Secret Story (22 page)

She was shorter and wider than she had sounded on the phone. Between her skin and her abbreviated auburn hair he
couldn’t tell which had been modified to tone in with the other, especially when her reddish shorts and singlet confused the issue. A tall glass of lemonade or water was fizzing in her hand. He remembered not to recognise her aloud or to speak until he was close enough to avoid raising his voice. “Is Eamonn in?” he amused himself by enquiring as he opened the hot unpainted wooden gate.

“I’m afraid not.” She gave Dudley a look with which she might have greeted an unwelcome child. “Should I know you?” she said.

“That’d be up to him, would it? I’m an old friend.”

“So old that you’ve lost touch, you mean.”

“We may have for a bit. Why?”

“Otherwise you’d know he’s at work. Shouldn’t you be?”

“I am,” Dudley said, and took equal delight in adding “Just mixing business with pleasure.”

By now he had a foot in the porch and was close enough to hear the nervous fizz of her drink. Anyone observing the conversation would see a figure in a grey suit, a visitor so nondescript as to be invisible. “What business?” she said.

“Research.”

“None for you here, I’m afraid. I never answer questionnaires.”

“Not that kind of research. You won’t have to do anything.”

That wasn’t entirely true, and for a distracted moment he thought her stare had identified the fallacy until she said “You are, aren’t you. You’re who I thought you were.”

It didn’t matter what she thought, because she didn’t, and very soon would matter even less. “Who’s that?” he nevertheless said.

He had to grin for as long as she glanced down the bright fawn hall, a gesture implying that she thought he meant someone who’d crept up behind her. “The writer,” she said as she
faced him again. “You got back in touch with him the other week and now you’re in the paper. Dudley Swift, isn’t it?”

“That’s me.” Holding her gaze with his made Dudley even more conscious of the doorstep against which her ankles weren’t quite resting. One good shove and she would sprawl on the mushroom carpet while he slammed the door after them both, but he couldn’t forego asking “What’s Eamonn told you about me?”

“I haven’t time to go into it,” Eamonn’s wife said. “Ask the girl you sent to interview him. He said all he had to say to her.”

“I didn’t send her,” Dudley objected.

“Your people did, didn’t they? The ones that are publishing you and putting money into your film,” she said and gave a frowning blink. “I hope you aren’t researching that round here. I don’t want my children thinking your sort of thing happens where they live.”

The sounds of children were more distant. The car next to the porch emitted a single metallic tick like the final stroke of a pendulum. “It can anywhere,” he said.

“Not in my street. Nowhere near here if you don’t want trouble from a lot of people who know how to make themselves heard. Now I’m afraid you must excuse me,” she said and turned to step into the house.

He could still hear the hiss of her drink, a brittle sound like a promise that the glass would break. The edge and, he hoped, some additional fragments would cut her throat open when she fell on the glass. He’d lost count of the number of throats he’d seen slashed or mangled in films, but he was sure that the real thing would be different and worth witnessing—worth at least a paragraph, possibly more. “Can I leave Eamonn a message?” he said and advanced into the porch.

“I suppose so,” she said, barely in his direction. “What is it, then?”

It was about to be her, and a pity that it would go unrecognised as such. “Have you got something I can scribble it down on?” he said.

“Haven’t you? I thought you were meant to be a writer.”

She succeeded in conveying both impatience and reluctance as she stumped to a bow-legged table next to the thickly padded stairs and picked up a note-pad from beside a modern antique phone. “I’ll close this, shall I?” said Dudley and shut himself into the house.

At the muted thud of the door she swung around, but whatever she did now was too late. She still had the note-pad in her hand. As Dudley strode at her he glimpsed his decisive progress in a mirror to his right and, more importantly, how there was nobody in the street to notice him. In a moment he was out of range of any mirror and within arms’ length of Eamonn’s wife. “Here’s your writing material,” she said, apparently as her notion of a joke.

