Читать книгу In the Approaches - Nicola Barker - Страница 16

I really don’t understand why I’m becoming a part of this story. It’s not that I’m angry about it, as such, or resentful. But where’s the need? I ask this in all sincerity. Because it’s obvious (predictable! Even to a registered thicko like me!) how this thing is going to pan out. It’s all about them, isn’t it? All about Carla and Franklin D.; Hahn and Huff. They’re the perfect little double-act. She says, then he says. Like a relaxing game of lawn tennis. Phut! – boiiing! – phut! Polite outbreak of applause. Yawn (that’s me yawning. It’s a nervous yawn. A defeated yawn. The kind of yawn produced by a sheepdog when you tie it up to its kennel with a length of rope in the heart of winter just as it’s starting to sleet).

So what are the actual mechanics of this thing (Yup – mechanics. Trust me to get all hot under the collar about the technical stuff!)? I mean how exactly am I meant to … to fit into this set-up? Where did I ever fit come to that? I’m just way too … too big and awkward and … and hairy to seamlessly slot in. Too home-grown, too ‘rustic’. Ah, stupid, giant, callus-handed old Rusty – reliable, practical old Rusty – with his pathetic, unrequited crush, his over-long engagement, his over-tight sodding jumper … Soppy old Rusty. An all-round bad fit. A poor fit. The spanner in the works. The hole in the elbow. The tear in the seat. The pesky stone in the lace-up boot.

Perhaps I’ll be involved in an accident at work at an especially critical moment in the plot (electrocuted by a malfunctioning school heater – their regular man, the caretaker, is off on a one-day training course in modern gas-fired central heating systems!), or get tragically drowned on duty with the lifeboat while saving the crew of a sinking trawler. Yes. I quite fancy that idea. Rusty Bickerton: Mr Brave but Mr Dispensable. A tragic afterthought dreamed up by the mean cow of an Author to add that tiny bit of extra depth, a light gloss of polish – a nice, reliable pinch of snuff (where’s the tissue? Eh?! Use your sleeve! That’s what Rusty would’ve done, God bless the poor old bugger! RIP etc.) to the ‘main’, the important, the real, the actual-grown-up-three-dimensional relationship.

Great.

I mean is that honestly the best I can hope for? To be the harmless blameless idiot caught totally unawares in the background of a dramatic photograph of an awful car crash (quietly inspecting the times on a vandalized bus shelter)? Face slightly blurry. Right ear, arm, shoulder ruthlessly cut out. Or the nervous man adjusting his comb-over in a high wind just behind the pretty, buxom woman who is laughing and letting go of a large bunch of red balloons after winning £1,000 in a charity prize draw?

Am I just a little bit of local colour? Is that really the sum of it? Although now I come to think about it, you’ve already got Mrs Barrow (with her nineteenth-century ways, her housecoat and her – uh, sorry – totally unconvincing Sussex accent) to tick that particular box.

Perhaps I’m suddenly being shuffled into focus to offer a useful – but boring – ‘sense of perspective’? An ‘outsider view’? Perhaps I’m simply serving as a manly foil – a handy, helpful, humble, practical contrast – to the clever but mysterious and (let’s face it) slightly uptight and poncy Mr Franklin D. Huff? Fine. Fine. Whatever you like. However you want to play it. I might grumble (I likes a bit of a grumble, me), but I can’t really be bothered getting all fired up about it now. Just so long as I’m back home before milking. I’ll grit my teeth and I’ll get on with it. Same as I always do.

Although … Although (while I’ve got your attention – have I got it? Hello? Oh. Yes. Hello) what about that poor parrot? Baldie? Baldo? How’s he/she fit into this mess? What did that blessed parrot ever do to anybody? Doesn’t seem right – fair – to have his/her/our innermost thoughts – our private feelings and ideas (uninspiring as they most certainly are) – casually picked over (exploited, let’s make no bones about it) for the sake of a little light relief.

