Darkmans (33 page)

‘Are those hers?’
Gaffar asked, shaking his head, horrified.

Next up, a book. A paperback. Kane stared at it for a moment. ‘
Jesus.
How’d she get a hold of this? It’s Beede’s. He dropped it, the other day, in the restaurant, and I picked it up…’

He inspected the front cover. There was something slightly unusual about it. Then he realised – no author’s name. He turned to the back.

‘Cony-Catchers and Bawdy Baskets,’
he read out, somewhat haltingly, ‘concerns the world of patriarchs, palliards and priggers of
prancers, of autem morts and walking morts, of fraters, abraham men and rufflers – the elaborate, criminal anti-society of Elizabethan England…’

‘Hang on…’ he stared up at Gaffar, blankly.

‘Huh?’

Gaffar wasn’t paying attention. Kane slowly shook his head, frowning.

‘For a moment back there – for a split second, as I read – I suddenly…it just…I dunno – it all made
perfect sense…
’

He opened the text, perplexedly, to where Beede had finally quit reading during their random meeting at the French Connection (the corner had been carefully turned at page 103). Here Kane’s eye alighted on the sub-heading: ‘Priggers of Prancers’ and the following sentence: ‘A prigger of prancers be horse stealers; for to prig signifieth in their language to steal, and a prancer is a horse…’

He re-read this sentence.

‘A prigger of prancers be horse stealers; for to prig…’

‘I already
knew
that,’ he murmured.

‘Beede knew of this rug,’ Gaffar joined in, shuffling, distractedly, through some of the other photographs (in one there was an image of Beede, at ease, in full, white, Marine regalia. In another, a four-year-old Kane was snuggled up asleep in his pushchair with the woman from the previous picture crouched down behind him, grimacing theatrically as she held on to a rapidly melting ice cream. In a third, a ten-year-old Kane was gamely pushing the same woman around in a wheelchair. The woman was now totally transformed, but smiling).

‘
What?!
’

Kane was gazing up at him, shocked. ‘How could he tell? That burn had all-but
disappeared.
Jesus
wept
, the man’s like some kind of pneumatic
hound
…’

Gaffar stared at him, blankly.

‘Did
you
let it slip?’

‘
Me?!
’ Gaffar looked hurt.

‘Was he furious?’

‘No. Was
fine.
We
laugh.
He thought was big…uh…
joke.
’

‘A joke?’ Kane didn’t look convinced.

‘Sure.
Ha ha.
’

Kane glanced down at the book again, opening the text, randomly, and finding himself on page 57 in a chapter entitled: ‘A Manifest Detection of Dice Play’. There, placed neatly between the folds of the
pages, was a small, white card, a
business
card: Petaborough Restorations, he read. No address, just a number. He inspected the code. Was that Appledore? Tenterden?

‘Petaborough Restorations,’ he murmured, ‘P.B.R.’

P.B.R.?

It rang a distant bell.

P.B.R.?

His mind turned back to a day or so before, when he’d been rummaging through Beede’s old cheque stubs, struggling to decipher his impenetrable short-hand. P.B.R. He was pretty sure – no,
certain
– that he’d encountered these three letters, and repeatedly, somewhere.

He peered down at the book. A section of print had been heavily underlined towards the bottom of the page: ‘At the gentleman’s next returning to the house, the damsel dallied so long with the chain, sometimes putting it about her neck, and sometimes about his, that in the end she foisted the copper chain in the other’s place, and thereby robbed him of better than forty pounds.’

?

Kane shut the book and inspected the cover. It consisted of a slightly yellowed detail from a sixteenth-century painting in which several gentlemen could be seen hunched over a table playing cards. The table was liberally sprinkled in gold coins. The only hand on display (to the viewer, at least) was one held to the fore of the detail where a heavily beringed gentleman clutched on to a Jack. He looked closer. The Jack of Hearts; and a blond, plump, slightly dissolute-seeming Jack, at that.

‘Jack of Hearts,’ Kane murmured.

He blinked.

Eh?!

He opened the book to page 103 again. ‘A prigger of prancers,’ he
read. He shut his eyes for a moment. He saw a man, in yellow, astride a horse –

Holy fuck!

