Now You See Me (7 page)

I kept on walking towards the pub but then a carrier bag got tangled round my feet, I don't know where it came from, it can't have blown because there was no wind. It was just a wet white bag flapping around my feet but it made my heart go wild. I hate the way rubbish is everywhere, don't you? All sorts, even great big carrier bags just lying about in the street. I kicked it away but it clung to my shoe so I had to kick and kick. It was just an empty bag. Nothing to get upset about. But my spirits sank down into my boots. If I found him, then what? It was raining properly now and the damp knees of my jeans were making me itch. Best to be alone, it really is.

Eight

I went back to the cellar. The cobbles glistened greasily and I thought I would slip. The light switch isn't quite by the door so you have to go in in the dark. I go in with my eyes shut and fumble for the switch. Sometimes I can't find it straightaway and my hand scrabbles at the wall, my stupid mind thinking I'm in the wrong place or worse, maybe when I switch the light on someone will be there, waiting.

Lights are meant to make a place look cosy but the light in Mr Dickens' cellar is dismal. A dull cobwebby bulb which emphasises the dark outside its reach and presses shadows into every gap and crease. The bit of cellar I live in is cramped up in one corner and in the day you don't notice the rest but at night you can see that there is a big area where the light doesn't reach. There are ladders, rusty saws, cardboard boxes, saw-horses, fringed lampshades, all sorts of stuff laced together with cobwebs and shadows, and in the day you can stand there and name the things and not be scared at all. Not that I'm scared anyway. What is there to be scared of?

I tried to make it as cheerful as I could. I put the Calor gas on, even though I'm worried about the fumes. There was something on the radio about a girl who died from carbon monoxide fumes. Just dropped off to sleep beside her gas fire, never to wake up. But the cellar is so draughty I don't think that will happen to me. I made a cup of tea and put the radio on for company. I like listening to Radio 4 best, the calm sensible voices telling you calm sensible things, but I always switch off for the news. The sorts of things it fills your head with, you do not need to know.

I could tell it was going to be one of those nights. Usually I'm all right. I read or just sleep or sometimes there's a play on the radio which I love, it's such a rest from myself – but it wasn't about to be one of those nights. I don't put the light off when I go to sleep but that isn't for any particular reason. I just don't.

I felt all tensed up as if my belly was full of question marks and it was mainly about Doggo. The clear vision of my balance was fading. The balance alone. Maybe being alone too much is dangerous? Maybe having a friend would help? The voice was telling me to leave him be. But maybe the voice was
wrong
. Or maybe it was tricking me, tricking me away from a friendship that would be fine. Which is the good voice and which the saboteur?

I heard a voice. It was above me in the kitchen and it wasn't Mr Dickens' voice and there were footsteps too. My heart nearly stopped. There's never anybody there except for Meals on Wheels and they only stay about two minutes. The footsteps were quick and the voice was a woman's. I reached and switched off the radio. There were sounds like running water and things happening in the kitchen. I thought, calm down, Lamb, and I did sit down on the edge of my bed but not very calmly. I thought I should switch off the light but I couldn't do that. I stayed very still with the cup of tea between my hands, just watching the steam rise off it, straining my ears to hear what next.

I heard a laugh and then the bump-shuzz bump-shuzz of Mr Dickens. The back door opened and a girly voice called out, ‘Doughnut, Doughnut, come on, boy, time to do your stuff.' I shot up quick and switched off the light because if she went in the garden she would see the light on and then … Anyway I switched it off and stood by the door with my hands all wet and the black smothering me, a blanket in my eyes and mouth, and I started to shrink. I think my eyes were shut I don't know. She was out there saying,
‘Really
, Uncle,' about something or other I don't know. I waited till I stopped shrinking and I must have opened my eyes because then I saw it wasn't totally dark, some of the kitchen light had spilled against the window and I could see the patterns of cobwebs with all the dry old legs and wings.

The voice kept calling until Doughnut was back in and it seemed like hours later the door banged shut and I heard the footsteps leave the kitchen and then the front door bang and a car drive away. I put the light back on and looked round at the room. Bleak is definitely the word but at least it's somewhere. You just have to focus on the light places and not the dark. Inside you and without. I was shivering. When you're cold and you sweat it's the worst kind of cold and I was still wet from the rain. I took off my jeans and hung them on a lawn-mower in front of the heater and got into bed.

