by EH Walter
Chapter 3: Troll Hunter
There was a pause at the end of the line.
"Who was that?" Jez asked.
"Oh... er, Bob." I said deliberately not looking at my uninvited house guest.
The goat man blinked at me.
"Bob?" Jez questioned.
"Yeah, Bob." I stood up and went into the bedroom, closing the door firmly behind me.
"I see." he went on, "Bob."
"So..." I said, sitting back on the bed, my heart thudding, "what can I do for you?"
"Well, I'm back in the country and I was just trying to catch up with everyone. How are you?"
"Me? Great. And you?" I chewed my thumbnail. Of course he was great. He was in films, he was even on buses. How could he not be great?
"Yeah, things are good."
"I-saw-your-naked-chest-on-a-bus-today." I said rapidly without thinking and then blushed a deep crimson. Thank goodness it wasn't a video call. What an idiot. What had this handsome, sophisticated movie star ever seen in me?
He laughed. "Yeah, who needs to go to the gym when you can get air brushed - eh?"
He had a gorgeous laugh. I sighed, everything about Jeremy Flynt was gorgeous. That's one of the reasons I loved him so much, he was so easy to love.
"I was wondering," he said slowly, "if you wanted to meet up? I'm in a play at the National and maybe you could drop by and we could have coffee or lunch? It's pretty manic as we open soon, but it'd be nice to see an old friend. We could hang out."
"Sure," I said coldly and stopped listening, my heart had hit the floor. He had called me an 'old friend', there could be no clearer signal that he didn't love me, that he only wanted me as a friend. He carried on talking and I agreed to come and meet him, but my main concern was not bursting into tears whilst talking to him. I managed to end the call as quickly as I could and, throwing the phone down, I hid my head in a pillow and hot, angry tears erupted from my eyes. A while later I heard the door open and a clip-clopping sound approach. A hand awkwardly patted my head and the goat man said, "There, there."
When my eyes were less puffy and bloodshot I ventured out to buy salt. Budgens had an array of different salts so I picked up a variety just to be safe. My next mission was to find a troll. With my green plastic bag full of salt in boxes, bags and mills I walked the short distance to Oak Hill Park.
After Jez's phone call I had dried my tears and regained my composure. I had a job to do and could not afford to let my emotions run riot over me.
My subsequent conversation with the goat man regarding trolls had gone like this:
"Where exactly," I asked, not quite managing to keep the sarcasm out of my voice, "am I supposed to find a troll?"
He shook his head slightly - I noticed he did this every time he thought I asked a stupid question. "Under a bridge of course."
"Ah yes, of course. Under a bridge."
"All bridges have a troll under them."
"Ah, I wonder why it is I have never seen one then - ever?"
"Well it has to be a proper bridge, one over water."
"Yep, I've seen a few of those in my time - knew a few intimately as a teenager and you know what - they appeared to be one hundred per cent troll free."
"Did you ask?"
"What?"
"Did you ask for them? Did you ask them to come out and show themselves?"
"No I must admit I didn't."
"Well there you are then." he said with a shrug, "You should've asked."
"So I just go up to a bridge over water and ask the troll to show themselves - then the troll will agree to be your bodyguard?"
"He might not, he might have something on and trolls are a tricky bunch, you have to be careful how you deal with them. They're very proud and very vicious. If one isn't respected you'll see the other. We'll probably have to pay him."
"We? I don't know if you're aware of this but people normally pay me when I help them."
"Not money - only humans have a use for that laughable currency. We deal in real things, not imaginary. He'll want something tasty."
My eyebrows rose in question so he continued.
"Trolls live under bridges, they eat whatever the water brings them. If you want a troll to do your bidding you only have to offer them something nice to eat. They just can't bear to refuse."
At the door to my flat, as I left to buy the salt and attempt to procure a troll, I turned to the goat man and asked:
"Look - what do I call you? What's your name?"
He blinked. "You called me Bob."
"I know I called you Bob when I was on the phone but I didn't know your real name - what is it?"
"Bob."
"No, your real name."
"It is Bob. My kind, we don't have a name until someone gives us one. You were the first person to give me a name."
"Oh."
My insides scrunched up. That was so sad, not to have anyone care enough to give you a name. I left before I could embarrass myself with more tears. What did I care if this strange stranger had never been given a name before?
Through Chipping Barnet and East Barnet there runs a small stream called the Pymmes Brook, there is even a walk you can do if you fancy strolling along a long stretch of stagnant water and dodging supermarket trolleys. The brook actually runs underneath my flat building, it peeps out from its underground route by the car park before flowing under the road and then surfacing again in the park.
Because of the Pymmes Brook there were three bridges in Oak Hill Park over it and I was going to follow Bob's instructions and see if I could either get him a troll bodyguard or, failing that, some proof of my dwindling sanity. If I got him some protection maybe I could convince him to leave me in peace.
Oak Hill was a beautiful park, full of a variety of trees which meant the park was a wash of colours at all times of year. It got its name from the fact it had once been covered with oak trees, there were still some left although their ancestors had long since been felled to build the internal structure of Saint Albans Abbey.
