He put his phone away. The tone of his voice told her not to persist, but she ignored the warning.
‘Difficult. With your mother. I remember thinking how incredibly brave you were. Heroic, almost.’
His cheeks reddened. ‘Not at all.’
‘Sometimes, after I’d seen her, I’d just sit in my car and shake. Just shake. I didn’t know how you coped with it. I still don’t. You were so young.’
She smiled softly at the memory, and as she smiled, he suddenly remembered. He remembered standing at the window and seeing her in her car, shaking: her arms thrown over the steering wheel, her head thrown on to her arms –
Oh God
His gut twisted.
He turned and gazed out into the car park. He was unbelievably angry. He felt found-out – unearthed – raw. But worst of all, he felt charmless. Charm was an essential part of his armoury. It was his defensive shield, and she had somehow connived to worm her way under it –
Damn her
He drew a deep breath.
Outside he could suddenly see Beede –
Huh…?
– walking through the play area towards the blond imposter and the horse. The imposter had now dismounted. He was touching his head. He seemed confused. Beede offered his hand to the horse. The horse sniffed his hand. It appeared very receptive to Beede’s advances.
‘I wonder what happened to the other man,’ Kane mused, then shuddered. Everything was feeling strange to him. Inverted. And he didn’t like it.
‘Maybe there were two horses,’ the boy said. He was now standing next to the table and fingering Kane’s lighter. He looked up at Kane and held it out towards him. ‘Red,’ he smiled, ‘that’s your colour.’ The lighter was red.
He showed his mother. ‘See?’
She said nothing.
‘See?’ he repeated. ‘He comes from fire.’
‘Don’t be silly.’ His mother took the lighter off him and held it out to Kane herself.
Kane walked over and took it from her. She had beautiful hands. He remembered her hands from before.
‘I lived in the American desert,’ he said to the boy, ‘when I was younger. It was very hot. I once almost died in the heat out there. Look…’
He pushed back his sleeve and showed the boy a burn on his arm. The boy seemed only mildly interested.
Kane was about to pull his sleeve down again when the woman (Elen, was it?) put out her hand and took a firm hold of his wrist. She pulled his arm towards her. She stared at the scar. Her face was so close to it he could feel her breath on his skin. Then she let go (just as suddenly) and focussed in on the boy once more.
‘America,’ Kane said, taking full possession of his arm again, drawing it into his chest, shoving the sleeve down, feeling like an angry child who’d just had his school uniform damaged in a minor playground fracas. As he spoke he noticed Beede’s book on the floor. He bent down and picked it up. He shoved it into his jacket pocket.
‘In a magic trick,’ the boy repeated, plaintively, ‘they would’ve had two horses.’
‘How old are you?’ Kane asked, glancing over towards the serving counter and noticing Anthony Shilling standing there.
‘Five.’
‘Then you’re just old enough to keep it…’ he said, showing Fleet his empty hand, forming a fist, tapping his knuckles and then opening the hand up again. The red lighter had magically reappeared in the centre of his palm. The boy gasped. Kane placed it down, carefully, on to the lacquered table, nodded a curt farewell to the chiropodist, and left it there.
‘I’m Beede; Daniel Beede. I’m your friend. Do you remember me, Dory?’
Beede peered up, intently, into the tall, blond man’s face, struggling – at first – to establish any kind of a connection with him. He spoke softly (like you’d speak to a child) and he used his name carefully, as if anticipating that it might provoke some kind of violent reaction. But it didn’t.
‘Of course.’
The tall, blond man blinked and then nodded. ‘Yes. Yes, of course I remember…’ He talked quietly and haltingly with a strong German accent. ‘It’s just that…uh…’
His eyes anxiously scanned the surrounding area (the road, the horse, the tarmac, the vehicles in the car park). ‘It’s just that I suddenly have the strangest…’
He winced, shook his head, then gazed down, briefly, at his own two hands, as if he didn’t quite recognise them. ‘…uh…fu…fu…fühlen?’
He glanced up, quizzically.
‘Feeling,’ Beede translated.
The German stared at him, blankly.
‘Feeling,’ Beede repeated.
The German frowned. ‘No…not…it’s this…this…’ he patted his own chest, meaningfully, ‘fuh-ling. Feee…Yes. Yes. This feeling. This horrible, almost…’ he shuddered, ‘almost overwhelming feeling. Like a kind of…’ He swallowed. ‘A dread. A deep dread.’
Beede nodded.
‘…a terrible dread.’ He moved his hands to his throat, ‘Suffocare. Suffocating. A smothering feeling. A terrible feeling…’
‘You’re tired,’ Beede murmured gently, ‘and possibly a little confused, but it’ll soon pass, trust me.’
‘I do,’ the German nodded, ‘I do traust you.’ He paused. ‘Trost you…’
He blinked. ‘Troost.’
‘Trust,’ Beede repeated.
‘Of course…’ the German continued. ‘It’s just…’
His darting eyes settled, momentarily, on the pony. ‘I have an awful suspicion that this feeling – this…this…uh…’
‘Fear,’ Beede filled in, dryly.
‘Yes…yes…fff…’
The
