Ventriloquists (9 page)

After a few seconds, Branston said, ‘Wow. Is that all true, Yasser?’

‘Every frame.’

One of the other guys said, ‘What happened?’

Yasser raised his hands. ‘The film says it all. The girl’s in safe hands, back with John and Eve. Unharmed. And all because I left the camera running while I served a customer! It was sitting on top of a pile of boxes or garden hoses, on the stall. Sheer good fortune.’

‘Nice one, Yasser,’ said Sammy.

‘Yes, a good piece of work, Yasser,’ Branston added. ‘Who’s next?’

4.

At the end of the lesson Branston asked Yasser to stay behind for a minute; the other class members filed out, chatting.

‘It was just a query really; I didn’t want to raise it in front of the others.’

‘What is it, Tim?’

‘…Your uncle is a policeman, isn’t he?’

‘One of em is,’ Yasser replied. ‘Big family.’

‘Yes.’

‘…You seem unsure about something, Tim.’

Branston plunged.

‘What I’m about to say to you – it might mean nothing or it might mean a lot. But here it is.

‘For nearly a year now I’ve been seeing a psychotherapist, three times a week, in the evening after I finish here. And… if only to avoid any confusion in the future, I’ll spell it out properly: when I say seeing I mean paying for a service – I don’t mean… dating, or anything like that.’

‘I appreciate your candour,’ Yasser replied (somewhat prissily).

‘You don’t look surprised.’

‘If it was intended to be kept a secret, Tim, someone’s blabbed – someone’s snitched on you. That was
last month’s
news.’

‘Good.’ Branston hid with a smile an emotion that he found hard to define. It took him a beat to realise that it was disappointment: he had wanted to confess. ‘And no, I’ve never tried to keep it a secret – it’s nothing to be ashamed of, you see: therapy. It’s no different from going to a doctor when your sniffle’s gone on for a bit longer than you think it should and you’re starting to worry.’

‘Antibiotics of the brain,’ Yasser chipped in.

‘In a manner of speaking. You see, I’m doing a Masters in Psychoanalytic Studies at a London university, with a view to maybe going on to a PhD and becoming a psychoanalyst. A long-term plan. But to become a psychoanalyst you have to have gone through an analysis yourself, my reason for signing up with Dr Stegmeyer in the first place. But once I was there – I can’t go into all the details but trust me – I’ve found out some interesting things about myself, about my lingering resentment of the bullying I suffered as a child, my anger over my father’s premature death, my fear of my mother, her illnesses, my loathing of self-failure… Is this too much detail?’

‘Not exactly,’ said Yasser; ‘but I’m wondering what it’s got to do with me, I must admit.’

Branston sat on the edge of the teacher’s desk. ‘What it’s got to do with you – fair question – is this. All patients are treated to a scheme of the purest anonymity. A code of conduct. Nevertheless, a doctor – Dr Stegmeyer included – will
occasionally
throw into discussion an anecdote or two from his personal and professional store, for the purposes of illustrating a point. Mental health experts, I suppose it’s fair to say, being no less susceptible to the pleasures of gossip and tattle than the rest of us. And one of the stories he used in my session on Monday – stories is not quite right but you know what I mean – was about a man that Stegmeyer called
John
– an anonymised name I thought at the time. But
John
was not the patient: his daughter was. A girl of four months who had endured a trauma. She’d been taken from her parents and kept against her will – if children of that age
have
will – on a Travellers’ campsite, see. And do you know how
John
told Stegmeyer’s colleague (he didn’t name the colleague) that the little girl was returned to her rightful parents, Yasser?’

Yasser waited with breath trapped at the top of his chest. It took seconds before he gleaned that he was expected to give an answer. He said, ‘No.’

‘I think you do. Apparently a young Asian man went onto the site and
stole her back
. Quite a brave thing to do, I agree; but quite foolish too… There’s no uncle in the police force, is there, Yasser?’

‘But there is! I gave him the licence plate number and he
told me…’ Yasser trailed off, his argument, he knew, full of holes, stinking like a cheese left on lawn cuttings at the height of summer.

‘Your uncle found the address, didn’t he. From the registration files.’

‘…Yes. You can’t tell anyone, Tim.’

