Secret Story (13 page)

“That’s telling them. I’m part of you, so I never really went away,” his father said and turned wholly to his audience. “If anybody’s wondering who’s the bald sod that’s making all the racket, I’m Monty Smith the poet. Proud to be Scouse in verse,” he added in an increased accent and pounded his heart with a fist. “Pomes ought to be about how real people feel, not ponces prancing through the flowers and wetting themselves in lakes.”

In the midst of her resentment Kathy was dismayed to hear how he’d coarsened since they’d parted. She hoped some of the laughter and applause he’d provoked was ironic, as well as Walt’s shout across the bistro. “Maybe you ought to be writing for us. Do you have any of your poems with you?”

“Got some in me head. Here’s one to a credit card company.” Monty adopted a loosely pugilistic stance and recited

“Please debit me account
Wid de ’ole of de amount.
An’ why don’t all youse at de bank
Piss off an’ ’ave a wank.”

Kathy might have imagined that she’d failed to hear what was surrounding her with mirth if Dudley hadn’t hesitated before politeness made him join in. She was most disconcerted to observe Walt laughing with his head thrown back. She hadn’t thought how to win Dudley the general attention when a woman’s voice said “Shell used to love that one.”

“I’d rather hear that than be the cowboy poet. You know the one, the Poet Lariat,” Monty said, and once the response he’d waited for tailed off “Did you know Shell well, then?”

“As well as anybody did,” the dumpy grey-haired woman said from her corner. “I was her mother.”

“You still are, love. So long as anyone remembers her you are, and nobody here’s going to forget her. Saddest news I heard all year, that. A great Scouser cut off so very early in her career. She told the truth and made us laugh, and if that isn’t being what Scouse means I’m an Arab and I’ve just set off a bomb.” He dabbed his right eye hard enough to redden his cheek further and tug it out of shape, then appeared to control himself. “It was me privilege to work with Shell, and now it’s me privilege to be in the same room with her mam that gave her to us. It’s everyone’s privilege here tonight. I reckon you know how to let her know it is.”

Even when his father clapped to demonstrate, Dudley seemed uncertain about joining in. Didn’t he care for the way the interest of the audience had abandoned him? When bespectacled Vincent started to applaud, Dudley made it rather too plain that he was
copying the gesture. “I should mention we’ve dedicated this issue to Shell,” Walt called.

“Don’t let me take over your show. It came from de ’eart, dough, everyt’ing I said. Just couldn’t stop meself.”

“I’m sure nobody would have wanted you to. I’d say that was a very excellent story,” Walt told the reporters, “our magazine bringing a father and son back together. And now here’s what we’ve all been waiting for.”

That was the kind of announcement Dudley warranted. Was he so modest that he didn’t understand it referred to him? Kathy was mutely exhorting either him or Walt to speak up when she heard a thud as if someone had fallen senseless, and then another thump. She whirled around to see two large parcels of magazines that a delivery-man had dropped just inside the bistro. “Don’t anyone leave without a free copy,” Walt urged and used a knife a waitress in a kimono handed him to cut the tape on both.

Dudley hurried over as Walt split the cellophane wrapping. He barely hesitated before placing a copy of the magazine in Dudley’s outstretched hand. “Where’s my part?” Dudley said at once.

“At the back. Next time you have the front, and that’s a promise.”

As Kathy joined them she just had time to glimpse the cover photograph, which depicted Liverpool at dawn with one metal Liver bird silhouetted against a gigantic sun, before Dudley flicked to the last page. It was indeed occupied by an extract from his story, headed by the legend
COMING NEXT MONTH: GREAT SUSPENSE FICTION FROM COMPETITION WINNER DUDLEY SMITH
. She would have enjoyed lingering over the accolade, but he was leafing backwards through the magazine. He stopped at a photograph.

It showed the bullet head and shoulders of the girl who had taken up the middle six pages—taken some of them away from Dudley, Kathy was a little ashamed to think. Nor was she happy
that the headline—
SOUNDING SHELL
—was in print twice the size of the letters in Dudley’s caption. She had the impression that Shell was thrusting her face at the camera to challenge the audience not to share whatever joke had brought the implication of a smile to her lips. Did this explain why Dudley appeared to be confronting the photograph? Before Kathy knew if he was, he turned to the pages that reproduced a performance of Shell’s. His head shook rapidly as if to deny the lines he was scanning, and then it steadied and ducked towards the magazine. Whatever he was reading, it preoccupied him so much that the typescript of his story began to slither out of the manila envelope under his arm until Kathy rescued both. “You didn’t change it all,” he blurted.

