by Daisy Waugh
He needed to face Les and ask him – did you do that? HOW COULD YOU HAVE DONE THAT? What did any of them ever do to you? And the faster he ran the more urgently he needed to know, the angrier he became, and the faster it made him run. By the time he arrived at the Fiddleford Arms, his lungs were bursting.
A contented babble flowed from the little tables. The pub was full but not crowded, softly lit, peacefully cheerful, and Les was sitting by the fire, nursing his Bass. On either side of him sat the reporters, all three of whom Charlie recognised from the gates that morning. As he crossed the room towards them a few people threw out greetings. Everybody liked Charlie. But Charlie didn’t answer. He didn’t hear.
He only stopped when he reached Les – Charlie stood in front of him, panting. ‘Outside,’ he said. There was sweat pouring down his face. ‘Outside!’
A curious silence fell, followed by an irritating, baiting ‘Woo-oooo!’ from the journalists.
‘What’s the matter, Charlie?’ said Les, without moving.
‘I said—’ Charlie lunged at him. He ducked. His three neighbours shrunk away. ‘Come outside. Now.’
Slowly Les stood up. ‘You know what?’ he said. ‘After all these years, it would acsherly be quite some pleasure.’
By the time Maurice Morrison’s helicopter flew overhead, half the pub had emptied out into the car park. Though Maurice couldn’t have heard it, their baying and catcalling echoed through the village, and in the midst of it, Charlie and Les were going for each other as if their lives depended on it.
In spite of all his trouble, in spite of Drejtohet twitching and spasming on the one side, and Sue-Marie Gunston pawing away at the other, Maurice Morrison managed a little titter. He pulled out his murder weapon and alerted the police of an affray.
Messy stood at the door in the freezing late-night rain, her miserable tear-swollen face looking tentative, trying to read Jo’s expression. There was a long silence while they gazed at each other, sized each other up.
‘But don’t you realise,’ Messy said, laughing suddenly, slightly hysterically. ‘I’m in love with Grey!’
Jo hesitated. ‘It’s not really very funny.’
‘We were going to move into the cottage if you’d let us. We were going to open a restaurant and I was going to do the garden – open a garden centre. And Chloe was going to go to the little school in Fiddleford. We had it all worked out. It was going to be lovely. And then Colin and your little twins would have been running around. And the chickens…’ It was the chickens, for some reason, which set her crying again. ‘And now it’s all ruined. Everything’s ruined.’
‘No, it isn’t,’ Jo said instinctively. ‘Of course it isn’t!,’ and before she’d had time to think she’d turned sideways to avoid the bump, stretched out and taken Messy in her arms.
‘They came and took Chloe and Colin.’
‘I heard.’
‘And Grey’s gone.’
‘I know. It was on the radio.’
‘And then on top of that,’ Messy snorted, ‘Maurice Morrison asked me to marry him!’
‘…Did he?’ said Jo, pulling back to examine Messy’s face. ‘He asked you to marry him?…Are you sure?’
‘Certain, Jo.’ Messy smiled.
‘He asked you to marry him?’
‘It’s quite insulting, isn’t it? I thought so. I mean when he’s so obviously gay. Don’t you think?’
‘It doesn’t make any sense,’ said Jo, only half listening. ‘He told me you and Charlie…He was the one who told me you and Charlie…’
‘I’m afraid I think he’s a bit deranged.’
‘He wanted me to throw you out of the house.’ Slowly things were beginning to fall into place. ‘He thought if he could separate you and Grey…’
‘Well, he’s managed it now.’
‘And then he proposed to you!’ They looked at each other in disbelief. ‘Bastard! What a creep!…Oh God, I’m so sorry, Messy,’ she mumbled. ‘I’m so sorry. But I think I need to talk to Charlie.’
‘Jo – please. Wait! Will you help me?’ Her face twisted, and she started sobbing again. ‘Charlie said you’d help me. He said if we got a thing going, a great big thing – with all the newspapers and TV and media—’
‘What? Well, of course! Obviously! Come on, you’re freezing.’ Jo backed up to let her in. ‘We’re going to get the press together tomorrow afternoon. As many as possible. That’s what we’re going to do. It’s going to be fine. It’s going to be fine. Only first I’ve got to call Charlie.’
