The Pagan House Read online

  Company Bob and Coach were the only ones laughing. Janice and Mon and Marilou watched them with dissimilar looks of distaste. Warren was carrying things through to the kitchen, stopping to offer Guthrie something for her cough, which she haughtily declined. Fay had closed her eyes and might have been sleeping. Jerome already was.

  7

  Mon took flight with regretful hugs and repeated sighs of ‘Oh Eddie!’ She tousled his hair and he had to pull it straight again. She kissed him for the thousandth time and climbed, as if reluctantly, into the station-wagon.

  ‘Okay Eddie, you’ll be in charge,’ Warren said, patting out a double toot on the horn as the car pulled away.

  Edgar stood with Fay on the porch to wave the car off. Maybe because she’d noticed the bereft feeling he was manfully trying to suppress, she gave him a handful of notes and coins. ‘Your father asked me to give you these. It’s for spending money until he gets here.’

  Edgar didn’t trust his voice, so he nodded his appreciation.

  Fay rubbed the red patch on her throat. ‘I need to pick up my John Mills movie from the video store,’ she said, as if this was a matter of great delicacy that she might nonetheless trust him with. ‘You might want to come with me, if that’s not too boring a project.’

  On the way down to the store, Edgar adjusting his walk to the slowness of Fay’s, sometimes holding out a steadying hand when she seemed about to stumble or stall, Fay told him about someone called Mary, of whom she spoke with such fondness that he assumed she was her dearest friend, now sadly moved away. The way she spoke about Mary made Edgar like her too.

  ‘Her impetuosity sometimes gets her into trouble, but if you don’t get into trouble then how can you say you’ve lived? Don’t you agree?’

  ‘Yes, I think I do,’ Edgar said.

  ‘Oh look, we’re here already. The boys are very nice to me here.’

  The boys at the video store wore tight black polo-neck jumpers and old-fashioned glasses and had short hair that was badly dyed yellow. One of them was an Onyataka and the others from long-time families of Creek. Edgar knew this because Fay had told him so but they were indistinguishable to him. The video-store boys liked Fay. They liked the obscure rigour of her choices. As a special favour, they let her take the picture boxes of the movies she rented home with her, instead of the pink and blue store boxes that the customers were usually given.

  ‘We got you your Rocking Horse Winner,’ one of them said.

  ‘That’s terrific,’ Fay said. ‘I’m very grateful.’

  Fay hardly talked on the way home. She was concentrating on the efforts of her walk. When they had reached the Pagan House she exhaled loudly and smiled, in comradeship. ‘What would you like to do now? You could watch my movie with me or maybe you’d like to see something more of the neighbourhood? The Mansion House runs some very interesting tours. I know Jerry would love to show you around.’

  She raised an arm towards the Mansion House across the rise and the movement ruined her balance; her foot grasped for the porch step but it was crooked there and the foot slipped and she fell, in slow motion, looking surprised and cross. Edgar, frozen in guilty consternation, watched her go down, crumpling against the screen door.

  Fay made little movements of her fingers and looked up at him, baffled, until the sun hurt her eyes so she covered them with her arm. Her legs were splayed wide, and her dress had ridden up over her knees. Edgar’s first act was to tug down the dress to restore his grandmother’s modesty. He squatted beside her and laid a comforting hand on her elbow.

  ‘I’m so sorry. That was ridiculous,’ she said.

  ‘I should have caught you.’

  ‘I’m such a fool. If you could just help me to sit up? Warren’s going to be very angry with me.’

  Edgar managed to manoeuvre Fay to the kitchen. She was much lighter than he expected and he should have been able to catch her, even one-handed, with his free arm held nonchalantly behind his back.

  ‘I’m going to be black and blue tomorrow. Whenever will I learn not to do that kind of thing?’

  He fetched a stool for her to rest her feet on. ‘Should I call a doctor?’

  ‘I make it a rule never to trouble the doctor three days in a row. I think I’ll just regather and then watch my movie. I’m so sorry for causing such a fuss. What do you think you’d like to do?’

  ‘I thought I might just take a walk around. If that’s all right?’

  ‘Of course it is, my dear.’

