by Rhys Thomas
“Just so you know, Mr. Okamatsu is visiting clients to sort out the air shipping,” she said.
Sam looked up at her. “Oh, okay.”
“Your face looks sore.”
“It’s not too bad.”
“What happened?” said Linda, poking her head over the partition.
Sam told her about the hedgehog.
“Aw, bless,” said Linda. “Mind, lucky you didn’t go over it. It would have punctured your tires!”
Rebecca did a manic, over-the-top laugh.
“Aren’t they supposed to have those tunnels to cross roads now?”
“I don’t know,” said Sam.
He spent the morning working quietly and ignoring the quips from his colleagues about the state of his face. At lunchtime he took a drive to the marshlands, back to the fishing lake, where he ate his sandwiches while watching a tall, elderly woman casting off from a wooden jetty.
When he got back to the office, something had changed. It was quiet. Usually, when Mr. Okamatsu was away, the mood was more boisterous. Perhaps he was being paranoid but he thought they might have stopped talking when he opened the door. He put the slight shift in people’s behavior toward him, the way they couldn’t quite meet his eyes, the spike of alarm when he addressed them from his seat, down to his air shipping error. Or the scab on his face. It was nothing more than that.
At three o’clock he went into the warehouse to check the deliveries going out that day. It was cold and he pulled on one of the thick blue Electronica Diablique worker’s jackets with the warm collars.
“You okay, Sam?”
Mark was standing next to him with a clipboard and a smirk on his face.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
And he turned away from Sam, to check the boxes on the pallet.
* * *
At home he warmed some bread in the oven and soup in a pan and sat at the table with his tablet, scanning the day’s internet. He wasn’t seeing Sarah tonight—she was covering a late shift at the library—and he felt bored. After letting his dinner settle, he went upstairs and changed into his running clothes, pausing on the landing beneath the hatchway to the attic. He stared up at it for a moment and thought about what Sarah would say if he came clean, if he just sat her down and told her everything, about the superhero, about how it made him feel, about all the things he’d done. Would she understand? If he waited for the right opportunity?
He went outside. It was cold, but he soon got used to it and let his mind empty as he ran. He took it easy but was surprised how the pain from his injuries wasn’t too awful. He didn’t go far, just a quick circuit of some of the nearby housing estates. The roads were still busy, people getting home from work, unloading groceries from their boots. One family ran from their front door into the garden, chasing an escaped puppy.
When he got back to his street, the pain from his injuries was starting to get worse, and as he reached the garden he saw a figure standing in the porch, a human form in the pool of light. As he came closer, he saw that it was Tango.
“I’ve been trying to call you,” he said, as Sam came up the path.
“What’s wrong?”
There was a weird look on Tango’s face as he stepped forward and threw his arms around him. Sam panicked.
“Al, what’s going on?”
He had a terrible thought that Sarah was dead. In the garden, the leaves on the bushes rustled and a fluffy ginger cat turned its head in Sam’s direction. A second, smaller cat—black-and-white—followed and they bumped noses and went out into the street, side by side. Tango released him.
“Jesus, Sam.”
“What’s wrong? What’s happened?”
Tango gauged Sam’s face.
“Come on, let’s go inside.”
Sam fumbled for the key in his pocket and let them in. Tango went into the living room, found Sam’s tablet, tapped in some words and held up the screen.
At first it didn’t register. Just a bad practical joke—though that would be impossible, because nobody knew the secret. So, if not a joke, it must be real. He couldn’t quite bring himself to remove his eyes from the screen and point them at Tango. Thoughts bottlenecked, prickly heat stung his face. This is very bad, he thought. This is so, so bad. Tango was showing him the Sun’s website, naming him as the Phantasm, alongside a better-quality image of his face, a picture taken on the night of his arrest.
“It’s in the actual newspaper as well.”
The voice sounded distant, and when Sam finally looked at his old friend he was more like an idea of Tango, a hologram. Too much blood flooded his brain and he felt woozy.
“Whatever this is, whatever you’ve done, you’ve got to stop it, Sam.”
“People weren’t supposed to find out,” he said, vaguely.
He flopped onto the sofa. Already he was thinking about Sarah, about what she was going to say.
“It’s not about people finding out,” said Alan, sitting next to Sam. “It’s about why you did it, you know?”
Because he wanted to do it. Because he felt like he could do it, and he should do it. Because the world needed more goodness in it. Because he was addicted. Sam covered his eyes with one arm. The humiliation was awful. From the dark, her face in moonbeams.
“You could have told me. You know I’d’ve been there for you.”
“There’re loads of people doing what I do.”
“No. They’re not.”
“Yes, they are. Look it up.”
Tango inhaled deeply through his nose. “This is different.”
“No, it’s not.”
He couldn’t say the precise words, couldn’t mention his family. Just like he hadn’t been able to face it head-on when it happened. Sam was on his own then, and he was on his own now. Not that he cared; he didn’t need anyone.
