Turning Blue

by Benjamin Myers

  He walks up the aisle and through the lobby.

  A hand grabs him at the elbow and pulls him to one side. It is the thin man. It is Skelton. His lip twisted. Hair slicked. He guides him towards the door. To the stairs. To the cellar.

  To Hood.

  HE HAD TRIED travel. Brindle. Holidays. A few years back when he felt he still needed to make the effort. He’d take a week and just go. All-inclusive – alone.

  Two phrases that do not belong together.

  Once he went to Turkey then a few months later to a resort in Mexico. The Caribbean side. The Yucatán Peninsula. His Chief Supe told him to go. Forced him to take time off. Sort your head out he said. Go and drink cocktails from a pineapple and get your junk sucked he said. It’ll do you good.

  So he paid for an upgrade and they gave him the honeymoon suite with a fridge and tea-making facilities and air-con and an empty hot-tub on the balcony whose plug hole periodically gusted a faint smell of excrement. The hotel was populated by loud obese Americans and he regretted it immediately.

  Jet lag and the heat made him sluggish so he closed the curtains and sat in the dark and watched soap operas in Spanish. He ventured out only to gorge himself at the breakfast buffet then waddled back upstairs to his room with the pool-side view. He hated the sun. He was an Englishman. And a northerner at that. It didn’t feel natural to be out there. It tightened his skin so each day he waited until it had set before going back. To the dining room where the tea didn’t taste right and the vegetarian option was a wet omelette that looked like the by-product of something surgical.

  Once a day a maid came to empty his bin and refresh the mini-bar and leave a towel twisted into the shape of a swan until he tipped her and told her that she did not need to do his room for the rest of the week. She did not argue.

  He has not been abroad since. He has not had more than two continuous days off since.

  When he wakens on Christmas morning the room is freezing and Brindle doesn’t know where he is and Brindle is scared for a moment and then he remembers where he is and he isn’t scared any more – only very alone. There is a block of ice in his chest where his heart should be.

  THE DOOR CREAKS open. The top hinge needs fixing. A screw has fallen out.

  As he steps inside he feels that something is different. He shuts the door and the room rises and moves and reconfigures itself. Small new details confuse his line of vision. His understanding of the space. The dust motes on the window sill and the burns on the hearth rug from amber embers of years gone by and small drifts of ancient ash and the blistered varnish of the table and the tufts of sponge stuffing from the armchair appear to rise as one and move. The room ripples and flickers and oscillates and hums in a low malevolent register. Flies. Ten or fifty or one hundred thousand of them move and rearrange themselves then settle on the bare bulb settle on the horse brasses. They settle on the mullion lip settle on the poker handle on the curtain rail on the mug rim. They settle on the deflated half-plucked dead chickens in the corner. Their necks twisted. The pimpled white skin exposed. Rutter is out of grain and they have been dying off in batches; the weakest ones becoming victims to those with some fight left in them as they turned on each other. Rutter found five more yesterday. He brought them in intending to gut and boil or bake them but he can’t seem to do the necessary actions in the right order to make that happen. It seems too complicated a process. So now they are piled in the corner like dirty clothes. Bones and beaks held together by pitted skin and dried-out sinew.

  Then the room is still again. It settles. It is playing a trick on him. It is toying with him. Testing his senses. Rutter takes a step forward and the mad dance begins again. More movement. More flies. And all the while that noise – that hum – the sound of death; a symphonic rendering of decay and decomposition deterioration and dissolution and the death–life–death cycle wheeling forward forever feeding upon itself.

  He steps back and closes the door behind him and decides not to use that room any more.

  THE FIRST THING he sees down beneath the arches that night is two bodies on top of each on the floor. They are on a rug. They are writhing. No bras but their pants still on. Small tits. Barely any at all. The two girls are going at it while men mill around with drinks in their hands. The girls do not seem very enthusiastic but then a man bends over and gives one of them a kick and says go on girl put some elbow grease into it and then he nudges one of the other men and says elbow grease and they laugh and the other one says I’ll wear her like a glove later then she’ll know about it.

