Adornments of the Storm Page 9

  “A toadstool from the Garden Centre and a fucking dog-licking-its-arse water feature? Are you serious?”

  “Phil—”

  “Have you called the police? Have you told the ward?”

  “The ward is aware,” Miles said, his tone flat. “They will contact the police.”

  Trevena hung up.

  “Fucking basket-weavers,” he said, staring at his computer screen.

  His phone rang again.

  “’lo.”

  “Hi, Phil, it’s Emily on reception. There’s someone here asking to see you. Rob Litchin. Says it’s urgent.”

  Trevena sat back in his chair and closed his eyes. A headache was forming over his right eye.

  “Thanks, Em. Tell him I’ll be down in a bit.”

  “Will do,” she said brightly.

  Trevena sighed and saved his document. He logged off, got up and went out of his office to see what ailed Rob.

  ROB WAS SITTING in a large rattan chair by the glassed-in reception desk. He was wearing army fatigues and heavy, buckled biker boots. His long grey hair was tied back in a ponytail and his beard was substantial but in terrible condition. It stuck out in greasy spikes and sprouted tendrils down his throat; it looked like he had scooped out all the plugholes in a cheap hotel and plastered the contents on his cheeks and under his chin. His eyes were inadequately focused over the required distance, and when Phil walked into the foyer at the front of the Mental Health Unit, Rob blinked and half-closed them, trying to induce the correct resolution, but with minimal success.

  “Phil?” he said, half rising from the chair.

  Trevena came over and put a hand on Rob’s shoulder. Rob sat back in the chair and closed his eyes. “Thank God,” he breathed.

  Trevena squatted down so that he was at eye-level with Rob.

  “What’s up, mate?”

  Rob shook his head. “I’m so pissed, Phil.”

  Trevena glanced up at Emily sitting at her desk in the reception booth. She shrugged and resumed typing on her computer keyboard. The sliding doors at the entrance swished open behind them and Rob flinched and stared over Trevena’s shoulder.

  “It’s alright, Rob. Doesn’t matter. You want to come through to the side room and have a chat?”

  Rob nodded. He leaned forward and put his head in his hands. “I’m wankered, mate.”

  Trevena helped Rob to his feet and guided him around reception and into the corridor that led up to the wards. There was a small room to the left where nurses saw clients for reviews and assessments. There were two low blue metal-framed chairs and a coffee table beneath a locked window. It was the same room he’d seen Andrew Chapel in earlier that morning. Trevena planted Rob in one of the chairs and took the other. He put a notebook and biro on the coffee table, sat back and crossed his legs.

  “What’s happened, Rob?”

  Rob looked up and stared at Trevena with watery eyes. His complexion was sallow and his breath smelt fusty with evaporating cider. He paused, his mouth open, a look of great distaste on his face, and moved his pallid tongue around behind his teeth as if prospecting for words that might be stuck between them like old food.

  Eventually he said, “He’s back, Phil.”

  Trevena picked up his pad and pen. A filament of unease was running up his spine. He had an idea what was coming. He said, “Who, Rob?”

  Trevena was writing the name on his pad even as Rob was saying it, his voice breaking and tears welling in his eyes.

  “It’s Neil, Phil. Neil Gollick’s back.”

  "NEIL’S DEAD, ROB,” Trevena said. “They found his body on the concrete beneath your flat. Do you remember?” He had worked with Rob for years on this and Trevena had thought that he had finally got Rob to believe that what he had experienced all those years ago outside his flat had been hallucinations and delusions. But Rob’s denial persisted, and not surprisingly, really. Because, Trevena knew, it had all been real.

  Rob shook his head. “I was out of it. I didn’t see anything. I woke up on my sofa with an ambulance man standing there.”

  “But they told you. We’ve talked about this. Neil died in the fall. He was trying to terrorise you but something happened and he fell over the balcony. You weren’t to blame.”

  “I know. He was a cunt, Phil. Sorry.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “I saw him last night outside my mum’s front room window. Just standing there. He was grinning with a gob full of those glass teeth and his eyes were white and he was giving me the finger with a claw, man.”

  Trevena said, “When did you start drinking again?”

