The Hook

by Raffaella Barker

  ‘What have you been doing then? Surely you could buy food, couldn’t you?’

  Danny laughed, spreading mustard thick on sliced bread, eating half the ham before it reached the sandwich. The microwave flashed green in the corner, its rhythm in tune with the tick of Jessica’s old kitchen clock. Danny put the kettle on, throwing teabags into mugs he found dirty in the sink. His hair was matted like a baby’s at the back; at the front it wedged behind his ears and appeared to have grown shaggy and much longer in his few days’ absence.

  ‘You wouldn’t believe it, Chris. You just wouldn’t believe what fun we’ve had,’ he kept repeating.

  ‘Well, tell me, for God’s sake, or else shut up.’ Christy was tired and irritated; he was behaving as if she wasn’t there, slamming round the kitchen dropping crumbs and making a mess.

  She found herself trailing behind him, a cloth poised to mop every surface he touched. As they passed the sink in their odd formation dance she threw the cloth down.

  ‘No, I’m not doing it. Danny, make sure you leave the kitchen tidy. And please tell me what you and Mick did tomorrow.’

  She turned the main light in the kitchen off as she went out, leaving Danny humming to himself and opening cupboards in the Martian half-light of the microwave. It was almost dawn when she heard him going to his room.

  Danny slept half the next day and then stayed in his room packing for college. He wouldn’t talk to Christy or Frank; he just whistled and turned up the radio when they went into the room.

  Mick rang early in the evening. Christy listened to him pouring out blandishments with a sour expression on her face.

  ‘Sweetheart, I’ve missed you. I want to see you now. When do you finish work? I’ll pick you up and take you somewhere special.’

  ‘No, don’t pick me up. I’ll come to you at about seven. See you then.’

  She put the phone down, a wave of savage pleasure rushing through her because Mick was still talking when the line went dead. It was better to be in control to see him, and she needed to be able to drive herself away after the confrontation.

  The hours crawled. A truck arrived with one hundred nine-inch trout. Christy helped haul buckets from the tank to the water’s edge and heave the slithering fish into the lake. The surface bubbled and churned, opaque and uninviting, and the smell of pond weed and sticky trout hung at the back of Christy’s throat making her want to gag. Three men and Christy emptied the huge tank, ladling stunned trout into buckets then immersing the fish in the shallows and waiting a second while they swayed in their plastic cavern before flicking ribbed tails and gliding, stately as long boats, into the depths of the water. Christy wondered if they explored the whole lake, following silk undulations of mud into every depth and shallow, or if they took their freedom for granted and remained within a few feet of the edge, complacent in the knowledge that there was space should they want to discover it. Dragging more and never endingly more fish to water, she thought her back might snap, the surface of the tank sank so slowly. She clenched her teeth and carried on, her mind empty of anything save determination.

  Danny and Frank were going to Lynton that evening to meet Maisie at a Chinese restaurant for Danny’s last supper before returning to college.

  ‘Bring Mick and come along,’ urged Frank. ‘It’s not often we’re all together now.’

  Christy was kneeling by the washing machine, sorting through damp socks and shirts for her tights which Danny had washed along with his clothes.

  ‘I’ll see what Mick wants to do.’ She leant further into the machine so Frank couldn’t see her face. ‘I might come on my own,’ she added casually.

  The sun was low on the horizon as she drove to Mick’s cottage and the sky blurred pink around it. Christy turned the music up loud in the van and slowed down as she passed a series of water meadows where the sunset filled the valley and always lifted her spirits. A few cows grazed at the far end, their black-and-white bulk standing out bright and clean against the blur of the hedgerow.

  Something huge descending caught her eye on the other side of the road and she slowed the van by a gap in the hedge and stared. A helicopter hung in the air as low as the green-gold branches on a nearby oak tree. She looked back over her shoulder and two more swooped over the hedge and veering crazily lined themselves up facing the first one in the small roadside field. Christy turned off her music and the car engine and opened the window. Her hair billowed and whipped across her face as the blades of the three helicopters drummed up a mini cyclone. She was so close she could see the faces of the men in the cabins turned towards her. For a second she was terrified. I saw them so they’ll have to kill me. They’ve been sent to kill me. They’re going to machine gun my car. She wound up her window and the roar dulled a little. They increased their throttle power and their engines whined as they began to move. Christy couldn’t drive on; she was part of this scene, the only spectator.

