Darkmans

by Nicola Barker

  ‘Piss?!’ Gaffar grinned. ‘She is shit her pant! This Laura she is saying, “I never see this Gaffar! I don’t know of this Gaffar!” Then she is run away.’

  Gaffar impersonated a panicked Laura running off.

  ‘She was embarrassed?’

  ‘Exact.’

  ‘Okay…’ Kane nodded, thoughtfully. ‘So just as an idle point of interest, Gaffar, do you happen to recall that long discussion we had – a couple of days ago – about client confidentiality?’

  Gaffar gazed at him, blankly.

  ‘Client confidentiality,’ Kane reiterated. ‘That chat we had. About how I tend to think it best – as a rule – never to acknowledge any of our clients in public…I mean except with their express say-so, obviously?’

  ‘Ah…Yes. Sure.’ Gaffar nodded.

  ‘You remember that?’

  ‘Sure,’ Gaffar repeated, amiably.

  ‘Right…Good.’

  Kane stared at the tv a while, frowning.

  ‘So once Laura had run off,’ he soon doggedly recommenced his former line of enquiry, ‘you casually stole the document from Beede’s bag?’

  ‘No. No…’ Gaffar seemed to find this notion quite ridiculous. ‘First we have tea.’

  ‘Tea with Beede?’

  ‘Sure. We talk.’

  Kane’s brows rose slightly.

  ‘You talked? What did you talk about?’

  ‘Uh…chit-chat: shop, tree, pretty manager, bell…’

  ‘Bell?’

  Kane’s ears pricked up.

  ‘Sure. Bell on cat.’

  ‘Oh God, yes…’ Kane chuckled. ‘That friggin’ bell…’

  Gaffar continued to eat his meal.

  ‘So what did you say?’ Kane wondered.

  ‘Eh?’

  Gaffar glanced up, mid-mouthful.

  ‘About the cat. Did you admit to hanging the bell on it?’

  Gaffar gazed at him for a few seconds, wordlessly, as if quite astonished.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  Kane took another bite of pitta.

  ‘Wrong?…’ Gaffar slowly swallowed his mouthful. ‘You thing I hung bell?’ He pointed to his chest. ‘Gaffar? You thing Gaffar hung bell?’

  ‘Uh…’ Kane frowned (seeming to have nothing vested in this issue, either way), ‘I dunno…’

  ‘Okay…’ Gaffar gently placed his plate down on to the coffee table. ‘So…Okay…Let me finally get this thing straightened out, once and for all, eh?’

  He spoke slowly and deliberately. ‘I. Me. Gaffar. Not. Hang. Bell. Cat.’ He drew a deep breath. ‘Understan? Gaffar…’ he pointed to his chest, ‘is not hang bell cat.’

  ‘Right.’ Kane nodded. ‘Fine. Whatever.’

  Gaffar gripped firmly on to his knees with both hands. ‘…Because it’s starting to weigh me down a little – the whole cat thing, the whole bell thing…First your father insinuates it, and then you do. Yeah? And I’m not entirely sure if the confusion that’s developing between us here is based on some fundamental linguistic or cultural difference, or if I’m actually just living in a complete fucking nuthouse – but the fundamental facts of the matter – as I see them – are that I’ve been keeping myself pretty busy, yeah? Cooking meals, cleaning the flat, dressing my wound, carrying firewood, picking up dog shit, giving massages to bad-tempered, bloated, 25-stone harpies, visiting the hospital, buying salad, making out with a silent, huge-breasted, voyeuristic Goff as you blithely masturbate in your leather tv recliner…’

  ‘Goth,’ Kane corrected him.

  ‘…stealing papers from people’s bags,’ Gaffar continued, undaunted, ‘riding a badly engineered Italian scooter all over this godforsaken town while your stinking English weather pisses endlessly down…Pretty damn busy, yeah?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Kane said, nodding.

  ‘On that basis, I’m sure you can imagine,’ Gaffar continued, ‘that it comes as something of a surprise to me – perhaps even a shock, at some level – that you and your father seem so determined to believe that I, Gaffar, in the midst of all this frenzied – if fundamentally pointless – activity, somehow have the time – or the inclination – to hang a stupid bell on an ugly fucking cat.’

