The White Stuff

by Simon Armitage

  Reaching his office, he opened the door with a speedy, two-handed manoeuvre, pushing down on the handle with his left and reaching for the light switch with his right. His entrance was met with a terrifying shriek. It came from somewhere in front of him, on the floor, and even though his first reaction was to turn and scarper, his momentum carried him into the room and almost on top of the two half-naked bodies scurrying for the safety of their clothes. Even under the instant glare of the bare bulb it took several seconds of standing and staring before Felix could comprehend what was going on. Several long, illuminating seconds. By which time, Felix had seen enough. Or rather he had seen too much.

  ‘I’m just going to the loo,’ he said.

  He turned, closed the door and, as an afterthought, switched off the light. In the toilets he washed his hands until they were pink, then held them under the dryer until every last drop of moisture had vaporized. But that only took two minutes. In the staffroom he washed a bowlful of dirty cups, wiped them with the tea towel and put them in the cupboard. He then rearranged the newspapers and magazines on the coffee table according to publication date, then boiled the kettle and made a drink from the only available ingredient - Bovril. A total of seven and three-quarter minutes had now passed since his untimely entrance. Judging this to be an appropriate interval, and armed with his steaming mug of hot beef drink, he set off in the direction of his office again, clearing his throat dramatically before opening the door. The window had been opened. It was quite cold. Both people were now fully dressed. The man, Neville, sat behind the desk, with his hand covering his mouth and his eyes. The woman, Mo, sat on the chair in front of the desk with her legs crossed and her arms folded. She looked at the floor.

  ‘Sorry,’ they said in unison, which produced a strange, three-way harmony of voices, given that at exactly the same moment Felix had chosen to say exactly the same word. He sipped at his drink. The heat of it bit into his mouth. The taste offended his tongue.

  ‘I… we thought you were on leave,’ said Neville, with a further note of apology in his voice.

  ‘I’ve just come in to collect a few things.’

  He turned to the set of filing cabinets and bundled various papers, books and other oddments into a bag. He had to squeeze past Neville to retrieve his diary from the top drawer of his desk.

  ‘Right, then,’ said Felix. He waited for a moment, before turning and going out through the door.

  Neville caught up with him in the corridor and walked him down the stairs.

  ‘I’m really sorry, Felix. That shouldn’t have happened.’

  ‘Not a problem.’

  ‘You won’t say anything, will you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s not allowed. We’d get relocated, and, you know, it’s going really well.’

  ‘I thought you hated each other.’

  ‘We did. Then all of a sudden we didn’t. But we kept all the aggro going as a kind of cover. Do you think it worked?’

  ‘Fooled me.’

  They were on the third floor by now. Neville took hold of Felix by the elbow and brought him to a halt. ‘Guess you’ve had a bit of a funny old week. Seeing that Spotland guy getting popped and then… this.’

  They stood next to each other, leaning on the banister rail and looking down the stairwell for a minute or so.

  ‘It’s fine,’ said Felix eventually. Then he smiled. ‘I’m happy for you.’

  Neville smiled in return. ‘Thanks, mate, thanks,’ and he touched Felix on the elbow again, more gently this time, as an act of gratitude and a sign of understanding.

  Felix scratched his head. ‘But why here? You’ve both got homes to go to, and it’s not like you’re married or anything. Are you?’

  ‘Mo shares a flat with an ex-boyfriend. Bit complicated. And I’ve got my dad with me at the moment. Angina. All that wheezing and spluttering, kind of takes the romance out of it.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘We’ve been going to the Travelodge at the motorway exit, but it’s fifty quid a throw.’

  ‘That’s reasonable, isn’t it? For a night?’

  ‘It’s not bad, but it doesn’t include breakfast.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘So this was the last resort. I mean, we’re not kinky. We haven’t been doing it on the photocopier or anything like that.’

  In the lobby on the ground floor Neville held open the door as Felix buttoned his coat against the cold wind outside. Before he went out he said, ‘Will you tell Mo…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That I didn’t see anything.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Will you tell her?’

  Neville chuckled. ‘You know what you are, don’t you, Felix?’

  ‘What am I?’

  ‘You’re a sweetheart.’

  From the edge of the moor the giant crane on the Strawberry Field looked like a slightly lopsided cross. It was interesting that the town’s one and only Christmas decoration should be a company-owned, crudely lit mechanical device, poised to obliterate the last remaining patch of nature. But maybe there was a sort of justice involved. Last year the council had erected a tree in the precinct, a towering, swaying Norway spruce imported at great expense and strung with coloured bulbs. In the days that followed, the local paper carried dozens of letters from disgusted citizens, comparing the cost of the tree with scanning machines and other much needed items of hospital equipment. Then all the bulbs were stolen, followed by most of the lower branches and finally the whole tree. That Christmas, every living room on the Lakeland Estate glowed with a different colour, and the air in that part of town was mentholated with the smoke of pine needles and unseasoned wood. Or so it was said.