“Look. I appreciate you coming over, but can you go? I need to think.”
“Sam—”
“I’m sorry, Al, but I want to be on my own.”
“It’s being on your own that led you to this.”
Christ, he thought, it’s not that bad. I’m not hurt and I’m not hurting anyone—what’s the big deal? And the way Alan looked at him, that maudlin sympathy, as though he were a cancer patient, compounded the humiliation.
“You’re not going to be able to handle this—”
“How do you know what I can and can’t handle? I’ve been through worse than this, Tango, a lot worse, and I handled it.”
“You obviously didn’t. You need to sort yourself out, Sam, to get to the bottom and fix it. I can help you.”
“Like last time? Where were you then? No, Al, I don’t need your help.” He let the words hang. “I just want to be left alone.” That’s all I’ve ever wanted. “I dread going to the pub with you, you know that?” He closed his eyes. “I dread it for days. I just want to come home and be on my own, but you never let me.”
“Because I’m your friend.”
“You’re not, though, are you? You say you’re there for me, but you’re not. You never were, not when it mattered.” Why was he saying this? “We’re only friends because we couldn’t find anyone better. All of us. You and Blotchy hang out because you don’t want to be lonely, but I...” His voice caught. He tapped his chest and, as the reality of what this meant seeped in, tears rose in his eyes. “I do.”
“You can’t just be alone. What about Sarah?”
“What about her? You can’t stand that I’m with her, not that it matters. She’ll be gone after this. Doesn’t matter, though. I’m happier on my own.”
“Sam—”
“Just go.”
“Sam, you don’t talk like this. And that means I’m getting through. I’m not going to give up on you.”
“You really have to go.”
Ta
ngo stood up awkwardly.
“This is ridiculous.”
It felt ridiculous as well, but his focus was set purely on ending this immediate humiliation. He had to get upstairs to the attic. He’d be safer up there.
Tango stepped into the garden.
“I’m going to go, but this isn’t the end.”
Sam just shook his head, thoughts jamming, and closed the door. He got changed and climbed into the attic with his portable radio, but sleep was not even a speck on the horizon. Even with the radio on, the voices in his head held sway, telling him how he was broken beyond repair, a freak, too much water under the bridge to ever recover.
He thought again about the radio show he’d heard when somebody said part of depression was the inability to see a future. Everything was going to fall apart again. He hated himself for how pathetic he was, how the attic was just allowing him to live on in self-pity. But here he was anyway, hiding out yet again, with the photograph in his hands.
* * *
It was probably a year after the plane crash, safely ensconced in his brand-new house, when a Bubble-Wrapped package had arrived on his hallway mat. Inside was the framed photograph of his parents, his dad with his arm around Sam’s shoulder and his mum smiling, her head tilted gently to one side so that a patch of golden sunlight fell on her cheek. In front of them Sally and Steve wore yellow rain macs and red Wellington boots. Sam had his hand on top of Steve’s head.
It arrived out of nowhere, after all that time where he’d had nothing to remember them by.
He couldn’t recall the day it was taken. It was winter, maybe a Christmas holiday? They were standing in front of the family home. He remembered the twins being older and taller than the two kids in the picture. The photograph arrived with a short handwritten note, and Sam recalled that day in the hallway, rain battering the front of the house, the photograph in one hand and the note in the other, holding it up and feeling bereft. She’d seen him light the fire. An image of goodness, a glowing white hand reaching out in the darkness.
Just in case. Moira x
* * *
At his desk the next morning he kept his head down, the image of his name spelled out in a national newspaper still recurring every couple of seconds. And it wasn’t just about his name, it was how they wrote it: Vigilante Street Fighter. It wasn’t true and it wasn’t right. But what could he do? The feeling of injustice was the same fierce temperature that had made him want to be a superhero in the first place.
The atmosphere in work was weird, even if nobody said anything. He could feel a collective desperation for someone to pluck up the courage to mention it. The phone ringing made him jump.
“Hello, is that Sam?”
It was a woman called Janice, a buyer who worked in the offices of a well-known Japanese electronics manufacturer.
“Jan?”
“Is it you in the paper? There can’t be that many Sam Holloways down your neck o’ the woods.”
She spoke like a seismograph registering an earthquake, up and down quickly.
He couldn’t speak. He always imagined Janice on the phone pulling a line of chewing gum from between clenched teeth. He could feel his face burning. How did brazen people always make him feel so unbalanced?
“You there, Sam, babes?”
“Yeah, I got... I don’t know what you mean.”
“You was in the Sun yesterday and the Express today. I think it’s cute.”
Jesus.
“You can come and save me anytime.” She let go a machine-gun laugh.
“Did you want to order something?”
“Order something? Naw, babes, I just wanted to speak to you. Not every day you find out you know a real-life superhero, is it?”
Silence drifted down the line.
“Aw, I’ve embarrassed you, ain’t I? I’m sorry, babes, I’ll let you go, okay?”
