by Shaun Allan
Oops, eh?
The walk back to the house was difficult. I kept not wanting to notice anyone or anything. I stared down at the pavement trying to block out any tempting morsels of nastiness my inner beast might feast upon. Luckily there were no arguments between arrogant bastard boyfriends and their submissive other halves. I didn't cross paths or swords with any robbers or muggers or rapists. But still, try clenching your entire body from teeth to toes and mouth to mind. Then hold it for an extended period whilst trying to walk and avoid coming into contact with that anyone or anything I mentioned.
Didn't think so.
The street the house was on was quiet. It always had been. The type of street that didn't exist in too many places any more. There had never been, in all the time my parents had live there (which was from around when I was twelve or so), any muggings or rowdy neighbours to complain to the council about. I didn't recall any burnt out cars and could only pick out one or two burglaries from behind the mist of my memory. It was sleepy. A little boring in fact. But right then I was pleased and welcoming to Sleepy, Boring and all the other Seven Dwarves. They could cosy on up with me any time. Room and board, bed and breakfast, milk and cookies.
The house backed onto a playing field. Cricket used to be played on a Sunday afternoon, the lazy ones with light aircraft buzzing across the sky and the smell of fresh cut grass sitting at your window. Five-a-side football was Tuesday nights and the rest of the week was taken up by kids on bicycles and dogs off leads. A high wooden slatted fence separated field and garden - high enough for the spectatorship of any matches to be only possible from either the bathroom or my childhood bedroom - but I'd long had the knack of scaling it thanks to an old post, a tree and a lot of bruised knees. A hollowed out stone with a concealed compartment held, as ever, a key to the back door and I let myself in, locking the door behind me.
* * * *
Chapter Eleven
The kitchen, which the back door opened into, was cold. Icy fingers reached into my lungs, dripping icicles as they passed. The house had been empty for a long time, and it felt like it. Barren. Lifeless. Soulless. I was an intruder, undesired and undesirable. Even my breath seemed to echo and I was half surprised that I couldn't see the cloud as I exhaled. I stood still for a long moment as I waited for the house to recognise me and welcome me into its bosom, a long lost child come home from the wars.
Except the wars were still being waged, and I'd wager I was the one doing the waging.
After a while the house seemed to relax a little, allowing me in but still not dropping its guard entirely. That was fine. I couldn't expect any more. I doubted I'd welcome myself back if I'd known what I'd done. The temperature rose slightly to a more acceptable level and the icy fingers melted in my throat enough to let me breathe easier.
I stepped forward and suddenly I was home. I was the little kid bouncing down the stairs on my bum. I was older, being told off for dragging mud in from playing football on the school fields. Older yet, my head down the toilet as I 'celebrated' my first attempt at being drunk, swearing I'd never touch alcohol again - until the next time. Bringing home my first girlfriend and being told that the only pair of tits that were going up those stairs were my mother’s. Storming out after yet another argument over something that just wasn't fair. The last day of my last school. The first day of my first job. Memories filled me up and spilled out, bursting from my eyes in the form of tears. Not tears of regret or of pain, but of relief. Of release.
Home. It hadn't always been sweet - it had, in fact, mostly been sour - but it had always been home. Regardless of whether I'd been in exile in Scunthorpe or living with friends or girlfriends, this house, with its high back fence and its crappy mobile phone reception and its ever-flaking banister running up the stairs, was still home with a capital aitch. How crap was that then? Wherever I may wander? Oh yes. There was no place like it. A father who seemed to think I was an irritation rather than a blessing. A mother who seemed to let him. And a name that made sure the kids at school rubbed my parents' contempt of me right in my face.
The name's Sin. Spit in your eye, wish I could die.
But hey, what doesn't kill us can only make us stronger, right? So I'm the sum total, carry the one, of my father's distaste and my mother's disinterest? It's a wonder I turned out normal, don't you think?
