Darkmans (73 page)

Authors: Nicola Barker

BOOK: Darkmans

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‘Oh come
on,’
Kane scoffed. ‘It was hardly as great as all
that
…’ She shot him a black look.

Kane gazed along the steep curve of the embankment. There were hundreds of collars surrounding hundreds of small trees and bushes. ‘How many are you planning to do?’ he asked.

‘Why?’

She hacked away, furiously, at another collar as he watched on benevolently.

‘Your hair’s coming loose again…’ he reached out his hand to gently reposition a tight, bright, blonde ringlet which seemed determined to fall into her eyes as she worked. She pulled back, defensively.

‘I’ll do as many as I possibly can,’ she muttered, flattening out the curl herself and pinning it down. ‘See how the collar’s cut into the bark?’ She indicated, irritably, towards a lop-sided conifer. ‘I mean they haven’t even been
fitted
properly…’

Maude kicked at a Gorse bush which’d collapsed under its own weight – ‘See that? There’s no real
support…’ –
then her head snapped around and she fell inexplicably silent.

‘What’s up?’ he enquired, after five seconds’ grace.

‘Shhh!’

She put a finger to her lips.

‘What?’ he demanded, mystified.

‘Didn’t you hear it?’

‘What?’

‘Listen
…’

They were quiet for a while. Several cars rumbled past.

‘You should give me your mobile number,’ Kane said, refusing to indulge her any further. ‘Then at least we can…’

‘I don’t have a mobile,’ she cut in. ‘The electromagnetic waves have a devastating impact on avian reproduction.’

‘Pardon?’

‘Shhhh…!’
She jerked her head around for a second time ‘…There it goes again…’ she grinned, taking a couple of tentative steps forward, standing on her tip-toes and peering, excitedly, into the field beyond.

‘I didn’t hear it,’ Kane said, bemused.

‘Eee-ooo-ii! Eee-ooo-ii!’
she called.

He frowned at her, surprised. She seemed entirely different now (out here, by the road) from the shy girl he’d first encountered at the restaurant. He quietly inspected her face, in profile. She was pretty, but her nose was tiny; too flat and too snub. Her lips were full, though, if somewhat chapped.

‘King of the Birds,’ she announced, delighted.

‘Sorry?’

‘King of the Birds,’ she repeated, ‘the peacock.’

Kane scowled.

‘Flannery O’Connor,’ she expanded, smugly, ‘“The King of the Birds”. It’s the title of an essay she once wrote about keeping peacocks. We studied it at college. It’s actually a brilliant piece of writing – very dry, very funny, very clever…’

Kane continued to stare at her, speculatively.

‘Not much of a reader,
huh?’
she shrugged.

‘I know who Flannery O’Connor is,’ he asserted.

‘Oh yeah?’

She removed a third collar and threw it down (somewhat provocatively) at his feet.

Kane smiled, unperturbed, nudging at the collar with the toe of his boot. As he lifted his foot, however, he felt a sharp dart of pain beneath it, centred on the arch area –

Verruca

He drew a deep breath. ‘My late mother was a huge fan of Southern Gothic writing…’ he observed haltingly (trying to distract himself), ‘Carson McCullers? Eudora Welty…?’

Maude nodded.

‘In fact she once helped to choreograph a modern dance production of
Wise Blood
…’

‘Really?’
Maude looked incredulous.

‘Yeah. It had a completely original score, a semi-professional cast, and even a small, live orchestra, composed mainly of students from the London School of Music. It played the Edinburgh Fringe for over a month and then moved down to this tiny theatre in North London for a while…’ his voice gradually grew more confident as he spoke, his tone more insistent, ‘The Intimate Theatre – in Palmer’s Green or Winchmore Hill…I forget which. I still have the programme somewhere…’

He frowned. ‘This was 1974, 1975. She took a couple of minor roles herself – an old, blind woman, a gorilla…’

He grinned, remembering. ‘She actually kept the mask – from the gorilla costume – and I used to mess around in it as a kid…’ He shook his head, fondly. ‘It received blistering reviews,’ he winced, ‘really venomous. People just weren’t ready for it back then. It was all too new, too radical. Mum tried to put a brave face on the whole
débâcle
…’

He blinked –

What?!

