Nicola Barker - Behindlings

‘ Finished, ’ she exclaimed, slamming the seat down and tapping it smugly, ‘and the time now?’

He inspected his watch. ‘Eleven fifty-one and twelve seconds,’ he said.

She smiled, then stopped smiling. ‘Dammit,’ she cursed, ‘I forgot the sodding pump.’

She grabbed the pump and clipped it into position.

‘The manufacturers say it should take twenty seconds,’ she explained, standing up and dusting off her knees, ‘but I can halve it.’

‘Right. Good. I’m actually heading towards Canvey myself,’ Arthur informed her, deigning not to comment further on the fold-up phenomenon but staring down the road fixedly. He loved the road. He loved roads.

‘On foot? Are you crazy?’ she scowled over at him. Smoke in her eye again. ‘It’s a piss-ugly walk. Nothing to see.’

‘I like to walk,’ he said, ‘I like the fact of walking.’

He found the pale flash of her lashes fascinating.

‘It’s miles.’

‘I know exactly how far it is.’

She spat on her hands and rubbed them together. Then she thought of something and stopped what she was doing.

‘I get it,’ she said, a teasing tone suddenly hijacking her low voice as she removed the cigarette from her mouth and held it, half-concealed, inside her moist, milky palm, ‘you’re one of those…’ she scrabbled for the word, ‘those following people. A Back-ender. You walk places.’

‘Behindling,’ Arthur corrected her, looking disgruntled, but nonetheless refraining from either denying or affirming her assumptions.

She chuckled dryly (sounding, Arthur couldn’t help thinking, like a territorial squirrel: a base, clicking, gurgling), then she focussed in on him again, ‘It’s been all over the local papers because of the clue mentioning Canvey in that stupid, chocolate bar treasure-hunt thingummy.’

‘The Loiter,’ Arthur interjected impassively.

She nodded. ‘Clue three, I believe. Daniel Defoe once called it Candy Island,’ she grimaced, ‘whoever the fuck he is.’

‘Robinson Crusoe,’ Arthur’s eyebrow rose disdainfully, ‘he wrote it.’

‘Oh…’ she shrugged, ‘and what with that poor man dying, obviously.’

‘Don’t hike across beaches if you can’t understand the tides,’ Arthur counselled, somewhat unsympathetically, ‘especially in Anglesey. The water’s always been treacherous there. Everybody knows it.’

‘Good point,’ she concurred, ‘you heartless bastard.’ Then she smiled, casually up-ended her cigarette, softly blew onto the smoking tip of it and carefully inspected the glowing embers below, her knuckles peppered with flecks of ash.

Several long seconds passed before she replaced the cigarette between her lips, grabbed hold of the bike, carried it to the edge of the pavement and stuck out her pale thumb. Now she was hitching. Now she was done with him.

Heartless. Yes. Bastard. Yes. Arthur took these two words on board — not even flinching — and packed them neatly into his mental rucksack. ‘Good luck,’ he said, yanking up his actual rucksack, settling it comfortably between his two lean shoulders and walking on again.

Katherine Turpin turned and stared after him, her chin high, her lips skewed, her characteristically disdainful expression seeming, for once, oddly ruminative.

He was raddled. Yes. Emaciated. Yes. A rope. A bad thumb. An oar. An old oar. But even she had to admit that he walked, well, beautifully. An oiled machine; his legs snapping in and out with all the smooth, practical precision of a trusty pair of ancient, large-handled kitchen scissors.

There goes a man, she thought idly — cocking her hitching thumb a couple of times like she was striking a flint or popping a cork — there goes a man who should always keep moving.

‘He’ll head straight for the library.’

Doc threw out this apparently random observation towards Jo so pointedly, and with such clear intent, that had his words transmogrified into a volleyball they’d have hit her square between the eyes. They’d have fractured her nose. It was a fine nose.

‘I said the library, ’ he reiterated, ‘and that’s an absolute bloody certainty.’

Jo glanced around her, just to double-check she wasn’t simply imagining. No. It was beyond question: he had purposefully singled her out. She drew a deep, preparatory breath. ‘But how do you know?’ she asked cautiously, her voice wavering slightly at the prospect of a rebuff.

‘He always goes to the library when he first arrives somewhere,’ Doc elucidated matter-of-factly, as if there was nothing at all remarkable in his sudden decision to include her, ‘he considers the library the best place to gather local information.’

He paused for a moment then added, ‘And while I suppose to an outsider Wesley might seem a little old-fashioned in this respect, in reality the whole process is much more complicated, much more…’ he pondered for a moment, ‘much more social than…’

‘Oh yes.’

This unexpected interruption from Hooch’s direction was followed by a big wink, a small burp and then a succulent chuckle as he rubbed a gloved hand over his heart and lungs, his ribs and nipples, ‘It’s all very social indeed, eh, Doc?’

Doc stiffened, visibly, at Hooch’s intervention. He plainly did not appreciate it. In fact and in principle he was far too sober a creature to involve himself in suggestive banter. He tried to play a higher game. His entire approach to the Art of Following was underpinned by a profound sense of ceremony. It was an intensely serious business; at least, he wanted it to be.

He needed it to be. For how else might he — a weak old man, no funds, no education, no family to speak of — sustain his tacit position of undisputed pre-eminence in matters concerning Wesley, if not by strictly eschewing casualness and irreverence and pointless tomfoolery?

How else, precisely?

After a few seconds’ strained hiatus, Doc turned from Hooch and back towards Jo again, a slight frown still pinching the loose skin between his eyes.

Hooch, however — not in the least bit subdued by Doc’s subtle rebuff — jinked in rapidly, grabbed Doc’s communicative baton, and ran swiftly on with it. ‘What he actually does,’ Hooch expanded ebulliently, ‘is he strolls in there, casual as anything, and quietly asks the first person he comes across serving behind the counter if she’s the Head Librarian. I’ve seen him do it…’ he threw up his hands, ‘must be a hundred times…’

In his excitement, Hooch’s generous lower lip grew shiny with spit, flecks of which settled on Jo’s cheek and neck after every emphatic s and t . She tried not to flinch, but didn’t succeed entirely.

‘And although chances are that she probably won’t be…’ Hooch bowled on, perfectly oblivious, ‘Head Librarian, I mean; he’ll still find her captivating. And he’ll gradually get her talking. He has this ridiculous theory about the universal language of mammals…’

Jo frowned. Hooch shrugged, ‘It’s just a pile of bollocks, basically. But he’ll invite her out for a drink, eventually. He’s charming. He’s got no scruples. He’ll ask out virtually anybody; even saggy old dears in their fifties.’ He grimaced (plainly appalled by the notion).

Doc rolled his eyes at this.

Hooch noticed. ‘I only mean,’ he quickly modified, ‘that his motivation isn’t entirely sexual.’

‘Not entirely?’ Jo echoed, slightly alarmed.

For a second nobody said anything, then Patty sneezed three times in quick succession. When he’d finished, a drip of moisture clung tenaciously to the tip of his nose. He flipped it off with a sudden, violent jerk of his head.