Just in Case (6 page)

Agnes suppressed a smile. ‘Yes, of course. You appear to be thriving.’

‘I make a living.’ Despite his exotic appearance, Ivan’s English was precise and without accent.

Agnes stepped closer, lowered her voice and inclined her head in Justin’s direction. ‘Ivan, look at this boy I found.’

Justin winced. This boy I found. Like an old glove on the pavement.

‘Well?’ Her voice was soft. ‘What do you think?’

Ivan looked, examining Justin with the clinical detachment of someone who has seen far too many exceptional faces. He raised an elegant tapered finger to his own forehead and looked questioningly at Agnes.

‘The bump is temporary,’ she whispered.

He turned back to Justin and shrugged. ‘Yes,’ he said finally. And then again, ‘Yes.’

Justin huddled into his anorak and began to back away.

Placing a firm hand on his shoulder, Agnes stopped him. ‘Ivan, this is my friend Justin Case.’

‘Welcome.’ With grim formality, Ivan bowed slightly to Justin. ‘To what do I owe the honour?’

‘He needs… finishing.’

Ivan nodded. ‘Yes, of course.’ He stifled a yawn.

‘Ivan’s got a wonderful eye,’ Agnes whispered.

Justin imagined an all-seeing eyeball shoved deep in the man’s trouser pocket, damp and slimy like a squid.

Across the room, a girl appeared from a dressing room in a layered owl-shaped dress that failed completely to enhance her emaciated beauty. Her friend beamed approval.

Justin stared.

‘So,’ Ivan said to Agnes, studying Justin and rolling a black button between his fingers. ‘Not a suit. A coat, perhaps?’

‘Whatever you think. Something impressive. I’m photographing him.’

Ivan frowned. ‘I might have something.’

He disappeared, returning a few minutes later carrying a long, ice-grey shearling coat with black buttons. He held it draped carelessly over one arm, and smacked it a few times. Small clouds of dust rose from it; Ivan’s hand left a slightly paler mark on the surface of the suede.

‘The cut is too narrow to suit anyone who might possibly afford it,’ he said. ‘Men with money are rarely slim.’

Justin stared at the coat. It looked like the illegitimate issue of a yak and a football.

Ivan caught his expression and shrugged. ‘Take it or not.’

‘It’ll be completely different on,’ said Agnes, taking the coat and holding it for Justin.

Wondering exactly how different it would have to be, Justin turned, held out his arms, and allowed Agnes to slip it on.

He blushed. He suspected he looked like a lunatic but the truth was the coat fitted; it was much lighter and softer than it looked and he felt wonderfully cosseted in its shaggy warmth. He turned to face Agnes, who pushed him in the direction of a huge gold mirror. One of the models swivelled past, plucked at his sleeve and made an appreciative noise.

Justin looked at himself. Then at Agnes, on whose face a tiny smile had appeared.

‘It’s good.’

And God pronounced that it was good,
thought Justin.

‘Ivan,’ Agnes called, ‘it’s perfect.’

Justin felt his face burn. There was no way he could afford a coat like this, even if he’d wanted it. He turned away, furious, but Agnes grabbed his arm, speaking softly into his ear. ‘Forget it, Justin. You don’t have to pay. It’s
the new barter economy. The pictures I take of you are worth far more than any coat. Go on, take it.’

‘I don’t want it.’ Justin tore the coat off and thrust it at her. ‘Take it back.’

She looked at him mildly. ‘You heard Ivan, it will never fit anyone rich enough to buy it. You may as well have it.’

She carried the coat across the room to Ivan, who wrapped it carefully in black tissue, placed it in a paper shopping bag the colour of heavy cream, and held it out to Justin with a neutral expression. He even bowed slightly, and Justin felt certain he was being mocked.

Agnes took the bag. ‘Thank you, Ivan.’

Ivan’s face was composed, expressionless. ‘He’ll pay me back someday.’

She looked at him. ‘What do you mean?’

‘What I said.’ Ivan shrugged. The soft oval of his face rotated away from them and then back again, like a periscope.

Justin retreated across the room, arms crossed protectively across his chest, humming to tune out their conversation.