“They better hadn’t have.”

That was Shell’s mother. Kathy understood neither remark, nor why he sent Mrs Garrett a look beyond dislike, nor Walt’s response to him. “We didn’t think anyone could figure out who it was.”

“May I have one?” Kathy asked.

“Sure,” said Walt, though after a hesitation she couldn’t mistake.

She had scarcely begun skimming the text of Shell’s final performance when the chill and the blur of conversations seemed to mass around her like soft but jagged ice. Half a page was filled with gibes at a civil servant who had been assaulted by the brother of one of his clients. Some of the comments were so outrageous she refused to admit them to her mind, but one word let too many others in: this dud, the dud. “Is this supposed to be you?” she wished she could delay saying.

Dudley glanced at the page and then at her with not much less dislike. “Maybe.”

As Monty accepted a copy of the magazine, she turned on him. “This is what being a Scouser’s about, is it?” she hissed. “This is what you call the truth.”

“Eh up, you’re spraying me.” He dabbed at his eyes, meaning to be comical. “I’m calling what the what again?”

She beckoned him fiercely to read it outside. She was tapping one foot in frustrated nervous rage by the time he said “You reckon this is about Dud?”

“Stop calling him that. You’ve left him so unsure of himself he can’t even tell his own mother when he’s been involved in violence.”

“That’s never violence, two young fellers having an argy in the street. No wonder if he thought it wasn’t worth the breath.” Nevertheless Monty thrust his head into the bistro. “Come here a mo, son,” he shouted.

Dudley crushed the magazine in his hand with such fierceness that Kathy held her copy all the more protectively. She could understand his reluctance to ask “What?”

“Your mam says I’m not to call you Dud. It’s not really been buggering you up, has it?”

Dudley suppressed some emotion. “I don’t want to be called it any more.”

“Fair enough if that means we’ll be keeping in touch. Anything I can do to spread your rep, you know it’s done. And listen, don’t let what Shell said crawl up your nose. She was only taking off on an idea like she always did. You could be proud to be part of her act. Maybe you won’t need to be a slave of the state now you’re getting published.”

Kathy took this as an attack on her as well, but there were more important issues to confront. “Dudley, this incident she talked about, that’s why you’ve been having trouble walking.”

“Ouch,” Monty said with a sincere wince as their son mumbled “I’m fine.”

“If you say so. Only why did you tell me you’d had a fight with your girlfriend?”

“Because you kept on at me,” Dudley said with a look at his father she tried not to feel was disloyal.

“I thought you were trying to hide what she’d done because you didn’t want me to think badly of her. I don’t think you can say I kept on. I didn’t even mention it at first.” She was angriest to be taking time to impress this on his father before saying “It really was her that you had the fight with last weekend, though, wasn’t it?”

As he covered the scratches with his free hand he threw Mrs Garrett a glance not far short of loathing. Kathy had spoken too loud, of course, and he was embarrassed. Most of his reply stayed behind his clenched teeth. “I said.”

“Sodding hell, son, sounds like you’ve had even less luck with the judies than me.”

“You said other things as well, Dudley.” She was so busy ignoring his father that for a moment the sight of a couple on their way out of the bistro signified too little to her. “Anyway, let’s not argue now,” she said and held up a palm to detain the two young women. “You aren’t leaving yet, are you? Dudley Smith’s about to read.”

“Good luck to him, whoever he is,” one said as they escaped on either side of Kathy. “We were expecting Shell Garridge.”

“She wasn’t as much news as she’d have thought,” Dudley commented.

Kathy hoped Mrs Garrett hadn’t overheard him through the doorway. “Shall we tell them you’re ready to read before anyone else leaves?”

“I’ve stopped feeling like reading.”

“See, that’s how you’ve left him,” she almost cried at Monty, but that would be as unhelpful as blaming herself. “Don’t do yourself down,” she appealed to Dudley. “The magazine wanted you here. I know you wouldn’t like to disappoint anyone.”

