The Drop

by Howard Linskey

  I snaked my free arm out across the wall and stretched as far as I could, desperate to reach the heavy wooden plaque with its ornately-carved elephants that we’d brought back from Thailand. I’d only nailed it up there a few days ago so I knew it had enough weight. I could give him a smack round the head that would fell anyone and then I could kill the fucker with it. I’d almost blacked out but I was an inch away from it, and he suddenly realised what I was trying to do and gripped me even tighter round the throat. I was choking so bad I couldn’t extend my arm any further. It was no use, I couldn’t reach it. I strained for it once more and felt the back of my fingertips graze it but again he lifted me off my feet then bumped me away from it, slamming my head against the side of the shelf nearby for good measure. I managed to get a punch into the side of his head and it was a good one. He listed slightly, off balance for a moment but kept his grip round my throat and I knew I would black out soon. In desperation, I flailed my free arm out to the opposite side and my hand connected with the only other item in the flat that I could now reach.

  As my hand touched it, I pushed my other palm up under his chin and gouged my thumb into the flesh just above his Adam’s apple. He shrieked in pain and loosened his grip round my throat for just a second. I pushed his arm away and butted him hard in the nose with my head, drawing blood and forcing him back just a little. He blinked as he tried to clear his head and I knew this was my only chance. I grabbed the heavy object from the shelf and, as he came rushing back at me, I twisted my body. His arm was lower than it should have been and I brought my weapon smartly across in a nice, hard, fluid arc, until it crashed into the side of his face with a sickening smash. Weasel-face screamed like I had just put twenty thousand volts through him and the urn I was holding smashed on impact into dozens of sharp pieces, sending a spray of blood into the air.

  Everything seemed to move in slow motion then, including the blood that gushed all over the bastard’s face and slid down the side of his head, but that too was instantly obscured by the huge cloud of ash that followed it. The late Angela Cooper seemed to hang in the air for a second before covering him. The ashes were all over his face like a swarm of insects and he went down screaming, frantically wiping his eyes. He must have been wondering what the hell I had hit him with.

  That was all the energy I had left. I dropped to the floor like someone just took my batteries out and ended up propped up against the wall like a puppet with its strings cut. As the room started to spin and turn slowly black, I was vaguely aware of Weasel-face scrambling to his feet and I thought oh fuck, he is going to finish me now, he’ll have all of the time in the world to do it as well and I’ve nowt left to give, but instead he got up unsteadily, clutching his face, screaming like he was on fire and leaking blood big style. There was a thin shard of china sticking out of the side of his face and all I could think was what a shame I didn’t get the chance to wedge that into his neck. He gave one last shriek and ran from my flat.

  The last thing I remembered, before I passed out, was trying to reach my mobile phone from my pocket and being dimly aware that Laura’s mother had slowly fallen to the ground around me in a great big slate-grey plume of ash; thousands of her component particles now littered my carpet. It was funny; I’d have said she’d be the last person in the world to save my life.

  I lost track of time or what I was supposed to be doing. Then, I didn’t think about anything any more. There was just silence and a great big, comforting cloak of blackness.

  When I came round, Finney was laughing at me. ‘Don’t worry Brains,’ he said, ‘you’ve not lost your looks,’ his great, ugly mug was peering down at me and then Sarah, all concern, was at my side, a damp tea towel in her hand, which she proceeded to dab with great tenderness to my bruised and battered face. The cool water helped me to get my senses and, though it was an effort to talk, I asked them.

  ‘How’d you find me?’

  ‘You called me,’ said Sarah. I had no recollection of this at all.

  ‘Did I?’ and I wondered why I had dialled her and not Laura or some more useful and muscular presence for the aftermath of a fight, like Finney. I put it down to delirium and she continued to look at me with the concern of a mother for a small, injured child.

  ‘You couldn’t really speak, just sort of gurgled, so I asked if you were at your flat and you said yes, then it all went quiet. I was in the car with Finney anyway. He was dropping me off at Joanne’s, so we shot round here straight away.’

