Silent Voices (26 page)

Brendan was scratching vigorously at his back, knotting up his jacket at the nape of his neck. His face was pale. He seemed to be somewhere else, not here in the room. It was as if he were miles away, not even aware of the exchange taking place beside him. Simon willed him to turn around, to regain his focus, but Brendan just kept scratching away at his upper back.

Jesus
, he thought.
What’s his fucking problem?

“So, Hilda... Do you have an address or a telephone number for Marty?” Thankfully, she had not noticed Brendan’s weird contortions on the chair. She was distracted by her memories.

The budgie hopped around inside its cage, restless.

“I have his mobile number, but he doesn’t answer unless he knows who’s calling.” She reached across to a sideboard on her right and grabbed a ring-bound notebook and pen. Her stick-like fingers scribbled down the number. She tore off the page and reached across the table, handing it to Simon.

“Thanks,” he said. “All we can do is to try our best, I suppose.”

“I’m not sure where he’s been living. He’s always moved around a lot, you see. Never stays in one place long enough to settle in or give me an address. I even have to send his Christmas card to a post office box. The last I heard he was in Newcastle or Gateshead, looking after someone’s flat while they’re working away. He has a lot of acquaintances, does our Marty, but not many friends. None at all that I’ve met, anyway.”

Simon smiled. “
We’re
his friends,” he said, folding up the sheet of paper and slipping it into his trouser pocket. “If he still wants us, that is.”

“That’s nice,” said Hilda. “The past is important. Memories are the ties that bind us to each other. If he does call me, I’ll tell him you’re looking for him. I’ll vouch for you, too. Tell him that you’re still nice lads and he should make the effort to see you.”

Brendan stood suddenly. He was jittery; unease bled from him like a fine mist. “Sorry,” he said. “Could I use your bathroom?” His eyes were huge. He was standing in such a way that Simon felt he was trying to hold something inside, like a man with chronic diarrhoea who’s been struck by sudden stomach cramps.

“Top of the stairs. First door on the left.” Hilda raised a hand and pointed vaguely at the door. The budgie, stuck behind narrow bars, skittered on the cage floor. Brendan hurried from the room.

“Sorry about that. I don’t know what’s wrong with Brendan. He’s been ill, something he ate.” Simon leaned back and crossed one ankle over the other, pretending to be at ease in this too-neat home with its floral-patterned curtains and mute bird in a tiny cage.

“I suspect there’s more wrong with him than that.” Hilda nodded, as if agreeing with her own statement. “He’s never been right, that one. Even before you lads came out of that tower block, he was a bit strange. Distant, like: always off with his head in the clouds.”

“He’s fine,” said Simon, feeling the need to protect his old friend. “Just a bit quiet. He always was the shy one.” Lies, all lies; Brendan had always been outgoing, at least in the years before the Needle.

“Listen, son.” Hilda shuffled forward again. “Marty’s been seeing a girl. Melanie Sallis. She works part-time in the betting shop on the Arcade: three days a week. He never sees anyone for long – never has, not since poor Sally and that motorbike accident – but as far as I know, they’re still an item. She’s a decent girl, Melanie. Tells me stuff about my grandson. Go and see her today; tell her I sent you. She might be able to help you get in touch with Marty. Christ knows, I’ve done all I can – the little sod barely even calls me these days. Sends me text messages. Can you believe that? Text messages to his old Nan! The cheeky bugger.” Her anger was faked; the tone of her voice suggested only compassion.

“Thank you, Hilda. You’ve been a great help.”

Her smile was gone now. The lines and wrinkles on her face seemed to have deepened, become filled with shadows. Her dentures looked huge. “Just promise me that you won’t go stirring up bad things from the past – things that are best left alone.”

Simon leaned forward. He placed a hand on her knee. “I just want us – all three of us – to be able to move on with our lives. That’s all. I want us healed. I want all that stuff, whatever it is, put away in a box for good. I want... I want us to be friends again, just like we were back then, before everything got so damned dark.”

