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Beede never locked the door which separated his and Kane’s living areas. To do so would’ve shown a complete lack of faith in his son (and, by default, in his own parenting abilities). This decision ‘not to lock’ was primarily self-serving (Kane’s feelings – or probable lack of them – barely entered into the equation). Beede’s need to project himself as always open and accessible (a touching combination, say, of the old-fashioned Corner Shop – with their lofty code of personal service – and the modern, ruthless, all-nite Cash & Carry) was fundamental to his inalienable sense of the kind of father he wanted to be (or to appear to be, since in his mind these two notions were virtually interchangeable).

To boil it all down (which might take a while – there was plenty of old meat, hard lessons and human frailty in this particular broth), Beede was wildly cynical about the functions of paternity.

Was it Freud or Sophocles (Beede sometimes wondered) who first came up with the theory that all any little boy ever really wanted was to kill the father (strictly in the symbolic sense, of course)? Whoever ultimately took the credit for it (Ah, he could see them both now, queuing up at the Paradisical Counter of Philosophical Legitimacy: Sophocles slightly forward, a picture of genial equanimity; Freud, further back, but still scaring the living shit out of everybody), Beede definitely thought that they were on to something.

Although in Kane’s particular case, his sheer indifference to his father (wasn’t indifference a kind of murder, anyway? A death of care? Of interest?) was so strong, so marked, that to raise his hand against him – even figuratively – would’ve demanded just a tad too much energy. For Kane to actually get angry with Beede? Seriously? To take him on? To lose his rag?! You might as well ask a tropical fish to murder a robin (it simply wasn’t feasible. It couldn’t happen).

In bald truth, Beede’s studious attempts to present himself as unfailingly approachable to his son were all just so much baloney. He actively avoided him – consciously, unconsciously – at almost every available opportunity. But by being so unremittingly there for him (in the formal sense, at least) he cleverly thwacked the leaden ball of familial responsibility squarely back into Kane’s court again (Kane was still young. He could take the burden. And it might actually be good for him to feel like something was wrong – or lacking – or missing – like he’d unintentionally fucked up in some way).

When it came to his door (its locking or otherwise), Beede honestly felt like he had nothing to hide. He almost believed himself transparent (like one of those minuscule but fascinating single-cell creatures which loves to hang around in pools of stagnant water), so certain was he of his own moral probity.

Of course everybody has something a little private about them (and Beede was no exception), but his firm apprehension was that once you started hiding things – once you got all sneaky and furtive – you automatically gave potential intruders the impetus to start hunting seriously. And that, he felt, would be a most unwelcome eventuality.

Visitors were rare, anyway. Kane was usually working (or partying) or crashed out. He didn’t deal from home (oh come on). And nobody who knew Beede properly would ever consider turning up uninvited (he was a busy man. An ‘impromptu’ impulse was pretty much on a par – in his eyes – with spitting or extreme flatulence).

Even Kane kept his distance. Beede had the only kitchen in the property (open-plan – the wall had come down in 1971; his last ever concession to what he liked to call ‘the modern malaise of interior renovation’), but Kane didn’t cook, so that wasn’t a problem (he had a kettle and a microwave gathering dust on his landing). Beede had a shower and a toilet (so spartan in aspect that they resembled something dreamed up by an over-zealous BBC props department for a gruelling drama about a Japanese prisoner of war camp) while Kane had a bath (which he absolutely luxuriated in), a toilet and a bidet. If they ever met or spoke, it was usually in the hallway, or at an appointed hour, at a preferred table, in a nearby cafe.

Imagine Beede’s surprise, then, on returning home (after his protracted interlude with Isidore), to discover two recalcitrant curs snarling on the stairway, Kane – fast asleep – on his sofa (a saucer containing several cigarette stubs balanced precariously on the arm; Beede quickly removed it, with a tut), and a shirtless Kurd (with a blood-stained hanky tied clumsily around the fleshy area just below his elbow) sitting quietly upon an adjacent chair.

The washing machine was half-way through its cycle. The Kurd was peacefully occupied in playing some kind of dice game on Beede’s reading table (all of his books now piled up, neatly, on the floor nearby). He was throwing two dice from a Tupperware beaker (the beaker into which Beede liked to drain off excess meat-fat from his roasting dish. It had a lid, usually, to keep the contents airtight. Beede had no idea where that lid had got to. The beaker had served him faithfully in this lone capacity since 1983. It must’ve been in a state of severe trauma).

