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RESURRECTION There was a sudden, sharp explosive sound. A gunshot? The bulky Volvo swerved violently to the left; the grey tunnel wall eclipsing Christopher's field of vision. The car skidding almost sideways, he panicked and floored the brake pedal, struggling with the steering wheel. The rear of the car seemed to rise as he was thrown forward, flung into echoes of cracking plastic, metal screaming against metal and crunching into concrete. His face flying toward the windscreen; his hands slid from the steering wheel, the back of a wrist slamming into the dashboard, a spasm of pain shooting up his arm. He cried out as the seat belt grabbed him, thrust his body back at the seat. The Volvo’s bonnet folding up; the entire windscreen imploded, became a shower of glass shards tearing through the air, then claimed by gravity as the car crashed down around him. He could hear hissing steam; smell the hazy fumes of petrol. Jagged gems of glass fell from the windscreen's rubber seal. A dark, unfocused dot formed directly in front of him on the silver surface of the car's buckled bonnet. A darkness expanding, rushing to devour him... "Okay, so what we got?" a male voice asked. Something electronic was repeatedly beeping. "Christopher Mathews. Driver from an RTA," a female reported, her voice slightly distorted, as if he was underwater. "The only casualty. Unconscious at scene. Came to, briefly, on route..."
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He tried to open his eyes, but the appropriate muscles refused to obey. Subtle, kaleidoscopic images revolved in the darkness. He strained to sit up; there was no response. His body felt numb, extremely heavy. "...and minor lacerations," the unseen woman finished saying. "Okay, let's lift him across on my count," the male voice instructed. "Okay. One, two, three and, over we go." Christopher sensed the presence of someone leaning over him as each of his eyelids were raised in turn to reveal a bright light, which left an afterimage scorched on his retinas of a burning circle of white. "Okay, do you know if he's taking any medication?" the male voice said in a professionally concerned tone. "No, I don't think so. Is he going to be alright?" Christopher heard Elizabeth nervously ask, her voice seemed to swim past in the background. The electronic beeping skipped a beat; then sped up for a moment. Beth, what has happened to me? Christopher tried to say. "I'm sure he'll be okay, Mrs Mathews. Okay? Just need..." the doctor's voice receding into the distance as Christopher was dragged down, sinking deeper, drowning... A highpitched electronic whine cut through him, then quickly faded as the darkness behind his eyelids became absolute. He felt insubstantial, liberated from the constraints of flesh. His eyes opened easily. He looked down at the man lying on the bed beneath him. The man's eyes were closed, a few fresh cuts torn into his forehead, his short black hair matted in a couple of places with blood. His shirt was open and five small, white plastic discs had been attached to his chest. That can't be me, Christopher thought. "What's happened?" Elizabeth desperately wanted to know. A nurse was leaning over the body below, her fingers probing Christopher's wrist for a pulse. She shook her head. The doctor's arm reaching out, the heel of his palm aiming for a red button mounted on the wall above the head of the bed. "Quick, get the defib' down here," the young man frantically requested. Page 2
As the nurse rushed out of the curtained cubical, it appeared to drop lower. Christopher instantly recognised the top of Elizabeth's head. She was standing by the foot of the bed, accompanied by another nurse who was saying something about: "...your husband's heart..." and "...everything we can." "My god," Elizabeth sobbed. "Don't die." Am I dead?! "Okay... If you could please take Mrs Mathews outside for the moment." The doctor had his hands on Christopher's chest, fingers interlaced, palms pressing down. "And someone get Scott! Okay. One one thousand... Two one thousand..." Elizabeth raised her hands to hide her face. A tear crept between her fingers and rolled along the gold surface of her wedding ring. "Three one thousand..." Beth, don't cry, Christopher said soundlessly. I'm still alive. "Four one thousand..." "Please, Mrs Mathews, come with me." The nurse gently guided Elizabeth out through the curtain. "We'll wait out here, out of the doctor's way." Christopher followed his wife, eager to leave the confusion behind him. Elizabeth sat down on the nearest chair, beside an unoccupied bed, her head rocking slowly back and forth as she cried. The urgent ringing of an alarm drifted from the far end of the ward. "Where's Doctor Lamont? We got an arrest. Could certainly do with some help down here," the first nurse called out as she hurried back, pushing an equipmentladen trolley toward them. She steered the trolley into Christopher's cubical. "Okay, okay. Charge it to two hundred," the doctor told her. "It’s charged," the nurse quickly replied. "Okay. Stand clear!" The body convulsed. And for an instant Christopher was back, in the midst of an epileptic fit on the bed. He hovered above them as they tried to bring him back to life. The electronic whine continued. Colours gradually drained away, everything Page 3
shades of growing darker grey, the doctor and nurse transforming into indistinct shadows on either side of his warm corpse. Far away, out in the deep darkness, a point of light appeared. A single star in a dense, obscure sky. He turned toward the distant brightness and let it draw him closer... The silver Volvo sped along the narrow, unlit road; travelling through a flat landscape of fields stretched out into the night. Up ahead was the illuminated mouth of the tunnel. Christopher applied more pressure to the accelerator. The light blinded him for a moment. The car somehow unfolding, fragmenting, falling away. He hurtled headfirst down the tunnel; its curved walls blistering, swirling around him, glistening, bubbling, then bursting: becoming a whirlpool of boiling quicksilver. A turbulent, mercury maelstrom emitting a metallic whine, increasing in pitch as he reached an impossible velocity. "Please..." A voice, not male, not female, a fierce wind, yet the words were softly wrapped around him, gently wove through him. "Go back," it stated. "CLEAR!" The silver cyclone erupted; intense light engulfed him... The electrocardiogram started to beep again. And he was back on the bed. Flesh, skin, blood and bones once more. Page 4
INCOMING... Nathan never came home last night. The useless son of a bitch. This morning, Caroline had known, even before she moved or opened her eyes, that she had woken alone in their bed. She had yawned, stretched, rolled over and then thumped her lover's pillow. Yet another confrontation would be totally pointless. At least once a week, when Nathan turned up around lunchtime, after having been missing since the early evening of the day before, he would say: "Look, this is my home and I can come and go as I please, so what's the problem?" Their main problem was forever the same: Money. There had been two bills in the post this morning, both had FINAL NOTICE printed on them, both stated that the amount due should be paid immediately, and both threatened future court action which would result in legal fees being added to the debt. Caroline had placed the bills on the dinnertable, propped up against Nathan's Playboy mug. She had stared at them while she ate her breakfast cereal. Four hours later, Caroline stared at them again while she and her daughter ate their lunch. Where the hell is Nathan? she wondered. Probably burnt out after a night's debauchery, still curled up on Tony's sofabed, she decided. Well, he had better get his act together soon or I'm going to start looking for a job myself, she thought, knowing how Nathan would react to that idea. Work seemed to be the most obscene fourletter word that he had ever heard. "Selfinflicted slavery," he called it. He also said: "What's the point in going out and grafting when money gravitates towards me naturally." And Nathan was certainly the centre of his own universe, a source of pure persuasion that no one could ignore. Well, at least that was his theory. "I should have started a religion," he had once told her, high on his latest small victory. Page 5
