Howard raided all five hundred pounds from
a building society account he had promised his mother he would only use '
for emergencies'. He surmised that his
overdraft was too high to even
try to remedy so he used the cash to
finance a holiday around Europe. He knew that students usually undertook this
activity during the summer and especially not in the winter months of the
spring term but he had given up university now. Besides, his sojourn was not for
pleasure: not unless escape from the agony of guilt over the death of Jacintha
could be considered pleasure by relativity. He packed his rucksack, bought a
continental railcard and travelled to Austria.
The cash ran low within the first week. He
made his way to Paris and scraped his keep through suffering menial jobs in
restaurants and bars. His French was creditable. He loved the language and in
speaking it he felt soothingly removed from his roots, as if he could negate
history and reinvent himself.
He stayed for a week in the foothills of
the Alps to contemplate what had happened to Jacintha. One night when walking
in the mountains he dropped his cerulean canvass rucksack and lay down on the
freezing grass. The sky was clear. He gazed at the glinting stars, cold as
serpents, distant as dragons. Across
the blackness stretched the Milky Way with its million-milliard lights washed
out and untouchable. He reached his hand up towards it.
The stars are silent memoirs from the past.
The stars, like the dead, are locked away in history.
He felt the chilly grass under his
head. It was strange on that cold night
to think of the burning celestial spheres. They would outlive everybody who had lived and likely everybody who will
live. But the stars will all die too,
both large and small. One day, if day
is the word, the sky will be black. The
transparent space will have no more light to ferry and there will be no more
eyes to notice.
Howard broke off his meditation as a
powerful thought, a
revelation,
struck him. He desired to see Gallie! He needed to return to Redater without
delay. He cursed. He needed to stop by his parents' house in Exfield to pick up
his car.
The voyage back to England was
interminable, and the journey from the ferry port to Exfield yet more so. On
coaches, trains and the ferry his impatient thoughts spilled over with
anticipation of his rendezvous with Gallie.
What
was he doing?
Was he too late? He
was ravenously keen to meet her again. After what seemed an aeon his coach
finally pulled up at Exfield Bus Station. A phone call and twenty minutes later
his father arrived to pick him up.
'Glad you're back Son,' said his father in
his monotonous drone.
'Yeah, OK, dad, thanks.'
'Your car has a flat tyre.'
'Oh shit!'
'You'll need to buy a spare. Your spare is
punctured: I inspected it. Garages are shut now till tomorrow Son.'
With difficulty Howard absorbed the bitter
realisation that we was stranded at his parents' place for the night. The delay
was too much! He cursed under his breath. He would have to buy another on his
card, assuming he hadn't hit the limit.
'Truth be told your timing couldn't be
worse,' sighed his father in tones of deep lament. 'Granny Grolgoth is here.
Short notice. It is hard to believe, I know, but that crone is
worse
than Granny Grail!'
'Oh shit no. Then what are you doing here?
You don't mean to say you didn't have time to organise another emergency
fishing trip in Scotland?'
'No it was too short notice, Son. I'm
trying to arrange something commencing in a day or two. Your mother will murder
me, but
anything is preferable to Grolgoth.'
His father pulled into the drive, narrowly
missing a boy retrieving a football from the flowerbed. The artillery of
footballs had been too heavy for the flowers this year. They lay down pathetically,
crushed into the mud that was their womb.
'Oi! That's naughty.
Clear off!'
decreed Howard's father. 'Street urchins!' he muttered.
Howard recalled how as a kid his father had
treated him just like that. No
real pleasure was allowed. All had been duty.
Yet his father never had the energy to enforce his will. The result was that
Howard had rarely had fun with his family, yet had nothing in compensation, for
he had not worked hard either. He remembered how, long ago, he had envied his
school friends, who had been treated by
their parents to endless trips
and parties. His friends had gone boating and camping and to pantos and to
Blackpool, to amusement parks and even trips to America. Many of those things
seemed tacky to him now, but when he was a kid he yearned to do that stuff. His
own life had been lived on plains, comfortable but spare of ocean depths and
mountains peaks to endanger him - and exhilarate him. His father had tried to
teach him that fishing was the holy grail of play. How he detested fishermen,
those staid, frigid losers who tugged at a line all day. All that just to
skewer poor fish through the mouth with a spike. He glanced at his father with
contempt. Yet his father had an innocence about him that disarmed true
abhorrence. As for his mother, his mother fussed and cleaned, like some
pointless trilobite endlessly sucking and filtering the mud. Howard cursed his
luck, why did
he have to have the dull parents? Everybody else had all
the fun. Their parents were scary, but at least they were having all the fun!
