The Writer (7 page)

“What a dark sense of humour
you have. No, it’s a sad story. Like real life.”

“Based on your own
experiences? If you don’t mind my asking?”

“No, it’s not. I’ve known
some people to get divorced, but it’s not about them. I guess, if
you really wanted to pin a label on it, it’d be the meaning of
life. Like, why we’re here, what if we’re spending our lives with
the wrong person, things like that.”

“I take it you’re not
married?”

“You’d be right.”

“I never see the point of
it, myself. Why be tied to one person when the world is full of so
many interesting people?”

Sophie was sad to hear that.
“Is that your life philosophy?”

“Marriage is for fools, if
you ask me,” he said, not noticing how appalled she was. “Of
course, you thinking the same, since you’re writing about its
failings.”

“Not marriage’s failings.
People fail at marriage but that doesn’t mean the concept of
marriage is at fault, more the people not reacting to it the way
they should. I think if you can find the right person, it’s the
greatest thing in the world, to be with your soul mate and not
thinking of anyone else.”

Craigfield laughed at her.
“Are you serious? Is that what you expect marriage to be? Good luck
with that. And good luck with finding a guy who agrees with any of
that. ‘Soul mate’? What’s that mean?”

Sophie found that she no
longer felt comfortable with him so she made an excuse to leave. “I
have to get back to my room now. I’m expected. See you around. Hard
not to, I guess, in a place this small.”

“It’s been fun,
Sophie.”

Sophie nodded and then
grimaced when she turned and walked away. No, it had not been fun.
His last comments changed her entire opinion of him, and how she
regretted wasting all that time with him. Instead of being angry at
herself for wasting time, and at him for being so dismissive, she
used her emotion to produce four good pages of writing. They were
filled with misspelling and typos, but that didn’t matter so much.
The fact that she was writing something, and hearing the typewriter
run fast like a machine, made her feel better. She almost
considered thanking Craigfield for helping her to get
started.

Safe in his garage, the
sorrowful driver fought off his crushing hangover to clean his car.
He had been sleeping for the past three hours only because he had
passed out from the stress and the new bottle he started. When he
arrived home he went into a panic and started rushing around,
looking for detergents and rags. But then he saw a new bottle and
thought that it couldn’t hurt to start in on it. Now he was three
hours late in getting rid of the evidence. And there was a lot of
it.

The worst damage was on the
front grill, which was bent. The side also had a large dent,
probably from a letterbox or fence he might have brushed, but it
had to be fixed too. Exactly how he would fix it, without anyone
knowing, he had no idea. He started to plan on deliberately hitting
something in the broad daylight, so people would see it and he
would have a reason for it other than he had killed a
guy.

The hardest part of the car
to clean was the back wheel. Minute traces of blood splatter was
hidden amongst the mud. He knew enough about crime labs to know a
simple spray down with the hose wasn’t going to be enough. He
covered his entire car with soap suds, and then carefully wiped it
down, and then scraped out all the little tractions in the wheels;
each one in detail. Blood still remained on the front grill, dried
on, and it took a lot of scrubbing to get it to budge. He realised
that there was probably more blood too small for his weak eyes to
see, and that meant he would need to scrub down the entire car
several times until he was happy.

It occurred to him that
perhaps it would be easier to get rid of the car and claim it as
stolen. Perhaps he could even claim that it was stolen before the
time he started his mad driving. But as he continued to think about
that his head began to hurt and he decided he had been doing too
much thinking and not enough drinking.

After a few hours under the
tin roof of the garage collecting heat from the mid-day sun, when
he dared not open a window or door for fear of someone seeing him,
he began to get sleepy again. He started talking to himself, saying
that he could not afford to sleep until the car was clean. If he
did it right, he said, no know would ever know what happened. He
knew there would eventually be snoopers coming around, and
questions asked, and perhaps even a few witnesses might pop up. He
also knew that his best option was to play it simple and assume
that he would get away with it and life would continue as normal.
That was what usually happened in Gendry. It had sidestepped many
scandals over the years, and here was another one. His confidence
would be encouraged, however, if he only knew who it was he had
killed.

As Sophie walked back to her
grandmother’s house she told herself that she would not allow any
more distractions to interfere with her writing time. She hated the
thought of seeing a day go by without being able to add anything to
her work. It had been a nice day for a walk, and that was what
brought her out in the first place. Most of the time with
Craigfield had been nice, except when she realised that she didn’t
like him. But that experience was for the better too, since it
stopped her thinking about him. And the mousse was as delicious as
she hoped, and she could never regret that. But she would not be
satisfied with the day if she did not complete at least a few
pages. It did not matter if those pages would be thrown out at a
later date, when she had a stack to sought through and choose from.
All that mattered was that she produced something with her
time.

Once she started typing she
found that she started to flow with ideas and completed three pages
before sitting back and admiring it. It suddenly seemed easy and
she did not know why she thought it would be difficult. Then she
remembered Craigfield’s appalling attitude towards married people
and before she knew it she finished another page. Four pages of
interesting story, completed in less than an hour.

She was so happy with her
achievement that she left the room to find someone to tell. When
she got to the lounge she saw the twins outside the window, more
excited than normal. When they saw Sophie they tried to suppress
their laughter, which they couldn’t do very well since one made the
other break.

“What are you boys laughing
about?” she asked them when she walked out onto the
veranda.

“It’s better you don’t
know,” said Kerry or Jerry.

“You have to tell me now
you’ve said that. What is it?”

