STARSHINE, THE OCEAN AND THE UNICORN
Chapter three Part three
It was dark and raining in Southampton. It was five 'o' clock and the station was crowded with agitated, grim faced travellers, pushing through each others ranks in both directions, their overcoats and luggage wet with raindrops. The train back to London was ready to pull out when Joe ran onto the platform and opened a door that had already been slammed shut by a guard. He found a seat by the window, collapsed into it and tried to catch his rasping breath. He had found the right house in the right street in the right part of town and the cherry red porsche had been delivered to a smartly tailored, dark haired gentleman with a dago accent, fitting the name and description Morgan Alexander had given to him. Joe had made some weak excuse for his extreme lateness and then bolted to miss a fight and catch a train.
The train was moving. Joe looked out of the window to try and see the dock lights, but all he saw was his own unclear reflection on a black background. His hair and shoulders were wet and his face was pink with cold. He watched large raindrops on the glass being joggled by the train's movement, occasionally one would break and run fast diagonally across thew window, leaving a watery trail behind it.
People trapezed the gangway on their return journeys from the buffet car carrying plastic cups of hot coffee and polystyrene cartons of burghers and toasted ham and cheese sandwiches. The thought of food crossed Joe's mind, but it was so long since he had eaten that he had forgotten the need to and anyway he had no money in his pocket so he ignored the idea and closed his eyes to think of sleep instead.
While he was relaxed and waiting for sleep to arrive, the euphoria of his new found wealth sprang from a tiny core deep in the pit of his stomach and spread through him like a wave that drew him from the sea bed and carried him on its breaking surf to the highest mountain where he was gently laid down to sleep in the hot, drying sun. The passengers around him looked up from their books and papers and crossword puzzles and they stared at the young man's sleeping face that smiled like a child.
He was awoken an hour or so later by the ticket collector who was leaning across and frantically shaking him by the shoulder, and again the passengers looked at him but this time more furtively because his eyes wee beginning to open and they all pitied him being brought back from wherever it was he had been. The train rattled through fast black tunnels back to town. Joe rested his head against the window, its tiny vibrations tingled through his skin and day dreams drew him back through their own fast tunnels of his monied future; the fun, the freedom, the generosity. First there was Roy, he would be cured in the best, most modernly equipped clinic, a white walled country mansion somewhere in Surrey. Then there was Annie, he would take her to Barbados where the water would be warm and the sand would be soft between their toes and the palm trees would stand and nod to a gentle sea breeze. Then Joe remembered Jason and the fantasies turned a sour corner. He decided to distance himself from the killings, to carry them out methodically and professionally and then wipe them from his senses and forget. Now that he had so much to live for it was even more important to complete Jason's ugly assignments and to stay alive himself. Having made that decision he came to the end of a cold stream of consciousness and moved straight into another that felt warm and good. He had a godmother.
"I had to stop in on my godmother," was Joe's casual answer to Mr. Alexander's angry little eyes. It was suffocating in the tiny office that was filled with cigar smoke, the scotsman's sweat and foul mouthed temper. Joe got out fast with only a quarter of the money he had been promised and no job. He had no need of it and being sacked was just another laugh at a way of life that was no longer his. The cold air outside was a release. His mind was still busy with possibilities and three million pounds.
He was halfway up the dank, dark stairway without any notion of having left one place and arrived at another. He had no memory of the route in between, or buying a ticket for the underground, or the escalators slowly going up and slowly going down. He turned the last landing onto the last flight of stairs and his heart quickened. The meter had been empty when he had left that morning and now the weak light from the low watt bulb shone from his empty doorway. He hesitated and his footsteps faltered.
" Come on in Joe. Door's open ! " The scornful invitation was Jason's and his chuckling was deep throated and snide. Joe stood, hands in pockets and one shoulder against the door frame. Jason still wearing his hat and coat , sat on a chair and warmed his hands over the oranged bars of the electric fire.The wooden chair looked silly beneath his sheer mass. " You've never been very lucky have you Joe ! "
Joe wanted to say something of his good fortune to wipe the sneer from Jason's face. But neither the courage or the wit found their way to him. He felt slow and heavy and knew something bad was coming. So he waited and it came.
