Utterly Monkey

by Nick Laird

  The hallway was an elevator, jerked to a stop, mid-floors. It was a carriage in a stationary train shunted from behind. It was a rollercoaster car tipping over the brink of the slope. It was entirely silent.

  Geordie was standing at the far side, by the glass-panelled front door. Between him and Danny there was a body. A man was lying splayed on the paisley carpet. He was in his forties maybe, wearing a dressing gown that was hitched up round his middle. He wore old blue Y-fronts and the lower part of one of his spindly legs was bent up under the thigh. The knee was all pink and bulgy. The man’s neck was twisted round too far to the left. Danny could only see a little of his face but it was waxy and completely white. He had a few days’ beard growth. He looked terrified. One eye stared straight ahead. Danny followed its gaze to the skirting board. He was dead. The man was dead.

  Geordie said, ‘We need to get the fuck out of here. Come on.’

  Danny still stood there. He felt a shaking rise within him. The bones of his body were banging inside him like the water pipes. Geordie pushed past, back into the kitchen. Danny looked at the body, and then turned and followed him. For some reason Geordie had pulled off his T-shirt and was rubbing the kitchen cupboards with it and the taps. Danny stood watching him stupidly. Then he went into the bathroom and Danny trailed automatically after him. Geordie rubbed the door handles. He was professional somehow, agitated and upset but professional. He strode outside and rubbed at the outside window and frame of the bathroom while Danny leant against the sharp pebbledash of the back of the house. He could feel his legs going and tears coming. Lastly Geordie rubbed the bin lids and then yanked the T-shirt back over his xylophone frame. ‘NOW,’ he suddenly shouted and Danny jumped, then followed him, running, back round the side of the house and down through the estate. They hit the Milburn Road and legged it through Danny’s open front door and past the living room where the girls were building a lego metropolis and up the stairs into Danny’s bedroom. Geordie closed the door behind them and stood against it, leaning into Danny’s too-small blue velour dressing gown. Danny perched on the edge of the bed. They were breathless.

  ‘What the f-fuck are you doing? Don’t you want to see if your uncle’s all right?’

  Geordie looked at Danny like he was about to punch him.

  ‘Something happened, something awful happened. That wasn’t my uncle’s house. It was Barry Hughes’s. From the school.’

  Of course. The man was Barry Hughes. He had looked familiar, even like that. Barry Hughes was a vice-principal and maths teacher at Ballyglass High. Danny had never been taught by him though he was known to be strict, despite wearing daft patterned jumpers and singing snatches of operas in the corridors.

  ‘What? Why the fuck did you do that? Why did you think it was your uncle’s? How’d you get the wrong house?’

  ‘Danny, it wasn’t my fault. I just found him there. He was lying at the bottom of the stairs. It wasn’t my fault. I just saw him. I went up to him and looked at him but he was a funny colour and he wasn’t making no breathing sounds and that leg was twisted back behind him.’

  ‘But why’d we go in there? Why Hughes’s house?’

  Geordie’s eyes were filmy. Danny thought he was going to cry as well. His stomach was all jittery. ‘Why’d you go in the house at all? Did you know it was Hughes’s house?’

  ‘Look.’ Geordie pushed at his own forehead. Danny had seen men do that on television when they were upset. It looked fake when Geordie did it, like he’d seen the same TV shows. ‘I knew it was Hughes’s house but I thought he’d be at the parade all right? An’ I thought we could just go in and use his phone. You were the one who wanted a place to hide out.’

  ‘YOU FUCKING TOLD ME IT WAS YOUR UNCLE’S HOUSE.’ Danny stood up.

  ‘Aye I know. But you helped me break in.’

  ‘Fuck you Geordie.’ Danny was shaking his head and biting his lower lip. ‘We have to call the police and go back to the house. He might still be alive.’

  ‘He wasn’t alive, Danny.’

  ‘He must have heard us come in and then slipped or something, fallen over the banister. He must have thought we were burglars. But we would have heard him fall. He would have shouted.’ But Danny was thinking of how loud the pipes had been banging. And how noisy the tap was. His T-shirt was still wet from the water. They wouldn’t have heard anything. And Danny had slammed the cupboard door. He must have frightened him. He had killed him. ‘But we would have heard him,’ Danny said again, slowly this time. ‘We have to go back. He might be alive still.’

