by Rhys Thomas
Sam just shook his head, thoughts jamming, and closed the door. He got changed and climbed into the attic with his portable radio, but sleep was not even a speck on the horizon. Even with the radio on, the voices in his head held sway, telling him how he was broken beyond repair, a freak, too much water under the bridge to ever recover.
He thought again about the radio show he’d heard when somebody said part of depression was the inability to see a future. Everything was going to fall apart again. He hated himself for how pathetic he was, how the attic was just allowing him to live on in self-pity. But here he was anyway, hiding out yet again, with the photograph in his hands.
It was probably a year after the plane crash, safely ensconced in his brand-new house, when a bubble-wrapped package had arrived on his hallway mat. Inside was the framed photograph of his parents, his dad with his arm around Sam’s shoulder and his mum smiling, her head tilted gently to one side so that a patch of golden sunlight fell on her cheek. In front of them Sally and Steve wore yellow rain macs and red wellington boots. Sam had his hand on top of Steve’s head.
It arrived out of nowhere, after all that time where he’d had nothing to remember them by.
He couldn’t recall the day it was taken. It was winter, maybe a Christmas holiday? They were standing in front of the family home. He remembered the twins being older and taller than the two kids in the picture. The photograph arrived with a short handwritten note, and Sam recalled that day in the hallway, rain battering the front of the house, the photograph in one hand and the note in the other, holding it up and feeling bereft. She’d seen him light the fire. An image of goodness, a glowing white hand reaching out in the darkness.
Just in case. Moira x
At his desk the next morning he kept his head down, the image of his name spelled out in a national newspaper still recurring every couple of seconds. And it wasn’t just about his name, it was how they wrote it: Vigilante street fighter. It wasn’t true and it wasn’t right. But what could he do? The feeling of injustice was the same fierce temperature that had made him want to be a superhero in the first place.
The atmosphere in work was weird, even if nobody said anything. He could feel a collective desperation for someone to pluck up the courage to mention it. The phone ringing made him jump.
‘Hello, is that Sam?’
It was a woman called Janice, a buyer who worked in the offices of a well-known Japanese electronics manufacturer.
‘Jan?’
‘Is it you in the paper? There can’t be that many Sam Holloways down your neck o’ the woods.’
She spoke like a seismograph registering an earthquake, up and down quickly.
He couldn’t speak. He always imagined Janice on the phone pulling a line of chewing gum from between clenched teeth. He could feel his face burning. How did brazen people always make him feel so unbalanced?
‘You there, Sam babes?’
‘Yeah, I got . . . I don’t know what you mean.’
‘You was in the Sun yesterday and the Express today. I think it’s cute.’
Jesus.
‘You can come and save me any time,’ and she let go a machine-gun laugh.
‘Did you want to order something?’
‘Order something? Naw, babes, I just wanted to speak to you. Not every day you find out you know a real-life superhero, is it?’
Silence drifted down the line.
‘Aw, I’ve embarrassed you, ain’t I? I’m sorry, babes, I’ll let you go, OK?’
‘OK.’
‘I’ll see you later, Sammy. I gotta order new panels soon.’
‘OK.’
He replaced the receiver very slowly and looked around the office to check if anyone had heard. He wished someone would make a joke and get it out the way. Every minute that passed he imagined the size of the separation growing, the prospect of someone asking about it getting more difficult.
He checked his phone and there was a text from Tango.
Community centre tomorrow night. Gaming all-nighter. COD. I need you there.
But still nothing from Sarah. He didn’t even know if she knew about any of this.
His eyes were fighting to stay open after having only two hours’ sleep the night before. The day was like a shovel being dragged across concrete. He checked the Internet and came across a story about the cargo ship that had sunk. He sat in his seat and stared at the screen. The crew member who had stolen the lifeboat, it transpired, was wanted for murder.
When he got home he noticed his landline answer machine blinking with a message. People used to call them ansaphones, now they call them voicemails, he thought. It was a journalist claiming to be from the Daily Mirror, requesting an interview to get Sam’s side of the story, and there was a possibility of payment. He deleted it.
The thought of Kabe and the people at Arcadia came into his head. What would they think of him? He’d never met people like them before, and after this he never would again. The urge to go out running called to him but he found himself unable to move from the sanctuary of the conservatory at the back of the house. When the telephone rang, as it did several times, he didn’t answer. The Facebook app on his phone registered thirty-seven notifications, so he deleted the app.
And all the while not a word from Sarah. He considered messaging her but couldn’t.
He wondered if he would ever be able to go running ever again. People would laugh at him and whisper about him as if he was the village idiot. Perhaps he should move away. Or emigrate to the Pacific North-West, to one of those sleepy little towns at the bottom of a mountain where the mist rolls in off the sea every day.
Images of all the happy times he’d had with Sarah flashed through his mind and he suddenly couldn’t work out why he hadn’t told her. She was such a good person – she didn’t deserve to be going out with such a fuck-up.
And then he realised something terrible. The night when he’d fallen off the truck. Blotchy had come to pick him up. It was suddenly obvious. Blotchy was the only person in the world who knew about the Phantasm.
