The Biggerers

by Amy Lilwall

  ‘Right, well…’ Susan huffed. ‘All of this is just…’ Then stood nodding and dancing her eyes.

  The woman looked Jinx and Bonbon up and down for another couple of seconds before turning and leaving. ‘I think they’ve got him into the van,’ she called to her colleague from the bannisters then walked back and stood in the doorway.

  ‘I’m going down to the doctor.’ He looked at Jinx and pointed at her with his pen. ‘Do you think she’ll need a session too?’

  The glasses-woman shook her head. ‘She’s in good hands; we’ll check on her in a week or so. Just bring the boy.’

  The man strode towards the door. Jinx wriggled and scratched but Susan held on to her. The woman turned from the bannisters and followed the man to the top of the stairs.

  ‘No!’ shouted Jinx, in a voice so high and so well aimed into Susan’s ear that she jammed a finger into it, trying to loosen and pierce the bubble that formed over her hearing. When she looked up, the two technicians stood in front of her, staring at Jinx.

  The woman looked startled for a moment before resettling her eyebrows and letting her mouth say: ‘I’m afraid that…’

  Susan rubbed at her deaf ear. ‘What?’ She turned her head the other way to try to listen with the other ear.

  ‘We’re going to have to take her away.’

  A vision filled up Bonbon’s head; a table made of something that smelled like it felt, old and strong, was covered in big squares of paper like the one she’d found in Blankey’s garden. It all made her feel as if as if this had already happened, as if she’d worried about being separated from Jinx before… Suddenly, she wanted to cry. The hand that belonged to these eyes inside her head, the eyes that looked at the table, wielded a thing that had made all those funny markings; the exact thing that she’d been looking for earlier in the kitchen. Panic grew out from her like two enormous wings that protruded from her back and dragged over her shoulders so heavily that she thought she would never get up again. They were going to take Jinx away… They were going to take her away. Bonbon sat forward in Susan’s arms. No way were they going to take her. No way were they going to separate her from her Jinx. She raised her hands and smacked them together twice.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ said the woman.

  Clap-clap!

  ‘Do you want me to take Jinx away?’

  Clap-clap!

  ‘Do you want to come too?’

  Clap!

  The woman looked at Susan who watched silently, still squeezing her ear.

  ‘We’ll have them back to you within the week,’ she said.

  * * *

  The long grass buzzed and tickled; feet stuck out into it from a spotty blanket island that Watty had tried to cover in a feast-like spread, but quickly realized there wasn’t enough room for all of them and the picnic. ‘I can’t believe you brought a vase of geraniums,’ laughed Isabel. They ate quiche and drank cider and Jasper took turns between trotting after cows and sleeping. Watty almost ate a wasp that decided to drink his blackberry jam. ‘He was eating it; you can’t drink jam.’ Afterwards, they paddled in the stream, seeing who could throw the furthest and trying to catch fish with their hands. Isabel was the only one to catch one. A minnow that looked more like a salmon writhing between her fingers. They got home as it was getting dark, lugging clanking bottles and cutlery, Watty and Drew with crowns of dandelions and daisy bracelets, Isabel with one huge dandelion upturned on her head. They unpacked the remains of the picnic and decided to have a glass of single malt in the garden where they watched the sunset with next door’s cat who made herself a den between Jasper’s front paws. ‘This is nice,’ whispered Isabel, wrapped in a tea-towel. ‘We should do it again tomorrow.’

  That night, Drew dreamed of those words as dogs and gunmen stormed the house, dragging them from their beds and throwing them into the stream, which grew into a river, the cows watching and wading into its depths before turning into hippos that jostled for a piece of human or dog. Only Isabel continued to sleep in her bed; so small that nobody had found her. She would wake up alone, thought Drew.

  A smartphone blinked away to itself on the coffee table, a little telephone symbol glowing in the bottom left-hand corner.

  * * *

  They’d arranged to meet here. How weird to be here looking for her and knowing for sure that he was going to see her because she’d agreed to come here.

