King of the Badgers

by Philip Hensher

  The house was old. Nobody knew how old. He had always lived here, and his father before him. He had kept the house in good condition, mending and repainting and replastering when it was needed. Five years ago he had had a grant from the council to replace the old iron-framed windows with good, solid, double-glazed windows in white uPVC. Nothing but the old black range was needed now to keep the house warm, what with the uPVC windows and the insulating thatch. And in any case he was used to cold. The kitchen floor was heavy stone flags; they were worn and rounded with all the people who had gone over them, his father and his grandfather, and beyond that, too, he was bound. He had never married, of course.

  Probably it had once been three cottages, until the families had intermarried and interbred and knocked holes in walls, and in this haphazard way, the three tiny houses had become two, and then one. The doors were of peculiar size and shape, positioned in unexpected places. Perhaps the families had had to guess where the house bore itself up, and where there was just a wall, holding nothing up. Even to him, who had lived his whole life here, it was difficult to understand how the rooms fitted together. There were spaces between rooms, and a room upstairs, which, entered in an indirect way, and without a proper window, could only be used as a boxroom, giving all the adjoining rooms awkward and inexplicable shapes. There were inferrable spaces and shapes in this house that you would puzzle over.

  He went into the kitchen and listened. There was no sound. He did not expect one. The stone flags were heavy and thick. He lowered himself to the cold floor, and now pressed the side of his head to the ground, like an Indian listening for far-off horses. Through the stone came a dampened mewing, impossible to interpret or understand, and when he stood up again, the noise retreated to an imagined reverberation, like a ringing in the ears. Perhaps nothing at all.

  The day before, he had gone to the supermarket in Bideford where no one knew him or would remark on what he was buying. He had bought some fresh fruit—grapes, tangerines, fruit for little fingers—and some cheese, bread, ham and pickles. In time, he would find out what she liked to eat. Standing in the kitchen, he made a sandwich, then put the unused food back in the fridge. He took out a raspberry Petit Filou, a sort of yoghurt, but smaller, and placed it next to the sandwich, the tangerine and a glass of water barely clouded with orange squash. Hot food would be better; he would get some soup next time—it came in cartons, these days, rather than tins.

  It took a certain knack to raise the flagstone—it took a knack to identify the one that could be raised at all. He took an iron bar from its place on the wall and, with a quick levering action, raised the flagstone. The noise from the cellar clarified itself into a girl’s wordless voice for a second, then stopped, all at once. He had turned the light off the night before, to let her get some sleep; now he knelt and, feeling under the rim of the concealed cellar trapdoor, he switched it on again. He stood up, fetched the tray with the food on it, and walked down the stone steps nobody knew about. He made love to the little girl. Then he came up again without the tray, shut the trapdoor behind him and went to work. It was eight o’clock on a Thursday morning.

  The next day was Friday. It was raining densely when he got up. The tor was hidden from view in the clouds; there was a steady spatter of water on the surface of the lane and a drumming effect from the thatch above. He took a bath, the boiler juddering as it often did in wet weather for some reason, and thought about the tasks for the day. They revolved around twelve horses, and the soft faces of Molly and Sugar came up before him, as if they were approaching him across Mrs F’s upper field. ‘Little devil,’ he said out loud, remembering the antics of the week before, the horse twisting and biting, but remembering it with fondness. He had allowed the bathwater to go cold, and he quickly rinsed his head with the shower attachment. ‘That’s better,’ he said, towelling himself. ‘Nice and clean.’ He had not taken a bath since Tuesday, believing a flannel wash twice daily and a bath twice weekly would do him now as it had done him since he was a boy. When he was dry, he put on a clean shirt and a weekend pair of trousers. ‘Going to see my darling,’ he said to himself. Then he went downstairs and raised the flagstone. He went down into the cellar and made love to the little girl. Then he came up, made a sandwich for her, and took it down again with some fruit and a raspberry Petit Filou. He went to work. It was eight o’clock on a Friday morning.

