by Neil Cross
As the van passed by, the driver turned his head and looked Kenny in the eye. Then the van accelerated, turned right and sped away.
Kenny didn’t know what to do.
Had something just happened?
He stood there, feeling foolish, squinting in the low morning sun.
He took a few tentative steps. He walked, then he stopped. He waited, feeling wrong, until he saw the kid enter the corner shop at the end of the road.
Then, relieved, Kenny turned and walked in the other direction, towards the bus-stop.
When Thomas Kintry emerged from the corner shop, the van was back. It was waiting for him across the road.
The driver was crossing the quiet street. He said, ‘Mate – what’s your name?’
‘Thomas.’
‘Thomas what?’
‘Thomas Kintry.’
‘Right. I thought it must be you.’
‘Why?’ said Thomas Kintry.
‘I’m sorry, mate. There’s been an accident.’
‘What kind of accident?’
‘You’d better come with me.’
The man was breathing strangely. When Thomas hesitated, the man licked his lips and said, ‘I’ve been sent to take you to your mum. You’d better get in.’
‘That’s all right, thanks,’ said Thomas Kintry.
‘Your mum might die,’ said the man, trying to lead Thomas Kintry by the elbow. ‘You’d better hurry up.’
‘That’s all right, thanks,’ said Thomas Kintry again. He politely tried to shake off the man’s rigid hold.
‘You’ll get me in trouble if I go back without you,’ said the man. ‘The police sent me to get you. You’ll get us both in really bad trouble.’
Thomas Kintry didn’t speak. He just pushed on. In one hand, he had a Spar carrier bag containing some semi-skimmed milk and a packet of pickled onion Monster Munch.
The man grabbed Thomas Kintry’s skinny shoulder, trying to turn him around and force-march him to the van.
Thomas Kintry tried to run, but the man’s grip was too strong. The man began to hustle Thomas Kintry to the van, half-carrying him.
Thomas Kintry wanted to shout out, but he was too embarrassed. He knew you shouldn’t shout at grown-ups, no matter what they were doing. He was a very well brought-up child.
A middle-aged shopkeeper called Pradeesh Jeganathan was watching all this from behind the window of United Supermarkets. He saw the man try to scoop up the skinny little boy and carry him to the van that was parked on the corner. Mr Jeganathan could see blue smoke issuing from the van’s exhaust pipe. The man had left the engine idling.
Mr Jeganathan took up the rounders bat he kept under the counter. The handle was wrapped in bright blue duct tape. He ran out, his exit announced by the familiar tinkling of the little bell above the door.
Mr Jeganathan called out, ‘You! Mister! You! Van man!’
The man let go of Thomas Kintry.
Thomas Kintry dropped his carrier bag and ran. He ran all the way home.
Mr Jeganathan ran to the van, wielding the rounders bat and roaring at the driver.
Mr Jeganathan got there just in time to whack the man across the shoulders with the rounders bat. He tried to wrestle the man to the floor, but the man – in a panic – bit down on Mr Jeganathan’s cheek and then his ear.
Bleeding, Mr Jeganathan was nevertheless still able to smash one of the van’s brake-lights before the man pulled away at speed.
Mr Jeganathan stumbled back to the shop, clutching at his bleeding face. First he called the police. Then he had his third heart attack in as many years.
That night, on the local news, the police made an appeal for witnesses. So Kenny, who had been raised always to do the right thing, went to the police.
They didn’t use sketch artists any more. Specially trained officers used facial composite software.
So while Inspector Pat Maxwell looked on, chain smoking, a young police officer asked Kenny to pick out separate features of the driver’s face: eyes, mouth, nose. These components would then be assembled into a face.
The police were patient, but Kenny was overwhelmed by choice. Soon, he realized he couldn’t remember what the man in the van looked like.
Sensing his anxiety, Pat took him to the pub and said: ‘You haven’t let anybody down. If you want to know the truth, those composites have got an accuracy rate of about twenty per cent. That’s the thing with eyewitness testimony. It’s just not very good.’
She told him about a study at Yale University. She said: ‘These well-trained, very fit young soldiers were put face-to-face with an interrogator – a really aggressive bastard – for forty-five minutes.
