"Would I? Do you think he might have had some reason?"
"No reason about it, chum. More like he's mad."
A Chinese family dodges past me on the pavement, and I wonder if they'd be unable to see me in any detail even if they weren't all busy chattering. "Angry, do you mean?" I suggest to Scrawlrat.
"Sick in the head. He even goes for people that are as mad as him. Some other head case fell down an escalator, and this twat seems to want to think he made him. Same as someone that collapsed in a loo at the pictures, and another one died in a lift at the station. Don't tell me he's got that many grudges. He'd need to have them against the whole world."
"What do you think is behind it, then?"
"Weren't you listening? I told you, he's got maggots upstairs. If you ask me the net's responsible for half his kind. Lets you say anything you like even if it's not worth saying and nobody with any sense would want to know."
I'm amused by how much this enrages me and by storing up my rage behind a smile. "So am I to believe you're a writer yourself?"
"Better had, chum. I am."
"Will I find you on the rack?"
"There's some shops stock me. Len at We're Still Left does for one. The big places, all they want is the big names their publishers pay to make big."
"Let's hope something adds to your fame quite soon." I indicate a porcelain Oriental cat that nods and nods in the window of the shop we're passing. "Perhaps that means your luck is on the way," I suggest. "Tell me something you're proud of."
His frown looks as if it's straining to squeeze a thought out of his brain. "I'm proud of quite a lot, chum."
"Give me a title, then."
"Get Your Fortune Told Here. That's my latest. Heard of it?"
"I don't think I've ever heard anything quite like it before. What might it be about?"
"A feller that's not happy in his job. He goes to a woman at a fair and she tells him three things that's going to happen to him."
"I expect you'd like to be able to see your future too. So what does she tell him?"
"There's somebody at work whose job he wants. She says he'll get it, and then he gets a text saying he has."
"Well, that's uncanny. Whatever else?"
"She says he'll get the supervisor's job on top of that, and when he goes to work that's what they give him."
"Someone isn't satisfied, though."
Scrawlrat scowls as if I've stolen his inspiration. "He tells his wife and she says he's worth better."
"Because the clairvoyant has promised that he'll have the boss's job."
"I said that, didn't I?" Scrawlrat searches my face, if he isn't searching for it, before admitting "Any road, she did."
"And what does the wife do about that?"
"Has the boss round for dinner and then she gets her feller to batter him to death on his way home. Only he makes it look like a druggie did it, and he kills them as well so they can't talk."
"That won't be the end of it, though."
"One of the fellers whose job he got starts to suspect, so he has to kill him. Then the wife goes mad with all the murdering, and then—" Scrawlrat glowers and says "You won't want to buy it if I tell you any more."
We're in sight of the arch at the entrance to Chinatown. Under the dull sky its multicoloured scales look dusty, and beyond it a tenement block faces a few restaurants. "Shall I tell you the rest?" I ask him.
"Think you can?" This sounds close to a challenge to a fight. "Go on, then," Scrawlrat says. "Give us a laugh."
"Our hero goes back to ask what's in store for him now. And the clairvoyant tells him he's completely safe unless, oh, let's say unless the trees in the park in front of his house start to walk about. Which is fine till the police start watching the house and using bushes for cover. They don't just hide behind them, they bring some and use them to creep up on the house. And she could tell him he's safe from anyone who's been born like a human. You'd feel safe if you thought that, wouldn't you? Only—"
"I'm about to give him yet another hint when Scrawlrat says "How'd you know all that? You must have read my book."
"Perhaps it was a lucky guess, it could just be lucky. Perhaps that's my name."
"That's the sick bastard's name on that blog." For someone who thinks he's a writer Scrawlrat is dispiritingly deficient in imagination, and he confirms it by demanding "Is that what you're on about? Did you know about it all along?"
"You surely can't believe you're the only one who knows."
He grimaces as he strives to make me out, and then he glances around the deserted street in front of the tenements. "Are you trying to pretend you're him?"
"Now why do you imagine anyone would do that? Don't you think they would be afraid he'd come to find them?"
"If you're trying to put the wind up me, chum, you've no chance," Scrawlrat says and squeezes his eyes thin. "Hang about, though. Have you got his other name?"
"Does Newless sound familiar?"
"Sounds like something somebody made up when they couldn't come up with anything better. What's it meant to mean?"
"I really couldn't tell you if I cared to." I'm infuriated by the question, even if that's how I relish feeling. "Maybe I was new," I tell him, "but I'm the longest way from less."
Perhaps Scrawlrat sees I've stopped being playful, because he retreats towards the tenement block. "Stay away from me, whatever your name is," he says, raising his voice. "Come any closer and I'll be calling the law."
The empty concrete balconies send back his flattened shout. It seems to provoke an outburst of Chinese in one of the locked restaurants, but I can tell this sounds useless to him. As he hurries up the enclosed steps to the fourth floor of the tenements his echoes clatter after him. He may well imagine that's me, but there's no need. His keys are clanking in his hand before he's halfway up the steps. He jabs a key into the lock on a nondescript door, rattling the plastic number that dangles from a solitary screw. The single digit shakes again as if it's betraying the nervousness he tries to hide by slamming the door behind him.
