Darkmans (71 page)

Laura shrugged.

‘Tomorrow maybe?’ he wheedled. ‘The day after? Just to help with the transition?’

‘Okay then,’ Laura nodded, stiffly. ‘If you think it’s a good idea…’

‘I do.’

Kane stood up.

‘Thanks for the tea,’ he said.

He turned.

‘Kane?’

He turned back again.

‘Gaffar
…’ Laura was twisting her two hands together, like a self-conscious schoolgirl.

‘Yeah? What about him?’

‘Well…I mean…’ she cleared her throat, embarrassed, ‘does he actually have…
you
know…
sex
with
all
your female clients?’

‘Uh…Wow…’ Kane frowned. ‘Now
there’s
a question…’

Then he smiled. Then he scratched his head for a while, obviously thinking, very carefully, before delivering his answer.

When Beede finally regained consciousness he was standing in the shower, his naked body slumped heavily against the tiles – numb, leaden, inert – like an old, abandoned hog carcass. His hands and his arms – he gazed at them, blankly – were covered in scratches. The scratches were bleeding. His teeth were tightly clenched. His jaw was aching. He slowly relaxed his jaw and his teeth began chattering. He was
freezing.
The water –

Ye Gods!

– was absolutely, bloody
icy.

He turned and fumbled at the tap –

Eh?

He wasn’t entirely sure how it worked. At first he pulled at it, then he pushed at it, then he gently,
gently
twisted it, his strong brow knotted with concentration.

Once the water had stopped flowing –

Yah!

– he gradually took stock, peering down, dazedly, at his feet. He felt off-kilter – wobbly, like a toddler. His balance seemed shot.

As he stared down – his eyes falling dazedly in and out of focus – it slowly began to dawn on him that the base of the shower cubicle was full of water. It was ankle-deep and flowing over on to the bathroom floor. The bathroom floor was actually
awash…

Beede frowned. He knew that he should be feeling something – anxiety? Fastidiousness? Concern? – and knowing that he should feel these things almost made the feelings flow…
Almost.
But then they didn’t. They didn’t flow. Instead he felt nothing, simply an idle – almost insolent – curiosity.

He shifted his feet (just to see if he could –

Yup
…)

– and as he moved, still more water tipped out of the cubicle and on to the floor. He watched it surge, fascinated. Riding on the tiny wave he’d created were a series of small, black boats – little, dark canoes, vying with each other to win the race to the bathroom wall. He blinked –

Huh?

– not canoes but feathers. Black feathers. He peered down at his feet again –

Ah
…

– and discovered that the plughole in the shower cubicle had actually become blocked by them –

Pen…

He made an idle scratching motion in the air with his hand –

Penna

– he smiled –

Feder
 –

He frowned –

Feather

– he shook his head –

Feather

– he shook his head again, dissatisfied. He idly prodded at the feathers
with his toe, then he bent over, stiffly, and grabbed at them with his fingers.

Once the blockage was removed – at least partially – the water began to drain out. Beede crouched down and watched it disappear – grinning, delightedly, at the tiny whirlpool he’d created – still clutching the feathers tightly in his hand –

Wah-hoooooooo!

His head slowly rotated, round and around and around and
around…

Wah-hoooooooo!

He found the suck, spin and glug of the water thoroughly absorbing. It was mesmerising. It was beautiful.

Once the water was gone –

Aw!

– he focussed in on the feathers again –

Penna

He began sorting them out, quite methodically, casting aside the smaller ones, before settling, finally, on the longest and strongest of the bunch. He inspected the tip of its quill with an expert eye –

Hmmn…

– then dabbed it, matter-of-factly, on to his tongue.

He grimaced.

It was a
black
feather –

Phleagh!

He grimaced again, as if disgusted by the taste of it, but then he stopped grimacing –

Phlegh?

Phleg?

Bhleg?

Bloec?

Blac?

Eh?!

Blac?

Blac?

– he peered down at his arms. They were covered in scratches. The scratches stung a little and they were still bleeding. ‘Blac…’ he murmured, frowning, then tipped the quill of the feather into a little stream of blood…

Hmmn

He shook his head –

Enque

Enke

Ink

He scowled, frustrated –

Blac

He shook his head –

Enke

He shook his head –

No…

Ruh…?

