Flesh Wounds

by Christopher Fowler

  He was forced to take a succession of dull jobs in dull parts of the city, nursed his mother for years before she died, and paid the bills for his now-senile father, who had a habit of walking into shops and taking things without paying for them.

  But he did manage to find romance. He should have realised that his future wife was trouble when the boyfriend she’d walked out on attacked him in a pub before he’d even had a chance to speak to her. Brian was married for just over three years, between the ages of twenty-nine and thirty-two. Cheryl gave him genital herpes, emptied their joint account and left him for the young man who had previously been convicted for stealing his car.

  On the eve of his forty-third birthday, Brian seated himself at his father’s old dressing table, studied his reflection and gave careful consideration to his future.

  There certainly didn’t seem to be much to look forward to.

  Brian thought hard; there had to be something.

  But he realised with a sinking pit-of-the-stomach shock that there was nothing to look forward to, nothing at all. How could his life have passed so fast? People always talked about living for seventy or eighty years, but nobody pointed out that only the first three decades were any fun.

  He recognised the growing symptoms of depression in himself and realised that although it sometimes seemed as if there was nothing left to live for, there were still little pleasures to be taken. He often thought of Maximillian, whom he hadn’t seen since his eighteenth birthday, and created scenarios in which Maximillian, now reduced to begging for spare change beneath bridges, caught tuberculosis and slowly wasted away. Little things like that made him happy.

  Until he actually bumped into Maximillian, of course. Maximillian, the creator of the biggest retail fashion chain in South London, the proud owner of houses in Belgravia, Hampstead and Provence, the tanned god who looked like a million dollars and drove a Maclaren F1, which cost about that.

  Brian knew that his old classmate had failed to recognise him. Nobody ever remembered him, not even the milkman or the paperboy. His weight fluctuated and his face had the sandy vagueness of a regional newsreader.

  ‘I thought it was you,’ he said, having first watched from the corner of the bar until he was sure. ‘Brian Foot.’ He held out his hand. ‘I was in your class at school.’

  Brian was ready for a rebuff. He felt sure that Maximillian would peer down his nose and hastily dismiss the notion of their acquaintance. But no, the tycoon was as charming as could be and, after modestly recounting highlights of the intervening years, even invited Brian back to meet the wife, a former top model turned successful actress who was waiting at their charming Belgravia pied-à-terre in a pose reminiscent of the couple’s recent spread in Hello! magazine.

  Brian pulled his jacket sleeves over his frayed cuffs, cast surreptitious glances at Maximillian’s tailored Armani suit and thought of his own damp, dark, smelly apartment above Clapham Common tube station. There was something he had to ask, something that had bothered him for years. How did people like Maximillian manage it? What special thing did they have that he could never have?

  Brian swallowed his remaining vestiges of pride and asked.

  Maximillian smiled secretly when he heard the question.

  He leaned forward, until his face was just inches from Brian’s.

  ‘It’s simple,’ he replied. ‘I’m ruthless in business, ruthless in friendship.’ He smiled again. ‘And people love it.’

  Brian made his apologies and explained that he had to be going, that he was late enough already.

  ‘Any time you’re passing,’ said Maximillian with a smile as big as the borough of Bromley, ‘please drop in and see us. You must come to dinner one evening. We really would love to have you.’ He passed over a calling card of satisfying creamy thickness, and Brian graciously took his leave.

  Brian trudged home in the rain, filled with bitter humours. It’s so easy to be nice when you’re rich, he thought. Showing off about his wife like that. But beneath this he recognised the dire truth, that he had actually liked the man, and it made Brian hate him even more. That’s how guys like Maximillian work, he thought. They tell you they’re bastards, and you still like them.

  But he wished to God he didn’t.