"Come worship at the house of Nathan," he had proclaimed with his arms raised to the heavens, "and leave your money at the door!" So far, the only religious part that Caroline could see him playing in her life was that of a false prophet. Fate, it seemed, had the future mapped out in a way that differed greatly from Nathan's numerous plans. No matter how hard he schemed away, they were always short of money. "Kirby needs some new clothes," she had warned him yesterday. "Again already?" "Kids grow quickly at that age," she had reasoned. "You're feeding her too much," had been his response. It was midafternoon and getting dark outside when he finally showed up. Caroline was sitting at the table, looking through the children's wear section of her Littlewoods catalogue while trying to decide what to cook for dinner later, her options limited. Kirby was sitting opposite, drawing a picture of her Mummy with felttipped pens. "So, how are my two favourite females?" Nathan called from the hallway, closing the front door behind him. "Daddy!" Kirby abandoned her drawing, jumped down from her chair, then ran out of the room to greet him. "What a day!" Nathan stated when he appeared in the livingroom's doorway. His dark hair was ruffled, his black suit creased. "Hi ya, baby." He grinned at Caroline. "I gotta go sit down," he said to Kirby, who was standing beside him, holding his hand. He started to walk awkwardly towards the sofa, a strained look on his face. "Why you walking like that?" Caroline asked. "You look like you've been horse riding or something." "I don't wanna talk about it. It's been a long day. And brutal. Far too brutal." He eased himself down onto the sofa; then winced when Kirby flopped down next to him. "Easy," he told her, and then he embraced the little girl and kissed the top of her head. "What have you been up to now?" Caroline wearily wondered. Page 6
"I think I've sprained something in my groin," Nathan quietly said, looking down at his lap. "Really?" Caroline raised an eyebrow. "And how'd you manage that one?" "Er, I slipped in a icy puddle, downtown. I nearly ended up doing the splits," he explained. "I can do the splits," Kirby cheerfully told him. The telephone, on top of the tallest of a nest of tables beside the sofa, started to ring. Nathan reached to answer it. "Yo?" he said, smiling at Caroline. "Hello?" Then his smile faded. "Think you got the wrong number." He placed the telephone's handset back on its base. "Wrong number," he said, looking at Caroline. "Wrong number?" She did not believe him. He tutted, then sighed. "Okay, it was that weirdo again," Nathan admitted, carefully getting up from the sofa. "We'll get our number changed." It's not a problem, she could imagine him saying. He was on a crash; Caroline could sense it. That "weirdo" was rapidly driving her up the wall. The silent telephone calls had been a daily occurrence all last week, sometimes twice or three times a day, but there had been none yesterday and she had hoped that, whoever it was, they had grown tired of tormenting her. Nathan had said ignore them and they will soon stop. Well, obviously he was wrong and he had better do something about it, or she would. "Hmmm..." Nathan saw the electric and water bills waiting for him on the dinnertable as he limped over to the kitchen. Kirby pointed the remote control at the television and turned it on. Caroline left the catalogue open on the table, followed Nathan into the kitchen. "So... Where'd you spend last night?" she asked. "Tony's. There's no food." He had the fridge door open, one hand caressing his stubbled chin. "No bacon." "There's some ham. Make a ham sandwich." "Ham?" He said, holding up a thin square of the pink meat. "Call this processed crap ham? I call it spam." He dropped the slice of meat into its plastic container. "I need a proper bacon sandwich and a few hundred cups of coffee." Nathan tossed the container into the fridge, and then kicked the Page 7
fridge's door close. "I'll be back in a second." That lopsided grin meant he was happy about something. The vacant look in his eyes meant he had not slept last night. He was back in a minute, standing in the kitchen holding four nearsplitting Tesco's carrierbags. "Been shopping," Nathan announced as he lifted the bags up. He set them down on a worktop, started to take out their contents. "Big fat turkey, various veg, mince pies, Christmas pudding, squirty cream, Jack Daniels..." Daniel, thought Caroline. And that name was linked to many memories... "...couple of steaks, mushrooms, prawns, tonnes of tins, a few bottles of wine. Ah, bacon!" Nathan pulled out his prize. "You didn't use that credit card again?" Caroline tried to sound angry, but she could not force herself to feel it. "And..." He dragged a BhS bag out from behind the Tesco carrierbags. "Christmas has most certainly come early. I got some new clothes for Kirby." "Bloody idiot!" But Caroline was almost laughing. "No, no, no," Nathan said, shaking his finger at her in mock reproach. "I didn't get caught, not even on camera... And this is the very last time, I promise." His hands cupped around the back of her skull, he gave her forehead a wet, sucking kiss. "When'd my Giro come?" "Last Friday," she said, eagerly helping him empty the bags. "Did it?" Nathan looked through his wallet. "Here." He held out a twentypound note. "Treat yourself. We don't have to worry about money anymore." "You sold the car?" "No. I mean we don't have to worry about money, ever." He had cut open the packet of bacon and was laying out rashers under the cooker's grill. "I told you, you wouldn't get a thousand for it. It was a waste of time advertising it for that much. I don't think it's even worth half that," Caroline estimated. "Forget the car, we're keeping it for now," Nathan said, spreading margarine on a slice of bread. Page 8
"Alright, so we're keeping the car." She did not think he had wanted to sell it in the first place, otherwise, why would he have priced it so high? "So how are our money problems solved?" "Have patience, my dear," he told her, making the first cup of coffee. "All will be revealed soon." Caroline was upstairs in Kirby's room, helping her daughter try on her new clothes, and Nathan was falling asleep on the sofa downstairs, when the telephone started to ring. Caroline walked through to their bedroom, over to the extension line. They both picked up at the same time. Caroline hesitated before saying anything. She was surprised and relieved to hear Nathan say hello, then start a conversation with his mother. "And how are you getting on at your new job?" Nathan's mother asked. Caroline had to stop herself from laughing. She pressed the telephone's mute button. "Going great guns," said Nathan. Caroline could picture him slouched on the sofa with a big, bullshitting grin on his face. "Closing the deals, getting ahead," he told his mother. And that, Caroline thought, for several reasons was just the biggest lie. Nathan had had a wide range of jobs in the past, but he had not done an honest day's work since she had known him. The town's main employment was offered in the fields of engineering, retail, clerical and productionline work. Nathan may love bacon, but he had lasted only a few days on a line packing it, due to what he called "post slicedpig stress syndrome." And sure, they always somehow managed to survive, but they never seemed to really get ahead. "We're going away on Thursday. You and your girlfriend must come over and have dinner with us before we leave." There was a trace of contempt when Nathan's mother said "girlfriend". "Going anywhere nice?" Nathan enquired. "Only Sydney for a fortnight," his mother said. Page 9
Only? That's the other side of the planet, thought Caroline. She had never been abroad. "How about tomorrow for dinner?" Nathan suggested. Caroline hung up the telephone in their bedroom; then she returned to Kirby. "Don't have to worry about dinner tomorrow night," Nathan called upstairs a few minutes later. "I'm treating you to an evening out." "' Ever drifting down the stream. Lingering in the golden gleam. Life, what is it but a dream? '" Nathan, having finished reading Lewis Carroll's Through The LookingGlass , closed the book. Kirby's smile briefly reminded Caroline of Kirby's father. Kirby is threeyearsold and has never met her real father. And her real father did not know that he has a daughter: he had left town a week before Caroline discovered that she was pregnant. Caroline and Nathan have been together for nearly two years now and Kirby has only ever known him as her "Daddy". "Ah, please read more," Kirby sleepily pleaded, looking up at Nathan doeeyed. Caroline was standing in the doorway, where she had listened to Nathan read Kirby her bedtime story. Watching them together, she remembered one of the main reasons why she had left her parent's home and moved in with him: Kirby adored him and he always tried his hardest to be a loving father. "That's it. End of the book. We'll start a new one tomorrow," he said softly from the edge of the bed, reaching out to tussle Kirby's hair as she snuggled under the sheets. "See you in the morning." Nathan switched the light off, paused in the doorway for a moment, Caroline blocking his path. "You know, sometimes you really get on my tits," she whispered without malice. "And sometimes I love you to bits." "I know." He grinned, and then lightly kissed the tip of her nose. Page 10