– ‘…
but it totally killed her confidence. She was badly cut-up about it…’ he shrugged. ‘She kept everything –
hoarded
everything – as a reminder, in this special little scrapbook: stage directions, costume designs, material samples, loads of photos and stuff…’

Maude was peering up at him as he reminisced, her expression a
strange combination of impressed, galled and fearful. Kane stared back at her, helplessly, as if growing increasingly perplexed himself by this extraordinary volume of words which kept tumbling – apparently unbidden – from between his lips.

‘I mean this was
way
before O’Connor was widely known in the UK,’ he continued (feeling not unlike a frightened parent pursuing a runaway pram down a steep hill). ‘I believe the book was first published in the late 1950s…I’ve never really been a great fan of it myself – it’s just too stark, too relentless – although I wouldn’t have dared tell Mum that – she was completely in love with it…’

Enough!

Kane scratched his head, confused –

Just shut up!

‘I actually prefer the short stories…’ his mouth prattled on, unreservedly ‘…
You
know –
Everything that Rises Must Converge
? And the collected letters are just phenomenal…’

What?!

‘…Although I’m struggling to remember the name of them – the
title
…’

Kane paused for a second, to try and ponder the issue, but then – ‘…I always thought it a rather strange coincidence,’ he suddenly babbled on (his eyes darting around him –

The road, the bush, the fence, the sky…

– his heart hammering away like a woodpecker in his chest) ‘…that O’Connor died when she was thirty-nine – the exact-same age my mother was when she first attempted suicide…’

What?!

Fuck!

Are you insane?!

‘…Although I suppose that’s hardly a coincidence at all. I mean not in the formal sense of the word. More of an…an
ee-ron…
’ he frowned, utterly baffled, as his mouth refused – point-blank – to conform to his brain’s bidding, ‘an
ee-ron
…’ he shook his head, ‘an…an eí
ron?
…
iron-i-a?
…
i-ron-ee?
Irony? Is that…?’

Shut up!

He quickly covered his mouth with his hand, and then – ‘
THE HABIT OF BEING!’
he roared (through the small cracks in his fingers), almost tipping over backwards with the sheer force of this ejaculation.

Maude’s eyes widened, in shock.

‘The collected letters,’ he explained (steadying himself, dropping the hand, reddening), ‘the
title…
’

Shut up!

‘…Although I don’t even know if they’re still available in print…’

Shut up!

‘…but you could always look them up on the internet, I guess. Get yourself a cheap copy second-hand…’

SHUT UP!

At long last, he fell silent –

……

Maude continued to gaze up at him, daunted. He stared back at her, his lips firmly clamped together, as if terrified that the swarm of words within him might – at any second – prise them back open and fly free again. Then he blinked.

What?!

His eyes had begun to water –

Balls!

‘Sorry…
Damn…’
He shook his head, confused –

STOP
!

’…I don’t even know why I
said
that…’

NO!

– ‘…She wasn’t thirty-nine at all. She was older…’

Stop!

Please!

‘…she was
forty.
Forty-one. Forty-two. I mean my
mother
…’ –

NO!

– ‘…when she…when she…d-d-d-’

He was suddenly stuttering, uncontrollably, ‘d-d-d-
dey
…
dey-ja…dey…dau…dieg…’

What?!

– ‘…When she d-d…when she
d-died.’

He double-blinked.

‘
Yes.
She was forty-one. When she…when she…’

He swallowed hard, rotating his cigarette – neurotically – between his finger and his thumb.

Maude opened her mouth to speak.

‘O’Connor
was
thirty-nine, though,’ he interrupted her, firmly,
‘that
wasn’t apocryphal…’

Apocryphal?

Maude’s mouth remained open. She gaped at him.

‘From the Greek,’ he explained, ‘
apókruphos
– or…or “hidden”

– via the Latin. It’s…it’s…it’s ecclesiastical in origin…’ Kane’s hands – he realised – were now shaking quite violently. He gazed down at them, astonished.

