Very Nearly Dead

by A K Reynolds

  ‘I have to go meet my friend now. I’m going home with her,’ I told Tony.

  ‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘I’ll walk with you.’

  By this time it was dark. We took a short cut through an archway, then along a back alley to another street. In the middle of the alley he stopped. The only light came from a streetlight on the road at far end of the alley.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ he said.

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  He put his arms around me, pressed his lips against mine. I responded eagerly for half-a-minute or so, then pushed him away.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘It’s nothing to do with you. I need time, that’s all.’ I wondered if time was really all I needed.

  ‘Are you sure it’s nothing to do with me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What is it then?’

  ‘Sorry, I can’t explain,’ I said, and I couldn’t.

  Because Tony couldn’t know what it was.

  No-one could.

  Ever.

  3

  Here and Now

  I propped myself up against the bar and ordered another drink. Even after all I’d had, which included a double brandy Seth had bought me, I didn’t feel drunk. Not drunk enough, anyway. Charlie’s death had had a sobering effect on me. My mind felt like a hamster on a wheel as I tried to make sense of it.

  Poor Charlie had endured a sad life haunted by regrets – much like my own in fact – and had met his death without coming to terms with the events which had caused his woes. It occurred to me that what I’d been watching when Charlie had passed away was my own sad future. It was inevitable that on the day of my own death, I’d be in the same state as Charlie – a nervous wreck, haunted by the past, unable to move on. With my drink habit, I might die the same way he had done, and in similar circumstances, just keel over while drunk and breathe my last on a sticky, beer-sodden carpet. It was enough to drive anybody to drink.

  I took a ten-pound note from my purse and waved it in the air. ‘Another glass of red wine, please, and make it a large one,’ I said to no-one in particular.

  A passing barman heard me. ‘Coming right up,’ he said, grabbing a bottle and uncorking it.

  He filled the glass up to the 250 ml line and pushed it across the bar to me. I took a sip and wiped my lips with the back of my hand, still dwelling on the subject of Charlie’s death.

  ‘Penny for them.’ It was Seth.

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  ‘A penny for your thoughts,’ he said.

  I felt as if he’d seen right through me and worked out I was a liability.

  ‘I’m just sad about Charlie,’ I told him. ‘Gutted in fact.’

  ‘Sad business,’ he replied, looking around to check what the policemen were doing. When he saw they were having an earnest conversation with Raymond Wells, he grabbed my arm and pulled me close. ‘Just remember,’ he hissed, ‘we have a pact. Charlie’s death makes no difference to it. Understand?’

  I tried to pull my arm free, but couldn’t even move it, his grip was so fierce.

  ‘Of course I understand,’ I said, as calmly as circumstances allowed. ‘When have I ever let you down?’

  That seemed to convince him, and he let me go. ‘You haven’t – and it better stay that way.’

  My heart should’ve been pounding my ribs, but it wasn’t. The booze I’d drunk had taken the edge off pretty much everything life could throw at me. I’d reached the stage where my existence had become a somnambulistic dream, and I didn’t care too much what happened.

  Then I became aware of a presence at my shoulder and turned around. It was one of the policemen. He asked me to follow him. We went together into another room in the conference complex – a small office – and he invited me to take a seat on one side of the desk it contained. I did so, glass in hand, and he sat at the other side.

  He fished into his pocket, removed a notebook and pen, and placed the notebook on the desk. ‘Could I have your name and address, please?’

  I told him my full name, house number, street name and postcode.

  ‘I believe you knew Mr Duggan,’ he said, giving me the sort of piercing look which coppers are well-schooled in. I noticed he had grey eyes which matched the greying hair at his temples.

  ‘Mr Duggan?’

  ‘Charles Duggan, the deceased.’

  Those words – ‘the deceased’ upset me again, in spite of the amount of drink I’d had, and I emerged from my dreamlike stupor into a cold reality.

  ‘Yes, I knew Charlie.’

  ‘And you were with him when he died?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can you describe what happened in the period leading up to his death?’

