Read Online Behindlings by Nicola Barker - Free Book Online Page A

good foot taller, even hatless (if they’d suddenly begun slow-dancing, Jo couldn’t help imagining, then Hooch’s flat pate would’ve fitted with a reassuring snugness under Dewi’s jutting chin).
    As it was, Hooch’s mean streak of a nose pointed with an almost stoat-like determination towards Dewi’s left nipple. Eye contact was not maintained –it was not desirable –it was barely even feasible.
    Patty, for his part, instantly busied himself in trying to eradicate a large smear of dust from the arm of his cheap, shiny green bomber jacket. He slapped away at it, vigorously.
    Doc, in turn (and somewhat to his discredit, under the circumstances), stared fixedly off to his left, towards the distant smudge of sea at the road’s end, as if he’d just received urgent word of an Armada.
    Dennis –who’d stood up, initially, to sniff at Dewi’s trouser leg –sat down again, glanced up at Doc, tightened his eyes, drew his lips back into an apprentice snarl, shook his head and then
sneezed.
    ‘It’s very plain, my friend,’ Dewi murmured softly into the crown of Hooch’s slightly dented beanie, the curling vine of a Welsh accent suddenly twisting into audibility and looping with an almost unspeakable sincerity around each and every syllable, ‘that there are some things, some
important
things, which you don’t yet seem to know about Katherine Turpin.’
    He inhaled deeply. ‘The first of these,’ he continued calmly, his voice deep and smooth as a stagnant loch, ‘is that I am her friend. I am her guardian. I am her self-appointed foot-soldier. It is a service that I perform for her out of loyalty and love and veneration. And while you’re at liberty to interpret my guardianship in any way you please,’ he smiled (it wasn’t friendly), ‘you might benefit from knowing that my name is Dewi and that I live in this bungalow…’ he pointed (somewhat gratuitously), ‘directly opposite her bungalow, and that if she ever troubled to ask me I would happily break my own two arms for her…’ a significant pause followed, ‘or anybody else’s,’ a further pause, ‘for that matter.’
    Dewi took a small step backwards, down into the gutter, and nodded his head curtly, as if in parting. He half-turned. But then he thought better of it, stuck out his square chin and moved back up close again.
    ‘I trust,’ he intoned gently, his eyes still not meeting Hooch’s but focussing approximately a foot above his head, ‘I
hope
that you will refrain from pestering my Katherine. Or maligning her. Or troubling her. Because there has been far too much of that already. And I am very, very tired of it…
    ‘But if you do,’ he continued, his voice barely audible now (just a cool gust, an icy imprint), ‘then trust me when I say that I will hunt you down, that I will find you, that I will take you, that I will hold you, that I will squeeze you, that I will
smash
you. Because it would be no bother to me. It would be no trouble. It would be… it would be like plucking a stray feather from a duck-down pillow… see?’
    Dewi held his dusty hands aloft. Huge hands. His index finger and thumb pinched lightly together. He blew an invisible feather into the air. Sawdust lifted from his lips and the tip of his nose. It was a beautiful gesture. Excessive. Baroque. Infinitely tender.
    Hooch’s wise eyes followed those capable fingers, keenly, moistly, from behind their thick but clear bifocal lenses. He swallowed hard. He said nothing.
    Only Josephine –who was slightly more observant than the others –saw that Dewi’s huge hands were shaking. Not with fear. Nor passion.
Anger?
No. And not rage, either… It was something else. Something softer. Restraint, maybe? No. Not restraint. Notexactly… Her eyes widened, suddenly. Could it be? Could it be sympathy?
    Sympathy?
    ‘
Oi.
What’s that, then?’
    Josephine started, surprised by the sudden, unexpected proximity of the small boy, Patty, who had silently materialised at