Darkmans (23 page)

That crazy river inside – that uncontrollable wave of words and hysteria – stopped flowing for a while. The tide withdrew. But it didn’t disappear. It simply entered a different sphere – his dream-life – and controlled him from there.

On the day he turned sixteen (and with his father’s help) Isidore designed and crafted a pair of strong, oak doors for his tiny cubby. Thick-cut, huge-hinged, padlocked. And every single night, from that time on, his parents lovingly contracted to bolt him in.

He blamed
Match of the Day.
An advert had randomly caught his attention (on one of the hoardings at the edge of the pitch –

Man Utd v West Ham
).

– which said simply: DADCHECK.COM.

Dad-check?

Dad
Check
?

There were few things Isidore was absolutely certain of (‘There’s
nothing
certain in this world, my son,’ his father always used to say – before his final stroke, the
really
bad one, after which he formally dispensed with casual conversation), but Elen’s faithfulness was never in question. Her honour was unimpeachable. This was one of the few subjects on which Dory was
absolutely
unequivocal.

DADCHECK

But also he knew (with a feeling just as powerful, just as strong) that the boy was a stranger. The boy
did not belong.

There was something
…

And it wasn’t that he didn’t
love
him –

Oh God, no

He did. He loved him dearly –

There was just
…

Put it this way: if the boy was a sum (a lovely little fraction; or a piece of calculus, say), then everything about him, superficially speaking, seemed
exactly
as it should be. He was all neatly spaced out, everything in the right place –

S
o to speak
…

But the bottom line (and there was
always
a bottom line – in life, in arithmetic) was that he just
didn’t add up.
The answer was wrong. Where there should’ve been a tick, there was a cross.

And it didn’t matter how much he tried to ignore it –

That huge cross, in red ink
 –

That stupid, awful, ugly cross
…

– it was still there. It was undeniable. It shouted – yelled,
screamed
– out at him.

Of course he didn’t dare utter a word –

Not a word

– to Elen about it (a betrayal? At that level? How could she ever forgive him?), but when the advert caught his eye (on tv – during a
football
match – everything so perfectly
innocent
, so incredibly calm and…and
ordinary
…) he quietly committed it to memory.

DADCHECK.COM

Dad/check…

He repeated the words to himself – over days, weeks, months – until they were finally stripped of all their mystery. He rendered them uncontentious –

Like cup,

Hat,

Cat,

Egg

He de-sensitised them…

Dad-check

Dad-check
 –

Heart-beat? Steady.

Breathing? Regular.

Sweat? Nope. None.

DADCHECK.

Dadcheck.

Dad –

Yawn

– Check…

Then –

Bang!

– he accessed the site. He completed a small money order. He received a neat package –

At work, of course
…

The Release Form

The two swabs

– cornered the boy, one fine, winter morning, and made the whole procedure into a nice, little game for him –

Fleet! Watch Daddy do this!

In my mouth…

See?

Shall I do it to you, too?

Shall we have a quick go?

Just for fun?

Open up!

One
…

Two
…

He posted it off.

Several weeks later he received a letter. There’d been ‘a problem’ with the swabs, an ‘irregularity’. It was ‘perfectly normal’. Would he mind awfully repeating the procedure? For free?

The boy was less cooperative the second time (‘But why don’t we show Mummy? Or Lester?
Urgh! No
, Daddy! That tastes
really
funny!’), but it was quickly done.

More waiting.

Then someone from the laboratory rang his mobile.

‘My name’s Patricia Robbins,’ she said, ‘I’m an independent consultant and I’m ringing about your Paternity Test…’

‘Do you have the results?’ he’d asked, his heart speeding up.

‘Yes,’ she paused. ‘Well,
no.
I mean, it’s not quite as
simple
as that…’

‘Not simple?’ Isidore scowled. ‘Am I the boy’s father, or not?’

Patricia Robbins drew a deep breath. ‘Is there any chance you might come in,’ she asked, ‘so we can talk this thing through, face to face?’

‘No.’

Isidore was resolute.