‘Good afternoon,’ Beede said, quickly disposing of the tarnished saucer and then dumping his bag down on the kitchen counter. The Kurd nodded briskly, picked up a pencil (Beede’s pencil) and scribbled some figures on to a piece of paper (the back of Beede’s water bill). Beede scowled. While he knew that it was unfair of him to blame the Kurd for Kane’s apparent breach, he immediately took against him. ‘I’m Daniel Beede,’ he said curtly, ‘and this is my home.’

‘Gaffar Celik,’ the Kurd muttered, barely even glancing up, ‘and this is not my home; a fact I’m sure you’ll soon be only too keen to acquaint me with, eh?’

‘I speak a small Turkish,’ Beede answered, nonchalantly, taking off his jacket and hanging it up on the hook behind the door, ‘from my time of the navy. You offend my pride with this words.’

Gaffar winced, pantomimically, at his accent. ‘Ever considered taking evening classes?’

‘Yes,’ Beede back-handed, ‘that is why we are conversation. So what’s your excuse, Mr Celik?’

Yip!’ Gaffar exclaimed, making as if to duck a punch, then rapidly drawing both fists to his chin (in readiness for some kind of counter-attack).

‘Watch out,’ Beede smiled, drawing up his own fists in a similar fashion, ‘I was South-East Kent Boys Boxing Champion, 1956–1961.’

Wha?! You’re a fighter, old man?’

Gaffar was visibly moved by this information.

‘Yes. I used to be. In very far-back distance. And less of the old, thank you very much.’

‘I boxer,’ Gaffar announced proudly, ‘and trust me, I would’ve severely pulped your spotty, teenage arse back in ‘61.’

‘Oh, really?’

‘Yes. In my country I’m a celebrityfamous, eh? – for my amazing talents as a featherweight.’

Beede appeared to take this bold personal declaration in his stride. ‘Unfortunately the time-space continuum prevents us from categorically establishing the better man between us,’ he murmured dryly, ‘but I take you at you speak, eh?’

‘Let’s roll for it, Greybeard,’ Gaffar was smiling, ‘I’ll even give you a head start, as a mark of your seniority.

He removed a pound coin from his pocket and slammed it down, flamboyantly, on to the table.

Beede had no intention of playing dice. He hated all games (developed this deep antipathy during his long years in the navy). To Beede, game-playing was like aimlessly treading water in the fast-running Stream of Mortality; far better – he felt – to swim hard against the current, or to drown – spent and exhausted – in the attempt.

‘Did that Tupperware pot have a lid when you found it?’ he enquired. ‘Huh?

‘Lid,’ Beede pointed and then performed a small mime.

Ah,’ Gaffar finally understood him and shook his head. ‘Uh-uh.’

‘Oh dear.’

‘No problem,’ Gaffar shrugged, ‘we don’t need one to play Par. Or Pachen, if you prefer.’

‘I suppose not…’ Beede was mournful. He peered balefully over the back of the sofa at Kane (as if hoping to find the lid protruding from one of his pockets; perhaps jutting out neatly from between his buttocks) then glanced up again. ‘So have you been here long, Gaffar?’

‘Twenty-eight months.’

‘No, I mean in this rooms.’

Gaffar inspected his watchless wrist. ‘One hour.’

‘I see.’

Gaffar vigorously rubbed his hand up and down on the goose-bumping flesh of his uninjured arm. ‘Your friend’s purple-haired whore broke her leg,’ he explained, amiably. ‘She fell off the wall outside. I was helping her – I have a special genius for massage…’

He pummelled the air, theatrically.

‘Good God…’ Beede was naturally alarmed by this news. ‘She fell off the wall? Outside? Was it a bad break?’

Gaffar calmly ignored his questions. ‘Then heuhKane,’ he continued, nodding angrily towards the offending individual, ‘suddenly turned up from out of nowhere and threw hot coffee all over me. Smashed my Thermos. Ruined my shirt. Got me the sack. And the girl – whose leg was in a pretty bad wayuh…’ he paused, ruminatively, ‘Kelly. That her name…she went off in an ambulance. Which was when,’ he continued, ‘he kindly invited me inside and let the dogs maul me…’

He pointed at the handkerchief on his arm.

