The Wannabes

by F. R. Jameson

  He looked at his clothes and picked out a pair of jeans and a black shirt. He wondered where she was. He wanted to speak to her again, have her hold him again, make her see he was doing the right thing. He thought he should look for her, but then he wanted to be gone, to get to Nick’s and hopefully find that everything was all right. He wanted these dreadful images to stop flashing each time he blinked.

  He left her room and moved down the hallway. The sunlight shone around the walls and gave an almost ethereal glow. It was still the quiet time of morning, all seemingly lost to slumber. Then he reached the front door, his hand on the lock, and Abigail’s voice cried: “Clay? Oh Clay, are you out there?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You couldn’t visit me in here, could you?” she asked. “I could do with a man’s help.”

  He pulled his hand back from the front door and crossed the hall to Abigail’s bedroom, which was a brilliant white – a perfect white – every wall and surface immaculate. The wardrobe, chest of drawers, bed, the frame of the full length mirror appeared as if showered in clean powdered chalk. The sheets, pillows, carpet, curtains were spotless. There was no sign of wear, no hint of life taking place in this room. It was all so pristine.

  This morning, the only thing which wasn’t white was Abigail herself. Generally, her pale skin suited the decor, with only her hair offering a contrast. Now however, she was wearing a pair of black panties and a black push-up bra. She had her hands on her hips and wiggled them as he entered – not too much, just enough for him to notice, yet not enough for it to seem blatantly noticeable.

  He remembered what Nick said last night – before the dream. He’d been right, she did look so fucking good.

  She beamed wide at him and ran her tongue around her lips. “Good morning, Clay. And how are we today?”

  He couldn’t think of any words. “Yeah,” was all he said. He was conscious of staring at her, but also that she was there to be stared at. She was phenomenally sexy and knew that as well as any man who’d ever ogled her. She wasn’t going to appear in her underwear without expecting him to drool. It would be rude if he didn’t, a sign there was something wrong with him. He looked at her toned calves, long smooth thighs, the tantalising black silk of her underwear, flat stomach, perky breasts, long thin throat and that lovely superior face. He looked right up to her welcoming smile and then wanted to do it all over again.

  She looked so beautiful, and yet Nick had said he knew something terrible about her, both last night and in the dream.

  “What can I do for you?” he asked.

  “Could you possibly move that chest of drawers?” she said. “I’ve had a feeling for a few months it’s in the wrong place. Two inches to the right should be perfect I think.”

  “Okay.” His gaze just managed to tear away from her and over to the large and intimidating white chest of drawers.

  She stood close behind him. He felt her breathing, and then actually felt her lean against him, her breasts pressed to his back.

  God, he wanted her.

  “You know,” she said, “it’s extremely good to have a man around, someone to do the things that aren’t quite so good if you try to do them yourself.”

  He tried to swallow. He felt suddenly vulnerable, like prey which had chosen the wrong hiding place.

  It was a large chest of drawers, wide and deep. He thought he could probably move it, reckoned he had enough strength to shift it the two inches. He was just so hot, shaky. He wanted to get out to Nick’s flat. This was an unneeded distraction. Her hard body pressed to his was more than just a distraction.

  He was Belinda’s, and she wouldn’t want anything like that to happen which she didn’t know about.

  “Do you think you can do it, Clay?” Her voice sank so sweet and soft into him. “Can you manage it? Are you man enough?”

  “I can move it.”

  “Good,” she purred. “I like to see a man use his muscles.”

  Nick thought she had bewitched him, that she had somehow made him fall in love with her.

  Abigail stepped back and Clay’s breathing relaxed. Then he placed his hands at either side and yanked it. There was no way he could physically lift it, but he had just enough strength to pull it across the carpet. He probably only got it about an inch and a half before he let go.

  His relative failure didn’t bother her though. She was a step behind him, magnificent in her knickers and bra, one eye-brow raised and a slow hand-clap of appreciation.

