by Rhys Thomas
Picking himself up, he notices a huge dent in the Corsa. Not good. The vehicle is a shocking pink, emblazoned with the logo Shaniqua’s Nails and Brows. Shaniqua stares at the masked man before her, mouth open, the glow of her mobile phone underlighting her ample chin. An anonymous cash donation will arrive at Shaniqua’s boutique tomorrow. But his main priority is Malcolm, who’s hightailing it past the butcher’s. No time for sausages today. The dog looks over his shoulder, his tongue lolling with exertion. Yes, the Phantasm is still on you, my good man. His upper-body protection has seen him unharmed by the puny automobile.
‘Malcolm, no!’ he calls.
The dog has found a gap under the fence into the train station and is on the empty platform when the hero joins him. His head is low and he looks up with puppy-dog eyes. There is a space between them of perhaps twenty feet. Nineteen. Eighteen.
‘It’s OK, Malcolm, I’m going to take you home.’
The dog seems to trust him. Or perhaps it is more akin to respect.
‘Ooh, you’re a handsome gentleman, yes you are,’ says the costumed crusader. Thirteen. ‘What a lovely, lovely boy you are, Malcolm. A true gent.’
The dog stares at him.
‘You’re such a well-behaved young man.’
Eight.
There is a rumbling behind him, which comes on fast. Malcolm’s ears prick up. Before him, the Phantasm’s shadow lengthens. It’s the London train. Fast, long, too busy to stop at a little station like this. Malcolm leaps up.
‘No!’
The dog jumps on to the line, which screeches electrically. Somehow he avoids stepping on the tracks.
The hero freezes for a second. The ground is shaking. And then he is in the air, dropping down. The sound wave of the train’s frenzied horn clatters through him. He’s misjudged this. He’s not going to make it. He throws his arms around Malcolm’s midriff and they tumble. With every last inch of strength the Phantasm leg-thrusts towards the far side just as the train whistles past, the sensation of its turbulence tearing at his clothes as it tries to suck him back on to the tracks. He manages to dig his free hand into the rocks between the opposite tracks and hold on, smothering Malcolm as the train screeches by. And when it is over, and the world stops shaking, he gets to his feet, a true hero, Malcolm spread across his arms like a baby, frenziedly licking the Phantasm’s face.
Chapter Seven
In work he kept his desk perfectly clear: a stacked in, out and ‘long-term’ paper tray and, on the top, his collection of large stationery that wouldn’t fit neatly in his drawers – paper punch, stapler, 30cm ruler, calculator. Everyone else in the office had normal hardware but Sam had bought a sleek, wireless keyboard and mouse. Wires made everything so complicated. He hated it when the surface of his desk wasn’t perfectly clutter-free, but when he got back after his week off the plain white surface was a horrible mess of folders and letters and faxed orders.
Rebecca from Accounts had called him OCD. Sam had laughed but didn’t agree. He’d seen many programmes about people who couldn’t leave the house, who cleaned eighteen hours a day, who went through scrubbing brushes and whole bottles of toilet cleaner, bleach and antibacterial spray on a daily basis, whose lives had been ruined by the compulsion to clean. He wasn’t that bad. Sam’s house was spotless, everything organised, he had a cupboard full of cleaning products and a monthly cleaning schedule, he liked things like coasters and TV remotes to be symmetrical, but he was by no means a sufferer of OCD. True he couldn’t quite relax if everything wasn’t in perfect order – if he suspected the sheets of his bed upstairs weren’t quite wrinkle-free, for example – but it didn’t impact his life. He read road signs twice, from beginning to end, blinked in even numbers, counted off in his head every figure on his speedometer twice – 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 130 140 mph kph, 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 130 140 mph kph – but he only did these things when alone. If he was with others he was fine and didn’t think about it at all. All of this notwithstanding, he definitely had to clear his desk as quickly as possible.
