A Pack of Lies Read online

  He boarded up the windows, for fear of a sudden outbreak of war or revolution. He shot the skirting-board into splinters, thinking the mice might bring plague into the house. ‘I defy it! I defy my fate!’ he told the ever-watching clock, but its face made no change of expression.

  Days came and days went, and Finbar, though he made himself sick with worry, did not die. In fact, being a jockey, he was exceptionally fit. Of course, he never left the house to ride now. It was far too dangerous to go out. Anyway, a horse might throw him or bite him or trample him or roll on him … so he shouted through the letter-box that his neighbours must shoot the horses, one and all. His neighbours helped themselves to the horses of their choice and trotted cheerfully away, saying, ‘It’s lucky for us that Finbar’s brain has finally fallen off its hinges!’

  November came, and December, and the bookies at all the race-tracks grew fat and wealthy, because Lucky Finbar was no longer racing.

  Father Mulcahy called often at the house to ask if Finbar wouldn’t go to Sunday Mass.

  ‘No!’ screamed Finbar through the letter-box. ‘You only wish to sell me a plot in the churchyard, but I’ll not be needing one, I tell you! I’ll not be needing one!’ And Father Mulcahy went away again, quite baffled, shrugging his shoulders and pulling weeds out of the garden path.

  The clock in the hall ticked on relentlessly, picking off the minutes like a sniper.

  All the fun of Christmas took everyone’s minds off the strange change in their neighbour Finbar. In fact they forgot all about him, sealed up in his big house. All the company he had was the big clock in the hall: tock tock tock.

  The circular sweep of its hands swept todays into yesterdays, Christmas Day into Boxing Day, Boxing Day into New Year’s Eve.

  ‘Dead before the year is out. Tock tock tock tock’ — and then a clamorous burst of tinny laughter as the chimes cracked another hour over the head. Finbar opened the walnut door in the front and bawled at the pendulum, ‘The gypsy was a liar! I’m not going to die!’

  But the pendulum simply wagged a stern finger, and the clock said, ‘Tock tock tock tock: Dead before the year is out.’

  The noise dropped on Finbar like the waterdrops that wear away a stone. They cut him like those thousand cuts by which the Chinese Emperor used to kill his prisoners. Tock tock tock tock.

  The noise of partying carried from the village on the wind. Midnight and the end of the old year was approaching, second by second by second. Tock tock tock tock tock. The New Year could be heard coming closer and closer … its footsteps echoed round the hall: tock tock tock tock tock.

  Terror gripped Finbar by the knees and tumbled him into a basket chair, from where he stared up at the clock-face. His heart was beating so hard that he perfectly believed it would fail him before the clock struck midnight. What reason did the gypsy have to lie? As the mystical man had said, what man can escape his Fate? Tock tock tock tock tock. Five minutes remained of the year, and Finbar must die before the year was out.

  ‘Who’s to say what year it is?’ Finbar demanded of the clock. ‘ ’Tis only the likes of you that drives one year out and the next one in. If it weren’t for clocks we could live inside of one year all our lives and pay no heed to time passing. What’s Time, after all? Eh?’ (The clock did not reply except to say, ‘Tock tock tock tock tock.’) ‘Didn’t a mere man invent it in the first place? Didn’t we divide things up and give ’em the names “seconds” and “minutes” and “hours”? If we made it, we can do without it! Time’s a thing entirely invented by the sellers of birthday cards and Christmas presents and clocks! ... Why that’s it, after all! Time was only invented by clockmakers, and ’tis only kept by clocks! Well, I’ll have none of it in my house! I’ll none of it, see! I’ll put a stop to your murderous tick-tocking! You shan’t count me out like some old boxer on the canvas!’

  It was one minute to midnight.

  Dragging the basket chair to the foot of the clock, Finbar turfed out the cushions and climbed up. A heavier man would have put his feet through the wickerwork, but Finbar was a jockey and as light as a whippet. He fumbled at the fastenings of the glass clock-face, and it flew open just as the chain-strung mechanism heaved up its chain like a ship weighing anchor. There was a click and a whirring of springs. Finbar put his finger to the minute hand and forced it backwards.

  (Foolish man. He need only have stopped the pendulum.)

