the man in the shed

It is early and Peter has tiptoed out of the house unnoticed. The enormous sky with high clouds, the warm breeze, the glittery dew, all foretell a glorious day but he turns his back on the hot sun and steals into his shed. A tail of string has hung grey and stiff forever from a nail in the door. He grips the frayed end and yanks the door shut behind him. One quick jerk or it sticks, his old dad had insisted.

 

The dark is immediate and total. Like the end of time. Not menacing, but a comforting embrace. Sanctuary. When Peter was a boy his father reassured him there was nothing to fear from the dark. It's all dark Pete-boy. Seeing, is only light bouncing back. He eases his haunches onto a high stool. The creaking boards and the sweet aroma of old fertilizer are a safe familiar world.

 

Mid morning the back door to the house scuffs open and music spills out, some guy crooning earnestly to his lost lover. She loves that stuff, Hope. He can hear her humming along now, and her slippers slapping on the garden path. The laundry hamper will be tucked under her arm. A big fat sigh as she reaches up for the bag of clothespins dangling from the line. He had hung that line and pulleys two decades ago, greased the wheels every year but she has never once mentioned it. It just works, always.

 

He listens to the swish as she drags a wet cloth along the line, walking arm aloft, from pole to pole, intent on her task, unaware of the wallflowers he had sown in the spring, or the bees busy among them or the woodpecker's distant drill.

 

Hope laps the garden. Peter sits motionless in the dark, his presence hidden.

 

She is hanging the laundry, kicking the hamper forward every few seconds, and by this he charts her progress to the far fence. Val will show up there next, her predictable, round face looming like a stupid, full moon, eager to gossip.

 

His pupils are wide and grey shapes have materialized. A rake and a spade, a broom and a hoe, a big old ho' his dad would joke; the shovel whose shaft he has gripped a thousand times and shouldered like a rifle, on his way to dig trenches; potting shelves lined with old newspaper, thin like brown skin; shrivelled cabbage seeds, in packets brittle with age; trowels and trays.

 

Braying donkey laughter from the yard, then, "No idea, Val. He's probably up the creek fishing or out riding that bike of his somewhere."

 

God, that voice; whining like a rusty gate hinge. Once it had been birdsong, enthusiastic chatter he could have listened to all day. Now it sets his teeth on edge. When had that started? He wants to barricade his eyes and ears permanently and a vivid thought occurs to him.

 

He visualizes the barrel behind the shed, a large one he had salvaged and converted to a water butt ten years ago; two hundred gallons of rainwater restrained by twenty four oak planks and four steel bands. A man could fit in there, submerged. He imagines hoisting his leg over the rim, slipping slowly into the chilly embrace until the water covers his head, those dark depths an effective hiding place. A casual glance and the surface tension might not betray his presence. Depending on vantage point, a hint of head may hover a few inches below, or the sky might reflect its own towering, azure brilliance and so conceal a man's body, isolated from his life, from his love, fighting for his very breath.

 

He shivers, and the idea sinks like a Leviathan, receding into the murk but not gone. Perhaps if they had had children it would be different. Precious new life to care for and nurture, a distraction from the humdrum and new reasons for happiness. From the dark of his shed it's hard to recall young Hope, the nubile siren who had gyrated on the Empire dance floor, who had caught his eye, then grabbed his guts.

 

She's droning on now about the latest American celebrities and the new Danielle Steel and the price of gas and the state of her joints, all the joy drained out of her. And while Val's going uh-huh, mmm, yep, Hope will be working through the clothespins, two in her mouth, two in her left hand, like her mother and grandmother before her; ducking to the pink hamper, and grunting as she straightens to shake out sheets.

 

He sweeps his palm across his father's old writing desk, now doing service as a workbench. Sawdust and bent screws, where once love letters had lain. To my sweetheart... Peter tries to imagine his father writing those words, fountain pen clasped crudely between lumpy, sausage fingers, tongue peeping from the corner of his mouth. He had, undeniably, and the proof lay stowed in an ancient shoebox in the attic. All those notes, dripping with love and bundled with elastic bands long perished and hard, letters which Peter had read once only and wept over, shaking with the sadness of all humankind.

 

That clumsy, beautiful man had built this shed and a happy life around it; had handed down his selfless genes to a dear, sweet son.

 

Val has spotted the wallflowers and now marigolds and pansies. Viola Tricolor, the Latin name marches into his head unbidden. There is a resonance and a beautiful order to floral classification.

 

"Sensitive? My Peter? You're kidding, right!" Hope dismisses this notion with a sharp exhale through her nose. Somehow she has learned to mistake his gentle traits for blandness. She stoops to grab a handful of knickers from the heap and through jaws clamped around fresh clothespins she grunts, "Senseless, more like."

 

Peter stares ahead, unseen and unknown. He rehearses a line of verse he has been working on in his mind. In her youth my Hope was my heart's desire. He wants to sink into the water butt right now and displace his own volume in iambic pentameter, pour out a poignant anthem for young lovers.

 

Val coughs. She sounds embarrassed.

 

When Hope bends, her skirt will be rising to show off the stubble on her chubby calves and the nasty red spot behind her knee which won't heal.

 

If she were to notice his head bobbing under the water would she jump to ram the lid on? Or would she turn into young Hope, swoop in and haul him out by the armpits, let him slither eel-like to the ground, then clamp her mouth on his and pump his chest frantically until waves of watery melancholy came belching from his lungs? But young Hope is gone, lost to the drudgery of middle-age. Life and her view of it has sucked all the loveliness from her.