They moved from Kirby's bedroom doorway out onto the landing, Caroline quietly closing the door behind them. "Need anything from the BP?" Nathan asked as he began to descend the stairs. "What you going for?" "Run out," he stated, taking a crumpled cigarette packet from a trouser pocket. "Could get another pint of milk," Caroline said, following him downstairs. "Milk, you got it. Won't be long." Nathan headed for the front door. Caroline went through to the livingroom, closed the curtains. Sitting on the sofa, she heard their car start and then pull off the driveway. Caroline experienced a sudden feeling of loneliness, of vulnerability, but not her own: an empathic link with an unknown source. Unknown, yet vaguely familiar... She was already staring at the telephone before its trill vibrated the air with tension. Caroline answered it immediately. "Hello?" There was no reply. The calls were always the same. They would phone and then say nothing. But, who? "Hello?" she said again before slamming down the receiver. Who kept doing this? And why? Was it someone she knew? Someone Nathan knew? Well, whoever you are, have fun, she thought as she unplugged the telephone from its wall socket. "Sorry I took so long. You know the tunnel under the railway lines on the other side of town? It's been blocked off. Had to go around the bypass," Nathan explained when he returned. "Must have been a major pileup. There's police, an ambulance, even a fireengine over there. Looked like they were cutting someone out of a car." "Had a phone call while you were gone," Caroline coldly told him. "Who was it?" Nathan yawned, taking the TV guide from under the coffeetable. Page 11
"Our friendly pervert. Nathan, you going to do something?" she demanded as he sat beside her on the sofa. "Well, there's Panorama, Newsnight, Anglia News, the end of a repeat of Cracker, and it's still snowing on Channel 5," he said, flipping through the channels, then killing the picture with the remote control. "So I may go out and steal someone's satellite dish in the near future." " About the bloody phone calls!" Caroline exasperated. "You use that function to get the last caller's number?" "Onefoursevenone? It's always the same message. The number's withheld." He slowly stood up again; then he wandered over to the kitchen. "I'll phone the operator and report them tomorrow. And we'll get the number changed. It's not a problem. Alright? You fancy a battle before bed?" Nathan's always so laid back, it's a wonder he doesn't topple over, Caroline thought. Well, I've had enough. "Why wait 'til tomorrow?" She reached over the side of the sofa for the chessboard. He did not answer. Does he know who it is? Is that why they don't say anything to me? Is it a woman he's seeing? Nathan returned with a bottle of Liebfraumilch, two wine glasses and an ashtray. "Where'd the pieces go? Ah, found them." They were under the coffeetable. He opened their wooden box, and then set out the carved pieces on the board. "You can be white." "Why don't you phone them now?" Caroline tried to keep her cool, moving a pawn forward. "Because..." He lifted a knight over his wall of pawns. "I'm playing chess. Your move." She advanced another pawn. "Whoever it is, they're really beginning to piss me off." "So I've gathered." He pushed one of his pawns forward. "I know this is your house, your phone, but if you don't..." "I will, first thing in the morning," Nathan promised. "Your move." She brought one of her bishops out and took his knight. Page 12
"Eh?" He tutted, shook his head in disbelief. "Either you've worked out a brilliant new strategy based on sacrificing your best pieces, or that was just the dumbest move I've ever seen." Nathan sighed and replaced her bishop with one of his pawns. He knows who it is! Is it another woman? Caroline hooked a finger under the board, flipped it off the sofa. Chess pieces rained down onto the carpet. Nathan laughed. "What was that? The apocalypse? Global thermonuclear warfare?" "Son of a bitch... You know who's making those calls," her anger now obvious. "No. I don't," he said, calm as ever. " You know whoever is making the calls. At least, if you don't, they sure as shit know you. And that's no way to talk about my mother..." Page 13
SEEKING OBLIVION "I just don't want to be in this... anymore." Her head bowed, she rose from the chair. "I'm sorry." Her face hidden behind tangled, golden hair. Was she crying when she said that? Joe thought numbly. He briefly considered asking "Why?" again, but instead he watched passively as she turned to leave. Like watching a scene from a movie: for a moment, she appeared to be moving in slow motion as she stepped into the small lobby, reaching for the front door. Quick, Joe, do something! "Wait!" He rushed across the room, slid between her and his flat's only exit, placing his hand on the handle, his foot against the bottom of the door. "Linda, I..." He saw her in soft focus: Linda's head lifting a fraction, tilted slightly, hair parting to expose a single determined eye. Joe forced a smile, let his hand fall to his side and dragged his foot away from the door; then he tried to figure out what his lines should be for this scene. Linda did not move, breathing silently, her breasts and shoulders gently rising and falling under his borrowed, cream cotton shirt. She stared at him, and he could hear her heart beating inside his head. He slowly raised his arms to embrace her. "Don't," she said. He ignored her, knowing that she did not really want to leave. It was a threat, not a statement of action. This was her way of gaining his complete attention, a recent and now familiar game. And this was a part of the game, pretending to put up a fight. As Joe moved closer, Linda found herself backed against a wall. His hands were inches from her shoulders. She
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lashed out, brushing his arms away, then she flicked her hair, revealing her face and an emotion: hatred? Joe raised his hands in surrender. Her game, her rules. "Someone else?" he said without proper thought and instantly regretted. "What?" she spat. "Is there someone else?" he said slowly, deliberately. "No," she replied immediately. "Now let me get past." Linda chewed on her bottom lip and glared at him. Joe stared back. What was he supposed to do, to say? Her nostrils flared and her eyes turned into narrow slits. "Let me out or I'm going to scream," she hissed through clenched teeth. Joe glanced away for a second. Linda's expression had not changed when he looked back. He paused, his mind racing, then he moved out of the lobby, back into the livingroom. Linda opened the front door and then stepped outside. Cold air sneaked in, rapidly consuming the room's warmth. Joe shivered. "And don't follow me," her final words. She shut the door behind her. He watched through net curtains as she marched down the path, then out of view behind the next block of flats. Joe grabbed his jacket from its hook, and then he pulled the front door open. A startled sparrow took to flight. The ginger feline, that had been stalking the bird, looked across the flat's carpark at him accusingly. "HA!" Joe shouted, slammed the door shut. He threw his jacket across the room, and then kicked the diningchair that Linda had been sitting on, which fell over onto its side. He lifted a hand to his forehead, ran it back through his hair, caressed the tension in the back of his neck. On top of the bookcase in front of him, next to an empty glass decanter, stood a greetings card. On the front of the card, one of the Forever Friends was smiling at him, its cartoon arms held out, asking for a teddy bear hug. He picked it up, and then slowly read the handwritten words inside. Joe, I just can't wait to be alone with you. Everything will work out with the flat. And it's only the beginning! I love you always Linda XXXXX Joe carried the card through to the kitchen, where he dragged a frosted, halfempty bottle of vodka from the freezer. He returned to the livingroom, Page 15
righted the fallen chair, then sat down on it. He twisted the top from the bottle as he reread the card. Her last written message to him, it gave no indication. Joe placed the card face down on the table, taking a gulp of the freezing liquid, the vodka warmly flowed down his throat. Ticket to oblivion, he hoped.
