‘Don’t take the piss.’
‘Why don’t you tell me about it? Why don’t you? You never tell me about it.’
‘It’s too . . . It would take too long.’ He wanted to tell her that it was too scary to talk about. He thought he would tell her, one day. But not tonight. He looked up at the sky. ‘Stars are bright.’
‘Change subject on me, would you?’
He looked back at her. ‘I love you, Alice. But you know that.’
Her eyes searched his face. Then she stood up. ‘Come back inside. Hold my hand.’
Zoot was well into his third encore. The evening had been a wild success, the landlady was making good sales, the club was up and running. After Zoot denied the crowd a fourth encore, and the drinkers scrambled to the bar for last orders, Sam went to help the old musician with his gear. He needed to get near to the man.
‘Why did you write that song?’
‘Which song you say?’
‘ ‘‘The Tooth Fairy’’.’
Zoot put a huge, leathery hand on Sam’s shoulder, cocked his head to one side and smacked his lips. ‘Well, I was a-dreaming . . . ummm, ummm. That’s right. This toof fereh come take mah toof. I said, no, you don’t take mah toof . . . ummm? No, sir. I want this here toof for mahself. I wrote the song. Heh, heh, heh!’
Sam gazed back at the old man. Then Zoot was beleaguered by admirers who pressed forward to talk to him. Before turning away he said, ‘I thank you kindly, young man, for carrying mah guitar.’
‘What did he say?’ Clive was frantic to know. ‘Tell me what he said.’
‘Nothing.’
‘Come on!’
‘He just said he wrote the song.’
‘Actually, Sam, you’re not the first person to believe in fairies. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, he was a great believer. You and he would get on like a house on fire. He even wrote a book about it.’
Sam had never seen Skelton looking so haggard, so tired. He’d mentioned to Sam that he was approaching retirement, and Sam had noticed a carelessness about him recently, an untidiness in the office that wasn’t in evidence when he’d first visited Skelton several years ago. Mrs Marsh, his faithful secretary, had lately adopted an air of exasperated patience. Skelton was like a man who, somewhere along the line, had lost the faith and didn’t know why.
Sam was now old enough to understand too that while he had his Tooth Fairy, Skelton was tormented by his own imps and demons and that they were let out of a bottle called Johnny Walker. Drink never made Skelton dysfunctional or inattentive, but his face was now permanently flushed, and his eyes had a rheumy look. He was also less discreet about taking a drink in his study if the fancy took him. He’d given up pretending. Disappointingly, all plans for the Nightmare Interceptor had long been forgotten.
‘He was taken in you know, Conan Doyle. Two little girls faked a photograph of fairies and he believed them. Who’d have thought it? A clever fellow like Conan Doyle.’
‘I’ve seen it. It’s rubbish. Anyone can see the picture’s a fake.’
‘Not Conan Doyle. Because he
believed,
Sam. He had the belief, and if you’ve got the belief, you can see anything. God. Communism. Fairies. Psychiatry. We fake our own photographs, do you see? And it seems the cleverer we are, the cruder the forgeries we’re prepared to accept.’
‘Look,’ Sam protested, ‘I know what you’re saying. But fairies don’t look like flimsy-winged pixies with names like ‘‘Peapod’’ and ‘‘Butterscotch’’.’
‘Correction.
Yours
doesn’t.’
‘But I’m trying to tell you, other people are seeing it and are being affected by it. My dad saw her in the car with Derek. Alice got a punch in the mouth from her. Terry saw her through my telescope. And then Clive and Terry saw . . .’
‘Saw what?’ ‘Nothing.’
‘I’ve told you about that ‘‘nothing’’.’ Skelton had. He’d taught Sam that when people say ‘nothing’, it was always to hide a highly significant ‘something’.
‘Clive and Terry saw it once when we were in the woods.’
‘You’re holding something back.’
‘I told you about it once. You rubbished what I’d told you.’ Skelton bared his teeth and searched his memory. He shook his head slowly from side to side. Then he suddenly remembered. ‘The Dead Scout? Are you talking about the Dead Scout?’ Sam nodded. ‘Do you remember when you used to come here and draw me pictures of gravestones and bats and whatnot?’
