FRAUD Page 5

  He sat gazing blankly out at the garden, puffing away on his third cigarette, and in time his fury cooled and hardened into bitter hatred for the whole publishing world – for the whole world, in fact – drenched in the old familiar black despair, blacker than ever. Okay, maybe his Marketing Proposal had been a bit unprofessional. Maybe it hadn’t struck the right note. He was no expert at that sort of thing after all. But what really angered him was that he had been pleased with those sample chapters. They were tight, pacy, funny – whatever that arsehole said – with vital, three-dimensional characters and a promising story. The truth was, of course, that he hadn’t read them. In a way, it was a comfort.

  Heaving a sigh, he resolved to put the whole nasty business behind him, resolved to be Big, to be Mature, and to get back to work. He added one sentence to the text on the screen and stared at it while smoking his last cigarette. At lunchtime he went to the kitchen, cut the crust off a loaf of bread on which he dumped a slice of dry, rather old ham he had found lurking on a saucer at the back of the fridge, then pushed it aside in disgust. If he had had a decent morning’s work it would now be time for a well-earned nap. He decided to take one anyway. He filled a hot water bottle, hauled himself up the stairs and clambered fully clothed under the blankets, curling up round the little rubbery core of warmth, its heat helping to assuage his hunger and nausea. He pulled the quilt over his head. The blackness was quite comforting.

  He drifted into a fitful sleep. Sometime during the afternoon he was aware of the telephone ringing down in the hall. It would be Anne, no doubt, to wish him a happy birthday and disclose the whereabouts of the hidden present. She could leave a message.

  When he resurfaced, the room was in semi-darkness. Beyond the window the tops of trees swayed against a stormy, rain-laden sky. The dramatic change in the weather seemed to have reflected the change in his fortunes.

  He rolled onto his back and heaved an enormous sigh, then lay motionless, gazing at the ceiling. Maybe it was time to call it a day. Maybe it was time to finally put an end to this crazy dream and try to live like a normal person. All his life he had wanted to write – he could not remember a time when he had not wanted to write. It was the dream which had sustained him through childhood, through school, through the years spent drifting like a ghost among the bookshelves in Eastbourne Library. Then had come the day, seven years earlier, when another envelope had dropped through the letter-box. It had contained a letter from a solicitor and a cheque for thirty thousand pounds – the legacy from his beloved brother Jack who had died of colon cancer. And Anne had said, “I think it’s time you gave up work and concentrated on your writing. I can’t think of a better memorial to Jack, apart from anything else.”

  He had looked at her in amazement. “But… it’s only thirty grand.”

  “It’s enough. And the children are self-sufficient now. More or less.”

  “What about my pension? I’ve still got seventeen years to go.”

  “There are priorities in life, Ted. I’ll just have to look for some more lucrative cases. Take on a bit less legal aid.”

  He had smiled. “So you’re going to turn away all those single mums and battered wives and abused kids?”

  “We’ll manage.”

  He had been forty-eight at the time. Finally liberated from work, he had decided to go back and redraft an earlier novel – one he had begun in his thirties and abandoned when Julie, his adopted sister, had died. The rollicking adventures of its young heroine – all four hundred and seventy pages of them – had seemed to explode into being under the clattering keys of his laptop, its dark humour and slangy first-person narration adding poignancy to the underlying tragedy. It had never occurred to him that it would not find its way into print, but after years of submissions and rejections, of jumping through hoops to try to please agents and publishers, he had become stripped of all illusion and now, at fifty-five, he was still unpublished and Jack’s legacy had all but vanished. He had let him down, he had let Anne down and he had let himself down. So maybe now – his fifty-fifth birthday – was the time to finally admit defeat. There was no chance of returning to anything like his old job – it probably no longer existed anyway, sacrificed to the God of ‘rationalisation’ – but he could maybe go back to freelance French and German translating, something he had done before to help the children through school. It was a prospect for which he could not muster a single grain of enthusiasm.

