They needed the mannequin’s clothes.
Laura squealed, “Look! Mr Lawrence, he’s stuck hair on the dummy. He’s given her a hairy fanny!”
Mr Lawrence glanced down at the offending fleece. The barber’s missing hair came to mind. Funny how, if you waited long enough, things fell into place.
Paul looked a treat, although at the moment, because of the hair, a little embarrassed. Laura had been to work with her make-up and turned him into the model in the window. His skin was lightened and his cheeks glowed with blusher, his blue-grey eyes defined by mascara and blue shadow and his lips were bright cherry-red. Full at the best of times they were now rather kissable. He wore the model’s auburn wig of short bobbed hair. The striking thing was his body. In the matching set he was almost perfect. Only his chest let him down and that needed filling with cotton wool. But they needed that for Mr Lawrence’s padding so they used tissues. He hobbled in and turned over his right high heel.
For Luscious Laura and Mr Lawrence, keeping a straight face was difficult.
Holding his sides and whimpering, Mr Lawrence suggested, “You’ll be all right so long as you keep still.”
“I’ve shaved his legs,” Laura said enthusiastically. “What do you think?”
Mr Lawrence squeaked, “I think he’s beautiful.” And then he could hold it no longer. He coughed a dozen times to hide his laughter and that started a coughing fit.
“I don’t feel very beautiful. I feel like a dickhead. This isn’t going to work, Mr Lawrence.”
It wasn’t easy but Mr Lawrence managed to compose himself. He said, “Have faith, dear boy.”
“I’m losing it quickly, Mr Lawrence, the faith. I’m going down bank fast, and dressed like this isn’t helping.”
“You look fine, Paul, just fine. Now stop worrying and try to concentrate.”
“I’ll try.”
Laura turned to Mr Lawrence. “Right then, it’s your turn now.” She glanced at her watch. “And we’re running out of time.”
Laura was enjoying herself. In a sense, with them playing the parts, she’d become the director. Power was a powerful emotion. An aphrodisiac, some old cowboy had said, and he wasn’t talking about pork scratchings.
In the window, blinking red then green, it was hot beneath the padded suit of Father Christmas, and sweat trickled across his chest like some fast little insect. The cotton wool beard was giving him trouble too and loose strands made his nose twitch. He needed to scratch at every nerve and yet he dared not move. Paul was rigid. Mr Lawrence could see him from the corner of his eye. He looked better in green. The ballerinas were dark shapes and yet they seemed more life-like than Paul. From her hiding place behind the counter came the sounds of Laura’s heavy breathing.
“I can’t ever remember being so close to Father Christmas,” Paul said. “He never came to our house.”
“Hush now.”
They stood for fifteen minutes but it seemed like an hour. Adrenalin was rushing through them. Their bodies began to ache. Mr Lawrence’s knees began to give. He was thinking that perhaps Paul had been right, after all, and this wasn’t such a good idea. But it was too late. A grotesque shadow was at the window. Even though Mr Lawrence had only seen him in the dark, he seemed bigger than before, six feet and more with an egg-shaped head on a bull-neck. His shoulders were huge and his thick arms were long, apelike. Here was the missing link, without a doubt.
The trusty brass bell didn’t ring for it had been taped up. Instead, it clanked a single reluctant clank as the door opened. And another as the door closed. He was in. The feeling of danger was incredible. Mr Lawrence’s head was bursting with the rush and pressure knots bulged across his brow. The shadow moved across the shop. Thudding footfalls left the air vibrating.
From her hiding place behind the counter, Laura, in her deepest voice, called, “Pesst! Pesst!”
“Paul, is that you?”
“Pesst! Pesst!”
“Stop fucking around. You’re frightening me. You know I never liked the fucking dark.”
His back was to them. A huge burning red back.
From the window Paul silently turned. And without a whisper Mr Lawrence turned also, and from his bag of Christmas gifts he produced a long heavy wrench. It was Chrome-plated and glinted green and then red and reflected their faces glistening like cooking meat.
Mr Lawrence made the first blow, on top of the huge head. Shaped like a puffin’s beak the point of the wrench cracked a hole. Grunting like a pig the man half-turned and saw Paul’s attack. He saw a woman in black suspenders leaping forward. Gangling arms and legs and a high heel that had turned over half-way toward him.
“Fuck me!” he said, too stunned to take evasive action.
He watched a serrated bread knife disappear into his side, just below the ribs. He grabbed out and held Paul by the throat. A terrifying growl filled the room. Mr Lawrence hit him again with the wrench and only then did he go over but he took Paul with him. The back of the man’s head caved in under another blow and then, after a shudder that seemed to shake the room, he lay still.
Paul struggled from beneath him, shaken and bruised and covered in blood. Laura appeared from behind the counter.
