CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“You killed her? Well, I suppose you had no choice. Imagine how it
would have been if she’d come here! Did she struggle? How did it feel when you
held her down? Daz, you’re incredible! I love you so much.” Cotter fell into
the big man’s arms and sensed there was a ‘treat’ in store for him later.
The next day, Cotter went shopping in Brighton with Mary
Bishop. The Bishops were the nearest he and Daz dared have as friends. By
comparison, the rest of Monk’s Tallow comprised neighbours and casual
acquaintances. There were times when Cotter wanted to scream to the rooftops
that he was Ralph Cotter and stuff Sarah Manners. He wanted to tell someone,
anyone, how he and Horton had been taking the piss for years, no one suspecting
a thing. He kept quiet of course, had no choice although it meant, for the most
part, the two men having to keep their distance. Somehow, with the Bishops, it
was different, easier. The four felt comfortable with each other. While Cotter
always had to be on the alert, pre-empting Sarah Manners’ every reaction, he
felt less on edge with Sam and Mary Bishop than anyone else.
In particular, Cotter loved being with Mary.
Mary Bishop was a lively, animated person
and fun to be with without being either extrovert or crass. Cotter felt relaxed
with her, so much so that he had been tempted on occasions to confide the
truth. He resisted partly because he genuinely did not want to risk losing her
friendship and partly out of fear of being hauled off to jail. His main
concern, though, was Daz. Horton, he
knew full well, would do more than merely thrash him to within a centimetre of
his life.
Sam’s wife always wore the same perfume, one
that never failed to exhilarate Cotter.
Now, as they chatted across a window table in a promenade cafe she
leaned across to take his hand, as she often did, and he caught a pungent
whiff. It excited him. Lately, he had begun to wonder about this. For the
excitement had long since overtaken any simple, uncomplicated pleasure. It gave
him a sexual buzz. Her touch, too, gave him goose pimples and it was with some
difficulty that he exercised supreme self-control over the telltale bulge in
his trousers. Thank God they were sitting down, he reflected, albeit slightly
breathless.
“That’s what I
love about being with you, Sarah, you listen, “Mary was saying, “Sam, bless his
heart, hasn’t a clue. Oh, he’ll hear what you say and make some reply or other
but he never really listens, whereas you...it means a lot to me. I love these
little jaunts of ours, just the two of us,” she purred...in that silky voice
that had sent shivers down his spine since their very first meeting. He envied her. She was attractive, chic...and
genuine. He, on the other hand, was
merely faking. Oh, Sarah Manners was as good as counterfeit gets and no
mistake…but counterfeit all the same.
Cotter had tried hard to dismiss the feeling of inferiority Mary
Bishop gave him. She could not be blamed for it, after all. And he did so enjoy
her company. Yet, these feelings had worsened, grown more intense in recent
times. Did he fancy her? He certainly
did not. So, what then? There was
something about her sheer femininity that began to possess him. Jealousy played a part, no doubt, but only a
part. The rest remained a mystery to him, troubling him almost as much as it
thrilled him.
“Your friendship means a lot to me too, Mary.” Sarah
Manners smiled and placed her other hand over the one with which Mary had
grasped hers.
Mary Bishop swallowed hard. It was the first time in her life that
she had been attracted to another woman. Sarah was like no one she had met
before. Oh, she could be stiff and
distant sometimes. But she could be kind and generous too. And she’d meant what
she said. It was good to have someone to talk to. She’d never had a close woman
friend before. Other women always seemed
to mistrust her. This was only to be expected, she supposed, since she was
attractive enough to have looked stunning in sackcloth and ashes. Sarah was
different. Sarah accepted her as a
person. This was a new experience for Mary and she liked it. While she wasn’t exactly adverse to men
undressing her with their eyes or women summing her up as a flighty bitch, it
made a pleasant change to form a genuine bond with someone, especially another
woman.
Is Mary Bishop a closet lesbian, Cotter wondered? The prospect appalled him, not least because
it meant he would have to back off. Imagine, if she knew the truth? He could not suppress a grin. She responded
with a dazzling smile of her own and he struggled to resist an irrational urge
to slap her face. She was so sure of herself, completely secure in her damn
femininity while he...but he took care not to let the grin slip.
“Why, Sarah, I do believe you’re blushing!”
giggled Mary Bishop and felt a deep yearning within that she found at once disturbing
and delicious.
