Room 119

by T F Lince

  “Did Jodie tell you about me, Dean? Did she tell you that I went to see her and told her you would leave home?”

  Dean took his hand off the door and raced across the room, pinning the clown to the wall.

  “What the fuck is going on? If you touch her, I’ll kill you, weirdo. I fucking hate clowns – always have, always will.”

  Dean tightened his grip on the clown’s neck.

  “If you want to see Jodie again, Dean, don’t go through that door. You’ll thank me one day.” The clown pointed to the other door behind the dressing table, just about managing to get his breath out of his mouth. “That way. Go that way.”

  Dean looked into his eyes. The clown was not scared and his happy face was doing its best to remain happy. He looked at the other door.

  “Please, Dean. It’s your choice and it might be the last choice you make. I can only guide you. It’s the rules.” A tear slowly trickled down the clown’s face, taking some of the blue greasepaint with it. “Please, Dean.”

  Dean released his grip on the clown’s neck and headed for the door.

  “I hope to see you soon, Dean. Remember, it’s all about choices, and at least now you might get to make another one.”

  The clown left through one door to his music; Dean left through the other door, straight into his en suite in the hotel. The changing room had gone and he was back in Room 119.

  Dean rushed over to the window, but there was no sign of the fairground. All was quiet; all was how it was meant to be.

  “Jesus Christ, what a dream,” Dean said out loud, but he knew it hadn’t been a dream. He knew it had been as real as day and night.

  He splashed some water on his face in the bathroom then looked at his watch: twenty past midnight. He fell onto his bed, fully clothed but still alive.

  “Bloody hate clowns,” he muttered as he drifted off into a deep sleep.

  Chapter 15 – Checking Out

  Dean woke up after a great night’s sleep. If the fairground had been a dream, his memory wasn’t giving it back to him in bits and pieces; he remembered every last detail. He shook his head a few times.

  “Good God, Albert, where the hell have you sent me?”

  He had a late breakfast just before the hotel stopped serving at 11.30am and could sense the disapproval of the waiting staff. Even though his breakfast was probably not made or delivered with love, eggs are eggs, and they were just what Dean needed. After a few coffees, he went back to his room and had a shower before re-packing his overnight bag and heading off to reception to be greeted by Mrs Happy.

  “Was everything adequate for your stay, Mr Harrison?”

  Dean resisted the temptation to say he had been chased round a funfair by a madman in a hat and then he’d met a clown who’d probably saved his life.

  “Yes, everything was more than adequate.”

  “Good, that’s what we like to hear.” She put a line through his name in her book, slammed it shut and muttered, “Good day,” as she disappeared behind the curtain.

  She was right about one thing: it was a good day. Glorious, in fact, so Dean didn’t mind the walk back down the hill to the train station. As he made his way down, he could see the fork in the road where he’d turned for the funfair last night, but there was no apologetic sign, no music, no screams, no circus tent. It was as if last night had never happened.

  Dean continued on to the station and stood on the platform, glancing down at his watch. It was twenty minutes to four, and according to the timetable, there would be a train at 4pm.

  The train turned up at quarter past four with no apology for its lateness. Inside was the same guard with the same familiar smile.

  “Welcome back, sir, do you want me to punch your ticket now so you can have a sleep? I expect you have had a busy night.”

  Dean fumbled through his wallet for the return portion of his ticket.

  “Enjoy your journey back, Dean.” The guard turned and headed off down the carriage. “Any more tickets please from Welnetham Station?”

  Dean thought for the briefest of seconds that he hadn’t told the guard his name before shouting, “Excuse me,” to call him back. The guard turned and gave his trademark smile.

  “Can I help, sir?”

  Dean thought better of it. “Err, it doesn’t matter.”

