Purged

by Peter Laws

  He laughed. ‘Bring it down. If there’s room, we’ll take it.’

  ‘Yay!’ she rattled down the stairs.

  ‘You two are geeks,’ Lucy said.

  ‘I’d rather be a geek than a freak,’ Amelia jabbed Lucy in the ribs with her finger.

  For a moment his two girls stood next to each other on the bottom step. His kids. Amelia at seven years old was so clearly a little version of him, that even the dumbest of passers-by would guess they were flesh and blood. Lucy, on the other hand, seemed to take every opportunity (at least lately) to remind Matt that they were nothing of the sort. Maybe he’d understand it if her ‘real’ dad was some top bloke with a heart of gold or bottomless credit card. But Eddie Pullen was a violent piece of dirt who’d been clicking his fingernails for the last ten years in Durham prison. For beating Wren very nearly to death. You’d think the laws of comparison would make Matt come out better. You’d think!

  He smiled at them both. ‘Shoes on.’ Then he nipped upstairs to quickly get changed into jeans and a T-shirt. They all dragged the cases down the front path.

  It was just as he popped the boot that he noticed the group of local teenage boys across the road. They were, sadly, a common feature of this street. As much a part of the concrete as the potholes and the Sunday morning piss puddles. They’d climbed up on their usual metal-framed bench over the road and were glaring over. It was lunchtime. and one of them already had a bottle of cooking sherry in his hand. A quarter full. Stay classy, Cropsy Road.

  Matt started bundling cases into the boot, making sure there might be a telescope-shaped gap somewhere, while Wren bent over to put a pile of her building specs and plans into the front seat.

  ‘Hey, sexy!’ One of the teenagers shouted at her, then followed it with something as grammatically efficient as it was offensive. ‘Tits out!’

  ‘Nice one, Reece,’ one of them said. ‘Nice one.’

  Matt moved too quickly and smacked the back of his head on the boot lid.

  The rest of the boys roared with laughter.

  ‘You want to say that again, you little git?’ Matt called over, refusing to rub his head. Then he saw Wren was already marching over.

  ‘What did you just say?’ She had her hands on her hips, chin pushed forward.

  ‘I said,’ Reece stood up on the bench and grabbed his crotch, ‘get your dirty titties out.’

  Cackles and whoops. Fingers slapping thumbs. Matt hurried over.

  ‘And tell me, Reece, why would you want me to do that?’ Wren shouted. ‘You idiot babies need your milk?’

  They stopped laughing.

  Then Wren hollered, ‘Grow some pubes!’

  ‘Oh, my God, Mum,’ Lucy called out from the back seat. ‘Get in before you get us stabbed.’

  Matt stomped toward the boys and was about to pass Wren when she grabbed his elbow. ‘Don’t.’

  It didn’t matter anyway. They’d seen the look on his face and were already nervously slipping away.

  ‘Go on. Get lost.’

  He watched them as they were swallowed by the shadows in the alley across the street. But just before Reece vanished he cupped his hands around his mouth, glaring at Matt. ‘Control your beeeeeaaaatcch!’ Then he vanished in a scamper of giggles and trainers.

  ‘Leave it,’ she said, as Matt stepped toward the alley. ‘Let’s just get going.’

  He glanced at the shadows, shrugged, then they both got back in the car. ‘Little buggers.’

  Wren’s voice was quiet as she pulled the seat belt across her. ‘Sorry. But boys can’t just speak to women like that.’

  In the rear-view mirror Matt could see a tiny, impressed smile on Lucy’s face.

  ‘What’s a beeaaatch?’ Amelia said.

  Wren pulled her seat belt over, but she did it slowly, a little sheepishly. He spotted a tiny tremble in her hand.

  ‘You okay?’ he said quietly.

  She blinked. ‘Just get me out of this dump.’

  ‘Aye aye.’ He flicked the radio on to check the weather but switched it straight back off again when he heard the newsreader mention an ‘incident’ on Oxford Street. There’d be time to explain about that later.

  ‘So what is it?’ Amelia tugged on his car seat. ‘What’s a beeeeatch?’

