Owning Jacob (1998)

by Simon Beckett

  Ben ate his own sandwiches while he waited for him to reappear. Jacob remained in the garden, moving only once to urinate against the wooden wall of the garden shed. Ben shook his head, angry at this evidence of his new parents' laxness.

  It was more than an hour later before Kale came into the garden again. Ben had begun to wonder if he'd gone out somewhere as well, leaving Jacob at home by himself. He had changed into a creased T-shirt and shorts, and now he began a series of stretching exercises. The section of engine he'd hefted over Jacob's head lay near by. Ben felt a rush of adrenalin. He waited, both hoping for and dreading what was going to happen.

  But Kale ignored the blunt metal weight. Instead he picked up two house bricks, one in each hand, and began slowly raising and lowering them, rotating his arms and varying the movements so that all of his upper-body muscles were included in the workout. It reminded Ben of t'ai chi, an almost graceful exhibition of control. Only Kale's injured leg spoiled the effect, nailing him to the same spot like a wooden post. By the time he dropped the bricks, dark patches of sweat were staining his T-shirt. He was breathing deeply but steadily as he went and stood behind the car seat where Jacob was sitting. He looked down at the puzzle his son was playing with. Then, without warning, he bent and lifted both the seat and Jacob straight above his head.

  The boy's eyes widened in surprise, but instead of the panic Ben expected his face split into a delighted grin. Kale began rising and lowering the seat while Jacob smiled above him.

  Ben began taking pictures, but then stopped. Jacob was laughing now, and Kale was actually smiling himself as he effortlessly bench-pressed his son. Ben felt a sense of exclusion and loss crystalize inside him as he watched. Those two smiles seemed to undermine any reason he had for being there.

  But he made no attempt to leave.

  'Fucking action man,' he muttered as Kale smoothly set the seat down and went back to his exercises.

  The afternoon passed without further event. Kale continued to work out while Jacob played with his puzzle. He didn't so much as glance at the engine embedded in the ground, but Ben continued to watch, all the same.

  When Sandra Kale returned from die pub, he switched his attention to her. She seemed no happier now than when she'd left, peeling potatoes at the sink as if she bore them a personal grudge. She didn't tell her husband she was back, and if Kale was aware of it he gave no sign. It was like a dull soap opera, Ben thought, one in which the characters didn't do anything or talk to each other. Yet there was something hypnotic about it. He found himself drawn into the viewfinder's reality, fascinated by the Kales' lack of communication, the absorbing minutiae of their lives.

  It stopped him thinking about his own.

  It was becoming harder to see. He looked up from the camera and found with surprise that the light was fading. He hadn't realised it was so late. Or that he'd been there so long.

  Rubbing his stiff neck he decided to pack up. He didn't relish the prospect of walking through the woods in the dark.

  He reached down to remove the lens and saw the tiny figure of Kale disappear inside the garden shed.

  He had gone in there after lifting the engine over Jacob's head, Ben remembered, looking through the viewfinder again.

  The small wooden shack expanded to fill the world. There was a window in it, but from that angle it was impossible to see inside. He decided to wait for Kale to re-emerge and try to catch a glimpse then.

  Twenty minutes later his curiosity had given way to impatience. The dusk was settling into a dim twilight, but Kale showed no inclination to come out. Ben wondered what the fuck the man could be doing in there. He was beginning to think there must be another exit when the shed door opened.

  Kale staggered out. His T-shirt was stuck to him, dark and wet as if he'd been swimming in it. There were livid red marks around his wrists, legs and neck. One ran across his forehead like a bandana. His face was congested and shiny with sweat as he held on to the shed door and gulped air.

  'Jesus Christ,' said Ben, awed.

  His imagination balked at what he could have been doing to get into that state. The shed wasn't that big. He focused quickly on the dark gap through the doorway. There was an impression of something vaguely mechanical inside, then Kale had closed the door. His limp was even more pronounced than usual when he went over to Jacob.