  “No,” Rob said, shaking his head, “No, I’m not having that. I had my first drink in seven years today. You helped me get off the sauce and I haven’t had a drop in seven years. I wasn’t pissed last night and it wasn’t DTs. I didn’t imagine it, Phil. He was there.”

  “It’s fine, Rob. I believe you. I just need to ask.”

  “I was watching TV—some old film, can’t remember what it was called—and was nodding off. So I switched it off and got up to go and crash and there he was. I froze. The streetlights were on and he was about a foot away from the window, looking in. He couldn’t have been there long because I would have seen his shape behind the glass. It was as if he slid up the garden just as I stood up. Wallop. There he was. He had that Community Support Officer jacket on and it was all dirty with dry brown crap. Blood, I reckon. And he was grinning at me. I shot over to the window and hid beneath the sill. I reached up and yanked the curtains shut and crawled out of the room without looking back. I checked on mum but she was asleep—she’s eighty-six now, Phil. I can’t worry her with this.”

  “No, of course not.”

  “I still get three meals a day off the old girl. She’d be devastated if she knew I was hitting the bottle again. I spent the night on my computer in my room just fannying about with websites but I knew he was out there. I could hear his jacket rustling as he prowled around the house all night. I put all the lights on and locked up but, man, that was very bad.”

  “What happened this morning?”

  “I fell asleep in my chair eventually. Must have been about four in the morning. When I woke up I was thirsty. Raging. I went straight to Balv’s and bought two bottles. Went back to mum’s and did the lot. Easy. Like coming home. But I stopped at two, Phil. When I went out, Neil was gone. I legged it to Balv’s and was back in less than fifteen minutes. Drank them on the sofa and then thought: no way. No way is he doing this to me again. So I made up my mind to come here.”

  “You did the right thing, Rob. What’s it been, two years since I discharged you?”

  Rob nodded. “Yes. Pretty much.” He looked disconsolate.

  “You’ve had a blip, mate. That’s all. Any stress at the moment?”

  Rob was silent for a while, looking out of the window in much the same way Chapel had earlier that morning.

  “Well, I’ve been having some nightmares. Sleep paralysis. Something pressing on my chest as I’m struggling to wake up.”

  “Do you know what it is?”

  Rob slumped back in his chair. He put his arms out, mimed carrying something heavy.

  “It’s like a dense black shape. It’s awful, like time and eternity pressed into a single mass. And it’s alive. It knows me, Phil.”

  Trevena was doodling on his pad, the strokes deliberate, the nib digging into the paper and pressing through the layers beneath. His teeth were clenched. He had drawn a shape, and the shape was a black polygon that was filled with eyes.

  He held the pad up and showed it to Rob.

  “Something like that?”

  Rob’s mouth hung open. He wiped a hand over his face, and nodded.

  “That’s it. That’s the fucker.”

  TREVENA HAD NO choice but to readmit Rob onto his caseload.

  They shook hands at the entrance to the hospital and Trevena was saddened to feel how weak Rob’s grip was. It had been like receiving a handful of warm t
wigs. He shook gently then patted Rob on the shoulder.

  “I’m glad you came, Rob.”

  Rob nodded and looked at his boots. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

  “Yes, here, not at your mum’s if you prefer.”

  “I don’t want her knowing, Phil. I’ll stay off the sauce.”

  “I know. Good fella.”

  Rob traipsed off and Phil hoped that there wasn’t a pub somewhere in his immediate future. He watched Rob dwindle for a minute then returned to his office to write it all up.

  DRUNK AS AN owl. That was one way of saying it. He’d heard it before and it had never made sense. It was wise as an owl. Wise as an owl made sense. Did it? It didn’t. Owls weren’t any wiser than they were good at blowjobs. A cunt was what owls were, round-faced starey little bastards. Gave him the creeps. Like that little fucker sitting over there in the corner with a half a lager in his mittened fist. Beanie. Beanie the dwarf. Like one of those little screech owls he’d seen once in a zoo, tiny but not one fuck given. Staring at him with enraged yellow mince pies, bastards.

