Now You See Me (13 page)

We brushed away the glass and lay down in the greenhouse on his coat. Looking up I could see a half-moon through the glass, cut up by tomato leaves. His hand fumbled with my breasts then went down my pants. I felt his dry finger stab in. I said we better not go all the way but he had a condom so we did. He bucked about on top of me a bit and groaned and that was that. When he'd pulled out he said, ‘Oh shit,' and jammed his fingers back in where it was sore now. He fished a milky little stocking out and peered at it in the moonlight. ‘It should be OK,' he'd said.

My mother's death freed me to do the things I never could have told her.

I stirred myself. I was late for Mr Dickens. I couldn't let him down. I went wearily through the performance of going out the side way and back up the path to press the Trumpet Voluntary. When I finally got in I offered to do some proper cleaning. I thought maybe I'd feel better if I did something real.

‘No,' Mr Dickens said, ‘you've been working like the devil all weekend, you and your lad.'

I nearly said he's
not
mine, then I thought, oh well. ‘But you pay me to clean,' I said. ‘I feel guilty if I don't.'

‘Well just do carpet then,' he said.

‘Ta very much,' I said. He blinked at me and went off to make the tea. I ran the sweeper round the room, getting up so many dog-hairs you could nearly see the pattern on the carpet.

‘How's study going?' he asked when we were finally settled down with our tea.

It took a minute then I said, ‘Oh great thanks, the photos are really useful. Want them back?'

‘No rush.' He paused. ‘You've got me thinking, you know.'

‘About what?'

‘Past. Zita.' That's all he ever
did
think about. He pulled a wad of baccy out of his tin and filled his pipe. I watched the grainy wrinkles of his face, the concentration it took to get the thing lit. Everything takes him so long. I will never have the patience to be old.

‘When you get to ninety odd, past is all you have,' he said, his eyes all watery. ‘Ninety-one come June, you know.' I nodded. I did know. ‘If I'm spared,' he added through a coil of smoke.

Doughnut sighed and I heard another dog barking somewhere. I got a sweet shock right up my spine thinking, is it Gordon? Is it Norma? Is Doggo back? I hadn't locked the door. If he was back I'd let him stay. Just for one more night.

He gazed at me for a minute. ‘You know, your eyes are like hers,' he said. ‘Bright brown and quick. I always loved her eyes. Even when she got older she still had them same eyes.'

He put down his teacup, picked up his tin and looked inside. ‘Same colour as this,' he said. He took a pinch of tobacco between his horny old finger and thumb and held it up to his lips. I thought he was going to kiss it but he just dropped it on his lap and gave a cheeky smile. ‘You're about half her size though, Lamb. My Zita were a bonny woman, well covered.'

I thought, please don't go on about Bristols but he didn't. He sucked on his pipe and went blank for a moment, as if he was tuning into another channel. He had gypsy creams on a plate which I know that Doggo likes. I picked a couple up and put them in my pocket for him, just in case. I was dying to go and see if he was there but I couldn't just abandon Mr Dickens.

‘What was she like as a person?' I said.

‘She were that quick-witted.' He smiled. ‘Kept me on my toes. Never got bored. She were always that one step ahead. Always some surprise up her sleeve. Not easy though … not what you'd call easy-going. After … after she'd gone I thought about other women of course, whether I should remarry. I even kept company with a lady or two, very nice lady in particular, Gwen. Widow, couple of boys. She were a looker, intelligent, everything but …'

‘She wasn't Zita,' I said.

He did a great gurgling puff and nodded. ‘Nail on head, there. She were too … I missed … I don't know, she were too … like drinking milk after whisky … all very well but by God you miss the bite.' He shook his head in slow motion and I could hear the vertebrae grinding in his neck. ‘Typical of her to go the way she did.' He managed a miserable smile. ‘That were my Zita all over.'

He sighed, then he started asking me about Doggo, like how long had we been courting,
courting!
and if we had marriage in mind.

‘Dunno,' I said. I cleared my throat. ‘Mr Dickens, he might not be … I mean, about the garden, I don't know how long he's sticking around.'

