‘Ta.’
‘Don’t mention it. Just keep it clean.’
‘Yes.’
‘And you should get it looked at if it gets infected.’ She washed her hands under the kitchen tap. ‘Rightio, let’s give this kitchen a spring clean. Make it nice for when he comes back.’
I could hardly refuse. It was cold in the kitchen and everything was scuzzy, grease with hairs and crumbs stuck in. There was a mug by the sink with no handle and a collection of weird toothbrushes in it like a horrid bunch of flowers. At least I suppose they were toothbrushes but strangely angled with all their bristles brown and warped. I’d rather shoot myself than put one of those in my mouth.
Sarah picked up the mug and peered. ‘Defunct I think, don’t you? She got a black bin bag out of the drawer. ‘We’ll have a clear-out,’ she said and started dropping things in, bottles, soggy old Ajax cartons, rags, the mug. I just gawped wondering what on earth Mr Dickens would say when he got home.
‘How long have you been together?’ she said.
‘Who?’
‘You and Doggo.’
I turned the tap on to do the washing up. ‘Oh ages,’ I said, ‘lost count.’
‘You’re so lucky,’ she said chucking a heap of old catalogues in the bag. ‘It’s ages since I was involved with anyone. There was this guy, Jeremy, lasted a couple of years but since then zilch. Or only the odd – you know.’ She lifted her eyebrows and grinned. ‘Maybe I’m too fat.’
‘You’re not fat,’ I said.
‘Yeah, yeah,’ she laughed rubbing her hands on her thighs. ‘Well maybe food is more reliable than men, anyway. Since when did a cheesecake let you down?’ She stopped for a minute and gave me a long, light-blue look. ‘I can see you don’t agree.’
‘I just don’t put on weight,’ I said. ‘I can eat anything.’
‘I’d die for that metabolism,’ she said, ‘ectomorph is it?’
‘Dunno.’
I squirted Squeezee in and started on the dishes. The hot water felt good on my hands and through the steamy grub on the window I could just see Doggo moving about. I’d rather have been out there with him but thought I’d better leave him for a bit. Then he’d be glad to see me. I’d explain about the photo and buy him food. Hot food. We could go to a pub and he could order steak and chips or roast beef or anything he liked.
There was a smash as one glass thing in the bag broke another. ‘Whoops,’ Sarah said. ‘Never mind. I think I might go to church this morning.’
‘You go to church?’
‘Why not?’
I just shrugged. Maybe she wanted to pray for Mr Dickens. I let the water out and rubbed at the scummy ring round the sink. She started telling me about Jeremy and why they split up which she thought was mainly because of different body clocks. ‘It was like he was nocturnal,’ she said, ripping a ten-year-old calendar off the wall, ‘and, me, I like to be in bed by eleven. Well, earlier, really, but then I’m up at seven, bright as anything. The lark and the owl. It never works.’
‘Do you mind if I just nip out?’ I said. ‘I forgot something.’
‘Fine,’ she said. She didn’t seem bothered. She switched the radio on and it was The Archers Omnibus. ‘And he didn’t like The Archers,’ she said, starting on a new black bag.
Twenty-two
The paving slabs were slippy with a skin of frost and all the shrubs in the gardens were petrified. I walked past car-washers and dog-walkers and hand-in-hand Sunday strollers. Past the Italian café with its windowful of posers drinking espresso or cappuccino and flapping newspapers, trying to look careless and European.
I stuck my hands in my pockets and watched my feet taking step after step till I got to the park. The football field was full of little boys with sore knees and cloudy breath. They have such amazing legs, fragile as twigs yet strong enough to kick a ball. You’d think they’d snap. In the playground mummies and daddies were pushing bundles of padding backwards and forwards on the swings, or running along behind children learning to balance on their wobbly bikes. Everywhere you looked someone had a life to be getting on with. Some purpose.
