To the Ends of the Earth

by Michael Gouda

  I don’t know how they managed it, but they changed my existing bank account into another one for John Gabriel Appleseed, and I got a credit card and the rest all in this new name. I would be able to withdraw money from an ATM, so that would be fine, as long as I could get away from my minder to purchase the new phone. For some reason, they wanted to keep me off the internet. I asked why and all they said was “Safer.” The old one I’d send back, still in pristine condition but without the SIM card, to the kind nurse.

  I won’t do anything stupid, I promised, but knew privately I needed a smartphone. Nevertheless, they insisted that one of my minders accompany me. I had two, a rather dim bloke called Sam and a much smarter woman named Virginia. “Virgin for short, but not for long.” That was Sam’s idea of humour.

  I decided that it would be easier to escape from Sam, so it was on his watch that I decided I wanted to visit the ruins of the great abbey.

  He agreed. “Yeah, great, and we can have a drink in the pub on the way back.”

  “Cool,” I said, bringing myself down to his level.

  I got myself all decked out in the hoodie with the hood part over my head. I hadn’t bothered to fill in my eyebrows; I thought I looked sinister enough without.

  “Actually, Sam, it’s such a warm, bright day, why don’t we have a drink before and after the visit?”

  “Straight up, I wouldn’t mind leaving out the visit to your old ruin altogether.”

  “Why don’t you do just that? I’ll have one drink, and then you can stay over while I look at the abbey and the thorn.”

  “What thorn?”

  “The legend is that Joseph of Arimathea visited Glastonbury, stuck his staff in the ground, and it took root and flowered. The odd thing about this one is that it flowers twice every year instead of the usual hawthorn that only flowers once.”

  “Sounds a bit crappy, looking at an old bush.”

  “That’s why I suggested you stay on at the pub.”

  But Sam wasn’t as dim as that. “And what if Virginia sees you on your ownsome? I’ll get bollocked rigid.”

  “Okay,” I said as if I couldn’t care less if he stayed or came with me. “But I must have a slash. Where’s the bog?”

  He pointed to a sign saying Gents. “Strictly speaking I’m supposed to come with you.”

  “What? And hold my willy? You know I might enjoy that!”

  A blush spread from somewhere below his collar and suffused his whole face. “You know I didn’t mean that, you pervert.”

  “I’ll tell Virginia you called me that.”

  I felt mean, but he just buried his head in his pint glass, and I walked past the sign, past the door marked Gents, and into the great outdoors. I figured the bank would be somewhere in the center of town, and I saw it as I reached the great Market Cross, a finger of finely carved stone pointing skywards. I was right, and the ATM was in the wall outside. Praying that the police or whoever had done their job correctly, I pushed in the card, specified £250 (the limit per day), and waited. The machine seemed to hesitate as if it was considering the validity of the withdrawal, and then five £50 notes emerged. Next I needed a computer shop. These days they aren’t easy to find, as most computing gear is purchased online or from big national computer stores, but I asked a local, and he pointed down a side road where I found a shop. The range wasn’t great, but I found a Nokia that had been reduced, presumably an old model, and bought it. I paid for it in cash, which made the shopkeeper raise his eyebrows a bit (pity I couldn’t), but purchases by credit card can be traced.

  Then I shot back to the pub, outside of which Sam, looking distinctly uneasy, was peering up and down the road.

  “Went on my own,” I said, “I guess we better not tell Virginia, eh, Sam?”

  He looked at me suspiciously, then laughed, “Fucking long slash, and not even in the Gents. Did you go to the Ladies?” He thought this was hilarious, and I let him laugh.

  After this, though, we returned to the safe house, where I shut myself in my bedroom, then charged the phone and RTFM. While I was waiting, I suddenly felt a buzzing in my jeans pocket. This was the first call I’d received on my “old” phone, and probably the last.

  It was my mother.

  “Hello, darling, how are you?”

