Now You See Me (9 page)

‘You're right pretty,' Doggo said.

‘Oh
yeah
.'

He took my hand again and this time it was really hot between the palms like magic, and warm in my belly too, melting toffee again, thick and sweet.

‘Your eyes.' He tilted my face to his with his finger and looked into them. I screwed them up tight.

‘I won't follow you,' he said, ‘if you don't want me to.' I jerked my head away before he could kiss me. I don't know if he would have kissed me. I wanted him to kiss me. No I didn't. I would have hit him if he had. I pulled away from him and got up.

‘Sure you don't want me to?' he said.

‘What?'

‘Follow you.'

‘As if!'

He laughed. ‘Too cold sitting here,' he said. ‘Walk?'

‘I've got to go in a minute.'

‘Walk for a minute then.'

The dogs pulled and he walked just ahead of me, his shoulders hunched up round his ears. From behind he seemed smaller, skinny, his jeans baggy over his bum. It was cold, raw, the sun soaked up in a sudden grey wad of cloud. I shivered. I wanted to go back to the cellar and have a cup of tea. The voice was telling me to do that. Not to walk about with him or be with him a moment longer. Certainly not to take him back. But he needed somewhere to go, anyone could see that. I could help him. He liked me. It was cold. He was cold. He did seem to like me. I'd never taken a soul to the cellar. Too much of a risk. What if he messed it up for me, wrecking the place or inviting hordes of people round? I don't know him. But he knows me. He said so. He likes me.

‘Have you noticed?' he said, waiting for me to catch up.

‘What?'

‘I haven't sworn all afternoon. It's nearly fucking killed me.'

I didn't laugh. A flock of pigeons scuttered upwards before our feet. What about your balance, one voice said, but the other laughed and said how stupid, what a baby I was being, what a little scaredy cat. Of course you need other people in your life. Everyone has people in their lives. How can it be balanced to always be alone?

We stopped by the fossilised tree root that looks like a dinosaur's foot.

‘This has been here for millions of years,' I said.

Doggo squatted down to look. ‘How was party?' he said.

‘Huh?' Then I remembered. ‘K. Just a, you know, party.'

‘That guy called you Jo.'

‘Yeah.'

‘Funny that,' he said in the end. ‘Why do you call yourself Lamb?' He handed me Norma's lead but I shook my head.

‘Got to go,' I said.

‘Where?'

‘Dentist,' I said. ‘Not that it's any of your business.'

‘Good,' he said.

‘What.'

‘Good to look after your teeth.'

I pulled a face at him, not sure if he was taking the piss, but he looked quite serious.

‘Teeth are important,' he said.

Teeth are important
. I couldn't believe he'd said that. Who could ever be scared of someone who said
Teeth are important?
I started to walk away, a big toothy smile on my face. I turned round, he hadn't moved. He wasn't following but he wasn't walking away. A cold spot of rain dashed my cheek. He looked small and cold and hunched. You can't be human and always be alone. I beckoned him.

‘K,' I said.

‘What?'

‘You can come back to mine.'

‘Nah.'

‘Why not?'

‘You don't want me.'

‘I …' A spot of rain trickled down the black lens of his glasses. I wasn't going to beg. ‘Suit yourself,' I said. I shoved my hands in my pockets and started to walk. He could follow me or not, up to him.

Eleven

‘Sure?' he said, giving me Norma's lead.

‘Yeah.'

‘Thought you were off to dentist.'

‘Later.'

We walked down the road towards Mr Dickens' and the nearer we got, the slower I got, till I was hardly moving at all. Norma looked over her shoulder at me and tugged and whimpered.

‘Something up with your feet?' Doggo said.

I stopped. ‘Oh no.'

‘What?'

‘I forgot I've got to …'

‘Wash your hair,' Doggo said like he'd heard it all before. ‘Fair dos. No big deal.' He took Norma's lead. ‘See you.'

‘Wait! It's just … I need to explain something. About where I stay.'

‘Yeah?'

‘It's not exactly
official
. I mean nobody knows I live there,
nobody
, I'm kind of squatting. In the cellar of a house that someone lives in. And he doesn't know I'm there.'

The rain lashed sharply against my cheek.

