Ventriloquists

by David Mathew

  It had to be over soon, Don consoled himself. They would all go home and life would revert to normality. The birds were what he cared about – the birds and his friend in the well – and so far, as a relationship, it was working well with Mr Klossen and Miss Teodorescu. Don had even learned how to spell their surnames, out of respect. There had only been that one awkward scene…

  Vig and Dorota had been in the house for two days at that point, and Vig had decided to take a stroll around all that he surveyed. Despite the acres and the camouflaging woodland in which Don’s cabin sat alone, it was probably inevitable that the cabin would be located sooner or later. Don supposed that sooner was better: at least he had been half-expecting the visit, squaring the chances with the factor of idle curiosity alone: Vig’s curiosity. Fair enough that the man would want to see all that his one-pound lottery ticket had earned him, including the scrags. So when Vig had knocked on the door, the sound had been both unexpected and according to Fate. Get through this one initial house visit, Don could remember thinking, and he’s not likely to want to come again.

  Well, that prediction had proved true (so far); but the accuracy of his prophecy had not diminished the awkwardness of the moment. If Vig had been hellbent on causing a disruption, he could not have chosen a more inconvenient time: it was twelve-thirty. Don had been tucking into a toasted cheese sandwich, a mug of tea steaming on the sideboard. All well and good. The devilish side of this tranquil woodsman scene was that Don, since taking ownership of the little girl in the well in his kitchen, had always played fair with food: this meant that his lunchtime was also hers. Down below the ground, she was eating what Don had prepared for her (her usual), and if there was anything to thank for the advancing of human years, it was this; the natural insurance policy of routine. Being a man of considerable age, Don was also a stickler for things settling in a pre-arranged order, and without this compulsion – virtually unacknowledged at the time of Vig’s visit, blessed ever since – Don might have been sunk, there and then. But routine it had been, and not so much as self-preservation, that had led Don to knocking the trapdoor down into place, and to covering it with the moth-bitten rug. Lunchtimes were for solitary nourishment.

  Throughout Vig’s short stay in the cabin (barely more than twenty minutes) the girl had not made a peep in the well. Not a murmur… The problem was that Don had left incriminating evidence in the kitchen. The second problem was that in a dwelling so petite, the kitchen could be viewed from the lounge. And the third problem was that Vig had sat down on the settee: he’d had a perfect vantage point of the surfaces in the kitchen, as long as he moved his head slightly to the left (the settee faced a spanking new television)… For want of a nail the kingdom was lost, Don had sighed ruefully in the intervening days: it was always the little things that did for you; the seemingly insignificant that upset the entire cart of apples. On cop shows too: the murderer caught out by a length of twine, a missed dental appointment, the fading ridges of a circumcision scar… In Don’s case it was an empty box of Cow & Gate baby milk preparation, for all to see, there on the surface beside the microwave oven.

  For want of a nail the kingdom was lost… And for want of a roll of plastic pedal-bin liners, Don had almost cooked his own goose. He had made the child her milk; he had given her the cup and a separate portion in a bowl with some nutbread submerged inside; and he had closed the trapdoor and replaced the rug. But the pedal-bin had been full, and he had had no more liners in the drawer; he had put the job off for a next-day task. Tomorrow he would empty the bin; bad knees notwithstanding, he would cycle to the village store and buy some more bin-liners.

  Had Vig seen the Cow & Gate box, or not? Don had chewed on this question ever since. A simple peek into the kitchen: this is all it would have taken. And Don could hear Vig’s questions to Dorota: What the hell’s he doing with baby milk? Then perhaps Miss Teodorescu would reply: Something for the birds maybe? A sick bird? And they’d all live happily ever after. God willing…

  While the incident had taught Don some harsh lessons about carelessness and responsibility (and pride coming before a fall), he had known from that day – that hour, that minute, that moment – that his work must be squeaky-clean. He couldn’t afford any unwanted scrutiny of his performance. This was why, when Dorota had invited him to this evening’s barbecue, although his heart had sunk faster than a stone in clear water, he had thanked her and said of course he’d be there; it had even been his idea to volunteer to give brief talks about the birds, should they be required or wished for. The latter at least (Don had reasoned) would keep him near the birds, for most of the time away from the house (or more specifically away from strangers); it might make him feel necessary and useful too.

