Rottenhouse (17 page)

Lucy waited for her father to be out of
sight and then said, ‘Sorry I’ve been a bit off, if that’s even the
right word, Christ, I can’t think straight. Got a million and one
stupid things going through my head. Memories of my childhood, this
house, the hills and how bloody green everything is, still is. It
hasn’t changed, Si. I know people say that a lot, but really, this
place hasn’t changed one little bit, it’s all the fucking same as
it was when I left. And as for all the attacks and murders; I am as
shocked as you are. Sorry it’s not going to plan, Sausage.’

Simon could have cried
and he felt his face tighten. And when he looked up and saw her
eyes were welling up he felt his throat tighten and was sure, given
the opportunity, his eyes would soon leak. All that had happened,
all that he had been through, all that Lucy had put him through was
swept away with that one single heart felt statement. ‘Was there
ever a plan? Do we ever
have
a plan? I can see what you mean about not changing
and I suppose why should it, I mean apart from all that’s gone on,
you can’t argue that this place is stunning.’

‘
He’s right though,
when you think about it. Might seem completely crazy but they have
their reasons.’

‘
We all have our
reasons, Luce, but that doesn’t make them right. I just can’t
understand how your dad can be so cold about it. I’ve never met
anyone like him. You have to admit he’s got some issues going
on.’

‘
He has his ways.
Guess I got used to them, but they do seem to have worsened since
mum died.’ She looked solemn. Her eyes closing and opening slowly,
wetter than they had been a minute or so ago. Lucy brushed her hair
from her face and took in a deep breath. She had never really
talked about her mum’s death. Lucy always managed to change the
subject whenever the conversation came up. He knew she had cared
for her mum, deeply, and that they had been more like sisters than
mother and daughter.

Simon said, ‘Can’t
believe how beautiful it is here. A few ticks shy of perfect. It’s
like a movie set, everything framed and brightly coloured. Reminds
me a bit of Hobbiton,
not that I’ve seen
many little people.’ He then pictured Lewis and Pickering and a few
of the others he had had the honour of meeting last night in the
club. ‘A few orcs and trolls mind you, but defo no
Hobbits.’

A little chuckle
popped out of Lucy and she lifted her hand up to her mouth to quash
it. ‘Does that make my dad
Bilbo?’

‘
Not a chance. If he’s
anyone he’s Saruman. Except he aint got no tower, only a
club.’

With her head cocked to one side and
looking down at the patchwork lawn she smiled and said, ‘Sméagol
then? No wait…probably more like Gollum’

He saw that Lucy was biting back a
laugh and that was enough to make him burst out with deep and
relieving laughter and together, sat in the hot garden in the
middle of butt fuck nowhere, drinking lemonade from glasses owned
by a sarcastic, egotistical moron, they shared that laughter and it
made them feel better about everything. However, one mile away, old
widower Johnson, who was mother to the late Stevie Johnson, had
just received, from the back of an old van, the last loosely
wrapped parcel of her sons chopped up body. Unlike Lucy and Simon
she wasn’t laughing. She wasn’t crying either. She wasn’t doing
anything except making sure that he was all there before Lewis and
Pickering left.

Skin You

1

Early evening and it was still hot in
Rottenhouse and the air smelt of asphalt, sickly sweet with
lavender and freshly cut grass and as they drove to the club Simon
lent his head out of the back passenger window and inhaled deeply.
It was a smell he had never taken in before and though sickly and
sour he enjoyed it. Found it strangely soothing; like incense in a
small room.

It was oddly quiet tonight in the
valley. The birds, the crickets, even the trees in the summer
breeze seemed lifeless and when getting out of the car Simon could
hear his own heart beat as it pumped blood around his body. There
were no cars in the car park but to his side, though he tried not
to look, the burnt out corpse of a house was still there,
untouched, like a reminder to those that leave candles on at night
that this is what can happen.

Last night when the club had been
draped in darkness and only lit by the two Victorian lamps, it had
looked ominous. A sleeping giant that you dared not wake. But as
he, Lucy and the ever present Mr Rowling walked from the same
parking spot as last night and toward the old building Simon could
see that whatever thoughts or nightmares he had conjured up were
farfetched, childish almost.

Lucy gazed at the building for a
moment, smiled, but didn’t say what was on her mind as they reached
the stone steps. Entering the club through the giant doors, she
placed her palm against the cool red brick and Simon was sure that
her eyes had narrowed then and that there was a tiny flinch as if
she had been shocked with a small jolt of electricity.

‘
You okay, Luce?’
Simon whispered.

‘
Yeah, I’m good. Just
been a long time, is all.’ Lucy struggled with that last part, her
throat not letting the words out so it sounded choked,
forced.

There was something
there, he knew there was; a fear of something. He could see that
fear, or what he thought was fear in those deep and delightful
eyes. It was the same fear he saw when she had gone to see her
friend who was dying of lung cancer. And even though she said she
was alright, that
everything was fine, Si,
just upset
is all
,
there had been something that had troubled her, put a fear in her
so deep that she too could suffer, that she was not beyond the
reach of Deaths cold hand. But what could possibly cause such a
fear when touching the brickwork of this old place?

They leak. They bleed. They don’t stop
once they started.

Get a grip, Si. Get a grip. This is the
real world, not a horror novel where the buildings come alive and
eat you up or that the old haunted house is built on an ancient
Indian burial ground and just to add insult to injury a radioactive
waste dumping ground.

‘
Are
you
okay?

‘
Wha?’

‘
You look a little
pale. Seen a ghost?’ Lucy smirked and placed her hand upon his
cheek. Her hand was warm and he leant into it noting that the good
old Mr Rowling was now talking to a skinny man far off in
reception.

