Murder Most Fab (12 page)

‘I say
— what’s that?’

‘What’s
what?’ I said, trying to pretend I couldn’t hear anything. The game was up,
though, when we both heard my mother say loudly, ‘Oooh, Frank! Don’t be in such
a hurry! Ladles first!’

Tim was
open-mouthed. He turned a sweet shade of pink. ‘Oh, my God! Your mother is …
she’s … um — is this normal?’

Now
that he’d guessed, I realized I might as well come clean.

‘It is
for a Thursday,’ I said matter-of-factly. ‘Frank is a farmer from Sellindge. On
Saturday she has to make do with a supermarket manager from Maidstone. That
isn’t quite so noisy, obviously. Times are hard.’

‘Clearly!’

My
mother had begun her yelping routine. I was familiar with this. She sounded
like a poodle having electric-shock treatment. It could go on for some time, then
turn into a vibrating, meditative bleat and finally a crow’s triumphant caw.
The whole process generally lasted fifty minutes — I happened to know because
that was how long it took to play my
Rocky Horror Show
album, which I
reached for each week when Frank arrived.

We
tried to continue eating, but it was hard. With every shriek from the bedroom,
we giggled. As Frank and my mother reached the heights of their passion, Tim’s
thoughts were evidently turning in the same direction. ‘Can we go to your room
and play Scrabble now?’ he asked suggestively.

‘As
long as you promise not to hog the triple-word scores …‘ I breathed.

‘I
promise … Now, come on!’

We went
inside together.

Just
under an hour later, four tousled heads and eight quivering legs met
downstairs again.

‘Thanks
for a charming evening, Alice,’ Tim said, with his smooth confidence, ‘and a
delicious tea.’

‘Yes,
hasn’t it been lovely?’ said my mother, hurriedly doing up her blouse. ‘I’m
awfully glad you boys are chums. You must call in again soon, Tim.’

‘Thank
you, I will.’

By the
garden gate, in the deep blue of the summer night, we said goodbye.

‘Sorry
about Mother,’ I said, suddenly awkward, afraid that my unusual home life might
have horrified Tim.

‘Don’t
be. She’s charming and very funny. You don’t know how lucky you are. See you
tomorrow?’

‘Of
course.’

‘Good.’
He blew me a kiss and then sauntered up the lane, hands in his pockets, blond
hair shining in the darkness. I watched him till he vanished from sight.

It was only towards the
end of the summer that the mood changed. I had never thought about the future,
assuming naïvely that we would stay as we were for ever. But now, as autumn
approached, Tim became unusually serious.

‘You’re
old before your time,’ I said to him one night, after he had stroked my face.
Suddenly he looked terribly sad. We were lying on the makeshift bed we’d
constructed in the summerhouse, the old mattress covered with an embroidered
counterpane and silk cushions. After the weeks of scorching sunshine and no
rain, the musty, damp smell had gone, replaced with a dry herb-and-moth
combination. (Face down on that mattress as often as I was, I had ample
opportunity to inhale every subtle change.) A candle flickered in its brass
holder nearby.

‘Love
is a drug,’ said Tim. ‘We’re both destined to suffer withdrawal symptoms.’

‘Why
should we? Why can’t we go on as we are?’

‘Even
if we did, and even if we never felt any differently from the way we do now,
one of us would suffer eventually. Unless we happen to die simultaneously in a
car crash — and what are the chances of that happening? — one of us will have
to endure the pain of losing the other.’

‘But
that’s years away, surely! We’d be old — over thirty at least. It’s so far off
I don’t think we need to worry about it now.’

‘It
might not be as far away as you think.’ Tim rolled on to his back and stared at
the summerhouse ceiling.

A
horrible pang of fear stabbed me in the stomach. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I
don’t know what I’m trying to say. Just that … Listen, Johnny, our love is a
natural disaster. It’s no one’s fault, no one’s to blame, but make no mistake,
the end result will be tragedy. For you, for me, for those around us. Maybe for
everyone. You and I are bad news. Sad, bad news. That much I know for sure.’ At
the end of this speech Tim moved into the candlelight, and I could see that his
eyes were full of tears.

‘But … why?’ I said,
suddenly desperately afraid.

‘Things
have to change.’

‘Is it
your family?’

‘It’s
… it’s
everything.
It’s just all too huge for the two of us to fight,
that’s all. And I don’t even know if I want to fight it.’

‘Perhaps
if you told your parents, explained what we mean to each other …‘

Tim
laughed. ‘Yes, I’m sure that’s all we need to do. I can just see Daddy being
moved to tears by my plight. Oh, Johnny … you don’t understand even the half
of it.’ He was quiet for a while, then said quietly, ‘I wish I could spare you,
but it’s too late now to stop it. I just hope you’ll forgive me. I wish it
didn’t have to be me who made you miserable.’

‘Wouldn’t
you be miserable, too, if we couldn’t see each other any more?’

‘Yes —
but I’m much tougher than you are, Johnny. You’re so vulnerable. You feel
everything ten times more than anyone I’ve ever met.’

‘So
let’s not part.’

Tim
groaned.

‘Don’t
dwell on the future. It’s so far away,’ I said. ‘Kiss me. That’ll make
everything all right.’

‘For
the moment.’

‘That’s
all I care about. Glorious, wonderful
now.’

‘Celia
Johnson, eat your heart out.’

The
following Saturday Tim’s lovemaking at dusk was particularly vigorous, and we
had barely caught our breath before he began again. There was an angry energy
to his lust, as if he was trying to break and batter rather than pleasure me.
When, finally, he finished for the second time, he got up immediately and
pulled on his clothes. ‘This is going to stop now,’ he said, wiping his forehead
with his crumpled T-shirt, then shaking it and putting it on inside out.

