Darkmans

by Nicola Barker

She was kneeling down in front of him. ‘No,’ she repeated firmly, ‘I’m definitely coming home with you. If you insist on taking the bike then I’ll follow. I’ll cook you some breakfast. It’s the very least I can do.’

  Beede started to object again, but he wasn’t really concentrating. He was thinking about the mouse. The scurrying mouse.

  ‘Just humour me, Danny,’ she pleaded, grabbing his hand. He could smell her hair as she leaned towards him. Her hair smelled of roses. He smiled. Then he winced. His nostrils quivered. Blood and roses, he thought.

  ‘A present? For me?’

  Gaffar proffered her the bag, with a grin.

  She took it and opened it. Inside were a pair of white, knee-high, fun-fur boots. Yeti boots.

  ‘Is for to match,’ Gaffar explained, ‘on foot.’

  ‘Aw! To wear wiv’ the old plaster-cast? To balance me out, like?’ Kelly kicked off her slipper, delighted. ‘What a sweetheart. Bang it on, will ya?’

  Gaffar carefully slipped the boot on to her foot.

  ‘Wow.’

  She held out her leg and inspected it, grinning. ‘That’s dapper,’ she chuckled, tousling his hair. ‘Thanks, kid.’

  ‘You is dress, huh?’ Gaffar observed, straightening up again, indicating towards her clothes.

  ‘Yeah. I’m just waitin’ to get signed out. The doctor’s due in an hour…’ she frowned. ‘So where’d you get that bruise?’ she wondered. ‘It’s a fuckin’ corker.’

  ‘Bruce?’

  Gaffar looked mystified.

  ‘That bruise, Dumbo. On your forehead.’

  ‘Ah.’

  Gaffar put a hand to his forehead.

  ‘You was in Readin’, yeah?’

  ‘Reading? Sure.’

  ‘You sit wiv’ my brother then, or what?’

  ‘Uh…’

  Gaffar frowned.

  ‘Wassup?’

  ‘I get this tex,’ Gaffar promptly changed the subject, ‘to say you is forgive Gaffar, eh?’

  ‘Forgive you?’ Kelly echoed. ‘Sure…’ Then she frowned, suspicious. ‘What for, exactly?’

  Gaffar closed his eyes and tensed up his shoulders, as if steadying himself for some kind of violent attack. ‘Okay…Okay. So this stupid hospital is close,’ he confessed.

  ‘Closed?’

  He opened one eye. ‘Sure. This morgue…’

  ‘The morgue was closed?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Fine.’

  Kelly shrugged. ‘I mean I know you’re full of shit – I ain’t a fool or nothin’ – but fine.’

  Gaffar was taken aback by her reaction. He was almost disappointed.

  ‘Fine?’

  Kelly nodded. ‘You was on a hidin’ to nothin’ there, mate – a wild-goose chase – ‘cuz Paul was here all along, see?’

  ‘Goose?’

  ‘No. Paul. My brother, yeah? He was here. God brought him here. He snapped on my bra strap. It took me a little while to realise, yeah? Paul was wiv’ God. An’ God was right here…’ she swallowed, blinking, suddenly full of emotion, ‘on this ward.’

  ?!

  ‘Did they mess with your medication again?’ Gaffar murmured, staring at her, quizzically.

  ‘Thanks for the boots,’ she repeated, ‘they’re lush. And now I need you to help me up. There’s somethin’ I gotta do.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘I need a piss. An’ then I wanna go an’ find the Rev. They moved the Rev…’

  She pointed to the ceiling, by way of explanation. Gaffar inspected the ceiling. There seemed to be a large hole in it.

  ‘For piss?’ he reiterated.

  ‘Yeah. I need a piss. You can come an’ hold the doors open. The nurses are all busy. Help me up.’

  She held out her hands. He assisted her, gently, to her feet, then passed her her crutches.

  ‘An’ you can grab that while you’re at it,’ she suggested, pointing to the large, brown envelope containing Beede’s photocopied document which was poking out of her half-packed sports bag. Gaffar snatched up the envelope, bent it in two and shoved it into his back pocket.

  ‘So what did you do all night?’ she asked him.

  ‘Pard?’

  ‘Went to some shonky gamblin’ den, eh? Got bladdered? Played dice? Crowned it all wiv’ a big punch-up?’

