Pompomberry House (32 page)

“Seriously Dee, where did you get that spliff?”

“Forget the spliff! I’m trying to come clean.”

“What did you put in it?”

“Why do you care?”

“Because you’re talking nonsense.”

“I am not! I know it’s difficult to get your head around. I
didn’t realise myself until it got ridiculous. I thought Biff came back from
the dead!”

“What are you trying to say?”

“I told you! Pompomberry House isn’t real.”

“Dee, I picked you up from Gulls Reach.”

“Really. When?”

“A few weeks ago, after you fled from Pompomberry Island.”

“I must have driven there, to make the story more real.”

“No you didn’t.”

“I did!”

“I was with you when we went to the farm, the garden centre ...”

“So I took you gnome shopping. What does that prove? That
doesn’t mean the island was real. No wonder the police couldn’t find it. No
wonder it’s not on any satnav!”

“But the farmer really had had a pig stolen.”

“I probably took it myself. He said he found women’s
footprints ...”

“Now I know you’re talking nonsense. You don’t have any
dainty shoes.”

“That’s not fair! I have a pair of sandals.”

“Dee, I was at Café Revive! I’ve met the writers.”

“Oh no, Gareth! You believe it too!”

“What have you been smoking?”

Then he saw the tin.

“Jesus, Dee! Did you touch this?”

“Maybe.”

“Dee! This is strong stuff.”

“It’s resin.”

“Dee, you’re completely disorientated.”

“It’s not the drugs. I think I’m schizomatic.”

“I think you need something to eat.”

“Food! Oh yes!”

We spent the next hour walking around the block, because
Gareth felt that being active might help. As time went by, Gareth’s words made
more and more sense. I hadn’t really imagined the last five weeks of my life. I’d
just smoked extremely strong weed and become a tad paranoid. I felt foolish.
What a silly, implausible theory.

Gareth told me five or six times that he’d met the writers, but
it still didn’t sound true. After three packets of biscuits and thirty walks
around the block, his words sounded much more credible.

We went back inside and Gareth put on an episode of
Friends
,
feeling that it was suitably bland not to set me off again. I sank into his
embrace, resting my head on his chest. It felt good and I began to relax.

Then I remembered something that hadn’t been a delusion.
Something of crucial importance that Gareth obviously didn’t know that I knew.

“Who’s Penny?”

He laughed. He had the audacity to laugh!

I sat bolt upright. “Funny is it?”

“Hey, chill. What’s the matter?”

“She answered your phone,” I said, giving him a knowing
look.

He shrugged. He looked genuinely confused.
Oh no ...

“She said you were ‘freshening up’!”

“Freshening up?”

“Freshening up.”

 “Oh, yeah,” he sniggered.

“Well?”

“All right, don’t tell anybody this but ... I
lost
a pie-eating contest,” then he lowered his voice, “to a girl!”

“What?”
Oh no ...

“I threw up! It was humiliating.”

“She’s more than just a friend though, isn’t she?”

“Friend? She’s declared herself my nemesis.”

“Nemesis?”

“Yeah, I beat her at
Mortal Combat
. Now it’s war.”

“You see a lot of her though, don’t you?”

“Well, yeah, she’s Barry’s girlfriend.”

Smeg. Fark. Barnacles. And every other swear word that I
know.

Gareth hadn’t slept with somebody else. Whilst this was, on
one hand, extremely satisfying news, it didn’t change the key fact — the bond
of fidelity had been broken. The elastic of loyalty had been snapped — not by
Gareth but by
me
!

Oh no. As certainly as I had known that I could never
forgive Gareth for sleeping with Penny, I knew that Gareth would never forgive
me for sleeping with Ricky. I had been right, our marriage
was
over.
However, it wasn’t Gareth’s mistake that lowered our relationship into the
coffin, it was mine.

* * *

Did I have to come clean? Perhaps I could keep my night with
Ricky a secret. After all, some people get away with whole affairs for months
and months. Still, I wasn’t ‘some people’. My moral conscience was finely
tuned. I felt guilty if I lied about eating the last chocolate biscuit. There
was no way that I could conceal a one-night stand from the man I loved. Already
I felt that I was looking shifty, staring at the floor and scratching my chin.

