Darkmans

Beede was so uptight, so pent up, so unbelievably…uh…priggish (re-pressed/sup-pressed – you name it, he was it) that if he ever actually deigned to cut loose (Beede? Cut loose? Are you serious?!) then he would probably just cut right out (yawn. Again), like some huge but cranky petrol-driven lawnmower (a tremendously well-constructed but unwieldy old Allen, say). I mean all that deep inner turmoil…all that…that tightly buttoned, straight-backed, quietly creaking, Strindberg-style tension. Where the hell would it go? How on earth could it…?

Eh?

Of course, by comparison – and by sheer coincidence – Kane’s entire life mission –

Oh how lovely to hone in on me again

– was to be mirthful. To be fluffy. To endow mere trifles with an exquisitely inappropriate gravitas. Kane found depth an abomination. He lived in the shallows, and, like a shark (a sand shark; not a biter), he basked in them. He both eschewed boredom and yet considered himself the ultimate arbiter of it. Boredom terrified him. And because Beede, his father, was so exquisitely dull (celebrated a kind of immaculate dullness – he was the Virgin Mary of the Long Hour) Kane had gradually engineered himself into his father’s anti.

If Beede had ever sought to underpin the community then Kane had always sought to undermine it. If Beede lived like a monk, then Kane revelled in smut and degeneracy. If Beede felt the burden of life’s weight (and heaven knows, he felt it), then Kane consciously rejected worldly care.

A useful (and gratifying) side-product of this process was Kane’s gradual apprehension that there was a special kind of glory in self-interest, a magnificence in self-absorption, a heroism in degeneracy, which other people (the general public – the culture) seemed to find not only laudable, but actively endearing.

Come on. Come on; nobody liked a stuffed shirt; nobody found puritanism sexy (except for Angelo who wanted to shag Isabella in Measure for Measure. But Shakespeare was a pervert; and they didn’t bother teaching you that in O-level literature…); nobody – but nobody – wanted to stand next to the teetotaller at the party –

Hey! Where’s the guy in the novelty hat with the six pack of beer?

Kane half-smiled to himself as he took out his phone, opened it, deftly ran through his texts, closed it, shoved it back into his pocket, took a final drag on his cigarette and then stubbed it out.

‘So what’s that you’re reading?’

He picked up his lighter (a smart, silver and red-enamelled Ronson) and struck it, lightly –

Nothing.

After an almost interminable six-second hiatus, Beede closed his book and placed it down – with a small sigh – on to his lap. ‘Whatever happened to that girl?’ he asked mechanically (having immediately apprehended the fatuous nature of Kane’s literary enquiry). Kane frowned –

Wow…

To answer a question with a question –

Masterly.

‘Girl?’ Kane stared back at him, blankly. ‘Which girl? The waitress?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Beede snapped. ‘The little girl. The skinny one. I haven’t seen her around in a while…’

‘Skinny?’

Kane adopted a look of cheerful bewilderment.

‘The redhead,’ Beede persisted (thoroughly immune to Kane’s humbug). ‘Too skinny. Red hair. Bright red hair…’

‘Red hair?’

‘Yes. Red hair. Purple-red…’

‘Purple?’

‘Yes…’ (Beede yanked on his trusty, old pair of mental crampons and kicked them, grimly, into the vertical rockface of his self-control).

‘Yes. Purple.’

Kane didn’t seem to notice.

‘Purple?’ he repeated, taking some time out to savour the feel of this word on his tongue –

Purple

Purrrrr-pull

– then glancing up –

Ooops

– and relenting. ‘You probably mean Kelly,’ he vouchsafed, almost lasciviously. ‘Little Kelly Broad. Lovely, filthy, skinny, little Kelly…’

‘Kelly Broad. Of course,’ Beede echoed curtly. ‘So are the two of you still an item?’

An item? Kane smirked at this quaint formulation. ‘Hell, no…’ he took a long swig of his Pepsi, ‘that’s all…’ he burped, ‘excuse me…totally fucked now.’

Beede waited, patiently, for any further elucidation. None was forthcoming.

‘Well that’s a pity,’ he finally murmured.

‘Why?’ Kane wondered.

Beede shrugged, as if the answer was simply obvious.

‘Why?’ Kane asked again (employing exactly the same maddening vocal emphasis as before).

‘Because she was a decent enough girl,’ Beede observed stolidly, ‘and I liked her.’

Kane snorted. Beede glanced up at him, wounded. He took a quick sip of his coffee (in the hope of masking any further emotional leakage), then – urgh – winced, involuntarily.

‘Tasty?’ Kane enquired, with an arch lift of his brow. Beede placed the cup back down, very gently, on to its saucer. Kane idly struck at his lighter again –

Nothing.

‘So you think I had a problem with her?’ Beede wondered, out loud, after a brief interval.

‘Pardon?’ Kane was already thoroughly bored by the subject.

‘A problem? You mean with Kelly? Uh…’ He gave this a moment’s thought. ‘Yes. Yes. I suppose I think you did.’

Beede looked shocked.

Kane chuckled. ‘Oh come on…’