I think some kind of tacit deal’s been struck between me and the Author (Oi! Hang on a sec … Is that an actual word? ‘Tacit’? Eh? Tacit?! A ‘tacit deal’?! … What’s it even mean? Okay, fine, I do know – at least I can guess – what it means, thanks very much, but why would I – she – make me say these things, these arty-farty, stuck-up, pretentious things – shove words and ideas into my head and my mouth – which I don’t honestly have the first clue about? Why?).
And the deal (you ask, eyes rolling)? The ‘tacit’ deal? That she will promise to leave me the hell alone (remember the dog bite? The swan attack?) just so long as I don’t go sticking my giant hooter in anywhere that it isn’t wanted (you may need to re-read this sentence a couple of times; not this sentence, the opening sentence. Then the other one – the one after the bracket – to make any sense of it. Sorry. I’m currently stuck behind the wheel, and half my mind is focused on the road ahead. Which leaves precious little to conjure with, obviously). (‘Precious little’? ‘Conjure’? I’m a farmhand, woman! A country bumpkin! An odd-jobs man with a talent for plumbing! Okay, and I can change the odd light fitment, if push comes to shove. That’s me. That’s who I am. That’s Clifford Bickerton. And you? A ‘professional’ writer – a ‘wordsmith’! So raise your pathetic game, why don’t you? Set a standard and stick by it. Because you’re not making an idiot out of me right now, so much as a fool out of yourself. You’re way out of your depth. You’re drowning. It’s all falling apart at the seams. Not that I really give a monkey’s. This is your story. But a man has his … his integrity … his … his pith, and it’s your job, your duty, as ‘Author’ (as ‘Author’?! I would never, never use that phrase! Never! And yes, I do understand that what we are currently dealing with here is a bracket inside another bracket directly following another bracket) to represent this fact in as honest – as sincere – a way as possible. Isn’t it?)
Just so long as I don’t get in the way – destroy her carefully arranged plot with my shining sword of truth etc.
etc.
etc.
That’s why when I saw Mr Huff standing by the bus-stop in Fairlight, with a bright red face, flapping his arms up and down like a caged bantam, I seriously considered not pulling over to offer him a lift. But after I checked my watch I calculated that it was a full fifty minutes until the next bus arrived.
I then smiled wryly to myself because I actually have no idea – none! – what times the buses run. I also noted (in passing) that I was driving up the wrong road and in totally the wrong direction for the job I am currently on (a blocked drain in Westfield). But then why should we (me, I) let these boring little details stand in the path of great literature, eh?
So I pulled over. She obviously wanted me to pull over. And I am her spineless, over-sized, ginger pawn. She has stripped me of all dignity (I didn’t have that much to begin with, did I? Nope, Rusty old man. No you didn’t, as it happens). So I pulled over.
‘Can I offer you a lift, Mr Huff?’ I asked.
‘That’s very kind of you, Mr Pemberton,’ he yelled back (I can see how the Reader might find his habit of getting my name wrong pretty bloody amusing. But if you think about it carefully this seems like an unlikely trope (I would never say ‘trope’! Trope?! Tripe! Complete and utter tripe!) (Uh, yes, I am aware of the fact that we are currently stuck in the middle of yet another, complicated treble bracket pile-up. But blame her. She hasn’t bothered leaving enough room on the page for my internal monologue (I would never, never use the phrase ‘internal monologue’!) so I’m just doing the best that I can within the limits of what’s currently on offer) in a man who has worked as a journalist for many years (are you still following this? Have you kept the brackets strictly compartmentalized? Think ‘inside of a plug’; you know, with the different wires all leading to different places – because that’s the only way you’ll keep any kind of a handle on this pathetic botch-up). Unless it’s all just a big lie (the ‘journalist’ pose) and he’s going to turn out to be a spy or … or an astronaut or a … a time-traveller! In which case this book might actually turn out halfway decent. There’s always a first time for everything, I suppose). Remembering names is his business – as unblocking drains is mine. Although – by and large – I don’t generally unblock a drain close to the drain I need to unblock. I unblock the drain that needs unblocking. So why would Mr Huff repeatedly forget my name? Eh? Unless he is trying to humiliate me, I suppose. But then why would he want to humiliate me? Because he is actually falling in love with Carla Hahn and knows, in his heart-of-hearts, that Carla and I are … are … (What are we, Bickerton, you big pansy? What are we? Huh?).
‘… But I’m perfectly happy to wait for the bus.’
Screw him, Rusty, I thought. Just wave and drive on. But instead I said, ‘The next bus is over fifty minutes off, Mr Huff.’
(Complete hogwash.)