‘Okay. Well, the genetic blue-print…’ she explained carefully, ‘I mean I
presume
that you read all of the information enclosed with the…?’

‘Of course,’ Isidore snapped.

‘Then you’ll be familiar with the idea that we draw our information from a series of coloured
rings
…’

‘Yes. I remember.’

‘Well the boy’s genetic data…’ she cleared her throat, anxiously, ‘I’m afraid it isn’t actually
in
colour.’

Silence

‘I don’t understand,’ Isidore murmured, ‘I mean…I just need to know…’

‘Nor do I. I’ve never seen anything like it. The first swab was
confused.
In faded pastels.
Unclear.
We initially thought it was just a glitch, a problem with the procedure. But by the
second
swab…well, things had
really
degenerated. And it came out…
uh
…’

She paused.

‘What?’

‘It came out all…’ She swallowed, nervously. ‘It came out all…all
dark.
’

Isidore pulled the phone away from his ear. He closed his eyes. He called on The Witness. The Witness responded. It counselled him to keep his nerve, to bite his tongue, to proceed on, calmly, with the conversation.

He returned the phone to his ear again.

‘Is the boy my son?’ he asked, stolidly.

‘Yes. I mean he…he
was
…’ she stuttered. ‘I mean I
think
he was – so far as I could tell…but
not
…’ she cleared her throat, nervously, ‘but he isn’t…he isn’t
now.
’

‘What do you mean?’ Dory’s voice rose by an octave.

‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘I don’t
know
what I mean. It’s just a blip.

You’re just a blip. Science – if you think about it –
progress
, even, is defined by the very things it can’t possibly take account of.’

Silence

‘Perhaps it might be best to just take another test…’ she suggested.

‘Is this a set-up?’ Isidore’s voice was hoarse and raw. ‘Or some kind of horrible
joke
? Did
Elen
find out? Is that it?’

‘We have counsellors,’ she said, ‘wonderful counsellors, who’ve been specially trained to deal with…’

‘Am I the boy’s
father
?’ Dory yelled, tears running down his cheeks.

‘No.’

Patricia was unequivocal.

Isidore’s jaw dropped.

‘But on a slightly more
positive
note,’ she conceded, ‘there’s just a faint possibility that he might actually be
yours.
I mean from ten – maybe eleven or so – generations back.’

She paused. He heard some papers being shuffled.

‘Although…
uh
…just to be on the
safe
side,’ she averred cautiously, ‘perhaps I might quickly retabulate that.’

‘Oh
yeah
,’ Kelly sneered, ‘he can be the nicest bloke in the whole, damn
world
to start off with. Until you fall out with him, that is. Or until he falls out with
you
, more like. He’ll be funny an’ cuddly an’ sweet –
nothin’s
a hassle,
nothin’s
too much trouble. And then,
just
when you’re getting used to it,
just
when you’re gettin’ all snug an’ cosy…
Snap!
’

She snapped her skinny fingers, to illustrate. ‘He switches it all off. Quick as that. Turns cold as ice. Treats you worse than somethin’ dirty he dragged in on his shoe. Wouldn’t throw you a rope if you was
drownin
’, I swear to God…’

As she talked, her hands neatly and rapidly dissected her third consecutive clementine, clambering over the individual segments like a pair of frantic but purposeful albino spiders.

She suddenly glanced up.

‘Oi!
Oi!
Dumbo! D’you understand a single, bloody
word
I’m sayin’ here?’

Gaffar smiled, broadly. He thought she looked just beautiful. A princess, no less. Especially in the nightdress which he’d carefully chosen for her (and bought, with Kane’s money) at the McArthur Glen Designer Outlet the day before –

Wednesday?

– Yes. Wednesday. When she’d suffered a severe reaction to the painkillers they’d prescribed her.

She glared at him, suspiciously, then carefully readjusted her décolleté. ‘You don’t have a fuckin’
clue
, do ya? I’m tellin’ you about Kane, mate.
Kane.
’

‘
Of course, yes.
Kane.
’

Gaffar mock-spat on to the floor (believing this would please her. He was right. She was delighted). The patient in the next bed (
not
so delighted) expostulated sharply, then haughtily readjusted her bedspread.

