle, I would be able to repay a loan of two thousand pounds should you feel able to advance it,’ he said obsequiously, almost bowing to the desk before him. He would say anything to be able to get out of there. ‘And I am quite confident of that. The shop lease is up in three weeks’ time and then I will be able to start looking for work at once.’
Mr Mycroft sighed and watched the offender narrowly. Never mind that the amount owed by Vernon at the end of the day was piddling compared to the vast sums he risked with the more self-assertive and charismatic of his clientele. They, quite rightly, wouldn’t put up with this demeaning treatment for a moment and so Mr Mycroft savoured to the full this opportunity to bully.
Home again, he can’t face work after this morning’s grilling which ended up with Mr Mycroft reluctantly agreeing to a two thousand pound loan a month from today, provided all other debts were cleared. Vernon can feel his blood pressure rising to boiling point; he badly needs to get indoors and sit down in the calm and familiar atmosphere of his house.
He is amazed at the depths of his disappointment. He always supposed he loved Joy, as you do when you’ve been married to someone for over twenty years, but he wasn’t quite certain how much until now. As he sees the bedroom, the frilly bed with its apricot cover, the neat dressing table, the whole beige ambience, many strange thoughts struggle for birth but cannot live. Something—horror—is denying them life. But he must go on with this, he must, he can’t turn back now. The publicity would destroy the children.
Typical. Just when he needs a diversion. He must not allow the dull conscienceless automaton which has taken control of him to all
ow him to feel. All the newspapers are bothered about is the engagement of that half-wit Prince, and some old fool who has barricaded herself in her flat in Swallowbridge. QUEEN IN SYMPATHY WITH SEVENTY-FIVE-YEAR-OLD PROTESTER, goes the headline which Vernon ignores. He throws the irritating newspaper down; he has far more important matters on his mind. It’s funny, when these little issues count for you, you know that life is as good as it’s going to get. It’s refreshing to know, thinks Vernon, that life must be set fair for so many who at this very moment are busying themselves with crosswords, lotteries and the latest gossip about the soaps, surrounded by serenity and calm. The minute you’re in deep trouble these become inconsequential. So anxious and preoccupied is poor Vernon that he can’t even concentrate on the lunchtime television news.
He misses Joy with all his might. The house is so empty and quiet without her. He is surprised by a recurring and nagging urge to return to the ruined cottage to make sure that his wife is properly dead. Even in his short and sweat-drenched dreams this nightmare grips him, as if she might be alive and calling from the murky depths of the forgotten well, starving, wounded, terrified in just three foot of stagnant water with darkness all around her and only a pinprick of light pointing the way to life and hope. Almost as bad as being buried alive.
He talks to himself in the quiet house, trying to calm his illogical terrors. Nobody’s going to find her there, nobody’s going to open the well, and if, one day in the distant future, they find a skeleton at the bottom—well, Vernon will be long dead and gone.
And she can’t be alive. There is no way she could live after the battering he gave her. Oh God oh God help me.
‘Hello! Hello! Anyone home?’
Vernon jumps out of his skin. He was half-dozing; he feels sick and dazed as he answers the door. ‘Ah, Adele, it’s you.’
‘I was looking for Joy,’ says the brassy neighbour, moving too close to Vernon for comfort and peering in through dark sunglasses over his shoulder. ‘She said she’d pop round today.’
After his sudden awakening Vernon is not at his best. ‘She’s not here.’
Adele waits for the explanation which Vernon seems to have forgotten to give. She cocks her head on one side and one great glassy earring touches her naked shoulder.
He rubs his eyes, ‘Sorry, sorry, I’ve not been too well today.’
‘No, I saw your car in the drive at lunchtime and I did wonder.’
‘Didn’t Joy tell you? She decided to go on earlier to the flat because we were worried about it being left empty. She is sleeping over there, sorting things out. Won’t you come in, Adele?’
‘No, Vernon, I won’t, thank you. What? You mean she’s there already, and not called to say goodbye first?’
Vernon pretends to laugh. ‘Oh no, she’ll be backwards and forwards from now on, for a few weeks anyway, until we move officially.’
‘Into that temporary place? How inconvenient for you, Vernon. I must say, Ted and I think you’re doing a terribly brave thing moving into a cottage in the middle of nowhere.’
‘Cottage?’ Vernon stands on his doorstep blinking stupidly, staring at his neighbour perplexed.
‘Yes, that lovely old cottage with so much potential—what was it called, something bizarre. Hacienda, wasn’t it, or something along those lines?’
Damn Joy and her big mouth, damn her! Vernon, with a shaking heart and confused head, had forgotten about the lie she’d spread around, so ashamed of people knowing they were moving into a flat. He puts his hand on the side of the door to hold himself up; he feels dizzy. ‘Well yes, that was our idea to begin with, but we’re still sorting that one out.’
‘But I thought it was all in the bag, as it were. I thought it was all decided.’
‘Almost decided,’ says Vernon, clearing his throat, his brain racing like a jet engine searching for an answer. ‘We’re still getting builders’ estimates.’
‘Oh,’ and Adele cocks her head the other way and the other earring strikes her bony shoulder and makes prisms in the afternoon light. ‘I thought that was the whole idea. I thought you were going to do it, that was the whole point of this early retirement.’
