Darkmans

by Nicola Barker

  ‘So what kind of nonsense has Kane been up to?’ Kelly asked nonchalantly (as if she didn’t care a jot).

  ‘Kane?’ Gaffar glanced up at her.

  ‘Yeah. What kind of shit’s he been pullin’ lately?’

  Gaffar smiled and then shook his head.

  ‘Why’re you smilin’ like that?’

  Kelly pulled herself bolt upright.

  ‘Huh?’

  Gaffar pretended not to understand.

  ‘Has he been slaggin’ me off again?’

  Gaffar cocked his head.

  ‘Did he tell you I nicked those drugs off him? Did he? Because if he did it’s a fuckin’ lie…’ she knuckled up her hands into furious fists. ‘Man! I can’t believe he told you that…’

  Gaffar shook his head. ‘He…uh…’

  ‘Because I didn’t, all right? I’ve never done drugs. Apart from the odd bit of puff an’ speed an’ E, obviously. Never. An’ he knows it, too. My brother was hooked on solvents. Glue. I’ve seen what terrible things that kind of shit can do to you…’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘An’ I’m still stuck in this damn bed – alongside that slack bitch – because of the stupid drugs they gave me in here. Look at my rash…’

  She lifted up her blanket and showed him her belly. It was wall-to-wall hives.

  ‘See?’

  Gaffar winced, picked up the dice, and tried to start the game.

  ‘I just can’t believe he still thinks I stole off him. An’ I can’t believe he told you that, neither…’

  Gaffar grimaced. ‘I never…’ he said, shaking his head ‘…we never talk.’

  Kelly’s pretty face closely scrutinised his. ‘You never talk? Or you never talked about me?’

  Gaffar pointed at Kelly and then shook his head.

  ‘You never talked about me?’

  ‘Uh-uh.’

  Kelly was hurt. ‘That’s rich. We dated for eight solid months. What is his fuckin’ problem?’

  Gaffar shrugged. He shook the dice in his hand.

  ‘So what are the two of you gassin’ about all day, then?’

  Gaffar’s brows rose.

  ‘I mean what’s so fuckin’ important, eh?’

  Gaffar looked blank.

  ‘Jesus Christ. I fell off his wall an’ I broke my leg…’

  ‘Hey!’ Gaffar suddenly expostulated. ‘Don’t get so worked up about it! I’m here. He send Gaffar…huh?…and for…for shop…What more could a good whore possibly require?’

  He pointed at the bag.

  ‘Yeah,’ Kelly crossed her arms, sulkily, ‘his little go-between…’

  Gaffar merely sniffed.

  ‘So what do you talk about, then?’

  He rolled his eyes. ‘Urgh. No thing.’

  ‘Bullshit!’

  Gaffar sighed. ‘We talk about…uh…’ he struggled to think of anything, ‘uh…ah! Rug.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Rug. On floor.’

  ‘Rug?’

  ‘On floor. Beede floor. Rug. We talk.’

  Kelly collapsed back into her pillows. ‘Now you’re just bein’ a twat.’

  ‘No. Is so true.’

  ‘An’ what else?’

  ‘Uh…Animal Rescue.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘He thinks I fuck Rolf.’

  ‘Rolf?’

  ‘He thinks I do fuck on Rolf.’

  Kelly frowned.

  Gaffar chuckled fondly as he remembered. ‘Then we laugh.’

  Kelly still frowned. ‘Uh…yeah. Ha ha. Absolutely hilarious.’

  She sucked on her lower lip. ‘You boys are just so damn sad.’

  Gaffar seemed untroubled by this assault. ‘An’ we watch Sky tv. We watch uh…Africa news. We watch…uh…Islam tv. Get piss. Get stoned.’

  ‘Well that’s just great. That’s dandy. So I break my fuckin’ leg. I get pins put in my fuckin’ leg. I suffer a major allergic reaction to a drug which your charmin’ pal has pretty much accused me – to my face, no less – of nickin’ from him, and here you both are, spendin’ all God’s hours smokin’ blow, drinkin’ booze and watchin’ Islamic bloody tv…’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I mean that ain’t even a proper channel.’

  ‘Is good tv. We watch Anthony Robbins. Guru. Infomercial. Many times. Many times. We watch…uh…Channel 4 race. We watch Text2Text. With whore. Tv whore. On phone.’

  ‘You freaks,’ Kelly gasped, ‘you sad, fucking freaks.’

