Behindlings (18 page)

But… ah, yes.
Yes.
That was good, actually. The dog was… he was
handy.
Grand as a diversion. If only he could just…

Uh…

Wesley called Dennis over. Dennis did his bidding, quite obligingly
- he admired Wesley enormously. Wesley possessed all those attributes –in abundance –which terriers found irresistible: low standards of personal hygiene, high self-esteem, a flagrant disregard for social niceties…

‘Sit, Dennis. Right there.
Sit.
Now
stay.
’

Dennis sat.

Okey-dokey

Quick as he could, and partially obscured by the dog, Wesley pulled a sharp hunting knife from his trouser pocket, unsheathed it, squatted, cut two long, pointed leaves from the smaller yukka, tossed them down next to him, turned to the larger plant, delved into the soil at its base, found a root, took his knife, applied it with force to the thickest part, cut, yanked it free, then pressed the soil carefully back into place again.

He glanced around him as he shook the soil from his hands, grabbed the spines, the root, slid his knife away and hot-footed it (but not running.
Never
running; anything beyond a lope was an admission of guilt).

Okay

He strode onwards (dog still sitting, waiting patiently for the release word) –
Bollocks to the dog

Let the Old Man release him

– towards a seductively wide expanse of green up ahead.

Open plan. Parky. But just grass. No shrubs or trees (the fucking
trees,
where were they?). Muddy underfoot. Clumpy. Used for parking, chiefly, or for travelling fairs in the summer, or circuses, or car-booters…

Up ahead, the sea wall (a huge, concrete bastard, like something from Alcatraz or Colditz), and balanced on top of that, or virtually, a large, slightly perplexing, art deco cafeteria (newly refurbished) with LABWORTH CAFE written in large, black lettering around its circular perimeter.

He squinted at this awhile, struggling to remember it from his last visit to Canvey –
Space craft Oil drum Water tower…

Yeah

– he remembered. It’d been virtually derelict then, but he remembered.

Wesley rapidly orbited the children’s play park –nobody there: too bloody cold –still foggy out to sea (and the wind howling and screaming the other side of that wall like a nine-month-old baby in the midst of some kind of chronic teething catastrophe).

Wesley glanced behind him.

Balls

Hooch. Way off in the distance, casually inspecting the price tag on a large, metallic blue-green Volvo Estate (Hooch drove a beat up white Escort van. Wesley knew it intimately: the tyre tread, the number plate, the small indentation on the door –passenger side. Knew that damn van like the back of his hand. Cursed that damn van with ludicrous regularity).

Doc was just behind him. Then the rest of them. Shoes. The girl, walking with the kid. They were talking. The girl made him uneasy. He was almost certain she was working for the Company. She was sneaky. But she had a marvellously open face for a snitch, and that bare-arsed cheek, that gall, that quisling-like quality appealed to him tremendously. Fraudulence of such magnitude –so neatly
packaged –
was always admirable.

Why shouldn’t it be?

Wesley turned and quickened his pace. To his left:
The Carousel;
a huge, crouching, plastic construction. Shed-like. Orange-brown. Bricked. Cheap. Open in the summer for gaming, for bingo, for indoor bowling, possibly.

Left of that, over a small road:
The Majestic.
A large hotel. Art deco. So must’ve withstood the floods back in ‘53 –in
some
shape or form –still to be here today. And so resolutely. Although –come to think of it –the sea wall was actually breached –

Uh…

Where?

– to the East a way? By the jetty? The marshes? The very direction, in fact, that he was currently heading –

But not…

Wesley jinked left –

Not quite yet

He upped his pace; around the hotel’s voluptuous curvings, then slinked quickly –seamlessly –through an unobtrusive side-passage –
Ah

Rubbish

Black refuse bags a-plenty. He kicked a couple, squatted down, carefully placed his yukka stash next to him on the floor, then pulled one open and delved inside…

Tin foil, used napkins –

Ouch

– cocktail stick.

