Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite! (19 page)

'Not sure where he lives, and we haven't had any contact in... I don't know, like five years, six maybe. But this was his number back then, so as long as he hasn't changed it, I think he'll still be in Glasgow.'

I took the number down on a piece of paper. I was operating without a phone, as the agency hadn't provided me with one and I didn't consider it an essential. The phone had never taken over my life in the way that it seemed the rest of society had allowed it to.

'Jones?' I asked, looking up.

He shook his head.

'If she's looking for you already,' he said, 'she'll find you. She found you before, didn't she?'

'I met her in a bar,' I said. 'Total accident.'

He didn't say anything, then he took a long slug from the glass. Downed about half of it in one go. We weren't anything near the twenty minutes, but I could tell that he was getting ready to leave.

'There are two types,' he said, laying the glass back down. His lips were moist. 'There's you and me and Norman. Maybe we make shit up, maybe we hide things, it's not all there, playing out on the surface. But we're people. Ordinary people, full of subtlety and complexity, every aspect of life dwelling inside us in some small measure, different aspects of that bubbling to the surface at any moment. That's how it is.'

He paused to take another long drink, not quite draining the glass. I waited to hear about the second type.

'And then there are those like the Jigsaw Man and Jones.' He hesitated again, although this time he didn't lift the glass. 'Didn't you think sometimes... didn't you think, this guy sitting here at the table, doing his jigsaw... he looks like the same guy that was sitting here yesterday, and if he bothers opening his mouth he'll sound like the same guy... but it's not him. This is someone else. And Jones was the same. I don't know who Jones was, I really don't, and I haven't, like, thought of her in the longest time, but... you know, it seemed like there was more than one of her, that's all. I can't explain what I mean by that, or how that might have happened.'

I didn't speak. He lifted his glass and downed the rest of his drink.

'But that's how it was. So be careful. I might say that I hope you don't find what you're looking for.'

'Maybe there's more than one of all of us,' I said.

He looked across the table, his face indecipherable. What was that look? Sadness? Pity? Did he feel sorry for me because I couldn't understand what was going on?

'It's nice to see you again,' he said. 'Take care. Really. I'm sorry this has been so quick, but I'd be lying if I said that seeing you again has not disconcerted me somewhat. I'm going to go home, get outrageously drunk and, if I still can, fuck my husband.'

*

I
spent the evening sitting in the hotel bar. I ate a sandwich and some crisps, and drank excessively. I didn't seem to be able to get drunk. It seemed that meeting Henderson had disconcerted us both.

I had gone through a lot to unearth the notion that there was more than one Jigsaw Man; or, at least, there were four manifestations of the one man. How had Henderson been able to see that just sitting in the café all those years ago? Why had he been sensitive to that? And where did Jones fit into this? Was she some other representation of the Beatles, or something else, something completely different?

I'd always thought her a little flighty, but that was all. Lots of people are flighty, but did a tendency to capriciousness have to mean that someone was abnormally split into different people?

I couldn't get drunk. My head was already confused and filled with the kind of bizarre images and muddled thinking that come with alcohol, so it seemed the alcohol could make no difference.

There was a piano player in the corner, working his way through a succession of '40s and '50s standards, like someone had just given him the Cole Porter songbook for his birthday. There weren't many other people about. A few came and went. No one else stayed as long as I did. I was expecting Jones to turn up soon, but I knew it wouldn't be that evening.

Just before twelve, I started to feel a bit off. I went up to my room. As I was cleaning my teeth, I realised I was going to be sick. Vomited two or three times, drank a glass of water, cleaned my teeth again, then collapsed into bed, hoping to fall asleep before the next wave of nausea arrived. I woke up half an hour later to throw up one more time, then went back to bed, and this time managed to sleep through until morning.

––––––––

I
found Two Feet at a building site the following morning. We'd had a brief phone call at seven-thirty as he was just heading out the door to work, and he'd said where I could find him. He sounded surprised and genuinely delighted to hear from me, unlike Henderson's guarded composure.

