by Neal Bircher
Nick woke up at around 9am. He had also woken at around 3am, 4am, and 6am. His hangover was complemented by a raw feeling of anxiety that wracked his whole body. Optimistically he drew back the curtains and looked for any signs of Gail’s return, but of course the Celica wasn’t there. He got back into bed and stayed there for the next four hours, drifting in and out of sleep, thinking through what Gail might be doing, and trying not to think of the worst possibilities of what had become of her driving an unfamiliar car whilst drunk and in an emotional state on icy country roads in the dark. He jumped at the sound of any car or any sound in the hotel that could be her … or somebody to give him bad news. But much as his anxiety grew, his ideas of what to do did not. It was too soon to go to the police, as Gail might be about to return. And if not the police, then who else could he call? He decided to stay put for the time being and mull over possibilities of what to do for the rest of the day.
At one o’clock hunger got the better of him, and he crawled out of bed, showered and got dressed. There was some bread and margarine left over from the supplies that he and Gail had bought the day before, also some crisps, and a six pack of strong lager. He made himself some crisp sandwiches, and consumed them sitting on his bed, washed down with a cup of water. Then he decided he had to get out of the room. He took the six pack and headed across the road and down to the loch.
As with the previous times that Nick had visited the loch (with Gail) there was nobody else about. He walked around it anti-clockwise for about three quarters of an hour, before sitting down on a rock on a small pebble beach, and opening his first can. He gazed out over the water, much as he and Gail had before. The first can went down very quickly, and he opened the next one. He thought back over the last two months, and over the last two years, and over the whole of his life. He’d made a mess of all of it. He’d drifted along without any purpose, achieving nothing in the process. He asked himself about Gail. Would she be back at the Black Horse when he returned? Would he ever see her again? Was she even still alive? And, why did he ever get involved with her in the first place? He knew the answer to that one: it really was love, and he swore at himself for even questioning whether it was the right thing to do. Of course it was; he was powerless to stop it. Or had he chosen to be powerless to stop it? He wasn’t sure. He laughed an unhappy laugh as he pondered the irony of the mess he’d got himself into: Two girlfriends was too many – it always was – but one was just never quite enough.
He thought about Alyson briefly too. If Gail wasn’t the one for him after all then maybe Alyson was? But no, he shook his head at the thought of that. Who else then … Annette? … Karen? Life had worked out well for Karen, with her career and marriage. Perhaps she and he would have stayed together if it hadn’t been for … well, if the timing had been better. If he’d had a phone he would have texted Karen at that moment. He wondered whether she had heard about his murder suspect / fugitive status, and wasn’t sure whether or not he wanted her to have.
The contents of cans three and four went down easily and the cans themselves were dropped lazily at his feet next to the other two. By the time he got onto can five he wasn’t thinking anymore, he was just staring. When that one was empty he threw it as far as he could, which wasn’t very far. It got just into the water’s edge. Nick stood up, his legs and bum were numb from sitting on the rock constantly for more than two hours, other than for two brief piss breaks. The combination of numb limbs and drunkenness made him stumble on the bumpy pebbled surface. He selected himself a large flattish pebble and attempted to skim it, but he turned over his ankle as he did so, the pebble fell just short of the water, and he fell painfully to the ground, much as Gail had several times the previous day. This time though it was Nick’s turn to lie on the floor and cry.
The temperature was dropping quickly towards freezing once more, and darkness was falling when he eventually ambled back towards the Black Horse. He supped at his sixth and final can of lager, and when it was finished he tossed the empty can into the undergrowth. The Black Horse loomed almost menacingly out of the gloom, and Nick cursed the fact he had nowhere else to eat. He checked the car park for the Celica, out of hope rather than expectation, but it still wasn’t there. Evening meal wasn’t being served yet, so Nick made for the bar. He was starving after eating only his crisp sandwich lunch all day, and so ordered himself a Guinness. He was served by a young man with red hair whom he hadn’t seen before. He got through a second pint of Guinness before the start of evening meal at six thirty when he took himself through to the dining room. He had chicken curry accompanied by a bottle of Cobra. He was served by the same girl as the previous two days. She didn’t talk much, but she was polite as always, and she was also very pretty. Nick didn’t attempt to chat her up.
After dinner Nick returned to his room for an hour’s sleep and a shower before blearily making his way back down to the bar. Billy was back behind the bar, and the pub was already busy. Nick recognised all of the early customers from the previous night, apart from a couple of scruffy miserable-looking men keeping themselves to themselves on a small round table. He ordered a local real ale and positioned himself on a bar stool. He took up that position for the whole evening. He didn’t speak to any of the other customers but did have some sporadic conversation with Billy, who again wasn’t particularly friendly. But he did ask about Gail:
“Your woman not with you tonight?”
“No.”
That brief conversation was just about the only one that wasn’t about football. Billy was opinionated when it came to football, and had some unusual views – that Paul Gascoigne should have been made England manager, for example. Nick didn’t bother arguing. By eleven o’clock Nick felt that he couldn’t fit any more beer in. So he ordered a double Scotch and then got himself off to his lonely bed.
