Paul looks sideways at Ian. He keeps having to remind himself that the doctor’s made all this up – because he can still feel the rasp of that warp on his hands down in the rope room, still feel the pebbles digging in through his great coat on the beach. If it’s all just hypnotic suggestion, he’s got to hand it to her, she’s canny good at it.
Ian lifts the camcorder down from his shoulder and turns to the doc. ‘What would you say if someone suggested that was a bit too much of a coincidence?’ he asks. ‘That Jimmy just happened to be awake when Tom went on deck, and just happened to be on the beach when he was getting rid of the body?’
Paul checks out the doc, to see how she reacts. But Ben pipes up before she can answer: ‘But that’s what it’s like when you’re living a secret life,’ he says. ‘You’re always awake when other people are asleep, or in weird places where nobody knows you. It’s not fair to says it’s just a coincidence.’
The doctor smiles. ‘Very eloquently put, Ben.’ She turns back to Ian: ‘Does that answer your question?’
‘I’m just saying that some people might say it’s rather convenient that’s all.’
‘Poor Jimmy,’ says Ben quietly. ‘He was really on his own, wasn’t he?’
‘That’s no excuse,’ says Paul, getting caught up despite himself. ‘He should have gone straight to the police soon as he realized Annie was missing. If they’d looked through Tom’s things they might have found something, I don’t know, some blood on his kecks, or a locket or something.’
‘He couldn’t!’ says Ben. ‘They’d have asked why he was there. And Tom would’ve landed him well in it. It would be all over the Low Town in five minutes.’
‘So? Serve him right.’
‘Dad! How can you say that? You were there. You know what it was like for him. He never chose to be born that way.’
‘He chose to go with them lads, dirty little nonce.’
‘He wasn’t hurting anyone.’
‘He hurt Annie, didn’t he? By staying quiet. He let his mam and dad keep on looking for her. He let Tom get away with it.’
‘He was scared!’ shouts Ben. ‘Don’t you get it? What if his dad found out about him being gay? And the lads on the boat? You know what happened to that other lad. You know what they’d have done to him.’ His cheeks are flushed with anger, his hands closed in fists.
Paul becomes aware of the camera humming again and looks round. Ian’s crouching behind his shoulder, lens focussed squarely on Ben’s face. And Paul understands suddenly how this must look from the outside: the lad who wants a sex change standing up for the lad who’s gay, and the whole world against the both of them. And an ache starts up at the base of his throat, like his collar’s too tight or something. After a while he recognizes the feeling as sobs caught down there, like a purse-seine full of mackerel, drawn in so tight they can’t move.
‘Turn that fucking camera off,’ he says gruffly, embarrassed at getting so caught up in this farce, that’s basically just that doctor’s warped imagination.
‘Right-o mate. Sorry about that,’ says Ian, looking not sorry at all – more like the cat that got the cream. ‘It’s second nature, I’m afraid. I see a spot of argy-bargy, and the camera seems to turn on its own.’
‘You’ll clear everything with me before you use it, right?’
‘Dinna fash, mate. Ninety percent of what we shoot gets binned anyway. That’s the trouble with digital. It’s too easy to keep turning. With film there’s always a cost implication. In the old days you’d have a budget and a box of stock and that was you. You had to make it last. But with this little beauty, the world’s your lobster.’
He hands it over, and Paul weighs it in one hand. ‘So what’s the memory like?’ he asks, wondering if there’s an underwater equivalent. If it’s not too pricy he might look into an upgrade before their next trip abroad.
‘Two point eight mega-pixels – but with the 16-gig memory stick duo you can keep going for ages. Five hours HDV recording time, 1080 resolution. Got it in March and never looked back.’
The doctor’s scribbling something in a notebook. ‘I wonder if this is why Jimmy became so obese later in life,’ she says in a vague sort of voice, like she’s talking to herself. ‘To counteract that rather shrinking and apologetic persona he seems to have cultivated as a young man.’
‘It certainly got him noticed,’ comments Ian, taking back the camera and stowing it in a padded pouch in his backpack.
‘It’s as though he was trying to make up for not revealing himself earlier – by courting public opprobrium with his rather gothic lifestyle.’
