Embedded Files
28
A trip to my mother is long overdue and, although a bit wobbly on the bike, I make it to her house in one piece. I park up the drive and find her in the garden painting a concrete gnome made by my father when he was dangerously redundant and holed up in the house as one of Life's liabilities. The gnome is guarding a miniature tin foil version of my sculpture and is accoutred with a cement fire hose, an axe and, bizarrely, only a helmet and jacket for clothes. What he lacks in lethal weaponry he makes up for with a face made ferocious, even his beard sporting orange and black tiger stripes.
"So, mum, just think… He could be the only Fireman gnome with a tiger's face down this side of the street."
"Yes, well... If you spent less time making yourself an eccentric troublemaker like your father and more time on looking for a proper job, you too might have a few bob to put towards a hobby you enjoy." My mother is either ignoring - or is oblivious to - my comment. "Gnome painting has become my life and it has lifted me from the slough of despond on many a dreary evening." She cleans her brush. "So, what do you reckon on the tiger face? Sort of noble and wild at the same time, don't you think?" My mother picks up a screwdriver and leavers open a pot of gold paint. "This is for his helmet."
"But you've already painted it." My mother gives me a look as if pitying a natural born idiot.
"Not that one, you silly boy! Goodness, did I give you no brains at all? No, I meant the other one. Gold will make it less improper, like. I got the idea from a magazine article on Tibetan monks who go round painting out the dirty bits on posters with a dash of gold paint." It is uncomfortably surreal watching my mother paint the bell-end of a foot-high fireman adorned with tackle that would give a stallion a good run for its money. She stands back and admires her handiwork.
"Makes it look more like a fire hose. Nice - appropriate, too." She gives it one last dab and wipes the brush on a rag. "There, I feel better now I have disguised it." She views the gnome from different angles and nudges him round slightly, very much as Charlotte would have done with her sculptures, but it is there the similarity ends. "See, it catches the light lovely." She gives it one last squint and looks me up and down. "Cup of tea?"
"Ooh, that's very nice." My mother is looking at the pictures of the restaurant in the new shopping centre. Having made cursory remarks about my designs, she asks if they do a good cup of tea. I explain to her yet again that it isn't open yet and, when it is, I will take her there. She passes me a floral porcelain cup and saucer. The best china means that I am a guest, whereas before I would have been given my old Sugar Bear mug and a plate of chocolate digestives. I can't help wondering if this is a veiled criticism at the lack of visits, but that could just be my guilt. My mother crooks her little finger and takes a delicate sip of tea.
"It is very clement weather for the time of year." Leaning towards the cake stand, she offers it to me and then removes a delicate confection for herself from the prim paper doily. "You still with that posh bird? Nice lady. So, how come you're with a lesbian?"
"Mum, I'm not -"
"Oh, don't be embarrassed dear; I think you've done all right for yourself there. A bit weird, but then you aren't exactly normal yourself and we all know where THAT came from!" Looking at her own grisly specimens of gnomish mutation through the window I'm not convinced she is well placed to cast aspersions but I decide to keep counsel.
Actually, it's surprising that I'm as normal as I am.
"Yes, mum."
29
It didn't seem to happen that quickly - it's as if everything went into slow motion and I was the epitome of a relaxed, slightly detached bystander as I slid towards the lorry that was coming round the corner. I even had plenty of time to notice a touch of rust near the wheel arch and I was debating whether the driver had shaved his terrified face that morning (or whether it was, in fact, two days' growth) when I decided it was probably best to let the bike go and watch the giant wheels crush the polished chrome and squirt me with fuel from the tank.
It was my fault because I had got cocky, picked up speed and taken the corner too wide. Even the ambulance man was surprised I got off with just a cracked rib, especially as the lorry had scrunched the bike as if it was a biscuit tin, the only consolation being that I was near enough the scrap yard for them to pop out with a van and dispose of it free of charge.
Sarah is sitting by the examination bed in the hospital surgery and, credit to her, she hasn't said anything approaching 'I told you so.' If anything, she is subdued. She was at home when the hospital phoned, touched at being cited as my Next Of Kin but horrified at the news that came with it. I look at her and know that now is the time to change the subject.
"Did you really stick my sculpture in a barn?" Sarah nods, hesitantly. "That's so cool!"
"I'm glad you're not cross." There is not a trace of irony in Sarah's voice. She means it and is manifesting a rare sense of guilt for not telling me. I lean over to hug her but I'm forgetting my cracked rib, and my cry of pain is so loud the doctor comes running back in to witness an unbalanced Sarah fallen on top of me. Seeing it is nothing serious, she guffaws and grabs her stethoscope to stop it sliding off the perch of her neck.
"Oh, is that all it is? Now, anything to do with marital relations and you'll be fine but you have might to use a little ingenuity for a while." She winks at Sarah, who blushes. "But best not now because these beds get very busy of an evening." The doctor hands me my prescription. "And the walls are ever so thin."