  Rutter recognises something about the first man but cannot place his face. Then he remembers: he is a newsreader on the local radio station. Rutter hears his voice every day. He is the flamboyant face of the station. In years to come he will move to London and smooth away his Yorkshire accent and rise up to become a correspondent – rumours will abound at the corporation about his suspiciously quick career-trajectory – before becoming a widely respected news reader who specialises in interviews with heavyweight politicians. But that was all to come.

  Again there are other men down there. Eight in all. Some are seated and others are standing watching.

  A halo of smoke hangs in the air and in the corner Larry Lister is watching and smoking a cheroot. His red hair is combed over to disguise the crescent of still-visible scalp below. He beckons Rutter.

  Go and see him says Skelton.

  Rutter walks over.

  The pigman he says. Enjoying the floor show son?

  It’s alright.

  It’s alright mimics Lister. Well I think it’s boring.

  Larry Lister is wearing a silk shirt that is unbuttoned to halfway down his hairless chest.. The shirt is straining against his stomach and his nipples are big – like a woman’s thinks Rutter. Larry Lister is also wearing sunglasses.

  Does Mr Hood want to see me?

  Mr Hood isn’t here.

  I thought he wanted to see me.

  Mr Hood doesn’t see people son. I want to see you. Have you not been given a drink?

  I don’t drink.

  Don’t drink? Cigar then?

  No says Rutter.

  Christ man says Lister is there anything you do? Oh yes – I remember what you’re into: one of the last taboos. Sure why not?

  Stuck for something to say Rutter says I’ve seen you on the telly.

  They say it adds seven pounds says Lister. What do you think?

  About what?

  Lister shakes his head.

  Never mind. My colleague Mr Hood asked me to ask you what you are doing tomorrow night.

  Tomorrow night?

  Yes.

  I don’t know says Rutter.

  Well I’ll tell you what you’re doing: you’re coming here at 2am and you’re doing as you are told like a good lad. It’s a special night is tomorrow. It’s film night.

  Film night?

  Yes. Film night.

  But it’s a cinema.

  Clever boy.

  There’s films on every night.

  Not like this one.

  Which one?

  Tomorrow’s film will be special.

  Rutter looks at Lister.

  Special cast says the TV presenter. Gripping finale. Invite-only.

  Famous people?

  I’ll be here. Aren’t I famous enough for you son? Anyway you’re not invited.

  But you said—

  I said you’re coming here at 2am. We’ll get you a room. Film night will be over so you just make sure you’re here when you’re meant to be. Bring your truck and keep your mouth shut. There’s work will need doing. You’re on clear-up.

  THE PHONE IS ringing. It seems always to be ringing. It is an aural drill boring holes into his hangover. He ignores it.

  Mace is on the sofa with his trousers snaked around his ankles. His penis is pasted to his belly.

  The room is freezing. He pulls the blanket over himself and remembers beer and remembers whisky and remembers something that was
blue and came in a thimble-sized glass and he thinks about trying not to be sick. The phone stops ringing. He unpeels himself.

  He looks around and sees signs of a disturbance; the aftermath of other people being here. He can’t remember who or why his trousers are down. There is a bitter taste in the back of his throat. It feels retched and wretched.

  It is – he thinks – just like the London days all over again.

  Then his mobile rings. Mace reaches over to the coffee table for it. He knocks over an empty beer can. Curled cigarette butts fall from it like the clippings from a horse’s hoof. There is a dribble of ashen residue. An acrid wet nicotine smell.

  It is his mother.

  He cannot face Christmas cheer – not now not even at arm’s length. No. Not now. Not yet. Not even from a distance of a hundred-odd miles. He will call her later when his tongue works and he feels a little less like he wants to cry or die or both.

  Roddy Mace looks around for water for something to drink for anything wet. There is nothing. The tap seems impossibly far away. He pulls the blanket over his head and thinks of cold water and what it feels like when it is swallowed – like mercury he thinks – and then he tries to go back to sleep but his mind is awake. It is doing its best to recreate the night. To piece it together. His head is a kettle boiled dry.

