The Fantastic Book of Everybody's Secrets (16 page)

I paid for my tea and hurried to the Halifax before I lost what little nerve I'd mustered. When I reached the counter, I asked for a cheque for two thousand pounds to be made out to the RSPCA. I was astonished when the man behind the window said, ‘RSPCA? Not time to book the holiday, then? Or is it already paid for?'

‘Pardon?'

‘I'm Terry, remember? Ron and I play bridge together.'

‘Oh…of course.' My fingers gripped the desk. I would have to tell Ron straight away; otherwise this man might. I would have to tell him straight away, because my nerves would not permit me to keep it from him.

‘Ron showed me the brochure. I've never stayed in a
five-star
hotel.' His voice was full of admiration.

‘Neither have we.'

‘Ron says it's got three swimming pools.'

‘Yes. I'm actually in, er…' I looked at my watch. I couldn't bear to hear the details of the treat we would have to forego. Furious with myself for the ridiculous bargain I'd made and now had to honour, I allowed a voice in my head to say,
It's
not worth it
. Then I feared I would be struck down. What sort of mother would have such a thought, even fleetingly? I didn't mean it, of course, but Terry's musings on the Grand Hôtel des Iles Borromes forced me to remember all those weeks in cold caravans, on sagging mattresses.

I was probably rude to him in my desperation to escape. Once I had the cheque, I went straight to the phone box outside the library and rang directory enquiries. Another call and I had the RSPCA's address. Before I had time to change my mind, I marched to the post office like a robot, where I bought an envelope and a stamp and did what was necessary.

Once the two thousand pounds was in the post-box and out of reach for ever, I felt the full horror of what I had done, what I could so easily have avoided doing. Only I would ever have known. I had told nobody about the deal, not one single other living soul, and the chances were my breach of it would have made no difference whatsoever. I believed in the notion of tempting fate enough to sacrifice our holiday, but not enough to be able to take even a grain of comfort from the idea that, having sacrificed it, I would be rewarded.

I staggered outside, weeping. People stared at me, but I found it hard to believe they saw anything but a shadow. Now everyone else existed in the realm of colour and sound and I was grey, silent, unreal; misery had made me invisible. I walked back to the Halifax and pressed my face against the window, wetting the glass. Beside me, a woman who was using the cashpoint shifted to the right to put some distance
between herself and the distraught lunatic. She completed her transaction and hurried away.

So eager was she to flee that she forgot to take her money. Time seemed to slow, as if the world needed winding up. I stared at the wavy edges of the notes poking out of the slot. Again, I had the sense that I was being shown something that was there for me alone. How could I be so superstitious when I was known for my rationality? I was a stickler. Everybody who knew me knew that I didn't watch horror films because I couldn't believe in ghosts or monsters, not even for two hours.

I reached out and grabbed the cash, noticing from the thickness of the bundle that it was quite a lot – certainly more than ten or twenty pounds. The woman was still visible. I watched her rush down the high street. She stopped when she got to Dandylion, a designer clothes shop for children. The incorrect spelling irritated me. I could have followed her and given her the money. Instead, I walked in the opposite
direction
, towards my car.

The sign was still there. It still said ‘No return within 2 hours.' I looked at my watch. It was eleven ten. Fifty minutes to go. I stopped before I got too close and counted the notes in my hand. A hundred and fifty pounds. Disappointment wrapped itself around me. This would make no difference to anything. And I had done a terrible thing. I had deliberately stolen money and it wasn't as if I were starving. I had robbed a young woman I knew nothing about for the sake of a luxurious holiday in the Italian lakes. Did this make me as bad a person as Toby Rollinson? I nearly vomited on the pavement.

But there was still time. The difference between a good person and a bad one, I used to tell my pupils, is that a good person tries to make amends. I crossed the road and ran towards the police station. I needed to get there quickly, in case the woman from the cashpoint saw me. I didn't want to
be caught by her before I'd done the right thing. How would I be able to prove my good intentions?

I had never been inside a police station before. The
reception
area was bland, beige. The woman behind the desk was not wearing a uniform. If it hadn't been for the police logo on the posters pinned up behind her, I would not have been able to guess where I was.

‘I've stolen this,' I said, dropping the money on the counter, not wanting to touch it. ‘From a woman, at the Halifax
cashpoint
down the road. I can describe her in detail. You'll be able to get it back to her, won't you?'

‘What do you mean, you stole it?'

‘She walked away without taking it. She was in a hurry. I picked it up…'

‘When was this?'

‘Just now. Five minutes ago.'

‘But…you said you
stole
the money. When, actually, you brought it straight here.'

