Pleasure and a Calling (18 page)

Apart from my labouring breath, a hush now fell upon the house, until they came rising up again, the electronic micro-beats, audible from Sharp’s earphones, dislodged now, the thin wire of one of them looped across his cheek where he had come to rest, his body inverted at the foot of the stairs, one leg bent awkwardly beneath him. His head was tilted at an unnatural angle and it seemed to be over, but as I reached the bottom of the stairs he began to twitch quite horrifyingly, his eyes staring out of their sockets at the ceiling. It was a curious hiatus, panting here, watching him jerk and judder when I might still have called an ambulance, but I had already made my choice.

The inside of my cheek was bleeding where I must somehow have bitten it. I made my way into the kitchen and splashed water on my face. Then, regaining my composure, I went into the garage, brought back the golf club – a wood, judging by its bulging face (if memory served, from a summer camp in Scotland Aunt Lillian once sent me to) – took the measure of its heft and length and finished Sharp off with a single firm swing to the temple.

I swear I could hear the chimes of an ice-cream van.

You know what you did.

Oh dear God, if she could see me now.

T
HE HUT IS ONE
of my places, but I’ve never been inside before. If adults see you alone in the cemetery (and most of those who do are taking a short cut from the park to the bus stop) they give you a look to let you know they’ve seen you there, loitering amid the black stones, some of them as old as the town itself. But I’m not loitering. I am just drawn to the hut.

The hut is on the far side of the cemetery from the park. From the hut you can see the flat roof of the whitewashed pavilion, which is always dark inside and has a wooden floor that echoes when you stamp on it, and smells of pipe tobacco and is the preserve of the slow-witted park keeper who issues tickets to the putting or bowls on busy days. Today is not busy. And the cemetery is deserted. All the loved ones of the dead people here are dead themselves and buried in a more modern cemetery across town or their ashes cast over the waters of the Broads. The man who rides the mower and looks after the cemetery is nowhere to be seen. This is his hut. I have seen him run a hose from the tap here or take his round-bladed spade and neaten the verges or the grass paths around the graves. He is friendlier
to children than the park keeper or other adults are and wears a flat cap smoothed to a leathery dark finish with weather and grime. Some of his front teeth are missing. The hut sits against the cemetery wall. It is hand-built from unwanted lumber with tarry asphalt on the roof. It is inexpertly fitted with windows salvaged from other buildings, held in by nails that have been hammered in and bent over and left to rust. If you peep in you can see the chair and bench where the cemetery man eats his lunchtime sandwiches or reads his paper or has a cup of tea when it’s raining. It’s perfect. I loose the hasp and staple and with a tug the door is open.

‘This is my house,’ I tell the children (though strictly speaking nothing has ever been my house and may never be again).

We begin with a surprise. I take out a box of coloured matches we have had since Guy Fawkes Night and crouch down to strike one. Anthony’s eyes widen at the sight of the red flame. I tell them they are my magic matches. I strike another, holding the match expertly until the flame goes normal and then dies. I strike another. I am happy to lie on the bench while the children play underneath. I have draped a dustsheet over the bench like a curtain and found some sacking for them to sit on and given them each a biscuit. Around us, in our sun-warmed space, are the tools of the cemetery-tending trade: gardening equipment, flower urns and zinc buckets, a bag of cement, another of sand, a third of gravel. There is a red can that smells of petrol and makes a pleasing hollow, sloshing sound when you lift it. I listen to their contented murmurings. They have made a baby of Angela’s bunny-rabbit. Perhaps they are offering him some biscuit crumbs. I have no wish to disturb them as they care for him and settle on who they are in this game and what they want to be. Imagination is a fine thing in itself. Outside I hear bees
where they move among the bramble flowers and dandelions, and in the distance, though I didn’t notice it start up again, the whine of the mower. I close my eyes for a moment and listen to the children’s low voices. The sound of the mower now ceases. I sit up sharply and scramble to the window, which has cobwebs on the inside. I ought to have gone by now. There is still time, I hope, to be present for Mrs Damato’s horrified discovery, and to throw myself into the blaze, to feel the full heat of my mischief.

The man is some way off but I can see his bobbing cap as he moves through the cemetery in the direction of the hut. I am quick. The door scrapes the ground as I push it open and slip out, keeping my head down as I scamper across the path to the cover of the ancient gravestones and statuary, the smell of freshly cut grass high in my nostrils. Out here and free, it is an adventure to dash from stone to stone, ducking out of sight. After a minute or two I can’t see him at all. Perhaps he has turned back, or has work to do in another part of the cemetery. I wait at the entrance, behind the pavilion for a moment, then cross the park, below the line of the bowling green, and take one of the unpaved cul-de-sacs that lead to the main road. From there I walk up the hill and turn right on to our street. I am lucky. All is peaceful at the Damatos’, with its door ajar and garden empty of children. Mrs Damato is still upstairs. I hear the soft whirr and clatter of her sewing machine. I make myself small behind an armchair in the lounge, which is spick and span from Mrs Damato’s incessant housework.

