"Gill, B M - Tom Maybridge 03 - The Fifth Rapunzel 1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gill B M)
"Do you think they'll eat all these biscuits?" Sally asked, "or may I have one?" The biscuits were shaped into hearts, diamonds, spades and clubs. She had cut them out earlier from the savoury pastry that Mrs Mackay had made. To ask if she might have one was politic under the circumstances. She had already nicked half a dozen before Mrs Mackay had noticed the shoes.
Mrs Mackay told her she could. "Just one."
Sally chose a heart and ate it. She had tried to persuade Simon to come to the whist drive. It was the monthly one that was open to villagers. The Maybridges would probably come, she had told him. It might have been the wrong thing to say. Mrs Maybridge had put her foot in it, apparently, she wasn't sure how. Something to do with the woman Creggan had nicknamed the senorita - or senora - who had gone away. Creggan had been to one of the bridge parties, patients and guests only, and had pinched her bottom when she had leaned over with the tray of fancies during the interval. He hadn't been to any of the others. It was boring without him. She wasn't even allowed to carry his tea down to his tent, these days. One of the other domestics did it - Mavis Dunoon - but she had managed to slip into his tent now and then when no one was around. "Mavis," he had said bitterly, "a song thrush, how inaptly named - a corn-crake of a woman - a mastodon of a female - an extinct mammalian creature with nipple-shaped prominences on her molar teeth." A bit of an exaggeration. There wasn't much wrong with Mavis, apart from being overweight and over thirty. Her teeth did stick out a bit. Not a lot.
Creggan had asked her if she was still seeing the Bradshaw boy. His name is Simon, she had said. Yes, he knew that, he said. Was she still seeing him? Sometimes, she said. "Has he fucked you yet?" That was a rude question - a rude way of putting a rude question. Old guys shouldn't use words like that. She had glared at him. "I take it," he said gently, "that he has not, and I apologise, my dear child, if I have hurt your susceptibilities by phrasing it in such a gross manner."
"Hm," she had snorted, not appeased. He had been at his weak beer again, she guessed. It filled his mouth up with dictionary words - and rude ones - and he spat them out. "Dear Sally," he had reached out and held her hand, "I'm so sorry." A nice simple apology that time and she had accepted it. "Never get hurt," he had added, "never let anyone destroy you, dear child. There are other places away from here - other places of employment - other boys. Go away, little Sally Loreto, while all is well."
Maybe he was a little mad. She had smiled at him doubtfully. He hadn't smiled back.
The seduction of Simon was taking a lot longer than she had expected, and it annoyed her that Creggan might have guessed it. She had lost her virginity at fifteen, a race in those days to see which of her girlfriends could lose it first. She had never had difficulty enticing a boy, just pretended he was enticing her. She had hoped to sleep with Simon on the day she had disposed of the clothes, and had driven the empty van back optimistically and with a handy story ready about Oxfam being awfully pleased. He hadn't been in a good mood. Where were the keys? he wanted to know. Had she emptied the pockets - his father's pockets - and taken out the keys? Rather cross, too, by now (he should have been grateful she'd done the job at all), she'd told him that all she could find in the pockets were handkerchiefs - did his father have a perpetual cold? - and as no one would want those, she had thrown them away. There was no loose change in the pockets, she had added coldly in case he thought she was stealing. He wasn't interested in loose change, he'd said, just keys. Not the house keys, he had those, keys to a place in London his father's solicitor had told him about. They must be somewhere. "Then look," she had said, "but don't look at me. I haven't got them. All I have is a head that's about to split after spending hours doing a charitable job you wouldn't do yourself." The atmosphere hadn't been warm and cosy. He hadn't even mentioned the tracksuit.
On their next date, a few days later, he told her he'd found the keys in his father's travelling case, which seemed an odd place to keep them. And he'd thanked her very much for the tracksuit and was sorry if he'd been pretty rotten to her on the day she'd disposed of the gear, but he got like that sometimes. And where did she want to jog?
It was clear to her that he didn't particularly want to jog anywhere and it took some cajoling to get him to rise at seven and meet her at The Mount on her daily run. They had run together on five mornings, and if he saw that as a penance it wasn't a very long one. He wouldn't mind jogging somewhere else, he said, but he didn't like people watching and he didn't like having to get up so early. What about an evening jog some time - across the fields, perhaps?
