The Descent to Madness (The Graeme Stone Saga)

by Gareth K Pengelly

  Copyright © 2012 by Gareth K Pengelly.

  Writing and illustrations by Gareth K Pengelly.

  No part of this book may be taken, sold or reproduced without the express consent of the author.

  All characters portrayed are fictitious and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Chapter One:

  The clank of ancient machinery. The snik-snik of the guillotine. The thud of heavy, dusty boxes being manhandled on and off the rickety racking. All merged into the steady heartbeat of industry that, to Graeme Stone, punctuated every second this stifling printing factory leeched from his existence.

  Just a temporary thing, Anthea had assured him; once they’d moved into the new flat and everything was settled, then he could go back to his magazine articles and newspaper pieces. But just for now they needed a good, steady wage. Odds and ends written here and there don’t quite cut it when it comes to saving a deposit or paying off a three piece suite. Just for now, babe, she pleaded. Six months, tops. And here he was, two years later, trudging up and down the same old racks of pre-printed wedding stationary.

  Two years of 6am starts and mind-numbing tedium.

  He found the box he suspected might be the right one and, wiping a thick layer of paper dust off the top, opened it up. Embossed border, three-fold, with a foil dove in one corner and bells in the other. What colour was it? He squinted in the half-light. Oyster. Shit. He needed Cream. With a snort of derision he dumped the box back on the rack, regretting it instantly as he coughed in the ensuing cloud of dust. Wafting it away as though swatting at an imaginary wasp, he found the box he was looking for and returned to his machine.

  Dropping the box unceremoniously on the table at his station, Stone gave the order sheet a cursory glance and began the task of setting up his machine for the run. The ancient Heidelberg press had a good fifty years on Stone’s twenty-five and required some gentle persuasion to accept certain settings. A slam of the fist usually sufficed. Next to the order sheet, the plate that contained a reverse of the design to be printed. He picked it up, careful not to get his fingerprints all over the text, and fixed it onto the drum of the machine, grabbing his spray bottle of water and giving it a good soaking. Press set up, he had another look at the order sheet. This order called for the writing to be Raised. That required the use of the oven. Stone sighed and set about that too.

  The oven was another apparatus, separate to the press but positioned directly behind it, so that the lowering of a conveyor belt allowed the printed sheets to drop straight out of the press and into the machine, where the hopper would sprinkle fine powder on the still-wet lettering. This powder then melted in the oven forming (hopefully) smooth, raised lettering. The oven was of a different generation to the Press itself; the latter a product of sturdy, vintage 40’s engineering, all cast-iron and proud manufacturer’s stamps; the former a long, squat and ugly beast of slab-sided steel, plastic knobs, LED displays and exposed wiring.

  Stone spent a couple of minutes adjusting the oven settings; the speed of the conveyor, the density of the powder, the temperature of the oven. At first, the hidden complexities of such a seemingly simple process had driven him mental. Then, as he’d learned the requirements of every batch of stationary, he’d begun to feel a sense of pride in his work. Now, after two years, all he felt was soul-grinding boredom and the insatiable urge to keep looking at the clock on the factory wall.

  He was sure that the management had the clocks set to run at half speed.

  With a distinct lack of drama, set-up was finished and Stone gave a brief pull on the lever of the Heidelberg to send a test print down the run. With a whirring of the drum and a hiss of hydraulics, the machine took the paper, printed the lettering and fired it out onto the conveyor. Stone followed it the fifty feet to the end of the machine, where it dropped into the half a cardboard box that served as a tray. They spared no expense at Elegant Designs Wedding Printers…

  The writing was centred first time, for a change, but the raising was a bit gritty and crumbled as he gently thumbed the letters. Adjusting the machine to compensate, he raised the temperature of the oven and reduced the amount of powder dropped by the hopper. Walking all the way back to the press, he fired off another print. This one turned out perfect. He checked the quantity on the order sheet; five hundred copies. Big wedding. Big enough to warrant a Shive, he thought to himself, with a nod. He zeroed the old-fashioned analogue counter on the press, set the speed of the machine to slow and pulled the lever to set the print run in motion.

