by Glen Johnson
He didn’t understand how the senior partners kept going. They had made millions from investing and yet they still stuck it out. Peptic ulcers and other stress related illnesses racked them all, but they kept at it. Always trying to grab another million. Another big account. Why? Why not retire and relax, live off their portfolios and have an easy life.
Not him. As soon as he had enough to get out, he would. Not an excessive life, just an easy one.
Caleb swerved to miss a black cat. Fuck, he thought, he’s thinking about investing and then almost runs over a black cat. Bad luck, weren’t they? He ignored the thought as soon as it entered his head. “Superstitious crap,” he muttered.
There seemed to be a queue up ahead. “Fuck,” he mumbled. “Just fucking typical.” As he approached the back of the line, he noticed red and blue lights reflecting off the buildings a little further on. Police cars? Maybe a crash?
His car inched along, with a policeman waving the cars around an accident. A blue Ford Ka and a red Toyota Celica had collided. The smaller Ka had literally been ripped in half, with the front of the Celica shredded and twisted back.
Two adults were sat in the front of the Ka. The female passengers head was almost facing the wrong way, her vertebrae completely shattered, her ginger hair plastered to her face with blood. Caleb could see her yellow spinal cord from where he sat. The male in the drivers seat was still alive but unconscious, with a neck brace and oxygen mask on. His door had been removed by firemen using the jaws of death.
The line from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night came to mind, with Antonio saying: ‘I snatch’d one half out of the jaws of death.’ It seemed aptly fitting seems only one of the adults had survived.
Sadder still, in the back seat – where the car had been ripped open – two baby seats could be seen, both with luminescent fireman’s jackets over the remains of the infants beneath. Just sticking out the top of one jacket was a little tuft of ginger hair, just like its mothers.
As his car inched along, Caleb stared, morbidly transfixed on the scene playing our before him. He saw the man who had been driving the Toyota stood next to the remains of his vehicle, blowing into a white straw, connected to a handheld machine. He was having a breathalyzer test. He looked utterly shell-shocked. If he had been drunk, the realization on his actions had sobered him up. Three lives taken due to his drunken deeds. Lives he could never return.
He flicked his eyes back to the Ford Ka. Ambulance personnel were now slowly lowering the injured man onto a backboard. They rushed him to the waiting ambulance. Now the man had been removed Caleb could see most of the dead woman. A piece of the front grill, or bumper of the Toyota had sliced through her seat, through her stomach, and imbedded in the dashboard. Strangely there wasn’t much blood. Maybe with the shock her heart had stopped instantly? He reasoned.
Suddenly her head started to move, slowly turning in his direction. Emergency service people were still milling around the car, but none noticed her movement.
Caleb sat up straighter in his seat. How can she still be alive? he was thinking.
Her eyes started to roll back down in there sockets, and then make eye contact with his. Her mouth stated to move, blood dribbling from the corner, bubbling then popping, straying blood over her face. Caleb couldn’t possibly hear her from his location, but he hear her words inside his head, as if she was sat inside his car.
“Tell Peter I’m sorry I was arguing. That I distracted him.” Her lips continued to move, a tear rolled down her face, washing a line through the blood. Her voice still echoing around inside his head. “Tell him Annabel and Oliver are with me. We will wait for him.”
The policeman slammed his hand down hard on Caleb’s bonnet, catching his attention. Caleb tore his eyes away, to look at the policeman, who was waving him to move along, annoyance radiating off the officer’s face.
Caleb twisted back, staring at the woman. She was back in her original, horrific potion as if nothing had happened.
Had it? he questioned.
The policeman now knocked on his window, moving his body to block the view of the accident. “Move along sir,” said the policeman’s muffed voice through the glass.
Slowly, Caleb inched the car along. Had it been a hallucination? He had never suffered from them before.
Beyond the accident the traffic had thinned out. He didn’t jump any more red lights. Soon he was out on the main road, which luckily wasn’t too busy. Within two minutes he pulled up outside the restaurant, leaving his keys with the valet, who seemed happy to drive his car.
Caleb shook the images from his thoughts. A saying his mother use to say came to mind: Things seen can never be unseen. Images of that destroyed family would be with him for the rest of his life. But the hallucination of the woman had been so vivid, so utterly real.
He decided not to mention it to his girlfriend. He put his game face on.
Sophie was smoking; legs crossed pointing away from the table, sitting sideways in the chair, a pall of blue smoke hung above her. When she saw him coming she stubbed out her Benson & Hedges, and gave him a long cold glare, while he removed his jacket and slumped down into the chair opposite, then scrapping the chair over the teak wood decking. He rubbed his hands over his face, to force away the last of the images – and the woman’s words.
She flicked her long, straight blond hair over her shoulder, tucking a lose strand behind her ear, being careful not to scratch herself with her long fake French nails. She then flicked open her compact, to replace the lipstick that was removed with the cigarette.
Shit, it’s freezing outside. They were under a clothe canopy, with large ornate fire pits spattered around the decking. Regardless, it was still cold. But she liked to smoke while eating, and because it was illegal to smoke inside, they had to sit outside on the empty back decking.
Caleb saw her icy look, flicking over the top of the small compact mirror. She hadn’t even said hello, so he remained silent. He leaned forward and gave her a peck on her cold hollow cheek. A waiter saved any sarcastic comment. He offered her the menu first, then Caleb, then disappeared to allow them to decide.
Shit, she didn’t even have a coat or wrap around on. Just as I expected, fridget.
