by John Marrs
‘But you’ll make it up to those folk once you leave college,’ Michael continued. ‘Do some volunteer work, work full time for a charity . . . whatever you need to do to earn yourself some good karma. And you’re doing this for us, not just for yourself.’
Savannah knew what Michael said made sense; if she were to storm out of the family home on principle to go it alone, he too would suffer from the loss of her generous allowance that helped to pay for his college tuition. Michael also abhorred his inability to pay his own way, but he knew he was benefitting for the greater good.
‘I can’t afford to put myself through med school on my own, or I’d be paying off loans until I retired,’ he reminded her. ‘But once I’m qualified, I’m going to work in the public sector. I’m going to help you give back what your daddy has taken away.’
All Savannah had to do was offer an occasional half-smile in front of her father, her mother and the cameras for a little while longer, and then she’d be free to start living her life as she should, with Michael. And she couldn’t wait. Keeping a boyfriend secret from her family for almost three years was difficult. She’d learned to lie to them about seeing friends, attending non-existent college parties, social mixers and extracurricular college classes, all so she could spend time with him.
‘Okay, I know, you’re right, it’s just tough sometimes,’ she admitted.
Michael clasped her hands gently and smiled. ‘I know, baby, I know. But you’re doing real good. And once you leave that house for ever, think of the look on his face when he realises his daughter’s boyfriend is a black man.’
Savannah grinned and leaned over the table to plant a kiss on Michael’s lips, unaware Pastor Jackson had stopped in his tracks outside the coffee shop, unsure as to whether his eyes were deceiving him.
CHAPTER 19
TODAY
‘Hey, buddy, how’s it going?’
Tommy looked up from the TV set to find two men standing before him, one tanned, one the colour of a boiling lobster, and both unshaven and sweating. Tommy wasn’t sure if they were drunk or friends of Joe.
‘Can I help you?’ he replied curtly.
‘Actually we’re here to help you,’ replied Matty, and flashed him a big, crooked smile.
Tommy raised an unconvinced eyebrow. By sight alone, he knew their type, because every hostel he’d stayed in had them: wannabe alpha males in a community made up of omegas. They were the loudest; the most opinionated; the effortlessly confident; the biggest boasters; the ones who were first to laugh at themselves and then at others; who’d travelled the furthest, the longest and through the harshest of terrains. They were everything in a traveller that Tommy disliked because they were everything he didn’t have the confidence to be. And he didn’t want them under his roof.
‘By special delivery from Ireland, we’ve brought to you the life and soul your hostel needs, in two rather handsome packages, if I might be so bold. I’m Matty, and my friend here is Declan.’
Tommy remained deadpan; already, their presumption that the hostel could not function without their presence made his hackles rise.
‘My esteemed pal and I need shelter from the elements,’ Declan persevered.
‘It’s 30 degrees outside,’ Tommy replied.
‘Precisely,’ added Matty. ‘We need a roof over our heads to cool down.’
‘The trouble is we have a wee cash flow problem,’ added Declan. ‘We’re waiting for some nicker to be transferred from home, but we can settle up with you at the end of the week if you can offer us a couple of beds?’
‘Does it say “homeless shelter” outside?’ asked Tommy. ‘We’re not a charity, so you’ll have to sleep on the beach till you sort out your “cash flow” problem.’
‘Ah, but that’s illegal,’ replied Declan, still smiling.
‘That’s not my problem.’
‘That’s not very Christian of you,’ added Declan, tilting his head towards Reverend Devereaux’s television broadcast, ‘and I can see you’re a man of faith.’
‘The telly only gets three stations.’
‘Okay, what if we made a donation in the form of these?’ asked Matty. He and Declan unclipped their backpacks and removed an Xbox One and a Sony Blu-ray player they’d taken as souvenirs from a boxcar. Matty and Declan smiled hopefully at Tommy.
‘So, let me get this right. You have no money but want to pay for a bed with stolen electronics? I don’t think so.’
