The True Story of Butterfish (16 page)

‘It could all get a bit complicated when I start breeding though. That's the plan. Breeding.' He gazed down into the barracks at his boys. ‘The big plan. I need breeding tanks and vinegar eels and brine shrimp eggs. I'm not there yet. But I've got a buyer who'll take them. A shop that'll take them for five bucks each minimum. Reckons he can sell as many as I can get him.'

Outside, at the front of the house, a car engine revved as it came closer. There was a squeak from the brakes, and the engine stopped.

‘Mum,' he said, matter-of-factly. He smirked. ‘Now it starts.'

‘What about her roster? I thought you said she was on a late.' I could hear Kate's feet on the wooden front steps, her key in the lock.

Mark drifted out of his room, his smirk now a see-sawing smile. ‘Yeah. I must have read it wrong. Sometimes you have to follow the line practically all the way across the page.'

Kate called out ‘Hello' as she swung the door open and, as she looked Mark up and down, I noticed again how drunk he was. I'd got used to the sway, the unusual amount of self-disclosure.

‘Annaliese,' she said loudly.

‘Leave me alone.' Annaliese's voice came out still sounding angry, and she didn't open her door. ‘I'm doing my homework. I'm having really bad period pain.'

Mark stuck his fingers in his ears and went ‘La la la.'

Kate frowned and said, ‘No you aren't. It's not...'

‘What? Now I have to prove it to you?'

‘No, no, sorry.' Kate backed down. ‘It's just that I thought ... doesn't matter.' She was now giving Mark her attention.

‘Special occasion,' he said, slurring it more than he needed to.

‘Derek, Derek from the band, is back and staying at my place.' I felt obliged to try to broker the best peace I could. ‘And the special occasion is that it's not every day you meet a dickhead as big as Derek.'

Mark went ‘Woo' and punched the air, as if he'd accomplished something. He turned pale, quite abruptly. ‘And now I'm going to the toilet.'

He crossed the room at an angle, moving quickly and like a worried crab, his right hand coming up to his mouth.

‘And you,' Kate said, sizing me up as if I was a candidate for a TV show called When Good Influences Go Bad, ‘You seem sober.'

‘I was out of the house for an hour or so. I had no idea this would happen. Somehow, Derek and Mark found each other. Low-level mayhem ensued. I hadn't had the chance to talk the special-occasion rule through with Derek.'

She gave it some thought. ‘I need a cup of tea. We should have a cup of tea.'

She put her bag down on the sofa and walked with purpose into the kitchen.

‘I think it'll be okay.' I couldn't work out why I'd said it. It would do no good.

‘Oh, really?' She stopped, yanked open the pantry door. ‘Because you're the expert when it comes to okay in these sorts of matters?' She pulled out a box of tea bags and held it out for me to choose.

‘No, I mean, I think Mark will be okay.' I pulled a bag out without looking. Another fell on the floor. ‘That can be mine. I mean with other things.' I lowered my voice. ‘The money. Mark's money. It's essentially legitimate, and so is what he plans to do with it.'

‘What's
essentially
legitimate? Why do you sound like a politician dancing around a big fat lie?'

‘Okay, fair point. It's all legal. He writes for magazines. Pieces on a range of topics. For money.' It was a trade-off. Put one issue to rest while another took its turn front and centre, show Kate things weren't all bad. That was the rationale, though it was all about me, really, and Kate walking in to see me as an agent of disarray. ‘And some of the topics are, well, maybe fine. And others of them are a bit more like porn. Or pig killing.'

She shuddered. There had been no good way to put it. ‘And the okay bit of this would be?'

‘He doesn't kill anything. Or do the porn stuff. And he's got a great imagination. That could take him a long way.' Dance, politician, dance. Dance around the big fat lie. ‘And the money's just for a hobby.'

She unplugged the kettle, and took it to the sink. ‘A hobby? So, not some money-making venture? That's not like him.'

‘Okay, it's a hobby that crosses over into a moneymaking venture. Or may do if it works out.'

‘Mmm...' She had her back to me as the kettle filled, but I was no less under scrutiny.

‘And it's possible he may not go to a lot of trouble with the tax paperwork, but other than that it's all okay. Right up there with cake stalls and garage sales. And that's all I can say, or it'll be a complete breach of trust.'