  Like giant dragon-flies above a pond the helicopters darted back and forth between one another above the swirling grass, their camouflage turned to green and silver scales by the sun. Their unwieldy bloated forms assumed weightless grace as they dipped and turned, curtseying beneath their whirring blades. Then one by one they turned their tails in to the centre of the group and departed in different directions, still low as they sped away across fields until they were blobs, angry and black on the skyline. Christy was left alone again on the road, adrenalin surging, grinning insanely in a state of breathless excitement.

  The front door of Mick’s cottage was open but access was barred by a large motor bike parked with its front wheel wedged against the step. Christy heard voices as she slid past it, creeping into the cottage with a childish desire to see them before they saw her. A leather jacket sprawled inside the door, the back swollen like the curve of a turtle shell. Christy couldn’t resist planting her foot in the middle of it. The voices came from the kitchen. Another man was here with Mick and they spoke fast, Mick’s accent stronger than she had heard it before, echoing the other man’s voice so they gabbled in unfamiliar rhythms as if they were speaking a foreign language.

  She knew she must not interrupt them and froze in the sitting room, one foot lifted for her next step. The kitchen door opened and a head appeared. Christy took in white-grey skin bound above and below by ginger stubble, an earring and an expression of malevolence before she swayed and lost balance, crashing to the floor with a squawk.

  ‘Hey, Mick, c’m ‘ere now, will you? There’s some girl lyin’ on your floor.’

  Mick came through.

  ‘It’s OK, Lennie, it’s my girlfriend. Hello, sweetheart, are you all right down there now?’

  Lennie’s black boots filled Christy’s field of vision, cracked leather and mud spilling down into the floor so he was rooted near her face. She got up and standing made him even larger, black-leather trousers, black shirt absorbing the light and the space in Mick’s living room, taking the air away from Christy and draping her in darkness. She moved closer to Mick, safer when his arm was around her.

  ‘This is Lennie, he’s an old friend from Ireland come to stay for a few days.’ Mick squeezed Christy’s shoulder, forcing her to smile and say something pleasant.

  Christy wished she hadn’t come. She could smell hostility from Lennie, seeping out like old beer and wet ashtrays as he flicked red-lashed eyes over her.

  ‘I didn’t know you were busy, Mick. You said we could do something this evening. I’ve got to go and meet Dad and the others in town, I just wanted to see you first, I’ve missed you.’ All the wrong things were coming out of her mouth, Lennie was watching her like a snake and she wanted to go.

  She pulled away from Mick, fumbling for her car keys in her bag. They weren’t there. Flushing pink, she poured her make-up and her address book on to the table with the empty cigarette packets and redundant lighters which collected in the bottom of her bag until it broke and she bought a new one. Neither of the men spoke; Christy leant over the debris of her possess
ions with her back to the room, as exposed as if she were naked.

  ‘Maybe you didn’t bring them out of the car.’

  Mick went out to look, Christy swept her arm across the table, netting everything back into her bag, rushing so she could go and not be alone in the room with Lennie. Something clinked in his hands.

  ‘You’ll be wanting these now, won’t you, girl?’

  She turned to face him; her keys glittering on their chain dangled from his forefinger.

  ‘You should be taking more care of them, you don’t know where they might go otherwise.’

  ‘You took them out of my bag, didn’t you?’ Anger extinguished her fear and she grabbed the keys from him and strode out of the cottage. ‘I’ve got them now.’ Her voice wavered and when she reached the car she had to lean on it because her limbs were collapsing.

  ‘Good girl.’ Mick opened the driver’s door for her then closed it again when he noticed her face. ‘What’s the matter, sweetheart? I can’t take you out, I’ve got to catch up with Lennie tonight.’

