Ghosts in the Morning (3 page)

The bike
had
wobbled violently in front of me, then kissed the verge. It tumbled forward and
I saw the man tumble forward
with it
, a blur, like a smudge on a photo. He flipped and somersaulted
into the old stone wall at the side of the road. It was a
low
wall,
a bit ramshackle, but attractive in a rustic way,
full of age and character.
There was a
field behind
the wall
, a farm maybe, or
maybe just countryside,
a
rambler’s
paradise
.
The man
was unlucky, the wall was low enough for him to have gone right over, landed in soft grass maybe, but he didn’t. Instead, he struck
the wall. It looked a
wkward
, nasty
.
I got out of the car.

The man’s leg was at a funny angle and his cycling helmet had flown off. It lay nex
t to the wall where some of its
stones had been dislodged
, probably as a result of his fall.
I could see the torn strap
of the helmet.
I looked down at the man. He wasn’t moving. I stared at his face and he stared back at me
, with his
eyes wide open
and unblinking.
A g
lassy
stare, and for a moment it unnerved me. I remember shivering nervously, but I shrugged it off. He couldn’t hurt me.
There was blood trickling down his forehead, pooling on his eyebrows, spilling into
those
open eyes.
I saw that t
he man was completely bald, but he had very bushy eyebrows.
His mouth was
stretched,
gaping in a silent scream,
and
the headlights of my car reflected
the
glints of mercury fillings. There seemed to be quite a few of them, maybe he should have
chosen white fillings, or
brushed more often, or eaten less sugar.

I shivered
again
. Winter was coming and I should have put on a coat, or at least a thicker cardigan. I looked around me. The lane was silent, a slight rustle of branches in a gathering breeze.

And then I got back in the car and drove home.

***

‘Mum, is there any bacon
?
C
an you do me a bacon sandwich
?
’

I stared at Daniel and cupped a hand to my ear.

‘Please.’

‘Thank you, Daniel. Anyway, w
hat did your last slave die of?’

‘Disobedience, Mum.’

I smiled
at our old joke
and
took some bacon
rashers out of the fridge. I had nothing else to do, anyway.
‘So,
let me guess,
Daniel
. You’ve got an
other hangover, is
that right
?’

‘No,
actually,
it’s not. I had a few drinks
a
round at Paul’s,
it was only a few beers or so.
I’m just hungry
, that’s all
.’
Daniel’s tone was snappy, it always was when he had a hangover.

‘
Look, y
ou want to keep an eye on your drinking in the week
, take it a bit easy
. You can’t be drinking every n – ’

‘Oh give it a rest, Mum. Look, forget the bacon sandwich, I’m going out, I’m not going to stay here while you nag me.’

The door slammed again. It really did need looking at.  I went back in the kitchen and opened the fridge.
The bottle of Chardonnay stared back at me from the shelf. Well, o
ne glass wouldn’t hurt. I looked at the rashers sitting raw in the frying pan, and I thought of the man, and how his head had looked; shards of red and white oozing
down his head
, down
his face
. A spark of nervous excitement skittered across my shoulders, and I wondered if he had a wife
, children perhaps.
No,
m
aybe not
children
,
I mean,
they say
that
too much cycling isn’t good for
men’s fertility.
I guess those stupid, skinny little bike seats aren’t too good for
the testicles. I started giggling to myself and
then
found I couldn’t stop, until tears were pouring down my cheeks.

Chapter 3

‘Are you alright, Simon, are you eating okay, have you made any more friends?’

‘Yes, Mum,
don’t fuss,
it’s all fine. And yes, I’m eating
well
- a lot of pasta, to be honest, it’s
a bit of a staple for most of us students. Q
uick
, e
asy
and cheap
.
And actually, y
es, I’ve met
quite
a few people
. I’ve been hanging out with
some friends of
John’s
– you know
John, I mentioned him before, he’s
on the same course as me
, really nice guy
– anyway, we’re going out tonight for a few beers, maybe
go to
a club.’

‘Well, you be careful, the town can be a bit rough at night.’

‘I know, Mum, I know
, look you don’t need to worry, I’m not a kid anymore.’

‘I know that, Simon, I’m just checking everything’s okay, that’s all.’

‘
Look,
Mum,
I’d better go, the lads
wil
l be round soon
, I’ll speak to you soon, yeah
.’

‘Okay, Simon, just be sensib – ’. The dial tone buzzed. I put the phone down on the table and sighed. It rang.

‘Simon?’