Sarah is now bright red, and it doesn't help that I am laughing. The laughter doesn't help me either and I screw my face up in agony as my chest heaves. A small smidgen of sympathy is visible in Sarah's face... But not much.
"Serves you fucking right."
When we leave the surgery, the lorry driver is sat in the waiting area, anxious. He recognises me and rushes over.
"They said they were bringing you here. You alright, pal?" I nod.
"Cracked rib." His hand is shaking as he pats my shoulder.
"This character hit my truck as I came round a bend. Took it a bit fast, didn't you?" I drop my head - Sarah really doesn't need to hear this. "Been on the roads thirty years now and seen a few bikers riding to their own funerals. You were bloody lucky!" Sarah stares at me blankly, her senses shut down so she can cope with this moment in the sterile glare of the waiting room where people are nudging each other because they recognise her.
We watch an ambulance disgorge a casualty sticky with blood and a team rushes in, drip held high as the unconscious man is sped down a corridor. It's as if the focus is merciless, pulled sharper, and Sarah looks beaten hollow by the time she eases me into the car and straps me in. In the shelter of the Mini she puts her head in her hands and sobs.
"YOU DAMN BLOODY IDIOT!"
"Why, would you have been upset if I'd... er..."_
"OF COURSE I WOULD, YOU FUCKWIT!"
"Oh. I didn't know you -"
"OF COURSE I DAMN WELL BLOODY WELL FUCKING CARE!" Sarah rests her forehead on the steering wheel which she is about to pound with her fist, but she relaxes her grip and holds the rim with both hands as she slowly rocks her head from side to side. "I- I'd miss you." She turns away to hide her tearstained face from me.
The drive home is in silence until we pass by the outer wall of the wood where there are tents blocking the entrance to the field opposite. It is getting dark now and we hear rather than see the protesters arriving, the click of tent poles underlying the chatter of scientists and activists as their dark silhouettes stand by the road and sip mugs of tea. Meanwhile, a tent is glowing here and there as the owner spreads a sleeping bag or puts on warmer clothing. There are large dark rectangles of banners and flags fluttering against the tired sky and Sarah's anonymous little Mini is cheered as we pass, just the way the lorry in front of us is saluted and the way the Toyota hatchback behind us receives a raucous shout and a sweeping through the air of banners.
All this because of a few flowers.
Hettie managed to orchestrate the crowd around my sculpture in the square and also create a hysteria that ensured big interest in - and a good price for - my artwork. She is stirring it here too and I spot her in a high visibility waistcoat, the unmistakable outline of her former haircut growing back; yes, this She-Samson is regaining her strength.
Hettie isn’t an honest-to-goodness demonstrator, though - she is a full-time shit stirrer, a one-person spite machine. When Charlotte was alone in her attic room shining a torch though coloured sweet wrappers, Hettie was probably dreaming of sticking a big, glaring light in the face of anyone foolish enough to resist interrogation.
In the car, I can tell Sarah is having second thoughts about taking me back to Burnleigh Hall and she has been filling the awkward silence by doing a lot of driving stuff - by changing gear more than usual, by looking intently in all the mirrors, by fiddling about with the radio... Anything that means she doesn't have to make contact with me.
Later, looking past the drapes around 'my' bed at the Hall, I gaze at the fireplace where the knights look futile in their quest and the Chinese pheasants seem tired of flying rings round them. The whole mood is different and the place looks cheerless and past its 'Best By'. Sarah has taken refuge in her parents' little flat, a distant part of the house which, tonight, might as well be in another continent.
I close my eyes and listen to the dead silence.
30
I am going home again but, before we get to my flat, Adlington pauses to drop Sarah off at PHB. If she is embarrassed about her outburst last night, she doesn't show it. Anyway, after my humiliation and near annihilation on the bike, we are one-all. She is dressed in a suit and carries a slim briefcase which, on her checking it in the car, contains spare 'knee-highs' (even though she must be surrounded by umpteen more at work), cigarettes (but no holder) and a print-out of Hettie's paper on the Burnlia Vulgara plant. She does not, according to Adlington, ever wear a monocle when it's a meeting with outsiders, but the clothes are still on the theatrical side of normal.
I've had a couple of chats with Adlington in his 'office' at the back of one of the garages, so the awkwardness once between us has largely gone and I'm looking forward to the ride with him to my flat. He generally keeps himself to himself, so I am honoured to have been allowed into his inner sanctum at the back of the garage. I wasn't expecting - and didn't see - a fridge with greasy black finger marks and oil stains around pin up-calendars depicting nubiles holding spark plugs and spanners in a suggestive manner but, there again, neither was I expecting the pristine, military precision that met me as I walked through the narrow, unassuming door that led to the chauffeur's den.
Whatever Adlington has done in life, it has been under a code of strict allegiance and discipline. For starters, there on the wall was a photograph of young Johnny Adlington in the school cadet force - the brightest boots in the picture, the straightest beret and the most perpendicular rifle. There was also a certificate notifying the world that John Adlington had won the Eric Thurlow Prize For Automotive Studies in nineteen seventy-eight… Then there was also a framed picture of Sergeant Adlington somewhere in a desert and sitting on a tank with two other soldiers. Of course, nothing had been simply stuck to the wall - no, there was a proper frame round everything and the tank one was solid silver, embossed with a regimental badge and sporting a mount.