  The next day was Saturday. The weather had cleared up a little—my, he’d got muddy yesterday. The clouds scudded like yachts across the blue, far up over the moor, running like wild things through the sky. He watched them from his bedroom window. He could have watched them all day. He dressed. From the laundry basket, he picked out the brown corduroys and the shirt he had worn yesterday, a yellow, brown and green checked shirt, a proper country shirt, he would have said. He had put them in the laundry basket when he went to bed. Some men, living on their own, turned into slobs, dropping their clothes anywhere, not doing the washing-up from one week’s end to the next. Not him. He didn’t want anyone to think he couldn’t cope now his mum had died. And no one did think that. No one had even suggested coming in to do for him, and he could even cook, after a fashion. He took the dirty laundry downstairs, some pants and socks as well as a couple of other shirts. He would do another load later, and then the laundry basket would be empty. He put the laundry in the washing-machine, a new one, an energy-saving one, which took all day to wash your clothes. The old one, his mum had had it for thirty years, only took an hour and a half. He put powder in the drawer, turned the knob to D, and the water started to gush and hiss within. He could hardly ever resist the temptation of opening the little drawer at this point, to see the jets of water washing the soap powder down into the drum. That ringing sound in the ears started again. It was her, under the flagstones, responding to the first noises of the washing-machine. It was true she would not have heard it before. This was his first laundry in a week. He fetched the iron bar from its customary place. He raised the stone flagstone. Today, the noise carried on, clarifying and hurting his ears. He went down into the cellar and he made love to the little girl. Then he came up, prepared food for her for the day, and took it down again, a sandwich, a bunch of grapes for little fingers, a raspberry Petit Filou. She seemed to like them. He might try one himself. Then he came up and closed the stone trapdoor and went to work. ‘No rest for the wicked,’ he said to himself, as he always did on his working Saturdays. It was nine o’clock on a Saturday morning.

  The next day was Sunday. He did not work on a Sunday. He had managed to get to the supermarket late yesterday. It had been busy, and they had had no tangerines left. They had had mandarins, but he’d never liked mandarins, neither he nor his mum. ‘I don’t know why,’ he remembered her saying, ‘I just don’t like the taste they’ve got.’ He had got some plums instead. He had remembered to get some soup, and also some ready meals, which would only take putting in the oven. The soup she could drink from a mug. The ready meals she would have to eat with her fingers when it had cooled down a bit. She couldn’t have a knife or a fork. But all the same, she would like that, the little girl. He would save that for the evening, no, for Sunday lunch. For a moment he envisaged him and the little girl sitting on either side of the kitchen table, a big roasted goose between them; she would be in a clean white frock, her hair in plaits, a real old-fashioned little girl, she’d be, and clapping her hands with pleasure at the food and at being with him. She’d look pretty like that. But then he remembered that she’d got no clothes, apart from the three tracksuits he’d bought for her in the big Asda in Exeter last week, guessing her size and getting it mostly right. One top was white with a sparkly pierrot on it, one pink with a fairy on the front, one green with a design of rainbows. The trousers were in matching colours, white, pink, green. It was the pink one she was wearing now, that she had been wearing for a week. He went down into the cellar and made love to the little girl. Then he came up and made her a bacon sandwich, which was what he ate on Sunday mornings, t
oo. There was no work to go to once he’d closed the cellar door. So he sat and watched the television all day long. He watched The Andrew Marr Show, and Something for the Weekend, and two episodes of Friends, and the EastEnders omnibus, and Columbo, and a film called Shoot-out at Medicine Bend. Towards the evening it began to rain again.

  The next day was Monday. He got up and went down into the cellar and made love to the little girl. ‘Going courting,’ he said to himself, as he descended the cellar steps. Then he went to work. It was eight o’clock when he left. He wondered what they would say.

