15 Indoor games

A week passed, a week of rain. The sound of rain is different in summer as it hisses on the leaves. Afterwards it leaves the air purified, and the grass bright green. The monotonous hiss of sound gives way to the sharp noises of life that had been kept inside by the downpour. Cars swish through the water that lies on the road surface, birds whistle with glee, children run on errands.

The week had brought no developments in the case. No further suspects were taken in for questioning, but the questions, like the rain, did not abate. Everyone was questioned, some people more than once. Keith was questioned, Joe was questioned, Gerald was questioned, Robert was questioned. I was questioned too, an experience I found useful in building my understanding of the way things operate in such situations. I talked to a policeman not much older than myself, I tried to be helpful, but he didn’t seem to expect help. I walked away wiser and slightly disillusioned. The talking continued, on the doorsteps, in the shops, in the houses, and the search for fresh news was unrelenting.

Eventually the babble subsided into mumble. Two words remained audible, and these were repeated over and over again. Guilt and Conscience, Guilt and Conscience, said the mumble. The murderer had taken his own life, slain by the mighty hands of Guilt and Conscience. Keith reported to the police the incident of Sunday lunchtime. His remarks were noted, even in the Coroners’ Court. Guilt and Conscience are selective killers, not mass murderers.

The events of the last week or so had succeeded in entrenching the two factions of Ophelia Street in set positions, and had persuaded the army of waverers to one side or the other – in fact, mainly to one side. Life for the men in the hostel became unpleasant, almost intolerable. Windows were smashed, slogans were painted, the street became a war zone with daily skirmishes. But at the end of the week, with the growing belief that Guilt and Conscience had done their work well, the hostility became less virulent and things returned to what passed for normal. There was still a small number, one of them Keith Russell, who were less satisfied by the workings of divine justice than the rest of Ophelia Street seemed to be, and were unwilling for the blame to be dropped on the sagging, now lifeless shoulders of Ernie Jack. But for most the suicide was proof conclusive and it gradually stilled the clamour for revenge.

Thus it was a moody week for the Russell family. Keith was constantly morose and brooding, bound up in the ideas and problems thrown up by recent events. He had been dejected, sickened even, by the way Ophelia Street had reacted in picking on the weakest member of the society. He sulked, mostly in complete silence, heavy as a statue, at times losing his temper with Brenda if she failed exactly to match his mood. Brenda as ever suffered without complaining, with Keith having no notion that his behaviour could possibly be affecting those around him. He knew exactly what people should do: but whereas he would pinpoint mercilessly the failure of others to live up to his high principles, he could never recognise his own failures.

Brenda had neither the temperament nor the eloquence to set him right, even though her frustration mounted daily, and grew all the more quickly for being suppressed. Brenda lacked the confidence to plan her own life, and trembled at the thought of attempting to plan Keith’s. So she had nothing to suggest to Keith, no remedy, no new direction. She had been taught from an early age to respond, not to initiate; and now she was given nothing to respond to, and a complete vacuum was left. She was forced into the position of thinking things out, of planning, if not for Keith, then at least for herself and for David as a necessary part of herself. David was placed in the position of mediator between these two increasingly remote adults, a task which he undertook tearfully at times, but as skilfully as could be expected of a five-year-old child, and perhaps more skilfully than any adult.

A week of rain is an unnerving thing. Spirits are dampened just as much as the washing left hanging on the line. Seconds pass like raindrops, each indistinguishable from the one that falls before or after, but never stopping. Indoor games keep the children and adults fitfully amused, but for the most part inert, and silent, and watching. How many drops of rain can you count in one day of rain? Too many for peace of mind. Insanity flows through the city, swelling the gutters. Nothing is as maddening as boredom; especially when twenty-thousand raindrops fell on this windowpane today.

