The Blue Book (17 page)

Breathtaking. Like lung cancer – which is what killed him. Mels with the same illness as his miners and downwinders – unfuckingsurvivable – the adults and children who kept on breathing and eating and playing near the gaping tunnels, the abandoned tailing heaps. It's good to share, see the results – reminds us that we're all in the same species. His disease metastasised so quickly that he was finished in months, despite exemplary treatment.

Peri laying the cloth, soft around my neck – around delicate and important lymph glands, an unscathed throat – knotting it in front and then tucking it inside my coat.

Like my mum.

Not like my mum – like a mother.

And she gets my finest, close to my finest work: accurate details, conversations, songs, jokes – old Mels and his wisecracks – his pranks – his ironic phobia of smoking: immaculate material, irrevocably convincing. It is a dirty thing I do to her, but that doesn't mean I can slack – it provides me with more motivation to excel. And she'd have been dead long ago without me. Her health has improved since we started, her posture, her skin – she's back at the fund-raising dinners, the charity silent auctions – she likes off-Broadway, looking at edgy art: having safe adventures – Martin the smartly gay
PA
in a good suit at her elbow, the chauffeur parked close by and waiting. She no longer repeats herself, or forgets things, because she hasn't
forgotten Mels, has neither lost him nor what she offered him, was for him, in herself. He's back and so is she.

Sophie Myers passed on my name to her. I do mostly rely on recommendations, on women who've had me who talk to women who might need me, pass me on like an infection.

Always the women.

Sophie vouched for me. Sophie Myers, widow of Christopher Myers
III
– the much-lamented Kit – who heartily enjoyed his yachting and weekend jaunts to Venice and raping a range of wetlands and African countries.

Made him regret it after death. Sophie's big with
AIDS
orphans and conservation as a result – pays for drugs and schools, well-building, micro-loans for mums, mosquito prevention. And then there are the film crews she supports who document dolphin kills and shark-finning. She dabbles in seabird-rinsing whenever there's an oil spill. She gives generously to pelicans and gannets.

As generously as she gives to me.

But she'll never be quite as generous as Peri.

Because Peri gets scared. Her mother married up the second time around – Big Bad Step-daddy Warbucks – and, by all accounts, enjoyed it – her spirit drops in, from time to time and I have her say so – but Peri's never had faith that her own situation is secure. Enough capital to pamper villages, indulge a dozen lifetimes, but she lies awake anticipating threats.

And I help with that.

Because I am a bad man.

If I believed in hell, I'd be sure this would send me to it: frightening Peri then selling her protection.

Ask any one of the bastards who do this because they're sadists, psychos, inadequate, insignificant, blood-drinkers – who love it because headfucks get them horny and power makes them come – ask any of the usual practitioners and if they're honest – which they never will be – they'll tell you the serious money, the best way to earn, is with fear. Give people a heaven with bells on: further education, enlightenment, everyone cool they've ever wanted to hang out with: and, yes, they'll pay for that. Return their dead, let them hear, speak, touch, kiss, let
them reconsummate – dig in and make your prostitution limitless
– and they'll pay for that, too. But give them the truth of a world that doesn't know them and won't care, enumerate their frailties, nudge them – gently, slightly – towards the sewer which is human nature, and of which you are a prime and predatory example, and have them peer in – then they'll beg you to defend them and believe every unseen monster you create. And they will pay you everything you ask.

And they will thank you.

‘But we were informed that it had been a bear . . . Mr Williams, he called and told us a bear did it . . .'

The man knows about Peri's cabin in Montana – Mels heading there with her to act like a hunter; plus, youthful lopes across the country as a couple on matching caramel-coloured quarter horses – idyllic. They found the insects trying, though, the isolation – the place was more a topic for conversation than somewhere to stay. But its memory is laden with thoughts of health, incautious love-making on blankets by the lake, bug bites, roughing it with a deep freeze and a helicopter kept on call for them in Missoula.

The cabin means trust and relaxation, skinjoys and
sunlight, log fires, lunging evenings, a past that was smooth
and fit.

Inevitable, then, that the man attacks her there.

The way that a bastard would – a sadist, psycho, inadequate, insignificant, a blood-drinker.

Peri neat in the hard chair beside the man's – his knee could be touching hers but it's not – it won't – and the drawing room is cool and cream and linens and silks and possibly not the perfect background for his skin – it makes the man slightly invisible, puts too heavy an emphasis on his suit – but she feels relaxed here, prefers it for sittings.

Not that she's relaxed at the moment. ‘Wasn't it a bear?'

‘I'm not seeing a bear. I see someone breaking in, breaking the door and – it's very pretty inside – or it
was
. . . you chose the things yourself – I like the colours, lots of reds – and you enjoyed the fireplace . . .' Because he needs a lock on her thinking, a blush, the flicker of screwing by firelight – that way he can pull her further in, fracture the mood, introduce damage, get her hands rubbing each other.

That's right.

She doesn't have to tell him anything – her worried hands are more than enough.

‘But it ended up such a mess – a waste – all your pretty things – he left it – they left it a mess – two men, they hiked in.'

‘Goodness.' He knows Peri's imagining how hardy and fit two such hikers would be – and surely armed against cougars and, of course, bears – how dreadful if she and Mels had been there – two men armed against people. ‘Two? There were two men?'

‘They broke up the rooms afterwards . . .'

‘Afterwards . . . ?'

So much more penetrating, if she drops into a sentence he leaves unfinished – suffers its possibilities before he pretends to rescue her. ‘They used knives to make it look like bear's claws.' Blades lacerating delicate air, personal belongings – he doesn't have to say it, she tells herself.

While he spins off into random thinking he shouldn't permit.

