by David Carter
Christ, she could drink, this bitch, he thought, following suit, and retreated to the kitchen for an early refill.
When he came back she had a strange look set on her face. She looked out of it already. That was cool. The more out it of she was the better, so far as he was concerned.
Then she said, ‘Tabs I like,’ and she giggled naughtily, as if there could be rewards on offer.
‘Yeah?’ he said, unable to suppress the grin from his spotty face. ‘You’re in luck, just you wait and see what I have in here,’ and he opened his dinky box of treasure.
It was packed with pills. Four different kinds at least.
He glanced wide-eyed into the box, then peered across at her, over the top of his specs, a manic look creeping over his face.
‘Ecstasy?’ she said.
‘Among others,’ he said, in a superior way. ‘These,’ he said, holding a large white tablet up at the side his face, ‘Are supercharged babies. Unbelievable!’
‘Fantabiosa,’ she said, pretending to drink more wine. ‘And,’ she added, ‘Seeing as you have been such a good boy, or a bad boy, in this case, I have not come to the party without making a contribution.’
‘Yeah?’ he said, expectantly.
She grabbed her bag and flipped it open. Took out her purse, opened it, removed a long silver strip of sweeties, and set them on the table next to his precious box.
He gazed down at them as if they were diamonds. Then picked them up and brought them closer to his glasses. ‘What are they?’
‘Te-maz-e-pam!!’ she said with a flourish, an exclamation that reminded him of the American super hero comics he so adored.
‘Te-maz-e-pam!!’ he repeated, ‘Bang, bang, bang, baby!’
She almost burst into laughter. The guy was away with the mixer. A parody of any regular drug user, she actually wondered if he had only recently begun to experiment, she wondered if his tabs were real, maybe the klutz had paid through the nose for a hangover cure. She was beginning to have doubts.
‘How many?’ he said, urgently.
‘I take four, with the E.’
‘Yeah?’ he said, questioningly.
He watched Lena bend forward and empty them all from their silver covered bays. They bounced on to the table.
‘I like to crunch one first,’ she said, and she slipped one in her mouth and made a point of crunching the tiny thing like a horse with a mint.
Jago’s mouth fell open. This bird was crazy. Up for anything. He grabbed a tab and threw it in. Crunched it. Grimaced. ‘Fucking awful,’ he said, swigging his mouth clean.
‘It’s not the taste, it’s the feeling,’ she said. ‘Give us an E.’
He couldn’t pass her one quick enough. All the success he’d ever had with women came through E.
She took it, picked up the glass, made a big show of presenting it to her mouth, took a gulp of wine, in reality a sip, threw the tab in her mouth and drank and swallowed.
‘Yeah baby!’ he screamed grabbing an E and flushing it down.
‘Chase her with Te-maz-e-pam!’ Lena screamed.
‘Yeah, yeah,’ and he swept a handful of the remaining pills from the table and in they went.
His glass was almost empty.
‘Have you got any more drink?’ she asked.
‘Yeah, but not as good as the others.’
‘Don’t care! If it’s alcoholic, I like it,’ she said.
He made to stand up.
‘No, you’re all right. I’ll get it,’ she said.
‘It’s in the fridge,’ he yelled, as she hit the kitchen.
She reached up the back of her jacket, and carefully pulled up her blouse. The tab fell into her hand. She’d been practicing that slight of hand, drink before the face, throw in the tab, seemingly into the mouth, in reality down the neck of her blouse. It had worked better than she’d ever dreamed. He never had a clue. Flushed it down the sink.
‘Find it?’ he shouted.
‘Yeah, just coming,’ and then she was back, setting the screw top bottle on the table.
He was yawning.