I put the radio back on and tried to listen to some programme about how chimpanzees can have a vocabulary of up to two hundred words. They don't speak but do a sort of sign language like deaf people. They can even make up sentences. One said
Why have you put me in prison?
when he was locked up in a cage.

I listened to that as hard as I could. It was no good trying to sleep. Maybe I simply wasn't tired enough. I lay stiffly in the bed for ages before I gave up trying. Anxiety can make you itch, really, cause your skin to crawl. I got up and put on my damp clothes and opened the door into the garden. A thin smear of moonlight lit up a tangle of twigs. I went round the front. A slit of light showed between Mr Dickens' curtains but all the other houses were dark though one had left a pumpkin lantern burning in the window and its grin flickered like it was licking its jagged lips. I felt I should tiptoe through the sleeping streets. The only other living thing was a cat. It glanced at me with startled sizzling eyes and sped away. I was an intruder in its world.

I wonder where in the city Doggo is, inside or out, awake or asleep? How far away from me, maybe quite near. Maybe in a doorway somewhere with his dogs. I don't like that thought. It brings back the lost feeling of not knowing where to lay my head. For two years I had nowhere certain to lay my head. And then the hospital with the green honeycomb blankets you could stick your fingers through. There was a woman there, still as a statue. She was marbly blue and it was wonderful how still she was. When her husband came to visit he'd put a fag between her lips and ages later smoke would trickle out.

People in there were fish or dogs or puppets and a clown. But there was one real man, he was called Russ. He always wore Hawaiian shirts. He made me laugh, wiggling a caterpillar eyebrow at me in the therapy group. And when I laughed the taste was bright in my mouth, bright as his Hawaiian shirt, bright as a fruit I had forgotten. It was when he left that I decided to leave too. Said goodbye to no one except the statue woman, who said nothing, of course, but let a thread of drool escape her lips. I dabbed it off for her and tucked the tissue up her sleeve. And then I strolled on out.

Now I have to keep myself safe. I can't tell if Doggo's safe for me or not. Of course he isn't safe. The voice is good and right. But something in me lights up when he comes into my mind. He
knows
me. Nothing in the world has lit me up like that for years.

I walk along a kerb, my arms out, balancing. I walk on till my feet ache and I am too tired even to think. When I get back I stand and look at the house where Mr Dickens lives and I do. Though nobody knows I do. And then I go back in to wait.

Nine

Monday was Mrs Harcourt and Mr Dickens. The right way round. I could have my bath first and do some actual cleaning – some work is essential for my peace of mind – then relax with Mr Dickens. As long as Mr Dickens would stick to cheerful subjects. Being with Mr Dickens in his warm and fusty room was probably the most relaxed I ever got.

Mrs Harcourt had left me this note which is a typical example:

Dear Lamb, please vacuum hall, stairs, landing, master bedroom, Simon's room, spare room. Pay particular attention to stair edges, please!! Please mop bathroom (inc
en suite)
and kitchen floors – kitchen floor needs to be well rinsed or tiles look dull. Please turn out cutlery drawer and under-sink cupboard if you've time. Fresh shelf-lining paper in big kitchen drawer. Money in envelope
.

Best wishes, Myra Harcourt
.

Best wishes, hahaha. And in the
en suite
which is hideous brass and peach someone hadn't even flushed the bog. First of all (after flushing) I ran myself a bath. The bath is triangular, deeper than most baths. I tried out the new Jacuzzi effect. It was strange and wonderful, the bubbly swish of it, milky with the Clarins stuff sloshed in, like being in a milk-shake machine. I shampooed my hair and started the chores in Mrs Harcourt's silky dressing gown while my clothes did a short cycle in the machine.

While I was drying my hair I stared in the mirror which has little lights round the edge as if she thinks she's a superstar. I looked hard, wondering what Doggo had seen when he stared at me but it was just me and nothing more special than that. I do look young, even to myself, as if I haven't lived the last couple of years at all. A kind of space in the eyes. Cheek-bones pitted from teenage acne, cracked lips, dark fluff above the top lip, shadows underneath the eyes. The longer you look, the worse it gets.

