Rottenhouse

by Ian Dyer

  Well, for now anyway.

  The Big Boy is Coming Out

  1

  It was 11 in the morning when Simon woke up. Though he hadn’t slept all that well he felt refreshed, ready for what today would bring. Lucy wasn’t next to him; she was an early bird no matter what the situation was and she often woke before him and made her way downstairs. For her, that time in the morning, where there were no distractions, was a great time to catch up on work. The finance world never sleeps, Sausage, she would say, best deals are found at the weekend.

  He still didn’t fully understand what she did. It involved buying stuff from company A and selling it to company B or C or even D sometimes. There could be times when what she bought lost value, then it would be stored and sold when the profit margin reached a higher level. There were all sorts of financial technicalities and big words involved (one of his favourites was Bottom Feeder. Though Lucy didn’t class herself as one it sure seemed that that was the one sure fire way to make money) though what it boiled down to, or what his simple mind boiled it down to, was buy cheap, sell high. Simples.

  Simon got out of bed, stretched, and got dressed. He left the bedroom and went into the main bathroom. We all have our sanctums of peace, it just so happens that Simons was the toilet. Locking the door behind him he freshened up, washed his bits (remembering how the sex had been the night before but not thinking too hard about it because he just didn’t want to think about who or what he had had sex with) and grabbing his phone from his pocket, flicking and touching his way to the BBC News app, he sat upon the toilet and read the stories of the day whilst taking a dump.

  2

  In the kitchen, Lucy was sat alone. She was playing with her hair much like she did when she read a book of flicked through a magazine, only this morning there was no book, no magazine and the pictures she had been looking through last night weren’t there anymore. Her gaze was far off. She seemed to look through the table, through the stone floor and down into the very core of the earth. More and more Simon was seeing a resemblance in Lucy to her father. Through the large window Simon could see that the sun had bleached the sky a bone white and that there wasn’t a cloud present, an almost perfect summer’s day. Beams of light pierced through the net curtain and lit up the kitchen and dust motes floated about and their tails were as if fairies were dancing a merry jig.

  ‘Yer dad not about?’

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘Your dad. Is he about?’

  ‘No. He went out about half an hour ago. Something about the garage. Said he’d be back just before dinner.’

  ‘Oh, okay.’ Simon went over to the kettle and seeing that it was still half full he flicked the switch turning the little orange light on and setting the coils in motion.

  ‘You alright?’ Simon asked grabbing a cup.

  ‘Yeah, fine. Why?’

  ‘Nothing, you seem a bit spaced out that’s all. Want a cuppa?’

  ‘No thanks. Dad made so much this morning I’ll be on the toilet for most of the day.’ And then she was far off again.

  ‘But you’re okay, yeah? You’re happy to see your Dad?’

  Roused again but this time more alert than she had been before; her eyes ablaze in the glare from outside. ‘Really happy. Happier than I thought I’d be. We talked for hours and hours this morning. Caught up, yaknow? It’s like I haven’t really been away, like I said yesterday, this place hasn’t really changed since when I was a girl. I can’t wait to see some of the friends I left behind.’

  The kettle began to shake and then with a violent click thick steam came from the hole at the top. Simon went about making himself a cup of tea whilst he looked out of the window and admired the scenery. He could really get used to a place like this.

  ‘You wanna go out for a bit? I can show you some amazing spots. Days like this don’t come too often up here.’

  ‘That would be great,’ Simon said as he sipped at his tea looking out onto the world outside, ‘Glad I brought my camera. Wasn’t going to at first. Not much call for landscapes at the moment. The clients just want retro looking stills or urban dystopian nonsense. But this place is amazing. Reminds me of when I was just starting out. Maybe it’s the freedom. No pressure, yaknow, I could take a picture of whatever I wanted, however I wanted. Shame really.’

  ‘I knew you would like it up here. You’ve been cramped up in that studio, in that city, for far too long.’

  Simon turned and the two of them locked eyes in their special way where they don’t have to say anything because they know that they love each other, would do anything for each other, and it would always be that way.

  They Leak. They Bleed. They don’t stop once they started.

  Simon’s eyes narrowed and he took in a deep breath as he remembered the painting in last night’s dream. He turned away from Lucy and closed his eyes; blocking out the sun, the hills, the tress and the lush green grass. Two nightmares in the space of one day. The first one he could remember very little of – the girl in the bathroom was the only real image he could conjure but the thought of her made him wish that he couldn’t. The second dream however, was a different kettle of fish. He pretty much remembered every detail of it. With his eyes closed he struggled to shake off the image of the stairs that led down to that endless black nothing and the feeling on his skin as the child grabbed hold of his foot.

  Lucy’s arms were wrapped around him all of a sudden; her head resting on his back, her breaths matching his own. They stood together until Simon’s tea went cold and the clock struck 12.

