Sin (18 page)

"Hi ho, Sliver," said Joy from
the passenger seat.

I looked over but she wasn't
there. The smell of jasmine drifted past me and out of the window
and I smiled again.

Hi ho indeedy-o. Where we'll
stop nobody knows. Well, if I was driving towards Grimsby, I knew
exactly where I was going to stop.

* * * *

The road curved and swung more
times than a ride at Alton Towers, but without the queues. The odd
long stretch let you build up some speed (as much as the van could
give a pretence of speed), lulling you into a false sense of
security before a bend leapt out to slow you down again. I went
through a couple of villages - houses crowding around the road like
spectators at a race track - but didn't catch their names. Not that
I would have readily recognised them anyway. But then, in an open
field to the right of the road, was a tree. I recognised it
immediately. It was dead, that much was obvious. One lone branch
stuck out and up, and just above where the branch jutted out, the
tree stopped, looking like its head had been lopped off. Was it
waving to passers by, just being a friendly headless tree, saying
"Hi, how's it going?" Was it a warning? Signalling people to STOP!
DON'T GO ANY FURTHER! THE MAD TREE-HEAD-CHOPPER-OFFER IS LURKING
HEREABOUTS AND HE'S HUNGRY FOR MORE TROPHIES! Or had it been
pointing up at something in the sky - a UFO that, upon being
spotted, had zapped it with its green death ray, petrifying the
tree where it stood so it couldn't tell anyone else its
secrets?

Ask me another.

Either way, I knew it and I knew
that onward bound was home sweet pseudo-home.

A bend and the magical sign for
Horseshoe Point. Magical, I hear you say? No such thing. It's
easy-ish to believe in teleportation and murder-by-mind, but magic?
Nah. But this sign, that'd have you convinced, I'm sure. Sometimes,
driving along this road to Appleby's and beyond, you'd reach the
turning for Horseshoe Point, a small sandy bay with a couple of
grass patched dunes for company, in the blink of an eye. You'd be
there before you knew it. But go again, and it would seem to have
moved - taking an age and a half to find. So yes, it was
magical.

I saw a sign for Tetney and knew
sanctuary was close. Tetney was a strange little place, a little
more than a village but a little less than a town. It had pubs and
some small shops and even more than one post box. What made it
strange was the curious practice of, once a year, making
scarecrows. Yep, scarecrows. Like a summer fair but held in each
resident's garden, scarecrows would be made and put up in all
manner of curious guises such as Mary Poppins, burglars and
Spiderman. Dressed not to scare any black feathered birds, but to
scar and invade the minds of the young. Well, actually it was a
quaint custom which brought more smiles than scares, but what
happened at night with those straw stuffed characters, eh? Did they
party hard, or creep into bedrooms wielding knives? Just a thought,
you know.

It wasn't Scarecrow Weekend,
thankfully - I had enough nightmares whilst awake without any
holding my hand as I wandered through the Land of Nod.

Through Tetney's double bend and
onto the Grimsby straight, and, finally, into Grimsby itself. I was
breathing hard, as if I'd run all the way here from the Collins'
farm. Perhaps it was the impending relief of being able to rest
properly. Maybe get a shower. A bite to eat. Or perhaps it was
because it had been too long without anything happening. No deaths
due to me. No sign of pursuers. It was too quiet for too long.

Sod it. Enjoy the peace, however
short-lived.

It wasn't too far from the
mini-roundabout that told me I was in Grimsby to my destination. I
hoped it wasn't my Final Destination and Death wasn't hot on my
heels, clawed hand reaching out for the scruff of my neck. If I was
forced to have these special gifts, or curses, it would have been
nice for Fate, God or whomever to chuck in a sprinkling of Spidey
sense for me so I could tell if I was going to be discovered or
attacked or torn limb from juicy limb. But there were none so I had
to put my trust in a whole heap of nothing, and not for the first
time.

So just keep on trucking, matey.
I couldn't help, hinder or do diddley-squit. I had no choice but to
keep on a-trucking.