 

The pulley wheel rattles as the laundry is winched aloft to catch the breeze.

 

The fence creaks and takes the strain of chatting friends, elbow to elbow. The topics are varied and fleeting. Peter hears the banter and the chuckling, gusting off in the wind.

 

Yet, he still believes he can somehow turn this all around. If only her banal exterior would crumble, fall away to reveal the wonderful woman inside. His real Hope. Someone must soften first, eat a generous slice of humble pie and say let's try. In books they go on vacation where sun, sea and sand revitalize drooping spirits and launch lives anew. He doesn't have a book.

 

"Acapulco," he whispers softly in the darkness. "Let me take you to Acapulco!"

 

"Beach, Val?" Hope sounds incredulous. "He wouldn't choose a beach holiday. Me, I always wanted to fly to Acapulco, lie on the sand and soak up the sun, drink piña coladas, but how would he have the first clue about that?"

 

Peter smiles but a tear wells in the corner of his eye, trickles and falls unseen in the shed.

 

"See, it's like this Val. Peter doesn't talk to me now. I never know what he's thinking. He disappears for hours on end. We've lost, you know, the spark..." Hope trails off and the laundry flaps.

 

Val is quiet too but Peter can sense her nodding gravely, waiting for more, hungry for morsels of detail, which don't come. He sits statue stiff in his shed listening as Hope's slippers clap the path back to the house.

 

The back door scuffs again then shrieks as she tugs it violently closed. He has deliberately avoided shaving the edge, ill-fitting since the heave of last thaw. He has made her tug it, taught her a tugging lesson.

 

***

 

As sheets and shirts and pants whip and crack in the wind, a reverie takes hold of him. Seven days ago, in a private moment of surrender, Peter conceded to himself that he had long ago slingshot himself into a distant elliptical orbit, his personal wilderness like the great void of interplanetary space. He had scorched a linear trail, a pioneer's route to the outer reaches of sustainable life, and far beyond the scope of two-way communication. The universe had rushed by his cocoon in a never ending stream of black velvet.

 

Without company, devoid of stimulus, he had turned inwards, padded softly along the deep corridors of his mind, not touching the walls, hearing nothing, seeing nothing, feeling nothing. Not dead but barely alive.

 

Yet the profundity of space and time saw good in his heart. Gravitational coils looping into the vastness took gentle hold of his path and a strong, insistent, earthly pull reeled in his pitiful, atomic speck. Demanding to be nourished, the wizened remnant of his soul streaked home. His surrender had begun.

 

***

 

He looks about him, his "shed vision" quite complete now. Even as a kid, he had never told his dad that, after a while, he could see a little in the dark. To say so might have seemed disrespectful. His father had maintained that everything was essentially dark and Peter had wanted to show he believed him.

 

But a little light is filtering in; chinks in the wall boards, a hairline crack in the roof. If you stay in the dark long enough, some light simply must penetrate. It is the way of things. He watches a spider, suddenly alerted by a quiver in its signal line, scuttle to the centre of its web and seize a tiny fly. The ebb and flow of life in microcosm.

 

He has sown flower seeds, carved garden ornaments with his father's woodworking tools; he knows the names of the plants, the animals and the birds but somehow he has failed to grasp life itself. Hope's fault, if it is one at all, has been to take life less seriously, while he has fussed and analyzed and thought every possibility to its logical conclusion, his brow furrowed like a chess Grand Master. Now, is it perhaps too late to make amends?

 

He fishes in his pants pocket and withdraws an envelope. He smoothes the crumples and places it on his father's old writing desk. A message to the present from the past. He stands up.

 

***

 

In the kitchen, Hope re-tunes the radio. She's heard enough crooning for one day and settles the dial on a talk show where the panel is in mid flow, debating the possibility of life on Mars. A scientist who speaks too fast persistently interrupts the host and keeps trying to steer the discussion to interstellar travel. Preposterous he declares, and something about light speed. She knows Peter would understand this, but he stopped listened to the radio long ago. She potters about, darns a pair of Peter's socks, peels potatoes ready for his supper. It's noon and he was gone before she got up this morning. Where the hell is he today?

 

"Hope... Hope... Hope!" She startles wildly, like someone has touched her with a cattle prod. Peter, bawling out her name. She hasn't heard him use her name in so long and now he's yelling it at the top of his voice. Abruptly the commotion ceases. She runs into the yard, calling him, revolving on the spot and scanning the corners of their lot. Nothing but silence now.

 

Val's head appears suddenly above the fence. "What's going on Hope? Is Peter OK?"

 

Hope ignores her and dashes a complete lap of the house. She is chasing past the shed when something catches her eye. The lid is off the water butt. She skids to a halt and her heart is hammering. Something dark with matted hair is floating just below the surface. She can't force herself to look away. It can't be, surely not. Her agony winds up to a crescendo, "Oh my God, no, no, no!"

 

She leans over the barrel and touches the thing. It bobs and rolls and an eye appears. Hope shrieks and faints.

 

***

 

Val is fanning her, wafting something bitter under her nose. "It's alright, Hope, calm down." Val the gossip is gone. This is Val the neighbour. As Hope gets shakily to her feet, Val backs away, deferential and calm.

 

The shed door is standing open. Hope peers inside. She is shocked to see Peter standing in the dim light within. She steps in too, almost falling, but Peter catches her. He sits on the stool and draws her down onto his lap.

