Behindlings

by Nicola Barker

  Fifty thousand rats, launching themselves into the water like a huge, utterly coherent, sharp-toothed Armada…

  Badgers running riot, under the bastard bramble bushes…

  Snipe. Screaming. Flapping from their low roosts up into the air…

  The infernal

  The fucking, bloody, infernal rip and squeak and scurry of the limitless Big Black

  He reached a tentative hand towards the wooden rail –(had clambered down the bank backwards –skulking like a crab –on his hands and knees. Abandoning all remaining vestiges of locomotive dignity. Clawing into the mud with his bare hands and fingers –

  Clinging on

  Desperate).

  The boat was dark. The water was vile and black and treacherous –he peered sideways, over the rail, squinting into the sleeting rain (which duly blinded him for a moment), looking for confirmation –

  Where was the water?

  In? Out?

  Couldn’t actually see anything, only hear the smack and the suck and the gurgle of it –

  Same as ever

  The walkway wobbled under him –

  Or is it actually my legs, wobbling under me?

  I am wobbling…

  Totally

  He staggered across it, wiping his eyes with his fingers, grumbling (more for effect than anything; to bolster). Wrestled with the knob on the door. Finally mastered –

  Thank God

  – the dodgy mechanism, and yanked it open. Paused on the brink. Felt –

  Scared, dammit

  – a brief moment of unease. Swallowed it back. Entered. The door slammed shut behind him.

  Tried to remember the exact whereabouts of the two gas-fired lamps. Felt for the lighter in his pocket. Staggered around blindly with his outstretched –

  Uh…

  – hands –

  What the…?!

  – then suddenly began –

  Sweet Jesus!

  The stink!

  – sniffing obsessively. Turning his head around, reaching out his hands, just… just sniffing –

  Badly rotting egg?

  Pure sulphur?

  Horse shit?

  Total decomposition?

  He stopped moving. Drew his arms in. Stood very still. Could hear…

  Oh Jesus –

  Worst-case-scenario

  … could hear breathing.

  And it was… it was…

  Big

  Is that possible?

  Can breathing have a size?

  A stature?

  … like the breathing of a boxer, or a… a wrestler. An American WWF monster with biceps like pineapples and a head like twenty-two pounds of pink boiled ham.

  Arthur backed off a-way, towards the door. His rucksack hit a picture or a bookshelf or a cabinet. Made it clatter. He jumped forward –

  Like a silly tart

  – jibbering, then turned and rushed –headfirst –towards the exit. The door, when he grabbed it –

  Oh yes,

  Of course

  – was stuck.

  ‘I wouldn’t…’

  Aaaaaargh!

  A horrible –Tiny

  – little voice was squeaking. It was –

  Directly

  – behind him.

  Uh…

  Vindictive-woman-dwarf

  Uh…

  Red cape

  Uh…

  Intent on murder

  ‘Just listen to me,’ the small voice said.

  Art had somehow contrived to push his hand –

  How did…?

  Fuck!

  – through the glass in the window. He pulled it quickly back –

  Mistake

  Seconds after –long seconds –he could hear the fragments tinkling down onto the gangplank, into the water.

  ‘I’m only a small girl,’ the voice said (not a little irritably), ‘I don’t mean you any harm.’

  ‘Just do what you have to do,’ Arthur found himself whimpering, withering up inside with fear, ‘just do what you have to do. And do it quickly.’ He was holding his bloody hand out in front of him, like a bit-part actress in a horror movie.

  A small patch of light suddenly appeared, to the far end of the cabin. Arthur blinked towards it

  A torch

  It was low, held by –it swung around –a small hand –an arm (fur-encased) –Arthur shuddered –a shoulder (more fur, grey in colour) –then a little head. Not a crazy-ugly-killer dwarf face. A nice enough face. Gappy-toothed. Boyish.

  ‘I’m Sasha,’ the mouth in the head announced, ‘and this is Brion.’

  The torch dipped left, its beam illuminating a monkey-puzzle of horn, a wide brown eye. A long –a very long –nose. A suggestion of whisker.

