The Machine (An Ethan Stone Thriller) (45 page)

Clovenhoof awoke, slumped beside the still glowing embers with dew clinging to his trousers and shirt. He was on Earth and it was still shit. Quentin and Dan were already awake, sitting upright in their sleeping bags.

Dan offered him the Scrumpy Thunder bottle.

“Morning mouthwash?” said Dan.

Clovenhoof took it without a word and drank.

“I can’t live in a place like this,” he said, passing it back.

Dan lit a cigarette.

“We all got to live somewhere,” he said.

Quentin nodded in agreement.

“But the people here,” said Clovenhoof. “The way they look at me. No recognition.”

“No respect, I know.”

“It’s unbearable,” said Clovenhoof.

Dan grinned.

“We’re like something they found on the bottom of their shoe.”

“Right. Smarmy bastards, going about their pointless little lives.”

“Too true.”

“It’s like they think they’re living in the bloody centre of the universe. But what is this place? I’ve walked its length. It’s some nowhere town, all shop windows and rows of identical houses.”

“That’s about the measure of the place,” agreed Dan and offered Clovenhoof a drag of his cigarette.

Clovenhoof inhaled deeply and looked at the cigarette wistfully.

“God, that reminds me of the Old Place,” he said.

“Yeah?” said Dan.

“The smoke from the furnaces. Those Satanic mills turning. It’s a sight to behold. And the city. Not like this place. We’ve got beautiful ruins and towers that stretch up beyond sight. And my people knew exactly where they were, a real sense of place. Wailing and writhing. Acreages of human flesh.”

“Sounds nice,” said Dan uncertainly. “Can’t you go back?”

“No,” said Clovenhoof bitterly, handing the cigarette back.

“Well, then you’d best make the most of it. Wherever you are.” Dan wriggled out of his sleeping bag and began to roll it up. “What other choice do you have? It’s either this or make an end of it and top yourself.”

Clovenhoof blinked.

“You’re right,” he said quietly.

“Of course I am,” said Dan.

Clovenhoof jumped to his feet.

“Dan,” he said, grabbing the man’s ears and planting a kiss on the top of his knitted hat, “you are a bloody genius.”

“Am I?”

Clovenhoof ran off into the grey light.

The two men watched him go.

“Where do you reckon he was from?” asked Dan eventually.

Quentin stroked his stubble thoughtfully.

“Coventry, I think.”

Nerys later reflected that, all told, Tuesday had started out so very promisingly.

She woke to find a text from a Trevor (or was it a Stephen?) who had been on her ‘second date material’ list but who had been in danger of being moved to her ‘mysteriously disappeared’ list. These were not imaginary lists but scrupulously kept documents in the back of her diary. A lot of ‘second date material’ moved to ‘mysteriously disappeared’ rather than the hoped for ‘successful second date’ list so she was cheered by the message.

Then, on her way out to work, she met that man from flat 2b on the stairs, the one she had heard the neighbours say worked in the book industry. He was a shifty looking man with low standards of dress but, since she had asked him to look at her manuscript, she made the effort to be polite.

“Good morning,” she said brightly.

“Er, er, morning,” said Ben and gave her a rictus-like grin. “Do you need a handkerchief?”

“What?” she said, wondering if she had something smeared on her face.

Ben pulled a white handkerchief from his pocket with a magician’s flourish.

“’A fine gentleman always carries a handkerchief,’” he said and she realised he was quoting from her book.

She blushed.

“You read it?”

“I did.”

“And what do you think?”

“Um,” he said and then, “Yes. Yes, it’s a really good idea.”

“You think it has potential?”

“Well, er, we can only give it a go, can’t we?”

She beamed.

“That’s great news. Wow. Thanks.”

She trotted merrily down the stairs with a sudden song in her heart and thoughts of her imminent publication.

Her buoyant mood carried her through an otherwise humdrum day at the Helping Hand Job Agency in Sutton Coldfield town centre. It was the usual round of HGV drivers and office temps in search of the next contract. She despaired at how they all conformed to the stereotypes of their trade. Fat with sagging waistline: HGV driver. Cheap ugly shoes and poorly co-ordinated make-up: office temp. It would have been so simple to sort each of them out, a belt and a low-carb diet for one lot, a ten-minute tutorial in fashion and make-up for the others. She had in fact produced a leaflet with those very guidelines, but the regional manager hadn’t approved.