Ah…’ Beede suddenly caught on. He smirked. ‘So would that be Pachen with bluffs you’re playing there?’

Gaffar stared at him, blankly.

‘No bluff,’ he finally murmured, hurt.

While Beede wasn’t entirely convinced by the accuracy of this stranger’s report, he was impressed, nonetheless, by his good bearing and air of self-containment.

‘I’m afraid Kane is my son,’ he mused quietly, almost regretfully. Gaffar’s dark brows rose, but he didn’t respond.

‘I am his father, yes?’ Beede persisted (like a rookie attending his first AA meeting; determined to confess everything).

The penny suddenly dropped.

‘What?’ Gaffar pointed accusingly towards the oblivious Kane. ‘This big, fat, useless Yank is your seed?’

Beede nodded. ‘Cruel, isn’t it?’

Gaffar cackled, ‘Well your arrival home was timely. I was just planning to fleece him.’

‘Then you would’ve fleeced me,’ Beede declared, almost without rancour, ‘because this is my flat. Kane lives upstairs.’

He pointed towards the ceiling.

As he spoke the washing machine clicked quietly on to its spin cycle.

Gaffar grinned, slammed down the Tupperware beaker (in brazen challenge), pulled a nearby stool closer and patted its seat, enticingly. ‘Then let’s settle this the traditional way, Old Champion,’ he wheedled. ‘Come. Come and join me. Let’s play.’

Kane slept for three hours. When he finally awoke he found himself in his father’s flat, curled up on the sofa (covered in a blanket: Beede’s clean but ancient MacIntosh tartan, which had been so neatly and regularly darned over the years that the restoration work constituted more than a third of its total thread content).

The air was moist and scented (Gaffar had partaken of a shower – eschewing Beede’s carbolic soap in favour of Ecover camomile and marigold washing-up liquid). There was some kind of tangy, tomato-based concoction bubbling away on the stove.

Kane blinked, dopily, as Gaffar emerged from the bathroom in an expensive – if slightly over-sized – Yves Saint Laurent suit.

He struggled to remember the exact course of events which had led him here –

Three Percodan

Seven joints

Half bottle Tequila…

His mouth was dry –

Dry

His stomach hurt. He shook his head. He cleared his throat. He inspected Gaffar more closely (his hands flailing around to locate his cigarette packet). Who was this man, again?

‘Ah, you’re awake. I just lifted £200 off your father,’ the Kurd informed him, chirpily. ‘Father,’ he quickly repeated. ‘Beede, eh?’

Kane sat up, alarmed. ‘Is Beede here?’

The Kurd nodded. ‘Now there’s an intelligent individual. Very generous. Very hospitable…’ Gaffar expectorated, then swallowed, then blinked and swallowed again. ‘But a miserable gambler…’ He shook his finger at Kane, warningly. ‘Never, ever let the old man gamble with me again, eh?’

‘The bathroom?’ Kane rapidly threw off the blanket, still panicked. ‘Is he in the bathroom?’

‘No,’ Gaffar shook his head as he strolled into the kitchen. ‘He – uhwork. He go. From…’ he shrugged, ‘half-hour.’

Jesus.

Kane closed his eyes for a moment, in relief. ‘Thank fuck.

Gaffar frowned, then abruptly stopped frowning as he peered into the bubbling pan on the stove.

‘So did you explain about the dogs?’

Kane’s eyes were open again.

Huh?’ Gaffar tested the edible medley (a large tin of Heinz baked beans with chipolatas). He winced –

Hot

– then sucked his teeth –

Too salty

How the English loved their salt.

‘The dogs? The…uh…Woof! On the stair,’ Kane valiantly continued, observing a cigarette-packet-shaped object in Gaffar’s suit pocket. ‘Did he see? Did you explain about Kelly?’

Gaffar half-smiled as he returned to the living area. ‘Yes I do,’ he said, with exactly the level of conviction most calculated to fill Kane with doubt. And then, ‘Woof!’ he mimicked, satirically (with a huge grin), in a way that (Kane presumed) might be considered ‘cute’ in whichever godforsaken part of the planet he originally hailed from –

But not here

Kane rubbed his face with his hands (he was finding the Kurd rather exhausting). ‘Would you get me some water?’ He mimed turning on a tap, holding a glass under.

