Nicola Barker - Behindlings

Dewi loosened his grip on the child — he couldn’t be much past eleven, at best, Jo calculated — and slowly drew closer to Hooch. Soon he stood only inches from him. He was a good foot taller, even hatless (if they’d suddenly begun slow-dancing, Jo couldn’t help imagining, then Hooch’s flat pate would’ve fitted with a reassuring snugness under Dewi’s jutting chin).

As it was, Hooch’s mean streak of a nose pointed with an almost stoat-like determination towards Dewi’s left nipple. Eye contact was not maintained — it was not desirable — it was barely even feasible.

Patty, for his part, instantly busied himself in trying to eradicate a large smear of dust from the arm of his cheap, shiny green bomber jacket. He slapped away at it, vigorously.

Doc, in turn (and somewhat to his discredit, under the circumstances), stared fixedly off to his left, towards the distant smudge of sea at the road’s end, as if he’d just received urgent word of an Armada.

Dennis — who’d stood up, initially, to sniff at Dewi’s trouser leg — sat down again, glanced up at Doc, tightened his eyes, drew his lips back into an apprentice snarl, shook his head and then sneezed.

‘It’s very plain, my friend,’ Dewi murmured softly into the crown of Hooch’s slightly dented beanie, the curling vine of a Welsh accent suddenly twisting into audibility and looping with an almost unspeakable sincerity around each and every syllable, ‘that there are some things, some important things, which you don’t yet seem to know about Katherine Turpin.’

He inhaled deeply. ‘The first of these,’ he continued calmly, his voice deep and smooth as a stagnant loch, ‘is that I am her friend. I am her guardian. I am her self-appointed foot-soldier. It is a service that I perform for her out of loyalty and love and veneration. And while you’re at liberty to interpret my guardianship in any way you please,’ he smiled (it wasn’t friendly), ‘you might benefit from knowing that my name is Dewi and that I live in this bungalow…’ he pointed (somewhat gratuitously), ‘directly opposite her bungalow, and that if she ever troubled to ask me I would happily break my own two arms for her…’ a significant pause followed, ‘or anybody else’s,’ a further pause, ‘for that matter.’

Dewi took a small step backwards, down into the gutter, and nodded his head curtly, as if in parting. He half-turned. But then he thought better of it, stuck out his square chin and moved back up close again.

‘I trust,’ he intoned gently, his eyes still not meeting Hooch’s but focussing approximately a foot above his head, ‘I hope that you will refrain from pestering my Katherine. Or maligning her. Or troubling her. Because there has been far too much of that already. And I am very, very tired of it…

‘But if you do,’ he continued, his voice barely audible now (just a cool gust, an icy imprint), ‘then trust me when I say that I will hunt you down, that I will find you, that I will take you, that I will hold you, that I will squeeze you, that I will smash you. Because it would be no bother to me. It would be no trouble. It would be… it would be like plucking a stray feather from a duck-down pillow… see?’

Dewi held his dusty hands aloft. Huge hands. His index finger and thumb pinched lightly together. He blew an invisible feather into the air. Sawdust lifted from his lips and the tip of his nose. It was a beautiful gesture. Excessive. Baroque. Infinitely tender.

Hooch’s wise eyes followed those capable fingers, keenly, moistly, from behind their thick but clear bifocal lenses. He swallowed hard. He said nothing.

Only Josephine — who was slightly more observant than the others — saw that Dewi’s huge hands were shaking. Not with fear. Nor passion. Anger? No. And not rage, either… It was something else. Something softer. Restraint, maybe? No. Not restraint. Not exactly… Her eyes widened, suddenly. Could it be? Could it be sympathy?

Sympathy?

‘ Oi. What’s that, then?’

Josephine started, surprised by the sudden, unexpected proximity of the small boy, Patty, who had silently materialised at her shoulder. And while she could barely stand to drag her eyes away from Dewi — his sandy brows, his smooth voice, his magnificent fingers — Patty seemed hardly to have noticed the intense altercation between the two other men.

‘What’s that?’ he repeated. ‘Is it food?’

Jo looked down. In her right hand she still held the grease-stained paper bag from the bakery. ‘It’s a doughnut,’ she stammered. ‘Hand it over,’ the boy ordered.

She passed it to him, silently. Patty snatched the bag and rammed his fist inside of it. He was hungry.

Dewi, meanwhile, in that slightest — that shortest — that briefest of interludes, had swiftly taken his leave of them. Jo turned and stared after him, her whole heart scythed. Beautiful, beautiful Dewi, she murmured, her chin lifting, her pupils dilating; beautiful, beautiful Dewi, standing right there, just in front of me, and as the cruel winter sky above is my witness, he didn’t even know.

‘If you love to sew so much, why are you working as an estate agent?’

‘ What? ’ Ted did a double-take.

They were crossing the road together, strolling directly towards the four people on the opposite pavement.

A fifth was just joining them. Another man, grossly overweight and wearing thin, green, tie-dyed trousers with a black and red striped mohair Dennis the Menace jumper. His name was Shoes. Wesley knew him well, but as he approached, his face showed no inkling of recognition. Not for Shoes. Not for Doc. Not for any of them.

His eyes hiccoughed slightly, however, at the sight of Hooch’s hat; the incongruously cuddly logo, then they focussed straight in on the girl. He stepped up onto the kerb.

‘Who said anything about sewing?’ Ted asked quietly. Wesley didn’t answer. He was standing directly in front of Josephine.

‘Someone must be paying you,’ he murmured silkily, inspecting her face which was plain — like he’d imagined — but with something about the mouth, the chin, that seemed oddly exceptional. A firmness. A roundness. She was a Jersey Royal, he decided. Not your average potato. She was small and smooth and seasonal. Her hazel eyes were liquid, like a glass of good cask whisky mixed with water.

‘Pardon?’ She looked quite astonished to see him. So close.

‘Someone must be paying you. You don’t look like the others. You aren’t like them.’

‘I’m Jo from Southend,’ Jo found herself saying.

‘ I don’t care where you live,’ Wesley said, ‘you’re wasting your time here. You won’t find what you’re looking for. Go back to Southend…’ his voice dropped, unexpectedly, ‘ while you still can. D’you hear?’

He turned — not even waiting for an answer — then he paused, ‘You have jam,’ he said, ‘on your sweatshirt.’

Jo looked down. ‘I was eating a doughnut,’ she muttered, trying to lift off the worst of it with her thumb.

Wesley was already walking.

‘How did you know?’ Ted asked, quickly catching up, ‘about the sewing?’

‘Ah,’ Wesley touched the tip of his nose mysteriously with his glossy stump. ‘You smelled it?’

‘When I picked up your jacket,’ Wesley demurred, ‘I noticed the handmade label. Beautifully finished. Just like the original. And you were comforting yourself,’ he continued, ‘earlier, when we were walking, by rattling that bunch of keys. It reminded me of the sound of a machine…’ he paused, ‘and I couldn’t help noticing how you felt the curtain fabric in Katherine’s house. Almost without thinking. And the material on the cushion covers. Plus you have two strange calluses on your index fingers. It all seemed pretty… well, pretty conclusive, really.’