‘Come on, man, have you got no heart for a neighbouring countryman? We’ll kip on the floor, we’re not fussy,’ pleaded Matty. They were used to talking people around to their way of thinking.
‘Nice to meet you, but goodbye,’ replied Tommy, smiling to himself. ‘Not today,’ he thought.
‘Oh you fecking bellend,’ snapped Declan, banging his fist on the counter just as Ron appeared from his office.
‘Is there a problem, Timmy?’ he asked gruffly.
‘It’s Tommy, and no, there’s no problem – these gentlemen were just leaving.’
‘Didn’t room four empty this morning?’
‘Well yeah, but they’re broke. And they’re trying to pay for it with stolen goods.’
‘Can you boys cook?’
Matty and Declan looked at each and smiled, while Tommy looked aghast.
‘We certainly can, sir,’ replied Matty.
‘Organise the evening meals and you can stay,’ said Ron before Tommy had a chance to argue, and immediately he’d regretted telling Ron about the previous night’s issues with Joe. ‘And make sure Peyk installs these kind donations in the lounge, Timmy,’ added Ron, pointing to the boxes.
‘We’ll have two keys, please, Timmy,’ added Declan with a victorious grin, ‘and bring our bags to our room, there’s a good lad.’
CHAPTER 20
34.02419N was the first line of numbers the needle began to etch in black ink.
Once the Hispanic tattoo artist finished, he dabbed blood and excess colour from between the seventh and eighth of Jake’s ribs with a tissue. Then he continued with the next row – 118.4814W. Jake had chosen a simple Arial font, the same as the other twenty-four rows of numbers that preceded it and that stretched from just under his armpit and down towards his hip bone.
The tattooist cleaned Jake up and passed him a mirror. Jake smiled as he examined the latest numbers in his collection. Once a thin plastic sheet had been taped to his side to protect his body art, Jake paid his $45 for the work, then swept his long, chestnut brown hair into a ponytail, threw his battered rucksack over his back and continued his journey along the Venice Beach boardwalk.
‘Remember who you are, not who you were,’ he repeated over and over in his head, and absent-mindedly bit down on the inside of his cheek as he walked.
CHAPTER 21
As the morning progressed, Tommy’s light began to dim to a darkness that would often permeate his world without warning.
Matty and Declan’s appearance hadn’t helped his mood, but they weren’t the root cause of it. He didn’t know what encouraged the clouds to blow in late that day, all he knew was that each time they appeared, he’d get the sudden urge to break from the norm of surrounding himself with others and ensconce himself in silent contemplation.
He made no effort to placate a grumpy Sadie when she arrived for her shift and took him to task for not helping to free Peyk from the ceiling. Instead, he made his way towards his empty dormitory, crawled into his sleeping bag and curled himself up as much as the material would allow. After a few moments, he reached into the rucksack under his bed and removed a small leather pouch, from which he poured four memory cards into his hand. Three of them he’d sometimes slot into his digital camcorder to watch and remind himself of how far he’d come with his new life as a backpacker.
But the other he could still not bring himself to play. He kept it in the centre of his palm and stared at it, surprised that something so small could frighten him so much.
TWO YEARS EARLIER – NORTHAMPTON, ENG
LAND
Tommy was unaware how long he’d remained unconscious in the back of his brothers’ car before he came to.
His eyelids flickered as he struggled to acquaint himself with his whereabouts, and he became distracted by a figure skirting around whatever it was he was caught inside. He thought he could see the whites of their eyes glaring at him coldly like the grim reaper. It made him shiver.
As his vision slowly returned, Tommy’s forehead palpitated like the time Daniel had accidentally smacked him full-force with a cricket ball as a child. And as he turned his head in the direction of a sudden noise, a shooting pain jumped from his left shoulder and up into his neck.
Tommy knew something in his world was askew. Now, through a cracked window, he could see an unfamiliar woman and a man, and he didn’t know why he was watching them from a peculiar angle. He felt strangely calm, as if he were caught in that cosy period just before he fell into sleep but had already begun to dream.