‘“Kick me, I’m a poofter” you mean?’
‘Have I mentioned before the idea that guilt can be an actual motive for self-harm, as opposed to simply a reaction to sins committed? I’m wondering if perhaps Jimmy actively sought out punishment for not speaking out about Tom.’
‘So he buys a wardrobe full of sequins and eats himself to death.’
‘Great,’ comments Paul bitterly.
‘I liked Lord Jim,’ says Ben stubbornly. ‘He was kind and funny. And him being big and sort of obvious must’ve made it easier for other lads to, like, be what they wanted. Like Laura when she was that Davy, before she had the op.’
‘It’s a shame he never seems to have had a lasting relationship,’ says the doctor. ‘Perhaps that was another way of punishing himself.’
‘Oh please,’ Paul objects. ‘Now you’re making him out to be some kind of tragic hero. When in fact he was just a nervy little nancy who grew up to be a big fat OTT poofter.’
‘Maybe he was in love with Tom,’ Ben suggests, ignoring him. ‘And couldn’t bear to think he was a murderer. I mean, you didn’t actually see him kill anyone, did you, Dad? So it could have been an accident with Sam. With Annie too – maybe it was a mistake he was trying to cover up. Maybe he got drunk or something and tried to kiss her and it got out of hand.’
‘No,’ says Paul, thinking back. ‘Jimmy knew there was something dodgy going on. He was just too much of a scaredy-cat to say anything.’ And he realizes he’s doing it again, isn’t he? Getting all caught up in something that never happened.
‘Maybe he didn’t want to believe it,’ Ben argues, ‘and was hoping he’d be proved wrong. That’s what I’d do if I found out something really evil about your nice little earners.’
‘Perhaps that’s Jimmy’s legacy to you, Paul,’ says the doc quietly.
‘You what?’ Now what’s she on about?
‘Well, it hasn’t escaped my notice that you are rather a forthright person.’
‘Call a spade a spade, you mean? So?’
‘And that you appear to have garnered a great deal of power and respect in your community. I imagine they call you “Big Paul” – am I right?’
‘How did you know that?’
‘Yet you’re not particularly “big” in the literal sense of the word. So what they’re referring to in your case is the power of your personality, your influence – your masculinity if you like – something you probably take for granted as your birthright, but which I sense young Jimmy Milburn longed for but never truly attained. Remember how he talked about his father? His fear that he might be a disappointment to him?’
‘Fascinating,’ says Ian, tapping notes into his Blackberry. ‘So you’d trace back every aspect of a personality to some unfinished business in a previous incarnation.’
‘Not every aspect, no.’ The doc sighs and looks exhausted for a moment, like her mask’s slipped sideways. Watching Ian sparring with her, Paul finds himself feeling quite sorry for her. The poor dab’s got no idea what’s in store.
‘Which ones then?’ Ian asks.
‘Don’t try to bait me, Ian. I’m not in the mood.’ She rubs her hands across her eyes, smudging her eyeshadow – probably forgotten she’s even got it on. ‘Past life regression is not an exact science, any more than psychoanalysis is. You can’t apply the same simple formula to every case. Things are—’
‘I know, multiply determined – as in “unprovable”.’
‘Yes. But in my experience, any particularly unusual or dominant personality trait does often turn out to be the expression – or resolution – of a conflict in a previous life. Talking of which—’ she sits up a bit and fixes Ian with one of her stern looks – ‘I have a series of rather large bones to pick with you.’
Paul gets up. He’s had enough of all this psychobabble. ‘Right,’ he says. ‘I need a bit of fresh air. If it’s all right with yous two, me and Ben have got a bedroom to paint tomorrow. Right, buddy? Ian, you can get me on my mobile if there’s anything else.’
The next day, after dithering over a sort of dark maroon at the paint-mixing station in B&Q (same as the doc’s got on her skirtings, come to think of it), Ben’s decided on one of those nothing white colours. He says it’s because he doesn’t know who he is at the moment, so he doesn’t know what colour he wants. Then he goes and loads four giant cork boards on to the trolley, ‘so I can try out some art things’, plus a big candystriped rug, which is not especially girlie, thank goodness, but not proper lads’ gear either.