‘We going or what?' he said. ‘I'm getting fucking soaked.'

We picked up speed again, Norma tripping me up every second step. ‘He's old,' I said.
‘Really
old, and he can't get out or down his cellar steps. And he's pretty deaf so he doesn't hear me. He's cool,' I said, not wanting him to get the wrong idea. ‘He's ninety. In a funny way I don't think he'd mind if he did know but I can hardly say, can I? Just drop it in, oh by the way, Mr Dickens, I've been living in your cellar for a few months now, that's OK, isn't it?'

‘So no one knows?' he said. ‘No one?'

‘You have to be very quiet.' I wanted to say, And very respectful but I couldn't quite bring myself to say that.

I nearly died when we went in and I saw it through his eyes. So depressing. The bits of dead insect spattered all over the windows, and even with the light on a desperate clinging gloom.

‘Fuck me,' he said. He took his shades off and walked around, looking at my camp bed and my Calor gas, the brown sink, the radio, all my childish pathetic belongings huddled together like refugees. Then he turned and grinned.

‘Neat,' he said, ‘this is really neat.'

‘Yeah?' I looked again and saw that maybe it wasn't so bad. Not as bad as nowhere, anyway. Clever of me to think of it really. You could see he was impressed. Norma snuffled everything while Gordon sat by the door looking definitely underwhelmed. Doughnut went off into a sudden volley of barking upstairs.

Doggo jumped. ‘You never said there was a fucking dog.'

‘Going to start swearing again?' I said. ‘Tea? Doughnut's nothing to worry about.'

‘Doughnut? What about that curry. I'm f …' He grinned so sharply it scratched me. ‘I'm famished.'

I turned away and lit the Calor gas to warm things up.

‘Nobody knows?' he said again.

‘How many more times?'

‘What about your mates?'

‘Don't have that many mates. Mind it cold?' Nothing I could have done about it anyway. I've only got a kettle, nothing to cook on. I gave him the curry in the box, with a fork.

‘Silver service, eh?' he said. ‘What about you?' I didn't want
him
starting on about me eating so I did eat some, just a few mouthfuls, then he scoffed the rest. It was only vegetables in bright-yellow sauce and not bad. I thought it might do my skin some good. I made tea – luckily I do have two mugs.

When he'd finished eating he picked up Mr Dickens' album and flicked through. ‘Who's this?' he said stopping at one of the pictures of Zita. I said it was my granny, then I changed it to great granny. Would that be right? I couldn't think straight, anyway what does it matter? He kept looking from me to the photo and back again.

‘You look a bit like,' he said. I knelt beside him to look. Zita on a shingly beach under a sunshade, looking up at the camera, her eyes dark and burning.

‘Do I?'

He put his arm round me and I froze. I'm not completely stupid. If you ask a guy back to your place he's likely to think he's in there, isn't he? I didn't mind his arm round me, it was warm. But I pulled away.

‘What's up?' he said.

‘I don't do sex.' It got out of my mouth before I could stop it. I was horrified but he laughed.
Laughed
.

‘Well I'd better watch myself then,' he said.
‘Don't do sex.'
He narrowed his eyes at me. He kept staring till I didn't know what to do. ‘Why Lamb then, and not Jo?'

‘No big mystery,' I said. I was looking at Mr Dickens in some sagging knitted swimming trunks. ‘I just hate Jo so everyone calls me Lamb.'

‘Who's everyone?'

I shrugged.

‘Why
Lamb?'

‘Why
Doggo?'
I said, turning the page to a view of grey hills with a grey car parked in front. ‘Anyway, Lamb's my surname.'

‘So who's Joanna Vinier then?'

It was like he'd punched me in the gut.

He nodded at my satchel which was lying on the floor with the flap up where I'd taken the curry out. It had that name and an old address printed in big biro letters, old but still showing among a load of stupid scrawls about who loves who and STING 4 EVER and phone numbers. It had been there so long I didn't even see it any more. The name was in my mum's writing, she must have done it when I was about eleven, starting secondary school. I got a pang right through me thinking about her, a scribbled flashback of her face, last time I saw her. Years ago when I was still that person.