‘Uh? That's shame. Well, long as you let me know.' He regarded me for a minute. I was expecting questions but he rustled through the pile of newspapers and letters by his chair. ‘Got something for you here,' he said, ‘just a little token.' He handed me a blue envelope with
Lamb
written on it. I had no idea what it would be. My fingers trembled and I tore it open. Inside was a birthday card, one of the crappest ones you will ever see, flowers and twiddly gold writing and a verse to make you chuck up – and folded inside a ten-pound note. He'd written in very shaky biro,
To Dear Lamb, with thanks for your companionship, very best wishes, Kenneth Dickens
. I couldn't look up. My mouth was twisting around like someone was fighting it. I couldn't look up till I could control my voice then I managed to croak, ‘Thank you.'

‘Got Meals on Wheels to fetch it,' he said. ‘Is it today?' I didn't know the date but said it was anyway. Then I looked at the date on the
Yorkshire Times
and saw that actually it's tomorrow. Because I'm a Scorpio, scorpion, couldn't you guess? Dirty great sting in my tail.

It's the first birthday card I've had for years. Because for years no one has known me well enough to know my birthday, or hardly even known me at all. It was only a card but it was like a treasure. Sitting there I suddenly had this vision of Mr Harcourt and the sleazy thing that happened and I felt dirty. I felt like filth. I wanted to spill it all out to Mr Dickens … only I didn't know how to put it, what to say.

Just as I was thinking about leaving he gave me a shock. ‘That Doggy fella of yours …'

‘Yeah?'

‘How long have you known him?'

‘Oh, ages.'

‘Hmm. Just that he's got a bit of a look of that young wanted fella.'

My mouth laughed while the rest of me fell away.

‘Sorry?'

‘That wanted fella in paper a while back.'

‘How funny,' I said. The room had gone into a dizzy blur. ‘Wanted for what?'

‘Murder. He were a murderer. Escaped from jail, just a few weeks back.'

My mouth was so dry it felt like it would tear if I spoke.

He laughed wheezily. ‘Course it's not him,' he said. ‘Don't look like that, duck.'

I forced myself to behave naturally. It was like torture to think of a few normal things to say, to wash the cups, drag Doughnut out and wait for him to do his stuff. Just as I left Mr Dickens caught my hand in his. He held surprisingly tight, his skin dry and slippery. ‘Course it's not him,' he said, ‘but you just watch yourself, duck, won't you? There's some right funny uns about.'

‘Yeah,' I said, ‘yeah, thanks.'

I rushed back to the cellar but it was dark and empty.
That wanted fella
. I was in a whirl again, fear swooping in my stomach, fear and guilt. Should I tell him or not? If I ever saw him again. If I told him he might bolt. A murderer. It might not be him, not necessarily. I stalked about the cellar like something in a cage. I stood the card up on top of the gas heater but it kept falling off. I held the ten pounds up against the light and saw the secret Queen face and the stripe of foil. I put it in my purse then I suddenly felt tired again, drained, thinking I'd rather have Mr Dickens' ten pounds than Mr Harcourt's thousand. I wanted to tell someone that. It's horrible having a good thought and no one to tell it to.

I thought about going out to the Duke's Head to look for him. But he might have been on his way to see me and then we'd have missed each other. Anyway, I felt like I could hardly move. I looked in the sunglasses at my stupid pop-eyed face. My skin was grey. The cellar was a hole and only fit for rats. He had said that, laughing,
like a rat
. Maybe I did look like a rat. I stuck my teeth out over my lips and wrinkled up my nose.

I
wanted him, to see him. Yes I did. But the police wanted him too, if it was him, and maybe they had got him. My fault, it was me that locked him out. I turned the radio on. I hate the news. I hate to hear the sad things in the world but I listened for the whole night and there was not a thing about a murderer caught.

Seventeen

Days went and he didn't come. I hardly dared to leave the cellar, except for once or twice, for things I had to do. I was dying to get back to Mrs Banks' to try and get a clue but they weren't her days. I bought a paper and scoured it but found no mention of the capture of a wanted man. My mind wound round and round, tight tangled nonsense, what if and what if not and memories of Mr Harcourt and his lion's roar. Maybe I had done it with him on the kitchen table, then brained him with the frying pan. I drove myself half mad looking at my stupid face in Doggo's mirror shades. They were the only thing I had of his. There was the tiny whorl of a fingerprint on one of the lenses which might or might not have been his.