He has inadvertently made Adele Mason’s day; she has discovered some discrepancy in Joy’s boastful stories and it won’t be long before the news is all round the estate. Adele has good reason to besmirch Joy Marsh’s name. Joy has always considered her common and said so in as many words to various other neighbours in the past. This rumour will run and leap like a spluttering flame along a fuse that twists in and out around the gardens and kitchens and back doors of The Blagdons. Well well well. The Marshes are moving into a flat! And what about the Frontier Jeep? ‘I suppose the new car will be arriving soon?’ Adele enquires cheerily. ‘It’s all right for some! I wish Ted and I could retire and afford such luxuries.’
New car? What else has Joy been saying? ‘Well yes,’ says Vernon carefully, ‘but not until we’ve actually sold the house. We’re not made of money, Adele.’
‘Really?’ grins the buck-toothed Adele. ‘You’ll be telling me next all this is nothing to do with tax avoidance.’
‘I’ll tell Joy you called when I see her next,’ says a flustered Vernon, desperate to get rid of the woman. But he cannot resist this first chance to spread the rumour around that Joy has not been herself of late. ‘If she remembers where we live, of course,’ and he gives a sad little smile to accompany the statement.
‘If she remembers?’ This is even more juicy. Adele stops in her tracks and gapes.
Vernon grasps the nettle. ‘I wondered, Adele, if either you or Ted have noticed Joy behaving rather oddly lately? I am speaking to you now in absolute confidence, of course.’
‘Of course, Vernon, naturally. You know me. And I am Joy’s closest friend.’
‘Forgetful? Unable to concentrate for long? Not listening to you when you are speaking?’
Adele has noticed none of this, she is far too self-centred to perceive much about any of her friends. ‘Well, now you come to mention it, Vernon, I have found some of her behaviour a little strange just recently. Joy’s been a little distracted, secretive almost, not her old self certainly, but I imagined it was because of all the changes going on. I know she loathed showing people round the house, and it’s a big step, moving at her time of life. It’s the third most stressful experience, apparently, after bereavement and divorce.’
‘I just wondered, I hope you didn’t mind me asking, only I am quite worried and wonder if I ought to encourage her to go to the doctor.’
‘Oh do,’ says Adele with alacrity, for this is one of her pet subjects. ‘Don’t delay, they have all sorts of pills for depression nowadays and it’s only a matter of trying them all out until you find the right one for you.’ She could have been talking about shoes. ‘Ted is on Lithium and it’s done absolute wonders for him. No one really knows why it works, that’s what’s so extraordinary. I will mention the idea to Joy, too, if you think that might help, next time I see her.’
‘I would be most grateful, Adele,’ says Vernon, forcing a certain unpleasant intimacy. ‘But this is a delicate matter and we must tread carefully.’
‘Trust me, Vernon,’ says Adele, blinking delighted eyes as she hastens away with her fascinating news. If only Ted would show such gentle concern about her. Oh, it’s true what everyone says—Vernon is a lovely man. Joy doesn’t know she’s been born.
Vernon sits heavily at the kitchen table. Had he looked out at this moment, it would have been possible to see a youth on a bicycle idling on the corner as if he was waiting for a friend, but with his face turned towards number eleven. But Vernon does not look out. It is impossible to settle to anything. Did he overdo it just now? In his terror, has he overreacted and caused nothing but suspicions to fester in the minds of his neighbour? Surely now she knows about the flat, Adele will forget about Hacienda and concentrate on the juicier gossip—Joy’s worrying mental instability. It just shows you how complicated these things can get. Who el
se has Joy told about the ruined cottage? At least she didn’t lie to the children; Suzie and Tom understand that they plan to buy the flat. He gets up and walks the floor with both hands gripped behind his back and a cigarette between his lips considering what other little flaws will be exposed in his plan as the next few weeks go by.
He is almost expecting it when he hears the next knock. It’s probably more of the local carrion circling Joyvern for gossip, and he’s half-relieved that it’s all coming now so he can get it over and done with. He’d rather be talking to someone, rather be acting than sitting here musing alone and allowing his terrible thoughts to come through. How will he live the next thirty years without Joy, without a home he can call his own, without a career? His children have their own lives to get on with, they won’t want to be bothered with him. Will he end up as one of those sad men on a bar stool, there waiting for the pub to open and still there when they shout Time? Walking the streets alone at night, unable to sleep and with no one to talk to? Living his life in a mean bedsit lit by the blue light of perpetual television.
Oh Joy oh Joy, let this be a dream. Come back, come back and forgive me!
It is a stranger. A lad with a bike parked at the gate beside the colourful mail box, painted a flamboyant purple by Joy last summer, before they knew they would have to move.
‘Can I help you?’ Vernon stutters, impatient to close the door on anything or anyone so unimportant in the vast scheme of his life today.
‘I think you might be able to,’ says the good-looking lad, who is tired round the eyes, weary, with messy fair hair, his arms burnt bright red by the sun. The boy’s expression is embarrassed, strangely verging on fear. ‘I came to look at the house which my family have just bought—we’re the Middletons, from Preston—but I saw you talking to a woman a few moments ago and recognised you from somewhere else. So then I decided I’d better call in to see what else you and I have in common.’
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