CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

 

 

DARYL FELT THEIR gaze upon him as soon as he entered the bar, crawling across his face and body like swarms of insects, picking at his clothing and trying to get underneath, under his skin.

“This is Daryl,” said the girl... what was her name again?

“Who is he, Claire?”

Ah, yes, that was it: the lovely Claire.

“I just told you, he’s called Daryl.”

“I don’t care about his name, I just wanna know who the fuck he is.” An old woman stepped forward, away from the wall, where she’d been sitting on a pile of blankets.

“I’m no one,” he said, at last. “Just another survivor, like you people.”

A low murmur passed through the group of nine or ten people; most of them were nodding, and Daryl knew he’d said the right thing. After a lifetime of being verbally challenged, at last he seemed capable of saying the right thing, and at the right time.

“I said we’d help him, Rose” said Claire. She looked a lot like Sally, which was why Daryl had stopped to help her when he’d spotted her running along the road in her bare feet. She’d been trying to escape a group of youths, who’d decided it would be fun to rape her, and when she clambered onto the back of the moped Daryl had enjoyed the way her arms went around his waist and her chin pressed into his back.

“If you vouch for him, then I suppose I can’t argue with that,” said the old woman, retreating to her nest of blankets. “Just keep out of my way – both of ye!”

Claire grabbed his hand, her grip warm and tight. She possessed Sally’s build, and had similar cat-like eyes. But her hair was short, and the wrong colour. Instead of Sally’s ash-blonde bobbed style, this girl had a dull brown mop-top cut far too close to her skull and above her small ears. She wore clothes that Sally would never buy, too. Trendy rags Daryl wasn’t exactly taken with.

But she would do for now, until he could have the real thing. Then he would dispose of her, and enjoy doing so, but right now she was merely an adequate substitute.

“This way,” said Claire, pulling him away from the others. They turned away, he had ceased to be of interest. “My stuff’s over here.” There were no lights on in the pub, but he could still see well enough to make his way behind her.

Just as they approached a booth near the back of the bar, there was the sound of gunfire outside, distant yet close enough to be heard clearly.

“Somebody’s shooting,” said a male voice. “Is it the police?”

“Will you look at this?” This was spoken by a woman, her voice rising with excitement. “Come here, Penny. Come and look at the loud colours in the sky.”

A short, stocky Downs girl with her hair tied in bunches moved forward and approached the window. Her face reflected the fireworks outside and her eyes were filled with tears. “Beautiful,” she said. “The loud colours are beautiful.”

That phrase... it triggered something in Daryl’s memory. When he was ten years old Mother had taken him to the dentist to have a tooth removed. He’d been eating too many sweets, drinking too much fizzy pop. This was back in the days when dentists still used gas to knock out their patients, and Daryl recalled the stale rubbery smell of the mask as it was lowered onto his face, the way it had smothered the world with its cruel odour. Then, the gas: it smelled of rubber too, because, of course, it was odourless.

While he was under Daryl had a vivid dream, so real that it was really a hallucination. He’d been sitting in a small wooden rowing boat, looking up at a bearded man dressed in a long white robe. The robed man was using a long paddle to push the boat through what looked like quite shallow water. But the water was black, and it was impossible to see what lay beneath it.

The man, Daryl had known instinctively, was Christ. But he was the Christ as pictured in Mother’s picture books: tall, robust, serene, and very white. A picture-perfect Anglo-Saxon messiah, with clear blue eyes and a big white smile.

Daryl had looked around him, peering into the darkness that surrounded the boat. He noticed that they were sailing through an arched chamber, and before long he realised that the low, vaulted roof and ribbed walls were in fact the ribcage and vertebrae of a huge fish, or possibly a whale.

This strong caucasian Christ was steering them through the belly of a whale.

“Why am I here?” the question had seemed perfectly natural at the time; the right thing to ask.

Christ looked down at him, smiling that toothpaste ad smile, and spoke softly: “The loud colours will smell of the universe.”

The phrase troubled him, and just as he was about to ask for clarification, he’d woken up in the dentist’s chair, minus one back tooth. Daryl had experienced nightmares about the dream for weeks, and had wept in confusion, wondering what Christ had meant. He had not thought about it for years, but now he felt as if one of life’s mysteries had been answered.

He moved to the window, with Claire at his side, and watched the impromptu firework display. At the edges of the city, in all the estates and suburban communities, people were letting off fireworks. They appeared in small pockets, ripping up the sky. Other areas answered with their own brief displays, like small signs of life amid all this marching death. Who knew where it had started, but it continued for quite some time, mystical and magnificent, a crude form of magic.

“Oh, God. Do you realise what day it is tomorrow?” Claire held his hand; her fingers were warm.

Everyone gathered around the windows, opening the shutters and staring out at the display.

“No,” he said. “What day is it tomorrow?”

“It’s November fifth: Bonfire Night.”

Daryl smiled. “And that, of course, makes this Mischief Night.” The irony was almost painful, and he saw it as yet another example of how comedy and tragedy were intrinsically linked, like two chords tied into an impossible knot.

Mischief Night.

Twenty-four hours before bonfire night, or Guy Fawkes, as it was more commonly known when Daryl was a boy; the evening when the youth of Yorkshire were expected to play pranks in the streets, egging cars and houses, letting down tyres, playing all manner of practical jokes and causing low-grade problems for their neighbours. It was a tradition, something he’d even feared as a boy.

“Oh,” he said. “How fucking perfect.”

All too soon the fireworks ended. People shuttered the windows, pulled the heavy drapes, and drifted back to their positions, none of them willing to speak and break the momentary spell.