  He stared at Kane, somewhat short of breath, his dark eyes bulging.

  ‘Okay?’

  ‘Sure,’ Kane shrugged.

  ‘Okay?’

  Silence

  Gaffar picked up his plate and recommenced with his meal. ‘Feeling better?’ Kane enquired amiably, after a brief duration. ‘Fuckin’ lid,’ Gaffar muttered, ‘fuckin’ rug, fuckin’ drug, fuckin’ salad, fuckin cat…’

  He screwed up his napkin and threw it down at the coffee table, in disgust.

  They both watched tv a while.

  ‘So you didn’t, then?’ Kane suddenly enquired.

  ‘Pard?’ Gaffar turned and stared at Kane, blankly.

  ‘You didn’t?’

  Gaffar continued to stare.

  ‘Hang the bell, I mean. You didn’t hang the bell on the cat?’

  Gaffar remained utterly motionless.

  ‘Ding! Ding!’

  Kane mimed the ringing of a tiny bell.

  ‘Miaow!’

  He impersonated a cat.

  Silence

  Gaffar slowly closed his eyes. He remained dangerously quiet for three – five – seven seconds and then –

  ‘Ha!’ he suddenly bellowed, his eyes flying open again, darting forward and slapping Kane (perhaps a fraction too firmly), on his thigh. ‘You’s funny guy, eh?’

  Kane shrugged, modestly.

  ‘No,’ Gaffar insisted loudly (as if addressing a crowded public meeting), ‘is true. You’s very, very funny guy.’

  Kane smiled.

  ‘Funny, huh? In Turkey we has this word for funny guy like you,’ he paused, dramatically, ‘tiny cock! Eh? Baby cock! A man with a dick so small, so infinitesimal, it’s the approximate size of a newborn child’s. Tiny cock…mini cock. Peanut cock…’

  ‘Aw, shucks, man,’ Kane interrupted him. ‘Enough already – you’re embarrassing me here…’

  On the tv, the fallen climber screamed out in agony as he began clumsily binding up his badly fractured leg. Kane patted his full stomach as he watched this painful process, then he burped, slid his empty plate on to the coffee table, leaned forward and peered down at his feet. He wiggled his toes and then gingerly stood up.

  ‘You know what?’ he murmured, feeling around inside his pockets for his car keys, his phone, his cigarettes. ‘I actually gotta head outa here. Some stuff I forgot about. Stuff I need to take care of…’

  He strolled into his bedroom to find his shoes and his jacket, was gone for several minutes and then returned, carrying an old pair of scuffed, brown Bludstones.

  ‘You should keep on watching this,’ he told Gaffar, indicating with the boots towards the tv, ‘the next bit’s fantastic. He cracks up. His mind starts to wander and the whole film turns into some crazy kind of acid trip…’

  Gaffar stared at Kane, intently, as he spoke, an inexplicable smile playing around the corners of his lips.

  ‘In fact there’s a fine lump of hash in the old Gold Blend jar if you wanna make a night of it…’ Kane continued, slightly unnerved by Gaffar’s look. He pulled on his boots, with a grimace, then furtively rubbed at his nose (surreptitiously, while he was still bending over) in case something vile was hanging from it.

  Gaffar’s darkly ironic gaze continued to follow him as he prepared to exit.

  ‘Great dinner,’ Kane yelled over his shoulder, as a parting shot. ‘Fantastic dinner. Cheers for that.’

  Gaffar’s eyes narrowed slightly as Kane disappeared from view, then he turned and busily recommenced his meal, wondering – with an idle shrug – how long the small square of kitchen roll which was currently affixed to the back of his head might reasonably be expected to stay in situ.

  THREE

  She was hardly overburdened with stuff to occupy herself, and Gaffar (the horny,
little runt) had gone to all the trouble of –

  A-hem

  – borrowing it for her, so she lounged back in her bed, propped up on her pillows, and she read it, at her leisure, from cover to cover.

  It took ages (the lettering was all squiggly and the actal copy-quality was shite), but she read every damn page of it – every damn word (even the ones – and there were plenty of them – which she didn’t have the first clue what they meant – like ‘parbraked’ or ‘whiting’ or ‘apothecary’ or ‘tapster’ –

  ?!).