  Gaffar scowled, patently unnerved by the accuracy of this synopsis.

  ‘You speak for Simo?’ he asked, quickly glancing over his shoulder, paranoid.

  ‘Simo?’

  ‘Drive? From mini-cab?’

  ‘So how much did ya bag?’ Kelly demanded.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Wonga, mate. Greens. Boodle. Mazuma. Because I definitely want half of it.’

  ‘Half?’

  ‘No kiddin’,’ she persisted. ‘Either you give me what’s due or I ring up your pal Kane an’ tell him how you sold us all down the fuckin’ swanny last night, kicked up ya size nines an’ went gamblin’ instead.’ ‘Half?’ Gaffar reiterated.

  Kelly deftly slipped her hand inside his coat pocket and withdrew his wallet. She opened it up.

  ‘Fuck me. You’re well-pelfed!’

  She removed a portion of the notes, then handed him the wallet back. Gaffar snatched it from her, glowering.

  ‘Oi! Don’t get all narked,’ she chastised him. ‘This is for a good cause, yeah? This is for God’s work, ya get me? I’m on his pay-roll, now.’

  She crossed herself (the wrong way around) then stuffed the notes into her skirt.

  ‘Right. Let’s head off. I’m fuckin’ bustin’ for a slash.’

  She indicated the way. Then she stopped.

  ‘Balls. I forgot my Bible. It’s on the bed. Just grab me my Bible, will ya?’

  ‘Bible?’

  Gaffar leaned down and grabbed the Bible. He held it in his hand and inspected it, frowning.

  ‘You need this Bible for to go piss?’

  ‘Yeah,’ she confirmed. ‘When I was into East 17, yeah? The band, yeah? I wouldn’t even fuckin’ fart – ‘scuse my French – without my picture of Brian in my pocket. I had it all reinforced wiv’ sticky-back plastic – to protect it, yeah? So I could wipe the lippy off his gob whenever I smooched it,’ she shrugged, resigned. ‘That’s just how I am, I guess.’

  He proffered her the Bible. She took it from him, kissed it, then passed it back. He gazed at her, incredulous.

  ‘I’m gung-ho, Gaff,’ she chuckled, hopping along, unsteadily, in her fluffy, new boot, ‘I’m a nutter, a ditz, a turd, a ding-bat…’ she shrugged. ‘But that’s corking, mate, it’s peachy – it’s “all wool an’ a yard wide” as my old nan used to say – because here’s the important bit…’ she turned to face him, her eyes shining with pride, and enunciated very slowly – very cleanly – to ensure he understood ‘…that’s exactly how God loves me, see?’

  ‘But you’re being ridiculous…’ Kane was down on his hands and knees (his phone gripped, unsteadily, between his shoulder and his ear), digging through an assortment of junk in the back of an old wardrobe ‘…I mean he didn’t actually say anything, did he? He didn’t actually mention that we knew each other…?’

  Pause

  ‘I know, but Beede’s not like that. I already told you, he has his own shit to deal with – trust me…’

  Pause

  ‘Well if you’ll just calm down for a minute…’

  Pause

  (Scowling) ‘Where, exactly?’

  Pause

  ‘Why not?’

  Pause

  ‘The parrot?’ Kane burst out laughing. ‘Now you’re really being paranoid.’

  Pause

  ‘I’m not laughing, I’m just…’

  Pause

  ‘Fine. Yeah…Although I’m definitely not increasing the amount, because you’re actually doing really…’

  Pause

  ‘Listen. You’re doing really well. There’s no need to jeopardise all the hard work we’ve put in just because…’

  Pause
<
br />   ‘Okay. Well it’s your funeral…’ Kane rolled his eyes, straightened up, withdrew a smallish, oblong object wrapped up in newspaper from the wardrobe, crouched back on to his haunches and inspected his watch. ‘I know the area. I’ll look for your car. But just calm down, all right? And give it about half an hour…’

  Pause

  (More eye rolling) ‘I know. Yup. Bye.’

  He threw down his phone and began unwrapping the parcel. As he pulled off the paper it became clear that the single object was in fact two objects which had been carefully stored away together. Kane smiled as he flipped them over to take a proper look. He stared at them both, intently. His smile slowly faded.

