Kane gazed at him for a moment, in mute alarm.
‘I PISS YOU! HA!’ Gaffar burst out laughing.
Kane managed a weak smile as Gaffar jogged an exuberant lap around Beede’s sofa, lifting up his knees and clapping his hands, Zulu-warrior-style.
As if prompted by the Kurd’s sudden, thunderous show of good humour, Beede’s phone began to ring. It was an old-fashioned, heavy-set, dial-tone phone c.1976, in bright, brick orange, and it lived – as befitted its lowly status – under his desk, behind a musty pile of old Private Eyes which he collected – or so he claimed – to donate to his dentist.
Kane ignored the phone completely. Gaffar completed his lap and ground to a halt, still grinning.
‘So they featured this sweet, old girl on Animal Hospital once, yeah…?’
Kane took out his cigarette packet (refusing – point-blank – to compromise his cool by responding directly to Gaffar’s wanton display) and carefully removed a pre-rolled joint from inside of it. ‘She had a Jack Russell. D’ya know that breed at all?’
Gaffar shook his head, slightly out of breath.
‘A little, white dog – a terrier – a digger.’
Kane mimed ‘dig’.
Gaffar nodded, his eyes drifting – every couple of seconds – towards the source of the ringing.
‘Anyhow, there was something wrong with the animal – I don’t remember what, exactly – so this old dear took it along to the surgery, and they filmed her for the programme, and Rolf asked her what its name was…blah blah…You’re pretty familiar with the form, I guess?’
Gaffar nodded again. He was very well acquainted with Animal Hospital protocol.
‘Yeah…’ Kane carefully moistened the side of the joint, ‘so this old girl says, “He’s called Bonus.” And Rolf thinks the name’s kind of cute – Bonus…It means to get something for free…Gratis.’
‘Ah.’
‘So he asks her why the dog’s called Bonus, and she says something like, “I was walking home from work one day and I saw this little dog running around. And it was obviously a stray. It was very dirty. Very thin…”’
Kane mimed ‘dirty’, then ‘thin’.
‘Okay.’
‘So she decided to take the dog home with her and to care for it. I mean she saved its life, effectively. And she called it Bonus because she got it for nothing. Like a gift from God.’
‘Sure.’
‘So then Rolf says, “Will you lift Bonus up on to the table so that the vet can take a look at him?” And the old woman goes, “Would you mind doing it for me?” And she’s looking kind of anxious. So Rolf says, “Why? What’s the problem?” And the old woman says, “Even though I took him home that day and looked after him and loved him and have always cared for him the best way I possibly could, he absolutely despises me. But only me. With everyone else, he’s fine…”’
‘Ah,’ Gaffar looked impressed.
‘Yeah. The dog hated her. And it was all just pride, see? It resented the fact that she had come to its aid in its time of need, when it was truly vulnerable. It simply wouldn’t forgive her for helping it, for saving it, yeah? But it loved everybody else, was very gregarious, very friendly. So Rolf could stroke it and pick it up and put it on the table, and the vet could give it a painful injection, but if this kind, old dear so much as went anywhere near it, it’d snarl and take a quick snap…’
‘What?!’
‘Because it was fucked up.’
The phone stopped ringing.
Gaffar shook his head, slowly.
‘Yeah,’ Kane shrugged, ‘sometimes life can be a bitch like that.’
He finally located his matches, opened the box, took one out, struck it and lit up his joint. Gaffar continued to stare at him, expectantly, as if awaiting some kind of punch-line. But none was forthcoming.
About five seconds into this perplexing hiatus, Beede’s phone began ringing again. Kane glanced over at it, then back at the Kurd, then down at the ash on the tip of his roll-up. ‘So you’re gonna be at kind of a loose end for a while now, huh…?’
Gaffar grimaced.
‘That’s too bad.’
He inhaled on his joint. He suspended his breath.
‘I’ve actually got a couple of jobs you can do for me,’ he exhaled, with a slight cough, ‘if you fancy…’
‘Work?’ Gaffar enquired, lifting his chin.
Kane nodded.
‘For you?’ his right brow rose, haughtily.
‘Yup.’
