by Gee, Maurice
‘Hello, Dad.’
‘Gordon,’ Howie said, naming him.
‘You lock up. I’ve got to get some sleep.’ He went into the house.
Howie followed. He closed the french doors and reset the alarm. I should wash this sweat off me, he thought. But he was tired. He lay down by Darlene, who murmured in her sleep.
Good boy, Gordon, you made it. He pulled the duvet over himself, fitted it round his chin. I’ll tell you what, though, he smiled as he went to sleep, you would have changed your mind falling down there. It’s too late then. You chose real good. You’ll get through prison okay now.
Good on you, son.
Chapter Eleven
The yard had clouds pressing down on it. Ponder, in her office, felt their weight. She looked up through the ceiling, through the roof; she combed her orange hair with her fingertips. Then she coughed and rolled phlegm on her tongue and spat it neatly into a paper tissue.
Brent squatted in the yard, sending messages to her. I’m here, Mrs Ponder. I’ve got something for you, wait and see. The bellies of the clouds softened into misty rain. It wet his face and made his cheekbones cold. He did not mind waiting until Ponder came out. She would have to come to padlock the gate. Then he would tell her he had stayed in Wellington, and that he had found a place where no one would find him. He would show her his present and let it shine.
One Friday had passed and here was another. It had to be Friday for Ponder to be working after dark. When he went out on other nights, after the house had gone to sleep, he climbed into her yard and lay between the timber stacks where the eyes of the circus horse could not see. He prowled among the whiteware on his knees, turning narrow corners like a centipede. He pulled the fridges open and felt their inner walls, and opened ovens in the stoves, smelling legs of lamb that had been roasted inside. Then he went home through the empty streets and crawled into his bed under the bed. He kept his blankets there and had learned a way of covering himself from head to toe, rolling one way and then the other until he was done up all round. His pillow enclosed his face along each side. He felt sometimes that he was in a coffin in the ground, with one side open so he could slide out. He lay there in the daytime and the house went on outside: Caseys, Laverys, the meter reader in the hall, the glazier for the broken window out the back. Visitors too, but none for him. He heard the doberman sniffing at the crack under his door and heard Mrs Lavery say, ‘Come away, Sting.’ When everyone was out he crept around. He used the toilet and ate food. He knew the places where the floorboards creaked and he side-stepped them. He did not want even the dog to know he was at home.
Once Mrs Casey knocked on his door. She tried the handle. ‘Are you in there, Brent?’ The next day she pushed a letter under. He left it lying. It must have been Wednesday when Ponder phoned. He heard Mrs Casey say, ‘Hold on, I’ll see.’ She knocked on the door and tried the handle again. ‘It looks as if he might have shot through … No, I haven’t seen him since last Friday.’ It had to be Ponder. He felt sorry for her. I guess she could have told the cops on me, he thought. Ponder began to take his mother’s place. When he crept into her yard late the next night he smelt cooking smells and washing smells and heard her humming tunes although she wasn’t there, and heard her slippers smack on the lino with their soles. He seemed to sit between the table and the stove while she did her cooking and her washing up around him.
Friday night. The Caseys were visiting Napier for the weekend. He heard their cracked muffler boom as they took off. The Laverys had gone again to Terminator 2. (‘Arnie, I’m coming,’ Mrs Lavery cried. ‘Hasta la vista, baby,’ Lavery growled in a German voice.) Brent unsheathed his arms. He put one hand against the skirting board to slide out. His fingers went into the gap between the foot of the bedpost and the wall. Dust had gathered in a ball as thick as cotton wool. Something hard lay under it. He hooked with his forefinger and brought it into his palm. Round and skinny, like his mother’s wedding ring. He slid out and pushed the blankets back and went, stepping carefully, to the window. Through the crack in the curtains he saw the doberman lying in the yard. His head was up and his ears pricked. Brent waited till he laid his jaw on the ground. Then he held the ring in the light: a wedding ring, no mistake. It had been used most of someone’s life, it was so worn. But he liked it – liked the roundness. Something was engraved inside in letters so rubbed off he could not read. So it’s mine, he thought. They lost it and it’s mine. I’ll give it to her. He held it on his palm, then put it on his little finger, where it fitted tight.
