Fan

by Danny Rhodes

  He races back to the office, cutting through the primary school, through the rat-run behind the mental unit, through the industrial estate, eager to get back, to let the fuckers know the news.

  But they know already. They always know. If you want to know anything about anything in the old town, ask a fucking postie.

  ‘Barmaid from the Crown,’ they say.

  ‘Worked the Bell at weekends,’ they say.

  The Crown. Postie pub. Mainly the older blokes, the ones who leave the office at lunch to wander straight in, the ones who emerge from the place before the evening shift, the ones that reek of alcohol at the facing table, at the sorting frames, the ones who can’t do the job without a few pints in their bellies.

  An image forms in his mind, a face, a body, a smile. But it’s not clear, not yet. It will take a photograph in a newspaper to plant the indelible image in his head, a grainy face staring back at him, for a moment, for hours, for fifteen fucking years.

  Murder.

  On his twenty-one walk.

  Fuck.

  He walks back to the flat, taking the path along the river’s edge, the sun well up now, sunlight flickering and flexing on the water, insects skimming the surface.

  Across town, a body in a hedge bottom. It’s hard for him to set the two things against each other, in a town where nothing ever happens.

  A body in a hedge bottom.

  In the summer.

  In the sunshine.

  Despite the warnings.

  Despite the doubts.

  Despite himself.

  Out of duty. Out of shame. Back to the two-up two-down, back to the living room and the TV. Back to the past.

  Jen White’s place. Dredging through the mire.

  There was tea with milk this time. He supped at it, stared at the steam rising from the surface.

  ‘You drove me to the woods,’ she said. ‘I was babbling on about college and you cut me off, told me you wanted to break up…’

  He shifted in his seat, knowing what was coming. ‘I remember that,’ he said.

  ‘You were so fucking deadpan about it. You sat there staring out of the window, telling me it was over, that you couldn’t carry on with any of it.’

  ‘I remember,’ he said.

  ‘I was heartbroken, in floods of tears, a right mess…’

  She walked across the room until she was standing in front of him.

  ‘You didn’t say a fucking word. You just turned the car around and took me home. You pulled up outside my house and you waited until I was climbing out of the car and then, you fucker, then you told me you didn’t mean any of it…’

  He remembered all of it, the engine idling in the woods, the shivering trees, her face streaming with tears.

  ‘That was you,’ she said. ‘That was the person you became.’

  He tried to reach back to that person. Fucked-up, frustrated, floundering.

  Always fucking floundering.

  He shook his head. He shrugged. He didn’t say anything. There was fuck all he could say.

  ‘You spent two weeks begging me to forgive you for that, calling and calling, turning up at the house, posting letters…

  ‘Jen…’

  ‘… and everybody was telling me not to bother, to fucking ignore you until you went away…’

  ‘Jen, listen…’

  ‘… but you didn’t fucking go away so I took you back. And all of that, all of that just gave you fucking licence to do what you did next, to give me the fucking runaround for months and months.’

  He got to his feet, made for the door. She blocked his path. When he went to step around her she pushed him back down on to the settee.

  ‘No, you fucking well don’t,’ she shouted. ‘You were going to say something. So say it. Say it and then it’s done.’

  ‘I just don’t think we should be talking about this.’

  ‘Why? Because of him? Because of that selfish prick?’

  She grabbed a photo frame off the television and threw it to the floor.

  ‘Fuck him,’ she said. ‘Fuck the both of you.’

  He moved to get up again.

  ‘Sit the fuck down,’ she said. ‘Stop fucking thinking about yourself. You deserve this. You deserve to sit there and listen until I’ve said what I’ve got to say. Then you can fuck off if you want. You can fuck off and never come back.’

  Silence.

  ‘Because it’s the same,’ she said. ‘You fucked off and he fucked off. Both of you left me fucking treading water, both of you are selfish bastards.’

