“This is beautiful,” Martin said.
“It’s in there,” Alison replied, gesturing out her window. All along the other side of the road was a grey corrugated fence. Over the top of the fence Martin could see the arms of diggers and the tops of trucks. When they turned into it, they went under a big archway with NEW ACRE across it in embossed metal. Martin pushed himself further back into his seat when he saw what the men and the machines had done. The road turned to a flattened dusty path, and the shells of houses were being constructed. Big lorries with extendable arms trundled past men with fluorescent jackets and helmets.
“They’re nearly all sold,” Alison said excitedly. “Another six weeks and the whole estate will be finished. Can you believe that? It’s so quick.”
Scaffolds stood like brittle iron frames, thick pipes were snug in trenches, piles of earth like sentries guarding the plot. All of the houses looked exactly the same, regimented like a newly constructed army, red brick and narrow, roofs tall and steeply angled, standing to attention side by side with just enough room for a cat to squeeze between them. The thin porches over the front doors were like the visors of blackjack dealers. Next to the driveway was a thin rectangle of grass, a bright green ticket beside the smooth black tarmac.
“It’s so nice out of the city. Wait till you see inside. It’s this one, number eleven.”
Martin and Alison got out of the car and walked to the front door. She took out a set of keys and let herself in. Straightaway they were in the front room, with a staircase right in front of them.
“The front room gets all the light, there’s no entrance hallway to eat up space and light. Isn’t it nice? This staircase gives you a great storage area underneath and on this side, we can have a feature wall. You know? Some really nice textured wallpaper to contrast the walls.”
Martin was uncomfortable, like he had wandered into a shop he didn’t want anything from but couldn’t see an exit. It had the personality of a new cardboard box. They walked through the front room and to the kitchen at the back.
“Oh look, the kitchen is already fitted, and it’s bigger than you’d think, isn’t it? From the front?”
Through the window he could see the back garden; a narrow stretch of grass with a wooden slat fence around it. There were young trees planted at the end, their branches thin and small, trunks as thin as his wrist, except for one in the middle, which was thicker, whose green branches swept down toward the ground, like the skirt of a girl that was being twirled.
“It’s got three rooms upstairs,” Alison said. “You can have a room for your writing.” Martin followed her up the stairs and looked out the window of the back room, down onto the back garden and over the fence into the other gardens with the same young trees growing at the end of the green strip. This was the only one with the thicker, taller tree. Alison was still talking from the other room.
“This one is definitely the master bedroom. The wardrobes are sunk into the walls.”
From here he could see the layout of the estate and the countryside beyond. Martin knew that all of the construction he could see from the window was all based on plans which would result in buildings identical to the one in which he stood, slotted together like the cells in a beehive.
Alison’s voice came to him again. “It’s great, I love the fact that it’s brand new. I will have to show you the contract.”
Martin considered this. This space where he stood now, elevated from the ground, had not been occupied before. The first ghosts to haunt this place would be theirs. Martin began to see the potential of a soulless shell. They could fill it with themselves, grow a new soul within it. There was nothing here to connect him with a past, only a future.
“And the attic, the attic is perfect for converting. It could be another room, or maybe that could be your writing room, and the bathroom has a lot of light, no bath, but we don’t do baths anyway, do we?”
He looked out the window at the other houses, all standing to empty attention around him. They would all be filled, filled with the potential of the lives within them. Each person in each house will leave their own ghost behind. The houses may look identical on the outside but soon their insides would all be different, changed forever.
Alison came in behind him and said, “Did you hear me? About the attic? Have you seen the bathroom?”
Martin didn’t turn around, just replied, “I know how I’m going to start the book.”
***
Chapter Four
Lucy. Martin changed her name twice in three different drafts. Anna. Nicola. Lucy. He watched her, writing as a breeze from the opened window stroked her hair and shadows moved across her sleeping face; her delicate hands trembled as she held the syringe and all the tension of the moment; her echoing hours, waiting for Gregor.
* * *
She hears a knock. Where is it coming from? Somewhere in the distance. Focus. In the room? No. Again, two knocks. Archie will answer it. She feels around for the thin cover and pulls it over her. Archie’s feet thump down the hallway. She can let her mind slump back, and everything slides away from her, like the tide going out.
Archie looks through the spyhole. In the dark corridor is the skeleton of Bradley. The blue tracksuit hangs like plastic bags on a scarecrow. He picks the loose skin at the side of his face. He shifts his weight from foot to foot. Archie pulls back the bolt lock and opens the door.
“You took your time,” he says.
Bradley just looks back at Archie and scratches his face. That’s the wrong answer, his eyes say. Archie puffs his chest out. He is in his vest, underpants, and socks, with remote control in hand.
“What? You needing another hit? You going to come and get it then? This shit won’t just walk out of here and sell itself.”
Bradley takes a step back. Archie steps into the hallway, the carpet sticking to his socks. Bradley turns his head and closes his eyes, his face contorting to a grimace. Fucking junkies, Archie thinks. He reaches his hand to Bradley’s shoulder to pull him inside, then sees movement from the corner of his eye.
