Ivory

by Steve Merrifield

  Candy was the first to react by launching a spray of vomit through fingers that had tried to seal her mouth against screaming. She fell to her knees and heaved until she could heave no more. Yet Ivory stood motionless, with her face sprayed and smeared with blood but free of reaction, her cold black eyes glittering with the orange and red light of the room. For the briefest moment Martin found himself frightened by her hellish vision, until the context of her appearance returned with King being the aggressor in attempting to kill Martin and nearly shredding Ivory’s face.

  Martin’s eyes fell upon the bloody body again. His mind trying to understand the last seconds of King’s life. He didn’t understand how Ivory had managed to escape King’s grip, how King had gone from the aggressor to the victim, how the table had done so much damage, and what had been the source of the scream that had haunted Martin once again.

  His concentration was shattered when King flew to his feet as if pulled by wires. Glass tinkled and sparkled around him as it tumbled from his body. King’s monstrous face twisted around a wordless roar, his mouth awash with blood. He threw himself at Martin and they both fell. Martin’s eyes clenched as he struck the floor, the air forced from his lungs, whistling in the air. It felt different to being winded. He couldn’t catch his breath to replace the supply that had been knocked from him. He could still hear his breath hissing out of him, but as he swallowed mouthfuls of air he realised he wasn’t keeping it.

  He opened his eyes and the twisted, scarred, hellish face of King stared into his, blood and saliva oozing from his inanely grinning mouth. King lay on top of him his embrace holding him still. Martin looked down his body for the hissing gurgling sound and saw that their bodies were joined by four glass shard that skewered them together like meat on a spit. Three of the jagged shards met his chest and nailed his lungs to the floor boards. He wheezed his last breaths as King’s blood mingled with Martin’s and King breathed his last insane words; “My blood flows in your veins now. We are the same, you and I.”

  Chapter Seven

  Martin convulsed in phantom pain and awoke. He found himself staring at the familiar wall of the bedroom he shared with Jenny. Sweat beaded on his forehead as big as rain drops. He panted for breath and found that he had no trouble taking. He looked down his body under the damp duvet. His hairs were matted to his flabby chest and stomach, but with sweat not blood. Of course there wouldn’t be blood. He lowered himself back onto the pillow and glanced over at Jenny who was sleeping. She had become used to his night-time restlessness over the past year so he hadn’t woken her. He was relieved. He didn’t need her fawning over him to talk about what was wrong.

  He rolled over and turned his back to her and stared at muslin drapes backlit with the pale orange light of night time in the city. His nightmare had brought back the events of the evening. As if the actual events hadn’t been frightening enough to revisit, his mind had created an alternative ending to the horror. King had not risen from the dead. He had hoped for movement, some miracle that the glass had missed every vital organ so that he wouldn’t have a man’s death on his conscience, but King’s ruined body had laid weeping blood across the floor for the corrupted soul that had festered within.

  He was dead.

  Martin had been involved in a man’s death.

  Ivory had seemed unaffected by it. There was no look of disbelief, no torment of guilt at playing a part in his death, only a brief cock of her head in a gesture of curiosity at the novelty of such a death. Candy’s reactions were of a contrasting extreme as she screamed, howled and sobbed and attempted to drag Ivory from the scene. However, Ivory resisted her frantic encouragement to leave as her curiosity seemingly extended to observing Martin’s paralysis from the disbelief and guilt at being involved in the killing of another man. Finally, as Martin’s troubled mind accepted what had happened and the urge to escape took hold, and he began the frantic calculation of any evidence of his presence, Ivory smiled at him. That smile. It made even less sense to him on this occasion. Was she that unaffected by what had occurred? She gave into Candy’s insistence and disappeared out the door.

  She was gone again.

