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‘Fuck you, Doug,’ Saleem said, calmly. ‘D’you know what a grenadilla is?’ she asked, not sounding in the least bit ruffled.
‘I know what a grenadilla is, yes.’
‘I gave my own flesh for this place,’ she whispered. ‘What can you give?’
Doug said nothing. He watched her and then he said, ‘Go away. ‘
Saleem laughed. I moved the paper up closer to my face as she swung past me. ‘And what’re you doing?’ she asked, saucily. ‘Eating that thing?’ Close up she smelled like a bunch of watercress. A peppery smell. I folded the paper, my face tingling. ‘If you don’t mind,’ she added, ‘I’ll borrow that.’
She snatched the paper and swung out.
Doug filled the kitchen. Ray’s fatter - twice as fat - and I’m big enough and hairy enough, but Doug has personality. Doug has backbone, is a true vertebrate. Ray and I are rheumy, watery creatures that ride the wave s but Doug’s already clambered on shore.
‘Where’s Nancy?’ Doug asked.
‘I dunno. Phil?’ Ray looked to me.
‘Outside. Unloading.’
Doug leaned against the sink. ‘Nancy’s got to go, ‘ he said, i just got a call from our insurance. She had another accident this morning. Almost killed two people. Her fault.’
Ray and I stared at each other.
‘We can’t afford the insurance premiums any more,’ Doug said. ‘They keep on going up and up. It’s out of control. We’ve got to tidy this stuff away. Nothing will work until we tidy this stuff away. That’s all I’m saying.’
‘And just hear this,’ he added, warming to his subject now. ‘She only went and contacted the insurance people from the services on her way back and said she’d pay the difference herself and something extra if they didn’t tell us. If they didn’t tell me. That’s what the man just told me on the phone.’
‘I can’t see why she shouldn’t do that,’ Ray said, boldly.
Doug ignored this, ‘She wouldn’t even have mentioned it, not a word, not a single word.’
I almost said something, but when I opened my mouth I was only coughing.
That’ s deception,’ Doug said. ‘We can’t trust her. She’s a liability.’
‘I like her,’ Ray said cheerfully. ‘She’s OK.’
Doug focused on Ray. ‘Ray,’ he said, ‘you have all the business sense of a Savoy cabbage.’
Ray smiled. ‘True,’ he said, ‘I see your point, Doug.’
After a short pause, I said, ‘I think we should wait a while before we make any decisions. Give it some thought. Take a vote, later on. And maybe we should think about the meeting on Friday before all this other business.’
‘It’s under control,’ Doug said, haughty. ‘I want Nancy out. I can’t operate, I can’t deal with that kind of deception. I’ll tell her to her face when she crawls in here. No problem.’
‘It’s just . . .’ I said, ‘It’s only . . .’
‘First things first, Phil,’ Doug said, calmly. ‘We’ll lance her like a boil. Tidy things up a bit.’
Ray’s face began to move, to curdle, like he was having a thought which was germinating in his big, fat cheeks, swelling, expanding, filling him up.
‘Doug,’ he said, his thought at last finding a voice, a small voice, ‘Doug, we were all thinking that maybe you should take things a bit easy for a while . . .’
Doug stared calmly at Ray, his eyes taking in Ray’s pink lips and his yellow beard, his several chins, the dimple in his cheek.
‘You’re going crazy, fat boy, you’re crazy if you think I need to take things slow. I’m only just starting. I’m taking stock, fat boy. I’m seeing things big and I’m seeing them better than I’ve ever seen them. Better than ever.’
Ray looked at his hands. Ten fingers, all in good working order. ‘Uh, fine,’ he said. ‘It’s just that Phil . . .’
Doug turned, ‘Phil?’
I scratched my neck, my brain fizzy and empty. The kitchen is only a small room and it hasn’t been decorated in years. Above the oven, grease has stained the wallpaper a steamy yellow. The grey floor tiles are full of prints, footprints and mud-prints and cat-prints.
‘Is there something you’re wanting to say to me Phil? Anything? The meeting on Friday? Anything you think I can’t handle? Want to tell me?’
