The Face Page 7

  “Agreed.”

  Now it was Brian’s turn to frown, “I don’t understand why you are agreeing to all this when she could be all yours?”

  Amy gave a knowing smile. “B-Bau needs b-both of us.” Her hazel eyes stared at him. “So we’ll have to manage together so that B-Bau gets a d-double portion of love and we d-don’t argue. Can we g-get on now, I want to see her?”

  Brian held up a finger, “One more minute. What happens if our scheme doesn’t work, what would it do to Bau?

  She frowned again, finally announcing, “Then we’ll just have to make sure we d-do succeed won’t we?”

  Without preamble she suddenly reached out and placed her hand on his thigh. “I know you love B-Bau and not me, and that you’re a man so you can probably only love one person at a time, b-but I hope that our relationship can b-be more than one of mere tolerance. Now can we get on, we’re wasting time.”

  The matter was obviously now closed, at least Brian was a little further forward in his dilemma, but not much. He admitted defeat and started the engine. Just what was he getting himself into?

  “Amy? Here?” Exclaimed Bau when Brian knocked on her door.

  “She’s in the car, I didn’t say you lived here.”

  She mouthed, ‘thanks’ before heading down the mud path towards the lane. Brian waited a couple on minutes and then followed. Amy and Bau were still having a passionate embrace so he backed off and went into the cottage. It was even more squalid than he remembered. He noted the rat droppings down the edge of the hall and shivered, he hated rats and the thought of Bau living here appalled him. He checked the stairs and sat down, what was he to do? Could he really cope with Bau and Amy’s relationship while contemplating a relationship with her himself? He experienced that out-of-control feeling again and took a deep breath; perhaps he ought to… “Penny for them?”

  He spun round; Bau was in the doorway. “You were deep in thought,” she said grinning

  He gave a helpless shrug. She came over to him and tickled his chin. “Amy says that you and her have come to an accommodation. Apparently you want to share my affections.”

  He felt himself going red. “I didn’t mean to talk about you behind your back, but…”

  She stroked his cheek, “She said that you were prepared to walk away if that was best for me and my happiness.”

  He managed a nod; “It all sounds so dramatic, but…”

  She silenced him with a gentle kiss. “You’re one in a million.”

  She glanced down the front path, “Amy’s in the car, do you mind if we go to yours?”

  “Of course not.”

  He looked past the front door as well, “She seems lucid enough; you didn’t say she stammered.”

  “Mainly only on Bs and Ds and only with strangers, that is unless you’re Verity or her disgusting son John, they can both turn Amy into an incoherent jabbering wreck.”

  She took another glance, “And don’t be fooled. Amy is what you might call bimodal. She has two states, perfectly rational and perfectly irrational, and can flip between the two at the drop of a hat. If she thinks she’s done wrong, or can’t cope she flips and apparently it can be difficult to get her back to normal again.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Harriet visited her for me when she was in hospital after her breakdown.”

  “Harriet’s obviously a good friend.”

  “The best. She’s out in India for the moment with her sick grandmother, I’m praying that she will return before I have to go back in.”

  “You might not have to go back in.”

  She sighed, “Let’s look at the worst case then we won’t be disappointed.”

  She shot him a quizzical glance, “You sure you can cope, with me and Amy?”

  “I’ll try, you obviously have no secrets.”

  Bau’s face took on a haunted look; “Amy’s not good at secrets. Remember that and don’t stress her even with minor ones like telling her what you’ve bought me for Christmas.”

  “We’re nowhere near Christmas.”

  “A girl can hope.”

  She abruptly turned round and strode out, “Just slam the door,” she said, “lock doesn’t work.”

  He arrived at the car and his heart sank, Amy was in the middle seat. Bau wagged her finger at her. “Naughty naughty, you know I want the middle seat.”

  Amy looked blank and, after an appreciable delay, smiled. “Oh, of course, then you can have us b-both.”

  She looked past Bau to Brian. “Sorry B-Brian, didn’t think.”

