by Adam Thorpe
‘A sensitive. That’s why people like Sheena Fleming reckon you’re an unknown factor, behind that beard. The old major beard, anyway. It’s minor, now. Suits you better, to be honest.’
‘Sheena Fleming? I don’t care a toss what she thinks.’ He regrets his defensive tone. Secretly, he feels he knows what she meant. Jesus, Sheena fancies him rotten.
‘Mind you, the term unknown factor is a euphemism. I will not sink to her level and repeat the words she actually used. This was a few months back. January? A lot happened in January.’
Mike blinks. His chest is bubbling with stress. ‘What did she say, then?’
‘The Romanians are coming, however. Then stuff’s really gonna happen. Ouch. Double ouch. And it’s gonna happen for us sensitives especially. Dark and perilous. Really perilous.’ He’s off on a different register, now: probably on stuff, like half the county. Rotted out by heroin, if you listen to Alex. Certain big farmers, even. Posh retirees. All in on the game.
Mike, still seated, is gathering his coat prior to standing and scarpering when a hand is suddenly placed on his wrist. A chilly hand. Yet it’s warm out. The hand leaves and its forefinger indicates a tattoo on the back of its owner’s pale neck, where the nape emerges from the raven-black collar. A cross. A jagged cross. Lightning bolts. The skin looks scuffed in some way, this close up. A goth thing, no doubt. Or maybe something Nazi. The nastier edge of the disgruntled right. I was sort of a goth once, long ago, Mike wants to say. It all goes past too fast.
‘They’ll know what this means, yeah? The Romanians. I’ll really have to be on my guard. But they’ll be nervous too. Shadow kisser,’ the boy adds, his eyes straying here and there as if already seeing an immigrant in every happy group, before they settle again on Mike like two shiny horseflies.
‘I know a Romanian, a very nice and very bright Romanian, actually,’ Mike protests quietly. He’s blinking into the shadows of his own mind, bewildered by the brief touch of the hand on his, the way its cold instantly triggered heat, the heat rippling through his body and making his ears buzz. No, he thinks. No no no.
‘Oh? Tell me more, man.’
The text comes through as he’s unlocking the van squeezed into his stone-flagged yard. He’s over an hour late. The lad got on to poltergeists, that was the trouble. Books thrown from shelves, plates flying about. He wouldn’t reveal what Sheena had said. Perv, paedo, prat, you name it. A dangerous woman, Mike. Avoid her from now on. Don’t even wave.
Poltergeists, green-eyed vampires with red hair, the undead.
Another pint to hear the boy out. It was like being confronted with your very worst fears. Macbeth and the witches. And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming. A pint’s worth of idiocy. He probably shouldn’t have mentioned Cosmina by name, or where she worked. It was somehow wheedled out of him.
He fishes the buzzing mobile out of his jacket pocket with some difficulty. It’s still new to him, after a couple of years. He got it in case of emergencies. ‘You love your mum, don’t you?’ said Cosmina in that pub in Shakespeare Street. Why didn’t he reply, ‘I love you more. And even more than Shakespeare.’
The text is from the Spanish-or-whatever nurse again, the short one called Esmerelda, though here she signs it Miss D’Cruz. He stops to reread it. Take a grip. He’s leaning on his van’s dented wing. The English doesn’t seem quite right. I am very sad about informing you …
A lurch.
He reads it again, just in case he’s got it all wrong.
8
FAY
27 January 2012
Fay loves Pooch and Pooch loves her. Six years they’ve loved each other! Six years as last month! Someone had to run off his energy or the council would charge them for dog damage to the maisonette. Ken goes round to the butcher’s looking for big bones and Pooch splinters them like they were sticks.
‘Too bloody wild,’ says Rochelle, wheezing. ‘Look at that snarl. Them horrible yellow teeth. Fur all manky. Someone run him over I’d give ’em petrol money.’
‘Born to be wi-ild!’ Ken sings, rocking it over the toast, but he doesn’t practise the guitar enough to be a star, like he said he was going to be. He hasn’t been asked to play a session for months. After the White Heather damage he went back to working the street spot outside Smith’s in Cornhill with more of his ancient Led Zep and Wishbone Ash numbers and stuff, and he was ace but then he goes and spends it all on a new set of strings or summat and what he calls ‘essential refreshments’ from the beer-off. Now and again he plays for Ermine East’s Youth Dance Club, but for free.
