Rupert Thomson - The Insult

‘Yes?’

‘There was someone here,’ I said. ‘Just now.’

‘So?’

‘He’s my son.’

‘That’s funny,’ the man said, ‘because he’s my son, too.’

I stared at him through the narrow gap. There was a cut on the bridge of his nose, the kind of cut Karl used to get when he drank too much and then fell over.

‘Could I come in, please?’

The man studied me for a few moments, then he closed the door. I was about to knock again when I heard him unlatch the chain. This time the door opened wide. The man bent slightly from the waist, and his right hand drifted away from his body. It was a gesture of welcome, but he was mocking me with it.

I walked past him. There were only two rooms. The first was a kitchen. Under the window was a bath that had a wooden board on top of it. The floor was dark-green linoleum. My shoes stuck to it.

The second room wasn’t much larger than the first. There were three single beds in there, each bed pushed against a different wall. All the surfaces were covered with ashtrays, bottles, glasses. Someone had pinned a playing card to the fireplace — the Jack of Hearts. A man sprawled on one of the beds, his head and shoulders propped against the wall, a leather cap wedged on to his curly black hair. He wore a diamond stud in his left ear. Dirt had collected round it.

‘Who are you?’ I said.

The man yawned and looked out of the window. I heard his jawbone creak.

‘I think you’re the one who should be answering questions,’ said the man who’d let me in. He was standing beside me now. Light filtered through his visor, and the upper half of his face had a sickly green tint to it. He smelled of cheap deodorant.

‘I want to know what my son was doing here.’

‘He’s been coming here for a while now.’

I turned and looked at him.

‘Two years. Maybe three.’ The man unscrewed the top off a bottle and drank from it. ‘The first year he only came here twice. Then it got more regular.’

‘This place is filthy,’ I said.

‘That doesn’t bother Erik,’ the man said.

‘That’s right,’ said the man on the bed, still looking out of the window. ‘Erik doesn’t seem to mind at all. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that Erik doesn’t even notice.’ He held his hand out for the bottle.

‘Erik’s not exactly clean himself,’ said the man with the visor.

‘Erik shits his pants.’ The man on the bed drank from the bottle, then he looked at the man who was standing just behind me. They both laughed.

‘Erik?’ I said.

‘That’s his name,’ said the man with the visor.

‘His name’s Mazey. His name’s always been Mazey, ever since he was born.’

There was a moment’s silence in the room.

‘Well, it’s Erik when he’s here,’ said the man with the visor.

‘And what’s your name?’ I asked him.

‘Not Erik.’

‘His name’s Ackal,’ said the man on the bed.

‘And that’s Moler,’ said the man with the visor. ‘M-O-L-E-R.’

They both laughed again.

I sat down on one of the beds. Suddenly I could have closed my eyes and slept. Even on that bare, stained mattress, among strangers.

‘You look like you could use a drink.’

The man in the visor gave me a glass and poured some of the clear liquid from his bottle into it.

‘What is it?’ I asked him.

‘Vodka.’

There were flies’ legs floating on the surface. They looked like Chinese writing. I drank half the vodka, wincing at the taste. Then I drank the rest. Was I called something different now? What was my name?

Edith? Is that you?

The man in the visor stood at the window, grey light beyond him. He told me how he’d found Erik sleeping on a park bench one morning. When he sat down next to Erik, Erik showed him a photograph. It wasn’t anyone he recognised. He thought Erik might be hungry so he took him back to his apartment. They’d lived in a different building then. He heated up some old tomato soup, with macaroni. Erik ate as if he hadn’t eaten in days. He stayed with them that night, and the next night, too, and then he left. He didn’t say goodbye or thank you. In fact, it was only after Erik had gone that they realised he hadn’t really spoken to them at all. They didn’t think they’d see him again. Well, at least he hadn’t stolen anything. But three months later, Erik was back.

They talked about him sometimes when he wasn’t there. They saw that he had a different way of doing things to most people. He didn’t need words, for instance. That was fine. Time didn’t mean much to him either. If you gave Erik a clock, he’d sit with it for hours. He’d watch the second-hand go round. Or else he’d put it to his ear and listen to it, the way people used to listen to transistor radios. They could deal with that. They thought Erik needed a home, though. So they adopted him. The man with the visor, Ackal, picked up the bottle and drank from it. He’d adopted Erik legally, he said. He had the documents somewhere. He gestured at a battered metal filing cabinet in the corner of the room. The air moved glassily behind his hand. I thought I might pass out.

‘You can’t do that,’ I muttered.

‘I already did.’ He was almost gloating, his mouth all crooked.

‘But he’s my son. I’ve taken care of him since he was six months old.’ And then I said something I never in my life imagined I would say. Think, maybe. But not say. ‘He’s all I’ve got.’

I saw the two men exchange a glance.

‘If he’s really your son,’ the man in the visor said, ‘then how come the poor bastard was sleeping on a park bench all night, cold and hungry?’

‘He’s forty-three years old,’ I said. ‘What am I supposed to do? Tie him up in the yard?’

That silenced them.

Then I said, ‘I just never realised he’d go so far.’

All the time I’d been talking to Ackal, the other man, the one called Moler, had been staring at me lazily from his bed, lifting a hand every now and then to examine his fingernails or adjust his leather cap. Now he spoke to me.

‘Erik’s a man with a mission.’

I stared at him.

‘It’s something to do with the photograph,’ he said. ‘It’s of a girl. Seems like he’s looking for her. Sometimes we take the piss, saying she’s his girlfriend, but he doesn’t like it when we do that.’ He laughed. ‘He doesn’t like it, does he, Ackal?’

Suddenly I realised which photograph it was that he was talking about. I saw Mazey in the kitchen, with his hand curling and uncurling. Where’s the baby?

‘I don’t know anything about that.’ I stood up. ‘I should be going.’

‘Will we be seeing you again?’ Ackal grinned unpleasantly.

‘Yes,’ said Moler, looking out of the window, ‘you simply must drop by.’

‘I don’t think so,’ I said.

I walked to the door and opened it. Ackal followed me.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘He turns up here, he’s always in good hands.’ His chuckle wasn’t reassuring, but then it wasn’t supposed to be.

Over his shoulder I saw the man in the leather cap. He was yawning. I had the peculiar sense of never having set foot in that room at all. Of never having even entered the apartment. The man in the visor had his hand on the door. I saw him clearly for the first time. His dim round face. Small eyes. A mouth like an owl’s.

‘Does he ever talk to you?’ I asked.

‘Erik?’ he said. ‘No.’

‘Not ever?’

‘No.’

I nodded and, looking down, I smiled to myself.

‘Hey, what do you —’

But I’d already turned away. I was already walking down the stairs.

‘Hey!’ The man in the visor was shouting. ‘What the fuck do you mean by that?’