In no particular order he stacked the papers into a neat pile, just to get the Formica surface into view. His inbox was just as bad. His email was organised into neat folders by client, supplier and internal mail. He liked his inbox to be completely empty so when he logged on and found it four pages long – the horrible bold lettering of the unread – he knew this was going to be a long day.
At eleven o’clock he bought a sausage, egg and cheese muffin from the sandwich van that swung by every morning.
‘Have you got any Cherry Coke?’ he asked the driver.
‘I’ve got Dr Pepper.’
And yet the two were nothing alike. On the way back he thought about the night before, buying a lead, tying Malcolm to the front gatepost and knocking on the door before retreating into the shadows, Mrs Grabham coming into the night, younger than Sam and widowed, seeing Malcolm, breaking down right there in the street as she fell to her knees and threw her arms around the dog’s neck. True, he’d been reckless, but it had been worth it. While it was clear that Sarah was having a battering effect on Sam Holloway, she was emboldening the Phantasm, amplifying the feeling of invincibility the mask brought. He’d been hit by a car and almost hit by a train.
He printed off the picking lists for the next day’s deliveries – lists of parts and where in the warehouse to find them. He took them through to Mark, the warehouse guy, a teetotal motorcycle enthusiast who worked the doors of nightclubs at weekends. He was a talented artist as well, having shown Sam some of his work when Sam mentioned he was interested in comic books. Today he found Mark sitting at his beaten-up, oil-stained desk browsing one of his many back issues of Bizarre magazine.
‘You know we’ve got Romanians working here now?’ he said, not looking up.
‘What’s that?’
‘In the utility room. Ten of them. We had a reject part from Ford, so we need to sort through ten million of them in three months. They’re in there already, doing it right now. The girls are absolutely incredible.’
‘Ten million?’
‘They’re pushing them through cardboard slots Mr Okamatsu made.’
Mr Okamatsu being the UK General Manager.
‘That’s insane.’
‘He’s only just got back from China.’
‘What?’
‘Went on Friday night. Bought some suitcases in the airport, got a taxi to the factory, filled the suitcases with the new parts, came back. Just put them through as baggage.’
‘You’re kidding.’
Mark’s face filled with enthusiasm. ‘He did it!’
‘What if he’d been caught?’
Mark shrugged. ‘He had the commercial invoices with him. And Ford were on the verge of shutdown.’
Shutting down a line cost hundreds of thousands of pounds an hour, and if a supplier was responsible they’d not only lose the contract but face a court case.
‘He’s nuts,’ Mark said.
This was certainly true. Last May, during Japanese Golden Week when factories close down, Mr Okamatsu had called Sam at home and told him to come into the office as a matter of extreme importance. An urgent order had come in and they needed it ready for delivery by three. They prepared the parts, but when it came to raising the warehouse shutters to get them out, the chains came off the pulley. At this, Mr Okamatsu made Sam get on the forklift and lift him, on the forks, the thirty feet to examine the problem. Sam had never driven a forklift truck before, let alone held a licence, but Mr Okamatsu, with his austere face and eyes surveying everything from behind his light-sensitive glasses, insisted, ‘Easy, easy.’ So there he was, suspended thirty feet above the hard concrete floor, wobbling on the forks as Sam tried to raise him up as slowly as possible. When he reached the chains, Mr Okamatsu leaned across, lost his footing, and swung out across the warehouse, gripping the chains Tarzan-like, fully suited with shiny leather brogues, legs kicking, body twirling as he swung his way back on to th
e forks, while Sam watched in horror. Upon his safe return, Mr Okamatsu was completely unfazed.
Sam’s phone buzzed in his pocket. Without thinking, he pulled it out and his heart jolted. It was from Sarah.
Heya, sorry for the late reply, been away and couldn’t get signal. Yeah (in reply to a text Sam had sent her on Sunday) really enjoyed Fri. Do you wanna meet up one day this week?
‘Everything OK?’ said Mark.