  Lucy leant over and started whispering the answer into Amelia’s ear. Her little eyes grew wide.

  As they pulled away he caught Wren’s eye and sniggered, ‘Grow some pubes?’

  She shook her head and snorted a laugh. ‘I promise I won’t say that in Hobbs Hill.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  He listened to the drips.

  As each of them hit the water the sound echoed off the bathroom tiles.

  Bwup.

  Bwup.

  Bwup.

  He closed his eyes, relaxed by the sound, like the ticking of an underwater clock. He was holding himself as still as he possibly could so that there were absolutely no ripples in the bath. Not easy to do, actually. But he’d always been very patient with things. Under the surface he slowly watched his naked body settle as still as he could get it, quaking only now and again.

  Funny how water made his legs look so huge. He used to notice that with straws in glass tumblers. The refracted light made them look suddenly bent and bigger underneath. The same thing was happening with his body now. Freaky, but still interesting, physics-wise.

  He took in a huge breath, lungs fat and full, then he clamped his lips together and slid under the water. His shoulders squeaked against the back of the bath. He went fully under, ears suddenly closing up with water. The hum of the extractor fan vanished in a dull zzzzip.

  Sixty seconds. That’s how long he usually lasted.

  Ten Mississippi, eleven Mississippi, twelve Mississippi.

  The water pressed against his eardrums and made him feel a little sick. But it also made a roaring sound like the echo of the falls. So he stayed under.

  Thirty-two Mississippi, Thirty-three Mississippi.

  Still under he opened his eyes and looked up. They stung a little but he kept them really wide. Crazy wide. Everything was a blur. A beautiful, quiet haze. Being under was the most peaceful place in the world. Just for fun he ran his fingertips along the underside of the water, like it was ice or glass. But the movement made it quake too much for it to work. Worth a try, though.

  Forty-nine Mississippi.

  It felt like a good moment to start praying. With lips tightly closed he let his thoughts tumble out. Asking God for strength and protection. For angels to shield him from harm so he could carry on his ministry here in Hobbs Hill. Even as he prayed, he could feel his back and legs starting to stiffen and turn numb. Divine fingers were drawing around him. He was being stroked by God.

  Sixty-one Mississippi, Sixty-two Mississippi.

  Praise the Lord, he thought. I’m getting better. I grow stronger. Every time I help them I—

  A frantic, gulping bubble shot out through his lips before he even knew it was coming. His lungs contracted into wrinkled bags. Dirty bathwater raced down his throat, and he shot his body up, coughing and wheezing like a calf just born. A huge white globule of saliva sprang from his lips into the bath so he quickly leant across to the toilet. He grabbed the towel he’d left there and rubbed his face with it. Eyes stinging, chest aching, he let out some cold air across his lips, and pulled new life back to fill his lungs.

  The water settled again – it took a whole two minutes – then he looked down at his body. Pubic hair wafted softly back and forth like the barbs of a toxic jellyfish, and he decided it might be helpful to shave it all off.

  He’d never done that before but he just didn’t like the look of how those black strands swayed in the water. Things might get tangled in there, things he didn’t want. Who knows, maybe next time one of his short and curlies would drop off and land on the floor and some clever Quincy M.E. forensic-type would trace it back to him. And then he’d be screwed.

  Not that he’d got naked with Nicola Knox.


  Should he have? Should he be naked next time? Would that be better? More purifying?

  He’d pray about it.

  For now, something just told him that it would be wise to be more streamlined so he grabbed his razor.

  He reached for the plug and pulled it out. The water guzzled and groaned, sounding like the belly of Jonah’s whale and he watched the water level sink lower. Gradually the tops of his thighs and his genitals were exposed. His skin sparkled under the light. He guided the plug back over the sucking hole and the force of it dragged it out of his hands like a magnet. The black rubber was quickly sucked in and the gurgling sound bubbled into silence.

  He lay there in a few centimetres of water, using his foot to knock the shaving foam from the end of the bath into the space between his feet. It bobbed towards him. He grabbed it and clicked off the lid with one thumb. He felt quite suave, doing that. The sort of thing a cool guy would do with a bottle of beer at a party. Not that he drunk beer. He tipped it on its side, squeezed the plastic button and a spatter of whiteness shot across his legs, like whipped cream. A smooth white teardrop formed on his hand with a low hiss.

