Always the Sun (19 page)

Then he put on his necklace. He left the wedding ring in the plastic bag. He wondered what he should do with it.

He’d planned to use the staff shower at work, then change into the clothes he’d mashed into his sports bag. But the unanticipated gore made that impossible. Instead, he stopped off at home. He sprinted from the car, through the front door, up the stairs and into the bathroom so quickly that he was already in the shower when Mel banged on the bathroom door and demanded to know what the fuck he was
doing.

The water ran pink over his feet. He threw the hair from his face.

‘Nothing.’

‘What do you mean, nothing? What are you doing here?’

‘I had an accident.’

‘What kind of accident? Why aren’t you at work?’

‘I’ll explain later.’

‘Why can’t you explain now?’

He couldn’t answer that.

‘It’s nothing,’ he said.

He could sense that Mel was pausing, undecided, at the door.

She said, ‘Sam, are you all right? Has something happened?’

‘I’m
fine
.’

She tested the handle. He’d locked the door.

He soaped himself hurriedly and rinsed the pink froth from his body and face. Then he jumped from the bath, wrapped a towel round his waist, wrapped the bloody clothes and shoes into a loose sausage, and opened the door. Mel was waiting there.

He hurried past her. Then he turned on the landing, as if exasperated, and said, ‘Honestly, Mel. Nothing’s wrong.’

In the bedroom, he stuffed the soiled clothing into a hold-all before dressing. He left for work with wet, tangled hair. As he passed Mel, who was still waiting on the landing, he saw her notice that he wore black leather shoes with his jeans, and no socks. He didn’t bother trying to explain himself. He would be unable to tell a lie convincingly, even if he could think of a convincing lie to tell.

The first few working hours were difficult. He endured any number of comments about his timing, and not a few about the new trainers he’d stopped off to buy on the way. He was distracted enough to accept the derision as banter. He kept dropping things and bumping into furniture.

Many times he silently dared himself to go and open the car boot, to confirm to himself that the bloody weapons and soiled clothing were actually there. Each time, he dismissed the idea as ridiculous and tried to get on with his duties. He worked through his lunch- and tea-breaks to make up some lost time. But eventually his desire for confirmation won out. He jogged to the car. There was no need to open the boot. There were bloody fingerprints all over the bodywork. That was enough.

The call came an hour later. He was summoned from the ward and into reception. He thought it must be Mel. Or maybe Anna had misplaced his mobile number. He wandered off the ward, aware that he was in a state of some anxiety and would alarm himself if he allowed himself to hurry. He wormed his hands into his pockets and strolled. He practically whistled. He nodded a second, redundant hello to Molly, and picked up the phone.

He said, ‘Hello.’

‘You’re fucking dead,’ said Dave Hooper. ‘You and your fucking son. And your fucking cunt sister. You’re fucking dead.’

Sam’s heart gave a single thump, like something dropped.

‘Who is this?’

‘You know who this is.’

‘Look,’ said Sam. ‘Your dog hurt my son. All right? The problem is taken care of. Can we let it rest now?’

There was a silence.

‘You didn’t need to do what you did,’ said Dave Hooper.

‘Yes, I did.’

‘It was evil.’

Sam glanced at Molly. He wondered if she could hear.

‘We’d’ve got him put to sleep,’ said Hooper. ‘All you had to do was say.’

‘I doubt that.’

‘I don’t think you heard me.’

‘No, I heard you.’

‘You’re dead,’ said Dave Hooper. ‘End of story.’

He hung up.

Sam stared into the buzzing receiver. He looked at Molly. She stared back. Sam smiled with one side of his mouth and handed back the phone.

‘Some people,’ he said, and rolled his eyes. His hands were cold.

He could see she wanted more and smiled sadly, for not providing it. The matter, he suggested, was out of his hands. He returned to the ward, to all the mad people.

As soon as the opportunity arose, he took his coat from the rickety stand in the staffroom and hurried out. It was after 10 p.m. and the car park was lamplit and edged with darkness. Dave Hooper could be squatting, waiting, behind any of the Minis, Escorts, dented Puntos and rusty Polos. He paused, imagining the gentle, predatory slap of Dave Hooper’s trainers on the tarmac. He wondered what kind of weapon Dave Hooper would use. A knife, possibly. Or a gun. He didn’t doubt that Hooper was the kind of man who could easily get hold of one.

