infinities (16 page)

"Mr Gayle, I'm sorry to bother you. My name's Nicholas Redpath. I used to know your daughter. I wondered if I might have a few minutes of your time?" He was conscious of the change in his own manner: the straightening of the spine, the formality of his tone.

Mr Gayle's expression remained politely blank for a few seconds, then he gave a single nod and stepped back from the door. "Just brewing up," he said, in exactly the clipped, educated voice Nick had expected. "Assam?"

"Very kind," said Nick, crossing the threshold with a sudden thrill. Entering the house where Jerry had been raised. They went through to the kitchen, where a large china teapot sat in the middle of a polished table, a pair of delicate cups inverted in their saucers by its side. Out through a glass door and the conservatory window, Nick saw Mrs Gayle settled on a plastic kneeler, plucking the dying summer bedding from a sloping border with a steady rhythm. She looked a good ten years younger than her husband, although still well into her fifties.

"Redpath, you say," said Mr Gayle, producing another cup and saucer, then turning all the cups up the right way. "Local History Society. Am I right? Fran—my wife—knew your mother. Lost touch, I'm afraid. You moved away, you said?"

"I left the area when I was a teenager," said Nick. "My mother passed away."

A look of horror crossed Mr Gayle's face. "God, I'm sorry," he said. "My mind was elsewhere. Of course. It all comes back. You must think me terribly..."

Nick shook his head, then spooned the sugar into his tea.

"The old brain's a little slow these days. Of course. I should have made the connection. Fran and Geraldine were terribly upset at the time, of course. I should have realised." He paused to pick up the third cup of tea. "You must come out into the garden—Fran will want to see you, of course."

Nick followed him out.

"Nick Redpath," said Mr Gayle, as his wife rose to her feet, peeling yellow rubber gloves from her hands. "Mrs Redpath's lad. Local History." His demeanour had changed in his wife's presence: less stiff, more boyish.

"It must be years," said Fran Gayle, clinging limply to Nick's hand. "Does Geraldine know you're back? She still talks of you, you know?"

Nick felt awkward under the scrutiny of Jerry's parents. "I did bump into her," he said. Yesterday morning. But she forgot to give me her number or address. That's why I called, really. I wondered if you might...?"

"Of course, of course." Mr Gayle went back into the kitchen, produced a jotter and began to write. Then he paused and glanced out at Nick, the penetrating, mischievous look his daughter used so well. "You know she's married, of course?"

"Of course," said Nick, smiling, nodding. "She told me yesterday. What's his name again?" He didn't, and she hadn't—he'd have noticed a ring on her finger, he felt sure—and it was all he could do to keep the shock from writing itself in bold capitals right across his face.

"Matthew Wyse," said Mr Gayle, resuming his writing, apparently satisfied. "Antiques and art dealer. Premises in Colchester and Manningtree. Here. They live on the Stoham Road—no street numbers. Just past the Yew Tree, you know it?"

Nick accepted the slip of paper and nodded. "I'm most grateful," he said. "Thank you for your time."

"Welcome, boy. I have plenty to spare since I left the Service." Nick recalled that Gayle had been something in the Civil Service. "You'll come again, will you? You don't need an excuse, you know."

~

He couldn't sort it all out in his head. He had probably misinterpreted the whole encounter with Jerry—she had recognised him and shared a pot of tea, no more—he had misread all the signals. But why should that be the case? The simple fact that she was married didn't mean she was uninterested, that an old spark hadn't been stirred.

But he knew that everything was different for him now. The fact that she was married might not prove anything, but it did increase the likelihood that he had got it all wrong. And even if he had not, and she had been doing more than idly flirting, any further developments would have to be secret, they would always be plagued by the fear of discovery. Was it more exciting that way? Or simply more shabby?

Some time during the next two days he realised that he was being foolish. He'd been thirteen, fourteen, and smitten by a girl he had never really got to know. Now he was twice that age, but still with the same foolish thoughts.

He was being stupid.

On Friday morning, as he ran as hard as he ever did—across the sands, hurdling the groynes, up the steps to the Prom and down the next flight to the beach again ... as he ran he knew that he would not get into his old VW that evening, to drive out to Ronnie Deller's get-together at the Strand. He couldn't go through with it.

Mrs Geraldine Wyse was a stranger to him and young Jerry Gayle was a part of his childhood dreams, a fragment he should keep untainted in his own mind, rather than risk spoiling it with unpleasant factors like truth and reality.

Back at his digs, showered and changed back into jeans and a T-shirt, he went down for breakfast. His landlord was waiting in the corridor. "Had a 'phone call," he said. "Lady. Said she'd call back at half-nine."

"Thanks," said Nick, his resolve dissipating in a matter of seconds.

McClennan turned and headed for the kitchen. "Not a bleedin' answering service, is it?" he muttered, before the door slammed shut behind him.

~

It was Jerry, as Nick had known it would be. He had waited by the telephone since just before the appointed time.

"Daddy said you called round," she said, after the exchange of greetings.

Now was the time to tell her, Nick thought, but instead he just said, "That's right. He made me tea."

"That's good," said Jerry. He recognised her mood. She would be staring off into some private distance as she spoke, slightly detached from the real world.

"You never told me you were married."

"Should I have?"

He had no answer to that and so there was silence for a time, which Nick felt reluctant to break. Finally, he said, "I was thinking of leaving. I'm not cut out for all this." There. He had said it with a single phrase:
all this
. All this subterfuge.
I don't sleep with married women
.
I like things out in the open
.

Straight talking had always been the family way, but it was a skill Nick had never really mastered.