  I took a thoughtful sip of my latest glass of red wine. ‘We had a couple of drinks together, then he keeled over, and that was about it.’

  He scribbled in his notebook then looked up at me. ‘Keeled over?’

  ‘Yes. He got up from the table we were both sitting at, staggered a little, regained his balance, took a couple of steps and fell on his face.’

  ‘Does he have any illness you know of?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘All right, that’s all for now. I’ll be in touch if I need to speak to you again.’

  ‘You mean I can go?’

  ‘Yes, you can go.’

  I left him with his head down, engrossed in completing his notes.

  As soon as I was back in the event room I booked an Uber. There was one close by. Less than a minute later I was on my way home. I got there in such an alcohol-fuelled daze I barely had the wherewithal to stagger from the back of the car and open my front door. I hurried upstairs, undressed, got into bed, and tried hard to forget I’d seen another death, the second in under two weeks.

  The words of ‘Born under a bad sign’ came to mind. Bad luck was all the luck I seemed to have.

  On the morning of Sunday 4 March I woke up with a raging thirst and a pounding hangover. It was an all-too-familiar feeling. As soon as I climbed out of bed, I felt my stomach heave, so I ran to the bathroom to throw up. In a way, those moments throwing up were the best I’d had in a long while. Bad as it felt, I was incapable of thinking of anything else but how ill I was, as I jettisoned the contents of my stomach into the toilet bowl.

  When I was done, it all came back to me: the guilt over mowing down the young man, the worry that I’d get caught for doing it, my past sins which I felt were fast catching up with me, courtesy of the baseball bat I’d received in the mail (who sent it, and why?) And the mystery of Charlie’s death, coupled with the possibility that it augured disaster for me.

  I put my fears and negative predictions to the back of my mind, and, like all drunks the day after a bender, I said ‘Never again.’ How many times had I said that? But you mean it for once, Jaz. You really do mean it this time.

  When I’d had a shower and a coffee I was able to pull myself together enough to lie on the sofa with the television on. The one thing I felt I had going for me was that it was Sunday, which, being a quiet day, would give me respite from the world at large. There would be no post – no chance of getting any unwanted presents delivered to my door, no shitty driving to work, no awkward conversations with work colleagues, no demoralising court cases, and probably no callers. Not that I ever got callers.

  Tomorrow it would be Monday, and I’d have to face another week of hell. It didn’t bear thinking about.

  By mid-afternoon I was able to take a walk to get some fresh air. There’s a saying that the criminal always returns to the scene of her crime. It turns out there’s some truth in it. I followed a route which took me up Fosby Street and found myself staring at the lamp post I’d driven my car into. Then I thought it might make me look like I was guilty of something – even though no-one seemed to know there’d been a hit-and run incident at the very spot I was standing on – so I tore myself away.

  A young man came towards me from the oth
er end of the street. From a distance he looked like my – I didn’t want to use the word, but I had to – my victim. I wanted to turn and run, but that would’ve been incriminating, so I didn’t break my stride. When he got nearer, he looked like someone else – maybe the brother of my victim? He seemed to be staring at me. Did he know something? My pulse quickened as he got nearer still.

  He walked right past me.

  I should’ve calmed down but I couldn’t, because I felt as if an unseen pair of eyes was watching me from every window of every house on the street. I made myself walk more quickly, so much so I almost ran to the end of the street. It was a relief to turn the corner at the end of it and get away.

  The eight-till-late beckoned. I found myself heading towards it. Would it lure me in, or would I be able to resist its temptations? I knew I ought to, knew I was ruining my life and digging an early grave for myself with my drinking habits, so much so that I’d joined Alcoholics Anonymous in an attempt to break out of my self-destructive drinking cycle. But then again, all I wanted was a bottle of red wine to calm my nerves. Maybe two bottles, then I’d go back on the wagon, and tell them all at the AA meeting on Thursday how I’d fallen from the wagon and made a supreme effort to climb back on and get into a state of alcohol-free grace again. They’d applaud me and think me a hero for managing to do that.

