Читать книгу Behindlings - Nicola Barker - Страница 8

The beautiful yet unspeakably wronged Katherine Turpin lived in a bungalow just off the Furtherwick Road; a prime, centrally located Canvey address which conveniently situated the property at an exact halfway point between the town centre and the beachfront. Ted might easily have shared these salient details with Wesley as they covered the short distance together –on foot –between the agency and the address, yet for some reason he refrained from doing so.

In fact he failed to communicate even the most perfunctory of observations during their journey (no mention of the weather –it was foggy but still dry –no reference to the purported length of Wesley’s stay –as yet, indeterminate –no discussion as to the quality of local amenities –uniformly high) preferring, instead, to maintain an unswervingly ruminative silence.

Wesley tried his utmost to breach it, but to no avail. Twice he reiterated a rather tedious enquiry about the opening hours of the local library and its location relative to the property under scrutiny. Twice his question was left hovering in the air like an undernourished kestrel hopelessly scouring the scant grass of a busy central reservation whilst being perilously buffeted by speeding heavy goods vehicles.

This relentless taciturnity was in no way intended to imply either indifference or any want of geniality on Ted’s part. He certainly meant no harm by it. He was simply in a temporary state of absolute moral panic. His mind was unsuccessfully engaged in a pitiful attempt to comprehend the various pernicious ethical permutations of his present situation: the countless obligations and commitments inherent in his role, his duty, as the honourable curator, the careful doorman, the kindly overseer of Katherine Turpin’s home.

But even while his mind strove to consider the endless tortuous ramifications of his present inadvisable course of action, he still managed to maintain an image of external composure by dint of persistently jangling a huge bunch of house keys in his free hand, and feeling –if only briefly –just slightly comforted by their hair-raisingly discordant metallic clatter (the other hand, meanwhile, supported a very snappy, imitation crocodile-skin briefcase, containing, Wesley suspected –and correctly –nothing more than Ted’s driving licence, a free handout about a carpet sale and two back copies of The Southend Gazette).

Perhaps, Ted pondered anxiously, this infamous Wesley truly was a bad man? But who the hell am I to judge? he countered modestly, shooting a sneaky sideways glance at him. Wesley did not have an especially bad face. His profile (already scarred –perhaps permanently –by the ongoing assault on his delicate senses from Ted’s relentless key-shaking) was nevertheless reassuringly unhawkish, his skin unpocked, his eyes unhooded. He seemed at once friendly and unaffected but hearteningly reined-in. He was surely no wild man.

Clever? Possibly. Smart? Never. Physically speaking he bordered on the unkempt. He was rangy and casual in his old, olive green corduroy trousers (so well-scuffed at the knee that the fabric’s corrugated indentations had been smoothed clean away), a terrifyingly plain –in Ted’s eyes –brown, roundnecked lambswool jumper, with a cheap, scruffy, tweed jacket thrown over the top.

Each of his pockets was ridiculously full. They bulged, uniformly, reminding Ted –in essence –of his old school gerbil, a creature so dedicated to storage that the fullness of his pouches often rendered spells inside his compact mouse-house or runs on his exercise wheel an absolute inviability.

Wesley did not even wear walking boots (as Ted might quite reasonably have anticipated of a man in his line of business), but instead sported an exceedingly dirty pair of ancient black Hi-Tecs, the laces of which were knotted, frayed and extended to only two thirds of the available holes.

He was a sorry sight, Ted decided, but he did have a pleasingly round face: gappy teeth, snub nose, keen but bloodshot (and strangely unfocussed) anchovy-paste eyes. He needed a shave. He looked like he’d never troubled to brush his hair in his life. To the front it seemed fine, but at the back it stood up in a sleepy ridge like a misshapen muddy-brown tidal-wave.

A confident woman with a good vocabulary might easily have described his appearance as ‘tousled’, but Ted couldn’t really find it in himself to be quite so articulate or so forgiving. He sniffed. Wesley smelled of old milk, dirty dishcloths and tobacco. The fruity kind.

‘Will she be home by any chance?’ Wesley wondered out loud as they finally turned into the driveway (at this late stage hardly anticipating a reaction).

‘No,’ an active, genial presence suddenly re-ignited inside Ted’s eyes, ‘she works.’

Wesley started, glanced over briefly towards Ted’s newly-inhabited profile, then nodded. He felt almost relieved. He was finding some difficulty in recalling the exact details of what it was that he’d written about Katherine Turpin in the book –although there was one thing of which he was absolutely certain: whatever he’d said, it must’ve been necessary.

