Ray looked at his hands. Ten fingers, all in good working order. ‘Uh, fine,’ he said. ‘It’s just that Phil . . .’
Doug turned, ‘Phil?’
I scratched my neck, my brain fizzy and empty. The kitchen is only a small room and it hasn’t been decorated in years. Above the oven, grease has stained the wallpaper a steamy yellow. The grey floor tiles are full of prints, footprints and mud-prints and cat-prints.
‘Is there something you’re wanting to say to me Phil? Anything? The meeting on Friday? Anything you think I can’t handle? Want to tell me?’
It’s not exactly that I couldn’t say anything, more that I didn’t really have anything to say. What was my evidence, after all? Doug was being strange, but thinking about it, he’d always been irascible, changeable, unpredictable. It wasn’t so much anything in particular, any special fact or detail I was burdened with, more a feeling, a sensation.
Saleem had said that we were connected in some way, she and I, the two of us, connected together, against Doug, because Doug was thinking about Gaps, and thinking about making Gaps. And Nancy . . . and Nancy . . . And I was contemplating all these things when I suddenly heard a voice and the voice was saying, ‘I love this place, Doug. I love this place.’ It was my voice. Blood rushed into my cheeks. I felt a stabbing sensation in my chest.
Doug’s face broke into a broad grin. His teeth were tombstones.
‘Phil,’ he said, laughing, ‘I’m going to the greenhouse. Gonna have a little talk to my big vegetables.’
And off he went.
As soon as Doug had gone, Saleem bounced back in. She put her stick down on the table, pulled out a chair and sat down.
‘Now what? Nancy’s in some kind of trouble?’
Ray nodded. His expression was so mournful and forlorn that it looked like his cheeks were in danger of melting and dripping and dribbling down on to the table. ‘Oh God,’ he said, ‘her timing’s less than perfect.’ I couldn’t think of anything to add. Eventually I said, ‘Let’s not get this all out of proportion.’
‘No?’ Ray glanced up, hopeful, ‘You think it’ll work itself out?’
‘More than likely.’
‘Oh shut up, Phil,’ Saleem snapped. ‘What the fuck do you know? ‘
My skin felt tight. I looked at my watch, ‘It’s nearly time to knock off.’
‘I need a drink,’ Ray said, ‘and a few packets of crisps. Want to come to The Fox for a while?’
Before I could answer the kitchen door opened slightly and Cog wandered in. Cog was the park’s cat who behaved like a dog, was dogged and doggish, ran for sticks and didn’t mind a cuff and a wrestle. Nancy was two paces behind him.
‘Me and Cog are going for a run together,’ she announced. Her voice was just a fraction too loud.
‘Did you see Doug?’ Ray asked nervously.
‘Doug? I saw him.’
She walked to the sink and rinsed her hands. She seemed calm.
‘Did Doug say anything?’ Ray asked, even more nervously.
‘Doug says a lot of things, Doug’s a sandwich short of a picnic ‘
‘Doug’s elevator,’ Ray grinned, ‘doesn’t stop at all floors.’
‘That’s as maybe,’ I said, ‘but above all else, it’s Doug who holds this place together.’
Saleem cocked her head at this. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘It’s you that holds this place together, and Ray, and even Nancy. Doug holds the business together.’
‘It’s the same thing,’ I said, confident of this fact.
‘Not at all.’
Nancy dried her hands on a tea towel. ‘I’m going for a run,’ she said, ‘Come on, Cog. ‘ She slapped her thigh. Cog came to heel.
‘Didn’t Doug say anything?’ Ray asked, for the second time. Nancy started jogging gently on the spot, warming up. ‘Did Phil tell you,’ she asked Ray, still very loud, ‘that I had another knock in the truck?’
Saleem intervened on my behalf. She said, ‘Doug already knew. The insurance people rang him.’
‘I was unloading the privet from the van,’ Nancy said, ‘and Doug came over and asked me to load it up again.’
Saleem, I noticed, was watching Nancy closely, staring at her, and she had a smile on her lips but her eyes were full of something else, an intensity, a fixity, a cruelty.
‘Privet?’ I asked, unable to stop myself. ‘You were unloading privet?’
Nancy nodded, distracted. ‘Neat bushes with small, dark green leaves. A ton of them.’
