Darkmans (27 page)

‘So anyway…’ he glanced down, unnerved, absolutely determined –

Damn it

– not to engage with her emotionally ‘…the architect – or apparatchik, or whatever – takes the two designs to Stalin, to see which one he likes better. And Stalin’s not really paying attention. Perhaps it’s too early in the morning, or he’s got a hangover, or he’s still thinking about that pretty young girl in the shiny-white underwear who he watched in the gymnastics display the day before…‘

She poured a fifth shot and offered it to him. He took it.

‘…so instead of signing either one design or the other, he signs in the middle of
both
and returns the plans with no further comment.’

He downed the shot –

Yup
 –

Good
 –

Better.

‘Were they divorced by then?’ she asked.

He glanced up, sharply.

‘Who?’

‘Beede and your mother.’

He was silent for a while; shocked.

‘Yes,’ he said, coldly, ‘of course they were.’

‘And then the two of you went off to live in America?’

He scowled. ‘No.
Yes.
I’m not sure what you mean. They got divorced when I was six or seven…’

‘But she wasn’t ill at that stage, was she?’

He could tell by the tone of her voice that his answer mattered to her.

‘No. Not exactly. I mean the
signs
were there…’

He refused (out of sheer spite) to let his father –

The canny bastard

– entirely off the hook. ‘A certain discomfort. A
stiffness.
They thought it might be arthritis. That’s why we emigrated somewhere warmer.’

‘Somewhere hot,’ she mused.

‘Arizona. The edge of the desert. We lived in a mobile home – a
ramshackle kind of prefab – with rattlesnakes nesting beneath the floorboards and no air conditioning to speak of…’

‘I thought rattlesnakes were notoriously shy.’

‘They are.’

Silence

‘And when you came back?’ she persisted.

‘What?’

‘Was she very ill?’

‘Yes.’

‘Terminal?’

He nodded.

Silence

‘It’s gradually coming back to me now…’ Elen murmured. ‘She had such beautiful feet. Powerful feet. Muscular.’

‘She trained as a dancer when she was younger.’

Elen’s eyes lit up.

‘Of
course
– yes. I remember her mentioning that…’

Silence

‘So they built
both
designs, then, in the end?’

She leaned forward and took the glass from his hand. ‘Because they were so afraid of Stalin that they didn’t dare question his decision? Is that how the story goes? They integrated both designs into a single building?’

‘Yes.’

Kane’s voice sounded flat.

‘You know…’ she frowned for a second, ‘that story
does
sound familiar, now you come to mention it…’

She picked up the bottle and inspected it again. ‘Although it doesn’t look like anything special in the drawing…’

‘They’re knocking it down, anyway,’ Kane glowered, ‘so it doesn’t really matter. They may’ve knocked it down already, in fact.’

He took a sudden, mean kind of pleasure in the thought of the hotel’s destruction.

‘That’s a great shame,’ she said.

He shrugged. ‘It was going to cost more to renovate it than to build something new.’

‘But if you actually stop and think about it,’ she ruminated, ‘the hotel was important. A symbol of Russia’s complicated past. A parable. I mean the fear, the power, the compromise, the confusion…’

‘And the decision to knock it down,’ he interrupted, ‘is a symbol of Russia’s future.’

She slowly shook her head. ‘No. That doesn’t necessarily follow…’ she paused, ‘and anyway, what kind of a future? One based on ignoring the mistakes of the past?’

‘Sure. Why not?’

She looked surprised.

‘But of
course
it follows,’ he snapped (frustrated by her willingness to take him at face value). ‘What you’re not seeing is that it’s all part of the
same
story. The same…uh…
trajectory.
You could almost say that the decision to knock it down is at the
heart
of the parable, that it actually tells us
more
about the Russia of today – the world of today – than the story of its construction told us about Russia back then.’

‘How depressing.’

She smiled, wistfully.

‘That’s progress,’ he shrugged.

‘And so progress – in
your
view – is generally contingent on bulldozing the painful stuff?’

He didn’t answer.

She filled the glass and downed another shot.

He stared at her. She filled the glass again.

‘Perhaps five’s enough.’

‘You’re keeping count,’ she muttered. ‘How sweet.’

He glowered at her.

‘Anyway…’ she shook her head, glumly, ‘I never get drunk. It’s something about my constitution…’ she put a graceful hand to her stomach and patted it. ‘Solid as a rock.’

