To Indigo Read online

That sent another jolt through me. Not the reference, just the impact of his quiet, flat tone.

  Again I said nothing and he added, “It’s routine in some hospitals. Evidently the one where you were born, as I don’t think you’re Semitic.” When I didn’t speak now he added “Or are you?”

  So I must answer.

  “I haven’t a clue. My parents weren’t.”

  “You’re a bit underweight,” he went on, as if musing, “gut a bit flabby. Nothing much.” The bath was full; I turned off the taps. “Get in, then,” he said.

  I got in. I sat down when he gestured to me to sit, in the warm water.

  “Well,” he said, “just carry on.”

  “What am I supposed to carry on with?” I said.

  “Your bath. Just do what you always do.” He paused and then said, in the most indescribable, vaguely humorous, terrible way, “Don’t mind me.”

  In prisons of war or kidnap, guarded by jailors indifferent, sadistic or murderous, men have had to do this. They have had to urinate and defecate and vomit, also under the keen eyes of these enemies. Would that be the next step?

  The soap was in my hands. I began to wash.

  Still I hadn’t once looked into his face, let alone his eyes. Not looking at him, even though he never took his eyes from me, seemed peculiarly to leave me a measure of privacy, perhaps safety. This is irrational, and afterwards became meaningless.

  With each ordinary everyday move I made, I wondered what would come after.

  He said nothing for a while.

  He watched.

  When I’d performed these ablutions, sluiced myself over, then he said, “Don’t you ever lie back for a minute in the water?”

  “Not often.”

  “So that’s all.”

  I thought, He is going to instruct me now to do something else. To play with myself, perhaps. Or to sing a song. Am I going to do that? Either of those? I suppose I’ll have to.

  I stared at the light shining on the chrome taps. They weren’t very clean. Franziska hadn’t done a very good job, but to be fair too, that had been weeks back because he’d made me cancel her visits. The agency were very understanding about the emergency journey abroad he’d told me to say I had to make. I could have rung another number, pretended, let her arrive. But what would she have done anyway? Besides, I’d imagined him telling her he was my son, and how deranged I was, she’d been lucky. Even playing the piano to her, asking her for a date, God knows.

  “Well, Roy,” he said, breaking in on these random thoughts, “the water will be getting cold. Better get out now.”

  When I was out again I reached for the towel, but before I got hold of it he said, “Now leave the towel. First I want you, just for a minute, to stand there and look me in the face.”

  It wasn’t chilly in the bathroom. It was nearly June and the sun was out.

  I raised my head and looked directly at him.

  Only I couldn’t. Somehow I couldn’t. My eyes slid off his face. I tried to make them stay – less for any affirmative reason of my own, than in order to obey and so appease him. And I couldn’t. My eyes began to water. This was not fear, or tearfulness. It was the strain, as if I forced myself to stare into the sun, or hold up some huge weight that was going to break my back.

  “OK,” he said then. With the edge of vision I saw he smiled his smile. He threw the towel to me. And walked past me and out of the bathroom.

  I heard him go down the stairs.

  What happened next surprised me. I pushed the door shut and locked it, then I lifted the lid of the lavatory and was sick. The bath was still gurgling as it emptied. Perhaps he didn’t hear the noise of my nausea.

  I stayed in the bathroom after this for some time.

  I believed, even if he’d heard nothing, even if he came to ‘check’ on me again and I made some excuse as to why I was still there – cleaning the bath perhaps – even so he guessed, had calculated and foretold how I was.

  I advised myself I had been very afraid that something frightening, a thorough assault, a beating, was about to be perpetrated on me. Even after all male rape. But I knew I hadn’t thought that. And I had been convinced also that so long as I did as I was asked, there’d be no violence. My subsequent physical reaction, and my mental one still, were not caused by actual anxiety or terror. It was something else.

  On the floor by the basin I sat on the damp towel, thinking, thinking of this. Thinking of how I had been naked.

  It was a very minor ordeal. Nothing dramatic or ghastly had occurred. It amounted to nothing.