He picked up his phone, deciding to message her, but at the exact same moment the phone buzzed.
It was a message from Sarah. It said, We need to talk.
Sure. Do you want to come over here? Everything OK? x
Can we meet in the pub? There was no kiss at the end of her text.
That was two texts with no kisses at the end. He trawled back through and pretty much every other message had an x at the end.
Sure. I’ll leave now. How was your day? Xxxx
He didn’t know why he was pretending to be so casual. She clearly knew. And why the pub? Why not one of their places? That she might not feel safe alone with him really hurt.
Through the window at the front of his house Sam watched a man walking his dog. He paused at a lamp post and took from his pocket an electronic cigarette. He hunched over to smoke it, feeling the cold, and Sam thought how sad the man looked, smoking his electric cigarette, having given up something he loved and not really being able to let it go, like a widower carrying around a photo of his dead wife.
As he pulled into the car park it felt like entering a trap. He had a quick flash of anger as he thought again of Blotchy’s level of betrayal.
Their favourite seat, in the corner by the fire, was taken so she was sitting at one of the centre tables. Sam hated sitting here because he felt exposed – he liked to sit with his back to a wall.
‘Hey,’ he said.
‘Hi.’
She didn’t smile and the expression on her face was cold.
‘Can I get you a drink?’ he said, even though she had a Coke in front of her.
‘No thanks.’ Her voice was small and flat.
‘I’m just going to get one, if that’s OK.’
‘You’re a big boy, Sam, you can do whatever you want.’
Every word was like a sliver of some dreadful element poisoning his stomach. She wasn’t giving him anything. All around him was the l
oud chatter of the customers, acting as if nothing was wrong, though he was sure a few of them were staring at him. He ordered his lager and went back to the table.
‘You should have told me,’ she said, right away.
‘I know. I’m sorry.’
‘Do you know how I found out?’
Sam didn’t respond.
‘Francis. OK? In work. Francis came over, acting all concerned, and told me all quietly and confidentially.’
Sam pictured this scene.
‘Do you know how I felt? Do you know what this feels like?’ she said. ‘I thought we had something special. I really did.’
‘We do.’
‘But we don’t, do we?’
She stared at him. This was worse than he could have imagined.
‘You know, I’m meeting Zac tomorrow. I wanted to show him how well I’m doing, how I’m moving on and improving my life, and now I’m going to look like a fucking idiot.’
This really hurt. She was embarrassed by him.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
She leaned forward and rubbed her brow.
‘I wanted to tell you,’ he lied. ‘It’s just . . . you know.’
‘What are the people in work going to say? Francis is bound to tell them.’
Truth be told, he thought she was being a little selfish and it put a spike in him.
‘It’s not such a big deal,’ he said.
‘Not a big deal? My job’s not a big deal? My moving to a new place to start over isn’t a big deal? We even talked about it. The Phantasm or whatever the fuck it is. We had a conversation about it. And you said nothing. How do you think that makes me feel?’
‘Bad.’
‘Yeah. It makes me feel bad.’
She shook her head slowly. ‘I’m sorry Sam, I’m just . . . having trouble. It’s not even the superhero thing . . .’
He found himself internally cringing when she said the word ‘superhero’; it sounded so absurd.
‘It’s the fact you couldn’t trust me.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to fuck up your life, your job.’ He thought he might start crying. ‘This isn’t what I wanted.’
‘What did you think was going to happen?’
‘I don’t know. I thought I would stop doing it. But . . . I don’t know. I couldn’t.’
Sarah sighed and piled the beer mats on the table together. ‘Why do you even do it?’
Sam wiped some of the condensation off his glass. ‘It’s how I keep my head together,’ he said, quietly and honestly. Across the table he thought he sensed a loosening in her. ‘I do it because it’s . . . like a bridge. To when I was last happy? When I was a kid.’ His hands locked around his pint glass. ‘After it happened, the . . . accident, and after I, you know, with all the photos, I had nothing linking me back to my family.’ Still not able to look her in the face, he nevertheless sensed a stillness descend on her. ‘Then one day I put on the costume . . . and was standing in front of the mirror . . . and everything was OK again. It just happened, and then I couldn’t stop. I was doing things. I was helping people. It became something more. I just . . . I know it’s ridiculous but—’ He stopped. ‘I’m so ashamed. I’m so happy now and,’ he felt his voice shake, ‘I don’t know why I still feel the need to do it, but I’m really scared because really, deep down . . . I think I might be crazy.’
‘What really happened to your face?’ she said.
‘I jumped off a lorry when it was going too fast.’
‘Jesus, Sam.’
‘It’s not that bad,’ he said.
Her body language bristled as he said this.
‘You lied to me, Sam. It is that bad. Is there anything else you’re hiding from me?’
‘What? No!’
‘You should tell me now.’
‘Sarah, I’ve told you things I’ve never told anybody.’
‘You can’t put shit like that on me, Sam. It’s not fair.’
She finished her Coke.
‘I need to go,’ she said. ‘It’s getting late.’
‘Sure,’ he said, his heart sinking. ‘Let me walk you to your car.’
