Mary Dogood

By Daniel Boyle

Mary Dogood is a black comedy that follows the heroine from adolescence to womanhood. During this time she is incarcerated in a secure hospital for trying to blow up her cruel father, and, possibly, murdering a fellow schoolgirl.

Mary blossoms into womanhood while in Riverdale secure hospital, and comes to the attention of oafish guard Claude Mc Bean, and creepy psychiatrist Doctor Templeton Lightbody. They both sexually abuse her, but Mary dupes the noxious pair into helping her escape, and assumes a new identity.

Having taken two degrees while in Riverdale, Mary successfully applies for a lecturing post at The Nigel Baird College Of Further Education, in Manchester. There she meets and falls in love with Assistant Principal Harry Clark.

For a short while life is sweet for Mary Dogood. She has a job she loves, a man she loves, and a home of her own. But soon, powerful forces in the college see Mary as threat to their fraudulent activities and try to frame her for theft in order to get rid of her. Mary knows who the culprits are and is enraged by their actions. But what to do about it?

When she suffers at the hands of others, Mary is always stalked by The Blue Lady, a ghostly figure who always demands the ultimate penalty for Mary's tormentors. It was she who urged Mary to blow up her father, and who may have been present when the schoolgirl met her end. Mary tries to resist The Blue Lady's commands, but when one of her college enemies goes missing and the other is found hanged, it seems The Blue Lady has prevailed again.

But with one set of foes gone, others appear. They are crazed Sports Science lecturer Jock McKnutt, and Writer In Residence, Tommy Dangerfield. The pair, inadvertently aided by Sports Science student Jerome P. Nugent, whose bizarre sexual proclivities draw him to Mary, begin to suspect who Mary really is.

They visit Claude McBean in prison. Mary has quite ingeniously
framed Claude for her own murder. They then go to Lightbody's isolated cottage, where Mary spent time immediately after her escape. And there they find proof of Mary's true identity.

But they do not go to the police straight away. Dangerfield believes he has a 'best seller' on his hands, and possibly a movie also, with Sean Connery playing the part of McKnutt in the celluloid version of Mary's unmasking.

They decide to get maximum effect by exposing Mary at the college's annual barbecue. And so the scene is set. But will Mary be exposed? Or will she be saved by a twist in the tale?

Daniel Boyle has been a successful scriptwriter for twenty five years: 'Inspector Morse', 'Rebus', 'Hamish MacBeth', 'Taggart', 'Lewis'. He has also penned four original films for TV and is currently under commission to Rooster Film and Television Ltd, to adapt Mary Dogood for the screen.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Daniel Boyle
• Release date: Sep 8, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465865755

Daniel Boyle

Left school at fifteen and for the next eleven years worked as a seaman. Left the sea and became a postman for four years before going to university as a mature student. After university my main occupation was as a college lecturer I gave this up to become a full-time writer in 1990. Since then I have written extensively for television, having four original films produced, and contributing to major series such as 'Inspector Morse', 'Rebus', 'Hamish MacBeth', 'Taggart' and 'Lewis'. I am currently under commission by Rooster Film and Television Ltd. to adapt Mary Dogood for the screen. I am married and have three children and four grandchildren.

Book preview

202

Mary Dogood

A Memoir

A

s Told To

Daniel Boyle

Copyright Daniel Boyle 2020

Cover photo www.dreamstime.com

This book is dedicated to anyone who buys a copy.

‘Hell is other people’’

-‘No Exit’’

Jean-Paul Sartre.

‘He never said a truer word’’

-Mary Dogood. Whose memoir this is.

Blowing Up Dad

I make no apology for trying to blow him up, my father. I mean, let’s face it, if I hadn’t been caught, if there hadn’t been the trial, and the brouhaha in the newspapers and on the television, if there hadn’t been all that lazy, ludicrous drivel about a Devil Child, or Mad Mary, or any of the other lurid epithets that were heaped upon me, who would have cared? ‘Forty-five-year-old baker blinded in gas explosion. Queen summons PM to palace. Safety of gas appliances high on agenda.’ I really don’t think so, do you?

At the time, I did not deem my actions a complete failure. I had been nabbed, of course, but while I may not have killed my father, as had been my very definite intention, I had at least managed to deprive him of his vision. But, alas, as I grew older and acquired insight, even that small crumb of comfort fell from my grasp. For I came to appreciate that to blind a man who was so monumentally insignificant was a sort of mercy. That while the world’s indifference towards that little man would remain un-diminished; he would no longer have to witness his lack of substance in the disdainful stares of his fellow men. I mean, I ask you, consider the whip-round his colleagues had for him. A derisory seven pounds and fifty-five pence was its yield! And there were eighteen of them employed at that bakery for heaven’s sake! Then to actually take that pittance round to the hospital and there to count it out onto his seared and bandaged hands, well, can you think of anything more contemptuous, more indicative of the low regard they had for him?

