A shudder racked through Seamus, almost in slow motion, starting at his feet and ending in his shoulders, which he hunched in against his neck. His face was white around the eyepatch. I passed him one of my cans of bitter and he took a drink.
'I said I'd get help and he started shouting at me. Whenever he took in breath a new stream of blood would work its way out of the wound on his back. "What's the fucking point?" he yelled. "What's the fucking point?" And he was right. There was no way you could get more than one person into the tunnel. I said I'd tie a rope round his feet and scramble out backwards, try to pull him out when I could stand up and use some leverage but he said I'd rip his spine out. It was like the part of ceiling that had him was curved forward, he'd been able to slide into it but its hook caught him whenever he moved against it.
'So I stayed with him. I talked to him. I talked to him even when I could hear him weeping. I talked him through the panic when he thrashed about. I stroked his legs. He stopped for a long while and pressed his lips together. When he carried on, it was in a much quieter, calmer voice. I talked. It was strange because he died sooner than I thought he would. I thought he would go from lack of food but no. His body started shaking-he'd been quiet for a long time-and he just went. As if his body had just given up hope. Can you die from sudden depression? Anyway, probably the cold that did it. Just cold.'
Seamus stood up and walked away. I looked into the dark space he'd vacated, my heart beating so loud it was muffling the sound of drums from upstairs. All I could see was my head being lowered into a bank of mud, body in liquid spasm as my lungs filled.
To keep myself from rekindling the horror of my own recollections, I went after Seamus for more of his. All he could say though, out in a garden littered with red napkins from an earlier barbecue, was: 'The poor cunt's still down there for all I know. Buried in his beloved fucking cave. With a camera that's got pictures of me grinning in the Throne Room. Sticking the Vs up at him. I was wrong to say Lechuguilla was what mattered to me. It was Evan Foley. He was my ambition. Not the damn hole in the ground.'
I felt bad that I'd considered his retelling of the tragedy fanciful; a tale of effect rather than bereavement. I put my hand on his shoulder and immediately took it away again, feeling like the worst kind of hypocrite. 'Come inside, Shay,' I said, the first time I'd used his foreshortened name. 'It's cold. You'll catch your death.'
I left him in the garden, wishing-as one does in such situations-that I could impart some simple phrase of wisdom. It was easier to understand the absence of hope here though. It felt as though there was a vacuum drawing us in to a place that was dark yet so familiar it was as if we'd known all its colours and sounds and moods since birth; that it was a destiny of ours, its co-ordinates punched in as we slumbered in the womb, the three of us searching each other out without ever having to use our eyes.
If there had been a Big Bang in our past, only now were we beginning to notice its ripples, feel them assume control over the way our lives were shaped. Though I was in the dark about most things, and blurred because of that night's excesses, I began to believe that if something was developing, then it had its roots in a previous episode, something that we'd managed to bury within ourselves, like a murderer's diary of confessions hidden in the attic.
FOUR
DELTA-9-THC
I missed the last bus back to Morecambe and spent the rest of the night accepting bottles from arms that snaked out of the floor. I guess I must have smoked something dodgy too because I wound up in the bathroom, lying flat on my back because I thought my head was going to spin off. I followed the cracks in the ceiling with eyes that felt too dry. The dark against a window free of any net curtain seemed packed in layers, like soil. Its glass bulged inwards the longer I stared. Somebody had replaced the lightbulb with a mist-filled glass pear. The flex hung loose near its housing; brown and blue wires made a brief helix there. Jesus, I was unwell. Somebody knocked on the door three times, then once more after a pause.
Wrong sequence,' I croaked. 'Do you know today's password? I'm busy. I'm in a meeting.'
Somehow I managed to stand, just in time for a glut of vomit to loose itself from my throat. Eyes watering, but feeling better despite the shock that the violence of being sick awakens in me, I covered my mess with lines of toilet tissue, hoping that whoever rented the house would see the act as something approaching an apology.
I opened the door on a strange beast with two heads.
