The Blue Book (13 page)

But she isn't like that. She won't check.

On Wednesday morning, he'll be in the foyer, tucked out of sight for when she leaves.

Just observing, making sure of the gig, the finale.

He expects her to be carrying the new holdall he bought her – important to have a fresh bag for fresh journeys, nothing patronising about it, not a present – and she'll still have that dreadful coat, but underneath it and blazing, singing, he'll want to see hibiscus red: a dress from home, a proud and impractical thing.

That would be a result.

Higher than average chance that she'll carry it off.

Make me cry, that would.

Women – they make me cry.

* * *

The man will stand and hide himself from the end of his work, another job done, and he will watch another stranger walk away and he will wonder how he came to be here. He will wonder how he came to be so far from love.

It's easily done.

You take your thumb and press it, nestle it, into the heart of your other hand. Where it most naturally rests, that's the sweet spot, the place where any touch will always raise a tenderness.

Consider whoever you love, ponder them, allow yourself to dwell, and a quiet ache will begin there – the longing you hold instead of their skin, that other skin. Clench your fists and it's that space you'll be defending – both hands curled around a lack, a thought, a tiny mind that you are out of and that your love is in.

And it's a light sleeper, your sweet spot, almost impossible not to wake it in spite of yourself – or because of yourself – not to set it off demanding satisfactions, to be touched – the little well that speaks, asks to be filled.

Best to train it if you can, start early and at least placate it, provide alternative interests to entertain. As a child, an oddly sensible child, you might start by setting a coin there, or a pebble, a medal, a talisman, charm, badge, ornament, folded paper, ticket, earring, seashell, marble, ring – pick any one of the small and precious, small and worthless objects that might litter a room, a jacket's pockets, a usual life.

And then you can teach the hollow of your palm to hold them, hide them, make them disappear. So the absence you feel can conjure up another, earn its keep.

If you would like.

Some children like.

Some people like.

And liking leads to doing, leads to practice – and a way of being compulsorily, usefully self-contained. Through evenings and weekends and holiday afternoons and on into the nights, you'll clench and furl and smooth your grips, you'll pace the beats and off-beats of any motion. The back of your hand will grow innocent, completely fair, its sides will be irreproachable, you'll even be able to offer up its soft, clean face while a marvel stays locked behind your knuckles – then you simply shift your treasure to the ledged base of your fingers, or the fold at your thumb's root, to fingertips, or into the snug of your palm, your gentle, educated palm. You'll start to be made up of refuges from every observation, all angles pre-empted, because this is how you will fabricate invisibility. You will study yourself in your mirror as if you're a dangerous stranger until, finally, you'll see you've managed it, you've changed, become completely secret, a deception. Your skin knows without seeming to know, your muscles and tendons work without seeming to work, your fingers flex and drop and catch and place and never show it.

You are magic.

You are definitively sure there's no such thing, but you can be it anyway.

You can believe yourself wonderful and enough and beyond helping.

If you would like.

If you would want that.

And the boy did want that.

The boy.

Our boy.

The boy was an early starter, in several ways precocious,
and most of all with his hands, in his hands. When he is older he won't absolutely remember, but he is perhaps seven, nearly eight, when he first attempts their training. His dad can move cards to the top of the pack and can put the Queen of Hearts in any order with two of her cousins, will dance her about as he lays her down on the kitchen tabletop – first, third, first, second, second . . . wherever he wants. His dad explains that when someone else does this, it's a bad thing to do, because people can use it for cheating at bets and taking cash away from idiots. This is cruel because idiots need their cash more than most. And his dad also has a special card with holes in it which can be pulled along its sides – movable holes punched right through it which the boy cannot look at, except from far away, and isn't permitted to touch.

This leads the boy to conclude the holes are a gimmick built into the card and not a special cleverness of his dad's. The boy works this out.

So his dad has three tricks.

And only with cards.

The boy has already decided that people who think they can trust cards, or anything cards do, are idiots and should be left alone with their cash and not interfered with. He is waiting to be a grown-up and fool the other grown-ups who are like him, who can see things and can work them out. Personally, the boy would only be
impressed if something amazing happened with his special
piece of amber, or one of his model commandos, or his tiny dinosaurs – with reliable, familiar items. And so he intends to surprise the world with strictly proper stuff: the clean and plain and pure.