Joe bumped and bruised his shoulder on the doorframe as he entered The Angel. Blake Southgate was standing in the hallway that leads through to the main bar area, wearing his famous red leather bikerjacket, smoking a Marlboro and pinning a poster to the noticeboard. "Hey Joe," he said. "Alright Blake," Joe replied, stopping to look at the poster: ARKHAM ASYLUM written in big, black spidery letters. "Your band, yeah?" Joe was surprised by how slurred his speech sounded and by a sudden craving for a cigarette. "We're playing down here Friday night," Blake told him, pointing at the time and date written in smaller, less chaotic lettering at the bottom of the poster. "And man, we're gonna be mungus. Won't cost nothing to get in, so make sure you're here and bring as many people as you can, and hopefully the landlord'll book us again. I gotta run," Blake said, moving towards the exit. "We're rehearsing tonight and I've still gotta put some more posters up around town." "Okay," said Joe, a little overwhelmed by all this information. "See you Friday!" Blake emphasised as he headed out into the bitter night air. As Joe entered the main bar area, he was enticed by the layer of cigarette smoke hanging in the pub's warm, moist atmosphere. It led him straight over to the vendingmachine. He fed some coins into the slot, claimed a packet of Benson and Hedges. Then he stepped up to the crowded bar. "What'll it be?" the barman asked. "A neat double vodka, please Pete," Joe said, making an effort to sound sober. "And a box of matches." Page 16
"No girlfriend tonight?" The barman took the note that Joe offered. "Eh?" How did Pete know? Joe quickly looked around. A few people he recognised nodded at him, smiling. He nodded back, blankly. Did they all know? The word paranoid sprang to mind. Girlfriend? "No." No girlfriend. "Not tonight." "Joe! What's up?" someone to his right asked. "The opposite of down?" Joe suggested. A girl standing beside Joe laughed. "Yeah," she agreed, picking up the drinks that had just been served to her. "Where'd you buy your brain, dickhead? I hope you kept the receipt," she said to the person sitting on the barstool at her other side. That person was Graham, a regular in The Angel. "I see your woman a couple of hours ago," he told Joe, ignoring the girl who was now carrying the drinks over to her friends. "She was walking home, I think." Graham grinned. "I said Hi, but she blanked me." Graham frowned. "She looked really pissed off." "Really?" Joe responded. "Cheers," he said to Pete when he returned with Joe's drink, change and matches. Joe sparked a match, lit one of the cigarettes. "Yeah, er... I didn't know you smoke?" Graham sounded surprised. "I don't," Joe informed him, then downed the double. "Pete, same again." He held his glass out to the busy barman. "So, how comes your woman's not down here tonight?" Graham wanted to know. "Maybe she found something better to do," Joe said, wishing that Graham would shut up, or go away, or both. "You two having a bit of a relationship crisis?" Graham guessed. "Get the fuck out of my face," Joe sternly told him, then said "Cheers" to Pete as he brought Joe's second double. Joe exchanged the correct money for the drink and glanced at Graham, who was now quietly looking in the opposite direction, then he took his drink and navigated his way through to the pool room. Page 17
"Here's Joe!" Duncan exclaimed when he caught sight of him. "Wow, when'd you turn into a tobacco fiend?" "About sixty seconds ago," Joe retorted and totally failed to avoid bumping into someone lining up a shot at the pooltable. He saw a closeup of a drunken smile on a pretty female's face. "Ooops. Sorry." "Nevermind," sighed the young woman, and she proceeded to pocket the cueball. "Busy for a Monday night," Joe then heard someone say with his voice. "Yeah, it was dead last Monday," Duncan's girlfriend said as Joe joined them at a small table in the corner of the room. "Yeah?" Joe placed his glass down next to a nearfull ashtray: a miniature graveyard of tombstone cigarette butts in a battlefield of ash. What was dead? Joe wondered as he flicked his cigarette, adding to the ash. "Where's Linda tonight?" asked Becky, Duncan's girlfriend. Why was everybody talking about Linda? Joe thought as he drank from his glass. And how much do I have to drink before my brain stops working? Memories of Linda invaded his mind: the smooth softness of her skin, the warmth of her body, scent of her shampoo, the gentle nasal sound she makes when she is sleeping... "That schizophrenic bitch, she dumped me a couple of hours ago." Just hate her, Joe thought. You won't care if you hate her. "I think she means it this time." "Nah, you two always get back together, she'll ring you tomorrow like she usually does," Duncan sounded certain. "Not this time. The way she looked at me..." Joe blinked back the tears he could feel forming in the corners of his eyes. "I don't understand her anymore. One minute she says she loves me... Christ, the other day she was even talking about what names we should call our kids. Then, she changes her mind and decides that she never wants to see me again." Struggling through a stream of negative thoughts, Joe wanted to travel back in time and right all the wrongs, then Linda would be in his arms now. But it was beginning to sink in: She doesn't want you anymore. There was too much to think about, too many conflicting emotions. He tried to focus. "I Page 18
was even thinking about us getting engaged. I've been looking at rings. I was going to get a loan... She didn't know." Somebody behind the bar turned up the volume on the jukebox as Alice In Chains were harmonising: "Was it something I said, held against me?" "I care more about her than I do myself," Joe heard himself saying. He downed the last of the vodka; then he quickly stood up, nearly losing his balance. The room's walls seemed to have shifted, enlarging its dimensions. He looked over at the doorway that leads back through to the bar. It seemed a long way away. From the speaker overhead: "Could she love me again, or will she hate me?" "I've got to go," Joe thought he said. The porch light automatically became alive once he set foot on Linda's drive. It seemed to be a seamless transition: from The Angel to here, no recollection of having walked the distance in between. Her bedroom light was on. Joe spat out the mint he found himself chewing, then rang the doorbell. "Is Linda in?" he asked when the door was open. Her father firmly shut the door. Joe stood on the doorstep for a moment, listening to the muted sounds of domestic life in the houses around him. Linda's curtains twitched, then the lights went off in her bedroom as he walked away. MOVIE ZONE : read the neon sign above a shop in darkness. Linda worked there. It was where they had first met, over two and a half years ago, just after Linda had finished her exams and left school. Joe turned away from the shop and McDonalds came into frame. Haven't I got an interview there tomorrow? he thought absently. And there was the wooden bench that he had sat on so often, waiting for Linda to finish work. The Bistro, where they Page 19
had lunch sometimes. Goldsmiths, the jewellers; he had been in there this afternoon, looking at the trays of diamond rings... "Got to get out of this place," Joe whispered to himself; then flinched when he heard footsteps approaching. A couple walked past hand in hand. The male looked at Joe, and then quietly said something to his female companion. She laughed as they carried on up the precinct. Joe drove slowly down Linda’s street. The car came to a halt in front of her neighbour's house. He wiped condensation from the windscreen with a gloved hand, and then stared up at her bedroom window. It was nearly midnight and her light was still on. He had walked about in the dark for more than an hour after knocking for Linda earlier. He did not want to go home. She had helped to decorate the flat when he had first moved in, only a month ago. They had slept, ate, laughed, argued, made love there together. He could not go back and lie in the dark alone. But he was walking vaguely in that direction when he had seen the car, parked against the curb outside someone's home. The car had been left there for him. There was no doubt about that. Its interior was illuminated, the driver's door was unlocked and slightly ajar, the keys were in the ignition. He had not been looking for it. It had called out to him: Here I am. Means of escape… Linda's shadow was cast on her curtains for a moment; then her light was switched off. He thought the curtains moved and she briefly peered out at him, but he probably imagined it. "Sleep tight," Joe said, then he drove off into the night. Page 20