'You parked that well,' said one, stepping to one side so I could see they belonged to the drummer and bassist from Deep Pan's band. 'Come and have a chatette,' he said, gripping my elbow. I might have thought uh-oh if I was in any fit state but I allowed myself to be led downstairs, back to the garden where I'd held Seamus' arm briefly millions of years ago.
'Some joker's swapped your eyes for cherry tomatoes.' This was from the bass player. He shrugged his leather jacket-which was a size too big for him-around on his shoulders as he spoke. The legend on his T-shirt read: Do I Not Like That. I noticed one of his eyes was blue, the other green, its pupil dilated stubbornly. I toyed briefly with the thought of asking him what his eyes had been swapped for but realised, stoned as I was, that it wouldn't be met with a smile and kind words.
'What can I say?' I slurred. 'All the better for keeping them peeled. That's what I fucking say.'
'Are you taking the rise?'
A distant, sober part of me wagged its finger. I shook my head, waiting for the first blow. 'Have you seen Shay. Mus?'
'Gone home. You're Davey, right?' The drummer's voice was a tight whinge. He was probably from Manchester.
'David technically. And you are?'
'I'm Frank,' said the drummer.
'You are that if nothing else,' I said and fell over, laughing. My fun ended when the edge of a low wall took about a foot of skin from my back. I thought about screaming, realised what time it must be then thought sod it and screamed anyway. The pain fled from one end of my spine to the other, as though someone were rolling a ball of flame up and down it.
'And this is Tonka,' he jabbed a thumb at the bass player before lifting me up. 'You all right, you dizzy cunt?'
I knew my back wasn't bleeding, that the wetness was that clear, weeping lymph which lies against the skin. 'Yes,' I said, my voice strangled.
'We've been looking at you all night, David,' Tonka breathed, his voice little more than a husky whisper.
This I knew, but I wasn't expecting a confession. It was hard, getting used to all this brutal honesty and I wasn't at all sure that I liked it that much.
Trying to work out which planet I'm from, I'll warrant.'
'We think the Bag Lady would like you. We think a meeting would be a good idea.'
'And the Bag Lady is?' Ripples of heat moved slowly across my back. The pain was shifting my drunkenness to a place where it could more easily be coped with. I burped and the thick, flat taste of bad wine filled my mouth.
Frank leaned over me. The whiff of Doublemint fell from his lips along with: 'You've seen her. Name's Eve. You tell me-she's had her beady one on you all night, yeah? She says she's already met you. Had a nice chatette, eh, dans la voiture?'
'I think I know who you mean. She's very nice, but I'm not one for nobbing women cold, you know.' I considered for a moment. 'I'm not one for nobbing women of late full stop.'
'She can help you with your sadness.'
I snapped my head up". Seeds of light popped behind my eyes and the cold, black heel of alcohol's hand pressed down once again. I couldn't see Tonka's face properly. It swam against the darkness as though made from oil; the brilliant light from a bare bulb in the alleyway splintered at his shoulder, dazzling me. I saw the thin shapes his breath made in the cold but I couldn't decode the words carried upon it any more. My T-shirt was fusing with the wetness on my back.
'Come on, friend,' said Frank. 'We'll get you a coffee and walk this shit out of you.'
***
We didn't stray far from
the party. From the bridge overlooking Lancaster train station I watched the twin trails of a jet underline the paling sky. The coffee had warmed me, and cleansed my palate, but the queasiness remained, a fat worm squirming in my belly. I'd returned to the bathroom to wash my face and gaped at the mirror, at the pinkness of my eyes. I drank as much water as I could stomach, hoping that the dehydration would be pushed back by breakfast time. The train station was quiet apart from a soft hum rising from the electric cables. The smell of diesel was oddly comforting-perhaps because it put me in mind of train journeys I'd taken with my parents. A more civilised time when anything unpleasant lay beyond the fortress walls of family.
'Not so mouthy all of a sudden, hey?' murmured Tonka.
'I'm not sad,' I said. And then again, more quietly: 'I'm not sad,' as if to convince myself.