  Once they were all seated Brian drove off, he couldn’t fail to notice that Bau and Amy held hands all the way to the old rectory.

  Brian prepared some soup and made some croutons from toasted stale bread while Bau showed Amy round the house. She hadn’t even raised an eyebrow at the now pristine kitchen floor. Once the soup was hot he left it to simmer and sought out the women. As he climbed the stairs Bau’s voice floated out of the bathroom. “Shit Amy, that hurt!”

  He stood at the bathroom door; Amy was swabbing Bau’s ears with some cotton wool. Her ears now sported an identical pair of large two-inch diameter silver earrings as Amy plus a small silver ring in the top of her ear; it had obviously been that ring that had caused the outburst. Bau grinned, “Amy’s kept my jewellery.”

  She waved her left hand, which sported a chunky silver thumb-ring and a ring composed of six small emeralds with a diamond in the centre on the second finger of her right hand. Amy waved her right hand, “They’re our love-rings,” she announced.

  Brian studied the earrings. “Why don’t those rings stick out?”

  Bau fiddled with her ear lobe. “The end spike is at an angle and they’re not complete rings, they finish just behind the ear lobe; they’re stage ear-rings from the Rocqettes.”

  “Lunch’s ready.”

  They trooped down stairs and sat round the kitchen table. Brian dished out the soup and placed a plate of rolls in the centre of the table. As they started eating he looked at Amy; it was still hard to believe she’d had a nervous breakdown. “You said you’d escaped,” he said to her, “surely it’s not that bad?”

  Her face screwed up. “G-Gran w-wants m-me t-to g-go and see m-mother. Shh-she w-wants to g-get rid of m-me.”

  The pronounced stammer and obvious agitation astounded him, as did her obvious distress. Bau shot him a ‘don’t go there’ look. “Well you’re here now, so let’s forget all about them.” She said gently to Amy, who responded with a simpering smile before nodding and proceeding to eat. As Brian had expected halfway through the bowl of soup Bau put her spoon down and pushed the bowl away. Wordlessly Amy moved the bowl back; also wordlessly Bau picked up the spoon and continued to eat. A few moments later Amy reached for a second roll, Bau twitched an eyebrow and Amy retracted her hand, empty. After the soup Amy took a banana from the fruit bowl and halved it giving the other half to Bau, who dutifully ate it. Amy grinned at Brian, “We have a pact,” she announced proudly before looking at the clock. “Does your TV work?”

  “It works fine.”

  She stacked the bowls and placed them in the sink, “I’ll do these later.”

  “It’s all right,” said Brian, “I’ll do them.”

  Amy gazed at him with wide open hazel eyes, “I said I’ll do them, don’t want to be useless.”

  With that she strode out. Bau grinned, “She loves her Australian daytime soap, and you’d better leave the dishes for her, she wants to make her contribution to the household.”

  She waved a hand, “What’s happened to the floor?”

  “Re-laid it after plugging the shaft with concrete.”

  “So you’re not calling the police?”

  “Definitely not.”

  She tapped the table, “Tell all.”

  He leaned forward, “The girls are identical twins, Lillian and Barbara Dale, and they went missing on Saturday July 12th 1967, local paper was full of it. Interesting thing is one of their friend
s; a girl named Belinda, said that their lives had been made hell by bullying at school. She named the bullies as John Jones and his mates Colin and Philip.”

  “Stop!” Said Bau earnestly before closing her eyes in thought. “Would that be John Jones, Verity’s son?”

  “Well spotted, it took me half an hour to make that connection, it’s hard to believe that those girls would be in their fifties now. Verity lived here with her brother while her husband was abroad from 1966 to that summer, when he was posted to Aldershot and the family moved there. I reckon John must have been 15, his sister Wendy 16 and his brother James 14. Thing is no one believed Belinda. She also claimed that the boys had a den, but the boys closed ranks and denied it and nobody found it.”

  He leant back looking smug, “Guess what was in the other room you spotted?”

  “A boys den?”