A bright light of pain blinds him, his right knee explodes, and everything in his head is sharp and jagged. As he falls he is caught by strong arms and his mind wildly flips to the cover of a romance novel. He looks up at the face of his attacker. Gregor, with a lump hammer, dragging him one-handed back into the flat.
Archie throws his head around desperately looking for a way to break free, he reaches out to catch the doorframe, but the pain has broken up his senses and his arms flail uselessly. In the corridor he sees Bradley still standing like a plastic Halloween figure with a frozen fear in his eyes. Bradley mouths, “I’m sorry.”
Gregor kicks the door shut.
Archie’s looks up again to see Gregor’s face in grim concentration as he raises his arm. Archie tries to turn away but Gregor’s elbow lands on his nose. Blood fills his mouth and he chokes and tries to cough it out. Bolts of pain rush up from his leg and he gasps and gags. Gregor drops him to the floor.
Gregor pushes the door to his left. Old water stands in the bath, grey with a thin film of brown and white scum on the surface. He turns. There is a door on the right. He steps over Archie who writhes around in his own blood, gurgling and coughing.
He listens at the door for a second, then steps back and kicks it open. In the dark the blonde girl screams. She is crouching on the other side of the bed, the sheet twisted around her, trying to hide behind it. He strides across the room and grabs her arm. She is wearing only a pair of boxer shorts and the sheet trails behind her as he pulls her screaming to her feet, out of the dark and into the light of the hallway. When she sees Archie lying there like roadkill, twitching and bleeding, she falls silent and pulls the sheet around her to cover her breasts.
Gregor pulls Archie to his feet and juggles him down the hallway. Archie spills into the main room, illuminated only by the television.
Archie moans hoarsely, “Fuck, fuck.”
Gregor shouts at the blonde
, “Get in here.”
She jumps, then starts to move. He points at the lump hammer at her feet. “Bring it,” he commands.
She picks up the hammer as she comes into the room. A shouting and knocking on the wall starts from next door. Gregor points next to Archie.
“Sit down.”
She sits and Archie whimpers and reaches out to her. She recoils, disgusted by his broken face. Gregor stands over them. The television screen behind Gregor fills the wall. It’s on pause. A bikini-clad woman in heels is walking through a warehouse toward a group of white men. Archie coughs more blood onto the floor and sees his knee for the first time. A bone sticks out from beneath it, poking through his skin. He screams.
From next door the sound of the television being turned up full comes through the walls, the sound of cars and sirens and gunshots swimming around the room. Gregor squats down in front of Lucy. His eyes are deep brown, and his short hair is greying at the temples. His hands are tanned and smooth as he takes the hammer from her, placing it out of reach. He reaches inside his black leather jacket, and with a single movement and a sound like a whip pulls out a flick knife. Its blade reflects and shines. It is smooth at the top and serrated at the base. He holds it in front of the blonde before turning to Archie.
Archie tries to struggle away, but Gregor grabs his chin and holds his face still. Archie’s face is cracked in the middle like a ripped photograph and his cheekbones are swelling up beneath his eyes. One of his eyes has turned red. It looks like the blue pupil is floating on a ball of blood. Gregor presses the edge of the blade to Archie’s face.
“Where is it?”
Archie splutters and grabs Gregor’s forearm to try and break his grip. Gregor grips his face tighter and pushes him back on the floor, turning his head and holding his face to the floor with his knee. The girl leans forward, her eyes widening as Gregor pulls Archie’s ear tight and with one cut, slices through the cartilage. Archie’s mouth opens wide and a tremulous shriek rushes out, a higher pitch than before, the rasp in his throat like a drill behind the screams.
The volume from next door’s television ramps up and noise swills around the room. Gregor turns to the girl, the piece of ear in his hand. Drops of blood are spattered on her face.
“What’s your name?” he says.
“What?” she shouts back.
“What is your name?” he shouts.
“Lucy,” she yells. She sees him say it to himself, as if trying it out.
He closes the flick knife and puts it back in his pocket. As Archie’s scream subsides, Gregor takes his knee from his face and pulls him up to a sitting position. He holds half of Archie’s right ear in front of his face.
“Where is it?”
Archie clutches the side of his head, coating his hand in a bloody glove.
“The coke is all here, right by the table.”
“Not the fucking coke, Archie, you know what I’m talking about.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what you want.”
Gregor yanks his head back as though preparing him for slaughter. Archie’s face is sticky with blood and saliva and mucus, and he is spitting as he breathes, heaving foul coppery breath.
“Where is it?”
“What? What? Tell me what the fuck … I don’t know what the fuck—”
“Spiral, Archie. Where is it?”
“I don’t know, Gregor, I don’t …”
Lucy shouts and points. “The sink. Under the sink. The bag.”
She speaks with an accent, a sharpness which Gregor recognises as deep Eastern Europe, maybe Russia. He knows why she is there, sleeping in Archie’s bed. Another junkie.
But there is something more about her. How was she so calm? Once she saw Archie was down, she stopped screaming. She knows him for the lowlife that he is.
