by Steve Harris
‘OK, OK,’ he said.
‘If you go there, you’re not going to come back again,’ she said. ‘So don’t. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that it wouldn’t do any harm to sail down there after you leave here. I know that and I know why you’re thinking it. You’re thinking it because that’s what you’d do if you were a character in Black Rock. And since you aren’t a book character, don’t act like one. I don’t want a dead hero.’
‘I won’t go there. I promise. I’m not a book character, I’m real. Now, I think you ought to get some sleep,’ he suggested. ‘I’ll make you some tea first, then I’ll tuck you in until you’re snug and cosy. I’ll sit with you until you drop off to sleep.’
‘You can stay the night,’ she said. ‘If you want.’
‘I don’t want to cramp your style,’ he said. ‘Not yet anyway. And there’s stuff I have to do at home and I have to get up for work in the morning.’
‘But what about the door?’ she asked, wriggling beneath the tangled sheets. ‘You said it ought to be bolted. You can’t bolt it if you go home.’
‘Give me your key,’ he said. ‘And on my way out I’ll double lock the door, so no one can get in, then I’ll post it back through the letter box.’
‘You can take the spare,’ she said. ‘It’s on the hook in the kitchen. And you can keep it too.’
James got off the bed and began straightening out the sheets for her. ‘No, I’ll only lose it if I keep it.’
S’n’J was deep in a dreamless sleep when he came back into the room. She felt his gentle touch on her face and it seemed like it was happening to someone else about a million miles away from here. ‘Hmmm?’ she heard herself murmur. She felt safe and secure in her bed.
‘Wakey, wakey. Tea and toast,’ he said.
‘OK Philip,’ she sighed.
And inside a second she was awake and bolt upright, her heart beating out a tattoo on her rib cage, and all her muscles tensed as if to fight.
‘Whatever’s wrong?’ James said.
Then jumped back when she screamed.
Several seconds passed before S’n’J realized she had neither woken up in Philip Winter’s work-room, nor just run out of Black Rock and into his arms. The confusion she normally felt during the transition from sleep to wakefulness had turned into something akin to a nightmare. She’d heard her voice use the name Philip and it had been compounded by James’ use of Philip Winter’s own words, ‘Whatever’s wrong?’
‘I’m sorry,’ she panted, when she finally knew where she was. ‘You made me jump. I don’t normally wake up screaming.’
‘I’m glad to hear that.’
‘I didn’t know where I was for a few seconds. I thought I was…’
‘I know where you thought you were,’ he said, taking her hand and squeezing it gently. ‘It’s only to be expected and it doesn’t matter. Come here and let me cuddle you.’
When she’d calmed, she let him tear up pieces of toast and feed them to her and hold her tea mug to her lips while she sipped. The last time anyone had done that for her, she’d been a poorly little girl and the person feeding her had been her mother. S’n’J began to feel very small and very secure. And for the second time that evening she told herself she was falling in love.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
‘All part of the service, madam,’ he replied. ‘Now I’ll sit with you until you drop off again. Then I’ll go. I presume a bedtime story is not required?’
She made a face at him.
James hauled her up to him and held her tight.
It was all too good to be true.
‘You’re not in on this, are you?’ she murmured into his chest. Tell me that.’
‘There isn’t anything to be in to, and if there was, and I was in it, I’d be out again after tonight. I wouldn’t see anyone do anything nasty to you. They’d have to kill me first.’
‘Don’t say that,’ she said. ‘Just don’t say that.’
And James didn’t.
After a while, S’n’J’s eyes grew heavy and she allowed them to close. A while after that she became dimly aware that he was gently putting her back down on the bed. She felt his gentle hands adjusting the covers, then she felt his tender lips caress her nose and heard him whisper goodbye in a voice so soft it was barely audible. And as she sailed into the darkness, she heard the front door creak open, creak closed, a rattle of the key going into the lock and turning and the tiny metallic sound as it was deposited through the letter box.
Goodbye, James, she thought.
16 - Billy-Joe’s Demise
While S’n’J and James were sitting in a bedroom in Bude discussing Black Rock, Janie Sanderson was sitting in a pub called the Tinderbox in Bracknell feeling rather like a piece of tinder herself - as if the merest spark would turn her into a human torch.
Janie knew she wouldn’t just be able to waltz in, say, ‘Hiya Billy-Joe, just putting a few things in an overnight bag because I’m going away for a while,’ collect her stuff and walk out again, because if she said something like that she would find herself unable to walk out again.
So when the train arrived at Bracknell station, she had gone into the pub to wait for that magic time of the evening when Billy-Joe went into the lounge, turned on the television, collapsed into his armchair and fell into a drunken sleep. This would last from around eight to about ten, when he would wake up either gloomy and despondent or hyped-up and looking for trouble. As soon as his sleeping time arrived, she would sneak in, pick up a few things, get her car keys, and sneak out again.
