She smiled brightly and turned to leave. Jesus Christ, she was thinking, how absolutely fucking excruciating. To be caught out. Like this. And here of all places.
The assistant, for her part, smiled back at Jo, nodded twice, perfectly amiably, then slammed the till shut. Nothing at least superficially out of the ordinary there. But as the coins in their compartments shifted and jangled in a brief yet acrimonious base-metal symphony, Jo couldve sworn she heard something. Something else. Something beyond. Something extra. Three words. Half-muttered. Virtually inaudible over the surrounding clatter.
Dont follow him.
Jo froze. Her professional smile malfunctioned. Did you just say something?
She spoke over her left shoulder, her hackles rising. The assistants brown eyes widened, Me? No. Nothing.
Josephine walked quickly and stiffly to the door, put out her hand, grasped the doorhandle, was about to turn the handle, was just about to turn it, when, Oh God, how stupid. She simply couldnt help herself. She spun around again.
Youve got me all wrong, she wheedled defensively, her head held high but her voice suddenly faltering on the cusp of a stammer, Im hon Im honestly really only out shopping.
It was barely 8 a.m. A pale and freezing January morning on Canvey Island.
Outside the distant fog horns blew, like huge metal heifers howling and wailing in an eerily undefined bovine agony.
Dont follow him.
Two
Broad as the whole wide ocean, I,
Empty as the darkest sky,
False as an unconvincing lie,
Invisible as thin air.
Others found me in the sweet hereafter
Look hard,
Look harder,
Youll find me there.
Behindlings.
Arthur Young spoke this word quietly in his thin but rather distinctive pebble dash voice, and then abruptly stopped walking.
His companion (who was strolling directly behind him) veered sharply sideways to avoid a collision. But although he executed this sudden manoeuvre with considerable agility, he still managed to clip Arthurs scrawny shoulder as he crashed on by.
What did you just say?
He hurtled around to face him, slightly exasperated, his arms still flapping with the remaining impetus of their former momentum. Arthur stood silently, his eyes unfocussed, massaging his bony shoulder with a still-bonier hand, frowning. He was apparently deep in thought.
They were pretending to hike through Epping Forest together, but they werent fooling anybody. A local woman walking a recalcitrant basset had already turned her head to stare after them, curiously. And a well-muscled young man on a mountain bike had peered at them intently through his steamed-up goggles.
Thats the special name he invented for the people who follow him, Arthur finally elucidated. He calls them Behindlings.
After a second almost indecently lengthy pause he added, Weve actually been walking for almost an hour now he tentatively adjusted his baseball cap, and whether you choose to believe it or not, he continued tiredly, his gentle throat chafing and rasping like a tiny, fleshy sandblaster, Im really quite Im honestly quite weary.
His companion a portly but vigorous gentleman who was himself sweating copiously inside his inappropriately formal bright white shirt and navy blue blazer also paused for a moment, pushed back his shoulders, and then slowly drew a deep and luxurious lungful of air.
He looked Arthur up and down. His eyes were as bold, bright and full of fight as a territorial robins, but his overall expression while indisputably combative, perhaps even a touch contemptuous was not entirely devoid of charity.
That said, his immediate and instinctive physical assessment of the strangely angular yet disturbingly languid creature who stood so quietly and pliantly before him (speckled as a thrush by tiny shafts of morning light pinpricking through the dark embroidery of the thick forest canopy), plainly didnt inspire him to improve his long-term, critical evaluation one iota.
Arthur. Thin. Gaunt. Frayed at his edges; on his cuffs, at his collar. Wearing good but old clothes: nothing too remarkable, at first glance Well, nothing, perhaps, apart from an ancient brown leather waistcoat (carefully hidden away under his waterproof jacket) with rotting seams and bald patches, a strange, waxy garment which effortlessly conjured up entire spools of disparate images: visions of a primitive world; the sweet, mulish stink of the traditional farmhand, the implacable fire and sulk of the Leveller, the fierce piety of the knight, the rich, meaty righteousness of Cromwell.
It was a curious thing. Ancient. Aromatic. Romantic. Almost a museum-piece.
Although superficially loose-limbed and listless, Arthur was actually exceedingly precise in both his movements and his manner. He was gentle but absolute. He was unforgiving. His mouth was unforgiving. The deep furrows from his nose to the corners of his lips were unforgiving. His hair trapped under an old, plain, khaki-coloured baseball cap was thinning. His skin was tight. They had not walked quickly but he seemed exhausted. Shrivelled.