  Weeks passed, and the card sat on Brian’s mantelpiece like an accusing finger. One day he started to tear it in half, but the supreme fibre quality of the damned thing resisted easy destruction. Finally he set fire to it in the wastebin, watching the pale green flame with grim satisfaction. What galled him most was the fact that, no matter what happened from now on, he would never, ever achieve a greater moment of glory than his former schoolmate. Maximillian would always be ahead of him. Brian wanted to die.

  And then it hit him.

  If he was going to kill himself, he’d go out in a blaze of glory. Die in a manner so spectacular, so shocking that the newspapers would talk of nothing else for weeks. History would remember him. He’d make a mark bigger than any chain of shops. What could he do? Throw himself from the roof of the House of Lords during the reading of a particularly controversial bill? Leap under the Grand National favourite? Stab himself to death on national television? Put a gun in his mouth in front of Prince Charles?

  Brian knew he could perform none of these acts. If he hadn’t been able to organise a single element of his life in forty-two years, how could he hope to lay his hands on a gun or bluff his way into a TV studio? It was pointless even to try.

  But a knife, anyone could use a knife. He went to a kitchen shop and bought a small sharp one, £6.99, guaranteed for life and destined to be the instrument of his death. Then he set about choosing a high-profile location for this final, immortalising act.

  Several weeks passed, and nothing suitable presented itself.

  One morning Brian opened his newspaper to read that Her Majesty the Queen would be performing one of her meet-the-public walkabouts in the East End the following Saturday. If he could just get close enough to her before cutting his throat, why he might even manage to get his death on camera. He could picture the scene: the Queen, horrified, leaping back, blood spattering her blue woollen Hardy Amies coat, and Brian, gore soaked, collapsing across her path as thousands screamed.

  It was worth the front page of every national newspaper.

  Feverishly, Brian set about arranging his triumphant blaze of glory. He sewed a special leather pocket into his jacket from which the knife could be swiftly withdrawn. Then he visited shops in the Hackney area and slowly pieced together details of the royal route. The Queen was to open a new burns unit for children. After this she would walk along the High Street shaking hands, be presented with bouquets by local schoolkids and chat lightly with a handful of carefully selected shopkeepers. The road was to be closed to regular traffic and waist-high steel barriers were to be placed between the blue-blood and her public to avoid the dangers of intimacy and overcrowding. Brian didn’t fancy doing the deed on the other side of a barrier. For one thing, he would have to vault over it if he wanted to land at her feet, a daunting task when your throat was cut. He considered slashing his trachea after confronting the Queen, but the chance of having the knife wrested away from him by security officers was too great.

  There were, however, two points along the route where Her Majesty would be more vulnerable; alighting and embarking from her limousine. The arrival spot afforded little opportunity as it would be the most guarded area, with a high police presence and a variety of local dignitaries lined up to press the royal flesh. The end of the walkabout looked more promising. The excitement of seeing the Queen would be wearing off a bit by then. People would be lowering their plastic Union Jacks, saying to each other, ‘She’s much smaller than I thought,’ and heading back to their cars.

  Thanks to the early erection of the barriers, Brian was able to locate the exact spot where he would cut his throat at precisely 3.45 pm on Saturday afternoon. The rest would be history.

  Suddenly Brian’s days were filled
with purpose. There were so many things to take care of, standing orders to be stopped, accounts to be closed, letters to be written, milk to be cancelled, an enthralling suicide note to be constructed – something that would look good published in facsimile by the Sunday Times – rent to be paid up to the end of the month and clothes to be donated to the Salvation Army.

  By 10.30 pm on Friday he had finished. The flat was empty, neat and tidy. It felt as if he was going on holiday, and in a sense he was. To celebrate, he allowed himself a small Guinness, then washed up the glass and set it on the draining board.

  Saturday dawned wet and grey. Brian had made allowances for the weather, having already removed two buttons from a raincoat that would allow him to extricate the knife smoothly and speedily. Although he had burned Maximillian’s card he still remembered the number and rang it to tell him to watch the evening news, but the line sounded disconnected.

