Duplicity (5 page)

She heard the rattled of the key in the lock and the sound of someone pushing the bolt back. Joanie stepped back, for some inexplicable reason she suddenly felt the desire to get the fuck away from here.

The door opened a few inches and a strange face appeared through the gap.

“What do you want?” she rasped.

This whole situation confused Joanie, she didn’t know what to do, was that thing really her gran? It did resemble her; the face reminded her of a waxwork, shiny and smooth. Joanie got ready to run. No way was this freaky thing her gran.

“Come on, I haven’t got all day, what do you want?”

“Gran?”

As soon as that magic word left her lips, the old woman’s face started to alter; it seemed to flow and shift. Joanie blinked then shook her head; did she really just see that happen?

“Oh, it’s you, Joanie. I’m sorry, I forgot all about you visiting.”

The woman then abruptly slammed the door, leaving Joanie feeling very confused. This was all too intense. She didn’t like this feeling of losing control, not one fucking bit, her anger rose past Joanie’s feeling of anxiety. Anger was good; she knew where she stood with that emotion.

How dare the old bag slam the door in her face! Joanie didn’t care how feeble or mental her gran pretended to be, nobody treated Joanie like this. She was about to grab the handle when the door suddenly opened.

“You don’t have to worry about doing my shopping today, Joanie.” She threw something green onto the doormat. “Treat yourself to some sweeties, child.” The slammed the door again.

“What the fuck is going on?”  Joanie bent down and picked up what she’d just thrown out, it was a roll of bank notes.

Joanie didn’t bother counting it, she rammed the package deep into her jacket pocket and rushed away from the home before her senile gran had realised what she’d done. There must be at least £300 in that roll, maybe even more. The old bag had finally lost her marbles. She wasn’t worried about the nutcase phoning her mum, she probably doesn’t know what a phone looks like anymore, she certainly didn’t recognise her own granddaughter.

Chapter Six

Even whilst sitting on their park bench, William still attempted to maintain his image of one cool dude. With his legs spread apart and his arse hanging off the seat, the man did his utmost to maintain the role of a sullen teenager.

Henry had often wondered how his best friend could stay in the same position for such a long time, it looked very uncomfortable, that man’s back must ache like a bastard every night.

As he strolled through the park gates, Henry shuddered at the thought of just how close he’d been to dying earlier on. What was wrong with him? It was so unlike Henry to take a chance like that, William had often ridiculed Henry for his meticulous actions, telling him that life was for living, what was the point of breathing if you didn’t take the odd risk?

Strange to think that on any other day, he’d have clocked out of work and gone straight home to bed after an experience like that.

“Maybe you’re growing a backbone.” He muttered. More, likely, he’d had so many shocks today, one more hadn’t even nudged his stress meter.

He strolled past the bowling green, noting that the usual sedate games weren’t taking place. The members looked most riled about something, he wondered if the local kids had broken into the club building again. Henry tried to picture him and William playing bowls in thirty years time and just couldn’t see it happening. He wouldn’t mind having a go but not William, oh no. In thirty years time, that sad old fart would still be trying to balance his ancient frame on that park bench.

The bench did not have his friend sprawled across it, Henry checked his watch, William should be here by now; he was always here. Where had that scrote buggered off to?

As Henry neared their bench, he couldn’t help but grin at the sight before him. Kneeling beside their favourite spot was Williams protruding arse. Henry jogged over and stood behind him. William was kneeling on the grass, with his head inside a privet hedge. He appeared to be muttering to himself. His earlier suspicion of William’s weight gain was spot on.

“Jesus, man, what a bloody horrible sight, you could part a bike tyre in that arse crack.” He announced, staring at the overflowing pasty white flesh squeezing out of the man’s jeans.

William jumped and cursed as the back of his head collided with the sharp point of a snapped branch. “For crying out loud, Henry,” he shouted as he backed out of the hole. “You could have given me some warning that you were behind me.”

“That would spoil the fun,” replied Henry as he sat on the bench. He took out his remaining sandwich. “I was tempted to kick your arse, in the end though, I decided against the idea, I had no intention of watching the shoe disappear into your crack.”

