The Face That Must Die Read online

On Aigburth Drive, which curved round the park, two men stood talking outside a house. The house looked discoloured and blurred, like something left in an attic; its three storeys of pairs of bay windows gleamed sullenly. It must have been dignified once.

  Now it had fallen into bad company. Two men? They weren’t what he would call men. One was a thin pale youth with long black ratty hair and a paler tuft of beard. Was he pretending to be a man or a goat? His eyes were nervous yet blank. All these students tripping on their drugs – sooner or later they’d trip themselves up.

  But the other was worse. He looked stiff, as though he was ashamed of his movements – as well he might be, for he was gesturing like a parody of a woman. In his dark heavy overcoat he was a blot on the landscape. He was hefty; the youth had no chance against him. Had he built up his body to convince people he was a man? Everything about him was a lie. When he turned to stare at Horridge the too-small face looked like a petulant mask swollen with flesh.

  Horridge glared; then, feeling queasy, he hurried between the granite columns into the park. As he limped past the obelisk, wind tugged at his coat, trying to expose the tartan. Huge warty swellings grew on some of the trees which bordered the walk. Shouldn’t those trees be cut down before they infected their neighbours?

  The sweet cracked open. Within was nothing but a disappointing hollow. Horridge crunched it and sucked a red one, which tasted vaguely of strawberry. Pain plucked at his teeth like a dentist’s hooks. Once his father had made him visit the dentist. “Don’t be a baby. Look how you’re upsetting your mother. Be a man.” He had never felt so terrified as then, lying helpless in the air with his mouth forced open, awaiting more pain. Since then he had visited the surgery only in nightmares.

  At the end of the walk, near an ice-cream cafe, a statue of Eros posed with a bow. He’d used to enjoy that, until he’d seen a man loitering beneath it, ogling children. Was nothing left unspoiled?

  At least the park was deserted, apart from distant childish shouts. Years ago, when he’d lived nearby in Boaler Street, he’d learned to come here in the afternoons. People spoiled his peace.

  A small bridge led him across a narrow of the lake. Beyond it the concrete path sloped towards the first calm pool. His aching leg ceased to bother him. The descent always reminded him of climbing down into the quarry.

  When he reached the place opposite the bandstand, he halted. The desertion of the bandstand seemed to orchestrate the quiet of the artificial valley. Everything was vividly precise: the austere trees, the bushes with their glossy pelt of leaves, the grassy slope above him refreshed by the morning’s rain, the sky blue as a summer lake fading subtly towards the horizon. Everything felt clean as the quarry.

  The wind had fallen. The inverted bandstand and trees lay perfectly still in the pool, their reflections glazed by the water. He stood tasting the slow explosion of strawberry.

  Ducks glided by, feet waving like submerged orange fronds. Their ripples passed through the reflections; the bandstand wriggled a little, branches flowed and quivered gently. He watched zigzags undulate along each separate twig, as though the sound of lapping had been translated into sight. The ducks returned, the ripples overlapped. Though the patterns were intricate, every detail was clear to him.

  Soon the ducks left him for a man who was throwing bread. Their flight shattered the reflections. He trudged away, past a statue of a man who gazed across the lake, trying to ignore the graffiti on his pedestal.

  Beyond stepping-stones enclosed by railings, the lake widened. Fishermen glanced up like watchdogs. He crossed on the stones and followed a path to Lark Lane. Though the lane resembled a village street, it soon led to the dual carriageway. Beyond the petrol fumes and headlong metal stood a Bingo hall, the Mecca. Wasn’t that what foreigners thought of as heaven?

  But here was the mock-Tudor library. The ceiling was supported by high white beams; briefly he thought of a church. Beneath them hung faded paper festoons, and an iron gallery clung to the wall, so that the staff could look down on people. He remembered the first time he’d climbed his father’s ladder.

  As he reached a table, he cursed himself. This library took no newspapers; he couldn’t read the murder report. He’d visit another library on his way home, or buy a newspaper. At least the place was quiet. He tried to think of the pool or the quarry.

  The blonde girl serving at the counter wore no shoes. You wouldn’t think it would be allowed. And she wore trousers, which was unnatural. A lady in tweeds was asking her about books. “Will the titles be in the index, yonder?”

