Authors: Nicola Barker
‘Hang on a second…’ Winnie paused, confused. ‘A part of what?’
‘The puzzle. The
picture.
Like the Reverend said, God
made
me fall off the wall that day…’
‘The wall?’
‘When I fell off the wall an’ bust my leg…’
‘You did
what
?’
‘An’ then I met Gaffar. An’ I was allergic to painkillers. An’ Gaffar stole the envelope. An’ I read the papers, an’ I met the Reverend. An’ the Reverend had this
vision
that Paul would say “Bollocks”. Then he did. An’ now we’re goin’ to Africa. And my grandad was a
monk.
He dieted for Christ too. An’ it’s all because I fell off that wall. Because of
you
…’
‘You’re just babbling now,’ the Reverend soberly interjected. He leaned in closer to Kelly’s phone. ‘She’s just babbling,’ he informed Winifred.
‘Who’s that?’ Winnie demanded.
‘It’s the Rev. Ignore him. He’s only in a bad mood ‘cos I brought down the roof…’
‘You did what?’
Winnie sounded bewildered.
‘Like I told that stupid nurse, it was a total, fuckin’
accident
…’
‘Kelly…’ The Reverend nudged her.
‘So will you go?’ Kelly demanded, ignoring him. ‘Will you look?’
‘To the library?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well I’m sure I’ll probably be heading into town at
some
point…’
‘BRILLIANT!’
Kelly paused, inhaled, at which juncture the Reverend snatched the phone from her. ‘It was just a
metaphor,’
he said, ‘God speaks in metaphors, as I tried my best to explain to her. And forget Africa. She’s getting way ahead of herself on that count…’ he paused. ‘And there was
no
impropriety. Doesn’t matter what they say. My curtains were only closed because I have a certain
sensitivity
…’ he inhaled, sharply, ‘in fact the doctor’s just heading over, so if it’s all right with you, I’ll draw a neat, little
veil
around this peculiar interlude and bid you a very…uh…’
He took the phone from his ear and stared at it for a moment, trying to figure out how to end the call, then something else occurred to him and he returned it to his ear. ‘Are you still there?’
‘Yeah,’ Winnie answered, suddenly quite exhausted. ‘Just to set the record completely straight,’ the Reverend continued, ‘I’m actually a
High
Anglican. It was a
High
Anglican vision. Nothing remotely radical, or weird, or New Age or – God forbid…’ (he quickly crossed himself), ‘Evangelical…’
He removed the phone from his ear again, finally located the right button, and cut Winnie off with it.
‘I really don’t mean to be a liturgical
bore,’
he informed Kelly, passing her the phone, ‘but we need to discuss the concept of The Fall – as a matter of some urgency…’
‘Jus’ gimme a
kiss,
you big ape,’ Kelly exclaimed, throwing out her arms, beaming. And then, as she proceeded to envelop the Reverend in a robust hug: ‘D’ya hear that, Doc?’ she demanded, over the Reverend’s twitching shoulder. ‘We Broads got
class,
yeah? We got
breedin’.
We got
pedigree
!’ she cackled. ‘Just like the fuckin’
dog-
meat! Like
chum
! Like all those natty little mutts at
Crufts.
We’re
up
there, mate. We
arrived
! We pulled it
off
! Ding-
dong
!’ she hollered, her gleeful voice echoing down the corridor. ‘Ding-bloomin’-
dong
!’
He gently covered her with a blanket, walked over to the light switch (it had a dimmer mechanism on it), glanced around the room for a final time and turned it off. He strolled into the kitchen to ensure the back door was locked. It wasn’t. So he turned the key and shot the bolt.
On his way out he noticed a small pool of liquid on the tiles. He grimaced, crouching down to inspect it –
Dog piss
– then quickly grabbed some paper towel and cleaned it up. Once this was done –
Yuk
– he went to try and locate the dog.
‘Michelle?’
He peered along the hallway –
Nope.
So where…?
He observed a door, slightly ajar, just off to his left – a room he hadn’t been into before…
‘Michelle?’
He paused, his head slightly cocked, listening intently. Was that a sound? A
whimper
? He pushed the door wider and felt blindly along the wall for the light. He found the switch. He pressed it. The light came on. He winced. It was a bright light – just a bare bulb (the
shade having been removed at some point). He looked around for the dog. He spotted her. She was cowering under the table. He pushed the door wider, took a tentative step towards her and then –
Good God
He froze.
