by Mark Tilbury
The jury was still out on his dad. Nothing offensive to be found hiding beneath that moustache. Time would reveal his true feelings towards him. He definitely liked Danielle, and thought he’d like Auntie Barb, too. Maybe when he was a bit better, Danielle could take him to see her. They could watch something on her posh, smart TV.
‘Still no inkling of anything?’ Rachel asked.
Tommy didn’t hear her. He was no longer sitting on the recliner but riding on the backseat of a car. Trees and hedgerow flashed by, but it seemed as if he was still stationary.
Behind the wheel, a broad-shouldered man with a roll of fat bulging in the back of his neck. Music blared from a CD player. More noise than melody. Crashing drums and thumping bass. Harsh vocals warning their parents to lock up their daughters. Tommy tried to tune out. Absorb himself in the beauty whizzing past the window, but the thumping bass seemed to vibrate right inside his brain.
The driver’s bald head gleamed with sweat. He banged the steering wheel along to the rhythm of the music, pausing occasionally to draw on a cigarette. The smoke swirled around his head like a ghostly aura.
The cigarette stank of Auntie Barb, which was a strange thing because he didn’t have a clue who she was. Perhaps he’d seen her on the smart TV sometime. Or perhaps Tommy was a cat and he was all Auntie Barb had left in this world.
The smoke irritated his eyes and throat. Why did the driver have to puff on that smelly thing in such a confined space?
‘I can’t breathe,’ Tommy said.
The driver ignored him. Carried on smoking and hitting the wheel to a song surely crafted in Hell.
Tommy’s chest tightened. Tears blurred his vision. ‘I can’t breathe. I can’t fucking breathe.’
The driver responded by turning up the music, throwing his butt in the ashtray, and lighting another cigarette.
‘What’s happened to him?’ Danielle asked as she returned to the lounge. ‘Is he having another blackout?’
Rachel bent over her son and tugged at his arm. ‘I’ve no idea. He’s as red as a beetroot.’
Tommy’s eyes bulged. ‘I can’t breathe… I can’t breathe… I can’t breathe.’
Danielle shook his shoulder. ‘Come on, Tommy. Wake up!’
Tommy covered his mouth with a hand, tears streaming down his cheeks. ‘You’re fucking choking me.’
‘I’m gonna call an ambulance,’ Rachel said. ‘He sounds like he’s having an asthma attack.’
‘But he doesn’t have asthma.’
‘Didn’t, Danielle. Didn’t. Christ knows what’s happened to him in the last year.’
The car and driver vanished in Tommy’s head. Like a puff of smoke you might say. His breathing slowly returned to normal. He opened his eyes and squinted at his sister.
‘Welcome back, Tommy. Are you all right?’
Apart from my lungs burning and my eyes stinging like a bastard, I couldn’t be better. ‘I…’
‘Do you remember what happened?’
‘I was in a car, and the driver kept smoking cigarettes. I couldn’t breathe.’
‘Do you know who the driver was?’
He shook his head. ‘I could only see the back of his head. Some fat guy who was playing really shit music. I kept telling him the smoke was choking me, but he ignored me and carried on smoking.’
Rachel returned. Stopped. Regarded her son. ‘I’ve called an ambulance.’
‘He’s all right, Mum. It was just another one of those blackout thingies.’
‘He needs someone to take a proper look at him. I thought he was about to suffocate.’
Tommy sat up. ‘I’m fine.’
Rachel shook her head. ‘I’m not taking any chances. As far as I’m concerned, they let you out of the hospital too soon.’
‘I’m not going back there.’
‘But—’
‘What’re they gonna do? Operate on my brain?’
‘Don’t be silly.’
‘I’m not.’
Rachel sighed. ‘But they might need to alter your medication. Pills are funny things. Some people they suit, others they don’t.’
‘I don’t want fucking pills,’ Tommy shouted. ‘I just wanna be left alone.’
Rachel stepped back as if he’d physically assaulted her. ‘Please don’t use that language in this house.’