She placed her hand over his and squeezed. Her bones felt tiny, like a bird’s. He glanced at the budgie; it was immobile, and staring at him through the bars.

Brendan chose that moment to come back into the room. His hairline was damp, as if he’d washed his face; his eyes and cheeks were red, as if he’d been rubbing them. He looked more tired than Simon had seen him since their reunion. He looked... wasted.

“We’d better go. Thanks again.”

“Let yourself out, lads. These old legs of mine are playing up again, and I’d rather not stand, if that’s okay.” She wriggled her feet, as if to demonstrate what she meant.

“Don’t worry, we can find our way out. Bye, Percy.” Simon stood and approached Brendan, ushered him out of the door.

“What the hell was wrong with you in there?” They were standing outside, on the footpath next to the gate to Hilda’s place. “I thought you were going to do all the talking? You left me high and dry. It’s a fucking good job she liked me, or we would’ve got nothing.”

Brendan was leaning against the privet bush next door. He rubbed his cheeks, licked his lips. “Sorry... I just. I didn’t feel well. I have this rash... on my back. It’s been bothering me.”

“Okay, okay.” Slowly, Simon started walking backwards along the street, in the direction of the Arcade. “I’ll see you tonight, for dinner. Just get yourself home and have some rest. We can talk again then. I’ll bring some wine for the table. We can get pissed and go through all this new information.”

Brendan looked up. His cheeks were pale now, but there were thin red lines, like scratch marks, running from just under his eyes to a point level with his mouth. “Where are you going?” The marks faded to white as Simon watched.

Simon turned around and increased his pace. He glanced over his shoulder but did not alter his stride. “Me? I’m off to put a bet on.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

J
ANE WAS OUT
when Brendan got home. She was always out these days, as if the walls of the house were no longer able to hold her. He staggered through the door and into the hall, feeling giddy, light-headed. His back and shoulders ached. He leaned sideways against the wall, out of breath. His vision was swimming; he waited for it to clear.

He turned and stared at his reflection in the mirror mounted in the hallway. His face was damp with sweat, and his eyes were bloodshot. Behind him, hanging on the wall, he could see a family photograph: him, Jane, the twins. It was like a catalogue shot, deliberately posed to sell him something he didn’t need. As with every family shot in the house, he had the sense that something was missing.

“What’s happening to me?”

After a few seconds he turned away, disgusted with himself. He felt weak, absent, as if he was barely making an impact on the world. The safe existence he’d created over the years was being threatened. Everything was changing.

Carefully, Brendan took off his coat and hung it on the hook at the bottom of the stairs. He grabbed the banister and started to climb, heading up to the first floor. His legs ached; his back was burning. His other hand groped along the wall, feeling the ridges of the cheap wallpaper.

When he reached the top of the stairs he was breathless. He shoved open the bathroom door and turned on the light. Despite the sunshine, the small room never got much natural light. It was always dim in there. He looked again at his reflection in the mirror and did not recognise it from the one downstairs. His features looked different, as if he’d transformed somehow on the journey up to this level. He shook his head, trying to dispel the idiotic thoughts.

Pull yourself together. Get a fucking grip.

Slowly, he peeled off his shirt.

He’d deliberately worn a shirt that was two sizes too big, just to give the acne some breathing space. He wasn’t sure if it had made any difference, but it was all he could think of. Back at the old lady’s place, when he’d got up to use her bathroom, he’d taken off his jacket and seen specks of blood on the shirt collar. Since his strange experience early that morning, when he’d felt pinned to the bed by some angry force, he’d become convinced that the spots on his back had begun to change. He was almost afraid to inspect them and see what they looked like now.

Brendan dropped the shirt on the bathroom floor.

