Garbage Man (18 page)

A light went on in the bedroom of the next door neighbour's house.

Mason's voice was a harsh whisper:

‘You've got to be quiet.'

The bedroom window opened and a man looked out. He seemed to scan the night blindly at first and as though he expected to see thieves making off with something from his own garden. As his eyes adjusted after the glare of the bedroom light he must have seen something on Mason's side of the fence.

‘Don't move,' hissed Mason to the shed-thing. Thankfully, it lay completely still.

The neighbour saw him in the light emitted from the bedroom. There was no need for the man to shout. The night was otherwise utterly silent.

‘You're a fucking lunatic, Brand. Leave your pissing rubbish alone until morning. If you wake us up again, I'm calling the police.'

The man withdrew and the bedroom window shut behind him. Mason imagined the brief explanation the man would have shared with his wife. The light went out.

After a long time, so long his knees had stiffened, he began to haul the shed-thing to safety. As soon as he touched it, it pushed him away. He felt the anger in the gesture. It began to pull itself along with its three remaining good limbs, dragging the broken leg behind it. Mason unlocked the shed and let it haul itself in. He had to lift the useless leg over the threshold but then it was whipped away from him onto the blackness. He stood in the cave-hole of the doorway for a few moments listening to the forlorn whimpers of the failed creature and wondered at the nature of its tears.

12

Jenny wasn't great in bed but it was almost worth it just for the cigarettes that followed. Delicious, biting lungfuls of high-tar fags that made his scalp tingle and gave him a rare reason to smile. These thoughts gave him an immediate and physical rash of guilt across the back of his neck. Too many years spent with the wrong woman had deepened his cynicism. The truth was, for the first time ever, the quality of the sex didn't matter. He felt something for Jenny he didn't remember feeling for Tammy, even when they'd first met.

He would never tell the girl - and girl she was compared to him - but the simple fact was that Jenny was an amateurish fuck. Either she didn't like it much or she wasn't very experienced. More surprising than this to Kevin was that he didn't care. In his experience, sex improved as a relationship lengthened. It was a small matter and there was plenty of time. When Jenny was beside him, in her bedroom or anywhere they met, Kevin felt like he was in the right place. Such a simple state of mind. A sensation he didn't recognise but one he delighted in.

He assumed Jenny must have been used to having things her own way because she often said manipulative things. His response was to smile and tell her to piss off. Compared to Tammy, she was a beginner at mind games too - ironic, considering she was studying psychology at Shreve College.

There would be no more inference or atmosphere or undertones in his life. Just honesty.

‘If you've got something to say, Jen, just get it off your chest, eh?'

The first time he'd said something like that she went quiet for a while. Now she was learning the art of being up front:

‘I don't like the way you look at every woman that walks past.'

‘Tough. It's my programming.'

‘Change it.'

‘Alright. I'll try.' Or

‘Do you have to eat spaghetti that way?'

‘Yes.'

‘It's embarrassing me.'

‘How would you like me to eat spaghetti?'

‘By cutting it up first.'

‘No chance.'

She won some. She lost some. At least there were no misunderstandings.

Her missing big toe bothered him. It didn't turn him off or revolt him but there was something about it that wasn't right. At this stage, he didn't feel he could ask her any more without upsetting her and that was the last thing he wanted. But wasn't he doing the very thing he disliked in himself and others by not coming out with it?

She'd said she'd lost it using a hover mower at her parents' house. The scarring around the remaining knuckle was still purple and shiny. When she moved her other toes the scar tissue turned white where the bone stump pressed out from inside. Something in the way she'd answered the question ‘how did you lose that?' made him think she was lying and he couldn't understand why. He didn't ask her about it again.

Had it been something embarrassing? Something that would make her look like an idiot to him? If so, he didn't care. He liked her laughing, stupid ways. Accidents happened to everyone and none of them ever looked cool. Maybe it had been an act of violence. Kevin's mind ran with that one. Had she been kidnapped? Her toe sent as a sign of the abductor's seriousness before she was rescued or the ransom paid and she was freed?

