Behindlings

by Nicola Barker

  Ten minutes later and she’d somehow connived to grab –wonder of wonders –a second stool. She yanked off her coat, slung it over, rested her sodden feet on its highest rung and linked her arms around her knees, struggling –and almost managing –to create a small, shoulder-high sanctum amidst the heinously convivial Friday night commonality.

  During a brief lull she stood up and ordered herself a beer, then quickly sat down again, clasping her hands around the bottle and shuddering with an ill-concealed social anxiety. Cold. Cold –And way too busy in here

  She was still very wet; dripping, in fact. But when she glanced around (bending her head at the neck, like a tortoise blinking up from the shelter of its shell into the mean spring sun) it felt like she was the only one. Everybody else seemed as crisp, high-baked and cheerfully compacted as a creaking oak barrel of quality ship’s biscuits. Dry. Dry as Oscar Wilde in mordant humour. Dry as an actor’s mouth before the first twitch of the curtain. Dry as a maiden Aunt’s favourite pale sherry…

  Roasted, seared, dehydrated.

  Dry

  She felt disgustingly conspicuous. And she was certain that when she’d first arrived she’d caught a glimpse of that nosy girl from the bakery over by the door. The one who…

  Jo whimpered miserably under her breath –

  Losing it.

  Didn’t want to seem… to seem… paranoid but there were almost certainly several others… from the… the…

  Past

  – A man with a ponytail standing by the cigarette machine. A pal of one of her brothers, maybe?

  From the basketball team? Athletics?

  Tennis

  Oh God, yes.

  Jo swigged hard on her drink and gazed at him, almost stupefied by those characteristics which rendered him familiar. He suddenly disengaged himself from the conversation he was having (with another man; ludicrously tall, in a football shirt) shifted position slightly and returned her stare. Cold. Very bold. Slightly stroppy.

  Jo panicked, shifting her eyes sharply sideways as she rapidly detached the bottle from her lips. It immediately repaid her clumsy manoeuvrings by bubbling up and then foaming over –

  Shit

  He was laughing at her

  Look at him laughing

  No–

  Don’t look

  Her coat slipped off the stool as she shook her fingers clean, assisted –in part –by a woman squeezing past her to get to the Ladies. A man close by stood on the hood, then apologised.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘you okay down there?’

  He bent down to retrieve it the same moment she did. Their heads collided.

  ‘That’s… Yes, I’m…’ she retrieved the coat and held it tightly on her knee, blushing furiously. She sucked her tongue. She chewed on her thumb nail. She glanced over towards the door, repeatedly.

  Only two more people entered in the course of this brief but torturous duration; a woman in heels with burnished auburn hair who was afforded a wild welcome from a group in an alcove to the left of the bar (was there some kind of loathsome Texan-themed eaterie through there?), and a very thin man.

  The thin man wore a baseball cap (his cursory nod to modernity) and an incongruously ancient brown leather waistcoat. He seemed, if anything, slightly older than the majority of Saks’ Friday night revellers and –this single detail distinguished him, more so, even, than his greying temples –he was absolutely sopping.

  He peered around the bar intently as he kicked the door shut behind him (Jo held only a partial view from her stool, but –as luck would have it –all major obstructions between them were sentient, prodigiously convivial and in perpetual transition).

  Jo noted that he was carrying a heavy rucksack on his back, that his baseball cap was khaki and featured a logo she vaguely recognised (not one of the major sports corporations, something a little more specialised, more… more niche-y; she gave it a sharp but sneaky double-look), that his boots were cleanish (from the rain) but that his ankles and his calves were exceedingly muddy.

  A walker, she decided.

  A stalker, potentially –

  Behindling

  Must be

  Instinct drew him from the crowds by the door to the crowds by the bar. He bumped into several people inadvertently, struggling to move forward with his bulky load, finding it difficult –at first –to focus properly in the bright light, the smoke.

  The bag was obviously very heavy.

  Jo watched him dispassionately for a while. Then it grew too painful. She reached out her hand –

  Oh the legacy of working in a caring profession –

  and touched his arm.

