Veil of Darkness (21 page)

‘You should teach that cow a lesson,’ says Greg in manly sympathy, as Trev hands over the van and drives off looking lonely.

‘The High Priestess of the Plot’ is how
Magdalene
’s agents refer to the author, and yes, Kirsty, like the nun, now has the power to make things happen. Look how meekly Dominic Coates is obeying her instructions you see how little it takes to bring these bullies to their knees.

The hippies from the hotel ‘cottage’ come over to bid her goodbye and they hand Kirsty the single key to their derelict home. ‘At least you won’t have rent to pay,’ encourages the one with the woollen hair. ‘Mind the hole in the kitchen floor if there’s kiddies around,’ he says. ‘There might have been a well underneath it, or something deep at any rate from the stench it sometimes gives off.’

Kirsty takes the key he offers without bothering to explain that she’s found a more comfortable home. She wouldn’t dream of living anywhere so unsavoury and dangerous with her kids. She will return the key to Mrs Stokes.

‘You blooming well keep that key, maid,’ says Flagherty the gardener, closing one papery lid over a watering eye. ‘That might stop the blighters being tempted to let it out again and I’m sick and tired of the riffraff that’s taken to coming down here. Seems I’m the only responsible one in this place any more.’ He kicks a soily boot against his stationary spade. ‘You could allus store things in him.’

She gets a curious pleasure from watching her literary tableau unfold from the wings, from handing over the power to Bernie and seeing Avril take her rightful place in the limelight. Trev once called her a masochist—hah! She laughed at him, where did he get that long word from? But Kirsty was forced to look it up and it sounded as if he might have been right. Depriving herself, hurting herself, lowering herself—all this is part of a need she has to find real contentment.

Kirsty likes to suffer. That’s how the vicious circle turns.

The permanent penitent.

The scourging of the guilty soul.

Sometimes, with a splintering thrill that verges on the erotic, she imagines herself as a servant in the little attic room where she now sleeps alone, a servant back in the bad old days when they were forced to get up at five and not return to bed until late. She pretends she has no bed covers and lies in bed shivering, imagining the dinners and balls going on downstairs. She will skip a meal and purposefully go to bed hungry. Sometimes she scrubs her hands with a nailbrush till the fingernails bleed, as the skivvies’ hands must have bled in the big houses of yesteryear. She sees Mrs Stokes as the wicked housekeeper who throws erring maids onto the street, where they have to sell their bodies to survive, or watch their illegitimate babies starve. Mrs Stokes is an easy target: unknowingly, yet expertly, she fulfils this role every day.

And all this dark, debasing stuff Kirsty shares with her heroine, Magdalene.

Magdalene is a masochist, too. That’s why she became a nun. But Magdalene has risen above it.

The sensitive Avril is sympathetic to Kirsty’s hurt expressions and sorrowful body language. Avril can’t do enough to help, but Bernie is not so driven. So pleased with herself is Bernie that she doesn’t give a thought to anyone else and now Dominic is back on the scene her selfish attitude is escalating.

Oh dear, dear.

And poor Kirsty has done so much for Bernie.

All her hard work is for Bernie’s good. When she cleans another lavatory Kirsty dwells on ungrateful Bernie and all the miseries heaped upon her. When Bernie makes it to the top, she will probably turn on Kirsty as Trevor turned on her before.

Bernie will probably try to cheat her out of the money completely, just as Trev used to watch her with money, and take it away when he found it.

This is the luggage Kirsty carts with her. But Magdalene says it must stop.

Kirsty visits the Happy Stay to pay Mrs Gilcrest a month in advance. At last she has managed to save it up. She once asked Bernie if Candice Love would give her a small advance, but Bernie said no as if she was talking to a stranger. ‘She doesn’t give me money. She says the advance on the book won’t be long. Sometimes Candice pays for the odd expenses, but it’s Mr Derek who’s footing this bill because he thinks I might be famous and he still wants to get his leg over.’

Avril and Ed give Kirsty a lift to the Happy Stay in Ed’s old VW.

‘I don’t want to go,’ moans Avril, over and over again. ‘I really don’t want to see them just now and I know Mother will be nasty to Ed.’

‘
Avril
,’ says Ed with admirable patience, and his red eyebrows flatten out across a broadly accepting forehead, ‘I’ve already told you, it’s no skin off my nose, whatever your Mother’s attitude is it will make no difference to us.’

‘She’ll even be rude to you, Kirsty,’ warns Avril, back to her old slouching ways, biting her nails, defeat in her eyes. ‘Mother has never approved of my friends. She’ll find something to criticize, and when she meets Bernie, God knows what she’ll say.’

