I’ll Go To Bed At Noon

by Gerard Woodward

  ‘I’m surprised you invited her.’

  ‘Who, Rita?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘But I suppose you’ve made it up with Hugo, otherwise she wouldn’t be here. Very forgiving of you . . . very tolerant.’

  Veronica gave one of her slightly disgusted, wrinkle-nosed, tight-mouthed don’t-you-dare-try-and-pull-that-one-on-me faces and closed the door.

  Janus walked back to the pavement and then along Hoopers Lane towards the railway bridge. How long should he give it? How long before the fuse he’d lit sparked its way up to the dynamite. How long before Veronica, dismissive of his hint at first, allowed it to grow and grow until she could contain it no longer. Poor old Veronica. She thought she’d landed the catch of the year with Hugo Price, beery old clapped out second-class honours graduate trading on his school playground reputation, which was fading fast. Turned out to be a ravenous womaniser bedding his pert little female students with monotonous regularity. Discovered affairs led to ferocious rows and temporary separations, Hugo and Veronica were always teetering on the brink of divorce. Veronica was capable of a seething, almost delirious jealousy at any suggestion her husband was being unfaithful. She would find the morsel of doubt he’d offered her impossible to resist.

  The railway ran behind the houses of Hoopers Lane. Hugo and Veronica’s garden backed onto the dense undergrowth of the cutting. All he had to do was hop over the bridge and down onto the cutting, a short walk along the tracks and then a scramble through the mulberries and under the sycamore clumps and over the low fence into Hugo and Veronica’s garden. The party would, on this balmy night, have spilt out onto the lawn long ago, there he could mingle in the dark with the party guests unnoticed.

  A simple plan, yet every stage of its execution was fraught with difficulties. The bridge wall itself was higher than it looked, as was the drop into the cutting on the other side. Janus twisted his ankle on landing, then stumbled through an invisible mess of suburban detritus – bottles and beer cans, tangles of wire, rubble. He cut his knee. A train hurtled past. The railway here was a suburban commuter branch line that connected the merchants of the City of London with the countryside of Hertfordshire, and yet down there at track level, in amid all the brambles and clinker, these trivial little local trains seemed immense and powerful machines that sundered the dark with their blazing carriage windows. At this time of night there were few trains about, and Janus was surprised to see one at all. Thinking it likely that it was the last train of the night, Janus walked confidently along the tracks in between the rails, from sleeper to sleeper, small amid the vast engineering of a suburban railway line. Then the ascent through the cutting’s undergrowth, a terrible struggle through thorny scrub to attain the Price’s garden.

  When finally he crossed their rickety wooden fence he found himself at the silent, far end of a hundred feet of garden, in something like an orchard. A wilderness of decaying apple trees bounded by a rustic bower straggled with passion-flowers, then a broad almost dead lawn with benches of white wrought iron, in the centre a small circular pond with a fountain in the middle, the operation of which was now banned by the emergency legislation brought in by the Minister for Drought. There was also a swing in the garden, a fixture left by the previous occupants and allowed to remain by childless Hugo and Veronica who had once, it seemed, hoped for a family.

  Janus’s entrance to the party went unnoticed due to the fact that Rita Michaelangeli was threatening to commit suicide having climbed out onto the roof from an attic window. There was a commotion in the garden below her, where some party guests tried to reason with Rita while others, too drunk to realize what was happening, blundered about stupidly on the dimly lit lawn, paddled in the stagnant pool, played on the creaking swing.

  ‘Get a blanket,’ someone was shouting, ‘something to catch her in.’

  ‘Lets all take our trousers off and tie them together to make a trouser-trampoline,’ slurred a drunk, unbuckling his belt.

  ‘She couldn’t kill herself from there, it’s not high enough.’

  ‘What if she landed on her head?’

  ‘Probably just end up a vegetable.’

  Oddly, Rita had taken up onto the roof with her two bunches of celery, and she was slowly, methodically, breaking off stick after stick and hurling them down on the spectators, but especially on Hugo Price, who was on the patio and in a dilemma. Veronica was shrieking at him. Her pleated dress was torn, exposing the left cup of her bra. In some previous struggle this bra had slipped out of position, and her breast was shakily over-spilling, half her nipple was exposed, peeping cheekily above the lacy trim. Had no one thought to tell her?