His eyes flew open.

The toilet flushed. He leaned sideways and tipped the kidney-shaped tray and the teeth back into Geraldine’s coat pocket. He shoved the book down his side of the sofa.

‘You’re not gonna confront her?’
Gaffar asked loudly, pointing indignantly.

‘Christ no. It’s a
sickness
,’ Kane hushed him, ‘it’s not vindictive. It’s pathetic. She can’t control it.’

Geraldine re-emerged from the bathroom and sailed back into their orbit, quite the ship of state; magnificently serene, blissfully unaware.

‘Shit. I’m suddenly really
hungry…
’ Kane exclaimed, clutching on to his stomach, as if at once panicked and
delighted
by this sudden, very real, very powerful sense of appetite.

In Beede’s dream he was hurling himself – at breakneck speed – up a steep, spiral staircase. The staircase was built of stone and it was dimly lit. As he climbed he felt panicked, angry – caught in the grip of some kind of emotional frenzy – but still astonishingly vigorous. So much stronger –
inside, out
– than normal. So much
lighter.
His limbs – legs, arms, chest – far more obliging, more supple, more resilient…

Huh?!

He ground to a sudden halt, his head snapping around –

What was that?!

He braced himself, gasping, against a cold, stone wall –

The stamp of a boot?

The clink of…

Eh?

A drawn sword?

He slitted his eyes, sweat trickling down the sharp furrows of his lean face –

Is it…?

Are they…?

Has he…?

Then he found himself –

Ting!

– staring down – somewhat bemusedly – at his own two feet –

Feet?

He blinked.

Ting!

He stared down at them again –

My feet?

His feet – he blinked for a second time –

Ting!

– just to make
doubly
sure –

Yup –

There they both are…

– were tightly encased in a pair of tiny, leather shoes; ornate leather pumps, dramatically pointed. And the toes –

Ouch!

– were aching, were pushed together, were
cramped.

He roared. He found himself roaring; uninhibitedly,
potently
, without restraint, like an angry bull (or the anti-Geisha). He
bellowed
at his feet. He felt
enraged
by his feet (cooped, jailed,
corralled
by them) –

Stop, now

He struggled to control himself –

Stop now…

– but failed –

STOP!

QUIET!

ENOUGH!

He pulled himself straight, with a small, hoarse cough –

Yes.

Right.

Ahem…

Good.

– then promptly recommenced his climb. As he ascended, he felt buoyed by an overriding sense of
purpose;
by a steely, almost unassailable resolve.

But the shoes –

Oh come on!

– the shoes were suddenly…They were
impossible.
They were unwieldy, impracticable, downright
unworkable.
The toes were ridiculously
long,
the stairs were unfeasibly
short…

And the combination of the two…?

Bedlam!

He began to jink himself sideways – like a crab – to preclude smashing the empty, pointed toe into the back of the stair, to allow the weight of each step to be taken by the heel rather than by only the tender, over-worked front pad…

It was…

Uh
…

He was…

Uh…

And just when…

Wow!

He glanced around him, quite amazed. He’d arrived at his destination, almost without realising. He threw out his arms with an exuberant
whoop
and rotated on the spot. He was standing (and twirling, and whooping –

Twirling?

Whooping?

Seriously?!
)

– in the heart of an airy, cornflower-blue sky, suspended on a kind of a…a
roof
, a tower. And he was surrounded by…

What?

Tiles! A huge expanse of tiling. Beautiful tiling.
Ancient
tiling. He sneaked out a furtive hand and he
touched
the tiles. He
caressed
the tiles…

Ahhhh!

Then he found himself…

No!

Stop that!

– pulling the tiles loose, one by one –

Vandal!

– and holding them, stroking them, full of awe. He felt the weight of the tile, the strength of it, the undeniable
craftsmanship…

And then suddenly –

Oh God
 –

Not again!

– that insidious – that
pernicious
– feeling of rage began bubbling up inside of him (starting in his stomach and burning all the way
through him, like a dose of chronic indigestion) but this time it was coupled with –

Eh?