The tears dried and the house became less of a mystical being, guardian of my childhood, and more of a simple building. It was, finally, exactly what it should have been - a refuge. Joy and I had kept the house on after our parents' death, her not needing to sell it and me not wanting to. It had become our escape from the pains of the world; somewhere we could go and just be. No phone calls (the phone had been disconnected when dear dad spent the bill money on a nag in the 4:30 and had never been reconnected) and no visitors. In the street that time forgot, we were able to kick back and chill. Dad had never won on the horses, but Mum had once won on the only lottery ticket she'd ever bought. Not a single penny of the hundred thousand or so she'd received came the way of either myself or my sister, but there was enough left after their death to keep paying the bills for their house. As such, we didn't touch their money but came and went as we pleased and the house stayed in the family.
Maybe it was a reminder of our childhood. Weren't they supposed to be the best days of your life? Perhaps we kept the house to make sure the thorn of memory stayed stuck in our side.
It might seem strange that, when others had their own home and a villa in Spain, we kept one in the same town for our sanctuary, but a change was as good as... well, a change. 'Different' was sometimes all that was needed to recharge our Evereadies and spring that spark back up our behinds. Maybe a villa, complete with pool, palms trees and piñatas, tucked away on a Mediterranean beach would have been better. Then we could really get away from the grinding and grouching. But our parents' was, obviously, much closer and you didn't have to book flights to get there. And everyone spoke English (although they might be as difficult to understand), and you could be sure not to miss an episode of Coronation Street or some other wonderfully exciting television program. It was only odd days, or the occasional weekend here and there, but it still felt like we were getting away - packing up our troubles in our old tote bag and trying to find that smile, smile, smile again. In more cases than not, it was successful.
The house wasn't entirely as it had been when we'd taken over ownership. We hadn't quite stamped our own brand of melancholy on the rooms, but we'd modified them enough to dilute some of the memories and exorcise most of the Ghosts of Childhoods Past. Simple things like changing a carpet here, painting the walls there, emptying a room and sealing it off completely... That was the main bedroom. Ma and Pa's Love Pad, as he used to call it. Calling it that was one thing. Advertising it as such at any time of the day and night, was quite another. Didn't he know doors were meant to be closed? Once the door was plasterboarded over, both Joy and I could walk past it without having to suppress a shudder. We tried hanging a picture - the Grand Canyon at sunset - over the area to distract us from what was behind it, but the picture never wanted to stay up and would often try to leap off as we walked past. We put it down to the weight of our footsteps on the landing, or maybe an earthquake in Central China - or anything close to normal. Of course we didn't know then what we, or rather what I know now. Now I'd be more inclined to think the house was shuddering along with me. Or that my own shudders were not confined to my body, and were reaching out, holding the wall for support.
I looked around the kitchen. The toaster was in the same place as the last time I was here. The kettle too. The clock on the oven was lit and the little colon in the middle of the time was blinking, so the electricity was still on. It felt as if there should have been a layer of dust across everything and that I would be brushing aside cobwebs as I moved. It had lain empty, dormant, for such a long time that, if this had been a Hammer film, the house would have given itself over to spiders and rats and bears, oh my! Well, mayb
e not the bears, eh? Not in Grimsby - except for after kick out time at the Tavern on a Saturday night.
Ah. Olivia.
Joy, bless her little rotting eye socket, had the foresight, long ago, to employ a lovely old Philipino woman from three doors down as a cleaner. Apparently (I'd only met her a couple of times), she was known to be both meticulous and thorough, and her mouth would stay zipped into the bargain. Discretion was all part of the job description Joy told me once, a fact that was confirmed when it emerged that the doctor whose surgery she kept spick and span and shipety shape was using his after hours appointments for certain liaisons he might want to keep to himself. Olivia had discovered him whilst looking for a socket for her hoover. The physical examination he'd been performing had much less to do with medicine than it had to do with, well, let's say biology. This discovery only came to light three months later when Angela Simpson, the 'patient', went about as public as she could to a packed waiting room, because Dr. Hurst wouldn't keep his promise to leave his wife of thirty years.
