Falling Into Heaven

by SIMS, MAYNARD

  Diana’s eyes were welling up ‘I’m sorry, dad. I didn’t think.’

  ‘It’s not your fault, love; I’m the one who’s sorry. I know you meant it for the best. I’m just being selfish and cantankerous. Let’s get home and I promise I’ll be on my best behaviour. Okay?’

  Diana sniffed back her tears. ‘Okay. It’s... it’s just that I’ve missed you so much. Some days I just couldn’t bear it, knowing you were in that terrible place.’

  ‘I know, love. I know. Best behaviour, promise.’

  It was a promise he soon found impossible to keep.

  It was a problem meeting his old friends, and when they sang, For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow, he started to feel nauseous. He certainly was not a jolly good fellow at all. He was a man who had committed a crime, who had been caught and punished. He was a man so neglectful of his wife that she ran off with the first man to pay her serious attention. He was a man who had let himself down. He didn’t deserve, or want, their cheers.

  An hour into the gathering he sought refuge in the garden. He stood underneath the rose arch, smoking a cigarette, trying to think of a way to escape and laughing at the absurdity of it. Here he was at his daughter’s comfortable suburban house, with an invite to stay as long as he liked, and he found it as confining as the prison he had just left.

  ‘It’s good to see you again, John. Got a light?’ Helen Taylor came up behind him.

  He and Helen had been friends for years, since before she married his best friend, Phil Taylor. She had been Helen Nolan then and he had nurtured a major crush on her, but at the time he was committed to Carol. ‘You shouldn’t smoke, Helen. It’s bad for your health.’

  ‘I’ll see you in your box first,’ she said.

  He chuckled. ‘Yes, you probably will. Have you got your car handy?’

  ‘Why fancy a spin? Or looking to escape?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Would you like me to smuggle you out?’

  ‘Think you can?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Five minutes later they were driving out of Diana’s road. ‘Where to?’ Helen said with a smile.

  Crowe took a long final pull on his cigarette and flicked the butt through the window. ‘Do you remember the workshop?’

  ‘Of course I do. You took me there after the pub one night... before Phil and I got together.’

  ‘That’s right, I did. God, you’ve got a good memory.’

  ‘I remember you proposed to me.’

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘You certainly did. Mind you, you were drunk as a skunk.’

  ‘And married to Carol.’

  ‘That as well. I didn’t accept.’

  ‘Lucky for you.’

  ‘Maybe,’ she said.

  They drove in silence for a few minutes, both wrapped up in the memories of that night.

  Life could have been so very different for both of them had they followed their hearts and not their heads.

  ‘Here we are,’ Helen said, breaking out from the reverie and turning the car into a narrow lane that ran parallel to the railway line. The workshop was in one of the arches underneath the bridge. He noticed as they drove along the dingy street that most of the other businesses had gone in the time he had been inside. There had once been a second-hand record shop that specialised in ‘50’s rock and roll, a wood turner who made a living out of making fruit bowls and table lamps, and an old chap who’s shop was called Sparks and who claimed to be able to repair anything electrical. They were all gone now.

  They stopped outside his workshop. There were metal shutters covering the entire frontage, secured by heavy padlocks. Graffiti artists had exercised their creativity and there wasn’t an inch of metal that hadn’t been covered with spray paint.

  He climbed from the car, pressing his hands into the small of his back to relieve the stiffness. He was very aware he was getting old. One day, perhaps sooner rather that later, he would be too old to make use of the workshop. But that was a few years off yet.

  ‘Would you like me to wait?’ Helen asked.

  ‘No, it’s okay.’

  ‘Call me later in the week.’

  He bent down and kissed her cheek. ‘I will. Promise. And thanks for getting me out of there.’

  ‘A friend in need...’

  ‘...is a pain in the… Yes, I know. See you soon.’ He blew her another kiss and watched as she u-turned in the road. She winked at him as she drove away. One in a million, he thought, and fished in his pocket for the keys to the padlocks.