‘No. I stole it. I was going to keep it. I could have run after her, I… It was only later I changed my mind and decided to hand it in. I'm a thief.'

The woman sighed. I might have been crying. ‘Not much later. Five minutes. Look, you've handed it in now, so there's no harm done.'

‘There is! Theft is still theft, whatever the thief does afterwards. I should be charged just the same as any mugger would be.'

‘Do you want to be charged?' She gave me a quizzical look.

‘I…yes.'

‘Why?' She leaned her elbows on the desk, slumped a little: plenty of time to listen to the confessions of a whimpering middle-aged oddball.

‘I don't want to tempt fate by getting away with anything.' I was definitely crying by now. ‘My daughter…' I wanted my daughter to forgive me.

‘The woman was your daughter?'

‘No, no… I…' I was too distressed to speak, and missed what happened next. The scene broke down into particles. I couldn't process anything properly. I had a vague impression of another woman appearing behind the desk, of being led into a room by the first woman, of being alone for a while. A warm Styrofoam cup was placed in my hands.

Following instructions, I sipped strong, orange tea. That helped. I took deep breaths, also to order. ‘I'm listening,' the policewoman said. ‘You need to get it off your chest, whatever it is.'

‘I need to be charged with robbery.' My words were slow and tentative, as if I'd never spoken before. If I were to be sent to prison, however briefly, this woman would have to tell Ron what I had done and why. She could show him my statement. I wouldn't have to watch his face become a collage of crushed hopes when I explained that I'd thrown away our savings. And then Ron would have to tell Katie.

He hadn't tried to speak to her since the rift, not once. It was understood, assumed, that I would be the spokesperson for both of us. I was the one who dealt with words. My parents hadn't thought Ron was my intellectual equal. He was the one who did the driving. He should have forced me to get behind the wheel when I least wanted to. If he had, perhaps I wouldn't have been here now.

I would make him tell Katie, if he didn't think of it himself. ‘Your mum's in prison. Because of you. Because she loves you so much.' It might make all the difference.

‘Why did you steal the money?' asked the policewoman.

‘My husband and I are supposed to be going on holiday in the summer. We'd saved two thousand pounds. It took years. We…we haven't had a night out or bought new clothes for longer than I can remember. The holiday was more important.' I cleared my throat. ‘Anyway, today I withdrew all the money and gave it to the RSPCA.' A piercing laugh escaped from
me. My account sounded so absurd. I half expected to realise, suddenly, that I hadn't done it, that it was a hallucination.

The policewoman didn't smile. ‘Why?'

‘My daughter. She hasn't spoken to me for ten years. I tried everything, but…in the end there was nothing I could do apart from…what I did. Have you ever made a deal with fate?'

‘How do you mean?'

‘If this happens, I'll do that – that's the form they usually take.'

‘Oh. You mean like, if I get this job I really want, I'll give up smoking?' She blushed. ‘That was the only time I did it. I didn't get the job and I still smoke.'

‘Yes. Well, I vowed to myself that if Katie – that's my daughter – that if she ever got in touch, I'd…give some money to charity. At first it was only a hundred pounds. The amount went up as the months passed, then the years. I thought that the more it was, the greater the chance she'd contact me. You know, because I couldn't bear to part with such a large amount…' Discussing it for the first time made me curious: what exactly was the rationale behind pacts such as mine? I had never examined this before; it had all been intuitive, almost organic. I hadn't asked myself
why
I would give money to charity if Katie got in touch. It seemed obvious. It went without saying. ‘I suppose we make these bargains because we so fear that we won't get what we want, we feel a need to set up a consolation for ourselves.
At least I can keep my
money
.
At least I can still smoke
. Or maybe it's an attempt to bribe the gods.'

‘So your daughter got in touch, then? If you say you've already given the money away.'

‘Yes… Yes.'

‘Well, then.' She smiled, but I saw doubt in her eyes. I knew she didn't dare ask me why, then, I wasn't elated, full of joy and relief. Why was I stealing paltry sums from innocent passers-by instead of celebrating?

I couldn't tell her. To say that Katie had got in touch was a better way to finish the story. It was the right ending: Katie wrote to me, finally, we were fully reconciled, and I handed over the two thousand pounds as promised. I was ashamed to admit to this well-meaning stranger that fate had made a fool of me. After all these years, the communication I received from my daughter was an article from the local newspaper, about her husband. He had become a managing director. His company had raised a large amount of money for a children's hospice. The story was accompanied by a photograph of a smug, bloated Toby passing a cheque to an elderly woman, his arm round her shoulders.

Katie hadn't sent a note with the clipping. If she had, it would have said, ‘See how wrong you were about him?'