‘It’s not like that.’ Sam knew it was useless to argue. His entire relationship with Skelton had been like walking through a hall of mirrors where illusion and reality reflected back at each other, infinitely. Dead Scouts could not be distinguished from Tooth Fairies in Skelton’s vision of Sam’s world.
‘Sam, I’ll tell you, I’m worried about you. I’m more
worried about you now than at any time. I’ve never used words on you before. I avoid psychiatric terms because they’re a kind of incantation which stops people from having to think further. But all this time I have thought this
projection
of yours was harmless. Fucked-up, I suppose, in your language, but harmless. Now you’re starting to exhibit signs of
paranoia.
Do you know what that is?’
‘I think so.’
‘You’re a bright lad, Sam, always have been. Look at this story you told me about the old musician. Can you see how your mind picks up on a coincidence and goes belting down the wing with it? Eh? This is a pattern you must resist.
‘I was hoping when I retired next year to close the book on you, without having to pass you on to someone else. Now I’m not so sure. Maybe another head would help. It’s just that you’re so damned different from every other case who ever walked through my door, and I’ll be the first to admit you’ve got me stumped.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t say sorry. I care about you, Sam. I do.’
Sam looked up at the ravaged old face glowering at him from the other side of the desk. He believed Skelton. ‘You haven’t asked me this time.’
‘Asked what?’ said Skelton.
‘About Alice.’
‘Hallelujah! Don’t tell me you’ve gone and done it? Not finally done the deed?’
‘No.’
‘For God’s sake!’
‘It’s just that you didn’t ask. And you always ask.’
‘I’ve lost hope in you in that department.’ He tapped his pencil on his desk blotter. ‘By the way, have you ever told Alice about your Tooth Fairy?’
‘No.’
‘Perhaps you could give it a try.’
‘She’d think I was mad.’
‘The idea!’
‘She’d laugh.’
‘Give it a try.’
‘Why?’
‘It just occurred to me. The little girl who tricked Conan Doyle with the photograph was called Alice. If she could trick him into seeing fairies, maybe your Alice could trick you into not seeing ’em.’
‘Paranoia,’ said Sam.
‘Get out of here, you young horror. And mind how you go.’
Sam found himself with more time alone with Alice. Clive, who after Zoot Salem’s appearance had gone around faintly disgusted that he hadn’t been born black, as if nature had spitefully denied him his rightful ethnic heritage, spent more time visiting jumble sales and second-hand stalls and collector’s fayres, digging out obscure albums and 78 rpm slate singles. Terry’s football consumed his weekends; he turned out now for Redstone FC on Saturdays (having found himself back in favour with a new coach) and on Sunday afternoons for the Gate Hangs Well pub league, where he shone against big-bellied men who fuelled their football with five pints of bitter and twenty cigarettes before the game.
So, having the time, Sam told Alice. And when he told her, he left nothing out.
‘You’re mad,’ said Alice.
‘Probably.’ They were at her house one Sunday. Alice’s mother was in her room with the curtains drawn, ‘resting’, which meant enduring a Cyclopean hangover.
‘I mean it. You’re barking mad.’
‘I told Skelton I shouldn’t tell you.’
‘No, I’m really glad you did. It makes a lot of things suddenly clear. What does Mr Skelton say you should do?’
‘He’s tried all sorts. Mostly just talking, telling me not to panic whenever it comes. He gave me some pills once.’
‘You kept that quiet.’
‘Well, with you lot around . . . Anyway, the pills just put everything in a cotton-wool fog, and the Tooth Fairy still came along. Skelton also told me I should find a girl to do it with. He said that was the best thing for it.’
‘What? He said doing it with someone would make the Tooth Fairy go away? I don’t believe you!’
‘It’s true. Well, to be fair, he said it would help. That’s all. He said it would help.’
‘I think you’re making it up.’
‘No. Honestly. He explained it to me. It’s like a poison if it gets trapped.’ ‘It?’
‘Sex. It gets all blocked up and messes up your brain. Something like that, anyway. I couldn’t make too much sense of it.’
