Now You See Me

by Lesley Glaister

  ‘Why good?’

  ‘What you doing?’

  I looked down and saw what I was doing. It was a thing I did as a kid, nibble and nibble round a crisp so it gets smaller and smaller. You can make a single crisp last for ages like that. ‘Nothing.’ I chucked the half-nibbled crisp to Norma who snapped it up, mid-air.

  ‘So, what do you want?’ I said.

  ‘I need somewhere to crash. Lie low for a bit.’

  ‘What’s wrong with your mum’s?’ I could hardly look at him for fear of seeing myself. ‘Don’t you ever take your shades off?’ I said. I hate talking to a person when you can’t see their eyes and if you ask me only posers wear sunglasses when it’s not sunny.

  He looked round then took them off. I’d forgotten his eyes were such a cool sharp grey. They made me flinch. He shook his head and took a deep breath like someone about to jump. ‘Look. I’m in deep shit. There’s reasons I can’t go to my mum’s, OK?’

  ‘But why ask me? You don’t even know me.’

  ‘Yeah well, exactly. No one would come looking for me at yours, would they?’

  ‘But how do you know I won’t … I don’t know … call the police or something.’

  ‘Because I know you,’ he said, reaching across the table to touch my hand. He took my breath away saying that. I know you. His fingertips were slippery ice.

  I couldn’t help the smile. ‘No you don’t,’ I said.

  ‘So?’ He squeezed the tip of my middle finger between his finger and thumb. I pulled my hand away but the sensation stayed there. One finger-end in all the big cold world.

  I nearly got pulled in. At that moment I wanted to help. It was a pity I couldn’t but no way could I let him in. The cellar was mine and mine alone. I was quite safe and balanced. And not scared. It was quite simple. He just had to lie low for a time, well I know about that. I am the expert. Except I would never in a million years ask anyone else for help. It puts you in their power. There was a kind of glow in me from his words. I know you.

  I had to concentrate. I took a sip of beer. His was nearly finished. ‘Did you steal your mum’s bag?’ I said.

  ‘What the fuck’s that got to do …’

  ‘Am I supposed to be scared of all this swearing?’ I said.

  He did a weird kind of laugh and looked at me hard, a different sort of look as if he was weighing me up. ‘How old are you?’

  ‘I got stuck with that bloody bag,’ I said. ‘I saw it in the kitchen after you’d gone. I didn’t know what to do so I took it.’

  He laughed. Laughed. ‘Why?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t know. Because you told me not to say you’d been. She left a note saying it was gone and I thought she’d think it was me that brought it back and then what?’

  ‘Fuck. So where is it?’

  ‘On a shelf,’ I said, ‘at my place.’

  ‘Which is …?’

  I could feel myself starting to get in a stew, partly the effect of the beer which I haven’t drunk for ages. I don’t drink much and I don’t smoke, I don’t do drugs or sex. I am a vice-free zone, me. It would be the most stupid thing to take Doggo back to the cellar and I wouldn’t. He was a stranger. Even though he knew me. He could have been a killer for all I knew. But I was starting to like the cold clearness of his eyes.

  Then, by coincidence, a guy called Simon wandered into the beer-garden as if he was looking for someone. Doggo shoved his shades back on fast. Simon was wearing his usual Metallica T-shirt and reeking of patchouli. I mean coincidence because I can go for weeks without talking to anyone except Mr Dickens and the ladies then all in one day there’s Doggo and Simon. Simon is someone I was at school with, then I bumped into him here one day. He came to Sheffield to go to university, dropped out but stuck around. It’s amazing to me that people my age are halfway to degrees already. I didn’t think I’d meet anyone I knew in this city. I didn’t want to meet anyone who knew me ever again. But Si was always out of it at school, and he probably never heard anything about me, if there was even anything to hear. He’s that dreamy sort. Lives on his own little planet behind his long hair and thick glasses. Top of everything at school, probably got about sixteen A levels. But he doesn’t do anything now except take drugs and play keyboards in an awful band called The Sticky Labels.

  ‘Hey, Jo,’ Simon said, squinting at me through his smeary glasses, and I could have killed him. Doggo raised one eyebrow at me and I noticed a scar in it, rucked up like a bit of bad sewing.