  ‘But I think I’ll wait until Warren gets back. Just in case.’

  ‘There’s really no need.’

  ‘I know, but I want to,’ Edgar said firmly. ‘If you don’t mind?’

  ‘Of course I don’t mind. You’re a very sweet boy. You know, it’s very nice to have you here.’

  ‘It’s very nice to be here,’ Edgar said promptly.

  All the same, there was an awful silence in the house, as if it was complicit in Fay’s fall and was now planning its next assault upon her. Edgar wondered if he should feel afraid of this house, but that was contrary to the instant congeniality he had felt for its spirit and a way of making excuses for himself, and then he realized that the silence was due to the absence of the cat’s snores that had supplied a rumbling rhythm to the soundworld of the Pagan House. The cat basket was empty, apart from a faded purple cushion, a moss of lost ginger hair.

  ‘Where’s the cat?’ he asked, and Fay didn’t quite answer.

  ‘Cats often go somewhere private to do their, when they’re ready to, you know.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ said Edgar, who didn’t.

  When Warren returned, Fay whispered to Edgar, ‘You should go now. I don’t want you to take the blame. I know what you’re like.’

  She knew him better than his mother did, better then than he knew himself.

  ‘I think I’ll take a walk around,’ he said loudly, attempting a wink.

  Edgar left behind the sounds of Warren chiding and Fay’s birdlike voice making its apologies. Edgar had been left in charge of Fay and had failed.

  The boredom of this town, through which Edgar strolled with a look of quiet dignity on his face. He had never felt so lonely. Trees, timbered houses, sports fields, parks, the video store, the bookshop that never opened, all these things felt entirely indifferent to him. He asserted himself by imagining how a cat might get lost in any of them—stuck snoring in a storage cupboard in the Company administration building or too fat to escape from the hole it had found into the Company Community Center, dreaming of plump mice or the kitten it had used to be, but he had never seen the cat awake so adventurousness was an unlikely quality for it to possess. That suggested malice, then, a human agency at work, the sinister hand of the cat-napper. Why should anyone steal a cat? Perhaps it was the secret historical ingredient that went into the glaze coating of the china produced at the Company factory in Creek. The Indians had been cannibals once, or so Company Bob had said. Maybe they had taken the cat for dark ceremony, old practices that required warm flesh, pulsing blood—but the only Indians he had seen were the stolid men outside the bingo hall, and one of the young men in glasses who worked in the video store, but he didn’t know which one, and none of them had looked like a blood drinker to Edgar.

  Still, he should not rule anyone out. The cat was missing, everywhere in peril, and everyone was a suspect.

  Edgar walked across the bridge down to Creek. He looked for signs of the cat—tell-tale ginger hair, a lonesome mew—outside the supermarket and the gas station, the Silver City Diner, the Campanile Family Restaurant and Pizzeria, a dance studio, nail parlour (Luscious Nails), tanning salon (Tan Your Can!) and another pizza parlour, Dino’s. He would not have thought a town the size of Creek could support two pizza parlours. He had walked lingeringly past Dino’s twice already, attracted by the pinball machine, deterred by the youths who hung out there, who looked just like the two he had seen outside the supermarket, wild-looking, in cut-off jeans and check shirts, who had sque
ezed themselves into shopping carts, their legs dangling off the front, and were slowly racing each other down the incline of the car-park. Twice he had resolved to go in and his nerve had failed him each time.

  But now he would be strong: a cat investigator required recreation, and he would be protected by the jangle of his father’s quarters, the secret music of his Walkman. He would just pretend they weren’t there, the two shaven-headed hulking boys with little sprouts of beard below their lower lips, lighting matches and flicking them at a third, smaller boy, who wore the same uniform of cut-off shorts and baggy check shirt, but whose face was narrower, more weaselly, acne-pitted and fingernail-picked. Another, the largest one, who was crouched hammering at the rusted corpse of a motorcycle, wore blond hair and a Dino’s paper hat and a grey T-shirt with cut-off sleeves that had the home-made slogan Indian Fighters! scrawled across the back.