  The chime mechanism was already triggered. It clanked and churned, and the whole frame juddered. Face to face with the staring dial, Finbar felt the noise of the first chime like a punch on the nose. He reeled sideways, caught his ear on the catch of the clock-face, and snatched his head away in pain.

  The basket chair, unnerved by his curses, slid away from beneath him so that Finbar was pitched forward and embraced the great jarring shoulders of the chiming clock. The clock swayed forwards eagerly. Its door fell open, its chain and pendulum and rods and counterweights and chimes spilled out. Fatally wounded, the grandfather clock crashed down on its face.

  Beneath it lay a few wicker twigs - the remnants of the basket chair - and Lucky Finbar, terror of the bookies, darling of the fairies - and the most superstitious old fool in the history of all Ireland.

  When it all came out, Paidric Conlan the Clairvoyant was a made man. He counted it the greatest stroke of luck that he had correctly predicted the dreadful fate of poor, dead, Lucky Finbar.

  ***

  By the time Mr Berkshire had finished, Ailsa was sitting on the wash-stand with her mouth dangling open. Mrs Povey, stricken with embarrassment, had backed down the shop towards the rear exit and was wringing her hands desolately. The major was crouched forwards in the armchair with his chin on the head of his walking stick, gazing at the clock and grinning.

  ‘I’ll take it, by God! What’re you asking, boy?’

  ‘A hundred, sir, and may it bring you good luck.’

  ‘I don’t know about luck, you young - er - but it’s brought me the best morning’s entertainment since General Patton got trod on by the regimental drummer’s horse. Send it round this afternoon and be sure all the bits and pieces are inside. I’ll have it restrung. Be good as new. Capital clock. Capital story. Capital!’

  When he had gone, Mr Berkshire wiped his hands down his jacket and beamed. ‘That’s the way to sell a thing,’ he said with massive satisfaction.

  ‘But it was all lies,’ whispered Mrs Povey, there being no polite way to put it.

  MCC Berkshire drew himself up to his full six foot and more. ‘Lies, madam?’

  ‘Well, er … yes, actually … Lies.’

  ‘Not lies, madam,’ he declared, magnificently unrepentant. ‘Fiction. That’s the thing to give ’em. That’s the thing everyone wants. Fiction, madam!’ Then he loped back towards the chaise longue. As he passed Ailsa he nudged her with his elbow, winked, and gave her a quick, brilliant smile. ‘Sold it, though, didn’t I, eh?’

  ‘Certainly did,’ she said, backing off a step or two. ‘You’re not Irish at all, are you, Mr Berkshire?’

  ‘Not that I know of,’ he said with a blithe shrug, ‘but you never can tell for certain.’ And he plunged heavily on to the green velvet and into his book once more. ‘And do call me MCC. Please.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE WRITING BOX:

  THE STORY OF A LIAR

  MCC Berkshire seemed to have gone out, even before breakfast. But Ailsa and her mother noticed that the ladder had been moved from outside the newsagent’s next door, and stood against the lintel over their own front door. Ailsa ran outside and saw that the dingy, peeling lettering of ‘Povey’s Antiquary’ had been smartly touched up. And the words ‘DEALER IN BOOKS’ had been blocked in, small, on the last half-metre.

  ‘How very kind,’ said Mrs Povey. ‘I wonder where Mr Berkshire is. I must thank him.’

  ‘I wonder if he asked permission to use the paint or the ladder,’ said Ailsa sceptically, and moved it all back to the front of the shop next door. She was onl
y just in time, for as she reached her own doorway again, their Indian neighbour, Mr Singh, came out and noticed the theft of his bicycle.

  He was a man who had never been heard to swear. But from the way he kicked over the shop’s litter bin and jumped on the empty cartons that spilled out, Ailsa thought he was probably rather attached to the bike. He was, in any case, too upset to notice that his ladder and paints had been interfered with.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about what Mr Berkshire said,’ observed her mother, gazing raptly at a raised spoonful of breakfast cereal. ‘He didn’t exactly say that our clock was the clock in the story, you know.’

  ‘Didn’t he?’

  ‘No - and the customer didn’t really believe him, anyway.’

  ‘Didn’t he? Isn’t it a lie, then, if it isn’t believable?’