‘Yeah, yeah, fine.’
Blood rushing, Sam tried to focus. He checked the time: 1:48. If he returned the text later that evening, say 8:30, it would give him nearly seven hours of contemplation.
What did she want to do? Was it a date? Should he buy condoms? No. That was presumptuous. He didn’t even want to have sex with someone he’d just met. Is that what she wants? Don’t be silly, Sam, you’re not attractive. You do not have sexual magnetism.
He went back to his desk and continued his work. He hardly thought about Sarah and the text, as the calm simplicity of numbers and figures enveloped him in a kindly tide and washed him away from reality. The office numbers dwindled with the daylight as the British staff clocked out, but Sam ploughed on, processing orders, checking stock, replying to Quality Departments all over the country (better to do it himself than pass the work on to Linda, who was not great at her job) with all the information they needed on certain parts – technical drawings, chemical breakdowns, safety test results – using the efficient catalogue of parts he had created when Linda had given up.
Dark now outside, through the little barred window above his desk he watched the silver clouds edged with blue traverse the moon. A hand fell on his shoulder. He turned, and the tall figure of Mr Okamatsu, with his light-sensitive glasses and gelled hair, loomed over him.
‘Sam,’ he said with his short, quick pronunciation. ‘You have returned.’
‘Mr Okamatsu.’
A curt nod. And nothing more. Good man for working late, was what the gesture meant. Nice to have you back. Mr Okamatsu backed slowly away, pivoted on his heels, and returned to his desk.
His father said, You can always tell a gentleman if he carries a freshly pressed handkerchief. And it made perfect sense. Of course a true gentleman carries a freshly pressed handkerchief, and Sam was diligent in obeying the maxim. Tonight was handkerchief-ironing night. He kept his used hankies in a small white basket lined with linen, and washed them when the basket was full. After finishing the last one, enjoying the satisfying hiss of the metal meeting the cloth, he folded it up and placed it with the others on the shelf in his wardrobe and picked up his phone. It was time to reply.
Hiya, sorry, it was crazy in work today. I’ve got a busy week this week. What did you have planned?
He threw the phone down on to his bed, as if it were an insect. He put away the ironing board and looked out the window at the neat back garden glowing white in the moonlight. The little pond in the top right corner, set amidst a rockery decorated with heathers, was icing over. Sparkles of frost glimmered on the rocks. The phone buzzed.
Ah no probs. Just thought it would be nice to see you.
He saw her, clear as day. The pretty face and glasses, a pint of Guinness in her hand, her red-and-black hair the shape of two scimitars. It’s time to move on, the higher Sam said. He stood frozen on his carpet, staring at the phone as it balanced on his open palm. He flicked it with his thumb and it spun, and he asked himself, simply, OK, do you want to spend time with her or not? His heart was racing and he was sweating. This isn’t normal, he told himself. Just a few hours in the pub, nothing deeper. Eyes closed, he thought of his parents, standing at the side of the wishing pond on the mountainside, the sunlight swallowing them.
He brought the phone up and watched the blank space of a new message, the little cursor blinking on and off.
Chapter Eight
He did this sometimes, stood in front of his collection of Blu-rays. He found the way the boxes were all the same size and feel, all lined up neatly on the high-quality, half-height oak bookcase, very soothing. There was a knock at the front door and he came back to reality. Sam went into the hallway and found Tango holding his laptop under his arm.
‘I want you to read something,’ he said, bustling past Sam and back into the kitchen. He set up his computer on the breakfast bar. Sidling round to see, Sam watched Tango bring up the familiar old Microsoft Word XP program that he hadn’t updated since school because it would be bad luck.
‘You could have called.’
‘I’ve texted you like five times.’
Tango never emailed his writing, always insisting people read it in situ. He’d seen a DVD extra where the film director Christopher Nolan does the same thing with scripts; takes them to the actor’s house where they read them while he waits in another room before taking the script away with him.
