by C. J. Tudor
‘She had me.’
Somehow, he makes this sound like a burden, rather than a reason.
‘And that was all?’
‘What else could there be? We were in love. We got married.’
‘Happily ever after.’
‘We are happy. Probably difficult for you to understand. We have a good life here. We have Jeremy. We have a big house, two cars, our own villa in Portugal.’
‘Nice.’
‘It fucking is. And no one, especially not some third-rate teacher at some shitty school, is going to screw that up.’
‘I thought the cancer already had.’
‘Marie’s a fighter.’
‘So was my mum. Right until the end.’
But that’s not true. At the end, she didn’t fight. She just screamed. The cancer that started in her lungs – nurtured by a twenty-a-day Benson & Hedges habit – had spread to her liver, kidneys, bones, invaded everywhere. Even the morphine couldn’t contain the pain, not all the time. She screamed because she was in agony and then, in those tiny moments of respite, she screamed because she was terrified of succumbing to the only thing that could take the pain away for good.
‘Yeah, well, this is different. Marie is going to beat the cancer. And those NHS doctors, barely fucking old enough to shave, they don’t know everything.’
He stares across at me, blue eyes blazing, cheeks flushed a deep red, spittle gathering at the corner of his lips.
‘They’ve said she’s dying, haven’t they?’
‘No!’ He slams his hand down on the table. The drinks jump. I jump. ‘Marie is not going to die. I will not let that happen.’
This time the pub really does falter and fall quiet; the very air seems to still. All eyes are upon us. Hurst must feel it too. After a moment, a very long moment, during which I half expect him to roar, tip up the table and wrap his hands around my throat, he glances around, composes himself and stands.
‘Thanks for your concern but, like your presence here, it’s unnecessary.’
I watch him go. And that’s when I feel it. A sudden wave of dread, like vertigo, that hollows out my stomach from within and saps the strength from my bones.
I will not let that happen.
It’s happening again.
After Hurst has left I finish my pint – more to prove a point than any real desire to drink more or stay in the pub – then walk home. My leg does not thank me. My leg calls me a sadist and dumb moron who should just swallow his pride and use his damn stick. It’s right. Halfway along the lane I pause and breathe deeply, massaging the lumpy, twisted limb.
It’s almost nine and most of the light has faded from the day. The sky is a dusty grey; the moon a pale, naked shadow behind shifting curtains of cloud.
I realize I have stopped beside the old colliery site. The remains of the reclaimed mine rise behind me, the dark humps of the old slag heaps like dormant dragons.
It’s a huge site. At least three square miles. New fencing has been erected this side, along with a sturdy, padlocked gate. A sign attached to it reads: ARNHILL COUNTRY PARK, OPENING JUNE.
Bearing in mind it is now September, I would say that this is optimistic at the very least. There were plans even when I was a kid to redevelop the area. All the old tunnels and shafts were supposed to have been filled in when the mine closed. But there were rumours this was done too quickly. Corners cut. Plans not altogether strictly adhered to. There were issues with subsidence. Sink holes. I remember a story about one that almost swallowed up a dog walker.
Tonight, the area looks as much of a wasteland as ever. A dead, desolate place. One solitary digger sits halfway up one of the slopes, unmanned, seemingly abandoned. The sight of it still sends cold claws skittering down my spine. Digging into the land, disturbing things.
I turn away and resume my slow, uneven progress. I hear a noise behind me. A car is approaching along the lane. Not too fast, for once. In fact, it’s really crawling. I glance round. Headlights blind me. They’re on full beam. I raise a hand to shield my eyes. What the hell?
And then I realize. The car pulls up and a voice says: ‘All right, mate?’
Unwise Hair sits in the beaten-up Cortina next to his stocky mate, who is driving. The lane is deserted. No other cars. No other houses. The cottage is still a good quarter of a mile away. There are two of them, in a car, and I don’t have anything I could use as a weapon, not even a damn walking stick.
I try to keep my tone even. ‘I’m fine. Thanks.’
‘Need a lift?’