If only he’d had the power of reflection, I might not have been driven to such drastic action. If only he could have seen that my mother had ran away with another man because she could no longer stand his monologues on, for example, the functions of yeast in the baking process, or the secret of great choux pastry, or other tedious illustrations of bake-house esoterica. That she could no longer stand his obsessive hobby of using the Japanese art of Bonsai to cultivate miniature versions of tropical trees and shrubs so that every room in house resembled an Arboretum. But he could not reflect and see these things. As far as he was concerned, my mother had absconded because of me.

She couldn’t cope with raising a difficult little cunt like you. He would shout---or scream, usually.

I knew that this accusation was false, of course, and had his chastisements remained merely verbal they would not have bothered me one tiny jot. After all, I was constantly the object of similar abuse from the pond life I daily shared a classroom with.

Look at that stuck up fucker!

One slapper had sneered as I wrote down an answer in English class, and at the same time as I was silently counting down the seconds to the explosion.

"See the way she looks down her nose when she writes. And look at the la de da way she fucking scribbles! Like she was doing a fucking autograph or something. Like she was somebody! Fucking vaggie!"

But my father was not long content with aiming only verbal abuse at his ‘difficult’ daughter. Very soon after mother left there were slaps, then came punches, then kicks, then resort to a broad, heavy-buckled, brown leather belt, and in the fullness of time the worst of his attacks would come as a medley of all four.

I should say that I’d suffered three years of such abuse before I thought that enough was enough. And in considering possible forms of redress, going to ‘the authorities’ did occur to me, in case you’re wondering. But I’d eavesdropped on chatter at school from girls (and one boy) who suffered similar treatment, or who knew someone who did, and the consensus was that ‘the authorities,’ while well meaning, were not the smartest option. Because all a violent parent or guardian need do was lay off for a while and convince ‘the authorities’ that they had mended their ways then, when things had settled down, start setting about their offspring or charges again and giving them a little extra for having gone to ‘the authorities’ in the first place.

Of course, a victim could always lodge another complaint, but the risk then was of being put into care, and sometimes, as in my own case, (of which more anon), that could result in maltreatment that was as bad, if not worse, than had been suffered at home.

So, no, I resolved to eradicate the problem of my abusive father in my own way. And I was aided in this decision by The Blue Lady, who, as accurately as I can recall, began to appear to me about midway through the third year of my passion, and on a night when I had taken a particularly severe beating from my tormentor.

At first, I feared The Blue Lady. And I am sure you would have too, if you had awoke in the dark to find her floating at the foot of your bed. If you had seen her, hovering there, with those exquisite blue robes being ever so slightly teased by the light, night breeze coming in through the open bedroom window. And with those brilliant rays pouring forth from her delicate alabaster hands and her slim, bare feet. For although her sad eyes clearly oozed sympathy, her stubborn silence and refusal to respond to my whimpered promptings was very disconcerting indeed. But eventually, on her sixth or seventh visitation, she did react to me, though not by using anything so mundane as speech. Instead, she used her powers to have me pick up the pencil I kept by my bedside and write two words in the diary I made irregular entries into at around that time. And the two words I found myself writing were ‘Warren Oates’.

Now, only a fool could fail to grasp that Warren Oates could be the name of a person, and the more I thought about it, the more that name rang bells. And, sure enough, just a few days after The Blue Lady’s visitation, as I was throwing out some old newspapers, I saw the name in one of them.

It appeared in a television listing that told of an upcoming rerun of an old, 1970, US television film entitled ‘The Movie Murderer’. It was on in the wee small hours and, as my father was on nights, I had been able to watch in peace and quiet, and with considerable interest. The Warren Oates in question was an actor, and a very good one I recalled thinking as I watched him, who had played the part of a professional arsonist hired to burn down film sets. Particularly intriguing was the method used in one of the fires, whereby he pricked suspended liquid-filled balloons with a pin, and when the liquid had dripped away, the balloons had somehow burst into flame. A great inferno then ensued, but by then, Warren Oates was long gone from the scene of the crime.

If the filmmakers ever explained what combustible material was left in the balloons when the liquid was gone I had missed that. But I could well remember an experiment in science class showing how phosphorus would spontaneously combust when exposed to the air. What if

phosphorus had been the substance in the balloons? It made perfect sense. The liquid would prevent the phosphorus from igniting. But once the liquid was gone and oxygen found its way inside the punctured balloon————?

Oh, how the room filled with the sound of my beating heart as those thoughts and events began to coalesce and take the shape of a plan! A plan that began to assail what proved to be the very frail walls of my conscience. Could I really blow up my father? Well, why not? Wasn’t he beastly to me? And could I have arrived at this point without the clear encouragement of The Blue Lady? A woman who could levitate? Who could appear and disappear at will? Who could communicate by means of telepathy, and effuse rays of the most brilliant hues from her extremities? If such a one as she could see justice in my plan, who was I to question it?