He had an unshakable confidence in the multifarious decisions made on his behalf by his former selves. How could a fundamentally decent and honourable man ever really seriously regret his past actions? How pointless would that be? How lily-livered? How inconsistent? How slack?

‘She works,’ Ted reiterated, ‘growing beansprouts on a farm. But only part-time. I have a key.’

‘A beansprout farm?’ Wesley smiled caustically. ‘How unique.’

Ted didn’t respond. But he was deeply perturbed by Wesley’s tone. Beansprouts? He pondered quietly, jangling his keys with a renewed determination. Beansprouts? Unique?

It was a pretty little property. A white bungalow, satisfyingly angular, with a small, friendly picket fence to the front, directly backed by a staunch and rather less welcoming row of well-tended shoulder-high evergreens. The garden was covered in a neat red-brick parquet. The overall effect was private, stately, and quite exquisitely anal.

‘Grand,’ Wesley said, peering around him intently. Ted stood on the doormat, struggling to locate the correct key. Wesley glanced behind them. The Old Man was following.

‘You went to school here in Canvey, Ted?’ Wesley asked.

Ted nodded, ‘Furtherwick Park School. We just walked past it.’

‘And what about her? What about Katherine?’ Ted finally selected a key. ‘Yes. But she was two whole years older.’

‘Two whole years?’ Wesley grinned. ‘Was she beautiful?’

‘Not exactly,’ Ted’s cheeks flushed a sharp bullfinch pink as he turned towards the door and shoved the key into the lock.

Wesley had teeth like a pony. Indomitable teeth. Very gappy. Very square. Very strong.

‘Did you have a crush on her?’

‘Everybody liked her,’ Ted mumbled, ‘if that’s what you’re getting at.’

Wesley chuckled and then half-nodded his concurrence, although this was patently not what he’d intended by it at all.

He looked behind him again. The boy-woman had joined Murdoch on the opposite pavement. They stood a distance apart. Murdoch was holding a pager. He was tapping into it with his large, slightly arthritic middle finger. Wesley scowled. It seemed improbable that Doc should’ve already made the Katherine Turpin connection…

But if he had? Wesley’s jaw stiffened at the thought. This possibility plainly jarred him.

Ted turned the lock, pushed the door, removed the key and entered.

‘By the way,’ he said, laboriously wiping his feet on a second doormat inside, ‘I hope you don’t have a problem with rodents.’

Wesley paused on the threshold and inhaled deeply. ‘Sawdust…’ he murmured, and then, just a fraction more quizzically, ‘brandy…?’

‘She keeps chinchillas,’ Ted explained, ‘in the lean-to behind the kitchen. I should’ve mentioned that back at the office.’

The bungalow’s interior belied the neatness of its exterior. Where outside all had been cleanliness and order, inside, all was mess and mayhem.

‘This woman is a slut,’ Wesley observed, stepping carefully over the doormat and calmly appraising the state of the hallway. ‘Perhaps you should’ve specified that back at the office.’

‘She’s an artist,’ Ted countered primly, slamming the door shut and then shoving a group of carrier bags up closer to the wall so that they could proceed unhindered. The bags clanked and tinkled. Wesley frowned. ‘What kind?’ he asked, bending over to peer inside one of them (it contained seven empty peach schnapps bottles). ‘A piss artist?’

Ted merely growled, but not fiercely. It was the subterranean grumble of an old labrador in the middle of having his toenails clipped: sullen, irritable, mutinous even, but nothing serious. He led Wesley through a half-stripped pine door and into the living room.

‘Jeepers,’ Wesley immediately exclaimed, pushing a thumb down the neck of his jumper and yanking it outwards, ‘it’s tropical in here.’

He rotated his head with a quite startling, hawk-like facility, ‘Does this woman have a different biological classification from the rest of us, Ted? Is she amphibian?’

Ted didn’t bother responding. Instead he busied himself plumping up a couple of pillows on the sofa, minutely adjusting the stained antique embroidered throw on a chair.

‘I’ll certainly be keeping my eyes peeled,’ Wesley continued, affecting an air of intense paranoia, ‘for any suspicious grey scales on the bathroom floor… reinforced glass walls…’ (he performed a dramatic trapped-forever-behind-a-glass-wall mime), ‘those pathetic part-digested insect husks… the give-away imitation jungle-look paper back-drop…’

Ted carefully placed the second pillow back down onto the sofa. ‘Underfloor heating,’ he acquiesced stiffly. ‘Costly to run but extremely effective.’

