Authors: Jonathan Gash
He woke about three and went downstairs. Television had cricket from Sri Lanka against the South Africans on the only channel he felt safe with. It avoided news. Buster gave him a bleary look and resumed snoring. The retriever now slept in Bray’s small hallway in his flock pit.
Kylee’s cell phone number had not replied, the several times he’d rung. Nothing.
His Internet paperback was uncommonly difficult. The previous evening, while Geoff shuttled between hospital and home, Bray had plodded through its pages of advice. Some aspects proved alarming. One such was IRC, the Internet Relay Chat, which seemed to be the equivalent of radio talk shows. Anybody with a computer seemed able to join in, though what on earth had Finland been thinking of, starting such a thing in 1988? Very worrying, for the “chat” was live.
His nerve began to fail, as the living room curtains showed the pallor of coming day. Live chat on a computer? When you don’t even know anyone? He read on. Type your opinion, and your words appeared that instant on computers all round the world.
This logging business had him flummoxed.
He hadn’t understood Kylee’s testy explanation. How did you know that you
had
sent your message? Could the computer say,
Hey, hang on, you’ve sent it to the wrong country, so rub out and start again
. Kylee hadn’t shown him that, in her one angry lesson that day.
There were other frighteners: computers could hand over control of your own computer to strangers. He felt sickened. Like your private belongings ransacked by a burglar. Sick.
Tiring, he found himself thinking of Kylee. Very improper, the young these days. He almost smiled. How often did older generations think that? He must watch himself. The poor girl had her own difficulties. It wasn’t her fault, dyslexic, partly autistic. Nor was it her poor father’s. Divorced, a problem child, trying to hold on. The thoughts hurt.
Distantly, he heard Geoff’s toilet flush. Morning had broken. Bray switched off the television to start the day. Important steps had to be taken. Work at Gilson Mather had to be fitted in somehow.
The morning flew. Bray watched the clock.
“Some days are like this, Suzanne,” he warned the new assistant cabinet maker. “No problems, then pandemonium.”
“The pillars in your drawings look too thin in the middle.”
Suzanne – to Bray a lady joiner still seemed a novelty – was nearing thirty. Buxom and energetic, she started new jobs with briskness, then lost heart. Bray corrected the angle of her mahogany. She should have been inducted more gradually. As it was, complete with glittering
diploma, she had serious gaps in her knowledge. Bonny, with blind spots.
She was taking over a bureau bookcase from Old Steve, the seniormost craftsman, now hospitalised for something undiagnosed but prolonged. “The entasis is all too often exaggerated.”
Suzanne had made drawings of two matching pillars. The entasis, that slight but planned convexity of columns, was meant to correct the apparent thinning that the human eye was tricked into discovering in cylindrical forms. Ancient Greeks, of course.
“Mine looks right,” she argued. “We can talk it through at lunchtime.”
“Have to go and see somebody.”
“News?” she asked.
He said firmly, “I’ve asked to down the bureau bookcase from a double dome for simplicity. Mr Winsarls says no, but he agrees the candle slides would be superfluous.”
“I can do it,” she said, instantly heated.
“I’m sure,” Bray said kindly. “But time is against us.”
“Would it matter if it was a fortnight late? Your idea of candle slides was lovely.”
He looked at her at such length that she reddened. His mind unclouded.
“Yes, it would matter. I want it out on time.”
“Who’s it for?” she asked truculently. “Somebody special?”
“Yes. A customer.”
Leaving the firm exactly at twelve-thirty, Bray felt he had been unnecessarily brusque. She was only coming to terms with workshop practice. But time was all anyone had.
Fifteen minutes of quick walking and he reached the
medical unit. On the way he drew out enough money to pay in cash. He wanted no traceable records.
The reception nurse got him to fill in forms documenting past ailments. He gave an accommodation address in City Road as his residence. He had fixed it up the previous Thursday.
For almost an hour he was listened to, tapped, had radiographs, scans. His blood pressure was monitored. Embarrassments came and went. Doggedly he submitted to two different doctors. He breathed in, out, lay supine then prone. He had alarming tubes pressed into orifices he’d assumed that even doctors didn’t bother with. He gave specimens of this and that. He struggled to read midget lettering. He had gusts of air blown on his open eyes. He gagged on tongue depressors, was finally released with urbane smiles of dismissal.
He felt worn out. He needed to be sure he was likely to survive long enough. How long is that? he demanded of himself, hurrying back. Well, was it two years? Longer than that, then he might have to start thinking of a substitute. Who would that be? No. His one chance of finding Davey rested on himself alone.
