Tollesbury Time Forever (9 page)

Guilt consumed me though I had done nothing wrong. I hadn’t been ‘up to’ anything as far as I was aware. I had met some strange people, that was all; and wasn’t Zachariah Leonard one of the strangest?

Weepy and Nardy had troubled me, yes, and they had played with my mind, without doubt. Zachariah, however, shook me to my very core. It was in the way he looked at me, in the way he moved in so simian a fashion. It was in the primeval potential for horrific violence that emanated from every taut sinew of his grubby, perspiring body. He had asked what I had been up to. I had been equally curious as to where he had been the previous two days.

I manoeuvred myself into a sitting position and crossed my legs, my hands upon my knees. He sat opposite me some six feet away in the exact same pose. Thus I faced him.

“You found the shirt then?” said Zachariah, nodding his head towards me. “Fits you well.”

“Thank you,” I replied. “Is it one of yours?”

“Not quite, boy; not quite.”

“When did you get back?” I asked

“Just before you did. And just in time, it seems.”

Zachariah lit his pipe and sucked, his cheeks hollowing as he did so. He looked momentarily imbecilic before puffing out the sickly smelling smoke and lowering the pipe once more. His eyes simmered like pools of hot oil. He was truly indestructible.

“So boy, who were you running from? What put the fear in you? Not seen fear like this since the last time?”

“What last time?”

“Just answer my questions, boy. You know how this works.”

I put a quivering hand to my forehead hoping maybe it would in some way steady my mind. Sweat was upon my brow and trepidation was within my heart. I had the feeling
Zachariah knew all the answers, knew exactly what I had just experienced, about Weepy, Nardy, Penny Shoraton and the boy; knew everything and was just confirming to himself to what extent he could trust me; if indeed trust was a concept of which he was even aware.

“I’ve just been wandering around the village. I went down to the harbour and all around there.”

“Just wandering around, boy?”

“Yes, just wandering around.”

“So what feared you, set you running so?”

I had to tell him. To delay would likely be to perish.

“I met two men who asked me some questions. I must have upset them. One of them got angry with me and I had to get away. So I ran back here. They didn’t mention you and neither did I. I promise.”

Zachariah listened and then took a deep breath. I got the feeling he was trying to suppress a burning rage, cooling it with this long intake of stale air.

“Two men you say?”

I nodded, watching as he chewed upon his bottom lip with his yellowed teeth.

“One big and one small?”

I nodded again.

“You did right, boy,” he said eventually. “You did right.”

At that moment, looking at Zachariah as he in turn stared at me, I wasn’t entirely sure where I was safest. I detested this feeling of insecurity, of doubt and foreboding. My situation was as abstract as time itself although exactly what time of day it was would have given me some measure of relief, something for me to at least cling to. The constructs of my existence were fading in and out of vision, the solidity of what I knew to be true crumbling all about me.

And what had he meant by ‘the last time?’

“What should I do now?” I asked, meekly.

Zachariah closed his eyes and puffed upon his pipe for some moments before answering me.

“They will come for you again,” he said. “Maybe not right away, but they will come for you. They don’t give up. They never give up. Do what you been doing, boy. You be doing well.”

“I don’t understand what’s happening,” I said to him. “I don’t understand at all.”

At this, he rose slowly, like a house being built, and came over to me. He knelt down and put a thick arm across my shoulders before leaning his face right in towards my left ear.

“Just one thing, boy and you make sure you remember this,” he whispered. His voice was as of the sound of a steam train in the distance. “You don’t know me, you have never seen me. I don’t live here. I don’t live anywhere. I don’t even exist as far as anyone else be concerned. You understand that boy? You understand?”

I nodded as best I could, staring at the floor, his arm weighing heavy upon me and his stale breath permeating the pores of my face.

“Now you rest, boy,” said Zachariah, standing. He nudged me with his monstrously thick leg and I couldn’t help but roll onto my side. He fetched a heavy blanket from a pile in the corner by the trapdoor and draped it across me. I do believe it was as kind an act as he had performed since I had met him.

And I closed my eyes to all this, just closed my eyes and slept the ragged sleep of the torn and frayed. Time turned and my heart beat. The despair of the day would not abate and my clothes were as lifeless upon me as if they were the garb of a scarecrow. A sense of hopelessness overwhelmed me as much in sleep as when I was awake.

I didn’t dream, though I know not for how long I slept. It was a flat, black sleep that restored neither energy nor perspective, the kind of sleep that just leaves you restless.

I had not even the pleasure of drifting back into wakefulness, for it was Zachariah Leonard who stole that small joy. He shook me alive roughly with a cold, hard hand. I looked up at that gruesome face and he had a finger to his lips. His eyes glared at me from beneath his grimy brow as he
slowly moved backwards to the corner by the door, still squatting; a silent and deadly Groucho Marx.

Still prone on the floor, I stared after him. His movement had been stealthy and silent and he merged into the shadows so easily I could barely make him out. And then the wooden door of the shack was rattled by a knock. I was losing control of my breathing as I lay staring towards the door, propped up on my elbows now, my eyes flicking to the outline of Zachariah Leonard perched in the corner like some stone creature from a gothic cathedral, all ready to pounce.

Again there came a knock on the door, harder this time.

I got up as slowly and as quietly as I could. My eyes bored into the darkness, straining to get an indication from Zachariah as to what I should do. As I stepped forward, I knew that only by opening the door would this tortuous moment end. For good or for ill, I pulled it open, careful not to bang it into Zachariah who hid silently behind it.

And there stood Penny Shoraton, framed in the doorway like the full length portrait of a beautiful princess on a castle wall. The evening sun was slipping into the marshland and a purple orange sky bled from the horizon.

