Darkmans. Nicola Barker
PS If you need anything else – anything at all – you know you can always reach me on my mobile…
A number followed.
Kane cocked his head for a while – as if deep in thought – his eye returning, repeatedly, to the phrase ‘I bought the Madeira cake – it was a little dry,’ and then to the signature (‘W’).
Eventually – but somewhat hesitantly – he moved on to the text, proper. ‘W’ was right: the quality of the copy was very poor. And it was written in an ornate typescript (real migraine territory), which made the letters look like so many black ants dancing a woozy conga. After several minutes he succeeded in battling his way through The Prologue (his eye lingering, for a while, on a small rhyme at the bottom of the page): –
I Have heard fay that Scogin did come of an honeft ftock, no kindred, and his friends did fet him to fchool at Oxford, where he did continue until the time he was made Mafter of Art,
where he made this jeft,
A Master of Art is not worth a fart, Except he be in Schools,
A Batchelour of Law, is not worth a Straw, Except he be among fools.
Kane’s brows rose slightly. He closed the manuscript and reopened the envelope. He peered inside, then smiled and shoved in his hand, pulling out another (smaller) sheet of paper which he hadn’t noticed there before. This was a receipt from The British Library, and detailed the costs of the photocopying. At the bottom of the receipt he observed – with a small start – the credit card details of one Winifred Shilling –
I knew it
The fucking Madeira cake –
Damn her
‘Why?’
Kane jerked out of his reverie. Gaffar had twisted around on his chair and was now staring at him, quizzically.
‘Sorry?’
Kane hurriedly shoved the manuscript and the receipt back into the envelope, licking the seal this time and pressing it shut.
‘A look of thunder,’ Gaffar exclaimed, helpfully providing both vocal (and visual) dramatisation of his words.
‘Oh…’ Kane’s face rapidly showcased a disparate mish-mash of emotions (Picasso’s cubist masterpiece Woman Crying seemed like traditional portraiture by comparison). He struggled to get a handle on the play of his features. ‘It’s…uh…nothing,’ he almost ticked.
‘Okay.’ Gaffar nodded (registering Kane’s inner turmoil, but taking it all with a pinch of salt: I mean, how hard could life be for this spoiled, flabby, Western pup?).
‘I lost something,’ Kane muttered, suddenly pulling himself to his feet (his hair falling across his face), ‘that’s all.’ He glanced around him (through the lank mop of his fringe), not entirely certain what he was searching for –
Beede?
‘Is lid?’ Gaffar asked patiently, a small chipolata suspended delicately between his mouth and his bowl.
‘Pardon?’
‘Lid?’ Gaffar indicated towards the Tupperware beaker on Beede’s reading table.
‘Lid?’ Kane stared at the beaker, frowning.
‘Ah, fuck it…English,’ Gaffar murmured, turning back – resignedly – to his meal.
Kane placed the brown envelope onto Beede’s reading table (next to the contentious item of Tupperware), carefully balanced his cigarette there – its smouldering tip suspended over the carpet – and then kneeled down to inspect his pile of books. If there was one thing he could be certain of: Beede’s books would speak (a-hem) volumes…
On top of the pile (and it was a large pile) was what Kane – smilingly – took to be a real ‘Beede classic’: Derek Johnson’s Essex Curiosities; Hardback. 1973. He picked it up and opened to the front flap –
Ah yes
‘A representative collection of the old, curious and interesting objects that abound in Essex…for all those who cherish the heritage of the past and wish to preserve it for the future.’
Lovely
Kane put the book aside, with a grin.
Next up –
Ha!
Victor Papanek’s Design for the Real World.
Brilliant!
Inside flap:
Ta-dah!
‘A startling and constructive blueprint for human survival by a professional designer who accuses the Industrial design “establishment” of mass negligence.’
(Oh God. The word ‘establishment’ stuck into those two, accusing little inverted commas…How right! How po-faced! How deliciously sanctimonious! How typically fucking Beede.) Kane sniggered, furtively, then laid the volume down, almost fondly, turning – for a brief moment – to take a quick puff on his cigarette –
Okay, okay…
He deftly returned his cigarette to its former position –
Soooo…
Third in the pile, a very new-looking paperback called –
What?!
The Yoga of Breath: A Step-by-step Guide to Pranayama by Richard Rosen.
No
Kane picked up the book and stared at it, scowling (as if the mere force of his disapproval – and incomprehension – might make it disappear. But it didn’t. It remained a steady weight in his hand; a neat 3lb tome of ridiculously incongruous NewAge hokum).
He slowly shook his head as he flipped it over and speed-read the sales pitch –
Blah blah…life energy…
Blah blah…self-transformation
Blah blah…breath and body awareness
Nuh-uh!
Beede? Reading a book about yoga? It made absolutely no sense (this strangely fashioned block simply wouldn’t fit inside the box of traditional shapes Kane had painstakingly carved out for his father). He cast the book aside, hissing under his breath. It was a red herring. A blip. Some ditsy woman at work had loaned it to him – or that damn chiropodist with her stupid verrucas –
Hysterical?
Yeah
Ha bloody ha
The next book in the pile was larger and more traditional. Kane grabbed it –
Oh yes…
That was better: a thick, smart paperback (with illustrations) called A History of Private Life: Revelations of the Medieval World. He opened