‘Wow,’ Wesley crouched down and touched one of the shiny black tiles with his fingers. It was warm. He kicked off his trainers and planted his stockinged feet firmly onto the floor.

‘Oh I like it,’ he said, ‘this is wonderful. My toes have been numb since the New Year. I took a quick dip off Camber Sands for a bet. The sea was absolutely fucking freezing.’

‘Your socks are steaming,’ Ted frowned fastidiously.

‘Damp,’ Wesley smiled, moving around a little and enjoying the dark prints his feet elicited. While Ted watched on, he silently heel-toed a design onto the floor. A bad circle. A lop-sided splodge.

‘So if that’s Canvey,’ he indicated towards the shape with a wide gesture of his arm, ‘North… South… East… where would you say we are now, exactly?’

‘Uh…’ Ted walked to the southern-most tip, then marginally to the east of it, ‘about there,’ he said, ‘approximately.’

‘Where?’

Ted crouched down. ‘About…’ he pointed, ‘although the industrial headland actually forms a slightly more exaggerated…’

He looked up. Wesley was no longer paying him any attention. He was peering around the room, absorbedly.

It was a large room; hot, yet airy. There was a bay window to the front swathed in heavy nets, but what remained of the watery Canvey sun still glimmered through in fine, silvery trickles. The room was crammed with stuff in industrial quantities. Every available surface was covered in practical detritus: glue, wire, beads, bags of sand…

Behind a huge, ancient, tiger-skin draped sofa (the big cat with its whole head still intact, eyes, teeth, everything) stood a workbench covered in a large mound of yellow-white, fibrous objects. Wesley moved towards them, ‘What are these?’

Ted clambered to his feet again.

‘Stones.’

Wesley picked one up. It was the approximate size and weight of a large mouse after a steam-rollering accident.

‘From a mango,’ Ted expanded, ‘the furry stone from the middle of a mango.’

‘Mango stones. Ah.’

Wesley stared at the stone closely.

‘She gets them in bulk. I believe she has some kind of deal with a juice manufacturer in Kent…’

Ted was still speaking as the doorbell sounded. He jumped, guiltily, turning automatically towards the hallway.

‘Hang on a minute,’ Wesley moved over to the window and peered out from between the nets. After a couple of seconds he grunted, swatted a dismissive hand through the air and returned to the workbench. ‘Relax,’ he muttered, ‘it’s nothing.’

‘Why? Who is it?’

Wesley picked up another mango stone. ‘Nobody, just some kid who follows me.’

The doorbell rang again, rather more insistently.

This time Ted went to the window and peered out.

‘If he sees you looking he’ll come over,’ Wesley warned him, putting the mango stone up to his nose, inhaling. It smelled of old hay. Of wheat. Of corn dollies.

‘Damn,’ Ted quickly withdrew, ‘I think he did see me…’

Sure enough, after a few seconds, the window was darkened by a small shadow, then a nose –pushed up hard against the glass –with two inquisitive hands pressed either side of it.

‘Gracious,’ Ted murmured, backing off still further, ‘you weren’t kidding.’

‘Just ignore him,’ Wesley counselled boredly, ‘he’ll go away eventually.’

‘Who is he?’ Ted was mesmerised.

‘I already told you. Some kid.’

The right shadow-hand suddenly peeled itself away from the glass, formed itself into a tight fist, and began knocking. ‘How do you know him?’ Ted whispered.

‘I don’t,’ Wesley shrugged, ‘he just follows me around.

’ ‘What’s his name?’

‘Pete. Patty. I can’t remember.’

The knocking continued. It was loud and persistent yet maddeningly unrhythmical. After thirty seconds it grew mildly irritating, by fifty it was unbearable.

‘I think he might be stepping on Katherine’s hydrangea,’ Ted stuttered.

‘Then go out and yell at him.’

‘Should I?’ Ted looked appalled at the thought. ‘Will he become aggressive?’

Wesley chuckled, ‘No. He’ll love it. He’ll lap it up. He’ll interrogate you. He’ll molest you. He’ll bend your ear. That’s all.’