  In Ivory’s absence he found clarity defined from being alone with a dead body. He took the glass he had held earlier and pocketed it, then snatched up the folder King had given him to look through. Both items would hold Martin’s fingerprints. He searched the sparsely furnished flat and couldn’t find any other portfolios that might link Ivory to the scene. He couldn’t do much for any hairs or DNA that Ivory may have left in the bedroom. He didn’t want to think about King and Ivory in there, not that he needed to as those moments were already preserved in the photographs in the folder. Candy’s vomit was also something he couldn’t remove, which was worrying as it could lead the police to her. Martin was not going to the police and Ivory seemingly couldn’t communicate, so Candy was their only vulnerability. He prayed that her presence at King’s death would dissuade her from wanting to be associated with it.

  Martin had returned to Jenny and explained that he had sustained his injury slipping on petrol at the petrol station, and cut himself on broken glass that had been on the forecourt. He had refused to go to hospital to get it looked at so Jenny had tended to his wounds and bandaged them. As the evening had closed in and he had lain quietly in bed, desperate for sleep, the worry had crowded in on him. He had seen so many detective and forensic shows on TV that he knew there would be leads that could implicate all three of them being at the scene. Martin’s blood was one he had forgotten. There must have been blood on the carpet from his wounds. Although Martin didn’t have connections with the area, Candy and Ivory did and they would be leads to him.

  Then there was Richard Hadleigh. He was sure this boy was meant to be the weapon for his destruction. As he had made his erratic escape through the back streets, he broke out onto York Way with its mix of shabby Victorian and 20th century industrial buildings, and narrowly missed a cat and had been forced to swerve to one side. His headlights lit up the pavement and the long brick wall that ran the length of the railway track to King’s Cross station, plucking several loitering pedestrians out from the shadow of the night. They were spaced out down the street. All male. The only face he saw was the one immediately framed by his lights. Richard’s. It had been so shocking to see someone that he had recognised that Martin’s reaction had been to yank the steering wheel to one side and slam his foot on the accelerator and tear away from the moment.

  A witness. He knew the guilt was making him jump to conclusions, but if any of the faculty had said about Martin’s accident then when the story of King’s death broke Richard might, might, put two and two together. Maybe he wouldn’t. The York Way road Richard was on was as infamous as Arven Road, but for a clientele whose interests swung the ‘other way’. Richard – a prostitute? ‘Mummy and Daddy’ Hadleigh were well off. City man, professional housewife, country clubs and weekend golfing, active Conservatives. Maybe that would be a secret that Richard would want to keep. It could dissuade him from disclosing any suspicions. So, Richard Hadleigh was a queer renter. There was little victory in this knowledge, only sympathy for the boy’s situation and worry that Richard was one other lead that could connect Martin to a murder.

  King’s final words in his nightmare had been a corruption of his father’s parting words to him, when Martin had confronted him with knowledge of his father’s affair with his old Sunday school teacher. He had criticised his father for his hypocrisy of being a ‘godly’ man preaching to Martin and his mother an adherence to Catholic beliefs and morals, when all the while he had been fucking Mrs Harcourt behind their backs. His father, with tears in his eyes, apparently tears of genuine grief and self-loathing, had stated with a defeated air; “You can judge me, but you will be a man one day, with the same blood flowing in your veins, and you will know that we are the same, you and I.”

  These thoughts and memories were followed by a vivid image of King’s twisted mutilated body. Martin’s s
tomach lurched. He made the bathroom in seconds and gagged up more bile. It frothed and burned at his throat and he fell against the cool tiles, his face pressed hard against the icy wall. Utterly alone in his torment.

  The next day the Independent and Metro newspapers that he had picked up on the bus didn’t shout ‘PIMP MURDERED IN ARVEN’ from their front pages as he had fantasised that they would. With a new day separating him from yesterdays events he was able to rationalise that King’s body might not get discovered for a couple of days. It certainly wouldn’t have made it into today’s copy.