I remember in RE classes at school (bear with me for a minute) being taught the biblical parable of the ‘talents’ and thinking, If this parable expresses the moral, emotional and philosophical aspirations of the One, True Religion then there’s something badly wrong with it – something horribly … I don’t know … cynical (I was a precocious boy. Grew out of it soon enough, though). For those of you who don’t recall, the parable involves a series of servants being given ‘talents’ (some kind of coin, I suppose) by their cruel master before he goes away on a long voyage. The servant given the most talents (the most – ahem – ‘talented’ servant) invests them well and doubles his money (slave trade? Opium poppies? Tobacco industry? Who knows?). When the master returns he is naturally delighted by the servant’s achievements and the servant is justly rewarded (several rhino horns. A giant, ivory dildo. Something grand and extravagant along those lines). Then there is the servant who has been given two talents. Like the four talent servant he doubles his money (slaughtering dolphins, skinning minks) and the master is delighted with him (warm smile, slightly intimidating wink, soft pat on the buttock …).

Finally there’s the servant who is given only one talent. This servant is not as clever or as successful as the other servants (one talent, and we don’t even know what that talent is. I’m guessing juggling, or unicycling – reading tarot, badly), and he is rightly anxious about stuffing up (the ire of the cruel master might be too much to bear!) so he takes his one talent and he buries it in a large hole in the ground to ensure that it isn’t lost or stolen. When the master returns, he promptly digs it up again and hands it over to him (slightly muddy, but still intact).

Is the master happy to get the talent back? Is he heck! The master (fresh from those three, fine weeks in Magaluf) is absolutely bloody filthy that the most idiotic of his servants has done so little with his pathetic one talent (gurning. Or possibly the ability to place his leg behind his head. He’s oddly flexible).

‘Why didn’t you just give it to the bankers, you foolish man,’ he demands, ‘and earn me some paltry interest at the very least?’ Of course this is the moment at which that poor, long downtrodden (but basically ignorant) servant can finally take the opportunity to tell his master that all the local banks have been investing heavily in companies supporting child labour (chimney sweeps! That’s right! Send the little blighters up those chimneys! Let ’em earn their keep!) and so he (quite naturally, quite rightly) felt compelled to take a passionate stand against it. Yes. That would’ve been very brave, very principled of him (telling his master and the stand). But then could the master be expected to listen to his mumbled excuses? Nah! Of course he couldn’t! He’s just a servant – an untalented servant! Why would the master be remotely interested in issues of racial, social or gender equality? Forget it! He isn’t. So the servant is bawled at, publicly humiliated and unceremoniously cast out.

‘To him that has plenty more shall be given,’ the parable ends, ‘to him that has nothing, even that will be taken away from him.’ (Sarcastic, partial drum roll.)

So there you have it: my pathetic little life in two short sentences. And the worst part? I knew, I just sensed, even as a small, snotty, scab-knee-and-elbowed youth, that this would all turn out to be completely true; that I would – of course I would! – find myself at the thin end of this parabolical wedge.

Looking back (a great hobby of mine) I can clearly deduce that it was at this precise moment (the reading of the talent parable – pay attention) that I finally lost all sympathy with the Judeo-Christian tradition. There have been others since (other moments, other losses) still more painful. But then that’s … Well.

Good. Okay. So I’m not entirely sure why I bored you rigid with that anecdote. I suppose it was a toss-up between this brief Bible-study session or an in-depth breakdown of the journey from Chick Hill to Toot Rock undertaken in a twelve-year-old Ford Transit with no side door, dodgy transmission and a malfunctioning water pump.

Because these are the manifold riches of my life, ladies and gentlemen (the boring parable, the crappy van). No sudden landslips or obscure collections of Soviet memorabilia here, no ancient beefs with the CIA or complex issues of avian gender orientation. None of that. Just practical, gormless old Rusty. Mr Can-do. Mr Happy to Oblige. Mr That’s Absolutely Fine, Mrs Barrow, Just Point Me in the Right Direction and I’ll Get On With It, Shall I?

