Secret Story (39 page)

His instinct was to dodge out of sight even though she’d seen him. He tried to believe she was raising her gaze in admiration, but her face was too guarded for his liking. She held out her hands and curled the fingertips up. He was close to imagining that she expected him to jump into her arms until she said “Don’t stand there. Come and let me in.”

Panic made him blurt some of the truth. “I’m in the bathroom.”

“Then hurry up and put something on and come down.”

“She can’t come in,” he said in case the protest gave him time to plan. “She can’t see me when I’m not dressed.”

“Brenda only came to see why I couldn’t get in my own house. You’re satisfied now, aren’t you, Brenda? Stop wasting time, Dudley, and open the door. I’m tired and I want to talk.”

He was unable to grasp how the two were meant to fit together. If she was anxious to sit down, why couldn’t she in Brenda Staples’ house? He was almost desperate enough to suggest this, but it might make her suspicious. He withdrew into his room and leaned on the sash to slam the window, and wished he could feel safer now that his mother wasn’t watching. Mightn’t she leave him alone if he refused to unbolt the door? She might be so concerned for him that she would have someone break in—someone else who would learn about the package. It was going to be bad enough if Kathy did, but how was he to prevent her? The only way she could fail to notice it would be if it was making no noise—and at once he saw that he still had a chance. He simply had to silence the package.

Everything was ready. Reality was on Mr Killogram’s side as usual. Perhaps he’d been preparing this solution without knowing. Once the package was dealt with he could store it in his room until he had an opportunity to smuggle it out to the graveyard. He strode into the bathroom and grabbed his towelling robe from the hook on the door. The package was lying on its side as if to hinder its own escape. Dudley leaned over it and pressed the plug into the hole, and then he turned the taps on full.

The package didn’t react at once. He watched the tape and its clothes darken as the water inched higher. He was wondering if the package had expired without his intervention when it lurched awake. He was able to observe how it tried for several seconds to understand its situation before it commenced thrashing about. Presumably having realised that this wouldn’t save it, the package struggled onto its back. It attempted to kick and claw itself into a sitting position as the water sloshed around it and spilled into its nostrils. For the moment the lump of a head
was winning the race with the rising flood. Dudley was poised to trample on the scalp if it succeeded in clearing the edge of the bath when the doorbell rang curtly twice.

Couldn’t his mother even wait until he’d finished? Another ring told him the opposite. The longer he kept her waiting, the more distrustful she would be. He only had to bluff her into staying downstairs until he completed his task. The package would take minutes to lever itself out of the bath, if it could at all. Though he was frustrated to miss any of its antics, he dashed downstairs and threw the bolts out of their sockets. “It’s open,” he shouted and ran for the stairs.

He was hoping to be in the bathroom by the time his mother reached the hall. He wasn’t even halfway up when she unlocked the door and stepped into the house. Without bothering to close the door she said “No need for you to run away, or is there?”

She couldn’t know there was. She was only talking the way women talked. “I told you,” Dudley said with all the impatience he had in him. “I’m having a bath.”

“Have it later. You aren’t even wet. You haven’t been in yet. We’re overdue for a talk.”

“I want to relax. I’ve been working all weekend.”

“So do I, Dudley.” He thought he’d won her over until she said “Let’s talk first and then maybe we both can.” She turned from retrieving the keys from the lock and gasped as if she’d been punched in the stomach. “What’s that?” she cried.

He felt shrivelled by panic for as long as it took him to recognise that there was no sign of the package. Kathy might have heard its struggles, even if he’d thought the sounds were unidentifiable. They were; that was why she’d asked the question. “Just the water running,” he said.

“Then turn it off.” Before he could move she said “I don’t mean that. What on earth have you been doing?”

“I said,” he said and managed to do so again. “Writing.”

“You’ve decided that’s all the work you’ve time for now, have you?”

That sounded so disparaging that he twisted to face her. “I thought you wanted it to be.”

“Don’t try and blame it all on me, Dudley. Perhaps your father’s right, though, and I’ve encouraged you a little too much. I talked to your boss this morning. She says you’ve left your job and didn’t even give in your notice.”