‘
Peachy. Though I
wonder what treats we are in for tonight.’

They walked in together, not holding
hands, for Simon guessed that old man Rowling wouldn’t approve of
that, but close together so that they bumped hips a couple of
times. Taking a deep breath, watching as Lucy, who would be known
as Barbara to these folks tonight, Simon readied himself for
another night at the club.

2

Early evening light drifted through the
tall windows of the club, it engulfed the bar with a pale pink glow
on a sweet summer’s eve. Dark shadows were cast in the corners of
the room, hiding potential monsters. The old oak and beech trees
that encircled the building cast long twisting lunatic black lines
across the wooden floor that in the prevailing wind they waved and
grabbed at you as you walked past like the clutches of hell
itself.

3

Sunday night at Rottenhouse Working
Man’s Club was ladies night, for a fashion, and the usual guttural
man talk was now interjected with the occasional twitter and muted
cackle of the woman folk. They were sat in the far corner of the
club, past the counter on the right had side not too far from where
the Chairman had been seated not 24 hours prior. Was there a reason
to them being sat near the all-seeing, all knowing and all
judgmental Chairman? Though it pained him to think so, Simon
guessed the answer was pretty obvious.

Simon, a bit more at ease with himself
and his surroundings (though when entering the club and as much as
he tried to stop his eyes from looking, Simon couldn’t resist the
pull of the far end of the old reception area and the stairway that
led down into that black nothingness that he had dreamt of last
night) sat in the exact same place he had last night, drinking the
exact same ale he had supped the night before, looking at exactly
the same group of men that he had seen here last night. The only
differences - apart from the women folk and the stale air now not
so quite as stale as there was a hint of perfume acting like an
undercurrent to a corked wine - was that he was now not sat apart
from the rest of the men, but intermixed with them; one of them if
you were to believe in such things, and that the Chairman’s seat
was empty, like a throne of an old king, it sat unoccupied,
patiently waiting for its master.

The floor of the bar had been arranged
differently to last night. Now most of the tables were on the left
hand side and spread out accordingly so that it left a walkway
through to the bar and space to get to the toilet without much
toing and froing. On the right, where the men folk had been seated
yesterday, and Simon presumed for most nights except a Sunday when
the ladies joined them, there was now a raised platform and upon
that a microphone stand, drum kit, a couple of acoustic guitars and
many other musical instruments that Simon did not know the name of
and some even he didn’t even recognise. Below the raised platform
was a clear spot that could possibly be a dance floor, though Simon
doubted that there would be much dancing going on tonight.

Taking down a good
measure of his ale his eyes locked onto the rough, worn circle of
flooring that made up the
Beating
Zone,
and wasn’t surprised to see that it
was still devoid of any sort of detritus. Simon had only seen that
piece of floor once but his hatred for it was deep. Each time
someone ventured toward the
Beating
Zone
his heart raced and his body flexed,
poised like a coiled a snake to strike at whatever came at the
passer by though he doubted what the hell he would do if something
actually did happen. What was odd, more odd than the women sitting
on their own and all drinking the same drink, more odd than the
locked door in the corner of the room, more odd than the stairway
that led down to the eternal darkness in the reception, was that as
the person who approached the
Beating Zone
–
like the tall skinny man he had met last
night was doing right now – they got within a step of entering it
then veered wildly to either the right or the left, like there was
a hole to hell itself beneath their feet and their brain
screamed
get away, move!
Simon was amazed that the skinny man moved
instinctively to this right to go around the
Beating Zone
without even looking up,
and carried on to the bar without a passing glance at the worn
floor.

Local voices flowed over him, like a
passing train not stopping at your station. Leaving them well alone
and distancing himself from what the men were conversing about
unless it directly concerned him, which most of the time it did not
for fear of putting his foot in it. Lucy on the other hand, was
having the reminiscence of her life. Whatever fear Simon had
presumed was there; was gone and she was conversing with the lady
folk like they were her best buds from back home. There was muffled
laughter, as if it were not forbidden, but wholly frowned upon by
the husbands, and Lucy would occasionally look up to look for her
future husband to make sure that he was okay.

And Simon was, for the
most part. Yeah, he supposed, shit had most certainly gotten real
over the last couple of days. This was the first in-law meeting to
beat all first in-law meetings and he would be able to regale his
mates with tales of this wondrous for years to come. At first he
thought himself alone, that Lucy had drifted away and was replaced
by her old, lost self,
Barbara
. But this afternoon, he had
spoken too, been talked to, by his Lucy and it had filled his heart
with joy and his soul with a renewed sense of hope that this
journey hadn’t been for nothing and that he wasn’t alone in all
this. He had her and would always have her. There was still some
doubt though; watching Lucy with those once childhood friends
filled him with that doubt. She looked so comfortable, at ease. He
had never seen that look in her before. Well not never, there had
been occasions, but from what she had said about this place and the
reasons behind her leaving Simon thought it was odd. Perhaps it was
an act or perhaps she was being polite? He couldn’t be sure and who
could without the power of mindreading? Her eyes were wide and she
seemed interested in the other ladies small talk, something to
which he knew – like he knew that she had one sugar in her tea but
none in coffee – that she hated small talk and would at all costs
get out of it.

But now Simon had more
pressing matters to attend to and had known that sooner or later
the question would come up by those that didn’t know or understand.
Looking back from Lucy’s table, passed the
Beating Zone
he noticed that the eyes
of the table were upon him; awaiting his answer like a pack of
caged lions waited for their dinner.

4

‘
A photographer. I
kind a specialise in landscapes, montages, nature shots, that kind
of thing, but the studio that I own does a lot of portraits and
business promo shots. Its basic work but it pays the bills and
means I can spend more time on the part of my job I
enjoy.’