Miss Flaky gave him a grim smile. ‘That means nothing. Your aerobic and muscular fitness is no indication of your true inner health. You can be thin on the outside but fat on the inside …’
And that’s how we’d got to red meat backed up in the colon. That’s why, when Mr Perfect asked me how the conversation had started, he was really asking for my help to make it stop.
I grinned at him and said, ‘My landlord is about your age. His cholesterol level is crap, apparently. But then I think he considers bacon a condiment.’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘Why don’t you see your doctor friend?’ I asked, amused to see his normally suave self rather flapped. ‘He’d be happy to give you a once over, wouldn’t he?’
‘Possibly. But on my part, if Alastair had to ask me to assume the position, I’m not sure our friendship would survive.’
‘They can check for prostate cancer with a blood test these days,’ said Miss Flaky.
‘Can they now? Fascinating–’
Mr Perfect was on his feet, lifting his jacket from the back of the chair. ‘Well, this last hour has simply flown by. But I must go. Good day to you both.’
And he walked rather quickly out of the café.
Miss Flaky said, ‘It’s the penis delusion.’
‘It is?’
‘They think that as long as that’s still working, they’re fine. As if their johnson is some barometer of total health. And when it fails, that’s all they care about. They can have a lipid level that would rival a tallow factory, type two diabetes and gout – but as long as they have access to those little blue pills, as far as they’re concerned, they’ll live forever.’
I found myself struggling for something to say. Mainly because – what could you say to that? But also partly because all this medical talk was reminding me, with sharp prods of guilt and discomfort, of what I’d done to Big Man. And of what I hadn’t done – which was to return to the hospital and apologise.
So I pretended to check my watch, and said, ‘I have to go, too.’ I stood and slung my bag over my shoulder. ‘Um – bye.’
Miss Flaky looked up at me briefly, and her mouth twisted into a moue of – I couldn’t tell what. Resignation? Disgust? Then she picked up her book and started to read. Fine. Next time, I wouldn’t even bother with goodbye.
Outside, I took a deep breath, as if somehow I might inhale some courage along with the oxygen. I knew I should start walking towards the tube. I knew I had to face Big Man sooner or later – mainly because I suspected that if I didn’t go back and apologise, he might come looking for me. In my mind, I heard the ominous crack of a set of giant knuckles.
But then I spotted him. Mr Perfect. Claude. He was in the churchyard of all places, standing under a tree. His jacket was draped elegantly over his shoulder, secured by one finger, a pose that made him look even more like an advertisement for Armani.
Should I go up and talk to him? Was this my opportunity to take this friendship a step further? He didn’t look as if he were waiting for anyone, or had anything pressing to do – so the only stumbling block, really, was that I had jelly instead of a spine …
Right! Damn it! If I didn’t act now, I never would. As I started to walk towards the church, I thought I heard a faint cracking, as of knuckles. I shoved it into the far recesses of my mind, and focused on working out what the heck I should say.
He noticed me as I was crossing the road to the tiny green island on which the church sat. I was close enough to see that he had some reaction, but not close enough to see what it was. Whatever he’d felt, he had a smile on by the time I reached him.
‘“Let not ambition mock their useful toil”,’ he said to me. ‘“Their homely joys, and destiny obscure.”’
A small bell from years back gave a faint chime. ‘Thomas Grey?’
‘Well done.’ He glanced around. ‘Though this could hardly be described as a country churchyard. But perhaps it was once. In the seventeenth century, Islington Green did mark the boundary of the city …’
I was stumped. This wasn’t exactly going as planned. Admittedly, my plan had consisted pretty much entirely of me saying hello, and then winging it from there. Even so, I hadn’t expected to be plunged into a discussion around poetry and history. My thoughts were on a path that was leading more towards a cup of tea and a sandwich.
‘Well,’ he said, in the pause. ‘I had better cease loitering. Not that anything more productive awaits me, but–’
This was it. It was now or never. I blurted it out. ‘Would you like to do something?’
He blinked at me. ‘Do – something?’ He picked out the word much as if it were a foreign object in his food.
