Nicola Barker - Darkmans

The mountaineer who hadn’t fallen suddenly began hacking with a knife at the rope which suspended his partner in a desperate bid to save his own life.

‘They crucified him for this,’ Kane said. ‘Did you ever read about it?’

‘Huh?’

Gaffar squinted at the screen.

‘He cut him off. It’s a total breach of climbing etiquette. But he’d’ve died otherwise, for sure. The real irony is that even though they both actually survived as a direct consequence of what he did, he was treated like some kind of criminal — a pariah —in mountaineering circles for years afterwards…’

Kane scooped up some hummus on a second chunk of pitta. ‘There are many imponderables in this life of ours, Gaffar,’ he murmured, ‘but one irreducible fact is that people who climb mountains are invariably cunts.’

‘ Sheeesh ,’ Gaffar exclaimed, gazing at the screen. ’What a treacherous rat! Is he seriously gonna cut that?’

‘Kelly told me to sack you,’ Kane said, gently popping the bread into his mouth.

‘Pard?’

Gaffar turned from the tv, with a slight start, at the exact moment that the knife finally sliced through the rope.

‘Yeah…’ Kane chewed and then swallowed as the suspended mountaineer dropped, like a stone, into an apparently bottomless icy fissure. ‘She wanted me to fire you. Seriously . She claimed you were romancing her mother .’

‘Huh?’

‘Dina Broad.’

Kane smirked. He performed an obscene gesture with his hands.

Gaffar looked astonished. ‘Dina Broad?’ He paused. ‘Dina Broad ?!’

‘Yeah. And she was furious about Gerry, too. She said all you needed to do now was fuck her sister, then you’d’ve tried it on with her entire family…’

Kane chuckled as he tore off another piece of bread, his eyes returning, irresistibly, to the drama on the screen. ‘Which I actually thought was kinda funny …’

‘ Sister? ’ Gaffar was still struggling to catch up.

‘Yeah. She has a sister. A fucking psychopath. Lives in Gillingham. You ever been there?’

Gaffar shook his head. Kane suddenly winced and then quickly adjusted the position of his right foot.

‘Don’t bother. She’s a Nazi. Built like a brick shithouse…’

‘All this Broad girls is big mouth , huh?’ Gaffar threw down his chicken wing, piqued.

‘You better believe it.’

Gaffar glowered at the tv. The falling mountaineer had been fortunate enough to land on a small, jutting shelf, about 20 metres into the icy fissure. He lay there, unconscious, for a while.

‘It’s always been kinda hard to gauge these things with Kell,’ Kane mused, ‘she’s a Broad , after all — but I got the weird impression this afternoon that she was protesting a little too much, you know? Like somewhere deep inside of her — and I mean way deep inside — she might’ve been feeling just a teensy-bit conflicted, a teensy bit jealous , if you see what I mean…’

‘Huh?’

Gaffar’s head snapped around. ‘Jealous? For why ?’

Kane shrugged. ‘That’s the million dollar question, my friend.’

Gaffar stared at him, quizzically.

‘Her mother’s a total piss-taker — that goes without saying — but Kelly’s hardly a pushover. It might seem that way at first — to the casual observer — but the dynamic between them is so much more complex…It’s hardly a coincidence, for example, that Kelly’s so skinny and Dina’s so fat. There’s a measure of co-dependency there. Kelly doesn’t just starve herself but she actively facilitates Dina’s weight problem. It’s like she derives some strange kind of pleasure from feeding her mother, from fattening her up, from doing everything she can to effectively disable her. It’s a complicated relationship. For Kelly, looking after Dina — being indispensable to Dina — makes her feel important. It’s an essential part of how she places value on herself…’

Gaffar frowned.

‘…Then suddenly here you come along with your massages, your Mediterranean good looks, your shopping trips…’

Kane smiled, inscrutably, as he pulled a stray piece of skin off a thick slice of chicken breast and then shoved it into his mouth.

‘But Kelly is for asking me to look after this mother!’ Gaffar exclaimed, indignantly.

‘Yeah…’ Kane chewed and swallowed. ‘Who can possibly understand the vagaries of the female mind, eh?’

Gaffar turned back to the tv, dissatisfied.

‘See that?’ Kane said. ‘He’s fractured his leg. The rope’s been cut so he can’t climb back up. He knows that if he stays put he’s gonna die, so his only possible chance of survival is to gradually lower himself down — into the darkness — still further…’

They continued eating.

‘Did you happen to notice,’ Kane suddenly quizzed him, ‘how Beede’s locked the door into his flat?’

‘Beede?’

‘Yeah. He locked his door.’

‘Sure.’ Gaffar nodded.

‘You noticed that?’

‘Sure. In morning. I take…uh… dish ? For cook? But door is lock.’

‘The really strange thing about it,’ Kane’s eyes remained focussed on the screen, ‘is that Beede never locks his door. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that door locked. I didn’t even know that there was a lock on it.’

‘Maybe he fear thief?’ Gaffar speculated.

‘Kelly did mention how she’d asked you to steal some papers for her,’ Kane volunteered.

‘Sure.’

Gaffar didn’t trouble himself in denying it. ‘But this lock is before I steal paper.’

‘Before?’ Kane frowned. ‘So how’d you go about it?’

‘Uh…I steal from Tesco,’ Gaffar murmured, as if this key piece of information was of no real interest, ‘from Beede bag.’

‘Tesco’s?’

Kane looked at him askance.

‘Ya.’

‘You saw Beede at Tesco’s?’

‘Sure.’

‘Really?’

‘Sure.’

‘But…’ Kane frowned, confused ‘…but Beede hates Tesco’s. He never goes to Tesco’s. He disapproves of Tesco’s.’

As Kane spoke he reached down again, wincing, towards his foot.

‘Okay,’ Gaffar opined, unhelpfully.

‘Well it’s a fact,’ Kane insisted, ‘Beede hates Tesco’s. He loathes the impact of big supermarkets on the High Street. He always shops locally. It’s not just an idle preference, it’s ideological.’

Gaffar shrugged.

Silence

‘So what was he doing exactly when you saw him at Tesco’s?’ Kane wondered.

‘Uh…’

Gaffar picked at his teeth a while, thoughtfully.

‘Was he shopping?’

‘Sure.’

‘Did you happen to see what he was shopping for?’

‘I see him uh …’ Gaffar frowned, ‘is in front supermarket, yeah? With lady. He is talk with this lady.’

‘A woman? What did she look like?’ Kane’s chin suddenly jerked up. ‘Did she have brown hair? Did she have long, brown hair?’

‘No. No brown hair. Is blonde. You know…is this lady… uh …Mon- key …’

‘What?’

‘Mon- key .’

‘A monkey lady?’

As he spoke, Kane’s shoulder convulsed, dramatically.

‘Fuck.’

He grabbed at it, then grabbed at his plate, to stop it from falling.

Gaffar stared at him, perplexed. ‘No monkey , Mon- key . Laura Mon key .’

‘Oh shit …I get ya,’ Kane exclaimed, ‘Mon keith. Laura Mon keith …’