Suddenly a gentle thumping on the window became a louder, more urgent banging and he thought he heard someone say something like: ‘One in the back . . . moving.’ Then, like the sudden force of the impact of the shadow that had ripped into their car, Tommy knew exactly where he was. Fear and panic rose in tandem as he twisted his aching head from side to side, absorbing the carnage Lee and Daniel’s car had become.
He couldn’t understand why he was alone; from where he sat, the driver’s seat was empty, with a twisted gear stick protruding at a right angle. The door had been struck so hard that it jutted inwards, towards the passenger seat. Tommy accepted the shadow he’d seen through his camcorder must have been the other vehicle that had collided with them and pushed their car onto its side. And judging by the state of the internal and external fittings, it had been a serious smash. But where were his brothers? Why would they have left him there without trying to help him escape?
‘Lee!’ he began, ‘Dan?’
‘Don’t move,’ came Lee’s voice from outside.
Thank God, he was alright, Tommy thought, and for a moment his alarm began to subside. He patted down his arms and legs and only his foot looked wrongly placed, pointing at an awkward angle, yet it didn’t ache as much as his neck. He reached for the seat belt buckle and clicked the release button, and after several attempts it came loose. Grabbing at the other seat belt, he began hauling himself towards the window where faces outside were watching him. However, a bar of metal wedged across that glass prevented his release.
His eyes darted around the car, desperately trying to find another route to freedom. He noticed the windscreen had shattered but the roof had been pushed down, leaving a means of escape only a child could squeeze through.
It was at that moment he caught a glimpse of the front passenger seat. At first, his brain couldn’t deconstruct what lay twisted on it – heaps of clothes, stained by a red liquid and what resembled sinew and bones jutting out in strange positions. Then suddenly, he knew what it was.
His brothers’ bodies shared the seat, melded together with torn flesh and metal like Siamese twins. Tommy stared at them in horror, unable to work out who was who. One of their heads was now concave, while the other’s was only held in place by a visible sliver of bone. Tommy couldn’t make sense of it, he would have sworn on a stack of bibles he’d just heard Lee’s voice outside. But here lay Lee with Daniel, tangled together with no pulse between them.
In sheer terror, he had to get out of the car and he had to get out right now. He began screaming at the people outside for their help but no sound came from his throat. He kicked and pulled at the back seats to smash the rear window but it just made the bones in his foot audibly crack.
‘Help me,’ he began quietly, his voice gradually returning. ‘Help me, please help me.’
‘There’s an ambulance and a fire engine on its way, son,’ came a voice, and Tommy saw that a small crowd had gathered. He felt like a terrified circus animal surrounded by baying crowds and swore he could see a mobile phone’s camera flash.
Tommy gradually felt more and more numb until he curled himself up into a tight ball, where he remained for the longest hour of his life, alone with his brothers for the very last time.
TODAY
Tommy continued fixating on the memory card in his hand; the final footage he’d taken of his brothers.
But he was afraid that by watching it, it would bring back more of the day than the fragments he remembered and had run so many miles to escape. He was scared to see Lee and Daniel’s faces again; to be reminded of that awful sound of pounding metal against metal; metal against tarmac; shattering glass and the helpless feeling of being trapped inside that tomb.
Tommy knew that if he could gather the courage to insert the memory card and press play, then maybe, just maybe, he could come to terms with what happened that day. But the risk that it would make him feel even lousier than he did already was one he wasn’t ready to take.
He recalled the WPC who came to the family house and handed back his camcorder explained it had stopped filming seconds after the impact and offered investigators about as much as the broken traffic cameras mounted above the junction. They had their suspicions as to the identity of the driver of the stolen car that collided with them, but it was hard to prove.
‘I need to do something,’ he told himself, urgently craving a purpose. He climbed out of his bed, changed into his shorts and pulled a cash and carry discount card from his toilet bag.
