by Mark Tilbury
‘Do you know where the house is?’
‘In Oxford somewhere.’
‘Can you be more specific?’
‘No.’
Tommy was distracted by a low moaning noise coming from behind the canopy. It sounded like someone groaning with a bellyache.
‘Can you walk to the window and look outside for me, Tommy?’ Marks asked.
He took a wide berth around the bed and peeled back the thick sage curtains. The courtyard was illuminated by several security lights.
‘What do you see?’
‘Not much. It’s pretty dark outside. There’s a gravel driveway with a roundabout thing in the middle. Two big cars parked close to the house. A load of bushes and trees casting shadows everywhere. Oh, and a large wooden building with a Union Jack on the side of it.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Some sort of statue in the middle of the grass on the roundabout.’
‘Can you describe it?’
Tommy was suddenly distracted by a swishing noise behind him. He turned around to see a naked fat man sitting on the edge of the bed rubbing his eyes.
‘Tommy?’ Marks said. ‘Can you describe the statue?’
Tommy didn’t hear him. He was focussed solely on the disgusting creature on the bed. Mr Geary. He wanted to run, but his body and brain were like separate entities that had suffered a massive bust-up.
‘Where have you been?’ Geary asked.
‘The toilet.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I didn’t want to wake you up.’
Geary sighed. ‘For your information, Number Nine, I’d rather know where you are than wake up and wonder.’
‘Sorry.’
‘I pay good money for your services. A little respect wouldn’t hurt.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Stop saying that. Apologies mean nothing. Remember who you are and where you are at all times and we’ll get along fine.’
How could I forget. ‘Okay.’
Geary stood and waddled to the wardrobe. He selected a white silk dressing gown and fastened it around his ample middle. Grey tufts of hair sprouted around his ears, but the rest of his head was bald.
He turned around. ‘Go back to bed, Number Nine. Get yourself comfortable while I go to the toilet.’
Tommy’s stomach flushed. ‘I’m not well.’
‘What’s wrong with you?’
‘I’ve got bellyache.’
‘I’ll get you something for that.’
Tommy waited for Geary to leave the bedroom and forced himself to get into bed. The silk sheet was still warm from Geary’s sweaty body. There was a damp patch in the centre Tommy didn’t want to think about.
By the time Geary returned, Tommy was determined to feign illness.
‘I’ve bought you something to help your discomfort,’ Geary said, holding out a blue plastic beaker.
‘What is it?’
‘An old family remedy.’
He accepted the drink, sniffed it, and took a tentative sip. It tasted like blackcurrant with a slight tang to it.
‘Drink up.’
From somewhere high above him, as if spoken from God’s own lips, Marks said, ‘What are you doing, Tommy?’
Tommy downed the drink and handed the beaker back to Geary. ‘I’m in the bed.’
Geary frowned. ‘Pardon me?’
Tommy shook his head, confused, in a no-man’s land between two realities. ‘Nothing.’
Geary climbed into bed beside him. Pulled up the duvet and eased his bulk closer to Tommy. ‘Just give the drink a moment or two to settle.’
Tommy laid back on the pillow and stared at the celling, rummaging around in his head for plausible excuses to make Geary leave him alone. A crystal chandelier above the bed swung gently back and forth. The large glass pendants reflected the light and threw teardrop shadows onto the wall.
Geary propped himself up on one elbow and stroked Tommy’s hair.
Tommy fell almost instantly asleep, drifting away to Geary’s rhythmic touch and the hypnotic lights from the spaceship above. Thankfully, he was unaware of Geary handcuffing him to the brass headboard. Massaging his genitals and grunting like a pig in a mud bath.
***
Dr Marks and Danielle watched Tommy screaming and writhing in the chair. His eyes looked as if they were about to pop from their sockets, and red weals appeared on his wrists and around his neck.
‘What happening?’ Danielle asked. ‘What the fuck’s happening to him?’
Marks shook his head. ‘Tommy? Talk to me, Tommy. What are you doing?’