Is Ed after Avril’s money as Bernie seems to think?

And does this matter if he makes Avril happy?

Her parents can’t be as bad as she says. Avril has some chip on her shoulder, probably dating back to her childhood. Now that she is independent and so much more self-confident with Ed at her side, how can her mother possibly affect her?

‘Oh,’ says Avril’s mother, emerging from the caravan with a pinny tied round her waist and a dishcloth in her hand. ‘Oh, Avril, we thought you would be alone, didn’t we, Richard?’

‘This is my mother,’ says Avril, cheeks aflame, holding Ed’s arm tightly. ‘And, Mother, this is my friend Ed.’

‘Friend?’ says her mother, her nose sharpening.

‘Well, my boyfriend actually,’ giggles Avril like a schoolgirl before the head teacher.

‘You never wrote to me about him. You never mentioned him on the phone.’

‘I wanted it to be a surprise.’

‘Well, it certainly is a surprise.’ Avril’s mother makes a show of wiping a wet hand down her pinny before holding it out to Ed. ‘Good evening, Ed. I really have to apologize, my cauliflower cheese won’t stretch to a fourth.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of intruding—’

‘I don’t want any either,’ says Avril quickly. ‘We’ve all already eaten. And this is my friend Kirsty.’

‘Quite a reception committee,’ says Avril’s mother dryly.

Driven to break the awkward silence, Avril carries on miserably, ‘Kirsty is renting one of these caravans for the winter.’

‘Oh, my dear, how ghastly for you,’ says Avril’s mother. ‘Whatever happened? Are you homeless? Come and sit down in one of our deckchairs. They’re quite comfortable really. Richard, Richard! I asked you to put the other one out… and would anyone like a drink? As you’re here, I think we can stretch.’

Between the Stotts’ caravan and its neighbour there is a gap of about twelve feet, and onto that space Avril’s mother has already stamped her presence. A folding clothes rack, neat with tea towels, hand towels and clean yellow dusters, is parked beside a hedgehog foot scraper, two flowering pot plants and two extended sunloungers complete with fringed parasols.

‘I wouldn’t say no to a beer,’ says Ed, quickly taking a seat before offering one to Avril.

‘Oh no.’ Mrs Stott’s laugh is haughty. ‘Nothing alcoholic, Edward, I’m afraid. Home-made lemonade, Avril’s favourite, or Lilt, Richard’s preferred tipple. And what do you do for living, might I ask?’

‘He is the hotel golf professional, Mother.’

‘Oh? That’s nice. And how about you, Kirsty? Do you do anything interesting?’

‘No, I’m just a chambermaid,’ Kirsty admits.

‘One of the Burleston skivvies,’ jokes Ed, siding with Avril’s mother and accepting her home-made lemonade.

‘Oh, no, it’s not like that—’

‘I’m sure,’ crows Avril’s mother, ‘poor Kirsty doesn’t need you to speak up for her, Avril.’

‘Avril is easily influenced, I’ve noticed that,’ says Ed, joking again.

‘It’s a jolly good thing you have noticed, Edward. That has always been one of Avril’s weaknesses, hasn’t it, Avril?’

‘Oh, Mother, do stop it! You’ve only just arrived. Please leave me alone.’

‘Your mother cares about you, Avril.’

‘And there’s no need for you to side with her, Ed.’

Now they are all sitting round awkwardly, three in deckchairs, including Ed, and Avril and Kirsty perched on the end of the two sunbeds.

‘Avril,’ and Ed reaches over proprietorially to take her hand, ‘when are you going to tell your parents about Bernadette’s book and all the excitement?’

Avril withdraws her hand. ‘Actually, I did want to wait—’

‘What’s this? What’s been going on, Avril? What haven’t you told us?’

‘Well, it’s all quite extraordinary,’ Ed butts in. ‘I must say, Mrs Stott, this lemonade of yours is marvellous. Avril’s little Irish friend has written a book, with the aid of Avril’s office skills, and both of them have been leading quite the high life of late.’

There is no worse way Avril’s mother could have been told about the success of her daughter, and Kirsty could slap Ed’s face. If Avril’s involvement with Ed continues, all she is doing is swapping one undermining influence for another.

‘I’ve been doing my best to help her spend all this free time usefully by trying to introduce Avril to golf, but it’s been a hard slog in between all the magazine articles, interviews and photographers. I am quite surprised, Mrs Stott, that you haven’t already seen your daughter’s picture in the
Guardian
.’

