Darkmans

2. Lengthy, heartfelt readings to be performed (and then distributed in the guise of a commemorative pamphlet within a one-mile radius of her home in Esher, Surrey) from Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet, Joyce’s Dubliners and Problems of Reconstruction by Annie Besant.

3. A proper, old-fashioned High Tea to be served, accompanied by home-made egg-custards, cinnamon buns (from Fitzbillies’ traditional bakers in Cambridge), tumblers of apricot wine and her own very smoky blend of Lapsang Suchong.

4. Marigolds to form the centre of all her flower arrangements (she’d been a devoted gardener, but had suffered from chronic hayfever, and this cheerful, brightly coloured genus had been one of its main perpetrators. In consequence of this fact, she’d thought it might be ‘a bit of a hoot’ to make her final journey in a coffin absolutely swathed in the damn things: ‘Bring along a jemmy,’ she’d said, ‘and if you hear a sneeze, then be sure and prise me out…’).

She’d died – inevitably – in the depths of winter. Not a single humble British marigold to be had. The import costs had been astronomical and Beede had been furious (although his objections – he’d insisted – weren’t so much monetary as environmental –

Yeah, right…)

Kane had just loved her for that.

And then –

But of course…

– there was his father’s magnificently choleric expression as he stood, in church, determinedly booming forth one of Gibran’s more flowery flights of fancy dressed in a crazily lurid, salmon-coloured shirt –

Absolute fucking class!

Even now, all these years later, Kane could distinctly recall over-hearing that landmark conversation through the cracks in his linoleum. He’d been upstairs stewing in the bath at the time – eight…nine Christmases ago. Ten, even.

And the phone had barely rung since (so far as he was aware – I mean he didn’t stand guard over it or anything). It lived a very quiet existence (what could it comprehend, poor soul, of the advent of touch-tone, of texting and the internet?). It was almost superfluous (like Sleeping Beauty, in the midst of that great, big doze); to all intents and purposes, it was pretty much dysphonic.

Beede was resolutely ex-directory and nobody but distant (and now mainly dead) family had ever been privy to that particular number (even Beede’s brother only ever contacted him via the hospital laundry).

But it had a fantastic bell. When it rang it produced an astonishingly pure, clear, old-fashioned sound; an elevated, almost ecstatic ‘peal’, a rousing, piercing, energising clamour.

Kane loathed phones. He really did. It was one of the few chinks in his easy-going armour. Yet it wasn’t the technology itself that he objected to (Come on – he prostrated himself, hourly, at the altar of the disk and the drive and the chip), so much as the inbuilt element of surprise; the sense of a demand being made, then registered, then automatically responded to (‘What am I?’ he’d sometimes mutter. ‘A dog to be whistled at?’).

He used his own phone continuously (had to, for work), but he chiefly relied on its texting facility, and if – by chance – he was awaiting an urgent call, he’d set it on to vibrate (a vibration he could just about tolerate – it didn’t shriek or keen or insist) and then shove it, carelessly, into the front pocket of his denim jacket.

The brick-orange phone continued to sing.

Kane re-entered the flat, strolled over to Beede’s desk, placed his hands on to his knees (bending from his hips, keeping his legs tensed – like a linesman at a tennis match) and gazed down at the phone, scowling.

Still – still – it rang. He expostulated, sharply, then crouched down and curled his arm around the pile of magazines (accidentally snagging the top few with the turned-up cuff of his jacket and pulling them down on to the carpet –

Damn!)

He grabbed the receiver –

Wow…

Heavy

– then placed it, tentatively, to his ear. He didn’t speak.

And at the other end of the line?

Silence.

‘Hello?’ Kane whispered, finally.

(Was this an entirely different world, this Beede-phone world? Was he speaking into some kind of supernatural vacuum, into a sphere utterly beyond everyday concepts of the here and the now?)

‘Beede?’

Male. Young-ish. A pronounced German accent.

‘No.’ Kane stood up, smartly (the highly coiled, creamy-white wire connecting the receiver to the phone stretching itself, languorously).

‘No. This is Kane, his son.’

‘Kane?’

‘Yes.’

Kane nodded.

‘Beede’s son?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is Beede there, by any chance?’

‘Uh,’ Kane glanced nervously around him, ‘no. No, he isn’t.’

‘Oh.’

Long pause

‘I suppose you could always try him at work,’ Kane volunteered, helpfully.

‘Yes. Yes. That’s true. I could. In fact I was. But this number suddenly just…it just popped into my head. Out of the blue. It was really…really quite odd. So I grabbed the bull by the horns and I just…I rang it.’

‘I see.’

‘You know how that happens, sometimes?’

Eh?

Kane frowned and cocked his head.

‘Although I’m not sure if he ever…’ the German muttered, distractedly.

Pause

‘…I’m not sure if he ever actually gave it to me. The number. I just plucked it from…How to describe it? I just plucked it from the air. From…from the ether.’