It’s not exactly that I couldn’t say anything, more that I didn’t really have anything to say. What was my evidence, after all? Doug was being strange, but thinking about it, he’d always been irascible, changeable, unpredictable. It wasn’t so much anything in particular, any special fact or detail I was burdened with, more a feeling, a sensation.
Saleem had said that we were connected in some way, she and I, the two of us, connected together, against Doug, because Doug was thinking about Gaps, and thinking about making Gaps. And Nancy . . . and Nancy . . . And I was contemplating all these things when I suddenly heard a voice and the voice was saying, ‘I love this place, Doug. I love this place.’ It was my voice. Blood rushed into my cheeks. I felt a stabbing sensation in my chest.
Doug’s face broke into a broad grin. His teeth were tombstones.
‘Phil,’ he said, laughing, ‘I’m going to the greenhouse. Gonna have a little talk to my big vegetables.’
And off he went.
As soon as Doug had gone, Saleem bounced back in. She put her stick down on the table, pulled out a chair and sat down.
‘Now what? Nancy’s in some kind of trouble?’
Ray nodded. His expression was so mournful and forlorn that it looked like his cheeks were in danger of melting and dripping and dribbling down on to the table. ‘Oh God,’ he said, ‘her timing’s less than perfect.’ I couldn’t think of anything to add. Eventually I said, ‘Let’s not get this all out of proportion.’
‘No?’ Ray glanced up, hopeful, ‘You think it’ll work itself out?’
‘More than likely.’
‘Oh shut up, Phil,’ Saleem snapped. ‘What the fuck do you know? ‘
My skin felt tight. I looked at my watch, ‘It’s nearly time to knock off.’
‘I need a drink,’ Ray said, ‘and a few packets of crisps. Want to come to The Fox for a while?’
Before I could answer the kitchen door opened slightly and Cog wandered in. Cog was the park’s cat who behaved like a dog, was dogged and doggish, ran for sticks and didn’t mind a cuff and a wrestle. Nancy was two paces behind him.
‘Me and Cog are going for a run together,’ she announced. Her voice was just a fraction too loud.
‘Did you see Doug?’ Ray asked nervously.
‘Doug? I saw him.’
She walked to the sink and rinsed her hands. She seemed calm.
‘Did Doug say anything?’ Ray asked, even more nervously.
‘Doug says a lot of things, Doug’s a sandwich short of a picnic ‘
‘Doug’s elevator,’ Ray grinned, ‘doesn’t stop at all floors.’
‘That’s as maybe,’ I said, ‘but above all else, it’s Doug who holds this place together.’
Saleem cocked her head at this. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘It’s you that holds this place together, and Ray, and even Nancy. Doug holds the business together.’
‘It’s the same thing,’ I said, confident of this fact.
‘Not at all.’
Nancy dried her hands on a tea towel. ‘I’m going for a run,’ she said, ‘Come on, Cog. ‘ She slapped her thigh. Cog came to heel.
‘Didn’t Doug say anything?’ Ray asked, for the second time. Nancy started jogging gently on the spot, warming up. ‘Did Phil tell you,’ she asked Ray, still very loud, ‘that I had another knock in the truck?’
Saleem intervened on my behalf. She said, ‘Doug already knew. The insurance people rang him.’
‘I was unloading the privet from the van,’ Nancy said, ‘and Doug came over and asked me to load it up again.’
Saleem, I noticed, was watching Nancy closely, staring at her, and she had a smile on her lips but her eyes were full of something else, an intensity, a fixity, a cruelty.
‘Privet?’ I asked, unable to stop myself. ‘You were unloading privet?’
Nancy nodded, distracted. ‘Neat bushes with small, dark green leaves. A ton of them.’
‘You don’t need to tell Phil what privet is,’ Ray said, smiling glumly. ‘He’s the Plant King.’
‘Come off it.’ My cheeks tightened a fraction more and I started to glow.
‘Yeah, well,’ Nancy tucked her T-shirt into her running shorts. ‘I’m going for a run,’ she said, and before anyone could respond, she’d slammed her way out and sprinted off.
Saleem turned to me. ‘He’s gone and sacked her,’ she said. ‘So what are you two going to do about it?’
Ray stared towards the door, after Nancy, his expression inscrutable.
‘Let’s just sit this one out,’ I said. ‘Doug won’t actually get rid of Nancy. He’s just letting off steam.’
