by Mark Edwards
Jamie had lost the thread of his thoughts. He opened his mouth to speak but his brain couldn’t formulate a sentence.
Mike continued: ‘Hey you know I thought it would be Software Logistics who took over? I was wrong. It’s actually Scion.’
‘Mike, have you…’ he stopped, suddenly realising what Mike had said. He stared at him. ‘Did you say Scion?’
‘Yes. Apparently they’re a really good firm to–’
‘Scion?’
‘Christ, Jamie, that’s what I said. Hey look there’s our new manager now.’
He nodded towards the far side of the room and Jamie turned and followed his gaze. He watched Chris come out of the manager’s office and look around, a proprietary smile on his face.
Jamie’s knees buckled. He sat down.
Oh. Jesus.
Almost before he had touched the seat, he was up again. He grabbed Mike’s upper arm. ‘I need to talk to you. I need to talk to you now.’
‘Alright. Calm down, Jamie. I’ll go into the gents, you follow. OK? Count to ten before you follow. I don’t want people to think we’re going in together.’
Jamie watched Mike push open the door of the gents. He was trembling. He couldn’t bear to look back over at Chris, though he knew Chris was looking at him: he could feel his stare drilling into him. He started to count to ten, but got lost around six. He hurried over to the gents, aware of Chris’s gaze following him. It felt like a laser, burning the back of his head. He could almost smell the smoke and the singed hair.
Mike was standing by the washbasins, inspecting his hair in the mirror.
‘Jamie, you look like you’ve seen a ghost, mate.’
Jamie didn’t speak.
‘It’s OK. I’ve checked the cubicles, there’s no-one in there. We’re alright to talk. I know what you want to talk to me about. I haven’t been able to get hold of my mates, though I left a message saying I had a job for them. I’ll try again tonight.’
‘That’s him.’
‘Who? What are you talking about?’
‘The new manager. It’s him. Chris Newton. My neighbour.’
‘Chris?’ His jaw dropped. ‘You’re joking.’
‘No. He works for Scion. I bet – he must be behind the whole takeover.’
‘Jesus.’
Mike walked over and put his hand on Jamie’s shoulder. ‘In that case, I’m going to have to call my friends off.’
‘What? You can’t.’
‘I can. And I’m going to have to. For Christ’s sake, Jamie, I can’t be involved now. He’s my boss. I mean – yeah, the bloke sounds like a psycho – but I can’t afford to lose my job. I can’t risk it.’
‘But you have to.’
‘No I don’t.’
‘Please.’
‘Jamie, I’m sorry, alright? But it’s out of the question.’
He made to leave the room but Jamie stepped in front of him. Mike tried to dodge round him but Jamie grabbed his sleeve.
‘Jamie, leave it. I cannot get involved. That is it. My final answer.’
‘Mike, please.’
‘If you don’t take your hands off me I’m going to have to hit you.’
Jamie let go. ‘Let me contact them myself.’
‘What?’
‘Your friends. Give me their number and I’ll contact them myself. They don’t have to know it’s got anything to do with you. I’ll tell them I heard about them through someone else. I’ll make something up. You hadn’t already given them my name, or Chris’s or Lucy’s, so just give me the number and I’ll sort it all out. Nobody will even know you were involved.’
Mike exhaled through his nose.
‘Please.’
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake. OK. But if you mention my name to them you’ll be their next victim.’
‘Alright. I promise I won’t mention you.’
Mike pulled a scrap of paper and a pen out of his trouser pocket. He scribbled a number down. ‘The name to ask for is Charlie. Alright?’
‘Right.’
Mike left the room, having instructed Jamie to wait another ten seconds before leaving the gents. Jamie looked at the number in his hand. He put it safely in his wallet, then pushed open the door and looked left and right. There was no sign of Chris. As he walked towards the lift he took a last look around. He knew he would never be coming back to this place again. How could he, with Chris working here – as his boss, no less? He now understood why Chris had sent the virus, in Jamie’s name, to his workplace: so he would have an excuse to sack him after he became the manager. God, he was clever. But fuck him. Jamie wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
He had never realised Chris was so high up at Scion. He thought he was just a lowly wage-slave like himself. But he was obviously powerful enough to engineer the takeover of a smaller company and move himself in as manager. Jamie felt quite sick with the shock of it: the lengths the man would go to to destroy him.