A man was drinking at the bar; he was the only member of the group who had not watched the fireworks. His face was set into an expression of determination, as if he were insistent upon getting drunk. His hand rose and fell like a metronome, its rhythm compelling. Daryl watched the man for a while as Claire made up a bed on the long velvet-lined seat. The man’s chin was covered in a thick layer of dark stubble and his eyes were darker still. He narrowed those eyes and glared at Daryl, then nodded once. Daryl nodded back before turning away.

“We can rest here,” said Claire, settling down onto the cushions she’d piled up on the seat. She had on a short skirt which showed off her bare legs. Her feet were bare, too, and dirty from the road.

“Thanks,” Daryl lay down next to her, unsure of how to act. He’d never had a girlfriend, had never even had a girl as a platonic friend. Females were strange to him; all he knew was Mother, and he knew just enough to gather that she was not typical of her gender.

Claire cuddled up close, her arm going around his waist; the other hand crept into his lap, where it rested like a contented house pet. “Where were you going when you saved me?”

Her use of the word ‘saved’ was weighted with significance, but he failed to understand what that meant. He was wary, yet at the same time her body was warm and soft, and he felt a new sensation stirring within him, a sense of closeness; a sort of heat that he had never before experienced.

“Mmm...” she murmured, burying her face in his side.

“I was just driving, looking for somewhere safe.” He could barely form the words; his lips felt like rolls of rubber and his teeth had grown suddenly too big for his mouth. “What about you? How long have you been here, in this place?”

“We all sort of gathered here last night, when everything went wild. Tonight, I got caught out looking for supplies – we’re running low on food – and I got separated from the others.” Her hand spread out across his lap, teasing him erect.

Daryl shifted his body, trying to protect himself from her touch. This was all too much; it was way beyond his narrow understanding of human relationships. He felt more comfortable thinking about murder than he did sex. “I need to pee,” he said, getting up and crossing the room, eyes searching for the bathroom.

“Over there,” said the man at the bar, the heavy drinker, as Daryl passed his position.

Daryl headed for the bathroom, barged through the door, and leaned his back against it. He closed his eyes and counted to ten, willing his erection to go away. He thought about Sally’s battered body, but that only aroused him more, so instead he thought about Mother and the prayers she had muttered every day of his life. The darkness in the bathroom pressed in on him, faces lunging out of its depths: Mother, Sally, Richard Nixon (of all people!)... Daryl gritted his teeth and wished them all away.

When he re-entered the main room, the drinker at the bar motioned him over. “Drink?” he raised a spare shot glass.

Daryl approached him, not yet willing to return to Claire. “Thanks,” he said, reaching for the glass. The man grinned. His eyes shone, spit glistened on his brown-stained teeth. He was pissed.

Daryl sipped the clear fluid – was it vodka? The taste was awful, like strong medicine, but he enjoyed the way it burned his throat, cleansing it. “Cheers,” he croaked.

“She’s had them all,” said the drinker, motioning his head towards Claire. “All the young blokes. She used to be a regular in here. I’d watch her chat ’em up, take ’em home, and then ignore ’em the next night in favour of some other stud.” His eyes rolled in their sockets, dull and unfocused. “She’ll show you a good time, mate. Give her one for me.” He raised his glass, belched.

Daryl staggered away, back to the girl, her flat, lifeless eyes, her base lust, her small soft, breasts and the unknown wetness between her legs. She reached for him, her fingers like claws, and he could do nothing but succumb to her hunger. Her lips, when she pressed them against his mouth, were bland and moist and puffy; her hand grabbed at his cock, pawing him like a piece of meat. He thought of the dead things out there, the way they pulled bodies apart, and only then did his erection return.

She fucked him right there, under the thick blankets, with everyone ignoring the sounds they made in the musty darkness. Daryl allowed her to control it all, watching from afar, inspecting how she pushed him inside and rode him, her mouth open, eyes closed; the way she no doubt imagined that he was someone else – someone better – as she bucked against him and brought herself to a shuddering climax. Daryl had little to do with the act. It was all about Claire, her need, her desperation. He could have been a tree stump, or a fence post.

He rolled away from her, his cock still sticky. He wiped himself on the blanket and stared up at the ceiling. Someone laughed nearby, and when he glanced over at the bar, the drinker was watching, always watching, and he raised his glass in another of his mysterious silent toasts.

Give her one for me.

Daryl did not even know what that meant.

If this was what it took to be a man, to be human, then he did not want to know. He was better off remaining free of emotions, staying away from social and sexual intercourse, and killing those he felt drawn to. This girl, this cheap barroom slut, was nothing compared to Sally. She might possess a slight passing resemblance, but that was where it ended. Sally would never act this way. She was pure and graceful; even dead, she was better than this filth he’d rutted with on a low bench among strangers.

His mission was firm in his mind now; at least he could thank Claire for that. The initial repulsion he’d felt gave way to something akin to pity. He felt sorry that she was forced to live this way, and that she had never been given a direction in life. Bar to bar, stranger to stranger, she had been passed along like a shared cigarette. She had no idea what she was worth, yet in his eyes she was truly worthless.

Daryl watched her as she snored beside him. He snaked his arm around her neck, feeling her warmth. She snuggled up against him, turning her body slightly and raising one leg to slide it across his belly. He lay on his back and thanked her for showing him the true face of human relations, the grubby reality that skulked beneath the surface glitter he’d seen in films and on television.

Better to be a killer than a lover, he thought. At least killers wake up alone in the morning.

A solitary firework detonated far away, on the other side of the city, as if punctuating the thought.