Luke Delaney - The Keeper

‘Sure,’ he said, and tossed her a working copy of the taped interview from his desktop. ‘That’s the only copy I have, so don’t lose it. I’ll need it for the unused material schedule.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Don’t mention it.’ He got up and put on his raincoat. ‘I’m done. I’m going to go home and remind myself what my wife looks like. I recommend you do the same. Back here tomorrow, six a.m., if you can stomach it.’

‘I’ll be here,’ she assured him.

‘Yes,’ he answered, ‘I had a feeling you would be.’

Thomas Keller sat alone at his kitchen table scooping baked beans straight from the saucepan he’d heated them in, swallowing without chewing or tasting, eating to remove the distraction of hunger, not for pleasure, his mind needing to concentrate elsewhere — the cellar and the woman it held. He looked up at the clock hanging from the wall — it was almost midnight, too late to pay her a visit — that would be rude, not the right thing to do. Better to let her sleep and then see her in the morning, once she’d had time to rest and realize this was all for her own good. He smiled happily when his eyes alighted on the freshly washed women’s garments drying on the clothes horse in the corner of the room, just as they had done a few days before, after he’d taken them from Karen Green. They were the only clothes he’d washed for weeks. He could hardly wait to see the joy in her face when he gave her the clothes that would by then be freshly pressed and ironed.

He grabbed the saucepan from the table and tossed it into the already full sink, the sound of china breaking not registering in his thoughts as he took the last clean fork from his shambolic cutlery drawer and negotiated his way through the house to the back door. Picking up an economy-sized tin of cheap cat-food, he slowly and quietly opened the door and stepped into the cold night, searching the trees and hedges that surrounded the back of the single-storey house for the bright eyes that shone in the dark, waiting for him. He tapped the fork on the side of the tin, the sound penetrating deep into the woodland. He made a ‘pssst, pssst,’ sound as he dug out the solidifying food and slopped it into chipped, dirty bowls that littered the area at the back of the house. It wasn’t long before he heard the faint rustling sounds in the hedges and saw the occasional blink of mirrored eyes as the stray cats examined him from a safe distance, sniffing the air scented with an easy meal.

‘Come on,’ he encouraged them softly. ‘Pssst, pssst, pssst, come on. Come and get some supper, pssst, pssst, pssst.’ But they kept their distance, circling him in the darkness, calling to each other, unwilling to show themselves to him, sensing something in him they feared. He grew impatient waiting for them to approach. ‘Don’t you want this food? Not good enough for you? Ungrateful demons is what you are. Fine — have it your way.’

He threw the tin into the bushes, the noise of scattering paws and catcalls echoing off the walls as he went from bowl to bowl, kicking them in all directions, the feeling of rejection crashing over him like a foaming tidal wave.

As he stormed back inside, slamming the door, the feelings stirred memories of the last time he had seen the mother who abandoned him, almost eight years ago, just before he’d turned twenty. Emily Keller had made contact with him through the Internet, telling him she was proud that he was now a man and that he’d got himself a job with the Post Office. She’d told him how sorry she was that she’d abandoned him and betrayed him, but she had been so young. She had changed since then — could they meet and start again? He’d agreed to meet her in a café in Forest Hill.

On the morning he’d arranged to see her he’d been glad to wake with a developing cold, his throat sore and the mucus building in his nasal passages. He remembered showering and dressing, taking his time to make himself look as presentable as he could, combing his hair and dressing in his best clothes, his one and only suit that he’d last worn three years earlier for his interview with the Post Office. He’d walked along the busy morning streets, oblivious to the people he passed, ignoring their looks of surprise as he occasionally bumped shoulders, until he reached the café they’d arranged to meet in, the type that has photographs of the food on the glossy but sticky menus.

He recognized her from the pictures she’d attached to her emails: still relatively young, in her mid-thirties, slim with long dark hair that framed her pretty face. She sat at a window table, nervously toying with a steaming cup of tea, looking up as he entered, recognition sparking in her eyes, despite not having seen him since he was four years old, when she handed him over to Social Services for voluntary adoption before sinking into a life of drugs and petty crime — although she’d promised him those days were long gone. He hadn’t sent her a picture of himself, but clearly she knew the young man who had just walked into the café was her abandoned son. A smile spread across her lips and her eyes sparkled with happiness as she rose from the table and smoothed her clothes, wanting to look her best, wanting to make a good impression. He walked towards her without smiling, drawing the mucus down from his nasal cavity and into the back of his throat before contracting the muscles in his neck to push the green ball of secretion into his mouth, rolling it around and tasting the years of bitterness it represented, all the painful memories she’d caused and all the hate he felt for her. When he was close enough to kiss her he filled his lungs as full as he could and spat the phlegm directly into her face, her smile replaced with a look of shock and repulsion. He turned and walked out of the café without saying a word. As the door closed behind him he could hear her screams of revulsion and rejection. He never saw or spoke to her again.

Saturday morning, four thirty a.m., and the iPhone’s alarm chirped quietly on the bedside cabinet, barely enough noise to wake any living creature, but it was sufficient to stir Sean from his shallow sleep, his constantly whirring mind never allowing real rest to come. He grabbed the phone on the second chirp and turned it off, quickly checking to make sure it hadn’t woken Kate. The initial shock of awakening soon gave way to a feeling of dreadful tiredness that threatened to drag him down into unconsciousness. He’d been here a hundred times before and would probably be here a hundred more times before he could ever dream of returning to anything like normal sleep patterns. He knew he had to move now or risk falling into the sort of sleep he wished he’d managed during the night, pulling the warm duvet from his body, exposing its near-nakedness to the cold air of the room. He sat on the edge of his bed rubbing the back of his neck, the muscles in his torso flexing and twitching to life, the lines of his conditioned body as prominent as those of any middle-weight boxer.

Once his mind had caught up with where he was and why he was awake so early, he stood unsteadily and headed for the bathroom, flipping up the toilet seat and waiting to urinate, but it took a long time to come and only lasted a few seconds, warning him of his own dehydration and reminding him of the shortness of his sleep. He decided against flushing and risking waking Kate or the girls and headed for the shower, setting the temperature at lukewarm and stepping in straight away, the cold water bringing him back to life. He washed and dressed quickly and went downstairs feeling passably human. He was aware that the feeling would only last a few hours and then the rest of the day would be a struggle to hold mind and body together and he’d have to push through the pain barrier more than once.