4 Bones Sleeping (Small Town Trilogy)

by Gerald Wixey

  Oh yes, the photographs exceeded his expectations, considering that he froze his bollocks off waiting for them to put in an appearance. He found six of the best, three each in two envelopes and sealed them.

  Euphoria.

  What was her address?

  Mrs Carol Wilson, 14 Hamfield.

  Teddy hopped around like a concert pianist with a recently broken thumb, the thought of being a postman delivering bad news always did it for him.

  Hand delivered as well.

  27

  Jack - 1946

  ‘Spread across the garden and stand still.’ Harry still in guard dog mode, growled out his instructions.

  I tripped, and fell into the six inch deep white blanket.

  ‘Jesus fucking Christ.’ From one brother. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’

  The other more tolerant, ‘Careful now.’

  Tripped up by one of Harry’s garden gnomes. My mind rambled, I couldn’t focus. Instead looking for a murdering lunatic at the gate, I picked the gnome up. I sought release by running my finger over it. I laughed out loud.

  ‘What’s up with you? Just shut the fu…’

  Harry’s voice drifted off with the wind and I stared down at the gnome. The smallest of the set. Harry named them all and called this one Gordon. Seven inches long, weighing about the same as a bag of sugar. The baby of the cluster of gnomes that Harry had scattered randomly around his garden. I brushed the snow away, run my fingers across Gordon’s pot belly. Wrapped my fingers round it, sitting in the palm of my hand as snug as a hand crafted knife handle.

  Knife!

  My consciousness ripped back to the here and now. I placed Gordon back on the floor. I fumbled around until I’d recovered my knife. I shuffled my way to the boundary edge. Leant against the garage wall and waited.

  Not for long as it happened. A blurred figure appeared, faded in like a ghost manifests on a cinema screen. He stood at the end of the drive. Thirty yards away, snowflakes swirled around him like an angry swarm of bees. Picking his way up the drive, his eyes, like ours by now, well used to the spectral light. But he was moving and we were still. A dusting of snow covering the three of us by now. Statues, watching a phantom creep towards us. The same way a nervous visitor creeps into an intensive care ward. Expecting the worst, so the cautious approach served him well.

  Eyeless stopped mid-way between Harry and me. Wyn was the other side of Harry. The world stopped spinning on its axis. Clock’s stopped and hearts too. A man five yards from me and I held my breath. He looked around, wiping his glasses with his free hand. The other hand held something out in front of him, like he was pointing the way forward. I had raised my knife, chest high, remembering Harry’s well used method. Holding the weapon out in front, not raising it above your head. Leaning hard against the garage wall. Still holding my breath. A lung bursting lull.

  I heard Harry’s movement, a wildebeest moving my way. Horns down in the attack position. Hitting Eyeless in the ribs. The crudest of crude rugby crash tackles. The breath oomphed out from the pair of them. One an adrenalin, aggression release. The other one, a rib cracking, breath expelling shock.

  I pressed myself hard against the garage wall and braced myself as two bodies came straight towards me. A flash of light, the briefest of camera flashes, accompanied by a gunshot. An instant breaking of glass somewhere close by. And I watched as two bodies came my way with all the uncontrolled momentum of a runaway goods train. Just before impact another flash and crack. I thought about Newtonian mechanics in action. Gravity and mass, bodies in motion. Two bodies in motion. A shoulder hit me in the ribs at the same time as the knife handle was rocked back until it hit the garage wall.

  No real noise, just my hand pinned between the wall and something heavy. Warm, wetness spread over my hand and up the length of my arm. My hand began to slide down, dragged in that direction by a collapsing body. A gurgling, grunt. It could have been from either or indeed both of them.

  The two slipped down into an untidy huddle in front of me. The knife snatched from my grip somehow. I felt my ribs, why weren’t they broken? All that mass, all that momentum and no pain. Harry levered himself up, kicked the body twice. His breathing whooshed my way in red hot blasts. The lights in the house had come back on. Flooding the garden and an unlikely peace enveloped me. Like being stood stock still, under an umbrella as drizzle whispered down on a windless day. The corridor of light from the open door, bathed us in a soft theatre of gold.

