Now You See Me (10 page)

‘Please.'

‘Why not?'

‘No. If you don't go I'll tell him …' But what could I tell him without letting on about the cellar? Doggo was grinning. Nothing I could say. But Doggo could, that was the message in his grin.

‘Come on,' he said. I had no choice. My spirits were so tangled round my ankles I could hardly walk. He shut Gordon and Norma in the cellar and we went up the steps into the kitchen. It was strange to be in there with Doggo. He looked the wrong scale for the room. Too big and rough, though he wasn't really that big, just bigger than Mr Dickens and me. The room was cold and smelt of dog meat. There was a low sun shining through the window over the sink and you could see how dirty it all was, a sticky film everywhere.

Mr Dickens stuck out his hand and said, ‘How do.'

‘This is Mr Dickens, this is Doggo, Doggo, this is Mr Dickens,' I said feeling like a traitor.

‘Doggo?' Mr Dickens said.

‘It's his nickname.'

‘Dog-lover are you?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Grand.' Mr Dickens' face folded up into a laugh. ‘Doggo and Lamb,' he said, ‘sounds like a couple of blinking glove puppets. Go and get sat down. I'll make tea.'

I led Doggo through.

‘So, you're the cleaner,' Doggo said, raising his eyebrow. He was perfectly right. It was a mortifying tip. You could hardly see the pattern of the carpet under the long black-and-white hairs.

Doughnut stared blindly up at us, the tip of his tail still wagging away from all the excitement. Neither of us said a thing. Doggo's hands just lay on his lap in loose fists and I could see LOVE and HATE and wished he'd turn them over before Mr Dickens saw too.

When I could hear Mr Dickens loading the tray I went and carried it. Three cups and a hill of brown crumbs. I put the tray on the low table. I poured out the weak tea and handed Doggo a cup. ‘Ta very much,' he said. He grinned and I could see the stain of red wine on his teeth.

‘So, a gardener, eh?' Mr Dickens said. ‘Well what do you reckon to it?'

‘No problem,' Doggo said. ‘What you thinking, couple of hours a week or what?' He was a different person with Mr Dickens. Eager and deferential and completely false.

‘Much as you can do to start off,' Mr Dickens said, ‘it's a right jungle out there. Then whatever's needed to keep it up to scratch.'

‘I'll think about it,' Doggo said.

I looked down at my knees. I needed to wash my jeans. I needed to have a bath. I couldn't bear to watch Mr Dickens being taken in.

‘We should go,' I said. ‘You've got to be somewhere, haven't you, Doggo.'

‘No rush.'

‘Cake?' Mr Dickens nodded at the plate and Doggo scooped up a handful of crumbs. ‘Ta. Lamb?'

I shook my head. My belly already felt like a balloon with the curry in it. And the regret. I thought I wouldn't be able to eat for a week. I'd got a tea-leaf stuck between my teeth and I tried to pick it out.

‘What's your hourly rate?' Mr Dickens said.

‘A tenner,' Doggo said.

I nearly laughed.
A tenner an hour?
But Mr Dickens didn't even blink. He just said, ‘Fair enough. When can you start?'

‘I've got an immediate window as it happens,' Doggo said trying to exchange glances with me but I would not meet his eyes. I just wanted to go away and cry. ‘Tomorrow suit you?'

‘Tomorrow,' Mr Dickens said and put out his knobbly hand to shake.

Twelve

I tried to shut him out but he was right behind me. He squeezed through and leaned back against the cellar door.

‘Fuck off,' I said.

‘Who's swearing now?'

‘Please go away. This is a mistake.'

He pretended to consider this. ‘Go where?'

‘Please,' I said. My voice was cracking but I would not cry. All crying does is make you ugly and wet. This was like a bad dream getting worse. Him here in my space, him in Mr Dickens' cheating. ‘He's a poor old man,' I said.

‘He's loaded.'

‘I don't mean in money.'

He sat down on the deck chair. Norma curled up on the floor beside him. He stretched his legs out and put his hands behind his head, so at home already. More at home than I could ever be. I could not look at him. I went outside. It was dark now and the sky was clearing. A fragment of icy moon caught up in a net of twigs. I listened but could only hear the outside noises, cars, water gushing from a drain. My breath was a sluggish cloud. No voices or only a thin sigh saying
See
. I should have listened when they spoke to me.