What had he ever done to him?
OK, when they had moved in they had thrown a party, but they had invited all their neighbours so it wasn’t their fault Chris and Lucy had chosen not to come. And when they apologised afterwards they were told by Lucy that Chris had slept right through it! The very first lie she had told them.
What else had they done? Had sex – but no more noisily or frequently than any other couple their age. Played music – but certainly not at excessive volumes. How could any of that lead Chris and Lucy to do such terrible things? Especially when sound hardly carried between the flats.
The truth was, they had done practically nothing to provoke them, but they had still invoked their wrath. Jamie had lain awake at night thinking about it, and it all came back to one simple fact: Lucy and Chris were evil. They enjoyed causing misery; they revelled in other people’s pain. And they were prepared to put themselves to great trouble and effort to cause that pain. If it wasn’t happening to him, Jamie wouldn’t believe it possible. But it was true. It was really happening – and it was happening to him and Kirsty. Life wasn’t meant to be like that. It wasn’t fucking fair.
All this, caused by two apparently normal people. They weren’t monsters. They weren’t vampires or demons or phantoms. They were just people. Actually, Jamie thought, that made sense. There was Brian upstairs writing his horror stories for kids: supernatural tales in which werewolves and witches terrorised children. He shouldn’t be writing about monsters or magic, though, not if he wanted to teach children a lesson about life. He should be writing about people like Lucy and Chris.
He climbed into his car and sat back. He fished out his wallet and looked at the phone number again. What was the name? Charlie. He didn’t yet know what story he would make up to explain how he had got the number, but he would think of something.
He put his wallet away and drove home.
He spent the afternoon sitting outside a small cafe on the high street. Driving away from the office, he had been overcome by an overwhelming urge for a cigarette. He hadn’t had one since he was at college. He hated smoking. The smell and the taste of it made him feel sick. But here, now, he felt the most awful craving: his bloodstream calling out for nicotine. His fingers and lips needed something to keep themselves occupied, and nothing else would do.
He watched himself unwrap the white and gold cigarette packet he’d just bought in a newsagents with a sense of horrified, guilty wonder.
He sucked smoke into his lungs. He coughed. The old woman at the next table smiled. He took another deep drag and a moment later felt the rush of nicotine, making him dizzy. He drank his coffee and smoked the cigarette, then another. He felt sick, but he also felt calmer.
The afternoon went by quickly. He went inside, ate lunch, drank three more cups of coffee, ate a Danish pastry, then came outside and smoked more cigarettes. He watched people go into the cafe then come out again. He was aware that the waitresses were talking about him, wondering what he was doing, but they were happy enough to take his money. Eventually, at half-four, h
e paid, leaving a £10 tip on the table and walked off into the late afternoon light. He drove to St Thomas’s to pick Kirsty up.
‘Have you been smoking?’ Kirsty asked, sniffing the air as she got into the car beside him.
‘No. I was talking to Mike at work, outside the office, and he was smoking.’ He sniffed his own sleeve. ‘I didn’t realise how badly it would cling to my clothes.’
‘You stink. I’ll have to wash everything you’re wearing when we get home.’
‘Sorry.’
The rest of the journey passed in silence. When they got home, Jamie undressed and put his clothes in the washing machine. It was so cold in the flat. He wrapped up in a thick jumper with two T-shirts underneath.
‘Cup of tea?’
‘Hmm.’ Kirsty was sorting through the desk, examining paperwork. She wore a puzzled expression. ‘Jamie, which estate agent did you register us with?’
He felt his blood go chilly. ‘The same one we bought it from. Anderson and Son.’