  ‘He’s not alive Danny. He was white. Chances are he never heard us. He could have been dead hours for all we know. Dead for days. We’re not calling the fucking police. They’ll say we killed him. We’ll be sent away. For breaking and entering. For murder. There’s nothing we can do but keep quiet. It’s not our fault Danny. It’s just one of those things.’

  Geordie slid down the door. Danny’s dressing gown slithered off the little plastic holder shaped like an elephant, its trunk the hook, and fell onto his head. He pushed it off and it draped over his shoulders like a cape. He was a boy playing at being a superhero. Danny felt a tear break from his eye and run down his cheek.

  ‘We can’t do nothing. We have to tell someone.’

  ‘Shut up. Just shut up. I’m the one who’ll get it. I’m the one who’ll be in trouble. I’m the one they’ll blame.’

  ‘Well it’s your fucking fault.’

  ‘Danny, I didn’t do nothing wrong. I was just going to go in and get the phone. You wanted the phone. I was only trying to help you.’

  It is pretty to see what money will do.

  Samuel Pepys

  FRIDAY, 9 JULY 2004

  They’d smoked, talked, and eyed the box, then Danny’d stood up abruptly, mumbled about the length of time until work (seven hours), sloped off to bed, and they’d slept. They hadn’t talked about Hughes. They’d never talked about Hughes. As his house had been locked and there were no signs of forced entry, the death had been regarded as an accident: a fall over his banister, accounted for by a loose rug on his landing and the alcohol in his system. He’d broken his neck.

  Danny had thought about him occasionally over the years but ever since Geordie’d arrived he’d been noticing the names Barry or Hughes turning up everywhere, and references at work or on TV or in conversations to teachers or maths or opera or death. This is how obsession works. You acquire a sense that the world is trying to talk to you. It’s as if a theme’s being pushed like a skewer through your life. At night the private cinema of his retina showed one main feature: Hughes’s fish-eye staring accusingly at the skirting board.

  Danny was woken at 7.30 a.m. on Friday morning by his radio alarm. He jabbed it off and rolled over, then opened his eyes slowly. It was somehow 9.06 a.m. Time is something else that can’t be trusted. Danny left for work unwashed and left Geordie lying sound asleep again, facing into the sofa’s back, his breathing like someone steadily sweeping a floor. Danny didn’t get to the office until past ten. After he’d locked his bike in the underground car park, he walked across the courtyard where the senior partners parked their jags and mercs. It looked like an upmarket second-hand car lot and, strolling across it towards him, between a Range Rover and a Beamer, was its chief salesman, slicked and erect and smiling: Adam Vyse.

  ‘Good morning Mr Williams. Gosh, almost good afternoon in fact.’ He pretended to check his watch. Ha ha. Ha ha ha.

  ‘Morning Adam. Yeah, I’m running a bit late today. I had a doctor’s appointment this morning.’ You like that? You like that bald-faced lie? Danny smiled at him pleasantly.

  ‘Oh yes? Nothing serious I hope?’ Cancer perhaps?

  ‘No no. Just warts, as it happens. But all over my genitals.’ I am insane.

  Adam looked like he’d just eaten a chilli: his tongue hung out, frozen at the beginning of whatever word he was about to say. Danny walked past him, trying his best to imitate Vyse’s earlier grin, the one employing the
mouth but rejecting the eyes. Be more mental, he repeated to himself, be more mental. They might make you redundant.

  Danny had twenty-three e-mails waiting for him. A woman who worked in the Property Library called Nessa Pamplemousse was selling Gladiator on DVD. Four people, none of whom he knew, were holding leaving drinks. Lesley Hornbridge from Private Client was giving away a free candy-striped two-seater sofabed, although you had to collect it from Eastbourne. Danielle Winton was trying to sell a showjumping pony. Apparently it was carefully produced, very bold cross-country, never had a day off work and was 100% traffic, clip, box, shoe. Gibberish. It was serious money, though: £8,000. Maybe he should buy it and ride to work everyday. Kathy De’Ath was celebrating her thirtieth birthday in the Coachman’s Arms this evening. Danny said the name out loud, to test it–De’Ath– as he deleted, unopened, the rest of the e-mails from strangers. Those left were from some of the invitees to his party: it looked like people were coming and, as people hunted fun in packs, even bringing others. He clicked open his Sent folder, found the original inviting e-mail and forwarded it again to everyone on the address list who hadn’t replied, with the heading: Tonight. My birthday party. It might be a laugh. Someone might trip on the stairs. Do come. Before he sent it he stared at the e-mail for a full minute, thinking, then typed Ellen Powell in at the end of the list of addresses and hit Send.

