Behindlings (6 page)

The doorbell rang again, rather more insistently.

This time Ted went to the window and peered out.

‘If he sees you looking he’ll come over,’ Wesley warned him, putting the mango stone up to his nose, inhaling. It smelled of old hay. Of wheat. Of corn dollies.

‘
Damn,
’ Ted quickly withdrew, ‘I think he
did
see me…’

Sure enough, after a few seconds, the window was darkened by a small shadow, then a nose –pushed up hard against the glass –with two inquisitive hands pressed either side of it.

‘Gracious,’ Ted murmured, backing off still further, ‘you weren’t kidding.’

‘Just ignore him,’ Wesley counselled boredly, ‘he’ll go away eventually.’

‘Who is he?’ Ted was mesmerised.

‘I already told you. Some kid.’

The right shadow-hand suddenly peeled itself away from the glass, formed itself into a tight fist, and began knocking. ‘How do you know him?’ Ted whispered.

‘I don’t,’ Wesley shrugged, ‘he just follows me around.

’ ‘What’s his name?’

‘Pete. Patty. I can’t remember.’

The knocking continued. It was loud and persistent yet maddeningly unrhythmical. After thirty seconds it grew mildly irritating, by fifty it was unbearable.

‘I think he might be stepping on Katherine’s hydrangea,’ Ted stuttered.

‘Then go out and yell at him.’

‘Should I?’ Ted looked appalled at the thought. ‘Will he become aggressive?’

Wesley chuckled, ‘No. He’ll love it. He’ll lap it up. He’ll interrogate you. He’ll molest you. He’ll bend your ear. That’s all.’

Ted didn’t move. ‘For some reason,’ he said, ‘that banging’s really… it’s making me… I think it’s just the… I think it’s the
irregularity
or something.’

‘Calm down. He’ll tire soon enough.’

As if on cue, the knocking abated.

‘Thank
God,
’ Ted shuddered, yanking his tie askew, his professional veneer denting like the tender skin of a ripe nectarine.

‘Come over here for a minute,’ Wesley commanded (the very image of icy unperturbedness), ‘and fill me in properly on these mango things.’

Ted joined Wesley at the workbench. Wesley idly noticed that his forehead was glistening. He was sweating.

‘She makes these strange little creatures out of them…’ Ted said, fishing around inside his jacket pocket for a handkerchief, pulling one out and patting his brow with it.

He glanced around him, ‘Here…’

He moved to a set of shelves behind the TV and picked something up, but before he could bring it back over, a loud discussion commenced next to the window, where the small, intrusive boy had now been joined by a second, much larger figure.

Ted froze. Wesley observed his reaction but said nothing, simply shrugged and then silently pushed his index finger into a soft heap of sand on the workbench. He made gentle, circular patterns with it, watching raptly as the fine granules flattened and dispersed. Ted remained glued to his spot by the bookshelves, anxiously rubbing his right palm onto his opposite elbow, listening apprehensively.

What are you doing?
the larger figure demanded.

Who are you?
the smaller figure responded.

Who are you?
the larger figure countered.
And what are you doing in Katherine’s garden?

Katherine? Who’s she?
the smaller figure asked.

This is her house. Does she have any idea that you’re here?

I rang the bell,
the smaller figure explained,
but nobody answered.

Well if nobody answered then she isn’t around, is she! Use your common sense. You’re treading on her hydrangea. You’re damaging it.

So who the fuck is Katherine when she’s at home?
the smaller figure enquired as the larger began firmly steering him away.

How old are you? Shouldn’t you be at school or something?

Christmas holidays, thank you very much,
the smaller figure explained cordially.

Their voices faded.

‘Welsh,’ Wesley noted, glancing up from the finely-granulated patterns he was forming, ‘is he local?’

Ted nodded. ‘It’s Dewi,’ he spoke softly, ‘he owns the property opposite. He puts down wooden flooring. He did mine, actually. He’s very good at it.’

‘Why are you still whispering, Ted?’

‘Was I?’ Ted spoke louder again.

‘Yes.’

He was just preparing to respond when Wesley noticed the object he was holding. ‘
Fuck,
’ he butted in, ‘pass it over.’

