Pompomberry House (9 page)

“It’s a short story!” cried Montgomery.

“Even so, I think Rafe could make the first idea work. He
clearly has the ability to identify the societal quirks that need to be ridiculed
in order to pull it off, and I think that’s a unique skill that should be
nurtured. Anybody can write about a couple having a bit of a misunderstanding.”

Then Rafe as good as dug my grave. “I agree with Dee.”

This time, it wasn’t the Sahara Desert in my mind, but the
moon. Great expanses of rock spanned in every direction. The wind no longer
signified silence; it
was
silent. Completely silent. Eerily silent. Silent
silent. Silent.

Eventually, Dawn spoke, bringing me back from my bleak
fantasy world, and into the much more terrifying reality of the dining room in
Pompomberry House. “I think we should elect an editor.”

“Hear, hear!” cried Montgomery.

“Hear, hear!” cried Dawn, more loudly.

“That’s a good idea,” said Rafe, “but I’d like the freedom
to choose my own story, whether we have an editor or not.”

I realised that Annabel was glaring at me. What was wrong
with the people and birds around here? All I wanted to do was write, yet never
an hour seemed to go by without somebody giving me the evil eye.

“I don’t know whether my fallen pig should have a happy
ending,” mused Dawn. “I mean, as much as I’d like to see her rescued, happy
endings are just not very fashionable, are they?”

“Perhaps it could end on a
cliff-hanger
?” I joked.

“I think I want tears,” she said, ignoring me. “Yes, I want
tears. I’m going to do it! I’m going to kill the pig!”

“Oh!” cooed Annabel, clutching her heart.

“Bittersweet endings are definitely the way to demonstrate
versatility,” agreed Danger. “I am going to write about a foot. There is no way
that
can have a happy ending.”

“A foot?” asked Annabel, looking indignant.

“Yes, a foot washes up on the beach.”

“What, you mean ... without a body?”

“Yes, severed.”

“Well, that sounds like a great teaser for a whodunit!”
roared Montgomery.

“Oh, it is not the teaser, it is the plot. I mean, it
is
a short story, right? I am going to describe its journey from the shallows of
the sea to the tide line.”

Everybody looked at me, expecting me to say something, but
my objecting days were over. I couldn’t risk losing any more goodwill among
these people. Besides, we were dealing with Danger Smith — the most insipid man
I’d ever met. If I talked him out of the foot idea, plan B would probably be ‘a
hand washes up on a riverbank.’

“Who wants to hear my idea?” cried Montgomery. It wasn’t a
question. “Sam Black’s colleague is asked to defend a murderer who, despite
being despicable, gets off, so Black kills him.”

“Is that not the same as the plot of
I Shot A Man
?”
Danger noticed.

“And
I Shot Two Men,
” added Annabel.

“It’s the same thing that happens in all of his books!”
explained Dawn.

“Well, if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it,” said Montgomery,
with a sturdy grin.

“It is a tried and tested formula,” Dawn told me with a
warning glare.

I hadn’t said anything! What was I now, the token devil’s
advocate?

“A formula that got me a film deal,” Montgomery pointed out,
puffing out his chest.

“Judging by the trailer, it is not a very good film though,
is it?” commented Danger, through his nose.

Dawn kicked him in the shins.

“Ow. Perhaps they are saving the best bits for the film,”
Danger added.

Rafe hurriedly changed the focus back to Montgomery’s short
story. “Those are some great foundations, Monty old chap. However, I can’t help
feeling that now, four books in, you could afford to mix things up a little.”

“How do you mean?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps bring in another character, give
Black a different motive, get him to accidentally kill an innocent ...”

“I know!” cried Montgomery. “I could get Black to kill an
innocent man ...”

“Yes?” chorused everyone, nodding enthusiastically.

“And he’s going to go down for it ...”

“Yes?”

“But then it turns out, he imagined the whole thing.”

What?

“He’s a schizo!”

WHAT?

“I like it!” said Danger.

“Very original,” Dawn added.