  “Progressing, I think the eyebrows are growing back, and they don’t think I’ll have to have a skin graft on my side.”

  “We miss you so, and it’s your birthday on Tuesday and we’ve nowhere to send even a card to.”

  I knew how important these insignificant things were to my parents so I made a decision.

  “The grand old age of twenty-two. Tell you what, I’ll probably get into awful trouble over this, but as long as you don’t tell anyone, except Dad of course, I’ll give you my address. I’ll get up early on Tuesday, hang around until I see the postman, and waylay him before he gets to the front door. They don’t mind me going into the garden alone.”

  “Wait until I get a pen.” A pause, then she picked up the receiver again.

  “It’s Wells Road, number 43, and don’t forget to address it to John Appleseed BA (Hons). Okay, love, I do hope I can see you soon, but until they catch the blighter who set fire to Lex’s flat, I’ve got to stay incommunicado. Love you. Remember not a word to anyone outside the family.”

  “Promise, dear. Take care, bye.”

  For the next few days, I watched and timed the arrival, or at least the passing, of the postman. We never received letters. I guess instructions were either passed verbally or by some form of electronic communication. He was quite predictable, 8:20 a.m. and I’d see him go by with his cap and bag.

  I also tried to contact Lex, though I knew it was useless. He seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth. Questions to Sam and even Virginia were either met with incomprehension (the former) or “I’m sorry, but according to the high-ups, he’s a nonperson.”

  “He’s my lover,” I wanted to shriek but, of course, didn’t.

  For the next two days, come rain or shine, I went into the back garden unaccompanied “for a bit of fresh air” (which was permitted) and wandered around, looking at the docks and nettles, which grew in superabundance. A hopeful little plant, which I thought looked promising, (I’m no horticulturist so I’d no idea what it was called) but I cleared a patch so that at least it stood a chance.

  On the day of my birthday, I did the same, going out at about 8:10 a.m., but this time scooting round the side of the house, from which position I could see the road. Promptly at 8:20 a.m., preceded by a tuneless whistle, “Postman Pat” appeared and I was at the front gate.

  “Anything for 43?”

  At first he looked doubtful, but he rummaged in his bag and produced not one but two items—a letter and a package. “Glad you stopped me. Never anything for 43, so I don’t usually look. I would of had to come back, and that would of set me back a bit.”

  Ignoring his appalling lapses of grammar, I held out my hand. “It’s my birthday.” I don’t know why I told him, presumably only kids, rather than twenty-two-year-olds, are so anxious about possible presents.

  “Well, happy birthday, sir.” He whistled on his way.

  But I had been discovered! The front door opened, and both Sam and Virginia rushed out, grabbed the post, and hustled me back in.

  “What’s all this?” demanded Sam. He can be very efficient as long as Virginia is around. “You’re not supposed to get mail. No one knows this address.”

  I had to confess. I admitted to the phone that I’d gotten when Sam took me into town—it seemed a bit petty, but I didn’t see why I should take all the blame.

  “I told my mother where I was. It’s my birthday, you see, and she so wanted at least to send me a card, but she promised she’d tell no one except immediate family, and she’s a woman of her word.” It sounded weak and juvenile, but at least it was the truth.

  My minders grumbled, muttering dark thoughts about compromising the situation, but as I confirme
d that the writing on the envelope was my mother’s, they let me have it. Or rather they opened it in front of me, gingerly removed the card, a sentimental animal scene showing some sort of dog looking welcoming, and the superscription Waiting for the master to come home.

  Then they turned to the package. “Probably a gift.”

  “The handwriting’s different,” observed the ever-vigilant Virginia. “Is it your father’s?”

  I denied it. “I suppose it could be from my aunt Connie, she and my mother are very close.”

  “See how information spreads,” complained Virginia. “What the fuck were you thinking of?”

  As Virginia rarely if ever swears, I realized the enormity of my indiscretion. “Sorry,” I mumbled, small boy caught in the act.