  “Tom. Tom. TOM!” he shouted over the din of the factory, to the worker on the press next to him. Tom turned from his work, all milk-bottle glasses, bald-head and expressionless mouth.

  “I’m going for a shit – keep an eye on the run for me!”

  Tom gave a curt nod and returned to his work with nary a word. Cheerless twat, thought Stone, as he made his way into the forest of racking in the direction of the loos. Sauntering through the gloom of the papery valley, leaving behind the din of the presses, he heard the booming laughs of Trevor and Paul to his left, as they shared a joke, manning the folding machines that bent the wedding invites into the right shapes. Both close to retirement, they’d worked here for years. Lifers, he thought with a shudder. As he emerged into the bright light at the end of the racks, he passed Scott operating the guillotine. Even from a distance Stone could hear the blast of heavy metal from his headphones as he carried reams of paper, long beard a-swinging, from table to machine, where ten tons of hydraulic force would neatly slice them like so much butter.

  Closing the door to the factory behind him, Stone walked down the bare, white-washed corridor to the toilets where he gratefully found a cubicle and sat down on the lid, resting his weary legs. He thought of Trevor, Paul and Scott, happily going about their monotonous tasks and just couldn’t understand it; to him, these Shives were the only thing that kept him going through the day. His hourly shit, where in fact he’d simply skive for ten minutes, play some solitaire on his phone. He checked the time on his phone for the tenth time that day. Twelve-thirty. Anthea should be on her lunch. Though to be honest, her workload as receptionist at the Porsche dealership was hardly taxing at the best of times.

  The phone rang off, went to voicemail. Twenty seconds later a text came through. ‘Busy x.’ He fumed, silently. Busy, he thought. It was her lunch break. Busy with Mark, no doubt. The image of that smarmy salesman flashed momentarily in front of his eyes. He shook the thought from his head; the work day was long enough as it was without winding himself up. He made to fire up the solitaire, but noticed the time. Best make use of the facilities while I’m here, he thought, wouldn’t look good to come back in ten minutes.

  He was still shaking his hands dry as he re-entered the factory floor. The smell hit him immediately; the sweet, woody aroma of burning paper. His pace quickened as he almost jogged through the racks towards the line of presses, hoping against hope, but alas, his heart sank in his chest as he turned the corner and a burning ball of paper tumbled past him, smoke in its wake. Similar balls of fire rolled here and there, erupting sporadically from the end of his machine and he ran to turn off the press. As he rushed to the tray to check on how much product had survived, the other press operators came running over with their spray bottles, chasing the flaming tumbleweeds hither and thither, like a game of pyromaniac football. Such fires were always a risk when raising lettering and normally the mistake resulted in a couple of ruined invites and a little light-hearted banter to break up the monotony of the day. But as Stone sifted through the charred remains of five hundred expensive, triple-fold orders-of-s
ervice, he knew one individual who would not find the matter amusing…

  “Graeme!” Sanjay stormed across the factory floor from the office, his bespectacled face a vision of middle-management thunder. “In my office, now…”

  ***

  The rain smashed hard against the windscreen of his stationary Vauxhall as he sat alone in the factory car park. Radio 1 droned quietly out of the single working speaker. The aged heater wheezed asthmatically, slowly losing its fight with condensation across the battlefield of the driver’s side window. Staring blankly at the wheel in front of him, Stone thought back to the bollocking he’d just received in his manager’s office.

  The sacking had been mercifully swift, as Stone had sat in numbed silence in the face of the tirade. To be fair, it had been coming for months – Sanjay was the typical frustrated middle-manager; where the rest of his Indian family were either doctors or owned successful businesses in Leicester, he was here, stuck in a failing factory in a job that demanded great responsibility but didn’t pay the wage to match. Stone could almost feel sorry for him, if he didn’t know that his own lot was so much worse.

