Behindlings

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‘Come over here for a minute,’ Wesley commanded (the very image of icy unperturbedness), ‘and fill me in properly on these mango things.’

Ted joined Wesley at the workbench. Wesley idly noticed that his forehead was glistening. He was sweating.

‘She makes these strange little creatures out of them…’ Ted said, fishing around inside his jacket pocket for a handkerchief, pulling one out and patting his brow with it.

He glanced around him, ‘Here…’

He moved to a set of shelves behind the TV and picked something up, but before he could bring it back over, a loud discussion commenced next to the window, where the small, intrusive boy had now been joined by a second, much larger figure.

Ted froze. Wesley observed his reaction but said nothing, simply shrugged and then silently pushed his index finger into a soft heap of sand on the workbench. He made gentle, circular patterns with it, watching raptly as the fine granules flattened and dispersed. Ted remained glued to his spot by the bookshelves, anxiously rubbing his right palm onto his opposite elbow, listening apprehensively.

What are you doing? the larger figure demanded.

Who are you? the smaller figure responded.

Who are you? the larger figure countered. And what are you doing in Katherine’s garden?

Katherine? Who’s she? the smaller figure asked.

This is her house. Does she have any idea that you’re here?

I rang the bell, the smaller figure explained, but nobody answered.

Well if nobody answered then she isn’t around, is she! Use your common sense. You’re treading on her hydrangea. You’re damaging it.

So who the fuck is Katherine when she’s at home? the smaller figure enquired as the larger began firmly steering him away.

How old are you? Shouldn’t you be at school or something?

Christmas holidays, thank you very much, the smaller figure explained cordially.

Their voices faded.

‘Welsh,’ Wesley noted, glancing up from the finely-granulated patterns he was forming, ‘is he local?’

Ted nodded. ‘It’s Dewi,’ he spoke softly, ‘he owns the property opposite. He puts down wooden flooring. He did mine, actually. He’s very good at it.’

‘Why are you still whispering, Ted?’

‘Was I?’ Ted spoke louder again.

‘Yes.’

He was just preparing to respond when Wesley noticed the object he was holding. ‘Fuck,’ he butted in, ‘pass it over.’

Ted returned to the workbench and gave Wesley a small, plain, wire-legged, pearl-eyed, mango stone creature. Wesley took it and carefully balanced it onto the flattened palm of his fingerless hand. ‘Holy Moly,’ he murmured.

‘I think it’s a lion,’ Ted explained. ‘See the way she’s brushed up the natural strings and fibres on one end of the stone so that it resembles a mane?’

As he spoke, Ted concentrated –almost too fiercely –on the inconsequential little mango stone creature, yet all he was really seeing was the badly truncated hand below. He hadn’t noticed it before… he…

But how was that possible? How on earth could something so patent, so profound, so grotesque have escaped his attention formerly?

His mind rapidly flipped back to a full hour previously:

The initial meeting…

Shaking Wesley’s hand… (they did shake, didn’t they?)

Making him a cup of coffee…

Wesley, sitting on the swivel chair, efficiently turning over the printed sheets of property details whilst chatting away, amiably…

He was suddenly very warm. Unsettled. Almost queasy. He clenched his hands together and tightened his buttocks, his gentle brown eyes clambering over Katherine’s white walls like a couple of stir-crazy arachnids.

Warm? He was boiling. And it was no mere coincidence. Because the heat was one of Katherine’s trademarks –

The heat

– well, the heat and rodents, more particularly. No. The heat and rodents and peach schnapps. She literally lived on the stuff. Locals joked –and it wasn’t funny –that she took it intravenously.

Antique clothing, too, of course. And beansprouts, obviously. And mahjong (Chinese backgammon, to the uninitiated), and sex, and basic engineering. Yes. But mainly the heat. It was her thing. Always had been.

It was just so… just so Katherine.

Ted swallowed. Tried to clear his throat. Couldn’t. Because it… it agitated him –The heat

– he’d always found it disquieting. In fact he was currently feeling more than a little off-colour –uncomfortable –sticky –out of sorts –

No

– out of place – that was it –like he was trespassing or gatecrashing or sneakily intruding…

Of course she’d given him the key –

Yes

– he was here legitimately –

Yes

– but wasn’t he… wasn’t he facilitating something, just the same? Something improper? Something unscrupulous? Something… something unseemly?

