After Bathing at Baxters: Stories Read online

  In the hostess’s lounge, cool grey light skimmed over the chrome surfaces of the bar; there was no one around. Dorfman had a curious sensation of time stopping, of existence splayed our before him, subject to none of its usual frets and prompts, inert and malleable. He breathed deeply to steady himself, laid his fists on the bar and regarded the plump knuckles with startled detachment. Straightening up from behind his cash machine, the barman said: ‘You Dorfman?’ Dorfman nodded expeaantly. The barman flicked a thin white envelope across the bar. ‘This one’s for you then.’ Dorfman ferried the letter over to a side table and read it in the soft aquarium shadow. In it Ascension told him that he was a liar, that she never should have believed him, that she was ashamed (of both him and herself) and that she had taken an earlier flight to Manila. There was no mention of the two thousand dollars Dorfman had presented her with two days before. And yet though you are such a bad man I hope you will have a happy life, the letter signed off. ‘Bad news, huh?’ the batman diffidently suggested. ‘Got it in one,’ Dorfman agreed. ‘Fuckin’ ball breakers, those hostesses,’ the barman deposed. There was an odd, complicit gleam in his eye. In answer, Dorfman moved purposefully towards the bar. ‘I want to get drunk,’ he said.

  Arriving home at 2 a.m. he found Francine sprawled in a deliquescent state at the foot of the staircase, together with a half-empty bottle of vodka and a paperback entitled Channelling Your Rage. In the incoherent and accusatory conversation that followed, Dorfman learned that he had Mrs Fogelberg to thank for the unravelling of his plans, an eagle-eyed Mrs Fogelberg who had encouraged confidences from the tearful ornament of her aromatherapy class. ‘And the worst thing,’ Francine had said, ‘the worst thing was the lie. Telling her you were some big-shot with a farm in the corn country. In any case, what kind of retard would believe that stuff?’ ‘You wouldn’t understand,’ Dorfman proposed. ‘Oh Kent, baby,’ Francine had cried, ‘don’t leave me.’ ‘Who said anything about leaving for Chrissakes?’ Dorfman demanded. In the distance he could hear the rumble of music: chunka-chunka-chunka, badaway-badaway-badaway, linka-slinka-trinka. Dragging into the workshop a minute later, he flicked the light on and sat down heavily in a chair, edging out his foot so that it rested on a jar of linseed oil that Francine had brought back from New Mexico all those years ago. On impulse Dorfman picked up the jar and threw it on the floor. As the glass smashed, he heard the sound of Franchie coming to investigate. Prompted by some fierce, ungovernable whim Dorfman seized the Blenheim and brought one fist down viciously on the fuselage, watching the plastic shiver and break between his fingers, the tiny figures go skittering out from beneath the shattered cockpit. ‘Oh hon!’ Francine wailed from the door, and Dorfman stopped and stared at her, thinking of the plane tacking away, out across the silent ocean, deep into the welcoming night.

  Essex Dogs

  They came over the hill as the dawn rose up from under the horizon, and the light turned the colour of orangeade – hard, heavy light mixed with the sodium glare of the streetlamps.

  ‘This is going to be a good day,’ Hennessy said, his high voice squeaking over the noise of the engine. ‘One of the best.’

  It was half-past six, quarter to seven maybe. The new watch Maxine had given him for Christmas never kept proper time, Kennedy acknowledged. Out of the window he watched Scudding early traffic move past the road signs to Grays and Thurrock, Canvey Island. Beneath them, further down the hill, deep in mist, the Essex villages slept.

  ‘Going to be a great day,’ Hennessy said again, as if he badly wanted to believe it. ‘You’ll see what I’m saying.’

  A bit later a rattle from the back of the truck told Kennedy that he’d forgotten to fasten the tools down the night before. Hennessy pulled into a layby and he walked round to the tailgate, lifted it up, and tied the forks and shovels together with a piece of rope he found there. Standing by the wheels, pulling the tail-gate down again, he could see Hennessy through the rear window smoking a cigarette and reading the newspaper they’d had in the cab since last week.