Gaffar did as he was asked. He was accustomed to following orders. There was a kind of dignity in submission which the quiet ox inside of him took an almost active pleasure in.

‘Thanks.’

As Kane drank he assessed Gaffar’s suit.

‘Nice suit…’ He exhaled sharply as he spoke, then burped and wiped his mouth with his hand.

Gaffar nodded.

‘Where’s it from?’

‘Beede.’

Kane blinked. ‘No way.’

‘Yes.’

‘No,’ Kane reiterated firmly. ‘Beede would never own a suit like that. It looks foreign, for starters, and he religiously supports the British Wool Trade…’

Gaffar scowled. ‘He give to me. Beede. In exchange for his losses, yeah?’

‘What is it?’ Kane casually flipped open one of the front jacket flaps (feeling the seductive, semi-hollow crackle of his Marlboro packet through the lining). Gaffar immediately slapped it shut.

‘Yves Saint Laurent,’ he announced, haughtily.

‘Not a chance, man,’ Kane snorted. ‘It’s gotta be knock-off.’

Gaffar (rising like a pike to the bait) shrugged the jacket from his shoulders and showed Kane the label.

Wow.’ Kane perused the label at his leisure (it looked legitimate), while casually slipping his free hand into the pocket and removing his cigarettes. ‘So there you go, huh?’

‘So there you go,’ Gaffar echoed, scowling, as Kane tapped out a smoke and flipped it into his mouth.

He pulled the jacket back on (wincing slightly as it snagged on his neatly re-bandaged arm). Kane relaxed down into the sofa again (matches? Lighter?), his expression one of tolerant bemusement. As he leaned he felt something crumple behind him. He shoved his hand under the blanket and withdrew a large, slightly dented brown envelope. He stared at it for a while, frowning.

Gaffar, meanwhile, had returned to the kitchen and was dishing himself up a large bowlful of beans. In the bread-bin he’d located a half-used wholemeal loaf from which he’d already torn a sizeable portion. He balanced the bread on top of the beans and carried the bowl over to Beede’s desk, placing it down, carefully, on to the battered, leather veneer and taking off his jacket (hanging it over the back of the adjacent chair).

He sat down and began to eat, employing the bread as a makeshift scoop. Several mouthfuls in, he noticed a large World Atlas on a bookshelf close by, hauled it out, one-handed, opened it, and began casually paging through the maps.

Kane watched Gaffar for a while, patting away – like a zombie – at his pockets (impressed by the Kurd’s apparent ability to make himself feel at home). The suit (Kane wryly observed) gave Gaffar the furtive air of a man struggling to pass himself off as Minister of Sport – or Information, or the Arts – in a tin-pot military dictatorship (somewhere much too hot) after his brother, Sergio (the ambitious, pissed-up lieutenant), had shot the bastard general and promptly stepped into his highly polished, size eleven lace-ups –

Ah yes

The whole tragic socio-political edifice was currently hanging – like a badly mounted stuffed elk – on Gaffar’s family resemblance, terror, and the faultless cut of his Yves Saint Laurent.

Sergio?

Man

What am I on?!

He finally located a box of matches (tucked down the side of the sofa), lit his cigarette and returned his full attention back to the brown envelope. He inspected the seal –

Not glued, just

He kept his smoke dangling loosely from his lip as he popped out the flap. He peered inside – inhaled – and saw a thickish sheath of photocopied papers. He exhaled –

Hmmn

– and gently removed them.

It was a very old book – forty pages long – badly reproduced and slightly blurry (although the frontispiece was in bolder type and so marginally more legible than the rest). It was written in Old English –

Well, old-ish…

Some (but not all) of the ‘s’s were ‘f’s.

SCOGIN’S JESTS;

he read:

Full of witty Mirth and pleafant Shifts;

done by him in FRANCE

and other places.

BEING

A Prefervative against Melancholy.

Then underneath that:

Gathered by Andrew Board, Doctor of Phyfick.

This was followed by a whole ream of publishing guff.

Kane casually opened to the first page. He stiffened. On the blank, inner leaf, in pencil, somebody had written: –

So Beede –

There’s a whole series of these things (one for each of the various monarchs’ funny-men, although I didn’t get a chance to look at any of the others). Apparently there was quite a vogue for them in the 1600s (and for several hundred years after that – I saw at least two editions of this one – the earlier called Scoggin’s Jests by an Andrew Boord – 1626 – and this one, in which the spelling’s more familiar, from 1796 – that’s a 170-year gap!), indicating how popular these guys actually were (plus: note the celebrity publisher…)

Kane returned to the front page again: –

Printed for W. Thackeray at the Angel in Duck Lane, near Weft-Smithfield, and J. Deason at the Angel in Gilt-Spur-Street.