He has saved up and bought a book from a lovely and crowded, disreputable shop. It's a manual and contains instructions and thick-lined, authoritative drawings of hands and gestures and men with short haircuts and slyly concealing trouser cuffs – very serious, vintage men: ones like the black and white detectives in old films. But they're always ready to astonish with handkerchiefs and tumblers and American coins. They'd be fun to have round in your house. They are, he assumes, American men and not just being awkward on purpose by vanishing and producing inconvenient currency. He guesses about which British coins would be the same as the ones they're using, stares at the diagrams, imagines his fingers into their shapes. He stands and repeats the passes over his bed so that no one will hear when he fumbles, lets something drop. Eventually, he doesn't need the bed.

And the boy saves up again, this time for the mirror which he carries carefully, painfully back from the high street and into his room. It makes his mother laugh and talk about girlfriends while his dad frowns and the boy feels jangled and compressed.

The following Sunday, as they walk to the paper shop, his dad describes girls and girls' habits. The description requires three circuits of the play park with the rusty swings – right to the bottom trees and back, three times – because it is long and detailed. Although the boy has met girls at school and mainly not given them much thought, his father makes of them dangerous strangers and causes for concern. They will not grow into women like Dusty Springfield, someone the boy is very fond of and believes would be nice, even if she does wear spacewoman dresses and have frightening hair. In fact, perhaps
because
of that, he really does quite fancy her a bit. His father says the girls will have nothing in common with Dusty, won't be
gorgeous.
Or, if they are, this
will not be good news
.

Once they have made it to the shop, his dad asks the boy if he would like to spend this week's chocolate and comic money and the boy tells him that it's all right for today and
no
and
thank you
– because he has plans to buy a thumb tip and other indecently, nakedly misleading and deceiving stuff from the wonderful shop that smells of cigarettes and men and badness and which is called
J. Cooper & Son's Magic
, although there is no J. Cooper and there aren't any sons. His dad gets him a Crunchie anyway, which isn't normal and so the boy eats it too fast on the way back home before anybody can notice and doesn't enjoy it.

When they are just inside the cool of the entrance – looking at where Mrs Barker keeps her flower tubs which the squirrels dig at
because they are bastards
– the boy's father hugs him and closes a hand around one of his ears and rubs it a bit, as if he might make it disappear, and then his dad looks at him and whispers, ‘Arthur, always be careful.' And he kisses the top of the boy's head and asks him, almost too quietly to be heard, ‘Will you do that?' And Arthur – the boy's name is Arthur, an old-fashioned name, it gets him grief at school – he nods, although he feels that he won't manage. His magic won't be adequate for girls.

Arthur lives in a ground floor flat beside a roundabout which has daffodils on it in spring and once a bloke on it in the summer, pretending to sunbathe for a laugh. The flat is in London – sort of – but not so that Arthur can notice. He is a train and a bus ride or two bus rides and an Underground away from anything notable or on postcards. There is no Big Ben and no ravens and no palace at the end of his street and when he goes to visit these things they do not belong to him any more than to anyone else and this means they make him annoyed, rather than proud or excited. His mother lives with him. She is unhappy. And his dad is there – his tall and blond and wiry father who is striking but will eventually be quite difficult to recall. His father is also unhappy.

But Arthur is happy – he makes sure to be.

And Arthur's hands are both delirious. They are overjoyed.

And Arthur loves them.

First night aboard and Beth dreams in numbers. She has edged herself into the bed, curls on her side away from contact, takes care that her chill won't wake Derek, her salt chill.

Which it would – I would disturb him.

Because I'm frozen. I haven't a warm place.

Not really.

And he needs to rest.

And he doesn't need to feel there's something wrong with me, all over me, and he won't, because I'm the only one who'll notice that. My secret.

And Arthur's.

No. Just mine. I allow it to happen and it belongs to me.

I used to share it and now I don't.

I used to be . . . walking in the street and nothing showing, respectable – riot inside, though, mayhem – with any memory of him, every memory of him – I couldn't predict what of Arthur would hit me or when – as if I'd walk straight into him, like rain – his hands on my shoulders and the press of him behind – or the shape of his fingers – confident, talkative fingers: snug. Trying to stroll and worrying I might fall with the sense of him, the knowledge of him. And I'd smile, because no one could tell and I would think –
Here's me and I'm covered in him and nobody knows it
.

He clings and aims to be ingrained.

Like smoke.

Like water.

Like the scent of him.

