Blurred Lines: A box-set of reality bending supernatural fiction (Paranormal Tales from Wales Book 9)

by Michael Christopher Carter

The now familiar faintness floods my body, buckling my knees. Thoughts fail my mind just as I’m about to make a breakthrough, but something is stopping me. Someone is speaking to me and I am confused. Where are they? I can’t see them. I flinch when my arm is grabbed and I’m shaken awake.

  “Are you okay, darling?” and then the sound of laughter. I rise with a jolt, choking on my own sputum, confronted by the soft eyes and full lips of Uma, and beyond her, my class, who must have come in while I was asleep and sat and watched me.

  “You’ve been having a bad dream, sweetie.” A hushed giggling works round the room at Uma’s tender words. Some of the class may think it’s her foreign ways: using inappropriate vocabulary to express innocent intentions. The more mature amongst them, or perhaps the more astute, are fully aware of the situation between us.

  “Thank you, Mrs Taylor,” I say, pushing myself up from my chair. “Do excuse me, class. I need to fetch a drink of water.”

  I stumble, head full of sleep, towards the door, almost tripping over my own feet in my attempt to appear wide-awake. Making a self-conscious recovery, I flash a smile but meet no-one’s eye.

  I stagger just a few steps from my classroom door, before slumping with a thud against the cold wall. Leaning, back flat, legs supporting my weight at thirty degrees like half an upside-down Y, I sigh.

  “Come on, Eliot Armstrong,” I hiss under my breath. “Pull yourself together!”

  Slapping my palms at my side, I push myself up and stride with new purpose to the staffroom. Selecting my ‘World’s Best Teacher’ mug from the cupboard filled with many other similar sentiment offerings belonging to my colleagues, I rinse it under a gushing flow of water.

  It’s already clean, but mixing with all the other cups makes it seem slightly grubby to me. I almost feel I should have my own cupboard set aside.

  Spooning two heaped, fully caffeinated, mounds into the mug, I turn and fill the kettle in a daze of self-excusing and moderately motivating mantras designed to perk me up.

  I expected Mrs Taylor to supervise the students while I drink my much-needed caffeine fix, but when I turn off the tap, she’s right there.

  “Are you alright, Eliot? You don’t seem yourself at all,” she coos, stroking my arm with long, red fingernails which finish her slender, brown fingers beautifully, leading my eye from her hand to her bronzed, shapely forearm and fleshy yet toned upper arms; and that cleavage again. Stop it! I command myself.

  “I’m fine. Now if you’ll excuse me,” I say curtly. Pushing past her, I add for good measure, “I have to get back to my class.”

  I don’t look back, but I sense her amused expression, her eyes boring into me as I leave the room. I haven’t fooled her for a second.

  Chapter Four

  I go into the pub again. It hadn’t been my intention, but I couldn’t face going home. What’s wrong with me at the moment? Shrugging, I know Imogen’s understanding patience will only serve to make me feel worse.

  Jess can wrap me around her little finger. A two pronged probing from the pair of them would be unbearable. I shudder as I realise I have nothing to hide, no reason I should worry about what they might ask me. Apart from Uma. I wouldn’t want to answer questions about her.

  I begin with scotch on the rocks having already handed my car keys to the landlord because I know I won’t be driving home tonight. As I drink, I try to identify what’s bothering me. Tiredness? Oversleeping is a symptom, not a cause. And I don’t believe all the other crap can be attributed to lack of sleep, despite my confidence in that hypothesis earlier.

  With a gulp of too much whiskey, my eyes water and I splutter. Smiling my assurances to the concerned landlord that I’m not choking to death, I cough a few more times. My attempts to put the tumbler to rest on the table mat in front of me leaves it oddly askew.

  Sitting there, unstable, drained of its contents but for worthless dregs in the bottom, it’s a metaphor for my mood. Snatching it in an overly firm grasp, I gulp the droplet of fiery liquid and fight the urge to crush it in my hand or throw it at the wall.

  Instead, I place it with the tender care of a new father to his first-born child in the exact centre of the mat, and sigh. I am alarmed at my pricking eyes. Batting tears away, I bark an order to fill my glass and keep them coming. I then slump back in my chair, satisfied my wallowing self-pity won’t go unlubricated.