‘No, it’s me.’ Graham sounded tense, impatient
, but I could detect a hint of hesitancy mixed in with the gruffness
.
I knew Graham well enough to know t
hat meant
a
lie was coming, he was never very good at lying. ‘Listen, don’t worry about dinner for me tonight, I’m going to be a bit late.
’

‘Do you want me to do something and leave it for you? You can microwave it lat – ’

‘No, no,
no,
I’ll just grab something from the vending machine at work, I’m not too hungry anyway.’ That meant he was going out for dinner with Nikki. Or she was cooking for him...maybe not, she was too young, too precious to cook, young people didn’t seem to cook so much these days; it was all supermarket convenience meals, with fancy boxes and posh-sounding descriptions trying to disguise the fact that they consisted of cheap factory-processed meats.
So, a
takeaway maybe,
he would find that safer, eliminate the risk of being spotted in a restaurant by someone he knew, Jersey was so small after all.
.
.he would keep the takeaway
plain – no Indian
food
– he wouldn’t want to risk the smell of curry on his clothes,
on
his breath.

‘Okay, well –’ I said, but he’d rung off.

I stood in the centre of the kitchen and looked
at the potatoes
shivering in a pan of water on the hob
. It had taken me over half an hour to peel them.  I
had thought that Graham and Daniel would be home for tea, but I should
have known better than to make that presumption
. Daniel was often out these days – with friends
, g
irlfriends, it was hard to know. He didn’t communicate much with me these days, sometimes just an occasional grunt
- and Graham was rapidly becoming just as unreliable
.

I hadn’t minded peeling
the potatoes.
I never did. I found it therapeutic, slicing into
th
e
thick, leathery skin, shucking off the earthy blemishes that
looked to me like
liver spots on an old man’s hands. Another pan stood on the hob; carrots and peas floating
on a sea of
salted water. I had planned to do a home-made chicken kiev, to go with the vegetables and the potatoes
. I had been trying to decide how to do the potatoes – roast
ed whole, or cut into chunky wedges,
or maybe even lightly
sautéed
. I had cut into the cold knobbled skin of the chicken breasts, folding
it
back and stuffing in the
herbed garlic butter.
Extra garlic,
it was
a touch of vindictiveness on my part
, to send Graham to the office, stinking of garlic, I had hoped he would breath
e
it all over that bitch.

I could feel c
hives under my fin
g
ernails...I stared at the raw
chicken
breasts and reached for a knife. I slowly pierced the
greasy
skin and watched as the butter seeped from the hole like a suppurating wound, and I thought
again
of the blood
dripping down
the man’s face.

Then I carefully picked up the chicken breasts
, squeezed them hard,
and threw them in the bin.

***

The
local
e
vening news did not mention the man’s death.
The presenter did talk about a finance
company
that
had closed, with the loss of eighty-four jobs, so perhaps that was more important. They still had time for the weather, though
, they always had time for that
. The weather forecaster said that
tomorrow would see a lot of rain, indeed
a heavy storm was ‘
very likely
’ but
they weren’t usually very accurate, so...
it
wasn’t the usual weather forecaster,
instead it was a man called Colin Flood, which I thought was a good example of “nominative determinism”. I had heard about nominative determinism on a
game show
– one of those erudite BBC2 ones – whereby your name can have an effect on the job that you end up choosing. There had to be some truth in it as I remember flicking through the yellow pages of the phonebook once and spotting a gardener called Matthew Weed.

The usual weather forecaster was
a woman
called Catherine
. Maybe she was on holiday again. She always looked tanned , like she went on a
lot of sunny holidays,
and she had deep blue eyes that twinkled in her honey-d
ewe
d face. A
lthough it could be fake tan
I suppose
, a lot of women did that these days, though
most of them went too far -
why anyone thought the colour orange was a good
choice of skin colour
was beyond me.
Catherine seemed very nice
, she smiled all the time
, and it didn’t look fake, it looked like she really meant it when she said ‘
that’s all from me, I hope you
all
have a lovely evening
’
.

I didn’t like this forecaster. His smile looked forced, it didn’t reach his eyes, and there were t
oo many teeth in
that
smile
. He reminded me of
a
cartoon cat
leering over a trapped mouse
.
He was ha
ndsome, but in a smug
, bland
way
. O
ver-confident
. Maybe he thought he was
famous, being on the TV, and it
had gone to his head.

I sighed and looked at the clock, even though I knew what time it was, as if I needed the reassurance of the clock face for confirmation. The daily grind of soap operas was about to start.
Sometimes they would be on in the background, but most times I would press mute. I
didn’t watch any of them. I couldn’t deal with all of the arguing, all of that noise that
afflicted
the kitchen sink dramas. I flicked on the
electronic programme guide and scrolled to the movies listing. We had the full Sky package – all of the films, sports, and hundreds of other channels full of repeats, and teleshopping
, s
o much teleshopping
.
I often watched these, fascinated that people actually bought these magic mops
that promised to clean your entire kitchen within seconds
, or
those
clever trowels
in case you fancied yourself as a builder
, or
the
miracle paint rollers – I mean,
people must buy these things, the same adverts would run for month
, the presenters
endlessly asking the same questions -
‘
have you often wanted to point your wall like the experts do’
.
There must be thousands of people disappointed that their purchases didn’t suddenly turn them into an expert painter and decorator, or Bob the
bloody
Builder.