  ‘Jo, hey?’ he murmured.

  ‘Come to party?’ Simon said. I nearly said I wouldn’t, then I thought, well maybe if Doggo came too so I said, ‘K then. Can I bring my friend?’ but Doggo shook his head. ‘Nah, you go,’ he went. ‘Parties aren’t my thing.’

  I wanted to say that parties weren’t my thing either but it was too late so I said, ‘Cool,’ and stood up. I should have been glad. Now I could go and he wouldn’t follow me and that would probably be it for ever. Doggo looked down into his pint. ‘You can finish mine,’ I said shoving the glass towards him.

  ‘Cheers,’ he said. ‘See you around.’

  ‘Cheers,’ Simon said. His wreck of a Beetle was parked on the road outside all loaded up with amplifiers and Tortilla Chips. The traffic was so bad it took about half an hour to go a hundred yards. He stopped outside someone’s house and went in and was in there ages, then he came out and said, ‘Sorry, you should have come in too, had to, you know, sample the goods.’ He looked as if his eyes had melted.

  He put a thundering tape on. ‘This is us last Saturday,’ he said, thrashing his head around and beating the steering wheel like a drum. I wanted to scream. Of course I didn’t want to see Doggo again, it was just that we hadn’t finished the conversation. I wanted to get that conversation finished. I hate leaving ends trailing like that. It’s the sort of thing that keeps me awake.

  Simon stopped the car to get some vodka from Oddbins. I went in with him and just stood looking at all the bottles of chardonnay and Chablis. I thought how the party would be with everybody stoned and drunk and how out of it I’d feel like always. People are so boring when they’re drunk and they think everything’s funny and it’s even worse when they’re stoned.

  I didn’t get back into the car. I said, ‘Sorry. Just remembered something.’

  Simon shrugged and said, ‘Oh yeah.’

  I said, ‘Yeah.’

  He got into the car and slammed the door. ‘Shame. But maybe see you around?’ he said out of the car window. He gave me a long meaningful look – which was spoiled by the fingerprints on his lenses and the moss growing on the bridge – and drove off. I stood there for a minute trying to think what to do next. It was miles back to the pub and it was coming on to rain. I should go back to the cellar. That would be the safest thing. Doggo was sure to have gone anyway. Finding someone else to help him lie low. But I thought I might as well walk back and just see. Not as if I had anything else lined up.

  It was that time in the afternoon just as it begins to get dark when things huddle together and the lit-up shops look cosy and inviting. The rain wasn’t actually falling, it just hung in the air soaking everything. I only had my denim jacket and the denim sucked up the rain like a sponge. The road was bumper to bumper with buses and cars, their lights smearing runny colours on the wet road.

  A crowd of students came out of the off-licence with clanking carrier bags, all laughing and practically knocking me off the path. One of them called out Bailey’s, Natasha and they all keeled over laughing. I felt like yelling, I’ll tell you where to stick your Bailey’s, Natasha. I know it’s ridiculous to feel left out when you don’t even know the people you are left out of, or even want to know them.

  I walked along towards the Duke’s Head which is a long walk and the rims of my ears ached with cold. I felt weak and thought maybe I needed to eat. I was just going past Tesco when I thought that so I went in to get something for later on.

  It was blindingly bright inside and smelt safe and bready.
I picked up a basket and walked round choosing things as if I was someone else. I chose a packet of croissants and some Irish butter and French strawberry jam. Then I changed my mind and put back the croissants and got scones and a tub of clotted cream. I even looked at a piece of chicken but there was blood smudged against the cellophane, and anyway, how would I cook it? Then I lost my appetite seeing the greedy baskets of the people. All that stuff that would just go through them and be in the sewer pipes by tomorrow. I left my stupid basket on the floor and went out where at least you could breathe. It was properly dark now and the lights were a scribbly blur.

  I kept on walking towards the pub but then a carrier bag got tangled round my feet, I don’t know where it came from, it can’t have blown because there was no wind. It was just a wet white bag flapping around my feet but it made my heart go wild. I hate the way rubbish is everywhere, don’t you? All sorts, even great big carrier bags just lying about in the street. I kicked it away but it clung to my shoe so I had to kick and kick. It was just an empty bag. Nothing to get upset about. But my spirits sank down into my boots. If I found him, then what? It was raining properly now and the damp knees of my jeans were making me itch. Best to be alone, it really is.