Luckily I wasn’t counting. I was working feverishly, with an energy that seemed missing from the police investigation. The murder was, of course, the big news story in my paper and it put me on the main pages for the first time. I was lucky, Ophelia Street turned out to be the right place at the right time, unlikely as that had seemed. It made me the star writer of the local paper because, knowing the people in the street, I could get better insights. More importantly, some of my stories started finding their way into the national papers. It was as if I had gone away on holiday to a remote country where civil war had suddenly broken out. I was the man on the spot, the man with the cleft stick.

All this raised some questions in me for the first time. Where is the line between fact and fiction, between reality and invention? I found objective, factual reporting dull. I sought out the human interest. But, in doing so, I have to admit that I embroidered the truth. When I didn’t know something, I could make an intelligent, imaginative guess and call it ‘the new journalism’. This kind of writing excited me much more than the dispassionate, documentary style, but I learned that you could be effectively emotive by seeming entirely objective. I wanted to seek out the documentary colour in events.

In reality, Ophelia Street looked drabber day by day. The rain gurgled down the storm drains. The street emptied, the people imprisoned in houses by boredom and rain. How many drops of rain can you count in a whole week of rain? Insanity falls from heaven in a week of rain. A hundred million drops or more. Calm of mind disappears, washed away by the flood.

Brenda sat wondering if Keith was mad.

Selene sat wondering if Gerald was mad.

Ophelia Street sat, smug in the belief of its own sanity, wondering if everyone else was mad. Ophelia Street returned to normal, and the hostel bore the scars to prove it. On the Saturday the glaziers arrived to fit the new windows. Through these the prisoners could observe the world going by outside, and admire, and wonder. They could also watch the rain falling, and listen to it pattering on the new windowpanes which felt cool on their faces. They too practised counting, like the people locked in the other houses, and the seconds, minutes and hours mounted up into days and days. The rain mesmerised.

‘It’s quiet out,’ said Ginny. ‘Rain keeps the kids in.’

‘What shall I do?’ Keith asked her, for she now seemed the only one to trust. Her very age, the fact that she had survived, seemed to offer reassurance. It was a question he had never asked before; perhaps unfamiliarity made him mumble.

‘I should put on a coat and hat if I were you.’ She replied, her eyes still fixed on the windowpane. ‘You’ll catch your death otherwise. I’ve never seen rain like it before.’

On the Sunday, at 5 o’clock, after a week of almost constant cloud and rain, the sun broke through with a fresh painted rainbow, and the deluge was over. Relief smiled on the glistening pavement and in the wet happiness of the houses in the sun. Cars began to splash through the puddles. The grass was fluorescent green. People went out for strolls.

The Russells stayed inside, hardly seeming to notice that the rain had stopped. Keith and Brenda had spoken only a few words to each other all day, and now Keith sat looking vacantly out of the window, while Brenda mended a dress on the armchair by the fireplace. David had his legs curled under him on the sofa, and was sticking pieces of coloured, gummed paper to make patterns and birds and flowers. The television was on, but no one watched. The sun shone through the window glass and cast a dapple on the wall.

The Fermins did not venture into the fresh air either, but that was normal. They seemed to regard fresh air as other people regarded poison gas. As the sun burst through outside, Selene got up from her armchair and turned off the light which had been burning through every day for the past week. The room still presented an eery, gloomy appearance even with natural light filtering through its cracks. Selene returned to her chair, smiled shyly at Gerald who had covered his legs with a blanket, and looked at the board on the low table between them. They were playing Monopoly, and Gerald was winning.

Time passed and softly, rosily the day went to bed. Brenda dressed David in his pyjamas and Keith read him a story; that was the nearest approach to co-operation in the family for the past week. David had been worried by the uneasy atmosphere, without knowing the cause of it all.

‘Good night, David. Sleep well,’ said Keith.

‘Night, dad. I love you, dad.’

‘Good. Sleep soon, no games.’

‘I love mummy too.’

‘Come on, sleep now.’

