by Peter Benson
Bob glowed. He shone. His eyes gleamed. His head was polished and his chest was burnished. When he spoke, the words came out sleeked, like tropical leaves. His lips were big and rubbery, and his teeth were polished. He felt as good as he had ever done. He had owned a sauna for twenty-four hours, and had spent sixteen of them in it. He had only slept for four, but felt as though he’d had ten, and he didn’t feel hungry. He slapped his stomach, slipped into a clean shirt and a pair of beige slacks, and went to see Frank.
He found him in the office, tipped back in his chair with his legs on the desk. He was listening to the radio, and said, ‘You’ll like this.’
‘What?’ said Bob.
‘I just heard it. When they first tried to sell Coca-Cola in China, they discovered that it sounds like “Bite the wax tadpole” in Cantonese.’
‘What does?’
‘Coca-Cola.’
‘What? The drink or the name?’
‘The name, Bob.’
‘Fascinating.’
‘I knew you’d think so.’
‘I do,’ said Bob, and he sat down.
The office was cold and beginning to acquire the patina of disuse; there was a musty smell in the place, and dust on the telephone.
‘Busy?’ said Bob.
‘Who?’ said Frank. ‘Me?’
‘If you like.’
Frank stared at his old friend, and decided that he’d never seen him look healthier. This reinforced the feeling, the creeping idea that the man had been right all along. The agency was a waste of time. The work was a deceit, it bred its own chaos. This wasn’t a life, this wasn’t where he should be. He should have stayed with Lisa. ‘No,’ he said. ‘The phone’s rung a couple of times, but I couldn’t be bothered.’
‘What does this mean?’
Frank shrugged.
‘Can I assume you’ve decided not to have the agency?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Frank. ‘You can do that.’
‘Good.’
‘It’s all yours.’
Bob laughed. ‘I don’t think so…’
Frank laughed. The sound shocked him, and gave him a pain in the chest.
‘…I’ll put it on the market.’
Frank took his feet off the desk and a hand over his heart. ‘I think I’m beginning to feel like you.’
‘Healthy?’
‘No…’
‘Pissed?’
‘Pissed off.’ Frank rubbed his forehead. ‘I think I’m going to follow you. We’re in a stupid game.’
‘Hey,’ said Bob, ‘I’m out of it.’
‘You always were too clever for your own good.’ He smiled, weakly. ‘Does it feel good?’
‘Better than good.’ Bob stretched his arms above his head and took a deep breath. ‘I bought a sauna. You’ve got to come round and have one; once you’ve got those pores open, you’ll think you’re a different person.’
‘Sounds like what I need.’
‘Believe me.’
Frank looked at his friend and he did. He didn’t need to think about it, and he didn’t need to say anything else.
As the evening lowered over Brighton, Lisa slept, Evans drove home and got caught in a traffic jam. Erica Austin sat in her hotel bedroom, and spread her children’s effects on the bed. A wedding ring, a pair of watches, a purse and a wallet. She had been told that she could return to Canterbury whenever she wanted, but she didn’t want, she didn’t want at all.
And as the evening thickened. Bob fired up his sauna, Davis sat on his bus-driver’s bus and watched the back of the man’s head, and Frank let himself into Mrs Platt’s house. He climbed the stairs, waited on the third for a moment, then walked back down and banged on his landlady’s door. When there was no reply, he bent down and looked through the keyhole. He saw nothing. He smelt nothing and he heard nothing, but he felt something. This was a musty thing that seeped from the the hole and the cracks around the door, and it shivered into his eye, rattled around his head and dived into his spine. He stood up and banged again, waited another moment, put his hand on the doorknob and turned it. The door creaked open, and the musty feeling gathered around Frank, and pulled him into the room. ‘Mrs Platt?’ he said. ‘Hello?’ His words echoed off the furniture and settled against the walls. The air was freezing and burnt the back of his throat. An old photograph of a starched Victorian family glared down at him, and a pile of ashes filled the cold grate. Joey’s empty cage stood in one corner, the water bowl full of dusty water, and a maize stick propped against the bars. A pair of wineglasses and some dead candles stood on a sideboard, and the satin pillow the bird had laid upon. There was a hatstand in one corner, and a broken umbrella on the floor. A line of light bled from the bottom of the door that led to the kitchen; he walked to it, said, ‘Mrs Platt?’ again, and opened the door.