Indeed she was. Dudley was beguiled by the insight and by realising that he was acting out the character Vincent thought he’d created for him. He was less inclined to resent the presumption this involved since the character had helped him slip into Eamonn’s house. He had only to sidle by her as though he intended to rest the pad on the table, and then he would be at her back. His stomach felt exquisitely tight, his mouth was deliciously dry. He held out his left hand and took a pace past the end of the stairs just as she stood her glass on the table so as to offer him a pencil.

He almost clutched the glass and thrust it into her hand. Barely in time he remembered not to touch it with his fingertips. He reached for it with the pad in his hand and took hold of the glass through the paper. “Here you are,” he said and felt as if he was proposing an ironic final toast to her.

As she accepted the glass a blink seemed to spread down her small pouchy face, twitching her snub nose at the same time as
her permanently pouting mouth. She had noticed how he was keeping his prints off the glass, which simply made her fate still more inevitable. In less than a breath he was past her and dropping the pad on the table. She turned her head towards the sound, and his left hand sailed up beyond her vision to grab the back of her neck. He hadn’t caught her when the door at the far end of the hall sprang open like a trap, releasing the no longer muffled sound of children in a garden and revealing a woman at least as squat as Eamonn’s wife in a dress that resembled a cartoon of a flower-bed. “Julia, would you like me to—” she called before lowering her voice. “Oh, I didn’t realise you had company.”

“I won’t have in a minute. Don’t go away, Sue. Mr Swift is almost on his way.”

“Don’t be on my account,” the woman said with a smile that appeared ready to be secretive. “What were you doing just then?”

“Finding Mr Swift the tools of his trade.”

“Not you, your friend. He looked as if he was going to give you a massage if you want me to leave you to that.”

“I most emphatically don’t,” Eamonn’s wife said and swung to confront Dudley. “What’s she talking about, may I ask?”

He thought of making them his first double act, but the newcomer was carrying no glass, and what would he have to do about the children? Dealing with them would take longer than was safe, especially since he was running out of ideas. The situation had grown so intensely frustrating that he was scarcely able to manufacture an answer or pronounce it. “I was just after the pencil,” he mumbled.

“Is that what you call it?” the flowered woman said as a version of innocence widened her eyes. “I’d have said he was after you, Julia.”

“Was it more of your research, Mr Swift? Trying to find out if a woman would spot someone like you skulking behind her. Well, I did.”

“Heavens, why would he be interested in that?”

“Mr Swift fancies himself as a bit of a storyteller. Not our kind, though. Nasty stories from what Eamonn says.”

“Should I have heard of you, Mr Swift? Have you had anything published?”

“It isn’t Swift, it’s Smith. Smith. Smith. Smith. Smith.” Each parched repetition, emphasised by the fists he shook, sent him farther backwards, away from the women and the children’s laughter. “Dudley Smith,” he said louder still. “Some people don’t want me to be known, but I am.”

“He’s certainly got the temperament, hasn’t he, Julia? Let’s hope he has the talent to go with it.”

“I’ve no intention of finding out. Won’t you be writing after all?”

Even when he grasped that she was asking him Dudley was inclined to continue his retreat, but suppose she told Eamonn that he’d tricked his way into the house? His life was more than complicated enough just now. He marched to the table and scribbled
Sorry missed you. Be in touch
. He was signing the note when Eamonn’s wife craned to read it. “Hardly worth the paper, was it?” she said. “Why, they aren’t even sentences.”

She would never know how much the presence of her friend was protecting her. “You ought to save it,” he said. “You might be able to sell it for a lot of money someday not too far off.”

The women covered their mouths as if they thought not quite hiding their mirth was civil. They might as well have been practising ventriloquism, for the unseen children immediately burst out laughing. “I thought—” Dudley was provoked to blurt before he succeeded in controlling himself. “Aren’t those children meant to be at school?”

“Only in the morning,” Sue told him. “They’re too little yet for all day.”

Eamonn’s wife hadn’t finished staring hard at Dudley by the time she spoke. “Did you phone me this morning?”

“Me?” Dudley said and, too late, simply “No.”

Her stare wasn’t prepared to relent. “You didn’t pretend to be a salesman.”

“Why would I want to do that?”

“That’s what I’m wondering. Did you? Why?”

