by Trevor Veale
“Last time you came here you said that,” she said, taking another drag.
“Yeah,” he said ruefully. “Well, things didn’t quite work out.”
“No, they never do,” she said, the effect of the dope kicking in. “You’re driving me nuts!” she lifted her hands for him to see. “See? I’m going crackers!”
“What can I say?” he mumbled. “How can I make it plain?”
She shook her head, trying to clear it.
“What you have to understand,” he said carefully, putting the joint in the ashtray, “”is this… all those nice presents I been giving you and Craig come from my work. It’s the only way I can make any decent money in this country, the state we’re in.”
He picked up the joint for one more toke. “You gotta let me go on a little bit longer, Shaz. It’s the only work that pays halfway decent money!”
“Well, there’s other work you can get if you’ll only listen to what I’m telling you.”
“What, you mean political stuff like smuggling the royals across the border? That’s dynamite, my girl – ”
He made an effort to approach her, but she fended him off.
“You can help me outta this shit, you know. Women are stronger than men,”
“Not in this family,” she said. “In my family the women just collude and the men drink their sorry asses into the grave. That’s the tradition, if you want to know. My mother died young, God bless her, and left me to stay and look after my dad. But I’m not going to stay and look after another drunk – or a dumbass drug runner. So you better sort yourself out if you wanna live with me.”
She took another sip of the brandy. When this glass is empty, she thought, I’ll pour another till the bottle’s dry. Simpkins was stubbing out the joint. He looked completely helpless.
“Well, I wanna live with you, Shaz, I really do…”
“I want you to go straight,” she said.
“Sorry,” he said. “I’ll do anything you want me to, Shaz.”
Sharon sipped her brandy. He’s had a drink, he’s had a smoke, she thought. Now it’s time he had a fuck – and me, too. “You better be serious,” she said.
“I am. Truly.”
“Then prove it by doing that job I asked you to do – next Thursday. It’s only a short drive to the Bulimian border.”
“It’ll be the last time I drive anybody up there!”
She sighed in exasperation. “Once will be enough, trust me.”
He nodded his head in agreement. She finished her glass, but did not pour another.
“Come on, lover boy, let’s go to bed,” she said.
Chapter 40
Institutional Life
Godfrey looked out the barred window. Darkness had come without his knowing it. Another fruitless day had passed. The one highlight – using the word loosely – had been the strange visit of Archbishop Lesot. He had come, he said, because the priest who paid weekly visits to the home was indisposed, which Godfrey thought was extraordinary. Why would an archbishop come in place of a priest? The archbishop was less drunk than usual, but – to Godfrey’s gratification – he quickly remedied the situation. He had brought along his hip flask of cognac under his soutane, and he and Godfrey liberally laced their tea.
Lesot looked very sick, and when he replaced his teacup on the saucer, Godfrey could see the pink expanse of scalp blotched with unhealthy brown patches. After the old churchman had shuffled off, leaving him with a bundle of magazines, Godfrey was approached by Anton in the lounge.
“What kind of mags you got, Dad?” he said, eager for some fresh reading material.
“Church magazines, a present from the old archbishop. He came to see me today.” Godfrey placed the magazines on a coffee table and sat down.
“Church magazines? Pants! Sure you didn’t get any girlie ones?” Anton reached for the magazines and grabbed one, flipping through its pages with a look of disappointment. Suddenly a piece of folded paper sailed to the floor.
Godfrey noticed it before Anton did. There were black letters on it which he could read without bending down: DO NOT BE SEEN WITH THIS.
He scooped it up and, without saying anything to Anton, read the few brief lines of writing inside the folds: ‘Visit Bart the maintenance man in his shed at 4 p.m. Tuesday’.
He read it again. He had to be sure the letter was genuine. It looked like the archbishop’s handwriting, but he didn’t want to misconstrue the message.
“What you got there, Pops?” Anton had finished flicking through the magazine.
“Nothing – just a piece of tissue. I need to blow my nose!” Godfrey said quickly. He put the paper close to his nostrils and blew. Then he scrunched it up and put it in his pocket.