‘The General’s gone to bed,’ Anatollatia boomed down the telephone. ‘Nigel and I are just sort of on our way. And everyone else seems to have disappeared. Sorry. We haven’t seen Charlie for hours, have we, babe?’ There was a pause. ‘…He says no. Anyway, are you all right, Jo? How’s the bump? Ya? Hey, Jo, hang on. Hang on a mo—’ Another pause. A brief confab with babe. ‘…I know this probably isn’t the time. With everything else going on. But we want you to know, Nigel and I are getting married!’
‘Oh! Well, that’s wonderful news!’
‘We were in the stables, having a quick romp in the junk! Hope you don’t mind!’
‘Er—’
‘Amazing that place. We can’t keep away from it! And then suddenly, Jo, out of nowhere – I mean we were merrily shagging away – and he comes up with the Big WYMM! The bloody Big Question!’
‘Well – congratulations, Anatollatia. Congratulations to you both.’
‘So – sort of when you’re freed up a bit could you do it for us? Sort of make an announcement and all that?’
‘Of course I’d love to!’
‘And I know we probably seem a bit dim to you, Jo. You’re such a brainbox and everything. But we’ve worked it all out. I’ve got buckets of cash and he’s got buckets of talent. Plus I just tend to sort of wilt without the sun.’
‘Right…’
‘Bingo! We’re going to open a tennis centre in Ibiza! A tennis centre! Where really fab players can just come and hit. All year round! And I’m going to sit around by the pool drinking Cinzano. Or whatever they drink out there. Absolute bliss! Don’t you think?’
‘Anatollatia, it sounds wonderful. Congratulations! And send lots of love to Nigel – but I’ve got to dash…’
‘Babe, darling, she’s sending loads of love…’
By seven-thirty the following morning Jo still hadn’t heard from Charlie. She’d been calling Fiddleford for hours, ever since five o’clock, but all she ever got was the answer machine. She assumed Anatollatia had forgotten to pass the message on and that the whole hopeless household was still asleep.
She, on the other hand, at thirty-seven weeks pregnant with twins, had spent most of the night making plans. Spread out on the duvet in front of her were various lists: train times to Edinburgh, lists of news editors and journalists; lists of cab companies in Bonnyrigg, and, beneath them all, circled several times, Emily Deagle’s parents’ telephone number. She could do nothing, she had decided, until she spoke to them. She took a deep breath and dialled.
‘Hello, Mrs Deagle? Is this Mrs Deagle?’
‘Yes it is.’
‘I’m – er. Good morning. Hello. Sorry to call so early.’
‘That’s OK.’
‘You don’t actually know me. And really, believe me, I’m sorry to trouble you. On such a…delicate…Mrs Deagle, I’m so sorry to be doing this…’
‘Aye.’ She sounded unconcerned. Not even curious.
‘My name is Joanna Smiley. Joanna Maxwell McDonald. I’m calling you – I’m so sorry.’
‘Aye. You said. We was waiting for one o’ you to call. He’ll be comin’ up with you, will he?’
‘Who?’
‘Who? Whatever the poor bugger’s callin’ hisself these days.’
‘Charlie?’
‘Alistair – Grey McShane.’
‘You’ve talked to Grey?’
‘No!’ she said impatiently. ‘I talked to your husband. What’s the ma
tter with you?’
‘You talked to Charlie? How? Where is he?’
‘I don’t know where he is! Bloody hell…Here, Eddie.’ She passed the telephone over to her husband. ‘You talk to her.’
Two years ago, when Grey had been riding high as the millionaire poet and he had first been outed as the man who had sexually offended their late daughter, Mr and Mrs Deagle had had to deal with a lot of journalists sitting outside their door. They’d felt ashamed (revenge had long since stopped offering any solace), and guilty, because it was their grief-ridden lies which had incriminated him in the first place. But they had said nothing. They knew that by lying in court all those years ago they had committed a crime, and they were frightened.
They would have sat quietly and said nothing this time around, too. Except this time Charlie had called. And after he had spoken to them he had given them a telephone number for his lawyer.