‘She thinks you’re filth,’ Kelly confided, with a dirty chuckle, ‘foreign
muck
, yeah?’

‘He
is
filth,’ the woman interjected sharply, ‘but then like
does
attract like, so they say.’

‘
Oooh!
Get
her
,’ Kelly squealed, palpably excited (this was obviously a fight she’d been itching for). ‘I saw your hubby at visitin’, love,’ she trilled, ‘and he ain’t no fuckin’ oil paintin’, neither.’

‘Didn’t stop you from givin’ him the glad-eye, though, did it?’ the woman sniped.

‘
Him?
’ Kelly gasped. ‘D’you think I need a trip to Specsavers or
what
?!’

‘Baps hangin’ out everywhere…’

Kelly shimmied her two shoulders, saucily. ‘Well if you got it, why not flaunt it,
huh
?’

‘An’ if you
ain’t
got it,’ the woman hissed, ‘then just do your best with the poor crumbs God gave ya.’

Kelly turned back towards Gaffar, with an air of great deliberation. ‘Apparently,’ she informed him gravely, ‘her flaps got so loose after her fifteenth sprog that all her bits started fallin’ out. The doctor was meant to shove ‘em back up…’

Gaffar looked bemused.

‘But he was far too
busy
,’ Kelly continued loudly, ‘so they got in the veterinary instead. He’s that much more accustomed to gettin’ his arm slimey…’

Kelly demonstrated the requisite technique (as Gaffar looked on), applying an imaginary coating of petroleum jelly (smearing it, thickly, right up to her armpit), then inserting her hand, screwing up her face, and groping around, wildly.

The woman turned away, disgusted.

Kelly still persisted.

‘Good
Lord
!’ she exclaimed (effortlessly adopting a top-drawer accent).

‘So
that’s
where Brian’s been parking the Audi!’

Gaffar licked his lips, nervously, and shifted in his chair.

‘How long till I get my
own
phone back?’ Kelly asked, grabbing her replacement from the bedside table and inspecting it, irritably. Gaffar shrugged.

‘It’s such
bastard
bad luck,’ Kelly grumbled. ‘I got all my important numbers on there…’

She threw the phone down again.

‘Did you get all that stuff for my mum like I asked ya?’

Gaffar nodded. He pointed to a bag at his feet.

‘An’ the stuff for me?’

He pointed to a second, slightly smaller bag, next to it.

‘Lemme take a quick butcher’s…’

Kelly put out her hand, her eyes slitting, suspiciously. Gaffar lifted up the bag and placed it, gently, on to the bed. Kelly sorted her way through it, at her leisure, with a combination of nods and clucks (‘Good…good…
Man!
I told you
Low Fat
yoghurts, didn’t I? You stupid
goof
…’).

She glanced up. ‘Where’s my salads?’

Gaffar looked blank.

‘
Salads
, mate. Tomatoes. Cucumber.
Lettuce.
Where they at?’

Gaffar pointed, somewhat lamely, towards a bag of apples.

‘
Apples
, you bugger. Full of bloody
sugar.
I need salads. Salads in a bag. Salads in a plastic fuckin’
container.
I don’t bloomin’
care.
So long as they’re salads. Sal-ads, yeah? So long as they’re
green
, with no fuckin’
calories
in ‘em…’

‘Ah! Sal-ad!’ Gaffar suddenly pretended to catch on. He shook his head. ‘
No
salad. They no salad in these shop.’

He waved his hand, dismissively.

‘No
salad?!
’ Kelly’s jaw dropped (no
salad?!
I mean where’d he think this
was
? Fucking
Ethiopia
?). ‘Pull the other one, mate, it’s got
bells
on!’

Gaffar rubbed his chin. ‘
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow I bring you this salads…’

Kelly merely sucked on her tongue.

