by Clark, Simon
‘Aye, aye, Captain.’ John briskly flicked the brass switches then stood before the curtains.
‘Ladies and gentlemen. Mr John Stuart Palmer, two-bob impresario and general no-good tosser, wishes to introduce to the world his new singing sensation. De-de-de … Da.’
With both hands he dramatically swept open the curtains.
Outside:
Paddock, garden, vegetable plot: they were all full.
* * *
In the bedroom of Graham Palmer’s son, the two brothers sat with tumblers full of brandy – Graham on a Thomas the Tank Engine quilt; John on the floor, his back to the door.
They’d sat like that for an hour. Not speaking. The only movement to refill the tumblers.
At last Graham had to crack the deadly silence.
‘Who are they?’
John took half his brandy in a single biting gulp. ‘Even for a lawyer that must be obvious – res ipsa loquitar and all that.’
Startled, Graham looked at his brother. To John this was another – what would you call it? – event? Occurrence? A novelty? Like when he dined with drug runners in Samarkand; or the night with six prostitutes in Cairo; or a week spent dodging bullets in El Salvador? Just one more experience to be filed away with all the rest.
Yet to Graham Palmer it had been a shock that would have split his old heart as easily as a plump grape between your teeth. His hands shook; he wanted to vomit.
John went to the window.
He actually wanted to look. Christ … Graham felt his insides heave.
‘Incredible,’ marvelled John. ‘There are thousands. They’re even standing on your car.’
‘Sod the car,’ Graham grunted with feeling. ‘If that’s what they want, they can pissing-well take it. As long as they just go.’ He drank deeply. Get pissed, he thought. Drink so much you go belly up. That way, if they should break in, you’ll never feel them get you.
Them … Oh Christ …
‘It’s not your car they’re after. Or the sackful of Leeds United Football Club memorabilia you’ve got stashed in the attic. No … Nothing as tacky as that.’
‘But they’re here for something. They must be.’
John smiled and reassuringly squeezed his brother’s shoulder. ‘Don’t worry. Nothing’s happening. They’re just standing there. That’s all.’
‘That’s all? Isn’t that enough?’ He rubbed his forehead wearily. ‘They’re here for something. I know it, I know it as well as I know my own damn name. But what the hell is it? Exorcism? Blood? Flaming Judgement Day? What, for Chrissake?’
John did not reply. He’d seen something outside. He stiffened. ‘Hey, you should see this,’ he hissed.
Passionately Graham shook his head. ‘Not bloody likely.’
But the expression on his brother’s face drew him to his feet. Then to the window.
The moon was bright. He could see every last detail.
The wheelbarrow by the fish-pond. Bird table. With a neat pyramid of grain that Tim had left before going to Scarborough. (God, I wish I was there. Amusement arcades, crowded beaches, donkey shit, overpriced shellfish.)
Yes. Every detail. Perfectly illuminated.
Including … them. But Graham Palmer did not see them. He had shut his mind to them. They were just hosts of yellow-headed daffodils swaying in the night breeze.
‘Look,’ insisted John. ‘Over there. Standing on the car.’
Graham saw. His new heart lurched against his ribs.
‘Yes … It’s him.’ He licked his dry lips. ‘The donor.’
Bare feet buckling the car roof, he stood there, the corpse of a man. Mid-twenties. It looked as if he’d been clasping his forehead. But he’d only been holding his face in place. So he would be recognized. A moment later he relaxed his grip on the skin at the hairline, and his face flopped down from his skull, like a mask, to hang against his bare chest. Graham noticed the chest cavity, where the heart had been removed. Also the holes in his sides, once occupied by kidneys. The eyes were plain white blobs, producing a cool, milky stare. Corneas were needed too.
That face. The way it flapped against his chest … Horrible, horrible …
Pity suppressed Graham’s fear.
‘Why did they have to cut off his face?’
