Behindlings (44 page)

(Was he in trouble? Was he taking the Mick? Would it be sensible, or appropriate even, to go out and search for him; this being a man who evaded pursuit semi-professionally – made a kind of… of
living
from it?).

How the heck did we all end up here, Ted wondered, turning his glass over, superstitiously (they’d been placed upside down, as if in preparation for a game of Ouija) and glancing around the table at the other three. This whole situation just seemed so… so…

So infernally Wesley

–but what did that mean?

Ted still hadn’t entirely come to terms with the whole… the
whole ‘Following’ wheeze. Couldn’t really grasp the ins and the outs of it; the numerous subtle permutations of what you were meant to do – or not to do – as the case may be.

One thing was for certain, though…

He suddenly sneezed –

Katherine’s perfume

Old-fashioned breath cashews

Industrial-strength fly killer

– snatched his hanky – with dispatch – from his top pocket (frowning fastidiously), patted his nose and the back of his wrist with it.

They were definitely –

Phew

That was better

(he shook his head, shuddering)

– they were definitely all waiting for some
thing
to happen. And it wasn’t just Wesley (the bugger) or the meal (Goddammit). It was… and this really
did
sound like a bit of a…
uh…

A cockamamie…

– they were waiting –

I mean just look at them all…

(Ted lifted his head and gazed around the table)

– they were all waiting for life

– 
For life

Yes

– they were all waiting for life to take over; in all its sheer, crushing… the
sap…
the brutality… the horror… the actual, candid… the cruel… the unexpurgated…

Yes

– because that was what he stood for

– 
Wasn’t it?

– that was what he represented –

Didn’t he?

– the independent stroke –the cocking a snook –the kick in the pants –the gently raised middle… index
… uh…

What am I thinking?

Ted abruptly abandoned his attempt to make sense of things –

Futile

He felt ridiculously ill-equipped for the struggle. He felt overpowered by circumstance; like a tiny fieldmouse (he told himself) foetal-ing up as it feels the plough’s first horrible tremor. I’m a purely defensive kind of rodent, he gently mused. I’m not a fighter. I’m a huddler. A curler. I cannot –

I will not

– flee.

I stay in place, no matter what. I do my best to hold my head up. And they can mock me, if they like –

And they do mock, too

– they can mock me, but it’s a kind of…

I won’t run

– a kind of… of…

Sincerity?

Was that it?

Ted glanced down at his watch. Wesley was two hours –

Free –he was –indisputably

– two
whole
hours late.

No gentle little field-rodent, he –

Not Wesley

– Ted visualised him as some kind of unashamedly big-boned, scruffy-whiskered, fast-perambulating, ginger-coated puss.

A predator to the core –

Never comes home on time

Won’t do as you say

Takes what he wants and then buggers off

Tail held high

Arse neat and tight as a spinster’s kiss…

With big old teeth (Ted smiled to himself, secretly), three-pawed, one-eared, vagabond-suited, hob-nail booted. Carrying a twig –

A stick

– with a spotted ‘kerchief held over one shoulder –

Whistling

– ridiculously jaunty. Sun shining down on him. Obligatory blue jay singing somewhere in the… in the…

Rear of the picture

Ted couldn’t help remembering –with a kind of perplexed awe –the way Wes’d reacted to the news about his daughter. The
way he took those punches in the bar. The way he’d faced up to Katherine –

Just stormed on in there

The way he’d slaughtered that bird and forgave the… the… the…

Impostor

And the Pond –

The pond Ah

He also remembered (equally irresistibly) the way Dewi had behaved (just an hour before) when he’d turned up at the agency ready to mend the lock and reset that door. The hostility. The intensity. The… the…

Life!

… the magnificent
involvement –

Yes!

Are you on his side, Edward? Has he talked you around? Has he worked his magic? Is it admiration, Edward, or confusion? Are you overwhelmed? Is it fear?
’

And Ted had said –

‘
Does it have to be a question of taking sides?
’

Taking sides?

Pshaw!

That was such… such…

Playground behaviour

And Dewi had shaken his head, and he had looked at him, sadly –

Like he’s never looked at me before –

Hang on

Hang…

Isn’t that because he’s never actually looked –

Never actually seen me before now?

Is this what it took?

To be visible?

And Dewi said –

It’s like bloodsports, Edward, or prostitution or public executions. It’s something that you instinctively take a side on. Look into your heart, Edward. Read what’s written there.
’

And Ted had looked (in all sincerity). And he saw –

A pond

In the summer

Heat sizzling on the algae

Releasing the sour scent of kelp

Angry spinach

Sticking to his fingers as he swished a limp hand…

As he…

Hmmn

– he saw nothing in particular.

Ted slid his tongue across his upper plate –

Bubbles from the fish rising to the top

The occasional water…

– and that was it, really –

The occasional water snail…

– that was –

Fin

Ted flipped himself back into the present. He found himself fingering his tie (mentally re-processing the neat lines of hand-stitching). He licked his lips, relinquished his grip, weaved his ten fingers together on his lap (feeling that reassuring callus on his index finger), jiggled his shoulders, stretched his neck, gazed over briefly at his table setting. He was missing –

A dessert spoon

He peered around. Everybody else had… had…

No pudding for Ted

He sank back down into his chair. Lowered his head (as if saying grace) and rested his chin (like a golf ball upon its tee) onto the hard, neat knot of his tie –

My poor back

In agony

He and Arthur were less ‘sat’ at that table, more ‘sunk’ (like two well-hammered tent pegs) into a couple of old-fashioned deck chairs which Katherine had dragged inside from the back conservatory upon Ted’s arrival (no comment offered on the fact of Dewi. Not a smile, a frown, a wisecrack. Just a quiet –

A howling

– indifference).