It was actually a dining-room – by no means a huge room – mostly taken up by a table and six chairs (several of which had been placed against the walls – to better improve access to the table, he supposed). And on top of the table? Crowning it? Over-running it?
Eclipsing
it?
Holy Moly!
A crazy, chaotic, matchstick town: a cathedral…a palace…a bridge…a
water
mill…
Wow
Kane slowly moved forward, so hesitantly at first that it was almost as if he thought the matchsticks might all collapse (that they might not actually be glued). Then he stood and he stared, quite agog.
After a minute or so he gradually began prowling around the table, intently apprehending each individual model from every angle, finally drawing to a halt (right back where he’d started) on the southern side of the large cathedral.
This was surely the pinnacle – the
pièce de résistance
? A wildly ambitious, terrifyingly meticulous, insanely ornate and yet perfectly magnificent structure (as yet unfinished). It was also…
well…
oddly…
uh
…(he scratched his head, bemused)…strangely
…uh…–
Familiar, somehow…
He blinked. He drew in still closer, concentrating so intently on the finer details that he was barely even breathing now. He nervously reached out a tentative finger…
‘Don’t!’
A voice spoke.
He turned, withdrawing his hand, surprised. It was the boy –
Huh?
He glanced down at himself. He suddenly realised that he had fallen to his knees. He was kneeling.
‘I
know
this place,’ he exclaimed, ‘I had this incredible
dream
…’
‘John saw it while he was in France,’ the boy automatically responded, rather like a tour guide. ‘He thought it was beautiful. He often thinks about it.’
‘No…you don’t understand,’ Kane repeated, barely even registering what the boy was saying, ‘I had a
dream,
but it was
exactly
…’
‘I know,’ the boy brushed him aside, contemptuously. ‘We
all
dream about it.’
Kane frowned, confused, as the child drew abreast of him.
He was still on his knees.
‘How d’you mean?’
‘Did the bird do that?’ the boy wondered, inspecting Kane’s knuckles dispassionately.
‘Do what?’
Kane half-turned.
‘That,’
the boy pointed, ‘on your hands.’
‘Huh?’
Kane inspected his palms.
‘No,
silly,
on the
back
…’
The boy turned his hands over –
Ouch!
Kane winced at his touch. The skin on his fingers felt swollen; stretched, incredibly sensitive. He gazed down at them, horrified, expecting second-degree burns, at least, but there was nothing visibly wrong with them. He blinked –
Nothing.
Perfectly fine.
Perfectly smooth.
‘There’s nothing wrong with my hands,’ he said, clearly spooked.
‘Oh.’
The boy shrugged.
Kane paused, frowning. ‘So you actually
saw
the bird?’
‘Did you meet the pretty lady?’ The boy ignored his question, smiling mischievously. ‘The pretty lady, over there,’ he indicated towards the far side of the cathedral, ‘by the altar?’
Kane’s cheeks flushed as he remembered his dream.
‘John loves to hide,’ the boy confided, peering inside the cathedral now, through its half-finished southern entrance, ‘to creep up,
very
slowly and then…
WAH
!’ he turned, springing forward, with a yell.
Kane almost tipped over, backwards, in surprise. The boy cackled, delighted. ‘He’s always doing it to Mummy,’ he chuckled. ‘It’s
funny
…’ He chuckled again, but then after a few seconds his smile faded into a frown. ‘I wonder where he’s taken Daddy this time,’ he murmured.
‘John?’ Kane echoed, struggling to regain his former composure. ‘Is he one of the contractors?’
‘Who?’
The boy began scratching at his arms, irritably.
‘One of the builders?’ Kane reiterated (remembering how Elen called out this same name a short while earlier, in the kitchen). ‘Is he one of the people working on the house?’
‘No,
stupid…’ The boy shook his head, smiling, and then,
‘Yes,’
he rapidly changed tack, nodding his head, a sly look flitting across his face. He continued to scratch.
Kane glanced down at his hands again – still slightly paranoid – but once again his skin felt smooth to the touch. It felt fine.
‘So did your daddy build this?’ he asked, turning towards the cathedral.
‘Him?’
The boy snorted, contemptuously, his scratching growing ever more intense.