‘No, I’m good.’
I continue lurching along. There’s a crunch of gears and the car crawls along beside me.
‘Got a bad limp there, mate. You should get in.’
‘I said, no thanks.’
‘And I said, get in.’
‘I don’t think you can afford my rates.’
The car squeals abruptly to a stop. Stupid, Joe. Really stupid. Sometimes it’s like my mouth just goes out there looking for a fight. Or perhaps it’s just trying to speed up what is bound to happen anyway.
The doors open and they both climb out. I could try to run, but that would be pointless and pathetic. However, I’m not averse to a little begging:
‘Look, it was a joke, mate. I just want to get home.’
Unwise Hair takes a step towards me. ‘This ain’t your home. You’re not wanted here.’
‘Okay – I get the message.’
‘No, you don’t. That’s why he sent us.’
There is often an inevitability to life. Like I say, not fate exactly, but a sequence of events that are unavoidable. In the moment before the first blow strikes me in the face, I realize how stupid I’ve been. He sent us. These are Hurst’s lackeys. That’s why they slunk away like obedient pups when he walked into the pub. Then, when I wouldn’t back down, he sent them after me. Same, I think, as another blow causes me to double over and fall to my knees, as it ever was.
I curl into a ball and take a kick to the ribs. They erupt in fiery pain. I wrap my arms around my head. Sadly, I’ve been in this position before. If I could speak, which I can’t, because I’m trying to hang on to my teeth, I would tell these thugs that I’ve been beaten up by better hired muscle than them. That, in the beating-up stakes, they are amateur league. A kick thuds into my back. Fire shoots up my spine. I scream. On the other hand, even amateurs get lucky. I doubt Hurst will have told them to kill me, but it’s a fine line. One I’m not sure these morons are capable of understanding the subtleties of.
A boot connects with the side of my head. My skull explodes and my vision wavers. And then, distantly, I hear something. A shout or scream? I am dimly aware of muffled curses, a cry of pain that is not, for once, my own. And then, to my amazement, the sound of doors slamming shut and a car accelerating away. I’d like to feel relieved, but I’m in too much pain and barely managing to grasp on to consciousness.
I remain lying on the cold, hard ground, my body one throbbing mass of agony. It hurts to breathe, let alone move. My head feels worryingly numb. I also have a vague feeling that I am not lying here alone.
I sense a movement to one side. Right or left, I can’t tell any more. I feel someone touch my arm. I try to focus on the face leaning over mine, swimming in and out of vision. Blonde hair. Red lips. And the last thing I realize, before the blackness finally claims me, is that I hope I’m dying.
Because the alternative is far worse.
11
The squeal of rubber-soled shoes on shiny linoleum. The smell of cabbage, disinfectant and something else which the disinfectant can’t quite mask: faeces and death.
If this is heaven, it stinks. I blink my eyes open.
‘Ah, you’re back with us in the land of the living.’
A vision clarifies in front of me. A woman, in doctor’s scrubs. Tall and thin with short blonde hair and a strong face.
‘Do you know where you are?’
I take in the thin blue curtain half pulled around the narro
w bed; the harried-looking nurses hurrying past the end; the nearby cries and moans … and take a wild stab:
‘Hospital?’
‘Good.’ She walks forward and shines a light into my eyes. I squint and try to move away as a fresh bud of pain blooms in one corner of my sore brain.
‘Ooo-kay.’ I can smell her breath. Coffee and mints. She cradles my head, moves it from side to side. ‘And can you tell me your name?’
‘Joe Thorne.’
‘And the date, Joe?’
‘Erm … the sixth of September, 2017.’
‘Good … and your date of birth?’
‘The thirteenth of April, 1977.’
‘Good.’
She draws back again. Smiles. It obviously doesn’t come naturally. She looks like someone who spends a lot of time being efficient and the rest of it sleeping. But not enough.
‘Do you remember what happened?’
‘I –’ My brain still feels fuzzy and tender around the edges. If I think too hard, it hurts. ‘I was walking home from the pub and …’
The car. Hurst’s thugs. And there was something else. I pause. ‘I don’t really remember.’