  The train ambled past the disused COCK-FIELD STA-TION. Part of the Long Melford Branch Line, and Dean saw the man in the fedora in the waiting room, holding the black cane with the silver top and looking directly at him. Dean got a good look at him this time, which was easy as he wasn’t running away, sneaking backward peeks in the hustle and bustle of the fairground. The man was taller than he’d first thought, although he was slightly hunched over, and was dressed all in black. It was the first time Dean had seen his face properly – a very thin face with cheekbones more or less apologising for protruding as much as they did. He did not look like someone Dean would want to meet on the darkest of nights, or even the lightest of days. If Dean had a choice, he wouldn’t want to meet him at all.

  The man burned a stare right into the middle of Dean’s forehead. As the train slowly eased past, he pointed his cane towards Dean before tipping his hat at him just before he disappeared out of view. Had he gone to a disused station just to let Dean know that he was real – very real? To assure Dean that he was still on his case?

  Dean was assured.

  The next day, Dean was up at the crack of sparrows. He already had a coffee on the go when he decided he was going to try and make sense of the weekend. When in doubt, when all around you seems lost, there’s only one thing that will help…Google.

  Google’s first challenge was Cockfield Train Station, Melford line. Dean was not surprised when the top result was Disused Stations: Cockfield Station – he’d known old Smiler the Guard would not be wrong. He was surprised, though, when he clicked on the link to explore further and looked at the map. The whole line had closed in 1961, not just Cockfield, Welnetham included. But how? He’d just been there; he’d got off the train there; he’d stood on the station and had his ticket stamped.

  Dean scrolled down to see old black and white pictures of both stations. It was definitely the same place. He’d left from Liverpool Street, Platform 19, so he googled a station map. There was no Platform 19; only eighteen platforms at Liverpool Street. It all felt a bit Harry Potter, but this was no book. This was Dean’s life; he was living and breathing it.

  Either someone was playing tricks on him or playing tricks on Google; the former seemed more feasible as no one fucked with Google. Dean shut his laptop and went outside for some air, heading for one of the many coffee shops around Canary Wharf. Sitting outside with his skinny latte steaming in a tall glass cup, the milky vortices visible through the sides, he looked over a waterway which was an offshoot of the Thames. It was very quiet for a Monday with a lot less to-ing and definitely less fro-ing going on than usual.

  His mind was doing mental gymnastics, trying to make sense of everything that had happened to him over the last week. He wasn’t the type to go jumping off cliffs. He knew he was in the middle of a healing process; he just wished it would hurry up so he could get back on with his life with Sarah and Jodie.

  He took a sip of his coffee, thinking about the man with the cane. What would have happened if he’d caught him? As he stared over the water, he tried to make sense of what the clown had said to him. He was missing a lot of information as the clown had spoken in questions and riddles, answering very little of what Dean asked him. Dean’s mind was like a detective halfway through an Agatha Christie play where nothing made sense right now. He was hoping it would all make sense in the end. The problem, though, was Dean did not know how the end was going to pan out, and he wasn’t really sure if he wanted to find out.

  Dean was getting no response from Sarah, although he rang her every day, leaving message after message. It was Friday morning, and his routine for this week had been coffee shops, thinking and walking London’s street
s, trying to find answers. But it’s hard to find answers when you’re not sure what the questions are. He certainly wasn’t going to find answers at the bottom of a skinny latte.

  There was only one place that had the answers he was looking for. It was burning inside him, dragging him back like a magnet. He had unfinished business in Welnetham Hall and Room 119, and until he returned, nothing was going to make any more sense than it did right now.

  Dean picked up the phone and called the hotel.

  “Hello, Welnetham Hall, how can I help you?” Dean could tell by the lady’s voice it was Mrs Cheery Pants McCauley, the reception manager, and decided to play it straight. He recalled that she didn’t take kindly to humour.

  “Hello, it’s Dean Harrison…”

  Before he could finish, Mrs McCauley interrupted.

  “Mr Harrison, we have been expecting your call. We have Room 119 available for you tonight.”

  She’s in a happy mood, Dean thought.

  Dean had never said he was going back so her words felt a bit presumptuous, but hey ho! Beggars can’t be choosers, he thought.