‘What
do you mean?’

‘That
was the last time for us, Johnny. I’m sorry, but it can’t go on. On Monday I’m
leaving for Cambridge. I’m starting university. It’s a new beginning and it’s
the right time for us to say goodbye and get on with our real lives.’

My
heart contracted with horror. ‘Isn’t this real, then?’ I whispered. I couldn’t
begin to imagine life without him. For the last two months, Tim had been the
centre of my universe, my whole reason for being. The idea of his leaving me
was like the sun being put out — everything afterwards would be cold and dark
and terrible.

‘No,
it’s not real,’ Tim said. There was a callous note in his voice that I’d never
heard before, a roughness that made him sound like a stranger. He wasn’t
looking at me.

‘How
can you say that?’

‘Grow
up, Johnny! Did you really think we could go on like this for ever? You’re a
fool if you did.’ Then he added quietly, ‘It’s been fun, though.’

I was
still naked, lying on the floor. ‘But I love you. Don’t leave me. I know you
love me too — I know it! What about all the times you’ve kissed me? What about
the things you said the other night, about growing old together? Can’t I come
to Cambridge with you?’

Tim
stood up and stared down at me. His blue eyes were hard. ‘Don’t be silly. I
don’t love you. This whole thing’s been a bit of fun, that’s all. I liked
fucking you, but it’s only what boys do before they grow up and get married.’

‘I
don’t think it is, Tim …’

‘Everyone
does it.

‘No
they don’t! Not like us, anyway! They don’t love each other like we do.’

‘Don’t
be so stupid. Shut up about love, for fuck’s sake. It’s like listening to a
girl. It’s over. I’m not like you, anyway. I’m not
queer.’
He uttered
the last word with a contemptuous sneer.

‘Don’t
be like this, Tim,’ I begged. ‘I know what you’re doing but you don’t have to
be like this, please …’

But he
turned on his heel and walked out, slamming the flimsy door behind him. Peeling
petals of old paint fluttered to the floor.

I lay
there still panting, stunned into silence. Then, far too late for him to hear
me, I said, ‘Remember me,’ and I began to cry.

It had
been such an abrupt termination that the shock left me staggering aimlessly
like a bomb-blast casualty who cannot recall his life before the explosion. I
was bloodied and confused. My tears fell and fell, until the dry cushion I wept
on smelt salty and damp again.

Eventually
I found my clothes and wiped my eyes. I retrieved my bicycle from the hedge and
free-wheeled down the hill towards home. The moon was full and high over the
knoll. By the time I got to Cherry Lane I was dry-eyed but desolate.

I
stumbled in through the door. My mother was sitting by the fireplace, staring
at a moth on the lampshade. ‘Hush!’ she said, waving a hand in my direction. ‘I
think it’s a Purple Prober. Very rare, these days.’

I sat
in a chair, unable to speak, still reeling with shock.

Mother
chattered on as though everything was normal. ‘I shall name him Philip. What a
lovely day it’s been! Such a busy time of year in the hedgerows. That nasty Mr
Jackdaw has been causing havoc. I went out there with my feather duster to shoo
him away but I was too late to save the poor robins’ nest. Now they’re angry
with me, as if it was all my fault.’ She looked at me, as though seeing me for
the first time. ‘I wasn’t expecting you home. Is everything all right?’

I tried
to speak, but couldn’t. I felt utterly distraught and the tears welled up again,
spilling on to my cheeks to make way for more.

‘Whatever’s
wrong, poppet?’ She sat up and reached out towards me. I got up, walked over to
her and slumped on the sofa next to her. ‘Darling, darling,’ she said. ‘What’s
happened? Is it Tim?’

She
knew where I had been spending my evenings, and although I had never told her
we were lovers, she’d obviously guessed. I had caught her studying me
curiously, as if she was watching a butterfly emerge from its chrysalis. She
was pleased with me, I felt. I was continuing the good work on which she had
made such an enthusiastic start.

‘It’s
all over,’ I said, through my sobs. ‘He’s going away. He never wants to see me
again. And he said … he said …’ My waterworks display made it hard to
speak. ‘He said he’s not … queer.’

In the
presence of my mother I became a child again, crying and burying my face in her
chest.

‘How
ludicrous. Only a homosexual would make such a claim!’ my mother said, stroking
my head and face, comforting me as if I was a nervous dog at a fireworks
display.

‘But
how could he say something so terrible?’

‘Perhaps
the only way he could deal with his pain was to hurt you worse. Perhaps he has
to tell himself that. Perhaps it’s true.’

‘It
can’t be …‘

‘If
it’s true to him, then it all comes out the same in the wash. He doesn’t want
to love you, even if he does. So he won’t.’ She hugged me tightly.

‘But he
does anyway?’ I was confused.

‘Yes.
But he won’t allow it. It’s like dyeing your hair. In reality I might be an
unfortunate shade of mouse, but to all intents and purposes I’m brunette. It’s
what I want that counts. The rules of nature can be manipulated. Love can be
denied or impersonated. It’s awfully complicated. No wonder Ted Heath’s a
confirmed bachelor.’ We sighed simultaneously. My mother continued, ‘Oh, it
hurts, doesn’t it? But pain is good for you, in a cerebral way. Think of the
poets! Suffering is beautiful, you will come to realize. It lets us know we’re
alive. How else can we be sure? This is a coming-of-age for you, and I’m your
proud mother.’