So apologies to anyone following this. It's been a while and for that I can only blame time away from technology and The Edit.
The novel that this follows is currently undergoing some tinkering, massaging, limbering-up and working-out in a word-world gymnasium, all on the extremely valuable, positive and encouraging advice of People Who Know.
Please bear with me. And it. And the story will continue before you know it.
Tuesday 24 May 2011
Tuesday 8 March 2011
The Clergyman
They must not prevail. They must not prevail and I will help to set them free. Set them free from the snares of the Devil. The snares of the Devil that will take them from this place and replace them with his satanic whores. His satanic whores who would lie and cheat and instigate an uprising of the Others. The Others who must be laid to rest and cannot be allowed to usurp the order of the Almighty. The order of the Almighty must be preserved, for it is only through its splendour and its power and its glory that the sorcerers and idolaters and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth. Burneth with fire and brimstone and forever may it be a warning to those who seek to challenge the rightful and the righteous. The rightful and the righteous shall worship Him and praise Him and they shall know the one true spirit and the one true spirit shall know them. Shall know them in their love and in their gratitude and they shall be free to speak His name. Speak His name in praise and adulation and give succour to Him and they shall know not of the lies of Satan. The lies of Satan must not prevail. They must not prevail.
Tuesday 1 March 2011
DI Bassett
By the time we arrived, it was already too late. No sign of forced entry. No sign of the horrors that lay within, no sign of the crime that had transformed one woman’s top floor, cosy Victorian flat into something from Stephen King’s nightmares. No sign until –
DS Taylor lets me in. ‘In the living room, Guv. It’s weird. And not pretty.’
I walk down the hallway, squeezing past a man and a woman in latex gloves wielding blusher brushes, dusting down every surface in a search for a print. A flashbulb from a pathology photographer’s camera acts like a distress flare, showing the way.
The room’s crowded. Too much furniture, too big for the space. Too many people. Too many memories. Too many lies. Too many of us, standing around, drinking sweet tea from styrofoam cups, talking into mobiles, breathing in the dark smell of musty upholstery and past their sell-by date flowers and death.
And her. The victim. The deceased. Sitting in her chintz armchair like she’s waiting for tea for two. Except the tea’s gone cold and the top of her head’s been removed like a scalped boiled egg, a yolk of blood spilling down her face that wears a look of incongruous serenity. A cap of skin and bone and long red hair sits neatly in her lap, a fright wig emblem of silent ferocity.
In front of her, a coffee table’s been overturned. In the space where it stood lies a once white sheet, now blood-spattered. And drawn onto the sheet are two circles, one inside the other. Inside the inner circle, a pointed image, like a Star of David. Around it between the two circles, more stars, crosses, what look like ancient symbols.
I force myself to look away. Which is when I see the writing on the wall. In blood. Streaks of blood. And whilst it’s still legible, it’s also as if something, someone’s, tried to wash it away. From the snares of the Devil deliver us O Lord.
I walk over to the wall and look at it. It’s wet, not just blood wet, but water wet. As if the wall is crying. Crying for the scene laid out before it. Pink rivers trickle down the wall, following geographical pathways made of raised patterns in the wallpaper to the skirting where they dribble into dirty stains, topographical rivers of blood by William Morris.
I stand looking at the wall. It’s like I’m not really here. I swear I can hear voices, indistinct, echoing voices, voices that mourn, voices that implore, voices that beseech –
‘Guv? Guv?’ A different voice. An everyday voice. Taylor’s voice. ‘You alright, Guv? You were miles away.’
I pull myself back into reality. The wall’s dry. The blood’s dry. The letters are clear. From the snares of the Devil deliver us O Lord.
DS Taylor lets me in. ‘In the living room, Guv. It’s weird. And not pretty.’
I walk down the hallway, squeezing past a man and a woman in latex gloves wielding blusher brushes, dusting down every surface in a search for a print. A flashbulb from a pathology photographer’s camera acts like a distress flare, showing the way.
The room’s crowded. Too much furniture, too big for the space. Too many people. Too many memories. Too many lies. Too many of us, standing around, drinking sweet tea from styrofoam cups, talking into mobiles, breathing in the dark smell of musty upholstery and past their sell-by date flowers and death.
And her. The victim. The deceased. Sitting in her chintz armchair like she’s waiting for tea for two. Except the tea’s gone cold and the top of her head’s been removed like a scalped boiled egg, a yolk of blood spilling down her face that wears a look of incongruous serenity. A cap of skin and bone and long red hair sits neatly in her lap, a fright wig emblem of silent ferocity.
In front of her, a coffee table’s been overturned. In the space where it stood lies a once white sheet, now blood-spattered. And drawn onto the sheet are two circles, one inside the other. Inside the inner circle, a pointed image, like a Star of David. Around it between the two circles, more stars, crosses, what look like ancient symbols.
I force myself to look away. Which is when I see the writing on the wall. In blood. Streaks of blood. And whilst it’s still legible, it’s also as if something, someone’s, tried to wash it away. From the snares of the Devil deliver us O Lord.
I walk over to the wall and look at it. It’s wet, not just blood wet, but water wet. As if the wall is crying. Crying for the scene laid out before it. Pink rivers trickle down the wall, following geographical pathways made of raised patterns in the wallpaper to the skirting where they dribble into dirty stains, topographical rivers of blood by William Morris.
I stand looking at the wall. It’s like I’m not really here. I swear I can hear voices, indistinct, echoing voices, voices that mourn, voices that implore, voices that beseech –
‘Guv? Guv?’ A different voice. An everyday voice. Taylor’s voice. ‘You alright, Guv? You were miles away.’
I pull myself back into reality. The wall’s dry. The blood’s dry. The letters are clear. From the snares of the Devil deliver us O Lord.
Wednesday 16 February 2011
Kaitch
I made the call, as was the suggestion, and after playing twenty questions with an administrator, I spoke to my brother. Just writing that feels weird. Weirder than weird. My brother, Joshua Xavier Horsbrecht. Joshua Xavier Horsbrecht who officially went missing in 1985, Joshua Xavier Horsbrecht, who was officially declared dead in 1992, Joshua Xavier Horsbrecht, who I always believed was out there, somewhere.
Josh.
My brother.
Who appears to be very much alive. I confirmed my appointment
We cried, my brother and me. And then we laughed, then cried some more, all within the space of about four minutes. Neither of us can understand what’s happened so in the end it was just acceptance, knowing that it had and looking forward to seeing each other. As if one of us had just been away for a while. Which, in a way, was true.
*
I stood outside the Institute and smoked two cigarettes back to back, running my thoughts like a script through my head. Inside I was met with more bureaucracy, more form filling. This was, I guess, understandable. Things were complicated. If Josh was who he claimed to be, he was still technically a minor, having vanished at fifteen years of age and having turned up here apparently still the same over a year ago. Of course despite the checks no one really believed that. But they had nothing else to go on.
After the paperwork and some more questions, I was led down a long corridor and up a flight of stairs to another waiting area, a stark room furnished with a sofa, a small refrigerator and a low table. A large window made the room feel bigger than it actually was and outside the sky was developing a purplish shadow, like a bruise. The orderly who had led me here asked if I would like him to tell Josh I was ready to see him. I asked if he could just give me five minutes.
‘Of course,’ he said, and left the room. I stood staring out of the window. The sky seemed to be changing shade with increasing pace, as if someone was spilling new colour over an already wet painting. One second it looked as if there was a storm coming, then perhaps snow – those pinkish tints to the clouds – and then shafts of sunlight would break from behind the clouds and illuminate pathways from the sky.
As if there was a storm coming.
Something was happening, but I had no idea what. A flock of starlings gathered on the horizon, a myriad of birds, an avian cyclone that wove a swooping pattern across the sky. I fixed on the birds, concentrating on their synchronised symmetry, a poetic swarm, and then suddenly the swarm parted as if a meteor had fired through its centre and I felt sure that if a photograph had been taken at that moment, that precise moment, of the birds and the rent in their formation that it would have captured a comic book blast by an illustrator’s hand, made real by this bird-cloud’s display.
I thought I began to hear voices, indistinct, quiet voices. First one, then more. Mumbling, whispering, shouting, quietly screaming. It was like I could hear souls, a thousand souls, a million souls, travelling through the cosmos, seeking, swirling, searching for salvation, their cries echoing and bouncing off the walls of the little room inside my head where I had kept thoughts of this day shut away for over twenty years, daring only very occasionally to hold the door ajar and peek through in wonder.
‘Mr Horsbrecht? Mr Horsbrecht?’