There was a church bell ringing and the ice on the pond had frozen into ridges like the sound of the bell. I stared at the cold of it till my eyes watered. I could feel the little silver hand dangling just to the right of my heart. I put my hand on the neat numb pad of gauze. All sealed now, square and white and safe. There were bits of bread on the ice, which the ducks had missed. I threw a stone and it bounced and skidded and sang a weird high note that was like the song of how I felt.
When I got back Sarah was out and Doggo still in the garden. I had another look at the picture of Zita that Doggo had noticed. White dress, dark fringe, maybe a little mole beside her mouth, her eyes dark stars. I could be related. One in four children isn’t fathered by the father on the birth certificate. I heard that on the radio. I could be anyone. I look much more like Zita than Sarah does, Sarah is the opposite type, soft and blurry-edged. No one could possibly believe that she’s related.
I went outside to see what kind of mood Doggo was in. He was in the act of demolishing another tree.
‘Thought we were leaving that,’ I said.
‘Maybe I changed my plans.’ He didn’t look straight at me. There was a mug on the ground with a froth of chocolate round the edge. Sarah must have rushed it out to him as soon as I’d gone.
‘You’ve got chocolate in your beard,’ I said. And he may have done. That’s the drawback of beards.
‘You been cutting yourself up?’ he said.
‘Pardon,’ I said.
‘She said you’ve got scars right up your arm.’
‘No.’
He raised an eyebrow.
‘It was an accident.’
‘Oh yeah. Accident prone then?’ He threw a branch down and it nearly hit me. The sinews of the torn wood were pale as butter and I could faintly smell the sap.
‘What else did she say about me?’
He shrugged.
‘Where is she anyway?’
‘Dunno. Gone out somewhere, I think. What are you, Lamb, a head-case?’
I couldn’t believe his cheek. Me, a head-case. Me. What did he think he was?
I could tell her a few things about you, I thought, but I didn’t say it. He scrunched through another branch with his secateurs. ‘I’m not a head-case,’ I said but he ignored me. He turned his back and hauled a pile of broken branches off across the frosty mud. ‘Can I help?’ I said but it was like my words were gnats or something he just wanted to swat away.
I gave up and went inside. I stood in the kitchen thinking that if Sarah walked through that door now I’d kill her. Talking about me behind my back like that. Telling Doggo such a thing. I knew what she was up to. You could see she fancied him, the way she looked at him, the smile, the dimples.
I opened the cupboard in the chest-of-drawers. There was a dinner-service I’d never looked at before. Blue and red birds like phoenixes maybe, with bits of gold in their feathers and beaks, gold rims all round the edges of everything, hundreds of pieces all matching – even a sugar bowl and a gravy boat. Imagine owning such a thing. While I was looking at an oval serving dish with a lid and twiddly knobs in the shape of birds’ heads, Sarah did come in looking innocent as hell. I got up quick and shut the cupboard door.
‘What were you looking for in there?’ she said. I didn’t answer. It wasn’t as if it was her house yet. Her cheeks were scarlet from the cold. Round, like apples you could crunch. She had a carrier bag full of bleach and Flash and oven cleaner. Must have cost her a fortune. Doughnut staggered in panting, dragging his lead behind him.
‘What did you tell Doggo?’ I said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘He said you said I’d been cutting myself up. Which is a lie.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It looked like it. I used to know someone who … I just thought …’
‘Well you thought wrong then, didn’t you?’
‘What did happen then?’
‘An accident. I fell through a window. Not that it’s any of your business.’
She hesitated, then put her hand on my sleeve and smiled. ‘OK then. Sorry.’
‘Even if it was true why would you go rushing round telling him behind my back?’ I said.
‘I was just concerned, that’s all. Anyway, I thought he’d know. Since you’ve been together so long.’
I bent down and took Doughnut’s lead off, stroking his matted ears.
‘Did you go to church?’ I asked.
‘What, with him?’ She flopped down on a chair and Doughnut collapsed by the fire. ‘I’m shattered,’ she said. ‘Has anyone phoned?’
‘I’ve been out. Remember.’
‘I better ring the hospital.’ But she sat there and sighed a couple of times. I was obviously meant to say What’s up? but I didn’t. I went into the kitchen and looked at the grease of ages on the cooker, hoping it wasn’t going to be me who ended up cleaning it off.