 

"Oh, Peter... I thought..." She breaks into sobs, great wracking sobs that shake her shoulders and mess her hair.

 

Peter is making strange soothing sounds, odd little clucking noises as if he were calling chickens. She has never heard him make a sound like this before. It is utterly confusing. His hands are stroking her back, her neck, her arms, tenderly as if she might shatter at any moment.

 

"The cat," he murmurs. "The cat must have slipped off the shed roof. I'm so sorry Hope." His voice cracks and right there is more emotion than he has ever shared.

 

And now she knows he is not sorry about the cat, nor sorry about her fright. He is sorry for the past twenty years of a loveless marriage. They have ignored each other, like zoo animals who are forced to share a cage and choose opposite ends. She knows him but she doesn't know him. He of course knows her though. He always did have the edge in that and she likes it.

 

"I went away, Hope." His beautiful tears are as rare as desert rain. "I was lost but I found my way back." Now he is making grunting sounds, shaking like he has some terrible nervous disease.

 

"Look," he says and taps his envelope. "Look what I did. Did I do right?"

 

Hope lifts the flap and pulls out the contents. Through bleary, bloodshot eyes she can see plane tickets. Squinting she can just make out one word - Acapulco.

a new life - part 14

His appearance was very different from the time of the crime. Yesterday he had shaved his head leaving a neat goatee. Since Black’s visit he had been cultivating a convincing Manchester accent, a Bolton dialect to be precise and Francis was precise. Jane had been fooled time and again by his mastery of voices. He had often called pretending to be her brother from Glasgow, or her workmate from Newcastle. Ha-way bonnie lass...

***

The payphone smelled of stale cigarettes.
“Black? Never mind who this is, I have information for you man.” Francis’ Caribbean lilt was very convincing.
“ I sold a gun to a girl called Sue. The word is man, she did something silly with it.” He hung up while Black was still stuttering.

You’ve got the gun Sue, not me. His mind was razor sharp now. He felt jubilant. The clouds of the last few months had well and truly parted. His perspective was clear, his memory complete. That last decision had been a masterstroke. Sue was holding a murder weapon and it was covered with her fingerprints. She worked for a bank that had been robbed. Good luck to her when Black started nosing around asking where she had buried Francis and his wife. Pick the bones out of that lot, he smiled wryly and set off on foot for the car park.

***

Francis swung his old Ford out of a nondescript South London long term parking lot. He gunned it across Waterloo Bridge and headed west out of town. It was a cool, late October afternoon and he rolled down his window inviting in the chill breeze to keep him awake.

He drove through Knightsbridge, Kew and Twickenham in twilight before reaching the Motorway and building to a comfortable cruising speed. Illuminated blue signs slid overhead, “Hampshire and the West.” Every mile pushed his old life further behind. He glanced at his watch, it would be dark when he reached his old father’s farm.

Checking his pocket for the twentieth time, he felt his passport and wallet. He settled back and summoned thoughts of a far-flung continent, imagining a palm-fringed beach with the whitest sand, the bluest sea and an impossibly tall glass of iced water.

Steppenwolf thundered from the stereo:

“Get your motor running, head out on the highway,
Looking for adventure in whatever comes our way.”

Behind him on the back seat a shovel rolled in time to the beat.


THE END

a new life - part 13

Go on! The dust has settled. If you let it settle any more you’ll forget which spot the “X” marks. Francis pulled on his brown leather jacket and slipped out of St Agnes Home, walking quickly towards Waterloo Station in the late autumn chill. There was something he should collect before disappearing for good.

The station was dense with travellers and echoed with mumbled announcements from the public address speakers. Francis wormed his way across the gigantic concourse, with its long snaking queues. He liked the anonymity of a large random crowd.

This time he approached the long line of grey metal lockers with a slow measured tread, zeroing in on his own. Glancing once over his shoulder he dialled 791 into the lock. Cautiously he opened the door a crack but already it was obvious… the gun was gone. He wiped the interior with his hand and pulled out a typed note.

“THE POLICE ARE INVESTIGATING A MURDER. I WILL RETURN THE WEAPON WHEN YOU GIVE ME HALF THE MONEY”

He crumpled the note in his trouser pocket and closed the locker. Sue… bitch!

He flipped open his wallet and thumbed out Black’s business card. Call me anytime, whenever you begin to remember anything. Anything at all. Francis sauntered to a row of phone booths, slid into one and lifted the receiver.

a new life - part 12

“You’re okay son, “ the impossibly young paramedic grinned at him. “The bus came off worse, you should see it!”

“You were running out of Waterloo Station as if you had the devil on your tail,” said his even younger partner as she shone a pencil beam in his eye.

“… at least I got rid of the gun, didn’t I?” Francis muttered. He felt sick. Had he just woken from a very real nightmare? There were details he could remember easily, like the gun and the 3 shiny keys. But other details hovered maddeningly at the edge of his mind, like niggling thoughts about Jane and her share of the money. Perhaps if he concentrated less directly more details would return… like what the hell had happened to Jane? Memories started swirling in mist. He thought he heard a muffled gunshot and saw a pillow explode. He saw a ghostly shadow digging furiously in a field. Then a veil descended and his mind became blank.

“What’s my name. Where am I?” He was panicking now and trying to stand.

“Whoa, you’re in shock son. Lie still, we’ll get you to hospital pronto. Right, let’s get him in the wagon. One, two, three… lift.”