She stood up and waved a letter at him. It bore Anderson and Son’s letterhead. It was the letter the estate agent had sent them to confirm the acceptance of their offer on the flat. Jamie had once suggested framing it, but they never got round to it.
‘So how come when I called them today to ask them if they could hurry up the valuation, they didn’t know what I was talking about?’
He swallowed. ‘Did you call the right branch?’
‘I called the branch that we bought it from. And they called both their other offices. They had no record that you’d been in to put the flat on the market.’
‘They’re so incompetent.’
‘Don’t lie to me!’ She threw the letter to the floor. ‘I know you haven’t put the flat on the market. So don’t make things worse for yourself by trying to lie.’
‘Kirsty, I’m–’
She folded her arms. ‘You’re an idiot, Jamie. A fucking idiot.’
She marched out of the room into the bedroom. Jamie followed her, feeling as if all the blood had drained out of him. I’m bloodless, he thought. A husk. Kirsty stood on a chair and took the suitcase down from the top of the wardrobe. She threw it on the bed and unzipped it.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m going, Jamie.’ She opened the top drawer of her chest of drawers and pulled out a handful of knickers and socks, tights and lacy things that she rarely wore. Jamie stood helplessly by the bed, watching her.
She turned to him. ‘I can’t live here anymore, Jamie. I know you think it’s giving in. I’m not stupid. I know you haven’t put the flat up for sale because you see it as quitting. And – I don’t know – maybe it is. Maybe I’m a coward. But you have to understand, if I stay here one more day I’m going to go mad. I keep bursting into tears at work – and not just because of the baby. I dread coming home. I actually feel afraid to come into my own flat – and shouldn’t your home be your sanctuary? We’ve lost that.’
She opened the wardrobe and removed shirts and dresses, putting some back but placing the others in the suitcase, very calm and methodical. Jamie sat on the bed beside the suitcase. A husk.
‘It makes me feel so sad doing this,’ she said, speaking evenly but wiping away a tear that had fallen onto her cheek. ‘We were going to be so happy here, weren’t we? It was our little paradise. We were going to be a family here.’ She smiled. ‘Whatever’s happened since, we’ll always have those early weeks. It was really good then.’
‘Don’t go,’ Jamie croaked. ‘It can be good again.’
She lay her palm against his cheek. Her hand was warm. She looked down at him and her face was so full of sadness he wanted to die.
‘It can’t,’ she whispered. ‘Not here.’ She held her hand against his cheek for a few more moments, then resumed her packing.
‘Are you going to come with me?’
He didn’t answer.
‘I’m going to go to my parents’. I’ve already ordered a taxi to take me to the station. I want you to come too.’
He put his face in his hands. He so wanted to go with her. He knew what she said was right, that it was the most sensible thing to do. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t give in and let Lucy and Chris get away with it. He had to stay – at least until after they had been dealt with. And then Kirsty would come back. Yes, that’s what would happen. He would punish Lucy and Chris – drive them away! – and then Kirsty would come back to him and they would reclaim their paradise. Yes.
‘I can’t.’
She looked away, squeezing her eyes shut to hold back the tears, and carried on with her packing.
A car horn sounded in the street outside. It was Kirsty’s taxi. Jamie felt a shiver of panic. He could still change his mind.
‘Will you carry my case out for me?’
‘Of course.’
He carried the case outside. The taxi driver tried to take it from him but he kept hold of it, putting it into the back of the cab himself. Kirsty opened the door of the taxi and got in.
‘Come with me, Jamie,’ she pleaded.
He couldn’t look at her. ‘I can’t. I have to stay and fight.’
‘You’re being an idiot.’
‘I’ll call you,’ Jamie said. ‘I love you.’
She didn’t reply.
The taxi driver looked back at Kirsty. ‘Where to, my love?’
‘Charing Cross.’
She closed the door of the taxi and looked away. Jamie watched the cab disappear into the night, its engine still audible after it had vanished from sight. He stood on that spot for a long time before turning round and going back into the flat.
