Donor, The

by FitzGerald, Helen

  Heath, now a little drunk, and angry at how they had dismissed him so coldly, listened to the chat about orchestras and yawned. Boring bastards. How’d he produced such boring bastards? Boring and cruel. Eventually, Kay and her boyfriend smiled, stood, and left. As they disappeared down the street, both Heath and Georgie saw them link hands. Gloomy Georgie girl smiled.

  ‘You want a drink?’ Heath asked her, standing over the table again.

  ‘No thanks,’ she said. She still had no idea who he was. Hadn’t she seen him in the news? Maybe. He’d gained two stone since then, Heath supposed, and gotten older. He didn’t look the same as he used to, but was he so different? He still had it, didn’t he?

  ‘Oh go on, just one. Your private conversation is over now, isn’t it? We could have a chat,’ he said.

  ‘Just fuck off, will you?’ she snapped.

  ‘What did you say to me?’ Heath said. He glared at her. This was her last chance. What she said next would determine her sister’s future.

  ‘I said fuck off, will you. And now I’m saying fuck off again. You stink, and you’re a creep.’

  Heath smiled, then laughed. To think he was going to help these arseholes (did he ever intend to, really?). What was so special about them? Why be attached to these particular sperm?

  ‘What are you laughing at, weirdo?’

  ‘Your sister’s gonna be mad with you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You just sealed her fate.’

  Georgie snarled then walked off. Probably assumed he was going to kill her there and then, rather than kill her sister there and then, indirectly.

  What next? He hadn’t enjoyed a good mugging in a while.

  Three pints later and Heath had found his victim. A pretty lad who thought he was funny. Had three girls laughing at the bar, not realising it was only ’cause he was buying them drinks with all his pretty money. Heath followed him into the toilets. Nothing too fancy, he thought. Just a good simple:

  Punch in the face

  Kick in the balls

  Punch in the face

  Kick in the shins

  Kick kick kick all over, on the floor.

  Nice wallet. Nice and full, funny pretty guy. See how the girls at the bar like you now.

  Heath took the wallet and left the Merchant City bar glowing. Tonight was to be his last night in the UK. He’d leave tomorrow, with Cynthia of course. What next?

  The prostitutes on Glasgow Green had either gotten older and uglier or he’d forgotten how talentless the city was. He bought two with some of the pretty boy’s money, took them to a room in a cheap hotel and ordered them to:

  Stand over me

  Other one, you, this in your mouth

  Now sit

  Bend

  Lick

  Now just fucking lie there, bitches. The relief in his balls was palpable. He felt happy. The only thing that’d make him happier was the love of his life, his wife-to-be, who would also have heroin waiting for him.

  Ah.

  *

  The night was going well. Heath could really celebrate now. He didn’t have to worry about some stupid promise to the poofter and the Parole Board. He got a taxi to Govanhill, walked up the shitey close and into the shitey flat she’d arranged for his release.

  The door wasn’t locked. He walked into the hall, into the lounge, and looked upon her. The love of his life. The exciting, dangerous, Cynthia.

  ‘What the fuck have you done to yourself?’ he asked. She was sprawled on the sofa, wearing a T-shirt and old grey underpants.

  ‘Heath!’ she said. ‘Come here!’

  He sat beside her. God, if she was the earner, they were screwed. He’d certainly have to put the price down.

  ‘Did you get some gear?’

  ‘I did. I did, honey. But you took so long! Where have you been?’

  She’d fucking used all the gear.

  ‘You used it all?’

  ‘I’m sorry, honey. No, I didn’t use it! Will took it. Where were you?’

  ‘Will took it?’

  ‘Yeah, he came this morning. Just took it. Said to tell you it was his insurance policy.’

  ‘Open your eyes,’ he said, grabbing her by the chin. ‘Open your fucking eyes. How can you be sorry with your eyes closed?’

  She tried very hard and they did open a little.

  ‘I ask you to do one thing. One thing!’ He tossed her head down, stood over her, took off his belt and began to hit her with it so that, eventually, she looked much sorrier.