It’s for Ponder, she’s my mum.
There was still too much light outside for him to go out. He went to the toilet and pissed quietly, then flushed away his morning shit. The dog could not tell his toilet from the Caseys’. He ate a can of beans and a can of peaches. The light had gone from the sky when he looked again. At half-past ten the Laverys would be back. And he had to get to Ponder before nine o’clock in case she left right on closing time.
He locked his door; no click. He unlocked and locked the front door. His way between the lamps was practised now but he did not like the people in the streets. He went across, went back, moving quickly, keeping his hand in his pocket to hide the ring. Headlamps struck him in the face. He turned into a doorway and looked at a display of Indian pickles. The writing on the jars made no sense. But he pulled out his hand and saw the wedding ring and got himself back in place again.
Across the vacant section, where the weeds came to his waist. He could duck down and be in a walkway like a cat, and slide between the grass and broken concrete to the shelter of a rubbish skip. Ponder’s iron fence leaned into the street, then warped back and leaned into the yard. No need to climb, the gate was unchained. It left a space wide enough to ease his body through.
Ponder, with her orange hair, sat in the light. He saw what an old lady she was. The glass walls of her office reflected her, and mirrors picked her up as she walked along the shop and locked the entrance doors. She must be sixty. That was three times as old as him. He was overcome with love and he wanted, more than anything, to please her. He sank on to his knees and walked his hand along the ground into the light. His little finger stuck up like the back leg of a weta. The ring gleamed, thin and white. This is for you, Mrs Ponder. I’ve found a place where no one knows. I’ll come round here and help you in the night. Please, Mrs Ponder.
She turned out the shop lights. The ring switched off its gleam. He drew his hand back and hid it in his pocket. Ponder sat in her office; she finger-combed her hair, and sighed. She took a candy bar from her drawer, unwrapped the paper, bit; wrapped the bar again and put it away.
‘I’m here, Mrs Ponder,’ Brent whispered.
She chewed and swallowed. Opened the drawer again, had another bite. Then she put the bar away and smacked the back of her hand. ‘Bad girl,’ she said, locking the drawer with a key.
Brent smiled. ‘I’ll bring you some candy bars,’ he said.
‘Hey? What?’
‘I’ll get you some candy. What sort do you like?’
‘Who’s there? Is someone there?’
He was quiet then. Decided to surprise her with the ring. He backed into the shadows and went on his hands and knees between electric stoves until he was under the lean-to roof. He put his head out and saw Ponder standing side-on, down an alleyway between the freezers. She had armed herself with a walking stick from the office. A black one, with a swan’s head: beads for eyes and a piece of ivory for a beak.
Hey now, Mrs Ponder, you don’t need that, it’s only me. Wait until you see what I’ve got.
She went from sight, deeper into the yard. ‘Is that you, Brent? If you’re playing games with me … ’
He crept along the alley. It’s no game, Mrs Ponder. Look’t I got for you. I didn’t have to steal it or anything. It’s from a wedding. He stepped out behind her. ‘Hey,’ he said, and held his hand up in the fine rain, with fingers spread.
Ponder swung round. He heard her teeth click as she s
hut her mouth. ‘Brent,’ she said. ‘So you thought you could play your tricks on me.’
‘No, Mrs Ponder. I brought you a present. It’s a surprise.’
She hissed. Her red fingernails came up and the walking stick whistled at him. ‘You sneaky little piece of dirt. I’m going to give you the hiding of your life.’
‘No, Mrs Ponder. Hey, Mrs Ponder – ’
‘And then I’m going to call the police.’
The ivory beak bit him on the ear. ‘Ow, shit,’ he cried.
‘You thought you could play smart tricks on Ponder. Sneaky … dirty … nasty little … ’
She hit him three more times. His hands went blunt with agony as he tried to ward off the blows. ‘No,’ he yelled, ‘I brought you a ring.’ He stopped backing away and jumped inside the circle of her stick. ‘See, look, a ring for you’, pushing up his hand into her face. She chopped the stick down again, between his raised fingers, and he screamed with pain – but stepped closer, hard against her chest, and tried to hold her.
