shakes his head and his mouth suddenly contracts. He stops walking as we reach the back balcony, plops himself down on to the bench and covers his lean face with his skinny hands.
‘It’s all …’ he sniffs, trying to retain some vague hold on his dignity (failing dismally), ‘… all very confused … confusing.’
‘Can I …? Uh … Would you like me to …?’ I don’t even know what I’m suggesting I should do. Leave? Spontaneously combust? Gently evaporate? Quietly hang myself? (Oh she’d like that, wouldn’t she?! The cow Author? Well then I most definitely won’t be – hanging myself, I mean. No. I won’t be hanging myself. I’m far too tall to be hanging myself, for one thing. It’d be so difficult to arrange. Although there’s always the barn back on the farm, I suppose. Not that I’ve got any rope strong enough to … uh … aside from the blue nylon stuff Eddie’s been using to tether the …
What?!
No!
Why am I thinking like this?! I’ve never had these kinds of thoughts before – suicidal thoughts. And if I was going to kill myself it wouldn’t be by rope, it’d be sat quietly in the van with a grand view below me, up near the Country Park, maybe, engine running, blocked exhaust … Although with all that rust and the missing door there’s not much chance …
No!
I’m doing it again! She’s got me doing it again! I won’t be killing myself! I feel no urge to kill myself! None! I’m very much here – larger than life. I am substantially here. And I’m not going down without a fight, madam, you can be bloody sure of that! Bloody sure!
Good.)
I turn and take in the view. The sea view. This is the most beautiful view in all the world. Just scrubland and then sea. Well, the Channel, really. Just the bit of rough scrub, the ribbon of Sea Road following the sea wall, the pebble beach, the sea, the clouds, the sky.
‘Yes. No. My wife died,’ he blurts out (how much time has passed? Loads? None?). ‘Very suddenly. Three days ago. I’m just …’
‘Sorry?’ I turn, surprised (in truth I’d almost forgotten he was there).
‘My wife,’ he repeats, ‘died. Dead. She …’
I must look shocked – slightly disbelieving. Embarrassed. I mean this started out as a conversation about hutches – didn’t it? Didn’t it? About rabbits?
‘Not the cat woman,’ he commences, waving his hand about. ‘She wasn’t my wife. I was … it’s complicated. There’s a woman called … You might have heard of … she’s called Kimberly. Kimberly Couzens. She’s a photographer. We were married. She had the affair with … with him … you know. Bran. She was burned. In the explosion – the car – when he …’
‘Oh … Oh wow,’ I stutter, finally making the connection. ‘The Canadian? The photographer? She was your wife?’
‘Yes. Yes. I’m here for her.’ He nods, pathetically grateful to be understood. ‘I came for her. And I’m broke. Completely broke. I agreed to write the book as a sort of … a sort of favour. I’m not sure how it … I mean I’m not really sure … And then … then she just died. I mean she’s been disabled for years – with the burns being so severe … But this was something so sudden … so … so random, something to do with a tooth. A tooth! I’ve not eaten in four days. I’ve not … I’ve not told anyone … I’m just … The flight couldn’t be changed. I can’t go back for the funeral. Her mother has dementia. It’s been … then the shark … the flies. It’s been … I’ve been …’
Still the arm waving.
‘… really … really struggling,’ he finishes off, his voice cracking.
I don’t know what to say.
‘I don’t know what to say,’ I say.
I’m furious. In fact, I’m steaming. I can’t believe the cow Author has sprung this on me. What a cow. What a cow.
I turn and inhale the view again. I refuse, no, no, I won’t be drawn into this bloody farrago! And I’m angry that I thought I had it all down pat … this … this situation … the set-up … the plot … but now to find out that my knowledge has been … well, just selective … compromised. He was married to the photographer! Why didn’t I know that?! I mean if I knew about the parrot. Why’d I know about the sodding parrot – all about it! – but nothing about this?
I breathe in deeply and force myself to enjoy the view. The view is still here. The view is still beautiful.
Behind me I hear him sobbing.
Oh God, why? Why?
‘Well, you still need a hutch,’ I maintain. Still looking at the view. Still feeding off the view. I really love this view. I could happily die looking at this view.
‘Yes,’ he sniffs.
No more thoughts about dying. I reach into my pocket.
‘Tangerine?’
I turn and offer it to him.
‘Thanks.’
He accepts the tangerine.
‘I don’t think I actually met her,’ I say. ‘Your wife. The photographer. But I did see her around and about the place. On the beach with her camera photographing everything …’
He glances up, sharply. ‘You were here back then?’
‘I’m always here.’ I nod. ‘That’s me. A part of the landscape – a blot on the landscape. In fact I was … uh … Carla and I were …’ I shrug.
‘Oh. Oh, really?’
Mr Huff looks slightly surprised. ‘So you were … Oh. So you were here – resident – when everything uh …?’ He scowls. ‘But why didn’t I already know that?’
I shrug (cow Author not doing her job, I suppose).
‘That’s never been mentioned,’ Mr Huff persists, ‘I mean there isn’t any physical evidence, any testimony … and documentary evidence in all of the … all of the …’
He starts feeling for his pockets (grief briefly forgotten) as if the information relating to my early life in Pett Level might be miraculously contained therein.
Oh, here it is – here’s the little bit of paper all about what an insignificant lump of crap you are (cheerfully holds out tiny till receipt with hardly anything printed on it).
‘It’s my size.’ I shrug. ‘I’m so huge that people kind of … they pass me over. It’s difficult to engage. They ignore me the way you’d ignore a giant bear.’
‘You’re the elephant in the room.’ Mr Huff grins, weakly.
