‘He go crazy?’ Gaffar enquired.
‘No,’ Kane shook his head. ‘Not crazy. It’ll simply…uh…it’ll confirm something…’ He paused, then gave up. ‘Yeah, absolutely fucking psychotic,’ he muttered.
‘Leave,’ Gaffar said. ‘I do. Go!’
He waved Kane away.
Kane glanced over at him, almost poignantly. ‘You think you can fix this?’
Gaffar nodded. ‘Turkish.’ He pointed to himself, as if that was explanation enough.
‘Really?’
Gaffar nodded. ‘My mother, my grandmother, my great-grandmother,’ he lied, effortlessly, ‘all sweated blood over the carpet looms of Diyarbakir.’
‘So you know about rugs? You think you can sort this out for me?’ Gaffar nodded again. ‘Leave,’ he ordered, ‘I am mend.’
Kane stood up just in time to observe the troublesome Siamese jumping lightly on to the kitchen counter. He glowered at it. ‘I can’t believe Beede’s got himself a cat,’ he murmured, taking a speculative step towards it, ‘and a fucking pedigree at that. Beede hates domestic animals. Cats especially…’
He paused. ‘At least…’ He frowned, his voice petering out.
Gaffar hissed. The cat flattened its ears in response. Gaffar picked up Beede’s Tupperware beaker and lobbed it at the cat. He scored a direct hit. He whooped. The cat kicked off the counter – its hackles up – and dashed, full pelt, into the sanctuary of Beede’s bedroom.
Kane rapidly shot after it, across the living-room, through the kitchen, but then faltered – like a mime suddenly hitting an invisible wall –
Bang!
– just on the cusp of entry.
I mean Beede’s bedroom…? His monkish cloister? His inner sanctum? His lair?
Beede’s bedroom? Was nothing sacred?
Kane drew a long, deep breath (steeling his resolve; throwing back his shoulders, sticking up his chin and squinting; like a heroic Sir Edmund Hillary trapped inside a damnable snowstorm), then entered, boldly, on the exhale.
SIX
She was lying on a trolley in the hospital corridor, propped up on her elbow and reading an old copy of Marie Claire. She’d already made firm friends with two of the porters, one of whom was still buzzing around in the background; perhaps imagining – even though she was obviously suffering from a serious fracture – that he might be on to a Good Thing here.
And what more could she expect (the porter’s lascivious expression seemed to proclaim, as he slouched priapically against the Nurses’ Station and hungrily appraised her)? She was a Broad, after all. They were a degenerate bunch. The now-legendary Jason Broad’d had his stomach pumped on the exact same Casualty Ward a mere eighteen months earlier, and had celebrated this momentous occasion with – wait for it – a can of Budweiser (downed it in one, the nutter)! Dr Morton almost had a coronary; was actually quoted as saying that ‘Jason Broad should take out a restraining order on himself’ (and if his current three-year prison sentence was anything to go by, then he’d pretty much followed the doctor’s orders to the letter).
The whole family were delinquent (it was totally genetic): the dad, a child-fancier, the mother a basket case, the brothers all hoodlums, the sisters, sluts. The uncle was a trickster and the cousins, simpletons (although – so far as anyone knew – there was nothing concrete on the aunt).
Perhaps sensing herself the focal-point of somebody’s attentions, Kelly suddenly glanced up –
Ah…
Patrick?
Is that his name?
She nodded and smiled politely. He smiled back –
Christ she wants me
– then turned and muttered something to the nurse on duty. The nurse sniggered, peering over. Kelly’s mouth tightened. She looked down, her cheeks flushing.
The second (and rather more hands-on) porter had delivered Beede a message just as soon as he’d arrived at work: less a polite invitation to pop up and see Kelly, than a haughty – if carefully phrased – injunction (in the idiom of The Whips, this was definitely a Three Liner).
Even so, he didn’t head up there immediately. He changed into his spotless white uniform, tinkered away at a faulty dryer, put on four wash-loads in quick succession, then took the service lift from his musty but well-ordered Basement Empire to the exotic, chaotic heights of Casualty (delivering a batch of clean towels to Paediatrics on the way).
As he strolled along the corridor, he observed (with some amusement) that Kelly had her nose buried in an article about a charitable Aids Trust in Southern Africa (whatever next? Principia Philosophia?).
‘Better sort yourself out, first,’ he volunteered dryly, ‘before you apply, eh?’
She started, guiltily, at the unexpected sound of his voice, then her chin jerked up defiantly. ‘Ha ha.’ She slapped the magazine down, scowling.
‘I believe you left your two dogs at the flat,’ he continued (completely undaunted by his frosty reception). ‘They’re currently standing guard in the hallway. One of them mauled Kane’s house guest.’
‘Screw the blasted dogs,’ she whispered crossly. ‘Why ain’t you returned my calls? Why’ve you been avoidin’ me?’
Beede’s brows rose slightly, but before he could open his mouth to answer she’d already charged on, ‘An’ that was your big mistake, see? I ain’t no fool. You’ve been avoidin’ me ‘cos’ you feel bad, an’ you feel bad…’ she poked a skinny index finger into his chest, ‘because you stole those drugs from Kane and then sold me up the bloody Mersey. I’ve been thinkin’ about it a lot – for days, in fact – and nothin’ else adds up.’
