Darkmans

by Nicola Barker

While a third of it went straight up (during a brief frenzy of activity on that first afternoon), the following morning, at around eleven (with no explanation or prior warning), the scaffolders packed away their tools, jumped into their truck, and headed off.

  Where, Isidore knew not (where didn’t matter). What mattered was that they never came back. They’d vamoosed. They’d turned-tail. They’d bolted. They’d gone.

  The house (which’d looked fairly bleak prior to this new development – with its sagging sills, mouldy fascia and muddy garden) now peeked out, disconsolately, from beneath its perilous-seeming exo-skeleton like a sadly neglected poodle in an ill-fitting muzzle. The small garden (such as it was) had all-but disappeared under an unsightly pile of poles and planks.

  Both Elen and Isidore became preoccupied by the idea that someone might try and steal these paltry remnants (wasn’t scaffolding valuable? And what was the insurance situation? Were they liable?). Isidore left Harvey countless messages to this effect (‘I mean I don’t know if the scaffolders are a part of your company, or whether you sub-let out this side of the business, but I think it might be a little risky…’).

  Two days after leaving his fifth or sixth reminder, Isidore came home to discover that a couple of small chains and padlocks had been applied to the ‘excess’ scaffolding in order – he presumed – to render it more secure. He was relieved (of course he was), but this wasn’t entirely the result he’d been hoping for.

  A week after the advent of the padlocks (when their hearts seemed in imminent danger of slipping down into their boots again) the boy suddenly arrived: Lester; didn’t look a day over fifteen.

  Lester had a delinquent air about him (the base-ball cap, the unfocussed gaze, his skin a bright, purple-white – the approximate tone of an undercooked chicken thigh bone). But his tracksuit bottoms (Dory pointed out) were exceptionally dirty, and that had to be a good sign (they were also three sizes too small. Perhaps he’d ‘half-inched’ them, Elen mused, from another – even younger – boy in Harvey’s employ: an exceptionally hard worker who currently dangled, trouserless – poor lamb – from a half-swept chimney somewhere).

  Lester (it soon became evident) ‘lacked direction’. It was a full-time job just to keep him working. And there was always some good reason why he might suddenly feel the urge to slip away again: a missing tool, a parole appointment, breakfast – eaten on the stroke of ten – lunch – at twelve – and tea – at three – none of which did he ever opt to bring along with him, but mooched off, mid-task, in a bid to track them down.

  There were no fast-food emporiums in the local vicinity – ‘This is suburbia,’ Elen patiently explained, ‘and a very new area…’ There was only Tesco’s at the – ahem – ‘Community Centre’, where Lester was now a permanent fixture at the delicatessen counter. He’d developed a strong antipathy for ‘the vicious old witch’ working there, who made him take a ticket – and wait to be called – even when it was obvious that he was her only customer.

  Very little seemed to stimulate the boy. He was so guarded – so sullen and withdrawn – that Elen (as a mother) felt the kindly urge to ‘draw him out’. This was a mistake (she soon discovered), because there was one topic – and one topic only – which Lester seemed to take an active delight in: the multitudinous shortcomings of his unscrupulous employer.

  ‘Don’t matter how shit I am,’ he grumbled, ‘he don’t even care. He never tells me nothin’, and if he does, I never fuckin’ listen. I mean would you? For three quid fifty a fuckin’ hour?’

  This unhappy information placed an already desperate Elen in an impossible situation: how on earth to confront Harvey over his financial (social and legal) transgressions without totally alienating him?

  ‘I mean if this is Harvey functioning at his best,’ she told a disconsolate Dory, ‘then could you even begin to imagine how terrible a “go-slow” policy might be?’

  Dory confided in Beede on the matter, and Beede (using his legendary ‘business head’) came up with the perfect compromise. The simple answer, he told him, was to side-step Harvey altogether. It was good advice and Dory took it, promptly promising Lester an extra £40 a week, tax-free, so long as he swore never to mention this delicate accommodation to his employer. Lester agreed – grudgingly.

