The Immaculate (12 page)

“ ‘You're such a little shit, aren't you?' he said. I just looked at the ground and said nothing. I flinched, but I wasn't quick enough to dodge the hand that swung into my face. ‘Aren't you?' he repeated. ‘Answer me, shitface.'

“My nose and mouth were stinging from his blow and my eyes were watering, but somehow I managed to whisper, ‘Yes.' He laughed, and said all sorts of degrading things about me which he made me repeat. I shouldn't have let it get to me, but by the time he'd finished I felt ashamed and worthless; I just wanted to curl up and die.”

There was anger and frustration on Gail's face. “What a bastard,” she said with feeling. “What an absolute fucking bastard!”

Jack nodded. He sounded weary and resigned. “Yeah,” he agreed, “but kids are like that, aren't they?” He was silent for a moment then said, “So are a lot of adults, come to think of it.”

“What's this Patty Bates doing now?” Gail asked.

Jack shrugged. “Don't know. His father took over the garage from his grandfather, so maybe Patty has taken over from him.”

Gail shook her head. “People like that should be put down at birth,” she said. “There should be some way of finding out what people are going to be like when they're older so that the bad ones can be drowned or something.”

Jack smiled. “Do you want to hear the rest of this?” he said.

She took his hand and squeezed it tightly. “Of course I do. If you want to tell me.”

Jack nodded abruptly and said, “When Patty Bates had finished abusing me he turned me around and pointed up into the branches of the tree. ‘See that?' he said. ‘I want you to climb up there and get the eggs out of it.'

“I could see immediately what he was talking about. There was a nest about twenty feet above the ground, sitting in the fork of a branch. I turned to him and said, ‘Why?' which was a mistake. He hit me again. ‘Don't ask fucking questions, just do it,' he said.

“I began to climb. There were a lot of branches, so normally it would have been easy, but I was hampered by my bruised ribs and numb leg and by my fear of Bates, which made me clumsy. However, eventually I reached the nest. I looked inside and there were three eggs in there, pale blue with black specks. I've no idea what kind of bird had laid them. From down below Bates shouted, ‘Have you got them, shitface?'

“ ‘Yes,' I called back, feeling wretched. I'd always considered egg collecting a cruel hobby, but in my present situation I would have done anything for Bates if it meant there was a chance of avoiding a kicking.

“ ‘Bring them down then,' he said. ‘But don't break them or I'll break you.'

“I wished I'd had the courage to drop them on him, to see them smash into his upturned face. But of course I hadn't. I made a sort of upside-down parachute out of my handkerchief, put the eggs inside, tied the corners of the hanky together, clamped it between my teeth, and made my descent.

“ ‘About bloody time, too,' Bates said when I reached ground level. ‘Let's have a look at 'em then.' I placed the handkerchief carefully on the ground, untied the knotted corners and opened the hanky out, praying desperately that none of the eggs had been cracked on the way down.

“Fortunately they hadn't. Bates reached down and picked one of them up. Almost companionably he said, ‘I like a nice egg for breakfast. Don't you, shitface?'

“I wasn't sure what to say. I never had eggs for breakfast, but I was eager to please so I nodded.

“I should have realised where all this was leading, but my fear of Bates had frozen my thoughts. He gave me a nasty grin and held out the egg he'd just picked up. ‘Let's see you eat this one then,' he said.

“I stared at him. I couldn't believe he was serious. The grin disappeared from his face and he looked as mean, as sadistic, as I'd ever seen him. ‘What's the matter, shitface? Not hungry?' he said.

“ ‘Not very,' I replied, hating the whine of my own voice.

“ ‘Tough,' he said, ‘cause you're gonna eat it anyway. Now . . . open wide.'

“I shook my head. Just the thought of eating that thing, all raw and slimy, made me want to puke. Before I could move, Bates shot out his free arm and grabbed me round the throat. Immediately my breath choked off; I felt liquid come out of my eyes and trickle down my cheeks as if my head was a piece of citrus fruit that Bates was squeezing the juice out of. I tried to tell him to let go but my throat was paralysed. When he spoke his voice had a booming, fuzzy quality as if we were in a long concrete tunnel.

