The Immaculate (28 page)

Anger and fear fought for supremacy in Jack's mind. At the moment it was about fifty-fifty, but Jack felt as though the anger was slowly gaining the upper hand, and he was both glad of it and alarmed by it.

“Don't worry,” he snapped back. “The beer was shit anyway.” He yanked his arm out of Bates' grip. “Now get your fucking hands off me!”

Bates looked momentarily surprised by Jack's defiance, then he laughed again, harsh and throaty. Jack felt Bates' spittle fleck his cheek.

“You made a big mistake coming back here, pal,” said Bates. “A fucking big mistake.”

“Really?” said Jack, trying to sound bored.

“Yeah, really,” snarled Bates. “You're gonna fucking regret it.”

Jack felt an urge to laugh scornfully, or to punch Bates right in the centre of his stupid ugly face, and yet he also wanted to be out of this, to get some fresh air to calm his churning stomach.

“Oh grow up,” he said, trying to instill as much contempt as he could into his voice.

Jack saw the violence swirling in Bates' eyes, barely suppressed. Would the bully start something here? Maybe back when they were boys he would have—or he would at least have waited outside and beaten Jack up in the street—but now he wasn't so sure. Now there were other things to consider—how would the brewery react to one of their landlords brawling in public, for instance?

Bates took a step back. He looked like a rottweiler, frustrated by the order not to attack. If he had been a rottweiler, he would have been snarling now, showing his teeth. He raised a stubby finger and pointed it at Jack's face, almost jabbing his nose. “Your days are numbered, pal. I'm coming for you.”

“Are you really?” said Jack airily. “Or will you be hiding behind your little army of thugs again? Keeping out of the way?”

That comment got to Patty. Jack saw his face flush, a wave of crimson starting below his ears, sweeping across his cheeks and forehead. Jack swallowed with an effort; his mouth was very dry. Any moment he expected Bates to lash out at him. He felt nervous, almost flighty, with the expectation of it. And yet the outrage was still there, a voice inside him screaming: How dare this . . . this
nobody
threaten me!

Jack wanted to belittle Bates, to tear him apart with rapier wit, show him how pathetic he was being. But the sad reality was that a mere verbal assault would be lost on someone like Patty. Jack did not consider himself brave. Violence appalled him, the prospect of it being inflicted upon his own body even more so. And yet he refused to be pushed around by someone with the intellectual capacity of a plastic bucket.

These thoughts raced through his head in an instant, adrenaline-charged. Patty was saying, “Don't you fucking worry, pal. When it comes down to it, it'll just be you and me.”

Jack wanted to ask why, what was the point, what was it that made Patty hate him, or anyone, for no reason? But he knew there was no answer, or none that he wanted to hear from Bates, anyway. Smiling tightly, he said, “Lovely, I'll look forward to it. And now if you'll excuse me . . .” He squeezed quickly out of the gap between Bates and the book display and walked rapidly towards the open-fronted cooler that held milk, mineral water and various soft drinks.

If Patty follows me now, he thought, bending to lift a two pint carton of milk, I'll turn and smash this right into his face. But Patty did not follow him. Jack heard the bully's heavy footsteps approaching the door. Before leaving, Bates threw a parting shot: “You're a dead man, Stone.”

Keeping his back turned, Jack waved and said, “So nice to see you again, too. Just like old times.”

It was only when he heard the door of the shop slam behind Bates that Jack realised how rigidly he'd been holding himself. The instant he allowed himself to relax, his legs began to tremble and he felt a sudden urge to go to the toilet. He smiled at the woman behind the counter who was totting up his purchases on the till. “I love Beckford,” he told her. “Such friendly people.”

Despite his attempt to put it from his mind, Jack's encounter with Patty left a nasty taste in his mouth, and he decided to redress the balance by calling on his aunt before heading back to the house. It was just after six when he arrived. She was watching the news whilst eating her evening meal from a tray on her lap. She was pleased to see him, but said she wished he'd given her notice. She could have bought another piece of fish and made tea for both of them.

“That's okay,” he said. “I'm not hungry yet. I'll get something later.”

“Are you sure? I can do you some nice bacon and eggs. It won't take a minute.”

