People in Season

by Simon Fay

  Headlights spin the shadow branches around his wall. A truck is rumbling by, rattling the room so that the bobblehead waggles in smug protest.

  And if he’s not UPD, that’s a scanning slot which could be filled by a more likely candidate. Francis is allowed take only so many people for the final test. An opening would be gone, simply because he didn’t like the man’s attitude. So Barry thinks his job is a joke. That the world and the intersecting lives in it are just fodder for a comic routine. It would be suspect if only for how clearly the melancholy notes in his voice were heard. It wasn’t a happy laugh he used when he provoked Francis with his ideas. What about Ava though? She loves her work, doesn’t she? She believes in the power to make change for the better. She’d said so. It had been exactly what he wanted to hear. Like a pick up artist, she knew all the right things to say to generate chemistry, but didn’t feel a drop of it herself. They were just words. Once, he was suspicious of that, now, his questionnaire left in the office, he’s full to the brim with desire, latching onto the positive again as a sign of her devotion, a quality which he’d be happy to reward if not for his impotence under the glare of that scoffing bobblehead.

  So what if she is untouched? Francis defiant, he looks at his bedsit as if for the first time. The cosy nest he’s made for himself now more a lonely hole dug into the ground. This is what I’ve gotten, he thinks. This is what my good work has gotten me all these years. Every decision he’s ever made has been second guessed and turned over in his head, examined from every angle. Each act in his short time on the Earth had been dully considered so as not to hurt another. He moved through existence stepping to avoid snails on the path, never hurting a fly, never breaking someone’s heart. Well, he’s tired of it. He wants something now. Why shouldn’t he grab for it? All he has to do is let her pass. Carefully move her from one line to another. Don’t take her for processing. Once she gets to that stage it’s the end for her. Just let her slide by. Simple enough. Fill in the questionnaire so she’s safe.

  After that? He laughs at himself. Ask her out on a date. He owes her a glass of wine. She’d said so!

  The bobblehead quietly shakes it’s skull, grinning.

  Oh just say what you’ve got to say! Francis jerks his trousers up, buckles his belt, and, furious as he paces back and forth across the room, steps over an empty mug and snaps up the deck of cards his landlord gave him. He hasn’t practiced since that night, a thousand years ago. Considering a visit to the old man, he wonders if it would make him feel any better and quickly decides that it would not. Whatever decision he makes, he comes out the loser. Why not choose the one with some amount of pleasure in it? The toy, not buying into his reasoning, is wobbling in the corner of his vision. Stomping over, he slaps it across the room. Dead on its back, it can shake no more, and still it wins. Francis can’t look at the thing.

  In the kitchen, he searches frantically through the cabinets. Stocked full of spices and snacks and cans of food, there’s little room for anything else. Meat in the fridge, packets of pasta, a box full of wilted vegetables. All he needs is one or two more ingredients for the perfect meal. Easily amended. The main thing he’s missing is the bottle of cabernet. Swinging around, he grabs a long coat to throw his arms through and lets the door close behind him as he charges into the night. The room, lacking it’s occupant, is quiet now. Only the bare tree is heard. Pleading, it taps on the window pane.

  ***

  Alistair is examining a bag of black beans, meditating on each seed for all Ava can tell. Floating through the supermarket, they’re forever drifting into the paths of oncoming trolleys. They’d have crashed by now if only for the other shoppers steering to the side, aware that they are the ones who shouldn’t be in frame of the catalogue couple’s scene. Alistair, as usual, is a dog, sniffing at the shelves for something that catches his fancy, one moment fixated on a product, the next on a passerby. He has an imitation smile that he flashes compulsively, two rows of sharp teeth to beam at people who smile in return. The man just can’t help but being liked.

  When he arrived at Ava’s apartment unannounced, as is his habit, it was with the promise of something amazing. Without really thinking about it, or of how annoyed she was earlier in the day, she’d flung herself into her Burberry coat and let the lights turn off behind her. Terribly bored now, her arm is hooked into the doctor’s. They’re shackled together and oblivious to it until the chain goes taut.