– a deep –

No…

– a
profound
sense of the
grossest
injustice. He felt aggrieved. He felt indignant. He felt bileful. He felt…he felt…

Different?

Beede endeavoured to contain this colourful swirl of feelings within the needs, demands and limitations of his own character, his own
life.
It was a struggle (matching up the edges, trying to force this wayward spectrum of emotions to
cohere
with his own), and just as he was finally making some slight show of progress, he found himself –

But is this me, or is it someone else?

– sprinting to the edge of the parapet and gazing down –

Now hang on…

– and he was shouting –

Surely not…?

– screaming –

Definitely not…!

– although he wasn’t entirely sure
what
he yelled, or at
whom
, exactly…

Far below –

Hello!

– he saw men –

Ants!

Black ants!

– in costumes, peering up at him; some laughing, some shouting right back, some gesticulating, coarsely.

Ahh…

So you think this is funny, do you?

– and before he knew what…

No!

– almost without…

No!

– he’d hurled down one tile and was lunging for another –

Wait!

– then another –

Stop!

– and another.

Tiles smashed and shattered in the courtyard below him. Men scattered, running for cover…Until –

Huh?!

The crash of a door, the flurry of footsteps, the sharp nudge of steel between his shoulderblades.

He gasped.

Was he afraid?

Am I?

Was
he?

No.

He
smirked.

He turned, lifting his arms, cackling victoriously; gloating, imperious,
exultant.

Beede awoke –

Wah?!

His eyes snapped open. He saw…

Wah?!

The cat.

The
cat
?!

Yes. The cat.

The cat had crept into his room –

Ting!

– and on to his bed –

Ting!

– and was now sitting – bold as brass – square on his chest –

Ooof!

Beede stared up at the cat. The cat peered down at Beede; quizzically,
perplexedly
– his ears pricked, his head jinked – a slight chime sounding, intermittently, from the bell on his collar.

Beede didn’t move. He remained where he was, hardly even breathing; blank, inert, supine…

Then suddenly –

Ting!

– a
chord
was struck. He hauled himself upright –

Bell?

What Bell?!

– and the poor cat went flying.

‘I feel regret…’
Gaffar told the Goth, returning to the sofa (having carefully scrubbed out Beede’s highly prized, Denby Pottery casserole dish in the left-over water from a bath he’d enjoyed earlier), throwing himself down, snatching the remote from her (she was watching reruns of
The Osbournes
with such stony-faced concentration that it might as well’ve been a gut-wrenching two-hour special about ethnic violence in Rwanda) and turning it – almost out of habit – to the Islamic Channel just in time for the evening prayer
‘…of course I do – I’m only human, after all. I left behind a mother, a brother, aunts, uncles,’
he counted them off on to his fingers, ‘
but I didn’t do it consciously, not willingly. It was all just…just force of circumstance. My hands were tied
,’ he held up his hands, pinned together at the wrists, to demonstrate, ‘
it was destiny. Destiny,
yeah?
I honestly believe that.
’

Kane emitted a gentle snore. They both glanced over at him. He was collapsed, post-dinner, spread-eagled on his favourite brown leather tv chair, his feet gently suspended on the inbuilt stool. Above him, an ancient, slightly torn poster of Haile Selassie was slowly unpeeling from the wall.

‘You have family?’ he asked, haltingly.

Geraldine nodded. Then she winced.

‘Trust me,’ Gaffar chastised her, ‘if this bad family is
vamoose
, is go…’

He scowled. ‘
All those tiny ticks, those habits, those faults which always irritated you before, or embarrassed you in front of your friends, once you’re gone – once they’re gone – then those same bad things – those maddening characteristics – become a kind of emotional glue
which sticks them to your heart, to your soul, which makes them live and breathe inside of you, become an indelible part of you, so that soon what you thought you wanted or needed or craved suddenly seems almost…’
he shrugged,
‘immaterial…
”

The Goth stared at him, blankly, twiddling a stray strand of stiff, black hair around her little finger. He sighed and changed the channel, impatiently. ‘I miss mother,
yes
? For her
cook.
Wonderful cook. When I is home she is say, “Gaffar eat, Gaffar eat” and is drive me
mad.
But now –
Ay!
Is…uh…
unforgivable cliché
, no? – now is I
think
of her and I go kitchen for to try make same
smell
or mother
taste
,’ he shrugged, ‘but is crap. Is
Gaffar
taste. Is change. Not so good.’

