Backstabbers - Chapter 9
The Curse of the Happiness Machine
Backstabbers is my first novel, a 1979-based comedy murder-mystery about aspirations for fame and dreams unfulfilled.
The story so far: Stu attends the grand unveiling of a new town signage, created in the hope of drumming up some business interest for the failing town of Falking Hill. Mayor Hazelbaker makes a ham-fisted attempt MC’ing, and the whole event falls flat.
Whilst at the event, Dr. Baker warns Stu not to get involved with Lena, revealing his own obsession with her.
That evening, Stu helps handyman Nigel deliver the set and props to the one-act play festival. They stick around to watch the plays, which are awful and bizarre in equal measure. During the interval, sleazy journalist Brookes Manders attempts to grab a soundbite from revered local playwright Lawrence Wintercoat, whose play is being performed at the festival. Wintercoat is dismissive of the event, and Brookes’ journalistic ability.
The adjudicator, Hilda Harridan, tears apart each play, nearly causing a riot of animosity. As the drama groups fume, Stu realises that Hilda’s initials - H H - corresponds with the bloodied note found in the dead hand of recently deceased critic Hartley Rumbelow. Stu confronts Hilda about Rumbelow’s death, but she denies any involvement.
The outraged performers seek after Hilda, intent on giving her a piece of their mind: What they find is Hilda’s lifeless body. Dr. Baker’s prognosis? Hilda was scared to death. One person was seen arguing with Hilda before her death - Stu - and his promptly arrested.
Thoughtlessly nibbling his fingernails, Stu’s glossy-eyed stare fixed on the television: Pipkins. His emotional state bore a stark similarity to the threadbare puppet of Hartley Hare. Not even the ringing telephone disrupted his zombified state. His Mum answered with her posh telephone voice.
‘Falking Hill 767123. Yes, yes it is. No, I’m afraid he can’t. Can I take a message? Alright. Yes, I have a pen. Brookes. Manders. Yes, I’ll see that he gets the message. Thank you. Bub-bye.’
Jemima hung up, replacing the lid on her telephone pen. She addressed her comatose son. ‘Stuart. That was Brookes Manders—’
‘We bloody heard!’ gnashed Godfrey, surveying the pavement outside through the living room net curtains. A crowd of low-rent journalists loitered.
Sat on the sofa, Stu’s big brother Jeffrey gleefully feasted on a dripping fried egg sandwich. ‘You won’t last three minutes in prison. Hope you’ve got soap on a rope.’ Snapping from his catatonic state, Stu squawked at his gloating brother. ‘Oh why don’t you bloody well piss off!’
‘Stuart!’ exclaimed his Mum, seemingly having heard her son swear for the first time in his life.
‘See,’ jeered Jeffrey, ‘Slippery slope. First they murder old ladies, then they start with the swearing.’
‘My own son. A murder suspect,’ said Godfrey. ‘Any idea how this makes me feel?
Sliding a garden fence panel upwards, Stu snuck under it. He hadn’t done this for a few years and scraped his back in the process. Staggering down the river bank that backed onto his parents’ house, Stu jumped the trickling stream, scrambling on all fours up the steep incline. He ran along the river bank towards a small bridge in the distance.
Climbing over a waist-high wooden fence, Stu found an open car door waiting. Brookes leant over the front passenger seat, calling out to Stu. ‘Step into my office.’
Brookes’ “office” had four bald tyres, a dodgy exhaust and the clinging odour of fried onions. Stu propped his head up, hand to mouth, to stifle outrage as Brookes jumped traffic lights, wolf-whistled three young women and hurled abuse at a bus stop full of O.A.P.s. ‘Word of advice: Fleet Street’ll screw you more ways than Debbie did Dallas. Us locals stick together. So when do I get the exclusive?’
‘On what?’ asked Stu, detached from the situation.
‘Your six in a bed romp with Pans People,’ derided Brookes, ‘On what, he says… The old Doris with the pickaxe. You were the last person to see Hilda Harridan alive.’
‘Yeah, me and about twenty other people,’ said Stu.
‘Yet you’re the one they nicked,’ reminded Brookes.