Fay used to go along to the club sometimes, but she wasn’t good enough. They are all well up themselves that side of the Ermine. Someone told her to stop being shy and she clobbered them, or tried to. Nowt to do with being shy! Would’ve helped to’ve had proper dance clobber. She even goes along one day to Caraway in Waterside just to look but them girls who are snoots and never skint, well, they all gid her a glare on account of her manky old coat and the shoes were costing twenty quid cheapest even though she did have that fifteen from Nan (God rest her) ‘for your golden future’ and so what if her top friend Evie goes to weekend dance cos you’re spied on while you prance about in your leotards. ‘I’d rather be doin nefin then. I’d rather be doin nefin,’ she said to Evie during art class this morning and Evie laughed and said nefin’s what you are. It was just bants, though.
And anyroad she has to look after Rochelle.
‘Fay? Where are you? Come back to earth, duck. She does this, y’know,’ Rochelle moans on, turning to Ken. ‘A million miles away.’
‘Are you reading me?’ says Ken, pinching his nose.
‘Him’s never snarling, Mum. It’s a smile.’
‘What is? What’re you rattling on about? Go and get on with whatever you’re to be getting on with, Fay, only not under me frickin feet. Bless,’ she adds, as she always does. She is superstitious. If she doesn’t say it … Sometimes she grips Fay’s head and gives it a slobbery kiss, with tears shining in her eyes.
Fay takes Pooch up for his training, bunking off afternoon school. It’s Friday, who cares? She doesn’t even care if she’s excluded again. She’s hardly slept, though. Last night her walls were flashed by blues and she thought it was the bizzies coming for Ken and she was ready to warn him, but then Rochelle met her on the landing and said it was over yon side, bab, summat up again with that mental family from Hull. A massive domestic, shrieks and shouts, lippy Gary from three doors up yelling and swearing out of his window at the lady coppers down below like they did on T V, just a big show-off, what a tosser, just gagging to get cuffed up or even tasered, which Ken said was like the most painful ache you can imagine. ‘How do you know that, Ken?’ ‘Cos I know.’
They all went back to bed and she heard the bin men come round, then headbanger Heidi next door set off for her paper round on her squeaky bike, and then Heidi’s dad heading off to his work at the scaffolding depot, and Pooch snoring. Morning school was so boring she felt ill and had a nap in maths and little Mr Davis had a go at her. Fuck off, Diglett! ‘Yesterday was Australia Day. If the surface area of Australia is …’ Frickin Australia. Who cares?
Today is Day 1.
The big field feels different because it is a weekday, Friday’n all. It’s wet and slippery. The solicitors’ car park is full of smart cars: at least three Audis. She throws sticks over and over but he just chews them up with his big teeth. He’ll only get scraps for dinner. After an hour her voice is hoarse from shouting and she is angry with the dog. She tries to make him play dead by pressing him down but he twists round yelping and catches her on the ear with a fang. There is blood.
‘Yer grufty Staffie mongrel!’ she shouts.
She checks her ear. Just a messy bump on the top. A scratch. The cold wind makes it prickle, like nettle stings but worse.
The field is misty and too huge and there are people in a group watching her from the back of the solicitors’. It’s too far
away to see their faces so maybe they’re just smoking. If she goes even further into the middle of the field she’ll still be in sight, all alone and tiny. Not at school. They’ll phone the filth because the bizzies are in league with solicitors, one came and gid a talk when she was in Year 6 at primary. He makes jokes that no one laughs at, then pats her on the head afterwards like Gary Glitter.
Nonce.
She leaves the field and goes to the playground instead, running some of the way so as she gets there in ten minutes flat. She throws sticks again but then some boys come in and she recognises them, they’re from the year above. Bunking, like her, but she has a reason. She pulls her furry hood over her face and crouches down, stroking Pooch’s stiff hairs at the neck, feeling the muscle. His fur smells manky from the wet, like Ken’s socks mixed up with Rochelle’s spit when she’d wipe stuff off your cheeks. The lads yell rubbish, but they are pathetic. They head off towards a smashed-up old warehouse in the distance, throwing metal stuff inside so it echoes. It is going to be a massive Asda or something.
