Darkmans (52 page)

‘That’s bullshit,’ Kane scoffed, ‘and, strictly speaking, Paul isn’t actually
dead
, is he?’

Her jaw dropped. ‘That’s exactly what your stupid
dad
said…’

‘Well he isn’t, is he? He’s just…’

‘What
is
it with the two of you lately?’

She gazed at him, perturbed.

Kane stood up. ‘I gotta go,’ he murmured, ‘I need a smoke…’ He felt around in his pockets for his cigarettes. ‘And I’m sorry about all that other shit,’ he said, pulling out his phone and inspecting it ‘…the drugs, your leg…’

‘All that other shit?’ she echoed, blankly.

He shoved the phone away again. ‘I’ll have a quiet word with Gaffar. I’ll tell him to back off…’

He spoke with great sincerity, almost tenderly. She continued to stare at him, passively, as if dazed.

‘And I’m really sorry about your mum…’

He pulled out his fags.

‘My mum?’

She frowned, slowly emerging from her stupor.

‘I told Gaffar to be nice,’ he tapped a cigarette out and stuck it into his mouth. ‘It was just part of the service.’

‘Back up a minute…’ she scowled, ‘I ain’t followin’…’

‘I told him to do it. I
paid
him.’

She allowed this news to sink in for a second.

‘An’
muggins
, here?’ she demanded, pointing to herself, indignantly.

‘Pardon?’

He was searching for his lighter.

‘Did you tell him to butter
me
up?’

‘In your case,’ he smiled, removing the cigarette and propping it behind his ear (as a tutting nurse marched by), ‘he didn’t take much asking…’

‘
Wow
…’ She slowly shook her head, her few paltry illusions finally shattering, ‘I honestly can’t believe what a
tit
I’ve been. What an unbelievable fuckin’
tit
…’

He found his lighter. An old blue
bic.

’…What a total, brainless, fuckin’
ditz
…’

He glanced up.

‘You was just
bored
!’ she exclaimed, almost as if delighted by this cruel insight. ‘
That’s
the honest truth of it. There
was
no mystery. You just wanted rid an’ I was too clueless to see it…’

‘It wasn’t like that,’ he maintained.

‘Bollocks it wasn’t.’

‘Look…’

‘Fuck off,’ she interrupted, flapping him away with her bony hand. ‘Please don’t get all narky, Kell…’

‘Narky?’ The veins stood out on her neck. ‘
Narky?!
You think
this
is narky?’

‘Okay,’ he shrugged, ‘whatever. You can think what you like…’

‘I will,’ she said, still flapping.

He pointed to the photocopied sheets. ‘Should I return those to Beede for you?’

‘Nah. Don’t trouble yourself,’ she snapped.

He stared at her, perplexed.

‘I’m
am
sorry,’ he muttered, shrugging. ‘You’re a funny girl, a
sweet
girl…’

‘Fuck
off
, already,’ she hissed, turning her sharp face away and slamming her head, violently, into her pillow, then lifting it, cussing, and repeating the process, twice.

Beede shone the torch into the rear of the car, briefly illuminating the hunched-up form of a small, sleeping child, covered in a messy pile of clothes and coats and blankets. The dog sat nearby, stiff and alert, her huge, round eyes reflecting the light of the torch eerily back at him.

‘I’d’ve kept the heater on,’ Elen said, shivering, ‘but I was worried the battery might go flat.’

She looked terrible, bedraggled.

‘You must be freezing,’ he exclaimed, reaching out his hand to touch the damp fabric of her sleeve, ‘and you’re soaked through…’

‘It rained steadily,’ she said, ‘while we were searching…’

‘Drive him home,’ he told her gently, ‘and have a warm bath, a hot drink. That’ll soon sort you out.’

She nodded, but she didn’t seem to be listening. Her eyes were scanning the dark horizon.

‘Drive him home,’ he repeated. ‘
Seriously.
There’s nothing more you can do here.’

‘We were talking about the woods,’ she said, ‘and then there was this stupid…this
misunderstanding.
He mentioned Bixley several times. It seemed important. He had this strange kind of…I don’t know…’ her voice gradually petered out.