  But my brain held it. As in dreams sometimes I do, I saw myself as a separate person, and viewed from above. I saw myself standing before him, then in the bath washing, getting out and standing again in front of Joseph Traskul, unable to meet his eyes, unable to look at him. I knew that once more clothed, I would remain unable to look into his face.

  I found too I didn’t want to leave the bathroom. I wished to stay there, by the basin, seated on the floor, not focussing, staring inward, thinking about myself seen from above as another person, naked. Or rather, this was not what I wished. It was all I could do. Even to move my left leg, the foot of which had gone to sleep, was beyond me. My mind was filling the room, and the house outside, with a kind of cerebral fog. In this Sej vanished. He would not therefore come up to the bathroom, knock, break down the door. Nothing would happen. Time had stopped.

  NINETEEN

  When I went downstairs it was almost 4 p.m.

  Outside birds sang, and a couple of lawnmowers droned. Now and then a car went up or down the road. Everything was completely normal. But there was no sound in the house at all. I might have been alone there.

  He was lying on the paint-splattered sofa in the front room, the shattered TV to his far left, a cushion under his head, reading Milton.

  Without looking up, he read to me.

  “‘Som natural tears they dropd, but wiped them soon,

  ‘The World was all before them, where to choose

  ‘Thir place of rest, and Providence thir guide:

  ‘They hand in hand with wandring steps and slow,

  ‘Through Eden took their solitarie way.’”

  I said, not looking at him, or no further than the book. “I’m going to make something to eat.”

  “Go ahead,” he replied.

  I walked out and on into the kitchen. There was no smell of food, and no crockery either in the sink or washed and draining.

  From the fridge I took out the last of the ham and cut a couple of slices from the uncut loaf, spreading it with margarine. I thought of mustard too, then decided that might be too strong.

  I had put on the same clothes from earlier. Just one addition. Something in my pocket.

  While I’d made the sandwich, I had kept an ear and an eye on the hall. But Sej hadn’t moved, he didn’t come to see what I was doing. Generally, if I made myself food, he ignored me.

  I took a couple of bites out of one half of the sandwich. I was almost hungry, which startled me slightly. When I’d swallowed them I opened up that half of the sandwich again and dropped in the wasp from my handkerchief. It barely reacted and seemed mostly dead already; I’d reckoned any mustard would kill it outright. I replaced the top slice of bread gently, not to crush the wasp. Then I coughed loudly and started to swear.

  Sej didn’t come to see what was the matter.

  I went quickly back up the hall, carrying the plate, and into the front room.

  He glanced up. This time I met his eyes, mine bulging. Now it was bizarrely possible.

  “What have you done to this?” I shouted.

  He raised his eyebrows.

  “Tell me what you’ve done to it. You’ve put something on it – God knows what – it tastes like – cough mixture…”

  “Oh, Roy. I haven’t done a thing. You’re the one tries to drug people.”

  “What about the fucking Rohypnol?” I ranted.

  “Well, I’ll tell you a secret, Roy. I
lied about that. Yeah, I lied. There wasn’t any Rohypnol in your glass. You must just have been rather tired and gone to sleep. But you were so keen I’d done something I hated to disillusion you.”

  “You’ve put poison on this bread – or the ham – That wasn’t the deal.”

  “OK,” he said. “So I’ve poisoned you. With, what was it? Cabdriver’s linctus. Oh dear.”

  “Taste it,” I roared. My face was hot. I had absolutely no trouble in glaring right at him. It was easy, almost – pleasing. “That’s the arrangement. You taste my food, I taste yours. If you haven’t done anything…”

  “All right. Give it here. If it’ll calm you down.”

  I shoved the plate at him. He looked amused. Supercilious, as if at all other times we led a happy low-key life together. “This piece?” He lifted the half with the wasp and put it to his mouth. And bit down on it.

  Something happened in his eyes. I was staring now so intently and fixedly I saw it, like a spark, as if he had said “Ah – but wait…”

  And then he gave a cry. The plate went flying. The two portions of the sandwich fell off and the bitten half opened. I couldn’t see the wasp.