  ‘Goodness, Ailsa, you can be pompous when you set your mind to it. I can’t think where you get it from … I mean, it’s perfectly true that the clock will be fine when it’s restrung … and it was a fair price, taking that into consideration.’ Her face flushed with pleasure at the thought of the money. ‘I’ll be able to pay the electricity bill now,’ she said dreamily, as if that had always been her fondest ambition.

  ‘Er … Mother.’

  ‘Yes dear, I know I owe you pocket money, too.’

  ‘No, it’s not that … exactly where is the money? The old man paid cash, didn’t he?’

  Mrs Povey did not turn pale all at once. Her hands went to her apron pocket, and then her eyes wandered to the mantelpiece, the biscuit tin, her handbag, and all the other places she might have put a hundred pounds for safety. Her arms mimed the exchange of payment: ‘I remember seeing the old gentleman count the money into Mr Berkshire’s hand …’

  ‘Now don’t panic, Mother,’ said Ailsa, her chair scraping the kitchen floor. ‘You telephone the police and I’ll see if anyone in the street saw which way he went!’ They collided in the doorway and fought each other on the stairs. Mrs Povey knocked the telephone off its stand and Ailsa became entangled with a length of plastic potted plant. By the time she had extricated herself and opened the shop door, she was certain she knew who had stolen Mr Singh’s bicycle, and where her mother’s hundred pounds had found a place of safety. But what to do? Which way to run? If MCC Berkshire had left while they slept, he could be in the next county by now.

  She rammed heavily into Mr Singh who was standing on the edge of the kerb, pointing up the street. Down the crown of the road came MCC Berkshire on the stolen green bicycle. He was wearing a white pith helmet, such as Englishmen wore to hunt tigers in the days of the British Empire. He was reading a book propped open on the handlebars. The panniers of the bike were crammed to overspilling with books, and under one arm he carried a large wooden box, lacquered so that it flashed in the light. So engrossed was he in the book that he almost overshot the shop, and had to scuff one shoe noisily along the tarmac to turn and pull up.

  ‘So dreadfully sorry for the removal of your transport, sir,’ he said, thrusting his box into Mr Singh’s outstretched, accusing hand, and handing the book to Ailsa while he dismounted. He spoke with a very clipped precision, as if English were a foreign language he had learned to perfection. ‘It was most necessary that I should reach the railway sidings in time for the very first car boot to open.’

  ‘Mr Berkshire, where’s the money from the clock?’ said Ailsa.

  MCC placed the bicycle with infinite care against the lamp-post and refastened the combination padlock. He unpacked the books from the panniers as if he were Securicor making a delivery of gold bullion, loading them into the arms of Ailsa and Mr Singh until they were buckling at the knees. Then he put an arm each round their shoulders - being considerably taller than either of them - and led them conspiratorially into Povey’s Antiquary. ‘You see there was this Car Boot Sale and Flea Market advertised and if you can get to these things right at the start there are some real bargains to be picked up. Take that box, sir. That, sir, is a genuine Victorian writing case — rosewood inlaid with cherry. Not veneer, mind! All handcrafted inlay work. And all it’s short of is a key.’

  Mr Singh, who was being quickly off-loaded by Mrs Povey, was soon left holding only the box. He tried to open the lid. ‘But it’s locked shut!’ he protested.

  ‘Yes, think of it! Think of the secrets that box will keep till the day of its destruction!’ cried MCC, snatching it out of his arms.

  ‘It’s useless!’ insisted Mr Singh excitedly, tugging it back and rattling it. ‘What use is a box you cannot open, if you will be so good as to tell me?’

  ‘You’re a Utilitarian, sir!’ said MCC, snatching it back.

  ‘I’m a Sikh, sir!’

  ‘But you think a thing is beautiful only if it’s useful. You are a Utilitarian!’

  ‘Mr Berkshire! Mr Singh! Please!’ begged Mrs Povey. ‘Have some coffee! Have some breakfast!’

  ‘I have newspapers to sell, Mrs Povey, madam. But if I were you, madam, I wouldn’t trust this kind of a fellow, with his bicycle-stealing and his foolish hat and his suntan! No no. Where has he been for such a suntan, I ask you, while poor people like us are working to earn a living?’

  A look of shocked injury crossed Berkshire’s face, and his eyes, under the brim of the pith helmet, were darker than the Ganges river. ‘And must I apologize for having Anglo-Indian blood?’