  I stared down and there it was, my knife buried in Eyeless’s throat. Waves of nausea swept over me. I turned and retched at this act of frenzied farce. My head span like a top and I fell face down onto my own vomit. I fell next to the body, my mind telling me to sleep. Lie down, make myself warm and comfortable. Close my eyes and go to sleep, curled up like a dog into a safe little ball.

  Harry put his hand under my armpit and dragged me up.

  ‘Don’t be fucking stupid Jack.’ He brushed the snow from my shoulders and back. Harry held me up and I listened as the brothers whispered. Voices reserved for the company of lunatics, cowards or unwanted wedding guests. My head swam and spun, a burning at the base of my skull. Drifting in and out of consciousness, deeply aware of the smell of fresh snow, blood and vomit. I felt an unbearable weight on my eyelids.

  Harry turned to me and whispered. ‘C’mon Jack, all over now … no more, that’s it.’ Harry sounding like he’d just dug the garden, or ploughed a big field. ‘We’ve still got work to do though – c’mon.’

  What?

  The three of us stood over a dead man in peaceful anti-climax. A mountain of a man, his high dome of a forehead hidden by the deep snow. His life seeped away. It wheezed out from his lungs, snot bubbled from out of his nose and blood no longer oozing. A life seconds away from extinction.

  Teddy - 1954

  Uncle Jim woke him up.

  ‘Teddy boy.’

  He stared up at his uncle.

  ‘You’ve had a nightmare boy. You ok?

  ‘Eyeless, I just dreamt about him.’

  ‘You woke Carmen up. Screaming like that.’

  ‘Eyeless?’

  ‘Don’t think about that thick as shit, cunt. He was always more trouble than he was worth. Go back to sleep.’

  But he did think about him. For the rest of the night. When Eyeless fucked that Maltese girl. Her gingham skirt up, her white ankle socks stark against her dark skin. He watched as Eyeless pounded against her on the living room sofa.

  Minutes later. ‘Your turn Teddy boy.’

  Was that how the first time was meant to be? Fucking her through someone else’s jism?

  Eyeless gave her three woodbines and a box of matches.

  She seemed happy enough.

  Later that same night, he lay in bed and lifted the sheets.

  The smell of sex, he didn’t know whether to be excited or revolted. His erection gave him a clue.

  He met the girl years later. She never recognised him, turning tricks down Coldharbour Lane. Cheap tricks, cheap part of town.

  ‘You want business?’

  ‘Not with you, scrubber.’

  ‘Fuck yourself queer boy.’

  He glanced down at the back of his hand, red and stinging. Not as much as her cheek though.

  Teddy missed Coldharbour Lane, but not the cold and the rain. He sat on the beach and did miss Adriana. Dear, fat, old Adriana who gave him peace. Every minute, with her he felt relaxed and happy.

  Happy?

  He was, she told him that her name meant dark.

  Dark? Rich like coffee?

  He sat on the beach next to Uncle Jim and stared out all the way to where?

  Algeria?

  ‘You want to go home, don’t you?’

  ‘I miss a good snowstorm, I even miss watching the tarts down Coldharbour Lane.’

  ‘Those drippers – stay away from those boy.’

  ‘Football crowds, a good fight.’

  ‘Fight! You’ve had enough of those h
ere.’ They sat in silence, he shivered when his uncle put his arm around his shoulders. ‘In a couple of years, we’ll find you another passport. But you can never go back to London. You need a good woman to keep you out of trouble… and away from London.’

  ‘I want to see snow blowing across the downs. Howling gale across to Rochester.’

  ‘Couple of year’s boy. Think hard though, you know you’ll never get caught out here. Think hard.’

  26

  Jack -1980

  Three pints and I slept on the sofa. The restless, sweating sleep of the guilty. Dark visions, murderous images, the same old three pint hallucinations. Harry smirking and saying let me fix this. Then breaking his brittle fist on Teddy’s classic profile. Shirley holding hands with Don. Staring into each other’s eyes and bidding us good night. They climbed the stairs with his hand clamped on her arse. Wyn watching them like a mournful old hound staring after his fast disappearing, mistress. Then the noise like a bass drum as Harry beat a tattoo on the coffee table with Teddy’s head.

