Emotionally Weird

by Kate Atkinson

  The Cortina driver answered reluctantly, as if the information might be used against him at a later date, ‘Chick. Chick Petrie.’

  ‘Call me Gabriel,’ Professor Cousins said, smiling and nodding his head.

  ‘But that’s not your name, is it?’ I asked, puzzled by this sudden alteration of Professor Cousins’ usual Christian names of Edward and Neville, but he just smiled cheerfully and said, ‘Why not?’ and Chick said, ‘What’s in a name and all that, eh, Prof?’

  Professor Cousins beamed. ‘Exactly! A man after my own heart, Chick.’

  ‘A professor, eh?’ Chick said. ‘Me, of course, I was educated in the School of Hard Knocks and the University of Life.’

  ‘And I’m sure it was a very broad and interesting education, Chick,’ Professor Cousins said.

  ‘It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there,’ Chick observed darkly. Terri clapped her hands over the dog’s ears. Chick started the engine and a strange smell immediately began to fill the car, the smell of something sweet but dead – rotting strawberries and decaying rat. Before anyone could comment on this assault to our olfactory sensibilities, Chick drove off the pavement with a jolt and into the traffic with a jerk, without looking to see if anything was coming, resulting in a cacophony of hooting horns following us down the Nethergate.

  Professor Cousins gestured vaguely behind us saying something about there being a vet at the top of South Tay Street, but before the words had left his lips we had passed the turning and were accelerating round the Angus roundabout as if we were on the Dodgems. Within seconds we were roaring along the approach to the road bridge. Terri shouted at Chick that he was going the wrong way and he shouted back, ‘Wrong way for you maybe, but the right way for me.’ He didn’t even stop at the toll-booth, merely slowing down in what appeared to be a practised manoeuvre and thrusting the toll money into the hand of the collector as he passed, before speeding onto the long, straight stretch of the bridge. I supposed we were in the hands of a madman. Terri leant forward and prodded Chick sharply in the back of the neck. ‘What about the vet?’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with the mutt,’ Chick grumbled, glancing at the dog in his rear-view mirror. It was true, the dog did now look the picture of health, sitting up on the seat and as alert as any backseat driver. But the smell in the car had grown much worse – a foul stench getting fouler the further we drove. ‘What is that?’ Professor Cousins asked.

  ‘What’s what?’ Chick asked.

  ‘That smell.’

  Chick inhaled as if he was taking the sea-air. ‘Vindaloo,’ he said. He thought for a few seconds before adding ‘and cat.’

  ‘Cat?’ I queried in alarm.

  ‘Don’t panic,’ Chick said, ‘it’s dead.’

  ‘None of us want to go with you,’ Terri said sullenly to Chick.

  ‘Kidnapped?’ Professor Cousins said, growing quite merry. ‘How exciting. Won’t we have a tale to tell.’

  Terri, clutching a handful of dirty yellow fur in one hand, was beginning to look a little green around the gills. ‘It’s a crime, you know,’ she persisted, ‘taking people against their will. You can go to jail.’

  Chick snorted dismissively and said, with a certain personal bitterness, that the people who had committed the really serious crimes (murder, mayhem, et cetera) were not to be found behind prison walls but were roaming free in Brazil, or Argentina, ‘or even Fife’.

  ‘Yeah, well, I don’t care,’ Terri said, ‘I want out.’

  ‘Suit yourself,’ Chick shrugged, ‘on you go,’ and he reached over behind to open the rear door, temporarily losing control of the car as he did so.

  ‘Fucking creep,’ Terri snarled at him and bit his arm. (Which is definitely how accidents happen.)

  Chick seemed unperturbed, he had the air of a man who was used to being physically and verbally abused on a regular basis. He simply accelerated even more, patting the dashboard affectionately. ‘The good old Mark 1,’ he said, ‘standard model, 1200ccs of effort, top speed seventy-six miles an hour.’

  We reached the other end of the road bridge. ‘The Kingdom of Fife,’ Professor Cousins announced, as if we were entering a fairytale country.

  ‘Heuchter-teuchter land,’ Chick sneered.

  ‘St Andrews,’ Professor Cousins carried on dreamily, ‘my old alma mater.’

  ‘I thought you said that was Cambridge,’ I puzzled. It was only a couple of hours ago that he had been deliriously describing May Balls and punting and porters and all those other remote activities of academia that were unknown in Dundee.

  ‘Did I?’ he said.

  ‘We’re not going to St Andrews,’ Chick said hastily. ‘I’m not a taxi. And I’m bloody late.’

