The Dead Beat

by Doug Johnstone

  She bustled out the door.

  ‘How you doing?’

  Cal, over her.

  She nodded. Her head felt light. No sign of a headache.

  ‘Good. How are you?’

  He laughed. ‘I’m fine, Munchkin.’

  Martha pushed herself onto her elbows and looked round. She remembered this room from last time. A good sign. The brown walls. RECOVERY ROOM 1 on a small laminated sign above the door. A recess in one corner had another sign: OXYGEN. There was no oxygen tank there. She remembered that too.

  She remembered signing the consent form. Her head felt as if a breeze was blowing through it. What was that song about windmills of your mind? Old song. Had she forgotten that, or had she never known it?

  She remembered thinking about Gordon and Ian and counting.

  Very good signs.

  She remembered about all the death, the obituaries, holding back the tears at the desk where Gordon was supposed to be.

  Yesterday.

  ‘You OK?’ Cal said.

  She looked around for a clock.

  ‘What time is it?’

  Cal checked his phone. ‘Nine.’

  Martha shook her head. ‘That was quick.’

  ‘They don’t hang around,’ Colleen said, coming back in.

  She handed Martha another form to sign.

  Martha signed, her hand slow.

  Colleen checked her pulse. Martha felt she couldn’t speak while the nurse counted in her head.

  ‘Well, you’re still alive,’ Colleen said.

  Martha snorted a laugh despite herself.

  Her temples tingled, like a static charge. She scratched at the skin.

  ‘That sore?’ It was the consultant, through from the treatment room.

  Martha stopped scratching and shook her head.

  ‘How is our patient?’ the consultant said.

  Martha didn’t know if he was talking to her or Colleen.

  ‘Fine,’ she said.

  The doctor checked her eyes and ears, like doctors always did. What did they ever learn from that? She half expected he would make her stick her tongue out. The consultant had hairs bristling out his nose and ears. He wasn’t old enough for that, only forty or so. And he had a wisp of chest hair poking out from the neck of his shirt. It made Martha feel sick to look at it trying to escape.

  ‘You feeling OK?’ the consultant said.

  She nodded.

  ‘I think she can get her cup of tea now, nurse,’ he said.

  Imagine not calling a colleague by her name. Martha wondered if he even knew Colleen’s name. What an arrogant prick. God-complex bullshit, except this guy was only sticking two batteries against loonies’ heads, hardly brain surgery.

  ‘Good stuff,’ the consultant said, already heading out the door. ‘See you at your next appointment.’

  Door opened and closed. Swish, swish.

  Gone.

  Martha swung herself off the bed and stood up. She wobbled. Her legs were weak, she felt heavy. Her body waiting to catch up with her mind. Cal put a hand out for her to take. She looked at it and shook her head, then headed for the door to Recovery Room 2. She remembered which way it was. A good sign.

  Through the doors, Colleen headed for the kettle. ‘Tea?’

  ‘I could murder a coffee,’ Martha said.

  ‘Take a seat,’ Colleen said.

  ‘I’ll stand, thanks.’

  She wanted to walk it off. Active, rather than passive. Living through moving. She paced round the room. It was the same decor as the rest of the building – scratchy seventies furniture, brown walls, bleach smell, dreary as hell. Enough to send you mad, if you weren’t already.

  She got the coffee and gulped it as she walked about. Burnt her tongue, it was too hot.

  Cal sat in a busted chair and flicked through a magazine, keeping an eye on her.

  Martha gulped more coffee and put the cup down. She was full of energy now. Her legs worked and her heart pumped and her brain was clear. She wanted to do things.

  ‘OK, I’m good,’ she said. ‘Let’s go.’

  Cal got up.

  Colleen frowned. ‘Are you sure, love?’

  Martha gave a sarcastic and condescending nod of the head, then regretted it.

  ‘Well, you know about taking it easy for the rest of the day, yeah?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Colleen turned to Cal. ‘Make sure she does.’

  ‘I’ll try,’ Cal said.

