Under a Watchful Eye

by Adam Nevill

  Seb thought of shut-ins living amongst stacks of old newspapers and heaps of garbage, every item of vital importance to some incomprehensible inner life. Ewan had drunk himself insane and his goal in coming to Devon was to surround himself with refuse and filth in Seb’s home. To take revenge on Seb for his success, while sealing himself off from a world that he could not function within, with Seb for company so that he didn’t get lonely. Seb wanted to scream.

  Instead, he said in a strengthless voice, ‘I want you and all of this out of here. Gone.’ What he said sounded like a platitude, half-heard at best and ignored by a naughty child. His resistance seemed to disperse around Ewan’s head.

  He tried another tack. ‘I’ll give you something to wear, otherwise you’ll never get a room. I’ll pay for a week in a guest house and then you’re out of my life. It’s that or the police today. I can get a restraining order like that.’ Seb clicked his fingers. ‘You are so far out of line, so stop playing dumb.’

  Ewan never reacted, and continued to totter on the spot.

  Heavy with a particular type of exhaustion that can only be inflicted by drunken imbeciles, Seb edged his way out of the living room, intending to go downstairs. He’d leave the house and call the police on his mobile phone. The handset was inside the pocket of his jacket in the hall.

  ‘Some things are the way they are for a reason,’ Ewan said. ‘And I can come back at any time. You know that.’ He nodded his oily head to emphasize the subtext.

  ‘And if I refuse your demands then you’re going to give me bad dreams and will keep appearing to me like some sinister creep, forever?’

  Ewan laughed. ‘Now you’re being dramatic. Getting ahead of yourself. We’re not there yet and we’ve a lot to get through. If you really want me to leave, I will, but only after you’ve considered my proposal.’

  ‘No deals.’

  ‘If I find myself in a police cell, Sebastian, I promise you that I will return here every day and I will make your every night a living nightmare. And when you leave and find somewhere to hide and think that you are all safe and cosy, guess what? I’ll be standing at the end of the bed. And the more I do it, the worse it’ll get for you. That’s how it goes.’

  Ewan’s voice softened, or lost its strength towards the end of the threat. He’d begun confidently enough but didn’t appear comfortable with what he’d just promised. ‘You have to understand that what I do is dangerous. It carries a grave risk. Not just for me. We’re in this together now, whether you like it or not.’

  A strange, cold sensation prickled Seb’s skin. He shivered. ‘Why? Why are you doing this to me?’

  ‘I need help and you owe me. You know you do.’ Whatever Ewan decided was the truth would always be in his self-interest with no room for deviation. Nothing had changed on that count either.

  ‘What have you been messing around with?’

  Ewan smiled as if acknowledging a long-overdue respect. ‘No one else would believe me. Though you might, because I’ve given you a glimpse of something truly miraculous. You have no idea just how incredible this is. And it’s going to change everything. Oh yes, for me and for you too, if you just stop freaking out over a few spills here and there. Maybe things will be different for everyone else too, out there, when we’re done.’ He stretched a long arm towards the balcony windows and spread his dirty fingers to encompass the world.

  Again, nothing specific had been mentioned, nothing but hyperbole with a dose of self-importance. Ewan was playing the messiah in possession of rare and forbidden knowledge. Just like old times.

  But Seb had no real idea who this person was any more. Ewan had never been so unstable. He looked even more primitive and dangerously delinquent than he’d done the day before. It was already pushing three p.m. and Seb was losing another round. But where could Ewan go at this time, in this state? He had no money. If Seb gave him some money, could he trust him to stay away? And he still didn’t know how Ewan did that.

  ‘You’ve still told me nothing. Do better. And I want you to give me your word that you will piss off once I’ve heard your spiel?’

  ‘Spiel! Oh dear. I think you may find it to be a bit more significant than that, my old mate.’

  ‘I am not your mate.’

  Ewan flopped himself into the chair. The wooden feet dug into the varnished floorboards.

  Seb closed his eyes.