  ‘Late for what?’ I asked.

  ‘Surveillance,’ he said, enunciating the word with a certain distaste.

  ‘Surveillance?’ I queried.

  ‘Watching people.’

  ‘I know what it means,’ I said. ‘I just can’t imagine you doing it.’

  He took a card from an inside pocket and handed it to me. Grubby and badly printed, it read ‘Premier Investigations – all work undertaken, no questions asked’. Chick, it turned out, was (of all unlikely things) a private detective.

  ‘A private eye,’ Professor Cousins said thoughtfully.

  Chick ignored him and looked at his watch agitatedly. ‘I’m going to bloody miss her.’

  ‘Who exactly are you watching?’ Professor Cousins asked.

  ‘Some woman,’ Chick said, ‘jealous spouse, usual thing.’ He lit a cigarette (terrifying to observe at speed). ‘Husband’s a nutter, of course,’ he said; ‘they always are.’

  ‘You don’t have any qualms then,’ Professor Cousins asked Chick, ‘about doing this sort of work, I mean, ethical qualms.’

  ‘Qualms?’ Chick echoed. ‘Qualms? How?’

  Professor Cousins laughed. ‘The more you say it the more ridiculous it sounds. It’s often the way with words, isn’t it? Qualms comes from the Old English, Chick – murder, torment, death.’

  ‘Fascinating, Gabriel,’ Chick said in such a neutral tone that I couldn’t tell whether he meant it or not.

  I leant forward to speak to him and got a whiff of his middle-aged aroma – Old Spice, sweat and stale eighty-shilling ale. Professor Cousins, I couldn’t help but notice, smelt vaguely of attar of roses.

  ‘Are you following me?’ I asked Chick.

  He raised a pair of amazed eyebrows so that his forehead made a rubbery concertina and said dismissively, ‘Why on earth would I be following you?’

  ‘The poor girl thinks someone’s following her,’ Professor Cousins said helpfully.

  Chick cast a speculative glance at me in his rear-view mirror and said, ‘Do you?’

  ‘I’m just imagining it,’ I said because I really didn’t want to think otherwise.

  ‘Poor Christopher – Dr Pike – thought he was being followed,’ Professor Cousins sighed, ‘and look what happened to him.’

  ‘What happened to him?’ Chick asked after a while when Professor Cousins didn’t elaborate.

  ‘He had an accident, like our friend here,’ Professor Cousins said, indicating the dog in the back seat who cocked an ear to show he knew he was being talked about.

  ‘And you don’t think it was an accident?’ Chick said; and Professor Cousins laughed and said, ‘Oh, I’m sure it was, the members of my department are notoriously accident-prone. At any one time half of them are in hospital. There won’t be anyone left in the actual university soon.’

  ‘Professor Cousins thinks someone is trying to kill him,’ I told Chick.

  ‘You make a great pair,’ Chick said sarcastically, ‘the man who thinks someone’s trying to kill him and the girl who thinks someone’s watching her. And as for Little Miss Sunshine back there … You know what they say, don’t you?’ he said to Professor Cousins.

  ‘No, what do they say, Chick?’

  ‘Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re n
ot out to get you.’

  * * *

  ‘A private dick,’ Professor Cousins said gleefully. ‘There once was a private dick/Who went by the name of Chick—’

  ‘Is it far?’ Terri murmured. ‘Is it far to where we’re going?’

  ‘Far enough,’ Chick said enigmatically.

  * * *

  We finally arrived wherever it was we’d been going – which might have been Cupar but I hadn’t been paying much attention to road signs; it was certainly a place very like Cupar. The lights were on in Fife, the windows of the houses glowing with precious artificial daylight in an effort to illuminate the Murk of a dark afternoon. We parked in a pleasant street, lined with trees and filled with detached and semi-detached suburban villas. Chick turned the engine off, settled back in his seat and lit up another cigarette.

  ‘So, Chick,’ Professor Cousins said, rubbing his hands in anticipation, ‘this is a stakeout? What happens now – you just sit here and watch her front door, then follow her if she comes out?’

  ‘More or less,’ Chick said.

  ‘How do you know you haven’t missed her?’ Terri asked, reviving a little now that we were stationary.

  ‘I don’t,’ Chick said.

  ‘Aren’t you supposed to have flasks of hot soup?’ I said to him, ‘and crossword puzzles, and tapes of classical music?’

  ‘How about a camera?’ Professor Cousins asked him eagerly, then added, ‘Or binoculars? A notepad? What about a newspaper to hide behind?’