I plucked my eyebrows and rubbed some of her wonder cream in my skin, but the only difference was it made me shiny. It took me ten minutes over my time to get the jobs done because of the long bath but I did them and got out before anyone came back which I took to be a good sign.

At lunchtime I walked past the Duke's Head and looked in the garden but there was nobody I knew. I had a Perrier and a packet of peanuts and sat at the same table outside that Doggo and I had sat at even though it was freezing. Nobody else was sitting outside. The wind was blowing a crisp bag round and round in circles making a scrapy fingernail sound and I stared at it till I was almost hypnotised. Then I went back to Mr Dickens. It was a bit early but I knew he wouldn't mind.

I rang the bell. I thought maybe the woman from last night would come to the door and tell me to go away, but it was just the usual transformation of Doughnut into a hell hound. I let myself in before he could brain himself on the door. Mr Dickens was sitting by his fire with a tray of dirty plates and stuff beside him. It took me a minute to breathe properly in the doggy air so I couldn't speak at first. Doughnut collapsed on the floor and Mr Dickens beamed. ‘Ah, there you are, Lamb.' His hair is thin and fluffy like baby hair and it was all lit up from the standard lamp he was sitting under.

‘Is that new?' I said. Usually it's a bit gloomy in there with only the overhead light in its brown glass shade.

‘No … it's from front. Niece lugged it through. Nice to see you, duck. Take a seat. I'll fetch tea in a minute.'

‘Niece?'

‘Great niece actually. Sarah. Nice lass, you'd get on.'

I felt real danger then, like a cold grassy ripple down my back. ‘She staying with you?' I said. I held my breath till he shook his head.

‘No, no. She were visiting some friends – just dropped in to visit. Nice lass. She cooked me something what was it … risotto with some sort of bits in, nuts, get all up in my denture but didn't like to say. Not half bad otherwise. Bit of kick to it. Which you don't get with Meals on Wheels, I can tell you.'

‘Didn't know you had a niece.'

‘Brother's daughter's girl.' He started to struggle up.

‘Sure I can't get the tea?' I could have bitten my tongue off. The day he can't do that himself any more will be a tragic one. I picked the tray up though and followed him at a Zimmer pace through into the kitchen.

‘I didn't know you had a brother,' I said.

‘There were three of us,' he said. ‘Bob and Wilf are both … I'm only one that's reached ninety. Only the one offspring between three of us and we were all randy as hell. A right liability.' He gave a dirty snigger. I wondered if he'd been drinking. He does keep a bottle of Scotch tucked down by his chair. ‘Nice lass, Sarah,' he added, which
had
sunk in by then. He'd got his Zimmer near the sink and was leaning perilously out to fill the kettle.

‘I'll wash these things up,' I said when he'd moved out of the way. There were little bits of rice in the sink from the risotto. ‘How old is she?' I asked.

‘Twenty,' he said, ‘or thereabouts.'

‘Same as me,' I said.

He turned. He can't turn his head so he swivelled his whole body. ‘No!' he said after peering for a minute. ‘I'd have put you down for sweet sixteen.'

I don't know why people think you should be so pleased to look like a kid when you're not, even if you do feel like one. ‘Actually I'm twenty next week,' I said.

He turned back to his teapot. ‘Flesh on her bones though,' he said. ‘Nice pair of Bristols.'

‘What!' I went. I couldn't stop myself. I mean,
Bristols
.

He did his dirty laugh and starting hacking at a ginger cake with a potato peeler. ‘She did me a mop-round,' he said, ‘so there's no need for you to lift a finger this afternoon. Just keep me company.'

‘Great,' I said thinking she could at least have washed up. But I had no heart for cleaning. Really I just wanted to think about Doggo. Or, to
not
think about him. I didn't know what to talk about so I asked if I could look at his photos again. He asked why. I said I was doing a thesis about fashion.

‘Thesis?' he said.

‘For my degree.'

‘Didn't say you were a student,' he said.

‘Art school,' I said and he looked surprised. I don't why that should be so surprising.