When the Pilot Light Goes Out

by Daniel Stone

  James said the sultan was known to let his hair down at these parties but no photos of his drinking could ever find their way into the public arena. Super injunctions were taken out with all the press just in case, and it was probably a racist’s argument fuelled by a tabloid article waiting to happen along the lines of ‘it’s all right for them to come over here and do it’, but there he was, as pissed as a fart. I bumped into him on the way out of the toilet. I didn’t much care for his attitude; nor he much for mine. He looked at me with distaste; I looked at him with pity. One of his bouncers pushed me away and I called him a prick. I didn’t think any more of it until James found me and said I’d been asked to leave. The sultan’s men must have said something to James’ sister’s employers because she seemed to have the right hump with me as well. I told them I hadn’t done anything but that didn’t seem to matter.

  I got my coat from the cloakroom and slumped out of the club. The cab home cost eighty-five quid and Chloe got in a strop with me for waking her up and then the cat went mental and refused to sleep all night, jumping on and off the bed, and when I shut it out of the room it sat outside meowing and scratching the carpet and door.

  23 – Help

  I sat next to Louise on the bed. We’d become good friends since our first day at college. She reminded me of a lovely little mouse: she was very English, charming and strangely London countrified. I think her mum must have been some sort of hippy. She didn’t want to get involved in the ouija board stuff either.

  We were on a week-long college trip to Paris, by day taking in the usual touristy sights like the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Pompadom Centre and the Sucre Coeur, and by night getting drunk and stoned while the lecturers tried their luck with the vulnerable.

  A group of students invaded my room, a damp, spacious number with high ceilings, dim lights, dirty linen and a view over a Parisian crossroads on a slight hill with other French looking B&Bs, all squalid and cold, and of course spitting distance from the red light area. The air was thick with cheap dope smuggled into France in socks, duty-free fags chain smoked and JD fumes of young, over-confident measures.

  We had spent all day in the cold, drizzly, grey November conditions trying to find Jim Morrison’s grave. I wouldn’t have minded so much but I didn’t even like The Doors that much. When we made our way back to the hotel we soon learnt which bar the rest of the students had taken over. It was always the same one I had sorted out on the first night and the barman welcomed me in like an old friend, giving me drinks on the house. I guess having one hundred students turning up throughout the day and night for a week was a most unexpected boost for the French bar steward’s coffers. By allowing us free use of the jukebox we also created an atmosphere that for most of the year was presumably missing. I had hoped that my decision to use his bar somehow meant the place had transformed and become a ‘spot’ in Paris. Certainly Parisians joined us for an impromptu rave up after we arrived. I figured I would be quite good at that business.

  We all got drunk and after a while noisily went back to our hotel. Louise and I sat on the bed watching the group conspire like demented witches around a cauldron. Possibly due to the smoke and booze the room already had an atmosphere before Carol, the self-appointed master of ceremonies, began the usual ritual.

  ‘Is there anybody there?’

  The group gathered around the green, felt-topped table on an assortment of chairs, leaning forward with fingers all placed on top of the glass surrounded by letters and numbers and ‘YES’ and ‘NO’ spelt out on pieces of paper.

  A couple of times they had tried to make contact: six people crowded around a little table with fingers poised, others leant over shoulders checking for skulduggery, whilst a few skulked in the background getting stoned.

  ‘I don’t like this,’ I said to Louise.

  ‘Me neither,’ she meekly replied.

  The glass wobbled a fraction and the room came alive with evil electricity as a buzz enveloped the room. I picked up a discarded plastic fork someone had used for woofing down some French fries covered in tomato ketchup, and started nervously, semi-consciously, fiddling to distract my sweating hands and nervous mind.

  ‘Did it move?’ I asked Louise.

  ‘I think it did,’ she said, even more mouse-like than ever before almost squeaking. I stared at the group’s faces; a nervous nasty grin was etched on Steve’s, concentration on others. Apprehension filled the air. I could feel Louise fidgeting beside me; her anxiety was catching and I continued absentmindedly playing with the plastic fork.