  Danny stood up and went out of his office, intending to go and see Rollson. Standing in the corridor he could easily touch both of its opposing walls with his hands. He pushed at them for a moment, like a preppy Samson between the pillars. He was feeling curiously light; the endorphins from his ride into work had gelled with his amusement at telling his boss that he was carrying a minor venereal disease. On the way in he’d cycled past a blonde waiting at a bus stop in Old Street and her posture, as if a string was pulling her head straight up, reminded him of Olivia standing on his doorstep, dignified and abandoned. But it is very difficult to sustain sadness during the day, there is too much to see, and he now felt oddly charged, happy even. And Ellen of the almond eyes might come tonight. He walked up the corridor, dragging his finger along the front of the filing cabinets. They had ridged doors that allowed them to roll back into the sides of the cabinet and he consequently made a thrumming sound, like a truant dragging a stick against railings. When he passed Andrew Jackson’s room, and the partner looked up at him, grimacing, Danny gave him the First-Class Vyse-Certified Shit-Eating Grin.

  Rollson was being attended to by the in-house physio, a ginger woman who dressed like a district nurse. Rollson was her best client. He was getting fitted for a new lumbar support.

  ‘But Albert, if you actually sat up straight then you wouldn’t have a gap in here,’–she inserted her hand into the space, wearily patient–‘between your back and the seat.’

  ‘I know but how do you sit up straight for fourteen hours at a stretch? It’s not possible. I’m only human.’

  ‘Everyone else seems to manage it.’

  ‘They get curvature of the spine. Richard III, Quasimodo, they all worked here.’

  He made an impassive expression and blinked very slowly at Danny, to suggest the suffering he was going through. The physio sighed. Her badge read Eleanor Broom.

  ‘Well, this support pad is the best we can get. It took four weeks to arrive and I had to get special partner authority to order it.’

  ‘Okay, I understand that, but I want you to record in your notes that I’m not comfortable in this seat.’

  This was meant to scare the physio, intimating that he was preparing a claim against the firm for health problems. She sighed again and looked hurt.

  ‘I’ll see what I can do. Let me talk to the firm that makes these. Maybe we could order a new foam one to be specially moulded to your back or something.’

  Albert, out of sight of Eleanor, who was still fussing with his current lumbar pad, grinned at Danny.

  ‘Well I suppose if that’s all you can do, it’s all you can do.’

  Danny slid into the seat opposite him just as his phone started ringing.

  ‘Okay, I’ll pop off back downstairs now. E-mail me if there’s anything else.’

  The physio swished out, leaving a vapour trail of perfume. Albert had, instead of a telephone receiver, a handsfree headset, à la Madonna circa 1990, and he flicked it over his head.

  ‘Thanks Eleanor, thanks so much…Albert Rollson, hello?’

  Danny looked at the desk between them. It had an angled book rest on which there were two large sheets of blotting paper, patterned with the squiggles of dozens of dried signatures. There was also a free-standing magnifying glass, several small jars of vitamins, a tube of Berocca, and a box of man-sized tissues, whitely erupting. The Kleenex had been purchased on Monday, which Danny knew because Albert had spent a large proportion of Monday afternoon standing in the doorway of his office arguing that man-sized tissues should, in fact, be the size of a man, even if it was only a little man who didn’t care much for food.

  ‘Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yes. Okay. Mr Haroldson, would you mind awfully if I set you on speaker phone while I get the file? Please do go on.’

  Rollson gestured to Danny to shut the door and he did so, quietly. Rollson set the handle of the Dictaphone, the part you speak into, by the telephone. From a drawer under his desk, he lifted a transparent cassette, on which ROLLS was daubed up the side in Tipp-Ex, slotted it into the Dictaphone, and flicked the machine on. It hummed into life.

