Bear Necessity

by James Gould-Bourn

  CHAPTER 25

  Danny passed the next few days in a state of irritating cheerfulness. He whistled when he walked. He smiled when he talked. He sang in the shower. He said hello to strangers. He even tried to make peace with El Magnifico by flipping him some money following one of his performances, a gesture the magician responded to by fishing out the two-pound coin and lobbing it at Danny’s head (which actually worked in Danny’s favor, given that he’d only donated a pound to begin with). Only when he came home one day to find Reg and Mr. Dent in his living room did his good mood fizzle like a faulty firework.

  “Where the fuck have you been?” said Reg from the couch, as if the three of them were flatmates and it was Danny’s turn to cook dinner.

  “All right, Reg,” said Danny, trying to remain calm. He nodded at Mr. Dent, who was standing behind the empty armchair. “Dent.”

  “Was that from Flashdance?” said Reg.

  “What?”

  “The tune you were whistling just now. Good film, that. Jennifer Beals.” He groaned like he’d just been kicked in the balls and enjoyed it. “You ever seen Flashdance, Dent?”

  Mr. Dent frowned and shook his head.

  “Dent isn’t one for dancing. I used to be quite the mover, though, back in the day. Ballroom mainly.”

  “I didn’t know that, Reg,” said Danny, wincing at the thought of Reg doing the rumba.

  “Yeah, well, we could fill a bathtub with the stuff you don’t know. Sit down.” He pointed to the empty armchair that Mr. Dent was standing behind.

  Danny took a seat. “What can I do for you, Reg?”

  “What can you do for me? What can you do for me? I’ll tell you what you can do for me, Daniel. You can give me my fucking money.”

  “I will,” said Danny. “Next week. Like we agreed.”

  “We didn’t agree next week. We agreed today. Today is two months from when we agreed.”

  “Two months is next week,” said Danny. He felt the need to loosen his tie despite not wearing one.

  “Are you calling me a liar?” said Reg, his voice turning cold and sharp as an ice pick.

  “Course not, Reg, I’m just saying—”

  “Then you must be calling me a mug. Are you calling me a mug?”

  “No, Reg—”

  “Dent, is this mug calling me a mug?”

  Mr. Dent shrugged.

  “Please, Reg,” said Danny. “Just give me until next week and I’ll have your money, I promise.”

  Reg looked down at his lap. Only then did Danny notice the framed picture of Liz in his hands.

  “You know, I never knew what she saw in you. She was a lovely girl, that wife of yours. She deserved better. She never should have shacked up with a useless fucker like you. I’m not trying to hurt your feelings here, Dan, I’m just telling it like it is.”

  “Thank you, Reg,” said Danny, trying to sound like he meant it. “Very kind of you.”

  “See, when we’re born we’re all a bit like clay, ain’t we, Dent?”

  Mr. Dent nodded, even though he clearly had no idea what Reg was talking about.

  “We come out as these ugly little gray lumps of nothing, and then life gives us color and molds us into different shapes and sizes until we eventually become who we are. But you know what your problem is?”

  “No, Reg.”

  “You’re still the same useless lump of shit that you were when you were born. But luckily for you, Dent here is something of a sculptor.”

  Before Danny knew what was happening, a rope appeared around his arms and waist, pinning him to the chair.

  “What the—”

  “But I have to warn you, Dan,” said Reg as Dent tightly knotted the ropes. “He’s a bit of a messy artist.”

  Another rope appeared, this one around his ankles. Danny began to struggle, but Dent had tied him firmly to the chair.

  “What’s going on?”

  Dent loomed over Danny like a six-foot-five-inch stack of bad news. In his fist was the claw hammer.

  “Reg, listen to me. I’ll get your money, swear to God, but I can’t fucking get it if you break my fucking legs!”

  Reg slipped his arms into his crutches and waddled over for a better view.

  “I’d like to tell you this isn’t going to hurt,” he said, “but from my own experience, I can honestly say that it’s going to hurt like a bastard.”

