by David Mathew
The problem was, he remained troubled by the visit that he and Dorota had paid on Don Bridges. Despite his wife’s questions on the subject, he hadn’t revealed the reasons for his unease; in truth, he didn’t know the reasons himself. But there was something: it was something he’d seen in Don’s cabin; something that hadn’t quite rung true. And the knowledge that it had been there – just beyond his mind’s reach – had been putting him off his game. His erection was less sure of itself; he had trouble concentrating in the bedroom.
He pocketed the till receipt and offered his thanks for the Saturday girl. Parenthetically considering what her teeth braces would feel like on his scrotum (would he know they were there?), Roger placed his purchases in the boot of his car. His memory had snagged on a case over which he had presided, three or four years earlier. In a gathering drizzle he stood stock still to the rear of his car, squeezing his keyring. When a hopeful fellow motorist pulled close, eager for a space so near to the store, Roger was conscious enough of his surroundings to wave him on with a regretful shake of the head (he wasn’t leaving just yet); but other than this action, Roger was back there, climbing stairs in his present memory that had felt much harder to climb in reality. Oh, he had seemed to climb stairwells for ever! What a tough old day that had been, that case…
The sales assistant’s braces were what had brought the memory clambering back: the girl in the Bedford tenement – Louisa – had worn braces as well. And he’d ascended to her flat in a thickening drizzle: maybe the weather was partly responsible for the recollection too… Roger continued to squeeze his keyring, in much the same way as he had on the morning that he’d walked up through the drizzle, expecting to find Louisa and her daughter dead.
It would have been impossible to work in psychiatric crisis assessment for as long as Roger Billie had without having encountered death, or at least an awareness of the same. An awareness of death – of what human beings might conceive to do to and with their own bodies – was nothing more than the air that Roger breathed, professionally speaking. In fact, for some years now he had been preparing a paper that (in his imagination) he would deliver at some hypothetical healthcare conference at the end of the universe: a paper that would triangulate the subjects of psychiatry’s expectations of high-risk suicide; the erotic and spiteful transference process by which the high-risk patient loves and hates her care-provider; and the erotic countertransference inherent in the discovery of the patient’s dead body. The paper that would get him struck off the medical register; possibly prosecuted. At the very least investigated. And then – Good Lord! – what would the authorities find out about him!
The truth was, nothing much that would definitely incriminate him. Or rather, nothing much recently. Go far back enough and you’ll locate a ball of yarn that began its journey as one of a different colour; and Roger’s past was not unstained. In his salad days in particular, he had made no bones about accepting the occasional sexual favour that was more or less (he quickly learned) little more than a perk of his job. And while he had never failed – not once – to make a patient aware that he had noticed the scratches on her arms, or the faint whiff of brandy on his breath at ten in the morning – or the soapy pupils and goaty sweat of a patient’s mental indigestion that the patient himself could not pronounce; the freshly shy character of a six year-old girl who would not go to school on the days she had Gym – Roger had been guilty in the past of using these observations as tools, as helpful leverage – rather than as punishment for the patients that he feared would clam up from him from that point onwards. He had told the patient that there was no need – no absolute need – for him to record what he’d noticed in the casebook… provided he heard a solemn pledge that he would not notice it on his next visit. And although, as a tactic, it was limited (it rarely acted as a cessation of the self-hostilities), it had at least served to get patients on Roger’s side.
It had been working with Louisa for four months. Tough love, if you wanted to call it that. Roger had made it clear that he knew of Louisa’s fondness for inflicting cigarette burns on the skinny belly that she imagined was too fat, but that if she ever performed something similar on her baby’s flesh – ever – she would be receiving a visit from employees with greater authority than that wielded by the social services. She’d be going to prison; she would lose her daughter. Did she understand?
I’ve done it, Roger, she had told him on the phone that morning. I’ve really done it this time. And she had started crying.
Standing in the rain by his car, Roger could bring back that phone call with a clarity that chilled his scalp. He was certain that he’d never forget it, and good luck with trying to do so.
Done what, Louisa? he had asked her in the office he had shared at the time, before his promotion. What have you done?
But she wouldn’t stop crying at the other end of the line. Neither in his private life nor in his professional had Roger ever been good with tears (apart from his own, which he enjoyed shedding). Louisa’s lament had only made him cross; his reserves of empathy had been low that day.
What have you done, Louisa? he’d demanded.
I’ve hurt her, she had answered in a gluey voice that had sounded neither drunk or normal. Pilled-up, possibly. And I’ve emptied the medicine cabinet. How long will it take? She had seemed genuinely curious.
For what? For death to arrive? For the ambulances to get there?
I’m on my way, Louisa, Roger had told her. Don’t lie down.
I’m already lying down.
Then get up. Call an ambulance. Keep moving and talking to Billie. Do you understand me?
Yes.
I’m angry, Louisa.
I know you are. I knew you would be. I couldn’t take it anymore. I wish I were sorry. I wish I could feel something.