  He swung around at her touch, hitting a man carrying two beers, who slopped them, cursing, onto the wooden floor. He didn’t think to apologise. Instead he squinted down at Jo, his mouth a lean line of almost geometric disapproval.

  ‘There’s a spare stool here if you want it,’ she said, then added, a little embarrassedly, ‘I mean for your rucksack.’

  He wasn’t half as grateful as she might’ve expected him to be (if she’d had expectations, but she didn’t, really). He gazed at her, frowning. She moved her coat from the stool, her skin goose-pimpling at his hostility, ‘Take it.’

  She tried to sharpen her tone.

  He nodded and pulled off his rucksack. He placed it onto the stool, yanked off his jacket and slung it over, finally his cap, then rapidly pushed his way –side-stepping the painful duty of thanking her –to the bar.

  It was a tight squeeze. He soon facilitated his easier access (his foot –she later observed, after some poor soul had tripped over it –still carefully looped around the leg of the stool), by unleashing a gigantic sneeze. This cunning expedient cleared the decks impressively.

  He leaned across the counter, caught the barman’s eye and ordered himself a tomato juice with a squeeze of lemon, a pinch of salt and tiny dash of Worcester Sauce in it –

  Alcoholic

  Nurse’s instinct

  He was very meticulous about the exact proportions –

  Confirmation

  If any were needed

  This exactitude would not –Jo idly calculated –particularly endear him to the barman.

  She stared fixedly at her beer bottle, peeling the corner off the main label with her clean nail and listening distractedly as the thin man endeavoured to engage the now-truculent barhand in conversation –

  The cheek of it

  ‘Keep the change.’

  ‘Thanks,’ the barman responded. By the dryness of his tone Jo deduced that the amount proffered was by no means excessive.

  ‘In fact if you wouldn’t mind…’ the thin man continued, then paused, before adding, ‘I’m looking for somebody…’ he paused again, ‘hang on…’

  He removed something from his waistcoat pocket. A palm or a phone, inspected it for a moment (by which stage the barman was almost stamping with frustration –a furious queue rapidly forming behind him) but the man continued, unperturbedly, ‘I’m actually looking for a woman called… called Katherine. Katherine Turpin. I believe she’s well known around here, has a… how to express it? A reputation.’

  Jo looked up –

  Is he crazy?

  Doesn’t he…?

  Doesn’t…?

  ‘Never heard of her,’ the barman interrupted coldly.

  Did the thin man notice? That coldness? Josephine gazed at him pointedly through her down-turned lashes. Behindling. No doubt about it.

  The man returned to his stool, grumbling under his breath. He held his drink –she noticed –with a certain show of awkwardness, the way you might hold a large cockroach, a used syringe or a disgustingly ripe nappy.

  ‘Excuse me…’

  He’d placed his rucksack onto the floor and was perched on the stool now, inches from her (his knees turned politely in the opposite direction to forestall her getting –God forbid – the wrong impression).

  ‘Do you happen to live locally by any chance?’


  From his tone –how embarrassing –he seemed to be presuming that she’d been listening in on his previous conversation –

  Military training?

  Jo glanced up. Her face must’ve registered some kind of surprise, because he apologised. Very formally. He was… He was… Older

  ‘I’m sorry. I was just wondering if you might be… well, local,’ he repeated.

  Jo gave this question a moment’s consideration. She was about to answer. (‘No, I’m from Southend,’), but before she could, his thin face broke into a disarming smile, ‘I’m soaking.’ He shook off his arm, droplets of moisture splashing down onto the wooden floor, ‘and I can’t help feeling a little…’

  Jo put a clumsy hand to her forehead where a tiny pool of liquid still balanced invisibly across the thin line of her brow. Her fingers released it.

  ‘… self conscious,’ he finished humbly.

  The human face

  Just a facade

  ‘Yes. I was… I was walking myself,’ she mumbled, shaking a fresh concatenation of rivulets from her cheeks, her colour rising.

  ‘Pardon?’

