The Lying Tongue (21 page)
Authors: Andrew Wilson
“Excuse me for a moment,” I managed to utter, running upstairs.
In the bathroom I steadied myself by the basin. I splashed cold water over my face again and again, but it didn’t do any good. My stomach felt like it was turning itself inside out.
I had to put the hammer back. In the storage room I skirted around the edge of the cluttered space until I found the toolbox. As quietly as I could, I slid it on top of the coiled washing line and covered the case with the tarpaulin. Then I went back into the bathroom and flushed the loo again.
Back downstairs, Shaw was boiling the kettle.
“Feeling better?” he said.
“Yes, much better, thank you.”
“Fancy some more tea?”
“That would be lovely,” I said. “Are there any more photographs in the journal?”
“To be honest, I didn’t know that one was in there. Came as a surprise to me as well. Maureen was quite particular about her albums, you see. Liked to gather all the pictures together in one place. Drove her mad if one escaped or slipped out. She was a bugger for that, she was.”
“So you still have the albums?”
“Oh, yes. They’re upstairs.”
As Shaw said this, passing me the cup of tea, I thought he looked at me knowingly, as if he was fully aware that I had sneaked around up there.
“But don’t worry; you can tell Mr. Crace there aren’t any of him. You see, Maureen burnt all those after…after it happened. So angry with him she was.”
“I see.”
“She was not happy with Chris and the situation, as you can imagine, but she just couldn’t bear to destroy pictures of him. So there they sit, in album after album, just gathering dust.”
“Would it be possible to see one or two of them?” I asked. “It’s just that—”
“That you can’t believe you look like brothers? I can well imagine. Must have given you quite a turn. Not surprising really that it knocked you for six. Odd though, isn’t it?”
Shaw put his cup down and slowly made his way to the staircase.
“I’ll see what I can find,” he said.
While he was gone, I continued to stare at the photograph of Chris, standing before those trees like another me. A couple of minutes later, Shaw came back armed with a tower of photo albums. He placed them on the table and handed me one at random. As I flicked through image after image of Chris—walking along a coastal path, eating an ice-cream cone, standing proudly with arms crossed in front of the main entrance to Winterborne Abbey, gazing sleepily at the camera after being surprised in his bed—I felt like I was looking at an alternative life I could have led. The boy, the young man, in those pictures certainly resembled me, and in some shots he looked exactly like me, but the context, the surroundings, were totally unfamiliar and alien.
“So you say there are no images, no photographs of Mr. Crace?” I asked.
“None at all, I’m sure you’ll be relieved to hear. You can tell Mr. Crace he can rest easy. The diary is the only…how shall we say…incriminating material.”
“I see.”
“But if you don’t mind me saying, I’d watch my back if I were you.”
“What do you mean?”
“It seems a little strange, don’t you think?”
I gave him a quizzical look, pretending not to know what he was talking about.
“You know, you looking so like Chris. You’re not telling me that’s a coincidence, are you? I mean, what you two get up to in your private lives is up to you and—”
“Excuse me, Mr. Shaw, I don’t know what idea you have in your head, but the relationship between Mr. Crace and me is purely a professional one.”
“I didn’t mean to imply—”
“Well, I hope not.”
“It’s just that…all I’m trying to say is that I’d be careful, that’s all.”
I cast my mind back to the time when I first delivered my letter to Crace’s palazzo. The smooth feel of the marble as I pushed the letter through the dragon’s mouth. The gentle eddy of the water all around me as I looked up at the candlelight flickering in the
piano nobile,
and the shadow melting in and out of the darkness. What had Crace seen when he had gazed down at me?
A young man who looked like the love of his life. The boy he had adored. The boy he had, perhaps, killed.
I said good-bye to Shaw and walked back through the village in a daze. The last few months appeared as insubstantial as a mirage. As I tried to compose a mental image of my time with Crace just to get a few things straight, the memories slipped and melted away, and I was left feeling unable to distinguish between the real and the imagined.
When I had arrived in Venice, I had seemed so certain of my future, so sure of my plans. Everything had been in place—a job, free accommodation, time to write. I had been presented with a new opportunity to start my life again, to forget about Eliza and the problems with my parents. I was ready to prove to everyone—and to myself—what I was capable of. I really had believed that I would write a novel, that I would find time to get myself back in shape and sort out all the weird stuff going on in my head.