Gaffar shrugged. ‘Sure.’
They shook hands.
‘Okay…’
Kane took another deep drag on the joint and then offered Gaffar the remainder. The Kurd took it. Kane gave him a long, searching look, then exhaled, sniffed and glanced back over towards the phone.
‘So I’ll need you to check up on Kelly…uh…’ he grimaced, ‘I’ll be wanting to maintain a certain distance there, if you see what I mean…’
Gaffar looked blank.
‘Distance.’
Kane measured out about a metre’s span between his two hands. ‘Me…’ he lifted one hand ‘…and Kelly…’ he lifted the other, ‘never the twain shall meet.’
Still, Gaffar looked blank.
‘So you could take her some food – salad, fruit, maybe. Some flowers. Make a quick delivery. Nothing too complicated…’
Beede’s phone continued to ring.
‘Can you drive?’
Gaffar’s face suddenly lit up.
‘Drive? Me? Sure.’
Kane moved over towards the door. ‘Good. Then you can use the Merc. She’s a dirty blonde. 220C. De-badged, of course. A strapping girl. Exceptionally reliable…’
He ushered Gaffar out into the hallway, yanking the door firmly shut behind them. But as soon as the lock clicked into its groove, he turned back, instinctively, and reached for the handle again. He didn’t turn it, though – not at first – he just held on to it, loosely. He scowled. He struggled with himself. He proved unequal to the struggle.
‘Man…You head on up, okay?’
He faltered, infuriated, on the threshold. ‘Just let me quickly go answer that.’
‘A bizarre coincidence…’ Elen explained, picking up her mug, taking a small sip, and then quickly placing it down again (the tea was still very hot). ‘She’d left a message for me at the practice. I was meant to be making a home visit this evening, but she was admitted last thing yesterday. She’s having trouble with her pace-maker. I’d warned her about it the week before; her feet were unusually swollen during our last consultation…’
‘Perhaps I know her,’ Beede interrupted, pulling out a chair and sitting down himself. ‘What’s her name?’
‘Mrs Bristow. Evie Bristow. Although everybody who knows her calls her Hat.’
‘Really? Why?’
She shrugged, smiling.
Beede stirred his tea, removed the teaspoon and then couldn’t find anywhere to put it, so pulled out a man-size tissue from a nearby box, folded it neatly in half, and placed the spoon on top (adjusting it, twice, to make certain it lay dead centre).
Elen watched this laborious process with an expression of wry amusement. He glanced up, absent-mindedly, caught her fond look, and started.
‘The tea…’ She indicated towards her mug, trying to defuse his alarm. ‘It’s delicious.’
‘Good.’
Beede still seemed a little edgy.
Elen’s smile gradually faded. ‘Is everything all right, Danny?’
Beede frowned. His mother was the only other person who’d ever dared to use his Christian name in its abbreviated form (in her case, Dan). Yet Elen had always called him Danny, from the very first time they met, during a professional consultation (she’d seen his full name on the cheque he’d paid her with, and had used it, as a matter of course, ever since).
It still never failed to surprise him. He always felt a vague, nagging sense that she might actually be addressing another person, not this Daniel
Beede, but some other, whom life – and its pitfalls – hadn’t encouraged to prosper; a more approachable Daniel Beede; a more loveable one; more cuddly, even.
The only thing he knew for certain was that he actually bore no resemblance to this genial man (whom she appeared so determined to see in him), although a tiny part of him sometimes wondered whether he might not actually quite like to, occasionally (a brief excursion might be nice, into a world where fact was eclipsed by feeling), but whenever he started to experience these impulses – and it wasn’t often – the hard, enamelled Beede within him swooped down from a great height and harried the gormless, hapless Danny; kicked him around a bit, then shoved him – without scruple – back into his box again.
He wouldn’t have tolerated it from anybody else. But this was Elen –
Elen
– and everything she did was so effortless, so natural, so kind, so unforced, that to interfere (to block or confront or disrupt her), would’ve seemed like the worst kind of wrong-headedness.
‘Yes. Yes. Yes, everything’s fine,’ Beede nodded, clearing his throat, ‘absolutely fine.’