  Danny yelled and thrashed in his chair like a pilot whose windscreen had just blown out. Mr. Dent raised the hammer and grinned like a kid playing Whac-a-Mole. He was just about to slam it down into Danny’s trembling kneecap when Will suddenly burst into the living room.

  “Leave him alone!” he yelled, planting himself between Danny and Dent and trying to make himself as big as his skinny frame would allow. Everybody looked surprised, but nobody more so than Danny.

  “I thought he didn’t talk,” said Reg.

  “He didn’t,” said Danny, smiling at Will despite his dire predicament.

  “I liked you better when you were quiet,” said Reg. Will didn’t blink as he held Reg’s bloodshot gaze. “Still, you got bigger bollocks than your old man, I’ll give you that.”

  Reg sighed. Dent scratched his head with the claw and waited for further instructions.

  “I guess it’s your lucky day, Dan. There won’t be another, so make the most of it. And the next time I see you, you better have my money. Otherwise,” he said, turning to Will, “you won’t be the only one that Dent’s going to be denting. Comprende?”

  “Got it,” said Danny.

  “Good lad,” said Reg. He nodded at Dent. “Come on, Lurch.”

  The two men let themselves out while Will ran to the kitchen and returned with a pair of scissors.

  “Thanks, mate,” said Danny as Will cut him loose. He grabbed his son and pulled him close as soon as his arms were free. “It’s good to hear your voice,” he said, squeezing Will as tightly as he dared without breaking him.

  “What’s going on?” said Will.

  “Nothing,” said Danny, as if almost getting kneecapped were a semiregular occurrence.

  “Tell me the truth, Dad, I’m not a baby.”

  “I know, mate, I know you’re not a baby. And I’m sorry for treating you like one. I’m sorry for a lot of things, Will. I just… I haven’t been myself since we lost your mum. Or maybe I have been myself, I don’t even know anymore. All I know is that I should have been there for you and I wasn’t, and I’m sorry for that. I’m so, so sorry. I know you’ve been upset with me and you have every right to be. I’m upset with me, but I’m going to make it up to you, I promise. There’s nothing I can do to change what’s happened, but everything’s going to be different from now on if you’ll give me a chance. I realize I haven’t been a very good friend; I haven’t even been a very good dad, but I want to be, and I think I can be if you’ll just give me a chance. So what do you say? You think we can be friends?”

  Will stared at the outstretched palm in front of him for so long that Danny’s arm began to wilt. It was clammy by the time Will finally grabbed it.

  “Friends,” he said.

  “Friends,” said Danny. “And don’t worry about this whole thing with Reg, it was just a big misunderstanding. Everything’s fine. Everything’s completely fine.”

  * * *

  “Everything’s fucked,” said Danny, wiping the sweat from his brow as he stared at himself in the wall-length mirror. “If I don’t win this competition then everything is absolutely, completely, well and truly fucked. Me. Will. My ability to walk unassisted. Everything. Fucked.”

  “True,” said Krystal, handing him a towel and sitting on the step beside him. “I’ll be fine though.” She nudged him in the ribs, but Danny didn’t smile.

  “You know my son had to rescue me from having my knees turned into pâté yesterday? In my very own living room? I mean, what kind of thing is that for an eleven-year-old kid to see?”

  “An important thing. Your son just learned a valuabl
e life lesson.”

  “And what lesson would that be exactly?” said Danny with an empty laugh. “Don’t grow up to be a massive failure like your dad?”

  “I’m sure he already knew that,” said Krystal. “But now he also knows that all landlords are total wankers. That’s what they should be teaching kids in school, not that maths and science bollocks but practical, useful stuff, like, you know, how to get served at a crowded bar, and how to talk your way out of a speeding ticket, and how to rewire a plug, and how to identify a dodgy landlord. I wish somebody had taught me this stuff before I moved into my last place.”

  “Had a lot of plugs that needed rewiring, did you?”

  “No, but I had a creepy fucking landlord whose brain needed rewiring. He used to let himself into my flat and steal my underwear when I was at work. Always the expensive stuff too. He kept it all in a drawer by his bed.”

  “How did you catch him?”

