by Guy Adams
On the landing, Jack paused to breathe in the stale air... trying to remember the scent of Alison's perfume, of her skin.
Off the landing, the first room confused him. Where he had expected to see the bath, he found instead a tatty single bed and a brown carpet that he would have burned on principle had he had a match on him.
'Look at the state of you,' he whispered.
'Look at the state of you,' Miles said, running the sponge across Jack's shoulders. The soapy water making gritty, brown rivers of the dried mud on his back.
'I slipped,' Jack replied.
'Clearly... but what would the neighbours think,' Miles asked, 'had they happened to glance out of their window to see a naked man thrashing around in the mud.'
'They'd probably ask me to bring them some coal, too, save them going out in the rain.'
'You could have put some clothes on!'
Jack winked over his shoulder. 'I'd only have had to take them off again.' He reached over the side of the bath for the brandy bottle. 'Another drink?'
Miles shook his head. 'I'm away with the fairies as it is.'
Jack grinned and leaned over to kiss him. 'Indeed you are.'
***
The next room was still the main bedroom. Jack stepped inside, lifted up the collapsed, part-constructed wardrobe and leaned it against the wall. The bed was built but not made, just a bare mattress...
'You buy a house with cash and then seem unable to afford a bed,' Alison sighed, lying back on the mattress that lay in the middle of the room.
'I just keep forgetting,' Jack replied, rolling onto his front. He blew on her chest and chuckled as her nipple hardened in the cool air. 'Beds are for sleeping, and I don't do much of that.'
'I noticed,' she replied, not unkindly. She twisted to kiss him on the forehead and grabbed the blanket to wrap around herself. 'I'm going to marry him, you know.'
Jack propped himself up on his elbow. 'I know.'
'He loves me very much, and he's a good man.'
'I've never said otherwise.'
She threw him a glance. 'It's not like I have other offers.'
Jack nodded but didn't reply. He'd had that conversation too many times over the years and wasn't inclined to have it with Alison as well. If this was coming to an end – and it looked as if that was the case – then let it at least do so with some grace.
'I'm sure he can make you happy,' he said instead.
She stared at him. 'No you're not, and neither am I. But happiness is overrated. Sometimes you just have to settle for contentment.'
'Story of my life,' Jack said, stepping out of the bedroom and back onto the landing.
The bathroom was new, well, no... new to Jack but it could hardly be called new otherwise. It was a cheap suite with oyster-shell soap trays and a colour of yellow one could never have found outside a plastics factory. Little blue fish swam in circles on the tiles. It was ghastly.
Jack walked back out and made his way up to the second floor.
At the top of the stairs the landing offered two choices, a room to either side.
'What do you need so many rooms for, anyway?' Miles asked, gazing out of the window at the leafy trees of the road below.
Jack watched the muscles in Miles's legs and buttocks tighten as the man went on tiptoes. 'I like variety,' he replied, taking a sip of his drink. 'A room for every occasion.'
'Or guest?' Miles asked, turning around and treating Jack to a change of scenery.
'Sometimes,' Jack admitted. 'That bother you?'
'No. Why should it? I know the rules of our affaire.' Miles topped up his own glass from the decanter on the sideboard. He took a big mouthful. 'I'm going to marry her,' he said, and was then perplexed as to why this should cause so much hilarity in Jack. 'I'm glad my life amuses you so,' he said with some bite.
'It's not your life I was finding amusing,' Jack replied. 'It was mine.'
Both rooms were empty and in a much worse state than the rest of the house. It looked like nobody had been up here for years. A fat wolf spider hid in the corner of the skirting board, draped coyly in sheets of its web. Jack prodded at it with his boot but it refused to run, clinging to the paint-chipped wood with utter determination.
'To have and to hold...'
'... in sickness and in health...'
Jack tried to stifle a yawn. Church ceremonies bored him. Weddings were a poor excuse for distant family and even more distant friends to get together and bitch about a marriage that probably wouldn't last. As far as he was concerned, you could do that much easier in a bar, with the added bonus that some drunken old duffer in a frock wouldn't feel the need to keep bringing God into it.