ASYLUM
Rachel followed Hayley and Sarah into WHSmiths, trying her hardest to look inconspicuous. They walked past a counter and its queue of customers. The only eyes that seemed to pay her any attention stared blindly from the front covers of the shelved magazines. The three girls wove their way through the store, heading for the stairs that lead to the first floor. Upstairs, there were only a few customers and just one assistant working behind the counter, who was preoccupied with a credit card transaction. The girls ambled over to a display of batteries. Rachel, when she was sure that no one was watching her, reached out and took two packets, sliding them off the rack together. Hayley and Sarah moved a little closer to her, shielding her left side from the gaze of a security camera mounted close to the ceiling behind them. Rachel slowly shook her head, quickly dropping one packet of batteries into a deep overcoat pocket as she placed the other packet back on the rack with her other hand. "They sell those a lot cheaper in Woolworths," she said. "Not much cheaper," Sarah whispered with sarcasm. As the girls turned around, Rachel noticed two men standing, nearly surrounded by shelves stacked with video cassette cases. Both of the men were wearing black suits and ties, and one of them was looking straight at her with a slightly puzzled expression on his face. For an instant, Rachel's imagination produced an image of herself sitting in a prison cell. Shit! This doesn't feel right, Rachel thought. We're going to get caught. I should put the batteries back and...
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"Then let's go look in Woolworths," Hayley said. She was already walking towards the stairs with Sarah beside her. Rachel followed her friends, fighting an urge to run. Behind her, two pairs of footsteps began their staircase descent as she set foot on the ground floor. The girls strolled around the shoppers, advancing through the store. Rachel paused as they approached the shop's front entrance, looking back to see if they were being pursued. A few seconds to scan the crowd, she could not see either of the black suited men who had been upstairs only moments before. Rachel walked around a woman with a child in a pushchair, then she reached forward, her perspiring palm on glass. As she stepped out onto the precinct, Rachel was sure that the sign on the glazed door read: THANK YOU FOR SHOPPERS WILL SHOPLIFTING WITH US BE PROSECUTED The policeman standing outside McDonalds, on the opposite side of the precinct, was the next thing that her eyes focused on. Sarah and Hayley had already altered direction. Rachel hurried after them, cursing silently as she entered the narrow alleyway between WHSmiths and Top Shop. "It's alright, he wasn't looking at us," Hayley reassured Rachel once she had caught up. "Who wasn't?" Rachel asked, feeling confined, flanked by damp brick walls. "The copper. Didn't you see him?" Sarah said, frowning at her. "Let's just go back to mine," Rachel suggested, anxious to get away from the scene of the crime. As Hayley stepped out from the dark alleyway, she nearly walked straight into Nathan. Three teenage girls and two men stood face to face in static silence by the rear entrance to WHSmiths. Rachel made eye contact with him. His hair was windswept, he needed a shave, and he had the same puzzled look on his face now as when he had been watching her inside the store. His eyes Page 22
crept down to the coat pocket her arm disappeared into, the batteries held tight in her hand. The other man was taller and broader. He appeared to be bemused, holding his recent purchase in a WHSmiths carrierbag. Hayley was the first to speak. "Sorry," an apology for the near collision, followed by her cutest smile. She moved to step past the two men. "Not so fast..." Nathan reached out and gripped Rachel's arm. What should have been a scream emerged from Rachel as a whimper. His fingers clamped tight around her forearm, she looked to Sarah and Hayley for help. They stood like statues, ready to run, an expression mixed from guilt and shock carved on their faces. "Girls, you've got to be more careful than that," Nathan told them. "I'm a store detective. I saw you put a packet of batteries in your pocket that you didn't pay for." Tony briefly smiled; then he became deadly serious. "You two can piss off!" he vigorously articulated to Sarah and Hayley. The order took the two girls by surprise. "What..?" Hayley gestured toward her captive friend. "How comes we can go and she can't?" Rachel squirmed in Nathan's grip. "Because I didn't see you two steal anything," he said. "Look, we're gonna report your friend here to the police." Tony took a single step towards Hayley. "Want to be arrested with her?" Don't leave me, was Rachel's only thought as her two friends both gave her concerned glances, slowly walking back into the alleyway. "Right, I'll phone the police," declared Tony when the girls were out of sight, then he retreated through WHSmiths' back door. My mum's going to kill me, Rachel realised and her legs began to uncontrollably tremble. She quickly looked about the deserted back street: the alleyway, the rear entrance to WHSmiths and the loading bays to several other high street shops before her, the hind face of a block of flats behind her, and oneway traffic flowed past the culdesac's exit a few hundred feet away. "What's your name?" The man suddenly turned friendly, even his grip relaxed a fraction, but not enough for Rachel to escape. Page 23
"Er..." Don't give him your real name. Think, quick. "Winona… Morrison." "Winona?" He seemed to question the name's authenticity and for a moment she thought that he might laugh; then he shook his head. "I think not. What's your real name?" "Louise Adams," Rachel said reluctantly. "Louise, did you take anything else out of there?" A sensation of shame made Rachel lower her head. "No," she said. "But you've liberated merchandise from there before, haven't you? That looked like a tried and tested technique. Take two, put one back. Pocket the other. Get your friends to cover the camera." Rachel did not respond, quickly looking at WHSmiths' back door, expecting to see the police coming out of the store. "Well, you're going to give back the batteries that you stole," Nathan said, his free hand offered out. Her whole body now trembling, her heart hammering, Rachel produced the packet of batteries and when he directed his attention to it, she let it slide from her fingers. He tutted and his grip relaxed a little more, moving down around her wrist, while his other hand swooped and grasped at the falling batteries. Rachel heard the plastic packet hit the pavement and she forced her knee deep into his groin, wrenching her arm away from his clutches as he crumpled with an agonised gasp. Then she was running down the shadowy back street towards the traffic, blood rushing, boots pounding, the tail of her overcoat flying behind her. Monday 1st December 1997 Came straight home after school, got changed & went downtown. Tried to lift some batteries for my walkman from WHSmiths & was caught by a couple of store detectives, or so they said. They let Hayley & Sarah go, then one of them went off to "phone the police", leaving me alone with this guy who had hold of my arm & was giving me the third degree. I was getting majorly stressed, thinking the cops are going to Page 24