So Olivia, it became known, was one woman whom you could trust, and this prompted an influx of requests for her services. Whether that was due to her cleaning abilities or her silence, I was never entirely sure, but you had to hand it to her. She knew how to whip a duster across a coffee table as well as she knew how to keep incidents such as the good doctor's dilly-dally to herself. And she could vacuum in all the nooks and crannies too, much the same as Dr. Hurst seemed to be attempting to do, by all accounts. The kitchen surfaces were testament to one side of her talents, and I hoped, if she came whilst I was still here, that me remaining undiscovered would be testament to the other.
Because Joy and I were not at the house too often, and we were house trained, Olivia was only asked to visit once a month for a spruce up here and there. That could have been four weeks ago or that morning, I didn't know, but the lack of dust on the worktop implied that I had at least a week or two before I'd have to think of explaining my surprise return from my travels across South America. Well, Brazil and Mexico sounds so much more exotic than a mental institution, doesn't it? It also meant that she'd kept up her job, and there was still money being paid into her account. Aren't direct debits a wonderful thing?
So. Ghoulies and ghosties and all manner of ferocious beasties were not, one would hope, lurking in the crevices and behind the furniture to gobble me up for lunch. Yay. Christopher Lee wasn't ready to jump out, gagging for a pint of my very own ruby red. Hammer was humdrum and Craven was calm and a zombie wasn't poised to rip off my arm. Yay, again.
I still felt as though the house was watching me, remaining a touch wary, waiting for... something. Well, let it. I wasn't an intruder, I was just maybe the prodigal son returning. If the house didn't like that, tough. It wasn't as if I had a lot of options, was it? I daren't go to my own home, just in case there'd be an unwelcoming committee. This was our safe haven so it would just have to get a grip and be safe, and a haven.
I briefly thought about checking the fridge and cupboards to see if there was any food, but then decided that, after a couple of years, I'd rather hope there wasn't. I didn't want to be accosted by a rogue ciabatta or raving pot noodle. I decided the toilet was my best bet. Let my bladder relax a bit before it burst its banks. The bathroom was upstairs, but there was a small room with a toilet and wash basin at the bottom of the stairs. The 'little toilet' as we'd always called it. Not little as in a five year old could sit on it comfortably, but little as in big brother, little brother, red lorry, yellow lolly. Thinking about it had suddenly added about a gallon to the confines of my bladder, so I figured Little Bro was my best bet. I left the kitchen and walked along the hall. The walls and the pictures and the light bulbs all kept their beady eyes on me as I went and I almost asked for a little privacy please!
But that would have meant I was talking to a house. Haven't I mentioned I wasn't quite insane?
Anyway. I gave my bladder the relief it deserved, washed and dried my hands, then stood in back in the hall. I didn't know what to do. Sit and watch television? Sleep? Shower? After so long with my daily routine being firmly regimented, I was somewhat lost at the prospect of having to make a decision myself. My escape and the events since had more or less played themselves out, with me simply being a participant swept along with the current. Now I'd washed up on the shore of my own free will, and I didn't have a clue which direction to take. I'd only planned, after changing from suicide to flight, to find out where I was and end up somewhere. I was Somewhere.
So what now?
I looked down at myself and realised the clothes that I'd taken from Martin's bedroom were more than a little too big. They hung off me as if I was an extra in the next Rick Moranis film, Honey I Shrunk the Neighbour's Postman or something. It didn't matter now. Within these walls I no longer had to be the escaped lunatic, nor did I need to pretend to be the dedicated doctor. I was just me, Sin, a lost boy. If only Peter Pan or Kiefer Sutherland were here to help me. Well, maybe not Kiefer, he'd be a pain in the neck. But young Pan. A quick trip to Neverland, and straight on till morning, would be mighty fine. No passport required. Did Neverland have duty free? Could you buy alcohol and cigarettes cheap? Did Captain Hook have a black market in Bells or Benson & Hedges? Customs would have a job trying to impound that little lot.