Alice gazed at him with fascinated, horrified eyes. She reached out and casually brushed her fingers across his chin. Then she stared at the carpet, deep in thought. Sam was about to speak when Alice got to her feet, left the room and tiptoed across the landing. She looked inside her mother’s bedroom before quietly closing the door on her snoring mother. Returning at last, she gently clicked her own door shut.
She stood over Sam, looking grave. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes deep-set. ‘Swear you’re not making this up just so’s you can fuck me.’
‘I swear,’ Sam croaked.
Alice nodded. Then she lifted her white T-shirt over her head and tossed it aside. She wore no bra, and her small breasts quivered slightly as she stood over him, breathing deeply, never taking her eyes off him for a second. Her skin had a sallow sheen. There was a small mole underneath one of her breasts.
My God, thought Sam, she’s going to let me do it out of kindness. Out of kindness.
Alice kneeled beside him and kissed him. Still kissing, Sam took his glasses off. He touched her breasts, and the dark buds of her nipples stiffened under his fingers. His cock strained inside his jeans, trying to force a route through the tough denim fabric. He quickly peeled off his own T-shirt and the sweet, penetrating sting of her skin on his almost made him swoon. Her arms enfolded him. He was irradiated by the Alice-scent, that utterly personal signature-smell of hers that had hooked him long ago. He was dangerously aroused and yet paralysed with excitement as she fumbled with the button of his jeans.
There was a movement in the next room, and a creak of floorboards. Alice jumped back, grabbing her T-shirt. The bathroom door closed, followed by the rasp of the latch. Alice sighed and put her shirt back on. ‘Not here. We’ll have to find somewhere else.’
Sam quickly put his T-shirt and spectacles back on, blinking at her.
‘Mum, I’m going out for a while,’ Alice called through the bathroom door. A small groan was offered by way of answer. ‘Come on.’
It was a warm spring day. They walked arm in arm from Alice’s house without talking, overloaded by anticipation, their brains clouded with a distilled expectancy.
Inevitably they gravitated towards the pond, where the shrubs and bushes erupting from the clay bank offered plenty of cover. But a group of children were gathered there, throwing stones in the water. Sam sighed.
‘The woods,’ said Alice.
Sam scratched his head. ‘I don’t like the woods.’
‘Where else?’ Her question seemed to say, do you want to or not? He shrugged, and they moved towards the dense line of trees. ‘By the way, have you got something?’
‘Something?’
She grabbed his arm and stopped him in his tracks. ‘I don’t want to get pregnant.’
He was open-mouthed, then it dawned on him. ‘Light filmy substance. Floating in calm air or over grass. Something flimsy. Delicate gauze.’
‘What???’
‘Gossamer. No.’
‘Hell. I had one in my room. I didn’t pick it up.’
Sam had an idea. ‘My place is closer. I know where there are some.’
‘Sam, I’m not walking to your house and chatting to your mum while you get a dobber.’
He was afraid she was changing her mind. ‘Wait here. I’ll go and get it. I’ll run.’
‘Oh, God!’ said Alice.
Sam was already jogging down the road. On his way home he tried to short-cut through a field. Climbing a stile, he slipped, going down on one knee into some soft black mud. The thick, rich earth moulded itself to his jeans.
‘Why are you in such a state?’ Connie, in gardening gloves, said as he flew past her.
‘Forgot something.’
He raced upstairs. His father was in his parents’ bedroom, tying a tie in the mirror. ‘Aye, aye,’ said Nev.
Sam muttered a reply before stumbling into his own room, sitting on his bed, trying to recover his breath. His father was obviously getting ready to go out. He waited.
And waited.
Finally Nev went downstairs. Sam heard the door close and listened to voices in the garden outside. He crept into their room. Nev and Connie were standing at the bottom of the garden talking about standard roses. If they looked up, they could see into their bedroom. He crouched on all fours and crawled to the far side of the bed. Slipping his hand
between the mattress and the base of the bed he made a sweep back and forth. There was nothing. He pushed his arm further in, sweeping frantically now. Still nothing. He dug his hand closer to the pillow-end of the bed and his ringers fastened on what he was looking for. Withdrawing the packet, he found it contained only a single condom.