Rich Deceiver

by Gillian White

  Ellie looks around the bungalow, at the basket of unwashed clothes by the door, at the gathering dust and crisp packets overflowing the bins, at the bits of fluff on the carpet and she agrees, yes, how fast it can happen.

  ‘Once the rot’s set in,’ says Malc.

  Ellie smiles. She is not a slob and the state of her house is nothing to do with that. She does not love this place—bad things have happened to her in it. This bungalow is nothing to do with her now; it is part of her old life, part of what she used to be and it is not necessary for her to keep it clean nor to look after it. It is just so low on her list of priorities that nothing about it matters: her heart moved out of here long ago. She asks Malc, ‘So what did you decide, or is it too secret to tell me?’

  ‘Well, the first thing is to draw up a list of rules, and to get the Skinners, Dwarfy and the Peters to sign it, legally. We’re having the list drawn up properly, so that we can prosecute if the terms are consistently flouted.’

  ‘But they haven’t got any money to pay fines with.’

  ‘Then they’ll have to go to prison, won’t they, until they learn how to behave. We can’t all live our lives without a sense of social responsibility, Ellie.’

  ‘What sort of rules?’ Ellie is interested, but she mustn’t appear too keen.

  ‘Oh, about stopping children from playing in the lift, keeping the sound down after midnight, keeping the hallways clean and the steps outside, not repairing motor vehicles on the premises… the normal, acceptable code of life. And no pets. Hell, Ellie, it’s reasonable to expect at least that degree of normality from them, whoever they are!’

  ‘I agree with you, Malc’ And she thinks about Dwarfy Sugden, and whether his barrow would come under the heading of a vehicle or not, and of whether he has any idea of the time, before or after midnight. Surely you have to be sane in order to sign an agreement… and how sane is Dwarfy?

  And how literate is Duane?

  They should not have to sign this agreement… it would be dangerous for them to commit themselves to a list of rules they could not possibly obey and so Ellie is going to get a letter off to her solicitors, instructing them to inform her life-tenants of that fact, post-haste.

  She does not have to, though, because before she can get her thoughts together there is interference from another quarter. Councillor Mrs Rene Cash has lived up to her reputation: she has come up trumps.

  The banner headline in the local morning paper screams up at her. It is better than she dreamed it would be: ‘GET BACK TO YOUR SIDE OF THE TRACKS’ … Waterside residents warn locals. And it’s a quote, given by the Commodore during a heated speech of denouncement which he is surely now regretting! The report is careful to quote other passages from several similar tirades during which the action group committee had no idea that a tape recorder was playing quietly under the reporter’s mac. They had no reason to suspect that a reporter would be there at all, lurking sneakily among their number… Ellie supposes he put his name down as a boat owner and in all the excitement nobody had bothered to check.

  And then, a little further down, Councillor Mrs Rene Cash comes in with a pertinent quote of her own. ‘It is always interesting to observe to what depths people will sink in order to protect their own privileged order. And it will be interesting to watch the future developments of this undoubtedly distressing situation. Some of us feel extremely uneasy about the present elitist state of the dockland and the way it has been allowed to distance itself and its luxurious amenities from the common people to whom it once belonged.’

  And there’s worse to come!

  The following morning the Waterside apartments are featured across the middle pages. Ellie takes the paper back to bed and snuggles between the covers with a coffee and a plateful of buttered toast. She licks her greasy fingers. There are pictures of the Skinners, beaming snottily on the cobbled area outside the apartments, managing to look pathetic and needy but likeable enough when posed like that. The dogs, and two of the most extreme children, have been excluded from the picture.

  And there is Dwarfy Sugden, managing to look more normal than Ellie has ever seen him, sorry for himself with his greatcoat done up and the contents of his barrow covered over, and his hair tucked neatly into a band. It is, after all, only when he slinks about in the darkness that Dwarfy becomes menacing. Fern and Blanche Peters can never look anything other than what they are, but it is obvious that they are enjoying the drama and having their photographs taken. They beam from the pages, saucily, with a terrible kind of gloating knowledge in their eyes, like lust.