William sat beside him. “That was so funny, almost hilarious. Have you considered TV work?”

Henry pulled the sandwich out of the paper bag, opened it up and grinned when he saw just how much ham that Debra had given him today. “So, are you going to tell me what you were doing?”

“I was watching the wildlife.”

“I’m sorry?”

William sighed he suddenly looked very uncomfortable, “Well. It’s a bit weird.” He said, crunching up his face. “At first, I thought the noise came from a baby bird, you know, a sparrow that had been caught up in the hedge. But…”

“But what?” prompted Henry.

“Nothing,” he replied. “Just forget about it.”

His friend opened up the first of his sandwich and took a single dainty bite. It was obvious to Henry that William clearly hadn’t forgotten about it. Whatever ‘it’ was. He ate like an old woman and sat like one too. Something was not right here. Debra’s earlier conversation ran through his mind.

“So, how did your review go?”

Henry tore his gaze away from the hedge and stared at William. Was he genuinely interested of just trying to change to subject?”

“Have I got something dripping out of my nose? Why the adoring stare?”

Henry sighed, “No, of course not. The review was fine, in fact it was a breeze; I don’t even know why I got so worked up about it.”

William gave him a knowing wink. “Yeah well I did tell you. Your trouble is that you get so worked up about every little ting.”

Now that William had entered familiar territory, namely pointing out all of Henry’s flaws, he’d started to relax; he’d even slipped into his teenager slouch.

“Here, how come you’ve only got one sarnie? Don’t tell me that you’ve already scoffed it.” He broke into a smile. “You have, haven’t you? Oh god, you greedy bastard.” William tutted and shook his head from side to side. “And you have the cheek to call me a fat pig.”

Henry contemplated lying, nodding his head and going along with the gastronomic accusation but in the end he opted for the truth and damn the consequences.

“It got turned, as if by magic, into a pizza.”

“Do what?”

Henry smiled. “It fell out of my pocket when I ran across the road and got flattened by a truck.”

William spat a mouthful of half-chewed sandwich onto the path in front of him. God, you’re such a dork.” He said, giggling.

This masochistic streak cut a deep wedge through his whole personality; he had no idea why he continuously offered himself up for ridicule.

William had calmed himself to allow him to take another bite, Henry was tempted to tell him about the pie incident on the bus this morning, just to see if he’d spit even more masticated sandwich onto the path.

Henry needed to cut out all this Freudian self-analysis crap; this wasn’t going to get him anywhere.

“Dude, you’ve got some lettuce wrapped around your fingers.”

He glanced down, expecting to see a bit of leaf that must have dropped out of his sandwich. Henry’s finger had turned green, the exact shade as the painted bench, he watched incredulously as his other fingers followed the same process. Oh god! What the fuck was going on here?

William hadn’t noticed, once he’d made his announcement, he’d turned his attention back on the hole in that hedge.  Henry thrust his hand into his pocket, he couldn’t allow William to see his start to change; otherwise he may have to kill him.

He stared at the back of his best friend’s head, where had that alien thought come from?

“What’s up with your face, Henry?” William giggled. “You look like you’ve just found half a worm in your sarnie.”

“Nothing,” he replied.

William nodded at the now concealed appendage. “In that case, why do you look like you’ve just shit yourself and what’s with the hand hiding all of a sudden?”

Henry shrugged, wishing William would just drop the subject. He put his other hand into his pocket. “I’m just cold that’s all.”

He could tell that William didn’t believe a word of it.

“Bollocks, it ain’t cold. What are you hiding?”

For just one moment, he did consider showing him his changed hand. He’d enjoy the look of total shock on William’s face. He’d then enjoy the look of fear as Henry slowly throttled the piss-taking bastard. He could do it as well. That alien thought didn’t disturb him,

“Debra thinks that you’re having an affair.”

William’s idiot grin fell off his face. “Is that what the gobby bitch said to you?”

