The estate is coming to life.
I run on, despite the thumping pain in my chest. I run, because if I don’t, I won’t be leaving the estate. Not tonight. Not ever.
My dead eye burns from the brightness of the estate, burning like the setting sun.
There’s no time. I cut over the green and throw myself over the fence. I land on my shoulder.
I close my eyes, right there where I lie, at the side of the road.
At some point I must have passed out, because when I open my eyes again it’s full dark, with just a sliver of moonlight and a distant orange glow of street lights to see by.
I look behind me, in a panic. I expect to see them coming, gliding across the green, on fire.
But they aren’t there. The estate is glowing. There are lights behind every window. Every single house I can see is lit so brightly that a haze hangs over the estate. The light feels solid, until it reaches the green, where it fades and becomes natural moonlight.
I’m safe enough. For now.
I become aware of the pains wracking my body. My wrist is already swollen to twice its normal size. I pull out the phone I bought myself to replace my old phone. I call an ambulance before I call Helen.
I think my wrist is broken, but that’s not the real problem. I’m fairly sure I’ve just had a heart attack. Time is more important than feelings.
I sit for a long time. At least, that’s the way it seems. Helen gets there before the ambulance. She holds me tight. So tight.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say.
‘Shh,’ she says. ‘You’re not going to die.’
I’m glad she tells me that. Myself, I’m not so sure.
*
Part Five
-
The Estate
42.
Apparently, my heart had a minor event. The way the doctors talked about it, I imagine small talk and canapés. It didn’t feel like a minor event. It felt like a new year’s bash, maybe for the millennium.
Helen brought my tennis ball with her to the hospital. I held it while she explained my history to the doctors. She remembers things I don’t.
There were monitors, scans, sticky pads on my clavicles, my chest, stomach, shins. I felt grey, a corpse on a slab. They kept me in but it’s just the right side that’s dead.
But then maybe even my right side isn’t quite dead. I think back to a voice in my head that saved my life, telling me to get the hell out of the death house when I didn’t have the strength to move myself.
I think about the stranger riding around like a passenger in the dead parts of me. I can’t figure out if he’s the kind of passenger who saves me from a wreck or causes one.
I think these thoughts but they don’t make me happy. I stop thinking. It’s easier with practice.
When I get out I’m holding my tennis ball left handed, and I’ve got a wheelchair on loan.
I let Helen wheel me to the car. I don’t use it again.
It’s one thing using a cane. It’s another thing altogether being in a wheelchair, even if it’s only for a while. The wheelchair sits folded in the porch for two weeks, then Helen finally gets that I’m not going to use it.
I mooch around the house.
We don’t make love, but we sleep a lot. I’m grey to start with, just pale after a while. I take to sitting in the garden. I miss the sea, but I can smell it. Just.
Frank comes over. We sit on uncomfortable deck chairs in the back garden. Frank takes a beer. It’s gone five. The clocks are on summer time and the evenings are lighter.
Helen’s got a glass of wine. I’ve got tea. I’m not about to give up tea. It’s all I’ve got left.
‘How’s the ticker?’ Frank asks, finally, after the usually chatter.
‘Better,’ I say. ‘My wrist hurts worse than my chest.’
‘That’s good, I guess,’ says Frank.
Helen nods.
‘Another four weeks,’ I say, holding out the offending article, encased in off-white plaster.
Helen’s signed it, like we’re kids. The sight of her scrawl still makes me smile.
Things are better between us. Same for her, maybe, but better for me. I’m Sam at the moment. I have been since that night. Being Sam works for me. I just need a heart attack every now and then to remember who I am.
‘What were you thinking, jumping the fence?’
He’s not chiding me. Frank doesn’t do that. He’s shaking his head, though.
‘Being stupid,’ I say. I told them that’s what happened. A shortcut gone wrong.
‘At least it’s just the thumb,’ I say, with a hint of a grin. I feel good. The sun’s shining. It’s safe. Twilight’s a long way off.
‘Better than a broken wrist, I suppose.’
