Others (8 page)

‘The bells, the bells!’
someone behind me wailed to much snickering.

I stopped, hung my head, closed my eye for a moment, then turned to face them.

I was between the group and the boulevard, between it and the broad stretch of light from the roadway above, so that as they collectively stood, some moving sluggishly as though heavy with dope and booze, one, the nearest to me, rising almost sprightly, fired by youth’s arrogance, I could see their shapes in the muted illumination, could take in their leathers and amulets, their spiked collars, their freaked hair and high, laced boots. They were an unlovely bunch.

I could just make out the peppy one’s leering grin, no mercy in that expression.

‘Going swimming, Quozzie? Only swim at night, do yer?’

The others enjoyed the taunt, adding their own drolleries.

‘Didn’t know the freak show was in town.’ What yer do for sex, date a spazzie?’ ‘Didn’t know abortions could walk about.’ You know, remarks of that ilk, and others that were plain degenerate. Every one seemed to inspire the next, and the gang had great fun.

‘Oh shit,’ I said quietly to myself, then turned away and began moving again, not rushing, just taking it steady, not wanting them to see how much I was shaking. Shaking with rage, with fear, with impotence.

A beer can hit me this time, half full so that liquid spilt into my hair, ran down the back of my neck.

‘Hey, we’re talkin to you, ‘umpback!’

I didn’t reply. I kept going.

Footsteps crunching after me.

Knowing I couldn’t outrun them, I whirled around and it must have been my expression that stopped them dead, shadows formed by the dim light probably deepening my scowl, maybe even making me look fearsome.

‘Listen to me,’ I said, allowing anger to override my nervousness. ‘I’m not bothering you, so just leave me alone. Okay?’

But the sprightly one, the arrogant one, the one I assumed was the leader, swaggered towards me, features screwed up into a grimace that was as ugly as mine.

‘You got it wrong, Quozzie. You are botherin us.’

Another step closer allowed me to see a face so full of loathing and bigotry that it surely must have poisoned this one’s soul; it came in waves, a silent rant against everything this zealot thought of as abnormal and not up to the perceived order of things. Although my gaze never left those venomous eyes, I was aware that the others were outflanking me so that soon I was surrounded. I took a step back; my main tormentor took a step forward.

I sensed no euphoria among them, no laid-back pleasantry that the fat Jamaicans and drink should have induced, and I began to suspect they had all been on something harder earlier that evening, maybe Ice, which was the drug of the moment in Brighton around that time, a street methamphet-amine, pure crystal shit that gave a big rush that ultimately and invariably fucked up the brain with its worsening withdrawals. Sometimes the tweakers freaked out with meth psychosis and hallucinations, and that was never a time to be around them.

I consoled myself with the thought that this merry little band of junkheads could just as easily be on GHB, or Liquid Ecstasy, both popular drugs around the clubs, whose come-downs sometimes could be scary as well; then again, they could be on the nutter stuff, Special K. Whichever, I figured their smoking mixed with booze was their way of making the descent easy on themselves. Only it didn’t seem to be working: aggression was bristling from this mob.

‘Look,’ I said placatingly, hoping the tremble in my voice wasn’t too noticeable, ‘what d’you want from me? D’you want money? I’ve got money. I can give you some.’ I reached for my wallet, an action replay of a short time earlier when I’d willingly offered charity to the beggar. I wasn’t proud of myself at that moment, but if that was what it took to get me off the hook, then so be it.

Yeah, we want money.’

Eyes looked greedily at the notes in my hand. ‘But we don’t want some, we want all of it.’

My wallet, as well as the notes, was snatched away and when I reacted, reflexively reaching out to grab it back (cash was one thing, credit cards and driving licence was another) something whacked against my head. I think it must have been another, even larger, stone from the beach, because I heard it crack as it struck my temple, and it hit me so hard I fell to my knees.