  He leant forward. With his elbows on his knees he buried his head in his palms. It was the drink, of course it was the drink, night after night in the hotel room with the minibar for company, but it was still difficult to sit there, to sit and take it all and not be able to explain himself. And yet what the fuck was there to explain? He could hardly deny any of it, or try to make out she had it wrong. He’d been an insecure, jealous fucker and those things had dominated him for a time, then he’d changed, become somebody else, lost interest, looked for others. He’d fluctuated like that for months and months and she’d been the one to live through all of that with him. She’d shared the fucking journey, or been dragged along for the ride. And he knew when it had all started, when it had all changed.

  It was hardly a fucking mystery.

  He looked at her. He thought about Stimmo. He thought of her coming down for breakfast one morning to find two police officers at her door.

  Sombre faces.

  Sad, sympathetic faces.

  Bearers of bad tidings.

  Fuck.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  He stopped listening to her, closed his eyes and blocked her out somehow, or perhaps she wasn’t speaking any more, perhaps she’d run out of things to say or collapsed on the sofa beside him. Yes, that was it, he could feel her weight against his, feel her chin digging into his back. She was out of it.

  They were both out of it.

  Hillsborough. Hills-ber-rer. A loose thread flapping in the wind. Something attached to him. Something he couldn’t rid himself of. More than a memory. A fucking burden.

  Hillsborough. Hills-ber-rer. A shadow. A dark mass. A tumour. Riddled with it. Fucking riddled with it.

  All of them riddled with it.

  Was it fucking terminal?

  Was it?

  ‘That shed,’ he said to nobody. ‘We played there as kids.’

  And he could see them all, lost in the white space behind his eyes, see them clambering through the hole in the fence, pushing through the deadland, traipsing through the scrub to the tracks, forcing the door of the shed open, letting the light in. Him and Spridge and Minx and Hanratty, sprats each one, sprats he lost touch with when they reached eleven years old, when the grammar school sent him the letter. Marshy was there too, Marshy who killed himself on his motorbike when he was sixteen. And Stimmo, the quiet one. He was there too, lagging behind. He could see them all in their fucking summer rags, him in his yellow Forest shirt, Minx in his red Liverpool shirt. He could feel the sun on his back, the heat from the tracks, hear the far-off ghosting of an approaching train, the track screaming in the sunlight. He closed his eyes against the harsh edges. But nothing was harsh-edged then, not really. Everything was softened, by youth, by summer, by the haze that melted the tracks into molten ripples of silver.

  They were ten years old.

  Innocent fuckers, the lot of them, until that fucking afternoon.

  Some shopkeeper from town, some poor bastard with nothing left to offer the world. The rope swinging in the swell of a passing HST. The five of them staring up at the corpse for a minute or more, none of them uttering a fucking word. The sun beating down. The bloke’s shoes shining in the cracks of sunlight. Everything cracking thereafter.

  Ten years old.

  His mam fussing over him for a spell, until it seemed he’d forgotten about it, put it behind him, stomped on into the 1980s with the rest of them, changed schools, lef
t the deadland and its many guises to those trapped by circumstance coming up behind.

  They should have torn the hut down after that day, done the bloke’s memory some justice, or burned the fucking thing to the ground.

  But they didn’t.

  He was still ten years old when the banging woke him. He dragged himself upright, felt her stirring beside him, spotted the shattered picture frame on the grate, felt the sunlight strike his eyes, blinked himself into the present.

  And everything fell into focus. Jen’s brother at the window, distorted fucking face pressed against the glass, the big Polish fucker behind him, the two of them hammering at the door, threatening to break it apart.

  Fuck me, he had to wake up. He got to his feet, felt the room shift on its axis, almost fell back into the grate, planted a foot down to steady himself, felt the crunch of glass and plastic, saw Stimmo staring up at him from the carpet, caught her eye for the first time, rising from the sofa to see what the fuss was about, saw her heading for the door handle in some sort of trance.

  Some ancient part of himself kicked in.

  Fight or flight.

  Fucking flight, mate.

  He didn’t hang about, was out the back door, over the fucking wall and away in a blink. He heard Jen screaming at them to fuck off, heard her brother yelling back at her. But they weren’t there to mess about or to listen to what she had to say.