‘Standard autopsy procedure.’ John sounded clinical. ‘Look, you can see where they removed the brain. The top of the skull is starting to slip.’
Graham moaned. His head fell against the glass. It felt like ice.
‘I know why they’re here.’ He gazed out at the thousands of dead encircling the house, their faces like pale discs. Watching. Waiting. Expectant. ‘I knew you couldn’t cheat death.’ Graham’s voice was flat. ‘You see, it’s not fair on them.’
As if to confirm this, the donor began to move his hand, his face swinging on the bit of skin still attached to his throat.
Slowly. Clearly. He was beckoning.
John shook his head. ‘But the other transplant patients? Nothing like this has happened before.’
‘You said they were here for a purpose, John. They’re here to take me back where I belong.’
‘Bollocks!’ His voice was shockingly loud, making Graham jump. ‘Graham, listen to me. People are always cheating death. You name ’em. Transplant patients, accident victims, the typist in your office, cured of a brain tumour.’
‘But something has happened.’ Graham sank back onto the bed, his face wearing a bruised look. ‘It’s all different. Something … Oh, I don’t know … Look, when they changed my heart, for a while I was dead. No heartbeat. Nothing. Then … I must … I must have …’ He fumbled for words.
‘Bollocks again. On that operating table you were alive as anyone. Machines kept your blood circulating until your new heart took over. Listen, Graham, you did not die. Not in any sense of the word.’ His voice softened. ‘That time I was seven. You remember. I fell through the ice into the park lake and drowned. I made it.’
Graham smiled weakly. ‘You’re right. I suppose that shows you anyone can …’ His voice faded, and suddenly his scalp prickled as if he’d walked through an electric current. ‘John. You said drowned.’
‘I said nearly drowned.’
‘No.’ Graham shook his head. ‘No. You did say drowned.’
Although Graham saw his brother shrug carelessly, he noticed a twitch around his lips.
‘Maybe I did. What I meant, of course, was nearly drowned. Look. I’m here aren’t I?’
Graham gripped John’s hand. It was cold. Cold as a river in winter.
‘That day,’ began Graham slowly, ‘we never knew what really happened.’
John shrugged. ‘I went off by myself after breakfast. Walked on the ice. Fell through it. Scared myself half to bloody death. Climbed out. That’s all.’
Outside the noise began again.
‘But you didn’t get home until ten that night.’
‘Look, I can’t remember. Does it matter?’
‘You didn’t get home until twelve hours later.’ Graham gripped his brother’s hand. ‘And what’s more. You were still soaked to the skin.’
For a moment, brother stared at brother.
John swallowed. ‘It’s not you they want, it’s –’
Abruptly he leapt to his feet and threw open the bedroom door. Posters fluttered from the walls.
His face was like Graham had never seen it before. The strength of emotion transformed it. It was shocking.
‘I’ve got to run,’ John whispered urgently. ‘I’ve got to run.’
‘John, there’s nowhere to run. You’ll never get past them, they’re –’
‘Graham, Graham.’ He gripped his brother’s arm. ‘Don’t you see? I don’t want to run away from them.’ Excitement blazed from his face. ‘I want to go with them!’
Then he ran from the room and out of the house.
When Graham Palmer at last looked out, the sun was lifting over the treetops.
His brother.
Th
ere was no sign.
* * *
Another world.
He ran. And he did not run alone.
Dark shapes ran by his side.
The pellet of flesh hurtling through eternity, the thing once recognized as John Stuart Palmer, did not interpret his surroundings, did not see his companions’ arid faces.
He did not need to: this was exhilarating, this was a white-knuckle, white-water ride that needed no thought, no effort, no exertion, like a leaf plunging over a waterfall that never hit bottom.
It just WAS.
Tonight. Or was it this year? This hundred years? He would be content exploring this vast world with its smoky red skies and undulating plains. A place he could run through forever and never reach the end.
Yes. Tonight. Or this century – whatever – he would explore.
