Sparks

by David Quantick

  There was a noise behind him. Sparks froze, then turned.

  “Go away,” he said to the cat. “Bugger off.”

  The cat, still none the wiser, buggered off. Sparks went downstairs as slowly as possibly, which made the stairs creak like galleons, and fled into the street.

  A window opened above him and the crazy man who had attacked him leaned out.

  “I am going to get you!” shouted the crazy man.

  Sparks ran away. He leapt onto the platform of a passing bus and took a seat.

  Alison opened her door.

  “I’m back,” she shouted into the flat. There was no reply, so she went into the front room. Kaye was sitting in it, holding something small.

  “I’m back,” she said again, quietly. “Are you OK?”

  “I don’t know,” said Kaye. ‘Who’s this?”

  He handed her the small thing. It was a photograph. On the back someone had written MR HANDSOME! in biro.

  “Oh God,” said Alison. “It’s Sparks.”

  “You told me he was dead.”

  “He is dead. Where did you find this?”

  “Why did you tell me he was dead?”

  Alison’s forehead tightened. Kaye sounded strange. Everything felt wrong.

  “Because he is dead,” she said. “He was killed in an accident. Why – why are you looking through my things?”

  “What do you mean?” said Kaye, sounding confused rather than strange, which was an improvement, she supposed. “I would never go through your things.”

  Alison walked out of the room, her entire head feeling compressed and muddy. She took a box out of a cupboard and brought it back into the front room. Kaye was smoking now.

  “You don’t smoke,” she said. Kaye didn’t say anything.

  She opened the box.

  “Oh,” she said. Kaye looked at her. Alison took a photo out of the box and handed it to Kaye. It was the same photo as the one he was holding. Kaye turned it over. On the back, someone had written, in Biro, MR HANDSOME!

  “What’s going on?” said Kaye. He sounded cold.

  “I don’t know,” Alison said. “I don’t understand.”

  “He was here,” Kaye said. “You said he was dead, and he was here.”

  “Who was here?” said Alison. “I don’t understand.”

  “I have to leave now,” Kaye said. He got up and walked out of the room.

  Alison sat on the sofa, holding the two photos.

  “Sparks,” she said, as bleakly as possible.

  Sparks sat in a cafe blowing on the world’s smallest espresso and going through the wallet he had taken. It contained a few pounds, a credit card and a security pass. The pass contained a photograph of a wild-eyed man who might as well have had the words I AM NUTS instead of a photo. The pass and the credit card confirmed the man’s identity as Joseph Kaye, which meant that he was the maniac that Jeff and Duncan wanted him to kill.

  And I do want to kill him, thought Sparks.

  Alison left the flat. She didn’t know why, but sometimes when you have a problem and no solution, movement can be a good substitute for a solution. So she put her coat back on and went out. She walked down the road, looking at people in case they were Kaye. None of them were, especially the women, but she didn’t expect them to be. She had an awful, twisting feeling that she might not see Kaye again.

  She stopped outside a cafe. It was one that she had once been in with Kaye. Not that he’d be in there now, having a coffee so near to her flat when he’d just walked out on her, but it was somewhere to stop outside. She looked in through the cafe’s steamy window.

  Her dead ex-boyfriend was sitting at a table, blowing on a small cup.

  Sparks drained his espresso, which meant essentially sticking his nose so far into it that he got the end wet, and pondered his next move. Perhaps he should start following Kaye? He should certainly find a place to confront him quietly and sort him out. Sparks felt uneasy about the phrase ‘sort him out’, but then he felt uneasy about Kaye. Still, he thought, I know what I have to do now. Now Sparks had a plan. It was, even his tired brain conceded, a very strong and realistic plan.

  Then the door to the cafe opened and Alison came in and Sparks struggled to his feet, possibly with an idea of crashing through the window, possibly to smile at Alison and say, “I can explain everything,” or something equally not true, but in the end he didn’t have to do anything, because Alison just stood in front of him and said, “Bloody hell, Sparks, what do you think you’re playing at?”