I heard my name and turned, disoriented, blinking away a precursory tear that had formed at the corner of my eye.
‘Would you like to come with me, Mr Horsbrecht? If you’re ready. Josh is waiting for you.’
Josh.
My brother.
Who appears to be very much alive. I confirmed my appointment
We cried, my brother and me. And then we laughed, then cried some more, all within the space of about four minutes. Neither of us can understand what’s happened so in the end it was just acceptance, knowing that it had and looking forward to seeing each other. As if one of us had just been away for a while. Which, in a way, was true.
*
I stood outside the Institute and smoked two cigarettes back to back, running my thoughts like a script through my head. Inside I was met with more bureaucracy, more form filling. This was, I guess, understandable. Things were complicated. If Josh was who he claimed to be, he was still technically a minor, having vanished at fifteen years of age and having turned up here apparently still the same over a year ago. Of course despite the checks no one really believed that. But they had nothing else to go on.
After the paperwork and some more questions, I was led down a long corridor and up a flight of stairs to another waiting area, a stark room furnished with a sofa, a small refrigerator and a low table. A large window made the room feel bigger than it actually was and outside the sky was developing a purplish shadow, like a bruise. The orderly who had led me here asked if I would like him to tell Josh I was ready to see him. I asked if he could just give me five minutes.
‘Of course,’ he said, and left the room. I stood staring out of the window. The sky seemed to be changing shade with increasing pace, as if someone was spilling new colour over an already wet painting. One second it looked as if there was a storm coming, then perhaps snow – those pinkish tints to the clouds – and then shafts of sunlight would break from behind the clouds and illuminate pathways from the sky.
As if there was a storm coming.
Something was happening, but I had no idea what. A flock of starlings gathered on the horizon, a myriad of birds, an avian cyclone that wove a swooping pattern across the sky. I fixed on the birds, concentrating on their synchronised symmetry, a poetic swarm, and then suddenly the swarm parted as if a meteor had fired through its centre and I felt sure that if a photograph had been taken at that moment, that precise moment, of the birds and the rent in their formation that it would have captured a comic book blast by an illustrator’s hand, made real by this bird-cloud’s display.
I thought I began to hear voices, indistinct, quiet voices. First one, then more. Mumbling, whispering, shouting, quietly screaming. It was like I could hear souls, a thousand souls, a million souls, travelling through the cosmos, seeking, swirling, searching for salvation, their cries echoing and bouncing off the walls of the little room inside my head where I had kept thoughts of this day shut away for over twenty years, daring only very occasionally to hold the door ajar and peek through in wonder.
‘Mr Horsbrecht? Mr Horsbrecht?’
I heard my name and turned, disoriented, blinking away a precursory tear that had formed at the corner of my eye.
‘Would you like to come with me, Mr Horsbrecht? If you’re ready. Josh is waiting for you.’
Tuesday 1 February 2011
The Tape
When we looked through Alfred Dawkins’ things, trying to find out more about him, trying to establish whether there was a suicide note, a motive, we found a tape. It was tucked away in the drawer of the table that held the audio equipment in his studio. And it would have gone unnoticed, perhaps, had it not been for the fact that it had written on it, very definitely, in black marker pen, a date.
21.10.10
And when someone writes a date on a tape it means two things: first, that it’s been used, it’s unlikely to be blank; second, that it contains, or at least may contain, something significant.
It wasn’t an ordinary cassette tape. It was one of those small ones that are used in personal recording equipment, dictaphones and the like. Or rather, were used. These days everyone uses MP3 devices and records things on their mobiles, of course. But Alfred? He was a traditionalist.
This is what was on the tape when we played it back.
Muffled hiss, the sound of footsteps, feet on a gravel path –
A doorbell chimes –
A buzz – indistinct – ‘Hello?’
‘Hello, this is Alfie Dawkins. We spoke yesterday? I have an appointment.’
‘Come on up. Second floor.’
A buzzer – a door opens, then closes – footsteps –
‘Hello, you must be Alfie. I’m Wendy.’
‘Yes, hello.’
‘Well come in, come in. Can I take your jacket? Go straight through. Can I get you a drink?’
‘Um, thank you, thank you. Yes, um, just some water, please.’
Indistinct sounds, rustling, movement –
The female voice again –
‘There we are. So what can I do for you, Alfie? You mentioned your wife?’
‘Yes, she – she passed away, a couple of months ago. And – well, I just don’t know what to believe. I feel her, you know? Really feel her. Like she’s in the room with me. It’s like she’s reaching out to me and I can’t find a way to get to her. I’ve never believed in God. Never believed in ghosts. But there’s something, isn’t there? There’s something. And I just wanted to talk to someone about it who didn’t think I was crazy.’
A sigh, a sympathetic sigh –
‘Well, Alfie, you’ve come to the right place. Have you spoken to anyone else about this?’
‘One or two. People think I’m just overcome with grief, that I’m clutching at straws. It’s not that. I haven’t even really grieved for her, you know? Because I don’t feel that she’s gone. There’s one guy, a clergyman. Comes to my studio – I’m a tattoo artist – and I’ve spoken with him. But he listens and – well, it’s strange, I think he understands, but it’s like he’s always trying to persuade me against my concept of whatever an afterlife is. We come from very different perspectives, I guess.’
‘I’m afraid what’s out there doesn’t always sit very comfortably with religion.’
‘No, no, I suppose it doesn’t. You said “what’s out there”?’
‘There are many things that are out there, Alfie, many things. And we can’t possibly begin to understand most of them. But you see, I am able to see things, hear things, feel things, that can at least allow me to have some semblance of understanding.’
‘Go on.’
‘You said you don’t believe in ghosts.’
‘No, I – ’
‘What do you mean by ghosts, Alfie?’
‘Well, I – spirits, I suppose. Rising out of graveyards, floating. Dickensian things.’
‘And yet would you call your wife a ghost? You can sense her, after all.’
‘No, not a ghost. Well, not as I think of them. More of a – an – an other. Whatever that is.’
‘Because to me, you see Alfie, ghosts, or spirits, or phantoms, or poltergeists even, well, they’re as real as you and me. But we’ve mythologised them, we’ve created a story for them which means that we can’t see them for what they are.’
‘Which is?’
‘Spirits are love, Alfie, love. And yes, they can be hatred too. But all that emotion, all that feeling; if it’s real then it can’t just die, it can’t just stop.’
‘But how can they be real if they’re just a feeling?’
‘It’s not just a feeling. Feeling is what makes us human, Alfie. Feelings made up of electricity, feelings from the heart, the soul.’
‘So how come everyone can’t see and feel these spirits? Everybody loves somebody.’
‘Do they? Do they really? I’m not so sure. I think that many people have lost the ability to love, to truly love, unconditionally. We live in a society that walks round in blinkers, Alfie. We don’t see. We don’t feel. We kid ourselves that we do. But we feel in a way that’s dictated to us. We react to things in ways that feel appropriate, rather than natural. And I think this has taken away most people’s ability to connect with true love.’
‘And that’s why most people don’t believe in ghosts?’
‘It’s part of it, Alfie. Now. Are you sure you wouldn’t like some tea?’
‘Um, yes, that would be nice. Thank you.’
Click –
And that’s it. Either he turned the thing off, accidentally or deliberately, or he ran out of batteries, or – well, whatever, it stopped recording. And I don’t know why, but I think that there’s something significant on that tape. Don’t know what. Yet. Bloody ghosts, and whatnot.
A guy who has recently lost his wife, goes to see someone. This Wendy. What is she? A councillor? A spiritualist? I think we need to start with her. She might be able to shed some light on what happened next, some light on Alfie Dawkins. Because we’ve had the lab reports back. And it’s inconclusive. But I’ll give you ten to one that this was not a suicide. No way, José.
21.10.10
And when someone writes a date on a tape it means two things: first, that it’s been used, it’s unlikely to be blank; second, that it contains, or at least may contain, something significant.
It wasn’t an ordinary cassette tape. It was one of those small ones that are used in personal recording equipment, dictaphones and the like. Or rather, were used. These days everyone uses MP3 devices and records things on their mobiles, of course. But Alfred? He was a traditionalist.
This is what was on the tape when we played it back.
Muffled hiss, the sound of footsteps, feet on a gravel path –
A doorbell chimes –
A buzz – indistinct – ‘Hello?’
‘Hello, this is Alfie Dawkins. We spoke yesterday? I have an appointment.’
‘Come on up. Second floor.’
A buzzer – a door opens, then closes – footsteps –
‘Hello, you must be Alfie. I’m Wendy.’
‘Yes, hello.’