“Okay.”
“I’ll see you later, Sammy. I gotta order new panels soon.”
“Okay.”
He replaced the receiver very slowly and looked around the office to check if anyone had heard. He wished someone would make a joke and get it out of the way. Every minute that passed he imagined the size of the separation growing, the prospect of someone asking about it getting more difficult.
He checked his phone and there was a text from Tango.
Community center tomorrow night. Gaming all-nighter. COD. I need you there.
But still nothing from Sarah. He didn’t even know if she knew about any of this.
His eyes were fighting to stay open after having only two hours’ sleep the night before. The day was like a shovel being dragged across concrete. He checked the internet and came across a story about the cargo ship that had sunk. He sat in his seat and stared at the screen. The crew member who had stolen the lifeboat, it transpired, was wanted for murder.
* * *
When he got home, he noticed his landline answer machine blinking with a message. People used to call them ansaphones, now they call them voice mails, he thought. It was a journalist claiming to be from the Daily Mirror, requesting an interview to get Sam’s side of the story, and there was a possibility of payment. He deleted it.
The thought of Kabe and the people at Arcadia came into his head. What would they think of him? He’d never met people like them before, and after this he never would again. The urge to go out running called to him, but he found himself unable to move from the sanctuary of the conservatory at the back of the house. When the telephone rang, as it did several times, he didn’t answer. The Facebook app on his phone registered thirty-seven notifications, so he deleted the app.
And all the while not a word from Sarah. He considered messaging her but couldn’t.
He wondered if he would ever be able to go running ever again. People would laugh at him and whisper about him as if he was the village idiot. Perhaps he should move away. Or emigrate to the Pacific Northwest, to one of those sleepy little towns at the bottom of a mountain where the mist rolls in off the sea every day.
Images of all the happy times he’d had with Sarah flashed through his mind and he suddenly couldn’t work out why he hadn’t told her. She was such a good person—she didn’t deserve to be going out with such a fuckup.
And then he realized something terrible. The night when he’d fallen off the truck. Blotchy had come to pick him up. It was suddenly obvious. Blotchy was the only person in the world who knew about the Phantasm.
* * *
He picked up his phone, deciding to message her, but at the exact same moment the phone buzzed.
It was a message from Sarah. It said, We need to talk.
Sure. Do you want to come over here? Everything OK? X
Can we meet in the pub? There was no kiss at the end of her text.
That was two texts with no kisses at the end. He trawled back through and pretty much every other message had an x at the end.
Sure. I’ll leave now. How was your day? Xxxx
He didn’t know why he was pretending to be so casual. She clearly knew. And why the pub? Why not one of their places? That she might not feel safe alone with him really hurt.
Through the window at the front of his house Sam watched a man walking his dog. He paused at a lamppost and took from his pocket an electronic cigarette. He hunched over to smoke it, feeling the cold, and Sam thought how sad the man looked, smoking his electric cigarette, having given up something he loved and not really being able to let it go, like a widower carrying around a photo of his dead wife.
* * *
As he pulled into the car park, it felt like entering a trap. He had a quick flash of anger as he thought again of Blotchy’s level of betrayal.
Their favorite seat, in the corner by the fire, was taken, so she was sitting at one of the center tables. Sam hated sitting here because he felt exposed—he liked to sit w
ith his back to a wall.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hi.”
She didn’t smile and the expression on her face was cold.
“Can I get you a drink?” he said, even though she had a Coke in front of her.
“No, thanks.” Her voice was small and flat.
“I’m just going to get one, if that’s okay.”
“You’re a big boy, Sam, you can do whatever you want.”
Every word was like a sliver of some dreadful element poisoning his stomach. She wasn’t giving him anything. All around him was the loud chatter of the customers, acting as if nothing was wrong, though he was sure a few of them were staring at him. He ordered his lager and went back to the table.
“You should have told me,” she said, right away.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Do you know how I found out?”
Sam didn’t respond.
“Francis. Okay? In work. Francis came over, acting all concerned, and told me all quietly and confidentially.”
Sam pictured this scene.
“Do you know how I felt? Do you know what this feels like?” she said. “I thought we had something special. I really did.”
“We do.”
“But we don’t, do we?”
She stared at him. This was worse than he could have imagined.
“You know, I’m meeting Zac tomorrow. I wanted to show him how well I’m doing, how I’m moving on and improving my life, and now I’m going to look like a fucking idiot.”
This really hurt. She was embarrassed by him.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She leaned forward and rubbed her brow.
“I wanted to tell you,” he lied. “It’s just...you know.”
“What are the people in work going to say? Francis is bound to tell them.”
Truth be told, he thought she was being a little selfish and it put a spike in him.
“It’s not such a big deal,” he said.
“Not a big deal? My job’s not a big deal? My moving to a new place to start over isn’t a big deal? We even talked about it. The Phantasm or whatever the fuck it is. We had a conversation about it. And you said nothing. How do you think that makes me feel?”