  Were they fuck as like.

  They were here to batter the fucker vaulting over the back wall.

  Finchy reached the end of the alley, looked back over his shoulder to see the big fucker hurdling the wall and coming after him. Back in the day he’d have left them for dead, shot off fleet-footed into the distance, but it wasn’t back in the fucking day. His knees were fucked from too much Sunday football on gruesome pitches and his head was clogged with whatever shit he’d poured down his throat in the previous days.

  The big fucker gaining with every step, shouting after him in Polish. He didn’t need a fucking translation to get the drift of it or what the cunt would do to his skull if he caught him. He still had the fat fucking lip from the week before.

  Thirty-three years old. Teacher of English. Pillar of responsibility. On the sick. Tearing up the High Street of the old town to save his fucking face from a mashing. Big Polish fucker at his heels. Daydreamers on the pavement, daydreamers and spacers, carrying on regardless. Some not seeing him at all.

  Vacant cunts.

  Always vacant.

  A vacant fucking place.

  He was no good in a foot race, not today. He ducked into the bus station instead, where folks were gathered in little throngs, burst through one set and then the next, trying to lose himself amongst them.

  But he was too animated.

  He stood out like a sore fucking thumb.

  Across the tarmac instead then, dodging great fuck-off buses. The sorting office on his left. He thought about crashing inside, imagined the doors swinging shut behind him and everything being as it was fifteen years earlier, Harcross in the office, Robbie Box at the facing table, the lads coming together to kick the Polish fucker out of the joint. But the red doors were closed. It wasn’t fifteen years previous and it was no fucking good wishing otherwise. He could hear the big fucker’s slapping steps on the tarmac behind him, ever closer, could almost feel his stinking lager breath on his neck. He shot over the road through the mid-morning traffic, the Crown ahead of him, praying that BJ was inside the joint.

  He didn’t get that far.

  As he reached the door BJ stepped out of it. A guardian fucking angel. BJ filling the pavement, forming a barrier of belly and great fuck-off fists. Finchy too knackered to run any more. He stopped, turned around, to see the big fucker try to barge past BJ, to see him ram his nose against BJ’s fist instead. He saw the bloke’s nose implode, saw everything below his neck continue in a forward direction while his head stayed put, saw the big fucker collapse backwards and hit the pavement. His hands came up to his face. He started mewing like a fucking kitten.

  Jen’s brother stopped short behind him.

  ‘Fuck off, mate,’ he shouted at BJ.

  Big fucking mistake.

  ‘Who are you telling to fuck off?’

  BJ stepped over the Polish guy, barrelling down the street in the brother’s direction.

  ‘He’s the one we’re after.’

  ‘And you’re the one I’m after,’ said BJ.

  The big fucker scrabbling backwards and away, no longer a factor. Jen’s brother backing away too. He pointed at Finchy.

  ‘You’re fucking dead,’ he shouted. ‘Fucking dead.’

  Finchy stood behind BJ, not knowing what to do with himself. Half the fucking old town had woken up at last. A semi-circle was forming around them. It was only a matter of time until the old bill came along. Beyond BJ, Jen’s brother and the big fucker retreated around the corner, one supporting the other.

  When they were no longer in view BJ turned to face him.

  ‘Don’t I keep saying you’re a daft cunt?’

  He twatted Finchy on the chin.

  ‘What the fuck?’

  ‘That’s for not listening,’ said BJ. ‘And you lot can all fuck off.’

  He turned back into the Crown as the onlookers recoiled.

  It was good to have friends.

  When he gets home the flat stinks of greasy fry-up and burnt toast. His flatmate’s in the kitchen munching away. There are baked beans on the lino, great smears of beans.

  Finchy retches.

  ‘Look what the fucking cat dragged in,’ says his flatmate. ‘What the fuck were you up to last night?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘This morning. On the stairs. I had to climb over you to get in the door.’

  ‘Fuck knows.’

