by Peter Laws
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
A thoroughly tipsy Matt Hunter crept into their bedroom, convinced it was with the stealth of a ninja, but when he stood on the upturned plug from Wren’s hairdryer he let out a pitiful shriek and fell against the wardrobe.
Wren groaned.
‘Sorrrrrry’ − he pushed a finger to his lips − ‘I woke you …’
‘You woke me half an hour ago.’ She turned over. ‘When you dropped your cereal bowl in the sink. Got the munchies?’
‘Wren, you know as well as I do …’ he started tugging his socks off, ‘breakfast is the most important meal of the day.’
‘It’s nearly midnight, dimwit.’ She watched him clamber out of his jeans in the dark. It was a sad, jerky attempt, which made her laugh. Then she clicked her bedside lamp on and screwed up her face in a squint. ‘Nice bromance with Mr Ashton?’
‘Yeah, though it was pretty intense at times.’
‘Oh?’ Her eyes flashed, and she sat up a little more. ‘Tell me everything.’
‘My lips are sealed …’ He threw his shirt at the wardrobe, but it was closed. It hit the door and slid down. He pointed at that and laughed, like it was the greatest event in history. Then he slid into the bed, letting out a long sigh flat on his back.
She snuggled in, red hair buried into his neck. ‘From the sounds of it, you’ve had a pretty intense day in general.’ She squeezed him. ‘Matt … I caught the news when you were out. They said you were there when the train hit the boy.’
He pushed a breath towards the ceiling.
‘It must have been awful.’
He waited a moment. ‘It was. It really was. And the sound of it, too …’ He shivered and squeezed her.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’
He kissed her on the forehead. ‘Maybe in the morning, but not right now. This stuff isn’t exactly conducive to sleep, if you know what I mean.’
She sat up on her elbow, hand splayed into her hair, waiting.
‘What?’
‘The police, Matt … they expect too much of you. They just throw you into these horrendous situations … Hobbs Hill, Menham, and now today …’
‘They don’t force me. I want to help.’
‘But what you end up seeing … they’re trained for that … you’re not.’
‘Hey, I’ll have you know I saw lots of dead bodies when I was a reverend.’
‘Yeah. Old ladies in hospital beds, not this …’
She was right, of course, and the thought of it made the shadows pulse, again. As he lay there, he saw those familiar ghost faces pressing through his ceiling. Folks from Menham and folks from Hobbs Hill. They were part of his brain structure now. Quite the collection he was gathering. They stared down at him silently, like they often did at this time of night. ‘The officer I was with today. She gave me a card. Someone I could talk to, if I needed it.’
‘Well, that’s something at least …’ She kissed him and the faces vanished. ‘I guess I just prefer you standing up in a lecture hall talking about crazy people. Tracking them down in real life, though … it scares me, Matt.’
He felt the urge to hug her for a very long time, but she reached over and clicked off her lamp. The room plunged into darkness, and the faces, along with those long animal shadows that always walked with them, were back. He closed his eyes, until they crawled in there too.
‘Anyway …’ She fell against him, cheek on his chest. ‘I’m here for you. All right?’
‘Cool.’
‘And don’t forget we said we’d exercise together, before breakfast.’
‘Not cool.’
‘At least you’ve had your cereal already.’
‘Darn it … gonna dream about squat thrusts now. That’s way more traumatic.’
She laughed.
They lay there for a long time, enough to feel himself waking up again. Then she whispered one final thing, and he could tell it mattered, even if it was said on the downturn of sleep. She said, ‘But I am proud, Matt. Even though it scares me. I’m proud of you.’
He squeezed her hand, then lifted it to his mouth to kiss it.
