Martin John

by Anakana Schofield

  Each time *atrice returns, Baldy Conscience asks her questions. What does she want? Why is she calling? Baldy Conscience asks *atrice if she is his—Martin’s—girlfriend. He has halved his name. Half-eradicated him in one question.

  Is that why you want to know when the last time I saw him was? Martin John does not hear what *atrice says next but BC says Fuck you’re kidding and Martin John does not like the sound of the you’re kidding. The note in it is low. Too low. It’s a deep-sounding word. Like Baldy Conscience is excited by what he has heard and he is going to do something with this information. Like erase his remaining half, the “Martin” in Martin John.

  There were to be no P’s. He had decided that when he made the lists of words from the *aper. He had seen the *roblems with P words and he was finished with them. That was how it would be. No P’s.

  He goes to visit Noanie so that if the hospital makes a fuss they will phone Noanie, who will say What harm? He was here. He is here. Noanie will say, What harm?

  —You’re here, she says. Where were you?

  —I was there.

  —You were.

  —I was.

  —Now I’m not there anymore.

  —I see that. You’re here.

  —That’s good. I’ll tell her when she phones.

  —Did she phone?

  —Oh she did.

  —When?

  —Oh I don’t know.

  —It’s a while since she phoned.

  He bought Noanie a doughnut. Noanie cuts it in half.

  When she eats her piece of the doughnut, Noanie shrivels her lip up and sucks at her teeth. It’s the first time he notices her teeth are gone very bad.

  —It’s a long time since I had one of those, she says.

  He brought the doughnut to make conversation. Now he is stuck with Noanie for the regimented three hours. He asks if they can watch the teletext on the television. You can. You can, she says. She has to do the washing-up and then she’ll be in to him.

  He brought me a doughnut and he watched the teletext. There could be nothing more normal than that, figures Martin John.

  They found him by his foot.

  He was removed to St Thomas’ Hospital.

  Knee abrasions.

  Martin John has made mistakes.

  When the fireman from the Lewisham Fire Brigade tugs him crudely by his ankles, Martin John remembers he has made mistakes.

  Fucking hell, the fireman says.

  That’s how it is with Martin John.

  That’s how it was with Martin John.

  And now, ever wary of firemen.

  When the Lewisham Fire Brigade entered the home at 7 Cluny Place, which they described as an unremarkable South London mid-terraced dwelling in their paper report (two paper clips: they don’t like them to come apart)—they faced a thick barrier of piled-up material.

  Smoke. Someone called it in. There’s a man living in that house. He hasn’t seen him in months but he exists. He’s not all there, but he exists was likely how the neighbour described him. He may have added harmless, weird, eccentric—kindly adjectives. Were they deserved? You’ll decide amongst yourselves. As Martin John’s mam says, We’ll answer to the man who knows him best.

  Someone called in a report of smoke.

  They are still referring to him as The Occupant at this point.

  —The Occupant fenced himself in.

  —We don’t know how he survived.

  The firemen speculated that The Occupant would have suffocated if he hadn’t been rescued. Martin John is irritated by such rescue stories. The firemen were an interruption.

  Did you ask that fella being cut from the wreckage of the car; did you ask him if he wants to be saved? Martin John likes to shout at the television, at innocuous radio reports that mention the word: firemen. He does not like cat-rescue stories either. He gets that from mam. For the love of God, she’ll say, there is sometimes a very good reason a cat goes up a tree. It’s the only thing they agree on. Cats go up trees for a reason: don’t go up after them. Martin John does not have a cat. He does not have a cat because he doesn’t want people going up trees after his cat. He cannot guarantee that people will not go up trees.

  Also, he does not like cameras on bridges. If a man or woman wants to go over the side of a bridge, for the love of God let them go peacefully. He does not believe that people who go off bridges can be saved. He believes it’s reasonable to want to go over the side of a bridge. He does not believe people fundamentally change. He has struggled with this himself. Has he tried? We do not know. There are some things we aren’t going to know about Martin John. He may have concluded people can’t change because he tried to change, or he may have concluded it because he cannot be bothered to find out, preferring to cave in to his urges rather than heed the instruction he cease with them. Or it may be Baldy Conscience who forced him to conclude this.

  He doesn’t do well with interruption.

  We know that about him. We’ve learnt that about him. We have swallowed it. We accept this about him.

  We do not accept his other stuff. The behaviour, the girl—did he, didn’t he? Would he, wouldn’t he? Would you or wouldn’t you if you were his mother?

  We found it hard to believe someone could be living there, the firemen said in the official kind of places firemen say such things: into each others’ ears, into a camera, into a phone. It’s the heavy boots that make them confess. That pull their conscience to the ground.

  You aren’t allowed to dislike firemen. There’s a law against it. They’ll save your life, even if you don’t want saving. Ssssh. That’s Martin John speaking.

