Mouse

by D. M. Mitchell

  Felix would be home soon, she thought excitedly. He could still do that to her, get her excited, even after four years together; get her all worked up, like a schoolgirl. She couldn’t wait to see him again.

  Yes, she thought, cocking her head at the mirror; together they were practically perfect in every way

  It was an anxious time for Laura. She found she could not sit still, kept gliding to the window to stare out even though she knew he wouldn’t be back from the hospital yet with the results of his tests. Casper had phoned once that morning to say his appointment had been delayed by an hour or so but he’d come though to Devereux Towers just as soon as he could. He told her again not to worry, everything would be alright. But that was like telling the rain to stop falling; worrying came naturally to Laura Leach.

  She attempted to fix herself something to eat but couldn’t manage the sandwich she made. It sat on the plate with scarce a bite taken from it. Finally she heard the sound of his car crunching to a halt on the gravel out front, and with her nerves ripped almost to shreds Laura all but ran to the door, swinging it open as Casper turned from locking the car door. He looked at her, his face pale, serious, troubled.

  ‘Casper, what’s wrong? What did the consultant have to say?’ she said, going to his side and linking her arm through his. She led him inside. He felt disconcertingly heavy against her, like he needed to be physically supported.

  ‘How about a cup of tea, eh, Laura?’ he said, managing a thin smile and squeezing her hand.

  ‘Never mind the tea,’ she said. ‘Tell me what the results were. They’re not bad, are they? Tell me the news isn’t bad.’

  Casper shook his head gravely. ‘I wish I could, Laura. Truth is the news isn’t good. It’s not good at all. In fact it’s…’ He faded into ominous silence and gripped her shoulders. ‘Laura, it’s terminal lung cancer. They’ve given me six months to live.’

  She felt faint, her head going all giddy, and she thought she might collapse in a heap. The words caused her mind to spin with their implication and she felt suddenly very sick. ‘No, Casper, they’ve made a terrible mistake. You’re so young, so fit and well, so healthy. Look at you! They must have mixed your results up with those of someone else. It happens all the time.’

  ‘No, Laura, I’m afraid it’s true. They’ve made no mix-up. We went through all that at the hospital.’

  She uttered a tiny shriek and put her hand to her mouth. ‘That can’t be so, Casper. I’ve only just found you. I won’t have you taken away from me. They can do all sorts of things these days, can’t they? You said so yourself. There must be some kind of operation, surely?’

  ‘It’s pretty bad, Laura.’ His voice was on the verge of breaking up, crisping into nothing like a dried-up leaf.

  ‘I won’t accept that, Casper! There are all manner of treatments. I’ve read about them.’

  ‘Well,’ he said quietly, ‘there is one, but it’s out of the question.’

  ‘Why? Tell me about it.’

  ‘It’s no use, Laura, it’s far too expensive.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter. Tell me about it.’

  ‘The doctor said there was this clinic in Philadelphia. They’re specialists in lung cancer and have perfected a procedure that they say has ninety-five-percent success rates. It’s something we can’t do in this country yet. It’s not even available privately, even if I had the money, which I don’t.’

  ‘That’s it, then. We’ll get you to Philadelphia,’ she insisted.

  He grasped her tighter. ‘No, Laura, we won’t. Don’t get your hopes up. It’s too far out of my reach.’

  ‘How much, Casper? Tell me what it costs.’

  ‘The doctor said the full treatment was around twenty-thousand pounds. So you see, you’ll have to put that out of your mind. We must resign ourselves to spending what time is left to us in the best way we can.’

  ‘I have money, Casper. I can afford it.’

  ‘I couldn’t possibly take it, Laura. ‘It’s what your father left you.’

  ‘Then all the better I use it for something good. What use is money to me if you are gone?’ She hugged him close, burying her head into his chest and he stroked her hair tenderly. ‘Please say you’ll let me pay, Casper. I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you. We’ve been so happy together. We can still be happy.’

  He kissed the top of her head. ‘If it pleases you,’ he said, ‘I will consider it.’