  Rob swung around on his stool and glared at the little chap sitting over by the fruit machine. Beanie was ignoring him, or perhaps genuinely hadn’t noticed Rob sitting there in all his camouflage gear. Possible. There were two other men standing at the bar in The Macebearer. Rob squinted and tried to listen to their conversation. He recognised them. A formless, inebriated recognition that at once enhanced certain features and simultaneously leached them of any significance.

  One was telling the other a story.

  “I’m renting this room off this old girl on the estate, right. Cash—she needs it ’cause she’s got this son with Down’s syndrome and they’ve cut her benefits. He’s alright. Big old boy, just sits in his vest watching fucking Harry Potter all day. Loves it. Morning, noon and night that shit’s on. One after another. I come back after a day’s work and go up to me room. He just looks up, tea round his chops, and grins at me. So one morning the old girl has to go out and get something from Balv’s and says to him, ‘Edward, I’m going out. I’ll be twenty minutes. Watch your Harry Potter and if anyone comes to the door, don’t open it, all right?’ It’s this routine she has to explain to him every time. She won’t leave him as a rule but she was out of fags. Had to go, so she puts this rule in place. She puts his telly on and lays out snacks and drinks, warns him again about answering the door and then goes off to the shops. She gets back about twenty minutes later and he’s turned the lounge over. There’s drink all up the walls, crisps and biscuits everywhere. Pictures off the wall, sofa over, telly over, the curtains are down. He’s standing in the middle of all this sweating, pointing at the cupboard under the stairs. He’s terrified, poor bastard. Mum goes, ‘What the fuck have you done, Edward?’ Edward’s going ‘Goblin! Goblin!’ like that. Pointing at the cupboard. Mum thinks he’s been scared by something on his Harry Potters. ‘You see goblins every day, Edward,’ she says. He’s going, ‘Goblin! Goblin!’ She goes to the cupboard and opens it.”

  The man stopped and took a slurp of his lager.

  Rob leaned forward. He was hooked.

  “There’s this fucking dwarf in there. He’s cowering at the back of the cupboard all covered in blood and bruises. The mum pulls him out and asks what happened, why is there a dwarf in the cupboard under her stairs? The little bloke’s too terrified to talk, just tries to escape. She sees he’s dressed smart, suit and tie, and he’s still clutching this handful of flyers for a mobile disco. She twigs then and lets him go. He’s too terrified to complain or anything, doesn’t say a fucking word. Just legs it down the path.”

  Rob’s mouth was hanging open.

  “What’s happened is Edward’s gone to the door anyway, despite what his mum’s said, seen it’s this dwarf giving out flyers and he’s dragged him in thinking he’s being attacked by goblins. Grabbed him and pulled him in off the step. He’s kicked this dwarf’s arse all round the lounge for nearly fifteen minutes. Poor cunt couldn’t get away. Edward’s caught him and thrown him in the cupboard.”

  The man stopped as a chair grated across the floor. He watched as Beanie waddled out of the pub leaving half of his half untouched. The men looked at each other, and then they looked at Rob.

  Rob was roaring with laughter.

  ROB’S NEW FRIENDS were called Dean and Mickey. They worked on one of the nearby farms as labourers. Their boots were caked in pigshit and they were two of the stupidest people Rob had ever met. But they were a distraction.

  “You want another one?” asked Dean.

  “Go on then,” said Mickey, he of the Beanie anecdote.

  “Wasn’t askin’ you,” said Dean.

  “You been poncing my fags all day,” said Mickey. He slid his glass across the table.

  Rob was suffused with their easy camaraderie, buoyed by their cretinous rapport. The horrors of the previous night had receded and now he wondered whether the whole thing had been a dream. He’d gone to see Phil today, hadn’t he? Told him something bandy. How embarrassing. He’d have to ring him later and cancel their appointment.

  Rob was experiencing the sweet diversions of early evening in a pub for the first time in seven years, and he was relishing it. People were coming in, the place was filling up. There was the pallid chicken soup aroma of an unpalatable carvery. A plump bird behind the bar was looking lovelier every hour that passed, despite her tattooed neck and a teasing glimpse of sallow belly that hung like an apron beneath her T-shirt and over the waistband of her taupe leggings. She kept glancing at Rob with an antagonistic kind of interest. Rob was beginning to fancy his chances with her.