  Would there be a reason why a man might not want saving? Could that reason be as simple as not wanting to visit someone on a Wednesday? Would you accept that?

  Someone’s in there.

  Fuck off.

  Serious, someone’s in there.

  It was thick, thick with papers, boxes. Crap one man called it. Place is full of crap. Can’t see anything except crap. Just crap, crap, crap. Nothing here but crap. Smouldering, toppling, moulding, indescribable crap. Crap, crap, crap. We called out. We were ready to give up when Ted here remained convinced there might be someone in there. I was convinced, Ted says.

  Martin John has noticed they used the words thick and convinced twice. Did you notice that? They are speaking very formally for firemen, except for the fuck off. It’s the camera and the newspaper quotes that do it. They are on the hose ready for the quotes. Martin John has seen this. He’s been around cameras in his job. He has a relationship with the papers. And now we’re back to Ted.

  Ted shuffles forward as the other men back off. He shuffles forward to have his moment. Usually firemen have monosyllabic football-player moments. Not Ted. This is his situation. He found the foot. He tugged it. It’s his foot now.

  —I saw his foot first. When I saw the foot I knew we had him.

  —Did he call out?

  Here come the questions.

  —Not really. To be honest I thought he might actually not wanna be found. He made so little noise. But that’s sometimes how these cases are.

  These cases?

  Martin John is incredulous.

  He didn’t become a case until later on.

  Ted has it wrong.

  But he’s lying here on this stretcher facing a diagnosis of severe knee abrasions.

  Martin John was not a case until the Chair. When mam put him in the Chair and he removed himself from the Chair that time, then he became A Case. It’s important we maintain the correct timeline here. Martin John is on to us.

  I wasn’t a case at that point, he rages.

  Chronology is important to him.

  He wants it in sequence. But it won’t be told in sequence because these things never happen in a sequence, do they now Martin Jo
hn?

  If you ask him anything directly he will go quiet, retreat. Did you do it? Did you touch her? Who else did you touch?

  See, he’s gone quiet.

  The one fireman asks the other fireman how many years?

  How many years do you think it takes to make this mess?

  The other fireman is not listening because he’s thinking about having a wank.

  That is not necessarily a fireman thing. Except Martin John believes it is. They are masturbators, chronic with their hoses. If that fireman had not been in such a hurry to get home to attend to himself, Martin John believes he never would have persevered and believed someone was within, in the house. See how the sequence troubles him? See how he knows things are controlled? See? See? See?

  Yet he doesn’t see.

  Go back to our first question. Rewind.

  Did you do it Martin John? He’ll give you nothing. He’s got nothing. I got nothing. I got nothing. We’ve got nothing on him. Except the women. The women don’t feel this way.

  Ask them.

  If you can find them.

  They are among you.

  Every time there’s a case like this, the one fireman asks the other fireman: Why do they do it? How does it happen? Doesn’t anybody know about them? Imagine your mother finding you living like this?

  It’s a problem. The other fireman tells the first fireman he thinks too much. The other fireman primarily thinks about one thing. It keeps things simple. We aren’t fucking social workers, are we?

  He feels a bulge in his pants on the are.

  Martin John would find that suspicious. A man having an erection on the verb to be, and at a question too. He would find that suspicious. He wouldn’t appreciate it in a crossword clue. So you should know that. You should know the things he does and doesn’t appreciate, if we are going to carry on with this. If not—well, hang up now, as the operator would say.

  That’s aggressive, but you see this hasn’t been an easy book for any of us.

  Withdraw the case, mam said. Don’t go ahead with it. He’s a sick man now. He’s completely out of his mind and no danger to anyone.

  I guarantee you he’s no danger. I have him secured, she said. He won’t bother you again. Withdraw the case, she said.

  There’s no need to go after him.

  This was mam rehearsing. She rehearsed what to say when they came for him. They’d come yet, surely they would. There have been hints sufficient.

  Years ago his mother had come. His mother came and asked that she—The Girl—not press charges. She, his mother, said The Boy, her son, would be going away and promised he would never bother her again.

  —Did he bother you again?

  —That’s not the point.

  —You are about to take a man, who’s half-fried in the head, and put him on the stands. Is that what you want?

  —Come in, The Girl who is now a woman with girls of her own, said. Come in, she said to the Jack Russell dog who’d slipped out between their legs when she’d answered the door.

  —There were others, she said as she shut the door.

  It’s money they are after. It’s money they want.

  —If it’s money you’re after, he hasn’t any. Like I said he’s half-fried in the head and can barely hold a job.

  It would be years again before she’d offer her this explanation.

  Martin John now has conversations about what took place and the how and the where of it almost daily. He battles it out in the air in front of him and between his two hands—slapping facts between his two hands like another might slam pizza dough.

  I wasn’t a case then—slap.

  I became a case later—slap.

  I am a case now—slap.

  I hate the way these firemen rush everything—slap.