  The shutters rose smoothly and quietly. The front of the shop was painted a dark green and still looked quite smart. The sign that ran above the shop was in scrolled gold lettering and proclaimed John Crowe Upholsterer, no more than that, but anything else was unnecessary. He had enjoyed a reputation as one of the best upholsterers in the area, and several interior design shops had him on their books as their first choice. Under their aegis he had done work for some of the richest and well known people in the area, and he found it a privilege to work on their fine antique furniture, bringing the pieces back to their former glory.

  He smiled ruefully. Memories, that’s all they were now. Past glories that he would never again enjoy. It was going to be hard starting up the business again, and he realised it would be starting from the bottom. And this time he wouldn’t enjoy patronage from the interior design companies. They had very up-market images and wouldn’t recommend an ex-con to their rich and famous clients. He turned the key in the lock and let himself into the workshop.

  It was just as he remembered it. His hammer and staple gun still lying on the bench where he’d left them the morning the police came to arrest him. Even the material he was using to re-upholster the couch was still there on its roll, leaning against the wall. The couch had gone though, as had all the chairs and other pieces he had booked in. He hadn’t expected anything else. Carol would have contacted all his customers and told them to come and collect their pieces. He wondered what excuse she’d used. He couldn’t imagine she would have told them the truth. She couldn’t have stood the indignity. Her one relief when the case came to trial was that there had been a huge fire at a local firework factory and the stories of death and disaster had kept his story out of the local papers.

  He walked across to the compressor, stroking the hoses that fed air to his staple gun. He tapped the fuel tank with a screwdriver but it echoed emptily. He wondered if the machine would ever work again after standing idle for so long. It was very old and he doubted if they even made spare parts for it any more.

  A small movement attracted his attention. There were black shadows moving among some rolls of material in the corner. Vague and indistinct they weaved in and out of the rolls. He walked across to the corner and crouched down, pulling the rolls aside. The shadows had vanished but the movement, vague and diaphanous remained, like an echo after a loud noise.

  ‘Bastards!’ he hissed under his breath, and suddenly years of containment and frustration boiled up inside him and erupted.

  He grabbed a wooden mallet from the bench, and with a cry started pulling the rolls of material away from the wall, chasing the shadows as they scurried for cover.

  Finally he lashed out with the mallet. Dancing shadows showed an almost human instinct for escape, trying to find cover under the compressor.

  ‘No you don’t.’ Crowe brought the mallet down again, and again, and suddenly it wasn’t the dancers he was striking out at. It was Carol. Carol lying there on the grubby floor of the workshop, her skull crushed, her face pulped beyond recognition. And still he kept smashing down with the mallet.

  ‘Did you see them, John?’ voices whispered. ‘Did you see the dancers?’

  ‘No!’ Crowe yelled, and hurled the mallet against the wall. Gradually the images and shapes faded and John sank to his knees, fearing the nightmares that had begun in prison were here to haunt him as a free man.

  Phil Taylor drove slowly through the town, his eyes raking the
pavement, looking for any sign of his oldest friend. He was furious with Helen for spiriting him away from Diana’s and made his feelings clear in a blazing, stand-up row with her, the ferocity of which made the other guests there squirm with embarrassment. But then there were always issues with Helen whenever they talked about John Crowe.

  Taylor loved Crowe like a brother, but didn’t trust either his wife or his best friend when they were alone together, and this simmering resentment always came to the surface during arguments, that were unfortunately increasing in frequency the longer the marriage survived.

  His first stop on his search for his best friend was the workshop, John Crowe’s first love, and the reason he had spent the past few years languishing at Her Majesty’s pleasure. It was his fight to keep his upholstery business running when faced with the crippling credit card bills Carol had run up on her numerous spending sprees, that led him to seek other, less legitimate, ways of making money. Fraud, forgery, only ever at the expense of those who could afford it, but illegal all the same.

  When he reached the railway arches he saw that the shutters were down and padlocked. Of Crowe there was no sign.

  Crowe stood on the bank of the canal.