Gregor lets go of Archie, who flops back. The channel in the room next door has changed and now there is an excited voice, bells, and applause. He moves over in front of Lucy again. She is young. There is a strength in her which cannot be taught. He takes hold of her face. She doesn’t resist but holds his gaze. He considers her for a moment like a breeder considering a new animal. Then he turns and goes to the kitchen.
In the dark space under the sink among detergents and plastic bags there is a dark hold-all. He unzips it and looks into it before zipping it back up and coming back to Archie. He pulls Archie’s limp body back up.
“Is it all here?”
Archie is choking as he tries to respond. His voice is a rasp.
“Where did you … that bag is not mine, I don’t know man. Gregor, please, I never saw the fucking—”
“You always have been shit at lying. Don’t lie to me Archie.”
He flicks the blade out again, next to Archie’s bloodied ear. Archie shakes. His head rolls back and he splutters, “Please, no, no, it’s all there, take anything, anything …” Gregor lets him fall back onto the floor.
He stands Lucy up and slides his coat off his shoulders and onto hers. The noises from the neighbours disappear. It is quiet for a moment as she feels the warmth of Gregor seep from his jacket into her skin. Then the silence breaks, she hears laughter and applause from next door. Gregor zips up the jacket.
“Have you got shoes?”
Archie blubbers, “Bitch … you fucking bitch.…”
Gregor hands Lucy the bag and picks up the lump hammer. He stands over him.
“You always were a fucking low life piece of shit, Archie. What a favour I’d be doing the world to just take you out now.”
Lucy stands beside him, wild-haired and spattered with blood. “Go on, do it,” she says.
Gregor grabs the hold-all and takes Lucy by the elbow away from Archie and into the corridor. He lets the door stand wide.
Archie stays on the ground, turning on his side, heaving and retching through his swollen face in the light of the television screen. Lucy waves to him over her shoulder as she and Gregor head for the stairs, and out onto the street. They walk together through the noise and uneven light. Outlined in dull pulsing neon, they pass, as if ghosts, along the peopled street.
***
Chapter Five
Martin looked out the window of the back upstairs room—his writing room. The house didn’t seem as far out of the city as the first time. From the outside, as they drove away from it, the city seemed smaller, not bigger. Alison’s flat seemed squashed, layered with a grime which could never be removed, just the build-up of so much living. It was as if the city was encased in a plastic dome, filtering the light of the sun, only letting through enough light essential for survival.
Outside the dome, in the open country, the light was fuller, more vital. The air moved differently, it didn’t feel like it was recycled. It wasn’t heavy with smells and sounds of the street, it moved over the fields and through the trees around the estate and then it blew on, further away, followed by fresh winds and new air.
From the back bedroom window Martin could see the fields beyond the red brick estate. On a hill in the distance was the edge of a forest; the trees were dark and thick and covered the brow of the hill. At the other corner of the window, away on the other hill in the distance, stood four wind turbines, their propellers spinning, their thick white trunks jutting out of the hillside like the inner machinery of the earth revealed. When the clouds moved, Martin could see their shadows move across the hillsides like giant ghosts moving silently over the land.
When they moved in Martin only had a suitcase of clothes, a bag of books, and a laptop. Alison had boxes and boxes of clothes, toiletries, property magazines, office papers, ornaments, and her favourite dish set. It seemed like a lot when they had packed it, but when they got it in to the new house, the boxes made a little pyramid in the middle of the front room, taking up hardly any space at all. They had so little that it only took them a day to move in their furniture, unpack, and arrange everything.
Martin planned to bring his table from his bedsit to write on, but Alison of
fered to buy him a new one as a housewarming present and he accepted. He only stepped into his old bedsit to empty the wardrobe and the bookshelf. It took him five minutes, and then he closed the door and walked down the iron steps into Alison’s car. She looked surprised.
“One bag?”
“That’s it,” said Martin.
“Are you leaving anything behind?”
“No. Just a past that doesn’t want to be remembered.”
She started the car and pulled away. “So poetic. Still, though. One bag?”
* * *
Thanks to Alison’s position at the property agents they were the first to move in. The estate was finished and the trucks and diggers were gone. On that first night, neither of them could sleep, so Martin and Alison got out of their new bed and walked around the empty New Acre Estate. It felt like a film set, unused, unreal. It still could be dismantled and taken away, and another scene set up. The moon was bright and the sky was clear and the street lights were on, shining just for them. It was just them and their shadows moving through the brand new streets.
They chased each other like children and shouted Hello! down the road, listening to the echo roll and bounce around. They walked down each identical cul-de-sac, and Alison said how easy it was to imagine that they were the only two left, that the world was deserted except for them. Martin said he was getting cold and they headed back to their house.
It did feel like time had stood still, like they were outside of the normal laws of the world. They had not heard a single sound besides their own voices.
When they got back to number eleven and closed the door Martin was glad to be inside. He could relax. He had become nervous outside. The black windows, without curtains or lights had the pattern of faces looking at him as he passed. There was something inside the houses, just out of sight. The darkness within the empty houses was swollen and alive.
The Fly Guy Page 4