by Fin C Gray
The headlights had flashed a couple of times more, and Daniel was getting quite close now, close enough to see the driver grinning at him. Daniel smiled back. This man looked awfully friendly and, if he made friends with him, he might even get a chance to go for a quick drive around the park. That would be ace. He could tell Kevin all about it at school tomorrow, as long as he swore him to death secrecy. Everyone knew that telling anybody a death secret meant certain death. Not just death, but a horrible death, as if being strangled by a boa constrictor, or run over by a combine harvester. Kevin would never tell anyway.
Mum always said, ‘Never talk to strangers.’ But not all strangers could be bad, could they? This man wasn’t really a stranger, anyhow, because he was in the village lorry park. All the lorry drivers who came here usually came twice or three times a week, so this man would be no stranger to the village, would he? Black Jash would definitely know the man because he’d be in there a lot to eat his dinner, wouldn’t he? The only reason the lorry drivers came there was to have a rest and have their dinner. That’s what Kevin had told him. Sometimes they might have a nap in their cabs. Some lorries even had beds in them. If Daniel drove a lorry, he would sleep in the bed every single night. Kevin said some had TV sets. And Kevin also told him that some trucks had showers and baths and kitchens. He wasn’t too sure about that, though. If they had kitchens, there’d be no need to stop at cafés, would there?
Daniel was level with the cab now, and the man was rolling down his window. He couldn’t see the man’s arm moving, so this lorry must have electric windows. That would make it quite a new lorry because the old ones didn’t have electric windows, and the red paint on the cab was very, very shiny and bright. Maybe that meant it had a TV too. The man’s arm was hanging out of the open window, and his arm had tattoos all over it. There were even tattoos of letters on his fingers. Daniel couldn’t see these properly, though, because there was a lot of oil on his hands. The arm disappeared back inside, and the door started to open very slowly.
The man began to climb down from his cab, and he had quite a fat belly that was poking out of his T-shirt. His belly was very hairy, and he had a tattoo of Bart Simpson’s head near his belly-button. He smelled a bit of sweat and, when he smiled, his teeth were yellow and stained. His big brown boots stirred up a lot of dust when he jumped onto the ground. Daniel smiled when the man ruffled his hair and pinched the end of his chin with dirty fingers.
‘Alright, kidder,’ he said. ‘What you doing here, all on your own?’
‘I came to see the lorries. There’s usually a lot more here.’
‘Well, you’re lucky that I turned up then, aren’t you, son? Otherwise, all you’d be seeing is dust.’
Daniel nodded, trying to smile, but he was starting to feel that something was wrong. The man had crouched down so that his face was level with his own. His breath smelled of rotten eggs, and his cheeks were all covered in red splodges and hair.
‘It’s your lucky day, son, because I’m going to let you see inside my lorry. I bet you’d like that, wouldn’t you?’
Daniel looked up into the cab. The steering wheel was the biggest he’d ever seen. A large bag of sweets was on the dashboard. Then he felt the man pressing against his back. Maybe he shouldn’t go into the lorry. Maybe this was the driver’s first time here, and he was a stranger, after all. He looked towards the café and pointed to the sign.
‘The café is closed today, mister,’ he said. ‘You won’t be able to get your dinner here today. That’s why there’re no other lorries here. Maybe you better try Newton lorry park. My friend Kevin—’
‘I have sandwiches in there,’ he said, pointing to his cab. ‘I got sweeties and games too. Jump in, c’mon. You’ll like it, son.’
The man wasn’t smiling any more. He was pressing closer against him, and his hand was gripping one of Daniel’s arms. Daniel looked towards the road, this time hoping that he might see someone he knew.
‘I think I better go home. My Dad says I’m not allowed to come here, and I don’t want to get into trou—’
The man didn’t let him finish. He took a tighter hold of Daniel’s arm and it hurt quite a bit. His grip was very firm, but the man was smiling again. It wasn’t a nice smile, not a friendly smile. It reminded Daniel of the sort of smile the Joker might make at Batman. The man put his dirty hands under both Daniel’s arms and lifted him up into his cab. It was huge inside, and there was a bed made up behind the seats. A strong smell of petrol hit him. There was a red tartan rug scrunched up on the passenger seat, and the rug had oil stains all over it. There were pictures of people with no clothes on near it. Daniel hadn’t seen pictures like that ever before and felt sure he wasn’t supposed to look at stuff like that.