  Edgar walked past them as if undeterred, and went to the pinball machine. He put in one of his father’s quarters, frowned, slapped the machine with the heel of his hand to let it know who was in charge, pressed the start button, nodded at the display of lights, turned down his music, acknowledged the chorus of beeps and whistles and bells, checked the action of the flippers, pulled the plunger and let it go, and away he played.

  Under the glass was a list of instructions, but Edgar liked to learn how these machines worked by playing them, by their responses to him, and his to them. His first ball was a good one, staying under control, keeping in the lanes, until it hit the left bank at an awkward angle, spun back on to his flippers; he tried to catch it, but the flipper was too clumsy, or he was: the ball hopped and fell between the ends of the two flippers and down the middle and was lost. It’s okay, Edgar nodded, this was a decent machine, a worthy opponent. You treat me with respect and I’ll treat you with respect. It was hard to find these machines any more. Everything was computer and video.

  The lounging youths were walking slowly through, and now he could feel the attention of their unfriendly scrutiny. One of them jostled against his shoulder as they passed into a back room, where they drowned the friendly noises of the machine with loud lurching music, guitars and drums, clattering, angry, incompetent sounds that made the back of his neck vulnerable with their bad intent.

  The second ball built up his score, and he was unlucky to lose it, just before he was about to hit the drop-down targets again to claim a free ball, but the pressure was on him, the music had stopped as abruptly and pointlessly as it had begun, and the hoodlums were back jostling behind him, so before he plunged the third ball into play he put another quarter on the glass top to reserve his next turn. The third ball was a disaster, swooping through the gate, down the alley, it took an awkward carom off his left flipper, bounced against the grinning monster face in the middle, which he had learned must be avoided, and fell through the impotent rise of his flippers.

  Edgar felt sick. He had confirmed whatever low opinion of him these dangerous thugs might have. He had performed badly under pressure, like a boy, and the largest one, the Indian Fighter with the blond hair and the paper cap, reached for Edgar’s next quarter and said, ‘Unlucky, kid,’ and slotted it into the machine and pushed him aside.

  ‘Let’s see the master at work.’

  ‘But that’s—’ said Edgar.

  ‘I need some room here.’

  A hard elbow cracked into Edgar’s ribs.

  ‘Tough luck, kid,’ said the weasel, unsympathetically. ‘You gonna order something?’

  ‘No,’ said Edgar.

  ‘We’ll see you later, kid.’

  Edgar stood disconsolate. They were gathered by the machine with their backs to him. The player used his whole body, flicking the flippers double-fast, hips pushing the path of the ball into the desired lane, his hands slapping the sides of the machine. ‘Sky is so good,’ he said, supplying his own commentary. ‘He’s got all the moves.’

  Stubborn Edgar, alarmed at his own impulses, pushed towards the machine. ‘I want my quarter back,’ he said.

  Ignoring him, Sky flipped and shoved and jerked his head to tell the ball where to go, and miraculously it did, and miraculously his paper hat stayed on his head.

  ‘You’re gonna lose it,’ said the weasel.

  ‘It’s outta control,’ and ‘You is fucked,’ said the other two, simultaneously, then glared at each other so violently that they had to be brothers.

  ‘In your face. Watch me and weep, you suckers.’

  ‘I want my quarter back,’ Edgar said.

  Someone else had come into the pizza parlour, another enormous boy—they grow them big here—closer in age to the hoodlums than to Edgar. He carried himself awkwardly, as if he was making a perpetual apology for his size, the fluff of his incipient beard, the cleanness of his jeans and the T-shirt he wore over his sweatshirt, the pimples across his broad Scandinavian forehead.

  ‘Now look what you done made me do! Lost the fuckin’ ball!’

  Edgar wished the gang’s inattention back. The sight of them all staring at him was not a comfortable one. He had met their type before, in London, brutalists, torturers of boys and beasts; they immediately went to the top of his list of suspects. He hoped the bulky stranger would intervene. Maybe their attention would turn to him.

  ‘I want my quarter back. You took my quarter. I want it back.’

  He had established his position. There was no turning back. So this was how he was destined to die, friendless and forsaken in a pizza parlour in Creek. He supposed even his mother wouldn’t be able to recognize his battered remains after they had been dredged out of the river. No, no. That’s not him. That’s not my son. It can’t be!