A shower. That would be good. Wash away the grime both inside and out. Maybe even a shave, if the battery on my razor that I kept in the bathroom cabinet still had a residue of charge left in it. My own clothes. It would help me feel sane. Normal. Even if I wasn't, entirely.
An hour later I was looking at myself in the mirror in my bedroom. It was a three bedroomed house, and Joy and I had taken one of the smaller two each for when we visited, the main one - the Lurve Pad - being wiped from the memory of the house like chalk off a blackboard. The rooms were almost identical to each other. We'd refrained from applying any of our personal touches here. We didn't want this place to be a surrogate home, merely a refuge. So there were no photos or knick-knacks or stuffed toys dotted around. A wardrobe, double bed, bedside cabinet and mirror. That was it. Functional rather than fancy. Downstairs, I'd upgraded the TV and the sound system, and Joy had brought one of her reclining armchairs, but nothing else. It stayed as it had when our parents had lived here. The same tired wallpaper and worn carpets. The same faded curtains and the same settee you sank into so far your bum was almost touching the floor. Neither of us had the inclination to improve something that meant so little to us.
And it wasn't home. It wasn't, however I’d felt when I walked back in. It was a house I'd lived in for a while when I was younger. Did I have a Home? No. I wasn't a nomad, but I hadn't settled in any one place long enough for me to become attached. To grow roots. Did I protesteth too much? Methinks, possibly, verily.
Oh well.
My reflection regarded me solemnly. What had I become? What was I reduced to? An outcast. A fugitive. But hold on a God-damned minuet! I'd walked into that place. Surely, now I was out, they had no claim on me? I hadn't been committed. I hadn't been dragged there by those men in their white coats. It was my decision to jump on the groovy train to Nutsville. So it should be my decision to get off at the next station. The thing was, I didn't think Dr. Connors would see it that way. He wouldn't appreciate one of his pets escaping. Once you were in his 'care', your own decisions were a thing of the past and became something he made on your behalf, for your benefit, of course. Such a nice man.
I regarded my reflection regarding me, reflecting. This felt like it could be the first day of the rest of my life. It could also be the last for a lot of other people. I was teetering on the edge. I wasn't sure if this precipice was an abyss, hungrily waiting to swallow me whole, or a whizzy-wee slide I could zoom down into the great big ball pool of everlasting contentment. I leaned towards the former, although leaning towards anything this close to the brink was a more than a little dangerous.
As I dressed, with jeans that fitted and a t-shirt that was much more
my style, I pondered. Have you ever pondered? Streams of consciousness ping-ponging around in your head like some old arcade game, turning into snakes of thought that twisted and coiled? My mind was like Spiderman swinging through New York, slinging webs and swerving this way and that, his direction entirely dependant on which skyscraper his web attached itself to. I tried to focus, concentrate on one building in particular, aim for the Empire State of my mind, but the Green Goblin kept throwing exploding obstacles in my way, scattering my thoughts and sending me spinning to the ground far below.
Something was different.
Something had changed.
I could... I couldn't control it, but I could... feel it. I could rein it in. It started on its own, creeping out like smoky fingers, grasping at their victims, but I knew the fire had been lit, and I could extinguish it. I could STOP it.
The boyfriend who was a bastard and a bully. The former rapist and his wife and their fire, willing to hand me over because of the possible danger to them and their baby. I made it happen, but I made it stop.
Something was different. It had changed.
Was it me? Was the battle between good and evil, or at least grey and slightly darker grey, inside me finally being won? Was Anakin resisting the pull of the Dark Side? What? And possibly more importantly, how?
Could I hone it? Possibly gain enough control to stop it altogether? It might be, though, that it, whatever it was, had to be released occasionally - a safety vent to stop me exploding. If that was the case, then maybe I could direct it. Channel the force or the will or the power into something harmless or something that wouldn't be missed. A fence post. A round of toast. A politician. If I kept it inside, if I could keep it inside, and I did go pop, I didn't know what I might take with me. There could just be a puff of smoke with only my shoes left behind, or I could take the entire street along for the ride into death. Maybe not just the street. How about the town, or more.
