Nicola Barker - Behindlings

Ted grabbed the permission slip he’d written out earlier, crumpled it and binned it. He felt sick. He was frantic. Kept looking about him. Over his shoulder.

Oh shit. His face was wet with sweat. Armpits soaked. Hands like…

Oh shit oh shit —

Now he was really, really…

Oh Mary Mother of bloody Jesus —

Now he was really…

He crossed himself, instinctively. It was a bred-in-the-bone habit — completely automatic — yet to the casual, pagan observer (from the street, from the pavement, through those huge plate glass windows), Ted might’ve looked like he was actually tying a noose for some kind of imaginary hanging — for a lynching — for a Necktie Party. With himself — gentle, kindly, brown-eyed Mr Teddy — as the honourable, the very honourable, Necktie-ee.

Suddenly every-damn-body wanted a piece of the boy. He was ultra-magnetic. His allure was irresistible. He was the prize draw — the golden goose — the plum pudding. They all craved a slice of him.

Absolutely bloody typical, Jo ruminated (gazing up ahead towards his small but lean and fast-loping form, her neat features hard-etched with unashamed yearning, but her tidy mouth half-smiling, as if — somehow, somewhere — she was perfectly well-apprised of her own hypocrisy).

So from being the least interesting individual on this whole bloody island, she mused, testily (and not entirely unreasonably), he’s now the most wanted, the most fascinating, the most… Her eyes rapidly jinked left a-way and scoured the horizon — giving the lie, immediately, to all her fine hypothesising.

‘I’ll be depending on you…’ Shoes observed furtively, as they eclipsed the Wimpy at a fast trot.

‘Pardon?’ Jo had almost forgotten that she was walking with him, that they were talking, that they were already in the middle of something. She was still hare-brained from her early start –

Exhausted

Had been working too… Had grown too… Had become too… Now what had they called it? Those people from the Hospital — those smug, useless, worthless Health Administration brown-noses? Too intent? Assiduous? Violent? Earnest?

Ah…

Earnest

But was that reasonable? Was that… was that… was that just?

Jo blinked –

Yes

And then there’d been the meeting with Dewi. To be so… so…

Invisible

— it’d brought stuff back which she’d all but forgotten about. Teenage stuff. The… the pull. God. Then to top it all off, the added stress of her unexpected discovery — with the Loiter — I mean wasn’t that just… just crazy? Really? Wasn’t it?

Far too much complication for one… what had they called her? Earnest? Far too much complication for one plain, clean, earnest female to endure, let alone… let alone process.

Why am I here?

‘Oh you know…’ Shoes chided, gently, ‘to tell me what’s going on with that slip of paper. For some stupid reason the boy has taken against me lately. He keeps stuff back. And he rips the piss a bit, too, when he thinks he can get away with it.’

‘Really?’ Jo shot Shoes a sympathetic sideways glance. From close up his profile was magnificently unbeguiling. He was corpulent (his chin a shuddering cacophony of roughly pleated flesh, a scrum of melted beef lard in a furious blue-white, an unguent waterfall; each dribbling tallow-cascade part-solidifying upon a former, fatter, thicker layer. His chin was like something you might see in a cavern — underground, spot-lit — inside a gorge. Something pale and dimpled that dangled from the ceiling. Something petrified).

The bottom half of Shoes’ face was decidedly unshaven, but at the top end, his dirty blond hair receded, unforgivingly, and the hairline was dark with ancient dirt. Blackingrained.

But no. She looked closer. Not dirt. Ink. A coarse navy stain. A spider’s web spanning his skull, and a mess of other crazy stuff, curling, in sensuous tendrils, along his nape, behind his ear.

Her eyes settled, finally, upon the three books he was clutching. Had to keep him sweet. For the books. Needed the books. Couldn’t risk him… although didn’t the boy say earlier that the Geordie wasn’t much of a reader (wasn’t that what the boy had said)? That he couldn’t read? Which was actually — when she thought about it — rather… well, rather… what was the word she wanted? Strange? Ironic?

Funny?

Nope. Jo tempered herself, sharply. That was cheap. That was a bad way to be thinking. Even idly.

‘I’ll do what I can, Shoes,’ Jo replied (using the name again. Had to keep using the names), struggling to keep her breath at the pace they were moving.

The boy — several yards ahead of them — was deep in conversation with Hooch. Hooch was smoking a roll-up (the tiny cigarette bound in a curious dark brown paper). He offered it to the boy (Jo’s every medical instinct rebelled against this gesture) but the boy declined.

No.

She saw his lips shape it.

No.

Patty had one small fist pushed inside his green Parka pocket, his four knuckles, visible, pushing out, hard, against the cheap jacket fabric. The slip of paper — she presumed — still hidden within. He plainly wasn’t giving anything away. Not yet. Or at least she didn’t…

Hooch suddenly dropped back. ‘Little shit won’t give it up,’ he grumbled, flicking his half-finished fag over his shoulder. He was limping slightly. ‘Although if I know Wesley it’ll just be a few rhymes about birdsong and lavender. That’s generally the line he takes with librarians. Goes all sentimental on them. Gets their sad old juices flowing with this namby-pamby schmaltzy stuff. Poetry’s always been a brilliant hook for his whoring.’

Jo grimaced. Even during their brief acquaintance she’d already begun to develop a sizeable sheath of misgivings about Hooch’s take on things (at least with Doc there was some suggestion of integrity. Although what that meant — morally — in relation to the actual practice of Following — a questionable occupation at the best of times — she wasn’t sure exactly). She disliked Hooch’s tactlessness, though. His cynicism. His subtle but constant overstepping.

Hooch noticed Jo’s tick. He was struck by it. ‘So what’s your problem all of a sudden?’

She shrugged.

‘No. Go on,’ he was emphatic, ‘spill it.’

‘It’s only…’ Jo smiled brightly at him with her neat lips and straight teeth — a beaming smile (but her cork-coloured irises were so tightly fixed into their glassy whites that when she blinked they very nearly squeaked with suppressed hostility), ‘it’s just a matter of… well,’ she shrugged, ‘of accuracy, really. In riddles, precision is everything, don’t you reckon?’

Nobody agreed. Nobody disagreed. In fact nobody said anything. So she continued on, determinedly, ‘And you just said, “If I know Wesley.” But surely the whole point is that you don’t know Wesley…’

Hooch interrupted, but Shoes got in first.

‘Oh he does, ’ Shoes defended him, patently horrified by the tack Jo was taking, ‘he does know Wesley. Hooch knows everything. He’s…’

‘But I do know everything,’ Hooch spoke up himself, echoing the Geordie crossly, and talking him down, eventually, ‘I know all there is to know about Wesley. I’m an authority. I’ve watched him for over twenty-two months now, and I’ll tell you this for nothing: there’s not much you can’t learn about a person during twenty-two months’ serious observation. That’s almost two years. It’s probably difficult for an outsider to even conceive…’