The Wanderer (5 page)

When, on the evening of the sale, the Count pulled up outside Clifton’s Harlesden flat, in a blue van, with, as cover, the name of a glazier’s firm on the side, Clifton felt dread, fear greater than fitted the risks of the deal, almost hid or ran. But he did not, went out, got in the van.

The drive out of the city, passed uneventful, in smoking ganja, talking about music. Then, several miles after they’d come off the M1, on a narrow, winding country lane, bordered by high verges, a badger darted out in front of them, froze in the glare of the headlights. It was too late to swerve or brake – there was a thud, then two jolts, as they rolled over the thickset beast.

The Count got out to look over the damage. It wasn’t too bad: a headlight smashed and the front grille dented, that was all.

‘Rahtid! Surprise we not broke a axle, dread,’ he said, scratching his head.

Sheepish, pointing back down the road with his thumb, Clifton asked if he could go, check on the badger.

‘Fool!’ the Count barked, slapping his forehead. ‘We dey pon haste, mon!’

‘Is choble, is crosses,’ Clifton said, kissed his teeth, turned away.

The Count smirked. Anyone else he would have beaten down, but he was fond of Clifton and his do-gooding ways. He bowed low, so low his forehead almost scraped the ground.

‘Alright, I ease up. Gwan, if you must, Saint Clifton.’

‘Saint Clifton’ was the epithet the other gang members mocked him with. He pretended to hate it, but in truth, prided in it, a little.

After going back down the road a short way, Clifton came across a smear of blood on the tarmac. But there was no sign of the badger. He paused, cast about him. Overhead, the moon shone brightly behind a winding sheet of cloud; the hawthorns lining the verges cast twisted shadows. He returned to the van and they drove on.

It wasn’t long afterwards they arrived at the assigned meeting place. Their contacts were already there, awaited them in a nondescript brown saloon. When the Count parked up on the grass, two men got out of the car. One, fairly old, short, wrinkled, hard-faced, flint-eyed, with slicked-back grey hair, dressed smartly in a black suit, camel coat, and paisley scarf, and carelessly toting a revolver, was the very image of an East End gangland boss. Age had not withered, but toughened him. The second man, who also wore a suit – his a grey pinstripe, which, though in cut and material less fine than his companion’s, was still of good quality, if ruined by stains, dark splashes up the trouser leg as far as the knee – whose coat was a pea jacket, collar turned up against the cold, and who’d a pumpkin-shaped head and broken nose, was a thug, there for heft and thew.

The Yardies got out of the van, stretched, stood, shivering, wrapped their arms about them for warmth. To Clifton the country night seemed eerily quiet – there was no noise save the purling of a nearby rill.

The breath of the four men plumed in the cold, damp air, as if their spirits had been loosed from fleshly bonds. There was awkward silence a while, then the two gangsters approached the
Yardies. The man in the camel coat held out his hand to the Count, they shook, and he introduced himself and his companion. He spoke as if a damp rag had been stuffed down his throat. His name was Peterkin,
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the brute’s, Haines.

‘Let’s have a look at the gear then,’ he went on.

‘Where de cash?’ asked the Count.

‘In the boot of the car, mate. I wanner see the product first.’

‘Nah,’ the Count said, shaking his head.

‘Look, I tell you what,’ Peterkin went on, aping a smile. ‘To demonstrate me good faith, right, I’ll put me gun away…’

He dropped it into his jacket pocket. The Count kissed his teeth.

‘Let me finish. I’ll get my pal to show you the money, which is in the car, right, then ask him to stay over there, where he can’t cause no trouble. Which he’ll be happy to do, ’cause I’ll ask him nicely. Awright?’

The Count muttered, ‘Aks ’im nicely,’ sighed, but then nodded.

Turning to Haines, Peterkin sent him off. He crossed to the car, unlocked and lifted the boot, took out, opened, and held up a suitcase full of banknotes. The Count relaxed. Haines closed the case, put it away, shut the boot, then leant against it, took a paperback from his jacket pocket, a Jane Austen, and, after finding his place, by a dog-eared page, began reading.

The Count went round to the rear of the van, opened up the doors. Peterkin and Clifton followed him.

‘An’ you can tell your bloke to clear off an’ all,’ Peterkin said. ‘I don’t want no funny business.’

The Count nodded at Clifton.

‘Gwan over there, dread.’