It was good, wonderful in fact,
to see people. Normal people who, in the most part at least,
weren't high on drugs or babbling nonsense. Ha! Was life so
different from a mental institute? Anywho.
Normal
people.
Sane
people. Ones who wore colours other than white. Ones
who were allowed spectacles and watches and laces and, gosh
almighty, a belt! Couples hand in hand or arm in arm. Smiles.
Vacant expressions that weren't drug induced but were simply normal
people getting on with their normal lives in their normal way.

LIFE.

What an absolutely joyous thing
it was. I felt like an evangelist bursting to spread the Word (and
rake in the donations), but I wasn't the Messiah - I was a very
naughty boy. I felt like winding the window down and shouting, with
my head sticking out, wind in my hair like a spaniel: "Hey you lot!
Do you know how lucky you are???"

Of course, they wouldn't know
how lucky they were. They just got on with living the same way they
got on with breathing. It was free and they did it without
thinking. There were no direct debits being drawn from their bank
accounts every month to make sure they received their quota of
breaths and heartbeats. They didn't have to swipe their credit
cards or remember a pin number to make sure they woke up each
morning after falling asleep the night before. It was just there.
The way electricity is when you flick a switch or water is when you
turn on a tap. No thought, no messing, just good old Existence. Do
with it what you will.

Naturally a shed load of stuff
went on to get electricity to the socket or fresh water to the tap,
just as plenty happened to get life shoe-horned into the tiny body
that popped out of your mum's bottom bits. But once it was done and
you flicked that switch or turned that tap or cried that first
slapped-arse cry, who thought there'd be a time when it wasn't
there? Unless someone didn't pay the bills and you were cut
off...

In the matter of Life, your
Honour, that'd be me.

The traffic lights in front of
me were at red. I stopped, pulling behind the yellow Toyota in
front of me, and had a flashback to a game I used to play. Yellow
cars were rarely seen at one time, with blues, reds, silvers etc.
being the norm. Yellow was too bright - too in yer face. So when
you saw a yellow car, you'd shout out "Yellow car!" and smack the
arm or leg of the person you were with. Crazy little bit of fun, I
know, but the thought of it still made me smile.

Raised voices dragged me back
from the brink of a happy memory. An argument between a young
couple. I didn't hear what she'd said to him but I heard him shout
back at her that 'it didn't mean anything.' Well, wasn't that a
statement that needed no explanation? Even if it had, however, I'd
still know, in that wonderfully twisted way I had.

The man, about 22 or so,
partially raised his hand, then clenched his fist and lowered it
again. I could tell the intent. It was a habit of his. A nasty
habit because he wouldn't always lower it, but he would often
clench the fist. The bruises on the girl's face had faded but I
knew there were some still lingering on her upper arm and on her
abdomen. He saw me looking and made a what-are-you-looking-at-face
before spinning away from his girlfriend and storming off. She
stood there for a moment, trembling, and then ran after him, the
word 'sorry' forming on her lips.

He was right. It hadn't meant
anything. None of the other women had. Nor did she, not to him. She
was a trophy to him. An accessory. Someone to prove his manhood
because she was so pretty and he could treat her mean and she'd
still stay keen.

I felt the creeping sensation
I'd had earlier. I saw the dog wander from nowhere into the road. I
saw the Mondeo coming up behind me start to swerve to avoid it and
bear down on the boyfriend. I could feel how his bones would break
and could hear the noise his head would make when it hit the
pavement.

Then the lights changed to
green. The yellow Toyota pulled away (smackety smack) and I drove
after it, frantically pulling myself in, clenching my body tightly,
screaming inside myself to suck it in, suck it in.

And the Mondeo stopped inches
from the boy. And the dog sniffed at a dropped crisp packet in the
road and trotted away along the street. And the girl caught up to
her man, because he was such a man, and they both threw evil looks
at the Mondeo driver, who was sitting there not quite comprehending
what had happened. And they walked off arm in arm, her kissing his
cheek, him strutting because he wasn't just a man, he was
the
man.

And me? I drove down a few
streets, across a couple of sets of traffic lights (both at green)
and around one or three corners. I parked up at my parents' house.
And then I cried for a little while.