“No,” said Jack firmly. “You sit down. I only popped round to say hello on my way back.”

She sat down and began eating again, taking small delicate mouthfuls like a bird. The smell of cheese sauce turned Jack's stomach. He was annoyed that a no-hoper like Bates could make him feel like this, but it wasn't just Bates
per se.
It was pointless hostility, violence for its own sake, that dismayed him. He smiled at his aunt, trying to shake the feeling. Using her remote control, she turned the volume down on the TV. “So what have you been doing today?” she asked.

He felt an instinctive reluctance to share both the discovery of his father's notebooks and his encounter in Taylor's. He told her about his afternoon exploring secondhand bookshops and immediately she raised her fork in the air. “That reminds me, I've got some books for you.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, they're in the wardrobe in my bedroom in a cardboard box. I'll go and get them.”

“No, no, you stay there,” he said. “I'll get them.” He did so. The box had once contained Persil washing powder. It was sealed with a thick brown strip of packing tape.

“I've been meaning to mention it since you got here,” Georgina said. “They've been up there for years. Your father brought them round one day and asked if I'd keep them for you.”

Jack's stomach began churning again, but this time with anticipation as he scratched up an edge of the tape with his fingernail and peeled it back. He had a good idea what these books would be. The television showed a building on fire, the night sky above it brown as sludge. Jack tried to compose his face for his aunt's benefit, but couldn't prevent himself from murmuring, “Wow,” when he folded back the flaps of cardboard that comprised the lid of the box.

Rupert Bear, Korky the Cat, Jennings, William, The Famous Five. All his childhood was here, precious reminders of a happiness that was both desperate and total, contained among yellowing dog-eared pages, between covers whose colours were still bright despite the passage of time.

As Jack lifted out each book and hefted it in his hand, his head filled with memories, as though messages were flowing from the books themselves. Here was Ray Bradbury's
Something Wicked This Way Comes;
he'd read most of this sitting on a deckchair in his aunt's garden, wafting at wasps and sipping lemonade. And here was the
Fifth Pan Book of Horror Stories,
read one night in bed with a torch under the covers when snow was lying thick on the ground. And look here:
The Last Battle,
by C.S. Lewis; his father had threatened to throw this on the fire once when Jack had accidentally left it on the dining table. And there were so many more, all of them old, dear friends.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Salem's Lot, Charlotte's Web, Five Children and It, The Secret Seven
. . . If his aunt had not been here, Jack might well have kissed some of the covers of these books, remembering how they had saved him from despair.

And near the bottom of the box, after removing a copy of Graham Greene's
Brighton Rock,
Jack glimpsed a portion of the cover of a larger book that made his heart leap with excitement. He could see the blue of a pond, the green of a lily pad with a frog crouched on it. He removed the scattering of books that concealed this larger one, and now he saw the title:
The Bumper Book of Fairy Tales.

“Oh, wow,” he breathed and lifted the book out. It was as hefty as he remembered it; picking it up as a small child had made his biceps ache. The back cover illustration was identical to the front. There was a large dent in the back of the book, completely mashing the princess' head. Jack touched the dent, knowing it was the mark his father had made with the golf club. He examined the book, half-fearing it would be smeared with long-dried blood. It wasn't, of course. He expelled a long slow breath and looked at his aunt. “This is amazing,” he said. “I thought my dad had thrown all these away.”

Georgina shook her head and smiled. “You used to love reading when you were younger, didn't you?”

“Still do,” said Jack.

“That's how I remember you, curled up somewhere with a book in your hands.”

The fairy tale book creaked when Jack opened it, like a door into a magical land that hadn't been used for centuries. He began to turn the pages, remembering their layouts so immediately that it felt he was preempting them. The dragon with the gaping mouth dribbling smoke; the trees with gnarled human features; the troll skulking under the bridge, ready to pounce on the unsuspecting merchant; the witch brandishing the poisoned apple as bats swooped around her head.

