Nicola Barker - Darkmans

‘What do you want?’ he murmured, mystified.

‘What do you want?’ she echoed, then she wobbled slightly. He reached out his hands and found her waist, her ribs. He fastened his hands around her and supported her. She opened her mouth slightly, as if to speak, but she didn’t speak. She just lightly exhaled on to his upper lip. He opened his mouth, too. Their lower lips touched. Her breath was warm and smelled of milk. He felt the cold tip of her nose almost brushing his cheek. Neither of them moved.

‘Mummy?’

As quickly as it had begun, it was done with. She was there, then she was gone — back into the house again to deal with her son.

Kane felt shaky. He pushed back his hood. He put out an unsteady hand to support himself against a piece of scaffolding. The scaffolding creaked and shifted. He quickly let go again. He glanced up, shoving his hand into his pockets and taking out his cigarettes. He tapped one from the packet and propped it between his lips. He located a box of matches, opened it, removed a match and struck it. He lit his cigarette, shook the match out and tossed it down, grimacing, on to the concrete.

‘Well it’s none of your damn business , for starters,’ he growled.

‘I didn’t say it was,’ Peta shrugged, ‘I just said it was perplexing, that’s all…’

She paused. ‘Which it is.’

‘Kane and I are very different,’ Beede insisted.

‘No. That’s not true. From what I can tell you’re actually very similar…’ ‘Similar? You think so?’ he sneered. ‘Well maybe that’s at the root of it, eh?’

‘Perhaps.’

She refused to be intimidated.

Silence

‘Very similar ,’ Beede scoffed.

‘You both take things so much to heart…’ Peta murmured.

‘ Kane?! ’ He blinked at her, astonished. ‘How can you possibly think that? You’ve met him once. Trust me, Kane takes nothing to heart. He lives in the moment. If he doesn’t like a situation then he walks away from it or he devours a pill to blank it out…’

Peta looked shocked. ‘That’s harsh, Beede…’

‘He’s a thief,’ Beede maintained calmly, ‘a dealer.’

‘He eliminates pain,’ Peta neatly recontextualised. ‘He brings people relief.’

Beede snorted, contemptuously.

Peta ignored this. ‘Weren’t you ever close?’ she asked.

Beede shrugged. ‘There was never really room …Heather was always so…’

He shook his head, irritated.

‘What?’

‘I don’t know… Needy . Overpowering.’

‘Even before she was ill?’

He nodded. ‘Kane was her refuge — her retreat. He was just this tiny, open, credulous little receptacle into which she poured all her dreams, all her frustrations — her disappointments. She was just one of those characters…Very funny, very charming, openly manipulative — sometimes almost…I don’t know…almost hilariously so. And beautiful — intensely beautiful. People just loved to be around her, to do things for her. Kane was no exception…’

‘But didn’t the relationship concern you?’ Peta asked.

‘Pardon?’

‘Well it doesn’t sound entirely…’

‘Healthy? Functional? No. It wasn’t. And naturally I spoke to her about it. I warned her. But she didn’t care. It was just her nature. Her way …’

Beede idly picked a currant out of his rock cake and gently pressed it between his forefinger and his thumb. ‘Heather stifled the boy. She always did. And for my part, I was always determined that if there was one thing I could do for him — as a man, a father — it would be to leave him to his own devices. Not to criticise. Not to control. Not to manipulate or to judge. And that — to the best of my ability — is what I did.’

‘Was it difficult?’

‘It nearly killed me…’ he smiled, grimly. ‘But that which doesn’t kill us…’

He paused. ‘And in hindsight it was probably a mistake. The damage — the trauma — was way too deep. Kane quickly confused freedom with licence …’

‘What about the divorce?’ she asked (determined to understand every detail of the scenario). ‘How did that work?’

Beede popped the currant into his mouth. ‘She squeezed me out,’ he shrugged, ‘or I squeezed myself out. It just ended. We were relieved. There were no ill feelings on either side.’

‘None?’

‘No,’ he glanced over at her, blankly, ‘there were always other projects, other demands on my energy…’

‘But then she fell ill?’

‘Yes. Yes . Although it wasn’t quite as dramatic as…I mean it was all very slow, very gradual…’

He frowned.

‘Why the frown?’

‘Because…I don’t know…Because it all sounds very dramatic, very tragic, even, and to a large extent it was, but the illness wasn’t entirely…It wasn’t…’ he continued frowning, ‘I mean doctors often like to imply that particular kinds of people — particular kinds of characters — have a sort of…of predisposition towards certain types of ailments…’

‘Like a choleric person developing an ulcer, say?’

He nodded. ‘In Heather’s case the illness seemed like a cruel but strangely coherent articulation of the person she already was. I mean she wasn’t a shirker — God forbid. Absolutely not — she was a dancer for Christ’s sake…They’re machines, they’re completely driven, totally indestructible right up to — and sometimes beyond —the point of collapse. But Heather made a career out of projecting herself as vulnerable, as embattled, as winsome and fragile, while underneath — below all those layers of connivance, below all that tinsel and netting and ribbons — was this astonishing feistiness and vitality, which is what people responded to, and which — God knows— I responded to at some level. It was what I loved about her, and what Kane loved too, I don’t doubt…’

‘So she moved to America?’ Peta interrupted.

‘Yes. Early on. They thought the warm, dry weather…’

‘And you didn’t mind her dragging your son along?’

‘Mind?’ Beede looked surprised. ‘Of course not. It just seemed…’ He shrugged again. ‘Inevitable, I suppose.’

‘You’d detached yourself,’ she sighed, ‘even at that stage.’

He grimaced. ‘Perhaps.’

He took another bite of his cake. Peta returned hers, virtually untouched, to its Tupperware container.

‘Were you pleased when they came back?’

‘Oh yes.’

He nodded. ‘I was relieved. For her sake as much as Kane’s. They moved into the bungalow on Hunter Avenue…’

‘And how was Kane by that stage?’

‘Kane?’

‘Was he different? Had he changed?’

‘Uh…I don’t know. He was always a good boy. He had a wayward side. He certainly doted on his mother…’

‘And you?’

‘Me?’

Again, the surprise.

‘Yes, how did Kane feel about you?’

Beede slowly shook his head, as if it hadn’t actually occurred to him to consider this before. ‘I couldn’t honestly say…I tried to be there for him, I suppose. But I had this sense that he’d moved on, that he didn’t really relish my involvement, that he’d…’

‘What? Grown up? Grown beyond you? Become an adult?’

‘No. Yes .’ Beede nodded. ‘I suppose he had to some extent. He was so amazingly attentive. So diligent when it came to Heather. He’d become her partner — her dancing partner — if you see what I mean. Her rock. Her support. He always knew the best thing to do, what tablet to take, what number to call…’

He suddenly scowled. ‘Until, of course… Well …’