A Ghost in the Machine Read online

  “He’ll wait,” said Roy. “He works there.”

  “As a senior producer, I expect he does.”

  “Best thing is the Piccadilly Line from Uxbridge. Straight through to the Circus. Ten-minute walk up Regent Street, you’re there.”

  “How do you know?”

  “They took a group of us from the home once. One Sat-day morning.”

  More waste of public money, thought Ava, hurrying upstairs. What on earth was the point—she riffled through her wardrobe – of exposing the dregs of society to a fine institution like the BBC? Her mustard two-piece (a quick sniff under the arms) would just about pass. What a pity this invitation hadn’t come after she’d bought all her new things. Such a thought recalled her recent windfall. She took an envelope stuffed with notes from her underwear drawer and peeled off fifty pounds. About to replace the rest she hesitated. The drawer had no lock and with the two of them on their own rootling about…Roy especially she wouldn’t trust. She often wondered just how much of the church money made its way out of the velvet collecting bag and into his pockets. She slid the envelope under the mattress.

  No time to make up. She’d have to do that when she got there. There was bound to be a ladies at the Tube station or near by. Her hair was a mess too, but that was easily solved. She would wear her auburn peruke, short and curly and quite youthifying in a gamine kind of way.

  When she got downstairs they were both feeding their faces. There was a huge bottle of orange-coloured pop on the table and pickled eggs in a dish.

  “I see you’ve not stinted yourselves.”

  “I paid for those,” said Roy. “Here’s your change.”

  Ava scooped it up.

  Karen said, “You look really nice.”

  Roy didn’t say anything. He thought she looked like a long streak of piss with a wig on.

  “I don’t know when I’ll be back,” said Ava. “Chris and I are bound to have heaps to talk about.” She was tempted to say, “And no poking around in my room,” but didn’t want to put the idea into their heads.

  “Shouldn’t you take this?” Roy held out the leaflet. “In case you forget his name.”

  “I’m hardly likely to do that.” But Ava took the paper, just in case. “Don’t stay up late, Karen. When Roy leaves for work you go straight to bed.”

  “But that’s only nine o’clock.”

  “And don’t think I shan’t know.”

  They sat quite still until the car drove off. Karen, her head nervously straining towards the window; Roy with a forkful of batter bits suspended halfway to his mouth. Only when the sound had died away did they carry on eating.

  “That was fantastic.” Karen, her shrunken stomach bulging, finally laid her cutlery down. “I was really hungry.”

  I bet you were, you poor little sod. “Shall we see what’s on the box then?”

  “You said yesterday we could rehearse your jokes.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “You did, Roy. You promised.”

  “Anyway, you never laugh.”

  “I will today.”

  “And they’re not jokes. Stand-up comedy is…” He could never remember the word. It meant hanging around watching and listening to what people said. “More like proper life.”

  “If you get tired, can you do sit-down comedy?”

  Roy was pretty confident he could succeed in the entertainment business because they were always laughing at him at work. To get the hang of it he’d been going to a pub with a room upstairs where anybody could have a go on Saturday night. He couldn’t get over how easy it looked. This bloke had just stood there droning on about how hard it was to get a decent shag and they were all wetting themselves.

  At the back of Roy’s mind always, and at the front of his mind most of the time, was the idea that when he really made it, perhaps when he won Stars in Their Eyes he would find his mother again. She would be watching and she’d know him because mothers always recognised their own children, no matter how long it had been. Alone, he would rehearse their meeting, perfect the cracking brightness of his smile.

  “Roy?” Karen was shaking his arm. “Can I look at one of your magazines?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “They’re too old for you.”

  “No, they’re not.”

  “Which one d’you want then?”

  “The one with men in little skirts with birds’ heads walking sideways.”

  “That’s the Egyptians. They were dead mystic.”

  “Like the Knights Templar?”

  “Nobody’s as mystic as the Knights Templar. They’d walk round for hours and hours in a weird sort of trance.”

