‘How can it be made by Satan if it’s made by monks?’
‘I don’t know. I’ll ask Chas – she’ll know; she knows loads of things. It’s unbelievable really.’ Meici refilled his glass; I put my hand over the top of my glass. The cough mixture seemed to be making him garrulous.
‘You’re probably right, you’re not supposed to have too much of this stuff. Mum only let me have a spoonful just before bed. Auntie Pebim says, if you have a little bit it makes your cough go away and you see a funny shape in the distance but you don’t know what it is. If you have more the shape gets closer and closer until eventually it’s right in front of you and you see it’s a drawbridge to a giant’s castle. Then if you have more, you go across the bridge and Auntie Pebim says you see things on the other side that can really upset you. Sometimes you never come back. Do you believe that?’
‘It’s not how most cough mixtures work, but I guess it could be true.’
‘I can’t make up my mind whether I want to visit the castle. Sometimes I do and sometimes I’m scared to. Do you think we should try and help mum escape from prison?’
‘Who’s we?’
‘Me ’n’ you, Lou.’
‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘Chas says she knows a way to do it. Look!’ He pulled a paper from his pocket and unfolded it. The page had been torn from a children’s picture book and showed a prisoner in a dungeon hanging by his hands from rings set in the wall above his head. An archetypal dungeon-keeper with a big spade-shaped beard and baggy stripy trousers sat at a table eating the prisoner’s food, evidently tormenting him.
‘It’s Erik XIV of Sweden,’ he said pointing at the wretch hanging by his wrists. Chas has been telling me about him. He was in prison for something and his wife used to send him food but the guards ate it all in front of his face and laughed. So he got her to make some pea soup with arsenic in it and the guards ate that and died and he escaped. We could do that. Chas says you can find arsenic everywhere, in apple pips and fly killer and stuff. We could bake mum a cake on her birthday. Chas says she knew someone once who ate arsenic and he nearly died. She says he vomited so much his stomach came out of his mouth.’
‘Erik XIV?’
‘Something like that. It used to happen all the time in the olden days.’
‘What happens if the guards are nice and your mum eats the cake?’
‘But guards are never nice, are they?’
‘I think modern ones are usually OK. It’s not like it is in books, it’s more of a caring profession like social workers or something. Once upon a time it would have been a good plan, in the days when they had really big key rings and prisoners slept on straw, but the world has changed. Everyone eats in a refectory now and the meals are carefully planned according to the prisoners’ calorific and dietary needs as worked out by a team of dieticians; the guards get plenty of food, too, so they don’t have to steal from the prisoners.’
‘You don’t think it’s a good plan, then?’
‘Trust me, Meici, all that would happen is you would end up in gaol, too – for murdering your mum.’
He nodded solemnly. ‘Thing is, Lou, it’s quite lonely living in that house by myself. Do you know what I mean?’
‘Yes, but once you are married all that will change.’
He seemed not to hear me, lost as he was in a world of his own. ‘I sit there and think about things.’ He narrowed his eyes as he recalled his lonely thoughts. ‘You know, Lou, I don’t think my mum ever really . . . really loved me.’
‘I’m sure she did. Please don’t call me Lou.’
‘I never really saw much evidence of it.’
‘Some people find it hard to show.’
He continued to knock back the cough mixture in single gulps while I pretended to drink mine.
‘What did you want to see me about?’
‘There’s something I need to ask you, Lou. Man to man.’
‘Yes?’
‘I’ve been reading the manual, about conjugal duties.’
My innards froze. ‘Meici, I’m not the best . . .’
‘I didn’t know who to ask, and then I thought of you.’
‘Sometimes it’s best to explore without too much formal advice.’
‘It’s the most important part of the whole thing, I don’t want to mess it up. It’s Chastity I’m thinking of, really. I don’t know anything about it. So I thought I’d ask you, I thought old Lou will know what to do.’
‘Meici, as long as you love each other that’s all that matters. The rest is just, I don’t know, just . . .’
‘Just what, Lou?’
‘Just like . . . just like shaking hands, Meici.’
He nodded as a load slowly lifted from his shoulders. ‘So, there’s nothing to it? Not a big deal, like?’
‘No, not a big deal.’
‘Will you do it then?’
‘Do what?’
‘Be my best man.’
I responded with a smile of bogus delight, but my soul squirmed.
Meici said, ‘No, no, wait! Don’t answer. Hang on.’ He scooped the wedding suit up and ran to the kitchenette to change.
When he returned it was like witnessing a conjuring trick in which a stage magician sends a volunteer into a box and a different one comes out. The gauche ineptitude had gone, as if the outfit contained a built-in swagger the way corsets contain built-in stiffening.
‘I wouldn’t know you, Meici. I wouldn’t have recognised you.’
His eyes sparkled as tears of joy welled up. He sat back at the table and continued to drink the cough mixture. He forgot to ask me again about being his best man; perhaps he thought the deal had now been clinched. His words slowed and he began to babble.
‘Mum’s really my aunt. My real mum died and left me, and her two sisters had to decide which one would take care of me. They played Pooh Sticks for me. Mum lost. Auntie Meinir left and went to Liverpool. She’s got a fur coat and a chequebook and stuff. At Christmas we used to play Hansel and Gretel in the wood, but sometimes, it was funny, I would leave the trail of breadcrumbs and follow them but they led in the wrong direction. Once they went down the disused lead mine. Mum said the birds must have moved them. The woman from the social services asked me last week if I had any relations and I told her Auntie Pebim was sort of like an aunt and she told me to make regular visits to her. So I went round and she wouldn’t let me past the garden gate. She said, “What do you want?” and I said I’d come to visit her, and she said “A likely story.” ’ He took another drink from the bottle.
‘Are you sure you should be having so much?’
‘Sss-all right.’
‘I think your cough must be cured by now.’
‘I can see the castle.’
‘Maybe you should stop.’
‘I was thinking, you and me, Lou, are mates. You live on your own, don’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘We could move in together. That would be good, wouldn’t it?’
‘Thing is, Meici . . .’
‘Lou! I’m at the drawbridge!’
‘Meici, stop!’
‘They’re raising the portcullis . . .’
‘No! Meici!’
‘Oh no!’ He made a strangled, gurgling sound in his throat and slumped back limp and silent in the chair.
I dragged him out to the car and drove him home. He was still unconscious when we reached his house. I slapped his face gently to rouse him. He blinked up at me and scratched his head. ‘I fell asleep,’ he said unnecessarily. He sat there, making no attempt to move, looking groggy. ‘Where are we?’
‘I’ve brought you home.’
‘Yes,’ he said distantly. ‘Yes. That’s good.’
‘You should go and lie down.’
He nodded. He looked down at his hand still holding the bag of gobstoppers. ‘Tell you what, Lou. I want you to have these.’ He reached forward and opened the glove compartment. A rag fell out and into his lap. It was a handkerchief. He stared at it in astonishment as if it were a religious relic. He stared and stared. It was Chastity’s handkerchief. He turned to me with fire burning in his eyes. ‘You dirty dirty double-crosser,’ he hissed. ‘You dirty double-crosser. You dirty dirty double-crosser.’