Memory flow had shrunk to a thin trickle.
Images: withered cabbage leaf hands bringing him to the abandoned cemetery; those hands gentle as a lover’s pressing his throat until contentment slowly filled him like a rare wine filling a glass; or how they used the bone-white skulls of their own kind to scoop open the hole … these images … these were faint like a month-old dream …
It felt good … It felt good …
Now even understanding was evaporating.
It meant little to him when a fading voice inside his mind told him his wonderful new world was just a man-sized cavity beneath the earth.
A grave.
Bite Back
‘Joe. I want you to stay here tonight.’
I looked up at her, surprised.
She’d plucked up a lot of courage to ask me that.
Well … The meaning was as obvious to me as it is to you. It was a naked invitation to fuck her.
Now, come off it. You’re not shocked? You hear worse in the street, on buses, even in school playgrounds.
So, let’s be clear about this one. She wanted me to strip her, lay her there on the bed and shaft her until the birds sang all rosy and sweet in the first light of flaming dawn – pure and simple.
She was desperate.
Why?
Two minutes. Then I’ll tell you everything.
First me.
Sex. That is the one and only thing I’m good at. And believe me, I am bloody good. I’ve gone hell for leather since I was fourteen when I broke in the sixteen-year-old girl next door in the garage. The rest of the family were inside the house sticking up the trimmings and warming up sausage rolls for her birthday party.
So, I beg your pardon if I don’t dress it up and call it something fancy – like making love, that’s poncey, or copulating, which is what those big red-arsed baboons do in animal documentaries.
Okay, I think that gives a clear enough picture of what I’m like. What else do you want to know? Christ … That my name’s Joe Slatter, I’m twenty-seven, I’ve blond hair I used to get trimmed every month regular as clockwork; I’ve got blurred hand-pricked tattoos on my arms – all girls’ names. I’ve got a body like tungsten steel from shovelling psychedelic-coloured shit into hoppers at a factory that makes those polystyrene clams you eat your burger out of. I’ve got two kids (to different women) and sent God knows how many foetuses on one way trips to the seaside.
And if you laughed at my face, I’d crack your fucking teeth down the back of your throat. No problem.
Ah, you’ll be thinking I’m not the kind of bloke you’d like your daughter or sister to bring home, eh? You’d worry you’d come back from walking the dog to find me bodging her across your favourite armchair. But then again, wouldn’t you have had the time of your life with me on a piss-up some Saturday night?
So, I’m a right evil bastard, eh?
No. I don’t think I am. All it is, is the lust to breed, to produce children, strengthen the human race and all that; it’s ten times stronger in me than in most blokes. That’s got to be a good thing, eh?
I actually like kids too. If there’s something on the news about kids being ill-treated I turn it over. Last year I chucked my pay-packet – one week’s pay, bonus, everything – into a bucket collecting for Children In Need.
Also, I see this girl I was at school with. Three years ago she had a bad accident.
Which gets me back to why she wanted me to take her to bed.
And that brings me to the question:
Would you fuck a girl with no eyes?
* * *
Jean Richmond was lovely. Fit body. Long curling black hair half way down her back – like something off a shampoo advert. Smooth skin, long legs, and she had these slender wrists that seem so delicate. She had a way that made you just want to be with her. Once, you just wanted to attract her attention all the time so she’d look at you with those eyes that were so dark they just pulled you into them. Jean was one of the few girls in the class I never went with, but she was always the one I remembered.
Now, when she asked me for a fuck I just sat and stared.
No. The accident hadn’t scarred her.
Although sometimes her expression was different. A kind of tension. Probably the constant anxiety of coming home alone to an empty Council flat, not knowing that there might be some psycho sat on your settee picking his fingernails with a carving knife. Not being able to see them – only feel them. When it’s too late. And have you ever crossed even a quiet road with your eyes shut?
Now she wanted me to give her the works.
You see, she’d hadn’t had a boyfriend for three years. She’d no family.
