Sight Unseen

by Graham Hurley

  ‘You were in the pool, weren’t you? Just now?’ he touches his own head. ‘Red beret.’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘You were watching me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why? Why would you want to do that?’

  I nod at the empty seat again. ‘Let me in and I’ll tell you.’

  I know he’s in two minds now. Sensibly, he wants nothing to do with me. On the other hand, I seem to have intrigued him.

  ‘Take it off,’ he says. ‘No one wears a beret in weather like this.’

  I do what I’m told. My hair is beginning to grow back again but only just.

  ‘Chemo?’ he asks.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I had a brain tumour. A glioblastoma. You know about any of this stuff?’

  ‘My mum died last year. Lung cancer. Fags. Forty a day for years on end will kill you but she never listened.’

  ‘And is that why you swim?’

  ‘No. I swim for me.’

  I nod. I’m thinking about Pavel. ‘I’ve got a good friend,’ I tell him. ‘Dived in the wrong end of the pool. Broke his neck. He’s in a hospital in Glasgow just now, paralysed from the neck down.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yes. So be careful in there.’ I nod towards the leisure centre.

  I think I’m detecting the faintest smile on his face. He leans across and opens the passenger door. ‘Get in,’ he says. ‘Five minutes, then I’m out of here.’

  I walk round the bonnet and slip into the front seat. He’s been listening to Ed Sheeran, not the gangsta rap I half-expected. The car smells of a perfume I know very well indeed. My lovely neighbour Evelyn bought me some for Christmas.

  ‘Chanel Number Five,’ I say with a hint of approval. ‘Nice.’

  I’ve wrong-footed him at last. ‘A girlfriend,’ he mutters. ‘You’re not buying at all, are you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So you are Filth. You have to be.’

  ‘Sadly not.’

  I have several photos of Malo and Clem on my Samsung. He takes the phone. Big hands. Bitten nails. A single silver thumb ring. He’s looking at a selfie of the happy couple aboard Clem’s Harley, helmets in their laps, gurning for the camera.

  ‘You know these two?’ I ask. ‘Ever seen them?’

  He won’t answer me, not at first. Then he wants to know why I’m asking.

  ‘The boy is my son. His name is Malo. His girlfriend is called Clemenza.’

  ‘You say.’

  ‘I say.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘They’ve both disappeared. First Clem. And now Malo, my son. They bought drugs down here. Probably in the Landfall.’

  ‘It’s a khazi.’

  ‘You’re right.’

  ‘You’ve been there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He nods and I detect just a flicker of respect before his eyes return to the phone. ‘Prove to me you’re not Filth,’ he says.

  I’ve anticipated this question. I recently co-starred in an art movie called Arpeggio. It didn’t do at all well on limited release and it’s now available, free, on YouTube. I take the phone back. A series of keystrokes takes me to the opening sequence. A woman is making a phone call at the zoo in Regent’s Park. The background, slightly out of focus, is full of chimpanzees.

  ‘You’ve got proper hair,’ he says.

  ‘That was a couple of years ago, before the operation and the chemo. I was also a kilo or two heavier.’

  He’s hit the play button. He seems fascinated.

  I look up and then put a hand on his arm. ‘Police,’ I say quietly. ‘A patrol car.’

  ‘Shit.’ He’s already firing up the engine. ‘What the fuck is this?’

  ‘Trust me.’ I retrieve my phone. ‘Just drive out. I’m an actress, not a cop.’

  We’re on the move across the car park. Our route takes us past the patrol car which has stopped outside the main entrance to the leisure centre. Neither cop, one male, the other a girl barely out of her teens, spares us even a glance.

  ‘She must be your age,’ I say lightly. ‘Didn’t go to school with her by any chance?’

  ‘Down here?’ For the first time there’s a hint of warmth in his voice. ‘You have to be joking.’

  We drive out on to the bypass and then take a road signposted to West Bay. Minutes later we’re in another car park, this time with a view over the harbour. A gaggle of boats stir uneasily on gusts of wind from the sea. Fat seagulls forage for scraps among the piles of harbourside fishing nets. A family with a couple of kids clamber out of a 4x4. Moments later, we watch them making for the beach with armfuls of wet suits and a blow-up dinghy.