The afternoon went well, in joinery terms. Suzanne worked stoically, becoming pleased as the bureau bookcase measured up. Bray’s idea was to give younger crafters a notion of scale against dimensions, as pieces of the carcass took their separate forms. He taught Suzanne the history of mahogany. She didn’t believe him, about Dr Gibbons wanting a candle box made from oddly tough wood brought by his nautical brother from the New World as mere ballast in the 1720s. Her disbelief was arrogant, but she was young.
Failure of the young was anger’s ally. He would pike on.
He continued to explain as they worked, telling her tales of the great joiner Wollaston, how the genius had actually had to fashion entirely new tools to work the strangely exotic new wood and make the candle box, thus changing all furniture in England, and thereby everywhere, for ever.
She replied tersely that she would bring in her notes from college. She meant she’d correct his wrong ideas.
Five-thirty the same day, Bray entered the investment company offices, carrying details of his assets, some pension plan he didn’t understand, his savings certificates. He had a list of his shares.
The manager was a Mr Condrad, a dapper portly gent who looked as if he ought still to be in school. Bray would have placed him in some junior college, soon about to shave. The office wall was adorned with certificates.
They greeted each other with shielded warmth. Condrad said, “Coffee? Tea?”
“No, thank you,” Bray answered, though he had hurried almost every pace of the way and was parched. “I don’t want to keep you.”
“I’ve read through the lists you sent. You are worth a considerable sum, Mr Charleston.” Condrad gravelled out a laugh, his voice tubular and reverberant. “We usually remonstrate with clients for not putting enough by. You’ve been almost parsimonious.”
“All I want to know is, what are these worth?”
And if there’s enough to rent a printshop, then do a great deal more
. He didn’t say it.
Condrad sat back, fingers steepled. “You want to sell up?”
“Certainly not. I have…family.”
“Schooling?” Condrad cried eagerly. “Our comprehensive plan —”
“Please.” Bray searched for a way. “I need to cope with some expenditure, how to cash things in.”
“What precisely, Mr Charleston?”
“Several things. Buying the best computer available. Internet, all that. And to update it. Duration, two years minimum. Four years, possible.”
Condrad scribbled. “Go on.”
“Three trips to the USA, three weeks each time. Travel, hotel bills.”
“Right.” Condrad waited, pencil poised.
“And I might need a representative there within a year.”
“How often? How long?”
“Perhaps five or six times.” Bray thought. “Oh, and a new modern Scandinavian shed with windows.”
That was it. Without secrecy the whole pack of cards, teetering on a single insubstantial hope, would collapse.
Condrad cast aside his pencil. Bray saw the investment man examine his folder, checking dates, figures. Eventually he straightened.
“Mr Charleston. Do you follow share movements?” Bray shook his head. “You don’t follow the FTSE, Dow, Asian indexes?”
“No.”
“How did you select my services? This interview has a price, though a small one.” Condrad’s smile was wry. “Even so, I’m among the costliest in the City.”
“I heard your name on the train.”
“Do you have earned income, Mr Charleston?”
“I make furniture, all my life in the trade.” He pointed to his lists. “And get commission on auction sales of restored antiques.”
“Mr Charleston, you’re quite a wealthy man.”
“Your conclusion?”
“If that expenditure is all, Mr Charleston, your assets can take it without even a blip.” Condrad translated, “Ah, these USA visits…?”
Bray thought a moment. “If I wanted to begin some enterprise in the USA – employ a helper, start my own workshop – would I have enough?”
He passed Condrad a guess-list. Condrad examined the costs of tools and shipment in Bray’s copperplate thick against the white.
“Easily, Mr Charleston. Ah, Lunnon Devizes could lend assistance. We have transatlantic companies engaged in various enterprises. I’d be pleased to help. And we lend at favourable rates.”
Bray heard the man out. He asked a few questions, only to please Mr Condrad, then took his leave.
He had no doubt that Condrad had kept records of his assets. The amount the investment counsellor had written down (“Very approximate, Mr Charleston, of course!”) startled Bray. He was well off.
Was he a bore? The thought worried him. He’d only ever gone to work, occasionally had a flutter on the Grand National and Derby. Was he dull? His main costs had been his mortgage, until he’d paid off the Church Street Building Society as, simply, a nuisance. Who’d have thought? Such graphs. Condrad had been proud of his charts.
“Your assets, Mr Charleston, can laugh at such expenditure,” Condrad had said almost with regret. “Your residuals ought to be more active. Pity to let them rust like a derelict motor.”
