Mr. In-Between

by Neil Cross

  Jon sat back and closed his eyes. He had never been so tired.

  ‘Assassin,’ hollered Phil in zealous abandon. He took his hands from the wheel to beat a drum-roll on the dashboard. ‘Kill for a thrill!’ he bellowed.

  Jon knuckled his eyelids. Bursts of grubby colour.

  ‘Supply and sanctify!’ shrieked Phil. ‘I only kill because I’m alive!’

  Jon leaned forward and turned off the CD. ‘Are you taking the piss,’ he said, ‘or what?’ His had intended a quiet, threatening tone but ringing tinnitus necessitated an oafishly offended roar.

  Phil’s hand went to his mouth. The car swerved a little. Behind reflecting lenses, he closed his eyes, taking the car fortuitously through a set of lights which were half-way through a change. He looked imploringly at Jon. ‘Oh, shit,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. Shit. I wasn’t thinking.’

  Jon rubbed his brow. ‘That’s all right,’ he said. ‘No harm done.’

  They drove in silence.

  Eventually, Phil looked at him askance. ‘Do you mind if I put the music back on?’

  Jon waved his hand non-committally.

  ‘So what?’ ended the song in a looped sample. ‘So what? So what?’

  They pulled up outside the Tattooed Man’s. Phil killed the engine and Jon’s hand went immediately to the door release. Then he paused, hand on handle and stared for a while at the house, the sightless windows, the autistic flowers, the topiary cockerel which rippled slightly in the breeze. He glanced at Phil. ‘Aren’t you coming in?’

  ‘You’re joking.’ Phil grimaced and shook his head. ‘Not on your nelly, mate. No way. Not on your effing nelly. I’m going home.’

  Jon pinched the bridge of his nose then opened the door and stepped on to the pavement. He stared at the house. The cockerel looked especially ragged and in need of a trim. It stood in a small heap of shed leaves, and its twiggy innards were visible here and there, like a nervous system in formaldehyde.

  Phil poked his head through the passenger-side window. ‘Good luck, mate,’ he said.

  Jon patted the roof of the car with something like fondness. ‘Thanks,’ he said.

  Then the car pulled away. Phil acknowledged him with a single, backward wave of a gloved hand.

  The gravel path had never seemed longer, nor the house more of a physical threat. It seemed to lean toward him with bullish aggression.

  He licked his lips and. rapped on the door, rubbing sweat from his hands. From inside, he heard the Tattooed Man: ‘Come in. The door’s on the latch.’ For a moment he was staggered, unable to move. It was as if all that had transpired had been an illusion, a super-accelerated dream that had taken place between knuckle meeting door and the knock being answered, such was the naturalness of the Tattooed Man’s response. He pictured his expression, imagined the clothes he might be wearing and smiled to himself, as if with nostalgia. Then he remembered.

  He stepped inside as if expecting a blow, pushing the door silently closed behind him. The Tattooed Man’s house had its own special, subtle smell, something like a cross between soap powder and a bookshop. Standing as it did on the brow of a hill, it caught beautifully what little light there was left outside and filtered it down the hallway. Through the kitchen window, but for the enormous apple tree, it would have been possible to scrutinise much of the city spread below. Once, from the top floor, Jon had leaned against the wide sill and scanned the city until he was able to identify his own house. Since then he had always found it comforting that, whenever he was home, the Tattooed Man could almost see him.

  ‘In the kitchen,’ called the Tattooed Man.

  Jon stepped from the carpeted, half-lit gloom of the hallway into the light of the kitchen. He shielded his eyes. The sun was low in the sky—the shortest day of the year had passed less than a fortnight ago—and the kitchen glowed with surgical brilliance. Through the huge windows, and through the naked branches of the apple tree, he could see that much of the city already squatted glumly in the blue-grey gloom of a winter evening. It was dark everywhere but here.

  It was an extravagantly large kitchen, with all the white-enamelled, wood-panelled perfection of a brochure. In it stood the Tattooed Man, shirtsleeves rolled to reveal the snakeskin of countenances etched on to his dermis. He was leaning over the sink, fastidiously skinning a breast of chicken. He might have been wearing surgical gloves, so naked did his hands look beneath the tattoos, which terminated in a neat border at his wrists. A half-empty bottle of white wine stood at his side. As Jon entered he turned, sipping from a glass. He followed Jon’s eyes, which had fallen on four copper pans that bubbled on the hob. The odour of boiling vegetables was snatched by a humming extractor fan.