I flipped the lid of the satchel down with my foot. The silence was long. My throat was burning from the curry. I wanted to tell him to go away but I couldn't say a word. He got up and starting poking through some of Mr Dickens' stuff.

‘What's in there?' he said, nodding at the door.

‘Just more cellar. Coal.'

He picked up an umbrella and tried to open it but a shower of moth wings and rust cascaded out. He put it down and wiped his hands on his jeans. ‘You gay?' he said.

‘No,' I said.

‘Just don't fancy me, eh?'

‘It's not that …'

‘You do fancy me then?'

‘I dunno.'

‘Little girls, eh,' he said, as if to someone else.

‘I'm nearly twenty,' I said. He stopped and looked a minute, but made no remark. He went off through the door and I could hear him switch on a light and rustle about in places I had never been. It was strange and chilly, the feeling of someone else in my space which isn't really mine at all, but still, it gave me an uneasy feeling like someone's fingers in my brain. I sipped my tea and tried not to feel sick. You're supposed to look at the horizon if you feel sick, car sick anyway, but what horizon is there in a cellar?

When he came back he had cobwebs in his hair and a bottle of wine in his hand. ‘There's fucking racks of the stuff,' he said.

‘It's vintage,' I said. ‘Mr Dickens used to collect it once, as an investment.'

‘Got a corkscrew?'

I shook my head.

‘S' OK,' he said and got out a Swiss army knife with a corkscrew attachment. I just sat there feeling helpless and watched him open it, a cold sinking in my gut. He was going to wreck everything, starting now.

‘What's up?' he said.

‘It's not yours,' I said and my voice came out like a mouse's.

‘Oh dear.'

‘But it's probably worth about a hundred pounds,' I said.

By this time he'd got the cork out. ‘Any glasses?' he asked, and he wasn't joking. He looked like he expected me to suddenly produce a crystal decanter set.

‘You'll have to use your cup,' I said. ‘Don't you want your tea?'

He tipped it down the sink. The wine glugged thickly out of the bottle. It was almost black. ‘Château something or other,' he said, rubbing the crud off the label. ‘Here goes.' He sniffed at it and swilled it round his mouth like mouthwash. He didn't spit it out though, he swallowed and said, ‘Mmmm, interesting. Try it.' I didn't want to but I did anyway and it tasted like Tarmac melting in a heatwave.

‘S' OK,' he said. ‘Wouldn't pay a hundred pounds though. Maybe three ninety-nine if I was feeling flush.' He took another swig and I saw his Adam's apple bob. I hated him. What was he doing here, making fun of Mr Dickens' wine, drinking it like it was lemonade? He wiped his mouth and held the mug out to me. I put my hands behind my back. ‘What's up?' he said.

‘I just don't think you should drink his wine, that's all.'

I wished there was a button like a rewind button I could press and get us out of there, back to the street, back to the pub, back to last week, not to have done this, not to have let him in, not to have ever even met him.

Then I heard the back door open above us. I nearly had a fit. I leapt for the door seeing it was still open a crack but it was too late. Gordon and Norma were out there yapping and snarling and I could hear Mr Dickens' poor old voice through it all calling out, ‘Here, fella, Doughnut, here, fella.'

I lunged out and grabbed one lead and Doggo grabbed the other. Doughnut was slavering like a hell hound but quite enjoying himself I think.

I looked up the kitchen steps and there was Mr Dickens holding on to the door frame and peering down. ‘Lamb?' he said, in a quavery voice. ‘Is that you, duck?'

‘Oh hello,' I said, making my voice jolly and normal, not
normal
because I'm not normally jolly. I stood where he could see my lips and shouted, ‘Hope you don't mind. I was just showing my friend your garden, he's a gardener. We er didn't want to disturb you.'

Mr Dickens nodded his head and said, ‘Grand, grand. Why not come up and have a cuppa.'

I looked at Doggo and he looked at me. ‘Quick thinking,' he said.

‘Just go,' I said, ‘now. I'll say you changed your mind.'

But he didn't go. He stood for a moment, flexing and unflexing his hands, thinking.

‘You say he lives alone?'

‘Yeah,' I said.

‘Interesting. Let's go up.'

‘No,' I said, ‘please … just go now. He didn't see you properly.'

‘But I'd like to meet him.'