Born Under Punches

by Martyn Waites

  And stopped dead.

  The room had been wrecked. Like a bad, messy robbery. Woodhouse lay, leg twisted, jeans bloodied, in a still heap by the door at the top of the stairs. He looked as though he was foaming at the mouth until Keith realized it was some kind of gag.

  Louise lay, robe untied, eyes closed, on the sofa. Unmoving. Unconscious. Or dead.

  Keith stood in the centre of the room, tried to catalogue the emotions surging through his body.

  Woodhouse, the man who had stolen Louise away from him, now lying helpless or dead before him.

  Robe untied. Eyes closed.

  He crossed and knelt down beside her. Her chest was rising and falling. She was alive.

  Keith smiled, so happy for her. Relief flooded through him. There she was, beautiful and breathing.

  Beautiful.

  He reached across, stroked the soft skin of her cheek with the back of his hand.

  Beautiful.

  Let his hand trail down her neck to her chest, fingers following the curve of her breasts. Her nipples.

  Beautiful.

  His cock was rising, straining to be released for his girlfriend. Keith put one hand on it, stroking his erection, as he let his other hand stroke down Louise’s body, over her stomach, coming to rest on her dark, thick pubic hair.

  He was gasping for breath now, rubbing himself furiously.

  Behind him, Woodhouse let out a muffled moan.

  Keith turned, shocked into rigidity. Woodhouse’s eyes were still closed, his forehead knitted in pain. Keith didn’t want this man, this intruder, in the same room as his girlfriend.

  Anger rising in him, he crossed to the body and dragged it to the top of the stairs. Woodhouse was heavier than he thought and it took so much strength he began to lose his erection.

  Keith reached the top of the stairs. He knelt down and pushed.

  Woodhouse’s body tumbled slowly down, getting wedged in the stairwell before reaching the bottom.

  Keith stood up, smiled. Pleased with his work. Pleased at being a man who stood up to his enemy. Flushed with success, he turned to Louise, robe stil untied, eyes still closed.

  Beautiful.

  His girlfriend. His woman. With his rival out of the way, there would be no contest.

  Keith crossed to Louise. Heart bursting with love. Cock straining with lust.

  He smiled. Whoever those two men were, he would have to thank them. For bringing the two of them back together.

  He undid his belt, loosened his trousers, took his cock out.

  He leaned over her, parted her legs, pushed his cock inside her.

  She was dry, unyielding. He would soon change that. Soon have her in the mood.

  He worked at her, pumping hard. Eyes closed.

  You belong to me …

  Thrust. Hard.

  You should be with me. Not him …

  Into her. And again.

  I love you.

  And again.

  I love you.

  And again.

  He opened his eyes. And jumped in shock.

  Louise’s eyes were open, staring back at him.

  He felt his face redden, tried to smile. Tried to find words to speak.

  But he didn’t need to. Her eyes closed again. She was gone.

  Relief washed over him.

  He resumed thrusting with renewed vigour.

  Hard.

  I love you.

  Hard.

  I love you.

  Hard.

  He came. Body twisting and buckling, almost blacking out from the sensation.

  It was the best orgasm of his life.

  He opened his eyes. Louise’s were still closed. She was still unconscious.

  Good.

  He climbed off her, fastened himself up, looked around the room.

  Looked down at Louise.

  And was hit by sudden postcoital shame.

  He tried to put those thoughts out of his head and concentrate on the positive ones.

  It was love.

  What he had just done was an act of love.

  He pulled Louise’s robe back around her, covered her up.

  He looked at Tony Woodhouse’s body lying bundled halfway down the stairs and felt a pang of anxiety. He might have killed the man.

  Not that Keith cared, but he didn’t want to go to prison for it.

  He walked down the stairs, looked at the body. There was no way he could drag it back up again, but he could make it more comfortable.

  He reached into Woodhouse’s mouth, pulled out the gag and let the head fall back gently.

  He went back upstairs and looked around the room for a phone. Discovering it had been forcibly disconnected, he decided it was time to leave.

