William and Chick
In East London tower blocks, which have been badly snapped together, are queuing for refurbishment. Today one of three without even that hope is waiting whilst explosives are placed at its ankles. They stand in an arc of green fields, that lay along the banks of the River Lea and they are hated. They look, even from afar, like failures.
Later, the child who is the winner of the raffle will, with explosives, bring the block first to its knees and then to rubble and dust. Down in less than four seconds. The Mayor, who is up on the podium and decorated in her gold chain, will clap.
The builders are a private company with blue digger machines (and this is a talking point, blue digger machines, will put their hard hats upon their hard heads and walk slowly into the dust cloud, carrying water to wet and wash their throats. Ducking under the safety cordon and then on, two by two, for safety’s sake. They’ll wipe clean the dusty screens, lights and seats, of their machines, which they have hidden in safely determined places, and then they will converge upon the mess. Clear it up and build. Over a year’s work.
At the perimeter of the field nearest the decanted tower they have attached red warning tape, waist high, behind which everyone must be kept. This is policed. They mean everyone. Halfway along the field a near straight line of metal poles carry a yellow warning tape up high, which mark the boundary beyond which you are advised not to go. For this is the point at which it may be predicted that the dust cloud will swell along the ground to, before it will rise again, turn in the air and linger slowly down. So, go beyond here and you must be swack enough to run for it, back along the rumbling ground to the mass of lookers, taking a shaky picture. Behind you as you run, some self-chosen few will be standing their ground.
Further back on the field, and facing away in a defensive semicircle, wagons have been arranged. They sell food, show the plans for what is to come, and allow hawkers of anything cheap and small. Hand-made jewellery, wooden, metal, and plastic boxes, ashtrays and clocks made from vinyl, every kind of wax and every kind of receptacle to hold wax. There is just one rule. It must all be new. At the semicircle’s fulcrum they have set up a stage for local bands to entertain. How odd it will seem when they play again later and cannot hear their bounced beat off the tower. The beer tent, selling only plastic glasses of only lager, is here too. You cannot hear yourself think, let alone know what to pay.
Beyond the edge of the field is the Lea Bridge Road. Buses master their routes, taking the people from diverse backgrounds to and, sometimes, fro. They frog along, half pulling in but not wishing to lose their place in the slow road, and having to take into account skips, scaffolds, unloaders, parkers and talkers, follow-me-cyclists and new signal priorities. This is a place of exact change.
Along the Lea Bridge Road, is the roundabout car entrance to the Borough, where you must find the right lane or be thrown in the wrong direction, hemmed in from all sides. Once you have been fed to the direction of your choice you can slow again and queue for the side roads.
At the corner of Lea Bridge Road, William Bartim appeared. He emerged into the light from the underground walkway, on to the four-cornered site of learning. He stopped, put down his bag and, watching it, rolled a cigarette. When lit and breathing the smoke, he considered the four landmarks. On one corner, diagonally opposite from him and standing just outside the borough, is the synagogue with its wrought iron gates outside and inside its canonical writings, recording the relationship between certain outstanding individuals and their God. Diagonally across from the synagogue stands the Church of St Paul with the good news about history’s headline grabber Jesus inside. Straight across from the synagogue is the Mosque, built more recently and, as always, a copy of the worshipping site where the soldier Muhammad interpreted his unsought vision. On the final corner, behind the wall where William leaned and was smoking was Hackney College.
Hearing at that point the faint boom-boom of the music in the background, he looked at his watch, decided there was no time and walked off in the opposite direction, using his left hand to smoke, and checking the contents of his shoulder bag with his right.
Down along Powell road he went on, looking in the windows of the oddest of the shops; a Chinese herbalists, a shop selling old wheels with no name or explanation, a place offering war memorabilia, a watch and clock repair shop. He stopped and checked his watch with those in the shop. Crossing Cricketfield Road he went further, and along, into Clarence Road where he stopped to watch four men on the tail lift of a lorry as it descended slowly, mechanically, noisily. With the lift at rest on the road the four men took hold each of the ends of a metal pole and lifted together the mighty weight of a pool table. They carried it before them like the Ark of the Covenant, and in, to a Kurdish Cafe.
At Rowhill Road William stopped and looked along the street he was to enter. Every time he visited the street he allowed his breath to be taken away. He looked at the curve of the street, the magnificent maple trees and the white old houses with their partially timbered fascias. They seemed out of place, accidentally preserved even.
William’s phone then rang. He took it from his bag and looked at the lit screen which showed told him that the number was being withheld. Thinking of the office, he dibbed it into further life and connected with it through the headset which he slotted into his ear, the microphone hanging by a wire thread.
“Hello”, he offered
“William, this is Robert in the office, are you alright?”
“Yep, glad to see someone else working today then”
A young woman came around the corner and allowed an exchange of glances between them. He felt self conscious at the appearance of standing on a street corner talking to no one and brought the phone better in view.
‘William, I have been reviewing your files”
“Right” said William. ‘And?”
‘You are not with your client now?’
‘No it is OK. Go ahead’.