Kane grimaced. ‘In my extensive experience,’ he observed, dryly, ‘it’s always the worst kind of drunks who like to bend your ear with that kind of nonsense.’

She calmly downed her fifth shot then carried the empty glass over to the sink.

‘When I was a student,’ she shoved up her sleeves and turned on the tap, ‘I once drank an entire bottle of surgical spirit…’

‘If you
had
actually done that,’ he said, bluntly, ‘then you wouldn’t be standing here now.’

‘But I am.’

She peered over her shoulder at him.

Silence

‘Yes. I suppose you are,’ he grudgingly conceded.

‘My father had recently drowned,’ she continued, ‘in an accident, on a commercial riverboat cruise, and I felt this almost…I don’t know…this overwhelming
urge
to just blank everything out.’

She placed the glass down, gently, on to the draining-board. As she did so Kane noticed a clutch of terrible bruises: hand-prints, fingerprints, in a remarkable array of greens and purple-pinks, just above her wrists. She turned around, grabbed the vodka bottle and casually inspected the label again. ‘Just like the Russians, I guess.’

‘Weren’t you ill?’ he asked (struggling to remain focussed on the matter in hand).

‘No,’ she opened the freezer and placed the vodka back inside again, ‘a dry mouth…a slight headache. I probably vomited most of it back up.’

She wiped her hands on her skirt and adjusted her sleeves.

The dog sneezed.

They both looked down at her.

Silence

And then – quite out of the blue –

‘I thought you were magnificent too,’ she said.

Kane froze. Had she actually just spoken? Out
loud
?

‘And although she was beautiful – and she really
was
; I’m not just
saying
that…I mean she was so funny and so brave and what she
went
through was so horrible…But I never cried for her – outside, in my car, remember? Not once did I cry for her. The only person I ever cried for…’ she paused, thoughtfully ‘…was you.’

She was staring at him – he could tell – but he didn’t dare look
up. His eyes remained locked on the spaniel. He felt – he
couldn’t
…A maelstrom of emotion. Pain. Self-pity. Fury. Embarrassment.

His phone began vibrating –

Saved by the bell

– but he made no move to answer it.

And then suddenly –

Jesus

– there was this…this
shadow.
A dark shadow, in the kitchen. A huge, dark shadow moving slowly towards him, gaining – with every passing second – in both clarity and definition.

Kane angled his head slightly and leaned back, to try and get some kind of…

Good God
 –

An
old
man! Perfectly proportioned. Sharp-edged. Like a paper-cut. Hunched over, scraggy, and vaguely, well,
comical
to look at…An
arthritic
old man – hook-nosed, like Mr Punch or Don Quixote – sitting astride a black, shadow donkey. The donkey was limping – lamely but methodically – across the walls and the units and the tiling.

And the old man’s hand was holding up some kind of –

What was that?

A club?

– poorly fashioned
cudgel
…and he was brandishing it –

Uh
…

– quite menacingly, high above his head.

Fuck!

Kane quickly shoved back his chair, almost upsetting it, to prevent a sudden succession of shadow blows from raining down upon him.

‘Fleet!’
Elen shouted. ‘
Enough!
’

Kane slowly righted himself, wincing. Straight ahead, in the doorway, stood the boy, his small hands held high and intricately knotted. Behind him? A precariously angled table lamp.

‘Holy
shit
!’ Kane gaped. ‘Where the hell’d you learn how to do that?’

The boy opened his mouth to answer, but before he could, Elen had dashed towards him, grabbed his fingers and rapidly untangled them.

‘You
know
you shouldn’t…’ she began, and then, ‘
Fleet!
What on
earth
…?’

She pushed the boy aside and strode into the room beyond, where the lamp was about to topple from its perch on a large pile of cushions. She caught it, switched it off, unplugged it, and placed it down, gently, on to the carpet.

Fleet watched her, impassively. ‘Did I do bad, Mummy?’ he asked. She scowled over at him. ‘I’m afraid you did, Fleet. Yes.
Very
bad.’

The boy’s face crumpled. ‘I didn’t
mean
to,’ he said.