  “Got it in one. A month later a girl called Cecilia came back from a visit to her dad’s in the States and collaborated Belinda’s story, but by then Verity and her family had moved. Obviously the girls were never found and neither was the den.”

  Bau blinked in disbelief, “But the police must have searched in here?”

  “Why? This was a parson’s house remember? If a parson says the girls aren’t here who’s to contradict? Besides there were two sightings of the girls in Haverhill bus station, so the police concentrated their efforts there.”

  “Do you think they covered it up?”

  “Verity and her brother? No. I think the floor in here was quarry tiles even then. However, there is another shaft and I think that is the one the boys used, but they never took the risk of coming back again after the balloon went up.”

  “Where does the other shaft come up?”

  “In the flower-bed the other side of the greenhouse, I think. I need to find it to block it up.”

  Bau shook her head and tapped her fingernails on the table. “What about the parents, surely you can’t just leave them in ignorance? That would be reprehensible.”

  Brian sighed, “They went to Spain and chose the wrong plane. They were killed in 1975; she was pregnant at the time. I can’t find any other relatives and frankly I’d rather leave Lillian and Barbara in peace.”

  Bau screwed her nose up causing the ring in it to waggle, “John’s a nasty piece of work he…”

  She tailed off as Amy entered sniffing, “Only got the last ten minutes, they moved it because of some wretched football match.” She shot an angry look at Brian as if it were his fault and proceeded to wash up. Brian decided it was time be somewhere else for a moment.

  The sound of a diesel van made him look up from his task of using a broom handle to prod the flower bed that ran alongside the old Victorian brick and wooden frame greenhouse. He was sure, dead sure, this was where the other shaft should come out, but just could not find it amongst the holly bushes and various small conifers. Bau and Amy had gone off for a walk so he rounded the greenhouse expecting some sort of delivery van. Instead he was confronted by Verity, who was obviously not in a good humour. “Is Amy here?” She barked.

  “She is, and she is an adult Verity, I can hardly keep her away.”

  “Is that woman here as well?”

  “If you mean Bau, then…”

  She cut across him in her fury, “Well isn’t that just cosy.”

  Brian took a deep breath, the day had been odd enough already and he did not wish it to get odder. “I hardly think…”

  “That’s you trouble,” she half shouted, “You hardly think. Have you any idea what your doing? Amy was doing fine and now you have to drag that woman into her life again. I’ve nursed that girl through traumas and tantrums and total stupor and then that woman comes swanning along after her holiday on the state and crooks a finger and Amy comes a-running.”

  Brian began to feel his blood pressure rising, “I hardly think that prison is…”

  Verity snorted and turned round to wave at the occupants of a large black van. Brian put his hands on his hips, “If you think I’ll condone you taking her by force then you’ve…”

  Verity gave a short barking laugh, “No chance Brian, you’ve made your bed now you can lie on it.”

  To his amazement her son, John, and three other men started to carry a roll of carpet into the house. Verity shouted, “Any of the front rooms of the first floor, George never uses them.”

  “You can’t just move Amy’s furniture…”

  Verity cut across him again, “Oh yes I can. If there are going to be more traumas and tantrums then you can cope with them.”

  She tossed a brown tablet bottle at him, “She has one of these small brown tablets every morning, with her breakfast, not on an empty stomach. They’re supposed to keep her stable.”

  She tossed another bottle, “When she does throw a wobbly, and believe me she will, you can feed her up to three of these to calm her down; but no more than twelve of these in any one week. If that’s not enough, and it rarely is, the doctor's name is on the bottle and he’ll come out and give her a jab.”

  She tossed a third bottle. “One of these at night, that is if you want to get any sleep.”

  Finally she tossed a pink packet, “And one of these every morning, though goodness knows why she takes them.”

  As she was tossing the tablets no less than six men were carrying in a pine dressing table, a pine chest of three doors, a bed and a number of plastic bin-liners. Brian decided to try and be reasonable. “Look Verity,” he said firmly, “There is no reason to move Amy in, I’m not looking to…”

  “Huh!” She shouted wildly, “If you decide to go playing with fire – and that woman is fire – then you’re going to have to bear the consequences.”

