Darke Read online

  Darke

  Rick Gekoski

  Published in Great Britain in 2017 by Canongate Books Ltd,

  14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE

  www.canongate.co.uk

  This digital edition first published in 2017 by Canongate Books

  Copyright © Rick Gekoski, 2017

  Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologises for any errors or omissions and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book.

  Extract taken from ‘East Coker’, Four Quartets © Estate of T.S. Eliot and reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber. Extract taken from ‘The Waste Land’, The Poems of T.S. Eliot Volume I, Collected and Uncollected Poems © Estate of T.S. Eliot and reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber. Extract taken from ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’, The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas: The Centenary Edition © Dylan Thomas and reprinted by permission of Weidenfeld and Nicolson and David Higham Associates.

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library

  ISBN 978 1 78211 936 4

  Export ISBN 978 1 78211 937 1

  eISBN 978 1 78211 938 8

  Typeset in Bembo by Palimpsest Book Production Ltd, Falkirk, Stirlingshire

  For Sam Varnedoe

  CONTENTS

  Part I

  Part II

  Part III

  Acknowledgements

  Part I

  I wasn’t sure of the right word. Builder? Odd-job man? Repairman? Or perhaps I needed to see a specialist? Carpenter? Joiner? Woodworker?

  I looked at the keyboard intently, as if the letters could Ouija themselves up, and reveal the answer.

  Handyman? I typed it into Google and added my postcode, hope congealing in my heart. Most builders, handy or otherwise, are incompetent, indolent and venal.

  I will not pay unless the job is done perfectly, on time and within estimate. I do not provide endless cups of PG Tips with three sugars, ta, nor do I engage in talk, small or large. Preferably no visits to my WC, though a builder who does not pee is rare. Tea makes pee. But if that is necessary, only in the downstairs cloakroom. Afterwards there will be piss under the loo.

  I also wanted one who is taciturn. I loathe the inane chatter of workmen hoping to ingratiate themselves while simultaneously padding their bills. A handyman who cannot talk? Bliss. Somebody should set up a company that supplies them. Tear out their tongues or sew up their lips, that’d do it.

  I added taciturn to my search options, but unsurprisingly nothing turned up, though one chap described himself as ‘tactile’ which gave me the creeps. I tried various alternatives: Quiet? Nothing. Unobtrusive? Chance would be a fine thing. I eventually opted for Thoughtful, which provided two alternatives: one pictured in a string vest, who I suspect offers a variety of distinctly odd jobs, the other with a few recommendations affixed to his entry, which lauded his reliable service.

  Mr Cooper, he is called, but I did not ring him, as that would provide evidence that I can hear, whereas I intended to feign almost total deafness. I emailed him, enquiring if he might be available next week. He responded immediately, which is a bad sign: shouldn’t he be out handy-manning his way around town?

  Yes, he replied, he was free next Wednesday and Thursday. What can he do for me?

  My requirements of Mr Cooper concern the entry to my house, which has a handsome Georgian door, which will need to be removed and ‘amended’ – I believe this might be the right term – in five ways:

  (1) Remove the brass letter box, and then fill in the resultant hole, prep and paint in Farrow and Ball Pitch Black gloss. (There are a variety of blacks, some of them greatly preferable to others, and black is one of the few colours (or absence of colours) in which doors should properly be painted. One of our neighbours, a recently arrived Indian family, decorated theirs in a Hindu orange so offensive, so out of keeping with the tone of the rest of the street that a petition was discreetly and anonymously raised by ‘Your Neighbours’ (guilty as charged) asking him and his wife to reconsider. They did, and repainted it bright turquoise.)

  (2) Install a doorbell that rings once only, no matter how many times you press it, and which issues a melodious, inoffensive tone which can be heard clearly inside the house, but not outside the door.

  (3) Install a Dia16mm-x-200-Degree-Brass-Door-Viewer-Peephole-with-Cover-and-Glass-Lens, which I will provide.

  (4) Install a new keyhole and change lock.