‘
Jesus.
’

He stuck his cigarette into his mouth, inhaled and then coughed. His eyes filled with tears again. He sucked in his cheeks, turning away – appalled.

Silence

‘Well there’s a definitely a peacock around here somewhere…’ Maude murmured, turning away herself – with a show of some delicacy – and then launching a concerted attack on her fourth, consecutive bush.

Kane didn’t respond. He’d taken out his phone –

Masking behaviour

– and was pretending to check his messages. He rolled down the menu (his fingers clumsy with the cold), barely even focussing on the display, his mind – searching for calm, for
comfort
, perhaps – retreating back to that ludicrously extravagant kitchen where he’d sat and chatted with Laura – just twenty minutes before – his hands tightly cradling a steaming mug of tea –

World’s Greatest Fisherman

Then his thoughts regressed still further, to that quiet corner of Beede’s dark bedroom, where he’d stood and inspected an all-but identical mug – tagged and displayed in an upturned crate – his nostrils prickling with the pungent scent of cat litter…

Eh?

Kane double-blinked. He grimaced. He refocussed. He called up the number for Peta Borough on his phone. He dialled it. The phone rang. He held it, impatiently, to his ear.

‘Uh…’ Maude peered over at him. ‘You could always collect those
together if you felt like it…’ she pointed to the abandoned collars. ‘It’d save them from blowing into the road. You could form them into some kind of a…a
bundle
, maybe…’

Kane didn’t move –

Nope
–

No answer

‘I can recycle them for cash,’ she continued. ‘Not for
much
, obviously…’

Still, Kane didn’t respond. He was waiting to leave a message – ‘Peta? Hi. It’s Kane. I must see you. It’s urgent. Bye.’

‘I have a friend who works on a plantation in North Kent…’ Maude rattled on, aimlessly.

Kane brusquely shoved his phone away. ‘So I should contact you about the car repairs via the French Connection?’ he demanded, studiously avoiding eye contact.

‘Sure. If you like…’ Maude bent over and gathered up the collars herself. ‘They’re far easier to transport when they’re tucked up inside each other…’

She tried to wrangle them, but without much success.

‘It’s
cold
out here,’ Kane shuddered, drawing on his smoke –

As he inhaled he heard a strange, haunting call – a cry – some way off in the distance. His skin puckered into goose-bumps –

Eh?

‘Peacock again,’ Maude smiled. ‘You
must’ve
caught it that time?’

‘Aren’t they meant to be bad luck?’

Kane shivered, paranoid.

‘What?’ Maude delivered him a scornful look.

He caught her eye and then glanced away, embarrassed. At precisely that moment, a scooter sped past, travelling at an unconscionable speed, its engine chronically over-revved, two people on board, only one of which (the driver) was actually wearing a helmet. The passenger was a girl – a scraggy girl, unsuitably dressed for the freezing weather (in a mini-skirt and tank-top) – wailing (in terror?
Delight?
) as they took the corner. This dramatic spectacle was rendered doubly absurd (or risible, depending on your angle) by the fact that the girl was
clutching on to a Bible (as if her life depended on it) while stiffly holding out a severely broken leg, which bounced up and down as they drove, only inches above the tarmac.

‘Bloody hell,’ Maude exclaimed, her head whipping around.

‘What the…
?!
’ Kane gasped, and then, ‘
Gaffar? GAFFAR?!
’

He ran a couple of steps down the embankment, waving his arms, but they’d already high-tailed it.

‘You know them?’

‘Uh…yeah.’

Kane tugged on his ear-lobe, bemused, still staring blankly down the road as a second vehicle swung by (but at a rather more sedate pace, this time). It was a large, dark-green Rover and Isidore sat at its wheel; ramrod-straight, hatchet-jawed, insanely focussed on the road ahead.

This was all the incentive Kane needed. ‘Gotta go,’ he threw down his cigarette and turned, instinctively, to follow.

‘I hope you don’t make a habit of doing that,’ Maude clucked, sticking out her foot and extinguishing the stub with the heel of her old hiking boot.

‘Think you can get your car to start?’ he yelled, over his shoulder.

‘Yeah. It’ll be the plugs. I’ll just dry them off. It’ll be…’

She grimaced. ‘It’ll be
fine
,’ she sniped.