‘You’re too, damn skinny already,’
Gaffar protested.
‘What do you want
salad
for? You need some good protein. Chicken. Steak. Lamb. Not
salad. Salad’s
shit.
Just water with a dash of colour
…’

Kelly rolled her eyes, boredly, as Gaffar ranted.

‘So you got the proper address for my mum an’ everythin’?’ she interrupted him. ‘Please tell me you ain’t gone an’ forgotten
that
on top.’

Gaffar reached into his pocket and withdrew a couple of spent scratchcards.

‘Don’t let Kane see you usin’ those,’ she warned him, ‘or he’ll give you the world’s
worst
fuckin’ lecture. He
hates
the bloody lottery.’ Gaffar shoved the cards away again, felt around some more, and this time withdrew an address – in Kane’s eccentric hand – on a scruffy piece of paper.

‘Right.
Good
,’ Kelly was satisfied, ‘so Kane’s lendin’ you his car again, yeah?’

Gaffar shook his head. ‘No car. Taxi.’

‘He’s payin’ for your
cabs
now, is he?’

Gaffar nodded.

‘
Wow
…’

She eyed him, jealously. ‘He’s never paid for
my
cabs…’ she paused, ruminatively ‘…But then he
did
buy me a scooter for my eighteenth birthday…’ She cocked her chin, smugly. ‘Did he buy
you
a scooter yet?’

Gaffar simply smiled at her. She gave him a straight look. ‘He got you dealin’ for him already?’

Gaffar gazed at her, blankly.

‘I fuckin’
know
he has. How’d you get a hold of all that smart clobber otherways?’

Gaffar shoved his hand into his pocket and took out his dice, a tiny blue pen (the kind you got free, in a bookmaker’s) and a pad.

‘Beede,’ he said.

‘Howzat?’ Kelly scowled.

‘Beede give suit. We play dice.’

‘
What?
’

‘You wanna play dice?’

Gaffar stood up, lifted the shopping bag back down on to the floor, then carefully adjusted Kelly’s fold-out table.

‘Mind my fuckin’
leg
!’

(The leg was partially suspended, above the bed.)

‘Jesus
Christ
!’

Kelly pulled up her blanket, harrumphing.

Gaffar pointed at the grim, metal joists emerging from the plaster.

‘
Terminator!
’ he pronounced.

She rolled her eyes.

He rested his hands on his hips. ‘
I vill be back!
’ he intoned.

‘Not if
I
have any say in the matter,’ the woman in the next bed murmured (into the well-thumbed pages of a
Sunday Mirror
colour supplement).

‘Well I
never
!’ Kelly exclaimed, casually reinserting her well-greased arm again. ‘So
that’s
where Grandma stashed poor Rover!’

The woman hissed. Gaffar sat down. He picked up the pen and started drawing on the paper.

‘What we playin’?’ Kelly asked.

‘
Pachen.
I show.’

He drew three horizontal lines and then intersected them with two vertical ones (leaving approximately a centimetre between each). When he’d finished the first one (the letter G inscribed neatly above), he commenced with the second (topping it off with the letter K).

‘This you…’ he said, pointing to the K graph, ‘and this me.’ He pointed at the G.

‘So what kind of nonsense has Kane been up to?’ Kelly asked nonchalantly (as if she didn’t care a jot).

‘Kane?’ Gaffar glanced up at her.

‘Yeah. What kind of shit’s
he
been pullin’ lately?’

Gaffar smiled and then shook his head.

‘Why’re you smilin’ like that?’

Kelly pulled herself bolt upright.

‘
Huh?
’

Gaffar pretended not to understand.

‘Has he been slaggin’ me off again?’

Gaffar cocked his head.

‘Did he tell you I nicked those drugs off him?
Did
he? Because if he did it’s a fuckin’
lie
…’ she knuckled up her hands into furious fists. ‘
Man!
I can’t
believe
he told you that…’

Gaffar shook his head. ‘He…
uh
…’

‘Because I
didn’t
, all right? I’ve never done drugs. Apart from the odd bit of puff an’ speed an’ E, obviously.
Never.
An’ he
knows
it, too. My brother was hooked on solvents.
Glue.
I’ve seen what terrible things that kind of shit can do to you…’

‘Okay.’

