Dark Winter (31 page)
Miracles
.
Thanks go to Oli Munson at Blake Friedmann for being generally ace and putting up with my endless questions, and also to Jon at Quercus for much the same reason. Thanks, too, to Sarah Jones and Sarah Morgan for being the people you are. More than anything, thanks to Nik and the kids. You give me a reason.
I am also grateful to Ottar Sveinsson, whose terrific book
Doom in the Deep
proved invaluable in researching the Triple Trawler Tragedy.
Should have Hoovered
, he thinks, picking a piece of fluff from his tongue.
Should have made it pretty
.
He feels a pressure in his lower back.
Should have had a piss too
.
He pushes himself up, raising his body from the floor, a mermaid ascending in a crash of spray, and attempts to brush the crumbs and cat hairs from his shiny chest.
All this bloody oil
, he thinks.
So slippy. So slick. Going to be like wrestling a dolphin …
The alarm on his phone bleeps. It is gone ten. His visitor is later than he had intended to allow.
Big girl’s blouse
, he calls himself, and then, in his father’s voice: ‘Fucking poof.’
The boy has been here some time. He is feeling uncomfortable. The wrong kind of dirty. Desire is starting to fade.
He wonders if there is a word to describe this opposite of ardour: the dissipation of lust; the moment when passion loosens its noose.
He is beginning to feel a little silly. A little undignified.
He tries to think of a better way to describe the sensation. He likes words. Likes to be thought of as articulate. Uses the apostrophe in the right place when promising to fulfil any lover’s desire. Takes an effort with his poetry.
Shabby
.
He is suddenly aware of the shabbiness of this picture. Here, in his cheap, first-floor flat, naked on his cheap carpet, shooing away his cat when she appears at his bedroom door and fixes him with an expression of sneering superiority.
‘Five more minutes,’ he says again, and wonders if this will be another let-down. Whether he will have wasted time and expectation on another coward.
His back and shoulders are beginning to burn in the glare of the three-bar heater. It’s an odd feeling. The rest of him is shivering and goose-pimpled. He turns himself over, suppressing a giggle as he thinks of himself as a chicken on a rotisserie.
‘Spit-roasted,’ he says to himself and laughs into his bare arm.
His face is now in the glare. It’s too hot. He turns back again, concerned that he will look red and sweaty. He raises a hand to pick more crumbs and fluff from his face.
The lad is in his mid-twenties, tall and thin. His face, beginning to carry the imprint of the dusty carpet that covers the entirety of his one-bedroomed flat, is split by fleshy lips and a too-large nose. He is not attractive, but there are benefits to his company.
‘I’m accommodating,’ he says into the carpet, his mouth and forearm making a pocket of cigarette breath, and wriggles, willing himself back into character.
He is naked. Starfished, face-down on the floor of his living room. There is not much room for his gangly frame. He has had to push back the charity-shop two-seater sofa and throw the old takeaway pizza boxes into his bedroom to be able to suitably accommodate his visitor.
‘Five more minutes,’ he says again, reluctant to accept that tonight’s fantasy will remain just that.
He reaches out for his mobile phone, tucked inside one of his battered white trainers. No new messages.
He reads the recent ones.
Oh yes
.
Feels the excitement build afresh. Has to reposition himself to accommodate the growing hardness between his legs.
Begins to feel the hunger. A languid luxury easing itself into his movements.
Time to walk like a panther.
He giggles.
Hard as nails. Pretty as a picture.
You should charge, boy. You’re a fucking treat
.
Like a fleetingly sober drunk gulping whisky, the returning rush of sexuality alters his perceptions. He begins to feel better about the picture he presents. Remembers kind words and grateful embraces. Preens a little as he imagines the picture he presents to the open door. He knows his back and buttocks to be a breathtaking display; the ink that crawls up to his shoulders worth the agony that he screamed into the tattooist’s table.
He will make his visitor happy.
There is a sudden creak on the stairs.
He smiles, and his breath comes out in a tremble.
Here we go
.
He arches his back. Presents himself for inspection. Raises his face to ensure the belt, coiled snake-like, is where he left it.
‘Is this what you wanted?’ he asks, throaty and sensual.
There is silence for a moment. The floorboards creak.
Then he feels the familiar weight on his back. The sensation of being pinned beneath another human being. The excitement of welcome helplessness that comes with giving yourself to another.
In the periphery of his vision, the belt is scooped up in a gloved hand. He closes his eyes, eager to play.
‘Am I your fantasy?’ he asks again.
The reply, when it finally comes, is hissed into his ear: a tumbled rush of excited words.
‘To die for.’
There is a sudden, biting, flesh-ripping sensation, as though his Adam’s apple is being forced up into his skull.
‘Her name!’
Spittle hisses from between his ghoulishly parted lips, frothing on his chin, into the dust and crumbs. His eyes bubbling, popping, like microwaved soup …
In an instant, his faculties are at once dulled and frenzied, his thoughts twisted and squeezed.
Too tight, too hard, too much; fantasy becoming fear
.
The words again …
‘Your friend. Pink blossoms. The laughing girl.’
There is only confusion and hurt, a sensation of becoming somehow less; of reducing, melting, puddling into nothing …
‘The girl. Laughing at me …’
Darkness closes in as his oily fingers and skinny legs drum on the dusty floor.
An instant of clarity. A sudden heartbeat of understanding. What this is for. Why he is dying. Why the life is leaving his body and the poetry leaving his soul. What they want. What he must do …
The voice again, wet in his ear.
Anger. Venom.
‘The one who looked and laughed …’
A knee now, hard in his spine; his back arching, teeth bringing blood to his thin lips, blood thundering in his ears …
He wants to plead. Wants to beg for his life. Wants this to stop. Wants to live. To write and create. To fuck and dance.
‘Name. Her fucking name.’
He knows now. Knows these will be his last words. Knows that all the warnings were for nothing. He’s going to die, and his final act in this life will be one of betrayal.
The cord loosens for the slightest of moments. The strong hands readjust their grip.
The boy takes a gulp of air. Tries to swallow it. Manages only to hiss, before the cord cuts back under his jawbone and an explosion of sweet-smelling blood flowers and flows from his eyes.
‘Suzie …’
Her name at once an act of treachery and a dying invocation.
Available April 2013