The fridge was open, and the tap was dripping. There was a lump of cheese and a slice of half-buttered bread on a table, and an open book. He picked it up and read the cover. Reaching the Spirits, by Rose Daniel. He put it down and closed the fridge, and then tried to turn off the tap, but it was stuck. He put his hand to the side of a kettle that stood on the cooker; it was cold. A stale smell came from under the sink, and a scratching sound. He said, ‘Hello?’ Nothing. The word stumbled and died. He left the kitchen, went back to the front room, crossed it and stood at her bedroom door.
He tapped on it lightly; as he did, it swung open and he saw her. She was in bed, lying on her back, covered with a pile of blankets. He cried, ‘Mrs Platt!’ and ran to her; as he did, she rose up from the bed, the blankets fell down, her eyes opened and her tongue flicked out. She let out a shrill, pained cry that stopped him in his tracks. He stood in the middle of the room and opened his mouth to say something else, but nothing came out. She turned her head to look at him, but her gaze went through him. He sensed something else in the room, a living thing with no substance but grief, a ball of invisible tears that floated over her, then moved to him, then shot out of the door. She cried again, then fell back on to the bed, quivered and lay still. Now he moved towards her, bent over her and managed ‘Mrs Platt…’ again.
‘You’ve come,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Fred.’
‘No. Frank.’
‘I love you. I always loved you. Even when you were away.’
‘Mrs Platt.’
‘Even when you were away.’
He took her hand and cupped it in his. It was icy, and its veins were thick and blue. ‘It’s Frank,’ he said.
‘Fred?’
She turned her head and her eyes drifted from somewhere else and rested in focus. A flicker of recognition flashed across them and she said, ‘Frank?’
‘Yes.’
‘Frank?’
‘Mrs Platt…’
‘Frank?’
‘Yes. What happened?’
She held his gaze for a second, then turned her head away. ‘You disturbed us.’
‘Us?’
‘I was about to go away.’
‘Where?’
Now, Mrs Platt shook her head and tried to sit up. She knew where she was and where she had almost been, and she remembered how. ‘My friends,’ she said, as Frank moved forward and helped her. She shivered, and rubbed her arms.
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
‘What?’
‘Something hot? I think you need it.’
She thought for a moment, then nodded and said, ‘Yes. A cup of tea would be nice. Do you know where the kitchen is?’
‘Yes.’
Mrs Platt tried a smile; it arrived as a small crease on her lips. Frank didn’t move. He waited for a minute, he stared at his feet, he noticed a pile of old magazines under the bed, he heard a dog barking outside, and then she said, ‘Well? Are you going to stand there, or are you going to let a lady dress in private?’
‘Will you be all right?’
‘A cup of tea would help.’