Henry nodded; he took both hands out of his pocket, a little surprised to see that both his hands were normal. He rubbed them together, “Oh yes, she’s quite sure that you’re knocking someone else off. Apparently she knows all the signs.”

“Did she say who with?”

Henry shook is head.

William laughed. To Henry’s ears, the noise sounded a little forced.

“Come on, Henry, what do you think? You know what women are like for trying to shit stir. You ought to, man. We both work with like a thousand of them.”

Henry was really enjoying William’s discomfort. The man was having an affair, he wasn’t sure how he did know but Henry had no doubt that it was true.

William stood up; he threw a quick glance at the hedge before turning back to Henry. “Look, mate, take no notice of her. She’s just winding you up.” He laughed again. “I mean, come on. Do I look that stupid? Our Debra would put a contract out on my life if she even thought that I was playing around.” He made a show of looking at his watch. “Look, I’ve got to shoot. I’ll see you later, okay?”

Henry nodded and yawned, making no attempt to move off the bench, he rather liked it here. He watched William scamper off. No doubt the man was now seriously worried. Probably trying to guess at how many more Debra had told. Knowing her, it’ll be all of them.

William was correct about his wife. If Debra found out that her hubby was sniffing around another honey pot then she’d have both of William’s testicles cut off and displayed in an empty jam jar.

As William disappeared from sight, Henry slid forward on the bench, spread his legs and adopted the famous William pose. It surprised him just how comfortable this position was.

Two teenage girls walked past him, they both glanced at Henry and giggled. He smiled and nodded at them. Henry wanted to giggle himself, he’d already met these two earlier. Their bitchy friend wasn’t with them this time.

Those two girls had just walked past the new Henry; he now had no hang ups and no feelings of insecurity. Henry caught a glance of one of the girl’s slender white thigh. He found it rather pleasing to find that his morals had fucked off for a long walk as well.

He so wished that their fat friend was with the pair. Would the new Henry unpleasantly surprise her? He’d have loved to return her present. The pie had gone but he did have plenty of meat that he could stuff inside her.

Henry growled at the erotic images that had accompanied that thought. He then giggled again. Forcing meat into her, that was funny.

His pleasing thoughts shifted away from that girl and focussed on the sound of flapping and scuffling just by his feet. Henry looked down and saw that he’d attracted some company, well, William’s chewed up food had. Three pigeons were scrapping over the bits of food.

One of the birds only had one leg; it didn’t seem very bright, while the other two were fighting over the bread and cheese that one was content in pecking at a cigarette end. Henry was about to launch his foot at it, to see if would was bright enough to move out of the way when Henry heard a wolf whistle.

Was that aimed it him? He looked up; expecting to see those two girls but saw nobody apart from the old folk on the green and he didn’t think the sound had come from any of them. He heard it again, so did the pigeons.

With a start, he realised that the sound was originated from beside him, specifically, the hedge. The two able footed birds left the food and bobbed towards the source whilst the remaining pigeon took fright and flew towards the bowling green.

As the two pigeons stopped by the hole, instinct told Henry that the maimed bird wasn’t as stupid as he first thought. One more whistle echoed through the foliage. The two birds lost their trepidation and disappeared into the hole.

Judging from the violent cloud of feathers erupting from out of the hole, accompanied by the blood pooling across the grass, those birds weren’t coming back out. Henry guessed that they now resembled William’s spat out sandwich remains.

Henry smiled and tried to imagine what warm pigeon blood would taste like. He knew that he ought to be horrified by what had just happened; the old Henry would have probably pissed his pants in fear before running off. He reached over the arm of the bench and drew the tips of his fingers through the crimson puddle. Even the feel of the fluid against his skin was just…

              Henry jerked his head back as a band of exquisite pain hit his body with the force of a sledgehammer. He arched his back and stayed in that position as his muscles locked. Henry attempted to scream but only managed a harsh croak. As abruptly as it arrived, the pain left him, he collapsed onto the bench like an old rag doll. He thought he saw two small doll sized figures dart out from under the hedge and run towards the children’s playground but he wasn’t sure, nor did he care.