There is a long pause before he answers, and when he does so his voice is cracked. “I think that’s a question you need to ask your doctor, Dan. Or perhaps your wife.”
I end the call. Squeeze the handset until the plastic begins to creak in my hand.
2
I’m back before I know it, parked outside the Community Centre on the tiny scrap of muddy ground posing as a parking area. It is late in the day; I have no idea where I’ve been since leaving work this morning. All I have is a memory of driving. Along busy motorways. Under concrete flyovers. At one point I parked on the hard shoulder and stared along the slow lane, too afraid to pull out and rejoin the traffic.
How long have I been here, waiting? I’m confused. Time has either speeded up or slowed down, but I can’t say which.
The dwarf comes out of the entrance alone, piloting his little electric chair. His fat hands clutch the single lever, steering the chair around the concrete bollards near the entrance, and he heads for the main road.
He overtakes two disabled men on his way to the main exit, and they flinch away from him, clearly afraid. He turns on them, shouting something. Then he reaches up, stretching his upper body, and slaps one of the men across the face. The man begins to cry; his friend embraces him, whispering soothing words. The dwarf moves away, chuckling.
I lock up the car and follow him, not certain exactly what I will do, or even if I plan to confront him. I’m not even sure if there is any reason to be stalking him this way, but something about the man is not right. I suspect he has been in my home. Messed with the files on my laptop. Done something to — or perhaps
I follow him through town until we reach a purpose-built block of flats. The building is single storey, and has disabled access and facilities. It is a council-built-and-owned refuge for people who are not quite able-bodied enough to look after themselves without assistance yet still wish to retain a certain degree of independence.
I follow the dwarf inside. I am so close I can hear the quiet hum of the electric cart, hear his wheezy breaths as he manipulates the joystick to guide the chair into the lobby.
I wait until he unlocks the door to his flat and then walk up behind him, making hardly any noise at all. He doesn’t know I am there until he turns to close the door, and I move in behind him, pushing his chair away from me across the floor before securing the door latch.
The look of surprise that crosses his face is blatently false; as soon as he realises I am on to him, he drops the act and smiles. I see him crawling through my garden at night, out of his chair and rolling in the mud after flopping out of my son’s bedroom window. I imagine him in my rooms, touching my possessions.
“Who are you?” I ask, advancing into the room.
“I’m nobody,” he says. “Just call me Mr. Nobody.” Then he spins the chair around and glides over to the far side of the room, where he parks up against the wall and waits for me to make the next move.
The walls are painted a subtle shade of beige, the furniture is cheap, the television large. There is a desk with a computer crammed into one corner. Lining the walls of the room are pages torn out of newspapers and magazines: sensationalised articles about schizophrenia, madness, murder, missing children. The place is a shrine to insanity, and the sense of everything being off kilter infuses the fabric of the building.
“I need to know what you’ve done. What you’re doing to my boy.”
The little man smiles. His cheeks crinkle, the flesh poking out through his beard. He scratches at his groin. Spits on the floor.
“Tell me what you want.”
The dwarf leans back in his chair, adjusts the seat so make himself more comfortable. “I want it all,” he says, stretching out his arms in a stunted rendition of a Jesus Christ pose. “I want your house. I want your wife. I want your life.”
I back away, stopping when the wall behind me jars my spine. I stare at him.
“I want to give your wife this.” He reaches into his trousers and takes out his long, broad penis. It is huge, much bigger than mine, and I feel a ridiculous pang of envy. The dwarf stuffs it away, laughing. He starts to climb out of his chair, his legs flopping uselessly as he uses his stocky upper body to haul himself across the floor in my direction. His grin is massive and predatory, filling the room, and he moves faster than I ever would have imagined, pulling himself toward me with his meaty arms.
I turn and fumble with the door handle, finally twisting it enough to open the door. I stumble out into the lobby and fall through the doors, charging out into the night. I can hear his laughter; it follows me into the darkness like an ancient curse; magic runes thrown at my back as I walk hurriedly away.
3
It is dark when I get back to the house. Adi has turned out all the lights and gone to bed, hiding from me or from herself. There is little distinction. I creep up the stairs and stand outside Max’s room, wondering who he is, a child or a dwarf. His breathing seems too heavy, laboured; I wonder briefly if he is slightly asthmatic.
“Where have you been?” Her voice cuts me like a fine blade, a scalpel or a craft knife. It doesn’t hurt, but I can feel the blood running down the side of my neck.
“I’m not sure,” I answer, as honestly as I can.
Adi sighs. She thinks I am being evasive when all I am is lost.
“I’m going downstairs for a drink. Coffee. I doubt I’ll be able to sleep.”
“I’ll join you.” She moves out of the darkness of the bedroom, detaching herself like a predator from the edge of some deep primeval forest. I realise that she has not slept. She has been lying awake in the darkness, waiting for me.
Something rears out of the murk inside me, a realisation that I cannot quite put a name to. There is a brief and painless struggle, and all is well. I descend the stairs in silence, glad when she follows me into the kitchen.
When the kettle is boiled I pour the water over instant coffee granules in battered mugs. The smell is sickening, and the taste is bitter. I close my eyes and wait for my body to accommodate the sensation.
“I went to work today.” I sit down at the kitchen table, my eyes averted.
“I know. How did it go?” She sips her drink, her eyes peering at me over the bottom of the mug.
“Weird. I…I’m not really sure what’s been going on.”
She waits. I assume she wants me to continue. The coffee burns my tongue.
“Have I been away? From work, I mean. Not the trip to New York. Have I been absent?”
Tears glaze her eyes. She dips her head, her chest hitching. “In so many ways.”
Now it’s my turn to wait.
“Don’t you remember? The attack in the basement car park? The hospital? The psychiatrist? Have you no memory of any of this?” It all comes out at once, in a surge of emotion, as if she has been waiting for her moment to speak.
There is a loud thumping sound from upstairs, and we both swivel our eyes to look at the same spot on the ceiling. Max’s room. He must be having a bad dream, turning over in his sleep and swinging an arm or a leg against the side of his bed. I cannot allow myself to believe it is deliberate, that he wants to distract me from this important conversation, where the lines of combat have been erased and my wife and I have each dropped our guard.
“I remember… I remember you were attacked. It was nasty. Vicious. You were in hospital for a while, getting fixed up, and when you came out we moved here, to the country, so you’d feel safer. More secure.”
The laugh she emits sounds like the short, blunt barking of an urban dog. An animal used to being beaten if it goes on for too long. Her face is slack; the bones beneath the skin seem to have softened. “You’re fucking unbelievable.”
“Tell me.” I put the cup down on the table, resisting the urge to slam it and shatter the cheap china. “Tell
