Inseparable Bond

by David Poulter

  Norman was a strange little man. He had a table on his own in the corner. He was on constant watch by the staff day and night as he had a tendency to approach anyone in the house, drop his trousers, show his penis before it was erect and force them to work it up. John had been confronted by him when he was first admitted and recalled the strange looking piece of anatomy, stuck on the front of him, seeming not really to fit anywhere and set out of place with its severe bend to the left, seeming very ill-planned and most abnormal.

  Elizabeth was frantically pushing the trolley as she slammed the pile of plates at each table she passed, adding to the clatter and chatter of the residents.

  ‘Have you been showing around Gary?’ John asked, as he turned to face him.

  ‘Not really, I’ve been to my room, number 5 they’ve given me, it’s small but alright and I won’t be in this place for long,’ he answered, with another glance around the room.

  ‘You’re next door to me then, just give me a knock if you want anything,’ John said.

  ‘I might just do that, thanks John,’ he replied as he got up and left the dining room.

  John went out to the front of the house and sat on the wall watching the traffic disappear down the hill on the still wet and steaming road after a day of rain. The slate grey, heavy clouds which had dominated the town were moving west and the late afternoon sun appeared to push the clouds towards the horizon.

  The consistency of the rain had cleaned the roads and driveway. The large tree dominating the car park was lapping up the last few drops of rainwater. It was a peaceful evening, like the lull after the storm as John sat thinking long and hard about Jennifer and a life away from the hostel behind him.

  He heard the front door close and looked behind him, it was Gary. He idly walked over to John and leaned against the wall. ‘So what happens around here then?’ he asked him as he neatly rolled the tobacco in a cigarette paper.

  ‘Not a lot really, I’ve got a job at the station so that takes up my days, the nights can get a bit boring,’ he replied.

  Gary climbed on the wall to sit alongside John, ‘I’m out of here the first chance I get, I’m not staying here with that lot of losers in there,’ he said as he looked over his shoulder at the hostel.

  ‘Not that easy mate,’ John said. ‘They keep a tight rein here and they bang you back inside at the first opportunity.’

  ‘Fuck that, I’ve done my time, I want out and no bastards going to stop me,’ Gary said, with a stern expression as he flicked his half smoked cigarette butt on the footpath.

  John looked at him and noticed a bruise on his right temple. ‘How did you get that?’ he asked as he pointed to his head.

  ‘The bastard screws held my arms up and used my head as a fucking punch bag the day they brought me here,’ he replied, as his face wavered and receded. John concentrated on his face, his square-jaw barred by a single straight brow, his two close-set brown eyes starred glassily at the water running into the drain.

  His rested his elbows on his knees as he picked the dirt from underneath his immaculately manicured fingernails. ‘

  ‘Who’s the young guy then?’ he turned to John and asked.

  ‘Which guy is that?’ John replied.

  ‘The spunky one with the big package in the trackies,’ Gary asked.

  ‘Oh that’s Peter Scott, Scotty we call him, why do you ask?’ replied John, as he turned to Gary who wore a grin on his stubble face.

  ‘No reason, he’s just a sexy little bastard that’s all,’ Gary replied, as he jumped off the wall, brushing his trousers.

  ‘Right John, I’m off back in, catch up with you later,’ he said, as he briskly walked back to the house.

  John turned to watch him leave, wondering the extent of violence that lurked behind his respectable face.

  Old Tommy approached the drive wearing a dirty old cardigan with the buttons done up wrong, fawn trousers and a bow tie. Tommy always wore a bow tie on the odd occasion he left the hostel, he felt it gave him a touch of distinction. Sylvia was trotting behind him in an attempt to catch up.

  There was something undeniably attractive about her gaiety and the way in which she threw back her head when laughing, but her activities had recklessness about them, which was not proper for the lady she thought she was.

  They had obviously been drinking in the Cow and Calf on the corner although it was considered out of bounds for the residents, but everyone went there.