  The city takes sides—and those daring to support the action group tend not to be the nicest of people. They don’t come over well in interviews with their three-piece suits and their public school accents. They are too defensive, too open to attack from sharp-voiced, carefully classless interviewers who have dealt with their type before. There is simply no safe place for them in society any more and they should not appear in public like that.

  It is all much too delicate.

  It is not long before the national tabloids pick up the story; their reporters dig around a bit and find out all about Malc who has been appointed spokesman for the detested Waterside Action Group, WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON, MATE? is the best they can do, but it is enough. It is hurtful, and it touches on all sorts of difficult areas which Malc would rather leave dead and buried.

  So would poor Gabriella.

  She distances herself for the sake of the gallery, just as Ellie guesses she might.

  And next time Ellie bumps into the Brigadier he tells her, ‘A rum business,’ as he puffs off down the street with his deerstalker at a jaunty angle and his carrier bag full of empties. She knows what he is talking about, he does not have to stop and explain, because few people are talking about anything else.

  31

  IT TAKES TIME, BUT eventually the people with banners disperse and go away.

  ‘I told you they would, Malc,’ says Ellie. ‘This sort of thing is invariably a nine-day wonder.’

  But fighting his way to his car through a crowd of hisses, day after day, has clearly taken its toll on Malc.

  ‘We haven’t given up,’ he insists, looking bleary-eyed and defeated. He slams his fist into his hand. ‘Hell, we can’t give up. Look what they’re doing to the place! But will anyone listen to our point of view? No, they bloody won’t! All they’re concerned about is protecting the rights of the downtrodden and the rejected. Downtrodden my arse! I’d like to get my bloody hands on the bastard who put them here in the first place, I can tell you.’

  Sadly, what Malc says is perfectly true. The two swing doors of the gallery have been gritted up—they won’t swing closed—with a mixture of playdough and mud concocted by five year old Barry Skinner, who sits on the patio area stirring it tirelessly, and sometimes licking it off a wooden spoon, as a more privileged child might taste cake-mix. Bright red graffiti depicting the tool of a giant has various mis-spelt expletives trailing drippily along the decorative wall below the eyecatching obscenity. All the miniature flowerbeds, so carefully and correctly designed, have been desecrated, like graves, so that only stalks remain and a scattering of sad petals. The cleverly angled paving area is covered with old chalkmarks… no… not hopscotch or anything so reasonable as that… but fourteen year old Charlene Skinner’s crude attempts at pavement artistry.

  And there, over by the edge of the water beside the seat where a bin has been thoughtfully provided, is the week-old litter scattered by Dwarfy. It contains not only his sandwich wrappers and the remains of his extraordinary consumption of high alcohol lager, but the cast-offs from his daily barrow scavengings which range from old clothes (which could well have come from washing lines) to firewood, from gigantic cardboard boxes to foil containers as though he has raided some Chinese restaurant or market.

  The most enormous dog turds of every consistency imaginable have been deposited in the most unlikely places, and the Skinners have discovered the ideal spot in whic
h to empty their hutch-leavings… in the hole in the wall in the little alley beside the gallery turning—a hole which houses the heating controls and ducts for the entire complex.

  And there, dominating the attractive cobbled area directly outside, rests the Skinners’ tip-up truck, hopelessly wheel-clamped, with one headlight spiralling out on wires, giving it the look of a puzzled drunk who has come to rest in the gutter and has no intention of ever moving on.

  ‘This is ridiculous, Malc,’ says Ellie. ‘Surely anyone who came to look would see this and understand your point of view.’

  ‘They don’t want to see it, so they don’t. Principle is all they are interested in and there’s all sorts of high moral principles at stake. And now, before tomorrow’s celebration of the arts day, Gabby is having to pay a firm of clean-up contractors to come and shift all this mess. The council refuse to do it. It is nothing short of scandalous.’

  Ellie has come to see if she can be of any help, but Gabby is busy in the gallery and Malc is at the flat, unshaven, tired and angry, holed up there like a hostage. ‘I thought you were another of those bloody hacks,’ he said, when he opened the door with caution.