‘You don’t need to tell Phil what privet is,’ Ray said, smiling glumly. ‘He’s the Plant King.’
‘Come off it.’ My cheeks tightened a fraction more and I started to glow.
‘Yeah, well,’ Nancy tucked her T-shirt into her running shorts. ‘I’m going for a run,’ she said, and before anyone could respond, she’d slammed her way out and sprinted off.
Saleem turned to me. ‘He’s gone and sacked her,’ she said. ‘So what are you two going to do about it?’
Ray stared towards the door, after Nancy, his expression inscrutable.
‘Let’s just sit this one out,’ I said. ‘Doug won’t actually get rid of Nancy. He’s just letting off steam.’
‘I don’t know.’ Ray looked uncertain. ‘I mean, I like Nancy and I respect Doug. I like them both. But they’ve both done things and they’ve both said things . . . I dunno.’ Ray picked up the packet of ginger-nuts and ate another one.
‘What’s Nancy said?’ Saleem asked, suddenly sounding interested. I turned too, focused on Ray, slightly daunted by his apparent overview.
‘Huh?’ Ray stopped chewing.
‘What kind of things?’ Saleem persisted.
‘Stuff.’
Saleem looked towards me and said tartly, ‘Maybe you should go and catch up with her. Tell her you and Ray’ll sort something out. The way I see it, if Doug can get rid of her that easily and you’re both too spineless to do anything about it, then he can also dispense with your services too, if and when the fancy takes him.’
‘She’s running.’
‘Catch up with her. See that she’s OK.’
‘Maybe Ray should go?’
‘Not me,’ Ray said, ‘I’m not nimble enough.’
Saleem smiled at Ray. ‘Anyhow , me and Ray,’ she said, ‘need to have a quiet little chat.’
Ray’s eyes bulged nervously at this prospect. I smiled to myself and slunk out.
Ten minutes later, after a cursory stroll around the sections of the park in which I was least likely to find Nancy - Christ, she would have been half way up Alderman’s Hill by the time I’d left the house, and anyway , what could I have said to her if I did catch up with her? What could I promise? And how could I be sure that the words would come? I couldn’t be sure - I found myself travelling past the main lake, past the ducks and clambering on to the bandstand and settling myself in a shady corner where I fully intended to dawdle for ten minutes before returning to the house, back to Ray and Saleem.
It was cool and green here, and the water sloshed to my left, and in the distance I could hear a spaniel barking as it ran for a ball, and the thwuck and the swish as it caught the ball and returned it. To my right, I could see one of the tennis courts, and one of the greenhouses, and I could also see, if I stretched my neck, a small man in a white shirt who was limbering up, bending and stretching and bending and stretching.
And I found a fuzzy rhythm in this corner. A wooziness. And as the lids on my eyes descended, cutting my view in half, I felt a terrible certainty, in my gut, in my soul, that nothing could change the way things were, it wasn’t possible, because nature didn’t work in jerks and starts, but in a rhythm, a cycle, a circle, and Doug, of all people, was aware of that fact. And so was I.
Then out of the blue, out of the sky, a fistful of sand landed in my face. I blinked, shook myself, and then a clod of soil landed to my left followed by a small geranium plant, then a further clod of soil.
I stood up and saw for the fir
st time that the innocuous little man in the white shirt was bending and stretching in the middle of my newly planted flower bed, plum in the middle of my freshly planted flower bed, and he was yanking up plants and tossing them. My new geraniums, the spider plants, other things. This way and that. An arc of soil flew over him.
I jumped off the bandstand and made my way over to him. As I drew closer I saw that he was Chinese and wearing kungfu robes and he was older than I’d initially thought - sixty or so - but his hair was black and his face was hooded, and something in it was scary, was withered, was fundamentally unpleasant.
And yet his expression was in such direct contrast to his body, his movements, which even in his present task were as fluid and beautiful as a seal’s. I appraised his body as I approached, calculating my chances in the likelihood of any kind of physical confrontation.
He was small but he was also solid and thorough and focused; clenched like a little nugget, a meteorite. Plain like a stone. I drew closer to him, but he ignored me. I drew closer still. I said, ‘Excuse me. I think you’d better stop what you’re doing.’