Clifton walked to the edge of the graveyard, to where the hillside sloped away, took the end of a joint from his pocket, lit it, stood toking, looking out over prospect: fields of scorched wheat stubble, hedgerows, a small, tree-girt lake. Having
finished his smoke, flicked the butt to the ground, Clifton looked over to see how the deal was going down. It seemed Peterkin had asked for a trial of the wares, for the Count had filled a small glass pipe with a little of the freebased coke, was offering it to the Cockney. He put the stem to his lips, took out a lighter.

From somewhere near at hand, there was a horrid shriek. Glancing over his shoulder, Clifton saw it was only an owl stooping on a fieldmouse. But then he heard a half-strangled cry from the Count.

‘Pussy clot!’

Turning back, Clifton saw Haines had crept up on the Count, had him by the throat. Clifton broke into a run. The Count got free, elbowed Haines in the gut, thumped Peterkin, who was struggling with his gun, which had snagged on the lining of his pocket. The older man staggered backwards. Then hurled the crack pipe at the Count’s head. He missed. Then came loudening reports, awkwards echoes, followed by a roar. A fireball engulfed the van. The blast threw Clifton to the ground.

Later he’d realize some ethanol, which is used in freebasing, must have spilled; perhaps, when the van ran over the badger, a flask had been juddered, fallen, cracked, leaked. The alcohol, touched off by the fallen pipe, then ignited the petrol tank. But at the time, lying prone, stunned, he thought maybe it was a bolt from Jah. Then a lump of twisted metal hit his head, and all went black.

Here Clifton broke off to peer through the dirty windscreen at the road ahead. Looking out the window, I was stunned to see Pentonville Prison leering down at me in the moonlight; enthralled by the story’s unfolding, I’d not been aware of the passing of time (though, setting down Clifton’s tale here, I’m confounded so much was told in what can only have been a short drive). I gazed into the fug pouring from the jail’s chimneys, seeing weird forms.

‘Rahtid! Gwan!’

I looked up. An elderly couple stood in the road, looked vacant. Clifton crossed the centre line to avoid them. As we passed by, they glared and pointed, suddenly animated, and the old man darted forward, clawed at the car. His hand struck the wing-mirror.

‘Rass! I tink I hit dat tata,’ Clifton said, putting his foot on the brake.

‘What?’

‘That old man. I’s worried I hit him.’

The car came to a stop. Clifton put it into reverse. I blenched.

‘No, don’t.’

Clifton took his foot off the accelerator, looked at me.

‘What’s up, mon?’

I turned to look over my shoulder. The old couple stalked toward the cab, glaring baleful, the man shaking his balled fist. I fought to get my breath.

‘Just keep going,’ I pleaded. ‘I can’t explain, but I’m in danger…’

Clifton too turned to look back down the road. The old folk feigned meekness then; the old man switched his gesture to a wave.

‘Alright, the old man seem fine. You scared though, no?’

‘I am, but I don’t want to talk about it, not now.’

‘Sure ting. We get going then.’

‘Thank you.’

We went on our way.

‘So, did you lose your finger in the explosion?’ I asked, once my heart had ceased drubbing.

Clifton shook his head.

‘Uh uh, mi have more fi tell,’ he replied, with an enigmatic grimace.

When Clifton roused, that night of the drug deal turned sour, he
was lying on his side facing the burnt-out van. It still smoked; its paint was blistered, peeling, its tyres were cankered. Clifton realized he’d been out some time, for, though darkest night persisted in the west, a faint greying of the sky in the east augured dawn. There were three blackened figures lying on the ground by the van’s rear doors, and the reek of charred flesh was in the air. Clifton retched. It began to mizzle; the droplets seethed as they fell on the smouldering husk. Clifton’s skull throbbed; he put his hand to his dreads and it came away slick with blood. He passed out again.

When he came round once more, he lay on his back, staring up at the sky. It was day, though overcast. He’d turned to torpor, was able to move only his eyes. The dark stink of ordure, and a high cloying fetor choked him. Somewhere close by, a cracked clamour. Looking askance, Clifton saw, to his left, a man ringing a hand-bell. He wore a sacking robe and cowl, and his face was in shadow save his eyes – pupils, the pale grey of winter rain, rheumy, and whites, bloodshot. He had posies pinned all over his robe, sprays of spring flowers: daffodils, primroses, bluebells, and snowdrops.

We had to take a detour due to roadworks outside Holloway Prison, but I didn’t mind; Clifton’s yarn held me rapt. After he’d described the sinister cowled figure, he took his left hand off the wheel, slapped the dash for emphasis.

‘It a duppy-man, I’s sure!’

‘Duppy?’ I asked.

‘It’s what you call a ghost, an evil spectre.’

