Head Injuries

by Conrad Williams

  'It was a nurse, from the hossie across the road. She was going over the footbridge one night when she was jumped. Knifed, she was. Shredded. Cunt got away. I dream about that woman. Though I never knew her, never clapped eyes on her. I was only ten when she died. It fucked me up at school. I wrote poetry about her. Every picture I drew was of some nurse walking on a bridge. I kept reliving the death, thinking that somehow this time she'd escape. Like watching Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. No matter how often I see that film, I keep hoping that this time they'll leg it away from all those Bolivian wankers.

  'I started getting bad pains in my stomach. I couldn't concentrate on anything else. My mum would have been concerned, I'm sure, if she didn't have her gob either round the end of a bottle of Bells or some new cunt's cock. I started throwing up. I started throwing up stones.'

  'Stones?' I could barely utter the word, I was so cold.

  'Right.' Some of the colour was returning to his face now, although he still looked shattered, starved, like a badly composed effigy of himself. 'Stones. Black stones, incredibly smooth. I filled a one-pound beetroot jar with them in a week.'

  'Did you see a doctor?

  'Course I fuckin' did. You've got doctors on the brain, kid. They're all cunts. They did all kinds of tests, gave me a barium meal, but couldn't find anything wrong. GP told me to stop fucking about with his precious time. The chiselling twatter.'

  'So what is it? Where are the stones coming from?'

  'I don't know. But they comes whenever I start brooding over badstuff. I see a knife fight in a pub in town, someone gets sliced, I choke a stone. Someone in the local rag I'm reading over Ready Brek gets mugged, there's a stone in my Horlicks come bedtime.'

  'Jesus, Mac,' I said. 'Stay clear of war reports, won't you?'

  'Funny,' he said, deadpan. 'But it don't work like that. It's personal. It's next door stuff. Stuff that hits home. It isn't third-person reportage" from some desert. This stuff has a face, a fucking horrible face, and it forces me to have a good old look.'

  'What about the woman?'

  His lips disappeared into his beard. What woman?'

  'When I got here, I saw someone with you. Feeding you…'

  'We'll never discuss this again, either one on one or in a debating chamber with everyone and his fucking hamster. You've got a problem if you saw anything, kid. You've got a big pile of shit coming your way.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'I'm making up for… certain things that happened, things that I've done in my past. I did some time for the things I've done, but that matters not one shitty speck in some circles. Sometimes you have to keep on paying. And you'd better keep whatever it is well buried, chum. Or you're going to find yourself spinning like a hanged man between the shit you can see on planet Earth and the shit that nobody deserves to see. Because that shit,' he said, spitting out a fragment, 'is bad shit.'

  A blast of cold slammed through the arch, crystallising the moment. In the years to come, the memories of that evening would fade but I found it easy to recall MacCreadle's face and the pain worked into it. His windswept hair, the scar on his forehead, the beard, collecting flakes of frost. The smears of fat and blood on the back of his hands. I tried not to think about the woman again, because I couldn't believe I'd actually seen it. He sent me away then, and I shifted across the field slowly, my bones seemingly replaced by a gruel of slob ice. I looked back often, watching as his form retreated in the weak candle flame. When it gusted out, it wasn't rekindled. I never saw him again.

  ***

  It was still light when I wakened. The duvet was tangled between my legs and I was painted with a layer of sweat. My back was stiff; where it had healed I felt the skin crack open as I moved. The mattress was spotted red. I had the dim impression of something fast and formless, shedding smoke as it flashed behind the shelter of my consciousness before the light started bouncing connections inside my head, reminding me of all my discomforts and problems. The voice which had disturbed my slumber came again: 'David? David, are you there?'

  I reached over and pulled back the curtain behind the headboard. Helen was standing in the street, arms raised to shoulder level, hands clenched. She looked forsaken; I found it hard to believe that such a frail creature could possess a voice so iron-edged. Guilt and pain turned my smile into a sneer. I couldn't say anything; I tossed my keys to her and sank back into the pillow.

  After swearing upon seeing the state of me, she left me alone for a while, returning with a small can and a roll of bandage.