  And it was quite funny (actually) and stupid and dirty…all about con-tricks and wise-cracks and sex and bums and farts (especially farts); not the kind of stuff she could imagine historical people thinking about (or talking about or doing) – or Beede reading (or thinking about, or doing) either, for that matter.

  There was this one story (for example) where Scogin (or Master John, or Master Scogin, or John Scogin – the geezer whose adventures the book was describing) played a prank on his college pals so he wasn’t obliged to go hungry during Lent…

  Lent?

  Kelly called over a passing nurse and asked her if she knew what Lent was, and the nurse explained how she wasn’t entirely sure but she thought it might be the few weeks between when Jesus died on the cross and when he rose again –

  ‘Oh yeah…Like in Carrie? At the end of the film? When that evil fucker who threw pig’s blood at her is layin’ roses on her grave an’ then – Pow! – this hand breaks out thru the soil an’ grabs for his throat?’

  ‘Well…Yes. Kind of…Jesus pushed back this huge boulder which was blocking up the entrance to his tomb…’

  ‘So he was mad-strong, huh? Like a Power Ranger?’

  ‘Yes…Well…he obviously had supernatural gifts of a sort…’

  ‘An’ he was all covered in bandages, weren’t he? Like a mummy? I remember that from R.E. at school…’

  ‘Yes. Yes. Bandages or…or maybe robes…’

  ‘Wow. Awesome. An’ then what?’

  ‘Uh…I’m not entirely sure. He spoke to a few people, I imagine, to prove that he’d risen again…’

  ‘Sprang out on ‘em? Really shat ‘em up? Big, meaty nail wounds still on his hands?’

  ‘Uh…Well maybe not quite so…’

  ‘Wow. An’ then they still went on an’ voted him God? Even after all his shady behaviour?’

  ‘Uh. Yes. Yes. I suppose they did.’

  Pause

  ‘Aw. Check out your face! I’m jus’ rippin’ the piss, love.’

  Anyhow, from what she could gauge, Lent was the time in between these two distinct phases (about six weeks or so, the nurse estimated) although the haughty old geezer in the bed opposite – who was much too good to mix with the other patients on the ward and spent all his days hidden behind drawn white curtains (Reverend Jacobs, they called him – because, Kelly supposed, he was totally Cream Crackers…

  Geddit?)

  – interrupted the nurse at this point (through his drapes, no less) and told her (in no uncertain terms, either) that she didn’t know diddly-squat…‘Lent – you silly goose – starts on Ash Wednesday and commemorates the time when Jesus retreated into the desert and battled with his conscience for forty days and forty nights…’

  Eh?!

  ‘An’ who the hell asked you, you interferin’ old Gobshite?’

  More properly, Lent was a time when religious people, people who went to church (‘Yeah, yeah, Catholics and stuff’) liked to cut back on sweets and booze…

  ‘What? You mean like goin’ on a special diet for Christ?’

  ‘Exactly…’ the nurse nodded, glancing anxiously towards the drawn, white curtains.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well to prove their faith, I suppose…’

  ‘Beezer!’

  ‘And to show they have some understanding of Christ’s suffering, by suffering a little themselves…’

  ‘Brilliant!’

  ‘And then, when it’s all over – at Easter – they can eat as much as they like.’

  ‘Yeah? Chocolate eggs an’ shit?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘An’ Jesus is cool with that?’

  ‘Yes. Yes. I believe he is.’

  Anyway, Scogin wasn’t meant to eat too much (or get pissed) during Lent (this was in olden-times, so everything was inevitably much more: you know…yawn) and he didn’t have any spare money (any wonga – no dosh) to creep out of college and spend secretly at Nando’s (or down the boozer, or wherever), so he came up with a cunning plan to get free entry into the college pantry (where all the food was stored – Duh!).

  He did this by pretending that his ‘Chamber Fellow’ (the nonce who shared his room, poor bugger) was ill. It was the time of The Black Plague, and because none of the other scholars wanted to catch what the poor Fellow had, they gave Scogin the keys to the kitchen so that he could prepare him his food while nobody else was about (to avoid cross-contamination an’ shit). Once Scogin had the keys, though, he just took what he liked (Lent be blowed, eh? He feasts like a king!).

