Epitaph, page 6
Now you really have lost it.
He managed to make out a couple of words. One of which was fuck.
Not a great stretch to lip-read that one, was it?
He managed to make out pussy as well. This was followed by some more tongue flicking and then, he noticed, the word balls.
How about lip-reading as a new career? You seem to have a flair for it.
He saw her purse those huge lips again and blow a kiss towards the screen. To his surprise he felt the beginnings of an erection.
Must be the booze. She looks bloody awful. I’m sure she’s a lovely girl, just trying to earn a decent living, but she looks horrible. Not your type at all.
The girl on the screen was now on her knees, running her hand up and down her stomach and over her breasts. She slipped her fingers into the top of her thong and leered at the camera once more in a parody of a lustful look that was almost comical. Paul felt his erection grow. If only he could hear her. And yet, there was something about the silence and just the image. With no sound he could imagine her voice. To him it could be soft and husky. He feared that, in life, it might be strident and harsh. Exaggerated and fake, like her make-up. He looked at her full lips once again, now completely enraptured by the image before him.
The girl was tugging off one of her shoes and Paul watched as she put the long, spike heel close to her mouth and flicked her tongue at it.
She mouthed DO YOU WANT TO FUCK ME? into the camera.
‘Yes,’ Paul murmured, opening his robe to expose his hard penis.
What the fuck are you playing at?
He fixed his eyes on her as she lay down on the hideous pink satin sheet, her legs now spread wide and one hand pushed down inside her thong. Even when she almost dropped the phone he didn’t care. Not that it would have mattered to him because he couldn’t hear what she was saying anyway. The room was silent. The girl leered out at him from the television and mouthed OH, YEAH.
Paul Crane began to masturbate.
17
Laura Hacket was more frightened than she’d ever been in her life.
She had been since the hands had grabbed her and yanked her from the path into the bushes.
She’d screamed for a moment but a hand had been clamped over her mouth as a bag of some sort had been forced over her head so that she couldn’t see what was happening or where she was. Or who had grabbed her.
Laura could remember being lifted into the air and carried by a person who had run for a few yards, then she had vague memori es of a car and the sound of an engine being revved.
And then nothing but the smell of the bag over her head. A damp, dirty smell that she hated.
She had wanted to scream out inside the car. She had wanted to tell whoever had grabbed her that she wanted her mum but she couldn’t find the words. It was as if her throat and chest had tightened up, stopping her from inhaling enough breath with which to form the words. Also, she didn’t like taking deep breaths with her head inside the bag because of the smell.
When the car had finally stopped, Laura had heard footsteps then the sound of the car boot opening and she’d told herself that then would be the time to scream but, before she could, she’d felt a sharp pain in her right arm. Close to the shoulder. A cold sensation that felt as if someone had stuck a needle in her.
Then there had been nothing but darkness.
How long ago that had been Laura had no idea but, now, the smells were different.
She still couldn’t see anything and she still couldn’t speak but the reasons for this incapacity were now different. Whoever had brought her to this place had covered her eyes and mouth with sticky tape, effectively sealing both. Laura knew that she was sitting on a hard chair; she could feel it when she flexed her hands. Her wrists were also secured with thick tape, as were her ankles. She was helpless. Unable to move, see or speak.
She just wanted her mum. Wanted her to come and fetch her. To release her. Take her away from this place. She wanted to be at home playing with her toys with the television in the background while her mum cooked dinner. Laura wanted to be able to smell cooking food. Not the cold, dusty odours she smelled now.
And her arm hurt where she’d been pricked. Her head ached, too, and she was upset because she couldn’t remember anything that had happened since she’d been lifted from the car. Laura began to cry softly but the tears merely welled up behind the tape covering her eyes and made them sting even more. Some of the clear liquid trickled from behind the sticky blindfold and ran down her cheeks. She tasted the salty tears on her lips.
Laura swayed slowly backwards and forwards on her chair.
How she wanted her mum.
She heard a door open and close somewhere behind her and she stiffened on her chair. Then she heard footsteps moving towards her and she felt even more frightened than she first had.
Please God, don’t let it be someone who’s going to hurt me, she thought. Please God, don’t let it be the terrible Mr File. Don’t let it be Peter File that’s got me.
She tried to scream in pain as the tape was torn from her eyes, suddenly allowing her to see both her surroundings and her captor but the tape around her mouth stopped her.
In that split second, as the tape was ripped free and she saw what was in front of her, Laura wished that she had been taken by Peter File. At least he was only a man. He would have had a mouth and eyes and a nose. Unlike the face that confronted her. There were eyes but they were small and dark, hidden beneath huge overhanging eyebrows and sagging flesh. Where the nose should have been there was just an empty hole and there was only a zip across the part of the face where the mouth would ordinarily have been. Laura was sure that this was no man. It was something from her worst and most terrifying nightmare. And she was certain of one thing and one thing only.
