by Oscar Turner
Seymour took another healthy slug of his now cold Cafe Loco. His thoughts had taken him back to how he had met Polly, when she was with Kevin. Maybe Polly is, after all, a serial monogamist, bouncing from one man to another and his turn was now over. The thought caused Seymour to shake his head and look up to the ceiling to disperse it.
Seymour looked across at Derek and Dave sat in the corner playing chess as usual. Both staring intensely at the board, occasionally, discretely, looking at each other: totally absorbed with trying to outwit each other. Old George was sat at his favourite table in the other corner writing poems. He was always writing something down. He had dropped a page on the floor, when he had left a few days ago and Seymour had picked it up. It was hastily scrawled with angry one-liners that seemed to have no relevance to each other: Seymour assumed that was poetry.
He had never spoken to George, beyond a grunt of acknowledgement, but that was normal at Rosey’s. You don’t go to Rosey’s to meet people and chat. It’s more like a place to go to find some peace and quiet. A refuge for lost souls who are happy to be lost.
‘How’s things?’
Seymour looked up to see Rosey standing next to him carrying an empty tray.
‘Oh good, yeh fine thanks.’
‘Hate to see you on a bad day then.’ said Rosey bluntly.
Seymour suddenly felt uncomfortable. It wasn’t so much Rosey’s abrupt manner, more the fact that she had never really spoken to him before.
‘Went and saw your work at the gallery yesterday.’ said Rosey.
Seymour nodded. ‘Oh?’
‘I like it, it’s good. Don’t know why, but I was pleasantly surprised.’
With that Rosey walked off back to the counter. Seymour watched her as she looked through her record collection, slid out a well worn LP, carefully pulled out the vinyl record, inspected it for dust and played Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells on the radiogram. As the music started, Rosey stood behind the counter, looked at Seymour and gave him a subtle pencil thin smile.
Seymour, looked out of the window, puzzled, wondering if he had just imagined the last few minutes. He looked back at the counter. Rosey had gone.
Seymour shook his head again and looked at his hands. They were more colourful than usual. They looked like ape hands, with squirming, pink, worm like shapes wriggling just below the skin. It then occurred to him that it was time to get the hell out of Rosey’s with some urgency. He had no idea how long he’d been there; things were beginning to feel strange. His stomach felt like rope knot, his blood aerated, his eyes fighting to make sense of light and shapes. He looked down at his empty mug. It was clean. He must have scraped out the hashish residue with his finger, although he couldn’t remember doing it. You should never do that, not if you have things to do.
Seymour took a deep breath and looked across at the door. It was a good 10 metres away. He could make it in one go; if he concentrated. Once he was outside everything would be fine: but that seemed a long way off at that moment. Maybe wait a few minutes, let things calm down. Tubular Bells is not a good soundtrack to have if you are trying to get out of Rosey’s. Seymour wasn’t sure exactly how long that track was, or how long it had already been playing: was it side one or side two? Either way they were over 20 minutes long each. He looked up at the clock above the counter. It was three o’clock; but knowing that didn’t help. Seymour’s lost train of thought, was suddenly snapped. It took a few moments before he realised that the record had stuck. Everybody in Rosey’s looked at each other in shock, then over to the radiogram: Rosey was nowhere to be seen. That was it, Seymour had to get out now: it was a perfect opportunity. Even if he tripped over or misjudged a chair or two on his way, he could get away with it. He quickly looked around. Everybody was preoccupied with the cyclical tubular bell whining like a fly swat in the wind. Taking in a huge slow breath, he got to his feet and aimed himself at the door.
Seymour did it in one go: straight out the door and into the street. Holding onto a lamppost he drew another deep breath. The traffic was light and fast moving. He looked across the street at the entrance to the park. If he could get over there, he could spend an hour or so sitting by the lake, watching the ducks. That always calmed him down and God did he needed calming down. Getting out of Rosey’s had been a traumatic experience; his heart was pounding hard. His eyes flashed left and right, on fire, looking for a chance to cross the road. He did it! He was there. It had happened so fast. Blasting horns yelled out to him. Seymour waved and slipped into the Park.