  Mr Singh did not know which way to look. He was covered with embarrassment. He stroked one sleeve of the green corduroy jacket soothingly. ‘My dear young gentleman! I, who have so often had abuse in my own shop, to my own face, about the colour of my skin! That I should cast insults on a man partly of my own race! Now I look at you, of course I can see that your eyes are … I’m glad you … borrowed my bicycle, yes certainly. I am very glad. And now I come to look, it is indeed a very fine box. What craftsmanship! It is for Mrs Povey’s excellent establishment to sell, I suppose?’

  ‘Ah yes, and what a story it has to it!’ exclaimed MCC, and Ailsa made a snatch at his hand and dragged him aside - almost into a giant, mirrored wardrobe.

  ‘Please, Mr Berkshire,’ she whispered, feeling the whole weight of the family business resting on her shoulders. ‘Please don’t tell Mr Singh any more lies. He’s a nice man. And he has a bit of a temper. And he only lives next door.’

  ‘More lies?’ said MCC, loudly astonished. ‘What lies have I told?’ And when she looked up into those wide-open, long-lashed eyes, they were indeed dark enough to be … ‘It’s odd. Your mother mistook me for a liar yesterday,’ he continued, in a loud voice. ‘Now I could tell you a story about a liar-and-a-half in connection with a certain wooden writing box.’

  He eased out past Ailsa, despite her protesting hands on his chest, and she was left with the sensation that she had just touched something still connected to the mains electricity. When she rounded the wardrobe, Mr Singh was perched up on a second-hand bar stool, wearing the look of a snake confronted with a snake-charmer, and MCC had started his story.

  * * *

  Dearest Mamma,

  I hope you are well. I hope Papa is well. The weather here is v. vile. We have not got out in the park for days. Last week was Easter in the church. The minster said we must forgive those who spitefully use us. But it is v. hard. Belinda steals out of my trunk and Sarah puts mice in my bed and Miss Stubbs has such favourites, truly! I think some mammas and papas must send extra money so that Miss Stubbs will be nice to their girls. I wish I was in India with you and Papa. I would v. much like to see India now that us British have made it sivvilised.

  Miss Stubbs says it is v. educational and I miss you so much, dearest Mamma. And dear Papa, too.

  Grace Briavel-Tomson sucked the end of her pen, and stared out at the rain-shiny street. Her fingers drummed on the sloping lid of her beautiful escritoire. She knew how much her mother liked to get letters from her. She was under strict instructions to write every week. It was hard to think of enough things to write every week. It was different for her mamma and
papa. Life in India was so very interesting, with fakirs and opium and bazaars and typhoid and army balls and skirmishes with the natives and child brides and widows being burned on funeral pyres. Kensington was very dull by comparison. In India, a girl would have native servants to do everything for her, and hunters risking life and limb to shoot tigers and lay the skins at her feet.

  ‘They ought to send for me,’ she thought, watching the ink well up into the nib of her pen like a big blue teardrop. ‘They shall send for me! Why should they enjoy themselves out there at all those dances and polo matches, and leave me sitting here learning stupid French? It’s not fair! Well it’s not.’

  She chewed ferociously on the end of her pen until inspiration came, like milk through a straw, and she scribbled off a last few lines to fill the sheet of pink paper.

  Matron uses some very strange language, Mamma, and calls Peter the caretaker a ‘bastard’ and a ‘sot’. Could you kindly tell me what these words mean as I do not understand them. Your afectionate and loving daughter asks God to bless you —

  Grace.

  PS Please send a little money if you can spare it, for Morgana twisted my arm and pulled my hair until I gave her all my pocket money, and I fear v. much that I shall have nothing to put in the collection plate on Sundays.

  As she blotted dry her letter and addressed the envelope, she called out in a shrill, piercing voice, ‘Morgana! Where are you?’

  A timid, gangling girl hurried clumsily into the room, all hands and feet and apologies.

  ‘Take this letter to the post, Morgana.’

  ‘Oh, but Grace! It’s raining so hard!’ whispered the girl pleadingly.

  ‘Take it! … Or do you want me to pull your hair again, like before? Oh and you’ll have to go to the Post Office for a stamp, first.’

  ‘But Grace! You took all my … I mean you borrowed all my money. Don’t you remember?’