Behindlings (47 page)

‘Yes you do,’ she interrupted.

‘Not if it’s cabbage or broad beans,’ he said.

‘You really need to cast off those shackles, Ted. The permanent stain of the armed
bloody
forces, the infernal, strangulating
noose of
the papacy. Cast them off! Stop being so ridiculously
compliant.
It’s so boring for everybody.’

‘Navy,’ he murmured obdurately, glancing over towards the door.

‘Same thing,’ she said.

‘No,’ he said.

She gazed down at him, opened her mouth and covered it with her hand in a demonstration of faux-shock.

He shrugged

‘Let’s face it, Teddy, once the church
and
the army have had their portion,’ she continued, like a puppy worrying a discarded sock, ‘there’s only a very tiny little piece of the original Ted left. And this significant part is defined
entirely
by its absolute rejection of the broad bean.’

Ted shook his head. She was always like this. Would never leave things where they were. He glanced over towards the door for a second time.

‘Why’s the door suddenly so fascinating?’

‘If you must know,’ he said (as if seeing the door had somehow given him confidence –the certain confirmation of a quick exit, maybe), ‘I didn’t entirely like the way that you…’

Entirely

Such a compromise word

Wesley wouldn’t use it

Wesley wouldn’t compromise with his words like that

‘I didn’t
at all
like…’

Nope

That’s just not me

He tried to push himself away from the table (eating at such an acute angle had given him indigestion. His neck was aching. He was slightly worried about Arthur –and Wesley, too, for that matter, however gratuitously).

Katherine put out a restraining hand, grabbed a firm hold of his arm, stopped him. ‘
Hates
broad beans,
loves
the door,’ she announced. ‘That’s almost a manifesto, Ted. You could run for political office on it. It’s a fucking
platform.
’

‘True,’ he said.

‘And
that’s
a good one;’ Katherine smiled, ‘
agrees with anything to avoid conflict.
It’s just
got
to be a central plank in your electoral strategy.’

Ted shrugged.

‘So what…’ she tightened her grip on his arm, ‘
what
was it that you didn’t like before?’

Ted cleared his throat. Now he was in for it.

‘And
where
did Wesley get to, anyway,’ she continued, picking up her plate, stacking it on top of his and then leaving it there. ‘Nobody’s filled me in yet.’

Ted half-smiled to himself –

Off the hook

He straightened his head.

‘Your cryptic smile,’ Katherine informed him, ‘is pissing me off.’

‘I’m worried about Arthur,’ he said, wiping his smile away, jiggling his stiff shoulder, ‘I’m worried Dewi might be…’ he paused.

‘Might be what?’

‘Dewi thinks he’s one of the Behindlings. He thinks it’s a question of taking sides. Or that’s what he told me.’

‘I can see why,’ Katherine concurred (somewhat unexpectedly, Ted thought, considering), ‘and I thought he was, too, to begin with, but not any more,’ she put her finger to her nose, ‘he doesn’t
smell
like someone who’d Follow. He smells of boot polish and resin. Like
repression.
He smells like a leader of men, but all kind of… kind of
stunted… misdirected…
’

Ted was frowning –

Resin?

‘All the charity stuff,’ Katherine continued, ‘was absolutely inspired. And he fucks like a wolf. He’s
fantastically
sinewy.’

Ted winced at this.

‘God. You and your damn
wincing,
’ Katherine muttered, pulling her hair away from her face, ‘let’s see…’ she counted each thing off, on her fingers, individually, ‘so we’ve got wincing, broad beans, love of the door…’

‘Talking of…
uh
… I saw…’ Ted put his own hand to his neck, his tie.

‘Pardon?’ Katherine didn’t like being interrupted, especially by him.

‘I saw the
Bean
girl, earlier. She was in the bar. And I’ve seen her outside here, twice, with the Followers…’

No reaction from Katherine.