  He’d have to hurry up, though, poor little Suzie. He’d left her lying on the sofa with her eyes sometimes closed, sometimes staring towards the floor. ‘I’m so angry, Hamish!’ she kept saying. ‘Why do the people always get beaten? It’s not even the government or, or a dictator or something… It’s these companies that have become so big and so powerful that they behave as if they’re the law.’ She’d looked up at Hamish who was stroking her hair. ‘Did you hear the way that woman spoke to you?’

  ‘I’m not a psychiatric nurse, Suzie…’

  ‘Yes, but even so, you knew that the man needed professional help because of… because of what you do.’

  ‘I knew that he needed professional help because I am human, Suzie. Didn’t you think the same thing?’

  Susan looked at her thumb and chewed on its nail for a moment while she thought about this. ‘I wasn’t really thinking about the man, I just wanted to get upstairs.’

  Hamish nodded. ‘I have to go,’ he said, shifting position so that he was more ready to stand up.

  ‘Really?’

  He nodded again.

  ‘Did you call Mrs Lucas’s daughter?’

  He nodded a third time, not wanting to open his mouth and set off another round of questions. Clock hands ticked in his ears; he was going to be late.

  ‘Is she coming?’

  He kissed her on the head and stood up, answering as his head got further away from hers. ‘She’s at the hospital with Mrs Lucas’s husband; apparently he’s decided to opt for the euthanasia.’ He put his hands in his pockets and looked down at her. ‘She’ll be along afterwards.’

  ‘Oh no… No, that’s awful… Does Mrs Lucas know?’

  A nod.

  ‘She must be in the depths of despair… Do you think that—’

  Hamish interrupted her by bending forward and stroking her cheek. ‘I’m going to be late, darling. But I promise we’ll talk about this later. If I were you I’d go round there… Take the ice cream.’ He called the last bit from the hall as he pulled on his shoes.

  Susan repeated the word ‘darling’ in her head as she got to her feet. That had sounded weird coming from his mouth. He could be so gentle when she was upset. Her feet found their slippers and she ran into the hall just as keys were jangled then silenced by a pocket. He was going to work. Such a hard worker, and then he’d go to Shepherd’s and fill his basket with things that would make her happy, so that they could spend the evening together, munching all kinds of goodies. Together. Together was good. What would she do if anyone took him away from her? She grabbed his arm as the front door opened, stood on tiptoes and kissed him under his jaw. He kissed an eyebrow and dashed off. She watched for a minute to see if he would turn around.

  He didn’t.

  He was in a hurry.

  There was no meeting in his office. The meeting was at Shepherd’s.

  Now, as he drove slowly past all the parked cars, looking out for hers, he remembered that he shouldn’t know what kind of car she drove, bugger! He sped up a little, searching for a parking space instead of her parked car. From the edge of his eye, he saw a fox tail bobbing out of an old white hatchback. His fingers drummed the steering wheel once, heavily, shaking out whatever it was that had started to pump around his body, making it all rigid and wanting to run as soon as he had seen her hair. ‘Park,’ he said aloud. Maybe that’s why Spanish dancers had castanets, or, or clapped their hands, so they could constantly let out a bit of that chemical that made fingers go all rigid. The car obeyed and as it reversed, she walked past, upright, her tiered skirt skipping about in the wind like
a child around its mother’s sensible legs. He tapped the steering wheel again before smirking at himself and opening the side door. Mustn’t say ‘Spanish dancer’, he thought as he got out of the car. Flamenco dancer. A dancing style could not use nationality to define itself. He locked the car and followed her. Sometimes nationality couldn’t even use nationality to define itself. His feet and hands felt strange as this chemical reached his extremities and couldn’t go any further, so it swirled in little circles. He held his hands out to the sides and shook them; then cupped them over his mouth and blew. This was ridiculous, why was he following her? He gulped a mouthful of air then spluttered, ‘Emma?’ He tried again. ‘Emma!’

  She turned around.

  He was sure that if he moved, he would fall over. Why was it all so different to seeing her in his office? She looked to the right then walked towards him.