He hurried to the courtesy car. He grabbed the wheel and made himself calm down before turning the key in the ignition. He drove slowly through the car park, testing the brakes several times before turning on to the road.

He could feel the migraine gathering like bad weather at the base of his skull. The slight palsy in his right hand, the corned-beef complexion that greeted him in the rearview mirror. At home, Mel asked what was wrong. When he opened his mouth to speak, the migraine burst and he folded like a clothes-horse. Mel led him by the hand to the living room. Without needing to be asked, Jamie limped speedily to the kitchen and brought back the things that sometimes helped: Ibuprofen with codeine, a pint of room-temperature water, a can of cold Coca-Cola, a bag of granulated sugar with a tea-stained spoon stuck in it like a shovel. Sam thanked Jamie with a grunt but took only the Ibuprofen and the water.

Jamie helped him upstairs. He rested his hands on the boy’s shoulders like a blind man. He fell on to the cool bed with great but temporary relief. Jamie closed the door softly behind him.

Sam lay perfectly still, sweating. The darkness and the stillness and the quiet controlled the migraine, until it began to recede to a distant, ominous drumbeat. His rigid musculature relaxed into the mattress. But every thought of Dave Hooper, every replay of what had happened that morning, was accompanied by a thump of pain. Bursts of colour glittered across his inner lid.

Later, Mel came in and sat on the edge of the bed. She stroked his hair. Her hand was cool. He thought for a sleepy moment it was Justine.

She said, ‘What sparked this off?’

He pressed down on his right eye with the heel of his hand. Sometimes that afforded enough relief to let him speak.

But Mel didn’t wait for an answer. She mashed her lips together and said, ‘I suppose you’ve heard that he’s been spreading rumours?’

‘Who?’

‘Who do you think? Dave Hooper.’

‘What sort of rumours?’

‘About us.’

‘What about us?’

‘About the nature of our relationship.’

Fireworks fizzed and whirled behind Sam’s eyelids like a flock of luminous starlings. He sat up. The room plunged and dipped away from him.

He removed the hand from his eye and stared at her.

‘What’s he been saying?’

‘You know,’ she said. ‘About you and me.’

‘What
about
you and me?’

‘Jesus, Sam. Do I have to spell it out?’

Gorge surged in his guts. He knew that soon he must vomit. He squeezed his bad eye shut again and tilted his head, to see her better.

‘Who told you this?’

‘Guess.’

He was in no condition.

‘Janet,’ said Mel.

‘And how did it get to Janet?’

‘It’s a
rumour.
Rumours get to everybody. Especially really good ones.’

‘And do people believe this?’

‘Of course they don’t.’

‘You don’t sound convinced.’

Mel sagged.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘Janet asked me if there was any truth in it.’

Bilious confetti spread across his field of vision.

‘Janet
what
?’

‘She didn’t believe it,’ said Mel. ‘But, you know. You hear something often enough and you start to wonder. She’s only human.’

‘She’s a fucking shit-stirrer,’ he said through his teeth. Then he said, ‘Christ,’ and lay back down. The ceiling seemed to expand and contract, as if breathing.

He said, ‘I don’t believe this.’

Mel said, ‘I have to move out.’

‘You can’t do that. People will think it’s true.’

More gently, she said, ‘But what about Jamie?’

‘What about him?’

‘What if it gets to Social Services?’

He sat up again. He retched into his fist.

‘What if it does?’

‘You could lose him.’

‘What do you mean,
lose him
?’

She told him to be quiet. He was shouting. She said, ‘If Social Services think Jamie’s living in an incestuous household, he’ll go straight on the At Risk register. I don’t know how long this rumour’s been doing the rounds. All it needs is to reach one teacher who’s inclined to listen—and that’s it.’

Sam stood and rushed to the bathroom. He vomited into the sink. When the spasm had passed, he turned on the taps and pushed the scraps down the plughole. Then he rinsed his mouth and splashed his sweating face. He padded slowly back to the unlit bedroom.

He sat on the edge of the bed, next to Mel, a gloved fist inside his head.

He said, ‘Don’t leave us.’

‘I have to.’

He put out his hand. Mel withdrew.

He let the hand flop heavily into his lap.

