I Am The Wind (3 page)

But I didn’t. Die, I mean. He hadn’t sent my nose bone into my brain. He’d just broken it and moved back to admire his handiwork. Blood spurted from my nostrils, and by instinct I cupped my hand to catch it, hoping nothing landed on Ted’s pristine cream carpet.

He didn’t like a mess.

Sadly, quite a bit of blood trickled over the edge of my palm, and Ted stared down to watch it fall. It landed with a dull splatter, and like the girl he always accused me of being, I whimpered.

“Well,” he said. “You’ve gone and stained the fucking carpet. May as well stain it some more before getting the cleaners in, seeing as you won’t be here to do it.”

I knew what was coming and took my hand away from my face in order to hold both arms up, crossed in a defensive gesture. I’d found if I could shield my face it wasn’t so bad. He usually littered me with punches to my gut, my groin, my ribs, places where the bruises didn’t show. He didn’t let me down at first, raining thumps on me, his face contorting, mouth a skewed line, teeth bared. Words, wanky, horrible words spewing out of him. If anyone heard him they’d think he was homophobic.

Dirty poof. Nasty little shirt lifter. Fucking faggy cock-sucker.

I did what I’d always done, held him off as best I could, endured the beating. I crumpled to the floor and hunched into a ball. He kicked my back, my sides, even a swift roundhouse up the jacksie, yet still I didn’t lose consciousness. I held on, crying out as the kicks and jabs got harder, as his words grew crueller. He managed to smack me in the face a few times despite my efforts to ward him off, and when I covered my face and he couldn’t hit me there anymore, he returned his attention to my body.

Until he’d worn himself out and sloped off, flinging himself on the sofa, his breaths short and ragged, his mean gaze telling me it was my fault.

All my bloody fault.

“When you’ve composed yourself,” he said, “you can fuck off. For good this time.”

It took an hour to do just that. An hour before I could get up, body screaming with pain, mind working out just what the hell had happened. Again. Where I’d go, what I’d do. I glanced at the clock—just after midnight—and saw myself sleeping in a damp alley, my bag a pillow, spare coat a blanket.

A tramp, that’s what I’d become.

With great difficulty, I packed my bag—the one I’d arrived with—and re-entered the living room to find Ted fast asleep, my blood on his hands, a great fuck-off stain of it on his precious carpet, spatters up the cream wall. What would he tell the cleaners?

Why did I care?

I put my keys on the glass coffee table, quiet as I could. The glass on that thing had been replaced a couple of times since I’d been there. Hurts like a bitch when you’re rammed into it. Heads are pretty damn hard if they can break glass like that. The crackle-glaze effect looked pretty, though.

I pushed the memories away. Of course, tears stung my eyes. I’d lived there since I was nineteen years old, stuck it out because I thought maybe I could make Ted love me, make him want me to stay, but it hadn’t worked out like that, had it? So yeah, I cried a bit. Who wouldn’t?

In the hallway, I stared at my reflection in the mirror.

I didn’t recognise myself. Who was this bloke staring back at me, black hair matted with blood already drying it to hard tufts? How could I see out of eyes that had swollen to slits? When would I breathe through my nose again, what with the rapidly drying blood clogging it? A nasty split on my lip oozed fresh blood, and as I hefted my bag onto my shoulder, I cringed at the tenderness in my ribs.

He’d not only broken my nose, then.

I left Ted’s. Walked down the steps to the pavement and let my feet take me wherever. It wasn’t as if I had a destination in mind, was it? I thought of a million things on that dark walk. Mum. The way it used to be before I… My old mates and what they’d said after they’d heard the news. You’d think years of friendship would count for something, wouldn’t you, but it doesn’t. Ted and what he’d said and done. Why me? I wasn’t a bad person. I didn’t deserve the bollocks they’d all given me.

I found myself standing outside St Helen’s, the huge, sprawling white hospital on the outskirts of the city. I went inside the ER, getting looks from people in various states, from broken arms to pieces of glass jutting out of heads and legs. Black eyes, like mine, but on a woman and her kid. Some bird on a stretcher, groaning in pain, her belly swollen, the baby inside clearly giving her some gyp.