  He remembers Brindle. He remembers feeling odd in his presence. Strange. Almost – not mesmerised – but drunker than he knew he was at that early stage in the evening. It was his eyes. Fucking freaky. It was Brindle’s entire demeanour. The way he sat up straight and sipped his tea – tea in the Magnet on Christmas Eve for fuck’s sake – as if every movement was trained or considered and he didn’t care what anyone thought as all around him a town full of people got sloppy. And there in the corner he sat neat and buttoned-down with a haircut to match. Just looking. A stranger in a strange place emanating negative vibrations.

  There was something about him that made it hard to look away. Maybe it was the birthmark like a target inviting ridicule. That blood-red thing. Mace remembers an overwhelmingly compulsion to reach out and touch it. To put his tongue out and—

  The phone vibrates and then beeps in his hand. A text.

  MERRY CHRISTMAS LOVE FROM MUM AND DEAD.

  Mace remembers K2. The big lummox with the wet lips and the spittle flying. He remembers him telling him something significant.

  Mace reaches down for his trousers and rifles through the pockets. Coins fall out. A lighter. A depressingly old condom. He tries the other pocket and pulls out half a beer mat. Written on it are the words: OTHER GIRL – 20 YRS AGO – CAMPSITE – ‘THE NETWORK’. MASON / PINDER / RUTTER. THE SECRETS OF CONNECTED MEN. ARCHIVES?

  He lies back and thinks about how Brindle never blinks – maybe that’s what makes him seem so weird – and then the phone vibrates again. It is Dennis Grogan texting this time.

  Fucksake.

  POLICE RAID 2NIGHT. STEVE RUTTER’S. SECRET. SORRY NEED U THERE. BIG STORY.

  And then immediately afterwards:

  STICK TO BRINDLE LIKE GLUE (MERRY XMAS ETC ETC)

  What he wonders is it with old people and capitals.

  And why the fuck is he having to work on Christmas Day when they – the paper – are already responsible for him missing the festivities as it is. And therefore are responsible for this hangover. In a way. Not that he could face the family now. But still. It’s the principle.

  Mace texts back – TRIPLE OVERTIME? – and then he sits up and finds there are cigarettes still left in a packet on the table. He lights one and when he inhales it feels like a thousand tiny shards of glass filling his lungs and he knows that at some point in the next few minutes he will need to go and be sick. He drops the cigarette into the can and then pulls the blanket over his head. He thinks about fresh water slipping down his throat like mercury from a broken thermometer and pooling in his stomach. Cold and fresh and beautiful. Then he rolls over and is sick on the carpet that was laid several years before he was born.

  THEY PUT HIM in a nearby hotel room and he had never been in a hotel room and it made him nervous so he sat in a chair in the corner in the dark and when they were ready Mr Skelton called the room and said we’re ready and then he hung up and within three minutes he had his truck by the back door of the X and leaving the engine still running he knocked and Skelton let him in and then they went through the hatch to the cellars and they went into a room in the far corner and there was nobody down there and the air was warm and there was plastic sheeting on the floor and a tripod and cables and empty bottles and full ashtrays and a pile of clothes – a dress with sequins – and a pair of large Nike sneakers with a strange stain on them and a table with various alien-looking implements or toys or tools on it – strange clear plastic and Perspex cocklike things that didn’t compute – and Skelton pointed into the corner and Rutter didn’t flinch at what he saw and Skelton noticed this and then he said do it exactly the way we told you and he looked at Skelton and said now? and Skelton said yes now – get it out of here tonight and by morning I want it gone and then he grunted. Make Mr Hood happy said Skelton. Make Mr Lister happy.

  VALERIE PINDER GROANS and then shoves the broad back of her husband as it rises with the slow breathing of his deep sleep. Up and down. Like a hog she thinks. A fat hog. She shoves again.

  Roy.

  He does not respond.

  Roy. Phone.