  “What do you mean?” said Sparks, for the last time here displaying the lack of ready wit that had dogged him for months.

  “You,” said Alison, “are dead. And…” she all but held her hand up for silence, “I don’t mean in trouble dead. I mean dead dead. I went…” now she really did hold her hand up, because Sparks was showing signs of wanting to explain things, “I went to your funeral, Sparks. I comforted your mum and dad, and they comforted me.”

  “You went to my funeral?” said Sparks. He was touched, and encouraged. If someone went to your funeral, it might mean that later on they would want to live with you.

  “I was devastated,” said Alison. “I mean, I was going to split up with you, but it would have been heart-breaking. As it is, you died, and that was more heart-breaking.”

  “Why were you going to split up with me?” said Sparks.

  “I’ll ask the questions,” said Alison.

  “You haven’t asked me any yet,” Sparks said.

  “I’m about to,” Alison said. “But since I’m still thinking of some, the reason I was going to dump you was because you were immature, Sparks. You wouldn’t change your life, and you hadn’t got much of a life to change in the first place.”

  “I had an interesting job,” said Sparks. “I had a good social life.”

  “You only liked your job because it was near your flat,” said Alison. “And your social life was me and some beer. And I think the beer was winning. You never wanted to do anything, Sparks.”

  “Why should I have to want to do anything?” said Sparks. “Why should I have to want to go to museums on Sundays and parks and interesting new films?”

  “When I say ‘do anything’,” said Alison, “I mean anything. Like get up, or dress, or wash.”

  “I was depressed.”

  “What? With your interesting job, your good social life and me? Sparks, you weren’t depressed, you were just…”

  “What?”

  “One day,” said Alison, “we went to the pub, and you had your pyjamas on underneath your tracksuit.”

  “It was my birthday!”

  Alison looked at Sparks.

  “It was my birthday,” she said.

  “Oh,” said Sparks.

  “You don’t remember, do you?” Alison said.

  “Yes, I do,” said Sparks.

  “I had two Cokes and you had…”

  “Vanilla vodka,” said Sparks. “Vanilla vodka and ginger ale. And…”

  “Gin and something disgusting,” said Alison. “And we had a massive row and I dumped you.”

  “I dumped you,” said Sparks.

  “In your so-called world, maybe. But I distinctly remember dumping you,” said Alison.

  “Oh well, all that’s in the past,” said Sparks, as much like an idiot as he could. “But… but I’m different now.”

  “Yes, you’re dead,” said Alison.

  She sat down.

  “Sorry, I know I should have done the finding out how you’re dead and not dead part before the telling you why I was going to dump you part, but I’ve been wanting to get this off my chest for a long time now.”

  “Oh good,” said Sparks. “Listen, I have to…”

  “Tell me later, I want to know about your death,” said Alison. “Shit! I’d better phone your mum and tell her. She’ll be furious. And pleased,” Alison added, hastily. “But initially furious.”

  “You’re taking this well,” said Sparks.
“I thought you’d be more freaked.”

  “I am freaked,” said Alison, “but I just got all that off my chest – I mean, I couldn’t shout it all at your grave, well, I could, in fact, I did, but you weren’t listening, being dead. And I am pleased you’re not dead, even though I’d still dump you. And I’m in love.”

  “That’s what I want to talk…”

  “Tell me later.”

  Alison’s face lost any relaxedness it had had. “What are you doing with Joseph, Sparks?”

  Things did not go well after that. Sparks said something about, oh, it’s Joseph now, Alison mentioned Kaye’s wallet, Sparks remarked on Kaye’s insane-looking photo, Alison said that she was in love with him, and Sparks, perhaps unwisely, confided that Kaye was a psychopath who planned to destroy the universe.

  “You’re just jealous,” said Alison.