“You’d just say it’s nasty,”
said Kerry or Jerry.

“You’d spoil it,” said Jerry
or Kerry.

“Saying it was nasty would
ruin it,” said Kerry or Jerry.

“We’ve only just found it,”
said Jerry or Kerry.

“We’re not ready to share
it,” said Kerry or Jerry.

Sophie smiled, knowing it
was just another of their games and it was best to play along.
“Secret spies, or something, are you? Jimmy Bond needs to watch
out, does he? I always wanted to be
Jane
Bond, myself; and I
don’t mean one of his floozies either. Perhaps his younger sister?
His dangerous and yet glamorous younger sister who kicks the bad
guys with a great dress and perfect hair.”

“This isn’t a movie,” said
Jerry or Kerry.

“This is real life,” said
Kerry or Jerry.

“What did you find?” she
asked. “A dead animal? Or was it money? It was money, wasn’t it? I
can see it in your faces, you’ve found a stack of money. You know
if you’ve found a lot of money like that, you’d need to hand it in
to Handisides. If no one claims it, you will get it back, so it’s
worth it. How much is it? Is it a lot?”

“It’s not money,” said Kerry
or Jerry, and he was convincing enough for her to believe
him.

“We’d be off spending it, if
it was money,” said Jerry or Kerry.

“Split it fifty-fifty,” said
Kerry or Jerry.

“And you’d probably both buy
exactly the same thing,” Sophie said and then wondered why they
didn’t think she was funny.

“We know what you’d buy,”
said Kerry or Jerry.

“You do? And what’s
that?”

“Something for your
boyfriend.”

“We saw you in town, walking
around with him,” added Jerry or Kerry.

“I think you both need to
mind your own business,” Sophie said as she started to go inside
the house, not expecting that and surprised at herself for being
offended.

“If you want, we can follow
him?” suggested Kerry or Jerry.

“Why on Earth would I want
you to follow him?”

“Duh! So we can find out
stuff about him.”

“Secret stuff,” added Jerry
or Kerry. “Stuff to help
Jane
Bond.”

“I don’t think so,” she
said. “If there’s anything I want to know about him, I will just
ask him. That’s what adults do. We don’t go following them around,
spying on them.”

“But we’re not adults,” said
Kerry or Jerry with a raised voice.

“And we’re really good at
spying,” said Jerry or Kerry, also raised.

“If you want to know if he’s
telling you the truth or not, just ask us,” said Jerry or
Kerry.

“We’ll follow him and find
out for you,” said Kerry or Jerry.

“How devious,” she said as
she stopped in the doorway and reconsidered their offer, thinking
that they might just get away with it. “You know what? I think I
like it. But only if you promise to not get caught. I would never
be able to live that down.”

The expected happy reaction
did not come from the boys. Instead they just went quiet and looked
at each other. It was like they were communicating with only their
eyes in a secret language.

“You don’t look too happy
now I’ve agreed to your plan,” she pointed out. “Or have I called
your bluff? Not really keen on risking life and limb after all? No
little Jimmy Bonds here?”

“We could spy on him and be
very good at it,” admitted Kerry or Jerry.

“If we hadn’t found this
thing of ours first,” said Jerry or Kerry.

“Don’t worry,” said Sophie.
“I don’t really want you to go harassing one of your mother’s
guests. That sort of thing can be bad for business. So, where is
this mysterious thing of yours? Where did you find it? Or is that a
secret too?”

“We were deep in the woods,”
started Kerry or Jerry.

“Making one of our walks,”
said Jerry or Kerry.

“The tourist thing?” she
asked. “I thought you were joking about that.”

“We never joke when it comes
to money,” Kerry or Jerry said like it was an obvious
fact.

“So you did find money out
there?” Sophie asked, thinking she had discovered the
truth.

“No, he means all the money
we will make from the tourists coming here to go on our walk,” said
Kerry or Jerry.

“It will be very
successful,” said Jerry or Kerry.

“Does your mother know about
this little venture of yours?” she asked, impressed with
them.

“Of course she does,” said
Kerry or Jerry.

“She will get her share,”
said Jerry or Kerry. “All the people going on the walk will get to
stay at her house. That way she makes money too.”

“I see you’ve thought this
through,” she said.

“Please. Have you not met us
before?”

“We’re not going to waste
our time,” said his brother, “with anything that isn’t going to pay
off in the long run. If not, we’d be concentrating our efforts
elsewhere.”

“I have no doubt,” she
said.

“All this work on the Walk,
and it’s just the first of many we have planned, will go toward
starting our first business.”

“And what business is that?”
Sophie asked.

“Spying!”

“Private
detectives.”

“And all the criminals of
the world,” Sophie said in all seriousness, “will shake with terror
when they see you coming, I’m sure.”

“There’s a criminal in town
already.”

“What are you talking about
now?” she asked. “There aren’t any criminals in Gendry.”

“How could there not be a
criminal if there’s a dead man?”

“If there’s a
what
?”
she asked.

“Why’d you say that?” Kerry
or Jerry asked his brother, and then gave him an irritated
shove.

“To prove her wrong,” he
said, shoving back.

“Guys, you shouldn’t joke
about something like that,” said Sophie. “Are you telling me
someone in town has died?”

“Violently.”

“Hit by a car, by the looks
of it.”

“You have wild
imaginations,” she said as she began to walk inside.

“Yes, we do. But then, we
don’t think of ourselves as
Jane
Bond.”