“Golly,” she said. “Golleeey!”
With no time to lose, Mr Lawrence directed, “Help me get him into the studio. Quickly.”
“Is he dead?” she asked.
“Of course he’s dead,” Paul said nervously. “Half his brain is on the floor.”
“I thought you were going to frighten him.”
Mr Lawrence answered, “I think we did that.”
“But you’ve killed him. It’s murder.”
“It’s self-preservation. There’s a difference. The law allows us to use reasonable force nowadays, unless you’re a farmer, that is, and there are two thugs trying to rob you.”
It took the three of them to wrap the body in Clingfilm and drag it into the studio and even so, they still left a long red skid mark. Mr Lawrence said, “Help me to drag him down the cellar steps.” Laura said, “I didn’t know you had a cellar.”
“Not many people do.”
“I did, Mr Lawrence,” Paul said. “The kozzers spent an awful lot of time down there.”
A curtain concealed the cellar door.
“It stinks,” Paul uttered as the door opened to the dark dangerous steps where cobwebs hung in streamers. “The coppers mentioned the smell. They were right.”
“It’s the dead cats. When they’re alive they get in through the pavement grating and find themselves trapped.”
“They might have been the cats we heard crying…like babies.” “Yes, you might be right.”
Laura stepped back in disgust. “It smells like dead bodies. I’m not going down there.”
“We can manage. It’s downhill. Grab his shoulders, Paul.” They negotiated the steep narrow flight of concrete steps that in parts were worn away and crumbling, down between the thick walls of brick that had never seen the light of day, through a decaying archway at the bottom to the black earth beyond.
“It does stink down here,” Paul repeated.
“The damp has rotted everything. One day the foundations will give up and the whole of the Gallery will fall into this place. Hopefully I won’t be here then. That’s in the future and who knows about that? Come on, let’s get the door closed and sealed before it pervades the shop.”
“That’s a neat word, Mr Lawrence, pervades. What does it mean?” “Permeate.”
“Oh, right, permeate. Hairstyles. Right?”
In the studio he told them, “While I finish in here clean up the shop and for God’s sake hurry. Get rid of the blood, wash the knife and, Paul, get out of those ridiculous clothes. Quickly now, put the models back in the window before they’re missed. Dawn will be breaking soon and the milkmen will be out.”
They were just completing their tasks when Mr Lawrence carried the Santa outfit into the shop. Laura carried a bowl of pink water through to the sink and Paul was dressing the model in the window. He seemed to be enjoying himself. He needed reminding about the wig. Together, they dressed Father Christmas and finished in time to hear the faint rattle of the first milk floats.
“Come on, we need a few hours sleep. The shop might be a little late opening. I’ll make an exception.”
“I’m not sure I’ll be able to sleep,” Paul muttered. “I’m still shaking.”
“Keep the light on. The demons don’t like the light.”
Laura seemed unconcerned. She handled it well. Or hid it. Women were like that. Devious. And being a creature of the night, working the night shift, she wasn’t tired. While their eyes stung hers remained bright and alert.
She lay in his bed naked and cool. Later, with dawn creeping slowly, Paul crept in and climbed into bed on Luscious Laura’s side. “You’ll never guess, Mr Lawrence,” he murmured.
“I bet I can.”
“I couldn’t sleep. I went down the cellar to check he was dead and…”
“What is it, Paul?”
“He’s gone, Mr Lawrence. He’s gone!”
“Don’t worry yourself. Cuddle up. Under this sheet you’re quite safe.”
He cuddled up against Laura’s behind. She must have liked it between the two of them for her breathing grew louder.
Sex and violence; sex and violence; they went together like a… Paul lay still and frowned.
…silence? Absence?
Paul’s eyes became narrow slits.
…horse and cart. Yeah!
Laura fidgeted and Paul smiled, and moved again.
Laura whispered, “Oh, Mr Lawrence…”
But Mr Lawrence was sleeping like a baby who’d been fed a teaspoon full of brandy.
But Paul was awake and he was enjoying himself. And Laura responded and moved in time with Mr Lawrence’s snores. And as she moved she whispered, “Oh, Mr Lawrence, I think I love you…” But Mr Lawrence was out of it, somewhere else, somewhere where faint hearts couldn’t follow, rattling like a rattler.
The man who looked like a doctor smiled wisely. “Mr Lawrence, isn’t it?”
“I wonder if you could spare me a few minutes?”
“Sit down, you mean?”
“Yes. A few private moments.”
“I hope it won’t involve a prescription?”
“No, not at all.”
“It’s really not on. You could come to my office during office hours. Oh, why not? Come on then. Over there. Does that look private enough?”
“It’s good of you.”