She unfolded the map and pointed. ‘I found his shoe and his jumper here…’ She pointed again ‘…This is where he left the car.’

‘That’s about 3, 4 miles,’ Beede calculated. ‘So he was travelling at speed…’

‘I just headed straight for the wooded areas,’ she shrugged, helplessly, ‘more out of instinct than anything…’

She passed him the map as if she couldn’t bear touching it any more, as if she was disgusted by it, by the places that it had unwittingly led her. Her hands were shaking.

‘Thanks.’

He took it, folded it and thrust it into his coat pocket.

‘No,’ she said. ‘
No.
Thank
you.
I don’t know what I’d’ve done if you hadn’t come.’

She stared down at the damp tarmac, utterly drained and forlorn, swaying slightly in the blustering wind.

‘Come here,’ he suddenly found himself murmuring, holding out his arms (or if it wasn’t him – and how
could
it be? – then it was the gentle one, it was
Danny
who called to her). She moved slowly towards him as if propelled not so much by whim as by a terrible inability to actually resist anything. He drew her, protectively, to his chest. She fell against him, a dead weight at first and then she suddenly reached out her arms and clasped her hands tightly around him, pushing her face into his neck with a tiny expulsion of breath. Her nose was icy against his skin. He flattened out his palms and gently patted her back. She felt so tiny to him, so thin, like some kind of fragile mouse or bird, and her hair was so soft, smelled so sweet, like marzipan and fresh linen.

He touched his cheek to the side of her head. His lip almost brushed her ear.

She was shivering. She was icy.

‘You’re so cold,’ Danny whispered, ‘slip your arms under my coat.’ She nodded and unfastened her hands. He yanked open his coat and enveloped her in it, pulling the front flaps either side of her and securing them with his arms. She nestled against him, her own arms pulled up close in front of her at first and then gradually – as she felt his warmth – her hands flattened against his chest and then worked their way around his ribs, around his sides, around his back, until they made contact with each other, then one hand fell, slid slowly down, until it reached the waist of his trousers. On the left-hand side – where his shirt had come untucked – her icy fingers touched his skin. He shuddered, closed his eyes and breathed her in.

She snuggled up still closer. He thought she might be crying.

‘There,’ he whispered softly, ‘hush.’

‘I felt so lonely,’ she said, ‘so
cold
inside, and the day went on forever.

And everything I
did
…everything I
said
was just…’

Her body shook.

He lifted his hand and cupped it around the back of her nape, pushing his fingers into the delicately boned base of her skull, then gently angled her head under his chin, her cheek into his collarbone.

‘Save me,’ she implored him, pushing her smooth forehead against the gap in his shirt, but Beede didn’t hear her (Thank God he didn’t hear her – what could Beede do, after all?), only Danny heard and Danny said, ‘I’ll look after you. I’ll take care of you. Don’t worry any more. You’re perfectly safe here.’

‘I feel safe,’ she said, breathing into him, and he could feel her lips parting and the warmth of her breath on his skin.

Kane was standing in the steamy bathroom (the door propped open to improve the ventilation), carefully greasing back his wayward blond mane with the aid of a small quantity of coconut hair oil. He’d recently bathed and shaved, had applied a modest amount of cologne, was wearing a clean, grey t-shirt, a soft, white, Adidas hoodie and a new pair of dark-blue, engineered Levis. He looked pristine.

‘So,’ Gaffar said, wandering in and pulling off his leather jacket.

‘You speak for Kelly, eh?’

‘I had a call from Hinxhill at five,’ Kane said, perusing the blur of Gaffar in the fogged-up mirror. ‘Did you finally make it over there?’

‘Sure.’

‘And Kempe’s Corner?’

‘Sure.’

‘How was the weather?’

‘
Urgh.
Bad. Is
rain
, eh?’

‘And the scooter?’

‘Slow for start…’

Gaffar impersonated the engine with a series of dry, hacking coughs. ‘Piece of shit.
Italia
…’

He turned and indicated fastidiously towards the splashes of mud on the back of his trousers.

‘How was Martha?’ Kane wondered.

