The Face Page 5

  He swept a podgy arm, “Food mixers, kettles, irons, radios, coffee-makers, percolators… ”

  His voice droned on as Brian ceased to listen. Brian pointed, “Is that a milk-shake machine?”

  “Certainly is, comes with twenty-four sachets of honest flavouring, just add milk and a scoop of ice-cream for the most delicious and…”

  Brian cut across him, “What are those special sachets?”

  “Ah,” he said conspiratorially, “They’re designed for rugby players, weight-lifters and pregnant women, they contain extra body-building proteins to help you put on weight.”

  Brian didn’t believe a word of it and read the back of a sachet. “OK I’ll take a machine, a box of each type of sachets and that football shaped digital radio, the white one.”

  “It’s a CD and MP3 player as well, also got it in blue.”

  “OK, I’ll take a blue one.”

  The chap must have though Christmas had arrived early, Brian’s bank account certainly did.

  She came back downstairs an hour after he arrived back looking fresher and more composed. “Soup?”

  “Wonderful,” she replied.

  He gave her a large bowl of soup and a crusty roll and they started eating. She didn’t talk and he didn’t probe. She laid down her spoon halfway through the bowl. Brian raised an eyebrow and she licked her lips before saying softly, “Please don’t nag me Brian, I know I should eat more, but it’s difficult. I feel raving hungry and after a few mouthfuls my body tells me that I’m full. I know I can’t be full, but it’s difficult to overeat. The doctor in the prison gave me a long lecture and told me this is a common problem with recovering anorexics, your body signals are all over the place and you like to kid yourself that you’ve eaten in case you overeat and get fat.”

  Brian laughed, “If you’re fat then my broom handle’s gone obese.”

  She swallowed three more spoonfuls and gave up. “What’s next on your list?”

  “We take a look down the hole.”

  She picked at a bit of roll, “Any ideas?”

  “None at all.”

  He pointed across the kitchen, “Fancy a milkshake, I bought a machine today and I’m dying to try it out.”

  “Strawberry,” she replied.

  He made two milkshakes, using a ‘special’ sachet for hers and slipped in a straw before he handed it over. She looked at the straw and looked at him, “How do you know I like a straw?”

  “Saw you in the supermarket café.”

  She nodded as if she understood. “Tell me,” he said, “I don’t want to be nosy, but why haven’t you contacted Amy before?”

  She stopped sipping her milkshake, “She’s been in hospital, just for an assessment, and Verity’s mounted a virtual armed guard. Ringing and writing are not good. I did turn up on the doorstep once, but Verity threatened to get the police and I can’t afford a run in with them because of my licence.”

  Brian decided to probe no more and derived a secret pleasure from watching her drink the milkshake. She alternately sipped the drink and picked at the roll until they were both gone and he enjoyed every movement.

  It was mid-afternoon before they donned their coveralls, his fitted well while hers hung like a baggy bin-liner. He got her to slip out the belt and folded the excess from each side across her back before fastening it in place with the belt. Coveralls were made to be large, but she was certainly nowhere near a size ten. He elected to go first and he carefully used the iron hoops as a ladder and went down the shaft, she followed a few feet above him. Once on the floor they swung their torches around. He’d expected a circular ammunition store like the one listed in the record office, instead he had a huge oblong brick-lined room with twelve equally spaced ancient metal bedsteads of the old military hospital type each standing in its own brick alcove. There was absolutely nothing else. Despite it being summer the room was quite chilly and Bau involuntarily shivered before setting out across the room. “There’s nothing here,” he said swinging his light-beam along the beds.

  He looked around and she’d disappeared. He blinked, shone his light about and then examined the floor, he feared that she’d fallen down some other shaft. She reappeared, as if by magic at the far end. He felt an enormous wave of relief. She took him to end alcove where the wall jutted out covering a doorway. This led into another, smaller, room that had obviously been an office. Judging by the crumbling wooden desk and a rotting magazine that had been a long time ago. Bau swung her light into the far corner, and there, neatly lined against the wall were ten rifles of various sizes and lengths and a neat pile of twenty or so rusty, but still vicious looking, sheath-knives. “Any ideas now,” she whispered.

