Читать книгу Danny Yates Must Die - Stephen Walker - Страница 12

First thing next morning.

Annette Helstrang awoke, threw back the sheets, sat up, stretched out in a great big, foot-stomping, yawn. Then she watched the floor, puzzled.

Between her bare feet, a pair of legs were protruding from beneath her bed.

‘Lucy?’ Early morning, Danny answered a knock at the Mission door, surprised to find her stood on the doorstep.

She grabbed his arm, almost yanked it from its socket, and dragged him to her psychedelic taxi.

‘How did you find me?’ he asked.

Fingers tapping steering wheel, in time to REM, she said, ‘I asked myself where would the saddest of sad losers end up in this town, chose the Seaman’s Mission and rang the bell. You answered.’

Lucy drove along a tree-shaded road out of town, Danny seated beside her in the pink and purple cab she ran to supplement her student loan. Wedged above the rear view mirror was a rolled up copy of the comic book Daisy the Cow. Daisy would spend each issue’s thirty-seven pages sampling different types of grass to see which tasted best. In the end, she always settled on New Zealand Rye; the message being that the familiar is always the best. Daisy the Cow was the number one comic strip among students. It was an irony thing.

‘So, what’s this about?’ asked Danny

‘I have a King Kong of a surprise for you.’

‘You’ve found something of mine you’ve not stolen?’

‘Don’t get bitter on me, Danny.’

‘Well what do you expect? You take my room, my rats, my grocery box, on top of all the other rotten things you’ve done to me over the years.’

‘You don’t want to know what I have to say?’

He folded his arms and looked out through the side window. ‘Get on with it.’

‘I, Lucy Jane Smith, who everyone said was neither use nor ornament, have found you a home.’

‘Is it crap?’

‘Daniel, this is not crap. This is with Annette Helstrang. You remember her from Hallowe’en?’

‘The horror movie?’

‘The party. She was at my Walpurgis do. Annette remembers you; remembers you big time. She was the nice one.’

‘There was no nice one at your Hallowe’en do.’

‘Course there was. She frightened you.’

‘They all frightened me,’ he complained. ‘They all frighten me at all your do’s. I don’t know where you unearth your friends but, frankly, I’d rather you didn’t.’

‘You’re one to talk,’ she retorted. ‘With the state of your friends.’

‘What’s wrong with my friends?’

‘Chuff, Biffer and Bloaty Elvis? Need I say more?’

‘Chuff was a good enough name for you when you went out with him.’

‘For three hours, Daniel, for three hours. And believe me, it’s the last time I blind date anyone on your recommendation. So where is your “mate” Chuff during your time of crisis? Practising that hilarious trick of his with the U-bend?’

‘Everyone thinks it’s funny except you.’

‘Danny, they laugh out of pity.’

He told her, ‘I spent the early hours on the Mission’s pay phone, trying to call my old friends. Do you know, every single one of them moved house while I was comatose?’

‘Yeah, that’s what they tell you.’

‘No, really. Each number was answered by someone I didn’t know. And none had a forwarding address. What do you think the odds are against that?’

‘With you, pretty long; you were never that lucky before. Anyway, the party. Annette was the one in the cyberman suit.’

He looked at her. ‘That was a girl?’

‘A girl? You know what was inside that baco-foil? Winona Ryder, or as good as. And you turned down a chance to snog that?’

He thought about this. ‘Which Winona Ryder?’

She frowned, intent on the road ahead. ‘Which Winona Ryder? Which d’you think? The one works down the chip shop, says she’s Elvis.’

‘But she’s not the same in every movie is she? She’s a human chameleon. In some movies she’s nice. In some she’s nasty.’

‘She’s Winona Ryder in Beetlejuice. Happy?’

‘She’d do, I suppose.’

‘You suppose.’

‘I preferred Edward Scissorhands Winona.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry; you see, I forgot that a classy bloke like you has to be careful which Winona Ryder he’s seen in public with.’

