by Jess Kidd
‘No, that fat agency bitch. She told me she would do for me the minute I misbehaved again. Jesus, she’s terrifying.’
I laugh. ‘Biba Morel?’
Cathal isn’t laughing. ‘She told me I was a dirty old bastard and if I put a toe wrong she’d have me banged up as quick as Jack Shit in a home for the bewildered.’
‘I doubt Biba Morel said that.’
‘She fucking did. Those same exact words. So I told her I’d make sure that there wouldn’t be a home that would take me.’ Cathal scowls. ‘I threatened trouble on a biblical scale.’
‘Of course you did.’
‘She said I had one last chance.’ Cathal looks at me in despair. ‘I could stay in my house but if she heard even a peep out of me she would personally come and sedate me with an injection right up my arse.’
‘You’re joking.’
‘I am not. She said she’d repeat it five times a day if she needed to. And there I’d be, propped up with all the other old people, dribbling peacefully in some corner.’ He lowers his voice. ‘A reformed character.’
‘You couldn’t have heard her say that.’
‘I could.’ His eyes widen. ‘I’ve got fucking ears, haven’t I?’
‘When then? When did Biba tell you that?’
He purses his lips. ‘That day you threw out all my cartons. She came round that morning, toting her syringe.’
My breakthrough day.
Cathal frowns. ‘She told me that if my idiot son was happy to pay good money to keep me in this hellhole, who was she to argue? She said if I wanted to live out the rest of my days compos mentis, I would put up and shut the fuck up.’
I sit down next to him and watch him bite his fingernails, making unsavoury noises with his dentures.
‘And you say Biba had a syringe?’
He nods, his face stricken. ‘She showed it to me. She opened her bag and it was all in there. She had this look in her eyes, like she was itching to stick it up my hole. If your woman next door phones the agency I’m done for.’
I am staggered. I wonder how many other clients Biba Morel has threatened and if the real secret behind my magic touch is a case manager with a loaded syringe.
‘Do you have Mrs Cabello’s cat?’
He grimaces. ‘I don’t.’
‘I’m trying to help you, Cathal. Do you have the cat?’
He begins to pat down his pockets looking for his tobacco. After a while he says, ‘It died, unfortunately.’
‘Oh, Jesus, what did you do with her cat? You killed it?’
‘I didn’t at all. Now why would I kill a poor little bald fecker like that?’ he roars, indignant.
‘Cathal, will you just tell me the truth for once?’
He extracts papers and a twisted nub of tobacco from his breast pocket. I watch him start to roll a cigarette.
‘Well now, it was late and I’d been smoking something.’ He smiles apologetically. ‘To help with the sleeping, you know.’
‘You were smoking . . . ?’
His smile widens. ‘Well, it wasn’t Old Holborn now.’
‘Jesus, Cathal—’
‘I looked up and in front of me was this apparition.’ He sucks at his teeth. ‘It was a fright to God. All boggle-eyed and wrinkled, just like the alien fucker in that film. Before I knew it, I’d given it a clatter.’
‘You gave it a clatter?’
He nods. ‘I did. With a broom handle.’
‘You clattered Mrs Cabello’s pedigree Sphynx cat with a broom handle?’
‘When I saw my mistake I buried it in the garden.’
‘Ah no—’
‘All Christian-like; I may have said a few words, even.’
I suddenly feel very tired. ‘Where did you bury the cat, Cathal?’
‘Of that, I’ve no idea, Drennan. I was motherless on skunk.’
I am standing in Mrs Cabello’s hallway with a gift box and an ingratiating smile. It takes her a moment to identify me because she is wearing sunglasses. Whilst she does, I stay very still and quiet because I sense she lives life close to the edge. An antique table the size of my flat runs the length of the hallway. Above it is a life-sized photograph of Mrs Cabello posing in gold thigh-high boots in a wide-legged power stance on a shagpile rug. A young and dynamic Mrs Cabello, caught in that irreducible moment – the one before she turned to demand more maraschino cherries and more bubbles in the Jacuzzi. She is wearing hotpants, a middle parting and a knotted cheesecloth shirt.