  ‘She’s saying it’s her or me,’ a drunk that Janus vaguely knew said to him, ‘so if he goes with Veronica he’s got a death on his hands, if he leaves her he’s probably risking a kitchen knife in the groin, at the very least. Between you and me I think a full castration job is on the cards.’

  Another tussle erupted between Hugo and Veronica. Hugo received a swipe in the face from Veronica’s hand, who then shrieked up at the rooftops for Rita to throw herself off. Yet Rita, dressed in a flowery, flowing, diaphanous dress that fluttered in the light nocturnal breeze, seemed almost in a trance, her treacly cascade of hair fluttering, she continued to lob celery stalks down into the garden rather like, Janus thought, a mourner tossing flowers into a grave.

  From the shadows just beyond the reach of the kitchen lights Janus observed all this, finding himself almost yearning for Rita’s fall, not because he particularly disliked Rita, in fact he was quite fond of her, she’d more than once bestowed upon him plucky little kisses and bosomy embraces, but just for the witnessing of something spectacular, a young woman plunging to her death, landing head first on patio concrete. What would happen? Blood and nervous, post-mortem convulsions? Screams from those nearby? Panic. Silence. So Janus watched, his heart lifting, edging Rita closer to the guttering, let her take just one step, let her fall, let her fall . . .

  Bill was down there with Hugo and Veronica, trying to act as peacemaker, not succeeding very well. Veronica seemed to be holding him responsible for the whole mess, perhaps mixing him up with Janus, and she clawed at his beard, pulling away tufts.

  Kill Bill, Janus thought. Veronica, get your best knife, your kitchen devil, put it through his mean little heart, get one of your fondue forks and take out his eyes, one by one, like pickled silverskins. Chop him up and put him in your Moulinex. Liquidate him. Pour him into glasses and chill him in the fridge, then drink him with a salt-rimmed glass and a slice of lemon. Just for the spectacle. Just for the event.

  But Bill was retreating. He had come away from Hugo and Veronica and was tottering down the garden and into the shadows toward Janus.

  ‘Oh, hallo,’ he said, seeing Janus murderous beneath apple trees.

  ‘Hallo,’ said Janus.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ve just been trying to save Rita’s life, but I’ve given up.’

  ‘Not worth it, really.’

  ‘No.’

  Bill giggled quietly and put a hand on Janus’s shoulder, then attempted to embrace both shoulders with the single arm. Janus flinched.

  ‘Veronica Fox has found out about Hugo Rat’s secret love life vis-à-vis Rita Fox.’

  Bill yawned, then drank from his glass, Janus having moved a few paces back to release himself from his brother-in-law’s embrace.

  ‘I thought the doctor said you couldn’t drink any more.’

  ‘What does he know?’ said Bill, shrugging. ‘Anyway, he said cut down, not give up, or did he say give up? I don’t bloody know any more. I don’t care.’

  ‘I thought you weren’t going out any more, that you didn’t go to the pub any more . . .’

  Bill took a swig, made some incomprehensible gestures, ‘Me? The world is my pub, Janus, you know that. Anyway, what am I going to do but drink, now that your dear, sweet angel sister has
fled?’

  ‘Fled where?’

  ‘Fled off to make a nest somewhere else.’

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘Since yesterday, my old fruit. You should know, you were round our flat while she was getting her stuff together. An emotional turning point in my life disrupted somewhat by the uninvited intrusion of a drunken maniac. Packing her things last night for immediate departure. Don’t remember do you? My pleas for her to stay fell upon deaf ground, not helped by intrusion of aforesaid drunken person, who thus rendered my pleas worthless, since she blames my partnership in crime with you for the loss of our marriage. Thus I was required to remove you from the flat. In one last desperate attempt to save my marriage, I hung one on your beak, as they say . . .’

  Janus touched his face.

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  Though he did. Being pushed backwards out of the front door. Resisting. Finally Bill’s fist in his face. Not once. Not twice. Three times. The final punch had sent Janus into the flower beds.

  ‘You weren’t there this morning.’

