Darkmans. Nicola Barker
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jerked up defiantly. ‘Ha ha.’ She slapped the magazine down, scowling.
‘I believe you left your two dogs at the flat,’ he continued (completely undaunted by his frosty reception). ‘They’re currently standing guard in the hallway. One of them mauled Kane’s house guest.’
‘Screw the blasted dogs,’ she whispered crossly. ‘Why ain’t you returned my calls? Why’ve you been avoidin’ me?’
Beede’s brows rose slightly, but before he could open his mouth to answer she’d already charged on, ‘An’ that was your big mistake, see? I ain’t no fool. You’ve been avoidin’ me ‘cos’ you feel bad, an’ you feel bad…’ she poked a skinny index finger into his chest, ‘because you stole those drugs from Kane and then sold me up the bloody Mersey. I’ve been thinkin’ about it a lot – for days, in fact – and nothin’ else adds up.’
Beede’s expression did not change.
‘So you fractured your leg?’ he asked, at normal volume.
Kelly was briefly put off her stride by his refusal to engage with her. She admired Beede, after all. She didn’t understand him –
Of course not
– but she respected him. She saw him as a being of an entirely different order –
Celestial/monkish
– a fraction cold, perhaps, but noble, defiant, honourable. One-dimensional –
Certainly
– a little boring, maybe. But entirely trustworthy. Above reproach – or so she’d thought – like the Good King in a fairy story.
‘I fell off your stupid wall,’ she grumbled.
‘Why?’
‘I was waitin’ for ya. To have it out.’
‘But why did you fall?’ he persisted.
‘I had a row.’
He didn’t seem surprised by this. ‘With whom?’
Kelly pushed her shoulders back, dramatically. ‘That coloured bitch who killed Paul.’
‘Ah,’ Beede quickly put two and two together. ‘That would be Winifred.’
She nodded (not a little deflated by his emotionless response).
‘Anyway,’ Beede spoke very gently (as if dealing with an Alzheimer’s patient who’d been discovered trying to buy a cup of tea in the staff canteen with a tampon), ‘he isn’t dead, is he?’
‘Stop tryin’ to wriggle off the damn hook,’ she growled.
‘I wasn’t ever on it, Kelly,’ Beede said gravely (but there was an edge of steel in his voice). ‘And Paul isn’t dead. He’s very much alive.’ ‘He’s a fuckin’ vegetable,’ Kelly bleated. ‘An’ she did that. Said as much herself. It was her who got him started: took him under her wing when he was feelin’ low, got him into dope an’ sniff an’ all that other shit. Then, once he was hooked, once he was well and truly screwed, kicked up her posh, little heels an’ cheerfully buggered off.’
‘If it makes you feel better to apportion blame…’ Beede murmured, imperturbably.
‘Private bloody school, a new bloody life. Fine for her…’ Kelly continued, then she paused, as if only just registering his interjection. ‘Yes.’ She nodded. ‘It bloody does…’ (Beede smiled. He was familiar with Kelly’s conversational stock-car racing – the dramatic zoom past, the sudden handbrake turn, the skid, the spin.)
‘…though I ain’t sure what you mean by that, exactly,’ she finished off, scowling.
‘If it makes you feel better to focus all your understandable rancour on somebody else – somebody who is, to all intents and purposes, quite extraneous to the situation – then that’s perfectly understandable…’ Beede said benignly. ‘In fact it’s utterly human.’
Kelly was quiet for a while, then, ‘You’re head-fucking me,’ she announced.
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘You are.’
‘I merely stated a simple truth about your brother.’
‘No,’ she paused. ‘No. I’m wise to your tricks, see? On the surface you’re pretendin’ to be all sweet and kind and charmin’ about it – like butter wouldn’t melt – but underneath, what you’re really sayin’ – what you’re really thinkin’ – is that I’m somehow to blame for what’s happened to him…’
‘Not that you are,’ Beede mildly demurred, ‘but that perhaps – at some level – you believe you might be.’
Kelly gasped (her hand flew to her chest). ‘You think I scragged my own brother?!’
‘Now you’re just being hysterical,’ Beede snapped, barely managing to compose his features in time to nod, politely, at a passing Staff Matron.
‘Fuck off I am!’
‘Good. Fine. Whatever you say, Kelly.’
She stared up at him, in wonderment, the scales apparently fallen. ‘Oh. My. God. You are evil.’
‘I’d better get back,’ Beede smiled, crisply (no point in a denial). ‘It may’ve escaped your attention, but I’m actually meant to be employed by this hospital.’
‘Yeah. That’d be right. Off you go, Grandad…’ Kelly waved him away, airily. ‘Back to work. Back to the grindstone, eh? Back to cleanin’ your dirty, bloody laundry…’
Her voice oozed ill-will.
Beede didn’t respond, initially, he just cocked his head and gazed at her, blankly, as if inexplicably baffled by the words she’d just uttered. Kelly shifted, uneasily, under his vigorous scrutiny.
Then – quite out of the blue – he smiled. He beamed. ‘Have I got this all wrong…?’ he asked (suddenly the very essence of genial avuncularity). ‘Or were you actually experimenting with a clever piece of word-play there?’
Before she could muster up an answer (she’d half-opened her mouth, in preparation, but had yet to rally her considerable intellectual forces – she was still in shock from the fall, after all), he’d patted her, encouragingly, on her bony shoulder.
‘Because if you were, I’m very impressed, dear. Well done. Bravo!’
Kelly’s eyes bulged at this near-perfect kiss-off.
‘And by the way…’ Beede continued, benevolently, ‘if you were hoping for a visit from your mother any time soon…’ (Her mouth quickly snapped shut again. Oh God. The very thought almost calcified her entire bone-structure) –’…then you’ll be delighted to know,’ he purred soothingly, ‘that she’s here.’
The cat had found sanctuary in its basket. Only a piercing pair of china-blue eyes were now visible, peeking out at him, anxiously, from the creaking confines of its smart, wicker corral. Kane blew an idle raspberry at it, and the cat hunched down even lower, emitting a strangely haunting, dog-like yowl.
He glanced around him. It’d been a long while since he’d ventured inside Beede’s bedroom, but during this considerable interim, a dramatic transformation – a revolution – had taken place.
Where previously Beede had been the master of decorative understatement (books,