A Ghost in the Machine (29 page)

“I hope it all works out.”

“Christ – so do I. I'm trying not to dwell on it, you know?”

Mallory silently thanked God he didn't know. The only pain he experienced was the dull ache of ongoing worry. Though he could feel it slowly grinding him down, at least it wouldn't finish him off. Then he remembered a book he'd read once called
More Die of Heartbreak
and couldn't help wondering.

The silence when the machines suddenly stopped, though beautiful, was brief. Judith burst in waving a piece of paper, crying: “This is the place!” Followed by, “Ah – Mallory.” The subtext – you still here? – was practically audible.

So Mallory found himself once again out in the fruitful, fragrant garden and easing his way through the broken wooden gate. Tired of the village street and the shop and the phone box and the duck pond he walked in the other direction, drawn by the sound of water babbling sweetly over stones.

But as he was passing the churchyard he heard a human voice, quietly murmuring to itself. He stepped up and over the low brick wall on to the soft grass, then walked towards the back of St. Anselm's. Here were two new graves, both covered with wreaths. On the nearest the flowers were so fresh the colours shone. On the much smaller plot, containing Dennis's ashes, they were already half dead and turning brown.

Benny was sitting on a little fold-up stool of the type used in theatre queues. Sitting as near to the flowers as she possibly could without treading on them. She was pushing her head right down as if addressing not the dead but the merely deaf.

Concerned and anxious, Mallory moved nearer. He was not afraid of disturbing her. All her energy and concentration was focused on the square of dry brown earth. She wasn't crying, she didn't even look unhappy, just incredibly intense. Her voice, though it had an extremely urgent under-tow, was muted and he could hardly make out the words, though now and again the odd one was suddenly clear. “Promise…” he heard. “Believe” and “true.” Then “authorities” and “promise” again. And again.

His heart moved to pity, Mallory hesitated. He hated just to walk away. On the other hand, plainly this was something extremely private that Benny needed to do. Perhaps it was her own way of mourning. She had chosen a time in the late afternoon when the churchyard was empty and she might well become distressed at the discovery that someone had been watching. Mallory backed off silently, then turned to leave. As he did so a flock of rooks rose from the elms, cawing and croaking. Benny, scrambling to her feet and flinging both arms across her face, screamed.

“Benny…”

She jumped and cried out again, shrinking from him.

“It's all right, it's me. It's Mallory.” Gently he took her hand then tucked her trembling arm through his own. He kissed her cheek. It was cold as ice. “Time for tea. We were wondering where you were.” Then, as she stood unmoving, staring at him, “Come home, Ben.”

She came with him and not reluctantly. But as they neared the lych-gate she stopped and glanced back over her shoulder. It was a deeply worried look. “Do you think he understood, Mallory?”

Mallory checked a sigh. What could he say? His tenderness for her sorrow was mingled with irritation that made him ashamed.

 

Ava was at the gate of Rainbow Lodge, wearing her floaty black and gold kaftan and ostensibly watching out for the Rumbling Tum. She had been in and out several times, to Roy and Karen's surprise, for Ava had never before shown the slightest interest in fish and chips. This was her fourth outing. So far there hadn't been a soul to notice her. No one in their garden, no one outside waiting for the chippy or gossiping over the fence. No one to hiss: “There she is. Look—she was on the radio. You know?
Corey's People
? It was ever so good. Swayne Crescent's really going up in the world.” They nearly all listened to the local station. Ava tuned in to Radio Two but switched to Four if anyone called at the house or the phone rang.

Finally someone did emerge. The awful Mr. Carboy at number seventeen, preparing to clean his Metro. Still, he was better than nothing. Ava waited until he was looking in her direction, then raised a gracious hand. He stared back for a moment, then threw a bucket of water over the car. Ava smiled ruefully and shook her head. How quickly she was being shown the underside to fame. But the resentment of little people with narrow, boring lives would soon be left behind. Her position at the Almeida would inevitably lead to other engagements. More and more people would know her name for she would insist on being listed in the programme as Spiritual Consultant. There would be other newspaper interviews but this time in the posh Sundays. “A Life in the Day of…” One thing was for sure, she couldn't stay in this dump. Imagine Parkinson having to come to Rainbow Lodge. Or, even worse, Richard and Judy. Time to move on.