  “Please let me have the phone. We’ll see what’s in the package.” She shook it, and something rattled inside.

  “The phone’s upstairs. I’ll go and get it.”

  I was halfway up the stairs when the explosion happened, a vicious eardrum-cracking detonation that shook the house. I heard the crash of breaking glass as the front windows were blown outwards.

  But I was unharmed, and I turned back down to see through the shattered doorframe the ghastliest of sights. Both my minders were dead. That was obvious. In fact they were in pieces. Blood and bits that I didn’t want to identify were scattered everywhere. I felt sick and guilty that it had been my fault, but there was nothing I could do.

  I had no doubt that the explosion must have been heard, if not witnessed, by the neighbours, who obviously would be frantically dialing 999. Nevertheless, I raced to my room, grabbed my phone and all the money I had left, and got out the back way. There was no point in staying. I could tell the police very little. All I knew was that the bomber, whoever he or she was, knew my address and had tried to finalize the act they had started with the fire.

  I got out the back door, down the apology of a garden, over the fence, and was away. I did call the police, in case the neighbours had been too traumatized to summon them.

  “Send police to 43 Wells Road. Explosion. At least two dead.” I rang off. They didn’t have my phone number—it was on a pay-as-you-go tariff. I didn’t think they could track me and I hoped that whoever had sent the lethal package couldn’t either. However, they did know my credit card. They had after all provided it and would be able to find out if I had drawn out money and from where.

  Speed was essential. I ran to the nearest bank with an ATM and again withdrew the maximum, £250. But I couldn’t stay in Glastonbury. Since the Beeching cuts, there had been no railway station there, but there was a coach station, in fact two. The Town Hall coach station was closer, and I bought a ticket to Castle Carey, the nearest town with a railway station, thirty-three minutes if the next coach left on time. It did, and I transferred to the railway with trains to Paddington in under two hours.

  I was away from that horrible scene and would be in London in two and a half hours, as long as I didn’t have to wait for transfers.

  But, and it was a big but, the police would be after me, and what was more terrifying, my unknown assailant was also. Could the perpetrator actually be one of the police? Could I lose myself in the capital until they found the culprit? They obviously hadn’t been successful so far. Whoever it was had been playing with them. But it was me they were after. In my paranoid state, I suspected everyone.

  Chapter 7—London

  I MANAGED to find what was euphemistically called a flat. It had two rooms, one of which was curtained off to hide a gas ring, and a tap over a sink. The other held a bed of sorts with one leg shorter than the other three. It was propped up by a block of wood but still wobbled. The shower room/lavatory was down the corridor.

  Occasionally I bought and ate takeaway meals, though I had no appetite. If the bathroom was occupied, and it seemed that it had to provide for all the tenants of the house, I didn’t bother to wash all over. I pissed in my sink, though I had to shit in the communal lavatory, often decorated with the defecations of others, even less fastidious than myself. I certainly didn’t wash my clothes and only ventured out when I really needed food. My credit card I never used, as I knew it could be traced, and eventually sold it to an individual in a pub for a tenner.

  “Whose is it?” he asked.

  I shrugged.

  “Is it valid?”

  When I nodded, he passed over the crumpled ten-pound note with the prettified Jane Austen on one side and the Queen on the other.

  I scanned the TVs in shop windows for evidence of the capture of the terrorist, and one glorious nine o’clock news showed the picture I’d taken and then his real face, quite similar. I didn’t know why he hadn’t been captured before.

  Rejoicing I returned to my evil digs, determined to freshen up the following day, have a good meal, and “come out of the closet.”

  But first I must tell everybody. I didn’t have much credit left in my phone and debated whether I’d phone my parents or Jacob. My parents really merited my initial call. How they must have worried, but it was to Jacob that I made the crucial call.

  I gave him my address. “Flat 3 ground floor, knock twice and ask for Veronica, and Jacob, love, bring me a change of clothes, I’ve only got this manky T-shirt and a pair of grotty jeans. Come quickly, no later than tomorrow. Love you.”