She was lonely.
She wanted love.
And that was the thing I couldn’t give her.
Lust, yes. Make her come, yes. Love? No.
She wanted someone to hold her in bed at night when that invisible world of hers grew too vast or too cold or too hostile. She wanted a friendly voice to talk to her, or maybe just sit and listen to music together.
Oh, no way.
Not Joe Slatter.
So. There she sat at the kitchen table, her head down, all that lovely dark hair falling across her face, struggling to ask me to take her to bed.
At first I said nothing. I rinsed out the coffee mugs and left them upside down to drain.
I heard her sniff and saw from the corner of my eye her hands go to her face.
No eyes.
But she cried.
‘I am … I’m sorry, Joe,’ she whispered. ‘You must think I’m a right slag … It’s just you get lonely.’ She forced a laugh and wiped her cheek. ‘And when you get lonely you start doing funny things.’
‘Jean … Don’t even think about apologizing. You must feel down sometimes.’
‘Now, Joe Slatter, don’t start feeling sorry for me. You’re not the type.’ She spread her hands across the table top where they searched like two small white animals for the plate of biscuits.
I pushed the plate to her hand.
‘I’m still not very good at it, I’m afraid. The social worker says I should be going shopping in town by myself now – and I should be looking for a job. Looking? She actually used the word.’
‘If you ask me, sunshine, these social workers don’t take a blind bit of notice.’
She laughed. It sounded genuine now.
‘That’s more like the old Joe Slatter. The same one that superglued old Instant-Moral-Lecture’s glasses to the desk … God.’ She shook her head. ‘You know, I can still see his face. Do you remember the way he used to scowl until those daft half-moon glasses slipped down his nose. In fact I think I can see it clearer now than I did then.’
We talked for a bit. She seemed happier and never mentioned about me staying. She started talking about what she’d do later that evening, having a bath, listening to one of those radio plays (to me they’re poncey but she liked them); she got me to get a frozen moussaka out of the freezer ready for the microwave. ‘Because they feel identical to apple crumble and shepherd’s pie,’ she explained, smiling. ‘And moussaka always reminds me of Corfu. You know I went there for my twe
nty-first birthday. It was wonderful. Lovely scenery. The people. Really beautiful. Did I tell you about it?’
She had. Several times.
‘No. What was it like? Boiled octopus and pigs bollocks on skewers?’
‘No. Idiot.’ She laughed lightly and unreeled me some of the memories that fill her head these days.
* * *
I had a date. So I left her flat at three, and headed for Wakefield’s city centre. I’d parked my car near the train station, but I needed to find a cashpoint first.
The girl I was meeting had pricey tastes, but she looked so fit I was ready to dig deep. Providing she came up with the goodies later, it’d be worth it.
It was Sunday. September. And not a bad day. Light warm breeze, a few scraps of cloud. The sun bright and clear, like it gets as you push into autumn.
Nothing unusual.
I walked up from the Woolworth’s end of the precinct, by McDonald’s; the Ridings shopping centre on my left and the big stone cathedral to the right. Being a Sunday people were thin on the ground. Probably most that were there were like me. In need of a few quid. I stood in the centre of the precinct trying to hook out the cashcard from the back pocket of my jeans.
I was looking down at the concrete flags, working out how much I should risk, when I saw the shadow. A long, long shadow. It ran in the direction of the shops where Robin Hood was supposed to have been born in thirteen nought blob.
Something about it made me look twice. It was huge. And slowly – just slowly – it was moving. Moving in my direction.
The cathedral spire.
No. The shadow from the pointed tower fell over some trees a hundred metres away.
Anyway. This one was cast by something gigantic. And that gigantic thing moved … Slowly, but surely it bloody well moved.
I looked up for a cloud.
No cloud.
The shape of the shadow wasn’t straight like it was cast by a building. There were bumps and curves.
It was more like the shadow of a man.