Eh?

He thought quietly for a while. Then –

Reudh?

Ruber?

Rood?

Rud?

Red?

Red?

Blut-red?

Eh?

Blut?

He examined the
blut
on his arms. He inspected the
blut…
But every time the concept of the
blut,
the idea of the
blut,
was formalised into a proper form of words, he felt something
hiccough,
he felt something disconnecting, he felt a kind of…almost like a…a rupture…a sudden cutting-off, a terrible, maddening, frustrating
cleft
– a
chink
– between his understanding and his feeling, as if the idea and the emotion had been violently rent. He stood silently for a while – struck dumb, wavering slightly – on the brink of this deep abyss – this intellectual
chasm.

He couldn’t cross it. Not yet. So he stopped trying and stepped jauntily out of the shower cubicle instead. He dropped the feather. He reached for a towel and wrapped it around him. He opened the bathroom door (no problem with the handle) and padded out into the kitchen.

Here the tiles were also soaking. His feet made a series of delightful slapping sounds against them –

Viet-waat-viet-waat-viet-waat…

Hah!

He stood and gazed around him. Things seemed different –
very
different – but he didn’t know what the differences were, and he wasn’t exactly sure how he might be expected to respond to them. He frowned, thoughtfully, his sharp, brown eyes consuming every detail.

All the furniture in the living-room had been shoved – and in some cases, thrown – against the three outer walls. It almost looked as if a small tornado had been at work there. The middle of the room was now completely empty. Beede appraised this new space, inquisitively. Then he smiled…Yes.
Good.
He
liked
this new space. It was a
fine
new space…

As a mark of his approval he paraded around in the space for a while; he swaggered about in it, he preened and he strutted – kicking up his legs, thrusting out his chest, tossing back his head, both hands resting jauntily on his hips.

During the course of this brief interlude his towel fell off. Beede hurriedly grabbed for something to replace it with, chancing upon the shirt he’d removed earlier (drawing it – with a sense of palpable satisfaction – from the heart of the surrounding chaos) and eagerly pulling it on, but the wrong way around; fastening the top button at the back of his neck so that now (from the front, at least) he exuded a pious – almost a
priestly
– aspect.

He promptly recommenced his theatrics, fully aware, as he pranced, that the cheeks of his arse were fluttering in and out of view as the wings of the shirt flapped cheekily around it. He quickly integrated this into his walk, winking and leering, shaking his hips, thrusting obscenely, the whole, lascivious spectacle culminating, finally, in an extravagant bow (also – by sheer coincidence – a shameless piece of mooning).

As he straightened up (plainly delighted by this brazen display) Beede’s head smacked into something –

Eh?!

He glanced skyward, frowning. Suspended directly above him (attached to the electrical cord from the broken light fitment by what looked like a tie or a dressing-gown belt) was the cat. The cat was strung up, tightly, by his neck, like a piece of game that’d been left out to hang.

Beede stood and gazed at the cat, fascinated. The cat wasn’t yet dead. He still showed some slight signs of consciousness. His mouth leered and drooled, his eyes blinked, whitely. His back leg twitched.

Beede pulled laboriously on his chin as he appraised the cat. He tapped his foot. He rolled his eyes. He mimed himself thinking, strenuously. Then he stood on his tip-toes and reached up, as if to try and free the unhappy creature, but he was too short to untie the knot, so he turned and peered around him, looking for some kind of physical support.

His eye finally alighted upon a chair (the chair from his desk) which was lying upside down on a messy pile of books. He marched over to inspect the chair. He bent over to pick it up, but as he bent he froze, glanced over his shoulder, grabbed a hold of his two shirt flaps, held them modestly together, and simpered, coyly.

Once he’d finished simpering (once he’d taken it about as far as it could possibly go – then still further) Beede casually released the flaps, stationed his two feet firmly apart and bent over, crudely, to seize the chair. But instead of lifting it effortlessly (as was only to be expected – it wasn’t a large chair, after all), Beede discovered himself signally unable to establish a firm grip.

