Rough Sleepers

by Nem Rowan

  "That's so romantic." Christine was beaming at me. Her eyes had become glittery, and she had started to lean forward as she listened to me talk.

  "Is it?" I mumbled, realising I was probably blushing. I took in another breath of smoke.

  "Yeah. Darnel is like that, too. So mysterious. Like, there's so much inside him that I don't know about. It's exciting," she breathed, biting her lip as she looked down at her mug of tea clasped in her hands. "Maybe we're like that to them, we've got secrets they don't know. But they wanna know, so we're mysterious to them."

  "Yeah, you're probably right. I just wish Ceri would be a bit more forthcoming with his," I murmured pensively as I dropped the stubbed-out cigarette into the plant pot before pulling the door shut.

  "You...wanna know some of his secrets?" she lowered her voice.

  I frowned slightly, wondering what she was implying. "Why, do you know something I don't?"

  Her expression became timid again and she looked as if she regretted saying anything to me, but then she wiped at her nose and looked up at me once more. "Last night, when I was sleeping in the loft, I found something."

  "What did you find?" I questioned, my frown deepening.

  "It was hidden under the mattress," she whispered. "It's a diary or something. It was all lumpy and hurt my shoulder when I was laying on it, so I pulled it out. I didn't look in it, I swear. I just put it back underneath."

  "You swear you didn't read it?" I emphasised, though I wasn't sure why I was calling her out for looking at it when that's what I intended to do.

  "I swear I didn't. You believe me, don't ya?" she turned on the big old puppy dog eyes, and I just couldn't be angry at her.

  "I believe you, Chrissy. Anyway, I got no rights to be annoyed if you did. You won't say anything if I go and look in it, will you?"

  "No, I wouldn't do that." She shook her head quickly.

  "I believe you. Listen, tell Mecky I'm going upstairs to take care of Ceri. I'll try and get back in time to shut up the shop with you," I smiled at her as I picked up my empty mug and crossed over to the stairs. She watched me climb them with a muted smile before drinking down the last mouthful of her tea.

  *~*~*

  I lifted the mattress, and just as Christine had said, tucked away between fabric and the wooden rungs of the bed frame, I discovered a book. It was a struggle to pull it out whilst holding the mattress up with my stump and shoulder, my careful hand dragging it out into the open. It was an A5 ledger, black with a red spine and a band of elastic holding it together as the contents threatened to burst it open, the pages bulging as they were packed with extra pieces. The paper smelled strongly of Ceri's scent. I could tell from the balding corners, the scrapes on the hard cover and the yellow staining on the page edges that it had been with him a long time. Holding it in my hand gave me a crisis of conscience and I began to wonder if I should just put it back.

  How would I like it if someone found my diary and read through it? Well, I soon remembered what Ceri had said to me when I had first arrived here. How he had checked out my background, done his research on me. A monster responsible for a gay club massacre, or whatever it was the headline had said. He knew more about me than I would have liked; was it so wrong that I wanted to know about him? Yes, it was wrong, but I did it anyway. Maybe I'd even confront him on it. The worst he could do was lose his temper with me, but I could repair that. I wanted to know his old scars.

  I went to the desk and sat down in the creaky chair, pushing piles of junk aside to make a space for the book, which I laid down on the dusty surface. The first thing I did was inch the elastic off so that I could fold the pages open. Inside, he had stuffed dozens of letters, some still in their envelopes. I took some of them out so that I could read what had been written on the first page of the journal.

  Hello. My name is Geraint. So, I don't know what to write really. I guess you are my only friend now, so I'll tell you everything from now on. There's no one else to tell. At least you're just a notepad, so I know you won't judge me. It's my first night in prison and I've never felt so alone. I don't know what to do with myself. I could sleep and never wake up. Sometimes I think about that night on the beach when I could have died, and I wish Morcant had left me there so the tide could take me out again. Things would have been better that way for everyone...

  I paused, leaning my elbow on the pages so that they wouldn't flip shut again. Who the hell was Geraint? I guess I had never entertained the thought that Ceri might not be his real name. I didn't even know his surname. The writing before me looked exactly like the scrawling scribble he wrote on all his research notes, so it had to be him writing this. Maybe Geraint was a nickname he used, to keep it anonymous in case sneaks like me found it and read it. I continued reading.

  ...Wenda wouldn't even look at me in the courtroom. Wenda, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't want to hurt you. I wasn't myself that night. The spirits were riding me, it took control of me. I thought you'd understand. I guess no one has ever understood me, though. I've always been the outcast. I should have died that night, I should have drowned, and then none of this would have happened.

  "Hmm," I murmured to myself thoughtfully. I needed some context here.

  Thumbing through a few more pages, I found a wad of photographs held together by a rubber band like a pack of trading cards, so I pulled the band off and took a look. The first was a picture of a red-haired girl standing beside a fence on a cliff, the wind blowing her long hair around her face. She wore sunglasses and the picture was so small that it was hard to make out her facial features. It was an old photo, and judging from the cut of her shorts and t-shirt, I guessed it was probably from the 80s.