She needs them frankfurters. That’s what Uggie learnt on. Hot dogs. Sausages. Lincolnshire sausages, best in the world. Reward-focused training, the trainer called it. All animals need rewards, because passion’s never enough on its own.
The foodstore has just had the discounts in, but she’s only got 30p on her. The frankfurters are too much. The fancy Lincolnshire sausages are even more. There is loads of cheap Polish stuff, but Pooch’d throw up or a load worse. Pass away, even. She stares at the beef mince under its plastic film, like trapped blood-stained maggots. Lean beef mince. EXTRA 20% FREE. ONLY £5. VALID TILL 27 JAN 2012. That’s today! Her heart is going quicker, out of excitement. Pooch needs a reward, that’s all there is to it. Her ear hurts.
Nobbut does nowt for free. She sees herself in a shimmy sequin bodysuit, lights flashing, Pooch holding his paw up in a glittering gold collar, and Rochelle stuffed into a size 30 silver outfit down to her swollen ankles and never moaning. Even Ken wouldn’t grumble at the telly, watching it.
Cashier service only, machines out of order. She turns her back on the surveillance camera. She’s not done frankfurters before, the shelf is higher than normal. Pooch is watching her through the glass, jerking at the lead. She pays for some Wrigley’s banana chuddy and is nearly at the door when the security hunk who looks like Seal puts an arm across.
‘Hey, you should be in your school.’
He’s a foreigner of course. PIOTR on his name badge. Polack or Latvi. Go back home.
‘Me mum’s disabled. I’m her carer.’
‘That’s make me cry. Look, my tears. Empty pockets, please.’
Reward-focused training, that’s all you need. She tries to brush past him to get to Pooch, but the arm is solid steel, he’s an eastern European android. His other hand clamps her shoulder. The second guard is behind her now, producing the frankfurters like a magic trick. Pooch is staring through the glass at the packet, not at her, with his tongue dripping. It would have worked, she knows it.
They are emptying out her coat, turning it inside out. Its fur is the same manky brown-grey as Pooch’s.
‘Your dog, is he? What’s the name, my duck?’
He is a foreigner too.
‘Uggie.’
‘Ugly, more like,’ chuckles a new bloke in a posho suit, smelling of aftershave. He has a girly voice and a zit on his nose and is phoning on his silver Samsung, like. Davos Man. But he isn’t a foreigner. ‘Deputy manager,’ he says. ‘Step this way, please.’
And we don’t lift a finger, thinks Fay as her hands and then her legs begin to tremble and shake.
9
SHEENA
25–31 January 2012
When the bell rasps a little early, she is on the loo and curses. She passes Mungo, still on the bed where Fay left him – head raised, ears cocked. She opens the front door to an absence: expecting him to be standing there in his usual huddle of black, it’s as if she can see his phantom presence, blurring Mike’s shop beyond. A movement to her right: he steps out of the gap between the boutique and the place to let next door.
‘I found myself a crevice,’ he says. ‘Lincoln has a lot of crevices.’
‘Don’t need to know the gory details.’ Once he is inside, along with a gust of refrigerated air, she looks him up and down. He’s shivering, nose blue, the spot on it red. Schoolboy look. What is he, behind all the bluster? ‘I was on the loo, Gav. And you are quite early. I’m concerned Mike opposite might spot you. He goes home late on occasion. He’s what I call an unknown factor.’
‘Like me.’
‘Oh no, you’ve not got a beard.’
He raises the bag in his hand when they get upstairs, Mungo shooting off somewhere as usual. ‘Got the scented candles.’ ‘And the wine?’ ‘Who said anything about wine? I mean, I pay the petrol to come here. You never shift your beautiful arse a single inch, like.’
She faces him. ‘How old do you think I look?’
‘Old enough,’ he says, smirking. ‘I don’t like them too young.’
‘Gavin, I don’t think you’ve had anyone at all before me. Not properly.’
His face twitches. He looks about the room. ‘Summat to stick ’em in? I should’ve bought block candles.’ ‘What’s a block candle?’ ‘Thick ones that stand on their own.’ ‘You’ve a broad vocabulary, for your age.’ He chortles. ‘I’m a deputy store manager, remember?’
Sheena produces a couple of her Lanzarote volcanic rock candleholders. A bit of thrusting and turning, but they fit. He produces a lighter and the sitting room fills with what Sheena is told is frankincense, sweet as honey and sickly. It makes her boring Argentinian Malbec taste mulled. It makes her feel promiscuous. He looks at the stairs and asks what’s up them.