Stu became animated at that particular fact. ‘Which is my whole bloody point! Why me? I haven’t done anything!’
‘Must be your guilty face,’ mocked Brookes. ‘Why do you think? Hartley Rumbelow. Hilda Harridan. Two dead grappers. One you.’
Brookes pulled up outside Westacotts newsagents. Roughly forcing Stu’s head in the direction of an A-Frame on the pavement, Brookes pointed aggressively. The A-Frame read: Stage Fright: Drama Death! Brookes proudly declared. ‘I wrote that. Good, innit?’ He looked to Stu, his cheeriness clouding over. ‘I won’t always be this nice.’
From a small bridge, Stu spied journalists along the riverbank, snooping around the fence of his parents’ back garden. Unable to go home, Stu went to the only working public phone box in Falking Hill, positioned on a lonely hill overlooking Rumbelow’s house. He phoned his mum, sensible boy that he was.
‘It’s me. No, I’m not at Nan’s… No, I can’t. Don’t worry about dinner. I know, I know… can’t Jeffrey have it? Cover it with tin foil? Mum. Dinner won’t be ruined, alright? Bye.’
Stu could have rammed the receiver through the phone box. No safe haven and a roast chicken had garnered more concern than he did.
In the distance, workmen erected a fence around Rumbelow’s land. A sign hammered into the ground: LAND ACQUIRED
After a rousing rehearsal performance of ‘Divertimento: 1. Prelude’, Nigel Chavis emptied the spit valve of his trumpet. He cleaned it carefully and packed it away, sad-faced at his inability to fit in with the rest of the brass band, who swarmed around their only female player: Lena Darrow. Breathless, Stu entered the church hall, elated at the sight of Nigel.
‘Nige… Nigel. There you are… Look, I was wondering if you wanted to…’ Nigel beamed at the simple act of being recognised.
Before he could answer, a cheery voice interrupted. ‘Come to see me?’
Stu took a moment to take in the bright, open face. Lena’s intoxicatingly perky playfulness felt like witnessing a double rainbow after a hurricane. ‘Quite the night, eh?’
Stu shrugged off his arrest like The Fonz jumping the shark, fuelling Lena’s interest.
‘Stuart. What did you want to talk to me about?’ Stu casually raised the back of his hand to silence Nigel, before. Lena led him to a quiet corner.
‘You should come over to my house. Tonight.’
‘Why?’ asked Stu. Lena was amused by his blank-faced.
‘How else will I get to know you better?’
Band members passed by, bidding farewell to somebody called Gordon in a deliberate, mocking tone. Stu watched Nigel, blindly glancing around for this Gordon.
‘Why are they calling Nigel Gordon?’ asked Stu. Lena replied. ‘Because whenever they see him they think Gordon Bennett.’ Such a display of bullying riled Stu ‘Nigel’s alright… Shouldn’t you tell him?’
A reedy, skeletal band member with a bad comb-over cut between their lingering gaze. He handed Lena a small box. ‘I made this for you, Lena.’
The oily man crept away; jealous sunken eyes skulking at Stu.
Inside the box was a small hand-carved wooden euphonium. Lena and Stu looked upon it with disconcerted reflection.
‘These people always gravitate around me,’ said Lena, taking a pen from a nearby music stand. She wrote her address on the box, rattling it as she handed it to Stu. ‘Seven o’clock. Tonight.’
Hiding out upstairs on a double-decker bus, the childish excitement of lording it over the world subsided to thoughts of Lena. Stu pondered her motives. He never held any mystery to anyone. Maybe Lena was genuinely interested? Maybe she had a thing for murder suspects?
Lena lived in Payne, a remote suburb of Falking Hill, surrounded by train lines and wasteland. Stu arrived at the end of a cul-de-sac.
He checked Lena’s address for the tenth time, raising a finger to the doorbell. The door opened before he could press it. Lena greeted him, wet hair wrapped in a towel. Siouxsie and the Banshees’ Hong Kong Garden played from inside the house.
He never had Lena pegged as a Siouxsie fan, and it was these pleasant surprises that increased the height of her pedestal.
