Secret Story Read online

  More than the silence, the absence of any aroma of dinner told him that his mother wasn’t back from work. He marched along the hall, flinging doors wide. They irritated him by never quite fitting their frames since she’d had them stripped to tone in with the naked banisters and the pale pine hallstand. He kicked off his shoes on the way upstairs and collected them in one hand while he tugged off his socks with the other. He abandoned these on the stairs, but couldn’t remove his shirt until he’d dispensed with the jacket of his office suit. He dropped it on the desk chair that faced his bedroom window and the hillside beyond his computer, and dumped his trousers and the lasso of his quietly striped tie on top. He shied a wad composed of the shirt and his equally sodden underpants at the washing basket outside the bathroom and only just missed. He shut the door with one foot, and once his bare sole unstuck itself from the wood he hauled the sash of the window as high as it would strain, then fell on his back on the bed.

  He gazed across his naked body at the room. The toy revolver his father had bought despite Kathy’s protests lay on the dressing-table, dwarfing plastic soldiers years older. Then came books he’d won at school, and sets of encyclopaedias from his parents, followed by true crime books he’d bought himself. The wall between the dressing-table and the bookshelves was still decorated with posters his friend Eamonn had given him. Kathy wrinkled her nose at all these images from horror films and at the gun whenever he let her glimpse his room. How would she react if she knew what else was there? He was smiling and grimacing and otherwise greeting his thoughts when he heard her arrive home.

  “Oh, Dudley,” she complained over a muted slam of the front door. He guessed she’d found his socks, since her footsteps made an issue of how wearily she was ascending the stairs. She was almost on the landing when she called “Are you up here?”

  “I was going to have a shower.”

  “Go on then, and then we can talk.”

  He could hear her nervousness even through the door. “What about?”

  “Dudley, there’s something I haven’t been telling you. Let me go downstairs so you can have your shower and then we’ll talk about it.”

  She knew, he thought, and all the heat deserted him. His hands jerked out to drag the quilt around him. He heard his mother hurry down the stairs, and willed her to carry on out of the house, beyond any possibility of the confrontation she was afraid of. What had he said or done to alert her? He couldn’t think of anything—couldn’t think. Perhaps if he stayed cocooned by the quilt the encounter would never take place, since she wouldn’t dare to venture into his room. If that made no sense, what did? Only that she was his mother and would have to keep his secret: hadn’t that been in her voice? He was suddenly anxious to put the confrontation behind him. He threw the quilt away and sprinted, penis wagging like an admonitory finger, to the bathroom.

  Kathy had tidied his clothes into the basket, surely a promising sign. He bolted the door and climbed into the bath. It was as large as she liked it, and for the first time it made him feel stunted to childishness. As the water that had been lying in wait in the shower found him, he began to shiver. Hot water followed it, and he could have imagined that the June heat had been transformed into a mass of needles to prick him. He did his best to rake the sweat off his body with it before challenging his own gaze in the mirror while he dried himself. Once he’d knotted the cord of his towelling robe he padded downstairs. He was ready for a fight, he tried to think, since he was robed like a boxer.

  Kathy was washing breakfast dishes in the kitchen sink. She must have released her greying hair from whatever style she’d worn to work—however she’d looked when she’d waved him off that morning—because it was halfway down her back. She was in her civil service clothes, not the faded russet kaftan she so often wore at home. As she turned to him the sunlight caught the hint of a dark moustache that he sometimes thought was the badge of her ambition to contain all Dudley needed of a father. Her broad large-boned wide-eyed face, which was rather let down by a small flat knob of a chin, looked determined to be reasonable, as always. She rested a fingertip in the groove above her mouth as though holding the expression still before releasing her lips to ask “Which room shall we sit in? Would you like a drink?”

  “I don’t want anything.” This sounded defensive, and he tried to rescind his mistake. “You wanted to talk,” he said close to accusingly, and pulled out a chair with a screech of pine on linoleum.

  “I just don’t want you to be . . .” She recaptured her voice as she sat across the table from him, but only to say “Do you know when you really upset me?”

  Until now, was she implying? The obliqueness of her approach turned his thoughts into hard spiky lumps that scraped the inside of his skull. “No idea,” he mumbled.

  “Try and think. There’s a reason.”

  “The first day I went to school.”

  “And you kept running back to me in tears. You’re not still angry with me over that, are you? Remember I told you I felt the same on my first day. That wasn’t the time, though it was bad. I knew you had to get used to school. We couldn’t afford to have you taught at home even if you were ahead of the other children.”

  He found her wistfulness even more suffocating than usual. As heat swarmed over him he realised she was still awaiting the answer to her question. “The first day I wanted to walk to school by myself.”

  “You were too young, Dudley. Do you remember the tantrum you threw? I was fond of that vase. I never told you it was my mother’s, did I? But no, not then either. Part of me admired you for wanting to be independent when you were only eleven.”

  “When I went for my job interview and wouldn’t let you come.”

  “What makes you think I was unhappy then? I was so proud of you.”

  That wasn’t how he remembered it. He’d heard her sobbing as soon as she closed the front door after waving him off. “When I went to look for my dad,” he suggested impatiently.