‘Mrs Ponder, don’t hit me. I love you, Mrs Ponder.’
‘Love?’ she cried, ugly with disgust. She tried to move away from him to swing the stick again.
‘I want you for my mother, that’s what I mean.’ He danced inside her arms, and she dropped the stick to beat him with her fists. He tried to hold her still but they fell across the harrow chains. She came down on top of him, knocking out his breath. He felt her blown up, strong, like tractor tyres, pressing with her stomach as she tried to heave away. ‘Mrs Ponder, don’t hurt me,’ he sobbed. She put her knees on him and climbed to her feet. The roll in her hair had come undone; a piece of plastic dangled on her cheek.
‘I should kill you, I should squash you,’ she panted.
‘Please,’ he wept.
‘You wait there. You wait right there. Don’t you move one inch.’ She turned and went towards the door, between the timber stacks.
‘No, Mrs Ponder.’ He scrambled off the chains and crawled after her. He threw his arms around her knees and held on tight. She tried to turn, one way, then the other. Her bottom rolled across his face as she struck him backwards with her fists but he kept hold, digging his fingers in her thighs.
‘Don’t get the police, please, Mrs Ponder.’
She lunged to break away, then crashed down on her face and bounced like rubber. He scrambled on her back and lay on her. ‘Just stay there. You’re not getting them.’
She began to make little cries for help, then set up a screaming, high and thin – dog-scream sounds. She tried to buck him off but he straddled her and put his face inside her hair. He slid his hands around her jaw to block her mouth. Something came out and filled his palm and he looked at it with disbelief: teeth, slimy, fixed in gums. He flung them back-handed over the stoves and tried to stop her mouth again, but this time his fingers went inside. Her back teeth bit him. He screamed and pulled, and ripped away, leaving a finger pad. He pushed himself off her back, and turned around, went in a circle, doubled up; then saw her again, crawling at the door. The walking stick tangled in his feet. He picked it up and struck her on the back, but the stick whistled like bamboo and made a splitting sound. He looked for something heavier, something to stop her crawling. She went along slowly at the door, on bent arms, with her hair trailing on the ground.
‘I told you not to, Mrs Ponder.’
He reached into the timber stack and jerked a short piece free. His left hand scalded him but he held on and raised it and brought it down on the middle of her back. Her arms shot out in front of her, she looked like an Arab praying, and he raised the piece of timber again and hit her on the hump of her spine. It jerked out of his hands. There must have been a nail in it and it stayed fixed in her bones, pointing forward like a monkey’s tail. Brent made a whimper. He kicked it but it swung round to point the other way.
Ponder still moved. Her hands tried to pull her at the door. She would not stop. He ran to the gardening tools leaning by the harrow and grabbed a spade and ran back to her. She was turning over slowly, she seemed to grin at him with her empty mouth. He brought the spade down flat-bladed on the side of her head. It made a cracking sound, but when he hit again it sounded wet.
‘I told you not to,’ he said, and was filled with rage at her as she lay there on her back with her mouth open wide and her eyes looking over her head as though she was trying to see something in the shop.
‘You could have been my mother,’ he said.
She made a sound of emptying, and blood ran from her nose and down her cheeks into her hair. He struck her again, on the eyes. Then he dug at her. He tried to chop her into bits that he would not know.
‘It serves you right,’ he said as he worked. He chopped hard at her neck but the blade would not go through. He smashed her face until there was nothing left. Then he leaned panting on the spade. When he turned, the horse was watching him. He ran at it and broke its head in pieces. He flung the spade away and saw it cartwheel through the open door into the shop.
‘I’m finished with you, Ponder,’ he cried, and he trampled on her hair and turned it into mud, until no red was left in it, and nothing left of her to recognise.
Then he ran out of the yard and past the skip into the vacant section. He burrowed in the grass and hid himself, nursing his hand and waiting for the city to close down. Heavy rain fell. It splashed on his face. ‘Good,’ he whispered, ‘that’s good.’ He opened his mouth and let drops fall inside. He held his hands palm up in the air, almost as high as the top of the grass. The water washed and stung him. It ran down his sleeves into his armpits. Ponder was gone. He had got rid of her and hidden her. There was no one to love any more.