  Ewan stared at the bay in the distance and tried to keep his slurred words together. ‘You know, I once went to William Blake’s old house. And to Peckham Common. The place where he said the angels were in the trees. They’re still there. I could see them. That’s when it progressed to a new level for me. My gift was always there, even when I was a kid. But I have learned to see other things. In other places.’

  Seb shivered. ‘Is that right?’ His voice sounded tiny in the silent room.

  ‘There’s plenty of things you can see without light.’ Ewan stretched his legs out, slurped from the can and gasped with satisfaction. ‘Even with your eyes closed.’

  ‘I bet.’

  Despite his delusions about being a poet at university, Ewan had often transformed into a bully when drunk. ‘You’d better not be thinking of laughing at me.’ The subtext was obvious.

  Seb stiffened.

  Ewan grinned with the sadist’s cruel delight at another’s unease, offering a full reveal of his yellow teeth. He wanted to be feared and respected.

  ‘I’ve done a lot of thinking about you,’ he said, drawing Seb’s horrified eyes to that dark, wet mouth. ‘About what you have said about writing. And you were wrong. I was right.’

  ‘Make it quick.’

  ‘Tut, tut. That’s not the spirit.’

  ‘Just get it over with!’

  ‘What happened to you, Sebastian? You don’t even know how to enjoy all of this!’ Ewan threw his long arms into the air. ‘And as you will see, all this –’ he windmilled an arm – ‘hardly matters in the order of things.’

  ‘Order of things?’

  ‘Oh, yes. As you will see.’

  ‘What will I see?’

  Smiling as if humouring a fool, Ewan knelt on the floor beside his chair and began rummaging through the bin bags. There followed a brief struggle with the contents until he pulled out a dirty collection of paper, held together with a rubber band. ‘I want you to read this. Just for starters.’

  The ends of the paper were brown and dog-eared. Seb thought of the previous night’s dream and became queasy. The whole situation and its coincidences were unreal. It was as if he was being incrementally separated from the world. Even his thoughts were becoming ill-defined.

  ‘It’s all nicely written out.’ Ewan walked to the coffee table and swept away the bags of crisps. One of them was open and the contents scattered noisily across the floorboards. ‘Oh, dear.’

  Ewan straightened the dirty papers on the table. When he removed his hands, the top page curled back upon itself. ‘So here it is, if sir would be so kind.’ He pointed at the sofa, motioning for Seb to sit. ‘We may as well get started. You’ve a bit of catching up to do.’

  ‘With what?’

  ‘One thing at a time.’

  ‘Is that something you’ve written?’

  ‘Indeed.’ Ewan beamed as if he were presenting a long-awaited manuscript that Seb should feel awe before. Ewan drummed the black fingernails of both hands on the top page and cleared his throat. ‘I give his lordship, Breathe in the Astral.’

  Eyes bulging with excitement, Ewan stood back and waited for Seb’s enthusiasm at a chance to read the dirty sheets of paper.

  Seb could smell the manuscript from three feet away. He shivered with disgust and didn’t want to touch the paper, let alone read it. It must have been sealed inside a bin bag for long periods of time, amongst soiled articles of clothing, while the author wandered endlessly, drunkenly gibbering about angels in trees. Ewan needed a psychiatrist.

  Seb glanced at the top page. ‘It’s not even typed.’

 
‘You asked me what I had been doing for ten years, well here’s your answer.’

  There couldn’t have been more than a hundred pages on the coffee table. Ewan had never seemed more ridiculous. ‘You spent ten years writing that?’

  ‘Not just writing it. A lot of preparation was involved. Poetry doesn’t just happen you know. You may think it, it . . . it . . .’ The great poet couldn’t express the sentiment. Instead, he staggered around the bin liner and delved deeper. There were a number of cardboard box files inside. ‘This is the secondary material we will use. You need to read it. You’ll see what’s what.’

  Teeth clenched and on display, he strode across to Seb’s shelves and pointed at the first editions. ‘Never mind this,’ he said, rolling his eyes. ‘I think it’s time we moved on from all that.’ He took the baseball cap off and scratched the scalp beneath. ‘Time you involved yourself in something a bit more ambitious. Something that matters.’