  ‘You went to that all-nighter, you cunt. I fancied that. How was it?’

  ‘Fuck knows,’ Finchy says again. ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘You don’t remember?’

  ‘I took something.’

  ‘You took something. One of mine?’

  ‘No. I don’t know. Someone gave it to me.’

  ‘You lying cunt. I thought I was missing some. That’s a tenner you owe me.’

  ‘It wasn’t yours.’

  ‘Fuck off. You can take it from my rent.’

  ‘There was this Yank bird. It was a mess. I walked her back to the college dorms. I can’t remember anything else.’

  ‘Sounds like one of mine. They’re not designed for light-weights. Did she have one, too?’

  He shakes his head, shrugs.

  ‘Lying bastard. That’s twenty you owe me. I have to get off nights. That’s my fucking scene right there. I should have been there. Fucking hell, raves are where it’s at!’

  ‘Is that what it was?’ asks Finchy.

  He goes to the bathroom, splashes water on his face, the fog descending again, his stomach cramping.

  Smears of beans.

  He collapses to his knees, vomits at the toilet bowl. Some of it reaches the target.

  Some of it.

  He vomits again.

  When he earns some relief he drags himself in the direction of the hallway, the stairs, his fucking bedroom.

  ‘Did you fuck her?’ shouts his flatmate.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The American bird.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he says.

  ‘You fucked her.’

  ‘If you say so,’ says Finchy.

  ‘What about Jen?’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘When are you seeing her?’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘So it’s off?’

  ‘It’s complicated.’

  ‘She just comes over and stays the night a couple of times a week?’

  ‘What’s it to do with you?’

  ‘Nothing,’ says his flatmate. ‘Your morals are nothing to do with me.’

  Finchy begins to negotiate the stairs, stops, grips the banister to ste
ady himself.

  ‘Pass me the bowl,’ he says.

  ‘You’re fucking joking,’ says his flatmate but he empties the contents of the washing-up bowl in the sink all the same, slides the thing across the lino in Finchy’s direction.

  ‘I want my twenty quid,’ he says.

  ‘I don’t owe you twenty quid,’ says Finchy. ‘Did you hear about the murder?’

  ‘Yeah. Barmaid from the Crown. Found in that car park off Hope Close. Fucking ironic that – hey, isn’t that your patch?’

  ‘You know fucking well it is.’

  ‘Fuck me,’ says his flatmate.

  He throws his plate in the sink, takes his mug of tea and wanders into the hall, starts up the stairs behind Finchy who is trying to climb the fuckers again.

  A desperate ascent.

  ‘Is that it?’ asks Finchy.

  ‘Is what it?’

  ‘Is that your response to them finding a murdered woman in a hedge bottom?’

  ‘No,’ says his flatmate. ‘No, it isn’t. Sometimes I dream my life’s as exciting as yours.’

  He pushes past Finchy, reaches the top landing, enters his room and clicks his bedroom door shut.

  Once a sarcastic cunt, always a sarcastic cunt.

  BJ and Finchy in the Crown.

  BJ and Finchy totting up the odds.

  ‘You realise that’s it,’ said BJ. ‘The end of your fucking adventure.’

  Finchy didn’t say anything. Sat in the Nag’s with his tail between his legs, his chin smarting from BJ’s fist, there was nothing he could say.

  ‘You’re a jammy bastard,’ said BJ.

  ‘I know.’

  BJ supped his pint.

  ‘Because on any other day I’d have been at home getting some well-deserved shut-eye. I’ve been up since five, on site since six. But I thought I’d come for a pint first, see who was about. Only nobody was about…’

  ‘Perfect timing then,’ said Finchy.

  ‘Don’t get cocky. Like I said, you’re a jammy bastard. Now, tell me you’re not going to see her again.’

  Finchy shrugged.

  ‘It wasn’t a fucking question,’ said BJ.

  ‘I’m not sure I can just fuck off.’

  ‘If I were you I’d not even bother getting your things from the hotel. They’ll be all over it. Them and the rest of their cronies. All the more determined to give you one.’