Except that you won’t have to sneak at all, she told herself, bitterly. You could go in blowing a trumpet at the head of a marching band and Billy-]oe wouldn’t stir.
Janie didn’t yet know where she intended to escape to. She’d thought of phoning her parents and hadn’t done it. For one reason, they were in Corby, which was a hell of drive, and for another, she didn’t want to have to tell them her marriage had failed in a big way.
She’d thought of going down to Bude to stay with Drezy, but it was another very long drive and although she thought she’d be welcome and had stayed there before, she suspected that Martin would be getting in his Ferrari and going down there tonight and she’d had quite enough of him for one day.
It’s that magical time, she told herself, looking at her watch and trying to pretend that the thought of going home didn’t fill her with dread.
Twenty minutes later she was still trying to pretend the very same thing as she sat on the bus drawing nearer to her home every second. Resilience, that’s what you have that good old Billy-]oe doesn’t, she assured herself. Fortitude, toughness, tenacity, courage … Christ I’m turning into a walking Roget’s Thesaurus and that’s what years of being an editor does to you.
It wasn’t until the bus drew near her stop that Janie realized her wordy litany had been a simple device to keep her mind free of thoughts of what might happen when she got home.
But she had backbone, mettle and moral fibre and a certa
in amount of alcohol in her bloodstream and she wanted something similar to what the Pope said he wanted when he visited Northern Ireland: Nohw mooore bloowd-shad. And she was going to have no more blood-shed, whether Billy-Joe liked it or not. And if blood had to be spilled to achieve this seemingly impossible state, it wouldn’t be just her blood. This woman was going to fight back.
Outside her front door, Janie paused and took a deep breath which made her head spin. Her VW Golf stood on the drive and if Janie’s car keys had been in her handbag she might have just got in it and gone, without even collecting any of the other things she wanted. But while she was at work, Billy-Joe had the keys to the car.
Janie only hoped that the keys weren’t in his trouser pocket.
Her heart racing, she found her keys and slotted the Yale into the door, trying to keep it as quiet as possible. She pushed open the door and went inside. The television was on in the lounge.
Now all you have to do is open the lounge door and see what tonight’s prize is. Will it be the star prize, a sleeping Billy-Joe, or will it be the booby prize, a Billy-Joe who’s awake?
But as her hand hovered over the door handle, Janie had a better idea. Instead of opening the door and finding out the worst, she would first visit the kitchen. If the news was going to be bad when she went into the lounge, she intended to be prepared for it. Somewhere in the kitchen was that most cliched of wifey weapons, the deadly rolling-pin. As endorsed by Sarah-Jane Dresden.
The wooden rolling-pin felt very light in her hand and a lot less like a weapon than she’d anticipated. It feels just like a rolling-pin, actually, she told herself, holding it up by the handle, waving it from side to side. You could probably hit someone quite hard with one of these and it wouldn’t do as much damage as, say, a hatchet handle. And the looseness of the roller would probably absorb some of the impact.
But not too much, I hope, she thought, realizing for the first time that she really did intend to use it if necessary.
You won’t have to anyway, she assured herself. He’s dead to the world in there, or he would have already been out here wanting to know where you’d been until this time of night. All you have to do is pack your bags and do as the shepherds say: get the flock out of here.
It was going to be easy.
Except that when she reached for the key-hook where her VW keys dangled on a black leather VW fob, her fingers came away bearing nothing but the imprint of an empty hook.
‘Where are they then?’ she muttered darkly, knowing exactly where they would be.
In his bloody trouser pocket, of course!
Things had been going so well until now that she’d expected to make her escape without disturbing Billy-Joe. The prospect of having to use the rolling-pin on him had seemed delightful while there was almost no chance of it turning into reality. It didn’t sound like quite so much fun now that it had.
You could bop him with it while he’s still asleep, she thought grimly, then decided that it might only wake him up.
She had no idea how hard you had to strike someone in order to render them unconscious.
Pretty hard, she imagined, but she was equally uncertain about what might constitute the difference in force between a knockout blow and a killing blow. And she didn’t particularly want to murder him.
Worry about it when it happens, she thought. Just get on and pack your bags. Pack your bags, take ‘em outside and if Billy-Joe wakes up when you go for the keys, just tell him you wanted to go to the chip-shop because you couldn’t be bothered to cook tonight. He’ll believe that and give you the keys, you go outside, unlock the car, put the bags in and drive off. Bob’s your uncle and Fanny’s your aunt. No problem, as they say in Europe.