  ‘We’ll contact the clinic; send them a cheque straight away, whatever it takes.’

  ‘It would be better if we arranged something else. Perhaps a bankers’ draft, or maybe even cash so I could process things faster. Are you sure about this? It’s a huge amount of money. It will clear you out. We’ll have nothing but each other at the end of it.’

  ‘That’s all that matters,’ she said. ‘I love you. We’ll go to the bank today.’

  ‘No, there really is no need to rush.’

  ‘I’d feel a lot better if we could get things moving as fast as possible. We can’t afford any delays. You have to get over there to the clinic.’

  He hugged her close. ‘Laura, you are a sweet angel, do you know that?’ He stroked her shoulder.

  She sighed in frustration. ‘I forgot; I need to get my money together. It exists all over the place in various accounts and shares and what not. I couldn’t do it today even if I wanted to. It will take at least a week or so to sort out. That won’t delay things too much, will it?’

  ‘It will give me time to make arrangements with the clinic in Philadelphia. A week is fine.’

  She started to cry, her body convulsing with her grief. ‘I love you, Casper,’ she said.

  ‘And I love you too, Laura Leach,’ he returned, staring into the distance.

  It was late afternoon when she heard the car pulling up outside the house. Katherine peeled back the curtains. He was just getting out. He saw her, smiled and waved at her.

  She dashed down the stairs excitedly just as the door opened and he came into the hallway. She flung herself at him, kissing him full and deep on the lips. She crushed her hips against him and he grasped her bottom and held her there.

  ‘God, I’ve missed you, Felix!’ she said.

  ‘So it seems!’ he returned. ‘You sure smell good.’ He kicked the door closed with the heel of his foot and he pushed her back so that she was pinned to the wall. His hand went up inside her blouse and cupped her breast. ‘Let’s go upstairs,’ he said.

  ‘Let’s do it here,’ she said breathlessly.

  ‘They might see us though the glass in the door,’ he warned.

  ‘So what? They shouldn’t be looking.’

  He kissed her arched neck, his lips travelling down to her collar bone, down to the plump rise of her breast. ‘So, Kat, how has your day been?’ he asked.

  ‘So-so. How was yours?’

  ‘Oh it’s been a belter of a day!’ he said. ‘I’ve made twenty-thousand pounds.’

  She pushed his head back so she could look into his gorgeous eyes. ‘Never! She fell for it?’

  ‘Hook, line and sinker, the sad bitch. She’s desperate to save her poor, doomed Casper.’

  ‘Felix, you certainly know how to work women, I’ll give you that.’

  He grinned. ‘Yeah, Kat, I know just what they like.’ His hand ran up her stocking, then he inched it slowly up her skirt.

  She moaned softly and closed her eyes. ‘I should say…’

  * * * *

  14

  France Sounds Good

  Vince prepared sandwiches and a flask of tea and packed them into his saddle bag. Though the long, hot summer had lost its grip on the weather, there were days when it was still fine and warm. He was determined to make the most of what was promising to be a glorious Sunday. He carried out the usual routine of oiling everything on his cycle with 3-in-1 oil, a spray or two of WD-40, and then set off early for the town of Glastonbury, a good fifteen miles away from Langbridge.

  The country roads wer
e still and quiet, the tang of damp foliage in the air, birds chirruping animatedly from the hedgerows. Just Vince, the flat, unending land and his bike.

  Such times of peace flushed out the soul, he thought. The energy he was expending had the effect of purging his mind of his troubles, at least for a few hours. Monica became an evil spirit banished to the night, his monotonous life something he left far behind in Langbridge. For a little while he felt free, almost as if he might snap the bonds that tied him to his dull existence if he just had the courage to keep on pedalling. Almost.

  He loved Glastonbury, though it had been taken over by hippies and its streets seemed these days to smell of incense. The hippies, with their long hair and strings of bright beads, their flowered shirts, loose sexual relationships and even looser attachment to what constituted for most people an ordinary life, might well have come from another planet. And he got the impression they looked at him the same way too, pushing his bike along the high street in Glastonbury, in his un-cool clothes, sporting an un-cool haircut, wearing an unflattering pair of bicycle clips around his ankles and finishing off the geeky picture nicely. Maybe he felt envious of them, he couldn’t be sure. Or maybe he felt the same pity and disdain they heaped on him.