  She was dressed in sky blue trousers, a short velvet jacket and white trainers with black ankle socks. ‘Hi, John,’ she said, as she brushed passed him, panting heavily.

  John jumped off the wall and went back to the house. Most of the residents were sitting around in the television room, Gary was playing a game of snooker with young Peter Scott. Dorothy was sitting at the table in the corner painting eyeliner on Graham Bank’s eyebrows as he wore the same pink floral dress.

  The quietness of the room was disturbed by raised voices coming from the corridor. Tommy and Sylvia were having an argument and shouting at each other, not quite loudly enough for the words to be distinguishable, but obviously through the effects of drink.

  John went to his bedroom, watched television for a short while and climbed into his bed.

  He slept badly, and was wakened in the middle of the night by a piercing, awful scream. He sat up in bed quivering, but the sound was not repeated. He decided that someone must have been having a nightmare and he went back to sleep.

  He lay in bed watching the thin grey early morning light come through his curtains. There were unfamiliar sounds coming from the corridor. He walked over to the window in his slightly dazed state and opened the curtains. In the car park he saw two police cars and half a dozen officers standing around.

  He quickly dressed and opened his bedroom door, slightly trembling. In the dimly lit corridor, a man and a woman police officer were briefly visible at one end and at the other end, a large man with his head down so John could not see his face but his square bulky figure made him realise it was the warden talking to a group of men in smart suits flanked by three uniformed policemen.

  He entered the dining room, which was unusually quiet. Dorothy was sitting at the table crying as Elizabeth consoled her. The others were sitting quietly, being watched by a reinforced group of unfamiliar nurses who stood around the room with their backs against the walls. ‘What’s happened?’ John asked Dorothy, as he pulled his chair out to sit down. She remained crying, shaking her head in her hands.

  Elizabeth looked at John with wide eyes and said, ‘Tommy’s killed Sylvia.’

  He sat back in his chair and looked around the room, soon realising by the shocked expressions on the faces on the other residents that it was no joke.

  No words were spoken as thoughts flooded John’s mind of the quarrel he had heard between Tommy and Sylvia when they had returned from the pub, and the scream which had woken him, was probably Sylvia’s death cry.

  He toyed with the idea of telling the warden what he had heard, but quickly decided against it, due to the possible repercussions.

  It transpired that Tommy had forced his way into Sylvia’s room and strangled her while she slept. He had been taken away to the psychiatric hospital where he would remain for the rest of his life. Sylvia’s body remained in her room waiting for the coroner to arrive with a forensic team.

  Due to Tommy’s admission, no questions were asked of the others and they all continued their daily routine, but under the supervision of the extra security.

  John was working the afternoon shift at the hotel that day. He took his usual walk down the hill, avoiding the grocer’s shop in view of his previous day’s experience.

  He went straight to his pair of deep sinks and delved into the pile of greasy cooking pans which had been left for him. He stared out of the large, dirty kitchen window, his mind firmly on the recent happenings back at the hostel, of poor Sylvia with her lonely life and traumatic death.

  He finished his shif
t at 8 o’clock. To avoid going back to the hostel early, he thought he would visit the travelling fun fair which he had noticed being erected on wasteland opposite the grocer’s shop which he had passed on his way to work.

  He approached the bright lights with the sounds of machinery getting louder as he approached, along with the strong smell of burgers and onions. The fair was quiet with only a few teenagers trudging through the mud after the previous day’s heavy rain.

  He watched three youths on the firing range, they made the elementary mistake of aiming along the barrel but the targets would probably be weighted or reinforced and the odds always on the side of the showman.

  The fair stretched along with riverbank. There was a stiff breeze making some of the wooden structures creak. He wore his black trousers and lumberjack shirt and trainers, which were now covered in mud.

  He moved from the shooting range to another stall, where a middle-aged couple tried to attach hoops to the prizes on a carousel.

  John stood at the door of a white caravan next to the shooting range. A sign outside read ‘Palmist your fortune foretold’.