  ‘Because every time you come here you fantasize about what would happen if you saw her,’ said his own voice inside his head. ‘What you would say if you saw her, what you would be doing when she saw you. You would be saving a child from getting run over or helping an old lady load up her car… You have conversations in your head with her during which you make witty comments that have taken you ages to plan. She laughs so much that you rewind the conversation and say the comment all over again. She finds you attractive. She doesn’t say anything when you grab her hand and run with her to your car. She finds you noble. She looks at you respectfully, yearningly, when you tell her that you can’t… That it wouldn’t be professional. She kisses you and you enjoy it, until you tell her that you can’t see each other again, that this has gone too far; that she must take her own personal development more seriously if she wants to help herself. Then you ask her to get out of the car and you leave and you hope that she will book another session, and in your fantasy she does…’

  She was in front of him.

  ‘That’s what’s so different about here,’ said his own voice inside his head, before flicking through every single sordid image that he’d ever dreamed up about her.

  ‘Hi,’ she said.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘What’s wrong, why are you standing there like that?’

  He couldn’t move, he’d wanted to say. Instead he said: ‘It didn’t go too well. I was… I was just working out how I would tell you that it didn’t go too well.’

  ‘You didn’t do it?’

  ‘Yes! No, I did do it.’

  She nodded, folding her lips between her teeth before looking around her.

  He followed her state. ‘We can’t talk here.’ Taking his keys from his pocket and turning away he said, ‘I’m parked just over there.’

  She followed.

  * * *

  Drew stumbled out of the bedroom, found the phone and swiped the alarm off. The blue missed-call box flashed up on the screen with a number that hadn’t been saved to contacts. Drew looked at it twice then blinked and looked again. Yep, it was him; he’d called three times and left two messages. Drew dialled his message inbox and listened.

  ‘First new message. Message received yesterday at seven fourteen p.m.’

  ‘Hi, Mark Hector here, um, Drew, I can’t stop thinking about our conversation the other day and, well, it ended rather abruptly. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind giving me a call back so that we can talk about this. I’m at home now, so… I’ll be in all evening.’

  ‘To return the call press three. Second new message.’ There was a knock at the front door. ‘Message received yesterday at nine seventeen p.m.’ Drew made his way into the kitchen as the second new message played.

  ‘Look, I really am a man who gets a bee in his bonnet. I would have liked to talk to you this evening but it’s getting a bit late now.’ Drew grasped the door handle and pushed it down. ‘I really feel like I owe you an apology. No need to call me back tonight, I’ll try again tomorrow. Or maybe I could come to the house? Well, anyway… We’ll talk tomorrow. Bye!’ Drew hung up and pulled the door open.

  ‘Hello, Drew.’

  Hector stood in the doorway. His lips looked weird, swelling across his face as if they’d been pinned to his nose and chin. His forehead stretched open those same piranha-teeth eyes that Drew had looked into every day for the best part of ten years.

  ‘Gosh… What are you doing here?’ Drew managed, puffing out his face with a twitchy smile.

  ‘These are for you.’ Mark Hector held a pot of roses into the space that separated him from Drew. ‘Won’t you take them?’

  ‘It’s really unnecessary… I… It’s been ages!’ Drew glanced past the doctor to the end of the drive. A navy blue car waited.

  Mark Hector followed Drew’s glance. ‘I’m alone. Won’t you invite me in?’

  Drew stepped outside, pulling the door so it was almost closed. ‘Of course, but… Is something wrong?’

  ‘Are you really wondering what I’m doing here?’

  ‘Actually…’

  ‘Because, with the best will in the world, I don’t think you are.’

  Drew snorted his eyebrows upwards.

  ‘You know my motivations, don’t you? If I could realize my lifelong dream, then coming to someone’s house with roses wouldn’t seem crazy at all, would it?’

  ‘I really don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  Mark Hector observed the gestures of this pyjama’d being; the way he tightened the cord on his dressing gown; folded his arms across his chest; scratched the end of his nose.

