Good.
Kane drew a long, slow, steady breath, steeled himself, glanced furtively around him, yanked his hood down low to obscure his face –
Eh?
Hood?
– and stealthily entered the building.
Once inside he observed (with a strange feeling of smugness) that the basilica was constructed under fairly traditional lines –
Basilica?
– an oblong hall with a double colonnade and apse –
Apse?!
Yet while the basic design of the interior was fairly uncontentious, the scale of it was anything but.
It was gigantic –
Stupendous!
– and there was this –
Wow!
– ow!
– ow!
– this quite astonishing echo –
– ho!
– ho!
– so as soon as his boots hit the floor –
Granite?
Marble?
– he observed another pair of boots – the same pair, to all intents and purposes – landing just a milli-second after; almost as if he were two people, two explorers, two dreamy, mid-light voyagers…
Mid-light?
Hang on…
It was evening –
But of course
– definitely evening. The giant hall was suddenly illuminated (or had it always been?) by a thousand flickering candles. He sniffed. He could smell cheap tallow. He could smell burning honey.
And then –
What?
– without any kind of warning, the echo from his footsteps faltered slightly – it adjusted itself; it missed a beat. He glanced anxiously behind him – with a start. But there was only his shadow –
My shadow?
Really?!
He gingerly lifted an arm. His shadow’s arm lifted. It was a tiny arm. He kicked out his leg. His shadow’s leg lifted. It was a curiously feminine leg. He pushed back his hood and tried to inspect his profile, but every time he posed (to get the best possible slant on his features) the shadow – like a twig in a game of Pooh-sticks – drifted gently out of view.
He inspected his hands. His hands were very beautiful; a scholar’s hands. A gentleman’s hands –
Still a gentleman’s hands, eh?
After all this time?
– and there – very reassuringly – further up on the forearm; his burn. He fondly recalled how he’d acquired it; setting fire to the barn –
Barn?!
His eyes quickly returned –
No.
That’s just silly.
It wasn’t…
– to those fine, scholarly hands. He smiled down at them, proudly, spreading out his fingers and quietly perusing his uncallused palms, his neat, clean nails…
A sudden rustle –
What?!
– from directly behind him –
Who?!
– caused him to spring sharply back, but way too late. She was already hard upon him; a woman, lean; dark; distinguished; dressed, from head to toe, in deepest mourning. He froze, certain he’d be exposed –
Exposed for what?
To what?
– but she hurried straight on by him, as if she didn’t even see him.
He turned and observed her rapid progress down the aisle (her skirts were long and black, the fabric seemed heavy – shiny – almost as if wet, as if waterlogged. He stared at the floor, anticipating some kind of damp trail, but there was nothing, only tiny tornadoes of dust which danced and spiralled gaily in her wake).
The woman – The Mourner (he didn’t know why he felt the strong urge to call her that) hastened on towards the altar, drew to an abrupt halt in front of it, crossed herself and fell into a deep curtsey. Her dark skirts rose around her like a singed blackcurrant soufflé.
As he watched her he felt something unexpected rise within him. A naughty urge? A cackle, perhaps? He held his breath, purely out of instinct, to curtail it, and as he held it he slowly began to – Wa-hey!
– to levitate.
He lifted straight up into the air; 2 feet, 4 feet, 10 feet, 20. He rose so high that he disturbed a wood pigeon from its roost. It clapped its wings, furiously, as it flew on by (and this single clap resounded around the ceiling, like a flurry of gunshot).
Then he panicked –
Oh shit…
How the hell will I come down again?
He exhaled, sharply – alarmed – and then he dropped –
Woah!
He suspended his breath again and held steady. He experimented with this system a few times –
Okay…
– then he tried to move forward, but it was difficult. He performed a kind of clumsy breast-stroke with his arms and made gradual headway.
Soon (in a blink) he was suspended directly above her –
The Mourner…
Who’s she mourning for?
He exhaled gradually. It was a good feeling, a warm feeling. He slipped lower and lower, like the mercury in a cooling themometer. Twenty feet, 10 feet, 5 feet, he wobbled on 3. His shoes finally touched the ground, but so lightly. He stood on his toes, holding out his arms (like the poignant Christ carved in exquisite marble behind the altar).
He was mere inches from her. He breathed out – slowly and deeply – from his loin, from his belly, and then he inhaled the scent of her. He smelled…
Peppermint?
Clove?
Lavender?
He rose a delighted inch and then landed. He was aroused by her. She was standing now, and there was this irresistible sliver…
Uh…
– of white flesh on the back of her shoulder, peeking out like the slip of a moon from between the gloom of her dress and the pitch of her shawl. He fluttered out his hand and landed on it – like a moth, drawn to the light – with the soft pads of his scholarly fingers. She didn’t move. She didn’t react to the moth. She was muttering a prayer.