  3

  By 1-30 they had made it halfway up the valley slope and Simon had taken enough photos to fill a factory. Not far from the house there had been a little wooden bridge that arched over the stream and the wooden carvings of trees and flowers that adorned it made it a dream to photograph. Though he knew, as well as any photographer, amateur or professional, that out of hundreds of photos there was only a handful of real good ones and even then that small percentage could be whittled down to nothing once the processing work began. Simon was a strong believer in a post-production process that steered away from aftermarket tools. A good photo shouldn’t need that many tweaks, it shouldn’t need colour enhancements or that dammed HDR effect which sent him loopy every time he saw it. Maybe just a crop here, a drop in contrast or brightness there was all that would was needed, even a flick to black and white just to give it that extra bump, but that’s it. Sadly though, his studio work was driven by his clients and they seemed to love the effects that only after market programmes can bring. Sometimes Simon thought about changing his title from Photographer to Graphic Designer such was the nature of the work that he now undertook.

  Clambering over a low stone wall he captured the wall as it jutted out like an old set of teeth against the lush background of the valley floor below. His ears pulsed with hot blood as the shot was taken – his trigger that that shot was a keeper – and he pressed the small button on the back of his camera to preview the shot. Almost perfect. Just needs a bit of cropping to take out a piece of flyaway grass that had flown into view but apart from that, nothing. He even thought about presenting this to Mr Rowling as Simon realised that he had captured the house and the stream without even noticing it whilst he was taking the shot.

  From farther up the valley, ‘That a keeper?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘Can I see?’

  ‘Nope.’

  Simon heard her chuckle, a familiar chuckle, a good chuckle. It was an old joke between them and he guessed one that was held between couples where one of them (or both) had interests or jobs in which it relied heavily on their artistic merits, be that photography, drawing, writing or acting, who’s punch line remained the same You won’t see it until I am finished with it and nothing will change that.

  4

  Once at the top of the slope, Simon hung the camera around his neck, placed his tripod on a rock that jutted out and was the shape of a bowl, and admired the view.

 
Rottenhouse was below him, the village flowing from west to east. The house in which Lucy had grown up in was on the outskirts and whilst more houses were jumbled together in the centre, various buildings and farms and sheds dotted the landscape like dice thrown in an epic game of Craps. Most of the fields were green such was the nature of the farming here, though there were fields of golden yellow and some of a fierce red. The stream cut its way around the outskirts of the village and then turned sharply as it reached the valley wall on which he stood and turned north back into the village and off into the horizon. From this distance, though it was hard to tell, it looked as if the stream flowed under the Working Man’s Club at the centre of the village. Along the stream, just after it dog legged back in on itself, there was a small hut, maybe a home, on its own with smoke rising from its little crooked chimney.

  ‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’

  ‘Breath taking. One of the prettiest places I have ever seen. Makes what we have back home look like shit.’

  Lucy stepped in and took hold of Simon’s hand and squeezed it tight. She didn’t say anything at first, there wasn’t much to say. They both knew their words couldn’t bring any justice to the landscape that was laid out before them.

  If God did create the world, Simon thought, then the day he made this place he must have taken a step back, tapped himself on his God like shoulder, admired it, tweaked it here and there just so that at every possible angle the view would be spectacular, and then showed it off to all his friends.

  Once the view had been thoroughly taken in Simon removed his pride and joy from his camera bag and screwed in onto the main body of his camera.

  ‘Heyup, the Big Boy is coming out.’ Lucy said as she sat on the smooth stones and stretched out her legs.

  Simon smiled and raised his eyebrows. He then offered it to her to hold and she did so carefully, after all, she was the one that spent out the 8000 pounds to by the hulking great thing. Opening up his tripod and adjusting it so that it was level, he took back the camera and placed it carefully onto the stand making sure to attach the extension pole to the lens so that it didn’t flop down such was the weight of it.

  Lucy knew, as well as Simon, that the Big Boy only came out on special occasions and only when Simon was sure that he could capture something truly special.

  ‘You gonna tell me, or keep it secret?’

  Simon pointed down to the valley floor. ‘That hut down there. There is something about it that has taken me fancy. Like that old station back in Hampshire, you remember? I did that perspective piece where I photoed it from various angles and heights and then merged them together. I’d like to do the same with that hut down there. It looks so peaceful.’

  Lucy craned her neck and looked down to where Simon was now aiming his camera; looking through the viewfinder like a sniper seeking out his next kill.

  ‘That’s the old lumberjack hut. Well it used to be. Chopper John used to live down there. Guess he still does.’

  ‘Chopper John?’ He tried to hold back a snigger but his voice ended up full of it instead.

  ‘Yes, Chopper John,’ Lucy bit back sarcastically, ‘that’s what we called him when we were kids and it kind of caught on with the oldens too. He’s probably long dead by now.’

  A silence fell on the couple as Simon went about his business. Slowly his memory card filled with images of the lumberjack hut, the stream, and surrounding areas.

  We all have these occasions when we act before thinking, talk without forethought. Situations like that usually occur when we are distracted or in deep thought. Simon was pretty good at putting his foot in it with actions or words that seemed to pop out without warning. So it came as no surprise to Simon that, as he was lost in his work and unaware of his thoughts or his mouth, that he said, ‘So, your Dad. He’s quite the character.’

  ‘Watchyamean?’

  The camera clicked a few more times and he looked from behind the viewfinder down to where Mr Rowling lived, his face as red as radishes. ‘How can I say this…? I guess he’s been alone for such a long time he hasn’t really noticed.’

