I Want Him Dead

by Anthony Masters

  “You don’t try.”

  “How the hell do you know?”

  “I live with you, don’t I?”

  Suddenly the anger went out of both of them and they were on the verge of tears.

  “I’m sorry.” Anne put her arms round him, recoiling at the smell of sweat. Why doesn’t he wash, she wondered, and then realized it was probably for the same reason as her continuous drinking. The lack of change, the lack of effort. The unmade bed. The stinking body. They were both the same, weren’t they? Was that why she found her son so unbearable?

  With an incredible effort, his breathing laboured, his heart racing, Joe somehow dragged out the automatic, strode over to Weston, thrust him against the wall and with a shaking hand placed the gun to the man’s right temple. Joe pulled the trigger.

  The click seemed as loud as the station clock.

  Weston staggered back, the shock disorientating him, gagging slightly, passing a hand over his eyes, seemingly not able to react, and Joe pulled the trigger again, but something in the mechanism had jammed.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Weston yelled, and Joe struck him heavily around the back of the head with the Magnum. He grunted with pain and lurched forward as Joe hit him again and again and again, feeling, maybe hearing, the splintering of bone.

  Weston fell sideways against one of the stalls, his eyes bulging and saliva flecking the corners of his mouth, but he didn’t speak. Was he in shock, wondered Joe as he threw the Magnum on the floor and instinctively dug deep in his pocket, eventually dragging out an old penknife he had always carried since he had been a child.

  As he did so, Joe desperately glanced at the glass window of the attendant’s office, but he was turning over the pages of The Evening Standard, yawning, impervious to sound.

  He fumbled open the penknife but Weston, partly recovered, swung his briefcase at him, though it only half connected as Joe slashed out, conscious that the blade was blunt.

  Weston swung the briefcase again, shouting for help, his voice high and shrill, like a frightened child, and the attendant got to his feet, banging on the glass with his fist. Did he have a panic-button, wondered Joe. If so, why wasn’t he using it? He felt detached now, as if he was swimming underwater, and everything was not only in slow motion but a real effort, as if a great weight was bearing down on him.

  With a supreme effort he lunged forward and managed to skewer the blade into Weston’s throat, working it through skin and gristle and eventually hitting a vein.

  The blood spurted out, splashing Joe in the face, and he tasted salt as he thrust the blade further in and then, after skewering it round again, wrenched the knife out, thrusting it into his pocket, gasping as he did so. “Fuck you,” Joe said. “Fuck you.” He continued swearing as Weston’s eyes dilated. Clutching at the streaming puncture wound, trying to stem the flow, Weston gazed down at the blood spurting through his fingers, making a dreadful bubbling sound.

  He seemed to stand there for a very long time, his eyes locked into Joe’s, his mouth slightly open, a pulse beating in his bruised temple, the little blubbering sounds thickening.

  He’s drowning, thought Joe, wheeling round to see the attendant grabbing at his phone.

  Eamonn Coyd stirred in his sleep and then woke. He and his mother had once again been walking through marram grass over dunes to a flat sandy beach by the sea. As usual, Joe had been running ahead, gripping his bucket and spade.

  The tide had been coming in, great fingers of water spreading slowly, stopping just short of the fine powder of dry debris at the top of the sideline — kale and seaweed, driftwood and valerian.

  The wind stirred the sand into their eyes and later their sandwiches, but there was no one else around and they were happy, ignoring the sharpening wind, knowing there was tea in a flask and a fruitcake in the canvas bag.

  It had been a good dream but that was all it was, for the Coyd family had never been to the sea together in their lives.

  Even in the children’s home, Eamonn had fought the reality of what had happened and indulged in a story-telling fantasy to a care assistant, a middle-aged man who had later tentatively abused him, fingering his private parts almost absent-mindedly, as if he couldn’t make up his mind whether to go further or not.