  I flipped through a few more pictures of her until I found one of a man with ginger hair and freckles on his face. He was laying on the beach, his arms and legs spread-eagled as he attempted to make a sand angel, his face lit up with hysterical humour. There were several photos of him too, and in a couple of them he was with the girl in the first pictures. When I turned one of the photos over, it read 'Evan & Wenda, Three Cliffs 1984'. Then I discovered something extra interesting; there was a photo of the girl with what surely must have been a young Ceri. He was wearing a black leather jacket covered in sewn-on patches, his long hair tangled round his face. He had his arm round her as he took the photo, their smiles glowing with laughter. He looked so young, so sweet. No wrinkles on his face, no scars, only the naïve innocence of youth in his eyes. Even his teeth were white.

  I smiled to myself and pressed the picture to the end of my nose, giving it a small kiss. Oh, how I wished I could have been there for him when he was young, when I could have protected him. I tied the pictures up with the rubber band once more and tucked it back into the diary, making sure none of them were bent or crinkled. As I turned the pages, their entries grew more and more erratic; the writing became a mess, giant capital letters spewing across the pages as the writer screamed inside his head. Here and there, the occasional blood spot. Some of it was written in Welsh, but the English sentences were no more legible to my eyes. Then it stopped suddenly and became small and sensible again. He said he had been given anti-depressants, that they were making him see a psychiatrist for his self-harm, and the bastard was trying to dredge up all his past hurts. He didn't want to talk. He believed the only way he could heal was to let go and move on, but the doctor didn't want that; the doctor wanted to crack him open like a nutshell, to scoop out the soft innards and go through them like a table at a jumble sale.

  I promised myself I wouldn't do Magick again, but if it means this fucking wanker will leave me alone, then so be it.

  Underneath the sentence he had drawn a large symbol, circles within circles, stripes emanating out from the centre, lines crisscrossing to form a pattern in black ink. Right in the middle there was another brownish splash of blood. Looking at it caused a shudder of goosebumps to shoot up my spine as though my hackles were lifting, and I quickly turned the page. I had never seen anything li
ke that before. Maybe I should stop here, put the diary back and forget about it. There were things here that were dark, shadows that lurked inside him, that he kept hidden to protect me. Had I gone too far? But, maybe it was for the best. If I discovered these things at a later date, they would have the same effect. At least I'd be prepared. I turned the page.

  They've given me a different doctor. The sigil worked. From what I have heard, he got sick, real sick. He's in hospital. I hope he fucking dies. I HOPE HE FUCKING DIES.

  No, Geraint. This is not you. Can you hear what you're thinking? It's not right. Mammy would be ashamed of you, she wouldn't want you wishing that on anyone, and you still did it. You should be ashamed of yourself. No one loves you or wants you because of this evil, THIS EVIL inside of you. There is evil inside of you. Not even Morcant could make it go away. It's a part of you forever, but you have to control it. Hold on, Geraint. Hold on. You can do it. Hold on.

  My heart ached for him in a way it had never ached before; I wanted to hold him tightly. I could feel the despair emanating from the very pages before me. I used to get the same feeling from some of the people that came into the club, people who were suffering greatly and I was powerless to stop it. All I could do was offer a smile, talk about nice things, hope their visit was a fun one. Amy had been a better agony aunt than I was, but through her their troubles still reached me. I was powerless, despite the strength in me and my immortality, still powerless to help anyone, but I could try to help Ceri at least.

  Unable to read the rest of the page, I took out one of the envelopes and wriggled out the letter inside, folding it apart so that I could see the writing upon it.

  To Geraint,

  I just want to make it clear to you that I don't want your letters anymore. If you send anymore to me after you receive this, I have asked Evan to burn them in the fireplace. I want you out of my life. You're a sick person, you need help I can't give you, and I can never forgive you for what you did to me, Owen and Evan. I don't know why I put up with you all that time when you were so cruel to Owen. He wanted so badly to be your friend when he first heard you were Evan's friend and you destroyed him. I can never forgive you for that. How could you treat someone like that? Was it because he is Evan's son, or is it just that you are so self-involved yet ignorant of your own problems that you picked on him because he is transgender? Every time you said the old name to him and called him a girl, it tore his little heart apart.

  I might have been able to forgive you if it wasn't for Owen. Believe me, if Evan wasn't so willing to forgive you for keeping him prisoner like that all this time then I might have been inclined not to forgive you for that either. I don't understand how Morcant can manage to talk to you or receive your letters. He is a saint for even giving you the time of day and you know it. I am glad that he is unable to visit you in person because you don't deserve any response from us at all, let alone to see any of us face to face. You'll be glad to know that we've finished moving out of your house and it can lay and rot for all I care.

  You are a sick, evil man and I hope you spend the rest of your life thinking about what you did. Maredudd was right. There isn't a hole in Hell deep enough for you.

  Wenda

  Wenda, I thought to myself.