  “I still like the Egyptians best.” Karen poured some more orangeade and smiled. A rare sight. Indeed, a sorry sight. “Tell me about the mystery of the Sphinx, Roy. Go on.”

  “You’ll only get all worked up.”

  “No, I won’t.”

  “Last time you couldn’t go to sleep.”

  “Tell me about the wonderful rose crystal in its bottom. And the evil green stone of Set.”

  16

  It was mid-morning when Kate put her key in the door of 13 Cordwainer Road. Benny, who had not been there before, was very disappointed. As they were driving through streets of shops and terraced houses she kept looking out for a sudden change in the landscape, for the beginning of spacious semi-detached dwellings with gardens and garages; the sort of home she had always pictured Kate and Mallory living in.

  Kate unpacked the fresh milk she had brought and made some tea while Mallory picked up the post in the hall. Nearly all flyers – they had already sent out change-of-address cards to family and friends – there was one personal letter, which was from the new owners. Apparently there had been some hold-up on the transportation of their furniture from Hong Kong and they wouldn’t actually be moving in for another couple of weeks. As this would hardly affect the Lawsons one way or the other, Mallory dropped the note into the bin with the rest of the junk mail. Then, as the tea brewed, he and Kate looked around the sitting room in some dismay.

  “Didn’t we say we weren’t going to take that?” He was staring at a stained oak bureau that had belonged to his parents.

  “Yes,” said Kate. “That and the zinc table and chairs outside and the big painted cupboard in the back bedroom.”

  “That’s right. You were going to ring house clearance.”

  “We, Mallory. We were going to ring house clearance.”

  “You see, Ben?” Mallory picked up the Yellow Pages. “Can’t manage without you.” He looked up the relevant section. “Try all these people and say we’ve some stuff to clear. But they have to collect from this address,” he scrawled it across the page, “by mid-afternoon.”

  “What if no one can come?” worried Benny.

  “Then we’ll send it with the rest of the stuff and sell it down there.”

  Kate, pouring the tea, stared round gloomily. “I can’t get over all these wretched pots and pans. I thought I’d packed everything.”

  “There’s still some space in this box.”

  “Not half enough.”

  “Also, there’s Polly’s room,” said Mallory. “She should really be here.”

  He had rung Polly’s number just before they left Appleby House. Dialling carefully, waiting and waiting while Kate stood by expressionless, feeling her face might crack. And what were they talking about? Two shelves of books and enough clothes to fill a bin liner.

  “Polly?” Benny had stopped dialling. “She’s on holiday.”

  “Holiday?”

  “In Crete. With friends.”

  “How do you know?” The rush of relief almost knocked Mallory off balance.

  “They rang when she was down at Forbes Abbot the other week. She went out to meet them. To make final arrangements.”

  “There you are, Mal,” said Kate. “Now, can we get on?”

  “What?”

  “We need boxes from the
nearest supermarket. Then we have to pack as much as we can of the rest of the stuff before the removal men get here. The van’s due at one.”

  “Right.”

  “Hello? Hello – is that –” Benny screwed her eyes up at the Yellow Pages – “Mr. Tallis?…Oh, Frank. Well, I’m Benny…Fine thank you, Frank. I hope you are too? Now, there’s some lovely furniture here for clearing…Thirteen Cordwainer Road. Parsons Green, that’s right. Would you be able to come and have a look, only it has to be today?”

  Kate caught Mallory’s eye. Both smiled over Benny’s head, awkwardness and suspicion dissolving in the glance. Kate thought, this time tomorrow we’ll be home with a capital H, then everything will be transformed.

  Mallory thought, all that anxiety over nothing. There’ll probably be a postcard any day now. Even as he pictured it arriving Mallory felt the notches in the belt of anxiety around his chest begin to slip and slide. His breathing slowed down. His heartbeat softened.

  Benny replaced the receiver. “Frank’ll be round in half an hour.”

  “Thanks a lot, Ben,” said Mallory. He just stopped himself saying, “Well done.” She wasn’t a child, although the look of pride in her accomplishment might lead one to wonder.

