Simon Beckett - Owning Jacob - SA

It had been white once, but what paint was left was peeling away like fragments of eggshell. The wood underneath was grey and weathered. The entire house and garden were a working model of entropy, a physical reminder of the natural trend cowards dissolution and decay. Ben felt fresh outrage that this was the environment to which Jacob had been entrusted, then immediately ashamed for thinking it. Don’t be a snob. But the objection he felt was both more intrinsic and less definable than that.

Using the mottled flap of the galvanised letterbox, he knocked and stepped back. The sound was loud in the Sunday stillness. It died away.

There was a noise from the next garden. He turned. A woman had emerged from the house, holding a long-handled sweeping brush. Ben gave her a smile. “Morning.”

The greeting went unacknowledged. She regarded him silently, making a few half-hearted sweeps at the path with her brush. Across the street a man in a vest was leaning on his gate, openly watching. Ben turned his back on both of them.

It’s the Hall of the fucking Damned .

He knocked on the door again, conscious of their scrutiny as he waited. The scrape of the woman’s brush punctuated the quiet. He wished someone would hurry up and answer the door. He counted to ten then knocked again, harder.

The door opened. Sandra Kale regarded him sullenly. Her eyes were puffy and her bleached hair rumpled and uncombed.

She had on a pale pink bathrobe that ended mid-thigh. It needed washing. A sour, warm smell of bed came from her.

Ben waited for her to say something. When she didn’t he said, “I’ve come for Jacob.”

She folded her arms under her breasts. The movement pushed them up against the terry-towelling bathrobe. “He’s not here.”

There wasn’t as much anger as he would have thought. It was as though he’d been expecting it.

“But I’m supposed to be picking him up today. It’s my day to see him.”

She hitched one shoulder indifferently. It caused the bathrobe to gape, showing cleavage where her arms pressed her breasts together. Without make-up her face was younger and less hard, but no more friendly. “Tough. I’ve told you, he isn’t here.” She began to close the door.

Ben put his hand flat on it to stop her. He caught a waft of the odour of the house from behind her, a staleness of fried food and unemptied ashtrays.

“So where is he?”

“Gone out with his dad.”

“When will he be back?”

“Don’t know.”

“Can I wait?”

“Do what you fucking like,” she said, and pushed the door shut.

A shard of loose paint shot off and stung his face like miniature shrapnel. He heard the woman with the brush chuckling in the next garden. Feeling his face burning, he banged on the door with the side of his fist. The sharp-edged paint crunched underneath it, digging into his flesh before flaking off. He carried on hammering.

The door was yanked open. Sandra Kale’s face was pinched and angry. “He’s not fucking here! Now fuck off!”

“Not until I’ve seen him.”

“Are you fucking deaf? I’ve told you—”

The door was pulled from her hand. Ben instinctively stepped back as Kale appeared in the doorway. He was naked except for a pair of brief black shorts. His wife looked startled, then moved meekly aside.

He had been exercising. His entire body was beaded with sweat and flushed pink, as though he had been scalded. The thin shorts moulded his hips and genital bull ge, but tight as they were there was no overhang of fat. Each muscle was clearly defined, not with the sculptured physique of a body-builder but with a cleanness that was entirely functional. Ben automatically pulled his own stomach in.

“I’ve come to collect Jacob,” he said.

Kale was breathing deeply and rhythmically. He didn’t answer. Ben went on. “It’s my day to see him. We agreed on every fourth Sunday. That’s today.”

Moisture dripped from Kale’s brow. He made no attempt to wipe it. Ben looked past him into the hallway. There was no sign of Jacob.

“There’s nothing here for you.” Kale spoke flatly.

Ben turned to him. “Where’s Jacob?”

“I said there’s nothing here for you.”

“I’m not going without seeing him at least.” He held his ground against Kale’s stare. It was like leaning into the wind.

Kale moved his head fractionally towards his wife. “Fetch him.”

“John—”

“Fetch him.”

Her face reflected her unease for a second longer, then settled into the hard lines of irritation. She disappeared inside the house.

Kale remained where he was. Ben watched the empty hallway, glad of the excuse to look away. He’d always thought that Kale’s eyes were expressionless, but that wasn’t true. Their gaze was unsettling because it gave a view of a personality that, like his body, had been rendered down and stripped of non-essentials. It was like looking into the sun.

Sandra Kale came back into the hallway. She had Jacob by the hand. Ben could see that he didn’t want to go with her. He squatted in front of him.

“Jacob? It’s me. Ben.” Jacob kept his head down, but Ben thought there was a glimmer of recognition. He seemed healthy enough. He wore a T-shirt and a pair of shorts that, if not completely clean, were not exactly dirty either. His hair was longer than the last time Ben had seen him.

“I’ve come to take you out, Jacob. Would you like that?”

“His name’s Steven.” Kale bent and effortlessly lifted the boy. He held him easily in the crook of one arm as Ben straightened. “You wanted to see him. You have done.”

“I’m supposed to be taking him out.”

Sandra Kale came forward, her face pinched with spite. Her bathrobe was flapping loose, revealing more of her breasts. “Why don’t you just get lost? Just leave us alone!”

“Cover yourself up,” Kale said.

She glared at him, then flounced into the house. A door banged.

Ben tried again. “I’m entitled to contact once a month. That was part of the agreement.”

Kale stared at him, then raised his free hand. Ben tensed but there was no blow. Kale rotated it studying it as he slowly flexed his fingers as if its workings were new to him.

“It killed her,” he said, still watching his hand, almost absently. “Losing him. It killed her. They said it was an accident, but it wasn’t. I knew her. I’d seen it coming, but I couldn’t do anything. Jeanette carried him for nine months, bled and screamed to get him out, and then some bitch came along and took him before she’d even had a chance to hold him properly.” The hand clenched into a fist. The curled edge of the forefinger was thickly callused and cross-hatched with ingrained oil. Kale rubbed his thumb over it. It made a faint rasping noise.

He lowered the hand as though he’d grown bored with it and looked at Ben again. His eyes were unbearable.

“He never knew her. His own mother, and he never knew her. Now he doesn’t know me. He doesn’t talk. Your whore did that to him. She took my wife and kid away from me. Six years. That’s how long she had him. That’s how long I thought he was dead. Six years. Now you come here wanting to take him away again.”

Ben wanted to tell him he was wrong, that he was being unfair. But he knew it wouldn’t make any difference. The man’s viewpoint was as rigid as his body. “It isn’t like that. I’m only—”

“He doesn’t want you. He doesn’t need you. You’re not part of the pattern any more.”

Ben didn’t know if he’d heard right, didn’t know what the fuck the man was talking about. “Look, it was agreed. Jacob won’t understand why he doesn’t see me—”

“His name’s Steven.”

Ben bit back the objection. One thing at a time. “You Can’t just cut us off from each other.”