‘No, it’s OK, just stay there.’
He got up anyway.
‘Sam, I said stay there. Just . . . give me some space, OK?’ She pulled her coat over her shoulders and untucked her hair from the collar. ‘I’ll speak to you tomorrow,’ she said, sweeping past him, not stopping to kiss, barely even looking at him.
Chapter Thirty
The meeting room was empty. The telephone had been brought from its usual place on the stationery cabinet to the big round table, its cable a white meandering river on the carpet. Rebecca smiled to him and closed the door, leaving him alone.
‘Hello, Sam?’ A woman, young-sounding. ‘This is Michelle from Human Solutions, your company’s HR company? Rebecca asked me to give you a quick call about how things are going.’
‘They’re fine,’ he said.
He tried to push away the image of Francis telling Sarah about the Phantasm.
‘I guess you must know why Rebecca called me.’
‘No.’
He thought he might have heard the silence of a secret line, another person listening in.
‘Oh, well, your . . . activities . . . outside of work. And how they might be affecting your performance . . . inside of work.’
What did his activities outside work have to do with Michelle from Human Solutions?
‘You know what I mean, I’m sure. Now, just to put your mind at rest, you’re not in any sort of trouble so you don’t have to worry about anything like that, OK?’
‘OK.’
‘It’s just that the job you do is high-pressured—’
Really?
‘—and Rebecca and your General Manager, Mr Okamatsu, are quite concerned about you, especially given your recent work performance.’
He imagined Mr Okamatsu’s reaction to being told Sam was a superhero and closed his eyes tight, pinching the bridge of his nose.
‘Our advice is to send you on a two-day course to get to the bottom of things.’
‘What kind of course?’
‘It’s a residential anger management course—’
‘What?’
‘It’s two days in a very calming setting and, just to make this clear, there is absolutely no mention here of it being mandatory. This isn’t a suspension. But it is highly recommended that you go. You can take the two days as annual leave. It could theoretically be taken as sick leave but you’d need a doctor’s note, and I think we can all agree that’s a little bit too official.’
‘I don’t want to use my annual leave on a stupid course.’
‘OK, Sam, there’s no need to use that tone with me.’
‘I’m not using a tone, I’m just saying that I don’t need to go on an anger management course. It’s stupid.’
‘Yes, but with respect, sometimes a person needs a guiding hand.’
‘It’s just,’ he said, careful to stay calm, ‘I don’t have much annual leave left.’
‘There’s also the option of unpaid leave.’
‘Are you serious?’
A pause. He imagined Michelle leaning over her desk.
‘We think you would benefit enormously from the course, and your company will foot the bill – that’s how much they value you as an employee. It’ll do you the world of good.’
‘I don’t need help. Look, I know I’ve done stupid things, OK? But I’ve got it under control. I’ll just keep working. It’ll be fine.’
The secret second line seemed to impart a pressure into the exchange. And that pressure, coupled with everything else, was crushing.
‘Well, Sam,’ said Michelle, her voice stronger now, ‘obviously, because of your personal circumstances, there are lots of things to consider. And really, everyone just wants the best for you.’
A burning up inside. It was all so stupid, typical over-the-top HR corporate procedural bullshit beca
use nobody was capable of acting like an adult any more. Why did people have to hide behind procedures, slip into business buzzwords to disguise what they were really doing? An anger management course was completely ridiculous. He simply never felt anger.
‘So it’s agreed, then? You’ll attend the course in a couple of weeks and see how you feel, and if you need further help your company will be happy to provide it. You really are a valued member of staff. They wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble if you weren’t. Well, it’s been nice talking with you, Sam, and I’m glad we’ve been able to hammer this out together.’
He placed the phone back in the cradle and wondered exactly what he was supposed to do next. Did everyone in the office know about this? They must think he was such an idiot. In that moment he was too shocked to feel the humiliation. He fired off a quick text to Sarah.
Hey. How you doing? Something funny just happened at work xx
Then he took the side exit from the room, trying not to think of her meeting up with Zac for coffee that afternoon, emerging into the dark corridor at the back of the building that led to the fire door one way and the warehouse the other. It was almost lunchtime, so he didn’t bother going back into the office and instead went out through the roller doors to his car.
When he got back, Mr Okamatsu’s gold Lexus was parked up – he was back from his business trip. There was a black crow sitting on top of the Lexus and this had to be a bad omen. He checked his phone – still no reply from Sarah. As Sam got out of his car into the freezing air his tender muscles seized and all his cuts started stinging again.
‘Sam,’ came a disembodied voice on the wind.
Sam looked around but there was nobody there. From where he was standing he could see right down the whole length of the building, where he spotted Mr Okamatsu peeping out, beckoning him. Tracking the side of the unit, exaggerating his limp, his feet crunched in the drainage gravel. This was going to be bad.
Without even mentioning the scab on his face, without saying anything about the superhero incident, Okamatsu led him in through the fire exit and back into the empty meeting room.
‘Sit.’
He felt weak. Mr Okamatsu eased himself into the chair opposite. It felt like the end of a film where the two nemeses discuss things civilly before an inevitable final battle.