Darkmans

by Nicola Barker

  ‘No…you don’t understand,’ Kane repeated, barely even registering what the boy was saying, ‘I had a dream, but it was exactly…’

  ‘I know,’ the boy brushed him aside, contemptuously. ‘We all dream about it.’

  Kane frowned, confused, as the child drew abreast of him.

  He was still on his knees.

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘Did the bird do that?’ the boy wondered, inspecting Kane’s knuckles dispassionately.

  ‘Do what?’

  Kane half-turned.

  ‘That,’ the boy pointed, ‘on your hands.’

  ‘Huh?’

  Kane inspected his palms.

  ‘No, silly, on the back…’

  The boy turned his hands over –

  Ouch!

  Kane winced at his touch. The skin on his fingers felt swollen; stretched, incredibly sensitive. He gazed down at them, horrified, expecting second-degree burns, at least, but there was nothing visibly wrong with them. He blinked –

  Nothing.

  Perfectly fine.

  Perfectly smooth.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with my hands,’ he said, clearly spooked.

  ‘Oh.’

  The boy shrugged.

  Kane paused, frowning. ‘So you actually saw the bird?’

  ‘Did you meet the pretty lady?’ The boy ignored his question, smiling mischievously. ‘The pretty lady, over there,’ he indicated towards the far side of the cathedral, ‘by the altar?’

  Kane’s cheeks flushed as he remembered his dream.

  ‘John loves to hide,’ the boy confided, peering inside the cathedral now, through its half-finished southern entrance, ‘to creep up, very slowly and then…WAH!’ he turned, springing forward, with a yell.

  Kane almost tipped over, backwards, in surprise. The boy cackled, delighted. ‘He’s always doing it to Mummy,’ he chuckled. ‘It’s funny…’ He chuckled again, but then after a few seconds his smile faded into a frown. ‘I wonder where he’s taken Daddy this time,’ he murmured.

  ‘John?’ Kane echoed, struggling to regain his former composure. ‘Is he one of the contractors?’

  ‘Who?’

  The boy began scratching at his arms, irritably.

  ‘One of the builders?’ Kane reiterated (remembering how Elen called out this same name a short while earlier, in the kitchen). ‘Is he one of the people working on the house?’

  ‘No, stupid…’ The boy shook his head, smiling, and then, ‘Yes,’ he rapidly changed tack, nodding his head, a sly look flitting across his face. He continued to scratch.

  Kane glanced down at his hands again – still slightly paranoid – but once again his skin felt smooth to the touch. It felt fine.

  ‘So did your daddy build this?’ he asked, turning towards the cathedral.

  ‘Him?’ The boy snorted, contemptuously, his scratching growing ever more intense. ‘He couldn’t build this.’

  ‘Don’t do that,’ Kane instructed him, reaching out to restrain him, ‘you’ll draw blood if you’re not careful.’

  The boy knocked his hand away, still scratching, defiantly.

  ‘Show me your arms.’

  Kane grabbed a hold of one of the boy’s wrists and pulled up the sleeve of his pyjama top. The right arm was covered in a mess of tiny, bleeding bites. He grabbed the left arm, pushed back the sleeve and paused. On the soft flesh of the left forearm (punctuated by yet more bites) was a birthmark. A pale, pinkish birthmark. He stared at it for a moment, surprised.

  ‘Are these bites of some kind?’ he demanded, after a short pause.

  ‘Flea bites,’ the boy nodded. He indicated towards a glass jar on the table. Kane glanced over at the jar. He remembered seeing the jar before: it was the same jar Lester had been carrying – the jar of nothing.

  ‘It’s empty,’ he said, but even as he said it he remembered his conversation with Geraldine, the conversation about…

  ‘No it isn’t!’ the boy grinned, delighted. ‘It’s all full of fleas. We’ve been training them to live in the cathedral. We glued cotton to them. Invisible cotton…’

  ‘Invisible?’

  ‘Yes. Lester brought it. It’s special cotton…Look…’

  The boy opened a small drawer in the side of the table and withdrew a normal-seeming spool of black thread.

