Darkmans (85 page)

‘Screw the car,’ Kane interrupted her. ‘Stop evading the issue. Just tell me the truth, for once…’

Peta suddenly burst out laughing. ‘The truth? Are you serious?’

‘Yes.’

Kane was indignant.

‘The
truth,’
Peta informed him, baldly, ‘is just a series of disparate ideas which briefly congeal and then slowly fall apart again…’

‘No,’ Kane shook his head, ‘I’m not buying that. What’s been going on feels really…really
coherent,
as if…as if everything’s secretly hooking up into this extraordinary…I dunno…this extraordinary
jigsaw,
like there’s a superior, guiding
logic
of some kind…’

‘The truth,’ Peta smiled, ‘is that there is no truth. Life is just a series of coincidences, accidents and random urges which we carefully forge – for our own, sick reasons – into a convenient design. Everything is arbitrary. Only art exists to make the arbitrary congeal. Not memory or God or love, even. Only
art.
The truth is simply an idea, a structure which we employ – in very small doses – to render life bearable. It’s just a convenient mechanism, Kane, that’s all.’

‘I’ve
seen
things,’ Kane doggedly maintained, ‘I’ve experienced things…
crazy
things. I’ve felt this energy, this sense of…of
connectedness
…’

‘Just chemicals,’ she pointed to his head. ‘Up here. Too much coffee. Too many hormones. Too much sugar…’

‘But other people have felt it, too…’

‘Then a kind of joint hysteria…’

‘No.’ Kane shook his head.

‘We’re all raised to think we’re so special,’ Peta scoffed, ‘that all our experiences are so important, so meaningful, so
particular,
so individual. But if you look at the work of the confidence trickster, the
magician, the psychic – even the
priest,
for that matter – what they depend on – how they
function
– is to play on the universality of human experience, on how bland, how predictable, how
homogenous
we all really are…’

‘But what if I’ve discovered things – or seen things – which are completely beyond my range of possible experience. Stuff about the past. Stuff about…’

‘You were telling yourself a story. You were weaving a spell. You were making all the parts fit. You were feeding into a general energy, a universal energy. You were probably adhering to a basic archetype – a “first model” as the Ancient Greeks would have it – something like…’ she shrugged, ‘he’s threatened by his father, he loved his mother, he’s terrified of death…or maybe something more intellectual, more esoteric like…I don’t know…like the idea of this disparity between fire and water,’ she pulled a moronic face, ‘or the absurd idea that language has these
gaps
in it and that lives can somehow just tumble through…’

‘That was Beede’s idea,’ Kane interrupted her. ‘You said it was a good idea before. You
liked
it.’

‘Nah. I probably just said what I needed to,’ she shrugged, ‘so we’d both end up here.’

Kane took a step back from her. ‘You’re a class act,’ he smiled, ‘I’ll give you that.’

‘You seriously believe
I’m
behind all this?’ Peta grinned. ‘You honestly think that I have the energy – the
means
– to bring this all together? That I’m some kind of a conduit? Some kind of…’

‘But why not?’ Kane demanded. ‘It’s your story too, isn’t it?’

‘I’m flattered,’ Peta chuckled, ‘touched, even.’ She paused. ‘And perhaps I was an unwitting midwife to something,’ she conceded, ‘but if I was, then it was something that was already born. Because everything already exists. It’s all there for the taking. But we never actually take it all. We just choose the little bits we need to further our agenda. And why shouldn’t we? Because it doesn’t serve our purpose to see the whole picture. And the parts that we do see? The parts that we do discover? They’re often the same parts. And how we keep it fresh is that we constantly re-create them, then conveniently forget them, then suddenly rediscover them anew, own them anew…’

‘Maybe,’ Kane said. He didn’t seem entirely convinced.

‘It was never about the tiles, Kane,’ Peta sighed. ‘It was only ever about Beede and what he felt. Or maybe – more to the point – what he
couldn’t
feel.’

‘Perhaps you underestimate him,’ Kane maintained. ‘Perhaps Beede actually knew something – all along – that you didn’t.’ Peta merely shrugged. She glanced down at her watch, then looked up. ‘The Commissar is just about to overheat,’ she announced.

Kane peered over towards the car. He saw a tiny plume of steam ascending from the bonnet.

‘Balls,’ he cursed.

‘Just as the traffic starts to shift,’ she groaned. ‘Would you believe it?’

She leaned down and grabbed something from the van’s front passenger seat. It was a large bottle of water. She handed it to him. ‘He’ll take twenty minutes to cool down,’ she said, ‘and give it five, at least, before you risk unscrewing the radiator cap.’

