Secret Story (23 page)

“Pretty much the kind of day I’d like.” There was her chance, but she flinched from taking it, not least because he was staring at her comment as if he couldn’t be bothered to grimace. “Except I haven’t made any dinner,” she said.

That stopped him with one foot on the landing. “It doesn’t matter,” he grumbled and made for his room.

“We don’t want you ill. Shall we get a Chinese?”

“I haven’t time to go for it.”

“I can go.” All at once she was anxious to be out of the house, but lingered to ask “Is there anything you’d particularly like?”

“Yes,” he said and poked his head out of his room. “Being left alone.”

“I’ll get your favourites, shall I,” she promised and hastened to put the front door between her and her son.

She mustn’t feel demeaned by his brusqueness. Nothing was more important than his success. She hurried downhill to the Chinese takeaway on the main road. By now he must be reading the completion of his tale about Mish Mash. As Kathy ordered the dishes he liked—prawn crackers, chicken with water chestnuts, sweet and sour king prawns, chicken curry—she grew so dry-mouthed at the thought of learning his verdict that she hardly recognised her own voice. Might he be deleting all her work at that very moment? Surely he liked her writing too much to do that, unless he was enraged by her interference. She would have to bear whatever decision he made, but the extra heat of the tiled room didn’t help her prepare for it, nor did the incessant incomprehensible chatter in the open kitchen. Far too eventually, after several other customers had carried off fish and chips, her order arrived. She grabbed the plastic bag of metal containers, which bumped and scraped against her no matter how she held the flimsy handles, and sent herself uphill.

Silence met her as she opened the front door. She was tempted to ease it shut, but dealt it a moderate slam. When this didn’t earn any audible reaction she called “I’m back.”

The sound Dudley made was less than a word and certainly less than welcoming. Kathy retreated to the kitchen, where she entrusted the containers of food to the oven and set the table for two. The prawn crackers came in a bag, which she emptied into a dish. She tried eating one, but it squeaked like polystyrene between her
teeth and left her mouth still drier. Having done her utmost not to mind being left alone with her imagination, she ventured to the foot of the stairs and cleared her desiccated throat. “Is there anything you’d like me to be doing?” she called.

“Haven’t you done enough?” She heard him say that even though he hadn’t spoken. He must surely have heard her, which meant he would rather not speak to her, and that was worse than any retort he could make. She was drawing an effortful breath that might have turned into a plea when he said just audibly “I’m nearly finished.”

She took refuge in the kitchen, where she used an oven glove to transfer the containers to laminated table-mats printed with various sizes of rainbow. As she deposited the last container and snatched her hands clear of the heat that was cutting through the padded glove she heard Dudley emerge from his room. Each of his unhurried if not deliberately ominous paces down the stairs seemed to add weight to a bar that was stiffening her shoulders and pressing on her inflamed neck. She had to turn her entire body to discover that he was withholding all expression from his face. “How hungry have you ended up?” she almost couldn’t ask.

“I don’t know yet. Why don’t you stop going on about it?”

“I will,” she said with the barest hint of rebuke. “I’ll let you serve yourself for a change.”

She watched him load his plate with rice and dump tablespoonsful of the various courses on carefully separated quadrants of it. She had to derive some comfort from his taking so much. Once he’d swallowed a forkful of prawns she said “How is it?”

“Same as last time.”

“That can’t be bad, can it?” When he just about shook his preoccupied head she took a few spoonfuls. “I’d say that was fine,” she said, having lingered over tasting each item, and then she seemed to have no option but to ask “How’s anything else?”

“I can fix it.”

“That’s the main thing, isn’t it? I’m glad.”

“So you’re glad.”

“Seriously, I am. Whatever you have to do is fine as far as I’m concerned.”

“I’ll remember you said that,” Dudley said, but looked not quite sure of her.

“You should whenever you need to. This isn’t about me, it’s about you.”

“I never thought it wasn’t.”

She would have appreciated any praise he cared to dole out, but he must be too preoccupied with his own work. “You’ll have more time to get on with whatever you’re planning, won’t you?” she said.