‘Okay,' she said, ‘okay,' perhaps relieved, perhaps not. She was thinking it through, actively wishing porn, pig killing, delinquency and jail out of his future, wanting to mother him out the other side of adolescence to something better. ‘He just ... His father does nothing with him, so this is what happens. There's nothing acceptably male in his life. And then along comes Derek, and that works out really well.'

Metres away, behind the half-closed bathroom door, Mark had started heaving his guts up into the toilet.

‘Well, maybe when Derek's gone I could ... do something. Some non-drinking acceptably male thing.' Annaliese was hiding in her room because of me. Mark had his head in the toilet because of me. It wasn't much to offer to do something, though I had no idea what it might be.

Kate looked past me towards the bathroom door. ‘Don't feel obliged.' She plugged the kettle in and pushed the switch down. Mark heaved again, and moaned. Kate opened her eyes wide, and shook her head. ‘I might go in there and check up on things. Such a good parent. It can't all be down to Campbell, can it? One inexplicable tantrum, one too drunk for homework. It's a great day on Gap Creek Road. Why don't we all just put Child Safety on speed dial?'

‘You're working on that?' It was Derek's voice, a cracked version of it that wasn't ready to start the day. ‘That's going to be really good. What are you going to do with it?'

I was in the studio and Lost in Time, the song sent overnight by Gunnar and Øivind, was playing. I could see their point about getting Annaliese to do backing vocals, but I wasn't sure now that it was ever going to happen. And that was a story that could not be explained to them by email, or ever.

‘Hey, this is me listening to it for the first time.' I had ideas and I didn't want to lose them. I was making notes. ‘I might have to give it some more thought. And shut the door or you'll let the heat in.'

I heard the door rumble and clunk, my attention still on my notes, and Derek came and sat next to me. For about a minute, he said nothing while I wrote. He swivelled the chair around a couple of times and then stopped and stifled a groan. I put my pencil down. He was, predictably, dishevelled, and in the clothes he had fallen asleep in the previous afternoon. His face was creased and his tan now appeared chemical and unhealthy. He was looking around the studio, seeing what I'd got for myself.

‘Hey, fuck, Space Invaders,' he said, his voice still with a rasp in it, but not the sluggishness of before. ‘I'm going to kick your arse at this the second I'm in the time zone.'

‘The time zone? That'd be the place where you don't drink all those beers, would it?' If he was going to boast about kicking my arse, I was going to call his hangover what it was.

‘What?' he said, not listening or not understanding. Or not caring.

He rolled across to the game console on his chair. He gazed down at the glass, his hair hanging in front of his face. I wasn't certain if he was going to play, sleep or vomit. I picked up my pencil and tried to go back to work.

He fumbled around, and I heard a switch click and then the familiar blast of electric alien noises that said the machine had come to life. My ideas for the Splades were rapidly losing their clarity, and they disappeared completely as his game began in a clatter of erratic knob work and klutzy firing. It all went wrong fast. He took the aliens out piecemeal and they descended and monstered him.

‘Fuck it,' he said. ‘It used to last longer, right?'

‘I think you forgot the key level-one tactic about knocking the aliens out in columns.'

‘Yeah, whatever.' He was staring down at the screen as the sample game appeared and started playing. ‘It's the chair that's the problem. You shouldn't do it on a chair with castors.'

‘Well, you just let me know when you want to kick my arse, okay?'

It was as if we had found ourselves straight back on tour. I could hear my own smugness, but I couldn't seem to stop it. All this over a twenty-cent arcade game from the late seventies.

‘Mitchell Froom's place is a bit more settled than this,' he said, looking at the unruly cables and the boxes I hadn't yet unpacked. ‘But I guess you've just moved in.'

‘So, he's producing your new stuff?'

He looked non-committal. That meant the answer was almost certainly no. The mere name drop was to put me in my place. Mitchell Froom was a legend, I was the newbie being tried out on the Splades.

‘I don't know yet,' he said eventually. ‘It's early days. Early days in this new post-band-implosion life.' He pushed some streaky hair out of his face, and yawned. ‘He's got a great set-up though. None of that big-studio shit. You get to use, like, the actual kitchen. He's got great snack food. You could learn a thing or two from Mitchell Froom about snack food. There's this almond thing...'