That's a dessert, though, isn't it? A bear claw. It's a cake, or something . . . Jesus, the mind does wander . . . because it is unhappy and wants to run . . . but it can't so fuck off with that.

The man's face grim as he disciplines himself, becomes purposeful, intent – which makes her flinch, but he drives in anyway, ungentle. ‘But that was afterwards . . . They spoiled your things afterwards – once they had what they'd come for.'

Which is frightening, but not as bad as, ‘Once they had what they'd been sent for.'

Better.

Or worse.

Depends if you have a conscience and if you can still hear it.

But I never listen to mine, so fuck off with that.

‘Somebody sent them?' Peri, like many of her kind, assumes that envy and conspiracy surround her. This flames through her like phosphorus.

So he ignores her, digresses. ‘Frank. I think one of them was called Frank.'

Can't get it wrong when he doesn't exist and therefore cannot contradict me.

‘Yes, he was definitely Frank. No name for the other one. They spoiled your flatware . . .'

Peri cares about crockery, having side plates and fish knives and spoons for honey and all the special tools for shellfish – doesn't feel born to it, so everything matters.

Flatware, which is plates and dishes – which are flat – but also cutlery, which isn't . . . you can suffer over here, for lack of vocabulary . . . Or double your chances of being right.

‘They spoiled your flatware, but they also took things – some clothes.'

‘Oh, no, Arthur.'
She can call me Arthur, but I can't call her Peri – she's always Mrs Arpagian, as if I'm a servant. When I'm the master.
‘Do you think so, Arthur, I don't think so.' She's not really contradicting, more highlighting that he's infallible and she knows his news is still unfurling and will be bad when it's completely visible, surrounding her and cinching in. She starts patting Arthur's forearm with her hand. ‘There was hardly anything left there – a few shirts, boots . . . Mels had a work jacket, I think . . .'

Outfitted to suit the territory.

As am I.

Made Richard especially happy this morning – twin vents, hand-felled lavender lining, flower loop, ticket pocket, functioning cuff slit, the usual: my work jacket.

‘Small, personal objects will have gone missing and older clothing . . .'

Her voice quick and thinned with anxiety: ‘But not worth anything. Why would they take things that are worthless . . . ?' Although she's already convinced this was not a normal theft, is something that obeys the rules of worlds only the man can navigate.

‘Clothing that's been with you and carries your shape – surfaces that have absorbed a little something of your personality . . .'

I'm not saying
aura
. I never have and I never will. I will not talk bollocks. I won't. I don't have to. This is bad efuckingnough without that.

And I'm not saying
essence
. I'm not saying
emanation
. Won't have them in my fucking mouth.

Peri's mouth a whisper open, her horror silent, palpably chill.

Slender lady, born in the thirties, has a fragility and openness that makes Arthur want to hug her, see her laugh, bring her roses, listen to jazz with her until they both get sleepy, sit on the side of her bed and kiss her forehead like a proper son.

But instead I do this – I hound her.

‘If such things are passed into unsympathetic hands – envious hands, jealous, malicious – then a skilled reader can find your weaknesses, can work against you with contagious magic.' Arthur pauses until she looks at him – gaze flickering between his eyes and lips – trying to decide which she should hide from most. And then he delivers the three small, fatal words – ‘I am sorry.' As if she's beyond all saving, including his.

I'm not sorry. I am a bastard. I am a cunt.

And then he waits.

One thousand and cunt, two thousand and cunt, three thousand and cunt . . .

While she cries in a small way – neat little girl in a big house crying – and she glances across at him as if she is being foolish and would like to be much more brave and

Four thousand and cunt, five thousand and cunt . . .

He can't relent.

Six thousand and cunt . . .

Liberty print handkerchief tucked in her sleeve, then dabbing, keeping good order, being presentable because he's watching and – there it is – the moment when this horror flows down and in and meets its more established brother – the loss of Mels.

Seven thousand and I'm not that much of a cunt.

Finding her wrist and kissing her knuckles, the salt, he strokes her arm, and takes both hands at this point, holds firm around them and – hush, hush – the comfort of this provoking a further collapse but he'll squire her through it and could weep himself, could and does – it's the direction to take – and only very slowly, only after minutes, does he say anything else.

‘All right? Peri?'

‘Oh . . . I . . .'

And she can't tell him that she was recalling the funeral and wishing she'd known him back then – seeing how dapper he'd be in mourning, her tall protector, dipping to take care – she can't be particularly informative, but he nods and, ‘I know. I know. And the thing I know most? Is that I will fix this and it will be fine. You will be defended and any ill-effects will be quite overthrown. That little cold that turned to flu – I'll bet you it wasn't a thing to do with you – you see your doctor every week, you're fit and healthy and—'

‘Now, Arthur . . .' She gives him a smile that he feels in the pit of his stomach, like someone dropping cold coins there. ‘I'm not young.'

‘Well,
I'm
not young, Mrs Arpagian. We are neither of us young, but neither of us ought to catch a cold that turns into flu.' She pretendfrowns to say that Arthur hasn't fooled her and he pretendfrowns to show he has been caught in this the very least of his lies, which is hardly a lie at all – she is fit and healthy, she could last for years. He could have more than a decade of income left. ‘Someone out there is practising against you and I will prevent them and overcome and we will triumph. They may have used foot track magic at the cabin and I've heard more and more lately of the
Pulsa D'Nora
. . .'

A gift, the
Pulsa D'Nora
– some nonsense with tongues of fire that can pray you to death. One recitation and that's that – every opponent just vapours and ash – as if there'd be anyone left if it was true. As if I wouldn't use the hotel shaving mirror and cast it on my fucking self.