‘He
couldn’t build this.’
‘Don’t do that,’ Kane instructed him, reaching out to restrain him, ‘you’ll draw blood if you’re not careful.’
The boy knocked his hand away, still scratching, defiantly.
‘Show me your arms.’
Kane grabbed a hold of one of the boy’s wrists and pulled up the sleeve of his pyjama top. The right arm was covered in a mess of tiny, bleeding bites. He grabbed the left arm, pushed back the sleeve and paused. On the soft flesh of the left forearm (punctuated by yet more
bites) was a birthmark. A pale, pinkish birthmark. He stared at it for a moment, surprised.
‘Are these
bites
of some kind?’ he demanded, after a short pause.
‘Flea bites,’ the boy nodded. He indicated towards a glass jar on the table. Kane glanced over at the jar. He remembered seeing the jar before: it was the same jar Lester had been carrying – the jar of nothing.
‘It’s empty,’ he said, but even as he said it he remembered his conversation with Geraldine, the conversation about…
‘No it isn’t!’ the boy grinned, delighted. ‘It’s all full of
fleas.
We’ve been
training
them to live in the cathedral. We glued cotton to them. Invisible cotton…’
‘Invisible?’
‘Yes. Lester brought it. It’s
special
cotton…Look…’
The boy opened a small drawer in the side of the table and withdrew a normal-seeming spool of black thread.
‘Now you see it,’ he said, beginning to unwind a dark strand from the spool. ‘And now you
don’t
!’
Kane looked down at the cotton. The boy was right. As soon as a strand was unwound it all-but disappeared.
‘How
odd
…’ He drew in closer, intrigued. The boy handed him the spool. Kane took a strand of the thread between his fingers and tensed it against the reel. ‘I’ve never seen this stuff before. It’s almost like a very fine kind of
fishing
twine.’
‘Lester says his mummy uses it.’
Kane inspected the end of the spool: ‘Coats 100% Nylon Invisible Thread,’ he read, ‘200m. Matches All Colours.’
‘Give it back now,’ Fleet demanded. Kane passed it over. The boy returned it, punctiliously, to its place in the drawer. While he did so Kane picked up the empty jar. He peered inside. Sure enough, on closer inspection he was able to see dozens of tiny black dots with a series of fine, floating strands attached.
‘So how do they breathe?’ he asked. ‘I mean with the lid screwed on?’
‘I don’t know,’ the boy shrugged.
‘Perhaps there’s just enough air trapped inside…’ Kane mused.
‘We must feed them,’ the boy said, taking the jar from him.
‘Feed them?’ Kane echoed.
The boy rolled up his pyjama sleeve. Kane was horrified. ‘You’ve been feeding them on your
arm
?’
The boy nodded, unperturbed. ‘Daddy put powder on Lester’s dog,’ he explained, indicating towards the spaniel. ‘We was using her to feed the fleas, but now we
can’t
…’
‘Lester’s dog?’ Kane echoed.
The boy glanced over at him, in alarm, as if he’d been unintentionally caught out. Then his face closed up.
‘So Michelle is
Lester’s
dog?’ Kane reiterated.
The boy shrugged.
‘Does your mother know?’ Kane wondered.
‘Know?’
the boy surveyed him, haughtily. ‘Know
what
?’
‘About the fleas. And about who Michelle actually belongs to?’
‘Don’t be
stupid
!’ the boy exclaimed.
Then he paused for a moment, another sly look crossing his face. ‘John needed some money, so he made a special
powder
for killing fleas,’ he announced, ‘but it wasn’t
really
a special powder – it was just chalk. And on Sunday he sold it for a penny to all the wives at church. Then after a few weeks the wives came to find him. They was cross. They said, “Your powder doesn’t work. The fleas are worse than they
ever
was.” But John says, “Of course the powder works.” The wives say, “No. It doesn’t. We want our money back.” So John says, “Well how did you
apply
the powder?” And the wives say, “We shook it from the jar – on all our clothes an’ our sheets an’ our blankets – that it might kill the fleas.” Then John begins to smile as if they are
very
foolish. So they say, “
Why
are you smiling?” and he says, “But of
course
it won’t work if you shake it from the jar! You must feed it to the fleas on a little spoon, one by one, and then, when they have eaten their fill they will lie down and die – but
only
if you feed them one by one.”’