  51

  Will checked with the governor and was told that Heath had been released that day. Tomorrow, then, they would meet. Till that time, he avoided the girls, staying in the hotel room, thinking. He called them so they wouldn’t worry. Said the tests were still underway, no news yet, and that he was chilling with Si for a bit. They seemed happy for him. ‘Have some fun!’ Georgie said. ‘We’re going to try that too. We’re going to head into town today. And tomorrow we’re off to the beach.’

  When they were out, Will visited Cynthia and took the heroin she had bought for Heath, knowing he would definitely come to the house as planned if this was the case. He then slipped into the house and rifled through an old box of videotapes until he found the one Cynthia had sent him all those years ago. In the loft was an old video player; he took that too. Wine in hand, he played the tape back in the hotel room.

  *

  The bathroom door is open. Will is taking a morning piss. From a slightly hairy bum he squeezes a fart, as he usually does, interrupting the flow only slightly.

  He’s channel flicking. The babies are crying but he doesn’t seem to notice …

  He’s saying, ‘Hello, gorgeous!’

  ‘What do you love about me?’ she’s asking from behind the lens.

  ‘Um …’ he says. ‘Everything.’

  ‘No, what, exactly, specifically?’ she asks.

  ‘All of you. You’re great,’ he says.

  He’s turning the music down, then up a bit, then down a bit.

  He’s reading the arts section then nodding at it, then shaking his head at it …

  ‘Hello, gorgeous,’ he’s saying.

  ‘Talk to me,’ she says. ‘Tell me something.’

  ‘Um … What would you like to talk about?’ he replies. ‘What would you like me to tell you?’ …

  Farting over the toilet again.

  Channel flicking again …

  *

  How many times did he watch the film? A dozen? It was morning before he thought that maybe he should stop.

  Morning before he realised that this was not him any more, this indecisive man, this scared, malleable piece of inaction.

  Morning. The girls were going out today, they’d said, to the beach.

  It was time to get dressed.

  Time to act.

  52

  Kay and I arranged to meet Graham at the train station in town then head to Largs for a day of fresh air and no hospitals. I was a block from home when I remembered I’d forgotten my hospital-only phone. ‘I’ll run back and get it. Tell you what, meet you in town. I’ll call when I’m on the train,’ I said.

  I knew there was something strange as soon as I opened the door. A bang coming from the office. Our mail strewn across the hallway. Dad was in Edinburgh with Si. Kay was on her way to the train station.

  Someone was in the house.

  I walked to the kitchen, quietly slid our largest knife from its wooden block and looked for the phone in the hall – the base was there, but the handset was missing. Where the hell was the phone? I tiptoed towards the office.

  The door was open slightly. I peered in. The man from the pub yesterday was going through the papers on my father’s desk.

  I opened the door.

  ‘Who are you?’

  The huge lug turned towards me and smiled. ‘Oh, hi. Georgie, isn’t it!’

  ‘Who the fuck are you? And what are you doing in my house?’

  He moved towards
me, not scared by the knife in my hand. ‘Now, now, why don’t you just give me that,’ he said.

  I gripped the handle tightly. ‘Get out of this house or I’ll stab you.’

  He kept moving towards me till the knife was actually touching his chest. ‘You want to know who I am?’

  ‘I want you to get out or I will push this into your heart.’

  ‘My name is Heath Jones. And my heart is on the other side of my chest.’

  My grip loosened. I moved it to the right. Heath Jones. My mother’s lover. Of course. Under that flabby face was the tough murderer I’d seen in the newspaper article.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I want my stuff.’

  ‘What stuff?’

  ‘Heroin. Drugs. The poofter stole it from your mummy. It’s mine.’

  I moved to the filing cabinet and looked in M for money. I grabbed the emergency envelope. Handing him the money, I said, ‘I don’t have drugs. This is the only money we have. Take it and go.’

  He put the envelope in his pocket, but he didn’t go. He moved towards me again, smiling.

  ‘I said go!’

