You found it when you closed your eyes (and emptied your mind, and looked around). It was strong and quiet and ever-watchful. The Witness stood proudly apart from the ego-driven side of the consciousness. It was the Civil Servant of the head. It did a little filing, made reports, took dictation. It was consistent and impassive and utterly reliable.
Laurie counselled his son to ‘make a friend’ of The Witness. To ‘refer’ to The Witness whenever things felt like they might be in danger of getting out of hand. He also taught him some rudimentary self-hypnosis techniques (involving touching certain body parts – the ear-lobe, the shoulder – and tapping them, repeatedly).
Each of these approaches – the exotic, the rudimentary – was more or less successful (there was no pot of gold at the end of Dory’s rainbow; no get-out-of-jail-free card, no ‘miracle cure’). Yet when taken en masse, they formed a workable ‘control network’, a kind of ‘therapeutic mesh’ (or safety net) which Dory (gentle Dory, obliging Dory) was more than happy to fall into.
That crazy river inside – that uncontrollable wave of words and hysteria – stopped flowing for a while. The tide withdrew. But it didn’t disappear. It simply entered a different sphere – his dream-life – and controlled him from there.
On the day he turned sixteen (and with his father’s help) Isidore designed and crafted a pair of strong, oak doors for his tiny cubby. Thick-cut, huge-hinged, padlocked. And every single night, from that time on, his parents lovingly contracted to bolt him in.
He blamed Match of the Day. An advert had randomly caught his attention (on one of the hoardings at the edge of the pitch –
Man Utd v West Ham).
– which said simply: DADCHECK.COM.
Dad-check?
Dad Check?
There were few things Isidore was absolutely certain of (‘There’s nothing certain in this world, my son,’ his father always used to say – before his final stroke, the really bad one, after which he formally dispensed with casual conversation), but Elen’s faithfulness was never in question. Her honour was unimpeachable. This was one of the few subjects on which Dory was absolutely unequivocal.
DADCHECK
But also he knew (with a feeling just as powerful, just as strong) that the boy was a stranger. The boy did not belong.
There was something…
And it wasn’t that he didn’t love him –
Oh God, no
He did. He loved him dearly –
There was just…
Put it this way: if the boy was a sum (a lovely little fraction; or a piece of calculus, say), then everything about him, superficially speaking, seemed exactly as it should be. He was all neatly spaced out, everything in the right place –
So to speak…
But the bottom line (and there was always a bottom line – in life, in arithmetic) was that he just didn’t add up. The answer was wrong. Where there should’ve been a tick, there was a cross.
And it didn’t matter how much he tried to ignore it –
That huge cross, in red ink –
That stupid, awful, ugly cross…
– it was still there. It was undeniable. It shouted – yelled, screamed – out at him.
Of course he didn’t dare utter a word –
Not a word
– to Elen about it (a betrayal? At that level? How could she ever forgive him?), but when the advert caught his eye (on tv – during a football match – everything so perfectly innocent, so incredibly calm and…and ordinary…) he quietly committed it to memory.
DADCHECK.COM
Dad/check…
He repeated the words to himself – over days, weeks, months – until they were finally stripped of all their mystery. He rendered them uncontentious –
Like cup,
Hat,
Cat,
Egg
He de-sensitised them…
Dad-check
Dad-check –
Heart-beat? Steady.
Breathing? Regular.
Sweat? Nope. None.
DADCHECK.
Dadcheck.
Dad –
Yawn
– Check…
Then –
Bang!
– he accessed the site. He completed a small money order. He received a neat package –
At work, of course…
The Release Form
The two swabs
– cornered the boy, one fine, winter morning, and made the whole procedure into a nice, little game for him –
Fleet! Watch Daddy do this!
In my mouth…
See?
Shall I do it to you, too?
Shall we have a quick go?
Just for fun?
Open up!
One…
Two…
He posted it off.