I blushed. ‘Oh, well, I just thought – maybe – you’d like to–’
He was staring at me with undisguised amazement, and I couldn’t go on. My heart sank. I’d blown it. I prepared to crawl away in shame, like the worm I was.
But then he said, ‘You know, there is something I’ve always wanted to do.’
My eyes shot up, half-wary, half-hopeful. His own expression was hard to read. If I were to label it with any emotion, I’d have to choose mild curiosity. But that was so much better than contempt that I experienced a heady rush of relief and pleasure.
‘What have you always wanted to do?’ I asked.
I have to confess my thoughts had by now made a quantum leap from tea and a sandwich to a private jet and a fruit platter in the Maldives. I was picturing myself in a lacy dress with no underwear, like Rene Russo in The Thomas Crown Affair, and Mr Perfect in a tuxedo, with his black tie draped loose around his neck and his shirt buttons open, revealing a hint of manly chest.
‘I think the nearest stop is London Bridge,’ were the words I managed to catch.
He smiled at me. ‘You don’t mind walking, do you?
I thought I coped very well. I nodded appreciatively when I saw the sign that said London Dungeon. I smiled when the woman in the ticket booth told us to ‘have a horrible time’. I didn’t panic in the mirror maze or shriek like the fat American woman whenever we were leapt on or had objects thrust at or dropped on us. I even managed to glimpse the photos of eviscerated prostitutes in the Jack the Ripper room. It wasn’t until we were sitting in the Sweeney Todd barbers’ chairs that I finally said, ‘Is this sort of thing not – beneath you?’
He looked across. ‘Beneath me?’
‘Well – you are really quite posh.’
‘Which is why, generally speaking, I can do anything I please.’
‘And this pleases you?’
‘It’s terrific!’
‘You wouldn’t prefer something a little more – cultured?’
‘No. Be quiet. That chap with the razor is about to speak–’
At the gift shop, he bought a purple plastic paperweight shaped like a skull. He offered to buy me one, too. I declined. Then we were back out on the street, blinking in the bright light.
For a minute or so, we just stood there. Mr Perfect switched his bag of horror-themed tourist tat to the other hand, and then back again. He seemed a little at a loss. It occurred to me that he wasn’t a person who directed his life with a great deal of proactivity. Which was potentially an issue, because neither was I. That’s what I’d relied on Tom for. I was all right once I got started. But sometimes the only thing that would get me to that point was a big toe up the backside.
‘I, er – I suppose we should wend our way back,’ he said.
I couldn’t help feeling a stab of disappointment. But I hadn’t offered any better suggestion, had I? And what did I expect, really? That we’d go onto drinks and dinner? It’s what I wanted, but even the most rose-tinted wishing glasses couldn’t disguise that this had been a very platonic outing. The only time he’d touched me was when our fingers met while rummaging through a basket of imitation poison rings.
Still, it was a start. And some people don’t like to be rushed …
Speaking of which – I checked my watch. It was
three o’clock. I should have been on my way home from St Regus’ hospital, but that would have to wait until tomorrow. Or the day after. Or never. Never would be good.
‘And what is the time?’ Mr Perfect asked me. ‘I don’t wear a watch, I’m afraid …’
‘It’s just after three. Why? Are you meant to be somewhere?’
‘Me? No.’
He turned away from me, up the street. There wasn’t much to see up there, as far as I could tell; brick walls and more road. I used the opportunity to take a good look at him. He was wearing a dark grey suit and a pale shirt with a thin striping of light blue or grey, crisply formal attire that had drawn some bemused looks in the Dungeon. His hands, I had noticed before, were well manicured. Not fussily so, but you could tell they received regular attention. On the middle finger of his right hand, I saw he wore a ring. It was platinum, I thought, and looked more like a woman’s wedding band than a ring for a man. His mother’s, perhaps? I took my ring off on the morning of Tom’s funeral. But the mark on my finger stayed there for weeks.