‘What fuckin’ language?’
Rachel’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘Don’t be so—’
‘Piss off.’
Danielle motioned for her mother to leave the room. Crouched in front of him. ‘Come on, Tommy. You can’t talk to Mum like that.’
‘Why?’
‘Because she’s your mum.’
‘Says who?’
‘I am your mother,’ Rachel said from the doorway.’
Tommy glared at her. ‘Fuck off.’
Rachel opened her mouth but closed it again without speaking. She sniffed and stifled a sob.
Tommy returned his attention to Danielle. ‘What’s the matter with her?’
‘Nothing. She’s just worried about you.’
‘Anyone would think I’d sparked up a fag.’ He eased himself out of the chair, fighting the pain emanating from his broken ribs. ‘I’m going to my room for a lie down.’
‘Do you want me to show you where it is?’
‘No. I’ll find it.’
‘It’s the one with all the Arsenal shi… stuff on the walls.’
Tommy grinned. ‘Once a Gooner, always a Gooner, right, sis?’
‘You remember?’
He walked to the door. ‘No, but if I get lost, Bella can show me.’
Chapter Six
Blinding white light filled the room. Even when Dave Hemmings closed his eyes, he could see nothing but the invasive light. Dave didn’t have a religious bone in his body, but with no one else to turn to, he’d had some pretty deep and profound conversations with God. Made a lot of promises, too. He’d even sworn never to watch porn again and quit smoking. And he meant it. He was even prepared to walk into a police station and confess his numerous crimes if it meant being released from this hellhole.
With no food, water, or external stimulation for at least a week, and that was a conservative estimate, Dave was a fair way along the road to losing his mind. Accompanying the light, silence posed an equal threat to his marbles. Not one voice in the wilderness. Only the jabbering monkey in his head, alternating between advising him to strike deals with God, and smash his head against the white-washed wall.
He’d once had a rock dropped on his head from a kid standing on top of a shelter in the park. Not exactly a boulder, but it had done enough damage to spark him out for a while. It had also left him needing stitches and a week off school. Every cloud had one. This memory, still burning bright after almost thirty years, was enough of a deterrent to keep up his chats with God and save self-inflicted injury as a last resort.
Occasionally, he’d lapse into a brief and fitful sleep, but equal terrors awaited him in the depths of his imagination. Every action, every sound, every consequence. He’d once been told every single event was recorded and stored in the subconscious mind. Raping a woman in Bluebell Woods. His father thrashing him with a belt buckle. His alcoholic mother telling him his real father was a one-night stand she could barely remember.
This piece of information was hotly disputed by a rare photo of Dave and his dad. He had the same brown beady eyes, and the same identical wide gap in his front teeth as Hemmings senior. Features aside, he also had a similar propensity to fly into a rage at the drop of a bollock.
He’d not seen Hemmings senior since leaving home after school and going into the army to train as a chef. An experience that had left him with a pathological lust for violence. It had also opened up a realisation he was addicted to sex. Not any old kind of sex. No, sir. Pain and sexuality were as intertwined as honeysuckle and trellis. And he’d also discovered a voracious appetite for sex with both sexes. At least, that was the way it was back then. In this new age o
f ever-expanding genders, preference was as vast and expansive as the universe. He’d even once been tempted to relist his sexual orientation as whatever I choose.
Within this range of infinite possibilities, Dave had experienced his own special brand of rough sex with twenty-two males, nineteen females, some of whom would’ve got him jail time if they’d ever told, six underage boys, and a range of partners who could best be described as cobbled together by everything nature could offer.
One of which, a skinny woman with breasts the size of gnat bites, and a penis that dwarfed most other features on its body, had resulted in his first murder. He’d picked her up in a bar in Oxford six years ago. With no prior knowledge she was a hybrid, he’d taken her back to his flat and proceeded to ply her with alcohol and sedatives.
It was fair to say Roxy had triggered a wild desire. By the time she’d fallen asleep to the soothing sounds of Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, hornets of depravity were bursting to be released from a secret nest in his mind.