  It was still cold. Back in the cab Hennessy had switched the heater on and the windscreen was starting to steam up. Kennedy wiped it cautiously with the back of his hand; the smoke from Hennessy’s cigarette crept into the corners of his eyes and made them water. He wondered if Hennessy was cross about the tools. Hennessy was like that sometimes about small things. A trail of sugar, say, pitting the brown surface of his coffee, and he’d push the cup away. Maxine said it was stupid, Hennessy being fastidious like that. He remembered her saying the word, then pushed the thought away.

  As Hennessy bent over the wheel and edged the truck slowly out onto the road again – there were coaches now, and the early traffic heading for London – another thought, not really considered since the afternoon before, rose in his head again.

  ‘Maguire is it? Today I mean?’

  Hennessy didn’t turn his head. ‘The very same,’ he said.

  It was eight o’clock by the time they got to Shoeburyness. By now the heavy lorries had gone, and the car park outside the cafe was empty. Inside he watched Hennessy craning over the counter, staring shortsightedly at the dirty menu, big and untidy in his teddy bear coat with the lining coming away down one side. Kennedy assumed that he’d cheered up. They ate bacon sandwiches and drank tea out of mugs while a radio played at the next table. Kennedy read a Southend United fixture card that hung on the wall and a clump of pinned advertisement cards: Greyhound, 3 yrs, fast, pedigree, £180 ono; Great Dane puppy’s £50; Fridges, white goods, top prices paid.

  ‘You still seeing that Maxine?’ Hennessy asked carelessly as the radio played ‘Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay’. Kennedy thought about this for a moment, wondering why Hennessy was so interested. Hennessy’s life was a mystery. In fact Kennedy hardly knew where he lived. When they met it was always in pubs, Hennessy looking up from his pint and waving, fixed in the halo of smoke. In the end he shrugged, in that offhand way you could interpret how you liked.

  ‘Ah well …’ Hennessy said. Kennedy had seen him talking to women sometimes: he looked a bit smarter then, and he used his hands more.

  Maguire was late, much later than he’d ever been.

  Hennessy tried calling him twice on the mobile, but there was no answer. ‘Probably at the yard,’ Hennessy said vaguely. When he arrived it was nine-thirty and they were clearing the plates away, and a man with a broom was trying to sweep up the cigarette ash that Hennessy had dropped on the floor near his chair. Kennedy tried not to look self-conscious as Maguire walked down the path between the tables. Instead he watched Maguire’s tan work-boots clearing a passage through the dust.

  ‘What’ll you take then?’ Hennessy asked.

  Maguire looked around the cafe, not exactly furtively but with a kind of low-level watchfulness.

  ‘I’ll have a glass of milk.’

  Hennessy couldn’t believe this. ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘A glass of milk,’ Maguire said to the waitress, without looking at Hennessy again. He sat down in the chair next to Kennedy. ‘What’s cooking then boys?’

  Kennedy looked at some more advertisement cards: secondhand prams, rock groups who needed bass guitarists, minicab firms wanting drivers. He left Hennessy to do the talking. The milk came and Maguire drank three-quarters of it at a swallow and then stared at the rest. Kennedy was never certain whether he liked Hennessy or not, but he knew he didn’t like Maguire. Maxine had met Maguire once, one evening when she’d been able to get a babysitter and they’d gone out. She said he gave her the creeps.

  ‘So,’ he heard Hennessy asking, ‘where is it today then?’

  ‘Saffron Waiden,’ Maguire said. ‘You’ll know it when you see it. Big place on the outskirts. Lots of ground, too. Five thousand square feet if it’s an inch.’

  Hennessy looked thoughtful. Kennedy knew that at times like this he tried to impress Maguire. Sure enough, he said: ‘No worries, Mac. We’ll take care of it.’