‘In you go,’ said the lorry driver, throwing him in roughly. ‘Your dad will never know.’
Daniel’s face pressed into the smelly rug. He’d hurt his knee on something hard when the man pushed him into the seat. He heard the man’s heavy boots pounding on the metal steps into the cab, and he started to cry.
Daniel had managed to stop crying by the time he saw Mum’s car pull into the backyard. She was a lot later than usual. Just as well, really. Peeping from behind his curtain, he watched as Mum got out of her car. Jenny was with her and they were laughing about something. Why had Jenny not been at home, as usual? Why was she with Mum? And where had they been? His blazer was on his bed, and he gasped a little when he realised that he’d forgotten to shake off the dust. He stuffed it under his bed and went to the bathroom to check himself in the mirror. There were dark streaks on his cheeks where tears had made tracks in the grime. He turned on the tap and rubbed soap and water onto his face.
‘Danny, are you up there?’ Mum called from downstairs. ‘Yes, Mum, I’m just in the toilet.’
Daniel scrubbed his face with the rough washcloth and patted down his hair. His throat hurt really badly and he could still taste that horrible taste, no matter how much he gargled with water. There was still blood oozing from his skinned knee, and it stung when he dabbed at it with the cloth. When he got downstairs, Mum was in the kitchen, peeling potatoes.
‘Hello, love,’ she said, smiling. ‘How was school today? Have you got any homework for tomorrow?’
‘It was OK, Mum. I’ve only got spelling homework, but I know all the words, anyway.’
‘Alright, love. You go and make sure you know all the words, and I’ll call you when tea’s ready. I’ll test you after we’ve eaten.’
Daniel turned around and started to head into the dining-room.
‘Danny?’
He stopped dead, a feeling of panic rising in him again. Did she know? He turned round again, slowly.
‘Tuck your shirt in, there’s a good boy. You look like you’ve been sleeping in a hedge.’ She laughed.
Daniel heaved a great sigh through a growing need to cry again. ‘Sorry, Mum,’ he mumbled, tucking in his shirt. He rushed to the stairs before she could call him back again.
Back in his bedroom, he pulled the blazer from under the bed, opened his window, and shook it as hard as he could, whacking it against the windowsill. Jenny was in the yard with her skipping rope.
‘What you doing?’ she called up to him.
‘None of your bloody business,’ he called back to her.
Jenny threw down her skipping rope and gave him a look of pretend shock. ‘I’m telling Mum you swore at me!’
Daniel slammed his window shut and hung his blazer on the back of the chair at his desk. He sat down and took out his spelling book. The words blurred in a rush of horrible thoughts, along with the tears that were forming fast. He gulped and gulped, but the pain in his throat wouldn’t go away. Never, ever, ever, as long as he lived, was he ever going back to that lorry park. He hated lorries now. He never wanted to see another lorry again.
Chapter Two
Today, Friday
If anything calls for more wine, it’s ‘Hallelujah’. Of course, Jeff Buckley’s is the
only voice that sounds right singing it; Tom can’t stand hearing any other singer attempt it, not even Leonard Cohen, even though it is his song. The other thing is, these days, it just doesn’t sound right without a glass of wine in his hand, and he has to feel at least a little tipsy too. So he gets up and presses pause on the remote before throwing it on the sofa. Two candles on the coffee table in front of him flicker and darken, but the light in the room doesn’t diminish as the sulphurous glow from the lamps in the gardens bathes the living-room. Shadows from the shivering trees dance across the walls of the flat. Tom hears Big Ben chiming three bells. Three in the morning already?