After a minute or two, he noticed that the room had gone silent. He looked over to find Ivan and Agnes staring at him. Agnes’s expression was solemn. ‘I hope you don’t mind, Justin. I’ve been telling Ivan about the fate thing.’

Ivan looked more interested than before. The longer he stared, the more uneasy Justin felt. His eye twitched.

Finally Ivan spoke, so softly that Justin had to move closer to make out the words.

‘I have observed fate,’ he said.

Justin’s heart began to pound with alarm. They were less than an arm’s length apart now, so close that Justin could smell the other man’s skin. A hint of something expensive rose from it.

‘And I can tell you for certain,’ he crooned, as Agnes watched, rapt, ‘you
are
doomed.’

Justin couldn’t breathe.

‘In your life,’ Ivan said softly, ‘you will suffer
inestimable
losses. And then you too will die, causing inestimable pain to others. And all this will happen to you,
not if, but when
.’

Justin swayed slightly.

‘That
is the only truth you need to know about fate.’

Justin struggled away from the seductive voice. ‘Let’s go,’ he said to Agnes.

‘But–’

‘
NOW
.’

He grabbed her arm but she pulled free, so he went alone, slamming the iron door behind him with a crash.

‘Goodbye, Justin Case,’ Ivan called, his face lit by an unpleasant smile. ‘And
good luck.’

At the bottom of the stairs, Justin fumbled with the catch on the outside door and stumbled out into the narrow lane, heart hammering in his chest. When Agnes caught him up, he spun around like a cornered animal, grabbing her shoulders.

‘He’s
horrible’

‘Yes, I know. But his clothes are fantastic. And he can be very generous when he feels like it.’ She pulled free and dug through the layers of tissue paper. ‘Here, put the coat on and tell me how you feel.’

She held it out to him, her expression soft. ‘Please, Justin. Please?’

It was a stand-off, and he didn’t particularly want to win. So he took the coat and slipped it on. Boy sniffed it and growled, smelling goat, as Agnes clicked off a series of shots: Justin Embarrassed. Justin Startled. Justin Angry.

Justin turned away from the flash.

‘Excellent,’ Agnes murmured, taking his arm and steering him back out to the main road towards a tiny, rundown Indian restaurant with flashing fairy lights in the window. ‘Now let’s celebrate.’

Through the supple skin of the sleeve, the pressure of her fingers caused him to shiver.

16

Justin wore his new coat like a second skin. It protected him, kept him warm, yet was eccentric enough to satisfy his new identity. Inside it he felt safe, and he took it off only to sleep or run, activities that increasingly consumed his days and nights.

Peter had been right about running. It wasn’t long before pleasure began to dominate pain. Justin had never considered himself athletic, but now, having offered encouragement to his lungs and limbs, they rose like Titans on the field of battle.

My Body! he thought gratefully. It works!

Often when he ran he lost touch with his physical limitations and began to cruise, aligning his heartbeat to the beat of his feet on tarmac. How could he not have known this was possible?

He wasn’t particularly competitive. What he liked was the steady, reassuring tempo that regulated the surges of anxiety in his brain. Tick tock tick tock. His body fell into the mechanical rhythm of an old-fashioned alarm clock.

The more he ran, the less like David Justin felt.

These aspects of running were lost on Coach, who merely shouted at his team with increased resignation as competition loomed.

On a grim Tuesday afternoon in late October, six schools’ worth of shivering boys huddled in a drizzle awaiting the starter’s signal. Justin had invited Agnes to attend, in a way that made clear how little difference it would make to him whether she did or didn’t, and how little he expected her to.

As he approached the start, something caused him to look up. Following the direction of a hundred other pairs of eyes, he turned to see Agnes walk towards them under a huge lilac umbrella covered in bright polka dots, her feet steady on the soggy turf in a pair of green rubber knee-high wellies, her camera bag swinging from one shoulder. The rest of her was shrink-wrapped in what looked like cellophane. She looked preposterous. Sublime.

The entire event paused as Agnes made her way across the field to the makeshift wooden observers’ stand. On arrival, she furled her umbrella and sat, to a ripple of spontaneous applause. She smiled at Justin and pulled her Nikon from the camera bag, followed by a single white glove. She waved the glove in the direction of the team.