I could sense Zachariah tensing. The delicacy of Penny just inches from the barbarity of Zachariah was such a juxtaposition as should never rightfully occur. And just a rickety wooden door between them.

“Hello, Simon,” said Penny in the kindest of voices. “Are you ok? I was worried about you.”

She was truly enchanting.

I was willing myself to gaze straight at her, though my whole being was drawn to the secreted Zachariah.

“I’m alright, thank you, just tired that’s all.”

She held out her hand.

“Come with me,” she beckoned. “It won’t help you to stay in here on your own all the time. “

I heard a small noise as of something breaking from behind the door. It seemed Penny had heard nothing, for there was no reaction on her part. Perhaps it was just the sound of Zachariah’s grin cracking his face. I stepped out of the shack
and followed Penny as the door closed silently behind me. I did not take her hand for there are some things that you just shouldn’t touch. I swear the whole shack shook as we left.

We walked across the edge of the marshes and then up the hill to the village green. In the time it took us, the sun went down and the moon came up. There were a couple of people standing on the green talking whilst I could see several others just ambling along aimlessly. An elderly man was leaning on the wall outside St Mary’s Church, staring into the grave yard. White stars spattered the early night sky and I began to feel some sense of safety as I became a part of this quaint English scene.

Ah the perfect blackness of an English country sky is surely the blackboard upon which the angels sketch their heavens.

“Would you like me to introduce you to anybody?” asked Penny, touching my arm gently.
 
“They are all very nice people.”

“It’s ok. I don’t feel all that sociable. Sorry, this is all a bit weird for me at the moment.”

“I’m sure it is, Simon. I’m sure it is. You will get through it though, I promise you. You always have done.”

Penny Shoraton truly had me hooked, I don’t mind admitting.

“Let’s have a drink,” she said.

I looked down, scratched my neck and followed her into the King’s Head. All that was missing was the collar and the lead.

Zachariah Leonard suddenly seemed a million miles away.

The pub was more crowded than the last time I had been in. There was an altogether busier feeling about the place. There was music, of a sort, being played by a lady over on the far side of the bar. She had a guitar propped on her lap. On it were scrawled the words ‘This Guitar Kills Psychiatrists’. Though she plucked the strings for all to hear, she sang only to herself. I saw her lips moving and I saw the tears as they eased from her startled eyes. She could have been a hundred years
old. Her hair was all yellow and grey and the bones of her face told of a former beauty. Perhaps that was why she was crying.

“One ale for my friend here and a water for me please, darling,” said Penny to the young barmaid.

“Will that be a small ale or a large ale, Miss?”

“Oh definitely a large one I think. He is definitely a man who needs a drink right now, aren’t you Simon?”

I sighed and gave her my best sheepish look. She smiled, winked at the barmaid and led me over to a table by the fire that burned all red and yellow in the iron hearth.

Penny sipped her water. I gulped my ale. And in that moment was encapsulated the very difference between us.

“Take your time,” she said. “There’s no rush.”

Her voice had an accent I couldn’t quite place. I could have listened to it for eternity, though it did little to improve the taste of the ale. I could hear other voices murmuring in other parts of the pub. The lonely woman played on and time, such as it was, passed.

“This is hard for you, Simon, isn’t?” asked Penny, breaking the silence that had swelled between us.

I nodded. I found it so hard to talk to her. She must have thought me very ignorant. I drank some more of the ale as she stared at my tankard. She seemed pleased I was getting through it. Even I wasn’t as uncouth as to allow a lady to buy me a drink and then not finish it.

“We can help you, you know, Simon – Weepy and Nardy and myself. Even the boy, Adam, has his uses. The serving girl here is nice too. Her name is Carrie.”

I still could not relate Penny and Carrie to the others - Weepy and Nardy, Zachariah Leonard - even the boy who clearly hated me. I never wanted to see them again, yet I wanted Penny Shoraton to be with me always. Everyone was trying to help me, it seemed, but help me to do what? To get back home? My recollection of life before waking in the village lock-up was becoming frighteningly vague. It was as if all this were real now and my former life but a dream. In just a few days, years of experiences and memories had shattered
into disparate shards that now lay abandoned across the landscape of my mind.

“I don’t know how I got here. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do here and I don’t know how to get home. I don’t know who I can trust and I don’t know who I should fear.” I blurted this out, not in a loud fashion, but merely stating it as undeniable fact. Then I downed the remainder of my ale.

Penny considered what I had just said.

“Do you trust me, Simon?”

I had to say yes.

“Thank you,” she said. “That means a lot to me.”

“So, do you have any answers to any of my questions?” I asked. Then I sighed. A sigh can hold back a tear, but not forever.

Penny leaned forward and covered my hands with her own. The touch of her fingers upon my skin almost broke me in half. I had never experienced such a sensation of longing.

Was I ashamed? Not at all. In love? Possibly.

“Simon,” she began, “I think it might be a little early to answer any of your questions. You have only just arrived, after all. But you need to know that you can trust me and that I will do all I can to help you understand what is happening to you. I can tell you that you have no enemies here. Strange as it may seem, everybody is here to help you - everybody.”

The name of Zachariah Leonard was upon my lips. Was he too here to help me in the same way as Penny and the others? I doubted it. And just as the man himself had slunk into the shadows, so his name withdrew once more into the recesses of my mind.

The once beautiful lady at the bar had replaced her mournful song with a wailing that was drawing looks from all corners. Her guitar lay at her feet. Her hands were on top of her head, wrapped in her tangled hair as if she were either trying to tear it out or to keep it from leaving her.