  'Relax,' she said, as I made to sit up. 'It's just betadine spray, to stop infection. Bloody hell, David. Can't you look after yourself? How did you do this?'

  I told her. The spray was cooling and thankfully didn't sting.

  'You were meant to come and see me yesterday. I waited for you.'

  'I'm sorry,' I said. 'No I'm not. Who said I was meant to come and see you? We didn't arrange anything. And what do you mean yesterday? You mean today is tomorrow?'

  She smiled and began to wrap my body with the bandage. 'You put things so concisely, David. You must have slept all day and all night. Some party, hmm?'

  The thought that I'd spent almost twenty-four hours in bed sickened me. No wonder I'd been spared a hangover. I closed my eyes and immediately her face spread all over the darkness, reaching into the creases of my mind and staining them crimson. I could smell the mealy reek of butcher's shops. I retched, dry heaving until I thought I'd faint. A thick rope of bile and saliva hung from my mouth.

  Helen placed her hand on my arm and didn't remove it until I'd looked up at her.

  'Someone was murdered, Helen. At the party. Some girl called Jemima.'

  'What happened?'

  I told her what I knew. It didn't take long. 'And the police?'

  They asked questions. They let me go. What, do you think I did it?'

  'No, don't be silly. Who do you think did it?'

  I shrugged. 'No idea. I was pasted.'

  She went quiet for a while, then her face set. 'We have to consider the possibility that this is part of our problem, that you were the target.'

  'Oh, don't talk wet. She just met a guy whose wires were crossed, who gatecrashed the party and wouldn't kiss him when he asked her to. Something as shitty as that.'

  'The way you describe it, she was systematically butchered. People don't do that just because they can't get someone else's tongue in their mouth.'

  'Helen?' I said. 'Are you planning to go back to the mothership soon? Do send me a postcard when you get back to

  planet Fairy Tale. Tell me all about your sisters: Sweetness and Light.'

  There's more to it than that. We're being stalked. But it's blind at the moment, directionless.' She was chewing the ragged bits of skin around her thumbnail, staring into the middle distance with enough effort to draw her eyebrows together. 'It's like someone playing a game of Battleship. You've got a rough idea of where the target is but you have to lob over a few stray shots to home in.'

  'It's not taking long then, is it?' I said, humouring her. She seemed to come back to me but her theory would have been packed away in a little drawer marked Hmm, nice idea. Re-heat and serve later.

  'I was worried about you, David. I was expecting you to come and see me. I'm sorry if you got the impression that you had no choice in the matter.'

  'No, you're right. I did intend to call you yesterday but I flaked out instead. I don't see why there should be all this urgency though.'

  She pinned the bandage fast against me. It was tight but had enough give to enable movement. I felt strangely secure wrapped up like that. 'You've just described the reason for urgency,' she said, sounding like an exasperated schoolteacher. 'There's a woman dead.'

  'Thanks for being Mumsy,' I said and kissed her on the cheek, noticing how she stiffened as I bore down on her. I let that go and said: Tell you what. I could do with a walk.'

  As I dressed she drew a cup of cold water and pushed it into my hand along
with two Neurofen.

  Clouds above The Battery were piled up like desert mesas, bellies scooped out where they met the sea. The few people on the promenade were bent before it as if in supplication; the wind was frisky this morning, whipping the fringes of waves white. We turned right and wandered towards the lighthouse. I hoped she might start a conversation with: God, do you remember that night…. but she wasn't in a chatty mood. The bangs of her red hair were flailing around a face tilted downwards; she was watching her oxblood DMs.

  'Have you heard from Seamus? Only he disappeared from the party without saying goodbye.'

  'No.'

  'I think he was in a bit of a state. He told me about Lechuguilla.'

  'He's feeling things press down on him. Can't you? This death, the people we've met…'

  'Aw, come on, Helen. Eve hasn't got anything to do with this. She's just someone I bumped into.'

  'Was she at the party?'

  'Yes. But.'

  She sighed. 'But nothing. It doesn't matter.'

  'It fucking does. Don't just dismiss me. You think Eve had something to do with that girl's death?'

