by Bateman
‘You are? How wonderful.’ She was beaming. She did appear to be genuinely happy for me. ‘What is it?’
‘What is what?’
‘Your baby?’
‘Oh. Yes. A little boy.’
‘And he’s okay?’
‘Okay?’
‘He’s well?’
‘Why shouldn’t he be?’
‘I didn’t mean . . . I mean, I’m sure he’s just gorgeous. And what’s his name?’
‘Page,’ I said.
‘Lovely. And you working in . . .’
‘I don’t work here. I own here.’
‘Ah. Right. Very good. Page is a lovely name.’
‘Some people think he’s a girl, because of the name. But he’s a boy. Called Page.’
I had chosen the name myself. Alison had wanted to call him Alan. We had compromised. His forenames were Page Alan. My mother refused to call him Page. For that matter she also refused to call him Alan. She did not call him by any name, in fact, but constantly referred to him as It. She gave him as much love as she had given to me. Alison and I cohabited on the ground and first floors of our house. Mother, newly returned from her nursing home, resided in the attic. Once, when Page was crying himself sick, and Alison had tried everything, she called up in desperation to Mother to see if she had any suggestions for old-fashioned remedies. Mother had shouted down, ‘Yes, wrap It in a pillowcase and throw It in the river.’
People who did not know Mother well thought she had a very dark sense of humour. She did not. She had no sense of humour at all. She was evil.
‘Well,’ Nurse Brenda said, ‘I’m glad that everything has turned out well for you.’
‘My girlfriend says I’m a work in progress,’ I said, and I smiled, and I immediately killed it, because I was confused as to why I had felt the need to say that, or to reveal anything at all about myself. And then I remembered that when I was there, Nurse Brenda was very good at getting me to talk, and that actually I had very much liked her.
‘Anyway,’ she said, and gave what could only be described as a nervous whistle.
It was most odd. She had clearly run out of inanities yet seemed disinclined to leave. I had asked her virtually nothing about herself, because I was not interested in whether she was married or had children or was otherwise happy or destitute, even though it was all pretty obvious. I saw that there was a circle of white flesh on her bare ring finger, and a small puncture scar where her wedding band had been snipped off because her marriage had gone to pot and she’d turned to food as a comfort and as a result her fingers had pudged up. I saw that she had her blue nurse’s uniform on under her coat, but there was a flash of red there too, indicating that she’d been promoted. The whistle she had given invited me to focus on her lips; the lower one had a jagged black line across it – not a scar, but tissue dyed with tannin, indicating heavy recent consumption of red wine.
I could have characterised her as a fat old divorcée with a drink problem, had I so chosen, but I chose not to do so. I knew then that she was not here by chance, or for old times’ sake, or out of curiosity about my fate. She was here because she had heard that I was a crime-fighter and the champion of the underdog.
I said, ‘You have a problem.’
She nodded. ‘I do.’
‘And you’ve heard that I’m a problem-solver.’
‘I heard about you, before I realised it was you. You’re like a private investigator.’
‘People have said that. It is what I do: it started as a hobby, but now dominates my life. Bookseller, always. Crime fighter, because there is no one else with my skill. Not in this city.’
‘It’s not a crime, my problem, it’s more like a puzzle.’
‘I like puzzles.’
‘Or a mystery.’
‘I’m a mystery man,’ I said. I waved around the store. ‘I have ten thousand books in here, and I’ve read them all. There’s nothing I don’t know about solving crimes.’
‘It’s not a crime,’ said Nurse Brenda. ‘It’s a puzzle.’
Still she would not start. I prompted her with: ‘A problem shared . . .’
‘I shouldn’t really be here, it’s not official. And it’s only a wee thing, but it has been nagging me. You know me – you know I care about all my boys and girls.’
Few of them were boys, and few of them were girls, but I knew what she meant. She had a heart of gold. I remembered that.
‘It’s just he breaks my heart every time I look at him. I just want to find out who he is. I want to get him home.’