" You killed the wrong spade, " Jason's controlled chuckle grew to uncontrolled laughter and the chair looked even more precarious beneath his shaking weight. Joe was struck. His eyeballs seared and a fever burned through him. He remembered the shiny shaven head of his victim and the full head of hair in the photograph. Then he remembered the polished boots and the perfectly creased uniform trousers and in his mind's eye he saw the trousers on an ironing board and the careful precise movements of a steam iron operated by a woman's hand. Joe dropped to his knees. A pressure in his head tried to explode and a high pitched whine inside his ears shut out Jason's laughter.
When the screaming inside had left him and the fever had subsided he was drained, sucked out and his whole body was hollow. He said " So what happens now ? ". The question was mindless and his voice seemed to come from somewhere else.
" You kill the right spade." was Jason's flat answer, " Now ! "
Jason held on his hat and ducked to get through the doorway. Joe followed him but did not feel his legs move. Jason stopped at the top of the stairs and Joe nearly ran into his back. " You owe me fifty pence for the electric, " said Jason. Joe dug deep in his pocket and found a fifty pence piece. Joe held out his hand like a huge dinner plate and Joe placed the silver, seven sided coin in its centre where it looked small and worthless.
The sleek black car that had cornered Joe not so long ago was parked outside the front door. A fine drizzle was falling and the streetlamp's bold reflections glowed on the wet pavements. The car pulled away. Jason was in the front beside the driver who Joe recognised as the man with a silver flask in the multi-storey car park. Joe was in the back, wedged between two more chinamen, both square, squat and solid like cubes of muscle wearing clothes. The car engine was noiseless. Outside the Soho night moved silently by. Joe had no idea where they were going. Instead he watched the slight movement of the driver's shoulders as he turned the wheel first one way and then the other as the route zig zagged from street to street.
" What did the guy , do ? " asked Joe. He was answered with more silence and a quick, blank glance from Jason. Joe said no more. He worked on the mysteries himself. He did not even know whether the organisation was a Tong, a Triad or just a chinese mafia. Whatever the outfit it was it was all silence and rigidity. Its operations ran smoothly and were untraceable because each cog acted deaf, dumb and blind to the rest of the machinery. There were no pardons for meddlers and pilferers like Bernie and the security guard. And Joe had just been a hireling who had jumped at the chance to make a quick ton. Just a simple collection from a courier after the merchandise had been guided safely through customs. Easy and safe. But a third party had made its move and cheated and so now Joe was a blackmailed pawn back on the board as a hitman. He wondered why he had not been hit himself. Maybe they thought that given time he would lead them to the stash of saleable drugs and the money he had supposedly replaced with sand and monopoly notes. But surely torture would've been more their style and more effective. These thoughts became a whirlpool, then Joe's mind seized up and his mouth opened with a question he did not know he was going to ask. It was an instinct, a subconscious line of thought that asked it for him. " Know a man who wears a green gabardine coat, grey trousers and tan shoes ? "
Sunday 28 June 2015
Sunday 21 June 2015
STARSHINE,THE OCEAN AND THE UNICORN
Chapter Three Part two
Joe felt light headed and dazed as if on the precipice of a dreamscape from which he would fall and awaken. He stared at the grandfather clock at the far end of the room and in the empty silence of time unmoved, he asked himself many questions. Who was her godson? Had he just arrived too? Was he somewhere else in the house? Why such a sudden decision to make a Will? How much would she leave ? He blanked all these thoughts and watched old Mrs. Barker take a bottle and two rounded brandy glasses from a cupboard. She brought them over to the table and sat down opposite Joe. Her eyes shone with the strength and completeness of spirit which had been her life, but her body was thin and frail and close to death. She poured out the brandies, one for Joe and one for herself. Joe felt no other presence and heard no other sound but the silence of the house surrounding the room where Mrs. Barker was hostess and he was her godson.
"Why did you do that ?" said Joe.
" Because I wanted to" she answered and she raised he glass" To three million pounds ! Your future ! Your impending inheritance ! "
Joe did not pick up his glass " Why leave it to me ? " he asked.
" Because you think you want it and because you think it will make you happy. " She despised him. Joe lowered his eyes and remained silent. He could not deny that so much money would make him happy, but her contempt disturbed him and did not connect with her generosity, so that he could not feel his happiness or show that he was grateful and he knew that she was watching him as he sank into sadness.