  Later he was replaced by a more objective worker who was determined that Eamonn Coyd should come to terms with the truth about his mother and his ruined face, on which he was still having skin grafts four years after the fire.

  Even now Eamonn could clearly remember the impact of that earnest young man who had had the audacity to trespass on his make-believe world.

  “You can’t invent these stories about your mother any longer. She tried to kill the both of you. It’s your mother, Teresa Coyd, we’re talking about. She’s in a secure unit. She’s mad, Eamonn.”

  “We had some good cracks, great times,” he muttered. “You wouldn’t know.”

  This was the beginning of a long series of encounters with enemies, ranging from care workers to psychiatrists, but none of them could destroy Eamonn’s scenario.

  Anne Lucas looked at her watch. Just after midnight. She wondered fuzzily if she was going to wake up every hour on the hour for the rest of the night.

  Then she heard Peter crying out, and putting on her dressing-gown, shivering a little in the chill, she went into his room. He was sitting up, his hair tousled, his shoulders shaking.

  “What’s the matter, darling?”

  “Dream.”

  “Nasty one?”

  “Horrible.”

  “What was it about?”

  “Dad.”

  “What about him?” she said, trying to sound sympathetic and matter-of-fact.

  “He wasn’t there. I went to the house — and he wasn’t there. Rachel had got him to go on a jog.”

  Anne felt a cold hand stroke her heart.

  “But he’d gone.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked him, prevaricating.

  “He never came back.”

  Anne was silent. Then she tucked Peter up in bed again and kissed him. “Call me if you need me,” she whispered, and he nodded, childishly putting his thumb in his mouth, something she had not seen him do in years.

  She left his light on and went back to her room, sleeping lightly and then waking abruptly from a dream of her own. She had been sitting in the empty bath, surrounded by Gro-Bags of a moist clay that had smeared her flesh like a cold compress. When Anne had tried to move she had hurt, and then she had seen that most of the mulch had settled on her stomach and was slowly parting. With a hollow and remembered pain, something began to sprout and it was some time before she had recognised what it was. Veined, pink and hairy, she had thought for a minute that she was growing a carrot. Then she had realised it was a penis.

  Anne sat up, moaning slightly, trying to keep the fear and revulsion to herself, but the restless Peter must have heard and came in without knocking.

  “You’re dreaming now, Mum.” He sat down on the edge of the bed, his weight making it sag.

  “Yes.”

  “What’s happening to us?”

  “We’re under stress,” she explained to him over-emphatically. “That’s all. Stress makes you have dreams.”

  “Will Dad ever come back?”

  “He has a different life now.”

  “I’ll be with him, won’t I? I mean, he won’t leave me.”

  “What would you do if he did?” asked Anne, with sudden brutality.

  “I’d always have you, wouldn’t I, Mum?” he said anxiously.

  “Of course.”

  “You wouldn’t go away and leave me.”

  “Never.”

  “Does it matter if I love Dad as well?”

  “Of course it doesn’t. It’s natural.”

  “S’pose one of you died —”

  “We won’t,” she said firmly.

  “We’re a one-parent family now, though, aren’t we?”

  “In a
way.”

  “There’s a lot at school,” he said dully.

  “I can be everything to you, darling.” Anne drew him to her and he rested his head on her shoulder.

  “I love you.” He kissed her and got up. “What’s the time?”

  “Getting rather late.”

  “I thought you were meant to dream in the early morning,” he said. “Just before you woke up.”

  “We’re the exception to the rule,” she told him.

  The blood seemed unstoppable. Could there be that much in one single human being?

  Weston had fallen to his knees. His bright red hands were still clutching at his bright red throat, but he made no sound now, just stared at the spreading lake around him in apparent disbelief. Then he shat himself and Joe smelt the faeces.

  The toilet attendant and the two men in overalls were running towards them as he forced himself to pick up the Magnum, while Weston slowly began to crawl in Joe’s direction, making the most horrendous squealing sound, his eyes gazing up at him in supplication, the blood still spurting from his lacerated throat.