It was a reasonable suggestion - with possibilities. She had smiled her happy Sally smile again and said, "Why not?"
Macklestone wasn't brilliant jogging countryside. The main road was lethal and the minor roads had a devious habit of ending up in cul-de-sacs and farmyards. The right of way through part of the Millingtons' farm was one of the few possible options when the weather was dry. To reach it meant passing Mrs Mackay's cottage, which was tucked away like a sullen little toad at the end of a lane. Sally on the whole preferred being spied on by The Mount's patients, who were either madly enthusiastic or insanely jealous (well, she guessed they were), than by Mrs Mackay, who exuded displeasure like a squeezed carbuncle, but as they passed her cottage in less than half a minute of a quick run, and as Mrs Mackay spent most of her off-duty time sewing samplers and making curtains in the room at the back, Sally wasn't too bothered. Mrs Mackay's samplers and curtains were topics of conversation, dry islands of dull talk, when she wasn't busy stirring something or other. The curtain material she had bought cheap at a Bristol market, blue and cream striped cotton. The sampler she was working on showed clasped hands and the words 'To have and to hold'. All this information had been elicited by Sally, who wasn't particularly interested but didn't like silence very much. 'To have and to hold' was part of the marriage service, she had informed Mrs Mackay. There were other meanings, Mrs Mackay had replied. There was virtue in constancy. In having principles and keeping them. To have courage in the face of adversity. To have faith in one's friends. What friends? Sally had wondered. The Millingtons? Mrs Mackay and Mrs Millington met sometimes, she'd heard, and went somewhere to sing. The thought of Mrs Mackay singing made Sally collapse into giggles. It was impossible to imagine. Her mouth was trap shut most of the time. She hoped it would stay trap shut about Simon's mother's shoes.
She wished she would stop looking at them.
Sally, escaping from her gaze, picked up the tray and carried it through to the games room. A bell rang. Half time, or had someone revoked? Revoked - another word she'd learnt. If a psychiatric patient revoked, and thought the accusation unfair, would he fling his cards in his opponent's face, overturn the table, scream? People did scream in The Mount - just now and then - and were taken along to the quiet wing where they could scream in peace and quiet. Or Doctor Donaldson would get them to lie on his couch and say something in a soothing voice until they fell asleep - hypnotism without dangling an object in front of their eyes, some sort of trick. He usually had one of the women psychotherapists with him when he did that. A canny old cove - Donaldson. Very careful. Any accusation of screwing and he'd screw the female patient for damages pretty damn fast.
The games room wasn't as full as usual. Only six tables. It had been a very hot day and the evening light was still strong. Card games were better played in the winter.
Max Cormack, who thought the same but had come out of curiosity, noticed the fair-haired girl standing in the doorway holding a tray. He had seen her jogging past Millington's farm with Bradshaw's son. A happy sort of friendship. She was older than him, he guessed, but not too much older. He had hoped to meet Simon by now, in the pub or somewhere, but the lad seemed to lead a hermitical existence apart from going out with the girl, whatever her name was. Maybridge had told him that the lad was doing all the wrong things, if one viewed life rigidly from a practical angle, but who was to judge? What was wrong for some was right for others, Maybridge had stressed. If a person got knocked down by a car, forcing him to get back on his feet before he was ready wouldn't do him much good. Healing took time. Simon, emotionally stunned, was still groping around. Had he rushed back to school and then on to university in the autumn, his friends might have felt easier about him, applauded his courage, but he had to work things out in his own way.
Maybridge's wife, apparently, would have been one of the applauders. She hadn't handled him very well, she'd explained to Cormack, and felt guilty that she wasn't helping him more, but knew she wouldn't be welcome. "I probably lack sensitivity, or patience, or both. He's an emotional adolescent in need of guidance, but he's so hard to approach."