  It was now dark. On days like these Ted welcomed the dark – it was so much gentler and less challenging than daylight. He weakened, after all, and went to the pub.

  2

  The Queen’s Head – or simply ‘The Queen’s’ as it was known locally – had been Ted’s salvation on countless occasions. It was within easy walking distance and the moment he entered its low, seventeenth-century portal, he was embraced by the ambience of wood-smoke, home cooking and good cheer. Whatever his mood, whatever disaster had befallen him during the day, the Queen’s was always the same, always reliable. He knew most of the regulars, who greeted him cheerfully. They were all familiar with his moods – he was an artist after all – and ignored them. He bought himself a pint before anyone could treat him, thus avoiding having to converse for twenty minutes about the tyranny of fishing quotas or the recent resounding successes of the darts team. Brian Sexton, a local vet, plonked a large hand on his shoulder.

  “Cheer up, Ted, old son! It might never happen!”

  “It already has, Brian.”

  “Oh dear. Another polite rebuff?”

  “No. This one wasn’t even polite.”

  “I’m so sorry, old man. I know how you must be feeling.”

  No he didn’t. He didn’t have a clue how he was feeling. How could he? He was ten years his junior and engaged in a useful, well-paid profession, had seven acres of land, four Labradors, two horses, a goat and a Toyota Landcruiser. How could he possibly have the faintest idea how he was feeling?

  “Thanks, Brian,” he smiled feebly, sliding an arm and shoulder into the wall of backs at the bar to order his pie and chips. When he withdrew, Brian, thankfully, was chatting to someone else.

  His favourite table by the inglenook was vacant and he commandeered it. He was quite happy just to sit with his beer, gazing at the glowing logs and soaking up their comforting, throbbing warmth while allowing the ebb and flow of conversation – punctuated by frequent bursts of laughter – to drift in and out of his ears without having to take the slightest interest in what was being said.

  A waitress whom he had never seen before presently arrived with steak and chips and a salad, dumped them in front of him and demanded to know if he wanted any sauces. Her manner was so abrupt that he found himself looking up at her in surprise. Her eyes were heavy with black and purple mascara, her lipstick was a glossy plum red and her jet-black hair hung straight as rods from a parting at precisely the top of her head. She wore pendulous ear rings in the design of a skull and her perfect breasts – constrained by a low-cut black top – might, on a different girl, have cheered him considerably but on this one they seemed positively threatening. He must have taken a moment to absorb this bizarre spectacle because she repeated the question about the sauces, this time with a note of impatience, even menace, in her voice.

  “Well, before we get onto the subject of sauces, I think I should point out that this isn’t what I ordered. I ordered pie and chips.”

  She sighed and snatched the plates away again, clearly annoyed with him for having ordered something other than what she had brought. Ted noticed an old man gazing longingly at the steak and trying to attract her attention, so he pointed him out to her. She took it to his table and disappeared, returning a few minutes later with his pie and chips.

  “Right, so you’ve got what you ordered. Now to get back to the utterly riveting subject of sauces.”

  “I’d like vinegar, mustard, ketchup and Worcester sauce please.”

  “We don’t have Worcester sauce.”

  “Yes y
ou do. I’ve been coming in here for twenty-seven years and I always have Worcester sauce. So would you kindly fetch it for me, please?”

  Casting him a ferocious look she flounced off, returning a few moments later clutching vinegar, mustard, ketchup and Worcester sauce. “There!” she proclaimed, dumping them all down on his little table, “Will that be all, sir?”

  “Well, a knife and fork might help.”

  She murmured “Shhhit” under her breath, then she set off again in search of cutlery. By the time she returned Ted’s meal was getting cold. Nonetheless, just as she was making her escape, he asked her, “What’s your name?”

  She turned back and glared at him as though he had made an improper suggestion. “I’m sorry?”

