Nicola Barker - Behindlings

He shook his head, smiling contemptuously.

‘You’re out of your depth, Bean,’ he warned her.

‘If you did actually hate it as much as you profess to,’ she said (refusing to be warned), ‘then all you’d actually have to do is to stop. But for some crazy reason…’

He stiffened. She suddenly had his full attention — couldn’t be entirely certain why, exactly, but she took a chance, anyway…

‘Just stop. ’

She said it again. This word seemed to have a remarkable effect upon him. He finally made eye contact with her. His eyes were burning. She saw him reach out his good hand towards his bad.

‘I can’t.’

He turned and began walking again. She followed.

‘Why can’t you?’

He ignored her.

‘ Why can’t you?’

She grabbed his arm. He lurched away from her, pulling his arm free. ‘ Why the fuck should I? ’ he yelled, then immediately struggled to kerb his temper, as if he’d let something loose, given something away. ‘It’s my right to keep going,’ he said emphatically.

He walked on. But he was shaken. She could tell by his uneven gait, the way he swung out both of his arms with a disproportionate vigour.

‘I regret mentioning the gas canister,’ he suddenly spluttered, ‘everything was fine before…’ He shook his head and walked even faster, as if trying to escape this unhappy fact. ‘But when I saw the girl,’ he told a passing bus, ‘and she looked so… she looked… something just… this fury …’ He put his hand to his neck.

‘Which gas canister?’

She was struggling to keep his pace. She was confounded.

‘ Which girl? Your daughter?’

He stopped walking. ‘I like you,’ he said, drawing a deep breath, ‘and it’s incredibly sweet, this need you have, to tidy everything up. It’s very…’ he struggled, ‘very quaint. And I’m sure it’s an extremely helpful quality — up to a point — in terms of your medical career, your finances and all the rest of it. But as a philosophy, as a way of life, ’ he stared at her, incredulously, ‘it’s just… it’s fucking tripe. It’s shit. Because things don’t automatically fall into place, Bean. Things don’t automatically make sense or add up…’

‘ I don’t care what my weaknesses are,’ she said staunchly, ‘I still think I deserve better than that.’

He was silent for a moment, as if struggling against the overpowering urge to indulge her. ‘What you need to understand,’ he explained, giving in, momentarily, ‘is that there was an integrity to that Loiter…’ he paused, ‘and a sacrifice on my part…’ he paused again, ‘because I felt nothing but sympathy for Arthur’s situation, and I knew — I understood perfectly well — why he… why…’ Wesley tipped his head stiffly to one side, as if — contrary to his words — he didn’t really understand; couldn’t… hadn’t… didn’t want…

He closed his eyes, shrugged, ‘I played a joke. I taught someone a lesson. It was years ago. I was vulnerable. I needed to prove a point. I took it too…’

He opened his eyes again, as if already dismissing this theory. ‘But when the boy died,’ he rapidly continued, switching his focus, almost burbling in his desire to be done with explaining, ‘I knew I was fucked. The whole joke had turned sour. That the thing I’d done to help, that the move I’d made to… to…’

He scowled — as if still in dispute with himself on this matter –

‘But life is sour, and jokes are…’ he stopped himself, shrugged, ‘I saw what it did to the Old Man. He was a bad father. He knew he was. He cared too much. It ate him up.’

‘The point is,’ Josephine interrupted gently (as if flattered or satisfied in some way by the neatness of it all, the way the puzzle had slowly started to fit), ‘that he got what he wanted. His son won. Just like you said. Because when he died, Doc finally took notice, and that was all he’d ever really…’

Wesley scowled. ‘The Loiter’s become a compromise,’ he said coldly, ‘and I won’t compromise the Following just because a large Corporation is afraid of a little negative PR.’

Josephine frowned, ‘But you’re going along with it.’

‘Really?’ he cocked his head to one side. ‘Who told you that?’

He smiled at the look of shock on her clean face, ‘I’m blackmailing the company. I see the drowning as an opportunity. I’m demanding major environmental concessions to keep quiet about the whole affair.’

Josephine tried to make sense of this.

‘They don’t believe I’ll jeopardise the feelings of the Old Man,’ Wesley shrugged, ‘but they’re wrong.’

He shrugged again. It gave him away.

‘But they’re right, ’ Jo contradicted him, ‘you wouldn’t jeopardise his feelings.’

‘So I came down to Canvey,’ he continued, ignoring her, ‘to shake them up. But they called my bluff. They sent Arthur Young in as a warning. I don’t know how they managed it, what they’ve told him or how it’ll affect the situation…’

Josephine frowned, shook her head, ‘I’m still not…’

‘I set up Gumble to launder the cash I was paid with for the Loiter. I fed it into the Behindling site through sponsorship. I thought if Arthur made enough money through the Following that he might finally re-evaluate his feelings on the situation. He could help his kid, rebuild his relationship with Bethan, go off and do his own walking, his own writing…’

Josephine smiled, ‘You thought he might give the whole thing up…’

Wesley smiled straight back at her.

‘But you were wrong.’

He nodded, ‘And then the company re-activated Gumble to try and win me over. Started all this buy-out bullshit, involved Hooch, Shoes — superficially to protect Doc…’

‘If Arthur doesn’t sell, would they hurt him?’

‘Maybe,’ Wesley scratched his ear, ‘depends how badly they want to fuck me over.’

‘But they sent that letter,’ Josephine jumped in, ‘implying all kinds of stuff about…’

Wesley looked tired, ‘Things can’t always fit together like a jigsaw, Bean. And nor should they.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because it’d be a kind of hell if they did.’ He began walking again.

‘If Arthur found out that you were behind Gumble,’ she said, ‘that you knew about him, about his kid, that you’d given him the money, that he’d turned down the chance to make everything right out of… out of what? Some pathetic sense of… of spite? That you knew he had, that you were suddenly enjoying some kind of serious moral advantage over him…’

‘Arthur needs to hate me,’ Wesley interrupted. ‘If he gives up the site…’

‘And what if he can’t hate you any more?’ she butted in. ‘What then…?’

Suddenly — and with no prior warning — Wesley turned and strolled casually into the middle of the highway. Two cars narrowly avoided colliding, trying to avoid him. He bent down. He picked something up. He was fearless. It was terrifying.

When he returned to where she was standing she saw a snail held between his fingers. He placed it gently into the long grass.

‘You’ve got to stop,’ she said.

That word again.

‘Why?’

He was buzzing, full of an uncontrollable exuberance. He laughed at her expression, clutching his stomach. ‘D’you have something invested in making me give up, Bean?’ he asked cruelly. ‘D’you think this is love? D’you think we should move in together? That I should get a proper job? Settle down? Get serious? Relinquish everything and betray everyone, after one single, dismal, meaningless fuck? ’