  ‘Of course you’ll take car
e of it,’ Maguire said. ‘Four o’clock mind. Phone if there’s a problem.’ Back in the truck, Hennessy wanted to talk about Maguire. ‘Funny guy isn’t he?’ he said. ‘Jesus, a right funny one. You know he drinks milk in pubs even? That’s right. Seen him ask for it and no one bats an eye.’ They moved on into the sun, towards a line of container trucks heading for Tilbury. There were gulls crowding in the wind over above the telephone wires: Kennedy watched another gust gather them up and disperse them into the bright air. I mean, I like the guy; Hennessy was saying, ‘but I wouldn’t want to socialise with him if you know what I mean.’

  Past Chelmsford they turned north towards the retirement villages: rolling drives glimpsed between pillared entranceways, sleek lawns within high walls. Hennessy drove purposefully, as if he really had a destination. ‘Always look as if you know what you’re doing,’ he’d once said to Kennedy, ‘as if you had a right.’ Near Great Dunmow they found what they were looking for: set back from the road, half an acre of lawn, a carless drive. Hennessy drove the truck noisily up to the front door and reversed it into the gravel. They climbed out and examined the silence for flaws – a dog, say, at the back of the house, a lawn-mower a quarter of a mile away.

  ‘Deserted,’ Hennessy said. ‘Can’t ever be sure though.’

  Five minutes later, after Hennessy had squinted through the letter box and seen a week’s post piled up on the mat, they got to work. Kennedy took the bigger of the two spades and marked out the grass in metre-width squares, Hennessy levered the turves out of the ground with his big turfknife, and they manhandled them onto the back of the truck. ‘Six inches at least,’ Hennessy told him when they’d done the first dozen or so, and Kennedy put his full weight on the spade so that only the handle stuck out of the ground. It was amazing how quickly you could dig out a lawn he thought. In twenty minutes a space the size of a cricket pitch had gone; in half an hour Hennessy reckoned they were three-quarters done. ‘No need to rush,’ he said. ‘Jesus, they’re not coming back are they?’ Kennedy shrugged. In all the months of doing this they’d never worked out what would happen if anyone came back.

  There was soft rain coming in now, blowing over from Harwich and the Hook. They stood by the truck smoking cigarettes and brushing away the clods of earth. Kennedy thought again about Maxine and what she’d said the last time they’d met, sitting in the front room at her house with the baby playing on the carpet. You are unreliable. And you hang around with Hennessy and Maguire. Actually she hadn’t said that but Kennedy could read her thoughts. He looked at the watch again and found it had stopped at 10.15.

  There were some children’s toys lying at the edge of the gravel drive: a miniature tricycle, two or three wooden bricks, a plastic sword. Kennedy prodded them carefully to one side with his foot. He wondered what it was like to have children, taking them to the park and things like that. He tried to remember his own parents taking him to a park, but lost the image somewhere: perhaps his parents hadn’t been the kind of people who took their children to the park. Hennessy flicked his cigarette onto the gravel and said out of the corner of his mouth, ‘Here comes trouble.’

  Kennedy’s eyes were confused by the rain and the angle of the ground: it took a minute for him to work out that the flapping, mackintoshed figure labouring across the field towards them was an elderly woman. When he saw this, his shoulders relaxed. You never had any trouble with old women. All they wanted was an explanation. You could just say politely Sorry love, we’re nicking this stuff, and they’d nod and go away. ‘Leave this to me,’ Hennessy was saying as the woman approached.

  Smashed red veins under a Sou’wester hat. That odd, vague look they had. They straightened up to hear what she said, trying to look authoritative, legal.

  ‘I was just looking out of my window, and I thought … Really had to ask what was going on …’

  ‘Quite all right, madam,’ Hennessy said. ‘No cause to be alarmed. From the council.’

  ‘But … Mr Frobisher on holiday too … Sure he would have said …’

  ‘That’s right, madam.’ Hennessy had her by the arm now, Kennedy noticed, polite but firm. ‘Very short notice. No way you could have known.’