After tying Roxy to the brass headboard in his room, he’d set about rousing her from drug-induced slumber by burning her chest with a cigarette. Roxy had come roaring back to life like a firework, screaming and kicking her legs as the hot ember had burned into her breasts.
To Dave, this was right up there with some of his greatest sexual conquests. Even on a par with cutting lovers with a razor blade and pouring vinegar into the wounds.
By the time he’d had sex three times with Poxy Roxy, her body resembled that of a chickenpox sufferer, hence the term of endearment. He’d later described her in his diary as an overflowing ashtray with red, bumpy bits.
Roxy had kept him aroused and satisfied for almost a week before he’d fed her corpse to the earth. Not much of a meal for Mother Nature to chew on, but ashes to ashes and all that!
Dave now regretted writing down his innermost thoughts and desires. Tangible proof his perverted fetishes and actions could be enough to secure him a life sentence and a guaranteed place in Hell to look forward to.
But worse than any of this, he’d not had a cigarette since his incarceration. The cravings were still unbearable, even after all this time, trumping dehydration and hunger. Frequently, his mind, that tortuous mechanism within the brain, showed him pictures of a plate of steak and chips, a nice, cold glass of lager, and a big fat one burning away in the ashtray.
Dave wasn’t one of those guys who enjoyed a smoke after a meal; he was equally satisfied having a puff during a meal. Not as bad as his mother who’d liked to skip the meal and go straight to the nicotine and alcohol. A preference that had killed her a few weeks shy of her sixtieth birthday. A massive stroke midway through a bottle of gin, followed by two days in hospital, and off to meet her maker to explain why she’d spent most of her life trying to destroy it.
Dave, pre-incarceration in the white room, had always referred to her untimely death as a massive stroke of luck. Pun intended. He’d wanted to visit her in the hospital; not on compassionate grounds, but to watch her take her final breath. Savour that wheezy exhale and use it as a comfort blanket on the long and lonely nights.
The imagination, as always, provided him with the missing blank. Her withered body and cracked, leathery skin trying to cling on to her useless life as she counted the cost of her addictions.
Not that Dave didn’t like a drink. Booze gave him a warm fuzzy glow. Lulled him to sleep on the occasions when pure fantasy wasn’t enough. He’d also recently invested in a crack pipe, but imprisonment had blocked that particular avenue. For the time being at least.
Jesus, dressed in rags, appeared in the light complete with a crown of hornets buzzing around his head. Dave knew this was a hallucination, the same as when Ozzy Osbourne had visited and sang his latest song to him. But, hallucination or not, Jesus seemed to be as real as anyone outside this claustrophobic prison cell.
Dave tried to stand, but his limbs were numb. He attempted to speak, but his mouth refused to work.
‘The light is the dark, and the dark is the light,’ Jesus said, hornets pouring from his mouth.
Dave didn’t have a clue what that meant. Just a load of religious babble nonsense, as per the Bible. But the words burrowed deep into his brain and joined his mother’s brief encounter with wisdom when she’d said, Life’s a dirty bowl, but you gotta lick it clean, anyway.
‘Salvation is in the sewer,’ Jesus added. ‘That’s why the rats always thrive.’ Jesus then blended into the light and left Dave alone to ponder his words.
Dave stared at the wall. His mind was in danger of imploding. There were only so many secrets the brain could hold without bursting its banks.
A hiss of static was followed by a voice booming through a speaker fixed to the ceiling. ‘Good morning, David.’
At first, he thought it was Jesus coming back for a matinee performance. Perhaps to take the final curtain. But there was no image to accompany it. No crown of hornets. No ragged robe from a time before fashion and the advertisers had taken control of minds and lured them into a web of vanity.
‘How are you feeling, David? Is all well?’
Dave shook his head.
‘Your demeanour suggests you are wracked with guilt and self-pity.’