Cormack had listened without comment. How would Josie settle into this environment, he wondered, when she came back from the States? Would she prefer the wider scope of living in Bristol - the shops - the theatres - above all, the anonymity? Here in this village people carried each other on their backs - or they pushed them away. A normal, not too warm, not too cool mingling seemed to be out. It was a village of extremes. Or maybe it seemed that way because he lodged with the Millingtons. Had he lodged with the family of the bloke who ran the garage and referred to Bradshaw as a good guy, a thoroughly nice chap, he might view it differently. A positive attitude is acceptable. The Millingtons' dislike of Bradshaw, though never openly voiced, was like touching a sweaty hand. This evening he had met Doctor Donaldson for the first time and had deliberately made clear to him that he felt privileged to follow in Bradshaw's footsteps - and then waited for a response. It had been slow to come but, when it had, it had been meticulously phrased, like an obituary. A man of brilliant academic ability. A loss not only to the local community but to the country as a whole. A professorship in forensic science was greatly valued in the teaching hospitals where men of his calibre were badly needed.
Was Doctor Cormack interested in lecturing, writing papers and books on the topic, perhaps? Was he planning to follow in his footsteps that far?
A neat steering away from Bradshaw. The sweaty hand again, discreetly gloved?
He would have liked to ask about Mrs Bradshaw but it would have sounded like arrant curiosity, or at the very least, bad form. He had heard she had attended here from time to time as a patient. That made the subject taboo. Mrs Maybridge was the only one who mentioned her, quite naturally during the course of conversation, and had described her as a gifted artist who would have done even better if she had become an illustrator of modern fairy stories. Fresh images seen through her own eyes, as she had put it, and not been so immersed in the past.
Images of the past tended to change with passing time. The murdered girl in the copse would become part of folklore one day. In Ireland, Celtic land of ghosts, she would become wraith-like, a gentle creature that had died too young. Here in more prosaic England they might see her differently. A strangled prostitute, labelled with the wrong name, perhaps. Damn Creggan for voicing it. He was relieved he wasn't here this evening. The other patients, most of them good card players, were typical of any social gathering. The only one who got on his wick was a heavily built woman who carried a bag of sweets around from table to table and masticated like a ruminant whilst taking surreptitious peeps at his cards. He didn't discover she was the vicar's wife until later. Her husband, not a card player, had wandered around smiling vaguely and rung the bell from time to time, apparently at the M.C.'s instructions. A bland evening. Rather dull. The kind of affair his parents used to attend in the village hall at home when Father Duffy was the M.C. The Maybridges had the good sense not to come. Perhaps they preferred playing bridge - as he did.
"The pate is Mrs Mackay's speciality," Sally said, moving over to him with the tray. "And the other bits and bobs are rather nice, too. Try one." She gave him a wide, happy smile.
"Thanks," Cormack smiled back. He felt more cheerful. Not a bad place, The Mount. Donaldson was doing a good job. And he knew how to pick his staff ... Or maybe he didn't. If sexy signals could be wafted into the air then he was breathing them in alarmingly fast. He stopped smiling. For God's sake, Josie, come home!
"Go on," Sally cajoled, edging closer, "spoil yourself, take two." He was the first presentable male she'd seen in the place since she'd been here. Dark red hair, almost black, probably grew it on his chest, too. Muscles like ropes. Eyes that had seen a lot.
"I hear you're a Roman Catholic," said a man's voice in his ear.
Transfixed by Sally, he didn't answer.
"A believer in transubstantiation," said the voice.
"The things on sticks are mainly cheese," said Sally.
"A kind of spiritual cannibalism," said the voice.
"And the dip is fish based," said Sally.
"Fish, an early Christian emblem," said the voice. And went away.
Cormack took two biscuits with pate on them. And waited for Sally to go, too. "One of the nutters," she whispered, between giggles, and moved on to the next table.
The air, neutered once more, became breathable. Cormack ate his biscuits and resisted glancing after her. No wonder the Bradshaw boy was happy to stay put. Grief? Emotionally stunned? Hadn't Maybridge eyes in his head?