If this was a dream and I could wake, I thought, make it be a dream that I can wake from. I pinched my forearm. It hurt, good. Something honest about pain, something straight forward. The bit of moon was like a shard of broken glass. If only I could reach it down.

The thing to do was play along. I ran my hands over the skin on the front of my head, making a smooth face, and went back in. Doggo was smoking.

‘Drink to my job,' he said. ‘Get us another bottle.'

I looked down at his sharp shadowy face. ‘No. Anyway, you're not really going to do it?'

‘You never know.'

‘I thought you were meant to be hiding. What do you want a job for?'

He shrugged. ‘What does anyone want a job for?' He unfolded himself out of the deck chair. I backed towards the door but he just went and got another bottle of wine. He opened it without even looking what it was. I waited with my nails slicing into the palms of my hands.

‘You can't stay here,' I said.

‘No?' He sloshed wine into the mugs.

‘No.'

‘You going to chuck me out then?'

He handed me the wine. I took it even though I didn't want it. I took a sip and tried to get my mind still. There were little bits of cork in the wine. Tried to get the balance. What would a balanced person do?

‘Good thinking this,' he said, waving his hand. ‘I'd never have thought of it. Living in someone's cellar.' He laughed. ‘Like a rat.'

Oh Mr Dickens. The way he trusted me and trusted Doggo. Trusted Doggo was a gardener without any proof at all, just
trusted
. I think it's a gift, trust, but whether a good or a bad gift I can't decide. You leave yourself so open to abuse.

He picked up one of the gardening magazines. ‘Ought to get a tip or two before I start,' he said.

‘You're really going to do it?'

He wobbled his hand backwards and forwards. My mind was scrabbling about trying to think what to do. Not call the police. There was no one I could call. I went along with him while I tried to think. I pulled out some more magazines and the handbag fell out.

He glugged back more wine and frowned at a magazine. I tried to seem helpful. I read out to him that you prune in the autumn and anyone can see there's lots to prune so that is easy. It's what things are that he doesn't know. He's somehow managed to get through his life so far hardly able to recognise a rose. I showed him pictures: hydrangea, forsythia, lilac, lupin. We drank down through the wine and the magazines got fuzzy. He picked up the handbag.
‘What
did you take it for again?' he said.

‘What's this one?' I pointed at an iris.

‘Will you take it back?' he said.

‘Why not you?'

‘You took it.'

‘You did first.'

‘But
you
stole it again.'

‘Not
stole.'

‘Crap.'

He'd drunk much more wine than me because I don't drink, not really, I only drank at all out of nerves. He'd had most of two bottles to himself. He opened the handbag and took things out. A comb, a purse, a lipstick. He took off the lid and wound up the blunt pink stick. He drew a line of it on the back of his hand. It was that same sugar pink she always wears. In the purse, along with her credit cards and money-off vouchers, there was a photo. Neville holding a baby Roy. Doggo stared at it for a minute, blinked, slid it back, stuffed everything back in the bag. He rolled another fag. The smoke and clouds of sour winter breath were crowding the dismal air, like a kind of fog. He pinched the fag between his lips, struck a match, watched the flame till it touched his finger and thumb then dropped it on the floor.

‘Don't start that again,' I said but he struck another and another. Even though the floor was concrete I was scared he'd somehow set the place on fire.
‘Please.'

‘Nice manners,' he remarked.

‘Please
, Doggo.'

He struck one more and watched it burn out on the floor. ‘Tell me something then,' he said.

‘What?'

‘Why you don't
do sex.'

‘I –' I opened my mouth but I couldn't answer.

‘Ever done it?'

‘None of your business.' He struck another match. ‘OK, yeah,' I said. He dropped the match and the flame died on the floor.

‘So, not a little virgin then.'

‘No.'

‘Well then …'

‘No!' I couldn't keep my smooth face on, it started to twist out of shape the way it does when you want to cry but I would not cry. He watched me for a minute, like he was really watching. His eyes were like the smoke.

‘OK,' he said. ‘Something else.'

‘What?'

‘I dunno. Tell me about your dad.'

‘My
dad
.'

‘Yeah.'