  The matter was settled.

  I was going in.

  I picked up two bottles of cheap merlot and took them to the counter. There was a woman ahead of me, middle-aged, overweight, and tattooed, putting her shopping into a bag. ‘Terrible thing it was,’ she was saying to the proprietor. ‘He was in a right state. His mum’ll never get over it.’

  I guiltily wondered if she might be talking about my victim.

  ‘All right, thank you, goodbye,’ she said.

  ‘Goodbye, Mrs Sandford,’ said the proprietor. He hailed from somewhere in London but had an Indian background and spoke with a slight Asian twang. It was one of those places where the shopkeeper knows most of his customers and addresses them by name. He didn’t know mine, because I avoided conversation with him. All I ever bought there was booze, and I didn’t want him telling anyone who I was, and how much booze I bought.

  I put the bottles on the counter and he scanned them into his till.

  ‘Anything else?’ he asked.

  ‘No, thank you,’ I said, avoiding his eyes in the vain hope it might make it harder for him to recognise me.

  ‘Fifteen pounds, please. Do you need a bag?’

  ‘If you don’t mind.’

  I handed over the cash, snatched up the bottles – noticing he raised his eyebrows as I did – and rammed them into the bag he gave me, after which I shot out, quick as I could.

  When I got home there was a scruffy old woman outside my house rooting through my bins. Next to her was a battered-looking child’s buggy with a pile of random stuff in it which I surmised was all her worldly possessions.

  I wondered if I should tell her to move on – it didn’t feel right having a complete stranger on my property going through my stuff, even if it was stuff I didn’t need or want. She turned to look at me when she heard me walking up the path, and our eyes met. Hers were rheumy, grey, and disturbingly yellow where they should’ve been white. Mine were brown and, I hoped, clear.

  In the instant we looked at each other, I saw my own future: I was going to become a bag lady like her, probably by the time I turned fifty, and I’d be helpless and alone, spending my days rooting through other people’s discarded waste in order to survive. My liver would be so decayed by cirrhosis that my eyes would be yellow like hers, and it wouldn’t be long before my skin followed suit. My death would be a painful one in a back alley, surrounded by overflowing bins, with no-one to hold my hand during my final, desperate moments.

  I decided to let her carry on with what she was doing, hoping my generosity would be paid forward in some mystical way, and that someone would be as understanding with me, when I caught up with my dismal future.

  I went indoors shaking my head at the thought of what I had coming, uncorked a bottle of wine, and wondered why I hadn’t thought to check if the bottles were equipped with screw tops. I prefer screw tops. You can open the bottles quicker.

  When I’d gotten the cork out, I poured a good big glass and took a sip of it. Then I thought about the baseball bat, and got it out of the cupboard I’d put it in to examine it.

  It was black, sleek, and deadly, just like the ones which had done the damage all those years ago. It occurred to me I ought to put it under my bed. Then, if an intruder entered the house while I was in my bedroom, I’d have a weapon to hand to fend him off with.

  I guessed the chances of an intruder had gone up, because, having given the matter much thought, I couldn’t believe I’d ordered the baseball bat myself. I was convinced someone else must have ordered it. This could mean I had an enemy who was out to get me.

  I put the bat down and took myself and the bottle to the front room, finding comfort in watching TV while slowly getting slaughtered. I knew that comfort couldn’t last, and I was right.

  The next day, Monday 5 March, I woke up with no recollection of having gone to bed the night before, and had what was becoming the usual raging hangover. When I raised my head from the pillow it hurt. When I put it back down on the pillow it hurt more. But as it was Monday, I had to motivate myself – I had a job to hold down. Somehow I got myself up, noting a pile of abandoned clothes in the middle of the bedroom floor. It told me what a state I’d gotten myself into the previous night.