  “Home guard,” he replied. “I’ve heard tell of plans for the home-guard to fight a guerrilla action should England have been invaded. My guess is that this was an emergency hidey-hole for a local group.”

  She nodded, “Then why these?”

  She swung her light into the other corner. It revealed two semi-mummified corpses sitting with their back to the wall and leaning against each other with a single arm across each other’s shoulder and holding hands in a final macabre clasp. Both bodies were tiny and still wearing off-golden tee-shirts, black mini-skirts and white plimsolls. Brian swallowed back some soup and walked towards the bodies, stopping a few feet away. By the side of one of them was an empty coke bottle, three burnt out candles and a pair of empty tablet containers. Propped behind the coke bottle was an envelope with the faded words, ‘Mum and dad,’ still clearly legible. Brian and Bau stood side by side and rooted to the spot. “Ought we?” Queried Brian in a hushed reverential tone.

  “Not now,” Bau replied softly, “let’s, go upstairs, they’ll wait.”

  Brian paused at the table and shone his light on the old magazine. “It’s called Summer Love Stories and dated Summer 1967.”

  They left it lying there and went back to the kitchen.

  Once up top Brian sat on the edge f the hatch and breathed in the air as if it was the freshest he’d ever tasted. Bau had surprised him, he’d felt violently sick, but she’d looked at the corpses and seemingly not turned a hair. Bau took one look at his face and turned the kettle on, “You look dreadful.”

  “I feel dreadful, how come you don’t?”

  She paused; “I had my moment when I discovered them.”

  She poured out two coffees, “I think there’s another room. The alcove opposite has a piece of canvas hanging down in a similar place to the way through to the second room.”

  She handed Brian the coffee, “Now what?”

  He glanced at his watch, “If you don’t mind I’d like to drink this and then make a dash for the Library in Bury to see if any young girls went missing round here in the 1960s.”

  “Becoming a detective are we? Leave it to the police, it’s what they do.”

  Brian shook his head and huskily replied. “Can’t do that. I should never have involved you, but now I have the police are a no no. I can’t take the risk of them misreading the situation and it all going against you.”

  Bau sniffed her coffee as if savouring the aroma, “I wasn’t born in the 1960s Brian and neither were you.”

  He shook his head, “Still not taking the risk. I couldn’t bear it if you got sent back to prison because of me.”

  “OK, whatever you say.” She paused. “But one thing’s for sure, two young girls can’t just disappear, there must have been a hell of a row at the time.”

  Brian parked his car in one of the town-centre parking bays and turned the engine off. They’d just dumped their coveralls on the floor and left for Bury as soon as they could. Bau’s eyes flicked towards the Oxfam shop opposite the parking bay and then away, she had nothing to spend. Brian sat still for a minute. “Thought you were in a hurry,” she said.

  He reached into his pocket, pulled the four remaining crisp ten pound notes from the front of his wallet and five crisp five pound notes from the zipped rear compartment. He thrust the
money into her hands, “Go shopping, it’s late night shopping and everything’s open until seven.”

  She gave him a frosty look. “I’m not a charity case Brian.”

  “Then pay me back when you’ve got your royalty cheque and don’t try telling me you’ve got enough money.”

  There was concern and anxiety in his voice that matched his caring expression. She took the notes, “I will pay you pack,” she replied earnestly.

  He squeezed her hand, “Enjoy your freedom.”

  She was grateful he didn’t add, ‘while it lasts.’ She opened the door and he added, “Is it enough? I mean there’s a cash machine over there and…”

  She silenced him by kissing his hand, “More than enough for now.”

  He held onto her hand, “I mean it, I’ll lend you as much as you need, you only have to ask.”

  He let go of her hand and she departed for the nearest department store that stocked decent make-up and he departed for the library.