The phone rang, and nearly gave me a heart-attack. It’s a specially loud phone for the hard-of-hearing and hardly ever rings, but when it does it vibrates right through you. I washed a milky saucepan up while I listened to her saying, ‘Yes, oh dear, oh dear, yes, yes.’
When the call was finished she came in the kitchen and stood behind me waiting for me to ask her what it was about. Why do people do that, wait for you to ask, why don’t they just come out with what they want to say? In the end I gave in and said, ‘Well?’
‘He’s quite distressed,’ she said. ‘I’m going straight there. Erm …’ She looked round. ‘Lock up when you go, won’t you. Say cheerio for me. Lamb –’ She tried to put her hand on my arm again but I flinched away.
‘What?’
‘Sorry,’ she said. She had those pale eyes that are almost transparent if you look at them from the side. There was a strand of hair stuck in the corner of her mouth. ‘But, Lamb, you know … if you ever were tempted to harm yourself in some way, you know you can get help, don’t you?’
She went while my mouth was still hanging open. It was so obvious what she was up to. I don’t know how people can stand to be so obvious. She wanted Doggo for herself. She was going to make me out to be some kind of sad case, head-case, loony. Then she could be an angel of mercy and get me help – in other words get me carted off and sectioned. Well if that’s what she thought she had another think coming. I’d love to see her face if she found out Doggo was a murderer. What a laugh to see that sympathy drop away. She would run a mile.
I went back to wandering and poking about the house. Of course I wouldn’t tell her because she’d call the police. You could see she was the law-abiding sort. Fair-haired people always seem more law-abiding to me, I don’t know why.
I went into the front room where Mr Dickens’ bed was since he couldn’t go up the stairs. The bed was stuck incongruously in the middle of the room between armchairs and bookshelves and occasional tables. The Zimmer frame stood beside the bed with a belt dangling off it. The pillow was still dented from his head and some teeth were gaping on the floor, also a book called The Long Goodbye and his watch. I picked the watch up and listened to it tick. It got properly through to me then that he might be hurting and frightened. He might even die. The watch ticked quietly against my ear. If he did die, then what?
Twenty-three
Late in the afternoon, Doggo and I went back to the cellar. I thought the stupid photo issue had blown over but the first thing he did was to pick up Mr Dickens’ album and start flipping through it in a slow and meaningful way. I waited for him to make some comment but he kept his head down staring at the different pictures of Zita.
‘Don’t they look similar,’ I said in the end, ‘Mr Dickens’ dead wife and my gran?’
‘Funny,’ he said, ‘it even looks like Mr Dickens in this one.’ Why didn’t he just come straight out with it and call me a liar? He didn’t say another word about it but looked at me sideways and flipped the album shut.
‘Let’s see your arms then,’ he said.
‘No.’
‘So it’s true?’
‘I fell through a window,’ I said, ‘when I was a kid. Cut my arms to shreds.’
He groaned and put his head in his hands. Norma whimpered and I squatted down to stroke her head. Her nose was dry and she was breathing too fast, nearly panting.
‘She’s not well,’ I said.
‘Nah.’
‘I’ll take her to the vet tomorrow. The proper vet.’
He looked up and nodded. ‘Cheers.’
‘Doggo,’ I said, ‘what if Sarah does move in with Mr Dickens …’
We sat there gloomily for a minute, imagining. But I didn’t want us to be gloomy. I didn’t want it to be gloomy for him, being here with me.
‘Let’s go out to eat,’ I said, ‘I’ll treat you.’
‘Fuck off.’
‘Why not?’
‘Where’s dosh coming from? Was it a bank window you fell through?’
‘Hahaha,’ I said. ‘While you were discussing me did you tell her about you?’
‘Don’t be so fucking stupid.’
‘What did you do?’ I said. ‘I mean who did you kill? Why? I know you murdered someone so you might as well …’
The look on his face shut me up. He stood up so suddenly Gordon yelped. I thought I was going to faint, the way he was looking at me, but I made myself look right back into his eyes. He grabbed hold of my wrists and pulled me up.