Cyril and Roger waited until dark before they slipped out. All afternoon they had listened to the chain saws starting and stopping, trees crashing: it stopped around five. Chris and John never worked after five if they could help it, by six they would be down The Barn Owl pub. There was a lot of beer to drink and fags to smoke. Give them till nine and they would be completely smashed, as would everyone else on the estate.
Both Cyril and Roger were good silent walkers. Roger was half Spaniel and half Chocolate Labrador, the result, a Short Haired Pointer, near enough, and could walk, at Cyril's heel, without a sound through most terrain. Cyril picked up his silent walking skills from his Grandfather along with many other useful tips for surviving from the land.
They had to walk nearly 3 miles around the estate's perimeter to get to Fingle Hill. There was only a half moon, often blocked out by the puffy cumulous clouds sailing past, making it harder than usual to navigate through.
When they got there, Cyril's heart sank. Several large old trees lay where they had fallen, branches sliced off, leaving stumps like amputated limbs. He couldn't see how many there were, such was the mangled chaos of broken branches ripped off as the grand old trees fell to their death. Squirrels hopped up and down on the now horizontal trunks, as if they were trying to make sense of it all. Bats, more than usual, swooped through the air, around and around, some dive-bombing Cyril, as if to warn him off. Even Roger seemed in shock, as he sat there staring, his tail motionless. Roger had spent a lot of time in those woods. As if being drawn in, Cyril slowly stepped forward: into the woods. The rich grass and ferns that usually flourished on the edge of the woods had now been crushed and mangled by cruel tractor tyres and ripped by dragged branches. A huge yellow bulldozer, with a sinister root grubber welded to the back, sat parked on the other side of the track. In the tungsten light of the moon it looked like it was alive; breathing out the stink of diesel blood.
Cyril went over to the stump of the old oak. The light was catching the severed trunk, amplifying the hundreds of beautiful fine rings, broken only by the large crack. He knelt down, as if to comfort it. Nobody knew exactly how old that old oak was: he could count the rings now. The thought pumped a blob of bile into his throat.
The smell of fresh oak resin was intoxicating, as he breathed it in: placing his hands flat on the centre rings. He could feel a slight warmth from the sticky rings, that had not seen the light of day for maybe three hundreds of years.
Cyril looked around again at the carnage and spotted the old hemp rope. One end lay in the branches of a surviving silver birch sapling, the other end was barely visible, crushed and strangled into the mud by the bulldozer where it had been thrown. Many a boy had tried to get that rope down over the years, including himself when he was a lad.
He looked at the stump again. He wondered why the hell they cut it down, it was useless to a sawmill, the huge crack from the lightening strike had seen to that. Split the trunk clean in two. Had it not been for the years of careful pruning and chaining together of the crack it would never have survived. You could see the necklace scar around the trunk, just above the first branches, where a chain had been lashed and tightened by an old steam traction engine. It had worked and one day, some fifty years or so later, the sheer force of the mighty oak's growth had snapped the chain and thrown it to the ground.
Roger appeared next to Cyril and licked at his hands. Cyril cupped Roger's head gently in his hands and kissed his brow.
�
�Come on boy, let's go.’ whispered Cyril.
Cyril shuffled off the trunk and slipped on the damp humus, his foot slipping down in the crack among the roots. It wasn't a big hole and he steadied himself easily. Pulling out his foot, the heel of his shoe caught a root and slipped off. Reaching down in the hole to retrieve it, he felt something, something with skin, dead and damp. Craning his head down into the crack he could just see his shoe, lodged between what looked like two old leather bags. Reaching in again, he grabbed his shoe and slipped it on.
Roger sat next to him, looking in at the bags, his tail wagging, nudging Cyril's arm with his muzzle. Cyril slowly pulled out one the bags and dusted off the sawdust. There was a brass catch holding the two ribs of the top together. A hole nibbled in the side, oozed damp fragments of what looked like paper. Cyril slowly eased open the catches and looked inside.