  So it was that Don was standing by the first cage, sipping on a roll-up, savouring a second of balmy solitude, when Eastlight found him, again. He had hoped to be shot of Eastlight for the remainder of the evening; alas, no.

  Seeming to swerve through his words – the compounded result of more wine than he was young enough to take anymore, on top of what he’d arrived carrying in his brain – Eastlight said, ‘Donald, my man. Are you avoiding me?’

  ‘Evidently not, sir,’ Don replied.

  It took Eastlight a few seconds to find this funny, but when he did it was like a Comedy Krakatoa erupting. At one point Eastlight bent over at the waist, the laughs and his flammable breaths gasping exits in tandem. ‘Evidently…’ he rasped, ‘…not, sir… Priceless… Cuzzaye found you, Donald Duck… not, sir…’

  Throughout this kitsch gale Don maintained his decorum; he pouted on the end of his drooping cigarette, silently cursing that use of Donald Duck, which instinct told him that should he object, would become part of Eastlight’s lexicon from that nanosecond on. With luck the fat pig was too pissed to remember, the next morning, that he’d coined it and christened Don with its dubious charms.

  ‘What was it I could do for you, sir?’ Don asked.

  ‘Oh lighten up, Donald, it’s a party!’ Eastlight wheezed in reply, the tatters of his mirth clinging to his reprimand. ‘Doe shtan… doe shtannon….’

  ‘Ceremony, sir,’ Don finished on Eastlight’s behalf. ‘Don’t stand on ceremony. I can tell you I’m not.’

  But Eastlight had other ideas about how to finish his own sentence. He started to sing the chorus from ‘Don’t Stand So Close To Me’, his voice cracking into more peals of laughter by the end.

  Don ground his roll-up in the multicoloured gravel in front of Cage 1. The birds within made sudden busy movements and squawks of protest as their keeper said, ‘You should take your own advice, sir, about standing so close to someone.’

  The comment sobered Eastlight almost immediately. ‘Meaning?’ he demanded. ‘There’s two foot between us!’

  ‘There wasn’t earlier, when you rolled in,’ Don answered calmly. ‘All over me like a rash, you were, sir. I was quite uncomfortable, if you’ll forgive me.’

  ‘If I’ll forgive you…’ Eastlight smiled. ‘Because I’m one of them, no doubt. Your shensh. Your shenshibilities have been affun. Affronted.’

  Seeing no obvious way out of this altercation – even welcoming it in a way as something that had to be faced eventually, so why not now? – Don plucked tobacco from his poacher’s pocket and rolled himself another smoke, arguing that he didn’t know what one of them meant.

  ‘A homosexual, Donald Duck! I’m as queer as folk! Good with colours! I’m a poof.’

  Donald shrugged and lit his cigarette. ‘Easy come, easy go,’ he breathed out with his first lungful of smoke.

  It hadn’t been intended as a joke, but it set Eastlight off again. This time the man felt obliged to cling to the cage’s wire mesh for support; the sight of his podgy fingers oozing through the mesh made Don shiver, but it also gave him a brief flash of revengeful fantasy, something like a garrotting, and Don even found it in himself to smile for a second while Eastlight laugh
ed himself into recovery.

  Presently a silence fell between them. Eastlight broke it.

  ‘I’ll tell you what, Donald, how’s this for a proposition? You roll me one of those cigarettes with one hand like you just did, and you promise to try to teach me to do the same – and I promise not to stand too close to you again like the smelly queer I am.’

  ‘You’re not smelly, sir. And I didn’t have a clue you made hay with the farmboys –‘

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘ – It’s just, sir… I’m a solitary man. Put the work in my hand and a pound in my pocket, do you know what I mean? Makes me happy the day’s long… But yes, since you asked nicely, I will roll you a smoke. With my pleasure.’

  Eastlight laughed again, briefly this time. ‘Make hay with the farmboys,’ he repeated, ‘I’ll try to remember that – tell Mass in the morning,’ he mumbled on, eagerly watching Don execute his party trick. ‘I say it to everyone early, Donald: saves any confusion in the long run. Or embarrassment.’