Mel stood as if to go. But she sagged again on the edge of the bed and put her head in her hands.

He said, ‘Mel. We’re a family.’

‘Not that kind of family.’

‘Don’t even joke about it.’

‘It’ll blow over,’ she said. ‘He’s just jealous—that’s all.’

‘Jealous how?’

‘How do you think?’

He sat up.

He said, ‘Did you and Dave Hooper—? With Dave
Hooper
?’

‘A long time ago, yeah.’

‘He’s
married
.’

‘Technically, yes. But that’s beside the point. We had a fling, I don’t know—three years ago? He got funny about it. He kept phoning. When he was drunk. You know what men are like.’

He sloughed the sweat from his brow.

‘I can’t believe you never told me this.’

‘It didn’t seem relevant.’

‘Well, it seems pretty fucking relevant now.’

‘Well,’ she said. ‘Yeah. Sam, he’s had half the women in the Cat and Fiddle over the years.’

‘And what? You didn’t want to be left out?’

Their eyes met and locked and he was surprised by the ferocity of his emotion. But the pain was too great and he collapsed again, pressing the cool underside of the pillow to his eye.

Mel didn’t slam the door, but she didn’t close it quietly either.

Sam lay with the pillow pressed to his eyes. He imagined them together. Hooper was made of rage and tendon and sinew. The erotic charge of his murderer’s hands. Mel’s body, pawed and scratched and rammed. He thought of the bolt that pounded pig skulls, a thousand times a day. And Mel screaming and squealing and biting his back, until they were two pigs, biting and fucking, with wild, white-rolled eyes, in the back of a slurry-spilled, slat-sided lorry slowing to pull in to the white-lit slaughterhouse.

He lay and listened, hoping to hear Mel’s footsteps on the stairs. Instead she paid a visit to the bathroom, then went to her room and began to pack. He heard noises that he interpreted as her struggling to lever her suitcase from the top of the wardrobe. He pictured her on tiptoes, straining.

He stood. The room oscillated and he reached out for the wall, steadying himself. Like an inmate of a penal colony, shuffling as if in leg-irons, squinting against the fierce, unaccustomed light of the hallway, he shuffled to the bathroom. He ran the shower cold. He took a deep breath and, fully clothed, clambered under it. There was a bright, clear moment of shock. He yelled and stayed under. His scalp and the flesh of his face grew taut, his clothes sopping and heavy. He counted down from a minute, then gave it thirty seconds more. He gave up at twenty.

There were various ways to attack a migraine. There were those people who, at the first signs, went for a run, or played squash, or did as many press-ups as they were able. Some masturbated. For Sam, only the shock of cold water had ever proved even slightly beneficial.

He stepped out of the bath and shambled like a sea monster to Mel’s room.

Her suitcase lay open on the bed. She was taking armfuls of clothes from the wardrobe, the floor and the bedside table and stuffing them in the suitcase. The bare soles of her feet were dirty and there were ancient chips of red varnish on her big toes.

She said, ‘You’re dripping all over the carpet.’

He shrugged. Cold, wet clothing touched his skin.

He said, ‘Don’t leave.’

‘I’ve been here too long anyway.’

‘But we like having you here.’

He heard Jamie on the stairs behind him and stepped aside to let him enter.

Jamie looked at Mel.

‘What’s going on?’

‘I’m going home.’

‘You can’t do that.’

‘Love, I have to. It’s where I live.’

‘But I’ll get
bored
.’

‘You’ll be all right. I’ll still be round here all the time.’

‘But it won’t be the same.’

‘I know.’

‘But it’s a laugh, having you here.’

‘I’ve had a laugh, too.’

Jamie glowered at Sam.

‘Has Dad
said
something?’

Mel laughed. She stuffed a pair of tights, with a pair of knickers still visibly rolled into the gusset, into the suitcase.

‘Of course not.’

‘Then why are you going?’

She stopped and put her hands on her hips.

‘Please don’t,’ said Jamie. ‘Really.’

Mel hung her head and laughed again.

‘Don’t give me a hard time,’ she said.

Sam watched them and understood that Dave Hooper’s wrath was beyond his power to control. The police couldn’t control him. The neighbourhood could exert no sanctions because it feared and liked him. Dave Hooper and his family could say what they chose and do as they pleased, and the only way to stop them was to be more terrible than them.