He stared at this, blankly, for a while, removing his cigarette from his mouth (looking around for an ashtray, but not finding one, so tapping off the ash on to the knee of his jeans and patting it into the fabric), then turned back to the inside leaf and picked up where he’d left off: –

The information enclosed isn’t considered especially reliable, though. This book was written years after John Scogin’s death. Much of it will be based on either legend or hearsay (would’ve been considered ‘tabloid’, even at the time of its publication).

The actual story of his life (and a critique of Andrew Board, this book’s compiler, who seems like a rather dodgy character – ‘physician to Henry VIII’, apparently) features in R.H. Hill’s Tales of the Jesters, 1934 (and I wouldn’t have a clue what his sources were), but – believe it or not – the text was registered unavailable (read as ‘some miserable bastard stole it’).

The librarian in the Antiquarian Books Section (who was actually quite chatty) sent me to go and see some journalist called Tom Benson who happened to be in the library on that day and in possession of an associated text called A Nest of Ninnies by Robert Armin (He’s writing a book about comedy and is very interested in jesters’, she said).

I tracked him down to the Music Section. He was a little hostile at first (you know how territorial these people can be), but after a brief conversation he admitted that he actually had his very own copy of Tales of the Jesters at home which he’d ‘found’ in a second-hand bookshop in Rye (this might’ve just been sheer bravura on his part – that whole ‘journalists v academics’ hornets’ nest. Or maybe not).

The last section (in brackets) had been hurriedly crossed out.

Anyhow,

Kane continued reading:

I asked if I might borrow it some time (or even just make a copy of the relevant chapters) but he got a little prickly at this point and said he was still in the middle of using it, but that he would definitely call me when he was done ( I gave him my number, although I won’t be holding my breath). Then he told me some stuff over coffee (I bought the Madeira cake – it was a little dry) which you might find interesting. Will inform you in person.

The quality of the copy is poor (at best). This is because it was reproduced from a microfile. But I think you’ll get the basic gist…

W.

PS If you need anything else – anything at all – you know you can always reach me on my mobile…

A number followed.

Kane cocked his head for a while – as if deep in thought – his eye returning, repeatedly, to the phrase ‘I bought the Madeira cake – it was a little dry,’ and then to the signature (‘W’).

Eventually – but somewhat hesitantly – he moved on to the text, proper. ‘W’ was right: the quality of the copy was very poor. And it was written in an ornate typescript (real migraine territory), which made the letters look like so many black ants dancing a woozy conga. After several minutes he succeeded in battling his way through The Prologue (his eye lingering, for a while, on a small rhyme at the bottom of the page): –

I Have heard fay that Scogin did come of an honeft ftock, no kindred, and his friends did fet him to fchool at Oxford, where he did continue until the time he was made Mafter of Art,

where he made this jeft,

A Master of Art is not worth a fart, Except he be in Schools,

A Batchelour of Law, is not worth a Straw, Except he be among fools.

Kane’s brows rose slightly. He closed the manuscript and reopened the envelope. He peered inside, then smiled and shoved in his hand, pulling out another (smaller) sheet of paper which he hadn’t noticed there before. This was a receipt from The British Library, and detailed the costs of the photocopying. At the bottom of the receipt he observed – with a small start – the credit card details of one Winifred Shilling –

I knew it

The fucking Madeira cake –

Damn her

‘Why?’

Kane jerked out of his reverie. Gaffar had twisted around on his chair and was now staring at him, quizzically.

‘Sorry?’

Kane hurriedly shoved the manuscript and the receipt back into the envelope, licking the seal this time and pressing it shut.

‘A look of thunder,’ Gaffar exclaimed, helpfully providing both vocal (and visual) dramatisation of his words.

Oh…’ Kane’s face rapidly showcased a disparate mish-mash of emotions (Picasso’s cubist masterpiece Woman Crying seemed like traditional portraiture by comparison). He struggled to get a handle on the play of his features. ‘It’s…uh…nothing,’ he almost ticked.