Every night, after David was asleep, Keith and Brenda had the same argument. Sometimes, most of the time, they argued without words. They knew what they were saying, without needing words. Their silences were more eloquent, for often the words they spoke in argument were the wrong ones and failed to hit the truth. Keith became frustrated by his inability to make Brenda see his side, and by the rising urge to use physical means to prove his point: so his nightly refuge would invariably be a silent repression of his anger and a walk to the pub, while Brenda sat trembling, alone, tingling with emotion.

The trouble had surfaced with Elaine’s murder, although their marriage had been rotting almost from the day of its conception. Elaine’s murder had merely brought matters to a head. It had given them an issue about which they each felt equally strongly. The issue was not Elaine, but David. Neither of them had said anything to David about the murder and David had asked no questions, not even to wonder why there should be crowds of people in the street, and policemen coming and going. His lack of reaction was a problem. Was this something to encourage or discourage? It was, they could both agree, typical of David. He seemed to take little interest in the common affairs of the world, but was bound up in his own fantasy world of indoor play. He liked to play alone and rarely went out. His relationships with other children were hesitant and uneasy. At school he played football, which allowed him to mix a little, but in Ophelia Street he generally chose not to make the effort and retired into his home to play and replay cup finals in his bedroom stadium. Brenda was happier if he played indoors, within sight: she had never, right from the start, trusted Ophelia Street. So David had few friends, few acquaintances even; he was not one of those children to be on friendly terms with absolutely everyone. Elaine had been David’s best friend, the only one he would seek out. He had looked up to her, almost as an elder sister.

David’s lack of curiosity was a state of mind that Brenda welcomed in the current situation, not wishing to force open the eyes of a child to the sins of a world he did not as yet wish to see and understand. Keith, however, was concerned that David was not developing into the normal, boisterous child he had always imagined he would have. He would much have preferred David to go out more and play with other children, to give and take knocks, to gain experiences and learn from them, to show more curiosity in the child’s world.

Keith’s argument was that David should be told the true story of what had happened to Elaine, even though he had not asked. Why had he not asked? Keith demanded. At the very least they should tell him in order to prevent anything similar ever happening to David. Brenda maintained that that could be done anyway; there was no point in forcing the issue, there was just no point in making a drama out of the situation, if David himself wanted to play it down. Perhaps David knew best how to cope with his feelings – he knew they were there to help if needed. But there was no way of telling what effect the true story might have on David if he was not ready to hear it yet.

‘He must be bottling it up. I don’t like it,’ said Keith. ‘I want to tell him. It’s dishonest not to.’

‘No. Leave him. He’s all right.’

‘He has to be told. He’ll hear from someone else otherwise.’

‘Not necessarily.’

‘Oh, he’s bound to. You know that. Living in a small community like this.’

‘We don’t have to live here. We could move. We might all be happier somewhere else.’

The thought, dropped hesitantly by Brenda, struck Keith into complete depression. It was the very thought he tried by sheer strength of will to suppress in Brenda. He had always succeeded before, but now the spell had been broken. The overwhelming force of Keith’s silence filled the room until Brenda was on the point of screaming. And then Keith sprang up without a word and walked down the road to The Lady Ophelia to drink alone. This had been the pattern for six evenings following the murder.

On the Sunday evening after the murder Gerald and Selene had also wrapped themselves in silence. Not that the damp air of their dark house had been alive with chatter before, but they had fitted a few words to accompany the actions which they had been performing listlessly throughout the day and now they were left with nothing to do and consequently nothing to say. The news of the murder so close to home had a traumatic effect on Selene. She had read about murders before, but none had ever been as close as this. She sat clutching her stomach, as if to comfort it. The thought kept recurring that she might even have seen the murderer, she probably had, and that in some indefinable sense she must bear a share of responsibility for the crime. At times she was filled with a certainty. Horror flooded into her brain, but it was not the theatrical horror with which she used to greet stories of other murders. She realised she had entered a conspiracy to suppress knowledge of evil. She had gained a real awareness of evil, and it sickened and stifled her into silence.