“I’ll consider that, Mr Condrad.”
“You have no phone number, I notice.” More reprimand.
“I’ll notify you if I decide to change my lifestyle.”
He’d been really proud of that. It was Suzanne’s term, her
lifestyle
.
Bray could laugh at the expenditure, which until an hour ago had loomed as such an obstacle. The best computer? Trips to the USA, assuming he knew where to go? The cost of hiring an agent? All now cheap at the price.
He caught the seven-thirty from Platform Nine, with time to buy a flaky roll, jam concealed in some new, possibly Continental, manner, and a dilute black coffee. Indiscriminately he bought four weighty computer magazines, vaguely hoping to learn without Kylee.
As the crowded train started to move, excitement stirred in him. Once the telephone company connected his shed to their magic machines circling up there in Outer Space, he could start, God knows how. He ate his curved bread thing, shedding greasy flakes onto his knees, and drank the coffee as soon as it was cool.
He’d had a troubling day. Enough money, presumedly dependable health. All he lacked now was a computer. Pity about autistic Kylee, but she would have been uncontrollable with her dyslexia and her queer-smelling cigarettes.
The train’s wheels changed beat and roused him. Angrily he rebuked himself. Had he dozed?
Self-indulgence
was out. No room for it. He had no right to let Davey down like that.
The crowd was slow coming out of the booking hall. As he shuffled out with the rest somebody spoke.
“You took your fucking time!”
“I beg your…?”
Kylee swiped at him in irritation. “I been waiting here bleeding hours.”
A passing woman tut-tutted in reproof. The girl glared.
“What you staring at? Stupid old cow!” She took Bray’s arm. “We got your clack. Porky’s got wheels.”
Clack? Porky?
She shoved him through the press disgorging onto the station forecourt. A lout was sitting in a derelict truck, taxi drivers and station police arguing with him.
“My dad’s here now,” Kylee shouted. “Sort it out wiv him.”
Bray found himself having to apologise on all sides, was bundled into the vehicle’s cabin. Kylee shouted abuse, and they were off.
“You have what, Kylee?” Bray asked humbly. “I didn’t quite catch…”
“Clack. You fucking deaf or what?”
“Comp – yooo – tah,” the lout said, laughing, swinging the pick-up’s steering wheel alarmingly. He looked about fifteen, spiky hair, studs in his nose, earlobes and what appeared to be a line of staples along his chin. He looked unbelievably frayed. “He’s thick. You fucking pick ’em, Kyle.”
“I see.” Bray hadn’t come across the term in the Internet handbook, because he had disgracefully fallen asleep on the train.
“It’s clean,” the lout said, doubling with laughter, interrupting himself to bawl obscenities at some saloon car.
“Tell Porky,” Kylee said. The truck stopped. They looked at Bray. “Tell Porky where to.”
“Directions? Ah, left, please.”
“Jesus,” Porky growled. “You fucking pick ’em, Kyle.”
Shouting angrily at the traffic, the lad pulled out in front of an approaching bus. Bray thought,
three
successes now? He clung on as the vehicle swerved towards his village.
Geoff was home, his lights were on. Bray asked Porky to drive round the back.
“Here.” Kylee did her glare. “You shamed of us?”
“Not at all.” Bray was aching. The truck slewed every few yards, jarring his teeth. “I want it in my shed.”
“Fucking shed?” Porky braked with vigour. “He’s a fucking loon, Kyle.”
They unloaded three boxes. Porky shinned over the garden wall and undid the bolts. Buster came playing hunting dog at them. Unbelievably he took to Kylee and Porky. The boxes occupied almost all the floor space.
“He’s called Buster,” Bray said. “Lives next door at my son’s, really.”
Porky looked around in the shed. “Where’s your phone?”
“I haven’t got one, I had rather hoped —”
“Fucking
rather hoped
?” Porky exploded. “Jesus fucking Christ!”
“I shall try to expedite —”
Porky was disgusted. “He fucking real or what?” He slammed out.
“I’m so sorry,” Bray said, distressed. “I really have asked for a phone.”
“Leave it to Porky.” Kylee calmly inspected the interior. She picked up a wooden figure. “Where you get all these toys?”
“I made them.” Bray tried to work out an apology for this odd girl and invented, “I thought maybe a hospital or a nursery.”
Kylee said they were nice. “Whyn’t you buy proper tools, with labels? Porky’ll get you a new set, not nicked.”