My brain went numb for a second or two and I brought both hands up to the wound, rocking there on the beach on my knees. I remember crying out, pleading with them to stop it there and then, not to let it go further, that I was hurt enough, but then they were on me, kicking, punching, pounding me until everything became a blur - everything except the pain - and I was tumbling, tumbling forward and curling into a foetus position, a frightened, confused, malformed thing scrunched up as small as I could make myself, there to be pummelled and humbled because I was an oddity, because I was an oddity with money, because I was an oddity with money who wouldn’t fight back.

I don’t know how long it went on for - a thousand years, two minutes? In its way, it was a lifetime - but I heard them calling me names, snarling their hatred, screeching their bile, and I absorbed it, let the pain and the name-calling sink into my system, so that soon my body and my mind had swallowed it whole, and then I allowed it - blows and words - to deaden me. That was the only way I could make it tolerable.

And when it was finally over and the five leather and amulet clad girls had walked off, I cursed them under my breath and prayed that one day the sickness inside each and every one of them would cause them to suffer the way I had suffered that night.

It began to spit with rain again.

9

The wet stone steps to my basement flat were treacherous in my condition, mainly because my vision was still bleary with tears of self-pity and humiliation and my limbs were stiff, the joints almost locked; each movement, each lumbering step, took willpower, each draw of breath took an effort. Both body and mind were in a wretched state.

Practically falling against the front door, I dug inside my trouser pocket for the key and then, for the second time in two days, scraped its point over the paintwork to locate the hole. Once inside, I fell back against the closed door and blubbered there in the darkness. I was hurt, but by now I knew it wasn’t badly, and although I’d lost the cash, the girl-gang had contemptuously tossed the wallet back at me; it had struck my head, then lay open on the pebbles beside me. They hadn’t been interested in the credit cards, just the money for their next fix. No, I wasn’t crying because of the physical pain they caused me, nor the loss of hard-earned cash; I wept because of the dagger thrusts of their derision, their unconscionable and conscienceless verbal assault. And I cried because of their gender and their youth - two at least could have been no more than fourteen or fifteen years old. I had been broken by a team of young girls and it wasn’t their blows that had weakened me, left me foetal on the beach, absorbing every punch from their fists, every slap from their hands, every kick from their high-laced boots; no, it was the viciousness of their barbs that had struck so deep, words so vile and uncompromising that it seemed as if my muscles and my mind had atrophied, had become useless and limp. It was their disgust that had defeated me.

‘Oh God, why, why?’ I heard myself mumble between sobs. And when I asked again, it came as a shout, a
demand
for an answer, and the question was full of loathing for myself and the Supreme Being who had created me, for I was not questioning the attack on me that night, not challenging the violence dealt to my miserable twisted body, but asking why I had been born this way, why had He created me as a monster to be reviled or pitied but never to be accepted as a normal human. How did He justify such cruelly protracted torment, a lifetime’s punishment which would only end when my lungs gasped no more breaths and my heart lost its beat? I
needed
to know. I
had
to know. Yet even as I raged, implored, I was aware there would be, could be, no response, because no matter how often I’d asked - how often I’d
begged
- the question in the past, never, never, never even in my deepest despair - and this was one such moment - had an answer been given.

And eventually, as I crouched there and the last tears flushed from the undamaged ducts of my one good eye, I berated myself for believing there
was
a God to give any such rhyme or reason. Nothing - No Thing - no Heavenly Creature, no Ruler of Heaven and Earth, no Divine Deity, no Almighty, no Omnipresence, no Allah, Elohim, Yahweh, or Jehovah, would ever devise such a hellish torture. Maybe a Devil could, but surely no God?

Finally, miserably, I dragged myself up from the floor and lumbered along the short hallway to the kitchen, where I flicked on the light-switch and knelt before a low cupboard. Opening it, my hand scrabbled around behind the tins of baked beans and pineapple chunks and all the other easy-cook packages sad, single people keep stored for instant sustenance, until I felt what I was searching for: a medium-sized square-shaped, coffee jar. I pulled it out and held it to my chest while I wiped the dampness from my face with the sleeve of my jacket.

