Authors: Cath Staincliffe
Diane returned with our drinks and two packets of cheese and onion crisps. I took a swig of beer, opened my crisps and ate a handful.
“What about the other lad, the one that was running off?”
“Curiouser and curiouser,” I said. I trailed him twice. He spent one day mooching around the Arndale and the next on an odyssey to York.”
“York?”
“York. Stood outside a house, watched the occupants, went home in tears.”
“Aw!”
“And I’ve no idea what’s going on there. I thought perhaps a girlfriend, unrequited love. But there was no girl the right age. I even asked his mother if he was adopted, thought he might be tracing his roots. She thought I was bonkers.”
“Is he stalking them?”
“I thought about that but it’s the first time he’s been up there so that doesn’t fit. He even stopped to ask me directions.” I pulled a face.
“What did you do?” Diane exclaimed.
“Bluffed my way through it. Seemed to work. All I can do now is find out who lives in the house, hope it means something to his mother.” I took a drink. “Mmm.” The beer was just cool, tasted full and bitter and had a creamy head that meant you had to lick your lips after each drink. Perfect. “So, tell me about Iceland.”
“Thunderbirds are GO. All on schedule. Bit of a panic when the airline couldn’t find a note of my booking.”
“You’re joking.”
“They’d just lost me somewhere.”
“Over the North Sea.”
“Saves on the catering. It’s sorted now.”
“You go Friday?”
“Yes. Thermals are packed and Christmas cards posted.”
“Mine aren’t.”
“So how’s Christmas shaping up in the Kilkenny/Costello household?”
“Nana Tello is on the brink of accepting Ray’s offer. She’ll spend all day needling Laura if recent form is anything to go by.”
“How does Laura cope?”
I grinned. “She smiles sweetly and replies politely. She’s got far more control than I ever had. You can see it drives Nana Tello mad; she wants a scrap.”
“Why’s she like that?”
“Jealousy? I don’t know. Yours truly can do no wrong these days.”
“You’re joking.”
“Flavour of the month. I think I preferred being the devil within.”
“Does Ray say anything?”
“Oh, yeah. He blows up after so much and then she goes all quiet and cold or tearful. But I think I’ll stick my oar in if she starts this time. It’s horrible for the kids let alone Laura. Goodwill to all men.”
“You’re really looking forward to it then.”
I gave sickly smile. “I’d rather come with you.”
“The course is fun. Oh, and they’ve got a television crew coming over from Germany, arts documentary, so that’s another spin-off.
“Brilliant. And after Iceland?”
“The world,” she said in a phoney American accent. “Warrington actually,” she went into broad Mancunian. “Children’s library.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“I like libraries.”
“It was the children’s bit.”
“Nah. Won’t have to do much with them, a design workshop. Well-behaved group of schoolchildren, teacher present.”
I smiled.
“And New Year, of course.” We’d both been invited to the party at our old friends’. “Are you going to Harry and Bev’s?”
“You bet. Means I can bring Maddie; babysitters are pretty scarce at New Year. Are you?”
She screwed up her nose. “You know I hate New Year. I might just rent a video and curl up with some smoked salmon and single malt.”
“Chris and Jo will be there. Be a chance to catch up with people.”
“You bringing Stuart?”
I grimaced. “Don’t know. Probably not. We haven’t talked about it really. He might be doing something with his family. And if not that would mean me explaining who he was to Maddie.”
“Still a secret?”
“Yeah,” I said slowly. And I didn’t like it, I realised. One of the things I was becoming more uncomfortable with was the secrecy we’d imposed upon ourselves. It had seemed sensible at the time, for the sake of the children, to give us chance to work out whether we were suited before involving anyone else, but I wasn’t so sure any more.
It’s the secrecy I can’t stand
, Susan Reeve had said,
the lies and the secrecy
.
From a completely different perspective I agreed.
I tried phoning Stuart at his place when I got in. A woman answered the phone.
“Is Stuart there?”
“Who is this?”
I was thinking the same thing.
“Sal Kilkenny, I’m a friend.”
She put the phone down.
I felt like I’d been slapped.
How dare she? Who was she? Some other new conquest that Stuart had forgotten to mention? My cheeks burned with outrage and I found myself talking aloud, spluttering with indignation. It really wasn’t worth it. Crikey, seeing someone after years in single-parent purdah was tough enough without rude behaviour from anonymous third parties to contend with.
