Behindlings

by Nicola Barker

  Good Gracious. Dewi’s hands were suddenly shaking. He tried to relax them, forming tight fists one moment, flexing them the next. He glanced down, anxiously. As his head dipped he was momentarily blinded by a gush of light. He flinched. He blinked. He straightened up, immediately. His eyes scanned the road again. To the left of him. To the right.

  Could it really have been Wesley? He frowned. But seriously… Could it really? Back in Canvey again? The actual Wesley? Here? Large as life? In the flesh?

  But how was that possible? More to the point, how would he dare? And what on earth might his reasons be? (To gloat? To crow? To strut? To swagger?)

  Wesley back? No. Never. The more he thought about it the more… the more crazy it seemed, the more… well, ridiculous. Ludicrous. Inconceivable.

  Dewi’s frantic eyes briefly desisted from their anxious scanning of the roadway, relaxed, refocussed, then suddenly –quite unintentionally –caught an oddly disquieting glimpse of their own violent expression in the window’s clear reflection. He flinched, then looked sideways, almost shiftily.

  This was not like him.

  This is not… This is not like me, he told himself, This is… this is…

  Inconceivable? But was it? Was it really? His right shoulder jerked upwards, in a tiny spasm, towards his dust-slicked ear-lobe. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. It had to be. Because over the past two years Wesley –or the idea, the concept, the very notion of Wesley –had somehow acquired a marvellous, a fabulous, an almost… yes, an almost mythological significance for him.

  The way he saw it, Wesley was an absolute one-off. He was the genuine article. He was out there, on a limb (teetering, maybe, but clinging on, determinedly). He was unique. He was unparalleled. He was completely and totally and utterly unprecedented.

  Even so, this phenomenal –no –this extraordinary singularity as Dewi (perhaps somewhat naively) perceived it, was patently not apprehended by him as any kind of virtue. Quite the contrary. For when Dewi actually imagined Wesley –when he conjured up an image of him, inside his mind –Wesley was not configurated, not defined, not delineated quite as your average, ordinary, every-day mortal should be.

  Within the deliciously wholesome confines of Dewi’s imaginings, Wesley took on the form of something infinitely less, and yet –quite paradoxically –something immeasurably more than your average, commonplace, rough-hewn homosapien. Because for Dewi, Wesley was actually an absolute, undisputed, honest-to-goodness monster. A monster in all the traditional senses: small-brained, big-jawed, heaving, sweating, baying, howling, gesticulating, clawing, gnashing…

  The vilest, the cruellest, the most unapologetically lawless, coarse, despicable and licentious creature. A horned demon. Fork-tailed. Fanged. Cloven.

  But that wasn’t… that couldn’t… even that didn’t encompass… it didn’t…

  Because when Dewi tried to visualise Wesley, the initial image he generated rarely remained constant. It switched. It varied. It altered. It disintegrated. It morphed (morphed? Was that the proper, modern word for it?).

  Inside Dewi’s agitated imaginings, Wesley was not merely bestial, he was more… so much more complicated than that. More terrible. And infinitely less predictable. He saw many forms. He was a Shape-Shifter. He was a Changeling. He was a Centaur, or possibly a Gorgon, or maybe even a Satyr. Yes…

  Yes. That was it. A satyr. With hooves. With muscular thighs. Curling hair. A pan-pipe…

  A pan-pipe?

  No… No. The image was changing. It was disintegrating again. It was vacillating, reconfigurating…

  Either way, Wesley was something decidedly foul but strangely intangible, something thoroughly ancient but heinously ungodly. He was the anti-everything. He was the unthinkable.

  For Dewi –and he was hardly a man alone in this particular respect –life held many uncertainties (could he afford this month’s rent? Did his saw need greasing? Was he allergic to walnuts? Were his plug-holes blocked up again?), yet among all of these manifold uncertainties there remained one thing –and one thing only –of which he was profoundly certain. No –tell a lie –there were two things, but the first of these was simply a given: that he loved Katherine Turpin; that he loved her truly, unselfishly, and to distraction –that she was a Queen to him.

  And the second thing? It was related to the former, inextricably. The second thing Dewi knew for certain was that even if –by a very large stretch of the imagination –he was able to grasp the notion of Wesley’s actual physical being – his mortality –he was still totally incapable of comprehending the idea of Wesley as a moral entity – incapable, in effect, of believing in Wesley’s humanity.