‘You still haven’t clarified what you meant,’ she said, screwing up her eyes, ‘when you said
I didn’t like the way that you…
’

Ted pulled himself up from his deck chair, grabbed their two plates and walked over to the sink.

‘It tasted like pheasant,’ he said, tipping them in and turning on the tap (no hot water,
dammit),
‘don’t you think?’

‘It tasted like
heron,
’ Katherine said, scowling, debating her options. Either she could sulk it out of him or launch a full-frontal attack.

Ted peeked over his shoulder (almost as if sensing that she was preparing an assault).

‘If you must know,’ he said, but very hands-off, very conversational, without –he hoped –a trace of criticism…

Remember how he took that punch?

Remember?

‘I didn’t like the way that you behaved with Dewi, earlier.’

‘How did I behave?’ Katherine was unrepentant.

Ted almost lost his nerve (his nerve was like a go-cart on a sharp corner. It needed handling).

‘Slightly cruel. And a little bit…’ he tried to find the most appropriate adverb. ‘A little bit
provocative…
Provocative-ly,’ he added, as if suddenly uncertain of the grammar.

‘But it’s my long-term project, Ted,’ Katherine patiently explained without a hint of humour, ‘to injure him as much as he injured me. It’s my life’s work. I thought you already knew that.’ She was serious. But mocking. Like she always was.

‘That’s a very…’ he scratched his neck –

Collar chafing

‘I just think you should maybe consider…’

Moving on

‘If you dare say “moving on”, I’m going to rip off your insignificant little prick,’ she said, standing up and walking over to Bron’s cage, ‘and feed it to the damn
chinchilla.
’

Bron was asleep in his box. Blissfully vegetarian. His water bottle was empty again.

‘Don’t forget that
you
were the person who got us into this shitty situation in the first place. If you hadn’t peeked into my Dad’s office that day and mistaken me for… for…’

‘But I didn’t spread
anything,
’ Ted mumbled, ‘that was Bo. Bo thought it’d be funny…’

‘An innocent
hug,
’ Katherine bellowed, ‘with his own
daughter.
’

Ted nodded, submissively.

‘And if Dewi feels the need to take some kind of crazy stance on Following,’ Katherine continued, ignoring him, ‘or on Wesley, for that matter, then he should look to his laurels. The man’s an out-and-out
stalker –
he’s a pest –a
betrayer.
And he causes me more mental anguish per
inch
than two thousand stunted, bifocal-wearing weirdoes ever could.’

‘That’s harsh,’ Ted said.

‘I think Bron may be too hot,’ she grunted. ‘Open the back door, will you? I’m going to carry him through to the conservatory.’

Ted did as he was asked. Katherine removed the rodent’s water bottle, meanwhile, and walked over to the sink to fill it up. On her way across, she paused in front of Arthur’s computer. She put down the bottle and expertly opened the lid.

Ted walked over himself. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m just looking.’

‘Why?’

Katherine was bending over to inspect the side of the laptop for its on-off switch.

‘Because I
can,
Ted.’

‘I really don’t think…’ Ted tried to sound dynamic, ‘I
really
don’t think that’s a good idea.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because it’s private.’

‘If it’s so fucking
private,
Teddy, then he shouldn’t just have left it in my kitchen, should he, using up all my bloody electricity?’ She located the button and turned it on. The machine zipped into life. She inspected the keyboard intently as it downloaded.

‘A nipple,’ she said, ‘instead of a mouse.
Ah.
Must’ve been breast-fed.’

She touched her finger to it. ‘And so
responsive.
’

Ted grimaced, stepped back.

‘So do you trust him, Ted?’ she asked, apparently preoccupied by what she was doing.

‘Arthur? Yes,’ he answered, almost without thinking.

‘Really?’

Ted thought for a moment. ‘I don’t know.
Yes.
I mean I can’t really… I don’t really understand all this trusting/not-trusting…’

‘Well
that’s
good then.’

She balanced herself neatly on the good side of withering.