  And when she assured him there were no cameras about he offered to show Ellie round to prove his point.

  ‘It is cruel what they have been saying about you,’ she told him, as they wandered around in the bright spring sunshine. ‘I don’t know how you can bear it. Bringing up your past like that, even finding old friends who knew you… and highlighting the fact that Warren and Mickey are still inside doing time.’

  ‘Oh, that’s nothing,’ says Malc bitterly. ‘It was when they discovered Mum was an alcoholic, and compared that with my persecution of these people, saying it was a psychological thing and I secretly wanted to get my own back—now that really hurt.’

  ‘It must have done,’ says Ellie. ‘And calling your dad an old lag.’

  ‘You wouldn’t believe what these people are allowed to get away with.’

  ‘And has it affected you at work at all?’

  ‘Luckily no,’ says Malc morosely. ‘Ramon and Murphy look on it all as some sort of joke. They tell me to see the funny side, but to me there doesn’t seem to be a funny side.’

  ‘And Gabriella? How’s she coping with your unpopularity? How does she like being shacked up with the most hated man of the moment?’

  Malc is silent for a while, considering whether it’s safe to confide. They come to rest on a seat overlooking the liverish water. Yachts bob up and down at their moorings and little flags clack. A breeze lifts Ellie’s hair and she pulls her beret down further. She unwraps a ham and tomato roll and offers a piece to Malc. He ignores her. Malc seems to shiver so Ellie says, ‘You should have brought a coat—it’s not that warm yet.’

  ‘This whole situation has put a strain on our relationship, Elle.’

  ‘Well, it’s bound to do that.’ She keeps any suggestion of triumph well out of her voice.

  ‘And yet it was Gabby’s idea that I should lead the action group. I wouldn’t have done it, but she insisted.’

  ‘You blame her for your predicament?’ Ellie throws some pieces of bread to the seagulls. Their beaks are sharp and vicious and their eyes are blackly vindictive.

  ‘When I look back I can remember feeling some surprise that she didn’t take on the job herself. After all, she’s quite capable.’

  ‘Perhaps she was astute enough to recognise the pitfalls. It hasn’t hurt your job, Malc, but unpopularity of this kind would certainly have affected hers.’

  ‘I suppose you are right.’

  ‘You didn’t have to take it on,’ says Ellie, taking another large bite and watching as a ship glides by in the hazy distance. ‘Did you?’

  ‘Gabby is a very complicated woman, quite different from you, or me for that matter, Elle. The little things upset her, like being woken by the Peters’ racket in the middle of the night… getting shit on her shoe… the way Jackie Skinner has started collecting her mail and shouts out after her, and Dwarfy quite seriously frightens her. But, overall, she is more accepting than I am, determined to sort this out, oh yes, very determined in that respect, but in another way it doesn’t seem to touch her, can you understand that? She never seems to get completely involved. And as far as these newspaper attacks go, well, she says it is not her affair and that I ought to be able to deal with it.’ And then Malc seems to make a decision and says, ‘I think the pressure has got to her, though, Elle. Her eyes are often far away as if she’s thinking about something else.’

  ‘Perhaps she’s heading for a breakdown,’ says Ellie.

  ‘Oh no, it’s nothing like that.’ Malc kicks at a pestering gull.

  How would you know, Malc?

  ‘She is probably concentrating all her attention on tomorrow. I’ve seen it advertised everywhere. Let’s hope the protesters keep away, for her sake.’

  Malc looks at her. ‘It was kind of you to come and offer to help, Elle. You’ve always been like that, haven’t you?’

  ‘I like to do my bit,’ says Ellie. ‘And I had to see you because I was worried about you.’

  ‘Well, Gabby’s got everything organised. There’s not an awful lot for her to do now, really, other than wait and see how it goes, and entertain the big-wigs tomorrow.’ And then he considers again when he says, ‘She likes you, you know.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Gabby. She likes you. She says she admires you. She says I was lucky to have you.’