show up any second & Mum is going to go mental when she finds out. My fight or flight instincts must have taken over, because I did both by kneeing him in the nuts & running away. I caught up with Hayley & Sarah on the edge of our estate & told them what had happened. They thought it was funny & said they didn't think the men were real store detectives. They had seen the big guy come straight out the front of WHSmiths, he didn't have time to call the cops. They kept watch from inside Woolworths & then saw the other guy come staggering out of the alleyway, looking really angry. They sussed that I had escaped & split. So who were those guys if they weren't store detectives? Sarah also said she'd seen both the men downtown before & that Roxanne spoke to one of them once. I'll have to speak to her later if she's at Blake's. The stupid thing is that we can afford to buy the things that we lifted. Hayley took some blank tapes & Sarah stole some hair dye. We only lift from the big chain stores & I know that they allow for losses due to theft. Sarah says they rip everyone off, so why shouldn't she rip them off. Consumer revenge. But the truth is she gets a real buzz out of it, you tell by the glint in her eyes as she pockets something, by how excited she gets talking about it afterwards. I've always felt uncomfortable doing it, mainly through a fear of being caught rather than feeling that I'm doing something wrong. Shoplifting is a game of chance & sooner or later your luck has to run out & I'm taking today's close encounter as an omen that mine already has. Mum was in a good mood when I got home, humming to herself in the kitchen as she cooked dinner. She asked what time was I planning on getting home later, which means that she must be seeing Him again tonight. She's in her bedroom right now, fussing about with her hair & putting on lipstick, another dead giveaway, probably waiting for me to go before she calls him. She hasn't spoken about Him since I confronted her, when she made it clear that she thinks her affair has nothing to do with me, even though it's torn this family apart. I don't even know who he is. Why all the secrecy? Is he married too? Page 25
Really looking forward to my birthday tomorrow, already have a few cards. Wonder what presents I'll get! Rachel was hiding her diary back under her mattress when Hayley knocked. Together they walked to Sarah's house in the next street. "I just spoke to Roxy on the phone," Sarah said as she shut her front door behind her. "She says that if we're both talking about the same person, that it might have been Jason's older brother." "Oh, excellent," Hayley said without enthusiasm. "You mean one of those chancers pretending to be store detectives earlier?" Sarah nodded, the wind playing with her long, fair hair. "Which one?" Rachel enquired. "Not the one that I...?" Sarah laughed, still nodding. "Shit," Rachel sighed. The girls increased their pace as light rain began to fall from the dark grey sky overhead. "How much did you tell Roxanne?" Hayley wanted to know. "Nothing, I just asked her who were those guys that she spoke to downtown a few weeks ago. She said it might have been Jason's brother." "Might have been," Rachel muttered. Seven years ago, Blake's father had bought a plot of land on the outskirts of the town centre, and then hired contractors to build six semidetached houses. A couple of years later, Blake's father sold four of the houses, the other two he carried on renting out. It was in one of these houses that Blake lived. He had shared it first with his sister, who now lives in Cambridge, where she is studying art history at University. Blake had then asked his girlfriend, Gail, to move in. That arrangement and the rest of their relationship had lasted for about six months. Blake had since lived by himself in the threebedroom house. Page 26
As Rachel, Hayley and Sarah walked up Blake's path they could hear the band inside playing one of their songs, but Rachel could not hear Blake singing along. She went over to his car parked on the driveway, held her hand out, her palm hovering above the warm, wet bonnet for a moment. Then she joined her friends waiting on the sheltered doorstep, smoking a damp joint and avoiding the drizzle. When the music was over, Rachel rang the doorbell. Jason answered the door. "Girls, you have been expected," he said, trying his hardest to impersonate Vincent Price. "Welcome to the Asylum." Jason's Hammer Horror act continued as he opened the door wide, supplying his own creaking hinge sound effect. Rachel was briefly startled as she noticed a distinct family resemblance between Jason and his elder brother. It's okay, it's just Jason, she reminded herself. She smiled at him and stepped over the threshold. "Jase, you headcase. What you lot up to?" Hayley asked as she entered the house. "Just jamming," Jason told her. "Blake just finish his shift?" Rachel said, taking off her coat. "He's upstairs, getting changed," Jason explained. "Is your brother a bit strange?" Sarah asked him. "Got a bit of a strange sense of humour?" Rachel could tell by the bewildered look on Jason's face that he was thinking: When has Sarah ever met my brother? So she quickly said, "Sarah's only asking because her little brother is. Strange, very. In fact..." Rachel turned to sternly face Sarah. "Yeah! I'll tell you what, I'm never going to the cinema with your little brother again. He never shuts up," Hayley agreed, frowning at Sarah. Jason started to move towards the livingroom. "What film did you all go see?" "Er... Men In Black," Hayley said and Sarah giggled. "Can I have a quick privy?" Rachel asked Sarah, then pulled her over to the foot of the stairs without waiting for an answer. "I thought that we Page 27
agreed to forget about, you know what, and not mention it in front of anyone," she quietly said. "Not even Jason?" Sarah whispered. "Especially not Jason," Rachel emphasised. "Or Roxanne. The whole thing's weird enough already without" "Hey Rachel," Blake called from the top of the stairs. He sat on and then slid down the handrail supported by banisters, landed on his feet with a thud in front of them. "How's your final day as a fifteenyearold been?" "A bit bizarre," Rachel admitted. "Could have been worse, I suppose." They could have been real store detectives and I could have been really arrested. "Well…" Blake said, placing an arm around Rachel and Sarah's shoulders, guiding them down the hallway. "The fridge is full, the pipe is being passed around, and you've got live entertain" "Blake! I've gotta go soon," Doug announced as they entered the livingroom. He was sitting behind the drum kit, set up with the rest of the band's instruments and equipment at the far end of the room, in front of the curtain covered patio doors. "Man, I only just got here," Blake mumbled as he walked over to the fridge. He took out a couple of cans of lager, passed them to Rachel and Sarah. "Hayley, catch!" Blake threw a can over to where Hayley was sitting with Jason and Roxanne. Rachel greeted Roxanne and reclined on the large beanbag beside the sofa. For the first time that day, she felt totally comfortable with her environment. Blake's weathered, red leather jacket was lying on top of one of the PA system's speakers. Blake picked it up and then shrugged it on. "Blake," Doug said impatiently. "I've got to go in a minute. I said I'd be over Eve's by half eight." "Sure thing Douglas. Let's just rehearse at least one song while we're all together, then you can depart." Blake took the microphone from its stand. "Jason, Roxy, whenever..." Page 28
Roxanne extinguished her cigarette in an empty lager can, then she crossed the room, lifted her bass guitar from the carpet. Jason gave Blake's pipe and a piece of clingfilm covered cannabis resin to Rachel. "Take that and party," he said with a grin, and then he walked away to go and plug his guitar in. "What number we doing?" Roxanne asked as she adjusted a few knobs on her amp. "Let's see how we get along with our latest," Blake said. It was Doug's beat that started them off. " You're the original singularity. An embryo universe. The epicentre of my reality..." Blake sang, dark curls hanging over his eyes, a print on his Tshirt of Jack Nicholson leering murderously through an axed door. "...Fission and fusion. Torn apart and thrown together. We become a detonation. Destined to explode forever... " Blake's voice raised to almost screaming. Rachel inhaled deeply from the pipe and began to feel that familiar feeling. Her head swaying in time to the music as the song reached its climax, then Blake was nearly whispering: " ...Until the eve of eternity. As the final flame flickers and dies, we lie. Exhausted, in a perfect state of maximum entropy." "I'm gone," Doug said, getting up and throwing his drumsticks, which hit the ceiling and then fell to the floor. He hurried out of the room, down the hallway, out through the front door. Jason and Roxanne lifted the straps of their guitars over their heads, rested their instruments against the wall. Roxanne tugged at her long, white dress, pulling it straight, then she grabbed Jason by the belt of his jeans, and dragged him over to the doorway. "Back in a while," she said as they left the room. "We're meant to be rehearsing, not copulating," Blake called to their footsteps on the staircase. He returned the microphone to its stand, switched the PA system off; then he strolled over to the sofa. "I think that's gonna be one of my favourite of your songs," Rachel said, looking up at him. Page 29