“Why don’t you use the waste basket?” Anton asked.
“Hygiene!” Godfrey replied mysteriously, and clumped upstairs. When he got to their room, he flopped onto the bed. His stomach and bladder continued to be a source of pain and he wished he hadn’t drunk the tea, which was lukewarm and tasted metallic, but had taken the cognac straight. Letitia was bustling about in the room.
“How was the archbishop?” she asked.
“Worse than I’ve ever seen him – I don’t know why he came. Brought some nice liquor with him, though. Oh, by the way, he left some magazines for us and out of one of them dropped this – “ He retrieved the crumpled paper from his pocket and gave it to her.
“Ugh! Looks like somebody blew his nose in it!” she said, smoothing out the note. She gave a start. “Did you read this?”
“Yes, and I don’t know what to make of it.” Godfrey remained skeptical.
“Oh, Godfrey, this is our chance!” she cried. “You can’t believe how much I’ve prayed for a way for us to get out of this hellhole. I’ve dreamed of it since they brought us here. And now a way has opened up – and we’ve got the handyman on our side!”
“You go to Bart if you want to,” he said. “I’m keeping out of this – it may be a trap.”
He took the note from her eager hands and pulped it in his glass of water. Then he drained the glass.
“That’s awfully brave of you, dear,” she said, “considering the state of your digestion.”
He nodded his agreement and belched.
At five to four on Tuesday, Letitia jumped to her feet in the dining hall, while the others sat sipping their afternoon tea, and announced: “I’m just going out for a little while, to speak to Bart. He’s repairing a doodad for me.”
She found Bart in his shed, surrounded by tools, junk, and plastic trash bags. He was poring over the crossword puzzle in the Bugle. At Letitia’s approach, he roused himself from his deliberations and stood to greet her.
“Oh, don’t get up,” she trilled, pleased beyond measure that at last one of the staff was showing her some respect, treating her like a queen, “I think you know why I’m here.”
Catheter woke up early with a splitting headache and padded across the room he shared with his brother. Anton was lying in an untidy heap with his face buried in the pillow. Despite the autumn chill, the room was fetid and stuffy.
“Get up, it’s nearly time for breakfast!” Catheter said sharply.
“Fuck off!” Anton mumbled, trying to ward off the daylight like a stricken vampire.
“Get up!”
Catheter’s tone became firmer. Borrowed from his father, it was the voice he intended to use when he became king.
“What the fuck! Oh, all right! Let me wash my face…” Anton got up, shook his head a couple of times and went outside to the communal bathroom. While urinating, he inclined his head to examine his face in the mirror. He thought he’d seen the last of acne when he got into his twenties, but ugly sores encrusted his chin and upper neck. His whole face was beginning to display the ravages of a dissipated youth. After splashing some water on it, he came and sprawled on the bed, his eyes closed. ”You’d better start getting dressed,” Catheter said, looking pained. “Dad’ll be chewing his tits off other
wise.”
Anton laughed, a simple uninhibited guffaw. “Where’d you pick up an expression like that?” he said.
“It’s an old Mellorian saying: the son who causes his father to chew off his tits shall be cursed unto the third generation.”
“You’re fucking weird!”
Anton turned over onto his stomach and farted. He pushed his face back in the pillow. He’d been up playing Monopoly with Catheter, Balthazar and Jeff, the friendly People’s Party guard, but unlike the others he had spent several more hours listening to his iPod.
Catheter shrugged and went to the bathroom. Unlike Anton, who seemed to take it lightly, for him the incarceration was a source of deep torment, and he ached with acute frustration and thwarted desire. Days and nights had stretched interminably ahead, bleak and empty, until he learned of the escape plan from his mother. Then he began thinking of Lucinda with renewed hope and optimism, although he still throbbed with unfulfilled lust. Owing to the shared bedroom and the communal nature of the bathroom, he was even denied the comfort of masturbation.