'Heavenly father...' whined the priest, who was certainly as old – and if the volume of his proclamations was anything to go by – as deaf as the deity he worshipped, 'by your blessing let these rings be to Miles and Alison a symbol of unending love and faithfulness...'
Now there, thought Jack, is your problem already. Why set these poor kids up to fail before they've even got the rings on?
Alison looked towards the congregation and glimpsed Jack at the back. He gave what he hoped was a supportive smile, but maybe it didn't come out too well as she didn't look happy to see him. When she looked back at her husband-to-be, Miles caught the flicker of concern in her gaze. His brow furrowed slightly, perhaps worried that she was having second thoughts.
'... through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.'
The amen rippled through the crowd, and Miles also noticed Jack. His response was, if anything, worse than Alison's. The sudden flash of panicked guilt that ran across his face was plain, and Jack realised he shouldn't have come.
'The rings?' asked the priest.
'Er...' Miles stammered. 'Yes... sorry...' He took the ring from his best man and placed it rather nervously on Alison's finger.
The priest continued intoning the words to the service: 'I give you this ring as a sign of our marriage.'
Miles repeated them. 'I give you this ring as a sign of our marriage.'
'With my body I honour you...'
'With my b... body I honour you...' A thin sheen of sweat was beginning to blossom on his forehead.
Alison, seeing his discomfort, had clearly assumed the worst. Somehow he must know about her and Jack. She too began to tremble, which only fuelled Miles's panic. How could he have trusted Jack not to tell Alison about their affaire? Would Alison tell? His reputation would be ruined...
As they continued to repeat the words of the service, becoming more and more visibly concerned, a faint mumble began to build throughout the congregation. What was wrong? Was it just nerves? Was one of them going to back out?
Jack winced at the discomfort of it all. The mood in the church worsened by the second and, when he couldn't take it a moment longer, he began to make his way out of the back door. He shouldn't have come in the first place. The least he could do was ensure he made himself scarce now.
As he stepped out into the fresh air, taking deep lungfuls of it in relief, the priest's voice followed him:
'Those whom God has joined together, let no man put asunder.'
Jack stepped into the other room, a train of dusty spider's web dragging behind him. It was just as dilapidated, the paintwork peeling, the wood flaking.
Jack looked out of the window, the arcs of the streetlights pulled into contortions by the heavy rain beating against the glass. His own reflection looked back at him, and he realised he was crying. This surprised him...
...he wasn't a man prone to tears but he felt them now. Whether they were through sadness or guilt he couldn't rightfully say. Looking down on Alison's pale-blue face, her hair plastered against her head with dirty river water he didn't see anything of the beautiful woman he had known. He couldn't imagine having kissed those wrinkled cheeks, those puffy lips. The Alison he had known was long gone.
'Not married more than twenty-four hours,' said the police inspector. 'Husband drowns her and then – when the
prissy little sod can't take the guilt of it – comes running to us. Says it was to protect his reputation, would you believe? Not worth much now, is it? Murdering bastard. Nothing strange to it though...oh...'scuse me...'
The inspector hawked phlegm into a yellow handkerchief and rubbed at his bushy moustache.
'Touch of the vapours, isn't it? As I was saying, seems perfectly straightforward, not the sort of thing you lot need to poke your nose into. Don't know why anyone called you, frankly. Not much you can do for her, is there?'
'No,' Jack replied, 'not any more.'
Jack rubbed at his eyes, left the room and went down the stairs to check his face in the bathroom mirror. He was damned if he was going to let Gwen and Ianto see he'd been crying. Hadn't he been thinking earlier how he couldn't afford to get caught up in his memories? They were no use to him, nothing but dead weight that would drag him down if he let them.
He grinned at the mirror, looking fine, and went back out onto the landing. A flash of movement caught his eye, something red in the shadows of the main bedroom. He looked around. Nothing there.