I gave her an encouraging nod, and finally she began to tell me about her problem. If I’d known then what I know now, I would have rammed a book into her mouth to stop her talking, I would have turned her round and taken hold of her raincoat and hurled her, face first, out of the shop and onto the pavement. But obviously I could not have known what I know now, so I listened, and was sucked into what would ultimately become The Case of the Man in the White Suit, the most perplexing, frustrating and dangerous case I have yet had the displeasure of being involved in.
2
Out of nowhere Jeff said, ‘Who do you think invented butter?’
I said, ‘What?’
We were in the Mystery Machine, on our way to my house. I was driving. I do not like to be distracted when I’m driving. I do not like the radio on, and I do not like small talk. Jeff was aware of this, yet persisted. I did not much like Jeff either, but he had been my part-time assistant in the shop for so long now that I had grown used to him. He was a student, and an aspiring poet, and he supported outmoded and pointless organisations like Amnesty International, and wittered on about them at every opportunity. It was like having a fly trapped in a small room with you. You could put up with the buzz for just so long and then you would have to open the window and let him out, or squish him mercilessly.
‘Butter,’ he said. ‘Where did it come from? Who first thought it up?’
I sighed, for I knew that he would persist until I responded. I am the fount of some knowledge. ‘We’ll never really know,’ I said, ‘but it was probably an accident, like photography and penicillin and you.’
‘I’m serious.’
I doubted that. The roads were, at least, relatively quiet, but I remained alert for danger. I kept the vehicle at a steady twenty-nine miles per hour. Behind me, cars pumped their horns impatiently. I ignored them. I was protecting them as well as myself.
‘The more important question, Jeff, surely, is who invented cows?’
‘God invented cows.’
‘Then God invented butter too.’
‘Not necessarily. He invented cows, and grass and stones, but He left it up to us to use what He created to create other things. He didn’t invent butter. He facilitated its invention.’
‘So who invented God?’ I asked.
He didn’t even give that any consideration. He was fixated on butter. ‘No, really,’ he said, ‘who do you think was the first man or woman to take some milk and churn it up and produce what must have just looked like yellow gunk? And who was mad enough to even think of tasting it, let alone spreading it on their bap? For that matter, who was the first person to milk a cow? I mean, if you’re the first person to do something, you usually get pilloried. Say, if way back when, in the Stone Age, there was a cow in a field and one guy catches another wanking it off, he would have been stoned to death for being a pervert.’
‘You milk a cow, Jeff.’
‘We know that now, but back then, if you just randomly went up to a cow and started pulling at its udder, it would have looked like—’
‘Jeff, I worry about you.’
He nodded. ‘My finals are coming up, and I’m not prepared.’
‘Do they have anything at all to do with the invention of butter?’
‘No.’
We drove on. The drivers behind were perplexed by my refusal to cross traffic-lights on amber. After a while I said, ‘A far better question would be – who invented marg
arine?’
‘Because?’
‘Because that is answerable. In 1869 Emperor Napoleon the Third of France offered a prize to anyone who could make a satisfactory substitute for butter suitable for use by his army and the lower classes. And so a chemist called Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès invented margarine. But it didn’t take off, so he sold the idea to a Dutch company called Jurgens, which is now part of Unilever.’
‘I see.’
‘And another interesting fact is that margarine was actually banned in Canada from 1885. To get round it, bootleg margarine was produced in neighbouring Newfoundland by the Newfoundland Butter Company, which, in fact, only ever produced margarine, and it was smuggled across the border where it was sold for half the price of butter. The Supreme Court of Canada only lifted the ban in 1948.’
Jeff nodded for a bit, before saying, ‘I hope no one is taping this.’
Jeff knew that I had a case, but that was all. I was keeping it under my hat until I had the chance to sit down with Alison. I did not need her permission to take on a case, but I liked to include her in the discussions. It was just easier. But I would pay no attention to anything she said. I was my own man. She had enough on her plate. She had a baby to cope with. And whether she liked it or not, Mother too.