As he looked at his haggard expression in the mirror, an image of Lucinda’s body came vividly back to him. He thought back to the last evening they’d spent together and began to feel fuzzily amorous. Get a grip! He thought. The sudden intrusion of one of his mother’s favorite expressions into his thoughts made him stop. He began splashing water onto his face.
A sharp knock at the bathroom door and his father’s voice: “Are you going to be all day?” brought him back. He didn’t answer, just kept looking at himself in the mirror. Not a bad face, he thought. A little hangdog perhaps, and balding slightly at the temples – which struck him as being grossly unfair, since he was only thirty-seven. Still, it was a family characteristic - his father’s hairline was receding – and genes were genes. A few minutes later, his father’s voice bellowed again, and he made an unpleasant face at himself in the mirror.
Back in his shared room, Catheter found it difficult to keep his temper. Anton’s laziness and the reek from his farts were getting on his nerves.
“Are you getting up for breakfast or not?” he said, frowning.
“Not,” Anton said, his voice muffled by the pillow. “Well, I’ve tried my best,” Catheter said to himself.
“All right now, get ready and come to breakfast!” Catheter repeated. “You can’t keep the family waiting.”
Anton lifted his right hand and made a gesture which Catheter interpreted as vulgar.
He frowned again. “You really are the limit,” he said.
“Go fuck yourself – you’re a wanker!”
“I beg to differ,” Catheter said ruefully. “Oh-oh, here comes the care attendant! I’ll see you downstairs in a few minutes.”
Chapter 41
Escape Into the Night
The first part of the escape plan involved Lucinda, who got up from her bed when the round white clock on her nightstand glowed three-thirty. The shafts of moonlight on the pitch pine floor guided her to the half-open door. She didn’t switch on any lights, just went downstairs and into the kitchen in her riding boots. Thinking Catheter and Anton would get hungry on their long journey, she used an entire pack of luncheon meat and a whole loaf of white bread for sandwiches.
Outside she packed the sandwiches and a thermos of water into the saddlebag of her mare and tied the gelding’s reins to her saddle. Then she rode the two horses toward West Gorm Road. When she reached the perimeter of the big house, she stopped to cut the chain-link fence to enable herself and the horses to walk through. She reached the side of the building without incident and stood on the mare’s back. Thus she was able to reach up to the windowsill of the room Catheter and Anton shared and run her hands over the sill. She had been told that the bars would be hacksawed through, needing only a tug to dislodge them. Then she opened the window and climbed inside.
The two blanketed figures twisted in their sleep in the dark. She recognized Catheter at once – he was lying naked under the blanket and the feeling of desire began tingling her. Keeping her thighs squeezed tight, she leaned over Catheter’s bed..
“Wake up, Poopsy,” she whispered, “It’s time to get out of here.”
He gave a whistle and a snort, then rolled over onto his other side.
“Psst!” she said, blowing in his ear. “It’s me – Lollipop. You’ve got to get up!”
“Lollipop?” With startled recognition, through sleep-smeared eyes, he saw her face peering down. He gave a whinny of surprise.
She clamped one hand over his mouth, and with the other massaged the back of his head. “Relax, Poopsy,” she said. “You mustn’t make the least bit of noise or they’ll hear us.”
She waited till he raised his head and fully opened his eyes. “Let’s go,” she whispered.
She stood listening near the door while he stumbled out of bed and woke up Anton. The brothers wriggled into their clothes, then a backpack was hoisted onto Anton. By turns they climbed out the open window, lowered themselves onto the patient mounts, Cather and Anton on the gelding, and sank into their saddles.
In the room she shared with her husband, Letitia remained awake and waiting. She knew she must sit up all night or she would drop off to sleep and miss the opportune moment. To keep herself awake, she tried watching the lit face of the clock. One, one-fifteen, one-thirty. At four we begin our plan of action, she told herself. She looked at Godfrey. He slept with his pillow in his arms. The bed creaked as she shifted around to get more comfortable during her vigil.
She started having half-dreams involving antique dressers with china cats and dogs on them, and pictures of Godfrey’s ancestors in their gilt frames swam up at her.