They were sitting at a desk in Beede’s corner office. A handful of people were working in the laundry outside, and could be observed – going dutifully about their business – through a slightly wonky window in one of the two, make-piece, plasterboard walls (the other struggled valiantly to remain perpendicular while doing its level best to support the door).
The radio was blaring (Beede had a rota-system for choosing the channel – it was an inflammatory issue amongst the staff, whose ages varied – and today, much to his horror, it was tuned to 1Xtra). He leaned back in his chair and shoved the door shut.
It was a very small room – more of a cubby, really – and now, if possible, it seemed still smaller. He closed his eyes for a brief moment. If he remained motionless – and concentrated very hard – he could pick up Elen’s distinctive scent of clove and peppermint (from the foot massage creams she used at work). It was a plain smell, and not particularly feminine, but he was almost ludicrously attached to it.
‘So what happened, exactly?’ she asked. She sounded tense. He opened his eyes, abruptly. He’d had no intention of worrying her. ‘Nothing too apocalyptic,’ he murmured, ‘it was just a little…uh, tricky, that’s all.’
He took a sip of his own tea and winced (it’d been brewed too long), then placed the mug down, gently, on to his desk again.
‘He’d taken the horse from a field near the Brenzett roundabout…’ he started off, casually.
She nodded.
‘And I presume – although I can’t be entirely certain – that he rode it to the restaurant along the dual carriageway…’
She grimaced.
‘…which is…well, you know…’
‘He absolutely promised me,’ she interrupted, ‘that he wouldn’t do anything crazy like that again.’
As she spoke, Elen slipped both of her hands around her tea mug, as if to comfort herself with the warmth it exuded. She seemed profoundly regretful, and yet (at another level – and there was always another level with Elen) strangely detached.
‘He was terribly confused when he came around,’ Beede continued (not entirely ignoring her interjection, but feeling unable – through loyalty to Dory, principally – to trespass on to that particular discursive mine-field any further), ‘and extremely suspicious…’
‘He’s petrified of horses,’ Elen interrupted him, her voice still stoical. ‘A pony stood on his foot once when he was just a toddler. If you know what to look for, you can see how the injury – the trauma – has taken its toll, subsequently, on his entire body-posture…’
‘Yes,’ Beede nodded, ‘he did mention it. I mean the fear. He knew almost immediately that he disliked horses, that he was afraid of them. It was actually one of the very first things he seemed absolutely certain of.’
‘Good.’ Elen seemed bolstered by this.
‘Although the horse was standing right next to us at the time…’
Beede shrugged.
Elen continued to cradle her mug between her hands. Her hair fell across her face. She peered up at him, through it. ‘So it wasn’t just an accident?’
‘What?’ Beede scowled. ‘That he was there? Where we were? No,’ he shook his head, firmly, ‘definitely not.’
‘Oh.’
This obviously wasn’t the answer Elen had been hoping for. ‘But if you think about it…’ she mused, ‘I mean the actual geography of that area…’
‘No.’ Beede wouldn’t concede the point, even to mollify her. ‘If we were to calculate the odds – and I mean quite coldly, quite brutally – then I’d have to say that it was at least…’ he ruminated, briefly, ‘at least three-to-one on that he knew – strong odds, in other words.’
Elen frowned. Odds weren’t really her forte.
‘He must’ve known,’ Beede pressed his point home, ‘at some level.’ She shook her head, slowly, as if still determined to resist his negative prognosis. ‘But it wasn’t very far…’ she persisted, ‘he was working in South Willesborough. I came to the restaurant on foot, but he may’ve seen your old Douglas in the car park. It’s very distinctive, after all. It could’ve generated some kind of…of spark.’
Beede’s ears suddenly pricked up. ‘But how did you know that?’ he demanded.
‘What?’
‘About South Willesborough?’
She seemed bemused by this question. ‘Because he rang. He phoned me. Just before I left home.’
‘Ah…’ Beede nodded, then smiled (somewhat self-consciously). ‘But of course. Of course. How silly of me.’