Not that he doesn't take care to be unperfumed, neutral. But he's there all the same, he's there on you when he's left – delicate.

He finds your bones, soaks in.

Bastard.

And she has no hopes of sleep, expects simply to lie and recite and recite:
loving the unlovable is stupid, is self-harm – loving the reasonable is what I need and I can have that. I do have that. I can prefer that because I am not an idiot.

Which depresses her because she won't believe it.

I am not an idiot.

Except when I am an idiot.

Bastard.

Sleep does arrive, though, unexpected – a strangely rapid kindness she pushes into, under. But then it turns shallow, of course, and relentless. The force of unease turns her on to her back and the bed nags and sickens beneath her and Arthur—

Bastard.

Creeping bastard – always pesters.

Arthur stands there in her mind. He's fidgeting and wears his overcoat and is occasionally crying, which she would rather not see. And with salt fingers, cold and blunt fingers, dead man's fingers, he reaches forward and summons numbers from the air – empty hand passing them deftly to empty hand – and then he puts each figure in her mouth.

She hasn't forgotten – couldn't forget – the lists of meanings, the translations for each one.

One.

Listen, please.

It's useful, one. It can slip into any sentence, any one you choose, and it can ask you.

Please listen.

It marks out the start of the story and Arthur's a man who wants all of the story, all of the time. He wouldn't like to miss a word.

And, then again, he's happier yet when it can mean
Look at me
– when we're working from the second list, the personal list: The Code for Peculiar People in Public Places.

He loves it if you look – shy and then not, absolutely not, lying out for your attention, blazing with it.

Favours dark sheets: purples, blues – he brings them with him to every hotel, asks the staff to remake the bed with them – give us something other than the standard white. He's the one paying – paying too much – paying for special attentions – so he gets to pick.

And once he brought black: black sheets, black towels, black curtains, black everything.

Like being exiled into night.

And Arthur lying on the night, showing the light of himself, the milk light.

Look at me.

For special occasions.

Buttoned tight, otherwise. Won't even roll up his sleeves. Then it's clever talk and numbers and playing games.

Look at me while I'm hiding, find me, come hunting, and then I'll know you love me, that it's true.

He knows too many games.

And he's too much work.

And he
ought
to always hide and be ashamed. And why
should
I fucking find him? He's nothing to do with me: shouldn't be anything to do with me. He's a Bank Holiday shag, he's play-acting pickups in hotel lobbies, he's a duplex suite with a fruit bowl and two tellies when all we need is a bed, because we just fuck – no more to us than fucking, not now.

Every night a one-night stand.

Look at me.

But then she swallows
Five
which is peppery and has thin edges and is
Help
which is what she needs, but doesn't get. Or else it's
Come
, which is what she needs, but shouldn't get, because people can use it for cheating and taking things away from idiots.

Time was, they could both be together – Beth and Arthur in company – and they could ask this of themselves and make an answer.
Come
.
They could both deliver and request. They could watch for the twitch of a smile, or the colour rising, the approach. They could enjoy understanding and being understood.

Out of my mind, but into yours, very into yours, and your wish is my command and vice versa.

Takes training.

And the insanity to think of training.

And no cheating – because we'll know . . .

Beth and Arthur.

In her dream she wants to see his face, because she believes it might be informative, but all she gets a sight of is his wrist, the flat back of his wrist.

And no more commands and no more wishes – they don't come true.

Arthur never did a true thing in his life.

A man you should not look at, except from far away, should not be permitted to touch.

Man
is
Two
.

Tastes sweet – over-sweet – a memory growing, laid on her tongue, and it ought to be salt, it ought to be forgotten.

Man.

Long-shinned, long-footed – soft give of the skin at his throat: feels all alive – and the tuck of the muscle in over his hip: that curve, that line – and he's blond, but then a little darker, coppery too, where the strangers don't see him, what they don't get.

Two.

Clean, clean shaven – or the bristle of him in the dark – early morning – and kissing the insides of his thighs and breathing him in – hot – roaring – the shine of the boy – pale boy – silky boy – like saying silk – to lick.

Two.

And otherwise, and naturally, it's
Smile at me
.

It bloody would be.

And it would be easy to keep herself in this now, concentrate on the pictures of how he can be. This once, she would risk it, indulge it – half awake and with Derek beside her – but the dream of him feeds her
Eight
– pushes it in with his thumb – fat and slippy –
Accident
.

