Lazy Blood: a powerful page-turning thriller

by Ross Greenwood

  Dean suddenly noticed his visage and panicking, roughly grabbed Will’s arm.

  ‘I thought you knew. Do not tell Darren any of this, I dread to think what he would do.’ Will nodded, unable to talk as his brain grappled with this new troubling revelation. Mary-Rose appeared as the song finished and ‘Save The Best For Last’ by Vanessa Williams came on.

  ‘Which one of you strapping young fellas wants to dance?’ She looked at Will as she said it.

  Will looked at her and thought of Carl’s keen little face and forced a smile onto his face. He quickly replied, ‘It would be rude not to give a dance to our guest.’

  As they walked hand in hand to the dance floor Will slipped out of the front door into the cold. Sobering up fast he staggered off home, the foundations of his youth crumbling.

  15

  14th August 1992

  Will was woken up on the sofa by the birds tweeting outside the window to find his father disdainfully looking down on him. He lurched into the kitchen like a mariner who had just arrived on land after a year at sea drinking his own urine and downed a pint of water. It felt as though someone had filled his mouth full of sand whilst he slept. As he stood with his hands rested on the sink he let the previous days memories wash over him.

  Basically he had killed someone. Left them to bleed to death alone on a cold kitchen floor. That fact was going to take some getting used to.

  He felt jittery and even though he had seemingly got away with it, part of him was expecting the police to come and barge down his door. He thought he should feel worse though than he did. He certainly didn’t feel the need to hand himself in. Maybe the truth coming out about him being a raging alcoholic, wife beater and child abuser had eased his conscience and he had been defending himself after all. The almost imminent revelation of his exam results that morning seemed utterly irrelevant.

  After showering he looked in the mirror and the same Will looked back. Well a little bleary eyed he thought. He brushed his teeth with vigour and nicked some of his dad’s mouthwash and aftershave thinking about the mauling he would get off Aiden’s mum shortly. It was still an hour before he met at Aiden’s house so he decided to walk. The long way, so he didn’t have to go anywhere near Darren’s place.

  He concentrated on walking fast and the fresh morning air helped revive him. It was going to be hot again but it was lovely now. Stupid idea, he thought, getting drunk the night before, but he knew he would do it again. Eighteen years old and my life already revolves around booze.

  When he arrived at Aiden’s he put a mint in his mouth and knocked on the back door. Aiden opened it immediately and Will stepped into the kitchen. He looked remarkably grim, his face like chalk. Not like Aiden to suffer so bad with a hangover he thought. Eight sausages and he was usually right as rain. Aiden shouted to his mum, ‘Will’s here.’

  His mum was at the sink staring off into space. She had tied her hair back into a bun, but it was spilling out and her clothes were grey and seemed ill fitting. Will walked over and said ‘Hi’ in her ear. She turned to him slowly, eyes all blurred and wiped a tear away with the back of her hand. She crushed him with a bone cracking hug and Will hugged her back. His family were completely non-demonstrative and he had always loved that about Aiden’s family, but the hugs felt different now.

  She hugged him as if she was trying to pull some strength from his body. Great heaving sobs wracking her body. He looked over her shoulder. Someone had put a plaque on the wall with the poem that had been recited at Freja’s funeral and Will was back there in the church almost immediately as he started to read it.

  ‘Do not stand at my grave and weep,

  I am not there, I do not sleep.

  I am the thousand winds that blow,

  I am the diamond glints in snow,

  I am the sunlight on ripened grain,

  I am the gentle autumn rain.

  As you awake with morning’s hush,

  I am the swift-up-flinging rush

  Of quiet birds in circling flight.

  Do not stand at my grave and cry,

  I am not there - I did not die.’

  Darren had gone up the front to say the words, shambling in a baggy suit. He had frozen as he looked out from the lectern at the massed ranks of friends and family, tried to get the words out, but no sound came. It was Aiden who went up and hugged him. Gently taking the poem out of his hands he had spoken the words in a loud crystal voice that had echoed through the anguished howls of his mother. As Will had looked over at her, his own tears had distorted her so she looked like the person on the painting ‘The Scream’. His father stood there like a melting statue, eyes closed, tears pouring down his cheeks. Even if Freja hadn’t died that day Will thought, many other things had.