Fifteen minutes later Wren was snoring. He, however, wasn’t. Now that he was in his mid-thirties, beer often did this. It kept him awake. Bored, he grabbed his phone and switched it on under the covers, just so it wouldn’t wake her. He couldn’t help it. He started reading through the reports from Chervil today. One headline said, AXE AND TRAIN DEATH IN SMALL ENGLISH VILLAGE. Another, SON AXES DAD BEFORE FATAL TRAIN SMASH. Another just said, BLOOD ON THE TRACKS. Classy perhaps, but not that accurate, since most of the blood was flung quite far to both sides. He’d seen it spread through the air. He read another headline as his breath fogged the screen. TEEN DEAD AFTER ATTEMPTED PATRICIDE.
He gazed at that last word: ‘Patricide’.
He pasted it into Google, curious to know how common trying to kill your dad is. His phone threw up a string of articles on patricide, matricide, and the term for both mother and father killing: parricide. Turns out that in the UK and US, the crime was statistically uncommon. Considering the levels of child abuse, one article suggested that the low level of parental murder was, if anything, surprisingly low. Though he noticed that the US idea of ‘low’ was roughly one parent a day being killed by their kids.
A voice in his head said, Switch it off and sleep, you idiot.
He was about to obey when he heard something in the back garden. Like pebbles falling over. He yawned, not sure if he was bothered. Then the pebbles fell some more. Peeling back the quilt he looked at Wren. Her nose was wheezing and her mouth lolled open. Cute, in a baby seal sort of way. He did a zombie walk to the window and pulled back the thick curtains, wide. The church by his house still glowed by those upturned floodlights, and the leaning gravestones set their usual long shadows across the grass. The first thing he’d whispered to Wren when they viewed this house was … ‘And you’re sure you can make love with a graveyard at the window? You’re absolutely, positively sure?’
He smiled and gazed down at his back garden and the beloved home office, and the cemetery and church beyond. There were no people walking past, no animals … no little black rabbits or tall black rabbits for that matter, which was good because he—
A woman was standing in the shadows.
He blinked.
A silhouette. A shadowy outline with one hand high in the air. The light from the church threw a glistening curve on her shoulder, and her hand seemed to glow. She was under the weeping willow tree, just beyond their back fence.
‘The hell?’ He rubbed his eyes with his knuckle, just to make sure. When he opened his eyes she was, of course, gone. There was nobody in the graveyard except all those dead folks soaking up the soil. He leant closer till a fog sprang on the glass, and he shook his head.
He checked his watch, 12.43 a.m. Could you dream standing up? Like horses do? He swiped a ragged arc through the condensation with his hand and found, once again, nothing but his garden, his cabin, then their fence and the weeping willow and church beyond it. He stared for a moment and all the shadows stared back at him.
Wren’s voice, echoing. It scares me …
There was nothing under the tree. Just his brain coping with trauma. He probably ought to talk to someone, after all. He slunk back to his bed and crashed back into the mattress. He let himself finally drift away. Of course he dreamt of trains all night, but amazingly, the dreams were filled with light and songs and Rinkydink on draught. They raced through never-ending meadows of swaying corn, and most were happy carriages of laughter and love. But only most.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
It was tricky to run. Not so much from all that alcohol, but just from how blurry his eyes were. Tears had a way of doing that.
His dad and mum and … wait for it … two pastors and two elders from the church had turned up at Granny’s door just now. She’d only gone and phoned them just after she made Sean a cheese toastie. It’ll help line your stomach, she
said. No sooner had he eaten it, brushed his teeth and climbed into bed than the front door shut hard and a blundering cacophony of heavy steps tramped up the staircase. He opened his door in his boxer shorts and found them all crammed onto the landing, praying for the spirit of ‘unnatural lust’ to leave him. One of the pastors saw him in his boxers and covered his face, like a nun at a strip show.
His dad was saying things that sounded kind and wonderfully thoughtful on paper. ‘Let God in, son. We can nip this in the bud. It’s going to be okay cos we believe in you …’ Mum was in the corner with her head down and hands locked. As usual her lips weren’t moving much. She’d learnt long ago that the prayer stance was a great way to hide.