"But you'll be there tonight, won't you Nicky?"

She had missed what he was saying and he couldn't say it again. "I don't know," he said, although he did. "Will Matthew be there?" There was no way to ask that question without it sounding tacky.

"He's going to London," she said. "I'll be on my own. Will you be my chaperone?"

"I don't know," he said, again. To risk spoiling the dream, or not?

"Please, Nicky. Just for tonight."

...continues

Copyright information
© Kaitlin Queen, 2010
One More Unfortunate
is published by infinity plus:
Buy now:
One More Unfortunate by Kaitlin Queen
$2.99 / £2.18.

The man who learned to walk on water, a man who learned to beat fire, a visionary who sees a world filled with people quite unlike his own, a man who can soak up anything that's thrown at him. Thirteen eclectic stories of discovery and wonder – five of them original to this collection – from a writer described by
New Scientist
as "the best short story writer in any genre".

"The best short story I have read for many years."
—
JG Ballard
, on Kilworth's "Sumi Dreams of a Paper Frog" (
Songbirds of Pain
)

"As a whole the book is a captivating collection!"
—
Murio Guslandi
, in
Emerald City Magazine
, on Kilworth's
Moby Jack and Other Tall Tales

"Garry Kilworth's stories refuse easy categorization; they’re gorgeously written, heartbreakingly poignant, multiculturally savvy, sharp and smart, and always strange and surprising."
—
Claude Lalumiere
, on Kilworth's
Moby Jack and Other Tall Tales

Buy now:
Phoenix Man by Garry Kilworth
$2.99 / £2.18.

The world's gone crazy lately. Eruptions, earthquakes, floods. Two nights ago there were meteorite showers in the northern hemisphere. Thirteen people were killed in one town alone. Phil Mackerby, a guy I knew at school, had a hole in the top of his head the size of a walnut. The meteorite went down through his brain, his throat, neck and on and on through his chest, stopping only at his pelvis. Crazy. Whoever heard of anyone getting killed by a walnut from space? It never used to happen. But it has now. Just as it happened that a couple in the Australian outback were fried by a shaft of sunlight which slipped through a crack in the atmosphere. Burned the skin right off their heads and backs. And the Japanese fishermen, a whole boat load, who went blind looking at a harvest moon reflected on the surface of the water. Just another one of those phenomena, some which follow the laws according to science, others right out of the kook book.

And then there's the plague of course. The White Death. Destroying towns by the month. Not quickly, not easily, but surely. It creeps in through the back door and wipes out the whole household, unless there are strict regulations in force and the local law ensures they're adhered to.

That's why it's not so hard to accept what's happening to Dan Strickman.

Let's back up a little. My name's Clark Sutherland. I work at Maggot's Place, on Quay 7. I sell diesel to the fishing boats, and private yachts, and anyone else who wants it. I also run the office and the yacht chandler's. I have a lot to do, one way or another. I get paid pretty well for it, but I'm never going to be wealthy. Just comfortable. Dan Strickman on the other hand, owns the cod packing plant, and is already a rich man by anyone else's standards. In this town, anyway.

I was engaged to be married to Jenny Leiner, Fred Leiner's daughter. She was nineteen then. A couple of years have passed since she first said yes to me – then she said no, but that was later. We met at Cajun dancing. My brother, Rick, he has a Cajun band. Actually, they play everything from country to blue grass, but they call themselves a Cajun band. I play the fiddle. Jenny came to learn to dance and she just stood in front of the stage the whole night long and watched me fiddle.

As I say, that was over two years ago, and since then Dan Strickman took her away from me. Married her. Left me looking at myself in the mirror and wondering whether I had a growth on my nose that everyone else but me could see.

Then this thing happened.

I'll get straight to it now. Dan Strickman sacked a guy, who it turned out was not right in the head. The guy went home and got himself a can of gasoline, waited for Strickman to leave his office, and threw it over his old boss. Soaked him. Laughing like a maniac – hell, he
was
a maniac – he struck a match. He was so busy talking, telling a blubbing Strickman what was going to happen to him, he burned his fingers on the match, dropped it onto the half-full can of gasoline, which of course exploded in flames. The arsonist was incinerated, right there and then, and unfortunately for Strickman, the flames from the blow-back leapt out and fired him too. For the next few minutes he was a blazing torch, running around screaming: hair on fire, clothes on fire, skin on fire. The crackling sound first turned my stomach over and then the stink actually made me vomit. Not that I stood around and watched for more than a shocked few seconds. I was one of three guys who rushed to help.

We threw a canvas sail over him, one from the drying rack, and managed to put him out after a few minutes.

'Call an ambulance,' I said, redundantly. 'He's badly burned.'

The paramedics were already on their way. When they slotted him into their vehicle I thought that was the last we would see of him, before the funeral. I tried not to think of the fact that Jenny was free again.

The following morning, Jenny called me.

'Can you come to the hospital,' she said over the phone. 'Please, Clark, will you come?'

I left two boats waiting for fuel, locked the office and put a closed sign on the door of the chandler's. Jenny met me in the waiting room.

'He's still alive,' she said, excitedly. 'I don't understand it, but he's still alive.'

'What am I here for?' I asked, trying hard not sound disappointed.

'The doctors want to know what happened.'

A young doctor questioned me.

'Was he actually on fire?'

'The flames were three feet tall. I saw his eyes melt – sorry, Jenny. His hair, his clothes, everything went up. Is the other guy dead? Well, there was nothing to choose between them. They both looked as if they'd tried to escape from hell through the back door. I burned my hands trying to wrap the sail round him. Look.'