He rose and then fell again –
Ahhh…
This time, as he landed, he reached out both hands and slid them around her waist’s tight hourglass. Her waist was so tiny he thought he might almost…almost fasten his hands around it. So he did. He clamped his hands around her, hearing – and thrilling to – the resisting creak of her corset; the aching groan of her stays…
His middle fingers touched each other. His scholar’s thumbs touched each other…
Ahhh
He moved in still closer – so close now he was literally shoved up against her. He slid his hungry palms over the swell of her belly and then up, towards her breasts. His fingers pitter-pattered like rain on the gently rising dough of her chest.
Still, she did nothing. So he shoved his hands down –
Hard
– on to her breasts, from above, almost viciously, as if trying to push those neat, white buns back into the stern corset that supported them. Then he lifted them, sharply, and freed her nipples, rolling them between his fingers, with a satisfied grunt. Her nipples felt hard between his fingers as two cultured pearls.
He rose and then fell away.
Ahhh
He rose and then fell.
Because it was all in the breathing, see? Each breath sending a tiny pulse, a thrill, to his belly and his groin.
He breathed. He breathed. He squeezed her breasts. He pushed his face and lips into the tender white skin on the side of her neck.
And then suddenly, just when it seemed like he could do exactly as he liked, that he would do as he liked (that he might no longer be able to stop himself from doing so), she gasped and her head snapped around. Her eyes were wide. She seemed terrified. He saw her, in profile, and he knew her, but just as with his own shadow – when he tried to see her, to recognise her completely – the face lost focus and she was only…
Uh…
She struggled to turn and confront him, but he couldn’t let that happen, he couldn’t stop what he was doing –
Just can’t…
Just need to…
– so he grabbed her arms, roughly, and pinned her to him, bruising her (he could feel the savage squeeze and crush of his grip against the milky blancmange of her skin). He ground himself into her, into the blackness of her skirts, into the softness and the muffledness, like a ravenous man trying to land a fish from a fast-flowing river; and the fish is resisting – as all fishes naturally must – the fish is pulling the line taut – still tauter – but he counters, hungrily, he lugs, he wrestles, he strains, he heaves, and then, and then, and then…smack! –
Oh God!
Thank God!
– the fish jumps, it springs, spontaneously, unrestrainedly, out of the water.
EIGHT
‘Did you put that bell on the cat?’
Kane had ventured downstairs, at dawn (okay, seven-thirty-ish); dazed, befuddled, and somewhat –
Uh…
Yuk
– sticky, to grab a bottle of milk from the front step, only to be unexpectedly ambushed by his father.
‘Sorry?’ Kane frowned, startled, slightly caught on the hop (he felt stained – tattooed, almost – by the sleep he’d just had. He felt it indelibly inked upon him. He felt…
Urgh
– he felt filthy).
‘The cat?’
‘Yes,’ Beede nodded, ‘I have a cat. A Siamese cat. I’m borrowing him. I mean I’m looking after him.’
Kane just stared at him, perplexed. ‘What’s that smell?’ he said, finally.
‘Smell?’
‘Yes. Like…like smoke. Woodsmoke.’
‘Woodsmoke?’
‘Yes.’
Beede sniffed, then shrugged. ‘I’m not getting it.’
‘Oh.’
Kane bit his lip, distractedly. Then he focussed in on Beede again. Beede seemed pale – strained – almost stricken. It wasn’t a good look.
‘I’m sorry,’ Kane murmured (struggling to suppress a sympathetic pang), ‘you were saying?’
‘There’s a bell on the cat. A new bell. Hanging on a collar around his neck. I was simply wondering…’
‘No.’ Kane shook his head.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Positive,’ Kane insisted, yawning. ‘Why the hell would I be putting a bell on a cat?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Talking of necks…Is something…uh…’
Kane indicated, tentatively, towards the offending area on his father.
Beede moved a cagey hand to his shoulder.
‘Have you pulled something? You look…’
Old
‘No. It’s fine…’ Beede wrestled with himself. ‘Yes. I don’t know. I think I may’ve sat up too abruptly in the night, and just…just jinked something…’
‘Ouch.’
Beede shrugged, then winced.
‘Perhaps it was Gaffar,’ Kane volunteered.
‘Pardon?’
‘The bell.’
‘The bell? You think?’ Beede gazed up at him, keenly.
‘Actually, no. Gaffar despises cats. Although…’
‘What?’
‘Maybe that’s why. Maybe he put the bell on to try and keep some kind of check on it.’