Several weeks later he received a letter. There’d been ‘a problem’ with the swabs, an ‘irregularity’. It was ‘perfectly normal’. Would he mind awfully repeating the procedure? For free?
The boy was less cooperative the second time (‘But why don’t we show Mummy? Or Lester? Urgh! No, Daddy! That tastes really funny!’), but it was quickly done.
More waiting.
Then someone from the laboratory rang his mobile.
‘My name’s Patricia Robbins,’ she said, ‘I’m an independent consultant and I’m ringing about your Paternity Test…’
‘Do you have the results?’ he’d asked, his heart speeding up.
‘Yes,’ she paused. ‘Well, no. I mean, it’s not quite as simple as that…’
‘Not simple?’ Isidore scowled. ‘Am I the boy’s father, or not?’
Patricia Robbins drew a deep breath. ‘Is there any chance you might come in,’ she asked, ‘so we can talk this thing through, face to face?’
‘No.’
Isidore was resolute.
‘Okay. Well, the genetic blue-print…’ she explained carefully, ‘I mean I presume that you read all of the information enclosed with the…?’
‘Of course,’ Isidore snapped.
‘Then you’ll be familiar with the idea that we draw our information from a series of coloured rings…’
‘Yes. I remember.’
‘Well the boy’s genetic data…’ she cleared her throat, anxiously, ‘I’m afraid it isn’t actually in colour.’
Silence
‘I don’t understand,’ Isidore murmured, ‘I mean…I just need to know…’
‘Nor do I. I’ve never seen anything like it. The first swab was confused. In faded pastels. Unclear. We initially thought it was just a glitch, a problem with the procedure. But by the second swab…well, things had really degenerated. And it came out…uh…’
She paused.
‘What?’
‘It came out all…’ She swallowed, nervously. ‘It came out all…all dark.’
Isidore pulled the phone away from his ear. He closed his eyes. He called on The Witness. The Witness responded. It counselled him to keep his nerve, to bite his tongue, to proceed on, calmly, with the conversation.
He returned the phone to his ear again.
‘Is the boy my son?’ he asked, stolidly.
‘Yes. I mean he…he was…’ she stuttered. ‘I mean I think he was – so far as I could tell…but not…’ she cleared her throat, nervously, ‘but he isn’t…he isn’t now.’
‘What do you mean?’ Dory’s voice rose by an octave.
‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘I don’t know what I mean. It’s just a blip.
You’re just a blip. Science – if you think about it – progress, even, is defined by the very things it can’t possibly take account of.’
Silence
‘Perhaps it might be best to just take another test…’ she suggested.
‘Is this a set-up?’ Isidore’s voice was hoarse and raw. ‘Or some kind of horrible joke? Did Elen find out? Is that it?’
‘We have counsellors,’ she said, ‘wonderful counsellors, who�
�ve been specially trained to deal with…’
‘Am I the boy’s father?’ Dory yelled, tears running down his cheeks.
‘No.’
Patricia was unequivocal.
Isidore’s jaw dropped.
‘But on a slightly more positive note,’ she conceded, ‘there’s just a faint possibility that he might actually be yours. I mean from ten – maybe eleven or so – generations back.’
She paused. He heard some papers being shuffled.
‘Although…uh…just to be on the safe side,’ she averred cautiously, ‘perhaps I might quickly retabulate that.’
PART THREE
ONE
‘Oh yeah,’ Kelly sneered, ‘he can be the nicest bloke in the whole, damn world to start off with. Until you fall out with him, that is. Or until he falls out with you, more like. He’ll be funny an’ cuddly an’ sweet – nothin’s a hassle, nothin’s too much trouble. And then, just when you’re getting used to it, just when you’re gettin’ all snug an’ cosy…Snap!’
She snapped her skinny fingers, to illustrate. ‘He switches it all off. Quick as that. Turns cold as ice. Treats you worse than somethin’ dirty he dragged in on his shoe. Wouldn’t throw you a rope if you was drownin’, I swear to God…’
As she talked, her hands neatly and rapidly dissected her third consecutive clementine, clambering over the individual segments like a pair of frantic but purposeful albino spiders.