‘Just as long as she’s not The Crucible Winona.’

Lucy chuckled malevolently. ‘Oh yeah. I remember you running out the living room in a panic, half way through that one.’

He shuffled in his seat, turning red, and gazed out through the side window. ‘I was not in a panic. I was just …’

‘You were just what?’

‘I was checking things.’

‘What things?’

‘Things that needed checking.’

She smirked and accelerated. ‘Anyway, Annette’s sweet. Everyone says so. And frankly, cybermen are not scary. She’s a little eccentric but you like that in a woman. And, Danny, God strike me down if I’m lying but, although she wears one, Annette does not need a bra.’

‘Here we go,’ he groaned.

‘ “Here we go,” what?’

‘Have you ever considered therapy for this fixation?’

‘What fixation?’ she asked.

‘Your breast fixation.’

‘I have no fixation.’

‘They’re your sole topic of conversation.’

‘No they’re not.’

‘Yes, Lucy, they are.’

‘No, Daniel, they are not. I have a full and varied range of conversational subjects.’

‘Such as?’

‘Such as Annette Helstrang, who I was in the process of describing when you so rudely interrupted.’

‘Okay, so tell me about her.’

‘Danny, this girl has rock hard nipples. Every morning, climb from bed, go downstairs, collect two eggs from the fridge, close the fridge door, get a frying pan, go back upstairs, walk into her bedroom. Tap once, tap twice, crack those eggs, one on each breast. Sizzle sizzle sizzle. Sunny side up, you’ve got breakfast. That’s how firm we’re talking. I know how important spigotal hardness is to a man in a home-sharing scenario.’

‘Lucy, nipples are not a factor.’

‘Mine were.’

‘No. They weren’t.’

‘Don’t lie.’

‘They were never important.’

‘What you saying? You saying they’re rubbish? You saying they’re too close together? Too far apart? Too identical? Too unalike? Too high? Too low? Too inbetween? Too two? Do they lack character, charm and mischief? Do they lack thrust? Do they thrust too much?’

‘Yes.’

‘ “Yes,” what?’

‘ “Yes,” all that stuff you just said.’

‘You’ve not even seen them, for Godssake; apart from surreptitious glances when I’ve been wearing something clingy. And don’t tell me you didn’t look. Coz I know you did.’

‘No, Lucy, I didn’t.’

‘Yeah, right,’ she sneered, and crunched gears.

‘No, seriously, I didn’t.’

‘Yeah. Right.’

‘No. Really.’

‘Really?’

‘Breasts are too passive,’ he said. ‘All they do is hang there.’

‘What do you want them to do? Attack you?’

‘I’d just like them to do something. Nothing dramatic. Nothing clever. Just something. Anything.’

‘Well that’s where you’re wrong,’ she said. ‘Because breasts are the best things ever and don’t need to do anything in order to be entertaining. Just sitting here my own chest’s a veritable fun fair. And no one can have too much of them.’

‘I suppose you want me to look at them now,’ he sighed.

‘You’d be the last person I’d show them to. Wait till I get my new ones. Try ignoring them, Mr I’m So Squeaky Clean I Don’t Even Look When They’re Shoved In My Face. Not that I’ll let you see them. I’ll probably wear a double thick overcoat every time I see you. And you’ll just have to dream about what you’re missing. Probably keep you awake at nights, craving.’

‘What about this Annette woman?’

‘They’re too small. She’ll never make an impact at parties; not with her, “Hey, boys, I’m a non-underwire-dependent cyberman,” malarkey. Size, that’s what gets you noticed. And you can tell her that from me.’

‘I meant, tell me about this home offer.’

‘She called me an hour ago, saying you could move in with her.’

‘But I don’t even know her.’

‘Who can figure it? Must be desperate. I don’t think she gets many callers, what with being flat chested.’

‘So, what’s the catch?’

She drove on, gaze fixed on the road ahead.