This was my special stash, used only on specific occasions; not for celebrations, nor social gatherings, but for when I needed it most - like tonight. I used it infrequently, because it was highly addictive and I couldn’t afford to become highly addicted. Snow. Coke. C. Charlie. Cocaine. A cheap commodity nowadays compared to some other drugs, but still prohibitive for the likes of me. Beneficial though, at certain times. The quick rush would take me through to the other side of this trauma, the sense of wellbeing would overwhelm all else. I’d become a man again.

I took the jar through to the bathroom, unscrewed the lid and placed both on the glass shelf in front of the mirror, all routine and carried out in semi-darkness. Only then did I pull the string that operated the bare light-bulb over my head.

Dipping my fingers into the coarse coffee grains I drew out a tightly sealed plastic bag, inside which was another tightly sealed plastic bag. I unsealed the first, extracted the second, opened it and carefully poured a portion of the white powder on to a clear area of the glass shelf, my right hand trembling so badly I had to steady it with my left. I took a razor blade from the medicine cabinet beside the wall mirror and left it next to the little white hill of euphoria, of instant Nirvana, of deceptive redress, while I returned to the kitchen to get a straw. A dozen of them stood in a long plastic tumbler on a high shelf and I had to stand on tip-toe to reach them. I pulled out one and snipped it in half with scissors from a cupboard drawer before hobbling back to the bathroom.

My hand still shaking, I used the razor blade to make thin uneven lines of the coke, then bent forward with the brightly striped straw stuck half-way up my nose. I sucked up white bliss like an anteater snorting lines of ants, working my way along the short rows, thumb against the clear nostril, until only a scattering of fine dust remained. The high hit me almost immediately, a rush that was like nothing else on this earth for quick, appeasing pleasure and I jerked upright (as upright as my body would allow), still inhaling as I did so, my good eye closing as the exultation flooded my brain and a lightness swept through me.

I let out a long sigh and removed the straw, my other hand gripping the edge of the sink, the trembling already beginning to calm itself as my whole being relaxed into a wonderfully silky warmth. Pain still throbbed, but it was accommodated, harboured within a better sensation. I moaned aloud and went with the flow, my chest swelling as my misery detached itself from my psyche and floated to another place, still in reach but sequestered for the moment. The rapture swept through me and I accepted it gratefully, my poor misshapen head rocking back, my lips split into a grin of joy, my eyelids closed so that a few more tears were squeezed between them.

But when I lowered my head and opened my eye again another’s face was staring out at me from the bathroom mirror.

I staggered, just a step backwards, my gaze never shifting from the figure that stood watching me from the realm beyond the glass.

I knew that face. I knew those strong, handsome features, the deep, brown eyes framed by heavy, almost feminine, lashes, the classic and very masculine shape of the nose, the lips so defined and sensual in their half-smile, the jutting, cleft chin, so rugged in its appeal, softened only slightly by that carnal mouth. Somehow I recognized the smoothed-back black hair, sleek and glossy in the mirrored light, and the heavy eyebrows, beautifully shaped over those watchful, amused eyes.

I knew this person.

Those broad shoulders, with their relaxed strength, underlying tension beneath a studied looseness, was familiar to me. I knew this man clad in shiny-lapelled tuxedo and black tie, was aware of the raw, even coarse, nature that the fine apparel disguised.

And from the expression in those roguish yet brooding eyes, I was aware that this person also knew me.

I think I swooned from shock just then, or else the room itself spun around me, and it was only the strange, extraneous sound of the doorbell that stopped me from passing out completely.

10

Whoever it was at the front door wouldn’t go away. There was I, holding on to the bathroom sink, now with both hands, my eye shut again - I didn’t want to see that handsome image in front of me any more - and my body still swaying, my legs enfeebled, while that persistent bellringer kept their finger against the button, releasing the pressure every now and again before starting all over, the shrill sound travelling down the short hallway and driving me crazy with its insistence.

‘Go ‘way,’ I mumbled, not sure myself if I were talking to the visitor outside or the phantom in the mirror.
‘Go away!’
I hissed, and then I opened my eye, very slowly, afraid of what I might see again.