Happy is a weak word. Simon's emotions tended to swirl together like clouds in a dark sky, edged here and there with flashes of light. He was reasonably happy lying in a field with Sally after they'd jogged. Happy because the exercise was over and that his body had calmed down. Hers probably hadn't, but that was her problem. Girls were lucky they had nothing to get an erection with. They were never embarrassed. Rhoda had put him into a state of almost perpetual embarrassment. And he couldn't forget her. That Sally wanted sex with him was perfectly obvious. But he wanted it with Rhoda. His body might not mind one way or the other, but he minded inside his head. There's nothing beautiful about love - it's a torment - a pain - it's full of anger. He wanted to hurt Rhoda because she wasn't there. He wanted to hurt Sally because she was there. Most of all he wanted to hurt himself. He envied his parents for being dead. He wished he were dead. Peaceful. Done with. Finished. Or he wished he were alive -properly alive - blazingly - marvellously alive. In bed with Rhoda.
Sally bored him.
It was the ultimate insult. No boy had ever been bored by her before. She toyed with the idea of dumping him. He bored her, too. Doctor Cormack wouldn't bore her. Max Cormack was a man, not a smooth skinned boy who still had traces of acne. And Cormack, unlike most older men, was free - no wife. And he had a good job. No house of his own yet, but he'd get one. When she had come to work at The Mount she had assessed the male potential. Patients as possible prey were dismissed, they would be more trouble than they were worth. The medical and domestic staff were married, about to be, living with someone, or so unattractive they'd stay single for ever. Cormack was in a class of his own. Hard to hunt down, though. He had no reason to visit The Mount. The whist drive had been a one-off. His forensic work took him out every day into places where she couldn't follow him. If he went to the pub, he didn't go when she did. Getting Simon to go with her wasn't easy, so she didn't go often. People kept bothering him, he said, asked how he was getting on that sort of thing. She knew that. So they drank in his home. His nice home. In a few years he would be properly grown up. And besieged by women - like his father had been, according to gossip. He was at his worst now. Raw. Bereaved. He would improve. Simon, a few years in the future, might be a prize, and she'd be a prize idiot now if she ditched him. So hang on. Keep an eye on Cormack and play the game, whichever way the dice fell.
"There are times," she said dreamily to Simon, "when I feel like turning Catholic."
This was so extraordinary he stopped being bored. They were sitting in the summerhouse because it was too hot to sit outside. The sun seemed to sizzle the gnats that were jumping up and down like tiny creatures from hell. Hell. Heaven. Religion. "Why Catholic?"
Because church might be a handy place to meet Cormack.
"Why not?"
He asked her if she was anything now. Did she believe in anything? She said she believed in transubstantiation and hoped she'd got the word right. She didn't know what it meant. Something to do with fish?
The conversation reminded him of his recent visit to the cemetery. He had gone along to look at his parents'grave, the first time since the funeral, and just couldn't believe in it. A mound of earth with a temporary headstone. It meant nothing. The vicar had suggested that he should get a permanent headstone soon. Apparently you could get a catalogue from a monumental mason and choose what you liked. It had all seemed too gruesome. And final. He had asked where the strangled prostitute had been buried. Over by the wall, the vicar had told him. No. No. No. Not over the wall. In consecrated ground. Even suicides were buried in consecrated ground these days. "The church is charitable, Simon." And particularly charitable in the case of the prostitute, apparently. Money had been raised locally for the burial as no one had come forward to claim the body and she had died in the environs of the village. Simon wondered how much his father had contributed - a hundred quid for Rapunzel number five? He cringed, deeply ashamed. It was a disgusting thing to think.
After the vicar had left him, he strolled along by the perimeter wall to see if he could find the grave. The headstones in this part of the cemetery were very old - seventy or eighty years in some cases - and were mainly slabs of slate with mossed-over lettering that was difficult to read. There were a few flowers on some of them, which was odd. Did great-great-grandchildren bother with their ancestors? Apparently some of them did. He didn't at first recognise the Rapunzel grave because he had forgotten the name. It came back to him when he saw the small neat headstone of pale grey granite with the lettering in black:
IN SAD MEMORY OF SUSAN MARTIN
According to the date, she had been twenty-six. To date accurately wasn't always possible, his father had told him once, but his father had dated this one. Or someone had. In sad memory. Whose memory? The words were very troubling. No epitaph might have been better than one made up by strangers for a stranger. He imagined the church council gathering together in the vestry and jotting down their ideas on scraps of paper. They had paid for the headstone: they could say what they liked. They had no memory of her. Hadn't even seen her. Blank pieces of paper. Blank minds.
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