She suddenly glanced up.
‘Oi! Oi! Dumbo! D’you understand a single, bloody word I’m sayin’ here?’
Gaffar smiled, broadly. He thought she looked just beautiful. A princess, no less. Especially in the nightdress which he’d carefully chosen for her (and bought, with Kane’s money) at the McArthur Glen Designer Outlet the day before –
Wednesday?
– Yes. Wednesday. When she’d suffered a severe reaction to the painkillers they’d prescribed her.
She glared at him, suspiciously, then carefully readjusted her décolleté. ‘You don’t have a fuckin’ clue, do ya? I’m tellin’ you about Kane, mate. Kane.’
‘Of course, yes. Kane.’
Gaffar mock-spat on to the floor (believing this would please her. He was right. She was delighted). The patient in the next bed (not so delighted) expostulated sharply, then haughtily readjusted her bedspread.
‘She thinks you’re filth,’ Kelly confided, with a dirty chuckle, ‘foreign muck, yeah?’
‘He is filth,’ the woman interjected sharply, ‘but then like does attract like, so they say.’
‘Oooh! Get her,’ Kelly squealed, palpably excited (this was obviously a fight she’d been itching for). ‘I saw your hubby at visitin’, love,’ she trilled, ‘and he ain’t no fuckin’ oil paintin’, neither.’
‘Didn’t stop you from givin’ him the glad-eye, though, did it?’ the woman sniped.
‘Him?’ Kelly gasped. ‘D’you think I need a trip to Specsavers or what?!’
‘Baps hangin’ out everywhere…’
Kelly shimmied her two shoulders, saucily. ‘Well if you got it, why not flaunt it, huh?’
‘An’ if you ain’t got it,’ the woman hissed, ‘then just do your best with the poor crumbs God gave ya.’
Kelly turned back towards Gaffar, with an air of great deliberation. ‘Apparently,’ she informed him gravely, ‘her flaps got so loose after her fifteenth sprog that all her bits started fallin’ out. The doctor was meant to shove ‘em back up…’
Gaffar looked bemused.
‘But he was far too busy,’ Kelly continued loudly, ‘so they got in the veterinary instead. He’s that much more accustomed to gettin’ his arm slimey…’
Kelly demonstrated the requisite technique (as Gaffar looked on), applying an imaginary coating of petroleum jelly (smearing it, thickly, right up to her armpit), then inserting her hand, screwing up her face, and groping around, wildly.
The woman turned away, disgusted.
Kelly still persisted.
‘Good Lord!’ she exclaimed (effortlessly adopting a top-drawer accent).
‘So that’s where Brian’s been parking the Audi!’
Gaffar licked his lips, nervously, and shifted in his chair.
‘How long till I get my own phone back?’ Kelly asked, grabbing her replacement from the bedside table and inspecting it, irritably. Gaffar shrugged.
‘It’s such bastard bad luck,’ Kelly grumbled. ‘I got all my important numbers on there…’
She threw the phone down again.
‘Did you get all that stuff for my mum like I asked ya?’
Gaffar nodded. He pointed to a bag at his feet.
‘An’ the stuff for me?’
He pointed to a second, slightly smaller bag, next to it.
‘Lemme take a quick butcher’s…’
Kelly put out her hand, her eyes slitting, suspiciously. Gaffar lifted up the bag and placed it, gently, on to the bed. Kelly sorted her way through it, at her leisure, with a combination of nods and clucks (‘Good…good…Man! I told you Low Fat yoghurts, didn’t I? You stupid goof…’).
She glanced up. ‘Where’s my salads?’
Gaffar looked blank.
‘Salads, mate. Tomatoes. Cucumber. Lettuce. Where they at?’
