Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 137, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 835 & 836, March/April 2011

The Last Days of the Hols by Robert Barnard

In September of 2010, a large-print edition of Robert Barnard’s much-praised novel A Stranger in the Family (Scribner, June 2010) was released by the Wheeler Large Print Book Series. Also new from the Cartier Diamond Dagger Award winner is his podcast for EQMM of his story “Rogues’ Gallery” (March 2003), which can be accessed from iTunes, from PodOmatic (eqmm.podomatic.com), or from our website (www.the mysteryplace.com/eqmm).

Please excuse all spelling mistakes. My dad has not tought me to use a dictionery as he promised to do in the holidays.

While she was clearing away breakfast things my Mum said: “Are you planning to have one almighty row over lunch, or would you prefer this time to have a series of minor explosions going off throughout the day?”

My father stretched, smiling a narsty smile.

“I think the latter, all things considered. Or maybe it would be fun to have no row at all. Have them waiting nervously all the time for something that never comes.”

“Oh, very suttle,” said my mother. “Anyone would think they were not family but enemies.”

“Can’t they be both? I must say that’s how I regard them.”

All this I’d heard over and over in previous years. By now it sounded rehearsed, like a play. One of my dad’s plays. Rows were an everyday occurrence in our house, and the terms of the rows never really altered.

“You only regard them as enemies because they’re my family,” said my Mum.

“They can be your family and still be your enemies,” said Dad. “In fact I remember when you and I were courting, you and Deirdre were constantly at each other’s throats. Both of you were feisty girls, after all.”

“Now you’re being ridiculous,” said Mum. “Of course I love Deirdre, and did then.”

But I noticed Mum disappeared into the kitchen and began the washing up. Running away from a fight — that’s how I saw it.

“Anyway,” said my mother ten minutes later, coming back with her arms white from soapsuds, “after all these yearly rows they won’t come expecting a good time.”

“I don’t know why we don’t stop asking them,” said Dad. “They don’t ask us to Greenacre Manor. Probably afraid we’ll use the wrong knives and forks.”

Deirdre’s husband Timothy had sold his father’s car hire companies when he inherited them and bought into traditional bricks and mortar, playing the squire to the point of ridiculousness (these are my dad’s words — he can be very spiteful). Uncle Timothy is Head of Religious Broadcasting at the BBC. Dad says his religion is tweed-suiting, pipe-smoking and Brideshead Revisited.

“I think you’re right,” said Mum. “Just make a row big enough to justify it and I’ll put my oar in and suggest we call it a day. It will follow naturally if we do that.”

“Hmmm. Not a bad idea,” said Dad. But I could tell he was having second thoughts about his proposal. He always gave the impression of enjoying himself in these annual rows, and I must admit I thought they were quite fun.

“I like Uncle Timothy,” I said. “Some of the things he says make me laugh.”

“They make me laugh, too,” said Dad. “Like his pretending to be still in love with Deirdre after all this time.”

“So the row is still on the schedule,” said my mother. “Is after the walk the best time for staging it? Because that’s what it is: a little play, stored away for when, if ever, you write your own Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf.”

“If that’s what I’m aiming for, the rows would have to be with you, Lois.”

“Well, God knows, you’ve had enough experience of them. Oh shit — that’s them now.”

My father cast an eye at the window, the Rolls outside, and the path that led from the front gate.

“Oh, God Almighty!”

For a household containing not one Beleiver we were very free with God’s name. When I wrenched my eyes away from Auntie Deirdre, who looked as if she was carrying a shopping basket in front of her under her dress, I caught a look on Dad’s face that was a mixture of relish and foreknowledge. He’d known in advance!

Exclamations took up the first two minutes of the visit.

“Well, this is a surprise!”

“Exactly what it was to us, too.”

“How far are you gone, Deirdre?”

“Do you know what it is?”

“Samantha, are you looking forward to having a brother or sister?”