  “Why?” said Sparks. “I don’t want to destroy the universe.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because I don’t.”

  “No, why the other?”

  Sparks explained. He waited for the deja vu to kick in, having already explained most of it to another Alison, but it didn’t. Perhaps, he thought, deja vu only happens when you haven’t actually deja vu’ed something.

  “I don’t know,” said Alison.

  “Why not?” said Sparks. “You believed me last time.”

  “There was no last time,” Alison said. “I’m not that Alison, with the bears. And I’m not the Alison in your world or whatever either.”

  “So,” said Sparks, more triumphal than a parade, “you believe me. Possibly,” he added, lowering some mighty flags of conquest.

  “I don’t know, I said,” Alison said. “You’re not a liar, Sparks, it’s one of your good points.”

  “What are my other good points?”

  “Shut up, I’m not in the mood. You’re not a liar, and while you have pretended to be some stupid things before, like a dog, once, you’ve never pretended to be dead. At least not in earnest.”

  “I could be mad.”

  “No,” said Alison, carefully. “You’re not. I’ve been around people who’ve… been mad.”

  “You mean him. Kaye face.”

  “Kaye’s his name. Putting ‘face’ after it doesn’t make him bad. Or mad.”

  “But you do mean him. He is mad.”

  Alison picked up Sparks’ tiny cup and looked into it as if it was a tiny porcelain well and she was at the bottom.

  “He wasn’t in his... he wasn’t well. Mentally. But he’s OK now. I know it.”

  “He didn’t look OK this afternoon. He was virtually frothing.”

  “You’re wrong,” said Alison, although she didn’t sound convinced. “Funny, I can swallow all this time and space rubbish, but not…”

  She got up.

  “I feel like I have to choose,” she said. “I don’t know what, but I do. And whatever it is, Sparks, it isn’t you.”

  She got up and left.

  Sparks sat in companionless silence with himself until the cafe’s owner came over.

  “I don’t know if you’re dead or not. It’s not uncommon in here to be either,” he said. “But I want £3.50 for the espresso, and I want you out of here.”

  Sparks paid.

  “Weirdo,” said the cafe owner as he went back behind the counter.

  “Espresso,” said Sparks, as the cafe owner turned on a large screen TV for the sports news.

  Joseph Kaye ran. He ran faster and faster until at last, somehow, he found himself outside his parents’ house. He opened the door and ran inside.

  “Evening, dear,” said his mother. “You’ve missed your tea.”

  “We gave it to the dog,” said his father.

  “Good,” said Kaye, absently, and hurtled up the stairs. In his room, he pulled boxes and shoes from under his bed.

  “Get your own place if you’re going to have parties!” shouted his father from downstairs as Kaye threw shoes and boxes against the wall.

  Kaye found a large grey cardboard box. He ripped it open, and its contents exploded in a spray of A4 paper and bits of spiral notebook. Grabbing fistfuls of paper and notes, Kaye kicked the boxes back. Then he went to a drawer, pulled it out, and took out something heavy. He closed the drawer and this time walked downstairs.

  “You’re annoying your father,” said Kaye’s mother at the foot of the stairs.

  Kaye stopped. “Goodbye, mum,” he said. “I love you.”

  He kissed her and went out into the night.

  “That boy will be the death of us,” said Kaye’s father.

  “Oh do shut up,” said Kaye’s mother. She touched her cheek where Kaye had kissed it.

  Alison sat on her sofa. She felt incredibly peculiar, as she supposed she would, given that the man she loved had apparently just lost his mind again after meeting her ex-boyfriend, who was supposed to be dead but in fact had been in… Alison wondered why she hadn’t lost her mind, and felt guilty. She consoled herself with the thought that, at this rate, it wouldn’t be long.

  There was a noise in the background. Alison realised it was the television, which Kaye had left on. She disliked the television for reminding her of Kaye’s recent, happier, TV-watching presence, picked up the remote and went to turn it off.