I got ready for bed and lay there rehearsing my speech to Stuart, adapting it to suit his reactions. But whichever version I chose; penitent Stuart, blasé Stuart, misunderstood Stuart, bastard Stuart, I always ended up reaching the same final line.
Goodbye.
I felt sullen the next morning. Too little sleep and too much unresolved ill temper. I still felt resentful of Stuart though I realised I was being unfair in leaping to conclusions and passing judgements before I had the facts. I packed my swimming things. If I could fit a few lengths in it would help with the slow burn in my stomach.
Ray was walking the children to school so I took half-an-hour to warm-up and practise some holds and jumps from self-defence. I went through my kicks; forward, side, back and stamp. Concentrated on getting the force and weight into my leg, nowhere else. Forward, back, side, stamp. I imagined jaws, knees, balls. Then I moved onto a pull and roll technique that always made me feel good when I practised it at the class with Brian. The idea was to wrong-foot an attacker by moving with them rather than against. Brian would lunge at me and I’d grab his arms and roll back and down pulling him over as I went. Once he’d landed behind me I would recover forward and run. It wasn’t the same without a partner but I could still rehearse the roll. I had a troublesome shoulder and it was important to fall without incapacitating myself.
“You won’t get a chance to warm-up,” Ursula had always told us, “maintaining general levels of fitness is important, keeping supple too. That’s the groundwork for all the rest. You need to minimise the risk of pulling a muscle or spraining something in a tricky situation.”
I followed my exercises with a hot shower and felt a great deal better. From the office I rang Eddie Cliff at the Whitworth Centre and asked if I could call in to talk to him.
“I’ve the Craft Club till twelve,” he told me, “and at one I’ve a meeting with funders about monitoring and evaluation. You know I spend more and more time raising the money and justifying the work with targets and weights and measures and performance indicators and less and less actually working with people. Sorry,” he said. “Soapbox. Right ... erm ... best come at twelve. Squeeze you in then.”
“Thanks.”
I checked my emails and sent one to Harry and Bev to tell them we’d be coming to the New Years party. Then I spent more time transferring files from floppy discs I’d brought from home and trying to design a more efficient way of organising my folders.
As I worked my mind circled around my forthcoming appointment with Eddie Cliff, tentatively, never quite reaching out and shaking the thing out to have a good look at it. I prowled round it with eyes shut and face averted hoping that the whole thing was a mistake, an illusion. Not real. Not a lie. A flat, hard, ugly, awkward lie.
“What?” Eddie looked genuinely puzzled. His blue eyes narrowed and shadowed with confusion.
“Someone saw you there,” I repeated. “At Miriam’s, getting in the car with her.”
“They can’t have,” he said. “I wasn’t there.” He looked at me and shook his head in disbelief. “Who said this?” He sounded hurt.
“You don’t know them but they knew Miriam.”
“It’s a mistake,” he said firmly. “Either it was someone else or it was another day and this person’s got them mixed up. That’s the only explanation I can think of. Could that be it?”
“Possibly,” I said guarded.
“You know I was here, at the Centre,” he pointed out, “I told you, we had the visit from Central Grants. I was up to here with it,” he measured the air above his head.
“That finished at two.” Sharon had told me.
He gave a short laugh. “They may have left the building at two but the work didn’t stop there: papers to clear, displays to remove, supporters to thank.” He frowned. “I feel I’m having to defend myself,” he put his hand on his chest. “And I don’t even know who’s told you this. But they’re wrong. I didn’t see Miriam after she left here. I wish I had. Maybe I could have done something ...” He shrugged.
Reverend Day had seen her. Was that why the clergyman had been so awkward? Because he’d seen how distressed she was and he’d failed to help her? Did her agitation frighten him? Was it guilt that had sealed his lips, not wanting it to get out that he done nothing, said nothing and left her to her fate? Crossed on the other side of the road?
“You say it could have been another occasion?” I asked Eddie.
“We went to GRUMPY,” he saw me look quizzical. “It’s a resource centre, for community groups, they collect waste materials and recycle them, lots of arts and craft stuff. It’s very cheap. We’re members. We went to stock up on materials. I took Miriam.”
