How to Be Bad (17 page)

Then Bromley took over, still smiling and avuncular. “Mark, what would you say if we told you we know everything? That your lady friend has already spilled the beans?”

“I'd say you talk in clichés, officer. And that you've run out of ideas, in fact never had any ideas in the first place. And that you're now resorting to a desperate bluff in the hope of securing a confession.”

The expressions on their faces were eloquent. Fortunately for me, the interview was being videotaped. Otherwise, I'm fairly certain that Bromley would have held me down while Flett kicked my teeth down my throat.

*   *   *

O
UR CAPTORS
let us go, their disappointment palpable, their small eyes dark with resentment. We were released without charge, which meant that our house and clothes had been scoured for forensic evidence and found wanting. It was official: We weren't bombers, just arseholes. The police search could not have been particularly thorough. I found the Kimber handgun where Jesus had left it, in the rat run under the garden shed. I was happy to be reunited with Warren's old handgun. Something told me we were going to need it.

Bromley confiscated our passports while the investigation continued, but Caro and I knew it would be suicidal to remain in London. Bad Jesus was sure to hold us responsible for his brother's death. We had given Rock the keys to the car that killed him.
I only truly love two people. My kid brother and myself.
If Jesus could blind a motorist for shouting abuse, what would he be prepared to do to Pete's killers? We had no intention of hanging around to find out.

Caro had the bright idea of driving to the east coast. Both our cars had been written off by the explosion, so we hired an inoffensive gray Audi and set off for a small resort in Norfolk. I told no one but my brother where we were going, swearing him to secrecy and making him promise to tell my parents that I loved them if anything should happen to me.

The resort—a last resort, if ever there was one—was called Holeness, a name that seemed to belong in a dirty limerick. Throughout her childhood, Caro had spent many happy holidays in Holeness, staying with her grandparents, who had once run the post office and general store. She had enjoyed her first sexual experience there at the age of thirteen. So although the village was completely devoid of culture and charm, Caro had grown to associate it with freedom and pleasantly moist panties.

The seafront consisted of a café, a souvenir shop, an amusement arcade, and a crazy golf course. The café played loud music constantly, presumably to muffle the agonized groans of the customers who'd eaten there. After school, the teenagers of the town congregated outside the café and the arcade, the kebabs, slot machines, and flashing lights being the closest thing to excitement they could find.

After viewing all the sights, I gave Caro a cool, objective evaluation of the resort. “This place stinks,” I said.

“I agree,” said Caro. “But that's why we'll be safe here. I don't think Jesus would ever think of looking for us here. Why would anyone in their right minds come to such a shithole?”

We took out a six-month lease on a house in Prospect Square on the west cliff. Ours was the end terrace in a row of three. The house was called the Prospect, but our only prospect was the village hall, a squat wooden box poised on the edge of the cliff. Thanks to this monstrosity, we could only see the sea from the back garden, unless you counted the thin blue strip visible from the attic window.

A brass plate above the entrance to the village hall was engraved with the following:

This plaque was presented by the Village Hall Committee to Janet and Philip Mather on December 11, 1999, in appreciatian of all their efforts on behalf of Holeness Village Hall.

When we read the plaque, we sniggered at the spelling mistake.

In front of the hall stretched a vast private parking lot. In the far corner of the parking lot lay an ornamental garden with a bench at its center. The bench faced our house, affording anyone who cared to sit there a perfect view of us sneering down at them from our bedroom in the attic.

*   *   *

T
HE
P
ROSPECT,
a five-bedroom house, was let furnished. It had once been a guesthouse, and the bedroom doors were still numbered. Downstairs, in the long dining room, were five circular tables, each covered with a white linen tablecloth. The lounge, so obviously a “guests' lounge,” smelled of tomato soup, had a ghastly carpet, and was filled with plump flowery chairs. You could almost imagine the previous guests making conversation before the gong was struck for dinner.

Well, tomorrow we thought we'd drive along the coast to visit Cromer.

Yes, it's very nice. We went there today. Tomorrow we're going to Walsingham to pray for a miracle.

How lovely. What kind of miracle are you praying for?

That God will make us interesting people.

Now, that really would be a miracle.

On a small table in the hall lay a book called
Things to Do in Norfolk and Suffolk.
It was a rather slender volume. The original dinner gong still stood on a ledge outside the kitchen. Caro thought it was great fun to beat it before meals. On our first evening, hearing the gong, I walked into the dining room to find a place set for one and a half-eaten bag of chips on the table.

Later, when we were lying in the attic room we'd chosen as our own, I admitted to finding the house a little sinister.

“I don't agree,” said Caro.

“But what about all the empty bedrooms underneath us?” I said.

“So? Pretend there are people sleeping in them.”

“That's even worse.”

“Come on,” said Caro drowsily. “It's not as if we've bought the place. We're just on holiday.”

“Caro, we are not on holiday. We are fleeing for our fucking lives.”

But Caro was already asleep. I lay beside her, drowsy but unable to sleep, listening to the sea. I heard footsteps on gravel and a man singing. He sounded drunk. Then there was a prolonged rattling sound, as if someone incompetent or incapable was attempting to insert a key in a lock. A door slammed, and all was quiet.

After a few minutes I noticed another sound, a sharp scratching noise that seemed to be coming from beneath the floorboards. I sat up in bed and listened intently, but the scratching had stopped. I was now wide awake.

Some time after three, I got up again to peer through the bedroom curtains. There were no streetlights, but a bright waning moon cast a pale glow over the square. Immediately I saw that there was someone sitting on the bench on the far side of the parking lot. At that hour and distance, it was impossible to tell whether it was a man or woman. Whoever it was kept perfectly still. It crossed my mind that it might be one of the Mathers, keeping watch over their beloved village hall.