  Dean got up and lunged for the bar. He got his order in and came back with three more pints held deftly between his palms and splayed fingers.

  “That bird fancies me,” he said as he plonked the glasses down.

  Rob felt a stab of jealousy and glanced up at the bar. The lusty wench in question was looking in their direction, but so crossed were her eyes that it was hard to tell at whom her interests were directed. Dean turned around on his stool and gave her a wink but she had wandered off, plucking at a bolt of leggings fabric that had been hoovered up by her bum crack.

  “Nice,” said Mickey, and by his tone it was impossible to tell whether he meant it.

  SIX HOURS LATER the chums left The Macebearer to go back to Dean’s flat. A skinful of booze had allowed Rob to make the kind of rash yet inspired arrangements for the next day that he had excelled at when in his cups seven years ago. He’d missed that level of clarity of thinking. If life was words, he thought as they meandered across the plaza leading to Dean’s flat above the shops, then pubs were brackets. Parentheses in the flow of tedious sentences where one could produce great works, illuminate new and important plans, do all the real thinking. He’d agreed to work on the farm tomorrow with Mickey and Dean. Fresh air and a bit of manual labour. Some laughs and then the pub again. Just what he needed.

  Dean paused as they reached a gloomy stairwell. Light from a single orange sodium lamp in the middle of the square did little to illuminate anything besides the dirt in the concrete tubs beneath it. They looked like big pots of grubby marmalade.

  “They never reopened that chippy,” Dean said with regret, gesturing across the square towards a boarded-up shop front. A faded sign above the doors still advertised Fish ‘n’ Chick’n. “Not after that bloke working there topped himself jumpin into the fryer.”

  Rob made a face.

  “Yeah. I saw it. Can’t remember much about that night, though, it was a while ago,” he said. “Terrible shame. I’d kill for a battered burger. Never mind. I’ve got some Ginsters under the sink.”

  They went up to Dean’s flat. It was similar in many ways to Rob’s old flat, where he had lived in squalor for years before Phil had sorted him out and he’d moved back in with his mum. He felt a prick of unease as he crossed the threshold and followed Dean and Mickey up the narrow hallway. The tiny kitchen was on the left as you came in, living roo
m ahead and a bedroom and toilet on the right. No, it wasn’t similar. It was identical. Were all council flats build from the same floor plan? It was like they’d tasked an architect to draw a cross on a piece of paper and make the lines a bit off centre. Great, thanks. How much for that? A fiver? Cheers. Won’t be needing you again.

  At least Dean had carpet, albeit, Rob suspected, from the remnant rolls. It looked like Dean had fitted them himself. They curled in ragged corners and up the skirting board. Rob could swear the carpet in the lounge was upside down.

  There was a massive flat screen TV dominating the lounge. A pair of faux leather black two-seater sofas faced each other in front of it with a smoked-glass coffee table between them. It was all quite clean and tidy though. Rob was impressed.

  “Make yourselves at home,” Dean said, waving towards the couches. He disappeared into the kitchen and Rob heard him opening cupboards and the effortful sucking sound of an old fridge being yanked open. There were clanks and rustling sounds.

  Mickey sat opposite Rob and let off a short blat of wind. Dean returned to the lounge cradling tins of beer and snacks.

  “Oo grunted?” he said, snorting.

  Mickey lifted a hand and grinned.

  Dean put a tin of economy lager in front of Rob and lobbed another into Mickey’s mephitic lap. He unloaded an armful of processed food onto the coffee table and sank down next to Rob.

  “Ginsters,” he said. “Food of the gods.”

  “Not Allah,” said Mickey.

  Dean looked at Mickey blankly. “Nutella? I’m not making fucking san’wichers.” He ripped open the plastic around a sausage roll and slid it onto his knee. The meat protruding from the latticed pastry looked the colour of a compromised leg ulcer. Dean picked it up and ate it in two bites.

  Rob popped the tab on his can and took a slurp. He sat back and looked around. The quality of the lager was so dismal Rob might have been swigging water that had been used to boil batteries. He examined the label. VAL-YOU Lager. Nutritional information: additives of which 97% He shrugged and had another mouthful.