  Sej was gripping his mouth. He had jumped up.

  “What…” he said though his hand, “burns…?”

  Then he made a noise as if he were retching, just as I had done earlier upstairs.

  I said, “I told you so.”

  And I turned and walked out and straight into the library next door. His phone was still lying on the carpet. I detached it from the socket and stabbed in the number, ready memorised, that Cart had given me. I shut the library door and leaned on it.

  Next door Sej was coughing violently, on and on, perhaps beginning to choke. I couldn’t bank on that, or perhaps I could. But could I bank on Cart?

  And it was only then I remembered that Cart had said his number would be available only for a ‘few’ weeks – was it too late?

  After three rings an accented voice answered. “Bizan poos,” it cheerily, incomprehensibly said. I must risk it. Had no other choice.

  “I have to speak to Cart.” I said, “quickly.” I was almost whispering. Probably Cart was gone. Probably – The voice had heard. If this was still the right number – maybe they were used to panicked whisperers.

  “Who is asking, innit?”

  “Phillips. Say R.P. Phillips.”

  “Phillip.”

  Next door now there was a soft thud.

  Another voice came from the phone. I knew it.

  “Mr Phillips.”

  “Cart – I need you at my house – your man knows where. How quickly can you…”

  “Quite quickly. An emergency, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have tried to warn you, Mr Phillips.”

  “The front door’s locked – can’t open it – need to break in – I’m his prisoner. And there’s no money here to pay you.” I added, “You can hold me hostage until my bank opens.”

  “Mr Phillips, have no worries. We will always accept a recognised credit card.”

  The line went dead.

  I felt a deadly triumph and a sickened fear. If Sej was still conscious or able-bodied, how long would I be able to survive him? I dropped the mobile back on the carpet and reconnected it to the socket. I went out again into the hall.

  No one was in the front room – he had gone.

  Christ –

  From the kitchen I heard water running.

  I should get upstairs, barricade myself in the study. The desk and file cabinet, if I could lug them to the door, should keep him out a while.

  “Roy,” Sej called. His voice was a little roughened, that was all. He was there then, standing in the doorway. His lip was bleeding. “Something scratched me,” he said. “Burn’s like hell.” Neither his mouth nor his face were at all swollen.

  I stood my ground; I had begun to shake now, and getting up the stairs was going to take longer than I’d planned.

  “I said…” I repeated.

  “You put something in it, didn’t you?” he asked. His face was neither enraged nor did it have that dangerous quality of concern. “And I fell for it.”

  “If I put something in the fucking thing why would I have been eating it?”

  “Well. I didn’t see you eat any, did I?”

  Where before I had been unable to look into his face or eyes, precisely as a few minutes earlier I found I couldn’t look away.

  He came out into the hall.

  “Let’s go and inspect it, then,” he said, “your sandwich.”

  Perhaps the sting hadn’t yet had a chance to build up to its proper toxicity. In the cases I’d heard of asphyxiation, or at least incapacitation of anyone stung in the mouth, happened inside a couple of minutes.

  We both walked back into the front room.

  The undone sandwich lay there, bread and ham and the smears of the margarine. Nothing else. The plate hadn’t broken.

  Sej went over to it and toed the food.

  “What’s that?” he asked. He bent forward and I saw the tiny blackish curled up corpse of the wasp lying under the rim of the plate.

  Now I had better turn and run as fast as my watery legs would carry me.

  A loud crunching crack sounded from the back of the house. A chair went over in the kitchen. Feet were pounding like a train up through the hall. Something pushed me aside.

  There were two of them, both in black jeans, T-shirts and trainers. One wore a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes, the other had a mop of brown hair.

  I’d staggered back and reached the wall.

  I saw Sej standing there with his eyes wide and then they had him. One blow thudded home in his stomach. As he doubled the brown-haired man grabbed his arms from behind, and swung him away to the wall beyond the window. There, screened from the street by the drapery of one of my mother’s curtains, the other rhythmically began to sink fresh blows into him.