She sat beside him, more sure than ever that he was a drugs novice. All talk and no experience. He was game enough, she’d give him that, but he didn’t even know that E and alcohol should not be mixed. He was looking nervous, more nervous than usual, and that was something. The E was kicking in. He flexed his jaws, there was tightening there, his heart was speeding, he began to sweat, nothing new in that either with Jago, but it was now more pronounced. He began to feel sick, and thought it was the wine. It wasn’t. It was the E taking over. He was coming up. The E was making him hyperactive, fighting the Temazepam that was trying to put him to sleep.
‘There’s something bugging me,’ he slurred.
‘Yeah babe? What’s that?’
‘The glovely lady hasn’t once removed her gloves.’
He watched Lena smile at him. ‘I do sometimes,’ she said coyly, leaving the thought in the air.
‘Yeah? Like when?’
‘Like... in the bedroom.’
‘Yeah? Do you wanna go the bedroom?’
He watched her slowly nod.
‘More temaz first though,’ she said.
He threw out his tongue and waggled it like a lizard in anticipation. She grabbed more pills and fed him, gave him another big drink, pretended to take more tabs herself, threw them behind the sofa.
Jago yawned, just managed to say, ‘Come on baby!’
She sat there, playing for time. He stood up, unsteady on his feet. ‘Come on!’ he repeated.
Lena stood up as Jago put his arm around her and led her toward his room, steadying himself as he went. He fell on the bed, on to his back, and laughed.
‘Come and join me,’ he said, yawning again, and patting the mattress.
She lay down beside him. Let him slip his arm around her.
‘Take those fucking gloves off!’
‘Take your shirt off first!’ she said, propping herself up on her elbow, her green eyes wide and ablaze. He had never seen eyes like them, not on a human being. They were like the eyes of a black mountain lion he had once seen in a California Zoo, an amazing holiday he had taken with his cousin Jeff, the first extravagance that had started off all the trouble with the damned credit card. He’d been unable to stop himself using it ever since.
‘Yeah?’ he said, to her invitation to remove his shirt.
Lena was gazing down at him, like a nurse in some alco-druggy clinic, persuading him to take medication, nodding encouragingly. He began removing his shirt. It was a big effort. Finally he was free. He lay back. She stared down at him. His skin was white and spotty. In the centre of his chest were five straggly hairs. His nipples were pink and childlike, his arms thin and weak. He yawned again, deeper than before.
The Temazepam was winning the war.
‘Take those fucking gloves off,’ he slurred.
She sat up straight, high above him, as if she were on the top of a mountain, he thought, and he, so far below, on the shores of the Dead Sea. She took hold of her left glove with her right hand and pretended to tug.
Jago’s eyelids fluttered and closed.
Victory to the Temaz.
She gently eased herself from the bed. Jago didn’t stir.
She retreated to the living room. Took her glass to the kitchen, washed it thoroughly, taking great care to remove every last hint of lipstick, dried it and put it away. Picked up the spliff butt from the ashtray, took it to the bathroom, closed the door to keep the noise inside, flushed it down the loo, standing and waiting and making sure it had gone.
Took a look around the kitchen and living room. No fingerprints of course. Was there any other evidence she had ever been there, other than the microscopic fibres from her jacket and skirt, and she’d deal with that little connection later. No footmarks on the hall floor, it had been a dry night, she hadn’t left a trace.
She returned to the bedroom.
Jago was snoring, already in a d
eep sleep.
The E might have wanted him to dance the night away, but the Temazepam was the boss, and thought different, and the Temazepam had allies, the drink, the spliff, and Jago’s weak and neglected body.
She glared down at him.
He might already have taken enough to kill himself and she considered leaving him to his fate. But on second thoughts she wouldn’t, what was the point in that? She wouldn’t take any chances. She opened her bag and removed the steel craft knife.
Gently seized his left wrist and sliced into it, just above the hand. The iconic place for suicide. The blood gushed and flowed down to the white sheet, spreading out like ink on blotting paper. She knew that two leakages were always better than one, as in opening a can, or anything else come to that, two holes increased the flow threefold. She slipped the knife into his right wrist. It was so easy.
