by Ted Lewis
I fully expected the Cortina to keep going; I imagined he’d be only too pleased to get as far away as possible without exchanging insurance companies. But that wasn’t the case. The Cortina came to a halt a little way up the road.
I watched, fascinated, as the driver’s door opened and a man got out and walked round to the front of his car. I wanted to run. A little while later he reappeared and began to walk towards me. I managed to open the door and get out before he reached the car; after all, I was the injured party. To be passive would be suspicious. I walked round to the back of the car. The boot, thank God, was still closed. I heard the man approach. I pretended to inspect the damage. The footsteps stopped behind me.
The man said, “Bloody hell, I’m sorry. I don’t know how it happened. I must have had a blank moment.”
I straightened up and turned to face him.
“It’s done now,” I said. “It doesn’t matter whose fault it is.”
“Oh but it does,” he said. “I mean, it was my fault. It was all my fault.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, walking past him, back towards the open door.
The man followed me. He couldn’t believe his ears.
“Doesn’t matter?” he said. “What do you mean? You’re not intending to pay for the damage yourself?”
I eased myself into the driver’s seat and looked up at the man. The interior light illuminated his face.
I stared at him. I could have sworn . . .
“Hey,” said the man. “Hang on. Wait a minute.” A great grin broke over his face. “I don’t believe it. It can’t be. I just don’t believe it. Peter. Peter Knott.”
Now I knew I was in hell. Staring into the car was a face I hadn’t seen for fifteen years. The face of Brian Plender.
A car swept past us, it’s headlights turning Plender’s face chalk white, blurring the features, and then bringing them back into focus.
Brian Plender. My Christ.
“Christ,” he said. “Peter. Peter Knott.”
He stepped back. I was expected to get out of the car. Somehow I managed to do what was expected of me. We shook hands and I found it in me to say his name out loud and smile and gabble a few meaningless phrases.
“I don’t believe it,” he said again. “I really don’t. Here. What’re you doing on this side of the river, anyway? You don’t live over here, do you?”
“Well, actually, yes . . .”
“What a coincidence. Me and you. Neighbours for years and now we’re neighbours again. In a manner of speaking.”
He punched me lightly on the upper arm.
“Do you live near here?” he said.
“Yes. Yes, I do.”
“Whereabouts?”
I told him. He whistled.
“You must be doing all right. I live in Henderson Street. Do you know it? It’s off Carr Road.”
I shook my head.
“Not surprising,” he said, as though it was a joke. Then his face became serious. “Anyway, look, about your car. I’m sorry. I really am. But, I know someone in the trade. He owes me a favour. Let me have it now and I can have it back to you by Monday.”
I opened my mouth but I was sure I wasn’t going to be able to speak.
“No, that’s all right,” I heard myself say. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll get it seen to myself.”
“You sure? Look, honestly, let me . . .”
“No. My own garage’ll do it,” I said. I managed a smile. “They specialise in Mercedes.”
“Well, have it your way,” he said. “I say, if you live in Ingham, you must know the Ferry Boat.”
I nodded. I knew what he was going to suggest. Sickness welled up in my chest. I had to get away from him. My previous plan was useless now. I had to be on my own and think of something else instead of standing in the flicking rain acting out this bloody farce. But I daren’t be too abrupt in case at a later date my abruptness was remembered.
“Yes, I do,” I said. “I . . .”
“Well then, this calls for a drink.” He looked at his watch. “We’ve over half an hour. Hell, we’ve fifteen years to fill in. What about it?”
“Look, Brian I’d love to,” I said. “But I told the wife . . .”
“The wife? You, married?” He punched me on the arm again. “You old son of a gun. You’re the last of the old gang I’d expect to be married. Still, knowing you, she’s worth the ball and chain, eh?”
I forced my mouth to work again and managed to nod my head at the same time.
“The thing is,” I said, “I’ve been working all day and she’s been expecting me since six . . .”
“Phone her up,” he said. “This kind of thing doesn’t happen every day. She’s bound to understand. Better still, why don’t we go straight round there? I’m dying to meet the lass that put a dog collar on old Peter Knott. How about it?”
There was no way out of it. I had to go and have a drink with him. Anything rather than take him home with me. That was unthinkable. Once home I’d never get out of the house again; there’d be nothing plausible enough I could tell Kate. A couple of drinks now and I’d be able to get rid of him at closing time.
“Well, we’d better not do that,” I said. “But I suppose I’ve got time for a quick jar.” I forced a smile. “As you say, it’s not every day of the week this kind of thing happens.”
PLENDER
The Ferry Boat was full of Hoo-ray Henrys. It always was and it always would be. The kind of local the Hoo-rays referred to as Their Little Pub on the River. As we pushed our way through the mass in the saloon to get to the snug it appeared that quite a few of the Hoo-rays were on terms with Knott. It didn’t surprise me. Knott was the type to aspire to that kind of jolly group.
There was a bloke and his bird in the snug which meant there was just enough room for both of us to get in.