  “Yes, that would be great, thank you, Mrs McCauley. Is the funfair there this week?” Dean enquired.

  “Funfair, sir? We have not seen a funfair around these parts for years.”

  Dean looked at the phone as if it were betraying him. Maybe he had dreamt it all last week.

  “All booked in, Mr Harrison. See you around six pm, if I recall correctly.”

  Dean arrived at Liverpool Street Station to catch a train running on a disused train line and leaving from a platform that did not exist. If Google was right, then both the ticket machine and the station were in on the joke, because Dean purchased his ticket with no trouble at all, and when he got to Platform 18, he could see Platform 19 to the right under an archway, as it had been before. He stopped for ten minutes or so and noticed that although Platform 19 was clearly there, nobody seemed to be taking a blind bit of notice of it.

  Why is nobody using the platform? he thought. It appeared everybody was going anywhere but Welnetham Station.

  Dean gave a wry smile as he ventured through the archway. The friendly face of the guard was there to greet him and the few other passengers milling around, ensuring they all got on the train OK. Dean looked back at the archway, which still had no traffic coming through it. Who were these people on the platform with him? Where had they come from? None of them had come through the archway with him. Maybe it was just a coincidence. Maybe it was just a quiet train, or maybe he had not observed the archway for long enough. Either way, he was here now, so he took his seat on the train armed with his ticket and his bag, ready for whatever lay ahead in Room 119.

  Chapter 16 – Checkmates

  Jodie was in her room, staring at the chessboard. The pieces were in the same positions as they had been since the unfinished game with her dad. The blacks could not lose; it looked worse and worse for the whites the more she looked at it. There must have been twenty ways for black to win from this position.

  But Jodie wasn’t looking for a way to win; she was trying to find any weakness that the white pieces could exploit. Each time she tried, she failed. It was hopeless.

  She started to sob, shedding tears on the board as she reset the pieces after her latest failed effort. It was only a game of chess, but it was her world right now. She had been about to beat her dad for the first time, and kept recalling what the clown in her dream had said.

  “You might never see your dad again.”

  Jodie thought back to the incident in the playground earlier, her mum tearing her out of her dad’s arms. She blamed herself for everything.

  “It’s all my fault, Mum,” she said as Sarah walked into the room. “He knew I was going to beat him at chess.”

  Sarah hugged Jodie to her chest.

  “Jodie, your dad loves you to pieces. Nothing is your fault. Bad things just happen sometimes.”

  Jodie could hear her dad’s words in her head, the ‘Deanism’ he had spoken during the fateful chess game.

  “There is always a way. When someone has got nowhere to run, it’s better to go down fighting, no matter how futile the fight.”

  “I’m going to find a way for Dad to win, Mum, then he might come back.”

  “I thought you said there was no way white could win.”

  Jodie looked up at her mum, her eyes bloodshot. “There is always a way, Mum.”

  Sarah held her daughter tightly in her arms. “You know what, Jodie, you sound just like your father. You’ll find a way, I’m sure you will, and he’ll be very proud of you.”

  Soaking up a bit of sun in the front room of the house, Jodie was using a chess game app on the iPad Dean had given her for her birthday. It had taken her about fifteen minutes to set an exact online copy of her game with her dad into the chessboard simulator. Then she clicked ‘Playing as white’ and ‘Outcome percentages’.

  Her heart sank as she absorbed the stark probability figures on her screen:

  White win = 00.01%

  Black win = 98.47%

  Stalemate = 01.52%

  There must be a way, she thought in desperation. But she had no reason to believe that the figures were anything but spot-on. Overtaken by a sudden fury, Jodie fled upstairs to her room, threw her head into the pillow on her bed and sobbed her heart out.

  The next night, Friday, there was a knock at the door. Sarah looked out of the upstairs window and saw Doreen from the gym with her son, Kyle.

  She’s the last person I want to see right now, Sarah thought. But Jodie got on with Kyle; he was a friend from the chess club. What are they here for?

  Sarah headed downstairs, looking in the mirror and straightening her hair on the way down.