  ‘Don’t panic. Brion is from Norwegian breeding stock and very meek…’

  Arthur stared at the deer, blankly.

  ‘Unless he’s provoked.’

  Bri-on…?

  ‘I mean he kicked a boy once who poked him in his privates…’ she sniggered, ‘but who wouldn’t?’

  Bri-on…?

  The beast grumbled at the unwelcome torch-light; a sound not unlike an old Douglas motorbike struggling up a steep incline.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Arthur asked, bringing his hand even closer to his face, confusedly, trying to focus in on it –

  Warm

  Wet

  ‘Before I give anything else away,’ she said, ‘if you don’t mind…’

  She shone the torch directly at him. Arthur covered his face with his arm, pained by the light, grimacing.

  ‘You definitely aren’t the person I was expecting,’ the girl mused, after a brief period of quiet scrutiny, ‘and you’re not my stupid Uncle Toby, either. Are you renting this craft, or are you just an impostor?’

  ‘No. I’m… Yes, of course I’m renting. I’m Arthur Young,’ Arthur said, ‘and I’ve actually…’ he indicated towards his hand, speaking very slowly and clearly, as if presenting an item of general interest during a primary school Show and Tell, ‘I’ve cut my hand. I’m bleeding.’

  ‘That’s the least of your problems,’ she informed him, twirling the torch around flamboyantly. He blinked over at her, suspiciously, through the moving light –

  Is she a poltergeist?

  He felt confused. Not a little nauseous.

  ‘Take a look…’

  She walked towards him (as if in slow motion) –

  Is it her?

  Is it me?

  – then paused, turned briefly, pointed firmly at the reindeer, ‘Stay, Brion.’

  She was about nine years old, warmly ensconced in a thick fur jacket –

  Rabbit, mostly, by the look of it

  – and waterproof trousers which rustled as she moved. Heavy boots. A red knitted deerstalker-style hat, tied under her chin, with a white pom-pom on top. Red gloves; matching pom-poms dangling at either wrist.

  Arthur couldn’t tell if it was the girl or the animal, but as she drew closer there was definitely the sense of an encroaching scent; a powerful musk-based aroma of some kind or other.

  She stood next to him, pushed open the door and shone the torch out onto the bridge.

  ‘Oh my… God.’ Arthur’s jaw dropped.

  There was no bridge. Half of it was gone. The other half. He briefly remembered part of the rail rotting away under his fingers

  – the left-hand-side –earlier –but this was…

  Wow

  Now all that remained was the right-hand rail (his knees went weak –Didn’t I just…? and some arbitrary slats of wood breaking off almost into thin –

  Pretty much into thin

  – air.

  ‘Don’t know how you made it over,’ the girl ruminated, ‘I thought about trying to cross back myself, but it seemed too shaky. And I wouldn’t leave Brion,’ she continued passionately, ‘he’s my rock.’

  ‘I did think it was a little…’ Arthur murmured, still staring at the walkway, con
founded, ‘a little wobbly.’

  ‘Understatement of the year,’ she snorted, ‘the whole bloody structure’s collapsing. I noticed soon after I climbed on board. I told Brion to stay outside –at the bottom of the bank –but he came on over anyhow –to investigate –while I was busy snooping. The bridge must’ve fallen in under the weight of him. Luckily he’s sure-footed. And he has a very level head…’ she paused. ‘For a deer,’ she conceded.

  ‘We should definitely get out of…’ Arthur let go of his wrist, pulled his hat down, decisively, ‘if I go first you… whoops’.

  The entire structure tipped as the reindeer shifted its weight.

  ‘Stay, Brion,’ the girl barked. The reindeer moved back to its original position. The structure righted itself again.

  ‘Just hold the torch out ahead of me.’

  Arthur adjusted the girl’s hand with the torch so that he could see exactly what he was up against. ‘You didn’t think,’ he asked, gazing at the full horror of the ruined bridge anew, ‘to try and warn me in some way before I stepped out onto that thing?’

  ‘I was hiding,’ she shrugged, gazing up at him.