I nod. I agree. It’s the bone at the base of my thumb that’s busy knitting, underneath the big muscle there. It still hurts, though.
‘He thinks he’s twenty,’ says Helen.
Frank takes a sip of his beer. ‘Men are pretty much stupid from the cradle to the grave.’
‘OK, pick on Sam day is it?’
‘Yeah,’ says Frank.
‘I don’t know why he keeps going that way. It’s not like it’s any shorter. Not really.’
Frank raises his eyes to me, but I pretend not to notice.
‘Easy to trip over there. Best to take it to Skip’s. Some people don’t do what’s good for them, though.’
Now he is chiding.
I want to change the subject. Helen doesn’t know about the estate. I want her thinking about something else.
‘Another beer, Frank?’ I say.
He runs his tongue over his teeth inside his mouth while he’s looking at me. I see his nod, just a small thing. He checks, holding it up to the light to see through the brown glass, but more for Helen’s benefit than mine.
‘I wouldn’t mind.’
Helen makes to get up. I wave her down.
‘I can do it. Don’t mother me.’
She looks hurt, but I soften it.
‘I’ve got to keep active. I can’t just sit on my arse all day.’
‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘You’re doing a pretty good job of that.’
She’s fine. I go and get the beer. It takes a while, but I get it done.
When I get back, they’re talking about Frank’s garden.
I phase out. We’ve got a gardener now. He must love us. Easiest job he’s got. Cut the lawn, collect twenty quid, go up the pub. He’s an old boy with broken blood vessels running from his left cheek to his right, without stopping for his nose.
I watch them, conversation going back and forth. Helen loves Frank, and I guess he might have some kind of old man crush on her. I imagine when and if I get to his age I’d be more than happy to spend a sunny evening talking to a beautiful young woman.
She is beautiful, too. As I watch her, I’m struck, not for the first time, how the light catches her hair, her dark eyes. She’s caught a hint of sun and her skin’s darker. It looks good on her.
I’m getting a middle aged man crush on her, just watching her talk. The way she moves her hands, the freckles on the back that come out with the summer.
The sun’s on its way out. The evening is coming to a close.
I think of ways to get rid of Frank. I don’t have to. He sees me watching Helen. He sees very well for an old guy.
‘Well,’ he says, when there’s a lull, ‘I think I’ll head back. I’m three beers to the good. If I don’t call it a night I’ll be singing and dancing and breaking my hip all over again.’
‘It’s nice to see you,’ says Helen. She gets up, giving us both a hint of cleavage. Frank pretends not to look. I don’t mind a bit.
‘I’m going into town tomorrow,’ he says, to me. ‘You want anything?’
I know what he’s angling for. He’s been watching me like a hawk when his attention wasn’t on Helen. He knows something’s up.
I’m not ready, but Helen decides it for me.
‘A walk’d
do you good. You’re beginning to mope.’
‘Mope?’
‘Yes. Mope.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I do. It’s time to get out of the house, Sam. If you don’t go I’ll take you somewhere and leave you there to walk back on your own.’
‘Is this what’s known as a fait accompli?’
‘I do believe it is,’ says Frank. He pushes himself up with s slight grimace, tips an imaginary cap.
‘Goodnight,’ he says.
We echo him. Helen picks up after us. I walk around the garden while she’s tidying, just to kill the time. Bob’s in his garden, too. He’s sitting on a chair, staring at the back fence. Maybe beyond it, to where the estate lies. In the fading light I see him pick up a book. A dim light plays on the back of his head and I see he has a candle in the window behind him.
He sees me looking and gets up. He comes over to the fence. It’s the first and last time he comes to me to talk.
I walk up to my side of the fence.
‘Bob,’ I say.
He flicks his head over his shoulder, kind of indicating the candle in the window, like he can’t really be bothered to talk.
‘They used to put candles in the window for the sailors to find their way home at night,’ he says.
I want to say whatever. Every time I talk to him he’s got some kind of nonsense coming out of his spout.