  ‘What are you trying to say, Si?’

  ‘Look, Lucy, I don’t mean it how it is going to sound, but he’s, well, he’s mental. Not like dribbling in a bucket I’m the second coming of Jesus kind of way, he’s just not all there.’

  ‘And?’

  Simon could feel her eyes upon him so he kept to the viewfinder thinking that he should have checked himself before starting the conversation. He could also feel her String, it was tightening, and given enough of a pull it would snap and he didn’t want that, especially after the day he had had yesterday.

  ‘Just that he’s got a way of saying things, like yesterday, with how he told me that modern cars aint as reliable as old ones, or that I couldn’t sit in the front of the car as that was your mums, and now yours by the by, and that I had no right to sit there. He even said that there was no such thing as the drink driving law. He pretty much thought I was insane to think such a thing. And he wasn’t talking about the law not being in force up here, oh no, he was 100 percent certain that there was no such thing as being over the limit.’

  ‘Come on, Si, I don’t think it’s that bad. He has his ways, yeah, like all of us do, but he has been fine with me. It’s different up here, remember. But different don’t mean their stupid.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ Simon unscrewed the camera from the tripod and began changing the lens back to his more user friendly one. He continued, ‘I get that, I really do, and I am happy that you two seem to be getting on. Maybe it’s just that I aint from round here and there is a tension between us, I don’t know. But, last night, in the Club, some poor bastard had the living shit smashed out of him and your dad was kind of the one that made it happen.’

  ‘I know.’ Lucy said flatly.

  Simon stopped his fumbling and looked at her with a face akin to a fish in a pond.

  ‘You know.’

  ‘Yeah, I know, and by the sounds of it the guy had it coming.’

  Simon threw the tripod down. ‘Had it coming. Jesus Christ, Lucy, he was beaten half to death.’

  She folded her arms across her chest, yeah and so what?

  Simon, as he spoke put Big Boy back into its protective wrapping and then into the bag. ‘So what did he do then? What God awful thing did that poor guy do to your dad that deserved him getting his bones smashed to bits?’

  The wind blew Lucy’s hair across her face and she swept it back with her hand. Her eyes looked at Simon like her fathers had done the night before and like they had done when they fucked the night before. He could see she wanted to say something, it was on the tip of her tongue and her chest heaved in and out and her throat rose and fell as she attempted to get it out. His gut dropped about thirty feet as he realised that what Stevie had done might not have been done to Mr Rowling. It might have been done to her.

  He lowered his voice, ‘Please tell me. If it’s bad I’m sure…’

  ‘Stevie called him Bob.’

  ‘I’m sorry, what?’

  ‘Called him Bob.’

  Simon fell to the floor laughing, hitting the stone and gravel path hard making him freeze for a brief moment and then continued laughing at the sheer madness of it all. His laughter echoed around the valley and it filled the green and pleasant land with the sound akin to a bunch of loonies in a room bustling with balloons and clowns.

  5

  ‘What’s so funny?’ Lucy asked, raising her own voice over his seemingly uncontrollable laughter.

  ‘What’s…so…funny? What’s so funny? My God Lucy, that’s all the guy did? That’s it?’ Simon tried to contain his laughter seeing that the String was about to pop but he couldn’t help it. Of all the things a man could do to another man, of all the things men have done to each other over the many years poor old Stevie was torn a new one just because he used someone’s first name. Another bout of laughter boomed from his throat and that seemed to be the stick that broke the camel’s
back.

  ‘You know what, Simon; you can be a real dick sometimes.’ And she stood up and brushed the dust from the arse of her shorts. ‘I told you it’s a different world up here. There are rules and that lad broke one of them. You may not understand, you may not like it but hey.’ She stopped then for a moment, her eyes far off, and Simon could see that computer generated egg timer ticking over as her brain thought of the words to say. ‘That’s the way it is. If you want to marry us, then you will have to live with it.’

  Simon stopped laughing and his throat seemed to close in on itself. He thought for a brief moment that he was being strangled by his own muffled laugher as it crawled back down his throat. Finally he managed to breathe.

  ‘Marry us! What the hell does that mean?’

  She looked flustered now. Her face turning a hot red – she didn’t make mistakes, especially during arguments, and that darned egg timer appeared again in the dark recesses of her eyes.

  ‘Marry me, I meant. You know what I meant, stop being a fucking arsehole.’ She lowered her voice now to something a little more reasonable. ‘I love you Si, I really do. These last years have been amazing and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I know things can be weird up here, really weird, trust me; I know, it’s why I left. But you have to realise that this isn’t Guildford, Si, this isn’t London. This is where I was born, this is my past and down there is my dad and he reached out to me as much as I reached out to him. Don’t forget, he lost his wife and his daughter, Si, and that must change a man. Now he wants one of them back and I am willing to put in the time to make that happen.’

  Simon sighed. What she was saying was true, he supposed, but still, there were a few points he needed to get over. He couldn’t just go with the flow, especially now that the rest of his life was dependant on the next few days. He stood so that she was no longer talking down to him and him up to her.