Daddy Dearest

by Paul Southern

  ‘Don’t be. You did the right thing.’

  I got up slowly. I took her to the door and watched her hips sway down the corridor again. She turned at the end and seemed to want to say something else. She gave me an ‘If there’s anything I can do’ look. On another day I’d have milked it, but by then I’d stopped thinking about camisole knickers or her derriere, or even what she thought about me. I was wondering if I’d done the right thing letting her in, and what Rashelle would say if she ever found out I’d told her.

  24

  I’m not sure I believe in fate. I mean, the case can get pretty compelling sometimes, like people who worked in the Twin Towers taking the day off on 9/11, or people who missed the number 30 bus on 7/7; they all say something saved them. It wasn’t their time, or it was karma, or God was protecting them; not many want to admit it was a completely random thing; they want to think they were picked out for a reason. I felt a little like that after Rashelle had taken my daughter to the rubbish chutes. I didn’t think any good would come of it; the chances were she’d been seen - or at least heard - by somebody; the chances were that I’d be arrested. But nobody did and I wasn’t. Not only that, putting the rubbish down changed other people’s karma. You see, there may not have been a monster there but there was something; and it may never have been found otherwise.

  ‘You know that rubbish you threw away?’

  Rashelle looked up.

  ‘What did it smell of?’

  ‘Whatever we ate the last few days.’

  ‘Fish?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘I think the chute’s blocked.’

  ‘You went to see?’

  ‘I went to see if you’d left any clues.’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘What do you think it is?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘I’m sorry about last night.’

  She shrugged. ‘Just get it over with. Whatever you have to do.’

  ‘I need you.’

  ‘No, you don’t.’

  It sounded like something my ex-wife would have said. I didn’t want Rashelle to think bad of me; I did need her.

  There were several chutes which led to Minus One, presumably so that, if one got blocked, you could use the others. Floors seven and eight shared the same chute and the same went for floors five and six, and so on down to the ground floor. There was a note above them saying boxes and furniture should be taken down to the basement yourself. When I tried to open the metal drawer, though, it wouldn’t give. I managed to get my hand behind but couldn’t clear the blockage. I could glimpse small Tesco bags and smell rotten food but I couldn’t force any of the bags down further.

  I went down to Minus One to check the bin room. Most of the police tape had gone. The cleaner was in his room, eating his sandwiches. He nodded at me as I passed and I let on to him. He hadn’t bothered to change the bins, of course. He was just sitting there, watching his TV. I moved the wheelie bin from under the two chutes and picked up the bags which had fallen on to the floor. The place stank, but it didn’t stink of fish.

  ‘You doin’ ma job for me, man?’

  He was standing by the door.

  ‘You seemed busy.’

  I stood underneath one of the chutes and looked up. It was dark and smeared with grease and food, and needed disinfecting badly.

  ‘You won’t see anythin’ up der, man.’

  ‘I think there’s a blockage on the seventh floor.’

  ‘You been puttin’ boxes down der again?’

  I don’t know what it is with me; I’m always on the defensive with black people or brown people or Chinese people (although less with them, oddly - maybe because I don’t think they’ll take as much offence). I always think I’m going to say something wrong and they’re going to accuse me of racism, or in the case of black people, beat me up. I have the same problem, though to a lesser extent, with disabled people and gay people, although the likelihood of them beating me up is pretty slim. I find myself listening a lot more than I’m saying and being slightly condescending, which in turn they probably see as racist. A lot of the time, I don’t understand them - I mean, their accents; so I nod and pretend I’ve understood, which is awkward when they’re waiting for a reply. I try and steer the conversation to topics I think they’ll know about. If it’s a black person, I mention how much I like rap music and tell them I still like Fifty Cent even though he’s gotten gay and is starting to sing, and Snoop’s LA stuff was a bit of a blag. If they’re a Muslim, I’ll presume they’re the most devout Muslim in the world and tell them how I totally disagree with the policy of rendition and keeping detainees in Guantanamo, even though I secretly think they’re all guilty and wish the Americans would just get on with whatever they’re doing.