  There was something… a certain…

  A quality…

  Arthur blinked.

  ‘Anyway, I thought you might be one of the bad people…’ she put out her hand to adjust the pom-pom on her hat, ‘but I changed my mind when you started screaming. We have a fish eagle back home who screams exactly like that…’ She paused, delicately, ‘a lady fish eagle,’ she elucidated, releasing the pom-pom and smiling.

  Arthur half-smiled himself, more from –

  Pain

  Embarrassment

  – exhaustion than anything.

  ‘Which bad people did you have in mind?’ he asked, trying –

  Failing

  - to conjure up an air of gentle superiority.

  ‘The ones who sabotaged this craft, silly,’ the girl performed a rapid guide with the torch, ‘see? I was hiding out in that blackthorn copse,’ she pointed (the torch’s beam didn’t reach that far), ‘for a good hour at least before I came over. There was someone on board. Making a real racket. Once they’d gone I decided to have a quick poke around. Saw straight off that there were deep cuts into all of the major supporting struts. So if the wind rises –and with your added weight on board, obviously –we are well and truly…’ she smiled sweetly, ‘shafted.’

  As she spoke, the girl shifted her torch to one of the several side beams. It had been hacked up with an axe. Clumsily.

  ‘And look…’ she continued, pointing the torch to one of the oil lamps.

  Smashed

  ‘Oil everywhere. I’m only glad you didn’t try and strike a…’

  Before she’d completed her sentence, a crashing outside made her calmly adjust the torch’s focus. The section of the gangplank closest to them had just fallen clean away. Seven, maybe eight planks in total.

  Arthur stepped back. The boat shifted, infinitesimally.

  ‘match,’ the girl concluded –but somewhat distractedly –placing her hand onto the doorframe for added support, then leaning boldly forward and shining the torch down and down and down, into the distant swirl of icy black water.

  Thirty-seven

  Katherine sat – like a pony-club princess – bolt upright astride her burnished-brass bed, supported from the rear by two large cream-coloured, quilted-nylon pillows (heavily frilled and fully coordinated with her cream-coloured wheat-and-cornflower-design counterpane). She had Wesley’s rucksack held firmly between her thighs, and the lamb’s tail he’d given her shoved – like a pen – behind her ear.

  She was steaming slightly – from a recent bath – and her white hair was parted and divided into two wonky plaits (the ends bound up tightly by thin pieces of lilac ribbon) which hung – still damp – across either shoulder.

  In the gentle light of her two matching wicker-work bedside lamps, her chin and nose appeared slightly pink and raw from her energetic sexual exploits of earlier.

  Protruding from beneath her right thigh – and crushed into the counterpane – lay a letter, already opened, the envelope postmarked from two days before. On her left-hand side lay an old, blue, pocket-Oxford dictionary, its spine broken and its cover partially torn.

  Katherine gazed around her bedroom (her eyes alighting on her white and gold Barbie-style dressing table covered in an incongruous collection of stylish 1930s bowls and boxes in a combination of glass, porcelain and decoupage, her matching white and gold bookshelf – a well-maintained group of period-costume oriental dolls sitting pertly on top – her built-in wardrobe – neatly shut, with an incongruous No Smoking sign hung casually on the protruding key – and on its own small, free-standing table; her magnificent two-floored front-hinged Georgian-style doll’s house, shining in a luminous top-of-the-milk white, with eight windows – all hung in matching velvet – and a bright blue front door with gold-plated letterbox, number, knob and knocker).

  Everything – as she appraised it – seemed in tolerably good order. Having finally convinced herself of this fact, Katherine reached down for the letter – tipped herself up slightly to facilitate its removal – and closely re-scrutinised the post mark on the envelope’s top left-hand corner.

  She was wearing only a dressing gown in antique satin, smothered in wild orange and black blotches, edged with a contrasting – and luminous – shocking-pink trim and tied loosely at its waist by a belt carefully handcrafted in lime green wool from the simple method of crochet she’d been taught – as a child – involving a hooked needle and a cotton reel with four nails banged into the top of it. She twiddled at the end of this belt with her spare hand, distractedly.