“Gareth,” I said softly. Oh no! I was going to confess. Here
it comes — verbal diarrhoea — words splashing out inappropriately, soiling the
pants of diplomacy, instead of coming out in tactful, controlled pellets.

“What’s the matter Dee-Dee? You’re shaking!”

I wondered if it was the last time he would ever call me ‘Dee-Dee’.
Suddenly, I could think of nothing to say — vocal constipation. “Last night I ... when
you ... when Penny answered your phone, I thought she was ... I
thought you were ...”

“What? Dee, you’re sweating.”

I was sweating. I had shame fever. Remorse perspired from my
guilty pores, covering my skin in a moist layer of mortification.

Finally, I managed to explain, “I thought you were sleeping
with her.”

He studied me silently for a few moments looking thoughtful.
I found it unnerving. Why wasn’t he contradicting me?

“Hang on, did you sleep with her?”

“Dee, you can’t ask me that!”

“So you did!”

“You broke up with me, remember, we’re getting a divorce.”

No, we weren’t — we were going through a separation. It’s
like the difference between being a goal down at half time and being a goal
down at full time. There was potential to turn things around.

“The ref was a long way off blowing the whistle ...”

“Does this mean that you’re having second thoughts?” he
asked, brightly.

Oh no! This was excruciating. If it wasn’t for my stupid,
pointless work-out session with Ricky, we might have been about to get back
together. I was now certain that I wanted reconciliation. Why hadn’t I figured
this out
yesterday
?

I felt tears welling again. Twice in one day? I didn’t know
that the human body
could
cry more than once a day. Was I at risk of
dehydration?

“Are you crying?”

“I’ve done something stupid.”

“What?”

“I have to tell you something, but when I do, I want you to
remember that all the while that this was happening, I thought you were
sleeping with Penny.”

“Dee, you’re scaring me now.”

“Last night, I ... I ... I had sex.”

“What?”

“I had sex with someone.”

“You cheated on me?”

“No! No, I didn’t cheat on you! We’ve broken up, remember?” I
cried, imitating his earlier words.

He sprang up, knocking the coffee table with his big feet
and sending a shower of Quality Street raining onto the floor like a shimmering
euphemism for our marriage. He stormed to the other side of the room and stood,
arms folded, glaring at me. “I don’t believe this!”

“I’m sorry.” I wanted to hug him and make it all right, but
his usually beige skin was red with rage.

“You whore!”

“That’s a little strong.”

“We’re still married!”

“I thought you were with Penny.”

“Well I wasn’t, was I?”

“No,” I said, softly. Then I remembered something else, “You
took your dressing gown!”

“Yes! Because it’s cold at Barry’s. It’s March!”

How could I have been so stupid? How could I have broken our
bond of trust on the strength of an assumption. Here I was, playing detective,
helping to solve fatal crimes, yet I couldn’t correctly interpret a phone call.

The colour was beginning to return to Gareth’s cheeks but
then his eyebrows plummeted into his nose. “Who did you sleep with?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes!”

“It doesn’t really.”

“It was Rafe Maddocks, wasn’t it?”

“Give me
some
credit!”

“Well then, who?”

“Biff.”

“Biff?” He looked puzzled for a few moments. Then his eyes started
to relax and he stopped glaring at me. Was the identity of the mystery sausage-stuffer
somehow good news?

That was when I remembered that Gareth thought Biff was
dead. He clearly thought that I was still stoned.
Oh no!
Now I was going
to have to disappoint him a second time!

It’s bad enough having to tell your husband that you’ve
slept with somebody else, but it’s even harder when you then have to tell him
that your bed partner is alive.

“Biff isn’t dead anymore!”

“Well, I should hope not!” laughed Gareth. He came back over
to the sofa and sat down next to me. He picked up an orange creme from the
floor and passed it to me. I declined. Even though I really fancied some sugary
goodness, it seems like a social faux pas to accept chocolate from a man whose
heart you are about to break for a second time.

“No, I mean
really
. This is real. I’m not delusional.”
I wondered how I could prove to Gareth that I was sober. For some reason I
decided that patting my head and rubbing my stomach was a good demonstration.