Beede’s expression did not change.
‘So you fractured your leg?’ he asked, at normal volume.
Kelly was briefly put off her stride by his refusal to engage with her. She admired Beede, after all. She didn’t understand him –
Of course not
– but she respected him. She saw him as a being of an entirely different order –
Celestial/monkish
– a fraction cold, perhaps, but noble, defiant, honourable. One-dimensional –
Certainly
– a little boring, maybe. But entirely trustworthy. Above reproach – or so she’d thought – like the Good King in a fairy story.
‘I fell off your stupid wall,’ she grumbled.
‘Why?’
‘I was waitin’ for ya. To have it out.’
‘But why did you fall?’ he persisted.
‘I had a row.’
He didn’t seem surprised by this. ‘With whom?’
Kelly pushed her shoulders back, dramatically. ‘That coloured bitch who killed Paul.’
‘Ah,’ Beede quickly put two and two together. ‘That would be Winifred.’
She nodded (not a little deflated by his emotionless response).
‘Anyway,’ Beede spoke very gently (as if dealing with an Alzheimer’s patient who’d been discovered trying to buy a cup of tea in the staff canteen with a tampon), ‘he isn’t dead, is he?’
‘Stop tryin’ to wriggle off the damn hook,’ she growled.
‘I wasn’t ever on it, Kelly,’ Beede said gravely (but there was an edge of steel in his voice). ‘And Paul isn’t dead. He’s very much alive.’ ‘He’s a fuckin’ vegetable,’ Kelly bleated. ‘An’ she did that. Said as much herself. It was her who got him started: took him under her wing when he was feelin’ low, got him into dope an’ sniff an’ all that other shit. Then, once he was hooked, once he was well and truly screwed, kicked up her posh, little heels an’ cheerfully buggered off.’
‘If it makes you feel better to apportion blame…’ Beede murmured, imperturbably.
‘Private bloody school, a new bloody life. Fine for her…’ Kelly continued, then she paused, as if only just registering his interjection. ‘Yes.’ She nodded. ‘It bloody does…’ (Beede smiled. He was familiar with Kelly’s conversational stock-car racing – the dramatic zoom past, the sudden handbrake turn, the skid, the spin.)
‘…
though I ain’t sure what you mean by that, exactly,’ she finished off, scowling.
‘If it makes you feel better to focus all your understandable rancour on somebody else – somebody who is, to all intents and purposes, quite extraneous to the situation – then that’s perfectly understandable…’ Beede said benignly. ‘In fact it’s utterly human.’
Kelly was quiet for a while, then, ‘You’re head-fucking me,’ she announced.
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘You are.’
‘I merely stated a simple truth about your brother.’
‘No,’ she paused. ‘No. I’m wise to your tricks, see? On the surface you’re pretendin’ to be all sweet and kind and charmin’ about it – like butter wouldn’t melt – but underneath, what you’re really sayin’ – what you’re really thinkin’ – is that I’m somehow to blame for what’s happened to him…’
‘Not that you are,’ Beede mildly demurred, ‘but that perhaps – at some level – you believe you might be.’
Kelly gasped (her hand flew to her chest). ‘You think I scragged my own brother?!’
‘Now you’re just being hysterical,’ Beede snapped, barely managing to compose his features in time to nod, politely, at a passing Staff Matron.
‘Fuck off I am!’
‘Good. Fine. Whatever you say, Kelly.’
She stared up at him, in wonderment, the scales apparently fallen. ‘Oh. My. God. You are evil.’
‘I’d better get back,’ Beede smiled, crisply (no point in a denial). ‘It may’ve escaped your attention, but I’m actually meant to be employed by this hospital.’
‘Yeah. That’d be right. Off you go, Grandad…’ Kelly waved him away, airily. ‘Back to work. Back to the grindstone, eh? Back to cleanin’ your dirty, bloody laundry…’
Her voice oozed ill-will.
Beede didn’t respond, initially, he just cocked his head and gazed at her, blankly, as if inexplicably baffled by the words she’d just uttered. Kelly shifted, uneasily, under his vigorous scrutiny.
Then – quite out of the blue – he smiled. He beamed. ‘Have I got this all wrong…?’ he asked (suddenly the very essence of genial avuncularity). ‘Or were you actually experimenting with a clever piece of word-play there?’
Before she could muster up an answer (she’d half-opened her mouth, in preparation, but had yet to rally her considerable intellectual forces – she was still in shock from the fall, after all), he’d patted her, encouragingly, on her bony shoulder.
‘Because if you were, I’m very impressed, dear. Well done. Bravo!’
Kelly’s eyes bulged at this near-perfect kiss-off.
‘And by the way…’ Beede continued, benevolently, ‘if you were hoping for a visit from your mother any time soon…’ (Her mouth quickly snapped shut again. Oh God. The very thought almost calcified her entire bone-structure) –’…then you’ll be delighted to know,’ he purred soothingly, ‘that she’s here.’