‘Next day, each of them was asked to pick out the interrogator from a line-up. Sixty-eight per cent picked the wrong man. That’s after forty-five minutes of face-to-face contact across a table in a well–lit room. You saw this bloke, the man in the van, for two seconds. Three seconds, tops.’
‘But what if he’s out there now,’ said Kenny, ‘at the wheel of his van, looking for another little boy? What if that’s happening because of me?’
‘It’s not because of you, or because of anyone else. It’s because of him.’
Kenny knew Pat was right, but not in his heart.
The man who tried to abduct Thomas Kintry was never caught.
Kenny had never stopped thinking about it.
6
And now, all these years later, Kenny stood outside Mr Jeganathan’s shop, with its green and gold signage. It stood on the corner of a street of bay-fronted Victorian terraces.
It sold newspapers and onions and coconut milk and it smelled of fresh coriander and dusty sunlight. Kenny stood with his back to the picture window, looking across the street – at the spot where the attempted abduction of Thomas Kintry had taken place.
When he opened the shop door, a bell tinkled.
Behind the counter was a very beautiful young woman. She had a pierced nose and was wearing a baggy sweatshirt. She was sitting on a stool behind the counter, looking bored.
When she turned sideways, Kenny saw she was perhaps eight months pregnant.
He said, ‘Hi.’
She said ‘Hello’, and made ready to sell him some tobacco or a Scratch card.
‘I’m looking for Pradeesh Jeganathan. Is he around at all?’
The woman stopped. ‘Dad passed away, I’m afraid.’
‘Oh God,’ said Kenny. ‘Oh, look. I’m sorry.’
He was about to say something else but was interrupted by the door opening and the bell jingling. An old Rastafarian entered and picked up a shopping basket. Kenny felt the moment slipping away.
The woman gave a sad smile for his obvious bewilderment, but there was delicate, curious flexing between her eyes.
Kenny knew that, to her, anything that happened across the road a decade before belonged to the past. It could never be real to her in the way it was to him.
He thought of Mr Jeganathan, who had beaten him to where he was going.
He said, ‘Thanks, anyway’, and walked out of the door with the tinkling bell and to the Combi. It was parked in the spot where the white van had parked, idling at the kerb.
Kenny drove to an industrial park in south-east Bristol. He passed through the gates, got lost, reversed, asked for directions, then parked on a concrete forecourt outside a specialist glass factory.
He walked to the reception, which was in a Portakabin erected outside the plant. He stood at the glass and stainless steel desk and asked if he could speak to Thomas Kintry.
It had been so easy - all it had taken was a visit to Thomas Kintry’s Friends Reunited profile, which gave this glass factory as his place of work. Then to the ‘About Us’ section of the glass factory website to get the address.
He hadn’t even been nervous - but he was now, waiting on the sunny forecourt as Thomas Kintry stepped out from beneath a wide aluminium roller door, darkness and noise behind it, and came loping towards him.
Then he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and said, ‘Can I help you?’
Kenny was moved by the softness of Thomas Kintry’s voice; until that moment, it had been difficult to link this sauntering man with that skinny little boy.
Squinting in the sun, Kenny offered his hand. ‘I’m Kenny Drummond.’
Thomas Kintry shook it, polite and bewildered. ‘Have we . . .?’
‘Not really.’
Thomas Kintry smiled in confusion. Kenny wished he’d prepared something to say. He said, ‘I’m here to apologize. Sort of.’
‘For what?’
‘We never actually met. But I was there – the morning it happened.’
‘The morning what happened?’
‘That man . . . in the van. The one who tried to—’
There was a moment. Thomas Kintry’s eyes softened, then brightened - and he understood. He said, ‘You’re joking me.’
‘No.’
‘This is about that time on Bowers Road? When I was little?’
‘Yes.’
‘Were you there?’
‘Sort of . . .’
But Thomas Kintry was working it out, replaying it behind his eyes. ‘So you’re the man I bumped into, right? On the doorstep? Ken, was it? Dennis?’
‘Kenny.’