‘I’m not an analyst, Yasser; I haven’t signed a confidentiality contract. In fact, if I believe a student of mine is in danger, it’s my
duty
to report it.’

Yasser turned away from Branston’s gaze. He said, ‘I’m not in danger. I’m twenty-three years old and I can live without your protection, Tim. With respect. It’s over.’

‘But are you sure?’

‘I got her back. I can’t
believe
John opened his mouth. I specifically told him…’

‘Why didn’t they want the police involved anyway?’ Branston wanted to know.

‘That’s their business.’

‘Indeed. Confidentiality code?’

‘Code of friendship… I told em I could get it done faster. All my uncle needed was to tap in a licence number. He gave me the address and asked me if he needed to know what this was about. I told him no and he left it at that.’

‘But why you?’ Branston asked.

‘I don’t want to work on a market stall all my life,’ Yasser told him.

‘It’s quite a leap from trader to vigilante.’

‘Not really. They
stole a child
.’

‘I know: it’s on the record now. In black and white, as they used to say in old money.’

Yasser chuckled. ‘Do you wanna hear the
really
funny part?’

‘I could do with a laugh.’

‘I did it for these trainers. Top of the range – four hundred quid. I didn’t want the money: Mum and Dad’d only ask me where I got it. And Eve works…’

‘In a sports shop,’ Branston interjected quietly. ‘Well, it all fits, I suppose.’

Seconds drifted past.

‘…So what now?’ Yasser asked, breaking the silence.

‘…Do you have another lesson to go to?’

‘No. What now in general?’

‘I could ask you the same thing, couldn’t I? How do you know there won’t be comeback?’

‘From Maggie?’

‘Who’s Maggie?’ Branston cocked his head. ‘Oh the
kidnapper
. You were formerly introduced then… My my; this might be my finest hour as a filmmaker.’

‘Funnily enough, that’s what
she
thinks. The material’s copyrighted, Tim.’

Branston laughed.

Yasser told him: ‘I didn’t just go in there guns blazing. I don’t
have
a gun before you ask. I reasoned with em. Used my head, Tim.’

‘Well that’s something.’

‘I even got some more work out of it.’ Yasser chuckled again.

Branston could not believe his ears. ‘Some
work
out…’ he started to repeat. ‘For
them?
’

Shrugging his shoulders, Yasser said, ‘A quid’s a quid.’

‘…Do you drink coffee?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you want one now?’

‘All right.’

‘Because I think I’d better hear about this: the unedited, unexpurgated version.’ Branston stood up and started to pack his things, throwing board pens into the side compartment of his laptop case.

For the first time in days Yasser felt that he could breathe again; that breathing was once more a gift
and
a right he’d earned. It was good to remove some of the weight from his conscious thoughts; it was liberating.

‘The canteen?’ Yasser suggested.

‘Fine. I’m buying.’

‘I know you are, Tim. Trainers don’t grow on trees; I have to save my pennies. You get a ghost story in return, sort of.’

‘I’m intrigued. And the full truth.’

‘So help me… My uncle,’ Yasser added quickly. ‘I
do
have an uncle in the police, I wasn’t lying about that…’

Wait for the
but
.

‘But?’

‘But it wasn’t him who got me the address. I also have loads of cousins, and one of em – Shyleen – she works selling car insurance. Database size of Pluto.’

‘Then you owe
him
a pair of trainers,’ said Branston, lifting his case and moving towards the door.

‘Her. And no, Tim. See, I banged her once during Ramadan and she’s scared her dad’ll find out. She’s full of guilt, is Shyleen, she’ll do anything to shut me up. So she got the address and even did a practice run. Went over to Eaton Bray
on the bus
. Just moseyed on in there and asked a few questions, calm as you please; then walked out again. Fearless. Nearly fearless, that girl… well, apart from when it comes to her old man.’ Yasser brightened. ‘Maybe
she
needs a psychotherapist!’

‘
Maybe she’s already got one. Come on, let’s go. I need a brew.

Party Animals

1.