"Gulf War, sir." Adlington, chauffeur and host, nodded at the wall as he poured the tea. "The first conflict - the proper one, if I may be so bold. Milk, sir?" I smiled a 'please' as he stirred, turned to the wall and waved a teaspoon at the men in the photograph. "He got blown up, he’s currently being Detained At Her Majesty's Pleasure and I'm here."
"Do you like it here?"
"Indeed I do, sir. I take great pleasure in service and I have taken great pleasure in doing everything within my powers for whomever I might be serving, whether it has been here or at any of my previous locations of employment." Then I asked that stupid question that nags, the verbal equivalent of putting a finger on a bench in response to the challenge 'Wet Paint. Do Not Touch'.
"In the Army… Did you kill anyone?" I shifted in my chair and put my hand up to interrupt whatever conglomeration of words were being formed behind the shiny, scrubbed face with the slightly arched eyebrow. "Sorry, unfair and a silly, silly question!"
"On the contrary, sir - as I intimated previously, I always do everything possible within my powers. Your tea, sir."
"Thank you. And you had no regrets about doing it?" Although the word 'smile' would have been an exaggeration, a fly crawling across Adlington's chin at that point would have noted an almost imperceptible shift in the muscular arrangement of his face.
"Biscuit, sir?"
It is this visit that I remember as Adlington draws the Bentley up to the curb outside my flat. My invitation to a return cup of tea provokes a cough and a slight stiffening in the normally inscrutable grey uniform. He is trying hard not to show it, but even I can see that Adlington is apprehensive about getting out of the car and leaving it parked near two pubs, a betting shop and a snooker hall with its conscientiously maintained graffiti.
"Ah, I expect you have to get back?"
"I'm afraid so, sir, but thank you for extending the very kind invitation. Allow me to help you with your luggage." Among my 'luggage' is the now familiar carrier bag, but also included is a replacement picture of Sarah and me on the hill. It is unboxed this time and I stand it on my drawing table straight away, the peaceful, rural scene an interesting mix with the bass-heavy Reggae that is banging its head on the downstairs ceiling and loosening the plaster under the skirting boards.
Adlington chances to see the photograph of Sarah and me as he walks across the living room and even he can't hide a slight falter as his highly polished black shoes progress across the small, threadbare carpet. About to leave the front door, he pauses. He is thinking about Sarah and, now, about the place I apparently occupy in his understanding of the grand scheme of things; yes, he is thinking about Sarah and myself, the two of us there together in that one neat, self-contained frame. Being Adlington, it is his duty to recognise - and accept – whatever he sees as the new status quo.
"What, with the demonstrators in the field and the Mayor's activities, we are entering disturbing times, sir. I realise this is a great presumption but I see protection as paramount, so please allow me the liberty." Adlington proffers me a neat piece of white card with a mobile number on it and lowers his voice to a hush. "Sir, Her Ladyship has very graciously extended me the use of her Ducati motorcycle and my phone is on day and night. It would never be a problem - in fact, it would be an honour, sir - and I am available any time.” He looks at the damp, stained ceiling as if deep in thought. “If my calculations are correct, one could get here in under fifteen minutes, sir."
Fernando from the lower floor flat - who, as far as I know, is the only Puerto Rican in town with dreadlocks - comes out of the heaving boom box that, apparently, ' issa ma crib, maan' and he sees Adlington salute me.
"G' day ma man, dat a bitchin' 'at 'n' ting!"
"Why, thank you, sir." Adlington touches his Bitching Hat and tries to look regretful that he's leaving. "Good day, sir. And to you, sir." Fernando watches open-mouthed as Adlington strokes an imaginary smear off the huge Bentley and gets in.
"Shit, man... Dat yo ride?"
"Only occasionally."
"What, dat 'cause yo knockin' off dat rich lezzie dat own da factory 'n' ting?"
"We're just good -" Fernando does his version of incredulous and waves his arms around. As with a lot of people who adopt a new persona, the first casualty when he gets animated is the carefully cultivated accent.
"Yeah, right... Issa not what I've heard!"
"Who else thinks I'm, er, going out with her?"
"More like who don't! Talk o' the town in da street –an’ good on ya, ‘n’ ting!" Fernando scratches his crotch and looks thoughtful. "So, you reckon she gonna move ‘er stuff in here or you gonna go to 'er gaff?"
"Look, make up your mind - she's either a lesbian or I'm going out with her." Fernando, more worldly that me, doesn't see that as a contradiction.
"Dat is possible da woooman swing both way man, innit?
Outside, Adlington winds the car window down, looks at his watch and stretches, unaware that I am watching from the upstairs window. His sleeve rides up and reveals a home-made tattoo of a dagger and the word 'Commandos'. There are thugs coming out of the snooker hall and I realise, for the first time, that Adlington could take a group like that on, paste them to the pavement with their own blood and still get going before the traffic lights change back to red. Sneering, he exclaims "lard-arsed fucking bastards", at which point I’m hoping he means the guys across the road. Adlington pulls down his sleeves, straightens his hat and drives off.
