The Writer (11 page)

Another point of the town
that was of interest to her, and was equally difficult to accept,
was that when she saw the people gathered in Sal’s she realised
that the great old characters were still around. People like Elbow
and Two-Tooth, and Sal too. The younger generation had little to
offer in replacing them. Young people, like Sophie herself, had
been leaving Gendry for a while now, and they were replaced by
older people from the city looking for a peaceful town to retire
in. Dull people, who drove slow not because they liked to but
because they thought they had to. Elbow and Two-Tooth went out of
their way to push whatever opinion popped into their head, just
more for the fun of making a scene than for anything else. But the
new people never thought to challenge the status quo, and did not
know that there really wasn’t any. They were people who did not
want to cause dispute, to present an opinion that might be a bit
different, to maybe upset someone by talking out of turn. Gendry
was quickly becoming little more than a large retirement village.
Soon there would need to be a good hospital and nursing care, if
the trend was to continue. And they would all be driving
slow.

The twins noticed that she
was looking sad, and for once they didn’t think of asking for their
own fun but rather wanted to know what was wrong. She was sitting
on the large chair in the shadowy back porch, doing nothing but
staring into the distance. Kerry had a thought and he grabbed his
brother’s arm, telling him that she must be upset over
Craigfield.

“Why are you acting that
way, Sophie?” Jerry asked her.

“It’s not like Craigfield’s
gone back home,” added Kerry.

“He might as well,” she
said, quietly amused at their concern but not letting them know.
“He’s married.”

“There’s no one else with
him,” said Kerry. “He’s by himself.”

“Ask mother,” said Jerry,
“he checked in alone and no one else has been in his
room.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean
he’s not married,” she said. “She’s back in the city. Probably glad
he’s here, too.”

“What’s the problem, then?”
asked Kerry.

“She’s not here,” said
Jerry, knowing perfectly well what he was suggesting.

“It’s like he’s not married
at all, being here by himself,” said Kerry, agreeing with his
brother.

“I’ll pretend you never said
that,” said Sophie. “You boys don’t understand, you’re too young,”
she added as she hoped that was true.

“We don’t understand that he
may be wanting to replace his wife?” asked Kerry.

“Maybe that’s why he told
you he wasn’t married?” suggested Jerry.

“There’s more to it than
that,” she said, wondering if she should admit to them that she was
upset that he didn’t tell her about his wife, and if there was a
reason for that other than he just happened to forget.

Rebecca joined them, looking
at her brothers accusingly. “Quite a find,” she said, referring to
the dead body. “How did you manage that? Probably because you both
had something to do with it?”

“Rebecca, you’re just in
time,” said Sophie. “I was just telling your brothers about
Craigfield, and how some men cannot be trusted. And to think I told
him I was writing a book about marriage and he said nothing to me
when he had the chance, but pretended he wasn’t
married.”

“He already knew you were a
writer,” said Rebecca.

“How do you know that?”
asked Sophie.

“I heard mother telling
him,” she said. “She never stopped talking about you. I was so
embarrassed!”

“She told Craigfield about
my book?”

“Yes, all about your
novel.”

“Keep away from him, please,
Rebecca. There’s something not right about him.”

“Are you saying what we
think you’re saying?” asked Kerry.

“I have no idea what you two
think I’m saying,” said Sophie. “I don’t think anyone possibly can
know what goes on in your heads. What I’m saying is Craigfield
can’t be trusted. As far as I can tell, no one knows what he’s
doing in Gendry. You should all keep your distance.”

“I thought I heard him
saying he was looking for someone,” said Rebecca. “Someone in
town.”

“Are you sure?” asked
Sophie.

“That’s all I heard,” she
said.

“He was looking for Bill
Bearer!” Kerry announced with excitement.

“And he found him!” added
Jerry.

“Killed him and left him in
the woods!”

“For the birds and
bugs!”

Sophie knew that she should
calm them down before they became unstoppable with their new idea,
but the more she thought about it the more she realised that they
may be right. As far as Sophie could tell, this man had come from
the city and had told lies to everyone, including her, for no good
reason. Not long after, a local man is brutally run down and left
for dead in the undergrowth away from the road, perhaps to be left
unfound for years to come.

Sophie felt scared that she
had spent time walking alone with him. He was little more than a
perfect stranger, but there she was, eating lunch with him, talking
about herself, walking with him, without knowing anything about who
he was, and accepting that his stories are true. It was something
she would never have done had they met in the city. The
peacefulness of the town had seen her drop her defences. She
wondered how she could convince Susan to ask him to leave her
house.

His faded black cap was
pulled down tight, just allowing him enough room to peer out from
under the shaggy brim. Light drizzle started to fill the air as the
nearby rush-hour traffic began to thin. It was getting darker now
and Max expected that he would need to stay where he was standing
for another hour. It was a good spot, over the street from the
popular McNabb gym, known as Mac’s. He knew Jill was not there but
Craigfield was. In the top floor he could see people jumping up and
down, raising their arms and moving side to side, all with more
energy than Max could ever summon. Another figure, that he guessed
was Craigfield but was too far away to be sure, was walking around
in front of them like a drill sergeant.

For the life of him, Max
could not understand why people would want to waste their time in
such a place. Working there was another matter, as you got to order
people about, people who paid you, and you got to look over the
ladies under the guise of helping them better themselves. That kind
of a job Max would have killed to have in his younger days when his
body was more athletic and he could get away with pretending to be
fit. The pain from his foot was a timely reminder that he would
never be able to do anything like that. He preferred to think of
himself as fit in mind and soul, since he read widely and wrote as
much as he could, but his body was beyond help.

