Poor Jacky, page 5
***
A couple of hours later, Rick was bundling the great and semi-conscious writer into the rickety lift. He leant him against the wall and pressed the button for the second floor. As the carriage jolted into motion, Paul Beecroft slumped against the barman, a long string of saliva joining him to Rick’s shoulder like an umbilicus.
“Here we go,” Rick announced as the lift reached its destination. He supported Paul along the corridor and had to stand him against the wall, leaning his forehead against the flocked wallpaper while he fumbled in the writer’s jacket pockets for the room key. His fingers closed around the plastic fob, sparing them both the indignity of a rummage through the trousers.
He shoved the novelist onto the bed then lifted his feet from the floor. He pulled off Paul’s shoes and lined them up by the bedside table. He lifted the head, heavy with ideas no doubt, and manoeuvred pillows beneath it. Couldn’t have Paul Beecroft choking to death on his own vomit, despite the publicity it would bring to the Railway Hotel.
Damn it; he couldn’t leave the man in this state. What if something did happen? Rick would never forgive himself. He pulled a chair from under the dressing table and sat at Paul’s bedside to watch over him through the night.
It was no more than any fan would do.
***
The shadows faded to grey and disappeared as the morning light through the curtains strengthened. The road outside became busy with traffic. The Railway Hotel was not the best place for a lie-in, Rick reflected.
Paul, still sleeping, farted. Rick was amused and felt a surge of pride at this privileged access to the man behind the scenes. It stank though; bloody hell.
Eventually, the writer stirred. His eyelids flickered and opened.
“Steven!” he grunted. His eyes widened in surprise.
“Um, it’s Rick,” said Rick. He indicated the name tag on his waistcoat. Paul tried to get up onto his elbows. He glanced around the room, blinking at its unfamiliarity.
“Did he come? Did you see him?”
“Who?”
“Steven! First there was Pong, then there was Darren. Where was Steven? Did I miss him?” He seemed distraught by this idea. Rick tried to assure him there had been no visitors called Steven or anyone else at any point during the night.
The telephone shrieked, startling them both. Rick answered.
“Alarm call,” he explained, hanging up. It had certainly alarmed them. “You’re off to Bridlington, remember?”
Paul lay back and covered his eyes. “Bridlington be fucked!” he wailed.
“You better shower,” Rick advised. “I’ll call you a taxi for half an hour?”
Paul groaned his response, Suddenly he sat upright. “You and me, did we...?”
“No,” Rick stood up and moved towards the door.
“Ah. Pity.”
“You were too pissed and I, well, I don’t usually...” Rick sounded apologetic. Paul inferred that the boy was straight but for his favourite author he might have made an exception. Pity.
“Thank you for looking after me,” Paul winced at the sound of his own voice. He dropped to a whisper. “I don’t know what’s the etiquette. Should I leave a tip?”
Rick frowned. “Don’t be silly. I got to spend some time with you. It was its own reward. I’ll see you, Mr Beecroft. Safe journey.”
He let himself out.
Paul shuffled to the en suite. He took a piss and looked in vain for painkillers. He ran the shower, filling the small room with steam before he got under the invigorating jet of water.
Bridlington. For fuck’s sake.
***
Paul dozed off on the train. Sweet tea and biscuits were helping to fight off the hangover but the motion of the carriage, rather than lulling him to sleep, made his stomach bounce around, sending acidic mouthfuls of sick up his throat.
Sweating and shaky, he lurched his way to the toilet. Passengers he passed recoiled or sneered in disdain. They muttered about him behind his back. Fuck them.
He sidled into the confines of the toilet, observing it was like going for a piss on a particularly dirty spaceship: all those smooth surfaces and oddly shaped fixtures. There wasn’t a tap but an alcove into which you thrust you hands like it was a dare. A dollop of liquid soap was dispensed and then a dribble of warm water, followed by a blast of cold air. It was as marvellous as it was inefficient.
