Lanny

by Max Porter

  PETE

  Very strange mood. Drunk a few beers and then some whisky, then some not-ready sloe gin.

  The sound in the village was all wrong. I went for my walk around the block and got the ill feeling and hurried back. The darkness was uneven, slippery. I sought refuge in my kitchen but the pressure between different objects in my house was all wrong. Something was bad. I had a glass of drink on the table, a newspaper and a pen, and the three of them were fit to lift off and explode. Things were closing in.

  I sat and breathed six in, six out.

  On the fridge was a postcard from my friend Ben; a Ravilious, the wonky Westbury horse with the train popping along behind. I’ve treasured it for years. I looked at this image, this lovely English thing, and I felt sick. Bile in my mouth. Neck sweating like a fever. I grabbed it off the fridge and was going to rip it up, but that didn’t seem to satisfy the hatred I felt towards it, which was something long, something accumulated. I necked a load more gin and stared at the postcard. I hated that quaint image. Hatred for this card had seemingly been hiding under the surface of my quiet existence for god knows how long. My whole hateful guilty life queued up ready to land on this poor image.

  I loathed it in ways I’d been keeping about my person, in my beard, in my ears, under my fingernails, since my parents told me to sod off because I was a faggot and a disgrace, since I first read those pamphlets about what the brave Englishman did in Bengal, did in Kenya, did in Northern Ireland, since I first watched animals slaughtered, since I first sold my fucking soul to a London gallery, to a glossy magazine, since I first saw supermarket carrier bags in the throats of rotting seabirds, since I saw behind the crematorium curtain to the giggling assistants dropping ash on the floor, this all queued up, these painful things, I don’t know what was going on, but I was steaming now. Growling vexed. I got a biro. I sat down and I very carefully drew lines across that postcard. Then I rotated it and drew lines across those lines, a grid to obscure the lush Wiltshire hills, the mysterious Neolithic bullshit, the pleasing clouds, the lovely chuff-chuff two-dimensional train, fuck every lying English watercolour acre before and after it, every moron riding it, and again across, hatching away, tightening the grid, Ravilious disappearing into the dark night again poor man, shiny black ink smudging and denting and obliterating the nice gesture of my friend Ben.

  I did not know myself.

  I did not know what on earth I was.

  LANNY’S MUM

  I can’t sleep. Robert’s breathing sounds like a small door catching the carpet as it opens. Click. Scuff. Somebody enter. Click. Scuff. Somebody leave.

  I usually sleep well. The village is tight and muggy tonight.

  When I was very unwell, when Lanny was a baby, in London, I read all sorts of things designed to scare young mums. About cot death and crushing, choking and allergies, flat skulls and bent backs, damaged eyes and bad milk. And one night I woke up and Lanny wasn’t breathing, and I accepted it. I accepted it easily. It was the middle of the night and I was thirsty and I’d forgotten my lines and the duvet was boiling. I’d been dreaming about that film where the man in the barn pretends to be Jesus. The streetlights were toxic yellow through the curtains and the baby had died.

  I lay very still. I didn’t touch him. I didn’t scream. I didn’t move or wonder where Robert was, or panic, or cry. I lay still and I could think clearly. It’s over now and you can have your self back, I thought to myself. This tragedy will be the story of your whole life, but it’s your life and you can sleep forever and ever if needs be. You’ve won sleep and lost fear. No more baby.

  I remember that night and I strangely cherish it.

  Robert farts.

  An owl makes half an owl’s noise.

  I am comfortable in my bed, in this house, in the countryside.

  I remember a bit of a prayer or a lyric about passing unharmed through fate’s unkind embrace.

  DEAD PAPA TOOTHWORT

  Dead Papa Toothwort steps up from a brown puddle and walks through the village dressed like a normal bloke, flat cap, rain mac and sensible boots, out for an evening stroll. He whistles his song, and the song is a set of private instructions. He feeds his plan into this ordinary home-county place, sliding it like lubricated wire into the soft flesh of the village, into buildings, gardens, sewage pipes and water tanks, up the lane to the big house, round the back to the sports pitch, into the beer pumps, into the books in the classrooms, into the gas and electric, into the bell in the church tower, sucked into nostrils, rubbed into cotton, into the bodies of men and women, folded into sweaty creases and scratched into red eyes, into the dreams of the children and the bones of sleeping house-beasts, and he whistles and whistles and gives so much he can hardly hold any idea of himself together. Exhausting.

  He has done this before but never with such sincerity. He means this terrible thing. He’s meant it forever. He makes a once-in-a-century effort, whistling his dream into being, setting the village up for its big moment. By the time he gets to the edge of the woods he has crumpled into nothing more than a whiff or a suggestion, he is only silent warm crepuscular danger, and the badgers and owls have seen this before, and they know not to greet him, but to hide.

  In came the sound of a song, warm on his creaturely breath.

