Compulsion

by Shaun Hutson

  “Where’s Donna anyway?” she asked, chewing a stubby finger.

  “I thought she’d have been here.”

  “She’s back at school,” Thompson told her.

  ‘1 thought she got expelled.”

  “Just suspended for a week.”

  “I got expelled.” Tina beamed.

  Thompson reached beneath his bed, ferreting about for something Tina couldn’t see.

  “What time does your dad get home?” she asked.

  “It all depends. Five or six. Sometimes he goes straight out after work.”

  “Are we going out or what?” she demanded.

  Thompson ignored her and continued with his search.

  Tina sat on the bed, looking down at Thompson, who was still fumbling about.

  She lay on it, glancing around at the posters blu-tacked to the walls:

  Alicia Silverstone. Sarah Michelle Cellar. A film poster for The Matrix.

  The one above the bed had come loose at the bottom.

  She reached up to re-attach it and the whole thing came away. Andrea Corr flopped across her.

  “Leave it!” snapped Thompson.

  “I was just trying to put it back for you.” She saw the hole in the wall.

  “What’s that?” She grinned, kneeling up and squinting through it. She found she could see straight into the next room.

  “Is that your dad’s bedroom?” she wanted to know, eye still pressed to the hole.

  She heard the loud click behind her and turned.

  Tina stifled a scream as she saw the barrel of the .22 air rifle aimed at her face.

  Thompson grinned and lowered the gun slowly.

  “Put the poster back,” he said, watching as she pressed the shiny paper back into position.

  He broke the barrel and took a slug from his pocket, running one thumb over the pointed end before pushing it into the gun and snapping it shut.

  Tina kicked out angrily at him as he stepped away from her.

  “Come on,” Thompson said, brandishing the gun in one hand.

  “You wanted to go out, didn’t you?”

  JONATHAN LYNCH SHOOK his head wearily as he sifted through the file before him.

  It was quiet inside his room, just the occasional ringing of the phone from his secretary’s outer office cutting through the silence.

  The headmaster of Howard Road Secondary School was a distinguished-looking man in his mid-forties. The touches of grey at his temples added to the overall appearance of a man in a position of responsibility, but sometimes troubled by the magnitude of it.

  Opposite him, Graham Brown picked at the head of a spot and gazed aimlessly around.

  He knew this room well.

  Knew its paintings; its slightly worn grey carpet.

  He should do. He’d been inside it often enough.

  “You know why you’re here, don’t you?” Lynch said, finally.

  “Miss Sinclair reported me, sir,” Brown told him, sniffing loudly.

  “And you know why she reported you?”

  Brown nodded.

  “Foul and abusive language,” Lynch said, keeping his voice as even as possible.

  “Lewd conduct.” He tapped the file before him.

  “That goes with all the other instances I have here of similar behaviour during the last two years. Do you want me to read them out or can you remember them?”

  Brown didn’t answer.

  “As well as being reported for using foul and abusive language more times than I’d care to repeat,” the headmaster began, ‘there’s also a catalogue of absenteeism. Truancy. Fighting. Threatening behaviour, against other pupils and members of staff. Shall I go on?”

  Brown shrugged.

  “No need is there?” Lynch said, closing the file.

  The phone rang in the outer office.

  “What are you trying to do, Graham? Get yourself expelled? Is that what you want?”

  Brown didn’t answer. He seemed more concerned with pulling the scab from another spot.

  “Educationally, these are the most important years of your life, but that doesn’t seem to bother you,” Lynch continued.

  “These are the years that will equip you for work.”

  Brown snorted disdainfully.

  “Have I said something amusing?” Lynch wanted to know.

  “What work? What work is there for people like me around here, sir? My old man can’t even get a fucking job.”

  “Language!” rasped Lynch.

  “What do you want me to do, sir?”

  Try working, like your classmates. Do as you’re told.”

  “And that’s going to get me a job when I leave, is it?”

  “It’ll give you more of a chance.”

  “I might as well leave now. Or you might as well expel me now. I’m not going to get a job now. I’m not going to get a job when I’m sixteen.”

  “What do you want to do when you leave?”

  “Earn good money.”

  “And the only way to do that is to work hard while you’re at school, get some qualifications and find the job you want when you leave.”

  “The only ones who’re going to get jobs are the fucking arse-lickers who do “A” levels, then go to college or university. They’re the only ones the teachers are interested in anyway. None of them could give a toss what happens to me.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “You know it is, sir. You never get the teachers’ pets in here, do you? How many of them have you threatened with being expelled?”

  “What about your parents? Do they take an interest in what you do at school?”

  “They couldn’t give a toss.”

  “You can change that.”

  “How?”

  “Talk to them. Let them know what you want out of life.”

  Brown sniggered.

  “I’ll get what I want, sir,” he said, grinning.

  “And I don’t care how.”

  Lynch regarded him silently for a moment, his expression a mixture of rage and frustration.

  “Well, I won’t allow behaviour such as you exhibited this afternoon,” the Headmaster snapped.