  “Bravo!” she said. She took his hand. “Come here you poor thing, you look exhausted.” She sat him down on the bed.

  What was it that Nick knew about her?

  Her hand stroked his face. “Relax for a minute. Thank you for that. It’s been in the wrong place for some time now and it’s been bothering me. It’s just been so long since I’ve had a real man in here.”

  What would Nick have told him about her in the dream?

  She sat in his lap and wrapped one arm around his shoulders and stretched out her long legs. He looked down and could see her dark erect nipples poking through the thin bra. “Now, the only thing left is to thank you properly.”

  The dream wasn’t real though – it surely wasn’t real – but she clearly had the power to enchant.

  She leant her lips to his, but he managed to turn his head and instead she caressed her tongue into his ear.

  It had almost hurt to turn away. He thought of Nick landing with a crack to his knees, the back of his skull dented by the impact of the guitar.

  Almost against his will Clay stared down at her flat stomach and her thin thighs and then, involuntarily, wound his arm around her waist. She reached for his mouth again, and again he turned away.

  When Nick tried to pull the strings from his throat his hands were already cut. The blood from both his neck and his fingers sprayed out in front of him.

  “Come now,” she said. “Where does Belinda think you are? She thinks you’re out, doesn’t she? She thinks you’re not at home any more. Please, there’s no need for her to think any different – we can be slow, we can be quiet, we can have fun and no one need know about it. Do you know how good I am, Clay? Do you? I’m as good as I look. Can you imagine that? Somebody shagging as good as I look? I tell you, that’s the way it is and I can prove it. You’re so tense, relax a little – enjoy.”

  As the strings got tighter, as they bisected his throat, the blood started to spurt out of Nick’s mouth.

  “I’ve seen the way you look at me. You may think it’s out of the corner of your eye, but I know. I can feel your gaze on me. I like you, Clay. I want you too. I can feel your hand on me now. I can feel how fast your breath is.”

  At the end, it was as if Nick’s lips receded, as though they’d been dragged back to leave his tongue and teeth exposed. That’s how he’d looked when his broken head fell to the carpet.

  “Don’t you want me, Clay? I know you want me. Kiss me, feel me, make love to me. Let me make love to you. Don’t go out, stay here and enjoy me.”

  She was so fucking fantastic, she was so fucking sexy. She was so fucking delicious. He wanted to tear the bra apart with his fingers, rip her knickers off with his teeth. He wanted to kiss every gorgeous inch of her, to hold her down and screw her all day long. But he thought of Belinda, thought of the broken and angry head of Nick Turnkey, thought he couldn’t get caught in her spell no matter how spellbinding she was.

  Her eyes held his, but he struggled the words out: “I’ve got to go.”

  Her hand caught his face sharp, dragging down his cheek bones. She was quickly off his lap, wrapping a dressing gown around her.

  “Get out! Get the fuck out of here! You’re my flatmate’s boyfriend – my best friend’s boyfriend – and I don’t appreciate you making passes at me!”

  He stood up, the bulge still in his trousers but mouth agape – scared of Belinda hearing, scared of how he’d explain his presence in Abigail’s room.

  “Get out, you sleazy bastard! I’m
not doing those things with you! How dare you? How dare you suggest that?”

  He ran to her door, dashed through, slammed it behind him.

  The hallway was quiet. Nobody was there, nobody had come running to her cries. She wasn’t even crying any more. It was as if her point was proved when he ran away scared. He was alone in the sunshine hallway. The only sound was his rapid breath.

  Then, Belinda’s door opened and she stepped out in a pair of jeans and a white T-shirt. She wore only a touch of make-up and her hair was brushed down and lacked some of its usual bounce. For the first time in years he saw her wearing glasses rather than contact lenses. They were designer, with plastic black frames; they made her look both smart and sexy, which he guessed was their point.

  “Good,” she said, “you’re still here. I want to come with you.”