Her colleague Dave, technically on the same rung of company ladder but in so many ways her underling was out on a training course that day so she had to get her own coffee. At least that meant she wasn’t plied with so many cuppas that she spent the whole afternoon busting for a pee. It also meant she didn’t have anyone to brag to about her future publishing success. The rest of the people in the office were either gormless idiots or strangely uninterested in her personal news and views, frequently both.

She left the office at four, collected her dinky car from the shopping centre multi-storey fighting Christmas shoppers at every turn, and set off for home. As she pulled out of the car park exit, something flashed downward through her vision and landed with a thump. Even before the man had rolled off the dumpster and onto the pavement, Nerys was unclicking her seatbelt and getting out of the car.

She didn’t stop to think about what she had seen in that second before she had leapt from her car but if someone had asked her what she had thought she had seen, she would have said she had seen a man fall from the roof of the multi-storey car park and smash into one of the dumpsters outside the service doors. But, of course, that couldn’t be what had happened because no one who had fallen six storeys onto unyielding steel would be rolling around, clutching their elbow and swearing viciously to themselves.

As she ran towards him, remembered diagrams of how to make a tourniquet from a belt, of the recovery position, of how to perform an emergency tracheotomy with a disposable biro, flashed through her mind in vibrant Technicolor. Heroic first aid related glory was within her reach.

And then something terrible happened. Out of nowhere, a woman had appeared and was crouching over the man, professional care oozing from her outstretched hands. Nerys put in a final spurt and cried out, “Don’t touch him!”

The woman looked up.

“I’ll deal with this!” Nerys shouted. “Stand back!”

“Are you a paramedic?” asked the woman.

“Pretty much,” said Nerys.

She knelt down next to the man. He wore a shirt and trousers and a sleek goatee beard. His face was screwed up in pain, adding extra lines to his already deeply lined face. He had the leathery skin of an ageing rock-star and, Nerys noted, had quite probably been a sexy-looking feller in his youth although time had not necessarily been kind.

“My name’s Nerys,” she said. “I’m here to help.”

The man blinked tears and looked up at her.

“Am I dead?”

“No,” said Nerys with a comforting smile.

“Shit,” said the man. “Shit shit shittity shit!”

That was an unexpected response.

“What do you mean, pretty much a paramedic?” asked the woman standing above them.

“I’m first aid trained,” said Nerys. “Can you feel your legs, sir?”

“I’m first aid trained too,” said the woman.

Nerys stood.

“Listen, sweet-cheeks. I don’t mean I’ve just watched a few episodes of Casualty. I am first aid trained. I’ve helped out during several medical emergencies.” She pulled out her phone, flipped to her photo library and passed it to the woman. “Look. Here’s me helping a boy who was choking on a mint imperial.”

Nerys knelt down again and began feeling the man’s arms for fractures. The woman looked at the photograph.

“How many emergencies?”

“Several,” said Nerys.

“How many?”

“Two,” said Nerys. “Including this one.”

“Two is not several.”

“Two is more than one and therefore is several.” She put her arms under the man’s shoulder and began to turn him over. “Sir, I’m just going to put you in the recovery position.”

“Oh, what’s the point?” he said, producing fresh tears.

“To stop you swallowing your tongue, I think.”

“Hang on,” said the woman. “Did you ask someone to take a picture of you giving this boy the Heimlich Manoeuvre?”

“Yes,” said Nerys irritably, getting the man onto his side.

“He was choking but you stopped to get out your phone so someone could take a photo before you stopped him choking?”

“Who wants to see a photograph of someone who is no longer choking?” She raised her eyebrows to her patient. She was sure he understood that the woman was some sort of imbecile.

“Suicides go straight to hell,” the man was muttering unhappily. “Straight to hell.”

“You’re all right, now,” she said soothingly.

She felt his legs for signs of injury. There was something odd about his legs. His knees seemed to be in the wrong place, his leg going backwards when it should be going forward.It was as though he had one too many joints in each leg. That, or he had the legs of an animal...

Nerys shook her head to herself, looked up and was irritated to see the woman still there. “Do you plan to stand there all day?” she said.

“I don’t think you have a clue what you’re doing,” said the woman.

Nerys snorted.

“Well, at least make yourself useful. You’ve got my phone.”