It was almost as if the chair had been oiled. Every time he placed a hand on it the hand slid off – and at great speed, to boot. Yet rather than responding to this challenge sensibly – slowing down, perhaps, or inspecting the chair more closely (locating the
source
of the problem, even) – Beede reacted by launching ever more frenzied attacks on it – throwing himself at the chair with such haste and such violence that each time he made physical contact he flew on to the floor, with a crash: once, twice, five times, ten…

Soon he was red-faced, sweating and out of breath. He mimed himself exhausted – panting like a thirsty hound, swiping a heavy arm across his forehead. He peered around him, searching for somewhere to sit and take stock. Naturally he espied the upturned chair. He went and grabbed a hold of it and set it straight. He sat down on it and appeared to relax…

Phew!

…until three/five/seven seconds later and then –

Weeeeeeeeee!
’ he slid off the chair, at speed (as if the seat had been lubricated) and landed –
thump
– on the carpet.

He turned to appraise the chair, scratching his head –

‘Hmmn.’

– then he yanked himself to his feet and went over to inspect the cat. The cat’s foot was barely twitching now, but his eyelids were still fluttering.

‘Hmmn.’

Beede went back to try and grab the chair again, brusquely spitting on to his hands and wiping them on his shirt to secure his grip. This time (his body language proclaimed loudly) he really meant business.

He bent over, arms extended, and prepared to lunge, but just as he was lunging, he remembered his shirt. He pulled a bashful expression. He glanced behind him. He observed his naked buttocks. He gasped. He snatched at the shirt flaps, but snatched so vigorously – with both hands, simultaneously – that he ended up performing a compact somersault.

Beede landed, back on his feet, with a resounding thud. He looked astonished, as if he couldn’t quite comprehend what’d just happened. Then he calmed himself down. Then he returned to the chair. Then he spat on his hands. Then he slowly bent over. Then he prepared to lunge. Then he remembered his bare arse again. Then he glanced behind him again. Then he gasped. Then he snatched at the shirt flaps. Another dramatic somersault –

Thud!

On this second occasion, however, he somehow managed to land with his hands pinning his shirt tails together – his modesty almost fully intact. He grinned, smugly. Then he dropped the flaps, spat on his palms, rubbed them together and grabbed at the chair like a wrestler commencing a brand-new bout.

This time his hands didn’t slip, they held firm, but instead of lifting the chair, the chair seemed to lift
him.

Beede remained in the air for a few seconds and then was thrown down, sprawling, on to the carpet.

What?!

He gazed at the chair, appalled. Then his face purpled-up with rage. He clambered to his feet and he attacked the chair, savagely. Once
again the chair got the better of him. It threw him up – into a lop-sided handstand – and then violently tossed him down.

Beede glared at the chair from his position on the rug. He was now – if it were possible – even angrier than before. Then a cunning thought suddenly occurred to him –

What if…? (his expression seemed to say)…What if I were to creep up on it?

To take it unawares?

To launch a secret attack on it
from the rear?

Ha!

Beede slowly clambered to his knees – trying to remain as inconspicuous as possible – and furtively commenced crawling. Every so often, he’d pause, peer behind him, and place a warning finger to his lips –

Shhhhh!

As he drew closer to the chair his crawling slowed down to almost a snail’s pace and the warning finger grew ever more insistent –

Shhhhh!

– until, just as he was perfectly positioned to launch his assault, to spring to his feet, to attack –

Parp!

– he suddenly let rip – discharging a fart of such volume and such ferocity that he was spontaneously launched, like a rocket, over the back of the chair, landing – supported by the seat this time – on his two hands, struggling (even so) to clutch at it – only to be tossed, once again, into a dramatic flick-flack.

On his second hand-spring he managed to inadvertently kick the suspended cat. The cat swung up sharply into the ceiling, hitting it with a stomach-wrenching
smack.
Beede caught him –

Phut!

– (already upright again), on his downward trajectory –

Ta-dah!

The cat was now very still. Beede appraised him, with a poignant sigh. He let go of him. He walked over to fetch the chair. He grabbed it. He carried the chair over to the cat. He clambered on to the chair. He carefully untied the knot around the cat’s neck (his expression one of unspeakable tenderness), and then, as the knot came loose, he casually leaned back and allowed the cat to drop, unceremoniously, on to the carpet.