For Vig, the first week in the new house had been less
odd
than pinch-me-I’m-dreaming
weird.
Indeed, it had been something of a surreal experience; but for Dorota… things had been more natural altogether. Dorota had swum into the fresh experience, swanlike and blithe. What she didn’t have, she sent Curtis to drive out to fetch: a pair of scissors, a roll of kitchen tissue. Although Charles Eastlight had gone beyond the call of duty by arranging for the house to be decked out when they moved in (selling properties fully furnished and prepared was his field and speciality, but even so), there was the occasional necessity that had either not been thought of or could not be located in any number of cupboards or drawers. Very quickly Dorota had risen to the challenge of this quest, whereas Vig had experienced, for the last seven days, the unshakeable enduring sensation that he had checked into an unpopular hotel that nonetheless commanded great views.

At the end of the first week they had a housewarming party. Hothouse flower that she was, Dorota took the opportunity to interpret what they’d written on the invitations literally, and by four o’clock the whole property sweltered in Capricorn temperatures. Vig was not impressed: he thought the heat indulgence wasteful, and he said so; but Dorota merely giggled off the suggestion.

‘You don’t want our guests catching… what’s the English? Chilly banes?’

‘Chilblains. It’s
autumn,
Dol; they won’t be arriving on
sleds
.’

‘Pity,’ said Dorota.

‘You’re not in Poland anymore!’

‘And
you’re
not in Germany. And you’re not a schoolteacher either. And both of us, most importantly, we’re not
poor…
It’s only one evening: if our gests get too hot they can go outside…’

‘Which defeats the purpose.’

‘…or go in the whirlpool with their champagne!’ Dorota added excitedly.

The two of them were standing in the kitchen, wrapping and cutting spicy
fajitas
into finger food. Their friends were expected from seven onwards. Vig’s forthcoming job was to barbecue chicken and burgers, on a patio half the area of a basketball court; but before he was allowed near any flames he had had to promise Dorota that he would help with the buffet spread, though it wasn’t food he cared for and he felt guilty making a mess of such an expansive NASA kitchen.

‘Yeah,
about
that champagne,’ Vig said.

‘I got three cases.’

‘I saw.’

‘Do you think we need more? I could go –‘

‘No I don’t think we need more – not on top of the seven boxes of Pinot Grigio and seven boxes of Chianti. It was more a question about the
quality
.’

Dorota pouted. ‘I bought the best stuff,’ she said quickly and defensively.

‘My point being: did you need to?’ Vig asked. ‘How much did that lot set you back?’

Dorota stopped cutting Mexican snacks and pointed the knife at Vig. ‘I will
not
have people thinking we’re skinflints, Hartvig. You’ve just won six million pounds! What do you care about a few hundred on drinks for a party?
Decompress,
why don’t you?’

Vig smiled. ‘Where did you hear that?’

‘Like a puncture!’ said Dorota, resuming her work and singing choppety-
chop!

Despite himself, Vig couldn’t help but be amused. ‘Now you want me to be a
puncture?
’

‘Anything but a solid tyre,’ Dorota answered; ‘going round and around without friction. Boring!’

‘…Not
quite
the analogy I’d expected,’ Vig admitted.

‘It’s a metaphor – not an analogy.’

‘Oh well I
do
beg your hard-on, my angel.’

‘Wrap em faster, Vig,’ Dorota ordered. ‘You’re a slacker. You
slack
for a living.’

‘But don’t we all now?’ Vig wondered aloud.

2.

At six forty-five Vig fired up the barbecue, and was standing solo when a familiar face (and the first to arrive) called his name. It was Phyllie Reydman. Phyllie taught Geography at the school in Aylesbury from which Vig and Dorota had resigned at the end of the summer term. She and Vig had been close for the two years he’d worked there: Phyllie had a crisp and spiteful line in gossip that was right up Vig’s alley. It was also in Vig that Phyllie had once confided her doubts about her upcoming marriage; Vig had always assumed that she’d been flirting with him, testing their shared atmosphere, but she appeared content enough tonight, her husband Roger in laconic tow.

They kissed each other’s cheek – peck, withdraw, peck – in the Continental fashion, and when they were alone and could talk in private (with Dorota and Roger in the kitchen, fetching drinks) Vig said to Phyllie, ‘I see you ate early.’

‘Isn’t it horrible? And that’s only
five
months,’ Phyllie replied, laying both hands on the bump that she carried in front of her, to which protuberance Vig had referred.

