That morning on the open road he had felt it—the limitless talent of the world. And here, under a powerful moon (just one size short of full), the restless ocean pitched and yawed, the slow churn of its facets, each of them vying to get a share of creamy light—the motion magma, the rolling mirrorball of the sea.
Des tensed and listened: the slammed door, an anarchical yawn, the words Not best pleased, spoken with dry deliberation. A minute of thickly carpeted silence, and then the crash of the upended minibar …
On the far promontory the lighthouse loyally pulsed. And it reminded Des of something. What? It wasn’t a visual memory. No, it was auditory (and the tempo was quite different). That throbbing glow reminded him of the most courageous sound he had ever heard: the (amplified) beating of his unborn daughter’s heart.
He humbly took delivery of this memory. The thought of Cilla made it clear: it was him, Desmond Pepperdine, that all this was happening to. Him, and not somebody else. Here he was, in health, among the abnormally alive, and looking out over the talented water.
Friday
“Hello? … Hello?”
Was it a bad line or a wavering signal or a skewed satellite? All he could hear was a howl. A howl, with a tinny edge to it. This resolved itself, after a splutter, into his wife’s trembling voice.
“Des. Oh Des. Words can’t … I’m …”
But she talked on, and by now he was out of bed, and drawing the curtains, and plugging in the kettle for his tea. “I’m happy for you, Dawnie,” he muttered, nodding his head with a look of inanity in his eyes. He was fielding all his usual thoughts. So the old supremacist (and emeritus traffic warden), in the wisdom of his last hours, had finally yielded. Four years of ostracism: as Horace himself might put it, this was deemed to suffice. “I’m glad for you, Dawn. And I’m glad for me.”
“It’ll have to be tonight.”
“… You’re not taking Cilla to Diston General.”
“Of course I’m not. But Des, you see what I’m saying. It has to be tonight. He’s fading, Desi. And Mum says Saturday’s when they go round with the methadone. On Saturdays they go round killing them with the methadone!”
Lionel came into the dining room just as the kitchens were closing.
“Uh, Uncle Li. There’s been a development. Dawn’s dad’s—”
“Too right there’s been a development. Gina. Yeah, mate, she’s been done. Acid. Jupes Lanes.” Now Lionel turned to the menu and attentively ordered the Full Caledonian Breakfast. “But none of you Aberdeen blood pudding,” he told the grizzled waiter, who took note. “And none of you uh, none of you fucking Orkney kippers. Just the English bit … Yeah. Jupes Lanes. Broad daylight. Seen what it does—acid?”
Des tried to feel sceptical (how true was this?). But for twenty years he had been a fully conscious resident of Diston Town, where calamity made its rounds like a postman. Gina, he thought—with that smile, those eyes. He took a mouthful of cold coffee and let it drip back into the cup through his teeth.
“Makes the face look twisted. Stretched … A Moroccan-type bloke did it. Yeah. Sped past on a bike in his white robes. Here. Have that. Did it J-cloth style, see. See, Gina’s jouncing around in her halftop and tutu. Cover youself up! Whore! Oh yeah,” said Lionel, nodding. “Bollocks. Knickers! It’s Marlon. Courtesy of Marlon … Can’t say I blame him, mind. But Gina. Ah, lovely.”
Lionel looked down fondly at the shieldlike plate and all it contained: farm-fresh poached eggs, Grampian sausages, cured bacon rashers, heirloom tomatoes, Strathclyde field mushrooms, roughhewn hash browns, artisanal baked beans, and Highland fried bread.
Strenuously chewing, Lionel continued, “But he’s gone and shot hisself in the foot, hasn’t he. Marlon’s gone and killed the goose that laid the golden … Because I won’t be going near her now, will I,” he said, assembling his next mouthful, “with her clock in that state.”
“Uh, Uncle Li. Dawn’s dad’s—”
“Oh yeah. You was saying.”
“Dawn’s dad’s—”
“That’s right, Des. You were saying. Speak you mind, Des, speak you mind.”
Lionel sauntered out with him to have a smoke while they waited for the car. He had his phone in his palm and was monitoring its screen. He said,
“Ah. She’s having second thoughts. Me DILF’s having second thoughts. Look at that. She’s taking her two lads to they fencing lesson. Imagine having her for a mum. And not some old fuckbag like … The first time, Des, the first time she comes up and she goes, You not the Devil.” He took the cigar out of his mouth and examined its tip. “The Devil’s a gentleman. Can you remember you room number, you fucking moron?”
