The Yeare's Midnight (19 page)

So there it was: the final proof of his failure. Infallible eyewitness testimony. The written word was cruel and unforgiving: it found you like a bright light would. Underwood’s head boiled and throbbed. He felt it might implode. He had become a tiny slick of pain in a vast pointless universe. John Underwood
slumped on the floor, his back to the bed. ‘
I
have
met
someone
else.
’ The epitaph to eighteen years of marriage; twenty-two since they had first started dating.
‘I
have
met
someone
else.’
Simple and effective – like a gunshot.

His gaze fixed on Julia’s dressing gown, still hanging on the wardrobe door: maybe she thought she didn’t need one any more, maybe this Heyer fuck had bought her a new one. He got up and opened the wardrobe: a line of Julia’s dresses still hung inside, a neat battalion of her shoes at the bottom. Her underwear still lay in the top drawer of the dresser: bitch probably didn’t need it any more. Underwood fetched a suitcase from their spare room and started piling her clothes in. It took five minutes and the bulging case didn’t shut properly. He dragged it downstairs and slammed it into the boot of his car.

5
November
1975.
The
date
he
knew
he
loved
her.
He
had
known
her
for
a
year.
She
was
in
the
class
below
him
at
school.
Clever
girl,
university
bound.
Straight
black
hair
to
her
shoulders,
big
serious
eyes.
She
was
the
star
of
the
school
play
and
he
used
to
watch
her
rehearse,
pretending
he
was
helping
out
with
the
set
or
the
lighting.
Julia
had
to
sing
‘Somewhere
Over
the
Rainbow’.
She
had
a
beautiful
voice:
it
rose
and
fell
effortlessly.
John
Underwood
sat
in
the
lighting
gantry
and
watched
her
unseen,
gobsmacked
with
awe.
He
resolved
to
ask
her
out.

5
November
1975.
School
Bonfire
Night.
They
had
built
a
huge
pyre
on
the
unused
sports
pitch
behind
the
gymnasium.
It
was
always
a
big
event:
parents
and
children
together.
There
was
even
a
guy
that
the
art
department
had
painted
to
look
like
the
headmaster.
Julia
Cooper
went
with
her
parents.
John
went
alone.
He
had
bought
a
hot
dog
and
gone
hunting
for
her
in
the
firelight
flickering
across
a
crowd
of
chattering
faces.
He
had
found
her
by
the
bonfire:
staring
into
the
flames
with
those
big
green
serious
eyes,
the
warmth
of
the
fire
on
her
face.
Her
parents
were
talking
to
the
headmaster
and
his
wife:
probably
about
Cambridge
University
admissions
policy.
Julia
stood
alone.
He
threw
his
hot
dog
into
the
fire
and
approached
her, 
wiping
the
grease
from
his
chin.
She
was
holding
a
paper
cup
of
tomato
soup:
it
steamed
pleasantly
in
her
mittened
hands.

‘All
right,
Julia?’

‘Hello.
It’s
John,
isn’t
it?’
Her
brow
furrowed
slightly.
Was
she
intrigued
or
embarrassed?

‘Good
fire.’

‘Great.’

‘They’ve
got
some
good
fireworks
later.
They’ve
spent
three
hundred
pounds
this
year.’

‘I’m
looking
forward
to
that.’

‘That’s
Mr
Hodges,
isn’t
it?’
He
pointed
at
the
lopsided
flaming
effigy
that
was
causing
much
amusement.

‘It’s
really
funny.
It
looks
just
like
him.
Except
it’s
not
so
fat.’
She
laughed,
looking
straight
into
his
eyes,
and
he
was
lost.

A
cheap
firework
phutted
and
whizzed
overhead.
People
began
to
move
away
from
the
fire
to
get
a
closer
look.
Julia
looked
awkward
suddenly.

‘Better
go,
I
suppose,’
she
said.

‘Oh
yeah.
You
don’t
want
to
miss
anything.’
He
had
to
move
quickly,
think
of
something. ‘I
liked
your
singing
today.
You’ve
got
a
really
good
voice.’

‘Thank
you.
Will
you
be
at
rehearsal
tomorrow?’
She
didn’t
seem
embarrassed
at
all.

‘Yeah.
See
you
there.’

‘See
you
there.’

John
hadn’t
bothered
watching
the
fireworks.
He
walked
home
feeling
that
God
had
lit
the
touch
paper
to
his
soul.
The
following
day
he
found
out
that
Julia
Cooper
had
snogged
Danny
Lynch
after
the
fireworks.
It
was
the
big
gossip
of
the
school.
The
bottom
fell
out
of
John
Underwood’s
universe.
He
cried
for
her
in
the
school
toilets.
But
he
was
a
lost
cause.
He
wouldn’t
give
up.
A
month
later,
on
the
last
night
of
the
school
play,
he
asked
her
out.