Perched on the edge of Lena’s bed like a choirboy, Stu admired her experimental bedroom décor. It was quirky, frankly weird in places. Ill-matched colour scheme. Disco ball. Lena sat with her back to him, cross-legged on the floor, hair dryer on. Stu ensured his gaze didn’t settle on anything for more than a few seconds. Finally, the hairdryer ceased. Lena’s reflection in the mirrored wardrobe door spoke. ‘Right. Ready?’
Airport by The Motors drifted through the serving hatch from the living room. It only took two bodies to cramp the kitchen. As Lena gathered dinner ingredients, Stu observed four photographs held to the fridge with magnets: Holiday snaps of Lena with another young woman, laughing, hugging and beaming in each one.
Lena handed Stu an avocado. ‘Slice that.’ Lena aimed the tip of a sharp knife at Stu. Relenting, she extended the knife handle. Stu resigned to the painful truth that he was about to make a complete arse of himself. Try as he did, he couldn’t cut the avocado in half. Lena came to his rescue, exposing the stone in the middle.
‘Let me guess: Your mum does all the cooking. Does she wash your clothes?’ asked Lena, clearly ribbing him. Stu became downcast at his exposed lack of maturity. But Lena let Stu know she was still on his side. ‘Bloody hell, wish mine did. Who wants to do all that?’ Stu exhaled relief, having reached the other side of the minefield marked mummy’s boy.
The living room bore signs of the previous tenant: Tatty carpet, faded wallpaper and dark wood panelling. Lena skipped the needle on the compilation LP from Brian and Michael’s Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs to Love Will Keep Us Together.
‘How can you afford your own place?’ asked Stu, admiring Lena’s independence.
‘Dr. Baker gave it to me,’ said Lena.
‘Bedford gave you a car and a house? He must really like you,’ said Stu.
‘Someone’s been doing their homework,’ said Lena. ‘I mentioned to Bedford in passing that I was looking to move out of my parents’ place and he instantly said “I’ve got a spare house.” He’d recently inherited it from a distant relative, I dunno. Besides, he’s a doctor. He can afford it. Up to him what he does with his money. He bought me the hi-fi, too.’
Stu’s questioning eye turned to a framed sketch of a pastel sunset on the wall, presumably by a child, judging by the poor colouring and wobbly pencil lines.
‘The cost of sharing a house with Emily Fothergill,’ said Lena. ‘I don’t want to share with Emily, of course. But she pays rent. I charge her a fortune, too. Don’t know why she doesn’t just get her own place. Her parents can afford it. They gave Emily shares in Freeman, Hardy and Willis as a birthday present, for crying out loud.’
Lena poured two glasses of wine, handing one to Stu. ‘What do you do for money? Are you a published writer?’ she asked. Stu replied, tight-lipped. ‘Not yet.’
‘You’re going to be?’
‘One day.’
‘One day soon?’
Lena’s pushy line of questioning irked him. Her eyebrow arched at Stu’s thin replies.
Stu admired Lena’s bluntness (when it wasn’t wielded at him, anyway), yet his service bell of contradiction pinged with increasing frequency. For all of Lena’s independence, she received a lot of expensive gifts from admirers. Lena didn’t seem phased by usually older men lavishing such luxuries upon her.
Lena loved to eat. Whilst waiting for dinner, she tucked into cheese, chocolate and a mysterious foreign cake named ‘Pannytony’. She described herself as an individualist, not a feminist. Everything she did was on her terms. She was anti-family, yet firmly bonded to her parents. In particular, their fridge and wine rack, which explained her exotic tastes. Lena never allowed a lack of cash to dictate her nourishment. She’d done a month of potatoes cooked seventeen ways and was never going back there again. Stu marvelled at Lena’s lust for life: The Brass Band. Am-Dram. Lena suggested some Lee Strasberg exercises to grow Stu’s confidence, but he baulked at the idea.
‘No, no. I could never do any of that. I don’t want people staring at me.’
‘Neither do I,’ said Lena, matter-of-factly.
‘How can you say that when you’re stood on stage… all those eyes?’
‘On stage, time stops. And I’m gone. A bit like having a split personality.’