  “ Yes, I should think so. Shall I show you?”

  “ I can look after myself perfectly well.”

  The girl grinned secretly at her colleagues. She ought to look out for her own speech instead of mocking people who could speak properly. Her trace of the catarrhal Liverpool accent made her sound common, however glossy she kept her long hair.

  The junior wing grew noisy. Schoolboys gazed at the girl’s breasts, tittering. Tittering – yes, he knew what the word sounded like, no need to think it. He hated people who corrupted the young. She must know what her right sweater was doing.

  He watched her until she went home. She tucked her hair beneath a black wool cap, as though she didn’t want to look like a woman. There wouldn’t be so much unemployment if they stopped all these women working. No chance of that: it wouldn’t please the herd.

  The noise of children drove him out into the dark. Passers-by were carrying plastic trays of curry, as though English food weren’t good enough for them. On the road that encircled the park, lamps lit trees from beneath. Was that the blonde girl ahead, or a man? Horridge plunged his hands deep among his documents, to try to warm his fingers. Before he could overtake the figure, it disappeared.

  He knew when he reached the house where he’d seen the two men, for he’d observed the number; nobody could say his vision wasn’t sharp. Besides, the van which he had vaguely noticed was outside: a battered vehicle painted with large cartoonish flowers. Whoever was responsible had no idea what real flowers looked like. No doubt that was the fault of all their drugs.

  He was staring at the parody of a flower when light reached out from the house towards him, and displayed a face.

  The light came from curtains parting: no reason for his fists to clench. But the face which the window displayed as though it was something to admire was the face of the hefty effeminate man. It looked even more mask-like now. It turned as if searching the dark road, then faced Horridge.

  Suddenly he realised how he looked, standing beneath the lamp as though waiting to be seen, while the sly corrupt mask hunted eagerly. Shivering, his face frozen by rage and the night into an expression which he could not read, he limped violently away.

  The lights of Sefton Park Road dazzled him, but could not clear his mind. The face at the window clung to his memory; it lay on his thoughts, close and heavy. His skin felt prickly, nervous. He had seen that face earlier, outside the house. But where – his thoughts struggled vainly, as though in a dream – had he seen it before?

  ***

  Chapter II

  Before Cathy was halfway upstairs she was running. Somewhere in her pocket, amid the clumsy bundle of iced sticks that were her fingers, was the key. She poked the time-switch outside the flat and aimed the key; it was like trying to thread a needle while wearing gloves. The god of frozen fingers was on her side, for she managed to turn the key before the light clicked off.

  She nudged the door shut with her shoulder, which felt like a huge lump, as though she were Quasimodo made of ice. A tiny Charles Laughton went swinging away in her mind, shouting “Sanctuary, sanctuary.” She ran to light the fire and squatted before it on the floorboards. Sanctuary much. God, her puns were getting worse.

  The flames rose in their cage. As the bars turned orange, her body thawed and grew familiar; she wasn’t Quasimodo with fat unwieldy fingers after all. Christmas cards had fallen from the kite’s-tail display on the dangling tapes ove
r the mantelpiece; she stuck them into place. She drew the curtains and began to tidy the room.

  She picked up Peter’s sweater, which was lolling on the bed. He must have come home and gone out again. She collected the sprawl of his comic books from the round Scandinavian table and stacked them on top of the storage units. Books and a Tangerine Dream record occupied the chairs, as though keeping all his places. She put them away, sighing. It would be nice if he occasionally did more than empty ashtrays.

  Today was macrobiotic day. This week she was going to make a vegetable curry. She hoped it would work. She cooked, adding more or less what the recipe indicated, tasting constantly.

  Somewhere beyond the kitchen window a man was croaking. At last she made out that the word was “Rags, rags.” He sounded like a throaty old night-bird. But wasn’t it late for a rag-and-bone man to be calling? Perhaps he was searching for a lost dog.

  Footsteps clumped upstairs. She heard Peter opening the door. “What’s for dinner?” he called.

  “ Vegetable curry.”

  Silence. A little encouragement would do her no harm. “Are you home?” she called.