  Then the voices, ‘C’mon – hurry up.’

  I sat up, my forehead covered in a mantle of sweat. Eyes flashing round the small living room. The drumming kept on rolling, accompanied by more curses. Someone was trying to kick the front door in.

  ‘Jack – I know you’re in there.’

  Don’s voice.

  Hoarse and urgent. I walked over and opened the door. The man looked at the end of his tether. Eyes bulging like ball bearings. Spittle flecked his full lips. His cheeks scarlet, the veins on his neck standing out like exposed electrical wiring on against a freshly painted wall.

  He barged me out of the way and slammed the door. Hard enough for the glass to groan and mutter and threaten to disintegrate if anyone ever shut the door like that again.

  ‘Sit down – I’ve had it up to here with you lot.’ Don pointed me back into the chair.

  ‘Don, can I get you a drink. Coffee, tea…’

  ‘Shut up.’ Don kept pointing, ‘Someone’s been telling lies.’

  Something had opened a valve, one that suddenly opens fully and scattered his emotions all over the floor. I wondered if Don was about to break down and sob or punch me silly. His mind calculating, all the time calculating. An excuse, any excuse would do and he’d pan me.

  Don shivered, ‘I’d been cold all afternoon, when I got home, I rubbed my hands and walked around in the kitchen. That’s the thing with kids.’ He stared at me, ‘If nothing else it’s the noise they generate. If they not asleep or out, then there’s always noise. Screaming, laughing, arguing, crying… all the time noise. Not now, the only noise is a loud angry voice hammering away inside my head.’

  He’s gone.

  I got him a bottle of beer. Don sat silently in amongst the silence and drank. He appeared to struggle for breath as his sureness drained away. I bet his temples throbbed – his world had gone quiet. I wondered if he wanted Shirley again and another long night of too much gin and long bruising bouts of lovemaking. I wanted to imagine her legs and arms, how they squeezed him and wrapped around every inch of his body. Instead all I could think of was Carol, standing close by with her hands thrust deep into the pockets on her raincoat.

  ‘What’s up – Don, Don. Are you all right?’

  He dragged air deep into his big chest. The eyes that had been glazed, slowly cleared. Don shook his head and his breath snorted out. ‘I’ve got the dirt on you lot. Inland Revenue for starters. Bodies all over the place, six in London.’

  ‘Six?’

  ‘Two with their throats cut and four looked like they’d been in a blast furnace. Seven if you count the one that was buried fifty yards from where you used to live. Then last week, your old housekeeper battered to death.’ Don stood up and came close, ‘Everything’s with the legal eagles.’

  My turn to struggle to breath, ‘Since when has an income tax issue been any concern of yours?’

  He never answered for a few minutes. Then he twisted his head a touch and said, ‘Income tax?’

  Then more silence, apart from his hoarse, rasping breath. A man on the edge of a breakdown and I wanted him out of my house and out of my life. Leave me alone.

  One more question nagged away, then he can leave me alone. ‘Anyone in the frame for Daphne yet?’

  ‘Teddy Schwartz.’ He shook his head, ‘Vanished off the face of the earth. Last seen leaving the pub with Daphne. He’s that bloke whose daughter…’

  ‘The bloke whose daughter you were sleeping with. That bloke?’

  The sudden volte-face on my part shook me, but not as much as Don. His eyes bulged and began to massage his temples. His breath came out in short bursts.

  ‘Don’t twist this around. You’re keeping something from me.’ He slapped the flat of his hand down on the coffee table. I jumped, the coffee table jumped, my heart stopped for a few seconds. ‘I’m going to fix all of you.’

  ‘But what about the girl?’

  ‘Fuck her.’ He gasped this as though someone had punched him in the solar-plexus in mid-sentence. Don buried his head in his hands, ‘Fuck her. She’s ruined everything, that and my stupid cow of a wife.’

  ‘She was just a child.’

  ‘Child! You stupid, queer bastard. You’ve no idea have you. Child? She made all the running.’

  ‘You used a child, you’re finished Don. Some would call it abuse; she was thirty years younger than you for God’s sake.’

  Don sat back down. ‘Someone gave Carol some photos.’