His head turned, a fraction. ‘You fuck off.’
He wasn’t nice. His voice was like a dry cork twisting in the neck of a bottle. A tight voice.
I said, again, ‘I’d like you to stop what you’re doing, immediately, please.’
He plucked a geranium, and weighed it in his hand, looked straight at me, took aim, and thwack! He hit me with it, in the centre of my chest. It had quite some clout, for a geranium. I stepped back slightly, and it was then that I thought I saw Doug, in the doorway of his greenhouse, and even from a distance it looked like Doug was smiling.
‘You know him?’
Squeaking voice. I turned back. ‘Pardon?’
He pointed towards Doug, ‘You know him?’
‘Who? Doug?’
‘I have a message for him.’
‘For Doug?’
‘D’you know me?’
I glanced over towards Doug again, but Doug had disappeared, had gone. I guessed he’d withdrawn, back to his tomatoes.
‘Do I know you? No . I don’t know you.’
‘I am Wu.’ He offered me a small, slightly muddy hand. ‘Shake.’
Gingerly, I offered him my hand. He took it and squeezed it and his grip was like steel.
‘Wu! Wu!’ he barked softly. ‘Like a dog, huh?’ And my hand was crumbling and grinding and liquidizing.
‘Let go of my hand, please.’
Wu pulled me close to him, so close I could feel little sprays of his saliva on my neck as he spoke.
‘Your friend,’ he said, ‘I don’t like him and I don’t want him near me. I don’t want him watching me, see? All the time I feel his eyes on me. And you can tell him, from me, that a frog cannot turn into a green leaf.’
‘I’ll tell him. Let go of my hand.’
He lessened his grip a fraction, pulled me even closer, stood on his tip-toes and whispered directly into my ear, ‘I hope I didn’t break your knuckle.’ Finally, after one more, gentle squeeze, he let go. He wiped his hands clean on his robes and walked off. Slowly, calmly, treading softly.
I looked down at my hand. I tried to wiggle my fingers. I could move my thumb but nothing else. My fingers were purple, the joints were white. The whole hand was burning. I ran over to the lake and dipped my fist in it. But the water didn’t help to cool me. It was warm as saliva at its edges. I took my hand out, held it in front of me like a trophy, and went to find Doug.
Doug was watering some tomatoes in his greenhouse. The house was warm and had that rich smell of damp compost which always makes me feel like sneezing: a fine, ripe smell.
Doug watered his tomatoes with enormous tenderness. He didn’t take his eyes off them as he spoke.
‘So he got you, did he?’
I stood next to his marrows and his radishes, both of which seemed to be coming on well. The radishes were already the size of tennis balls. ‘I think he broke my hand.’
‘Wu. He’s a devil.’ Doug chuckled to himself before adding, ‘I can’t take my eyes of him. My fault he destroyed the bed. I can’t stop myself from watching him and he’s warned me. He gets irritable.’ He chuckled again.
I said, ‘I’ve never even seen him before.’
Doug moved on to the next bush.
‘Phil, someone could squat down and shit on your foot and you’d hardly notice them.’
I let this pass. Pain had made me bold. My hand hurt so much that I could hardly contemplate any other kind of feeling. I said, ‘I don’t think you want to have too much to do with that man in the future, Doug.’
‘Wu!’ Doug said, delightedly. ‘Did you see the way he moves around this place? Flowing, flowing. Like water. Like he owns the whole damn park. And the sky. That special kind of movement. Inside out. Round. That strange oriental kind of moving. Tip-toeing but very sure.’
‘I think he broke my hand.’
Doug turned off the hose. ‘I’ve been following him about since I moved into the house. Early in the morning he comes to the park, climbs over the fence before we even open, and he does all that strange, slow dancing. Tai Chi. I’ve been watching him, I even approached him for a talk but he didn’t want disturbing. I think I broke his concentration,’ Doug said, ‘and so it’s possible I’ve started getting on his nerves.’
‘He said that. He told me to tell you that you were getting on his nerves. I don’t think you should pester him any more.’
Doug gave this some thought and then for the first time he turned his eyes on me. ‘That sudden violence,’ he said cheerfully, ‘I like it. I like the idea of it. It’s clean.’