  More silence. Redundant questions made him irritable. But he might have been going out again, for all she knew.

  “ The old arse-bandit was after me today,” he said loudly as he closed the door.

  “ Peter!” Why must he be so eager to shock? Mr Craig might have heard him. Perhaps Peter had wanted him to hear, or perhaps he didn’t care.

  “ He can’t get enough, that guy. He’ll end up leaving boys tied up in cupboards.”

  “ You shouldn’t joke about that sort of thing.”

  “ Who’s joking?” He strolled into the kitchen, pulling off his black wool cap. Dark straggly hair flopped over his shoulders. She must trim it soon, despite his protests. “He’ll be keeping them in his wardrobe soon,” he said. “Maybe he already is.”

  He often trapped himself in his own jokes – carried on until they ceased to be funny, if they ever had been. It was as though he couldn’t find his way out, and it annoyed both of them. “Were you really speaking to Mr Craig?” she said, to help.

  “ You mean the arse-bandit? Right on. We had a really intimate conversation.”

  “ What about?”

  “ What do you think? Can I please turn down that nasty rock and roll? I play it so late, and it’s so noisy. Not nice music like Beethoven.”

  “ He didn’t really say all that,” Cathy said, half-convinced by the gist if not the wording.

  “ He wanted me to turn the fucking records down.”

  For a moment she felt as though his unexpected violence were directed at her. “You ought to buy some headphones,” she suggested.

  “ Save up for them instead of buying comics.”

  “ No way. Comics are an investment. I just got a new Swamp Thing and a whole stack of Fantastic Fours by Jack Kirby.” Perhaps he was fleeing that subject when he added “I’ll tell you what was weird – there was some weirdo watching me and Craig.”

  That was all he seemed interested in telling her. “There was a man watching me in the library,” she said, mocking the hint of mystery in her words.

  “ Yeah?” He sounded indifferent, restless.

  “ The man with the limp. He came in the week you were working there. The one who limps. You know.”

  “ No, I don’t. That’s why you’re telling me.”

  He knew she couldn’t describe people, the pig. “There was a rag-and-bone man out there before,” she said: that seemed a better anecdote. “This little voice calling ‘Rags, rags.’ Or maybe he was calling his dog.” But Peter looked bored. She was glad when someone knocked at the door.

  “ Ben and Celia have split up,” Peter said.

  But they’d been married less than a year. News like that disturbed her, yet he’d announced it as though it were the weather forecast. Before she could begin the struggle of questioning him, he’d let in Anne and Sue.

  “ Can we borrow your phone?” Anne said. “There’s supposed to be some good dope around.”

  They must have heard him coming home: they wouldn’t have asked Cathy. Of course it was silly to be nervous – the phone wasn’t tapped.

  Sue wandered into the kitchen, smoking a joint. “Oh, hello,” she said as if she couldn’t quite place Cathy. Eventually she doled out a question. “Been to the library today?”

  No, she’d been pouring boiling oil on people’s heads. “Yes,” she said curtly. She disliked intruders in her kitchen. She refused the joint and said “Will you ask Peter to empty the bin?”

  When Peter appeared, he plainly resented being asked in front of the girls. But he grabbed the bin, and shouted to Anne “Ask if there’s any acid.”

  Cathy hoped there wasn’t. Grass she didn’t mind so much, but LSD dismayed her. In the park Peter had cried “For Christ’s sake don’t leave me” gazing at a crippled decayed branch; his pupils had been swollen and flickering. She wouldn’t take acid; the idea of losing control frightened her. Besides, she’d never seen anyone made more pleasant by a trip, nor any couple grow closer.

  Peter returned. “I emptied it in Harty’s bin,” he told the girls. “Old bugger thinks he owns the place.” He displayed the empty kitchen bin to Cathy, like a hunter’s prize.

  “ Jim says he can get some good Canadian acid,” Anne told him. “Purple Pyramid – it takes you right out of your head.”

  “ Great. I can keep a tab for summer.”

  Sue dawdled in, coughing as she smoked the joint down to the cardboard tip and lit another from it. “I hope you know how lucky you are, leaving the libraries,” she told Peter. “We couldn’t get through the day without a joint.”