‘Stop it, Ed,’ cries the stricken Avril, sickened by Ed’s disloyal behaviour.

‘We don’t take that sort of paper,’ says Avril’s mother sniffily, ‘we prefer to stick with straightforward, sensible news. The
Daily Mail
is good enough for us, and we don’t bother with music and the arts, do we, Richard?’ Mrs Stott turns angrily on Avril. ‘I hope Ed is not suggesting that you’ve given up your job, that good job I helped you to get, all those important qualifications you worked for?’

‘Avril’s young, Mrs Stott,’ says the wretched Ed, to Kirsty’s absolute fury, sitting, amused, on his deckchair with his chubby legs spread, resting his lemonade on his paunch, ‘don’t be too hard on her. When you’re young it’s easy to be tempted by ideas of quick fame and fortune, and some of the people surrounding Avril and her dramatic little friend Bernie are really not the sort I think you and your husband would approve of.’

‘I have obviously come down here just in time,’ says Avril’s mother with steel in her voice. ‘I had my misgivings, Richard knows that. Thank goodness you were here, Edward. And what sort of part have you been playing in this vulgar little fiasco?’ She turns to face Kirsty.

‘Kirsty has nothing to do with it,’ cries Avril, puffing up, close to tears, ‘and it’s nothing like what Ed’s just told you. Listen!’ she almost shrieks, summing up the dregs of her courage, ‘let me explain—’

‘Oh, Avril, don’t waste your time,’ snaps Kirsty, mortified to see her friend brought down so unjustly and with the aid of the one person she has just learned to trust. ‘You have no need to have anything more to do with these paganized people. Remember Magdalene! Would she have put up with this? Ed is a brown-nosing, big-headed idolater who only wants you for your money.’

‘Who do you think you are, young lady?’

‘Be silent, you unholy creature. Just remember this when you’re old and alone and Avril is living it up on the other side of the world. The pen is mightier than the sword and if I had a pen in my hand now I would poke out your devilish eyes.’

How did she come to make such a speech? Where did those words come from? As Kirsty makes her way to reception to see Mrs Gilcrest she is overcome by the anger inside her, the fury that spilled out so fluently, the word power she experienced and the intoxicating sense of elation as she saw Mrs Stott’s shocked face and the admiration in Avril’s.

Magdalene?

Oh yes. The power is hers.

But where will it take her and what should she do with it?

S
EAS OF TRIALS AND
cups of sorrows.

Calamity and Slough of Despond.

The luckless Ed Board has passed over and Fluffy the cat has gone missing.

And this is a most inopportune place for Graham Stott, the murderer, to find himself in.

The Burleston is swarming with pigs and Graham, whose nerve-racking journey has tired him out, is unaware that the hotel pro has been found in the rough with his head staved in by his own four wood. So rightly paranoid is Graham that he thinks they are all waiting for him.

Since his last lift to the end of the A30 he has had to walk, or skulk, for eight miles before reaching his destination and, although Graham is not used to walking, to nick a car at this sensitive time would do fatal damage to his new image. Not that there are many cars around that the street-cred Graham would be seen dead in. Kicked out of his home by a cruel mother, Graham is a young boy looking for work, and visiting his sister for help. When he thought of it this way a blistering self-pity welled up in him, and once he had to wipe his eyes on the sleeve of his bomber jacket. He was hobbling now, his right foot was blistered and his hunger and thirst increased, but nobody cared. Nobody cared. Every time he saw headlights creep over the sky like a sunrise being wound on, Graham dove into the nearest hedgerow. The few cars passed slowly, as if their drivers were asleep. Every time he heard a dog bark he detoured round the threatening farmhouse. He soon grew used to the country sounds—the hoot of an owl, the low of a cow right next to the hedge, a bird, disturbed in its nest—but a vixen being pursued by a dog fox raised the hairs on the back of his neck. He thought it was a mad woman screaming and the sound stayed in his ears like eardrops, tickling and freezing them long after the sodding creatures had gone.

It was warm work on this hot summer’s night and he still shook under the blow of the horror of the crime he had committed. At least here, in the dark night, he was safe from the multitude of eyes in the city, the awful publicity of the sunlight. The stars overhead presided over a frightening stillness, something Graham was quite unused to. The signposts he passed looked like gibbets. What a good thing people weren’t hanged any more. Graham rubbed his neck, shivered all over, and lit another of his precious fags. He wished he was safe back in prison, they shouldn’t have let him out. Were they after him even now? Had the forensic blokes come up with something that linked him inexorably to the crime?