In the end I just had to go out and do something. I took the wine bottles to the bottle bank. They were bugging me. All that glass in its safe compact shape. As I shoved them through the holes I said sorry to Mr Dickens for the theft. I love the way they smash, that sound.

I saw a hairdresser's with a sign that said
No appointment necessary
and, on impulse, walked in. A woman sat me down without a second glance. She had a pink crew-cut and perfect ebony skin. I stared at myself in the mirror. It was even worse than I'd thought. I didn't look like the same species as the people in here. But I stared at my eyes to see if they really are like Zita's and they are. Well they are as big and round and dark anyway and I can make them squeeze out stars.

The stylist said really short would suit my bone-structure. She said she'd kill for cheek-bones like mine. I couldn't believe my ears. But it will just be part of the job, compliment the clients so they give you a big fat tip. I let her cut it really short in a style she called gamine, and put red highlights in that hardly show but in the sun they will she promised. What sun?

It takes
ages
for highlights. I drank coffee and read magazines while I sat there with rows of space-age foils in my hair. I read about relationships and being positive. Say a positive thing to your partner every day instead of moaning, for instance: I do love the way you smell
after
he's had a bath rather than You stink before it. Positive reinforcement. I tried it on myself. At least you're
alive
, I said. At least you've got cheek-bones.

When I came out it was like some of the compliment stuck to me for a while. I saw myself in a shop window and my head did look a good shape with the way the hair was cut. And I looked older. Not like a silly little girl, a stringy mop-head. Doggo should have seen me like this. Though the rest of me was crap as usual.

I went shopping. I bought black moleskin jeans and a padded waistcoat and a dark-red, nearly black polo-neck sweater. I even bothered to try them on. The light in the changing room was practically neon and seeing my body illuminated like that smashed me straight back down to earth. Whenever anyone says a nice thing I start to get sucked into a delusion that maybe I'm not as bad as all that. But see me undressed and you'd laugh. That or throw up. Don't you think there must be something wrong with Doggo if he fancied me? I think he did, the way he squeezed my finger that time, the way he said he knew me. Men will do it with anything, though, won't they? Anything with a heart-beat. Some men will, I know. Doggo felt horny and I was there, like Everest or something, that's all it was. Anyway he had gone. Alone again. I could get balanced. I could hardly remember the balance. I bought stomping black boots and socks and knickers. All the new clothes made my old ones look like rags so I bought some spare things too.

I walked round the streets, big swishy carrier bags in both hands, neck cold from the new short of my haircut. Auditioning for being a normal person. You do need money for that. But I was wearing out, my legs melting under me, needing to sit down.

I didn't think I'd make it home so I went into a café and had a Diet Pepsi. At the next table was a boy with his mother. They were arguing about pocket money. ‘Anyway, Gregory Podsmore does get one pound fifty, so there,' the boy said and turned his lip inside so you could see the shiny pink. The mother sighed. ‘Lucky old Gregory Podsmore,' she said and opened her
Hello
magazine.

The thin tinny taste of the Pepsi was making my teeth go soft. I gritted them together. I should have had tea or something hot. The mother had a little silver pot of tea and a toasted tea-cake. What normal person would have Pepsi on a cold afternoon in winter?

The boy kicked away at the table leg for a minute then started trying to do origami with a paper napkin. His fair fringe flopped into his eyes, he kept pushing it back, wrinkling his beaky little nose. He was maybe five or six. I took in every scrap of him. His jeans had a hole in them and you could see the rough edges of a scab on his boy-bony knee. He had a pink milk shake and every so often he pursed his lips round the straw, took a noisy slurp and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. I wished that I had a pink milk shake too.

I realised the mother was giving me a funny look. Probably thinking I'm a paedophile or something, staring and staring at her child, so I smiled. She half-smiled back as if wondering, do I know her?

‘Hi,' I said.

‘Oh, hi.'

‘How are you?' I said.

‘Much better now.'