‘Aye, I hear what you’re sayin’,’ Eddie Deagle had said to the lawyer. ‘And we do, as we said to Charlie, we feel very badly about it. The poor bugger’s been to prison an’ that. But the wife and I broke the law, didn’t we? They might charge us.’
‘They might,’ the lawyer had said. ‘Of course it’s very unlikely. Extremely unlikely. But it’s a gamble. It’s something you’ll have to refer to your own consciences, I imagine. But really, Mr Deagle, if he didn’t do it he didn’t do it. I think that’s something which needs to be cleared up.’
Mr and Mrs Deagle had slept on it. In fact they had slept better than they had slept in nearly fifteen years. Because once upon a time they had been very fond of Grey (or Alistair, as he’d been called back then). In his own careless way he had loved their daughter almost as much as they did – and there weren’t many people they could say that about. So when Jo called early that morning they had already decided: it was time they set the record straight.
Jo said she would arrange what she grandly called a ‘press conference’ at their house in Bonnyrigg for five o’clock that afternoon. She declared with her usual professional certainty that they would all be there: twenty journalists ‘at least’; Jo; Grey’s new girlfriend Messy, Charlie, and of course most essentially, Grey McShane.
Wherever the Hell he was.
She called Fiddleford again and this time she caught the General, who was just on his way out. When they heard each other’s voices they had both been taken aback by how happy and relieved they felt. So much so that they were embarrassed and tried to disguise it by laughing uproariously at everything the other one said.
‘So I’m off to Bonnyrigg!’ exclaimed Jo.
‘Oh! Ha ha. To see this poor girl’s parents, I suppose? Ha ha. Yes! Ha ha. Charlie mentioned he’d spoken to them!’
‘Yes! Ha ha! Charlie had already spoken to them!’
General Maxwell McDonald said he hadn’t heard from Grey and nor, so far as he knew, had Charlie, who wasn’t ‘ha ha ha, strictly speaking in the house’.
That pulled her up a bit. ‘Not in the house? Where is he then? I’ve been calling since five o’clock.’
He said Charlie was on the farm, which was a lie. ‘With Les away, you know…He has to start very early.’
‘Well…can you please please let him know he needs to get on a train to Edinburgh as soon as possible, because we need him in Bonnyrigg by five. And we need Grey, too. Desperately. I’m hoping, actually I’m counting on him calling either Messy or Charlie some time today, so if Charlie remembers his mobile…And – sorry – sorry to involve you in this, General. But I’m going to give you Messy’s mobile number because, if it’s possible, I’m not sure I really want to talk to him about all this until we’ve seen each other face to face, and sorted out a few things of our own…I think,’ she added heavily, ‘I owe him an apology.’
‘Ahh!’ exclaimed the General. ‘I must say I’m delighted you’re…I shall look forward to seeing you, Jo. I must say…In fact we’ve been finding it quite a struggle without you.’
‘And we,’ said Jo (referring to herself and her unborn babies, which briefly reminded the General of her more annoying side), ‘have been finding it quite a struggle without you, General. We’ve been missing you all terribly.’
‘Right you are. Ha ha. Good good.’
The General hung up, and continued outwards to Lamsbury police station where, when the telephone rang, he had been on his way to pick up Charlie and Les.
He found them both covered in swellings and bruises, Les looking very smug, Charlie looking understandably gloomy. They had spent a long night locked up in the same cell together, and Charlie had quite early realised his mistake. Les may have been with journalists every night. He may have been more than willing to share all his knowledge with them. But Charlie’s initial judgement had been quite right. Les had no knowledge to share. He had barely taken in the names of Fiddleford’s celebrity guests, let alone their crimes, or their relationship to one another. However many drinks the reporters bought him (as, in fact, the reporters themselves were slowly beginning to discover), Les would always and for ever be useless to them. Charlie had apologised exhaustively and by dawn a peace of some sort had been forged. They were both worn out.
‘Maurice Morrison, my spies inform me,’ said the General, as they climbed into the Land Rover, ‘proposed marriage to Messy Monroe last night.’
‘Really?’ Charlie said dully. ‘He was behaving so oddly, I had a feeling he might do something like that.’
‘He told her they were going to live together at Fiddleford.’
‘Ah.’ Charlie thought about it for a second. ‘The little shit.’