“Excuse me.” Cotter rose and fled to the Ladies. She
held on to his hand a fraction and he had to tug it free. Once in the loo, he
attempted to martial his floundering senses. “Get a grip, Sarah my girl, get a
grip,” he muttered. Only when he was with Horton did he revert to being Ralph
Cotter in his mind’s eye. Mostly, to all intents and purposes he was Sarah
Manners. So, did Sarah fancy Mary
Bishop? Cotter laughed aloud, the idea
was so absurd. So what was it, eating at every nuance of his being over Mary
Bishop? He had no desire to make love to
the woman...so what then? It suddenly
came to him and he broke out in a cold sweat. He wanted to teach her a lesson.
He wanted to smash the smug self-confidence and the consciousness of allure
that shone through every provocative glance, each provocative swing of the hips
as she walked. Oh, nothing outrageous but all the more sexy and desirable for
that.
How could I have got it so wrong? Cotter wondered as he
re-joined Mary Bishop and together they sat quietly admiring the sunlight
dancing on gentle waves? He was more than happy to remain silent and digest the
shocking revelation he had just made to himself. He did not particularly like this woman.
Rather, he almost hated her. That was the attraction. As for wanting to bed the
flirty cow, he’d much rather...kill her?
“Oh dear, you’re not catching a cold are you
darling?” Mary Bishop fussed with
touching concern upon seeing that her companion had begun to shiver in spite of
the afternoon’s unseasonable warmth.
“Maybe we should be getting back,” suggested Cotter
getting to his feet even as he spoke.
“I suppose so. You’re looking very flushed. Are you
alright?”
“Perfectly,” lied Cotter.
That night, he lay next to a loudly snoring Horton and
could not, for the life of him, get Mary Bishop out of his head. He could even smell her perfume. It made him
want to...what? Why was he sweating like pig?
Why did he keep clenching and unclenching his fists as if his hands had
minds of their own? His mouth felt dry.
In the end, he could bear it no longer and got up, went to the kitchen and made
a cup of tea. Heart pounding, adrenalin
racing, he wrestled with feelings unknown and unbidden. He stared into his mug, enjoying its warmth
without even taking a sip of tea and only vaguely aware that it was getting
cold which is how Horton found him soon afterwards, lying
perfectly still and gazing into space like a zombie.
What the devil’s up with
you?”
Cotter started violently. Daz was glaring at him, puzzled and angry.
There was concern in his manner but not of a sympathetic nature. It was as if
Cotter’s behaving oddly was affront to Horton’s, authority. “I’m in for a
thrashing,” thought Cotter. In the same instant, it struck him what it was, the
feeling that had haunted him since being with Mary Bishop earlier. Before he
let Horton lead him, forcefully, back into the bedroom, Cotter found the bottle
to give it a name. “Power,” he told himself over and over. He wanted a taste of
the same power Horton had over him. In his mind’s eye, he saw Mary Bishop’s
wide-eyed expression as he gripped her pale throat in his bare hands and
squeezed...
“You know the drill,” said Horton harshly.
Cotter, trembling, lay face down on the bed, his hands still tightening around
Mary Bishop’s pretty neck.
..................................
Liam Brady, alias Harry Smith, enjoyed helping out at The Green Man. He was delighted to
discover that he had a natural talent for bar work and soon got to like
everyone calling out, “Harry!” He began to like Harry and once, in conversation
with Sadie, likened it to being an actor growing into a lead role. Only, he had
no script to follow so changed similes and started to think of himself instead
as a novelist creating a character. He gave himself a past of sorts, took the
present as it came and preferred not to think about the future. The latter, however, began to assume a wholly
new dimension once the former had settled into a particular pattern of everyday
life. He began to feel that he belonged at The Green Man, a feeling that
intensified when he started sleeping with its landlady. He could not have said
when it started although, later, both agreed each had been aware of feelings towards the other
for some time.
Sadie
and he had hit it off from the start but as mates that was all. Or so it
appeared to both of them. One night, after a particularly busy time at the bar
and his having to throw out some local yobs, the two of them were enjoying a
drink and a chat together when they all but collapsed at one of the tables. The
regular barmaid was on holiday in Tenerife and her replacement had not turned
up. It had been bedlam at the bar. “The clearing up can wait. We deserve our
beds,” Sadie declared, yawning. He
followed her upstairs and, for no reason, they paused at the top. “Thanks,
Harry, you’re a diamond,” said Sadie and gave his arm a friendly punch.
It seemed the most natural act in the world
to kiss. “Hey, look at us!” Sadie joked, slightly breathless. Her smooth, ivory skin, any younger woman
would have died for, turned a deep pink. But she did not pull away when he
kissed her again.
