Secret Story (38 page)

The police car had halted by the graveyard. As the doors sprang open, several figures dashed out of the gates and fled up a path onto the hill. “That’s right, chase them out,” a woman’s voice exulted from a bedroom window next to the churchyard. “Let them stick their needles in themselves somewhere else.” The police from the car ran after the fugitives, and Dudley glimpsed flashlights in the graveyard. He couldn’t take the package there or back onto the ridge.

He had to hide it where he could while he had the chance. He kept his mouth close to one blurred ear to make sure the police didn’t hear him, although the notion of touching the package again with his lips sickened him. He talked it to his gate and through, and sidled around it to the front door. He fumbled his keys out of his pocket and nearly dropped them from exhaustion.
As he scraped the key into the lock, he heard a rumble like a thunderclap above him, and Brenda Staples leaned out of her bedroom window.

She was craning towards the graveyard. He turned the key and pushed the door open in a single movement, then gripped the package by a shoulder. “Up,” he said in its ear as its toes nudged the front steps. He propelled it into the hall and glanced up. Brenda Staples was still intent on the chase. He bared his teeth at her and nearly slammed the door to make her jump. He eased it shut and bolted it as he turned to the package, which was loitering near the foot of the stairs. “Keep on,” he said. “Step up. Step up.”

It obeyed him until it was halfway upstairs, at which point doubts appeared to set in. It inched its feet forward on two adjacent treads to identify the location or take a firmer stance. “Don’t stop or you’ll fall,” Dudley was amused to improvise. “There’s nothing either side of you to stop you falling.” Perhaps the situation he’d described was too vivid to be helpful. The package wavered and toppled towards him until he planted a foot in the small of its back. “You’ll be all right if you do as you’re told,” he said. “Step up. Step up.”

This took it as far as the landing, where it almost fell over with the unexpectedness of no more climbing. He enjoyed the idea that it was terrified of straying over some unseen edge. “Straight ahead,” he directed while he grinned. “Stop there.” It was in the bathroom now, and unaware of standing in front of the bath. “Turn round,” he said as he retrieved the last roll of tape from beneath the sink. “Keep turning. Stop.”

Although he liked the sound of unsticking the tape, that might alert the package, and so he took a minute to pick a stretch loose with his nails. He crept up on the package as the sightless lump of a head began to pivot back and forth, and sank to his knees, holding the section of tape behind the package at arms’
length. “Don’t think I’m kneeling to you,” he muttered. “I’m not praying for you either.” He bound the tape around the ankles, pulling it tight, and as the package commenced struggling for balance he wrapped the ankles a second time, and a third and a fourth. He was able to bind them yet again as the package toppled over the side of the bath, where only its sudden forward crouch saved it from thumping its head rather than its shoulders against the wall. As it writhed in search of a less awkward position, he had no trouble in pulling off its shoes before hoisting its legs with his foot into the bath.

He’d done enough for one night. Tomorrow he would call his mother at work and tell her that he needed to be left alone until Tuesday. He could buy a spade for tomorrow night’s job in the graveyard. As the package started thumping its feet against the sides of the bath he shut the door to keep the noise in and lay down on the mattress. The package would tire of its racket eventually, and he wouldn’t be surprised if by that time he was asleep. “That was research. That was the rehearsal,” he called and made his head more comfortable on the pillow. “Don’t worry, next time it’ll be real.”

As Kathy wheeled her suitcase away from the hotel Dudley’s mobile rang six times, and then he gave in. “Dudley Smith, writer and scriptwriter,” he said. “Me and Mr Killogram must be busy. Leave us a message.”

When had he changed the response? She had never heard that before. “I just wanted to check how things are going,” she told him. “I’ll try again in a bit.” Perhaps his train to work was in a tunnel. She pocketed the mobile and hurried through the mainline station, where the sunlight through the glass roof was uttering pronouncements like a god. She bumped her suitcase down the escalator and bought her ticket on the way to riding more stairs to the underground platform.

It was hot with commuters and with her inability to use her mobile. She begrudged every one of the five minutes the West
Kirby train took to arrive. She sat at the front of the first carriage, where her luggage could take some of the space left for wheelchairs. She felt like a child pretending to drive the train—urging it not to loiter underground, at any rate. As soon as it emerged into the open beyond Conway Park she tried Dudley’s number again, but he was still only a message.