Gerald too had been quieter than normal. He had eaten his food without comment: the lack of comment was not unusual, but to eat all his food was. It was almost a matter of principle with Gerald to leave a portion of his dinner. Gerald had spent the whole weekend sitting in his armchair, staring into the unlit fireplace, smoking cigarette after cigarette, rousing himself now and again to the effort of throwing an old butt into the grate and lighting another cigarette. The effect on Selene would have been great had she not been so absorbed in her own reveries. When it became dark, Selene rose without a sound, and walked upstairs to her bedroom through the gloom and the silence. Gerald sat, his presence marked by the red glow of a cigarette, unaware of his sister’s leaving.

And so the rain had started, and had not stopped until a week had been swept away. The same thoughts which obsessed their minds revolved inexorably through the week for each of them, returning again and again, thought chasing thought’s shadows, always within reach and never within grasp. Endless repetition, continuing games of patience; the minds’ doors locked, indoor games inside.

Long after the rain had stopped, Selene and Gerald still played Monopoly. A lamp, placed on the coffee table which held the Monopoly board, threw a subdued light over the play, and left the rest of the room in semi-darkness and watery shadows. Yellow bubbles of air rose up through the water in the fish tanks, humming gently in background music to the soft voices of the two players, who sat next to one another on the sofa, deep in their game. Gerald smoked cigarettes and adjusted his blanket around his legs, Selene, nurse-like, fussed around him, brought him cups of tea, and tried her best to lose the game. The rain had departed, tension had lifted, and Selene felt much more relaxed. Their relationship seemed restored, as if the melancholy of the past week had been a letting of bad blood.

‘Are you cold, Gerald? Would you like another blanket?’

‘Yes, I think I would. Perhaps you would like one yourself?’

‘I’ll bring two then.’

Brother and sister sat side by side, smiling privately and contentedly. They exchanged occasional words in connection with the game, and once Selene got up to walk along the wall sprinkling food into the fish tanks, but on the whole silence dominated the conversations which flowed between the two of them and united them as they huddled in their blankets before the orange lamp. There was only one brief exchange of real dialogue.

‘It was a terrible business about the little girl who was killed. It disturbed me rather, the thought that a murderer was so close. Of course, it must have been worse for you, sister.’

‘It was worrying. But that’s over now, Gerald, and all behind. They say that the man who did it killed himself.’

‘So I hear. It must have been unbearable to live with such knowledge. But it was a terrible thing to have done…terrible. We must finish this game though, it’s getting late and you’ll want to go to bed soon.’

Selene smiled as Gerald turned over the card.

‘We’ll never finish if you do that. Go to gaol, go directly to gaol, do not pass’go’, do not collect £200. Poor Gerald.’

Laughing, they decided to finish the game at some other time.

Brenda pulled the curtains on the finest sunset for at least a week, with the sun, relieved at no longer being covered up from view, flaunting its colours across the sky. They both had the same subject on their minds. Keith felt the need to set it down between them.

‘I’m going to tell him what happened. I’ll do it tomorrow. We can’t keep it from him any longer.’

Brenda merely looked at him, expressionless, wordless. Keith slumped further back in his chair and lit a cigarette.

‘It’s got to stop, Brenda. We’ve got to decide exactly what we’re going to tell him and then that’s it, we’ve done with it. It’s not fair on David, he can see there’s something wrong. He’s keeping it all inside. We’ve got to tell him the truth.’

There was a long silence. Brenda did not move, but stood with one hand still holding the curtains she had pulled a few minutes earlier. Keith spoke to her back, as she stood at the window.

‘All right? I’ll tell him tomorrow.’

‘No you won’t.’ Brenda said it quietly. At first Keith was not sure that she had said anything. Then she repeated: ‘You won’t.’

‘What d’you mean, I won’t? He’s going to be told.’

‘No, he isn’t. I won’t let you.’

Brenda spoke quickly, as if she had rehearsed what she now said; yet at the same time her words were spoken with a conviction that astonished Keith. Brenda had never before attempted to argue at length against him. Now she did so firmly, gently, without raising her voice, as if she were stating a legal argument.