They were the butt of crude jokes from the pub
regulars for weeks but, as with most things, people came round or simply got
used to the idea. Most people accepted him as the gaffer now. At the same time,
Sadie took care to see that no one forgot whose name was above the door.
The age difference was irrelevant to both of
them. Certainly, he did not think of her as a mother figure. Once when someone
had been teasing him about that over the bar he’d retorted without thinking,
“If sex with your mother is that good, I’m all for it!” There was a split
second’s silence as Sadie appeared in the doorway leading to their private
quarters. All at once, the bar erupted with good-humoured laughter. No one
dared put Sadie Chapman forward as a mother figure for young Harry Smith again.
Sometimes Harry would have nightmares although these grew less
frequent as the weeks and months passed. It was always the same nightmare. He
would be trapped in a lift hurtling out of control, carrying him to certain
death. No one else was in the lift. He
was alone, but for an enormous teddy bear. Seconds before the final impact, he
would wake up, often screaming and sweating buckets. Sadie would take him in her arms and rock him
too and fro, making soothing noises of comfort and reassurance. Sometimes he would snuggle against her and
drift back to sleep. At other times, they would end up making love. “You are
just fantastic,” he told her often enough.
“You’re not so bad yourself,” she’d respond
with a cheeky grin. Sadie still could not believe her luck. Not only was she
sleeping with a handsome hunk of a bloke fifteen years her junior but she was
also in love with him and he with her. It worried her that, sooner or later,
they would need to face facts. ‘Harry’ needed to know who he really was. Didn’t
everyone? For now, though, she was content, the same as he, to push the
inevitable to the back of her mind and make the best of things. Their
relationship blossomed and people who had known Sadie for years remarked how
well and happy she looked.
“I haven’t seen Sadie look so good since
that rat she was living with before took off with Maggie from the fish and chip
shop,” commented Kath Rowley to her daughter-in-law in the lounge bar on one
occasion.
“Harry’s looking pretty good too,” commented
the younger woman.
“That what comes of getting your leg across regular,”
husband Brian snickered and earned a playful, albeit stinging cuff from his
mother. “Here, we’ll have less of your cheek if you don’t mind. Get another
round in.”
“It’s not my turn.” Brian Rowley protested.
“It is now.”
“Same again please Harry and one for yourself,
whatever’s your poison.” Brian grinned at the other man who grinned back.
No one would have guessed that Harry was
smarting inside. But this was a pub and Rowley was a regular. There was no
point in telling him to wash his mouth out and find another local. He had quickly learned that crass remarks
went with the territory. In time, he’d also realised that most people meant no
harm. Brian Rowley’s remark had been
made had tongue in cheek so, for now at least, his card may be well and truly
marked but that was all.
One weekend, the pair left The Green Man in the capable
hands of their part-time staff and visited Sadie’s sister in York. In spite of Sadie’s constant fretting about
the pub, they had a wonderful time.
Harry was convinced that a couple more laid back and easy to get along
with than Holly Vickers and her husband, Joe, could not conceivably exist. Even
the teenage children treated Harry like one of the family and showed him the
same air of knowing distain they displayed towards their parents. He would be
hard put, Harry suspected, to find a more close-knit family anywhere.
Another trip, this time to Canterbury to
visit Sadie’s widowed mother, was a less happy occasion. The old witch had done
nothing but find fault with him, to such an extent that Harry had frequently
absented himself, gone for walks or a few beers at the local watering hole and
left them to it. “I’d come with you,” said Sadie apologetically, “but she’ll
only carry on all the more when we get back.”
So he had taken himself off for hours at a time and had not felt so
miserable in ages.
It was at such times when, left to his own devices and
crowded by unwelcome thoughts, Harry Smith would find himself beating off waves
of panic and fear. Most of the time, he was happy to play Harry Smith to an
appreciative audience. But he was not Harry Smith. Who the hell am I? He would struggle in vain to remember. Sometime he would have
flashes of...memory, imagination, what?
More disturbing were the feelings that came with them...a fear tantamount
to terror, a physical pain that caused him to become breathless with sheer
panic. The only distinguishable images emerging from the muddle in his head
comprised someone he took to be himself, but was not Harry Smith and could
easily have been a complete stranger, running a gamut of exaggerated
expressions. It was like walking through a Hall of Mirrors at a funfair. The
teddy bear too, loomed as clear as day but always wore the same stoic,
hard-done-by look. How he hated that huge, ugly bear.