But how could he wash his face? He wanted to splash cold water onto his cheeks and rid them of their sallow hue. Eyes like rabbit droppings in raspberry ripple leered at him in the mirror. How much had he put away last night? Suddenly the long journey to Bridlington seemed beneficial. He would need the time to sort himself out and make himself presentable.
He activated the liquid soap with one hand then withdrew it so his other hand could catch the water. He splashed his face and felt better while the air blew noisily and unattended. Then he repeated the process so he could wash off the soap. He was pleased with himself. Technology was not yet man’s master.
The mirror had steamed over. Paul was puzzled. How could this happen? Perhaps he had clouded it with his breath... That didn’t seem likely.
Oh well. Whatever.
He was about to turn away and tackle the sliding mechanism of the door when the mirror began to squeak. He watched in horror as an invisible finger moved across the foggy glass, forming letters.
PUT IT BACK
Paul gasped and backed away, colliding with the door. His hand reached behind him to find the handle. He pushed and pushed but the door wouldn’t cooperate. He was reluctant to turn his back on the mirror. Finally he managed to slide the door behind him. Still pushing, he spilled out into the corridor and landed in a heap at the feet of a woman who was waiting to use the facilities. He scrambled to his feet, gasping apologies and hurried to his seat.
The woman stepped into the toilet, holding her breath, just in case.
The cubicle was pristine. The woman shrugged. Perhaps that dishevelled, breathless man had been the cleaner.
***
Paul felt like a caged animal. Sweat continued to pour from him and he doubted it was entirely due to his hangover. The straight lines of the train carriage swam before his eyes, bending and contorting. The faces of the passengers all blended into one: the face of Pong. Dead-eyed and gormless, slack-jawed with the blue tinge of the dead, the mortuary pallor and the stench of wet earth.
Paul’s intestines writhed like a nest of angry snakes. He put his hands to his eyes to escape the stare of all those Pongs.
“Ticket, please!” The gruff voice of the inspector caused Paul to emit a small cry. He produced the ticket, relieved that the man looked nothing like Pong. The inspector scrawled on it in biro and handed it back.
The other passengers, having regained their individuality, returned to their magazines and newspapers, their iPods and conversations. Paul’s heart was pounding, drowning out the rhythm of the train with its insistent beating.
He looked at his watch. Fucking Bridlington was still hours away. He would have to change at Sheffield. Which was coming up any minute...
On impulse, Paul gathered his things and zipped up his bag. He would alight at Sheffield and get the next train back to Dedley. What that young man, the barman, had said to him was returning to him in flashes: an idea for his next novel. It was too good to ignore.
Put it back.
Paul ignored the image of the words on the mirror. He tried to remember what the barman - Rick, that was it - had said as they had shared the bottle of whisky. The town was awash with history and unexplained events. Why, you didn’t have to go back very far at all for a series of unsolved disappearances. Rick had been looking into the cases with interest. He had compiled a scrapbook and had been grievously sorry not to have brought it with him for the great writer to peruse.
Put it back.
Well, Ricky boy, you are going to get your chance.
The train slowed and came to a halt at Sheffield. Paul got off, bought a restorative Cornish pasty and queued to buy a ticket back the way he had come. He would have to phone his agent and tell him Bridlington was cancelled. She would contact the booksellers who would post notices to disappoint his legions of Bridlington fans, of which there were probably half a dozen.
It couldn’t be helped.
There was an hour and a quarter to wait for a train back to Birmingham, from where he could take the local service towards Dedley. Plenty of time to make some notes. Paul bought an overpriced and under-flavoured coffee from the platform branch of Queequeg’s and a reporter’s note pad from the newsagent’s and proceeded to jot down what he could remember of Rick’s words. The young man himself could fill in any gaps. Paul would offer him a temporary post as a research assistant. Rick would like the sound of that. He would probably do it for free; Paul wouldn’t mention money until Rick brought it up.