  ‘Now you see it,’ he said, beginning to unwind a dark strand from the spool. ‘And now you don’t!’

  Kane looked down at the cotton. The boy was right. As soon as a strand was unwound it all-but disappeared.

  ‘How odd…’ He drew in closer, intrigued. The boy handed him the spool. Kane took a strand of the thread between his fingers and tensed it against the reel. ‘I’ve never seen this stuff before. It’s almost like a very fine kind of fishing twine.’

  ‘Lester says his mummy uses it.’

  Kane inspected the end of the spool: ‘Coats 100% Nylon Invisible Thread,’ he read, ‘200m. Matches All Colours.’

  ‘Give it back now,’ Fleet demanded. Kane passed it over. The boy returned it, punctiliously, to its place in the drawer. While he did so Kane picked up the empty jar. He peered inside. Sure enough, on closer inspection he was able to see dozens of tiny black dots with a series of fine, floating strands attached.

  ‘So how do they breathe?’ he asked. ‘I mean with the lid screwed on?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ the boy shrugged.

  ‘Perhaps there’s just enough air trapped inside…’ Kane mused.

  ‘We must feed them,’ the boy said, taking the jar from him.

  ‘Feed them?’ Kane echoed.

  The boy rolled up his pyjama sleeve. Kane was horrified. ‘You’ve been feeding them on your arm?’

  The boy nodded, unperturbed. ‘Daddy put powder on Lester’s dog,’ he explained, indicating towards the spaniel. ‘We was using her to feed the fleas, but now we can’t…’

  ‘Lester’s dog?’ Kane echoed.

  The boy glanced over at him, in alarm, as if he’d been unintentionally caught out. Then his face closed up.

  ‘So Michelle is Lester’s dog?’ Kane reiterated.

  The boy shrugged.

  ‘Does your mother know?’ Kane wondered.

  ‘Know?’ the boy surveyed him, haughtily. ‘Know what?’

  ‘About the fleas. And about who Michelle actually belongs to?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid!’ the boy exclaimed.

  Then he paused for a moment, another sly look crossing his face. ‘John needed some money, so he made a special powder for killing fleas,’ he announced, ‘but it wasn’t really a special powder – it was just chalk. And on Sunday he sold it for a penny to all the wives at church. Then after a few weeks the wives came to find him. They was cross. They said, “Your powder doesn’t work. The fleas are worse than they ever was.” But John says, “Of course the powder works.” The wives say, “No. It doesn’t. We want our money back.” So John says, “Well how did you apply the powder?” And the wives say, “We shook it from the jar – on all our clothes an’ our sheets an’ our blankets – that it might kill the fleas.” Then John begins to smile as if they are very foolish. So they say, “Why are you smiling?” and he says, “But of course it won’t work if you shake it from the jar! You must feed it to the fleas on a little spoon, one by one, and then, when they have eaten their fill they will lie down and die – but only if you feed them one by one.”’

  Fleet put his hand to his mouth and sniggered. ‘The wives was very cross with John, but there was nothing they could say.’

  Kane watched the boy, closely, as he told the story.

  ‘That’s a very funny story,’ he said, once the tale was finished, ‘John must be extremely clever to fool all those women like that.’

  ‘He is,’ the boy nodded.

  ‘Does your daddy like that story?’ he continued, in exactly the same light tone. ‘Does he think John’s funny, too?’

  The boy looked surprised by this question, then confused.

/>   ‘No,’ he answered, looking down. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘And your mummy?’

  The boy glanced over his shoulder, nervously. ‘Mummy doesn’t like me to talk about it,’ he said.

  ‘Oh,’ Kane nodded. ‘So Mummy isn’t too keen on John, then?’

  The boy took a step back. He shook his head, conflicted. ‘She does like him,’ he said. He lifted his hand to his mouth and began stroking his finger along his upper lip ‘…but sometimes…’

  The stroking grew more frantic.

  ‘Right…’ Kane glanced around him, wanting to mollify the boy. ‘So how will we go about feeding these fleas?’ he asked.