‘Well come in, come in. Can I take your jacket? Go straight through. Can I get you a drink?’
‘Um, thank you, thank you. Yes, um, just some water, please.’
Indistinct sounds, rustling, movement –
The female voice again –
‘There we are. So what can I do for you, Alfie? You mentioned your wife?’
‘Yes, she – she passed away, a couple of months ago. And – well, I just don’t know what to believe. I feel her, you know? Really feel her. Like she’s in the room with me. It’s like she’s reaching out to me and I can’t find a way to get to her. I’ve never believed in God. Never believed in ghosts. But there’s something, isn’t there? There’s something. And I just wanted to talk to someone about it who didn’t think I was crazy.’
A sigh, a sympathetic sigh –
‘Well, Alfie, you’ve come to the right place. Have you spoken to anyone else about this?’
‘One or two. People think I’m just overcome with grief, that I’m clutching at straws. It’s not that. I haven’t even really grieved for her, you know? Because I don’t feel that she’s gone. There’s one guy, a clergyman. Comes to my studio – I’m a tattoo artist – and I’ve spoken with him. But he listens and – well, it’s strange, I think he understands, but it’s like he’s always trying to persuade me against my concept of whatever an afterlife is. We come from very different perspectives, I guess.’
‘I’m afraid what’s out there doesn’t always sit very comfortably with religion.’
‘No, no, I suppose it doesn’t. You said “what’s out there”?’
‘There are many things that are out there, Alfie, many things. And we can’t possibly begin to understand most of them. But you see, I am able to see things, hear things, feel things, that can at least allow me to have some semblance of understanding.’
‘Go on.’
‘You said you don’t believe in ghosts.’
‘No, I – ’
‘What do you mean by ghosts, Alfie?’
‘Well, I – spirits, I suppose. Rising out of graveyards, floating. Dickensian things.’
‘And yet would you call your wife a ghost? You can sense her, after all.’
‘No, not a ghost. Well, not as I think of them. More of a – an – an other. Whatever that is.’
‘Because to me, you see Alfie, ghosts, or spirits, or phantoms, or poltergeists even, well, they’re as real as you and me. But we’ve mythologised them, we’ve created a story for them which means that we can’t see them for what they are.’
‘Which is?’
‘Spirits are love, Alfie, love. And yes, they can be hatred too. But all that emotion, all that feeling; if it’s real then it can’t just die, it can’t just stop.’
‘But how can they be real if they’re just a feeling?’
‘It’s not just a feeling. Feeling is what makes us human, Alfie. Feelings made up of electricity, feelings from the heart, the soul.’
‘So how come everyone can’t see and feel these spirits? Everybody loves somebody.’
‘Do they? Do they really? I’m not so sure. I think that many people have lost the ability to love, to truly love, unconditionally. We live in a society that walks round in blinkers, Alfie. We don’t see. We don’t feel. We kid ourselves that we do. But we feel in a way that’s dictated to us. We react to things in ways that feel appropriate, rather than natural. And I think this has taken away most people’s ability to connect with true love.’
‘And that’s why most people don’t believe in ghosts?’
‘It’s part of it, Alfie. Now. Are you sure you wouldn’t like some tea?’
‘Um, yes, that would be nice. Thank you.’
Click –
And that’s it. Either he turned the thing off, accidentally or deliberately, or he ran out of batteries, or – well, whatever, it stopped recording. And I don’t know why, but I think that there’s something significant on that tape. Don’t know what. Yet. Bloody ghosts, and whatnot.
A guy who has recently lost his wife, goes to see someone. This Wendy. What is she? A councillor? A spiritualist? I think we need to start with her. She might be able to shed some light on what happened next, some light on Alfie Dawkins. Because we’ve had the lab reports back. And it’s inconclusive. But I’ll give you ten to one that this was not a suicide. No way, José.
Wednesday 26 January 2011
Josh
The psychiatrist seemed undecided. Performed a number of tests, asked lots of questions, scribbled a lot, sucked the end of his pen. I figure he thinks I’m either as mad as the proverbial Hatter or I’ve got a serious eighties retro trip thing going on. He said the word ‘interesting’ a lot. The care worker didn’t seem to know why I was here. Or why she was here, for that matter. I asked her, ‘do you think I’m schizophrenic?’
‘Well, the preliminary report from Doctor Feltz – ’ she began. Then stopped. Doctor Feltz was the pen-sucker. Then she added, ‘It’s not really for me to say. But do I think you’re a danger to anyone or to yourself? No, I don’t. But if you’re going to get back into society, we need to ascertain some care provisions. Or at least, establish how old you are.’ Which was something.
And the priest? Man, he was something, too. Something else. The way he looked at me. The way he smiled. He smiled a lot. Most of the time his voice was very precise. Particular, soft. Then he’d look away and mumble pieces of scripture to himself, much as I had with the song lyrics months ago, whereas I was trying to see if I could get a reaction and I swear he couldn’t help it. It was like some kind of religious tourettes. I remember thinking, either I’m going to get out of here or I’m going to get you as a room mate. More than once, he asked me if I thought I’d come from an other. Or rather, an Other. Like it was a noun. A place. I thought, what the – ? And he’d gaze at me with his big, unblinking brown eyes and he’d smile his smile that veered from patronising to away-with-the-fairies weird and that showed his yellow teeth and I’d get all creeped out and clam up. All in all, I don’t think that my spiritual well-being took much comfort from our encounter. In fact, given that this trio have been the first outsiders I’ve seen in a year, they weren’t exactly a barrel load of fun.
But.
Kyle’s coming.
Soon.
They said, they promised, they’re setting it up.
And it’s then that I’ll find out just how fecked up I really am. How crazy. How deluded. How true. How real. Because Kyle will take one look at me and he’ll know, I’ll know, we’ll know and then we can start to rebuild, then we can start to untangle whatever unholy mess this is. Then we can start. Again.
‘Well, the preliminary report from Doctor Feltz – ’ she began. Then stopped. Doctor Feltz was the pen-sucker. Then she added, ‘It’s not really for me to say. But do I think you’re a danger to anyone or to yourself? No, I don’t. But if you’re going to get back into society, we need to ascertain some care provisions. Or at least, establish how old you are.’ Which was something.
And the priest? Man, he was something, too. Something else. The way he looked at me. The way he smiled. He smiled a lot. Most of the time his voice was very precise. Particular, soft. Then he’d look away and mumble pieces of scripture to himself, much as I had with the song lyrics months ago, whereas I was trying to see if I could get a reaction and I swear he couldn’t help it. It was like some kind of religious tourettes. I remember thinking, either I’m going to get out of here or I’m going to get you as a room mate. More than once, he asked me if I thought I’d come from an other. Or rather, an Other. Like it was a noun. A place. I thought, what the – ? And he’d gaze at me with his big, unblinking brown eyes and he’d smile his smile that veered from patronising to away-with-the-fairies weird and that showed his yellow teeth and I’d get all creeped out and clam up. All in all, I don’t think that my spiritual well-being took much comfort from our encounter. In fact, given that this trio have been the first outsiders I’ve seen in a year, they weren’t exactly a barrel load of fun.
But.
Kyle’s coming.
Soon.
They said, they promised, they’re setting it up.
And it’s then that I’ll find out just how fecked up I really am. How crazy. How deluded. How true. How real. Because Kyle will take one look at me and he’ll know, I’ll know, we’ll know and then we can start to rebuild, then we can start to untangle whatever unholy mess this is. Then we can start. Again.
Monday 17 January 2011
Kaitch
Time to let the cat out of the bag. Out of the box.
I made the call. Started the ball rolling. Requested an appointment. Deep breath.
Twenty-five years of belief, twenty-five years of refusing to accept, twenty-five years of immersing myself in the theories of the cosmos, the universe, looking for clues, looking for signs, looking for – what? Looking for Josh. And now I might have found him. Or rather, he might have found me.
If I’m right, then this is going to blow people away. If I’m right, then we’re going to incur a witch hunt, a miasma. If I’m right, then the hounds of hell will be let loose, the righteous and the narrowminds will shake their heads and shake their fists and call us crazy. If I’m right, then this will make the Elephant Man look like a sideshow. If I’m right, then the world just changed. If I’m right. If he’s right.
So I’m sitting here, looking out of the window at the bleached-out London sky, looking at it shedding its dirty rain, watching the pools of water form on the courtyard down below, and everything’s grey and everything’s quiet save for the soft pit-pat-slap, and everything’s still save for the raindrops, falling and bouncing, and everything that’s going through my mind is focussed on a wood on the edge of a paddock, dappled in summer sunshine, the greens and the yellows cutting through the grey like swathes of iridescent paint splashed onto the now, and I’m squinting into the sunlight as I emerge from the backdoor of a cottage that stands next to the paddock and I’m carrying two bottles of icy Coke and I’m walking down the stony path, past the flowers that stretch up and sun their faces, past the two bicycles that lie carelessly on the lawn, out of the ancient gate and down to the wood at the edge of the paddock, and the sweat’s sticking my T-shirt to my fifteen year old back and I’m walking through the long, rustling grass and I’m at the edge of the wood and I’m calling to Josh in that moment before –
There’s a phone ringing. It takes a moment before I realise it’s mine. It’s The Institute. Confirming the appointment. And suggesting that perhaps I’d like to speak to the one calling himself Josh a day or two before the meeting. Perhaps it would be beneficial to call. I say that that’s fine and that I’ll call. They say sometime between four and six would be preferable. I say that I’ll remember that. I thank them for the call and hang up. And I look out of the window as the sky cries its tears and I smile.
I made the call. Started the ball rolling. Requested an appointment. Deep breath.
Twenty-five years of belief, twenty-five years of refusing to accept, twenty-five years of immersing myself in the theories of the cosmos, the universe, looking for clues, looking for signs, looking for – what? Looking for Josh. And now I might have found him. Or rather, he might have found me.
If I’m right, then this is going to blow people away. If I’m right, then we’re going to incur a witch hunt, a miasma. If I’m right, then the hounds of hell will be let loose, the righteous and the narrowminds will shake their heads and shake their fists and call us crazy. If I’m right, then this will make the Elephant Man look like a sideshow. If I’m right, then the world just changed. If I’m right. If he’s right.
So I’m sitting here, looking out of the window at the bleached-out London sky, looking at it shedding its dirty rain, watching the pools of water form on the courtyard down below, and everything’s grey and everything’s quiet save for the soft pit-pat-slap, and everything’s still save for the raindrops, falling and bouncing, and everything that’s going through my mind is focussed on a wood on the edge of a paddock, dappled in summer sunshine, the greens and the yellows cutting through the grey like swathes of iridescent paint splashed onto the now, and I’m squinting into the sunlight as I emerge from the backdoor of a cottage that stands next to the paddock and I’m carrying two bottles of icy Coke and I’m walking down the stony path, past the flowers that stretch up and sun their faces, past the two bicycles that lie carelessly on the lawn, out of the ancient gate and down to the wood at the edge of the paddock, and the sweat’s sticking my T-shirt to my fifteen year old back and I’m walking through the long, rustling grass and I’m at the edge of the wood and I’m calling to Josh in that moment before –
There’s a phone ringing. It takes a moment before I realise it’s mine. It’s The Institute. Confirming the appointment. And suggesting that perhaps I’d like to speak to the one calling himself Josh a day or two before the meeting. Perhaps it would be beneficial to call. I say that that’s fine and that I’ll call. They say sometime between four and six would be preferable. I say that I’ll remember that. I thank them for the call and hang up. And I look out of the window as the sky cries its tears and I smile.
Monday 10 January 2011
DI Bassett
I’m trying to keep an open mind about this one but something keeps nagging me, telling me I’m missing something. A dead body, looks like a suicide. Certainly the first two coppers on the scene thought it was. But I got a call from my DS about ten, saying that he’d talked it through with the SOCO and they both felt that it merited further investigation and would I come and take a look? Something about the blood splatter pattern. Something about the position of the hand around the gun. Something About Mary was beginning to grate on me anyway, so I left the wife and kids to the rest of the DVD and the last of the Chinese takeaway and headed on down to Clerkenwell.
Usual scene when I arrived. Blue flashing lights and a load of blue and white tape, stretched across the entrance to a tattoo parlour. DS Taylor shows me in. A small reception area lined with posters and photographs of famous clients. Ex-clients. One of them I used to know. Joe da Flo. Played with that band, VivaFish. Don’t hear so much about them now. I looked closely at his picture, remembering. Back in the day. That was a strange case.
To Alfie, No Fear, All Love, Joe da Flo. That’s what it said across the bottom of his picture in black felt tip. Alfie. Alfred Valentine Henry Dawkins. Tattoo artist, seemingly to the stars, judging by the framed rogues’ gallery. Alfred Valentine Henry Dawkins. The Deceased.
Just off the reception, there’s a room separated from the entrance area by a red velvet curtain. DS Taylor holds it open for me and we duck through.
Inside it’s like a cross between a dentists and a church with Aleister Crowley as the presiding minister. Fat candles on ornate candelabras and a large gilt crucifix stand among skulls and a couple of ceremonial swords. One wall’s lined with classical music CDs, another has an old tin sign advertising long-gone motorbikes besides which sits what looks like a German helmet from World War One. I double take as I realise that the helmet’s become a hat for another grinning skull.
In the middle of all this are three leather chairs, the sort you’d get to sit in whilst having a filling. Appropriate, jokes Taylor, reckoning that getting a tattoo must be like root canal work. And in one of the chairs sits Alfred Dawkins, half his face blown away.
He’s clutching a gun, a small army-issue pistol. Blood and brain have done a Jackson Pollack to the wall behind him. Drying blood patches on the floor. So it looks like a straightforward, if messy, suicide, right? Wrong. There’s something that doesn’t add up. The angle of his arm’s all wrong. The bullet’s gone into the side of his head. I’ve seen cases like this before, not many, but enough. Three or four. And the gun’s always been fired up into the mouth. No danger of missing from there, see.
I tell Taylor to get the forensics boys and girls and a photographer down here pronto. He says they’re on their way. I have a look around. There’s a few pieces of hi-fi equipment sitting on a wooden bench, old stuff, like it would be familiar with the eighties. A turntable. A CD player. A tuner. A cassette tape machine. The tape machine’s open. No tape.
A uniform comes in carrying two cups of coffee. He passes one to me, one to Taylor.
‘What do you reckon, Guv?’ Taylor asks, slurping noisily on his coffee.
‘I reckon it looks odd,’ I reply. ‘My antenna’s twitching, Taylor. And you know what that means, don’t you?’
‘A long night, Guv,’ Taylor replies.
Usual scene when I arrived. Blue flashing lights and a load of blue and white tape, stretched across the entrance to a tattoo parlour. DS Taylor shows me in. A small reception area lined with posters and photographs of famous clients. Ex-clients. One of them I used to know. Joe da Flo. Played with that band, VivaFish. Don’t hear so much about them now. I looked closely at his picture, remembering. Back in the day. That was a strange case.
To Alfie, No Fear, All Love, Joe da Flo. That’s what it said across the bottom of his picture in black felt tip. Alfie. Alfred Valentine Henry Dawkins. Tattoo artist, seemingly to the stars, judging by the framed rogues’ gallery. Alfred Valentine Henry Dawkins. The Deceased.
Just off the reception, there’s a room separated from the entrance area by a red velvet curtain. DS Taylor holds it open for me and we duck through.
Inside it’s like a cross between a dentists and a church with Aleister Crowley as the presiding minister. Fat candles on ornate candelabras and a large gilt crucifix stand among skulls and a couple of ceremonial swords. One wall’s lined with classical music CDs, another has an old tin sign advertising long-gone motorbikes besides which sits what looks like a German helmet from World War One. I double take as I realise that the helmet’s become a hat for another grinning skull.
In the middle of all this are three leather chairs, the sort you’d get to sit in whilst having a filling. Appropriate, jokes Taylor, reckoning that getting a tattoo must be like root canal work. And in one of the chairs sits Alfred Dawkins, half his face blown away.
He’s clutching a gun, a small army-issue pistol. Blood and brain have done a Jackson Pollack to the wall behind him. Drying blood patches on the floor. So it looks like a straightforward, if messy, suicide, right? Wrong. There’s something that doesn’t add up. The angle of his arm’s all wrong. The bullet’s gone into the side of his head. I’ve seen cases like this before, not many, but enough. Three or four. And the gun’s always been fired up into the mouth. No danger of missing from there, see.
I tell Taylor to get the forensics boys and girls and a photographer down here pronto. He says they’re on their way. I have a look around. There’s a few pieces of hi-fi equipment sitting on a wooden bench, old stuff, like it would be familiar with the eighties. A turntable. A CD player. A tuner. A cassette tape machine. The tape machine’s open. No tape.
A uniform comes in carrying two cups of coffee. He passes one to me, one to Taylor.
‘What do you reckon, Guv?’ Taylor asks, slurping noisily on his coffee.