Fired up by the potential of this new idea, Paul’s head cleared of everything else. The hangover was conquered and the frightening apparitions were forgotten. The notes streamed from him. It always excited him, this period of getting to know a new idea. It was like the outset of a new relationship, that giddying phase when the thing has so much potential, could lead anywhere, could yield anything. The time flew by and Paul almost missed the Birmingham train.
***
A taxi got him from the station to the Railway Hotel. He checked in - the same room - and went to the bar. There was no sign of that Rick one. A woman like a walking cosmetics counter was behind the bar, leafing through a TV listings magazine and circling all the soap operas with a Day-Glo highlighter pen. Paul ordered a coffee. She looked at him as though he had laddered her stockings and, clicking her bubblegum, made him his beverage.
After an hour, Paul gave up waiting in the bar. He went up to the room and after half an hour of pacing up and down the threadbare rug, he decided to be more pro-active. He would get a head start on the research and then he could brief Rick later. Ignoring yet another call from his agent, he pulled on his raincoat and plunged into the melee of Dedley’s High Street.
How the town had changed in the twenty five years since he had lived there! It seemed gaudier, dingier, and more forlorn. Paul’s book tours took him all over the country (and to other countries besides). It was the same all over. The town centres were all the same, all suffering the same decline into charity shops and boarded windows. There wasn’t even a specialist bookshop in Dedley. That was long gone, replaced by a cut-price shoe shop. Which had become a Queequeg’s. If you wanted to buy a Paul Beecroft in Dedley you had to go to the humungous supermarket half a mile away - and you could only get one there if it was in the Top 50 books of the week.
He wended his way through the marketplace, unrecognised and not recognising anyone. It wasn’t his town anymore, he realised. Friends, neighbours and acquaintances had all moved on. He could have been anywhere in the country. He returned to the library. Here a couple of heads turned. The pretty librarian was nowhere to be seen. Day off, probably, after her late night. Time off in lieu. Time off in the loo, for all he cared. He hurried up the stairs, taking them two at a time, to the Reference Library on the first floor and, more crucially, the Local History department.
There they were: the old dark wood double doors. Locked - but then they had always been locked.
“Is there a problem?”
The reference librarian made him jump. Paul hadn’t heard the man approach.
“Er...” he turned to meet the man’s angry glare. It was the same man from twenty five years ago, still there, still the same, although somehow more grim. “I was looking for Local History. “
“Were you indeed? You won’t find it in there. It’s at the new place. They shifted the whole lot years ago. Were you not aware?”
“Um, yes, I was - I mean, I remember-”
“Then you’ll know not to expect it here then, won’t you?”
“Um. Yes.”
The man glanced at his wristwatch. “And it’s early closing today. You’ve missed it.”
“Ah.” Shit.
The reference librarian gave Paul a curt, patronising smile and strode away. Paul released the breath he found he’d been holding in. He reminded himself he was no longer a teenage temp. He was a fully grown man and a successful author. He had no reason to feel intimidated by that creep.
Perhaps Paul could include the creepy librarian in a story... He wouldn’t have to change much.
He left the library and roamed around for a while, at a loss. In the end, he returned to the hotel. He would wait for whatsisname - Rick - and they would talk things through. And if Rick wasn’t working that night, well, Paul would just have to extend his stay.
It was somehow important to him. Vitally important - but Paul wasn’t exactly sure why.
His phone buzzed and lit up as yet another message came from his agent.
Sod her.
Paul ordered a whisky and settled into an armchair in the Railway Hotel bar. He began to scribble in his notepad.
Several pages, a few hours and more whisky than was advisable later, Paul thought it prudent to retire to his room for a nap. He could always come back down after an hour or so. He crashed out on the bed and within seconds was fast asleep.
***
“What the actual -?”
Rick let himself into the great writer’s room with a pass key when the knocking at the door and the calling of his name yielded no results.
Paul Beecroft was sprawled over the bed. Everything else was strewn around the room. Stuffing from the upholstery and torn-off wallpaper were in shreds on every surface - those surfaces that had not been upturned, that is. Papers were everywhere. The complementary tea bags and sugar sachets had been ripped apart and there was a pattern of cracks across the television screen. It looked like housekeeping had been carried out by a werewolf.