  ‘What’re you doing, John?’ Taylor chuckled as he came up alongside his old friend. ‘I thought you were going to chuck yourself in.’

  ‘Actually, I was,’ Crowe said under his breath and turned to him slowly.

  Taylor tried a half smile. ‘I should get you home. Diana’s worrying herself sick.’

  ‘Soon, fancy a drink? A pint?’

  Taylor nodded and began to walk back to the road. Crowe stopped suddenly. ‘I think I’m going mad, Phil,’ he said.

  Taylor hesitated for a moment then said, ‘Well, you do seem a little overwrought.’

  Crowe laughed. ‘Overwrought! Oh yes, that’s a good one. Overwrought, that’s what I am.’ Still laughing he climbed the steps to the road.

  Crowe sat at a table and watched while Phil Taylor ordered the drinks at the bar. The barman was surly and seemed irritated at having his quiet afternoon ruined by the inconvenience of having to serve customers. The table was ringed with the stains of countless forgotten pints and when Phil Taylor set two more glasses down, the marks from them joined the anonymity of the others.

  John Crowe picked up his pint and took a long pull, wiping the froth from his top lip with the back of his hand. The first normal alcohol he had touched for four years, and it soon left him light-headed. The homemade stuff inside was only any good for numbing the brain, and most of the senses. His friend sat down opposite and stared at him over the rim of his glass as he quaffed his beer. ‘It’s been a long time since we shared a pint, John,’ he said.

  Crowe nodded and stubbed out his cigarette in the overflowing ashtray. ‘I keep having, I don’t know, visions, Phil.’

  Phil Taylor shook his head. ‘I don’t believe in anything I can’t see, hear or touch. What sort of visions, religious?’

  ‘No,’ Crowe shook his head impatiently. ‘I’m being followed, stalked, by the…I’m not sure what.’ Crowe watched his friend’s face, ready to interpret his reaction. There was a slight tensing of the muscles around Taylor’s mouth and a brief look of pity registered in his eyes. The reaction was transitory, being replaced quickly with a smile and a laugh.

  John Crowe waited for the laughter to subside, then said, ‘I’m not joking.’

  The smile dropped from Taylor’s face. ‘Haunted?’

  ‘Not actually haunted, but that’s what it seems like. You know how they say that houses, the walls, can soak up bad things that happen inside them? Some houses feel happy while others feel sad as soon as you walk into them. In prison there isn’t much happiness but there is an awful lot of sadness and despair. That must build up into something almost tangible. Sometimes inside there was a feeling, an atmosphere. We knew when something was going to happen; an inmate was going to knife another, or a minor riot was going to start. I was new to it all but it was kind of explained to me once, in my first year, by a man I used to share a cell with.’

  Phil Taylor held his hands up and shook his head. ‘Hold on a minute, John. Can you hear yourself?’

  ‘Of course I know what I’m saying. And I’m saying it to you because you’re my oldest friend, and you’re the only person I thought I could tell this to who wouldn’t think I was losing my marbles. But obviously you do.’

  ‘I’m not saying that, John... but, I mean...’

  Crowe downed the remainder of his pint and got to his feet. ‘Thanks for the drink, Phil. I’ll see you around.’

  ‘Sit down. Don’t take offence. But even you have to admit, it’s not exactly... normal, is it?’

  ‘No, Phil, it’s not normal, but that’s the whole point. My life has been anything but normal these past four years. Inside you can’t play by the normal rules or you go under. This…feeling I’ve brought out with me was something I’ve lived with every hour of every day for years.’

  Taylor stared down at the table, avoiding his friend’s eyes, embarrassed. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘I don’t want you to say anything. Just hear me out. You were always good at that, a good listener. Listen to me now, because if I don’t tell somebody about this, if I don’t unload it, I think I am going to go mad.’

  Phil Taylor shrugged and checked his watch. He supposed it was the least he could do, after all, they had been friends for years.

  Helen took the steps down to the towpath. Since Phil had taken the car, and Diana had indicated she would prefer it if Helen leave, she had no alternative but to walk home, and the canal route was the quickest. She had really screwed up this time – only because she wanted to help John out. When she had seen him in the garden he had looked so... so desperate. As though the world was closing in on him.