  “I was afraid for you till the police found you. You were just thirteen, you know. But I didn’t mean that kind of upset. I’m sure I realised Monty leaving was something you had to work through.”

  At the time and for years Dudley’s impression had been that she’d felt betrayed by her son. “Then I don’t know,” he complained. “Tell me.”

  “When you tore up that story I said you should try and get published.”

  “You shouldn’t even have read it.”

  “You know I thought you’d left it on your bed for me. If I wasn’t meant to read it, why didn’t you shut the door?”

  “I did.” Surely this argument had been buried a decade ago. “That’s why it’s always shut now,” he said.

  “I’m sure I’d have liked whatever you wrote. You didn’t even let me finish it.” Her eyes continued glistening with a threat of tears as she said “You ought to have known I was on your side when I’d been to the school about the other one you wrote.”

  “We’ve been through all this. Where’s it leading?”

  Kathy reached towards him. When he left her hands stranded on their backs she said “Have you heard about the new magazine that’s out next month? The Mersey Mouth. How would you like to be in it?”

  “Get a job there, you mean? I thought your idea was I should have a secure one just like yours.”

  “They ran a competition for the best short story set on Merseyside by someone from Merseyside who’d never been published before.”

  Dudley’s twinge of frustration was immediately succeeded by relief. “Won’t they have chosen it by now?”

  “They have, Dudley.”

  This revived his frustration, though mostly with her. “What are you telling me about it for, then?”

  “You’ve won.”

  “I’ve . . .” She must think he was gaping with no worse than disbelief or shock, but the heat wasn’t just all over him, it was rendering his mouth as dry as his fists were clammy. “What’ve you done?” he spluttered.

  “I
don’t pray much, but I used to pray every night you wouldn’t stop writing because you didn’t like me reading the story you tore up. I was sure you hadn’t really, but don’t hate me, I couldn’t help looking for new ones. I only wanted to see I hadn’t destroyed your talent.”

  Dudley’s voice felt harsh as a mouthful of sand. “You’ve been reading my stories.”

  “I did, and when I heard about the competition I wanted to tell you to send one. I was afraid you might tear them up instead if you knew I’d seen them.”

  “So you . . .” The rest of his words seemed incapable of crossing the desert of his mouth. “You . . .”

  “I sent one in. Under your name, of course, since you hadn’t put it on.”

  She seemed actually to be waiting for gratitude. “Which story?” he forced himself to ask.

  “The one that had me on the edge of my seat and scared I mightn’t finish it before you came back from seeing your girlfriend. About the man with the phone on the train.”

  If he hadn’t pretended to have a date he would have been at home. The irony made him stagger as he lurched to his feet. “You’re not going to harm anything,” she cried.

  “Stay out of my room or I will,” he shouted as he slammed his door behind him.

  He dragged handfuls of encyclopaedias off the shelf and dumped them on the bed. For the first time he saw that the length of plywood against which they had been resting wasn’t quite the same colour as the wall. It was always in shadow, and nobody who hadn’t been searching his room would have noticed. As he lifted the last volumes down, the strip of wood fell flat on the shelf, releasing the typescripts it hid. He saved them from sprawling on the floor and separated them on the bed. They were all there, including “Night Trains Don’t Take You Home”.

  He took a breath that smelled of hot stale paper, and gave the door a slam that he hoped would make Kathy’s head throb as badly as his own was throbbing. “You only said you’d sent it,” he yelled from the stairs. “You were trying to make me think it’d have to be published, weren’t you? Did you honestly think I’d agree—”

  His mother was pushing an envelope across the table at him. The top left-hand corner bore a bright blue masthead. Upside down it resembled an unequal pair of sharp blades preceded by two bits of gibberish. He righted it to see a large M lending its support to both ersey and outh. “Open it,” his mother urged.

  He ripped it open so savagely that she recoiled. Inside were two copies of a contract to publish “Night Trains Don’t Take You Home”. Perhaps she was afraid he would tear them up; she began speaking as if to distract him. “I photocopied your story at work. The magazine phoned to say you’d won. I wanted to tell you, but I thought I’d be better waiting till they wrote.”

  “Then they can’t publish my story if I don’t sign, and I don’t want it published.”

  “I’m sorry, Dudley, but they can.”

  She sounded by no means sorry enough. “Who says?” he demanded.

  “If you send something to a competition you’re agreeing to the rules. Even if you don’t sign that they can publish so long as they pay you. It’ll be five hundred pounds, look.”

  “I didn’t send it.”

  “You wouldn’t say I did against your wishes, would you? You’re making me feel I shouldn’t have tried to help your writing. I thought you’d be pleased someone besides me knows you’re as good as I’ve always known.”

  Long before she finished speaking Dudley’s brain felt clogged with words. “Will you sign so we’re in time for the post?” she said. “Here’s a pen.”