“I’ll fix it,” Monty said and darted into the bistro. “Walt, shall I tell them he’s reading or will you?”

“Why don’t you. Keep it in the family.”

This goaded Kathy into the bistro as fast as she could shoo Dudley in front of her. “Shurrup, youse lot,” Monty was shouting. “Shurrup for Dudley Smith.”

“Who?” asked someone Kathy would have been glad to locate.

“Only a chip off the old block, that’s who. One chip and no fish. What’re you going to read, son?”

Kathy held her breath until Dudley said “My story that would have been in except for Shell.”

“Next issue for sure,” Walt called.

“Means you’re all getting a sneak. What’s it called again?”

“ ‘Night Trains Don’t Take You Home’,” Kathy mouthed as Dudley said.

“Because the railway companies put profits before people. Should be their slogan, Profits Before People, shouldn’t it? About time the workers and the passengers took over public transport if you ask me. Anyway, we’ve had enough of me for now. Here’s Dudley.”

Kathy heard him nearly fail to pronounce the final syllable. She thought this was one reason why Dudley hesitated not far from the exit until Patricia took pity on him. “Shall we have you over here?” she said, indicating the corner farthest from the door. “Then you can sit if you like.”

A few people did so as he made his way to the stool. He seemed either eager or determined now. The audience was largely silent by the time he slid the typescript out of the envelope. All the same, Kathy wouldn’t have been able to distinguish his first words if she hadn’t already read them. “Hang on,” Monty interrupted. “Shout up, son.”

“Night trains don’t take you home by Dudley Smith. Her first mistake was thinking he was mad. As the train left the station he started to talk—”

“Can’t hear a word,” Mrs Garrett announced, though it sounded less like a complaint than triumph.

“Don’t rush it quite so much, Dudley,” Kathy took the chance to say. “And even a little louder, do you think? You don’t want anybody missing anything.”

He gave her a scowl she thought he could have saved for Mrs Garrett and ducked again to his task. “Night trains don’t take you home by Dudley Smith. Her first mistake was thinking he was mad. As the train left the station he started to talk in a low passionate voice . . .”

He might have been trying to convey its lowness, but certainly not its passion. From gabbling the text he’d halved his speed, and his utter monotone was threatening to drag it slower. Even worse, he was still reading as though he’d never seen the words before. He raised his voice a little at “. . . taking the latest prize-winning bestseller by Dudley Smith out of her handbag”, but this only provoked a stir of embarrassment and a few titters. His forehead had begun to glisten, though Kathy was having to restrain her shivers. “I thought you said what you asked for, sorry,” he blundered onwards, “I thought you said I gave you asked for. I thought you said I gave you what you asked for,” and his gaze left the page at last. Three people were murmuring goodbyes to Walt as they collected their magazines on the way to the door.

Dudley looked trapped by the sight of them and incapable of speaking. “Go on, son,” his father urged. “I’ve had worse down south.”

“She moved with her back to him, she moved to sit with her back to him . . .” Dudley stammered and droned to the end of the page, which he slipped under the envelope. Perhaps this demonstrated how much he had yet to read, because five people headed for the exit as he retrieved the page to remind himself which sentence he was halfway through. Everyone would be gripped once
he reached the scene with Greta and the gang, Kathy vowed on his behalf, except that as he read the dialogue his delivery became yet more monotonous. “On your own love must be said the man in the middle and spat across the aisle she’s got to read a book . . .”

Walt coughed, and after half a page of this, coughed more sharply. “Well, I think maybe—”

Kathy was on the point of crying out that they should give her son another chance, since even his father seemed tired of his performance, when Patricia spoke. “Could it need a female voice, Dudley, if it’s supposed to be told by a girl?”

He stopped glaring at the typescript long enough to scrutinise her face across the room. “You want to read the things she says, you mean?”

“Or the whole story might be easier if you like. They used to say I wasn’t bad at drama.”

Dudley frowned, and then his eyes widened to let acceptance in. “All right, you should be able to. You’ve already read it.”

Kathy sensed more relief around her than she thought was fair. He handed Patricia the typescript and retreated into the audience. “Shall I start at the beginning again?” she said.