  Helen wiped her mouth with the back of her hand roughly, twice, as if she were scrubbing away an unwanted kiss. 'Yes. Maybe. Funny how she was there at the same time.'

  'She was there, yes, but she was lying next to me from the crack of dawn when the party was still going.' If I was hoping Helen would be stung by that revelation, I was a fool. She didn't miss a beat.

  'I was kind of waiting for you to tell me. I know you've had a moment.' She gave that last word such stature I was beginning to suspect she was forming her own vocabulary around the episodes affecting her.

  'Less a moment, more of a jiffy,' I meant it to be a way of breaking the grey mood which had followed us from my room but she couldn't disguise the hurt in her eyes. 'Sorry,' I said, lamely. Sorry is one of those words that begins to sound stupid if you say it often enough.

  'Don't apologise. You don't mean it. Maybe I was wrong to ask for your help. But my life is hell at the moment, David. I can't sleep properly. I'm losing weight.' She'd stopped in front of the Empire nightclub. Window cleaners turned to watch-her voice was gathering pace.

  'Helen, please. Let me get you a cup of coffee. I don't want to argue with you in the middle of the street.'

  She stamped away before I could finish, so I followed, hoping she'd cool off a little before bringing the subject up again. After a while she crossed the road and sat on one of the benches looking out to sea behind the clocktower. Pigeons clustered nervously at her feet.

  'I just don't understand,' I said. 'I feel as though I'm being sucked into something that isn't real, that you and Shay are passing on some of your paranoia. It's contagious, Helen.'

  'That's bollocks. You're reducing what's happening to me. You make it sound like it's a Halloween game.'

  I'd run out of argument. I strode back across the road and bought two coffees from a stall enveloped by the smells of hot oil and doughnut batter. As I was coming back, the sun chanced through the clouds, striping the hills of Grange-over-Sands. Some of the more distant peaks were still dusted white. Helen looked like a lost character from a French film sitting by herself staring out at the bay; I could almost see her own personal storm cloud fussing at her shoulders. Dissatisfaction radiated from her, evident in her stiff posture, and the way she was shaking her leg. As I approached she lit a cigarette and sucked on it violently until her cheeks hollowed. Her heel tapped against a rugose board daubed with urgent red capitals: GLASS CUTS FLESH.

  'Bastard,' she said, all matter-of-fact. She walked away and shrieked 'Fuck off!' when I trotted after her, arms out like a tightrope walker, trying not to spill our drinks. An old woman wearing a head scarf and a Manchester United bomber jacket cackled and winked at me. 'You wanna watch 'em when they're like that. You do! What is it? Girlstuff, eh? Arsenal playing at home, eh?'

  I ground down the urge to pour coffee all over her blue fucking rinse and was about to stomp off back to the guest house when I saw that Helen had stopped by the water's edge, just another black mark on the beach.

  I trotted over and gave her the coffee then retreated a little.

  'Look,' I said, 'I'm working at the Clam tonight. Why don't you and Shay come round and after my shift we'll spend a few hours together, see if anything happens, okay? I just think we need to, I don't know how to describe it… contextualise what's happening to us. Make it solid so we know how to deal with it.'

  She nodded, eyes tracking the horizon. 'Come to the shop after work,' she said. 'We'll need some quiet. At least to talk if nothing else.' Her eyes stopped ranging, as if they'd found what they were looking for but the horizon was as featureless as the gutted arcades behind us. 'It would be a real shame,' she said, 'if something happened to either me or Seamus. How would you feel then? Hey?'

  ***

  In the end, I stumped for one of those sausage balloons, lightly inflated and inserted part way down the left leg of my black slacks. In the mirror it looked unnatural but Keith wanted it that way: like Desert Orchid with a semi on. I placed the wooden phallus around my neck and buttoned the shirt so it couldn't be seen before concealing myself in a greatcoat. God forbid anyone here should get an eyeful of my manifold penises.

  Eiger trundled out of her bedroom as I closed the door, much like a ruined mechanical angel being vomited from a clocktower to ring the hour. 'Ooroit, Dievid?' she said. 'You look loik a flasher in that git up! Gunnah show us what yav got?'