  The next day was Tuesday, and before he had a bath or anything he went straight down to the cellar, switching the light on and walking down with a heavy tread. She was sitting on the edge of her bed. He had made it nice for her down here, with a duvet and pillowcase, and, because it could be cold in the cellar, an electric bar-heater fixed to the wall, which she could turn on if she wanted to. There was even a toilet and a washbasin. He’d put them in himself. She was just watching him come downstairs, staring at him. He didn’t know what the expression on her face meant. ‘I hate you,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I hate you more than anyone I’ve ever known,’ she said. ‘Where’s my mom?’ ‘Your mum,’ he said—he hated it when she asked for her mom; he hated the word, the foul American noise it made in her mouth. ‘Forget about that. You’ve got to learn, you can’t do that again. It can’t be like that again.’ She gazed at him dully. He made a gesture at his face where a long double scratch ran from edge of eye to corner of mouth. He’d had to tell Mrs F and the others a story about catching himself on some barbed wire. He didn’t know if they’d believed him. ‘If you do that again,’ he said, ‘things will get bad for you. Do you understand?’ She looked at him with the dumb look that you had sometimes from a dog that had hidden something, eaten something, been in a fight. ‘Do you understand? You’ve got to understand.’ Finally, she nodded. He was glad of it. He didn’t want to make things worse for her. He didn’t want to have to come down into the cellar with a big knife in his hand, he didn’t want it to come to that. But then he went upstairs without making love to the little girl, because she didn’t deserve it, and he went to work without giving her something to eat, because she didn’t deserve that either. It was eight o’clock on a Tuesday morning.

  On Wednesday morning, he woke up thinking it was Tuesday. He couldn’t understand why he thought that so strongly. Then he realized that it was because he could smell himself. He had not had a bath on Tuesday. He didn’t know why. It was not like him to forget to have a bath on his Tuesday, on his Friday. He had always had his bath then, on those two days. He got up and had his bath. She had been quite grateful last night, and quiet, when he’d come in finally with some hot food. He hadn’t stayed long. This morning he was in a forgiving mood. It was a beautiful sunny day. You could see the larks over the moor, rising and plummeting, their singing descending from high in the sky as they rode the thermal currents. He ran the bath, and even put some of that bubble bath in it, his mum’s really, a giant bottle she’d never used up and he hardly ever used, but still it sat there. He wanted to make himself nice for the little girl. When he had dried himself and dressed, he made a proper breakfast on a tray, with the cereal he’d bought at the Sainsbury’s in Bideford. He’d have put top-of-the-milk on it, but milk came in cartons, these days. It didn’t have top-of-the-milk like he’d had as a special treat as a boy, saved for him by his mum. And he made some toast and spread some butter and pink strawberry jam on it, so she wouldn’t have to be troubled with a knife or anything, and even poured a paper cup of orange juice from the fridge. It was his way of saying sorry, to ask her nicely to be nice to him. Then he went down into the cellar and made love to the little girl. He came up with the empty tray, closed the cellar door and went to work. It was eight o’clock on a Wednesday morning.

  ‘If you promise not to run away, or try to hurt me,’ he said, the next morning, to her, ‘if you promise that, you can come upstairs and I’ll let you have a bath. Would you like that? But you’ve got to promise first. You’ve got to or I won’t let you.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ the little girl said. It was a Thursday morning. ‘I don’t care whether I have a bath or not. Where’s my mom. She’s going to kill you. I mean, she’s really going to kill you, with a knife. She will. You don’t know my mom.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to have a bath?’ he said. ‘I don’t care,’ she said. ‘I don’t want a bath in your bath.’ He could be angry now. She needed a bath. He thought that she could wash properly down here in the handbasin with a flannel and soap. But still she was dirty. He had made things nice for her; there was even a square of carpet down here, nice and warm under her bare feet, the old carpet from the spare bedroom with a pattern of flowers on it, before his mum had redone the spare room, thinking she might start a bed-and-breakfast. ‘Fine,’ he said. Then he made love to the little girl. He went upstairs and made her a sandwich—an angry sandwich, not caring that the cheese was cut thick and carelessly, not even bothering to butter both pieces of bread, and just a dollop of pickle and a glass of water. He balanced a raspberry Petit Filou on the plate by the sandwich. He’d tried one. He hadn’t liked it. It tasted of chalk. He took it down to her. Then he went to work. It was eight o’clock on a Thursday morning.