  ‘I keep meaning to get a steamer,’ explained the Tattooed Man, drying his hands on a dishcloth. ‘I prefer my vegetables with a bit of, you know—’ he folded the dishcloth and put it behind him on the work surface, ‘—crunch. You lose so much of the goodness this way.’ He reached into an overhead cupboard, removed a wineglass, filled it, and set it on the table. He had not yet properly looked at Jon.

  His Alsatian ambled over to Jon, who bent to its level and scratched behind its ears. The dog nuzzled its head in Jon’s stomach and Jon scratched it where skull joined backbone. ‘Hello, boy,’ said Jon. ‘Hello.’ The dog responded with a lazy, weighty swipe of its tail.

  ‘Clint!’ the Tattooed Man instructed it. ‘Come on. That’s enough. Leave him alone.’

  The dog lolloped obligingly off. It curled in its basket, regarding Jon through heavy lids. Jon stood, brushing stray hairs from his trousers.

  ‘He wasn’t doing any harm,’ Jon said.

  ‘He’s shedding all over the place,’ said the Tattooed Man. ‘Did you see the state of the carpet?’

  Jon hadn’t.

  The Tattooed Man looked at Clint and said, ‘You old bastard, why don’t you keep your hair to yourself?’

  The dog thumped its tail once.

  ‘You old bastard,’ repeated the Tattooed Man. He refilled his glass and faced Jon. The sun was behind him, and Jon had to squint to see even the suggestion of his form.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ said the Tattooed Man. ‘What is there to do with you? What is there to do?’

  Jon licked his dry lips. He had not yet been invited to sit, and his legs were like rubber prostheses. He looked into his wine, took a shallow sip. ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted.

  The Tattooed Man unrolled his shirtsleeves and buttoned the cuffs.

  ‘How’s Olly?’ said Jon.

  ‘Forty stitches in his cheek,’ answered the Tattooed Man. ‘Another twenty in his gums. A good chance he’s going to lose some sensation on the right side of his face.’ He tapped his cheek. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘beneath the eye.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Jon.

  The Tattooed Man shrugged. ‘Nobody asked him to do what he did. I don’t know what else he expected.’

  Jon couldn’t look up.

  The Tattooed Man stepped forward from the sunlight. He was pointing to his temple. When Jon’s eyes had adjusted, he saw that he indicated a bruise, most of which was hidden by hair. ‘Look at that,’ the Tattooed Man said. He turned his back again and stood again at the cooker. He took a wooden spoon from a drawer and began to stir the pots in turn. He paused to reduce heat on two of the burners. Then he asked, ‘Do you know how long ago it was that anybody lifted their hand to me?’

  ‘No,’ Jon admitted.

  The Tattooed Man sipped from the wooden spoon, withdrawing­ sharply, sucking in a quick, cooling breath. ‘Do you know how long ago it was that anybody last raised their voice to me?’

  Jon’s hand was locked around the stem of the glass. He murmured a vaguely negative monosyllable.

  Once more the Tattooed Man turned to face him. He leaned over the kitchen table, his hands spread upon it. ‘Look at me,’ he insisted.

  Jon looked at him.

  With a rigid index finger, the Tattooed Man beat emphatically upon the stripped pine table-
top the rhythm of his address. ‘Do you think,’ he said, index finger emphasising each carefully enunciated syllable, ‘that I’m such an idiot and so very fond of you that I will allow you to treat me in such a fashion?’ He paused, the finger raised an inch above the table-top.

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Do you?’

  He brought the flat of his hand suddenly down on the table-top. Jon winced at the concussion.

  The Tattooed Man began to pace the length of the kitchen, up and down, down and up, rubbing his stinging palm. He stopped to Jon’s right, haloed by the setting sun. One hand cupped an elbow, an index finger pressed his lips.

  Very quietly, so that Jon had to lean towards him, he said again, ‘What am I to do with you? What am I to do?’

  He regarded Jon from beneath his brows. From the shadow of his face his eyes shone like icy beacons. He put his hands in his pockets and scuffed his feet once, contemplatively.