‘Lucy?’

She drove on.

‘Lucy?’

‘No catch.’

‘What’s the bond?’

A lump slid down her throat before she answered, still looking straight ahead. ‘No bond.’

‘References?’

‘No references.’

‘Rent?’

‘No rent.’

‘Terms? Conditions?’

‘No terms. No conditions. Simply be there. But, Danny, under no circumstances mention her embarrassingly small breasts. Between you and me, she attaches far too much importance to such things. I tried to avoid mentioning them on the phone when she called but somehow it slipped out.’

‘Is there anything about this place you’re not telling me?’ he asked. ‘It’s not in an earthquake zone or something?’

‘Believe me, this is the house to be. And, Danny?’

‘What?’

‘Imagine cracking those eggs.’

‘So where is it?’

‘666, Hellzapoppin Cul-de-sac, Nightmareville.’

‘What?’

‘Ha ha, only joking. It’s on Plescent Street, Wheatley 48, a really nice area, all manual lawnmowers and salad sandwiches. I’ve done loads of pickups there and never once got a tip – a sure sign of affluence. Do you know they have a residents’ committee? People round there talk to their neighbours, Dan. Can you believe that?’

‘And you’re sure about this?’

‘Positive. You’ve landed on your feet better than a cottonwool cat with eighteen legs and cast iron paws. Annette has a cat, by the way. It’s called Ribbons. Be nice to it, it bites.’

‘Lucy?’

‘Yup?’

‘Why are you helping me?’

‘I’m not helping you.’

‘You’re going out of your way to take me to a new home.’

‘I’m not helping you.’

‘Yes you are.’

With a screech of tyres the cab swerved to a halt, half climbing the kerb, Lucy scrunching on the handbrake.

Danny’s momentum flung him forward. His seat belt stopped him from melding with the windscreen.

She reached across and unlocked his door, letting it swing open. Upright again, one forearm on the wheel, the other on the back of her seat, she stared him in the eyes. ‘You want to get out?’

‘No.’

‘Then don’t say I’m helping you.’

‘But …’

‘You want to get out?’

He sighed, gazing at the ceiling, then reluctantly pulled the door shut. ‘You’re not helping me.’

‘Damn right I’m not.’ And she steered the cab away from the kerb.

‘Eyes up, shipmates. Plescent Street ahoy.’ Lucy turned her cab up a sloping avenue on Wheatley’s outmost outskirt.

He watched passing rows of neat trimmed housing. Whitewashed picket fencing contained hedges topiaried into trains, snowmen, castellations, airborne kites, friendly dinosaurs, friendly dinosaurs flying kites, kites on castles and snowmen on trains. Each bordered a perfectly square garden.

He’d once seen a documentary: in America, an identical street had built a Berlin Wall at each end then issued residents with ‘passports’ to keep the riff-raff out.

Danny was riff-raff; or he’d have known there were such places in Wheatley. ‘You’re sure this is the right place?’ he asked. ‘There’s not another part of town with the same name?’

‘Course I’m sure. What kind of cabbie do you take me for? I know this city like the back of my hand. Aargh! What’s that on the end of my wrist?’

‘Your hand,’ he said, as unamused as on the first three million occasions she’d cracked that joke.

‘Only joking.’

‘This is the place.’ Lucy scrunched on the handbrake, engine noise dying away.

He gazed out through the windscreen, puzzled, seeing only cherry blossom trees to either side and the crown of the road ahead. Straight backed, head raised to peer over the crown, he saw the green fields of open country beyond. His gaze flicked across that landscape. ‘Where?’

‘There.’

‘Where?’

‘There.’

He watched her, suspecting a practical joke. ‘Where?’

‘Straight ahead.’

Again he looked, still seeing nothing.

Then he grew excited. ‘You’re saying, all that countryside, as far as the eye can see, is my new home? The woman owns the countryside? Lucy, this is fantastic.’