  Because Wesley was not like other men. He lacked something. He missed an essential quality (gentleness? benevolence? decency?). He was not a proper person. He was a pitiful creature. He was lost. He was damned. He was hollow. He was empty.

  To all intents and purposes, Wesley did not really exist. Not morally-speaking, anyway. He was a vacuum. He was struck-out. Deleted. He was nothing.

  Dewi shoved a thick strand of hair from his eyes, noticing, idly (as he pulled his hand away), how the film of dust on his fist had been severed by a thick slick of tomato juice; his four knuckles split into two. Neatly riven. Dissected. He paused for a moment, breathing deeply.

  And yet… And yet if it really had been Wesley he’d seen –all things taken into account and everything –if it really had been him, then what could he seriously expect to gain from this strange and unexpected Second Coming? What more could he take from them –realistically? Hadn’t he taken enough the first time around? Hadn’t he stripped them bare? Hadn’t he humbled and humiliated them then sufficiently?

  What more could he take, damn him?

  Dewi placed the remainder of his sandwich down onto the window ledge. His stomach was churning. And time was passing. He shifted his weight. He wiped his mouth. He glanced at his watch. Twelve twen… Twelve twenty-one?

  What?

  Two whole minutes later than she ever was, normally?

  Sweet Katherine

  Not that he kept tabs or anything.

  Twelve… twelve… twelve twenty-two already?

  By twelve twenty-three Dewi had already run several times through every conceivable option:

  A delay at work

  A random conversation

  A breakdown

  An accident

  Or was it something more insidious? Something to do with the Estate Agent? With Ted? Sharp-suited, sandy-coloured Ted. Or with the kid in her garden? Or the boy-girl? Or the ruined old fellow with the little dog? Or the notebook-clutching fool in the plastic hat? The Followers. The Behindlings.

  He clenched his teeth in frustration. He’d guessed they’d be back. He’d predicted it. After the book initially came out –almost two years ago now –they’d come then (not in hordes, not in their hundreds, but in dribs and in drabs, in gangs, in clutches. Just enough of them, basically, to bug, to chafe, to niggle him).

  And they’d continued to come. Predictable as bad weather. Twice as persistent. Men, mostly. Sad cases. Trouble-makers. Wolves in sheep’s clothing. Saintly sinners yearning to share something (experience? Pity? Semen?).

  And the locals joked about it, to start off with. Then the neighbours started complaining. But Katherine? She didn’t seem to notice, or if she did (and she must’ve) then she never spoke out about it, never let on to anyone, just pretended she didn’t care, just lived her life, same as ever, quietly, firmly, impassively.

  That was Katherine.

  Oh God, he’d wanted to hurt Wesley, then. To damage him. Because he couldn’t comprehend it. He couldn’t understand how a stranger could be so cruel. So cavalier. So careless. It was more –so much more –than just the fact of the matter, it was the basic, fundamental bloody principle of the thing.

  The principle.

  And then… And then finally –ah yes, finally; the sheer, raw pain of this spuriously conclusive word made him almost catch his breath –just w
hen it seemed like all the fuss and the misery might actually be in danger of diminishing a little –two whole years of trouble, two whole crazy years – the icing on the cake, the culmination of everything: that stupid fucking pointless competition. The treasure hunt.

  The Loiter.

  And clue three? Daniel’s Candy.

  The woman serving in the chippie had explained the connection to the man in the queue standing two customers ahead of him. Daniel Defoe, she said (Robinson Crusoe, ironically, had been his favourite book as a boy) once called Canvey by that curious name in a book about Great Britain. A travel journal or something.

  Candy Island. And Dewi knew –he knew – right there and right then, that these five sweet letters spelled an infinity of trouble; for him, for Katherine. Pretty much the same stuff as before, only more of it this time. Much more. Because of the treasure, obviously. And because of that poor man dying so tragically. The publicity.

  Oh Lord. Today was just the beginning. It wouldn’t end here. Dewi kicked one hefty, steel-toe-capped boot against the other. Where the leather stretched thinly over the worn crest of the toe, a sleek shimmer of metal was visible, peeking through. When it struck the second boot it clanged sonorously, like an old, dented gong, upended in a cellar. He did it again. He did it a third time.