That’s real good. Soon I can go home, Brent thought.
The wet cars shone. Lights were on in some of the front rooms and TV sets flickered with horses, faces, cars, fire, but outside everything was still. Drops fell from the wires and hit the pavement with a finger-snapping sound.
Brent crossed the road and turned sharply, close to brick fences. The noise of his shoes was like dishrags. He was drawn along, drawn home, as though each length of street and pavement shortened like elastic, pulling him. Puddles doused their yellow light as he stepped in them. He walked on a black path in a gorge. The way closed up behind him; he seemed to hear the locking of the walls.
‘Sting, Sting,’ Mrs Lavery cried. She leaned back on the leash, lifting the dog’s forelegs off the ground. He saw it standing level with his face, its red tongue out and hungry noises coming from its mouth. ‘Sting,’ she cried. ‘Oh God, Brent, I’m sorry, he’s not like this.’
He lay panting on the side of a car as she dragged Sting up the street. Out of the house they’d come, without any warning, and there had been nowhere to hide. And the dog – the dog had wanted his shoes. Crazy for them. Blood, he thought, blood in my shoes. He ran into the house and down the hall; opened his door; closed it hard and quiet and leaned on it. When he had his breath back he turned his key in the lock; locked himself in. Blood on me, he thought. He went into the bathroom, pulled his sneakers undone and levered them off, each one with the toe of his other foot. He did not want to touch them but lifted them by the laces and put them in the shower and turned it on. He used only his right hand, the left one hurt too much. It made him cry out as he slid his jacket off. He put that in the shower too, alongside the sneakers, and angled the shower head so water drummed on it. He took off his socks, his jeans, his shirt, and put them in. Then he ran some water in the basin and tried to wash his hands but could not get the left one in. The pad was bitten off the second finger and the little finger was swollen to twice its size. Broken, he thought, she broke my finger. The wedding ring cut into it. He looked at his face in the mirror. Blood from his ear was caked down the side of his neck. Jesus, he thought, I’m all cut up. Water overflowed from the shower tray on to the floor. He slid in it and almost fell as he turned the mixer off. His clothes had blocked the drain and he pushed them aside with his foot. The water
looked almost clean. He had thought it would be red. I’m chopped to bits, he thought, and he stumbled out of the bathroom to his bed, pulled out the blankets, tried to wrap himself and slide underneath. He could not do it. His hand and his ear hurt too much. He moaned and lay on top of the bed and pulled the blankets over his head.
I’ve got to stay in here, he thought, I’ve got to stay quiet. I never want anyone to see me again.
Time went by in pieces, which he knew when their edges were closed off. Streaks of light showed small parts he could recognise. In his hand a hammer beat, falling with no weight, then thumping on his bones and making him cry out. He bit into the mattress to shift his pain away.
He found himself in the kitchen, drinking water from a cup. His hand floated ahead of him like a seagull. Then he was drinking from a packet. Cornflakes scratched his cheeks and gathered in his lap. The fridge door opened wide. He put his hand on a shelf, then sat down with his arm inside and went to sleep. Found himself later, and carried it across the room and lay on the bed with the cold bar resting on his stomach. He took the bread knife to saw it off. His arm was a loaf of bread and must be cut in slices. He thought he had done it, but discovered he had not and the knife was gone. He was in a new place – in the corner, by the TV set, which said, Germany, thunder storms, one hundred runs; and savage crime and shocked the nation; not his name. Showed a face he knew was his but no one else would know.
‘Brent,’ a voice said, banging on the door. ‘Answer me, Brent. Brent, are you sick?’
It went away and came back nights later or straight away. ‘What’s your sister’s address? Where does she live? I’m getting her, Brent.’
He grinned until his teeth hurt. He felt them chip and grind. There might have been a sister once but she had no name.
The woman turned into a man. ‘Come on, you fucken idiot, answer the door.’ He grinned and hid. ‘I’m telling you, mate, we’re not sharing a house with a fucken nutter, so open up.’