  ‘Man. But these are just shit,’ he murmured.

  He held one up even closer to his face to inspect the finer detail –

  ‘Jeez. This is dreadful…’

  He held it at arm’s length again. ‘I mean I can barely even tell…’

  His musings were interrupted by the sound of the front door slamming –

  Eh?

  He tossed the woodcuts back into the wardrobe, grabbed his phone, shoved it into his pocket, checked for his car keys and sprang to his feet.

  ‘Gaffar?’ he yelled, striding through the flat and out on to the landing (only pausing to grab a pop-tart from the toaster and stuff it, whole, into his mouth). ‘I’m onto you, you sneaky fucker…’

  He bounced down the top three stairs, then ground to a sudden halt. There, just in front of him, stood Elen and Beede. Gazing up at him. Together.

  Beede had his hand resting lightly –

  Paternally?

  – on Elen’s shoulder. She had her hair in two sweet plaits. She was wearing slim-fitting black boots.

  Kane nearly choked on his pop-tart.

  ‘Sorry,’ he put up his hand to his mouth, ‘I thought you were someone else…’

  ‘Kelly’s brother died,’ Beede observed stiffly, trying the handle on his door, then realising – with a small start – that it was locked. ‘Did you know?’

  ‘Uh, yeah,’ Kane murmured, noticing a tiny, little blood blister on his father’s lip. ‘She rang me last night. It was all very sudden. Very quick…’

  His eye shifted to Elen. She was standing at Beede’s side, completely at her ease, gently smiling up at him. She indicated, with her finger, to the side of her mouth. Kane frowned, then, ‘Oh…’ He rubbed at his cheek.

  Jam

  ‘Well that’s something, I suppose,’ Beede conceded as he retrieved the key from his coat pocket.

  ‘And a little more…uh…’ Elen pointed to her chin.

  ‘I actually need to have a quick word with you about Gaffar,’ Beede muttered. ‘Later, perhaps?’

  ‘Is something wrong?’ Kane enquired, still dabbing and swallowing. ‘Absolutely not,’ Beede frowned, as if shocked by the suggestion (by Kane’s patent lack of faith in his Kurdish pal). ‘It’s a kind of…well…a kind of cultural issue.’

  ‘Cultural?’ Kane frowned.

  Beede unlocked the door and pushed it open. He politely waved Elen inside and then promptly followed her, closing it – firmly – behind him.

  ‘Thanks. Great. Nice to see you, too,’ Kane muttered, remaining where he was for a while, scowling – deeply irked – like a schoolboy dismissed by a peremptory headmaster. Then he quietly descended the remaining stairs, inspected his teeth in the hallway mirror –

  Urgh

  – rubbed at them, vigorously, with his index finger and grabbed his ancient, grey, crombie from the coat-rack. He slowly put it on, listening out – quite nonchalantly, he felt – for any audible snatches of conversation from inside Beede’s flat.

  ‘…this weird, old…uh…habit I guess you’d call it,’ Elen was speaking, and her voice was much louder – much clearer – than Kane might’ve anticipated, ‘I mean this was way back when we very first met – before things got quite so…’ her voice quavered a little (did it? Or was she just bending down as she spoke – or sitting? Perhaps sitting down on the sofa?) ‘…so horribly complicated…’

  ‘Damn,’ Beede swore (making a rattling sound), ‘I’m all out of Anadin.’

  (Kane visualised Beede’s First Aid tin – bright blue, rusty-hinged – which was generally stored on a top shelf in the kitchen).

  ‘I’ll run out and get you some…’

  Elen’s voice grew still louder.

  Kane sprang away from the door, panicked.

  ‘No. It really doesn’t fmwah-fmwah. I’m actually fmwah-fmwah-fwah-fmwah.’

  Kane grimaced and drew closer to the door again. It sounded like Beede was filling a pan – or a kettle, perhaps – with water.

  ‘I thought we both agreed that you’d try and put your feet up,’ Elen gently chastised him, her voice growing fainter.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ Beede insisted, ‘it’s much fwah-wah-fmwah-fmwah-fwah.’

  ‘Well at least let me fmwah-wah fwah-wah wah fmwah,’ she demanded.

