“What business?” Tom stared wide eyed at the large, black gun. “Look, I’m sorry if I said some nasty things about your work. I’m no expert. You mustn’t take me too seriously.”
“Oh, but we do take you very seriously… Now stop jerking me around. Tell me about the Spring?”
“The… spring?” stammered Tom, his brow rippling with a confused frown.
“Yeah, Limey limpdick, the Spring.”
“What… the season?” Tom reasoned.
“Oh, I wish I could just blow your fucking head off. That would be so much easier than this… bullshit!”
Preston moved onto the floor, and pointed the gun threateningly at Tom’s head, but kept a safe distance from him.
“Who is the Spring and what is his mission?” Preston continued, while holding the gun chillingly steady.
“Who is the Spring?… Okay… give me a minute.” Tom breathed deeply in and out trying to calm down. “I know who it is.”
“So, tell me,” Preston said, backing off and sitting down, but not lowering the threatening sidearm.
Tom could make no sense of what had been happening since he opened his eyes in the car, but this was a very real threat and he needed to come up with something. Apart from Preston, who had somehow turned into a psychotic American nightmare, there was only himself. It seemed logical to assume that Preston was not the Spring or he wouldn’t be asking the question and Tom didn’t think he was the Spring, so it must be…
“Joseph Miller!” Tom blurted out.
“Joseph Miller?” Preston echoed sarcastically, as his expression changed from one of watching mass murder to that of watching comedy.
“Yeah, that bloody Joseph Miller.” Tom gushed, then sat back in mild relief.
“You’re shitting me?” Preston responded, rising slowly from the floor, and sitting back onto a chair. He lowered the gun and smiled.
“No, I’m not shitting you. Joseph Miller,” Tom reiterated.
Preston laughed, and Tom believed he had started to make some sense of the situation although he knew there were many miles to go until he exited the woods.
“You see,” Tom explained, flapping his hands around, “the Spring can’t be you or you wouldn’t be asking the question, and I know it’s not me…”
“Shut the fuck up!” barked Preston.
Tom’s fledgling grip on reality released, and he fell back into a raging sea of salty miscomprehension. Preston was standing, and the gun was back to pointing in Tom’s direction.
“You want to do this the hard way? Fine by me.” Preston no longer smiled. “Move… now!”
Tom had never pleaded for his life before, but hoped he would be as quick a learner as he had been with driving a car.
“Look, I don’t know what you want?” he pleaded, “I’m trying to help you… You ask me who the Spring is, and I’m giving you all I’ve got… Please, for god’s sake. Please, I don’t know what you want.”
Tom started crying uncontrollably.
“Oh, this is just peachy. What do you want, a fucking Oscar?” Preston mocked, making a clapping motion with his one free hand and the gun.
“I don’t know what you want.” Tom repeated, losing control completely.
“I’ll tell you what I want. I want you to fucking move.”
For the first time Preston moved across the safe ground between Tom and himself. He put a hand on Tom’s shoulder, and Tom snapped. Like driving the car, finding Joseph Miller’s house familiar and recognising the Beretta PX4, something that was not Tom emerged. He slipped his left hand into his jacket and pulled out a large hunting knife. With whip-like speed he slashed it across Preston’s wrist. The American’s gun fell to the floor. Preston raised his unassailed hand in a fist and swung at Tom, but Tom was ahead of him, he ducked down, bent double and came up behind Preston. In a final move Tom pulled Preston’s forehead back, and drew his hunting knife across Preston’s throat with such force that he could feel the man’s cervical vertebrae grate under the blade. Preston fell to the floor silent, with thick, bright red blood pouring onto the polished, wooden boards.
Tom’s eyes did not leave the motionless man. He put the knife back into its scabbard under his jacket. If Tom had thought yesterday had been difficult… he almost laughed.