‘Crazy,’ Gaffar said. ‘She make me read from book, but…’ he shrugged.

‘The poetry?’ Kane smiled, fondly. ‘The tiny little yellow hardback? Emily Dickinson?’

Gaffar looked blank.

‘Or was it Blake this time?’

Gaffar shook his head. ‘I dunno. Was all crazy.’

‘Martha
loves
Emily Dickinson.’

‘Crazy woman.’

‘And Bert?’

‘Nothing. No words.’

‘Really…?’

Kane turned to face him, concerned. ‘He didn’t actually speak?’

‘Nothing. Jus, “Why
you
here? Where is this
Kane
?”’

‘Did he seem depressed at all?’

‘Sure he was depress.’

‘Was he clean?’

‘
Clean?
’ Gaffar frowned. ‘Sure he was clean.’

‘Well that’s generally a good sign. Whenever Bert gets seriously miserable his hygiene’s always the first thing to go. I’ll need you to keep an eye on that for me, okay?’

Gaffar nodded. Kane returned to his hair again. ‘Bert was pretty much a tramp when we first met – had this huge, long beard, filthy nails, lived in absolute squalor. Never washed. Was physically overwhelmed – he told me once –
emotionally
overwhelmed by the touch of water. Being caught out in a rainstorm would leave him virtually disabled – I mean for
weeks.
Beaten.
Pummelled.
He’s just wired all wrong. You’d be surprised how many people are, how difficult their lives can be…’

Gaffar nodded again, his eyes ranging, boredly, around the room. ‘The medication he’d been prescribed was a disaster,’ Kane continued, ‘
totally
inappropriate to the range of symptoms he had. His doctor simply couldn’t give a shit. Didn’t have a clue. He’s one of those old-school, stiff-upper-lip types who thinks a warm bath and a good meal are enough to cure 95 per cent of all human ills. My involvement with him goes
way
back. He actually cared for my mother before she died – kept her
criminally
undermedicated right up until the end. He’s an intergalactic
twat
…’

Gaffar slowly began unwinding Kane’s scarf from around his neck. He plainly wasn’t focussing.

‘I wondered where that thing’d gotten to,’ Kane observed.

Gaffar grunted, unapologetically.

‘So did he let you bring in his firewood?’

‘Huh?’ Gaffar stopped unwinding.

‘Bert. Did you bring in his firewood?’

‘Sure.
Sure.
And I do wash up, like you say. I turn on radio, for bit music, and then…’

Gaffar threw up his hands, grimacing.

‘
Fuck.
You messed with his
radio
?!’ Kane spun around, horrified.

‘Bert has ears like a friggin’
bat
, I
told
you that. He’s very sensitive.
Incredibly
sensitive…’

‘I have chicken,’ Gaffar said, thumbing over his shoulder, ‘is roast, whole.’

‘Yeah?’ Kane’s horror was immediately assuaged by the prospect of food. ‘Is it still hot?’

He sniffed at the air, hungrily.

‘Sure. You wan eat? You go out?’

‘Go out? In
this
weather? No way.’

‘Oh. Okay…’

Gaffar gave Kane’s smart outfit a meaningful once over then shrugged and wandered off.

Kane held his hands under the warm tap until the grease melted from his fingertips, then he strolled into the living-room, threw himself down on to the sofa and lifted his bare feet – with a slight wince – on to the coffee table. On the tv was a dramatic re-enactment of a true-life adventure in which two men were trapped high on a mountain in a raging blizzard. They’d tied themselves together, for safety, but one man had just slipped off a sheer precipice and was now dangling, unsteadily, in the pitch dark, hundreds of feet below the other.

The camera – having investigated the unenviable circumstances of the fallen man in pornographic detail – suddenly switched back to studying the plight of the man who hadn’t fallen. He was struggling to sustain the weight of his partner. He couldn’t pull or grip on to the rope properly. He was exhausted. His fingers were severely frost-bitten. He was in serious danger of slipping down himself.