The boy’s eyes stared at the ceiling. The veins in his neck bulged. The weals around his wrists and neck deepened, breaking the skin in places. His feet rose and slammed against the floor, and his body appeared to be in the grip of an epileptic seizure.
‘Wake him up,’ Danielle shouted. ‘Wake him up.’
Marks tried to engage with Tommy, but it was like trying to communicate with a rag doll.
Tommy screamed and writhed in the chair.
Dr Marks leaned closer to the boy. Snapped his fingers several times. ‘Get out of there, Tommy. Get out, now!’
Tommy responded by bringing his knees up to his chest and screaming again. His head thrashed from side to side, and foam bubbled on his lips.
‘Jesus Christ, he looks like he’s possessed,’ Danielle said. ‘For God’s sake do something.’
Marks’s usual calm manner vanished. His eyes darted left and right as if expecting Tommy’s tormentor to enter the room at any minute. ‘I’m going to count to ten, Tommy. When I reach ten, you will be wide awake.’
‘Help me,’ Tommy said. ‘Someone help me.’
‘One…’
‘I can’t breathe.’
‘Two… three… four…’
Tommy’s lips turned blue, his face crimson.
‘Five… six… seven…’
His body convulsed. His nostrils flared. His eyes rolled back.
‘Eight… nine… ten. You’re awake, Tommy.’
Tommy suddenly ceased moving. His face and lips slowly resumed a more natural colour. His eyelids fluttered. The red weals around his wrists and neck faded.
Marks studied Tommy for a moment. ‘It’s okay, Tommy, you’re safe now.’
Tommy’s opened his eyes. ‘Oh shit, my throat’s killing me.’
‘Do you want a glass of water?’ Danielle asked.
Tommy nodded, massaging his neck.
‘Do you remember what happened?’ Marks asked.
‘That bastard Geary drugged me with something. Handcuffed me to the bed and throttled me.’
Marks, forgetting his position as Mr Calm, said, ‘Oh, sweet Jesus. I’m so sorry.’
Not half as much as I am, Tommy thought. Not half as much as I am.
Danielle returned with a glass of water and handed it to Tommy.
He gulped most of it in one go, spilling some of it down his chin. He handed the glass back to his sister with a trembling hand.
With Tommy more settled, Marks said, ‘It might be a good idea to have a break from the hypnotherapy for the time being. Maybe formulate a new plan of action.’
‘How do you mean?’ Danielle said. ‘What else can you do?’
‘I’m not sure. I need to go back to the office and listen to the recording. It might be prudent to adjust our approach. Be more specific regarding where we take Tommy, instead of just going through a random door to the past.’
‘What were all those marks on his wrists and his neck?’
Marks seemed thoughtful for a moment. ‘The body sometimes reacts accordingly when it relives a particular trauma. In milder cases, it can be a simple rash or a slight decolourisation of the skin. The worst I’ve seen was during a past life regression. The man actually bled from a throat wound sustained over a hundred years ago. Although the wound stopped bleeding immediately after I woke him, the scar remained visible for several days.’
Tommy
leaned forward. ‘I don’t want any more sessions. I was right all along – this is a waste of time. I’m done. Finished. I just wanna be left alone.’
‘But we’ve got three names now,’ Danielle said. ‘And descriptions.’
Tommy shook his head. ‘I couldn’t care less if they were all lined up in the hallway. I don’t wanna go near any of that shit again.’
Danielle took his hand. ‘I understand how you—’
‘No offence, sis, but you don’t understand fuck all. I ain’t doin’ it no more, and there’s nothing you can say to make me change my mind.’
Chapter Twenty-Six
Two days after the latest attempt to unlock Tommy’s missing year, he sat alone in his room staring at the wall. The memories of being attacked by The Master and the sick pervert, Mr Geary, were too much to bear for his overloaded mind. Every time he closed his eyes to try to get to sleep, he saw Geary’s bloated body waddling across the room. The odd time he’d managed to drift off for a few hours, his dreams had been haunted by Geary throttling him with his bare hands and slobbering all over his face like a rabid dog.