  I hurried outside and rushed along the front until I reached The Whistling Clam. By the door a sign read: No Drugs or Nuclear Weapons Allowed Inside. It was already pretty busy. Six or seven Reservoir Puppies smoked Marlboros and fed a quiz machine with coins, scanning the pub to see who was impressed by their black suits. Clearasil lotion served to emphasise their sebaceous glands: they looked like apprentice hearse loaders, fresh from nosedive results in this year's GCSEs.

  A pack of white blouses clustered around halves of Guinness and blackcurrant: all dewlap and bifocals. 'All right, ladies?' I asked as I shrugged off my coat and headed towards Keith, sausage balloon squeaking lightly against my thigh.

  'David, isn't it?' said Keith. 'On time. Nice one. Good dong effect. Like it. Meet the others. That one there, the bird pulling on the Boddingtons? That's Carole, with an e. Bloke playing pocket billiards? Julian. Sharon's talking to Pam. Pam's the one with the black eyeliner and the gold hotpants. Right. Optics up there. Self-explanatory. Beer. Ditto. If there's any overspill, I want it used in the next pint you pour. If I see you chucking any of it away I'll have your knackers for maracas. Anyone spends over fifty quid, they get a Whistling Clam snowstorm. Tips are shared out at the end of the evening. Don't get coy if the punters flirt with you. And undo that top button. I want to see your chest hair. You're on.'

  The night became a screaming distortion of music and light and sweaty bodies crushed against the bar: people who worked and lived in the town who couldn't go away when the holiday season ended. Every order was suffixed by a lewd suggestion. I felt as though I was in a Carry On movie, but then, Carry On movies were subtle compared to this. 'Half a lager and lime and a bloody good seeing to, please love and I can't pay for this, mind if I suck you off instead?' and 'One for yourself and the missus wants to know if that throbber in your pants is for sale.' The balloon had trapped some of my thigh hairs. It was getting extremely uncomfortable.

  'You've moved up in the world. I'll have a bottle of Dog please. And a pint of bitter for Shay.' Helen was standing at the bar. Flanked by pancake faces, she looked shockingly pale. Just who I needed to see, dressed up like a cabaret act, I don't think.

  'Thought we were scheduled for your place, later on,' I said, trying hard not to excite a bottle of Snowball as my colleagues hurried around me.

  'Look, I'm sorry about the way I flounced off this afternoon,' she said. What's that down your trousers?'

  'I was about to tell you something when you did. You never g
ave me a chance,' I took my shirt out of the waistband and let it drape across my crotch. 'Nothing. I'm massively aroused at seeing you, that's all.'

  'Yo! Pint of Scrumpy.' A Reservoir mutt, nose littered with blackheads. It looked like an unripe strawberry. I ignored him.

  Helen poured her brown ale and shrugged. She seemed unaffected by the swarm around her, as if an invisible shield were protecting her from being jostled. 'So tell me now. I'm listening. I was just a bit insecure today,' She lit a cigarette and mouthed the filter hungrily. 'I'm all ears.'

  I told her about my dream in the bath and the way I sometimes felt as if my awareness were heightened. As she listened, Helen's eyebrows moved further away from her eyes with interest. The drags on her cigarette became more shallow but fussy as ever, the way I imagined a wasp might smoke.

  'There was also something this morning, just as you woke me up. Like a remnant of a dream-but I can't remember what the dream was about.'

  'What was it?'

  'I couldn't make out what it was. But it was coming towards me, really fast. Then when I opened my eyes I forgot about it. Till now.'

  'Do you remember anything about your dream?' she asked, leaning back and crumpling her cigarette end into the ashtray.

  'I was relaxed. I thought about when we all used to go with my dad on Saturdays to cricket. I was reminiscing, and then I started thinking about Seven Arches.'

  'Oi Chief? I said pint of Scrumpy.'

  Helen drew her coat around her even though it wasn't cold in the pub. I reached out and touched her hand and the question leapt from my throat before I'd considered the wisdom of its asking. 'Did you sleep with Seamus?' I couldn't sustain eye contact any longer.