It's then I think of Sarah alone at Burnleigh Hall and give silent thanks for the fact that he is on her side and not the Mayor's. In the next moment I think back to my cup of tea with Adlington. Something has been nagging me about the tall, thin cabinet with the hefty great lock on, the one only half-hidden by his overcoat. Short of it containing a rare and valuable didgeridoo, highly lethal billiard cues or a snake with rigor mortis, there is really only one alternative...
... A gun. I imagine Adlington oiling it, stroking it lovingly in his hideaway and raising it periodically to take pretend potshots at the Mayor, a kind of Tarantino Jeeves the butler.
Oh shit.
31
I have finished the designs for the Christmas range and, as it is time for Adlington to get Sarah, I ask him to drop by for them. I'm not sure that's quite what he meant by calling him if I needed anything, but he is still at the flat within half an hour. Waiting on the pavement, I see that Fernando is in and I see a twitch at his curtain as the limousine rolls up but Adlington is more interested in the heavies outside the snooker hall.
"Sir, you may wish to sit in the car and watch those gentlemen for a few minutes. They are, I suspect, not from this present locality and they appear to be waiting for someone, to be up to something and that is a combination of circumstances that could prove to be of negative benefit with events unfolding as they are - if you see my meaning, sir."
"Er… I think so." Adlington sits stock-still, taking care not to break his stare across the road as he speaks.
"Would sir's Rastafarian neighbour generally be at his abode a good deal of the day and thus achieve an observational mode regarding such matters?" I nod, pointing out the killer combination of Fernando being both terminally work-shy and an inveterate curtain-twitcher. "Might one be permitted to converse with him, perchance?"
It is an unconventional combination, Adlington with his black leather gloves inside his hat while sitting in his carefully pressed uniform against a backdrop of South American footballers and posters of Bob Marley. Lady Pinke-Burnleigh’s chauffeur seems totally nonplussed, though, and even the reek of marijuana is studiously ignored.
"Tell me, Mr. Fernando, sir, do you see those men often?"
"Who dat?"
"The gentlemen across the street, sir."
"Why? An' is dat you da cops an' ting? You come to 'rest me?" Adlington smiles and shakes his head. Fernando – for some reason - believes him and, feeling marginally safer, rolls a spliff and lights it. And then it goes out. "Mebbie ah do know dem, mebbie not. What dat to you? Anyway, as I was sayin’…" Adlington is listening, but he has been also watching the reluctant glow of Fernando’s spliff fade to a terminal grey full stop. Waiting for a lull in Fernando’s self-winding monologue, he intervenes.
"Ah, an easy mistake to make, sir; one has made an excellent job of it but perhaps also rolled it a little tighter than is sometimes strictly necessary. If I might be permitted, perhaps?" Adlington takes the spliff apart, re-rolls it and hands it back to Fernando who lights it.
Fernando is impressed.
"Oh, it's nothing, sir. I used to smoke roll-ups." Even when surrounded by a thickening cloud, I can see a change in my neighbour's face and it is obvious that the newly-relaxed Fernando is warming to Adlington.
"Trouble, mistah, nutt'n' but trouble. I see da Mayor, 'ee a-talkin' to da men." Adlington nods and smiles.
"I see, sir, you have a map of Ethiopia."
"Why, you bin go dare or summink an' ting?"
"Oh, quite close to it, sir but we never actually went there as such. It was about thirty years ago - 'work' I suppose one would call it, sir." His curiosity satisfied, Adlington looks at his watch. "Ah well, must be going!" He shakes Fernando's hand. "And remember, sir, not too tight... To let the, er, herbal substances breathe. Good day to you, sir!"
"Bye!" It seems to be a somewhat mellower Adlington who gets back into the car but, there again, I could be imagining it.
It's much later that I get a call from Sarah.
"Do you mind me phoning you?"
I decide to enter the dialogue cautiously with a bland pleasantry.
"Of course not. How was your day?"
"According to Magenta's line manager, her first day went well and she is getting on with the person she is working for and my big meeting went well this morning and it seems the Chinese are amenable to the terms of a new contract and we can start production of the new duvet covers in -" Sarah stops and there is silence. "I'm sorry, this is frightfully boring."
"No, it isn't. I like it when you're enthusiastic."
"Sweet boy, always saying the right things. You tell me about your day."
"Well..." And there is really nothing to say or, if there is something interesting, then I can't mention it because it would only worry her.
"Please, tell me."
"It was very ordinary compared with your day." I hear a sound on the other end that is a sigh of yearning and I now realise that mundane is exactly what Sarah needs to hear.
"Adlington got me back here and I put the picture - which was a lovely thought, thank you - on my drawing table. I made a cup of tea, made sure the drawings for Mr. Berkley were okay to send off and went shopping -"
"So, what did you buy?"