Elen didn’t relent. ‘You
know
that you’re not allowed to play with the light fitments or the electrical sockets…’

He shook his head. ‘But I
didn’t
know, Mummy.
Honestly.
’

She shoved her hair, brusquely, behind her ears. ‘Well you know now. You mustn’t
ever
do that again, do you hear me?’

Elen re-entered the kitchen and the boy trailed along behind her, still looking crestfallen.

‘I don’t understand you, Fleet,’ she muttered, ‘usually you
hate
touching electrical things…’

‘Is Mummy upset?’ he wondered.

‘Yes.
No.
Just surprised…
shocked.
And she doesn’t want you to do that again, all right?’

‘It was only
fun
,’ the boy muttered, grabbing on to her skirts and tugging at them.

‘Fun for you,’ she yanked the skirt from his grasp, ‘but not for us. You frightened poor Kane. You gave him a shock.’

The boy gazed at Kane, unrepentantly.

‘It
was
a great trick,’ Kane conceded, with a shrug.

The boy half-smiled. Elen did not. ‘You gave us
all
a bad shock,’ she reiterated.

‘Okay.’

The boy sniffed then yawned (already thoroughly bored of his mother’s
strictures). He grabbed a hold of her skirts again, ‘
Slœpan
, Mama,’ he wheedled.

‘
Schlafen
,’ Elen promptly corrected him.

‘What?’

The boy stared up at her, frowning.

‘
Schlafen
,’ Elen repeated.

‘But that’s what I just
said
, stupid!’

Elen’s mouth tightened.

Kane idly watched on, observing the tip of the boy’s head, the angle of his jaw. A pale face, a round yet oddly
girlish
face. Handsome, but with a touch of something…

Uh
…

‘If you’re tired, Fleet, then you should go to bed.’

‘No.’

He shook his head.

‘But of
course
you must.’

‘
Can’t.
’

He stamped his foot.

‘But it’s nearly bed-time anyway…’

‘
No.
Shut
up
!’ he squealed.

Elen remained perfectly calm.

‘I’ll heat you a nice glass of milk…’

‘
No!
I
won’t!
I don’t
want
to sleep,’ the boy yelled, ‘I want to stay awake, just like
you
do, and like
Daddy
does.’

Kane’s gaze shifted back to Elen again, to see how she would react.

She glanced up. He noticed – with some surprise – that her pupils were tiny – like pin-pricks.

The boy began grizzling.

Elen gently stroked his curls, then reached down and grabbed a hold of his hand. The boy suddenly unleashed a violent shriek. He sprang back, shoving the hand she’d tried to take under its opposite armpit, bending his knees, howling.

She gazed down at him, shocked. He howled again, even more dramatically. Kane stood up. ‘I should go,’ he murmured.

Elen was kneeling down, now, struggling to untangle the boy’s arms. Finally, she managed it. ‘You’ve got a cut,’ she said, ‘on your hand. Stop wriggling. Let me take a proper look…’

Kane peered over at the boy and saw it. The long scratch. The nasty tear.

He peered down at his own hand, then took a quick step back.

Elen glanced up at him.

‘But what about your foot?’ she asked, through the boy’s pathetic keening. ‘And your jumper?’

‘It’s fine…’

He continued to back away from her, suddenly struggling to…struggling for…

Can’t
…

Uh
…

Trapped

‘I can always…’

‘Come and see me at the surgery,’ she nodded, hugging the boy to her. ‘Ask Beede for the number.’

‘Thanks for the vodka,’ he gasped –

Throat tightening up

– clutching (out of sheer habit) for the phone in his pocket, his keys, lunging clumsily for the door –

Must
 –

Get
 –

Need
…

Uh
…

– wrenching at the lock, then exploding – like a frantically resurfacing man-mole (its scrabbling claws unleashing a chaotic fountain of pebbles-roots-bugs-dirt…

Ahhhhh!
)

– into the rich, deep pile of the navy night.

‘Forgive me. What awful timing. I should’ve thought to ring ahead…’

A startled-looking Daniel Beede addressed this awkward apology to an exquisitely set dining table and the four people surrounding it (while trying – and failing – to back his way out of the room into which he’d just that moment been unsuspectingly led).

‘
Nonsense!
’

The tall, dark, vivacious woman who was entirely responsible for luring him there grabbed a firm hold of his arm and patted it, reassuringly. ‘This is just perfect. In fact you couldn’t have timed it better. We’d catered for six, then poor Cheryl’s blind date got the jitters and stood her up at the last minute…’

Cheryl (an attactive, well-adjusted forty-nine-year-old woman) lifted an obliging hand to mark herself out from the other diners.

