The Museum of Doubt Page 18

  Once he’d finished it, he astonished himself with his patience. He waited for the exact weather, light and time of day when he’d first caught sight of what he’d seen out on the bay. After two weeks he judged it right. He climbed the steps and walked along the causeway to the end. The bare boards became thinner and looser under his feet as he walked but they were well-fixed and strong enough. He reached the end and stood at the edge, looking at the sea. Whatever it was he’d seen that he’d wanted to reach with the causeway, it wasn’t there any more, and never had been. He watched the waves, the rocks and the clouds for an hour and walked back to the beach. He brought petrol in a canister and threw it over the causeway and tried to set fire to it, but the petrol sank into the sand and his matches blew out in the wind. It started to rain. He fetched an axe and got ready to swing into one of the middle posts. The rising tide unrolled around his feet. He put the axe down. At first he felt sorry for his labour, then he realised that, now it was built, the causeway had nothing to do with him any more. He slung the axe over his shoulder and walked away.

  On the evening of his return he limped towards the ladder, climbed up and set off along it. There was a small girl sitting out on the end, where at lowest tide the causeway ran about ten yards into the water. She was sitting with her feet dangling over the edge, her back to the shore, looking at the horizon. She heard him coming when he was about ten yards away, looked round, stared at him for a couple of seconds, and went back to the horizon.

  What happened to your leg? she asked, when he reached the end and was standing next to her, leaning on one of the two shoulder-high posts which marked the causeway’s end.

  Sporting accident, he said.

  What sport?

  Snooker. I was supposed to lose the game. I won. I didn’t mean to.

  The girl nodded, not looking at him. Men outside her family were generic, numerous but remote and hard to tell apart, like stars, and you might watch them, but you wouldn’t talk to them, and you wouldn’t expect them to talk back. It wasn’t the limp so much that’d opened her mouth as the way he’d approached, as if he was on his way somewhere, and the end of the wood and the beginning of the water had confused him.

  What are you doing here? he said.

  Just sitting and watching, she said.

  Seen anything?

  Nothing special.

  So why are you sitting here?

  It’s the pier, she said. It’s good to go out to the end and sit there.

  He became angry. It’s not a pier! he said. It’s a causeway. I built it.

  She looked at him with her eyes saying she wasn’t such a fool as all that.

  It’s a causeway, he said sullenly. I was walking along the beach and I saw something out there in the bay, out at sea, that was – you’re too young to even think you’ve been in love.

  The girl shrugged.

  You haven’t, he said. But suppose you had. Think about how it might have felt. And think about how it would be if your life and your memories and your imagination weren’t real, if they were cheap substitutes, but you didn’t realise it, and thought everything was fine, until one day you were walking along the beach and you saw something out there that reminded you of your real life, the one you didn’t know you’d had.

  I think I know what you mean, said the girl.

  You’d have to have it, wouldn’t you? So I built the causeway to try to reach it, even though I didn’t know what it was, even though the closer I got to where I thought I’d seen it, the clearer it became that it’d never been there. By the time I got to the end I hated the causeway because, even though it turned out the false life was my real one, it wasn’t worth as much as it’d been before I’d started building. I should have made more of an effort to burn it. It would have burned nicely. I’m sorry.

  You may not have got what you were looking for but you left a good pier behind.

  I don’t care, he said. I don’t like it. I shouldn’t have come back. He turned and limped off towards the shore.

  The girl turned her head and watched him go. I like it, she said, not sure whether he could hear her or not. She saw him raise his left arm and wave his hand in the air with a contemptuous downward sweep. She laughed, turned back to the sea, sat on her hands and swung her legs.

  I like it, she said to the wind. It’s a good pier.

  The Club of Men

  These Lovers

  Gordon’s son Kenneth was coming round for dinner with his new girlfriend. The bell rang at eight. Gordon went to get it. He had a glass of Grouse with ice in his hand. He was wearing white slacks and a scarlet v-neck with a white poloneck underneath. He opened the door and Kenneth and the girl were there.

  Fucking hell, said Gordon.

  Eh? said Kenneth.

  Good to meet you, said Gordon, stretching his hand towards the girl.

  Did you swear just now? said Kenneth, standing there in a purple linen suit and green silk shirt buttoned up to the neck.

  Good to see you, said Gordon.

  Hi, said the girl, grinning. She was – You jammy bastard, his own son. His own flesh and blood. Was there not a law, if your own son had a woman in his legal father’s house and his legal father lawfully wanted to take her upstairs. Those legs, the black dress, the breasts on her, it was unfair, it was so unfair after all these years. The boy had no right.

  This is Julie, said Kenneth.

  Hi, said Julie, grinning and bending her head forward a bit. She was tall!

  How old, said Gordon, and took a shot of the whisky, not taking his eyes off Julie, his hand still somewhere out there in her direction.

  What’s old? said Kenneth.

  How old is it. How old it is, said Gordon, looking at him and frowning. Come in.

