Nicola Barker - Behindlings

This level of naivety

Suspicious

And he was very well placed…

‘We went to school together,’ Ted continued, misconstruing Arthur’s silence as hostility, wanting to mollify him, ‘and she has brothers in Canvey. Three brothers. One runs a minicab business. One manages the sports centre. The other owns a salvage company on the Charfleet Estate, along with her father.’

‘I see.’

‘But she had very long hair before.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. That’s why I didn’t… She had very long hair. Blonde. Wesley actually spoke to her, earlier this afternoon. She said she was over from Southend for the day. But I’m certain it was her, and that she was from Canvey, originally.’

Ted noticed — with some irritation — how Arthur sprang to attention at the mention of Wesley’s name. As if everything gained its significance through its connection to him.

‘Well placed, too, then, eh?’ Arthur murmured.

‘Pardon?’

‘I said she’s well placed. Like you are.’

Arthur gave Ted a significant look. But Ted seemed mystified by it, if not a little disturbed. Perhaps the strange light wasn’t helping.

Ted shifted his weight.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Arthur turned back to the computer, smiling –

That kind of innocence

You couldn’t fuck with it

He dwelled briefly on the broken bottle and the blood. There was something… there was something not quite… that level of…

Outrageous

Bean. Bean. Needed to remember…

Then he gradually began tapping again; curtailing, re-configuring, tidying things up.

Ted padded slowly to the front door (couldn’t risk the picture window — too open — too bare). He peeked through it and over towards the Leisure Centre where the last few stragglers for the night’s second Bingo session were doggedly accumulating. Still raining. That deep, that steady, that ineffable Winter-deep Canvey drear.

Then he blinked. He drew a sharp breath. He pulled back. He double-checked. He pulled back even further.

‘ Duck, ’ he whispered urgently.

Arthur ducked, immediately — under the table — bones creaking.

Ted’s mouth had fallen open, his eyes were improbably wide.

Could’ve sworn he just saw… Could’ve sworn he just…

Eileen.

But she wasn’t… she seemed… she wasn’t looking over. She was staring down, fixedly. Scuttling along. Scarf pulled around her head, over her cheek, as if… yanked across… like in… a kind of… a mad… a desperate…

Purdah

She always played Bingo with her mother on a Friday, but tonight she was walking in the opposite direction. Head down. Straight past. Scurrying… uh…

Home — would that be?

‘Can I…?’ Arthur’s face was ruddy with the exertion of his position.

Ted’s head jerked around.

‘Sorry,’ he whispered. ‘Boss’s wife. She usually plays Bingo on a Friday.’

Didn’t need to mention…

How distressed…

Shouldn’t…

Or Wesley…

Arthur straightened up again, grimacing.

‘Quick response, though,’ Ted added –

Must be military

Or very…

Arthur shrugged. He whizzed the mouse around, clicked it a few times, waited, then flipped off the power.

‘That’s about it,’ he said, stretching and yawning.

As the screen went black, so too did his corner.

‘We’re back to all the basics,’ he continued, matter-of-factly, through the darkness (Ted was still visible by the door), ‘I’ve not been able to save everything, but you’ve been pretty fortunate, all in all.’

Ted chuckled to himself, weakly, touching his head, his hair, not a little derangedly. ‘Must be my lucky day,’ he said.

Outside, meanwhile, a small van was pulling up, flanked — on both sides — by the distinctive metal struts denoting the largescale transportation of breakable material.

Arthur’s ironic eyes trailed the van, its driver (improbably well-attired — for Service — in a smart shirt and tie and blazer).

‘I think it must be,’ he replied.

‘You’ve checked the points, presumably…’

A voice spoke — a male voice — from directly behind her, ‘they’re always the first thing to go with a Mini. In damp weather, especially.’

Josephine carefully withdrew her head from under the small bonnet of her car. ‘Several times already,’ she said, turning and instinctively bringing the screwdriver she was holding (her hands so cold she could barely cling onto it) to the front of her belly.

But it was Wesley.

She stared up at him, astonished.

He peered past her, into the engine, his face (even in the steady murk of semi-darkness) enlivened by a clutch of painful-looking reddish blotches. ‘I’m mechanically-minded,’ he said, squinting myopically, ‘but I eschew the car ideologically.’

She shifted left, to allow him full access, while surreptitiously stealing her injured arm behind her back (something she instantly regretted — it created a furtive impression, as if she was now intent upon hiding the screwdriver from him, for some inexplicable reason).

Wesley didn’t miss a thing. He leaned sideways to try and spot what she was concealing. She shifted her feet (heavy as a shire horse’s hooves after a full day’s ploughing) and sheepishly brought the tool back around again, her cheeks reddening. She seemed painfully aware of his sudden proximity.

He pulled out the points and blew on them, drying them on the lining of his jacket.

‘I t-t-tried the points,’ she repeated, shivering (so cold her lips were almost frozen; her words might shatter if he breathed any warmth on them).

Wesley pushed the points firmly back into place again. ‘Antifreeze?’

She nodded, ‘Last thing yesterday. F-first thing this morning.’

‘Checked the oil?’

She nodded.

‘Petrol? Water? Battery?’

She nodded again.

He stepped back, wiping the grease from his fingers onto his trousers.

That injured hand

A baby bird

Opening and closing like a hungry fledgling

‘Then you should probably get a cab back to Southend. You’ll kill yourself if you stay out here much longer.’

‘I’d get a c-cab if I was anywhere else,’ she said, her teeth clashing pitiably, ‘but I can’t here. N-not in C–Canvey.’

Canvey

Pronounced the name like it was something heinous — polluted — despicable.

Wesley mused this over — staring at her intently — clearly impressed by her particular brand of evasive straightforwardness. Then he smiled. He shrugged. He turned away –

So let her die

‘It was m-me who sent you that letter,’ she chattered after him, wrapping her arms around her shoulders to try and cushion her juddering chin, ‘about my… about…’

‘I have no address,’ Wesley cut her off, contemptuously, ‘I receive no…’

‘When you were staying down in Devon. With the p-p-potter. The cr-crazy potter. Last year. Early. After the book first came out. It was about Katherine, about the gr-graffiti…’

Wesley walked on a few paces.

He never talked to the Followers. There were perfectly good reasons for it. He had to keep things separate. It was a kind of self-preservation.

‘But I wasn’t F-Following then,’ she said (as if reading his thoughts). ‘And it isn’t…’ She dropped the screwdriver and bent down to pick it up again, ‘it isn’t f-fair… ’