  The glass shuddered towards ‘YES’. Somebody was there or here or wherever ghosts hung out. The smoke in the room began to move more like waves in the room, as if ghostly apparitions were joining us in our little dingy, dimly lit French hovel. The dim sidelight cast a faint, warm glow.

  ‘Who are you?’ the chief instigator asked.

  The glass slowly spelt out the name ‘Nicole’.

  ‘How old are you, Nicole?’

  Nicole was twelve; Nicole was a little Parisian girl.

  ‘How did you die?’

  ‘Daddy’ was the answer.

  ‘Did your Daddy kill you, Nicole?’

  ‘Yes.’

  My fingers went into overdrive, furiously fiddling with the plastic fork. I wasn’t enjoying this. Nicole was murdered by her father, and further questions revealed her mummy was in danger. The glass spelt out a succession of letters that meant little to anyone in the room, and when the ring leader said he didn’t understand the spelling became quicker and faster, over and over again.

  A I D E A I D E A I D E A I D E A I D E

  The glass moved across the table like an invisible hand was guiding it. The group spelt out the letters in unison, almost chanting monk-like until Louise screamed.

  ‘It means “help” in French. She’s asking for your help!’

  All the hands broke off the glass simultaneously, and everyone in the room sat transfixed momentarily by the table, except Louise. She shuffled forward off the bed, briefly touching my hand; she couldn’t stand any more and said she was going to bed. I walked out into the corridor with her to check she was okay.

  ‘I’m sorry, I really don’t like that sort of thing,’ she said.

  ‘Err, don’t worry, Lou, it scares the shit out of me as well,’ I replied.

  ‘What’s that in your hand?’ she asked, looking down at the fork I’d been fidgeting with. It no longer looked like a fork; it had been perfectly ripped to shreds and woven to create the form of a crucifix.

  ‘Blimey, I don’t know, I guess I made it whilst all that was going on. I didn’t realise I was making it. I certainly didn’t mean to. Do you want it?’ I asked, thinking my amazing transformation might be good luck or protection or something.

  Louise smiled, touched my arm again and said. ‘Tell you the truth, they freak me out as well. Night then, I’ll be alright.’

  Then she was gone, like a little mouse back into her hole. I sort of wished I could go with her and curl up like a little mouse too; she seemed so clean, pure and innocent. Instead I had to go back to my room, the den of inequity where evil lurked in every corner and filth oozed from every crevice. Still, I had my crucifix for protection.

  I went back into the room, where Mel had taken my place on the bed. Bloody hell, beautiful Mel! Things might be alright after all. She shuffled up so I could squeeze in next to her and passed me a half-smoked joint, still wet from her lips. Mel was gorgeous, a beautiful blonde in the Kate Moss or Vanessa Paradise mould, like an angel but sexy in an unassuming way. It was a damn shame her best mate at college had claimed me; it kind of threw a spanner in the works totally.

  I sat there, joint in hand, wisps from my smoke joining the ghostly clouds moving like apparitions entering the fray. Carol, my witch of a girlfriend, started up again.

  ‘Is there anyone there?’

  We all sat around waiting for the next spectacle. The whole table shook, like someone had walked up and kic
ked the table. I shook, the whole room shook, evil, evil was amongst us. All the witches backed away from the table bar Steve. Steve, the crazy, angry alcoholic schitzo hippy, calmly turned over the glass they had been using as the tool on the ouija board, filled it with JD and drank down the spirit; his soul was eternally cursed and damaged anyway. I got up and put my plastic crucifix in his empty glass and dropped both in the straw bin in the corner of the room.

  24 – Ryan

  A good friend Ryan worked for an art insurance firm dealing in fine art. I worked for a printer printing any and every printed item imaginable. Sometimes our worlds collided. I happened to notice a document we’d produced on behalf of Ryan’s company; the document mentioned a high profile client that I had also recently had the pleasure of briefly meeting.

  That’s the thing about printing: sometimes you notice things or are in the position to read strictly private and confidential documents.