  Eight

  I went back to the cellar. The cobbles glistened greasily and I thought I would slip. The light switch isn’t quite by the door so you have to go in in the dark. I go in with my eyes shut and fumble for the switch. Sometimes I can’t find it straightaway and my hand scrabbles at the wall, my stupid mind thinking I’m in the wrong place or worse, maybe when I switch the light on someone will be there, waiting.

  Lights are meant to make a place look cosy but the light in Mr Dickens’ cellar is dismal. A dull cobwebby bulb which emphasises the dark outside its reach and presses shadows into every gap and crease. The bit of cellar I live in is cramped up in one corner and in the day you don’t notice the rest but at night you can see that there is a big area where the light doesn’t reach. There are ladders, rusty saws, cardboard boxes, saw-horses, fringed lampshades, all sorts of stuff laced together with cobwebs and shadows, and in the day you can stand there and name the things and not be scared at all. Not that I’m scared anyway. What is there to be scared of?

  I tried to make it as cheerful as I could. I put the Calor gas on, even though I’m worried about the fumes. There was something on the radio about a girl who died from carbon monoxide fumes. Just dropped off to sleep beside her gas fire, never to wake up. But the cellar is so draughty I don’t think that will happen to me. I made a cup of tea and put the radio on for company. I like listening to Radio 4 best, the calm sensible voices telling you calm sensible things, but I always switch off for the news. The sorts of things it fills your head with, you do not need to know.

  I could tell it was going to be one of those nights. Usually I’m all right. I read or just sleep or sometimes there’s a play on the radio which I love, it’s such a rest from myself – but it wasn’t about to be one of those nights. I don’t put the light off when I go to sleep but that isn’t for any particular reason. I just don’t.

  I felt all tensed up as if my belly was full of question marks and it was mainly about Doggo. The clear vision of my balance was fading. The balance alone. Maybe being alone too much is dangerous? Maybe having a friend would help? The voice was telling me to leave him be. But maybe the voice was wrong. Or maybe it was tricking me, tricking me away from a friendship that would be fine. Which is the good voice and which the saboteur?

  I heard a voice. It was above me in the kitchen and it wasn’t Mr Dickens’ voice and there were footsteps too. My heart nearly stopped. There’s never anybody there except for Meals on Wheels and they only stay about two minutes. The footsteps were quick and the voice was a woman’s. I reached and switched off the radio. There were sounds like running water and things happening in the kitchen. I thought, calm down, Lamb, and I did sit down on the edge of my bed but not very calmly. I thought I should switch off the light but I couldn’t do that. I stayed very still with the cup of tea between my hands, just watching the steam rise off it, straining my ears to hear what next.

  I heard a laugh and then the bump-shuzz bump-shuzz of Mr Dickens. The back door opened and a girly voice called out, ‘Doughnut, Doughnut, come on, boy, time to do your stuff.’ I shot up quick and switched off the light because if she went in the garden she would see the light on and then … Anyway I switched it off and stood by the door with my hands all wet and the black smothering me, a blanket in my eyes and mouth, and I started to shrink. I think my eyes were shut I don’t know. She was out there saying, ‘Really, Uncle,’ about something or other I don’t know. I waited till I stopped shrinking and I must have opened my eyes because then I saw it wasn’t totally dark, some of the kitchen light had spilled against the window and I could see the patterns of cobwebs with all the dry old legs and wings.

  The voice kept calling until Doughnut was back in and it seemed like hours later the door banged shut and I heard the footsteps leave the kitchen and then the front door bang and a car drive away. I put the light back on and looked round at the room. Bleak is definitely the word but at least it’s somewhere. You just have to focus on the light places and not the dark. Inside you and without. I was shivering. When you’re cold and you sweat it’s the worst kind of cold and I was still wet from the rain. I took off my jeans and hung them on a lawn-mower in front of the heater and got into bed.

  I put the radio back on and tried to listen to some programme about how chimpanzees can have a vocabulary of up to two hundred words. They don’t speak but do a sort of sign language like deaf people. They can even make up sentences. One said Why have you put me in prison? when he was locked up in a cage.