  The strangling, bubbling sound continued, but now Joe was backing off, running through the exit turnstile, his hands and overcoat stained with the obscenely warm and sticky stuff.

  * * *

  The interior of the concourse was almost deserted and silent; the rain had stopped, the traffic noise outside much softer, more withdrawn.

  What was he going to do, Joe asked himself desperately. Where could he wash off the blood? He had a sudden vision of running back to the toilet, pushing his apparently helpless observers aside and starting to scrub at his face with the soft liquid soap in the basin.

  He hurried out of the station, his shoes slippery, almost falling and then just righting himself again.

  No one attempted to stop Joe as he ran past a coffee stall and its huddled customers, and then down a side street towards the back of the station. There must be a place to wash somewhere, he told himself. But where?

  He was also wondering where he could get rid of the Magnum. Definitely not here. He’d have to wipe off the prints carefully first. God — why hadn’t he reacted faster? Weston’s face with its pleading eyes and blood-spurting throat and bubbling voice would stay with him for ever. So that was death. It was far worse than he had ever imagined.

  Joe slowed down, walking in the shadows, the sky above him cloudy and still rain driven, drops falling and then beginning again in earnest. The heavens opened and he shouted aloud in triumph and ironic elation. Hadn’t he wanted to wash?

  Joe threw back his head and raised his hands, mixing rain and blood together, the torrent like a fresh shower.

  Once the cloudburst had washed off some of the surface blood he rubbed his hands together even harder, surprised to find how quickly it had caked. He rubbed so hard that some of his skin chafed away but that was what he wanted, that was how it had to happen. Then, as the cloudburst lessened, he took off his overcoat and clumsily began to squeeze it out.

  Joe walked on down the deserted street, the clouds above him thinning to reveal the face of a pock-marked and palsied-looking moon which rode high, wisps of vapour trailing over its face.

  He stood still for a moment, under an awning of steel scaffolding. Never had Joe felt so helpless.

  The girl was standing in a gap in the fence, wearing a filthy beret. She couldn’t have been more than seventeen. “You been mugged?”

  Joe froze. What the hell was he going to do?

  “Want a wash?”

  “I’m OK.” He wanted to move on but he didn’t.

  “You’ve got blood on your face.”

  The street lamp was on the other side of the road. If he looked so bad in the half light then in God’s name what would he look like in the Euston Road? Joe remained indecisively where he was, knowing he was still too near King’s Cross.

  “I’m not going to screw you. Unless you want me to, of course.”

  Joe relaxed slightly. “I’m not into cradle-snatching.” He tried to sound calm.

  “Fuck you,” she said, and he followed her through the gap. She led him over the wasteland and towards a fire under the half demolished arch of a bridge.

  “Who’s with you?” he asked.

  “Me and my friend — we’ve been dossing down here. No one gives us any grief.”

  “Just you two?”

  “Some winos stick around.”

  “Where are they?” Joe glanced round anxiously.

  “Someone’s got some Scotch, over the other side of the station. They won’t be back tonight. I got some booze, too, though I wouldn’t tell them bastards. My friend’s pushed off. We had an argument.”

  Suddenly he needed a drink, whatever it was. The fire seemed further away than he had imagined, but when they reached it the flame was comforting. She had a couple of holdalls, and under the bridge he could see a mass of dirty bedding and a supermarket trolley.

  “Where can I wash, then?”

  “Over there.”

  He walked over the uneven ground towards a galvanized tank full of rainwater, but his fatigue was suddenly crushing and he stumbled.

  “Don’t break your neck. Let someone else do it for you.” He heard her unscrew a bottle.

  “What you got?”

  “Gin.”

  Joe splashed water over his face, rubbing harder this time.

  “Better?” he asked.

  “Want me to have a go?”

  Joe hesitated. He felt stupid, as if she was taking over.