Minutes on end pass, but now she is at last calling the children. I hear her outside. There is shouting now and a scream. The voice of a neighbour joins in the hullabaloo, then a second. It fills me with excitement. I squeeze my eyes closed. Now a lady is in the hall, using the telephone. There is more shouting and
crying. I crouch and hide and listen. I stay as long as I dare, and then at last slip out at the back, down the sloping garden with its roses growing to the wall and the unpaved cul-de-sac below, dark beneath the heavy trees. I glance once towards the park and pause. And now I run. I am blind to everything. I will stop for nothing, retracing this part of my earlier journey from the park, slowing at the end when I reach the main road. I can hear the ice-cream van somewhere. I look back down the cul-de-sac once more but I will not wait, and soon I am back on our avenue where I am safe.

Opposite our house is a police car, sky blue and white, and I can hear Mrs Damato’s shrill voice. She is standing with the policeman, a neighbour at her side. The gate is open. Their heads turn at my approach. Asked if I have passed two children, I say I have not. Mrs Damato is urged to be calm. I am quizzed further. Where have I been? To buy sweets at the shop, I say. No one asks me to produce the sweets or indeed turn out my pockets, where they would find one of Mrs Damato’s biscuits. Mrs Damato doesn’t even seem to know who I am.

The policeman asks if Anthony has ever gone off on his own before.

‘Never, never!’ wails Mrs Damato. She throws up her arms and breaks into a flood of high-pitched gibberish.

Another neighbour arrives and is told what has happened. The ice-cream van turns on to our avenue with its sudden jolly peal of bells and the policeman steps into the road with his hand raised.

I take the opportunity to escape to our house, where I pour a glass of milk and watch from my window, eating the evidence of my involvement. I am waiting. Almost immediately there is a scream below and Mrs Damato dashes along the street, out
of sight of my window. When she reappears, she is carrying Anthony, holding him tight and stroking his hair, his poor face streaked with tears. But relief on the faces of the other grownups has already turned to panic as they realize he is alone, and Anthony is now set down on the pavement to answer questions. Where is the little girl? Where is Angela? Where is she? He cannot answer. A woman is running towards the group outside the Damatos’ and everyone turns towards her. Is this Angela’s mother? I fear so. Certainly there are recriminations and more howling. Perhaps she has noticed that little Anthony is wearing Angela’s white sandals. Perhaps Mrs Damato is demanding of Anthony why he is no longer wearing his blue cardigan.

At this point Aunt Lillian’s Austin pulls up. She sees the commotion and crosses the street, followed by cousin Isobel, with shorter hair, cut into a neat bowl shape. The policeman speaks to Aunt Lillian and she looks serious and shakes her head. Isobel listens with her arms folded. Then, as if she knows something, Isobel turns and looks straight up at me. As if she knows that worse is to come.

F
ROM ABOVE, SUNLIGHT STREAMED
through the study window, casting a green shadow on the wall of the stair from the paperweight balanced on the top step. From outside came the distant repeating beep of a reversing refuse truck. It seemed an age before I moved. I felt as though I were refuelling, and that the longer I stood there the more the power would surge into my body. At last I felt I might explode with energy. On the downside I had only the vaguest sense of what needed to be done. Clearly, somehow, I had to get Sharp out of here. How could I be certain that a neighbour or a passing motorist had not seen me arrive or even just seen me walking up this street? The house was filthy with my fingerprints and footprints and Lord knows what else from my recent visits. It had been bad enough to have the wife’s body on the premises; now, with two bodies, even the least intelligent police detective would be looking for a third party. I imagined that to make Sharp’s death look like an accident or suicide would exceed the skills of a man who buys and sells houses, even one practised to an intermediary level in electrical and plumbing work.

How much simpler, I thought, if they’d just killed each other.

I switched Sharp’s music off by the control on the wire. He was wide-eyed, and pale as marble, but had no blood on him – just a great bald swelling where the golf club had hit.

I took the club into the kitchen, scrubbed it, wiped it and took it through the utility room to the garage. Here was Sharp’s brutish white 4×4, squatting in the light from the kitchen. This was the way he had entered the house – driven into the garage, and then come straight through to the kitchen. Had he been planning to move his wife’s body after all? Why else would he bring the car in and close the garage door behind him? I lifted the tailgate and, sure enough, the back seats had been folded down to create the necessary space.