  I listened to that as hard as I could. It was no good trying to sleep. Maybe I simply wasn’t tired enough. I lay stiffly in the bed for ages before I gave up trying. Anxiety can make you itch, really, cause your skin to crawl. I got up and put on my damp clothes and opened the door into the garden. A thin smear of moonlight lit up a tangle of twigs. I went round the front. A slit of light showed between Mr Dickens’ curtains but all the other houses were dark though one had left a pumpkin lantern burning in the window and its grin flickered like it was licking its jagged lips. I felt I should tiptoe through the sleeping streets. The only other living thing was a cat. It glanced at me with startled sizzling eyes and sped away. I was an intruder in its world.

  I wonder where in the city Doggo is, inside or out, awake or asleep? How far away from me, maybe quite near. Maybe in a doorway somewhere with his dogs. I don’t like that thought. It brings back the lost feeling of not knowing where to lay my head. For two years I had nowhere certain to lay my head. And then the hospital with the green honeycomb blankets you could stick your fingers through. There was a woman there, still as a statue. She was marbly blue and it was wonderful how still she was. When her husband came to visit he’d put a fag between her lips and ages later smoke would trickle out.

  People in there were fish or dogs or puppets and a clown. But there was one real man, he was called Russ. He always wore Hawaiian shirts. He made me laugh, wiggling a caterpillar eyebrow at me in the therapy group. And when I laughed the taste was bright in my mouth, bright as his Hawaiian shirt, bright as a fruit I had forgotten. It was when he left that I decided to leave too. Said goodbye to no one except the statue woman, who said nothing, of course, but let a thread of drool escape her lips. I dabbed it off for her and tucked the tissue up her sleeve. And then I strolled on out.

  Now I have to keep myself safe. I can’t tell if Doggo’s safe for me or not. Of course he isn’t safe. The voice is good and right. But something in me lights up when he comes into my mind. He knows me. Nothing in the world has lit me up like that for years.

  I walk along a kerb, my arms out, balancing. I walk on till my feet ache and I am too tired even to think. When I get back I stand and look at the house where Mr Dickens lives and I do. Though nobody knows I do. And then I go back in to
wait.

  Nine

  Monday was Mrs Harcourt and Mr Dickens. The right way round. I could have my bath first and do some actual cleaning – some work is essential for my peace of mind – then relax with Mr Dickens. As long as Mr Dickens would stick to cheerful subjects. Being with Mr Dickens in his warm and fusty room was probably the most relaxed I ever got.

  Mrs Harcourt had left me this note which is a typical example:

  Dear Lamb, please vacuum hall, stairs, landing, master bedroom, Simon’s room, spare room. Pay particular attention to stair edges, please!! Please mop bathroom (inc en suite) and kitchen floors – kitchen floor needs to be well rinsed or tiles look dull. Please turn out cutlery drawer and under-sink cupboard if you’ve time. Fresh shelf-lining paper in big kitchen drawer. Money in envelope.

  Best wishes, Myra Harcourt.

  Best wishes, hahaha. And in the en suite which is hideous brass and peach someone hadn’t even flushed the bog. First of all (after flushing) I ran myself a bath. The bath is triangular, deeper than most baths. I tried out the new Jacuzzi effect. It was strange and wonderful, the bubbly swish of it, milky with the Clarins stuff sloshed in, like being in a milk-shake machine. I shampooed my hair and started the chores in Mrs Harcourt’s silky dressing gown while my clothes did a short cycle in the machine.

  While I was drying my hair I stared in the mirror which has little lights round the edge as if she thinks she’s a superstar. I looked hard, wondering what Doggo had seen when he stared at me but it was just me and nothing more special than that. I do look young, even to myself, as if I haven’t lived the last couple of years at all. A kind of space in the eyes. Cheek-bones pitted from teenage acne, cracked lips, dark fluff above the top lip, shadows underneath the eyes. The longer you look, the worse it gets.

  I plucked my eyebrows and rubbed some of her wonder cream in my skin, but the only difference was it made me shiny. It took me ten minutes over my time to get the jobs done because of the long bath but I did them and got out before anyone came back which I took to be a good sign.