Steadying himself with the help of the chair backs in the dining-room, he spies an unopened bottle of red wine on the kitchen counter. He glances at the two empty bottles beside it. It’s Thursday night, after all, and who’s counting? But where is the bloody corkscrew? It should be with the fucking empties, shouldn’t it? His tabby cat miaows and rubs his purring body against Tom’s legs.
‘Hello, Rufus. You hungry, buddy?’ He bends down and tickles the cat’s throat, before Rufus pads urgently towards the laundry room at the end of the long hallway. Rufus glances back, standing by the laundry room door.
‘I’m coming, daftie!’
When he gets there, he notices the empty food dish beside the litter tray. Then he sees the corkscrew on the countertop next to an unopened tin of tuna, Rufus’s favourite.
‘What a good cat you are, showing your old dad where his wine opener is. Let me get you some dinner, puss.’
As he heads towards the kitchen again, Tom thinks he hears a rustling sound. He stops and listens at the front door. It’s more than a rustling – it’s someone pushing on the door. The handle is moving too. Bloody cheek! It’s three in the morning. Better not be one of the porters. He presses his ear to the wood before opening the creaking double doors and peering out into the marble hallway. There is no sign of anyone. The service lift in front of him is on the basement level, so he steps outside the flat and checks the residents’ lift at the other end of the hall. Although he can’t quite make out the glowing digits on the display, he can see it doesn’t show ‘3’ for his floor. There isn’t a sound anywhere. He can’t be bothered to check the stairs and heads indoors again. Probably imagined it all, anyhow. Rufus gives a brief backwards glance as Tom walks into the laundry room, then continues munching his tuna. Tom picks up the corkscrew and winds an uneven path back to the sofa via the kitchen, where he collects the unopened wine bottle.
As Tom sips the freshly poured Cabernet, Jeff Buckley’s voice fills the room. Tom puts his bare feet up on the coffee table and gazes towards the flickering candles and the silver-framed photograph that he’d taken from the mantelpiece earlier that evening. In the picture, his wife sits on their old sofa, flanked on either side by their two children. Broad smiles beam from a happy, colour-faded past. Tears pool in Tom’s eyes.
He and the ghost of Jeff Buckley sing together before Tom collapses on the cushions, spilling red wine all over the leopardskin fabric, sobbing. If he needs any reason not to drink alone, this song is it, and he knows it, but it’s about as addictive as the wine is to him. His sobbing dissipates as sleep gradually comes to him, sending him deep into dark forgetfulness. He is hardly aware of Rufus jumping onto his heaving chest, nestling his head into Tom’s furrowed neck. Purrs mingle softly with erratic snores and grunts.
A soft jingle from the front door causes Tom to stir from his slumber. ‘Hallelujah’ has long since faded out, replaced by a low hum, something Tom wakes up to more often than not. Again the bell sounds, making the cat scamper onto the floor. He tries to force his eyes to open as Rufus scampers to the alcove and begins to miaow plaintively.
‘What’s up, buddy?’ Tom stretches his arm, feeling for Rufus just as the bell breaks fully into his consciousness. ‘What the f—’
The bell rings again. This time, it seems louder.
‘What the fuck? Who the fuck is that?’ Tom lifts his head and tries to focus. ‘Rufus?’
He forces himself up on one arm and blearily studies the new red wine map on the sofa. No! Not again! Fuck! He looks at the clock on the mantle, rubbing his short, grey-stippled hair, and he stretches his legs back to the floor. Tom stands up and places the toppled wine glass back on the coffee table.
‘Rufus?’
He looks around, sees all the candles are out, and looks out of the windows towards the river and the London Eye. A moistness in his crotch slowly enters his consciousness, and he looks with disgust at the dark wet patch around his groin and screws up his nose at the sharp smell of urine. You fucking tramp! The bell rings again and, as he begins staggering into the hall, he peers towards the Victorian coiled bell quivering on its wire. Rufus is nowhere to be seen. Probably hiding under the bed again, scaredy-cat that he is.
Tom shoots a vicious look at the door. It’ll be some lost drunk from the hotel. Every fucking night, he seems to get some idiot who is lost, looking for their room. He’s just in the mood for giving him a piece of his mind, and he approaches the door shouting, ‘Who’s there?’