“Yes, you’re right. How is Paul?”
“It’s Paul I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Thought it might be. Well, fire away?”
“His room is filled with baby things. Dolls, rattles, clothes.” “What about the voice?”
“He’s often difficult to understand.”
“Gibberish?”
“Absolutely.”
“Let me give you some background. You need to understand what you’re dealing with. In this country about one person in one hundred…”
“One percent.”
“Exactly. One percent of the population is subject to schizophrenia at some time in life. Loosely that means that in every street of about fifty houses or so someone there suffers from schizophrenia.” “Goodness me, that is surprising.”
“Now you’ll probably want to know exactly what it is. Well, no one knows. If they tell you they do, they’re lying. That’s the top and bottom of it. Opinion is divided. To the layperson it is madness, the lunatic with the split personality. Norman Bates, Jekyll and Hyde. The specialists are in two camps. Some see it as a biological illness and others believe that external factors alone are the cause. In other words no one is born with it. Most scientists believe in the biological condition and indeed, they have a powerful argument. Twins, parted at birth, both suffering from the same condition and so on. They, therefore, are in favour of neuroleptic drugs – thioridazine, pimoxide, orphenadrine, and these do have a calming influence. They certainly silence the voices. As a matter of interest, have you ever considered double glazing for your shop?”
“Not really.”
“You should. You should give it some serious thought. Prices are bound to rise next year. And this year is nearly done. This government is hell-bent on putting everything up.”
“Yes, you’re right. The Dome, the London Eye…”
“The other school considers that these psychological disorders have their source in childhood, that the subject has adopted a behavioural pattern in order to shield himself against family madness. Now this is interesting. Part of the treatment is reparenting – the cathexis technique
– to take the patient back to the baby stage so that they can begin again. You see the connection? Babies, dolls? This treatment is controversial. Some would call it brainwashing, that it breeds dependence and doesn’t get to the root cause which is biological. Both camps are locked in this bitter dispute. The patient, of course, when reason is lost to bitterness, is the loser. The truth, probably, almost certainly, lies somewhere between both camps, as truth often does: that it is biological, but that it is exacerbated by external influence. But there you are. There is nothing on earth more dangerous than the expert. If I were you I’d consider the new PVC lines. It saves an awful lot of time in painting and varnishing and all those uncivilized chores.” “What about the voices?”
“Ah, yes, the voices. They talk to you. Sometimes they call you names, and not your own name. You fear them. They are generally deep frightening voices, unless they are female. Not many are. They are unfriendly and threatening and you can’t turn them off. Pain silences them. That’s why a lot of patients hurt themselves. With knives and razor-blades and matches and, sometimes less obviously, with chicken vindaloo and jogging and visiting the gym. In older people the voices lead to acute persecution complex – paranoia.” “And the outlook?”
“Without help, things will only get worse. The voices, after all, represent one’s own subconscious.”
“They told him he was an electrician and he blew up my shop.” “Exactly.”
“They told him he was a salesman and he sells a lot of ducks.” “Ducks?”
“Yes.”
“Ducks, flying? Yes, that makes sense. Do you have many paintings of ducks in your gallery?”
“They do very well.”
“They’re obviously on his mind.”
“They’re on everyone’s mind, or so it seems. They fly up walls over cheap and nasty gas fires.”
“I wonder if he dabbles with acid.”
“I could ask him.”
“It would explain a lot.”
“The police came. Talked to him. Apparently a girl he knew has gone missing.”
“What was she like?”
“Average, slim. Her name is Sandra.”
“No! No! I mean interests. Do they have anything in common?” “Badminton.”
“Shuttlecocks! Feathers! Ducks! Good grief man! Norman Bates stuffed birds. He was a taxidermist!”
“I see.”
“You could recover your costs easily. Your heating bills would be cut in half…”
“I’ll tell you what,” Mr Lawrence said in all sincerity. “I would like you to come around and give me an estimate. You’ve talked me into it. And when you come perhaps we could discuss Paul a little more.” “Absolutely. Good idea.” He rubbed his red hands together. Mr Lawrence noticed the red scaly patches of psoriasis.
“There is one thing…”
“Go on?” A slight look of concern wrinkled the brow.
“There’s a roof light in the cellar. One of those old pavement lights, you know the sort of thing. You’d have to do something with that.” “My dear Mr Lawrence that will be no problem at all. We’ll sort something out. Would you like a drink? Exactly how many windows and doors do you have in your shop?”
“Enough. A few. Enough to throw light on the subject. And then you can measure up the cellar window for me. That’s always going to be the tricky one for you.”
He stuck up a firm finger. “Don’t you worry about that. When it comes to cellars I’m an expert.”
Mr Lawrence smiled a wicked little smile.