  She arrived back at the car at seven-thirty carrying four paper carrier bags, two were labelled ‘Oxfam,’ one ‘Age Concern,’ and one ‘Boots.’ She placed them carefully in the back and smiled at Brian, “Don’t worry, I haven’t spent it all.”

  “Wouldn’t matter if you had.” He replied wondering if he’d given her more money would she have bought some decent clothes. She climbed in the front and, as if reading his thoughts, said softly, “I just need to get by, if I go back there’s no point in taking in anything decent. I’m only allowed three sets of clothes and it’s impossible to keep your own, the laundry girls get all the good stuff.”

  “You might not go back, be positive.”

  She turned her eyes on him, they were full of sadness, “The odds aren’t good Brian, lets be realistic, I just want to make the best of this time out before I go back.” She didn’t add ‘for another twelve years,’ but then she didn’t have to as it was on both their minds.

  “Then lets make the best of it,” he said pointing to a hotel, “how about I buy you dinner?”

  “I’ll need to change first, but that would be lovely. I haven’t eaten in a proper restaurant since the day before my last appeal, and that was the meal of a condemned woman.”

  She rummaged in the bags and re-arranged the contents, finally gathering together all she wanted into the Boots bag. They walked across the square towards the hotel, halfway across he started to hold her hand. It had suddenly struck Brian how tenuous her presence with him was. At any moment she could be whisked away, without notice, to a different life. He resolved to accelerate their relationship, knowing that he was being foolish and taking a gamble that was quite out of character and that might end up with him losing everything.

  Brian waited for forty minutes in the hotel lobby before she emerged from the ladies toilets. She had donned a calf length red denim skirt and a white blouse with three-quarter sleeves and a pair of red high-heeled shoes, but really it was her face that had been transformed. With full make-up the skin tone looked normal and her eye-shadow now enhanced her eyes rather than exacerbating the imperfections of time in a garish manner. Her lips were bright vermilion and her fingernails an exact match. “You look wonderful,” he blurted out.

  “Wonderful what Oxfam can do,” she replied.

  “It’s not the clothes, it’s the contents.”

  He took her into the restaurant where he had booked a corner table. They sat down and he gazed at her. Finally she said gently, “Seen enough?”

  He blushed, “Sorry, it’s just that I can’t drag my eyes away from you.”

  “I’d noticed.”

  He looked at the four blue blobs visible on her wrists and pointed, “Squirrel?”

  “Skunk.”

  He tried again, “Cat?”

  “Frog.”

  This was hopeless, he tried the other arm. “Dog?”

  “Sheep.”

  He pointed to the last one, “Snake.”

  “Caterpillar.”

  She turned her left arm over and there was half a blob showing, she pulled her sleeve up a little. He smiled, “Spider.”

  “Octopus.” Despite the absurdity of the situation they both laughed.

  They studied the menu both knowing that this meal was somehow a turning point in their relationship and wondering how to handle it. The waiter finally arrived, Brian ordered a well done steak and chips while she ordered a children’s size salmon salad. The waiter rolled his eyes around the table, “Sorry madam we don’t serve children’s portions to adults.”

  “You’d rather through the excess food away and waste it? What about conserving the planet’s resources?”

  The waiter opened his mouth and then decided it was a lost cause, “Children’s portion it is then madam, would you want salad with the salmon or fish-shaped fries?”

  “Salad will do.”

  They grinned as he left and she sipped some water. Brian noted the action, “Would you like wine?”

  She shook her head. Then, without warning and much to Brian’s dismay she asked the one question he’d been dreading. “Well you know about me,” she said mischievously, “Now tell me about you. And I want to know everything, every sordid detail.”

  Once again his heart almost stopped.

  Following the question Brian proved that he would be useless in prison or playing poker as every emotion showed on his face. “You needn’t if you…”

  He reached over and placed his large fingers over her thin hand, “Yes I must, it’s just that it’s difficult and I don’t know where to start.”

  “Try school.”

