'Katherine,' Elder said again, his voice raised and impatient.
'Leave me alone.'
'I can't.'
Elder moved closer and the pony-tailed man swung his foot down from the bench and stood in his way.
'He's police,' one of the men on the bench said. 'Fuckin' law.'
'Not any more,' Katherine said.
'Who is he then?'
'My father. He thinks he's my father.'
'Katherine
'She doesn't want to talk to you,' the pony-tailed man said. 'Can't you see?'
'Get out of the way,' Elder said.
The man grinned and stood his ground. 'Make me.'
Fists clenched tight at his sides, Elder wanted to take a swing at the sneering face and punch it as hard as he could. Instead, with one last glance at Katherine, he walked away to the sound of their jeers.
What the fuck, Elder thought, as he crossed South Parade and on to Wheeler Gate, what the fuck am I doing here? What's the point of all this? A waste of fucking time. He was no more than a stone's throw from the railway station before he stopped and turned around.
For the next two hours, he stood in shop doorways, sat on the stone steps in front of the Council House, shared a desultory conversation with the Post seller near the corner of King Street and Long Row. He bought a sandwich and a cup of coffee in Pret A Manger and sipped the coffee slowly through the lid.
The way Katherine was sitting now, arms tight across her chest and wearing only a thin sweater, he thought she must be cold. Perhaps if he bought coffee for her, some hot tea or soup… but he did neither, continued instead to watch and wait, knowing that she didn't want him anywhere near but unable now to drag himself away.
He remembered her as a young girl, a child, tears flooding her eyes, screaming 'I hate you!' at the top of her lungs and then, moments later, allowing him to fold her inside his arms and kiss the top of her head, the warmth of her hair.
As the bells chimed the quarter hour, a man crossed towards where Katherine was sitting.
Instinct prickled the skin on Elder's wrists and the backs of his hands.
He was not a big man, around five seven, slightly built, denim jacket, jeans, check shirt, basketball boots, fair hair flopping forward over his face. He spoke to several of the small group gathered round the bench, stepping back a pace or so to talk to the pony-tailed man, who had wandered off earlier and then returned. Katherine he ignored, but Elder had noticed the way she had become more alert at his approach, her back more upright, fingers combing through the rough shag of unkempt hair.
Five minutes, more, and as if noticing her for the first time, he offered Katherine a cigarette and lit it from his own. Another few minutes and she was standing at his side, both of them talking now, quite animatedly. Three buses went past in slow convoy, hiding them temporarily from Elder's view, and when he saw them again they were walking towards the fountains, passing in between, his hand coming to rest across the top of her shoulders as they moved past one of the stone lions guarding the Council House before turning right into Exchange Arcade.
Elder picked them up again as they emerged.
At the foot of Victoria Street, the man reached for her hand and she pulled it away. Down through Hockley not touching, side by side. Coffee shops, bars, hairdressers, retro clothing, Indian restaurants. Goose Gate into Gedling. Waiting for a gap in the traffic on Carlton Road, his arm went round her shoulders again and she did nothing to resist.
Now they were in Sneinton, short rows of narrow streets, terraced houses, back-to-backs, some with brightly painted front doors and patterned blinds, others with makeshift curtains at the windows, broken glass. The house they stopped outside was midway along, a fading 'Not in My Name' poster alongside one more recent, 'War Criminal!' writ large above a photograph of George W Bush.
A cat, ginger and white with a white-tipped tail, jumped up on to the window ledge and rubbed its head against Katherine's arm as she stood waiting for the man to unlock the door. Running between their legs, the animal followed them into the house and the door closed behind them. Though it was yet the middle of the day, he glimpsed Katherine for a moment, standing at the downstairs window, before she pulled the curtains closed. Whether she saw him or not, he did not know.
8
He stood there for five minutes, ten, fifteen. My father. He thinks he's my father. There was still time to walk away. Elder walked, instead, across the street and, seeing no bell, knocked on the door.
The music playing as the door opened was loud, rhythmic and fast, nothing he recognised.
'Yes?'
'Rob Summers?'
'Depends.'
'On what?'
Summers smiled. The check on his shirt was mostly shades of green and grey; his eyes a pale, watery blue.
Elder looked past him into the narrow hall. Coats hung, bunched, along one wall; a strip of carpet, worn but clean, along the floor.
'Police, right?' Summers said. 'You're not selling something, not religious. You must be the police.'
'Not exactly.'
A smile of understanding passed across Summers's face and, relaxing his shoulders, he leaned sideways against the wall. 'Katie,' he said, putting a little singsong into his voice. 'Your old man's here.'
After a moment, Katherine appeared at the end of the hall, waited long enough to recognise her father's face, then turned away.
'I suppose you'd better come in,' Summers said.
The room was small and dimly lit, a small settee and two unmatched armchairs taking up much of the space. Shelves either side of the empty fireplace were filled with books, videos and DVDs, crammed in this way and that. More books and magazines lay in piles upon the floor. In one corner was a small TV, video recorder alongside, DVD player on top. More shelving stretched along the back wall, what had to be several hundred vinyl albums below the different elements of the stereo system, CDs in profusion above.
The smell of dope hung, faint but sweet, upon the air.
Summers lowered himself into one of the chairs and motioned for Elder to do the same. The bass beat from the speakers was repetitive and insistent.
'Get you anything?' Summers asked. 'Coffee, anything?'
'You think you could turn the music down a little?'
'Sure.' Summers pressed the remote on the arm of his chair.
'I want to talk to Katherine,' Elder said.
'That's up to her.'
'I've come a long way.'
'Cornwall, isn't it?'
'Yes,' Elder said, surprised that he knew, that she had bothered to tell him.
'Your choice, wasn't it?'
'Look.' Elder leaned forward. 'You can see the state she's in.'
'State?'
'You know what I mean.'
'I'm not sure I do.'
'Those people in the Square…'
'What about them?'
Elder shook his head.
'They look out for her,' Summers said. 'Leave her alone.'
'And you?'
Summers pushed himself up from his chair. 'Back in a minute, okay? I'll see what she says.'
Alone in the room, Elder looked around. White Stripes. Four Tet. The People's Music. Diane di Prima. Ginsberg. Dylan. Drop City. Neil Young. Several copies of the same pale green booklet on top of a stack of magazines. Scar: Poems by Rob Summers. Elder lifted one clear and flicked through the pages.
the snap of his cuff
a blade's edge
brilliant threads
vermilion wings