Thomas Kintry clapped once and pointed. ‘Kenny!’ Then he said, ‘And you’re here to what . . .?’
‘Say sorry.’
‘For what?’
‘I couldn’t remember what the man looked like.’
‘Shit,’ said Thomas Kintry – exhilarated by this unexpected connection between them. ‘You can’t have seen him for more than, like, two seconds or something. All he did was drive past.’
‘But I’m a portrait painter. I’m good at faces.’
They stood there in the ringing sunlight.
Thomas Kintry grew calm. ‘I couldn’t remember what he looked like, either. They had this specialist. But I couldn’t remember anything, except he was wearing this really cheesy pair of trainers – like Asda trainers, yeah?’
Kenny laughed at that; they both did.
Then Thomas Kintry said, ‘You’ve got nothing to feel sorry for.’
‘I let you down. You were just a little boy. I could have done better.’
‘But even I don’t think about all that, not any more. It was such a long time ago.’
Thomas Kintry wore a small, gold crucifix around his neck and now his hand went to it. He tugged it left and right on the chain. His expression changed. ‘Come here a minute.’
Kenny followed him, stepping out of the sunlight and away from the glass factory. Thomas Kintry led him to a low brick wall with grass growing through cracks. It wasn’t far from a specialist doll’s house manufacturer that had recently closed down.
Thomas Kintry sat on the low wall. He sat on his hands, like a child. ‘The sun was hurting my eyes.’
Kenny knew it was really to get out of the way of inquiring workmates. Thomas Kintry looked at Kenny and said, ‘Are you okay?’
The gentle concern in his voice made Kenny helpless. He sat there for quite a while, blinking. He didn’t know what to say.
‘My mum,’ Thomas Kintry told him, ‘when she gets really down, she churns over the past. All the things she thinks she did wrong, all the people she let down. There was this one Christmas when the turkey came out too dry; she still goes on about that bloody turkey, what a miserable Christmas day it was. And this is, like – 1993 or something. But she still goes on about it. My nan was the same.’
Kenny nodded.
In a lower, more emphatic voice Thomas Kintry said: ‘I don’t blame anyone that he was never caught. Not the police, definitely not you. All you were was an eyewitness. It never even occurred to me that you’d done less than you could. The only one to blame was that bloke, whoever he was. And even he’s not someone I think about very much.’
In the lull that followed, Thomas Kintry polished the crucifix softly between thumb and forefinger and was far away. Then he laughed and let go of the crucifix. ‘And I bet Mr Jeganathan from the corner shop made him think twice about trying it again.’
Kenny smiled, thinking about it. ‘So. You doing all right for yourself?’
‘I’m doing all right, yeah. Can’t complain.’
‘What is it you do?’
‘Architectural glass. Commercial, domestic, whatever. You should come, have a look round. The stuff we do, it’s unbelievable.’
‘How’d you get into that?’
‘I don’t know, really. My nan had this piece of Bristol blue. You ever seen Bristol blue glass?’
Kenny nodded. It was a deep bright blue, the blue of old medicine bottles.
‘My granddad told me, it’s because the glass had cobalt oxide and lead oxide in it. You hold it up to the light, it’s lovely. So it was then, I suppose. I liked doing science, I liked doing art. It just seemed to go together.’
Kenny nodded.
‘You want to come in, have a look round? I’ll give you the guided tour.’
‘Thanks. But I’d better let you get back to it.’
‘You’d be welcome.’
‘That’s all right. I’ll let you get back to it. But it was really nice to meet you.’
‘You, too,’ said Thomas Kintry. ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’
‘I’m sure. I’m fine.’
Thomas Kintry toyed with the crucifix for a moment, as if uncertain. Then he said, ‘It matters to me that you came here today. Thank you.’
He offered his hand and Kenny shook it – warmly this time, the way good friends shake hands, or father and son. Kenny wanted to say thank you in return, but couldn’t. Instead, he just nodded.
Then Thomas Kintry turned and walked away, overalls tied about his waist, water bottle in his hand, sunlight glinting from the gold chain round his neck.
At home, Kenny sat for a long time with the list in his hand, the folds of it sweat-stained and translucent.