Yes! I would do it! I would most definitely do it! I resolved.

My first task was to make a flow chart depicting the logical sequence of steps I would need to take. Steal phosphorus. Buy balloons. Secure tweezers and rubber gloves for manipulating phosphorus. Devise method of holding neck of balloon open so that (a) water can be introduced, then (b) phosphorus can quickly follow. Secure hammer. Secure nail. Use hammer and nail to puncture (ever so slightly) main gas pipe going into boiler. Suspend balloon above tiny leak. Puncture balloon. Leave house in calm manner (perhaps humming a tune to convey nonchalance, perhaps, cheekily, pretending to have forgotten something and going back into house for a jiff) Go to school. Behave in utterly normal manner. Watch the slappers scream and giggle at typically inane remarks, or even nothing at all, just scream and giggle for the sake of it. Listen as they exchange make up tips, read their horoscopes, talk about the latest boy to be permitted a dry rub or given a wank. On hearing bell, make way to class. Take seat. Smile at teacher. Do work. Wait for knock on classroom door as bearer of tragic news arrives to break it. Swoon on hearing I am now an orphan. Allow a decent interval to pass (two to three weeks) before allowing wan smile to appear on lips in public. Live happily ever after.

The cardboard core of a toilet roll proved capable of holding the neck of the balloon open so that the water and the phosphorus could be introduced. But despite my meticulous planning and attention to detail, I almost failed at the first hurdle. I was in the science lab, had secured the

phosphorus and was depositing the jar amidst the jumble in my rucksack, when I heard a noise behind me. It was a girl. Her name was Chanterelle Lloyd (that was indeed her name, her parents had unwittingly called her after a mushroom, yet presciently so, as she was terminally thick, and her attempts to be accepted as the ‘mate’ of the head slapper, Tammi-Toya Beasley, were truly pathetic) But had she seen? I mean, had she seen? She showed no sign of having done so. Just kept on chewing her gum in typically bovine fashion, with her heavy lower jaw slowly rotating clockwise through three hundred and sixty degrees, and then followed me with her lifeless, slow-blinking eyes as I smiled and went lightly past her to the open door.

Even when the theft of the phosphorus was discovered, and threats of exclusions, of police involvement, and warnings of the dangers inherent in handling such a substance, were being issued daily, Chanterelle Lloyd stayed schtum. Surely, I was in the clear.

And so the big day arrived. I don’t know why I did it, some subconscious desire to give him a reprieve, perhaps, to give him one last chance to be a proper father. But for whatever reason, I tried to make small talk with the little tyrant as I gave him his breakfast.

How was night shift? I asked, in what I thought was a civil tone of voice. What did you bake last night? Meringues? Danish pastries? Éclairs?

He looked up from his Sun newspaper and fixed his little black eyes on me. You taking the piss? He asked in that low, menacing voice he would often put on.

No. I said, all wide-eyed and innocent. And for a Nano second he seemed confused. Was I taking the piss, or was I genuinely interested in the previous night’s confections? Then, his features hardened again.

Cos if you are I’ll bounce you off them four fucking walls. He said, before going back to the Sun, turning a page, and then running his hand across that greasy pate of his, with its wispy, thin, black hair that receded more each day so that his pallid and putty skinned face seemed to get bigger commensurately.

Well, that was it. It was all systems go from that point. When he had gone to bed, I washed up, and then went down into the basement. And there I began working my way through the steps on my flowchart. And in what seemed no time at all, I was seated at my desk and writing down the answer to the question ‘Is Character Destiny?’ when considering the life of King Lear. A topic I alone had been tackling as the slappers had opted for some contemporary drivel penned by a former stand-up comic.

Anyway, I was just dotting the ‘Is’ and crossing the ‘Ts’ when the knock on the classroom door duly came and an ashen-faced headmaster entered to extract me and give me the mixed news that, while there had been an explosion and my house had been badly damaged, my father was still alive.

My obvious and abject disappointment at this intelligence was taken as anguish and concern for my father and earned me innumerable hugs of comfort from school secretaries, women police constables, and, finally, nursing staff at the hospital. There a doctor told me that my father would undoubtedly live, but that he would never again bake professionally as, somehow, they were not sure how, his eyesight had been destroyed in the conflagration.

This uncertainty about what had caused his blindness would last until the discovery that, among the miniaturised exotic shrubs my father had tried to rescue from the inferno was Excoecaria Agallocha, which belongs to the family Euphorbiaceae, commonly known as The Blinding Tree. The heat from the blaze had apparently caused the shrub to excrete its latex sap; my father had touched the sap and then rubbed his eyes with his toxic digits.