Underneath the picture a considerably older Mrs Cabello stands with the same look of passionate nature in arrested motion. Her hair still flows, although her face is less mobile and she is favouring a pair of leopard-print capri pants today.
‘Mrs Cabello,’ I begin. She must detect a hint of bad news in my tone for she stares at me with horror.
‘You have found Manolete?’ She rests a bejewelled hand on her highly polished table.
‘I’m afraid so.’ I wave the gift bag in my hand.
Her eyes are anchored to it.
‘Shall we go through and sit down, Mrs Cabello?’ I say brightly, cursing Cathal Flood, his broom handle and, above all, Biba Morel.
I listen to myself telling a story. It’s a wonderful story, about the young doctor who was driving home from his shift at the children’s hospital when Manolete, chasing a butterfly, rushed out in front of his Ferrari. The handsome young paediatrician, who was driving well below the speed limit, was unable to stop or steer his car away (to the left of him a nun was about to cross the road, to the right was an oncoming school bus). I saw it happen. Manolete fell gracefully and the handsome doctor scooped him up and wrapped him in his cashmere sweater. He drove Manolete, as quickly as the speed limit would allow, to a highly skilled veterinarian surgeon. The surgeon struggled for hours to save little Manolete. The handsome paediatrician told the vet to spare no expense and he waited the whole time, pacing the corridor outside. Manolete fought a brave fight but just as the sun came up he breathed his last, a sweet sigh. Everyone with him raised their eyes to God and prayed for the soul of the beautiful cat.
I glance at Mrs Cabello. In one hand she clutches a large glass of Chardonnay, in the other a balled tissue. Her tears fall reverently on the box full of cat litter on her lap.
‘So you see, Dr Fortune felt that the last thing he could do for you was to spare you the sight of Manolete’s broken body. He organised to have him cremated with all due respects paid.’
Mrs Cabello nods. One of Manolete’s peers is stretched across the sheepskin rug that lies in front of the fireplace. It fixes me with the uncanny lamps of its amber eyes. It doesn’t believe a word.
Mrs Cabello puts down the box of cat litter and the wine and stands up, fuelled by drunken purpose. ‘Wait. I have something for you. But in all this,’ she flaps her hands, ‘I had forgotten.’
She lurches past the glass-topped coffee table. The bald cat on the hearthrug watches her leave, before returning its gaze to me. It regards me with unblinking disgust. I don’t blame it.
I look around the room. It’s like being inside a mad wedding cake. The windows are dressed in froths of white and gold voile and the sofas are plump crescents of white leather. In the corner of the room there is a kidney-shaped cocktail bar made of white marble, like the fireplace. Which is a wonder to behold, covered, as it is, by permed cherubs. Above the fireplace is another portrait of Mrs Cabello lolling in soft focus with her mouth open and her eyes glazed. She is wearing see-through harem pants and a bra made from coins.
I wonder idly whether Mrs Cabello is a porn star.
She wanders back in again with her eyes wide and devastated and a package wrapped in brown paper in her hands.
‘Mary Flood gave this to me just before her accident.’ She sits back down heavily on the sofa. ‘You take it. I never opened it.’ She pushes it across the table.
‘I don’t understand. Why would you want to give it to me?’
Mrs Cabello picks up her wine. ‘One mo
rning, early, Mary knocked on my door and asked me to hold on to it.’ She takes a sip. ‘She said that someone, a friend, might call when she wasn’t in and I would need to give this to them.’
I look down at the package. ‘Did Mary give you the name of this friend?’
Mrs Cabello shakes her head emphatically. ‘No.’ She begins to cry, softly. ‘And no one ever called for her. Not a single living soul.’
I open the package. It’s a notebook: leather-bound, heavy, with thick blank cream pages. I open the front cover. Inside, written in a small neat hand:
M D
Don’t be afraid to tell our story.
M F
Chapter 31
I am climbing the stairs at Bridlemere. It’s slow going, what with my legs sinking up to the knee with every step. Mice fly past me and cats glide down the bannisters. I upset a box of glass eyes and they cascade, winking, down the stairs.
