by David Mark
‘Burn it off?’
‘Sorry, I forget you’re the same age as my socks. You save it to disk, then you can put the disk in one of these delightful old things called a CD player.’ He taps the dashboard, home to his own stereo system. ‘Bit of Curtis Mayfield by way of Madness and Echo and the Bunnymen in there, I think.’
Betsy doesn’t reply. Something in her mind is uncoiling itself. She winds the window up and notices that they have passed through the town centre and have reached the big, brightly lit rectangle of the hospital. ‘Having me surgically removed, are you?’ asks Betsy.
He takes a ticket from the machine and swings into the car park, nudging the boxy old 4 x 4 into a space. ‘Repeat prescriptions,’ he says.
‘Prescriptions,’ smiles Betsy. ‘Prescriptions, prescriptions … can I stop now?’
He grins at her. Can’t seem to resist her. Leans in and kisses her, hungrily, damply. ‘You coming in?’ he asks, as they part. ‘It can take an age.’
Betsy nods. They climb down from the car and step into the gale. He takes her hand, automatically, fingers intertwining, and they run across the forecourt, rain bouncing up almost to their knees. They reach the big glass awning and shake the raindrops from their clothes and hair. Betsy makes him laugh, shaking herself like a damp dog.
She follows him in to the pharmacy in the entranceway: bright and white and clearly designed to resemble the inside of a fridge. There’s a queue of damp, mouldering pensioners inside the pharmacy, waiting in line at the till. More sit in the soggy school chairs at the centre of the square space, wiping raindrops from spectacles with the hems of pleated skirts or doing battle with mobile phones, sending dramatic messages to loved ones declaring themselves safe despite the tempest.
‘Ah shite,’ mutters Jude, miserably. ‘Why don’t they ever have enough staff? There’s a coffee shop down towards A & E. Do you want to go get something? This is going to be painful.’
‘What is it you’re getting?’ asks Betsy, taking the fiver that he has extricated from the pocket of his tatty jacket.
‘My prescription,’ he says. ‘Oh sorry, what is it for? Venlafaxine. 225 mg. My happy pills.’
‘Happy pills?’
‘Don’t worry, they’re not to suppress my inner psycho. I just get dark episodes sometimes. These keep me from sinking into the swamp, y’know?’
Betsy gives him a tight smile and hurries off down the huge, empty corridor. He’s on depression medication, she tells herself. He’s got mental health issues of his own. He’s still grieving his wife – his perfect, mixtape-making wife. He doesn’t need you on top of all this …
She sees him just before he sees her. Mick. The lump who’d thrown a dead ram into the beck. Fading bruises on his forehead, as if he’s had horns snapped off. He’s got his arm folded across his front, a sling holding it in place like a wing, and he’s the unhealthy grey colour of somebody enduring a good deal of pain. He grimaces, and Betsy sees that he has cotton balls wedged, bloodily, in a gap in the top row of teeth.
He doesn’t know you, she tells herself. Just keep walking.
She puts her head down. Carries on, her heart racing.
‘Ere, boyo, hold on, daft lad.’
Another man emerges from the mouth of A & E. He’s slimmer than Mick at the waist but bigger at the shoulders and neck. He’s got big arms beneath a muscle shirt and black jacket; a bulldog face with deep-set eyes. He licks his lips, foully, as he struts past her; a noise like a lizard lapping up water. He barely glances at her; his eyes focused on Mick.
‘Forgot your ‘scrip, you prick.’
Betsy glances back. Realizes she has walked right past the coffee shop.
‘I’ll get you a drink and Mars bar, put a smile on your face.’
‘How do I eat that, eh?’ Mick’s voice thin, pained.
‘I’ll chew it and spit it down you. Come on, don’t be a girl. We’ll get your medicine, take you home, get you snuggled up with Donna. She might even slip you a length …’
‘Don’t.’ His protests are weak. ‘Don’t talk about her like that …’
‘Fuck, you are softer than kitten shit, aren’t you?’
Betsy watches them disappear into the coffee shop. Mick hadn’t given her a second look, but there had been something about his companion; something in the air around him, some whispered familiarity. She fancies she can smell something corrupt; the faintest trace of spoiled meat.
She feels her heart racing.
Senses trouble coming as surely as the storm.
