The Possession of Mr Cave (14 page)

Now, that next morning, when I cut myself shaving. It was
a lie, Bryony. It wasn't a razor, but a toothbrush. And it
wasn't even me, but your brother, playing malevolent tricks
with my mind.

I saw blood.

I saw drops on the brush.

I saw a speck hit the mirror.

I felt it burning, but not like the word.

Tea-stain. Tea-stain. Tea-stain.

The hand moved faster, changing brown to red, the pain
pressing deep into me.

I saw the blood dripping and I looked down into the sink
and glimpsed the madness of what I was doing. I kept on, as
the word echoed inside me.

Tea-stain.

I heard the word as Aaron said it. With no line under it.
Like it was the only name I had. He had. I had.

'All right, Tea-stain.'

'Nice one, Tea-stain.'

'See you, Tea-stain.'

And the remembered thought. If I brushed hard and deep
and wide it won't come back.

'Aagh.'

I said it aloud. Through closed eyes. My whole face clenched
with the pain that was too much.

I saw myself dropping the toothbrush in the sink and felt
the thudding pulse in my cheek. The pain grew.

I opened my eyes and washed the weak pink blood down
the plughole. I grabbed some toilet roll. Specks hit the lid and
the carpet, turning black.

I padded the red wound. The paper drenched into mush.

My own voice, outside. 'Reuben? What are you doing in
there? Reuben? Do you really need that much water?'

'Dad,' I said. 'I'm just . . . I . . . I won't . . .'

I switched off the tap and the door opened. It wasn't me
standing there, out on the landing. It was you, in your uniform.

'Dad?'

'Bryony?'

'Oh my God! What's happened? What are you doing? The
blood!'

I looked at my face now, and saw my own lined and aged
skin, my Terence skin, with the blood running down it. And
then I saw the damp pink tissue in my hand.

'I cut myself shaving.'

Did you see the toothbrush in the sink? Were you suspicious
as to why the wound was so big? If so, you never said.

'Dad, sit down. Sit on the toilet. I'll get a flannel. I'll sort
you out.'

I was delirious. I sat on the toilet, and stared into Turner's
crashing sea on the wall behind you.

I remember you helping me with the plaster, pressing gently,
careful of your wrist.

'My sweet Petal. My Florence Nightingale,' I said, and
ignored your flinch at the words. And I flinched too, as you
tapped your finger on the plaster. A sudden and specific shot
of pain in the centre of the wound. It was then, I believe, that
you asked me if it was all right to go to the sports centre that
evening. You wanted to go swimming, you said. 'It will be
good for my wrist. That's what the doctor said.'

'Yes,' I said, too weak to remember if this was true. 'Of
course, I'll take you.'

*

I dropped you off at the sports centre and waited for you in
the car park, my face still throbbing with pain.

I was in the lowest of spirits. I hated this game we were
playing. I knew, ever since Clifford's Tower, that I had to
keep it up but I just prayed that this time you weren't lying
to me. Indeed, when I saw no sign of Denny, I began to
believe it. Perhaps you were a normal, undeceiving daughter,
enjoying an evening swim like you often used to. And perhaps
I was just a normal, patient father waiting for you in the car
park.

Of course, I was deluding myself. The only reason I remained
in that car park was because I had to remain in that car park.
There was no way on this earth I could trust you enough to
stay inside that horrendous building and do exactly what you
had told me.

I needed to see you disappear inside those doors and I
needed to stay watching those doors in case you came back
out of them too early.

That didn't happen. Indeed, the conviction that you had
changed began to grow. Maybe your lies had stopped. Maybe
it had all been a horrendous phase. Maybe you had seen
sense and ended whatever it was that had existed between
you and that boy. Maybe his late arrival at the assembly
hall had embarrassed you. Or maybe you had finally realised
the value of your precious soul was worth so much more
than his.

But then I heard it. A roar that seemed to swell the sports
centre's very dimensions. It was the roar of a mob, of a revolution,
and it frightened me to my very core. By the time
that noise had died I was already out of the car, heading
towards those vast windows. I leaned in close, to peep through
the dark tinted glass at the swimming pool. I scanned each
lane of blue water, but I couldn't see you. Perhaps you were
still changing. Yes, I would wait there, outside the glass, until
you emerged from the changing rooms and then I would
head back to the car, switch the dial to Radio 3, and listen
to a little music.

Judging from the worried glances of the swimmers, I don't
think the bloodstained plaster on my cheek was doing me the
greatest service. I could see what they were wondering, those
slow-swimming ladies, and I tried to look as relaxed and unperverse
as I could, given the handicap of circumstance.

But then I heard it again. That roar, like a violent wind.
A wind that swept me towards the entrance, through those
red swing doors, and to the gum-chewing sloth in the kiosk.
I told her I was searching for you, and that I was worried
something may have happened in the changing rooms, but
I got nowhere.

'Looks like you'v'urt yerself,' she said, displaying powers of
deduction that would have hardly shamed Sherlock Holmes.