Ted returned to the workbench and gave Wesley a small, plain, wire-legged, pearl-eyed, mango stone creature. Wesley took it and carefully balanced it onto the flattened palm of his fingerless hand. ‘Holy Moly,’ he murmured.

‘I think it’s a lion,’ Ted explained. ‘See the way she’s brushed up the natural strings and fibres on one end of the stone so that it resembles a mane?’

As he spoke, Ted concentrated –almost too fiercely –on the inconsequential little mango stone creature, yet all he was really seeing was the badly truncated hand below. He hadn’t noticed it before… he…

But how was that possible? How on earth could something so patent, so profound, so
grotesque
have escaped his attention formerly?

His mind rapidly flipped back to a full hour previously:

The initial meeting…

Shaking Wesley’s hand… (they did shake, didn’t they?)

Making him a cup of coffee…

Wesley, sitting on the swivel chair, efficiently turning over the printed sheets of property details whilst chatting away, amiably…

He was suddenly very warm. Unsettled. Almost queasy. He clenched his hands together and tightened his buttocks, his gentle brown eyes clambering over Katherine’s white walls like a couple of stir-crazy arachnids.

Warm? He was
boiling.
And it was no mere coincidence. Because the heat was one of Katherine’s trademarks –

The heat

– well, the heat and rodents, more particularly. No. The heat and rodents and peach schnapps. She literally lived on the stuff. Locals joked –and it wasn’t funny –that she took it intravenously.

Antique clothing, too, of course. And beansprouts, obviously. And mahjong (Chinese backgammon, to the uninitiated), and sex, and basic engineering. Yes. But mainly the heat. It was her thing. Always had been.

It was just so… just so
Katherine.

Ted swallowed. Tried to clear his throat. Couldn’t. Because it… it agitated him –
The heat

– he’d always found it disquieting. In fact he was currently feeling more than a little off-colour –uncomfortable –sticky –out of sorts –

No

– out of
place –
that was it –like he was trespassing or gatecrashing or sneakily intruding…

Of course she’d given him the key –

Yes

– he was here legitimately –

Yes

– but wasn’t he… wasn’t he
facilitating
something, just the same? Something improper? Something unscrupulous? Something… something unseemly?

Ted’s mind began clicking. He felt over-wound and jerky. His skin was damp but the air in his lungs seemed horribly scant and thin and dry. His head felt all cotton-woolly. So did his tongue. Sweat trickled into his right eye. It stung. He blinked repeatedly.

Wesley finally broke the protracted silence between them. ‘This is
twisted,
Ted,’ he murmured, continuing to stare approvingly at the mango-stone creature. ‘Does she actually sell these things?’

‘Yes. Yes she does sell them, occasionally,’ Ted’s voice was flat. His tongue struggled to juggle with the weight of its syllables. He drew a deep breath, ‘and if you don’t mind my asking,’ he paused, frowned, ‘where did your fingers get to, exactly?’ (Where did they
get to? Oh Lord)

After he’d spoken, he couldn’t quite believe what he’d said. He sounded drunk to himself.

Wesley’s eyebrows rose a fraction, but his eyes did not shift from the mango-lion. ‘I fed them to an owl,’ he said, matter-of-factly, ‘an eagle owl. Years ago. In an act of penance. I trapped my brother in an abandoned fridge. Christopher. Chris. When we were kids. A prank. He died. He was my right hand.’

They both stared for a moment, in silence, at Wesley’s right hand.

‘And you know what? I
like
this house,’ Wesley continued calmly, as if these two thoughts were somehow naturally conjoined. ‘Will I be able to move in immediately?’

Ted was still dreamy, ‘Absolutely not,’ he said.

Wesley’s head jerked up so sharply on receipt of Ted’s answer that it was almost as though –Ted thought idly –it was being operated from above by strings. He very nearly glanced at the ceiling to test the validity of this theory, but instead found himself noting –distractedly –how tall Wesley suddenly appeared and how tight his mouth seemed. Tight as… tight as… Tight as two navvies after ten pints. Tight as the lid on the only free jar of peanuts in a well-stocked hotel mini-bar. Tight as a good lie. Tight as a gymnast’s thighs. Still
tighter.

