by Baker, John
‘Some of them, it shows,’ said Sam.
‘You reckon? I thought you liked them.’
‘Yeah. Mostly I like them. I was being facetious.’
‘Anyway, he didn’t write them without inspiration, he just started them without it. He reckons once you get started, the inspiration comes along anyway. But only if you don’t wait for it.’
‘Where’re you going with this?’ Sam asked.
‘Well, this house. If you’re waiting for inspiration, you might never do anything about it. You could spend the rest of your life here, the whole building falling down around you, the bricks crumbling, ants eating away at the foundations, dry rot, cracked windows. There’s homeless people queuing up outside, praying that you’re gonna get some inspiration so they can get off the streets. You see what I’m saying?’
Sam nodded. ‘I should just wake up in the morning and make a decision, put all my kit in a cardboard box and move out the same day.’
‘That’s not what I thought,’ said Geordie. ‘But it’d be better than not doing anything at all. Might mean that you start to get on with the rest of your life, and all the people who could live in this place get a chance to have a life of their own, which they can’t do at the moment because you’re taking up too much space.’
Sam scratched the top of his head. ‘Geordie, d’you wanna tell me what this is all about?’
‘You wanna unload this house, right? Because it’s too big for you?’
‘In theory, yes. I’m not in a hurry. I’ve got Angeles staying here at the moment. The place’s got a function. It’s working for me.’
‘What about,’ Geordie said. ‘This’s just an example, OK? It’s not a true story. But what about if there was a sailor who fell into a hold on his ship and cracked his head open, smashed his brains around. The guy comes out of the hold and he’s having to hold his brains in with his hands, real mangled up.’
‘Don’t get carried away. I’ve got a picture of a sailor with brain damage.’
‘Yeah,’ Geordie agreed. ‘Brain damage. There’s this place can cure it, like a charity, but they’re full up with other brain-damaged sailors. Would you give the house to that charity so they could help the guy with the brain...?’
‘... Damage. Brain damage.’
‘Yeah, so they could help the guy with the brain damage. That’s what I said.’
‘You said the guy with the brain.’
‘Fuck, Sam, you know what I mean.’
‘Yeah, I might give it to some charity. I don’t know, I’d have to think about it. And it’d have to be after we’ve sorted this case. I’d need a place to stay, and Angeles can’t go back to her house until we’ve found the guy who killed her sister.’ He pulled Sheryl Crow’s Globe Sessions album from its sleeve and put the CD into the player, hit the start button.
Geordie struck a listening pose, head cocked to one side. ‘I don’t know this.’
‘Angeles brought it. Morning music; get-me-out-of-here-I’m-being-hassled music.’
Geordie did the shrugged shoulders trick. ‘I’m only asking a question.’
‘A couple of things remain to be sorted out of this bizarre exchange which you call asking a question.’
‘What’s that?’ said Geordie. He’d picked up the CD sleeve and was squinting at the small print, no longer giving Sam his full attention.
‘What are those,’ said Sam.
Geordie looked up at him over the CD cover. ‘Eh?’
‘What are those,’ said Sam. ‘Not: What’s that. If I say there’s a couple of things to be sorted, you can’t say, “What’s that?” A couple of things is plural.’
‘What are those, boss?’
‘First thing is, you can’t cure brain damage.’
‘How d’you know?’
‘I’ve heard you can’t cure it, I’ve read it somewhere. And it stands to reason, if the brain gets physically damaged, you can’t really mend it. Ever hear of a brain transplant?’
‘What you’ll probably find,’ said Geordie, ‘some brain damages you can mend, others you can’t. This sailor guy had the kind you could mend, but the charity was too full, busy mending other brains. You ever hear of brain surgery?’
‘You said it wasn’t true,’ Sam pointed out. ‘You said he wasn’t a real sailor, that it was just an example.’
Geordie sighed. ‘Yeah, it is an example, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t some truth in it. What’s the other thing?’
‘I still don’t know why you’re asking me about the house. We’ve established that I’d give it to a charity, in theory, under certain circumstances. But why d’you want to know that?’
‘Because Ralph and me’s thinking of starting a charity for handicaps.’
Sam went for a trek round the room.
‘You’ve still got the limp,’ Geordie said. ‘Look like a pimp. And we’re gonna need some place to do it. Me and Ralph.’
‘Ralph,’ said Sam.
‘Yeah, me and Ralph.’
‘I was putting the sailor connection together.’ Sam couldn’t get a handle on what Geordie meant by handicapped people. Was it OK to call them handicapped? What kind of handicaps did they have? ‘You mean you wanna stop working with me and start a home for “handicapped” people with your brother?’
‘No, I still wanna be a detective. It’s Ralph who wants to do the home, but we’d be like partners. And it’d mean Ralph could move out of our house, and me and Janet’d be by ourselves again, with Echo. And then we’d just see him on Sundays when he came to dinner.’
‘And he’s had some experience with “handicapped” people, has he?’
‘He knew the sailor I was telling you about. But mainly it’s like an ambition. Something he’s been thinking about for ages.’
