by Matthew Cash
After stopping off at a chemist to get more painkillers he fetched his order from Marks and Spencer’s and ordered a taxi. Yet again the closer he got to his childhood home the more intense the ringing in his head became. He swallowed two painkillers dry, grimaced at the bitter taste they left on his tongue, closed his eyes and wished himself away from there.
When Shane got back to his parents’ house Catherine looked up as he stumbled in like a drunkard. She was preparing yet another meal while Jennifer read at the table.
His head pounded like it would crack open like a shell and the pressure that had been building up in the cab came to a great crescendo so intense that he fell to his knees with a groan.
Catherine rushed to her brother just as he emptied the contents of his stomach on the tiled floor. Before he had a chance to speak, to offer an apology, he retched so hard it made his throat muscles cramp and left him hunched over gasping in pain.
“Jen, call the doctor’s surgery at once!” Catherine barked at her daughter and crouched by Shane. She rubbed his back and shushed his attempt to talk.
“What on earth is wrong with you?” she asked not really expecting an answer.
Shane slowed his frantic breathing and sat back on his haunches. He felt the wet of yet another nosebleed on his upper lip, the pressure in his head had lessened now that had happened.
“I guess you wouldn’t believe me if I said travel sickness?”
Catherine grabbed a nearby tea towel from a counter and handed it to him.
“I don’t know what to believe dear brother, but you need to see a doctor.”
Jennifer ran into the kitchen, concern etched on her face.
“Dr Marshall is on his way!”
Shane was about to protest and complain at the thought of the ancient old doctor rushing to his aid but saw the looks of worry on their faces and kept quiet.
“Jen, take Shane’s stuff up to his room please.” Catherine nodded to the half dozen shopping bags strewn across the kitchen doorstep.
Jennifer picked up Shane’s shopping without a word.
Catherine helped Shane to his feet and sat him on the nearest chair. She knelt on the floor beside him and brushed her hair from her eyes. For a moment a flicker of genuine concern sparkled in her eyes.
“Whatever’s wrong, you know you can still tell me.”
Shane reached down and held his sister’s hand tightly for fear that this glimmer of the old Catherine might float away.
“I wish there was something to tell you. I’ve gotten worse since I came back here.”
Catherine sighed and rested her cheek on his knee. Deep down she had regrets over the path in life she had taken, and seeing her brother again brought back all the memories of how things once were. But now she had Jack and her amazing daughters. Jennifer and Angela were both like her in so many ways. Angela was a dutiful little housewife and a caring mother in the making, while Jennifer was the wayward, adventurous and rebellious teenager. It was like she was watching two parallel versions of her life being played out. Angela would be how she always was, now and forever, and there wouldn’t be many surprises, but with Jennifer who knew? Catherine hoped that Jennifer would have the life she had wanted for herself, before she met Jack.
It wasn’t that Jack was bad, he was just so bloody old fashioned and stubborn. Having Shane around reminded her of this and how different she was to the sister he once knew. She didn’t realise that she was crying until the kitchen door opened and Jack walked in.
“Jesus woman what’s going on here?” Jack stood in the doorway in a vest and jeans that were filthy from a hard day’s labour. He looked from the sick to his wife before his eyes came to rest on Shane with a suspicious scowl. He rubbed a calloused hand over his stubbly chin.
Catherine quickly got to her feet and opened the cleaning cupboard.
“I was about to clean that up, I’m sorry.” Catherine said timidly, avoiding eye contact with her husband.
“Hey Jack,” Shane stood up smiling awkwardly, “Sorry about that, think I’ve got a touch of heatstroke or something.”
Jack looked at him like he was something he’d coughed up.
“Well you baldies should know to cover up in this weather.”
Shane laughed uneasily and turned to Catherine.
“I’m going to go and freshen up, okay?”
He left at his sister’s nod, as he pulled the kitchen door shut he could hear Jack’s raised voice. He climbed the carpeted stairs and stepped across the creaky landing towards his bedroom. The door was already opened. He peered round the corner of the doorway and smiled when he saw Jennifer. His clothes had been carefully removed from the bags and neatly folded on the bed. When she saw him her face flushed with embarrassment.
“I’m sorry, I hope you don’t mind. I thought seeing as you were unwell…”
“Hey, no it’s fine; thank you.” he grinned reassuringly, “You’d make someone a great P.A.”
Jennifer relaxed a little and laughed, “I hope to be the one who has personal assistants Uncle Shane.”
Shane arched his eyebrows with pleasant surprise.
“It’s good to see some ambition in one so young!”
“Well, like you, I don’t want to be around here forever,” she said fiddling with a couple of slips of paper in her hands.
“The world’s a very big place Jen and life’s not usually long enough to see it all.”
“Two drifters off to see the world, there’s such a lot of world to see…” Jennifer sung quietly with her eyes shut, but then was mortified at her outburst. “Oh god! I’m sorry! I’m always doing that. Someone will say something that reminds me of a song lyric and the next thing I know I’m bloody well singing it.”