  What’s wrong becomes more and more clear. As my fretting flits from one of my failings to another, like an ordinarily flightless insect caught on the Trade Winds of woe circling my mind, I understand I may be revisiting my mid-life crisis. It’s snuck up on me. Using the six years since I turned forty to evolve and come back stronger.

  The whiskey loosens my tongue. I find I’m talking at length about myself which is not like me.

  “She’s always been a wonderful wife. Pretty rather than sexy; but I always knew how to bring the tiger out of her—if you know what I mean!” We share a lad-like chuckle as he clearly does know what I mean. He isn’t a moron, and unlike me he’s completely sober.

  “I’m a kept man,” I slur. “Her dad, who’s rich, seemed reluctant to give me her hand. He had wanted more for her than a lowly teacher. But what’s wrong with teachers? I thought we were a respected profession.

  ‘But Daddy,’ she persuaded. ‘Don’t deny Eliot his vocation.’ Which is a fucking lie. I only became a teacher for the holidays. But they’re over before they’ve begun. And it’s a lot harder work than everyone thinks; than I thought.”

  The landlord snorts in disbelief.

  “No, seriously. It’s hard,” I say. “Anyway. After I convinced ‘Daddy dearest’ of my lifelong desire to help children and bring the best out of them, he conceded.

  “They paid for everything. A super-extravagant wedding in Hanbury Manor—Gazza got married there. It’s really posh; beautiful place. My family aren’t exactly hard-up, but we felt like the poor relations amongst the doctors and professors and big business owners.”

  Throwing back the latest whiskey I indicate I’d like another. “And that’s where it started. Imogen’s career moved on rapidly, and what she couldn’t afford to provide us, ‘Daddy’ paid for. We even holidayed on his yacht with him for fuck sake. I could never get away from him and his suffocating wife.”

  I miss the raised eyebrows and the little shake of the landlord’s head in a ‘my heart bleeds for you’ way, and carry on with my tale of woe. “My wages were just my pocket money. I haven’t done anything with them though. No property portfolio. No business deals. A few badly performing stocks and shares. Even my car is in Imogen’s name.

  I don’t manage to bore on any further because last orders have been called and I seem to have nodded off sometime beforehand. I hear my name and someone is shaking my arm.

  I’m bundled into a cab and dropped unceremoniously back at home. Air rushing up the hill sobers me up enough to make a reasonable entrance to the house. Again I’m alone. There isn’t even a note tonight.

  Melancholy smacks me in the face as I wonder what I am doing to my life. It should be great. I live in an impressive, detached house, in a sought-after area with a beautiful, successful wife. Even my teenage daughter is polite and respectful. What more do I want?

  I sneak into bed and stare at Imogen’s back, desperately wanting to reach out and hold her, but knowing she must be really pissed off with me. A boozy-breathed fumble won’t improve matters.

  I will not go to the pub tomorrow. I don’t even understand why it suddenly has such appeal in the first place. Going to pubs has always been something I’ve done with Imogen, and often with Jess too; although she does do more of her own thing now. We probably won’t see her at all when she turns seventeen and Grandad buys her a Mercedes convertible or something.

  We’d often call into a pub on the way to places: Devon or Cornwall, or The Lakes, and combine it with lunch and intelligent conversation. Imogen would struggle to recognise the drunken buffoon I have become. She’d demand answers, and right
now, I don’t know what those answers are.

  I drift out of my thoughts straight into a dream—the dream. It begins as it did last time: a feeling of satisfaction and well-being as I caress the Mercedes emblem on the steering wheel.

  It’s like there are two of me. The self-satisfied me, taking pleasure from driving, blissfully unaware of what’s to come; and the me watching that happen, ever-more terrified of the traumatic inevitability.

  Still unsure if I’m merely witness to an accident or whether I’m involved; once again, I miss what happens and suddenly I’m standing in the road, confused.

  It’s a country lane, I notice this time. No gawking rubber-neckers; only me—the detached me, and the terrified me, encompassed in one trembling body.