‘I bet he has,’ said Sam.
‘And if your house was available, it’d make everything come true.’
‘Oh, I can see that, Geordie. I can see that real clear. It’d be like a fairy story.’
35
Watch therefore; for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.
I was standing by the window watching the street. Sexy Sadie walked by the house three times, dressed to kill, hobbling on a pair of stilettos. She was wearing black-and-white striped tights and a lace-trimmed skirt no bigger than a handkerchief.
I found myself thinking about the original architectural model of this estate, which I have never seen. But I imagined it with its varnished blocks of houses, and the roads with a few trees scattered around. No people or cars or the dirt that populates the finished project.
There are groups of cells in the body called phagocytes which work together as part of the immune system. Their function is to watch. They just sit there watching. They are policemen, of a kind; they help maintain law and order in a semi-closed environment. If something happens to disturb the balance of the organism, sickness occurs and chaos ensues which could result in death or dissolution. The phagocytes act to ward off disease or corruption entering the organism. They sit and watch, but if necessary they cease watching and go into action as an army. They form the first line of defence against that which would overcome the body.
Watching is my profession, my life and my destiny.
For watching to be successful, the watcher has to be hidden, in the shadows, out of sight or disguised in some way.
It follows, therefore, that the good watcher has to feel at home there.
The phagocyte doesn’t have much choice; it only knows the environment in which it exists. But the owl, sitting on the branch of a tree at midnight, has chosen the branch for a number of reasons. It might have decided to watch from the gable of a barn instead. It is limited only by its lack of imagination.
I watch the blind woman. I watch myself watching her. When she is not around or out of my sight I conjure her up.
And God watches all of us, all of the time. We are never out of His sight. He cannot do other than behold us.
Though I say it mys
elf, my research is impeccable. It is a skill one acquires, not a talent with which one is born. As a young student I learned my lessons well. There were only two of us with a first in my year. The other one was a female and a swot and a professional virgin. I lived then, as now, a more rounded existence. I was a member of the Union, the University Ornithological and Ecumenical societies. Rather dry tastes for a young man, but I was still! finding my way in the world. My interests now have matured into something a little more hedonistic.
Research. Yes. Sam Turner calls himself a private detective but he is little more than a local rogue. Many low achievers I have encountered professionally would not want to associate with him. He has a criminal conviction and has served time in prison. He is known as a drinker and there are numerous counts of drunk and disorderly against him, disturbing the peace, and several of vagrancy, though none in recent years.
He was once known as something of a rake but by the look of him, those days are now long past.
The blind woman has moved into his house. But, even taking into account her inability to see, I find it difficult to imagine her forming a romantic attachment to him. Their relationship, therefore, is professional. Ergo, she has hired the man to protect her against me.
Incredible. He’s nothing. A nobody.
In the mornings she is picked up from his house by a chauffeur in a black Daimler. He leads her to the car and takes her to her office on the Haxby Road. In the middle of the afternoon he brings her back.
I’m dialling the number of her secretary at Falco’s soft-drinks factory. This will be the third time we have spoken. I listen to the phone ringing at the other end.
‘Mr Packard? Good morning, Hayes here, ringing in reply to your letter.’
‘Oh, yes, Mr Hayes. Ms Falco’s back at her desk now. You wanted to see her about your application to the Falco Trust. Let’s see, I don’t have it in front of me at the moment. Children, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, partially sighted.’
‘And did we suggest a time?’
‘Yes, four-thirty on Thursday. I’m ringing to confirm it.’
‘We’ll expect to see you then. Thanks for ringing.’
I’m putting the phone back into the receiver. For the first time in my life I feel like dancing.
I have several photographs of my father, but only one in his uniform. Strange, because in my memory of him he wears uniform all the time. He arrives home from work at different times of the day and night and the first thing he does is come to see me. If it is daytime, he lifts me up from the floor or the chair and holds me high in the air so that I look down at him. If it is night, he comes to my room and gazes down at me. I may be half-awake, but I feign sleep. I know he is there and all is well with the world. I am held by his gaze, the centre of his universe, as he is the centre of mine.
I retain these images but they are not accompanied by sound. They are silent films. I imagine my father coming into the house at the end of his day and shouting my name. Perhaps he began calling for me when he was in the street or on the garden path. And when he lifted me into the air it was not a soundless event. It was something joyful and there would have been accompanying laughter punctuated by his pet names for me and my own screams of delight.
The sound-track has been eliminated. Somehow in the confusion of death and grief and time it has been lost or stolen.
I used to think it was retrievable, that one day I would turn a corner of memory and discover it waiting for me. In my mind’s eye there was a parcel wrapped in brown paper, slightly dusty on the outside, but when I unwrapped it the contents were as clean and shiny as the first leaf of spring.
Four reels of audiotape. The old kind, before cassettes were invented. You put the reel on to the machine and threaded it through the magnetic head, hooked it to an empty reel on the other side. I would be able to synchronize the silent pictures in my head with the sound on the tapes. And the result would be like real life. It would be almost the same as having him back again.