  Will wondered then if Aiden knew the reason why he rarely went round his house any more was because of his mother. The atmosphere had become oppressive. The radio silent. His mum just sitting unmoving in Moffa’s chair. Sometimes she didn’t even register them arriving or leaving. If she did she always gave him a huge hug, but it felt like she was retreating somewhere. That and the myriad of pictures of Freja everywhere, more seemingly springing up every time he visited, dulled his mood and he knew he would rather forget than be constantly reminded.

  Eventually Aiden had to prise his mum’s frail body off him. As he helped her onto a stool he said, ‘There now mum, we will have to go. I won’t be long.’

  As they walked toward the school Aiden explained.

  ‘We both got a letter this morning, from my dad. He’s not coming back. He has taken a job on the wells in Nigeria. He said he couldn’t continue like this. Every time he saw us he felt his will to live disappear like melting snow. His words. For fuck’s sake. Doesn’t he know he had two children?’

  Will didn’t know what to say, it was more torrid information for him to take in. With a brain that felt like a sodden sponge, the news just flowed off him. He squeezed his friend’s shoulder but just kept walking.

  When they arrived at school they were marginally late and had to walk against the tide of excited students. Will felt like an invisible apparition as people flowed past him and wouldn’t have been surprised if, like in the film ‘Ghost’, they had walked through him too. This time they had to go into the teachers’ room to get their results. A secret place usually only seen from the doorway. Normally it would have been a daunting experience, especially today as the walls were lined with bespectacled earnest tutors enjoying human emotion at its rawest.

  Will looked at his Biology teacher in the far corner. He was a slippery, greasy, perpetual student type who could never have functioned outside the safety of a strict school. For a nanosecond their eyes met and then the teacher broke the lock and gazed at his teacup. That didn’t bode well for my Biology result he thought.

  He got his envelope and followed Aiden to where Carl was waiting outside. He was stood as agreed under a giant conker tree at the front of the school. His slim childlike figure looking like the softest breeze would carry him away, at odds with the huge muscled trunk beside him. Behind him on the other side of the road stood next to his car was Carl’s father. He stared at them with a determined look on his face.

  ‘I got the grades,’ Carl stated with an unhappy look on his face as they stood in a circle. ‘Four A’s.’ He looked back at his father who began to beckon him over like Ahab calling him to his doom. ‘I have to go. I’m in the doghouse big time. I sneaked into bed without being rumbled, but the room kept spinning like mad every time I closed my eyes. I realised I was going to be sick, so I tried to get out of bed, but my foot was all tangled in the sheets. I hurled up a dinosaurs dump sized mound of vom and then fell asleep in it. I woke up having spent the night rolling in it, with both my parents staring down at me. Very disappointed they are. I’m guessing I won’t be going out for a while. I have to go, I hope your results are what you need.’

  With that he turned and ran to the car. He stopped and gave them a ‘V’ sign before his d
ad pushed his head down and him into the back like a policeman arresting a felon. Will opened his results, ‘Economics B, History D and Biology E,’ he declared. His dissimilar subjects were testament to him being clueless as to any future direction.

  Aiden knew about Will’s decision to get a job and work. They had looked through the local paper together laughing. Aiden’s standard response to each job description was laughing and shouting ‘No way, that sounds shit’. It hadn’t been encouraging but the thought of earning some money and getting a place of his own was. The decision was made.

  Aiden opened his and nodded, his face displaying no emotion.

  ‘Good enough?’ Will asked.

  ‘Aye, good enough.’

  They walked in silence to the pub, unspoken acceptance that a beer was needed. The Anne Boleyn was still shut when they got there but after some meaty banging from Aiden, Mary Rose cautiously opened the door.

  ‘Is it just you?’ she said.