When Craigfield came out of
the gym Max felt like someone had kicked him. With increasing
jealousy he watched the tall and handsome young man jump into the
striking sporty red Audi convertible that was parked in front of
the door. The same car that Max had found hard to take his eyes off
as he waited for nearly two damp hours. He had imagined driving it
along some winding mountain pass, and wondered if it belonged to an
attractive young woman who had a thing for older washed-up
journalists with bad ankles. Was there nothing this man could not
take away from him, even his dreams?

He hurried to his own car, a
second-hand blue Suzuki hatchback he had suffered for ten years and
still did not know what some of the buttons did. It was difficult
to stop his crutch from slipping on the wet tarmac as he got to his
car. He hastily drove to catch up. The engine strained since it
liked the cold about as much as he did.

The drive to Craigfield’s
house was not far, just three or four streets, but the Audi moved
aggressively and it was hard to see in the light rain. The house
was fashionable but small in a street where they all looked the
same. Each one had a steep shingled roof and a small garage to the
side. Craigfield quickly drove into his own garage, barely waiting
for the auto door to open. Max took note of the house number as he
drove past. The closest place to park was in the next street and
when he hobbled back to the house there was a bright light in the
front room. Max tried to lean under a thin tree that was not strong
enough to support him. There was nothing he could do except stand
on his own. He hoped that the drizzle wasn’t starting to turn into
rain.

“Find yourself another
woman,” he said to Craigfield, imagining himself in that front room
and keeping him spellbound by his lecturing. “This is my wife.
She’s my wife, not yours. Think you can take my wife? Funny, I
don’t recall seeing you at the wedding. That was me, not you,
marrying her. That was me, not you, suffering through all the dirty
jokes and sniggering from her father and creepy-as-all-heck
brothers. Why would you want her anyway? She’s only going to go
looking for another man when she gets sick of you and starts to
criticise and ruin your dreams. And they’ll be other gym
instructors, just to make you suffer.”

“Sorry, but are you talking
to me?” asked a slight man. He was standing behind an iron fence
and looking at him over misty glasses. Craigfield’s neighbour, he
was around sixty and had thick wire-rimmed glasses. He did not
appear to be concerned that he was wearing only a light shirt and
baggy shorts in the damp evening. Max was stunned to also notice
that he had bare feet and was standing on wet grass.

“No, just to myself,” said
Max. “Sorry, didn’t see you there.”

“Well, it was very
interesting listening, all the same.”

“Again, not meant for
you.”

“I understand that, sir.
Thing is, reason why I find what you said interesting was it was
about Craigfield. Am I right?”

“Do you know
him?”

“By reputation, sure. He has
a different woman visit each night. Can’t help but notice, since
our houses are so close. We don’t want to be nosy, but this one’s
too good to miss.”

“You think there’s one in
there now? Another woman, I mean?”

“Don’t think it. I know it.
She arrived before he did, and was busy yelling for him to let her
in, and started kicking the door. I had to come out and tell her
she can go in the back door, since he always leaves it
unlocked.”

“Have you seen her here
before?”

“Wednesdays. Like clockwork.
We call her Miss Wednesday. Although I guess now that should be Mrs
Wednesday. Your wife, am I right? Here to catch her, are
you?”

Max started back to his car,
feeling too upset to tell him that he was sure that Jill wasn’t
there. But then, he couldn’t be entirely sure. Perhaps he could ask
the man for a description, or see it that back door was still open,
or even just knock on the door.

“If it matters any, I’m
sorry for you,” the man said and Max appreciated that. Then he
added, “And just so you know, there’s nothing wrong with talking to
yourself.”

“Okay, then,” Max said with
a wave.

“It’s when you argue, that
can be a problem.”

Max stopped and looked back
and saw the man returning to his home, amused at
himself.

It was ten in the evening at
Sal’s and the night’s patrons had gone, leaving only the regulars
to do what they always did. Elbow, Two-Tooth and former mayor Gene
Best sat together at one end of the bar, oblivious to the time and
watching the door in case any of the town’s visitors came back in
and gave them something else to talk about.

“I was saying to Elbow,”
Two-Tooth explained to Gene, “the girl can’t expect city here. City
ways not Gendry and we like it that way.”

Elbow was tired and prone to
lapse into off-topic memory trips. The night’s crowd had been
bigger than normal, and whenever that happened it gave him a
feeling of being trapped and he hated being trapped. Now the room
was quieter his problem was that it was too quiet, like he had been
suddenly deserted. Elbow had many little phobias, including both
being trapped in crowds and being left alone. “Gendry knows nothing
of city ways,” he said in agreement with Two-Tooth. “Nor want
to.”

“Nor want to,” Two-Tooth
agreed.

Gene felt a bit lost in the
conversation. Usually it was him who needed to explain things to
the two of them, and the change made him feel uncomfortable. At
least ten years older, he naturally wanted to take charge, as he
wished he could do with the entire town. He may have given the
impression that his hope of reclaiming the mayoral office was a
joke, but he was serious. He took note of everyone who tried to
tell him to forget it, like they were an enemy needing to be
subdued. Such a military outlook suited his personality, but he had
never fought in any war, more out of chance than protest. It was no
secret that he liked to think of himself as a general, and at one
point in his life he asked people to call him that. His car was a
giant pickup truck and it gave him the feeling that it was a tank.
Too big enough to fit in his garage, he parked it on the grass in
front of his house and it gave him the feeling that it was
protecting him.