by Paul Berry
I hunt through my wardrobe and find a pair of black trousers and a white shirt. Pangs of excitement spark in my stomach as I slide the cape from the bag and fasten it around my shoulders, being careful not to let it touch my gel-slicked hair.
I look at my reflection in the long hallway mirror. The smile disappears from my face. I feel ridiculous. My body is far too scrawny, so I look like a scarecrow, the shirt billowing over my stomach and the cape hanging loosely from my shoulders. I tuck in the shirt more and tighten the belt a notch.
After calling the taxi, I take a swig from the hip flask and grimace at the taste, turn off the lounge lights and sit on the sofa in the shadows, concentrating on my breathing, willing myself to be calmer.
There is a crashing sound from the cupboard under the stairs and I almost drop the flask, spilling vodka on my shirt.
‘Who’s there?’ I ask weakly, my heart palpitating. I shakily turn on the light and grab a white marble bull from the coffee table, brandishing it above my head as I slowly walk towards the cupboard. I press my ear against the small door. It is silent apart from the dull hum of the fuse box inside. I turn the handle and wrench it open, ready to bash the intruder over the head. Leaning across the vacuum cleaner is a metal detector. I look at in confusion but then remember that it belonged to my mother. My dad must have stored it here after she died.
She was always obsessed with archaeology, especially Egyptology, the shelves of our house littered with objects she found on digs. She always took lots of photos on her expeditions. In one she is standing in front of the Pyramids dressed in a white linen dress, my dad wearing a white fedora to hide his sunburned face; in another she is surrounded by the overgrown ruins of an Aztec temple, an orchid nestled in her hair, her arm behind the back of her head, laughing as she strikes a catalogue model pose.
The pictures of her with my dad gradually grew less frequent over the years as she started going to more places alone, sometimes disappearing for a few weeks with the archaeologists who were friends of her father. She’d always bring me back souvenirs from her travels: a snow globe of the Sphinx, the yellow snow swirling like a sandstorm; a tiny spider trapped forever in amber; a crude alabaster figurine of a leering Pan with stubby horns. Sometimes when she returned she’d argue with my dad. He’d accuse her of caring more about dead things than she did about her family, and I’d lie in bed clutching my pillow over my head to drown out their angry voices.
Eventually, she got a job teaching history at Vega College. Some evenings when she was marking essays at the dining room table, a glass of wine staining red circles on the papers, I’d catch her staring into space as though she was remembering faraway places. The last trip she went on before she died was to investigate a stone circle uncovered by the shifting sands of the Sahara. When she returned, her eyes were wild with excitement as she told us how the stones were unlike anything previously discovered in Egypt, and instead of hieroglyphs they were covered with indecipherable symbols. She showed me a rubbing of some of them, the strange markings giving me a headache. Several of her team had come down with some type of malaria that didn’t respond to treatment, leaving them dead or permanently infirm. She was the only one not to be afflicted and vowed never to leave us again.
That was when she bought the metal detector. At first we would go the beach at Blackpool, shivering with cold and anticipation as we uncovered ring pulls from cans and two pence coins green from salt water. Then she decided to lower her ambitions and use it in the back garden, and I’d follow her around eagerly as she dug up rusty nails with a trowel.
One evening at the start of autumn, a high-pitched whine sounded as she moved it around the roots of the apple tree. We started digging until the blades of our trowels hit something hard and metallic, my dad watching us, bemused, from a patio chair, clinking the ice in his tumbler of whisky. Eventually we uncovered the rusted sides of an iron cauldron.
‘We need a pair of strong arms,’ my mother said, and my dad helped us wrench the spherical lump from the earth. They looked excitedly at each other, happier in each other’s company than they had been for months. My mother turned on the garden hose and washed off the soil caked onto the sides of the cauldron. Her face froze.
‘What is it?’ I asked her.