  Actually Benny was already thinking of something entirely different. She was recalling her visit last night to Doris’s house and pondering on what a stroke of luck it had been that her friend listened to the local radio station. Having heard an advance announcement of the Ava Garret interview Doris just had time to get her neighbour to record the programme. Listening, Benny realised that she had been right to place such confidence in the medium. How forthright Ava sounded. How vividly she described the communication between herself and the spirit of Dennis Brinkley. And how convincing her promises that their next dialogue would bring forth even more dramatic revelations as to the manner of his death. She should have been on the stage, thought Benny, nodding with satisfaction as the machine was finally switched off. You’d never have guessed that, from start to finish, the whole business was nothing but a pack of lies.

  The rest of the morning went so smoothly that Kate found herself poised and waiting for the other shoe to drop. They decided to have toast and tinned soup in the garden, sitting on the grass, as the zinc chairs and table had been snapped up, along with all the other unwanted furniture, by Frank Tallis.

  As they were stacking their bowls and plates, Kate spotted in the longish grass a small flowerpot decorated with a glaze of blue and yellow irises. She cried: “Look! Look!” and seized the pot, wrapping it in newspaper and wedging it into one of the cardboard boxes they had collected from Sainsbury’s.

  “That is just so lucky. I would have hated to lose it.”

  “It’s an omen,” said Benny. “You’ll see.”

  The serendipity continued. The removal van arrived a few minutes early. The men were amiable, polite and efficient. Quite quickly the house was emptied of all it contained.

  The occupants did not linger. Mallory left to bring the car to the front door. Benny poured the remaining milk down the sink. Kate stood looking round the sitting room where she and Mallory had spent nearly every evening for the past nine years. She felt nothing. A box to live in, merely. Now they were going home.

  “You all right, Ben?”

  Benny, quiet for a moment, blew her nose on a lace hanky. “Mmm.”

  Kate linked arms, squeezing Benny closely against her side. How thoughtless she had been. Content in her own happiness, she had quite forgotten that Benny was returning to a village now bereft of her oldest and dearest friend. At once Kate vowed to love and care for Benny always, whatever the circumstances. They had heard no talk for some days about Dennis’s murder and Kate hoped all that nonsense was over. But if it wasn’t she would be very patient and try to understand and nurse Benny back to equanimity.

  Outside Mallory hooted. As they left, Kate carrying the keys to drop off at the estate agents, the back doors of the van were being fastened and secured. The Lawsons, taking short cuts and nippy sideroads, would arrive at Appleby House first. In case of hold-ups or accident Judith and Ashley, who also had a list of what furniture went where, would let the removal men in.

  But, of course, there would be no accident. It simply wasn’t that sort of day. The interior of the Golf was already hot and Mallory wound the windows down. He smiled at Kate, who smiled back, then they both smiled at Benny. Kate began to feel she was in one of those uplifting Hollywood movies full of good, shining people committed to the eternal promise of the yellow brick road. Even the removal men could have stood in for the Cheeryble brothers. Then, jumping into her clear, calm, unworried mind came a vivid image of a mile-high dinosaur, flames gushing from its gaping jaws. It reared up directly in their path, blocking the way.

  Of course, it wasn’t true. The Fulham Road was going about its normal business. So where do they come from, these sudden visions? wondered Kate. These fearful eruptions crashing through the wall of the mind? Unlike Benny she did not believe in omens. Such superstitious nonsense could have no place in an ordered and rational life. All the same, she found herself unable to regain her previous calm and happy state of mind until they had all arrived safely at Forbes Abbot.

  At seven o’clock when the Lawsons were setting off for London, Karen was waking up at Rainbow Lodge. She always did this as slowly as possible to keep the world out. During her first weeks at primary school, a teacher had read aloud The Sleeping Beauty. Karen was entranced. Could such a thing really be possible? To fall asleep for years and years and wake up grown up and in the arms of a handsome prince who truly loved you?

