Nicola Barker - Behindlings

When the first police car roared past her, she pedalled faster and followed it, remembering the details Arthur Young had unwittingly let slip on the phone in the smoky bar the night before — he’d referred to some kind of… of craft — Hadn’t he?

— and he’d mentioned the flyover.

She overtook the agent’s Fiesta (not recognising it), kept going, felt the sweat freeze on her. A fire engine. Siren howling. Then an ambulance. She jumped off the bike at the back of a ludicrously long line of emergency service vehicles, sprinted to the base of the bridge, leaned over it, fingers spread, elbows rigid, gasping.

A crocodile of people — mostly uniformed — were slowly advancing along the river path. On the river itself; a noisy, motorised, marine-rescue dinghy, two men in black rubber, a diver, a series of disparate objects floating on the choppy surface of the water.

On the bank…

Where was he?

She saw Arthur Young –

Oh thank…

Thank…

— wrapped up in a blanket, staring down at…

A prone deer?

With… with… with antlers?

Could that…?

She blinked. For a moment she almost believed that Wesley’d been transfigured. That it was him. That he was it. In form. In fact.

She blinked again –

No

— her eyes jinked left.

A child stood next to Arthur, holding onto his arm. A girl. Dark (was it his child?). Dangling from the fingers of her other hand; a long, rather distinctive, fluffy orange… uh … scarf?

No…

A fox’s tail?

Am I…?

She blinked.

Could that…?

There was another person –

Yes

— a third, possibly a vet — down on his knees, trying to help the stag, clearing out its airwaves, blowing onto its nose, rubbing at it violently with a towel or a sack.

The child — the girl — seemed in a state of some distress.

Josephine’s eyebrows rose in sympathy, but only momentarily. Soon her focus shifted again –

Where was he?

Where?

Towards the front of the line she saw the agent comforting the librarian. The librarian was blowing her nose while holding — and very nearly dropping, before the agent considerately intervened — a large box… an unwieldy box of…

Of eggs?

Jo jumped over the concrete partition, clambered down onto the bank and ran to join them. Eileen saw her first. ‘I threw…’ she spluttered, ‘and the whole thing just… it just…’ She made an expansive gesture with her hands.

Josephine ignored the hands, the words, yelled straight into her face, without restraint, ‘ JUST TELL ME HE ISN’T DEAD. ’

She was almost screaming — shocked herself, in fact (had no prior conception of how agitated she was feeling).

‘He isn’t, ’ Eileen said (in a slightly resentful tone — as if a tragic fatality might’ve helped all those involved to feel marginally better).

Josephine grabbed the agent’s arm and shook it (as though Wesley might fall out of his sleeve, his jacket, if only she persisted). ‘Where is he? Has he gone? Did he hurt anyone? Was he hurt? What happened?’

She began coughing –

Not enough breath

‘He’s fine, ’ Ted gently removed her hand from his sleeve, squeezed it, released it. ‘He climbed up onto the main road, turned left. Ten minutes ago. Fifteen…’

He pointed towards the little girl, ‘That’s his daughter. He wasn’t especially happy to see her. He took off.’

Josephine nodded repeatedly at what he was saying, but she wasn’t focussing. She was staring wildly around her, looking for scraps, for clues. ‘Was there some kind of… of craft here before?’ On craft, Eileen’s face crumpled. She clutched the egg-box to her chest, lifted her lime green mud-encrusted pixie-boots and tottered unsteadily off.

Josephine stood still for a second and struggled –

Struggled

— to remember the landscape of her past.

The boat. The craft. Tried to recollect…

‘I had a feeling it was you,’ Ted murmured — in a soft conspiratorial tone — once Eileen was out of earshot.

She stared at him, blankly.

‘I have re-lived that event in my mind…’ he continued, with a smile (almost of relief), ‘a thousand, a million times over.’

He waited for some kind of reaction from her, but none came; she was studying the river again, closely scrutinising the three remaining struts of the walkway still poking out of the water.

‘I knocked, but just gently…’ he continued, hardly caring any more, simply telling himself now, as much as her, ‘because I didn’t really want him to answer…’

He re-enacted that gentle knock; ‘I’d been involved in a scuffle during PE — totally out of character — but another boy — a boy called Bo — you might possibly remember…?’

Nothing

‘Well he threw my uniform into the toilet; pissed on it…’ Ted shrugged, defensively, ‘I waited outside his office, but no answer, so I knocked again — louder — and still nothing, so I took a deep breath and I…’

He re-enacted opening the door, walking in, his eyes widening in horror, ‘You were perched on his knee with your arms around his neck. I only saw you from the back — your hands, your hair — he was sitting in his chair, at his desk. I thought about… I almost… I tried to… I…’

He shook his head, ‘I was just a kid. I was stupid. And Bo — of all people — was directly behind me — and when he saw my expression, he asked what was wrong and I just… I blabbed… and that was… that was it. It was… it was out. ’

He stared at Josephine, hoping — perhaps — for understanding. Sympathy. Fury, even.

But nothing

Her focus had shifted again, back onto the dark-haired child and the skinny, enigmatical Arthur Young.

‘Katherine found me,’ he continued, ‘a few days after. Took me aside and swore it was her. Said I’d misconstrued… made me believe her. Made me swear …’ he shook his head, dazed. ‘And you know what?’ he chuckled dryly at the extent of his own folly, ‘I wanted to believe her. I was weak. I wanted things to be clean and right and proper. So I made my apologies,’ he shrugged, regretfully, ‘and that was my mistake. Because I’d entered the lie. I became the lie. And for one reason or another — I don’t really know why — I never stopped apologising after that.’

Ted looked down at his hands. His fingers and his nails were absolutely filthy, and there was a wide slick of mud — he observed irritably — across the middle of his tie. A few feet away, some encouraging progress was suddenly being made with the exhausted brown stag; Brion slowly lifted his head, coughed, kicked out a front leg…

Sasha squealed and threw both of her arms around Arthur. He held onto her, stiffly (like an exhausted swimmer embracing a buoy), smiling embarrassedly.

Josephine smiled herself, in reaction, then turned back to face the agent again, her expression rapidly degenerating from cheery to stony. ‘That’s all ancient history now, Ted,’ she told him bluntly, ‘get over it. Move on. ’

‘You need a drink,’ Katherine murmured, staring at him sympathetically — although sympathy wasn’t really her thing, was an unfamiliar visitor to her emotional vista (so she made its acquaintance tentatively, unconfidently, and it was a stretch — took moral effort — which was exhausting for her).