  After a few weeks, however, people started to get suspicious (‘Oi! Where the hell’s that lovely leg o’ lamb?!’) and they demanded to see the sick Fellow’s ‘water’ (his piss – they wanna test it), but instead of providing them with a sample, Scogin held a burning candle to the poor Fellow’s nose (an’ his lips, so they blister up) and the sight of his apparent ‘contagion’ was so terrifying to behold that the Masters stopped harassing the conniving pair and allowed them to keep those precious keys for a few weeks longer.

  Scogin and his Chamber Fellow consequently lived the Life of Reilly throughout all of Lent, eating what they liked, drinking and carousing, until Maundy Thursday when they enjoyed a huge, final blow-out at the college’s expense –

  Eh?

  ‘Oi. You. Behind ya curtains. Old Smarty-pants. What’s Maundy Thursday when it’s at home?’

  ‘Maundy Thursday’ – his disembodied voice wafted through, ‘is the last Thursday before Easter Friday. And I’m delighted to discover that you like my pants so much.’

  ‘Ha ha. I don’t like your pants. I hate your pants…’

  Pause

  ‘…So what’s the point of it?’

  ‘Well, traditionally it’s a day on which the monarch likes to hand out cash gifts to paupers, but in terms of purely religious observance, it’s generally celebrated,’ he continued, somewhat dogmatically, ‘with the old-fashioned custom of feet washing.’

  ‘Fuck off, you nutter!’

  ‘Look in the Bible and see for yourself – John XIII. XIV…’

  A neat, hardback, King James Bible – its pages held together by an elastic band – came scytheing through the curtains towards her, landing – with a thwack – against her cast.

  ‘Ow! Watch out! You tryin’ to take Bible Bashin’ to a whole new level or what?!’

  Kelly grabbed the Bible and checked the reference (it took some time to find it): John XIII. XIV:

  ‘If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another’s feet.’

  Que?!

  Scogin and his Chamber Fellow (to get back to the nub of the matter) actually imbibe so royally on Maundy Thursday that the Chamber Fellow eventually passes into a dead faint (drunk as a skunk), at which point Scogin cheerfully strips him naked, rolls him up in a sheet and runs around the college telling everyone he’s dead.

  The remaining Masters all duly line up to inspect the body, sober preparations are made for a burial, and everything’s proceeding very smoothly, when (Aaaaarrrrrgh!) the drunken Fellow suddenly awakens, takes fright, jumps to his feet and begins running around in a total panic. The Masters start yelling and screaming (thinking he’s some kind of ghostly apparition), which makes him panic all the more and run still faster, until (inevitably) his scant coverings promptly fall off (yet more screams from the Masters). It’s at this point (as he’s sprinting about, in the raw, his goolies flapping) that S
cogin takes the opportunity to commence yelling: ‘A miracle! A miracle!’, as if testifying to an act of Otherworldly Intervention (It’s Easter, now, dammit! He’s gonna be dining out on this sacrilegious little farce for weeks!).

  !?

  Hmmn…

  Well maybe it weren’t actually so funny as all that…

  When the nurse arrived to serve her dinner (an hour or so later) Kelly calmly refused it. ‘I’m dietin’ for Jesus,’ she announced piously (she just liked the idea, somehow). ‘Oh…An’ would you mind returnin’ this holy cosh to Greta Garbo over there?’

  The nurse did as she was bidden, returning the Bible (‘Thank you, nurse,’ he purred, ‘that’s extremely kind of you’), but then, when she attempted to serve the Reverend his meal: ‘You know what? I think I might diet for Jesus, too…’

  Pause

  ‘…Although a nice, tall glass of iced tomato juice certainly wouldn’t go amiss…’

  Pause

  ‘…a little squeeze of lemon, if it isn’t too much trouble…’

  Kelly glanced over towards the curtains, with a scowl.

  ‘…with just the tiniest dab of Worcester Sauce,’ he murmured, ‘to render it more palatable.’

  And then, once the nurse had gone: ‘You don’t mind if I keep you company?’ his disembodied voice enquired, cordially.