Geraldine took the remote from him, flipped off the tv, and then casually slipped it into her deep coat pocket. She stared at him, sympathetically.

‘I think I see whole of
world
in this two black eyes,’ Gaffar boldly romanced her, leaning across her lap and fishing it straight back out again. She lowered her lashes, modestly.

Kane snored, then shifted, with a disconcerted grunt. He was now lying on his side with his hands tucked between his legs. His breathing grew deeper.

‘You are good for talk,’ Gaffar said. ‘Good for
listen.
Is easy for man to…
to unburden.
’

Geraldine took his hand and gently stroked the back of it.

Gaffar stared at the impressive array of silver rings on her fingers.

One of them in particular was neatly inlaid with a piece of blue-black oyster shell which momentarily reminded him of the shimmer of a peacock feather.

He shuddered. He inspected it more closely.

‘At sleep I dream of this…’ he said, ‘this bird. Big tail bird…’

He drew his hand away and described the fanning tail of a peacock.

‘Peacock…?’

Geraldine nodded.

‘I keep on dream of this bird…
I’m on a long journey, alone, in the desert and I’m tormented by this terrible thirst
– need for drink, yes? –
I’m searching for an oasis – a well – in the faint hope of quenching it, and then suddenly I see this bird – this magnificent peacock – standing on the horizon. And it’s strutting around, putting on a real show, raising and lowering and fanning its tail at me. I walk towards it, almost hypnotised, and as I draw closer I see that it’s standing
by a well, a drinking well. I run to the well – delighted, obviously – to slake my thirst, but when I get there, there is no bucket or rope to lower down into it, so I lean over the wall of the well to peer inside – perhaps I might climb into it – I’m so desperate now – my thirst is so great…But hard as I try, I cannot see the bottom. So I grab a stone from the ground nearby and I throw it in. I wait, straining to hear the splash, but the pebble just keeps on falling. I hear it bouncing from the walls, reverberating, echoing, for many minutes and then finally nothing. So I turn – furious – to chastise the bird – this despicable bird – for leading me astray and…
poof!
It’s disappeared. Vanished.
’

Kane expelled a sudden gasp as he slept (almost as if in fascinated response to Gaffar’s story). Gaffar peered up at the Goth – perhaps hoping for some kind of intelligent reaction – but she seemed completely preoccupied by the slumbering Kane. He turned to look at Kane, frowning. His eyes widened. Kane’s head was thrown back, his mouth had fallen open, his breathing was sharp but deep and rhythmical. His eyes were blinking, rapidly. But his hands were the main thing. His hands – pressed between thighs – were twitching and jerking, involuntarily.

‘
Kane!
’ Gaffar called out, mortified, determined to awaken him. No reaction. He began to push himself up, intending to bound over and shake him, but before he could do so, Geraldine had grabbed his arm and had yanked him back down again. He opened his mouth to protest but she placed a firm finger upon his lips and smiled – just slightly – through her barbs of black string. Then she took his hand – with a salacious twitch of her finely sculpted brow – and pushed his fingers deep into her soft, warm lap, turning, simultaneously – very calmly and deliberately – to keep on watching.

It wasn’t like any other building he’d ever seen; it was almost a cartoon – a
caricature
– of what a building might be. A truly terrifying construction (the proud work – he had little doubt – of some of the world’s most warped and tyrannical imaginations).

The design itself was stark, impenetrable,
peerlessly
simple. The detailing was fastidious –

No…

Meticulous.

And the finish? Incomparable.

Kane felt a curious mix of emotions as he stood and he perused it: he was
awed
by its ambition –

Yes

–
sickened
by its barbarity –

Certainly

–
humbled
by its magnitude –

Absolutely

– and deeply –

No

–
profoundly
perplexed by the fact that this whole, titanic edifice – every damn
inch
of it – was built entirely (he reached out a questing hand) –