  It was the first time Seb had seen the hat removed. Ewan’s hair had retained the shape of the cap and that was how Ewan’s head had looked in the dream. A fresh gust of scent molecules drifted from the unhealthy, tangled hair. ‘Everything will make sense and you will see why I’m right. So you best get started.’ The cap went back on the head. Ewan now seemed happy with how things were going. So this is what he wanted, someone to pay attention to him and his crazy ideas.

  Seb only wanted to physically destroy him, to entangle his fists in the terrible hair while smashing his head against a steel radiator. He rose to his feet and turned to the door. ‘Forget it.’

  Ewan stumbled to block the door. ‘It’s very important that you read it. You’ve never read anything like it. Never.’

  ‘Step aside.’

  ‘No, no, no, no, no, no,’ Ewan said in a sing-song voice that Seb found odious. ‘What are you afraid of? I sense a little insecurity creeping in here. Oh, dear.’

  Seb’s vision flickered. ‘You solipsistic moron. I have a life! What do you know about anything? Look at yourself. When was the last time you even washed your clothes?’

  Ewan pursed his discoloured lips. ‘Mmmm. Let me see. About two years. About that. You see, where I have been there wasn’t even hot water. None of this phoney comfort for frauds.’

  At the mention of the duration Seb felt his face drain of blood.

  ‘Couple of years since I’ve had a bath, so what? The flesh is irrelevant. This has nothing to do with the body! It isn’t even about the mind. This is the soul-body that I am writing about. The soul-body, you fool! Have you any idea how long the preparations last to even get a glimpse? To take that path, to unlock yourself and go on that journey? Read my book and you’ll see. You’ll all see things a little more clearly. You’ve missed the boat! Same as everybody else. All you hacks. You’ve all missed the boat.’ Ewan tapped his head knowingly. ‘But I haven’t.’ He refused to move away from the door.

  Ewan had no respect for him, his privacy, his possessions. He was just here to pitch his awful manuscript and to take advantage of him in every possible sense.

  Too enraged to speak coherently, Seb opened a window. He pushed his head out and gulped at the air. He was suffering from more than a fear for his own safety. He was also afraid of what he might read in the lunatic’s dirty papers. The contents might infect him with whatever had deranged Ewan. Not a bad story for a horror novel, he thought, but this was no story. It was real and happening to him.

  Seb went and sat on the edge of the sofa, his body angled forwards, his hands gripping his naked knees. ‘You came here because you want me to read that?’ Seb pointed at the dirty papers and at the bin bags.

  Ewan grinned.

  ‘This is something you have been writing, and you think that I will, what? Help you get it published?’

  ‘Oh it will be. By whoever reads it first. It just needs a little polish. Then it needs to be placed into the right hands. That’s where you come in.’

  Seb kept his tone level. ‘So, let me see if I have this right: you expect me to read this, edit it, and then take it to my publisher? Maybe you also expect me to champion you as a writer?’

  ‘Yes, that would be good,’ Ewan said in a tone of eager acknowledgement. ‘That sort of thing,’ he added. ‘Maybe we can show your editor first. You know, like an exclusive.’

  ‘So you thought you’d threaten and coerce me, the man who has now given you shelter twice, and the only person to ever offer you friendship at university? This is how you repay me? You’ve become aware of my success, but you hate it, and you hate my books. Maybe you’ve even been reviewing them too, when not working on your masterpiece?’

  Ewan looked uncomfortable but pleased with himself that he’d been found out. His own subterfuge amused him. He couldn’t stop grinning.

  ‘You’ve shown me nothing but contempt and yet you expect my help. In fact, you believe that you are entitled to my assistance, because you loaned me a few books in 1988.’

  ‘Oh, it was more than a few books. It was ideas. Music. A new perception. Direction. I opened your eyes to a whole new world. I started you off. It’s not my fault that you took shortcuts and sold out. If you’d listened to me you might have achieved something unique. You have no idea how far I’ve gone, beyond all this.’ Again the dismissive swipe of a big dirty hand, loosely directed towards the entire world. ‘You could even have had a bit of fun along the way. But you’ve still done all right out of me. Time to pay the piper, my old friend! And until you read it, you have no idea how important my book actually is.’