  To be fair, I’m on the defensive with other kinds of people, too. I try not to mention food around fat people, or look too much at people with bad skin or a big nose, or say anything at all to people who are aggressive. If I have to engage in conversation with them, I talk about football or women. I want to demonstrate my worthiness for being spared a kicking by suggesting I’m one of them.

  My ex-wife didn’t have such trouble; she fitted in perfectly. Most people seem to fit in perfectly. I wonder sometimes what gene I’m missing that makes me the way I am. Is there a racist gene, or a homophobic gene, or a disablist one? Have I got all three, or is everybody like me and they’re all pretending, not noticing that anything’s different? I wish I knew the answer. I wish I knew what people really thought, rather than what they’re pretending to think.

  ‘Not me.’

  ‘Some people can’t read. Der was a Chinese girl I caught last week. She ’ad loads of ’em. I tol’ her to take ’em down the bloody lift like you s’pose.’

  I hadn’t moved from my spot underneath the chute.

  ‘You gonna stay der all day, man?’

  ‘Just a second.’

  ‘You’re gonna get covered.’

  ‘Have you a long stick?’

  ‘What ya gonna do?’

  ‘I want to see what’s up there.’

  He chuckled to himself. ‘I don’t tink your arms are long enough.’

  ‘So what do I do?’

  ‘You leave it to me. I’ll sort it.’

  ‘It’s on the seventh floor.’

  ‘I heard ya, man.’

  I didn’t know if he was making fun of me or not, or he thought I was making fun of him. You just can’t say anything these days.

  There was the sound of a chute opening high above us and the skiddle skaddle of a bag crashing into the sides. It came hurtling out the end and landed with a smash on the floor. Glass and food went flying.

  ‘No blockage on dat one, den.’

  I looked at my shoes. They were covered.

  ‘I tol’ ya not to stan’ der.’

  ‘Well, you were right.’

  ‘You want somethin’ to clean dem?’

  ‘Have you got anything?’

  He chuckled and shook his head again.

  ‘Man, I got plenty o’ tings to clean dem. Dis whole place full o’ cleanin’ things.’

  He led me into his room. It was awfully familiar. I wondered if he knew I’d been in there. His sandwiches lay half-eaten in some tin foil near the TV. He looked round the walls and took down some cloths from a shelf.

  ‘Thanks.’

  After I cleaned up, he took the cloth off me and threw it in a box. I thought better off him, then. He didn’t mind getting his hands dirty.

  ‘Don’t mention it, man.’ As I was about to go, he looked at me funny. I knew he recognised me. ‘My friends, we’re all tinkin’ of ya little girl, you know. And what ya goin’ through.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I saw ya on the TV yesterday. What you was sayin’ to your little girl, it really got to me. I don’t blame ya for comin’ down here. I know you’ve been here. If it was my little girl, I’d be down here all da time.’

  My heart nearly gav
e out when he said that.

  ‘When da police had gone, we was still lookin’. I know everywhere in dis buildin’ and I didn’t want to tink dey missed anythin’.’

  ‘Did they?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘I don’t know what dey was looking for, but der’s plenty o’ tings people don’t want ya to find. You got to be careful where ya look. It’s illegal goin’ through those bins, ya know.’

  ‘I didn’t know that.’

  He looked out into the corridor to see if we were being watched.

  ‘Come with me.’

  He picked his way across the floor to the back of the room. At first, I thought he was going to take me to the pump room. Did he know I’d been there? At the back, four or five boxes had been piled up. I recognised them immediately. They were the boxes the Japanese couple had thrown away.

  He pointed to them. In the shadows, he looked even darker; he wasn’t one of those brown black men; he was black black, from Gambia or Nigeria, and his teeth gleamed as he spoke.

  ‘You know what dey are?’

  I shrugged.

  ‘Boxes?’