  “Your name. You know – the thing the police put on the charge sheet.”

  Her eyes narrowed, as though she were trying to figure out his motive for asking, then she answered, “Nicola.”

  “Okay. I just want to say, Nicola, that I’ve had a terrible day, and I mean a really terrible day. And when I have terrible days I come in here to be cheered up. And, frankly, you’re not doing a very good job.”

  She stared at him, speechless with indignation. “It’s bad enough having to cart food around all night on what they’re paying me without having to cheer people up as well!”

  “Just a smile wouldn’t hurt, would it? It doesn’t have to be sincere.”

  “Yeah… well, I’ve had a terrible day too.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it. But the sad fact is that I’m paying you to be nice to me, not the other way around.”

  She hovered while he sprinkled salt on his chips, clearly exasperated at being unable to voice her opinion of him without getting the sack. Guessing she was a student who was earning some money to get through college, he suggested, “A bit beneath you, is it? Waitressing?”

  She considered the question. “No. I’m just a bitch, that’s all.”

  “Right. Well, thanks for warning me. I’d never have guessed.”

  Melanie, one of the other waitresses, bustled past with a plate of food in each hand, casting her colleague an angry glance. Nicola mumbled, “I’d better go.”

  Ted had found his little tussle with the new waitress rather invigorating. And in spite of it – or perhaps because of it – he was in no mood to go home and have reality kick in again. The silence and emptiness of that house, the solitude which had engulfed him after dropping Anne at the station the previous morning now seemed unbearably bleak and depressing. He finished his meal and drained his pint then ordered a brandy at the bar. What the hell? Tonight he would stay to the bitter end.

  “That new waitress of yours is quite a character,” he remarked to Ian, the landlord, as he was serving him.

  “I hope she wasn’t too rude, Ted.”

  “Well, she could do with brushing up a bit on her people skills, but I didn’t really mind. There’s something about her that amuses me.”

  “I wish all my customers felt the same way. I’ve already had complaints. If she doesn’t get her act together soon I’m afraid she’ll be seeing the door.”

  “Who is she, anyway? Is she local?”

  “Yes, she’s Bill Pearson’s daughter. You remember Bill?”

  “No, I can’t say I do.”

  “He used to be a mate of mine up in Bromley before we all moved down here. Made a fortune flogging high-tech security systems to factories and offices but then he buggered off with another woman when Nicola was only seven. It knocked her sideways, poor kid. We’ve kept in touch with Angela, her mum, ever since. It was she who asked me to give Nicola a job – well, begged me would be nearer the truth. Seems she’s been drifting a bit since university and she’s terrified of her going off the rails. When she came for her interview she looked like the Bride of Dracula. I told her she’d have to tone that look down a bit or she’d scare all the customers away.”

  “Well, if that’s the toned-down version, I dread to think what she looked like before!”

  “Yeah, the shame of it is that she’s a lovely-looking girl under all that crap. I remember her when she was little. I long to just scrub it all away and give her some normal clothes and a decent haircut. She’d be a stunner.”

  “Maybe she’s hiding behind it.”

  “God Ted, don’t get me started on psychology!’ Ian laughed as he moved away to serve another customer. “Life’s complicated enough as it is!”

  Ted took his brandy, installed himself on a barstool and sank into thought, trying his best not to dwell on the letter. Someone talked to him about fishing and someone else about the trials and tribulations of building and uploading a website. He forgot both conversations the moment they were over. As the evening wore on, the pub began to empty until only a few gaggles of stalwarts remained, their conversation growing ever more impassioned and incoherent. The kitchen was now closed and Nicola seemed to be taking a break – she was sitting alone in the farthest corner behind the bar, staring at a glass of coke.

  Ted took his drink and walked round to her. She glanced up. “Sorry if I was a bit rude earlier.”

  “I tell you what. You tell me about your terrible day, and I’ll tell you about mine. What happened?”