Joe got up to leave. "There's been some mistake. I'd better go. "
He checked the car keys in his back pocket and made a move towards the door.
" And turn down three million pounds ? Does that much money scare you ? "
" No. " he said
She had challenged him and Joe was defiant, " Well it should do." said the old lady quietly. They looked hard at each other. Joe was no longer so ready to leave. He sat down again and tipped back his brandy. He let the fiery liquid smother his confusion. Mrs. Barker poured him another. She softened " Take this and look around the house before Mr. Hodgekins arrives. I'll stay here and rest. " She moved herself wearily to the chaise - longue and lay down. Once again Joe's mood had been deflected, his defiance faded, his mind was void. So he obeyed and left the room, his glass in his hand.
Joe walked the stairs and landings and through doors into room upon room of nothing, empty and bare, low ceilinged rooms and high ceilinged rooms uncurtained and uncarpeted. In one room he found the forgotten words of a pile of yellowed and browned newspapers from the Great War and on into the twenties. He had the strange vision of standing inside a vision he had once had and finding it colourless. He sipped his brandy and moved on to the next room. It was a bathroom with a cast iron bath on lion's feet and a painted japanese screen of pale blossoms edged in gold.
In the bedroom Joe sat at the dressing table and looked into the mirror where the rooms sense of loss was reflected. The brass bed had not been slept in since the night of a man's death. The old oak wardrobe and chest stood sad and silent, their doors and drawers closed. The curtains were open to include all the hours of the days and nights of waiting for his widow to follow him into timelessness.
High up in the house he found himself in one of the turrets. The circular room was busy with bric-a-brac. Underneath the window was an old school desk complete with blue stained ink well and beside it on the floor was a cluster of conches and fan shaped shells and others that were curled and spotted with pink underbellies. Against the curving wall was a willow patterned punch bowl filled with dried earth, a china doll dressed in white lace and a torn bridal veil sat propped up against it. One side of her face was the bluey white, translucent glaze of bone china with a pink tinged cheek. The other side was jagged and broken away and showed the dark emptiness inside. Next to the china doll was a scarfed and aproned, faded russian dolly in two halves and her eight decreasing daughters all toppled and stranded around her. A painting hung on the wall. It was the colour of night and starlight over the ocean and there was a small rowing boat like a tiny shadow on the gentle waves. There was a child's Noah's ark, simply carved out of wood. There was Noah and his wife and all the creatures two by two; the striped and the spotted, the long necked and the long nosed, the tusked and the horned, the haired and the scaled and the feathered. In the darkest part of the room, near the door, he found a broken jigsaw puzzle. There was no box or picture as a guide, just a mound of hundreds maybe a thousand tiny pieces and other stray ones scattered around the main pile. Joe felt an odd sensation, a rush and a sudden arrival at the heart of some vast discovery, carefully preserved in a little round tower. He tried to read the story, but the messages were jumbled and meaningless like the relics themselves.
Downstairs at the back of the house was a kitchen with a stone flagged floor. It was dark and dingy and spartan. There was a blackened aga stove with a flue, a wooden table and an ancient, stained sink. There were no pots or plates or cutlery to be seen. Joe presumed they were all neatly stacked away in the closed cupboards. Joe was famished, he had not eaten for over a day and the brandy in his stomach was making him queasy. He opened the larder and it was completely bare. Then he opened the back door and found a bank of nettles where there should have been a kitchen garden. There was no sign of any food or any indication that there had ever been any. Its absence disturbed Joe. It was yet another misconnection, another distortion in a house where reality was miscast and thrown askance.
Back in the drawing room Joe picked up a brass poker and poked at the logs in the hearth. The fire crackled and sparked. The old lady stirred in the lightness of her sleep, she opened her eyes and watched Joe. Joe gazed into the flames and said abstractly, " There's no food in the house."
" No, there's no food here. " she said flatly.
" How can you stay alive ?"
" I'm not staying alive, I'm dying."
" Why ?"
She was quiet for a moment and then distant, as if her explanation was directed at someone else far away. "Because George is dead." She paused, " There was an energy in our souls that burned like another spirit, a third presence, a ghost we both felt, always there. And now he is dead the ghost is dead and I must die too. "
" Why ?"
