Keith Ridgway - Hawthorn & Child

Well what’s the point of this?

I look down at my shoes. At the hem of my coat.

When you read some manuscripts they have no smell.

There’s a car. A car coming. I can’t … I dart through the gate, to the left. There are piles of things. Some barrels. Crates. I dart around one pile of things and behind another. I have no idea if I’ve been seen. What am I doing? Is this the exit? I have a car you see. A Toyota. Where is the man who knows about cars? Hello? Christ. Yes. Good day to you sir. Yes sir. No sir. Act like a moron. If you act like a moron they may think you’re a moron. I turn. I’m hidden. There’s the squelch of the tyres in the mud. A car. Stopped. Outside the railings. Exactly where I am. There’s a radio. Radio music. I turn sideways. I have my back to the building. I’m behind a pile of crates. Slatted things. I can sort of see through them. A car door opens. Radio louder. Radio stops. Silence. Car door slams.

— Harry?

I can’t tell if that’s from inside or outside. Inside maybe. But loud. I look to the other side of me. There is an alcove. An inlet. What do you call it? A doorway. Shit. I dart past it. There is a stack of pallets. A low stack. I crouch behind it. I am now officially hiding.

Silence.

I think of a struggle in a Glasgow backstreet. She didn’t like the walk to the rented car. It changed her mind. And something about me as well, doubtless. Messy, that. I had to leave her. She had rings. Little gold rings that kept their warmth on the shitty ground where her hand stretched out.

There’s a rattling boom. It’s the door. Fuck. Oh. No. Hold on. It’s the other door. The door in the doors, the step-through at the front. At the front. I’m all right. I lean my head back. It’s all dark up there now. In front of me is a tangle of bushes and nothing. He’s gone in the other way. I hear a muffle of voices. Something dropped. Metallic. There are railings all around me. I’m in a sort of wide side passage. Against the long side there are the edges of next door’s shacks and the weeds. Wooden shacks. Like old holiday camp chalets. Dark windows to my right. At the far end just the sweaty wood of old trees. Foliage and muck. I stand up slowly. I want to shit. I crouch again. What am I doing here? I feel stomach cramps, suddenly, and I think I’m going to have to shit. I really think I am. I am sweating. I fumble my hands beneath me. I press them to my backside. I press them against my hole, through my trousers. I cannot relax any muscle anywhere in my body or the shit will flood out of me. I try to concentrate on my breathing. My eyes rest on the space between two railings, ahead of me, straight in front of me. Two grey railings, black in the dark. But I know they are grey. Between them a patch of wood cabin. Jesus Christ. There is something glinting to my right. The light bouncing off a piece of silver paper or a fleck of paint. Ahead of me the rectangle of dark wood between railings, like an envelope. I try to think about an envelope. A white envelope, sealed. It helps. Christ.

Give me a minute.

I breathe. I would like a drink of water. My mouth is dry. I breathe. My heart is not thumping so much now, and I can hear the night start, and the murmur of voices behind me somewhere. Traffic in the distance. Trains. Whistles. Airplanes above me. I breathe. Two voices. Low. I stand up gingerly. I stop halfway. It all seems to be holding.

The doorway is deep set. It’s dark. I can’t see what sort of door it is. It’s not a door. Is it? The thing is a sort of alcove, a muddy recess with some rubbish and a couple of … what? Paint cans. But the door … maybe it’s covered up. It’s a sheet of corrugated iron. Where there should be a door. I think about opening my phone and using its light to have a quick look. But I can hear the voices. It would be a stupid risk. I put my hands out ahead of me, as slow as possible, and I touch the side walls of the alcove. Brick. I take a step in. Immediately I take a step out again and look to my right. The car is parked outside the gate in the railings. I could probably, probably, sneak past it and away. I take a step in. I lean forward. I move my hands further. Still brick. I step again. I can touch the corrugated iron.

There’s a sudden burst of laughter that seems terribly loud. I drop my hand. My body wants to move back, but I stay where I am.

Voices.

— Position, Harry. It’s about position. And speed. You haven’t got that sense of where you are then you haven’t got anything, you know?

— What was that other guy’s name?

— Who?

— The one with the hair.

I hear something behind me. Jesus.

I turn my head more suddenly than I should. The railings, and the envelopes of wood and the dark. I look down. A shape moves on the ground. I freeze. It’s a cat. Is it? Yes. It’s a fucking cat. It looks at me and its eyes are like drops of neon, and they turn away, and the cat wanders off. I am sweating again.

They’re talking about a car now. Somehow. They have moved on. About an exhaust. They talk about a transmission. They talk about car things. I know nothing about cars. I glance back a couple of times but the cat is gone. I wonder if I should just leave.

— You hear anything?

I freeze.

— The wife was on again. She hasn’t a clue.

— You sure?

— Course I’m sure. If she knew where he went or what’s wrong with him she wouldn’t be on the phone to me every fucking day crying her fucking eyes out.

— Not putting it on?

— Nah. No way. Not like that. Not with her tears. He spends all day in bed, she says. Is up all night, mostly sitting in the garden.

They’re talking about Ashid’s wife. Surely. Who else could they be talking about? So one of these men must be Palmer.

— I still think something happened to him. You know. Some sort of mental thing. It doesn’t make any sort of sense otherwise. So solid for so long. Good bones. He has a lot to lose you know?

I am pressed up against corrugated iron. I think. I am trying to think. I am trying to remember the manuscript. Good bones means something. I remember wolves in the snow after midwinter, gathering by a stream to howl, in a ceremony, at the very edge of the city, the ceremony having something to do with marking the new edge of the city, the city expanding, and the ceremony is mournful and angry. Something moves to my left. By my feet. I turn my head. I look down. It’s a rat. He sniffs. He seems to look at me. I am remarkably calm. Where is the cat? The rat seems to sit there. Considering. Behind him it is dark. Outside the doorway it is dark. Everything is dark. I move my foot, slightly, gently, just shifting the sole to the right. The rat moves. He lopes off out towards the railings.

— What’s that?

— What?

I freeze.

— That thing.

— Oh. Piece from the Volvo what we had in Tuesday.

I don’t know what to do now. I am sweating profusely. I decide I need to leave. I want to cough. It’s sudden and irresistible. If I don’t do something with it I will splutter. I cover my mouth. I crouch down and turn to my left. I worry about the rat. Or, I think that I should be worried about the rat, but in fact I don’t care whether the rat is there or not. I cough. It is tiny. I know that it echoes in my head like a car crash and in fact it’s nothing like as loud as that. As it seems. My throat relaxes. But I need water. I really do.

There’s no talk. Silence. What are they doing? Are they likely to be armed? What does it matter? A wrench. A tyre iron. What is a tyre iron? There is clanging. Clanking. The first one is working still. The other one watching. I hope that is what is happening. I hope that they are not in fact moving slowly towards my hiding place, armed, carrying things. I stand up. My head spins a little and I see lights. One of them stays where it appeared.