‘I don’t know.’ Ray looked uncertain. ‘I mean, I like Nancy and I respect Doug. I like them both. But they’ve both done things and they’ve both said things . . . I dunno.’ Ray picked up the packet of ginger-nuts and ate another one.
‘What’s Nancy said?’ Saleem asked, suddenly sounding interested. I turned too, focused on Ray, slightly daunted by his apparent overview.
‘Huh?’ Ray stopped chewing.
‘What kind of things?’ Saleem persisted.
‘Stuff.’
Saleem looked towards me and said tartly, ‘Maybe you should go and catch up with her. Tell her you and Ray’ll sort something out. The way I see it, if Doug can get rid of her that easily and you’re both too spineless to do anything about it, then he can also dispense with your services too, if and when the fancy takes him.’
‘She’s running.’
‘Catch up with her. See that she’s OK.’
‘Maybe Ray should go?’
‘Not me,’ Ray said, ‘I’m not nimble enough.’
Saleem smiled at Ray. ‘Anyhow , me and Ray,’ she said, ‘need to have a quiet little chat.’
Ray’s eyes bulged nervously at this prospect. I smiled to myself and slunk out.
Ten minutes later, after a cursory stroll around the sections of the park in which I was least likely to find Nancy - Christ, she would have been half way up Alderman’s Hill by the time I’d left the house, and anyway , what could I have said to her if I did catch up with her? What could I promise? And how could I be sure that the words would come? I couldn’t be sure - I found myself travelling past the main lake, past the ducks and clambering on to the bandstand and settling myself in a shady corner where I fully intended to dawdle for ten minutes before returning to the house, back to Ray and Saleem.
It was cool and green here, and the water sloshed to my left, and in the distance I could hear a spaniel barking as it ran for a ball, and the thwuck and the swish as it caught the ball and returned it. To my right, I could see one of the tennis courts, and one of the greenhouses, and I could also see, if I stretched my neck, a small man in a white shirt who was limbering up, bending and stretching and bending and stretching.
And I found a fuzzy rhythm in this corner. A wooziness. And as the lids on my eyes descended, cutting my view in half, I felt a terrible certainty, in my gut, in my soul, that nothing could change the way things were, it wasn’t possible, because nature didn’t work in jerks and starts, but in a rhythm, a cycle, a circle, and Doug, of all people, was aware of that fact. And so was I.
Then out of the blue, out of the sky, a fistful of sand landed in my face. I blinked, shook myself, and then a clod of soil landed to my left followed by a small geranium plant, then a further clod of soil.
I stood up and saw for the first time that the innocuous little man in the white shirt was bending and stretching in the middle of my newly planted flower bed, plum in the middle of my freshly planted flower bed, and he was yanking up plants and tossing them. My new geraniums, the spider plants, other things. This way and that. An arc of soil flew over him.
I jumped off the bandstand and made my way over to him. As I drew closer I saw that he was Chinese and wearing kungfu robes and he was older than I’d initially thought - sixty or so - but his hair was black and his face was hooded, and something in it was scary, was withered, was fundamentally unpleasant.
And yet his expression was in such direct contrast to his body, his movements, which even in his present task were as fluid and beautiful as a seal’s. I appraised his body as I approached, calculating my chances in the likelihood of any kind of physical confrontation.
He was small but he was also solid and thorough and focused; clenched like a little nugget, a meteorite. Plain like a stone. I drew closer to him, but he ignored me. I drew closer still. I said, ‘Excuse me. I think you’d better stop what you’re doing.’
His head turned, a fraction. ‘You fuck off.’
He wasn’t nice. His voice was like a dry cork twisting in the neck of a bottle. A tight voice.
I said, again, ‘I’d like you to stop what you’re doing, immediately, please.’
He plucked a geranium, and weighed it in his hand, looked straight at me, took aim, and thwack! He hit me with it, in the centre of my chest. It had quite some clout, for a geranium. I stepped back slightly, and it was then that I thought I saw Doug, in the doorway of his greenhouse, and even from a distance it looked like Doug was smiling.
‘You know him?’
Squeaking voice. I turned back. ‘Pardon?’
He pointed towards Doug, ‘You know him?’
‘Who? Doug?’
‘I have a message for him.’