  Harvey had actually given Dory a ‘special’ number by which to make contact (‘Priority line, mate. This is the line my wife and kids have…’). Sometimes, as he rang it and waited for the familiar recorded message to kick in (if his wife had this number, then she must’ve been well accustomed to falling back on her own resources), Isidore would idly muse as to which of the several phones suspended on Harvey’s ‘buddy’ (if any) he was currently engaging with.

  He didn’t – at this stage – know that Harvey was running three separate businesses (that information came later, from Harvey himself, who saw no impropriety in it – would often, in fact, use it as an excuse: ‘I’m runnin’ three businesses here, mate, so maybe you could cut me a bit of fuckin’ slack…?!’).

  And he certainly didn’t know (how could he?) that each business represented a different ‘side’ to Harvey (in much the same way that different outfits and accessories represented a different ‘side’ to Barbie).

  Yet ignorant as he was, Isidore soon became convinced that there was some kind of system with the phones, that the phones were critical, that each one symbolised something different, yet fundamental –

  But what?

  And why?

  ‘Don’t you think you might be reading a little too much into all of this, Dory?’ Elen had asked, gently, when he’d finally confided his phone fears in her. Maybe he was paranoid –

  Maybe I am

  – but he still felt like he could smell the unwelcome scent of I-Told-You-So oozing out from behind her sympathetic veneer –

  So many secrets –

  Where’s the harm in just one more, eh?

  Isidore was now officially in New Build Hell.

  He’d dreamed of a clean slate, a new dawn. But he’d been wrong to dream –

  Bloody foolish

  – naive, even.

  Sometimes he’d find himself staring at the carpets, the walls, and he’d see history. Right there. Starting up, unfolding, developing (Bad history, worse still…). And then, when he looked even closer, he’d distinguish yet another strand, another layer, underneath the ‘new’ facade. Embedded in the molecules. In the fabric of the building. In the…the stuff. Growing like a fungi. Spreading. Encroaching.

  When his mind took this kind of turn, he’d throw on some shorts, a vest, some trainers and he’d run –

  Away

  Just away

  – anything up to 12 miles. At full pelt. Until his arms and legs grew numb.

  Isidore could sometimes fall prey to attacks of paranoia, but in relation to Harvey his misgivings were justified (in fact they were absolutely spot on). Harvey was out to get him, and Elen knew it, but she had been skilfully manipulated by the builder into a compromising trade-off. She’d been side-lined. Her loyalties had been called upon, placed under duress, compacted, and then twisted.

  Harvey had not – as yet – gone to work on their home, but he’d taken the time – and the effort – to go to work on her.

  Three weeks after the scaffolding first went up (still no tarpaulin, and it’d rained every day since, bar one) Harvey had arrived on the doorstep mid-morning.

  ‘You see before you,’ he’d proclaimed dramatically (yanking off his puffer jacket and fastidiously shaking the rain from its delicate fabric: straight on to Elen’s hallway carpet), ‘a Man In Crisis.’

  ‘Ditto,’ Elen rejoined, holding up a brimming bucket (water was currently streaming down three of their upstairs walls. She’d emptied out a succession of bowls and pans on two previous occasions already that morning). Harvey stared at her, blankly. She bit her tongue.

  ‘So what’s the problem?’ she’d asked, stepping aside to let him past –

  Bright smile
r />   BRIGHT smile

  Harvey made his own way into the kitchen, pulled out a chair and sat down. As he answered her question he focussed, pointedly, on the kettle. Elen promptly walked over to it.

  ‘Numero Uno: the Toyota’s ignition is playin’ me up…’

  Elen grabbed the kettle and yanked off its lid. ‘So how did you get here today, then?’

  ‘The work van.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘I won’t drive the Toyota in this kind of weather.’

  ‘Right.’

  Elen turned on the tap and filled the kettle.

  ‘Ruins the paintwork.’

  ‘I see.’

  She turned the tap off again.

  ‘Numero Two-o,’ Harvey continued, ‘my youngest girl is refusin’ to come to Florida this year, and my wife’s having a crack-up. Gerry is seventeen. Linda just don’t wanna leave her…’

  ‘So you’re going away?’ Elen spoke with some care as she pushed the kettle’s plug into the socket. ‘On holiday?’

  ‘Yup. We always go mid-Feb. Winter sun an’ all that…’

  ‘Oh. Well that’s very…uh…’

  She couldn’t think of the right word, initially (‘soon’ was her first thought). ‘…Inconsiderate,’ she said, eventually.