‘I’m not sure.’ It didn’t look like a cauldron when it was cleaned off. It was more like half of a giant iron geode full of compacted soil. ‘Maybe there’s something inside.’ She sprayed the hose against the soil and as it slowly dissolved, a metal box slid from the black mud. On the top sat a metal squid, its tentacles squiggling down the sides. She washed it off and set it on the patio table, and we pulled up chairs and stared at it.
‘The greatest find of my life is in my back garden.’ She pulled on the squid’s head, but it didn’t move.
‘It seems to be jammed on,’ my dad said. She slid it across to him.
‘Give it your best shot, muscle man.’ He twisted it between his hands, biting his lip in frustration. ‘You’re about as useful as when you try to open a jam jar.’
He slid it to me. ‘Let’s see Sam show off his physical prowess.’ I grabbed it and tried jiggling the lid, but it didn’t move. ‘Even the great and powerful Sam has been thwarted,’ he said.
‘No. I can do it.’ A dull ache blossomed between my eyes and my fingers started to move by themselves as I pressed them against the sides. There was a soft click and I pushed the squid’s head backwards, opening the lid.
‘I’m about to eat my words.’ My dad laughed. Inside the box was a crystal tetrahedron. Three metal bars extended diagonally from the bottom of the box, each ending in a tiny pincer which gripped a corner. I nudged the box towards my mother, but she shook her head.
‘You should do the honours.’ I gently grasped the crystal between my thumb and forefinger and pulled it free.
‘Where’s it from?’ I asked, staring into it in fascination.
‘I’m not sure,’ she said, examining the box. ‘Possibly Babylonian. Someone must have buried it here.’
‘It looks like it landed,’ my dad said, shivering.
As I turned the crystal, one of the facets caught the dying light. That was the last thing I remembered before I opened my eyes. I was lying on my bed, a damp flannel pressed to my forehead.
‘Another couple of minutes and we were going to take you to hospital,’ my dad said, smiling down at me in relief. My mother lifted off the flannel and kissed my head.
‘What happened?’ I asked, a headache throbbing.
‘You fell off your chair,’ she said. ‘Banged your head on the table at the same time.’
‘Kept hold of that strange crystal, though,’ my dad said. ‘Had to prise it out of your hand.’
‘Look on the bright side, you can have the day off from school tomorrow.’
That evening I had ice cream for tea, feeling grown up when my dad sloshed some cherry brandy over it, and I was allowed to stay up and watch a horror film. Before I went to sleep I sat at my desk with a black crayon and drew a door inscribed with glyphs. In the centre I drew the pentagram with the eye for the first time and pinned it to the wall facing my bed. I stared at it as I drifted off to sleep while my parents argued in their bedroom. The next morning, the picture was gone, and when I came down for breakfast every artefact my mother had collected over the years was missing. My dad was sitting alone at the kitchen table, unshaven and smoking, so I knew he was upset about something.
‘Your mum did some spring cleaning,’ he said, hurriedly putting out his cigarette on a saucer. From then on, my mother started sleeping in the spare room, explaining that my dad’s snoring was keeping her awake.
A few months later, she died in the bus crash.
Weeks later, while we were silently packing her clothes into cardboard boxes for the charity shop, he asked if I wanted to keep anything and I shook my head. I picked up her fur coat and before stuf
fing it into a box I rubbed it against my cheek, still smelling her perfume on it, wondering when was the last time she’d worn it. I then tried on her black leather jacket with the elongated lapels.
‘Can I have this?’
‘Of course you can. It was always one of her favourites.’ He sat on the bed and rubbed his temples, his eyes ringed with dark circles. ‘Your mother. She was a complicated person.’ At that time I didn’t understand what he meant.
As I was taking off the jacket, a scrap of paper fell from a pocket, spiralling onto the carpet like a sycamore key. I picked it up and saw some of the symbols from my picture drawn in pencil. As my dad was wiping tears from his eyes, I stuffed the piece of paper into my jeans.