  ‘Does she?’ Ellie feels unaccountably pleased and moved to say, ‘Well. There’s something about Gabriella that I like, too. Her sense of purpose, her drive, her enthusiasm for life and her ability to grab an opportunity when she sees it. But she’s quite hard, Malc, isn’t she? She wouldn’t allow much to get in her way.’

  ‘I don’t know whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing,’ says Malc.

  ‘Oh, but it’s good.’ Ellie is quite certain. ‘I wish I’d been born with her confidence, but I think it comes from the belief that you’re better than anyone else, a belief that’s probably learnt in childhood.’

  ‘I wonder if you can acquire it later in life?’

  ‘Not in the same sort of way. Unless it’s bred into you you’re just pretending—putting on a brave face, that sort of thing. I mean, look at you. You’ve done well, you are a high achiever, but you are still terribly vulnerable at heart, Malc, aren’t you—in a way that Gabriella is not.’

  ‘It’s nice, sitting chatting like this, Ellie. I wonder why we didn’t do more of it.’

  ‘We didn’t have much to talk about, I suppose. Either that, or we didn’t consider each other worth talking to.’

  ‘You make it sound so bleak.’

  ‘Well, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I wonder, Elle. I wonder what’s going to happen in the end.’

  ‘We will just have to wait and see, Malc, won’t we.’

  ‘You seem happier, more contented than you have ever been. I have never seen such a dramatic change in a person over such a short space of time. From that frightened woman with no idea what to do with herself, all wrapped up with the family, going to those dreadful classes, forever cooking and cleaning the house, just waiting for me to come home… and now look at you!’

  Malc says this with pride, as if he has had something to do with it.

  ‘I think it’s my size that gives the impression of super-confidence,’ says Ellie, ‘and the bright colours I have started to wear. Bright colours suit me and yet I never dared try them before. I was worried in case you wouldn’t approve, I suppose. You always used to call women who wore bright colours hard. You seemed to prefer the subdued and the flimsy, superficially of course.’

  Malc turns right round on the seat and stares hard at her. ‘What do you do all day, Elle? I can never really work that out.’

  ‘Oh, this and that,’ she says flippantly. ‘It’s surprising how quickly time passes,’ and she brushes the crumbs from her coat before moving on to the crisps.<
br />
  ‘And you have settled down in the bungalow?’

  ‘Oh yes, although if circumstances were different, if there was enough money coming in, I would keep an eye open for a different kind of house and I would move back into the city. I can’t get used to the quiet and I still don’t like Maria.’

  ‘What sort of house?’ Malc has never asked this before.

  ‘A Georgian house I think, like those near the library. They do come up for sale every now and then and we might be lucky… someone could find themselves in a hurry to sell, we might get a snip.’

  ‘We?’ Malc frowns.

  ‘You asked me a hypothetical question and I answered it hypothetically. Why, don’t you like Georgian houses?’

  ‘Well, yes, I do. But they are very expensive.’

  ‘Well, as I said, it’s just a dream.’

  But Ellie knows that Malc is working out in his head just how much he earns and what it would stretch to. He is not considering returning to her, he is interested in doing the sum, that’s all.

  Three Skinner children have started a game of football and although the ball doesn’t actually hit Malc and Ellie, it comes dangerously close; it is unnerving, you cannot relax or concentrate, you cannot take your eye off the heavy ball.

  ‘Can’t you find somewhere else to do that, for God’s sake,’ shouts Malc, all tensed up again and pulled into a narrow straight line. ‘You can see there’s people sitting here trying to enjoy some peace and quiet.’

  ‘Don’t you start on us, mister, we’ll get the papers on you!’

  ‘Bastards,’ mutters Malc, getting up.

  ‘Leave it, Malc,’ says Ellie. ‘I’ve got to go now, anyway.’

  But Malc is making a calculated approach for the ball, trying to work out where it’s going next, rolling up his sleeves in his urgency.

  ‘You take our ball, mate, and I’m telling my da on you.’

  The children are small—the eldest can be no more than seven or eight, and the holes in their jeans could be caused by either fashion or neglect.