Other things gnawed at him. Where was her toe now? Perhaps she'd had an infection and it had been amputated. He assumed that hospital waste was taken somewhere very safe and burned but he could only guess. If the toe had been severed in the lawnmower accident, perhaps it was too damaged to be recovered. In that case the flesh would have rotted on a lawn somewhere, the bone stolen by a fox or left to sink into the earth. Two small bones, one joint between them. Lost, discarded, stolen, who knew?

One day, when they got to know each other better, when there was more trust, he'd ask her again. But he knew he was a traitor to himself by putting it off.

***

The next time Don visited Mrs. Doherty, he made sure Mr. Doherty was out. It took three more days of surveillance for the moment to appear. He saw Mr. Doherty back out of the driveway in his BMW Z3. Unaccompanied. Don didn't care if it was for just ten minutes. Or only five. He had to see her.

He sprayed his ripe armpits with Lynx, what his dad called a gypsy shower, and did the same inside his Vans before he slipped them on and hurried out of the house. It was impossible to make it casual. Anyone looking out of a window nearby would see him, see where he was going. They would notice the purpose in his pace. He no longer cared. He walked fast but without panic straight up to her door and rang the bell. His heart was banging, fit to escape the prison of his ribs. He ignored it. What he was doing would put everything right. No more heartache. No more misery. A sore prick perhaps, but a fulfilled one. A few moments. That was all he needed.

He saw a figure through the frosted glass. He chewed back his heart, swallowed it down.

This time she answered the door. She.

***

They stood in the kitchen. She leaned against the breakfast bar with a coffee. She seemed to have a lot of make-up on. Her eyes looked tired. Something about her was different but Don didn't know what it was. Worse, he knew that if he was older, with just a little more experience, he probably could have worked it out. He cursed his insufficient years.

She was wearing white cycling shorts and a tight blue running top. He didn't know if it was just fashion or what - he'd certainly never seen her out jogging or returning home from anywhere looking sweaty. All he knew was that the outfit left plenty of skin bare and clung to her curves like latex. He put his left hand in his pocket to shield his erection.

Silently, she appraised him, as though waiting for him to explain why he'd come. He didn't know what to say. She'd merely turned and walked away leaving him to shut the front door and follow. He glanced from the floor to her breasts, feeling like what he was - a kid. He knew his time was running out.

‘Sorry to hear about your dogs.'

It was the only thing that came to him. It would have to do.

Immediately she was animated, shocked.

‘Why? What's happened? Have they been hurt?'

‘No. I don't think so. I heard you'd lost them.' She flashed a look of angry impatience at him.

‘Tell me something I don't bloody know, Donald. Christ, I thought you were going to tell me they'd been run over or something.'

Donald shook his head.

‘Nothing like that, Mrs. Doherty. I was just sorry to hear about it. If we ever lost Sasquatch, mum would be . . .'

There it was. Out before he'd even thought about it. He saw Mrs. Doherty as similar to his mother in some way. Not quite as old, but still, he'd even said it out loud and -

‘Two things, Don. First, don't call me Mrs. Doherty. Coming from you it makes me feel like an old hag.'

Donald blushed. How pear-shaped could this go? He didn't want her to feel old. He wanted her to know that she was beautiful and that he -

‘Second, what kind of a name for a dog is Sasquatch?'

‘What should I call you?'

She topped up her coffee from a cafetiere.

‘You should call me Tamsin. Don. Answer the question.'

‘What?'

‘Why on earth did you call your dog Sasquatch, for God's sake?'

‘When she was a puppy, her feet were huge compared to the rest of her body.'

‘And?'

‘So I named her Sasquatch.'

‘Christ, Don, what does it mean?'

‘You don't . . . it's the Native American name for Bigfoot. The giant ape that people keep seeing.'

Tamsin blew on her coffee.

‘Well, I never knew that. You're quite bright, aren't you?' Donald was confused. The fact that she didn't know what Sasquatch was made her stupid or from another planet. It didn't make him smart. Suddenly, he preferred her when she wasn't talking. Talking was raising barriers between them instead of breaking them down. But, right now, talk was all he had.