“When?”
“The day before, the Wednesday. That must be it,” he said. I could sense him waiting for my agreement. And I realised I would have to be as persuasive as he was being. I knew Horace Johnstone was a drinker, but I believed his story. He hadn’t been to Heald Place before Roland invited him. Unless he was manipulative beyond belief he had seen Eddie with Miriam and it had been the day of her suicide. Eddie Cliff was lying but I didn’t want him to know that I didn’t believe him.
“On the Wednesday,” I shook my head, tutted. “God, I am sorry. That fits,” I nodded. “Makes a lot more sense. It wasn’t the most reliable of people but I had to check it out.” I smiled, it made my mouth ache. “Hope you don’t mind.”
“You had me worried there,” Eddie said.
“Don’t. Really. This sort of thing comes up all the time. It’s amazing how muddled people can be ... and asking people to recall things from months ago. Well. Anyway I’m glad that’s cleared up. It really didn’t make sense.” I smiled again. “And now, I’d better be on my way. You look busy?”
I nodded at the piles of Christmas parcels, the table decorations, the crib with its carved figures.
“Christmas Fair. You must come.”
“Yes, I will. Sharon mentioned it.” When she told me about Melody. I could have asked Eddie if he’d heard about Melody but I held back. I wanted to get out of there. Away from him. Eddie Cliff. Liar. I felt sick inside.
I got to the baths at twenty-to-one. The last twenty minutes of adult hour. I ploughed up and down, feeling my heartbeat speed up, my breathing quicken, the blood flow faster round my arms and legs. All the time I chewed over the interchange I’d had with Eddie Cliff. He’d been plausible, concerned, friendly. And he’d maintained his false story. Why?
The question echoed to the rhythm of my strokes. Why, why, why?
He had something to hide. Whatever business he had with Miriam Johnstone that Thursday afternoon he wanted to keep it hidden. He had a secret. A secret I needed to unearth. He was the last person to see Miriam alive. Not at 12.00 when she had left the Whitworth Centre but over two hours later when she was already distraught according to both Mrs Green and Hattie Jacobs.
I don’t remember getting dressed. I was too busy concentrating on my next step, and the best way to unpick the truth.
The Health Food Shop in Withington were selling pricey organic Christmas pudding, vegan mince-pies and carob tree decorations. I could just imagine Maddie’s horror if she opened one of them and found it wasn’t authentic Cadbury’s chocolate. I steered clear of all that and bought a spring roll and a flapjack for my lunch and some mixed nuts, black mustard and sesame seeds, oatmeal and herbal tea for home. I imagined Nana Tello’s reaction: birdfood. I dropped my purchases twice and queried the change before I clocked that I wasn’t functioning properly.
I was shocked that Eddie Cliff was lying to me. And apprehensive about what the lie might conceal. He was so convincing though. There’d been nothing obvious in his body language or the tone of his voice to betray him. He was a good liar. Skilled. If he’d lied about Miriam, what else had he lied about?
Inamong my distaste and anxiety I was completely keyed up, adrenalin buzzing along my spine, mind racing about. The weather was changing, a storm was forecast and I could feel the pressure in the air. The sky had darkened to a moody blue and the first tugs of wind were starting. I hurried back and devoured my lunch, chose strong coffee over herbal tea and had a most uncharacteristic (after so many years) craving for a cigarette. Then I got on the phone.
Eddie had worked in Hull, Sharon had said, at a similar project called Horizons. I started with the local authority. Like all councils it seemed to have only one phone line which was either engaged or unattended. On my sixth try I got through and was transferred to social services. I told the man at the other end I wanted the number for Horizons, a drop-in centre I’d heard of where they did arts activities.
“Not a day-centre?” he asked.
“Don’t think so, open to anyone.”
“Just a minute.” I could hear him relaying my query to his colleagues. One of whom knew exactly where I meant.
He came back on the line. “Horizons,” he said. He gave me the address and phone number.
Bingo.
I flexed my shoulders and stretched my arms.
When I got through to Horizons I asked for the manager.
“Who shall I say is calling?”
I told her.
A pause, then, “Bryony Walker speaking.”
“Hello, my name’s Sal Kilkenny. I’m ringing in connection with a Mr Eddie Cliff who used to work there.”