  ‘You’re just lucky the match was over,’ said Finney, ‘else you’d have waited ninety minutes for the cavalry.’

  ‘You break the door in?’ I asked.

  ‘It was open,’ he said, ‘whoever did this left in a hurry and, judging by your carpet, he was bleeding like a stuck pig. What happened?’

  So I told them. There didn’t seem any reason not to tell the truth, all of it. Finney listened to my slightly delirious description of the fight then he looked at the mess on the living room floor. ‘Well,’ he said approvingly, ‘looks like your mum in law come in handy.’

  And then I remembered what I hit Weasel-face with. I got a slow and horrible realisation that I had used the irreplaceable ashes of my girlfriend’s dead mother as a weapon and, even now, they were all over my carpet, mixed in with bits of broken china and a burglar’s blood and most likely trodden right into it all by Finney’s size twelves.

  ‘Oh fuck,’ I said and Finney laughed an evil laugh.

  ‘I’d say your problems are just starting.’

  Sarah was a diamond, she really was. She insisted Finney helped me to my feet and got me sitting up on the couch. She made me a cup of tea, which I sipped while I slowly came back down to planet earth. Finney rang in a brief, coded description of what had happened to me to Bobby who was apparently very relieved to hear that I was more or less okay. In a strange way, I realised that me being targeted like this might just end any lingering suspicion he might have had about me.

  Only when she was sure I was not suffering from major, life-threatening concussion did Sarah transfer her attention to the mess that littered the floor of my flat and began to tidy it up for me. ‘I’m sure we can sort all this out before Laura gets back,’ she said doubtfully. I appreciated her lying to me like that, especially as I felt like shit. I had bruises everywhere. Even in my crap state I knew there was no chance of making this scene look any better than it did but Sarah tried, bless her.

  I was beginning to think I must have done something really bad in a past life when at that point, with impeccable timing, Laura walked through the front door, keys in hand. She spotted Finney standing there then looked at me slumped on the couch and asked, ‘what’s the matter?’ before I could answer she finally noticed Sarah kneeling on my carpet, a brush and a dustpan in hand, into which she had managed to sweep roughly a third of Laura’s mother.

  The noise Laura made was almost indescribable.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  ...................................................

  Laura never really did calm down, not even later while she was packing her night bag and storming out on me. Obviously I did not expect her to be happy that her mum was scattered all over the carpet like a carton of Shake-n-Vac but I did expect her to listen to me while I tried to explain what had happened. I told her I’d had no choice but to fend off my attacker with the only object to hand, which just happened to be the urn, but she treated me as if I had somehow contrived this whole scene deliberately. She regarded Finney and Sarah as if they were a couple of teenage accomplices who had wrecked her parents’ house during an illicit party while they were away on holiday.

  ‘I realise you weren’t there Laura,’ I said in what I thought was my most reasonable tone, considering my head hurt like a bastard and my throat had almost been crushed, ‘but it’s not as if I had a choice of weapons.’

  ‘That’s it,’ she half screamed, half sobbed at me, ‘make a bloody joke out of it!’

  ‘I wasn’t,’ I said, �
�he almost fucking killed me.’ And even completing that small sentence was a supreme effort. I didn’t have the energy to fight any one else tonight, least of all Laura. If I was expecting a modicum of concern from my girlfriend it was distinctly absent. Instead she shooed Sarah away from the pile of ashes and insisted on sweeping it all up herself, then she looked around uselessly, as if she somehow expected the urn to have magically reformed so she could put the ashes back into it. Realising there was nowhere for her mother to go, Laura’s bottom lip started to tremble and she seemed on the verge of a bout of cataclysmic weeping when Sarah, who had at least anticipated the problem in advance, appeared from the kitchen, clutching a large, clear plastic dish complete with a bright blue lid. The sort of thing you’d pack sandwiches into for your lunch and maybe an apple.

  ‘I realise it’s not ideal,’ conceded Sarah and Laura scowled at us both.

  When she finally left, with a Tupperware dish full of her mum, she told me, ‘I can’t stay here. I’m going back to my sister’s. You can call me tomorrow.’