  Harvey glanced up, sharply.

  ‘I mean of her.’

  Harvey stopped scowling. ‘Yeah. Well that’s kids for ya.’ He shrugged, resignedly. ‘Only then, see, when I’ve finally convinced Linda that it’s all good – that Gerry can stay with my sister for the three weeks…’

  Three weeks?!

  Elen’s eyes widened.

  ‘…She then decides that my sister’s kid should come along instead. But Kelly – the silly cow – just went and broke her bloody leg. Plaster has to come off in the second week. So muggins here is expected to sort it all out, and pay for the privilege of gettin’ it done private in the US.’

  Elen did her best to look sympathetic as she grabbed a mug from the cupboard.

  ‘I mean she’s in plaster, Helen,’ Harvey fretted. ‘It’s not like I’ve got nothin’ against the kid, but it’ll be boilin’, fuckin’ hot out there. She won’t be able to get around without her crutches, go on any of the rides, take a dip…’ he paused, squinting slightly over Elen’s shoulder. ‘That cupboard door’s not set right…’

  He sprang to his feet, whipping a screw-driver from his buddy. ‘Shift over.’

  In thirty seconds the door had been removed and then quickly realigned. He stood back, appraised his work, then winced, tutted, and got stuck into the next one along.

  Elen watched, agog, as all sixteen doors were neatly and expertly re-hung.

  When he’d completed this marathon (not, coincidentally, a job which featured in any shape or form on his lengthy ‘to-do’ list – or even on Elen’s blackboard, for that matter) Harvey sat back down at the table, genially reappraised his work, took a rejuvenating swig of his tea, and swallowed, noisily.

  ‘So it’s cards on the table time,’ he announced, experimenting by placing his weight first on one elbow, then the other. The table shifted. He frowned and peered underneath the table-top. ‘Why’s this thing wobblin’?’

  He grabbed some pliers from his belt and tightened a bolt on one of the legs, then re-emerged, slightly puffed. He tapped the table again. It didn’t wobble this time. He grunted his satisfaction.

  ‘Thank you,’ Elen murmured.

  ‘The bottom line is this…’ he said, acknowledging her gratitude with a curt nod, ‘crazy as it may sound, I’ve taken quite a shine to you…’ he picked up his tea and gulped down a second, large mouthful. ‘You strike me as a good sort, somehow, even if your tea is bloody dreadful.’

  Elen sprang to her feet. ‘Has it gone cold? Would you like another?’ Harvey didn’t deign to respond, just continued to talk as she darted around the kitchen.

  ‘An’ that’s why I’m going to tell you somethin’…’

  He leaned forward, picked up a packet of biscuits (which Elen had yet to open – dark chocolate Bahlsens) and gave them a suspicious rattle. ‘These kosher or what?’

  ‘Uh…’ Elen turned. ‘Yes. I mean I don’t know. They’re German.’

  Harvey threw the biscuits down again, grimacing. ‘The plain truth is that I’m actually what you might call “a bit of a rebel” at heart. A “loose cannon”, so to speak. Linda says I’m a “free spirit”, which sounds a bit twatty, actually…’

  He sniffed.

  Elen opened the biscuit packet, slid four on to a plate and placed them down in front of him.

  ‘Either way, the bottom line is this: I don’t respond well to pressure. It’s not that I can’t, as such, but that I won’t. It’s a matter of principle, see? I simply ain’t bothered. If someone keeps bangin’ on at me to do somethin’ – naggin’ at me, pesterin’ – then I just turn an’ I walk – without a second thought – in the opposite direction. Because buildin’ ain’t simply a job for me, Helen, it’s a passion, and I won’t let anything or anyone get in the way of that.’

  Elen tried to respond appropriately to this curious declaration. ‘Well I suppose most people – when they’re placed under a certain amount of…of duress…’

  ‘Oh no.’ Harvey was emphatic. ‘I am not “most people”, Helen, trust me. I am fucking obstinate. I make an art form out of it. I dig in my heels like a bloody donkey. Linda says they broke the soddin’ mould when they made me…’

  He stood up. ‘I have four phones, see?’