Back at the flat, they get on their new overalls, spread out the dust sheets and set to work. Paul’s done this before, when he and Nessa got their starter flat, so he goes round the edges with a paintbrush, while Ben slurps what looks like melted icecream into the tray for the roller. He’s expecting the lad to slop it all over the shop, but he gets the knack dead fast, and in an hour the first coat’s on.
Standing in the middle of the room with their Kit Kats and mugs of tea, they survey what they’ve done.
‘It looks loads bigger,’ says Ben, rubbing dried spatters of paint from his forearm. ‘And really really light.’
‘Be even better when the top coat’s on.’
‘I’ll do the boring bits next time if you want a go with the roller.’
‘No, you’re all right. I’d probably slop it and make a mess.’ Then, rubbing the lad’s cheek with his thumb: ‘Look at you, daftie. Covered in white freckles.’
Ben grins up at him. ‘How long before we can put the top coat on?’
‘This weather, we could probably start on that first wall straight away. You’ll have to sleep in with me the next few nights, mind. Even with the window open, I’m not having you breathing in all them fumes.’
‘Can we order pizzas and have them in bed with a DVD like when I was little?’ What he means is, after Mam buggered off.
Those first weeks after Nessa left, Ben wouldn’t let Paul out of his sight; to be fair, Paul felt pretty much the same. So they sort of stuck together, night and day, until Paul thought he ought to put a stop to it. Which was the only time he ever raised his hand to the lad, which still makes him feel sick thinking back. Because it did the trick, right enough, but he never wants to see a look like that on the bairn’s face again.
‘What made you change your mind about the film and the doc and Laura and that?’ Ben asks.
‘What, apart from you giving me the silent treatment and going on hunger strike and locking yourself in your room? And Nana giving me GBH of the bloody earhole every time I saw her?’
Ben grins. ‘Well, I think it’s well wicked.’
‘What? Letting the world and his wife sort through our dirty washing on TV?’
‘I mean, everything’s so cool now, after being so totally crap. Like my new room, and you being in the film, and investigating Annie and that. Then finding out I was Miss Turnbull – that was so weird! Reading her diaries and sitting in her chair and that.’
‘You don’t think it’s a bit neat, how all that came together?’ Paul says carefully. He doesn’t want to give anything away, but he thinks he ought to prepare Ben for what’s in store.
‘When I worked out the dates, I was like wow! Though it is a bit spooky thinking about being an old biddy in another life.’
Paul tries again. ‘You do know that Ian’s job is to investigate all that, don’t you? It might not all pan out the way you expect.’
‘But the really mint thing is it’s nearly sorted now, isn’t it? Like what really happened to Annie. I can hardly believe it. In a few days we’ll know everything, and it will all be over, and I can start my new life.’
Ian’s arranged to meet Paul in the Maggie Bank, just up the hill from the flat. It’s a noisy, busy pub, with quizzes and live music and that, because Billy Neville makes a proper effort, unlike some landlords Paul could name; plus there’s always a decent load of bar snacks and a proper restaurant tacked on the back.
Ian’s sat in a corner booth with a glass of red wine. ‘Let me get this one,’ he says, waving a twenty at the chav behind the bar. ‘Pint of Snecklifter, right? Or shall I order up a bottle of this Merlot?’ Like there’s a posh wine cellar or something, instead of a load of cheapo crates out back, driven up the A1 from Calais in the back of Billy’s old transit.
‘Yeah, thanks,’ Paul says. ‘Wine would be great.’
‘Thanks for coming along to Mary’s yesterday. It made all the difference.’
‘No problem.’
‘Amazing, isn’t it, the detail she got out of you? Anyone seeing that would be totally convinced you were the reincarnation of that lad.’
‘It felt so real, man. Afterwards I kept having to remind myself that the doc was doing it, like making me come out with that stuff.’
‘I thought you might have been putting some of it on, you know, hamming it up a bit for the camera.’
‘No way. I was right there, least that’s what it felt like.’
Ian sits forward, his eyes narrowing a bit. ‘So you had absolutely no sense she was leading you in any way, or putting words into your mouth? The experience was utterly genuine as far as you’re concerned.’