  Cathy grimaced, sharing her thoughts with the stove. The only time she’d worked with them, the girls had sat stoned and giggling at the desk for most of the afternoon. When the flat across the landing had fallen vacant Peter had told them at once, though Cathy had wanted it for Ben and Celia. Would her friends have split up if she’d been close enough to mediate?

  “ Craig was after me to turn the records down. Christ, his flat isn’t even under ours.”

  “ It couldn’t have been our records,” Sue said. “We were out last night.”

  “ He complained to us once, though. Isn’t he oily?” Anne squirmed and grinned, as though at a disgusting joke. “And the way he tries to be sort of stiff, as though if he lets go he’ll flop all over the floor. We told him to piss off.”

  “ I don’t mind him,” Cathy said.

  All of them stared at her. “Sure, he’s a very warm and wonderful human being,” Peter remarked in a spurious American accent.

  That joke had become a cliche in itself. If she heard it just once more – They were wandering more slowly and aimlessly; they made her kitchen feel crowded and untidy. The girls gazed at the wall-charts of recipes; they might have been in an art gallery. “Pass me the garam masala, please,” Cathy said.

  Sue stared as if she were talking a foreign language; Anne turned to the spice rack, but stood looking bewildered. Peter began laughing. “Never mind,” Cathy said irritably. “All of you go in the other room.”

  As they did so, someone else knocked at the door. Bloody hell! She made for the door; she wouldn’t put it past them to answer it while smoking. But Peter was already there. It was Fanny from downstairs.

  “ Hello, Peter. Oh, there you are, Cathy.” She advanced, stretching out her hands, which were multicoloured as a palette. “I’m sorry to come pillaging. Could you spare any sugar? Oh buttocksbumanarse I, forgot to bring a cup.”

  “ I might have half a grain to spare.” Cathy filled a mug from the tin. “What are you painting?”

  “ I’ve just finished. Come and see.” When Cathy hesitated, she added wistfully “You can tell me if it’s any good.”

  Fanny’s flat looked as though a living-room, a bedroom, a newspaper cutting service and a studio were battling to occupy the room. An easel stood on a wad of paper thick as a
carpet; a drawing-board was folded behind the couch, which at night spread its arms and became a bed. Faces clipped from publications gathered everywhere; a mug of coffee defended its island on the crowded table. The walls brandished spotlights. “That’s it,” Fanny said with an uneasy laugh, and gestured at the easel.

  The painting teemed with babies. Some sat in prams, some lay in cartons, on yellowed newspapers, on earth. They laughed, cried, dreamed, played with the air or with themselves, looked bewildered, delighted, abandoned. They were many colours. Some were vivid yet false as photographs in a housewives’ magazine, others were drawn in crayon or marker pen and had a child’s truth about them. Some were fat as tyres, some were skeletally thin. A few were bruised or worse.

  “ Yes, it’s good,” Cathy said. “It’s really good. You’ve put a lot into it.” Her words seemed inadequate. She wondered what features a baby of hers would have: Peter’s teeny leftover of a nose, her eyebrows that met in the middle like a Hollywood werewolf’s, Peter’s beard?

  “ And here’s my masterpiece.” Fanny showed her a notice painted in the style of her signature, elaborate as New York subway graffiti: PLEASE KEEP THIS DOOR CLOSED. “Commissioned by Mr Harty, my first patron. I keep forgetting to put it up,” she said. “Come and hold the tacks while I remember.”

  On her way to the door, Cathy noticed a metal bird. It was rough as chipped flint, yet gracefully slim. “Are you going in for sculpture now?”

  “ Someone gave that to me.” Did her tone imply a new relationship or a treasured memory? “I want to try working in clay sometime,” she said.

  At the bottom of the stairs she tapped on Mr Harty’s door. His dressing-gowned shoulder emerged, and then his bald head; two tufts of grey hair perched above his ears like packing, as though he’d just been removed from his box. “That’s right, Miss Adamson,” he said to Fanny. “Too many people have been wandering about. We don’t want just anyone coming in. There are enough criminals without putting a temptation in their way.” He withdrew like a jack-in-the-box; his lid clicked shut.