Alone.
Twenty-five
Jamie picked up the piece of paper, studied the phone number, lifted his phone. His finger hovered over the first digit: 0.
He dialled the number.
He spent the morning working out. The weights and rowing machine that he had bought during the summer had sat in the corner for a while now, untouched, gathering a gossamer skin of dust. He ran his index finger along the barbell, licked the dust from his finger. He lay on his back and lifted the weights above his chest. Up, then down. Up, then down. It hurt but he kept going until his muscles felt like they would combust.
He stood up and lifted the weights above his head. He gripped a smaller dumbbell in each hand and pulled them in towards his body – in, out, in, out. He sat on the rowing machine and rowed, back and forth, back and forth. This was how he filled the days, with monotonous exercises that didn’t require thought and at the same time obliterated thought. All he could think about was the pain in his arms and legs and chest; the ache in his back and shoulders. When he was straining to lift a barbell above his head for the fortieth time he didn’t think about Kirsty. He thought about the strain on his body; the bead of sweat that trickled down his forehead and hung above his eye, threatening to fall.
He wasn’t trying to make himself strong. He wasn’t preparing himself for a fight. He was just trying to stop himself thinking. Because thinking hurt too much.
Up, down. In, out. Back, forth. Push-ups, sit-ups, squat thrusts. Crunching his stomach muscles. Forth, back. Out, in. Down, up.
And repeat.
Sometimes he would drop a weight by accident, or fall onto the floor himself, and as the bang reverberated through the flat he would tense, hurting himself as he pulled his muscles inwards, trying to shrink, an animal instinct to hide taking over. He would crouch there in fear, waiting for the banging to start, or a knock at the door. Sometimes the banging came, the sound of a broom knocking against the ceiling, going on for perhaps ten minutes without pause. Sometimes nothing happened and, eventually, after sitting rock-still for five minutes, he would relax and wait for his muscles to stop cramping At such times, he always needed a cigarette. He lit up, inhaled, exhaled, flicked ash into an overflowing ashtray, a graveyard of cigarettes that he never emptied, filling the flat with a charred nicotine stink.
Up down in out back forth.
&nbs
p; Every day.
It was a mobile number. He wouldn’t have expected anything else. He imagined a bear-like man at the other end, cradling a tiny mobile phone in his huge paw. They would listen to him and laugh and put the phone down. But he wouldn’t give up. He knew he could persuade them to do it.
He held the receiver in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He dialled the number that Mike had given him and listened to it ring and ring. He expected it to cut to a voicemail message at any moment, but it kept ringing. He was about to put the phone down and try again – thinking there must be some technical problem at the other end – when the ringing ceased.
‘Hello?’
Jamie took a deep breath, and couldn’t think of what to say.
‘Hello?’ the man repeated, confused and a little irritated.
Jamie sensed that the man was about to cut him off. He panicked. ‘I need you to help me.’
‘This isn’t the Samaritans.’
‘No.’ Jamie spoke quickly. ‘I know who you are. You’re Charlie. I need you to help me deal with someone.’
There was a long pause at the other end. Jamie could hear the sound of machinery in the background; drills and JCBs, men talking, cars rushing by. Jamie thought he had been cut off, but then the man said, ‘Who is this? How did you get this number?’
‘A friend gave it to me.’
‘What friend?’
‘I can’t tell you.’
He heard the man suck in air through his teeth. ‘Put the phone down and I’ll call you back.’
‘But–’
The line went dead. Jamie waited. Five minutes passed – five long, long minutes of dread – before the phone rang. Jamie grabbed it, almost hitting himself in the face with it.
‘What do you mean “deal with”?’ the man asked. The background noise had gone. Jamie guessed the man had gone inside somewhere. He imagined him sitting in a car, or a portakabin in a scrap yard. His head was full of movie images: the safe world of movie violence, vicarious thrills for those who lived far from danger. Jamie felt himself to be part of that world now. It was more terrifying than he had ever suspected.