Whatever was standing in front of her definitely wasn’t human.
18
Paul Crane felt ashamed.
He didn’t know any other word to describe the feelings that filled him as he sat staring at the silent television screen.
What the fuck are you playing at?
The internal voice was jabbing at him again but now it was throwing film dialogue at him, too. He remembered a film called The Offence. An old film, early seventies, with Sean Connery and Ian Bannen. Bloody good film, too. But, from that film, a line kept filtering through his mind and it seemed made for him. A description so apt it was almost painful.
‘You sad, sorry little man.’
That was the line. Spoken by Ian Bannen with great derision and sneering contempt to Sean Connery. And now that irritatingly insistent internal voice of his was saying the same line to him over and over again.
You sad, sorry little man.
And that was what Paul Crane felt like. He looked at the girl on the television screen. She was laughing silently.
Laughing at you. Laughing at you and all the other sad wankers watching her. You pathetic bastard. You excuse for a fucking man.
Paul hurriedly changed the channel as if he couldn’t bear to look at the girl any more. Like one of those mornings when you’ve drunk too much the night before and ended up in bed with a friend because she’s been equally pissed and you’ve both ended up doing something you swore you’d never do. And then, in the morning, when you both wake up naked in bed or on the sofa or on the fucking floor you don’t know where to look or what to say, do you? You both know that something happened the night before that shouldn’t have and, at the time, you probably both enjoyed it but it still shouldn’t have happened, should it?
A bit like the girl on the television and masturbating on your own living-room sofa. It really shouldn’t have happened, should it?
He looked to one side of him, at the balled-up tissues he’d retrieved from his bathrobe. The tissues he’d cleaned himself up with when he’d finished masturbating.
The evidence of your sin. The concrete truth of your failure. The failure even to maintain any kind of self-control. It was some girl on the television. A girl you couldn’t even hear. You were lip-reading her dirty talk. That’s how fucking pathetic it was. If you really wanted phone sex that badly you could have called Amy back. She’d have obliged, wouldn’t she? She’s done it before when one or both of you has been away on business. Christ, if you wanted to look at porn you might as well have switched your fucking laptop on and looked at some porn. Some decent porn, not strained to lip-read that silly bitch on TV. Dickhead.
Paul shook his head, wishing that the voice inside it would shut up and bother someone else instead. But it couldn’t bother anyone else, could it, because it was his internal voice.
Phone sex. Ha, ha. She was holding a phone, nothing else. You weren’t having phone sex with her, were you, you fucking dickhead?
The voice was becoming more vehement. And he wanted it out of his head.
You’re out of your head. You’re out of your fucking mind.
It belonged inside his head, nobody else’s. And it was doing what Paul himself always did. It was speaking as it found.
Speak as you find, son. You can’t rely on other people’s opinions.
Trust your own judgement.
His father’s words.
Yes, your dad’s inside your head, too. All his homespun philo sophy from years gone by. All his sayings and his views.
Paul bowed his head now. Almost like a penitent seeking absolution. He closed his eyes tightly and white stars danced behind the lids.
‘Anybody else want to say anything?’ he murmured aloud, eyes still closed.
But no one did because there was no one else in the flat except him.
And yet, despite the shame and the humiliation and the feelings of worthlessness (something you’ll get used to in the days and weeks to come, they’ll be with you all the time), his brief foray into self-abuse had provided two very welcome and unexpected bonuses. Primarily, for the first time since he’d been told he’d lost his job, he’d felt something pleasurable. He hadn’t, for the duration of his masturbation, thought about his situation or his lack of hope or anything else that had dogged him so determinedly for the evening and much of the night.
The second good thing was that he suddenly felt very, very tired. Not the kind of tired that he felt after a bout of particularly good sex but a tiredness that so much alcohol had been unable to induce. He slumped a little further back on the sofa and gazed blankly at the television screen, having flicked channels to a programme about Hitler and the SS. He turned the sound up slightly, trying to concentrate on the images before him, attempting to listen to what the narrator was saying.
Paul yawned. Was he, at last, going to be allowed the oblivion he had sought since he got home? He continued staring at the screen. His eyes closed a little more.
Another five minutes and he was asleep.
19
Gina Hacket adjusted the oven temperature once again, easing it down by a few degrees.
She didn’t want the food to spoil. She wanted it to be perfect when she dished it up for herself and Laura. She wished that her daughter was home now. The silence inside the house was beginning to become oppressive. Even with the radio on and the vacuous ramblings of the presenters in the background she still felt as if there was no sound filling the void that surrounded her. As she listened she heard a woman giggling as she chatted to a man with a distinctly effeminate voice. They were talking about films and music and premieres and the kinds of thing that were beyond Gina’s comprehension. The woman started talking about a showbiz party she’d attended and all the celebrities she’d seen drinking champagne. Gina felt her depression growing even deeper with each passing word.