I knew perfectly well, and fate knew, that this was not what I had meant when I prayed for Katie to contact me. But I was a person who valued precision; I couldn't pretend that I didn't recall the terms of the deal, word for word: ‘If Katie gets in touch, I will give two thousand pounds to charity.' I inserted no sub-clause about hostile, defiant communications.

The injustice was hard to stomach: that I should lose all my money in exchange for this. I tried to believe that Toby himself might have sent the cutting, not Katie, but I couldn't know for sure. And I couldn't risk trying to cheat. Fate would not catch me looking for a loophole.

I told the policewoman none of this. I feared I might
disintegrate
completely if I made it too vivid by saying it aloud, so I drank my tea in silence and listened as she told me that I would not be charged, that I should write to the RSPCA and ask for my money back, that I should be happy.

As far as I could see, I had only one thing to be happy about: I was doing the best I could to meet the demands made of me, as I understood them. I had given away our savings; we now had only three pounds and sixty-seven pence left in our holiday fund. I had handed in the money I stole and tried
to secure a punishment for myself. I had not returned to my car within two hours. A reward for all this good behaviour might still be forthcoming.

I said thank you and goodbye to the policewoman and walked out of the building, trying and failing to feel free. I looked at my watch, saw that my time would shortly expire, and began to run. Then, because I'd sprinted too fast, I slowed down as I passed the bookmaker's and the bakery. I read the sign again. ‘Maximum stay 2 hours. No return within 2 hours.' I had done it, complied with both requirements. I hoped this had been observed by the relevant authorities. As I pressed the button on the key fob to unlock the car, it was exactly twelve noon.

T
HE CAR WAS OUTSIDE THE GARAGE.
A
LL FOUR OF THE
D
EVINES
were in it. Mark was in the driver's seat, his face pale, eyes closed. One of his hands was in his lap, the palm facing upward, the fingers slightly curled. I couldn't see his other hand. His body was exactly in the middle of the seat, as if he'd measured the distance between each of his arms and the relevant edge before assuming his position. His head completed the straight line of his body, making him the neatest of the four.

Kay, his wife, was slumped to one side with her shoulder pressed against the front passenger window, her head inclined in the direction of her husband. Her eyes were also closed. Mine took in the twist of green hosepipe on the ground behind the car. I gripped the window sill. Behind Mark and Kay were the girls. My mouth opened, but no breath came out. The girls: Anya and Celia. Anya's head drooped forward, as if too heavy for her neck. Celia's eyes were open, staring straight at me. Tight red straps held her in her toddler seat, a Y-shape against her chest. I called out, ‘John!', forgetting that he wasn't home; he was collecting Matthew. Noone answered. Something inside me speeded up.

I stumbled to the front door and threw myself against the glass – all the time seeing the girls, the red straps, the curl of green hosepipe – thinking that there might still be time, they might still only be unconscious. How long does it take to die of carbon monoxide poisoning? Why didn't I know? I pulled at the door handle, my hands slippery. Nothing happened. ‘Come
on
,' I hissed, grasping the stubborn metal with both hands as if I were trying to wring someone's neck. Then I remembered it was locked. It was always locked, even when we were in. Basic security, John said. What if the children wandered outside without us knowing?

The key. Where was it? Why wasn't it in its usual place, on top of the burglar alarm box? Where else could it be? Sweat poured out of my skin. It wasn't in the keyhole. It wasn't on the carpet. Emily. It had to be Emily.

I ran to the lounge. She was crawling across the carpet, chasing her bash'n'go UFO. ‘Emmy, what have you done with the front door key?' I forced myself to separate the words.

‘Rabbit noo,' she said. She nodded solemnly, as she always does when she is telling me something she thinks is important.

‘Yes, there's a rabbit at nursery, isn't there? Em, where's the front door key? Quickly. You've put it somewhere. Where have you put it, darling?' I must have left it in the door this morning by mistake.
Idiot
. Em was tall enough to reach up and grab it.

‘Bear noo.' More staccato nods.

‘No, there's no bear at nursery. Emily, give Mummy the front door key. Key?' My voice cracked on the last word.

Emily pointed at herself. ‘Emmy bear noo. Emmy have.' She hit her UFO with a flat palm and it jerked across the carpet, bleeping.

‘Where's the key?' I wailed. Too loud. Mistake. Em's face turned red and folded in on itself: the prelude to a screaming bout. ‘Emmy bear noo!' she shrieked back at me. ‘Want bear home!'