  She crossed her arms.

  Gaffar smiled.

  ‘Man. That’s just…’ she gazed up at the light fitment, furiously, ‘…that’s just so fuckin’ typical. Classic Kane. Classic fuckin’ Kane…’

  Gaffar continued to smile, slightly hunched over, watching her furious ruminations, fondly.

  ‘Don’t look at me like that!’ Kelly suddenly yelled.

  He sat up straight. ‘Wha?!’

  ‘Like some big, gormless pup!’

  He shrugged, then pretended to adjust his face with his hand. His face was very rubbery. He pushed his nose across his cheek, like it was made out of Plasticene.

  Kelly squealed, ‘That’s disgustin’! Stop it!’

  Gaffar stopped.

  ‘We play Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2001,’ he informed her.

  ‘Oh God, the fuckin’ golf. Don’t even go there…’

  ‘Kane is play Justin Leonard. I is play Brad Faxon in big tournament for seven hour.’

  ‘I hate that damn game,’ Kelly hissed. ‘I’m haunted by that fuckin’ game. The sound of the bat hittin’ the ball, the birds twitterin’ in the damn trees…’

  ‘Stick,’ Gaffar corrected her.

  ‘An’ that stupid, fuckin’ “oooooaaawwww!” noise the crowd makes ever time you miss a shot…’

  Gaffar nodded, sympathetically. ‘I tell him we should play Super Mario, eh? Sims. New game…’

  ‘I bought him the 2002 edition of the golf for his birthday, and I swear to God he never even took off the cellophane wrapper. He’s like, “No. I still enjoy 2001. There’s still plenty of stuff for me to learn here.”’

  ‘But he is good play for this game, huh?’

  ‘Fuckin’ should be, mate, he’s wasted enough hours on it. An’ I wouldn’t mind, but he don’t even like computer games. He only got the system in exchange for a bad debt an’ the golf game was still inside. He claims he despises PlayStation…’

  ‘Kane love this game,’ Gaffar reiterated.

  ‘Did he give you the line about how it’s an easy game to play but a difficult game to master?’

  Gaffar stared at her, blankly.

  ‘Just you wait. He’ll tell you that. He loves to say that. That game is like a religion to Kane. I’ve never seen him more fuckin’ contented than when he’s playin’ that stupid game.’

  ‘You hate this game, huh?’ Gaffar observed.

  ‘That Pebble fuckin’ Beach course,’ Kelly growled. ‘Wiv’ all the sounds of the waves in the background…?’

  Gaffar nodded, sagely. ‘But this wave sound is better than his music, eh?’

  ‘His music?!’ Kelly squealed. ‘Man, when I think about his taste in fuckin’ music I just thank God we broke up.’

  ‘Crazy music.’

  ‘Desert fuckin’ rock, mate.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘That’s what it’s called. Desert rock. Rock from the desert or somethin’. Did he play you The Meat Puppets yet?’

  ‘Urgh!’ Gaffar threw up his hands.

  ‘What a terrible, bloomin’ racket!’

  ‘Terrible!’ Gaffar heartily agreed.

  ‘Just a bunch of dirty, long-haired dope-heads wailin’ an’ screamin’ over a howlin’ guitar.’

  ‘I ask him for play Shania Twain,’ Gaffar told her. ‘I buy cd in Tesco.

  Good cd. I show him this cd an’ he is laugh in my face for half an hour…’

  ‘Oh. My. God. I fuckin’ love Shania!’ Kelly interrupted him.

  ‘Instead he is
play this Stoneage Queens, eh? This Meat Puppet, this big Dinosaur…’

  Gaffar winced at the memory.

  ‘Shania is the best singer of all time,’ Kelly declared, cuffing him on the arm.

  ‘Shania is queen of the world,’ Gaffar cuffed her straight back, ‘Queen of this music world.’

  ‘I can’t believe you love Shania! I fuckin’ worship Shania!’

  ‘Shania is the most beautiful woman on this earth.’

  ‘She’s fuckin’ gorgeous, mate. She is fuckin’ beautiful. An’ she’s a good person, too, yeah? Beautiful on the inside and the out.’

  They beamed at each other.

  After two or three seconds Kelly actually realised what she was doing and quickly stopped herself.

  She pointed at the paper, by way of a diversion. ‘So how’d we play this stupid game of yours, then?’