  Chick wrestled a Racing Post out of his pocket and waved it in the air. ‘It’s not like that, Gabriel,’ he said; ‘you’ve seen too many films.’

  ‘On the contrary, Chick,’ Professor Cousins said, rather sadly, ‘I haven’t seen enough.’

  ‘Mind you,’ Chick said, after a few minutes’ contemplative silence, ‘you come across some rum things in this job, Gabriel. I expect I could write a novel about what I’ve seen.’

  ‘I’m sure you could,’ Professor Cousins said, with more encouragement than was strictly necessary.

  ‘They say everyone has a novel inside them, don’t they?’ Chick said, warming to the subject now.

  ‘Yeah, and maybe that’s where it should stay,’ Terri growled. Chick responded with something derogatory about students, something to the effect that he was paying his taxes so that we could lie around all day having sex and taking drugs.

  ‘Don’t think I’m not grateful,’ Terri snapped, and Chick snapped back, ‘Awa’ and bile yer heid.’ The car was too cramped for this kind of behaviour, something the dog understood if no-one else did. It suddenly gave a huge walrus sigh of boredom, turned round and round in an effort to dislodge myself and Terri from the back seat, then flopped down heavily and closed its eyes.

  ‘It didn’t just die, did it?’ Terri asked, giving the dog an anxious poke. It opened one eye and gave her a thoughtful look.

  ‘Keep still, will you?’ Chick said tetchily. ‘You’re drawing attention to us.’

  ‘Married, Chick?’ Professor Cousins asked conversationally after a while.

  Chick scowled and said, ‘Who wants to know?’

  ‘Just asking.’

  ‘Man about town, that’s me,’ Chick said airily.

  ‘Oh, absolutely, aren’t we all,’ Professor Cousins laughed.

  After a pause Chick said, ‘Bloody woman, bloody Moira, bloody cow. Took everything – the house, the furniture, the kids – not that I mind her taking them, mingin’ little bastards,’ he said reflectively. I was reminded of Dr Dick, whose ex-wife was also a Moira, a self-contained Aberdonian – a research chemist – who had summoned just enough emotion to petition for divorce. That, apart from assonance, must surely be the only thing that Chick and Dick could ever have in common.

  With an exasperated sigh Chick put his Racing Post away, stubbed out his cigarette and settled back in his seat, closed his eyes and said, ‘Don’t let me go to sleep.’ Who was it that Chick reminded me of? I wondered.

  ‘You’re looking at me,’ he said, without opening his eyes.

  ‘I was just trying to think who you reminded me of.’

  ‘I’m a one-off,’ Chick said. ‘They broke the mould when they made me.’ It began to rain, heavy drops thudding on the roof of the car.

  ‘Goodness, it’s raining cats and dogs,’ Professor Cousins commented. The dog’s ears gave an interested twitch but it didn’t bother waking up. I wondered what happened to the Tara-Zanthian stock market when this particular weather phenomenon occurred.

  The rain streamed down the windscreen, obscuring the view of the street. Terri asked Chick why he didn’t put the windscreen wipers on. Moving himself as little as possible, Chick leant forward and pressed a button. The wipers creaked into life, moving slowly across the windscreen, with a horrible fingernails-on-a-blackboard kind of noise.

  ‘That’s why,’ he said and turned them off and closed his eyes again. ‘Now how about we keep our mouths shut and our eyes peeled?’

  ‘What a horrible idea,’ Professor Cousins murmured to himself. The air in the car was damp and didn’t sit well with the rank smell of the dog nor with the original awful odour which had now changed quality into something woolly and fungoid. I suppose it was a good thing there was no heating in Chick’s car or else new life forms might have been incubated, but nonetheless it was freezing cold and I was glad of the proximity of the dog’s big, warm, smelly body.

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got any of that waccy-baccy, have you?’ Chick asked me suddenly.

  ‘No, sorry.’

  ‘Pity.’

  ‘We could play a game,’ Professor Cousins said hopefully.

  ‘A game?’ Chick said suspiciously. ‘How?’

  ‘How not?’ Professor Cousins said, showing an unexpected command of the Scottish tongue.

  ‘You mean poker?’ Chick said.

  ‘Well, I was thinking more of a word game, Chick,’ Professor Cousins said, ‘like “Doublets”, say – that’s where you turn one word into another, “Head” into “Tail” for example.’ Everyone looked at him blankly and he said encouragingly, ‘It’s easy – head–heal–teal–tell–tall–tail. See? You try – turn “Dog” into “Cat”.’ The dog looked up in alarm. Terri stroked it back into sleep. Professor Cousins was puzzled by our inability to understand ‘Doublets’.