  ‘Just answer me one question and I’ll leave you in peace.’ He pointed one finger to the sky. ‘And it may be hypothetical.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Do you know how much trouble someone could get into for growing their own baby?’

  Drew cocked his ear. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘I’d just like to meet her, that’s all.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Come on, Drew… What if she’s ill? She has no birth certificate, she’s not registered in any of the schools around here…’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘She has no passport.’

  ‘Okay, I think you should go home now.’

  ‘She has no passport.’

  ‘Because she doesn’t exist.’

  The doctor looked at his shoes and rubbed his cheeks with both hands, stretching his lips inside out. The pink flap that joined his teeth to his gums leered taut and shadowy. ‘She was seen, Drew.’ Then: ‘Don’t you think I can’t tell when someone’s lying to me? Do you know how red you’ve gone? Have you seen your pupils?’

  Drew swallowed. ‘I’d like to be able to help you but this is making me feel uncomfortable.’

  ‘I’m not going to give up on this. You’re lucky that this time I’ve come alone. If I’d have pressed charges for theft…’

  ‘Theft?’

  ‘Of an embryo.’

  ‘You have no proof!’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. I could have been much more underhand than I’m being now.’

  ‘So this is nice harassment, is it?’

  ‘It is this time, yes!’

  ‘Are you threatening me?’

  ‘Call the police.’ He shrugged his shoulders and bared the gum-flap again. ‘Call the police and let’s see which one of us gets taken away. Because if it’s you, you’ll be gone for years and years and years. Wouldn’t you prefer that we work something out between us?’

  ‘Yes, he would!’ a voice came from just inside the door frame.

  Drew’s gaze flicked to the bottom corner of the barely open door. ‘Isabel, no!’ Drew hissed.

  ‘I don’t want you to be taken away…’

  Drew pulled the door to close it. Mark Hector slid his foot forward, wincing as the door slammed hard against it. He elbowed it open into the kitchen, eyes falling on another man tying up his dressing gown as he strode towards the scene.

  Mark Hector dropped his gaze. His mouth gaped. His body crumpled to its knees. ‘I don’t believe it,’ he whispered.

  Isabel peep
ed up at him between fuzzy strands of mousy curls, her arms wrapped around Drew’s ankle. As she spoke, the doctor sank lower until his elbows were resting on the parquet. ‘Please don’t take Drew away,’ she said as Watty crept up behind her and scooped her into the crook of his arm.

  ‘Don’t worry, Quail,’ he whispered.

  ‘Who are you, anyway?’ From Watty’s arm Isabel scowled down at the greying man in his pin-striped suit.

  ‘Ha!’ exploded the doctor. ‘It’s perfect, it really is just… And intelligent! Drew, it’s simply a… How did you…’ His voice closed up as his brain concentrated on what it was seeing. He felt his knees carry him forward to get a closer look. ‘How did you…’ She inched away as his hand floated down towards her. He caught it in time and shook out the fingers as if trying to get rid of whatever had made them do that. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  ‘Hello,’ said Drew at the same time. All three faces looked up. Drew stood with a mobile to his ear. ‘Yes, police please.’

  ‘Drew, hang on…’ Dr Hector rose onto his knees. ‘What are you doing?’

  He pushed his free ear closed with a fingertip and turned away. ‘Yes, hello? I’m frightened for the safety of my daughter.’

  Watty closed his eyes and covered them with his free hand.

  Mark Hector pulled himself back onto his feet. ‘Don’t do that, Drew. I’ll just go.’

  Drew squinted as a faraway telephone voice demanded his attention.

  ‘What, and that’s it?’ he replied.

  Dr Hector shrugged. ‘We’ve got each other by the balls.’

  The telephone voice persisted. ‘It’s okay, erm… We’ve found her,’ Drew said before hanging up the phone. ‘You’re frightened of being investigated.’

  ‘No… I’m frightened of losing this opportunity, completely.’ He let his eyes rest on Isabel. ‘Do you know how many years I’ve spent trying to make a being like you?’