‘Get off,’ I said.
‘No. I get it. You like hurt, is that it? You like pain? Maybe you’d like to be murdered, eh? That your little fantasy?’ He spoke in a hard fast whisper.
‘Doggo no.’
‘You want me to hurt you? Cut you up like you cut yourself?’
My heart was hammering so hard I could hardly hear him.
‘Stop it.’
I would have screamed but I couldn’t scream. His hands were strangling my wrists and squeezing my bad arm. My legs started to give way.
‘You are a stupid bitch,’ he said. His pupils were flared so huge that his eyes looked black. And I was there in them, flickering pale like two tiny flames. His breath was hot.
Then he let go and I staggered back and let myself down on the bed. He shrunk a bit, right there in front of me, his shoulders narrowing. He sat down on the deck chair, sighed and looked at me for a long time. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘You want to know.’ He rolled a cig and took a hungry drag before he spoke.
‘Dave, my brother, were killed in a riot. Gang from next door estate, beat him over head with baseball bat and that. Split his skull. He were on one of them life-support machines but he were brain dead so they switched him off. If they hadn’t of switched him off he would have been a human vegetable.’ He stared at the floor as he spoke. His voice sounded flat and ordinary but a little muscle jumped at the corner of his eye.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said. My hands were fizzing hot as the blood prickled back into them.
‘So I got my revenge, didn’t I? Killed a guy.’
My voice was like paper. ‘How?’
‘Knifed him. Satisfied?’
He was shuddering. Finding it hard to get the fag into his mouth. I looked at his hands. He’d taken the gloves off. The bits of tape on his knuckles were curled at the edges and covered in fluff from his gloves. The burns were healing. Soon he wouldn’t need the plasters at all. I imagined a knife in his hand. I couldn’t think what kind of knife. A dagger? Or a flick-knife? Or a carving knife? And did he stab him once or twice or twenty times? Did he stab him through the heart or through the belly and the lungs? And how much blood?
‘It were like an eye for an eye,’ he said.
I couldn’t think what on earth to say. It seemed ordinary, the way he said it. Like murder could actually be an ordinary thing.
‘Is that how you got your scar?’ I said.
He put his index finger up and tenderly stroked along the croo
ked brow. ‘Yeah.’ His stomach growled.
‘You hungry?’ I said.
He did a wry smile. ‘I’m always fucking hungry, me.’
‘Shall we go out then?’
‘Nah.’
‘I’ll go and get some take-away then, shall I?’ I said.
I went to Pizza Hut and sat in the bright cheesy glare waiting for a deep-pan with pepperoni and anchovies which he said was his favourite. I’m not so keen on the anchovies myself but you can always pick them off. There were hundreds of kids in there shrieking like trapped seagulls, and coloured balloons bobbing against the ceiling. I was trembling inside with the new knowledge. It wasn’t that bad. It was the sort of murder you could understand. In the old days or in some societies it might even be considered right. A good thing. And the main thing was he trusted me. He wouldn’t have told me the whole truth if he didn’t trust me. He hadn’t told Sarah. It was me and him now that I knew the truth. Me and him against the world. Up to me to keep him safe.
I stopped off at the off-licence for a bottle of Chianti. But when I got back Doggo had already opened another bottle of Mr Dickens’ wine. It was like one of those silly balloons had popped inside me.
‘Hey,’ I said, ‘that’s not ours. I got us some, look.’
He peered at the bottle. ‘Not such a fine vintage, my dear,’ he said and I smiled even though I was narked. While I’d been out, he’d got himself back together. He darted a nervous look at me, but I just smiled. Wanting him to see that it was all OK.
‘That’s some temper you’ve got,’ I said.
He took a slug of wine straight from the bottle. ‘Who’s going to miss it?’ he said.
‘That’s not the point. He trusts me.’
‘Don’t talk shit,’ Doggo said, ‘he doesn’t even know you’re here.’
Now You See Me Page 14