“Your mum used to do the same thing.” Shane laughed and held her shoulders lightly.
Her eyes lit up. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Shane nodded, “and you want to know something?”
“What?” said Jennifer raising an eyebrow.
“It was something I always secretly loved about her. It’s a cute habit, don’t fight or excuse it.”
“Aw, that’s so sweet,” Jennifer pouted, skating on the brink of patronisation.
“Anyway, I’ve got to clean myself up,” Shane waved a hand theatrically about his face and shirt. “Thanks for doing this for me.”
“Oh okay,” she handed him the slips of paper, “here are your receipts”
He took them off her and as she left the room she turned as if she’d forgotten something. “Err, can I talk to you later?”
He was slightly shocked at the comfortable familiarity his niece, whom he didn’t really know, was showing him.
“Of course.” He didn’t feel like he had a choice.
Jennifer smiled a sparkling white-toothed grin and disappeared, leaving Shane in anticipation. What does she want to talk about?
Shane unbuttoned his shirt, balled it up and put it in the bathroom bin. He gazed at himself in the medicine cabinet mirror. For the first time he could see visible signs of ageing on his face. Bags under his eyes spoke of sleepless nights, laughter lines told of many false smiles in front of the public eye. The cold water was again more pleasurable than he thought possible as he submerged his face in the sink. Remembering his incident the previous day in the Spanish restaurant he was wary about the taps as he pulled his head out. His nausea had gone completely and his pounding headache had almost been conquered; all that was left of it was a dull thud every now and then to remind him it was still there. The ringing in his head had also subsided to almost its usual place on the boundaries of his consciousness.
All this felt like it was building up to something, what with the hallucinations and the run in with Alan. He was almost starting to regret doing the honest thing by coming to his mother’s funeral. No, honest wasn’t the right word, but it was the right thing to do. His mother’s funeral wasn’t the only reason why he had come back to Brantham.
The property had gone u
p in value since he had bought it five years ago…
Chapter Nine
December 2002
Shane spotted his dad immediately. He was a pot-bellied man and apart from a few grey hairs, he’d hardly changed at all in the last few years. He strode proudly up the platform, his tweed jacket fastened against the cold December chill. Shane went to meet him halfway.
“Dad.” The word sounded strange on his lips, he hadn’t used it for so long.
“It’s good to see you son!” His father, taller and more muscular than his son, beamed and shook his hand.
“I hope your journey was okay, I’ve heard they’ve been having a spot of bother at Witham with a signal failure.”
“It kept me there for twenty minutes.”
Shane took him to a nearby taxi rank and they sat side by side as a black cab whisked them across the city of London.
“I thought we could go somewhere where you’d feel at home,” Shane said as the cab turned down a quiet street and stopped outside a pub. His father looked up at the sign, ‘The Farmer’s Boy’.
“I suppose you think that’s humorous?” he asked.
They sat opposite one another in the pub; its walls were lined with black and white photos depicting the surrounding area over the past hundred years.
“I haven’t been to London for years, since I was your age. It’s changed a fair bit I guess.” Shane’s father took off his flat cap revealing his rapidly balding head and placed it on the table.
“London never stops changing, you leave it for a year and you notice something different,” Shane said with passion as he lifted a glass of wine.
“I don’t like change, never have; it destroys one’s feeling of safety,” his Father said solemnly.
Shane did not comment on his Father’s remark.
“Anyway, I’ll get down to the reason of why I wanted to meet you today.
“You know that I’ve always been a drinker don’t you, boy?”
“Err… yeah.” Shane nodded, unsure where this was going.
“Well, basically I’m virtually bankrupt. I’ve not told your mother as she has enough to worry about with the grandkids. I’ve not been able to pay the phone and electricity bills for a couple of months let alone the mortgage.”
“So you need to borrow some money?” Shane sighed.
His father looked at him gravely.
“It’s not as simple as that.”
They exchanged a look.
“Shane, I’m dying. I have lung cancer.”
“What the fuck?” Shane gasped. “When? How long?”
“They discovered it in November. They reckon I may see Easter…”
“But there’s people who…” Shane begun but his father raised his hand to silence him.
“The thing is I have no life insurance or anything and I don’t want to leave your mother and the grandkids up shit creek, do you understand?”
Shane nodded. He couldn’t believe it, yet as soon as his father had told him he suddenly realised he looked ill.
“I have a proposition for you. Buy the house off me.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes until Shane broke it.
“Why can’t I just give you what money you need?”
“You should know me by now to know that I don’t accept charity, boy, even off family. The mortgage is nearly over anyway, buy the house off me and we’ll keep it just between the two of us, that and the cancer.”
“What you mean you’ve not told anyone?” Shane said, horrified. How could someone keep quiet about that?
“I’ll tell them in my own good time, I don’t want any fuss. So what do you say? I’ve got the necessary paperwork here. All you’ve got to do is write a cheque and sign here.
And so Shane’s father signed over the deeds to his house over to Shane and accepted a cheque for £100,000. Shane never saw his father again. He died two weeks later in his back garden, alone.