‘That’s fine. Just point me in the right direction and I’ll get on with it, Mrs Barrow,’ I tell her. Mrs Barrow has kindly provided me with a list. At the top is ‘porch bulb’ (in all honesty I think she could’ve handled most of these herself – what am I? Her drudge? Short answers on a postcard, please), then there’s ‘dispose of shark’, then there’s ‘rabbit?’ (her question mark), then ‘bin’, then, finally, ‘bathroom window. Putty?’ (putty underlined, twice).

Of course as soon as Mrs Barrow describes the general scenario (rotting sand shark under the bed?!) I am 100 per cent convinced that the salmon-pink paws of Miss Carla Hahn are all over this ‘mysterious and completely unprovoked attack’. In truth I think Mrs Barrow suspects as much herself, but worker/employer loyalty (and Mr Huff availing himself of the nearby bathroom) prevents her from confiding in me. All credit to her for that. Although there is a brief exchange of significant looks. Yes. And a slightly raised, under-plucked eyebrow. And she is very – very – keen to stop the ‘highly offended’ (‘hurt’, ‘violated!’: his words) Mr Franklin D. from getting the local police involved (but what else might you expect from the wife of the local poacher? Eh?).

I know all the signs, though. In fact I’m so certain of Carla’s involvement that I promptly head over to an old brass coal-scuttle stored just inside the entrance to the bomb shelter (there is a bomb shelter behind the house – a drab, claustrophobic concrete shed-like thing with a basement nobody ever goes into. Did anyone bother mentioning this before? Nah. Probably not) and I retrieve the porch bulb from this old favourite Carla hidey-hole.

I am smiling to myself (even allowing myself a gentle tut) and straightening up when – Oh bugger! – I see Mr Franklin D. Huff standing behind me, arms crossed, braces dangling (‘At ease, Suh!’), watching me from the back with a look full of what I can only call ‘deep misgivings’.

Sorry if there is something grammatically awry with that sentence. But I think you get what I mean. I respond with my broadest hayseed’s smile. This smile is doubly effective because of a missing canine (front top left).

‘Hello, Massa. I just be doin’ my work here, Massa. No need for the likes of you to be troubling yourself on my account, Massa.’

(Touch brim of pretend flat cap.)

I didn’t actually speak that out loud, I just compressed it into a slight bending of the knee and the broad smile, obviously. Especially the smile. Although there’s an extra (bonus!) atmosphere of ‘I might look like a moron – I am a moron – but if you mess about with my Carla – trifle with her – I’m going to … well …’

What might I do?

Bleat like a lamb?

Burst into tears?

Absolutely bloody nothing, same as always?

Oh God, I just had this … this horrible … this shadow-falling-across-my-grave feeling. An icy chill in my … A moment of …

She’s going to make me stand up to him, isn’t she? The cow Author. She’s going to make me act totally out of character – rise to the occasion, give the smug, ‘cosmopolitan’ arsehole what for – and then quickly kill me off. But it’ll be something mundane that does me in – a nosebleed or an infected toenail. Or something completely stupid and embarrassing like … like being squashed under a tractor after diving to save a duckling. Swerving to avoid a weasel and driving off a cliff.

I know that’s what she’s planning.

I suppose I should just be grateful that the over-tight jumper didn’t prove to be my undoing (Ch. 7? Ch. 8?). Although I’m not sure how that would’ve been managed, technically (I’m always interested in the technical side of things. This isn’t much of a virtue in your average romantic hero, I realize. ‘Sorry to interrupt you, Miss Eyre, but the axle on your carriage has noticeable signs of wear …’). To be perfectly frank, it doesn’t have all that much credibility as an idea (dispatched by an over-tight jumper?!). I mean this is only my second chapter! It’s early days yet. To kill me with a lethal piece of knitwear after – how many? – three pages? That’d be so … so clumsy, so amateur. The critics’d have a field day! Although she killed someone in another novel (forget the name of it, offhand) with a frozen, miniature butter pat and then she won a bloody prize. A prize! A big money prize!