I was lucky enough to get a barman straight away.
“Well,” I said, “what’s it going to be, Peter?”
His face was the colour of a perch’s belly.
“Er . . . do you mind if I have a Scotch?” he said.
“Have what you like,” I said. “Why not make it a large one as time’s getting on?”
“Actually, I wouldn’t mind,” he said.
No, I bet you bloody wouldn’t, I thought.
I ordered the drinks and turned back to face him.
“Peter Knott,” I said, looking him up and down. “So come on . . . Give. What’ve you been up to the last fifteen years?”
“I beg your pardon?”
He’d been looking at something somewhere in the middle-distance of his mind, something that had caused him to turn even greyer. I could imagine how he must be feeling; the reality of what had happened to him must have been washing over him like waves of nausea. I smiled to myself but outwardly the smile appeared as though I was trying to chivvy up his memory.
“Come on, the life story. How I made my first million and all that.”
He took a drink.
“Oh,” he said. “Well, nothing much really. Art College after school . . .”
“Yes, I heard that was what you’d done. My mam sometimes saw yours down the town. When was it you moved house? Fifty-four?”
“About that.”
“That made the difference, of course.”
“What?”
“To keeping in contact; that’s how we lost touch.”
“Oh. Yes.”
He took another drink.
“And?” I said.
He swallowed, hard, and it wasn’t just because of the drink.
“I took photography at College. After that I went down to London for a few years.”
“So what made you come back up here? Weren’t the bright lights bright enough?”
“I got offered this co
ntract that was too good to turn down—Sid?” He snatched at the barman’s arm. “Sid, two more large ones, please.”
“Coming up, Mr. Knott.”
“What contract was this?” I asked.
“What? The contract. Yes. The contract.” He was beginning to fray really badly. “Well, my father-in-law, he gave me this contract to do his catalogue. Comes out twice a year.”
“Catalogue?”
“For his business. He’s in the mail order business. He sends out a catalogue twice a year.”
“And you take the pictures?”
“Yes.”
“What, all of them?”
“Yes, nearly all of them.”
“This catalogue,” I said. “It’s one of those big thick ones with everything from household goods through to fashions and that.”
He nodded.
“And you take all the pictures?”
He nodded again.
“What, of all the birds and that as well?”
He tried hard to smile and nod this time.
“You lucky old sod. What a job. Photographing bird after bird, day after day.”
He grasped the fresh drinks and just remembered to pass me mine before he began to go to work on his whisky.
“Actually,” I said, “I must tell you. Quite funny really. Mam used to get one of those catalogues when I was a lad, still does for all I know. But anyway, I used to think it was the most incredible thing out because it had all these pictures of birds in their brassiéres and their corsets and that. I used to think it was great. Spent hours on the can with it until Mam got wise and belted me round the garden. Funny. Still, I expect you see so much of it you just don’t notice. It must be—”
“You haven’t told me about yourself,” he said, his face sagging and desperate. “What’s happened to you?”
“Oh, nothing much,” I said. “I bought myself out in fifty-nine. Took some doing, getting the money together. Luckily there was some compensation for me mam’s accident so I used that.”
“I heard about that. I’m sorry.”
“Long time ago.”
“What are you doing now?”
“I’m a detective,” I said.
He nearly fell apart.
“A detective?”
“Private Investigator. Just like on the pictures. It’s a laugh, isn’t it?”
“What? I mean—”
“I know what you’re going to say; either how do you get to be a detective, or what does a detective do. It’s always one or the other.”
“No, it’s just that it’s so unexpected. You, of all people.”
I shrugged.
“You pick up the chips wherever they fall,” I said.
The barman began calling time.
“I’ll see if I can get us another quick one,” I said.
“No,” he said. “I can’t. I must be on my way. Kate’ll really be worried by now.”
“Come on,” I said. “You’ve time for a quick one. Tell you what, if you want an alibi, why don’t I pop home with you now. Corroborate the evidence, so to speak? And meet the missus into the bargain.”
“Well, I really think it’s a bit too late,” he said. “Under the circumstances . . ..”
“Okay,” I said. “Fine. So what shall I do? Pop round and see you one night next week?”
“Er . . . yes. Fine. One night next week.”
“Which one?”
“Oh. Any night. It doesn’t matter.”
“It might to your missus. Better set a date.”
“All right. Friday. Friday night.”
“Great. What time?”
“Time?”
“Yeah, you know. What they’re calling now.”
He looked at the barman, a blank wildness in his eyes. Then the penny dropped but it didn’t really make any difference to his expression.
“About eight,” he said, his voice dipped in madness.
“About eight would be fine.”
Then Knott turned away from me and began to walk out of the snug. He moved like a sleepwalker. I followed close behind. When we were out on the car park I said:
“Is your place far from here?”
He shook his head. The broad river swirled and smacked against the bank away to our right.
“Well, I’ll tag on behind you if that’s all right with you. Just so’s I don’t have to waste half Friday night digging you up. I’ll know which is your place on account of which drive you turn into. Unless you’re on particularly friendly terms with the neighbours.”
