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The Visitor

John Hunt Publishing Ltd.

The flat is warm and its windows fogged. It smells of cigarettes, hash, roasting turkey, and clementines. Four stuffed chairs and a two-seat sofa crowd the sitting room. They are draped with throws and fattened out with cushions. Framed and unframed pictures cover the walls – charcoals, oils, gouaches, lithographs, sketches of whom I presume to be family and friends, and souvenir postcards of everyone from Longhi and Moser to Grimshaw. The room was once two rooms but was knocked through, and last night was cleared of the bicycle, laundry, post, and recycling that are ordinarily here. All of the books and vinyl records have been tidied away. Near the French doors to the yard at the back is a table laid for a meal, and crowded by seven mismatched chairs. Everything here is like that: clothes, furniture, cutlery, crockery, records and books are dog-eared, dusty or rusty or scuffed. But it is cosy – made cosier still by the dark, red-painted walls, the coal fire in the grate, fairy lights, and the six foot bough of long-needled pine affixed to the ceiling where a wall once separated the rooms. Homemade paper snowflakes and chocolate coins dangle from the bough. They tantalise me. Everything here might be old and worn, but it's new to me. I only arrived three days ago and already it's Christmas, so it's been a lot to take in.

Of course I sniffed around. The flat is Belinda Bell's. Belinda is slender and small, with hazel eyes and a strong jaw. Her flat is shaped like a squared lowercase letter 'd', lying flat on its back. The bedroom and box room, from where Belinda runs her eBay shop, are adjacent to each other upstairs, on the first floor, as is the bathroom, an extension at the back of the house that forms the stem of the letter 'd'. The kitchen is directly below the bathroom. It is narrow and has an acorn-brown lino floor, a brown-spattered, old gas cooker below a window looking onto the little yard in the back and cabinets you could hide inside. When the half-size refrigerator clicks on it vibrates in e-flat and the magnets on its face describe patterns as erratic as butterfly paths. Belinda has been in the kitchen since sunrise. Chopping and boiling and stuffing and seasoning and basting. Just before guests began to arrive at three she raced upstairs to change for dinner. She is wearing a green, velvet, ankle-length dress with seven buttons on each sleeve, and a high, lace-crested collar. Her hair is swooped up in an onion-shaped pompadour that shows off a grey streak at the front. The grey streak is the first thing you notice (she is only thirty-eight), otherwise her hair is the hue of a dirty copper coin. It's getting on my wick that she's introducing me as Jarvis instead of Geoffrey Cantor (always the full four syllables, thank you very much) as I've been called all of my life. Next person who comes to the door and I'm gone. I don't want to be here when everyone twigs that Lucy isn't coming, when they realise she's disappeared.

Lucy ... oh, Lucy. You were built for the stage, for the opera, a Wagnerian soprano, with your big hips and chest, your tragic eyes, wide face, wide mouth and big arms – arms that seemed to pull at the air. We never met. But I know about you through The Glaring. I know where you lived and that you ran The Bitch and that you cycled everywhere, even in the rain, and fed the neighbourhood cats who came to your rooftop window. I know that you never asked for help but always offered it. I know you were a virgin, and I know the day you met Him. Belinda was there too. But to her He was just some old man.

It was late afternoon, the 1st of December. Belinda was rolling a cigarette in front of the Dorset. You were trudging up North Street with six shopping bags, rather resembling a powerlifter in the early stages of the clean and jerk. In one bag was a pair of ankle boots from Oxfam and three pairs of woollen knee socks. In another was your horde from the Saturday Market: a pewter letter opener (Secessionist, you thought), a rosewood box probably once used for pens or pins but now good for catnip or weed, a metre of Victorian lace and thirty-six un-inflated balloons. In the three cloth bags were your groceries, a bottle of disinfectant, kitchen roll, and a large scouring sponge. The air was icy. Christmas lights, hung earlier that week, twinkled and blinked. It was one of those wintry afternoons that feels like it belongs to an old photograph or film. The sky was dark; the snow was white. It didn't feel like Brighton but somewhere belonging to the cold, somewhere borne up from the past. A city like Budapest or Prague, with its understorey of secret police and vanished faces. You smiled at how your breath fell before rising and disappearing against the cold, hard darkness of the sky. Then, catching sight of the gulls circling in the high distance, you crunched hurriedly across the street in little Geisha steps. You would have kept going but you spotted a five-pound note, damp and partially obscured by the snow in front of the Dorset. You picked it up.

