LITMIR.BIZ

       Two

       Broad as the whole wide ocean, I, Empty as the darkest sky, False as an unconvincing lie, Invisible as thin air.

       Others found me in the sweet hereafter – Look hard, Look harder, You’ll find me there.

      ‘Behindlings.’

      Arthur Young spoke this word quietly in his thin but rather distinctive pebble dash voice, and then abruptly stopped walking.

      His companion (who was strolling directly behind him) veered sharply sideways to avoid a collision. But although he executed this sudden manoeuvre with considerable agility, he still managed to clip Arthur’s scrawny shoulder as he crashed on by.

      ‘What did you just say?’

      He hurtled around to face him, slightly exasperated, his arms still flapping with the remaining impetus of their former momentum. Arthur stood silently, his eyes unfocussed, massaging his bony shoulder with a still-bonier hand, frowning. He was apparently deep in thought.

      They were pretending to hike through Epping Forest together, but they weren’t fooling anybody. A local woman walking a recalcitrant basset had already turned her head to stare after them, curiously. And a well-muscled young man on a mountain bike had peered at them intently through his steamed-up goggles.

      ‘That’s the special name he invented for the people who follow him,’ Arthur finally elucidated. ‘He calls them Behindlings.’

      After a second almost indecently lengthy pause he added, ‘We’ve actually been walking for almost an hour now…’ he tentatively adjusted his baseball cap, ‘and whether you choose to believe it or not,’ he continued tiredly, his gentle throat chafing and rasping like a tiny, fleshy sandblaster, ‘I’m really quite… I’m honestly quite weary.’

      His companion –a portly but vigorous gentleman who was himself sweating copiously inside his inappropriately formal bright white shirt and navy blue blazer –also paused for a moment, pushed back his shoulders, and then slowly drew a deep and luxurious lungful of air.

      He looked Arthur up and down. His eyes were as bold, bright and full of fight as a territorial robin’s, but his overall expression – while indisputably combative, perhaps even a touch contemptuous –was not entirely devoid of charity.

      That said, his immediate and instinctive physical assessment of the strangely angular yet disturbingly languid creature who stood so quietly and pliantly before him (speckled as a thrush by tiny shafts of morning light pinpricking through the dark embroidery of the thick forest canopy), plainly didn’t inspire him to improve his long-term, critical evaluation one iota.

      Arthur. Thin. Gaunt. Frayed at his edges; on his cuffs, at his collar. Wearing good but old clothes: nothing too remarkable, at first glance… Well, nothing, perhaps, apart from an ancient brown leather waistcoat (carefully hidden away under his waterproof jacket) with rotting seams and bald patches, a strange, waxy garment which effortlessly conjured up entire spools of disparate images: visions of a primitive world; the sweet, mulish stink of the traditional farmhand, the implacable fire and sulk of the Leveller, the fierce piety of the knight, the rich, meaty righteousness of Cromwell.

      It was a curious thing. Ancient. Aromatic. Romantic. Almost a museum-piece.

      Although superficially loose-limbed and listless, Arthur was actually exceedingly precise in both his movements and his manner. He was gentle but absolute. He was unforgiving. His mouth was unforgiving. The deep furrows from his nose to the corners of his lips were unforgiving. His hair –trapped under an old, plain, khaki-coloured baseball cap –was thinning. His skin was tight. They had not walked quickly but he seemed exhausted. Shrivelled.

      They inhabited entirely different worlds. His companion was ripe and unctuous; as grand and imposing as a high-class, three-tiered wedding cake. And although –in view of his recent exertions –his icing had a slight tinge of parboiledness about it, he remained, nevertheless, disconcertingly well-configurated.

      After a moment he drew a clean cotton handkerchief from his blazer pocket, mopped his brow and then exhaled heartily. For some reason he seemed inexplicably enlivened by Arthur’s frailty. Buoyed-up by it.

      ‘So you finally stopped drinking?’ he asked.

      Arthur twitched, then smiled, uneasily, ‘Yes. I finally stopped.’

      ‘And your family? Your wife?’

      Arthur glanced up into the sky. It was a cold, clear day. It was midwinter. Everything was icy. His lips. His teeth. His fingertips.

      ‘I never married.’

      His companion frowned. This was not the answer he’d anticipated. He’d imagined he knew everything he needed to know about Arthur. He’d investigated. He’d peeked, poked, connived, wheedled. The rest –the polite enquiries, the stilted conversation, the walk, even –was little more than mere etiquette. He continued to inspect Arthur closely –yet now just a fraction more aggressively –with his hard, round eyes.

      ‘There was something in your background…’ he began slowly, carefully unfastening his

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