  Brian stood in the doorway of his flat looking back, then gently closed his life shut. He felt strangely at peace as he sat on the Hackney-bound tube train, as if his worries had been abandoned along with his belongings. He had thrown away what little cash he still possessed. Money would never trouble him again. His suicide note, a moving masterpiece that recounted a lifetime of thwarted ambition, was carefully folded in his trouser pocket. The knife nestled in its leather pouch, awaiting its one and only occasion of use. Brian’s moment of glory had begun.

  He had trouble making his way through the churning high-street crowds. There were far more people about than he had anticipated. By the time he reached the royal departure spot, Her Majesty was already inside the burns unit a quarter of a mile away.

  Here, onlookers were being held back at the end of the barrier by a young policeman. Television cameras were trained on the crested door of the waiting Bentley. He cursed himself for not arriving earlier. How would he ever get close enough to be seen?

  Just then, the weather gave a helping hand. It began to rain, the downpour growing heavier with each passing second. The crowd thinned a little as mothers pulled their children back to the sheltering shop fronts. Brian slithered through a departing family, making his way to the front of the barrier. Soon the rain eased to a drizzle and several people tried to make their way back, but Brian was established in his position; his hands gripped the barrier rail as if he was about to ride a roller coaster.

  Suddenly the electricity of anticipation filled the air. She was coming, she was coming – Brian could sense the words buzzing above the sea of peering heads. He drank in these final scenes of his life, the colours, sights and smells. Glory approached.

  There she was, a small figure in blue slowly making her way back to the car, her attention being drawn to various interesting sights by a tiresomely talkative councillor.

  Brian slipped his hand into his overcoat and allowed his fingers to close around the handle of the knife. She was closer now and the cameras were recording her, the measured gait, the semblance of attention, the oddly appropriate hat. He shifted his right foot to the bottom rung of the barrier and tensed himself. Next to him a small girl was complaining to her father, something about not being able to see.

  The entourage was no more than five yards away. Brian withdrew the knife and, hiding the razor-sharp blade within his palm, raised it to his throat, steeling himself for the pain of pierced flesh, the searing streak of fire, the hot gush of his departing life as he prepared to spring across the path of the approaching party …

  Beside him, the father hitched his complaining daughter onto his shoulder so that she could see. Her suddenly rising leg caught Brian’s elbow hard, and he stuck the knife into his ear. The agonising burst of neuralgic pain caused him to lose consciousness for a few moments, and he slipped silent and unnoticed between the bodies of the cheering crowd.

  The nurses were huddled together discussing something in hushed tones, as if the topic was too awful to be mentioned aloud in front of sick people. One of them noticed his eyes were open and came to his bedside.

  ‘Wakey, wakey,’ she cried jovially. ‘How’s your head?’

  ‘Hurts,’ he managed. There was a bandage covering his right ear.

  ‘Not surprised,’ countered the nurse. ‘Passed out with the excitement, did you? Can’t see why folk get worked up about the royals meself.’ Realising that he was having trouble hearing, she started speaking to him as if a sheet of glass separated them. ‘You fell on something sharp. Cut your ear. Burst your eardrum.’

  ‘Am I going to die?’ he asked weakly.

  ‘No,’ she mouthed. ‘You’re gonna be deaf on your right side.’

  The other nurses had regrouped around a television suspended from the wall. The ‘Six O’Clock News’ logo appeared. This was replaced by a shaky overhead view of a crowded street. He tried to sit up. Had he made the news after all?

  ‘Awful, isn’t it?’ the nurse was telling her friend. The newsreader was explaining something, but Brian couldn’t distinguish his words. People were fleeing in every direction. A clock tower erupted in flames.

  ‘What’s happened?’ he asked the nurse.

  ‘This bloke’s run amuck,’ she said, turning to him. ‘Kitted himself out with all kinds of rifles and grenades, machine-gunned nearly seventy people before blowing himself sky high.’

