Behindlings

by Nicola Barker

  ‘Uh…’

  The guide lifted his arm and inspected his right wrist (although there was patently no watch on it). ‘Damn,’ he cursed, ‘is it that time already?’

  He wasn’t much of an actor.

  ‘You’re not wearing a watch,’ Jo said.

  ‘Okay…’ he swallowed and then looked up into the sky as if struggling to call something to mind, ‘just quickly, then. Herbie wants me to tell you,’ he counted each statement off onto his fingers (in case he should forget), ‘that Doc’s playing a double game. That he’s started keeping stuff back. That he’s got too involved. That he’s gone a little crazy. That he wants to spoil it for the rest of us… sorry…’ he chuckled, raising his brows, ‘the rest of them.’

  As he chuckled he made eye contact. He had cold eyes. And they weren’t chuckling. Jo’s expression remained impassive. The guide shrugged, ‘Don’t even ask me what this all means…’ There was something engagingly feminine about him.

  He lifted his right hand and checked his non-watch again (Jo presumed it was just some kind of crazy tick), ‘You’re not heading into the centre of town by any chance?’

  ‘Nope.’ Jo shook her head.

  ‘Oh. Okay. It’s just…’ he scratched his chin –the patch of acne there, ‘I was meant to be heading home hours ago but Herbie will insist on careering off at every given opportunity…’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Jo was frowning, ‘I don’t…’

  ‘God it’s nothing,’ the man interrupted, ‘I’m Herbie’s temporary careworker. Someone just happened to mention that you were in the nursing profession…’

  Jo slowly began walking again. He paused for a second and then slowly walked with her.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘but I’m not… I’m on sick leave. I’m… I’m…’ she swallowed down her pride, ‘currently suspended.’

  Hard to say it

  ‘A touch of depression.’

  That was easier

  The guide didn’t quite seem to hear her. ‘I had someone due to take over from me over twenty minutes ago,’ he persisted, ‘they’ll be waiting outside the library in a silver car…’

  ‘And?’

  Jo stopped walking, faced him.

  ‘And I thought if you were in the area –and had a moment to spare –that you might nip on over there and tell him where I am. He’d be very…’ he tipped his head, ‘very appreciative, I’m sure.’

  Jo smiled, sympathetically, ‘I already explained that I’m going back to my car. I’m waiting for the AA. My car’s way over…’

  She pointed towards her car, then radically altered the direction she was pointing (almost hitting the guide, the swing of her arm was so spectacular) –

  Oh Lord

  ‘Over there.’

  ‘Of course.’

  The guide shrugged. He looked depressed.

  ‘Can’t you just phone him?’ Jo asked.

  ‘Forgotten the number,’ he shrugged again.

  ‘Can’t Shoes go and find him, then?’

  The guide pooh-poohed this, ‘It’s nothing. It’s fine. Don’t worry. I must’ve…’ he smiled, ‘misconstrued…’

  He put his hand up to his hair, pushed his fringe back from his forehead. Used his left hand. As he raised his arm and the sleeve of his coat fell away, Jo saw that he was wearing a watch on that left wrist. A good watch. Swiss Army.

  ‘Guess I’ll see you later.’

  He turned and jogged back to join the others. Jo remained where she was for a moment. She shook her head, slowly –stopped –gazed blankly ahead of her, frowned –then shook it a second time, for a little longer.

  The little kid –the boy –Patty –

  Was that his name?

  – had taken up residence on the pavement directly opposite Katherine’s. He looked, Ted thought –if possible –even grimier than he had done the day before. He was devouring a cheese and salad sandwich, its plastic wrapper casually discarded in the gutter, along with most of the tomato and most of the cheese.

  ‘Where’s Wesley?’ the kid asked –his gums white with bread –as Ted crossed the road in front of him.

  ‘I have no idea.’

  Ted tried to sound civil (he knew what a potential powder-keg the kid could be).

  ‘Prick,’ the kid murmured darkly –although barely audibly. Then, ‘Stupid damn wanker.’ Then (Ted stiffened his back, prepared himself)…

  ‘Ginger winger.’