  The concern in his voice plucked away her self-control and she burst into tears. Shaking her head she pushed past him into the car and drove off, crashing the gears.

  The plate-glass windows of the Chinese restaurant were a pink smear of condensation and silk lanterns when Christy arrived. Frank, Maisie and Danny had started eating. Christy made for the lavatory before they saw her and in the green-tiled Ladies’ she patted away her blotches and tears on a damp roller towel and feathered new mascara on to her eyelashes.

  Maisie and Danny sat facing one another arguing. Frank leaning back on his chair discussed racing with the waiter, oblivious to the congealing rice in his bowl; none of them looked up when Christy joined them. She read the menu glancing sideways at her family, a smile creeping on to her face as she realised she was enjoying her invisibility because it meant she was a part of them. If Mick had come their entrance would have been so different: people always noticed him and were drawn to him. Christy teased him about it; she said he had animal magnetism. She liked the phrase without really knowing what it meant.

  Danny had noticed her; he turned to her in appeal.

  ‘Chris, Maisie can’t see what I’m talking about, but I’m sure you will.’

  Christy ate a prawn cracker, tipping her head back to expose her neck, long and pale, soft like the underbelly of a fish.

  Danny grabbed her arm to make her listen.

  ‘I was telling Maisie about these bikers I met with Mick. They were great guys, well, some of them. I thought she’d be interested as she and Ben have got that heap of rusting metal, but she says they’re all wasters.’

  ‘Well, they’re not quite the same as Ben, are they?’ Christy took some of her father’s rice, waving her chopsticks with the grace of a conductor at a poignant stage of a performance.

  Maisie laughed.

  ‘No, they are not,’ she said. ‘A bunch of hairy hooligans. You shouldn’t get mixed up with them, Danny.’

  Danny banged the table.

  ‘I’m not mixed up, I just said they could come and look me up when I’m back at college.’

  Frank pointed his forefinger at Danny.

  ‘You’re teasing your sisters, and doing yourself no good, my boy. You think you can mess around with these people, but you can’t.’

  Masie interrupted.

  ‘You are a student, you know. Not a character in a road movie.’

  Danny pushed his chair back.

  ‘God, you’re so narrow-minded. Anyway, I was with Mick all the time, and he can tell good from bad. He liked them.’

  The waiter arrived with a slithering mountain of noodles and Frank changed the conversation; he was glad Danny was returning to college the next day. Christy added a description of the helicopters she had seen, building her story up to mask her resentment. Danny seemed to have a better relationship with Mick than she did now.

  Danny departed to college taking with him a small black kitten provided by Bloater the trout-farm cat. Christy cleaned his bedroom, mowing a path through the dust which had gathered over the summer. The dart board next to the window fell down when she brushed past it. Swearing under her breath, Christy bent to pick up the papers Danny had pinned to it. Among the litter of train tickets and cut-out football reports she noticed some money, a fifty-pound note. It was scribbled on in biro and craning towards the window she read the message: ‘Keep this to remind you of salad days.’ It was written in square blue capitals. Christy poured over it, turning the note over and over hoping for further clues. She was curious, recalling Danny’s conversation of the evening before. Maybe the bikers had done some drug deal with him. Christy was angry with herself for thinking such a thing. Danny wasn’t interested in drugs, there must be another explanation. She finished cleaning the room, dusting and spraying the surfaces until the air reeked with the purging scent of polish.

  At lunchtime she went out to the office, taking over from the girl who came to do book-keeping. From her window she saw brown billows from the smoke house. Frank was in there with a delivery of salmon. Christy hated the smoke house: its hot woody fug made her head ache; and she didn’t like the withered flesh of smoked fish. She turned her chair so she was facing the main lake, a silver chalice in the grey autumn light, edged with copper trees; leaves drifted in wisps on the breeze. No one was fishing today and the lake was still save for a few ripples along the shore where some young moorhens swam, up-ending and vanishing and reappearing minutes later somewhere quite different. Christy doodled in her notebook, putting off the moment when she had to start writing an updated price list for restaurants.