  Again, a small area is all that’s clearly visible: the tiny patch containing the broken debris. Dread drains my face of colour as I recall the sickly pool of blood. My eyes flit to where I’d seen it, but in its place lies scattered shards of glass.

  Flitting, desperate to decipher the darkness, my eyes fall on something in the near distance. My heart gives a violent beat, as though it’s been saving my blood for the last few minutes in preparation for this moment, and explodes the balloon of haemoglobin through my veins, like a snake taking its final gulp of some oversized prey.

  The sudden rush spins my head, and I’m pitching forwards. With a determined stomp of my foot, I regain enough stability to remain upright, and I squint in disbelief at what I see.

  I force my other foot to meet the first and I am walking, with huge effort, towards a female figure lying lifeless mere metres from me.

  I throw my legs forward in ever-growing frustration; because, despite determined strides, and my feet making painfully hard contact with the uneven terrain, I’m gaining no ground.

  Lunging fingers fade in the manila mist of my waning comprehension, and the image crumples in my grasp.

  “No!” I yell, desperate to get to her. But before I make any headway, I’m dragged from my nightmare by the awful buzzing noise again.

  Chapter Five

  Opening one eye, the other trailing behind like a chaotic sibling, I sigh, alone; which must mean I’m late again. That isn’t such a surprise, because every time I come to bed drunk, I neglect to adjust the time of the alarm. I’ll do it now, then at least tomorrow I’ll be early.

  I stare at the clock but can’t make sense of the time. The numbers blur and merge into one another. I must avoid the pub tonight. And grudgingly consider that perhaps an eye test might be a good idea. Glasses; just what my fragile ego needs.

  I am surprised, when I get downstairs, to see Jess at the table spooning cereal into her mouth with one hand, and texting, or checking Facebook or Twitter or whatever with the other.

  “Morning, Father,” she says over-formerly. “Can you give me a lift in today, as you’re up in time for a change?”

  I don’t know how I’ve managed it, perhaps Imogen adjusted my alarm. Yes. She must have. I agree to Jess’s request. It is my usual responsibility and I enjoy her company. But then I remember the car.

  “Oh, no. Sorry, honey. My car’s at the pub. I, er, got a cab back.”

  “Fine,” Imogen’s voice announces from where she had been unseen in the conservatory. “I’ll do it and be late for practice, again.” She sounds cross, but not as cross as I deserve. “What is it with you and the bloody pub all of a sudden?”

  “Sorry,” I say. “I don’t know. Sorry,” I say again. “I promise I’ll come straight home tonight.” She beams at me. A full smile with no hint of a hidden agenda, and it wounds me. The guilt wounds me.

  They both receive a kiss on the cheek warmly as I bid them adieu and hurry from the house, buttoning my jacket against the wind channelling its force up the hill.

  Imogen offered me a lift, but I declined, saying it would make her even later, but as I struggle against the steep decline of Scott’s Road, I regret not accepting her kindness. And, there’s a good chance I’ll be late again (albeit considerably better than recent days!)

  A lightness has returned to my step at having seen them both, though (despite my crushed toes.)

  The steepness makes for swift progress and I’m soon back at the pub; back in the safe-haven of my car. I sit for a moment, giving myself time to take a few deep breaths and relax. I won’t do this anymore, I promise myself. And I mean it.

  Driving in the morning traffic which is never too heavy in this small town, I allow myself to get lost in the radio. One of my favourite songs, Don’t look back in anger, is playing. Twisting the volume knob to loud, I risk embarrassment and sing along.

  Pulling into the school car park early enough to walk in with the stragglers, I stroll in casually.

  “Come on, you two,” I bark at a couple of Goth lads hanging around on the front steps. I couldn’t care less that they’re late, but it makes me look good: excuses my own tardiness.

  I tut and arch my eyebrows jovially to Alix as she buzzes the three of us in, in pretence at the teacher-ly duties I have just had to perform.

  Walking into class I am, for the first time in days, on time to take the register.

  “Good morning, sir,” a grinning, prepubescent face greets me. In response to my smiling reply, the rest of the class chuckles. They are genuinely pleased to observe me more my usual self.