  (5) Remove the brass door-knocker, and make good.

  The jobs I have outlined will take a day and a half, according to Mr Cooper, ‘unless something goes wrong’, plus an extra visit to put on a second coat of gloss. Mr Cooper’s hourly charge is £35, plus materials, which, when I compare it to others offering similar services (though without extra thoughtfulness), is pretty much standard.

  We agreed that he would arrive at 10 a.m., and that I would have a parking permit ready for his van. He seemed untroubled by my announcement of my deafness.

  ‘No worries, I can get on with my work. Not very talkative myself.’

  I considered asking him to bring his own tea, but if he finds himself in desperate need (which he will, he will), he can always pop out to the neighbourhood café, a few hundred metres down the street.

  James Fenimore, as I have inwardly designated him – his site, curiously, only describes him as Cooper Handyman – arrived right on time, which was a good sign. Had he been more than fifteen minutes late, I would not have answered the door. He looks reassuringly like a handyman. Stocky, uncombed white hair that manages to be both lank and frothy at the same time, florid face pockmarked like an autonomous wart. The details don’t matter. But the smell did: cheap cigarettes, stale beer, decaying teeth, wood shavings and something acrid that burned my nose, about which I didn’t wish to speculate. He was disgusting, and I could barely resist the impulse to send him away: Shoo! Off you go! Like a stray dog.

  My senses are out of control, imperious, undermining. I can smell the decomposing bodies of the flies on the windowsill, the morning light burns my retina, the residue of the morning’s toothpaste coats my gums, my fingertips tingle when they come into contact with hard surfaces. It’s like having a migraine without the headache.

  After I opened the door, gingerly, he took a careful builderly look at it, its solidity and sheen, the perfect proportions, depth, weight.

  ‘Don’t make doors like that any more,’ he said. ‘Shoddy rubbish nowadays.’

  I held my hand to my ear to remind him of my deafness, and made a quizzical face, as if he were speaking Mongolian.

  He spoke louder, and stepped forward, which I instantly regretted. ‘Shame to muck it about. Security problems I’m guessing? Lot of burglaries round here!’

  None of his fucking business, is it? ‘No, not security. Just some changes. I’ll leave you to it. Let yourself out when you finish for the day, and I will see you tomorrow.’

  At 5 p.m. I heard the door close, and went down to see how he’d got on. I was pleased – and surprised – to see that he had cleaned up after himself, and the reinstalled door closed with the same satisfying clunk as ever. It now had some new wood, undercoated and primed in dark grey, set where the letter box had been, and the area where the former door-knocker resided was filled in, sanded and painted as well. The new keyhole had been installed, and a set of three keys was on the table in the hallway. There was a newly drilled hole at eye level – he and I were much the same height so I didn’t have to be measured for it – where the peephole would go t
omorrow. James Fenimore had carefully taped over it with black masking tape. Altogether, a distinctly workmanlike job.

  He arrived at ten the next morning, clutching a takeaway paper cup filled, I presumed, with builder’s tea and lots of sugar. He put it down carefully on the hall table, remembering to put something under it. Keeping the door open, he inspected yesterday’s work and tested that the undercoating was dry.

  ‘OK so far?’ he asked, in the kind of slow, loud voice one uses for foreigners, recalcitrant children, the stupid and the deaf.

  I nodded, trying not to get too close to him. His smell was so invasive that I had not dabbed but sloshed some of Suzy’s L’Air du Temps on my upper lip. When I opened the tiny bottle, it released a painfully sharp memory, not visual but somatic, of my head cushioned between her breasts, her original breasts, smelling of a trace of scent, as blissfully content as a boy can be. And a girl, all those years ago, before we were lost, both of us, lost.

  ‘Will you do one thing for me?’ I asked James Fenimore. ‘Please go outside and shut the door, and then knock on it as loudly as you can. Maybe five or six times?’