‘Spare room. Converted attic.’
‘I want to do it up there,’ he says. ‘A change of scene.’
She climbs the winding stairs and turns on the radiator and the blanket. The room smells faintly of damp. She switches on the red-shaded lamp and kills the main light. Clever boy. Yes, she is excited, her breath coming short. The radiator is wheezing and tapping. What she didn’t tell him is that her mum passed away up here. Nursed to the end. No way was Mum ever going to a home. Or a hospice. She could admire the roofs of lower Lincoln, the towers of the cathedral. Mum even sat in the shop now and again, quietly in a corner, before things got too bad. ‘Why do folk keep stopping and taking pictures of the shop, dear? Are they planning a break-in?’ ‘It’s because they are tourists, Mum. They love everything that’s old, pretty and typically English.’ ‘Then why don’t they take a picture of me?’ A hoarse laugh. Heads turning, the tots looking scared and curious. ‘Mum, keep your voice down, will you?’ The happiest period of their relationship, weirdly. Four months in all.
He is peculiarly pressing that evening in bed, under the eaves, a chill draught finding the gaps in the sash windows. Hasty, almost violent. So much energy and force! So much appreciation! Were they too loud? She imagines squares of light popping into life up and down the hill, curious faces peering out as the howls increase beneath the clustered stars, swept bright by the easterly wind. Like a film, really.
He wanted to take a film of them in action, on his swanky Samsung. She downright refused. ‘Oh yeah, and then download it for the world to see?’
‘Who do you think I am?’ he said, looking really cheesed. That’s the point, Gavin. I don’t really know who you are. But that’s how I like it.
She is so exhausted that she dozes off next to him, both naked under the duvet, deliciously giving way to the urges of sleep.
She wakes up needing to do a pee, thinking it’s near morning. Dare she look at her clock? 12.43 in luminous green. Frick me, as Fay would say. Strong moonlight, thin curtains. The hour you begin to question your life choices. The space beside her is empty. She likes this nest under the eaves, though there are watermarks on the plasterboard between the roof beams. The pantiles probably need checking, tidying
up, a few cracked. Heritage area, so they’ll be sending their drones over to check you’ve got it right. Only the most expensive materials, please, for all those millions studying the city from a helicopter. Hush, child.
He’s presumably gone home, thoughtfully leaving her to recuperate. No wine needed. Who needs wine after that vintage crate of sex? What an adventure! A pity about Paul, though. Even when he has a cold, she likes being with him. Inexplicable. It must be love. Love, and not much lust. Paul Cannon.
She feels a touch lonely without the toyboy here.
Oh. His clothes are folded neatly on the chair, clear in the silver-blue moonlight. Now that’s a funny thing about Gavin: a young feller who folds his clothes along the creases. His wallet and mobile on the little table under the dormer window. He must be downstairs, brooding or snacking or whatever. She grabs her knickers and sweater from the floor, pads over to the wallet, shivering. She cracks it open and there is a driving licence among other odds and sods. Gavin’s photo makes him look like a schoolkid, which he was then: German tin-helmet cut, in fashion in the noughties. Every lad in Lincolnshire had one. He appears to be down in the dumps and is acne-riddled. The address is the Swinderby one. His mum’s. His mum called Maureen. Hasn’t bothered to change it. Or he fibbed and this is his present home address. Still living with Mummy. The licence confirms his age, at least. She doesn’t probe further: receipts, a few fivers, credit and loyalty cards … she’s not a snoop, nor a bloody detective.
His mobile. The swanky Samsung. She picks it up. It’s like a drawer that you can’t resist opening. She doesn’t resist. She presses Camera. No pictures of her, no films. The photos slip by under her thumb. Selfies, as off-putting as selfies always are. His navel. His dick, unaroused. Oh my. An arty one of trees at night, lit by headlights. Oh. Sweet. Kittens! Sweet little big-eyed bundles of fur. Who’d have thought it? Roadkill, Christ. Some poor little beast run over. Now that’s horrible. Arty Gavin. Bloody Hell, from several angles. An unhealthy interest. Her thumb is trembling. More selfies, showing his teeth in a snarl. She hears a sound from down below. She freezes at the table. That’s not a Mungo sound.