Even as I did so, a vague recollection of having observed or perceived that handsome countenance in the past came to me, vague, peripheral glimpses that were always reflections, never the real thing, nebulous visions that vanished before they could be fastened on. Now relief - oddly tainted by disappointment - shuddered through me as my own unsightly features gawped back from the mirror.

I scrutinized my reflection, wondering at the hallucination of a moment before, silently asking myself what the hell was it with me and mirrors these days? Had the sudden rush of cocaine triggered the illusion? But I wasn’t doped up yesterday when I stood in front of that cracked mirror in the repossessed house. The sound of the doorbell startled me again.

The bell, the bell.
The bells, the bells.
I shivered at the thought of those girl-gang jibes, my misery returning like a great grey cloud of chemical poison. Where was the heady coke glow, where had it gone? I was stone-cold sober, yet the traces of white dust were still on the glass shelf before me, evidence of what I’d sniffed only a few moments ago.

Knocking now. The person at the front door had given up the bell and was now rapping wood. And calling to me, calling my name. A woman’s voice, soft but loud enough to reach me in the bathroom. I swore and screwed up my face even more. I had to open the door. Whoever it was outside was not going away.

Sluggishly I wiped powder residue from the shelf with my hand, then returned the rest of the stash in the clear plastic bag to the coffee grains, pushing down hard, burying it beneath them. Yanking the light cord so the bathroom was in darkness once more, I went to the kitchen and put the coffee jar on the working surface next to the sink. Then I drew in three long breaths, steadied myself, and limped down the hall to the front door.

She was small, smaller then me, and her face, illuminated by the light behind me, was round and concerned. Somehow I knew who she was even before she spoke.

‘I’m Louise Broomfield.’

I wondered why she was swaying, gently rocking backwards and forwards, then I realized it was me who was in motion. I held on to the door and squared my feet against the hall carpet.

‘Are you all right, Mr Dismas?’

She reached out a hand, but quickly withdrew it when I flinched away. The clairvoyant had been squinting at me because the light at my back obviously threw me into gloomy silhouette, but now her eyes widened as she got a closer look.

‘My God…’ she said in a whisper.

At the time I thought her reaction was due to my appearance together with the general dishevelment and marks the beating had left; later I was to discover it was because of something else entirely.

It was a few seconds before she had recovered enough to say: ‘May I come in, Mr Dismas? It’s important that I talk to you.’

‘Uh, no. I don’t think so. It’s kind of late and I’ve had a heavy day.’ Any irony wasn’t intended: I just wanted to be left in peace to lick my wounds, brood over the mental hurts, consider reflections in mirrors. My voice sounded slurred to me and I wondered if she thought I was drunk; I decided I didn’t care.

‘Please,’ she said urgently, the flat of her hand against the closing door. ‘It really is very important’

I hesitated, unable to make up my mind. I wasn’t usually ill-mannered towards sweet-looking old ladies (although often they could be rude to me), but I really wasn’t in the mood to discuss missing children and dishonest clients. I suppose it was her wide-eyed earnestness that persuaded me; either that or it was just plain too difficult to shut the door in her face, no matter how awful I felt right then.

‘Okay, just… just say what you’ve got to say, then leave me alone.’

Won’t you invite me in? A few minutes of your time, that’s all I need.’

Reluctantly - very reluctantly - and aware I was in no state to offer resistance, I stood aside so that the clairvoyant could come through.

She seized the opportunity, her feet across the threshold before I could change my mind, and she watched me all the way, her eyes never dropping from mine.

‘Room on the right,’ I instructed her and ran my hands over my face as she disappeared into the sitting-room. Closing the door, my shoulder brushed against the wall for support as I followed her down the hall. I paused in the doorway to switch on the sitting-room light and I lingered there awhile, appraising this little, rotund woman who’d invaded my space; the appraisal was reciprocal. She continued to gawk at me, and I was certain now that it wasn’t because of my poor condition; I was used to stares, and hers was different - somehow it had more depth to it. Louise Broomfield had thoughts about me well beyond what she could plainly see.