‘Shit’ whispered Cyril and closed it again, when he suddenly he heard footsteps, running footsteps. He and Roger crouched and froze, quickly realising it was Laurel and Hardy, two New Forest Donkeys, once destined for Belgian butchers, that Sir Thomas had rescued from a cull last year, who wandered freely on the estate, spending their days visiting everyone for a chat and maybe a carrot or two.
Cyril and Roger kept down, silent breathing. Laurel and Hardy looked like they were on their way somewhere, maybe back to their stables for a nap. If they spotted Cyril or Roger they would be thrilled, start prancing around like maniacs, hee hawing and probably want to come home with them. Normally they'd be welcome, but not now. They waited until Laurel and Hardy were well out of earshot; before Cyril grabbed the heavy bags out of the hole and they headed back home.
Seymour fumbled with his keys and opened the front door of the flat. His time with the ducks had calmed him, things seemed a lot clearer. He had sorted through the chaos of his mind and hooked out a thought. It was the ducks that did it. He had stared at them for over two hours, floating around together, grabbing a snack or two from the water, some taking a nap and some taking off for a spot of flying. Their life was all so simple and all because; they were ducks. It was quite a conclusion and it took Seymour a while to know what to do with it. The extremes of the Cafe Loco, which he had promised himself to leave out for a few days, had now subsided and he was now, just mentally numbed. And then it clicked. Simplicity, he must have simplicity and at that moment, his life was far from simple.
In the previous few hours he had virtually replayed his entire life, not necessarily in chronological order, more in puffs of episodes that always seemed to end badly. There were some memories that had made him laugh out loud, much to the bemusement of the ducks who were still wondering where the bread was. There was some really bad stuff there too, stuff that stood out, things he had done, that, at the time he thought reasonable, some with no thought at all, that now made him cringe. His conclusion was that everything he did in his life always ended in shit. And here he was again. That sort of thing doesn’t seem to happen to ducks.
But this time things were different. He now had a sword to wield. He was now independent. No need for a hand to feed him. He was going to confront Polly once and for all.
He had planned on bursting in the door and just hitting her with his well rehearsed question.
‘Right Polly! I want you to tell me right now. What the hell is wrong with you?’
The flat was in darkness. Seymour switched on the lights and walked in cautiously in case Polly was sleeping. She was doing a lot of sleeping lately and to wake her was not a good idea.
‘Polly?’ Seymour waited. Nothing. He looked across at the table, there was a note underneath his stash box placed strategically where Seymour always sat at the table.
One of the many scenarios that Seymour had invented that day, was the big possibility that Polly would leave him. She had left Kevin and God knows how many other men in the past, so why not him? This was the note, he thought as he went over to the table on tiptoe. He sat down and snatched the note from under his stash box and read it.
‘Had to go out, back later. XX Polly’
‘Oh yeh, had to go out.’ mumbled Seymour sarcastically.
Seymour suddenly felt confused. He really didn’t want to feel like this. He was angry with Polly. Before he had been worried about what was wrong with her. Now he had come up with so many reasons to be angry with her, most of which he could barely remember, that they had just become a big blob of anger. How dare she poison his mind-boggling joy, that people wanting to buy his work and therefore enable him to be paid for just being himself. It is more than any man, or woman, can ever hope for: to want more than that is just greedy.
Seymour put the note down and looked across at his empty easel, standing there, legs spread, waiting. He hadn’t made any new work, since about a week before the opening. That was another thing he was angry about. That she, and her adolescent sulking, can have the nerve to create so many bad vibes that it was impossible for him to work. She knows what happens when he can’t work. He goes fucking mad: that’s what happens.
Seymour looked around the flat. It felt empty, dead. It was as if everything he had imagined that day had come true. It was all over, again.
Suddenly the front door burst open, followed by a chaotic Polly brandishing two bulging shopping bags.