  ‘They call you The Machine.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The people you swim with in the pool. You’re the talk of the changing rooms. My girlfriend’s a real fan.’

  Silence. He’s ignoring the compliments. Then he asks me what I really want.

  ‘I want Clem safe.’ I’m still holding my phone. ‘And I want my son back.’

  ‘So what’s any of this got to do with me?’

  ‘I think …’ I shake my head. ‘I know my son’s got himself in serious shit.’

  ‘Really? How?’

  ‘It has to be drugs. And it probably started here.’

  ‘Why here?’

  ‘Because he lives quite close by, with his father. Do you know a young lad they call Noodle?’

  ‘Yeah, I do.’ He nods towards the beach. ‘He spends most nights kipping in a tent out on the beach, under the sea wall. He’s totally wasted. Sad, sad little bloke.’

  ‘Because of drugs?’

  ‘Partly, yeah. And one or two other things. Being gay down here doesn’t help.’

  ‘These are your drugs?’

  ‘I don’t do drugs.’

  ‘That wasn’t my question. You certainly sell drugs. I watched you. About half an hour ago.’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘I did.’

  He nods, says nothing. Then he turns and he looks at me. The sudden grin feels spontaneous enough to be genuine. ‘I know people who would kill you for saying something like that,’ he says. ‘You should be more careful.’

  We talk for perhaps another half an hour. I’m very conscious that I’ve got Jessie’s car keys in my pocket but I sense I’ll never get an opportunity like this again. For whatever reason, The Machine likes me, or – at the very least – has taken pity on the post-chemo actress in the red beret. For my sake, and perhaps Malo and Clem’s, he needs to mark my card.

  ‘You have to stop thinking drugs,’ he says. ‘This is pizza with a bigger mark-up.’

  ‘So I gather.’

  ‘I’m serious. You never heard this from me but there are people in this business you’d never want to cross. They’ve moved into Bridport the way they’ve moved into a hundred other little towns. It’s purely business, supply and demand. Figure out the distribution and you get very rich, very quickly. Kids in this town want a slice of that pizza and they think it’s money for nothing, but that’s because they know fuck all about anything. You set them up in someone’s house, someone who won’t answer back. You give them a couple of grand’s worth of ten-quid bags and wait until they’ve done the business and then you pay someone to roll them late one night when they’re least expecting it. Next day they’re a couple of grand in the hole and that’s when they start working for you for ever, just to repay the debt.’

  ‘But you’ve got the money back already.’

  ‘Of course. That’s the whole point but the kids don’t know that. It’s all about control, exploitation, dog eat dog. That’s how business works – any business. It could be anything, any commodity. This just happens to be food.’

  ‘Food?’

  ‘Drugs.’

  I nod. So simple, I think. I hold his gaze. Those amazing eyes. ‘So does you mean you? You’re controlling these kids? Dishing out the drugs. Taking in the money?’

  ‘No
way. I’m a swimmer. You know that. You’ve watched me.’

  ‘You never use yourself? Dabble? Sample the merchandise?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘So who do you work for? Who do I need to talk to at the top of the chain?’

  He won’t answer. He’s reaching for the ignition keys to start the engine. Then he has second thoughts and asks me for a pen and something to write on. He wants my contact details and an email address. When I ask why, he shakes his head.

  ‘You have to trust me,’ he says. ‘Otherwise someone’s going to get seriously hurt.’

  THIRTY

  Seriously hurt? In some ways it’s a tribute to the last year or so that this phrase carries less menace than perhaps it should. Living with the magnetic pull of H, and increasingly Malo, I’ve become aware that daily life can be a great deal more bothersome than I’d ever imagined. Add the brain tumour that has so nearly killed me, and you probably get the picture. We live from day to day. Life is all verbs. Salvation lies in the imperative mood. Enjoy!