It only took ten minutes to gather together enough clothes to survive a nuclear winter, her lap-top computer, her bubble-jet printer, her make-up, her wash kit and the manuscripts she’d been working on at home. Ten minutes after that, it was all packed into two suitcases and two bags and five minutes later it was all outside on the drive beside her car.
And Billy-Joe hadn’t stirred.
Janie punched the air in triumph as she came back inside the house and quietly closed the front door behind her. All she had to do now was to take the car keys from her husband’s trouser pocket.
He’ll wake up, she told herself. You know he will.
But things had been going so well that to admit the possibility of this happening seemed a little paranoid.
There was one more thing to do before she went in the lounge to get the keys. She had to write him a note. He didn’t deserve it, but she was going to write it so that when he woke up he’d know she wanted him out of the house. Otherwise Billy-Joe would just stay there and vegetate, not knowing where she’d gone and not caring.
Dear Billy, she wrote on her notepad and then got writer’s block. Cursing, she gave up trying to think in a literary fashion and quickly jotted down the words of a wronged wife, ending with, I intend to make a complaint to the police and to have my injuries photographed. It’s my mortgage, and I want you out of the house by the end of the weekend. You re no longer welcome here. You no longer have a wife or a place to live. So get out!
This made her feel a great deal better about herself. As if she was reasserting her own personality after years of pretending to be the woman her husband expected her to be. She signed the note: Your loving ex-wifey, Janie. XX. And grinned fiercely to herself as she folded it. She would leave the note on the arm of the chair in which Billy-Joe was fast asleep.
Now all we have to do, my fine Janie, is get the car keys and get outta here! she told herself as she went back up the hall. All her troubles were going to be solved in one fell swoop.
Clutching the rolling-pin to her she opened the lounge door. And froze in her tracks. Anyone watching would have seen that she was swaying slightly, like a woman who has suddenly found herself standing on a very narrow ledge a great distance above the ground.
And someone was watching.
Because Billy wasn’t in his chair, sleeping peacefully.
He was sat smack in the middle of the sofa, facing the door.
‘Hiya babe,’ he said, grinning. ‘You looking for these?’
The cold smack of shock that stung Janie had entered her body through her pores and was now slipping silently through her nervous system, shutting it down. She was unable to move.
She watched Billy-Joe’s left hand as it moved from side to side, swinging her car keys by the leather fob. He was wearing a tee-shirt and for the first time in months, Janie became aware of the actual size and definition of the muscles in his forearms and biceps. Half-hypnotized, she watched those muscles slide and bulge.
‘Hey babe, what’s that you’re carrying?’ he asked brightly. There was no trace in his voice of the slur she knew and loathed so well. Billy-Joe had chosen today - of all days - to stay sober.
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‘What?’ she heard herself say in a tiny, shocked voice.
Inwardly she was thinking: Turn around and run for it. You’re going to prove nothing by staying any longer. You can get someone else to pick up your stuff, so just get out of here. You’ve failed.
But there was another part of her - the tenacious part -which had other ideas.
There are the keys, it told her. All you have to do is whip them out of his hand and run.
‘In your hand,’ Billy-Joe said. ‘What’s that you’ve got in your hand? Not the rolling-pin, I know what that is. It’s the little white piece of paper in your right hand that I’m interested in. What is it, babe? Not a goodbye note, surely? You ain’t intending to leave your old pot and pan, are you? Let me see it, lover.’
‘Don’t!’ Janie heard herself warn.
‘Don’t what?’ Billy-Joe asked, still swinging the keys. ‘I asked my wife a civil question, to which I would expect a civil reply. I don’t recall saying I was going to do anything. Show me your piece of paper, babe.’
Janie shook her head. She could almost feel the ice cracking as her muscles and tendons moved.
‘Don’t make me come and get it, babe,’ Billy-Joe said. ‘That’ll only make things worse. Do you understand what I’m saying?’ He frowned at her for a few seconds, in a parody of thinking. Then he added, ‘I’m not sure you’re currently able to speak, for some unknown reason, so just nod or shake your head in reply. That suit you?’
Janie nodded. She didn’t want to, but she did it anyway.
‘Is that little white piece of paper in your right hand a goodbye note?’
Janie shook her head.
‘OK, babe, if it ain’t a goodbye note, then why have you just spent the better part of half an hour packing your stuff and carting it outside? You know what I think? I think you were going to run out on me tonight. I’ve been expecting it since last night when you laughed at me. You did laugh at your old man last night, didn’t you? Yeah, you did! No point in shaking your head like that, ‘cause I have total recall. I wanted to make love and you gave me that old look of disdain and laughed at me. “Billy,” you said, “You can’t fuck me ‘cause you can’t make your Peter perk up.” Ain’t that what you said?’