  The letter was signed; A well-wisher. It had been typed – she immediately deduced – on a word processor, and printed onto an A4 sheet of unrecycled – she winced – general office paper (she flipped it fully open, her top lip curling). The post mark – as she inspected it again – informed her that it had been sent from a mailbox in Southend.

  Dear Miss Turpin,

  She read, supporting it on top of Wesley’s fat rucksack;

  First, please let me apologise in advance for my contacting you in such an impromptu manner. Second, let me assure you that there are very good reasons for my needing to do so under the protective – if somewhat disreputable – guise of anonymity. Thirdly, while there is little point in my struggling to explain what these (very personal) reasons are here, let me at least hope that you will try and believe me when I say that my motivations in this matter are entirely reputable, above board, even sisterly.

  To the point: –

  If, by chance, a man called Arthur Young tries to make contact with you over the next few days, please be sure to treat him – and the things he says – with due caution. Arthur is an incredibly kind, gentle and honourable man, but suffers from a condition called Korsikov Syndrome which affects him in a variety of ways; both physical and mental.

  Arthur is not – I repeat NOT – a dangerous or a vindictive person, but may sometimes suffer from periods of paranoia and confusion.

  I’ve taken it upon myself to contact you in this direct manner because of your (I don’t doubt) unwitting connection with the Wesley situation. Arthur also feels himself to be ‘involved’ (however spuriously) in that situation. On this basis he may well feel tempted to contact you while he – and Wesley – are in the Canvey vicinity.

  Please, please, please do not feel any undue concern about Arthur’s temporary presence in your home town, and let me stress again that in the normal run of things Arthur is a good, kind and highly altruistic individual. You are in no physical danger and have nothing whatsoever to fear from him so long as you bear my friendly counsel in mind.

  Yours, in all good faith,

  A well-wisher.

  Katherine read the letter twice over, harrumphed, tossed one of her two plaits behind her shoulder and then grabbed her dictionary. She turned to the letter K and tried to find the wordr />
  Korsikov –

  Nothing

  She quickly flipped back to A and searched out the dictionary definition of the word Altruistic. Under Altruism she read: regard for others as a principle of action.

  She frowned, trying to make sense of this for a second –

  Regard for others as a principle of action

  She snorted, flung down the dictionary, folded up the letter murmuring, ‘Sisterly my fanny,’ pushed it back into its envelope and tossed it onto the floor.

  She stared at Wesley’s rucksack for a moment, drew a deep breath, then reached out both hands to touch it (using only the centre of her palms; lifting the tips of her fingers, sensuously).

  Ah…

  After a minute or so she shuddered –her knees tightening –and shifted herself further forward, away from her cushions and down the bed, pulling up her skinny, white legs and weaving them tightly around the rucksack –as if to try and preclude its sudden escape from her.

  The rucksack was a large, black, packed-full, decidedly weighty, heavily-pocketed canvas object. The buckles were a scuffed silver, the tags, a cracked and browning leather. The maker’s mark had been torn away –almost damaging the integrity of the bag’s canvas –and in its place –or partially –were glued a series of cub-scout patches. One was for road safety. Another for fire-starting. A third was for bird identification. The fourth Katherine couldn’t entirely decipher –it was too heavily damaged –but might’ve possibly been sailing –

  Or sumo

  Or scuba-diving

  She bent down and sniffed, just above where the badges were –her head nudging unmelodiously into the short neck of Wesley’s banjo which protruded –rather vulnerably –from the left-hand side.

  Wood smoke

  Beef jerky

  Cat-sick

  Lavender

  She snorted under her breath, then reached out for the bag’s buckles, starting in on the main central ones, rolling them through, pulling them up, yanking them free, flipping the whole central flap back in a single smooth motion –

  Good

  She peeked inside. Pushed carefully to the left –and totally supported by a well-formed, self-contained plywood partition –was Wesley’s banjo. She’d been longing to see it properly. She carefully manoeuvred it up and out, held it aloft with both hands and inspected it closely.