  20

  Being in the house with nothing to do was hard work. It reminded Felix of the days he had feigned illness to avoid going to school, those mornings when he’d simulated some well-judged ailment -one that did not require the attendance of a doctor but could still secure a day at home. A bout of vomiting noises behind the bathroom door usually did the trick, or something undetectable like a stomach cramp or headache. But by lunchtime a true sickness had set in - boredom. It was often compounded by hunger, given that his mother’s reaction to most forms of ill-health was to restrict the patient to hot water, or at the very most diluted chicken soup. As a medicine it worked, because by next morning Felix was invariably ‘cured’ and ready to face the education system once again.

  Bernard had insisted that Felix should not return until after New Year at the very earliest. On Wednesday he sat down with his lunch and for the first time in his life watched daytime telly. It was astonishing. Celebrities he’d never heard of making three-course meals with whatever they’d found at the bottom of their fridge. Neighbours decorating each other’s houses with loud colours and chipboard. Quiz shows. Antiques. It made Felix realize why a great many of his clients were in trouble with the law. Faced with so much artificiality eight hours a day, wouldn’t even the mildest person end up throttling someone, just for an honest reaction? Faced with so much cheerful banality five days of the week, crime was the only credible alternative. Felix wasn’t a client or a criminal, though. He was a practical man. He turned the television off manually by removing the plug from the socket and went upstairs to shelve the paperback novels in the spare bedroom in alphabetical order. It took two hours. That done, he spooled through the dozen or so camcorder tapes lying in a heap on the windowsill, making notes as he went along, arranging them chronologically, writing the year on the spine of the case and a brief description of its subject on the inside flap. Through the viewfinder he watched an excited group of parents and children lining the playground of Sconford and Tilden School, Norfolk, waiting for the festivities to begin. Inside the building, former May Queens of different ages charted nervously with each other among the cocktail sausages and cheese straws, ready for the parade.

  ‘Didn’t you put that chicken in? Felix?’

  Abbie was standing in the hall in her c
oat, having returned from work expecting to be met by the smell of chicken casserole in white wine sauce and new potatoes.

  ‘Come and look at this,’ he shouted in reply. Still in her coat, she followed his voice upstairs to the back bedroom, dragged an old wicker chair next to him and sat down.

  He leaned over and kissed her on her cheek. ‘Hi.’

  The cold had come in with her, trapped in the folds of her clothing, clinging to her hair.

  ‘Hi. What?’

  ‘Look.’

  He set the tape running through the computer.

  ‘Oh, God, I’d forgotten you’d filmed this. How funny.’

  She watched the children streaming through the school doors and chuckled at their homemade spacesuits and rockets. And she spoke the name of the first two May Queens as they appeared on the screen, and smiled and blushed as she heard Mr Fellows, the headmaster, announcing her own name, and watched him peck her on the cheek before guiding her to her seat on the podium. Then she roared with laughter as the other women and girls entered the parade, some filmed in sepia tone, some in slow motion, black-and-white, split-screen, soft-focus and so on. It only lasted five or six minutes, because Felix had edited out all the crap bits, but judging by Abbie’s face it was a success.

  ‘I love it,’ she said. ‘Come on, let’s eat. We can watch it again later.’

  ‘Actually that isn’t what I wanted to show you,’ he said.

  Rewinding the tape, he paused on a shot of little Eliza Hardison, this year’s May Queen, taking her seat on the throne. He moved the film on, frame by frame, freezing the shot as Eliza lifted the posy of flowers in her right hand and turned her face to the left. Then he reached for a photograph in a silver frame - the one he’d given Abbie for her birthday - and propped it up next to the screen. Taken thirty years ago, it captured her on exactly the same throne, in an almost identical position - flowers held aloft in the right hand, head turned slightly to the left.

  ‘What do you think?’ he said expectantly.

  ‘Amazing,’ said Abbie. ‘It’s the same chair, the same sash, even the same tiara. You’d think they could have run to a new tiara. Cheapskates.’

  ‘No, I’m not talking about all that regalia. Look.’

  With the mouse, he highlighted part of the image - Eliza’s face - and enlarged it. Felix lifted the photograph of Abbie and held it next to the screen, pointing at one face, then the other.

  ‘Don’t you see?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The likeness.’

  Abbie’s eyes moved from left to right, from the photograph of herself age ten to the image of Eliza Hardison, then right to left, then back again. ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘You’re the spitting image. Look at the bridge of the nose. And that curve under the lip. She’s even got the same teeth.’

  Felix traced the profile of the two girls with his finger, emphasizing his point. To him it was so obvious. It was literally staring her in the face. After a while she shook her head and stood up. ‘Let’s get some food. I’m starving.’

  They ordered a takeaway and ate in front of the TV. It was too late to think about going out, so Felix went into the kitchen and found a bottle of red wine at the back of the cupboard, something unheard of and unpronounceable that Jed and Maxine had brought round about a year ago during the great Trivial Pursuits wars. It smelt musty but tasted OK, besides which there was no other alcohol in the house apart from a three-pack of novelty ales (another donation from next door) and a bottle of advocaat with a yellow crust around the cap. Abbie had gone upstairs, for a shower maybe, but after half an hour still hadn’t returned. When Felix found her, she was in the back bedroom, staring at the screen.