As I watched, the figure seemed to move away from the bench and glide behind the village hall, its progress so slow and stealthy that I came to believe that I wasn't watching a human being at all but a shadow cast by the moon.

*   *   *

H
OLENESS WASN'T
a complete disaster. It had a handsome, award-winning beach, overlooked by a row of identical beach huts, neatly painted in pastel shades. Desperate to please me, Caro rented a yellow beach hut, ours until the spring. It came with deck chairs, pots and pans, and a little Calor Gas stove. “If you don't want to go on the beach,” said Caro, “you can sit in the beach hut and take drugs and sulk.”

It never came to that. As I surrendered myself to aimless loafing, the sea and the sky and the complete lack of responsibility began to work on me. My initial boredom and resentment faded, and I began to experience a glow I hadn't felt since losing my virginity to Caro. It was a sensation that combined relief and optimism with a curious faith in the basic goodness of people and things.

Even Holeness itself started to seem charming. There was something jolly about being the laziest couple in a drab little village. We watched the sea, played crazy golf, and fed money into the slot machines. In the amusement arcade, I discovered an interesting fact about gambling. The less I cared about winning, the more I won. It gave me a childish thrill to quit while I was ahead, then spend my pitiful winnings on a newspaper or a chocolate bar.

I told Caro how I was feeling on our third afternoon, when we were taking our daily walk along the beach. It was windy but dry, the North Sea worshipping at our feet. “The only thing that puzzles me,” I said, “is that I haven't suffered the slightest bit of remorse about Warren or your dad. I thought we'd be like the couple in
Therese Raquin,
haunted by conscience. But I haven't had the slightest twinge of guilt.”

“That's because they deserved to die,” said Caro airily. “It's like I told you. We shouldn't go into mourning when bastards perish. Having said that, I don't think we should be glad, either.”

“I beg your pardon?! You were jumping up and down when you heard your dad had croaked.”

“Yeah, well. Since then, I've had time to think about it. The main feeling I have about him now is a kind of regret. He didn't have the faintest idea how to relate to other people. The saddest thing is, he never made another person happy. And he knew it.”

“He made you happy enough when he died,” I said.

“No, Marky,” she said, kissing my hand. “You're the only one who's ever made me happy.”

On our way back, we stopped at the fortune-telling machine outside the amusement arcade. Caro slotted in a coin, and out popped a card that was supposed to tell the future.

You may have a lovers' tiff later this week. You'll have a lot to say, but may not find the right person to say it to. Social events are highlighted, and there will be a family celebration of some kind. You'll be good at starting projects, but not so good at finishing them. Never mind.

It was the “never mind” that got me. I laughed out loud. Caro didn't even smile. “I hope you don't take that shit seriously?” I said.

“Of course not,” she answered. “But I believe that some things are preordained.”

“Then you must believe that I came back into your life to save you.”

“That's right. Without you, my dad would have married that fat chip-eating bitch. I'd have been destitute, and Bad Jesus would have screwed my arse until there was nothing left of it.”

I stopped walking and looked at her. “Is that what he used to do to you?”

Until that point, my battle to keep sexual jealousy at bay had been largely successful. Now Caro had presented me with a lurid image that would haunt me for the rest of my life. She saw my face and realized what she'd said. “I'm sorry.”

“I should have killed him, too,” I said between clenched teeth. “I had the chance. I could have blown his head off.”

Caro defused my futile rage by singing to me. It was an old David Bowie song about filling your heart with love and not worrying about what happened in the past. I looked at her with her colorless hair and pale eyes. The girl that I'd dated in school had grown into a screen goddess. And I threw my arms around her so violently I almost broke her back.

We walked back, arm in arm. I had never felt as close to anyone before. Maybe it was the same for Caro. I didn't ask in case she contradicted me.

Caro told me about the self-help book she'd been reading. It was called
Happiness in Seven Days.

“That must be one of the world's worst titles,” I said.

“What are the others?”

I shrugged. “Who cares?”

Caro laughed delightedly. “I don't believe it. You had the chance to make a list and you turned it down. That's a very good sign, Mark. According to my book, it means you're feeling happier in the present. People who make lists are clinging to the past, just like people who collect things.”

“I'm not going to give up rare books.”

“But I notice you haven't bought a book since your shop burned down.”

“There's no hurry.”

She told me about this awful crap she was reading. “Each chapter takes you through a different day. Day one is about forgiving yourself. Day two is about forgiving other people.”

“Forgiving them for what?” I said.

“Being morons,” said Caro.

When we'd stopped laughing, she added, “But the very fact that we find that so funny shows where you and I have gone wrong. We go about expecting people to be lousy, so we're on the lookout for their worst faults. This book says you can transform your luck by changing your attitude to others.”

“But hang on,” I said. “Our luck changed when your dad died. We didn't change our attitude to him. I didn't like him, and you hated the bugger.”

“Okay,” she said. “But what about when you went out for a drive with Jesus? That's a better example. You did a mad thing. You went out in a car with a notorious psycho. You gave him a chance to prove he wasn't all bad. And what was your reward? You got a discount. A fifty percent discount. From a
loan shark.
”

“And then I was nice to his brother,” I said. “And what was my reward? His brother blew up, and now Bad Jesus is going to kill us.”

“Maybe we can stop that from happening.”

“How?”

“By being nice.”

“Bollocks! What about all those Christian martyrs who were hung and crushed and burned? What about that poor woman who had her tits cut off? Being nice didn't do her much good, did it?”

“You don't understand,” said Caro. “If we really try to become better people, we can protect ourselves from harm. According to Cassandra Maitland, positive thoughts shield us from negative events.”

“Who's Cassandra Maitland?”

“She wrote
Happiness in Seven Days.
”