  Wesley. Wesley. Dewi shook himself. He was still dusty. He inspected his forearms. Dusty. His palms. Dusty. Surely it couldn’t be simply a coincidence? He’d seen his photo on the book cover. And he’d seen the same picture, by sheer chance, on the late night news. Last year. Springtime. A stupid scandal over paternity. And then, when that poor man drowned on Guy Fawkes Night, in Anglesey, in the midst of all that terrible tragedy: Wesley’s foul and unrepentant grin, plastered everywhere, staring out at him from magazine racks, from the tabloid papers, from the broadsheets (even the broadsheets couldn’t seem to get enough of him).

  And the pay-off?

  ‘Colin Sumner won. That’s the important thing. Colin Sumner’s a winner.’

  No thought of an apology. No remorse. No pity.

  What kind of a thing was that to say? Colin Sumner won? He’s a winner? A man dead. What kind of a stupid, smart-arse, senseless, thoughtless, pointless…?

  Good God. Twelve twenty-five, already? A delay at work. Had to be. Or a conversation? But who would Katherine speak to? And why? Katherine didn’t speak much. Not in general. The locals found her difficult –different, inexplicable – even though she was one of them.

  A local. She was local, wasn’t she? Born in Canvey. But never fitted. Always too large, too brave, too bold for her surroundings. Always too bright, too fierce for a place like this. Too grand for this fucked-up, washed out, anaemic little town.

  She was different. That was all. With her fine, low voice… her too-light eyes… her small hands… tiny hands. Fingers like pieces of stripped willow.

  She frightened people. She frightened him, too, sometimes (he made no bold claims to be braver than the rest of them). Yet he loved every inch of her. Every hair, every dimple. The good parts, the bad parts. She was strong meat. She had vision.

  Ever since she was a girl she’d had it. Her father a headmaster. Her mother a minister. Tricky combination. Methodists, to the core, imbued with that ancient, powerful, crazy-Dutch puritanism. Devout people. Hard-edged. But not her. Not Katherine.

  Twelve thirty? So perhaps she’d returned early, without him seeing. Perhaps she’d secreted her sweet self and her bright red bike clean away while he was still in his kitchen. Home early. Perhaps she’d received prior word about Wesley? Advance warning.

  But who would warn her? Nobody trusted her. Only him. Only Dewi. And she despised him for it. She didn’t want to be trusted. Didn’t need it. Had no use for it. She laughed at his loyalty. She teased him for it. She found it hilarious.

  But that was just Katherine. That was her way.

  Twelve thirty-three?

  So who might she speak to, realistically? The newsagent? The butcher? The girl in the bakery? No. Never. Even shopkeepers kept their distance, exchanging only nods and grunts, refusing to allow any transaction –no matter how plain or small or innocent –to be incriminated by syllables. She terrified them. Men especially. And wives, obviously. And mothers. And children. Little children, even.

  She preferred it that way.

  Twelve thirty-five.

  Oh God. Oh God should he go over there a second time? Could he chance it? Could he?

  Dewi turned on his heels and marched towards the door. But no. What if… He froze. Three seconds passed. He doubled back on himself. He paused. He put his hands to his head. He gazed over at the telephone, helplessly.

  Perhaps he should ring her. Would he ring? Could he? His right hand twitched. No.

  No. He returned –shoulders slumping –to the window, to the reassuring white and shade of his hand-built shutters. He camouflaged himself again (the minutes still tip-toeing past him like a troop of well-marshalled fieldmice in feather slippers), the tension in his huge torso gradually subsiding into a slow-burning, acid-churning, belly-numbing resignation.

  A big bull. A soft heifer. Dewi exhaled two great gusts of air –once, twice – through his dust encrusted nostrils, then dutifully, diligently, tenderly, fearfully, he continued his patient vigil for dear, sweet Katherine.

  Eleven

  They all grabbed what they could. Jo got there first –so did marginally better than the rest of them –claiming Utah Blaine, Catlow and The Man from Broken Hills. Doc snaffled an early hardback edition of Hondo, which she suspected was one of L’Amour’s earliest. But Utah Blaine was his most successful, wasn’t it? His most famous novel?