‘I know,’ he said.
(Is he lying too? Or is the bus actually fifty minutes off? If it is, then she’s clearly feeding me ‘lies’ that are – in some crazy way – ‘true’. And I hate that idea. No. I don’t like that idea at all. Because it makes me seem almost, I don’t know, supernatural. Psychic. Which is silly. Because there’s enough mystical mumbo-jumbo in this book already, and I should probably state – up front – that I am not sympathetic to it (mumbo-jumbo etc.) in any way, shape or form. This is a rational age, a cynical age (yes, these are actually my thoughts; not simply some half-arsed pre-digested crap she’s plopped into my head. Although it could still be half-arsed. And crap, come to that).
The Cleary story is definitely a strange one. ‘Haunting’, even (woo-hoo!). But will she ever get around to telling it? Eh? Does she ever get around to telling a story? And aside from that (how can you write a story without actually telling a story?) I just feel like she’s really over-egging the pudding this time around. I can’t seriously imagine her Average Reader would approve (is that you? Or are you just flicking through this at your mother’s house during the Christmas holidays – bored out of your tiny mind – because it’s something she’s been forced to read by her book group?) (I don’t have a clue what a book group is. So I don’t even know why I mentioned that). I think they’ll all say she’s losing the plot. The book’ll bomb. It’ll be remaindered two days after publication and I’ll be remembered as one of her most unsuccessful characters, ever. Better still, one of the most unsuccessful fictional characters of all time. Great! Thanks a bunch! Yet further humiliations on the cards for Mr C. Bickerton Esq.!
Although … Although I’ve got no issues – none – with Orla. The Cleary girl. She was always very sweet. And brave. And pretty messed up, I suppose. By the slutty mother. The creepy priest. Her filthy bastard of a dad.
What other options did she have? Honestly? Being raised in such a crazy hothouse atmosphere? I’ve never … I don’t understand how … I mean all those pointless arguments – those constant, high-flown ‘discussions’ – about politics and money and religion and art. But she was a sweet kid, just the same. With that big old smile. Those tiny arms. Those funny little flippers instead of hands. Way too special (in my opinion) for someone like her to muck around with (why didn’t Edna O’Brien get involved? A real writer? The kind of writer who can always be depended upon to spin a good yarn?). But then nobody gives a damn what I think. Nobody. Nobody. Not Carla Hahn. Not Mr Huff. Not you. Not her. I am the Great Unheard. Clifford-Rusty Bickerton-Pemberton. The Giant Hairy Ignored.)
‘So get in the van,’ I suggest.
‘Okay.’
He climbs in (there’s no door on the passenger side, remember?) and puts on his seat belt.
‘Good idea.’ I smirk. ‘I’d really hate to lose you on a stiff corner.’
(The seat belt doesn’t actually work.)
In fact, the seat belt does work, but I’m wondering whether just saying it doesn’t work means – because of my supernatural powers etc. – that it won’t actually work. I’m not lying (these aren’t lies, as such – who could forget the ‘tacit deal’? Who would dare? Who would be stupid enough?), just … just experimenting with a couple of harmless, little … uh … improvisations. There’s nothing nasty or … or mean in it (I swear). It’s just an innocent experiment. And completely off the cuff. Not pre-planned in any way, shape or form. I am not (I repeat, not) messing about with what you might call the ‘building blocks’ of the plot. These are just silly details. Pointless little details.
So he fastens the (fully functioning) seat belt (I even leaned over and double-checked it! It was firmly locked!) and then we pull off. I start the conversation by referring to the weather.
‘Nice, warm day,’ I say.
Mr Huff looks completely paranoid. ‘I didn’t kiss her,’ he pants, ‘whatever she tells you – told you. I was just trying to make her stop.’
‘Sorry?’
It takes me a few seconds to catch up.
Kiss her?
Kiss her?
‘It was unbearably hot in the sauna,’ he continues. ‘Close. Dark. Airless. She practically forced me to join her in there. I was just returning the money – the rent money. I put it on the kitchen counter. I was calling her. I didn’t even know that it was a sauna. I thought it was simply a shed. Then she came out – stark naked – and insisted that I took off my vest and my pants, and I …’
He swallows, nervously. ‘I am not a natural habitué of the sauna, Mr Pemberton …’
Mr …? Oh ha ha ha.
‘I told her that, quite plainly. I find them a little … well, sordid. I told her that. But she insisted. She really was quite determined to … I mean I really am … to all intents and purposes … I really am the wronged party here.’
‘Hold on. Could we just …?’ I stutter. ‘You’re saying that you and Carla – my Carla … that you …?’
Stark naked?
Kiss?
Sauna?!