Stu remembered he hadn’t told his Mum he was dining at Lena’s that evening. The thought of his Mum’s roast dinner, the cost and effort spent cooking it, throwing it in the bin… It was imperative that he phoned his Mum before she put out a contract on him… but the Liebfraumilch. The spaghetti Bolognese. The candlelight. The soft lilt of a classical music LP.
‘Do you like classical music?’ asked Lena.
‘My parents have those K-Tel Hooked on Classics albums…’ said Stu, rifling through Lena’s record collection. ‘You’ve got diverse tastes. The Undertones next to I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper… You actually bought From New York to L.A.?’
The stylus settled with a crackle into the groove of a 7” record. Feather boa coiled around her neck, Lena mimed along with Patsy Gallant. Her index fingers fired shots at the ceiling with rootin-tootin abandon. Stu drained the last of the wine, high on the adrenalin rush of:
Negotiating a plate of spaghetti without dripping any sauce down his shirt.
Lena secretly being as daft as a brush, like himself. Stu realised “Mature Adults” were all just children playing grown-ups.
Through the serving hatch, Stu heard Lena preparing coffee. He roamed framed posters of stage shows. A collection of signed celebrity autographs: Bill Oddie. Richard O’Sullivan. Cheggers. Even Mrs Slocombe from Are You Being Served? had bizarrely addressed it in character; never failing to mention her pussy. The autographs were addressed to somebody named “Gilbert”. Frowning, Stu called out over the dramatic strings of Linda Lewis’s I’d Be Surprisingly Good for You.
‘Who’s Gilbert?’ asked Stu.
‘Oh, he’s my pretend nine-year-old son.’
‘Oh right…’ said Stu, not knowing if he should enquire further.
‘I write to celebrities,’ said Lena, ‘saying how much my son Gilbert loved them, how it would make his day if he could have a signed autograph. It’s a healthy disrespect for the establishment. They are but my play-things.’
‘What’s Timothy Claypole ever done to you?’ asked Stu, half-serious.
‘One day, you might be on my wall,’ teased Lena. ‘Don’t you want to be famous?’
‘Famous or infamous?’ contemplated Stu.
‘They both pay the same,’ said Lena, handing Stu a mug of coffee. ‘I made them Irish.’
Lena handed him a mug of coffee. Stu sipped, wincing at the kick. He nodded agreeably, discreetly wiping tears from his eyes as Lena changed the music. Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet.
Stu listened to Lena cover all aspects of her life, never pausing to ask Stu about himself. Not that he was bothered. The blend of booze and candles created a fizzy atmosphere.
But, a foghorn blew through the comforting fog. Lena spoke about her ex-boyfriends, of which there were many. Was he destined to join this list? Stu wished Lena’s candid disclosures could be dealt out sparingly.
‘After Fred, who I didn’t really want to go out with but anyway, I started seeing Mark. Proper Champagne Charlie. Bad hair. Dreadlocks on white men are frankly ridiculous. I didn’t really like him, he was a rich hippy dropout who wanted to take me places.’
‘So…’ began Stu, daring to ask. ‘What happened to Mark?’
‘I’m still seeing him. No, we split up due to his propensity to cheat on me with my best friend.’
‘Emily?’ said Stu with some disbelief.
‘No, my best friend,’ said Lena, as the phone rang. ‘Speak of the devil. It’s no doubt Emily, calling with something unimportant. Avon from Blake’s 7 behaving like a massive bastard and it’s making him more desirable…’
Wobbling on her feet, Lena set off to answer the phone in the hall.
A second or two later, Lena leaned into view through the doorway, mouthing something at Stu. He frowned, not getting it.
Lena exaggerated her silent vowels. PAU-LA! Lena thrust her chest out, tugging her top down to reveal more cleavage. Stu got it. Stu stretched his legs as Lena made consolatory noises.
Fifty minutes later, Stu had done the washing up and had resorted to tidying the living room. He blew out the candles, vigorously wafting the smoke with his hand. Out in the hall, Lena sympathised with Paula, occasionally faking loud yawns to keep Stu amused. His smile froze. Staring out from the bookshelf was a weighty tome: Jack the Ripper: The man, the myth, the murderer. Stu tilted his head, reading the other book titles. Biographies on Hitler. Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders. Mind Control: The Art of the Cult. Robert Bloch’s Psycho. DIY Tool care: How to keep them sharp ‘n shiny. The Two Ronnies Annual 1977.