  Have you been on that stuff all afternoon? Kenneth was nudging his dad back down the hall and Gordon was trying to stay where he was, letting his son go on in so’s to be able to touch Julie. Kenneth shuffled round and eased Julie in, keeping his body between her and Gordon, so for a moment the three of them were wedged in to the hall together. Julie giggled and jumped for freedom. Stiletto heels! No, no, no. He’d given birth to a monster.

  Mary appeared in the hall. Julie! she said in a long low voice with a grin fixed to her face, chin tucked into her chest, fingers locked together, earrings trembling.

  Mrs Stanefield.

  Mary. Julie!

  Mary clamped her hands on Julie’s shoulders and touched cheeks. Julie. Mmuh! Mary shook her and held her stiff at arm’s length, staring and grinning like she was miming the Snow Queen at the mirror.

  You must be frozen in that dress, Julie, said Mary. My goodness Kenneth’s a lucky man, eh Gordon.

  Aye.

  What’s wrong with you? Come on and get the young ones a drink. Where was it Kenneth said you were from, Julie?

  Darlington.

  Darlington! The north of England. It’s not so grey and industrial now, is it.

  They went into the lounge and sat down in separate puce leather suite items. Gordon went for the big settee but Julie sat by herself in an armchair. By God that boy of his had her on a short leash. There was a law. The right of seniority, it was called. It’d be to be found in the library.

  Drinks, said Mary.

  Ah come on Smithie.

  Mary got up, leaned over close to Gordon and murmured in his ear. If you call me that one more time in front of your future daughter in law I swear I’ll have you committed. Get the drinks. She whiplashed back, locked her nails together and smiled at Julie.

  There were two ways Gordon could deal with the situation. One was to shoot off to his local, lean against the bar, ask for a pint of the usual, shake his head at Jimmy the barman and say These lovers, eh. Only he’d never had a local. There was only the golf club and it was a different young lad behind the bar each time. They didn’t get lassies any more. He didn’t have a usual either. He liked trying the different German lager beers.

  Mary had a gin and tonic. Kenneth had a P
errier because he was driving. Julie had a glass of white wine. Gordon sank down into the settee, leaned forward with a squeak of his slacks against the leather, took a drink of Grouse and feasted in silence on Julie’s thighs.

  I’m dying to know how you two met, said Mary.

  It was the conference centre, you know, Mum, said Kenneth, looking down into the bubbles. We’re both on long-term contracts now. It was environmental consultants.

  No Kenny, it was fast food franchises.

  It was environmental consultants, Jul. Not remember that guy who got electrocuted by the model rainforest.

  It was fast food franchises, Mrs Stanefield, said Julie. I remember cause they had their own catering, tacos and root beer and buffalo wings and stuff. The environmental consultants had a bulk order of Liebfraumilch.

  That’s one of the German lager beers, said Gordon.

  It’s wine, said Mary.

  It’s beer.

  It is wine, Dad, said Kenneth. It is German, though. The name means young girl’s milk.

  There was silence for a time.

  Where’d you leave you car? said Gordon.

  In the street outside the house.

  It won’t be safe there. Folk’ve had their tyres slashed.

  This is a neighbourhood watch area, isn’t it? All these bungalows with burglar alarms on them.

  That’s just what attracts them.

  How come you’ve got one then?

  And there’s joyriders.

  They’ll not get much joy out of a 1.3 litre Vectra, said Kenneth. Different next month when I get the Puma, eh Jul. Out on the old autobahn.

  Maybe you should take it up into the drive if it’s not safe, said Julie, turning to look at him and fidgeting with her wineglass. She glanced at Gordon, crossed her legs and stretched the hem of her skirt towards her knees. She let it go and Gordon gazed at the elastic material as it crept back, millimetre by millimetre.

  It’s the first thing I’ve heard about slashing, said Mary. You sometimes leave your car out there.

  I’ve not told your mother everything that goes on in this neck of the woods, said Gordon. He put his whisky down on the coffee table and got up. I’ll just go and check everything’s OK.

  I’ll go myself, said Kenneth.

  Och, just relax. You’ve come a long way.

  What, from Barnton?

  Relax, said Gordon. He turned and smiled at Julie’s thighs and went out of the lounge, closing the door. He went into the cupboard under the stairs and hauled out a cardboard box marked Windward Islands Bananas. He plunged in his hand and groped among the squirming nails and screws and hinges till he felt the fat smooth handle of the Stanley knife in his palm. He pulled it out and put it in his pocket. He took a hand drill off one of the shelves and went upstairs, stepping on the sides of the stairs so’s the creaking ones wouldn’t be heard. He went into Kenneth’s old room and put the drill down on the carpet next to the skirting board on the wall going through to the guest bedroom. He went back downstairs and out into the night.

  What a grand smell that was, that November smell of burned leaves on a frosty night. He’d need to burn some leaves. He’d go down the garden centre tomorrow for a big bag of them, the proper autumn leaves. They had them by the shovelfull in big barrels. Serve yourself. He couldn’t remember how you stopped them falling through the holes in the shopping trolley. His daughter in law! See even Mary understood the point of law. She understood things. That was the way it was with your pals. That November smell, mind how they used to buy a big box of fireworks when they were wee and the two of them. What was it they used to do. The Catherine wheel, what a racket it made, and so bright. Him and Smithie.