What were they thinking?!

In fact there was this very sweet man in her last novel – kind and gentle, a bit of a wimp; rather like me, I suppose (sound the alarm bells!!) – who she hit with a sudden brain haemorrhage just when everything had finally started to work out for him. I don’t remember his name or all the circumstances exactly. But she’s probably planning something similar for me now. Right now.

What a nightmare. What an awful, bloody nightmare.

‘… store your bulbs.’

Franklin D. is speaking but I miss the gist of it worrying about all this other crap. There was one character who fed his fingers to an owl and then walked in front of a bus. Or a lorry. But he was the hero. And I don’t know if he died or not. I think she left it open so that if the book was successful she could write a follow-up. But the thing bombed.

Ha!

Although – damn! – none of this works, logically – logistically (Oh great, Mr Technical!). Because I’m thinking these thoughts in October 1984 and she only started writing seriously in 1987 on a student trip to Ireland while volunteering for the Council for the Status of Women. She wrote a wretched piece of teen fiction during that interlude called ‘The Perverse Yellow Flower’. It was inspired by three paintings of Christ she saw in a shop window in Windsor and a conversation she had while she was looking at them with a man called Marcus who wanted to make her join a weird cult called Sabud.

What?!

Hang on a second …

Where the heck did all that come from? How could I …? I … I just can’t be having these thoughts right now, about her other books and her sadistic urges and her … I dunno. It just doesn’t make any sense. It’s … it’s unnatural, it’s supernatural.

‘… store your bulbs.’

Argh. Am I just sabotaging myself again? Same as I always do? Am I? Eh? Mr Bickerton, will you sign on the dotted line for your regular delivery of a truck-load of self-pity, please? Oh you’ve lost your pen. And your pencil. Boo-hoo-hoo.

There’s nothing positive or clever or rational about it, either, is there? I know that. I’m simply stewing in all this stuff – all these regrets. I really need to just try and … I dunno. Grow a set. Stop over-thinking. Stop making everything twice as complicated as it needs to be. Heroes don’t dither, do they? Do they? No. Heroes aren’t ditherers.

Uh. Sorry. Could you just feed me that line again, please?

‘Well that’s a very strange place to store your bulbs!’

Uh … Okay. Uh … I already did the smile, didn’t I? The hayseed’s goofy smile (my staple)? So how about I just repeat what he said back to him and then work the rest out from there?

‘A very strange place to store your bulbs. Yes. Very strange indeed. You must be Mr Huff. You were holed up in the bathroom when I first arrived. I’m Clifford. Clifford Bickerton. People call me Rusty.’

We shake hands.

‘Did you see the shark?’ Mr Huff asks, following me over to the front porch where I quickly re-fit the bulb. ‘Yup.’ I nod (Don’t give anything away, Clifford!).

‘Very convenient being so tall,’ Mr Huff observes.

‘Great for replacing bulbs,’ I affirm, ‘but not so great in other arenas. It’s hard to cram myself inside certain models of car.’

Mr Huff nods.

‘I sometimes break antique furniture.’

Mr Huff nods again.

‘And I play havoc with sofa and bed springs.’

Mr Huff considers this, scowling.

‘And everything’s dusty.’

Mr Huff looks quizzical.

‘I’ve noticed how women never dust above their own height. Up here I find everything’s dusty. It’s sad. I’ve often thought how there’s something deeply unloved about this altitude.’

Mr Huff’s eyes de-focus. I am boring him already.

‘I mean how are we going to dispose of it,’ he wonders, ‘with the bin stuck up on the Look Out?’

‘Follow me,’ I say, and walk around, through the little allotment (Ye Gods! He obviously hasn’t fed the badgers) to the front porch where the shark currently abides. I pick it up by the tail, take two steps forward and toss it over the cliff into the mess of rocky gorse below.