Kane took the bottle and started walking, backwards, towards the car. ‘I’m not finished with you,’ he yelled.

‘Yes you are.’

She switched on her indicator, and slowly overtook. Kane was reaching – anxiously – into the steaming engine as the van drew past. He glanced up. He saw her lips moving. He heard her mutter something – a parting shot. And it was either, ‘Take care not to burn your hands’ or ‘Take care of your
surgeon’s
hands…’ Either one or the other. He couldn’t tell which. But after she’d spoken, he saw her head tip back, and he could’ve sworn he heard a sharp, cruel cackle – a chuckle, a
chortle
– as if she’d actually just said something totally hysterical.

‘Beede?’ Dory was muttering. ‘Beede?
Beede?
Are you still with me?’ Beede was sitting on a bench in a stationary ambulance, clutching on to the feather as if his life depended on it. Dory was lying on a stretcher beside him. He was bleeding heavily. His shattered head had been fitted with some kind of padded helmet and he’d been heavily sedated.

‘Dory?’ Beede leaned over towards him. ‘It’s Beede. I’m here. I’m right beside you.’

He tried to grab Dory’s hand, but his free arm was too heavy to lift. He shuffled a little further forward instead, wincing as he moved. One of the two ambulancemen gave him a warning look but Beede ignored him.

‘Dory?’ he repeated. ‘I’m here, I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere, I promise.’

Dory’s blue eyes fluttered open. ‘Is he gone, Beede?’ he gasped. ‘Is it finally done with?’

Beede considered this question, carefully. ‘Yes,’ he said, glancing nervously over his shoulder, ‘I’m sure he is. I’m sure it must be.’

‘Oh thank God,’ Dory panted, smiling. ‘Oh thank…’

Then his eyes suddenly widened. ‘Sm…
smoke
…’ he coughed. His voice sounded hoarse again.

The second ambulanceman gave Dory some oxygen. ‘Just try and stay still,’ he advised him. ‘We’ll soon be on our way…’

He glanced over at Beede. ‘There’s a terrible traffic jam,’ he explained, ‘because of a huge fire on one of the local estates. An entire street went up, apparently.’

Dory tried to knock his oxygen mask away. ‘What’s happening?’ he gasped. He tried to lift his arms, to sit up, but they were strapped down too tightly.

‘You’re in an ambulance, Dory,’ Beede told him. ‘You’re going to hospital. You’re going to be…’

The ambulance jolted forward. Its siren began wailing. Beede winced again.

‘But I need to…’ Dory’s eyes were starting, his temples were pulsing. ‘I
must…’

‘Calm down,’ Beede tried his best to soothe him, ‘just calm down and…’

‘Stop…I need to…to…’

Dory gazed, in desperation, towards the ambulance’s back windows. ‘I need to
stop…‘

‘Try and stay still,’ the second ambulanceman repeated. ‘You’re in shock. Try not to move your head around too much…’

Beede glanced towards the windows himself.

‘
No.
I
must
…I
can’t…’
Dory continued to struggle.

‘We may need to sedate him further,’ the first ambulanceman murmured to his partner.

‘Can we really risk that?’ his partner murmured back.

‘Tür,’ Dory suddenly wheezed, his hands struggling with the straps that bound him, ‘can’t…can’t…
tür.’

‘Do you know what he’s saying?’ the first ambulanceman asked Beede.

‘He’s saying…
uh
…tür,’ Beede interpreted, slightly panicked. ‘I think that’s German for…for door…although…’ he frowned, confused, ‘although
tier
…it could be
tier.
That means an animal, or…or – more formally speaking – a
breathing
thing…’

Dory was hurling himself around so violently now that some of the straps which bound him were beginning to loosen up.

‘He’s incredibly strong,’ the first ambulanceman muttered, battling to re-tighten them. His partner replaced the oxygen mask over Dory’s face. Dory tried to knock it off. He was frantic. His voice echoed away, hollowly, inside of it.

‘In…in some other Indo-European languages,’ Beede suddenly began to speak again, ‘in…in Lithuanian and Church Slavonic, for example, there are variants on the word which mean “gasp” or…or “breath”. They come to us via the pre-historic…’

Beede paused. He stared, in horror, at Dory’s contorted face. Dory was still shouting. His eyes were bulging.

‘TÜR,’
he was screaming,
‘BEEDE! BEEDE! TÜR!’