The painting on the landing is empty now but for a trail of rose petals; the woman in black has disappeared.
In the white room the air is cold. Curled furls of wallpaper hang down; rashes of mould dapple patterns on the wall beneath. Spores draw hieroglyphics, coded sentences – dire warnings. The patterns begin to flicker and shift across on the wall, like images seen through a zoetrope.
Beckett nests on the counterpane, decomposed to no more than a ragged pelt, a twist of rot where a sleeping cat once lay.
I walk over to the dressing table, lift out the jewellery box and then the necklace. It breaks and scatters. The pearls hit the carpet and unwind, turning to maggots before my eyes. I watch them wriggle under the bed.
Closing the door behind me, I walk along the hall. I feel something brush my ankles and look down to see Beckett, dressed in shreds of blighted fur, lumbering on atrophied legs. He grins up at me: all skull and jawbone.
I open the door and he pushes into the room ahead of me, his tail of mottled bone snaking.
In the red room the air is alive with flies. They dance around puddles of dark clotted liquid. It’s Countess Báthory’s bath time! Gouts of blood arc across the walls and run down from the ceiling in slow drips. Indescribable gobbets fleck the furniture. Beckett jumps up on the bed and circles around, his remaining fur turning red. I walk across the carpet to the dressing table and open the drawer.
Inside, an unready baby, a small coil of head and limbs, eyes fogged and sightless, face veiled with gore, feet as narrow as hooves. Gripped in the bud of its fist, a photograph. Two girls stand on a boarded walkway flanked by sand dunes. The marram grass starts to sway and a gull turns lazily in the sky.
The fist twitches; the tiny wound of the baby’s mouth opens.
I hurriedly close the drawer and look up at the mirror. Smeared in red there’s a word:
MAUD
Chapter 32
Biba Morel ignores my glare. She has been on the phone ever since I walked into her office approximately twenty minutes ago. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s talking to no one at all. She holds the phone in the crook of her neck against her raised shoulder, leaving her hands free to search out stray crisps from under her keyboard. She has an air of pathological coldness, like a social-working Don Corleone in an outsized floral dress.
Now and again she lets loose her terrible salacious laugh, then reverts back to a series of noises: from grunts and shrieks of interest to dismissive clicks of her tongue. But really her attention is on the half-eaten coronation chicken torpedo roll in her in-tray. She laughs again, a sudden, startling, munificent laugh running up and down octaves, communicating open-handedness and gritty honesty.
As she reaches for her sandwich, stretching her easy-care suit jacket to the limits, Biba’s genius becomes clear. Her wizened, miserly soul – a soul incapable of human kindness – is masked with the suggestion of generosity and abundance; from her wide face and well-proportioned bosom to her voluminous hair.
She is ballast. She keeps the agency afloat, commanding the biggest desk nearest the window. Her harrowed and careworn assistants scuttle backwards and forwards doing a real job of work, whilst Biba sits in state, in rotund magnificence. The office, like most offices, has the fake-cheerful feel of death row, with its jokey signs and personal possessions. This is a place that sucks up time and energy on pointless tasks and futile activities and leaves little to show for human endeavour but a growing collection of novelty mugs.
Not for the first time I count myself lucky that I am free-range in my enterprises and not imprisoned in some administrative battery farm, breathing air heavy with regret and thwarted dreams. In my work I make a simple and constructive difference to people: to eat or not to eat, to have a clean arse or not to have a clean arse.
Biba Morel puts down the receiver and turns to the papers on her desk, shuffles them, then begins to type rapidly on her keyboard.
‘You wanted to see me, Biba?’
She looks at me with bored disgust, then opens a drawer, takes out a folder and begins to flick through it. ‘Your employment with this agency has been suspended pending the investigation of a serious complaint against you.’
‘What are you even talking about?’
‘It has come to our attention, Maud, that you attempted to extract money from a relative of your client on the pretence that you were taking said client on a day trip to the seaside.’
I narrow my eyes. ‘That’s a damn dirty lie.’
‘The complainant has also informed us that not only were you seeking money for this venture, you were also planning on taking the client on this day trip without notifying the agency or undertaking the necessary risk assessments.’