“I make my own,” Bray said quickly. “But thank you.”
“You make the titchies too? How?” She picked up a miniature wood plane and casually dropped it. Bray winced, replaced it with care. “Clever old sod.”
“Not really. Best to have the right implement.”
She gauged him. Bray could hear Porky returning across the grass. He seemed to be talking to himself. “Why you always saying sorry?”
“Am I?” he asked mildly, and measured his reply. “I’ll watch myself.”
“What’s your name? What they call you.”
“Bray.”
“Got the money?” Porky entered the shed closing a cell phone.
“Of course.” Bray felt satisfaction. He had quite sufficient. “Would you come inside? I’ll brew up and write you a cheque.”
Pleased, he led the way. They followed, Porky annoyed at everything.
“He fucking real, Kyle? I can’t use paper.”
“Give us money, eh? We’re cheaper than anybody else, wack.” The sum Kylee mentioned was less than half what the magazines had said. Bray asked if there was some mistake.
Kylee’s glance warned him. “You’d okayed it, Bray, right?”
“Ah, right. I haven’t that much cash on me, I’m afraid.”
“You’ve a phone here,” Porky accused.
“My son’s, for business,” Bray fibbed. “I’ve only the shed.”
“They’ll bring your phone. Don’t unpack them boxes, right?”
“Very well,” Bray said. “Shall I send the money in care of your father tomorrow, Kylee?”
Eyes rolled. “Porky’ll collect it.”
They left before Bray could finish making tea, but took two packets of biscuits, a loaf, three tins of beer and a battenburg. Porky was disappointed Bray had no cigarettes. Bray gave Kylee what money he carried, thanked them for their trouble, and asked Kylee if she could bring a receipt the following day. Both grinned. Buster came with Bray to wave them off. Bray heard Porky say, “Receipt? His fucking ta-very-much is doing my fucking head in.”
“He’s all right.” Kylee waved back. “He’s just thick.”
He was finishing supper when Geoff rang from the psychiatric unit wanting to meet him there. Nothing desperate, but to come soon. He promised not to be long and took Buster to Hal Lumley’s.
The psychiatrist, Bray suspected, deliberately dressed down as a concession. He took against Dr Torrance’s practised manner. Were they ever off duty?
They listened to the vague predictions.
“I feel it would be better to move Shirley. Not far, just enough to show differences: location, staff.”
Shirley, Bray thought. You use a child’s first name,
talking down, assuming them imbecilic. Would he do the same to dyslexics like Kylee?
“How long for, Dr Torrance?” Geoff asked.
“Maybe only a month, maybe longer. A great deal depends on Shirley’s response.”
“Would it improve my wife’s chances?”
“Of recovery? Very much so. I take it there hasn’t been any…?”
“No, no news.”
“We must be kept informed, Mr Charleston.”
“I’ll be in touch daily. Where will the new unit be?”
“Some twenty miles away. You know Colesden? It’s quite a retreat, just enough to be interesting. May we move Shirley tomorrow?”
“I’ll try to get off work to come with her.”
“Charge Nurse will give you directions and names of contact staff. We have bungalows for visitors. One perk,” Dr Torrance snuffled a chuckle, “the Health Service still provides!”
They said their thanks and went to wait for the senior registrar.
“Who’s that girl, Dad?” Geoff suddenly asked. “Scruffy, looks off the street.”
“She’s a computer lass.” Bray was put on the defensive. “Her father’s Mr Walsingham from the technical college.”
“She was hanging about the avenue for over an hour. She knocked, wanting to deliver something.”
“It was by arrangement.”
“Why didn’t you say?”
“I forgot,” Bray said lamely.
“How old is she?”
“She’s fourteen.”
“This is with her dad’s approval?”
“Not quite.” Bray shamefacedly explained how he had tried to enrol at the college. “She gave me an impromptu lesson.”
“She came in a
truck
, Dad. In the avenue. And that youth looked a tearaway.”
“They waited for me at the station.” Might as well get it over with. “They’ve put the computer in the shed. It seems to need some special phone.”
“Dad. This isn’t anything to do with…with Davey?”
Bray looked his son straight in the eye and lied, “No.” He had rehearsed this endlessly, muttered on the Tube, startling other passengers. “How on earth could it?”
“Work, is it?”
“Mr Winsarls is starting a survey,” Bray invented recklessly. “I’m ashamed. Everybody uses them except me. I want to learn, before all the rare imported hardwoods are blotted up.”
“Good idea, Dad.”
They rose as the senior registrar approached, matter forgotten.