  “Leave me alone,” she said, unreasonably, to the television.

  “Police have just surrounded a rooftop in central London where a man is believed to be threatening to kill himself,” replied the television.

  Alison put the remote down. Then she picked it up again and turned up the volume.

  Sparks stared at the TV screen.

  “I want the sport,” said the cafe owner.

  “Hush,” said Sparks.

  The huge screen showed a large, green-flaring building from the air. Police helicopters flew past and there were some cars with big letters on their roofs moving about below. On top of the building, a thin man was doing a bit of waving.

  “Give me the remote back,” said the owner.

  “I know him,” Sparks said.

  “Of course you do,” said the owner. “You’re a weirdo.”

  “Where is that?” said Sparks to an old man, who looked like he knew stuff.

  “That’s the old thingie,” said the old man. “In town. The ’60s one.”

  “So it is,” said Sparks, who understood this kind of talk. He gave the cafe owner his remote back and went outside.

  “West End,” said Alison.

  “Whereabouts?” said the cabbie.

  “That ’60s building in the middle,” she said.

  “Gotcha,” said the cabbie.

  “I don’t know where it is,” said Duncan. “Ask the front desk.”

  “What?” said Jeff. “Hello front desk, you know that building on the news, where is it?”

  “Why not?” said Duncan, and picked up the phone.

  Thirty seconds later, Duncan said, “I know exactly where it is.”

  “Good,” said Jeff. “Let’s go.”

  “Sorry mate,” said the minicab driver, “I dunno where you mean.”

  “It’s the big one in town,” said Sparks. “With the lights.”

  “I’m Russian,” said the driver. “Better on Novosibirsk than the West End.”

  “Why’ve you got a Cockney accent?” said Sparks .

  “It happens,” said the driver. “Here, I’ve got a Streetfinder somewhere.”

  “Why haven’t you got satnav?” said Sparks.

  The driver looked at him. “What’s that?” he said.

  Such are parallel universes.

  Alison paid the cabbie and got out. The building was ringed with police cars and news vans.

  “Rats,” said Jeff. “The place is full of fuzz.”

  “Fuzz?” said Duncan. “Who are you, Mr Woodstock?”

  “Don’t get cocky with me,” Jeff said. “We need to find a side entrance.”

  “This way,” said Duncan, and walked off.
/>   “Wait for,” said Jeff, taken aback, “me.”

  Joseph Kaye had made a bonfire on the roof out of all the files, folders and bits of paper he had collected. Pictures of beetles curled up at the edges and browned into nothing alongside heavily-typed documents and eager-to-be-flammable faxes and photocopies. Over £60 of public money was wasted as Kaye’s carefully collected hoard of near-evidence, half-proof and unwell conjecture turned into yellow fire.

  Kaye himself appeared to be burning, but this was because a) he was standing next to the bonfire and the flames were reflecting off his sweaty face, and b) he was in quite a state. His mind was trying to run through a version of events that made sense, but it wasn’t doing well.

  I believed that I was ill, Kaye thought, then I believed that I was sane, and decided to carry on looking for proof that I was right. And then, just as I did that, I met someone who made me forget about looking for proof. And just when I had forgotten, it turned out that she was lying.

  A large helicopter flew over Kaye, and he batted a hand at it, as if to swat it away. Obviously, it didn’t work, but Kaye was past caring. He had trusted someone, gone so far as to love them, and it turned out that her dead boyfriend was very much not dead. It was all very clear; he didn’t blame her. Or even the dead boyfriend.

  It was me, Kaye thought. It was me all along.

  Sparks got out of the cab.

  “I can walk it from here,” he said, dropping a crumpled tenner onto the driver’s lap.

  “You couldn’t tell me how to get home, could you?” asked the driver, but Sparks was already running.

  Alison, who used to belong to a gym below the building, knew there was a subway and a back way. If she was quick, she could avoid the police.

  She was quick. She avoided the police.