This welcome on the front doormat was quite convincing. It was led by my Dad, who, being a playwrite of sorts, knew what people tended to say on all kinds of occasions. Mum hugged her sister, perhaps to hide the horrid display of jealousy on her face. Whatever Deirdre had, Mum had to be jealous of, even if she would have died rather than be pregnant again.

“No, we weren’t ‘trying,’ as they say,” said Deirdre, her voice high and a bit strident, “and yes we are delighted, the feetus is five months old, we’re doing all the right things that doctors and nurses recommend. All right? Sensation over?”

And she steamed ahead into the sitting room as if her shopping basket gave her all the rights of the lady of the house. There was a sparkle in her eye that suggested that she, like me, had something up her sleeve.

“Tim? What will you have?” gushed my father. “And Deirdre, what can you have?”

“I’ll risk a gin and tonic,” said Uncle Timothy. “We go on the principle of ‘one off, all off’ in our household, but I’m on leave at the moment. Deirdre will have pineapple juice, won’t you, darling?”

“Yes, darling, and so will you. The fact that we are away from our own household doesn’t let you off the ‘no alcohol’ regimen.”

Timothy sighed.

“I would swear if the children weren’t here. All my abstention valued as nothing if I have one little lapse.”

“Go away, children,” said Dad, waving an artistic hand towards the garden. “Your uncle doesn’t like being found out, Morgan.”

When we got outside in the hallway I put my finger to my lips and we listened for a minute or two to the conversation.

“So, then, you’re happy are you?” my father asked. “Not just putting a brave face on a nasty accident?”

“We’re over the moon! We talk baby talk all the time, and discuss colours for the nursery. We’re even more delighted than Samantha.”

“Maybe she’s too old to be totally pleased. At three — yes. At thirteen — no. They feel they’ll degenerate into the resident babysitter.”

“I didn’t realize you knew so much about growing families, Bernard.”

“I have a creative writer’s understanding of how people think and feel, Timothy.”

Same old dialogue. Dad, as a scriptwriter, ought to have been able to think up something better, or at least different. Samantha and I shook our heads and moved over towards the kitchen door, where Aunt Deirdre and Lois my Mum were well away.

“I’m not going to pretend it didn’t come as a shock,” said Auntie D. “We didn’t take out all our old Noddy books and Paddington Bears and look forward to reading them at bedtimes over and over again. But when all is said, Catholics are right about abortion. It is murder, and just thinking about it we felt like murderers. I’ve settled down to all the rules and the deprivations... This martini is heaven, though.”

“You’re a bit mean not letting Tim off his oath of abstention, I feel.”

“Timothy has nothing to complain of. Do you think he hasn’t got a cash of booze somewhere in the house, if only I could find it?... But really, sis, you ought to try a late pregnancy.”

“I can’t think of a single reason why I should.”

“You wouldn’t believe how different pregnancy is in the twenty-first century. And almost always for the better. We had Morgan and Samantha at pretty much the same time, didn’t we?”

“Yes, we did. Almost as if there was some kind of competition.”

Deirdre waved away the suggestion with a well-manicured hand.

“Oh, we were silly about some things then. But pregnancy is not what it was — it’s easier, more straightforward. I tell you: you should try it.”

“Not on your life,” said Mum.

“Don’t you dare!” I shouted.

“Morgan — vamoose,” called Mum. “This is girls’ talk.”

We didn’t vamoose, and they started up again immediately. I waited until I was sick of the anatomical details (many of which I knew already) and I made off towards the garden. I was rather surprised (because I count her even lower than the earthworm) when Samantha followed me. She started in on why she had come out — she felt in a position to give advice.

“Don’t let my mum persuade yours to have another baby,” she said.

“She won’t,” I said dismissively. “I was more than enough for her.”

“I was quite pleased at first. Not delighted, but quite pleased. Then I thought that this is the age when I should be getting more freedom. What shall I get in fact?”