Francis’ breathing became slow and deliberate. He was falling deep, deep asleep.

***

For seven days he lay on his back on starched hospital sheets. Faces came and went, talking to him sometimes in scolding voices, sometimes pleading and then in gentle, soothing tones. He rose from profound sleep and remained suspended just below waking. He heard and saw but could not control his thoughts.

Sue had been his most frequent visitor. She had taken some time off from the bank after the robbery. Francis’s sudden departure took on new meaning when Detective Black had asked her to view some CCTV footage of her handbag being lifted in the supermarket.

“Yes, that’s Francis,” Sue had confirmed when Black showed her the Supermarket surveillance tape.
“Thank you,” nodded Black. “That’s all I need to know. Oh, and best not to talk about this with any of your work colleagues okay? And certainly not to Francis. We don’t want gossip do we,” he added.

“No officer, I shan’t be talking to anyone,” Sue promised.

***

She was no sleuth but trailing him had been ridiculously easy. Her target was oblivious to his new shadow. The day after he had murdered and buried his wife she had been following him. Even when he had bolted across the crowded thoroughfare at Waterloo Station he had looked back at her without a flicker of recognition. He seemed to be running blindly from everyone and everything.

Unknown to Sue, D.I. Black’s men had been pursuing Francis too but rather more discreetly. However Sue kept running and was in time to see a small backpack being hurled into a locker. She watched from behind a pillar, memorising the lockers, counting up and along the rows. The police gave away their presence with sudden sharp whistles and Sue had watched incredulous as Francis took off again spurting out of the station into the path of a red double-decker bus. Immediately there was a howl of rubber and a sickening thud.

a new life - part 11

Francis' transition to a new life was tantalizingly close. The days of a hollow career, a sad marriage and crippling debts were sliding behind him but a few sticking points remained. Francis was number one suspect in a murder and in the frame for bank robbery. His amnesia had been real enough, though his ability to maintain it for three months should earn him an Oscar. There was no incriminating money in his possession and the gun was safely stowed at Waterloo. He reckoned things were buried deeply enough not to betray him.

But the voice in his head whined on: you walked out of a banking career then the bank was robbed. You know which way suspicion will fall... and you know the cops always hunt for a murderer close to home, don't you... they aren't looking beyond you. Soon the doctors will say you're fit for serious questioning. You'd better get ready to run.

***

Black and his surveillance footage had linked Francis to the key theft. He kept coming back to that. How could he have been so stupid? At least now he had no wife to identify him. When dividing the cash with her he had wondered if she would ever get to spend any. No way. Letting her think she was in on it had been a temporary move to buy him thinking time. But what he did to the back of her head... that hadn't been in his original plan.

One lunchtime back in the summer Francis had made a discreet enquiry in a pub, that same evening he was the owner of a gun. It had been amazingly simple. After the shooting he had hauled Jane’s body down to the car under cover of darkness and driven through the night. Before dawn he had reopened the earth in that remote corner of his father’s Hampshire farm and buried Jane along with her suitcase of cash right beside his own two parcels.

Now get back to London, lay low and let the dust settle, he advised himself. Yet the other nagging, harping voice filled his head, they''ll be coming for you. Would the voices ever stop haunting him? When the dust had settled and he ran would he ever stop running?

***

Francis flopped onto the spare bed just before the first glimmer of dawn. He lay thinking about the night’s ghastly events. His frown turned to a grin when he thought about how he had called the cows over to tread the ground. That was smart.

Suddenly he sprang from the bed in alarm. The gun, the bloody gun, he thought. Lunging under the bed he grabbed the cold lump of steel and thudded back downstairs two at a time. He grabbed a small backpack from the coat rack and slammed the front door behind him.

a new life - part 10

She had encouraged him one hundred per cent all along and hadn’t it even been her idea in the first place? Her change of heart hadn’t truly surprised him. He knew she could never follow through with anything. Yet this was such a cheating, stealing, life-changing thing he had hoped it might for once be different.

In the end her old selfishness surfaced and she had told him to leave and “take his half of the filthy money with him.” He couldn’t trust her to keep quiet, her urge to boast and gossip would be too strong. She was unreliable so silencing her for good had become inevitable.

Her half of the money was still in the suitcase on top of her wardrobe where she had slung it, 18 brick-sized wads of twenties – enough to buy a whole new life. Francis had been less casual. The day after the robbery he had driven to his father's isolated farm and buried his new life in an isolated corner of a remote field in two black watertight parcels. X marked the spot in his mind.

***

Now in the quiet house he climbed the familiar stairs in darkness, keeping to the edges to avoid creaks. The gun dug into his belly.

He hit her with the butt hard enough to knock her senseless but she was still conscious, just. He pressed her head face down into the pillow while his right hand held the gun barrel to the base of her skull. She was no longer struggling just whimpering, “Please Frank, don’t, plea…” His point-blank shot to the back of her head blew her into the pillow, cutting her off mid sentence. At least he hadn’t had to look at her face.

a new life - part 9

Francis dreamed vivdly every night, long and hard and fast.

Together they had carried the haul up to their spare bedroom on that wet summer night, puffing and panting with the effort. Then Jane had ruined everything. He was an angry man now. One minute she was all for disappearing with him. The next she wanted half the money to stop her talking. She had turned on him in an instant and he had been so deep in organizing that he hadn’t seen it coming. They had been “passport-ready.”