  ‘Oh well …’ She hovered round them for a bit, looked on in a puzzled way from the corner of the drive. Kennedy smiled at her reassuringly once or twice. They watched her progress back across the wet grass with silent unease.

  ‘Interfering old bitch!’ Hennessy suddenly shouted. He was really angry, Kennedy could see. ‘Mr Bloody Frobisher! Let’s get out of here.’

  Luckily they had most of the turf on the truck. Bending down to pick up the last strip Hennessy lost his temper and kicked out savagely at the toy tricycle, which lifted a yard or so in the air and snapped in two as it hit the ground. Turning into the road they saw the old woman standing by the gate watching them. ‘Up yours!’ Hennessy shouted defiantly as they whipped past.

  The dusk was coming up now, rolling in over the low, sodden fields. It was too late to get to Saffron Waiden, Hennessy said. In the distance, firefly lights from the motorway winked through the shadows. Kennedy wondered about asking if they could stop at a call box so that he could phone Maxine, then thought better of it. ‘You should have seen the look on that old bitch’s face when I shouted at her,’ Hennessy said, his red hands gripping the wheel. ‘What did I tell you?’ He was in a better mood now, honking his horn at the oncoming traffic. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘this is what we do, right. First the pub. Then go find Maguire. Get some sleep and then tomorrow we’ll head over to Saffron Waiden and deliver. What do you say?’ For a moment Kennedy thought about Maxine. Maguire’s stiff face looming up through the grey light of the pub. Then he saw Hennessy’s boot hitting the tricycle again, and the fractured, descending arc, saw, too, the child’s disbelieving face as he found it. ‘No,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Not tomorrow.’

  Acknowledgements

  Many of these stories originally appeared elsewhere, and I should like to thank the various editors involved for permission to reproduce them. ‘Dreams of Leaving’ first appeared in P.E.N. New Fiction I (1984). ‘After Bathing at Baxter’s’ was first published in P.E.N. New Fiction II (1987). ‘At Brackus’s’ appeared in the London Magazine, in Best Short Stories 1990 and was broadcast on Radio 4. ‘La Grange’ was published in Signals (1991) and broadcast on Radio 4. ‘Disturbance at the Heron House’ appeared in the London Magazine and was broadcast on Radio 4. ‘Seeing London’ was broadcast on Radio 3 and appeared in Telling Stories One (1992). ‘Final Payments’ was broadcast on Radio 4 and appeared in Telling Stories Four (1995). ‘Summer People’ was broadcast on Radio 4 and appeared in The Oldie. ‘Fantasy Finals’ appeared in Perfect Pitch. ‘Taking an Interest’ was first published in The Oldie.

  ‘Cuts’, ‘Saturday Night at the Jenks Motel’, ‘McKechnie’s Diner, 9 A.M.’, ‘Looking for Lewis and Clark’ and ‘Essex Dogs’ were originally broadcast on Radio 4.

  I should like to acknowledge the help and encouragement of the many people who accepted or commissioned these stories, in particular Peter Ackroyd, Giles Gordon, David Hughes, Richard Ingrams, Simon Kuper, Allan Massie, Duncan Minshull, Alan Ross and Pam Fraser Solomon.

  About the Author

  D. J. Taylor is the author of eleven novels, including Kept (2006), which was a Publishers Weekly Best Book, Derby Day (2011), longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and The Windsor Faction (2013), a joint winner of the Sidewise Award for Alternate History. His nonfiction includes a biography of Thackeray and Orwell: The Life (2003), which won the Whitbread Biography Award. His journalism appears in a variety of newspapers and periodicals, including the Independent, the Guardian, the Times Literary Supplement, and the Wall Street Journal. Taylor lives in Norwich, England, with his wife, the novelist Rachel Hore, and their three sons.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafte
r invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  These are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1997 by D. J. Taylor

  Cover design by Drew Padrutt

  ISBN: 978-1-5040-1524-0