“We’d had harsh words. He’d have reacted to them. It would have been an ‘I’ll show you’ sort of statement.”
“One that led to his death? Too much in a state to examine his kit closely? Was he the type to do that?”
“Impulsive, you mean? Impulsive enough to climb without looking over his equipment? Yes,” Kerne said, “he was exactly the type to do that.”
IT WAS, PRAISE GOD or praise whomever one felt like praising when praise was called for, the last radiator. Not the last radiator as in the last radiator of all radiators in the hotel, but the last radiator as in the last radiator he would have to paint for the day. Given a half hour to clean the brushes and seal the paint tins?after years of practise while working for his father, Cadan knew he could stretch out any activity as long as was necessary?it would be time to leave for the day. Halle-fucking-lujah. His lower back was throbbing and his head was reacting to the fumes once again. Clearly, he wasn’t meant for this type of labour. Well, that was hardly a surprise.
Cadan squatted back on his heels and admired his handiwork. It was dead stupid of them to put down the fitted carpet before they had someone paint the radiators, he thought. But he’d managed to get the most recent spill cleaned up with a bit of industrious rubbing, and what he’d not got up he reckoned the curtains would hide. Besides, it had been his only serious spill of the day, and that was saying something.
He declared, “We are out of here, Poohster.”
The parrot adjusted his balance on Cadan’s shoulder and replied with a squawk followed by, “Loose bolts on the fridge! Call the cops! Call the cops!” yet another of his curious remarks.
The door to the room swung open as Pooh flapped his wings, preparatory either to making a descent to the floor or to performing a less than welcome bodily function on Cadan’s shoulder. Cadan said, “Don’t you bloody dare, mate,” and a female voice said in concerned reply, “Who are you, please? What’re you doing here?”
The speaker turned out to be a woman in black, and Cadan reckoned that she was Santo Kerne’s mother, Dellen. He scrambled to his feet. Pooh said, “Polly wants a shag. Polly wants a shag,” displaying, not for the first time, the level of inapposition to which he was capable of sinking at a moment’s notice.
“What is that?” Dellen Kerne asked, clearly in reference to the bird.
“A parrot.”
She looked annoyed. “I can see it’s a parrot,” she told him. “I’m not stupid or blind. What sort of parrot and what’s he doing here and what’re you doing here, if it comes to that?”
“He’s a Mexican parrot.” Cadan could feel himself getting hot, but he knew the woman wouldn’t twig his discomfiture as his olive skin didn’t blush when blood suffused it. “His name is Pooh.”
“As in Winnie-the?”
“As in what he does best.”
A smile flickered round her lips. “Why don’t I know you? Why’ve I not seen you here before?”
Cadan introduced himself. “Ben…Mr. Kerne hired me yesterday. He probably forgot to tell you about me because of…” He saw the way he was headed too late to avoid heading there. He quirked his mouth and wanted to disappear, since?aside from painting radiators and dreaming about what could be done to the crazy golf course?his day had been spent in avoiding a run-in precisely like this: face-to-face with one of Santo Kerne’s parents in a moment when the magnitude of their loss was going to have to be acknowledged with an appropriate expression of sympathy. He said, “Sorry about Santo.”
She looked at him evenly. “Of course you are.”
Whatever that was supposed to mean. Cadan shifted on his feet. He had a paintbrush still in his hand and he wondered suddenly and idiotically what he was meant to do with it. Or with the tin of paint. They’d been brought to him and no one had said where to put them at the end of the workday. He’d not thought to ask.
“Did you know him?” Dellen Kerne said abruptly. “Did you know Santo?”
“A bit. Yeah.”