  She heaved a sigh. “Oh, I just flunked another audition. Over in Brighton.”

  “Are you a singer or an actress?”

  “Actress. Trying to be.”

  Ted had the first intimation, then, of what she was feeling, since it must have been close to what he was feeling himself.

  “What was the part?”

  “It was in a play called ‘The House of Bernarda Alba’ – it probably won’t mean much to you. I was going for Adela, the youngest daughter.”

  “She commits suicide for love. It was one of Lorca’s greatest works.”

  She seemed amazed that anyone in Wemborne-on-Sea had even heard of the Spanish playwright. “I was perfect, too. I rehearsed for bloody hours! I really wanted a chance to do that part!”

  “You’ll get the chance – in the West End or on Broadway. Not in Brighton.”

  She snorted with hollow amusement. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just crap.”

  Ted thought of all the platitudes he might offer at this point – about how you must never lose faith in yourself, how you must keep on trying, about the thousands of actresses and movie stars who had struggled for years as waitresses or taxi-drivers before getting their big break. But he could not bring himself to because they were exactly what people were always saying to him and they were never any comfort. And there was always the possibility that she was, if not crap, just not good enough to make the grade. It would be a long, hard road for her if that were true – or even if it were not. And in the meantime she had to come into the Queen’s every night and be expected to smile at miserable sods like him.

  He could not think what to say. So he just said what he felt: “I’m sorry, Nicola. I’m really, really sorry. It’s a shit world out there and they’re all bastards. I’m sorry.”

  She met his eyes for the first time, surprised by the passion in his voice. “What did you say your name was again?”

  “I didn’t,” he smiled, holding out his hand. “But it’s Ted. Ted Haymer.”

  “Well, thanks Ted,” she said, briefly shaking it, “You’re a mate.”

  Ian called last orders. The louts at the bar suggested a happy hour but he was not in the mood – in fact, he couldn’t wait to get rid of them. “You get off, Nicola love,” he said, knowing of her disappointment that day. “We can manage.”

  “How are you getting home?” asked Ted.

  “Walking.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yeah,” she retorted with a hint of her earlier aggression. “Why not?”

  “Well, it just seems a bit unwise – a girl on her own, late at night.”

  “You’re wasting your breath, Ted,” laughed Ian. “I’ve offered to call her a taxi but she won’t have it.”

  “There’s no point in workin
g if I have to waste all my wages on taxis!” Nicola protested.

  “I’ve told you, I’ll pay for it. I get a special deal from B-Line.”

  “I don’t want you paying for it, Ian! Don’t you understand? But… thanks anyway.”

  “How far have you got to go?” asked Ted.

  “Snetsham.”

  “Well, I live that way myself, more or less. I could walk with you, if you like.”

  “Yeah, but you might be an axe murderer for all I know!”

  “Don’t worry, Nicola,” Ian chipped in, “In all the years I’ve known Ted he’s only ever used a cheese wire.”

  “Oh all right then. But don’t think I need protecting, because I don’t.”

  “The exercise’ll do me good.”

  She fetched her jacket and bag and they walked to the door to a raucous accompaniment from the bar along the lines of ‘Don’t forget the Viagra, Ted!’ and ‘I’ll tell your wife of you, Ted!’ to which Nicola responded with a roll of the eyeballs. Outside the rain clouds had blown away, leaving the sky vast and clear, the stars glistening over a serene, silver sea. Ted took a deep breath. With such beauty in the world as those stars and this strange girl standing beside him, life could not be hopeless for long.

  “Want a fag?” she asked, extracting a packet from her bag.

  “Well, I’m supposed to have given up.”

  “I’m completely hooked. I haven’t had one since before I started work, which is probably why I’m in such a shit awful mood.”

  She lit up, seeming to suck the smoke into every nook and cranny of her being, then raised her face to the stars and blew it slowly out in what sounded like a huge sigh of relief.