Joel eased the door closed and was immediately aware of two sensations: the scent of fresh mint and the pleasant ticking of clocks. He was in a place of regimentally organised clutter. Aside from the elephant, the walls of the tiny vestibule held a collection of small black-and-white photographs of antique vintage, but not a single one was askew in that way framed pictures become when they get knocked about by the inhabitants of a house. Beneath them on one side of the vestibule and extending into the shoe-box-size sitting room that opened off it, bookshelves acted the part of wainscoting and they held volumes that filled them to bursting. But all the books were arranged neatly, with their unbroken spines facing outward and right side up. Above these bookshelves, more than a dozen clocks hung, the source of the ticking. Joel found it soothing.
“Come along. Step in.” Ivan Weatherall spoke from a table that had been pressed into the bay window of the sitting room, which explained to Joel how he’d been seen hesitating at the front of the house. He joined Ivan and saw that within the small space of the room, the man had managed to fashion a study, a workshop, and a music room. At this moment, he was using the space in workshop mode: He was attempting to empty a large cardboard box into which something was packed tightly in a block of Styrofoam. “You’ve appeared at just the right moment,” Ivan told him. “Give a hand, please. I’m having the devil of a time getting this out. It was, I assume, packed by sadists who even as I speak are having a wonderful laugh at the thought of my impotent struggles. Well, I shall have the last laugh now. Come along, Joel. Even in my own demesne, you shall find I don’t bite.”
Joel approached him. As he did, the scent of mint grew stronger, and he saw that Ivan was chewing it. It wasn’t gum, but actual mint. There was a shallow bowl of leafy sprigs at one side of the table, and Ivan dipped into it for a stem, which he held in his lips like a cigarette as Joel joined him.
“It appears we shall have to dance this out. If you’ll be so good as to hold the box down, I believe I can manage to jiggle everything else loose.”
Joel did as he was asked, setting the “It’s a Boy” banner on the floor and going to Ivan’s assistance. As Ivan jiggled, Joel said, “Wha’s in here, anyway?”
“A clock.”
Joel glanced round at the timepieces that already showed the hour of the day—and sometimes the day itself—in numbers large, numbers small, and numbers not at all. He said, “What d’you need wiv another one, then?”
Ivan followed his gaze. “Ah. Yes. Well, it’s not about telling time, if that’s what you mean. It’s about the adventure. It’s about the delicacy, balance, and patience required to see a project through, no matter how complicated it looks. I build them, in other words. I find it relaxing. Something to think about rather than thinking about”—he smiled—“what I would otherwise think about. And beyond that, I find the process a microcosm of the human condition.”
Joel frowned. He’d never heard anyone speak as Ivan spoke, even Kendra. He said, “What’re you on about anyways?”
Ivan didn’t reply until they had the block of Styrofoam released. He lifted the top piece off the lower three-quarters of it, and he gently laid this to one side. “I’m on about delicacy, balance, and patience. Just as I said. The communion one has with others, the duty one must fulfill to self, and the commitment required to attain one’s goals.” He peered into the Styrofoam container, which Joel could now see held plastic packets bearing single large letters, along with small cardboard cartons with labels affixed to them. Ivan began to lift these out and he laid them lovingly on the table, along with a pamphlet that appeared to be a set of instructions. Last to come out was a packet from which Ivan drew a pair of thin white gloves. He laid these gently on his knee and twisted in his chair to go through a wooden box sitting at one side of the table. From this he unearthed a second pair of gloves, and these he passed to Joel. “You’ll be needing them,” he said. “We can’t touch the brass or we’ll mark it with our fingerprints and that will be the end of it.”
Joel obediently put on the gloves as Ivan opened the pamphlet, spread it on the table, and pulled an ancient pair of wire spectacles from the breast pocket of his tattersall shirt. He looped the wires over his ears and then ran his finger down the first page of the pamphlet till he found what he wanted. He donned his own pair of white gloves and said, “The inventory first. Crucial, you know. Others might foolishly forge ahead without making certain they have everything they need. We, however, shall not be so foolhardy as to assume we’re in possession of all items necessary for completion of this journey. Let’s have the bag marked A. Don’t tear it, though. We shall be putting everything back inside once we’ve made certain all its contents are accounted for.”