I looked up at Mr Perfect’s face in profile. He was certainly handsome, but in spite of excellent bones, I had to admit that he somehow lacked definition. He had a face you’d be hard-pressed to describe in a witness statement. It occurred to me he’d make a perfect spy; there was a kind of courteous blandness to him that would let him blend into any situation. If it weren’t for his expensive clothes, he could pass by entirely unnoticed.
In my mind, the theme to Smiley’s People started to play. Then I realised the orchestra music wasn’t in my head at all. It was coming from my companion’s jacket.
‘I think your phone is ringing,’ I said.
He gave me a look. ‘I know. I’m trying to ignore it.’
Sure enough, it stopped. But instantly, it began again. He reached into his inner jacket pocket and drew out the small, plain Nokia. He glanced at the screen and raised an eyebrow, not so much in surprise, I thought, but in resignation.
He pressed the call button. ‘Yes? What?’
I could hear the thin yap of a voice on the other end, but could not tell if it were male or female.
Claude said. ‘I am not always in. Occasionally, I am also out.’
More yap, to which he replied: ‘At least an hour.’ And then: ‘Well, you must do as you please.’
He ended the call and replaced the phone in his pocket. Then he met my eye and gave me a small smile.
‘That was my brother. He is outside my front door, and considerably irritated that I am not on the other side about to open it.’
‘I thought he lived in LA?’
‘He does. Unfortunately, not all of the time.’
I decided to risk a personal question. ‘Do the two of you not get on?’
I regretted it. He immediately iced over. ‘Our relationship is amicable enough.’
Then, as if relenting, he added, ‘Marcus and I – and our sister – were all at boarding school by the age of eight. My brother and I were at different schools; our father thought Marcus needed more – structure. So for years, we only saw each other in the holidays, and even then, Marcus usually chose to stay at friends’ houses, rather than at home. I don’t blame him. Our father by then was not a – happy man …’
I thought about telling him that I’d never really known my brother, either. But our situations were so distant that it seemed futile to try to connect them.
I glanced up and found to my relief that he was smiling at me. ‘Time to go, I think,’ he said.
When I opened the door to my house, there were no builders, for which I gave a sigh of relief. I wanted peace and quiet to think about the day – about what it had meant. I hoped it meant something. I hoped at least it was a start.
Along from the tube, at the corner of the high street, we’d paused to go our separate ways. To my surprise and pleasure, he had bent and kissed me goodbye, quickly but firmly, on both cheeks.
‘I really enjoyed myself,’ I told him, and mentally cursed myself for sounding far too eager.
‘Yes,’ he said, as if the concept were quite new to him. ‘We must do it again some day. I’ve heard LEGOLAND is rather good, too.’
LEGOLAND. Well, as I said – a start.
I went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea, and found that someone had placed wildflowers in a drinking glass on the bench. Landlady Clare must have been, to check on progress, and brought them from her garden. They were limp now, drooping over the side of the glass, their brief lives almost at an end. Not wanting to see them dead in the morning, I picked them up and chucked them in the bin.
I had left the house at the crack of dawn, hoping that my surge of courage would last as long as it took me to do the deed and apologise to Big Man. It had lasted until about four paces from the front door of the hospital, where I’d now been standing for a good twenty minutes. Every time I worked up the nerve to take a step towards the entrance, I bottled and took a step right back again. If anyone was watching, I wouldn’t blame them if they were making plans to grab me and bundle me onto the nutter bus.
‘Hello there!’
Oh God. Speaking of – the Irish shrink was heading my way. My first thought was to turn and run. He had to know what I’d done! Perhaps he’d been keeping a lookout for me? That smile he had on was just to lull me until he could get me in his clutches and whistle for the fuzz.
Too late. He was by my side. He had on much the same outfit as he’d been wearing the other day: the hairy tweed jacket, cords and a homespun jumper the texture and colour of porridge. He smelled even more strongly of cigars this time. It must be torture for his poor patients, for whom the smoking zone was at least ten miles in any direction.
‘Glad to have caught you, Miss Kincaid,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Whatever by all that’s holy did you do to our friend Mr Hogan?’
I felt the blood drain from my face. My mouth opened but I couldn’t utter a word. I gaped at him, like a goldfish.