Weariness meant that he lost interest, and let the self-aggrandising anecdote slide. He gave another big yawn, and stretched his arms up in the air. His hands settled on the back of his head. His eyes looked watery.

‘And, just like at Mitchell's place, here you get to use the actual kitchen. In which I could make you some French toast for breakfast, if you happened to be so inclined.'

‘Yes,' he said emphatically. ‘Yes. French toast. Definitely so inclined.' He stood up, as if his body had new anti-gravity energy already. ‘I knew I was staying here for a reason.'

My notes were scrawled, I realised. I'd written them too quickly, and didn't know if they'd make sense when I got back to them. Derek pulled the door open, stepped into the glare with his hand up to his eyes and led the way to the kitchen.

He sat at the table while I whisked.

‘Mmm, it's that cunning blend of herbs and spices,' he said rustily, his chin on his hand.

‘I think you'll find that's KFC. But thank you. Vanilla, cinnamon and a pinch of nutmeg, and then a good long soak.' My Delia Smith side came out of nowhere, flushed out by Derek's haphazard way of put ting it. Even when he really liked something, he would only half-try when it came to turning it into words. I had never been able to resist correcting him, however prim it made me sound. I lowered the first piece of bread into the egg mixture.

‘That Splades stuff...' He was gazing past me, out the window. ‘You could go well with that. With a bit of luck.' He swirled his coffee around, picking up foam that had caked to the inside of the cup. ‘I liked the kid next door.'

‘You don't remember the kid next door.' I turned the bacon, swirled the bread in the mixture.

‘Sure I do.'

‘What's his name?'

There was a pause as he gave it serious consideration, his eyes as blank and defocused as a doll's. ‘You know I'm not a name person. And I'm waking up very slowly.'

‘Mark. His name is Mark.' The bread hit the pan with a sizzle.

‘Mmm. French toast.'

‘Okay, Homer. We're only minutes away now.' I made room for the second piece of bread and dropped it into the pan. ‘You should remember his name because we've been invited around there for dinner tonight, unless you have other plans.' It had been Kate's idea at a time when Mark's vomiting was reaching a crescendo, and I would have said yes to anything. ‘Mark was hurling so much when I left yesterday I could have sworn I heard his pancreas hit the bowl.'

‘Mmm. Sweetbread.'

I put the tongs down and laughed. Derek's creased face smiled.

‘The point, Homer, is that havoc was wreaked. Young Markie brought up internal organs, and tonight we're showing him it doesn't have to be that way. Try to imagine it – you, sober, substance-free and behaving like a decent human being.'

‘Or what? I get time on the naughty step?' He gave another yawn. ‘Geez, is there no caffeine in this coffee? We're not starting the substance-free thing now, are we? I can be quite dislikeable substance-free.' There was a free shot on offer, and this time I was going to be the good host and decline to take it. ‘Do we really have to? Is this, like, locked in?' I wished it wasn't. I wished guilt hadn't got the better of me. It seemed like the worst, most dangerous way to spend an evening, dragging Derek next door to try out his smarm-and-charm routine on a wounded Annaliese and a shitty Kate.

‘I had to do something to calm his mother down.'

‘Oh really? And calming mothers is a thing you do now?' He pushed the coffee cup across the table away from himself and then slouched back in the chair. ‘It sounds like you've got yourself a great substitute for a life here. I wish I could be you. It was just a few beers. He's got to learn how to drink a few beers.' He stared blankly, dumbly, at the wall. ‘My father, he was fucking cross-eyed. And no one told me.'

I turned the French toast. I didn't know what to say. I wanted to backtrack. I was stuck at ‘I wish I could be you', but nothing could be said about that now. There was a fine line between glib and contemptuous, and I told myself he had meant to be glib.

‘It's the way it's pressing on his brain. The tumour.' He said it Schwarzenegger-style, more like ‘too-ma', and he made himself smile. It was a forlorn attempt to consign it to fiction, to make it as powerless as a sub-plot in a movie, over which the action hero would invariably triumph. If you could say it Arnie-style, it couldn't be entirely real. It couldn't be that serious. ‘One eye is kind of stuck looking down and in. It's like he's got a bug on his nose and he can't stop watching it.' His chair scraped back as he stood up. ‘Okay, I'll come. Tonight. It's not as if I have plans. And it sounds excellent.' He said it as if it was the biggest burden imaginable. ‘Hey, don't burn that. I've waited months for this French toast.'

