She arrived outside a pub she sometimes frequented, usually at happier times, and went in.
On the other side of the dark street, Mark watched her disappear through the door and into the cosy warmth of cigarette smoke and gin and tonics. He shivered and pulled his coat around him. The wind blew, finding the chinks in his winter armour. So much had happened in such a short time. It had only been two days since he had been in his parents house in Manchester. Now, the streets of London were his sitting room, and the passing traffic his television. Mark wished he had a remote control with which he could change channels.
With hindsight Mark feared that the argument with his Mum had not been as bad as he had thought at the time, but you can’t make such a life changing statement as leaving home and then crumble and go back. He couldn’t really remember what the argument was about, but wouldn’t admit that, even to himself. Instead he let his ego make things up. Years of unchallenged voices echoed in his mind and concocted poisons that would justify his actions.
He looked up as another uncomplicated human being slid easily through the pub’s entrance into a world that Mark was sure didn’t want the likes of him.
The good looking man who had just entered the pub, shook the cold from his coat, and made for the bar. He ordered a Stones Ginger Wine and sipped as he looked around. He had just finished a brilliant proposal for his company and believed that it was going to be the making of his career.
Marilyn peered across the room at him in disbelief. She moved around the bar and stood behind him. Marilyn tapped him gently on the arm. The man turned around.
“Marilyn!” he said, choking on his ginger wine, “What are you doing here?”
“I thought it was you,” she said without answering his question. “It must be…"
“…Years; three or four at least,” the man said, finishing her sentence for her, as he always had done.
They hugged awkwardly, their one time easy intimacy having partially atrophied with time. After an hour of words and alcohol, the ex-lovers found that a lot of the things that had broken them apart had changed. Both, with the wisdom of time, had softened their youthful intransigence, and become resistible forces and easily movable objects in relation to each other, and the romantic gates continued to ease open until nine thirty.
When they left the pub, neither noticed that a nineteen year old Mancunian was lying beside the doorway. Mark watched with bloodshot eyes that wept frozen tears.
By nine thirty-five, Mark was so cold that the numbness had reached his brain. He tried to think, but the data he usually held in his mind, to make sense of the world, was a frigid mess. Without knowing why, he got up and started walking. When he reached Waterloo Bridge, he moved halfway across it, then stopped. For a while he looked out over the black Thames and wanted to die.
Bill had had another day that he wouldn’t remember, except for the Zippo lighter. A day that was full of things that were so familiar, and had happened so many times before, that there was nothing that would stick out in his memory. He had spent the evening talking with some friends at Waterloo. Bill's companions had been an ex-physicist, an ex-businessman and a meths drinker who had never had a job in his sixty-two years. Bill walked slowly over Waterloo bridge heading towards town.
Mark climbed onto the railings and looked down. Death and the panacea to all his pain, waited patiently beneath him. He leant forwards and gravity help him towards the river.
Bill ran faster than he ever had before, and caught Mark by the ankle as he fell. Mark’s body pivoted around Bill’s firm grip and his head smashed into the iron-work of the bridge. Blood started to ooze from the split in Mark’s forehead and droplets fell like jewels into the dark water below.
Bill pulled with both hands to get the boy back onto the bridge, but Mark, only half conscious from the blow to his head, hung on to the iron-work with grim resolve. After a while Mark blacked out and relaxed into a dead weight that Bill only just managed to hold on to.
At last, the two were both safely on the walkway. Mark began to come around.
“Why did you want to jump?” Bill asked, not knowing what else to say.
“You had no right, no right,” Mark mumbled. “It’s my life. I can end it if I want to,” he added, just before he convulsed into cleansing tears. Bill sat on the ground at the side of the bridge with Mark lying in his lap, Mark’s head bleeding slowly onto his rescuer’s trousers. They rocked, gently, while Mark wept and Bill held him tightly, and the winter night wrapped them in a dark, cold blanket.
Bill took Mark to warm up by an illegal fire that burned under the concrete arches of the South Bank Centre, and they talked.
“I can’t go back. Anyway, I don’t have the money for the train fare,” Mark told Bill.
"So, it’s just the fare money?” Bill asked him.
“They won’t want me back. They hate me.” Mark said. He knew it was a lie.
“Do you really think your parents hate you?” Bill said, finding counselling easier than he thought when he spoke from his heart.
It’s so easy to become manipulative when you are attached to the result you want, but Bill wasn’t attached to anything. He was in the moment and found his long buried emotions stirring as he acted with selfless love and compassion towards the young stranger.
“They aren’t like you. They wouldn’t help me.” Mark wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince.
“You don’t know that. You haven’t given them a chance to help. They don’t know where you are,” Bill said.
He was surprised to find that he liked making a difference. Whether this boy was saved or not, Bill was doing the best he could. The stretch exercised something in Bill that had been unused for some time. Mark went silent and began to cry again.
“Call them,” said Bill, “Let them know where you are. Just give them a chance.”
Bill reached into his pocket, and felt the five pound note he had received earlier in the day for the Zippo lighter. He was going to treat himself to a half decent meal tonight, but decided to forfeit this luxury. He gave the money to Mark.
“Get yourself something to eat and call your parents,” he said.