  They both nodded and she let them in. They caught Angela in her dressing gown sat at one of the tables. She saw them as they walked in and quickly walked out the back, but not before Will saw the livid red marks on her neck. Mary Rose poured two pints with a dour face. As she plonked them on the bar, she spat out what was on her mind.

  ‘Darren is barred. I don’t want to see him here again.’ She stared hard at them both, daring them to challenge her. Will daren’t ask why, because deep down he knew.

  They drank their pints in silence. Will smoked a cigarette and watched mesmerised as the smoke danced across the room, caught in the sunlight beaming through the windows. As he tried to focus on anything but the events at hand, he realised one thing. He had to leave this city. There would be nothing left here for him but bad memories. Aiden finished his drink and plonked his glass down on the table.’

  ‘I have to go, be with my family,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ Will quickly replied. There was no-one to say goodbye to so they walked out of the front door and as they left Will looked up at the sign creaking in the light breeze. He knew he wouldn’t be back at this pub for a long time. It would be fifteen years.

  16

  24th December 1995

  Will felt like his lungs were rattling in his frozen chest as he slumped further into his seat struggling to keep warm. He thought he had prepared well for the journey with his old army cadet boots over thick socks, two jumpers - one thick, one thin, gloves, scarf, heavy leather jacket and thick, insulated thermal hat but he was still cold . Possibly his own fault he ruefully admitted.

  He had been committed to a quiet weekend so as to feel good for the Christmas break, but a tough Friday at work and his resolve had vanished like newspaper on a fire. He had met a girl that night and they had woken up together and then spent the next two days drinking, in bed, or both. An almost out of body experience as he had been permanently drunk and was now struggling to remember what she looked like, or whether he even liked her. Even a trip to the cinema was now just a wobbly dream. Then he had woken up on Monday morning, alone, feeling poisoned and furtive with ‘the fear’ from too many days of excess. With all this baggage the journey back to Peterborough was swiftly turning into the ‘Retreat from Stalingrad’, brought to you by British Rail.

  He had eaten his sandwiches waiting for the first cancelled train out of Hertford and was now starving. He had planned to take the fast train for the last leg even though it cost an extra ten pounds. However when he had arrived at King’s Cross the long snaking queue at the ticket office had reminded him of the footage of people queueing to get on the last chopper out of Saigon. Desperate faces trying to be civilised, but close to the edge.

  He had heard the announcement of this slower train arriving and just got on without a ticket knowing they didn’t always have a guard. It had already taken three hours and he should have been home long ago so he had thrown caution to the wind. He had then had to spend the journey uncomfortably straining his neck looking for the ticket conductor as they stopped at what felt like every lamp post on the way up the line. Each stop rewarded him with an icy blast of cold air when the doors opened. When they finally left Huntingdon station Will relaxed a little. The train was so full now that if the conductor existed he would need to be as slippery as a lavishly greased pig to get through the mass of humanity that would be wedged around him.

  As they passed by the brickyard chimneys and entered into the outskirts of Peterborough, through the industrial district and past Asda, he felt an unexpected fondness fire up inside his cold body. He was looking forward to seeing his friends. He had not been back to the city for two years and rarely before that. Nearly everyone he knew had started new lives elsewhere and the strong bonds of his friendship with Carl, Darren and Aiden had withered. Missed phone calls and sporadic letters were not enough to maintain a good connection. Typical blokes he thought, useless at keeping in touch. Although it didn’t help that if you went to a good school, chances were the majority would go away to university and the majority of those would not return.

  Will smiled though. He could see Aiden and Carl waiting for him as he cleared the condensation from the cold window. Aiden incredibly with only a shirt on and Carl for once almost the same girth, padded out with an awful grey duffel coat. He knew instantly they would pick up where they left off.

  Aiden shook his hand hard when they met and took the bag off Will’s back as though it was full of helium. As Carl shook his hand they stood in a tight circle, smiling at each other before Aiden broke the spell. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘I’ve got the Range Rover.’ As Will climbed into the front passenger seat of the roasting hot vehicle he almost cried out with relief, feeling like a suicidal chicken sliding into a welcoming oven.