The front room of his flat looks out on the balcony through a window smeared and spotted with old rain—at least, it peers through the unevenly skewed slats of a cheap Venetian blind. Yesterday’s clothes sprawl on a sagging couch, or perhaps they aren't even so recent an outfit. Beyond an open door to a perfunctory hall a kitchen bin gapes, unable to swallow a takeaway carton. Scrawlrat tramps to a table that squats in front of the couch. A laptop lies low on the table, next to a mug stained with dregs of coffee, which has printed circles like a disintegrating Olympic emblem on the dull wood. He plugs the laptop into the wall and sits in a chair, having cleared it of a book with his name and a borrowed photograph on the shiny cover. So much for his dislike of stealing material—apparently images at large online don't count—and I wonder if he reads anyone besides himself. Yes, he reads me, and I watch him plant the computer on his knees and bring my thoughts onscreen. Might it be diverting to watch him read about himself? The notion that he might see these very thoughts makes me feel as if I could be in two places at once. It's a disconcerting sensation, too much like losing substance, and so I step forward to show myself.
I come as such a shock that his entire body jerks as if he's been electrocuted, and the laptop crashes to the floor. "You," he cries, or perhaps it's the start of an insult until he finds his vocabulary doesn't run to any words sufficiently vicious. "Look what you've made me do."
Apparently the threat of damage to his creations on the computer distracts him from the larger situation, "It won't affect me," I assure him. "No great loss."
By now his position has caught up with him, and he blusters "How did you get in?"
"More easily than you. I was waiting by the time you did."
"I said what I'd do if you didn't stay clear," he declares and grabs his phone from the charger beside the chair. He must be clinging to his banal notion of the world—that all he has to do is call the police. His bravado doesn't convince either
of us, and I only have to take another rapid step towards him to make him jerk from head to foot again, flinging the phone out of his slack hand. "Help," he cries as if the police may yet hear him and be capable of rescuing him. "He's got in."
His words aren't worth hearing—his range of language seems to be shrinking by the moment—but it amuses me to say "You'll be pleased to hear you've inspired me. Shall I tell you how?"
As I stoop to his computer he lurches at it, out of the chair. I wouldn't have counted on his being so predictable, but no doubt his kind are. I watch him grab the laptop to protect his tales, only to realise that it's still plugged in. I let him seize the plug and then close my hand around his, crushing the fingers and more than doubling his grip. "What are you—" he screams as the plastic splinters before shattering in his grasp. Now he's holding the metal prongs that he has tugged partly out of the socket, and even his resulting performance is trite—a mass of uncontrollable convulsive jerks that don't improve much on the ones I kept startling from him. I lean my face around his to watch him grimace and dribble and stretch his eyes wide as though he's straining to make out the contents of mine. "Nothing to see," I inform him, and soon there isn't in his, though not before I have to watch so many spasms they grow tedious. Once he slumps to the threadbare carpet and lies still, if not even sooner, I forget about him. He wasn't much more than a distraction. Someone else earned my attention before him.
TWENTY-FIVE
A convulsion that seemed to shake not just his entire body but the house around him wakened David. It felt like sensing someone too close to him in the dark. He had to find Stephanie next to him across the chilly mattress and put his arm around her before he could blink his eyes open. Nobody was visible beyond her in the room, which grudgingly began to gather dimness on its outlines, but was anyone behind him? He raised his unsteady head and twisted it around, having let go of Stephanie so as not to rouse her. The rest of the room appeared to be deserted too. Perhaps he had been wakened by nothing but a dream, which had already retreated into the depths of his mind. It wasn't why he slipped out of bed and sneaked out of the room.
He'd lain awake for hours, battling a compulsion to check his phone, before he'd drifted into an uneasy sleep. The urge hadn't even been rational. The phone had been switched on and within reach, but it had already been too late to expect a message from either of his parents—at least, unless his mother's state had grown much worse. As he crept downstairs he consulted the phone, but it was devoid of messages. Nevertheless he felt the situation had changed, and he made for the computer.
The cramped glow between the curtains let him cross the front room without switching on the light. As he switched on the laptop he found himself putting a wish if not a prayer almost into words. When he went online he saw that the computer was listing the Newless blog as a favourite place. It was the opposite, but he called it up at once and saw that a new fragment had been added to the list of opening sentences: I can see him... He was hoping he knew who that meant as he brought the entry onscreen.
He'd read just a few sentences when he began to feel he needed to remember how to breathe. "You bastard," he muttered, and "You shit," as well, but he grew mute and dry-mouthed less than halfway through the entry on the blog. Once he'd finished reading he stared at the screen until the last words on it began to flicker and crawl. The sun had started to hint at its presence behind Mrs Robbins' house by the time he heard Stephanie's footsteps overhead.
As he fumbled to shut the computer down she came to the top of the stairs. "Where are you, David?"
"Making us coffee," he called and saw the Newless blog hide in the dark of the screen.
"You don't sound as if you're there."
"I'm saying I'll make it now," David said from the hall and willed her not to wonder why he'd been in the front room.
"Let me. I've got more time than you while I'm off work."