‘Yes.’
‘By the way I’ve offered Les his job back.’
‘Oh good. I am pleased,’ said the General.
‘’Cos you said you was sorry, didn’t you, Charlie?’ Les explained gleefully.
‘I did,’ said Charlie. ‘Very sorry. Yes I did. Entirely my mistake. And I am. Very sorry.’
‘Excellent,’ said the General. A silence fell. ‘…You’re a bloody fool, Charlie.’
‘Yes. Thanks, Dad.’
‘Incidentally,’ he added tentatively, ‘I—er. I talked to Jo—’
‘You talked to Jo?’
‘That’s not sayin’ I’m takin’ it, mind,’ Les interrupted from the back seat. ‘’Cos I ain’t. Bein’ frank with you, General, the job’s all such a damn bother to me. I’m not sure I can be fussed.’
‘Oh…Ah well.’
‘That’s what Charlie says to me.’ Les laughed. ‘He’s gettin’ more like his daddy every day! I says I’ll take one o’ them big fat pay cheques fer the thumpin’ we gives each other, which I enjoyed heartily, and then we can call it a day.’
‘…So you talked to Jo?’
‘From what I understand, Morrison was telling her all sorts of nonsense.’ He looked embarrassed. ‘That you and Messy Monroe…’
‘An’ she’s a big ’un!’ Les cackled irrelevantly, giving Charlie a hefty prod on one of his many bruises.
Charlie winced. ‘And did she sound – what did she sound like?’
‘She said you needed to be at the girl’s address in Bonnyrigg by five o’clock and I told her I wasn’t sure if you’d make it…but if we can get to the station by ten…’ He glanced at his watch, scowled, made a few dramatic gear changes and the Land Rover accelerated. ‘You don’t mind if we go via Tiverton, do you, Les?’
Les didn’t bother to reply and before long he had fallen asleep, and Charlie and the General were silent again. They were only a few miles from the station before Charlie spoke again.
‘Someone sent me an anonymous offer on the house, Dad,’ he said bluntly.
‘Morrison, of course. The little snake.’
‘I suppose so, yes. Yesterday afternoon…It was well timed. Because we can’t run a refuge if they’re going to take over the stables. And without the refuge, I can’t ask Jo to stay here. I can’t, and anyway she wouldn’t. While the house falls down around us. Why should she?…Dad, I’m
sorry – I’m sorry to you, to Mum, to Georgie…I’m sorry to let you all down. But I love Jo. I won’t lose her. I’m thinking about selling the house.’
By the time they drew up in front of the station the General still hadn’t responded.
‘Well?’ said Charlie, climbing slowly out of the car. ‘Are you going to say anything?’
‘I don’t know what to say,’ he said at last. ‘The old house is a bloody white elephant. We both know it. And nobody could say you two haven’t tried. You do whatever you have to do. Whatever you have to do to get her back again.’ The General glanced briefly at his son. ‘We’ve survived worse things together, haven’t we, Charlie? Than seeing off an old house.’
Charlie nodded. They both nodded.
‘By the way if you don’t hear from Grey before, it might be worth trying the poor girl’s grave. Don’t you think? Very keen on graves, McShane is. For some reason. Can’t stay away from them. Have you noticed?’ (Charlie hadn’t.) ‘Anyway, best of luck!’ And in a clamour of throttle and scraping gear, the General accelerated away.
MINIMUM CONTENTS OF A FIRST AID BOX
[HSE Guidance]
Guidance leaflet
20 individually wrapped, sterile, adhesive dressings of various sizes.
2 sterile eye pads
4 individually wrapped triangular bandages
6 safety pins
6 medium-sized and 2 large individually wrapped, sterile, unmedicated wound dressings
1 pair of disposable gloves
Health and Safety First Principles Workbook, Chartered Institute of Environmental Health
(x)
CO-OPT REALISABLE RESOURCES TO OPTIMISE TASK EFFECTIVENESS
Four o’clock. As she stood at Mr and Mrs Deagle’s front door Jo felt a sharp twinge in her cervix, which made her lean on their bell rather longer than she had intended. But the babies weren’t due for three weeks yet, so she said nothing. She and Messy already had enough to panic about.