“Twenty-four-hour slavery.”

“Right. Unpaid babysitter. Changing nappies nonstop. They’re indescribably smelly and nasty, including the instantly disposable ones. I know she’ll be poohing the whole time.”

“She?”

“Mummy pretends to Daddy that she doesn’t know, but she does. It’s a she. And Daddy does desperately want a son and hier. Greenacre Manor will be as dust and ashes without someone to inherit it — and of course to Daddy that means a male. He’s often said he’d like to adopt you.”

I pricked up my ears.

“You’re joking, of course. He hardly notices me.”

“He notices. If he had his way you would be son and hier.”

I considered this.

“Your daddy’s not that rich. It wouldn’t be worth my while. I’ve never really considered him when I’ve dreamed about being adopted by a filthy-rich man or woman.”

“Daddy is high up in the BBC. The BBC is run by families. Dinnersties they call them: the Magnusens, the Dimblebies, the Michelmores. Being child of a BBC person is a passport to a good, cushy job, well-paid and with lots of presteege. And jobs for your kids as well.”

“He’s got you. Why should he need a son?”

“He’s horribly old-fashioned.”

“Well, England has had queens since fifteen fifty-something. You’d think even Uncle Timothy could have got used to the idea by now...”

“He did once condesend to ask me if I wanted to work at the BBC.”

“What did you say?”

“I said I wanted to do a degree in the History of Western Art, then go and work in the Queen’s Gallery at Buck House.”

“Beats the corridors of the dear old Beeb.”

“It just occurred to me as he spoke. I’m going to keep all my options open, but those options certainly do not include the Beeb. I said: ‘Give the job to the newcomer, Daddy. He or she is probably thick as pigshit.’ ”

“How interesting. Come on — that’s Mum calling for lunch.”

“Oh God! Rack of lamb and tiramisu.”

I will slip quickly over what we had for lunch, apart from the lamb and the tiramisu. There was a lot about babies, a lot about the power structures and the behavioural disharmonies (their words) at the BBC, and quite a lot (from my Dad, of course) about the creative urge, and how it needed to be stimulated, not crushed. After lunch Dad and Deirdre did the washing up while Tim and Lois talked in the living room. Tim had a stiff tumbler of white wine concealed between his chair and the wall, and kept taking quick surreptitious gulps. Mum, for some reason, was asking whether he saw a big change in Dad, whether he looked older and whether the nonstop creativity (he’d had a half-hour play on Armchair Theatre on Radio Four in the last two years) wasn’t taking it out of him. When Dad and Deirdre came back in they all four (juniors were not consulted) agreed on a brisk walk up to Trevelyan Cave, and they were just rugging up and putting on walking boots when Deirdre dropped her bombshell.

“Oh, I’ve been meaning to tell you since we arrived, but there hasn’t been a convenient opening. In one of Bernard’s plays there would have been one, but he just forgot to provide one for real life.”

“Deirdre—”

“So I’ll just have to tell you at an unsuitable moment. Bernard and I go back a long time, as all of you know, and we have been meeting up again over the last six months. In grubby little hotel bedrooms hired by the hour. We were taking things up where we left them off twelve or thirteen years ago. This” (patting her stomach) “is Bernard’s. He’d quite like a daughter in place of that little know-all in short pants he has already. He thinks we are going to get married as soon as the divorce goes through. Think on, Bernard. Marriage has outlived its usefulness. So far as I’m concerned sex is a short-term affair, with plenty of swapping. So it’s bye-bye Tim, bye-bye Bernard. And welcome anyone young, fit, and into it for the laughs.”

And she left the room and the house with a merry wave of her hand. The two men hurried after her and Samantha followed them, and we passed all four a few minutes later along Caves Pathway, arguing and jesticulating. Mum didn’t honour them with so much as a glance. She and I were usually together on these walks because we are the slowest. This year we were in front, and well in front too.