  ‘Now, now, no need to be so grumpy. Why are you so grumpy? Must come from your mother.’

  ‘Get out!’ I yelled, but my grip on the knife was loosening again. My hands were sweaty. I looked around the room – where was the phone? I needed to dial 999.

  ‘You want me to tell you who I am, who I really am?’

  ‘I don’t give a fuck. I just want you to leave. NOW!’

  ‘I’m your daddy, Georgie. You want to give Daddy a hug?’

  ‘Get out,’ I said, not listening to his nonsense.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ he said, grabbing the knife so quickly I hardly realised he’d done it, then pushing me against the wall. The knife was now at my chest. His arm was pushing against my throat. I couldn’t breathe. I kicked him as hard as I could but he didn’t seem to feel it. I pulled his hair. Didn’t stop him. I couldn’t do it any more anyway. My brain couldn’t get messages to my limbs. My eyes were bulging. He looked into them. He seemed to like the look of my bulging eyes.

  ‘It’s true. Isn’t that funny? I’m your father.’

  ‘Bullshit!’ The word was barely audible. God, he was killing me. I was going to die. Everything in the room was blurry. I managed one more kick, right in the balls. He winced a little, but that was all.

  ‘It’s true, little Georgie. I just found out. I’m over the moon. I’m your daddy!’

  ‘Bullshit!’ I rasped again, knowing this was the last word I would be able to muster.

  ‘It is true,’ I heard, as everything started to go dark. But these two words didn’t come from the guy who was killing me.

  They came from the man standing in the doorway.

  My real father.

  Will Marion.

  53

  Will had never done anything bad in his whole life, bar the drunken pros and cons list in his notebook. Now, he was going to do something very bad indeed. He was going to kill a man.

  What luck, that he’d retrieved his gun earlier that day, almost as an afterthought, having rifled through videos, knowing it was dangerous leaving it in the house with the girls and that he might need to have it on him to convince the prick to go along to the hospital.

  What luck, having worked it all out the way he had.

  Firearms: 8/10.

  Luck, too, that he had researched how to use the gun (7a).

  Had decided where to aim (7b), in the head, right temple.

  Had determined to do it at home (7c).

  Knew an ambulance would arrive within twenty-two minutes of the call.

  Not so lucky that his daughter would witness it. But the bastard was trying to kill her. She had stopped moving.

  Will moved towards Heath and placed the gun at his right temple. ‘Let go of her now,’ he said.

  Heath did as he was told, dropping Georgie to the floor. She coughed, spluttered, sat up.

  ‘Georgie, move out of the way,’ Will said.

  Will shouldn’t have watched Georgie drag herself towards the door, hoping, praying that she was all right. He’d taken his eye off the ball, and Heath had grabbed the metal spike from the desk and tried to plunge it into his chest.

  Will was quick, though. He shielded his chest with his left hand. The metal spike went right through it, stopping a millimetre short of his chest at the other end. Eighty or so defunct pieces of paper with lists of things to never do were now attached to the palm of Will’s left hand.

  Unfortunately, the shock had made him drop the gun from his other hand. The weapon hurtled across the room and under the sofa bed. Heath lunged to the floor, trying to reach it.

  Will put the end of the spike on the ground, and pushed his hand down as hard as he could so it moved down the spike with a painfully slow, moist scrape. Eventually, his hand reached the floor and he pulled the metal base out. He shook the pieces of paper from his bloody hand – pieces of paper with lists that represented the man he used to be, the man who never did anything. Grabbing the spike at its base, he lunged towards Heath, who was still trying to reach the gun under the sofa bed. His head was at knee height. With an animal roar, Will plunged the ten-inch metal spike into Heath’s right temple. He stopped when he realised what he’d done. Heath stopped too, placing his hand on his head, fumbling about. Had this really happened? Was there a stick in his head?

  He looked at Will for confirmation. ‘What is that? Is there something in my head? What have you done? Tell me what that is!’

  Will’s hand was no longer holding the base of the spike. He looked at the man kneeling before him, who was still very much alive. He looked at the spike. Two inches had disappeared into his thick skull.