Ted didn’t move. ‘For some reason,’ he said, ‘that banging’s really… it’s making me… I think it’s just the… I think it’s the irregularity or something.’

‘Calm down. He’ll tire soon enough.’

As if on cue, the knocking abated.

‘Thank God,’ Ted shuddered, yanking his tie askew, his professional veneer denting like the tender skin of a ripe nectarine.

‘Come over here for a minute,’ Wesley commanded (the very image of icy unperturbedness), ‘and fill me in properly on these mango things.’

Ted joined Wesley at the workbench. Wesley idly noticed that his forehead was glistening. He was sweating.

‘She makes these strange little creatures out of them…’ Ted said, fishing around inside his jacket pocket for a handkerchief, pulling one out and patting his brow with it.

He glanced around him, ‘Here…’

He moved to a set of shelves behind the TV and picked something up, but before he could bring it back over, a loud discussion commenced next to the window, where the small, intrusive boy had now been joined by a second, much larger figure.

Ted froze. Wesley observed his reaction but said nothing, simply shrugged and then silently pushed his index finger into a soft heap of sand on the workbench. He made gentle, circular patterns with it, watching raptly as the fine granules flattened and dispersed. Ted remained glued to his spot by the bookshelves, anxiously rubbing his right palm onto his opposite elbow, listening apprehensively.

What are you doing? the larger figure demanded.

Who are you? the smaller figure responded.

Who are you? the larger figure countered. And what are you doing in Katherine’s garden?

Katherine? Who’s she? the smaller figure asked.

This is her house. Does she have any idea that you’re here?

I rang the bell, the smaller figure explained, but nobody answered.

Well if nobody answered then she isn’t around, is she! Use your common sense. You’re treading on her hydrangea. You’re damaging it.

So who the fuck is Katherine when she’s at home? the smaller figure enquired as the larger began firmly steering him away.

How old are you? Shouldn’t you be at school or something?

Christmas holidays, thank you very much, the smaller figure explained cordially.

Their voices faded.

‘Welsh,’ Wesley noted, glancing up from the finely-granulated patterns he was forming, ‘is he local?’

Ted nodded. ‘It’s Dewi,’ he spoke softly, ‘he owns the property opposite. He puts down wooden flooring. He did mine, actually. He’s very good at it.’

‘Why are you still whispering, Ted?’

‘Was I?’ Ted spoke louder again.

‘Yes.’

He was just preparing to respond when Wesley noticed the object he was holding. ‘Fuck,’ he butted in, ‘pass it over.’

Ted returned to the workbench and gave Wesley a small, plain, wire-legged, pearl-eyed, mango stone creature. Wesley took it and carefully balanced it onto the flattened palm of his fingerless hand. ‘Holy Moly,’ he murmured.

‘I think it’s a lion,’ Ted explained. ‘See the way she’s brushed up the natural strings and fibres on one end of the stone so that it resembles a mane?’

As he spoke, Ted concentrated –almost too fiercely –on the inconsequential little mango stone creature, yet all he was really seeing was the badly truncated hand below. He hadn’t noticed it before… he…

But how was that possible? How on earth could something so patent, so profound, so grotesque have escaped his attention formerly?

His mind rapidly flipped back to a full hour previously:

The initial meeting…

Shaking Wesley’s hand… (they did shake, didn’t they?)

Making him a cup of coffee…

Wesley, sitting on the swivel chair, efficiently turning over the printed sheets of property details whilst chatting away, amiably…

He was suddenly very warm. Unsettled. Almost queasy. He clenched his hands together and tightened his buttocks, his gentle brown eyes clambering over Katherine’s white walls like a couple of stir-crazy arachnids.

Warm? He was boiling. And it was no mere coincidence. Because the heat was one of Katherine’s trademarks –

The heat

– well, the heat and rodents, more particularly. No. The heat and rodents and peach schnapps. She literally lived on the stuff. Locals joked –and it wasn’t funny –that she took it intravenously.

Antique clothing, too, of course. And beansprouts, obviously. And mahjong (Chinese backgammon, to the uninitiated), and sex, and basic engineering. Yes. But mainly the heat. It was her thing. Always had been.

It was just so… just so Katherine.

Ted swallowed. Tried to clear his throat. Couldn’t. Because it… it agitated him –The heat

– he’d always found it disquieting. In fact he was currently feeling more than a little off-colour –uncomfortable –sticky –out of sorts –

No

– out of place – that was it –like he was trespassing or gatecrashing or sneakily intruding…

Of course she’d given him the key –

Yes

– he was here legitimately –

Yes

– but wasn’t he… wasn’t he facilitating something, just the same? Something improper? Something unscrupulous? Something… something unseemly?