‘Okay.’ Gaffar nodded (registering Kane’s inner turmoil, but taking it all with a pinch of salt: I mean, how hard could life be for this spoiled, flabby, Western pup?).

‘I lost something,’ Kane muttered, suddenly pulling himself to his feet (his hair falling across his face), ‘that’s all.’ He glanced around him (through the lank mop of his fringe), not entirely certain what he was searching for –

Beede?

‘Is lid?’ Gaffar asked patiently, a small chipolata suspended delicately between his mouth and his bowl.

‘Pardon?’

‘Lid?’ Gaffar indicated towards the Tupperware beaker on Beede’s reading table.

Lid?’ Kane stared at the beaker, frowning.

‘Ah, fuck it…English,’ Gaffar murmured, turning back – resignedly – to his meal.

Kane placed the brown envelope onto Beede’s reading table (next to the contentious item of Tupperware), carefully balanced his cigarette there – its smouldering tip suspended over the carpet – and then kneeled down to inspect his pile of books. If there was one thing he could be certain of: Beede’s books would speak (a-hem) volumes…

On top of the pile (and it was a large pile) was what Kane – smilingly – took to be a real ‘Beede classic’: Derek Johnson’s Essex Curiosities; Hardback. 1973. He picked it up and opened to the front flap –

Ah yes

‘A representative collection of the old, curious and interesting objects that abound in Essex…for all those who cherish the heritage of the past and wish to preserve it for the future.’

Lovely

Kane put the book aside, with a grin.

Next up –

Ha!

Victor Papanek’s Design for the Real World.

Brilliant!

Inside flap:

Ta-dah!

‘A startling and constructive blueprint for human survival by a professional designer who accuses the Industrial design “establishment” of mass negligence.’

(Oh God. The word ‘establishment’ stuck into those two, accusing little inverted commas…How right! How po-faced! How deliciously sanctimonious! How typically fucking Beede.) Kane sniggered, furtively, then laid the volume down, almost fondly, turning – for a brief moment – to take a quick puff on his cigarette –

Okay, okay…

He deftly returned his cigarette to its former position –

Soooo…

Third in the pile, a very new-looking paperback called –

What?!

The Yoga of Breath: A Step-by-step Guide to Pranayama by Richard Rosen.

No

Kane picked up the book and stared at it, scowling (as if the mere force of his disapproval – and incomprehension – might make it disappear. But it didn’t. It remained a steady weight in his hand; a neat 3lb tome of ridiculously incongruous NewAge hokum).

He slowly shook his head as he flipped it over and speed-read the sales pitch –

Blah blah…life energy…

Blah blah…self-transformation

Blah blah…breath and body awareness

Nuh-uh!

Beede? Reading a book about yoga? It made absolutely no sense (this strangely fashioned block simply wouldn’t fit inside the box of traditional shapes Kane had painstakingly carved out for his father). He cast the book aside, hissing under his breath. It was a red herring. A blip. Some ditsy woman at work had loaned it to him – or that damn chiropodist with her stupid verrucas –

Hysterical?

Yeah

Ha bloody ha

The next book in the pile was larger and more traditional. Kane grabbed it –

Oh yes…

That was better: a thick, smart paperback (with illustrations) called A History of Private Life: Revelations of the Medieval World. He opened it, randomly, to a black and white reproduction of a small painting of a hairy youth (naked) from the fifteenth century, under which was written: ‘The bear showed great affection for the child and suckled it for an entire year. Because of this feeding the child became as hairy as a wild beast and ate raw meat: Valentin et Orson.

For some arcane reason Kane felt strangely comforted by this caption (something – however weird – translated from Latin. That was him, that was Beede: obscure, marginal, bookish, inaccessible…).

He sneered (feeling the comforting re-emergence of all his former prejudices), and turned back a few pages, his eye randomly settling on a small sub-heading entitled, ‘The Frantic Search for the Father’. He started, slapped the book shut, and threw it down.

Paranoia

He closed his eyes (pushing back a sudden panic –

Push

Push)

– swallowed hard and tried to focus his mind again –

Tramadol

Yes

He imagined a small blister-pack in his pocket, rested an illusory hand upon it, heard the neat click and the tiny rattle –

Ahhh

It worked just like magic.