  He opened the gate and stepped out into the street. Kenneth’s car was right there. He squatted down by the first wheel and slid the blade of the knife out by two notches. He put his left hand on the tyre and leaned on it to steady himself and pressed the point of the blade into the rubber. The blade bent and made no impression. Gordon sniffed, shifted his feet, wiped his nose with the back of his left hand and moved round so he was side-on to the wheel. He took hold of it again and drew the knife firmly towards him from the far side of the tyre, pulling and pressing in at the same time. The blade scored smoothly into the rubber and dived deep inside. Air sighed out into the night. He waddled over to the next wheel and did the same thing. The Cavalier settled comfortably down against the kerb. Fuck, there were some kids coming. Willman’s sprogs, the specky ones.

  Look, that’s Mr Stanefield slashing a man’s tyres, said the older boy.

  Evening lads, said Gordon. Out late, eh.

  We’ve come from scouts, said the wee one.

  Scouts, eh, said Gordon. Was there not some child abuse scandal up there recently?

  What’re you doing? said the elder boy.

  What, don’t tell me your dad’s never let you help him let the summer air out of his tyres? When it gets to winter, like now, you see, frosty, you have to let the warm air that’s been gathering in there all spring and summer escape. Otherwise the tyres would just explode. Pfoo! Come on round here, you can give us a hand. Come on.

  They went round together to the other side of the car. Scrunty little spies that they were, everyone was out to betray you in this street.

  He held the knife out to them. The wee one snatched it from him and his brother fought him for it and won.

  Here! That’s enough now, said Gordon. There’s a tyre each, you can both have a shot. And mind that knife, it’s not a toy. Come on down here. They squatted down together.

  Watch your breeks, said Gordon. I don’t want your father on at me for ruining your trousers. And don’t be too long or you’ll catch your death. He took the boy’s small cold hand in his own, eased the blade out, guided it onto the rubber and began the cut. Gordon let go, stood up and watched him digging away. They were good lads.

  I’m away inside, he said. Bring the knife back when you’ve finished. Don’t be too long and mind and give your wee brother a go.

  Gordon returned to the lounge. Mary was talking. She stopped and they all looked up at him.

  Looks like you’ll have to spend the night here, said Gordon. They’re out there now, slashing your tyres. He sat down and took a sip of Grouse.

  Eh? The fuck they are, said Kenneth. He jumped up and went to the bay window. He pulled the gold velvet-effect curtains aside a few inches and pressed his face against the double glazing.

  You’ll not see anything from there, said Gordon. There’s the hedge.

  I’m calling the police, said Mary, getting up.

  Kenneth stood looking out for a bit. He turned round and undid the top button of his shirt. I’ll sort them out, he said, taking off his jacket, folding it carefully and laying it on the back of a chair. Julie got up and took it from him.

  Let the police handle it, Kenny, she said. Have you got a hanger for this? she asked Gordon.

  Gordon got up and moved towards her. Come on upstairs, there’s a wardrobe free, he said.

  Kenneth moved between them. How many of them are there? he said to Gordon.

  Couple. Local youths, I think.

  Fuck’s sake, bungalow psychos, they’re the worst.

  They had identical jumpers on and they were wearing these kerchiefs.

  Jesus, radge casual bastards in gang colours. Have to put the old thinking cap on here. Don’t want to go piling in too soon.

  The doorbell went.

  That’ll be them, said Gordon.

  Oh my God, said Julie. She grabbed Kenneth’s forearm. Gordon knocked back the whisky sharply and stared at her fingers pressed into his son’s flesh. It’d been different in the old days, when you’d had the power of life and death over your kids. If you didn’t like your son, or he was being a pain in the arse, they’d take him away. There was a bit of paperwork and you were free. Smithie’d never had kids. Only Smithie was still around, was he not? Ach, he was married to her. So what was Kenneth all about, eh, turning up on your doors
tep and nabbing all the lassies? There were things it was hard to tie together. The autumn leaves and the shopping trolleys, for one.

  Don’t answer it, Kenny, said Julie. They’ll leave. The police’ll come.

  How old would you say they were? said Kenneth.

  One was about 12, the other was a wee bit younger, said Gordon. Are you OK? You’ve an awful sweat on you.

  12, said Kenneth, nodding, and began inhaling and exhaling deeply. 12.12. He raised his forearms, clenched his fists, closed and opened his eyes, ran out of the lounge and down the hall and pulled the front door open. Gordon was reaching out to take hold of Julie’s bare shoulders when Mary came back in and said the police were on their way.

  They heard children screaming and Kenneth shouting from the front door. Oh God, said Julie, putting her hand over her mouth and looking at Gordon and Mary. The sounds moved outside for a few seconds, then the door slammed and Kenneth tramped back into the lounge, grinning and wiping his troubles off the palms of his hands.

  What a fright you gave us, said Mary, hand on chest. Daft laddie. Did you give them a battering?

  Julie went and hugged him and stepped back, looking at him, holding her throat with one hand, stroking him with the other, biting her lip.