‘An’ I’m still stuck in this damn
bed
– alongside that slack
bitch
– because of the stupid drugs they gave me in here. Look at my rash…’

She lifted up her blanket and showed him her belly. It was wall-to-wall hives.

‘See?’

Gaffar winced, picked up the dice, and tried to start the game.

‘I just can’t
believe
he still thinks I stole off him. An’ I can’t believe he
told
you that, neither…’

Gaffar grimaced. ‘I never…’ he said, shaking his head ‘…we never talk.’

Kelly’s pretty face closely scrutinised his. ‘You
never
talk? Or you never talked about
me
?’

Gaffar pointed at Kelly and then shook his head.

‘You
never
talked about me?’

‘Uh-uh.’

Kelly was hurt. ‘That’s rich. We dated for eight solid
months.
What is his fuckin’ problem?’

Gaffar shrugged. He shook the dice in his hand.

‘So what
are
the two of you gassin’ about all day, then?’

Gaffar’s brows rose.

‘I mean what’s so
fuckin’
important, eh?’

Gaffar looked blank.

‘Jesus
Christ.
I fell off his wall an’ I broke my
leg
…’

‘Hey!’
Gaffar suddenly expostulated. ‘
Don’t get so worked up about it! I’m here.
He send
Gaffar
…
huh?
…and for…for shop…
What more could a good whore possibly require
?’

He pointed at the bag.

‘Yeah,’ Kelly crossed her arms, sulkily, ‘his little go-between…’

Gaffar merely sniffed.

‘So what
do
you talk about, then?’

He rolled his eyes. ‘
Urgh.
No thing.’

‘Bull
shit
!’

Gaffar sighed. ‘We talk about…uh…’ he struggled to think of anything, ‘uh…
ah! Rug.
’

‘What?’

‘Rug. On floor.’

‘
Rug?
’

‘On floor. Beede floor.
Rug.
We talk.’

Kelly collapsed back into her pillows. ‘Now you’re just bein’ a twat.’

‘No. Is so true.’

‘An’ what else?’

‘Uh…
Animal Rescue.
’

‘Pardon?’

‘He thinks I fuck Rolf.’

‘
Rolf?
’

‘He thinks I do fuck on Rolf.’

Kelly frowned.

Gaffar chuckled fondly as he remembered. ‘Then we laugh.’

Kelly still frowned. ‘Uh…
yeah.
Ha
ha.
Absolutely
hilarious.
’

She sucked on her lower lip. ‘You boys are just
so
damn
sad.
’

Gaffar seemed untroubled by this assault. ‘An’ we watch Sky tv. We watch
uh
…Africa news. We watch…uh…Islam tv. Get piss. Get stoned.’

‘Well that’s just
great.
That’s
dandy.
So I break my fuckin’ leg. I get pins put in my
fuckin’
leg. I suffer a
major
allergic reaction to a drug which your
charmin’
pal has pretty much accused me – to my
face
, no less – of nickin’ from him, and here you both are, spendin’ all God’s hours smokin’ blow, drinkin’ booze and watchin’ Islamic bloody
tv
…’

‘Yes.’

‘I mean that ain’t even a
proper channel.
’

‘Is good tv. We watch Anthony Robbins. Guru. Infomercial. Many times.
Many
times. We watch…uh…Channel 4 race. We watch Text2Text. With
whore.
Tv
whore.
On phone.’

‘You
freaks,
’ Kelly gasped, ‘you sad, fucking
freaks.
’

She crossed her arms.

Gaffar smiled.

‘
Man.
That’s just…’ she gazed up at the light fitment, furiously, ‘…that’s just
so
fuckin’ typical.
Classic
Kane.
Classic
fuckin’ Kane…’

Gaffar continued to smile, slightly hunched over, watching her furious ruminations, fondly.