Lines like the marks of wires dug into his forehead and made her wince. “Who says?” he demanded, dropping his knife and fork on his plate with a single shrill clank. “Who’ve you been talking to?”

“Only you, Dudley. Don’t finish yet.”

“Somebody from work, was it? Did one of them call?”

“Why would—” Kathy began and then saw he needn’t be referring to the job centre. “They haven’t put off publishing you again, have they? They wouldn’t dare.”

“That’s right, they wouldn’t. They better hadn’t.”

“I haven’t made it harder for you to write.” When he merely stared at her she had to ask “Have I?”

“You will if you keep going on. I’m trying to think. I’ve only just read the bloody thing.”

“Is it so awful?”

“Probably not awful. I can’t tell yet. I don’t know how much of me is in it.”

“As much as you want there to be. I promise I won’t be upset.”

“Why should you be?” His eyes had narrowed as though to trap whatever he was feeling. “What’s it got to do with you?”

“I thought it might have a little. No more than you think it deserves to have.”

“Look, Vincent is enough to deal with without you. It’s meant to be our script. Mine and his.”

By no means for the first time that day Kathy felt as if an assumption had been wrenched from beneath her. “You’re talking about the film.”

“He emailed me what he’s written and I’ve just read it. He says it may change once we’ve got our cast.”

“Are they allowed to change things? They’re your characters, after all.”

“They aren’t all mine at the moment. Mr Killogram will be, that’s for sure.” Dudley seemed as impatient with her as with the situation. “He wants me at the casting sessions,” he said. “He won’t be using anyone I don’t believe in.”

Kathy opened her mouth and considered hushing it with a random forkful, but couldn’t even feign an appetite until she learned “What’s happening about the story you were trying to write this morning?”

“I’m not any more.”

Despite the risk of aggravating his impatience she said “What’s going to become of it, then?”

“Nothing. It’s no good for publishing or putting in the film. It was just in the way. I’ve figured out how to write what I’ve got to write.”

Kathy saw that all the emotions she’d suffered since leaving his room had both exhausted her and wasted her time. “Am I allowed to ask how?” she said.

“By being a writer. I thought you thought that’s what I am.”

“You know I do. You know you are.” Being emptied of her accumulated feelings had left room for hunger, but as she lifted her fork she said “And you’re going to be filmed. It’s exciting, isn’t it?”

“Not as much as some things.”

“Who’d have thought you’d be meeting film stars? And they’ll be meeting a star as well,” she was quick to add. “If it’s a workday I can always call the office and tell them you’re sick.”

“You won’t have to. Mrs Wimbourne is giving me time off. I’ve let her know what’s most important.”

“That’s better still. We don’t need people thinking you’re unhealthy when you aren’t.” Deep down she felt she might almost have wished sickness on him that morning by proposing the excuse. At least he was making up for it now, and she was happy to regain her appetite in sympathy with his. She wondered if the reason behind it could be that he’d met a girl he cared for, but she mustn’t risk putting him off by questioning him. She had to let him tell her in his own time, however frustrating that might become—indeed, already was. “We’re two of the healthiest people I know,” she declared and stopped herself from saying more with a forkful so tasty it did away with any need to think.

Trying to plan was useless, Dudley told himself. It simply made the inside of his skull feel scraped bare of thoughts. Life would come to him as always, and he only had to lie in wait for it. Once he’d met the man who would play him in the film, he would be able to think of dialogue that was worthy of his character. He had to let working with Vincent ease some of the pressure on him. If Vincent thought of any tricks sufficiently clever for Mr Killogram to perform, Dudley mustn’t resent it just because they wouldn’t be his. Nevertheless waiting frustrated him so much that he couldn’t stop pacing the station platform as if he was bearing the empty relentlessly sunlit receptacle of his skull up and down in the hope that inspiration might stray into it. He hadn’t caught a solitary notion by the time the train from West Kirby pulled into Birkenhead North.