‘Had you been drinking?’
‘A couple of pints.’ The truth, for once. ‘It all happened pretty quickly.’
‘Okay. Well, you’ve obviously been assaulted, so the police will want to speak to you.’
Great.
‘Am I okay?’
‘You’ve sustained severely bruised ribs and some more deep bruising to your lower torso.’
‘Right.’
‘You have some nasty abrasions and two impressive lumps on your head but, miraculously, no fractures, and you don’t seem to be showing any signs of concussion, but we’d like to keep you in overnight, just for observation.’
She is still talking, but I’m not listening. Suddenly it comes back to me. The figure looming over me.
‘How did I get here?’
‘A good Samaritan found you. A woman, driving past. She saw you on the pavement, stopped and brought you here. You were very lucky.’
‘What did she look like?’
‘Petite, blonde. Why?’
‘Is she still here?’
‘Yes. In the waiting area.’
I swing my legs over the side of the bed. ‘I have to get out of here.’
‘Mr Thorne, I really don’t think it would be wise –’
‘I don’t give a shit whether you think it’s wise or not.’
A small flush on her pale, drawn cheeks. Then a nod. She flicks the curtain open and stands to one side. ‘Very well.’
‘I’m sorry … I …’
‘No. Your call.’
‘You’re not going to stop me?’
A tired smile. ‘If you’re well enough to walk out of here, there’s not much I can do.’
‘I promise I’ll try not to drop dead.’
She shrugs. ‘Between you and me, we’ve got more beds in the morgue anyway.’
I use the bathroom, splash some water on my face. It doesn’t do much to wash away the dried blood, but it does make me feel a tiny bit more human. Then I limp slowly back out into the corridor. It’s a big hospital. Lots of ways in and out. I turn away from the signs directing me to the Main Exit and head inwards, into the maze of bluey-grey corridors. Eventually, I see another sign, for North Exit. It will do.
It takes me a while. My bruised ribs protest at just about every breath. My back feels like someone has inserted a hot spike at the base of my spine and there is a constant dull ache in my skull. Still, it could be worse. She could have found me.
I reach the North Exit and push open the doors. The night air greets me with an icy slap around the face. After the suffocating warmth of the hospital it sends my body into a paroxysm of shivers. I stand for a moment, trying to contain them, gulping in the freezing air. Then I take out my mobile phone with trembling hands. I need to call a taxi. Need to get back to the cottage before … and that’s when the truth strikes me with a dull, hollow thud.
If she is here. If she was driving along Arnhill Lane this evening, then she already knows where I live.
I lower the phone, just as I hear the rumble of an engine. And I know it’s her, even before the sleek silver Mercedes pulls up in front of me and the window slides down.
Gloria smiles at me from the driver’s seat. ‘Joe, sweetheart. You look terrible. Hop in. I’ll drive you home.’
There’s a moment. Most addicts know. When you realize that your vice – whether it be alcohol, drugs or, in my case, gambling – has become a real problem.
My moment of enlightenment came when I met Gloria. In fact, you might say that Gloria saved me from myself.
Up until then I think I had just about been able to pretend that it was all still a hobby, a game, a distraction. Despite losing my job, my friends, my savings, my car and pretty much every night to the lure of the green baize and the crisp shuffle and flip of the cards, I had it under control.
Funny how the biggest bluffs are the ones you pull on yourself.
My grandparents taught me to play cards. Gin Rummy, Pontoon, Newmarket, Sevens and, finally, poker. We played for pennies which they kept in a big glass jar. Even at age eight, I found it fascinating, and addictive. I loved the faded swirly red pattern on the backs of the cards, the different suits, the two-faced Ace (now I’m high, now I’m low), the imperious Kings and Queens and the slightly sinister, caddish-looking Jacks.
I loved watching my grandad deal, flicking out cards as fast as lightning with his yellow, calloused fingers; fingers that looked rough and clumsy yet could be so dexterous and light with a pack of playing cards.