  It became apparent that Mr Sultan of wherever, who lived not far from Little Venice, off Regent’s Canal, had recently purchased a priceless painting and due to insufficient security was being refused insurance. It seemed the company advisors felt sticking a priceless Picasso amongst countless other masterpieces on the lounge wall, not far from the kitchen, overlooking the garden, wasn’t the most secure of plans, and thus felt it wouldn’t be an installation they could back or insure. Also listed were the names of several other insurance companies that would also share a similar view.

  That man surely did have more money than sense. The fact that a member of staff was usually in the house all the time and he had a burglar alarm did little to sway the insurance companies. They expected twenty-four-hour CCTV and bullet-proof glass and proper security measures.

  It didn’t really matter to me, although a seed had been sown.

  I was being threatened with redundancy as the company figures were so bad, although mine personally were okay-ish, at least not far off my projected targets; it was the big hitters, the top salesman, who were really letting the company down. Unfortunately being younger than my colleagues, the statutory payments necessary to lay me off were far less than some of my more senior and inept colleagues. I’d already had to accept a fifteen per cent pay cut; annoying as I hadn’t been given a pay rise for years and years, and if I was to give Chloe all the things she wanted, pay cuts weren’t the right way to be heading for sure.

  I couldn’t bring myself to tell her. Bastards everywhere were dragging me down and fucking me up. Chloe felt I should have demanded a rise, and mentioned more than once perhaps it was worth looking for a new job. I wasn’t a quitter, though. If I’d been a professional footballer I’d have been a one club type. I wanted to earn my respect where I worked rather than moving to seek the respect elsewhere. Perhaps she thought they saw me as a mug and I was blind to it.

  I just wanted to get on with our lives like every other couple seemed to do. Go to work, build a nest, have a family? Settle down, get old and die happily. I was struggling with every hurdle; I was stuck in a chimney, in a maze, down a one-way road.

  25 – Save me

  It was the day before New Year’s Eve and we were heading home after a forty-eight-hour party session in Madchester. Pills had been popped like they were going out of fashion. James had DJ’d at a party and we had faithfully accompanied him as chief support dancers and gurners. I wondered whether I had chosen this role for my life or had it thrust upon me. There was little doubt I was great at it; it certainly took someone special. Often I’d assist his set by becoming a bongo bashing pilled-up madman; like many other nights my fingers would end the session wrapped in plasters as I’d play until they bled.

  For the drive back south we had packed Nick’s car with the records and decks and piled in. Me, James and his girlfriend Emma in the back; Nick and his mate Tom in the front. We barely made it five metres before my mind drifted into a comedown-induced lull. It had been barely a half an hour earlier that I’d been found sitting upright under a bundle of people’s clothes, trying to get warm and comfortable. Half an hour before that I’d been wandering the streets of Manchester as high as a kite and completely lost, having climbed out of the window several hours earlier.

  I took on the role as chief window licker; not for the first time my face was chilled by the condensation on the glass. My eyes were distracted by the orange glow from street lights and the warm orbs and beams chucked out from passing cars. The drizzle from the damp, wet northern night aided my muzzy-headed state. As the tunes on the stereo progressed they locked into my brain’s internal workings and realigned my chilled-out state. Occasional uplifting beats wrestled with my fatigued being and semiconscious mind, nudging it from its slumbering, resigned state. The motorways lines drummed out a monotonous pattern in my head. Everyone in the car was alone with their thoughts, running on empty, barely alive. Emma broke that calm by screaming:

  ‘Nick! Look out!’

  Our designated driver for the return journey had drifted off; we were accelerating out of the middle lane and gaining quickly on the car in the outside fast lane. As Emma yelped we were collectively torn from our slumber just in time to see Nick react. His natural instinct was possibly the same as anyone’s when confronted with the rear of a car not going as fast as yours: it was to steer back towards the middle lane, away from trouble. Unfortunately his reaction was too wild and didn’t take into consideration the cold, wet, icy evening, or the eighty-miles-per-hour velocity we must have been exceeding. As soon as his left-hand-down manoeuvre had corrected itself we entered into a spin. James and I put our arms across the middle of the partition in the rear of the car to act as some sort of safety net for Emma should she be launched from her seat and out of the window. We’d seen the TV adverts and subconsciously hoped our arms might stop her flying through the air. I’m sure they would have shattered anyway, but it was a good thought and James and I had thought it at the same moment.