She’d looked on keenly as Ted’d battled to set the chairs up (refusing to let the others help him), clucking her tongue sarcastically with each more clumsy attempt, finally chastising him roundly –

Ah

So this is to be my punishment

– then shoving him aside and taking over herself (if she’d had sleeves she’d have rolled them up), instructing Arthur –

Since when did these two get so tight?

– to time her, and setting both chairs up at just under…

‘Five seconds,
per,
’ he said, deftly tapping the glass on his watch-face with his finger.

The chairs –built for lounging –were so low that only their occupants’ heads and necks were visible above the table-top. Katherine and Dewi perched primly on stools which –as the fates decreed –were just fractionally too high (Dewi, at the cutlery drawer end, couldn’t fit his knees under comfortably, so sat sideways, tipped –as was his preference –towards Ted; conspicuously ignoring the now diminutive Arthur).

It was 12.15 a.m. Ted silently thanked the Lord that he’d rung on ahead (crossed himself, inconspicuously).

Katherine snorted, for no apparent reason –

Did she just see?

Dewi’d had him over a barrel. Either they promptly returned to Katherine’s aid –as he touchingly described it –with the help of Ted’s handy house key (Dewi’d known she wouldn’t let him in if he tried to gain access the traditional way. She could recognise his ring. It was actually quite uncanny), or the agency’s bathroom door would remain unhinged, as, doubtless, would Pathfinder, on uncovering the extent of Ted’s wrongdoing the following morning.

Even so –warning or no warning –Katherine was still clad in only her underwear, with a tea towel (decorated in gypsy caravans –one approaching, one in retreat, a barge, a shire horse, a watering can and a calendar: 1994) tucked into her bra. The towel was newly stained at its centre.

Ted was no expert in these matters, but there were definitely the voracious marks of sex all over her (bite marks, scuff marks,
suck-marks, finger-prints, general but unspecific wear and tear) and she exuded (even up against the stink of burnt poultry, chinchilla pee, cigarettes, apricot brandy) an exquisitely piquant post-coital aroma.

In the corner, on the sideboard (Ted could only see over there at a stretch from his painfully reduced position) he noted that Arthur was successfully re-energising his computer –

Fast worker, eh?

Dewi re-adjusted his knife and fork into their more traditional positions, straightened his spoon (Katherine –apparently not looking, but patently still seeing –groaned under her breath. He flinched) and then silently followed Ted’s eye-line. He stared at the computer for a long, long while. Then he pointed towards it.

‘What’s that?’ he asked (with all the quizzical moral zeal of a four-year-old child at the public zoo on espying a fully aroused male gorilla approaching an unsuspecting female from the rear). It was the first time he’d actually spoken (they had been in
situ
now for almost half-an-hour).

‘It
talks,
’ Katherine exclaimed, kicking Arthur under the table (as if she was now the child, but visiting a science lab, where Dewi was being held hostage as a creature of experimental interest).

Arthur –ignoring the kick as best he could –glanced over to the sideboard. ‘It’s my computer…’ he said, sounding suitably non-plussed –

What is this?

The Stone Age?

‘It’s just recharging.’

‘What’s it
for?
’ Dewi asked (still talking to Ted, ignoring Arthur).

‘
Computering,
you imbecile,’ Katherine snarled, ‘what else?’

Good Heavens

– Arthur cleared his throat, anxiously –

A whole shit-load of hostility at work here, apparently

A further silence.

‘Who
is
he?’ Dewi asked (Ted again –and his timing so exquisitely snail-like that even the agent felt his hackles rising). Dewi tipped his head fractionally in Arthur’s direction (just to make sure), ‘and what’s he think he’s doing here?’

Nobody answered (not least because no one could actually
remember Arthur’s name). Arthur himself was struggling… the sex had been… had been…

Bewildering

No

No…

Luminous

No

No…

Nu-minous

(Uh… Was that it?)

‘Who
is
he?’ Dewi repeated, this time using his thumb (hitching it rudely in Arthur’s direction) and addressing the question directly to Katherine.

He’d crossed a line –Ted could tell, Art could tell –but nobody knew what that line was, precisely, or what crossing it meant.

Katherine stared back blankly (her eyes as bold and empty as a cuckoo’s conscience) then turned to Ted, ‘This is stupid. I’m ravenous. Should we get started on dinner?’

‘I
love
you, Katy,’ Dewi murmured.

Oh God

Arthur raised his brows, stared at his crotch, chewed on his lip. Ted sank down even lower into his chair. Katherine stood up, grabbed her glass, turned it over, picked up the jug of water close by, stepped back, and poured an exact glassful onto the floor.

Then she placed the jug back down again, walked to the cooker (stepping daintily through the mess), grabbed an oven glove and opened the door.

They all watched, in unison, as she bent over –the stool’s curved wooden edge pinkly printed onto the lower segment of her bottom –removed Wesley’s casserole and carried it over.

Arthur cleared his throat. He remembered Dewi –with a spectacular clarity; in technicolor, in 3D –from the fight in the bar. Dewi’s left fist, in fact (currently resting like a flesh-rock on the table-top) was very slightly grazed across the knuckle –

And I just screwed her on the tiles?

Was I off my…?

‘I’m Arthur,’ he said, ‘Arthur
Young.
I’m…’

How to explain it?

Which side to take?

How to avoid… To…

‘… I’m a… I’m actually a… a
charity
worker.’

Wow

They all turned to look at him.

‘To be fucked out of
charity
in my own kitchen,’ Katherine eventually mused, placing down the casserole pot and lifting the lid, ‘that’s
got
to be a first.’