  He made it to the opposite pavement, smartly eclipsed Katherine’s conifers, turned into the driveway and drew to an abrupt halt.

  Bo was leaning in Katherine’s porchway, smoking a fag, casually perusing her paper.

  ‘Another loyal member of your ever-expanding fanclub, eh, Ted?’ he grinned.

  ‘Bo,’ Ted muttered, ‘it’s you.’

  ‘Ever the one for stating the fucking obvious,’ Bo responded, deftly re-folding the paper and shoving it through Katherine’s letterbox, ‘and it can’t be any coincidence, can it, sir, that your appearing here this morning happens to coincide with a series of rumours about a certain celebrity-troublemaker having taken up temporary residence at this address?’

  ‘Uh…’ Ted tried to think on his feet but they were already fully engaged in the act of supporting him. So he went with his gut, instead.

  ‘No,’ he said.

  This wasn’t quite the answer Bo’d been expecting (a pathetic attempt to lie would’ve been marginally more satisfying). His mono-brow rose, fractionally. His black eyes glimmered.

  Unfortunately this wasn’t quite the answer Ted’d anticipated delivering, either –

  That damn gut

  ‘Because…’ Ted continued (perhaps ill-advisedly), ‘because Pathfinder set it up, late yesterday evening. Very late. After all that trouble in the bar…’

  ‘And was this before,’ Bo rubbed his wide jaw, speculatively, ‘or after that same charming lodger physically assaulted his wife?’

  Ted stared at him blankly. ‘Wesley’s married?’

  ‘Oh God,’ Bo bit on his knuckles, faux-dramatically, ‘and you actually hold down a responsible position in this town, Ted?’

  Ted frowned (was this question purely rhetorical?), then he nodded –slowly –almost imperceptibly (on the off-chance that it wasn’t).

  Bo threw down his cigarette, crushed it underfoot and turned to the door.

  ‘I thought we had an agreement,’ Ted said (his gut working overtime; transcending his head), ‘I thought we’d agreed that you wouldn’t be bothering Katherine with any of this mess.’

  ‘The Bean girl,’ Bo smiled, caustically, ‘needs to vamoose. And who better to persuade her?’

  ‘How does the Bean girl enter into any of this?’ Ted asked, frowning confusedly.

  ‘If I can’t get what I want from the monkey…’ Bo shrugged, letting the second half of his sentence unfold silently, mid-air.

  Ted stared at him.

  I’m waiting for life to start –he thought –just the same as the rest of them. I’m not the original picture anymore. I have become a duplication of the real me. I am a copy.

  ‘Just go to the office, Ted.’

  Bo made a dismissive finger-walking gesture, then turned to the door and lifted the knocker. Ted did as he was instructed, obligingly, then suddenly –and without warning –rotated back sharply to his former position.

  ‘You were never any good at tennis, Bo,’ he said.

  Forty

  He hadn’t thought it possible he could feel this tired. The Solitaire had played its part. Thirty or more games. Her idiotic banter. She’d developed a series of theories about the peculiar mind-set of his computer –

  Tosh-eeee-baaa

  – she kept muttering

  Tosh-eeee-baaa

  She thought this particular game’s designers were incorrigible bastards.

  ‘These people are just scoundrels,’ she’d say, ‘I salute them.’

  Then she’d salute (quite traditionally) but integrating a v-sign into the
second half of the gesture. She plainly found herself terribly amusing.

  ‘It’s Solitaire,’ Arthur kept interrupting her. ‘They don’t have to do anything to make it interesting. It was interesting before someone put it onto the machine. It’s only chance that keeps you playing. Nobody can design chance. It just happens. It’s random.’

  She wasn’t convinced. ‘Of course they can design it. That’s the whole point. They have to keep you interested. It’s their job.’

  ‘It’s just random,’ he repeated.

  Just random

  ‘When I grow up I’m going to…’ she paused for a second, considered – gazed over her shoulder towards the deer. Brion yawned. Then farted.

  ‘… Work with animals,’ she concluded, flatly (all emotional declarations of Game Designing instantaneously evaporating). ‘That’s my destiny.’

  ‘Do you have a computer at home?’ Arthur asked, trying – unsuccessfully – to tie a sock around his wrist using just his other hand and his teeth.