Peter waved back happily. Justin turned away to hide the expression on his face.

Collecting its scattered wits, the meet continued.

*

Justin had no recollection of the starting gun. When next he noticed the outside world, he was running, or at least his body was. He was intrigued to discover that his feet came with cruise control. He didn’t have to think about what he was doing, just set them on ‘fast’ and they ran.

Boy bounded ahead in a playful mood. Occasionally he would stop to look back at the seething, panting mass of boys with something like pity.

Perhaps you people should stick to something at which you excel
, said the look.

Then he would fly off again, his body airborne for most of the length of his stride. He ran joyous circles around the leaders, accelerated to a mile a minute for the pure fun of it, crossed the finish line to the sound of his own ovation, spun around and returned to Justin’s side, where he slowed to an encouraging canter. Beneath the aristocratic condescension of his breed, he was kind.

Directly to Justin’s left and a few metres ahead ran Peter Prince. He turned back and glanced at Justin, falling off the pace slightly as he did. Justin barely noticed. At the halfway mark, his mind was on Agnes. She had swept his protests away as if it were nothing to give some boy you barely knew a fantastically expensive coat as a gift. The next time she’d phoned, his determination to remain distant had been crushed by the purring intimacy of her voice.

Surely it all meant something. Something more than just ‘you’re not bad, as kids go’. He recognized the existence
of a code, a secret language of the initiated that allowed them to translate the nuances of sexual intent. Her continued presence in his life must say something about her intentions. But what?

A voice very close to his ear whispered words he couldn’t make out, and with a jolt he was reunited with his body. Running so fast hurt. He turned to see who had whispered. He could feel the horrible soft impression of breath on his ear like a dusty flapping moth. He tried to brush it away with his hand, but there was nothing there.

Then the voice came again, whispery, urgent.

Run!

Justin bolted. Panting, he pulled ahead of Peter, who looked puzzled at the expression on his friend’s face.

Run, run as fast as you can!

Boy had moved in and now ran as close to his master as possible. Justin ignored him, hurtling forward, blind with terror.

One hundred metres from the finishing line. The rest of the contenders made whatever moves they had left. Justin couldn’t see or hear them, didn’t know they were there. He heard only the voice in his ear and ran as fast as he could.

RUN!

He crossed the line first and kept running. Boy gently guided him into a curve, leaning his full weight against Justin’s hip as a brake.

Coach looked pleased.

It was a genuine moment of glory. Justin’s first. But he felt queasy, violated. Adrenalin continued to pump to his brain, his stomach heaved with fear, his pulse failed to drop below racing peak.

Run, run as fast as you can.

Peter caught up and thumped him happily on the back. With him was a girl of about eleven, with thick brown hair and her brother’s clear, fearless eyes.

‘This is my sister Dorothea,’ Peter said.

The girl stared at Justin, recognizing the look on his face from an earlier encounter. There was no lamp post this time, but it didn’t seem to matter.

Justin looked straight through her.

That voice.

He remembered the end of the nursery rhyme now.

You can’t catch me, I’m the gingerbread man.

17

By the time Justin walked through the front door, the phone was ringing.

‘Justin!’ Agnes trilled. ‘You were brilliant today. I was madly impressed.’

He was silent.

‘Justin? What’s the matter?’

‘I need to see you.’

‘Now?’

‘Now.’

He put down the phone. Charlie had appeared at his feet and he pulled the child up on to his lap. The little boy wrapped his arms around Justin’s neck.

‘I won a race today,’ Justin told him softly. ‘It was horrible.’

Charlie tightened his grip and murmured urgently into his brother’s ear. Justin couldn’t make out the words, but the little boy’s tone was soothing and full of love. They sat that way for a minute, and then Justin stood up to leave, carefully disengaging the little boy’s arms. Charlie toddled
over to the window and pressed his face against it, gazing after the figure of the older boy as he closed the front door and disappeared down the road.

This time it was Justin who arrived second at the café. As he crossed the room towards Agnes, she couldn’t help experiencing a small surge of pride at her creation. Justin looked taller, fitter, more graceful. The soft grey coat hung lightly from his shoulders. Even his anxiety seemed more compelling than before: darker, less twitchy. In different circumstances, she might even have fancied him herself.