"Bread, milk -"
"Baked beans?"
"Of course!" Sarah laughs, but it isn't the expansive laugh that happens in the big rooms at Burnleigh Hall, nor is it the robust laugh that meets the weather as it comes to visit the vast open spaces that surround her home. It is ironic, but this is gentle laugh of someone so close I can hear her breathe and I don't get to hear it until I have left the Hall and I am far away.
"And how do the beans look on the Sévres?"
"Oh, EXQUISITE! And the taste... Sublime." Sarah laughs again. Then there is silence before she continues.
"Let's go out. The cinema. I haven't been to a cinema in years. What's on?" This is a strange request - it is, after all, only twenty-four hours since she embarrassed herself and wanted to crawl in a hole.
"No idea, but there's always something on at around eight."
"Perfect. See you about half seven!" I don't say anything, not because I don't want to go out but because this is something new and I need to think about it. Everything we have done up to now has been as if on a stage and larger than life, the playing of roles in a comic book. She has been The Industrialist or The Lady Of The Manor and I have played The Sculptor and The Designer, all the episodes interspersed occasionally with frailty and circumstance but still with the roles intact. This is different though, this is just two people with no safety net and no mask. "Sorry," she sighs, "there I go again... Old bossy-boots, never consulting anyone, always barking orders. You're probably sick of it."
"Half past seven? The 'Archers' is finished by then and I will have had fifteen minutes to get over the trauma of the vicar arriving at the village shop and finding they've run out of custard creams - I call that perfect timing."
There is a knock on the door at half past seven but it's a woman with glasses and long, blondish hair complemented by a midi-length skirt and sensible shoes; whoever she is, she is dressed like the archetypal singleton from a sit-com.
"Sorry, have you come to complain about the noise? I'm afraid I can't do anything about that - it's my neighbour, you see." The woman manages to keep a straight face for a few seconds and then laughs.
And it's that laugh again. Then the woman speaks.
"Hey, are you going to keep me out here for long? I think your said neighbour has taken a shine to whoever I am and you know me… A chap only has to shake his dreads and I'm done for!"
"Come on in. While you're thinking of a half-plausible reason why you've come here looking like the staffroom virgin, I'll just go and grab my coat." For some reason, the flip comment stops Sarah in her tracks. Anxious to dispel any 'moment' that might be brewing, I walk us briskly down the street and past the snooker hall, and whereas the heavies are often outside smoking, they are not tonight. I just hope they're not where I think they are. Sarah checks herself in a shop window and chuckles.
"Why am I dressed like this? I'm not telling you because you have been a very, very naughty boy, you've not done your work and I want you to see me in my office!"
"Nah, that doesn't do it for me… A bit weird. A traffic warden, though... That's a different matter." This is very Sarah Psychology; if you, say, embarrass yourself the previous evening, you dish out more of the same - but slightly different - the day after. Basically, if a train is coming towards you, you just get a bigger one to knock it off the tracks and I have to admit it works.
For her.
Sarah says the disguise is so people don't recognise her, but I reckon there's more to it than that; this is Sarah wearing a mask so it's not so up-front between us, less painful. I'm not one for baring all and thrashing it out, so I am grateful for this alter ego, whatever its reason for manifesting itself.
When we reach the cinema it's a choice between a Rom-Com and a film with souped-up cars and a bank raid. I say I don't mind but it's left up to me to decide and I go for the car one, partly because Sarah spent more time looking at the poster. When it's our turn at the till, the dowdy multi-millionairess lets me pay which, I have to admit, tickles me.
There are no awkward moments as we sit together in the dark, no hurriedly pulling back arms as they make for the same arm rest and not even a sense of unease as Sarah clutches my hand during a car chase involving a Ford Mustang, a man on a truck and a chain saw.
"Oh, shit!" The hoarse whisper heralds Sarah scrabbling under the seats for her glasses.
"I wouldn't worry. Nobody will recognise you in here."
"It's not that - I usually wear contacts and I can't see a thing." A man passes Sarah’s glasses back from the row in front and does a slight double-take as if he recognises her. Shaking his head, he goes back to slurping his coke and rummaging round in his popcorn.
And then I can't help laughing because Sarah's little excursion under the seats has skewed her wig. I catch the eye of the lady behind us and mouth "Alopecia... She's very sensitive about it." Putting the wig straight, I find I am holding Sarah's face and gazing at her as she looks lost, lost like a pathetic small child in its first pair of glasses. Now she is the one concerned because there is a tear on my cheek and, in the glow of a massive orange explosion, she kisses it away. Stroking my face, she nestles her head on my shoulder and whispers.
"Do you know what?"
"No?"
"I think we just missed the best bit."
32
We come out of the cinema and walk along the street. It is all very complicated – do I hold her hand? Was that just cinema behaviour and we now get back to how we were before? Just as I am panicking gently, we go past an electrical shop. There are televisions in the window and, while some are showing a quiz show, others are keeping passers-by up to date with the news. There are fires and riot police and then it is clear by the vans that it isn't Paris or the Middle East but Britain. Back in the open air, Sarah has a signal again and her phone rings.
