‘That’s Hooch’s. He’ll definitely be wanting it back first thing,’ Doc warned her, ‘it’s a good one.’
‘Of course,’ Jo nodded, ‘I’m very grateful to you, Doc.’
Used the name
Doc shrugged, ‘I only hope Shoes didn’t scare you off earlier. He said he saw you in the bathroom. He likes to use the Ladies when he’s had a few. Means no harm by it.’
Jo smiled, said nothing.
‘He went out and collected you some dock leaves. For the cuts. Wes always uses dock. He swears by it. And he wanted me to give you this; to pass the hours, he said.’
Doc offered her some large, glossy green leaves, and under these, a book –
Utah Blaine
Jo took them both, her heart almost missing a beat, immediately slipping the book –surreptitiously –down the side of her seat, ‘Well thank him from me, Doc.’
Doc nodded, ‘Better close that window before you lose all your heat.’
‘Thanks.’
Jo started winding. Doc turned away, paused –
Just please don’t ask…
– then spun back around to face her again.
‘So your police friend didn’t say anything important? Didn’t shed any interesting light on what was happening earlier?’
Jo froze. ‘Uh…’ She stopped winding and peeked evasively through the remaining gap. ‘No. Sorry. No. It was all slightly…’ she grimaced. He put his head to one side, as if he couldn’t quite hear her.
She removed her eyes from the gap and replaced them with her lips, ‘It was all just a little bit complicated.’ She ducked down, reconnecting her eyes with the gap to gauge his reaction.
Doc was shrugging, off-handedly.
‘Let’s catch up in the morning,’ he said, still not moving, but standing and watching her, calmly, as she placed her lips to the gap again, whispered,
‘Thanks, Doc, goodnight then…’ and gladly recommenced her last few inches of winding.
But he stayed.
He remained in place until that keen, water-drenched pane of glass firmly hit its snug rubber lining; still as an old egret in a fertile rice paddy; rigid as a doubting nun at her thrice-nightly prayers; quiet as a dishonest clerk creeping around after hours; firm as Gibraltar –and just as imperturbable –he held and he held and he kept on holding.
Thirty-one
They sat in a kind of anti-communion around the table; Katherine and Dewi at either end (making no physical or visual contact whatsoever), Ted and Arthur on opposite sides (their feet and shins occasionally knocking together). Nobody spoke a word. The atmosphere (although by no means every individual contributing to it) was sober.
Four places were set – Dewi had taken Wesley’s; knew damn well he had; didn’t care – but there was no sign, as yet, of the guest of honour. Dinner was burned. It sat congealing in the oven.
Ted politely stifled a yawn and shifted his foot (knocked Arthur’s boot, quickly shifted it back). He nodded a shy apology.
Where on earth was Wesley, anyway? He’d taken the precaution of ringing his own phone (which Wes was still in firm possession of – no answer, turned off) and then the Police Station (on first arriving at the bungalow). They claimed they’d released him an hour before.
(Was he in trouble? Was he taking the Mick? Would it be sensible, or appropriate even, to go out and search for him; this being a man who evaded pursuit semi-professionally – made a kind of… of living from it?).
How the heck did we all end up here, Ted wondered, turning his glass over, superstitiously (they’d been placed upside down, as if in preparation for a game of Ouija) and glancing around the table at the other three. This whole situation just seemed so… so…
So infernally Wesley
–but what did that mean?
Ted still hadn’t entirely come to terms with the whole… the whole ‘Following’ wheeze. Couldn’t really grasp the ins and the outs of it; the numerous subtle permutations of what you were meant to do – or not to do – as the case may be.
One thing was for certain, though…
He suddenly sneezed –
Katherine’s perfume
Old-fashioned breath cashews
Industrial-strength fly killer
– snatched his hanky – with dispatch – from his top pocket (frowning fastidiously), patted his nose and the back of his wrist with it.
They were definitely –
Phew
That was better
(he shook his head, shuddering)
– they were definitely all waiting for some thing to happen. And it wasn’t just Wesley (the bugger) or the meal (Goddammit). It was… and this really did sound like a bit of a… uh…
A cockamamie…
– they were waiting –
I mean just look at them all…
(Ted lifted his head and gazed around the table)
– they were all waiting for life
– For life
Yes
– they were all waiting for life to take over; in all its sheer, crushing… the sap… the brutality… the horror… the actual, candid… the cruel… the unexpurgated…
Yes
– because that was what he stood for
– Wasn’t it?
– that was what he represented –
Didn’t he?
– the independent stroke –the cocking a snook –the kick in the pants –the gently raised middle… index … uh…
What am I thinking?
Ted abruptly abandoned his attempt to make sense of things –
Futile
He felt ridiculously ill-equipped for the struggle. He felt overpowered by circumstance; like a tiny fieldmouse (he told himself) foetal-ing up as it feels the plough’s first horrible tremor. I’m a purely defensive kind of rodent, he gently mused. I’m not a fighter. I’m a huddler. A curler. I cannot –
I will not
– flee.
I stay in place, no matter what. I do my best to hold my head up. And they can mock me, if they like –
And they do mock, too
– they can mock me, but it’s a kind of…
I won’t run
– a kind of… of…
Sincerity?
