Rottenhouse (19 page)

Hands tapped on the tables like cats on
a tin roof.

‘
I know I haven’t been
quick off the mark. Times have changed since many of us were boys,
the world around us grown sour and that sourness has tried to seep
into our hearts and into our homes. The young think they now it
all, they think they know better than us! Time to put them right,
time to put them back into their place before we lose what we have
fought so hard to make.

‘
Bob Rowling brought
one such misbegotten soul to my attention earlier today and I ask
him to join me now and to lead Lewis down to the basement where his
punishment awaits.’

Lewis moaned again and Simon could see
that he wanted to scream but the rag stuffed into his mouth was
stopping anything but a bestial groan to come out. The Chairman
gave the young man a kick in the side and Mr Rowling made his way
over. He shook hands with the Chairman and took from him the looped
end of the leash like a proud owner of a winner at Crufts.

The men around Simon tapped the tables
again only this time there was a rhythm to it, a slow drawn out
rhythm that reminded Simon of the drums from an old King Kong
movie. The two men left the main room, dragging their mewling dog
behind them. Lewis was trying to stand as he was taken into the
reception area but each time he managed to get to his feet Mr
Rowling would tug on the rope forcing Lewis to crawl. It was a
despicable, inhuman sight, and Simon looked away and closed his
eyes hoping that the darkness would take him away.

But it didn’t and the sounds of Lewis’
rag soaked moaning wafted through to him and it seemed to grow with
intensity when mixed with the hand drumming until it became a
ghastly song that Simon really didn’t want to listen to. Why were
they doing this? What the hell had Lewis done to be treated like
that? Simons mind filled with images of the shiny axe swinging down
onto the dead body in the stream cleaving it into pieces. That axe
had been swung by Lewis, he had done that rotten task without a
care in the world, had even played with the body for crying out
loud.

It’s not right. It’s
not right.
Simon kept repeating until he
became sick of it.
Nothing here makes any
sense and everything seems to happen without rhyme or reason and at
the drop of a hat and I can’t deal with it. I don’t want to deal
with it.

Every part of him, down to his bones,
wanted away from here. Away, not just from the Working Man’s Club
or the village but the entire county too. He wanted to go home. He
wanted Lucy to be by his side. He wished that when he opened his
eyes that he would wake up in his own bed and find that the last
few days had been a sick and twisted dream.

‘
Been a while since
they used gurney.’ Snot Man said with a slight chuckle in his
voice.

Simon started to feel sick. He opened
his eyes but nothing had changed; he was still surrounded by the
same men only now Mr Rowling was gone. The sick feeling kept
growing and Simon didn’t trust himself to do a test burp for fear
of throwing up all over the place.

But where?

C’mon, Simon, you know where. You know
we’ve taken him down there, down to that dark place that I know you
dream of. We’ve taken him down there, me and the Chairman, and we
mean to teach him a lesson.

Not wanting too but having no choice
his throat was so dry he drank the rest of his beer and whispered
to Snot Man, ‘Where have they taken him?’

‘
Down basement,
lad.’

‘
There not…killing
him, are they?

‘
No,’ Snot Man shook
his head, ‘Least I don’t think so. No,’ he concluded, ‘won’t kill
him. What he did don’t warrant that.’

Simon leaned in closer almost tipping
over his empty glass, ‘What he do? I mean, what did he do?’

‘
Fraid I can’t say,
lad. Not for your head to know such things. If you were meant to
know, you’d know.’

Snot Man went back to
speaking with One Eye, Fat Cheeks and the rest of the table. It was
a conversation that Simon couldn’t give two shits over. Without
excusing himself he got up and headed over to the toilets making
sure to stay well away from the
Beating
Zone
and to not make eye contact with
anyone. There were a lot of sounds in the room coming from the men
sat around the numerous tables. Simon heard the familiar crack of
dominoes hitting other dominoes and wood. From the table nearest
the windows opposite the raised platform were sat really old men
and they were talking loudly about the drainage in some lower
field. Below an old painting of the valley six men were sat around
a larger table, upon it was a board and some odd shaped playing
pieces. As Simon walked past this table he saw that they were
playing a game of some sort on a board that looked a little like
the board you used in Risk.
Strange cries
of Folly, Folly or Duffer plot would be shouted by over eager
mouths. Walking past the bar he saw that Lucy was still not back in
her chair. She must have been gone some 15 minutes or
so.