  ‘Of course, sir.’

  ‘Charlie. Call me Charlie, Donald. The sir shit is so nineteenth century… Thank you. What tobacco?’

  ‘Drum.’ Don flicked his lighter for the cigarette now between Eastlight’s lips. A few of the birds flinched at the flare.

  ‘Thank you, Donald… Nice.’ Eastlight cupped his free hand to his left ear. ‘Soft! What sound from yonder mansion breaks?’ He smiled. ‘I think you’re on call again, Donald: some more on their way to see the birds, if my ears don’t deceive me.’

  ‘My privilege,’ Don replied, shrugging once more.

  ‘I’ll see you later, pal. I’m glad we had this chatette.’ With which he turned, and set off to walk back to the house.

  ‘Just one more thing, sir – Charlie,’ Don called.

  Eastlight turned again. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Call me Donald Duck again and I’ll shatter your knees. Have a good evening.’

  Don faced the birds and tried not to laugh.

  5.

  Phyllie and Roger were getting ready for bed.

  ‘Did you meet those delightful twins?’ Roger asked, pulling off his boxer shorts. ‘Blond as butter, nine or ten?’

  Phyllie was strapping the dildo around her naked waist. ‘They’re Dorota’s sister’s kids; they live in Dunstable… What about them?’

  ‘They gave themselves a proper scare, that’s what,’ Roger told her. ‘Went walking off alone in the woods; came across a tiny gingerbread house.’

  Phyllie sat on the edge of the bed and reached for the bottle of baby oil on the nightstand. ‘Must’ve been Don’s – the birdkeeper,’ she said.

  ‘That’s what I thought.’ Roger tugged at the toes of his socks. ‘I wonder why his wife didn’t go.’

  ‘He’s not married, Dorota told me. Well, he’s widowed – twenty years or more.’

  Roger assumed his position on the bed: all fours, facing the headboard, eyes screwed tightly shut. ‘That makes the twins’ story doubly spooky – for them at least.’

  Phyllie oiled the dildo, asking ‘Why?’

  ‘Because if Don was at the party, and he lives alone, how come the twins swear to their mother they heard a child crying inside his cabin? No other sounds, just crying…’

  On her knees Phyllie moved up behind her husband. ‘Do you want to know about crying?’ she asked darkly, her voice grey.

  ‘…Yes, madam.’

  ‘It was probably a fox.’

  ‘Yes, madam.’

  ‘There’s no such thing as a haunted house.’ And Phyllie pressed the end of the dildo to Roger’s puckered flesh; his body writhed.

  ‘No, madam.’

  ‘I hate you, Roger,’ Phyllie breathed as the reinforced plastic breached the miniscule entranceway.

  ‘I know, madam. Thank you, madam… Thank you.’

  Lesser Characters

  Headphones applied, his long body grinding to a beat that only he heard, Molecule clicked open a file that added a stuttering violin sample the mix. He was happy. The work was going well. Provided the Job Centre didn’t drop some bullshit on him about having to attend a jobseeker’s progress meeting (or face the consequence of a payout-holdback) he would have the piece ready by Friday, as promised. And he’d be glad to have it finished: from the start it had been accompanied by some pressure bullshit from Fonehacka, but these days he was on his skin every other hour! The last time he’d called to check on Molecule’s progress, Molecule had screamed down the line: Let me work, man! I’ll have the fucker square by Friday! Jesus!

  You better, Fonehacka warned him. Or your name as a DJ’s mud, motherfucker.

  Yeah, sweet. Now may I be allowed to return to the fruits of my labour? I’m painting some strings as we speak, or I would be.

  Yeah yeah.

  Molecule knew that he should take it as a compliment: all of Fonehacka’s streetgangsta bullshit was about supply. Molecule’s supply, to be specific. Fonehacka had sold tickets on the strength that the world would be treated to a fresh Molecule splat. The people wanted his shit! A good thing! The only problem was that he only had two days left to finish it. And if he couldn’t get out of the proposed bullshit meeting at the JobCentre, why that was half of tomorrow afternoon fucked as well. He’d be working past midnight; working like a motherfucking vampire.