  “That’s enough,” said the brown-haired man presently. He looked over his shoulder at me. “We’ll do a bit more work later, somewhere else. You’d like him off the premises I take it?” He spoke with an Oxbridge accent. Under the cascade of hair, I identified Mr C in a wig. I’d never, then, heard him speak before.

  The other man, one I didn’t know with a young bony face, was examining Sej as carefully as a doctor. “He’s out.”

  “How did you – I mean – so fast…?” gormlessly I said.

  “Cart knows your type, Mr Phillips. And your friend here’s type too. We’ve been watching. Just round the corner. Come on,” he added to the other man, “we’ll take him out the back way. Vehicle’s just along the Crescent, Mr Phillips. You’ll need to get your back door fixed. But this one won’t be bothering you for at least ten days. Say twelve days, by the time my colleague has had enough room to exercise his full powers.” The other one grinned.

  “How will you…?” I said. “I mean, someone may see you.”

  “They won’t see him,” said Mr C. “We have a big roll of carpet out there. Ever heard of Cleopatra?”

  I nodded, stupefied.

  The other man said, however, “She was carried unseen like into the presence of Caesar, tied up in a carpet. And that’s how we do it, place like this. ‘S nice carpet. And look, no blood to mess it up.” He winked. “Not yet.”

  They dragged Sej out.

  I followed them in a kind of dream state to the kitchen. The door was intact but the lock had been nimbly forced. A large roll of carpet lay on the ground. They pulled it through into the house and I wondered if George and Vita were watching.

  “My neighbours…”

  “Suspicious? You’d be surprised, Mr Phillips. Any questions, someone bust your back door when you were out, or having a nap. Stole some carpet. They get confused you see, witnesses,” said Mr C. his voice taking on a differently accented twang. “Carpet came in, and went out? Nah. Just went out. Elderly couple I think they are, right? Saw ’em the other day. Both batty from t
he looks of ’em. Guy the other side too busy hoovering. Likes a bit of weed an’ all, je pense. Not reliable.”

  They put Sej into the carpet, rolled him up.

  I stood there watching.

  I kept wanting to laugh, but also I needed to be alone. I wanted them gone. How didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but solitude.

  “And he won’t – be back.”

  “Not for a while. And of course, if there’s any more trouble,” Mr C was Oxbridge once more, “we can always arrange a larger delivery. By the way,” he added, as they efficiently raised the bundle, “best to pay HQ inside twelve hours. It’s more polite. Looks as if you’re pleased with the work.”

  Weakly I said, “The man said a credit card – is that right?”

  “Affirmative.”

  Out they strode, carrying the carpet. Limber as squirrels over the fence they went. They must have a van. I closed the door and found I could after all jam it shut. Immediately I called the number again on Sej’s mobile and got the one who answered with the mystic words Bizan poos. But very smartly he acknowledged delivery of my ‘order’, and took the details of my card. I was warmly thanked.

  Only later did I realise both entries to and exits from my house were now barred to me, I was still trapped, the back door jammed, the front door locked and no keys left, for Sej had them all. But the keys came, both sets, next morning, put through my front door in a plain white envelope. And the day after that Duran, flushed with the joy of successful fatherhood, mended the back door and enhanced every aspect of security in the house.

  TWENTY

  Collapse. That happened on the third day. Until then I’d kept going, carried by a sort of transparent bubble of buoyant un-caringness, the kind that can result from certain types of trauma, or alcohol.

  Duran hadn’t been quite fooled by it, I felt, less fooled than I was, probably.

  “You OK, Roy, mate?” he asked me several times.

  But then, he’d seen the gutted TV and the red paint all over the front room.

  Knowing now I couldn’t spill a single bean to him, I spun him a version of the story Mr C had suggested. Vandals had broken in at the kitchen door while I was away up north in Cheston. They’d stolen a few bits and pieces including, for some reason, a spare carpet. They’d also destroyed my TV rather than nick it, and broken a lot of crockery – hence these peculiar cups and saucers, which I’d borrowed, I blithely told him, from Ian at 76. Painting the walls of the front room bright red was pretty warped I had to admit.