Then, for the third time, I heard that wild cheer.

'What was that noise?' I asked.

''S the boxing,' she informed me, between her lethargic,
bovine chews.

'The boxing?'

I turned and saw it. Him. His eyes staring out from
behind his fists. One of the eight young gladiators on the
line-up. North of England Under 18s Amateur Boxing
League. I saw his full name, for the first time. Dennis
'Hammerblow' Hart.

Hart.

A hammer-blow indeed. Although at the time I was so
determined to find you that the name hardly registered.

'Yer'll need to pay 'f you wan' watch the boxing.' The
sloth's words followed me as I walked down those chlorine-scented
corridors, over that squeak-clean floor, towards the
sports hall. When I got there I watched through the doors,
through the crossed wire of the reinforced glass, and I saw
Denny in the ring. He had that black boy in the corner,
battering his guts with a series of punches that seemed to be
powered by the crowd itself, gaining force with the ascending
volume of the roar.

You were not hard to spot. You were the only one among
that lowly mob not punching the air or screaming for
violence. Indeed, you looked troubled by the blood-lust all
around you. Scared, almost. My poor darling Petal, among
that rabble!

Two competing impulses, inside me. The first, which we
might term the 'Cynthia reflex': stay there, let you be, don't
interfere. After all, I knew where you were. You still would
have to leave via the main entrance and so, in theory, I could
have gone back to the car and waited for you with the knowledge
that you would be safe. And, after all, this was in keeping
with my plan. Hadn't I promised myself not to interfere unless
absolutely necessary? Wasn't this the best way to keep on top
of your double existence?

Then the second impulse, boxing the other into its corner.
There was something so horrendous about this scene. I felt
the wild, uncivilised nature of that crowd tainting your innocence,
melting it away like the last snow in March. No. It was
too much. I couldn't stand back any longer. I had to change
my strategy.

This was it, the last deception I was prepared to put up
with. A walk through the streets together was one thing but
this was . . .

No. Stop. Be honest, Terence. All right, I suppose what
really drove me into the hall was the knowledge that you loved
him. I knew it then, as clear as anything. You loved him. Why
else would you be sitting there, as out of your element as a
kestrel in the ocean, watching the pugilist's loose interpretation
of the Queensberry Rules.

I pushed open those doors and shook a man's hand off
my arm.

'Can I see your ticket, mate?'

'No,' I said, drowned out by the roar. 'No you can't.'

I ran on, over towards you. A few of the crowd had begun
to notice the intruder now, followed as he was by the ticket
inspector, and their bloodthirsty roar started to die. By the
time I was climbing the middle aisle of the bleachers the whole
hall, bar the two boys boxing in the ring, had descended into
a hushed quiet. Somewhere behind me the bell rang for the
end of the round.

What were you feeling, when you saw me? Was there
anything alongside the shame? The shame that caused you to
conceal your beauty with your hands.

I excused myself past a row of knees, ignoring the grumbled
profanities as I made my way towards you.

'Bryony? I thought you were meant to be swimming.'

'Go away,' you said, quietly, through clenched teeth. Your
cheeks were scarlet. Your eyes couldn't look at me.

'Bryony, you lied. Now, come on, let's go home.'

'Dad, just go.'

'You heard the girl, fella,' said the rot-toothed, potato-headed
specimen next to you. A man with a Celtic cross
tattooed on his arm, and a low-carat gold medallion hanging
over his T-shirt. 'Get out the way.'

And then the ticket inspector: 'Mate, unless you have
proof of a ticket or are willing to pay for a ticket I'm going
to have to ask you to leave immediately. Mate . . . mate . . .
mate . . .'

The bell sounded for the next round but half the crowd
were still staring at us. I grabbed your arm. 'Leave the girl
alone!' said the rot-toothed man.

You saw the threat of violence, and knew you couldn't risk
further embarrassment. You stood up, followed me through
that roaring crowd and across the hall.

Halfway towards the door you turned to see Denny in the
ring. He caught your gaze and forgot where he was. His arms
hung down and his feet stopped moving across the canvas.

You whimpered in quiet pain as his opponent's gloved
fist met his chin and knocked him half off his feet. We left
the hall as he fell back, hooking his arms around the ropes
as another blow dulled his senses. We walked down those
corridors, past those pinboards and vending machines and
red-faced squash players.

'Bryony, I have no comprehension what or why you feel
for this boy. But I must tell you your feelings are aimed in
the wrong direction. He's not right for you. You deserve
better. You deserve a boy who is into the things you have
always been into. Someone with an interest in culture.
Someone civilised. Someone whose talents extend beyond
the ability to use his fists.'

You turned to look at me and gave me such a sharp look
I wondered if the violence you loved in him had begun to
infect you. 'You don't know anything about him. You're just
a blind snob. He's hurt now. He's hurt. Because of you. You
don't know anything.'

A tingling memory of walking into a house with Denny.
The putrid scent of vomit overpowering the chlorine, for that
fleeting moment.