Another waiter appeared from nowhere, much younger than the first, the wine menu in hand. He stood blatantly started straight down Sophie’s top. Without looking at the wine list Caleb ordered a Mont 67, which seemed to thaw her out a little. A bottle of four hundred pound wine usually did. The waiter prized his eyes away and wandered off, pulling at his crotch.
“What’s the celebration?” she asked, while lighting another cigarette. Then tucked one hand on the other elbow to support the arm with the cigarette, as if it was too heavy for her skeletal thin white arms.
“Being with you is all the reason for celebrating that I need.” She didn’t even acknowledge the complement, and went straight back to studying the menu, while blowing blue smoke in his general direction, even though she knew he couldn’t stand the smell.
After seeing the accident, he needed to feel alive, invigorated. Spending money always gave him that feeling. A celebration for being fit and healthy.
Tell Peter I’m sorry… he heard again. Jesus, am I losing it? he mused.
“I don’t know any of this foreign muck,” she said after a few moments of silence.
Caleb was putting his jacket back on, in an attempt to warm himself up and distract his thought.
“That’s because it’s all Indian darling. Try the chicken tikka masala you will like it, it’s not too spicy. It’s creamy.”
“How do you know what it tastes like?” Once again she was biting off icy comments.
Stupid bitch, he thought. Almost everyone has tasted it. It was even classed as England’s true national dish, supposedly created in London’s Soho area in the 1970’s. But he didn’t mention these facts. He knew she was a true blonde, the only part of her that was real.
“I had a business meal in an Indian restauran
t a few days ago, and that was recommended to me.” Nothing said about this being the actual restaurant.
“I don’t want the shits.”
She looked like a model but had the mouth of trailer trash. As the saying goes: you can take white trash out of the trailer park, but you can’t take the trailer park out of the white trash. She always resorted to vulgarity when she was in one of her moods. Which seemed to be all the time lately.
“You will be fine,” he said, just as the waiter returned with the wine, and to take their orders. Again, the waiter kept flicking glances at Sophie’s silicone chest.
Caleb ordered two tikkas, with plain rice and peshwari naan, before she could make any comment. After the wine was poured and the waiter was gone, silence returned to the small round table. The only sound was her puffing on her cancer stick, while tapping her fake nails on the burgundy tablecloth. She readjusted her bra, pulling out more cleavage, possibly to give the waiter a better show when he returned.
Caleb was freezing, even with his jacket on. He wished he had thought to grab his coat from the boot. But then, he presumed he would be sat in a warm restaurant.
He watched Sophie smoke. She never looked in his direction. She was picking imaginary lint of her Armani dress. She tugged at the strap of her bra, which must have been digging into her pale skin after moving it around.
No sex tonight then, he thought to himself. What did he expect; they hadn’t had sex in months. When they first met their lovemaking was wild, angry and imaginative. Now he was lucky to even get a kiss on the cheek when he met her. And when she did stay over at his apartment, all she done was spend hours in the bathroom, then take up over half of the bed and all the sheets. He got nothing in return, except attitude.
“I need a piss,” he said. This statement received a glare from her. She could swear and say what she liked, but as soon as he did she scolded him. She kept reminding him that one day he will be running the company, and he should practice now how to talk properly. Of course, he hadn’t shared his retirement plan with her.
Caleb pushed back his chair with his legs and headed towards the toilet.
Once inside the warm but gaudy coloured bathroom, which made his eyes want to strain and rebel – which seemed to be decorated in Victorian Era, meets Jean Paul Gaultier. Caleb sat inside the cubicle, just so he could sit and warm up a little. While he sat on the lowered lid, he removed his phone to check for messages. None.
He also ran the events of the crash over and over. He sat shaking his head while rubbing his face. Now wasn’t the time. He would go over it later with a crystal tumbler full of Bombay Sapphire dry gin and tonic on the rocks.
Caleb decided he did need a piss. While washing his hands in the copper basin he noticed a small board behind him, reflected in the mirror. A message board, where people could leave a card. Without thinking he removed his wallet and slid a business card out, pinning it to the cork. Then he scanned the other advertisements. Shrinks, an assortment of other advisors, plumbers, electricians and expensive phone sex chat lines, along with call-girls numbers, with the their small pictures with huge breasts and painfully thin bodies and bleached hair. Yeah right, he thought, if you looked like that darling, you wouldn’t need to advertise in toilets.
A pale orange A4 sheet that was hanging off the bottom of the board caught his attention; a New Age festival, for the mind, body and spirit. Covering everything from palm reading to tarots, psychology, holistic health and parapsychology. Everything spiritual to the metaphysical, all there to offer guidance. It was being held at London’s famous Tobacco Docks, starting tomorrow, over a three day period – Friday, Saturday and Sunday. He stood staring at the sign. He had never been to a fortune reader before, but then, he was never about to invest so much of his own savings. Hadn’t the people in the office been talking about this festival? Some went last year.
After a second of pondering he pulled the notice from the board and folded it up, pushing it into his shirt pocket. Here we go – he thought – back to the Ice Queen.
About the Author
Glen Johnson was born in Devon, England in 1973. He lives a stone’s throw away from the English Riviera, in a small town that most people don’t even realize exists. He loves to travel and has been to twenty-nine different counties, and lived in Mexico City, Mexico for far too long for a pale skinned European. He has also been married twice – and still refuses to say where he buried them. At present he works as an Optical Technician.
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