‘Is that possible?’
‘No,’ Kane snorted, ‘it isn’t.’
Beede scowled (Why was it always such a dance with Kane?
Why was nothing ever…?).
Kane sniffed at the air again. ‘Woodsmoke,’ he murmured, ‘definitely.’
He moved over towards the door. ‘I’m just getting my milk,’ he said. ‘D’you want yours?’
‘Yes,’ Beede nodded, ‘thanks.’
Kane went out, grabbed the milk, then came back in again, shivering. He handed Beede his bottle. Beede took it, then he winced.
‘Have you taken anything?’ Kane asked.
‘Pardon?’
Beede pretended not to follow. Kane frowned. ‘For your back. It’s obviously…’
‘It’s probably just a cold,’ Beede fobbed him off, ‘in the muscle. In the shoulder.’
‘Are you planning to go to work?’
‘Of course,’ Beede snapped. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
They stared at each other.
‘I’ll ask Gaffar about the bell,’ Kane murmured, feeling around in his pocket with his spare hand for his cigarettes, unable to locate them. He turned towards the stairs. He gazed up at the stairs. He grimaced. Then he turned back around again.
‘I have something for it,’ he said. ‘I mean I can give you something for it, something that’ll help…’
‘It’s not a problem,’ Beede said gruffly. ‘If I’m desperate I can always take a couple of Anadin.’
‘It’s all perfectly kosher,’ Kane persisted. ‘I know about backs, remember? It’s kind of my speciality because of…uh…’
Mum
Beede’s eyes widened. ‘Of course,’ he butted in, keen not to venture a single step further down this particularly treacherous emotional bridleway, ‘I appreciate the offer.’
Kane shrugged.
The unmentionable hung between them like a dank canal (overrun by weed and scattered with litter – the used condoms, the bent tricycle, the old pram).
‘Well I’d better…’
Kane shrugged again, hurt (he’d tried to reach out, and he’d palpably failed, so that, he supposed, was that).
‘Yes. Thanks.’
Beede inspected his milk bottle. Kane headed upstairs. He was at least five steps up when he could’ve sworn he heard something. A muttering. He paused. He peered over his shoulder. Beede had not moved. He was gazing down at the floor.
‘Did you just say something, Beede?’
‘Pardon?’
‘Did you just say something?’
‘No. Yes. I simply…’ he glanced up, ‘I just asked after your foot.’
Kane stared at him –
What?
‘Your foot,’ Beede reiterated, tightly. ‘Is it feeling any better?’
‘My foot…?’ Kane glanced down at his foot, flushing. ‘It’s fine.’ ‘Apparently verrucas can be hereditary,’ Beede informed him.
‘Yes. Yes. Apparently so.’
(Had she told him that, too? Elen?)
Beede was scowling again. He was passing the milk bottle from hand to hand.
‘Is there something on your mind?’ Kane asked (quite boldly, he felt, under the circumstances).
‘I can always give you the number of another chiropodist,’ Beede said, ‘a good chiropodist, if seeing Elen doesn’t quite pan out…’
‘Why? Don’t you think Elen’s a good chiropodist?’
‘I didn’t say that,’ he snapped.
‘But didn’t she heal your foot?’
‘Yes,’ Beede conceded grouchily, ‘in a manner of speaking.’
‘Well either she healed your foot or she didn’t heal it…’
‘The foot’s better – much better. But verrucas can be very persistent.’
‘Neurotic,’ Kane shot back, ‘sustained by a kind of inner turmoil.’
‘Ah,’ Beede smiled, grimly, ‘so you had the little lecture, did you?’
Little lecture?
‘Yes,’ Kane said.
‘Good.’
Beede’s voice was bitter. His colour was high.
‘I actually remembered her,’ Kane said, struggling to justify his position to his father (although he wasn’t entirely sure why), ‘from before…From Mum.’
‘Ah.’
(Again, that deep canal, that unnavigable bridleway.)
‘And what’s stranger still,’ Kane continued, ‘she actually remembered me.’
‘I see…’ Beede cleared his throat. ‘Well I’m sure you’re very memorable, Kane. It’s just a complicated situation, that’s all…’
‘It’s only a wart, Dad,’ Kane scoffed.
Dad?
Beede flinched.
Dad?
‘It’s only a wart,’ Kane repeated, blankly.
<
br /> ‘So did she ask you for anything?’ Beede wondered. ‘When you saw her?’
‘Ask me for anything?’ Kane didn’t follow. ‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know…Drugs?’
‘Drugs?’
‘Yes. I just wondered if the conversation might’ve got around to…’
Darkmans Page 35