It had not worked out like that. Since moving into Crace’s palazzo, I had hardly had any time to write much of the novel apart from the occasional page or so. I had given up my time for Crace, sacrificed my independence and my life for him. And throughout those months, he had been playing some sick game.
Of course, now it all made sense, perfect fucking sense. Those sly, stolen glances he cast at me when he thought I wasn’t looking. His lizard eyes darting around, snatching bits of me—a piece of forehead, a jut of cheekbone, a segment of fleshy upper lip. That strange expression that would descend upon him—a misty-eyed whimsy, part ecstatic reverie, part pain beyond measure—when he saw me first thing in the morning or when I handed him his early evening drink.
Back at the pub, I splashed my face with cold water. What were the facts? Okay, Chris had died, but how did I know he had been killed by Crace? Why did I assume that Shaw was telling the truth? Couldn’t Chris just have committed suicide like the inquest said? Surely if Crace had murdered Chris, then the police would have investigated the matter and there would have been a trial? It was time to examine Chris’s account of what had happened.
I opened the diary, and as I flicked through it I noticed that certain pages had been torn from it. I turned to the front and immediately saw a four-line stanza centered in the very middle of the frontispiece.
If you turn these pages and look inside
Read my words and attempt to read my mind
Put thoughts of a happy future aside
Always alone, always looking behind.
C.D.
The message sent a chill through me. I looked up from the pages. For a moment I thought about shutting the damned thing and delivering the diary back to Shaw. But, in truth, I knew I had no option. I turned the leaf-thin pages and started to read.
31 August 1959
I made my way through the boys to the schoolroom next to the library. Faces looked up at me as I entered the class. I looked around the room for a spare desk and found one right at the back. There was a boy with black hair and dark eyes next to me. I placed my satchel on the desk and sat down. I smiled and said hello, but he just stared back at me. I pretended to search for something in my bag, a pencil or a rubber, hoping that the fear would go away and that by the time I looked up again, everything would be all right. I counted out the seconds using my fingers, pressing my nails into my palm, but by the time the master arrived, I had lost count and my hands were all red.
The master said good morning. His name was Mr.Hamilton-Parker and he said he was going to be our form teacher for the year. He moved on to the register, calling the names. Adams? Yes, sir. Ammerson? Yes, sir. And so it went on until he came to me. Davidson? I couldn’t speak. My throat felt all swollen. He looked up and called my name again. I tried to cough. Yes, sir, I whispered. The master didn’t hear me, so I had to say it again. Someone at the back made a joke about my voice. The black-haired boy next to me, who I later learned was called Levenson, sniggered, and I saw other boys turn their heads to look at me. I felt my face redden. Mr.Hamilton-Parker told the boys to be quiet and got on with the register.
During assembly I kept trying to catch Dad’s eye, but he didn’t look in my direction, not even when he had finished playing. The headmaster, Dr. Hart, welcomed the new boys to the school and hoped that we would make him proud. He is sure that we have an exciting future ahead of us and that we will all be happy at Winterborne.
1 September 1959
Mum asked me how was it when I came through the door. I told her that it was fine, all right. What’s wrong with your lip, she said. Nothing, I told her. Rugger, that was all. It must have been a rough game, she said. She told me to be more careful. Dad was at the sink, washing some vegetables he had just pulled from the garden. When I walked past him on the way to the stairs, he didn’t look at me. In my room, I ripped the uniform off me.
I came downstairs and saw Mum’s eager face. She told me to sit down and tell her about my day. She asked Dad whether he had seen me at school. Just at assembly, he said. Mum asked me whether I had made any nice friends. I nodded, but I didn’t tell her the truth.
3 September 1959
In English Mr. Crace asked me to read a Shakespeare sonnet out loud. As I started to read I tried to imitate how the other boys spoke, but halfway through the sonnet I realized it was a stupid thing to do. I could hear Levenson and his friend Jameson sniggering at the back of the room, and by the time I finished the classroom erupted with laughter. The boys looked to Mr.Crace to join in on the joke, but he banged his fist on the desk and told the class to stop laughing. The room fell silent. I wanted to disappear.