‘Cut the the rope, man!’ Kane exclaimed, leaning forward and gently massaging one of his feet. ‘It’s his own stupid fault. He’s just gonna drag you down there with him…’

As he spoke he peered at his foot. He frowned. His feet looked different, somehow. The toes appeared compressed, almost squashed, as if they’d been squeezed – over time – into a bizarre, triangular mould. The big toe slanted dramatically inwards, and there was noticeable callusing on several of the smaller toes.

He inspected his other foot. It looked similarly mis-shapen. He wiggled his toes. They felt stiff, almost arthritic –

Hmmn

He leaned back again, grimacing, remembering his mother. He remembered her feet – her dancer’s feet: distorted, bulbous, over-arched and ugly – he remembered massaging them for her sometimes, as a boy, as a special treat.

While considering his mother’s feet he noticed a slight, fluttery feeling in his stomach (which he promptly dismissed as an excess of appetite –

When did I last eat?
).

He wriggled his toes again (then
again
, almost obsessively), in a determined bid to try and loosen them up a bit.

Gaffar, meanwhile, was in the hallway, whistling jauntily, dishing up the chicken. He served it with a cold ratatouille, some hummus and several toasted pockets of pitta bread.

He brought two plates through and passed one to Kane with the useful addition of a small piece of kitchen roll to be employed as a serviette.

‘You’re a God,’ Kane said, taking it from him and swinging his feet back down on to the floor again.

Gaffar sat next to him, then glanced over and espied (with a disapproving
cluck
) Kane’s newly greased head pressed up against the upholstery. He nudged Kane to make him lean forward, then placed a spare piece of kitchen roll over the headrest to try and preserve the fabric from the impact of his hair oil.

‘
Aw
, thanks, honey,’ Kane said.

‘So…’ Gaffar stretched out his legs as he grappled with a chicken wing, ‘you speak for Kelly?’

‘Yeah…’ Kane nodded, leaning back again, balancing his plate on
his stomach, tearing off a small piece of bread and scooping up some ratatouille, ‘
Yeah.
She told me all about how you trashed her salad.’

‘Wah?!’
Gaffar gaped.

‘She said you trashed her salad and then you snogged her. She was absolutely, fuckin’
livid
about the whole thing…’

Kane chewed on his mouthful, dispassionately.

‘For
why
she say this?’ Gaffar asked, infuriated.

‘Did you happen to see Beede lately?’ Kane wondered, swallowing.

‘Beede?’

‘Yeah. He’s not at home and he wasn’t at the laundry…’

‘I been work, eh?
Hard
work,’ Gaffar gesticulated irritably, ‘how I’m suppose see him
there
?’

He snorted, infuriated.

‘Do they eat much hummus in Turkey?’ Kane wondered, peering at it, inquisitively.

‘Sure.’

‘Really? I always had it pegged as a Greek speciality.’

Gaffar shrugged. ‘Is Greek, Arab,
Turk
…’

The mountaineer who hadn’t fallen suddenly began hacking with a knife at the rope which suspended his partner in a desperate bid to save his own life.

‘They crucified him for this,’ Kane said. ‘Did you ever read about it?’

‘Huh?’

Gaffar squinted at the screen.

‘He cut him off. It’s a total breach of climbing etiquette. But he’d’ve died otherwise, for sure. The real irony is that even though they both actually
survived
as a direct consequence of what he did, he was treated like some kind of criminal – a
pariah
– in mountaineering circles for years afterwards…’

Kane scooped up some hummus on a second chunk of pitta. ‘There are many imponderables in this life of ours, Gaffar,’ he murmured, ‘but one irreducible fact is that people who climb mountains are invariably cunts.’

‘
Sheeesh
,’ Gaffar exclaimed, gazing at the screen.
‘What a treacherous rat! Is he seriously gonna cut that?’

‘Kelly told me to sack you,’ Kane said, gently popping the bread into his mouth.

‘Pard?’

Gaffar turned from the tv, with a slight start, at the exact moment that the knife finally sliced through the rope.

‘Yeah…’ Kane chewed and then swallowed as the suspended mountaineer dropped, like a stone, into an apparently bottomless icy fissure. ‘She wanted me to fire you.
Seriously.
She claimed you were romancing her
mother.
’