"Nicky, what's up? Calm down!" Sarah stares through the shop window and her jaw drops. "Bloody Hell." She watches the giant screen in the middle. "That's the field next to the Hall; the one with the demonstrators." We run to the mini and Sarah hands me her phone. "Find the news!" Seeing my total incompetence, Sarah clicks on the browser and shouts "Google!" We see the fires as we pass the Hall and the west wing is silhouetted against the glow. I scroll down and read.
"The fire… It's not the Hall."
"That's something - anyone hurt, though?"
"Yes. There’s a man with gunshot wounds." I feel sick. I imagine Adlington patrolling round with his rifle, Adlington the crisply-ironed vigilante with several years under his belt since he brushed away that silly little mental obstacle of having to make his first ever kill. "That's a relief - it's a policeman." By relief, I mean that it therefore couldn't have been Adlington but if I mention that I’m well and truly stuffed because it would mean I knew about his very-probably-illegal gun.
Oh, bloody hell – she’s giving me that look, the one I get before a lecture.
"For fuck’s sake - the police are people too, you know!" Do I tell her why I am relieved? No, I really, really can’t.
"Sorry, Sarah, that came out wrong." Further discussion - and Googling - is rendered redundant by the mayhem that greets us as we turn the corner by the wood. Hettie recognises the Mini and comes running up to us, tears streaming down her face.
"It wasn't meant to be like this! The whole thing's been hijacked by thugs. There's been shooting from the woods and an armed response unit is on its way." One of the thugs from the snooker hall is laying into the police, but not for long because he is shot as well and this time it's bad. I turn to Sarah.
"Adlington… It’s Adlington." Sarah pulls a look of incredulity. "And why not him? He's got a gun, hasn't he?"
"A shotgun, yes, but that's a rifle."
"Sarah, it's Adlington. He was asking about the thugs by the Snooker hall and now he's just shot one of them."
"You don't know that!"
"Wait here!" Sarah tries to hold me but I am too strong for her and run to the wall around the woods and find a gate. I push forward just enough to see through a gap in the bars and I call Adlington's name. The Bentley is parked in front of the Mausoleum and there is the faint shadow of a figure inside. I don't see who it is at first, but I can guess and my suspicions are confirmed when Adlington sparks up a lighter as he sits at the wheel of the car in his grey uniform with his hat on square, proper. As my eyes acclimatise to the light, I see a rifle on the ground and a chord going from the window to the petrol tank. Adlington sees me, pulls himself up straight and salutes me.
It happens very quickly - indeed, it only takes a couple of seconds for the flame to run down to the petrol tank, time hardly to pull my head back behind the wall before the explosion. Gradually rising to my feet, I listen and all is silent because the demonstration has been put on pause. I walk back to the road and see police, demonstrators - even thugs - stood still next to each other, all facing the wood and bathed in orange light as the glow of the burning car lights up the branches of the trees against the night.
33
The next morning, Sarah delays her breakfast and calls the staff together.
"We can't go near the woods because it has been cordoned off by the police. The garage is similarly out of bounds. Regarding John, he was a very loyal and supportive member of our team but it would appear he was under a lot of stress. If the press contact you, please refer them to me. If the police talk to you, just tell them what you know. Thank you. Now, let's all go about our business and have as normal a day as we can."
As I lean out of an upstairs window I can, with the aid of Sarah's binoculars, see people in white boiler suits examining pieces of Bentley. They are probably examining pieces of Adlington as well but those, mercifully, are not visible. The field beyond is littered with abandoned tents, few protesters seeing sticking around as a sensible option. Indeed, once it was dark and the heavies arrived to lay into the protesters, it was a place to vacate - especially when the riot vans and the Armed Response Unit turned up.
My mobile rings and it's Sarah asking me to come down because the police want to interview me. I'm immediately gripped by panic and wonder how much I should have told Sarah about Adlington… And also whether I have dropped her in it. I even wonder if I should have told the police about Adlington's weirdness; If I had, would I have stopped the killing? No, and I don't think anyone has ever been put away for not reporting that someone is strange... But perhaps I am an accessory to the crime because I saw the gun cabinet and said nothing about it?
It's not just about whether I get put away or not, it's about the poor man - thug or no thug - who got killed. Then there are his mates and I panic again. Would they come here and mete out some kind of revenge because the shot came from this side of the wall?
Sarah rings again.
"Hey, they're waiting." Her voice is subdued, gentle, as if there is really nothing to worry about, as if she senses my apprehension. There is a quiet tap on my door and I open it to Sarah holding her phone. She reaches out, takes my hand and smiles as she leads me down the stairs.
Sarah... And that's a whole other ball game, as well. Pondering on it, I am ushered into the library and sat down at a table with a microphone on it. A policeman turns a machine on, introduces himself and gets straight to the point.
"Did Mr. Adlington strike you as a normal man, sir?" A tricky one. With my parents and upbringing, I'm not really a sound arbiter when it comes to eccentricity.