‘Congratulations. And no, it’s not horrible.’

‘No Camembert, no Brie… It’s like I’m in prison! No
wine
.’

‘What about barbecued flesh?’ Vig asked.

‘As long as you cremate it.’

Vig laughed. ‘Speciality of the house. I don’t know any other way, to be honest… So how are you keeping? How’s the new term so far?’

Roger and Dorota had come outside to join them, each holding a glass in either hand. Taking hold of hers, Phyllie thanked her husband and said, ‘I’ll be
looking
like an orange, the amount of juice I’m downing… It’s kind of odd, all the police around all the time.’

Vig said, ‘Police’ and scooped some more charcoal briquettes onto the thumb-sized flames.

‘You know: the missing girl.’

‘No I don’t,’ Vig answered, turning for support from Dorota, who shook her head.

‘Oh it’s been in the news,’ said Phyllie. ‘It’s eight days now: an eleventh year girl, Jessica Olney – do you know her? – she went missing after a night out with her friends. Only she wasn’t really with her friends.’

‘Jess Olney?’ said Dorota. ‘I know her. A bit forthright with her opinions…’

‘Yeah that’s Jess.’ Phyllie smiled thinly.

‘How awful.’

‘I don’t know her myself, but we’ve all been interviewed. What could I say? She doesn’t do Geography. I was about as much use as chocolate sunglasses.’

Roger said, ‘Don’t put yourself down, dear,’ and sipped from a thimble’s-worth of whisky in a new expensive glass. Presumably he had heard it all before about the missing girl (and didn’t wish to hear it again) for he went on swiftly: ‘What time’s the main feast?’

‘About half an hour,’ Vig answered absently. ‘I’m trying to remember her. I know the name.’

Phyllie tried to help. ‘Big boned?’ she suggested.

‘…Yeah I think so. Drama queen.’

‘That was Jess. That
is
Jess, I mean.’ Phyllie’s face rouged. ‘God, that’s dreadful of me. And for once I can’t even blame the chardonnay.’

3.

Arriving half-cut at a quarter past eight, Eastlight was fashionably late, dressed preposterously in a dark maroon suit, cream Cubans and a weary tam-o-shanter…

Dorota was standing by the barbecue: she had taken over while Vig took a bathroom break, and on seeing Eastlight’s approach, she said to Phyllie, ‘Is the circus in town?’

‘God, who
is
he?’ Phyllie replied through a mouthful of pasta salad.

‘I’ll introduce you.’

However, the chance to do so was not to be immediately forthcoming. Midway across the patio, Eastlight spotted someone in the crowd and changed his course. There was no need to wonder who’d he seen: his voice was like a sonic boom.

‘
Don!
’

Dorota said, ‘Oh, that’ll keep him happy: someone to look down on for a couple of hours. That’s Charles Eastlight – he’s the one who found us this place; weeded out a hundred other also-rans; dealt with most of the paperwork… He’s been amazing.’ She swallowed what remained of a glass of cranberry vodka, mentally shuffling through her choices. ‘I can’t say I like him – he’s either a bully or a toady, depending on who he’s talking to – but I can’t take it away from him, he’s earned his commission.’

‘And Vig’s friendship?’ Phyllie asked.

Dorota shrugged. ‘Something like that,’ she answered quietly, then her face warmed and she smiled. ‘
He
certainly thinks so, anyway. He greets Vig with
Viggy-loo, Viggy-lay –
like they’ve been the best of mates for thirty years.’

Dropping her paper plate into one of the rubbish bins around the patio, Phyllie asked, ‘What does it mean?’

‘I’ve no idea…’ Dorota regarded the hotplate in front of her. ‘I couldn’t tempt you to another burger, could I? I think Vig’s overestimated how many people would come.’

‘Thanks, but I usually stick at four burgers and a plate of pasta,’ Phyllie told her. ‘This is a pretty good turnout though. And the weather’s stayed dry.’

‘We’re pleased…’ Dorota cast her eye over at Eastlight and Don. ‘I wish he’d leave the old boy alone. What
is
it with some people?’