Back in again –

Yes…?

Yes!

Lemons. Exactly what he was looking for –God he was
hot
today –and a cherry or two (he tossed the cherries into his mouth, chewed, swallowed ravenously, kept the lemons –six slices –still plump –
fantastic.
Ripped off a bit of the tin foil, wrapped them up in it, shoved this package firmly into his jacket pocket).

Bag of peanuts –

Waaah!

– just past their sell-by. Amazing. Stuck them into his pocket, alongside the lemon.

Another packet –

Bingo!

– opened, though. He removed a stray match from inside the lip and tossed it over his shoulder then emptied the contents onto his tongue in one go, chewed with prodigious enjoyment, swallowed.

Anything else? Nope. Old tissues. Crushed cans. Cigarette butts –

Oooh

– half-smoked cigarette –pink-lipstick-tipped. He tapped out the used and blackened tobacco until the weed grew browner, then sealed the open end, neatly, and pushed it, carefully, inside the left cuff of his jumper.

Right. That was that. He tied the bag up again, grabbed the yukka, stood up, glanced around him, furtively. No rear exit –

Bugger

– back out the way he came in, then.

He headed grimly for the street –the soup-plate sky –the wind

– those painfully familiar shapes on the horizon…

Oh Lord

Oh bloody, bloody Jesus Christ

– sometimes he longed so hard for that lonely feeling that his stomach contracted and his temples began throbbing –
Fucking Hell

STOP all this GRIPING

Sharp left. Over the road. Sea wall –concrete –lowering above him. Twelve short steps to climb it. No chance –no damn
time
–for pointless bellyaching –

One

Two

Three

Four
…

– up to the top –

Yaaargh!

The foul cold air hit him, without relenting –

Fr-fr-fr-fucking-fr-fr-freezing!

– wind slicing into his cheek-flesh like a razor-fish –making his ears hum, his eyes water, his teeth tingle…

But he turned straight into it, his lips smeared into a grin, his hair flying back (a thousand tiny hands, a million lost souls, wailing, pushing,
pummelling
against him). He
threw
himself –recklessly, belligerently –into the skin-chapping
blare
of oceanic pandemonium. (Okay. The English Channel. But still mean as fuck for all of that.)

Wesley smiled to himself, derisively, pulling the collar up on his jacket.

One foot, then the other

One foot, then the other

And so –in this trifling way, and in this violence –began The Walking proper.

Fourteen

No electricity. That couldn’t be just a coincidence. And no phone line, either –

Ditto

Had to try not to get paranoid, but sometimes the people who… the people…

Damn!

Arthur was struggling to get the Calor Gas heater going. He’d already checked the weight of it. Heavy. Full of butane. But something wasn’t quite right with the nozzle. He’d found it on its side, kicked over –by the intruder, presumably. (The
Intruder?
Or was it something a little less informal, a little more… hmmn…
choreographed,
maybe?)

What did it matter?

It wasn’t a bad boat. High-ceilinged. No need to stoop in the galley. Painted a kind of nautical lime throughout –quite recently, by the look of things. Jaunty. Running water (drinkable but metallic-tasting). Bedroom in the bow. Hard bunk, old mattress –skinny and stained and rather dirty. Four books on the tiny bedside table. Arthur’d picked them up, one by one…

Dickens’
Bleak House, Origami
3;
The Art of Paper Folding
(by celebrated ‘Master of the Paper Arts’, Robert Harbin),
How to Survive in the Desert
(written by some nutty American lone wolf in the early 1970s), and finally, some crazy autobiographical thing called
Making an Exhibition of Myself,
by a man named Jonathan Routh –a legendary practical joker from the 1960s.

Arthur flipped through the last book, frowning, read the opening two pages, then tossed it down onto the bunk, dismissively.

There was a cupboard, though, under the bunk. He’d slid back the door. Inside were a pile of clean sheets, folded with a military precision and a pile of
National Geographics
(ah, those familiar yellow ribs; like meeting a dear old friend at a funeral wearing a bright daffodil buttonhole).