  “Hi, Doreen,” she said, opening the door. “Kyle, Jodie’s upstairs if you want to head up.”

  Kyle didn’t need a second invitation.

  “I’ve cooked you this, Sarah, because I bet you’re not eating.” Doreen presented her with a large homemade lasagne which was accompanied by a baguette-shaped bag letting out the giveaway aroma of garlic. “It needs to go in the oven on about 180 for twenty to twenty-five minutes until the cheese is all bubbling and brown.”

  Doreen could be quite officious even when she was being nice, but at least she was being nice.

  “Thanks, Doreen, I’ve not really been eating since…well, you know.”

  Sarah took the lasagne and headed for the kitchen. Doreen followed.

  “Sorry about what happened at the gym, Sarah. You know how it gets sometimes.” Doreen went to her bag and pulled out a bottle of prosecco. “I think you need a glass of this.”

  Sarah nodded and took two crystal champagne flutes out of the kitchen cupboard above her head. As Doreen poured them both a glass, Sarah’s eyes filled up.

  “It’s OK, let it all out, Sarah. You’re not on your own. We are all here for you.”

  Sarah looked at Doreen as she took a sip of her drink. “It all could have been different. Why did I look at his credit card statements? I should have trusted him. He’s a good man, you know.”

  Doreen looked at Sarah, who was holding her prosecco glass with two hands like it was a mug of hot chocolate.

  “Well…” Doreen left a pause in the air. “You can blame me for that, Sarah. I was the one who put doubt in your head.” She prised Sarah’s drink out of her hands and topped her glass up. Sarah picked it up again and immediately drew it back into the hot chocolate hug position, taking a sip.

  “Doreen, it’s not your fault. Dean and I were getting no time together. I know he loves me, but I needed him to start looking after Jodie and me. Not just being happy that we were there.”

  Sarah could feel a tear slowly making its way down her face. She mopped it up with the sleeve of her white knitted jumper.

  “Now that’s enough of all that. It’s not your fault, Sarah, and the faster you learn that, the better. You have to be there for Jodie and you know that. Don’t you?”


  Sarah put her glass down and straightened her body to a more upright position on her chair.

  “You’re right, Doreen, thanks. It really means a lot.” Sarah held her hands out and Doreen grasped them.

  “It’s all going to be OK, Sarah, but you have to be strong right now for Jodie.”

  Sarah nodded and wiped another tear away with the damp sleeve of her jumper.

  Upstairs, Jodie was staring at the chessboard. She had been staring at the chessboard more or less continuously since her dad left.

  “There must be a way, Kyle,” she said by way of a greeting when he entered the room.

  “We’ve been through this in chess club, Jodie. We’ve had twenty games from this position with you playing white then me playing white. There is no way without black throwing the game for white to win.”

  “There must be a way. Dad said there is always a way, you just have to look hard enough.” Jodie motioned to the chair for Kyle to join her. “Let’s go again. I’ll be white, and play for real, Kyle.”

  Kyle sat opposite Jodie.

  “OK, Jodie, but I think we’ve done this to death.”

  “One more time, please, Kyle. You know what it means to me.”

  Kyle looked at the chessboard.

  “OK, it’s me to go, Jodie. Good luck – you’re going to need it.”

  It wasn’t long before Kyle reluctantly proclaimed, “See, Jodie, it can’t be done. White is in such a weak position you only have a few key pieces left. One more piece then maybe it would be possible. But it’s a very weak place to start.”

  The board was carnage. There was hardly a white piece left on it. The king was looking very naked, a couple of loyal pawns were fighting to the end, but eventually they all surrendered. The black pieces were all over the board, flexing their muscles and looking proud of themselves.

  “I know, but there has to be a way, Kyle. There just has to be.” Jodie stood up and hugged Kyle. Kyle gave her a couple of little pats on the back to let her know that one, he wasn’t good at hugs, and two, this hug was going on far too long for a bad hugger to manage. Jodie let him off the hook, releasing him from her grasp.