12:07 The Sleeping, page 6
Lance’s designer art print greeted Mr. Green.
“Do you like it?” Katherine said, noticing the look on Mr. Green’s face. It lit up like he’d been given an unexpected gift.
“Very much,” Mr. Green said.
“I’ve never understood it,” Katherine confessed. “Do you?”
“Of course,” Mr. Green admitted, and then blatantly added: “I wrote it.”
He then read aloud the words: “Movies of the coast and the burning cross. Hold tight as your fingers glow. Give another place another time. Watch the traveller, see things you didn’t know.” He also added the words that weren’t written there. “When there are no eyes watching over you, and the air is sparked in fear. No strength of pride and hope. One man and his dreams are broken.”
Katherine stood in wonder. “When did you write it?” she asked.
Mr. Green reflected. “It was on the 29th October 1929. I was in my office, on the thirteenth floor of what you would term a sky-scraper, in Manhattan, New York. It was a terrible day—it became known as Black Tuesday. I wrote the words on a piece of yellow paper and taped it to the underside of my desk. I turned and looked out of the window at Trinity Church. Then I pulled open the right side desk drawer. What I did then… you don’t need to know.”
Lance was in a traffic jam. Tail-lights stretched as far as his eyes could see. He wasn’t going anywhere fast. On the seat beside him were his notes on James Walker. He wanted to discuss that strange lunch-time meeting with Katherine. He knew he couldn’t discuss a client’s confidentiality, but technically James Walker wasn’t a client. He’d secretly looked at his secretary’s appointment register; no record showed that James Walker had made an appointment. There were also no future appointments. Discussion about him broke no professional conduct.
Traffic was starting to move again. Another forty-five minutes and he’d be home.
Katherine and Mr. Green had decided that a glass of red wine was the perfect way of getting to know each other. They sat next to each other at the kitchen table.
Mr. Green had such warm, blue-grey eyes that Katherine found it easy to tell her life story. Katherine gave as much warmth back as she listened to Mr. Green talk about his time as a photographer, and how as a photographer he’d been appointed to record the casualties of battle and the triumphs of victory during the First World War. He saw no victory in seeing men die. Even the ones that survived such horror looked like they’d died.
Katherine thought she understood why the man sat opposite her looked like he had no soul. There was no-one around to tell her otherwise, so she believed what she now thought and ignored her initial prognosis. Not once did she question his age.
Lance parked his Moggy 1000 on the drive. He picked up the file from the passenger seat and hauled his tired limbs out into a welcomed standing position. He stretched his back by arching his shoulders backwards and groaned in his discomfort.
The Lewisham’s back door was on the side of the house. It was easier, after parking, to enter the house via this door, than to walk around to the door that everyone else used when either visiting or delivering.
Lance walked into the kitchen and was greeted by the sight of an old man drinking red wine with his wife. He gave Mr. Green a curious stare as he took off his coat and hung it over the back of an empty chair. He put the file down onto the table and watched Mr. Green’s eyes.
Katherine stood up. Mr. Green glanced upon the file before doing the same.
“Lance, Darling,” Katherine said with a twinkling eye, “this is Mr. Green, our new next-door neighbour.”
Mr. Green smiled and extended his hand.
Lance’s response was impolite. He looked at the old man with unease and left the room.
Katherine was only halfway through apologising, when Lance returned with a tumbler full of vodka and a little coke. He didn’t sit down; instead he stood and surveyed the old man again.
Katherine didn’t know what else to say. She looked embarrassed.
“Maybe if you left us alone,” Mr. Green said, tenderly patting Katherine’s upper-arm.
Katherine responded by leaving the room. She stood in the hallway feeling drained. She looked into the hall mirror and recognised the person on the other side as having no soul. She pushed her hair from her face and observed the mimicking.
A shaky feeling hit hard, making her lean against the wall. Silence cloaked all her movements as she slid down to the floor. She rested her head in her hands and listened.