  After showering and putting on my work clothes, I grabbed my car key off the hook in the kitchen I have for it, then put it back – it was obvious even to me that I was still over the limit, and in no fit state to drive. I booked an Uber, and before long it disgorged me outside the unsightly red-brick offices of Womack and Brewer LLP, my place of work.

  I got there late, which caused a number of people, including the receptionist, to raise their eyebrows at me as I swanned in, and made my way to my office. Their disapproval didn’t bother me. I’d reached the stage where my concerns outside of work were so pressing that work-related issues didn’t seem important anymore.

  When I got to my desk and checked my diary, I found my secretary had booked me an appointment at 10.30am. with a woman called Mrs Duggan, who must have called first thing, before I’d arrived.

  Mrs Duggan.

  The same surname as Charlie.

  It couldn’t be a coincidence. I had a horrible feeling about it, and wanted to cancel the appointment, but felt I had to go through with it. There was just time to get a coffee to clear my head, which I did, then I got a call telling me she was in reception.

  ‘Thank you, I’ll come and get her,’ I said, hoping the worry in my voice wasn’t too obvious.

  The firm of Womack and Brewer LLP was what I privately referred to as a semi-backstreet outfit. It operated from an ancient brick building far from the fashionable shops and offices of Crystal Palace. The windows were grubby, and, thanks to our specialism – criminal defence – the clients were grubbier still. The inside was unsuited to a modern business concern, being a rabbit warren of narrow corridors and stuffy ill-lit box-like rooms.

  I went to reception – a considerable walk away from my office – and opened the door. A row of obvious reprobates was already taking up the chairs, all of them fiddling with mobile phones. Among them was a gentle middle-aged woman, who looked as if she didn’t belong in the same building as them, let alone the same room. I guessed she was my client – if, indeed, she had any intention of using my services. She might have other motives for paying me a visit.

  ‘Mrs Duggan?’ I said.

  She got to her feet and I let her through the door, taking in her appearance. She looked to be in her late fifties, was overweight with plump pink cheeks, and had hair which was dyed a vivid shade of red. The colour accentuated a railway junction of worry lines on her face.

  I stuck out my a
rm and we shook hands in a business-like way.

  ‘I’m Jasmine Black. Follow me.’

  I led her along darkling corridors, past judgemental secretaries in the one open-plan area, and, at length, to my office. By the time we got there she was out of breath, which led me to suspect she was a heavy smoker. I caught a whiff of her clothes which confirmed it.

  ‘Take a seat, please,’ I said, gesturing towards one of the two chairs permanently stationed in front of my desk for the use of clients. She gratefully sat down and I sat behind the desk in my revolving leather chair, a position which normally gives me the feeling of being in control, but today it didn’t. ‘How can I help you, Mrs Duggan?’ I asked, hoping to God she needed advice on some aspect of criminal law.

  ‘Please call me Clara,’ she replied. ‘My son was Charlie. He told me – he told me –’ she paused and let out a huge sob. ‘He told me you knew him.’ Then her body heaved, and tears cascaded in rivers down her plump cheeks.

  I kept a box of tissues on my desk for these awkward moments. When you work in criminal law, you often get the parents of the young crims you have to defend coming to see you. Some of them are honest, hardworking people, who can’t understand why their progeny ignore the values they were brought up with, and who struggle to believe any child of theirs could stoop so low, as to, say, mug an old lady who isn’t much different to them. This sort of crime, by their own kids, often reduces parents to tears.

  I pushed the box towards her. She took a couple of tissues from it and wiped her eyes. Afterwards, she carefully mopped up the snot which had started running from her rather large nostrils. Her cheeks had turned from pink to a vivid shade of red which almost matched the colour of her hair.

  ‘He mentioned you quite a few times,’ she said, when she’d regained her composure. ‘You were part of the crowd he used to run around with at school. He talked about you a lot. He rather liked you.’ She found the strength to look me straight in the eye and asked: ‘Were you with him when he died?’ The directness of the question shocked me. It must have shown in my expression, because she immediately added: ‘I’m sorry, but I need to know.’