‘Gabriel Flood said that?’
Her face is smug. ‘I’m not at liberty to divulge the identity of the party who made the complaint, Maud.’
‘But it was Gabriel Flood.’ The bastard. A thousand curses go through my mind.
Biba takes a bite from the chicken torpedo then licks her fingers in a manner both grotesque and suggestive.
She pushes a pile of papers across the desk to me. ‘This outlines the agency’s disciplinary procedures and gives you the details of an ombudsman service should you have any complaints about your treatment.’
‘I have a complaint: Gabriel Flood took me to a cafe and asked me to get his father out of the house for the day while he searched it. Then he offered me money.’
Biba shakes her head. ‘Maud, you know better than to fraternise with the family of your clients. You have overstepped all kinds of rules and regulations.’
‘And you haven’t?’
‘What do you mean by that?’
I lower my voice and look her dead in the eye. ‘I think you know full well, Nurse Ratched.’
Biba returns my gaze with an expression of suppurating hatred. ‘No matter, the job is finishing anyway. A place in a residential home has been found for Mr Flood.’
I stare at her. ‘You told him that he could remain at his home if he toed the line, and he’s been toeing it. You promised him, that day you went visiting with your syringe.’
Biba shrugs. ‘Yeah, well, plans change. Dr Flood is concerned about the deterioration in Mr Flood’s mental acuity and I must say I agree.’
‘There’s been no deterioration.’
‘That’s not what I’ve heard.’
‘Gabriel has changed his tune. What happened to the idea that his father should be supported in the home?’
Biba looks at me blankly; she really doesn’t give a shit.
‘When do you propose moving Cathal?’
‘Mr Flood will be transferred to his new accommodation in three or four days at the most.’ Her eyes light up a little, waiting for my reaction.
I take a deep breath and struggle to control my emotions. I think of Atticus Finch with the rabid dog in his sights. The corner of Biba’s lip twitches in a snarl. I need to keep a steady hand.
She forages in a folder and pulls out a form. ‘You still have a key to the property?’
Damn right I
do. ‘Not with me.’
She tuts and puts the form away again. ‘You’ll need to drop it into the office directly.’ Biba fixes me with a look. ‘I don’t have to remind you that pending an investigation you are not permitted to return to the house in any capacity. Nor are you allowed to contact the client or their relatives.’ Her smile is malignant. ‘In any capacity, Maud; it would mean immediate dismissal, not to mention prosecution.’
I can’t bear it. ‘Who will help him pack? He’ll need someone there to support him during the move, to reassure him.’
‘We have people.’
‘But what about the house, all his things?’
‘That is his son’s concern now.’ Biba turns to her computer screen, pushing back her bountiful hair and sighing.
‘Has anyone told Cathal any of this?’
Biba glances at me. ‘Dr Flood thought it would be preferable not to worry his father about the move.’
‘So you’re not even going to tell him? Warn him?’
I can see it all: Cathal, a noble, aged zebra, with a long frightened face and white mane, bolting through the house with a pack of orderlies running after him – jackals all. The old man will be brought down, netted and tranquillised. They’ll drag him out by his heels with his tongue lolling and crate him. He doesn’t stand a chance.
‘You’re scared of him.’ I smile with bitter triumph. ‘And so you should be; he may be decrepit but he broke Sam Hebden. I hope he leads you a merry dance.’
Biba sneers. ‘Mr Flood did not break Sam Hebden. Sam dealt with the situation admirably and as a consequence was moved to a senior Geriatric Conflict Resolution position in Hull.’
‘Good for him.’ Then I say it before I can stop myself: ‘When did Sam go?’
‘A day or so after the assault.’
I freeze. ‘Are you saying he’s been there all this time, in Hull?’
Biba looks at me oddly. ‘Yes.’
‘And you’re sure of that?’
Biba takes up her torpedo. ‘Well, that’s where he’s supposed to be. But that’s his own agency’s concern, isn’t it?’
As I watch Biba massacre the last of her sandwich, a terrible creeping feeling comes over me. ‘You’ve met him; what does Sam look like?’