He thought he'd satisfied her curiosity until they met on the stairs, where she said "You weren't calling your mother so early, were you?"
"I might have been thinking of it, but you're right. Best to let her catch up on her sleep if she can."
In the bathroom his reflection eyed him like a conspirator, and he felt like one who'd been kept in ignorance of far too much of the plot, The thin jabs of water from the shower made his mind feel separated from his body; he could hardly even judge the temperature on his skin. As he towelled his face roughly, hoping to rub it more awake, he saw his face keep peering over the towel in the mirror. It reminded him of a childish game played by somebody unable to grow up, and it seemed to parody his secretiveness as well.
Downstairs Stephanie met him with a mug of coffee and a remark she had plainly been waiting to make. "You're still worried about her, then. I knew there was something in the night."
"I tried not to disturb you."
"I know when something's wrong. I'll only wonder what it is if you try to hide it." As David parted his lips despite having no idea what he might say, Stephanie protested "Is that all you want for breakfast?"
He'd hardly even been aware of taking an apple from the bowl, but he began to chop it up in a dish. "I don't want to be late for work," he said, only to wonder how he might behave there.
"I'll make us a good dinner while I'm waiting to hear from someone."
Even this troubled his nerves. "Who?"
"Your boss or mine."
He doused the slivers of apple in yoghurt, from which they protruded like ribs. Surely only a writer would have found the resemblance significant, but it didn't help David to crunch the tart segments and swallow the flavourless fluid. As an excuse for leaving half of the concoction he said "I'd better go."
Stephanie waved at him from the front door as he climbed into his car. She shut the door when he reached the road, and at once, like a reflection that had grown unsynchronised, the front door opposite theirs swung open. Before David had time to accelerate, Mrs Robbins trotted to the pavement. "Mr Botham," she called.
He was tempted to floor the accelerator, but he halted by the kerb on her side of the road and watched her put on bulk in the mirror. As he lowered the passenger window he thought it best to say "I'm just off to work."
"Yes, I saw you being seen off, Mr Botham."
"Nobody's objecting, are they?"
"I'm sure nobody would dare."
For just an instant he wondered if she was afraid to antagonise him, since she was standing back some feet from the car. No doubt this let her look at him without having to stoop. "So what can I do for you?" David said.
"I thought you might have been to see me."
"I haven't." He was almost too unnerved to ask "What made you think I had?"
Her stare looked as if it was stressing the distance between them. "I said I thought you might."
"Why?" As he heard how offensive this sounded he grasped the answer to his own question. "Sorry, I meant—"
"If you visited Mr Dent as you said you would."
"I did go. He thanked you for asking after him."
"You talked to him, then. Someone who went yesterday said he didn't seem to know she was there."
"He certainly talked to me," David said without wanting to remember.
"He recognised you, did he? You must mean something special to him."
"I'm sure I don't," David said, which only made him feel more desperate. "Why would I?"
"I couldn't say, Mr Botham, but it sounds as if you must for him to know you. The lady who was there was told his brain is permanently damaged, and it's likely to get worse."
"I'm sorry. Sorry to hear it," David said at, he feared, unnecessary length.
"It's a great shame, but I suppose we'd have to say he did bring it on himself." As David tried not to think about that Mrs Robbins said "Do give him my best wishes when you see him."
"I don't think I will be." Her disappointed look drove him to add "Seeing him, I mean."
"You're the one he knows. He seems to count you as more of a fri
end than anybody else round here."
"Only because of his brain," David said and almost followed this with too much of the truth. "You ought to see if he remembers you. Now if you'll excuse me, I really need to be at work."
Soon enough she dwindled in the mirror and shrank around the corner that took him past Dent's house, but the guilt she'd bestowed on David travelled with him. "Brain damage," he heard himself muttering. "Happy with that? Think you've done enough?" That silenced him, but not for long. "Why don't you do what you're asked to?" he mumbled as he drove into the station car park. "You know who I mean. Payne's the name."
All of this felt too much like a denial, a ruse to avoid confronting what the Newless blog revealed about his workmates. Or was that as distorted a version of the truth as the account of his encounter with the evangelist and Norville had been, if not—as he surely hoped—more warped? On the station platform dead leaves like scraps of the past skittered around the feet of dozens of waiting commuters. A train was due in eight minutes, but as the digit on the matrix sign lost a number of segments he heard a tinny chant repeating the Frugogo slogan. When he pulled out the phone he saw that the call was from his mother.
At once he was nervous of being overheard. He hurried to the far end of the platform, which was deserted apart from a few sodden leaves that were struggling to crawl about beyond the station canopy. "I'm here," he said urgently. "Yes, it's me."
"I wasn't expecting anyone else." His mother sounded not far from amused, close enough to let him hope. "Well, you could have been one other person."
"Who?" Not quite in time to head off his disquiet David realised "Steph, you mean."
"I don't need to mean anyone but her, do I?"
"You know you don't." The exchange was working on David's nerves. "How are things?" he said, the most he seemed able to risk.
"They're fine so long as you both are."
"They are," David said, bracing himself for whatever he was about to hear. "So you—"
Think Yourself Lucky Page 16