  He had come in late stinking of booze and acting strangely. Her sister had been round helping her peel vegetables and do the last batch of mince pies and he had been rude to her. Said something cutting about her weight like he was one to talk about that. She had left under a storm cloud. Another Christmas Day of tension sat in front of them like a great polished black marble gravestone.

  The phone is ringing. She shoved him again. Hard this time. He jerks awake.

  Answer your fucking phone.

  He scrambles out of bed and takes his phone from the pocket of a pair of rumpled trousers that were kicked off in darkness.

  Hello?

  She is awake now. She listens to him listening. She long ago stopped believing that these phone calls and mysterious nocturnal disappearances were entirely work-related; long ago gave up believing that her husband Roy Pinder was the hardest-working man on the force. The man who held it all together. She has always known that he was involved in things but aren’t they all round here? She also knew that it was nothing as simple or straightforward as another woman and that comforted her in some strange small way. She never once suspected an affair.

  The light from the phone lit up his face and made him look sallow and demonic. It lit up the corner of the room in cold blue.

  Pinder grunted into the phone then said yes and then yes again and then it’s Christmas everything shuts down at Christmas and then he paused for a while and said yes of course of course I do.

  She noted he had that voice that was reserved only for these late-night unexpected calls – a tone of reticence and reverence and was it possibly even fear?

  He spoke again. He said tell him he won’t be a problem then there was another long pause before he said OK I’ll handle it and then rung off.

  Who was it? she asked when he climbed back under the duvet.

  No one – work stuff. Don’t worry about it.

  Are you in trouble?

  No.

  There was a long pause. The room was silent as they lay back-to-back both of them awake. Eyes staring into the dawn darkness.

  One day your secrets will get the better of you Roy she said but he didn’t reply.

  BLUE.

  She is turning. She is turning blue.

  Down in that drain. She is turning blue now.

  In that open-mouthed grave she is hardening and stiffening.

  The girl is turning blue before him. She is hardening she is stiffening.

  Her blood is clotting and her blood is coagulating and her blood is blackening. And the flies are laying.

  He wants to take her
home. Wants to light a fire and place her before it and wrap her in blankets and then massage her cold hard muscles.

  Blue does not suit her blue is not her colour because he prefers her as she was. Blue makes her more of an it and he does not want an it he wants a she a her a girl.

  She should stay the colour she was he thinks. She should stay with him.

  Stay here. With him. Up top.

  Him and her. Me and you. Together forever.

  Because he loves the girl. He knows this. He feels it. And he feels that the girl loves him. They should be together forever; this much is obvious to him.

  Together. Forever.

  She likes it here. He can tell. Things are easier this way. For the both of them. This way there are no arguments no disagreements no backchat. No disappointment. They have gone beyond conversation – beyond small talk – beyond all the awkwardness of the early stages of a relationship. He has freed her from everyday living; he has given her that power; no worries. No. No bills to pay. No. No parents no rules no nothing.

  Just him and her. Yes. No homework. No.

  No stupid boys and bitchy friends. No.

  It’s a gift really. The gift of not living.

  The gift of nothingness now.

  A gift from him.

  Steven Rutter.

  5

  HE IS OUTSIDE the Magnet when Bull Mason pulls down the front door’s deadbolts and opens up. It is just after 11am.

  Now then he nods.

  Roddy Mace shivers and nods back.

  Merry Christmas says Bull Mason.

  Is it?

  You’re keen says the landlord. I’m surprised you’re back so soon. I would have thought you’d still be mullered.

  I think I am. Are you still doing the Christmas dinners Bull?

  We are indeed. It’ll be a while yet mind but come in.

  Mace follows the landlord into his pub. The smell of it takes him straight back to the night before. To the pints and whiskies and the blue stuff in plastic tubes and the singing and someone putting him in a headlock and a snowball fight and a table of drinks being upended and laughter and two girls clawing at each other’s faces and pulling at each other’s hair until some of it came out in clumps and then later making lots of late-night phone calls to men whose numbers he has saved in his phone but whose faces he can’t remember. Men in London men in the city. Maybe a premium chat-line too. He’ll find out when his bill arrives. And he remembers meeting Brindle.