“Are they coming?” Mum asked after a bit. I looked round.

“Yes, but quite slowly. They’re still arguing.”

“They would be, wouldn’t they? When is it any different on these reunion days? I could murder Bernard.”

“Well, we’ve come to the right place,” I said, but seriously, not waggish at all. “Sheer drop at several points. Hardly a soul around.”

“True,” said my mother, also treating the question seriously. “But murder is too good for him. I should leave him alive, to moulder in his horrible skin, with his horrible self and his awful little talent.”

“I think murder would be better.”

At this point in his writing, Morgan laid down his pen. Had he overdone it in directing suspicion on himself? It was a common ploy in crime fiction he had read. Probably it mirrored reality — policemen are really thick and do get it wrong, in all probability. If a reader took it too seriously he had only to read on to change his opinion.

He took up his pen again.

“You’re probably right,” said my mother. “But do you think I’m the murdering type?”

“You’re the Agatha Christie type: least likely suspect.”

“I’m not sure the police would take that line. I don’t get the impression they read Christie.”

“It’s about half an hour to Trevelyan’s Cave. Sheer drop from there. Half the suicides’ bodies are never recovered.”

“Little monster. Have you been planning this? How did you know that?”

“The South Devon Chronicle.”

“Shame on them... I was telling the truth when I said I could murder him... Taking up with that whore, twelve years after he ditched her for me.”

“I thought she ditched him for Uncle Tim, and you got him instead.”

“No... Well, have it your own way if you like... To go back to her, have regular... meetings in gungy hotel rooms—”

“Sex. It’s called sex, Mum.”

“I know, cheeky. Or I remember... Well, that’s the end, murder or no murder — and I think I can restrain myself from slortering him.”

I was afraid that was true. But when we got to Trevelyan Cave I was relieved that she went into the dirty little hole and sat down among the rocks. I stood outside where I had a spectacular view of the deadly rocks on Westcot Cove, and also of the path, winding its vert-something-or-other way up to the cave. I was looking for a little party of four, but I soon saw I was mistaken: the party had broken up, with Deirdre, Tim, and Samantha probably going back to the village and then back to their Manor home which one day may be mine. There was one solitary trousered figure trailing his way up to us. All he needed was a nap-sack on his back and he’d be one of your typical boring-as-hell walkers.

“Here comes Dad,” I said. Mum elbowed her way to the front of the cave and I took over the shadows. “He’s going to beg you to take him back,” I said, in case he did.

“He’s got a nerve,” muttered my mother.

But he didn’t do anything of the sort.

“I’m not stopping,” he panted, in the misstatement of the century. “I just wanted to say goodbye. You always knew Deirdre was the one, didn’t you? You always knew I was imagining her when we were... you know. It makes me sound a jerk, I know.”

“Not just sound,” said Mum.

“All right, all right. But I’m going to win her back. I’m going to go to her. Tim knows he’s lost her, and I’m not sure he’ll care all that much. He’s told me he always loved you, Morgan — Oh, like a father, you know. I told him to keep his hands off you because we don’t want his bloody Brideshead—”

I shot out of the cave, and the sentence was only completed with an “AAAAHHH.” When I was capable of taking my eyes away from the prospect at the bottom of the cliffs Lois was looking around — up, down, and towards the edge — with a gaze of total bewilderment on her face. I felt almost sorry for her.

“Congratulations, Mum. You did it.”

“But I didn’t. I mean I can’t remember that I... Did I? Morgan, DID I? Oh my God, I must have. What are we going to do?”

“Go home. Tell people Bernard’s been called away.”

My mother put her hand to her face.

“Australia! He was thinking of going to Australia. He’s writing some material for Dame Edna.”

“Was writing,” I said. “Of course the body might be found.”

“But nothing to connect him to us. It would be much more likely that he committed suicide, or just missed his footing. There’s been no one on the path to say that he ever got as high as Trevelyan Cave.”