Was that it?
Ted glanced down at his watch. Wesley was two hours –
Free –he was –indisputably
– two whole hours late.
No gentle little field-rodent, he –
Not Wesley
– Ted visualised him as some kind of unashamedly big-boned, scruffy-whiskered, fast-perambulating, ginger-coated puss.
A predator to the core –
Never comes home on time
Won’t do as you say
Takes what he wants and then buggers off
Tail held high
Arse neat and tight as a spinster’s kiss…
With big old teeth (Ted smiled to himself, secretly), three-pawed, one-eared, vagabond-suited, hob-nail booted. Carrying a twig –
A stick
– with a spotted ‘kerchief held over one shoulder –
Whistling
– ridiculously jaunty. Sun shining down on him. Obligatory blue jay singing somewhere in the… in the…
Rear of the picture
Ted couldn’t help remembering –with a kind of perplexed awe –the way Wes’d reacted to the news about his daughter. The way he took those punches in the bar. The way he’d faced up to Katherine –
Just stormed on in there
The way he’d slaughtered that bird and forgave the… the… the…
Impostor
And the Pond –
The pond Ah
He also remembered (equally irresistibly) the way Dewi had behaved (just an hour before) when he’d turned up at the agency ready to mend the lock and reset that door. The hostility. The intensity. The… the…
Life!
… the magnificent involvement –
Yes!
&nbs
p; Are you on his side, Edward? Has he talked you around? Has he worked his magic? Is it admiration, Edward, or confusion? Are you overwhelmed? Is it fear?’
And Ted had said –
‘Does it have to be a question of taking sides?’
Taking sides?
Pshaw!
That was such… such…
Playground behaviour
And Dewi had shaken his head, and he had looked at him, sadly –
Like he’s never looked at me before –
Hang on
Hang…
Isn’t that because he’s never actually looked –
Never actually seen me before now?
Is this what it took?
To be visible?
And Dewi said –
It’s like bloodsports, Edward, or prostitution or public executions. It’s something that you instinctively take a side on. Look into your heart, Edward. Read what’s written there.’
And Ted had looked (in all sincerity). And he saw –
A pond
In the summer
Heat sizzling on the algae
Releasing the sour scent of kelp
Angry spinach
Sticking to his fingers as he swished a limp hand…
As he…
Hmmn
– he saw nothing in particular.
Ted slid his tongue across his upper plate –
Bubbles from the fish rising to the top
The occasional water…
– and that was it, really –
The occasional water snail…
– that was –
Fin
Ted flipped himself back into the present. He found himself fingering his tie (mentally re-processing the neat lines of hand-stitching). He licked his lips, relinquished his grip, weaved his ten fingers together on his lap (feeling that reassuring callus on his index finger), jiggled his shoulders, stretched his neck, gazed over briefly at his table setting. He was missing –
A dessert spoon
He peered around. Everybody else had… had…
No pudding for Ted
He sank back down into his chair. Lowered his head (as if saying grace) and rested his chin (like a golf ball upon its tee) onto the hard, neat knot of his tie –
My poor back
In agony
He and Arthur were less ‘sat’ at that table, more ‘sunk’ (like two well-hammered tent pegs) into a couple of old-fashioned deck chairs which Katherine had dragged inside from the back conservatory upon Ted’s arrival (no comment offered on the fact of Dewi. Not a smile, a frown, a wisecrack. Just a quiet –
A howling
– indifference).
She’d looked on keenly as Ted’d battled to set the chairs up (refusing to let the others help him), clucking her tongue sarcastically with each more clumsy attempt, finally chastising him roundly –
Ah
So this is to be my punishment
– then shoving him aside and taking over herself (if she’d had sleeves she’d have rolled them up), instructing Arthur –
Since when did these two get so tight?
– to time her, and setting both chairs up at just under…
‘Five seconds, per,’ he said, deftly tapping the glass on his watch-face with his finger.
The chairs –built for lounging –were so low that only their occupants’ heads and necks were visible above the table-top. Katherine and Dewi perched primly on stools which –as the fates decreed –were just fractionally too high (Dewi, at the cutlery drawer end, couldn’t fit his knees under comfortably, so sat sideways, tipped –as was his preference –towards Ted; conspicuously ignoring the now diminutive Arthur).
It was 12.15 a.m. Ted silently thanked the Lord that he’d rung on ahead (crossed himself, inconspicuously).
Katherine snorted, for no apparent reason –
Did she just see?
Dewi’d had him over a barrel. Either they promptly returned to Katherine’s aid –as he touchingly described it –with the help of Ted’s handy house key (Dewi’d known she wouldn’t let him in if he tried to gain access the traditional way. She could recognise his ring. It was actually quite uncanny), or the agency’s bathroom door would remain unhinged, as, doubtless, would Pathfinder, on uncovering the extent of Ted’s wrongdoing the following morning.
Even so –warning or no warning –Katherine was still clad in only her underwear, with a tea towel (decorated in gypsy caravans –one approaching, one in retreat, a barge, a shire horse, a watering can and a calendar: 1994) tucked into her bra. The towel was newly stained at its centre.