  ‘Give it here.’ Sasha put the computer aside, grabbed the sock and tied it around, firmly. ‘You’ve made a mess,’ she observed, pointing to his trousers. A dark stain covered the knee-area, but the sight of blood didn’t seem to bother her.

  Arthur’s mind turned – for a moment – to the short-haired girl in the bar. The broken bottle. The slashes on her arm. He supposed – tiredly, idly – that through this wound he’d forged a kind of inadvertent kinship with her –

  Hate that thought

  It’s stupid

  Sasha picked up the computer and recommenced her playing. ‘I keep in touch with my dad through the Internet,’ she suddenly announced, ‘and nobody knows a thing about it.’

  Arthur’s head swung around – he’d been peering out through the door, listening to the groans of the boat above the tap tap of her fingers, ‘Do you?’

  She nodded.

  ‘So how does that work exactly?’

  ‘Easy. There’s a special site I can connect to which gives me up-to-date reports on everything he’s doing. Sometimes hour by hour.’

  She cleared her throat. ‘He works for a kind of Secret Service,’ she confided. ‘It’s all very hush-hush-hush.’

  Arthur mulled this over for a second (that endearing one hush too many), ‘Do you ever get to see him?’

  She nodded, cheerfully, ‘All the time. In pictures. And he has charisma,’ she peered up at him, proudly, ‘most people have to pay a bundle to get that.’

  She continued to gaze at him. ‘You have it,’ she said (a smiling vision of shameless insincerity).

  Arthur wasn’t taken in, obviously.

  ‘You’ve never seen him in person, though?’ he asked, already knowing the answer (wanting to knock some of the perkiness out of her – but failing, quite markedly, and feeling secretly relieved that he had).

  She shrugged her shoulders, ‘When it’s a question of National Security, people’s feelings don’t really…’ she paused, ‘damn…’ peered even closer at the screen, ‘I thought that’d be the Ace of Clubs. I don’t need another red four…’

  Arthur gazed at the screen himself. ‘Six on your seven,’ he nudged.

  ‘Do you have any children, Arthur?’ she asked.

  Arthur felt both surprised and infantilised by her using his name so confidently. He shook his head.

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  She gave him a perplexed look.

  ‘A boy?’ she eventually continued.

  ‘No. A daughter. A couple of years younger than you are.’

  ‘Does she live here? On this boat?’

  ‘No,’ he smiled, wryly, ‘she lives with her mother.’

  Sasha completed one game, then promptly began another. ‘Are you divorced?’

  ‘I was never married.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘She was…’ he paused –

  Preoccupied

  Lost

  Ruined

  Undone

  ‘She just didn’t want to. Not in the end.’

  ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Bethan. She was in love with somebody else. Someone she knew from before we met each other…’ he paused, ‘not in love, exactly… she just couldn’t… couldn’t get over the effect he had on her. She went a little bit mad. He made her feel differently. He invaded her.’

  ‘Sex?’ she asked, scowling.

  He almost smiled at this. ‘No.’

  Yes

  ‘One of the strangest facts of life,’ he murmured, ‘is that some people have more of an impact on you when they aren’t even there. As absences. Like your dad.’

  Sasha continued scowling. ‘I’m still not getting it,’ she said.

  ‘Well, when our daughter was born,’ Arthur tried to explain further, ‘Bethan became very… very preoccupied by her. That was all part of it – of the effect this man had. Our daughter was extremely ill. She thought it was all connected – that it was her… her punishment. Or a kind of justice.’

  ‘And was it?’

  Arthur scowled, ‘Yes… No…’ he fought with himself, ‘Yes.’

  Sasha’s eyes widened, ‘What kind of ill?’

  ‘Serious…’ Arthur said. ‘She gets…’ he struggled to find the word. She waited for it, patiently.

  ‘… im-im-imperfections,’ he said, then frowned.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘She gets… infections. Chest infections. She’s in hospital much of the time. She needs a big operation. I do a lot of fund-raising.’

  ‘How?’

  He paused, considered his answer carefully. ‘Walking,’ he said, ‘long distances…’

  Running

  He quickly cleared his throat. ‘Getting sponsorship.’