  Still breathing heavily, though slightly less so now, Kale pointed to the car wing and bonnet that he'd brought into the garden earlier and said something to his son. When Jacob didn't look up from his puzzle, Kale bent and took it from him. Ben's finger pressed on the shutter release as he recorded Jacob's angry protest. Kale said something else, but he was wasting his time. Ben knew from experience that Jacob was winding up to a tantrum. He could hear his frustrated cries drifting up the hillside as he tried to grab the puzzle back. Kale withheld it for a few seconds longer, then let go.

  Jacob went into a protective huddle, clutching the puzzle to his chest. Kale looked down at him, but whatever he felt didn't show on his face. He picked up the bonnet, seemed to consider for a moment, then laid it on the pile. He shifted it several times before he seemed satisfied, then did the same with the car wing.

  He stood in the centre of the garden and regarded his handiwork. He didn't move when the kitchen door opened and Sandra came out again. Her expression was pinched and mean as she stared at her husband's back. Ben wondered if he knew what else went on behind it while he was at work. He didn't think so. Kale was the possessive type. He'd kill her if he found out.

  Sandra was speaking. The heat in her words was evident even though Ben couldn't hear them. Kale didn't answer.

  His wife gesticulated angrily towards the kitchen, then said something else when Kale still didn't respond.

  Your tea's on the table. No, Ben amended, seeing the forms her lips made. Your fucking tea's on the table.

  Without turning around, Kale abruptly snapped something at her. The effect was immediate.

  She subsided, and in her face was something that could equally have been either hate or fear. It didn't stop her from mouthing Fuck off at her husband's back as she seized Jacob's arm and pulled him into the house, but something made Ben think she hadn't spoken the words out loud.

  The light had almost gone. He straightened with a groan, kneading his back, and began to pack everything away. When he made his way through die darkening woods, Kale's shadowy figure was still standing in the garden.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Gradually, with each visit, he began to discern the patterns that the Kales lived by, the rhythm and routines which ruled them. He was literally seeing just one side, only what went on at the rear of the house, but from that he was able to draw conclusions about the rest. He picked it up piecemeal, making the hour-and-a-half journey to the woods whenever he could steal the time from work, until he was able to fit the pieces of their lives together like Jacob would a jigsaw puzzle. Slowly, a picture of the whole began to emerge from the separate parts.

  On weekdays Kale and Jacob would have left before he arrived. He presumed that Jacob would be taken to school by the local authority's minibus while his father went to work.

  But that was part of the front life of the house, the part that Ben never saw. All he observed was their absence. And the time they spent in the garden.

  As far as he could tell Kale hadn't endangered Jacob again.

  The lump of metal he'd hoisted over his son remained where it had landed that first time, and Ben was finding it harder to convince himself that it had been anything other than an isolated incident. Yet the rest of Kale's activities there followed a strict order. While Jacob lost himself in one of his puzzles, he would exercise and busy himself with his scrap. He would switch pieces around, arranging them with such precision that Ben began to wonder if he was missing something obvious.

  Perhaps it depended on the angle. Perhaps, if he could see through Kale's eyes, he would be able to understand what the point of it all was. He even considered th
e possibility that the entire scrap pile was some sort of free-form sculpture, tried to imagine Kale as an aspiring artist. But no matter how he tried to rationalise it, he always came back to his earlier theory.

  The man was a fucking nutter.

  His exercise regime always ended with him going into the shed. Even on Sundays, when he would be at home all day, he didn't go into it in the morning or afternoon. Only in the evening, at final light, and Ben would wonder what part of the picture that he was piecing together was concealed by the flimsy wooden walls. He toyed with the idea of slipping down to look inside when the Kales were at work, but the prospect of having to climb over the high fence in full view of the neighbours was too daunting.

  Often when Kale came out, drenched in sweat and streaked with red weals as though he had been whipped, he would set a piece of scrap on the ground in front of Jacob like an offering. He would sit close to the boy and begin to talk to him, making Ben wish that he could hear as well as see them. Kale would eventually stop, looking expectantly at his son as if he were waiting for a response. When he didn't get it he would calmly move away and contemplate the mountain of wreckage surrounding him, his own little kingdom of rust.