Serves you right, Jago, for drugging and raping unsuspecting girls, if indeed that is what you have ever done. She didn’t care about that. She didn’t care about Jago; she didn’t care about anything, not now that her precious Desi had left this world. She wiped the blade clean on the sheet and slipped it into her bag.
100 ways to Kill People.
Drink and drugs, and invite their wrists to taste the fresh air.
Not clean, but pretty effective. There was no way of coming back from that, not for Jago Cripps. He was on his one-way trip to oblivion.
Samantha laughed.
It had been a good day.
She took one final look at him. He looked so peaceful.
His mother would be proud.
She picked up Jago’s car keys; left the room, carefully opened the front door, and left the flat.
Chapter Twenty
Armitage woke in a sweat. Porridge slumbered on beside him. His father and Donna were downstairs, arguing ferociously. Their loud voices had woken him. In the darkness Armitage sat up and glanced at his Toy Town clock. It ticked on merrily, oblivious to the boy’s worries. The luminous hands signalled out their message. The small man was pointing towards the twelve, the big man toward the three. Armitage yawned.
Still they yelled at one another downstairs. He couldn’t make out what they were saying; hearing only the muffled rumbling discontent that floated up through the plaster, floorboards, and the carpet. It sounded spiteful. It sounded frightening. In the darkness, Armitage grimaced terribly. They had been arguing more often, sometimes every night, disturbing the boy’s sleep and dreams. He boasted black rings around his eyes, though he was unaware of that, he hadn’t noticed, but the teachers at school had, and so had Mrs Greenaway.
As the days and weeks and months had slipped away, so his hatred for Donna Deary had increased. It was mutual; that dislike, for she had taken to slapping him when his father was missing, or in another part of the house. She’d admonish Army and clip his ear for the slightest misdemeanour, real or imaginary. Afterwards she would say, ‘And don’t go running and whining to your father! He’s not interested, and if you do, I’ll take that wooden ruler of yours and thrash your legs to shreds!’
Armitage valued his legs, and whether the threat was real or bluster, he didn’t know, though he wasn’t about to test it. She frightened him, and he remained silent. His father never noticed a thing, for he had troubles of his own.
A moment later Armitage did manage to make out what they were saying. They must have stepped up the volume; perhaps the dispute was reaching a climax.
She yelled: ‘If you don’t take me to see the pyramids this year, we’re finished, understand? Finished! You promised to take me, and you can fucking well take me!’
‘Why can’t you understand I don’t have the bloody cash!’ his father screamed back.
‘Then sell something! What about that money you’ve put aside for the kid? You could use some of that! He’s not interested in money. You only have to look at him to tell that. Use that if you have to!’
‘I will not touch Armitage’s inheritance. That’s Kay’s money. She set it aside especially for him.’
‘Wake up and open your bloody eyes! Kay’s dead, you barmpot! In case you haven’t noticed, it’s me you should be looking after. You’re not living in the real world, you useless article!’
‘We can’t use that money and that’s the end of it. I won’t do it!’
‘Use what the hell you bloody well like, but you understand this, Donald Shelbourne, if you don’t take me to Egypt this year as you promised, we are finished. Understand me? Finished!’
‘We are not going to Egypt! And that’s final!’
‘We’ll see about that! And another thing, you can sleep in the spare room tonight, I don’t want you anywhere near me! You give me the creeps!’
Immediately after that, Armitage heard the sound of a heavy slap, echoing through the house, magnified by the after midnight stillness.
Then silence returned.
In his mind Army imagined that she had slapped him, for his father would never slap anyone, and certainly not a lady. Though thinking about it later, perhaps it might do her some good. Armitage would admit that occasionally he had imagined slapping her himself, if only he could find the courage. Perhaps his father felt the same way.
If only she would disappear. If only.
Army turned over, pulled the pillow down over his head, kissed the bear, hugged the creature to his shaking chest, closed his eyes, and tried to sleep. Tomorrow was dancing day. It was important there was a spring in his step. There wouldn’t be, if he didn’t sleep.