“ ‘I said open wide. Whether you do it yourself or whether I make you, you're gonna eat this fucking thing.'

“There were black stars in my vision, spreading and linking together. I felt consciousness slipping away. Panic-stricken, I started to flail with my arms and legs but even that seemed feeble and distant.

“ ‘Stop struggling, shitface, or I'll drop a turd on the ground and make you eat that for dessert,' he said. ‘Now, you've got a choice. You can either eat this yourself without the shell or I can feed it to you, shell and all. What do you say?'

“I couldn't say anything. The whole world was going black; it sounded horribly echoing and distorted. I clearly remember thinking, ‘I'm going to die and I can't do a thing about it.'

“And then Bates let go of my throat and air swooped into my lungs with such force and pain that it felt as though someone had put the nozzle of a flamethrower between my lips and turned it on.”

Subconsciously Jack massaged his Adam's apple as he spoke, as if he could still taste the searing air burning its way into his lungs.

“My legs gave way beneath me and I sprawled on the ground on my back. I needed air desperately, and managed to gulp about two seconds' worth before Bates landed on my chest. I was crying now, all right. I really needed to breathe and this bastard wouldn't let me. He sat on my chest and pinioned my arms to the ground with his knees. All I could see through my tears was this big black mass of human being surrounded by wavy sunlit green: it was like being underwater. He grabbed my face in his hand and pressed hard into either side of my cheeks, trying to prise my jaw open. There was nothing I could do. They say the jaw can exert enormous pressure, but if I had bitten down I would have taken the inside of my cheeks off. I felt the egg being pushed into my mouth, all cold and rough like a stone. When it was inside, cramming my mouth, Bates released his fingers and slapped the underside of my jaw with his other hand. The egg broke.”

Jack looked ill. He grabbed his bottle of Kingfisher, tilted back his head and took a gulp. The sound of his swallowing seemed exaggeratedly loud in the quiet restaurant.

“It seemed to swell up out of the broken egg and clog my throat. It was like sticky half-set jelly. It tasted horrible, all kind of . . . salty and brackish. And there were gooey lumps in it which slid around in my mouth like slugs. I would have spat it out but Bates clamped one hand over my mouth and started kneading my throat with the other, trying to make me swallow. I held out for as long as I could, but in the end I had no choice. I gulped it all down as quickly as possible. It was worse than anything I'd ever known before, worse than being beaten and kicked because it actually invaded the inside of me and the texture was so . . . so awful.” Jack lowered his head and shuddered at the memory. He looked up at Gail and saw the revulsion on her face.

He swallowed more beer. For the first time ever the smell of Indian food was turning his stomach. But he hadn't told her the worst thing yet. He took a deep breath.

“He made me eat all three eggs,” he said quietly. “In the last one there was a baby bird . . . a foetus. Bates was delighted. He said, ‘You're in luck, shitface. Eggs for breakfast and chicken for dinner. Don't say I never give you anything.' He even made me eat this. It had a little black staring eye and you could see its tiny heart beating for a few seconds before it fluttered and stopped. . . .” Jack shook his head. “He made me
eat
it, Gail. What sort of person would do that?” He sucked in his cheeks, then blew out a short breath like a weight lifter preparing to lift. “I thought I felt it move as it went down . . . I thought I felt it struggling for life . . . I had nightmares for weeks afterwards. Its mother was this big black eagle shape, predatory, evil. And it was searching for its chick . . . getting closer and closer.” He lowered his face into his hands, felt his throat closing up, his stomach turning over. Gail put a hand on his arm and Jack removed one hand from his face and placed it over hers. When he was able to speak, he said, “That's all there is. Let's go home.”

She squeezed his arm and stood up. “You wait here,” she said gently. “I'll pay the bill. My shout.”