  He wasn’t an inquisitive chap, or perhaps he had already marked me down as not merely deaf but barmy. How likely was it that I would be able to hear the door-knocking if I couldn’t make him out at eighty decibels over four feet?

  He closed the door, and gave it a few almighty wallops with his knuckles, which must have been severely tried by the experience. I listened carefully, having walked down the hallway into the kitchen. There was a distinct but muffled thudding, to be sure, but it was tolerable at that distance. From upstairs I would hardly have heard a thing. Well-made door that. Don’t make them like that any more.

  Greatly reassured, I readmitted James Fenimore, only to find that he recoiled as he passed me in the doorway, stepping back, alarmed, and checking an impulse to raise his hands. His nostrils quivered noticeably, he sniffed. I was wearing scent! And as I hadn’t done so yesterday, I must have put it on just to meet him!

  It explained everything. The eccentricity, the fussy taste, the fancy clothes, the fastidiousness. A poofter! And I fancied him! I could see this line of thought pass slowly over his features, as he added one observation to another. He stepped back, and leant against the wall, ready to defend himself. I had a fleeting urge to kiss him on the cheek, just for the fun of it.

  ‘When you have installed the peephole, send me an email. I’ll be online, and then I can come down and see if it works properly.’

  Queer as a coot.

  Just after 2 p.m. my email ‘ding-ding’ sounded, as I was making some notes on my current concerns, composing myself in painstakingly extracted bits. I have no job and no life: no occupation, just preoccupation.

  My Inbox revealed that Cooper Handyman would be finished in twenty minutes, and reminded me that I had promised to pay in cash, to save VAT. I had ordered an extra cash delivery from American Express in anticipation of this, because my usual fortnightly £400 would not leave enough to cover the bill.

  I had purchased the very expensive peephole instrument for $200, when you can get perfectly serviceable ones for a tenth of that, because this top-of-the-range model alters the laws of nature. Your Mr Cooper fits it in your door, and it claims to give you 200-degree coverage. Now I am no mathematician, but even I know that from the flat surface of a door only a 180-degree arc is visible. So, as far as I can make out, the new magical instrument will allow me to see into my own hallway, presumably 10 degrees on each side, through thick brick walls. For the extra $180 I am longing to see how it works. Thus if I stand in the right position, I should be able to see myself looking at myself.

  ‘It don’t do that, it can’t!’ says James Fenimore scornfully. ‘Just trying to sell it to idiots. Might work if you just held it to your eye, but it’s for a door! Not worth the money you paid for it!’

  ‘Shall we test it? If you go outside and close the door, perhaps you could stand in various positions while I look though the peephole.’

  ‘No problem.’

  A moment later I was looking through the new peephole directly into Mr Cooper’s face. He smiled uneasily, perhaps concerned that this might be seen as a come-on. And then, with his back against first the left-hand wall and then the right, waved a hand gently, as if the Queen from her carriage.

  I cannot imagine what I have done to encourage this skittishness. Does he think all queers like waving Queens? Next thing I knew he would want us to have a cup of tea together, pinkies in the air.

  I think he has had enough of me too, and clutching his small cache of £50 notes, shakes my hand, with firm masculine pressure. I allow mine to melt into his. I will wash it thoroughly when he leaves.

  ‘You take care of yourself now,’ he says warily.

  ‘You too.’

  I tried to suppress a fugitive feeling of gratitude from my tone. After all, he was a good workman, unexceptionable, scratching out a living.

  The new door, as I stand on the step to look it over, is stripped of both grace and function without its knocker and letter box. Black, bare, blank, beautiful in its stripped-down brutality. Just spyhole and keyhole. A bit sinister, as if it were guarding a fortress of some sort.

  I hope it works. It locks them out, and me in. It gives me a – might I call it a window? – on the world. Or maybe just a way of peeping, unseen.