'I know Imogen doesn't like –' I stopped myself, just in
time, and pursued a different route. 'If this is something to
do with your brother then you are far off the mark. He didn't
care about Reuben. He was there when he died. I know he
let him climb a lamp post for the sake of a cheap laugh. I
know that if it wasn't for him and the rest of his no-good tribe
of yobs Reuben would still be alive.'

You closed your eyes and shook your head and kept whatever
you knew to yourself.

'You're not a father,' you said, as we walked out into that
cool evening air. 'You're a dictator. You're a weird, creepy fascist
and I hate you. You could die for all I care.'

'No,' I said. 'You don't mean that. These are just histri—'

'One day you'll wake up and I'll be gone. I'll have run away
and you'll never be able to find me.'

As we headed into the car park I looked at you, at your
face, at the frown that dented your beauty like a chip in a
vase.

'You don't mean that,' I said.

'I do. I mean it. You'll see. You'll see.'

And of course, you had never sounded more sincere.

Something I must correct:

Dick Turpin was not a man to be admired. Now, I know
you and your brother loved me to tell you about him, as children,
and I dare say I loved to be the teller, yet now the doubt
eats at me that this wasn't quite the thing to do.

Dick Turpin was a highwayman, that is true, but there was
no heroism attached to his villainy. There was no horse called
Black Bess, no twenty-four-hour ride from London to York,
no care for the welfare of his victims. These were embellishments,
romantic conjurings from the pens of Victorian
novelists. The real Richard Turpin was a vile torturer, who
held old women over their fires until they told him where
their money was kept. He was a man who shot his best friend,
and let his father be imprisoned rather than give himself up.
He was a rapist and terrorist, who hid out in caves and preyed
on the old and defenceless. A man who, for all his cunning,
got caught for shooting a cockerel, who exaggerated his exploits
to whatever audience he could find in York dungeon, and
who paid for mourners to attend his funeral.

I was wrong to suggest a rogue could be a hero. I was wrong,
on your first visit to the racecourse, to point out the spot
where the gallows were, and to excite you with the famous
story of how Turpin gallantly threw himself off the ladder to
his own death. I was wrong to allow your horse to take his
name. I wish I could have filled your ears with stories of the
saints, of those who knew violence and evil for what it was,
but I did not. And so I helped nurture this blindness you
have, this inability to see where evil exists, this affliction I too
must now recognise as my own.

I had a bit of a row with Cynthia on the telephone.

'She's lying to me,' I told her.

'Oh, Terence,' she blustered, in her dismissive way. 'She's a
teenage girl. Lies are what keep her breathing.'

'She's putting herself in danger,' I said. 'She said she was
going swimming and she went to a boxing match. Boxing!'

A long, Cynthian sigh. 'She needs her freedom, Terence.
You can't suffocate her.'

'Freedom,' I said. 'What does freedom mean any more?
Freedom's a myth, Cynthia. There's only safety. That's all.
And if I don't know where she is, how can I look after her?'

And then she began to get cross. 'Do you think I always
knew where Helen was? Of course I didn't. She was always
out, at the village hall, watching bands. Getting up to God
knows what.'

'It was a different time. And Helen was always strong.
Bryony's so . . .'

'So . . . what?'

'So delicate.'

Her bitter chuckle. 'That's a man's way of talking. A father's
way.'

'Well, I'm a man and I'm a father so it's no surprise.
And what's your way? The way of the blinkered grandmother?'

'All right,' she said. 'Let's say you're right. Let's say she is a
delicate little thing. And let's say she has – ow.'

'Cynthia,' I asked, 'are you all right?'

'It's just this flaming hernia. Anyway, where was I?'

'Let's say she is a delicate little thing,' I reminded her, before
she embarked on a rather lengthy metaphor about the art of
holding butterflies that sounded like it had fallen out of a
fortune cookie.

Now it was my turn to sigh. 'Is that from one of your self-help
books?'

'Oh, stop it, Terence,' she snapped.

'I just want to keep her safe, that's all.' I was speaking more
quietly now, aware of your footsteps above me. 'I want to stop
her getting into danger.'

'You have to let her breathe.'

'Yes. But I have to make sure it's the right sort of air she's
breathing. She might as well suck on an exhaust as kiss that
Denny boy, the harm it's going to do in the long term.'

She laughed a painful laugh. 'Have you heard yourself? The
long-term effects of kissing! Honestly! You have to act reasonably,
Terence. You have to acknowledge the world you're living
in. It's not the Dark Ages, you know. You can't lock her away
in a tower and wait until she's twenty-one.'

Cynthia was wrong. These were the darkest ages. These were
the days of dying light. 'You sound like the rest of them,' I said.

'The rest of who?'

'Them! The do-gooders. The soppy lettuces who have let
us get savaged by the dogs.'

'And what's your solution? To wrap her up in cotton wool
and not let her out of your sight?' She calmed herself down.
'Listen, you'll just have to let her get it out of her system. You
have to just let her . . .
be
.'