Always needed it for the punters – got to cue each other in so we can tell them how their loved ones left: the car, the motorcycle, ambushing workplace, fate – acknowledge the endlessly amputated plans. Rude of them, the dead – hurtful to rush away without ever saying, ever mentioning, ever finishing what they started. Untidy. We do hate to have it untidy. And we hate to know our dead have torn things that we can't survive without. They have stolen who we are when we are with them – our good selves, our beauty.

And
Eight
is
No
.

No.

The other
Eight
.

An almost entirely powerless word in life. You can scream it as long as you want, but matters will still work on as they must, reality will still ignore you. You're flesh in the mechanism, caught in its gears.

No.

But when it meant
Later
and
Persuade me
and
At the moment, I'd like it if I was in charge
,
then we loved it – horny word – the
no
in between us – tickling.

Christ.

Christ, we fucked up.

He fucked up.

He is fucked up.

And she dreams herself away from Arthur, tears things about which she does not wish to think and moves away, free. Relatively free.

Bastard.

Awake. I want to be awake.

I'm not, though.

It's that thing – I'm in that thing you get when you can't move and you're not awake, you only think you're awake, but you're wrong. You're dreaming.

I think I'm wrong.

She's in a fluid version of her past. Its edges ripple and dart forward. It makes her tense.

And she's queuing to board the boat again and outraged for some unnamed reason – she's close to retching with disgust – and she picks up a little bag, heavy bag – which isn't hers, or else it is, but she can't recognise it – and then she flings it – intends to make a large and savage gesture but releases too early, her effort swinging wild and to her left and then she spins round after it and sees him – Arthur – again Arthur – and he's sitting – gently sitting – and the bag has hit him, landed in his lap, and he is instantly, immeasurably sad, which is her fault.

Hit him in the balls with my baggage – my baggage which is emotional.

Well, whatever could I possibly mean by that?

Fucksake.

And, although she is additionally outraged by her subconscious's lack of finesse, she responds to the scene and tries to make amends for Arthur's hurt – but there's no way through to touch him, only sudden crowds that intervene. She can't offer consolation. There is only this obvious, accusing damage: him sobbing with his arms hugging the bag and rocking, shuddering – and then he's scrabbling in his pockets, he's desperate, he wants to show her something but can't find it.

Seven.

Not my fault.

Seven.

It was an accident.

Eight.

Or else it was his fucking fault for being in the way, for being here in the first place.

He's looking for
seven
.

I'm not. I don't expect it.

And it's not my fault that he's in the way.

It's not my fault we're in each other's way.

His hands are clearly fighting with pockets that seal and shrink.

That's what you get with tailor-made: bespoke and wilful.

He lifts his head and blinks at her and is panicking and lost. He wakes her with a look.

Love.

Always the same on any list.

Seven.

Forget every other number, you could still manage a sitting, an evening, a seance, with just that.

Not that it needs a number. It's the constant.

No matter how well the enquirers lie, you can still see it in them –
seven
's what they want, their heart's request. Why else would they come? They need you to
tell them the loves they felt were real, that the cruelty was love misunderstood, the absent affection was only hidden, that every love has been continued, will be endless. They want the dead bound hand and foot to them, chained in love.

Which is expecting a lot of the deceased. One minute they're live human beings: fickle, silly, irritating, gorgeous, flawed – the next they're supposed to be perfect and content to adore us for ever. Nothing better to do with eternity than watch us, see everything we are and worship it.

When nobody ought to see everything we are, because they couldn't stand it.

Seven.

The best of the games and somewhere in every one of the games. Passing it between them like a note. Arthur and Beth. Beth and Arthur.

‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs – scared me witless when I was a kid – something about the dwarfs' hats – and the pickaxes.'

Civilians not included.

‘Canal holiday – boating on the Avon. Or the Severn. No, the Avon. No, the Severn. Perhaps both. It's big, the Severn. Fucking huge.'

Becoming somewhat notorious for babbling and non sequiturs, mispronunciations . . .

‘I don't know if that seven is legal.'

Civilians not capable.

‘Five Seven Eleven – my gran adored that. Any time of day, you'd go in – the bedroom would be full of it.'

Changing the name of the perfume to fit. Not Four Seven Eleven. That wouldn't suit them. So it's

Five

Seven

Eleven

Come

Love

Be beautiful

But people change.

They can't endlessly be what someone else requires, it wears them out.