He turned slowly to the side and started picking at the plasters that held the dressing in place. There were small spots of blood on the white cotton gauze. It wasn’t much, but it was there, like a warning. He pulled at the plasters and removed them, wincing as they pulled out tiny hairs, and then lifted the dressing to reveal his lacerated flesh.

Turning around to present his back to the mirror, he strained to look at the reflection of his rear side. Despite the presence of the blood, the pustules looked dry – drier than they had in a while. No fluids glistened on his body; no vile-coloured ichors had been spilled. The acne was more like a patch of damaged skin than individual wounds. It looked as if someone had laid a sheet, or several sheets, of treated rubber over his upper back – like a TV special effect in a hospital soap opera. He flexed the muscles there, testing it. The pain flared briefly and then died.

But then something strange happened.

When he stopped moving, the wounds continued to stir. The damaged skin shuddered, as if from an electric current being passed through it. The skin clenched, like the backs of hands making fists, and as he watched, parts of it rose, like flaps – or like two eyelids.

Beneath each of these thin lids, there was a small, dark eye. For some reason Brendan was not shocked. He knew that he should be – he realised that eyes opening up in a person’s back was not a normal or natural occurrence, and he should be screaming in horror – but instead he experienced a strange overwhelming sense of calm.

The eyelids blinked, fluttering like a cheap whore’s on a neon-soaked boardwalk. The eyes weren’t human, he could see that clearly. They were yellow, rather than white, around the outside, and the pupils were strange... black and horizontal, like rectangular slots at the centre of the iris. They reminded him of something and he struggled to grab hold of an image. Then, suddenly, it came to him. Those weird eyes... they were the eyes of a goat.

The eyelids blinked again. Brendan had the feeling that they were waiting for something – perhaps for him, to acknowledge them.

“I’m not afraid,” he said. “I know I should be, but I’m not. I was afraid of you twenty years ago, when you locked us up in the dark, but that was a lifetime ago. You don’t scare me, you fucker. You make me angry, not afraid.” He curled his hands into fists.

The eyelids widened; the black, slotted pupils contracted. From somewhere in the small bathroom – the ends of the taps, the bath plug, the toilet bowl – came a familiar clicking sound. It started slowly, gaining speed as he listened, but remained at a constant volume.

“It’s just a trick,” said Brendan. “You can’t hurt me. If you could, you’d have done it by now. You’ve had twenty fucking years to kill me, but I’m still alive. I’m still here. So do your worst. I dare you.”

The two eyelids blinked again. And then they closed.

Brendan was shaking. He had not felt so alive in years. There was fire in his belly, his blood was molten lava, and he felt as if he could take on anyone and win. “
Do your fucking worst
,” he whispered.

He filled the sink with cold water and washed his face, then dabbed at his back with a wet cloth. The infected skin looked the same as it had done before, before those weird eyes opening. Oddly, it seemed as if the acne was healing, the badness leaking out, draining off. He pressed his fingertips against the spots, but they did not burst; the skin didn’t break.

Bending down, he picked up his shirt. When he straightened up he looked again at his face in the mirror. This time his own eyes were like a goat’s, with dull yellow irises and slotted black pupils. He stepped backwards, stumbling, and fell sideways, almost into the bath, slamming his arm against the edge of the tub as he did so. Breathing heavily, he pulled himself upright, using the sink for leverage, and looked directly into the mirror.

His eyes were normal again.

“More cheap tricks,” he said, leaning forward, pressing his nose against the glass. “They won’t work now. We’re all grown up and we don’t scare easy.” He smiled. In the mirror, his face looked sweaty and manic. “We’re not little kids.”

Brendan threw the damp shirt in the direction of the washing basket and then took off his jeans, socks and underpants and sent them the same way. He walked naked along the landing and went into the bedroom, where he picked out some clean clothes. He also selected another outfit for later that evening – dark dress trousers, the black silk shirt Jane had bought him last Christmas, and his best pair of shoes.

He sat down on the bed and began to polish the shoes with a duster. The methodical task calmed his mind, helped him to relax.