Jesus!
He leapt out of harm’s way as the driver (with an audible squeal) steered herself, clumsily, back into the kerb.
Isidore, meanwhile – about 10 yards behind them – seemed supremely oblivious to the chaos he was generating. He hadn’t even looked up. He was inspecting the road, bending over, scowling, scratching his head, clearly deeply preoccupied by something.
Kane winced, horrified, as a fourth car swung past, sounding its horn, only narrowly avoiding Dory, being obliged to swerve for a second time to avoid the Metro, and then –
Balls!
– for a third time to avoid him. Kane made eye contact with the driver and casually waved him on –
No problem, my friend –
It’s all under control…
The driver cussed him, furiously –
Charming!
Kane jogged over to the Metro, slapped his hand on to the roof, bent down and peered in, benignly, through the passenger window – ‘You all right in there?’
The car had stalled again. The blonde woman was twisting her keys in the ignition and pumping on the accelerator. She barely even glanced up.
‘I’m fine,’ she yelled. ‘The starter motor’s just dodgy. What about him…’
She indicated behind her, finally making proper eye contact. A frisson passed between them, then the engine abruptly sparked and roared into life.
‘There’s a short, dirt track,’ Kane pointed, ‘on the left – you should pull off…’
She stuck the car into reverse (squinting over her shoulder, spinning the steering wheel, slamming down on the accelerator) and then – zip – nix – zilch. It cut out.
‘Shit!’
A fifth car roared past them, its horn sounding.
Kane ran to the front of the car and immediately began pushing it.
‘Handbrake,’ he yelled.
She took off the handbrake and the car slowly lurched uphill. As soon as it was pointing in the proper direction he jumped aside and the car commenced rolling, unaided, down the slope, although it couldn’t build up enough momentum to take the turn in one go, but simply ground to a halt about half-way along, its back-end still jutting out – perilously – on to the tarmac.
Kane quickly jogged down after it, shoving hard from the rear this time, heaving and pushing until it was fully contained within the short, dirt drive, its nose pressed up snugly against a neat, wooden gate. Just the other side of this gate stood a horse and a sheep, companionably observing the unfolding drama with expressions of cheerful resignation.
Kane was panting, exhausted. Two more vehicles roared by – a jeep; a white, Ford van – but neither sounded its horn.
He turned –
Eh?
– and gazed up along the road again. Isidore was gone. He’d vanished. He scratched his head, puzzled.
‘Where’d he go?’ the woman demanded, clambering from the old Metro and peering around her, spooked.
‘I don’t know…’
Kane suddenly remembered the estate car, abandoned, at the start of the slip road. He put two and two together, ‘Remember that Rover?’ he pointed. ‘Just after the turn-off with its door slung open?’
‘What a total, bloody nutter,’ the girl exclaimed, and then, ‘WAH!’ she yelled, jumping violently up and down in a novel (and somewhat startling) attempt to unburden herself of the stress she felt.
Kane stared at her, impassively.
‘I met you at the cafe,’ he said (once she’d finally stopped bouncing), ‘a few days ago…’
‘Yeah,’ she nodded, her mass of blonde curls in a state of chronic disarray now.
‘Kane,’ he said, offering her his hand.
‘Maude,’ she said, taking it and squeezing it. Her palms were hot but her fingertips were icy.
‘So what d’you think he was looking for?’ Kane wondered, glancing up along the road again.
‘Who?’
‘On the tarmac. He was looking for something…’
‘I dunno,’ she shrugged, helplessly, ‘I mean I didn’t see anything…’
He frowned. ‘I clipped your back light, didn’t I?’
He went to take a proper look.
‘It’s my mother’s car,’ she said, grimacing, ‘I’m not actually insured to drive it.’
‘There’s not too much to worry about,’ he said, determined to put a brave face on it, ‘just a broken light and a tiny dent in the boot…’
‘How’s yours?’
She indicated, nervously, towards The Blonde.
‘I dunno. Probably just a scratch on the bumper. She’s tough – built like a tank.’
The girl nodded, biting her lip.
‘Sure you’re all right?’ Kane asked, reaching into his pocket for his cigarettes.
‘He was crying…’ she murmured. ‘And did you notice that awful bruise…?’
‘Smoke?’
He offered her the packet. She shook her head, then lifted her hands and began savagely pinning back her stray curls.
‘D’you think he’ll be okay?’ she asked.
Kane propped a Marlboro into the corner of his mouth and then slowly began sauntering along the grass verge. The girl followed, still pinning.
‘Will I be liable for the damage to your car?’ she asked. ‘Nope…’ he found his lighter and lit the cigarette. ‘I hit you, so it’s my responsibility…’
‘It’s just that if we get the police involved, or the insurance…’
‘God forbid,’ he inhaled deeply. ‘That’s the last thing I need. Just get me a quote and I’ll happily cover it.’
‘Good. Great. Fantastic.’
She seemed considerably cheered by this.
