‘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 s
aid.
‘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.’
‘Please.’
‘Why not?’
‘No. If you don’t go I’ll tell him …’ But what could I tell him without letting on about the cellar? Doggo was grinning. Nothing I could say. But Doggo could, that was the message in his grin.
‘Come on,’ he said. I had no choice. My spirits were so tangled round my ankles I could hardly walk. He shut Gordon and Norma in the cellar and we went up the steps into the kitchen. It was strange to be in there with Doggo. He looked the wrong scale for the room. Too big and rough, though he wasn’t really that big, just bigger than Mr Dickens and me. The room was cold and smelt of dog meat. There was a low sun shining through the window over the sink and you could see how dirty it all was, a sticky film everywhere.
Mr Dickens stuck out his hand and said, ‘How do.’
‘This is Mr Dickens, this is Doggo, Doggo, this is Mr Dickens,’ I said feeling like a traitor.
‘Doggo?’ Mr Dickens said.
‘It’s his nickname.’
‘Dog-lover are you?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Grand.’ Mr Dickens’ face folded up into a laugh. ‘Doggo and Lamb,’ he said, ‘sounds like a couple of blinking glove puppets. Go and get sat down. I’ll make tea.’
I led Doggo through.
‘So, you’re the cleaner,’ Doggo said, raising his eyebrow. He was perfectly right. It was a mortifying tip. You could hardly see the pattern of the carpet under the long black-and-white hairs.
Doughnut stared blindly up at us, the tip of his tail still wagging away from all the excitement. Neither of us said a thing. Doggo’s hands just lay on his lap in loose fists and I could see LOVE and HATE and wished he’d turn them over before Mr Dickens saw too.
When I could hear Mr Dickens loading the tray I went and carried it. Three cups and a hill of brown crumbs. I put the tray on the low table. I poured out the weak tea and handed Doggo a cup. ‘Ta ver
y much,’ he said. He grinned and I could see the stain of red wine on his teeth.
‘So, a gardener, eh?’ Mr Dickens said. ‘Well what do you reckon to it?’
‘No problem,’ Doggo said. ‘What you thinking, couple of hours a week or what?’ He was a different person with Mr Dickens. Eager and deferential and completely false.
‘Much as you can do to start off,’ Mr Dickens said, ‘it’s a right jungle out there. Then whatever’s needed to keep it up to scratch.’
‘I’ll think about it,’ Doggo said.
I looked down at my knees. I needed to wash my jeans. I needed to have a bath. I couldn’t bear to watch Mr Dickens being taken in.
‘We should go,’ I said. ‘You’ve got to be somewhere, haven’t you, Doggo.’
‘No rush.’
‘Cake?’ Mr Dickens nodded at the plate and Doggo scooped up a handful of crumbs. ‘Ta. Lamb?’
I shook my head. My belly already felt like a balloon with the curry in it. And the regret. I thought I wouldn’t be able to eat for a week. I’d got a tea-leaf stuck between my teeth and I tried to pick it out.
‘What’s your hourly rate?’ Mr Dickens said.
‘A tenner,’ Doggo said.
I nearly laughed. A tenner an hour? But Mr Dickens didn’t even blink. He just said, ‘Fair enough. When can you start?’
‘I’ve got an immediate window as it happens,’ Doggo said trying to exchange glances with me but I would not meet his eyes. I just wanted to go away and cry. ‘Tomorrow suit you?’
‘Tomorrow,’ Mr Dickens said and put out his knobbly hand to shake.
Twelve
I tried to shut him out but he was right behind me. He squeezed through and leaned back against the cellar door.
‘Fuck off,’ I said.
‘Who’s swearing now?’
‘Please go away. This is a mistake.’
He pretended to consider this. ‘Go where?’
‘Please,’ I said. My voice was cracking but I would not cry. All crying does is make you ugly and wet. This was like a bad dream getting worse. Him here in my space, him in Mr Dickens’ cheating. ‘He’s a poor old man,’ I said.
‘He’s loaded.’
Now You See Me Page 7