Davis stared at the back o
f the bus-driver’s head, and the loathing in his own head constructed a simmering ball of stuff you wouldn’t want to look at. You wouldn’t want to look at it or think about it, or mention it in conversation, or introduce it to a dancing partner. You wouldn’t want to take it on a short mid-week break to a hotel you know in Edinburgh, where Highland dancing is performed every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday in the lounge, and you wouldn’t want to try to seduce it on a narrow sofa or couch. You wouldn’t want to slide up to it in a bar and whisper, ‘You remind me of someone, but I’m not sure who,’ in its ear. You’d be a fool to dip your fingers in a glass of chilled wine and drip the drink on to its nipples, but it was there, it was real, and the finishing tape it would break was murder. Davis was in control, his police training had given him a strength you couldn’t snap. The driver had long brown hair that curled over his collar like a wave that broke every time he changed gear. Some of the other passengers knew him by name, and talked to him as if they’d known him all their lives. Familiarity breeds grief. If you knew the bus-driver’s name, he would generate your sympathy and your charity, and charity is the dominant artifice of our age. You can do without it — if you want to sympathise with someone, choose a politician, or a television personality. Choose someone who has told you that you should be sympathetic, and then look at yourself in the mirror. Pretend that Brighton is your home, forget that this is another artifice, another mirror. Forget the pretension that dreams itself into the mind of someone you have never met. Do something useful with your life. Listen to someone who has written songs that echo our days, words and melodies that are as evanescent as our lives, and as full of meaning. Forget the things you know. This is your purpose.
18
Mrs Platt sat at the kitchen table, sipped her tea and stared at Frank. She was grieving, but Joey was not the object of this grief; now she was missing the spirits she imagined had gathered around her. They were her friends, they were the ones who could lead her to some land that had not been promised, but would be plighted. Their love for her had filled her heart; as she sat, she wished she was back in bed, and that the spell had not been broken. But she had come from a different age, from a time when concern was rewarded, when politeness and manners built homes. A cup of tea had been offered, and should be accepted.
Frank had not come from Mrs Platt’s age, but he had been born with an innate sense of the things that had bound it, and with a concern that betrayed the demands of his work. A vision of a cottage cheese, lettuce, tomato and pepper sandwich drifted into his head, and a hot cup of coffee. Half a dozen clean tables, sugar in saucers, laminated menu cards, a range of fillings in china bowls, and a different special each day. The vision was growing, exercising its muscles and justifying itself in every way. He picked up the teapot and said, ‘More?’
Mrs Platt smiled. ‘Thank you, Frank.’
He poured. ‘How’re you feeling?’
‘Tired.’
He put the pot down and looked at his watch. It was half-past eleven. ‘Are you going to be all right tonight?’
‘I think so.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Frank.’
‘Yes?’
‘You’re like an old mother hen.’
‘After all you’ve been through, I think…’
‘I’ve been through worse.’
‘I’m sure you have,’ he said, ‘but that’s not going to stop me worrying.’ He leaned forward and touched her hand. She didn’t flinch. He remembered his mother, and he remembered the way he had touched her on the last day of her life. Frank’s mother had been a small woman, the sort of person people ignore, a woman whose opinion had been considered worthless. She had worked as a barmaid, a cleaner, a care assistant at an old people’s home and, in her final years, as a school dinner lady. She had rarely expressed her emotions; this was a congenital trait Frank had worked hard to strangle. He struggled now. He withdrew his hand and put it on top of the teapot.
‘Don’t,’ said Mrs Platt.
‘You’re more than my landlady,’ he said.
She let these words float on her mind, watched them sink and said, ‘Thank you.’
He finished his tea, brushed an imaginary crumb off his trousers and stood up. ‘I’ll be upstairs if you need me.’
‘Of course,’ she said, and she smiled. ‘I’m not the only one in the house who needs you. Is Lisa well?’
He got a flash of the three machines, the bleeping monitor, the tubes and two nurses. ‘She’s fine,’ he said.
‘Give her my love.’
‘Of course,’ he said.