‘William I am a little concerned. I checked with the consultant psychiatrist today. He told me that he informed you six weeks ago that your client was experiencing paranoia but that the medication had dealt with this. He could see no other current role or reason for you to be involved at the moment. So I a not sure why you are still involved in this one William’
Robert paused and then, ‘William are you still there?’
‘Yes I hear you Robert but I don’t recall the psychiatrist writing to me about Mr Booth, though perhaps I have forgotten.’
. Robert’s reply was impatient, ‘So when you visit today I would like you to establish whether we are in a position to close the case on Monday, OK? I mean that we are spending time here, on this, when perhaps we do not need to.’ Robert cut matters short. ‘ Come see me Monday. I’ll See you then.’
William powered down the telephone with his thumb, detached the headset and scrunched it up with his other hand before throwing both into his bag. Shaking his head he slowly exhaled and gently brushed the underside of his chin with the knuckles of his hand. Closing his eyes he let his arm fall. Then he jigged his shoulder bag up again and moved into the street.
Robert Jennings drummed his fingers gently on the door and entered the office of his Head of Service. He laid the buff file upon the table and began to tell the story. Keith Lynchon was standing facing the window that looked out upon the quadrangle with its tatty grass and few poorly tended flowers. Lynchon had a military bearing, arms crossed behind his back, listening and ignoring all at once. Robert began to tell Lynchon’s back the facts.
William Bartim, Robert told him, sighing, coffee drinking, hair arranging, was great at beginning cases but not at ending them. William Bartim was an excellent forensic psychologist. He made good risk assessments. His judgement was good.
‘We all remember the Evans case’ Robert said, ‘very quick. Probably stopped a murder and a suicide. Not to mention an enquiry.’
‘And the problem is?’ Lynchon was asking, still facing the window.
Robert began to flick through the buff file. He said, ‘as I told you on the telephone the problem is that our William does not know where to stop sometimes and he has a habit of uh’. Robert paused.
Lynchon turned to face him, ‘a habit of?’
‘Collecting stories.’
Robert fanned the pages of the buff file, drawing down Lynchon’s eyes.
‘He writes a lot of notes’ offered Lynchon, comically, unhelpfully, intentionally.
Robert laughed, ‘No, not notes, stories.’
‘Whom does that hurt? You mean to say that he wastes time.’
Robert feeling that we being made to feel that he was wasting someone’s time became a little irritated now. ‘It’s abusive Keith, intrusive. It’s a boundary issue. It is professionalism. His job is to go in, assess the situation, come away and give an opinion about risk. In this case, an opinion about whether Mr Booth is a danger to others..’
Lynchon went to his chair and sat down and cut in on Robert, ‘Sorry Robert I know that you have told me this. Mr Booth is?’
Robert snatched a paper from the front of the file and told Lynchon, staccato style, ‘In his sixties, killed his wife, a paranoid psychotic episode, medical reports established diminished grounds, he was detained, hospitalised, treated, discharged, received some visits from a social worker and a rehabilitation officer, and now it is William’s job to assess Mr Booth’s state of mind to see if he is dangerous.’
Lynchon joined together the fingertips of each hand and softly bounced them into and out of contact with each other, ‘And you are saying he is being too thorough?’ The question was sarcastic, just enough.
Robert stopped fidgeting. ‘No Keith. I am telling you that he is not doing risk assessments fast enough. He has failed to do this for two months. Instead he is writing me notes about how Mr Booth lives, what he eats, when he goes to bed. What he used to do for a job. What his religion is. Which daily paper he reads. Everything in fact, except whether the man is dangerous. He is failing to finish. He concludes each visit with a series of questions that he needs to ask next time he goes. And so he goes and he asks the questions. And he writes another note for the file. And this is a pattern. He has done this before. I want it stopped, and I want you to help me deal with it. Please. I have 30 other cases that are waiting to be dealt with. They need time too.’
Lynchon, having measured now the extent of the feeling held his hands out to indicate that he was giving in, ‘When are we seeing him?’
Monday, Robert told him.
Standing on the doorstep, his hands in the pocket of his overcoat, William looked for the key. Finding it he produced his right hand, the single Yale between the forefinger and thumb, and held it two inches from it’s home. He looked sideways towards the end of the street where he had just stood. He imagined how he now looked from there, alone, dressed in grey to contrast with the white painted houses. Exhaling he told his breath that he would therefore have to do it today.
Twisting the key by two turns, and by a further turn, which had to be held, the door opened. Wood separated from wood by judders. In rain it does that. In the summer the withdrawal of the metal tongue had bounced the door open, pulling your arm. The tension in the hinges. His left foot stepped in. Helping the door shut properly he shrugged off his coat, hooking it by the collar on a peg because the sewn loop inside had now broken. The key, with its identity tag, he put on the shelf by the hallway mirror. Bending he picked up the post, two buff Benefits Agency envelopes. He checked the radiator for warmth as he walked through the hall. Then he stopped and listened to the quiet, to the lack of a call, thinking, perhaps he is out? A backward glance. No, his coat is there. Grey wool. Three quarter. Expensive I bet.
“Chick?”
Silence.