Thus the two of them set to work, comparing what had been sent to what was on the list. They ticked off every screw and minuscule bolt, every gear, every column, and each piece of brass. As they did so, Ivan chatted away about timepieces, explaining the origin of his love affair with clocks. Upon the conclusion of this expatiation, he said suddenly, “What brings you to Sixth Avenue, Joel?”
Joel went for the easiest reply. “Saw the advert.”
Ivan raised an eyebrow in need of trimming. “Which would be…?”
“The one for the script class. At Paddington Arts. Dat’s you teachin it, innit?”
Ivan looked pleased. “Indeed. Are you going to enrol? Have you come to ask me about it? Age is no object, if that concerns you. We always engage in a collaborative effort, from which will emerge the film itself.”
“What? You make a real film?”
“Yes indeed. I did tell you I once produced films, yes? Well, this is where every film begins: with a script. I’ve found that the more minds that engage in the process, the better the process in its initial stages. Later on as we begin to edit and polish, someone emerges as the strongest voice. Does this interest you?”
“I was getting a sign f’r birthdays,” Joel said. “Down the Harrow Road.”
“Oh. I see. Don’t fancy a career in film, then? Well, I suppose I can hardly blame you, modern films being mostly blue screens, miniatures, car chases, and explosions. Hitchcock, I tell you, Joel, is spinning in his grave. Not to mention what Cecil B. DeMille is doing. So what do you have in store for yourself? Rock ’n’ roll singer? Footballer? Lord chief justice? Scientist? Banker?”
Joel got to his feet abruptly. While other elements of the conversation might have been tough for him, he did know when someone was having a laugh at his expense, even if that person was not actually laughing. He said, “I’m off, man,” and he took off the gloves and picked up his banner.
“Good heavens!” Ivan jumped to his feet. “What’s wrong? Have I said…? See here, I can see I’ve offended you in some way, but rest assured I had no intention…Oh. I do think I know. You’ve assumed…I say, Joel, have you assumed I was taking the mickey? But why should you not be lord chief justice or prime minister if that’s what you prefer? Why shouldn’t you be an astronaut or a neurosurgeon if that’s your interest?”
Joel hesitated, gauging the words, their tone, and Ivan’s expression. The man stood with his hand extended, white gloved like Mickey Mouse.
Ivan said, “Joel. Perhaps you ought to tell me.”
Joel felt a chill. “What?”
“Most people do find me as harmless as a box of cotton wool. I do natter on sometimes without thinking exactly how I sound. But, good Lord, you know that by now, don’t you? And if we’re to become friends instead of acting out the roles assigned to us at Holland Park School—and by this I mean mentor and pupil—then it seems that as friends—”
“Who says friends?” Joel felt laughed at again. He ought to have felt cautious as well, with a grown man talking about friendship between them. But he didn’t feel cautious, just confused. And even then it was a confusion born of the novelty of the situation. No adult had ever asked him for friendship, if that was what Ivan was indeed doing.
“No one, actually,” Ivan said. “But
why shouldn’t we be friends if that’s what we mutually decide and want? Can one actually have enough friends when it comes down to it? I don’t think so. As far as I’m concerned, if I share with someone an interest, an enthusiasm, a particular way of looking at life…whatever it is…that makes that person a kindred soul no matter who he is. Or she, for that matter. Or even what, because frankly, there are insects, birds, and animals with whom I have more in common sometimes than with people.”
At this Joel smiled, taken by the image of Ivan Weatherall in communion with a flock of birds. He lowered the banner to his side. He heard himself saying what he’d never expected even to whisper to another living soul. “Psychiatrist.”
Ivan nodded thoughtfully. “Noble work. The analysis and reconstitution of the suffering mind. Assisted brain chemistry. I’m impressed. How did you settle on psychiatry?” He returned to his seat and gestured Joel back to his side to continue their inventory of parts for the clock.