I managed to eat some toast and drink two cups of coffee, a glass of water and two small glasses of orange juice. I'd woken up still feeling rough, but was better for the light breakfast.

Someone had decided that what was needed just off the M8 near Springburn was another giant shopping mall. I arrived at the site entrance some time after ten. It was a bleak day, although the rain had stopped a couple of hours earlier. Even so, it was one of those cold, damp, sullen days in the west of Scotland that appeared at any time of year. Only the few new leaves on the trees said that it was neither the middle of August nor the depths of January.

There didn't seem to be much activity on the site. The guy at the entrance handed me an orange reflective vest and a yellow hard hat and told me I had to wear them all the time I was onsite. Putting them on for the first time, I felt a bit like a kid dressing up, but everyone else was wearing the same thing, or variations thereof, so the overall effect of the dressing-up box was to make me blend in, and consequently feel more comfortable.

I got to a part of the site where a steel structure had been erected, the bones of a building waiting to be filled in. All around were piles of bricks and concrete for mixing, and construction vehicles seemingly abandoned to the grimness of the day.

'I'm looking for a guy called Norman,' I said to a woman walking by. She, at least, seemed to have some sort of purpose about her. She barely stopped as she spoke.

'Norman? You mean Two Feet?'

'Sure.'

She pointed upwards and walked on without speaking further. I looked up. High above the ground there was a man sitting on his own, his legs dangling over the edge of a beam. I watched him for a moment. It was hard to tell from this angle and distance, but it could have been Two Feet.

I thought about shouting, but there was a slight wind and there's never been much volume about my voice. I looked around. At each corner of this structure there was scaffolding, with stairs running up the centre. I paused for a moment, but I'd come this far looking for Two Feet, and there was really nowhere else to go.

I walked into the middle of the scaffolding, all the time waiting for someone to shout at me and ask what I was doing, but it appeared that my outfit was enough to prevent any questions. I walked up the stairs until I got to the top platform, aware as I went that I was slowing down the closer I got.

There was a square platform, then a few planks with a makeshift handrail extending in either direction, at ninety degrees, along the two sides of the building. Beyond that there was a single steel girder, perhaps three feet in width, running along to the next corner, and the next platform.

Two Feet was sitting on the girder, about twenty yards away from the end of the planks and the platform, eating a sandwich. No handrail, no safety net, nothing between him and a headlong plummet to certain death. He did, however, have a lovely view over the whole of the city of Glasgow. Which, I must say, on a day such as this was hardly Florence.

'Two Feet!' I called out.

It was cold up here, a bit of a wind blowing. He turned and looked at me. He was holding a sandwich in one hand, the cup from a flask in the other. He broke into a smile.

'Hey, get in! Take a seat, man.'

I was trying not to look down. I couldn't look down.

'You fancy coming back here?' I shouted.

'Just on my break, man. Come and sit down, don't be a pussy,' he called back.

He turned back to the view.

'Don't look down,' he shouted without turning round, then he laughed.

I stared at him, the curious sight, the slightly hunched figure, looking exactly like the Two Feet I'd known twenty years previously, sandwich in hand, his hard hat placed on the beam. Up here I don't suppose anything was going to fall on his head.

He'd said not to look down, but I couldn't even countenance moving out onto the beam without first assessing the entire area. I looked down. I fought the instinct to curl up in a ball on the floor next to something solid, and the other instinct to close my eyes, and kept looking at it. I looked up at the view, letting my eyes fly over the city as I gripped the last piece of scaffolding, then back down to the ground, then along to Two Feet.

'Not sure I can do it,' I said.

He didn't look round, instead making a small movement with his sandwich. The movement said, 'Your choice. I'm here if you want me.'

Presumably he wouldn't sleep up here. I could go away for the day, sit on a chair that was only a couple of feet off the ground, and then come back to greet him at the exit. Yet I knew that there was more than that going on. I recognised that Two Feet didn't usually sit out on this beam admiring the view. The Two Feet I knew cared little for views. He would've been far more likely to be found eating his sandwich in a small hut, the walls of which had been covered in pictures of naked women.