  Martha picked her bag up and slung the strap over her shoulder. She heard the familiar plastic rattle of the cassette boxes in there, and thought about the tape of her and Gordon.

  She opened the door and Colleen followed, placing a hand on her sleeve.

  ‘See you on Friday, then,’ Colleen said softly.

  Like it was a visit to the dentist.

  ‘Yeah, Friday,’ Martha said, and she was out the door, heading for the exit, Cal and Colleen exchanging a look.

  31

  Back at home.

  ‘Are you sure you’re going to be all right?’

  Cal was leaving to open up The Basement.

  Martha was freezing. She hadn’t had this reaction before. Her hands were trembling, her bones felt thin and brittle. She wanted him out the door as soon as possible so she just nodded, scared that her teeth might chatter if she tried to speak.

  Cal shook his head.

  ‘I’ll phone in, someone else can do it.’

  She knew this was just talk. He was the only one who had keys to open up, and the only one trusted by the owner anyway. He would have to go in.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said.

  She pushed him out the door.

  ‘I’ll call you in a bit,’ he said, already getting his car key out his pocket.

  ‘Don’t bother,’ she said.

  ‘I will.’

  She closed the door and went through to the living room. Got on her knees and clicked the ignition for the gas fire. An old living flame thing, but it did the job. She grabbed Elaine’s blanket from the back of the sofa and draped it round her shoulders. Huddled next to the blue flames and the fake coal. What was the point of fake coal? No one was fooled.

  She felt the heat on her face but her blood was still chilled. She switched the television on but turned the sound down. Jeremy Kyle. Horrible freak show.

  She got her bag and opened it. Emptied everything out. Make-up, keys, phone, cassettes, Walkman, Ian’s notebook, and the stories she’d printed off, the ones about Ian and Billy. The two men in her life. She laughed at that. One dead and one fuck-up.

  No headaches this time, just this chill through her. Weird.

  She plugged her headphones into the Walkman and shuffled through the tapes. Picked one out and inserted it. Teenage Fanclub, Bandwagonesque. Cool title. Sarcastic. Pressed Play. Feedback, lazy voice, chiming guitars. Very slack. She liked it.

  Short-term memory loss.

  She wanted to check. Remind herself. Did a mental inventory.

  She had started work two days ago at the Standard. Gordon Harris had shot himself on the phone. She was working next to V. She went to see her wrestle last night. Was that just last night? Cal and Billy were there. Billy was the family announcements guy on the Evening Standard. Also the guy from the headlines a couple of years ago, the Crags shoot-out guy. Rose was a reporter. She didn’t like Martha. Or did she? Martha’s dad Ian threw himself off North Bridge two weeks ago. She didn’t go to the funeral.

  What else was there to remember? She had drunk Ian’s drink cabinet almost dry. She was enjoying her dad’s weird taste in music that she never knew about. All those cassettes, recorded from vinyl. He would’ve had to buy the TDK D90s, sit and tape the albums, write the track listings by hand. She could just click iTunes and it was there. So weird, how much effort went into life twenty years ago.

  But Ian had never mentioned music to her.

  She had a thought. Pulled out his obit, the one Gordon had written. Scanned through i
t again. Short-term memory loss. There it was, the mention that he was heavily into the Edinburgh alternative music scene. Really? She tried to picture the middle-aged man she hardly knew as part of anything alternative. Alternative to what, what did that even mean? Another word in the obit, ‘indie’. What was the indie scene?

  Had this been the same time he was with Elaine, and if so, was she into the same music? She never played music round the house. What had happened to these people?

  She finished reading the obit. Survived by his daughter Martha and his son Calvin. They were survivors. Was that all? She was fed up of being just a survivor.

  The heat from the fire was through to her bones now, but she kept the blanket wrapped round her anyway.

  She read the name at the bottom of Ian’s obit, Gordon Harris. Dead. Last time she’d read this, he was only half dead. Someone would have to write his obit. Was that her job now, to go back and talk to Samantha?

