Strange Loyalties

20

Staying in the Bushfield was beginning to feel like a way of life. Buster’s growl was becoming almost welcoming. Katie was annoyed that the food she had made for me and now had to reheat was going to be so dry. But I like it that way. I think it goes back to the time at school when I had an evening paper run and often ate after the others and acquired a taste for the overdone. I associate those meals with the warmth of home on cold nights. Katie didn’t realise that she was serving me comfort food, a brief holiday in the womb. I irrigated the pleasing dryness of the food with glasses of milk.

‘There’s a woman in to see you,’ Katie said.

I looked at her. She was being arch.

‘It doesn’t take Jack Laidlaw long. Aha. Women queuing in the lounge. Well, two of them actually.’

‘Not much of a queue.’

‘Oho. It’s usually more than that, is it?’

‘Katie. I carry pocketfuls of stones to fend them off. A fella’s got to protect himself.’

The nonsense had a purpose. There was only one woman, besides Katie, who would know I was here. Ellie Mabon wouldn’t want to advertise. She had presumably brought a friend to be less conspicuous. If Katie knew the name, she would know the association with Scott. Remembering Ellie Mabon’s fixation that the world was full of nosy neighbours, I wanted to protect her privacy. I wondered if Katie suspected.

‘So don’t keep me in suspense,’ I said. ‘Who’s the woman?’

‘Ah don’t know. It was Mike she asked. Ye know him. He didn’t even ask her name. Mike’s the kinna man could leave a telegram lyin’ unopened for a week. Ah just saw them. Bonny women. The one that did the askin’, she looks like that Lee Remick in the pictures. Ah wouldn’t be standin’ beside her at the disco anyway. Who is she?’

‘How do I know, Katie?’

‘Liar.’

But she left it at that. She went out of the kitchen. I finished eating and did my dishes, which is the only domestic chore I sometimes almost enjoy. I think I just like playing with water.

Ellie Mabon’s friend was a woman called Mary Walters. She was attractive but tonight she was definitely playing the leading lady’s best friend. Ellie had not become any more difficult to look at in the last day. There were quite a lot of people in the lounge and several of them seemed to find their eyes attracted to her from time to time. When the introductions were over and I went to get them a drink (‘It’ll have to be a quick one, we’re just leaving’), a man at the bar spoke to me.

‘Do you want any help carrying those over?’ He widened his eyes and breathed out noisily. ‘I won’t even take a tip.’

Conversation didn’t flow immediately at our table. We made some remarks about my soda and lime. Mary Walters was a teacher, too, and she had known Scott casually. We said nice things about him. There was no sign that Ellie, unlike Mary Walters, knew Scott beyond the man who had appeared at teachers’ conferences and on staff nights out. I was beginning to wonder why Ellie had come. If she had something to tell me, why did she bring her own gag? I was looking into her aquarium eyes and seeing nothing but the reflection of my own thoughts, not all of them as innocent as they might have been. Then Mary Walters went to the toilet. Ellie’s voice became as urgent as a telegram.

‘Mary doesn’t know about Scott and me,’ she said. ‘But I couldn’t very well come here on my own.’

‘You’ve thought of something?’

‘You mentioned Dave Lyons.’

‘That’s right.’

‘There was a party at his house. Scott was there. I spoke to a friend who was there as well. She told me.’

I appreciated the effort Ellie had made. But I couldn’t help feeling disappointed. She was delivering yesterday’s newspaper.

‘I know,’ I said.

‘But do you know what happened?’

‘He threw a vase at the telly?’

Her disappointment made a small girl of her.

‘I thought maybe you didn’t know. It seemed as if it might be important. It must have taken something special for Scott to do that.’

‘Your friend didn’t happen to say what was on television at the time?’

Ellie’s reaction wasn’t much more reassuring than Dave Lyons’ had been.

‘Do you think that matters?’

‘It might.’

‘No. She wasn’t actually in the room at the time. She just said some people had been watching a video.’

‘A video?’

‘Yes. Why?’

‘Try to be exact about this, Ellie. Your friend said it was a video. It wasn’t just a television programme?’

‘What’s the difference?’

‘There’s a big difference.’

Ellie considered it. ‘She said “video”. What she actually said, she said, “one of Dave’s videos”. I took her to mean something he had taped himself. Why?’

‘Dave Lyons says he doesn’t know what was on television when Scott had his brainstorm. But if it was a video, that seems less likely. Especially if it was something he had taped himself. It was maybe something he wanted his guests to see. It was at least something he would have to take out of the machine later. So he would know what they had been watching.’

‘So what does that prove?’

‘It proves he was lying. Why would you lie about something as trivial as that? Unless you had something to hide.’

‘He’s not the only one,’ Ellie said.

‘What?’

‘With something to hide.’

I thought at first she meant herself. She seemed hesitant.

‘Anna,’ she said.

‘What about Anna?’

‘I didn’t mention it to you yesterday. But there was something that was troubling Scott. Anna had someone else.’

‘Who?’

‘I don’t know. I’m not even sure that he knew who it was.’

‘It wasn’t just a fantasy of his?’

‘I don’t know. But his conviction was real enough.’

Mary Walters reappeared at the end of the lounge. Perhaps she knew more than Ellie thought. She had taken her time in the toilet, possibly to give us a chance to talk.

‘How long are you staying here?’ Ellie asked.

‘Maybe not after tonight.’

‘Give me your home number then. In case I need to get in touch.’

As Mary Walters came towards us, I wrote my number on a beermat. As Mary Walters sat down, Ellie slipped the beermat into her handbag. We chatted pleasantly for a few minutes more and they finished their drinks and left.

The friendly Dane was at the bar with some others. He waved to me. But I didn’t want one of those Bushfield nights that wander on into the morning. I had some more travelling to do tomorrow. Thornbank was one place on my itinerary. Troon was another. If Fast Frankie White wasn’t in Thornbank, there must be people there who knew him. It was worth trying. If Frankie did happen to be there, I fancied my chances of getting him to tell me what I wanted to know. Dave Lyons was a harder proposition.

I recalled that image of him walking away from me in Cranston Castle House. I didn’t know too much more about the smaller versions of himself that were hiding behind the veneered exterior. But I had some ideas. If I hadn’t worked out yet how to unscrew the outermost Russian doll, I could maybe break it. I knew he was lying. I could prove it on the triviality about the television. I had the basis for one very strong suspicion: he was more than Anna’s landlord. Let’s see if the polish at least cracked. He had said he would be at home this week. That was the best place to see him. Liars are at their most vulnerable in their own house, because it’s where the truth can hurt them most.

I finished my soda and lime, feeling such a clean-living man, and handed it in at the bar. The earliness of my departure evinced a chorus of disbelief and the suggestion that Katie should get my Horlicks ready. I promised I would bring them in some tracts on teetotalism tomorrow. Before going upstairs, I went across to the pay-phone in the hall.

I rang Kentish Town. Nobody answered. I rang the restaurant. I wished nobody had answered. It was Betsy, pleased to elocute precisely that Jan wasn’t there. I rang Jan’s flat. Standing lonely in a busy place, I thought how much I could have used a night with my friends. Where was Tom Docherty anyway? There are few sounds more forlorn than the phone of someone you love ringing out with no one to answer.