  When she’d gone, Sarah said, ‘I wouldn’t call her,’ and she looked me right in the eye, ‘not a word about you, no concern about whether you’re alright or not. That’s not love,’ and then she realised she was probably out of order and added quickly, ‘I know, it’s none of my business. I’ll shut up,’ but to be honest I was starting to think she might have a point, so I didn’t scold her. I couldn’t even be arsed to contradict her.

  Sarah tried to get me to go to bed before they left but I refused. I needed to think. I had to try and work out what was happening. Who was behind this raid on my flat? What was he looking for - and why would he rather kill me than risk being caught? I assured Sarah I would be okay and I told Finney to drive her to her mate’s house. He didn’t argue. He’d seen men in a far worse state than me and, considering he thought I was some sort of pseudo intellectual woofter, he was probably finding the whole thing pretty amusing.

  They’d been gone thirty minutes when the doorbell rang. I figured it was Laura, who’d seen the error of her ways and come back to apologise but I wasn’t taking any chances. I’d already brought the gun out of its hiding place in my golf bag, a location I had chosen because there was no way Laura was ever going to look in there. I moved very slowly, very quietly from the sofa and walked over to the door. I made sure I didn’t stand right behind it in case they shot-gunned me through the wood. I leaned over and peered through the eye slot then I opened the door.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I asked, bemused now.

  ‘I wanted to make sure you are okay.’

  ‘But you know I’m okay,’ I told her.

  ‘No I don’t,’ Sarah explained it to me as if I was a slow learner, ‘I only have your word you’re okay, and you might have a concussion. You need someone with you for the night,’ and she must have seen the worried look, ‘don’t panic. I’m not here for a shag. I don’t think you’re really up to that.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘I got Finney to drop me outside Joanne’s and got a cab back here as soon as he left, so you don’t have to worry about him or the rest of the boys talking.’

  ‘It’s not him I’m worried about.’

  ‘Well I won’t tell dad unless you do. Now are you going to let me in or what?’

  I held the door wide and she walked in. I slipped the gun back in the golf bag without her seeing it.

  ‘You’ve not got any overnight things.’

  ‘You can lend me a T-shirt,’ she said, ‘now sit down on that couch while I boil the kettle.’ She walked off into the kitchen and, though I had wanted to be alone to work all of this out, I had to admit it was nice to see her. I was touched by her concern for my wellbeing, which was a marked contrast to my girlfriend’s mood.

  She made me cups of sweet tea, for energy. I never take sugar but there was something warm and comforting about them. We stayed up and talked for a while and then she told me to get my battered head down. We argued about who should get the bed and who the couch. She eventually wore me down by insisting I was an invalid who needed a proper pillow and mattress.

  ‘I’ll be fine on the couch with a blanket and a cushion,’ she said.

  ‘Well,’ I admitted, ‘we’ve got plenty of those.’

  She told me she was going to watch some brain-rotting, reality TV show that I wouldn’t want to bother with. She was right on that score.

  Sarah went into my bedroom and came back dragging the spare duvet from the bottom of my wardrobe where I told her it would be. She’d taken off her jeans and shirt and was now wearing something of mine instead. I’d told her she could have one of my shirts, anything she liked the look of or felt comfy in but, even in my concussed state, I did a double take when I saw her.

  ‘Christ lass,’ I said, ‘do you do this sort of thing deliberately?’

  ‘What?’ she asked innocently. She let the duvet cover fall out of her arms then stood straight and turned to one side like she’d just reached the end of the catwalk at a fashion show, ‘I thought you’d approve.’

  Of course I approved. She looked amazing, standing there in just my Newcastle shirt.

  I shook my head, ‘Peter Beardsley never looked that good.’

  ‘I should hope not.’

  ‘I’m off to bed,’ I said, before I did something really stupid.

  She laughed, ‘night-night pet.’