One law of the universe that Roger had observed was that traffic worsens in direct correlation to one’s anxiety. The journey had taken twenty minutes (it was ten on a good day) and he had expected to find two bodies when he kicked down the door. All the same, as he’d marched along the fifth landing walkway, a weird sense of calmness had enwrapped him. They’d be dead – he was sure of it – but his anger had evaporated; he’d felt ready.
What he hadn’t been ready for was Louisa opening the front door for him when he arrived. But she did. And what was worse was the smile on her face: the smile that said Gotcha! The smile that showed her braces, and the braces that caught the light.
I just wanted to see you again, Roger, she’d said. I’ve bought new bed linen – just for you.
And he’d slapped those braces hard. He’d knocked her over.
Roger stared into the cave of that much-regretted morning, seeing it as clearly, as colourfully, as he saw Homebase through the shiver of rain: one reality as the palimpsest of the other, but which was which? Dodging idling cars sharking for a free space, Roger walked over to the supermarket, intending to browse in the baby aisle, as he often did. But not to buy for their germinating first; nor even to perve over the pregnant women buying things for their own. No: Roger wanted to check what colour boxes Pampers nappies were sold in.
In his mind it had all come together. Remembering Louisa, as he’d pushed her backwards into her kitchen; as he’d slammed her door shut; as he’d moved towards her, down the narrow hallway… On her small kitchen surface, next to the toaster, had stood a large box of Pampers. Roger remembered it clearly, this box. Even when Louisa had sunk to her knees in front of him, he had not wished to look down into her crybaby eyes; he had kept his gaze on the Pampers. He had focussed on that box while he lowered his fly, and while she did what they both knew she must.
Pampers nappies.
Funny the things you remember, Roger thought, knowing that he had seen a box of an identical colour in Don’s front room.
Why would an old man be buying nappies?
3.
Phyllie was sceptic
al.
‘That’s it? A box of nappies?’
‘In the lounge of a man who takes care of birds for a living. Who has no children and especially no grandchildren…’ Roger argued (silently congratulating himself on his bowdlerised version of the confession: it had ended with the slap to Louisa’s face and then a talking-to in the young mother’s kitchen. There were some things that even Phyllie might not forgive).
‘But how do you know he’s got no children, Rog?’
‘Dorota said.’
‘And how would she know? She only met him ten minutes ago! She’s not exactly his biographer. Maybe he’s met someone! And she’s married or something, and she brings her child – or why not their child? – to the gingerbread hut in the woods. And while the baby’s sleeping, Don treats his new flame to a hunka hunka birdkeeper love…’ Phyllie laughed.
Roger didn’t. ‘You get a feeling,’ he tried to explain.
‘Oh I know all about your feelings, Rog…’
‘I’m serious.’ His frown and the muscle-knotted nub of flesh at the crown of his nose confirmed this. ‘I mean, how many homes have I entered in the line of business over the years?’
‘You tell me.’
‘Hundreds! That’s how many. And you look for clues, Phyllie: it’s not a million miles away from being a private detective.’ Roger waited to be contradicted; failing a contradiction, a furtherance of the interrogation would suffice. But nothing came. ‘The man’s hiding something,’ was all he could think of to add.
They had finished a snack of cheese and crackers during the conversation and were sitting at the kitchen table, their elbows to either side of their completed plates. Now taking her husband’s hand, Phyllie said, ‘So what are you proposing, Rog?’ Her voice was soft and understanding. ‘You already went there and found nothing. And he did well to keep his temper, by the way. But he’s not likely to be so sympathetic a second time.’ She waited; she squeezed his fingers. ‘Is he now?’
‘No.’
‘So what? Sneak in when he’s not there? It’s not impossible, Roger, but ask yourself why you’d be doing it. It’s not against the law to own a box of nappies, even if he doesn’t take care of a baby. It’s not as if he’s done anything wrong, and if you remember, the reason we suspected something in the first place – it had nothing to do with a baby. It was a missing schoolgirl.’
Roger sighed. ‘Yeah I know. I know it logically. But I can’t stop wondering why a man of his age would be hiding –‘
‘Or storing.’
‘… a box of Pampers in the sideboard. And if it wasn’t for Dorota and I on the floorboards at the same time, or the draft we made – or whatever it was – the sideboard door wouldn’t have swung open half an inch and we wouldn’t…’
‘Okay, Rog. Would it make you feel better if we managed to get Don out of his cabin and you could have a proper rummage?’
‘And how would you do that?’
‘I’d talk to Vig.’ Phyllie shrugged and let go of Roger’s hand. ‘He owes me one for refusing my well-intentioned sexual advances.’
Roger chuckled. ‘I’m not sure it works like that, Phyl.’
‘Oh he knows the rules. He’s German, for Christ’s sake. And speaking of refusing my sexual advances…’
‘Don’t. I didn’t refuse.’