  ‘Come in love and close the curtain,’ the Gypsy woman instructed. He saw a nail on the side of the door held the beaded curtains back. He loosened it and closed the curtain behind him. The room was dark apart from the flickering lights from the half a dozen candles scattered around. The surfaces had been draped with lengths of cheap black cloth with patterns of the sun and moon embroidered onto them. He nodded and smiled as he took a seat opposite her.

  She was middle-aged, her face lined and rouged, with scarlet lipstick which made her mouth look too large and moist. She wore black muslin over her head with a gold band keeping it in place. Her costume looked authentic enough; black lace, red silk, with astrological signs sewn into the arms. On the table sat a large crystal ball covered with a white handkerchief. Her red fingernail tapped against a tarot card deck.

  ‘What is your name?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m John,’ he replied, as he stared into her eyes as they twinkled in the candlelight.

  She gazed at the crystal ball. ‘There’s a lot you do not know, John and that’s why you have come here,’ she said. She took his hand and turned it over to reveal his palm. John straightened in his chair as her fingers stroked his knuckles. She looked down at his palm and frowned a little in concentration.

  ‘You’re a visitor, aren’t you?’ she asked, as she retained her eyes being transfixed on his palm.

  ‘Yes,’ John replied, as he studied his palm with her, as though trying to read its foreign words.

  ‘Mmm,’ she began running the tip of one finger down the well defined lines which criss-crossed his palm. Looking at her face, he noticed it seemed softer that it had when he first entered the caravan. He felt slight pressure as she squeezed his hand.

  ‘You’re doing alright for yourself,’ she informed him. ‘But your problems all stem from your particular line of work.’

  ‘My work?’ John replied.

  ‘Yes,’ she continued. ‘You are not happy with your work and it is not your chosen job, it was chosen for you,’ she said.

  It felt warm in the caravan, stuffy with no air getting in and all those candles burning. Not being a believer of fortune-tellers, he convinced himself she was using cheap psychology. His accent wasn’t local, he wore no wedding ring, and his hands were clean with them immersed in water most of the day. You could tell a lot about someone through those minor details, he thought.

  ‘Shouldn’t we agree on a price first?’ he asked.

  ‘Why should we do that dear, I’m not a prostitute am I?’ she replied. He felt his ears reddening at her answer. ‘And besides, you can afford it, we both know you can, let’s not let money get in the way dear,’ she said, confidently.

  The small amount of money John had was borrowed from a waiter at the hotel and needed paying back on payday at the end of the week, so she was well off track with his financial status. She held his hand in an even tighter grip.

  ‘I get the feeling you are wondering why you are here,’ she asked John, as she looked up at him.

  ‘I know exactly why I’m here,’ he replied, as he wriggled trying to get comfortable.

  ‘I feel you do not enjoy what you do, you are told to do things and you just wait for payday,’ she said, looking back at his palm. John just nodded, he did not answer. The gypsy continued, ‘the money you get is not enough for you is it? It can never recompense for not being happy or fulfilled,’ she said, as she sat back and clapped her hands. ‘I’d like to try with the tarot cards, are you game for that?’ she excitingly asked him. Before John could answer, she started shuffling the over-sized cards. She asked him to touch the deck three times and laid out the top three cards.

  ‘Ah,’ she said, her fingers caressing the first one. ‘This is the sun,’ she nodded slowly. ‘Second card, this is the death card.’ John looked at the picture of a skeleton on the card. ‘Don’t worry, ‘it doesn’t always portend a death,’ she said.

  ‘That’s a relief,’ John replied, with a smile.

  ‘The final card is intriguing – the hanged man, it can signify many things,’ she said, as she lifted it up to show him.

  ‘What do the three mean all together?’ John asked curiously.

  She sat back and held her hands as if in prayer. ‘I’m not sure dear, an unusual conjunction to be sure,’ she answered with a puzzled expression, as she shrugged her shoulders.

  He licked his dry lips and wiped his brow with the overpowering heat in the caravan.

  ‘Maybe the crystal ball could help,’ he suggested. She looked at him, her eyes reflecting light from the candles.