She looked around her small kitchen wishing that she could taste some of that kind of life. Just once. That was all she wanted. Just a chance to live well for a short time. It might only be for a week but to live a life of excitement for even so short a time would be enough for her. If only so that she could say she’d experi enced it, no matter on how small a scale. When she was out sometimes she saw groups of women shopping or sitting having coffee and she envied them so much that it hurt. She envied their friendships and their situations. She guessed that their husbands had such good jobs that they didn’t need to work. How else, she reasoned, could they be sitting in a café in the middle of the day laughing, chatting and eating lunch?
She had friends but they were all in a similar position to her if she was honest. None of them had too much money to spend. Two were divorced, one was bringing up two children alone (the fact that she didn’t see or even know the father of one of them didn’t help). The others struggled by day-to-day in the same way that Gina did. They had nothing to look forward to. No excitement in their lives. At least she had her meetings with her lover, she consoled herself. The meetings might be snatched and hurried but they were better than nothing.
Weren’t they?
What would ever come of the relationship? She would never leave her husband. She’d certainly never leave Laura. And yet, she’d told herself, if her lover should offer to whisk her away to a better life would she be able to refuse? It was a dilemma she’d thought about many times but one she feared she’d never become embroiled in. He’d never ask her to move in with him, would he? Instead she would have to make do with their illicit encounters and the temporary rush of excitement and pleasure that they gave her. Crumbs of comfort in a world devoid of anything approaching fulfilment.
Gina wandered over to the radio and changed stations, twisting the frequency knob until she heard other voices. There was some static, some foreign words that she didn’t understand and then more voices.
She listened for a moment. It was a discussion about politics.
Gina shook her head and turned the dial once more. There was more music. Classical this time. She moved to another station and found a tune that she recognised and liked. She eased the volume up slightly, hoping that the infectious lightness of the song would somehow transmit itself to her.
It didn’t.
Gina looked at the wall clock and checked its time against the electronic digits on the cooker. She sighed.
Laura should have been home by now.
20
Paul Crane bumped his head as he tried to turn over.
The impact startled him awake.
He muttered something under his breath, wondering what he had banged his head on and also why it was so dark in the room.
He tried to move a hand to touch the part of his forehead that he’d struck but he couldn’t. His arm wouldn’t move more than an inch.
Again Paul wondered why it was so dark. He couldn’t see an inch in front of him and what the hell was that smell? Try as he might, he was unable to identify it.
He tried to sit up.
A couple of inches and his head collided with something once again.
‘What the hell?’ he grunted.
If this was a dream it was certainly more vivid than any he’d ever had before. What was going on? Why was it so dark and why couldn’t he move more than an inch or two in any direction?
Beneath his hands he felt slippery material. It wasn’t the leather of his sofa and it wasn’t the cotton of his sheets so he obviously hadn’t managed to make it into bed in his drunken state.
If you’re not in bed, why are you lying down?
The internal voice was back again.
And why is it so completely and utterly pitch-black?
He didn’t remember putting out the lamps in the sitting room. He certainly hadn’t turned the television off. That much he was sure of.
So where’s the light then, dummy?
He lay perfectly still for a second, breathing in that peculiar smell then he pushed outwards to both sides of himself, half expecting to fall off the sofa or discover that he was actually lying on the floor, wedged against the sofa and the coffee table.
That was it. That was what had happened. He’d rolled over in the night and fallen off the sofa, so anaesthetised by the amount he’d drunk that he hadn’t even realised. He was still wearing his bathrobe. That had to be the answer.
So why is it pitch-black? Have you gone blind? That’s what they say about too much masturbating, isn’t it? Makes you go blind. See, they were right.
He tried to rub his eyes, to clear his vision but, once more, when he lifted his arms his elbows banged against something solid. Solid but covered in that same slippery material that was beneath him. He reached up and discovered that the fabric, whatever the hell it was, coated the area above him, too. Just above him. Barely four inches above him.
‘What the fuck is going on?’ he said aloud but his voice sounded muffled. Constricted. Compressed. As if someone had taken his words and stuffed them into a matchbox.
Ha, ha. Hilarious analogy.
A thought struck him but he dismissed it immediately. It was too ridiculous to entertain for more than a split second. Too imaginatively crazy to be worth dwelling on.
Then why can’t you sit up? Or turn over?
He felt the material beneath him, using his fingertips as a blind man would to read Braille. Only it wasn’t words that were registering in his mind now; it was that thought that had come to him seconds earlier but been sent packing because it was so stupid.
Paul tried to swallow but his throat was dry. He always felt that way after a heavy drinking session. But this wasn’t the dry-mouthed morning-after feeling he had now. His mouth was dry because he was suddenly frightened. He lifted his hands and ran them over the area above his face and chest, then he did the same on either side of him, still desperately trying to identify the material that surrounded him. There was something beneath it, too. Something harder and more solid. He balled both hands into fists and struck out to both sides simultaneously.