All through the following week rows and fights disturbed his nights. During mealtimes they would glare at one another and say almost nothing. They’d glare at Army too, and bite his head off over any tiny thing. Living in the house became hell. He couldn’t help comparing it to how it was when his angelic mother ruled the roost.
Unbeknown to Armitage the economy had taken a hefty lurch away from prosperity. People were no longer buying cars, worse still; they were selling them, chasing the cash like everyone else. The Shelbourne Motor Company had been in financial trouble for some time, everyone worked hard but there was never any money in the bank, and the situation had become critical.
For one brief moment Donna considered using a small proportion of her Swiss bank savings to help the business over the lean times, perhaps £10,000 or so, that would certainly help, and it wouldn’t make too much of a dent in her £180,000 nest egg. Recently she had stepped up Laddon’s invoices, keen as she was to break the £200,000 barrier, and her greediness had worsened Shelbourne’s plight.
She decided against it, of helping anyone, and especially Donald Shelbourne, after he had actually hit her. Slapped her across the face, the cheeky git. She could still feel the stinging sensation on the cheek. No, she wouldn’t help a living soul, not Donald, not that hopeless queer son of his, nor the floundering company. They could all take a run and jump. She wasn’t going to touch any of her savings.
The following day when Donald was at work, Armitage at school, and she ostensibly at a dental appointment, she hurried home, packed her two cases, wrote a hurried note: Sorry Donald, It is obvious we have come to the end of the road, you clearly don’t love me, and please don’t try to follow me, I am out of here, Donna.
She called a cab and ordered it to the railway station and boarded a train for Bristol. Sitting waiting in the hairdressers one day she had read grand things of the West Country. She would visit all the big towns, Bath, Cheltenham, Bristol, Gloucester, Wells, Taunton, Exeter, and settle in the one that suited her best. She was now a lady of means, though she had no intention of squandering her hard earned wealth.
No, she would find another man. She was still young and desirable, so she told herself, so she witnessed, as she stared into the mirror, painting. She would take up golf, act the damsel in distress, book some lessons, seek out company, a rich widower would be perfect, a handsome golf pro on the side, anyone who could show her the ropes, take her into their circle, provide her with everything she wanted, ju
st so long as he was a decent looking man, and solvent.
She knew well enough how to foster interest, how to find a patron, and there must be thousands of businesses in the West Country looking for a good bookkeeper.
She might change her name too, Donna Trowbridge, she decided after staring at the map for an hour, she had never liked Deary, What’s up Deary? She was young and carefree with no ties to restrict her. More than that, she was a great catch for someone, and already she had visions of handsome beaus from Bath to Bristol begging for her hand.
Donald and the squirt could go to hell.
Armitage was thrilled at the news.
He began sleeping better, he began dancing better, he began looking better, and Mrs Greenaway could guess the reason why, when she heard the welcome news that Donna Deary had fled the town. Not before time, she muttered, not before time.
This newfound sense of wellbeing did not spread to his father. Things lurched from bad to worse. The Shelbourne Motor Company failed to pay for the latest batch of cars. The wholesalers were furious and immediately descended on the forecourt and repossessed everything that hadn’t been paid for. The Shelbourne Motor Company had entered its death throes. Donald wasn’t thinking straight. He had even used Armitage’s inheritance, Kay’s money; that she had so clearly earmarked for her only son. He hated doing it, and now Armitage would never see a penny.
One week later the business went bust. It owed just shy of a million pounds. An Official Receiver was appointed to wind up the company’s affairs. Donald was out of a job. He was broke, and he was broken.
Armitage had no understanding what all that meant. He had always hated the garage and the cars and the filthy mechanics and the stink. He was pleased to see it go, and pleased to be free of being taken there on a Saturday morning. Now he could go straight to the florists and for a short while life was heaven.
