Page 17 of Lost Souls

“Apex! I just told you. They want to build it right here – well, just off the road over there.” She points into the near distance. “Most of it on my poor late mum’s land! In fact, you’re sitting just where she’s buried.”

Arnie begins to squirm. “Must be a first for her. So, what’s the problem with a fourteen-screen leisure complex for Chrissakes? With gyms and shops and bowling alleys and restaurants. You could make a bundle!”

“You would say that. They’d probably be showing your films.”

“I wish.”

“Nobody seems to understand. I don’twantmoney. I’m happy here. This is where I belong. Where I’m wanted. Where I’m needed. This is where I can really do good. All day and every day.Andnight. Including Christmas and Bank Holidays.” She pauses for a moment. “On second thoughts…” She rips the cigar out of the bewildered man’s mouth before he can even light it and stuffs it in a woolly pocket. “I’m sorry, Arnie, but all life is precious. Even yours.”

“Excuse me asking, Noreen, but are you on medication?”

“No.”

“You should consider it.” Even in the darkness, he can feel her staring at him. “Hey, this Latex thing – or whatever – it’s your choice. Big deal. Not my problem.”

On reflection, he decides that he might be better off finding a more seductive point of entry, which, if you think about it, has been his stock-in-trade for years.

“What I mean is, sweetheart – kinfolk – cuz – you should get out more. Schmoozing, networking. Pressing the flesh. Y’know, meeting people.”

In the darkness, Arnie can sense his curious companion of the evening flinch. As if somewhere inside all that raw wool and knitted vests, a nerve has been exposed and prodded.

“I’ve met – ‘people’!”

Arnie has no idea what to make of this, as it sounded like it was charged with depth and resonance. Our guy doesn’t do depth and resonance. So, he is quite relieved when she changes the subject.

“How exactlyarewe related?”

Arnie hadn’t fully thought this one through, but a name she is seriously unlikely to know springs instantly – and thankfully – to mind.

“Er… exactly through my great-uncle, Harry. Harry… Reems.”

“Never heard of him.”

“No. You wouldn’t have. He was kind of… a black sheep.”

At this point, with what even Arnie has to concede is impeccable timing, they hear the bleat of a Herdwick coming from right beside them. Arnie had totally forgotten that Geoffrey had joined them for their walk on the wild side.

“Go back to sleep, Geoffrey,” coos his foster mum. “So, this Mr Reems…?”

Arnie has no intention of venturing into the lineage and history of the revered Harry Reems, star ofDeep ThroatandThe Devil in Miss Jones, a man included in the XRCO Hall of Fame (look him up; it’ll make your hair curl). But the late, great, ridiculously well-endowed star is going to be a stand-up guy again tonight.

“‘Arnie,’ he’d say, ‘if you’re ever in’ – wherever the hell we are – ‘go see Noreen.’” He pauses, remembering those plastic stringy things cluttering up the cottage. “‘Maybe she can help you… with your leprosy.’”

Noreen is immediately on the case. In the moonlight, Arnie can observe her large eyes, just visible beneath that ridiculous hat, suddenly fill with tears.How does she do that?he thinks, wondering, with one eye as ever on niche markets, whether she has other neat tricks.

“You’ve gotleprosy, Arnie?”

“It comes and goes,” he explains. “Especially… when I’m hungry.”

Noreen immediately segues from riven with compassion into wracked with guilt. “Oh, Arnie. I wasn’t thinking. I am just so sorry. Can you ever forgive me?”

He can see the bobble on top of her hat quiver with shame.

“I don’t get many visitors,” she explains. “Well, not human ones – or Americans. Actually, I don’t get any.Ever. I’ve a sort of feeling I know why. I’m not stupid. Oh, just listen to me going on! Would you like something to eat? Yes, of course you would!”

Arnie immediately leaps up from the late Mrs Millburn’s makeshift grave, shocking Geoffrey and indeed his equally woolly but slightly more human companion.

“Thought you’d never ask, Señora M! Grab your coat – a little make-up wouldn’t hurt – and point me to the nearest hibachi grill and then we’ll—”