  She suddenly yelled at her son, “Put those damn things in a downstairs room.”

  She turned back to Brian, “When you do finally give up and return her to me I do not want those damn guitars. You can tell your Bau that Amy has wasted her life cleaning them every day and enough is enough.” She took a step closer, “But let me warn you my lad. If my granddaughter is harmed in any way while she is here I will hold you directly responsible, do you understand!”

  “As I said Verity, Amy is an adult and therefore…”

  He didn’t finish this sentence either. “Adult!” She almost screamed, “What adult does a striptease in the middle of church? What adult asks the bishop – the bishop mind – if he’d like to see her wobbly bits when he was shopping at the supermarket? She hasn’t got a straight brain cell left in her head and it’s all down to that disgusting woman! Well she’s your problem now!”

  She turned and stormed off towards the van. Brian stood transfixed and uneasy. Transfixed that Verity had acted in this way and uneasy in that he thought she was acting a part. Trouble was he couldn’t figure out who the audience was supposed to be. In the end he went upstairs and looked into the front room. In the centre was a fluffy pink carpet that had obviously been a fitted carpet in Amy’s bedroom as the edges still had the cut-outs for oblique corners and alcoves. Against the wall were the dressing table and chest of drawers. In the centre of the carpet stood a pine bed complete with bright pink bedding. Next to the bed sat pine bedside cabinet with an over-large bright pink plastic alarm clock. Ranged along another wall were six bin-liners and a battered old acoustic guitar with nylon strings. He was in the kitchen contemplating the event when Bau returned. She noted his face. “Something wrong?”

  He pointed up the stairs, “Verity’s been. She’s moved Amy in. Shifted all her furniture and everything into an upstairs bedroom.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “Wish I was.” He showed Bau the tablet bottles. Bau read the labels and raised an eyebrow, “Label say up to three at a time. We used to call these zombie bombs inside; two of these could fell a camel in minutes.”

  “I thought tranquillisers took time to work.”

  “They’re strong sedatives, no wonder she was spaced out yesterday.”

  “Verity seems to think
we’ll need them.”

  Bau sniffed her disapproval and raised an eyebrow at the pink tablet box. “Where is Amy?” Asked Brian.

  “Picking flowers, she always liked fresh flowers in the house.”

  On cue Amy arrived clutching a bundle of mismatched blooms. Bau turned to her and spoke reassuringly gently. “You grandma’s been Amy. Apparently she’s moved all your furniture here.”

  Amy’s face lit up, “She has?”

  “Upstairs,” added Brian, “First on the left.”

  Amy raced up the stairs, peered in the room and raced down again. “Guitars?” She almost shouted.

  “Front room.” Answered Brian.

  They followed her in. Lying on the floor were four guitar cases, one with an extremely long neck, and two guitar amplifiers of significantly different sizes. Bau’s eyes widened, “You naughty, naughty girl. I told you to sell them and get yourself a good doctor.”

  “You’re not pleased?” Amy almost wailed. Bau grabbed her hands and looked into her eyes, “Of course I’m pleased.”

  She threw her arms around Amy and gave her a hug. For Brian’s benefit she pointed along the line. “Bass, electric, acoustic, twelve string.”

  Amy looked away and mumbled, “Sorry, your banjo got broke.” She looked at Bau. “I didn’t mean to break it, but gran and I were arguing and then…” As she spoke her voice rose in pitch and her demeanour changed to one of extreme agitation. Brian almost reached for a tablet. Bau had a different technique. Once again she held her hands and looked into her eyes speaking softly and evenly. “Stuff the banjo Amy, I can always get another one, but I can’t replace you.”

  Amy looked at her in a sort of ‘shall I jump off this cliff’ manner. Bau squeezed her hands. “It was expensive,” Amy moaned.

  “You’re priceless. “Bau answered.

  “You really don’t mind?”

  “Of course not.”