  Harvey indicated towards the three of his four phones which were currently visible, hanging on his buddy. Elen nodded.

  ‘An’ at the moment, your other half is on the blue phone. On the Nokia.’

  Harvey tapped the Nokia with a warning thumb. Elen stared at the Nokia. Suddenly the Nokia had a somewhat ominous aspect. She gazed up at him, anxiously. ‘So is that…is that bad, then?’

  ‘No. Not bad exactly…’ Harvey pulled an expression of infinite sadness. ‘Just…’

  He sighed.

  ‘Right,’ Elen pushed back her hair, impatiently. ‘Oh dear…’

  She glanced down and noticed that she hadn’t yet removed the bag from his tea. She looked around for a teaspoon.

  ‘Now the Siemens S55…’ Harvey continued, ‘well, she’s an absolute corker…’

  ‘Really?’

  Elen stopped searching. She simply removed the bag with her fingers –

  Ouch!

  Hot!

  – and tossed it on to the counter-top.

  ‘Oh yes. Absolutely. This little lady has 8080 pixels…’

  Harvey took out his Siemens S55 and showed it to Elen, reverently. Elen stared at the phone, in silence. She noticed how – if she held her breath for a moment – she could hear the repetitive drip of the water as it hit the pans upstairs.

  ‘An’ this is my Sony,’ Harvey took out his Sony, grinning, ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he chuckled, ‘you’re thinking, “Things have certainly come on a-way since then, Harve,” and you’d be right. But that’s me all over – a great, big softy…’

  He was beaming at the phone. ‘She’s an old girl, but she’s a goldie…’

  Then he abruptly stopped smiling and slipped it away again.

  ‘An’ last, but by no means least…’

  Harvey put a devoted hand to his heart (also, coincidentally, the location of his neatly buttoned shirt pocket) ‘…is the Motorola C350…’

  He removed it and inspected it, almost tearfully. ‘But only my mistress and my lawyer have the digits for this baby…’

  Elen gently placed Harvey’s mug down on to the table. She grabbed the milk bottle, her serious brown eyes not shifting – even an inch – from his face.

  ‘But then you’re on the Nokia,’ Harvey sighed, carefully slipping the Motorola away again, ‘and I ain’t saying – God forbid – that it isn’t a good phone…’

  Elen poured the milk. ‘But it’s not…’ she interjected, helpfully, ‘it�
��s not the best phone?’

  Harvey smiled and grabbed a hold of the mug’s handle. ‘Good girl. I think we’re finally gettin’ somewhere…’

  He sat down and toasted her with his tea, still smiling. Then his smile faltered for a second. ‘Unfortunately, though, your hubby…’ He rolled his eyes.

  Elen frowned, panicked. ‘Has…has Dory…?’

  ‘Upset me? Nah.’

  Harvey shook his head, gazing down into his steaming mug with a look of profound anguish.

  ‘Well that’s…’ She was confused. She bit her lip.

  ‘Let’s just say,’ Harvey volunteered, ‘that your husband was…uh…a little “inappropriate” with me when I first came around.’

  Elen’s neat nostrils flared slightly. This was three weeks ago. A whole life-time of dripping and misery and scaffolding. An agonising infinity of Fleet on the sofa-bed and Lester at the delicatessen counter. She pulled out a chair. Whatever else happened, this simply had to be made better.

  ‘I mean I ain’t gonna sit here at his table, drink his tea, speak with his lovely wife, eat his funny-lookin’ German biscuits…’ Harvey reached out for a biscuit ‘…an’ rip into the man. But the fact is that he made it very clear – during our initial meeting – that I wasn’t his first choice for the job. He effectively told me – to my face, Helen – that I was second best. And nobody – no body – who takes pride in what they do, enjoys hearin’ that.’

  ‘But are you sure?’

  Elen was appalled.

  ‘He made no bones about it, my love.’

  She was silent for a moment.

  ‘Damn,’ she eventually murmured.

  ‘I mean,’ Harvey bit into the biscuit, ‘I’m perfectly willing to believe that I might’ve contributed to the problem in some way – without actually realisin’. Because I’m a sensitive man, Helen, an emotional man. I feel things very deeply…’