‘Too right.’ Paul pulls a face, remembering. ‘She knows what she’s doing, that doctor.’
‘You’re still OK with that permission though, right mate? Not too traumatized? Not rethinking your sexuality or anything?’
‘You are joking, I hope.’
The chav brings a bottle over, plus another couple of glasses. ‘I spent the afternoon on the phone to my researcher,’ says Ian, pouring the wine. ‘She’s been tracking down some of Mary’s old cases, then following them up to see if their past incarnations really existed. You’d be amazed what people will let slip when you say it’s the Beeb on the blower.’
‘How does the doc feel about that? You checking up on her old cases?’
‘Put it this way, she’s not exactly over the moon. But she’s a big girl. She’s known all along this is a proper investigation, not some happy-clappy cable crap.’
‘What sort of thing are you looking for?’
‘Anything really. Cases where the past-life regression details are contradicted by the historical record. Blatant confabulations—’
‘What, where the patient just makes up stuff? Like being Joan of Arc or Napoleon or something?’
‘Actually I’m expecting something a bit more mundane. A miner dying in a disaster that never happened, or a nurse at a hospital that never existed. That sort of thing – where there are some really concrete “memories” we can check up on.’
‘So you think Ben’s case is a fluke?’
‘I don’t know. It’s too early to say. But Mary can’t have read the diaries of every old biddy in the country, can she?’
Paul sips his wine. ‘I’m going to have to tell Ben some time, you realize. So he’s not too upset when the film comes out. He’s pretty keen on the doc, you know.’
‘As long as you wait till I’ve finished the shooting. I want to be sure all the hypnosis sessions are in the can before the shit hits the proverbial.’ He sloshes more wine into his glass. ‘And it’s early days yet. Who knows? We might find that all her past cases check out. Got to keep an open mind, eh?’ And he crams a handful of dry roasted into his mouth.
Ben’s asleep when Paul gets back, slumped down in a nest of pillows on the double bed, with
the lights off and the TV on. It’s some rom-com with that Hugh Grant bloke, the one they caught with a hooker’s head in his lap, silly twat. Doesn’t seem to have damaged his career, mind.
Easing the remote from the lad’s fingers, Paul turns the sound down, not wanting to wake him by turning it off suddenly. The pizza box is open on the floor, just the crusts left. Paul takes it into the kitchen and pours himself a Bell’s, then shoves his own pizza in the oven. While he’s waiting for it to heat up, he wanders into the hall and catches sight of his reflection in the mirror.
He looks knackered, he thinks, and his hair needs cutting. And his eyes are doing that puffy thing they do when he’s drinking too much. He peers closer, checking out the broken veins on his cheeks – occupational hazard on the boat, but the booze can’t help. Better cut down before his nose starts to go, like the alky lads on the top bank. He checks out his profile. At least he’s got a proper nose – not like Nessa’s little button, like a piece of putty someone’s just stuck on, like the bairn’s nose when he was a nipper.
He used to worry the lad would be stuck with her putty nose, but lately it seems to be straightening out just fine. They do say you can tell a family resemblance from the nose, but Paul’s that close he can’t see it. He feels like asking folk, sometimes, if they can see it, but he’s worried they’d guess why he was asking. What gets to him sometimes, if he thinks about it, is that folk might already have clocked something Paul’s missed, the shape of the lad’s ears, maybe, or his eyes, that’s the spit of Nessa’s new bloke.
Daft to dwell on it, really, when all he has to do is open that fucking envelope and get the matter settled for good. He opens the drawer. The letter’s there, of course, where it always is.
He never told Nessa about doing the test. It’s never seemed anything to do with her. In his mind it’s always been between him and the lad.
He takes the letter out and holds it up to the light for a moment, then puts it back and closes the drawer again.
Truth is, he’s scared to find out. But maybe now’s the time. Sink or swim, sort of thing. So if Ben is his, then he’s got to stand by him, hasn’t he? Thick and thin. And if he isn’t? Well, then maybe the lad would be better off in New Zealand with his mam – he’s been going on about it enough.
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