At the end of the hall he gently pushed the sitting room door. In his raised chair, at the centre of the room, Chick was asleep. William stood in the doorway. The rhythm of Chick’s breathing told of a deep sleep, his head resting sideways on his shoulder. On the table next to him an empty glass sat in its safety inset. Next to that an empty bottle, the label of which was torn away. Then a plate crumbs from a cake. Moving his eyes to the floor William saw the odd socks upon Chick’s feet and cigarette ash on the carpet next to the knocked over ashtray. A loaf of bread sat underneath the chair. Silently William picked up the ashtray that he returned to the table, and the bread which was hard, old, and which he now held.
In the kitchen he moved between cupboards and a surface top, compiling a list for the shops, carefully opening doors, shuffling packets and then closing them again without letting the hinges grab the doors shut with a snap. Kneeling he reopened the bottom food cupboard to double check and leaned back against the cupboard behind. The packets of food were arranged like a city. Ordered. He could see offices, shops, towers and churches. Everything was set out and grouped together. Soups were segregated from beans and from tins of tomatoes. This was information needing to be known.
He finished by arranging the post on a surface top, alongside the talking newspaper tape.
He paused now, pinching his nostrils between the forefinger and thumb of his left hand, thinking about what to do. Releasing them now he decided to go.
Retracing his steps to the hall he unhooked his coat. In the act of raising it on he looked in the mirror and then stopped, letting his arms fall to his side. The reflection showed that behind him the dining room door was unpadlocked and ajar. He turned around and as he did so he looked at Chick. Still asleep. William lingered for a while at the entrance to the room that he had seen locked on his previous visits, and then he carefully pushed to door to test for noise. When the movement offered only silence, he opened the door and stepped in.
The room was unlike others in the house. The décor was older. The walls were deep red in contrast to the lightness of the rest of the house. The walls were not papered. This was a man’s room perhaps. There was nothing to touch. Nothing that you could have picked up to consider the shape of, or the texture, or the weight, or just to shake in your hand and wonder about. You needed your sight in here. There was a thin line of dust everywhere. On the alcoves in the wall opposite were books in ramshackle order. In the middle of the room there was a large oak table around which there were no chairs. On the table there were twenty or so green leather folders. Inside these, pasted on fabric boards and covered with lining paper, were designs and patterns. William considered them lightly with his fingers, wondering at them. A delightful little lizard darting up a branch; green brown and yellow with finely shaded scales, red eyes and tongue.
With the corner of his left looking lost-in-thought eye William focussed on a wooden chest in the Bay of the window. Bending over it he tried to lift the heavy lid. It was locked. Standing again he scanned the room to notice the picture above the fireplace. The wooden frame looked like rose wood giving a flesh like pinkish hue. The image in the picture astonished William and drew him closer as he looked, and more looked. A Vanitas style painting showing two men glutted, asleep where they had fed, and then fell, one to the left, the other, to the right. A third companion, as newly rotund as the others, lay stretched back in the middle of the painting, supported by a tree and was staring fearfully, expectantly, and guiltily at the sky. The remnants of their over-feast were scattered everywhere around them. Behind this initial scene a serving woman, their supplier, leans forward from a serving hatch of an Inn, also transfixed by the sky. Whilst these participants remain in their stupor, time is passing. The supernatural has been infused into objects; an egg has grown legs and is walking away, carrying with it the knife with which it was broken into. A wounded, knifed, pig too, is scurrying away. There is nothing in the sky.
Drawn even closer, William looked at the faces of the men.
Who is it? Chick said from behind him.
“It’s me, William. I’m terribly sorry Chick, the door was open here. I’m sorry.”
“Well, what is it that you see that keeps you so quiet?”
The evening sky was beginning to fold away the laundered day as William made his way home. The rain which had dewly drizzled and then poured, then slowed, then more poured and stopped was draining away by drip plinking steps, running along paths by land lay made into old drains cracked but there. The waning light had widened the tired pupils of all, for the halogen headlights to redden. Streetlamps were ticking into life. The high whining planes were no longer for seeing except for their triplets of flashes. And the funnelling crowd, which drew him under ground for his train, resolved him to turn back from the queues at the metal ticket barrier. Pushing against them he climbed up and made his way along Lower Clapton Road towards the buses. Holding himself in, he walked slowly and gently considered his fellow walkers at distance. A girl in leather with a young man attached, were eating both, fast chicken passed between them. Greasy remains dropped back into the box, the young man took from his pocket and stopped and wiped her mouth with a wipe.
One bus full.
Two bus full.
Measuring the point of waiting here, he moved on and took a diversion as a stratagem. He went from the main road into the ancient half street of Atherden Road and sought out the derelict temple. Inside he sat in a dark corner and rolled by touch a cigarette, which he lit, and which crackled to life because of a scraggy end that was improperly made.
A fallen stone made a chair for him and he pulled from his bag a Dictaphone and between puff he began dictating the forensic evidence for the current state of mind for Charles “Chick” Booth. Before he began though he said aloud to the dark, ‘I ought not to get home late.’
James A Bullion, March 2009.