The gap between the questions was so tiny that he couldn’t be bothered to dissemble any further. “See if you can figure it out for yourself,” he said.

“Research.” In case the contempt with which she filled the word was insufficient she added “Playing at being a criminal, in other words, like the way you held that glass. I think Eamonn’s right, you’re really rather sick.”

With an effort Dudley managed to restrict his answer to words and a grin that stung almost as much as his eyes did. “You bet I am, and if this is how you have to live if you aren’t, I’m glad.”

“Well, I won’t be reading any of his books,” he heard Sue promise as he slammed the door behind him.

Emerging into open sunlight felt like a lucky escape. Suppose Eamonn had somehow connected his wife’s fate with Dudley—with the way she must have made Eamonn ashamed to own up to friendship? Dudley had to find someone who could never be suspected of giving him a motive to use them for research, and soon. Surely circumstance would bring him someone. It always had.

The problem was that he couldn’t wait for a subject to present herself. He hurried to the station, no longer troubling to hide his face from the clerk in the ticket office. While he paced the deserted platform he heard childish laughter above the opposite side of the cutting, and had to keep telling himself that neither the children nor the sky nor any god it concealed could be mocking him. Eventually a train arrived, neglecting to position any of its
doors in front of him. As he stamped on board, his mobile rang. “Dudley Smith,” he said, less a greeting than a challenge.

“Dudley. Don’t let me interrupt if you’re busy,” Walt said, but also “Where are you?”

“Trying to research.”

“I’ll leave you to get on with it. We just wanted you to know that Vincent has emailed you his script so far.”

“All right,” Dudley said with no sense of how ironic he was being.

“And Patricia would like to sit in on your casting session. We thought we could run a journal of the whole production.”

“Patricia.”

“Patricia Martingale. Our journalist who wants to do her best for you.”

“Think so?” said Dudley. “That’s good. I’m going underground now.”

“We’ll be in touch, but I can tell Patricia she’s okay, yes?”

“She definitely is. Thanks for calling.” Dudley clasped the mobile between his hot palms while he shook hands with himself. “Patricia,” he mouthed, and almost experienced a pang of regret as the train sped into the secretive dark.

Less than half an hour before Dudley was due home from work, Kathy began to dread his arrival. How could she have invaded his room when she knew there was nothing he valued more than his privacy? Suppose he never trusted her or spoke to her again? Suppose he moved out of the house? The idea brought others with it that made her unhappy with herself. Wasn’t she indulging his untidiness to ensure he had no reason to leave? Did she secretly yearn for him not to grow up, or was she using him as her excuse not to find another partner? Perhaps she was as private as he liked to be, in which case her example was to blame. He wouldn’t always have her to look after him, and what would happen to him once he was alone? Should she invite Patricia Martingale for dinner again? She wouldn’t mind knowing the girl better or encouraging Dudley’s friendship with her, but she mustn’t let that distract her
now. She had to decide what to do about the story she’d finished for him.

She was in the kitchen, and emptily surrounded by evidence that she hadn’t yet thought about dinner. Shouldn’t she tell him as soon as she saw him how she’d helped? The prospect turned her mouth dry. She could postpone his discovery until she found the best moment to prepare him, she thought suddenly: she had only to rename the file that contained her additions and restore his work untouched under the original name. She hurried out of the kitchen and was almost at the stairs when she heard the clank of the latch of the garden gate.

She dashed to the stairs and halted halfway up as footsteps that she did her best not to recognise arrived at the front door. If they were Dudley’s, could she sprint to his room and somehow keep him downstairs while she used his computer? If she claimed to be naked, might that deter him? She’d seized the banister to impel herself upwards when a key scraped at the lock. Before she could reach the landing, Dudley strode into the house.

Kathy strove to tone down her surprised expression as she turned to him. “You’re early,” she no more than remarked.

“There’s work I need to be doing,” he said and came fast up the stairs.

She didn’t quite block his path, but her hand began to, though only so that she could blurt “How was your day?”

He stared at the hand until it withdrew enough to let him sidle quickly by. “Same as usual. What do you expect?” he said, already with his back to her. “Wasn’t yours?”