He knelt down in front of her and smiled. "I'll dedicate it to you at the gig on Friday. Speaking of which, I've got to pop into The Angel and quickly confirm everything with the landlord. Then would you like to help me put up some posters around town?" Rachel was nodding and about to answer when Blake's nextdoor neighbour rang the doorbell. Page 30
NEXT DOOR He knows that they are all behind him, standing in a semicircle around him. Greg, Kevin, Tim, Don, Steve, Mike, Lawrence, the two Johns, Will, Ed, Martin, Terry, his foreman, the girls from the office, his boss... Everyone who works for this company, all of them pointing at him and laughing. Daniel switched the anglegrinder off and spun around to catch them by surprise. Standing on his tiptoes, looking over the weldingscreens, he could see that everyone was going about their work, minding their own business. Daniel plucked the grinder's plug from the wall socket, wrapped its cord around the tool’s handle. He pulled off his gloves and goggles, and then climbed out of his overalls. Daniel lifted his sports bag out from under his workbench, bundled the overalls into it, and placed the Black & Decker grinder on top. Carrying the bag, he made his way through the maze of machinery over to the toilets, where he hastily washed his hands and face, then swallowed a couple of tablets. I'm going bald, just like my father did, he thought as he combed back his hazel hair, scrutinising his gradually receding hairline in the smeared mirror. As Daniel clocked himself out, he was shocked to hear his father shout his name. He still has a splitting headache. The two paracetamols, he had taken twenty minutes ago, seemed to have had no effect. Noises from work still echo around his head: the hiss and crackle of the welders, the whirl and Page 31
bore of drills, the whine of grinders, the thud and crash of the guillotine, the rumble and screech of dragged metal... Dusk was descending, the day steadily being consumed by the night, shadows spreading and swallowing the light. Daniel could sense the darkness surrounding him: a malevolent black gas stealthily diffusing through the air, closing in around him, threatening to choke and conceal him. He hurried down the pavement towards the telephone box at the top of his street. He does not even have to try to remember her number anymore; his index finger presses the correct buttons automatically. It rings only once. "Yo?" It's a male voice. Daniel quickly hangs up. In an instant, he is overcome by a vast and vicious feeling of hostility towards this unknown man, wishing a brisk and bloody death upon him. But how can you despise somebody so much when you've never even met him, Daniel tried to rationalise. Because he is with her. Because he is able to touch her, to hold her, to kiss and caress her. Because he is where I should be. And for that trespass doesn't he deserve infinite animosity? That's the first time that he has answered. I just wanted to hear her voice. One word. A simple friendly greeting. To know that she is only a mile away... But he had answered straight away. Maybe I wouldn't have given her enough time to pick up. I could have let it ring just one more time. Just to let her know that I'm still here, forever thinking of her, dreaming of the life we could have lived, the person I could have been. Daniel put his bag down in the hallway and felt a momentary chill fall through his body. He shivered, pushed open the livingroom's door, then froze. His father was sitting in the easychair in the middle of the room. Petrified, Daniel saw his father scowl at him and begin to rise from the Page 32
chair. No! This isn't possible, Daniel silently screamed. And his father's phantom faded, the apparition evaporating, then a second later the ghost was gone. Daniel backed away from the livingroom's doorway, fled down the hallway, rushed up the stairs. In his room, Daniel sat on his bed. My father is dead, my father is dead: repeating in his head. Seeking some kind of distraction, he switched on the portable television on top of his chest of drawers, then he lay back on the blanket, tried to slow down his breathing, relax his body and clear his mind; but the tension in his muscles remained and his headache persisted. Jessie wandered into the room, looked at him as if to say: "I thought that we were going out around now. Why aren't you ready to go out? Come on, it isn't time to go to bed yet." She waited for a moment, staring at him; then she climbed onto the bed, laid down beside him. Daniel stroked her short, dark hair and together they watched the early evening News on ITV. "...at Heath High School in Paducah, Kentucky. The fourteenyearold boy shot at his fellow students who were gathered for Morning Prayer service." An aerial view of the school buildings filled the television's screen. "He fired a dozen bullets before dropping the gun and calmly surrendering..." Daniel swung his legs over the edge of the bed, then stood up, approached the television. "A fifteenyearold girl was killed. Six others, aged between fourteen and seventeen, were wound" It isn't me, Daniel told himself as he pressed the ON/OFF button. It's the rest of the world that's gone insane. He could imagine the panic and chaos inside that crowded school assembly hall, the confusion and disbelief as they heard another gunshot, as another pupil cried out and then fell. And what was the explanation? Why had that fourteenyearold boy set out this morning with the intention of killing as many people as he could? Daniel did not have to see the rest of the report to know that there would be no answers, no solution offered. He remembered that, a few years ago, a man had crashed a truck through the front window of a restaurant in Texas, then indiscriminately shot at the diners inside with two semiautomatic pistols; a massacre that ended with twentytwo people dead. But it isn't just an American phenomenon, Daniel thought. Last year, a man had walked into a school gym in the Scottish Page 33
town of Dunblane, and shot dead thirteen children, before shooting himself in the head. A couple of weeks later, in Tasmania, a man had gunned down thirtythree people in a restaurant; then he held the survivors as hostages. The man doused himself with petrol and tried to burn himself to death after realising that the police were not going to let him escape. What complicated mixture of pressures combined to cause these men to explode so violently? Daniel wondered. These mass murders, always men, usually endedup killing themselves. So why don't they just commit suicide? Why do they shoot so many others first? Daniel had once read an article in a newspaper written by a psychologist expressing the opinion that these men were trying to live up to an image reinforced by countless movies and TV thrillers: that they saw themselves as the lone gunman who wreaks vengeance on the people who have wronged him, living out a final fantasy of dying in a blaze of glory. But the victims of these shootings were often chosen at random, without the slightest provocation. Revenge was certainly not any justification. No, these men must be insane, psychotic, evil, living in their own paranoid reality, harbouring an increasing hatred of everyone around them. "There are some really disturbed people out there," Daniel said quietly. Jessie barked in agreement. Now, more than ever, I must protect myself as best I can, Daniel decided, then he pulled open the only drawer of the small table beside his bed. He lifted his brother's Browning High Power pistol from the drawer, eased back the gun's hammer. The barrel pointed at the floor, Daniel squeezed the trigger. Mechanisms inside the gun released the firingpin, thrusting it into the empty chamber. Seems like it's still in working order, he thought. Daniel took one of the magazines of ammunition from the drawer, slotted it into the gun's handle. He pulled back the slide, chambering a bullet; then he applied the safetycatch. Lifting up the tail of his shirt, hands behind his back, Daniel slid the barrel of the loaded and locked weapon under the belt of his trousers. The pistol held firmly in place, he let the shirt's tail fall, covering the semiautomatic handgun. He stepped over to the wardrobe, turned around in front of the fulllength mirror. Looking over his shoulder, Page 34