I slid it onto the plate just in time. I sliced a banana over the top and put the bacon on the side. His father was propped up in a bed at the Wesley, two pictures of the world coming in and not fitting over each other – two bed ends, two views of the garden – as the mass in I put the plate in front of Derek and he said, ‘And the maple syrup would be...'

I fetched it from the pantry. He took a close look at the label.

‘Genuine article. You are living well.' He poured it zigzag across the French toast and a slick of it collected near the bacon. ‘So, they do the thing today. The biopsy.' He was cutting the toast, loading up his fork. ‘The hole in the head. After that it's probably radiotherapy. It's not an easy area to poke around.' His voice had started to go shaky, and he put the fork down. ‘Some more of that coffee would be good. I can make it if you tell me how the machine works.'

I took his cup and said, ‘No, that's fine. Eat the French toast while it's hot.' I took the coffee from the freezer and emptied the old coffee grounds into the bin. ‘So how was it yesterday, seeing him there? How was he?'

‘Oh, he was in and out. In and out of the room, I mean. He had tests. He can't read properly. That shits him. But, you know, when the tumour size comes down that'll hopefully be different.' He pushed the first corner of French toast into his mouth, chewed mechanically. ‘It's, you know, weird. He's better with buttons if he closes his eyes, or the bad eye at least. He's got an eye patch, but he won't wear it. It's this flesh-toned plastic thing. And this is my father, right? Never needed help in his life. He's got these really ugly pyjamas. He never wears pyjamas. And my mother's fussing around, annoying him any chance she gets.'

I scooped new coffee into the metal cup, tamped it and locked it into the machine. ‘It must have been a long day.'

‘Yeah,' he said. ‘Yeah, it was. Sorry I drank all the Stella.'

‘Hey, it's for drinking. I hadn't quite anticipated it'd all go in an afternoon, but I hear they've made some more.'

I sat down opposite him. He was crunching bacon, and blinking. He rubbed his eyes. He cut another large piece of French toast and ate it. He made an mmm noise and pointed approvingly at the plate. He chewed and chewed, and sniffed, and looked like he couldn't swallow. Then it was down.

‘Man, good,' he said. ‘I think I made you do the third album for the food.'

‘I knew there had to be a reason.'

‘Hey, that was a good record. A really good record. You know it was.'

‘It was.'

He snapped a bacon rasher with his knife and pushed a piece onto the next mouthful of toast. He liked his bacon crispy.

It was as if I was watching a tour breakfast, any one of dozens of tour breakfasts on a methodical city-by-city advance through the US Midwest.

‘Have you heard from Jess lately?' I wanted Derek not to know about her engagement, to be as in the dark as I had been. I had to ask.

‘Yeah,' he said. ‘Once or twice.' He stopped eating. ‘So you know then?'

‘Yeah.'

The coffee machine hissed, and as coffee started to drip into his cup I poured some milk into a jug and went to froth it. Out the window, I could see washing on the line next door.

‘You know I wouldn't have slept with her in St Louis if it hadn't been over, right?' he said behind me, through a mouthful of food. ‘And she'd had a lot to drink. An awful lot. And I was kind of wasted, of course.'

Milk was spilling all over the counter before I could take the words in.

‘You didn't know. Oh, fuck, you didn't know.' He was out of his chair, coming forward. ‘She said she'd tell you. She told me she'd...'

Milk was running from the edge of the counter. He grabbed a tea towel and I said, ‘Not a tea towel. There's a cloth in the sink...'

‘It was just one time,' he said, tea towel clamped to the edge of the counter, sopping up milk. ‘You've got to understand that.' He was looking panicky. The milk was beating him. ‘In St Louis, two days before she left the tour in Louisville. She was upset. It was just ... it just happened. We met in the bar, before the show.'

‘No, she went for a walk before the show.' I was back there, working hard on every memory I had of that particular day, looking for clues, looking for it to be untrue. ‘I told her to be careful. She said she always was.'