As he descended the stairs, the front door opened and Rob and Julia walked back in.
'Changed your mind?' Jack asked as Julia slammed the front door closed behind her.
'Impossible...' Rob muttered, sliding down the wall and sitting on the floor, leaving a snail-trail of rainwater behind him on the paintwork. 'Impossible.'
'What is?' Jack asked.
'What's going on?' Gwen asked, stepping out of the lounge.
'It's gone...' Julia said.
'Gone?' said Jack.
Julia gestured beyond the front door. 'Out there... It's all... It's gone.'
Jack pushed past her and reached for the door handle.
'You don't want to go out there,' Julia said.
'I do,' he replied, the words bringing his memories back to him as he pulled the door open and stepped out onto the front step. The rain was still just as heavy, and he pulled up the collar of his coat as he walked out across the gravel, past the SUV and to the mouth of the drive. The street beyond had vanished, nothing but a wall of darkness filling the driveway.
He held his hand out in front of him and moved forward. As his toes drew close to the pavement, his hand suddenly felt numb. Staring at it, he gave an impressed whistle as it appeared to fade out of sight. Pulling it back, there was a resistance to the air but his hand was returned to him.
'What is it?'
Jack turned to see Gwen. 'No idea,' he admitted. 'But for now I'd say we're stuck here, wouldn't you?'
THIRTEEN
'The door was open,' the strange man said, holding his hands out in front of him as if Rob were no danger at all. That was already a lie, though, as far as Rob was concerned, rubbing his wrist where it had been twisted when the poker was wrenched from his grip. A dark-haired woman followed the man into the room, offering an apologetic look that didn't wash for one minute.
'I saw you before,' Julia said to the man, confusing Rob even further. What was she talking about? They'd never clapped eyes on him, he was sure of that. 'You were with the police,' she continued.
'Sort of,' said the woman. The American ignored both of them, pushing his way past and talking to the man that had appeared upstairs. 'We work with them occasionally,' the woman continued.
What's that supposed to mean? Rob thought, only too aware he was being fobbed off. His heart was pounding in his chest... what was going on? God, but he needed a drink.
'Got any alcohol?' said the American, as if he'd been reading his mind.
'No...' Rob was wrong-footed. What did this guy think this was? A house-party? Oh... alcohol... the penny dropped...for the man... to warm him up. It wasn't as if they hadn't been looking after him. 'I was lighting a fire...'
'So light it.'
Rob found he was actually stepping forward for a second before he stopped himself. 'Look! What's going on here?' he shouted, sick of being on the receiving end. 'You say you're with the police?'
'Not as such.' The woman again; the bloody man was never going to answer his questions it would seem. 'We're independent of them,' she continued. 'But yes, our paths cross from time to time. Why don't we sit down and go through what happened?'
Julia shook her head. 'I'm not staying here a minute longer.'
Rob's head hurt with the confusion of it all. He tried to put it into words: 'We saw a woman appear out of thin air... Killed herself in the bath... Not in our bathroom, you understand, no, in the spare bloody bedroom...'
'There's a fat man...' Julia added, 'in an old suit... he smells...'
'Banging on the walls, voices in the TV...'
'Your friend, appearing out of nowhere in our airing cupboard...'
'Our bloody airing cupboard!'
It was uncontrollable now, the words falling from him like vomit, poison that needed to be ejected. Dear Lord, but what was he going to do? He wasn't sure he could handle this... Everything felt hazy...
'Please!' the woman shouted. 'One at a time... We can handle this, but we need to know what's been going on.'
There was only one thing Rob could think to do. 'Handle it on your own,' he said, grabbing his wife's hand. 'We're not staying...'
It didn't occur to him to question leaving them in the house; at that moment, they were welcome to it. He needed to get out, needed to clear his head. Another moment stuck in there and he honestly thought he might lose his mind.
He checked his jeans pocket, giving a sigh of relief as he felt the reassuring shape of his van keys. That was all they needed. In a couple of minutes, they'd be driving down the road, heading as far away as they could.