Beyond, under a mixed sky, the sea still basked and sprawled, with smiling foam. Yet the clouds were regretfully rearranging themselves and now held queries of grey.
“Last night she goes, Boys like you. They never change because they never learn. They never learn …” He flexed his left hand. “You know, Des, sometimes I scare me own self. My own self,” he said, stepping back with a bow as the car made its circle in the drive.
Desmond travelled. To Wick, to Inverness, to Stansted, to Liverpool Street, to Diston North. Along the way, in a Christian spirit, he endeavoured to improve his opinion of Horace Sheringham (this was not a success). Later, as he dozed on the second flight, he kept replaying it in his mind: the ancient waiter refilling the water glasses, the two flies playing leapfrog on the window pane, the sunderings of the surf, Lionel’s jaws freezing in mid mouthful and then his categorical scowl …
Sorry, Uncle Li, but what else can I do? It’s her last chance. This whole thing’s been killing her for years.
Lionel turned away. He bared his teeth; and his eyes seemed to recalibrate.
Hang on, he said. Hang on. You go back. Dawn goes to her dad.
Yeah. She’ll spend the night with her mum whatever happens.
So it’ll be you and Cilla. Okay. That’ll work … Here. Call the people. They’ll change you flight. Here.
… Well. Say a last goodbye to Grace for me.
No, fair enough. Old Horace is still with us. And what’s a dead body? It’s nothing. It’s rubbish. And we don’t want Dawn to suffer. Heaven forbid. No, Des. You place is at home. You place is with you daughter in the Tower.
The plane roused him. They were skimming earthward through the cover, and the plane roughly shook him awake. Its wings creaked and see-sawed. Its portholes were dense clots of white. And he had never experienced this—the muscular violence that lies coiled in clouds.
At the clinic the doctor had warned him that his UVI, on its way out, would fleetingly refervesce. And Des’s skeleton was making itself known to him all over again as he came up from the underworld and into the streets of Diston: the chassis of his shoulders, his pelvic saddle. The effect was not unpleasant—his bones glowed like wire filaments. And this time round you knew that it would quickly pass, it would pass, the final flurry, the swansong of the city fox.
Going a block or two out of his way, he walked by Gran’s old flat—Gran’s granny flat on the basement floor. Two empty milk bottles gleamed filmily on the doorstep … Put the kettle on, love. Let’s pit our wits against the Cryptic. And she’d light another Silk Cut, to fuel her concentration … An ice-cream van gadded by. Des walked on. Diston air—a mist of grit, the texture of gauze, with motes, blind spots, puckerings, like vaccination scars …
Up in Avalon Tower the front door was open and he could hear the self-sufficient altos of feminine animation, like a distant radio play. The passage leading to the kitchen seemed novel to him, seemed freshly invented, and a modest success, impressive in its order and lucidity. Now the cat collapsed invitingly at his feet … Prunella appeared. The baby was handed over to him—a clean packet containing something even cleaner. He kissed Cilla glancingly and lowered her to the floor. And it wasn’t long before the two women were hurrying purposefully away.
“I expressed about a gallon,” said Dawn when they had a qu
ick moment. “Guard her with your life.”
“I will.”
They exchanged three or four of their usual endearments and vows.
He returned to the kitchen and found Cilla trying to crawl towards the dogs. Des had almost forgotten about the dogs. They were out there sleeping through the heat of late afternoon, in the spoons position; Jek had a forepaw up, lightly steadying Jak.
“I met a man,” said Des, “called Mr. Man.” Cilla thought this was very funny. “He’s an undertaker. He undertakes to take people under.” She thought this was very funny too. “What’s your name, mister? This mister’s Mr. Man.” So then they had a read of what was still her favourite book: Mr. Man.
After putting the kettle on, Des hoisted the corpulent rubbish bag out of the tank (which, these days, was ajar)—and stared at it. Normally he would wait till Cilla was asleep and then fly down to the dustbin bay. Dawn, when in sole charge, did this too: Cilla never minded being alone. But Des knew at once and for a certainty that he couldn’t leave her up here with the dogs. The latch was down, the sliding door was quite secure; but he could never leave her up here with the dogs.