It was humiliating, pulling on his jeans and scrabbling about for a pair of socks, while they all crammed onto the landing, praying and looking. He tried to close the door, but Rod, the majorly overweight pastor, put his heft against his door, so it stayed open. Sean wondered why they didn’t pray the demon of gluttony out of him. But, of course, gluttony was one of the ‘okay’ sins. Like speeding and gossip, greed and white lies. They were no match for the sick and filthy crime of wanting a life-partner.
So they all watched him dress, which made Sean so angry and uncomfortable that he glared at the two pastors saying, ‘Close the door. You’re like a couple of peeping Toms!’ This accusation threw the entire landing into prayerful wails of horror. It was like what Sean was saying was abnormal, and what they were doing was normal. So, the door stayed open.
Once dressed, Sean had to push his way through them all just so he could get out of there, which was the moment the tears started. It wasn’t that they were grabbing him. It was the fact that most of them weren’t grabbing him – that’s what did it. The pastors and the elders were lurching back, because Sean was carrying the Pink Death. Gay is a contagious disease, after all − everybody knows that. And so their prayers morphed into spiritual tongues. His dad was the only one who put a hand on Sean’s shoulder. He’d clearly seen his son’s tears because he leant close and said very tenderly, ‘This isn’t who you are. This isn’t the boy I love.’ His breath smelt of coffee and toothpaste. ‘It’s never too late to be yourself, son.’
Sean paused for a second, filtering out the words and grasping at his father’s tender tone instead. He’d been such a lovely dad until this. Such a wonderful, thoughtful man before Sean’s ‘issue’ changed his parents into something else. Then an elder started ranting about the spirit of Sodom, which made Sean stumble to the bottom of the stairs. He saw his granny sitting at the kitchen table, sobbing into her palms.
She looked up and said, ‘I’m sorry, Sean. We love you, Sea—’
He slammed the door behind him and that’s when he ran. He ran in the direction of the steeple, keeping his eyes on it as it poked over the rooftops, fusing with the moon. Whenever the steeple blurred, he would slow down, lift his glasses and wipe his vision back. At the end of the long street, he looked back, wondering if he might see them all running after him, gathering up the entire town with burning torches to track down a monster. But they weren’t even at his granny’s door. He pictured them inside, drinking tea. The fat blob of a pastor swallowing a row of biscuits in one and shrugging, Welllllll folks … it were worth a pop.
Sean’s run became a walk for the rest of the way, partly because he was so out of breath and partly because he just wasn’t sure what he’d say when he arrived. He was dreading knocking at Matt’s door and dissolving into tears. That’d be hideous. No, he thought, he’d spend a few moments pulling himself together. He’d knock and gently say, ‘That offer of a couch. Can I take it, after all?’
He turned the lane and saw the Anglican church bright and calming against the cold black sky. And just beyond it was the back of Matt’s house, just as he’d described it when they got on to Chesham house prices earlier. The smattering of gravestones and the tall weeping willow looked pretty in the floodlights. Just beyond it was a hedgerow and a tall back fence, and beyond that, a detached house without any lights on. Matt’s house.
Okay. He’d nip around the front and give a quick knock. He checked his watch. It was 1 a.m. He stopped walking.
Oh God, he thought. That was way later than he thought. Could he really just turn up? Shouldn’t he phone first? He fumbled in his pocket for Matt’s card and staggered a few steps. A reminder that Rinkydink possessed a powerful echo. He pulled out the card, looked back up, and froze.
He saw her phone, before he saw her.
Her glowing screen hovered in the thick of the willow’s overhang. And being captured in the bright rectangle was a video image of Matt Hunter’s house.
He trotted a little closer and whispered, ‘Hello?’
The rectangle vanished.
He parted the leaves like a curtain and found her standing under the tree, hidden mostly from view. A backpack was strewn by the trunk.