  He rubbed it on his scrotum, up around his penis where there were a few hairs. Then after taking a breath he grabbed the razor and started to guide it across the skin. There was a serious amount of gunk on the blade, after each stroke. Big old chunks of Hitler moustaches, one after the other. He had to swill it in the bathwater each time. He managed to shave most of it clean without any cuts or nicks. But the shrivelled flesh of his scrotum wasn’t so easy to navigate. He lifted his penis back, like a barwoman pulling a pint of Guinness. (The thought of that made him laugh – he could be pretty funny sometimes.) Then he drew the blade across the skin underneath and felt the razor catch.

  He sucked in a sharp breath as a drop of blood wisped its way up through the water to the surface, where white foam and black hair bobbed around. Debris from a sinking ship.

  Seeing the blood made him feel suddenly afraid because it made him think of her, and how she’d been at the end. He stared at the water between his legs and it was inevitable really. She came back, like she was often doing today. Nicola Knox, with a cracked porcelain forehead slowly reaching up out of the bathwater with her skinny blue hands and white eyes, grabbing his legs to glide herself up. She was still chomping at the air, slowly and in complete silence. Her pottery skin snapping and collapsing as she moved up his body for a kiss.

  He snapped his eyes shut. ‘She’s in heaven.’

  She didn’t listen. Just kept moving up, sliding her cold sharp skin across his belly. He could feel her razor ribs scratching into his thighs. She was whispering something.

  ‘She’s in heaven.’

  When he opened his eyes she was gone. Slithered down the plughole for another time. Angry, he flung the shaving foam and razor across the room. They skidded across the floor and rattled against the wooden door. He let the rest of the water out, dried himself. Then he put a little fabric plaster on the cut, dreading when he would eventually have to pull it off. He ran his fingertips across the shaved prickly skin between his legs.

  His now bald, freaky crotch looked bizarre in the bathroom mirror. It was like he was looking at someone else’s genitals. He ran his hands across the skin again and paused when he felt a pulsing throb down there.

  ‘Caaaaareful.’ A low voice through the door.

  He jumped and snapped his hand back, his foot squeaking a little on the wet tiles. He looked at the door, which he was sure he’d locked. It was open, with a tiny crack in it. Big enough for an eye to be looking through. Then he heard Stephen’s heavy boots creak along the landing in his usual slow clumps as he headed downstairs.

  He quickly pulled his trousers on before getting himself into any mischief. He looked back at the bathtub where the hair-pocked water bobbed gently and where Nicola Knox was sitting up, laughing at him.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Hobbs Hill. Home of Cooper’s Force: Britain’s Loudest Natural Waterfall!

  The ornate arched sign across the top of the road might as well have been the doorway to another dimension because as soon as the car passed under it the world suddenly popped with colour. Thatched cottages appeared by the sides of the road looking pure fairy tale apart from the expensive-looking front doors in mahogany and oak. That, and the Porsches and Maseratis in the drives. Rustic wooden benches made from old wagon wheels sat in rainbow gardens while white butterflies danced between roses.

  They passed a trendy-looking gastro pub called The Petals with a T.S. Elliot quote written on the sign. Matt could pretty much guarantee there’d be no kids’ ballpool or unlimited coke refills in that place. He’d bet his life there’d be guinea fowl on the menu. Or similar stuff he’d never tasted.

  Wren leant forward, eagerly taking it all in. Then she laughed nervously and pulled in a breath. One that she didn’t seem to want to let back out again. Maybe the plan was to keep it locked in her lungs until her boss Mr Mason said she could keep her job.

  Mason – of the architects firm Chase, Penn and Mason – was the only partner kind enough not to have a life-altering stroke this year. The other two hadn’t been so thoughtful. Chase had his playing tennis with his son. They say he dropped his racket and started staring at the net, which was ironically something he did for a joke anyway, when he got bored of losing. So his son just laughed and whacked some tennis ball at him from over the net. Then he collapsed and someone screamed.