  Bringing me gifts.

  A second or two.

  Lanny?

  I wonder where he is.

  Another second.

  Where’s Lanny?

  The words are still at this stage commonplace, embedded in the normal surface of my day, like Where’s the Wi-Fi password sticker? Why is this still itching when I cut the label out? Why are these chicken breasts taking so long to defrost?

  Where’s my son?

  A woman speculates idly about where her child is but doesn’t worry because her child is never where she thinks he is.

  Such a perfect time of day, look at the time, time to bring in the washing, time to go and get Lanny for his tea, time to myself, time it took me to get up, walk around the house, peer into his room, call his name, water every empty patch of the house with his name, he does this every time, sing-song son-time sounding cheerful, calling Lanny-Bean into the garden, walking whistling Lan-Bun into the street, and if I had known then I would barely have been able to crawl across the road let alone stand admiring the light, if I had known.

  But I didn’t know.

  And I saw myself, as it was beginning. A woman about to be crushed. Beginning to be rebuilt as a model of failure and agony. Of course I knew something was wrong.

  Time was straight-faced, ushering, naming me as a principal character. That way, Jolie Lloyd, away from your son.

  The woman stands in the middle of a street and yawns and pauses. She is a very good actress. Trained. Such yawning and pausing, it could almost be real.

  Stretch and breathe the place, the tarmac, the baking, the cut hawthorn, the scent memory of Fred’s ciggie, the wood preservative, the rot, the diesel, some kind of blossom, standing in the street after a day hunched at my screen, looking up the road to see if he might be coming home from his forest camp.

  I sent a text message, inviting Robert in. I even hummed softly as I sent the message.

  U home normal time? Chicken wrapped in bacon. Roast new pots. Bring wine. Looking for Lanny, as always.

  Gaze down the road where he might be with friends, might be detained talking to Peggy or poking around in the pub car park collecting plastic keg caps.

  Painfully aware of seconds. Standing, thinking.

  over and over and over and over and over and over

  You beauty. Yes, normal time. See your wine order and reply Already Bloody Got It. Is Lan not at Pete’s?

  over and over and over and over and over and over

  Nope, Pete’s away today. I’ll go hunting x

  +

  I was thinking: Get in. The weekend, my favourite chicken wrapped in bacon, Jolie in a good mood, nice weather, Rioja Reserva 2011 in the bag, platform announced
as I glide into the station, a lean mean commuting machine.

  +

  A woman walking casually to a neighbour’s home, a barefooted human walking on the road, then onto spiky gravel then onto pleasingly cool flagstones, a human being passing from one life to another, surface by surface. A proper drama now, not a one-woman show.

  I knocked.

  I gazed at the six Neighbourhood Watch stickers and wondered why, when the new stickers arrived each time, Mrs Larton hadn’t unpeeled the old ones. For weight of claim, perhaps. For pride. For proof of historic vigilance. Because she is a dickhead.

  +

  She knocked. I peered through the spy-glass at her gormless face and wondered why, when Jolie Lloyd had such pretty features, she hid it with that messy hair. For fashionable reasons, I suppose. Or shyness. To stop her salacious husband seeing her. Because she is foolish.

  +

  I could hear her wheezing approach, slipper-shuffling down the hallway, hissing and nattering to herself like a fairy-tale witch. I heard her slide the several interior bolts of her Mock Tudor door. She peeked out of the crack and said downwardly, Oh.

  +

  I could see her waiting out there, twiddling the strands of her mop, biting on her lip and fidgeting like a nervous teenager. I took pleasure in slowly unbolting the door, one lock at a time. I feigned surprise at the sight of her and said cheerfully, Oh!

  +

  I said, Hello Mrs Larton, have you by any chance seen … and she interrupted,

  Are you an educated person?

  Excuse me?

  Did you go to a good school?

  I’m sorry, Mrs Larton, I was just looking for … and she interrupted again,

  Because I would have thought that the words ‘No Parking on the Verge’ were fairly intelligible, fairly explicable, to someone with even rudimentary schooling.

  Oh, I’m sorry about that. It was a friend of Robert’s and they moved as soon as you came and rang the bell and actually, sorry, I wonder if you’ve seen Lanny?

  The little girl?

  Um, our son. He’s a boy. You know Lanny.

  And she slammed the door.

  +

  I thought to myself, I shall get to the bottom of this parking kerfuffle, but she interrupted;

  Had I seen the little child?

  Excuse me?

  Had I seen Lanny around?

  I’m sorry I said, but I have gone out on a limb to welcome you to our village, and I did especially ask that you don’t park on the verge.

  She muttered about her flashy husband and his sportscar-driving co-conspirators and tried to change the subject to her peculiar little child.

  How rude.

  I’m terribly sorry but I’m rather busy, I said.

  I politely closed the door.

