The Old Silent

In the aisles a couple of lads were cleaning up the detritus of the concert, but they left, lugging plastic bags behind them. A clutch of roadies were standing at the rear of the stage looking out, smoking, talking. Wondering, probably, what the hell had gone on in here tonight.

When Jury sat down beside him, he didn't turn to look. 'Wes is a great drummer. He's got the quickest reaction time of anyone I know.'

'Quicker than mine, certainly.'

'I never knew anyone to pull off anything like that.'

'What about you, Charlie?'

He looked down, strummed one chord, then another. He looked out through the semidarkness much the way Nell Healey had stared beyond that broken wall, as if someone might materialize before her eyes.

' 'I was trying to pull myself up by my bootstraps and the bootstraps broke.' Stevie Ray Vaughan said that. Great guitarist.'

'Stevie Ray Vaughan mended the bootstraps. You're quitting at the height of your career as some sort of penance, that it?'

He didn't answer, just picked a few more notes, struck a few quick chords.

'Or was the penance learning to play that,'-Jury nodded toward the guitar-'in the first place?'

There was a long silence, and then he said: 'Every morning, sometimes twice a day, since I've been in London I've gone to Waterloo. Go into the buffet, get a cup of tea, go out, walk around and look at the departures. There must be a train to Leeds nearly every hour.' He took his hand from the strings and reached into the back pocket of his jeans. 'I bought these.' He fanned out four tickets-day-returns to Leeds. 'For eight years I tried to come back and tell her what happened.' He was silent. 'I couldn't face her.'

Jury waited, let him hold on to his guitar, strum the chords to 'Yesterday's Rain,' and stare out over the emptiness as blighted, perhaps, to him as Haworth Moor.

'The last time I saw her was when I was looking down from my window that faced the sea and she stopped on that cliff path and looked up and waved. She had a way of waving and smiling that was so,'-he shrugged-'joyful you'd think she hadn't seen you in ages. Like mums on station platforms when the kids come down from school on their holidays. You know.' He looked over at Jury then, who was looking down. 'I really loved her. Hard to believe, but I'd have died for her.'

Jury raised his eyes and looked out over the empty seats. 'You did.'

'I was getting my clothes on when I looked out the other window, the one facing the rear and saw her,'-he looked up toward the corner of the circle-'walking down that back road. I wondered what in hell the aunt was here for; no one said she was coming. Then she disappeared inside, into the kitchen. I started down the stairs-the room was at the top of the kitchen stairs-but then I stopped. I still don't know why I didn't just clatter on down. I could only hear muffled voices and in a minute the door slammed. The kitchen door. I went back into my room and saw his Aunt Irene and Billy walking up the road, and Gnasher, his terrier, padding behind him. I nearly raised the window and shouted but something stopped me, again. It was just, I don't know,wrong.'

'Then I ran down and looked for Mrs. Healey. Nell. She must have walked farther along the cliff and I thought, no, I'd just waste time looking for her. So I went round the house and up the road, trying to catch up and stay out of sight at the same time. Then I saw the car, the aunt's car; I recognized it from seeing it at the Citrine house. It was parked nearly all the way up to the entrance and they got in. It looked like they were having an argument about the dog, but Billy pulled it in. Anyway, it gave me a chance to get to the shed and get the bike and an old slicker. It was getting dark fast. Where the car ended up-'

He stopped. He looked down at the guitar as if he'd never seen it before.

Jury turned and said, 'Was a disused graveyard.'

He nodded. 'It came on suddenly, the dark. The only light came from the car's headlamps and an electric torch. It was held by a man but I couldn't make him out; it was like the torch was shining right in my eyes, had me pinned down. But they hadn't heard me. The rest was like broken-off images in a dream. I could hear Billy, saying something, and then crying. I could hear Gnasher, he just barked once and then nothing. But I didn't hear them, I mean they went about all of this in silence while I was ducked down behind a grave marker. It was all so nightmarish I read over and over the words on the marker.'

'Billy was lying on the ground, and the little dog was lying beside him. His aunt pushed the dog down into the ground.' He stopped. 'Did you ever have one of those feelings you become two different people? It's as if one part of you is sitting in a chair and the other part gets up and walks across the room? That's what happened to me. It was like part of me still hid behind that stone and the other part ran toward the grave. I was yelling; but even my voice didn't sound like my voice. I still couldn't see his face, the man's, because he was down in the grave, but hers-good God, I'll never forget that look.'

'And then it all happened in slow motion: she brought out a gun, a small one, from her pocket and turned it on me; I backed up against a tree and she fired. But she must be as good a shot with a revolver as she is with a rifle-' He laughed ruefully, '-because she missed. Missed killing me, I mean. The bullet only nicked my ear, but, my God, the blood…'

He stopped to pluck a few more notes on the Fender, then to search for a cigarette. Jury shook one out of his packet. 'She thought she'd killed me, though, I think. I slid down the tree and crumpled. He was running over now, shoving her back, calling her a bloody stupid bitch and while they were exchanging names, I managed to edge myself away from the tree, get up, and run. You've got to understand, I thought Billy was dead. I ran back to the road, thinking maybe I could stop someone. I was holding a piece of my ripped-off shirt up to stop the blood with one hand and hailing a car with the other. Brilliant.' Here he played a flashy riff in a burst of anger at himself. 'Did you ever try to outrun headlamps?'

'No. I take it the car was theirs.'

'I don't know how she missed me again, but she did. This time with the car. What would I have been but another hit and run?'

'You'd have been hard to explain, in the circumstances.'

'I veered off the road and ran toward the coast, toward the cliffs. There wasn't much she-or he-could do by way of following in the car. I probably wasn't losing as much blood as I thought. I managed to stagger along for a mile, maybe two, maybe more; I wasn't counting. And then I had the best piece of luck I've ever had: ran into a party of campers. There were five of them, sitting round a campfire. They were Americans, backpacking round the British Isles. All of them young, in their twenties.' Charlie grinned. 'And all of them stoned. They were absolutely fascinated by this bloody-literally-Brit who stumbled into them. Again, literally. I'll never forget them: Katie, Miles, Dobby, Helena, Colin. They had some stuff in their backpacks to take care of the wound. They thought I was hallucinating, they really did, when I kept talking about getting the police, told them I'd just seen someone murdered. I'll never forget Miles looking at me, blinking. He handed me a roach-clip and said, 'Hey, man, mellow out.'

'I mellowed out, all right. I passed out. Slept through the next day and when I woke up, Dobby and Miles were jamming on their guitars. Still stoned. Only the girls were beginning to take me seriously, but just as seriously they told me to stay away from the cops. I didn't see a newspaper for six days and didn't know about the ransom demand. And I don't mind saying I was terrified. I was a witnessand I suppose I'd seen too much telly.'

Jury said, 'Whose idea was it to identify somebody else's body?'

'Mine and Uncle Owen's. I couldn't stand him thinking I was dead, like Billy, so I rang up, finally.'

'You mean he knew Irene Citrine had done this and didn't go to the police?' Somehow that didn't sound like Owen Holt.

'He didn't know. I didn't tell him. I was afraid for him and Aunt Alice. I told him… I didn't know who they were.'

'But your aunt didn't know. Your uncle didn't tell her. Why?'

There was a silence. 'He was going to, but then he thought, in the long run, it might be easier for her just to think I was dead than that she'd never see me again, probably.' He looked at his guitar. 'And you've met Aunt Alice. Do you think she'd really have been able to keep it to herself? Uncle Owen was afraid she'd go to the police. She'd hardly have been able to talk to you without telling you. Maybe it was cold-blooded, I don't know.'