The house was almost cleared of furniture. On the floor by their bed was a steep pile of legal letters demanding repayment of their sky-high credit cards. There too was a repossession order for the house. Time had run out and flight was now the only escape.

Beneath their lids, Francis' eyes flicked rapidly left and right. He twitched as scenes rolled on his mind’s silver screen.

Crouched on the carpet they were counting, one for you, one for me.

Jane stowed her share back into one of the canvas bags. There was already a suitcase lying on the bed.
“Leaving tonight are you?” Francis asked dryly.
Jane smirked without answering and flicked the locks on the empty case. She put the whole canvas bag inside and pressed the locks shut. Then she swung the case on top of her wardrobe and lay back on the bed.

“What you doing with yours?” she asked. “... well?”

Francis slid two bundles of banknotes into an inside jacket pocket then slowly and methodically wrapped his pile in strong sheets of black plastic, making two large parcels. He bound them with tape, took them to the spare bedroom, knelt and slid them under the bed. Aware Jane had followed him and was watching he snapped, without getting up, “that’s what I’m doing with mine Jane, OK!"

He heard her grunt and then her footsteps receded in the hall. Reaching back under the bed he withdrew a .44 Magnum then slowly and carefully slid it under his pillow.

***

Francis rolled over in his sleep and groaned.

a new life - part 8

Francis hurried the two blocks to where his car was parked. The bags pulled on his shoulders and he felt the true weight of his deeds. His muscles burned and the rain slanted into his eyes making them sting. The air was warm and heavy with the rich earthy smell of summer drizzle. He slung the bags on the back seat then bobbed into the front and slumped behind the wheel panting hard.

He stole into the house and found Jane waiting in the kitchen. She was drinking. Her cheeks were flushed.
“Let’s do it then,” she snapped. She picked up a pencil and started tapping a sheet of paper in front of her.
“Not so fast, I need a drink too.” Francis lifted the bottle of Jack Daniels almost to his lips. Then he slowly lowered it back onto the table and whispered, “Get me a drink of water.”

Fifteen minutes later the table was stacked with a large neat cube of cash. Francis sipped his water like Jack Daniels while his wife gulped her spirits like water.
“Right, let’s deal with this stuff,” Francis said in a low voice.

a new life - part 7

Day after day he returned to the gardens on Victoria Embankment. He knew if he left before midday there was little danger of an accidental encounter with his former work colleagues piling across to escape the office for an hour. He stared at today's early scattering of people on the benches. He shook his head in exasperation at the sheer lack of normal human responsibilities. Sweet wrappers blew across the grass, cigarette ends were flicked onto the flowerbeds. He closed his eyes and squeezed them tightly shut.

Within seconds he was sleeping fitfully… jerking and grunting as he dreamed. He was back in mid-summer waiting for dark to fall…
“You can do this Frank,” his wife’s voice insisted. “Come on, we’ve been over it again and again.” Jane had always been an insistent woman.

And it had been impossibly easy. He had worked in the damned bank for years and he knew the layout blindfold. For one heart-stopping second the newly ground door key stuck a little but the front door gave softly and he was in. He padded to the alarm console and tapped the code. The code was changed once a month. The red light turned green and began blinking. Within ten seconds he had trotted nimbly downstairs in the blanket of darkness and was standing by the cash safe.

He thrust his two keys into their slots on the safe door and heard the reassuring clunk, clunk as he turned them.

Now he span the wheel, listening to the huge bolts withdraw then pulled on the door’s massive weight. It swung slowly but easily and admitted him into the soft warm darkness within. Once inside Francis pulled a torch from his pocket and snapped on the yellow beam.

“Jackpot,” he breathed almost inaudibly. The shelves were stacked with neat blocks of notes ready, he knew, for collection tomorrow. He pulled a canvas bag from inside his jacket and shook it out. From inside that he pulled another and began filling them both carefully and systematically. In under three minutes he had cleared £240,000 from the shelves in twenties and fifties. It took up much less room than even his experience had estimated. His packing was neat and faultless.

Francis closed the safe door, locked it and hauled the two bags upstairs to the front door. They were heavy but not excessively so. Standing unceremoniously on a table in the banking hall he could see over the frosted glass and onto a rain-swept street beyond. Rain, thank heaven for sweet summer rain…

... now in the park, a late autumn drizzle fell soft and cold. It had already soaked through his shirt. He awoke as it began to rain harder. It was early afternoon and the office workers had come and gone. Had they seen him? Francis found himself not really caring.

“I think I might be rich!” He said aloud to the empty benches. He rubbed his new goatee and walked through the park to take shelter under mighty beech trees. Below the vivid red and brown canopy he pondered his recurring dreams of the three keys, the stack of money and the gunshot. He couldn’t deny they were genuine memories. The snooping detective smelled a rat and St Agnes’ Home wasn’t a safe haven any more.

a new life - part 6

They knocked again. “Francis, you’ve got a visitor. Can we come in?” Francis swung his legs off the bed and cautiously walked to the door. He opened it and recognized the doctor, a memory specialist but the man with him, eyeing Francis from head to toe, was unfamiliar.
“This is Detective Black, Francis. He wants to talk to you. Don’t worry I’ll sit with you.”

Black motioned Francis to sit on his bed. Francis complied and the detective sat beside him. The doctor rested nonchalantly on the desk, legs crossed. Nothing to fear here, his body language said.

Black smiled. “Just routine, Francis. May I call you Francis?” He continued without waiting for an answer, “You had an accident and lost your memory. But you are an interesting man Francis, you are in a unique position and I think you may just be able to help me solve a little mystery.”

Francis shook his head. “I can’t help you.”
“Well. you were taken to hospital in an ambulance a few months ago,” confided the detective, “and the doctors tell me you were saying some strange things.”

“I can’t remember any accident,” Francis insisted. “All I know is they told me I fell asleep for seven days and then I woke up. They brought me here to rest and I'm slowly getting better.”

“You see Francis, I’m a patient man and I believe you. You told me the same story three months ago. I believe you but a suspicious man might ask, can’t help? Or won’t help? Can’t remember or won’t remember?” Black waited for a reply. None came.

“Francis, there are special doctors at a different hospital and I’d like them to run some new tests, ok?” Black scanned Francis hard for a flicker of reaction. There was none.

“OK, enough for today,” said the doctor. “We’ll organise a day at St James’ for next week and call you. Black held up his hands in defeat. “No problem doc, call me.” He pressed his business card into the doctor’s hand.

He opened the door, “I’ll see myself out.” He stepped out then slowly turned back to face the room. “Oh and one more thing Francis, you may like to think about why you were carrying a woman’s handbag at the supermarket back in June.”

Francis heart heaved in his chest. “Not me detective, I’m strictly a backpack man!” He managed.
“Thing is we saw you on TV Francis, saw you on one of those funny little cameras at the store. Think about it.”

The visitors left and Francis sank slowly into his chair. He would not be staying around for any more tests.

a new life - part 5

In the days before he had resigned Francis had prepared for his new life. Making wax impressions of his bank front door key and one of the two keys to the vault was simple. It had been just as easy finding out who held the second key to the vault a week after he had walked out. He had watched the bank from a discreet distance after closing time. A couple of days’ surveillance revealed Tony and Sue were last to leave. Tony had taken over Francis’s key.

Sue was easy game. He followed her home for several nights and soon enough she headed for the supermarket. He swung into the car park behind her. Scatter-brained she flitted from aisle to aisle often leaving her trolley for a few seconds with her handbag in plain view. Sue bent to inspect the bottom shelf and as Francis glided past he plucked her handbag and dropped it into his own trolley. He moved swiftly but calmly to the far end of the store before dipping his hand into Sue’s bag. The heavy bunch of bank keys was at the bottom. He pocketed them and abandoned his trolley.

On his way out he dropped the handbag at the service desk, jumping the queue but leaving no explanation. Sue wouldn’t hurt a fly and in a curiously compassionate way he wanted her to be reunited with her bag. He knew Sue, she would go straight to the desk in a panic but he was guessing it would be morning before she even checked for the key.

He guessed right.

a new life - part 4

The ceiling of his room was old and grey. It was cracked in neat rectangles and squares like a patchwork of farmers’ fields. Francis picked a stub of pencil from his nightstand and stood on the bed, his feet pushing deep into the old soft mattress. Reaching up he carefully marked a small X in the corner of one field.

All was quiet in his head. Satisfied, he sank back down and stretched out listening to the distant clatter of pots. The sounds were a reassuring affirmation that the world was turning and people had a purpose. He felt an inner murmur as the sleeping giant stirred. He thought about the day he walked out on his job. With the thought came a sudden incendiary burst of anger. You wasted the best years of your life, a voice thundered. Quiet reason countered, But it’s over now and you finally won, don’t forget that. You helped yourself to what you believed was yours and in so doing, balanced your life’s books. His mental referee stood poised to intervene.

He had been washed up for years and it had been a blessed relief to simply walk away. Something else played at the edge of his mind. He had needed to distance himself from an action… a deafening explosion, something utterly unspeakable. Sickened, he groaned and thought instead of the three bright silver keys which he had dropped from Westminster Bridge into the brown Thames.

Suddenly there were footsteps in the corridor outside and the sound of voices approaching. Francis stowed his memories safely away.
“… some kind of amnesia.” said a muffled official voice.
“Total?” asked another. There was no response but the footsteps ceased and knuckles rapped sharply on his door.

a new life - part 3

Francis liked this café, it was old, dirty and usually quiet. He stared out the window, absently stirring his coffee even though he didn’t take sugar. He was thinking about his grown up children (a boy and a girl he felt sure) but whenever he tried to visualise their mother he saw a face out of focus.

Today he had been out walking but the rain had forced him indoors. Two office girls burst in shaking off their umbrellas as they slid into a booth opposite him. Their heads were almost touching as they giggled, sharing confidences. I bet they are laughing at me. To give his presence some authenticity, he began studying a dog-eared menu with no intention of eating.

Little by little, pieces of his past were falling into place. He remembered the layout of a large house and in his mind’s eye he moved from room to room, peering into the corners, searching for more clues. He knew how to drive a car, he knew because he practised manoeuvres and gear changes in his head. He had been a bank clerk. The truth is, he was scared to remember more. Closing off unpleasant realities was safer, yet he remembered more than he was choosing to admit. Sometimes he caught himself balancing on the edge of memory’s precipice, one slip and he could free-fall into total recall. There was horror lurking in that black abyss.

“Refill?” A young waitress in a blue check coat was hovering beside him, her steaming metal coffee jug poised.
“Refill before we close?”
“Sorry, I was day-dreaming…” Francis put a hand over his mug. “No thanks. See ya.”