‘I’m kinda busy tonight,’ Sam said.
‘It’s only short. You have to read it because I want to enter it into a competition and I need feedback.’
He was always so jerky in his movements, the way he jabbed the keys, the way he leaned down to peer at the screen at zero degrees, even the way his pupils darted around. He’d been like this since infancy.
‘So who was that girl?’ he said, casually, not taking his eyes off the screen.
‘What girl?’
‘From Friday.’
He pulled up the file and slid the laptop across to Sam. ‘Here you go,’ he said, not waiting for Sam’s answer.
‘Perpetual Motion,’ said Sam.
‘Yup.’
‘Good title.’
He listened to Tango’s breath of relief. He didn’t understand why Tango put so much stock in his opinions. Sam stood up and carried the laptop over to the armchair at the entrance of the conservatory.
‘I’m going to make a cup of tea,’ said Tango.
‘No.’
‘But I just want to see where you are.’
‘No. Go to the living room and wait for me there. You know the rules.’
Disappointed, Tango followed the order.
Sam set the laptop on his knee and read the first line:
The devil is a code that runs through us all.
The story was, in fact, not short at all and it took Sam the best part of an hour to read it. Like most of Tango’s stories it was exceedingly dense, about a man living inside a perpetual-motion machine he’d invented. There were long, detailed passages about drawing energy from other dimensions in the quantum world and replenishing it with the machine’s by-products, and layered treatises on the nature of immortality.
As he neared the end of the story, he noticed a movement in the conservatory window.
‘I thought I told you to wait in the living room.’
Tango’s reflection started.
‘I was just wondering how you’re getting on,’ he said, nervously.
Sam closed the laptop and turned to Tango with a sad look on his face.
‘I loved it!’ he said.
‘Great! Cup of tea?’
A small but pleasant ritual the two had established was that, before discussing whatever Tango had written, they’d make tea in a pot and bring it into the living room on a tray along with the other parts of the tea set Sam had purchased for a lot of money from Fortnum & Mason as a special treat on a day trip to London.
‘So you’re saying she just started talking to you?’
He liked watching the splash sugar cubes made when dropped into tea.
‘Yup.’
‘This is great news, Sam.’
‘Is it?’
Tango fixed him with a stare. ‘Yes. It is.’
An unspoken message passed between them. Sam leaned back in his chair with cup and saucer in his left hand. He remembered Tango as he had been as a child – tall, with trousers not reaching his ankles, big glasses, greasy hair – back when he was known by his real name, Alan.
‘We might be going out tomorrow night,’ he said.
Tango smiled. ‘I’
m really happy for you,’ he said, in a rare and striking display of affection that peeled off the years and put both of them them back into that childhood friendship. Then he poured his tea. ‘OK, enough about you. Can we talk about my story now?’
So what’s the plan? x Sarah texted him the next day, on his lunch break.
Sam replied, Shall I pick you up at your place?
Within seconds she replied, Cool. What time? Xx
And he wrote, 7? x, a small kiss that made his body tingle.
Across the table in the tiny staffroom Mark flicked through his Bizarre magazine, his left hand feeling blindly for his open lunch box and the cold sausage bap squashed in the corner. Sam figured seven o’clock would be OK.
Sounds good x
And that was that. Behind the thin walls he could hear the Romanians in the small utility room, sifting through the millions of parts, one deep voice saying something loudly followed by a chorus of laughter, then silence. He sat there a moment, feeling sweat rise from his skin, and imagined a tiny green shoot growing on barren wastes.
When he got back to work after lunch, there was a state of agitation in the office, people looking through files, making calls. Mr Okamatsu sat calmly behind his desk scanning the Japanese newspaper.
Rebecca walked over to Sam, a half-run-half-walk kind of walk.
‘One of the ships has gone down in the Suez Canal.’
There was a manic fire in her eyes as she flapped a wad of faxes.