In all this madness, one thing seemed frighteningly real; Preston had threatened him with a gun, and Tom was now a murderer. Going by Tom’s usual life experiences this suggested a massive incongruity between himself and reality. So, either he or reality itself had gone insane. ‘Where do you start when you have no idea where you are?’ he thought. He wished, childishly, that if he closed his eyes all this would be gone when he reopened them. He felt foolish, but believed it was worth a try. He closed his eyes tightly, but losing his sense of sight scared him even more. He opened his eyes again. Preston was still there, and his arterial blood had now reached Tom’s shoes.
The phone rang, and Tom jumped. As it continued its incessant calling, Tom looked around, finally finding it on a side table in the same room. He walked over to the table, leaving bloody footprints across the floorboards. ‘Was this Joseph Miller calling?’ he thought. ‘No, that was silly. Why would Miller call his own, empty house?’ Tom didn’t know what else to do, so he picked it up.
He said nothing. The voice on the other end started the conversation.
“Do you need clean-up?”
Tom didn’t know what to say, so he acted as if the world were still tolerable and understandable.
“Clean-up?” he asked, blandly.
“Yeah, clean-up. I assume Preston’s making a mess of your rug?”
“I guess he is,” Tom responded vaguely.
A sudden thought hit him.
“Where are you?” he asked urgently.
“Outside, where the hell do you think we are?”
‘If these people came in now and find me, a stranger in the house with a murdered body, god knows what they’d do,’ he thought. ‘Come on, Tom, think!’
The voice came back on the phone.
“Well, we haven’t got all day, Joe?”
‘Joe?… Joe?… Oh, my god,’ Tom thought, ‘they think I’m Joseph Miller. Do something, Tom,’ his mind screamed at him.
“Yeah… err… give me a few minutes,” Tom muttered into the mouthpiece.
He placed the receiver carefully onto the table, and ran to the back door. It was locked.
“Shit!”
He started pulling out drawers and opening cupboards, trying to find the key. Finally, feeling in the back of one of the drawers his fingers detected the familiar shape of a mortise key. Snatching it out of the drawer, he turned to insert it into the lock, but as he turned he caught sight of himself in the hall mirror and froze.
“No… no, this is not happening. This isn’t right,” he whispered in anguish.
Tom ran to the mirror, and stared at his reflection. A lean figure looked back at him; a toned body with a full head of auburn hair. Tom looked into the dark eyes of the man in the mirror. The hairs on the back of Tom’s neck prickled. The reflection looking back was not Tom. It was Joseph Miller. Tom put his hand up to feel his face, but before his hand had completed its travel, the sound of a key going into a lock came from the front door.
“Oh, shit! What’s happening?”
He closed his eyes tightly despite the fact that this had not worked the first time.
“Enough, enough. That’s fucking enough!” Tom screamed frantically.
He opened his eyes. It was no longer day. He tentatively looked around, but the room was in moonlight and he could see very little. As if his sense of reality was not under enough pressure, this sudden temporal shift pushed him to his emotional limits and almost made him cry. He felt he could take no more, but had no idea how to make it stop. Closing his eyes seemed to have done something, but what?
He decided that although he could not explain the sudden change in the time of day, he might be able to establish where he was. Tom looked
around again. He started to recognise objects as his eyes became accustomed to the darkness; a toilet bowl, a cast iron bath, a pedestal basin. This was his bathroom. Somehow, he had transported from Miller’s house to his own. But the question was… who had transported? Tom turned slowly to the mirror above the basin, but kept his eyes looking downwards. His breathing was fast and he was terrified. What would he see when he looked up; who would he see? He looked up. Joseph Miller was gone, and a much-diminished Tom looked back at him.
“What the hell was that?” Tom whispered to himself.
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Chapter 5
Tom was still lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling, when the sun found its way through the curtains. ‘That’s it,’ he kept thinking, ‘I’ve finally gone insane. This isn’t a joke or some dramatic fantasy, I’ve really gone over the edge’.
The phone rang. Tom looked at his alarm clock on the bedside table. Time still seemed to be flowing independently of his internal chronometer; it was ten o’clock even though it felt like three in the morning. He answered the phone.