‘I came back that evening,’ he continued, seemingly oblivious to my discomfort, ‘to find him tucking into meat and two veg.’ He paused. ‘I assume it was meat – not always easy to tell. Anyway, begob, as we don’t say – what silken words of yours effected such a radical transformation?’
My mouth was still open, but now for quite a different reason.
‘He was – eating?’ I finally managed to say.
‘Masticating steadily.’
‘And – he didn’t say anything to you? About – well, about me?’
‘Not a word. Hence my current interest in your side of the story.’
My mind was churning furiously. If Big Man hadn’t said anything, then should I? I had a microsecond’s worth of moral dither, but then I wimped. My mother always said that discretion was the better part of valour, and why, quite frankly, should I not believe her?
‘I just talked to him,’ I said. ‘As you suggested.’
‘But what did you talk about?’
‘Family. Friends. Childhood. Nothing exciting.’ I gave him an apologetic smile. ‘I actually thought I’d bored the poor man senseless.’
My pants were about to burst into flames at any moment with all this fibbing.
Dr Flynn seemed disappointed. ‘You didn’t get him all gingered up with a racy summary of one of your plotlines? The odd gobbet of red-hot dialogue?’
‘Definitely not.’
‘Hmm. Well, perhaps I’m smarter than I think.’ He shrugged. ‘Or his appetite was stronger than his willpower – who knows?’
‘Didn’t he say anything to you?’
‘He said “Yes”, and “No”. More accurately, he explored variations on the theme of grunt. I didn’t push it. He has quite the off-putting face on him. Reminds me of my grandmother, Nanny O’Byrne. She had a face that could make a train back up and take a dirt road.’
He gestured towards the hospital entrance. ‘Why don’t we see what you can elicit from him this time? I assume that’s where you were headed?’
‘Oh! Um–’
But I could hardly pretend otherwise. And, even though I was filled with relief that Big Man hadn’t ratted me out, I without doubt still owed him an apology. He may not have thought a face slapping worth mentioning to Dr Flynn, but I doubt he’d be so reticent with the actual slapper. So to speak.
I squared my shoulders. ‘That’s exactly where I was headed. Is he still in Ward 12?’
He was. Dr Flynn led the way and I reluctantly followed. When we arrived at Big Man’s bed, I’m ashamed to say I hid behind the psychiatrist’s hairy tweeded back.
‘Good morning, Michael!’ Dr Flynn greeted him cheerfully. ‘I see that you have already enjoyed breakfast. Nothing fried, of course, and only a mere smear of polyunsaturated spread on your toast, so perhaps “enjoyed” is overstating it. But nevertheless, good that you are eating.’
I was still hiding, so I could not see Big Man’s reaction to all this. But I did not hear even a grunted reply, so I assumed he was not brimming with newfound enthusiasm.
‘And guess who I’ve brought to visit–’
Dr Flynn glanced over his shoulder and stepped to one side, so that I was revealed. I very nearly clapped my hands over my face, like a small child who hopes that if you can’t see them, they can’t see you. As it was, Big Man’s eyes and mine locked immediately. I saw his widen the tiniest fraction before his expression settled into its usual grim blankness. He didn’t say a word, and I couldn’t think of one either because all the brainpower I usually required for speech was being channelled into not peeing my pants.
‘Sadly, I can’t tarry,’ said Dr Flynn. ‘I have an exciting day ahead, filled with actual bona fide fruitcakes, as opposed to those who simply wish to put our meagre psychiatric resources to the test en passant, as it were.’
I saw Big Man’s eyes shift fractionally and somewhat balefully towards the smiling Irishman. But again no word or grunt. I had to admire his self-control. I was also really hoping it might continue, so I could say my piece and flee without having to listen to a single recrimination. It occurred to me that I didn’t like myself too much at the present. I had always thought of myself as a decent human being. If I wasn’t exactly a model of rectitude, then at least I was clear about what was right and what was wrong. Yet here I was acting in a manner that I could only describe as weaselly.
The Sweet Second Life of Darrell Kincaid Page 9