  Back at Flixcombe Manor I retire to the library and eye the phone, wondering whether to share The Machine with H. Instead, I call Pavel. He’s pleased to hear me. He has lots to report. He says his appetite has returned and at the risk of overloading me with details he’s happy to confirm that his digestive tract is back in full working order. Better still, he’s hearing rumours that his catheter’s days are numbered. In what he terms one of life’s more painful ironies, he tells me that feeling and sensation below the waist have returned with a vengeance. It’s nice to be in charge again, he says, but having a tube stuck up your penis is bloody uncomfortable.

  ‘Think tomorrow,’ I tell him. ‘They’ll whip it out and after that, you’ll feel a whole lot better.’

  He thanks me for my concern. He wants to know how things are going. I tell him about my visit to the leisure centre, about The Machine, and I riff for a minute or two about the way the local drugs scene is slowly slipping into focus. Thanks to Danny and Andy, and now The Machine, I’m beginning to understand how it all works. When Pavel presses me for a headline, that single phrase that might excite the working dramatist, I realize that it’s hard to better The Machine’s take on the teeming souk that is the contemporary drug scene.

  ‘Think pizza with a fatter mark-up,’ I say. ‘That pretty much nails it.’

  Pavel is impressed. He tells me he’s trying to visualize this young man. I give him a few clues – age, body shape, hair colour – and when it’s obvious he’s starting to struggle a bit I go for the lazy shortcut.

  ‘Think Theo James in The Divergent Series,’ I say.

  ‘That’s after my time. I’ve never had the pleasure.’

  Of course not, foolish woman. I pluck another name from my memory, someone Pavel might have laid eyes on before he went blind.

  ‘A young Paul Newman but taller,’ I suggest. ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof? Playing against Elizabeth Taylor? Getting the picture here?’

  ‘Perfect. And for the record, I was a huge fan. That performance in The Hustler made me wonder whether I hadn’t been gay all my life and never noticed.’ He’s laughing at the memory. It’s a lovely sound. Then he’s back with the image of the pizza. ‘This is a reef for all of us, am I right? Invisible at all states of the tide but no less deadly?’

  ‘Far from invisible,’ I tell him. ‘But I suspect you’ve got the rest right.’

  I mean it. Full immersion in Bridport’s nascent drugs scene carries a number of dangers and one of them is the temptation to overplay what I’ve witnessed. But the last few days have given me a number of images I don’t seem able to consign to the recycle bin: the Landfall at full throttle, Danny’s late-night musings on the way it all works, Brett Dooley’s agony in the kitchen and now the chilling efficiency of The Machine’s retail operation. Pile each of these glimpses one on top of the other and it’s hard to resist the conclusion that we’re collectively screwed.

  ‘Forget terrorism,’ I say. ‘Forget paedophiles. Think kids. It’s all about getting off your head. One day, this stuff might fall into the hands of people who really understand business. And you know what? It’s happened already.’

  I can hear Pavel chuckling. Like most writers, I know he’s addicted to catastrophe. Not bad luck. Not the odd accident. But a full-blown disaster.

  ‘You think it’s that bad?’

  ‘I do. From where I’m sitting, these guys – The Machine and his little crew – have got us all in lockdown. Social media nearly did it. Shit telly nearly did it. But this is the real deal. We’ve stopped thinking for ourselves because that’s where the drug scene takes you. Total dependence. Full-on surrender. You heard it here first.’

  ‘You sound angry.’

  ‘I am angry.’

  ‘And helpless?’

  ‘Far from it.’

  ‘So what next?’

  Good question. The Machine has my contact details. I can wait for a call, or a text, or even an email but that – just here and just now – feels far too passive. This morning I was brave enough to seize the initiative and take a risk or two. Given everything else in my life, not least my next brain scan, that needs to continue.

  ‘There’s a local junkie who might be a key part of all this,’ I tell Pavel. ‘His street name’s Noodle and I think I know where to find him.’

  THIRTY-ONE

  I don’t leave Flixcombe until nearly midnight. Earlier, I’d raided H’s brimming cellar and helped myself to a bottle of Chateau Lafite. I go down to the cottage and present Jessie with the wine as a thank you. I have just a sneaking suspicion that she’s guessed its provenance but that doesn’t matter because I’ll replace it later. I also ask her for the loan of a torch, telling her that there’s a problem with my bedside lamp. Andy offers his services at once but a look from Jessie shuts him up. She gives me an LCD torch she picked up from a garage and tells me to keep it. She doesn’t believe the bedside lamp story for a moment.