  ‘I don’t like black beans,’ she informs him. ‘And anyway you have to steep them for hours. You said you’d have this spectacular dinner cooked tonight.’

  ‘I will,’ he frowns. ‘I’m the best cook in the world.’

  ‘Can you at least tell me what you’re making? None of the things you’ve picked go together.’ She doesn’t try to hide the irritation in her voice as she does a stock check of his basket – the bunch of bananas, a lime, pepper, chicken cutlets and bag of mixed nuts with raisins. ‘We’ve been here almost forty minutes.’

  Alistair checks the time to confirm this, which Ava takes as a slight on her.

  ‘You’re still wearing that piece of rubbish.’

  Bag of rice in hand, Alistair seems to consider both her comment and the package in one short chuckle, then dumps the bag into their basket. Happy that she’s taken a jab at him and amused she’s even bothered, he asks, ‘Is that why you have the hump? I thought you were still annoyed about that ignorant taxi driver.’

  ‘You could have taken the new one with you. You could have brought it home.’

  ‘So sensitive. Maybe I left it on your bedstand to make myself a new home. I’m nesting.’

  ‘You left it there to get at me. You wanted to annoy me for being locked up when I dealt with Joanne. Don’t deny it. You’re so petty. A big man-child.’

  At this, he shakes and pretends to be scared. Ava squints into the middle distance, choosing to concentrate on something else instead. Around a bend, people shuffle to feed the self-service checkouts which beep monotonously in return.

  ‘I told you, it’s my old man’s. Do you know what he said when he gave it to me? Finally, somebody in the family will have places to go where they can wear this. He was a salesman and he said he never wore it because it made him look like a con artist. Don’t ask me what the difference is,’ Alistair lifts his arms, confused by the thought. ‘It has personal value, alright? My Dad said he felt like he’d won the lottery when I graduated.’

  ‘Your Dad was a prick,’ she reminds him. ‘You’ve said so yourself. He just liked you doing so well so he’d have something to brag about. I’m the one who’s here. I’m the one who supports you. Where’s he?’

  ‘How should I know?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘I can be sentimental, can’t I?’

  ‘I didn’t say you couldn’t be,’ Ava allows. ‘I didn’t tell you to throw the thing out. But you don’t have to wear it everywhere, do you? Every day? You wouldn’t eat the same dinner every night, look at the same news story, listen to the same song, wear the same tie. How do you not get sick of it? It’s good to change things up.’

  Alistair has already stopped listening. His hand lifts a scarf that rests on the back of a woman stood in front of them and lets the light material fall from his fingers. Ava grimaces, disgusted. She could give up on the matter, but it would mean giving up on him altogether. That wouldn’t be so bad. She could walk away right now and grab a taxi home, order Indian food and put her feet up. It would certainly save the remainder of the evening. Then she feels Alistair hold her hand tighter and with the squeeze of it she knows that he’s reciprocating what she’s been trying to get – devotion. He doesn’t apologise, but the grip is all she needs. With a little more wheedling the black-silver watch will be on his wrist a couple days a week, and shortly thereafter, weekends and special occasions if she so desires. It will get boring and outdated too, but by that stage she’ll already have got him accustomed to change and it will be together with the gold watch in a dusty drawer,
or better yet, on the jewellery section of ebay. She tweaks her expression from vacant to happy, a simple matter that requires less than a second. ‘Let’s just cook a stir fry.’ Stepping around him, she stands on tippy toes to press her lips against his. ‘I feel like something spicy.’

  Seeing himself in her gaze, Alistair replies, ‘Good idea.’

  But as he tries to twist her around, she’s stuck to the spot, feet glued to the floor and her eyes gone intent as a shark’s.

  Down the long aisle and into the next, a wormy man is weighed down on one side by a bag of groceries. The man’s terrified face contorts grotesquely, forced into a shape it’s never had to pull, and his mouth split open is a festering wound. Alistair turns back to Ava, who appears to be the source of the man’s anxiety. She looks down at their joint hands and pulls away, breaking their grip, as if his hand is an iron hot enough to burn.