‘Why?’ Ted was daunted. ‘Don’t you trust him?’

She chuckled, ‘Absolutely
not.
’

Ted stared at her for a while, frowning.

‘I mean…’ he conceded, ‘… well, he did seem slightly…’

‘What?’

She was inspecting his desktop. She seemed very interested in it.

‘He was saying some stuff to me –back at the office when he was
helping out with the computer –he was saying some stuff about how I was in a perfect position to… I mean he said that I was
well placed.
And he said that the Bean girl was
well placed
too. I didn’t know what he meant by it. But he gave me a very distinct
look,
like he was trying to make a… as if he thought we might be in some kind of…’

‘Collusion.’

‘Yes.’

No

That wasn’t the word

Ted frowned, ‘He seemed to want to find things out that I wasn’t entirely at ease with. Stuff about Wesley…’

‘
Fuck
Wesley already,’ Katherine murmured, turning from the computer to look at him. ‘So where does he think the Bean girl fits in? I mean what does the
Bean
girl have to do with anything?’

‘The Bean girl…’ Ted rubbed his hand over his face, tiredly, ‘the Bean girl was in Saks when Wesley and I went in there to meet up with Arthur. But before we’d even made it to the bar, Dewi’d charged in and knocked him for six.’

‘He hit Wesley?’

The computer beeped. Katherine turned back around to inspect it. ‘That was probably my fault,’ she mused, ‘come to think of it.’

She didn’t seem bothered.

‘Right. Well… anyhow, after he’d hit him a couple of times –knocked him flat, in actual fact, the Bean girl came running through the bar telling him to stop with a smashed beer bottle in her hand, which she held to her arm, and then
sliced
into her wrist with it.’

Katherine turned back around again. ‘Why the
fuck
would she do something as stupid as that?’

‘That’s what
I
thought. I mean that’s what I… what I wondered.’

Ted shrugged.

Katherine gave him a straight look.

‘It just seemed…’ Ted expanded (couldn’t help himself), ‘I mean the time-scale and everything, in relation to the Bean girl… her hair’s all gone now. Cut off… her blonde…’

Katherine raised her finger in warning.

‘Don’t you
dare,
’ she said.

Ted closed his mouth.

She turned back to the computer and began messing around on it.

‘In case you were wondering,’ she said (and very casually), ‘they have one of these at work. Only bigger.’

Ted seemed surprised by this information.

‘What are you doing?’ he asked, peering over her shoulder.

On the desktop a series of files had appeared. Katherine went to the first –entitled Gumble Inc –and double clicked on it.

The file consisted of a letter, dated from twelve weeks before…

Dear Sir,

they read together,

We are a specialist Austrian plastics manufacturer (specialising mainly in high-impact vegetarian footwear), and are great fans of your website. We would be very interested in taking out a series of high-profile adverts…

Katherine exited the document. She entered another one, entitled
Gumble Exclusivity…

Dear Mr Young,

they read

Gumble Inc are extremely satisfied with our participation in the Behindlings enterprise, to the extent that we now feel a major investment in the site would be in our interest. We are currently willing to offer you a lump sum to ensure Gumble Inc exclusivity on the site…

Katherine exited the document. She entered another one entitled
No Sale…

Dear Sir.

they read

Thank you for your offer, but after a considerable period of heart-searching I have decided that I am unable to sell the
Behindling site. I do hope that this will not impact on the successful relationship we currently have between Gumble Inc and the site…

Katherine exited the document. She was about to enter a third one, entitled
Murdoch,
but then changed her mind. Instead she moved the cursor to
Edit,
ran it down the menu to
Rename
and clicked onto that. The document entitled
Murdoch
turned blue and began to flash.

‘Should you be doing that?’ Ted asked.

‘I’m leaving a little…’ she chuckled to herself, ‘a little
message
for our sinewy friend. Something to give him pause, later on, once I’ve fucked him again and sent him off home with a flea in his ear…’