Mr. Green sat down again and took hold of the situation.
“Is your head swimming in questions about James Walker?” he said, craning his head upwards to gaze into suffering eyes.
“It is,” Lance said, taking the chair opposite and sitting with a heaviness that showed his tiredness. He didn’t know how this old man could know anything about the file that was plainly in view. There was nothing written on the front, other than 1207.
Mr. Green smiled. He could just simply say what he was and what he was here for, but that wouldn’t satisfy. A job that had taken years deserved a pleasurable ending. He reflected back to when Lance was almost five. He could still see a sweet little face that radiated such blamelessness, exactly the same as the little boy he saw only days before.
“Do I look familiar to you, Lance?” Mr. Green said, leaning his bent frame closer to the table.
Lance felt as if he did, but couldn’t recall. “No,” he said.
“Are you absolutely sure? Think about your parent’s next door neighbour—the one you used to visit—the one that told you stories.”
Lance thought hard. His recollection was of an old gentleman standing at his sink, washing pots. Lance inwardly laughed as his recall expanded to the old gentleman gently waving to him, through the open window. His next memory wasn’t that amusing. He remembered coming home from school and seeing boxes piled outside the old gentleman’s back door. He’d been curious, so he’d climbed over the wire fence for a closer look. His eyes saw open boxes deep in old suits and shoes. He remembered his investigative fingers rummaging between newspapers and magazines; it was the shock he got at seeing hundreds of sepia coloured photographs of soldiers with missing limbs, laying in fields of mud, that had frightened him the most. The heads on those limbless bodies looked like they’d been sculptured out of brown papier-mâché, and their faces pressed into shape by someone who had no idea of what the human face looked like.
The picture of horror on that child’s face was again being shown.
“You remember the photographs?”
“Yes.” Lance looked deep into blue-grey eyes, and for a moment saw the face of the old gentleman.
“Do I look familiar now?” Mr. Green smiled.
“Yes. But you died!”
“Yes. I died.”
Lance’s expression changed to distrust. “You’re not that old gentleman,” he spat. He felt deceit. “You’re playing with my thoughts—what are you? Are you a clairvoyant—a swindler—a cheat—what’s your game? I’ve a good mind to throw you out, no matter how old you are.”
“I’m not a clairvoyant or any such insult, and I don’t play games. I’m Mr. Green; I’ve always been Mr. Green. I’ve lived and died many times—whether you believe that is up to you. My job is to tell you the truth and help you back to where you belong.”
Lance looked puzzled and intrigued. What the hell does he mean ‘Where I belong’?
CHAPTER TWELVE
Stephanie knew how bad it felt to love someone and not receive that love back.
This week had been hard for Miss Swan. She’d finally tasted the man she wanted. Every morning she saw his eyes hunger after her, but no matter how hard she fed his appetite—with her filing routine—there was no reciprocation towards her feelings. Flirting was the only thing on the menu. She wanted to play Lance’s new game, but Lance wasn’t letting James out to play.
The flat shared by Miss Swan and Miss Duke was once a warehouse; that’s to say, theirs and several other flats now occupied the interior of the warehouse’s Victorian façade. As red-brick warehouses go, this one was rather appealing. Steps led to a central entrance door which then led to four ground floor flats. A staircase climbed to four more above. Each of the upper flats had the added feature of a private roof garden that looked over a canal.
Miss Duke leaned over the railing of her roof garden. She was watching for Imogen. Droplet earrings of white-gold brushed her cheek. Stephanie was dressed to thrill. Her hair was white and delicately spiked. It touched her neck and didn’t touch her neck, playfully. She’d spent time on her hair so it looked like she hadn’t. The evening breeze dashed along the street and up the red-bricked warehouse, like Romeo to his Juliet, fluttering her 1940’s purple-flowered tea dress. Small hands with slender fingers, displaying shimmering purple nails, gripped the black iron.