How many people had his mother discussed him with? His resentment almost overcame his dismay at having been found out, which only aggravated his fear that she might discover the rest. “There’s no room for it in my life any more,” he gabbled, desperate to learn what was happening upstairs and to complete his task. “I’ve got my writing and my film.”

“There are proper ways to do things, Dudley. I’ll support you if I can, you know that, but you could have discussed it with me first,” Kathy said, and then her gaze veered past him once more. “You still haven’t explained that. Are you seriously telling me it has to do with your work? You aren’t taking drugs, are you? Say you aren’t taking drugs.”

All at once he realised that she was looking at the armchair and the wardrobe doors. “I needed them for research,” he said and grinned. “The furniture, I mean, not drugs.”

She looked so relieved he found it pitiful. “Did you think up a good story?”

“Obviously. All mine are.”

“Just the same, I hope nothing got damaged.”

“Nothing we need to be bothered about.”

“I’ll trust you and not ask.” Her gaze was still beyond him when she said “Well, see to it for heaven’s sake.”

She wasn’t referring to the package, he had to remember. She must have tidying away the furniture in mind. “I want to have my bath first,” he said.

“That’s what I’m talking about. Turn off the water or you’ll have it through the floor.”

“You shouldn’t have kept me so long, then,” he objected, suddenly afraid that if the water overflowed she would use that as an excuse to invade the bathroom. All the same, she’d offered him a reason to sprint upstairs, and he did, to see that the package had almost succeeded in tricking him.

It had hooked its bound hands over the end of the bath and was straining to lever itself to its feet. He supposed he should admire its effort, which deserved to be put in a story. He slammed the door and strode to the bath. As the lump of a head swung blindly to acknowledge the slam he used a foot to shove the package away from the end of the bath until the hands lost their purchase. It slithered into the water, and he could have taken it for some amphibious creature returning to its chosen medium. He planted his heel on its forehead to keep it on the bottom, and saw that he ought to tread on its ankles as well to prevent the legs from sloshing water out of the bath. He should also turn the taps off before the water spilled over the edge, but first he needed to bolt the door. He was reluctantly lifting his foot as the nostrils of the wrapped head gave vent to a gurgling bubble when he heard his mother call “I’ll put these doors back. Before you lock yourself in there I just want to say—”

Her voice was too close. He jerked his foot out of the bath, splashing the mattress, and raced for the door. His hand was nearly on the bolt when the door opened an inch, and then another. “If you’d like me to—” Kathy said, and was silent for a moment that felt to Dudley like the beginnings of suffocation. “Who’s that?” she said in a voice that sounded unconvinced of its own existence, and shoved the door wide.

“Nobody.”

For as long as it took him to say it he was able to believe that enough of a denial might convince his mother. Then the water
heaved up, drenching the mattress, and two bare feet reared above the surface. “Just someone that’s helping me with my research,” he said and stared so hard at his mother that his eyes stung.

When he saw her falter he was sure that he had a chance. “Leave us alone or they’ll be embarrassed,” he said.

Kathy was still on the landing. He took hold of the bolt and moved the door steadily towards her. “If you want to help,” he said, “go out for a while or I’ll lose my inspiration. I won’t have a story any more.”

Her eyes winced, and he saw that she would do as he asked if he could think of one more reason. He hadn’t managed when she moved. She retreated a step, and then she took it back, and her face stiffened with a clarity he had never seen before. “They can’t be embarrassed,” she said. “They’re dressed.”

Dudley glanced at the package. It had raised its denimed legs beside the taps, either trying to find them and shut off the flow or in a confused attempt to shove itself into a less fatal position. The distraction was all Kathy needed. She pushed the door aside and marched past him. “For the third time,” she said, “this wants turning off.”

She grasped the taps, but seemed capable of forgetting to wield them as she gazed into the bath. He was thinking that she might collaborate with him again, however inadvertently, when she twisted the taps shut and hauled on the chain to unplug the hole. Part of his mind urged him to flee, but she was still his mother. If she wouldn’t trust him, who would? She gazed at him with worse than disappointment, as if she hardly recognised him. “What on earth have you been up to while I’ve been away?” she said.

“I keep telling you, research and lots of writing. There’s the research.”