  ‘Get away from me,’ she says.

  The man at the end of the aisle has dropped his groceries. They’re scattered on the floor among a smashed jar of pasta sauce. He’s bent over to pick them up, but as he sees the shattered pieces he regards it all helplessly. Frustrated by the mess he’s made, the man gets the bloody pool of pasta sauce all over his chest and hands. All in a hurry, he glances timidly at Ava and the doctor, grabs a bottle of wine which survived the fall, and makes a break for the sliding doors, clearly desperate to escape the pair.

  Alistair, seeing the man sprint away in fright, feels a deep rooted instinct to give chase, like he’s spotted some game on the run. Managing to suppress the impulse and remain still, he watches curiously as the hapless fool disappears. Ava though, she’s tipping forward to follow him out, running as fast as her high heels allow.

  ‘What’s going on? Who’s that?’

  ‘I said back off Alistair. Just go home!’

  Already halfway down the aisle, she’s given in completely to the instinct which the doctor managed to ignore. Ava is away on the chase.

  CHAPTER 14

  In a growing flurry, the beat of her heels accelerate the further she goes. Caught in perpetual motion, she can’t stop until she gets what she wants. Arriving at the end of the aisle she hears Alistair shout again.

  ‘Who the hell is that?!’

  The languid shoppers that mill about turn their heads to look at him, dimly confused, and though Ava doesn’t stop to do the same, she feels him burning a hole into the back of her head. Kicking her way through the groceries that Francis left piled on the tiled floor, she sidesteps the shattered jar of sauce into the parking lot where the social agent turns a corner onto an unknown street. Breaking into a sprint, she ignores the sound of a car horn, dodges a van and trolleys along the way, and ignores the cry of the doctor again.

  ‘Francis!’ she calls.

  Arriving at a shuttered charity shop on the bend she spots the social agent at the end of the road, a speedy figure on the winding city street, one hand pocketed, the other holding something, ticking it back and forth as a metronome for his stride. Hesitating to shout after him again, a cautioning voice tells her that it might be a bad idea to draw attention from the strangers with her cry.

  ‘Francis!’ she shouts anyway.

  The shout seems to ricochet around the narrow road, hit the back of the social agent’s head and knocks the rhythm out of his walk. He falters on regardless. Ava is at full trot, a hair’s length from the man when the sound of her steps plummet down on him.

  ‘Francis,’ she says breathless, a tincture of amusement in her voice. ‘You’re going to make me think you don’t like me.’

  ‘We shouldn’t be talking outside of the office,’ he warns, stern.

  His steps are long but hers are small and fast. She’s trying to outpace him, to get an angle on his face and capture him with a look, but he’s doing his best to keep his head forward, not letting her get a lock.

  ‘We talked outside the office before,’ she objects. ‘In the car park.’

  Francis replies with a vicious snicker. It’s the kind of noise that could turn into a fit of hysterics, depending on which wires get crossed.

  ‘Why are you acting this way?’ she reaches out for his arm.

  He flinches away. ‘The car park at work is different.’

  He regrets the comment as soon as it’s out of his mouth. Aware that he’s opened himself up for a conversation that he doesn’t want to have, the man resolves to keep his lips shut. Do not engage, he tells himself. Freeze her out.

  ‘Why?’ she asks. ‘What’s changed?’

  Not answering, only cold clouds of breath pass between the two. Shops at either side become decayed and vacant, faded for-sale signs decorate them and empty allotments are covered with billboards. Soon they’re on a pedestrian road. Redbrick townhouses to the left and right are guarded by wrought iron fences, streetlights buzz overhead, and a tree passes them every ten paces. Branches and power lines swipe their faces while odd numbered lampposts are counting down as they go. In the distance, the aircraft light of the spire in Dublin’s city centre blinks as they march toward it. The smell of rain is in the air and a dot of water flicks the pavement, hesitantly followed by another. Ava continuously talks at him, trying to find a soft spot. Francis feels the figures about them, other pedestrians hunched over for their walks home. Their presence help him keep his resolve to be silent but the deeper they go into the tree lined neighbourhood, the less of them there are and soon they disappear, one by one, emptying the street to avoid a coming downpour. Behind her, Ava can feel the doctor abandoned at the shop. Apprehensive, she checks down the way to assure herself he’s not out there, hiding and listening behind a tree, a rubbish bin, a car.