TWENTY-FOUR
Betsy hurries back down the corridor, moving in the odd, stiff-legged style of somebody keen to move quickly without attracting attention: a brisk walk interspersed with shuffles of speed.
Back at the pharmacy, Jude is third in line, clearly bored to the point of self-harm. There are two pensioners in front of him and a mum with a four-year-old behind him, and Betsy knows that at any moment he will gallantly step aside and let the mum go before him, just because he’s that type of chap. It makes her proud, and irritated, and annoyed with herself all at the same time.
‘Oh, that was good timing!’
Betsy turns at the sound of the loud, bright voice. Sees Sylvia making her way towards the pharmacy. She’s in the company of a sturdy woman in her fifties: short, bottle-black hair and a sensible raincoat over a woolly jumper. Betsy has to force herself to look pleased by this sudden, extra interruption. Is this a bloody drop-in centre, she wonders, agitated. No company for ages then I see too many familiar faces all at once!
‘Sylvia, hi,’ she says, and automatically approaches to give her a kiss on the cheek. ‘Awful day, isn’t it? Thought we were going to be washed away …’
‘Oh I wouldn’t,’ says Sylvia, putting her hands up to warn her off. ‘Virus. Not nice. Keep your distance and smear yourself in anti-bac, that’d be my advice. Not unless you’ve got a penchant for explosive bowel movements and want to spend a week living on nowt but hot water and Oxo cubes. You’d think I’d have lost weight, wouldn’t you? Honestly, I’ve evacuated parts of myself that haven’t seen daylight since 1950!’
‘Oh you poor thing,’ mutters Betsy, dutifully, glancing back down the corridor and then to Jude.
‘Jude here, is he?’ she glances through the glass. ‘Oh poor sod. They do like to make you wait in this place.’
‘I’m Val, by the way,’ says the woman beside her, pointedly introducing herself. ‘Best not touch me either.’
‘Hi. I’m Li … I’m Elizabeth. Betsy.’
Val narrows her eyes, putting a face to a name she has heard before. ‘Oh, you’re Jude’s new friend, are you? How are you finding the valley? Godawful bleak at times, isn’t it and the winters either kill you or make you stronger. I stuck it out for a bit but I’ve moved to Allenheads now, just for the convenience. Of course, the husband will insist on taking the car out with him each day so when I need to get myself in to do a big shop I have to rouse poor old Sylvia here, although it does give us a chance for a natter …’
Betsy can feel sweat prickling at her back. She doesn’t want to talk. She wants to get to Jude, quickly. She nods, showing she’s paying attention, and tries to manoeuvre them towards the pharmacy.
‘I heard about the bother at the pit-head,’ says Sylvia, looking sympathetic. ‘Why can’t they just leave be, eh? I mean, she’s gone, he’s just trying to make a life for himself, but Campion just can’t let things go.’
Through the fog in her head, the words catch her attention. ‘What bother?’ she asks.
Sylvia and Val exchange glances; two gossips caught out. ‘Oh well, if he didn’t mention it …’
‘Go on,’ says Betsy, her face serious. ‘If you know, I should know.’
Sylvia breathes out through her nostrils, irritated with herself. ‘More of the same, love. He was doing a bit of stone-dyking at the Dalton farm and Campion’s debt collectors were up there, collecting – brandishing some bit of paper like they were police. Coming in t
o recover goods, that was what they said. There was some argy-bargy.’
‘Argy-bargy?’
Sylvia shrugs, meaningfully. She’d love to know more. ‘Way I heard it, they left without what they came for.’
‘Oh the gossips in this valley …’ says Betsy, with a forced brightness that comes across as thoroughly manic.
You silly, silly girl, Lizzie. Better than your old life, is it? Better than the comfort you had before?
The voice, silent for days, whispers in the dead centre of her head. Grows louder. Finds its favoured form. Screams at her in a way that makes her want to wrap her arms around her head and plug her ears.
What have you got into, Liz? What do you know about this man? How can you be in love with somebody who lives like it’s the Middle Ages – fighting people off his land, taking on enemies? What does that make you, eh? A damsel in distress? Look at yourself, in your borrowed clothes. And he’s not been telling you the truth, has he? Hiding things from you. Keeping you in the dark. Treating you like a fool …
‘Would you give me a moment?’ she asks, breathlessly.