“What are you doing?”

“Could I do this if I was stoned?”

“Probably,” he said, as he watched me mess up the trick.

“Look, I’m not stoned. Biff really is alive. Well, he’s not
called Biff in real life, he’s an actor called Ricky. I couldn’t believe it at
first either, but I’ve seen him with my own eyes.”

Gareth’s jaw slowly dropped as the news sank in. He shook
his head slowly from side to side, as though denial would protect him.

“He’s in a film by the production team that are making
Montgomery’s film, that’s how I found him.”

“This is
big,
Dee.”

“I know! It sheds a whole new light on the entire mystery.
For a start, we can’t trust
any
of the writers.”

“I meant for our marriage!”

“Oh,” I muttered, “right.”

We were silent for some time. I looked at the floor, my nose
began to drip. Those tears are troublesome things. I grabbed a tissue and blew
my nose, wishing that the overwhelming sense of shame could also be deposited
on a tissue and thrown away.

Was love really such a fragile thing that one stupid night
could extinguish it? I still loved Gareth. In fact, a few minutes of bumping uglies
with somebody else had shown me just how much I cared about him.

“I still love you.”

“It’s a bit late for that, isn’t it?”

“It doesn’t have to be.”

“You’ve slept with someone else.”

“Well, you’ve slept with someone else.”

“No I haven’t.”

“Yes, Anne.”

“That was before we got together!”

“Even so, we moved past it.”

“Dee, that’s not the same thing at all.”

“If you knew how soulless the sex was, how lacking in
passion ...”

“Shut the fuck up!” he yelled. It was so unusual for Gareth
to lose his temper that I shrank away from him in shock. “Sorry,” he said
quickly, gently raising his hand to offer a comforting arm pat, but thinking
better of it. He said, “I didn’t mean to ... I just don’t want to
hear about ... how it went down.”

“Oh, I didn’t go down.”

“Dee!” he cried, blocking his ears with his fists. “Hang on,
you
didn’t
?”

“No!” I said, finally saying something I could be proud of. “And
I didn’t feel anything either. It was just revenge — pointless revenge.”

“For what? I didn’t do anything!”

“I know that
now
.”

“Is this what will happen every time I go to a pie-eating
contest or let somebody else use my phone?”

“No, of course not!”

There was more silence. Gareth got up again and paced
angrily around the room. Then he delivered five words that shattered my
insides: “We should get a divorce.”

My body felt like an empty case, with the fragmented mosaics
of my internal organs heaped where my stomach used to be. “Don’t say that!”

“How could you do this to me, Dee?” His eyes were red and sore.

“We can work this out.”

“I don’t think we can.”

He was quiet again, but he kept pacing — big, angry steps.
The carpet became the unwitting third victim.

I’d messed everything up. Gareth was the love of my life and
now, thanks to a stupid, foolish mistake, he couldn’t even look at me.

Finally, he spoke. “What kind of guy pretends to be dead?”

“He was in serious debt!” I said, defending him more than I
meant to. “I mean, yeah, what a prick. Dawn and Montgomery paid him. They paid
him ten thousand pounds.”

“
What?
”

“And get this — after I’d gone, they told the others the
truth. Annabel, Rafe and Danger knew that Biff wasn’t really dead. They’ve known
for weeks!”

“Seriously?”

“Yes!”

“Biff could be lying. I don’t trust the guy.”

“Nope, he’s definitely alive. He’s got a pulse!”

“Dee! I don’t want to know!”

“Can you just stop sniping at me for one moment? We may be
able to save two lives if we can figure this out.”

“Like I care!” he yelled.

“Gareth,” I said softly, “you do care.”

He thought about it for a moment and I could almost hear the
cogs turning in his brain. Some minds are so inquisitive that nothing can stop
them whirring. “So, if we are to believe what Biff said, Dawn and Montgomery
hired him to pretend to die, and the others knew about it?”

“Not at first, they found out after I left.”

“After you left?” he repeated, sounding as though something
was falling into place.

“Why’s that significant?”

“They told only the people who stayed!” he said, getting
more excited. “They told only the people who agreed to cover up his ‘death’!”