  Then you should’ve done it earlier, he told himself sharply.

  Yeah yeah.

  But his inner voice was right, of course. If he hadn’t been chasing that Charlotte all fucking week…

  Too late… It was too late to squirm over maybes. Roll with it. Get on with the piece… and those violins are an octave too high as well…

  Molecule frowned; he set about lowering the violins, and he sat down at his desk to work through some samples. He reckoned he was about halfway through the mix.

  Then the phone rang.

  Molecule sang ‘Motherfucker’ in a G Minor 7, riffing off the beat-up in his cans. His mobile vibrated patiently, next to the mouse. Wearied by the burdens on the shoulders of the modern mixer, Molecule ripped off the headphones and took a breath. He was ready to tell Fonehacka his fucking fortune… but the display did not show Fonehacka’s name. The display read SOME BULLSHIT, which meant an unidentified number – maybe the JobCentre!

  ‘Fuck cakes.’

  If he answered and they said he had to go to the progress bullshit, he would have to go. Not even (feigned) illness was sufficient for those wankers! (He knew this because he’d tried to cough his way through a phone call to say that he wasn’t well enough to travel on the bus to sign on. The jobsworth cunt on the blower had said: ‘Get a cab then!’) And Molecule wasn’t one to tempt fate by lying about a dead relative: the last time he had done so (a month ago) his Aunt Esme had been knocked over by a bus the following morning. She’d survived, but fuck.

  On the other hand, they might be calling to say the progress bullshit meeting’s been knocked into the long grass. Willy Womble, his case worker (or whatever the fuck) had lost his bullshit head off his shoulders in a weird baking accident…

  Yeah yeah.

  Like well fucking likely I don’t think.

  ‘Fuck it.’ Molecule thumbed it and said, ‘What up?’

  ‘Is that Marvin Green?’

  ‘Yeah, blood.’

  ‘Bill Wondle, JobCentre Plus.’

  ‘…Hello, Mr Wondle,’ Molecule added in his semi-posh voice. ‘I was just about to call you. I’m afraid I’m going to find tomorrow a bit difficult, for work reasons. I have something to deliver – I need to graft.’

  ‘Oh. Are you being paid?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking.’

  ‘…In what manner of speaking? Is cash, cheque or a transfer of funds of some description en route to your bank account?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ Molecule answered truthfully: ‘
but I made the man a promise. He’s spinning it at a gig on Friday.’

  ‘Oh your music.’

  ‘Yeah. You thought I meant what you people call proper work, right?’

  ‘Well wonders never cease, I suppose,’ Wondle muttered. ‘I’ll need his name and details.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Your employer. If you’re proposing you miss an appointment…’

  Appointment bullshit, Molecule considered. ‘Fonehacka.’

  ‘Is it really now. Double-barrelled, is that?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What’s his real name, Marvin?’

  The fuck should I tell you, Womble… Molecule spat silently. Don’t take that fucking tone… ‘His name’s Reggie Green,’ he confessed with a sigh.

  ‘Any relation?’

  ‘My brother innit.’

  ‘And what’s his work address?’

  ‘His what?’

  ‘I’ll need his details I said. It looks good on your jobseeker spreadsheet.’

  ‘No it don’t. He’s my brother. He’s fourteen.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Molecule sighed. ‘He needs it for his school disco, see. He’s mixing and them kids look up to me a bit. He’s in his room, next to mine.’

  Wondle cleared his throat. ‘All right, noted,’ he said, ‘but actually I wasn’t calling about tomorrow. I suppose we can reschedule, though I probably shouldn’t… I was calling about your other brother.’

  ‘Nero? I mean Noel – What about him?’

  ‘He missed an early school leaver’s appointment yesterday.’

  ‘I’m not his keeper, Bill,’ Molecule stated confidently but not rudely.

  ‘No, I appreciate that, but I wanted to… I wanted to run something past you, before I called the police.’

  ‘Woah!’ said Molecule (he even held a hand up to his computer screen). ‘That ain’t no Fed business! An appointment? A signing-on?’