I tried to copy the shuffles, the cuts, the sleight of hand. Some of my happiest times as a child were spent sitting at the chipped Formica table in their tiny, grease-stained kitchen, a glass of flat cola in front of me, stout for my grandad, lager and lime for Nan, staring at our cards as their cigarettes burnt down to the filters in the ashtray.
I taught Annie some of the same games. Mum and Dad never had time to play so it wasn’t quite the same. You usually needed a minimum of three people, but we still whiled away many rainy afternoons playing Snap or Patience.
After the accident, I stopped playing. I concentrated on my studies. Decided to enrol in teacher-training. I liked English, it seemed a decent job (one that might even make my mum proud) and perhaps a part of me thought that it was a way to do something good. To help kids and make up for all the stuff I had done wrong as a kid myself.
To my surprise, I was a good teacher. There was even talk, in one school, of promotion: head of year, progression to deputy head. I should have been happy; at the very least, content. But I wasn’t. Something was missing. There was a void inside me that nothing, not work, friends or girlfriends, could fill. Some days, my whole life felt unreal. As if reality had ended when Annie died and everything since had just been a bad copy.
Somewhere along the way I picked the cards up again. I would usually find some like-minded acquaintances to play a few hands with in the pub after work. Like drinkers, other gamblers manage to seek each other out. But soon the friendly games, betting pounds or fivers, weren’t enough.
I met a man. There’s always a man. A game-changer. A devil who appears at your shoulder. I was getting ready to leave one night, a little worse for wear, when one of the regulars – a thin, pasty individual whose name I never knew or asked – motioned me over and whispered: ‘Fancy a proper game?’
I should have said no. I should have smiled, pointed out that it was already late and I had work in a few hours, not to mention piles of neglected homework to mark. I should have reminded myself that I was a teacher, not a card shark. I drove a Toyota, bought my coffee from Costa and my sandwiches from M&S. That was my world. I should have walked away, got a cab home and got on with my life.
That’s what I should have done. But I didn’t.
I said: ‘Where?’
And later, much later
, when I realized I was out of my depth, when the debts had begun to pile at my feet like unexploded grenades, when I had sold the Toyota, left my job, been turned down by every lender; when I was dragged into the back of a van one night, to find Gloria sitting there, smiling her American cheerleader meets American Psycho smile …
That’s when I said, ‘No. Please, no!’
I don’t limp these days because of a car accident twenty-five years ago, although I did, for a while. But that limp had gone, the scars long healed, when Gloria placed one candyfloss-pink nail against my lips and whispered sweetly:
‘Don’t beg, Joe. I can’t bear a man who begs.’
I stopped begging. And started screaming.
She taps her nails against the steering wheel – a glittery red tonight. Human League blasts out of the stereo.
Every atom cramps in terror. The other thing Gloria likes, aside from hurting people, is eighties music. I can’t listen to Cyndi Lauper without rushing to the toilet to vomit. It makes eighties nights something of a no-no.
‘How did you find me?’
‘I have my ways.’
My heart stalls. ‘Not Brendan?’
‘Oh, no. Brendan’s just fine.’ She gives me a chiding look. ‘I don’t go around hurting people for no reason. Not even you.’
I feel relief and, stupidly, gratitude. Then something occurs to me.
‘What about the other two? The ones who attacked me?’
‘Ah, Dumb and Dumber. Dislocated shoulder and a broken nose. I went easy. Didn’t take much for them to run off.’
No, I think. I bet it didn’t. Gloria might look like a delicate china doll. But the only doll she has anything in common with is Chucky. Rumour has it she was a child gymnast who changed her speciality to martial arts. She was banned from competitions after putting an opponent in a coma. The woman is fast, strong and knows every vulnerable spot in the human body. Some, even anatomists haven’t discovered yet.
She glances at me. ‘They’d have killed you if I hadn’t intervened.’
‘And saved you a job.’
She tuts. ‘You’re no good to me dead. Dead men do not pay their debts.’
‘Reassuring.’