Rick hurried to the bed. Beecroft was still breathing. He was snoring in fact, the long slow rumble of the dead drunk. Rick fetched a glass of water from the en suite. He considered holding up the great writer’s head and placing the rim of the glass between his lips but in the end, tossed the water onto the great writer’s face.
“The fuck?” Paul spluttered, rolling over. He fell off the bed. The impact seemed to sober him somewhat. He got to his feet and, wobbling, surveyed the scene.
“What happened?”
“I was about to ask you the same thing. The manager heard the noise. Said you were back. I came up and.. Well, you have been busy.”
“This was not me,” Paul found the remains of his notepad.
“But the door was locked.”
Paul righted an overturned chair and sat on it. It snapped beneath him. From his vantage point on the floor he could see the ceiling. He pointed. Rick’s gaze followed the great writer’s finger.
Scrawled deep into the ceiling with the handwriting skills of a madman, were three words in stark warning.
PUT IT BACK.
***
“Do you really think that’s a good idea?”
Paul ignored the young upstart and ordered another whisky from the hotel bar. The manager had been appeased and the damages paid for. Paul had promised it wouldn’t happen again - even though he still maintained it was nothing to do with him - and the manager had agreed to let him stay just one more night.
He downed the whisky in one thirsty gulp. Then he grabbed Rick by the forearm and searched his face.
“You saw the words, didn’t you? Tell me you saw them?”
“Um...yes.” Rick recoiled from the writer’s sour breath. “’Put it back’. What does it mean?”
Paul let out an anguished cry.
“I don’t bloody know! They keep cropping up, the same words, over and over. Put what back? That’s what I want to know. And where! Put what back where?”
“Have you, um, moved anything, perhaps? Taken something you perhaps shouldn’t have?”
Paul was affronted. “I am not a thief, sir. I may be many things, but I am not a thief.”
Rick led him to a seat.
“Then it’s a mystery! I like a mystery!”
“You can have it.” Paul fished in his wallet for another tenner. He tossed it in Rick’s direction. “Get the drinks in.”
Rick left the banknote where it landed.
“I’ve got a better idea,” he said. “I’ll square it with the boss.”
***
A few moments later, they were in Rick’s car. Rick had changed his shift and had supplied Paul with a strong coffee. The great writer was trying not to spill it as the tyres bounced on the uneven road surface and also trying to suck it through the tiny rectangular slot in the plastic lid.
“I reckon it’s something to do with Dedley Hall,” Rick explained. “All sorts of stories around that place. You said some of your friends went missing there...”
“I didn’t say they were friends exactly... Ouch!”
“Sorry - I’d keep the lid on it if I was you.”
“The story?”
“The coffee. You won’t scald yourself so much then. Anyway, it’s sort of a special interest of mine...”
“The coffee?”
“The Hall! The sooner you sober up the better. There’s been a string of stories in the local papers. And working behind a bar, you hear things. The hotel’s been getting a lot more weddings booked in - people have gone off having their dos at the Hall, even though it looks much better in all the photographs.”
“What sort of stories?”
Rick glanced across at the great writer who was dabbing at coffee spillages on his trousers. “Always on the lookout for a story, eh?”
“Um...”
“There’s been an upsurge in vandalism at the Hall, and no matter what the council does, how many security staff they have there around the clock, CCTV on every corner inside and out, no one ever gets caught and no one is ever seen.”
“Kids!” Paul held his coffee further from his body. “Sneaky these days.”
“You’ll see...”
The car jerked to a halt, sloshing still-hot coffee over Paul’s hand. He swore but his expression changed when he realised they had parked in exactly the same spot in which Pong had left his Ford Capri all those years ago. What had happened to that car? Who had moved it? The council, probably. Towed it away. Unclaimed, it would have been junked. Cubed.