‘He’s destroyed the flower bed. I spent half the afternoon planting it.’
‘He’s cleaned it out,’ Doug said, unperturbed. ‘Good luck to him. I have plans for that section anyway,’ he added, ‘a couple of big ideas. Icing on the cake.’
‘But for the time being . . .’
‘And if I’ve learned one thing from that tough little man,’ Doug said, ‘it’s that you’ve got to have your own vision and stick to it. Ignore the rest of life’s radish.’
‘Life’s radish?’ I echoed, bemused.
Doug nodded. ‘No more rubbish. Only truth.’
He then moved a few feet across, fingered the bright shoot of a large onion and said, almost to himself, ‘This one’s going to be a giant. I can feel it. I can smell it.’ He scratched his nose. ‘Do you smell it, Phil?’ He glanced over at me. ‘Smell it, do you?’
‘Smell what?’
Doug sucked his tongue, irritated. ‘You don’t see it, Phil, do you? You just don’t see how there’s a real logic to an onion. One layer inside another layer inside another layer. All circular. Like a maze. A puzzle. Nothing missing. No gaps. Just simple.’
My hand was swollen now. It had swelled up like a puffer fish. ‘If he tries to assault me again,’ I muttered, ‘I’ll call the police.’
Doug carried on talking to his onion, ‘One layer inside another layer.’
‘Doug. About Nancy . . .’
‘Whosoever diggeth a pit, Phil, shall fall in it. Nancy dug her pit. She’s fallen into it.’
‘Even so . . .’
Doug began to scowl. ‘I want big, Phil, and I want neat. Big, neat, clean, true. Not just the park itself, but everything. The whole lot. The business, the talking, the ideas. Big, clean, neat, true. None of that muddy stuff, none of that green fruit, nothing unripe, none of that murky water.’
I looked down at my hand.
‘I’ll fix the bed in the morning,’ I said, ‘before we open. I don’t think I can replant right now with my fist all swollen.’
Doug waved me away with his hand, ‘Go away, Phil. Go. I’m busy with this onion. There’s work to do here.’
I hesitated.
‘Phil,’ Doug barked. ‘Go away. Let’s get tidy. And I don’t just mean weeding and replanting. OK?’
I nodded. I retreated.
‘Wher
e’s Ray?’
Saleem was in the kitchen alone. She had Cog on her lap and she was stroking him. Cog’s purr almost lifted the tablecloth.
‘He’s gone,’ she said, ‘to the pub. You didn’t find Nancy, I gather?’
‘No.’
‘Fuck. Your hand’s all swollen. What did you do?’
‘I crushed it in the mower.’
‘You’ve been out mowing?’
‘I was putting it away.’
‘Is it broken?’
‘No , the mower’s fine.’
She knocked Cog off her lap. ‘Let’s see it.’
I backed off a fraction. ‘It’s in the barn. I locked it up for the night.’
She gazed at me, unsmiling. ‘Do you seriously think I’m going to hurt you, Phil?’
‘Hurt me? No. ‘
I inspected my shirt-front. Wu’s geranium assault had left its mark.
‘Sit down Phil. I want to talk to you.’ Saleem pulled out a chair and pointed at it.
‘Ray’s expecting me. Maybe I’ll go to casualty with this hand.’
‘Sit. Screw Ray. Screw your hand.’
I sat down, but on the edge of the chair so she’d sense I wasn’t staying.
‘OK, ‘ Saleem perched herself against the table. ‘Picture the worst case scenario . . .’
I studied my hand. It was still smarting. I thought about the pain.
‘If Doug gets any more erratic and irascible than he already is, then there’s Noway we can let him go to the meeting on Friday.’
‘He has to go. No one else can.’
‘You could.’
‘Doug has to go. I can’t go.‘
‘Why not?’
‘I just can’t. Doug needs our support. He needs to be kept on an even keel, that’s all.’
‘Ha!’ Saleem rolled back on her hip, victorious. ‘So even you’ve noticed that something’s up. Even you, finally, have noticed.’
‘I’m only saying . . .’
‘Picture the worst case scenario.’
‘It’s hardly going to come to that.’
‘If Doug can’t go, you’ll have no choice but to go yourself. Ray’s a moron. You understand how the park works.’
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