  ‘And is that enough?’ she asked brutally.

  Art’s eyes widened. He was cut. ‘No,’ he said, tightly, ‘it isn’t. I do some other things too, which help.’

  Sasha didn’t notice the tightness.

  ‘What’s her name?’ she asked, turning over a red King in the game and moving it into a gap.

  ‘Harmony.’

  ‘No kidding?’ She glanced up.

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t…’ he paused, couldn’t finish –

  Kid

  ‘Brion had an aunt called Harmony. Like the hairspray. But she broke her leg so my Grandad shot her. This was years ago, when I was still tiny. Of course I was devastated,’ she said, with a roll of her eyes, ‘I loved her…’ she paused – just like Arthur had – and groped for the word she needed, ‘to… to destruction.’

  Arthur frowned suspiciously at her malapropism.

  ‘To distraction,’ she corrected herself, smiling.

  ‘That’s…’ he said, his eyes focussing on the computer.

  ‘Do you see your daughter much?’ she persisted.

  Arthur didn’t appear to like this question.

  ‘When I can,’ he said. ‘It’s sometimes difficult.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ve been unwell myself. I have certain… obligations. Certain… interests that keep us apart.’

  ‘Same as my dad,’ she nodded, as if comforted by this thought.

  Arthur looked upset. He plainly didn’t like this comparison.

  ‘And do you have the same thing your daughter has?’

  Arthur glanced up, ‘Pardon?’

  ‘The illness?’

  ‘God no. No. I was a heavy drinker for a long while… for a long while after… I have a…’ he struggled, ‘a condition. It affects my memory. My short term… my kidneys.’

  ‘Yours is a tragic tale,’ Sasha announced portentously.

  Her eyes followed his, down onto the desktop. She gazed at the files which protruded from under the game she was playing.

  ‘I love Gumbles,’ she announced passionately, ‘I knew you were a friend when I saw that Gumble on your hat.’

  ‘What?’

  He frowned, putting his hand to his head, removing his hat, staring at it, blankly.
<
br />   ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘but this isn’t really…’

  My hat

  ‘Can I try it?’ she asked.

  She took it from him, inspected it closely, squinting at it in the darkness. ‘Yup,’ she said, ‘exactly like in the story.’

  ‘I’m not…’ Arthur murmured, ‘… not acquainted with it.’

  ‘Bottersnikes and Gumbles. S. A. Wakefield. He’s an Australian. My gran gave me a copy my dad once had when he was still a little boy. I keep it hidden under my bed.’

  Arthur was shaking his head, slowly, trying to comprehend what she was telling him.

  ‘There are two groups,’ she explained, needing no further prompting, ‘the Bottersnikes who have ears which turn red when they’re angry and who are very lazy but rule the rubbish dump just the same, and the Gumbles who are very squidgy and white and get shoved into jam-jars and tins and stored there as slaves until the Bottersnikes want to use them to do their bidding…’ she paused, ‘and the Bottersnikes say Foo! when they’re cross. They’re very funny.’

  He didn’t react to this. His mind was suddenly elsewhere…

  A rubbish dump

  The early 1970s

  One little boy was pushing another towards a disused refrigerator Shoving him inside there

  Closing him in

  Preserving him for ever

  He shuddered.

  ‘It sounds … in… interesting,’ he said, finally. His voice was hoarse.

  Sasha adjusted his hat on her head and then recommenced her play.

  The reindeer shifted.

  The boat shifted.

  ‘Do you keep other animals,’ Arthur asked, gazing tiredly over his shoulder, ‘apart from reindeer?’

  She nodded, distractedly.

  ‘What kind?’

  ‘Hawks. Birds of prey. Owls.’

  The computer commenced a high-pitched beeping.

  ‘Battery,’ Arthur said, taking the machine from her, using his bad hand to turn it off, clumsily.

  Sasha yawned – wide – making no attempt to cover it; her jaw snapping smartly shut like a tightly-hinged letterbox. ‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed,’ she said, ‘but we seem to be tipping back slightly.’

  ‘I hadn’t noticed,’ Arthur lied.

  She shuffled up closer to him, rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes.