The Garden of Remembrance
Page 13
‘Bet you don’t show that one to the neighbours,’ she mocked and walked forward to kiss me on the mouth, her tongue shoving rudely between my lips and running over my teeth. I dropped the camera for a second time as she unzipped me and slipped her hand inside my jeans, gripping the already hard shaft of my penis. Her other hand took my own and folded it over her left breast. It felt so small and childlike in my hand that I momentarily pictured Denise lying in her hospital bed. The thought confused me for a moment, before shattering apart as Alison licked the outside of my mouth. She had undone my belt and she yanked my jeans halfway down my thighs. Then both hands were upon me, one returning to its slow rubbing, the other cupping my balls. Her thumb made circles on the tip of my cock which was already slick with clear seminal fluid. I roughly hauled at Alison’s own jeans, managing to get them over the neat swell of her hips. It was enough. Looking down I could see her light brushing of pubic hair. It was so sparse the lips of her sex were clearly visible. I reached out with my hand, but Alison stopped me.
‘No. Like this,’ she said, her voice made husky with her own excitement.
Then she was pulling me towards the rock, my half mast jeans almost making me stumble on the loose shale. I watched bemused as Alison assumed an almost identical stance to the one I had taken earlier on that morning. With her face against the rough stone she reached her arms as far as they would go around its girth. Dimly I realised that it was the rock she wanted to fuck, not me. This should have hurt but I found I didn’t care. Walking up behind her I yanked her jeans and underwear all the way down to her ankles and she smiled as she thrust her pale, freckled buttocks towards me.
Around me the fog seemed to be whispering formless words that dissipated before I could comprehend them. I felt charged in a way I had never felt before. I was drunk with lust. It had an intensity about it that previously only existed in fantasies, or those half asleep moments in the middle of the night when you fall from a dream desperate for release. I used the soft cleft of Alison’s backside as a slipway to guide myself home. The head of my cock was so engorged it looked black in the grey murky light. I felt it run over the tiny puckered hole of her anus before settling on the warm opening I intended to penetrate. My sense of smell had become magnified like an animal’s. The combination of the fog and Alison’s own musk assaulted me in waves. It was like I’d always imagined inhaling opium to be. There was something else however, another perfume beneath the surface, a half familiar odour which held the dark scent of earth and heavy metals.
Slowly, so as to prolong the moment, I pushed myself into the girl and found the way blocked. Suddenly I knew the girl had been lying about losing her virginity down here beside the rock. I was the one chosen to champion her. I remembered the ritual of rupturing of Teri’s hymen. I had been gentle and appreciative of her discomfort, applying a rhythmic dull pressure to bear upon her. With this girl it would be one sharp thrust.
Alison suddenly pulled away and fumbled between her legs with her hand. For a few seconds I thought she was trying to use her fingers against the thin barrier of skin barring my progress. ‘Shit! I completely forgot. I hope you’re not squeamish about a little blood.’
Her hand jerked at something and a small dark object landed on a nearby stone with a wet thwak. It was a bloodied Tampon. Now I knew what the mysterious odour had been. If I hadn’t been so feverish with lust I might have hesitated. Teri and I had never made love while she was menstruating. Although it was one of those subjects we never got round to openly discussing, we had come to an unspoken agreement that it was an unsavoury, unhygienic thing to do. My modified personae had no such scruples however and I buried myself deep in the girl who was once more hugging the rock in front of me. It was one of the sweetest moments of my entire life. It was like fucking a slick, wet furnace. I pulled out and then plunged back in again, harder this time. Alison yelped like a dog in pain but she was pushing at me with her backside as if hoping to impale herself upon my cock. I rode her like a satyr, working up a head of steam with every thrust.
On the seventh stroke I came unexpectedly. There was no warning, no tell tale feeling of heavy gravity before the belly seems to fill with warm lead. Going with the flow, I followed through with the thrust, grinding myself as far into Alison as I could. My vision was reduced to swirling grey streamers shot with red streaks. I dimly heard her cry out, no longer with passion but with real pain. I paid her no attention, I was listening to the sea. It was retreating, creeping down the sand and shale, and as it departed it stripped me of something. Something that had come in with the fog.
As the last of my semen leaked from my still twitching penis, the sea pulled the other thing from me like a long, silken thread. Alison’s protests were becoming louder and all at once I realised I was crushing her against the rock. I stood back, breathless and shaking. I was cold and disorientated. Alison turned to show me the livid grazes on her breasts. Her voice was indignant.
‘Couldn’t you tell you were hurting me you stupid arsehole!’
I stared at her blankly, getting my bearings. I felt like I’d been asleep for the past seven years and had awoken like a sleepwalker in a strange place. Some of the annoyance had gone from Alison’s face and she half turned back to the rock.
‘Come on, do it properly this time. Just don’t scrape my fucking tits off.’
As if sensing my lack of co-operation she glanced down at my already flaccid penis and a look of disbelief flitted across her features. She spoke as if she were whispering in church.
‘No! You can’t have! We were just started. Is that why you were squashing me......’ She trailed into silence staring at me as if I were a strange species of plant life.
I reached down and hauled up my jeans and underwear. It was an automatic gesture. I was horrified by what had transpired here this morning. The fog had addled my brains. I should have been in the flat, sleeping beside Teri, not half-raping a part time, teenage librarian on a deserted beach. The old man had tricked me.
I could still smell the metallic odour of blood emanating from the girl standing with her hands on her hips before me. Now it made me want to vomit. I reached down and picked up my jacket. Alison’s lips were drawn back in a bitter snarl.
‘That’s right, slink on home to your nice little wifey. I hope you can last more than ten fucking seconds when you stick your pathetic tiny prick up her. Or maybe she doesn’t get it all these days.’
I tried to push her voice away from me but it felt as though hundreds of little holes were being drilled into my skull, flooding my already throbbing brain with multiple pinpricks of burning white light. I couldn’t believe how stupid I had been. How uncaring. Guilt was smearing me with its waxy touch. I flinched as a gob of spittle landed on my cheek and I used the sleeve of my jacket to wipe it off as I walked away from the maddened girl behind me.
‘Hey, McVey! I forgot to tell you. I’ve got herpes! I hope you give it to your wife next time you fuck her.’
Her voice had become like a chipped diamond stylus scratching away between the black grooves of an old 78rpm record. It shamed me. I was crying and mumbling to myself. I had to make amends somehow to Teri and the girls. But first I had to get away from Alison McCulloch’s voice before it drove me insane. I felt suddenly dizzy and slipped on a wet rock, stumbling and twisting my ankle. Behind me the girl laughed loudly, a raucous cawing sound. I tried to push myself back but slipped again, my sense of balance not worth a shit. Small patches of my face went numb and I wondered if I was suffering a stroke. Alison’s laughter was becoming hysterical as I tried once more to upright myself. All the tiny rays of light in my head coalesced into one glowing white mass that expanded against the sides of my cranium. The laughing spiralled into the ultra sonic registers and the light inside my head flared like a hydrogen bomb. There was a brief stabbing sensation at the back of my skull and suddenly I was on my feet running.
I left without saying goodbye to the Spindle Rock.
CHAPTER 14
Once more I took the short cut through the graveyard and this time the dead beneath my feet were silent. I was beyond even their hollow contempt. I told myself that what had happened wasn’t my fault. It was the old man. He had drugged me with fog and brought the girl to seduce me. I used this justification to cloak myself with innocence. Then I saw myself sitting on the couch with Teri, rejecting her when she tried to reach out to me. I saw the barely concealed disgust on my face as Teri asked me to make love. The cloak tore into a million pieces.
It was finally becoming clear that the hidden me, the other Matt McVey hiding deep within my brain, might not be such a nice person after all. Maybe there was a good reason why I couldn’t remember things. Perhaps it was myself who had buried them in the first place. As I turned into Market Street I resolved to leave the Garden of Remembrance hidden and unexplored. It could lie untended and become a nettle infested wasteland for all I cared. The old man had used my own curiosity to nurture and water its beautiful but poisonous flower beds. Without my help it would wither and die.
As I approached the front door to the flat, I convinced myself it was not too late to make things good with Teri. I could still slip into bed beside her and give her the love and affection she deserved. When she awoke I would suggest we stayed in a hotel in Dundee to be nearer to Denise. We would move out of the flat that very afternoon. See how the old man liked that. While I fumbled for the flat keys in my jacket pocket, I noticed the occupant of the downstairs flat had left the curtains open slightly. I couldn’t resist pressing my face to the dirt smeared glass and peering through the narrow gap. I saw nothing however. Inside was too dark and gloomy to make out anything at all.
It was then that I remembered the camera. I had dropped it a second time when Alison had applied the full force of her charms and I had forgotten to pick it up. I slapped at my jacket pockets more in resignation than in any real hope of finding it and was amazed when my hand hit something hard and unyielding through the fabric of the jacket. Jamming my fingers into the pocket I pulled out the camera and stared at it in puzzlement. I honestly didn’t remember retrieving it, but my mind had been lost in its own maelstrom of confusion. I had probably picked up the camera without thinking about it. Looking at it, I doubted whether it would ever take pictures again. The plastic lens protector was still in the open position and a wide crack had split the lens in two like an elongated black iris.
I didn’t really care about the camera itself. I was just glad Alison McCulloch hadn’t got her spiteful hands on it. People who worked in libraries were good at finding things out. She would have most likely had the film developed and sent the picture of herself posing by the Spindle Rock to Teri. I would make sure Teri never saw the picture by ripping the film out and holding it up the brightest light I could find and then melting it under the grill. Shoving the camera back into my pocket I unlocked the front door.
I climbed the stairs quietly, not wanting to wake Teri or Alice. Once I was inside I made the bathroom my first stop. I badly needed a shower. Not only did I stink of cigarettes and fog, there was also the strong odour of sex and menstrual blood to wash away. I stripped quickly and slipped under the lukewarm shower. As I lathered up for a third time I noticed traces of blood beneath my finger nails. I wondered how it had got there. At no time had my fingers been inside the girl. I could remember how she had snatched hold of my hand the one time I attempted to touch her down there. Another puzzle for me to push to the back of my mind. It didn’t matter how the blood had come to be there, it was important only that I scrubbed it away.
At last I emerged from the shower shivering but cleansed. I felt as though I had also washed away all traces of the impostor from my subconscious. I loved my wife and children and would never do anything to hurt them. As quickly as I could I dried off, and wearing only my underpants I climbed the stairs to slip into bed beside Teri. I imagined pressing myself against her warm back, holding her tight. It was unlikely that she would ever know I had left the flat at all. I would make things right. I had to. Teri was my only hope of salvation.
Gently pushing open the bedroom door I got a nasty shock. Teri wasn’t there. The bed was made up neatly as if Teri had never slept in it. A quick check next door confirmed that Alice was gone too. I slowly walked back into the main bedroom and dressed in clean clothes. My head was spinning with confusion. Why had Teri left? Where had she gone?
A terrible thought drifted into my head. What if Denise’s condition had worsened and the hospital had sent for us. What would Teri have thought when she discovered that I had gone out? I ran back down the stairs hoping to find a note. Anything to tell me why an exhausted woman had dragged herself and our five year old daughter out of bed to walk the foggy streets. Halfway down the stairs another thought punched almost as hard as the first one. What if Teri had gone looking for me. I could see her pulling Alice behind her as they trudged along the mist enshrouded pavements. They wouldn’t be safe in the fog. The old man could be leading them into any kind of danger. He might take them to Kinburn Park. Fear dealt me a brutal blow as I pictured a grim faced policeman telling me Teri and Alice had been found murdered in the Garden of Remembrance.
I dashed into the living room and my heart only slowed its mad racing when I spotted a sheet of paper on the coffee table. I grabbed at it, forcing my eyes to read it one line at a time. At first I felt relieved, then angry. The police had come knocking on the door probably only half an hour after I had gone walkabout. They had wanted to question Alice about the old man who had abducted her the previous afternoon. Initially I felt a sense of righteous anger. What right had they to invade our privacy at a time like this? Had they no compassion? Then my ire cooled as I realised they wouldn’t have known about Denise. There was still Teri’s anger to consider however. She had scrawled a PS on the bottom of the note that said simply, ‘You bastard, Matt. Where the hell are you!’
I dropped the note and slumped dejectedly onto the couch. I didn’t know whether to wait for them to return or go round to the police station. I dreaded the thought of Teri making a scene in front of the police officers. Normally she wasn’t the type of person who would argue in public, but she was tired and her nerves were stretched to breaking point. There was no knowing how she might react if I showed up at the police station.
I propped my feet up on the coffee table and closed my eyes. I decided to give them half an hour and if they still hadn’t come back by then I would go find them. At least this would give me time to think up a plausible excuse for my absence. Closing my eyes was a mistake, within seconds I was fast asleep. I dreamed of the Spindle Rock, running my hands over its rugged, pitted surface. I shouldn’t have left Alison alone with the rock because it had swallowed her whole, her flesh absorbed and petrified to cold stone. Parts of her protruded from the rock, face, a breast, part of a thigh, forearm, knee, all still visible in bas relief like a grotesque sculpture. I reached out and touched the salt encrusted breast, feeling her heart still beating faintly beneath the stone. Poor Alison, she had said the Spindle Rock owned her body and soul and now it truly did. Removing my hand from her frigid breast, I traced the line of her cold jaw and then screamed as she lunged forwards and snapped at my fingers with sharp stone teeth.
I jolted awake on the couch and the dream exploded into a tangle of vague images, leaving only a feeling of heavy menace behind in their wake. I rubbed at my eyes to clear the sleepiness from them, and then glanced at my watch. A stab of panic, much more intense than anything th
e dream had provided, made me jump to my feet. I had been asleep for more than three hours. As I grabbed my jacket, it dully registered upon me that Teri and Alice still hadn’t returned. There was no way they would have been detained for so long by the police. Fear of Teri’s wrath gave my feet wings as I rushed down the stairs.
The fog had already begun to disperse and a muted white disc in the sky told me the sun was out. Pins and needles assailed my still sleeping legs and feet as I ran along Market Street and turned into North Street where the police station was located. By the time I reached it, my breath was as harsh and laboured as a ninety year old man suffering from emphysema. I stood outside the main doors for a minute or two to recover from my sprint, then straightened up, finger combed my hair, and entered the police station.
A lone sergeant sat behind the enquiries desk, his head lowered over a pile of paperwork, his hand writing painstakingly with a much chewed biro. He must have been aware that I had entered but he gave no indication of having heard me. I walked forward until I was five feet away from the edge of the desk.
I had time to notice the man suffered from acute dandruff before he eventually held his left hand up, palm towards me as if halting traffic, while his other hand continued its cautious scribbling. The message was abundantly clear. He was acknowledging my presence but also warning me not to disturb him for anything less than news of an imminent mortar attack upon the police station. I had a sudden impulse to put my hands on the top of his head and smash his face off the paper strewn desk. As if sensing the violence of my thoughts the policeman looked up.