‘Of course, you go on – queue like that there’s no bloody rush …’
She hurries to his side, bringing him out of his trance by slipping her hand into his. He turns to look at her. Sees no hot drinks. ‘Shut, is it?’ He looks past her. ‘Oh look that’s Sylvia. If I’d known I could have brought her in, she hasn’t been so well …’
‘The man who threw the sheep in the river,’ she whispers, urgently. ‘Mick. Coming out of A & E. They’ve got a prescription, so …’
Jude doesn’t alter his expression. Just looks at her, the same smile of welcome on his face. Then he gives a little shrug. ‘I’ve no problem with anybody, Betsy. Don’t worry.’
‘He’s got somebody with him. Called him “boyo”.’
Jude’s features harden. It’s only a moment, less than a heartbeat, but she sees something in his face that frightens her. It’s not just hate. It’s a look she recognizes from childhood; a sudden retrogression; a backwards evolution into something primal. She sees the ape in him; the Homo sapien. Sees in his eyes the desire to do harm.
He shakes his head as if trying to dislodge water from his ear. She grips his hand.
‘Let’s come back, eh?’ she urges, desperately. ‘The rain’s easing off, we could still do the walk by the canal …’
‘Mr Cullen?’
They look up. Both pensioners are being dealt with by a harassed-looking teenager with glasses and red hair, leaving Jude to the attentions of the fierce-looking manageress. Betsy dislikes her at once. She looks as though somebody has drawn drag queen eye make-up on a Soviet shot-putter. She has the look of somebody who enjoys her authority; the type to wear a lanyard like a sheriff’s badge.
‘It’s OK, it won’t take a moment,’ says Jude. Turns to the pharmacist: ‘Jude Cullen. Repeat ’scrips, please.’
The manageress looks at him in the way that only the truly officious are able to: conspiring to make the most innocent of heart feel as if they are turning up for their daily dose of methadone. Haughtily, she taps at the keyboard and then busies herself sorting through a shelf of white paper parcels, looking for the medication. Betsy realizes that Jude’s whole manner has changed. He’s breathing as if his nose is blocked, his irritation at the service becoming more apparent. She tries to catch his eye so she can smile up into him but he’s just glaring at the woman behind the counter as she fiddles through baskets of pills and paperwork.
‘Cullen,’ he says, again. ‘Same as last month. And the month before.’
‘Terrible, isn’t it?’ says the pensioner to their left. She’s small, with candy-floss hair. ‘Every bloody month. Back and forth to the surgery, back and forth, they don’t talk to each other and then they blame the computer.’
‘You did order it, yes?’ asks the pharmacist, looking at Jude as if he is trying to pull a trick.
‘This again?’ he asks, rolling his eyes. ‘You order them for me. It’s a repeat. I repeatedly need them. I repeatedly take them. I ran out yesterday, so I’m here to pick the new ones up. I don’t want to be a twat about this but I can’t understand why this is always so hard.’
‘There really is no need for foul language, Mr Cullen.’
Jude looks baffled. ‘What foul language?’ Realization dawns. ‘Oh “twat”? Come on, that’s almost a surname. It’s just – this doesn’t always have to be so difficult …’
‘We have systems in place for a reason, Mr Cullen.’
‘This isn’t a system. This is the opposite of a system.’
‘Well, fucking well.’
Every head turns towards the door. The man who has spoken is the same meaty lump who had called Mick ‘boyo’ in the corridor. He’s standing with his hands on his hips, like a cardboard cut-out of a superhero, beaming at the back of Jude’s head as if all of his Christmases have come at once. Behind him, Mick looks pained. Worse, he looks embarrassed. He’s cringing under the spotlight glare of so many sweet old ladies.
Jude lets out a sigh. It seems to come from a deep, dark place.
Suddenly, Betsy feels as though the pharmacy has been transformed into an Old West saloon. The way Jude turns from the counter is with the resignation of a gunslinger tired of people using him to try and earn themselves a name.
‘Now then,’ says Jude, managing some approximation of a smile. ‘Been a while.’
‘Few years, I reckon,’ says the man at the door.
‘My heart’s been bleeding for you. Does me good, seeing you look so bright-eyed.’