One. Two. Three seconds passed by, and then…
Fuck.
What on
earth
was he…? Ted blinked and came to as the sharp and piercing gaze of Wesley’s disfavour focussed full upon him; piranha-mouthed, marlin-nosed, pike-eyed… Wesley’s face suddenly seemed as barbed and impenetrable as a razor-wire fence around a missile silo.

Oh
bollocks.

Ted allowed himself a single, small, involuntary judder before the inestimably professional estate agent inside him stood to attention, clicked his high-polished heels together, smiled, saluted, and snapped straight back into action.

He rapidly re-assessed the situation. ‘What I
mean
is that I’d have to run it past Katherine first, before I could actually promise you anything…’ he spoke obsequiously, ‘and you’d be wanting to take a look at the spare room, of course?’

What have I done?
he thought.
Katherine Turpin will roast me on a spit, cut me into small pieces and devour me… if I’m lucky.
Then…

An owl? An eagle owl? Is he crazy?

‘Fine. So run it past her.’

Wesley shrugged –as if he believed no process so mundane as this could hinder the immense rolling stone of his destiny –then slowly began to deflate again, like a cheap plastic paddling pool at a children’s party.

‘And I don’t need to see anything else,’ he added, ‘I’ll just bring the rest of my stuff over later,’ he smiled, ‘about three… three-thirty.’

He held the mango stone creature aloft and inspected it once more, very thoroughly, his cheeks lifted and reddened by a spontaneous glow of good humour. Then his focus shifted.

His expression remained constant –calm, cheerful,
insistent –
but his eyes now held Ted’s hostage in a penetrating gaze, as his other hand moved down slowly –deliberately –towards his bulging jacket pocket. He rummaged around inside it for a while until he located the particular thing he was searching for and carefully removed it: a clean, white, newly truncated, ten-inch-long lamb’s tail.

Wesley removed the tail with a small flourish, and laid it out gently –almost reverently –onto the workbench. Then calmly, brazenly, he nested that strange mango-stone creature where the tail had formerly been: deep and safe within its own dark stable of itchy tweed.

In a perfect parallel, Ted’s own dear heart gradually descended –down into his shoes, where it continued to beat faithfully, just as before, but closely bound now, and constricted by laces.

Five

Look for love
Where liquid is solid,
Where 62 fell
(46 still to fight for)
From Beaver to Antelope,
From Feather to Bear,
Kick your heels, sucker,
And find nothing there

Dewi came back early for lunch, each weekday, just so that he could watch her. She arrived home at twelve fourteen –twelve seventeen if she stopped to buy smokes on the way –twelve nineteen if there was a queue at the newsagents. She rode a fold-up bike. A Brompton. Tiny wheels. Bright red. It was three years old.

In winter she wore brown lace-up boots and grey woollen mittens: an irresistible combination which never failed to bring the sting of tears to his eyes. He could not think why. It was just one of those things.

She made him feckless and emotional. He was her fool. But he took strength from the fact that he was nobody else’s. In every other respect, he told himself –and others told him –he was a rational man of poise and depth and stature.

Floors were his business. Wooden floors. He prepared them. He restored them. He laid, sanded and varnished them. And he had a sideline in wooden decks, and sheds and verandahs, all of which he designed and then built himself, single-handedly.

He worked hard. Like a demon. He worked until his shoulders locked, until his knees buckled, until his feet swelled and his palms blistered. He
believed
in work and his work sustained him. It gave him purpose. It gave him nourishment. It gave him reason. And he, in turn, gave it everything.

He embraced activity the way a hungry man embraces his first cup of tepid soup in too many days: with both hands and great satisfaction. He took what he could and was always grateful for it. He had been raised that way: to be proud yet never haughty; to be particular yet never fussy.

He was an old-fashioned creature, by and large, but with exquisitely modern parameters. He liked to do things simply and well, using the same traditional techniques his father had taught him, but twisted, very gently, into the realm of the contemporary. His father had been a boat-builder, just west of Rhyl. His grandfather, too, before him.