‘Hi. That’s me…’ she smiled, winningly (apparently perfectly willing to embrace the myriad of comic possibilities engendered by having been recently snubbed by a man she’d never met) ‘…and no, for your information, he wasn’t
actually
blind.’ The entire table tittered.

‘Just
extremely
short-sighted,
eh
?!’

The man to her right nudged her, cruelly (again, the titters). As he nudged he accidentally pushed a side-plate into her wine glass.

Clink!

‘
Tom
, you
oaf
! Watch the
crystal
!’ Beede’s companion hollered, good-naturedly. Beede winced.

‘Doesn’t care if I break it, mind…’ the nudger complained to the fragrant but slightly worn-out blonde on his other side, ‘just doesn’t want to upset the
caterer.
A complete, bloody she-devil. Made Pat disinfect the refrigerator before she’d even
deign
to unpack the food from her van into it…’

‘What’s she got?’ the second, rather more portly but equally expensively tailored man at the table enquired.

‘Funny little hatch-back. A Citroën
Berlingo.
It’s parked out the front.’

‘Of course…’ the second man snapped his fingers, in recognition, ‘I think I saw it as we pulled up.’

The dazed-looking blonde – who wore a tight, white roll-neck and heavy make-up – gazed over at Pat, horrified. ‘She made you clean out your fridge, Pat? I’m not being
funny
, but…’

Beede’s affable companion shook her head. ‘Tom’s exaggerating, Laura. She just needed some extra room so I did a quick…’

‘As God is my
witness
!’ Tom interjected. ‘I stagger home after a long day at the coalface, only to be sent straight back out – flea in my ear – to get some Dettox fridge spray and a bottle of
silver
polish. Arrive home for the second time, and blow me if she doesn’t have me perched at the breakfast bar – like a disgraced schoolboy – polishing the cutlery!’

‘Did a
lovely
job, Tom,’ Cheryl sniggered, lifting up a dessert spoon, panting on to the back of the bowl and then buffing it, assiduously, with the sleeve of her top.

‘Show them your fingers,’ Pat instructed him.

Tom lifted up his hands. Every nail was blackened.

‘How
awful
!’

Laura shook her head, horrified. ‘I mean what’s the point in getting a meal specially catered if you end up with hands looking like that?’ ‘He
offered
, Laura,’ Pat struggled to pacify her. ‘You should’ve
seen
it. All “yes Ms Sayle, no Ms Sayle” he was.’

‘Is that her name, then?’ Laura asked. ‘Ms Sayle?’

‘Well what kind of
sense
would the story make if it
wasn’t
?’ the car man sniped.

‘Good
God
, Pat,’ Cheryl spluttered (over the top of the others, half-way through a sip of wine), ‘my idle, chauvinist brother actually
volunteering
to do some housework? Has the world finally gone
mad
?!’

‘What do you
mean
?’ Tom drew himself up, outraged. ‘I’m a
completely
modern male. Ask the girls in the office. I make them a pot of fresh coffee, every morning, without fail…’

‘You’d be quite astonished,’ Pat
faux
-sniffed, ‘how “modern” Tom can get around a clutch of attractive office girls.’

‘
Attractive?! That
lot?!’ Tom howled. ‘Back me up, Charlie. Most of ‘em are homely enough to stop the clock!’

‘Stop the
what
?!’ Cheryl snorted.

‘The last time Tom brought me coffee in bed was when Max was three months old,’ Pat sighed, all misty-eyed, ‘on my twenty-fifth birthday…’ she glanced around the assembled company, ‘and how old is Max now?’

Tom began wailing.

‘No!
Seriously!
How old is he?’

‘Twenty-three?’ Laura took a wild guess.

‘Twenty-
four
!’ Pat struggled to make herself heard over the general commotion. ‘Getting
Tom
to lift a finger at home…?’ she threw up her free hand, despairingly. ‘It’d be easier to get the Pope to fit a condom.’

‘
Proper
coffee and everything,’ Tom ignored his wife and continued to swank about his office achievements, ‘in the
cafetiere
…’

‘
Really?
’ Laura looked suitably impressed. ‘
Proper
coffee? Charlie wouldn’t know one end of a cafetiere from the other.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Charlie snapped, ‘of course I do.’