  ‘Boxes o’ what?’

  He picked one down and put it on the floor. He opened it up and took out the packaging. Inside were electrical goods - kettles, toasters, microwaves.

  ‘Kettles?’

  He grinned. ‘Dat’s what dey want ya to tink.’ He fished inside one of them and brought out a small polythene bag. ‘You know what dis is?’

  ‘Sugar?’

  He burst out laughing. ‘Yeah, man.’ He put it back and closed the box. ‘It’s in every one. Dey was dumped down here last week before da police came back.’

  ‘Whose are they?’

  ‘Da Chinese couple on da top floor.’

  ‘The girl you caught?’

  He nodded. ‘She was tryin’ to dump ’em in da chutes.’

  ‘That’s weird.’ I looked at the kettles and toasters and wondered if I should have been there. ‘What are you going to do with them?’

  He looked at me funny again, as if sizing me up. ‘When I asked da girl what she was doin’, she denied it, but when I said I had to tell the management company where the boxes came from, she came clean. She said it was her husband’s idea. When I asked if anyone else knew, she tol’ me about you.’

  There’s being out of your depth and being able to see the shore, and being out of your depth and swimming with sharks. This was the latter. I may have done my homework on Snoop and Dr Dre but sampling the drugs was not part of it.

  ‘I had no idea.’

  ‘She said you was snoopin’ round down here.’

  I tried to protest my innocence.

  ‘I tol’ ya, man. You don’t need to explain to me. If I was you, I’d be doin’ the same ting.’

  ‘How did you know what was inside?’

  ‘Dey weren’t in da bins, man, so I thought I’d have a little look.’

  ‘Are you going to tell the police?’

  ‘I’m goin’ to phone ‘em straight away and get it sorted out.’

  ‘You’re joking, right?’

  ‘I’m jokin’.’

  I think he let me off because of what I was going through. If it’s possible, I felt a bit of an affinity to him. I like to think that opposites attract. I like to think you can laugh at your differences and shake your head rather than kill somebody for them.

  He made his way back to the door and I followed him. A fly had settled on his sandwiches. He shooed it away with a cloth, picked up a broom, then went to the bin room.

  I looked up the blocked chute again.

  ‘You’re really interested in dat chute, man.’

  ‘I’d care less if it wasn’t on my floor.’

  He began sweeping around me where the bag had fallen.

  ‘Do you mind if I ask you something?’

  ‘Go ahead, man.’

  ‘If they knew the police were coming, why didn’t they take them out another way? Why leave them down here?’

  ‘We get collections once a week. Maybe someone was goin’ to pick dem up?’

  ‘Do they know you know?’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘What’s inside.’

  He stopped sweeping. ‘Where I come from, man, you hear nothin’, you see nothin’, and you say nothin’. It’s da only way to live.’

  ‘But you told me.’

  ‘I wanted to check out der story. I wanted to see what you was doin’ in my room. I wanted to see if you was involved.’ His eyes glinted under the phosphorescent light. ‘I’ve known drug dealers since I was six, man. I can sniff ’em. One ting dey have in common is dey can’t say no. They’d cut their arms off to make a deal. Or cut yours.’

  ‘You don’t think I’d make the grade?’

  He shook his head. I didn’t know whether to be offended or relieved. ‘It’s a compliment, man. Why you wanna be a gangsta?’

  I shrugged.

  ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Give me a hand.’

  He picked up a large metal pole that was leaning on the wall. It had one of those hooks on the end that you used for opening school windows when I was young.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Da seventh floor.’

  I knew I shouldn’t have gone - I should have been with my little girl - but I was drawn in now. I was intrigued. The Chinese couple who I thought were Japanese had got my attention. I thought of the girl in the pump room and whether that would ever come out. It’s so hard to keep a secret these days.

  He had the same problem I had with the metal drawer. He stood on it to keep it open and shoved the pole down. There was an echoing clang. He rammed it down as far as he could, then beat it like a spear into the heart of the monster. It roared in pain.