For a Friday evening, the route home was unusually empty of another living soul. Imogen trudged along, in no hurry whatsoever. She imagined its emptiness was due to her. She was a ghost in her own world. To her, ghosts didn’t exist—which was a contradiction of terms.
“Up here!” Stephanie called, on seeing the lone figure.
Imogen, using only her eyes, looked up. At least someone’s pleased to see me, she flippantly thought. She walked up the steps and slid her keycard into the mechanical lock. It clicked and opened.
The sight that greeted her at the top of the stairs was reminiscent of a WW2 spy movie—Stephanie’s stance, clothes and make-up set the scene for an open door that led to shelter, aimed at all those with a wounded heart. The temptress leant against the door frame seductively.
Imogen, feeling like a spy coming in from the cold, slid between woman and door frame. She took off her coat and hung it over several others that cluttered the wall. Her bag was dropped to the floor. Her shoes were kicked off, and a much smaller woman stood.
The door closed.
Stephanie walked past Imogen and stopped. She turned and said, “Do I look OK?”
“You look beautiful,” was the honest answer.
Stephanie looked into doe eyes. Her gaze then lowered to hand-full breasts that were softly covered and hidden by a tightly fitting, pale-blue cashmere jumper. “I wish I had a pair like that,” she said, looking down at her own.
“You can have them.”
“I’m not having plastic surgery; you know how I feel about things like that.”
Imogen smiled and fluttered her eyes. “That’s not what I meant.”
Stephanie wasn’t in the mood for words. She closed in, like a wild animal, on the thing she wanted. Shimmering purple-nailed fingers teased up the tight-fitting jumper. Small hands undid a lacy bra and raised it up. Lipstick-lips parted and played a tiny version of suck-suck.
Imogen slid her fingers through Stephanie’s hair. “Take me to your bedroom,” she said, panting. “Show me what else your mouth can do.”
“Do you want me to behave like a man?”
“No. Be a woman.”
“I’m glad you said that—if you had wanted me to be a man, I’d have left you standing there with your tits out. I don’t like playing other people’s games,” Stephanie said, taking Imogen’s hand and leading her to her bedroom. “I play the only game my womanly heart knows.”
They both looked at each other with rainbow eyes. Nothing more needed to be said.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Mr. Green looked pleased—Lance was baited.
“Explain?” Lance said, now determined to listen rather than pick the old man up by the scruff of his neck and throw him out the door. “It better be good.”
“Right, I’ll begin by telling you how James Walker came to be upon this earth,” Mr. Green said.
“Are you a relative?” Lance asked.
Mr. Green laughed. “No, Lance, I’m only a messenger.”
“And who do you message for?”
“You know who,” Mr. Green said, without feeling. “I’ll refer to them as The Sleeping, but that is only one of their names—they have several. Don’t be concerned about what others call them.”
What others? Lance was caught and being drawn in. He wanted to know all there was to know about James Walker, and if that meant having to listen to Mr. Green’s absurd delusions about himself, then so be it.
“James Walker,” Mr. Green began, deterring his eyes from Lance, “has no birth certificate—it’s as if he doesn’t exist. But he does exist and I’ve been following him for most of his life. His mother’s name is Margaret Walker; his father’s name is unknown. Margaret Walker was married with two children when she was having out-of-marriage relations. The affair, as in many cases, ended due to her pregnancy. Her marriage also ended—well it would, wouldn’t it?
“Margaret Walker gave birth to a boy on the 12 July 1969, she named him James. He wasn’t created out of want—he is ‘The Unwanted’, and the unwanted have no place in this world.” Mr. Green’s eyes seemed to cloud to black. An expression of wasted time etched itself deeper into an already aged face. His skeletal frame creaked to an even lower posture. He groaned the pain of a living hell existence. “So, Margaret Walker,” Mr. Green continued, “not wanting to keep this baby, took him to the Sisters of Hope Convent. It was in the hands of Sister Miriam that she left him.