Mark took the money and got to his feet.
“Thank you,” he said, and left, reluctantly.
Bill would never see Mark again, but somehow Mark would be with him for the rest of his life.
By ten twenty-five Bill was outside the newsagents belonging to Mr and Mrs Amin. In five minutes they would be closing for the night. Bill entered and was greeted by Mr Amin.
“How are you tonight, Bill?”
“Pretty good, really,” Bill replied with a smile.
Mr Amin gave Bill a bag containing three sandwiches that were unsold and would only be thrown away if someone like Bill did not take them.
“Thanks,” said Bill, “see you tomorrow.” He turned to leave and was nearly knocked over by a man rushing through the door.
“Thank god I caught you,” the man said to Mr Amin, “I was scared I’d missed you.”
“You nearly did,” Mr Amin replied, “we close at ten thirty.”
The man bought some matches and a packet of cigarettes, then left the shop opening them hurriedly. Before he had turned the corner into the next street he had a glowing cigarette in his mouth. Tony drew deep and hard, held the satisfying smoke in his lungs for a long moment, and exhaled. His day had been torturous. After the euphoria of the morning, when he found out that his wife was pregnant, the thin sheet of unrealistic expectations had begun to tear. Beneath it he had found screaming babies with wet nappies and nights of unbearably interrupted sleep. He drew deep and hard on his dummy a second time. Today was not a good day to give up smoking.
Mrs Amin called from the flat above the shop to her husband.
“Did you finish stocking the crisps?”
“No, I've locked up now,” he called back. “Tomorrow’s another day,” he concluded, the clíched phrase sounding fresh on his foreign tongue.
> He climbed the stairs to the flat, turning lights off as he went. He washed and got into bed beside his warm wife. Mr Amin looked out of the window at the houses of his customers, and happily watched the lights going out as they also prepared for bed.
If you liked Everyone Else's Everyone Else, please take a minute to leave a review on Amazon. It means so much to me to hear that readers enjoyed my books. Also, more reviews helps immensely with my visibility on Amazon, so other readers might find Everyone Else's Everyone Else. Please take a moment, and let me know what you think.
Also… if you prefer this thoughtful-comedic type of book, you might like to take a look at two of my other books;
Blue Skies over Dark Days (An unreliable memoir)
These are true tales - well, mostly. In this first volume of autobiographical episodes, I have allowed a little artistic licence to hopefully turn some extraordinary events from my life into funny and often moving pieces.
viewBook.at/Blue-Skies
Conversations with Eric
Full of mystery, painfully funny situations and twisting plots, Simon picks his way through an ever thickening soup of intrigue and murder. At every turn, he tries to get out, but he continues to be sucked in by murderous villains and the psychologically damaged criminal class.
viewBook.at/Conversations-with-Eric
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Bedfellows Thriller Series
If The Bed Falls In
A psychological thriller that shines a spotlight on the shady dealings that may be the true reason so much is going wrong in our society.
viewBook.at/If-The-Bed-Falls-In
Guerrillas by Night
A companion novella to the Bedfellows series. It tells the story of Book One from a fascinating new perspective. It follows the backstory of a very enigmatic female character from the pages of If The Bed Falls In.
viewBook.at/Guerrillas-by-Night
As Mad as Hell
This second book in the series, takes us so much deeper as we follow a rogue MI6 agent using every resource he can to hunt down the culprits behind the New World Order. But he is a man battling with his own internal demons as well as the One Percenters.
viewBook.at/As-Mad-as-Hell
Other books by Paul Casselle
Conversations with Eric
Full of mystery, painfully funny situations and twisting plots, Simon picks his way through an ever thickening soup of intrigue and murder. At every turn, he tries to get out, but he continues to be sucked in by murderous villains and the psychologically damaged criminal class.
viewBook.at/Conversations-with-Eric
Everyone Else’s Everyone Else (Short Story)
From morning to sundown, the machinations of London’s humanity ebb and flow, intermingling with each other in the way only we happily, insane humans can.
We all have our stories, but to a stranger on the street...who are we, and who are they?
viewBook.at/Everyone-Else
New World Order? No Way Out? (Non-Fiction)
Many of us are becoming aware of a growing global problem with national economies and terrorism, but some believe we are being led down this path by powerful people determined to destroy our free society in favour of their own greed. So, is this conspiracy nonsense?
viewBook.at/New-World-Order
Blue Skies over Dark Days (An unreliable memoir)
These are true tales - well, mostly. In this first volume of autobiographical episodes, I have allowed a little artistic licence to hopefully turn some extraordinary events from my life into funny and often moving pieces.
viewBook.at/Blue-Skies
The Unforgiving Minute (A Sci-Fi Thriller)
Professor Edward Vivian Phillips, head of Physics at Trinity College, Cambridge has just invented the unthinkable! But celebrations are cut short when he is arrested for the murder of his research fellow, Alan Newton.
Phillips claims he didn't do it. That he couldn't have done it.
Professor Phillips was using his new invention at the time of Newton's murder. However, his claim means that he is either innocent or a madman!
viewBook.at/The-Unforgiving-Minute
Everyone Else's Everyone Else Page 2