  “I got some cotton wool. And it’s clean.” She went and rummaged in the supermarket trolley, tearing some strips off a roll. “Let’s play nurses.”

  * * *

  She dabbed at his face. “Wait a minute. This needs a bit of hot water. Had some boiling on the fire. Still warm.”

  She turned away and left him, eventually returning with a can.

  “Right little home from home,” Joe observed, trying to think what he was going to do next.

  She dabbed again. “The blood’s coming away, but it’s in the roots of your hair.” After a while she muttered, “I can’t find no cuts.”

  “I gave the bastard something to think about, didn’t I?”

  “Had a bit of a scrap?” Joe could sense she was slightly uneasy now and she paused in her swabbing. “There’s a lot of it.”

  The silence lengthened between them.

  “Got that drink?” asked Joe.

  She carried on swabbing. “In a minute.”

  “Like now.”

  “If you’re nice to me.”

  Was there a different note in her voice? A less certain one?

  “I’ll be nice to you.” Joe found he was shivering.

  “I’ll build up the fire,” she said.

  “Not too much.”

  “Why not?”

  He didn’t want to say that it might draw attention to where they were.

  “Just get it warmer.”

  “I haven’t got much wood.” She threw a piece on and the sparks rose.

  “Keep it down,” he said irritably.

  “Don’t snap my head off.”

  “Sorry.” Her voice was quite cultured, he thought, when she wasn’t assuming a rougher tone.

  “What were you doing?” she asked. “When you got done over.”

  “Been up to Glasgow,” he replied too quickly.

  “Live round here?”

  “In a hotel.”

  “I see.” She didn’t, but was obviously trying to.

  “Got that drink?”

  She passed the bottle across reluctantly, as if she was afraid of him now and was worried about what might happen if he got drunk.

  “You always invite strange men?” he asked, trying to be jokey and convivial, but knowing it wouldn’t work. “Been with your bloke long?” Should he go, Joe wondered. Or was he safer here for a while?

  “About six months.”

  “Where did you meet?” He wanted the time now.
r />   “Out here,” she said vaguely.

  “Where do you come from?”

  “That’s against the rules.”

  “Don’t get you.” He did, though; anonymity was important.

  “You don’t ask. I don’t ask.”

  “But I told you,” he said, taking another swig of the gin, which was doing him good. He felt the penknife and the Magnum metallically rattling together and realized they were in the same pocket. She looked up at him. Had she heard, he wondered.

  * * *

  They began to drink, sharing the bottle between them; it was still three-quarters full and he was comforted by that. When it was empty, things would be bad and he would see Weston again, bubbling at him, crawling over the floor. Joe tried to drink more slowly.

  “Where do you come from?”

  “Guildford,” she said.

  “Bit middle class, isn’t it?”

  “You like the working classes to do the dossing out, do you? Puts them in their place, does it?” She relaxed slightly and took another pull at the bottle.

  “Don’t drink so fast,” he advised her.

  “Why not? There’s another bottle in the trolley.”

  “You took two?”

  “Stocking up,” she replied.

  At least he had stopped shivering.

  “Why did you leave home?”

  “And why do you keep breaking the rules?”

  “I want to know.” He also wanted to keep her talking.

  She sighed, the drink loosening the code of the streets that she had clung to so tenaciously. “Don’t let’s buy all the clichés about leaving home. For that matter why’s a guy like you living on his own in a King’s Cross hotel?”

  “Another cliché for you — my mother burnt our house down.” The spontaneity frightened him. “It was some time ago,” he muttered.

  “How long?”

  “Twenty years. I drifted around and went into the army and got discharged a few months ago. Since then I’ve been wandering about, trying to make some decisions. But I’m not very good at making them.”

  “Is your mother in prison?”

  “She’s in the funny farm.”

  He gave a helpless gesture and drank more gin. Then he heard the sound of an engine outside and the panic surged.