  Ben would always be driven out of the woods by darkness before he tired of it.

  That was the pattern that Kale and Jacob's back-of-the house lives took. But, except for weekends, they weren't played out until the evening.

  During the day the house belonged to Sandra Kale.

  No friends or neighbours called round, and if the man he'd seen sneaking out of the garden went to visit her again it was when Ben wasn't there. She rarely did any housework except washing dishes and making the bed. Most of the time she stayed in the kitchen, drinking coffee (instant, with milk and sugar) or just sitting at the table, smoking and staring into space. The main event of her day came at about half past eleven, when she would leave for work.

  Sometimes she dressed in the bedroom.

  The first time it happened Ben had guessed she was going to get ready when she stubbed out her cigarette and left the kitchen. On the previous occasions he'd been there that had been the signal for the bathroom light to come on, and for her to reappear fully-clothed twenty minutes later, with wet hair that she would dry with a blower next to the sink. That morning, though, she had gone straight into the bedroom.

  He waited for her to gather her clothes together and go out. Instead she unbelted the bathrobe she was wearing and tossed it on the bed.

  The glare on the window restricted his view, but he could still see her clearly enough to tell that she was naked underneath.

  She crossed to the dressing table and picked something up. Deodorant. Her breasts lifted as she rolled it under her arms, jiggling with the brisk motion. They were low, heavy but not sagging, with small, very dark nipples. Her stomach was flat and, he saw when she came nearer the window, had lines across it, as though the folds of her bathrobe had dug into her flesh.

  Below them the trimmed black stripe of her crotch made a lie of her bleached yellow hair.

  Ben had watched as she pulled on bra and pants, short skirt and blouse. She had gone out, and as he'd waited to see if she would return a bird clattered in the branches above him.

  He jerked away from the camera, then gave a nervous, silent laugh. Shit. He began to lean forward to look through the viewfinder again, but stopped.

  What the fuck am I doing?

  There was no excuse for spying on her when she was getting dressed. That wasn't why he was there, but even as he told himself this he felt a tight band of excitement in his chest. And not just his chest, he realised.

  He had an erection.

  He didn't know whether to be relieved or disgusted.

  Although the unexpected resurrection delighted him, he felt uncomfortable over its cause. And confused. It wasn't as if Sandra Kale was anything special, and nudity was hardly unusual in his line of work. Models changed in front of him as a matter of course, with neither he nor they thinking anything of it.

  But they knew he was there.

  You closet voyeur, Murray, he thought, but the attempt to laugh it off was a thin one. He didn't stop going to the woods behind the house, though. And he didn't stop watching Sandra Kale.

  She puzzled him. Boredom and dissatisfaction were shouted from everything she did. She and Kale hardly seemed to speak, while Jacob she treated with either indifference or barely suppressed irritation. Unless Ben had completely misinterpreted what he'd seen when the man left the house, she was unfaithful as well. Yet she had helped Kale get his son back, had lied to protect him.

  Was still lying for him.

  The week before his next contact day was due, a shoot was cancelled at the last minute. Ben had gone out the evening before with some people from an ad agency, and as he went into the studio the next morning, he was regretting it. What had started out as a quick beer after work had developed into a full-blown whose-round-is-it-next session. At some point they'd stumbled off to a Lebanese restaurant where one of them insisted that the mezzes were to die for. Ben wasn't wild about Middle Eastern food, but he let himself be carried along in their slipstream. It was either that or go back to the empty house.

  They'd been led to their table by a waitress who was coldly unimpressed by their noisy arrival. The restaurant wasn't busy, but she took them into a back room, as far away from the main part of it as possible. Only two tables here were occupied, a family group at one and a man and woman at the other. The man was Colin.

  Ben hadn't seen him since the anniversary party. What with work and travelling to Tunford whenever he could, he'd been too busy. And Colin had a new draw on his time himself.

  The shared knowledge of his affair—and Colin's clear shame over it—had made them both uncomfortable. Which, Ben admitted to himself, was probably the real reason they hadn't seen each other.