'Come on,' he said to Julia, pushing her out of the door in front of him. 'The flat's empty for another week yet, we can stay there.'
The rain was still lashing down and neither of them was wearing a coat. They were soaked through in moments, but they didn't care.
Rob stared at the American's big black car. 'Typical yank, that is,' he commented, pulling Julia around it by her arm. 'Compensation for something else.'
His anger was hardening into a lump in his throat, his teeth grinding as he fought to stop himself kicking at the stupid bloody car until he did some damage. Fear had set him off now and he was finding it hard to keep himself straight, his muscles twitching and pulsing, his head swimming with it... he wanted to kick and punch and scrape and tear...
'Rob!' Julia's voice, thin and whining, damn her.
'I told you, it'll be fine,' he said, rubbing the rainwater from his face. Couldn't she tell that he was struggling? He didn't need her wheedling at him.
'Hurting...' she said, and he turned on her, fist clenching, only to freeze as he saw the bright white dimples in her arm where he was digging his fingers in as hard as he could. The ragged edge of one of his nails had drawn blood.
Suddenly it was gone, all of it, the huge pressure that he had fought to keep in, vanished in an instant. He let go of her arm and put his hand to his mouth.
'I'm sorry,' he whispered. 'I didn't realise.'
She was scared. She had that same look in her eyes that she'd had when he'd hit her a few months ago. He hadn't meant to, now or then. Sometimes he just got so angry, it was horrible... To feel such uncontrollable rage, to be shaking with it, to need to thrash and hit just to shake the feeling out of his muscles, the feeling that he was going to rupture.
She had nearly left him, he knew that; he'd scared her enough. The terrible thing was that he hadn't even wanted to hit her – he'd caught her by accident. But the look she'd given him when the back of his hand had hit her temple... It was so full of disgust at him... such contempt... He had hit her again, just to earn it.
'Please, I wouldn't have...' There was a look of disbelief in her eyes now and he found himself almost wishing her to push it. He hadn't been directing any of his anger at her – wouldn't have done – but after everything that had happened tonight, wasn't he allowed to lose it a little? The look on her face
said not, and that was nearly enough to set him off again. Nearly.
He held up his hands placatingly. 'I wasn't angry at you, sweetheart, just freaked out, you know? I told you before, that was just... I don't know what that was... but I'd never do it again, OK?' He tried to look friendly, tried to soften his eyes. 'I couldn't hurt you, babe, never...' He held out his hands to her. 'Please? Forgive me? Let's get out of here, OK? Go where it's safe.'
After a moment, she nodded and took his hands.
He gave her a genuine smile then and pulled the van keys from his pocket. 'So sorry, baby,' he said. 'I just lost it in there, what with everything, you know?'
'I know.'
They hunched over in the rain and started to walk quickly up the road.
'What do you think it was?' he asked.
'I don't know.' Relief, both at being out of the building and having Rob calm down, had begun to squeeze tears out of the corners of her eyes, and she rubbed them away with the rainwater. 'I don't believe in...'
'Ghosts and stuff?'
'Yeah. Mum always used to. She loved it, always reading books about it... but, well... I thought it was rubbish.'
'Same here. Good at the movies but don't believe a word of it at home.'
'So there must be a scientific explanation?'
'To the fact that we both saw a woman kill herself in the bedroom and a man appear in the airing cupboard?'
They looked at one another and burst out laughing. There was as much panic in it as humour, in fact they could just as easily have been screaming, but it helped for the moment, a release of the pressure that had been building all night. Rob hugged Julia and they carried on walking, his arm around her shoulders.
'It'll be all right,' he said. 'It'll seem better in the morning.'
'Where did you park the van?' Julia asked, though she knew the answer, had seen him park it there earlier when the police had cordoned off the road.
'It's there,' he said, pointing at the white van just along the road, 'just a few doors up.'
'So how come it's taking us so long?' Julia asked, that note of panic returning to her voice.