  Gaffar leaned forward, picked up the pen, and next to the various tiny boxes he began to write –

  4x1, 4x2, 4x3, 4x4, 4x5, 4x6, 2x?, 3x?, 3x1/2x1, 1–5.

  ‘Is Pachen. See?’

  Kelly nodded.

  Gaffar took the first throw to demonstrate. He got a five, a six, a one and three twos. He chuckled. He picked up the pen and ticked neatly in the box on his graph specifying 3x?. Then he threw again. Nothing. He passed the dice over. Kelly shook them in her hand.

  ‘Kane got sore foot,’ Gaffar told her, in passing, just as she was about to throw.

  She steadied herself. ‘Huh?’

  ‘Foot. Hurt on foot. He phone, phone…Find foot doctor.’

  ‘Kane has hurt his foot?’

  ‘Yes. Wart.’ Gaffar grimaced.

  ‘Kane has a wart on his foot?’

  ‘Yes. That is what happen. That is how we talk. Nothing at all with you and this drug.’

  ‘Fine…’

  Kelly promptly threw five sixes.

  Gaffar’s eyes widened as she picked up the pen and filled in her graph. She prepared for her second throw. ‘So what are we playin’ for?’ she asked.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Cuz I ain’t playin’ for nothin’, that’s for sure.’

  Gaffar scratched his ear.

  ‘Okay,’ Kelly lowered her voice, ‘here’s the deal: if I win, you promise to tell me everything Beede’s doin’…’

  ‘Beede?’ Gaffar looked perplexed.

  She nodded. ‘Beede. You spy on him for me. And I wanna know everythin’. I mean if that old boy shits, then I wanna know how much and where, yeah?’

  Gaffar continued to scratch, ruminatively.

  ‘And you can fetch me my bloody salad. I want my fuckin’ salad, right?’ She paused. ‘But if you win…’

  He stopped scratching and looked up at her, keenly.

  Kelly thought hard for a while, frowning. Then her face suddenly cleared. ‘Hand-job!’ she exclaimed, throwing down the dice for a second time, with an expression of high good humour.

  Kane was haunted by his mother’s pain. It was indelibly etched on him (chiselled into him, like he was a soft, sandstone carving). He longed – more than anything – to banish it from his mind (not wanting to forget exactly, or to…to disrespect – not at all – just to lessen the…to blank out…to edit…), but he could not.

  Impossible.

  As a boy her pain had been one of his earliest points of reference (am I hungry? Is it raining? Is Mummy in bad pain again?). It gave each day its substance (simply managing it, reducing it, ignoring it, enduring it). Her pain was at the heart of everything: it was the colour on their canvas, the scenery on their stage, the starring actor in their domestic drama.

  He’d always known (and his mother – God bless her – had always warned him) that if he wasn’t to be overwhelmed by it (stupified, annihilated – the way she ultimately had been) then he’d need – as a matter of basic survival – to create an emotional bypass of some kind.

  He’d begun the early groundwork readily enough (while she was still around to guide him): worked out a route, completed some rough sketches, got a few useful quotes in. But it was a big job, a serious job, and when things had finally (and inevitably) proven too much for him (she was gone, life was shit, what the hell was the point in expending all this effort?), he’d taken what he took to be the second-best option: he glanced over his shoulder, stuck on his indicator, and pulled into a layby –

  Brake,

  Clutch,

  Neutral…

  Phew!

  Not a cop-out –

  Nope

  – just a temporary measure.

  It was a nice enough spot (a small expanse of grass, a shady tree, a picnic table), yet even as he sat there (eating a Cornetto), the hollow knell of her pain still continued to sound (like the low growl of a grizzly bear, hungrily ransacking a trashcan somewhere). It wasn’t a deafening commotion. Not from here. It was really quite tolerable. And he was in no particular hurry to draw any closer (why should he be?). So he stayed. He encamped. He became a permanent transient.

  He never spoke of it (the pain, the layby, the bear, the growling). Not to anyone. Didn’t want to speak of it. Could not stand to.

  Her agony – her unbearable forbearance – was just a part of him now. Embedded within him. Utterly secret. Sacred, even.

  But then…then she’d gone and brought it all up again –

  The chiropodist.

  Elen –

  – just idly, just casually, in general conversation.

  She’d pin-pointed something vulnerable on the map of him. She’d stuck a cruel tack in –

  As a guide…

  As a marker.