No it’s not!
‘It was all a paranoid delusion’ was my
least favourite plot device ever, and regrettably, one of the most overused in
the twenty-first century. It was the modern equivalent of ‘then she woke up and
it was all a dream’ and the extent to which it annoyed me was rivalled only by two
other irksome tricks: ‘the main character has been dead all along’ and ‘another
instance of the character’s split personality did the crime’. I mean, sure,
those ideas were great in 1999, but now they reeked of laziness and
desperation.

“I’m sure you can think of a number of directions to take
the idea, Montgomery,” I said, thinking I was being tactful.

“What’s wrong with the idea?” demanded Dawn.

I shrugged. What was the point of giving feedback if people
were going to keep getting uppity with me?

“I get the feeling that Mrs Whittaker is not impressed,”
said Montgomery, during a rare moment of perceptiveness. “Perhaps I’ll keep my
books as they are — the formula that people know and love.”

“Very wise, Monty!” said Dawn.

“Or,” he cried, excitedly, “I could kill off the lawyer!
Nobody will be expecting that!”

“What, and end your series?” asked Dawn, shocked.

“No, that’s the second twist — he comes back as a ghost and
continues. Still unimpressed, Mrs Whittaker?” he asked, with a big,
self-satisfied grin.

I tried to hide my negativity, but some of it must have
escaped, because Dawn scowled at me.

“Do
you
have an idea, Dee?” she asked. “Or just
opinions about everybody else’s?”

I was almost too terrified to share my synopsis. There
seemed to be a great deal of hostility towards me as it was, without handing
them something specific to criticise. Still, writers don’t get anywhere in life
by being scared to share, so I took a deep breath, and braved a pitch.

“My idea is based on a real contest that I saw recently on
the internet.”

No objections so far.

“Three charities are competing for a big grant from Porter
and Miller, which looks all right on the surface, even though they’re a
multinational corporation that could easily afford to finance all three
causes ten-thousand times over ... Anyway, when you look more
closely, it’s actually a popularity contest. Each charity is headed up by a ... well,
I hate to use the word ‘bimbo’, but that about sums the spokespeople up. The
three girls have all appeared on TV in their false lashes and their push-up
bras promoting their causes, one of them even released a single called ‘A.F.R.I.C.A.’
to the tune of ‘D.I.S.C.O’. The point is, winning isn’t really about the causes
at all, it’s about the girls. And the girls are just being used as corporate
publicity whores ...”

“So, what’s your story?”

“Well, it will be a satire about the competition. I’ll change
the name of the corporation, invent three new characters, none of whom gives a
damn about the charities that they’re representing, and the girl in second
place will be so competitive that she kills the girl in first place.”

“I say!”

“But the real catch is that after she’s murdered, the victim
becomes so famous, that she wins hands down. It’s about personal greed, modern society’s
preoccupation with celebrities, and people’s tendency to take every good-sounding
cause at face value, particularly in the age of social networking. It draws on
lessons learned from
Brass Eye
,
The Tourist of Death ...
”

“Well, sounds like a bog-standard whodunit to me,” said
Montgomery, nodding.

Dawn agreed. “I’m happy with that. You can never have too
many classics.”

* * *

I sat in the window seat, watching the tide come in whilst tapping
words into my laptop. My first draft was almost finished. It would need a lot
of work, but it wasn’t bad for a first draft.

At least discussion time was over. I could be alone with my
thoughts and ideas. What a letdown this weekend had turned out to be. I’d been
hoping to improve my skills, but the only person who seemed to understand my
writing style was Rafe, and he was such a pretentious lump of veiny knob
cheese.

I wondered what Biff was up to. Perhaps I could sneak off
and talk to him. It wasn’t as though I was getting anything done sitting here
anyway.

Unexpectedly, the silence was broken. The thunderous,
purposeful footsteps of Montgomery could be heard. The aroma of old, stale
clothes filled the room.

“Dee,” he said, in a low, drawn-out fashion. He studied me from
beneath thick, hairy eyebrows.

“Yes?” I asked, when many seconds had passed without a
further utterance.

“Rafe tells me you’re getting a divorce.”

Ouch.

“Did he?” I said, through gritted teeth. There was nothing I
felt less like discussing. I hated the expression ‘getting a divorce’. A
marital break down wasn’t an object that you could go out and get, like a
house, or a new car; it was the sad passing of something complex and vast,
something that had once held great promise and expectation. If the worst came,
I wouldn’t just be ‘getting a divorce’, I’d be reluctantly accepting a broken
heart.