But he was already well out of ear-shot.

THIRTEEN

‘It was KAAAAAANE!
’ Kelly screamed, repeatedly smacking Gaffar’s back with her Bible as they hurtled around the roundabout.

‘
KAAAAAAAANE!
’

‘
Huh?
’ Gaffar glanced over his shoulder.

‘We gotta STOP!’

Gaffar promptly applied the brakes.

‘Not on the fuckin’ ROUNDABOUT, you LOON!’

Gaffar accelerated again.

‘We’re LOST. We need to get back on to the MAIN ROAD…’
Kelly pointed to the relevant turn-off, but Gaffar had already shot past it.

‘BALLS! Harve ain’t gonna sit around waitin’ all fuckin’
DAY,
you DICK!’

Kelly took a swipe at his helmet this time. Gaffar ducked to avoid it and the scooter wobbled, precariously.

‘WAAAH!’

They took the roundabout again (still wobbling) and somehow managed to exit correctly, circling back up on to the A2070 where they rapidly rejoined the Bad Munstereifel section of the busy dual carriageway.

Kelly took out her mobile and attempted to dial her uncle as they sped along it.

‘WHERE NOW?’
Gaffar bellowed.

‘SHUT UP! I’m just tryin’a ring HARVE to FIND OUT, you PILLOCK!’

They were fast approaching another roundabout.

‘I can’t get any fuckin’…WOAAHH!’

Kelly clung on tightly as they commenced the turn. Then –

‘Head STRAIGHT!’
she yelled, pointing,
‘an’ PULL OVER! We need to get…’

They exited on to Malcolm Sargent Road.

‘STOP!’
she yelled.
‘STOP!! DOUBLE-QUICK! BY THE VAN!’

Gaffar careered in towards the pavement, braking hard. Kelly jolted
forward on the seat, her forehead smacking into the back of his helmet.

‘
OW!
’

As they drew to a halt she leaned over sideways and spewed a neat, semi-translucent mouthful of bile into the gutter. A man was standing nearby, taping a poster on to a street light. He turned.

‘Little Kelly
Broad,’
he exclaimed, strolling over with a beaming smile. ‘Well here’s a turn-up!’

He shoved his hand into his pocket, withdrew a tissue and handed it to her. Kelly snatched the tissue, thrusting him her Bible, in exchange. He took it and inspected it, quizzically, as she patted at her mouth, groaning. She was a pale shade of lilac.

‘That must’ve been some ride, kid,’ he observed, shooting Gaffar a disapproving look.

‘Butt
out,
Garry,’ Kelly snapped (every inch the stroppy teenager), then, ‘How’s that?’ She peered up at him, owlishly. He gazed down at her, frowning. Her entire face was streaked in black spider-legs of mascara.

‘Uh…well you’ve still got a little bit of…’ he pointed ‘…
you
know…around the eye area.’

‘What?’

‘The Panda Effect I think they like to call it.’

‘Mascara?’

She patted, ineffectually, at her cheeks.

‘It’s more…uh…more
general
…’

She handed him the tissue, scowling. ‘Just wipe it off, then, will ya?’

‘Me?’

He looked alarmed.

‘Yeah. Just dab it off. Go on,’ she bullied him, ‘don’t take all
year
about it.’

‘Bloody
hell
…’

He spat on the tissue and gently commenced dabbing. Kelly – rather surprisingly, Gaffar felt – lifted her small chin into the air, and received his attentions, uncomplainingly, like a small girl having her face cleaned by an attentive nanny after devouring an over-sized sundae at a fair.

Gaffar pushed up his visor and peered over at the stranger, suspiciously. He was a short, burly, middle-aged man with an unruly mop of frizzy brown hair (receding a little at the crown), a keen pair of light-green eyes (fringed by disarmingly long and curly lashes) set in a rough, wide, distinctly gnomish face.

‘This here is Garry Spivey, Gaff,’ Kelly informed him.
‘Eh?’

‘My Uncle Harvey’s Best Mucker…’ she grinned.

‘That’d
be the day, Kell.’