'I didn't hear nobody say you were. But that said, Davey, you don't half resemble some miserable bastard now.'
'I'm pissed out of my swede. I want my bed. I'm freezing my nads off. I have a right to be fed up.' My back twinged. When the booze wore off I would be in a heap of trouble there. Helen flashed into my thoughts, eyes wild with anger and I almost smiled. A yearning broke open in my chest. With her there I felt a little confidence come back.
'Why are you interested in me? What's so important to you about setting me up with Eve?'
Tonka spread his hands. With his long hair and beard he looked like Christ in a biker jacket. 'Because our lives are so empty we need to get our rocks off by interfering with everyone else's.'
'Because,' said Frank, putting his arm round me, 'Eve is our friend and she's had a bitch of a year and it would be nice if we found her a new friend. She's a wonderful woman. She'll never let you down. She's expressed an interest.'
'I don't think I'll be here very long. I'm passing through really.'
'So is she.' He stuck a piece of paper in my pocket and put his finger in front of my eyes. Its nail was black and long. 'For when you reconsider. When you sober up.'
Then they walked away. I followed at a distance and back at the party stumbled across a room that was being used for storing coats. Somehow I found sleep down amongst the musty jackets and the threadbare carpet. The cold, hard floor seemed to suck the heat from my flesh as I rested so that, by the time I wakened to the sound of the door scraping open, I was shivering violently. A flame floated into the room: a moment later, I focused on the face behind it.
'Something warm for you,' she said, and slid under the coats. She placed the candle on the floor and passed me a mug of tea while her legs knotted with mine and my chest became a pillow for her head.
'I'm David. David Munro.'
'Hello David David Munro. I'm Eve Eve Baguley.'
'Would you like some of this tea?' My back was flaring but I didn't want her to move away. Her warmth was massive, enveloping me like a bubble. Beneath the smoke trapped in her hair I could smell peaches.
Dirty light was sifting through the thin curtains. It was quiet downstairs. 'What time is it?' There was a dead bird on the floor next to Eve. A panicky moment saw me thinking she'd brought it in during the night, like a cat.
'Just after six. You smell nice.'
'Thank you.' The tip of her tattoo was again visible, something fanciful-coloured peeking from her chest. Shadows dipped away beneath the wool. It didn't seem correct to ask her what slept there.
'Did you enjoy the party?' I asked, trying to keep the silence away so that she'd not hear my manic heartbeat.
'I did, yes. I watched you. You didn't look very happy.'
'My friend told me some bad news.'
The way you look, it's as if you've fallen into a bucket of tits and come out sucking your thumb.'
I nodded, laughing. 'I still enjoyed the party though.'
She placed her hand against my back and I winced. 'Sorry,' she said, 'Frank told me about your gymnastics. Do you want me to have a look at it?'
The thought of Eve looking at my back, even in its raw state, was quite attractive but I shook my head, uncertain that this was the path I really wanted to go down. I was here for a reason, serious matters. It would be stupid to get mixed up with someone and possibly put them at risk.
'It's not too bad,' I said. 'I just need to clean it. I'll be fine.'
'And what about your friend? Is he okay?' She leaned on one arm and drew back from me; her long jumper snagged on the various soft peaks of her body. I really wanted to hold her.
'He's okay. He was telling me about something that happened to him a while ago. A bad accident.'
'Oh dear,' she said, pressing her fingers to her mouth. 'I've been too nosy, haven't I?'
'No,' I said. Silence fell and time seemed to become sticky, gelling around us. Sunlight coated Eve's face in layers, at first polishing and then concealing her skin without blurring the edges of her face. Her eyes were blue suggestions through this. When I could blink and breathe again, I drew away. Her face stole back its form from the sunlight; she was smiling. Her fingers traced the imperfections on the back of my hand. I leaned over to blow out the candle but she stopped me.
'There's a place we can go to, where I can take you, if you need to get away,' she whispered, watching as her fingers measured the mini-bevels of sinews, veins and bones. 'There's a way out.'
I gritted my teeth against an unease that said: She knows what's going on. 'I have to go,' I murmured.