‘I reckon it looks odd,’ I reply. ‘My antenna’s twitching, Taylor. And you know what that means, don’t you?’
‘A long night, Guv,’ Taylor replies.
Tuesday 4 January 2011
Joe
Tail lights glow red like wounds in the night. A sky as dark as the road spits sleet. Red, dark busses loom out of their lanes, belching mammoths carrying the disaffected and the blind, their sides adorned with panels promoting the acceptance of meaningless bland mediocrity. Don’t stop to think, baby, life’s too short, gratification’s only a card swipe away. If you haven't maxed it out. If they haven't barred your pin. Join the Revolution! Storm the barricades? Uh-uh. Just a mobile phone with 3D resolution.
Happy New Year. Happy new triple dip. The many and the few. The few that have. The many that have not. I’m one of the few. I feel like one of the many. Welcome to 2012. Follow the rubies shining wetly through the dark.
I’m on the way to see her. On the way to feel whole again. On the way to our own little bubble. Driving through roads that swish and roar. Black serpents’ tails to the motorway rush, bordered by trees whose black branches clutch and beckon, come hither my pretty, the few, few stars white knuckles on a demon’s claw.
Turn on the stereo, turn up the sounds. Soundtrack to a different time. A reminder of light somewhere in this dark world, where the sun shines hot and the cerveza’s on tap and the golden dancers sway in bikinis on the golden sands. Got to get away, baby, away from this, away from here. Get two tickets for an aeroplane, ain’t got time to take a fast train. Because something’s closing in and if you get left behind, you won’t be taken prisoner. No hostages to virtue, no hostages to fortune. And fortune favours the brave. Let’s start walking on sunshine. Turn these dark, dank days into the sweet summertime.
Happy New Year. Happy new triple dip. The many and the few. The few that have. The many that have not. I’m one of the few. I feel like one of the many. Welcome to 2012. Follow the rubies shining wetly through the dark.
I’m on the way to see her. On the way to feel whole again. On the way to our own little bubble. Driving through roads that swish and roar. Black serpents’ tails to the motorway rush, bordered by trees whose black branches clutch and beckon, come hither my pretty, the few, few stars white knuckles on a demon’s claw.
Turn on the stereo, turn up the sounds. Soundtrack to a different time. A reminder of light somewhere in this dark world, where the sun shines hot and the cerveza’s on tap and the golden dancers sway in bikinis on the golden sands. Got to get away, baby, away from this, away from here. Get two tickets for an aeroplane, ain’t got time to take a fast train. Because something’s closing in and if you get left behind, you won’t be taken prisoner. No hostages to virtue, no hostages to fortune. And fortune favours the brave. Let’s start walking on sunshine. Turn these dark, dank days into the sweet summertime.
Thursday 30 December 2010
Josh
Visiting rights. I’ve been here over a year and they’ve finally granted me visiting rights. Merry Christmas, Josh. Season’s bloody greetings.
We’ve come to some sort of equilibrium. I don’t act mad. They don’t think I’m quite so mad. But since I refuse to backtrack on my story and they refuse to believe that it’s true, it’s always going to be an uneasy truce.
I’d like to see my parents and Kyle. They want me to see a psychiatrist, a care worker and a priest. Presumably to receive my gold, frankincense and myrrh. A psychiatrist to continue probing my mental well-being, to ascertain whether I’m making stuff up. To clamber into my dim, dark recesses and hope to emerge unscathed. A care worker to follow up on the psychiatrist’s report and assess whether I’m a danger to myself or to others. A priest to tick another box. So I’ll see their troupe and then I’ll get to see mine.
And in the meantime, I’ll continue trying to make sense of it all in my own head. Because believe me, none of this makes any more sense to me than it does to them. Except I know who I am. I just don’t know what happened to the date. It feels like I’ve spent time on a film set surrounded by actors speaking lines about some time in the future and when I finally get out of here it’s going to be the mid-eighties and everyone’s going to laugh and point and say got you there, Josh, had you going, two thousand and nine, two thousand and ten, ha ha ha. Big joke.
It doesn’t feel like over a year. I’ve lost weeks, months. I went through a period where I was kept sedated. A soporific case study. Then I’d sleep for long periods and they’d hook me up to some piece of equipment that monitored my dreaming thoughts. And in my dreams, I was always back in the forest, back in the glade. With Kyle. Back in the day. And then I’d be falling, falling, down into the darkness, down into Alice’s rabbit hole. And when I woke, I’d be here and the only thing that would change would be the seasons I’d see out of the window, summer rusting into autumn, decaying into winter.
I don’t get to mix with the other patients. I say patients. Inmates? I’m not sure if that’s a blessing or a curse. I hear them, sometimes, some of them. Shouting, arguing. Instead the only other people I’ve seen have been the staff. Probably about half a dozen in total. There’s two of them I really like, whose visits I look forward to. One of them’s a nice guy, around forty, I guess. He talks to me about his wife and kids. Plays cards with me, blackjack mainly, plus he’s teaching me poker, five card stud. He tells me about the poker nights he has with his buddies, how they play for small amounts of money. It’s nice to hear about something normal. The other’s a junior doctor, a girl in her late twenties. She’s got the most amazing blue eyes and short cropped blonde hair. A cute little nose stud. I like her a lot. She talks to me about music. Except I’ve never heard of any of the bands she tells me about. She finds it amusing that I’ve genuinely never heard of Kings of Leon or Bloc Party or the Killers. I told her I like Talking Heads, the Cocteau Twins. She said she thinks she’s heard of them, that she’s read about them. Like they’re ancient Egyptians, or something. I think she’s beginning to believe me. She won’t admit it to herself, though. Flies in the face of her professional opinion, and all that. She says I’m like Artemis Fowl if he were written by HG Wells. I say Artemis who? She laughs.
We’ve come to some sort of equilibrium. I don’t act mad. They don’t think I’m quite so mad. But since I refuse to backtrack on my story and they refuse to believe that it’s true, it’s always going to be an uneasy truce.
I’d like to see my parents and Kyle. They want me to see a psychiatrist, a care worker and a priest. Presumably to receive my gold, frankincense and myrrh. A psychiatrist to continue probing my mental well-being, to ascertain whether I’m making stuff up. To clamber into my dim, dark recesses and hope to emerge unscathed. A care worker to follow up on the psychiatrist’s report and assess whether I’m a danger to myself or to others. A priest to tick another box. So I’ll see their troupe and then I’ll get to see mine.
And in the meantime, I’ll continue trying to make sense of it all in my own head. Because believe me, none of this makes any more sense to me than it does to them. Except I know who I am. I just don’t know what happened to the date. It feels like I’ve spent time on a film set surrounded by actors speaking lines about some time in the future and when I finally get out of here it’s going to be the mid-eighties and everyone’s going to laugh and point and say got you there, Josh, had you going, two thousand and nine, two thousand and ten, ha ha ha. Big joke.
It doesn’t feel like over a year. I’ve lost weeks, months. I went through a period where I was kept sedated. A soporific case study. Then I’d sleep for long periods and they’d hook me up to some piece of equipment that monitored my dreaming thoughts. And in my dreams, I was always back in the forest, back in the glade. With Kyle. Back in the day. And then I’d be falling, falling, down into the darkness, down into Alice’s rabbit hole. And when I woke, I’d be here and the only thing that would change would be the seasons I’d see out of the window, summer rusting into autumn, decaying into winter.
I don’t get to mix with the other patients. I say patients. Inmates? I’m not sure if that’s a blessing or a curse. I hear them, sometimes, some of them. Shouting, arguing. Instead the only other people I’ve seen have been the staff. Probably about half a dozen in total. There’s two of them I really like, whose visits I look forward to. One of them’s a nice guy, around forty, I guess. He talks to me about his wife and kids. Plays cards with me, blackjack mainly, plus he’s teaching me poker, five card stud. He tells me about the poker nights he has with his buddies, how they play for small amounts of money. It’s nice to hear about something normal. The other’s a junior doctor, a girl in her late twenties. She’s got the most amazing blue eyes and short cropped blonde hair. A cute little nose stud. I like her a lot. She talks to me about music. Except I’ve never heard of any of the bands she tells me about. She finds it amusing that I’ve genuinely never heard of Kings of Leon or Bloc Party or the Killers. I told her I like Talking Heads, the Cocteau Twins. She said she thinks she’s heard of them, that she’s read about them. Like they’re ancient Egyptians, or something. I think she’s beginning to believe me. She won’t admit it to herself, though. Flies in the face of her professional opinion, and all that. She says I’m like Artemis Fowl if he were written by HG Wells. I say Artemis who? She laughs.