Might he be stuck in the tunnel? Her train had passed another in there, but she was as certain as she could be that Dudley hadn’t been aboard. She phoned a third time as the train swung away from Birkenhead North towards Bidston, offering her a view of allotments across a field and reminding her how close to home she was. Could he have switched off the phone so that he wouldn’t be disturbed, only to oversleep? She had to smile wryly at wondering how much of a mess she would find. At the very least Dudley was going to help her clear up.

Perhaps Monty was right, and she indulged Dudley too much. Even if his writing was the most important aspect of his life and so of hers as well, that needn’t mean he had to be deficient in any other way. She would be less of a mother if she let him. It wasn’t too late for them to change. The train halted at Bidston and admitted a hint of a breeze, and Kathy was tempted to make for her house. She imagined dragging her suitcase for miles under the sun, and resumed her seat. Surely if he’d been writing all weekend he deserved a day off from his other job.

She couldn’t spend nine hours wondering where he was. She didn’t want to spend any. She managed to wait until the carriage rose level with the ample houses of Hoylake before she called again. Only the recording answered. “I’ll keep trying,” she said as she had to stand up.

Mr Stark was unlocking the office on the main road around the corner from the station. Kathy’s colleagues turned as they heard the rumble of her luggage. “Been on your hols?” Mavis suggested.

“Something like that.”

“Don’t say you’ve had a wicked weekend,” Cheryl cried.

Kathy didn’t, nor anything else, though she produced a fleeting smile as she hurried her case to the staffroom. The office would be open in five minutes, which meant that Dudley’s workplace would be, and someone must be there by now. She found the number on the list behind the counter and snatched out her mobile. “I’ll just be a minute,” she told Mr Stark.

She was longer. The phone in the Birkenhead office rang for at least two minutes before it was picked up. Kathy opened her mouth and left it open, because whoever had answered immediately hung up. “I’m phoning Birkenhead,” she informed Mr Stark with some vehemence and tried again. In rather more than another minute the ringing ceased. “Don’t cut me off,” she said at once.

“We aren’t open yet,” a girl’s voice objected.

“You very nearly are. Did you cut me off before?”

“We weren’t open.”

“I’d call that extremely unprofessional behaviour, and I know what I’m talking about. I’m in the same job. This is your Hoylake branch. May I speak to Dudley, please?”

“He isn’t here.”

“Of course, I should have realised. I’ve been away but I know he’s had a particularly demanding weekend. I should say I’m his mother.”

“It’s Dudley’s mother.”

“I’d like a word with her.” This was an older woman, who arrived with a rattle of the plastic of the receiver. “That’s Mrs Smith, is it?” she enquired.

“I suppose Ms might be more like it. Dudley’s father has been out of the way for really quite a few years.”

“That’s no excuse.”

Kathy felt as if the conversation had tilted, robbing her of the balance she’d achieved. “Sorry, excuse for what?”

“Don’t you know what he’s like when you’re not there?”

“I’m sure I do. I’m sure he’s just the same as when I am.”

“Then I don’t think either of you have got much to be proud of.”

Mr Stark was raising his thin greyish eyebrows to enlarge his ostentatiously patient gaze. Kathy met it with a stare that might contain some of her growing anger. “Am I meant to ask why?” she said. “I don’t even know who I’m speaking to.”

“I’m Vera Brewer. Another of the people your son insulted. Told us he was better than all of us. What do you say to that?”

“I’m not sure,” Kathy said, too busy trying to cope with the woman’s tone to be other than honest. “I haven’t met you, after all.”

“So you’ve brought him up to think he’s superior to everyone else in the world.”

“He’s already done more with his life than I have with mine. I’m sorry if you thought he was rude. He’s been under quite a bit of pressure lately, you may not know. Anyway,” Kathy said as Mr Stark took hold of the latch of the entrance door while straining his left eyebrow and the same side of his mouth high at her, “has he called in?”

“Not that I’ve heard.”

“I just wanted to let you know that with the weekend he’s had he’s unlikely to be in today. You can put him down as sick.”

After more of a silence than Kathy thought was called for, Vera said “You’d better speak to Mrs Wimbourne.”