'Your round then,' Belinda said, simultaneously lighting her roll-up and, reaching behind her, whacking on the electric heater above her head. She was seated at a small, zinc-topped table near the door. There were two dozen or more people huddled in small bundles or at the other tables in front of the pub, and many more passers-by. You laughed and kissed Belinda on each cheek. Then you welled up. You tried covering your eyes but the bags were too heavy for you to lift your hands to your face. Dropping down in the chair opposite Belinda, you stared upward, trying to suck in the tears. Crying embarrassed you. It wasn't your way.

Belinda slitted her eyes. 'Either you've been fucked or you're in love.' She ashed and dragged meditatively. 'If you've been fucked, it wasn't by me, so I don't want to know. But if you're prepared to admit that you're in love with me ...' She blew a smoke ring and rhythmically pushed her finger in and out through it. 'Then, my darling, we can talk.'

You laughed again; the relief of it dried your eyes. You hadn't kissed anyone for four years, since you were twenty-eight, other than the night three years ago when you met, and snogged, Belinda. She was working on the coat check at the Hanbury. You were drunk and had lost the ticket for your coat. When you tried to collect it, Belinda flirted with you (later she confessed because she knew you were straight and wanted to see how far she could go). You flirted back (you thought why not). A bargain was reached. You kissed over the countertop. Belinda held your face and you held hers. Someone cheered. You got your coat – and an instant friend. Belinda was one of your closest. You knew that; you know all of this. But you don't know that she almost saved you. You should know that too, in case, like Persephone or the hiccups, you come back.

One of the barmen came and took your order. He had chunky glasses and a glistening quiff. You asked for a mulled cider. Belinda ordered a large glass of red and batted her eyes. The barman pretended to not notice and turned away. Archie, the Dorset's tabby, hopped down from a barrel by the door and inspected the shopping bags at your feet, poking his head in each. You toed the one with the rosewood box out of sight and under your chair. The box was your Christmas present to Belinda. It delighted you to think of the double-entendres she'd make when she opened it. You had a few planned yourself. Archie leapt onto your table and lay on his side beneath the heat lamp. You stroked him. He closed his eyes and rotated his ears to the forward all-listening position. You told Belinda about the gull.

'The Bitch was such a bitch yesterday. Black out, no heat. Sorry, I won't go into it.' You held up your hands as though delivering a benediction, or surrendering. 'Went straight to bed when I came home. Friday night, half-seven: rock n' roll. I was just drifting off when I heard something at the bedroom skylight. My first thought – honestly – was that Flip had grown wings. You know Flip – lives two doors down along the roofs, grey with a white belly and green eyes. But I must've been really out of it because it's not a cat up there, but this giant gull settled on the roof above the window. You could see its head and neck. I got the feeling he was spying on me, so I watched him back for a few moments, expecting him to screech or fly away. But all he did was turn his head sideways and stare at me. Yellow eyes, like a snake.'

You turn your profile to Belinda, cock your head and open one eye wide. Belinda mirrors you.

'... And stare. And stare. And stare. Then it swings its head to face me and taps its beak on the window – tap, tap – turns and stares at me again. I rolled over on my side. The gull taps the window again, only harder now – whack. I ignore him. So – whack, whack. I wave my arm at him and peep up. He's staring at me again. So I stare back, sideways, like I'm a gull too.'

You mimic the bird again. Belinda doesn't this time.

'It's a standoff. All I really want is sleep, but I drag myself upright with the duvet over me, like this, and make to open the window to shoo him away. He flies off. I lie down and – tap, tap – stare. I make to open the window again and he flies off like before. But now I'm awake, and have to go to the loo. There's a skylight there too, of course. It's completely daft, but I'm dead on my feet and I think he must know where I've gone and followed me over the roof. I switch off the light and watch the skylight for his head to slide into view. Way, way up there's a flock of gulls circling and gliding. I watch them for a minute or two, to see if I can see what's going on.'

The drinks arrive. You wrap both hands around the glass, inhale the cinnamon and clove-scented steam, and close your eyes. Archie opens his. Belinda scratches under his chin. You touch glasses, and drink.

'Everything looks normal, so I go back to bed. But first I sneak up to the window to check if he's there. Nada. I get under the duvet, snuggle up and – tap, tap – stare. Can you believe it? I mean, he's fucking with me, a bloody seagull. I pretend to ignore him. Tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap – I jump up and bang the window with my fist. But this time he doesn't fly off. He leaps on the window, unfurls his wings out to here, rears his head back and swings down at me and up and down and up and down like a piston. Whack, whack, whack, whack, whack, whack – until – crack! His beak splits. Bits go splintering off. But still he's at it, faster now. Whackwhackwhackwhackwhackwhack – right down at me. Then the rest of his beak goes with this incredible snap. He falls so that his eye is like this, blinking at me through the window. I threw up everywhere.'