Tuesday 28 December 2010
Kaitch
There’s a guy claiming to be you, Josh. Is it you? Could it be? Sitting there in your amour-plated chair, like Schrödinger’s conundrum.
They say it isn’t, that it couldn’t be. Too young, too young. Too wrong. But then they only see with their eyes, Josh, only see with their eyes. Only see what they’re told to see. What they want to see. What they need to see. Which means they see nothing at all. Put away those optic nerves, baby, wrap them up and keep them safe. They’re strictly for navigation purposes only. Don’t need no navigation to see. Hide those baby blues. Erwin’s kitty just don’t work the peep show circuit. Time to cover up with a pair of those 4D wraparounds, sit back in your seat and open up to the possibilities. And don’t forget the popcorn because this could be one long adventure trip.
Alive or dead? Or both states simultaneously. Josh, or not Josh? Or both –
I should go and find out. But all the time I don’t, the paradox remains. The hope remains. The truth remains. It’s Josh and it isn’t Josh. If I go, I unleash the diabolical mechanism. Josh becomes not Josh. Because no one else will see. They see nothing at all.
They say it isn’t, that it couldn’t be. Too young, too young. Too wrong. But then they only see with their eyes, Josh, only see with their eyes. Only see what they’re told to see. What they want to see. What they need to see. Which means they see nothing at all. Put away those optic nerves, baby, wrap them up and keep them safe. They’re strictly for navigation purposes only. Don’t need no navigation to see. Hide those baby blues. Erwin’s kitty just don’t work the peep show circuit. Time to cover up with a pair of those 4D wraparounds, sit back in your seat and open up to the possibilities. And don’t forget the popcorn because this could be one long adventure trip.
Alive or dead? Or both states simultaneously. Josh, or not Josh? Or both –
I should go and find out. But all the time I don’t, the paradox remains. The hope remains. The truth remains. It’s Josh and it isn’t Josh. If I go, I unleash the diabolical mechanism. Josh becomes not Josh. Because no one else will see. They see nothing at all.
Sunday 19 December 2010
The Clergyman
You take a deep breath. You remove a handkerchief from your trouser pocket. You wipe the gun with the handkerchief. You place the gun in the still warm hand of the dead man. You curl his still warm fingers around the gun. You place his still warm index finger around the trigger. You take care not to touch the gun again. You step back. You wipe his blood from your face with the handkerchief. You roll the handkerchief into a ball and stuff it back into your pocket. You walk over to the tape recorder. You press Stop. You press Eject. You remove a cassette tape from the machine. You put the tape into the pocket of your overcoat. You walk towards the door, past the gothic ephemera, the metal skulls, the bones, past the Sailor Jerry posters, past the shelves of classical CDs, past the shelves of inks, past the framed and signed photographs of celebrity clients gone by, past the metal sign advertising Vincent Motorcycles, past the blood, the red, red blood. You open the door with your hand protected by your coat cuff. You step out into the dark, immoral night. You mutter under your breath.
‘I will be his God, and he shall be my son. But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.’
Later, at home, you place the cassette tape into a metal dish. You fetch a bottle of lighter fluid and you pour it over the cassette. You strike a match and drop it into the metal dish.
The DJ
‘Coming up in the next half hour, we’ve got new music from Foo Fighters, Plan B and the Gaslight Anthem, plus tracks from Kings of Leon and the Cribs. But first, a classic from the nineties. It’s VivaFish.’
Your kisses are sweet dynamite, your heart’s a neutron bomb
Your touch is electricity, one look and I’m all gone
You tie me up, you shoot me down, you massacre my mind
But I’ll keep coming back for more, I’m not the hurting kind
Shoot me, baby! Shoot me, baby! Give me
Heart-shaped candy gunshot from your Little Gun
Heart-shaped candy gunshot from your Little Gun –
Your kisses are sweet dynamite, your heart’s a neutron bomb
Your touch is electricity, one look and I’m all gone
You tie me up, you shoot me down, you massacre my mind
But I’ll keep coming back for more, I’m not the hurting kind
Shoot me, baby! Shoot me, baby! Give me
Heart-shaped candy gunshot from your Little Gun
Heart-shaped candy gunshot from your Little Gun –
Saturday 18 December 2010
Alfie and the Clergyman
‘– Alfred, are you recording this?’
‘I am, Reverend, I am.’
‘To what purpose?’
‘Because it might be the last thing I do. At least this way something’s left behind for posterity.’
‘Surely things can’t be that bad. Let us talk things through. You know it doesn’t have to be like this.’
‘The recording or –’
‘Not the recording, Alfred. That seems pretty inconsequential, does it not?’
‘Not to me it doesn’t, no. In fact it seems entirely appropriate. When you’ve spent most of your adult life working with ink, creating permanence for people, on people, bringing their sense of self-image right out front, making them look how they really feel, the idea that a final act should be recorded and therefore not go unnoticed seems completely logical.’
‘Not inconsequential, then. But I was referring to what you call the final act. You know there doesn’t have to be a final act.’
‘Oh, but there does, Reverend. All the great plays need a final act. And now that the Queen is dead, well, there’s nothing left for me to do but join her. And bring the curtain down.’
‘The Queen. Your wife.’
‘Yeah. My wife. My Ruthie. She was my Princess. She became my Queen. To be honest, Reverend, without her there really is no point. All’s cheerless, dark and deadly, as the poet said.’
‘Byron?’
‘Shakespeare, Reverend, Shakespeare. Kent to Lear on the death of Cordelia.’
‘Ah, Alfred, ever the classicist. So this final act that you talk about. What do you mean by it? Is our conversation to be your final act?’
‘Part of it, Reverend, part of it. But then again, it’s only final to the here and now, isn’t it?’
‘I’m not sure that I follow you.’
‘It all depends on your concept of finality, doesn’t it? I mean, take your lot. People of religion, I mean, and with respect, of course. You believe in an afterlife. Transcending into Heaven and all that. So is whatever happens here final?’
‘Ah, I see. And you, of course, who has no religious belief, still has your own faith in something other than just the here and now. After all, we’ve discussed it many times. It’s one of the remarkable things about you, Alfred, your faith in something other. That and your ability to remain a confirmed atheist and yet engage me with talk of theology that I find wholly fascinating.’
‘It’s funny, isn’t it, how you just used the word confirmed. Another might be avowed. And yet, it’s my atheism you’re referring to with these terms that reek of Christian religious practice.’
‘The routes of Christianity run deep, Alfred.’
‘Do they? Do you really think they do? A couple of thousand years? I’d say that when compared to what the universe can offer as mere theories of an other, as you say, a couple of thousand years is a blink of an eye. Anyway, Reverend, not tonight. I’m not in the mood for debate, theoretical or otherwise tonight. I just needed a witness, to see that there’d been no foul play. And I thought who better? We might disagree but we at least share the ability to question, to wonder at what lies ahead. I hope you don’t mind. I’ve found our discussions fascinating too. But now, it’s time I took a bow.’
‘Alfred, wha – is that loaded? Alfred, please –’
‘Don’t worry, Reverend. I need to go to her. I need to see if I can find her. Goodbye, Reverend. And thank you.’
‘Alfred, stop! –’
‘–’
‘–’
‘I thought it would be so easy. I didn’t see how hard it would be. I need to be with her, Reverend, I need to go.’
‘Alfred, Alfred. My friend. Give me that. Don’t cry, Alfred, it’s alright, it’s all alright. Don’t cry, my friend, don’t cry. That’s it, that’s it. Lean on me. Don’t worry. Don’t –’
BANG!!
–
‘I am, Reverend, I am.’
‘To what purpose?’
‘Because it might be the last thing I do. At least this way something’s left behind for posterity.’
‘Surely things can’t be that bad. Let us talk things through. You know it doesn’t have to be like this.’
‘The recording or –’
‘Not the recording, Alfred. That seems pretty inconsequential, does it not?’
‘Not to me it doesn’t, no. In fact it seems entirely appropriate. When you’ve spent most of your adult life working with ink, creating permanence for people, on people, bringing their sense of self-image right out front, making them look how they really feel, the idea that a final act should be recorded and therefore not go unnoticed seems completely logical.’
‘Not inconsequential, then. But I was referring to what you call the final act. You know there doesn’t have to be a final act.’
‘Oh, but there does, Reverend. All the great plays need a final act. And now that the Queen is dead, well, there’s nothing left for me to do but join her. And bring the curtain down.’
‘The Queen. Your wife.’
‘Yeah. My wife. My Ruthie. She was my Princess. She became my Queen. To be honest, Reverend, without her there really is no point. All’s cheerless, dark and deadly, as the poet said.’