He reached the approximate point on the tarmac where Dory had been standing and stared over at it, intently –
Nothing
‘Don’t step off the kerb,’ she warned him, grabbing on to his arm as he instinctively moved forward.
‘No,’ he said, glancing down at her hand.
She let go, embarrassed.
Kane removed the cigarette from between his lips and casually flicked its ash on to the tarmac. Maude quickly moved away and began inspecting the plastic collar on a small Holly bush nearby. ‘They plant these damn things in their thousands,’ she grumbled, ‘but then there’s never any proper after-care…’
‘Jesus,’ Kane mused idly, ‘you sound just like my dad…’ He glanced at her, sideways, but she was already striding back, purposefully, towards her car. Kane gazed blankly at the road again. Two highly customised Volkswagens sped past (possibly en route to some kind of specialist car show). He shuddered.
After a minute or so Maude returned, pulling on a pair of black, hand-knitted gloves – with a neat line of pale, pink ribbons sewn on to the knuckles – and holding a treacherous-looking Stanley knife between her teeth. She caught Kane’s quizzical look. ‘My da ha breatht canther,’ she lisped. ‘I thell the ribbonth for tharity…’
She formed her hands into fists and held them out. ‘Wou you li one?’
As she spoke a small quantity of spit dribbled down on to her chin. ‘Uh…’
Before he could answer she was reaching into her pocket to locate him a ribbon. She pulled one out, but it didn’t have a pin attached.
‘Your dad died of breast cancer?’
He winced at the idea.
‘He din’t die,’ she removed the knife, shocked (carefully dabbing at her chin with her sleeve). ‘He’s fine. He’s in remission…’ she stared up at him, candidly. ‘Men have breasts too, you know.’
‘Of course…’
Kane reached into his own pocket, scowling, as she continued to try to locate a spare pin.
‘No bloody pins,’ she muttered.
‘It doesn’t matter. Just hang it over the button or something…’
She did as he’d asked. ‘Don’t you go and lose it,’ she warned him. ‘I won’t.’
He found a pound coin and handed it to her. She inspected t
he coin. ‘This is Gibraltarian,’ she said, and passed it straight back again.
‘Oh.’
He inspected the coin himself while Maude calmly released the blade on her knife, moved over to the small Holly bush, and started hacking away at its plastic collar. The collar came off, quite readily.
‘Urgh,’ she muttered, indicating angrily towards a thick gash in the bark. ‘See the damage it was doing?’
She tossed the collar aside, enraged, and then moved on – automatically – to the next bush in line.
‘Are you allowed to do that?’ Kane enquired, almost without thinking –
Allowed?!
‘Allowed?’ Maude shot him a withering glance.
‘Is it legal?’ he persisted –
Legal?!
‘Legal?’ Another withering stare.
‘Sure…’ Kane stuck to his guns, ‘I mean aren’t those collars Council property or something?’
‘You planning to stage a Citizen’s Arrest?’ she snorted.
‘No.’
‘You seriously think the Council gives a shit?’ she sneered. ‘Ashford Council? Jeez. Just look around you. When I was a kid this place was a beautiful, rural backwater, and now it’s like fucking Lego-land…’ She shook her head, disgusted, hurling the second collar to the ground.
‘Oh come on,’ Kane scoffed. ‘It was hardly as great as all that…’ She shot him a black look.
Kane gazed along the steep curve of the embankment. There were hundreds of collars surrounding hundreds of small trees and bushes. ‘How many are you planning to do?’ he asked.
‘Why?’
She hacked away, furiously, at another collar as he watched on benevolently.
‘Your hair’s coming loose again…’ he reached out his hand to gently reposition a tight, bright, blonde ringlet which seemed determined to fall into her eyes as she worked. She pulled back, defensively.
‘I’ll do as many as I possibly can,’ she muttered, flattening out the curl herself and pinning it down. ‘See how the collar’s cut into the bark?’ She indicated, irritably, towards a lop-sided conifer. ‘I mean they haven’t even been fitted properly…’
Maude kicked at a Gorse bush which’d collapsed under its own weight – ‘See that? There’s no real support…’ – then her head snapped around and she fell inexplicably silent.
‘What’s up?’ he enquired, after five seconds’ grace.
‘Shhh!’
She put a finger to her lips.
‘What?’ he demanded, mystified.
‘Didn’t you hear it?’
‘What?’
‘Listen…’
They were quiet for a while. Several cars rumbled past.
‘You should give me your mobile number,’ Kane said, refusing to indulge her any further. ‘Then at least we can…’
‘I don’t have a mobile,’ she cut in. ‘The electromagnetic waves have a devastating impact on avian reproduction.’
‘Pardon?’
‘Shhhh…!’ She jerked her head around for a second time ‘…There it goes again…’ she grinned, taking a couple of tentative steps forward, standing on her tip-toes and peering, excitedly, into the field beyond.
‘I didn’t hear it,’ Kane said, bemused.
‘Eee-ooo-ii! Eee-ooo-ii!’ she called.