  ‘Is this because you saw me with that guy? Because you like me?’ she ventures shyly. ‘I like you too.’

  It’s the worst thing she can say, because it makes Francis realise what a fool he was to ever think she could have. Didn’t a part of him know that already though? And wasn’t he thinking about taking a chance with her anyway? All the more reason to keep his stupid mouth buttoned shut. When Francis doesn’t respond she trips, emits a meek yelp, and falls into a limp.

  ‘These damn heels,’ she whimpers capriciously, tearing as she tries to keep up.

  It’s a lie of course. Another fabrication ready to flick off the tip of her tongue. She probably didn’t even think about it, just initiated the act in a flash of inspiration. Francis knows that much, and still, it’s not enough. There are certain sounds in nature, so universal, so painful, the cry of a baby or squeal of an animal, that even in a man who knows a fake, a shiver is sent down the spine. ‘Francis, slow down,’ she cries, the shrillness of her voice triggering Francis in this way so that all at once there’s a lump in his throat.

  He stops and faces her.

  ‘I knew you were untouched. You don’t need a government cert to see that much,’ he laments. ‘But I didn’t think you could get involved with something this seedy. This loathsome.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘That man. That doctor. You think I wouldn’t know who he is? That’s not a face you can forget. He’s a murderer.’

  ‘He’s a story,’ she says, emphatic. A story. The suggestion hangs in the air, waiting to be taken. Everything it could mean. All of this a misunderstanding. A chance for her to redeem herself. To prove her innocence. She’s a picture of virtue as she pushes the idea on him. ‘Just a story.’

  Francis screws up his lips, expecting her to go on, but she lets him take what he can from the defence without adding any more to it. The soft sell. It isn’t until he tries to walk away from her again that she pipes up.

  ‘I want to know everything about the scumbag before we take a shot at him. I don’t know what you think is going on, but that’s all it is. We don’t have any solid paperwork. No safe witnesses. Just a bunch of rumours and gossip. I’m trying to get a concrete lead. We need to take him down, Francis. ChatterFive can do it if only we had more to go on.’

  ‘And I thought inve
stigative journalism was dead.’

  ‘I’m bringing it back,’ she quips, trying to make light of his sarcasm.

  ‘So if I rang Joanne Victoria, she’d know what you’re up to?’

  Francis is sure he’s trapped the woman now. At last, he can move on without her.

  ‘She wouldn’t let me do something like this,’ Ava, not missing a beat, balks at the idea. ‘Spending weeks on a story she doesn’t have the guts to publish? Risking an even bigger lawsuit? I’m out here on my own, doing what needs to be done. She’ll be happy to use it when I find more dirt on him though, you can be sure of that. Let me do all the leg work and give ChatterFive all the glory.’

  Francis quickens his pace, ‘This is pathetic.’

  He’s admonishing himself as much as he is Ava’s attempts to wriggle out of being caught. It gives him the strength to renew his walk.

  ‘This isn’t a joke, Francis,’ her voice sharp as she catches up with him, her limp miraculously healed. ‘You can’t just go around judging people for doing their job, living their lives. I’m a human being.’

  That’s exactly what I do, Francis realises with a sinking feeling in his chest.

  ‘I haven’t done anything wrong,’ she insists, rabid, her breath hard at the end of the sentence. ‘Who are you to say I have? You’re freaking out because I didn’t follow some arbitrary journalistic code of conduct you’ve made up? It doesn’t exist, Francis. The only code is don’t lose the company money. I can do what needs to be done without that happening. And you can’t even look at me. You’ve got some nerve.’

  ‘He’s a monster, Ava!’ Francis shouts, desperate to see an honest reaction in her face.