Baildon Moor - Chapter 12

Chapter 12

West Bowling, October 1993

 

The next morning I feel worse than ever and phone in sick to the studio; I tell the answer phone that I have got the flu. ‘There’s a lot of it going round,’ I say without a trace of irony.

I beg Sullivan to stay with me but he goes out at around ten without saying where he’s going. For something to, I offer to take Billy back to Baildon. I’ve never noticed how small this place is before and it feels cramped,  as if the walls are closing in.

‘Do I have to?’

‘Have you got lectures today?’

‘No. Not until tomorrow.’

‘You know what we agreed? That you need to go back and then report Rudy missing later in the week?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Right then, I’ll give you a lift.’ I feel bad about sending Billy back to the farmhouse alone but I want the place to myself to think – and to have a proper talk with Sullivan when he returns from wherever it is he’s been.

‘Can I leave it here? -You know, the money?’

I think that one over. It’s probably safer here with us than with Billy – he’s only eighteen and if he starts to flash the money around on campus or in town we’ve all had it.

‘Go on.’

‘Thanks,’ he says. ‘You’re alright.’

Billy and I drive back to Baildon but he lingers in the Wreck.

‘What if he comes back?’ he blurts.

‘Rudy isn’t coming back; your brother and I took him away.’ I feel like a parent explaining the death of a pet to a child.

‘I didn’t mean like that.’ He looks downcast and won’t meet my eyes.

‘He won’t come back,’ I said. ‘I promise you.’

‘Do you want to come in for a bit? I’ll put the kettle on.’

‘Thanks, but I’d better not. There are…some things I’ve got to sort out at home.’

I feel such a coward but cannot face going inside.

 

‘What shall we do with the money?’ I ask Sullivan that night when he returns home. He is windswept and I can smell beer on his breath. ‘I was thinking about opening a building society account and…’

‘No,’ he interrupts. ‘Keep it as cash and just spend a tenner here and there, don’t pass more than one note at time. Be careful.’

‘But…’ I begin but I know it’s useless. Instead I try to give Sullivan a hug – we haven’t so much as touched each other in the past thirty-six hours – but he pushes me away, making his feelings very clear indeed.

We go to bed that night like enemy soldiers forced to share a foxhole. I phone in sick the next day too.

 

The next morning Sullivan gets up early – before eight - and goes out again. He mumbles something about work, except it’s a Tuesday and he doesn’t normally work on Tuesdays; and anyway the shop doesn’t open until ten.

When the phone rings mid-afternoon, I half expect it to be him calling to apologise, but instead it’s Billy.

‘I saw him!’ shouts Billy. ‘I saw Rudy!’

The poor kid must be losing the plot, I think. ‘Billy, you can’t have done. Rudy isn’t coming back, he can’t be…’

‘But I saw him in town! Julianne, he’s alive!’

 ‘Billy, it was probably someone who looked a little bit like him, your mind was playing tricks on you. I promise you, it’s not possible…’

‘Put Sullivan on, he’ll believe me.’

‘Sullivan’s not here, I’m afraid. I’ll get him to give you a call later…’

‘No! I’m coming to stay with you again. If Rudy’s here he’ll come back to the house and…and…’

And notice that his money is missing, says the voice in my head.

Billy can’t be right; we put Rudy’s body down the mine and he was dead, he wasn’t breathing and he had no pulse. I take a deep breath.

‘Billy, if you want to come and stay for a few days, that’s fine. But I promise you that it wasn’t Rudy that you saw. It happens sometimes, when someone’s...gone. Your brain plays tricks and you think you’ve seen them but it turns out to be a stranger.’

‘I’m gonna pack now,’ Billy gabbles. ‘I’ll be there by tea time.’

 

He arrives by bus with his rucksack laden with clothes and books; it looks as if he’s moving in for good rather than staying for a few days. He sits on the sofa and looks pale and haunted as if he has seen a ghost – which I suppose he has. I make tea, which is the only thing I can usefully do in the circumstances.

‘It was in town,’ says Billy, following me into the kitchen. ‘Down Market Street. I’d just got off the bus and there he was in the crowd, wearing that big parka of his. Funny thing was he wasn’t wearing his glasses so I did a double take but it was definitely him.’

We buried Rudy without his glasses. I don’t believe in ghosts but I feel as if one has just walked over my grave.

‘Was he with anyone?’

‘Not that I could tell.’

Billy sits on the sofa all evening, almost mute. He barely picks at the dinner that I cook whilst we both wait for his brother to come home. Sullivan finally returns about midnight, drunk again, and goes straight to bed. He doesn’t seem to notice or care that Billy is there.

I go to bed too, and leave Billy on the sofa.