Twenty-five years later, John Underwood stood on the driveway of Paul Heyer’s mock-Tudor detached house and poured a can of paraffin over a suitcase full of his wife’s clothes. He knew she
was inside the house, probably caressing a fucking wine glass. Bitch. She could stare into this. He lit the corner of one of her blouses with his cigarette lighter and stepped back. The paraffin ignited with a gratifying
whoompf.
For a few seconds he watched the fire start to take: the flames quickly licked three or four feet into the air. Things had come full circle. John Underwood walked away and was quickly swallowed by the darkness.

About a minute later Paul Heyer threw open his front door and sprinted into the night. He had a washing-up bowl full of water and flung it over the blazing suitcase. The air was acrid with smoke and he coughed as it stung his eyes and throat. Julia Underwood followed him and threw a saucepan of water at the fire. The combination worked and the pile of clothes steamed poisonously. She recognized the address tag on the suitcase.

‘Bloody lunatic,’ said Paul.

‘Oh God.’ Julia put her hand to her mouth.

‘Can you hear me?’ Paul shouted into the night. ‘You’re a bloody lunatic.’

The night just listened.

12 December

The whole process had taken nearly two hours. Crowan Frayne had driven for about two miles before he had found a suitable place. He hadn’t seen a single car in that time. Nothing had broken the nervous monotony until the headlights had picked out a steel gateway. Frayne had climbed out of the car and looked into the field beyond. It was large and sloped downhill for about half a mile. Away, at the bottom edge of the field, Frayne thought he could make out the dark outline of a wood.

It looked like a grazing meadow for sheep or cows. Thick
grass. It would have to do. He untied the gate, climbed back into the car and he drove through. He closed the gate behind him – no point taking unnecessary risks – and after a quick look along the road in both directions he climbed back into the car and turned off the headlights. Gently, he came up off the clutch and the Fiesta lurched awkwardly forward, gathering momentum as it began to jar and bump down the slope. Frayne could hardly see a thing but found the experience exhilarating: flying invisibly through the rushing blackness. Coins rattled in the glove compartment as the car bounced along the lumpy ground. Frayne could see the line of trees approaching and began to brake slowly: Katie Hunt’s body slid forward and thudded onto the floor of the car. Frayne briefly flicked the headlights back on and off to check his position and slowed to a stop.

He got out of the car and walked into the trees. It was hardly a proper wood, more a cluster of elms that separated two fields. However, there was a gully about ten feet deep that cut sharply down to a narrow stream. Frayne returned to the car and released the handbrake. He pushed hard against the frame of the driver’s door and, after a second or two of straining against the car’s inertia in the mud, the Fiesta began to move.

As it moved onto the harder ground at the edge of the trees the car began to pick up speed. Crowan Frayne pushed it over the brow of the gully and then stepped back, panting as the Fiesta crashed nose first into the stream. The car was out of sight: invisible from the road and, Frayne guessed, undetectable unless you walked right up to the edge of the gully. Satisfied, he jog-walked back up the gradient to the steel gateway. This time he climbed over the gate and began to make his way back towards his van, staying on the tarmac but close to the edge of the road.

In the thirty minutes it took him to get back to his vehicle, Frayne saw only one car and was well concealed by the time it passed him. He was sweating heavily as he sat down in the driver’s seat of the van but he felt a strange sense of satisfaction, as if the hoarse minstrelsy of the spheres had become amplified, blending in with the thumping blood in his head. He had taken
a terrible risk and had derived no real pleasure from the act, but he had preserved the integrity of his conceit.

Had not Donne sacrificed rhythmic and stylistic beauty to sustain the logical structures of his poetry? Few would say Donne’s work was aesthetically pure. Quite the opposite: his style was rough, his language almost violently colloquial. Frayne looked in the rear-view mirror. There was a spray of blood and flecks of mud on his forehead. Donne’s reputation was based upon his wit and logical argument: the yoking of extraordinary opposites, the brilliant unravelling of metaphysical conundrums. History had forgiven Donne his stylistic abrasiveness: Frayne was confident that the beauty of his own conceit had not been violated. Stussman would understand. Like the divine children in the oven, it would remain unblemished.

He switched on a torch and looked himself over. There was more blood all over the front of his jacket and gloves. His boots were caked in gluey mud. Fortunately, he carried a spare set of over-clothes in a carrier bag in the back of his van. The ugliness from which his poetry emerged necessitated such precautions. He took off his gloves and placed them in a spare plastic bag. Then he stepped outside the van and removed his outer garments: the night air bit and nibbled at his skin, his hands fumbling at the bloody buttons.