froze, just for a split second, then she forced herself back into motion; pulling his duvet still tighter around him. ‘When the builder comes,’ she spoke brightly, normally, ‘when Harvey comes, everything will be fine again, you’ll see.’
The mark –
The blemish
– there was no getting around it.
When she was born they’d thought it might fade. But it did not fade.
The mark was the first thing she saw each morning, and the last thing she saw, each night, before bed. Five hundred years ago, they might’ve burned her for it. And she seriously thought – at some sick, subterranean level – that they still would, if they possibly could (an unconscious suspicion remained. She saw it in people’s eyes – the revulsion, the hostility, the nagging fascination).
The mark was undoubtedly a blotch on her good name. But it was there, dammit. So she’d had to work her way around it, she’d had to be strong, to look beyond.
She never gave even a hint that it bothered her; was casual, cheerful and straightforward, in general, but she was only a woman, and not devoid of vanity (people would come up to her, in the street, and tap her, gently, on the shoulder, kindly informing her that there was something…
Uh…
Oh!
Realising what it was – becoming embarrassed – apologising – then dashing off, humiliated. And those were the nice ones).
The mark was the first thing Isidore noticed when they’d crashed into each other at the ice rink in Folkestone. They were both seventeen.
She’d been visiting the coast for a weekend, to catch up with her father. Isidore had just completed a six-week School Exchange Programme in Tenterden. He was cutting loose in the summer, doing some casual work – mainly manual labour.
He wasn’t actually wearing skates, but was walking, barefoot, on the ice. He was smiling, broadly, his boots hung around his neck by the laces. He looked a little crazy.
A representative of the rink’s management team was already hot on his trail, and Elen – distracted by his feet (they were strong and tanned and straight) – missed a beat and tripped and span, spiralling straight into him.
The mark…
He’d thought it might be chocolate, or mud, or blood, as he’d helped her up. He even thought – for a split second – that he might’ve been the cause of it…
‘Oh my God, are you all right?’
‘You’re German?’ she’d murmured, taking his hand, glancing up at him, smiling. He saw at once that it was a mole of some kind. A beauty-spot.
He grinned his relief as she brushed the ice from her knees. ‘Well whatever gave you that impression?’
She was exceptionally pretty. And the mark didn’t really bother him.
He already had a well-documented genius for circumnavigation.
Harvey Broad owned four mobile phones, three of which he kept neatly suspended, at his hip, in his ‘builder’s buddy’ (a kind of construction worker’s gun holster) which was fashioned out of an expensive-looking sandy-coloured leather (‘This is a prototype, Guv. Have a guess at what kinda hide that is…Pig?! Pull the other one! That’s Buffalo, mate. Straight up. Got her designed and crafted, to my own specifications, by a female in Norfolk who imports the skins, wholesale, from Yank-land and makes all kinds of shit out of ‘em…’).
Also dangling from this heavy-duty charm bracelet were a torch (‘This here, my young friend, is the Surefire Millennium Magnum. Ain’t she a pretty one? Wanna proper butcher’s? Let me unhook her for ya. Nah, mate, nah. Don’t touch. I’ll run through all the functions just as soon as…
Right. So this baby is totally water and shock resistant. Blasts out 500 Lumens. See that? Take a guess at how much they rushed me for it? Take a wild guess…Five pounds? Oi! Does this kid know the value of money or what?! How does 392 dollars grab ya? I say dollars because this here torch is the first choice of the American Military; and trust me, those geezers don’t mess around wiv’ their hardware…’)
A protective face mask (‘New one every day, sure as eggs. Don’t ever fuck around wiv’ ya lungs. You probably couldn’t tell by the look of me – I’m in fairly buff condition if I say so myself – but I only have three-quarters of the normal lung capacity for a man of my years. Got involved in a diving accident, in Malta, when I was still just a nipper. Bought me tanks off of some shonky army geezer. First time I used ‘em the bastards imploded. I was 25-fuckin’-feet under water. Nearly finished me off, it did…’)
A pair of wrap-around sunglasses, of the type generally favoured by slightly psychotic, recently widowed, Dodge-driving American octogenarians (‘Believe it or not, my own dear wife Linda bought me these for thirty-odd quid off the Shoppin’ Channel. QVC: Quality, Value, Convenience. They’re totally, bloody indestructible. In the car I’ve got my Raybans – for smart – but these babies have what my oldest calls Unabomber Chic, and you just can’t put a price-tag on that.’)
A little hammer, a set of screw-drivers and some pliers. (‘I like my tools how I like my women: small, well-crafted, lightly greased.’)
A toy truck – a Monster Truck; a Dinky; ‘Bigfoot 7’, to be precise – neatly fashioned (by his own hand), into a key-ring for his customised Toyota.
Bigfoot 7 was originally (he told a bemused Elen) an F250 Ford Pick-up with a 540-cubic-inch engine which had been painstakingly fitted with four, huge wheels (by a man called Bob Chandler – ‘a folk hero of the American car industry’) to enable it to perform a series of stunts (chiefly – so far as she could gauge – to drive over a line of old cars and lay waste to them. She wasn’t entirely sure why this was a good thing, and she didn’t dare ask. It just was, apparently).
Harvey delighted in telling her how it took ‘three men three hours to change a single, damn tyre. Imagine that? It’s just completely bloody fucked!’). There were many Bigfoots (‘I mean some of these babies can jump over 200 feet…’), but 7’s claim to fame was that it had been used – to great effect – in the Hollywood classic Turner and Hooch (‘You ever see that film? You never saw it? Are you kiddin’ me?! I should lend you my copy. It’s about a dog detective. Stars Tom Hanks. The boy’ll fuckin’ love it.’).
Harvey was also the proud owner of three of the first four As in the building section of the local phone book: AAABuilders and Plumbers PLC – which he called ‘Treble A’ whenever he answered the relevant phone (‘I always think it sounds a bit “Vegas”, somehow, a bit plummy, a bit flash. Know what I mean?’), Aardvark Builders and Plumbers inc, the advert for which was slightly larger than most, and doubly distinguished by a small etching (‘I paid through