  ‘Hullo, Albert? Albert? Can yuh hear uz? Can yuh hear uz now?’ Northern, a sixty-a-day timbre to it. The kind of voice you’d like to talk to your grandchildren in.

  ‘Perfectly Mr Haroldson. If you and the team want to give me a summary of events from 1992 onwards, right up to the present day, I’ll take notes. Just tell me everything you can think of and I’ll keep my questions until the end. Maybe each of you could speak in turn?’

  ‘Right-o, Albert. June. June? Get June in here. June should go first.’

  Albert mouthed to Danny, DID YOU INVITE HER?

  Danny mouthed back, ELLEN?

  They nodded at each other simultaneously. Albert mouthed, COFFEE?

  They left the wobbly voice of June describing her filing system to the Dictaphone and walked down the corridor to the facilities room. In here the buzz of the office was intensified. There was an enormous bovine photocopier, ingesting, digesting, egesting. From under its lid Danny could see the strip of light zip up and down the glass panel, the dawn horizon strapped into a box. The fax machine, water fountain, sink, taps, shredder, scanner and vending machine all glugged or beeped or munched or whirred or clicked in here. It was the modern farmyard. Danny pressed 71 on the vending machine’s sticky pad and a brown plastic cup slotted into the gap. A thin ribbon of water started to fill it, running colourless at first and then very dark. Albert repeated the process. He looked faded, exhausted. Danny felt impelled to give him a hug but instead patted him, awkwardly, on the shoulder. Even this physical contact occasioned Rollson to take a step back and lean against the snorting copier.

  ‘You okay mate? How’s the settlement coming? What time d’you get away at last night?’

  ‘’Bout three. I feel pretty dreadful. But I’m coming to your do this evening, although it might be later rather than sooner. What did Ellen say?’

  Albert pulled some paper out from the large circular dispenser and ripped it off. He wiped carefully round the lip of his plastic cup before he drank from it.

  ‘I didn’t speak to her–just added her name to that reminder I sent round. I’ll go check for a reply in a minute. I think I’m losing it though. I told Adam Vyse I’d genital warts this morning.’

  ‘Why?’ Rollson rearranged his face into a smile but Danny could see his disapproval. It was too direct a revolt, too unsubtle. A little bit naff.

  ‘I was late. It seemed like an amusing thing to do.’

  ‘How’d he take it?’

  ‘Not sure yet. I’ll let you know.’


  ‘I’d better get back to Mr Haroldson and June.’

  ‘Just say you went to get their file.’

  Albert nodded and sipped at the coffee. Danny was staring across the white room at the shredder as if he’d only just noticed it. Just to the above and left of it, attached to the wall, was the paper roll dispenser Albert’d just used.

  ‘I wonder,’ Danny began idly, ‘if we fed a bit of that paper into the shredder and turned it on, whether it would keep going by itself, until the roll ran out or the shredder was full?’

  ‘I think it just might,’ Albert said, pouring the rest of his coffee into the sink.

  ‘Interesting thought.’

  ‘I’ll see you later Dan. I’ve got to go and ask some pointless questions.’ Albert hurried out.

  Back at his desk Danny had no reply from Ellen. He’d need to e-mail her about Northern Ireland in a minute. It could be embarrassing if she didn’t mention the party e-mail at all. Maybe she thought it was too friendly and weird. Jill had already booked their Belfast flights and the Europa, the most bombed hotel in Europe. He’d save that fact for the plane. It was only for one night, they just needed to have a quick look through the main contracts. If it appeared that there was going to be too much work to do in a day and a half Danny had decided that he’d get the documents copied and sent over to London, should Ulster Water be amenable to the idea, which seemed unlikely. Danny opened the matter’s correspondence file on his desk. Scott had left it in a mess. Post-it notes hung from it with numbers and names scribbled on them. There was a perfect coffee ring on the file’s cover: a No Entry sign. It didn’t even seem to be in chronological order. Danny pulled out a summary sheet from the file’s inside flap. Their client, Syder, were going to asset strip and sell off Ulster Water’s businesses. There was a rival bid from the Japanese company Yakuma who were going to invest in the company and expand it. If Syder’s bid was successful the first step of their business plan was to sack 4,000 people. It was the largest private employer in Ulster.