There is no response. He scrabbles for the key in the lock and turns it awkwardly. A twist on the handle makes no difference, and he remembers he has to release the security catch. Again, he shouts, ‘Who’s there?’ Two firm bangs on the door make him jump. He pulls the catch. The door is heavy as he pulls harder, feeling it give as something pushes it from the other side.
‘Wait!’ he shouts.
Tom squints at the young man before him who seems to be averting his eyes from him. He is shorter than Tom, with a long scruffy brown beard that tapers to a point at his chest. Long hair covers the collar of the heavy dark coat he wears, and he has a thick metal ring in his nose as a bull might have. A tattoo of a snake, its fangs gripping his right nostril, covers his right cheek, the winding tail curving beyond his chin, twisting down his neck, disappearing behind the beard. Tom blinks at the dull chain linking the nose ring to a grey metal hoop in his left ear.
‘Can I help you?’ Tom is trying to focus on the dull band of yellow and red silk poking out from under the young man’s coat, leading a path to scruffy cut-off jeans revealing his shins and sandalled feet.
‘A’right?’ A dank acrid smell hits Tom at the same time as the voice connects with his brain, and their eyes make contact.
‘Daniel? Daniel, is that YOU? Is that you?’ He looks into the boy’s large green eyes. The eyes are his answer, but he waits for it anyway.
Tom rubs his hands together, and an involuntary shudder shakes his shoulders. His feeling of drunkenness leaves him as he leans his head forward, trying to focus. Is this a dream? His hands fall to his wet crotch. No words will come. Could this really be his son? The essence of the man standing before him bears no relationship to the memory of his boy, his firstborn. It has been so long since he last saw him. He blinks away tears.
‘It’s Dani now.’
Yes, this is Daniel. ‘Come in, son, come in!’ Tom puts his hands on his son’s shoulders. The boy shrugs them off as soon as they make contact.
‘Where the hell’ve you been? I hardly recognise you,’ says Tom.
Daniel shrugs again. ‘Been travelling, Tom.’
‘Tom? Can you at least call me Dad? However much you resent me, I’m still your dad.’
‘Whatever.’
‘Come in, will you? Let’s not stand here in the doorway.’
‘You’re drunk.’ Daniel looks him up and down and adds, ‘As per usual.’
‘Daniel, it’s four in the morning. OK, I’ve had a drink. So what? It’s the weekend, isn’t it?’
Daniel scowls at Tom. He throws his backpack behind him in the hallway, eyeing the walls with a frown, scrunching up his nose, giving movement to the snake. ‘You’ve tarted the place up.’
‘I’d only just moved in when you last saw it. That time when you came with that friend of yours, Vikram or something, wasn’t it? Anyway, magnolia was never my colour, was i
t?’ Tom sweeps his arms towards the walls and smiles.
‘Waqar, idiot! He was my best friend.’ Daniel gazes at the deep-red Venetian plasterwork. He scowls again and gathers phlegm in his throat and makes as if to spit.
‘Don’t even think about it! What do you mean was your friend? Have you two fallen out? Shame, I liked him.’
‘He was the best friend I ever had, or ever will have. He died.’
‘Died? God, no! He couldn’t have been more than twenty-three. How awful. What on earth happened to him?’
‘A car accident. He was twenty-five,’ says Daniel, looking at the floor. He pauses and wrings his hands. ‘I miss him.’
‘Where, when? Was he driving? Did a car hit him? God, Daniel, it’s just too awful.’
For the first time, Daniel’s expression seems to soften; there is a vulnerability hidden under his façade of anger. Is he close to tears?
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘Daniel, I’m so sorry. That’s just dreadful.’
Daniel’s face hardens again, as if some switch has been flicked inside him. ‘Shit happens.’
‘Are you staying the night? You can stay as long as you like. It would be good to catch up with you, find out what you’ve been up to.’
‘I’m here for tonight… OK?’
‘You’re always welcome here. You know that.’
‘Yeah, OK.’