‘It had to be you,’ she said quietly.

‘Nice song,’ I replied sourly, still wondering what had happened to the coke euphoria. ‘I could sing a few bars, if you’d like.’

There was no smile, but she didn’t appear to be offended. ‘You must think I’m a little bit batty,’ she said. ‘It’s the usual response.’

I could have told her all about usual responses, but I didn’t. Instead I said: ‘Look, I’m not feeling too good right at this moment, so can we make it short. There’s nothing more I can do for Shelly Ripstone and I’m surprised she persuaded you to visit me.’

Concern glimmered in her eyes again. ‘Oh no, Shelly didn’t ask me to see you. She told me your enquiries had come to nothing, but she had no idea I would come to see you personally. No, that was entirely my own idea, Mr Dismas.’

She had a soft, reassuring voice, one that went with the kindness in her face. Louise Broomfield’s hair was grey-white and she sported the kind of hairdo ladies of a certain age - sixty and over - seemed to wear like military helmets: neat, pulled away from the face, stiff-permed. Her dress was pale blue, her full breasts resting on a full tummy, and her shoes were a sensible brown brogue (not unlike the kind Ida usually wore), her stockings those thick sort that concealed varicose veins. A light, pink raincoat, open down the front, hung well below the dress and in her hand she carried a stubby, closed umbrella, tiny droplets of water sparkling from it like sequins. Studded through her earlobes were discreet shiny earrings that twinkled like faraway stars whenever she moved her head. She looked powdered and smelled scented, although her lipstick barely tinted her lips, and her eyes were a pallid green.

‘How did you find my home address?’ I didn’t really care - she was here anyway - but I suppose I was stalling for time, trying to pull myself together.

‘You gave your home number to Shelly when you agreed to take the case, so the address was easy to get from Directory.’ Her hand stretched towards me again; she seemed to be a reach-out kind of lady. ‘You’ve been hurt, Mr Dismas. There’s blood on your face and shirt. Shouldn’t you call a doctor or go to casualty?’

I was suddenly conscious of the wetness beneath my ear and under my chin, and when I touched my skin my fingers came away sticky with blood. From the throbbing pain just below the closed hole where my other eye used to be, I knew there’d be a swelling by morning. ‘No, I’m all right. Just a disagreement with some… with some people on my way home. No real damage done.’

‘Are you sure? At least let me clean it up for you.’

Clean it up? Maybe wash away the humiliation at the same time? Could she get rid of the degradation while she was at it? I didn’t think so.

‘Mrs Broomfield, I’m tired. And yes, I’m hurting quite a bit too. I want to lie down and rest if that’s okay with you. I’m trying - believe me, I’m
trying -
not to be rude, but I want you to say what you have to say, and then leave. D’you get me?’

‘Of course, I understand. Why don’t you sit yourself down and let me make you a cup of tea? It’ll perk you up.’

Perk me up?
Perk me up?
God save me from the kind and caring. She means well, I told myself, she doesn’t realize she’s a bloody nuisance, she doesn’t know how close to the edge I am. Resignedly, I went over to the battered sofa and sank into its soft cushions. ‘No tea,’ I said to her, defiant to the last. ‘A brandy might help, though. A large one.’

‘I think you’ve drunk enough alcohol this evening, Mr Dismas.’ There was no mistaking the accusation in those pale green eyes; I got the feeling she knew I’d taken something else besides a few whiskies and beers, but was choosing not to mention it. ‘How about some coffee? Yes, that would be more appropriate in the circumstances. It won’t take a jiffy.’

She was out the door before I could stop her. Oh hell, I thought to myself, let her get on with it It’ll give me more time to get my act together. The clairvoyant was back before I’d even had the chance to light a cigarette, bringing a dampened bathroom towel with her.

‘Here, wipe the blood away with this, then hold the towel against your ear for a while.’ Wordlessly, I took the wet cloth from her. ‘Oh dear, I think you’re going to have quite a bruised cheek. Use the end of the towel to press against it; it might help reduce the swelling.’