" Because I choose to, I want to, I promised to. And George would have done the same should I have died before him. It was a lover's pact."
Joe did not understand.
There was a flat, dull knock at the door.
"That'll be our visitor,"she said, "He's a toad." she raised herself stiffly. "So what do I call you godson ?"
"Joe."
"Just Joe."
"Joe Munroe."
There was a second impatient knock at the door. "Well Joe Munroe, you'd better let him in hadn't you !"
Joe did so and came face to face with a tall, gawky, bespectacled, black suited man who was young but old. The lawyer looked at Joe suspiciously, pushed past him and walked briskly into the drawing where Mrs. Barker was now sitting at the card table looking stern and business like. Mr. Hodgekins looked at her questioningly, he sat opposite her and spoke in his most patronizing tones, "Well now Mrs. Barker. you've finally decided to make out a Will."
"Yes Mr. Hodgekins. That is correct. " She was doubly condescending.
Joe stood in the shadows at the far end of the room and observed the battle from a distance while he pretended to study the titles of books and the intricate details of the silent clock face. Mrs. Barker sat calmly with her hands in her lap and her steady eyes on Mr. Hodgekins who swallowed uncomfortably. Her gaze moved to his large adam's apple and his scrawny neck. He twisted from side to side trying to loosen the awful tightness of his tie knot and starched collar.
"I presume your godson is involved in some way, as it is his sudden appearance that seems to have prompted you."
"Yes," she said "my godson Mr. Monroe is to be the sole beneficiary of my wealth and property.",
" I see!" said Mr. Hodgekins ironically.
" Good. Then let's get the thing settled shall we ?"
The lawyer answered her abruptness with more patronage, " Mrs. Barker, are you sure this is wise ?"
" Wise !" she grew impatient " What's wisdom got to do with it ?"
" Mrs. Baker is this man really your godson ?"
" Of course he is. "
Mr. Hodgekins glanced down the room at the unlikely candidate for such an inheritance, his jeans, his bomber jacket and trainers and hs clear blue streetwise eyes. The lawyer turned back to his client. " What I mean is, we should all be certain that you haven't been persuaded against your better judgement."
She looked at him stonily. "My judgement is my judgement. There is no such thing as my better judgement."
The lawyer gave in. " Very well Mrs. Barker. If you are so determined I'll write up the Will as you wish. Its your decision."
She gave him a syrupy sweet smile, " I knew you'd see it my way."
Mr. Hodgekins lifted his executive briefcase onto the table and took out the necessary papers. He drew up a short and simple Will." Mrs. Barker signed it, her lawyer witnessed her signature and she smiled her satisfaction. " There ! Perfect ! That wasn't so very difficult was it ?"
Mr. Hodgekins stared blankly at the table top in solemn defeat. Mrs. Barker turned to her godson, "Joe you must let Mr. Hodgekins know your address."
The old lady's command brought Joe back. Since entering the house he had felt intrigue, confusion, depression and even fear. But all these emotions had come from outside and had touched him without including him. He had not understood his own involvement. Facts and events had floated around him and now their edges cleared and they became solid. As he wrote down the Soho address of his doorless room he realised that he was the subject, the beneficiary of an inheritance.
Mr. Hodgekins looked at the address scornfully. He put the sheet of paper inside his briefcase which he clipped shut with a terse click. He stood up to leave and Mrs. Barker issued her final instructions without looking at him, " When I die you will send a telegram to Mr. Munroe informing him of my death. He will then go to your office and you will make all the necessary arrangements."
Mr. Hodgekins nodded grimly and left without a word.
Mrs. Barker looked at Joe, she was weary and dawn. " You must go too young Joe. Our business is complete. Its all signed and sealed and soon will be delivered. "
" Thank you Mrs. Barker."
She softened and accepted his gratitude, " Call me Clare."
" Thank you Clare" he said. And he left with what he thought he wanted.
" Don't thank me Joe." But he could not hear her sad words through the doors that had already closed between them.
.
.
.