"He was... Single-minded. His job was his life, this place was his life. Lady Pinke-Burnleigh was his life." No, that came out wrong.
"Interesting. Were they then, in your opinion, romantically entangled?"
"Oh, no, definitely not."
"You seem very certain about that, sir. And what makes you so certain?"
"Um... Er..." Do I mention Charlotte? How about in the cinema? I'm not sure what that was all about myself and I was there. What I'm about to say sounds so lame, but it's all I can manage.
"He just wasn't her type." Seeing this isn't going to lead him anywhere, the policeman sighs and tries a different tack.
"Did you ever spend time with John Adlington and, if so, what did you do, what did you talk about?" Well, yes, we talked about whether he had killed people, we staked out the thugs and he told me how much Lady Pinke-Burnleigh needed me. But, no, I don't say that.
"He drove and I sat - he was never a conversationalist when he was driving. He did invite me to have tea in his office, as he called it." I smile and sit back to indicate I have finished but the policeman is staring at me. He's not going to let up, so I pretend something else has popped into my head. "Oh, and we talked about the other soldiers in the photograph on the wall and I asked him if he had ever killed anyone when he was in the army - really childish, I know - to which he said nothing." The inspector raises an eyebrow.
"And had he, in your opinion?" The policeman waves his pen in the air. "I'm talking here about body language, reaction." I nod. "Sorry, sir, a nod doesn't always come up very clear on a sound recording. Would you mind vocalising your answers, please?" So I do. "Anything else, sir?" I nod again, say 'yes' and he perches on the edge of his chair, eager.
"Yes, he asked me if I wanted a biscuit." The policeman taps his biro on his pad and looks at the ceiling as if searching for divine guidance.
"Thank you, sir. That will be all."
"Actually, officer, there is more." I finally tell him about the thugs by the snooker hall, the way Adlington had reacted to them and that I had seen the cabinet in the garage and how I wished I had said something to someone.
And that's the point at which I cry.
I wander outside for some air only to find Sarah stood outside the garages and glowering at the crime scene tape stretched across their open doors. More white-suited people are looking in oil drums, bins and tool boxes and they resemble down-and-out snowmen looking for that last dog-end to smoke before they turn in for the night on a park bench.
"Look, all my own cars and I can't drive any of them!” Then Sarah raises her voice and says theatrically, desperate that at least someone should hear: “And I told them I need a car to get to my meet -." Seeing my red eyes, Sarah shuts up and I can tell she is in a quandary. She wants to give me a hug but there are people around and her reticence is yet another reminder that, even in her own home, she is on constant alert.
“You alright?” I nod, but Sarah looks me up and down and shakes her head.
“Liar.” A smooth, white hand squeezes my arm and a tired, bare face without any make-up grimaces an apology as if it is all its owner’s fault. Sarah peers wistfully towards the end of the drive where the main gates are so far away they are but microscopic portals to the world beyond.
"Sarah, it’s possible.”
“Pardon?”
“Where's your motorbike?"
"Genius... Of course! See you by the stables in ten."
At what point I agree to go too is a mystery to me but within twenty minutes I am sitting behind a woman in white leathers on a white Ducati motorbike. My jeans and army surplus overcoat don't do a lot for the overall coolness, but that is the least of my worries. Sarah's black visor turns to face me.
"Stop shaking and just hang on - we'll be fine!" She revs the engine and I nearly fall off. "And remember to lean on the corners. Don't forget, I can actually ride one of these things!"
"Oh great, thanks."
"Pardon?"
"Nothing."
After ten minutes of scaring me shitless as we weave and zip round tight country bends, Sarah slows down and comes to a stop up a familiar hill. She pulls the bike up behind our bench at the top and sits down, patting the seat beside her.
"Sarah, you can probably take the helmet off now." It is like sitting next to The Stig, only the breasts are better developed. Sarah removes her helmet and catches me looking at her bottom.
"This do it for you, does it?" I am so embarrassed I blush. She puts her arm through mine and squeezes it. "Just joking. I know you were only thinking 'goodness, look at the size of that!'" Sarah laughs. "Gotcha - whatever you say you think you're stuffed, don't you? It's either 'yes, your bum's huge' or 'no, I'm a leather fetishist'." Sarah stops smiling. "You feel better now?”
“Thank you. This was very thoughtful.” Sarah looks at me, smiles wistfully and brushes a leaf off my collar.
“Autumn. My favourite season. So melancholy." She pauses and looks out over the view. "You know when I get silly -"
"I love it."
"Actually, I love being like it and it only happens with you."
"That's me, always bringing out the adult in people!" Sarah ignores me and continues.
"All my life I have to be the one in control but you make me little again, young." Now I'm getting embarrassed. This hill seems to make her less inhibited, somehow.
"But I thought I really annoyed you sometimes."
"You do, like nobody else can. As I said, you're unique." We sit there in silence, taking in the beautiful view. Sarah pulls up to me, puts her head on my shoulder... And her leathers creak, the sound reminiscent of a slow, wet fart. The tiny white snowmen are still sifting through the wood and even they, far away as they are, must have heard our raucous laughter as it rolled down the hill to the Hall.