  He nodded and collected his thoughts, starting with childhood would give him time to work up to the painful part. “Mother was a Methodist and father a sort of wandering Baptist. He wandered between churches and between believing in adult baptism and supporting child baptism. I don’t remember much about school, except that I enjoyed it. Most of my school years we all were absorbed with Joan. Joan is my sister and four years older than me. She contracted childhood leukaemia when she was thirteen and it rather soaked up the family’s energies. I don’t resent her for that, if anything it allowed me to get away with far more than other children because they were always looking after her. She came through it by the way.”

  He paused and took a sip of water, he wished it was brandy. “University was also fun, I studied Physics and rowed for the university, only the second eight, but I’ve got a large oar on my wall at home.”

  His eyes suddenly switched from her face to the carnation in the tiny table vase. “In my second year I moved out of halls into a shared house, I stayed in the same house till I finished my Post Graduate Teaching Certificate. The second year I was there we were joined by Janis, she was from French Antigua, but her parents were of Caribbean origin; they run a beach hotel. I suppose we started going out together by Christmas, well we must have done because I bought her a Christmas present. She was a year ahead me and by the start of my PGCE year I thought we were what you might call an item, though don’t get me wrong I didn’t sleep with her, not then.”

  He swallowed and Bau watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down, he was also starting to sweat. “She’d finished her degree and wanted to stay on in England and join a computer firm; she was studying maths. However, she ran into a snag; she didn’t have an UK passport or a visa to stay. He traced a circle with his finger on the table cloth. “She tried a couple of times, but it was no go. In the end I decided to speed things up and we got married, it all went downhill from there. I slept with her for one night, consummated the marriage so to speak, and then she flew back to Antigua as her visa had expired. Once she’d obtained a UK passport as my wife I expected her to return immediately. She actually stayed away for five months and when she did return she was five months pregnant. To say it was a shock is an understatement, she’d written, intermittently, and never indicated a word about it. After that she was as frosty as hell. It took a close friend to point out the obvious: that she’d married me for a
UK passport and not expected to get pregnant. She was a devout Catholic and therefore there was no question of an abortion, especially when she’d been living with her parents. I never slept with her again, that was her choice not mine.”

  He swallowed again, and took a deep breath. “Then on the morning of my first exam she started to go into labour and my parents drove her to the hospital, or they were going to, that’s when they were killed. Janis was fatally injured and died at the roadside, fortunately there was an air-ambulance doctor on the scene and he delivered the baby by caesarean, it was a girl and I called her Janis after her mother.”

  Bau had not expected this. “You’ve got a daughter?”

  “Yes, rather no. I gave her away.”

  Bau’s eyes became like saucers, “You gave her away?”

  Unfortunately the waiter chose this moment to appear and Bau had to sit in disbelief for the time it took him to deliver the food, vegetables and side salad. Once he’d departed Brian didn’t even try to start eating. He cleared his throat. “It’s not what you think; I gave her to my sister Joan. She couldn’t have children and it seemed the right thing to do.”

  “The right thing to do!” Bau repeated shrilly.

  He finally looked at her. “You put me to shame, you struggled with your daughter against the odds I chose the easy path. Well at the time I thought it was the easy path.”

  He waved his oversized hands around, “How was I going to bring up a baby? I was deep in debt and a spurned man. I found out later that Janis intended to leave me as soon as she was out of hospital.”

  “But you can’t just give a child away! People must have noticed.”

  He shrugged, “It was absurdly easy. Joan and her husband Sam registered Janis as their child and no-one turned a hair in the registry office, after all they only saw a pair of proud parents and a baby.”

  “But the colour,” exclaimed Bau.

  “Sam's parents are Afro-Caribbean from Barbados, so the colour is just right. They registered the child. I had my wife’s remains cremated and then took them to Antigua and had them placed in a churchyard there. I told her parents that the baby had never been born, that was the hardest part, lying to her parents. I reasoned that they already had six grandchildren, but I still feel a louse over that. From then on my sister reared her as her own.”