  The boy continued to stroke his upper lip. He glanced up at Kane, but he didn’t speak.

  ‘I suppose we could always use my arm,’ Kane volunteered, taking off his jacket and rolling up his sweatshirt sleeve.

  The boy dropped his hand. ‘Really?’

  ‘Sure. Why not?’

  Kane showed him a tantalisingly bare expanse of flesh on his arm.

  The boy strode to the table and grabbed the jar. He expertly twisted all the protruding strands of twine around his index finger, then slowly unscrewed the lid. He lifted the fleas into the air, like they were a group of invisible girls attatched to the invisible ribbons of an invisible maypole.

  ‘Give me your arm,’ he instructed.

  Kane held out his arm. The boy tried to settle the fleas upon it. Kane winced as they landed, jumped and then re-landed.

  ‘It might take a while,’ the boy said.

  ‘That’s just fine,’ Kane smiled, turning his face away, repelled, as they started to suckle.

  NINE

  Beede drove straight in to work – after a long, cold night of fruitless searching – feeling numb, physically drained and demoralised. The first thing he discovered, on arrival, apart from an irate member of staff camping outside his office who – for no reason they could fathom – was suddenly being charged Emergency Rate tax (Beede promptly made up the difference in his wages, without scruple, from petty cash) was a note from Kelly. It was scribbled on to the back of a Get Well Soon card (Dear Jeremy, Get well soon, Son! Lots of love, Dad) which featured (Beede frowned at it, horrified) a badly taken photograph of a woman’s breast with an amateurish-looking mouse’s face (and whiskers) drawn on to the soft, pale flesh around the nipple (a very large, pink nipple, which was apparently meant to signify the mouse’s snout) in some kind of – he looked closer –

  Good Gracious…

  – felt-tip or make-up pencil. It was obscene. It was ugly. It was awful.

  He clutched at his shoulder, grimacing, then opened a desk drawer and searched for some Aspirin. He couldn’t find any. He slammed the drawer shut (irritated) then jarred his shoulder again in the act of doing so –

  Ouch!

  He turned the card over, with a scowl. On the rear of it Kelly had written –

  Oi! Join the 21st century, Grandad! Get yorself a mobile!

  And then, directly underneath, in capital letters:

  I FORGIVE YOU, MATE!

  XXKelly

  Then under that:

  PS. I think we both know what for – but Im so over it now you would not even believe!!

  Then under that:

  PPS – I found GOD!!!! Or he found me, more-like! (Swank Swank!)

  Then under that:

  PPPS. Paul died (yestrdy. aft.), but don’t wrry. Im really OK about it.

  Then under that:…PPS. Going to Africa to become a Saint! [followed by a little drawing of Africa – which looked nothing like Africa – with a small halo above it] WAH!!!!!!!!

  Beede sighed, gently pinched the bridge of his nose, threw the note into the wastepaper basket and picked up his phone. He dialled Elen’s number. It rang several times before it was finally answered.

  ‘Hello?’

  Beede almost did a double-take.

  ‘Dory?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Good God…’

  ‘Hello? Beede? Is that you?’

  ‘Yes. Yes it’s me. So when did…?’ He quickly stopped himself. ‘I mean how are you?’

  ‘Fine. I’ve only just got in, actually. I was out working. Out all night working…[hand placed over the receiver]…No, Fleet. Put it down. That’s for your toast. You know you don’t just eat it off the spoon…[pause] Hello?’

  ‘Dory? Hi. Is this a bad time? It’s early…’ Beede glanced at his watch. ‘I wasn’t really thinking straight…’

  ‘Uh…’ Dory paused. ‘I’m afraid Fleet’s still finishing off his breakfast. Elen’s already left to see a client. I’m in charge of the school run and he’s being rather…[hand over receiver again]…Absolutely not. You do not feed the dog from the table. Go and wash your hands. That’s completely unacceptable…[Pause] Beede?’

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Can we meet up later, perhaps? You could come over here if you like. Are you at work?’

  ‘Yes. I mean…’ Beede was scowling, confused. ‘So you’ve acquired a dog?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘You have a dog?’