“Sister Miriam did what she thought would be in the baby’s best interest. Sister Miriam is a believer in all that is good—she is a fool…” Mr. Green paused. He glanced, for a second, into Lance’s face. Lance was absorbed. “The only information she had been given was the baby’s Christian name, date of birth and that the birth had not been recorded. Sister Miriam chose to keep that information to herself, and yet she knew that all information about abandoned children must be passed to the relevant authorities. She thought that if she hid his circumstances, she would be protecting him. She was wrong—I said she was a fool—there is no protection for those that are not meant to be.
“She acted upon her feelings—she knew of a woman that desperately wanted a baby. This woman was unable to bring her pregnancies to full term, for one reason or another. She had only recently gone into labour and lost her fifth child. Sister Miriam made the kind act of taking the abandoned baby to her. A bond was quickly made.
“Sister Miriam now made that delayed registration of birth—it is usual for an unknown date of birth, as the good Sister made this out to be, to be determined by guesswork based on how old the baby looked. A simple subtraction gave a rough estimation of the day and month. Sister Miriam intervened by requesting that the birth date be written down as the day that the child came into her care. Again, she thought this would protect him, and again she was wrong. The registrar did as requested. The child’s name was documented as the name given by the child’s new mother…” Mr. Green paused again. He gave an upward glance. There was almost delight in his face. “I see you’re taking notes, Lance. Are you treating me as one of your patients?”
Lance didn’t respond to such flippancy. He continued to scribble down everything he was being told.
Mr. Green looked away, and carried on: “The story of James Walker, Lance, is not fictional in any way. It is a story nonetheless, and still has some way to go. I’m pleased, so far, that you are not turning me away and grouping me with the crazies. The term ‘insane’ must surely be applied to someone who deems himself to have lived and died and lived again many times, in his pursuit of someone who should not have existed. I don’t, in anyway, question my own sanity—I am what I am. I’m simply The Messenger.”
“I’m not going to term you as anything, Mr. Green,” Lance said calmly. “If you have delusions of being The Messenger for The Sleeping, then so be it. If it makes you happy in your belief, then who am I to judge?”
“I don’t have delusions, Lance. And for the record, I’m not happy. I must finish my job and offer back The Unwanted. Only then will I be at peace.”
Lance didn’t say another word, but he thought many things. The one thought that lead all the others, was that Mr. Green had told him that he was there to help him back to where he belonged. For some strange reason, he was beginning to feel that the old man sitting opposite was here to do just that. Something was scratching its way out of the darkest part of his very existence and growing in its belief. He poised himself with pen.
Mr. Green, without a glance as to whether Lance was ready to listen to more, continued his story:
“What is termed ‘The Room of Truth’ is at the end of a brick tunnel, far beneath St. Thomas’ Church. That part of the church dates back to the 11th century. The structure that rises above ground level began construction in 1571.
“Of those that are involved in the day-to-day running of St. Thomas’, only a few are aware of the brick tunnel and the room that is at its end. Sister Miriam is one of those; she is the one that spends her time in ‘The Room of Truth’. She is The Custodian of its sins. She enters this room by another way, by the tunnel that leads from the Sisters of Hope Convent.
“You will not find what I’ve just told you in any books. Secrets are often the most disturbing. It won’t hurt me to tell you about this room. The dead can’t hurt me, and there are many dead entombed in that room. They are there because they died there. Theistic Satanism was practiced there. Young Pretty Things, from both sides of those tunnels, were woken from their beds and taken to that room for what they thought was an initiation ceremony. And to all intents and purposes it was. Their souls were given to Satan by acts of sexual pleasure, with the final slitting of their throat. The altar would flow in blood, to be drunk.
“That practice is no longer carried out; you’ll be pleased to hear. Records of events are historical facts. The church loves historical facts, and especially if they are secrets kept to themselves.