Garry rolled his green eyes, long-sufferingly.

Kelly pointed. ‘I thought I recognised that clapped-out old van of yours, Gaz. Still too tight to get yourself somethin’ proper?’ ‘If it ain’t broke,’ Garry shrugged. ‘The old girl’s still doin’ me pretty good service…’

‘That’s an old Dodge, Gaff,’ Kelly explained. ‘It’s Yank-made. Though it’s hard to tell through all the layers of
Hammerite…’

Gaffar shrugged.

‘Like a fuckin’
tank,
it is,’ Kelly expanded. ‘Gas-powered, ain’t it, Gaz?’

‘Yup.’

Kelly shook her head. ‘There’s a canister-thing in the back, Gaff, an’ this tiny, little pipe which feeds through to the motor. Someone ever rams him from behind an’ he’ll go up like a fuckin’ Catherine Wheel.’

Gaffar didn’t respond. He watched Garry closely as he dabbed away, tenderly, at Kelly’s face with his huge, intensely callused, workman’s hands.

‘This takes me right back, Kell,’ Garry chuckled. ‘Oh yeah?’

‘Yeah. Remember how I used to pick you up when you was hangin’ around outside that Print Works near the Sports Ground with those older kids after school, give you a quick clip around the ear for smokin’ weed an’ drive you straight home?’

‘Drop me off at the end of the street?’ Kelly smirked. ‘You was a
pest,
Gaz, straight up. Always stickin’ your oar in where it wasn’t wanted. Ruined my bloody social life, you did. You was worse than my bloody
dad
…’

Kelly suddenly faltered, embarrassed, ‘I mean…I mean not like
that…’

She blushed.

‘There was this one time I remember,’ Garry prattled on (keen not to dwell on the negative stuff), ‘when you had blood all down your top from a nose-bleed some boy had given ya, an’ you didn’t want your mum to find out, so I took you home an’ Stephanie shoved it in the washer…’

‘How
is
Steph?’ Kelly enquired (determined to change the subject). ‘I ain’t seen her around town in a while.’

‘Good,’ Garry responded, almost too brightly.
‘Very
good, as it happens. Just found out she’s expectin’ wiv’ her new partner. She actually moved up to Stoke last year, to be closer to her sister.’

‘Huh?’
Kelly frowned, confused, then the penny dropped.
‘Oh…Right.
Well give her my best when you speak to her.’

‘Will do, Kell.’

He continued dabbing.

‘Nearly done?’ she enquired.

‘Yeah. Pretty much…’ Garry drew back to appraise his work. ‘So you broke your leg, then?’

‘Yeah,’ she rolled her eyes, ‘fell off a damn
wall.
’

‘Typical!’
he grinned. ‘Even as a toddler you was always into everythin’.

Fearless, you were. We always used to say you was part-girl, part-chimp.’

’
Fuck
off!’

Kelly lunged at him, and almost toppled from the scooter. Gaffar tensed his legs, with a grunt, to keep it upright.

‘Oi
!’ Garry grabbed on to her arm to save her from falling. ‘You take care, there…’

He frowned. ‘Bloody hell. You’re
freezin’,
girl…’

He placed the Bible and his posters down on to the pavement, pulled off his coat and hung it over her shoulders. ‘There you go…’

‘Thanks, Gaz,’ Kelly sniffed. ‘You’re a cobber.’

She pulled the coat even tighter around her. It was an old, brown leather bomber jacket. It smelled of flaking paint and fresh putty. The lining was in tatters.

‘Pretty
attached
to this old thing, are ya?’ she grinned, poking her fingers through the decaying fabric.

He shrugged, resignedly. ‘I never was much of fashion plate, Kell.’

‘Aw!’
She stuck out her bottom lip, poignantly, then (afraid of seeming too much of a push-over) she winked at him, saucily. ‘Although I’m sure you do all right, eh?’

A slightly uncomfortable silence followed.

‘So…’ Kelly cleared her throat, ‘you wouldn’t happen to know where Mill Bank Road is, would ya?’

‘Mill Bank? Yeah. Sure…’ Garry turned and pointed. ‘It ain’t far. Just straight down here, left on to Wotton Road, straight on again, left on to Kingsnorth, then right when the road divides. That’s Mill Bank.’