Gaffar pointed, somewhat lamely, towards a bag of apples.
‘Apples, you bugger. Full of bloody sugar. I need salads. Salads in a bag. Salads in a plastic fuckin’ container. I don’t bloomin’ care. So long as they’re salads. Sal-ads, yeah? So long as they’re green, with no fuckin’ calories in ‘em…’
‘Ah! Sal-ad!’ Gaffar suddenly pretended to catch on. He shook his head. ‘No salad. They no salad in these shop.’
He waved his hand, dismissively.
‘No salad?!’ Kelly’s jaw dropped (no salad?! I mean where’d he think this was? Fucking Ethiopia?). ‘Pull the other one, mate, it’s got bells on!’
Gaffar rubbed his chin. ‘Tomorrow. Tomorrow I bring you this salads…’
Kelly merely sucked on her tongue.
‘You’re too, damn skinny already,’ Gaffar protested. ‘What do you want salad for? You need some good protein. Chicken. Steak. Lamb. Not salad. Salad’s shit. Just water with a dash of colour…’
Kelly rolled her eyes, boredly, as Gaffar ranted.
‘So you got the proper address for my mum an’ everythin’?’ she interrupted him. ‘Please tell me you ain’t gone an’ forgotten that on top.’
Gaffar reached into his pocket and withdrew a couple of spent scratchcards.
‘Don’t let Kane see you usin’ those,’ she warned him, ‘or he’ll give you the world’s worst fuckin’ lecture. He hates the bloody lottery.’ Gaffar shoved the cards away again, felt around some more, and this time withdrew an address – in Kane’s eccentric hand – on a scruffy piece of paper.
‘Right. Good,’ Kelly was satisfied, ‘so Kane’s lendin’ you his car again, yeah?’
Gaffar shook his head. ‘No car. Taxi.’
‘He’s payin’ for your cabs now, is he?’
Gaffar nodded.
‘Wow…’
She eyed him, jealously. ‘He’s never paid for my cabs…’ she paused, ruminatively ‘…But then he did buy me a scooter for my eighteenth birthday…’ She cocked her chin, smugly. ‘Did he buy you a scooter yet?’
Gaffar simply smiled at her. She gave him a straight look. ‘He got you dealin’ for him already?’
Gaffar gazed at her, blankly.
‘I fuckin’ know he has. How’d you get a hold of all that smart clobber otherways?’
Gaffar shoved his hand into his pocket and took out his dice, a tiny blue pen (the kind you got free, in a bookmaker’s) and a pad.
‘Beede,’ he said.
‘Howzat?’ Kelly scowled.
‘Beede give suit. We play dice.’
‘What?’
‘You wanna play dice?’
Gaffar stood up, lifted the shopping bag back down on to the floor, then carefully adjusted Kelly’
s fold-out table.
‘Mind my fuckin’ leg!’
(The leg was partially suspended, above the bed.)
‘Jesus Christ!’
Kelly pulled up her blanket, harrumphing.
Gaffar pointed at the grim, metal joists emerging from the plaster.
‘Terminator!’ he pronounced.
She rolled her eyes.
He rested his hands on his hips. ‘I vill be back!’ he intoned.
‘Not if I have any say in the matter,’ the woman in the next bed murmured (into the well-thumbed pages of a Sunday Mirror colour supplement).
‘Well I never!’ Kelly exclaimed, casually reinserting her well-greased arm again. ‘So that’s where Grandma stashed poor Rover!’
The woman hissed. Gaffar sat down. He picked up the pen and started drawing on the paper.
‘What we playin’?’ Kelly asked.
‘Pachen. I show.’
He drew three horizontal lines and then intersected them with two vertical ones (leaving approximately a centimetre between each). When he’d finished the first one (the letter G inscribed neatly above), he commenced with the second (topping it off with the letter K).
‘This you…’ he said, pointing to the K graph, ‘and this me.’ He pointed at the G.
Darkmans Page 23