Grey squirrels were plentiful in the park, as were enormous black ravens, footballers, joggers and people with children. It was a popular place and I was not sure how I was going to manage to stand on a bridge and ask for a troll without someone hearing me and thinking I came from the 'extra care living' home opposite.
The park was such a size it took me some time to reach the first bridge. I hung about it uncertainly, leaning on the railing pretending I was enjoying the view when in fact I was trying to peer underneath to ascertain whether there was a troll beneath. There was nothing to see other than a brownish trickle of water ebbing over rocks, detritus and weeds.
I waited until a mother with a pushchair and a fox terrier and its human passed before leaning as far over the railing as I could and whispering:
"Hello, is there a troll there?"
I straightened quickly as a red setter came bounding by and smiled artificially as his balding, middle aged owner followed. As he disappeared round the corner I leant over again and said a little louder:
"Hello! Is there a troll there?"
"Alright, alright - heard you the first time." came a deep rasping voice from under the bridge.
Underneath me appeared the top of a violet coloured head covered with sparse dark hair. As he looked up at me I saw perhaps the ugliest thing I had ever seen.
"What you looking at?" he asked as I took in his full form, "never seen a troll before?"
"Er... no actually."
He must have been about five foot tall, he had obviously crouched over to fit under the bridge and was uncurling himself as he came out to meet me. His arms were far too long for his body and he had enormous, knobbly elbows. In one over-large hand he held a dirty club. His knees were bowed as if he had a very bad case of rickets - or had lived under a small bridge for a long period of time, I guess. It was his face that unsettled me - it was unlike anything I had ever seen before. His dark eyes
were bulbous and too close together, over them was a dark unibrow that could have done with some serious tweezer attention. His nose sprouted out from his face, twisting at the end as if he'd broken it a few times. He had rubbery lips and a seriously nasty overbite. Imagine this in your head and then add dark pustules to decorate his key features. That was the troll before me.
"What do you want then?" he rasped, cutting straight to the chase.
"I was wondering whether you would consider being a bodyguard for a... man being pursued by fairies?"
The bulging eyes stared at me without blinking. "Nah," he said, "I've got something on."
He gave a sniff then he swung the club over his shoulder and began to bend his knees to fit back under the bridge.
"Won't you reconsider?" I asked.
He looked up at me. "Trevor does shit like that, tell him Graham sent you."
Then he disappeared back under the bridge.
"Where do I find Trevor?" I asked a little too loudly and a jogger in phosphorescent yellow gave me a very strange look. I smiled, again a little too oddly. "Where is that dog?" I added pathetically to cover my embarrassment, "Oh Trevor!" A squirrel nibbling at an acorn paused long enough to give me a funny look and then continued gnawing.
As Graham the troll didn't seem to want to come and help me I decided the only logical thing to do was to try the next bridge and ask for Trevor there.
I walked over Graham's bridge (would I ever think of the park in the same way again?) and around the corner to the other side of the park. The next bridge was at the far end of the path by the pavilion where the parkrunners assemble on a Saturday morning for their 5k run. If that bridge failed I could always try the next one a little further on. Then I was out of bridges. As I walked I considered the fact that I had been to this park many times over the last few years and had never seen a troll. Until the early hours of this morning I had never met a goat man or a troll. Now I had seen both - or I had to acknowledge there was the another possibility - that I had finally lost my sanity and the men in white coats would soon be after me with a strait jacket and some heavy sedatives. I was not sure which option was the more logical. Which would Sherlock Holmes believe?
The second bridge was not so secluded as Graham's, this meant at least I could see people coming but it also meant whatever I did on that bridge was visible from a distance. I leant on the rail as I had at the previous bridge and waited until the coast was clear.
"Trevor!" I called, "Trevor the troll - are you there?"
"Who's asking?" came another deep, raspy voice.
"Leo Fey."
"What you selling?"
"Nothing, I'm hiring."
I waited - curiosity got the better of him and he crept out from under the bridge. The troll was olive green and stood all of two foot high. His features were very similar to Graham's, but in miniature and green not violet.
"Hey," I said, "I thought all you trolls were meant to be big, bad assed dudes?"
A deep, throaty rasp erupted from him as he pummelled a child sized cricket bat into his palm with a thud. "You wanna piece of me?" His choice of words and accent made me think he'd watched far too many gangster movies, although I doubted any cable company served under-the-bridge residences. I could be wrong.
"Graham sent me. He said you might do a job for me."
"Huh," he said with distaste, screwing up his face, "why would I do anything that schmuck says?"
I noticed a certain animosity and decided to play on it. "Well, he said you probably weren't interested. I think his actual words were 'Trevor's not up to the job'."
"He said that, eh?"
"Well, he said a real troll should do the job but they were all busy."
"I'm a real troll - I'll show you I'm a real troll - you wan' someone bashing? I can bash 'em. Tell me who, tell me who." he swung his cricket bat through the air as if hitting an imaginary foe. An imaginary foe who happened to be about two foot tall, either that or he was aiming for the knees.
"My client needs protection from the fairies."