Bella, The Master, and Geary were all one and the same: a three-headed beast born from a poisoned womb. If all life on earth was God’s creation, why had He made such despicable characters?
As for the hypnotherapy, no one could say he hadn’t tried. But he’d been right all along: the only way out of this mess was to go to Lassiter’s Industrial Site and jump off the building. Put an end to this misery and shut his useless brain down forever.
He’d made a deal with his sister not to mention any of the really bad stuff to their parents. The last thing Tommy wanted was good old Charlie trying to put a positive spin on it and calling the terrifying experience progress.
Tommy checked his watch. Four-thirty p.m. Dark enough to suggest winter had seized premature control of autumn. Rain lashed against the window, decorating the glass with a torrent of silver beads.
A good night to die. Shitty weather, shitty life, and shitty past. He’d played his planned suicide over and over in his head. Climbing to the top of the building, closing his eyes, and jumping off the edge. Simple as ABC.
But what if it didn’t work? What if he survived, but smashed his body up so badly he had to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair? Or worse, paralysed and confined to a bed? A useless lump of meat completely at the mercy of his parents. He’d never be able to escape Charlie’s pointless jabber, or his mother’s I-know-best-about-everything attitude. And he might still suffer flashbacks or whatever the hell they were. A prisoner both physically and mentally, living in a state of constant misery with no means of escape.
Perhaps you ought to swallow a load of pills before you jump. Or cut your wrists.
This disturbing thought pacified Tommy slightly. That was it. Make it a three-pronged attack. Surely he wouldn’t survive all that?
There was a knock on the door. ‘Only me,’ Danielle said. ‘Can I come in?’
‘Depends.’
‘On what?’
‘Whether you wanna try to persuade me to go back to Dr Marks.’
‘I don’t.’
‘So, what d’you want?’
‘Dean’s here. He wants to talk to you.’
‘What about?’
‘He wants to help you. Says he’s been through a lot of nasty shit himself.’
‘Not my kinda shit.’
‘Why don’t you just hear him out, Tommy? It might help.’
‘Like letting Dr Marks hypnotise me?’
‘No, but talking to someone might be useful.’
Tommy relented to shut her up. ‘Okay. Ten minutes.’
Danielle opened the door. ‘Thanks. I’ll go and get him.’
Tommy stared out the window while he waited. Dark clouds drifted across the sky. Thunder rumbled in the distance. In many ways, it was comforting to know this was his last day on Earth. No more nasty surprises waiting to jump out at him in the future. No more well-meaning advice.
Danielle knocked on the door and entered with her new boyfriend in tow.
Tommy took a deep breath and forced a weak smile.
Dean ran a hand through his hair and sat on the bed uninvited. ‘How’s it going, Tommy?’
Same shit, different arsehole. ‘Okay, I suppose.’
‘I’m gonna leave you two to have a chat,’ Danielle said. ‘If you want anything, just holler.’
Tommy nodded.
‘So,’ Dean said. ‘I hear you had a pretty rough time of it with the hypnotherapist.’
‘You could say that.’
‘Do you reckon it’s been any use?’
‘Not really.’
‘What have you found out so far?’
‘Not much.’
‘Danielle tells me you started choking last time.’
Tommy shrugged. ‘Yeah. But it don’t mean much. Dr Marks sorta puts me to sleep, so I’m probably only dreaming.’
‘I had therapy once when I was about fourteen. I found it quite helpful.’
‘Were you hypnotised?’
‘No. Well, sort of. It was weird stuff. The therapist got me to visualise what had happened to me. Over and over again until I thought I was losing my mind. I walked out twice. Thought it was a load of bollocks. It was making me feel worse. Then she asked me to remember something in my life that had made me really happy.’
‘Right.’
‘But here’s the good bit. Over time, she taught me to use the happy event to block out the trauma.’
All well and good if you can remember anything about your life. ‘What happened to you?’
Dean stared at the wall for a few seconds. ‘My stepdad was abusing me. He moved in about a year after my real dad died in a car crash.’