No! No! No! I can’t get a handle on this! It’s not … it just doesn’t … My Carla? The Carla? No! It must be a joke. A lie. I can’t … I just don’t understand how the Author could have … could have got her into … manipulated her into … I simply don’t understand how …
‘She practically forced me!’ Mr Huff squeaks. ‘I’m just … It’s been one of those days. First Mrs Meadows putting her hands down my … down my … down …’ He indicates, horrified. ‘But what could I do, Mr Pemberton? Without mortally offending her? After all that protein? And me a … a recently … just … just widowed … Vulnerable! Then a couple of hours later, Miss Hahn. With her … her … I really am quite …’
We are now travelling at approximately ten miles above the National Speed Limit. My foot feels very heavy, all of a sudden, as if my … my frustration, my … my rage, my … my despair (I don’t think that’s too dramatic a word under the circumstances) finds itself perfectly focused (all this black helpless fury) directly above the arch and deep, deep inside the pad …
Mr Huff double-checks his seat belt.
Ha!
It holds.
I am perfectly calm.
Perfectly. Calm.
Although why the heck didn’t I know anything about all this in advance? Why wasn’t I ‘forewarned’? That sixth sense I’ve recently developed? I knew about that other stuff (the parrot, remember? The Author’s other works published – in some cases – several decades after the current year of 1984?). So why didn’t I know about this? Why keep me in the dark till now? Huh? Just to … just to humiliate me, maybe? Or perhaps (twenty miles over the National Speed Limit! Weeeeeeee!) Mr Huff is lying. To upset me. To provoke some kind of … of un … un … unguarded reaction?
Mrs Meadows? Mrs Meadows? Of Lamb House? Rye? Where’s she fit into the wider picture? That stuck-up redhead? Sage Meadows? The toff? The ‘poet’?
Protein?
I suddenly find myself thinking (stupidly, pointlessly) about the Truth. I know the Truth isn’t very popular any more. I’m only an odd-jobs man, but I have a general sense of how lately the clever people – the thinkers, the journalists, the writers, the judges and what-not – don’t really set great store by the Truth. Because there’s always a reason why someone could … always an excuse. And then circumstances may mean that something might not be entirely right or completely wrong, because of all those … those … blurred lines and … and … different viewpoints … and hidden causes … and plots … and conspiracies. It’s like the Truth is a huge block of ice and all these other things are a million, tiny pick-axes. Just chipping away. Chipping away quietly at the Truth. Until … Until what’s left? Eh?
Well I never! Just feast your eyes on that! The Truth is actually a giant, ice-sculpture of Benny Hill dressed as Ernie the Milkman!
Amazing! So lifelike!
But what about my truth? All I can think is: She was with him, Mr Huff, and now she’s with you.
That’s the truth.
My truth.
Isn’t it?
That’s the Actual Truth of this situation?
Mr Huff is speaking. He is saying something about a secret … a secret that Carla has just confided in him and how … how …
And while I hate the man. I hate him. It’s like our thoughts are … are in some kind of natural con-con-con- … in some kind of … of strange sync.
‘She told me the secret,’ he’s saying, ‘about the—’
‘Don’t bother,’ I interrupt, ‘I already know. I already know about the affair with Bran Cleary.’ Because I won’t let him think – not for one … for one second – that he’s breaking this news to me. A man has his pride, finally.
‘I already know what happened between the two of them,’ I run on, ‘but I forgave her. I forgave her. Although that still wasn’t quite enough. She won’t forgive herself, you see.’
Mr Huff looks at me, astonished. I look back at him, equally surprised (she … she had an affair with Bran Cleary?! Do I honestly, actually think that? Oh of course I bloody do! Of course I bloody do! I always suspected it. Always. And nothing else really adds up, does it?).
We are currently thirty miles over the National Speed Limit. Then we turn, sharply, at Stream House (quick change down of the gears, slight touch of the brake), turn a second time (whoooooo!), then once again into the hairpin bend (Here we are! Right on cue! Big round of applause! Incredible feats of timing from the Author!), I tug hard on the steering wheel, and …
And the seat belt – his seat belt – snaps open and he flies out. On to a grassy verge – rolling like a barrel – then into a hedge beyond.
But … but like I said earlier, the seat belt wasn’t faulty! It was a lie! I lied. I even double-checked, remember? That’s the God’s Honest …
Or … or …?
(Dirty chuckle from Benny Hill.)
Did I …?
Did she …?
Did we actually just …?
BRAKE, RUSTY, YOU DAMN FOOL!
BRAKE, MAN, BRAKE!
Oh God, what the hell have you … I … we … us … me … we … you …?