It read:
Mary
Mr Jeganathan
Thomas Kintry
Callie Barton
Kenny thought about Callie Barton. Some time passed. Then he went to the wide, low portfolio drawer, the same drawer from which he’d taken the portraits of Mary. Alone in the bottom was a dusty buff envelope. From inside it, he withdrew an old class photograph.
It showed three rows of children wearing the haircuts and clothes of the late 1970s. Kenny was there, centre middle row, wearing a zipup cardigan. He was grinning and his dandelion hair stuck up at the crown.
Bottom right was a skinny girl. She wore a navy-blue jersey, flared jeans, Dunlop Greenflash trainers, a pageboy haircut. She was smiling for the camera. That was her.
7
Kenny had been a small, cheerful child who wore strange clothes – they’d been rooted out in CND jumble sales and from the tables in the Spastics’ shop and were always just wrong enough: flowery shirts with extravagant double cuffs, noisy checked bell-bottoms, plastic sandals.
The kids at school ridiculed his strange appearance and his weird smell and his jaunty demeanour. They called him Happy Drummond. He didn’t know it was an insult.
The kids at school also said Kenny’s dad was a loony – that he went down the greengrocer’s naked but for an army-surplus greatcoat and orange flip-flops.
His dad was Aled Drummond. Kenny’s mum was Carol. She died when Kenny was two, which is when Aled began his struggle with lunacy, alternating bouts of depression with long spells of exhilarated, perfect elation.
His body was sapling-narrow – skinny hips, long legs with knotty knees and big splayed feet. He was carrot-topped and beak-nosed and, in his madness, grey-bearded and regal – like a refugee in his military greatcoat and hobnailed boots.
As
far as Kenny could remember, it had always been the two of them. Sometimes their privacy was compromised by a social worker. She was quiet and earnest, a good woman who meant well and wanted to help.
She began to visit because sometime in the mid-1970s, it became clear that Aled was suffering from what was still called manic depression. He lost his job in the Housing Department, went on Sickness Benefit, then became a full-time potter, setting up a wheel in the little garden shed. After the winter of 1977 he moved the wheel into the back room, by the kitchen, where it was warmer.
At the crest of his mania, Aled would talk – riff, really; it was like listening to the most delirious kind of jazz.
‘Of all the boys in all the world,’ he’d say, in his big Welsh voice, much too big for his spindly body, ‘of all the children who ever were, God and fate – all of history! the entire world! – brought you to me, like Moses in his little basket.’
There were hours and days and weeks of this. It seemed to Kenny that Aled’s madness was accompanied always by bright, clean sunlight.
Their little terraced house in Fishponds was a chaos of halfrandom paraphernalia – potter’s wheels and painty sheets, splattered knives, cracked mugs and handmade plates. It was never clean.
Aled bought things they couldn’t afford. He had a passion for Matchbox cars, books about King Arthur and Welsh mythology. They went on train trips to Toy Collector fairs in Birmingham, London, Stratford-upon-Avon. Aled took him to places on the bus – the zoo, the museum, galleries, art collectives, performance workshops, the Glastonbury Free Festival at Worthy Farm.
Or they’d just stand side-by-side in the back room, happily syncopated, Kenny slapping gouache on to reused canvas until the good light was gone and the night drew near; Aled on his stool, forming pots from clay like God forming Adam.
Aled read aloud to him – stories of Arthur and Merlin and Camelot; the Red Book of Hergest; the Book of Taliesin. He told him of Culhwch, a hero cursed to marry none but the radiant Olwen, daughter of a terrible giant. He taught Kenny the qualities required by a hero.
When it was dark, Kenny watched TV and dozed. Sometimes Aled hunched next to him, scribbling epic poetry. When Kenny woke in the morning they would both still be there: Kenny gummymouthed and blanketed in a trench coat that smelled of pipe tobacco and sweat; Aled transcribing lunatic dictation in small, busy letters on reams of typing paper which later he’d gather in armfuls and shuffle like cards into what seemed like some semblance of order. He hunted out connection and coincidence and – finding them – saw the hand of Providence.