Syd Moore - Witch Hunt

I had stuff to get on with so slammed the laptop shut, got my things together then whizzed out the door.

The gloomy October morning had bled into a gloomy October afternoon. The light breeze had notched up into a strong south-easterly wind and was whipping rubbish into tiny twisters, screeching through the bare branches of the sycamores that bordered the wide Georgian avenues of Southend’s conservation area. Everybody on the street was buttoned up, faces down, slanting diagonally into its oncoming draughts.

The offices of Mercurial , a quarterly arts magazine, were nestled between an ancient accountancy firm and a design agency. I liked working for them. They were cool: as a freelance writer who specialised in Essex affairs, kudos was rather thin on the ground, and the mag’s cachet rubbed off on me.

It was now eighteen months that I’d been living in the borough of Southend. Initially, my move had been born out of an urge to be closer to Mum. Her health was going downhill and although Dan was around, I wanted to be there for her too. Then after I split up with Christopher, London quickly lost some of its shine and I accelerated the relocation.

It had been good for me. Though I kept my hand in with my old bosses in London, I had enjoyed rediscovering my old patch. Southend had grown and changed. Lots of things were going on and Mercurial reflected that. They were good to know – always had an ear to the ground – and I had actually grown very fond of the staff at the office. For a bunch of artistic individuals they were all pretty down to earth.

I’d known Maggie for nigh on twenty-five years, as we’d attended the same high school. Though you’d never believe it to look at her now, she was actually far more rebellious than I in our youth: we shared clothes; a couple of boyfriends and several cigarettes down the bottom of the sports field, promptly losing touch when we left school and went on to different universities. When our paths crossed again, a couple of years ago, she invited me for lunch and we soon ping-ponged into regular friends again.

I think it was on our third or fourth lunch date, as we knocked back a few glasses of plonk, that Maggie suggested I wrote a small piece for her mag. I leapt at the chance and once the shrewd editor – rather than the friend – worked out that I was as good as I said I was, she began feeding me more assignments.

Mags was what my dad would call a good egg: helping

a lot over the past few months and especially kind when Mum died.

She was sucking on the end of a biro, squinting at a document several pages in length, in the small box room she called her office. The sash window was a couple of inches open. Still, the air was thick with the stink of cigarettes and Yves St Laurent’s Paris .

‘You’ll have to get an air freshener. You must be getting through bottles of perfume,’ I said as I sauntered in and threw my satchel on the floor. ‘And it’s against the law now, you know.’

Maggie’s tangle of pillar-box red hair jerked up. She dropped the pen on the mound of paper. ‘Shit, Sadie! Can’t you knock before you come in?’

She looked funny like that – all indignant eyes and open mouth. ‘Everyone else has to go outside for a fag,’ I chastised her half-heartedly.

She shrugged, relaxing now and held her hands up in mock surrender. ‘I’m giving up. Seriously. Did you know it’s bad for you?’

I said I hadn’t heard that.

‘Just got really into this submission,’ she was justifying herself. ‘New writer. Very good. All about the internet: Facebook, Twitter, blah blah, Generation Z’s youthful rebellion.’

I sauntered over to a filing cabinet that stood by the window. It was sprayed gold and decorated in what was probably a radical artwork but to my uninformed eye looked like bog-standard graffiti. It was very Mercurial . The gurgles from the coffee maker on top indicated it was ready to pour.

‘Interesting spin,’ I said and took two mugs from the shelf above. ‘I think I just experienced some of that, myself.’ Maggie didn’t answer so I coughed and nodded at the coffee. ‘I’m presuming this is for me? Mags, would you like one too?’

She grunted an affirmation and grudgingly gathered up the sheaf of paper, stapling the top right-hand corner and dumping it on an in-tray already several centimetres high.

‘Might as well close that window too,’ she shivered and pulled a fluffy purple cardigan tight over her shoulders. ‘I thought it’d be warmer this week.’

I placed the mugs on her desk, and brought the window down with more force than I intended resulting in a loud bang. Maggie tutted. I ignored her. ‘They say it might turn nice for the weekend.’

Maggie cast her eyes through the windowpane at the fluttering leaves of the sycamores. A plastic bag whipped up from the street and caught a branch directly outside. ‘If only the wind would drop.’ She grimaced and came back to me. ‘How are you going?’

I plucked out my standard response. ‘Coping with it,’ I told her.

She accepted that without further comment. ‘Have you been to the house yet?’

She was referring to my mum’s. ‘I thought I’d wait until I saw Dan.’

Maggie’s eyes narrowed. ‘He’s not turned up then?’

I shook my head. I was still livid that he hadn’t been at the funeral. That was another reason why I let off so much steam that night at the club. But beyond the anger there was concern. Or perhaps it was the other way round?

Yesterday I’d nipped into Mum’s hospice to fetch the last of her belongings and had seen one of the day shift nurses, Sally. Her husband, Michael, had once worked at Dan’s school and Mum had known Sally socially prior to her last illness. Not well, but enough to pass the time of day. We had wondered if that might make it awkward but her familiar face reassured Mum. We’d had a chat and she, too, asked about Dan, reminding me that Mum had a key to his flat on her keychain and suggesting that I pop into his place to check it out. We’d phoned endlessly and I’d knocked on his door with no joy, trying to find him before Mum … well, before things came to a head.

‘He’ll need your support more than ever now,’ Sally said. She was a homely woman, with an immense bosom, and an extraordinarily generous nature. I guess you have to be when you’re in that job.

‘I know,’ I had said and promised to go there.

‘And,’ she said. ‘Please do me a favour. I was talking to Doctor Jarvis about Dan going off like this. He said it’d be an idea to check his medication. Can you bring back a bottle, if there’s a spare somewhere, and he’ll have a look? Just to be sure.’

I had told her I would and was planning on swinging by his place after I’d finished up here at Mercurial.

‘Oh dear,’ Maggie was saying though her voice kept steady. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

I could be upfront with Maggie. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m going to check his flat later. To be honest I’d rather talk work.’

‘Okay. Well, let me know if you need anything, yeah?’ Maggie straightened herself out and put on her professional head. The set of her jaw was firm and ready for business. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Fire.’

I tasted the coffee and removed my notebook from my bag. ‘You mentioned another Essex Girls’ piece?’

I’d been fascinated with our regional stereotype for a very long time. Firstly because, as a grey-eyed, raven-haired Essex chick, I adored the leggy, booby, blonde ideal. Surrounded by Barbies and Pippas from an early age I’d cottoned onto the fact that this was the generally accepted notion of beauty. I couldn’t believe it when, as I made more excursions beyond the county’s limits, I discovered it was considered vulgar and stupid and a lot lot worse. The realisation left me feeling cheated and rather annoyed.