Ted was no expert in these matters, but there were definitely the voracious marks of sex all over her (bite marks, scuff marks, suck-marks, finger-prints, general but unspecific wear and tear) and she exuded (even up against the stink of burnt poultry, chinchilla pee, cigarettes, apricot brandy) an exquisitely piquant post-coital aroma.
In the corner, on the sideboard (Ted could only see over there at a stretch from his painfully reduced position) he noted that Arthur was successfully re-energising his computer –
Fast worker, eh?
Dewi re-adjusted his knife and fork into their more traditional positions, straightened his spoon (Katherine –apparently not looking, but patently still seeing –groaned under her breath. He flinched) and then silently followed Ted’s eye-line. He stared at the computer for a long, long while. Then he pointed towards it.
‘What’s that?’ he asked (with all the quizzical moral zeal of a four-year-old child at the public zoo on espying a fully aroused male gorilla approaching an unsuspecting female from the rear). It was the first time he’d actually spoken (they had been in situ now for almost half-an-hour).
‘It talks,’ Katherine exclaimed, kicking Arthur under the table (as if she was now the child, but visiting a science lab, where Dewi was being held hostage as a creature of experimental interest).
Arthur –ignoring the kick as best he could –glanced over to the sideboard. ‘It’s my computer…’ he said, sounding suitably non-plussed –
What is this?
The Stone Age?
‘It’s just recharging.’
‘What’s it for?’ Dewi asked (still talking to Ted, ignoring Arthur).
‘Computering, you imbecile,’ Katherine snarled, ‘what else?’
Good Heavens
– Arthur cleared his throat, anxiously –
A whole shit-load of hostility at work here, apparently
A further silence.
‘Who is he?’ Dewi asked (Ted again –and his timing so exquisitely snail-like that even the agent felt his hackles rising). Dewi tipped his head fractionally in Arthur’s direction (just to make sure), ‘and what’s he think he’s doing here?’
Nobody answered (not least because no one could actually remember Arthur’s name). Arthur himself was struggling… the sex had been… had been…
Bewildering
No
No…
Luminous
No
No…
Nu-minous
(Uh… Was that it?)
‘Who is he?’ Dewi repeated, this time using his thumb (hitching it rudely in Arthur’s direction) and addressing the question directly to Katherine.
He’d crossed a line –Ted could tell, Art could tell –but nobody knew what that line was, precisely, or what crossing it meant.
Katherine stared back blankly (her eyes as bold and empty as a cuckoo’s conscience) then turned to Ted, ‘This is stupid. I’m ravenous. Should we get started on dinner?’
‘I love you, Katy,’ Dewi murmured.
Oh God
Arthur raised his brows, stared at his crotch, chewed on his lip. Ted sank down even lower into his chair. Katherine stood up, grabbed her glass, turned it over, picked up the jug of water close by, stepped back, and poured an exact glassful onto the floor.
Then she placed the jug back down again, walked to the cooker (stepping daintily through the mes
s), grabbed an oven glove and opened the door.
They all watched, in unison, as she bent over –the stool’s curved wooden edge pinkly printed onto the lower segment of her bottom –removed Wesley’s casserole and carried it over.
Arthur cleared his throat. He remembered Dewi –with a spectacular clarity; in technicolor, in 3D –from the fight in the bar. Dewi’s left fist, in fact (currently resting like a flesh-rock on the table-top) was very slightly grazed across the knuckle –
And I just screwed her on the tiles?
Was I off my…?
‘I’m Arthur,’ he said, ‘Arthur Young. I’m…’
How to explain it?
Which side to take?
How to avoid… To…
‘… I’m a… I’m actually a… a charity worker.’
Wow
They all turned to look at him.
‘To be fucked out of charity in my own kitchen,’ Katherine eventually mused, placing down the casserole pot and lifting the lid, ‘that’s got to be a first.’
Dewi stood up, leaned over the table (Arthur flinched), picked up the water jug and poured himself a glass. He drank it. Still towering above them. Seven huge glugs; his prodigious Adam’s apple bobbing like a locomotive piston.
‘Tell a lie,’ Katherine continued, grabbing a ladle for dishing up, ‘Ted actually fucked me three times out of charity in October last year. I forced you to,’ Katherine cuffed his cheek fondly with the ladle, ‘didn’t I, darling?’
Arthur suddenly began talking. Off the top of his head. Whatever he could… whatever came to…
Had no…
No long-term…
No…
… whatever he could dish-up-serve-present at such short notice… Like a kind of –
Socially-ambivalent free-association
– totally arbitrary mental ratatouille –
Tomato, onion, egg-plant, courgette…
‘I don’t know if you’re familiar with a man called Jonathan… uh… Routh,’ Arthur cracked his finger-joints –with relief –on remembering the name –from the book –on the bedside table –in the boat –a few hours before, ‘he was one of the… uh… the first… uh…’
Dewi sat down again, abruptly.
‘He was actually –or he claimed to be –one of the foremost practical jokers of the second half of the last … uh… the last… uh… century. He was behind some awful television programme called… called… called something like… uh…’
Behindlings Page 33