‘Erm … what are you doing?’ Sean asked.
She spun round, chest heaving, and her eyes started darting left and right, but not at him. She looked older. Fifties, maybe.
‘Why are you filming that house?’
She didn’t answer.
He glanced at the ground by the tree trunk, where crushed cans and crisp packets lay with two smashed cider bottles scattered in thick shards. ‘Are you homeless?’ he asked, though he knew she wasn’t. She was too clean. Too well dressed.
‘Don’t rape me,’ she said.
His jaw dropped. ‘What?’
‘Just let me go.’
He was mortified. ‘Hey, I was just passing …’ He was about to back away. ‘But wait … why are you filming Matt’s house?’
For the first time, her eyes locked on his and she bit her lip hard. Her chest started heaving with shallow breath. She was thinking, he could tell. When he stepped forward, she gasped in panic. Then the glow of the phone dropped from her hand and bounced face up on the grass. They almost smacked heads reaching for it, but Sean was fast with these things. Always quick on the buzzer. He grabbed it and quickly backed away, flicking through her phone, a cheap throwaway thing. He saw photos under his thumb, of not just the house, but of Matt standing shirtless at a bedroom window. Then Matt downstairs in his kitchen, eating a bowl of cereal. Then Matt coming out of the Jolly Sportsman pub, chatting to him only hours before.
‘What the frig?’ Sean looked up. ‘Why are you spying on him?’
‘Why are you spying on him?’ she said.
‘I’m not. I’m his friend.’
‘Who creeps behind his house at 1 a.m?’
‘Who are you?’
‘Give me the phone.’
Sean had an idea. He quickly raised hers high.
She frowned. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m showing this to him. I’m telling him you’re taking photographs …’
‘Don’t.’
‘He should see this.’
‘No!’ Then a slowing of her voice. A tilt of her head, and after a long moment, a change of response. ‘Of course …’ she spoke very quietly. ‘You should take it to him … That’s the right thing to do.’ She started crying.
‘Hey …’ He walked towards her. ‘What’s going on?’
‘I need his help,’ she whispered. ‘I really need his help … I’m so sorry …’
She leant against the tree, her shoulders quaking, eyes still bouncing. She kept whispering.
‘I’m sorry, I can’t hear you.’ He stepped closer still, his feet still unsteady from the drink.
‘Help me, please,’ she put out a trembling hand.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Everyone’s so hollow …’
Her cold white hand slipped into his and she tugged him closer. He was utterly confused, and yet her weeping resonated with him. Her comment did, too. So when she guided his drunk footsteps to the tree, he let her.
‘How about we go and see Matt together?’
‘That’d be nice.’
‘And what’s your n
ame?’
‘I’m Miriam. But my friends … they call me Hope.’
‘That’s a beautiful name.’
She started pulling his sleeve up.
‘Wait … what are you—’
‘You can call me Hope if you like.’ She slammed his arm hard against the tree, palm open.
He got the first two letters of the name out.
He shouted ‘Mat—’ but the ‘thew’ part was sucked into a strange, jerking gasp. He looked down and saw something utterly bizarre. A dark seam was magically opening in his wrist. It looked so unreal, so fake, that all he could do was stare at the pulsing slit in shock. Then, he felt her finger plunge inside and the sensation of thin threads being pulled taut and far from his hand. The threads snapped, and now his hand was fully warm. He went to scream, but she caught his roar in a pressed palm. God, she was strong. Amazingly so. He heard a dull thud on the grass as the broken bottle fell from her hand. Which was the moment she finally spoke, ‘This’ll be a better way for you. You’ll see. Much better than falling up.’
He screamed against her hand again, his mind a firework of confused agony. He raised his knee to slam her in the guts, but he’d lost all working relationships with his legs. There was no way of standing on them, never mind lifting them. This, he realised, was why the bark of the trunk was scraping up his spine.
Course the tree isn’t growing, ya fool. You’re sinking.