I did as I was told and she disappeared again. My thoughts went back to the mirror and the image I’d seen therein; I was surprised to find the shock had lessened. Maybe the coke’s feel-good factor was finally kicking in again and I was mellowing out enough at least to accommodate the bizarre bathroom episode. I heard the cluttering of crockery from the other room.

‘Christ - ‘
I shot off the sofa, moving as fast as my shaky legs would carry me. ‘Not that one!’ I shouted when I reached the kitchen.

But it was too late. The spoon was already scooping into the jar and I could see the top of the powder-filled plastic bag emerging from the coffee grains. The clairvoyant had spotted it too and I could tell by her expression she knew exactly what was inside the package.

‘Not that coffee,’ I said lamely, opening a cupboard door above a work surface and reaching in.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she apologized, quickly screwing the lid back on the jar she held in her hand.

I took it from her, handing over the legit coffee jar as I did so, both embarrassed and angry at being found out. ‘It helps sometimes,’ I growled defensively.

‘It’s none of my business, Mr Dismas.’ She busied herself filling the kettle with water.

‘You can’t understand what it’s like for me,’ I said quietly, some of that anger cooling.

‘I think I might have an idea.’

‘No. No you don’t. You have to live it to know.’

She pushed the plug into the kettle and switched it on. ‘I have an imagination.’

I gave a snort of derision. ‘You can imagine what it’s like to be trapped inside a shell so hideous it makes you ashamed to walk the streets? What it’s like to be pointed out as if you’re some kind of freak? You know the kind of physical pain a twisted body gives you? The fear of losing sight in your only good eye? The refusal of your own body to do what comes so naturally to other people? You know all that, you can imagine it?’ My short laugh was full of rancour and she had the decency to lower her gaze. ‘You have
no
idea,’ I told her.

‘I’m sor -‘

‘Don’t keep apologizing! It’s not your fault,
you
didn’t do this to me. Just don’t patronize me. And okay, so I take a little stuff now and again. It helps get me through. For a little while I can escape who -
what
- I am. The feeling doesn’t last long, but it helps me get by. Can you understand that? It makes me feel fine, and sometimes it takes me somewhere else, some place where I can see, I can sense, other things, better things.’

‘No, Mr Dismas.’ My anger didn’t intimidate her. ‘Drugs never really work that way. They close down your sensibilities so that reality can’t interfere with your delusions. It might be pleasant, it might make you feel better, at peace with the world, but it isn’t the truth.’

‘Well, who the fuck needs the truth!’

She took a step backwards, suddenly afraid of my rage, and I was immediately contrite. I hadn’t meant to scare her, it was just frustration, self-pity, resentment - you name it.

The kettle bubbled steam and switched itself off. Something was thumping hard inside my head.

‘You ought to go,’ I said more quietly, although no more calmly. ‘I’m bad company tonight’

The clairvoyant managed a weak smile. ‘You’ve taken more than just a beating. Please go and sit down and let me bring you a cup of coffee. Would you like something for your headache?’

I looked at her sideways. ‘How did you know I had a headache?’

She laughed and there was no fear in the sound. ‘After all you’ve been through tonight, why
wouldn’t you
have one?’

I returned to the sofa in the sitting-room, puzzled, mysti fied, by this little old lady. My head hurt like hell and my body was a mass of aches and pains. The swelling below my absent eye provided its own special torment. But al though I’d taken a lot of kicking, a lot of bruising, the worst thing going on was in my mind: the memory of that charming face in the mirror. Yesterday monsters, tonight perfection. From the grotesque to the sublime. Visions through a glass darkly.

‘Here we are.’ Louise Broomfield bustled in like a squat Angela Lansbury, Disney’s Mrs Potts to my Beast, and carefully placed the mug of Coffee on the small table next to the sofa, shifting aside one of the heavy art volumes I kept close at hand for easy browsing (the lives and works of the masters is another one of my ‘things’; I guess I used wonderful images as an escape route when reality was on overload) to make room. ‘It’s very hot, so don’t scald yourself. Now, let’s see about that headache of yours.’