Righty-ho…

Next up: three neat paperbacks, all by the same author: a Dutchman called Johan Huizinga. These had been exceptionally well-thumbed (even by Beede’s standards – and he was nothing if not thorough). The first was entitled The Waning of the Middle Ages (a historical classic, it claimed on the back). Numerous pages had been turned over at their corners (approaching a third of the total), and there was still one of Beede’s red pencils jammed rudely inside it (Beede liked to underline relevant words and sentences as he read – a strange quality in someone usually so circumspect – showing very little respect, Kane always felt, for the integrity – and binding – of a book).

He opened the text to its pencil marker and read (underlined with great zeal): ‘So violent and motley was life that it bore the mixed smell of blood and roses.’ ‘Smell’ had been circled and then asterisked. Underneath that: ‘After the close of the Middle Ages the mortal sins of pride, anger and covetousness have never again shown the unabashed insolence with which they manifested themselves in the life of preceding centuries.’

Next to this, in the margin, in block capitals, Beede had written: ‘UNTIL NOW!’

Kane shut the book with a snort. His search became more impatient.

Another Huizinga book: Men and Ideas: History, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, was tossed on to the floor, followed by – uh – Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture

Eh?!

– with its lovely cover (red and black, the kind of graphics favoured by the best casinos in 1950s Vegas). Sample quote: ‘The human mind can only disengage itself from the magic circle of play by turning towards the ultimate.’

Wha?!

He sniffed. This was getting him nowhere, but that was okay, because it was pretty much where he wanted to be…

Right

A.R. Myers, England in the Late Middle Ages; Mary Clive, This Sun of York: A Biography of Edward IV; Joseph and Frances Gies, Life in a Medieval Castle

Hmmn…

Was there some kind of theme emerging here? Kane frowned. It was a little strange, perhaps – this intense level of focus on such a particular time-frame – but –

Aw heck!

– the history he could take. It was bone-dry, like Beede. The history made sense to him. It was old and silly and wonderfully unthreatening. It didn’t shock or unsettle or confound. It was dead. It was done. It was after.

Phew

Next up –

Ay ay

Shakespeare: The Complete Plays (markers in all of the Henries and Richard III), followed – hard-upon – by another ridiculously hefty volume: John Ayto’s Dictionary of Word Origins. Kane lugged it aside, with a small grunt, boredly. Under that, Robert Burchfield’s far more svelte and shapely The English Language. He flipped it over and ran his eye across a brief spiel on the back about how the mother tongue was so ‘resilient’ and so ‘flexible’…

‘The English Language is like a fleet of juggernaut trucks,’ he read, somewhat perplexedly, ‘that goes on regardless.’

Really?!

Well, uh…Okay…

Under that –

C’mon, c’mon…

– a hardback: Art of the Late Middle Ages (purchased from Abebooks.com – the invoice shoved inside – from its original source of Multnomah County Library – at £29.50 – with shipping) –

Huh?!

Beede buying books on the internet?! Kane gently yuck-yucked – Is this an end to the world as we know it?

In this particular instance the front flap had been employed as a marker within the belly of the text. Kane opened the book to this place, casually. He inhaled sharply as his eyes alighted upon the stark, photographic reproduction of a sculpture entitled Death Disguised as a Monk. The sculpture consisted of an eerily animated skeleton – in wood, exquisitely carved – the bony skull and arms of which peeked out, ominously, from the sumptuous folds of a monk’s cowl. Its expression was at once delirious – the gaping smile, the hollow eyes, the pointing finger – and…and poignant, somehow.

As he held the book several more pages flipped over, revealing a small, black and white illustration of a woodcut (1493) in which a group of skeletons performed a macabre jig over an open grave. Next to this image, in Beede’s characteristic red pencil (that creepy, teacher-y, bloody pencil), he had written:

‘DEATH –

He said it was a dance.’

Burning

Kane sniffed, then frowned, then shook his head –

Don’t be ridiculous

He put the book down. He was at the bottom of the pile, now, with only one volume remaining:

The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology by Russell Hope Robbins.

Kane picked it up. It was a heavy tome (old, hardback, the fine cover preserved in plastic). He looked for a book-mark and found one (of sorts), pulling it out as he turned to the spot. It was a business card for a company called Petaborough Restorations (no address, just a number). On the back of thecard, in very shaky writing, Kane read: ‘Peter’s exactly what you need (Did an absolutely superb job on Longport for the Weald and Downland Museum). J.P.’