  That night she had looked everywhere for a needle but no such thing was to be found. Eventually she came across a brooch with a sharp pin and pushed it so hard into her thumb it really hurt. Fairy-tale oblivion proved elusive but eventually Karen drifted off, only to wake at the usual time with blood on her pillow. Her mother had been very, very cross and Karen had to make up a story about her tooth bleeding in the night.

  Now she swung her thin legs out of bed, resting none-too-clean feet on the bare lino. She scratched her head, then sniffed under her arms. It was definitely whiffy there, and down below was even more so. She knew a shower was indicated but this could be a risky business. Installed by her grandfather years ago, the system consisted of an immovable zinc shower head the size of a dinner plate and a single tap that turned both ways, producing a violent rush of either boiling or ice-cold water. Trying to catch the transforming moment meant a constant leaping in and out of the cabinet. Baths were considered an extravagance, though Ava was compelled to have one every day to refresh her aura.

  Karen put on a dressing gown and crept out on to the landing. There was no sound from Ava’s room. She had come to bed pretty late. Karen had heard her, stumbling on the stairs and muttering to herself. Once she had called Karen’s name. Karen didn’t respond. Just thought how like her mother to say, “Get to bed early” before she went out, then deliberately wake you up in the middle of the night. No doubt she wanted to show off about what a wonderful day she’d had being famous. Well, Karen didn’t want to listen. Ava had never wanted to know about her day. Never wanted to hear her read. She hadn’t even come to see the Christmas play when Karen had been second page to an Orient king. So Karen had put her head under the bedclothes and pretended to snore.

  The kitchen was depressing and still smelled of fish and chips. Neither she nor Roy had bothered to wash up, and greasy paper was still crumpled all over the table. A solitary pickled egg lay in a puddle of vinegar. It was gone seven. Roy would be home any minute, wanting his breakfast unless there had been some unsold sandwiches left over, as sometimes happened. Karen had gone to school one glorious morning on a Full English Breakfast baguette: sausage, bacon, egg, tomato – plus a jam doughnut and Smarties ice-cream lolly.

  She stuffed the newspaper in a carrier bag, put the glasses and dirty plates in the sink, then filled the kettle to make some tea. As it came to the boil
she heard Roy’s moped coughing and chuffing outside. He lifted the latch and walked in.

  “Wotcha.”

  “Got anything nice, Roy?”

  I should get the family allowance for this one, thought Roy, not that tight old cow upstairs.

  “Coupla wafers.” He passed over the Jacob’s Clubs.

  “Oohh, mint. They’re my favourite.” Karen lifted the heavy kettle with both hands, filled the pot and gave it a stir. “Um…are there any sandwiches?”

  “Not today, love.”

  “Remember those croissants you brought once? The ones with chocolate inside.”

  “Do I?” He had produced a pack of four. Gut bucket had wolfed three before he’d even got his arse up to the table. He and Karen had shared the last. Now she was putting some mugs out. Roy jerked his head towards the stairs. “Shall I give madam a call?”

  Karen shrugged. She would much rather it was just her and Roy. On the other hand, Ava might come down anyway, then there’d be a lecture on how some people certainly knew how to look after themselves when others not a million miles away were lying desperate for a cuppa and parched to the bone.

  Roy went to the bottom of the stairs. He shouted, “Tea up!” Waited. Shouted again. Then said, “I’ll give her a knock.”

  Karen was putting three sugars in Roy’s tea when he cried out for the third time. This was a different sound. Quite panicky, as if the house was on fire. Frightened, Karen ran to the stairs and met him coming down.

  “Don’t go up there, Karen.”

  “What is it? What’s the matter?”

  “Your mum’s poorly.” He couldn’t bring himself to say the right word. He just couldn’t do it. “We’ll have to get an ambulance.”

  “Wouldn’t the doctor do?”

  “Not this time, love.”

  Ava had apparently died in her sleep. Roy met the paramedics on the doorstep, relieved to see that one of them was a woman. He told her what had happened. Asked her to break it to Karen. You could see she didn’t like the idea but Roy said he couldn’t bear to do it and there was no one else.