  “Do you? Why?”

  “Because you’re disturbing me as well, honey. And if something has happened, I want to be there to find out what the Hell is going on. I want to be with you. Is that okay?”

  “Yes. Thank you, Belinda.”

  “Come on then,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  He gave a guilty look at Abigail’s door and everything was still quiet. He took Belinda’s hand and they left.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  They walked down Holloway Road slowly, barely speaking, just holding tight. As usual the street throbbed with misdirected energy. Pedestrians charged past – yapping to a friend, yapping to a phone, looking crazy yapping to a hand’s free, genuinely crazy as they yapped to no soul but themselves. The drivers whizzed by as if unaware even of the concept of speed limits. There was the roar of tyre on tarmac, the screech of brakes and the tone-deaf chorus of beeping horns.

  There were sirens and, each time he heard them, Clay flinched.

  It was Holloway Road so there was a cacophony of sirens – ambulances, fire engines, police cars – all dashing to the latest catastrophe. Nothing to do with Nick, nothing to do with any murder. This was the back-end of North London; there was a lot of need for sirens.

  Nick’s building was a block and a half ahead. They both stared hard up the road, trying to pick out something wrong, a sign of a dream come horribly true. They walked in tentative small steps.

  There was activity outside and cars were parked there – but this was Holloway Road, there was always activity, there were always cars. He tried to see the front of the building, strained to identify any smoke damage, was desperate to see if any of those cars were police cars. There was a lorry parked in front – an articulated, refrigerated lorry – blocking their view.

  Belinda hung on his arm almost as if she wanted to pull him back, wanted him to go even slower than their slow pace.

  He tried to think happy thoughts, to imagine everything was fine, that it was all just a dream. He tried to whistle in his mind. But each time he picked a Beatles tune and saw Nick’s doubled-up body on the carpet, his tongue hanging from his mouth – the veins popping up dark against the flesh.

  Their gaze passed the lorry. Then they saw it. The second floor of that building – the front flat gutted. He staggered and tried to stop. But now she pulled him on, kept him going.

  “It may not be the same flat,” she said. “It could be one of his neighbours, it might still be a coincidence.”

  He let her pull him on, too numb for anything else.

  The food delivery guy leapt in the cab of his refrigerated lorry and drove off. There were police cars on the scene – two marked, one unmarked.

  Clay stumbled, but she made sure he didn’t stop even though he felt vomit bubble in his insides at every step. They were on the other side of the road staring at that ad-hoc crematorium, rubber-necking with pale faces.

  There were two police officers – one in uniform and one not. He guessed one was a detective. The front door was half open. The last time he’d been there it was white, now it was red just like in his dream.

  He gasped and nearly buckled. Belinda held him upright and kept him walking – but he was ill, teetering on the edge of collapse. There was surely no way he could hide his guilt. He must have been stained suspicious – and so it was with good reason that, even across the race of traffic, the detective turned and looked.

  It was the same detective who’d been outside Raymond’s yesterday.

  Clay turned away quickly, too scared to even risk a glimpse any more. He leant into Belinda, let her guide him to the next corner. She turned him round it and they walked five feet before he dropped into the first doorway and melted into tears in her arms.

  He saw a repeated snapshot of Nick’s broken face. His eyes were shocked and petrified, there was blood pouring from the narrow slices in his throat, from his smashed open fingers, from the back of his head where splinters of guitar had pierced him. It was blood that got darker and thicker the more it flowed. He saw it all in the burst of a flashbulb from many different angles. He saw the photos neatly produced and flicked through fast like a child’s motion book. He saw them real, vivid, so much like his other memories – because that’s what they were, weren’t they? – pain-filled memories from the night before. His knees shook and the vomit bubbled just between his stomach and his chest.

  “It’s okay,” said Belinda. “It’s just coincidence. You don’t even know it’s his place, there’s more than one flat up there and it could be any one of them. Don’t cry. This is nothing to do with you.”