12. Facing the Music
England
Gail woke up slowly and it took her a while to recall where she was. She looked at the clock. It was 10am; she had slept for thirteen hours, which was thirteen hours more than she had slept the previous night. She felt pleased to be back in England, but not pleased about anything else in her wretched life. She got up and shuffled towards the window. Her body ached from lying down for so long. That physical pain though was nothing compared to the torment that wrenched at the pit of her stomach. Her throat too was sore and her eyes red. She had some very big decisions to make. She drew back the curtains. The sky was all heavy rushing cloud, and the choppy sea dark and foreboding.
Purpose
Nick awoke at about nine o’clock again on his second morning alone in Scotland, after another sporadic and un-refreshing night of sleep, bad dreams, and stress. He awoke again to the anxiety of Gail’s absence, the usual raging hangover, the accompanying limited recollection of the night before … and an overall sense of misery and hopelessness. He got up to go for a piss, but was realistic enough with himself not to bother looking out of the window for signs of Gail. He lay back down on his pillow and closed his eyes. He could lie in bed again for the morning, but he wouldn’t, his wallowing was starting to make him angry with himself. “No!” he said out loud, and he determined to take a positive plan of action – to do something with purpose.
He started by showering and then going down for a breakfast of cereal and fruit salad. Then it was yet another stroll along the edge of the loch, this time to clear his head and think through his next and future steps. He didn’t have any lager with him. His body and mind had had enough of alcohol; he decided to give himself at least a week off.
Leaving the Black Horse he passed the village’s red phone box. He was frustrated that he neither had Gail’s number with him – home or mobile – nor her daughter’s number. His plan would include calling other people, but not just yet. He walked for an hour before turning around and heading quickly back. He had formed his plan and was in more buoyant mood as he approached the Black Horse. That mood quickly changed for the worse once more however when he saw what was park
ed outside. It wasn’t his and Gail’s Celica; it was a police patrol car.
Nick’s first reaction was to panic. He ran back down to the loch. He stood on the shore once again, this time biting at his knuckles. His stomach was more knotted than ever as the anxiety returned to take over his body. He froze to the spot while he churned over the possibilities. They varied from the best case of the police car being nothing to do with him, to the worst of something bad having happened to Gail. In between was the possibility that Gail was OK but the police had come for him. He would have to find out sooner or later, but wasn’t ready just yet. He decided to climb back up the path through the woods towards the Black Horse to observe what was happening. He went gingerly, ready to hide in the trees if anybody came the other way. He reached the top of the slope just in time to see the police car pull out and drive slowly away. There was nobody outside the Black Horse.
Nick steeled himself and crossed over the road. His body was shaking as he entered the hotel. He wanted to bump into Mary or Billy, but he was too afraid of what he might find out to actually approach them. He got to his room without seeing anybody and he locked himself in, as if shutting out whatever dreadful news was awaiting him. But he knew that he would soon have to go back out to face the music.
Waiting
Karen sat back into her plush leather sofa, but she wasn’t relaxing. It was ten past two in the afternoon, and she was waiting for Damien to come home. She took a sip from her cup of peppermint tea and then leaned forward to place the bone china cup and saucer on her glass-topped coffee table. She smiled ruefully at the memory of them buying that table from Selfridges. Italian it was, and very stylish. A coffee table it was, to her; a cocaine table it had become to him.
They’d made a really nice job of the house over the years. Every room was furnished and decorated as well as this one: exclusive and artistic, but classy all the same … very expensive though; very materialistic.
Across the room Damien’s acoustic guitar was leaning against the Cotswold stone fireplace. It was a good one too, a Gibson of some kind. It looked lovely, and it had beautiful sound too, according to Damien. And so it should thought Karen; she’d bought it for him, and it had cost a fortune. He would sing to her then over a glass of wine; it had felt so romantic at the time. She didn’t see that image when she looked at it now though, she saw Damien sitting around smoking dope with his stupid arty-farty mates, all of them talking shite. All the same, she felt compelled to go and pick up the guitar. She first sat back down with it resting on her lap, but she didn’t feel like playing anything. She only knew a few songs anyway. She placed it down on the sofa next to her. She crossed her legs and then brushed a fleck of dust from her long leather boots. She loved those boots: they were powerful and sexy; Damien certainly found them a turn-on. But that wasn’t the only reason she was wearing them: they were actually very comfortable, and in any case, if she was wearing them then they weren’t taking up room in her suitcase.
She looked at her watch. She’d got her speech ready. She had warned him the last time that that really was the last time: if he ever hit her again then she would leave him. But he hadn’t hit her again; instead last night he had threatened to strangle her. She had bruises around her neck and for some moments she had really thought that she might be about to die.