  She thought about the recording of him. His voice, petrified of what he was about to do.

  Teenage Fanclub were singing about a ‘metal baby’ now. Vocal harmonies piling on top of each other.

  She picked up Ian’s notebook and flicked through it. Remembered looking at the book twice before. That was good, everything coming back to her. The two times before, she’d been drunk. Wide awake this time, head full of light. She could read the scrawl no problem, wasn’t as bad as she’d thought when drunk. Funny that.

  She read a few entries. Nothing exciting, just the day-to-day stuff of his life. It was from 1992. Before she was born. He was already working at the Standard’s offices, by the sound of it. Trying to get a career going in journalism, just like her.

  She felt dizzy for a moment, something like déjà vu, her life telescoping back to her dad’s, mirroring it a lifetime later. She really was following in his footsteps, for better or worse.

  Maybe the dizziness was the ECT. She felt her pulse. Seemed normal. The heat from the fire on her face was intense but she liked it, felt as if it was peeling an old layer of herself away.

  She flicked the page in the notebook. A very short entry about going to Glasgow for a gig. She laughed in recognition, it was Soundgarden. He mentioned Elaine, said they were with friends. She tried to imagine their friends in 1992.

  Then something that made her blood freeze all over again. She reread it, wanting to make sure. His writing was a mess, but it was clear enough. She read it a third time.

  ‘The only downer was that my brother turned up.’

  Ian had a brother.

  She never knew that.

  Why had she never heard about him before?

  She scrabbled through the pieces of paper scattered on the floor. Pulled out Ian’s obit again. Scanned it. No mention of a brother. How was that possible? Gordon was a professional obit writer, he wouldn’t make a mistake like that. Unless it was kept from him too. But he had known Ian for years, since way back at the paper.

  More importantly, why the hell had Elaine or Ian never mentioned a brother?

  She grabbed her phone and called her mum. No answer, just Elaine’s monotone on the voicemail.

  ‘Elaine, it’s Martha. Call me when you get this.’

  She hung up and called Cal.

  He picked up after two rings.

  ‘What is it?’

  She could hear clanking of bottles in the background. A whirring noise.

  ‘We have an uncle.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I just read Ian’s notebook. He mentioned a brother.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Have you ever heard of our dad having a brother before?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Don’t you think that’s a little strange?’

  ‘No, we hardly knew the prick.’

  Martha shook her head. ‘That’s not good enough. Listen to me, Cal. Ian didn’t like his brother for some reason, that’s in the notebook. Elaine has never, ever mentioned him in twenty years. Gordon Harris wrote an obituary of Ian that didn’t mention him. That’s the clincher.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You don’t leave that kind of shit out of an obit, Cal. That’s specifically what an obit is for, for rounding up someone’s life and namechecking the family. All the family. Unless . . .’

  ‘Unless what?’

  ‘Unless there’s something to hide.’

  ‘Wait a minute.’

  ‘Something big.’

  ‘You need to take it easy, Munchkin.’

  Martha had the phone cradled in her neck and was shoving all the stuff back into her bag. ‘No, I need to do exactly the opposite.’

  ‘Remember where you’ve just been this morning.’

  ‘This has nothing to do with that. The side effects are memory loss and headaches, not imagining diary entries and realising your own mother has been lying to you for your whole life.’

  Cal sighed down the phone. ‘Maybe she had a good reason.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe he died twenty years ago. Or emigrated. Or disappeared.’

  ‘That’s still no reason to write him out of history.’

  ‘Maybe she wanted to protect us.’

  ‘From what?’

  The clanking down the phone had stopped. ‘Listen, I’m coming home.’

  Martha threw the blanket off her shoulders.

  ‘Don’t bother, I’m going out.’

  32

  ‘Don’t you get it?’ Martha said.

  V ran a finger around her black eye and shrugged.

  ‘So your family has secrets, whose doesn’t?’

  Martha dumped her bag on the desk and shook her head.