“Let’s make a shopping trip out of it. Fancy going to the shops?”
Besides, he wanted to buy something: a surgical mask. He was once again infectious, and he was continually aware of it: when he held the baby he found he was always breathing over his shoulder. So out they went into Town, Cilla strapped into her pushchair, with both hands raised and active, greeting every face with her unqualified smile. Passers-by paused and wondered—wondered what they had done to earn such approval, such delight …
They tried three chemists, the household-goods emporium, and, hopelessly, a hardware store. Typical, that. You saw surgical masks, here and there, all over the great world city, but never in Diston. Diston showed no interest in prophylaxis, in preventive care. Diston, with its gravid primary-schoolers and toothless hoodies, its wheezing twenty-year-olds, arthritic thirty-year-olds, crippled forty-year-olds, demented fifty-year-olds, and non-existent sixty-year-olds.
All they bought in the end was a large packet of ibuprofen and a tin of peach mush for Cilla’s tea.
As he warmed her milk on the ring, Des flapped his way through the Evening Standard and came across a noticeably cordial item in the diary about “Threnody” and her new book of verse. These are the poems about my time with Lionel, she said. So the theme is grief. But loss and heartbreak are the very mainsprings of deep emotion. Look at Bishop King and Lord Tennyson. Poetry thrives on such—
The dogs were stirring. They awoke as one being; random limbs disentangled and strained outward; with a trembling yawn Jak rolled over; his tongue uncoiled as if from a spindle and writhed probingly over his brother’s snout … Des stepped forward and gave the lace curtain a tug. He looked round. Installed in her highchair, Cilla was rubbing her eyes with her knuckles—yes, the little creature, this limited operation, this small concern, after sampling its bottle, was breaking up, was closing down, as babies will, every few hours. He prepared a fortress of cushions on the couch, and within seconds she was asleep.
With reluctance Des twitched the curtain and took another look through the glass door. Jek stood in an expectant crouch as Jak climbed up on him with his back legs hideously taut and twanging.
“Fuckoff!” said Jak.
“Fuckoff!” said Jek.
At six-thirty Lionel made the first of his two calls.
“I’ve got her down. Grace. She’s in bungalow number uh, forty-four aitch, Inver St. Mary’s. I gave the vicar a few bob and we did it on the quiet. Packed her down this afternoon.”
“Well, rest in peace, Uncle Li.”
“… I’m in the car. Trying to get back. Don’t want to stay up here. I’ll get depressed. Wick’s shut.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. A mist come in off the sea. Visibility reduced to nil. Reckon we’ll drive to Inverness. Hundred and fifty miles. Good road though. Looking into an air taxi. You all right, boy?”
“Yeah, Uncle Li. Dawn rang. Says it’s going to be a long night.”
“Fed the dogs yet?”
“Just about to, Uncle Li.”
“Don’t forget they Tabasco. All of it.”
He laid out the dripping steaks on two tin dishes. And he readied the chilli-pepper sauce—matured for several years in oak barrels to develop its unique aroma and flavour. A few drops will give your … He took a driblet on his tongue, and could feel the fire and bite of it; but the aftertaste seemed pharmaceutical—evidence, he suspected, of microbial lingering in his craw. It took nearly five minutes, voiding the whole bottle on the bleeding meat. What were the dogs doing here anyway? Oh yeah. Lionel was taking them to Surrey when he got the call. Hare coursing. Plausible, Des supposed: hare coursing was violent and illegal, and you could gamble on it … Michael Gabriel—the Family Butcher. If Lionel got back tonight, would he come for Jak and Jek?
They were lying side by side with their chins on their paws when Des edged out and placed the bowls by the litter tray.
Cilla awoke much refreshed. He washed her, changed her, and then served her puréed vegetables, with many delicate carving gestures round the mouth with the soft plastic spoon … She takes a little bit more milk in her coffee than you do, doesn’t she Des? Dawn had said again at the end of the first month, when Cilla’s colour seemed to stabilise. He placed his forearm alongside the baby’s, and agreed. Well, you’re the milkmaid, Dawnie, he said. With your curds and whey …
Father and daughter now gorged themselves on Mr. Man, plus Mr. Messy, Mr. Topsy-Turvy, Mr. Grumpy, Mr. Mean, Mr. Wrong, plus Little Miss Giggles, Little Miss Star, Little Miss Lucky, Little Miss Curious, Little Miss Magic, until, almost with disgust, Cilla pushed Little Miss Late aside. Suddenly she laughed and pointed with a bent finger.