He walked fast in light drizzle. The staff at St Agnes dolled out a little pocket money each Friday and he would be there to collect his. It wouldn’t do to be late.

***

Take your time… Francis, take your time. There’s no hurry old chap,” said the doctor.
Oh but there is, I’m 49 already. He was racing through a test paper, a kind of questionnaire designed to exercise the memory. He had never believed these tests were innocent and today he felt sure there were trick questions intended to catch him out. His paranoia bone itched. They are looking for inconsistencies. They think I’m faking.

He always rushed the tests, hoping to give the impression they didn’t matter to him. But a test means marks. Marks mean pass or fail. There would be consequences. If they ever guessed he had begun to retrieve his past he would be out on his ear. For now it seemed prudent to stay in this safe place while he formulated a plan.

***

He could see out of his high window if he climbed on the table. Autumn leaves swirled and danced on the grass below. On the horizon were the roof arches of Waterloo Station.

791. The numbers just came into his head. A locker combination for left-luggage.

Last night’s dream had been the most vivid. He was running helter-skelter along a railway platform, gripping a small heavy backpack with one hand and pushing travellers aside with the other. Head down he sprinted past blurred posters and lines of commuters. He was leaning forward to the brink of balance, running out of control and his pursuers receded in the crowd behind him. As he slowed a line of grey lockers came into focus. He dropped to a walk and looked about him. He slammed the backpack into an empty locker and snapped his padlock on.

Hands on knees, gasping for breath he felt suddenly very sick. Abruptly he stooped over a waste bin and spewed his breakfast, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. His heart hammered then suddenly behind him came the shriek of a whistle. He broke into a fast run again, sprinting toward the station’s exit gates. Bright sunlight dazzled him as he burst onto the street...

Francis jolted awake to the drone of his alarm clock. Red digits 7am.

a new life - part 2

When he awoke the screaming had stopped. Mid-afternoon sun slanted in at his high, square window and a faint smell of missed lunch hung in the air. A dream vaguely about fat wads of banknotes slid away. The day had a different feel now. Gone was his early morning optimism, replaced by a mild defeatism. This was his pattern.

What is the point in trying, whined his inner voice, the usual sign he was spiralling. People don't notice, they don’t even remember what you say, so shut your mouth and speak only when spoken to. Keep your observations to yourself. Don’t make plans or develop a schedule. You’ll be the only one doggedly sticking to it. So loneliness had become his companion.

He caught himself thinking about the safety and dependability of numbers and lists. Comfort came to him in strange forms these days. But when it did his mind played video clips of a tidy office desk with sharpened pencils and impeccably stocked drawers. Today there was audio too, a hum of official sounding conversation, punctuated by phones ringing and the click and gush of a coffee dispenser.

Francis rolled on his back and stared at the ceiling. If your desk was amongst others then you weren’t a manager. Low level, that’s what you were, low level. In truth he had already remembered this but had kept the thought from taking full shape because it upset him. As a youngster his family and friends respected his intellect and were sure he was destined for high things. Oh, what happened to that bright, confident and alert boy?

Why had he made the crazy choice to suffocate his youthful exuberance counting other people’s money? He didn’t know any more but it had signalled the end of his development. No, he had never been destined for the top. Sure, he wore sharp blue suits and walked the walk but inside he was living a lie. He simply hadn’t believed in what he was doing. You were a square peg in a round hole and you hadn't the guts to get out. He felt he was better than most people but that had never been recognized. It made him introspective and frustrated. His ludicrously high standards were met only by himself.

The floodgates were wide open now and a swirling torrent of negativity filled his mind: stupid obsessions, sadness, bitter regret and crushed ambitions. Well, there’s no denying it now, you’re remembering stuff. Blurred images of an unfulfilled life swam in and out of focus. Can you remember now how you survived all those years? What your crutch was? He knew the answer precisely but refused to let the voice give it headroom. His mouth was dry.

Francis conceded there was more than one man in his head. While the bitter, angry one thrashed around then wallowed in self pity, a calm, quiet one was hatching plans for him, almost unobserved. He knew he was making a conscious effort to keep his quiet voice under the radar because thinking openly might jeopardise his progress. The angry voice would hear and scupper the plans. He needed to keep angry voice in the dark until quiet voice grew strong enough to survive another fight.

This time he was aware of a third voice, a referee to see fair play. There had been no referee four months ago, the day he had walked out on his job and ended his old life.

a new life - part 1

By the time he had taken five steps Francis knew this path was the wrong one. All roads eventually wind up at the same place of course but it's the variety of routes that makes the journey worthwhile. Francis didn't care for the cracks in the pavement or the grubby shop windows. This road was distinctly not worthwhile. Not worth the erosion of shoe leather. Not worth the tendonitis behind his left knee. A change of scenery was what he needed.

He turned abruptly and walked into a tall city gent who had been tailgating him. "Pardon me, sir," muttered the suit, touching the brim of his hat as he regained marching speed. Francis shook his head in despair. The standard of pedestrian traffic was too shabby these days. Surely everyone knew the safe gap for in line walking was three full paces?

The point is, he told himself severely in his head, the point is... actually what the hell was the point? This was happening too frequently for his liking. Lost snatches of thought, like dream fragments hovering on the edge of conscious thought. He knew he was mad at something, but what? Come to think of it he was just mad at the world. He almost always held an opinion the exact opposite of everyone else. But that doesn't make me wrong does it? The insistent voice whined in his head.