  ‘What you did to Rickets,’ he said, ‘that’s one thing. I could almost understand it. I know Rickets never treated you with any respect, and I know that what he did was unacceptable. But you should have come to me.’ He withdrew a hand from his pocket and pointed to his solar plexus. ‘You should have spoken to me. I might have needed Rickets. Or at the very least—,’ he scratched the base of his skull, ‘at the very least, you could have waited. You know how things are at the moment. You know the last thing I need is my name popping up on some police computer, even if only as a distant connection between you and Rickets. You know what things are like at the moment, Jon. You’re out there doing things. Do you think I ask you to do these things for fun? You know what’s going on.’

  ‘I know nothing,’ said Jon, not without bitterness.

  The Tattooed Man took a slow step forward. ‘You know,’ he muttered. He gripped the edge of the table. Jon saw that his knuckles, the scarred and twisted knobs of an arthritic old pugilist, were white. ‘Don’t tell me you don’t know.’

  Jon thought of the cottage. He looked at the floor.

  Clint the Alsatian whined and twitched in its sleep.

  The Tattooed Man relaxed his grip on the table’s edge. Jon saw his knuckles redden as blood rushed to fill starved capillaries.

  ‘Nevertheless,’ said the Tattooed Man. He seemed to be holding the table for balance, as if he felt faint. He closed his eyes for a second then stood abruptly upright and turned his back once more on Jon. His voice was louder and he waggled an admonishing finger like a melodramatic defence lawyer in an American courtroom drama. ‘Nevertheless,’ he repeated, ‘I might have understood. You haven’t been yourself since this friend of yours turned up. And don’t think that it’s escaped my attention that you did away with Rickets the day this friend’s—’

  ‘Andy,’ said Jon.

  ‘This friend’s,’ emphasised the Tattooed Man, ‘wife and child were returned to their maker. Don’t think I haven’t noticed that. So don’t think I’m stupid enough to assume that you did that to Rickets—’ with the word ‘that’ his lip curled with distaste: the look of a puritan reacting to decadent self-indulgence, ‘—because the stupid bastard got drunk and decided to beat you up one night.

  ‘What you did to him was a weak thing, Jon. It was childish and petulant. Don’t pretend to yourself that I imagine for a moment that it had anything at all to do with Rickets. I know you, remember. I thought I knew you.

  ‘It had nothing to do with Rickets. If you wanted to get Rickets, you would have scared the shit out of him. You’d have terrified him. You’d have made him piss himself with terror.

  ‘You wouldn’t have done what you did. You did it because this woman was dead and you were furious about it. You stupid bastard.’

  Jon pressed his palm to his cold lips and closed his eyes.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ the Tattooed Man scoffed. ‘Did you love her, Jon?’

  Slowly Jon shook his head. His eyes were tight closed.

  ‘What, then? What was it? Were you fucking her? Is that it?’

  Jon felt giddy. He reached out for the comforting plane of the table.

  The Tattooed Man was shouting now, accusatory and violent. ‘You weren’t even fucking her? What, then? What could possibly have caused you to do all this? You dreamed about fucking her? Is that it? You wanted to fuck your friend’s wife so you got him a job to get him out of the house? Is that it? Or did you just hope that his gratitude would be so overwhelming that he’d pass her on to you? How much did you want to humiliate that poor fucker?’

  Jon’s testicles shrivelled tight to his groin. Behind his palm, he opened his eyes. He saw the light shining red through the web of skin where his fingers met.

  It occurred to him to him that the Tattooed Man was reacting as if he had rehearsed every word of what he said, as if to calculate passion rather than surrender to it. The Tattooed Man had taken Olly to Jon’s house that evening not as a calculated warning. He had taken Olly simply and singly because Jon disliked him. He wanted Jon to see how he trusted others whom Jon could not bear.

  The Tattooed Man was jealous.

  Jon had tried to be too clever: he had tried to psychologise, he had tried to second-guess. Even now the Tattooed Man, perhaps despite himself, was hinting to Jon the truth. But Jon had been arrogant. He knew the cost of everything but the value of nothing.

  He lost his footing. He was exhausted and disorientated. He stumbled forward, against the table.

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake,’ the Tattooed Man spat with exasperated venom, as if the very sight of Jon disgusted him. ‘Sit down before you fall down.’

  Jon pulled back a chair and fell on to it. He rested his elbows on the table, and buried his face in his hands. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  ‘Can’t you even look at me when you speak?’