  Oh come on…

  Who am I kidding?

  She didn’t have the first idea about cowboy fiction.

  Even so, she quickly squirrelled off her booty to a small table in the children’s section where she sat down on a tiny chair –somewhat conspicuously, her elbows pressing pale dimples into the lean flesh of her thighs –and carefully removed a bunch of crumpled sweet wrappers from her coat pocket (six in total), slowly sorted through them and finally located…

  Okay. Clue 3

  She partially re-read it. She struggled to assimilate it –

  Uh…

  – Look for love –

  Fine. She’d got that already: love –L’Amour…

  – Where liquid is solid –

  Hmmn…

  Somewhere cold? Somewhere icy?

  – Where 62 fell,

  – 46 still…

  There were too many numbers – what the hell did they all mean – page references, maybe? She pushed the clue aside for a moment, pondered.

  So… look for love somewhere icy. Or look for L’Amour somewhere cold. Somewhere chilly. Hang on… hang on. Utah –Salt Lake City. Not ice… not ice, but salt. Had to be.

  Jo grabbed a hold of Utah Blaine and turned to the back cover where she inspected the synopsis, keenly. (Nah. This was just too easy. This was just… this was silly.)

  Okay. Set in a town called Red Creek where some poor bastard called Joe Neal had been lynched by a nasty bunch of land-grabbers… then… Utah Blaine, a stranger, rolls into town objecting to the misuse of vigilante law… Bad guys, locals mainly, are led by some greedy, low-down, cowboy killer called Clell –

  Clell?

  – Clell Miller…

  Blah, blah, blah

  – Nothing particularly riveting. All standard, hard-knuckled Western fare, basically.

  Jo frowned, turning the book over. Inside flap?

  Nope. Paperback. So where would L’Amour’s biographical details be? First page? Preface?

  She inspected the first page. Another brief plot summary… No biographical details to speak of… Only –

  Uh…

  – second page in, next to the copyright, some vague reference to how L’Amour first published under the pseudonym Jim Mayo –

  Jim Mayo?

  Jo casually perused the front preface agai
n. Hmmn. Some pretty average writing interspersed by the occasional striking description of – say – an angry cowboy with a face ‘red as a piece of raw beef–

  Yik

  – making threats against Blaine…

  Blah, blah…

  – more stuff about Joe Neal’s ranch; the 46 Range…

  The…?

  Oh Fuck

  She glanced up, guiltily. Did anyone…? Did…?

  Bollocks. Hooch

  – Hooch was staring at her.

  Had he…?

  Jo closed the book and rapidly turned to the next one. She picked it up, inspected it, thumbed through it, began reading, randomly, smiling to herself, goofily, as if she got some real thrill out of all this cowboy twaddle.

  Glanced up again –

  Bugger

  – Hooch was coming over. He was clutching his own paperback which he’d already flipped through, twice, in a desultory manner. Jo rested her right elbow on the front cover of Utah Blaine. She began talking, even as he approached her.

  ‘I notice L’Amour initially published under the pseudonym Jim Mayo,’ she said (as if keen to exchange everything, like a real team player).

  Hooch wasn’t taken in. He scowled as he pulled out a chair at the tiny table but then thought twice about sitting down on it.

  ‘Mayo? You think that means something too?’

  Jo shrugged, ‘Who’s to say?’

  ‘Well I’m not getting anywhere with this.’

  Hooch showed Jo his own paperback: Showdown at Yellow Butte.

  Jo half-smiled, ‘Yellow Butte? That’s some purdy title you got yourself there, Hooch.’

  Used his name

  Hooch was neither disarmed nor amused. ‘I think you probably pronounce it boot. It’s a geographical location.’

  ‘Nah…’ Jo took the book from him and flipped through it, casually, ‘… it’d be like the butt of a gun, surely?’

  ‘That doesn’t have an e.’

  ‘Are you certain?’

  He was certain. ‘In actual fact,’ he continued (she grinned, internally), ‘the word probably has its earliest application in the form of a large Roman cask, or butt –as in water butt –then subsequently in the guise of the mound or hill behind a target –another common usage –which, presumably, leads on to the notion of a person being the butt –of a joke, or whatever. In other words, they are the thing behind the target. The mound. The hillock. Or in that particular instance, the object behind the joke…’