Davis was beginning to enjoy himself. Chips’s memory was loosing its grip; it had been replaced by a sense of rage that gave him an erection. He was charged with a feeling he wanted to last for ever; the anticipation of the pleasure of revenge. The more he thought about it the more he wanted it, and the more he thought about changing his plans. He wouldn’t simply take the bus-driver to some lonely spot and stick him in the throat; now he was going to keep the man for a while before killing him. He would gag and tie him and stash him in his spare room for a few days, he would explain in detail how and what he was going to do, and why. He would torture the man with the promise of his vengeance, he would teach him to be afraid. He would feed him dog food and make him drink from a bowl on the floor, and he would put a collar around his neck. He would make him perform tricks, and then he would take him to the beach and cut his throat. Davis was insane, and he loved it. It was his calling. He had been born for these days. He got off the bus at the top of Regis Road, and smiled at the driver as he stepped on to the pavement. The driver nodded and said, ‘Goodnight,’ in a soft, harmless voice. He was a man who enjoyed his work, who knew his regulars and gave each of them a smile. He was doing good in the world, though he would deny it. He was popular with his colleagues, and loved by his family. ‘See you,’ said Davis, and he walked away slowly, under the Christmas lights and the snow that spread silence over the town.
Bob lay in his bath and stared at the ceiling. He drew patterns on his chest with soapy water, and fiddled with his ears. He couldn’t be clean enough. Baths, showers, saunas, washes, more showers, longer saunas. He loved water. He poured some shampoo into his hands and rubbed it into his hair. He adored the feeling of bubbles, and the thought of their deep-cleaning action. He closed his eyes and floated his arms on the water. He was happy.
What is happiness? Sadness is easier to define, so remove doubt and say that happiness is the opposite of sadness, and go home. Or stay in the bath and know that happiness is a particular collection of toiletries that come in a box that looks like a tropical beach. Peach-scented bubble foam, pineapple shampoo with a mild astringent, a range of glycerin soaps, bath pearls and a flannel or face cloth. Words, eh? They can do whatever you want. Flannel is one of those old words, like scullery. Once, Russian state censors expunged the word ‘bed’ from all works of fiction. Moisturiser was one of Bob’s favourite words. And conditioner.
Evans lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. His wife made little bubbling noises in her sleep. He loved the sound, and he loved the ceiling. It was mottled with shadows.
Lisa lay in bed and drifted in and out of a red sleep. The hospital hummed to itself: its boilers, radiators, monitors and night-lights whispered to each other, and its patients snuffled and rustled. The night staff sat in their offices and read magazines. The smells of disinfectant and antiseptic snoozed in the air, the kitchen cockroaches scuttled without fear, and the out-patients department was quiet. All the illnesses and diseases relaxed; the night medications worked steadily, a telephone rang with a muted bell. Moonlight, refracted by a steady fall of snow, smoothed its way through uncurtained windows and glinted on neat rows of surgical instruments. Poison cupboards and empty beds, linen baskets and cold incinerators. Mice. Stainless-steel benches. Fading flowers in rank water; Lisa’s sleep was disturbed by visions of these things, and by the sound of distant voices. Adrian refused to admit responsibility, her
father railed and kicked the door of his cell; only Frank’s voice was quiet and understanding. She had always chosen the duplicitous, the dangerous or the stupid, or combinations of the three. Like a song you loathe but can’t help singing, or a film you hated but cannot forget; idiots had dogged her for too long. She was going to change her life, and surprise herself with sense.
19
At half-past nine in the morning, Evans rang Davis’s doorbell and waited. He stared at his shoes, picked a cotton off his sleeve and rubbed his shoulder. He wasn’t going to risk it; when there was no answer, he rang again, and put his ear to the door.
Davis stirred at the first ring, and sat up in bed at the second. He’d had a late night. After leaving the bus-driver, he’d walked to the man’s house and waited for his return. It had been a long, cold wait, but worth it. Revenge had warmed him and presented him with a host of imaginative alternatives. The best of these involved stripping the driver naked and coating him in bacon fat, then putting him in a small room with eight pit bull terriers. Perfection was a rare thing, but this was perfect. Like something suggested by God, it shone and played its own music. The bell rang for the third time, and a voice called, ‘Davis!’
Davis got out of bed, grabbed a dressing-gown and put it on. There was no avoiding the inevitable, and all it took was a throaty voice and a lie. ‘Coming,’ he croaked, and he went to the door.