  “You may not be interested in learning but there are plenty in this school who are. One hour’s detention for the next three days. You’re lucky I’m not calling the Police. You could be on a charge for indecent exposure. Get out of here.”

  Brown got to his feet.

  “You can’t do anything and neither can the police, sir,” he sneered.

  “And you know that. You can’t touch me and neither can they.”

  “The only one who can change this situation is you, Graham,” Lynch told him.

  “What if I don’t want to change it, sir?” the youngster said. He held the headmaster’s gaze for a moment, then slammed the door behind him.

  “Ix’s GOING TO RAIN,” said Colin Glazer, peering out of the window of the day room. He was watching the banks of scudding grey clouds moving ponderously across the heavens.

  They didn’t forecast rain,” Harry Holland offered, not taking his eyes from the TV screen.

  “They would have done if they’d seen these clouds.” Glazer smiled. He watched them for a moment longer, then returned to his seat, wincing slightly as he sat down in one of the high-backed chairs that formed a semi-circle around the television.

  There was a quiz show about to start on Channel 4Most of the residents of Shelby House sat and watched it every weekday afternoon. It was as much a part of their routine as breakfast, lunch and dinner.

  For the rest of the day, they were left to their own devices, but the nine of them who lived permanently within the building usually joined together for the delights offered by the television.

  Janice Holland flipped open the pad on her lap and tapped it with her biro. She had already written the names of each person gathered around the set.

  Every day they waited for the show. Every day she drew a tick beneath the name of each of her companions
who got a right answer. At the end of the week they proclaimed a winner, who then chose their own small prize.

  She looked around at the expectant faces.

  At her own husband, Harry, aged sixty-eight; dressed in a blazer and with his shirt immaculately ironed, his blue tie fastened in a perfect knot.

  He was still a handsome man.

  Janice was two years younger.

  Next to him sat Eva Cole. Seventy-four. She’d worked as a seamstress in her husband’s business until his death ten years ago. She had no family. He’d left her the business which she hadn’t wanted so she’d sold it, made a tidy sum and retired to Shelby House. She was a softly spoken woman with snow-white hair and joints swollen with arthritis.

  Beside Eva sat George Errington. At eighty-one he was the oldest of the residents. A tall, awkward-looking man with large hands dappled by liver spots. He peered alternately over and through the thick glasses he wore, as if not sure of the best way to view the television.

  Errington spent most of his time in the day room, the majority of that watching the television. He’d once been a cinema projectionist and there was little he didn’t know about films, old or modern.

  He chewed on the stem of his unlit pipe and peered over his glasses at Donald Tanner, seated to his right.

  Tanner, at seventy-three, was a keen card player and always eager to engage anyone interested in some kind of game. From poker to bridge, he was alert, intuitive and, if the occasion called for it, not averse to cheating. Something the other residents looked on with amused acceptance.

  Provided they weren’t playing for money.

  Then there was Barbara Eustace: seventy-one, wheelchair-bound and the most recent addition to the list of residents at Shelby House, she had family, but at the moment Janice was unsure whether Barbara’s son was unable or unwilling to care for his mother. It was something she was determined to find out in the coming weeks.

  The theme music to the quiz show began and the watching residents greeted it like an old friend.

  “Jack’s going to miss this,” George Errington observed.

  “Where is he anyway?” Harry Holland wanted to know.

  “He’s probably building something,” Donald Tanner interjected.

  “I saw him outside earlier.”

  “If he stays out he’s going to get soaked.” Colin Glazer, smiled, noticing the first drops of rain hitting the windows.

  “First question coming up,” Janice Holland said, drawing everyone’s attention back to the screen.

  The quizmaster had just finished introducing the contestants and was shuffling his stack of questions as he turned to the first contestant.

  “Who wrote the novel “Crime and Punishment” ?”

  “Dostoyevsky,” a new voice called.

  “One for me, Janice. Tick it off.”

  Jack Fuller chuckled and pulled up a chair, rubbing his hands together.

  “We were just wondering where you were,” Harry Holland said.

  “Shhh. Next question,” Janice said.

  “What is a female fox called?”

  Three voices called out Vixen’.

  “That was mine,” Donald Tanner insisted.

  “Mine,” George Errington countered.

  “I’ll give all three of us a point,” Janice said, ticking away quickly.

  The questions continued.

  Outside, the rain began to fall more heavily.

  RONNI PORTER HELD up the small plastic bottle, then took two tablets from it.

  “Two milligrams, Glyceril Trinitrate,” she said, dropping the medicine into a small plastic dish.

  Alison Dean nodded and ticked the sheet of paper attached to her clipboard.

  “And twenty milligrams of Prazosin,” Ronni continued.

  That went into a separate container.

  Alison nodded once more.

  “That’s it,” the younger woman said.

  There were seven of the small plastic dishes on the tray, each containing at least one tablet or capsule. Drugs to treat everything from angina to piles.

  Alison looked directly at Ronni, studying her features for a moment.

  “And what are you having?” she wanted to know.

  Ronni looked puzzled.

  “Prozac?” Alison wondered.

  “Valium?”

  She smiled humourlessly.