‘D’ya get that, Gaff?’

Kelly cuffed Gaffar’s shoulder.

‘Sure…’ Gaffar nodded.

‘Then let’s split.’

Kelly shook off Garry’s coat and returned it to him.

‘Nice to catch up, yeah?’

‘Yeah…’

Garry frowned, obviously perturbed, as Gaffar revved up the engine. ‘You be sure an’ look after yourself,’ he counselled, ‘all right?’

Kelly nodded as Gaffar accelerated, at speed. Then,
‘HEY!’
she yelled, her face partially obscured by a cloud of exhaust smoke.

‘What?’
Garry yelled back.

‘Why not treat yerself to a
NEW COAT
!’ she caterwauled.

Two, three,
four
seconds of blind, almost
unfathomable
terror –

WHAT?!

But…but HOW ?

– before those trusty, old instincts kicked back into play again –

Austerity childhood

Military training

– and Beede promptly disengaged himself from his wayward emotions, rolled up his sleeves and got down to work –

Ours is not to reason why,

Ours is but…

The first thing he did was to check for any remaining signs of life in the cat –

Eyes, gums, nose, throat…

Nope.

Chest…?

There were none. The cat was dead. His face (when he turned him over) had set into a strange sneer (where his lip had ridden up against the carpet), and this curious expression –

What’s that?

Eh?

Lodged under the tongue…?

A feather?!

– didn’t alter once the pressure was off. The whiskers, he noticed, were already starting to stiffen.

He wrapped the animal up in newspaper (like an old-fashioned serving of fish and chips) then placed him, gently, into a biodegradable bin-bag. As he tied a neat knot in the neck, Beede noticed that his knuckles were badly grazed –

Bruised…

How’d I…?

– he shook his head and tried to think of something else. The something else he thought of was a kind of…of
metaphysical
debate about whether it was actually
better
to try and think of something else…

Isn’t that what the Yogis do?

Think of something else?

Gently turn away?

When they meditate…?

He frowned –

How about Peta?

His frown deepened –

What would she say?

Would she be secretly impressed?

Would she think I was exhibiting…

He snorted, sarcastically –

…
‘admirable restraint’?

He flared his nostrils –

Or…or…

He grimaced –

Or just plain cowardice, more like it?

He completed the knot and placed the bag firmly aside (quietly opting to do the same with the debate).

Next, he located the bucket for the mop. It was hidden under the upturned sofa – which he set straight, shoving it back to its former position (although there was no careful measuring this time, just a rough approximation).

His progress was painfully slow. The pain in his shoulder was quite intolerable (the arm on that side was virtually numb now and his grip was growing increasingly weak in the hand).

Once the sofa was rearranged he returned to the kitchen and set about mopping up the wet floor. He gradually noticed that the source of all the water –

What is the source?

– was located elsewhere – in the bathroom – so he opened the door –

Woah!

– and tentatively ventured inside –

Jesus wept!

The floor was awash, and there were more feathers in here –
black
feathers (although no sign of an actual
carcass
to speak of –

Hmmn.

Strange.
)

– but the main feature in this room to draw his eye –

Oh dear…

– was the blood. There was blood on the tiles. Blood in the sink. Blood dripping down the walls inside the shower cubicle…Blood smeared, splattered and daubed…not…not
huge
amounts (by any means)…not…

Dangerous…

Beede swallowed, nervously, feeling a tiny chink forming in the brick wall of his composure. But then instead of surrendering to it –

Nope.

Don’t.

You won’t.

– he corralled his anxiety into the task of cleaning up. This was his
business,
after all. His trade. He was an expert at it. He grabbed hold of a J-cloth and began washing everything down –

Wipe, rinse, wring

Establish a steady rhythm…

That’s the spirit!

– then he paused, frowning –

Eh?

– staring intently at something –

What’s…?

There was a handprint, on the mirror, above the sink. He inspected it for a second and then glanced down at his own hand. He lifted his own hand up –

Ouch

Hard to…

Heavy

– and held it, gingerly, adjacent to the print –