Eastlight was standing close to Don – surely
too
close – and leaning into the older man’s face. Evidently it was difficult for Don to find the room to sip his pint of ale comfortably: his tankard hung at the end of his arm, the elongation of a long-dead limb.

‘Vig was saying that Don came with the house,’ Phyllie said.

‘Kind of. Basically, he refused to leave. The old boy who lived here before had to move – he ran out of money – and he took his staff with him, those who’d stood by him. But Don wouldn’t go: said he’d fight till the end to save his birds… So Vig hired him. Have you seen the birds?’

‘No. I’d like to.’

‘I’ll show you around…’ Dorota laughed. ‘By all accounts it was the Battle of Stalingrad, apparently. My interpretation is: let’s not underestimate the strength and resilience of Mr Bridges.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ Phyllie told her.

4.

Having been relieved of gate duty, Curtis was tasked with guiding guests to the aviary, parties of five or six at a time. Some of the guests had brought children to the party; and the birds came as a blissful cooing revelation to them.

Watching over proceedings, Don appeared happy to answer questions. He even conceded to enter one of the cages and hold Larry the lizard close to the mesh, for all to get a better look; and as far as Don was concerned, he was putting in a formidable performance. Nerve-racking though tonight might be, Don knew that it was imperative that he remained cordial. Whether or not he wished to be here (and he didn’t), he had done the right thing by turning up, even if the effort had required a mug of brandy with which to calm the raging waters of his discomfort.

It had to be over soon, Don consoled himself. They would all go home and life would revert to normality. The birds were what he cared about – the birds and his friend in the well – and so far, as a relationship, it was working well with Mr Klossen and Miss Teodorescu. Don had even learned how to spell their surnames, out of respect. There had only been that one awkward scene…

Vig and Dorota had been in the house for two days at that point, and Vig had decided to take a stroll around all that he surveyed. Despite the acres and the camouflaging woodland in which Don’s cabin sat alone, it was probably inevitable that the cabin would be located sooner or later. Don supposed that sooner was better: at least he had been half-expecting the visit, squaring the chances with the factor of idle curiosity alone: Vig’s curiosity. Fair enough that the man would want to see all that his one-pound lottery ticket had earned him, including the scrags. So when Vig had knocked on the door, the sound had been both unexpected and according to Fate. Get through this one initial house visit, Don could remember thinking, and he’s not likely to want to come again.

Well, that prediction had proved true (so far); but the accuracy of his prophecy had not diminished the awkwardness of the moment. If Vig had been hellbent on causing a disruption, he could not have chosen a more inconvenient time: it was twelve-thirty. Don had been tucking into a toasted cheese sandwich, a mug of tea steaming on the sideboard. All well and good. The devilish side of this tranquil woodsman scene was that Don, since taking ownership of the little girl in the well in his kitchen, had always played fair with food: this meant that his lunchtime was also hers. Down below the ground, she was eating what Don had prepared for her (her usual), and if there was anything to thank for the advancing of human years, it was this; the natural insurance policy of
routine
. Being a man of considerable age, Don was also a stickler for things settling in a pre-arranged order, and without this compulsion – virtually unacknowledged at the time of Vig’s visit, blessed ever since – Don might have been sunk, there and then. But routine it had been, and not so much as self-preservation, that had led Don to knocking the trapdoor down into place, and to covering it with the moth-bitten rug. Lunchtimes were for
solitary
nourishment.

Throughout Vig’s short stay in the cabin (barely more than twenty minutes) the girl had not made a peep in the well. Not a murmur… The problem was that Don had left incriminating evidence in the kitchen. The
second problem
was that in a dwelling so petite, the kitchen could be viewed from the lounge. And the
third
problem was that Vig had sat down on the settee: he’d had a perfect vantage point of the surfaces in the kitchen, as long as he moved his head slightly to the left (the settee faced a spanking new television)…
For want of a nail the kingdom was lost
,
Don had sighed ruefully in the intervening days: it was always the
little
things that did for you; the seemingly insignificant that upset the entire cart of apples. On cop shows too: the murderer caught out by a length of twine, a missed dental appointment, the fading ridges of a circumcision scar… In Don’s case it was an empty box of Cow & Gate baby milk preparation, for all to see, there on the surface beside the microwave oven.