  ‘Do you see it now?’ he asked her.

  ‘So what are you suggesting?’

  Felix sat down beside her and pushed a glass of wine into her hand.

  ‘A family connection?’

  ‘But she’s got blonde hair. And blue eyes.’

  ‘She’s also got that funny smile. The thing you do with your lip when someone takes your picture.’

  ‘What funny thing?’

  ‘That,’ said Felix, picking up the photograph and outlining the tight wrinkles of skin around the corner of her mouth. ‘That,’ he said again, turning to the screen and pointing out an identical sneer to the same side of Eliza Hardison’s lips.

  ‘It’s coincidence.’

  Felix drained the wine and stared at the trail of crimson dregs on the inside of the glass. Then, tasting the fumes at the back of his throat and imagining the boozy, red grapes entering his bloodstream, he said, ‘Why don’t we give them a call?’

  ‘What? Who?’

  ‘That family. The Harmisons.’

  ‘Hardisons.’

  ‘Yes. Them.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You’re drunk.’

  ‘Not much.’

  ‘And we don’t have the number.’

  ‘It’s on a sheet in the drawer. Everyone at the parade wrote down their name and address.’

  He felt a powerful physical sensation, a sort of adrenalin rush. Felix was one of life’s helpers. That was his nature. If Abbie wanted a baby, he assisted in every way possible. If she wanted to find her family, he gave her his time and his experience. He applied for documents, shovelled earth from graves, drove to the East Midlands, held her hand - that kind of thing. But now he was taking the lead. Pushing the envelope - was that the phrase? Here he was, standing in front of her with an idea - a blue-sky idea - that was all his own. Admittedly it was a crazy theory, with odds of hundreds of thousands to one, and it involved phoning a complete stranger 200 miles away at ten o’clock on a Friday night. But it was hope. And, like all hope, it required trust.

  ‘I don’t know. All right.’

  Felix left her in the back bedroom. He went downstairs to use the telephone, via the bottle of wine. He made the call.

  She would have heard him upstairs, the humming of his voice, but not the words themselves - she wouldn’t know what had been said. And she would have guessed from the length of time he was gone - a good five minutes - that a conversation had taken place, something more than a polite hello and a courteous goodbye. But not the meaning. The significance. The weight and worth of every turn of phrase. He was back upstairs now, standing behind her as she peered into the screen.

  ‘Who did you speak to?’

  ‘Eliza’s mum.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘She said she’s been expecting a call. She said she was surprised it had taken you so long.’

  Felix was locking up when he saw Jed in the back garden, throwing a ball for Smutty, drinking from a can and smoking a roll-up. The episode with the sperm had made things difficult, but now it was time to have a beer and a joke over the garden fence. Leave all that nonsense behind. He turned the key and flicked the switch for the outside light. There was a fizz and a bang. The bulb popped, and in the cubbyhole under the stairs the tripswitch blew with a dean, hard crack. Like a gun. Felix swivelled on his heels and dived to the floor, then rolled away from the glass-panelled door and behind the barricade of the breakfast bar. He curled in a tight ball, like a baby. And he raised his open hand towards the noise, as if the palm of a hand could parry a bullet from its target. As if the flesh and bones of the hand could catch a bullet in mid-flight, pull it out of the air, save a life. After a minute or so staring at the collection of lost pens, old coins, dehydrated peas and balls of fluff under the fridge, he stood up, dusted himself down, helped himself to a bottle of Becks and went outside to see his friend.

  21

  As they pulled up on the grass verge in front of the house, a hand waved from the kitchen window, then a moment later Mrs Hardison opened the door and waited for Abbie and Felix as they made their way up the garden path, which was laid with crazy paving and lined at each side with old bricks. Mrs Hardison had been baking. With her fingers coated with cake mix, she rai
sed her arms to avoid shaking hands, and they pushed past her into the house. It was a tight squeeze. She was massively pregnant and the cooking apron tied around her middle only accentuated her bump.

  The teapot was covered in a hand-knitted tea cosy. A stove burned quietly in the corner. It was a scene of apparent domestic bliss, although Felix was no more than a couple of strides into the room when he detected a smell that didn’t quite tally with the aroma of freshly baked pastry. It came from a cigarette balanced on the edge of the wooden chopping board. Abbie noticed it too, and Felix watched as her eyes flitted from the cigarette itself towards the ashtray on the dresser containing at least half a dozen stubs. Abbie had once said that she felt genuine indignation when she drove past those parking bays at the supermarket reserved for mothers with babies. Wasn’t it enough that they already had children - what other privileges could they possibly need? If she felt as strongly as that about car-parking, thought Felix, what must she feel about women who jeopardize the miracle of procreation with nicotine poisoning?