‘Hi Seymour. God I’m glad your home.’
Seymour looked across at Polly. This was not supposed to happen.
Polly dropped the bags and closed the door. Seymour watched her suspiciously, as she walked up to him, kissed him firmly on the lips, smiled lovingly, went back to the door to pick up the bags and took them across to the kitchen. Was this part of some game she was playing? Was he supposed to forget about the last weeks and all the tension she had caused. Tension, that had driven him to the edge of insanity back at Rosey’s? Is this the same game she had played with Kevin just before she left him?
‘Polly.’ said Seymour attempting to be stern. His voice felt weak, his throat taut from nervousness. It was also only the second time he had spoken that day. Polly stopped in her tracks and looked at him. Her face suddenly took on a look of defeat, as if she had been caught out. The fear of a child.
‘Seymour? What’s wrong?’
‘Please sit down Polly. I want to talk.’
Polly dragged a chair out from the other end of the table and sat down, her eyes fixed on his. The distance she had chosen to sit away from him, meant something, as if she were expecting bad news and needed to be safe.
‘I want to know exactly what on Earth has been wrong with you Polly?’
Polly momentarily dropped her head down, then returned her eyes to his. ‘I saw you today Seymour, in the park.’
‘Oh yeh, you should have come and said hi.’
‘You didn’t look like you wanted company. You were crying.’
‘I was not!’ snapped Seymour. As he said it he remembered. The ducks had been lined up in front of him in a strange formation. He had been thinking about his early days with Polly; how wonderful they were: how natural it had felt. He had suddenly burst into tears. He thought he had hidden it well, for the sake of the ducks.
Seymour looked away from Polly’s eyes.
‘Whatever. So are you going to tell me, or have I got to carry on making it all up myself?’
Polly stood up, sat next to him at the table and took his hand. He wanted so much to childishly snatch his hand away, but didn’t.
‘Seymour. Believe it or not I was going to tell you everything tonight. When I saw you in the park, I realised what I was putting you through and it’s not fair. Seymour, I am so, so sorry.’
Seymour looked at Polly, horrified. This is it. He was about to have his head blown away. ‘So, who is it then?’
Polly smiled to herself. ‘Oh Seymour it’s not another man, do you really think I would do that?’
‘Why not, you’ve done it before.’ Seymour wished he hadn’t said that, but he was trying to maintain his anger, which was slipping fast.
‘O
h Seymour, please don’t do that. We haven’t spoken to each other like that for months. I don’t want to fight anymore. Please.’ Polly stood up and pulled a bottle of red from one of the bags. ‘I really think we need a drink.’
Seymour watched her as she opened the bottle. Those wonderful tanned forearms, those perfect breasts jiggling with every screeching turn of the corkscrew, the way she put the bottle between her legs and pulled the cork. Looked like a good bottle too; it had wire around it: probably a nice Rioja.
Polly came back to the table with the last remaining pair of their best wine glasses and generously filled them as she sat down.
‘Cheers.’ said Polly offering her glass up for chinking.
Seymour touched her glass lightly with his. ‘Cheers.’
‘Ok, here goes.’ Polly took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment. ‘Oh God I don’t know where to start Seymour.’ Polly reached for his hand again and held it tight, massaging it nervously. ‘You see..... Oh shit.....When I escaped from the gang after the robbery, I, um, used their getaway car.’
‘I know that.’ said Seymour.
‘Please Seymour. Let me finish. What I didn’t tell them was that. Well. The money was in the boot. And I.... I hid it somewhere.’
Seymour brow furrowed: puzzled.
‘I don’t know why I did it Seymour, I just, just, did it. I thought I could tell the police where I hid it. But I didn’t. I didn’t think it through Seymour, there was no time. It wasn’t like I was lying or anything. I just didn’t tell them. And then it was too late. I couldn’t suddenly say after I made my statement, Oh by the way, I found the money in the boot and hid for you for safe keeping, could I?’