‘Why?'

He shrugged. ‘Why not?'

I hadn't thought about my dad for ages. What is the point? I don't like remembering him not because it's bad but only because it's all so faint. It's so faint I don't even know if it's real or if I've made it up from what I've been told and from photographs. The more times I disturb the memory the more worn out it gets. But this is it: brown hair, brown-rimmed glasses, a tobaccoey smell, a warm handkerchief wiping my face when I cried. Once he rolled a corner up into a twisted point to poke a dried-up bogey from my nose. Imagine doing that for someone. I remember a tweedy scratch against my cheek or maybe it was bristles.

Once he gave me a doll's tea set and I set out a tea-party on the bedspread. The cups kept falling off the saucers because of the hills of his knees and feet. There is a photo of that tea-party. He was very ill, bone fingers holding a tiny china cup to his lips, black spaces in his smile. There's a cake and a bit of crumpled wrapping paper and in the background, bottles of pills and a jug of water. I am holding up the teapot, my round face beaming at the camera. My birthday. Maybe my second or third. Not old enough to understand that he was dying. And that's it, no memory of being told he was dead, no memory of a funeral. Once I saw his feet and they were bluish and the toe-nails long and yellow and disgusting. I don't even know if they were dead feet or alive.

‘Dead,' I said. ‘He died when I was a baby.'

‘What about your mum?'

‘Her too.'

‘Fuck,' he said.

I was startled by the soft sound of his voice. My cheeks went hot.

‘Why have you got that?' I said looking at the LOVE and HATE on his knuckles. He spread out his hands and studied them.

‘Bit naff, eh?' he said.

‘Totally,' I said and looked away.

I was tired. My eyes were stinging from the smoke. All I wanted was for him to go so I could get some sleep. My whole life was out of order with him there, panic rising again. Something broken and he was there. Breathing, smoking,
being
in my space. Like a stranger dabbling his fingers in my head. Before I could think of what to do, Norma did it for me. She scrabbled at the door and whined. Even though Doughnut's blind his hearing's fine and it set him off barking.

‘You'd better take her out,' I said. ‘If Doughnut barks at night Mr Dickens calls the police. He's got one of those panic buttons.' It was a lie but he believed me.

He tried giving Norma a bit of a smack, not hard, just to shut her up. But she wouldn't shut up, she just whined louder and Gordon started growling too. ‘I'll take them round block,' he said. Doughnut was going demented up there. I was scared Mr Dickens really might get up and have a look out the back.

‘Please
go, quick, before he calls them,' I said. ‘The police come fast round here.'

‘Won't be long,' he said. He grabbed the leads and went off, quick and quiet into the dark. Easy as that. When he'd gone I leant against the door frame, dizzy with relief. But it lasted only a minute. His bag was on the floor. Because he would be back. If there was a way to lock the door I would have locked it but there is no way. There is a keyhole but no key. Nothing I could do to stop him coming back.

I was shivering. I made myself get into bed. My head a messy fuzz of stupid half-thoughts and my heart as heavy as a rock. I shouldn't have drunk the wine. Two stolen bottles lying on their sides. All the choosing Mr Dickens did and all the saving. His investment. But bottles can be smashed.

How could I stop him coming back?

I listened for his footsteps, straining for the sound. I couldn't. But I could go. Pack my stuff – which would take about two minutes – walk out, never looking back. It's not hard, I've done it before. That is what I'd have to do.

I got out of bed, looked around the dingy space. The cold smoke had settled like mist on the floor. But then a thought struck me, stopped me. If I left now Doggo would move in. He might do anything. Poor Mr Dickens up there unaware. I couldn't leave him to that. So I was stuck. And there was no one, no one I could ask for help.
Your own fault
, the voice told me.
Your own blind and stupid fault
.

Inside my eyelids I try to find the tightrope but it is not tight any more. Someone has cut it and it is dangling down but I open my eyes quick before I catch a glimpse of what is down there. Back in bed, I curl around the empty ache. It comes on nights like these, moves into the soft triangle between the bottom of my ribs. Not good clean pain, a dirty empty ache which can be cured with the let of blood. But I don't do that. I could smash the bottles but no. I am cured of that. See how I am cured? I lie and listen for the sound of footsteps in the night.