Nicola Barker - Behindlings

He was deadly serious about everything, himself especially.

‘To pursue my dream,’ he said, ‘I’ll need to get some kind of scholarship to America. The British Space Programme’s just a joke, but it’s an entirely different kettle of fish over there…’

‘Space is relative,’ Wesley teased him, his eyes scanning the path as he walked along, ‘and all creatures are travellers. The most important journeys are the interior ones. The most important and the most hazardous.’

Josephine snorted at this, under her breath –

God

He was so full of…

The bike’s front wheel suddenly hit the kerb and the whole structure folded — in the middle — where the join was. It was definitely a design fault. It just needed some kind of… of clip, maybe, for when the bike wasn’t being ridden but was still in…

In motion

Wesley heard this slight commotion and glanced over his shoulder. His face snapped shut when he saw her. His mouth tightened. Then he turned back around and simply walked faster.

‘I know about Gumble, Wesley,’ she said tiredly — not shouting over the traffic, but speaking quietly, within her normal range. He continued walking, though, as if he hadn’t heard her. ‘I know about Goodwin, Wesley,’ she said, slightly louder.

This time it was the boy’s turn to swing around and stare. It was a haughty look –

Keen

Jealous

Josephine dropped the bike with a clatter. ‘Doc’s been in an accident, ’ she observed stridently, then paused, speculatively, ‘although whether it’s entirely accurate to actually call it that…’

She had his attention. Wesley stopped, turned to the boy. ‘I need to talk to this person,’ he explained, ‘but we can still meet up in Tilbury. Around six. Outside the pub. Like we discussed.’

The boy nodded. ‘I’ll bring your rucksack,’ he said, ‘I know where the house is. I’ve got the address.’

He tapped his back trouser pocket. The labrador drew closer — sniffed — as if there might be something for him in it. Wesley leaned down and patted the labrador’s smooth, wide head. ‘There you go, Coops,’ he said, then straightened up, smiled, ‘I’d appreciate that, Peter. Thanks.’

Used the name

The boy shrugged, grinned, called the dog, moved off. As he passed her by, he shot Josephine a small, sharp look.

Wesley observed her reaction to it (the angry blush) as they stood and faced each other, unable to speak at first thanks to a powerful blast on the bullhorn of a juggernaut.

Wesley waved his bad arm, tiredly — like a thoroughly world-weary celebrity of the roadway. Two consecutive horns sounded. He grimaced.

‘Didn’t take you long,’ she said eventually, tipping her head towards the kid, struggling –

Battling

— not to sound like her nose was out of joint.

He was a tart. A flirt. What else did she expect?

‘You may not be aware of this fact,’ Wesley murmured, ‘but I don’t often speak to the people Following. It’s my…’ he paused, ‘it’s my tick, my trademark. ’

His tone was ironic, but he was obviously serious.

‘You’re pathetic,’ she observed coolly, holding her neat chin up.

Wesley turned side-on and stared into the hedgerow, as if determined to prove it.

‘So did he survive?’ he asked idly.

Doc

She could’ve sworn she saw hope –

A glimmer of it

— in his profile.

‘Do you secretly wish he hadn’t?’ she asked, shocked.

Wesley chuckled at her reaction, ‘Of course I do, stupid.’

He seemed buoyant. Unhindered.

She was infuriated by his frivolousness, but she wouldn’t –

Couldn’t

— give in to it.

‘So you’ve set up some kind of company,’ she began, calmly, ‘to buy out Arthur Young and control the Following. You got the confectionery people to help you — part of the original deal, I imagine — used them as intermediaries because Arthur Young has some kind of long-standing grudge…’

Wesley raised his eyebrows, watched a sparrow flit out of the hedgerow and onto a muddy furrow in the bare field behind. ‘It’s always been a labour of love with Arthur,’ he interrupted, ‘and that’s part of his charm.’

‘So you signed an exclusive advertising deal with him under the guise of a company called Gumble Inc,’ Jo continued smartly, refusing to be drawn by him, ‘beguiled him, hoodwinked him, gained his trust. Then, once you were certain that you’d managed it, you withdrew. You knew all about his sick kid — that he really needed the money — that he was desperate…’

Wesley shook his head, tolerantly, ‘You’ve got it all back to front, Bean; I contacted the confectionery people because of Arthur Young. He used to work for them. They still pay him a pension. He suffers from an illness related to an extreme form of alcoholism…’

‘You sent a letter to Katherine,’ she continued tenaciously (ignoring his intervention, simply determined to disgorge her own side of the story, before it either imploded, evaporated, or totally eluded her), ‘warning her off Arthur because you knew for a fact that she’d do exactly the…’

‘Flattered as I am by your unshakeable conviction in my boundless ingenuity,’ Wesley muttered, adjusting his damp trainers as they hung around his shoulders, ‘even I can’t understand why I’d’ve bothered to do that. My agenda has always been to keep Arthur Young at a distance. To draw him closer would’ve been counterproductive…’

‘You have some kind of deal with the confectionery people,’ Josephine battled on. ‘I don’t understand all the ins and the outs of it, but you’re intending for Hooch or Shoes to pick up the prize on Goodwin and then to re-invest the profits into Gumble. You’re planning to fleece them. It’s going to be your great revenge on them, your ultimate coup…’

‘What?’ Wesley gasped in pretend shock. ‘To make money out of… out of myself? ’ He threw up his hands. ‘But that’s absolutely scandalous, Bean.’

She didn’t respond, at first.

‘Perhaps you prefer the idea of me,’ Wesley continued, provocatively, ‘as some kind of limp commodity which other people can simply pick up or drop or exploit, at will, whenever they feel like it?’

She looked confused, momentarily, so he pushed home his advantage, ‘But can’t you see the irony in that, Josephine? Can’t you understand — even after everything you’ve been through with Katherine — can’t you understand how demoralising it is to have other people consciously exploiting your mistakes, your energy, your weaknesses in that way?’

Josephine stared at him, her brown eyes narrowing slightly, ‘You knew Katherine wrote the graffiti?’

He shrugged, bored, ‘Who else would’ve cared enough to do it?’

‘So all that stuff in the book was just… just bullshit? ’

‘No,’ he smiled. ‘It was a gift. I gave her exactly what she wanted. I magnified her self-hatred. I tested it. That’s my flair — or as Hooch would say — my… my knack. ’

‘That’s cold,’ Josephine murmured, shaking her head.

‘It’s disgusting,’ he nodded, ‘but so what?’

He turned away from the hedgerow and glanced covetously up the road again. She could tell she was losing him, and that once he was lost, she would never get him back.

‘You love the Following,’ she murmured, ‘you pretend to hate it but the truth is that you thrive on it. Hooch was right, you’re terrified of letting anybody get too close. It isn’t grand or magical, it’s just pointless, slightly neurotic and not a little sad.’