“I’ve done a divorce, so if there’s anything you need to
know ...” His concerned face was off-putting. It gave his face crevices
large enough to conceal babies. “Anything at all ...”

“There isn’t. Thanks.”

“Did he play away?” he asked, with a knowing tone.

“What? No.”

‘Play away’ was another horrible term. How could the deep
betrayal and irreversible shattering of trust ever be explained away using the
word ‘play’? At least our marriage hadn’t faced that problem.

“Did
you
play away?” he asked.

“Nobody played away.”

“Because if you did, I know a great solicitor who can help
you out.”

“I didn’t!”

“I got the house you know.”

“Good for you.”

“My wife chose it, decorated it, and raised our two kids in
it, but I got the house.
That’s
how good my people are.”

“You must be very proud,” I muttered.

“Do you want hubby walking away with everything? Think about
it ...”

“I don’t need a solicitor!” I barked. It was far too soon to
be talking about lawyers. I’d only just claimed my independence back.

“I played away,” he told me. Then he sniggered. His wide
nostrils made the resonating snorting sound that indicates loose snot.

I shrank away from him.

“It’s a secret of course, because she’s married ...”

Dawn came scurrying through the door, bingo wings raised,
clapping her hands. Dawn was married, wasn’t she?
Shudder.
She began
hooting at the top of her voice. “Everybody! Come in here! It’s time for
another choral moment in the heavenly hymn of creativity!”

“It’s time for some more inspiration casserole! Our separate
minds are the vegetables that will create the stew of brilliance!” boomed
Montgomery, stepping in front of her. The competition between them was immense,
but was there underlying sexual tension?
Intense shudder.

Not long after, Danger appeared, followed by a bored looking
Rafe and a giggling Annabel. My peace and quiet was well and truly shattered.

“How is everybody getting on?” Dawn quizzed.

There were some positive noises, and a few downright creepy
ones.

“Lovely!” Dawn warbled.

“We need a title,” explained Montgomery.

“Yes, I was just about to say that,” she snapped,

“Anyone got any ideas?” he asked.

Rafe suggested, “
Pompomberry House.
”

Annabel suggested, “
Island Inspired
.”

“Good ideas, but I have one myself, which I believe will blow
those out of the water,” ventured Montgomery. “How about ...” then he drew
a broad rectangle in the air with his hairy hands, “
The Book of Most Quality
Writers
.”

Seriously?

A loud, blood-curdling scream resounded around the room. It
seemed like an overreaction to be honest. But then I noticed that everybody
else looked as shocked as I did. The scream had come from
beyond
the
doorway.

Biff!

All at once, everybody was running. Even Montgomery, who
looked as though he’d never broken a sweat in his life, bounded toward the
door.

Rafe flung the kitchen door open but then stopped moving and
stood, motionless, in the doorway. What sight had paralysed him?

Annabel screamed. It wasn’t her usual silly flirtatious
squeal, but a deep cry filled with sheer terror.

Biff!

“Coming through!” shouted Montgomery, pushing his way into
the kitchen. “Bloody hell fire!”

“What? What is it?” asked Dawn. Even when people had moved
out of the way, the vast woman had difficulty getting through the kitchen door.

“Will somebody please tell me what’s going on?” I demanded.

“He is dead,” said Danger, flatly. “The handyman is dead.”

Chapter 5

I hurried into the kitchen, but as soon as I saw him, I
found myself unable to move. There was blood everywhere. His white shirt was
torn and saturated with blood. He had clearly been stabbed. Yet his face and
hair were perfect. There wasn’t a scratch on his gorgeous, chiselled face. His
eyes were shut, as though he were sleeping. But he wasn’t! He was dead! Biff
was dead! Gorgeous, beautiful Biff was dead!

“Is he dead?” asked Rafe.

Montgomery knelt down beside him, testing the seams of
trousers bought when he had a more youthful figure. Dawn wobbled then dropped
onto the floor, forming a giant blob. She tried to lean forward to take Biff’s
pulse, but her enormous boob-stomach got in the way.