  ‘I’ve been looking for her all day. Went round your mum and dad’s but they were just going off on holiday. I made a nuisance of myself with your mum. She is a divine woman, your mother. She let me cry on her shoulder for an hour. It meant they were late getting away . . .’

  ‘Didn’t you see me in the front garden?’

  ‘No? At Fernlight Avenue?’

  ‘Polperro Gardens. I was in the rose bushes asleep.’

  ‘Didn’t see you, but my mind was on other things, old chap.’

  ‘So you just walked off and left me to rot . . .’

  Bill’s manner suddenly changed. His warmth went.

  ‘Don’t you understand what I’ve just said? The woman I love has just left me . . .’

  ‘Yes, but she’s only my sister. You yourself said you never loved her . . .’

  ‘I said that to you . . .’ Bill began, but couldn’t explain further.

  ‘The good news,’ said Janus, ‘is that we can devote all our energies to discovering the source of the Limpopo.’

  ‘I don’t want to discover the source of the fucking Limpopo.’

  ‘Well you can get stuffed, then,’ said Janus, his manner also changing to match Bill’s. Then more assertively, ‘Get stuffed!’

  Without saying anything, after a moment’s pause, Janus took a swing at Bill’s head, a wild, flailing swipe in the dark that missed Bill’s beard by a good six inches, but which carried Janus’s body with it, spinning around in empty space until it flopped clumsily on the grass.

  Bill laughed, but it was a jeering laugh, such as he’d never directed at Janus before, and it angered Janus further, who launched himself at Bill’s legs, knocking him off balance and onto his bottom with a thud. Bill said ‘ouch’ loudly, then gripped Janus’s head with his legs while Janus growled. Janus, if anything, was taller than Bill, but Bill hadn’t lost the muscle he’d built up as a steeplejack, and which was still kept toned by the physicality of carrying sides of beef, chopping and sawing them into steaks. Janus was pathetically out of his depth in challenging Bill physically, he was almost literally tied up in knots.

  Bill had Janus on his tummy, his arms locked behind his back, sitting on him, Janus’s long hair was bunched in his fist, he tugged at the hair and so lifted Janus’s face off the grass.

  ‘I could break your neck now with one pull. Kill you, or leave you paralysed for life. What do you say to that? Look what you’ve brought me to. Violence. I’ve never been a violent person. In fact last night when I punched you in the face was the first time I’d punched anyone. And now you’ve given me a taste for it. I’d like to stamp on your silly face again and again, until it’s a pulp. Juliette’s gone off with Boris the Wires and it’s all because of you you useless fucker . . .’

  ‘Not Boris . . .’ said Janus, once Bill had let go of his hair and thrown his face back into the grass.

  Bill sobbed, and then lay down. Janus rubbed his scalp and lay down as well.

  ‘I thought she might be here,’ said Bill quietly. ‘Otherwise I wouldn’t have come. I’d have stayed at home and swallowed a bottle of tablets . . .’

  ‘No,’ said Janus, ‘No, don’t do that,’ he said it with some alarm in his voice, ‘Dying is a horrible thing. It’s disgusting. Death is for idiots. People like us should never die . . .’

  Bill smiled at Janus. The warmth returned.

  ‘Boris the Bold,’ said Bill, thoughtfully.

  ‘Boris the Billy Goat,’ said Janus, equally thoughtfully.

  ‘Boris the Bastard.’

  They laughed.

  ‘Has Rita jumped yet?’ said Janus, who had his back to the house. Bill lifted his head.

  ‘Well she’s not on the roof any more. She’s either jumped or someone’s talked her down.’

  The garden had emptied. Rita’s threatened suicide seemed to have put a dampener on things, and many people had left, and the rest had gone inside.

  ‘I wonder if Hugo and Veronica will split up,’ said Janus.

  ‘I hope so,’ said Bill.

  ‘That’ll be two in one day. A record.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Nothing. Why don’t we ransack the house for booze and go somewhere . . . ?’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Bill, sitting up, ‘tell you what. I’ll nip inside, procure a couple of bottles of vodka, perhaps some tomato juice, and meet you out here, in five minutes.’

  Bill stood up and made for the house. Janus sprang up and pulled him back by the arm.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘you won’t come back will you?’