Later you think the drink must have gone to your head – the drink and the roll-up Belinda gave you when you finished telling her about the gull. After that, you could only remember things to a point. You remember Belinda scanning the sky for gulls, giving them the V's and shouting, 'You lot fuck off!' You remember it starting to snow, and Belinda's jolt of inspiration to do Christmas at hers. (Were you free? Yes, but you had to work until three or four, and would come after that.) You remember Archie suddenly jerking upright, curling low off the table and hurrying indoors. You had the feeling you were being watched, and kept looking over your shoulder. You told yourself it was only the gull still spooking you. (You didn't buy it, not entirely, but told yourself you did.) You remember Belinda saying, 'One of yours?' and, following her eyes, turning in your chair and seeing Him just as He began singing. Every time you tried to think what happened next, you felt ill.

Let me say it plainly: what happened next happens every day near the corner of Gardner Street and North Road. Someone came and performed. But what happened next doesn't happen every day: everyone turned their heads to watch, and everyone put money in his hat. You were one of those people. You could smell Him from where you were seated fifteen feet away (and He was still in your nose when you returned home). The Old Man smelled like a damp church basement or a dumpster (or the graveyard, from where his clothes came). Soiled white herringbone shirt. Scuffed black boots with flapping outsoles. One orange sock, one yellow, a greasy red cravat. Coal-dark tweed jacket. Flared, blue nylon tracksuit bottoms that fell high above his ankles. His horsehair top hat, now upturned on the ground at His feet, had left a rigid indentation across His brow. His head was enormous.

Some people swear that the Old Man was tall – taller than the five-foot-ten He actually was. He had a long neck and His fingers were spidery. But then others are adamant He was short. He was age-stooped and between His shoulder blades His back showed signs of a hump. His broken halo of red-grey hair caught the wind like a wild semaphore, and His arms hung forward, insect like, when He sang. No one noticed Him when He shuffled up; He was just another beggar or busker; and it was too snowy, too cold to pay Him any attention. But when He started to sing a strange warmth moved through the crowd, a warmth like a voluptuous Yes. Like a living being that could kick its heels in the air, buy a round, kiss, cop a feel, tremble, laugh, weep, and screw. The Old Man began with O Isis und Osiris; your fingers found the fiver in your coat pocket. It was everything you had on you and you knew then that you would give Him everything.

The song bled into the next. You were momentarily lost, your heart adding an extra beat, an indignant counter-thump when the Old Man sang: 'If you should ever leave me ...' Gooseflesh ran up your arms and neck. You leapt to your feet, swallowing hard to Man of Constant Sorrow. The next song was too much: Winner Takes it All: you rushed forward, holding forth the fiver as though it was a fishing rod. You stopped short, you continued nervously, tentatively, hoping at once that the Old Man would acknowledge you (a knowing wink, a raised palm, a tusky grin) or blank you. Grit crunched under your feet. You threw your money in His hat and everything went white. It was the same for everyone. They stopped drinking, shopping, toasting, talking, driving, moaning and emptied their pockets and purses and wallets into His top hat. Twenty pound notes, tenners, coins by the fistful ...

Some time later you were home and standing at your sitting room window watching the blizzard blanket Seven Dials. Fiona, Flip's sister and frequent antagonist, sharpened her claws on the back of your sofa, then hopped up and crouched on its armrest. It was night. Your face was puffy and red, the cuffs of your jumper damp with snot and tears. But you don't remember any of it any more than you remember returning home. Every time you thought about Him the room started to spin. In other words, Belinda had been prophetic on two counts: you were in love and you were fucked.

I want to shake you. If I could, I would have taken you by the arms and shaken you. Look at Him, Lucy. Look at that beautiful youth you see, that outsized urchin, and see the Old Man with His scored and ashen skin, see His cracked and fallen face. Don't you see? Don't you see? Look out for Him. Listen for Him: His caramelised voice with a touch of scratch, His bunion-toed footfalls that clop like the hooves of a goat.

The next day was dark and there was more snow. Trains froze on the tracks and there were few cars on the streets. The sea was quiet and low, as though cowering in anticipation of a beating. There was no sun, and day became night and in the night the haar – that curious, velvety sea fog – swallowed everything in its briny eddies.

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Excerpted from The Visitor by Christopher Chase Walker. Copyright © 2015 Christopher Chase Walker. Excerpted by permission of John Hunt Publishing Ltd..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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