  Vince Moody chained his bicycle to railings on the edge of town and followed the sign pointing to Glastonbury Tor, his Tupperware box of sandwiches in one hand, his thermos flask in the other. This trip had become something of a habit, especially during the summer months, but even well into autumn, before the warm weather closed down for winter. It was a kind of pilgrimage, he mused, but not of the religious kind. He wasn’t sure whether he believed in a God or not, part of him feeling he’d like to openly denounce the idea as mere superstition, the other part not daring to go so far in case he was wrong and end up on His wrong side, as he seemed to be doing with everyone else on the planet.

  Glastonbury Tor was ancient. That appealed to him. A massive, man-made, ridged conical mound that dominated the land. You could see it for miles. Why it was made, or who made it, were the subjects of many theories. They said King Arthur was buried here, but that was a load of bollocks because King Arthur never even existed; he saw that much on telly. There were books for sale in Glastonbury that said aliens had come down from outer space and built it, but they’d write any load of rubbish in order to make a profit and there was always someone dumb enough to believe it.

  But none of that really mattered to Vince. To him, Glastonbury Tor represented something personal to him and it had nothing to do with King Arthur or aliens from Mars.

  It was a steady climb up the stone steps and flags that led to the summit, and after cycling fifteen miles his legs were a little weak. At the very top of the Tor were the remains of a church, a single structure, like a stone finger pointing up to the sky, called St Michael’s Tower. It was a hollow shell, no roof, tiers of blank, arched windows, a couple of open doorways in and out. He paused outside it, taking in the panoramic views of the countryside as the sun drove away the last of the morning mist. The road below had been reduced to a thin, scribbly line, people to little sticks, houses to matchboxes, and trees to tiny pieces of broccoli.

  There were few people around as yet but soon the hill would be swarming with them, locals and tourists alike. For the moment he was alone, above everything, at the top of the world. Maybe that’s why he kept coming here; it was the only time he felt he was lifted high, out from the depths of his insignificance and for once looking down on everyone and everything instead of being the one being looked down upon. Up here, at the very top of Glastonbury Tor, he became the person he really was. The real Vince, not the Vince who inhabited that horrible, tiny world below amongst tiny minds and tiny ambitions and its tiny capacity for goodness. He felt he could reach out and squash it all flat. All of it. The entire world. All of them – all the horrible people who infected his world and made it sick.

  He was disturbed in his thoughts by voices. Someone else had invaded his kingdom. More would follow soon. With a sigh he went into St Michael’s Tower and sat down on one of the stone seats. It was significantly cooler in there but he could still look out of the open archway to the sunlight outside. More people came, some pausing to look over the curious structure before going to stand and stare at the view, or to spread blankets on the grass. A radio disturbed the quiet. A woman giggled shrilly and a dog barked like mad in the distance.

  Vince snapped open his box of sandwiches, poured himself a mug of tea and sat still and invisible. No one ever seemed to notice him, he thought. He might as well have been dead, or a ghost or something. He was in the process of trying to pick out a greenfly that had landed in his tea when he glanced up and was surprised to see him. To see the man that had stolen Laura from him.

  He was sitting opposite, breathing heavily; he was obviously unfit, Vince thought, in spite of his good looks. He was busy lighting up a cigarette like they’d just had the two minute warning and this was the last thing he ever wanted to do before the bomb dropped. He didn’t notice Vince straight away, not until he was pocketing his cigarettes and he happened to look in his direction. For a split second he appeared to be grappling with the idea that he’d seen Vince before, somewhere, but he quickly gave up trying to think and went back to smoking his cigarette. Vince had become invisible again.

  He wanted to go across to him, tell him what a bastard he was for taking Laura from him, but of course that would never happen, not like the movie he played out in his head where they’d argue, they’d fight, Vince would beat the shit out of him and kick his sorry arse all the way down Glastonbury Tor.