He’d checked the dates: 1976–1983. And pretty much all entirely there (must be worth something). Then two stray editions –right at the bottom –dated 1999. March and February. He pulled these out for perusing later, his own long-term subscription (he’d been collecting these magazines since he came of age) having finished a full seven years previously: round about the time he started saving up seriously –the time he gave up drinking –smoking –the time he gave up a whole load of… the time he gave up everything. Everything except spite and bile and shite and walking and walking and…

Enough.

Arthur clenched the canister between his knees and applied more pressure to the nozzle area. A short hiss, then nothing. Needed more light. Back was hurting again. And he was hungry. He glanced through the galley window. What was the weather doing? Still quite foggy. But he was dressed in his outdoors gear, felt warm.

He grabbed an apple from the sideboard, a quarter of soda bread, a chicken leg, then headed outside with them. Turned back at the threshold –remembering the nozzle –debated whether he could manage his lunch and the canister in his other hand. Decided he could. Went back for it. Grabbed the canister. Remembered the
National Geographics.
Saw them on the drainingboard. Put down the canister (
gracious,
that was heavy), picked them up, rolled them, stuck them firmly into either pocket. Shoved the chicken leg and the other stuff –where to put it –yes, in the hood of his jacket. Canny. Bent down to retrieve the canister again –felt the food rolling around so kept his shoulders straight to avoid a catastrophe –grabbed it again, lifted…

Left hand
Geographic
slipped out of his pocket and onto the floor. Slid part-way under the refrigerator (not working).

Bugger

He staggered forward, anyway.

The canister was incredibly heavy. He’d rick his neck if he wasn’t careful. So he was careful. Bent from the knee.

Crossed the creaking walkway and headed up the embankment. Made it to the top without too much difficulty (had set his heart on this lunching location –sheer perversity, really –but there was the view up here and everything) relinquished the canister, took the magazine out of his pocket…

Where the
heck
was his lunch? What on earth had he…? Couldn’t for the life of him… couldn’t…

Arthur sat down, looked at his hand –all scrunched red-white from the pressure of the canister, his fingers temporarily locked into plump, pink talons –then opened the magazine and began working his way through it.

So…
February edition. Licked his thumb. Held the pages up close to his eyes. Needed his glasses for small type but had left them… had…

God…
awful
letter on the Cossacks and one –now this was interesting –about how civets weren’t really cats. They were actually the biggest and most canine of the
viv…
the
viver…
the
viverridae.
A genus which included mongooses and genets.

Mongooses? Mongeese?

Then finally, a whole, damn
ream
of information about biodi…

‘Excuse me.’

How much time had escaped him?

It was still bright. Still foggy. His arse was numb.

‘Excuse me.’

A man was standing almost directly behind him.
How the…? How on earth did he…?

Arthur corkscrewed his top half, nearly dropping the magazine.

‘I think you’ll find,’ the man courteously informed him, taking a final, languorous drag on the cigarette he was smoking and then tossing the end away, ‘that you’re sitting on an ants’ nest.’

‘What?’

‘An ants’ nest.’

‘Are you
kidding?
’ Arthur threw down the magazine and leapt to his feet. As he swung around something dealt him a light blow on the back of his neck. It startled him. For a moment he thought the
stranger had hit him, but that same instant realised he was being irrational. The man was at totally the wrong angle, logistically.

‘Uh…’ the man spoke again, ‘a piece of chicken…’ He was bending over, retrieving something, ‘and an apple just fell out of your…’

The apple was rolling gaily down the embankment. Arthur went after it. Skidded twice, but caught it decisively once it’d reached bottom. He glanced up towards the man again. He had the winter sun behind him, like a halo. His face was an eye-burning blur of dissolving skin.

‘Is this your craft?’ the man asked.

‘No,’ Arthur answered instinctively, blinking suspiciously, then, ‘
Yes.
Yes it is, actually.’