  But that night the drinks had diluted any awkwardness he might have felt. And also any subtlety. 'Colin!' he'd exclaimed, delightedly, and it was only when he saw the guilty shock on Colin's face that he realised that the dark-haired woman with him was young, slim and obviously not Maggie.

  The girl from the record company, Ben thought. Oh fuck.

  But it was too late to do anything other than keep on smiling and go over. 'I wasn't expecting to see you here,' he said, belatedly aware of how tactless that sounded.

  Colin's face was crimson. 'Er, Ben, this is Jo.' Ben had said hello. The girl seemed pleasant enough, but with a cool look about her he didn't entirely like. He had excused himself and gone back to his own table, and for the rest of the evening he had avoided so much as glancing across.

  Colin had said a quick goodnight when he and the girl left, but Ben could see from his face that he was still flustered.

  He regretted meeting them, not only because he knew it had spoilt their evening, but because it complicated things.

  Before, he had only known about Colin's affair in abstract terms. But having seen him and the girl together, he felt implicated in it Not that he could say he actually blamed Colin. Christ knows, he had spent long enough trying to dissuade him from Maggie before they were married. He just couldn't bring himself to approve either.

  He was thinking more about that than the day's shoot the following morning when he arrived at the studio, until Zoe told him that it had been cancelled. The designer had fallen out with the modelling agency over unpaid bills, and been blacklisted as a result.

  'You don't seem very upset,' Zoe said, when she broke the news.

  He was already wondering how quickly he'd be able to get to Tunford. 'It can't be helped.'

  'I know, but that's the third this month. It pisses me off.' The others had been postponements rather than cancellations, but Zoe took them all personally. At one time so had Ben, but not any more. He had seized those opportunities as well.

  'I wondered about phoning that guy who wants some portrait stuff doing,' Zoe suggested. 'The writer. He said he wanted it as soon as we could fit h
im in.'

  Ben struggled to remember who she meant 'Oh…no, it's too short notice.'

  'It's worth a try.'

  'No, let's leave it.' He could feel her disapproval. 'I tell you what, why don't you do it?'

  'Me?'

  'Yeah, why not? You're good enough.'

  'But he wants you.'

  'Tell him I can't do it. Say we're fully booked, but you can squeeze him in yourself.'

  She was looking doubtful. 'Do you think he'll go for it?'

  'Like you said, it's worth a try.' He went to put on his coat as she mulled it over.

  'So what will you do instead?' she asked.

  'I've got some things to sort out.'

  'Anything I can help with?'

  'No, it's okay.' He was at the door. 'Give that writer a ring and see what he says. I'll see you tomorrow, okay?'

  She nodded, but she still didn't seem happy as he went out.

  He stopped off at an electronics shop and then headed straight for Tunford. It was late morning when he arrived at the woods. He parked in his usual place by the overgrown gate and took his bag and case with the lens in it out of the boot. An elderly couple walking a Yorkshire terrier gave him an odd look as he climbed over the fallen wall, clumsy with all the equipment. He gave them a confident smile and hoped they didn't recognise him, or realise what he was carrying.

  A light drizzle had started by the time he reached his den, so he set up the camera and lens in their weatherproof jackets. It was cold and wet in the trees, a prelude to the final close down of winter. Ben was shivering, but he still felt a buzz of anticipation as he focused on the house.

  Sandra was in her bathrobe in the kitchen, partially screened by the reflection of the garden on the window. Ben fitted a polarising filter on to the lens and the glass turned transparent. It was a new acquisition, expensive, but worth it for how much glare it cut out. With that attached to the lens he could see into the house much more clearly.

  He delved in his bag again and took out the compact cassette recorder and the microphone he'd bought from the electronics shop on the way. He connected them and placed the microphone against the earpiece of his mobile phone. He'd tested the set-up earlier to check that it picked up both his voice and that of whoever he was calling. The sound quality wasn't wonderful, but he didn't need high fidelity. Just proof.