‘No you
don’t.
’

‘It’s a little plastic thing-y with a plunger…’

Charlie quickly mimed how to use the object in question.

Laura puckered up her lips, irritably.

‘I’m
right
aren’t I?’

‘How
old
is she?’ Cheryl asked Pat.

‘Who?’

‘The caterer.’

‘Old enough to know better,’ Tom grumbled.

‘Young enough to teach an old dog new tricks,’ Pat struck back.

‘We’ll get a good look at her when she brings out the starter,’ Laura said, reaching for a stuffed, green olive from a nearby bowl, biting one end and inadvertently squirting the stuffing out through the other and straight down the front of her top.

‘Oh
bugger.
’

She grabbed her napkin and began dabbing.

‘Can’t take you anywhere,’ Tom moaned.

‘I really should…’ Beede used this brief, domestic interlude to try and start backing towards the door again.

‘Don’t be such a party pooper!’ Pat clung tenaciously on to his arm.

‘Pull out a pew,’ Tom seconded her, ‘there’s plenty to go around.’

‘I’ve already eaten…’ Beede lied, a thin line of perspiration dotting his upper lip.

‘That doesn’t matter…’ Pat insisted, ‘it’s just a
social
thing. We’re one short and I’d be
so
grateful…’

‘To be perfectly frank,’ Beede brusquely informed her, ‘I’ve got a fair bit of paperwork to be getting on with at home…’

‘But it’s our
Wedding
Anniversary,’ Pat gazed at him, pleadingly. ‘Sit down, old boy or I’ll never hear the end of it,’ Tom exhorted.

‘If it’s
me
you’re worried about,’ Cheryl delivered him a frank smile, ‘then I absolutely promise to leave your virtue intact.’

‘
Well
…’ Tom muttered, ‘until she’s finished her second glass…’

‘
Tom!
Stop provoking your sister!’ Pat scolded him, yanking a reluctant Beede forward a step. ‘Cheryl, this is Beede. Beede, this is Cheryl…’

Cheryl frowned. ‘
Bead
? As in necklace?’

‘No. Beede as in…’ Pat thought for a second. ‘Yes. As in necklace, but without the “a” and with two extra “e”s.’

‘So
not
as in necklace,’ Tom rolled his eyes, long-sufferingly.

‘And of course you know
Tom
,’ Pat continued.

Beede smiled, curtly.

‘
Everybody
knows Tom,’ Laura exclaimed.

‘And the woman with the embarrassing
stain
down her cleavage…’ Charlie interrupted her.

‘That’s Laura, my sister-in-law…’

Pat paused as Laura waved a genial hello. ‘And Charlie, my brother…’ she cleared her throat, carefully, ‘Laura and Charlie
Monkeith.
’

Beede stiffened as he reached out to shake Tom’s hand. ‘But of
course
…’ he said, nodding sharply, like a tight-arsed but intensely respectful
commandant
, ‘very pleased to meet you.’

‘Beede just did us the great honour of accepting the post of Chairman on the Road Initiative Committee,’ Pat continued, somewhat nervously, ‘for Ryan.’

Silence

‘I
must
actually…’ Beede gently demurred.

‘It’s not embarrassing at
all
,’ Laura brusquely interrupted him, peering down at her generously proportioned bust and rapidly dabbing again. ‘
Look.
It’s almost come off.’

Charlie didn’t look. Instead he pointed towards Beede’s piss-pot.

‘Come on a bike, eh?’

Beede gazed down at his helmet as if it were a curious tumescence which had just that second sprouted from the tips of his fingers.

‘
Uh
…’

‘I admire your fortitude, old boy,’ Tom whistled, ‘it’s
stinking
weather for it.’

As Tom spoke Pat whisked away Beede’s helmet and then placed her hands on to his shoulders to lift off his waterproofs. Beede started, involuntarily, as if her graceful hands were the clumsy mitts of an arresting officer.

‘I’m
sorry
, Pat,’ he insisted, ‘but I’m afraid I
really
must…’

‘Is it an old one?’ Charlie asked.

Beede didn’t answer. He was too busy fighting a losing battle to keep hold of his jacket.

‘Didn’t you hear it back-fire,’ Tom asked, ‘five minutes ago, pulling up?’