‘Do you think you'll find them?'

‘I don't know. Kevin says he's put a poster up in the post office and knocked on a few doors but I doubt he's really asked anyone. Bloody useless man.'

Though it cheered him to hear her say it, Donald didn't think what she was saying was fair.

‘He asked me. That's how I know you lost them.'

‘Really? Well he ought to be asking a lot of other people too. He ought to be out there now going house to house. Instead he's gone to some bloody weekend business meeting. Probably just playing golf and drinking. Christ, we might as well be retired the way we go on.'

The whole weekend? And she saw Mr. Doherty as useless?

Donald jumped all over the opportunities.

‘I could find them for you.'

‘You?'

‘Yeah. I know my way through Meadowlands like no one else. I know loads more of the people than you do. I could ask around. Someone's bound to have seen them.'

‘Would you really do that?'

‘Sure. Why not?'

She threw her coffee in the sink.

‘Come here.'

On legs like stilts he went to her. She stroked his cheek.

‘You're very sweet to me.'

Her long nails traced the side of his neck and disappeared into the hair at the back of his head sending tight, flesh prickles all the way to his feet. She drew him close and pressed his head into her throat. He felt her breasts pressing flat between them. He took his hand out of his pocket and put his arms around her. He didn't see her smile and close her eyes as she felt his erection spring free.

‘Do you have to rush off, Donald or can you spare me a few minutes?'

He tried to answer but his throat was clogged dry. Some kind of noise came out but it didn't sound like his voice.

‘That's good. You haven't seen upstairs yet, have you? We've just had it redecorated.'

***

Ray arrived at The Barge at one o'clock and ordered a pint of cider to quench his thirst - the short walk from his flat was enough to get him sweating. He could feel the heat reflecting up from the pavement. It was a good day to have chosen his cut-off denim shorts and an army surplus shirt, the sleeves rolled well above the elbows. No matter what the weather, Ray Wade never wore sandals or showed his feet. He would never admit it but to show the skin of his feet made him feel utterly vulnerable. He'd have preferred to strip in public than take off his shoes. His favourite footwear was boots and even the unusually hot weather hadn't changed him - he was wearing the least booty boots he owned, a pair of green Converse hi-tops. A creased leather bush hat kept the sun off his head.

The Barge was already humming with people enjoying the suddenness of summer. Families with kids ate outside near the small playground. Students from Shreve College attended in large numbers, so there was no shortage of people to talk to. Ray fell in with a crowd of psychology students as they discussed Big Brother. These were people he'd met through Jenny but their chosen subject hadn't made them better judges of quality TV. Ray thought Big Brother stank of voyeuristic exploitation.

‘That programme's a fucking carnival,' he said. ‘It's exactly the sort of freak-show the government wants to distract us with while they levy stealth taxes against us and steal our privacy and liberty. All the contestants should be executed.'

Up until that moment, the talk had been, if not positive, then at least interested in the reality show. After Ray spoke there was a silence. Maybe it was the third pint of cider that had loosened his tongue. He didn't care. He grinned around the table challenging any of them to disagree. They were all two years younger than he was anyway. The quietest of them was a Goth chick with long purple-streaked black hair and heavy make up. Her skin was china white next to her long black garb and her piercings glinted in the sun.

‘Lethal injection or firing squad?' she asked in the lengthening pause.

Ray grinned.

‘What about a good old-fashioned hanging?'

The Goth - her name was Delilah though he didn't believe that for a moment - shook her head.

‘Public execution would play into their hands. They should all be made to live alone and unobserved knowing they'll never get any attention again.'

Ray lifted his pint to her.

‘Nice one.'

Any girl that wore a full-length black dress in thirty-degree heat was alright by him. He tried to gauge the size of her breasts through her clothing. They seemed fulsome. But it was difficult to tell. You never knew with these Goth chicks. They dressed that way because they had something to hide. Obsessive compulsives, bulimics and self-harmers most of them.