  Jon looked up. His fingers dragged down his lower lids, revealing much of the lower half of his eyes, which were raw and dry and red. ‘I’m sorry,’ he repeated.

  ‘You’re sorry.’ The Tattooed Man turned back to the cooker and stirred furiously. He turned off one of the hobs. ‘Listen to him,’ he said to the ceiling. ‘He’s sorry. I don’t care how fucking sorry you are,’ he said. ‘Sorry isn’t a pacifier. Sorry doesn’t make anything better. Sorry doesn’t undo anything.’ He threw the wooden spoon into a copper pot. Even from across the room, Jon could see that he fought to control his upper lip. It trembled as he sipped his wine.

  The Tattooed Man looked almost small. For the first time in their acquaintance, Jon wanted to protect him. He ran his hand through his greasy, cropped hair. ‘Bill,’ he said, ‘What can I say? I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry.’

  The Tattooed Man turned on him, and immediately Jon regretted using his name. His fists were clenched and Jon remembered, or perhaps imagined the power of those arms. The Tattooed Man, he thought, might smash the heavy wooden table with a single punch, might pick him up by the throat and, with the other hand, pulp his head like a ripe apple.

  The dog whimpered in its sleep and its legs twitched with an urgency which seemed to suggest that in its dreams it was pursued rather than pursuer.

  The sun had slipped beneath a bank of high cloud that sat on the horizon. From this elevated perspective it looked like a tidal wave on the point of crashing over the city, crushing it with the force of the hand of God. The dim light in the kitchen was faintly pink.

  ‘I might have forgiven this,’ said the Tattooed Man, ‘because I understand something of your motivation. I warned you once that sentimental love was the worst, the most profound weakness, and I knew that you understood not one word. I allowed you your dalliance with your friend and his wife because I knew that sooner or later you’d come to understand what I meant. I thought experience of its,’ he waved his hand, looking for the word, ‘debilitation would eventually strengthen you. Obviously I’ve been stupid. It made an idiot of you. It made you act like some spoiled brat wailing because a bigger kid stole his favourite toy.’ Sadly he shook his head. ‘I warned you, Jon. You didn’t lis
ten. Even this I might have allowed to pass. But you have been so stupid, have acted in such a fashion …’ He broke off. ‘I warned you once—it was the same day, I think, part of the same conversation—that, for all that I love you, if ever you were anything but loyal and trustworthy, if you were ever anything but useful, then I’d have not the slightest hesitation in—’ with theatrical finality, he clicked his fingers. He raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Not only,’ he continued, ‘did you strike me. Not only did you raise your voice to me. You tried to threaten me. Did you think your behaviour with the police was clever?’ He had, by now, regained his composure. The momentary glimpse Jon had been given of his vulnerability might have been calculated to emphasise the frigidity of his current malevolence. Jon was dismayed that he had been sufficiently stupid to think that the Tattooed Man would ever let him see anything but what he wanted him to see. The idea that the Tattooed Man had acted through jealousy seemed now absurd and childish—selfish, even, as if Jon had wilfully dampened his fear by attempting to convince himself that he was somehow more important that he was. He felt manipulated and frightened.

  ‘Do you think,’ resumed the Tattooed Man, ‘do you imagine, for a second, that even if you were to confess to everything you’ve done in my name, that your confession would ever leave the room in which you made it? Do you think you’d be alive to repeat it? Do you imagine,’ his mouth twisted into a viscously supercilious sneer, ‘that even if there was one policeman—just one, unlikely as that might be—who for some reason felt the desire to pursue what he had heard, do you imagine that he or she might be brave enough to do so?

  ‘Or do you imagine, Jon, that they would try and forget everything in their own best interest? Do you imagine them requesting a transfer? Do you imagine them leaving the police force? Do you imagine them finding an as yet undreamed of imaginative capacity as, every time they close their eyes, they picture the terrible things that could happen to their children; and then the horror as they remember for—what?—the hundredth time that day, that for every terrible thing that they can imagine, for every unspeakable thing they feel ashamed for even being able to conceive, there are things that defy even the worst excesses of their imagination, and that there are people willing—people longing—to do these things to their family, these things the like of which they can’t begin to conceive?’ He walked towards the table, stopped in a pink patch of sunlight.