At the desk, I booked myself a place to sit for hours and later endured a barrage of endless questions as to how I got to be in this mess. I lied, said some cunt had jumped me as I left the pub, a gay attack I didn’t want to report to the police. The nurse, she cleaned me up, strapped my nose and bandaged my ribs. Gave me pain killers that wouldn’t do jack shit in making me feel better—they weren’t anything I couldn’t get for sixteen pence in the supermarket anyway.

Lousy, cheapskate NHS.

Still, it killed a few hours, me being in the hospital, and at four-thirty I left the building, ribbons of pale sunlight streaking the sky, ready to spread and bring on full daylight. A new day. A new start.

A visit to the local council office.

I wiled away the time between then and nine, situating myself outside the council, sitting on my bag full of clothes and thinking about the way my life was one complete and utter fuck-up. Something had to give. Someone out there had to give a shit.

Once the council doors swung open, I creaked to standing and went inside, stating my business only to be told they couldn’t help me. I’d made myself homeless, they said, walking out of Ted’s like that. What a bunch of fucking tossers. It was obvious I couldn’t have stayed at Ted’s, and they knew that, judging by the way they stared warily at my war wounds.

Like everyone else in my life since I’d come out, they didn’t give a fuck.

Didn’t want me there, didn’t want to help.

I left that place with a leaflet about some hostel clutched in my hand and made my agonizing way there. It took an hour just to walk the short distance, and I stopped several times to catch my breath, to give my body a rest. I wanted nothing more than to just fall down and sleep, to wake up in a nice bed with a bloke who cared about me and didn’t want me to leave. A bloke who
wanted
me there. But that wasn’t going to happen, was it? Not with the state I was in anyway.

At the hostel, the woman who interviewed prospective residents gave me one of those looks that spoke a million words. You’re not welcome here. Your type, we don’t need them. Still, she showed me to her office, told me to sit on the hard grey chair in front of her desk, offered me a coffee—and a straw to drink it through. She had a heart, then, even if it was small and incapable of fully feeling for someone like me. Oh, I knew she’d probably seen all sorts in her line of work, had hardened her heart in order to get through her days. I was just one of a string of bums who hadn’t quite got a grip on life and how it should be led.

Shit, I hadn’t been given the chance, really.

There was no place at the inn—what a damn surprise—but she did find me a bedsit and made sure my unemployment and housing benefit forms were filled out properly. She also gave me a cheque for a deposit made out to the landlord of the bedsit, and a twenty quid note to see me through until my benefits were sorted—that was a fucking joke, considering benefits took up to six weeks to be worked out—then sent me on my way.

Off her hands, out of her hair.

Goodbye, Mr Christian Simmons, you’re not wanted here either.

CHAPTER THREE

Time to Let Go

“
S
o how long ago was that again?” Alfie asks, standing from the ladder-back chair and rasping his palm over his chin.

“Four years ago.” I sit up, crossing my legs, making it clear I have no intention of trying to get up. To run.

“And you still live in the same bedsit?”

He stares into the flames, and I watch the reflection of them dancing over his irises. He looks thoughtful, as though he’s trying to work out what to do next. Whether he believes me.

God, he’s sexy as fuck. I could just do with shifting over there and snuggling up to him, lifting my face to his and giving him a kiss he’s not likely to forget in a hurry. Now isn’t the time for that, though. He’s still on tenterhooks, I can tell. Nervous, his muscles taut, his mind working overtime, alert to any sudden movement I might make. Doesn’t matter whether I’d make it clear my approach wasn’t threatening. That I was crawling over to him with the intent to kiss his fears away. To hold him to me and stroke his soft hair, make love to him the way he has to me these past weeks, my intention to bring him pleasure and forget about my own. He’s done that, you know. It’s all been about me. He has so much love to give. It spills out of him when we’re naked, shines off him, a big old ball of devotion. How can I deny that? How can I want to be anywhere else, with anyone else?

I remain where I am. Sigh. “Yep. Same nasty little place. Still, it’s better than the alley I thought I’d be sleeping in.” I laugh, trying to lighten the mood.

He doesn’t join in. Doesn’t even smile. Instead, he frowns, stares down at his hands. “How come you
keep
losing jobs?”

