Nicola Barker - Behindlings

Wesley paused for a second. What did it mean, this curiously huge verandah? What did it say? Was this a practical individual? Was this an exceptionally public person? Or a private man living — uneasily, perhaps — in the public arena?

Or was the verandah symptomatic of some kind of internal burden: whacked up, thrown together, externalised, to some degree? A carbuncle? A weight? A trial? A problem?

Was it something additional? Something tacked on?

Hmmn

Did it represent a man with an overriding, an inflated, a disproportionate interest in some particular issue? Some particular person, maybe? A sad man? A silly man? A nosy man? Ah screw it anyway.

Wesley strolled on past a brand new hotel; a conversion, but smart looking. [Fancy. Things had certainly started looking up in this Godforsaken armpit of a town lately. Although when the Great Floods came, it’d be the first damn place to go under — sea defences or no sea defences — fuck the whole sodding lot of them.)

Other houses, in plenty (Not enough trees though, not nearly enough proper trees. Oh God he missed the trees. He missed them. The sky so fucking huge — like an empty, grey soup-bowl — a vast china meat platter. Horrible) then past the car showroom and onwards.

Hang on. Hang on. Wesley stopped abruptly — Yukka

— in a pot, across the road, in the entrance to a small house with a stone clad frontage; just to the right of the driveway.

He immediately crossed over. Two yukkas. Even better. A big one — planted directly into the soil next to the neat, gravel driveway (suffering from a little frost damage by the look of it; these plants demanded sheltered conditions, a greenhouse or a length of fleece — at the very least — during this time of year), and a smaller one — a cutting of the bigger, presumably — just behind it, in a large, dark-green, ornamental pot.

Right. Wesley glanced around –

Damn

— the bloody dog. Where did he come from, all of a sudden? Had he trailed him, unseen, all the way from the library? (God knows, he was slipping. Was he losing it completely? Was he going blind or was it only hunger? Had to eat something. This was getting crazy…)

But… ah, yes. Yes. That was good, actually. The dog was… he was handy. Grand as a diversion. If only he could just…

Uh…

Wesley called Dennis over. Dennis did his bidding, quite obligingly — he admired Wesley enormously. Wesley possessed all those attributes — in abundance — which terriers found irresistible: low standards of personal hygiene, high self-esteem, a flagrant disregard for social niceties…

‘Sit, Dennis. Right there. Sit. Now stay. ’

Dennis sat.

Okey-dokey

Quick as he could, and partially obscured by the dog, Wesley pulled a sharp hunting knife from his trouser pocket, unsheathed it, squatted, cut two long, pointed leaves from the smaller yukka, tossed them down next to him, turned to the larger plant, delved into the soil at its base, found a root, took his knife, applied it with force to the thickest part, cut, yanked it free, then pressed the soil carefully back into place again.

He glanced around him as he shook the soil from his hands, grabbed the spines, the root, slid his knife away and hot-footed it (but not running. Never running; anything beyond a lope was an admission of guilt).

Okay

He strode onwards (dog still sitting, waiting patiently for the release word) — Bollocks to the dog

Let the Old Man release him

— towards a seductively wide expanse of green up ahead.

Open plan. Parky. But just grass. No shrubs or trees (the fucking trees, where were they?). Muddy underfoot. Clumpy. Used for parking, chiefly, or for travelling fairs in the summer, or circuses, or car-booters…

Up ahead, the sea wall (a huge, concrete bastard, like something from Alcatraz or Colditz), and balanced on top of that, or virtually, a large, slightly perplexing, art deco cafeteria (newly refurbished) with LABWORTH CAFE written in large, black lettering around its circular perimeter.

He squinted at this awhile, struggling to remember it from his last visit to Canvey — Space craft Oil drum Water tower…

Yeah

— he remembered. It’d been virtually derelict then, but he remembered.

Wesley rapidly orbited the children’s play park — nobody there: too bloody cold — still foggy out to sea (and the wind howling and screaming the other side of that wall like a nine-month-old baby in the midst of some kind of chronic teething catastrophe).

Wesley glanced behind him.

Balls

Hooch. Way off in the distance, casually inspecting the price tag on a large, metallic blue-green Volvo Estate (Hooch drove a beat up white Escort van. Wesley knew it intimately: the tyre tread, the number plate, the small indentation on the door — passenger side. Knew that damn van like the back of his hand. Cursed that damn van with ludicrous regularity).

Doc was just behind him. Then the rest of them. Shoes. The girl, walking with the kid. They were talking. The girl made him uneasy. He was almost certain she was working for the Company. She was sneaky. But she had a marvellously open face for a snitch, and that bare-arsed cheek, that gall, that quisling-like quality appealed to him tremendously. Fraudulence of such magnitude — so neatly packaged — was always admirable.

Why shouldn’t it be?

Wesley turned and quickened his pace. To his left: The Carousel; a huge, crouching, plastic construction. Shed-like. Orange-brown. Bricked. Cheap. Open in the summer for gaming, for bingo, for indoor bowling, possibly.

Left of that, over a small road: The Majestic. A large hotel. Art deco. So must’ve withstood the floods back in ‘53 —in some shape or form — still to be here today. And so resolutely. Although — come to think of it — the sea wall was actually breached –

Uh…

Where?

— to the East a way? By the jetty? The marshes? The very direction, in fact, that he was currently heading –

But not…

Wesley jinked left –

Not quite yet

He upped his pace; around the hotel’s voluptuous curvings, then slinked quickly — seamlessly — through an unobtrusive side-passage — Ah

Rubbish

Black refuse bags a-plenty. He kicked a couple, squatted down, carefully placed his yukka stash next to him on the floor, then pulled one open and delved inside…

Tin foil, used napkins –

Ouch

— cocktail stick.

Back in again –

Yes…?

Yes!

Lemons. Exactly what he was looking for — God he was hot today — and a cherry or two (he tossed the cherries into his mouth, chewed, swallowed ravenously, kept the lemons — six slices — still plump — fantastic. Ripped off a bit of the tin foil, wrapped them up in it, shoved this package firmly into his jacket pocket).

Bag of peanuts –

Waaah!

— just past their sell-by. Amazing. Stuck them into his pocket, alongside the lemon.

Another packet –

Bingo!

— opened, though. He removed a stray match from inside the lip and tossed it over his shoulder then emptied the contents onto his tongue in one go, chewed with prodigious enjoyment, swallowed.

Anything else? Nope. Old tissues. Crushed cans. Cigarette butts –

Oooh

— half-smoked cigarette — pink-lipstick-tipped. He tapped out the used and blackened tobacco until the weed grew browner, then sealed the open end, neatly, and pushed it, carefully, inside the left cuff of his jumper.