  The next day it was a Friday morning. Everything was out of kilter and because he had had a bath later in the week than normal, he didn’t feel he wanted one now. The wind was up and howling through the trees, pouring off the moor like a river of air. With decision he threw on an old jumper and a pair of trousers. He went into the bathroom and began to run a bath. Barefoot, he went downstairs. He switched on the radio. Terry Wogan was chuntering about his imaginary friends, and he turned it up, almost as high as it would go. He went to the kitchen’s front windows and drew the neat yellow curtains across. He drew up the stone trapdoor; the smell he had noticed yesterday was still stronger today. He went down and, without saying anything, picked up the little girl, his arms round her waist, lifting her. She screamed and kicked as best she could, behind her, but he was used to the kicking of animals and walked her up the stairs, his legs planted broadly apart. She was twisting her head, trying to bite him, anywhere she could reach, but he had a hold for that, and she could not reach anything. Her screaming, the violent juddering of the old boiler upstairs, Terry Wogan going on about his listeners and their pets and their gardening gloves: it all made an unfamiliar noise in the little house. But no one was near, no one could hear. ‘Fuck you! Fuck you!’ the girl was screaming, and it shocked him, as it shocked him the first time she had said this. He took her upstairs, where she had never been, and into the bathroom. The bath was full enough and, with a struggle, he removed her tracksuit top, her tracksuit bottoms. She wore no underwear: that would be too much. There was more screaming, more struggling, another attempt to bite and kick, but he got her into the water. It never got too hot, the water out of the old boiler, and he scrubbed her and pummelled her with the soap, washing her hair as best he could with the soap, her twisting and head-butting and wriggling as she went. The showerhead sprayed everywhere as she punched and pushed and bit. It was like washing a beast terrified of water, terrified in its nature. But finally it was done and, without speaking, he dropped a sage-green bath sheet over her, rubbing and drying and constraining her all at the same time. You needed three hands for this job. She seemed to subside, all at once, to let him continue with the drying. He paused; let his guard drop; a mistake. She came at him, and something glinted in her hand; she had somehow grabbed a pair of nail scissors. But he caught her fist, and with pressure he made her drop it. She gave a cry of pain. ‘That was stupid,’ he said. He carried her downstairs, wrapped in the sage-green bath sheet, writhing and howling, and down again into the cellar. There he made love to the little girl. After leaving her a sandwich and a piece of fruit, he went to work. It was eight o’clock on a Friday morning.

  The next day it was Saturday mornin
g. He felt defeated, dutiful, obligated at the thought of the little girl down there like an unreturned library book. He had a bath himself: he thought he might change the days of his twice-weekly bath. Then he went down to the cellar. ‘Why are you doing this?’ the little girl said, calling out as soon as he opened up the trapdoor. ‘Where’s Marcus? Marcus wouldn’t let you do this. I want to see Marcus. You know Marcus. He’s Ruth’s brother. I want my mom.’ He had an answer to this, but not today. There was no work for him to do today. It was not his turn to work. He made love to the little girl, then made her some food to eat. He sat down and he watched the television, turning it up when the noise like a ringing in the ears made itself felt. He watched Saturday Kitchen and The Crocodile Hunter Diaries and two episodes of Friends and a film called Fools Rush In.

  The next day it was Sunday. He went down to the cellar straight away and made love to the little girl. Then, instead of going upstairs without saying anything, he stood up and said, ‘Marcus isn’t coming for you. Marcus sold you to me. I knew Marcus for ten years. He sent me photographs and I sent him photographs and we sometimes met to talk. Not often. And I bought you from Marcus. Marcus gave you to me for a thousand pounds. I gave him the thousand pounds, and afterwards I took it back again. But Marcus isn’t going to come for you. And your mum’s in prison. Do you know why your mum’s in prison? Because she tried to pretend that you’d been stolen away by the fairies when really you were just with Marcus. And your mum knew that. She’d arranged it all with Marcus, hadn’t she? But your mum, she didn’t know Marcus as well as she thought she did. That was really stupid of your mum. Really stupid. So she deserves it, being in prison. And it’s your fault, too. Because you could have said something, or just walked out and found a policeman. But you can’t now. Do you want to know what’s happened to Marcus?’ She was crying now, and shaking her head. She didn’t want to know. He went upstairs and made her a sandwich. He wanted to go to work, but it was a Sunday morning.