He heard the water draining and the package floundering about in it, and had to remember that the package couldn’t speak.
Of the many questions his mother visibly had in mind, she chose “Who is she?”

“She wouldn’t want me to tell anyone. That’s why she’d be embarrassed. Don’t worry, she agreed to do this. She’ll be fine.” He ventured to the bath and grinned at the package, which was stranded on its back. “She’d tell you herself if she could,” he said.

It writhed onto its side, displaying its bound hands as it snorted water out of its nostrils. “See, it’ll be all right,” he said. “She will.”

His mother stared at him, and something left her eyes. “She’ll have to,” she said and stooped to the package.

“What? What are you doing?”

“Tell me herself,” Kathy said and took hold of the shoulders to lift the package into a sitting position. “Can you hear me? Can you talk?”

The lump of a head swayed from side to side, and Dudley seized the opportunity. He could still be as convincing as Mr Killogram. “I told you,” he said. “She doesn’t want to.”

The lump wavered and then wobbled up and down. “See, she’s agreeing with me,” he said.

The lump hardly seemed to have the energy to change direction once again, but it did. “Look, you’re just confusing her,” he objected. “Let her rest where she is and I’ll stay with her.”

“Yes, you stay. Don’t think of going anywhere,” his mother said and leaned closer to the package. “Do you want to talk?” she said in its ear.

He was hoping that it had expended the last of its strength when the lump bobbed up and down twice. “All right, I’m going to take this off for you,” Kathy said. “I’ll try not to hurt you. I don’t know what you two thought you were doing.”

She would believe him and not the package, Dudley vowed. She was his mother, and he was Mr Killogram. Perhaps the package mightn’t even be able to disagree with him; his mother was
having difficulty in locating the end of the soaked tape and in peeling it loose. He watched, hands on hips, as she unwrapped the reddened throat, and the chin, and the mouth. It didn’t speak, and he thought it was waiting to cry out when the tape was unstuck from its eyes. That was another detail he needed to write down. The nose came into view, and he saw the teeth sink into the bottom lip as the tape plucked off several eyelashes. Either water or tears ran down the cheeks, and then the face was fully exposed and blinking with what Dudley hoped was sightlessness. “Patricia,” Kathy said and seemed scarcely to know how to continue. “I thought it was you,” she said.

When Patricia felt the water sink away from her she knew she wasn’t going to drown, unless this had been merely a rehearsal. She might have fancied that she was being reborn. She’d taken the deepest breath she could as her head was shoved underwater, but she had been coming to the end of it. As she drew another one, water trickled into her nostrils, and she was suddenly afraid that he was playing with her, that he’d been inspired to drown her with the shower instead. Turning her head failed to clear her nose of water, and she had to struggle onto her side. At least the water level was still falling. The thudding of her pulse subsided, and she heard voices. One belonged to Dudley’s mother.

She mustn’t leave Patricia alone with him. Patricia was trying frantically to think how to communicate this when hands closed
around her shoulders and lifted her. They were too gentle for Dudley’s. Her mind felt softened, difficult to wield, but she managed to realise that Kathy was unlikely to abandon her, since she must be seeing Patricia’s condition. Then she wondered if that was assuming too much, because Kathy asked “Can you hear me? Can you talk?”

Once Patricia was certain that the questions must be meant for her, she had to recall which way to move her head in a negative response. She was regaining the technique when Dudley said “I told you, she doesn’t want to.”

How was she going to deny that? She didn’t know how long it took her to grasp that she had to nod, and then she thought her confusion had trapped her, because he said she was agreeing with him. He even accused his mother of bewildering her, and indeed Patricia could have blamed them both for aggravating the effects of her plight. Then she heard him offering to stay with her, and she was about to use her entire body to express her aversion when Kathy spoke close to her ear. “Do you want to talk?”

Patricia could have imagined by now that she was being forced to play a game that involved having to decide which movement of her head was most appropriate. She put all the strength of her taped sticky neck into nodding three times, and seemed to have made her point, since she heard Kathy undertaking to unwrap her head. As she braced herself for the ordeal Kathy said “I don’t know what you two thought you were doing.”