  ‘Is your dad back then?’ Will asked without thinking, gesturing to the dashboard with an open palm.

  ‘No, he’s dead.’ Aiden sighed.

  ‘I’m so sorry mate, what happened, if you don’t mind me asking?’ Will gulped in shock.

  ‘Well they don’t know for sure, but he slipped off a rig by the looks of it and drowned. Strange though, twenty years on the job and not so much as a broken fingernail before that.’ As they stopped at some lights, Aiden reached over and shook his leg. ‘Don’t feel bad. It was six months ago and I hadn’t seen him for years. The insurance paid out too.’

  Will did feel bad. He realised how distant they had become and vowed to make better efforts in the future.

  ‘How did you know I would be on that train?’ he said to Carl in the back, wanting to change the subject.

  ‘That was the third one we waited for. We spent the time catching up in McDonald’s and then having a beer. It’s good to see you Will.’

  Will beamed back at him. Typical, that they would wait for him like that. Sadly he suspected he wouldn’t have done so if the roles had been reversed. That was the reason they had not been in touch, he considered. It was him that had moved to Letchworth, Stevenage, Hemel Hempstead and now finally Hertford. He could have written to their universities at any point. Although he guessed they could have sent a letter to his parent’s house.

  This was one of his worst character traits. He could see every side to every story, meaning he could never seem to make a meaningful decision or a positive judgement. He should have been a lawyer. He would have been able to argue both sides so successfully that no-one would know what was going on and the case would be thrown out.

  They pulled up outside Aiden’s house. Will had agreed to stay at Aiden’s tonight, telling his parents that he was getting a lift from down south on Christmas Day morning so he wouldn’t have to see them until the big day. They hadn’t been very pleased about that, but it was an improvement on last year where he had spent two weeks in Australia and had forgotten to ring them until he was drunk. Ten in the morning for them, ten in the evening for him. He wasn’t sure if his mum was crying with relief or sadness at her flaky son.

  Bastard Nathan had also got engaged this year, no doubt just to
try and make him look bad. He would be in the background tomorrow afternoon when his mum had slugged back too many snowballs. Him with a simpering, victorious grin and her peering at Will, all motherly concern, asking Will if he would like to get married one day.

  * * *

  As always they made their way round the back of Aiden’s place. The front of the house looked tired though; woodwork peeling, the small lawn overgrown and he hoped Aiden’s mother was fine. The back was considerably different and he breathed a sigh of relief. He had expected a mass of weeds and dead nettles but it was pristine. Hedges and bushes trimmed, flower beds weeded and even Dracula had been given a wash.

  His mum had clearly been waiting for them and swept him and Carl up in her too thin arms. She ushered them in to the welcoming kitchen, pouring them a glass of wine from the bottle on the table. Next to it was a colossal steaming turkey that Aiden patted lovingly as he walked past. A turkey for two Will realised sadly, but probably just enough, as Aiden’s bulk negotiated the door to the dining room.

  As they sipped their wine, Will nodded in the direction of the kitchen.

  ‘How is she?’ he simply inquired.

  A flash of worry crossed Aiden’s face.

  ‘Not great I’m afraid, but better since I came back. My dad’s death knocked her for six though. I think she thought at some point he would come home.’ He shrugged adding, ‘I suspect that may have not been her first glass of wine today either.’

  ‘I’m so angry with him, even though he is dead. Family was all my mum lived for and as heart-breaking and meaningless as Freja’s death was, he shouldn’t have left her.’ He tailed off with, ‘I’m going to lose them all now, I can see it.’

  Will didn’t know what to say, repeating Mr Wheeler’s mantra about it affecting people in different ways was not going to help. Will left his friend sitting in the big armchair looking out of the window and took his bag upstairs. He thought ‘I will make this a good night for him tonight whatever’. He went into the smallest bedroom and put his stuff on Freja’s bed.