“Problem,” Karen was saying inside the house. “I don't think we'll get three fish and chips for five pound. Chips are fifty p minimum and cod's really expensive.”

“Haddock's worse,” said Roy, now up, washed (well, a lick and a promise) and dressed. He had money in his pocket but this was supposed to be his supper, already paid for. Why should he chip in? Ha ha. “Ask her for some more then.”

“She won't give me any more.”

“Yes, she will. Tell her you'll be shown up in front of the queue and they'll all be talking about how stingy she is.”

“That's a good idea.” Roy was better at this sort of thing than she was. Of course he was older and Ava wasn't his mother. “But then she might just change her mind altogether.”

They looked gloomily at the table already set with three knives and forks, the rest of the curly bread, a tub of margarine and Sarson's vinegar.

Karen made a worried sound. She could never understand why they were so poor. She knew what her mother got from the social for the two of them because she'd seen the books. And there was Roy's contribution as well as the collection from the church. But last week, when her socks had gone into holes and she'd asked for some more, Ava had shouted, “D'you think I'm made of money?” That same night Karen saw her mother in a dream and she really had been made of money. She was standing very still like a dummy in a shop window and was stuck all over with notes. She had a long tongue made of copper that rolled and unrolled all the time, like a frog's. And her breath was a mist of gold.

“Are you listening?”

“Sorry, Roy.”

“I said, alternatively…” He got up and went over to the sink. On the windowsill, cleverly concealed behind the curtain and so plainly visible to anyone walking up the garden path, was Ava's purse. He opened it and waved a second note in the air.

“We can't do that!”

“She owes me.”

“I'll get the blame. I'll be in terrible trouble.”

Roy, recognising the truth in this, replaced the note and returned to the table, digging in to his own pocket. What else could he do?

Ava, half through the door but speaking backwards loudly: “I'm expecting a message from the theatre any minute.” Then she came inside and continued in her normal voice. “I rang their admin number earlier to check on the
Blithe Spirit
schedule but all I got was an answerphone. You'd think a top venue like that would be a bit more on the kew veeve.”

“They'll ring back,” said Karen.

“Naturally. But, just in case I'm in the la-la, say, ‘Mrs. Garret's on the other line,' and tell them to hold.”

“What if they won't?”

“I think I'm calling the shots on this one, Roy.” Ava smiled. “Did you hear my broadcast?”

“'Course I did.” Load of crap it was, an' all. “Took a late lunch and listened on the tranny.”

“What did George say about it?” asked Karen. She really liked George. He was always buying her sweets and crisps, which her mother had promised it was perfectly OK to accept. It had taken Ava all of five seconds accurately to sum up George's sexuality as nil and his masculinity as minus ten.

“Ah,” she sighed now. “Poor fellow. I'm afraid he won't be representing me in future.”

“Why not?” cried Karen.

“It's a matter of savoir faire, really,” said Ava. “That and contacts. I tried to let him down lightly.”

It hadn't been pleasant. George had done a lot of bleating about how much he had done for her and how loyal he'd been.

Ava had replied, “Loyal doesn't cut it with me, George.” Then, when he had protested further, “If I'd wanted loyal I'd've got a dog.” At this point in her present reflections the telephone rang.

“That's them,” cried Ava. “I mean, they. Quick –” she seized Karen, dragged her from the table, pinching her arm – “answer it.”

“Me?”

“Find out who it is. Say you're Ava Garret's secretary.”

“Ow—that hurts.”

“Just do it.”

Karen, her eyes watering, picked up the phone. “Hello. This is Ava Garret's secretary. Who is calling, please?” She stared at the other two, then covered the mouthpiece with her hand. “It's the BBC.”

Ava gave a single sharp intake of breath. She murmured, “So soon” and began to walk with slow, fate-filled steps across the room.