  He found a phone box, dialled 999. Told them where and who. Put the phone down when they asked him for more.

  Conscience clearing, he returned to his car in the alley to wait and watch.

  He didn’t have to wait long. An ambulance pulled up in less than ten minutes, disgorging running paramedics who entered the flat, came back out bearing two bodies on stretchers with masks clamped to their faces.

  Alive. Both of them.

  Keith breathed a sigh of relief.

  The ambulance doors closed. It moved off, siren wailing.

  Keith started the car, ready to follow. Ready to find out which hospital Louise was being taken to.

  He smiled.

  Wondered what kind of flowers to take his girlfriend when he visited her the next day.

  18. Now

  Election day.

  Candidates and their teams had been patrolling the streets since daybreak, loud-hailing from balloon-festooned cars. up and down the seafront, round shops, down suburban roads. Imploring the electorate, extolling their candidate. The polling booths were seeing small but steady streams of people coming in, marking crosses, leaving. Little joy, just a sense of duty, of continuity. A reluctant nod towards the lesser of several evils, a disconsolate hope that things would finally get better.

  Suzanne walked out of school. Make-up in place, uniform bundled into her shoulder bag. Karl was waiting in his car by the kerb. She attempted to smile for him, tried to speed up her footsteps.

  It was becoming harder for her. Everything was getting harder for her.

  She had locked herself away in the girls’ toilets at break time just to be alone. Just to think. She had closed her eyes, tried to find peace in the darkness, but had succeeded only in nodding off to sleep. If Karl hadn’t phoned her, the shrill, insistent trilling of her mobile waking her up, she might have slept all day.

  She had answered it. Karl had reminded her he was picking her up tonight. Had something special in mind. The encouraging responses she had made were the correct ones, but, on ending the call, her heart was heavy.

  She reached Karl’s car, got in. He leaned over and kissed her, his hands groping her breast, kneading her inner thighs. He pulled back.

  ‘You’re lookin’ good, Suzy.’

  She said nothing. He started the car.

  ‘Where we going?’

  ‘Bit o’ business to do. Then it’s back to mine.’

  They drove off. He lit a spliff, took a pull, handed it to her. She did the same, swallowing the urge to cough. She felt it working its way round her body, visualized her insides being clouded up by a sweet, narcotized fog, hiding her anxieties, her questions. She took another toke, passed it back.

  Karl laughed. ‘Get it down you, make you feel good.’

  ‘So what’s happening tonight, then?’ her words slurred.

  ‘Somethin’ different. Got a couple of lads who work for me comin’ round. We’re gonna have a bit of a party.’

  ‘They bringing their girlfriends?’

  Karl smiled. ‘No. Just us. They’re young, these two. Just kids, really. What they need is an experienced, sexy woman to break them in. Show them what they’re missing. Hey,’ Karl said, as if struck by a sudden thought. ‘You could do it.’

&nb
sp; A sharp blade of clarity knifed through Suzanne’s mental fog.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Yeah. After me an’ you have fu—, made love, you can show them how it’s done.’

  ‘No way.’

  ‘Go on, it’ll be a laugh.’

  ‘Karl—’

  ‘Do it for me.’ He smiled. ‘Remember. We’re not like other people. We’re excitin’ an’ different. I wouldn’t ask you if I didn’t love you.’

  She looked at him. There was no point arguing. She knew she would have to go through with it. She knew he would get his way. He always did.

  ‘I’ll need some more of that.’

  She pointed to the spliff. He handed it to her.

  ‘Have as much as you like.’

  She took it, sucked it down into her lungs.

  ‘’Course when they’ve had their fun,’ he said casually, ‘we’ll charge them for it. No sense missin’ an opportunity to make money.’

  The smoke caught in her throat and she coughed. A wave of nausea passed over her: she thought she was going to be sick. Her face became red, her chest sore. She tasted bile in her throat. Karl took the spliff from her fingers.

  ‘Whoa, careful. If you’re gonna puke, tell us an’ I’ll stop. Don’t do it in the car.’