  +

  I blushed and felt tears prickling. I dislike confrontation and I was embarrassed. I was outraged. I breathed deeply. Mrs Larton can do this to me. She’s done it before. My husband finds it funny that I fear and despise her, that I obsess about her, that she can upset me so much. He jokes that I will murder her. It is one of my husband’s privileges to joke about things that upset me, here, in this village that we moved to so he could not be here, day after day, this village that we moved to so I could be begging a disgusting old woman to help me, to be a good person for two seconds while I ask her if she’s seen my child wandering about this afternoon.

  +

  I considered the situation and felt quite virtuous. I jolly well put her in her place and I was pleased to have done so. I was relieved. I pondered her behaviour. They are still new here. They parked on the verge. Her husband treats the village like a place to sleep and recharge his batteries, a model village to show off to his chums from Clapham or whatever god-awful place they came from for fresh air or a good school, and I don’t ask for much but I did ask, very politely, if they could not park on the verges as they had been expensively re-turfed, and she turned up at my door as if nothing had happened, I had to coax an apology from her, and all she cared about was her wandering waif.

  +

  I knelt down and said loudly into the letterbox,

  Mrs Larton, have you seen Lanny?

  +

  Can you believe she pushed open my letterbox?

  To scream abuse at me!

  +

  I was childlike in the hot stew of my humiliation and frustration. I wish I had filmed all this on my phone to show Robert. I am going to kill a not-very-well-disguised version of Mrs Larton in my next novel. I was furious.

  +

  I was quite frankly baffled by this show of impropriety and aggression. I wished there had been someone there to witness this. I was going to need at least two episodes of Antiques in the Attic to relax me. I was furious.

  +

  What if we said what we really felt?

  +

  What if one said what one really felt?

  +

  What if we, the too-polite sons and daughters of these old fuckers, actually started picking them up on their warped world-view, on their grotesque self-interest and petty entitlement? What if I did murder Mrs Larton? The world would be a better place. How lovely it would be to kick in her door and ask her again: I just wondered if you’d seen my son, you awful bitch, you pissy clingfilm hag and by the way I hate hate hate you, I despise your smell of fetid carpets and toast; Silk Cut, marmalade, gas and antiques. I feel sick just thinking about your yellow-stained lamb’s-ear fuzzy upper lip, your heirloom rings stacked on your Churchillian pug-knuckles, the inside of your huge dank house, your weighty silver biro in your splotched hand as you scratch away at the puzzles in your evil newspaper.

  Oh god, you horrible crone, you are the worst thing about living here, you are the worst thing about this English village. You are the worst thing about England. And villages. I wish you would die so somebody nice could move in here.

  +

  What if we, the generation of people who remember the war, actually told these frightful, entitled young people that this is a country we fought for, that you cannot simply buy a sense of belonging on your mobile phone. She might have attacked me, yelling Where is Lanny, as if I had him hidden in the larder. I could have phoned the police. Then she wouldn’t come around here banging and shouting about how she’s lost track of her moping little gypsy with his daft hair and strange singing. I’d like to tell her about the real community around here, a community that is dead and gone thanks to people like her, buying up the houses and putting in ridiculous open kitchens and glass walls. Of course it is arch-lunacy to expect this young girl with a made-up name to understand any of this, she may as well be a bloody foreigner. I worry about the impact on the community. I worry about standards slipping. I worry about this country. I wish she would get bored and let somebody decent move in.

  +

  But I spoke calmly and kindly through the letterbox:

  Mrs Larton. I’m sorry that our friend parked on the communal verges. Please, if you see Lanny, could you call me? We’d be very grateful. He hasn’t been home this afternoon and it’s getting dark. Thank you. OK, bye now.

  +

  But she seemed to immediately realise the error of her ways:

  Mrs Larton, I’m so grateful for the extraordinary kindness you’ve shown us. Please, if you see Lanny, could you telephone? We’re worried. He hasn’t been home after his art lessons. Thank you. You’re so kind.

  +

  I was halfway down the path when I heard the hinge of the letterbox squeak open. I turned around and saw her little fingertips holding it open from within, and she said two words before it slammed shut. She spat the words out and I imagined them rolling down the path towards me as if escaping her. I almost felt I could pick the words up, wipe them clean of her tarry spittle and put them in my pocket.

  +

  Mad Pete.

  +

  She was shuffling away down the path but I felt I couldn’t not state the very obvious. I waited until she’d
turned around and spoke through the letterbox, telling her where I thought the child was. She was utterly unresponsive, as if the words I’d said had been a little delayed in reaching her. I almost felt I could have walked to her, overtaking my words, and said the name right into her strange head:

  +

  Mad Pete.

  +

  And then the word Lanny started bursting like blossom on the branch of the evening. The word Lanny rising up aberrant and abnormal.

  Hi, it’s Jolie, have you seen Lanny?