  “It’s not that bad, Alison,” Ronni said, none too convincingly.

  The younger woman raised an eyebrow questioningly.

  “You’re married, you know what it’s like,” Ronni insisted.

  “But the difference is, I love my husband,” Alison told her.

  Ronni had no answer. She merely glanced briefly at her companion, aware of how oppressive the atmosphere inside the pharmacy had become.

  Alison Dean was a year younger than Ronni; a slender, auburn haired young woman with wide eyes and an easy smile. She had worked at Shelby House for the past five years and during that time the two women had become close friends. Ronni liked her companion’s relaxed manner and the two women also sought each other’s company outside work when they got the chance. Just shopping trips and the occasional night out at the local multiplex or wine bar in town, but it was better than nothing. However, Ronni felt that it was she who needed these rare respites from work and home more urgently. Any break in routine was appreciated.

  “So what are you going to do?” Alison asked.

  “I wish I knew.”

  “What about kids?”

  Ronni frowned.

  “Sometimes, having a child can put a relationship back on track,” Alison insisted.

  “The last thing I need now is a child.”

  “Has Andy mentioned it?”

  “Once or twice. I know he’d love kids but he’s never put any pressure on me to have them.”

  “Does he know how you feel?”

  “What am I supposed to say to him, Alison?

  “Sorry, but I don’t love you anymore so why don’t we go our separate ways?”” “Is that what you really want?”

  “I think so.”

  “You chink so? I thought you were sure.”

  “I’m not sure of anything anymore.”

  “Have you thought about going to Relate?”

  “Andy doesn’t even know there’s a problem between us. It might come as a bit of shock to him if I tell him I’ve booked us in for marriage guidance.”

  “If he doesn’t know there’s a problem, then you should tell him, Ronni.

  It’s not fair on him.”

  “I know. I’ve thought about that too. There isn’t much I haven’t thought about. I think all the time. It’s just the doing I can’t get around to.”

  “Is there anyone else ?” Alison asked quietly.

  “Do you mean am I having an affair?” Ronni laughed bitterly.

  “I wish I was, it would make things easier. I wish Andy was. That would solve all my problems, wouldn’t it? I could throw him out with a clear conscience then.”

  “Who else knows how you feel?”

  “Just you. I can’t tell my dad, can I? He’s got enough to worry about.”

  “How is he?”

  “Up and down. Some days I go to see him and he seems fine. Others, it’s as if he’s made no progress at all.”

  “It’s bound to take time for him to get over it.”

  “I wish I could be closer to him.”

  “You go in every day, Ronni. What more can you do?”

  “I want him here at Shelby House.” She tapped the work top

  “And you think that would help him?”

  “It’d help me,” she said, defiantly.

  “I don’t want to lose him, Alison.”

  “It takes time to get over a death, you know that.”

  “I’ve walked into that house some days and found him sitting in my mum’s chair, holding her picture and sobbing.” She lowered her gaze.

  “I’m scared he’s never going to get over her death,
Alison. He says life’s not worth living without her. I think he wants to die. I’m not going to let that happen.”

  ALL FOUR WHEELS were missing from the car.

  Carl Thompson smiled as he saw the rusted Corsa standing uselessly on the tarmac outside the nearest garage.

  He watched as Harper and Mackenzie ran ahead, hurtling endlessly round the stricken vehicle like Red Indians circling a wagon train. Harper stopped long enough to lash out with one foot and shatter what remained of a headlight. He and Mackenzie shouted in triumph and continued careering around the Corsa.

  Tina Craven took a drag on her cigarette and pulled the collar of her Kangol jacket up around her neck.

  “Why couldn’t we have stayed at your place?” she wanted to know, glancing up at the sky.

  The rain was still falling, but the initial downpour had been replaced by a mournful drizzle that covered the desolate landscape like a damp gauze. It swayed and undulated with each gust of wind.

  “You said you wanted to do something,” Thompson reminded her.

  “Getting fucking soaked wasn’t what I was thinking of,” she muttered.

  Harper and Mackenzie had stopped their relentless circling of the Corsa and were now inspecting the car more closely.

  The driver’s side door was missing. Seats had been slashed. The foam interior protruded like viscera from a bad stomach wound.

  Wing mirrors had been torn off. The front and rear windscreens had been smashed in. Not a scrap of glass remained in the front. There were some deep gouges in the body work When Harper lifted the bonnet, the engine beneath was rusted. Parts had been torn out. Most of them lay scattered across the ground around the vehicle.

  “Who uses these?” Tina asked, nodding in the direction of the garages.

  There were two rows of them. Twelve in each.

  Every door was painted a different colour.

  Every handle was rusted.

  Each door was dented or covered in a variety of graffiti.

  “They’re for the flats over there,” Thompson informed her. He gestured towards the blocks of fifteen-storey council dwellings that pushed upwards into the sodden sky about half a mile from where they stood.

  “Nobody leaves their car here anymore. Not if they’ve got any fucking sense.”

  Harper clambered behind the broken steering wheel and began making engine noises.

  Mackenzie walked to each of the garage doors and kicked them hard.