  She felt a pang deep inside her, a resonance of what might have been had circumstances been different. She loved John, had always loved him, and in a way marrying Phil had been a way to stay close to John Crowe, and at least see him on a regular basis. Not for one moment did she think that Phil would see through her plan, but he was more perceptive than she could have imagined and their marriage had suffered the repercussions ever since.

  She caught a glimpse of something moving in the bracken ahead of her. At first she thought it was a cat, and then cats because there was more than one thing moving. Something rustled the ferns behind her and she turned sharply. She could see nothing.

  She walked on, quickening her pace. She had done this walk countless times before and it had never bothered her. The bracken was low growing and there were no trees for anyone to hide behind. A stout, chain-link fence bordered one side of the path whilst the canal edged the other. There was nobody else around and no reason whatever to feel nervous. But she did. The hairs on her arms and on the back of her neck were prickling, and she kept seeing shapes, flitting around ahead of her – dark shadowy shapes with no form, like ragged, half-transparent pieces of black cloth, eddying in an unfelt breeze.

  ‘Leon Ellis was a killer. I was put in his cell when I first arrived at the prison. Of course if the prison authorities had known the extent of his crimes he would have seen in solitary in some high security block or other, but as far as they knew he was inside on a manslaughter charge. The other killings he told me about later. Nine of them in all, men, women and children, He didn’t care – he didn’t discriminate. He had a lust for killing, and because the killings were so random, so indiscriminate, the police really didn’t have a hope of catching him.’

  ‘But he was in prison,’ Phil observed.

  ‘Killing a pedestrian while drunk at the wheel. He used to laugh about that. His one unplanned, accidental killing and he was banged up for it. It was him who told me about the shadows on the prison walls and how they got there.’

  Taylor swallowed some beer and decided not to interrupt.

  ‘He called them dancers,’ Crowe said. ‘He described them as living shadows, and sa
id he could see them, and hear them, and they were marking all those people for death, telling him who the next victim would be. He had been in prison for most of his life, and he had got to learn how to control them, and use them.’

  Taylor drained his glass. ‘Well that’s not so unusual. A lot of serial killers have claimed to hear voices telling them to commit their crimes. All bloody mad, the lot of them.’

  ‘Yes, I agree. The only problem is, I’ve seen them too.’

  Taylor said. ‘I hoped you weren’t going to say that. Another pint?’

  Crowe nodded. The first had gone straight to his head and his mind was swimming. He had hoped he would feel better unburdening himself like this, but the more he spoke, the more he told Phil Taylor about the past few years, the more he felt that he was losing his mind.

  Taylor put the beer on the table and sat down heavily. ‘Describe them,’ he said.

  ‘The dancers?’

  ‘Yeah. You say you’ve seen them – describe them.’

  Crowe thought for a moment. ‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘At least not with any clarity. They’re black, shapeless. I don’t know. It’s like Ellis said – they’re living shadows. They seem to flit about on the periphery of your vision. Like seeing something out of the corner of your eye, but when you turn around to get a really good look, it’s not there. What he said they are is the residue of all the bad things that happen in the cells, and the badness the prisoners bring in with them. As they spend hour after hour locked up the…well, evil, I suppose, seeps out of them and gets soaked into the floors and the walls.’ Crowe sniffed as if trying to make light of it. ‘Of course it’s all probably old con’s stories, and Ellis was winding up a new boy. None of it’s real.’

  ‘And nor are the dancers, John. They’re not there at all. It’s like I said earlier, you’re overwrought. I know it made you laugh, but I truly believe you are. And I believe you need to seek help. A doctor... even talking to Diana would be a start. You’ve had a terrible time of it. You’ve had four years of your life snatched away from you. Carol has left you. These things are bound to leave scars, and have ramifications. You wouldn’t be human if you weren’t affected deeply in some way by it. But really, all this talk of shadows... and these dancers...’ He gave a snort of derision.