‘Bloody hell!’

Mr Huff is scandalized.

‘Something’s bound to eat it eventually.’ I shrug. ‘I’ll go and fetch you that bin now, eh?’

‘Will you climb up the little ladder?’ Mr Huff is intrigued. ‘It seemed a rather precarious arrangement when I went up there the other day.’

‘The ladder’s not a good option,’ I inform him. ‘The metal joists are corroded. It has a history of suddenly shearing off – falling out of the wall …’

Mr Huff blanches.

‘But there’s a series of thick planks hidden in some nearby bushes,’ I add, trying to keep the atmosphere positive, ‘and a quantity of corrugated iron. We generally construct a sloping walkway from the edge of the far end of the rock to the roof. It’s not especially stable …’

‘We?’ Mr Huff asks.

‘Local folk,’ I say, casually.

I stride out and Mr Huff follows. We retrieve the bin in no time. When we return we find a woman in the garden accompanied by two large red setters, tending the little girl’s shrine.

Mr Huff is not best pleased by her sudden arrival. One could almost go so far as to say that he is infuriated by it, and doubly so when one of the dogs menaces him as he opens the gate.

‘Do you know this person?’ he asks, stopping by the gate as I position the bin in its regular place, scowling.

‘Uh … no. But there’s a little gang of them,’ I say. ‘Good, decent Catholic women in the main. Locals for the most part. They aren’t too much of a problem. It’s the other group – the Romanies – you’ll need to keep an eye out for. They come up here in their vans and block off the roadway. Infuriates the people in the Coastguards’ Cottages, it does. Causes no end of trouble.’

‘But this is trespass, surely?’ Mr Huff persists.

‘If you try and stop them you’ll only make them more determined.’ I grin.

‘Faith is like bindweed,’ Mr Huff snarls, ‘an unremarkable enough plant, but give it any kind of leeway and you’ll find it pushing its fragile green shoots through thick inches of brickwork.’

‘They have Carla’s blessing.’ I shrug, moving past him.

‘Yes. Miss Hahn said as much in her Welcome Pack,’ Mr Huff grumbles, following. At the mention of Carla’s name he seems profoundly demoralized. I glance back at him as we circumnavigate the allotment to avoid the dogs. He looks ragged. I notice the pinkness of his irises, the bags under his eyes.

‘No point railing against it,’ I console him (emboldened by the Welcome Pack comment). ‘It’s going to be a major part of the plot at some point, I suppose.’

‘Sorry?’ Mr Huff looks confused.

‘The plot. The story,’ I repeat, ‘you know …’ I blithely indicate towards the little shrine. ‘Orla Nor Cleary. The truth behind what really happened back then. The subject of your book – the book. Everything else – the parrot, the landslip, this – it’s all just incidental detail, surely? Just filler. I mean I can’t speak for you, obviously, but I know I’m totally insignificant – just a minor character, a handy plot device. That’s it.’

Still nothing from Mr Huff, but it’s almost as if he starts to … to fade.

‘I’m very tired,’ he says, flickering. Or is it me that’s flickering? It’s hard to tell.

‘Mrs Barrow mentioned a rabbit?’ I quickly change the subject.

‘Rabbit?’ He instantly jumps back into sharp relief.

‘Mrs Barrow said you were building it a hutch.’

‘Yes,’ he sighs, ‘I suppose I am.’

‘It might be worth popping down to see Shimmy, Carla’s dad,’ I suggest. ‘His wife – Else, Carla’s mother – used to keep rabbits when Carla was a kid. She bred some kind of German lop. Huge beasts, they were. They ate them. After the war …’

Mr Huff is staring at me with a strange look on his face. You might almost call it a … a haunted look.

‘And they kept rescue dachshunds,’ I blather on. ‘She had about twelve of them, in kennels. It was a long time ago now, obviously. But he’s a great hoarder. He might still have something useful tucked away in one of his sheds.’