The boy tucked his football under one arm,
pulled a two-fingered salute at his father and scampered away to join his
scowling gang. His father's stooped shoulders shrugged. Feeling ashamed of both
his father and himself, Howard slouched behind his father as they passed
through the porch. The glow of his parents' house had usually seemed welcoming,
but this time the light had an edge of foreboding to it. The fragrance of his
parents' house, normally familiar and even mildly pleasant seemed stained by
some abhorrent pollution, as if some sadistic demon had farted there in the
non-too-distant past.
As Howard entered, his radiantly smiling mother leapt
towards him to greet him with a torrent of questions.
He felt an attack of ennui hit him and contemptuously
grunted monosyllabic answers. Ushered into a once-safe
armchair Howard found himself facing Granny Grolgoth.
He felt fear. They exchanged hellos with equally cantankerous
reluctance of on both sides.
Howard's mother suggested he consider consuming
food, a resource that had not been plentifully available during his journey.
She remarked on how thin he was. Ravenous, he keenly accepted her offer. He
sated his appetite and disappeared into his room. At least stopping the night
in Exfield meant he might eat and scrounge some spending money from his
parents. In order to coerce the latter, he supposed that he had to display a
minimum wage of sociability, so after an hour he descended from his room and
unenthusiastically returned to the living room. Granny Grolgoth hissed at the
uncomfortable family in a voice that, Howard suspected, could make spectres
shiver. Suddenly the ancient spinster grew animated.
'My child, were thee at my sister Grail's
house when 'twas took with flames?'
'I don't know what you're talking about,'
said Howard whitening. He began to deeply regret his leaving his bedroom.
'Be thee sure?'
'Quite sure. I think you're confused,' he
mumbled.
Stirred, the hag gurgled discontentedly.
Her glare was evocative of Medusa's for its petrifying effect. Then she became
wrathful.
'You killed my sister!' she screamed! 'I
trust thee not!' She shot a look at Howard's father. 'I trust not thy father
neither!'
Howard's father started at this reference
to him. He shot a look over the parapet of the local newspaper he was reading
and quickly retreated behind the black and white refuge once again.
'Who would like a cup of tea?' asked
Howard's mother nervously.
'I would stay, mother, but I think, Dad, we
have a meeting to attend,' blurted Howard. 'You know, the
Emergency
Meeting of the Local Council about the proposed bypass.'
'At this time of night?' queried his mother.
'What? Oh! Good God yes! Truth be told, I'd
forgotten all about it, Son,' exclaimed his father, perking up. 'We'd better
make haste lest we miss the cast of the deciding vote.'
His mother cast them a withering stare
that, for a chilling moment, betrayed her kinship with Granny Grolgoth.
'What
bypass?'
Ten minutes later the pints were bought in
the
Dog and Ferret.
'Talk about quick thinking! Nice one, Son,
Emergency Meeting of the Local Council:
I'd never have come up with that one, not in a million years! Cheers!'
'They didn't believe us, mind.'
'It's a sin to lie, Son. If I may know the
truth it can be a good thing, to sin. If you ask me, all the damage caused by
good faith is irreparable.'
Howard's mind returned to his murder of
Granny Grail. How the hell did Granny Grolgoth suspect him? Would she inform
the police? He did not enjoy his beer. He could not get back to Redater an
infinitesimal fraction of a second too soon. He dreaded a reunion with Greg and
Karen and even Dominic but he yearned to be with Gallie.
 | | | | |
| From: |
Cas | Subject: | 2002-11-16 02:49:18 |
| | | | |
| From: |
Eadon | Subject: | 2002-11-16 03:36:50 |
| | | | |
| From: |
Knoeier | Subject: | 2003-01-07 06:39:16 |
| | | | |
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