  He’d take stress over boredom, anyday.

  The point was moot; now he had neither. Sanjay, it turned out, had been keeping tabs on Stone, noting how long he’d been spending away from his machine, the days he’d had off sick, the wasted stock. Today, it seems, had been the straw that broke the camel’s back. No-one had said a thing as he walked the walk of shame to the factory door. Only Tom had watched him leave, his face as expressionless as ever, eyes unreadable beneath the glare of his giant glasses.

  And now he was sitting here, his head awash in a curious mixture of numbness, apprehension and, yes, relief. He was free. Free from the dust setting off his asthma. Free from having to take Pro-Plus every morning just to get out of bed. Free from returning home, fingers black with ink every day.

  Free to not be able to pay Anthea’s credit card bill this month…

  The thought sent a shiver down his spine. He sat for a further few minutes, listening to the pitter-patter of the rain as it hammered the roof of his Corsa, before twisting the key in the ignition and leaving the factory for the final time.

  ***

  Half an hour later, he pulled up outside the row of small terraced houses typical of this part of the East Midlands, one of which contained his tiny upstairs flat. He parked on a speed bump, the car leaning at a silly angle and his door banged noisily into the kerb as he tried to open it. With a flush of embarrassment he noticed his downstairs neighbour, Maciej, smoking in his doorway, sheltered from the rain, watching him with undisguised amusement. Rather than re-park, Stone awkwardly posted his meagre frame through the gap afforded him. He shut the door behind him and gave a big grin, as though it had been his plan all along.

  “Chesh!” he called out cheerily, with his pidgin Polish.

  Entertainment clearly over, Maciej stamped out his Malborough Light and turned, the slam of the door Stone’s only answer. He tucked his coat collar up to protect him from the rain and hurried his way round the side of the house to 22a, the entrance to his flat. The shabby green door opened to reveal two letters on the floor, along with a takeaway menu for the new kebab place around the corner. A quick glance at the letters told him who they were from without even needing to open them; Moorcroft Debt Collection, after a gas bill that dated back almost six months. He gave a humourless grin – they weren’t going to be getting that in a hurry.

  Twelve steps up and he was in the living room; the small, dim space little more than a box with about ninety percent of the square footage consisting of the leather three-piece-suite Anthea had picked shortly before they’d moved in. The other ten percent were occupied by the flat-screen TV (Anthea’s again), underneath which hid the Xbox (his, he’ll admit). And in the corner happily running on his wheel, was Sid.

  Stone went over to Sid’s cage and the little hamster came scurrying over to see him, beady black eyes a-twinkling and nose all-of-a-sniff. A dwarf hamster, he should have had a friend with him, but Anthea only wanted one and that was final. Still, he seemed happy enough.

  “You don’t know how easy you have it, mate,” whispered Stone, as he fed the little beast a treat through the bars of his cage. “A wheel and a loo roll tube and you’re sorted.” The little grey rodent didn’t answer, instead sitting on its hind legs and eating the chocolate button which looked like a steering wheel in its tiny furry paws.

  The hum of the fridge beckoned from the little kitchenette off the lounge. Making his way past the pile of dishes that still lay in the sink from last night (he wasn’t washing up again, that’d make it every night this week!), he crouched down in front of the fridge, pulling the door open. The glow bathed his grinning face as he reached for the six pack of Coors Light. He tore the cardboard and pulled one out; the mountains were blue.

  Small mercies.

  He settled on the settee, took a gulp of the ice-cold beer and let out a sigh. It was 2pm – plenty of time to think of what to say before she came home at 6. He put the TV on and flicked through the channels. All the usual mid-afternoon rubbish. He settle on a program about dodgy builders, Dominic Littlewood charging about the country like a little Staffordshire bull terrier with a bee up its arse. The beer ran out. He got another. His eyes felt heavy. Might as well lie down while watching this. He checked his phone again. Plenty of time to think of how to phrase things.