  ‘A dog? Uh…’ Dory grunted, tetchily. ‘Yes. I’m afraid we do. A spaniel. A wretched little thing, actually. Her back legs are all…Fleet! [loud wailing in the background]…I warned you about that, didn’t I? It’s your own, stupid fault. Now take off your socks and go and wash your feet. I said take off… Don’t spread it all over the floor! [Pause] Beede?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m sorry. The dog’s made a mess on the tiles and Fleet’s just walked straight through it. I’m going to have to…’

  Beede was gazing out (hollow-eyed) through his small window into the laundry as Dory spoke, idly scraping his thumb over the day’s growth on his cheek –

  Desperately need a…

  – then suddenly –

  Huh?

  – he stiffened to attention –

  Elen!

  He saw Elen standing there. He saw Elen in the laundry. He saw Elen, conversing with a member of staff and then turning, with a smile, and walking towards him.

  ‘Beede? Hello? About ten, then? Ten-thirty?’

  ‘Yes,’ he almost barked, feeling his heart starting to race, his skin redden. ‘Absolutely. That’s ideal. I’ll see you then.’

  He slammed down the receiver and stood up, adjusting his shirt collar, brushing a self-conscious hand through his hair. Elen knocked.

  ‘Come in.’

  The door opened.

  ‘Danny!’ she gasped. ‘What a relief! Thank God you’re here. I just had a hunch…’ she’d grabbed a hold of his arm and squeezed it, gratefully, struggling to catch her breath. ‘Did you get all my messages?’

  ‘Messages?’ He glanced over towards his answering machine. The red light was flashing.

  ‘No matter,’ she ran on. ‘He’s home. Stumbled in about an hour ago, dressed in this filthy, old tracksuit. Flip-flops. No explanation. This awful bruise on his forehead…’

  ‘I know. I just rang…’ Beede admitted, shutting the door behind her, and using this manoeuvre as a means to dislodge her grip on his arm.

  ‘He answered?’

  She seemed alarmed by this prospect. They were still standing in close proximity. She was wearing a soft, loose, black, roll-neck jumper and slim-fitting black jeans tucked into a pair of plain, knee-high leather boots. Her hair hung over her shoulders in two loose plaits.

  He indicated, stiffly, towards the spare chair. ‘Yes. But it was fine. He was busy with Fleet…’

  He wished she would just move away. He was overwhelmed by her proximity. He closed his eyes, momentarily.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  He opened his eyes again. She was staring up at him, frowning.

  ‘Fine. Just a little tired. I seem to have pulled a muscle in my…’

  She put out a quick hand and felt his forehead. ‘You’re warm. Much too warm. And you’ve got a tiny, little blood blister on your lip. Did you stay out all nig
ht?’

  ‘Uh…’

  He tried to take a step away from her but simply backed into his chair. He sat down, heavily.

  ‘I’m fine,’ he said.

  ‘You’re not actually intending to work today?’

  She glanced over at the rota on the pin-board above his desk, but she couldn’t make any sense of it.

  ‘No,’ Beede shook his head, ‘I left in rather a rush last night so I just popped in to…’

  ‘Let me drive you home.’

  ‘No. I’m fine. I’ve got the bike.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. You’re obviously in pain. Your cheeks are all flushed.’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ he tried to brush her concern aside, ‘just a little stiffness in the mouse…’

  He frowned.

  Mouse?

  His mind turned to Kelly’s card.

  Forgiven

  ‘I mean mussell,’ he said, ‘muscle,’ he quickly corrected himself. But that was all it took, because suddenly, butting its way, determinedly, into the gap (the chink – nudging itself in between those tiny hurdles of meaning) came the stag; that huge, powerful, old stag with its sturdy gait, its broken horns, its unflinching look.

  Then (hard upon) he felt a corresponding tremor running through his arm, as if a mouse were under his skin, inside his vessels, scurrying through him, hunting for something.

  ‘No.’

  He opened his eyes –

  Were my eyes closed?

  Did I just speak?