“This is Ava Garret herself, in person. How may I help you?…I'd be happy to, though I am rather overwhelmed with…I see. Just a preliminary chat? Well, I'm sure I can fit that in…” Frantic silent mouthings: “Paper, paper…pen, pen.” Roy grabbed a double-glazing leaflet and a pencil stub.

“Your name is…yes, got that…I am as it happens…” She glanced at the kitchen clock. “Seven would be fine…And will that be at the ‘Beeb,' as I believe you media people call it?…Langham Place. Near Oxford Circus…Reception desk…Oh! That is a good idea. Just in case, quite. Una momento…” More mouthing: “Mobile, mobile…quick…quick…”

Karen passed over her phone. Ava dictated her number and said her goodbyes. She turned to the others with great solemnity. “This must be he.”

“Who?”

“The stranger who will broaden my horizons.”

“Thought that was Corey Panting,” said Roy.

“He wants to take me out to dinner.”

“You're going to be R and F all right.”

“You know what this means, Karen?”

Karen didn't speak. She hoped it didn't mean that she was going to have to pretend to be her mother's sister's child like she had when Ava joined the divorced and separated club. “Just in case,” Ava had explained, “I meet somebody.” Karen often used to wonder what would happen to her if Ava, suddenly ten years lighter, actually did meet somebody. Especially as no sister ever existed. Before she could respond to her mother's question Roy shouted, “The chippie's here!”

Karen pushed her chair back and ran out. Ava hurried after, paused briefly at the gate, then called loudly, “None for me, darling. I'll be dining at the BBC.” She smiled graciously on her return at Roy. She could afford to smile now she would soon be seeing the back of him. “One could hardly arrive smelling of fish and chips.”

“You could wear some scent,” suggested Roy. “Ivy at work reckons a squirt of pong's worth a pound of soap.”

“Does she really?” said Ava. God – how had she stood it? Look at him. Spots, greasy hair, spindly arms and legs, tattoos, all those dangling rings. He even had them in his nose like a prize bull, except that Roy would never win a prize unless it was for the dimmest, most charmless male animal in the entire universe. He wasn't even properly clean.

“How're you getting there?”

“Not sure.” Ava glanced at the clock. It was 5:15. How hasty she had been. How foolish. She should have thought it through; asked for a later time.

“He'll wait,” said Roy. “He works there.”

“As a senior producer, I expect he does.”

“Best thing is the Piccadilly Line from Uxbridge. Straight through to the Circus. Ten-minute walk up Regent Street, you're there.”

“How do you know?”

“They took a group of us from the home once. One Sat-day morning.”

More waste of public money, thought Ava, hurrying upstairs. What on earth was the point—she riffled through her wardrobe – of exposing the dregs of society to a fine institution like the BBC? Her mustard two-piece (a quick sniff under the arms) would just about pass. What a pity this invitation hadn't come after she'd bought all her new things. Such a thought recalled her recent windfall. She took an envelope stuffed with notes from her underwear drawer and peeled off fifty pounds. About to replace the rest she hesitated. The drawer had no lock and with the two of them on their own rootling about…Roy especially she wouldn't trust. She often wondered just how much of the church money made its way out of the velvet collecting bag and into his pockets. She slid the envelope under the mattress.

No time to make up. She'd have to do that when she got there. There was bound to be a ladies at the Tube station or near by. Her hair was a mess too, but that was easily solved. She would wear her auburn peruke, short and curly and quite youthifying in a gamine kind of way.

When she got downstairs they were both feeding their faces. There was a huge bottle of orange-coloured pop on the table and pickled eggs in a dish.

“I see you've not stinted yourselves.”

“I paid for those,” said Roy. “Here's your change.”

Ava scooped it up.

Karen said, “You look really nice.”

Roy didn't say anything. He thought she looked like a long streak of piss with a wig on.

“I don't know when I'll be back,” said Ava. “Chris and I are bound to have heaps to talk about.” She was tempted to say, “And no poking around in my room,” but didn't want to put the idea into their heads.

“Shouldn't you take this?” Roy held out the leaflet. “In case you forget his name.”