‘Byron?’
‘Shakespeare, Reverend, Shakespeare. Kent to Lear on the death of Cordelia.’
‘Ah, Alfred, ever the classicist. So this final act that you talk about. What do you mean by it? Is our conversation to be your final act?’
‘Part of it, Reverend, part of it. But then again, it’s only final to the here and now, isn’t it?’
‘I’m not sure that I follow you.’
‘It all depends on your concept of finality, doesn’t it? I mean, take your lot. People of religion, I mean, and with respect, of course. You believe in an afterlife. Transcending into Heaven and all that. So is whatever happens here final?’
‘Ah, I see. And you, of course, who has no religious belief, still has your own faith in something other than just the here and now. After all, we’ve discussed it many times. It’s one of the remarkable things about you, Alfred, your faith in something other. That and your ability to remain a confirmed atheist and yet engage me with talk of theology that I find wholly fascinating.’
‘It’s funny, isn’t it, how you just used the word confirmed. Another might be avowed. And yet, it’s my atheism you’re referring to with these terms that reek of Christian religious practice.’
‘The routes of Christianity run deep, Alfred.’
‘Do they? Do you really think they do? A couple of thousand years? I’d say that when compared to what the universe can offer as mere theories of an other, as you say, a couple of thousand years is a blink of an eye. Anyway, Reverend, not tonight. I’m not in the mood for debate, theoretical or otherwise tonight. I just needed a witness, to see that there’d been no foul play. And I thought who better? We might disagree but we at least share the ability to question, to wonder at what lies ahead. I hope you don’t mind. I’ve found our discussions fascinating too. But now, it’s time I took a bow.’
‘Alfred, wha – is that loaded? Alfred, please –’
‘Don’t worry, Reverend. I need to go to her. I need to see if I can find her. Goodbye, Reverend. And thank you.’
‘Alfred, stop! –’
‘–’
‘–’
‘I thought it would be so easy. I didn’t see how hard it would be. I need to be with her, Reverend, I need to go.’
‘Alfred, Alfred. My friend. Give me that. Don’t cry, Alfred, it’s alright, it’s all alright. Don’t cry, my friend, don’t cry. That’s it, that’s it. Lean on me. Don’t worry. Don’t –’
BANG!!
–
Monday 13 December 2010
Josh
They say there’s a time and a place for everything. A time. And a place.
The time was 1985. They said it was 2009. I knew it was 1985. Everyone said it was 2009. Eventually they convinced me it was 2009.
The place was a green, green glade in a green, green wood. Except it wasn’t. The place was a hospital bed in a secure room with triple-glazed, reinforced windows and green, green walls and staff that wore green, green tunics. It was all the wrong green green.
They asked me my name. I told them it was Josh. Joshua Xavier Horsbrecht. They said they’d check. They checked. They told me that Joshua Xavier Horsbrecht was declared dead in 1992. They told me that by now, Joshua Xavier Horsbrecht would be in his late thirties. Whereas I, I looked no more than sixteen, seventeen. So they didn’t believe I was Josh.
I told them I could prove I was Josh. I told them about Kyle, Josh’s brother. My brother. I told them about my parents, Josh’s parents. I told them about our friends, my friends, Kyle’s friends.
And that’s when things started to go really wrong.
First, I became A Suspect. They assumed that because I appeared to know plenty of things, know plenty of stuff, have plenty of information about Joshua Xavier Horsbrecht, that I must have had something to do with the fact that he was no longer alive. Despite the fact that he was. I was. Do you follow? Not that I’d killed him, of course, I looked too young to have even been born in 1992. But they thought I must know something.
Next, I became The Accused. And after a while, when there was no evidence to suggest that I’d ever been involved in anything remotely connected with anything homicidal, I was Patient 6024. That was a bummer. Having ridden out the storm of being The Accused, I had hoped that I could become something more like myself again.
Ok, Joshy, I thought to myself, this is a fix. They think you’re mad. Nuts. Barking. The proverbial box of frogs. For a while, I tried reasoning with them. Tried to engage them in conversation. I tried talking about things that showed them I wasn’t a lunatic. Philosophy. Shakespeare. The weather. Cricket. The rise of the moderates in El Salvador that had brought Duarte to power. Anything. They wrote things on pads. They consulted clipboards. They smiled their patronising smiles.
Right, I thought, if they think you’re mad – be mad. I took to staring out of the window for hours on end. I asked the kitchen for some jam with my breakfast. I put some of the jam into a clear plastic drinking cup. I stood by the window and I started catching flies in the cup. I thought about Renfield, the lunatic in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. I thought about his great physical strength. I thought about his morbidly excitable nature. I remembered that his habit was to eat the creatures that he caught in the hope that he might obtain their life force. I washed out the clear plastic cup and threw the flies away. I wasn’t that mad. I wasn’t even mad.
I started muttering. Song lyrics, mostly, reciting them as a religious man might the Koran, or the Torah, giving them emphasis, giving them meaning. Mumbling them under my breath, just audible. To stand within the pleasure dome, decreed by Kubla Khan. That was a good one, had one or two of them fooled. Xanadu by Rush, from the Farewell to Kings album, if you’re interested.
Soon, though, I started to grow weary of who’s fooling whom. Stopped treating it as a game. Days became weeks. Became months. I started to wonder if I really was mad. I started asking questions. Started making demands. Let me see my parents. Let me see Kyle. Help me. Help me –
The time was 1985. They said it was 2009. I knew it was 1985. Everyone said it was 2009. Eventually they convinced me it was 2009.
The place was a green, green glade in a green, green wood. Except it wasn’t. The place was a hospital bed in a secure room with triple-glazed, reinforced windows and green, green walls and staff that wore green, green tunics. It was all the wrong green green.
They asked me my name. I told them it was Josh. Joshua Xavier Horsbrecht. They said they’d check. They checked. They told me that Joshua Xavier Horsbrecht was declared dead in 1992. They told me that by now, Joshua Xavier Horsbrecht would be in his late thirties. Whereas I, I looked no more than sixteen, seventeen. So they didn’t believe I was Josh.
I told them I could prove I was Josh. I told them about Kyle, Josh’s brother. My brother. I told them about my parents, Josh’s parents. I told them about our friends, my friends, Kyle’s friends.
And that’s when things started to go really wrong.
First, I became A Suspect. They assumed that because I appeared to know plenty of things, know plenty of stuff, have plenty of information about Joshua Xavier Horsbrecht, that I must have had something to do with the fact that he was no longer alive. Despite the fact that he was. I was. Do you follow? Not that I’d killed him, of course, I looked too young to have even been born in 1992. But they thought I must know something.
Next, I became The Accused. And after a while, when there was no evidence to suggest that I’d ever been involved in anything remotely connected with anything homicidal, I was Patient 6024. That was a bummer. Having ridden out the storm of being The Accused, I had hoped that I could become something more like myself again.
Ok, Joshy, I thought to myself, this is a fix. They think you’re mad. Nuts. Barking. The proverbial box of frogs. For a while, I tried reasoning with them. Tried to engage them in conversation. I tried talking about things that showed them I wasn’t a lunatic. Philosophy. Shakespeare. The weather. Cricket. The rise of the moderates in El Salvador that had brought Duarte to power. Anything. They wrote things on pads. They consulted clipboards. They smiled their patronising smiles.
Right, I thought, if they think you’re mad – be mad. I took to staring out of the window for hours on end. I asked the kitchen for some jam with my breakfast. I put some of the jam into a clear plastic drinking cup. I stood by the window and I started catching flies in the cup. I thought about Renfield, the lunatic in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. I thought about his great physical strength. I thought about his morbidly excitable nature. I remembered that his habit was to eat the creatures that he caught in the hope that he might obtain their life force. I washed out the clear plastic cup and threw the flies away. I wasn’t that mad. I wasn’t even mad.
I started muttering. Song lyrics, mostly, reciting them as a religious man might the Koran, or the Torah, giving them emphasis, giving them meaning. Mumbling them under my breath, just audible. To stand within the pleasure dome, decreed by Kubla Khan. That was a good one, had one or two of them fooled. Xanadu by Rush, from the Farewell to Kings album, if you’re interested.
Soon, though, I started to grow weary of who’s fooling whom. Stopped treating it as a game. Days became weeks. Became months. I started to wonder if I really was mad. I started asking questions. Started making demands. Let me see my parents. Let me see Kyle. Help me. Help me –
Friday 10 December 2010
Wendy
It’s dark outside now. I’ve been sitting here for hours, looking out of the window, watching the cold grey wintry light ebb from the day until nothing of it remains.