  ‘Of course I will . . .’

  ‘No you won’t, you’ll run off like you did that time at The Owl, you bastard. You’ll make your escape.’

  Janus’s face was wrinkled with an indignant frown.

  ‘I promise I’ll be back . . .’

  ‘Cross your heart?’

  ‘Cross my heart. I promise . . .’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Well what do you want me to do?’ Bill said, exasperated.

  ‘Stay out here with me.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘We’ll do something.’

  ‘Okay. What’ll we do?’

  Janus thought for a while, looked around him, like a child looking for something to play with.

  ‘I think,’ he said, slowly and carefully, ‘that we may be very near the source of the Limpopo.’

  ‘Do you?’ said Bill, soberly.

  ‘I do. I think we are very close to making a truly remarkable discovery, our names will be displayed on one of those boards they have on posh clubs in Pall Mall, and old bastards with white moustaches will talk about us over their scotch and sodas . . .’

  ‘Will they?’

  ‘Yes, look, it’s this way.’

  ‘Aha,’ said Bill, pointing to the little fish-pond with its inoperative fountain, ‘this must be it.’

  ‘Oh no. That’s a mere tributary. That’s nothing. The river itself is this way. Come on, follow me this way.’

  And Janus walked to the end of the garden through the little orchard, to the low fence at the end. Bill followed. Now in complete darkness, beyond the reach of the lights, they moved carefully among the thorny scrub of the railway cutting. Janus was conscious of Bill’s quietness. Things had changed. Normally he would have been all giggles and sniggers on such a venture, but now he was silent, apart from the occasional throat clearing cough, and some rather noisy breathing. Janus had never known Bill, sober or drunk, so serious.

  ‘There it is,’ said Janus, once they cleared a certain level of the cutting, coming upon a view of the railway tracks beneath them, ‘By Jove Dickie, this is it, old bean. The source of the Limpopo, what we’ve been looking for all these years, we’ve finally made it.’

  The rails glinted green in the light from a distant signal.

  ‘Yes,’ said Bill, and coughed, ‘what ho.’

  ‘Careful,�
�� said Janus as they moved through the scrub towards the tracks. Bill was holding onto Janus for support and guidance. He gave a sudden, spluttery, untidy cough that almost exhausted him of breath. They were on the tracks now. Again that sense of space, of being dwarfed by engineering.

  ‘We’ve made it,’ said Janus.

  Bill was gasping. He fumbled about in his pockets for an inhaler.

  ‘I feel weird,’ he said, pantingly, ‘it’s what the doc said about the booze . . .’ He coughed again, then gasped for air, gaping like a fish, down on his knees, then all fours, drawing desperately for air which had suddenly become a remote, elusive thing, difficult to catch.

  Janus, on the other track, watched, amused, amused even further by the warm glow that was highlighting the interior arch of the Goat and Compasses Lane bridge, from which Janus had earlier jumped. It looked like the faint glow of sunrise. A train was coming.

  The light bled along the rails, giving them form, and the steel suddenly filled with sound, the twanging, mewing sound that always came with the faster trains, as though the steel rail was suddenly full of trumpeting angels.

  Bill had found his inhaler, he was puffing at it, shaking it, puffing, it didn’t seem to make any difference.

  ‘Get up,’ Janus said, loudly and a little irritably, as a father might speak to a child who’d fallen in the playground for the tenth time.

  ‘I can’t move,’ said Bill, his voice a crackly whisper.

  The bridge was now a bright archway of light and the rails were tweeting and lively with vibration. Bill found himself in a cradle of twittering metal.

  ‘It’s coming pretty fast,’ said Janus.

  ‘Which way?’

  ‘Up there.’

  Bill seemed to think he had plenty of time but the train was nearly at the bridge. Janus estimated he probably had about twenty seconds to get out of the way, and Bill was still on his hands and knees.

  ‘Can you go up there and stop it, Janussimus, because I can’t move.’

  It was the ground that was singing now, a low, mighty croon that made the earth seem suddenly a malleable thing, full of springs, like a mattress, or quicksand.

  Intense light at the bridge now, then the train itself came into view, like the sun returning after a total eclipse, a sudden, piercing shining forth that cast long shadows.