Ted’s mind began clicking. He felt over-wound and jerky. His skin was damp but the air in his lungs seemed horribly scant and thin and dry. His head felt all cotton-woolly. So did his tongue. Sweat trickled into his right eye. It stung. He blinked repeatedly.

Wesley finally broke the protracted silence between them. ‘This is twisted, Ted,’ he murmured, continuing to stare approvingly at the mango-stone creature. ‘Does she actually sell these things?’

‘Yes. Yes she does sell them, occasionally,’ Ted’s voice was flat. His tongue struggled to juggle with the weight of its syllables. He drew a deep breath, ‘and if you don’t mind my asking,’ he paused, frowned, ‘where did your fingers get to, exactly?’ (Where did they get to? Oh Lord)

After he’d spoken, he couldn’t quite believe what he’d said. He sounded drunk to himself.

Wesley’s eyebrows rose a fraction, but his eyes did not shift from the mango-lion. ‘I fed them to an owl,’ he said, matter-of-factly, ‘an eagle owl. Years ago. In an act of penance. I trapped my brother in an abandoned fridge. Christopher. Chris. When we were kids. A prank. He died. He was my right hand.’

They both stared for a moment, in silence, at Wesley’s right hand.

‘And you know what? I like this house,’ Wesley continued calmly, as if these two thoughts were somehow naturally conjoined. ‘Will I be able to move in immediately?’

Ted was still dreamy, ‘Absolutely not,’ he said.

Wesley’s head jerked up so sharply on receipt of Ted’s answer that it was almost as though –Ted thought idly –it was being operated from above by strings. He very nearly glanced at the ceiling to test the validity of this theory, but instead found himself noting –distractedly –how tall Wesley suddenly appeared and how tight his mouth seemed. Tight as… tight as… Tight as two navvies after ten pints. Tight as the lid on the only free jar of peanuts in a well-stocked hotel mini-bar. Tight as a good lie. Tight as a gymnast’s thighs. Still tighter.

One. Two. Three seconds passed by, and then… Fuck. What on earth was he…? Ted blinked and came to as the sharp and piercing gaze of Wesley’s disfavour focussed full upon him; piranha-mouthed, marlin-nosed, pike-eyed… Wesley’s face suddenly seemed as barbed and impenetrable as a razor-wire fence around a missile silo.

Oh bollocks.

Ted allowed himself a single, small, involuntary judder before the inestimably professional estate agent inside him stood to attention, clicked his high-polished heels together, smiled, saluted, and snapped straight back into action.

He rapidly re-assessed the situation. ‘What I mean is that I’d have to run it past Katherine first, before I could actually promise you anything…’ he spoke obsequiously, ‘and you’d be wanting to take a look at the spare room, of course?’

What have I done? he thought. Katherine Turpin will roast me on a spit, cut me into small pieces and devour me… if I’m lucky. Then…

An owl? An eagle owl? Is he crazy?

‘Fine. So run it past her.’

Wesley shrugged –as if he believed no process so mundane as this could hinder the immense rolling stone of his destiny –then slowly began to deflate again, like a cheap plastic paddling pool at a children’s party.

‘And I don’t need to see anything else,’ he added, ‘I’ll just bring the rest of my stuff over later,’ he smiled, ‘about three… three-thirty.’

He held the mango stone creature aloft and inspected it once more, very thoroughly, his cheeks lifted and reddened by a spontaneous glow of good humour. Then his focus shifted.

His expression remained constant –calm, cheerful, insistent – but his eyes now held Ted’s hostage in a penetrating gaze, as his other hand moved down slowly –deliberately –towards his bulging jacket pocket. He rummaged around inside it for a while until he located the particular thing he was searching for and carefully removed it: a clean, white, newly truncated, ten-inch-long lamb’s tail.

Wesley removed the tail with a small flourish, and laid it out gently –almost reverently –onto the workbench. Then calmly, brazenly, he nested that strange mango-stone creature where the tail had formerly been: deep and safe within its own dark stable of itchy tweed.

In a perfect parallel, Ted’s own dear heart gradually descended –down into his shoes, where it continued to beat faithfully, just as before, but closely bound now, and constricted by laces.