“Hello?”
“Hi Tom, it’s Mona.”
“Oh, hiya,” he said vaguely.
“Are you okay? You sound funny,” Mona inquired.
“Yeah… no… I’m fine. Just woke up.”
“Oh,” Mona reacted, “you know it’s ten o’clock?”
Normally Tom would have felt judged by such a comment, but somehow, after recent events, it didn’t seem important. He said nothing.
“I just wanted to check you were okay. You know… with Taylor doing his stuff… with his stuff… oh… you know what I mean,” Mona stammered.
“You mean the coke?” said Tom. “It’s not a problem. Not any more. You really don’t need to worry.”
“Well, as long as you’re okay,” Mona repeated. There was a moment’s silence. “I’ll let you get on with your day, then.”
“Thanks for your concern, Mona,” Tom said graciously, “but you really needn’t worry about me. See ya Sweetheart.”
He went to put the phone down, then quickly returned it to his ear.
“Mona!” he called urgently into the mouthpiece, “are you still there?”
“Yes Tom, I’m still here!”
“Listen,” Tom said hesitantly, “your friend Preston.”
“Oh, did you like his work?”
“No, it’s not that… Where’s he from?”
“Err… South London I think. Why?” Mona replied, a little confused.
“He’s not American… from Baltimore?”
“What? With his accent? I don’t think so.”
“Right,” Tom said absently, “of course… and he’s okay?”
“What? What do you mean?”
“I mean… he’s okay… he’s alive?”
“What!?” Mona exclaimed, her voice almost a cry.
“Sorry… sorry,” Tom said calmingly, “I just had a bad dream… I’m a bit confused. Forget I said anything.”
He forced a disarming laugh.
“Oh, right,” Mona said, forcing a laugh herself, “I thought you had gone mad. Asking crazy questions about Preston.”
“Yes, sorry about that. Everything’s fine. Really, it was just a silly dream… See you later, Mona.”
“You’re sure you’re okay, Tom?” Mona pressed.
“Yes, no, really. You know me.”
“Exactly,” said Mona, half jokingly, “that’s why I’m asking.”
By the time Tom arrived at the East-End art gallery, it was a little before one o’clock. After rising at ten, then spending two hours trying to decide what to do, then dressing and travelling to the gallery, he had neglected to have anything to eat or drink. It seemed that eating and/or drinking were either the very first or very last thing that comes to mind when under stress. Usually Tom was in the first category, but today, unusually, he had gone the other way. However, now he was regretting the decision, and felt weak with hunger. He noticed that a MacDonald’s restaurant was usefully positioned two buildings away from the gallery, so he decided to make a Big Mac stop before continuing.
Tom joined the queue, and patiently shuffled towards the counter as each successive customer moved away clutching a brown paper bag of goodies. He had always been confused by the outcry MacDonald’s food engendered in some sections of society. As far as he could see a Mickey D burger was; beef, maybe some cereal, fresh bread and fresh salad. Okay, so it was rather heavy on the sugar and salt, but really is it as bad as people seem to make out?
“Good afternoon, Sir. How can I help you, at all?” asked the young man behind the counter, with the dubious sincerity that only large American corporations can teach.
“Afternoon, my good man,” Tom said with pompous playfulness, “I think a Big Mac meal with a strawberry shake will suffice.”
After a short wait, Tom carried his plastic tray over to a vacant table. A sudden noise made his heart jump; a rhythmic squeak. He looked around the restaurant, and finally identified the sound. A young woman was wheeling a pushchair towards the exit. He watched her get to the door then stop and awkwardly try to open it, and push the buggy through. Quickly, putting his tray onto the table, he ran over to help her. He wanted to see her face; see her eyes. Without looking up, she thanked him as he held the door open, but her concentration was fully on manoeuvring the pushchair through the exit, and with her head down her hair hung forwards obscuring her face. Finally, she managed the negotiation without any serious injury to either property or person, and started heading away from the shop. Tom stood breathing heavily, telling himself he was being silly. How could she be the girl from his dream? That was just plain crazy. He went back to the table and demolished his Big Mac meal.