  ‘How maddening,’ Beede suddenly exclaimed, ‘the washer’s playing up inside the cold tap…’

  (Strange squeaking noise as the tap is manipulated.)

  ‘…It must’ve perished, I suppose…’

  (Sound of cupboard door being opened and shut.)

  ‘Sorry,’ he apologised, ‘you were telling me about Dory – this strange habit of his.’

  ‘Oh…’ Elen sounded momentarily distracted. ‘Yes… Well he’d just fmwah-wah-wah fwah fmwah fmwah-wah fwah…’ she returned – somewhat haltingly – to her anecdote, ‘I mean without fmwah wah fwah fwah, and when the person answered he’d tell them that [her voice grew much clearer again] he’d lived there, as a boy, and that I was his girlfriend, and that he’d told me all about it, and would they mind terribly if we just took a quick look around…’

  ‘You never mentioned this before,’ Beede’s voice suddenly sounded incredibly close – so much so that Kane leapt back towards the mirror again (where he frantically pretended to readjust his fringe).

  ‘I honestly hadn’t thought about it in years…’ Elen sounded guilty, ‘I mean he only ever did it a few times…’

  ‘How many times?’

  (Beede again, still close, sounding rather tense.)

  ‘I don’t know – five, maybe six…’

  ‘And what part did you play, exactly, in this curious, little deception?’

  Huh?

  Kane frowned at what he took to be Beede’s unnecessarily cutting tone.

  ‘Did you simply go along with it?’

  ‘Yes.’ Elen responded simply, unequivocally. Kane smiled. He touched the back of his hand against his cheek, then glanced up and saw himself in the hallway mirror – the dreamy eyes, the goofy look – and dropped his hand, appalled.

  ‘At first I honestly believed him,’ she continued. ‘It sounds stupid now, I know, but I was completely taken in. I thought he had lived in those places. The first couple of times at least…’

  ‘And he never set you straight? You never interrogated him afterwards?’

  ‘No. Not that I can clearly recollect. We spoke mainly in German back then. My vocabulary was somewhat limited. And the relationship was new. It was far less…well, vocal…’ her voice petered out.

  ‘But that still doesn’t make any sense, Elen,’ Beede all-but snapped. ‘It’s illogical. How could he possibly have lived in those places when he was born and raised abroad?’ ‘But he wasn’t,’ Elen said calmly.

  Pause

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘He was born here, in England. His parents were Londoners. They emigrated to Germany when Isidore was a boy.’

  ‘Oh.’

  (Beede sounded shocked.)

  ‘And in my own defence,’ she continued, ‘I suppose I was just a little more naive back then. Dory was always so plausible. And the whole thing was so bizarre, so out of character, so unlike him. You know yourself how straight he is, how repressed, how law-abiding…’

  ‘Yes.’

  (Although Beede did
n’t sound entirely convinced.)

  ‘And I guess,’ Elen persisted, ‘that I probably found it quite funny in a way. Exciting, even. We were young. Things weren’t nearly so…’ she cleared her throat ‘…so fraught between us back then.’

  Her voice faded somewhat towards the second half of this speech. Kane leaned in closer to the door. It sounded like she was standing in the kitchen now.

  ‘The point is that wah fwah-wah fmwah-wah fmwah…’ Kane scowled, exasperated.

  ‘…I mean not in years, but then yesterday, out of the blue, he suddenly forced me to pull over the car, leapt out, and went to wah fwah wah-fmwah wah-wah-fwah. This tiny, little fwah-wah-wah…’

  ‘An old house, you say?’

  Beede’s voice sounded more distant again, too.

  ‘Oldish. But not that old.’

  ‘Who answered?’

  ‘This young girl – this very fmwah-fwah-wah wah fwah.’

  Kane placed his ear directly against the crack in the door.

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘I didn’t really know what to do. I just grabbed wah-fmwah wah fwah fmwah fmwah-wah. I mean it’s not that I didn’t trust him…’

  ‘Did she show you around?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And did he seem quite…’ Beede paused, judiciously ‘…quite himself?’

  Elen paused, too.

  ‘Yes. I mean…yes. A little manic, perhaps.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘Well he suddenly came out with all this amazing detail about how the place had been when his old aunt had lived there. It was incredible. How he’d built this wah fmwah fmwah-fwah-wah…’