  ‘It was invented by Lewis Carroll, you know,’ he said rather sadly.

  ‘Wasn’t he the one who liked little girls?’ Chick asked.

  ‘I am going to Alyth where I shall advertise abominable alcohol,’ Professor Cousins said.

  Chick gave him a wary look. ‘We’re not going to Alyth.’

  Professor Cousins laughed. ‘No, no, it’s another game; you see you go somewhere and you have to do something using the same letter of the alphabet – I am going to Blairgowrie where I shall brave the braying beasts.’ Professor Cousins tried again, ‘I am going to Cupar where I shall cut cheap cabbages.’

  ‘Maybe we could just go to Dundee,’ Terri muttered.

  ‘And do what?’ Professor Cousins smiled encouragingly. Everyone – apart from the dog and Professor Cousins – turned rather nasty at this point, especially when Chick suggested that Terri might like to fuck off to Forfar and do something illegal with a ferret.

  Which put an end to the conversation for a good ten minutes, at which point Terri said, ‘I’m hungry,’ and Professor Cousins said, ‘And I wouldn’t mind going to the little boys’ room.’

  ‘Little boys?’ Chick queried, giving him a sideways look.

  ‘And it’s uncomfortable back here,’ Terri complained. I imagined that this was what it was like being on a family outing in a car (there were so many aspects of normal family life I seemed to have missed out on). But instead of a regular family – mother, father, sister, grandmother, Golden Retriever in a Vauxhall Victor – I had to make do with this strange patched-up affair with neither blood nor love in common.

  ‘Anything to eat in here?’ Professor Cousins asked hopef
ully, opening the glove compartment and bringing out an assortment of objects – a deck of dog-eared playing-cards adorned with photographs of big women in various states of undress (‘Fascinating,’ Professor Cousins murmured), a pair of handcuffs, a paper bag of squashed fern cakes from Goodfellow and Steven, a length of washing-rope, a large kitchen knife and a police warrant-card that displayed a photograph of Chick with more hair and less flesh.

  ‘Don’t ask me how I managed to hang onto that,’ Chick said.

  ‘How did you manage to hang onto that?’ Terri asked.

  ‘Piss off.’ Chick stuffed all the items back in the glove compartment except for the fern cakes, which he distributed amongst the Cortina’s occupants.

  ‘So you were on the force then, Chick?’ Professor Cousins asked and then turned round to us in the back seat and grinned and said, ‘A “pig”, isn’t it?’ as if we needed a translation. According to Chick, who didn’t seem the most reliable of narrators, he had been a detective inspector until there had been some misunderstanding over a holiday in Lanzarote that had landed him ‘in the doghouse’.

  ‘If the cow had kept her big mouth shut it would have been all right,’ Chick said.

  The ‘cow’ was now resident in Errol, in a new house, and said house was serving as a love nest for the cow and her new ‘bidie-in’, a gigolo, Chick claimed, whose day job was an insurance claims loss adjuster – a man, Chick reported vituperatively, who possessed a full head of hair and a brand new yellow Ford Capri 3000 and thought he was the cat’s pyjamas. The cow, the gigolo and the mingin’ little bastards had formed an economic conspiracy to bring about the financial ruin of Chick, Chick said.

  ‘It’s a dog’s life, Chick,’ Professor Cousins said, giving him a comforting pat on his hairy hand. Chick snatched the hand away, muttering something about ginger beer. Chick’s eyebrows, I couldn’t help but notice, almost met in the middle – a sure sign of a werewolf. Or so Nora had told me.

  Chick said, ‘Tell me if anything catches your eye’ (Professor Cousins shuddered), and then appeared to fall asleep. Soon Professor Cousins himself was snoring in the front seat. When I glanced at Terri, I saw that she too had given in to her customary narcoleptic state. I amused myself by watching the sedate suburban activity of mothers pushing prams and old ladies sweeping paths. After half an hour, a woman came out of the house we were supposed to be watching. She had nothing of the Jezebel about her, in fact she seemed remarkable, if anything, for her ordinariness. In her thirties, with short brown hair, she wore a nondescript mac and carried a shopping-bag. She looked as if she was off to collect her messages rather than conduct an adulterous liaison. She smiled and said hello to a woman walking past with a Labrador and then got into a Hillman Imp parked at the kerb and drove off. I didn’t wake Chick up. It seemed to me the woman had a perfect right to go about her business unmolested by complete strangers. (Although is there any such thing as a partial stranger?)