Kane gazed at this card for a minute, half-frowning, then casually pocketed it.

Good

He glanced down at the text. He found himself in the segment entitled ‘Possession’. It consisted – in the main – of a series of lists. His eye settled, arbitrarily, upon one of them: a treatise (Rouen, 1644) which detailed the eleven main indications of true possession. Next to each item on this list Beede had inserted a series of tiny, red marks. Item One: ‘To think oneself possessed’ carried a minute question mark. Item Two: ‘To lead a wicked life’ had a minuscule cross –

etc

Point Nine: ‘To be tired of living [s’ennuyer de vivre et se désespérer]’ had been strongly underlined –

Burning

Kane sneezed, hard, as he slapped the book shut (a sudden interest in the wonders of Satanism? Well this was definitely a turn up). He blinked, winced, inhaled…

No. No. Hang on – it was burning. For sure. He quickly glanced behind him –

Shit!

A cat! A fucking Siamese cat. Just standing there, its blue eyes boring into him, unblinking, its grey tail twisting up like a plume of smoke. He looked down and saw his Marlboro burning a hole in the rug. The cat lifted its head and then coughed (with just a touch of fastidiousness).

Fuck!

Kane lunged for the cigarette. The cat pranced away. Gaffar jumped up, with a hiss (Gaffar hated cats).

‘You bastard!’ Kane yelled, snatching up the still-red-embered stub and observing – much to his horror – the ugly, black hole in Beede’s Moroccan rug.

‘Shit, shit, shit.

Beede loved his rug. Kane thought of it as Moroccan, but it celebrated – in words and pictures – some kind of crazy, phallic-shaped public monument in Afghanistan, surrounded by tiny planes (which looked like birds) with MINARET OF FIAM written on the periphery, semi-back-to-front. It was a ridiculous object. Kane remembered it – almost fondly – from his boyhood –

No

Perhaps that’s a false memory

Gaffar had already bounded over. He was staring down at the spot in dismay. He seemed to instinctively appreciate that this unsightly burn was a big deal for Kane (and Kane instinctively appreciated his awareness of this fact).

‘Smoking could seriously damage your health,’ Gaffar announced portentously, his accent almost cut-glass.

‘You’re not wrong there,’ Kane murmured despairingly. ‘Beede loves this stupid rug.’

‘He go crazy?’ Gaffar enquired.

‘No,’ Kane shook his head. ‘Not crazy. It’ll simply…uh…it’ll confirm something…’ He paused, then gave up. ‘Yeah, absolutely fucking psychotic,’ he muttered.

‘Leave,’ Gaffar said. ‘I do. Go!

He waved Kane away.

Kane glanced over at him, almost poignantly. ‘You think you can fix this?’

Gaffar nodded. ‘Turkish.’ He pointed to himself, as if that was explanation enough.

Really?

Gaffar nodded. ‘My mother, my grandmother, my great-grandmother,’ he lied, effortlessly, ‘all sweated blood over the carpet looms of Diyarbakir.

‘So you know about rugs? You think you can sort this out for me?’ Gaffar nodded again. ‘Leave,’ he ordered, ‘I am mend.’

Kane stood up just in time to observe the troublesome Siamese jumping lightly on to the kitchen counter. He glowered at it. ‘I can’t believe Beede’s got himself a cat,’ he murmured, taking a speculative step towards it, ‘and a fucking pedigree at that. Beede hates domestic animals. Cats especially…’

He paused. ‘At least…’ He frowned, his voice petering out.

Gaffar hissed. The cat flattened its ears in response. Gaffar picked up Beede’s Tupperware beaker and lobbed it at the cat. He scored a direct hit. He whooped. The cat kicked off the counter – its hackles up – and dashed, full pelt, into the sanctuary of Beede’s bedroom.

Kane rapidly shot after it, across the living-room, through the kitchen, but then faltered – like a mime suddenly hitting an invisible wall –

Bang!

– just on the cusp of entry.

I mean Beede’s bedroom…? His monkish cloister? His inner sanctum? His lair?

Beede’s bedroom? Was nothing sacred?

Kane drew a long, deep breath (steeling his resolve; throwing back his shoulders, sticking up his chin and squinting; like a heroic Sir Edmund Hillary trapped inside a damnable snowstorm), then entered, boldly, on the exhale.

Darkmans

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