  I frowned; did I want to pursue this? Yes evidently, ‘What was the subject matter?’

  ‘Me with Shirley, me with Celia.’

  ‘Shirley… Compromising?’

  Don nodded, ‘The ones with Shirley were. If that’s not bad enough, my wife’s getting fucked silly by a thick as shit, long haired paddy.’

  I resisted the temptation to say what’s that got to do with anything. But he turned, threw open the door and left me. Evening mist tumbled in the open door. Like fake stage fog, like a dream. I grabbed my overcoat and headed for sanctuary. His rambling thudding away inside my head, what was he on about? Not his threats, or his pumped up macho man stuff. It was the confused words about his kids. A subject I’d never heard him mention before, conscience maybe? I walked arm in arm with his half declaration of guilt, hand in hand through the front door with me.

  Then a sudden thought, perhaps Carol was in danger. Perhaps we all were. I needed a pint. A pint and refuge.

  *****

  Shirley was sat, propped on a stool, staring down at her gin. Harry gestured my way and raised his eyebrows.

  Stuart said, ‘Are you coming out for a curry later?’ He stared at me, ‘C’mon it’ll do you good.’ Stuart’s presence nearby reassured and I smiled at his new found role. Happy to take his father’s mantle on, defender of the weak and the teller of half-truths. ‘Just after eight, Patrick’s out celebrating, ok?’

  I nodded and watched him go up close to Shirley, who carried on staring down. Stuart put his arm around her, I hadn’t noticed, but she had been sobbing gently, just the barest of movement from her shoulders. Stuart pushed her empty glass across the counter towards Harry. Picked her cigarette packet up and said, ‘Have one of these for God’s sake and tell us what’s happened.’

  Shirley fumbled around in her handbag, dabbed her eyes with a tissue. Sniffed a couple of times and then sighed. Her make-up had fanned out under both eyes, she glanced over towards me, swiftly averted her gaze and pulled a cigarette out. Took a deep drag and whispered, ‘No fool like an old one.’

  Shirley hammered her cigarette out and snapped. ‘Some people think I was born yesterday.’ She shook her head, clamped her lips together and snorted out through her elegant nose. Shirley looked across to Stuart and raised her eyebrows.

  Stuart nodded, ‘Mum’s the word, you know me, soul of discretion.’

  Now that was funny, he couldn’t keep his mouth shut if you paid him. Stuart stared at his father, Harry looked at me,
I sighed, I’d become the master of coming in on the fag-end of conversations. Something else had happened and I knew nothing… again.

  ******

  We walked up together, me and my newly found squire. Bodyguard and the shield between me and Don and Teddy. Stuart talked on the move, ‘Did you get what that was all about?’

  No I didn’t.

  We walked into an Indian restaurant midweek in February. More waiters than customers, I lowered the glass of fizzy lager and watched two young men eat with the abandon of two youthful lions. Patrick had propped the menu up, fed poppadum’s into his mouth with one hand and slurped beer with the other. Like some sort of continuous, self-feeding manufacturing process. Happy to feed his face and use the menu like a fisherman used a harbour wall against a strong wind.

  He spoke through it all, ‘Carol’s been in the pub and had a slanging match with Shirley. Well, it was one-sided. Shirley just took it – never said a word.’

  I lowered the menu and stared his way, dumbfounded and obviously looked the same as well.

  ‘Carol had some photographs.’

  ‘Who from?’ I said eventually, my own dire memories of minutes earlier strangling my perception of what was coming.

  ‘I don’t know who it was, he didn’t leave his name.’ Patrick went back to his menu.

  Stuart often did the talking for Patrick. That’s how it worked it seemed, Patrick told Stuart something, Stuart then relayed it like some ministerial envoy.

  ‘Photographs’ of Shirley and Don in an embrace. He hit Carol when she told him.’ Stuart placed his menu on the table. ‘You can imagine it can’t you? She started to lay into him and he slapped her across the face. Hard wasn’t it?’

  Patrick glanced up and nodded.

  I’d heard her a couple of weeks ago, arguing with Don on the phone, cat got your tongue? Can’t think of an excuse? Trouble is, you only think with your stupid cock.