  ‘Important? It’s not a book. It’s a pile of dirty paper. Handwritten and kept inside a bin bag. You think I am going to spend my precious time reading it and rewriting it?’

  ‘More of a structural edit and a bit of typing. It’ll be worth your while.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Yes, you’ll get to be the first person to read it. I tried some of the publishers in London, but they didn’t read it.’

  ‘Hang on, you took this to a publisher?’

  ‘I went to see a few.’

  ‘You actually went to see them?’

  ‘At their offices, yes.’

  ‘You walked into publishers’ offices with your . . .’ Seb eyed the bin liners and decided not to describe the submission. ‘And you asked them to read that?’

  Ewan nodded. ‘They didn’t understand. If they’d read it they would have recognized something special, something a bit different from all the crap they churn out. You see, there’s nothing like it out there.’

  ‘Out there? You’re aware of everything out there, I assume?’

  Ewan sneered. ‘All that silly middle-class crap. Stupid fantasy. It’s not real. I’ve been in plenty of bookshops. It all misses the point.’

  Seb felt a profound pity take him over, one that depressed him but also brought him close to hysterical laughter. Ewan had broken new ground on the frustration, futility and desperation of becoming a writer.

  And nothing was ever going to be as vital as his manuscript. Ewan’s discoloured eyes had lit with an unstable intensity. He leaned forwards and tapped the soiled paper. ‘This really happened. Everything in there is the truth. What it’s all about, life, existence, consciousness, and what comes next. All the evidence of everything that matters is in those bags. And we need to get started. There’s no time to waste. I’ve been through . . . you just can’t imagine . . . just to get here. I don’t want to waste any more time. I want to get this out there quickly. This is a great opportunity.’

  ‘For whom?’

  Ewan didn’t seem to hear him. ‘The writing’s fine. In fact, it’s very good, I think you will find. But the material needs reorganizing. What you do with your books, you know, the structure? That sort of thing. It needs that.’

  ‘Structuring, revising, and even typing up? Big job.’

  Ewan remained insensitive to Seb’s sarcasm. ‘But when it’s done it’ll be something else. And you’ve done this before. On those.’ He wafted a hand dismissively in
the direction of the bookshelves. ‘It won’t be a problem for you. And my book is nearly there. I’m a bit tired. I need a break from it. But all this needs is a little TLC. Though I’ll be reading what you’ve done to see if it’s right. We can go through it, section by section, after you’ve finished and I’ll check it over.

  ‘I call them verses, not chapters. You’ll find it’s a bit of everything, poetry, philosophy, you name it. Unique. You could even say it’s theological, a religion. It’ll be one, I’m sure of it. And when it’s all nicely typed and ready, we’ll take it to your agent. He can negotiate with your publisher, like he does with your stuff. But that’s ten years’ work on that table and in those files. I don’t want to get ripped off.’

  Seb had nothing more to say. He’d run dry of everything, language, hope, even feeling that particular kind of despair constructed from boredom and pity. He yawned, stood up and left the room.

  Ewan appeared puzzled by Seb’s departure. ‘Where are you going?’

  Downstairs, Seb closed the door to his room and killed the lights. Still wearing his dressing gown, he slumped onto the bed. Physical and mental exhaustion slowed his thoughts towards paralysis. He slipped earphones inside his ears and selected Beethoven on his MP3 player.

  When Seb felt able to leave his room again, in the early evening, the first thing he smelled in the corridor outside his bedroom was Ewan.

  During the hours he’d been alone in his room, he’d decided he would read the stinking pages of Ewan’s manuscript. He’d do that this evening. If Ewan then refused to leave his home, and to take up residency in a guest house at Seb’s expense, he’d call the police. He would risk whatever it was that Ewan decided to cast at him, whether he was awake or asleep. If this didn’t end now, he sensed that a turning point in his life was imminent. One just ahead of him that would swing him about and compel him to revisit the hardest and unhappiest years of his life. It was that simple.

  Still tired and delicate, as if hungover from that day’s binge of emotion, Seb went upstairs and checked the living room.