‘That’s nice,’ I say. It sounds like a stupid comment, even to me, but that’s the best I can do in the face on Bob.
He nods and walks back to his chair. He picks his book up and reads by the dim candlelight while I shake my head and walk back to my patch.
I don’t think about Bob anymore because when Helen finishes with the mess she leans over me and gives me a look, like, I saw you checking me out, what you going to do about it? She’s got this grin, ear to ear. Looking at that grin, I remember how it felt to be a teenager.
I take her upstairs.
*
43.
The morning comes.
‘Ready?’ says Frank.
I know what he’s doing. He’s giving me no reason to weasel out. But he doesn’t need to worry. I’ve got my coat on, ready to go.
We walk without talking for a time. Me and Frank, we’re a sight to see. Me with my new cane and limp; Frank with just the limp. We concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other.
At least, for anyone watching, that’s what it’d look like.
The truth is, I’m thinking about what I’m going to say when Frank asks what really happened to my wrist.
He’s thinking about how he’s going to ask.
We both know I need to talk.
‘Sleeping OK?’ he says.
It’s a venture, a foray. He watches me out of those cold blue eyes.
Those eyes might be old, but they’re as sharp as the shards of glass grinding away in his hip.
‘So so,’ I say. ‘Some nights worse than others.’
He nods. We walk. He’s not finished.
The stranger’s there, like a chaperone. He’s got lies ready. Sam’s right there, too, though, and I’m in trouble. I know it. Helen’s my rock, but that’s closed to me. There’s only Frank, and I need him.
‘Problems?’
The thing is, me and Helen, we’ve got a history of lies. Me and Frank, well…I don’t want to start down that road.
Frank’s not Helen. I could lie. It’s on my lips.
Sam takes a look at those eyes. Takes a breath.
‘I went back.’
He nods again.
‘I thought so.’
Then he goes back to being quiet. The world’s greatest interrogator, slicing me apart with silence.
‘I know. You told me not to go.’
‘It got on your mind?’
That’s about right.
‘Yeah. I couldn’t stop. Like the coke. Worse.’ I’ve told him about the coke. That was easy. No interrogation required. I needed to talk about it, Frank listened.
This is harder.
‘My advice, if you’ll take it, stands.’
‘Don’t go back?’
‘You’d do as well to leave it alone,’ he says. ‘The place is bowed.’
‘I’d listen, now.’ That’s not the end of it, is it? I think about what I’m going to say. What I need to say. It’s hard to get the words out, but from here the only way is forward.
‘I think it’s too late,’ I say, and look at him.
He raises his eyebrows. I hate to think what he sees in my eyes. I could cut myself on that look.
‘Shit,’ I say. He waits. I cave.
There’s a bench in the middle of a memorial garden.
‘Let’s sit,’ I say.
‘I could use a breather,’ he says.
He’s not out of breath, I am. But I appreciate the lie.
I go over things in my head, yet again. Try to find an out. But the best I can do is hold back the parts that he doesn’t need to know. I’m in this, but I don’t need absolution. I need help. Holding back isn’t the same as lying.
‘So, OK. Me and Helen, we go to the one-stop, through the estate.’
I wait for a telling off. He’s old enough not to call me a fool. He just leans back, stares at the sky. It makes it easier when I haven’t got those eyes on me.
‘I know why you don’t go there. Right off, there was a strange feeling. I can’t put it better than that. No people. And this atmosphere. The kind you get when you walk into certain pubs you don’t belong. I was curious, I suppose. Same thing that always gets me in trouble.’
‘Are you, Sam?’
‘Am I…?’
‘In trouble.’
I puff. ‘I think I might be.’
‘Uh-huh.’
Just that. No more. He waits for the rest. I pick at a piece of nothing on my trousers. The piece of nothing isn’t there. Frank is. The way he’s sitting, I think he could wait me out all day.
‘I think Helen got it,’ I say, finally. ‘Not the same way. She reads all these books, but it’s weird, because it’s like she’s got no imagination. But I get the place. My imagination’s running wild. You know?’