  He had considered hiding at home, but had gone to work in the hope that the routine would distract him. It did for the most part but there were moments where a student’s sketch of a prone body, the sight of vermillion paint squeezed from a tube or the mention of death or murder that caused his mind to leap like a needle jumping on a record to the scene of last night, and transported him to the moment of King’s death and into hellish guilt. The twisted body. The glass. The blood. His actions would become hesitant, his words would trail and he could feel the class looking at him and then at one another in concern, anxious giggles would ride the waves of heads in his lecture. By the end of the day he was tired and he had switched off completely with the shaky bus ride home.

  Martin scanned the dark evening streets and the coloured lights, illuminated windows and nameless figures and faces that blur past, the hustle and bustle of life that he was safely detached from on the creaking gloomily lit bus ploughing through traffic from stop to stop. The world fast forwarded past him while he sat detached. The bus came to rest at one stop while the driver ended his shift and another boarded and took over. Martin averted his eyes as the worlds play button was pressed and everything moved at normal speed. He stared at the cracked grey pavement. Rain began to make dark spots on its surface, building at speed until the whole pavement became varnished ebony. Ebony.

  Before he would contemplate the mysteries of Ivory and Ebony, Martin sensed a passenger hesitating by the empty seat next to him. He became aware of words in the air but his trance lost their meaning and he broke his gaze as the bus pulled from the stop into the traffic. “Sorry?” He apologised.

  A familiar voice reaffirmed itself. “Are you alright?”

  Martin was startled to be looking up into Richard Hadleigh’s youthful face. Richard dumped his masculine frame into the empty seat as the bus pitched from side to side on its journey. Martin’s suspicions flared as he saw empty seats were dotted around the bus.

  “I was queuing up with you back at the campus, and you didn’t even see me. It’s not like you to be on the bus and you looked so distracted I thought I would come over and see if you were okay. The word is that you weren’t yourself today.”

  “You mean my lecture wasn’t up to standards? Perhaps I should invite you in as a guest speaker – you could talk about scrap yards. It could be inspirational.”

  Presented with the same arguments that had dogged their relationship since Richard had shifted his medium, he gave up and stared toward the front of the bus.

  “Fuck, you,” he muttered

  “Well, I don’t know. I haven’t won any grants lately so money is a bit short, just how much do you charge?”

  Richard’s cheeks bloomed red and a pained expression sharpened his features. “So you did see me. I wasn’t sure if you had.”

  “So that’s why you came over. To see if I was ‘alright’,” Martin stated incredulously. “You just want to check if your secret is safe.”

  “I was trying to be friendly,” Richard spoke through gritted teeth before his face relaxed and his voice lowered guiltily. “Is it? Safe, I mean.”

  Martin nodded. Their feud didn’t seem very important any more. The issues that fuelled Martin’s dissatisfaction and anger seemed petty and insignificant after last night.

  “Thank you.” Richard sagged into his seat and visibly relaxed. “I did genuinely want to see if you were okay though. I guess I also hoped my concern might go some way to clearing the atmosphere between us.”

  “That’s quite an agenda attached to asking after my well-being.”

  “Things haven’t been the same between us since I stopped painting.”

  “It doesn’t matter now.”

  “You have treated me like the enemy. It seemed to matter then.”

  “Well, it doesn’t now.” Martin stated despondently and kept his eyes on the traffic that competed with the speed of their bus.

  “It matters to me.”

  “I’m sorry.” Martin descended into self convictions. It had been Martin who had created the rift through his jealousy and fear of Richard’s success An image of King’s body slashed through his concentration. He had enough guilt to not want to be carrying this around as well. “I am sorry I have treated you that way,” he stated with more conviction. “I have been a shit.”

  “No arguments from me there.” Richard shrugged his thick shoulders. “So, what’s up?”

  Martin gave Richard a second look, studied him and examined his motives for asking. Concern seemed the hardest reason to accept after Richard had witnessed his urgent getaway. “Everything,” he sighed.

  “I guess we all have moments like that.”

