Nicola Barker - Behindlings

Katherine exited the document. She entered another one entitled No Sale…

Dear Sir.

they read

Thank you for your offer, but after a considerable period of heart-searching I have decided that I am unable to sell the Behindling site. I do hope that this will not impact on the successful relationship we currently have between Gumble Inc and the site…

Katherine exited the document. She was about to enter a third one, entitled Murdoch, but then changed her mind. Instead she moved the cursor to Edit, ran it down the menu to Rename and clicked onto that. The document entitled Murdoch turned blue and began to flash.

‘Should you be doing that?’ Ted asked.

‘I’m leaving a little…’ she chuckled to herself, ‘a little message for our sinewy friend. Something to give him pause, later on, once I’ve fucked him again and sent him off home with a flea in his ear…’

She thought for a moment, ‘Think I’ll call it…’

She fell silent, typed…

BETTER WATCH YOUR STEP, ARTHUR

‘I don’t get it,’ Ted said.

‘Of course you don’t,’ Katherine flapped her hand, dismissively.

She moved the nipple to Start, rolled up the menu to Shut down, clicked on it, waited…

‘And you are well placed,’ she said, tapping her foot, filling in time, ‘even if you haven’t quite realised it yet.’

Ted frowned confusedly, as she cocked her head, slid her hand rapidly down the side of the laptop and turned it off. It bleeped in protest. She abruptly shut the lid and moved over towards the washing up.

Ted moved with her, glancing anxiously towards the door.

‘Mr Arthur Young is back,’ she whispered, twisting around, grabbing Ted’s face between her hands, pulling it down towards her lips and giving the tip of his snout a gentle kiss, ‘I think it’s about time baby bear went home to bed.’

By the time Arthur had negotiated the tiny — but inexplicably cumbersome — front gate, had clambered through the garden and marched onto the verandah (the house was painted a funny colour — the mint of the mint-choc-chip he remembered devouring on idyllic caravanning holidays in Minehead as a kid), the Welshman appeared to have completely evaporated.

The bungalow — as he entered — had an unoccupied feel about it (the smell of dust, the creak of the door), and there was only a single — ineffectual — source of light; a standard lamp with a shabby frill, standing lopsidedly in the far corner.

Arthur peered around, wiping his feet on the mat, stepping inside and pushing the door nearly — but not –

Not

— quite shut.

He still couldn’t determine the Welshman’s exact whereabouts.

The room was full (packed full) of furniture. Good stuff. Wooden pieces (he couldn’t, for the most part, tell if they were modern or antique). It had the air of a showroom. A store-room. The boards echoed hollowly, under his feet.

He flashed back to the agency –

The gentle agent stamping his foot in that dreamily aquatic grey-blue light

‘Close the door.’

Arthur jerked around sharply at the sound of his voice. It seemed closer than was really feasible. His arms stiffened, defensively, his heart — he noticed — was pumping violently.

The huge Welshman was crouched down low, directly to the left of him –

Hackles

He seemed to be –

Hunting

— fiddling around with something –

Knife?

Gun?

Arrow?

Spear?

Arthur blinked and stared harder –

Eyes oiled up with fear

He blinked a second time, more in surprise than anything.

Dewi had struck a match and was busy –

Good Lord

— lighting a fire. A log fire. He was down on his knees, holding out a long, thin strip of –

Tallow?

Was it?

— something keen and flammable (burning brightly at its tip) and poking it into the heart of a bundle of kindling.

Arthur closed the door — as he’d been instructed — but remained in place (like a nervous sentry to his own imminent departure).

‘I find I freeze up when I leave her,’ Dewi said, with a shake –

Was that a shake?

— in his voice.

‘She certainly has an extremely efficient underfloor heating system,’ Arthur conceded, then despised himself for being so… so…

Heartless

So dispassionate. So poker-faced.

He struggled to make up for it. But they were two men — strangers — united only — in the main — by their hatred of another –

There are more outlandish things to have in common, I guess A common fuck, for one

Arthur tensed his knees, guiltily, ‘She’s an extraordinary woman,’ he murmured, ‘and… and strong…’

The grip of her thighs, like a pair of pliers

The tickle of her tongue

The slap of her soft-white stomach

He shook his head, swallowed.

Who am I?

D.H. bloody… uh…?

It was as if another — far more emotionally reactive — creature was temporarily conducting his thoughts for him (the real Arthur Young was now way off camera — taking it easy — in the canteen — drinking filter coffee — eating a sandwich — feet up — reading the classifieds in the local paper).

‘She’s had to be tough,’ Dewi murmured, holding the flaming stick in place until the twigs began smoking, then crackling; until the flame finally took.

He remained — hunkered down — on his haunches. ‘I’ve loved her since the very beginning,’ he whispered, ‘and she can fuck the whole town if needs be, because it won’t make any difference to me. I was here before all of the slander and the bullshit and the betrayals, and I will be here long after.’

Arthur took a few unsteady steps into the room. He leaned his hand onto a free-standing chest of drawers and struck what he hoped to be a –

Please don’t hit me

I’m on a pension

I have a disa… disa… disa…

— sympathetic posture.

‘How long?’ he asked. His voice was even croakier than usual. He cleared his throat, exaggeratedly. Dewi reached behind him and pulled a small, padded footrest in closer to the fireplace. He perched himself upon it (like a full-grown elephant sat on a drum during a badly-choreographed circus performance). He kept his back to Arthur.

‘She was seventeen,’ he said.

‘That’s a hell of a long time ago,’ Arthur murmured (impressed by the sheer breadth of this human tragedy), then suddenly appreciated how ungallant he must’ve sounded.

Dewi nodded (he hadn’t noticed). ‘Thirteen years,’ he said.

‘But how…’

Arthur was suddenly intrigued by the basic practicalities — began quietly calculating –

‘So if Wesley wrote the book three years ago… how on earth did the graffiti stay in place all that while? An entire decade? Didn’t it fade? Wasn’t it ever painted over?’

Dewi shrugged. His back was curved. His elbows pressed deep dimples into his muscular knees. His huge hands cupped his face.

‘In the clock of the heart,’ he murmured, his accent thickening with emotion, ‘thirteen years is a single tick. ’

Arthur glanced behind him, towards the door –

How long am I staying here?

‘Sit,’ Dewi said, and pointed towards a straight-backed armchair at the other side of the fire.

The wood was smoking heavily. Arthur could smell beech-pine- fir. He flashed back to Epping Forest –