Dave tried to tell the voice he was wracked with cravings for cigarettes and water, but his throat was too dry to articulate his thoughts. Too dry to swallow for that matter.
‘Do you want to be released from contemplation?’
Dave bobbed his head enthusiastically.
‘Okay. But first, I want you to answer my questions honestly and thoroughly. Okay?’
A weaker nod this time.
‘Do you now accept your guilt?’
He was ready to accept anything; even an incestuous affair with his own mother on her deathbed if need be. He nodded.
‘I’m not going to tolerate gestures, David. In case you haven’t noticed, we’ve moved on from the cave dwelling days. If I ask you a question, you speak, understand?’
Dave summoned all the strength he could muster. ‘Yes.’
‘Good. Honesty is always the first step towards forgiveness.’
Dave didn’t have anything to feel guilty for, but this was no time to get caught in a war of words. Especially when he could barely speak.
‘Carelessness costs lives, David. Would you agree?’
‘Yes.’
‘So, can you please explain why you neglected your duties?’
I fuckin’ well didn’t. ‘I’m… sorry.’
A loud sigh laced with static. ‘I can see that. But I want to know why you thought it acceptable to abandon your duties?’
‘I was tired, and my mind was all over the place.’
‘Why?’
‘I ain’t been sleeping much.’
‘Why? Too busy looking after your own needs instead of taking care of the business I employ you to?’
Dave opted for another apology. What else could he say?
‘Are you aware of the precarious position you’ve left me in?’
Dave nodded. He had two broken ribs to remind him.
‘Bella says I should cut you up into little pieces and feed you to the piranhas. How does that sound? A suitable punishment?’
‘No!’ Louder and more emphatic than his affirmation. Bella was the biggest bitch who’d ever walked the planet. He’d contemplated killing her many times before, but fear of the twenty-foot fish tank in the basement had always restrained him. Those bloody piranhas were terrifying enough to look at, without imagining those razor-sharp teeth stripping the flesh from his bones.
‘Would you agree you should spend less time pursuing you own vulgar interests, and more time focussing on your duties?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can I trust you?’
‘Yes.’
‘And do you promise to follow my instruction to the letter?’
Dave did.
‘And you promise not to disappoint me if I set you free?’
‘I promise.�
��
After a short silence, the voice said, ‘I am your master, David. Everything I say is the law. I’ve got important work for you soon, and if you ever abandon your duties again, you’re going to be begging for death. Is that understood?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m going to turn out the lights now. I want you to reacquaint yourself with the darkness for a while before you return to the fold.’
The speaker clicked off. The lights went out. Silence and darkness. Dave eased his aching body onto the floor and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Chapter Seven
During the month since Tommy had left hospital, his moods and behaviour had steadily declined. He was barely eating or sleeping and spent most of his time shut in his room. The magnolia walls were pockmarked with glue stains where he’d ripped down his Arsenal memorabilia and thrown the scarves, newspaper clippings, and posters out the window. He also kept the curtains drawn because the light hurt his eyes.
He’d asked his father to paint the walls black and put up blackout curtains instead of the dark-red ones. His father had nodded and said he’d think about it. What the fuck was that supposed to mean? Talking to good old Charlie was like talking to a mop; but at least mops had some bloody use.
His mother rarely came to his room now, and that was fine by him. He had no idea how he’d felt about her before the ‘incident’, but he sure as shit didn’t like her now. She was fussy, annoying, and a drama queen. And why did her hands always try to unpick her clothes when he said something she didn’t like?
The doctor had upped his dose of Mirtazapine to forty-five mgs. He’d been tempted to take them from the kitchen cabinet and swallow the lot in one go. Kill himself, and the depression and the visions with it. There was no point being alive if you were in constant pain, both mental and physical.
He’d also developed a pathological hatred of Bella, who invaded his mind at will and did her best to tease him with her suggestive dancing and alluring eyes. But try as he might, he couldn’t recall who she was. Possibly a figment of his imagination, but he didn’t think so. She seemed far too real and provocative for that.