  Ordinarily the platitude would have naturalised his despair, but he was pretty sure that Richard hadn’t factored in the possibility of being accused of murder when offering that comfort. However, it did serve the effect of moving beyond the conversational dead end Martin had created and they began to talk, not as openly and passionately as they had when student and teacher, but casually and warmly discussing interests in life and art that were a great distraction from the guilt and thinking about the previous night. The points of tension in their relationship were reduced to moments easily sidestepped, or when the flow of conversation was quick and intense their problems were playfully mocked. Martin was actually pleased for Richard when he explained that the piece that had won the UDAC was going to be on display at the Gagosian Gallery as part of a showcase of up and coming London Talent. When Richard broke his sentence to declare Kingsland Road as his stop, Martin found it an unnatural end to their conversation and the distraction it offered, and he was grateful when Richard suggested a coffee in a café near the bus stop.

  Martin sat his cup of tea down as they found a seat in the window. It was an independent café, probably a greasy spoon originally, but it was aspiring for the look of the larger chains of coffee shops with plush faux leather and suede seating, modern blocky dark wooden furniture and satin metal features and light fittings. It didn’t quite work as it had clearly been done on the cheap and he recognised most of the furnishings from Argos or the bargain end of Ikea.

  “I live in the flat above. It’s quite handy, they do good coffee and a mean cooked breakfast, although they have tried to go a bit ponsey.”

  “I didn’t realise you had moved out. I thought you would have commuted from your parents place?”

  “I had to move out.” Richard averted his eyes to his drink. “Coming out at uni was easy. I had nothing to lose. When Mum and Dad found out I had everything to lose, and I did. Dad gave me a condition: I would only be his son if I decided to like girls. I explained that being gay was not a choice and that it was most likely biological, that it was no longer a deviance or related to witchcraft, and that aversion therapy or burning at the stake was not required these days.”

  “Always a good time for humour, Richard.”

  “Yeah, well, you know me. He didn’t like the biological bit. Thought it insinuated that he was gay and he doesn’t have a gay cell in his body. I called him a Tory wanker and a bigot. We exchanged every pent up frustration we had stored up and we basically talked ourselves out of being related to each other.”

  “He kicked you out?”

  “No, Mum would never have allowed it. I walked out.”

  “Oh, Richard.”

  “I know.” He held his hands up in surrender. “Dramatic, but Dad won’t have me home
now, so I guess we are both as bad as each other.”

  “I didn’t realise all this was going on.” A heat washed through Martin. He didn’t know because he had cut Richard out of his life.

  “It happens. I have a job, but the money is rubbish. It costs money to make those pieces of scrap. Prize money from the uni has given me a well needed boost. Plus I have other ways of making money. Which isn’t as bad as you think, before you judge me.” Richard took a drag from his drink. “That’s my story. Now yours.”

  Martin followed Richard’s example and stared into his cup as he gathered up the threads of his life of late and weaved them into an unincriminating tapestry that he could safely display. “There is a girl.”

  “Do you love her?” Richard asked bluntly.

  Martin pushed his drink away. “Jesus, Richard! No!” Martin snapped. If he felt something for Ivory then it meant his motives for contact with her were questionable. He wanted to paint her that was all. “No.” He managed more calmly. A voice from unseen red rheumy lips whispered in Martin’s ear; “We are the same, you and I.”

  Richard cut into the following fall of silence as Martin struggled to work the rest into words. “But, you are thinking of having an affair?”

  “No.” Martin flagged Richard down. “Listen, don’t interrupt, let me get it all out.” The noise of the café filled in the silence that Richard offered. “I have met a girl and she’s…” He considered how to describe it. “Conjured up a storm inside me. For a while now I have been unhappy. I have been going through the motions. Finding life banal at best, suffocating at worst.”

  “I used to feel bad when I would come around yours, our chats and our work would take you away from Jenny, Oscar and Finn for hours on end.”