  “One day he was working in the front garden, and when he crouched down to weed the flower bed, his shirt rode up and I saw he was wearing my crotchless knickers.”

  Danny almost choked on the bottle of water he was drinking from. He wiped his mouth and looked at Krystal.

  “What?” she said. “They were a gift.”

  “Well, I wish that’s all Reg wanted,” said Danny. “He’s more than welcome to steal my undies.”

  “You know, most people would probably think about moving if their landlord tried to cripple them,” said Krystal. “Just saying.”

  “It’s not that simple,” said Danny.

  “Course it ain’t simple. Moving’s a total pain in the arse, but I’m pretty sure it ain’t nearly as painful as being kneecapped.”

  “I don’t mean like that. I mean… I don’t know, it’s difficult to explain.”

  “Don’t mean it’s difficult to understand,” said Krystal, waiting for Danny to elaborate. He sighed and played with the bottle cap while he tried to find the right words.

  “It’s just… me and Liz, we moved into that flat together. And, well, to me it’s still our home. I know she’s gone, but she’s also still there in that flat somehow. I know it, I can feel her. I found one of her hairs the other day. It was right there on the couch, like she’d literally just been sitting there the second before I walked into the living room. Crazy, right? She’s been gone for over a year, and then a piece of her appears out of nowhere. That’s why I can’t go. I know it probably sounds stupid, but I can’t just leave her like that.”

  “It’s not stupid,” said Krystal. “I get it. But you’ve got to realize that she doesn’t live there anymore, Dan. She lives in here now,” she said, tapping Danny’s temple, “and here,” she said, patting his chest before wiping her hand on her shirt. “And she’ll be with you wherever you decide to go, especially if it’s somewhere that isn’t owned by a fucking psychopath.”

  They sat in silence for a moment, their conversation hanging in the air like the disco ball above them.

  “Well, it’s too late now anyway,” said Danny. “I can’t move out, even if I wanted to. Not until I pay Reg what I owe, and I can’t pay Reg unless I win this competition.”

  “And you can’t win this competition unless you keep practicing, so on your feet, soldier, let’s get to it. There’s no way I’m letting Kevin beat you without a fight.”

  “Kevin?”

  “El Magnifico,” said Krystal, rolling her eyes. “Otherwise known as Ballsack McFuckface.”

  “Seriously, how did somebody like you and somebody like him end up together?” said Danny, partly out of curiosity and partly to postpone having to dance for another few minutes.

  Krystal shrugged. “I guess I was just going through one of those phases.”

  “And what phase would that be?”

  “The ‘I need to date an arsehole magician who refers to his willy as his wand and insists you scream abracadabra whenever you orgasm’ phase.”

  Danny cringed. “Did you really have to say abracadabra?”

  “No idea,” said Krystal. “He always finished before me.”

  Danny shuddered.

  “What? You asked.” She smiled and shook her head. “What can I say, I was young and stupid. He was looking for an assistant and it sounded like easy money. I wasn’t planning on falling for him or anything, I just needed the cash. I didn’t even find him attractive, but, well, things have a funny way of working out sometimes, don’t they? And by ‘funny’ I mean not fucking funny in the slightest. You know that whole sawing-a-person-in-half trick? Well, I was the person he was sawing in half, quite literally as it turned out.”

  “You seem to have recovered pretty well,” said Danny, looking Krystal up and down.

  She laughed. “Okay, fine, not ‘literally,’ but he definitely cut me in half emotionally. I put myself into that stupid box of his night after night, and you know what he was doing? He was going home and putting himself into Carla’s box night after fucking night.”

  “Who’s Carla?”

  “My sister.”

  “Oh.”

  “Oh is right,” said Krystal, smoldering so ferociously that Danny swore he could smell smoke. He tied and retied his shoelace while he waited for her to burn herself out.

  “I didn’t know you have a sister,” he said.

  “Had,” said Krystal. “I had a sister.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “She’s dead,” said Krystal.

  Danny nodded solemnly. “I’m sorry.”

  “Dead to me, I mean,” said Krystal. “Stupid cow works in a warehouse in Bracknell.”