  The next morning I woke early, and after my showering and coffee rituals, arrived at the door at 7.58. I rolled up a newly washed, fluffy hand towel and placed it above the eyehole, leant forward so that my forehead rested on it, comfortably adjusted it until my eye was perfectly aligned. The world came into focus. Across the street, just on 8 a.m., right on time like the Bombay Express, the Singh family left their house. Doctor and young son, top-knotted, turbaned. Mother and daughter in immaculate saris. You could set your watch by them. Sikh and ye shall find. Every morning both parents walked the children to the primary school before making their way to the Tube: he to the Chelsea and Westminster, she to her accountancy offices. Deloitte’s, was it?

  They were wonderfully presented, less disgusting than their English equivalents. Stripped of their ethnic accoutrements, their turbans, suits and saris, they would be the colour of lightly toasted Poilâne, redolent of cardamom and ghee. If you were a cannibal, you’d toss aside a pallid smelly Cooper – the colour and consistency of uncooked bread – and have a bite of these tasty Oriental morsels.

  *

  I’ve composed a list of further world-proofing chores. I like lists. You think of every contingency, plan for it, cross it off. It gives the impression that everything is controllable.

  It’s going surprisingly well, the elements falling into place. First, the essential communication – I hope it will be the last.

  Dear George,

  It was good, all things considered, to see you last week. As I intimated, I have a small request. I am going to be taking some time off, and I need to redirect my mail. If you will be so kind as to receive it, all I ask is that you throw it away. All of it. Please. I do not want to be disturbed for the foreseeable future, for any reason. I will be out of touch.

  I am most grateful for this.

  I have also changed my email address, as you can see. I do not want this divulged to anyone. Indeed, I would rather you did not use it yourself, once you have confirmed you can help me in this minor way.

  Thanks,

  James

  George is as close as I came to making a friend amongst my fellow schoolmasters. He is a harmless, good-hearted duffer, and a passionate enthusiast for all things Victorian. He kits himself out in fancy dress: silken cravats or bow ties, itchy tweed suits, waistcoats, flouncy shirts, shoes with buckles. And a bushy beard, of course. He is idealistic, staunch, sentimental, hearty, blinkered, patriotic, and hopeless with women. I suppose – there was speculation about this in the Common Room – you might have mistaken him for a repressed homosexual, but he is not. He is one of that virtually extinct speci
es, the bachelor. He visits friends in the country at the weekends, is a reliable walker for widows and spinsters, has godfathered half the children in Gloucestershire, and is keen on travel, amateur theatrics, cricket, and especially on the works of Alfred Lord Tennyson. Every 15th of September he celebrates the death-day of Arthur Hallam, the poet’s lost friend and only true love, with a select dinner at Boodle’s, at which he insists on declaiming the entire text of ‘The Lotos-Eaters’, a poem that, like Hitler, should never have been born. He acts it out, waving his arms like a drowning fairy, sensuous, mellifluous and slinky.

  But, comic figure though he is, I can count on him. I’d solved my incoming mail problem. Brilliant. I have also cancelled my landline, got a new mobile number, and made a database of essential providers: handyman, plumber, electrician, doctor, dentist, optician, nurse, cleaner, ironing and laundry service, computer and telly fixers. I can order cash, coffee, cigars, food from Waitrose or Harrods, wine from Berry Brothers if I outlive my cellar. I have enough clothes and shoes to last a lifetime.

  I will never go out again. If I am incapacitated by severe illness or a heart attack, I will abjure the emergency call, suffer and die. If the house catches fire, I will go down with it, perhaps put on some smothering and sizzling music – Stravinsky perhaps, can’t think what else he’s good for – and smoke and barbecue like Joan of Arc.

  Of course the price of my enforced isolation will be a regular invasion of both house and self by a succession of strangers, none of whom will be congenial to me. Of course I dislike a chippy chippy, but I’m equally hostile to the charming, the well spoken or well read, the interesting, the beautiful, the whimsical. Next thing I know they will be smiling and waving at me from their carriages.

  Anyone who enters this house does so as an instrument of my will. I am not here to meet people, but to use them. If they could be replaced by machines, I would do so without compunction, and if they were robots they would be programmed to listen but not to talk.