By the time Jack arrived at the story of
Jack and the Beanstalk,
he felt as if his memories were so strong that they were reproducing themselves in print. The title was entwined with green vines just as he remembered it, the cow was a comically lugubrious animal with a swaying udder and shoulder blades so prominent they resembled stubs of wings. Here was Jack exchanging the cow for a handful of multicoloured beans, and here was Jack's mother tossing the beans angrily out of the window. Over the page was a picture of the beanstalk disappearing into the clouds with Jack and his mother gazing up at it in awe, and in the next illustration Jack was nearing the summit of the beanstalk, where a craggy mountain peaked by a huge black castle rose impossibly from a swathe of thick grey mist.

Jack paused here, because he knew that on the next page was the ogre. He remembered his recent dream—he had turned the page and instead of the illustration he'd been expecting was an empty black rectangle. But that was before; everything was different now. His father no longer
was
the ogre. He was (had been) simply an anguished old man, poisoned by grief, unable to find a way to draw the humanity out of himself until it was too late. Jack cleared his throat. On the TV a weather girl was showing him large cartoon suns on a map of Britain. Jack twitched his aunt a smile and flipped over the page.

And there was the ogre, ugly and snarling, crouched over his coins.

Jack stared at the illustration for a few moments, breath held as if afraid it might pull itself to life from the page, break its boundaries. But the power of the picture seemed actually to fade as he gazed at it, until it was no longer threatening, impotent as make-believe.

Before he could stop himself, he smiled and said, “It's okay.”

“What is?” asked Georgina.

He looked up, and felt himself blushing. “Oh . . . er . . . nothing,” he said. “It doesn't matter. It's just something that . . . no, it's okay. It's too complicated to explain.”

He hoped she wouldn't press the matter. Explaining what the ogre had meant to him would diminish its potency, thus undermining his fear. And besides, that fear no longer seemed appropriate. To deflect further questions he skimmed through the rest of the book until he reached the story of
Dick Whittington and His Cat.
“This is one of the reasons I went to London,” he said.

His aunt looked puzzled. “This story?”

“This illustration,” he said, tapping his finger on the page. “Streets paved with gold and all that.”

Georgina shook her head. “You didn't really think it was like that, did you?”

“Well, it was, wasn't it?” Jack retorted. “For me at least. Going to London was the best decision I ever made.”

She made no comment, merely set her face and drew back her shoulders. Jack knew she was hurt. Whenever he mentioned London, and how happy he was there, she seemed to take it as a personal snub. Most of it, of course, was loneliness. If she wasn't so proud, he knew she would be begging him to stay. Lord knows, he owed her more than he could ever repay.

Seeing her sitting there, lips pursed, knobbly hands folded primly in her lap, Jack felt a fierce, protective love. He crossed to her chair and hugged her before she realised what he was doing. She stiffened, then relaxed. “What was that for?” she asked when he broke the embrace.

“Nothing,” Jack said. “Everything. Can't I hug my favourite aunt without having to have a reason?”

“Get on with you, you daft bugger,” she said. But Jack could see that she was touched.

He put the books into the box, stayed for a little while longer and then left. He wondered whether to get some food from the Top Wok, but the same gang of kids as before were hanging around outside it so he drove on. Ten miles outside Beckford was a village called Surley, which Jack hoped did not describe the nature of the inhabitants. He found an Italian restaurant called Da Mario's, where he ate excellent garlic bread and disappointingly tasteless lasagna. The place was bright and the young staff unnecessarily noisy, as if in the belief it would mask the mediocrity of the food. A couple sat at the next table with three uncontrollable children. He spent the meal devising inventive ways of silencing them for good.

Darkness was seeping from the horizon, blurring the lines of dry-stone walls, when he arrived back at the house. He parked the car, eager to get inside and reacquaint himself with his father's stories. Before he did that, though, he wanted to ring Gail and fill up the bookshelves in his bedroom. When he opened the door of the car and stepped out onto Daisy Lane, he was suddenly overcome by a sense of well-being. The encounter with Bates seemed distant now, insignificant. Jack grinned into the fading sun, drew a deep breath into his lungs, and simply stood there, savouring the moment. He had come here and done what he'd thought would be impossible. He had exorcised his ghosts, reconciled himself with his father—or at least with his own memories of him. Tomorrow he could head back to London, content in the knowledge that his life would become all the happier for having returned to Beckford.