  “I think I’d rather be dead, to be honest,” said Danny.

  Krystal smiled and looked around the room. “We did a show here once actually, me and Kev, back in the early days.”

  “Fanny’s doesn’t seem like the sort of venue for a magic show.”

  “It was an ‘erotic’ magic show,” said Krystal. “That’s how Kevin sold it anyway. Got to hand it to him, he always knew how to market himself. There was nothing erotic about it, of course, it was the same old bollocks we always did, the only difference being that this time I had to strut around in my underwear, which wasn’t ideal, obviously, but it also wasn’t half as bad as having to squeeze into that sparkly latex shit that Kevin usually made me wear. Fuck me, that thing was hot. It was actually quite nice to be up onstage without sweating like Satan’s scrotum for once, so when Fanny offered me a job after the show—she said I could make five times more money working for her than I could working for, and I quote, ‘that pointy-hatted twat’—I was sort of tempted, but I turned her down because I happened to be in love with that pointy-hatted twat at the time. But then I found out about him and the bitch of whom we do not speak and I thought, fuck it, I’ll do a bit of dancing until something else comes along, and, well, here I am, five years later.”

  “Why don’t you leave?”

  “Because there ain’t too many jobs out there that pay as well as this. And, to be totally honest, I enjoy it. I know it ain’t the most glamorous job in the world, but Fanny is good to me, Suvi looks after me, and taking money from stupid fuckers is even more fun than spending it.”

  “Maybe I’m in the wrong job,” said Danny.

  “Well, you’ve definitely got the moves, but I don’t know how you’d look in a thong.”

  “Then cherish that fact,” said Danny.

  “Too late,” said Krystal, her lip curling. “I’ve already got mental images.”

  “How do I look?”

  “Like my old landlord.”

  “Ouch,” said Danny.

  Krystal laughed. “Come on,” she said, standing. “Let’s get back to it. I need to dance this thought out of my head.”

  CHAPTER 26

  Mr. Coleman picked a paper airplane off the classroom floor and screwed it into a ball.

  “How is it,” he said, throwing the defunct aircraft into the bin, “that man has managed to climb to the peak of Mount Everest, he’s loc
ated the source of the Nile, he’s trekked to both the North and South Poles, and he’s circumnavigated the globe in a hot-air balloon, yet you lot still haven’t figured out how to find your chairs without a map and compass?”

  “How is this going to help me find my seat?” said one pupil, brandishing a maths compass. Everybody laughed.

  “Just aim it at your desk and follow the pointy end,” said Mr. Coleman.

  “Look, Mr. C,” said another student. He showed Mr. Coleman his iPhone. The boy had typed my chair into Google Maps. “No results,” he said.

  Mr. Coleman took the phone and typed Wilson’s brain into the search bar.

  “What a surprise,” he said, returning the phone to Wilson. “No results there either. Come on, everybody, in your seats, now. The last person to sit down has to eat their lunch with me.”

  The classroom erupted in a flurry of movement as children scrambled to find their seats.

  “I’m glad to see you’re so eager to learn all of a sudden!” said Mr. Coleman.

  He sat behind his desk and opened his glasses case.

  “Atkins?” he said, hunching over the register.

  “Present,” said Atkins.

  “Cartwright?”

  “Here. I mean present.”

  “Jindal?”

  “Present.”

  “Kabiga?”

  “Present.”

  “Malooley?” Mr. Coleman glanced at Will and placed a tick beside his name.

  “Present,” said Will.

  “Moorhouse?”

  Moorhouse didn’t answer, and Mr. Coleman didn’t ask a second time. He stared at the register, his brow creased as if trying to remember whether he’d fed the cat that morning. Slowly removing his glasses, he looked up at the class. Every head in the room was turned towards Will, and even Mr. Coleman couldn’t stop himself from staring.

  “Will?” he said.

  Will smiled. “I’m still present,” he said as the rest of the class, especially Mo, continued to stare at him in disbelief.

  Mr. Coleman nodded, too stunned to say anything. Then clumsily putting his glasses back on, he cleared his throat and returned to the register.