That was an easy one to answer. “Ted. I reckon it’s him. Got to be, hasn’t it. Solicitor and all that, he knows how to keep tabs on someone. I think each time I get a job, he finds out and makes sure to tell them I’m a thief. I’m not, didn’t take fuck all or fiddle anything, but they’ve only got to check the employer I had just before I left Ted to have his claims confirmed. Maybe they take me on without looking into my past work placements until I’ve been there a while. They find out why I was sacked before and get rid of me too. Whatever way you look at it, it’s a nightmare.”

“Sounds like it. And then this.”

He looks ashamed, as though he feels guilty. I don’t like the expression on his face, mouth downturned, eyes sad, cheeks flushed. I want to take it away. To get up and smooth the frown lines with my thumbs, to kiss him until he can’t think of anything but me.

“I’m so fucking sorry,” he says. “I shouldn’t have done this. Done that.” He gestures to my wrists. “Kept you here. Fucked you the way I have.”

“But I wanted you to fuck me. Still want you to.”

He doesn’t acknowledge what I’ve said, just frowns some more. Looks like he’s about to cry.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like that. I—” He stands. Walks to the mantel and ferrets about in a black ceramic pot, bringing out a pair of fingernail clippers. “I’ll take that off. The cable tie. Just got to hope these cut through it. If not, I’ll get the scissors in the kitchen.” He pauses to give me a sideways glance, eyes full of worry, guilt and regret. “You’ll stay, won’t you, if I cut you free?”

I nod, not knowing how I can make him believe me. I’m tired, too damn weary to do anything as energetic as fighting my way out of here, and besides, he was good company that first night, a right laugh, someone I can see myself getting along with really well. If only he’d give us a chance. Give me a chance. All right, we have this little blip standing between us, but it isn’t anything we can’t overcome, is it?

I can keep secrets.

Yeah, I’m a fuck-up. Whatever.

He hunkers down, begins clipping the tie, which proves stubborn until he puts some effort into it. The plastic breaks, the release making my hands spring apart, and despite knowing the skin’s sore as hell, I can’t help but rub my wrists. Wincing, I flex my fingers, rotate my hands, then place them in the diamond space between my legs. I want to say so much but choose to keep my mouth shut. I want to raise my arms and have him fill them.

He moves to the sofa, watching me over his shoulder as though waiting for me to bolt. It must be difficult for him, to have cut the tie. For all he knows, I could be biding my time, my mind full of getting to the police station and telling them some crazy bastard kept me locked in his cellar for weeks. He sits at one end, bringing his legs up and under him. He looks nice in those dark blue jeans and that red T-shirt. His feet without socks.

“Come and sit up here with me?” He pats the settee, watching me the whole time.

I never thought he’d ask, and I get up, shuffle my way over to the seat and sit at the opposite end. The comfort is almost too much, this little bit of freedom too, and I bite my bottom lip to stop it trembling.

You’re like a fucking girl, you know that?

I rest my head back, close my eyes, and wonder what Alfie’s thinking. Is he on pins and needles, poised, his relaxed posture belying the fact he’s ready to spring up and catch me if I decide to make a break for it? It doesn’t matter if he is—I can’t be arsed to think about running off. All I want to do is sleep, make the tale I told him go away. Reliving it, thinking about it, always takes it out of me.

The heat from the fire soothes me, his breathing a soft accompaniment to the crackling, popping logs. It isn’t long before I give in and let sleep start to claim me. If he turns nasty while I sleep, well, I’ve been in bad scrapes before and come out the other side.

But something tells me it won’t be that way. Not now.

Not when he knows a little bit about me.

I know I’m asleep, but this is one of those dreams where even though I’m aware nothing is real, it feels real just the same. I’m in this tunnel, a canal with choppy water to my right, and at the end stands some bloke, light surrounding him. He’s a bastard, I can feel it, the bastardness emanating off him in waves, reaching me like a scent on the breeze, a breath on my neck.

I think of Ted’s breath that final night, how it smelled, and wonder why such a thing went through my mind when I’m facing a nasty piece of work here. All right, it’s a dream tunnel, but this setting, his figure looming in the distance is something I have to deal with. I read a lot. Know that dreams are your subconscious trying to work things out, to show you what the problem is and how to deal with it.

So what does he represent? Every bad thing that’s ever happened, I reckon. He’s an amalgamation of all the people who turned on me, made me feel worthless. His hulking size…stands to reason he’d be big. He’s got quite a few wankers to represent.