It was crowded with pensioners travelling on passes. With his
back to the engine he had the impression that a scrap of the world was being paraded past him for his approval. He imagined rolling someone down the grassy banks into the path of a train, but who? His gaze ranged over pallid pouchy faces, some of which appeared to be in the process of leaving their gender behind—he had to look twice to be certain that one balding figure was female—and then his attention was drawn to the far end of the carriage as if the banks racing by on both sides had snatched it with them. Watching him from the farthest seat was Patricia Martingale.

As their eyes met she replaced with a smile whatever expression she’d worn. The train was slowing in anticipation of Birkenhead Park. When an unsteady couple in the middle of the carriage rose to their feet, she pointed to the vacated seats. Lurching down the train to join her felt like one of those scenes in films his mother liked where characters ran into each other’s arms, except that this made him grin even wider. He regained control of his mouth as he sat opposite her and objected “You never said you lived over here.”

“Maybe we should exchange a few secrets if I can write about yours.”

She wouldn’t be writing once she learned his. He felt a little wistful at the possibility of never reading how she would have rounded off her appreciation of him. He was silent while the train approached Conway Park, where Mrs Wimbourne could no longer make him appear to be reduced to her level. Patricia leaned forward into the spotlight of the sun to ask “Any sign of a story yet?”

He tried not to grin at the way the sight answered the question. “Working on one,” he said.

“Any chance of tomorrow or earlier? If we don’t have it by then we’ll need to save it for the next issue.”

“This is the next issue.”

“The one after that, I mean. Maybe the longer we keep people waiting the more excited they’ll get about you.”

The light receded behind her as the tunnel drew over him. His mind was feeling scraped again, and his question came out harsh. “Have you finished writing about me yet?”

“Pretty much.”

“When am I going to see it?”

A copy of her tribute would prove that he was the last person who could have wanted to harm her, and he stared at her until she said “I’ll do a last little bit of work on it and then perhaps I can give you a peek.”

The roar of the tunnel through the open window silenced her. She glanced at him only occasionally as the train sped to Hamilton Square and under the river to Liverpool. He didn’t mind how closely she observed him; all she would be seeing was the famous writer. She left the train ahead of him at James Street and preceded him into an uninspiring lift, no more than a grey metal cell so cramped that it almost pressed her against him. It raised them to a corridor too short to be useful, out of sight of the ticket collector but not of the escalator from the platform. A second lift was several times the size of the first but offered even less, given the proximity of the staff. In any case, the station setting would bring him too close to repeating himself.

At the bottom of James Street three lanes of traffic raced along either side of the dock road. It occurred to him that if you were holding a girl’s hand you could fling her in front of a car or better still a lorry, but it would have to be late at night with limited visibility, and she would need to be more at ease with him. The Albert Dock was useless—cars, tourists, shoppers, guards on patrol—but beyond the glass doors to which Patricia had the combination, the stony corridor and walled-in stairs lit by luminous white bricks seemed promising: suppose somebody unknown followed her in? Then he noticed the dead eye of a security lens up in a corner, and only just refrained from grimacing at it as he followed her to the office of the
Mersey Mouth
.

Six men of about his age were seated on chubby leather sofas in the reception area, between a table low enough to kneel at and a brick wall full of Tom Burke’s misty views of Merseyside. If they were the actors, none of them much resembled Dudley. He attempted to decide whether that was to the good as the scientifically tanned girl behind the desk gave him a generalised smile. Patricia led him through the solitary right-hand door of an inner corridor, into a long room occupied only by Vincent. A line of chairs huddled against the conference table that had been pushed to the side of the room overlooking the river, leaving three chairs with their backs to the wall at the far end. “Did you check the hopefuls?” Vincent said in not too low a voice. “Any first impressions?”

“They don’t look like Mr Killogram. They don’t look like anyone.”

“He’s meant to be somebody nobody notices.”

“I thought they were meant to be stars. I’ve never seen any of them. What have they been in?”

“Plays more than film work, some of them. Commercials, some have, or local soaps. They’re all good, that’s the main thing.” When Dudley met that with a blank stare, Vincent shook his head vigorously enough to set his round face quivering and almost to dislodge his glasses. “We’d have to spend our entire budget and then some on a major star,” he said. “This is Merseyside, not Hollywood.”