Sadie got used to Harry’s taking himself off from time to time,
invariably without a word. At first she’d worry herself sick but soon became
resigned to it and fretted less, especially since he always returned within a
few hours. It was during one of these
walkabouts that Fred Winter appeared at The Green Man and started asking
questions. She told him to come back the next day and spent the next couple of
hours till closing time wondering how Harry would take the news. But even if this bloke can identify him, what
then? The same question kept running
through her head like an express train. She thought she knew the answer. It
would spoil everything and, in the end, she would lose Harry. At the same time,
he deserved to know the truth about himself, they both did.
Only briefly did Sadie contemplate not telling Harry about Fred
Winter and racked her brains for a suitable lie with which to fob off the Nosy
Parker. By closing time, though, she was reconciled to the likelihood that her
life with Harry was poised to change direction forever. She had a gut feeling about
this. Somehow, she just knew Fred Winter was bad news.
Harry was restless and moody when he finally returned, a
little after midnight. Later, in bed, he told her that he wasn’t sure he could
live with Harry Smith much longer. They made love. It helped. Afterwards, they
lay in each other’s arms and she gently broached the subject of Fred Winter. He
sat bolt upright, nostrils flaring, like a scared animal. “What did he say?
What does he know? Who does he think I might be?” the questions spewed out of a
quivering, dribbling mouth.
“Relax,” Sadie begged, “Relax,” she kept repeating, “We
can’t be sure he knows anything. He’s not sure himself, for heaven’s sake. He
just wants to meet you and have a chat, that’s all. It might lead to something
or it might not. Can’t do any harm to find out, though, eh? There’s nothing to
be frightened of, Harry, my love.
Nothing can happen unless you want it to and, anyway, I won’t let it,”
she murmured in his ear and let her tongue play, seductively, with the lobe.
“It will be okay, you’ll see. No one is
going to hurt you or either of us. We’re bigger than that, you and me, right?
You just have to be strong, my love, we both do. I can if you can.” She kissed his pale cheek. “We can get
through this, Harry, no matter what.”
“Can we?” He was not so sure.
“You bet,” she said with a confidence she was far from
feeling.
“I suppose...”
He began to relax and snuggled against her again but continued to
speculate well into the early hours. Eventually, both drifted into an uneasy
sleep. Sadie slept the more soundly of the two, however, and did not hear him
stir when the clock in the bar downstairs chimed a quarter past four o’clock.
Harry had neither a plan nor the faintest idea where he
would go. All he knew for sure was that he had to get away, as far away as
possible, from Herne Bay. He threw a few
clothes in a holdall, leaned over Sadie’s sleeping form and kissed her lightly
on the cheek. He would miss her terribly. But I can't stay, I just can't. He was not ready to hear whatever this Fred
Winter had to say, not yet. Oh, he wanted to know, wanted desperately to
know...but not now, not yet. It's too soon. I can't face it, not right now, not just yet, my love,” he murmured softly in Sadie’s ear. And
he did love her. They were good together. He would miss her so much.
Maybe he should wait, see Fred Winter after all?
He almost lost his nerve, would have undressed and got
back into bed if the same image that had come to him a few hours earlier had not sprung, unbidden, to mind and scared him half to death all over again. He saw himself, very clearly, plunging a
knife into the same teddy bear that had haunted his worst nightmares for so
long.
Blood gushed out of the bear’s brown belly, a fountain
of it, spraying him with its sticky wetness until his whole body was dripping
red. What did it mean? Harry tried not
to answer the question; it came to him anyway, as if the bear was determined he
should be in no doubt. I’ve killed someone, his lips mouthed over and over. I’ve killed someone and that’s what I can’t remember because I don’t want to
remember. I’m on the run, for fuck’s sake. Shit, I’m a murderer. I’m a bloody
murderer. He opened his mouth to scream but no sound emerged, only a
gurgle that reminded him of a death rattle...but whose? “Dear God, help me,” he sobbed.
All at once, his legs gave way. He collapsed in a heap on the stairs. I’ve got to go, Sadie. I’ve got to go. I
can’t do this to you. It’s not fair, nothing’s bloody fair, he yelled
soundlessly up the stairs and could easily predict her response. Sadie would say it didn't matter. But it did matter. I have to get out of here, and I
have to do it now. It’s now or never,
now or never, he kept telling himself and struggled to his feet. He began to run, weak at
the knees and increasingly scared while remaining perfectly focused on the bolts of the heavy oak front
door.
To be continued