  Between bouts of coughing, she shook her head.

  ‘Better now?’

  Suzanne nodded as she began to regain control of her body.

  ‘Good.’ He offered her the spliff. ‘Wanna try again?’

  She took it, sucking the smoke into her body, holding it down, hoping it would cloud her over and quickly.

  She doubted there was enough hash in the world to do that.

  Everything was getting harder for her.

  It Was time to stop.

  Anne Robinson winked, said goodbye. The Weakest Link closing credits rolled up, alongside discussions of success and failure. Louise lay stretched out on the sofa, feet up, watching, thinking. Scaring and belittling members of the general public for thirty minutes a day had made Anne Robinson hugely popular and a millionaire. Being strong, Louise thought, was the only way forward. Anne had proved it.

  She took a drag from her cigarette. She had decided to take up smoking again, it was something she used to do when she was younger but had stopped because Keith hadn’t approved. She was doing it again for the same reason. She was going to start doing other things too. For the same reason.

  She had prepared the family meal: something microwavable from Salisbury’s. She didn’t feel like putting herself outforthem any more. She would match their lack of appreciation with a lack of effort.

  The front door opened just as The Simpsons came on. Closed again. Keith entered the room.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Louise didn’t turn round.

  ‘What does it look like? I’m watching the telly’

  ‘You’re … you’re … you’re smoking.’

  Louise took a long, deep drag.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘I will not have smoking in this house.’

  Louise expelled a jet of smoke into the air, ignored him. Homer was hatching a grand scheme involving beer.

  The phone began to ring.

  ‘The phone’s ringing,’ he said.

  ‘Then answer it.’

  She knew he was looking at her. She knew he would do nothing to her. He was impotent with rage.

  Keith stormed off into the hall to pick up the phone. He returned, threw it on to her stomach.

  ‘It’s your daughter.’

  He walked away.

  Louise reached for the phone, a burr of anger germinating inside her at his words.

  ‘Hello, Suzanne.’

  ‘Mum, listen.’

  Suzanne’s voice was echoing and hushed. She was whispering, talking as if she didn’t want to be heard.

  Louise listened.

  ‘I’m … I’m scared. I …’ She sighed. ‘I want to come home. Will you come and get me? Will you and Dad come and get me?’

  Louise sat up.

  ‘What’s up, pet? Where are you?’

  ‘I’m in a flat in the Wills Building. On the coast road. D’you know it?’

  ‘’Course I do. What’s the number?’

  She told her.

  ‘Please come and get me. And bring Dad. There might be some … some trouble.’

  ‘I will. But what—’

  ‘He’s coming. I’ve got to go. Please come and get me. Please.’

  The connection was cut, the line silenced.

  Louise sat straight up, galvanized into action. She stubbed her cigarette out, went into the kitchen. Keith was looking at the instructions on a packet of pre-cooked microwave lasagne as if they were written in ancient Hebrew.

  ‘That was Suzanne,’ she said. ‘Come on, she’s in trouble and she needs us to go and pick her up.’

  Keith snorted.

  ‘What’s she done this time? Got herself drunk? Or got. herself pregnant?’

  Louise felt the anger grow within her. Her legs began to shake. Tiny stars danced before her eyes as her head started to feel light with rage.

  ‘She’s your daughter. And she’s in trouble. Now come on.’

  Keith put down the lasagne, turned to her. Lips curled in a sneering smirk.

  ‘But she’s not my daughter, is she? We both know that.’

  Louise could hold it in no longer.

  ‘She is your daughter, you bastard, she is yours!’

  She punched him.

  Everything moved down to slo-mo: seventeen years to pull back her arm, seventeen years to let it fly, seventeen years for the punch to fall, her fist clenched hard, connecting with the side of his jaw.

  The impact of the blow knocked Keith off balance. He fell to his knees, tried to speak.

  ‘Don’t say a word, you little shit! Of course you’re her father. D’you think I don’t remember? That night at my flat? You raped me, you bastard! You fucking bastard!’

  He tried to stand, she pushed him back down.