‘Perhaps you should take that thing off,’ Beede exclaimed, shifting even further forward, ‘he needs to be able to speak freely. He needs to be able to…to
communicate
…’

The ambulanceman was trying to inject a further dose of sedative into Dory’s arm. ‘Just stay back,’ he told Beede sharply. ‘If you actually want to
help
your friend then just…’

He struggled to hold Dory’s arm still. His partner was physically restraining Dory’s head.

‘TUUUUR!’
Dory screamed.
‘NO!’

He began to experience some kind of seizure. He was foaming at the mouth. His eyes were rolling back in his head. His fists were clenched. A series of mechanical alarms started to go off.

Beede stood up. The pain he felt as he did so was really quite unimaginable.

‘This must be the end,’ he thought, ‘this can’t continue.’ He felt a strange sense of relief, almost of satisfaction.

‘Sit down!’
the ambulanceman yelled.

‘I’m going to the
door,
Dory,’ Beede informed his friend, staggering around a little as the speeding ambulance raced along. ‘I’m going to the
tür
! The
door.
See? I can
hear
you, Dory, see? I can
understand. Look!
I’m going to the door…I’m standing by the…the
d-d-deur…‘

He blinked.

Huh?

Dory’s quivering body suddenly relaxed. His strong arms went limp. The alarms continued to sound.

‘Oh
shit,
’ the first ambulanceman said.

Beede frowned. He stared down at the German, confused. He raised a shaking hand to his neck. He felt a terrible pain there, an intense pain, like a blow, almost a
kick.
Then his eyes widened. He took a quick step back.

A man stood before him – a small, mean, dark man – with both arms outstretched. He was smiling. He was moving forward. There was something cruel, something almost
sinister…

‘Oh my
God,’
Beede murmured, ‘but of…of
course
…the
tür,
the…the
door…That’s
what he…’

He quickly glanced behind him. The doors flew open. He held on to the feather. He carried the feather with him.

It took exactly twenty minutes for the car to cool down again. During this time Kane loaded his stash into his pockets, shoved the book and the photocopied sheets into the glove compartment, tried to light a cigarette, but he couldn’t find the…

The fucking lighter –

What is it with these fucking lighters?

He peered down the side of the driver’s seat –

Nope

He peered down the side of the passenger seat –

Nope

Although…

He frowned. He squeezed his hand down the thin gap –

Ouch

– he winced (he’d managed to acquire a small steam burn on his palm) and retrieved –

Jesus H!

A bloody scratchcard!

It was the un-used scratchcard which he’d thrown away earlier –

Must’ve dropped out…

Kane stared at it, morosely. Then he stared at his cigarette. Then he stared over at his phone. He threw the cigarette on to the dash. He grabbed his phone. He turned it on –

219 messages

Fuck.

He dropped the phone into his lap and re-inspected the scratchcard. He rubbed at it, idly, with his thumbnail –

One

Two

Three

Four…

Eh?

He picked up his phone again. He drew a deep breath. He rang Gaffar.

‘Gaffar?’

‘Yah?’

Gaffar sounded severely short of puff.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Push this stupid bike.’

‘The scooter?’

‘Yah.’

‘Where are you?’

‘Uh…I dunno. My bike is not petrol.’

‘You ran out of gas?’

‘Yah.’

‘And you don’t know where you are?’

‘Uh…’

Silence

‘…no.’

‘Is there a signpost?’

‘Uh…’

‘Is there anyone around you could ask?’

‘Sure, is plenty car. Is uh…is all stop here.’

‘A traffic jam, huh?’

‘Uh…yeah.’

‘Well just knock on the window of the nearest vehicle and hand them your phone. I’ll do the rest.’

‘Serious?’

‘Sure. Just knock on a window and…’

Long silence

‘Hello?’

‘Hi. Did some Kurdish dude just hand you this phone?’

‘Yeah.’

‘That’s great. Would you mind telling me where you are?’

‘Where
I
am?’

‘Yeah. He’s lost. I’m trying to find out his exact location.’

‘Well I’m stuck in a traffic jam. I’m just waiting at the roundabout for the Hamstreet turn-off. Cedar Farm’s to my right…’

‘That’s great,’ Kane butted in. ‘Thanks. Could you pass him back the phone?’

Pause

‘Gaffar?’

Silence

‘Gaffar?’

Silence

‘GAFFAR?’

‘Yah?’

Gaffar sounded a little distracted.

‘What’s happening?’

‘I dunno. Is this…uh…this
sound.
’

‘A sound? What kind of a sound?’

‘Is uh…’ he inhaled, and then,
‘Eee-ooo-iiii Eee-ooo-iii.’

‘Fuck.’

Kane pulled the phone away from his ear.

‘Is bird,’ Gaffar expanded. ‘Is big tail bird.’

‘Can you see it?’