  – then she’d fired a single arrow. It rose, it arced, it fell…

  Ow!

  She’d pierced him with it.

  And no matter how hard he tried – how much he fought and wrangled with the damn thing – he simply could not pull it out of him.

  ‘You were so brave,’ she’d said.

  Brave?

  If only she knew (the nails he’d bitten. The tears he’d sobbed. The long nights – the terrible, endless, sleepless nights – full of pointless prayers to a heartless God). He shuddered at the memory.

  If that was brave, she could damn well keep it. A pack of wild horses wouldn’t drag him back again.

  Gaffar was waiting for Beede in the hallway, perched, uncomfortably, on the bottom stair.

  Beede let himself in (not even bothering to switch the light on), slamming the door shut behind him, turning – in a kind of daze – and then glancing up, with a jolt. He hadn’t expected to see someone sitting there.

  ‘Gaffar,’ he said, with a stiff smile, ‘is that you? Are you still here?’ Gaffar peered down at himself, speculatively, then glanced up again, smiling, grimly. ‘Gaffar Celik – like the proverbial bad smell, eh?’

  Beede bent down to pick up his post from the mat, then pulled off his helmet. He pushed his fingers through his hair.

  Silence.

  ‘Nice suit,’ he said, finally, with a slight gesture of the hand, as if to break the ice between them.

  ‘Sure,’ Gaffar muttered, ‘is good suit.’ He shrugged.

  ‘Perhaps…uh…’ he shrugged again ‘…a little on the roomy side. But, hey…’

  He winced, amiably.

  ‘So you’re staying upstairs with Kane?’ Beede enquired.

  ‘You ride motorbike?’ Gaffar counter-questioned, pointing – with just a hint of incredulity – at Beede’s battered and ancient piss-pot helmet.

  ‘Uh, yes…’ Beede peered down at the helmet, distractedly. ‘An old bike. A Douglas.’

  ‘Hmmn. Is so? I never hear of this bike…’

  ‘That’s probably because it’s British.’

  ‘Ah…’ Gaffar snorted, dismissively, then folded up his large hands and slotted them, primly, between his thighs.

  Beede walked over to his door and pushed it open. He stepped inside and then he paused.

  He turned. ‘So, Gaffar…Is there something…?’

  Gaffar glanced
up, in apparent surprise. ‘Nothing. I just…uh…sit.’

  ‘Right.’ Beede nodded. ‘Good.’

  He gently began to push the door to.

  ‘Nothing…’ Gaffar repeated (but with a touch more urgency this time), ‘I mean is nothing for to trouble you…’

  He hesitated. ‘I mean is only small thing. An insignificant little…uh…’ he pondered for a second ‘…dilemma.’

  ‘I see…’ Beede tossed his helmet, the post and his knapsack down on to the sofa. He seemed tired and preoccupied.

  ‘Tough day?’ Gaffar enquired.

  ‘Is there ever any other kind?’ Beede countered dryly, pulling off his leather gloves and observing – with some irritation – a slick of hair oil marking the hide.

  ‘I was come to see you…’ Gaffar cleared his throat, nervously, ‘today. In hospital…But then…’

  He grimaced.

  ‘Really?’ Beede didn’t seem especially delighted by the idea. ‘The truth is that I barely have time for visitors, Gaffar – I’m always pretty busy down there…’

  Then something suddenly dawned on him. ‘Ah…I see. You wanted to come and apply for a job, perhaps? Employment? In the laundry?’

  Gaffar’s brows shot up, in horror. ‘God, no,’ he blurted out.

  ‘Heaven preserve me!’

  Beede looked piqued for a moment, then his irritation evaporated and he chuckled, wryly.

  ‘Uh…No!’ Gaffar back-pedalled, guiltily. ‘Is because I have job, see?

  Job with Kane. Good job…’ he paused. ‘But this job you have, is also good job,’ he continued, obsequiously, ‘hard job. Kane he say…uh…’ Gaffar frowned. ‘He say…’ he paused, struggling to find the right words, ‘it’s almost like a…a dance…’

  He quickly stood up and gracefully threw out his arms, to illustrate. ‘He says the hospital linen is full of shit and blood and vomit, but you grab it with your hands and you embrace it. You hold it to you, without pride but with…with acceptance. With love. Like a dancing partner. No sign of…of fastidiousness. He says it’s really quite…quite…beautiful – yes? Beautiful to watch – although, of course, on another level…’