  ‘Where was this?’ he asked, studying the blurred footage for clues. ‘Texas?’

  ‘No. Basildon. He’d been depressed, business had gone bust, wife had left him, usual thing.’

  Maximillian’s face filled the screen, and Brian jumped back with a yelp.

  ‘Just think,’ said the nurse, ‘he’s one of the biggest mass murderers in history. And he’s British. That’s one for the record books. Well, we’d better get your dressing changed, hadn’t we?’ She studied Brian’s uncomprehending face. ‘Then you can go home.’

  She gave him a playful punch on the arm and laughed. ‘Might need your bed for somebody more important.’

  Mother Of The City

  * * *

  I was commissioned to write this London-based tale by Time Out and used it to crystallise a feeling I’d long had about the city; that as an entity it could be benign or unforgiving, and that your reaction toward the ancient guardians tending its interests decides the city’s reaction to you. I also fancied writing the nightclub scene, something I’ve seen happen thousands of times in night-time London.

  IF MY UNCLE Stanley hadn’t passed out pornographic Polaroids of his second wife for the amusement of his football mates in the bar of the Skinner’s Arms, I might have moved to London. But he did and I didn’t, because his wife heard about it and threw him out on the street, and she offered the other half of her house to me.

  My parents were in the throes of an ugly divorce and I was desperate to leave home. Aunt Sheila’s house was just a few roads away. She wasn’t asking much rent and she was good company, so I accepted her offer and never got around to moving further into town, and that’s why I’ll be dead by the time morning comes.

  Fucking London, I hate it.

  Here’s a depressing thing to do. Grow up in the suburbs, watch your school friends leave one by one for new lives in the city, then bump into them eleven years later in your local pub, on an evening when you’re feeling miserable and you’re wearing your oldest, most disgusting jumper. Listen to their tales of financial derring-do in the public sector. Admire their smart clothes and the photos of exotic love partners they keep in their bulging wallets, photos beside which your uncle Stan’s Polaroids pale into prudery. Try to make your own life sound interesting when they ask what you’ve been doing all this time, even though you know that the real answer is nothing. Don’t tell them the truth. Don’t say you’ve been marking time, you’re working in the neighbourhood advice bureau, you drive a rusting Fiat Pipsqueak and there’s a woman in Safeway you sometimes sleep with but you’ve no plans to marry.

  Because they’ll just look around at the pub’s dingy flock wallpaper and the drunk kids in tracksuits and say, �
��How can you stay here, Douglas? Don’t you know what you’ve been missing in London all these years?’

  I know what I’ve been missing all right. And while I’m thinking about that, my old school chums, my pals for life, my mates, my blood brothers will check their watches and drink up and shake my hand and leave me for the second time, unable to get away fast enough. And once again I stay behind.

  You’ll have to take my word for it when I say I didn’t envy them. I really didn’t. I’d been to London plenty of times, and I loathed the place. The streets were crowded and filthy and ripe with menace, the people self-obsessed and unfriendly. People are unfriendly around here as well, only you never see them except on Sunday mornings, when some kind of car-washing decathlon is staged throughout the estate. The rest of the time they’re in their houses between the kettle and the TV set, keeping a sidelong watch on the street through spotless net curtains. You could have a massive coronary in the middle of the road and the curtains would twitch all around you, but no one would come out. They’ll watch but they won’t help. They’ll say, ‘We thought we shouldn’t interfere.’

  Fuck, I’m bleeding again.

  Seeing as I’m about to die, it’s important that you understand; where you live shapes your life. I’m told that the city makes you focus your ambitions. Suburbia drains them off. Move here and you’ll soon pack your dreams away, stick them in a box with the Christmas decorations, meaning to return to them some day. You don’t, of course. And you slowly become invisible, like the neighbours, numb and relaxed. It’s a painless process. Eventually you perform all the functions of life without them meaning anything, and it’s quite nice, like floating lightly in warm water. At least, that’s what I used to think.