‘
Went to toilets just
before Chairman came in.’

Simon hadn’t even noticed the barman
who was on his side of the room, a tray full of empty pint glasses
in his hands.

‘
Oh good.’

Entering the toilets Simon was relieved
to find them empty.

8

The smell of freshly squeezed bleach
and lemon urinal soap filled the air as Simon made his way into the
only cubical and closed the door behind him. He didn’t need the
toilet though the feeling of wanting to throw up hadn’t gone, so he
just lowered the lid and sat on that. The voices from outside were
muffled, like voices through a pair of headphones, though he was
sure he could hear a guitar being tuned and a set of drums being
hit.

He stared blankly at the base of the
wooden door watching the light from under the door jamb leak
through. Simon rubbed his fingers against his forehead hard enough
for the dead skin to peel off in little grey, rolled up lines and
he brushed them onto the floor. By looking up he saw that there was
a crumpled flyer pinned to the door. His face scrunched up like he
had eaten a very tart lemon as he read it:

THE STRANGLED
PIGS

PLAYING SUNDAY NIGHT

Set List Will Include (requests
welcome)

Back o’Barn, Up The Coal Shaft

Red On The Floor, The Natural
Lubricant

Skin You, Fresh Hole

Mad Girls and Long Nights, Black and
Blue

OINK! OINK! SQUEEL! OINK! OINK!

‘
How very quaint.
Jeez.’

One of the song titles in particular -
Skin You - caught Simon’s eye but he couldn’t think why. Each time
he looked away he was drawn back to it much like he had just seen a
ghost in the corner of the room and was checking to make sure it
either had floated away or was still there. Granted, they were all
pretty grim song titles and he tried hard not to think what such
whimsical ditties as Fresh Hole or The Natural Lubricant were
about. But that one song was familiar, as if he had heard the name
before somewhere long ago in a memory that should not see the light
of day again.

The toilet door swung open and his
brief silence was destroyed.

‘…
had it coming for
long time. You seen how’s he been since he became member. Didn’t
like what he had to do though, when yahear him talking about it, he
don’t hide the fact that he got his dick wet.’

‘
So what was it that
he did? I heard he tried it on with old Burt’s daughter and she
plain fucked him off.’

Whoever the two voices belonged to had
now made it to the urinals and there was an unzipping of flies as
they took to their business. Simon, in the narrow cubical, had
unknowingly sunk back against the far wall and was breathing
heavily. For some reason his eyes couldn’t stop looking at the
flyer.

‘
Nowt like that.
No…ohh that’s better, I heard he mucked up with Bobbie. Run his
mouth like he always does. Somehow that new guy, yaknow Barbara’s
southern nonce, knows a little too much.’

‘
He’s a pale
streakapiss if I ever saw one. Old man Rowling aint gonna have none
of him.’

Simon’s heart began to race as the two
men continued to make water. All of a sudden his body had become
nervous, twitchy and it itched all over. It was like being back at
first school all over again; hiding from the bullies in the third
year toilets, drenched in sweat and occasionally piss too, waiting
for them to find you. Waiting with your jumper in your mouth so
that if you screamed no sound would come out. Waiting with your
feet up against the cubical door in a worthless attempt to stop it
from being kicked in knowing all the time that your legs would
buckle like a softly baked cookie if they tried.

‘
I don’t know.
Couldn’t give a rat’s turd anyway. That old carpet muncher aint
gonna find no better. You seen the state of it?’

For a brief moment Simon thought he had
gotten it all wrong; maybe they weren’t talking about him but still
talking about Lewis, and he was just hearing fragments of a much
deeper conversation. Simon didn’t care what anybody thought, Lucy
was a stunner pure and simple, especially in this place surrounded
by the orkish women of Rottenhouse.