  She snapped her canvas handbag open and extracted a ballpoint, which she pushed towards him. It looked shrivelled by the sunlight or by his trapped panic, and made a small protracted scraping sound that lingered on his nerves. He closed his prickly fist around it and considered snapping it in two, but what would that achieve? He imagined her passing him an endless succession of pens until he collapsed beneath her pleading. He felt his lips bare his teeth in a smile or a grimace as he scribbled his signature on both contracts. “There,” he said so harshly that his throat grew raw. “Happy now?”

  “So long as you will be, and I know you will. Let me have one of those and keep the other.”

  When he only capped the ballpoint she leaned across the table and slid the topmost contract out of his reach. From her handbag she produced an envelope she’d addressed to the Mersey Mouth and already stamped. She inserted the contract and sealed the envelope as she stood up. “I’ll just run to the post,” she said, and did.

  He dragged his nails over the contract she’d left him. He thought of crumpling it up and shying it into the bin, but that would be pointless while Kathy wasn’t there to see. Instead he tramped upstairs to drop the contract among the typescripts, then sat on the bed to gaze at the story that had been taken out of his control. “Her first mistake was thinking he was mad . . .” He must have read it dozens of times, but it had never felt capable of betraying him until now. “Come and get me,” he said under his breath.

  The sunlight seemed to blaze at him like a floodlight as he became aware what he was inviting. He sprang to his feet and almost heaved the tall wardrobe on top of himself in his haste to find clothes that would let him chase after his mother. He was clawing at the knot of the cord at his waist and only managing to part his fingernails from the quick when Kathy reappeared at the junction of the roads. She waved at him, displaying her empty hand. “All done,” she called.

  FIVE

  “They aren’t coming. I’m going out.”

  “Give them a few more minutes, Dudley. I know they’ll be here.”

  “I’ve given them plenty. I’ve given them more than I should. See, they don’t think as much of me as you said.”

  “Of course they do. They’ll just be delayed. Why don’t you ring the magazine?”

  “I don’t want to talk to them.”

  Was this one of his random attacks of suppressed panic? Kathy didn’t like to draw attention to them, even if she always felt she was to blame, because he would only lose his temper and deny them. Nobody except her would sense them, and she supposed that as his mother she would never stop worrying about him. He pushed himself to his feet with a creak of the upholstered wicker sofa and scowled through the window. “There’s nobody. I’m going.”

  “Promise you won’t go far. Take your mobile so I can call you when they turn up. Don’t get dirty when you’re going to be photographed.”

  His disdainful grimace made him seem younger to Kathy. “I just want you to look your best for everyone who’ll see you,” she said as he tramped out of the room.

  She followed as far as the front door. He turned to frown at her from the end of the short cracked path, but she was seeing how much he resembled her except for his hair that she trimmed every month: the face even broader than the bones required until it trailed off at the comedown of a chin, the pale blue eyes that were wider still with whatever emotions they fronted. Once Monty had written a poem called “Four Eyes” that pretended to be about spectacles until the eyes proved to be hers and their son’s. “I’ll bet the press arrive the moment you’re out of sight,” she said.

  He hunched his shoulders towards his large protruding ears, the sole feature she could hold Monty responsible for, and hurried up the track across the road. In seconds he was hidden like a beast in a jungle, though not before the unyielding sunlight clamped itself to Kathy’s scalp. She ought to have suggested he wear a hat. There was no sign of anybody in the one-sided street, and so she retreated into the house.

  Dudley had spent the last half-hour in leafing through his old true crime magazines, but they’d inspired him only to critical sniggers. She retrieved the magazines from the sofa and the floor and dropped them in the pine rack by the television. Since the contract for his story had arrived he’d been untidier than ever. She would rather this was deliberate than unconscious; she didn’t like to think he might be less than fully in control of his mind. At lea
st she was as sure as she could be that he’d never taken drugs—not like her and Monty years before their son was born. If he sometimes stayed in his room for hours without even switching on his computer, no doubt he was reading. If he wanted to keep his girlfriend Trina to himself, perhaps that would change. Only his secret panics reminded her of her LSD experience, of the night that she’d been convinced would never end as she became aware how infinite the dark was, how the passage of time would simply put more stars out, not least the sun. Monty had been scribbling poems that the daylight would show to be incomprehensible; he’d been as distant and preoccupied with his writing, she thought, as he’d grown later in their marriage. Surely their single night of indulgence hadn’t affected Dudley, but her fear that it might have was never far away. It took her to the kitchen to splash cold water on her face and drink a glassful to clear her mouth of a reminiscent metallic taste. She was resting her hands against the relatively cool interior of the steel sink to rid them of prickling when the doorbell rang.

  She hoped Dudley had forgotten his key. She had to produce a less reproachful smile at the sight of two people on the path, an oval-bodied balding red-faced man as middle-aged as her with a thin fawn cardigan draped over the camera bag that dangled from his stubby neck, and a small slim woman Dudley’s age or younger. She had cropped gently spiky bright red hair, a compact delicate instantly friendly face, and wore a pale grey lightweight suit down to almost her knees and a white blouse with a silver brooch at the throat. “I’m awfully sorry we’re late,” she said. “We got off at the wrong station. We thought you’d be Bidston. I’m Patricia. This is Tom.”