I push the metal detector to the back of the cupboard so my dad won’t see it and close the door. I’m on the verge of changing my mind about going and run through the list of excuses: headache, backache, neck ache, diarrhoea. Lights draw up outside the window, accompanied by the squeal of brakes. The taxi. My stomach knots with a fresh wave of anxiety and I knock back another mouthful of vodka, take a deep breath and leave the house.
It’s starting to snow, and I shiver as the cold penetrates the thin cape, regretting not wearing a jumper over my shirt. I’m thinking about going back inside when the driver honks impatiently. He winds down the window and looks me up and down.
‘Sherlock Holmes?’
‘That’s right,’ I say.
‘You forgot the hat, you know, the deerkiller one.’
I’m relieved he doesn’t talk much during the journey, only grumbles to himself about petrol prices.
‘It’s the government’s way of controlling us. Even a hard-working bastard like me is kept on a leash.’
It feels strange going to the college at night rather than drawing in my room or watching a film, and I remember that I haven’t taken my pills. They sometimes make it difficult to draw, the images in my mind less vibrant, the pencil moving sluggishly across the page when I try to bring them to life.
The driver pulls up outside the college and I can already hear the dull thud of music. I pay and watch the tail lights disappear down the road, resisting the urge to shout for him to stop and take me home.
Chapter 6
I take another swig from the flask as I cross the carpark to the main entrance. I push open the glass doors, vaguely disappointed that they aren’t locked, and follow the corridor down to the sports hall doors. The woman sitting at the table next to them works in the canteen and is irritated when she looks up from the book she’s reading. The cover shows a muscular, tanned pirate sweeping a large-breasted woman into his arms.
‘Is the book good?’ I ask.
‘It’s fascinating.’ She adjusts the glittering devil horns in her blonde bouffant and continues reading, holding out her hand.
On the wall behind her is a poster of a shattered gravestone and the warning, ‘AIDS: Don’t die of ignorance.’ Someone has graffitied a ‘G’ in front of ‘AIDS’ with black marker.
I remember watching Princess Diana on TV a few weeks ago visiting a hospital and shaking hands with a skinny man in a dressing gown. He looked happy to meet her, but there was fear in his eyes, as though time was running out.
Under the poster are a couple of faded photocopies, crudely taped to the painted breeze block. Two familiar faces smile back from the dog-eared paper, ‘MISSING’ in ominous letters above each one: Marcus Fernandez and Philip Carter. Another sheet has a list of safety dos and don’ts at night.
DO: Keep to well-lit areas. Walk on pavements. Tell family and friends where you’re going.
DON’T: Walk alone. Talk to strangers you don’t know. (What other kind of stranger is there?) Go to the park alone.
The last one makes me shiver as I remember that figure in the park hungrily sniffing the air and staring in my direction.
‘Do you have a ticket or not?’ she asks impatiently. I give it to her and she goes back to her book.
I push open the doors and loud music thunders in my ears, the air humid with stale sweat. Groups of people are dancing under swirls of flashing lights and I strain my eyes trying to find Rachel hidden under her costume. Several witches are dancing with zombies while red devils thrust their tridents in the air in time to the music. A group of girl Ghostbusters with cardboard-box proton packs brandish their weapons and surround a figure cowering in a bedsheet.
I buy a Coke from the drinks stand and sit on one of the chairs lining the walls, quickly gulping down half the can, the bubbles burning the back of my throat, and, after checking nobody’s looking, I pour in the rest of the hip flask. I feel frozen to the seat and don’t know what to do. The noise and frenetic movement of people makes me feel queasy, and I nervously scan faces, trying to pick out Rachel. One boy is dressed as Jareth from Labyrinth, his white wig glowing as he gyrates under the lights, the crotch bulge from his grey tights getting admiring glances from one of the Ghostbuster girls.
Usually I don’t look people directly in the eye, as it makes me feel uncomfortable, but my dad taught me to look just above their eyebrows. ‘That way your nerves aren’t jangled and they won’t think you’re being rude.’ He also advised me to imagine the class straining on the toilet when giving a presentation if I felt nervous. ‘Everyone does it, Sam, even the Queen. We’re all the same.’