I’ve been thinking. Contemplating, you might say. Thinking about the change that’s in the air, a palpable, heavy, almost suffocating change. Thinking about what it might mean. Thinking about the time it happened before.
I’ve always had the gift. My mother had it, and her mother too. It’s passed down through the generations like some sort of heirloom, or a congenital predisposition to a malignant disease. When I was a little girl, I used to think that it was completely normal. Couldn’t everyone do this, couldn’t everyone see? I felt like I had more friends than anyone else, more people to play with. I certainly never felt alone. But then as I got older, I don’t know, eleven, twelve, it started to scare me. I realised it was different, that I was different. And I didn’t want to be different, I wanted to fit in. It was an awakening, like finding out that Santa isn’t real or that your father isn’t perfect. Something that I had accepted as implicitly mundane and everyday was suddenly taboo. Mother sat me down and explained it to me just before my thirteenth birthday. So by the time I reached my teens, I knew that I could communicate with the dead. And that they could communicate with me, or at least, through me. A conductor, Mother said, an aerial. The Other World Service. Her little joke.
As I got older, I began to embrace it. Or maybe it just embraced me, I don’t know. It became my calling. I remember the night that Granny died. She told me herself, sitting right there, at the end of my bed. And in the morning, when I woke and went downstairs for breakfast, Mother took one look at me and she knew that I knew. She just squeezed my hand and I squeezed hers and there was nothing else that needed to be said.
Over the years, I’ve felt useful. Needed. I’ve thought of the spirits as my friends, friends in need. It was, I’ve liked to imagine, an equitable relationship. It still can be, for the most part. But there was that one night. Back in 2000, I think it was. The first time that I felt what I’m feeling now.
It had begun as a conventional séance. And yes, I appreciate that there are those who might think that a contradiction in terms. There were six of us, myself and five guests. Jane was one, or was it June? Small, nervous woman. There was a doltish girl whom I found to be somewhat insolent. And him, of course. The musician. He was, I’m sure, the catalyst.
It had all started nicely. We had a visit, from a spirit, that’s why I remember June, yes definitely June, the spirit wanted to talk with her and she was too timid, silly woman, too timid. The whole reason she was there and she missed her chance. But what followed –
– What followed had never happened to me before. It wasn’t just the physicality of it. It was how it made me feel, for months afterwards. It wasn’t normal, wasn’t like anything I’ve ever known. How can I explain? It’s as if when a spirit uses me, uses my body, I can feel myself filling up with its presence and that presence feels thin, gossamer, like smoke. But that night it wasn’t like that. It was as if the presence that entered me was dense, somehow, heavy, like a gas. It had a weight, a definite weight, as if my blood had turned to mercury. And for months afterwards, whenever I tried to communicate with the spirits, I’d get the same feeling, the same heaviness, the same weight, as if something fundamental had changed.
And then, after a time, it stopped, it just stopped. I remember the relief one summer’s evening. I was sitting alone, listening to some Mahler on the stereo, when I felt the familiar tingling chill and I knew that I’d been joined by a presence. And all of a sudden I felt the lightness, the beautiful lightness envelop me and it was like the first time all over again. And do you know, I danced that night, around my sitting room, the spirit and I danced to Mahler. Imagine that.
But now it’s back. The weight. The denseness. It’s barely perceptible, but I can feel it’s there. It’s changing. And I’m scared.
I’ve been thinking. Contemplating, you might say. Thinking about the change that’s in the air, a palpable, heavy, almost suffocating change. Thinking about what it might mean. Thinking about the time it happened before.
I’ve always had the gift. My mother had it, and her mother too. It’s passed down through the generations like some sort of heirloom, or a congenital predisposition to a malignant disease. When I was a little girl, I used to think that it was completely normal. Couldn’t everyone do this, couldn’t everyone see? I felt like I had more friends than anyone else, more people to play with. I certainly never felt alone. But then as I got older, I don’t know, eleven, twelve, it started to scare me. I realised it was different, that I was different. And I didn’t want to be different, I wanted to fit in. It was an awakening, like finding out that Santa isn’t real or that your father isn’t perfect. Something that I had accepted as implicitly mundane and everyday was suddenly taboo. Mother sat me down and explained it to me just before my thirteenth birthday. So by the time I reached my teens, I knew that I could communicate with the dead. And that they could communicate with me, or at least, through me. A conductor, Mother said, an aerial. The Other World Service. Her little joke.
As I got older, I began to embrace it. Or maybe it just embraced me, I don’t know. It became my calling. I remember the night that Granny died. She told me herself, sitting right there, at the end of my bed. And in the morning, when I woke and went downstairs for breakfast, Mother took one look at me and she knew that I knew. She just squeezed my hand and I squeezed hers and there was nothing else that needed to be said.
Over the years, I’ve felt useful. Needed. I’ve thought of the spirits as my friends, friends in need. It was, I’ve liked to imagine, an equitable relationship. It still can be, for the most part. But there was that one night. Back in 2000, I think it was. The first time that I felt what I’m feeling now.
It had begun as a conventional séance. And yes, I appreciate that there are those who might think that a contradiction in terms. There were six of us, myself and five guests. Jane was one, or was it June? Small, nervous woman. There was a doltish girl whom I found to be somewhat insolent. And him, of course. The musician. He was, I’m sure, the catalyst.
It had all started nicely. We had a visit, from a spirit, that’s why I remember June, yes definitely June, the spirit wanted to talk with her and she was too timid, silly woman, too timid. The whole reason she was there and she missed her chance. But what followed –
– What followed had never happened to me before. It wasn’t just the physicality of it. It was how it made me feel, for months afterwards. It wasn’t normal, wasn’t like anything I’ve ever known. How can I explain? It’s as if when a spirit uses me, uses my body, I can feel myself filling up with its presence and that presence feels thin, gossamer, like smoke. But that night it wasn’t like that. It was as if the presence that entered me was dense, somehow, heavy, like a gas. It had a weight, a definite weight, as if my blood had turned to mercury. And for months afterwards, whenever I tried to communicate with the spirits, I’d get the same feeling, the same heaviness, the same weight, as if something fundamental had changed.
And then, after a time, it stopped, it just stopped. I remember the relief one summer’s evening. I was sitting alone, listening to some Mahler on the stereo, when I felt the familiar tingling chill and I knew that I’d been joined by a presence. And all of a sudden I felt the lightness, the beautiful lightness envelop me and it was like the first time all over again. And do you know, I danced that night, around my sitting room, the spirit and I danced to Mahler. Imagine that.
But now it’s back. The weight. The denseness. It’s barely perceptible, but I can feel it’s there. It’s changing. And I’m scared.
Thursday 9 December 2010
Joe
It’s weird. I get flashbacks. Flashbacks to a different time, a different place. Sometimes they’re like the purest memories. Other times it’s more déjà vu. Too much booze, perhaps. Too many lines. Mostly I ignore them. It’s easier that way, safer. I’ve pretty much given up the booze now anyway and the last drug I took was a Lemsip. I say pretty much. What’s a wagon if not something to fall from? But I fall rarely and never far. Straight Joe, grateful Joe, back from the abyss and not wanting to return to it Joe, that’s me. And I stay safe within her arms.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I’ve become all puritanical. There’s still twenty cigarettes a day, still the parties, still those times when the only thing to do is say feck it and give in to a reckless urge to do something precisely because that little voice that lives in the back of your head, that bastard little voice, says don’t do it, Joe, don’t do it, what will they think, what will they say? Well, they can mind their own business, can’t they? They’d never understand anyway. Besides, there’s a buzz to be had from going to a club, dancing, playing, laughing, acting like the funniest guy in the world and then driving yourself home, knowing that you’ve had nothing stronger than a couple of spicy tomato juices and a fizzy water, watching as the drunks are assaulted by the cold night air and seeing them reel towards empty taxi ranks and the Kubrick-like lottery of the nightbus. Stay safe, sister, mind how you go, brother, reality’s round the corner and it’s armed with a hammer. Bang bang. Plink plink fizz. Ouch.
And yet even within the safety of sobriety, there are moments. Moments like last night. Last night, as I stood huddled in a doorway, jacket collar turned up against a wind on vacation from Svalbard, feeling the beats from inside pounding the walls like artillery shells, sucking on a Marlboro Light, when I saw – what? Who? Someone, something in the shadows, something or someone, lurking just out of reach of the cool electric glare, a someone or something not quite there, a someone or something without a true form, not quite whole, not quite there. But here. It was here.
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