"Those hoodlums, eh? I'd like ta bash a few fairy heads in, I would." he tilted his head and looked up at me, "You got a bridge I can stay under?"
I nodded, "I also have some nice food for you - if you take the job. Here, call this a sweetener."
I took a mango out of the plastic bag and tossed it at him. He caught it mid-air and looked at it strangely.
"What's this?"
"Food."
He took a bite, through the skin, his teeth were long and yellow. Mango juice ran down his chin and suddenly he mellowed. His bulbous eyes almost glowed with delight. "What is this nectar?"
"Mango. I've got plenty of mangoes for the troll who helps my client."
"Where's this bridge?"
I pointed down the stream. "Head that way until you go under the road. Wait for me in the stream by the gun shop."
He paddled off down the stream, splashing like a child wearing wellington boots, chomping on his mango as he went. Success - I had found my troll!
Trevor was waiting for me where the stream went under the road, leaning on his cricket bat as he stood in the middle of the watercourse.
"Where's this bridge then? I hope you're not classing this - this is an underpass, a troll does not live in an underpass, it's not traditional."
"Other end," I said and gestured to where the Pymmes Brook travelled from under my flat building.
He grunted, "That's a culvert."
"Will it do?"
He shrugged and sucked his breath over his teeth like a dodgy builder inspecting a job. "For a bit, as long as there are more of those mangoes coming."
"Plenty of mangoes - and strawberries too."
"Straw berries, eh?"
He tossed the cricket bat from one hand to the other. "Okay - you're on - shake." He climbed like a monkey up from the stream and leapt over the railings. Then all two foot of him stood in front of me, one over-long arm stretched out. He really meant to shake my hand. I could not help but see the coarse black hair and warty pustules. He also looked as if he needed a good bath. Scrap that - he smelt like he needed a good bath.
Grimacing rather than smiling I reached down to take his hand. It was like shaking hands with a rubber plant covered in slime and not the fun-you've-been-slimed-on-TV-slime, proper slime that has come from decades of build up around sewers and water. I didn't think I would ever use my right hand again, I certainly wouldn't be eating with it again for a while.
I told Trevor all about Bob and his predicament and gave him the number of my flat as well as a detailed description of how to press the door buzzer and enter, should he need to. I then felt free to abandon Bob for a while - I had a Hollywood star to hang out with.
Before I changed to head into town I briefed Bob on the house rules - the main one being "you do not sleep on my bed, you do not enter my bedroom". Until I found somewhere safe for him to stay he would have to make do with the sofa. As far as I was concerned, the sooner he was on his way the better, fairies or no fairies.
Bob was delighted to hear there was now a troll patrolling the perimeter, I didn't tell him the troll was two foot tall and now possibly had a mango addiction. I let Bob know where the troll was staying - should he need him.
"You're leaving?" Bob asked, his voice aquiver.
"I'm going out."
"But you can't leave me!" His eyes grew wide with fear.
"Look... Bob, I have a life and a very busy social schedule and professional commitments. At the moment my work for you is pro bono, I'll do what I can to find you somewhere else to stay and then you and the troll can go off and leave me with what remains of my sanity."
"I thought you were going to help me!"
"I am helping you Bob, but I'm an investigator - I'm not running a protection racket here."
"You don't want me here."
"Of course I don't, this is my home and as you can see it is a very small
."
His bottom lip dropped and quivered. I tossed the bag of salt at him and left to get changed, I really didn't want to get involved in this madness.
Even if Jez didn't love me he had been a good friend and I told myself it would be good to see him again. So what if he didn't love me?
From my part of London there are many ways to get into the centre, but since I was heading for the National Theatre on the south bank I decided to get the Northern line down to Waterloo. I should have gone a quicker way - forty minutes on a tube train gives you way too much time to think. By the time I got to Waterloo I was a shivering lump of jelly, my legs wobbled as I walked along the Thames to try and calm down before meeting Jez. It was a warm day although there was a fog making the river look even murkier than usual. The London Eye and the Palace of Westminster rose magnificently out of the murk as if trying to rise above London pollution.
The day's adventures had taken a surprising amount of time and it was four in the afternoon. I was tired and also starving. Emotional, slightly frazzled from general weirdness and starving was not the ideal condition in which to meet your ex boyfriend and the love of your life. Maybe there was no ideal way in which to meet the ex-boyfriend-love-of-your-life?
I didn't get as far as the National stage door, I was so absorbed in my thoughts on the way there that I walked straight past Jez who was walking with an attractive woman. I got about five metres past him and stopped. My brain was only then processing the information sent by the eyes. I turned around and stared at Jez like a stupid, besotted fan. He had seen me and looked bemused by the fact I had waltzed straight past him. He smiled at me (I melted) and then he gave the woman a kiss on the cheek. I watched carefully to try and gauge the level of intimacy offered.
"See you later," he said to her and then walked towards me. He was in a long, dark coat and had a black flat cap on his head. His normally smooth face was covered by a short beard. He surprised me by putting his arms around me and as he went to kiss my cheek I somehow moved and our lips met. Talk about electricity. Talk about awkward.