Chapter Three Part two
Joe felt light headed and dazed as if on the precipice of a dreamscape from which he would fall and awaken. He stared at the grandfather clock at the far end of the room and in the empty silence of time unmoved, he asked himself many questions. Who was her godson? Had he just arrived too? Was he somewhere else in the house? Why such a sudden decision to make a Will? How much would she leave ? He blanked all these thoughts and watched old Mrs. Barker take a bottle and two rounded brandy glasses from a cupboard. She brought them over to the table and sat down opposite Joe. Her eyes shone with the strength and completeness of spirit which had been her life, but her body was thin and frail and close to death. She poured out the brandies, one for Joe and one for herself. Joe felt no other presence and heard no other sound but the silence of the house surrounding the room where Mrs. Barker was hostess and he was her godson.
"Why did you do that ?" said Joe.
" Because I wanted to" she answered and she raised he glass" To three million pounds ! Your future ! Your impending inheritance ! "
Joe did not pick up his glass " Why leave it to me ? " he asked.
" Because you think you want it and because you think it will make you happy. " She despised him. Joe lowered his eyes and remained silent. He could not deny that so much money would make him happy, but her contempt disturbed him and did not connect with her generosity, so that he could not feel his happiness or show that he was grateful and he knew that she was watching him as he sank into sadness.
Joe got up to leave. "There's been some mistake. I'd better go. "
He checked the car keys in his back pocket and made a move towards the door.
" And turn down three million pounds ? Does that much money scare you ? "
" No. " he said
She had challenged him and Joe was defiant, " Well it should do." said the old lady quietly. They looked hard at each other. Joe was no longer so ready to leave. He sat down again and tipped back his brandy. He let the fiery liquid smother his confusion. Mrs. Barker poured him another. She softened " Take this and look around the house before Mr. Hodgekins arrives. I'll stay here and rest. " She moved herself wearily to the chaise - longue and lay down. Once again Joe's mood had been deflected, his defiance faded, his mind was void. So he obeyed and left the room, his glass in his hand.
Joe walked the stairs and landings and through doors into room upon room of nothing, empty and bare, low ceilinged rooms and high ceilinged rooms uncurtained and uncarpeted. In one room he found the forgotten words of a pile of yellowed and browned newspapers from the Great War and on into the twenties. He had the strange vision of standing inside a vision he had once had and finding it colourless. He sipped his brandy and moved on to the next room. It was a bathroom with a cast iron bath on lion's feet and a painted japanese screen of pale blossoms edged in gold.
In the bedroom Joe sat at the dressing table and looked into the mirror where the rooms sense of loss was reflected. The brass bed had not been slept in since the night of a man's death. The old oak wardrobe and chest stood sad and silent, their doors and drawers closed. The curtains were open to include all the hours of the days and nights of waiting for his widow to follow him into timelessness.
High up in the house he found himself in one of the turrets. The circular room was busy with bric-a-brac. Underneath the window was an old school desk complete with blue stained ink well and beside it on the floor was a cluster of conches and fan shaped shells and others that were curled and spotted with pink underbellies. Against the curving wall was a willow patterned punch bowl filled with dried earth, a china doll dressed in white lace and a torn bridal veil sat propped up against it. One side of her face was the bluey white, translucent glaze of bone china with a pink tinged cheek. The other side was jagged and broken away and showed the dark emptiness inside. Next to the china doll was a scarfed and aproned, faded russian dolly in two halves and her eight decreasing daughters all toppled and stranded around her. A painting hung on the wall. It was the colour of night and starlight over the ocean and there was a small rowing boat like a tiny shadow on the gentle waves. There was a child's Noah's ark, simply carved out of wood. There was Noah and his wife and all the creatures two by two; the striped and the spotted, the long necked and the long nosed, the tusked and the horned, the haired and the scaled and the feathered. In the darkest part of the room, near the door, he found a broken jigsaw puzzle. There was no box or picture as a guide, just a mound of hundreds maybe a thousand tiny pieces and other stray ones scattered around the main pile. Joe felt an odd sensation, a rush and a sudden arrival at the heart of some vast discovery, carefully preserved in a little round tower. He tried to read the story, but the messages were jumbled and meaningless like the relics themselves.