A woman, old, wrinkled and
looking like a sofa that had been left out in the back garden over
winter was walking her dog. The dog, a Pug, glanced at me as they
passed the van. I half expected it to shy away or start growling at
me as if I was the spawn of the devil (and wasn't I, effectively?),
but it didn't. It paid me less attention than it might a lampost it
had just peed up. The woman, her long scruffy brown coat hanging
around her four sizes too big, seemed to want to say something.
Probably ask if this dishevelled man, wearing clothes that were too
big, crying alone in his van was ok. The terrier pulled at its
lead, eager to claim a small gatepost as its territory, and the
woman forgot all about me and hurried along, as much as her shamble
would allow, after her pet.

I wiped my eyes and then
remembered the tissues in the glove box. Helping myself to one -
Martin wasn't going to miss them - I blew my nose. I should move
the van. Park it somewhere else. My parents' house had been
standing empty for the couple of two years and more. A stolen van
outside a supposedly empty house? Not the best idea in the bargain
basement of Ideas Inc., purveyors of the finest thoughts, anecdotes
and concepts money can buy. I moved it. Not far away was a
supermarket, one of those that stayed open 24 hours a day, except
on Sundays, just in case you needed a loaf of bread or a tube of
toothpaste at two in the morning. Cars were parked there at all
hours of the day and night, so one more wouldn't hurt, I assumed.
And if, three days from now, it was noticed that this particular
mucky white van had been there for a while, then Mr. or Mrs.
Collins would come and collect it, with no idea how they could
possibly have forgotten to take their car when they'd stopped off
to buy a newspaper and some tea bags, or a tube of toothpaste.

Oops, eh?

The walk back to the house was
difficult. I kept not wanting to notice anyone or anything. I
stared down at the pavement trying to block out any tempting
morsels of nastiness my inner beast might feast upon. Luckily there
were no arguments between arrogant bastard boyfriends and their
submissive other halves. I didn't cross paths or swords with any
robbers or muggers or rapists. But still, try clenching your entire
body from teeth to toes and mouth to mind. Then hold it for an
extended period whilst trying to walk and avoid coming into contact
with that anyone or anything I mentioned.

Didn't think so.

The street the house was on was
quiet. It always had been. The type of street that didn't exist in
too many places any more. There had never been, in all the time my
parents had live there (which was from around when I was twelve or
so), any muggings or rowdy neighbours to complain to the council
about. I didn't recall any burnt out cars and could only pick out
one or two burglaries from behind the mist of my memory. It was
sleepy. A little boring in fact. But right then I was pleased and
welcoming to Sleepy, Boring and all the other Seven Dwarves. They
could cosy on up with me any time. Room and board, bed and
breakfast, milk and cookies.

The house backed onto a playing
field. Cricket used to be played on a Sunday afternoon, the lazy
ones with light aircraft buzzing across the sky and the smell of
fresh cut grass sitting at your window. Five-a-side football was
Tuesday nights and the rest of the week was taken up by kids on
bicycles and dogs off leads. A high wooden slatted fence separated
field and garden - high enough for the spectatorship of any matches
to be only possible from either the bathroom or my childhood
bedroom - but I'd long had the knack of scaling it thanks to an old
post, a tree and a lot of bruised knees. A hollowed out stone with
a concealed compartment held, as ever, a key to the back door and I
let myself in, locking the door behind me.

* * * *

The kitchen, which the back door
opened into, was cold. Icy fingers reached into my lungs, dripping
icicles as they passed. The house had been empty for a long time,
and it felt like it. Barren. Lifeless. Soulless. I was an intruder,
undesired and undesirable. Even my breath seemed to echo and I was
half surprised that I couldn't see the cloud as I exhaled. I stood
still for a long moment as I waited for the house to recognise me
and welcome me into its bosom, a long lost child come home from the
wars.

Except the wars were still being
waged, and I'd wager I was the one doing the waging.

After a while the house seemed
to relax a little, allowing me in but still not dropping its guard
entirely. That was fine. I couldn't expect any more. I doubted I'd
welcome myself back if I'd known what I'd done. The temperature
rose slightly to a more acceptable level and the icy fingers melted
in my throat enough to let me breathe easier.