‘
You still bruised
from when she kicked yer balls off back in school, is all.’ There
was a shuffling then; two sets of shoes squeaking and clothes
rubbing and Simon imagined the two men having a play fight, their
little pink sticks flopping here and their spraying droplets of
fresh urine all over the show.

‘
Probably, but I got
myself a goodun now, aint I, and thanks to the Chairman she don’t
ever want to be saying no to me if she knows what good for
her.’

Both men zipped up.

‘
Lucky bastid, you are
Cook. I got lumbered with that fat retard who just lays there and
takes it like a dead pig. Give anything for a good toothy suck. She
can cook a mean stew on Sunday mind you.’

The two men laughed and left the
toilets without washing their hands leaving Simon alone and wanting
to be back at home. If he could click his heels together three
times and say there’s no place like home as he did, then he would,
as long as it worked.

He leant forward and glanced at the
black and white tiled floor; the lights reflection burning his eyes
but he didn’t remove his gaze. A little pain was kind of nice,

Skin You

made him realise that this wasn’t a
dream, this place was for real, and the people were for real.
Whatever was happening wasn’t a stage play and he knew that sooner
rather than later he was going to be even more caught up in it. And
those two blokes, whoever they had been, were enough to make Simon
understand that Rottenhouse wasn’t a place made for him, it didn’t
suit him and he didn’t suit it. So best to leave with or without Mr
God Damn High and Mighty’s blessing or not.

Skin You

Simon didn’t want to think about what
the old man would do when he asked for Lucy’s hand in marriage. He
pictured Mr Rowling slowly walking away after the question had been
asked and then from behind his coat rack producing a gargantuan axe
and swinging wildly in the air decapitating him in one fell swoop.
He would speak with Lucy, either here or at her father’s place and
they would both decide on the best course of action. All of their
decisions in the past; be they small or large, had always been
discussed. Nothing was ever off the table. This would be no
different. Simon would lay it all out, including how Lewis had gone
chop happy and what pissing guy 1 and 2 had said, and what will be
will be. Is it the end of the world if they don’t get a
blessing?

Skin You… I’m gonna…

Skin You…I’m gonna…

And then it all came flooding back.

And then it all came flooding up.

Pushing himself off Simon lifted the
lid on the toilet and for the second time that day vomited until
his eyes bulged from their sockets.

This time it wasn’t a dead body being
hacked apart that made him throw up, it was the song title Skin
You, and the memory that it had dug up from the deepest part of his
brain.

Come here Simon. Don’t run away from me
Simon. I’m gonna skin you like a dog you little shit!

The more he thought about what his
drunk father had been screaming at him that night when Simon was
just a boy; a boy who had just spilt a can of beer on the new
carpet, brought up more vomit until retching was all he had left.
And like he had been after his father had set to him with his worn
leather belt, Simon found himself lying on a cold toilet floor
crying, wondering what he had done to deserve such a
punishment.

As a boy he hadn’t understood and as a
man he still didn’t understand and so he guessed he never
would.

Stink

1

The band hadn’t started playing but in
Simons head it felt as if Iron Maiden had turned it all the way to
11. He was numb from the forehead down and with each breath came a
staggered wheeze from deep within his chest. He left the toilets,
was relieved to see Lucy sat back with her lady friends and so
angled toward her.

He could see the barman watching him,
eagle eyed, his brow furrowed, as his wiped clean glasses. Simon
knew there were other eyes on him, especially from the tables he
had come from, he could feel them burrowing into his weak body.

He reached Lucy though she hadn’t
noticed he was there. It took one of her new friends (or old friend
for that matter) who Simon had nicknamed Pudding - due to her small
stature and huge round frame – to nudge Lucy and point over to
where Simon stood. As she turned Simon noticed that Lucy went from
sheer delight; all smiles and wide eyes and happiness like
Christmas morning in human form, to one of deep worry; all grey and
flat.