I was being tested. I had no idea by whom, and I didn't think for a moment that Two Feet was part of it, but for some reason on the day that I had come to see him, he had decided to sit on a beam who knows how high above the ground, and while I could easily wait and see him at some point when he got down, I knew that if I did that then I wouldn't be told the crucial piece of information I would find out if I spoke to him up here.

Realising that, however, did not make walking out onto the beam any easier.

I had an exact recurrence of the feeling of fear that I'd had on the plane. Same thing. Same trepidation, same desperate need to be somewhere else.

I swallowed. Swallowed my fear. Was it that simple? Then I walked along the planks with their slender handrail and then, once the planks and the handrail ended, I stepped out onto the beam, determined not to look down, walking straight ahead, my eyes on Two Feet the whole time.

There was a slight wind, which seemed magnified by the situation. Just had to keep telling myself there was no reason why I couldn't keep walking in a straight line, and that if I did so, then I'd be fine.

Think about something else. Think about Jones. Jones was more than one person, that was what Henderson had said. Previously I would have thought that was insane, but now I was looking for one quarter of a man, and genuinely believing that was my quest, so why shouldn't Jones be the same?

Mouth dry, palms hot, heart racing as quickly as it had done when I'd been on the plane, I reached Two Feet and sat down hurriedly beside him. I dangled my legs over the edge, but kept my weight back.

'Jesus,' said Two Feet, 'that was brave. I just shuffled along here on my arse.'

I let out a rather desperate little laugh and looked straight ahead. The whole of Glasgow lay before us, but I couldn't tell what I was looking at. It all seemed the same from up here, identical in its grey, overcast melancholy. And I was disconcerted to find that sitting here was just as terrifying as walking along the beam in the first place.

'Beautiful, isn't it?' said Two Feet.

'No,' I said, my voice sounding strange, 'I don't think so. It looks kind of bleak.'

'You want a sandwich?'

'What kind?' I said, then quickly shook my head. 'Doesn't matter. No thanks.'

'Coffee?'

'Sure, that'd be nice.'

He poured me a cup. As he turned to do so he laid down the sandwich he was eating, and then inadvertently knocked it over the edge. I made one small, jerky movement to try and grab it, enough to give me a sharp jab of fear, and then he tutted loudly, muttered, 'Shite,' then leaned forward to watch the downward plummet of his tuna mayo on white.

He watched it fall, obviously feeling there was no need to shout out a warning. In my head I pictured a sandwich falling through the air, but I couldn't bring myself to lean forward and watch the real thing.

'Wasted,' he said, straightening up, the sandwich obviously having reached its destination. 'I'll check it out when we get down there, see what state it's in.'

That, at least, was the Two Feet we'd all known and been slightly perturbed by.

He handed over the coffee in the smaller, handle-less inner cup of the flask, steam rising into the dank air.

'Milk, no sugar?' he said.

I nodded. My hands were shaking slightly as I took the cup from him. Fear rather than cold, but the warmth felt good either way.

'Great to see you, man,' he said. For a dreadful moment I thought he was going to clap me on the back, but after the initial movement of his hand he seemed to think better of it.

'You too,' I said. 'You're doing this now?'

'Yep,' he said smiling. 'Like the Boss said, I got a job working construction...'

I took a sip of coffee, looked out over the city. Filter. Nice. I thought I sensed citrus, and tried to take my mind off our perilous location.

'Ethiopian?' I asked.

'No,' he said. 'Tesco's.'

Talking about the coffee hadn't worked. I tried to work out what was best. Stare at my hands, look straight ahead, or look at Two Feet. I wasn't doing well. This wasn't going to last so long.

'You back up here full time?' he asked.

It was apparent that, like Henderson, Two Feet had received no tidings of my death in a plane crash. It was possible I hadn't died in the plane crash; but equally possible that no one had thought to tell them. These guys would hardly have been top of Brin's list.