  His appetite having collapsed, Vince closed the lid on his box. His day had been ruined, he thought. He didn’t need to be reminded that everything he’d ever wanted seemed to be enjoyed by everyone else but him. He was about to leave when he saw the man rise to his feet, a smile on his face. A young woman came up to him; she held out an ice-cream, which he took.

  ‘There was a queue at the van,’ she said.

  She had to be the prettiest woman Vince had ever seen. She oozed sensuality from her slim, perfectly formed frame. Her dress clung to her like a jealous lover, the neckline low and revealing a good deal of enticing cleavage. Vince was shocked when the man grabbed her arm and kissed her full on the mouth.

  ‘You taste sweet,’ he said.

  ‘You’ve smudged my lipstick,’ she complained with a smile. ‘Eat your ice-cream before it melts.’

  ‘I’d rather be eating something else,’ he said into her ear, low enough to emphasise its suggestiveness but loud enough to overhear.

  She glanced awkwardly over at Vince. ‘Keep those filthy thoughts to yourself,’ she said, taking him by the arm and leading him out of the tower.

  Vince stood up to look at them as they walked away. They were talking, the man’s arm wrapped tightly around her waist. They kissed again and then stared at the view, silently eating their ice-creams. Vince’s heart rose – the man had obviously finished with Laura, had found someone new! Laura could still be his! He had another chance and this one he wouldn’t cock up. This one he would grasp with both hands.

  Vince went outside and looked up to the blue heavens. That’s what God could do for you if you believed in Him, he thought. Thank you, God!

  ‘So how long, do you reckon?’ she asked, her tongue licking at a dribble of ice-cream running down the cone.

  ‘I reckon it could be a couple of weeks, tops. Maybe less. Got to give her time to get everything together.’

  ‘Twenty-fucking-thousand!’ she said. ‘I thought you said it might be ten this time.’

  ‘When I got to take a look inside Devereux Towers, talked to her, I knew she’d be good for much more. I suggested twenty but I didn’t think she’d bite. She didn’t even flinch. If she’d had the cash she’d have given it me there and then, no questions asked.’

  ‘She must really have it bad for you,’ she said.

  ‘Kat, I reckon I could squeeze her for another five thousand
if I wanted.’

  ‘Don’t get too greedy, Felix.’ She crunched on the cone, eased crumbs into her mouth with her fingertip. ‘You didn’t sleep with her?’

  ‘God, no!’ he said. ‘That gives me the creeps.’

  ‘But you would have done, if you needed to, like you’ve done with the others?’

  He shrugged. ‘Course. You don’t have to look at the mantelpiece whilst poking the fire,’ he said. ‘I reckon it’s precisely because I didn’t push to sleep with her that helped convince her. This has got to be the easiest trick yet. And all thanks to your friend Caldwell. I don’t think even he realises how wealthy the fucking bitch is.’

  ‘How is he these days?’

  ‘Keeps trying to avoid me. He wants out. Said he’s finished doing that kind of thing. Got a wife now – seen her, a bit tasty, she is. He’s settled down, he says. Guess he thought he could shrug you off once and for all, eh? Still, he came up trumps by pointing out Laura Leach.’ He tossed the half-eaten cone down to the grass.

  ‘He was good in his day,’ she said.

  ‘You still got the hots for him?’

  ‘I never had the hots for him, Felix. It was strictly business. He’d do the birds, I’d do the blokes. Anyhow, after what he did to me I like the fact he’s squirming.’ She snuggled up close to Felix. ‘But with you it’s different. We’ve got something special.’

  ‘Sure do, Kat. You and me we’re special.’ He chewed over his thoughts for a while. ‘Laura’s got this one room she keeps locked up, doesn’t allow anyone in.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So maybe she’s got something special in there. In fact, I know she has.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I dunno. She gets all worked up if you get anywhere close to it. She’s a weird fucking bitch, Kat, I tell you. Not sure what’s going on in that screwed-up head of hers. You think I should check out what’s in the room?’