‘All right then. Speaking of sexual advances, it’s been three nights. I must admit, it was nice to have a rest on the first night, but I’m starting to worry you’ve gone off this fat girl.’
‘I haven’t,’ Roger told her.
‘Good. So prove it. Then I’ll call Vig.’
4.
As Phyllie had predicted, Vig was awake – and awake for the reason that she had given Roger. He couldn’t sleep. The truth was he had simply not taken to the house. The space he found constricting, of all things. He was trapped by all of this extra room. It wasn’t natural; and it was playing with his biorhythms. While Dorota slept soundly, it was Vig’s new hobby to wander around the house; to read in his library – his library! – and to stroll out into the chilly pre-dawn air.
Sometimes he went to see the birds.
His footfalls on the path away from the house (or on the lawn, if he was of a mood to feel wet grass through his slippers) would trigger the security light on the patio; and enjoying the cold, perhaps with the moon on his back, Vig would stroll out to Don’s aviary, his shadow as stretched out before him as a bad dream of being chased, or of chasing. The threat of rain in the air had been known to be a comfort.
Rarely were the birds pleased to see him. They did not wake and squawk; they did not fly around within their confines. Quite often, in fact, they slept peacefully while Vig spied on them on their perches, and fantasised the contents of their dreams. It was peaceful. For Vig, it was like… like being invisible. If he could cause no fuss, then surely he could not be present physically.
A childish logic, of course. But it kept him calm, sometimes. Kept him calm until, inevitably, one bird or more woke up and raised the aviary alarm. At that point, it was time to beat a hasty retreat… or to wait for Don.
Sure as night followed day, Don Bridges came running when he heard a commotion in his birdhouse. And as richly as he respected the birds for their enclosed spaces and parameters – even envied them the same – Vig respected the fact that Don responded faster to a cat among the pigeons (as it were) than ever he would, say, to news that the main house was burning down.
If you wanted to witness Don at full pelt, you could do a lot worse than slide a snake into one of the cages.
At the moment, however, Vig was alone. While he thought it through, he was struck by its undeniable poeticism: it was Vig and the birds, by starlight.
And so it was. The rain that had threatened earlier had not materialised, and the wind had taken the pancake clouds away with it. The sky was a held breath; it was flawless… Feeling about the size of an ant beneath it, Vig watched the birds behind the mesh – as well as he could by starlight and security beam combined – and added to his pondering of what birds dreamed the predicament of why he felt so ill-at-ease.
No, he knew why. The question was unfair (on himself). There was no doubt about it.
It was Don who unnerved him.
Didn’t matter that the accusation was unreasonable; didn’t matter that Dorota’s search of Don’s hut had come up with not a small thing to show. The seed had been planted in Vig’s imagination; and in the absence of anything workmanlike or profitable to do with his day, he had become a noodler and a brooder.
Vig could call himself pathetic until his back stung with whips and self-absement, the truth was that he didn’t want Don on his land. The sheer scale and space that he owned was not a solution. In fact, his acres were part of the problem. Wherever Vig stood on the estate at any time, he knew that Don was out there somewhere – a secret known only to himself – and doing precisely what at that moment was anyone’s guess.
No evidence.
It’s not important.
They searched.
It’s not important.
He’s a harmless old man who loves birds.
It’s not important.
When the realisation struck Vig that he walked out to see the birds on insomniac nights for the purpose of meeting Don, it was sufficient to make him come over queer and giddy. The sensation – help me God! – was not far from a pang of love, a strobe of longing.
‘You can’t sleep again, sir.’
Vig turned. Don had a habit (and an ability) of creeping up on him.
‘Evening, Don. Are you well?’
‘Fair to middling. And you?’
‘I’m exhausted,’ Vig answered honestly.
‘Same here.’
Nothing in the older man’s tone – not now, not since – gave any indication that he’d been put out or chagrined by the sear
ch of his modest home. Incredibly, the man had behaved impeccably. However, if he’d intended a good grace to indicate humility, the ploy had failed. As far as Vig was concerned, Don behaved like a man who had got away with something and was currently surfing the waves of relief.
They chatted for a few minutes, Don rolling, lighting and smoking a cigarette as they spoke. It felt natural. Calm. Two strangers at a bus stop, perhaps. Two men queuing. Vig realised that he knew nothing more about the birdkeeper – not one single thing – than he had when he and Dorota had moved in. Had he expected the old man to reveal all about his past in bite-sized chunks? Well, kind of. No, not kind of. Yes. Yes he had. Exactly what he had expected, the man living on his land and so forth…
‘Thought I saw foxes earlier,’ said Vig, this time not so honestly. Rather cackhandedly, in fact; but Vig imagined it to be a good idea to get back to the subject that had been abandoned: the subject of unexplained noises in the woods.
‘Couple of families-worth,’ Don agreed. ‘You can hear them when it’s still.’
The two men fell silent. Vig heard nothing but the wind combing through branches, ploughing the trees. He did not even hear the phone ringing in the house.