December 2005
Shane sat at a spacious desk, a spectacular view of Tower Bridge and the Tower of London behind him. He held a sheet of quality vellum paper in his hand. £750,000. It was the third offer Wartburg had made. He couldn’t resist it; it was too much to offer. Wartburg had plans for the property he owned in Brantham. He wanted to demolish it in favour of extending his development. They had recently built a complex of shops and eateries in the village and wanted to build a luxury hotel close by. His father’s house, now his, was considered a prime location and they were prepared to offer such a considerable sum for it.
The question was just how sentimental was he? Could he kick his aging mother, and his sister and her family, out for that?
July 2006
Shane couldn’t believe the old soak was still alive let alone still in practice. Dr Marshall was well into his seventies now and he still looked virtually the same but for a few extra wrinkles and slightly less white hair bryl-cremed back in the same style. He even smelt the same as Shane remembered, a mix of aftershave with an underlying aroma of whisky and peppermint. He constantly chewed peppermint gum. It was kind of endearing to see that the old man was still as fit as a fiddle and even after the forty odd years he’d lived in Suffolk he still had his strong Scottish accent.
“I would put it down to exhaustion and a little dehydration. Drink plenty of fluids and take some paracetamol.”
Shane didn’t really expect any other medical revelations from the old doc but he had brought his black leather doctor’s bag of tricks with him and checked what could be checked.
He mentioned having had every test known to man over the years for his in-head entertainment. Dr Marshall suggested he get them repeated as the little episodes he had been experiencing were worrisome.
“Take plenty of rest and perhaps extend your stay to a proper sabbatical,” Dr Marshall suggested, “I expect I’ll see you tomorrow at the funeral?” He nodded his head and tottered off in a slurry of peppermint and whisky.
Shane sat on his old bed with his back against the wall in the same way as he’d done as a kid. It felt strange being in this room again and he could still visualize where his posters had been. The Mark Somerfield one had been beside the chimney breast.
Ah that poster.
Shortly before he lost his friends, Somerfield had collaborated with an upcoming artist to create a graphic novel and was doing a signing event at some little book shop in Chiswick.
Shane and Johnny had travelled up to London together. The Underground maps looked like veins running through the heart of the city. They hadn’t a clue where the hell they were going when they got off the train at Liverpool Street Station so by the time they had got on the train to Chiswick they were cutting it fine. Then the ride took almost an hour and they knew they weren’t going to make it in time.
They had run full pelt through the crowds of people towards the exit. The shop was next to the station so there was still a glimmer of hope – they’d come so far and they couldn’t leave without trying.
They spotted the bookshop instantly. There were half a dozen people queuing outside. They rushed to the end of the queue only to be approached by a burly black security guard.
“Sorry guys, no more after this man,” the guard pointed to the person in front of them, “I’m under strict orders from Mr Somerfield’s PA I’m afraid.”
Shane saw Johnny’s face sag and felt the same devastation.
“Ah come on, we’ve come bloody miles man!”
The guard sucked his teeth.
“I’m just doing as I’m told, you know what I mean? I had to turn away two couples from Scotland ten minutes ago. Advert says between two and four and it’s now,” he checked his watch, “nearly five, so he’s been kind enough to do this much. You’ll have another chance; there’ll be more signings I’m sure.”
Shane couldn’t believe it. The security guard wasn’t going to be persuaded at all. They could see their idol sat at a desk, dressed in black, long thick curly red hair laughing with some fans. Die-hard fans lined
the aisles of books each clutching a copy of Mark Somerfield’s bibliography. It rubbed salt in their wounds to know they’d come all this way and wouldn’t get one book signed.
The ride back across London was filled with obscenities and every known profanity they could muster. To make matters worse, the graphic novel, London Leaves, was a pretty big deal and there were posters for it all over the Underground. It depicted a huge gaping purple vortex opening in the sky above London Bridge. There were terrified tourists, and a few stereotypical London images; the black cabs and a red double decker bus were all frozen beneath the hole in the sky.
It was an awesome poster and there were tonnes of them about so they had done the only thing two disappointed fans could do and stole a couple. The downside was the posters were huge, about six feet by four feet huge. By the time they’d managed to find two posters in relatively quiet locations it was getting late and they were a long way from home so they were in a rush. The heavy duty wallpaper paste they’d been stuck up with didn’t help as the paper kept tearing, but eventually they ended up with two posters.
They had spent the next day sorting and pasting their jigsaw piece posters onto each other’s bedroom walls.
It was another memory that he hadn’t really thought of until he was back in Brantham. Another story about his lost friend. If only his mind could fit all the pieces together and correct the image of what happened that night.
I have that book! he thought suddenly. A week after they went to London they bought copies of London Leaves from Starchild’s but he had been really swamped with his college work and the bag with the sealed graphic novel lay on his desk unopened. He had been too busy, what with college and the odd shift at the meat packers, to even get a chance to look at it. Then what with the whole chaos of the hit and run incident and his friends’ disappearance he’d forgotten all about it. If it was anywhere it would be in the attic with all his old stuff.