She suddenly snapped awake, realizing it was four, and got out of bed. She woke Godfrey and they packed and dressed in silence. Finally they slipped out, clicking shut the door, and tiptoed down the corridor. At that moment, Letitia had calculated, the two guards who habitually met up under her window were conversing in the courtyard. In another five minutes one of them would be patrolling the corridor. She led Godfrey down the dimly-lit corridor which ended in a stairwell. The door to the service stairs was directly ahead. She was just able to pull it open when they heard the clatter of running feet inside the building. The sound died down and she took a chance and opened the door a crack. She glimpsed black-uniformed backs vanishing down the stairs. The guards were hurrying to reach the floor below where one of the inmates (Balthazar) was making a crashing noise with a hammer.
With time on a needle’s edge, Letitia took the bold step of following the guards and leading Godfrey, huffing and puffing with their bags, to the exit. The guards were shouting curses at each other as they stumbled down the stairs in their yellow boots. The royal pair scurried down behind them, keeping a safe distance, and stopped when the guards burst through the emergency door of the floor below. Then they carried on down to the ground floor.
Letitia pushed the steel bar of the emergency exit door and they stumbled outside. The courtyard was empty, the patrol guard was around the other side of the building and Letitia felt the night wind like satin on her face. She took a deep breath. So this was what freedom felt like. She felt she was being kissed by the soft autumn night.
They trudged up the gravel path, shadows from the ornamental shrubbery covering them, and reached the edge of the compound. Bart had cut the chain-link fence, leaving a gaping hole through which they both stepped. Then it was a short walk to the highway and the waiting Mercedes.
Simpkins was slicing himself a lump of Saint resin with a silver-handled pocketknife. He kept a block of it in his pouch and was sawing it when he spotted the royal escapees approaching. He quickly shoved the cut-off piece in his mouth, savoring the taste. He wouldn’t be able to smoke for the next hour – the queen would have a fit – but reasoned that if he ate some now the journey would seem more bearable.
He swallowed his lump of resin and greeted the royals with appropriate protocol when they climbed into the car. He
then stowed their bags into the trunk and moved his pouch off the front seat.
“Simpkins, roll down my window and watch the road signs!” Letitia’s imperious tone made it feel just like old times.
They set off smoothly and everyone felt a sense of relief. The fear and tension that had accompanied them began to fade, to be replaced by creeping fatigue. They had all stayed awake too long, waiting for this moment. Now all the passengers wanted to do was lean back their heads and sleep.
As they rolled on toward the border, the moon came out from behind a bank of cloud and the landscape brightened. Tall trees swept by on either side and white lines down the center of the road glowed at intervals. Simpkins straightened in his seat and fought off a yawn. He glanced at the dashboard clock. It was nearly 4.30. We should reach the border in half an hour, he thought, and then I can relax. He was dying for a smoke. Whenever he noticed himself slumping , he straightened his back again and felt better for a while. Then tiredness crept back into his eyes which stung and watered. He took a sidelong glance at the queen, who was sleeping, her lips slightly parted, her head leaned back on the seatrest. Godfrey was also dozing.
I’ll have a smoke as soon as I’ve dropped them off, he thought. The Bulimians don’t mind you carrying a bag of blow – they’re not uptight like our lot. He thought of Sharon, and of the promise he’d made to her that he wouldn’t fuck this job up. I know it’d be a damn sight easier to keep it if I could have a smoke, he told himself.
Thy drove past a crossroad that Simpkins knew well and a sign promised they would reach the Bulimian border in 45 km. Simpkins yawned. His thinking of his new life with Sharon and the familiarity of the route relaxed him, and he started to drive more from habit than alertness. Wisps of fog were forming and blue-gray night began to soften into dawn. The road began unfurling in a gentle white mist and Simpkins found the foggy half-light disorienting. The insubstantial white billows whirled like giant swirls of cotton candy in the headlight beams and he tightened his grip on the wheel, letting the force of habit guide his direction.