‘I’m not going to be here tomorrow and neither is David. I’m taking him with me, we’re moving out. I don’t want you trying to force things on him that he doesn’t want to know, that he doesn’t need to know. He’ll find out about all these bad things soon enough. But now I’ve had enough – enough of living here, enough of you. You and your moods, your constant moods, moping around all the time and all for what? For what? For you of course. Life has to revolve around you. But what about me? What about David? What about us? Why not give me a thought, the way I feel? You never do. Do you ever bother to ask? Not that I can remember. Why do we live here? It’s a dump, we all know that, but you won’t admit it. You see it, but you won’t admit it. Because you like it like that. We’ve got enough money, we could move, get David away. But no, we stay here. I don’t know why, I can only guess. You never say why, so how can I understand? But I don’t want to any more, don’t try, I don’t want to hear, I won’t listen now. I’ve tried to understand you, for six years and more I’ve tried to understand you, but I’m giving up now. I can’t try any more, I’m going before you drive us all mad.’

Keith sat bewildered, unable to believe his ears, unable to take his wife at all seriously. But he never had. Had Brenda ever said that much at one go before? he wondered. It all struck him as absurd, ludicrous…surely…she didn’t even seem angry. He laughed.

‘I mean it,’ said Brenda. ‘I’m going in the morning. I’d go now if David weren’t asleep.’

‘But why?’ asked Keith.

‘Because you sit there and ask why and because you really haven’t got a clue. That’s why.’

‘Then tell me.’

‘It’s too late. You’ve had enough time to find out. But now it’s what I want. It’s what I’ve got to do, and you won’t stop me.’

‘But you never said.’

‘You never asked. And I could never tell you, you never gave me a chance. We never talk. You hardly know I exist.’

‘But what about David?’

‘He’ll be all right. He’ll be better off without you.’

‘You can’t just walk out. You can’t just take him away.’

‘Who says?’

‘I do. He’s my kid too.’

‘Is he? Look.’

David had crept in. His cheeks were wet with tears. Keith felt too embarrassed, he had no idea what to do. So Brenda went to him, took him to his room. There she dressed him and told him gently that they were going to live with nanny. The door closed, and they were gone.

Keith stared at the glowing tip of his cigarette as he inhaled, and watched it change from red to grey, its life drifting to the ceiling in a twist of white smoke. He failed to understand how it could have happened. Had it happened? It was so unreal. He checked the empty bedrooms. And that speech? What would he say when she came back? Perhaps it would be best to say nothing at all, but just to let her forget it as soon as possible. Perhaps so. But she was gone: they were both gone. If they didn’t come back, what would he tell other people? But they’ll be back. Those who leave always come back, if they’re wanted back. Even his mother had said that to him. His mother who knew so very little about life, he had thought.

Next day Brenda came back, with two empty suitcases and a holdall which she filled with clothes and belongings. Her father carried them downstairs to the car and then they drove away. Not a word was said.

As they drove off, the ground was strewn with flowers. Wreaths; floral crosses; flowers representing columns, pillows and the gates of heaven; simple sheaths of flowers covered with cellophane; small posies. All these were laid out for inspection. Three people – two dark-suited men and one pinafored woman – were treading their careful way between the tributes. IN MEMORY OF ELAINE, said one of the black-edged cards, as they turned it towards the sunlight. Ophelia Street had risen to the occasion that death had created. Ophelia Street had done Elaine proud.

Afterwards, people said it had been a lovely funeral.

It was a shock to me to realise that this was my first funeral, the first time I had been really close to the pain of death, close to death prematurely shortening a life. The passing of time changes the way you react to the passing of the funeral carriages. Mourning need have no connection with despair. There is a natural cycle to life that, in the presence or absence of religious belief, is a source of spiritual comfort and perhaps even happiness. What I felt then led me directly to what I feel now, and we can call it contentment or simply acceptance. I accept. I’m content.