  ‘Stay there.’

  ‘I didn’t … I didn’t …’ he said weakly.

  ‘Don’t lie to me. No, I didn’t know at first. I tried to block that night out. Thought it was that big bloke at first. But things started coming back to me over the years. Things I thought I’d imagined. And I put it all together. So don’t lie. I saw you. I opened my eyes, remember?’

  He attempted to climb to his feet. She allowed him to.

  ‘It wasn’t like that,’ he said, his voice fearful and pleading. ‘It wasn’t r—’ He couldn’t say the word. ‘Wasn’t what you think it was. It was love. I did it out of love. I love you.’

  ‘Really? Well, I fucking hate you …’

  And she was on him. Punching, kicking, biting. Venting over a decade and a half of pent-up hatred. Repaying him for every insult, slight and degradation he had heaped on her during their marriage.

  ‘You never loved me …’ she said, panting, ‘you just wanted to possess me …’

  Punch after punch.

  Year after year.

  Insult after insult.

  She was tiring but she wouldn’t stop. Couldn’t stop. The tap was turned on, she would let it run out of her until the tank was empty.

  ‘Get off my dad! Leave my dad alone!’

  Louise stopped, turned at the voice. Ben was standing in the kitchen doorway, face twisted in shock and horror. He ran along the floor, launched himself at her, began pummelling with his small fists.

  ‘Get off him! Get off him!’

  Louise backed off, stunned by the turn of events. She made her way over to the kitchen door.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘All right.’

  The pummelling stopped. Ben crossed to Keith, began helping him up off the floor.

  Louise looked at them. Father and son. A chip off the old block. Mini me.

  Ben was Keith in miniature. He would grow up to be just like his father.

  Louise didn’t wa
nt to hang around and watch it happen.

  ‘I’m going to get my daughter,’ she said. ‘And I’m going to find someone to help me.’

  She left the house, slamming the door behind her.

  She got into her Ka, drove away.

  The sky was darkening. The night would soon be hitting hard.

  The polls were coming to the end, the nation having made up its collective mind.

  Tony stood on the jetty by the Garden of Eden pub. He looked out over the river, watched the clouds scud slowly across the sky, their greyness deepening to purple then black as the day drained out of them.

  ‘Thanks for coming,’ he said.

  The other person nodded.

  ‘Odd place for a meeting.’

  ‘You think so?’ Tony leaned on the railing. He was thoughtful. Preoccupied. ‘I don’t.’

  He moved his head slowly to the left.

  ‘It’s perfect here. Perfect. Look.’

  He pointed. The redundant piers, the tall cranes old and rusted, sticking up like tottering spider webs, too feeble to trap anything. The jetty, all rust and wet wood. Past them the river curved away back to its source. On the bed on the far side stood the power station. Its four chimneys belched billow after billow of smoke into the air, a twenty-four-hour cloud factory, its buildings lit by night-time arc lamps.

  ‘Look at the power station. Still coal-fired. They take hard, black coal and turn it into bright, white energy. Coal’s all imported now, of course. But it’s old. Old energy. Unrenewable energy. It’s the past. Now look along that way.’

  He pointed to the right. By the river’s entrance to the sea, along the harbour wall, stood the wind turbines. Huge, white windmills turning slowly, picking up the slightest breeze.

  ‘There’s the future. Clean, bright, dazzling. Renewable. And in the middle?’

  He turned, looked behind him. Coldwell. The leisure centre replacing the colliery. The T. Dan.

  ‘Us. The present. In the middle. Always. We try to reach the future, follow the flow of the river down to where it’s clean and bright. But we can’t. ’Cause we’ve still got the past sitting there. We’re afraid to cut loose from it. We can’t turn it off, so we leave it there. Choking up the air. Holding us back. Impeding our progress.’

  Tony fell silent, leaned on the railing.

  ‘Interesting theory.’

  Tommy Jobson stood next to him. Leaned alongside him.

  Tony nodded.

  ‘Claire caught me in the office. Taking my medication. Our little arrangement might be in jeopardy.’