  ‘Not like this. Not that get left out of official obituaries.’

  V looked puzzled. ‘Sure, that happens all the time.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You think we check everything?’ She rubbed her hand over her bicep. ‘If the family want something hidden it stays hidden. You wouldn’t believe the number of euphemisms we use in this business. Obits are a total whitewash sometimes, trust me. I know you’ve only worked here two days, but even you must’ve noticed that.’

  Martha had, but this was different. She logged onto the computer.

  ‘What are you doing here, anyway?’ V said. ‘I told you to take the day off.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Did you get the old . . .’ V made a lightning fizzle noise and put her hands out like holding electrodes.

  Martha rolled her eyes. ‘Very subtle.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘It went fine.’

  ‘You seem a little hyper.’

  ‘That’s nothing to do with it.’ Martha fixed her gaze on V. ‘I’m not bipolar, I don’t get crazy highs, just lows, so that’s not what this is. I’m just thinking clearly for the first time in ages. I know this is important.’

  V held her hands up. ‘It’s your life.’

  Martha took a deep breath. On the bus on the way in she’d called Elaine four more times, no answer. She’d flicked through Ian’s notebook, but hadn’t found another mention of his brother.

  She logged onto the copy system and searched for ‘Ian Lamb’. There were hundreds of hits with his byline. He had written something most days in the years he’d worked here. She scanned down them, but apart from stuff by him, there was just Gordon’s obit. Shit, Gordon. He would need his own obit now.

  She went onto the local hard drive of Gordon’s computer. Hundreds of different folders. She searched again. Three hits, different versions of the obit. She opened all three. Clicked the last two to the back and started reading the first. The text was almost the same, just a little sloppier. But then she read the last line.

  ‘Ian is survived by his daughter Martha and son Calvin, and his twin brother Johnny.’

  Her heart was a jackhammer.

  A twin. Just like her and Cal. It ran in the family.

  She checked the second draft. It had been changed to cut him out.

  ‘
I told you,’ she said to V.

  ‘What?’

  ‘First draft of Gordon’s obit for Ian. Mentions a twin brother called Johnny.’

  V peered over. ‘Really? What does it say?’

  ‘Nothing.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Except that he’s still alive. A survivor.’

  V nodded. ‘Uncle Johnny, eh? Wonder why he got scrubbed from the rewrite.’

  Martha checked the date on the file.

  ‘Both versions were written two months ago, a day apart. Six weeks before Ian jumped off North Bridge.’

  V sucked her teeth. ‘Yeah, that’s pretty common.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A lot of us have our obits done already.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘You want to make sure it’s good. Do you want to read mine?’

  Martha frowned. ‘So you’re saying Ian might’ve written this?’

  V shook her head. ‘Not his speciality. More likely Gordon spoke to him, wrote it, then showed him a draft.’

  ‘So maybe Ian vetoed the mention of his brother?’

  ‘Could be,’ V said. ‘Although that begs the question, why did Ian mention him in the first place?’

  ‘Unless he didn’t,’ Martha said. ‘Unless Gordon already knew about him. They both worked here from around the same time, didn’t they?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Isn’t it a little suspicious that Gordon just happened to write Ian’s obit for him a few weeks before he jumped off North Bridge?’

  ‘Not if Ian was already thinking of killing himself. Sorry to be blunt, but that’s the obvious answer. He was already thinking of doing it, so he wanted to make sure Gordon wrote something decent.’

  ‘This doesn’t add up. Where’s Gordon’s obit? Did he write one for himself?’

  V pointed at Martha’s screen. ‘Have a look.’

  Martha searched the system, then the local hard drive. Nothing.

  ‘Why would he phone his in on the day, when he was premeditating enough to have bought a gun from somewhere? If he was ready to die, why not write his own obit?’

  V got out her seat and rested her arse on the edge of Martha’s desk. ‘You’re thinking too much about this,’ she said. ‘You need to go home.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’re applying logical thinking to suicide,’ V said. ‘It doesn’t work that way.’