“No... Well, have it your own way if you like... To go back to her, have regular... meetings in gungy hotel rooms—”
“Sex. It’s called sex, Mum.”
“I know, cheeky. Or I remember... Well, that’s the end, murder or no murder — and I think I can restrain myself from slortering him.”
I was afraid that was true. But when we got to Trevelyan Cave I was relieved that she went into the dirty little hole and sat down among the rocks. I stood outside where I had a spectacular view of the deadly rocks on Westcot Cove, and also of the path, winding its vert-something-or-other way up to the cave. I was looking for a little party of four, but I soon saw I was mistaken: the party had broken up, with Deirdre, Tim, and Samantha probably going back to the village and then back to their Manor home which one day may be mine. There was one solitary trousered figure trailing his way up to us. All he needed was a nap-sack on his back and he’d be one of your typical boring-as-hell walkers.
“Here comes Dad,” I said. Mum elbowed her way to the front of the cave and I took over the shadows. “He’s going to beg you to take him back,” I said, in case he did.
“He’s got a nerve,” muttered my mother.
But he didn’t do anything of the sort.
“I’m not stopping,” he panted, in the misstatement of the century. “I just wanted to say goodbye. You always knew Deirdre was the one, didn’t you? You always knew I was imagining her when we were... you know. It makes me sound a jerk, I know.”
“Not just sound,” said Mum.
“All right, all right. But I’m going to win her back. I’m going to go to her. Tim knows he’s lost her, and I’m not sure he’ll care all that much. He’s told me he always loved you, Morgan — Oh, like a father, you know. I told him to keep his hands off you because we don’t want his bloody Brideshead—”
I shot out of the cave, and the sentence was only completed with an “AAAAHHH.” When I was capable of taking my eyes away from the prospect at the bottom of the cliffs Lois was looking around — up, down, and towards the edge — with a gaze of total bewilderment on her face. I felt almost sorry for her.
“Congratulations, Mum. You did it.”
“But I didn’t. I mean I can’t remember that I... Did I? Morgan, DID I? Oh my God, I must have. What are we going to do?”
“Go home. Tell people Bernard’s been called away.”
My mother put her hand to her face.
“Australia! He was thinking of going to Australia. He’s writing some material for Dame Edna.”
“Was writing,” I said. “Of course the body might be found.”
“But nothing to connect him to us. It would be much more likely that he committed suicide, or just missed his footing. There’s been no one on the path to say that he ever got as high as Trevelyan Cave.”
“And no one to say we were here. Come on, Mum: Let’s get back home. I think Dad’s going to like Australia so much he’s going to be there for a very long time.”
Morgan stopped writing. He wondered whether it was totally clear what he wanted the reader to think. Well — not totally clear: This was a literary exercise, but one which could result in his being parentless and ripe for adoption. For a literary exercise, it was surely a lot more exciting than most.
When Morgan was called into Miss Trim’s office he knew exactly what he was going to say. The end of his father had been to a degree impovised, as he called it, but the broad outlines had been with him (as a fantasy hardening to a project) for some time. He could cope with the likes of Miss Trim.
“I must say, Morgan, that your essay bewildered me, even shocked me.”
“Oh? Why was that, Miss Trim?”
“I expected it to be a factual, that means truthful, account of what you did on the last day of your holiday.”
“You didn’t say that, Miss Trim. And I expect you know that my father is an imaginative writer.”
“Well, your father wasn’t—”
“He makes it up. I find it runs in the family. I get to a certain point and then my imagination takes over.”
“Ah!” It was a sigh of relief. “So you made a little play out of your day, so to speak?”
“A little story, Miss Trim. A play would be all dialogue and stage directions. I hope you enjoyed the story.”
“Oh, I did,” said Miss Trim untruthfully. “But of course it made me uneasy, since all the others were truthful accounts of their day.”
“They’re not a very imaginative lot, 6A.”
“Tell me, Morgan, why did you decide to write a story in which your father got... well, killed?”
Morgan shrugged.
“Well, it’s just one sort of story, isn’t it? They call it a whodunit. You don’t know till towards the end who did it. My father’s never had much time for me. Oh, he’s there if I need him, but he hopes and prays I don’t need him too much. Same with my mother. He cares more about the characters in his piffling plays. He’ll pack a few things and take off at the drop of a hat. You wouldn’t know this, Miss Trim, because he never comes to parents’ days or anything like that. Doesn’t care.”
“Oh, I’m sure he does. Some people find emotional things very difficult. Well, I think that was all. You’ve cleared up things nicely. I think I’d better ring your mother in case she hears rumours — gossip from your classmates or their parents.”
“They wouldn’t know fact from fiction,” said Morgan contemptuously. He got up and walked towards the door. “Thank you for being so understanding, Miss Trim.”
As he opened the door he saw her hand straying towards the telephone. His face was suffused with an expression of sublime self-congratulation. He stood outside the door, his ear close to it.
“Mrs. Fairclough? Oh, it’s Edith Trim, from Westward School. I’ve just been talking to Morgan, always a pleasure. Sophisticated without being, well, snooty with it. He’s written this essay about the last days of the school holidays, and he turned it into a really promising little story — he must be reading Agatha Christie and writers like that... Oh, he is! I guessed well. Now, there’s a murder, of course, and it’s quite intriguing and exciting, but I just wanted to tell you, in case rumours come back to you that he is writing gruesome stories which gave kids sleepless nights and all that. Parents tell all sorts of silly tales about any child who makes up stories. It’s really not that sort of story at all... I hope you can make it to the next parents’ evening, Mrs. Fairclough. We could have a good talk. And do try to bring your husband. I know Morgan would appreciate his being there. Oh... Oh... Oh, Australia. I see. Well, I’m sorry. We’ll hope to see him next term.”
Morgan heard the receiver being put down. He started walking along the corridor, the smug expression still suffusing his face. This was going to be one of those sub-genre stories, in this case one of those in which the wrong suspect is fitted up for a murder he, or in fact she, didn’t do. And it was going to be one in which the murderer is the one telling the story. Morgan was enormously pleased with himself for thinking of that. It was exceptionally clever, and something he was quite sure would never occur to a pedestrian mind like Agatha Christie’s.
Copyright © 2011 by Robert Barnard
No Mystery
by Terence Faherty