Was it his own voice or the thoughts of another personality, camped out in his mind? Having retraced his steps he turned right at the lights. He was the only pedestrian to wait for the little green man before striding into the road. Walking rules, pedestrians and opposing views, phew! He was worn out and it was barely 9am. Time to return to base and revise his approach to the day. Soon the redbrick fortress came back into view.

Not an asylum more a home for the intellectually challenged. Francis read the words that formed an arch above the old Victorian gates: St Agnes' Home for the Frail. They wouldn't get away with such political incorrectness these days of course but to tear down those old iron gates would be an even worse crime. So the weak in mind, who were a danger to no one but themselves, retained the sobriquet "frail."

The shortest route to the grand front doors was across a manicured lawn but Francis used the stone pathway. He knew there was enough time to sing the first verse of Brain Damage. As usual his right foot touched the doorstep with the final line, "Got to keep the loonies on the path."

He climbed the wide creaking stairs to reach his top floor sanctuary. Shutting the door softly on the day's difficult world he laid back on the hard narrow bed. From somewhere deep in the building a man's voice wailed, winding up like a banshee. He couldn't make out the words, he didn't need to. The sound was unmistakable, despair. He rolled over and put his ears under the pillow.

Francis had been a banker, he was growing certain of that. Whether an important one or a trivial one he couldn't remember - he was still working on that. Francis was 49.

Faded Seaside Glamour

I think I belong in the past – or maybe in the future… The present is definitely an awkward kind of in-between stage, which hopefully will end soon. I took a journey into the past to see if I fitted… maybe I need to go further back.

July bakes the sand to scalding and a pier stretches endlessly across green waves to somewhere over a blue horizon past the miniature sails where happiness lies.

Rippled coffee-shop glass reflects the gang back-combing their hair in motorcycle mirrors. Buddy Holly blares out “..well the little things you say and do, make me wanna…” and in the distance polka-dot girls lean on silver-painted railings snapping gum. Territory claims are staked.

A throaty rumble turns their heads. The two-wheeled source slows and threads effortlessly between the ranks of black and chrome. Calmly the tall rider twists a key and silences his steed. Confused glances shift from the dazzling machine to his black leathers and back again. He needs coffee and walks slowly into the shop.

They fall in line to follow through the neat blue chequered tables and slide onto red-topped barstools beside him.
“You up from Bournemouth mate?” Asks one.
“No.” The lone rider smiles.
“Where’d you get that fancy gear?” Eyes swivel up and down his supple tailored leathers. The contrast with their own hard black jackets and coarse jeans is sharp.
“It’s what we wear in the fut… where I come from.” He smiles again. “Cappuccino, please.” He puts a banknote on the counter.
“Talk English and I’ll serve you!” grins a girl with a blond bob, her expression switching to uncertainty as she turns the small crisp bill in her fingers.
“What’s this?” She stares in bewilderment at the unfamiliar note.
“Money? The tall stranger offers meekly. “Make it a black, no sugar…”
“Well I’ll believe you, thousands wouldn’t!” Her grin returns as she pours.

Long pointed shoes tap as Eddie Cochran starts up, “C’mon everybody!”
“I remember this.” Says the stranger.
Now the gang presses closer.
“What do you mean?” Snarls a brute with a livid scar from ear to chin. “It ain’t been on the juke no longer ’n a day. Just out, this is.”
Suspicious looks dart once more to the incongruous vivid yellow sculpture outside. Suddenly it seems a world away from the brutish black iron surrounding it.

This is wrong the tall man thinks. Where are the compassion and bright free spirits? He ignores scarface and looks toward the glittering pier with its candyfloss stall and helter-skelter and empty silver railings. The polka dots have tripped into the café and are watching this funny rivalry from a corner.

“Yer gonna have to explain or we’ll cut yer, you know!” Scarface gives two cohorts hefty claps on the back. “Us seasiders carry blades and we use ‘em. You don’t belong here country boy.” His mates unzip their jackets menacingly.

“Could always race him, I suppose.” Suggests a thug with missing fingers. “Ton-up on the beach road, pretty boy?”

“I’ll blow him off the road.” Scarface snorts.

“No I don’t think you will...” The tall man gently replies.

-------------------
A girl stands alone by the pier railings as if waiting for someone. How had he missed her before? As he approaches she turns to face him and her eyes lock on his. They stand a foot apart looking and wondering… Is it, could it be?

Scarface slings a stiff leg over his oily Triumph. One sharp kick, the big twin rattles into life and blue smoke jets from the tailpipe.
“Chicken are yer?” He shouts. “Wanna bring yer friend for ballast…”

Now the tall man is back at his sleek machine. “Hold tightly.” He whispers over his shoulder as she sits behind him. “I mean tighter than tight.” He feels her arms grip his waist like a vice. Snapping down his black visor he thumbs the starter, revs and warms the bike. The gang shuffles back at the unfamiliar howl, exchanging bewildered glances.

The thug holds a red handkerchief high above his head.

“Ready?” Screams scarface.

“Ready!” Nods the stranger. And over his shoulder again, “Tight OK…tight” She squeezes his arm.

“Go!”

-------------------

The sun lowered in the western sky as he lay on the sand, kicked off his hot boots and looked out over the once hopeful sea. The Yamaha clicked as it cooled. She had held on as he had asked but now she had faded from his reality. Probably it would always be like this. Racing brought out the hope and the possibility. Strangely he had a faint taste of coffee in his mouth this time.