  Penn, on the other hand, had his stroke right in the middle of a pep talk, three weeks after Chase lost control of his bowels. He was reading out a letter Chase wrote (or rather his wife wrote down, interpreting his grunts). He said how much he loved them all. Wren said people were crying. They figured Penn must be upset too because he stopped midway and hurried to the toilet. He said he felt dizzy and his wife took him home in their Land Rover. Slept all day and never woke up.

  Two strokes in one month. The sort of stat that gets bored secretaries talking of a curse. And last-man-standing Mason was sucking on health shakes and vitamins like a maniac.

  This was three months back. And since the management side of CPM went tits up, new contracts seemed to be hurtling nose down. Someone told Wren that people were spooked to work with a firm in the grip of a death curse. She knew better. Mason had always been the firm’s weakest link anyway. It’s why his name’s at the end, she’d been told. So all in all, Chase, Penn and Mason were sinking. Fast.

  She’d been an architect there for three years now, the shortest of all of the team (she tried not to think about that little factoid). And Mason had made it very clear. Three of the five-strong team were ‘regretfully, unavoidably and tragically’ going to be made redundant at the end of this month.

  Everyone was surprised Wren was even put forward as the company rep for this Hobbs Hill pitch. There were others more senior. But for whatever reason she was being sent up for it and this was (she just knew it) her last chance. Land this big church renovation job in Oxfordshire and Mason would keep her on with a bonus, apparently. And that, along with Matt’s book, meant that operation ‘Get the hell out of Cropsy’ would be back on the cards for this year. And not only that, she’d be based here for a month.

  But if this job slipped through her fingers, then it was pretty much sharia law: come 31st July she’d get a stunning cardboard box, a string of awkward handshakes and a redundancy package that wouldn’t be worth pissing on. Still … she could always drown her sorrows at the nightclub at the end of her road. And at least they had ten days staying up here for free, courtesy of the client. Cheap holidays weren’t to be sniffed at, these days.

  ‘How are you doing?’ Matt said, softly.

  She set her jaw. ‘I’m going to get this contract. Just you watch.’

  He wanted to say ‘of course you are’, but he didn’t. Unlike his vicar days, he wasn’t so quick to make promises he couldn’t guarantee would keep.

  Hobbs Hill lay at the bottom of a valle
y so the road suddenly swooped down in a heart-quivering dip, pulling them on a tilt through a long green corridor of overhanging trees. Wren’s face flashed with sunlight, her thick red hair like fire. She had her hands together as if she was praying. She wasn’t. But it probably was some sort of cosmic experience reminding her that maybe there really was ‘something else’. Something beyond. Something other than ‘get your titties out’ and kebabs on the path. Maybe there was a higher power and its name was Leafy Village.

  She smiled to herself and pulled out her camera, pushing the zoom lens out of the window like a sniper’s rifle. Snap, snap, giggle, snap.

  When they eventually left the tree corridor they were in the impossibly pretty village centre. Tudor houses leant into one another like friendly old drunks and cobbled streets ran up the sides of the valley, turning into magical, secret alleys. They passed a busy train station and then rows of tiny shops appeared. He struggled to find a brand name he recognised because they had landed on Planet Bespoke. The further they drove, the closer the pavements – and people – seemed to get to the car.

  It was mid afternoon and figures milled about, popping in and out of shops, eating al fresco at wooden chairs and tables. Laughing into their smartphones. It reminded him of the nicer parts of Notting Hill on a summer’s afternoon, only surrounded by green not grey. He could smell baked bread from somewhere. Maybe a touch of cinnamon.

  But then he noticed something else.

  ‘This is gorgeous,’ Wren said.

  He drew his eyebrows together. ‘Weird.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘The crosses.’

  She frowned at him.

  ‘In the shop windows. Look.’ He nodded over to a butcher’s shop. A ten-inch wooden cross hung in the window between a row of dead dangling rabbits. They were strung up by their legs, beady open eyes staring at the spread of meat below. ‘That’s the fourth cross I’ve seen.’