They were both quiet for a while. Beede fiddled idly with the teaspoon. It was a nice, sturdy piece of old-fashioned hospital issue with a reassuringly deep bowl and a broad, flattened tip. Age and over-use had given its original silver finish a slightly greenish hue.
‘So did he let anything slip?’ Elen asked.
Beede shook his head. ‘Not a sausage.’
He glanced up as he spoke (she seemed mildly amused by his colloquial turn of phrase) and then, almost without thinking, he reached out his hand and tucked her hair, gently, behind her ear. The hair was so soft – so shiny – that it immediately slipped free again.
As soon as he’d touched her, Beede stiffened and then blushed (That was Danny! It was him!). Elen appeared completely unabashed. She casually pulled a hairband from around her wrist and tied back her hair into a ponytail with it.
‘There,’ she smiled, ‘that’s better.’
Her birthmark was now fully visible. It was about half an inch across – at its widest point – and just less than an inch long. It was in the approximate shape of Africa (although the southern tip was slightly flatter) and hung like a dark continent between her eyes, which, while also brown, were at least two shades lighter.
‘He did mention that he’d been in South Willesborough immediately before,’ Beede reverted – with an element of bluster – to his former train of thought, ‘and we eventually found his car on the roundabout, close to the new exit. He’d left the door open. It was causing quite an obstruction. The police had just pulled up.’
‘God. You should’ve phoned.’
Elen seemed about as close – in that instant – as she ever was to being fully engaged.
‘I know, but he expressly asked me not to, and I just felt…’ He shrugged, grimacing.
‘Compromised,’ she nodded, understanding completely, ‘of course you did.’
She reached out her hand and covered his hand with it.
He automatically pulled his hand away – she didn’t appear to take this amiss – and then he smiled at her; a small, almost apologetic smile. She flattened her palm on to the desk and slowly pulled her arm back in towards her body again. Beede watched her lovely fingers (they were lovely) running smoothly over the coarse grain of the wood. He felt a sudden wave of excitement, then an equally sudden pang of recrimination. His eye settled, glumly,
on the neat, gold band encircling her wedding finger.
‘And it’s all my fault,’ she murmured, a finger and thumb from the offending hand now fiddling, nervously, with one of the buttons on her shirt, ‘I know that…’
He was still watching the hand as it moved slightly higher and strummed the single-string-harp of her collar bone.
‘I feel terrible about it,’ she added, ‘if that helps in any way.’
‘Pardon?’ He finally made eye contact with her. He hadn’t heard a word.
‘I said I’m sorry,’ she reiterated (her cheeks flushing). ‘This is all my fault. I should never have involved you…’
She paused, briefly – as if hoping for some kind of reassurance – but then rushed on, denying him the opportunity (had he taken it) to respond. ‘Although if it’s any kind of compensation, it’s made such an amazing difference, simply sharing the burden with someone. It’s been such a relief… And I’m just so…so embarrassingly…so absurdly grateful to you.’
She laughed on ‘absurdly’ – slightly hollowly – and then swallowed, involuntarily, on ‘grateful’ (so that it emerged in a half-gulp). Beede rapidly gathered his wits together (he’d been remiss before). ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Elen…’
He’d hoped to make this sound tender, but failed abysmally (his tender parts were as creaky, ill-used and rusty as the hinge of an ancient door).
‘Yes.’ She nodded. ‘I mean…’ she shook her head ‘…No. You’re right. I should just…’
Her hand flew, briefly, to her mouth. She cleared her throat. Her hand dropped. She seemed quite composed again, but her lips were just a fraction too straight. He stared at her mouth, fascinated by this straightness. Then, before he knew it, she’d collapsed forward, buried her face in her hands and was sobbing. No sound. Just her shoulders – her fragile shoulders – jerking, rhythmically, up and down.
Beede was completely overwhelmed. He pushed back his chair (it screeched, maddeningly), glanced anxiously through the window, tensed his legs (as if about to stand up), but then stayed exactly where he was. Five seconds passed. Finally, he reached over for a tissue – it was a long reach – and then fell to his knees, proffering it to her. ‘Please stop,’ he murmured, ‘crying won’t help anyone.’
Darkmans Page 13