  I’m afraid there’s no mistake, ma’am. Dental records and DNA and suchlike prove it. That’s your boy, or what they left of him. Just for God’s sake get that, that thing into the ground quick, the sight of it is making decent men weep.

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘I didn’t hear him. You hear him?’

  ‘I don’t think he spoke. Did he speak?’

  ‘You must have heard. He’s got a really funny voice.’

  ‘Did you speak, kid?’

  ‘My name’s Edgar.’

  It was the first time his secret name had been spoken in public, and how he hoped it had the magic it promised.

  ‘What? What he say?’

  ‘He says his name’s Edgar.’

  ‘He’s got balls.’

  ‘Where you from, Edgar?’

  ‘Are you British, Edgar?’

  ‘Have you got balls, Edgar?’

  ‘He’s got balls. Edgar’s got balls.’

  ‘I thought the British were famous for having no balls.’

  ‘You got balls, Edgar?’

  ‘He’s not talking now.’

  ‘I don’t think he talked before.’

  ‘If you’ve got balls, Edgar, I think you’re gonna have to prove you got balls.’

  ‘You going to show us your balls, Edgar?’

  ‘He might be leaving.’

  ‘I think Edgar’s leaving. Are you leaving, Edgar? You didn’t say anything and now you’re leaving and we’re not going to see you again? Give Edgar some room. I think he’s leaving.’

  ‘I want my quarter back.’

  Edgar had gone beyond being astounded by his own behaviour. He was reconciled to it now and fixed to his path and would take it to its inevitable violent end.

  ‘Did Edgar say something?’

  ‘I think he’s definitely got balls.’

  ‘Almost definitely.’

  ‘I think Edgar talks too much.’

  ‘I like how he talks, though. I warnt my quharrrrtarr. It’s funny.’

  ‘Edgar’s talking is going to get him into trouble one day.’

  ‘He’s in trouble now.’

  ‘Let’s see his balls,’ said the weasel, trying to incite his more powerful friends.

  ‘You took my quarter. I want it back.’

  They were about sixteen or s
eventeen years old and they had muscles that were streaked with motorcycle and pizza grease and they wore tufts of hair on the chins of their hard, unforgiving faces, and he was almost thirteen and lightweight and maybe they’d go easier on him because of that. He wasn’t reassured by the affectionate way they were sneering at him. He had seen enough playground massacres to know that the bully loves his victim.

  ‘Give him a quarter, Ray.’

  ‘Wha’? Why me?’ whined the weasel. ‘I don’t have a quarter.’

  Sky cuffed Ray on the side of the head and kept hitting him until he pulled out a quarter.

  ‘Shit,’ said Ray, enviously. He flipped the quarter to Edgar, who predictably dropped it. He didn’t suffer the kicks to the head he was expecting as he retrieved it from the grease-spattered red lino floor.

  His new name had proved itself, and this was a good transaction, his father’s coin exchanged for the currency of the community.

  ‘Okay,’ he said.

  The pinball machine sparked back into life.

  ‘Goodbye,’ he said.

  He was ignored. They clustered around the machine again. Sky pulled back the plunger to propel the ball, but was interrupted by the stranger saying, ‘Hi,’ and Edgar—shocked at his own malice and ignobility of nature—hoped to see the bad intentions going his way.

  ‘Hey Marvin.’

  ‘Husky! What’s up.’

  ‘Guys.’

  Sky released the plunger and headed for the back room, with the others following, the ball jittering and pinging, it and the machine and Edgar ignored. He braved himself to leap in to play the rest of the game, as the band clattered back into action with the same mistimed vigour of delivery, but they had a vocalist now, Marvin, he guessed, who sang in a beautiful and reckless low voice that Edgar hated him for possessing.

  When Edgar returned to the house, hoping to get to his bedroom, to collapse into solitary consolation, Warren called him into the kitchen, where he was emptying the dishwasher. Warren peeled off the black rubber gloves he wore for the performance of domestic tasks. His hands were, Edgar inconsequentially noticed, slightly paler than his arms.