The master turned to me and asked me to read the poem again, but in a more natural way, in my own voice. He turned to the boys and told them that Shakespeare would have spoken with a local accent. Making fun of dialect only showed one’s ignorance, he said. I looked at him as if to say, please, no, but he nodded and looked at me with kind eyes. I stumbled over the first few words,
feeling that my voice was coarse, ugly even, but when I finished, Mr. Crace said it was beautifully done. He then asked Levenson and Jameson to read out sonnet18, taking one line each at a time. When the boys turned to the sonnet in the book, the classroom echoed with laughter once more. This time Levenson and Jameson were the butt of the joke. Levenson went first, stumbling over the words, “Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s Day?” and then it was Jameson’s turn, “Thou art more lovely and more temperate.” By the time Jameson said the last line, the two boys were blushing and squirming in their seats. Even I found it funny. But when I looked up, I saw Levenson staring at me with hatred.
4 September 1959
At the end of the afternoon, just as most of the other boys were going off to their dorms or study rooms, I walked down the long, dark corridor toward the front entrance. As I stepped out, the sunlight blinded me. I looked down at the gravel pathway, blinking. I turned the corner and went behind the outbuildings, directly into the path of the sun. My foot hit something and I stumbled.
“Watch where you’re going, Davidson,” said a boy. He had his foot outstretched. It was Levenson. “Not only can he not speak properly, he can’t even walk,” said Jameson. “What shall we do with him,” asked the dark-haired boy. They grinned at one another, and a moment later I was being pushed behind one of the outbuildings, out of sight. “Stop snaking around, blondie,” Jameson said to me, pushing me up against a brick wall. “Can’t
your daddy afford to let you board with the rest of us?Or are you too much of a mummy’s boy? Was that it?”The two of them laughed as they started to hit me, lightly at first. I tried to fight back but they were too strong for me. One of them smacked me across the face and the other elbowed me in the stomach. As I bent over double, I saw a drop of blood fall onto the ground. “Not such a pretty boy now, are we?” one of them said. They called me other names too.
I stood up and saw, in the distance, walking along the path between the school and the music room, a man in a tweed jacket. My eyes were smarting from the pain, but I was sure he looked over in my direction. It was my father. There was no need to shout over to him because he had seen me. He would come over and stop it. He would rescue me. But instead of running over to me, he turned and carried on along the path until he disappeared. The boys punched me in the stomach and ran off.
23 September 1959
I came downstairs after finishing my homework to see Mum all red-faced. She told me that tea was nearly ready. “Where’s your dad?” she asked. “Not cleaning his guns again, is he?” I told her I would go and check the garden.
I went out the front door, across the narrow track and through the blue gate that leads into the long garden.“Dad?” I shouted. “Dad?” I walked down the lawn. Insects swarmed around the fruit bushes. I reached out to touch a berry, but as my fingers began to form themselves around the fruit, I felt a buzzing on my skin. It was a lazy bluebottle.
I caught a glimpse of Dad, his back to me, standing by the shed at the bottom of the garden. “Tea’s ready, Dad,”I said. He didn’t appear to hear me, so I repeated the words. But as I walked toward him, he didn’t turn to greet me. He just carried on looking at a patch of earth. I asked him whether he was all right and walked around the strip so that I could see his face. His eyes looked strange. His face was pale. Eventually he came to and told me he was just daydreaming.
19 October 1959
I didn’t say a word at school today. I don’t really mind. Not talking is easy once you get used to it. Anyway, I’d much rather write things down. Mr. Crace says the written word lasts forever.
20 October 1959
On the way to history, I saw Levenson and Jameson.I turned and started walking in the other direction. If I went out the main entrance, I could walk around the school to the back door. I thought I had given them the slip. But just as I was running up the side of the school, I saw Jameson in front of me. I turned to run, but Levenson was behind me. I thought about taking off across the fields, but if I did that I was certain to miss the lesson. I stood still, not knowing what to do. I heard their feet on the gravel as they came toward me. Jameson pushed me against the wall, and I saw Levenson’s angry eyes. He raised his hand to hit me, but just as he was
about to strike, an arm came to rest on his shoulder. It was Mr. Crace.