“Can’t you—” When a thump made it clear that Kathy would be addressing a deserted receiver, she wondered with as little patience as Mr Stark was exhibiting how much she would have to repeat. She was trying to consolidate her thoughts when a further voice said “How can I help you, please? We’ve just opened for the day.”

“So have we,” Kathy said and looked away from Mr Stark’s compressed face that a frown was cramping even smaller.

“I understand you’re Dudley’s mother.” This sounded no more favourable than “Did you have something to tell me?”

“Just that I want him to take the day off. Nervous exhaustion. I hope that counts as sickness.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand. Off from what?”

“From you.” The conversation seemed to be tilting again, and Kathy tried to regain control. “From work, I mean,” she said. “From his day job.”

“Can I stop you for a moment? Are you under the impression that your son still works here?”

The room grew charred—hot and dark—and Kathy had to find the breath to speak. “Doesn’t he?”

“Not since the middle of last week.”

Kathy heard her words becoming stupid with panic. “Do you think there could be some misunderstanding? I’m certain he’s been going to work.”

“Not here, I’m afraid.”

“Then where?” Kathy barely managed not to ask that, and had to force herself to substitute “What happened?”

“He was insubordinate, and on top of that he was abusive to his colleagues and myself, and then he flounced out before I could deal with him.”

“I do apologise. I apologise on his behalf. He’s had a few difficult weeks, I should say, because I don’t think he would tell people.” Yet more painfully she continued “If he comes and says he’s sorry, would you—”

“I’m afraid matters have progressed too far for that. I can’t operate this establishment with two empty positions. I’ve taken on a replacement for him. An official letter is on its way to him.”

“Did he really do anything so bad? I thought we had to behave a lot worse than that to be thrown out of this kind of job.”

“Perhaps you should spring to his defence a little less and learn a little more about him. Now you really must excuse me. I have an office to run,” Mrs Wimbourne said, and was gone.

Kathy closed her eyes as she switched off the mobile. At least inside her eyelids it was supposed to be this dark. The phone in her hand felt both hollow and burdensome, very much like her thoughts. She was beginning to wonder what else she mightn’t know about Dudley when Mr Stark spoke, closer than she had realised he was—virtually in her ear. “Ready for work now?” he said.

“I’m not answering,” Dudley mumbled. “I’m busy. I’m asleep. Don’t wake that either.” Before he’d finished the ringing fell silent, and he settled back into the comfort of the mattress. At least the ringing hadn’t roused the package. Perhaps it was indeed asleep or simply couldn’t hear. He knew it was safe in the bath; if it had tried to escape again it would have tripped over him. He didn’t need to check, and he was sinking towards the vision of the premiere of
Meet Mr Killogram
—of his own regal walk along the red carpet as autograph hunters held out copies of his book like petitions to him—when the bell shrilled afresh. Its identity was underlined by a hammering of metal on metal. It wasn’t the phone downstairs. It was the front doorbell.

He could still lie low. The door was bolted, and only the police would be able to batter it down. They had no reason to be there:
he wasn’t one of the addicts they were chasing, nor was he hiding any in his house. Suppose the insistent caller was the postman with an important delivery? Not knowing nagged at Dudley, and so did the thought that the clamour might waken the package. Presumably it was tired from walking, as if he hadn’t walked just as far. He floundered off the mattress, blinking his sticky eyes, and had to sprawl on his hands and knees to hoist himself above the surface of the insubstantial yet clinging medium of sleep. The doorbell continued to shrill as he wobbled to his feet and shut the bathroom door on the way to blundering into his room.

He could hardly see for daylight. As he collided with the end of his depleted bed, the bell and the clanking of the knocker hushed at last. He rubbed his bruised shins and then his eyes, and stumbled to the window. Leaning over his desk, he saw Brenda Staples at the gate.

How dare it be her? She had nothing to complain about—no excuse whatsoever to have disturbed his sleep. He unlatched the window and flung the sash as high as it would rattle so as to thrust his upper half over the sill. He was naked from the waist up, and hoping to embarrass her. He took a hot breath to demand why she’d made so much noise, and then the breath turned dusty in his mouth. The person at the door had moved into view below him. She was his mother.