Rolling his eyes in their sockets, Clifton looked about him. He lay on a tumbril heaped with corpses, with ashen lesions, hectic cheeks. To his right, he could see the graveyard and beyond it the church. The van was gone. A flock of crows wheeled cawing overhead. To his left was a cluster of low, thatched, wattle-and-daub
buildings, desolated. Aside from the duppy-man, and the dead on the cart, there was no one in sight.

After stilling his bell, putting it in a pouch with a leather strap, he wore over his shoulder, the duppy-man took up the handles of the barrow, pushed it before him, trudged across a miry field, to the edge of a carcass-filled pit. Then he began peering at the bodies on the cart. He took in Clifton’s seventies garb and dreadlocks without reaction, but started on sighting the signet ring the Rastafarian wore on his left hand. He eyed the ring, tried to pull it from Clifton’s finger. But it would not slide over the knuckle.

Reaching into his poke, the duppy-man pulled out a knife. He began hacking at Clifton’s finger. Though inert, unable to resist or cry out, the Rasta was not benumbed. The edge of the blade was dull, the cutting, agony. Once he’d sawn through the bone, the duppy-man tore the finger free, put it in his bag, wiped his knife on Clifton’s shirt.

Clifton closed his eyes. He felt the duppy-man take hold of him, lug him from the corpse heap, let him fall into the mass grave. On striking the mounded carrion, he opened his eyes again, found himself lying on the dank earth in the graveyard of the church once more, the sun rising in the east, the burnt-out van a little way off. The duppy-man, corpse cart, plague pit, village, were all gone. But so was the ring-finger of his left hand, a raw and bloody stump in its place.

He held that hand up.

‘See?’ he said.

I nodded. I asked him what he did after.

‘I step out, mon. The Cockneys’d left keys in the ignition, so I took their car, drove back to London.’

‘Do you think it true? All that?’

‘I don’t know what I think. Most of mi friends reckon there was some obeah, some bad science, in that place. Puttin’ away
the special sister I live with. She says to mi there was no duppy-man. She says I is pure bobo, a fool to think so. Maybe she’s right.’

Clifton explained his ‘special sister’, by which I gathered he meant his lover, thought metal blasted from the van had loped his finger, that his dread vision had been caused by vapours from the burning narcotics. Then he shrugged.

Clifton’s story had solaced me; I felt it true, felt he, like me, had somehow strayed over the bourn between the everyday and the eldritch – the truth of the old saw about the burden shared struck me then. Later, reflecting on the consolation his tale had afforded, I placed classifieds in several newspapers seeking folk who’d undergone similar horrors, proposing a gathering to relate dread accounts, and, in doing so, lessen their grip. I’d hoped Clifton might respond, but he did not: perhaps he never saw the advertisement, or perhaps he’d been, by that time, convinced by his lover’s rationalization.

On finishing his tale, Clifton leant down, put a cassette into the tape-player. He grinned as the first strains of an orchestra filled the car.

‘What you tink?’ he asked. ‘Know it?’

I confessed my ignorance of classical music.

‘Ah shame, is irie.’

He told me it was a piece by an Estonian composer, Arvo Pärt. I found it soothing.

When we arrived outside my flat. I took out my wallet, but Clifton shook his head.

‘Everyting’s good. I enjoyed to talk wit you so there’s no charge.’

‘No, really, thank you, but…’

‘No arguments. You keep yourself good.’

With that he smiled and fell to rolling another spliff.

‘Thanks. That’s kind of you.’

‘Is nuh ting.’

I got out of the car, rummaged in my satchel for my keys.

Clifton leant over, wound down the passenger window.

‘Likkle more,’ he said, then waved, lit his spliff, drove off.

I went inside, got straight into bed. In spite of all I’d undergone, I slept soundly till my alarm went off. On being roused, though, after a few moments oblivion, the night’s terrors crowded back. At first, I thought them residues of nightmares; once fully awake, I sat stark upright and cried out.

I spent the following few months struggling to maintain a seeming calm, while my brain seethed. In the office, I was diligent, finding respite in my work. Outside of work, I was no longer taciturn, reclusive, but outgoing, spent many of my evenings in pubs and bars: I found succour in both companionship and drink. All those who knew me were shocked and pleased by the change; I believe I’ve never been liked as much, before or since, as I was at that time. My flirtation with Rachel grew into romance. We were well suited, similar in character, though she didn’t share my tendency to gloom, we had many interests in common and went together to art galleries, concerts, plays, and films. While with her, I found I could forget gnawing fears.