  I returned to the pack of photos and looked at the girl on the first one. That was Wenda. And Evan had a transgendered son named Owen. The other names I couldn't put faces to. I was filled with conflicted feelings, wondering how Ceri—no, Geraint—managed to be so accepting of me, and yet, from what I had found here, he had been so cruel to a boy who was really no different. Whatever had happened to him between the first page of the diary and the Ceri I knew now, he must have changed somehow and come to terms with whatever kind of horror was controlling him. Maybe he was an alcoholic or drug abuser? I wasn't certain that the entries I had read were the babblings of an insane person. He kept talking about 'Magick'. Why did he put a K on the end?

  It seemed as though he actually believed that by drawing these symbols on the pages of his diary that he could do things like make people unwell, change what people thought of him and even influence his trials in court. He talked about how he had ensured that the judge gave him a lenient sentence, and that the other prisoners left him alone. He was released on parole early and lived in a hostel for some time. The diary ended there, and it looked as though he hadn't written in it since, so I had no idea what had happened between his parole ending and him meeting Mecky. For all I knew, he was still battling with his mental demons. I wasn't a particularly good judge of character considering my previous experiences, but I didn't see Ceri as being an evil person. He was trying so hard to help us; how could he be evil and yet stay up day and night, safeguarding a group of werewolves?

  In the back of the diary I found a piece of newspaper. It was an article about Geraint's arrest.

  CATTLE MUTILATOR CHARGED WITH MANSLAUGHTER

  There was a picture of him being escorted by two policemen outside a courthouse. His head was bowed, and he looked anguished, his eyes squeezed shut and his teeth clenched. The article said he was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of livestock, that he had gone around the fields at night killing them and created a hoax that it was being committed by a feral puma. Eventually, he had ended up killing one of the people that lived in the nearby village, supposedly by accident but it didn't state how. He was also charged with kidnapping, imprisonment and attempted grievous bodily harm. He had tried to do something terrible to Wenda. She claimed he had tied her to a table and had planned to skin her alive with his taxidermy tools before her son and a friend had discovered them. The defendant pleaded innocent to the latter charges but did not deny the killing of the unnamed man, nor the deaths of the livestock.

  Along with the newspaper there was a black and white photo of a woman holding a baby. I didn't even need to look at the writing on the back to know that it was Ceri's mother. I had no idea if she was still alive, but I had the feeling she wasn't. He talked about her a lot in the diary; how he missed her, what she would think if she knew about his situation, what she would have done with a difficult decision. This photo was infinitely precious, and I was doubly careful when I placed it back amongst the pages. I had discovered Ceri's entire past in this little book. I felt a strange combination of sympathy, guilt and love for him, and as I wrapped the elastic back around its hard cover, I realised tears had formed in my eyes.

  Twenty-Two

  "I wondered when you'd find it," Ceri's voice spoke from behind me.

  I startled, visibly flinching in my seat before turning sharply to find him standing at the door to the room. He closed the door silently, the fitting sliding into place in the door frame with a quiet click before he turned and approached me. I realised there was no point in trying to hide what I had done, so I left the notepad on the desk and leaned back, my hand lifting to quickly wipe the droplets from the corners of my eyes. His face was gloomy and downcast, pale eyes turned to half-closed slits as he looked at his feet in what might have been an ashamed demeanour.

  "Why didn't you just show it to me if you felt you couldn't say it out loud?" I answered. There was an edge of frustration to my voice and I curbed it swiftly, not wanting to upset him. I was the one in the wrong here, not him.

  "I thought that if you knew about me, you wouldn't want to be my friend anymore. That if you saw what kind of man I was on the inside, you'd stay away from me." he made a brief shrug, but he didn't look up at me.

  "Does Mecky know about this?"

  He shook his head slowly. "No, she doesn't."

  "So..." I began, but I trailed off. Why tell me and not Mecky? I wanted to ask. But I already knew the answer. Perhaps I just wanted confirmation.

  "I'm fucked up," he murmured.

  I couldn't bear to just sit there and watch him disintegrate in front of me. I got up, stepping towards him and reaching for his hand so that I could hold it, my grip squeezing his dermatitis-marred fingers.

  "We're all fucked up,
Ceri. I told you already that I wouldn't judge you. I already knew about your self-harm and you know what? It never made me change my mind. If anything, it made me want to hold you even closer because I realised you needed it," I whispered to him. My face was an inch or two from his, and it was taking an incredible amount of effort not to just kiss him.

  His eyes were trying to blink away tears, but they were defiant, clinging to his eyelashes.

  "Don't be ashamed. I've been there, too. You don't have to put on a brave face just because you're a man. It doesn't matter what gender you are. You're still human. It's okay to be weak sometimes," I added, my grasp near to crushing his hand, telling him without words how much I felt for him.

  "You don't care what I did?"

  "That you killed a bunch of animals? That you killed a man?" I assumed, but he shook his head.

  "No, not that. I mean, you must have read the letter from Wenda," he mumbled, his voice so feeble that it was hard to make out the words, even with my sensitive hearing.

  "About how you were cruel to that transgendered boy? I think it's disgusting what you did. All of it, including the killing. But how can I forgive myself for slaughtering everyone I ever held dear and not forgive you, too?" I reasoned as I tilted my head, trying to make eye contact with him. "I don't understand how you could be like that to him and yet you seem to like me so much. I didn't take you for a transphobe."