Cache

The Cache

by Mick Stringer

It was a surprise when Terry rang. We'd kept pretty much in touch over
the years, meeting from time to time when business affairs caused our
paths to cross, and the events of the last few months had, of course,
necessitated more frequent contact, what with the funeral and
everything. But he spent most of his time in London now, whilst I was
heavily tied up with my new venture in Leeds, so it was even more
intriguing when no sooner had he stepped off the train than he was
insisting that we go out to the old Moorside estate. He didn't even
want to stop for a drink first, which was out of character, but there
was an intense urgency about him that day that made me go along with
him. I parked the car in a pub yard at what I hoped was a safe distance
from the area and we walked the rest of the way, past the little group
of semis that had seemed quite respectable when I had lived there as a
boy. I was surprised at how small and time-worn they seemed now and
wondered what Mum would have made of the overgrown gardens.
A brown mongrel, with patches of dirty grey flesh showing through its
mangy coat, snarled at us before slinking away into the jumble of grey
grass and broken railings that lined the south side of the old common.
Dandelions and willowherb broke through the cracked concrete that had
once supported the swings, slide and rickety old round-about where we
used to play.
We stopped by a tangled pile of rubbish - a rusting boiler, a twisted
bicycle wheel and a jumble of scorched paint tins.
"Why did you want to come here?" I asked.
Terry buttoned his thick worsted coat against a keen east wind that
blew across the open land to announce that summer really was over. He
looked older than our forty years, I thought. There was a wrinkled
tiredness around his eyes and a lankness in his dark hair that hinted
at the grey to come. Half opening his mouth to reply, he seemed to be
struck by a sudden memory that swept across his face and brought a thin
smile to his pale lips.
"Remember when we trapped Barbara on the round-about?" he said, his
voice as rich and brown as his nicotine stained fingers. Despite his
long absence, success had not softened his Yorkshire accent as it had
mine. It must have been more deeply ingrained, hammered into him from
birth and welded into place by a street culture that brooked no
alternative.
"Of course I do," I smiled, recalling the scene on that summer evening
in the days when they still cut the grass around the common and the
fresh green smell hung in the warm air for days after. The more we'd
spun her, the more she'd screamed - more in pleasure than terror, I
think. Anyway, she'd been sick on the way home - all over my new suede
shoes! They never came up right after that, however much I brushed
them.
"But this isn't about Barbara, is it?"
"No, not entirely. I still miss her, of course. After all, it was you
and her who ..." he looked down and gently kicked away a paint can with
an expensive leather shoe, "...well, you know, got me away from all
this."
I tried to recall which of the flats lining the far side of the common
had been home - not the right word at all - to Terry and his
evil-tempered father, where they had lived with that tawdry succession
of stepmothers and "aunties" that, in my memory, merged into an
undifferentiated blur of cheap perfume and red lipstick. I suspected it
might have been the one on the top deck, with the boarded window and
the soot mark round the battered door, but I couldn't be sure. They all
gave off the same air of empty desolation, squatting miserably behind
rusting railings, their unseeing windows devoid of colour or hope. I
shivered, wishing I'd worn a topcoat like Terry. It really was a
God-awful place.
Terry put a hand in his coat pocket and I saw him feel around in it,
like a schoolboy checking that he has the right change for the bus. I
had forgotten those flashes of insecurity of his. They'd helped to
drive him forward, of course, keeping him going with his deals and
negotiations long after a more comfortable soul would have cried
'enough!'. It had paid off handsomely. His business empire was
extensive and he managed it with a sure touch. And his personal
financial circumstances were, to say the least, comfortable.
"I came back here just before she ... you know," he told me. "I suppose
it was going to be part of my goodbye to her - seeing where we started.
It was something I had to do."
He walked towards the broken patches of concrete and waited, head down,
for me to come alongside him.
"I always swore I'd never come back," he continued. "Barbara came to
see her mother by herself. Then she passed away and afterwards ..." He
shook his head.
"Mum always took an interest in you," I told him. "She'd have liked to
have seen more of you." I'd always assumed that Terry had kept his
distance because he couldn't bear to be reminded of his background. It
was understandable, after all. So what were we doing there now, for
pity's sake?
"When Barbara told me they'd pulled down the old station, I told
myself, 'That's it. That makes it final.' And after her mother died,
Barbara didn't show that much interest, either." He looked up at me.
"She was quite ill, even then, you know."
"But you came back, after all." I prompted.
"I had a special hiding place for my ill-gotten gains. You know what I
mean?" He narrowed his eyes, searching my face for a response. I nodded
my understanding and he went on. "That was before you took me home to
meet a decent family. Before you all showed me that there was another
way."
"You're embarrassing me now," I told him. "We were sorry for you,
that's all. Anyway, it was more to do with Mum and Barbara than me, if
I remember aright."
"It was all three of you, in my book," he affirmed, "but have it your
own way. Anyhow, my hidey-hole was still there."
He pointed to where the jagged remnants of a rusted pipe protruded for
three or four inches out of the concrete. It had probably once formed
part of a fence, or barrier. It may even have been the support for a
piece of playground equipment, vandalised and removed long before even
our distant boyhood.
"I used to wrap things in foil and drop them down there," he explained,
"until the heat was off. Then it only took a sharp stick or a knitting
needle to retrieve them. It worked, too. They never caught me with
anything."
I wondered, not for the first time, what it was that had made us take
the young rogue under our wing. Had we seen fear, hope or longing in
his bright eyes? Or was it just that his sharp street humour had made
us laugh and Mum's warm acceptance had done the rest? There was no way
of knowing now. There never had been.
"Somehow, I always knew it would still be there. So when I came back, I
poked out the grot and rummaged around until I found it." He pulled his
hand from his pocket and stretched it out to me, palm uppermost,
fingers and thumb bent into a fist. "You see, over all the years I've
never been able to tell you - even though it was the last time. I
wanted Barbara to have it before she went but I couldn't face her with
it. Imagine that. All those years of love, and I still couldn't face
her with it."
He opened his hand and I looked at the ring with the tiny rubies and
the single diamond. I remembered mum pulling it from her finger and
placing it carefully beside the bar of green Fairy soap on the
white-tiled window-sill above the sink, the night before the break-in.
And the next day, although she must have been saddened beyond belief by
the loss of the only thing of value that she'd ever owned, when Babs
and I arrived home with a bruised and grubby Terry in tow, she cleaned
him up, sat him down to tea, and sent him home in one of my old jumpers
and with his trousers freshly darned.
Terry's eyes clouded over as he stared at his hand.
"I'm sorry," he said, simply.
I picked up the ring. Everything seemed so long ago now, in that doomed
and alien landscape. How he must have suffered, I thought. How many
times his happy laughter in his new life must have been cut short by
that one memory. How often Barbara's loving, gentle smiles must have
cut him to the soul.
He stood in silence, his empty hand still extended. I slipped the ring
into my jacket pocket, briefly gripped his hand and pushed his arm back
to his side.
"It's all right," I said, speaking for my dead mother and sister as
much as for myself. "We understand. All of us." I turned my back on the
battered flats and motioned him to follow as I recrossed the common.
"Come on," I called over my shoulder. Let's go and find a drink."
End

The Cache 1