She shifted so I could rise. I idled over tying my bootlaces; I wanted time to study her face. Her eyes were closed, which always takes away some of the life in a set of features, but I could tell she was attractive. Not catwalk-attractive; her face was too flawed and interesting for that, unusual enough to keep my attention. The scant impact of the candle flame helped her face lose its structure. I thought, horribly, that it might start sliding off the bone.
'We'll talk soon,' she murmured. 'You have my number.'
I was about to deny this but then I remembered Frank putting something in my pocket. I patted it now and heard it crumple against my thigh. 'Yes. I'll call you.'
'You'll call me.'
'I'll just get rid of breakfast,' I said, picking up the dead bird and flinging it out of the window. She wore the same liquid near-smile I'd seen in the car. As I closed the door I caught her reflection in a mirror. She looked new and unspoiled among the dregs of party, like an overgrown newborn unaware of its limits and enjoying the flex of its body for the first time. Her skin was so pale it seemed transparent.
I popped my head round the corner of the living room, quietly impressed by the volume of empty cans and bottles lying around the place, to say goodbye to anybody who was conscious. There was nobody around. I heard muttered voices in the kitchen. Two guys in vests and baggy track suit bottoms were hunched by the door. I heard the words 'Call the police' and saw one of them cover his face and say, 'Jesus.'
'What's up?' I asked, startling them out of their confab.
'Aw shit, mate,' said the taller of the two, 'you don't want to know.' But even as he was saying this, he was stepping back to allow me through. It felt as though he was handing me a baton in a relay race so that he could forget his part in it.
'What's in there?'
'Have a look. Tell us were imagining things.' This came from the other one, an Australian with blond dreadlocks.
Wishing I'd left when I intended to, I pushed past them, affecting a sigh in the hope that it would conceal the tension I was feeling. There was a girl on the floor with strawberry jam smeared all over her face and breasts. She was naked from the waist up.
'Is she all right?' I asked, concentrating on the steady rise and fall of her chest.
'Is she all right?' the Australian asked, incredulous? 'Is she all right?'
'Fuck it, mate,' his partner spat. 'She's fucking dead. Look at her.'
The rise and fall of her body had nothing to do with her lungs and everything to do with my own clattering heart. I steadied myself against the wall and edged closer. Her face had been torn fr
om the boss of her skull; the flesh of her chest was macerated. One breast hung free, clinging to the torso by a thick flap of skin. She was looking up at me, sneering a curve of blood-smeared teeth. I stepped back and I think I said, 'Oh.' My foot mashed a piece of mince-a nipple-into the linoleum. After yesterday, with all the omens and demons we'd discussed, I felt partly responsible for her death, as if our words had somehow summoned forth an evil presence intent on making real our fears.
The police came and the ambulance men took her away. We all made statements and gave names of the other party guests. I didn't get away until late but all the while I was there, I didn't see Eve, despite the fact that the police checked all the rooms. She must have slipped out while I was in the kitchen.
On the bus back to Morecambe I tried to remember the colour of Eve's eyes. Though it was a fruitless task, it took my mind off how jaded I felt and the nightmare of that poor girl's face. Her name was Jemima. She was the girlfriend of one of the other guys who had come to the party but who had gone home early because he felt sick. I remembered (but only because I recognised her blue linen skirt) squeezing past her on the hall to get to the toilet.
I closed my eyes tightly, trying to force out the bloody image of her. I tried to think of Helen instead and how claustrophobic I was already feeling. Though I'd only been around my old friends for a short while I was already needful of my own space. The talk we'd had in the pub yesterday seemed distant and unreal; the subject even more so. I wondered if I should just leave, go back to Warrington, anywhere, so that I could claim myself back. Too many weird things were happening here. It was as though this grim, etiolated coastal town was stripping me bare, making me vulnerable to attack from the people it had already defiled with its slow poison. My mind was perceiving a solid world yet it consistently peeked at what was rotten underneath, pulling reality out of true so that I couldn't discern the healthy from the diseased.
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