He asked them what was going on and the boys said nothing. Mr. Crace asked me whether that was true and I nodded. I could tell he did not believe us. We were just having a lively discussion, said Levenson. If that was the case, Mr. Crace said, then all of us would not mind coming along after school to take part in the debating society. Levenson and Jameson tried to protest, but he stopped them. The Pemberly brothers had both gone down with something, he said, and the society could do with a couple of extra loudmouths. He told them to go and then turned to me. He spoke softly, kindly. He told me not to worry. I did not need to join in with the debate if I did not want to. I could take the minutes.
20 October 1959
As soon as I heard the bell, I made my way to Mr.Crace’s room. I knocked on the door. Mr. Crace told me to come in. I was the first to arrive. I opened the door to find him sitting at the desk, writing. He looked up, pleased to see me.
I heard a knock at the door and the boys started to file into the room. The last ones in were Levenson and Jameson, both scowling at me, as if it was my fault they were there. Mr. Crace told the group that today we were going to discuss democracy. He talked about it for a while and then split us into two groups—Levenson, Knowles, Miller and Wright in one group and Jameson, Dodd, Fletcher and Ward in another. He told me that I could be in charge of the reference books and help the
boys find quotations and then take notes of what they say. The boys gathered round my desk, and Levenson and Jameson started to act as if they liked me. Levenson said he wished we had more interesting topics to discuss. Miller asked him what kind of things. “Girls,” sniggered Wright. Levenson told him not to be so stupid. What he’d like to debate is whether the boys should be allowed to murder the headmaster.
I saw Mr. Crace look up from his desk. Levenson said in a funny voice, “Hereby this school passes the motion that its headmaster should be strung up and sacrificed.”That would certainly get his vote, he said.
I caught Mr. Crace looking over and waited for him to tell Levenson off. But it did not happen. Instead, he opened his desk drawer, took out a notebook and scribbled something down.
21 October 1959
“Yesterday changed nothing,” Levenson told me. Then he swiped me over the head and laughed. He called me a name and walked away.
2 November 1959
Today Mr. Cartwright, the music master, was ill, so my father took the class. The boys carried on talking as he walked into the room. He strolled over to the desk and tried to get their attention. They looked straight through him. He swallowed a couple of times. I wished he didn’t have to teach. I knew he was only doing it for my sake.“That’s enough, boys,” Dad said. The noise did not
die down. If anything, I think it got even louder.“Please, come on now,” he said. His face looked tired. I sat there in silence while the boys teased and mocked him. Neither of us did anything about it.
When I got back home, Dad said nothing. I said nothing. But both of us understood. Dad looked old and very, very sad.
3 November 1959
I sat at the top of the stairs, listening. Darkness surrounded me. Mum and Dad were talking in the kitchen. They thought I was in my room, door closed, asleep. Their voices were low and murmuring, but I could just about make out what they said. Dad was upset and Mum tried to comfort him, but it was no use. The headmaster had made it clear that he would lose his job at the school if he could not discipline the boys better. And that meant that I would lose my place. Mum tried to calm him down and warned him about the risk of having another episode. He did not know what to do. There was silence. When I heard Dad start to cry, I crept back upstairs to bed.
4 November 1959
The boys are all excited because of the fire tomorrow night. They have spent the last few days collecting bits of wood from the forest and piling them high in one of the outbuildings behind the school. Some of the older boys have built little trolleys on which to carry the wood. They talked about how many firecrackers they have been given and how it was going to be the biggest
bonfire ever. “It’s going to light up the sky for miles around,” they said. I’m looking forward to it too.
5 November 1959
After assembly I followed Dad outside into the music room. He looked worried. He told me he had lots to do and could not chat. He walked over to a music stool, opened it and took out a bundle of music scores. He said that he wanted to put them in order. He said he could arrange them according to composer or key. There was something odd about his manner. He quickly flicked through the scores and mumbled something under his breath.
I asked him whether he was all right. He has three classes—one at eleven, another at twelve and the last one at four. Mr. Cartwright was ill again, he said, and he had to stand in for him—again.