He frowned at her, surprised. She seemed entirely different now (out here, by the road) from the shy girl he’d first encountered at the restaurant. He quietly inspected her face, in profile. She was pretty, but her nose was tiny; too flat and too snub. Her lips were full, though, if somewhat chapped.
‘King of the Birds,’ she announced, delighted.
‘Sorry?’
‘King of the Birds,’ she repeated, ‘the peacock.’
Kane scowled.
‘Flannery O’Connor,’ she expanded, smugly, ‘“The King of the Birds”. It’s the title of an essay she once wrote about keeping peacocks. We studied it at college. It’s actually a brilliant piece of writing – very dry, very funny, very clever…’
Kane continued to stare at her, speculatively.
‘Not much of a reader, huh?’ she shrugged.
‘I know who Flannery O’Connor is,’ he asserted.
‘Oh yeah?’
She removed a third collar and threw it down (somewhat provocatively) at his feet.
Kane smiled, unperturbed, nudging at the collar with the toe of his boot. As he lifted his foot, however, he felt a sharp dart of pain beneath it, centred on the arch area –
Verruca
He drew a deep breath. ‘My late mother was a huge fan of Southern Gothic writing…’ he observed haltingly (trying to distract himself), ‘Carson McCullers? Eudora Welty…?’
Maude nodded.
‘In fact she once helped to choreograph a modern dance production of Wise Blood…’
‘Really?’ Maude looked incredulous.
‘Yeah. It had a completely original score, a semi-professional cast, and even a small, live orchestra, composed mainly of students from the London School of Music. It played the Edinburgh Fringe for over a month and then moved down to this tiny theatre in North London for a while…’ his voice gradually grew more confident as he spoke, his tone more insistent, ‘The Intimate Theatre – in Palmer’s Green or Winchmore Hill…I forget which. I still have the programme somewhere…’
He frowned. ‘This was 1974, 1975. She took a couple of minor roles herself – an old, blind woman, a gorilla…’
He grinned, remembering. ‘She actually kept the mask – from the gorilla costume – and I used to mess around in it as a kid…’ He shook his head, fondly. ‘It received blistering reviews,’ he winced, ‘really venomous. People just weren’t ready for it back then. It was all too new, too radical. Mum tried to put a brave face on the whole débâcle…’
He blinked –
What?!
– ‘…but it totally killed her confidence. She was badly cut-up about it…’ he shrugged. ‘She kept everything – hoarded everything – as a reminder, in this special little scrapbook: stage directions, costume designs, material samples, loads of photos and stuff…’
Maude was peering up at him as he reminisced, her expression a strange combination of impressed, galled and fearful. Kane stared back at her, helplessly, as if growing increasingly perplexed himself by this extraordinary volume of words which kept tumbling – apparently unbidden – from between his lips.
‘I mean this was way before O’Connor was widely known in the UK,’ he continued (feeling not unlike a frightened parent pursuing a runaway pram down a steep hill). ‘I believe the book was first published in the late 1950s…I’ve never really been a great fan of it myself – it’s just too stark, too relentless – although I wouldn’t have dared tell Mum that – she was completely in love with it…’
Enough!
Kane scratched his head, confused –
Just shut up!
‘I actually prefer the short stories…’ his mouth prattled on, unreservedly ‘…You know – Everything that Rises Must Converge? And the collected letters are just phenomenal…’
What?!
‘…Although I’m struggling to remember the name of them – the title…’
Kane paused for a second, to try and ponder the issue, but then – ‘…I always thought it a rather strange coincidence,’ he suddenly babbled on (his eyes darting around him –
The road, the bush, the fence, the sky…
– his heart hammering away like a woodpecker in his chest) ‘…that O’Connor died when she was thirty-nine – the exact-same age my mother was when she first attempted suicide…’
What?!
Fuck!
Are you insane?!
‘…Although I suppose that’s hardly a coincidence at all. I mean not in the formal sense of the word. More of an…an ee-ron…’ he frowned, utterly baffled, as his mouth refused – point-blank – to conform to his brain’s bidding, ‘an ee-ron…’ he shook his head, ‘an…an eíron?…ir
on-i-a?…i-ron-ee? Irony? Is that…?’
Shut up!
He quickly covered his mouth with his hand, and then – ‘THE HABIT OF BEING!’ he roared (through the small cracks in his fingers), almost tipping over backwards with the sheer force of this ejaculation.
Maude’s eyes widened, in shock.
‘The collected letters,’ he explained (steadying himself, dropping the hand, reddening), ‘the title…’
Shut up!
‘…Although I don’t even know if they’re still available in print…’
Shut up!
‘…but you could always look them up on the internet, I guess. Get yourself a cheap copy second-hand…’
SHUT UP!
SHUT UP!
SHUT UP!
At long last, he fell silent –
……
Maude continued to gaze up at him, daunted. He stared back at her, his lips firmly clamped together, as if terrified that the swarm of words within him might – at any second – prise them back open and fly free again. Then he blinked.
Darkmans Page 72