“Dah,” she said. “Doh.”
Through the hanging lace you could clearly see their wedgelike outlines, backlit by the brimming moon. He went and with impatient abruptness yanked back the curtain and shaped himself. The dogs didn’t blink. Tensely static, but forward-impending, they no longer looked like a pair or a couple—they looked like a team. And in their spiked collars almost laughably malign: two hothouse orchids cultured in hell. And (Christ) the face of a pitbull, a trap of jaws with two eyes tacked on to it, and then the skinhead ears. Just below knee height, four black nostrils with pink innards were steaming up the glass.
Des put Cilla in her wheelie, and reapproached the sliding door. He made shooing gestures with his arms. Nothing happened. They weren’t seeing him, he realised; they were seeing past him or through him, they were seeing the baby. He drew the curtain and left the room, and immediately returned with two pillow slips. He located a box of drawing pins and in a couple of minutes he rigged up a second screen over the lower half of the glass panel. While he did this, his daughter made sounds, undemonstratively, but sounds evoking disappointment (he thought) and perhaps even pity. He stepped back: the silhouettes were no longer visible through the layers of white cloth.
“There,” said Des soothingly as he reached for the child. “There.”
The phone sounded at ten-fifteen.
“Nah, I’m still up here. Fogged up here. It’s all fogged up up here.”
There now came the foghorn’s authenticating groan or yawn. Des heard feminine laughter and, in the background, the grace notes of the floppy-fingered pianist (who must have been doing the slow ones) as he finished “Yesterday” and started “She’s Leaving Home.” He imagined the heartbeat of the encaged lighthouse.
“So no flights?”
“Yeah … That’s okay. Patch it up with me DILF. Silly bitch. Get no armament from her. Nice meal. We haggle am. Lamb. Bolla wino two. Silly bitch. Want a word?”
An educated but foolishly and formidably drunken voice was saying,
“Hello. My name’s Maud. I’m Lionel’s DILF. Who are you then? One of his boyos?”
Des thought the foghorn was sounding again but
it was just Lionel’s yawn or groan, topped up by two heaving inhalations.
“Guiss it … Here, Des, do I sound a bit pissed?”
“Yeah. You do a bit. Not like you, Uncle Li.”
“… Well it isn’t every day you park you mum. This is a wake, Des. Mm. Down she went. With all her sins. Way of all flesh … You still here, woman?” There was something like a scuffle, then with his voice again slewing (and again becoming equivocal, like Gran with her doubletalk), Lionel said, “Shut you mouth, you stewpy cow. Shunts another shiner, see. Cheers after the match and set. Goff with yer. So …” There was a crash of tableware, and you could imagine Lionel rearing up from his seat. A pause—the ambient noise fading. “So, Des. They had they dinner then?”
“Yeah, a while ago.”
“Yeah, well they’ll calm down in a bit. Nigh-night.” A silence—just the seething of the sea. “Seen the moon? Mind that door now. Seen the moon? Nigh-night.”
It was already late, far too late, and a manifest truth was asserting itself: it was going to be desperately hot. With Lionel’s room sealed off, all they had was the eight-inch gap above Desmond’s bed and the electric fan. He went down the passage, turned the three locks, and wagged the door back and forth for ten minutes. But the thermals of the Tower were dense and heavy, the used breath layered and thickened up over the thirty-two floors.
“Are you all right, my darling? Who’s that mister? Why, it’s Mr. Man!”
He checked the balcony door and raised a pinched hand to the curtain. And it struck him like an aesthetic evil—because the dogs were just as they were, like moulds of metal fixed to the floor. But now they tipped up their heads and moved back beyond the bowls and the tray and seemed to settle. On impulse he freed the latch and slid back the glass panel—just a finger’s breadth. In one scurrying propulsive instant Jak and Jek were there with their snouts in the crack; and when he gave the door a retaliatory shove they dug in deeper, as if ready to have their noses pulped or sheared clean off …