Mr Huff nods, but he doesn’t look especially taken by the idea.

‘I mean there’s no harm in asking,’ I persist.

‘It’s just that my … my wife ran over his cat …’ he starts off, then he frowns. ‘Although she’s not … she’s not … she’s not … not actually my …’

He shakes his head and his mouth suddenly contracts. He stops walking as we reach the back balcony, plops himself down on to the bench and covers his lean face with his skinny hands.

‘It’s all …’ he sniffs, trying to retain some vague hold on his dignity (failing dismally), ‘… all very confused … confusing.’

‘Can I …? Uh … Would you like me to …?’ I don’t even know what I’m suggesting I should do. Leave? Spontaneously combust? Gently evaporate? Quietly hang myself? (Oh she’d like that, wouldn’t she?! The cow Author? Well then I most definitely won’t be – hanging myself, I mean. No. I won’t be hanging myself. I’m far too tall to be hanging myself, for one thing. It’d be so difficult to arrange. Although there’s always the barn back on the farm, I suppose. Not that I’ve got any rope strong enough to … uh … aside from the blue nylon stuff Eddie’s been using to tether the …

What?!

No!

Why am I thinking like this?! I’ve never had these kinds of thoughts before – suicidal thoughts. And if I was going to kill myself it wouldn’t be by rope, it’d be sat quietly in the van with a grand view below me, up near the Country Park, maybe, engine running, blocked exhaust … Although with all that rust and the missing door there’s not much chance …

No!

I’m doing it again! She’s got me doing it again! I won’t be killing myself! I feel no urge to kill myself! None! I’m very much here – larger than life. I am substantially here. And I’m not going down without a fight, madam, you can be bloody sure of that! Bloody sure!

Good.)

I turn and take in the view. The sea view. This is the most beautiful view in all the world. Just scrubland and then sea. Well, the Channel, really. Just the bit of rough scrub, the ribbon of Sea Road following the sea wall, the pebble beach, the sea, the clouds, the sky.

‘Yes. No. My wife died,’ he blurts out (how much time has passed? Loads? None?). ‘Very suddenly. Three days ago. I’m just …’

‘Sorry?’ I turn, surprised (in truth I’d almost forgotten he was there).

‘My wife,’ he repeats, ‘died. Dead. She …’

I must look shocked – slightly disbelieving. Embarrassed. I mean this started out as a conversation about hutches – didn’t it? Didn’t it? About rabbits?

‘Not the cat woman,’ he commences, waving his hand about. ‘She wasn’t my wife. I was … it’s complicated. There’s a woman called … You might have heard of … she’s called Kimberly. Kimberly Couzens. She’s a photographer. We were married. She had the affair with … with him … you know. Bran. She was burned. In the explosion – the car – when he …’

‘Oh … Oh wow,’ I stutter, finally making the connection. ‘The Canadian? The photographer? She was your wife?’

‘Yes. Yes. I’m here for her.’ He nods, pathetically grateful to be understood. ‘I came for her. And I’m broke. Completely broke. I agreed to write the book as a sort of … a sort of favour. I’m not sure how it … I mean I’m not really sure … And then … then she just died. I mean she’s been disabled for years – with the burns being so severe … But this was something so sudden … so … so random, something to do with a tooth. A tooth! I’ve not eaten in four days. I’ve not … I’ve not told anyone … I’m just … The flight couldn’t be changed. I can’t go back for the funeral. Her mother has dementia. It’s been … then the shark … the flies. It’s been … I’ve been …’

Still the arm waving.

‘… really … really struggling,’ he finishes off, his voice cracking.

I don’t know what to say.

‘I don’t know what to say,’ I say.

I’m furious. In fact, I’m steaming. I can’t believe the cow Author has sprung this on me. What a cow. What a cow.