A few people from my art class who aren’t part of Terry’s poisonous circle lurk on the edge of the dance floor. I try to remember the conversation-openers my dad taught me.
‘Don’t start talking about your horror films. Not straight away at least.’
‘But that’s what I like to talk about.’
‘Maybe ease them in gently. Talk about football.’
‘I hate football.’ My dad sighed with exasperation.
‘Stick to the weather, then.’
When I’m sure I’ve chosen the right opener (‘Wouldn’t it be amazing if it snowed tonight and college was closed on Monday?’) I walk towards them, the comforting fuzz of vodka whirling in the back of my head. I feel a tap on my shoulder and turn around.
Rachel smiles, cat ears poking up from her head. ‘I didn’t think you were coming. I’ve been in the toilet fixing a costume malfunction.’
‘No worries. I’ve been drinking Coke.’
She raises an eyebrow. ‘Sam Black, is that alcohol I smell on your breath?’
I half pull the hip flask from my pocket. ‘It was full before I poured it all in.’
She slurps from the can and coughs. ‘I think that’s mostly vodka with a splash of Coke.’ She takes another sip, her face wrinkling. ‘Do you like my outfit?’ She spins round to show the black cat tail attached above her bum.
‘That’s a very impressive mouse costume.’
‘Ha ha. Keeping the tail attached is trickier than it looks.’ She looks at me quizzically. ‘Why have you come as an alky librarian?’
‘Everyone’s a comedian tonight.’
‘You’re Van Helsing. I know my vampire-hunters – you make me watch enough horror films.’
‘My dad got the costume before I told him about the disco. He must be psychic.’
She looks away guiltily. ‘I told him about it last week. I thought you’d try and chicken out.’
‘You were right. I fell asleep and almost did.’
I glimpse Terry under the strobing light. He’s glaring at me from the corner of the sports hall, his face painted black and white like a grumpy skull.
‘I thought it was going to be just us tonight?’
‘Sam, don’t start.’
‘I’m not. I’m just tired of hearing his crap.’
‘I can’t cut myself off from all my friends because you don’t like them.’
‘I don’t dislike them, just him.’ I almost tell her about the girl I saw him pawing in the library, but she would just start arguing with hi
m again or more likely not believe me.
‘Well, you’re gonna have to put up with him.’ I stare at my shoes, wishing I’d stayed home and had pizza.
‘Look, I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘Let’s just have a nice time.’
The theme from Ghostbusters plays and everyone cheers, a crowd gathering round the cheering Ghostbuster girls.
‘Do you wanna dance?’ she asks, holding out her hand.
‘I don’t think I can,’ I say sulkily.
‘It’s easy. Just move your body in time to the music.’ I try shuffling my feet around and waving my arms. ‘You look like you’re drowning.’
‘It’s the new dance craze. Everyone’s doing it.’
A muscular guy painted green shimmies up behind and pulls her tail. ‘Do you want me to get you a saucer of milk?’
Rachel spins around and makes an exaggerated cat hiss, flexing her fingers like claws. ‘Hands off, Hulk!’ He grins at her, then looks at me. Under the makeup I realise it’s Bruce.
‘Van Helsing, right?’ he asks. I nod nervously, unable to speak.
‘Vampire-hunters are silent but deadly,’ Rachel interjects, elbowing me in the side. There is a long pause.
‘It’s still Sam, isn’t it?’ he asks, smiling.
‘Yep.’
‘Do I look as scary as your monster pictures? I really liked the spider one you drew today in the library of Te—’ He cringes and glances at Rachel. ‘Anyway, you should come over to mine and watch horror films some night. How about next weekend.? I’ll even make popcorn.’
‘That sounds … brill,’ I say exhaling the breath I’ve been holding, desperately trying to stare at his forehead.
‘Great,’ he says. ‘I’ll come and find you later.’