‘No.’

‘Oh.’

Pause

‘Well I’m about 2 miles down the road,’ Kane continued, ‘so if you just stay where you are, I should be with you in about ten minutes. I’ve got some work I need you to help me with…’

He paused, ‘And I’ve got you a new car.’

‘Yah?’ Gaffar sounded intrigued. ‘Whas?’

‘It’s a Lada.’

‘Fuck off!’

‘Seriously. It’s a Lada. A Lada Estate. Black. Fat wheels. Crazy suspension. From Jamaica.’

‘Fuck
off.
’

Kane chuckled, ‘Yup.’

He prepared to hang up, but before he did, ‘And guess what else?’ he said, his smile slowly fading.

‘What?’ Gaffar asked (still pondering the Lada).

‘I just won forty grand on a scratchcard…’

Kane inspected the scratchcard as he spoke, with a scowl.

‘
Lucky,
huh?’

Maude had approximately 150 trees still to do. She was exhausted, and she had a painful splinter in her finger, but she kept on hacking away at the collars. She was determined to get the job done, come hell or high water.

‘Hello again.’

She glanced up. It was Kane. He was leaning out of a black Lada.

‘What are you doing back here?’ she growled.

‘I’m looking for my friend,’ Kane said. ‘He’s short, dark, Kurdish – doesn’t speak much English…’

Maude shook her head.

‘He was pushing a scooter. He said he’d be waiting for me down at the roundabout. I found the scooter dumped by the road there, but he’d vanished, so I’m just driving the whole circuit in the vain hope…’

Maude was inspecting her finger. She seemed upset.

‘It’s been crazy around here,’ she observed.

‘There was a huge fire on the estate, apparently,’ Kane said. ‘You can see the plume of smoke for miles…’

‘There was a crash on the slip road,’ Maude interrupted him, ‘in almost the exact spot where you hit me, earlier. It was a ten-car pile-up. This fire engine slammed into the back of…’

‘Did you see it?’

‘No. But I heard it. I ran down there. There was a pregnant woman. She was trapped inside her car. She was panicking. She thought she was losing her baby. I had to stand there and wait with her. Hold her hand. All these other people around me were crying out for help, bleeding, staggering from their vehicles…’

‘Jesus.’

Kane sprang from the Lada. ‘What on earth are you still doing here? You must be in shock. Get into the car. Let me drive you home…’

‘And I’ve got this…this
stupid
…’ Maude pointed, enraged ‘…this
splinter
in my finger…’

She yanked off her glove.

Kane drew in closer. He gently took her hand. ‘That isn’t actually too bad,’ he told her, ‘I can probably just…‘

He squeezed the splinter – hard – under his thumbnail.

‘Owwww!’
she bellowed.

He jerked back, alarmed.

‘I already
tried
that,’ she whimpered, ‘I need a pin to dig it out with, but I don’t…’

‘Hold on a second…’ Kane smiled. He removed the pink charity ribbon from his lapel.

‘I have one,’ he said, showing it to her.

She inspected the pin, mollified.

‘What’s that special word the Arabs always use…?’ Kane murmured, taking hold of her hand again, then gently applying the pin to her fingertip. He pushed it in, very carefully, and five seconds later, the splinter was out.

‘There you go,’ he said, brushing it on to his own fingertip. ‘See? It was only very tiny…’

‘Thanks.’

She smiled up at him. ‘That didn’t hurt at all.’

Kane placed the pink ribbon against his lapel and tried to pin it back into place again, but as he applied pressure to it, the pin – for no reason that he could fathom – suddenly snapped in half. He grimaced, hung the ribbon over his button and dropped the two tiny fragments into the grass.

Maude, meanwhile, had returned to her task.

‘God, you’re tenacious,’ he said, almost admiringly.

She didn’t respond.

‘Not too many left now,’ he continued, peering down along the embankment.

‘You’d better head off and find your friend,’ she suggested.

‘Yeah.’

Kane turned to go. He took a couple of steps towards the car, then he paused and turned back again. ‘Let me do the last few,’ he said.

‘I’m fine,’ she insisted.

‘No, go on. I’d be happy to…’ he paused. ‘I’d
like
to.’

He put out his hand for the Stanley knife.

‘It’s pretty blunt,’ she warned him.

Kane took the knife, bent over, and removed five collars in quick succession.

‘Easy,’ he said.

She snorted.

‘So you’re a student?’ he asked.

‘Yeah.’

He removed another three collars.

‘What of?’

‘English, Economics and Political Theory, although I’m pretty crap on the financial side of things…’

‘And what do you plan to do with those?’