‘I know,’ he says.
‘Well, there’s a guy. Painting a window frame.’
‘Yeah? Sprucing it up, maybe.’
‘I know. So what? Right? But it’s UPVC. Who paints UPVC?’
Frank sighs.
I think back.
‘No van, either.’
‘Uh-huh.’
That could get infuriating, but I can’t say that.
‘You know something?’ I ask.
‘Getting the picture,’ he says. He won’t be drawn. He’ll tell me what he knows in his own time, or not at all. There’s no sense in pushing him.
‘It freaks me out. I get this cracking headache after the first time. Helen thinks I’m dying. I can’t say I blame her. A trip to the hospital later and it turns out I’m fine.’
‘It didn’t seem like a routine check-up. The way you looked…’
‘Yeah. I should’ve told you.’
‘Makes no bones to me. Your business, not mine.’
‘Maybe,’ I say.
I want to ask what he saw on the estate. I’m sure he saw something. Only difference is he was smart enough not to invite it in.
‘It didn’t end there, did it?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘I went back. More than once. There was a cat.’
He gets this look. Staring off at nothing.
‘OK, it was just a cat. Shit. I don’t know what it is, but it’s not just a cat.
‘The first time I saw it, it was moving its jaw. Like it was miaowing. You know.’ I move my jaw. Miming, like the cat.
Frank spits to one side.
‘Stubby tail,’ he says.
I stare at him. He doesn’t look at me. Now he’s the uncomfortable one. He glances at me.
‘I haven’t told anybody this. Not ever,’ he says, and his voice is cold, l
ike he’s daring me to laugh at a story he hasn’t even told.
It’s my time for silence. For patience.
Eventually, he says, ‘I moved in a couple of years before you. I went walkabout a lot, back then.’
‘Dana was a heavy weight, some days. I was trying to walk it off, like you would a kick in the balls. It’s been some time since she died, but that kick in the balls you get when you lose someone you love? Well, you know. It’s like Johnny Wilkinson just wound up his boot between your legs.
‘People must’ve thought I was an old fool, but most people round here were kind enough.
‘I found the estate after a while. The snowdrops were out, so I suppose it must have been the start of spring, though I can’t remember exactly when.’
He pulls out his tobacco pouch from his shirt pocket and rolls a swift cigarette with his thick, gnarled hands. Those hands are nimble.
He flicks his lighter and I sit silent while I wait.
‘I got obsessed. I think that’s the way it was, but it seems distant, now. I walked out that way most days. Then, about a month after I found it, although it could have been longer, I started seeing the cat.’
I’ve been holding my breath, seeing stars. I breathe out. The world darkens. I breathe in, breathe out. Concentrate on that for a while.
Frank doesn’t notice. He’s lost. Remembering.
‘I saw it a few times. Then it started coming round the house.’
He doesn’t look at me. He can’t see the colour drain from my face.
‘It always came at night. It began to scare me. I can’t say why. It’s just a cat, right?’ He laughs, but not because of anything funny.
‘I used to kick it. Throw things at it. That went on for a while.’
He looks at his cigarette, realises it’s gone out. He pinches the end off anyway and tucks it behind his ear.
‘Fucking cat. Tried to kill me.’
‘What?’
‘Yeah. No way, right? But you believe me. I see it in your face.’
I nod. ‘I’ve seen it enough.’
‘Don’t go back, Sam.’
‘The cat?’ I ask, sidestepping.
Frank sighs, but he hasn’t got the energy to chase around the houses with me.
‘It was late, and I was down the sideway, taking the bins out. I was looking out for the cat. I hated that fucking cat. I still do. It wasn’t there, so I scooted along, in the dark. I had my hands full. The cat knew. I swear it knew. It darted out, quick as lightening, straight between my legs. I went down like a sack of potatoes. I had a plastic hip already by then. It was OK. Now it’s the way it is. The cat did that.’
RAIN/Damned to Cold Fire (Two Supernatural Horror Novels): A RED LINE Horror Double: Supernatural Page 36