They inhabited entirely different worlds. His companion was ripe and unctuous; as grand and imposing as a high-class, three-tiered wedding cake. And although in view of his recent exertions his icing had a slight tinge of parboiledness about it, he remained, nevertheless, disconcertingly well-configurated.
After a moment he drew a clean cotton handkerchief from his blazer pocket, mopped his brow and then exhaled heartily. For some reason he seemed inexplicably enlivened by Arthurs frailty. Buoyed-up by it.
So you finally stopped drinking? he asked.
Arthur twitched, then smiled, uneasily, Yes. I finally stopped.
And your family? Your wife?
Arthur glanced up into the sky. It was a cold, clear day. It was midwinter. Everything was icy. His lips. His teeth. His fingertips.
I never married.
His companion frowned. This was not the answer hed anticipated. Hed imagined he knew everything he needed to know about Arthur. Hed investigated. Hed peeked, poked, connived, wheedled. The rest the polite enquiries, the stilted conversation, the walk, even was little more than mere etiquette. He continued to inspect Arthur closely yet now just a fraction more aggressively with his hard, round eyes.
There was something in your background he began slowly, carefully unfastening his blazer, which I never knew before, and it was something which absolutely intrigued me.
Really? Arthur was unimpressed but he was nervous, and nerves alone rendered him obliging. As he spoke, he noted with a sudden feeling of inexplicable dismay how his companions plump thumbnail was split down its centre. Sharply. Cleanly. Cracked open like a germinating seed.
I did a little nosing around. It appears you once had a famous relative who wrote a book about walking. Or farming
Both, Arthur sounded off-kilter, a very ancient, very distant relative.
He tried to make it sound insignificant.
Well I found it fascinating. And you have his name?
Yes. But thats just a coincidence. My parents had no particular interest in either history or travel.
Arthur cleared his throat nervously, then tried his utmost to change the drift of their conversation by suddenly peering over his shoulder and into the undergrowth, as if to imply that something infinitely more engaging might be silently unfolding, right there, just behind them, partially hidden inside that deep and unwelcoming curtain of winter green. Perhaps a badger might be passing. Or a woodpecker lesser-spotted undulating gracefully through the boughs just above them.
It didnt work.
Your father his companion paused, as if temporarily struggling to remember the details, I believe he was a foreman with Fords at Dagenham?
Arthur nodded, mutely, closely scrutinizing his own middle and index fingers. He wished there was a cigarette snuggled gently between them. He would kiss it.
And your mother worked on the cold meats counter in the Co-op But you did. You had an interest. Almost imperceptibly, his companions mellifluous voice had grown much flatter, and was now maintaining a casual but curiously intimidating monotone. Which was why you attended agricultural college in the early seventies, before undertaking what, in retrospect, mightve seemed a slightly ambitious attempt to retrace the exact footsteps of the original Arthur Young, but a whole now what would it be, exactly? A whole two hundred years later.
Arthur said nothing. What might he add? The forest shouldered in darkly around him. A short distance away he thought he could hear horses. His companion noticed something too. He glanced off to his left, sharply.
Theyre on an adjacent track, Arthur murmured, cocking his head for a moment then walking to the edge of the path and sitting down on a wide, clean, newly-cut tree-stump. His companion remained standing, as before.
So I retraced, Arthur eventually volunteered, and not without some small hint of bile, I re-visited, I re-appraised. I intended to publish a book, but things didnt quite pan out. I found myself working for a London bank, and then, like you, in the confectionery industry. It wasnt he had the good grace to shrug apologetically, a particularly sweet experience. I encountered some he stumbled, a portion of bad luck. I became unwell. Unfit. I received a pension. I still receive it. And you he struggled to enlarge his focus, you probably got promoted after I left?
Yes. I had your old job in marketing for a while. Then I moved up a level.
Arthur nodded. He inspected his hands again. They were looking he had to admit it just a little shaky.
If you dont mind my saying so, his companion suddenly observed, his voice worryingly moss-lined and springy, you got your breath back awfully quickly, for such an avowedly unfit man.
What? Arthurs sharp chin shot skywards a few seconds after he spoke, in a slightly farcical delayed reaction. His companion chuckled, Im not here about the pension, silly
His fastidious tone made Arthur feel grubby. It was a nasty feeling, but extremely familiar.
Apparently, the glare of his companions hard smile continued unabated, you sometimes like to walk distances of up to two hundred and fifty miles during an average seven day span. Although last week, for some reason, you only clocked eighty-nine.