‘Charlie here is a car and bike fanatic,’ Pat informed Beede as she neatly folded his jacket over the crook of her arm, ‘he owns that huge Jag’ dealership on the edge of the Orbital Park, just across from the market…’

Beede nodded, despairingly, half an eye still fixed on the door. ‘Yes.
Yes.
I’m familiar with the place,’ he murmured.

Underneath his coat Beede was wearing his white hospital overalls, the bottom half of which were partially obscured by a pair of voluminous, plastic, all-weather trousers.

The assembled company sat quietly for a moment and quietly assessed his unconventional garb. Beede looked down at himself, mortified.

‘Remove your plastic trousers,’ Pat instructed him, ‘and then we can stick your all-weather gear in the laundry to dry off.’

‘Drove a Ducatti for over twenty years,’ Charlie fondly reminisced.

‘Well you kept it in the
garage
for twenty years,’ Laura corrected him, ‘gathering a thick layer of dust.’

‘That’s simply not true,’ Charlie snapped, ‘I used to love taking it out on the road to follow the
Tour de France
…’

‘You did that
once
,’ Laura scoffed, ‘the year we got engaged, then came staggering home – after three days, at most – with a dozen septic
blisters
all over your arse.’

‘Beede drives an old Douglas, Charlie,’ Tom quickly stepped in. ‘Makes a racket like a constipated mule on a diet of beans, it does.’

‘You’ll probably need to remove your boots first,’ Pat gently encouraged him.

‘Uh…’

Beede glanced down. ‘Yes…’

He noticed some suspicious-looking brown stains on the carpet behind him. ‘Oh dear…I’m afraid I should’ve…’

A lean, fine-boned but imperious-seeming woman suddenly appeared in the doorway wearing a pristine serving apron and matching cap. She was holding a grand silver server piled high with tiny rolls. On espying Beede in the act of disrobing, she froze.

Pat glanced over, unabashedly. ‘Is that the starter already, Emily?

Because we’ve actually got one extra…’

‘So we’re back up to
six
again?’ Emily enquired, icily.

‘Yes we are.’

Pause

‘I see.’

‘Is that a problem?’

Longer pause

‘No. But it’ll put the entire first course back by
at least
half an hour.’

‘That’s absolutely
fine
, dear,’ Pat beamed at her, ‘just do the best you can.’

Beede miserably yanked off his boots and his all-weather trousers. He was now a vision of social inappropriateness in head-to-toe dazzling white.

Emily remained in the doorway, inspecting his attire, blinking rapidly. ‘Are those the rolls?’ Pat asked, grabbing Beede’s boots and his waterproofs.

‘Yes they are.’

‘Well how about you slide those on to the sideboard and
I’ll
do the honours while you take Beede’s biking gear and hang it up in the laundry…?’

Emily opened a disdainful mouth to answer as Pat bustled towards her, but Pat jinked in first. ‘That’s
wonderful.
You’re an
angel.
She’s an angel,
isn’t
she, everybody?’

No takers

‘…and if you could just open an extra bottle of
white
and stick it in the cooler…Bang the rolls on to the sideboard, dear…
that’s
right. I’ll deal with those later.’

Emily slid the rolls on to the sideboard and was then promptly swaddled with Beede’s boots and muddy outerwear.

‘Let’s leave the helmet here, shall we?’

Pat displayed Beede’s dented piss-pot on a highly varnished incidental table next to a beautiful vase brimming with fabulous pink and red imported peonies.

As Emily left the room she shot Beede a look of compressed rage. Pat had already grabbed the salver of rolls. She held them aloft, on the flat of an upturned palm, and sashayed around the table dispensing them with a pair of matching tongs.

‘You’d never guess my lovely wife was once a cocktail waitress…’ Tom sighed (with a look of quiet satisfaction), gently patting her rump as she passed him by.

‘Yes you would,’ Laura chided him, ‘just look how beautifully she’s carrying that tray…’

‘That’s exactly what he
meant
, Laura,’ Charlie sniped.

‘Pat and I first met when we were working as bunnies,’ Laura informed Beede, ‘in the seventies.’

‘Is that so?’ Beede said.

‘Yes. Playboy bunnies,’ she dimpled, ‘with
wittle
white cotton-tails and
loooong
pink ears…’