Jack heard the sound of her chair scudding back, her soft hurrying footsteps on the carpet. He felt scraped hollow, and tried to convince himself it was a positive feeling—the tumour of his past was being cut away; some pain was inevitable. He looked up, hoping he had not attracted the attention of the entire restaurant. Apparently not, unless both staff and clientele were being excessively discreet. He looked at the empty space where Gail had been sitting. Now he had an unobstructed view of the wide window that faced out onto the street. Below the window was a tray of pale blue gravel, the sort of stuff that looked like a cross between rat poison and bits of soap. In the tray, crammed leaf to fleshy leaf, was a row of Marantas, their general listlessness not quite hidden by sickly green lighting that played over them from below. The name of the restaurant—The Pride of Old Delhi—was painted backwards on the window in flaking gold letters so that it was readable from the street outside. The street itself looked like a set from a film noir, all sharp grim angles picked out by harsh white light and tar-black shadow. It was a quiet street; the only thing that moved, as far as Jack could see, was a battered cardboard box and its offspring of scuttering confectionery wrappers, given life by the wind. But hold on . . . wasn't that a figure, cowering within the shadow of that overhanging arch? As if Jack's thoughts were its cue, the figure stepped from its envelope of darkness and into the full white light of a streetlamp.

His breath curled on his tongue and changed to sour, dry fear that crawled back into his throat and jammed there. A piercing, hard-edged sound seemed to erupt beneath his skin, making his extremities tingle. His heart clenched, his muscles gathered and cramped; he wanted to tear himself away, to run in the opposite direction but couldn't move.

The figure standing on the empty street, staring in at him with cold grey eyes, was his father.

Jack sat in his parked car smoking a cigarette and tried not to think about his last day in Beckford.

It was two days after the night at the restaurant with Gail. When she returned she had found him sitting bolt upright, eyes squeezed tightly shut, hands clutching the edge of the table as if his life depended on it.

“Jack?” she had said tentatively.

Without opening his eyes, he had asked in a low, urgent voice, “Has he gone?”

“Has who gone?” Gail said, looking around.

“My father.”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, Jack, he's gone.”

Jack opened his eyes and looked at her. “Did you see him?”

“What?” She looked confused.

“My father. Did you see him? He was standing out there, in the street. Looking at me.”

Gail followed Jack's gaze. She was silent for a long moment. Eventually, in a guarded voice, she said, “What do you mean, Jack—he was standing out there?”

“He was there. In the street. Beneath that light.”

Gail crouched beside him, took his face in her hands and turned him towards her. “Jack, I don't know what you're talking about. Don't say things like that.”

“Like what?”

“About your father. You can't have seen him, can you? He's dead. You know that.”

Jack stared back at her, his face and voice suddenly becoming calm. “Yes, I do. I do know he's dead. But I still saw him.”

She shuddered. “You mean you
think
you saw him. It's possible, I suppose, after all that's happened today. I mean, you're bound to be a bit—”

“Unbalanced?”

She scowled. “No, not unbalanced. Confused. Overwrought. The mind can do pretty wacky things sometimes.”

He shook his head slowly. “No, my mind was perfectly all right. I saw him standing out there, clear as I'm seeing you now.”

Gail looked annoyed. A petulant edge to her voice, she said, “Jack, you can't have. You know you can't.”

“Do I?”

“Of course you do!”

“Don't you believe in ghosts then?”

“No!” she said vehemently.

People sitting at nearby tables turned, attracted by her raised voice, by the prospect of anger in a public place. Gail, however, did not indulge them. She recovered her composure and sat down in her seat, facing Jack across the table like a police interviewer with a suspected felon. There was silence for a moment, as if each was wary of giving too much away. Then she sighed and raised a hand in a limp, hovering gesture that tended towards conciliation.

“I don't know,” she said.

“Don't know what?”

“I don't know whether or not I believe in ghosts. But what I do believe is that you didn't really see your father.”

“Oh? And how can you be so sure of that?”

Gail sighed. “It's this whole situation. This whole day. I mean, let's face it, Jack, if it
was
him his timing was pretty amazing, wasn't it? He made the perfect entrance.”

Jack frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Well, he appeared just when you were at your most vulnerable, didn't he? Your most emotional. It was all too bloody neat.”