The cat had found sanctuary in its basket. Only a piercing pair of china-blue eyes were now visible, peeking out at him, anxiously, from the creaking confines of its smart, wicker corral. Kane blew an idle raspberry at it, and the cat hunched down even lower, emitting a strangely haunting, dog-like yowl.
He glanced around him. It’d been a long while since he’d ventured inside Beede’s bedroom, but during this considerable interim, a dramatic transformation – a revolution – had taken place.
Where previously Beede had been the master of decorative understatement (books, reading lamp, bed, eiderdown, matching Victorian dark-wood cupboard and chest of drawers) now the place was like some kind of Aladdin’s cave: a veritable bring-and-buy sale of disparate objects, for the most part stacked up in crates (which now covered – floor to ceiling – three of the four walls).
The crates had been turned on to their sides, so that the items within were individually showcased; almost as if inhabiting their own miniature plywood theatres. Kane remembered staging theatrical endeavours of this kind himself, as a boy, in cardboard boxes; with badly painted back-drops, a batch of plastic animals and his Action Man – but –
Hey…
– surely Beede was taking things a little far here…?
Even the cat’s basket had been placed inside a crate. And each crate – Kane scowled as he bent down to inspect one – was tagged with a crisp, white label containing a date, a description of the item – eg:
13.08.2002
Three coffee mugs c. 1997
One bears the inscription: The world’s best fisherman
Cup three has slight chip on lip
– as well as a digital image of the item/s in question neatly affixed underneath.
Kane found himself staring at the photograph of the mugs for some minutes –
Has Beede completely lost his marbles?
Or is it me?
Is it the weed?
Has my fantasy/fact facility become utterly jumbled?
He was finally stirred from his reverie by a hoarse cough from the cat –
Hairball?
He moved over to inspect its crate (squatted down to read the label):
22.12.2002
Blue-point Siamese
‘Chairman Miaow’, aka ‘Manny’
Three years old
Neutered male
He stared at its photograph, then directly at the animal –
Hmmn.
A good likeness.
The cat returned his stare, unblinking.
Kane’s mind suddenly turned to the chiropodist –
Ella?
No
Ellen?
He thought about her hands and her long, plain, brown hair –
Uh…
Then he focussed in on his foot. A small verruca, hidden underneath the arch (which he’d possessed – almost without noticing – for seven years? Eight?) had actually been niggling him for several weeks now (new trainers – he reasoned – with slightly higher insoles. A different distribution of pressure, of body weight…That’d set it off. Those tiny, jabbing sensations. Those sharp bouts of ferocious itching –
Urgh).
He flexed his toes and stood up. His phone vibrated inside his pocket. He took it out and inspected it, stepping back. As he stepped, he kicked into a tray of damp cat litter. The grey granules peppered the surrounding carpet.
‘Shit,’ he looked down, scowling, lifting his feet, gingerly.
Now what?
He shoved his phone away, squatted down and scooped a few of the granules on to his hand, wincing, fastidiously, as he dropped them back into the tray again. As they fell he noticed that the base of the tray had been lined with –
Not newspaper, but…
– a letter…Handwritten. He tipped the tray up slightly to enable him to read it more easily. At the top of the page was the heading: Ryan Monkeith Road Crossing Initiative.
Ryan Monkeith? The name rang a bell, for some reason. He frowned for a moment, struggling to remember…
Ah…Yes!
But of course!
Ryan Monkeith – son of Laura – Laura with the dodgy tranquilliser habit – Blonde Laura – Scatty Laura…
It’d been all over the local news the previous year –
But Laura never…
– after he’d been killed crossing a road close to one of the new developments – a pedestrian blackspot…
The A292?
The Hythe Road?
The A251?
They were trying to build a bridge or install a crossing or something –
Weren’t they?
In his honour?
– to be funded by his grandad or uncle or godfather. Some powerful local contractor…
Kane inspected the letter. It was the second page.
‘…people like yourself,’ it said, in a feminine hand, ‘with your background in local politics, fundraising skills and the confidence of the local community…’
Kane snorted, dryly. The next section was s
mudged. But further down…
‘…different sides of the fence, but after a tragedy of this magnitude we hope a certain amount of…’ more smudging ‘…and that’s why we feel your involvement would be especially…’
Blah blah
His eye was caught, briefly, by something at the bottom of the page –
‘Isidore has been amazing – you’ll be more than familiar with his energy and enthusiasm. He recommended you very highly…’
Gaffar popped his head around the door.
‘Is fix,’ he announced, smiling broadly.
‘What? You fixed it already?’ Kane slammed down the tray. ‘You fixed the rug? Seriously?’
Gaffar threw out his arms in a shrug of pseudo-modest self-aggrandisement.
Kane followed him back through to the living-room. He located the precise spot where the burn had been (just next to the sidetable), squatted down and tried to find any sign of it. Nothing. Not a damn thing.
‘Jesus,’ he muttered, ‘you’ve even…the burn went right through to the rough fibre underneath. How’d you get rid of that?’
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