The gallery was in a state of disarray. Swarms of artisans were busy demolishing the exhibition. The scene, from the doorway, could have been an animation of a Dali painting; a colony of busy ants pulling apart and consuming art. Tom remembered a large painting he had done at school in recognition of his Dalian influences. It was a man being taken apart by hundreds of tiny people. Tom and his friend Gary, who had conceived and painted the picture with him, had named the piece, Revolting People.
He advanced into the crowd, and searched for the person he so needed to see, whilst avoiding being knocked unconscious by the large canvases that shot around the room. He grabbed the first person that was moving slowly enough not to be a blur.
“Hi,” he said to the young girl, “I’m looking for Preston.”
“What?” she said with a thick East London accent. “Look, I’m really busy, mate.”
She tried to pull away, but Tom held onto her arm tightly. She looked at where he held her, then moved her gaze aggressively to his face.
“Do you mind, geezer!” she said tersely.
“Sorry, but I need to find Preston… urgently,” Tom demanded, continuing to hold his ground, and the girls arm, firmly.
She relaxed a little.
“Listen,” she said, “judging by your behaviour, you came in here with a pretty big pair of bollocks, right? Well, if you want to leave with them… let go of my fucking arm!”
Tom let her go. She moved away from him with the angry urgency of a hooked fish being released back into its river.
“Wanker!” she called over her shoulder as a final show of strength.
Tom moved around the room looking at every face, but Preston wasn’t there. His mind kept telling him that his experience of killing Preston must have been a dream. There was no way it could be real. One, for some reason Preston had appeared as an American. He definitely was not. Two, Tom himself had not even been Tom. He had been some sort of alter ego, maybe the person Tom secretly wanted to be; younger, fitter, with the classic exciting life of a… of a… what was Joseph? Some kind of secret agent! Tom laughed at himself, as a hand gently took him by the arm.
“You looking for Preston?” said a middle aged man in a suit.
; “Yes… yes I am.”
“He’s over there,” instructed the man, pointing to the other side of the room.
“Are you a reviewer or buyer or…?” the man inquired.
“Oh, no,” Tom responded, “just a… friend.”
Tom crossed the room in the direction the man had pointed. There ahead of him, holding court, was Preston, very much alive to Tom’s delight. The artist looked up as Tom approached.
“Oh,” Preston said, “you’re… err… Mona’s friend, right?”
“Yes, I am… that’s right…”
There was an awkward silence.
“So,” Preston asked hesitantly, “what can I do for you?”
Tom stammered. He didn’t know what to say.
“Did you want to buy one of my paintings?” asked Preston.
“Err… well… actually I might. I thought I’d have another look,” Tom explained.
“Well, sorry mate,” Preston apologised, “all my stuff’s packed up for an exhibition in Germany. Won’t be back here ‘till the spring.”
Before Tom could react to the emotive word spring, something else raised his blood pressure. The squeak was back. Just as it had been at Miller’s house, just as it had been a few minutes ago in MacDonald’s; rhythmic, pulsating, grinding, unnerving. Preston swung around, and Tom followed the direction of his gaze. Slowly making her way towards them was the young woman with the pushchair. As it had been earlier, her head was turned downwards, this time playing with the occupant of the buggy. She and the chilling squeaking stopped as she arrived at the spot where Tom and Preston stood.
“All right, babe?” Preston said to the woman. “This is m’ball and chain, Samantha,” he announced turning back to Tom.
“Oh,” responded Tom, tentatively holding out his hand.
Samantha looked up and smiled at Tom. Tom’s hand froze in mid air. He had seen that smile last night. And he had seen those eyes as well.
“‘Ere, don’t stare!” Preston barked, partly embarrassed, partly annoyed, “so she’s got different coloured eyes. So’s David Bowie!”
If The Bed Falls In Page 4