  As we span like a waltzer at the fairground, at least three times we went round, the car clipped the inner lane’s reservation and we then seemed to straighten out. We knew straight away something was still wrong. Headlights were shining in our direction and we were still hurtling along.

  We were going backwards, still at an incredible rate of knots. Nick’s first reaction was to turn the steering wheel and again we launched into another set of break-neck spins. We all screamed in unison. It was an euphoric, almost slow motion sensation of relaxed inevitability. We could do nothing about the situation but enjoy the ride, pirouetting around and around. Lights flashing, petrified grimaces on faces almost strobing in the reflections.

  We clipped the outer reservation and came to a sliding halt. The car was facing the wrong way up the motorway. The hazard lights of drivers approaching us changed our immediate view with the orange lights joining the full beams to warn other road users of our and their immediate peril. The middle lane traffic came to a halt first, giving my spinning head something to focus on as a non-moving entity. I breathed again as cars in the fast lane skidded to a pedestrian pace.

  We sat in silence, just staring, the windscreen wipers monotonously burping out disgruntled murmurs of damp condemnation: squelch burp, squelch burp, squelch burp, squelch burp. I noticed the little drops of rain fighting the battle with the wipers then heard the music still coming from the stereo. It seemed to vanish from my ears and then come back just so I’d notice its tune. Faithless, ‘Save Me’; that struck me as a little ironic.

  ‘Are you, err, you alright?’ I asked Emma.

  ‘Yeah, you?’ she said, looking at James, not an ounce of emotion on anyone’s face.

  James carried it on. ‘You alright, Nick?’

  Nick carried it on, looking at Tom.

  Everyone was fine. Through the collective sighs I figured the lottery of life had deemed our numbers were good; either that or divine intervention had kept the wheels on the ground. Truth be told, I never thought I’d die, although as we clambered out of the car unscathed it was cl
ear the car was a total right-off. James was a relieved man to see his records and decks had somehow survived as well. The front and back of the car were totally smashed up and one wheel was hanging off.

  As we gingerly climbed out of the car and into the freezing, wet drizzle and scurried up the side of a hill that ran alongside the motorway, James pointed and said, ‘Shit, look at that.’ As we looked we could see other crashes on the other side of the motorway; on the other carriage rubber-neckers were getting totalled in the carnage we’d caused. Still, we had New Year’s Eve to look forward to.

  26 – I could leave

  I always seemed to be just sitting at my desk, minute by minute, never-ending daydreams, staring at my silhouette in my computer screen. My brain was working overtime, over-stretched and no longer thinking day to day but minute by minute, searching for excuses, plans and possibilities. I must find an escape.

  I began ignoring my friends’ emails, texts and messages. I didn’t want anyone’s help or support or suggestions on how I should live my life. At least at work I could bury my head in the sand. Although I didn’t live to work, when life outside work became a grind, it was a lot easier working to live.

  I found myself thinking I could leave my bike at Marylebone station; it was safe there, inconspicuous amongst thousands of others. I’d left it there before, on platform three, and it had been there the next day even though I’d left it unlocked at the time, in too much of a rush to make the train, when I was busy rushing to see Grandad or Chloe in hospital. There weren’t many places in London that was possible. It was secure and I could get to it any time the trains were running and the station was open. All I needed was my Oyster card, and I could then get anywhere else in London. I could use the trains from there in an emergency to get almost anywhere in the country or even the world.

  I could ride from Marylebone to King’s Cross in rush hour in about ten minutes. I could get to the city itself in half an hour and the West End in twenty minutes and West London in quarter of an hour. East London would take a while longer.