  Slightly hard of hearing

  ‘I was… walking,’ she repeated, ‘and got a little… Well, I mean I got very…’

  ‘It’s a filthy night,’ he smiled again, this time rather more creakily. ‘My feet are absolutely…’

  His phone rang. Volume turned high. He almost spilled his drink.

  Jo dropped her coat again. He scooped down to pick it up, then looked around for somewhere to rest his glass. The bar was too far –bodies already crushing in and around the counter. Jo put out her hand and took her coat, then removed the drink from him, grimacing submissively.

  ‘I’ll just hold…’ she said.

  ‘Thank you. Sorry.’ He clutched at his waistcoat –

  That waistcoat

  Worn as the skin of a Chinese pensioner

  In the pocket she noticed…

  Can’t be

  … an old, well-thumbed copy of Louis L’Amour’s…

  Fuck me

  … Silver…

  Huh?

  … Silver C…

  Huh?

  … Sil…

  What the…?

  The thin man drew the phone from his pocket. He pressed a button and placed it to his ear. Jo turned modestly towards the bar, ending up with an eyeful of a woman’s cigarette (held –ever so politely –behind her back) and the top of her companion’s bedenimed rear.

  Silver Canyon

  Good God

  ‘Yes?’ Arthur spat, irritably.

  Jo looked up at the ceiling –

  Silver Canyon

  – then down at the floor again.

  ‘No,’ his tone sweetened dramatically, once he’d identified his interlocutor, ‘no, I’m in town, I’m…’

  But he had a harsh accent just the same. Not a local accent. Not Kentish. Maybe a Londoner. A Cockney. But posh. And a strange voice, too; like a shallow wave washing over shingle.

  ‘I left the craft… No… I walked back under the flyover. I had…’

  His voice suddenly grew softer, ‘Several people came. One of them an Ombudsman. Two others. Someone from –well I think it was English Nature or the National Trust –something charitable at any rate. They didn’t discuss…’ he placed a careful hand over both his mouth and the receiver, ‘they didn’t discuss exact amounts, but I got the impression that you could pretty much dictate…’ he was quiet for a moment, ‘but that doesn’t… It can’t be my decision. They’re offering money to you, for services ren… ren… rendered…’

  A very long silence. ‘But that’s ridiculous. You expect me to negotiate and then to… to… to keep…? That’s…’

  Now he sounded furious, ‘I’m not interested in playing a moral game. I’m not interested in implicating myself. I’m simply doing you a…’

  Short pause, ‘Do you always do this?’

  Shorter pause, ‘So you actually never…’

  Stunned silence.

  ‘Yes… Yes. But they were very… terribly hush-hush. Another guy who… No. No. The ombudsman seemed extremely keen to…’

  He paused, ‘I realise they have no actual restraining powers as… as… as such, but he was…’

  The thin man stopped sharp, mid-sentence and cleared his throat. When next he spoke his voice was italicised by indignance, ‘Of course he didn’t shit me up. I merely thought…’

  He paused.

  ‘I’m in a bar. No. No, not the Lobster Smack. That’s too… I came the other way, I already said, under the flyover. This place… It’s on the High Street. It’s called…’

  Arthur positioned his thin fingers over the phone’s mouthpiece and turned to Jo, ‘Excuse me…’

  He tapped her on the shoulder.

  ‘Excuse me.’

  She jumped out of her reverie and spun around to look at him. ‘Sorry,’ he smiled, ‘do you happen to know the name of this bar by any chance?’

  ‘Saks,’ Jo said.

  ‘Thanks.’

  He returned to his conversation, ‘It’s called Saks. It’s very full. We’d be much better off… Well… I… Yes. Well that’s… that’s entirely up to you, but…’

  Jo wiped her nose –

  Silver Canyon

  She found herself looking down at his bag and his hat. The hat. It had a special logo on it. A squidgy bear-like… no koala-like creature. Above it the word Gumble.

  He was still talking. ‘No. I… If it’s a standard type I might have some idea, Wesley, but I’m hardly… I can’t…’

  Jo froze.

  1… 2… 3… 4…

  Ten-second delay.