We sat at the kitchen table, Jeff and I, mesmerised, as Alison proceeded to breastfeed Page. I was mesmerised because it was my little baby, feeding on my little woman, with whom I had had sex on many occasions; a life I had created, the fruit of my loins, my son and heir. Jeff was mesmerised because he was seeing a breast, and quite possibly imagining what it would take to create human butter.
‘So,’ Alison said, ‘a case.’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘I thought we had a No Case rule. That we were done with danger.’
‘There is no danger in this.’
‘That’s what you always say.’
‘This is different.’
‘That’s what you always say.’
‘And this time it really is.’
I told her, and Jeff – and Page, for that matter – about Nurse Brenda coming into the store, and the nature of the case. Jeff yawned. He was young enough to still crave excitement. Alison nodded without enthusiasm. Page suckled contentedly.
‘So there you have it,’ I concluded. ‘Absolutely no danger.’
‘They start out like that, and then it all goes to pot.’
‘There’s no chance of that. It’s just a puzzle. This poor man has lost his memory, and he doesn’t speak or communicate, and nobody has come forward to claim him. He’s been finger-printed and DNA’d till the cows come home, his picture has been in the papers and the police still haven’t a baldy notion. All Nurse Brenda wants me to do is to try and help her find his loved ones. He’s been convicted of nothing, yet the only place they can think to keep him is in a mental institution. That’s not fair. That’s not right. You wouldn’t want me to be locked up like that, would you?’
There was a long pause.
Jeff said, ‘Does it hurt?’
‘Does what hurt?’ Alison asked.
‘Him sucking like that?’
‘Jeff, stick to the programme,’ I said.
‘It can do,’ said Alison. ‘But there are creams I rub on my nipples.’
Jeff nodded. His cheeks had visibly reddened. So had mine.
‘Sometimes,’ said Alison, warming to her subject, ‘the ducts get blocked and I can’t feed him at all. I have to wear cabbage leaves in my bra. They help.’
‘Why cabbage leaves?’ Jeff asked.
‘I’ve absolutely no idea. But they seem to work.’
I could feel Jeff looking at me. I sighed.
‘If you must know, cabbages contain sinigrin rapine, mustard oil, magnesium, oxylate and sulphur,’ I said. ‘A combination of these ingredients helps the leaves to act like both an antibiotic and an anti-irritant. Meanwhile, the prisoner of Brenda remains incarcerated.’
‘Could you use a lettuce?’ Jeff asked.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Now, I’m going to go to Purdysburn tonight, to check this guy out. Are you coming or not?’
‘Yes,’ said Jeff.
‘I’m not talking to you. Alison?’
‘I’m not sure it’s appropriate, bringing a baby into a mental institution.’
‘I’m not expecting you to. Leave him here.’
‘With your mother? She’d eat him.’
‘No, of course not.’ I smiled at her. ‘Why do you think I brought a babysitter?’
Jeff looked around the room for whoever he’d missed, until his gaze fell back on me, looking at him. His eyes widened.
‘You’ve got to be fucking kidding,’ he said.
‘Watch your language,’ Alison snapped, and then repeated the line to me. ‘I’ve never left Page with anyone. Let alone . . .’ She nodded at Jeff.
‘He’s not as big an idiot as he looks. He’s the eldest of five – he’s been around babies all his life.’
‘I didn’t come here to babysit,’ said Jeff.
‘Yes, you did,’ I said.
‘You never said a thing.’
‘Would you have come if I had?’
‘That’s not the point. You gave me the impression we were going on a case.’
‘No, you jumped to conclusions. If Alison doesn’t come, you’re welcome to tag along.’
‘Do you have four brothers or sisters?’ Alison asked.
‘Yes, but—’
‘And you’re used to changing and looking after babies?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Deal,’ said Alison.