As he approached the reception desk and heard Ron’s voice coming loudly from his office, Tommy realised the longest conversation they’d shared was the first night he appeared on Ron’s doorstep. His memories were still a little fuzzy, but he recalled hearing a loud crack and then felt something shove him forward before his head smashed against the sidewalk. Later, Ron had told him he’d been shot, but Tommy felt strangely accepting of the news. He wondered how many more times he’d need to stare death in the face before it took him once and for all.
Ron had offered him a bed and work at the hostel in the hope Tommy wouldn’t report the incident to the police and bring unnecessary attention to a hostel that walked a fine legal line when it came to occupancy numbers, building code regulations, under-age drinking, pot smoking and a whole host of other dubious activities. Tommy agreed, and the only question he’d asked was about the identity of the woman’s voice he’d heard as he came to. He couldn’t remember anything else about the girl, like her accent or what she’d said. Ron acknowledged someone had helped to pull him inside, but said it was a passing stranger. But Tommy got the impression Ron wasn’t being honest with him.
‘If I had it, I’d give it to you!’ Tommy heard Ron yell from inside his office, before slamming the phone down.
The longer Tommy spent under that roof, the more suspicious he became about what else Ron wasn’t telling him.
CHAPTER 22
Nicole’s truck turned left at the traffic lights off Ventura Boulevard before pulling into the car park of a collection of medium-sized retail outlets.
‘Thanks for helping me out,’ began Tommy as they grabbed a shopping cart and walked through the siding doors and into the cash and carry. ‘Where did you tell Eric you were going?’
‘I said we were going to get the tyre checked out as it looked a little flat after we hit the kerb when we arrived.’
Tommy smiled and appreciated that she’d lied for him. ‘I don’t think he likes me very much, does he?’
‘He’s just a little over-protective at times. I don’t have the greatest record with men and he doesn’t want to see me get hurt.’
‘And he thinks I’ll hurt you?’
‘You’re presuming I’d allow you close enough for that to happen! But no, he thinks any man could hurt me.’
‘Apart from him, right? I think he likes you as more than just a friend.’
Nicole dismissed the idea immediately, like she had when Mrs Baker had suggested the same thing. ‘Really, he doesn’t.’
However Nicole
had secretly begun to wonder if there might be an element of truth in it. Because during their great American adventure, she’d come to notice that Eric had found a way of getting in between her and any fellow traveller who paid her even the slightest bit of attention. Gradually she realised it wasn’t inconceivable that their closeness had grown into something more, at least on Eric’s part. And that worried her.
When she and Eric had returned to the hostel from the beach with still no idea of where they should travel to next, Nicole bumped into Tommy in the corridor while Eric was showering. He’d asked her to drive him to get hostel food supplies, but as Nicole didn’t have a licence, she offered to accompany him if he drove her pick-up truck. Nicole knew from the previous night’s warning that Eric wouldn’t have approved of them spending time together helping Tommy without him. But he wouldn’t want to have tagged along either and while she hated dishonesty, he’d backed her into a corner.
There was something about Tommy that she was drawn to, even after such a short time. He possessed an innocence and naivety that she appreciated, and the older she became, the less often she found such qualities in men her own age.
On their way to buy supplies, she’d asked Tommy to continue the story he’d begun the night before, and as he quietly recalled the car accident that killed his brothers, she instinctively placed her hand upon his as he drove.
His honesty made her want to reciprocate and explain why she was in America, but she felt by revealing that, she would be going against Eric’s will.
CHAPTER 23
Matty and Declan aborted an attempt to chat up two girls they fancied working behind the frozen yoghurt counter.
As visually appealing as they were, the girls were really just a means to an end – they had food at their fingertips and the boys were broke and hungry. But when it became clear the girls couldn’t understand their accents, they admitted defeat and continued their walk along the boulevard. They’d already filled themselves up on other hostellers’ boxes of cereal in the kitchen, but their hungry bellies were rumbling again.