  The telephone rang. It was Mick.

  ‘It’s time we had some fun together, sweetheart. I’m going to take you to London, would you like to go on Wednesday?’

  Swivelling her chair, Christy leaned over the desk, twisting her hair round her fingers, smiling at his nerve, his belief that she would jump when he said jump. And of course she did.

  ‘I’d love that. We could stay with Aunt Vaughan. I’d like you to meet her.’

  Mick was hardly listening.

  ‘I can’t see you till then, sweetheart. I’ll be doing some business with Lennie and all that. You arrange things and make a list of what you want to buy. I want to give you a present for my birthday.’

  ‘But it’s not for ages.’ Christy was surprised he mentioned it, even though she had been planning his present for a couple of weeks already.

  His birthday was nearly a month away. She had written it in her diary in pink felt-tip the day he told her, embellishing the dot over the ‘i’ with a flower trailing hearts. She had quite wanted to un-write it when she was angry with him, especially as her diary was the one on the desk in the office and anyone could see it, but the pink pen was luminous and no amount of scribbling could hide her doting artwork.

  ‘I know, but I think we could celebrate a bit in London. Who knows where we’ll all be in a month’s time. I’ll be seeing you on Thursday then.’ Mick was gone.

  Christy knew she was never going to ask him if it had been him at the race meeting; she wasn’t even going to ask him about being massaged by Linda. There was no need: he wanted to be with her, he was taking her to London.

  She rang Aunt Vaughan and went to find Frank. He had stormed out in a fury earlier when Maisie telephoned to announce her plan to marry Ben in the spring. Christy was sceptical, Frank was not.

  ‘She’ll do it just to annoy me,’ he complained, heading off to the smoke house with his sledge hammer.

  Clad in an old boiler suit and his yellow building-site helmet, Frank looked like a coal miner when Christy found him in a crack between the smoke house and the garage it abutted. He was wedging bricks using mechanical sideways movements because there was no space for him to bend forwards. He was also wedged and Christy laughed so much she could hardly hear him.

  ‘Thank God you’ve come, Chris. I got the sledge hammer stuck in here and when I climbed in to get it I f
ound that I couldn’t get out again.’

  ‘Why are you building yourself in then?’

  Frank was separated from Christy by a knee-high wall. She had a sudden picture of him trapped in the tiny space, bricks up to his chin and then above his head, closed into a cell of his own making.

  ‘I thought the smoke house might work better if there wasn’t this gap behind it, so while I was stuck I thought I’d get on with it. Here, give me a hand.’ He climbed out, leaning heavily on Christy to keep his balance.

  The gap was narrow, and in half an hour they had built their wall high and haphazard.

  Frank took off his helmet and wiped his sweating forehead.

  ‘That should do for now. We’ll see if it makes a difference.’

  Christy was certain it wouldn’t but knew better than to say so. All around the farm there were collapsing examples of Frank’s handiwork. He lined ditches with old fertiliser sacks, he mended fences with coat hangers and string and the washing machine with Superglue. None of it worked for long, but Frank was on to the next project before the binder twine unravelled on the last, and met accusations of slovenly work with bluster.

  ‘It’s broken? Nonsense, I mended it, there’s nothing wrong there now.’

  It was left to Christy to follow his path of construction around the lakes with pliers, hammers and proper materials, making good his chaos.

  Back in the office Frank made tea and unhelpful suggestions about Christy’s price list. She often worried about what would have happened to Frank if she hadn’t been there. Maybe he would have married again. She worried that her presence might be preventing this but she could not imagine him running the trout farm without her. They had learnt together and were a team now, more than Frank and Jessica had been because they shared the responsibility of the family livelihood. Christy shied from the notion that she had replaced her mother; it was a burden she knew she should not have to bear. Anyway, it was not so, for although Jessica had never known this new world, it belonged to her, built by Frank out of grief and loss and as much a monument to her as her grave.