  The bell signals first lesson and my registration group leave to go to their time-tabled classes. An A-Level History unit files quietly in and sits down, a small group of eight. After breaking the ice with the latest jokes doing the rounds, we enjoy a good time discussing the ins and outs of the English Civil War.

  The subject brings me to life. While teaching wasn’t a choice for all the right reasons, I obviously chose to study History because it interests me. And this group of students’ shares my enthusiasm.

  When the bell rings, signalling break time, I don’t suffer the need to keep to myself as I have done lately, and make my way to the staffroom to enjoy a coffee in the company of my colleagues. I walk into a lively conversation of good humour between several of the Geography department.

  Fetching a coffee, I offer my tea-boy services to the rest of the room, thankful I’ve judged correctly that they already have drinks. Joining them on one of the softer chairs, I lean back, crossing my long legs at the ankles.

  “You’re looking good today,” Mr Jones (mathematics) declares before moderating his description, “Well, I mean, you’re looking well.” His face flushes with embarrassment.

  “Thanks, Jonesy,” I say to sound friendly. I’ve momentarily forgotten his first name. It happens most times I see him. In my head he is Ryan, but I think it might be Liam. I always get it wrong. He knows it, but is far too in awe of me to mention it. Instead he smiles at my friendly adjustment of his surname. He’ll be Jonesy from now on.

  Smiling at the easy flow of conversation, adding my own witticisms or respected comments as appropriate, I glance up as the door opens, and more staff join the party atmosphere.

  More comments at how well I’m looking roll my way. I nod in gratitude, returning the compliments whenever I can, but I am thoughtful. It must be true. Some of the improvement can of course be attributed to rigorous personal grooming, but I am thankful that the troubles of the past days appear to be lessening.

  My demeanour must be showing in my appearance. The lesson is clear. Whatever problems I think I have, avoiding the loving bosom of my family is a mistake. If seeing Imogen and Jess this morning, even for a few short moments, has had such a beneficial effect, the snarling Saracen has no chance.

  I’m nodding along to the conversation. Laughter breaks out and I join in, but the door is dragging my eyes away. My head drifts back again as I detect a change in conversation.

  All eyes are on me, arched eyebrows combine with pursed smiles to portray varying degrees of perplexity.

  “Have you been you listening, Eliot?”

  “Yes, yes. Of course,” I lie, and then seeing the expectant faces surr
ounding mine, I wonder why I’m bothering and come clean. “Actually, no. Sorry!”

  My boyish grin elicits its usual forgiveness and the cheery chat continues without me, leaving my eyes free to probe the door with only occasional nods back to my colleagues to pretend to share a joke.

  It takes a while for my naivety to acknowledge who I’m even looking for. But Mrs Taylor is conspicuous in her absence. Heat flushes my face, my eyes flick back to the group to see if they’ve noticed.

  In between thoughts conceding to disappointment that she’s not here, and a conciliatory mantra of it being a good job too, my mind wanders.

  Staring at the doorway, my eyes lose focus and I am daydreaming, musing on the first time I saw her:

  When she approached her car it was a heady sight. I hadn’t expected a woman. Sexist of me, I know. And foolish, given Imogen’s superior status to mine.

  And not just any woman, but a blonde, curvy, voluptuous woman. There was an instant undeniable attraction, and when I heard her accent (an indiscriminate Eastern-European inflexion), I was smitten. Not that it was the most attractive accent I had ever heard, but combined with her deep tan, it seemed very exotic.

  “Mine looks like a baby next to yours,” I say as I unlock my Mercedes.

  “Size isn’t everything, darling,” she says with a wink. And as her own car blips into life, lights flashing to indicate it unlocking, she adds, “But I suppose it doesn’t hurt.”

  Seeing me floundering she laughs. “Don’t worry, darling. Only a man concerned with such things gets the big car. You are obviously completely comfortable with size.”

  “I’ve never had any complaints,” I say, cringing at the corniness.

  “I bet you haven’t,” she smoulders, slinking behind the tinted glass of the interior. An electric window whirs down, and a perfectly manicured hand, accentuated with expensive looking gold jewellery, waves at me.

  “See you tomorrow, darling,” she calls out, before driving off.