The love roller-coaster had jumped the tracks, slamming through the doors of the ghost train. Darkness swamped Stu as he slid a book from the shelf: The Masks we wear: How to stop acting and become the character, written by Ivan Stroud.
Stu re-ran sound bites from the evening to determine exactly how terrified he should be. Lena never once spoke of Hilda Harridan’s death. Not that he wanted Lena to be scared of him, but why wasn’t she? He was the number one suspect.
In a desperate bid to quell his suspicions, he tidied Lena’s record collection. The O’Jays Backstabbers. Queen Killer Queen. Roberta Flack Killing Me Softly. Blue Oyster Cult’s Don’t Fear the Reaper.
The phone receiver hung up. Lena spoke loudly from the hall, heading upstairs. ‘Never thought she’d stop blubbing. Tony has kicked Paula out, somewhat understandably. If only Paula could grasp the reason why.’
Stu was too distracted to comment, still fixating on the titles in Lena’s book collection.
Lena called down from the top of the stairs. ‘Are you coming to bed?’
Stuck to the spot with pure terror – the terror of having spent the evening with a potential psychopath, the terror of what “Are you coming to bed?” meant, the terror of what might be about to happen, the terror of equating death with losing his virginity… It was all the same to Stu.
He had to say something. Stu’s voice cracked as he called out. ‘If I have to.’
Fully clothed on top of the duvet, arms by his sides like a child pretending to be a frozen sausage, the whites of Stu’s wide eyes were visible through the dark. Beside him, Lena was tucked under the duvet, also staring up at the ceiling.
‘You can get into bed if you want. You can even take off your jeans if you like.’
‘You’ve got a lot of books about Hitler,’ said Stu.
‘Don’t you think he’s interesting?’
‘Wouldn’t go camping with the fella.’
‘I mean,’ said Lena, ‘it’s interesting how he became so powerful. The control he had.’
After a few moments of silence, Lena exhaled a sleepy puff of air. Stu turned his head to check on her. Asleep. He gave her ten minutes to settle into a deep sleep before pouring himself slug-like off the bed and onto the floor.
On the landing, Stu crept along the landing. A light switched on from an adjacent room. A rabbit in the headlights, Stu glanced through an open door.
A room with Bo-Peep frilly decoration and posters of horses. Emily sat poised amongst a menagerie of Victorian dolls in pinnies and nightgowns as if she were their giant Queen.
‘Am I to be your next victim?’ she asked with almost a curious tone of voice.
Emily stood, moving towards him like a lusty potential victim under the spell of Dracula’s charms. Perturbed, Stu backed off, losing his footing at the top of the stairs. The clatter of Stu falling downstairs woke Lena with a start. In an oversized blue and yellow rugby shirt, Lena lurched onto the landing, clutching her chest at the sight of Emily.
‘You let a murderer into our house?’ spat Emily, incredulous. ‘I don’t want him here.’
‘You told me you were staying with your parents… have you been here the whole time?’ asked Lena.
Upside down at the foot of the stairs, Stu groaned, composing himself as Lena came to his aid.
‘It’s nothing personal. Emily hates all of my…’ Lena trailed off, tweaking Stu’s nose like a patronised child having his hair ruffled by a child-hating grown-up.
It took two and a half hours to get home on foot, by which point Stu was well into his hangover, complimented by a chafing groin. He crept into the living room and passed out on the sofa.
Eyelids rising like shop-front shutters, Stu woke to find he hadn’t budged an inch. Still sitting upright, he flexed his stiff back; wincing. A flat voice spoke bluntly. ‘Have you had breakfast?’
Stu gazed up, blurry-eyed, to see his mum standing over him. He shook his head. Jemima placed a plate on his lap with little grace, removing the tin foil cover. A stone-cold, fourteen-hour-old roast dinner, covered in a dense mucus of gravy. Dinner was served.
Copyright © Andrew Wright 2022