  They want to put/pull everything out—slap.

  They don’t want anything to go in for the slow burn—slap.

  I never trust the likes of them—slap.

  But do they ever mop up the water?—slap.

  Where does the water go?—slap.

  He beats the facts aloud and about for the truth, while in his imagination people, God’s people, the other pedestrians, give way on the pavement or cross the road or move aside at Euston Station to avoid him.

  Sometimes mam calls out to him in the Chair to stop making that racket would ya.

  Ted the Fireman has said too much, he has exceeded the newsbyte. We’re back to the official spokesperson and moving on to tomorrow’s weather forecast, which includes the word disappointing; people may be disappointed by this week’s weather. The prediction is for disappointment.

  This was the first time Martin John was (officially) introduced to the public. They met him foot-first. But it was in Beirut he made his mark.

  Yet there was stuff, that stuff, all that stuff, that weird kind of stuff, that happened before Beirut.

  The Foot,

  The Kettle,

  The Chair.

  The Foot,

  The Kettle,

  The Chair.

  The Chair,

  The Kettle,

  The Foot.

  The Kettle,

  The Groin,

  The Pain.

  Mam. Mam. Mam.

  The ward,

  The ward.

  The ward.

  The burn,

  The pain,

  The burn.

  The query, the query, the query.

  The Chair,

  The bed,

  The query.

  The tongue,

  The lips,

  The mouth.

  Shut up, shut up, shut up.

  Noanie has her home and it is to this home that mam has instructed Martin John to go every Wednesday, whether it suits him or not. Now Noanie has sent word to say he failed to arrive at her home the last several Wednesdays. A letter has been writ to mam to tell her this. A letter written that paused itself over a few days to say if he doesn’t come tomorrow again I will post this and thus several Wednesdays have passed since its writing.

  How many ways were there to say: Get Out and Visit Noanie on a Wednesday? Mam was unequivocal. He had to visit each Wednesday. She didn’t care what time he visited. He could visit at 6 am or 6 pm or somewhere in between, but he could not fail to visit Noanie. This was the agreement.

  How many ways are there to say? We don’t care what suits you Martin John. Get out and visit Noanie.

  Martin John is no longer respecting The Agreement. The only possible explanation is Martin John must be being held against his will. Had she not spelled out how strongly he was to respect The Agreement?

  Noanie understood. Noanie said these types of men. Men like Martin John needed locking up or perhaps she lessened it to tying up once mam gave her a look. Like you would a goat, Noanie stated. You tie them up so they can’t eat beyond the boundaries of what they should be eating. You have to contain them. There’s a point they pass where there’s no stopping them, there’s no helping them, nothing. Like drinkers, she assures mam.

  —Is he past it, do you think?

  —Oh he’s long past, says Noanie.

  —That’s why, Noanie says, we had The Arrangement. The Arrangement, like you know, that he was to come here every Wednesday.

  Noanie was telling her it was time to tie him up. It was time to lock him up. Noanie was telling her she’d had enough. If Noanie had had enough it was time to pack him up. For Noanie was the most reliable among them. Every Wednesday she was to be found behind that front door, which is more than can be said for some people.

  In the matter of hoarding in, Martin John had to make sombre preparations. He did not just click his fingers and mounds of crap appeared. He had to move the crap into place. It had to lend itself to strategic battle. There were
three levels of preparation that would usually have taken place over several months or years even.

  Such preparations would exhaust the ordinary-thinking man. But Martin John is no ordinary-thinking man, rather he is a man being raced and traced by a planet of Meddlers, all under the guidance of Baldy Conscience.

  He is trying to defeat someone living on top of his head.

  Customarily your enemies are at a distance, where a trench and an eyeline are possible. Not here. Not for Martin John.

  Martin John was the horse on the final furlong with a wobbly ankle who thundered on nonetheless because his jockey rode him high and horses are not prone to reverse.

  In the matter of correcting the mess he has made Martin John is either unequivocally unaware he has created mess or unequivocally not bothered by the prospect of furthering his mess.

  Then he rang the police and said he wished to anonymously report a man he believed to be bothering women. Martin John had seen him on the Tube.

  Then he rang the police to report anonymously a man who was stealing from parking meters in Soho.

  He filed a long list of reports from different phone boxes and each time he gave a very, very precise description of Baldy Conscience, including the hat and shoes he had seen him wearing yesterday.

  Finally, he rang the police again and reported he had now seen exactly where the man lived and gave them his home address.

  Nuisance calls.

  Nuisance calls the police said when they rammed on his door.

  Stop making these nuisance calls.

  It was a warning they told him.

  A warning to stack up with the other warnings.

  Now 3 warnings in total.

  Warnings needed company.

  Did a South London warning have the same power as a North London warning?

  If mam said they would come after him for the things he had done, he had only to pass along these same things to Baldy Conscience and surely they’d pursue him in the same manner.