That he had survived at all was explained in our insurer’s report. It referred to the history and structure of our home, which was just over two hundred years old and had begun life as a farmhouse. But the rapid industrialisation of the surrounding area in the nineteenth century had so encroached on both arable and pasture land as to make farming no longer viable. (I had often wondered how our house had come to stand so alone and separated from the rest of the town by a busy ‘A’ road, and now I knew). But I digress. It seems that in its structure that old house was very robust indeed, with the spaces between the heavy floor joists packed with cinder ash and other byproducts used as soundproofing. It was this ‘deafening’ as it was called, that had absorbed the impact of the blast and unfortunately saved my father’s life.

As I have said above, I was initially able to comfort myself with the thought that I had exacted some sort of revenge on my cruel parent. And when unobserved, I could even smile at the prospect of our reunion. Being blind, he could no longer beat me, of course, and if I wished to, and when he was least expecting it, I could, and with marvellous impunity, give him a right good slap on the head, or aim a hefty kick at his backside. And it occurred to me, too, that I could set harmless snares about the house when restored to a habitable standard: mousetraps in the biscuit tin, for example; or surreptitiously moved chairs and furniture to occasion pratfalls and hilarious collisions. I even dared to contemplate placing a harmless reptile, a corn snake, say, in his bed at night, and then standing invisibly by to watch his reaction to its slithering touch as it tried to constrict his ankle or something.

But, alas, thoughts of such mirth-filled days proved to be premature. For it transpired that Chanterelle had seen me take the phosphorus after all, and, surprisingly for such a dimwit, had found a way to put her knowledge to profitable use.

That terrible truth came in a note that Chanterelle dropped on my desk as she passed by. See me up on the scool (sic) roof at dinertime (sic) its about that fosf-----fosafer---fosaref---that stuff.It read.

Well, how could I refuse? But why the school roof I wondered? The building was a flat roofed nineteen sixties affair, and so had leaked like a sieve since day one, which meant it was under almost constant repair and always accessible, but why up there?

You know Tammi-Toya? She asked, rhetorically, referring to the head slapper.

Yes. I said.

Well she said if I want to stay her mate I’m going to have to give her things. She went on.

Things? I said.

Presents and stuff. She explained

Oh. I said

Yeah. She said. Only I got no money for that, so you’re gonna give it me. If you don’t I’m going over to the edge there and gonna shout down to all them in the playground that you nicked that---that stuff--- you understand? Every week I’ll expect a couple of quid, maybe more some weeks.

But I never have any money. I said.

And that was the truth, as my father made me walk to and from school, and take a packed lunch and all to save money. But Chanterelle seemed to take my answer as a defiant refusal to cough up. Because her rotating lower jaw suddenly stopped at twelve o’clock, hovered there for a moment, dropped back to six o’clock, stayed there for a while also, so that I could plainly see the grey chewing gum at rest on her heavily furred tongue, then began its gyrations again, but now at an alarming rate of revolutions per second.

All Right. She said, curtly. I’ll go tell ‘em, shall I? And with that, she began walking, as purposefully as obesity allowed, towards the edge of the roof.

Now, had I merely stolen some phosphorous, Chanterelle’s accusations would have meant nothing to me. I would simply have denied them. It would have been her word against mine. And let’s face it I was a model pupil. I was a good girl. I was a clever girl. I did as I was told, and I did it without fuss, for I had no desire to draw attention to myself as I considered any form of celebrity to be vulgar and common, and still do. After all, we’re all God’s children and no single one of us should be put above the rest. Of course, my developing charms had, I knew, brought me to the attention of some male teachers, but that was nature’s fault and quite beyond my control. By contrast, Chanterelle had, as I have said, the intellectual capacity of an amoeba. She was also obstreperous and had been excluded from school on at least two occasions. Well, whom do you think they would have believed?

But I had done much more than steal phosphorous. I had used it to cause an explosion at my house, an explosion still under investigation. What if Chanterelle’s accusation struck a chord with someone? The police perhaps, or someone at the gas company, and what if that little niggle grew

into a suspicion? Could I be certain that my arson was beyond detection? I mean, hadn’t Warren Oates eventually been apprehended? What forensic methods would be available to a suspicious policeman or gas fitter? Some tool, or device, or procedure, that, when applied to the evidence, would tell the true story of what happened in that basement?

These were the thoughts that crowded in upon me as I watched Chanterelle waddle to the edge of the roof. I could see the stern, accusing faces, of my judge and jury. I could hear the awful thwack of the gavel as the twelve good persons and true entered with their verdict and order was called for. I could see myself, small, and trembling, and all alone in the dock as the verdict came in:

Guilty as charged, your Honour!

Chanterelle! Please don’t. I cried, hurrying after her. Chanterelle, can’t we talk about this? Please!

Perhaps she genuinely didn’t hear me.