  Plenty of time…

  ***

  The slap of leather bag on leather couch shocked him awake with a start. He forced himself upright and rubbed the moist sleep from his eyes, almost spilling the half-full bottle of stale beer that lay against his chest. The sound of thrashing rain against glass drew his attention to the window. It was dark outside. Tearing his attention from the storm without, a tornado of blonde hair and designer clothes erupted from the bedroom, clutching a suitcase.

  “…Anthea?”

  The blur of motion slowed almost imperceptibly, but didn’t stop to look at him, instead dropping the suitcase to the floor and filling the leather bag with things from the side table. He couldn’t fail to notice the hamster treats going in there too.

  “Anthea? What…?”

  “I can’t do it anymore, Graeme.” She carried on her determined bustling as he sat in confused silence. “You’ve not grown up. You’re the same boy you were at school, driving the same car, playing the same stupid computer games,” she gestured at his Xbox, snuggled guilty under the TV. “I don’t want a boy anymore.”

  Stone’s mouth opened and closed like a fish, no sound coming out. Then finally:

  “…where are you going?”

  A car horn beeped outside and Anthea picked up the suitcase before looking at him for one last time, her blues eyes revealing no glimmer of remorse, no hint of pity.

  “Mark’s letting me stay at his. I’ll be back for Sid and the rest of my things in the morning.”

  He opened his mouth to reply, but couldn’t think what to say. His heart hammered in his chest as she swept past him to the door, down the stairs and out into the pouring rain. He sprang up from where he’d sat frozen on the couch, spilling lukewarm Coors over his sock and cursing.

  “Wait!”

  He half-sprinted across the room, bashing his knee on the edge of the sofa, and hobbled down the stairs, sock squelching beer with every step. Out the door and into the storm he ran, before slowing to a halt halfway up the path. The boot of the Porsche Cayman slammed shut and a tall, suited man with an umbrella and immaculately gelled hair gave him a cheery salute before climbing into the driver’s seat. The engine fired up with a growl and the vehicle, and his girlfriend, disappeared into the storm.

  Stone stood in silence, staring after the receding red-lights, his tears invisible in the downpour. Orange sparks on the floor made him turn. Maciej stood in his doorway, exhaling a cloud of blue smoke from his freshly finished cigarette.

  “Chesh.”

  The door closed and Graeme S
tone was left outside in the worsening storm, alone with his thoughts and his beer soaked sock. Lightning flashed and for an instant the windows of the factory opposite looked like a leering grin. A second later, the thunder rumbled, sounding for all the world like the mocking laughter of a spiteful god.

  ***

  The face that stared back at him in the weak, fluorescent light of the bathroom looked double its twenty-five years. His sunken cheeks and poor complexion reflected his diet of Doritos and coffee. The dark circles under his eyes, the two years of early starts and late nights. His hair dusty and dry from working the press. The only thing missing was the thumbprint on his forehead. Or perhaps the word ‘Mug’ scrawled in permanent marker. Seven years, he’d been with her.

  Seven years.

  Granted, they’d been living at each other’s parents for the most part. Things had been great then, straight out of A-levels with hardly a care in the world. Trouble had only started when they’d got this place. Two years of soul-crushing boredom, giving up the writing he enjoyed for the factory floor - and for what? To be sat at home alone each night in the ridiculously cramped living room, his only friend the flashing green circle of his Xbox? And all the while she was off gallivanting of a night, with her friends from work. With Mark.

  A flash of anger surged through him at the thought and, in a moment of fury, he lashed out at his reflection, driving his fist hard into the mirror above the sink, which splintered into a spider’s web of fragments. With instant regret, he recoiled, clutching his mangled hand.

  “Fuck!”

  He looked down and blood was already welling up from a dozen cuts on his knuckles. He turned the cold tap on full blast and stuck his wounded hand into the flow, hissing through gritted teeth. His reflection in the cracked mirror looked pale, the blood drained from his features. He looked back down to check on his hand, the skin going numb from the intense cold.