  ‘Where are you off to?’ She’s walking me to the door.

  ‘Nowhere special.’

  ‘You want company? Moral support?’

  I stop, one hand on the door handle. It’s a sweet offer. I’m genuinely touched. ‘No, thanks,’ I say. ‘I’m sure it’ll work out.’

  Traffic at this hour in the depths of west Dorset is minimal. Within less than half an hour, I’m in Bridport. I take the bypass south and follow the signs to West Bay. The car park where I and The Machine had our little chat is virtually empty. I get out and lock my car. The way to the beach takes me around the harbour and out towards the low growl of the waves on the shingle.

  Passing rows of locked harbourside food shacks, I’m thinking of something Pavel once told me about Chesil Beach, the long ribbon of foreshore that – in Pavel’s phrase – parcels Lyme Bay. At the easterly end, the stones are big and round but every mile you walk west they get smaller and smaller until here in West Bay they’re mere pebbles. In the darkness of a winter night, he told me, sailors offshore could tell exactly where they were by simply listening to the draw of the retreating waves. The bigger stones produced a certain note. The smaller pebbles sounded very different. At the time, sighted, Pavel had found this fascinating. Now, like a sailor condemned to an eternity of nights, it would matter infinitely more, yet another clue to the way a blind man has to map the world around him.

  I’m on the seafront now. A tall, modern-looking block guards the entrance to the harbour. From four storeys of apartments, not a single light. West Bay, even at the height of the holiday season, is obviously asleep by half past one in the morning.

  I pause beside the sea wall. The wind off the sea is cool on my face and the crescent of pebbles and sand recedes into the darkness. Try as I might, I can see no sign of a tent.

  I peer seawards, fighting the temptation to ring Pavel, to point my smartphone at the ocean and ask him to guess where I’ve ended up, but then I picture the ward up in Glasgow, equally quiet, every patient probably asleep, and tell myself to conc
entrate on the business in hand. A tent. And a sad little chancer called Noodle.

  I follow the promenade past a seafront shelter. The shelter is empty, a drift of discarded fish and chip wraps white in the half-darkness. Further on is a flight of steps that descends to the shingle. From the top step I can see the whole of the beach. Tucked into a nearby corner, hard against the sea wall, is the low shape of a tent.

  I stare at it for a long moment. The little tent, invisible to anyone on the promenade above, has been artfully sited. Noodle, I think, must steal down here under cover of darkness. He’s become an animal, semi-feral. He knows how to hide from predators, from people who might want to hurt him, and by dawn he’s probably packed up and gone.

  I glance round. The seafront is empty, no sign of life. The tide is low, the line of breaking waves the faintest white in the darkness. From the harbour comes the slap-slap of halyards against metal masts. Overhead, unseen, a swirl of noisy gulls.

  I pull my anorak a little tighter. The promenade comes to an end just metres away and in the moonlight I can make out the thread of the cliff path climbing away to the west. There are houses on the bluff that overlooks the town, window after window curtained against the eerie brightness of the moonlight.

  Now or never, I think. Step by step, I make my way down to the beach and inch along towards the tent. I try to mask the throw of light from Jessie’s torch with my other hand but it’s already obvious that Noodle needs to work on his pitching skills. The tent sags badly to one side. There are scorch marks at the front where the front panel meets the rumpled arch of the roof, and one of the guy ropes has come loose from its metal peg. The front flap is open and unsecured, the ties dangling in the wind, and an oblong of cardboard protrudes from the tent, licking at the pebbles like some mute tongue.

  I shine the torch briefly on to the cardboard. Once, it must have been a box. Cooking oil, it says. This side up. Noodle probably retrieved it from the back of a restaurant, or perhaps a waste bin. Flattened, it now serves as insulation against the dampness of the pebbles. Noodle, I think, will never get closer to fitted carpet than this. Motionless, I stare down at the tent. If I’m after a metaphor for a life in ruins, for a clinching sign of these benighted times, I need look no further.