All he did was to stare at me. He opened his mouth to say something but the words wouldn’t come. I smiled at him as though he had said something and walked over to my car and got in. I saw him shoot a glance at the boot of his car. No one else would have noticed it, even less the kind of glance it was. I wondered what the glance would be like if he knew what I knew.
KNOTT
I could feel my face setting into a new permanent expression; glazed eyes, slight mad frown, twisted mouth, slack jaw. I was beginning to lose control.
We drove away from the Ferry Boat—a mini-cortège. That was what we were. A funeral procession without a graveyard to go to.
I turned the Mercedes into the road where my house was. It was very quiet but that’s what you paid for. My headlights stroked the street sign. Corella Way. It should have said Street of Dreams. The kind of place I’d always aspired to Residential. My mother loved it.
I looked in the mirror. The Cortina was turning the corner behind me. There was nothing else for it; I had to turn into my driveway. I revved the engine as little as possible and turned the headlamps off so that they wouldn’t sweep the house. If the T.V. was on, there was just a chance my wife wouldn’t hear me. Then I’d be able to slip the handbrake off and slide out again and with a little piece of God’s own luck she’d never know.
But as I made the turn Plender accelerated the Cortina, blaring the horn as he went past, making a klaxon rat-a-tat, a siren Colonel Bogey. I snapped off my engine. Inside the house, a child had started to cry. Nicola. The bastard had woken her up. The Mercedes was facing the hallway. The outside wall of the hallway was made completely of glass. My wife would have to cross it to go to Nicola if the crying persisted. And if Kate came into the hallway there was no way that she could possibly avoid seeing me.
The crying persisted.
A shaft of light cut into the darkness of the hallway and washed over the Mercedes. Kate appeared, black as the mood her movements described. When she saw me she stopped in her tracks. I jumped to some kind of life and opened the door of the car and got out and walked towards the house. Kate turned away and carried on towards the stairs but that didn’t create an alternative for me; I had to go into the house, for the time being, at least. And besides I needed to behave rationally in front of my wife to help stop me going mad.
I opened the glass door and click-clacked across the parquet floor. The soft light from the lounge tickled the delicate jets of the fish fountain. I walked into the lounge and stood in the middle of it, not sitting down, just staring at the night blackness of the picture window. I was beyond any kind of thought.
Eventually I heard Kate cross the hall and come into the lounge. I didn’t turn to look at her. She didn’t sit down either. I could imagine how she would be standing, one arm pressed into her side, the other bent, crossing her breasts her fingers massaging the muscles of her rigid arm.
She waited for me to speak.
“What was all that about?” I said, still not facing her.
“Nicola,” she said. “Some bloody fool blaring his hooter. You must have heard him.”
“Yes,” I said. I turned round. “Actually, it was someone I know.”
“Oh? Who?”
I had to tell her sometime.
&nb
sp; “Quite funny really. Quite a coincidence, I mean.”
“Coincidence?”
I told her what had happened. When I’d finished she said, “And we’re to expect him next week?”
“Yes.”
“What for?”
“What?”
“Drinks, dinner, what?”
“Oh . . . I don’t know. Whatever you like.”
“Well, he’s your friend. Do you want to give him dinner?”
“He’s not a friend, exactly. I mean, really it’ll be just a one-off thing. Get it out of the way.”
“Well, we’d better give him dinner, then. He’s not likely to reciprocate, is he?”
I shook my head and sat down on the leather settee. Images from the evening slotted into my mind like slides in a projector: Eileen drinking, Eileen in her underwear, Eileen straddled across me, an alcoholic sweat teeming down her face, Eileen staring into my eyes, her own eyes dead, her mouth wet and bloody. I wanted to be sick again.
“I hope his table manners aren’t as bad as his driving manners,” said Kate.
I didn’t say anything. I searched about in my pockets for my cigarettes.
“There’s some in the box,” said Kate, sitting down on the white pouffe, still scratching her arm.
She pushed the box across the glass-topped coffee table. I took a cigarette and lit up and sneaked a glance at my watch. It was almost eleven thirty.
“What’s he like?” she said.
I inhaled, looking everywhere round the room—anywhere except into Kate’s eyes.
“What’s he like?” I said, playing for time, hoping my concentration would somehow miraculously return. “I don’t know, really. I mean, it’s been so long.”
“Yes, but what was he like then?”
For Christ’s sake, I thought, just leave it alone.
“Then? Well, we were only kids. What he was like then and what he’s like now are bound to be two different things.”
“Oh all right. If you don’t want to tell me.”
I couldn’t afford for her to lose her temper with me so I said, “It’s not that. It’s just difficult. Fifteen years is a long time.” I massaged my forehead as though I was trying to think. “Let me see; well, really, he was a bit pathetic. Always on the outside. Of our group, I mean. Of any group. Always on the outside trying to get in. Trying too hard to get in.”