Back on the bike, Sarah speaks through the intercom.
"Where shall we go now?"
"What about your meeting?"
"Oh, that was a fib. I just had to get away for a while."
"Lying to the police - that's quite serious, isn't it? And you brought me with you?"
"I know, I must have been desperate. Everyone else was busy." I am relaxed enough now to loosen my vice-like grip and I give her a little punch, smiling as I hear her tinny chuckle and feel her stomach muscles ripple in unison.
"Actually, can we go back to my flat, please?"
"As in dropping you off there, or a quick check? I understand if you don't want to come back to the Hall. It's pretty gruesome there at the moment." So, I think Sarah needs me at the Hall. The trouble is, my flat needs me too for a while because there is the small matter of no clean clothes at the Hall and no clean clothes at the flat, not to mention the likelihood of rats in the sink gnawing dried-up beans off the Sévres plates because the food in the bin has gone green and furry by now.
I expect Fernando to wander outside and make some sarcastic comment about 'ma ride an' ting', but he is there at his window, quivering. I get in the door and see clothes and shattered remnants of the picture of Sarah and me scattered all down the stairs, the picture of us on the hill where we were sat only half an hour ago. Our faces are only just visible beneath a smear of excrement.
"Who? Those men across the street?" Fernando nods. "When?"
"Yesterday. Sorry, I didn't call police... The policemans is not my best friends and I no don’t want them here." Sarah sniffs the air, the marijuana so pungent it still gives the smell of excrement a good run for its money.
"Uh huh, that's understandable." She picks up a clean fragment of gold frame and looks at the torn remnant of her and me sat on the hill, the hill we have just left. "Remind me not to do you any more of these. Shall we go up?" Sarah looks at Fernando. "Don't worry, whatever it's like I'll get my builder to sort it so the police don't have to visit. I'm really sorry for what you must have gone through."
The Sévres is untouched because it was hiding in the sink. Thanks to Concetta, there was no other china to break and the picture of my father is, miraculously, still intact under its cracked glass. Some of my clothes have been ripped, but they were mostly from charity shops so no great loss there. Relieved, I smile at Sarah.
"There was so little here to start with, there wasn't a lot they could do. Apart from a few books to strew over the floor and the broken television, they must have found it a really frustrating experience.”
"You got any bin bags? Rubber gloves?" I nod. "Goodness - so domesticated!" Sarah peels off her leathers and stands there in her jeans, t-shirt and socks. "What I'm about to say is going to sound very Lady Bountiful, but I'm used to that and you'll just have to lump it." She looks cautious as she steels herself and then blurts it all out. "Please could I get you some new stuff? It's the least I can do for getting you into this mess and it's a tiny little 'thank you' for sticking by me. Anything here that's totally irreplaceable?" I say 'no', even ready to let my precious bed go, the one with the ghost of the Sugar Bear sticker.
Goodness, does this mean I'm growing up?
"Nope. Nothing irreplaceable except the picture of my father… And the Sévres, of course… That’s irreplaceable." Is that a tear in her eye? Surely not. Sarah snaps out of staring at the floor and, taking out her phone, Googles skip hire, house clearance and a decorator.
It's only an hour later and we have finished. I watch Sarah pick up the final item - a shit-smeared shirt on the stairs - and put it in a bin liner. If anyone had told me when I first spotted Lady Pinke-Burnleigh wafting across the town square in her cream suit and fedora that she would be here in jeans, t-shirt and my slippers with a pooey shirt in one rubber-gloved hand and a bin liner in the other...
"Well young man, we did it! What are you thinking? I know you're thinking something." My eyes are moistening.
"Just 'thank you'."
"Oh, pish - get a grip. The man with the van is going to be here in ten and anything he doesn't want can go in the skip downstairs." Sarah pulls on her leathers and walks down to her bike.
An hour later, the man with the van has been and gone and Sarah is back. I've meanwhile shoved some clothes in a bag and I get on the back of the bike.
"Sorry young man, won't be a second." Sarah disappears through the front door. When she comes outside again she sniffs the arm of her leathers.
"Crumbs, and I was only in there a couple of minutes. I hope this dope blows away by the time we get back home - try explaining that one to the fuzz. He smoked a spliff, right there in front of me. You can tell he's an expert; I've seen experienced old men make far worse roll-ups." I think back to Adlington, the two of us sitting in Fernando's gloom, but I say nothing. "Right, I've seen Fernando and I've been to see Maisie and bunged her a few hundred. She's willing to take him in while this all dies down and, no, I don't just reckon I can chuck money at situations and make them right again. That's not the way I think."
"I know, I know." And I do know because there are not many people who would scrape human faeces off someone's wall for them. But Sarah did.
"It's just all I can do at the moment." Sarah smells the marijuana on her sleeve again. "Maisie and Fernando? Personally, I think they deserve each other - it'll be a match made in Heaven!"
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