  ‘You might be right, let’s try,’ she said, as she removed the white handkerchief covering the glass ball between them. She leaned forward, peering into the glass, giving him a view of her creped cleavage. Her hands fitted over the ball, not quite touching it. ‘The ball often makes things clearer,’ she said.

  ‘What do you see?’ he asked impatiently.

  ‘I see a man, a man who is troubled, a man who has done wrong and who will do more wrong. A person with few friends and not the friends he has chosen for himself. This person is you, the crystal ball tells me you have done wrong to many people, but you could change in time if you want this for yourself. Your future is under the control of others, a feeling of confinement.’

  He looked up at her as she continued to gaze into the glass bowl but clearly she had seen enough and wanted the session to end.

  ‘That’s all I can tell you dear, you must give me £50 for your reading,’ she said, as she stood up nervously.

  ‘I don’t have that sort of money,’ he snapped.

  ‘Alright, alright, give me what you have and leave,’ she said, as she moved towards the closed curtain.

  John followed her. ‘What did you see bitch, tell me?’ John said, as he pushed her towards the wall of the caravan.

  ‘Please leave and keep your money,’ she said, as her body trembled against the wall. ‘If you don’t go now, I will call the police.’ She was trembling as she watched John put on his thin woollen gloves.

  The thought of any police involvement angered him as he glared at the gypsy woman and banged his fist against the wall of the caravan. John placed his covered hands around her neck and squeezed them tightly as he throttled her. Her screams went unheard, drowned by the sounds of fairground engines and the screams outside of frightened children on the waltzes, the big wheel, the ghost train opposite and as they rapidly descended to the ground of the adjoining roller coaster.

  Her mouth widened and red veins clouded the whites of her eyes as he slowly throttled her heavily gold-chained neck. She slowly slumped to the floor as her black muslin fell over her face as if to cover her wide opened eyes in respect.

  He peered through the closed beaded curtain in the hope her screams had not alerted anyone on the outside, but he saw only youngsters fooling around, eating hamburgers and playing games at t
he row of stalls.

  He returned to the table, opened the gypsy’s black leather handbag and took the money she had untidily stashed into it. Tossing aside the crystal ball and tarot cards, he dragged the black cloth off the table and covered her body. He peered through the beaded curtain, took a last look behind him, walked down the two steps from the caravan and mingled with the crowds.

  His adrenalin was racing high and his heart pumping rapidly as he quickly walked over the waste ground and onto the main road which led to the hostel.

  As he entered the hostel, he hesitated as he adjusted his clothes. Being desperate to get to the safety of his bedroom, he briskly walked through to the hall to the staircase when the door opened of the television room. Dorothy’s head appeared from the slightly opened door. ‘Hi, John, you’re late, do you want some cocoa?’ she asked kindly, with a broad smile across her face.

  ‘No thanks, I’ll just go to bed,’ he answered, as she closed the door.

  Once in his room he locked the door and closed the curtains. Sitting on his bed, his heart still pounding and wiping his sweating brow with his small hand towel, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the handful of cash. His hands trembled as he counted the £160 of crumpled notes.

  He opened the drawer of his dressing table and shoved the notes under the stolen panties, along with his socks and underpants.

  He lay in the darkness of his room, listening to police cars speeding down the hill with their sirens blaring and blue lights reflecting on his window as they speedily passed.

  He thought they were most certainly racing to the fairground after an innocent customer who had walked in unannounced, had discovered the body probably.

  He felt no remorse for his latest crime, to him it was natural and he felt a release of inner frustration as he curled up into a ball shape under his heavy blankets.

  The next morning he left for work early, missing his breakfast.

  He walked down the hill and over to the grocer’s shop to buy his cigarettes and saw Mahul and his wife standing outside.

  As he approached the shop, Mahul said, ‘Good morning, did you hear, a woman was killed over there last night,’ as he pointed to the fairground which was cordoned off with blue and white tape reading ‘CRIME SCENE’, and flanked by police and vehicles.