“And no one to say we were here. Come on, Mum: Let’s get back home. I think Dad’s going to like Australia so much he’s going to be there for a very long time.”

Morgan stopped writing. He wondered whether it was totally clear what he wanted the reader to think. Well — not totally clear: This was a literary exercise, but one which could result in his being parentless and ripe for adoption. For a literary exercise, it was surely a lot more exciting than most.

When Morgan was called into Miss Trim’s office he knew exactly what he was going to say. The end of his father had been to a degree impovised, as he called it, but the broad outlines had been with him (as a fantasy hardening to a project) for some time. He could cope with the likes of Miss Trim.

“I must say, Morgan, that your essay bewildered me, even shocked me.”

“Oh? Why was that, Miss Trim?”

“I expected it to be a factual, that means truthful, account of what you did on the last day of your holiday.”

“You didn’t say that, Miss Trim. And I expect you know that my father is an imaginative writer.”

“Well, your father wasn’t—”

“He makes it up. I find it runs in the family. I get to a certain point and then my imagination takes over.”

“Ah!” It was a sigh of relief. “So you made a little play out of your day, so to speak?”

“A little story, Miss Trim. A play would be all dialogue and stage directions. I hope you enjoyed the story.”

“Oh, I did,” said Miss Trim untruthfully. “But of course it made me uneasy, since all the others were truthful accounts of their day.”

“They’re not a very imaginative lot, 6A.”

“Tell me, Morgan, why did you decide to write a story in which your father got... well, killed?”

Morgan shrugged.

“Well, it’s just one sort of story, isn’t it? They call it a whodunit. You don’t know till towards the end who did it. My father’s never had much time for me. Oh, he’s there if I need him, but he hopes and prays I don’t need him too much. Same with my mother. He cares more about the characters in his piffling plays. He’ll pack a few things and take off at the drop of a hat. You wouldn’t know this, Miss Trim, because he never comes to parents’ days or anything like that. Doesn’t care.”

“Oh, I’m sure he does. Some people find emotional things very difficult. Well, I think that was all. You’ve cleared up things nicely. I think I’d better ring your mother in case she hears rumours — gossip from your classmates or their parents.”

“They wouldn’t know fact from fiction,” said Morgan contemptuously. He got up and walked towards the door. “Thank you for being so understanding, Miss Trim.”

As he opened the door he saw her hand straying towards the telephone. His face was suffused with an expression of sublime self-congratulation. He stood outside the door, his ear close to it.

“Mrs. Fairclough? Oh, it’s Edith Trim, from Westward School. I’ve just been talking to Morgan, always a pleasure. Sophisticated without being, well, snooty with it. He’s written this essay about the last days of the school holidays, and he turned it into a really promising little story — he must be reading Agatha Christie and writers like that... Oh, he is! I guessed well. Now, there’s a murder, of course, and it’s quite intriguing and exciting, but I just wanted to tell you, in case rumours come back to you that he is writing gruesome stories which gave kids sleepless nights and all that. Parents tell all sorts of silly tales about any child who makes up stories. It’s really not that sort of story at all... I hope you can make it to the next parents’ evening, Mrs. Fairclough. We could have a good talk. And do try to bring your husband. I know Morgan would appreciate his being there. Oh... Oh... Oh, Australia. I see. Well, I’m sorry. We’ll hope to see him next term.”

Morgan heard the receiver being put down. He started walking along the corridor, the smug expression still suffusing his face. This was going to be one of those sub-genre stories, in this case one of those in which the wrong suspect is fitted up for a murder he, or in fact she, didn’t do. And it was going to be one in which the murderer is the one telling the story. Morgan was enormously pleased with himself for thinking of that. It was exceptionally clever, and something he was quite sure would never occur to a pedestrian mind like Agatha Christie’s.

Copyright © 2011 by Robert Barnard