He’d left in the morning at about ten o’clock while she pretended to still be asleep. He would have been walking around some park somewhere, as usual, “finding himself”, and would no doubt be crawling back full of contrition, with big bunch of flowers in hands. In the meantime Karen had been composing her speech; it was succinct and unemotional. She would explain the practicalities of divorce and the structure of financial arrangements that she had worked out. She’d done all her research over the last few weeks in preparation for this occasion. She’d had plenty of time to do so as she wasn’t working anymore. Her life had been going through a dramatic period of late, no real change of direction, just the meeting of a couple of major milestones that had been inevitable for some time. Her compromise agreement from Wiseman Ford meant a large severance cheque that would tide her over nicely. She would have preferred to keep her career, but instead she had the opportunity to start over again, an opportunity that she would grasp with her usual determination.
It saddened her, what drugs had done to Damien, but it angered her more. It was his choice to destroy their marriage and in all probability his own life. The coke had been one thing, but he’d moved on to heroin, which was something else completely. He was smoking and injecting his way to an abyss from which there was no coming back, and Karen had to escape before he dragged her into it with him, both emotionally and financially. Thank goodness for that pay-off; Damien wouldn’t be getting anywhere near it!
Karen turned her mind away from Damien for a moment, and wondered where Nick was and what he was doing. She worried about him, but she was also cross with him for getting himself into such a situation. She smiled fleetingly at the thought that all men were as bad as each other.
Then a key turned in the front door. Karen felt suddenly nervous.
Near Miss
The Celica’s front wheels skidded on loose gravel as Gail swerved much too quickly from the road. Then they locked up as she slammed on the brakes, “parking” the car just where it stopped. She was swiftly out of it and walking with her head down; she didn’t want to see anybody. Her heart was in her mouth as she ran up the stairs. She stopped outside the door to the room, heart beating even faster still, and then she plunged her key into the lock and threw it open.
The sight before her dismayed her.
“Nick?” she enquired weakly. But it was clear he wasn’t there. The bed wasn’t properly made up, but there was nothing in the room – no bags, no clothes. She forlornly checked the bathroom: again, untidy, but nothing there that didn’t belong to the Black Horse. Gail had a hundred times gone over what she might say and do when she met Nick (albeit she still hadn’t settled on a final version), but she didn’t have a plan at all for him not being there. She had of course known that it was a possibility – quite a strong one – but she didn’t have a plan because for one thing it was too dreadful a possibility for her to think about, and for another there wasn’t any obvious course of action she could take. She slumped silently onto the bed, put her head in her hands, and resisted the temptation to scream.
The Night
It hadn’t been a good night out, as far as Gail was concerned. She and Nick had arranged to meet up in London for the evening, after Nick had been to a football match and then beers with a mate of his. That was one of the problems: Nick was drunk before they’d even met up, which didn’t make for good conversation. Gail in turn had gone first for a meal with her friend Jenny earlier in the evening. It meant that she and Nick both had alibis for the evening. But meeting Jenny was another problem. She was the only person in whom Gail had confided about her relationship with Nick and although Jenny was supportive, she was disapproving. She’d been sympathetic, as always, but had also slipped in the usual heavy hints that Gail really should be bringing the whole thing to an end … for everybody’s good. The two women had parted on warm hugging terms. But as Gail made for her rendezvous with Nick she resolved that the relationship that she really did have to bring to a close was the one with Jenny.
She and Nick were on the way back home now though – how she wished it was both to the same home – and she was feeling better. There was a cold autumnal chill in the air, but Nick’s arm around her waist warmed her to the core. He had hugged her as they waited for a train at Paddington station, and then kissed her gently on the lips. They were soon seated on a crowded train, chatting freely and intermittently kissing.
Nick nodded towards the toilet door, and asked, “How about it?”
Gail laughed.
“Why not?” said Nick. “We’ve done it before.”
Gail gestured for him to speak more quietly, “Yes, but not on a train as busy as this.”
> Had Nick really meant it though, then Gail would probably have gone along with the suggestion. Having a hundred drunken strangers knowing that she was having sex in a train toilet would not be something that she would particularly wish for, but perhaps the excitement would make up for the embarrassment.
They were soon getting off the train at Norling where they briskly climbed the concrete stairs towards street level. She went first, with Nick just a little behind her. He caught her up at the top of the stairs and she turned and smiled as he patted her bum, and then laughed at his suggestion of their next move. He took her hand as they exited the station, and without further conversation they crossed the road and headed for the canal bridge.
They both moved quickly, purposefully, and excitedly; there was no need to speak; they both knew exactly what was to follow.
Trainspotting
Nick examined the timetable at Dunloch station. There were not many trains, even on a Friday, and the next one, heading eventually to Edinburgh, was nearly an hour away. Unsurprisingly he was alone on the platform. He sat down on a bench and took in the sights and smells around him. Dunloch station on a December afternoon was a cold and windy place to be, but with its view of the mountains, shrouded in rain cloud, it had an atmosphere that Nick found invigorating. First it brought to his mind the rural train stop scene fromTrainspotting. But then his thoughts moved to a different station: his last wait on a bench for a train, at Norling, a million miles away. That was two months before, but it seemed a lot longer. He smiled wryly to himself. He hauled up his big holdall, placed it next to him on the bench, and then rifled around inside it to take out his skiing hat. Next he put on his iPod, switched it to “shuffle”, and closed his eyes. Within two minutes he was fast asleep, and starting to dream.