the outline of the gun was barely visible through his shirt; with a coat on top, no one would ever know it was there. "Ready?" Daniel asked Jessie, who had moved to the bedroom's doorway and was now sitting, watching her master. The Labrador's tail began to sway, brushing back and forth across the carpet in the hallway. Most of the shops were either closed, or in the process of closing. The town centre was nearly deserted, except for the usual groups of youths gathered around the benches, smoking and swearing at each other. Daniel and Jessie steered well clear of them. Christmas lights had been put up yesterday, suspended between the shops, hanging high over the paved precinct. Many of the shop windows were also decorated, displaying Christmas trees and possible presents, edged with tinsel and flashing fairy lights. One of the shop fronts had been boarded over, its TO LET sign sticking out from the bricks above. Someone had smashed its window Friday night. The place had been empty, there was nothing inside to steal, so Daniel could not figure out why someone had the urge to throw a large stone through the window. That seemed to be the main news in the local newspapers lately: windows smashed and other acts of mindless vandalism, people's houses burgled and commercial properties broken into, stereos taken from cars and bicycles stolen; they even steal the flowers from graveyards. I'd move again, but is it really any different anywhere else? Daniel thought as he quickly walked down the precinct, Jessie keeping pace at his side. Besides, as long as it was there, while he could feel the rubber grip of the gun's handle against his skin at the base of his spine, what was there to be scared of? In the kitchen, Daniel filled Jessie's water bowl, then placed it down on the linoleum. She lapped up some of the water as he forked out the contents of Page 35
a tin of dog food. A couple of minutes later, leaving her food bowl halfempty, Jessie went to her basket by the back door, laid down and then closed her eyes. Daniel spent half an hour under the warm spray of the shower, and then dried himself, put some clean clothes on. The drumming started at about seven o'clock. A month ago, when he had first heard that sound, Daniel had thought that someone next door was banging on the wall that separates the two semidetached houses, then the continued rhythm had made him realise that his new neighbour has a drum kit, and no soundproofing. His landlord's son lives next door and that makes Daniel apprehensive of complaining about the noise. It is normally quiet during the day and after midnight, but in the evenings it sounds like his neighbour stages rock concerts in his livingroom. Tonight, the drumming seems to be louder than ever before. Then the thunder of the drums was joined by the amplified wails of electric guitars and the singing started, though Daniel always thought it sounded more like shouting. Even Jessie was annoyed by it; she began barking. I've put up with that racket for far too long, Daniel decided. "It's alright. I'm going to deal with it," he told Jessie as he put on his coat, hiding the outline of the Browning pistol in his trouser pocket. The music and singing ceased as Daniel stepped outside. A young man came running out of the house next door and then jogged down the street. Daniel marched down his wet driveway, then up to his neighbour's front door. He rang the doorbell several times before a teenage girl answered. She looked tired, her eyes bloodshot and barely open. "Could you please turn your music down a little?" Daniel politely asked. "Why? And who the hell do you think you are?" She was dressed like a boy, wearing big, black boots and jeans. Her hair was long and fair. "Because it's too loud and I live next door," Daniel said, aggravated by this girl's attitude. Her laugh was short and nasal. "It's not loud," she said calmly and carefree. "You're just too out of touch to appreciate it." Page 36
Suddenly a hand was on her shoulder and she was dragged out of the doorway as Daniel's neighbour appeared. The young man flicked a few dark curls from his eyes. He looked tired too, like he hadn't slept for days. "Hey man? I apologise on behalf of my young feminine friend here..." "Yeah right," the girl laughed. "Screw you too," she called over her shoulder as she disappeared down the hallway. "Manners of an iguana," the young man seemed to say to himself, shaking his head. Daniel struggled to dull the edge of intensifying irritation, tried to concentrate on the badge pinned before him to a red leather lapel: a yellow disc with a crude cartoon face consisting of two dot eyes and a curve of grin. "You're Dan, right? From next door?" Daniel looked up from the badge and saw the same stupid grin on the young man's face. Daniel nodded solemnly. "So, what's the problemo?" the young man wanted to know. "Er... It's your music," Daniel told him. "It's a little loud." Blake frowned, cupped a hand behind his ear and made as if he was straining to hear. "Wow... It's like so loud, it's currently beyond the range of human hearing." "What?" Daniel said, confused. "We'll be keeping it down, alright? Be seeing you." The front door closed, then Daniel heard the young man behind it yell: "Hey Sarah! No need to go insulting Bono and the boys, you uncivilised wench!" Definitely on drugs, Daniel thought as he walked back home. All was peaceful next door for about a minute, then his neighbour’s front door was slammed and someone downstairs turned on the stereo. That racket was joined by excited voices upstairs and what sounded like somebody jumping up and down on a bed; which Daniel quickly realised was actually the sound of a couple having sex. Then the volume on their stereo began to creep up again.
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Daniel went to the telephone in the hallway, ordered Chinese from the takeaway around the corner. Jessie was up and out of her basket before he had finished the call. Daniel tied Jessie's leash to the drainpipe outside of the Golden Dragon, then he joined the queue inside. When he had collected and paid for his order, they walked down to the river that flows through the heart of the town. Daniel sat on a graffiticovered bench in front of the courthouse, watched the swans gliding on dark waters. He peeled the card lids from the tinfoil containers, and then ate his dinner using a plastic fork. The end of another day, and what have I achieved? I eat, I sleep, I go to work... God, I hate that place, the people, the way they make me feel, and tomorrow I have to go back there. Why? To earn money. And what do I need money for? To buy food and pay the rent, to eat and sleep, so I can work another day. How am I any better off than I was yesterday? Is this all that life's about? I don't think I can carry on like this much longer. "Hello?" she said. Hello Caroline. It's me. Daniel could hear her breathing quicken. "Hello?" she said again, this time more abrupt, more urgent. God, it's so good to hear your voice. There was a click as she hung up, then the hum of a disconnected line. Daniel put the receiver down; then he fumbled through the change in his pocket for another ten pence piece, found one, pushed it into the slot, dialled again. The number was engaged. Daniel pressed the Follow Call button, and then rapidly dialled again. Still engaged. Page 38
She's taken it off the hook, he realised and replaced the receiver. She always did that, in the end. And, as always, after that one word, the simple greeting heard, all that he can feel is guilt, ashamed of distressing Caroline in this way. I'm a fool, Daniel thought. To the only woman I ever loved I'm just a nuisance.
COLLIDING ORBITS ~ a novel by T. S. Fox
www.CollidingOrbits.co.uk Colliding Orbits artwork & contents of this ebook © Copyright 2015 T. S. Fox - All Rights Reserved
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