I stifled a howl and raced to the kitchen. The back door key was in the lock. I turned it and ran out into my garden. ‘Hello!' I shouted. ‘Help!' Outside, I was still trapped. Our garden was separated from those belonging to our neighbours by three solid fences, all too tall for me to climb over. I might have been able to do it if I'd stood on a chair, but I wasn't sure and, even if I'd succeeded, I would only have been trapped on somebody else's property.
How long, how long does it take
? The only way out of any of the gardens was to go through the attached house. All were enclosed on all sides; there was no independent access to the street. Burglars never bothered with us. We lived in a very safe neighbourhood – everyone always said so.

I ran inside, crying, back to the kitchen window. The Devines looked the same. In my panicked state, I couldn't decide whether it was too late, whether it had been too late all along, or if they still had a chance, one that was narrowing towards blackness as I crashed from one side of my house to the other like a wasp in a jar. I couldn't reach them. I had to summon somebody who could: an ambulance. The police.

I grabbed the phone and stabbed the ‘9' button three times. A patient female voice told me to calm down, and asked for basic details, which I provided: the car, the green hosepipe. As I said it, I saw it. I feared I would see it clearly for ever. Then I ran back to the kitchen, and, without looking, lowered the blind. I was panting; I couldn't stop. Emmy was still crying in the lounge.
Anya's bent head, Celia's open eyes
…I couldn't sit. I was here, at the scene. The police weren't here yet. I had to do something.

I ran back to the hall and forced myself to look more systematically for the front door key. On my hands and knees, I patted the hall carpet. Nothing. Should I try the lounge? The Devines called their lounge ‘the best lounge', even though they only had one. John and I mocked them. I shuddered. The Devines were a tragedy, not a comedy. I had misjudged
their essence, looked at them and seen something that wasn't there. This thought brought ghosts to mind, made me pat the carpet harder, until the skin on my palms stung.

As my head jerked from side to side I saw something glinting inside one of John's walking boots. The key. I felt the shock of seeing it all over my body. Only once I'd touched it did I believe it was there. Arranged around it were three pieces of fuzzy felt furniture: a sofa, a lamp and a chest of drawers.

I unlocked my front door and ran out into the drive, seeing the police car at the same time. I heard the screech of its brakes, watched the two uniformed officers, both male, run to the Devines' car faster than I'd ever seen anyone move in real life before. I stood, frozen, behind my front garden wall. Two cops. Like on television, I thought numbly, my brain on automatic pilot. One with a failed marriage behind him, who both loves and is awkward around his kids, who likes country music or jazz. One who eats, drinks and smokes too much, ignoring his doctor's advice, and has dysfunctional relationships with women who sometimes turn out to be the murderer.

The ambulance turned into our road. I saw one of the policemen put his hand out. Stop. He shook his head.
No
.
No
. I closed my eyes. It was too late.

I heard a clash of voices, car doors opening. I opened my eyes gradually, squinting at first. I couldn't see properly because the policemen were between me and the car. Then my knees nearly gave way as I saw, and heard, Mark. Upright, alive. His voice was loud and strong. Next I saw Kay, heard her laugh. I scrunched my eyes shut, and when I opened them Anya was stepping out of the car, looking bored as she usually did. I couldn't believe what I was observing. How could they even stand after all the carbon monoxide they must have inhaled? I thought, What about Celia? As if she were reading my mind, Kay Devine lifted her younger daughter out of the
car at that moment. I watched Celia wriggle and moan in her mother's grasp.

A brief conference of whispers took place between the Devines, the police and the ambulance staff. Then all heads turned towards me. I stared at my neighbours, at the
strangers
in uniform, who had begun to process solemnly towards me.

Mark and Kay wore concerned smiles like masks, masks one might put on to visit the local invalid. ‘Hello, Ruth,' said Mark.

‘But…you…'
Were dead. You were dead
.

‘We were having a nap.' Mark tried to laugh heartily. It sounded false.

‘Aaah!' Kay tilted her head to one side as she often did, indulgent and sympathetic. ‘The girls both fell asleep in the car, and…'

‘…We didn't want to wake them when we got home,' Mark took over.

‘You'll probably think we're silly, but…'

‘…Kay and I were pretty exhausted ourselves, so we thought we might as well have a little siesta in the car.'

Celia stuck her thumb in her mouth and stared impatiently at her own house as if keen to be inside it, resentful of being outside mine.

‘Right,' I said. When Emmy was a baby and Matthew was going through his wakeful-at-night phase, I had once fallen asleep on my feet in the supermarket, leaning on my trolley.

I felt horribly and visibly foolish. There had been no disaster after all. Embarrassment was all over my skin like a rash, making me hot and uncomfortable. My head was still jangling, my nerves clenched. How long would it take my body to realise that everything was all right? Because it
was
all right, however humiliated I was; the Devines were alive.