But why four reels?
I still don’t know. When that particular vision visited me there were always four reels of tape. I delved into the mystery of numerology, but never came up with a definitive answer. Symbolically the number four represents containment and regularity, as in the square.
This is one of the reasons for my voice-activated recorder. I don’t want to lose the sound-track again. Another reason: when I transcribe an event I want to work from an accurate record.
Miriam is not stimulated by speculations of this kind. She is young and excited by dreams of untold wealth and physical passion and pain.
I have built a rack for us. It’s a rickety kind of thing but does the job. Miriam or myself can be strapped into it (with a little adjustment to take account of our different sizes) by means of leather cuffs with Velcro fastenings. It’s a strange and exciting sensation to be spread-eagled and at the mercy of another human being. Especially when you know she’s cruel and she loves you.
Today I have been working on a simple mechanism that will enable me to administer electric shocks to my love’s labia.
And on Thursday I have an appointment with the blind woman.
36
The countryside was not Sam’s favourite place. His natural habitat was the city. He could take long desolate beaches, a coastline of any description. From time to time he’d found himself living in a smallish market town and that hadn’t been the end of the world. But open countryside and tiny villages made him think of incurable diseases.
He was on the A64 when it started to snow. The steady stream of traffic kept the road clear but when he turned off on to the country lanes he had to slow down and think about getting a new set of tyres. People imagine running a detective agency is all profit, like there’s no overheads involved. But by the time the landlord’s had his slice and the insurance company’s had its, and you’ve paid out the wages and the accountant and the tax man and the various kinds of parasites that live off car ownership, you’re lucky if you can afford a chicken sandwich for lunch.
Still, it was better than working. You worked for the man and most times the chicken sandwich problem disappeared, but so did your freedom and your soul and your integrity and your hope for the future and your faith in humanity and your balls shrivelled up and died. Take a tip from one who’s tried.
The heavens tilted and tipped all the snow they had on to the North Riding of Yorkshire. There was powdery stuff mixed in with crystals, and the angels added hallucinations to the brew, so that huge glistening chandeliers threatened to crash through the windscreen. The spears and javelins of long-dead warriors whizzed past the car in all directions, and as the edges of the road disappeared, Sam fancied he heard drums drumming and somewhere directly above him a brass band began the introduction to a funeral dirge.
As suddenly as the storm had arrived it passed away again, leaving behind a wonderworld composed of ecclesiastical vestments.
The fields lay around the remains of the road like a bleached desert, the hedges absorbed and reduced by the dazzling landscape. A man alone in an ancient Montego, though he be invincible in the panorama of a city, could start to feel groundless out here in the sticks. Keep your eye on the target, Sam said to himself. Don’t think about balding tyres or a clutch beginning to slip. And who needs a heating system, anyway? It’d cost more than the old tub’s worth.
The final rise up to Skewsby almost broke the heart of the car. Fifty metres before the top Sam got the engine racing along in first gear and sat tight while the rear wheels slewed from one side of the road to the other. His mind never entertained the idea that the thing would actually stall and slide down the hill backwards. His bowels were not so optimistic but managed to stop short of disgracing him.
A private nurse, a woman who looked as though she spent most of her life in the shower, admitted Sam to the house. ‘I’m Rosemary,’ she said.
And freshly picked this morning, Sam thought. Couldn’t help sniffing when she turned h
er back, check if she smelled like a herb. All that reached him was an aroma of starch and lemon soap. Might even be considered exotic in this neck of the woods.
He followed her into a reception room off the main hall where she offered him a seat and closed the door. She sat pertly on a high-backed chair, her knees screaming for attention through the stuff of her black tights. ‘I don’t want him upset,’ she said.
Thirty-seven, he thought; maybe thirty-eight. She’s got two kids at home, both in their teens, and a husband who doesn’t see her any more although he still lives in the same house. She got married and raised a family. That was all right in those days, no one sneered at you for it.
‘I’m not here to upset him. He rang me.’
‘As long as you understand that he has lost his wife and suffered a fairly disabling stroke.’
Her blonde hair was cut short, in a style that had been briefly popular in the late eighties, but she had allowed it to dry out into a spare and frizzy mop. ‘Are you trying to prepare me for a shock?’ Sam asked.
She shook her head. ‘Mr Reeves is considerably reduced. His friends and neighbours were surprised by his condition. Some of the village children have been unkind. He’s rather sensitive, understandably so. It’s going to take a little time to get him back to normal.’
Sam put his cards on the table. ‘I’ve only met him once,’ he said. ‘And I didn’t like him. He was arrogant and overbearing, the kind of guy I’d walk around the block to avoid. I can’t imagine any change he’s gone through that would’ve improved him.’
Rosemary produced her first smile. ‘I work with all kinds,’ she said. ‘But Mr Reeves is one of the nicest patients I’ve had in a long time. Only two problems: he can get frustrated, especially when his body or his mind won’t do what he wants them to.’
‘I’m like that myself,’ Sam confessed. ‘And the other one?’