  My sleep was restless, filled with nightmares in which I was repeatedly attacked by faceless assassins who would never give up or drop no matter what I did to them. I finally woke, feeling like I’d been run over by a lorry, to the smell of sizzling bacon coming from my kitchen. At first I was confused. Laura never made me that kind of breakfast. She disapproved of anything that didn’t come in a bowl containing nuts and inedible chunks of oats welded together. Also, she wasn’t really one for cooking. For her, preparing a meal meant saying ‘why don’t you book us a table at… ’ then inserting the name of the latest fashionable eatery that had just opened on the Quayside.

  By the time I’d surfaced, Sarah had set my kitchen table with cutlery, plates and a little ovenproof dish onto which she’d piled bacon, sausages and eggs. There was toast, proper butter and a bottle of ketchup. Sarah was still wearing my Newcastle shirt but she’d put her jeans back on and I was thankful for that.

  ‘You darling,’ I said and meant it. For some reason I was starving, ‘where’d you get all this?’

  ‘There’s a shop on the corner,’ she gently rebuked me, ‘or have you never noticed?’

  ‘I’m vaguely aware of it.’

  ‘Thought so, that oven looks like it’s never been used.’

  ‘I sometimes use the rings to light a cigarette.’

  I sat down and grabbed a piece of toast, spread a dollop of melting butter over it and took a big bite, ‘I never have time for cooking,’ I said, talking with my mouth full, ‘I usually eat breakfast at the gym and… ’ I shrugged. I couldn’t be bothered to explain that meals were taken wherever I happened to be at the time.

  I ate loads and thanked her. ‘Don’t be daft,’ she said. She was sitting bare foot on my couch a few moments later looking like she’d been living with me for weeks when a key turned in the lock and Laura walked in. When she saw Sarah in my football top her mouth literally fell open.

  I have no idea what she would have said to me if Sarah hadn’t been there. I will never know if she had come back to apologise, to continue the row or to leave me for good. She didn’t look like she was about to beg my forgiveness, check my vital signs then shag me as a way of assuaging her guilt.

  Instead she just went into one. ‘Well YOU didn’t waste your fucking time!’ she shouted, leaving me with no idea if the you in question was meant to be me or Sarah or both of us. ‘For fuck’s sake, I’ve only been gone a night.’

  I opened my mouth to say something like, ‘Laura, it’s not the way it looks,’ but I realised that was such a corny line it would have been completely counterproductive. Deep dow
n I knew it probably did look pretty bad. Laura knew, or at least sensed, that Sarah liked me and now she was sitting on my sofa, wearing my Newcastle shirt, the one with my name on the back, having just enjoyed what appeared to be, judging by the pile of dirty plates and pans in the sink, a hearty post-conjugal breakfast. The trouble was I hadn’t shagged Sarah and I was starting to feel more than a little aggrieved with Laura. To use her phrase, she had not been there for me last night and Sarah had. Now she was treating me like a bad boy and I’d done fuck-all to deserve it. I didn’t count the occasional fleeting thought about what Sarah looked like under my football shirt.

  I was going to argue the toss but I felt indescribably weary. Watching Laura virtually foaming at the mouth as she continued to bollock Sarah, I suddenly got a vivid insight into my future; a sexless, mundane place, punctuated by meaningless rows over nothing on the way back from Ikea. I knew deep down that, if we still had something worth saving, I could have turned things around. I could have forced her to listen, told her I loved her, made her see that Sarah and I were little more than longstanding, platonic friends. I could have got her to believe me. I was sure of it. I just didn’t want to. In fact, all of a sudden, I didn’t give a shit.

  Sarah was fighting her corner. ‘I only stayed to make sure he didn’t have a concussion. That’s meant to be your job, but you didn’t care!’

  ‘Don’t give me that, you little slag. Do you think I don’t know what’s been going on? That I haven’t seen the way you look at him, like you want to have his bloody babies!’

  Sarah’s face reddened. She looked like she was just about to explode and knock Laura out. It was time to intervene.

  ‘Laura,’ I said it very calmly and very quietly and because of that they both turned to listen to me, ‘I realise you are upset but what you think has happened hasn’t happened, though that’s not even what’s important right now.’