Ted’s mind began clicking. He felt over-wound and jerky. His skin was damp but the air in his lungs seemed horribly scant and thin and dry. His head felt all cotton-woolly. So did his tongue. Sweat trickled into his right eye. It stung. He blinked repeatedly.

Wesley finally broke the protracted silence between them. ‘This is twisted, Ted,’ he murmured, continuing to stare approvingly at the mango-stone creature. ‘Does she actually sell these things?’

‘Yes. Yes she does sell them, occasionally,’ Ted’s voice was flat. His tongue struggled to juggle with the weight of its syllables. He drew a deep breath, ‘and if you don’t mind my asking,’ he paused, frowned, ‘where did your fingers get to, exactly?’ (Where did they get to? Oh Lord)

After he’d spoken, he couldn’t quite believe what he’d said. He sounded drunk to himself.

Wesley’s eyebrows rose a fraction, but his eyes did not shift from the mango-lion. ‘I fed them to an owl,’ he said, matter-of-factly, ‘an eagle owl. Years ago. In an act of penance. I trapped my brother in an abandoned fridge. Christopher. Chris. When we were kids. A prank. He died. He was my right hand.’

They both stared for a moment, in silence, at Wesley’s right hand.

‘And you know what? I like this house,’ Wesley continued calmly, as if these two thoughts were somehow naturally conjoined. ‘Will I be able to move in immediately?’

Ted was still dreamy, ‘Absolutely not,’ he said.

Wesley’s head jerked up so sharply on receipt of Ted’s answer that it was almost as though –Ted thought idly –it was being operated from above by strings. He very nearly glanced at the ceiling to test the validity of this theory, but instead found himself noting –distractedly –how tall Wesley suddenly appeared and how tight his mouth seemed. Tight as… tight as… Tight as two navvies after ten pints. Tight as the lid on the only free jar of peanuts in a well-stocked hotel mini-bar. Tight as a good lie. Tight as a gymnast’s thighs. Still tighter.

One. Two. Three seconds passed by, and then… Fuck. What on earth was he…? Ted blinked and came to as the sharp and piercing gaze of Wesley’s disfavour focussed full upon him; piranha-mouthed, marlin-nosed, pike-eyed… Wesley’s face suddenly seemed as barbed and impenetrable as a razor-wire fence around a missile silo.

Oh bollocks.

Ted allowed himself a single, small, involuntary judder before the inestimably professional estate agent inside him stood to attention, clicked his high-polished heels together, smiled, saluted, and snapped straight back into action.

He rapidly re-assessed the situation. ‘What I mean is that I’d have to run it past Katherine first, before I could actually promise you anything…’ he spoke obsequiously, ‘and you’d be wanting to take a look at the spare room, of course?’

What have I done? he thought. Katherine Turpin will roast me on a spit, cut me into small pieces and devour me… if I’m lucky. Then…

An owl? An eagle owl? Is he crazy?

‘Fine. So run it past her.’

Wesley shrugged –as if he believed no process so mundane as this could hinder the immense rolling stone of his destiny –then slowly began to deflate again, like a cheap plastic paddling pool at a children’s party.

‘And I don’t need to see anything else,’ he added, ‘I’ll just bring the rest of my stuff over later,’ he smiled, ‘about three… three-thirty.’

He held the mango stone creature aloft and inspected it once more, very thoroughly, his cheeks lifted and reddened by a spontaneous glow of good humour. Then his focus shifted.

His expression remained constant –calm, cheerful, insistent – but his eyes now held Ted’s hostage in a penetrating gaze, as his other hand moved down slowly –deliberately –towards his bulging jacket pocket. He rummaged around inside it for a while until he located the particular thing he was searching for and carefully removed it: a clean, white, newly truncated, ten-inch-long lamb’s tail.

Wesley removed the tail with a small flourish, and laid it out gently –almost reverently –onto the workbench. Then calmly, brazenly, he nested that strange mango-stone creature where the tail had formerly been: deep and safe within its own dark stable of itchy tweed.

In a perfect parallel, Ted’s own dear heart gradually descended –down into his shoes, where it continued to beat faithfully, just as before, but closely bound now, and constricted by laces.