“Of course. Do you think he needs an ambulance?”

“I mean, take some pictures. Make sure you get both of us in them.”

“Where are you taking me?” asked Clovenhoof.

Nerys put her shoulder under his armpit and helped him out of her car.

 “You don’t have to do this,” he said.

“You just need somewhere to sit down. Maybe a cup of tea, yes?”

“Don’t take me to a hospital.”

“You said that before. Here we are.”

He raised his head. They were approaching the door of a tall old house on a long road of other tall old houses.

“This is your house?” he said.

“I have a flat here,” said Nerys. “Well, it’s technically my Aunt Molly’s flat but I live with her and pay her bills and she’s an old lady so, you know, fingers crossed, it’ll be mine soon enough. Do you live nearby?”

He looked up at a sign in a first floor window that read “Flat to Let”.

“Er, no,” he said. “I’ve recently been relocated.”

She stopped at the door and fished for a key in her coat pocket.

“Where are you from? Originally?”

He raised his eyes to the heavens. “Here. There. Nowhere.”

“You’re not an illegal immigrant, are you?” she asked.

He frowned.

“I couldn’t even begin to answer that question.”

“Not that I’m judging,” she said hurriedly. “I know that I’m a lucky woman to have been born in this country. Who can blame people for wanting to come here?”

“I was hoping to go back home.”

“Maybe you will one day.”

Nerys unlocked the door and then half-led half-dragged him up several flights of stairs.

Ten minutes later, he found himself sat in a high-backed armchair, nursing a cup of strong sweet tea whilst the weird young woman quietly argued with her shrill-voiced but otherwise invisible aunt in another room. A dog no larger than a gerbil was staring with what seemed to be intense fury at the new houseguest’s feet.

“What?” said Clovenhoof.

The terrier leapt forward and gripped the edge of his hooves with its tiny sharp teeth.

“Get off,” he hissed and shook his foot but the dog seemed to think it was now a game and with a pitiful growl, gnawed at the hard keratin.

“My foot is not a chew toy,” said Clovenhoof and was considering giving the creature a terminal kick in the ribs when Nerys re-entered.

“Twinkle,” she admonished without rancour, “leave the nice man’s... shoes alone.”

She smiled at Clovenhoof.

“You’re very kind,” she said, “but you shouldn’t let him do that. It will lead him to bad habits.”

The corner of Clovenhoof’s mouth twitched.

“This is... all very nice, but I must be going,” he said.

He placed his cup of tea on the table beside the chair, deliberately avoiding the doily coaster. He had stopped drinking it after discovering it had none of the potent qualities of Scrumpy Thunder.

“No,” said Nerys, holding out her hands to keep him sat. “Not until you’re better.”

“I’m fine,” he said. “I’ve spent long enough here already.”

 “You might have concussion. Do you feel nauseous?”

“Constantly.”

“How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Three.”

“What day is it?”

“Friday?”

“What’s your name?”

He paused to remember.

 “Jeremy Clovenhoof,” he said.

“Really?” she said. “I once had a boyfriend called Jeremy. I say boyfriend. It was a brief – but passionate! – affair. You know what I mean?”

“No,” he said, bored.

“Well, we split up. We had to. He told me, ‘It’s not you, it’s me.’ And I thought about that for a long time and you know what?”

“What?”

“He was right. It was him. It was all him.”

“Yes?”

“But for the record, today’s Tuesday and I was holding up two fingers; the thumb doesn’t count.”

She put a hand on his head.

“And you have a nasty bump on your head here,” she said.

He moved her hand across his scalp.

“I have two,” he said. “You might have noticed.”

“So you do,” she said.

“And, for the record,” he said, “two is not several.”

Ben stopped outside the door to flat 3, checked his breath against his palm, smoothed down his hair and then did a whole body shake as he tried to build up the courage to knock.

He had read
YOU
Can Be My Perfect Man in a single sitting and had spent much of the day at the shop re-reading key chapters and making notes. He had memorised the entirety of the ‘How to be spontaneous’ chapter and planned to follow its instructions to the letter. He had also committed to memory her hundred and thirty-seven rules for being the perfect gentleman. He had his handkerchief, wore a tie with his shirt, carried a hat in his hand (to show he had taken it off indoors) and was prepared to open as many doors and draw in as many dining chairs as his lady required.