  ‘Get the end, man.’

  I grabbed it and pushed while he turned it round and round. After a bit, there was a sudden give, as if the hook had ripped through something. It was suddenly possible to push the pole in and out. After a few more pushes, there was more movement, then the sound of something sliding down the chute. Other things followed, which I presumed were the Tesco bags which had been piled on top. The cleaner stared down the drawer to see if he could see anything.

  ‘Is it clear?’

  ‘It may have got trapped again. We’ll have to go down.’

  We went back to Minus One and all the time I kept thinking that I should be back in the flat and if it looked odd that I was there. One of the problems I had was how exactly I should be acting. I mean, crying a lot was an obvious one, but after a while that can look forced, unless you were my ex-wife, who did it for a living, so anger and confusion seemed a better bet. But how much anger and how much confusion? One thing you get from watching people over the years is how quickly sympathy runs out and how it turns to bitterness and coldness, even resentment. People like to feel their own shit. I didn’t want people to think I was milking it.

  When we got back to the bin room, the floor was full of it. We’d forgotten to put a bin underneath the chutes. Bags had split half-open across the floor, spilling their entrails. I recognised some of it from the bags Rashelle and my little girl had thrown away. That wasn’t the thing that really got my attention, though: it was the rug that came down with them. It was red and faded and large. The cleaner kicked it with his foot. Dust came flying up: and something else.

  He looked at me. Now, I’m no expert, but I could tell he thought something was wrong. He cut through the string which was tied round both ends and unrolled it with his foot. I don’t know exactly what he was expecting - drugs, weapons, money - but I do know my excitement was mitigated by terrible fear. I imagined this was how Sherlock felt on one of his drug busts, about to arrest a real gangsta and dreading what he would find.

  ‘What is it?’

  I tried to see past him.

  ‘It’s clothes, man.’

  ‘Clothes?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Dat’s all.’r />
  ‘Let me look.’

  ‘I don’t tink ya want to.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He put his arm out to stop me. He looked like he’d just read my last rites, or seen my fortune in the entrails.

  I pushed past him and stared at the ground. He was right. On the carpet were a yellow dress and some sandals. They belonged to my daughter. My head spun and I felt myself falling. He caught me before I hit the floor. That time I wasn’t faking it. If Rashelle hadn’t thrown out the bags and I hadn’t checked, I would never have known. He may have gone straight to the police. So it was luck she did that. It was fate, it was whatever you want to call it. And it was bad luck for the Chinese couple. I’m sure that was the last thing on their mind when they met me in the basement. But that’s the way it goes. Karma balances itself out.

  25

  When you start to lie, you’ve no idea how many others you’re going to have to tell to make the first one stand up. The more you tell, the more you have to do. You have to be a very convincing liar to get away with it, and an even better one to keep getting away with it. Eventually, you make a mistake - everyone makes mistakes - and it’s then you’re going to have to think the quickest and be your most plausible. It’s tougher than acting, believe me. When the cleaner saw my reaction, I had to think very quickly.

  ‘Jesus, man.’

  ‘I think I’m going to be sick.’

  I couldn’t take my eyes off them.

  ‘Are dey hers?’

  I nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘How did dey get here?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You want me to call da police?’

  I nodded slowly. The inevitable was happening.

  ‘When they come, they’ll find your stuff.’

  ‘I don’t tink dey’ll be interested, man.’

  ‘If some of it goes missing. I’ve heard nothing, I’ve seen nothing and I’ll say nothing.’

  His eyes bored into the darkness, his nostrils dilating. ‘You tink I can’t say no?’

  ‘I don’t think anyone can.’

  ‘I got you wrong, man. You do give off a smell.’

  I nodded. I don’t know whether something really had passed between us, but when I left him I felt I could trust him. I’d no idea what he was going to do with the stuff he found. For all I cared, he could keep the lot. What I did know, I wasn’t going to say anything, and neither was he.