‘How old were you?’
‘Seven. He was nice at first. Took me to football. Bought me cool stuff. But then he started coming to my room late at night. Reading me bedtime stories. Nothing wrong with that. At first. But…’ Dean sniffed and rubbed his eyes. ‘The bastard started doing stuff no kid should have to experience. Touching and groping me. Threatening to kill my mum if I ever said a word about it. Saying it was our special little secret.’
Tommy’s tummy flipped over. ‘That’s… disgusting.’
‘That’s not the half of it. By the time I was twelve, he was raping me at least twice a week.’
For a few moments, Tommy forgot his own troubles. ‘Jesus.’
‘I swear I’m gonna go back one day and kill him.’
‘Did your mum know what he was doing?’
Dean shook his head. ‘Never told her. I ran away when I was fourteen and never went back.’
‘Where did you go?’
‘London. Bright lights and all that bullshit. In a lot of ways, it was every bit as bad. I lived in a squat with three other blokes for a while, but they used to get drunk all the time. Take drugs. Get violent. One of them used to get all paranoid and see things that weren’t there. He said he was in the army. Saw a lot of crazy stuff in Iraq.’
‘How did you end up in Chorley?’
‘I got a lucky break when a guy persuaded me not to jump off Westminster Bridge. He talked me down. Offered me a place to stay. Paid for my therapy.’
‘That was good of him.’
Dean nodded. ‘In the two years I spent with him, he found me a job and got me back on the straight and narrow. He never took a penny in return for his kindness.’
‘Was he from Chorley?’
‘Yeah. Lived up near the railway station.’
Tommy was reminded of his own failed suicide attempt but decided not to share it.
‘But he died,’ Dean said. ‘Had a bloody heart attack. I still can’t believe it happened. It was so unfair. A man with such a good heart dying like that. It’s bloody ironic, isn’t it?’
Tommy agreed.
‘He left me the flat in his will, and a few thousand quid. Enough for me to get by for a while and sort out what I really wanted to do.�
��
‘He sounds like a really good guy.’
‘He was,’ Dean said. ‘Even though he was gay, he never tried anything on with me. He helped me because he wanted to. Unlike that useless lump of shit who moved in with my mum.’
‘How old was he when he died?’
Dean shrugged. ‘Dunno. About fifty-ish. Possibly older. He told me he’d had a boyfriend once, but it didn’t work out. He didn’t bother with relationships after that. I thought it was a shame, because he’d have made someone really happy.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Anyway, enough about me. What about you, Tommy?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Things getting a bit too much for you?’
‘You could say that.’
‘Ever thought of taking the easy way out?’
Tommy’s heart jumped. Did he lie or tell the truth?
‘No one would blame you,’ Dean said. ‘All the shit you’ve been through.’
‘If I’m honest, I don’t really wanna be here no more,’ Tommy confessed. ‘I don’t see the point in swimming in shit every day.’
‘Have you ever tried to kill yourself?’
Tommy shook his head. ‘Not really. I went to Chorley Station a while back to jump in front of a train, but a copper stopped me.’
‘Did you really intend to jump?’
‘I think so.’
‘Reminds me of me on the bridge.’
Except you understood what was wrong with you.
‘If there’s one thing I’ve learned through all my crap experiences, it’s that there’s always hope. Even when you’re at rock bottom, something can happen to drag you back to the surface. Paul Darcy proved that.’
‘The guy who rescued you?’
Dean nodded. ‘I’m not religious or nothing, but it was almost as if God had sent an angel to save me.’
And who’s He gonna send to save me? The chain-smoking driver?
‘For what it’s worth,’ Dean continued, ‘I reckon it’d do you good to get outta here for a day. Have a change of scene.’
‘No offence, but I’m not in any mood for a walk along the river.’
‘You could come back to the flat with me and Danielle for a while.’
Tommy knew Dean was only trying to be helpful, but he really didn’t want to go anywhere. Just stay in his room until the early hours of the morning and head off to Lassiter’s for his date with death.