  ‘Josie. Josie. Hey!’

  Jo turned around, still almost oblivious.

  Huh?

  Anna.

  Anna.

  Anna Wright, literally ten inches away, fish-eye lensed by her unexpected proximity.

  ‘Packed or what?’ she bellowed.

  Jo tried to stand up, shocked. No room.

  ‘Need another?’

  Anna pointed at her beer.

  Jo inspected her bottle, panicking –

  Get away from here

  ‘No. Hello. That would be… Yes. That would be fantastic.’

  ‘Back in a minute.’ Anna moved off to the right, pulling a wallet from her pocket. The thin man had… he’d stashed his phone away already. And he was looking at her. He was pointing –What?

  ‘Oh right,’ she gabbled, her nose tingling sharply, ‘of course. There you go…’

  She passed him his drink back, dabbing her nose –self-consciously –on her sleeve.

  ‘Thanks.’ He grabbed his coat, ‘Your friend’s just arrived. I should probably…’

  Stop… Stop… Stop shaking your head, Jo,

  It’s a statement of fact

  He stood up, balancing his drink, his coat and his rucksack unevenly in his arms, pushing the stool closer to her with his knee and staggering to a small gap next to the bar.

  ‘That’s very…’ she said –

  Gentlemanly

  He was facing away from her but he was still –she observed anxiously –just within spitting distance. She shoved her beer between her knees and smoothed a hand over her short hair. Anna was fighting her way back already. She hailed several people and kissed two cheeks (twice, in the air) on her brief walk over. Seemed to know everybody –

  Dry as a bone.

  Goddamn her

  Jo had no chance –and no room, either –to manoeuvre before Anna’d handed her a second bottle, grabbed the stool and plonked herself down on it. She was drinking red wine. Burgundy.

  ‘Jesus you’re soaking.’

  Jo looked down at herself, ‘I know. I…’

  ‘I have had the worst fucking day,’ Anna interrupted, ‘you simply would not believe…’

  She scrabbled around in her pockets and pulled out her cigarettes and a lighter, ‘Smoke?’

  ‘No. No I…’

/>   ‘Nurse. Of course you bloody don’t. Do you mind?’

  ‘Not at all. And thanks for…’

  Jo raised the second bottle.

  Anna lit up. She inhaled, she exhaled.

  ‘So,’ she smiled, slipping the packet and her lighter back into her pocket, ‘what’s the story?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  Did she know about the hospital?

  The trouble?

  How could she?

  ‘With Wesley. What’s the story there? I almost shat my pants when I saw it was you walking along that road tonight. I couldn’t…’

  Jo peeked surreptitiously towards the thin man by the bar. Anna was such a foghorn –such a squawker – he must be…

  She shifted on her stool. Her coat fell from her lap –

  Damn

  ‘You okay there, Josie?’

  She retrieved the coat.

  ‘No I’m… That’s fine.’

  She bundled it up again, trying not to spill her beers. She’d barely touched the first one. She sucked on it to gain time. Drank down about half, inhaled, hiccuped, apologised, then wiped off her mouth with her hand.

  But Anna had focus. She had zeal.

  ‘So what’s the story with Wesley? Eddie said you actually knew those two old men out there this evening. The grumpy one’s called Doc. He’s the leader, apparently. His son Followed, but only very briefly. Drowned in Anglesey a couple of months back. Got caught up in that whole chocolate-wrapper-challenge thing. It was all over the papers.’

  ‘The Loiter.’

  ‘Pardon?

  ‘That’s… That’s what they…’

  Anna’s eyes tightened fractionally, ‘So you are involved with them to some degree?’

  ‘Well, no… I mean…’ Jo nodded (Anna’s powers of deduction were plainly not all they might be), ‘only by sheer coincidence… I wasn’t… I just happened to bump into them earlier.’

  Anna was nodding too now, encouraging her.

  ‘I didn’t really…’

  ‘And you also know, I presume,’ she interjected, ‘the kind of man you’re dealing with here?’ Jo’s eyes widened, uncertainly. She slowly shook her head. ‘He’s a pig.’