I felt angry with Mark and Kay, newly suspicious of them, though I knew this was irrational. Did it make sense to say
that you were suspicious of someone unless you suspected them of a specific thing? And what could that be, in this case? I had suspected them of one thing and one thing only – being dead in their car – and now they had proved quite adequately that they were not. That should have been the end of the matter. So why did I feel that Mark and Kay had outwitted me? Kay was wearing an identical skirt to one I owned. I decided never to buy anything from Next again.

Mark was generously telling the police officers and ambulance men that they should not resent the waste of their time, that mine was an easy mistake to make, anyone might have done so, that his family and mine were not merely
next-door
neighbours but good friends as well, that I was a writer and therefore could be expected to have a vivid imagination (I write user manuals for food processors and other kitchen equipment). Kay nodded her agreement to all of this.

‘Shall we all come in and have a cup of tea?' Mark suggested, looking past me into my hall. ‘It's quite funny, really, isn't it, when you think about it?' Anya sighed and wrinkled her nose, as if the whole matter were beneath her. I had always found Anya a little frightening, I suddenly realised. She was only nine, but that didn't stop her from exuding dismissive authority with all the complacency of a Tudor monarch.

I was beginning to feel more normal, my mind cooling down after the hot panic.

‘Milk. Milky!' Celia whined.

I wondered if it was natural that Mark and Kay weren't at all cross with me, given what I'd done, that they were being so good-humoured about it. What would Mark expect in return for his leniency? A cup of tea, to start with. ‘Now's not really a convenient time,' I said. ‘Sorry.' I needed to be alone, to compose myself. I still felt horribly embarrassed, and couldn't bear to be observed by anybody.

The police and ambulance staff looked relieved. They didn't want tea, didn't want to extend this pantomime. Perhaps they
had never before encountered an obsessive socialiser like Mark, someone who makes you feel that ending a phone call with him, a chat, an evening together, is something you need to prepare for and rehearse, otherwise you will never achieve it. Whatever the occasion, Mark always wanted it to go on and on. ‘Because he always has more to say,' said John. ‘He loves the sound of his own voice. And he's not happy. You can't tell me he's happy, a guy like that. His ho-ho-ho act's a sham. He can't stand silence, or his own company. Or his own house, come to think of it. He prefers our house! It's like a stage for him. That's what it is: he needs to be performing all the time.'

The last time the Devines were due to come round for dinner, John issued me with a warning: ‘I really mean it this time. If that guy's not gone by half eleven, I'm bringing my pyjamas down to the lounge and changing into them right in front of him. Maybe then he'll get the hint!'

Both policemen looked bored and anxious to get away – after all, crimes were no doubt being committed – and it was only this that enabled me, finally, to close my front door with Mark and Kay Devine on the optimum side of it. I couldn't have explained why, exactly, but I knew that, without the officers' presence, I would not have succeeded in fending off Mark's suggestion that I should offer refreshments to him and his family.

I shuddered and groaned in the hall for a while after they had all gone, cringing at the huge obviousness of my mistake. I wished it hadn't happened with a pointless desperation that made me feel faint. I should have listened to John last year and been more reserved, instead of rushing into a friendship with our new neighbours. John had never been keen on the Devines. Even before we knew them, he was not comfortable with them as a concept. ‘It's embarrassing,' he said. ‘There's four of us, and there's four of them. Their eldest goes to Matthew's school, their youngest goes to Emmy's nursery.
Mark leaves the house every morning in a suit, like I do. They probably get the same bloody newspaper as us. Don't invite them round for any drinks or meals! I'm not socialising with them!'

John had never liked people who reminded him of any respect in which he was not unique. He refused even to read about people like himself. I was the one who read about the domestic and romantic lives of the English professional classes; I liked the familiar, the easily recognisable. John read about driven fools with spikes sticking out of the front of their boots who were obsessed with reaching summits (but only if they were summits not previously reached by other driven fools) and who invariably ended up clinging to fraying ropes with their frost-bitten teeth, wondering which of their legs to cut off with a pocket knife and eat raw first. That's what's wrong with the Devines, I thought, as I leaned against my front door, feeling as if there was something I needed to work out: they're not familiar, but they think they are. They try to be.

I had ignored John's insane embargo, as he always expects (and secretly hopes, even as he rants) that I will, and within a few weeks of them moving in our two families were on friendly terms and saw each other socially once every couple of weeks. Mark Devine irritated John profusely by beginning too many of his sentences with the words ‘If there's
one
thing I'm good at, it's…'