Joel didn’t move. There were some things that didn’t bear speaking of, even now. But he decided to try, at least in part. He said, “Toby’s birthday was las’ week. When it was someone’s birthday, we used to…” He felt a sting in his eyes, the way they would feel if smoke were seeping beneath his closed lids from someone’s cigarette. But there was no cigarette languishing in an ashtray in this room. There was only Ivan, and he was reaching for another sprig of mint, which he rolled between his fingers and popped into his mouth. He kept his gaze fixed on Joel, though, and Joel continued because it felt as if the words were actually being drawn from him, not as if he were truly speaking. “Dad sang on birthdays, innit. But he couldn’t sing, not really, and we always had a laugh ’bout that. He had dis mad ukulele—yellow plastic, it was—an’ he pretend he knew how to play. ‘Takin requests now, boys and girls,’ he’d say. If Mum was there, she’d ask for an Elvis. An’ dad say, ‘Dat ol’ bag, Caro? You outta step wiv the times, woman.’ But he sing it anyways. He sing so bad, it’d make your ears hurt an’ everyone’d shout at him to stop.”
Ivan sat still, one hand on the pamphlet they’d been using for the inventory and the other on his thigh. “And then?”
“He’d stop. Bring the presents in instead. I got a football once. Ness got a Ken doll.”
“Not then.” Ivan’s words sounded kind. “I meant later. I know you don’t live with your parents. The school told me that, of course. But I don’t know why. What happened to them?”
This was no-man’s-land. Joel made no reply. But for the first time, he wanted to. Yet to speak was to violate a family taboo: No one talked about it; no one could cope with saying the words.
Joel tried. “Cops said he went to the off licence. Mum told ’em no cos he was cured. He wa’n’t usin anymore, she said. He wasn’t usin nuffink. He was jus’ fetchin Ness from her dancin lesson like he always did. ’Sides, he had me an’ Toby wiv him. How’d they t’ink he meant to use if he had me an’ Toby wiv him?”
But that was all he could manage. The rest of it…It was too sore a place. Even thinking about it hurt at a level no palliative could ever reach.
Ivan was watching him. But now Joel didn’t want to be watched. There was only one option he could see at this point. Taking his banner with him, he hurried from the house.
IN THE AFTERMATH of the Blade’s descent upon Edenham Way, Dix made his decision. And he communicated it to Kendra in a way that brooked neither refusal nor argument. He was moving in, he informed her. He wasn’t going to let her live on her own—even in the company of three children and perhaps because of the company of those particular three children—while some lout like the Blade was intent upon sorting them out in a fashion anyone could easily guess at. Besides, whatever the Blade’s intentions had been on the night of his visit to Kendra and the Campbells, those intentions would now be fortified by the treatment he’d received at Dix’s hands. And make no mistake about it, Dix told Kendra when she attempted to protest his plans, the Blade wasn’t going to target Dix for payback. That was not the way his type sought revenge. Instead, he was going to go after one of the other members of the household. Dix meant to be there to stop him.
He didn’t mention the fact that, by moving in, he’d be one step closer to getting what he wanted, which was a sense of permanency with Kendra. He couched the rest of his explanation in terms of his own need to get away from the Falcon, where living with two bodybuilding flatmates had long since constituted swimming in an excess of testosterone. To his parents he merely said that this was something he had to do. They had little choice but to accept his decision. They could see that Kendra was not an ordinary sort of woman—and this they decided was to her credit—but still they’d always had their own dreams about what sort of life their son ought to be leading, and that life had never contained a forty-year-old woman responsible for three children. Aside from their initial murmurs of caution, however, they kept their reservations to themselves.
Joel and Toby were happy to have Dix join their household, for to them he was something of a god. Not only had he appeared from out of nowhere and saved the day in the fashion of a cinematic action hero, but he was also in their eyes perfect in all ways. He talked to them as if they were equals, he clearly adored their aunt—which was a plus, as they were becoming fond of her too—and if he was perhaps rather too single-minded on the subject of bodily perfection in general and his bodily perfection in particular, that was easy enough to ignore because of the security his presence brought them.