I turn and inhale the view again. I refuse, no, no, I won’t be drawn into this bloody farrago! And I’m angry that I thought I had it all down pat … this … this situation … the set-up … the plot … but now to find out that my knowledge has been … well, just selective … compromised. He was married to the photographer! Why didn’t I know that?! I mean if I knew about the parrot. Why’d I know about the sodding parrot – all about it! – but nothing about this?

I breathe in deeply and force myself to enjoy the view. The view is still here. The view is still beautiful.

Behind me I hear him sobbing.

Oh God, why? Why?

‘Well, you still need a hutch,’ I maintain. Still looking at the view. Still feeding off the view. I really love this view. I could happily die looking at this view.

‘Yes,’ he sniffs.

No more thoughts about dying. I reach into my pocket.

‘Tangerine?’

I turn and offer it to him.

‘Thanks.’

He accepts the tangerine.

‘I don’t think I actually met her,’ I say. ‘Your wife. The photographer. But I did see her around and about the place. On the beach with her camera photographing everything …’

He glances up, sharply. ‘You were here back then?’

‘I’m always here.’ I nod. ‘That’s me. A part of the landscape – a blot on the landscape. In fact I was … uh … Carla and I were …’ I shrug.

‘Oh. Oh, really?’

Mr Huff looks slightly surprised. ‘So you were … Oh. So you were here – resident – when everything uh …?’ He scowls. ‘But why didn’t I already know that?’

I shrug (cow Author not doing her job, I suppose).

‘That’s never been mentioned,’ Mr Huff persists, ‘I mean there isn’t any physical evidence, any testimony … and documentary evidence in all of the … all of the …’

He starts feeling for his pockets (grief briefly forgotten) as if the information relating to my early life in Pett Level might be miraculously contained therein.

Oh, here it is – here’s the little bit of paper all about what an insignificant lump of crap you are (cheerfully holds out tiny till receipt with hardly anything printed on it).

‘It’s my size.’ I shrug. ‘I’m so huge that people kind of … they pass me over. It’s difficult to engage. They ignore me the way you’d ignore a giant bear.’

‘You’re the elephant in the room.’ Mr Huff grins, weakly.

‘Yes.’

‘But how odd,’ he repeats, shaking his head again, ‘that Kimberly never mentioned you, never photographed you. She worked as a war photographer for several years. Her photographs were amazingly … I don’t know … comprehensive, habitually copious, all-inclusive …’

As he speaks I quietly remember Kimberly and her camera. On the beach, in the garden, the house. Yes. I remember the camera always snapping. I remember – countless times, countless times – being briefly blinded by the flash.

‘I should go and take a quick peek at that bathroom window,’ I say. There are dark feelings in my heart. That’s the only way I can describe them – the feelings. Dark. I mean to be so easily … so … so routinely ignored.

Who’s behind this I wonder? Who’s at the back of this? Is it her? The Author? Has she gone back into the photographer’s portfolio, the photographer’s mind and just … just silently erased …?

Oh for heaven’s sake!

Just fix the window, Rusty! Just go and fix the window!

I walk through the cottage to the bathroom (ducking to avoid the door lintels, the light fitments). When I get there I realize that I have no tools with me. The ceiling is very low. I can’t straighten my neck. And there is a rabbit in the bath. A tiny rabbit. It has a very … a very deep, a quiet, an almost … a mystical quality about it.

Pink eyes. Pink nose.

I perch on the edge of the bath and I watch it. I look like I am communing with the rabbit (from the outside, in the uncut footage), and I am – but I am also hatching a plan. Yes. Me – I – Clifford Bickerton, Rusty Bickerton. I am hatching a plan. A secret plan. Which I won’t divulge here, because it’s a secret, obviously.

Every so often I think, Is this her? Is this her plan? Or is it me?

And then I expunge those thoughts (expunge? Is that a word I would use, naturally? Is it my word or is it … Oh God, is it her word?). I stare at the little rabbit.

Hello, rabbit! It’s me, Clifford, the Invisible Man!

The invisible man, eh? Ha! Well we’ll see about that, shall we, my little pink-eyed friend, hmmn?