  It was late in the evening when I heard a knock on my door.

  I thought it might be another tenant wanting to borrow a quid for his gas meter. I didn’t have anything to spare, but I could scarcely pretend I was out when I had the light on, which, as always, leaked out round the edges of the badly fitting door.

  I opened the door, and there on the threshold stood my best friend. A wave of relief flooded over me. All my problems would be solved. With Jacob beside me, we could brave the world as we had done so many times before. Hadn’t we? Actually thinking back, I couldn’t remember any particular occasion when we had. It seemed as if it was always me who led the way, who got the lucky breaks, the better school, the better job, the success—but then it had all come crashing down.

  Still, what the hell. He was here, and somehow everything would be all right again.

  “Jacob, my friend, come in, come in. Don’t stand out there. Go into the living room and make yourself comfortable. What will you have to drink? I’m sorry I haven’t got much, just tea or coffee—instant, I’m afraid. Or there may be a drop of scotch left in the bottle.”

  I babbled on, pulling him inside, which was straight into the front room. He looked at the threadbare carpet, the sad bits of furniture, the sagging armchairs. Then he turned and looked at me.

  Stared at me full in the face.

  “Oh dear,” he said, and there was a strange almost sarcastic note in his voice, which I couldn’t immediately fathom, “What have we done to you, your friends and your lovers? Looking like shit. Have you seen your face recently? Thin, haggard, unshaven. And you stink. Phew! You stink like a pig.”

  “Yes, I’m sorry, Jacob, I’ve let myself go a bit recently, but there’s been things happening to me, dreadful, dreadful things. But it’s all good now that you are here.”

  “And you were always the one in charge, the one ahead, the successful one—”

  Suddenly I realized what it was in his voice—a tone of triumph.

  “—and me trailing behind, always having to be thankful for your cast-offs. I’ll get you a nice job. My rich lover will sort it out. And I thankful to be sucked off in a covered bus stop, sheltering from the rain.

  “What a state you’re in, how are the mighty fallen. I see your eyebrows have grown back. That’s one thing to your advantage. About the only thing as far as I can see. Where’s your rich, powerful lover now?”

  “Jacob, what’s the matter with you? I thought we were friends, the best of friends. I never knew you felt like this.”

  His voice rose to a shout. “Of course you didn’t because you never stopped to think, to put yourself in my place. If you had, perhaps you�
��d have realized that I never loved you, never even liked you.”

  “But I always thought of you as my younger brother, part of the family.”

  “Ah, that’s what your mother thought when she gave me your address and I sent you your little birthday present. You always were the lucky one, escaping from my fire with a little burnt and singed eyebrows.”

  “Your fire?”

  “Of course it was my fire. I rather hoped that I’d get the both of you, but it seemed that marvelous, gorgeous Lex also had a bit of luck. And then the present. That didn’t quite go to plan either. Seems it made rather a mess of two police officers. Well, bad luck them and again good luck you.

  “But your luck seems to have run out now, hasn’t it, little Johnny Appleseed? What a fucking stupid name to choose. Still, it doesn’t matter now.”

  The sheer vindictiveness in his tone struck me like a blow. There was a glint of madness in his eyes, huge and wide. His mouth was open as he spat out the words and a dribble of saliva ran down his chin.

  “Still, it doesn’t matter now. Here’s where it ends.”

  He felt in the pocket of his coat and drew out a knife, wide-bladed with a deadly point. I thought how it would so easily cut through my thin T-shirt, rip through my skin, thrust through the gaps in my ribs, and pierce my heart. Or perhaps this madman, for that was surely what he was, driven insane by his envy and jealousy, would only be satisfied with cutting bits of me, first bits that would hurt abominably but would not kill me, and finally when I was on the floor screaming, he would deliver the coup de grâce and put me out of pain forever.