The only problem was Ness. It soon became apparent that, as drunk as she had been on the occasion, she didn’t remember Dix as the man who’d delivered her from a nasty fate at the Falcon. She simply bore no liking for him despite his timely arrival during the Blade’s attack upon her. There were several reasons for this, although she was prepared to admit to none of them.
The most obvious was her displacement. Since coming to North Kensington from East Acton, she’d shared Kendra’s bed on the nights when she’d actually slept at home, and upon Dix’s arrival she found herself removed from her aunt’s bedroom and stationed on the sofa instead. The fact that Dix built a screen to give her privacy did not ameliorate her feelings in the matter, and these feelings were aggravated by the knowledge that Dix—a mere eight years older than she and a breathtaking specimen of man flesh—was markedly indifferent to her presence and instead besotted with her aunt. She felt like a rack of cold toast in his presence, and she translated what she felt into a renewal of surliness towards her family and a renewal of friendship with Six and Natasha.
This perplexed Kendra, who’d mistakenly assumed that Ness would be a changed young woman after the Blade’s attack upon her, seeing the error of her previous ways and grateful that a man’s protection was now available to all of them. In frustration at Ness’s continued churlishness, she pointed out to her niece that it was down to her, anyway, that Dix D’Court was moving in with them. Had she not involved herself with the Blade, she wouldn’t have found herself in the position she now was in: on the sofa at night, in the sitting room, behind a collapsible screen.
This fruitless—albeit understandable—approach to dealing with Ness possessed the unmistakable potential to make the situation worse. Dix pointed this out to Kendra privately, telling her to go easier on the girl. If Ness didn’t want to speak to him, fine. If she stalked out of the room when he came into it, fine as well. If she used his razor, dropped his body lotion in the toilet, and poured his 100 percent organic juices down the kitchen sink, let her. For now. The time would come when she realised that none of this was changing reality. She would have to choose a different course, then. They needed to be ready and willing to provide her with one so that she didn’t choose a course that would take her into more trouble.
To Kendra, this was an overly sanguine way of looking at the problem of Ness. The girl had brought nothing but ever-increasing difficulty into Kendra’s life from the moment of her arrival, and something had to be done about her. Kendra could not, however, c
ome up with anything beyond giving orders and making threats, most of which—out of duty to her brother, Ness’s father—she lacked the courage to carry out.
“You keep ’spectin her to be like you,” was Dix’s maddeningly reasonable assessment of the situation when he and Kendra discussed it. “You get past that, you got a chance of ’ceptin her for what she is.”
“What she is is a tart,” Kendra told him. “A truant, a layabout, and a slag.”
“You don’t mean dat,” Dix replied, laying a finger across her lips and smiling down at her. It was late. They were drowsy from lovemaking and readying themselves for sleep. “Dat’s your frustration talking. Just like hers is talkin as well. You letting her vex you ’stead of lookin at the why of what she’s doing.”
Mostly, they circled each other, wary as cats. Kendra walked into a room; Ness flounced out of it. Kendra assigned a chore for the girl; Ness did it only when the request became the demand and the demand became the threat and even then she did it as badly as possible. She was monosyllabic, angry, and sarcastic when what Kendra expected of her was gratitude. Not gratitude for the roof over her head—which even Kendra knew was too much to ask for, considering how it had come to pass that Ness and her brothers were living in Edenham Way—but gratitude at least for the deliverance from the Blade as effected by Dix. The second time, in fact, that Dix had delivered her from trouble, a truth that Kendra pointed out to her.
“He was dat bloke?” Ness responded to this news. “From the Falcon? No way.” But after learning this, Ness eyed him differently and in a manner that would have caused concern in a woman less sure of herself than Kendra.
“Yes way,” was Kendra’s reply. “How drunk were you, girl, that you don’t remember?”
What Came Before He Shot Her Page 22