‘That’s me, Punch. Wide awake and very able. I should be wearing one of those facemasks, like the Chinese do. Keep the germs out of my nostrils. Stinks like God’s waiting room in here.’
He glances at the mum and her child, both holding boxes from the two-for-one offers on hair colours. He addresses her in a loud voice. ‘I wouldn’t bother if I were you, love. You can disguise the grey but even if you do, there’ll still be a nasty surprise for whoever gets your knickers off. Not unless you wax yourself down to the wood, and that’s not a look I’m into. Always a bit suspicious, I am. Why would anybody want their missus to look like she’s got a kid’s minnie? That’s our word for it. Some people say “cunt”.’
Mouths open in unison; lips parting and a chorus of appalled vowels spilling out. Betsy watches as Mick steps forward and puts a hand on his companion’s arm. The other man shakes him off and stares back into the room, overwhelmingly pleased with himself.
‘You’re looking old, Punch,’ he declares, eyeing up Jude. ‘They do say grief can age a man, but then, so can liver damage. Heard about the missus. Brought a tear to my eye.’
Jude doesn’t rise to it. ‘I’d heard you were back. Heard I was supposed to be shaking like a leaf.’
‘Out,’ he replies, his tone gently reproving. ‘Not back. Out.’
‘I was trying to spare your blushes in front of the nice people, though I can see that isn’t something you worry yourself about.’
‘I am what I am,’ he shrugs. ‘Descartes said that.’
‘No, Gloria Gaynor said that. Descartes said “cogito ergo sum”. I think therefore I am. And you don’t think, lad. So therefore, you’re probably not.’
There are some titters from the assembled spectators, all of whom are watching the exchange like a tennis match. Behind the counter, the manageress looks to Betsy as if this unpleasantness is her fault, indicating with her drawn-on eyebrows that she should better control her man.
‘Shall we come back for these, Jude?’ she asks, quietly, holding his arm. There’s no tension in him. He seems perfectly relaxed.
‘Nearly done,’ he says, not taking his eyes off the man in the doorway. Behind him, Mick is staring down at his own feet, clearly trying to wish himself somewhere else. Jude flicks his eyes towards him. ‘You OK there, Mick? Been in the wars, have you?’
‘You talk to me, Punch,’ says the man who shields Mick with his bulk.
‘Everything that’s coming, it won’t be little brother any more. It’ll be me.’
‘Taken the king’s shilling, have you?’ He makes a show of slapping his own forehead and dumbing down the sentence for the hard of thinking. ‘It means “joining up”. Yeah, thought I recognized your handiwork. Subtle as a brick to the face. Aye, I guess Campion owes you. But I warn you, there are easier ways to make money.’
‘None so enjoyable, though.’
‘Would you like your prescription, Mr Cullen?’
Jude turns to the pharmacist. He takes his wallet from his pocket and touches his bank card to the machine. Gives Betsy a squeeze. ‘This chap is an old friend,’ he says, loud enough to inform everybody in the room. ‘Never the sharpest tool in the box but he can carry out simple tasks. Dig a hole. Fill it in. Dig a hole. Hit somebody with a shovel. Gets his shoes on the right feet if you give him time to concentrate. He’s never quite forgiven me for not being impressed by him.’
‘Come outside, Punch,’ the man says, his voice thick as honey. ‘I’ll impress you, I promise.’
Betsy can feel her heart thumping. Can taste the violence in the air. ‘Punch?’ she asks, then remembers the doll in the dead stag’s innards. ‘You didn’t tell me you had a nickname …’
‘Oh you’re in trouble now, Punch,’ laughs the man. ‘Got you in bother, have I? Soz about that. To be fair, she’ll probably forgive you. Got her eating out the palm of your hand, I can see that. Hope you can keep up with her. Brendon said that when he gave her that envelope she half threw herself at him. Affection-starved, that’s what I think, though she must be desperate to shack up with somebody who killed his wife.’
More gasps from the spectators, and one or two reproving stares. Betsy senses movement. Sylvia is thumping her way towards the door, Val hurrying along behind.
‘You’re one of those, are you?’ asks the man, warming to his theme and giving Betsy his attention. ‘I can see it. Definitely one of those.’
‘One of what?’ she asks, and her mouth feels dry. She can taste iron. The air feels as though it’s full of static.