  “The door.”

  “What?”

  “The door. It’s the same colour as last night. It wasn’t that colour the last time I was here, but it was red in my dream. It was red in my dream and it’s red now, and I killed someone in my dream and there’s someone dead now.”

  “You didn’t do it! You were with me all night.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I can remember it, I can remember being here. I can remember murdering him – and now there are police outside. If it was just a fire, there wouldn’t be police. Something happened last night Belinda, something terrible – and I can remember it happening.”

  Belinda held him, supported him in that doorway when it seemed every particle of his strength had gone, when it seemed he’d collapse into a pathetic puddle of former muscle and bone. She clutched his neck and kissed him. She made soothing sounds. She didn’t actually utter words but made noises that were kind and sympathetic. She sang gentle tunes that were without blame.

  He’d always believed himself a decent man, a good human being – and now he’d literally woken up and found himself a monster. A vicious murdering bastard of a demon. It didn’t matter if Belinda swore he was with her, they were still his memories, his thoughts: the pictures in his mind. He needed to feel the closeness of a loved one, to hear her kind sounds, to believe she still regarded him as someone she could safely touch. And so with every sweet caress and caring coo, he buried himself deeper within her.

  The tears subsided, as tears always have to, and he began to straighten up. He caught his reflection in the glass of the doorway. Red skin, swollen eyes and wet nose. She wiped his face and then held him again until he seemed calmer, more normal. She continued to run her hands down his back and to make those mothering noises.

  She took him up the road to a café. There was one back on Holloway Road, about two hundred yards up from Nick’s gutted home. She guided Clay out onto the pavement and made sure he didn’t glance over his shoulder at the building. His steps were nervous, like Lot’s wife moving slowly because she knew – even though she’d been told not to – that she should really look back. But if Lot had been as strong as Belinda, there would have been no incident and no story. He’d have just taken his other half by the arm, talked sweetly but determinedly, and walked her away until her steps got quicker and the devilish temptation had passed.

  It was a greasy spoon, with cracked tiles and plastic tables. Belinda held Clay’s arm and led him to a seat with its back to the window, where she left him while she got them something to drink. The guy behind
the counter was a good looking young Greek with a sparkle in his eye. He’d clearly have liked to flirt quite heavily, and Clay felt that on another day she’d have consented. Instead, she shrugged apologetically and just handed over the money with a smile that was a kiss. He gave exactly the same smile in return.

  Clay had tea, Belinda coffee.

  “Here you go.” She sat with a grace and poise which didn’t suit her surroundings. She was miscast, clearly bringing too much class to this greasy spoon role.

  “Thanks.” Clay’s voice was numb.

  She reached across and took his hand. It made him look up from the morose gaze he was giving the floor and to the appealing, sympathetic look she had waiting for him.

  “It’s a mystery,” she said. “I don’t know why you’re dreaming these things. Have you ever had a psychic moment before? When you were a kid perhaps?”

  He shook his head.

  “I don’t know then, Clay. Maybe this is some kind of gift.”

  “Yeah, it’s a great gift. I see these dreadful things and there’s nothing I can do about it. By the time I arrive the person is dead and I’m the shop-worn cavalry.” He took a gulp of hot, tasteless tea. “I don’t know if they’re visions, I don’t know what they are. It’s not like an out-of-body experience, it’s not like I’m floating there watching it. It’s me who goes to their homes, me they talk to, me they address and when their backs are turned – bang! Me who kills them.”

  She tilted her face to an even kinder angle. “Tell me again, what happened in the dream you had about Raymond?”

  He took his hand away and pushed them both hard through his hair, pressing against his temples.

  “I don’t remember. I know I killed him, set fire to his house – but I can’t recall the rest.”

  “So you don’t know how he died?”

  “No.”

  “And how about Nick? We don’t know he died the way you said. We don’t even know he’s dead – it could be one of his neighbours.”