3
There was a lot of palaver to go through before we finally set out for Purdysburn. Most of it revolved around Alison refusing to let go of Page. I couldn’t quite understand it. Even though he was my son and heir, ultimately he was still only a baby. There are billions of them. In India, you can’t give them away. She hadn’t left his side since he’d been born, which I considered rather odd. If something did happen to him, we could always bake another. Once, when he was in a cot in our room, and Alison needed to go to the toilet, she insisted on leaving both the bedroom and bathroom doors wide open so that she could keep an eye on him. Even at a distance of twelve metres, you never need to see your girlfriend having a poo. Hearing the splash would have put me off sex for almost fifteen minutes, if sex had been an option.
As we finally drove away, Alison, looking back at Jeff waving Page’s little hand from the front door, had tears in her eyes. ‘He looks so sad,’ she said.
‘He’ll be fine. I left him a box of books to sort out.’
‘I’m talking about Page,’ she said.
‘I know that,’ I said.
As we rounded the corner, she finally turned in her seat and slumped down. ‘I feel like my right arm has been cut off,’ she said.
‘It hasn’t,’ I said. ‘You’re just used to the weight of him there – that’s the side you hold him on. Muscle memory.’
Even though I was concentrating completely on the road and our safety, I could tell that she was looking at me.
‘Sometimes,’ she said, ‘you’re very cold.’
‘It’s the nature of me,’ I said.
‘Even that response. There’s no sorry or I don’t mean to be or I’ll try and do better.’
‘I’ll try and do better.’ Alison sighed. ‘I don’t mean to be. I’m sorry.’
‘They’re like the programmed responses of a robot.’
I nodded for a bit, and then once we were safely stopped at a red light I turned to her and spoke in what I hoped was a cold, robotic voice:
‘We mean no harm to your planet.’
She just looked at me, then away.
‘Weirdo,’ she said.
Purdysburn is a place and a derogatory term. For a hundred years it was both a secure facility for the criminally insane and a day-care centre for those feeling a bit blue. Growing up, if you did anything daft, people would say you belonged i
n Purdysburn. School chums would hand you a piece of paper and say, ‘Hey, you’ve dropped your bus ticket,’ and you’d look on it and they’d have written Purdysburn on it, and sometimes, one way. It’s a huge Victorian insanitorium, terrifying then and scarcely less so now even with a twenty-first-century make-over and a patient’s charter. I was sweating by the time we stopped in the car park.
‘Why put yourself through this?’ Alison asked.
‘I’m fine,’ I said. I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. We could both see the damp fingerprints they left.
‘You never talk about it, even in the wee small hours.’
‘There’s nothing to talk about.’
‘Right,’ said Alison, and opened her door.
We crossed the car park. Alison mounted the steps and I took the disabled ramp. We met at the top and I put my hand out to take hers, and she kept hers to herself. Two could play at that game. When we got to the door, I refused to open it for her. We stood there. She looked at me, and I looked at her. She could outstare a statue, so eventually I caved in, but she was left in no doubt about how I felt. I was starting to think that she was suffering from post-natal depression. Certainly I was.
The reception desk was directly ahead. From previous experience, most notably during The Case of the Musical Jews, I knew that at night there was a security guard on reception rather than nursing staff, but on this drizzly, grim Belfast night there appeared to be nobody on duty at all. We stood at the desk and waited for someone to appear. There was a bell to ring, which Alison pressed. She screwed up her face and hunched her back and cried, ‘The bells! The bells!’ I gave her a look and she said, ‘Lighten up.’ Nurse Brenda was expecting us – and when I say us, I mean me – and although we were a little early, it still seemed odd that there was nobody around.
‘She said she’d see you here? In reception?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘There’s no need to snap.’
‘I wasn’t snapping.’
‘There you go again.’
Behind us the door opened again and we turned. I expected to see Nurse Brenda cantering towards us, but it wasn’t her, it was a man in a grey raincoat, flanked by two police officers. I recognised the man and Alison recognised the man, and the man recognised us.