  ‘You know what I’ve done? I’ve started something …’

  Will kicked Heath so he fell onto the floor on his side. Placing his foot on the base of the metal spike, he looked Heath in the eye and said, ‘And now I’m going to finish it.’ He pressed his foot on the base, pushed with all his might, eyes on Heath’s, unflinching, until the spear exited the other temple and pressed into the underfelt of the carpet.

  Why was he still breathing? Will thought, when he’s impaled on a spike from temple to temple? How was he still speaking? Pleading, hand out to Georgie? ‘Georgie … Help me. Help your daddy. I’m your father. You’re my own flesh and blood.’

  Georgie paused, watching the man weaken, watching him die. ‘No you’re not,’ she said, reaching under the sofa for the gun and handing it to Will.

  ‘This man is my father.’

  *

  There was no need for the gun. The spike had done the job. Heath stopped talking, expression faded from his eyes, blood dribbled from his mouth, his ears, his temples. A spasm, a gurgle, a loosening. He closed his eyes, and stopped breathing.

  Will looked at his daughter. ‘I’m sorry, Georgie. I’m sorry.’

  Neither of them could avert their eyes from the dead man on the ground. What had Will done? He had killed someone.

  Georgie leant down and checked Heath’s pulse. Nothing. She touched his cheek, as if she hoped to feel something, some sadness at the loss of this man, but quickly retrieved her hand. She felt nothing. She stood and looked at Will, who seemed catatonic.

  ‘You’ll go to jail, Dad. I don’t want you to go to jail,’ Georgie said. He didn’t respond. She grabbed his shoulders, shook them. ‘Dad! Listen, you can’t go to jail!’

  Her words hurled him back to reality. He shook his head, clearing the debris.

  ‘Right. I won’t. Now listen to me. He killed himself,’ Will said, putting the gun to one side.

  ‘With that?’ she said, looking at the spike. ‘That’s ridiculous.’

  ‘No,’ Will said, standing over Heath’s dead head and grabbing the base of the spike. It exited the temple with a sucking hiss. Will picked up the gun, wiped it clean with his T-shirt and placed it in Heath’s hand. Turning to Georgie, he said, ‘Don’t loo
k. Leave!’

  Georgie didn’t move. What could be worse than what she’d already seen?

  ‘I said OUT! Now, Georgie!’

  She backed out of the room, shut the door, slid down behind it, her head in her hands.

  A moment later, Will placed Heath’s body on its side on the blood-soaked carpet, positioned the gun against his right temple, checking the angle was correct and would make the same journey as the spike. He took a deep breath and pressed Heath’s fingers hard against the trigger.

  The noise made Georgie jump, and then scream, and then sob.

  *

  It was a few minutes later when Will tried to open the office door. ‘Georgie, let me out. Move away from the door!’

  She crawled forward so her father could get out of the office. Will opened the door and kneeled in front of her.

  ‘G, it’s okay. Keep your cool. I’m going to clean up. You’re going to write a suicide note.’

  ‘But … How? I don’t know his handwriting.’

  Will handed her Heath’s iPhone. ‘This was in his pocket. Do a text. Don’t make it too clever. Clean your fingerprints after. Rub his fingers with it, send it to Mr Jamieson. I’ve put the number in his contacts. You understand? Tell the doctors to get here. Then put it next to him and wash yourself. Can you do that?’

  ‘I can.’

  ‘When you have, we’ll get hold of Kay.’

  54

  ‘Bessie up or down?’ Will said, palm down on the new dining table in their recently renovated kitchen. All three looked different. There was no yellow in the girls; no sadness in Will. Kay’s hair was several inches longer. Georgie had dyed hers black.

  ‘Down,’ Georgie said.

  Will lifted his hand slowly. Lizzie was indeed down.

  ‘Ha!’ Georgie said.

  ‘So where do you want to go?’ Will asked.

  ‘You know where? To the sofa. I want the three of us to watch your new film and eat crisps … for a whole week!’