Downstairs at the back of the house was a kitchen with a stone flagged floor. It was dark and dingy and spartan. There was a blackened aga stove with a flue, a wooden table and an ancient, stained sink. There were no pots or plates or cutlery to be seen. Joe presumed they were all neatly stacked away in the closed cupboards. Joe was famished, he had not eaten for over a day and the brandy in his stomach was making him queasy. He opened the larder and it was completely bare. Then he opened the back door and found a bank of nettles where there should have been a kitchen garden. There was no sign of any food or any indication that there had ever been any. Its absence disturbed Joe. It was yet another misconnection, another distortion in a house where reality was miscast and thrown askance.
Back in the drawing room Joe picked up a brass poker and poked at the logs in the hearth. The fire crackled and sparked. The old lady stirred in the lightness of her sleep, she opened her eyes and watched Joe. Joe gazed into the flames and said abstractly, " There's no food in the house."
" No, there's no food here. " she said flatly.
" How can you stay alive ?"
" I'm not staying alive, I'm dying."
" Why ?"
She was quiet for a moment and then distant, as if her explanation was directed at someone else far away. "Because George is dead." She paused, " There was an energy in our souls that burned like another spirit, a third presence, a ghost we both felt, always there. And now he is dead the ghost is dead and I must die too. "
" Why ?"
" Because I choose to, I want to, I promised to. And George would have done the same should I have died before him. It was a lover's pact."
Joe did not understand.
There was a flat, dull knock at the door.
"That'll be our visitor,"she said, "He's a toad." she raised herself stiffly. "So what do I call you godson ?"
"Joe."
"Just Joe."
"Joe Munroe."
There was a second impatient knock at the door. "Well Joe Munroe, you'd better let him in hadn't you !"
Joe did so and came face to face with a tall, gawky, bespectacled, black suited man who was young but old. The lawyer looked at Joe suspiciously, pushed past him and walked briskly into the drawing where Mrs. Barker was now sitting at the card table looking stern and business like. Mr. Hodgekins looked at her questioningly, he sat opposite her and spoke in his most patronizing tones, "Well now Mrs. Barker. you've finally decided to make out a Will."
"Yes Mr. Hodgekins. That is correct. " She was doubly condescending.
Joe stood in the shadows at the far end of the room and observed the battle from a distance while he pretended to study the titles of books and the intricate details of the silent clock face. Mrs. Barker sat calmly with her hands in her lap and her steady eyes on Mr. Hodgekins who swallowed uncomfortably. Her gaze moved to his large adam's apple and his scrawny neck. He twisted from side to side trying to loosen the awful tightness of his tie knot and starched collar.
"I presume your godson is involved in some way, as it is his sudden appearance that seems to have prompted you."
"Yes," she said "my godson Mr. Monroe is to be the sole beneficiary of my wealth and property.",
" I see!" said Mr. Hodgekins ironically.
" Good. Then let's get the thing settled shall we ?"
The lawyer answered her abruptness with more patronage, " Mrs. Barker, are you sure this is wise ?"
" Wise !" she grew impatient " What's wisdom got to do with it ?"
" Mrs. Baker is this man really your godson ?"
" Of course he is. "
Mr. Hodgekins glanced down the room at the unlikely candidate for such an inheritance, his jeans, his bomber jacket and trainers and hs clear blue streetwise eyes. The lawyer turned back to his client. " What I mean is, we should all be certain that you haven't been persuaded against your better judgement."
She looked at him stonily. "My judgement is my judgement. There is no such thing as my better judgement."
The lawyer gave in. " Very well Mrs. Barker. If you are so determined I'll write up the Will as you wish. Its your decision."
She gave him a syrupy sweet smile, " I knew you'd see it my way."
Mr. Hodgekins lifted his executive briefcase onto the table and took out the necessary papers. He drew up a short and simple Will." Mrs. Barker signed it, her lawyer witnessed her signature and she smiled her satisfaction. " There ! Perfect ! That wasn't so very difficult was it ?"
Mr. Hodgekins stared blankly at the table top in solemn defeat. Mrs. Barker turned to her godson, "Joe you must let Mr. Hodgekins know your address."
The old lady's command brought Joe back. Since entering the house he had felt intrigue, confusion, depression and even fear. But all these emotions had come from outside and had touched him without including him. He had not understood his own involvement. Facts and events had floated around him and now their edges cleared and they became solid. As he wrote down the Soho address of his doorless room he realised that he was the subject, the beneficiary of an inheritance.
Mr. Hodgekins looked at the address scornfully. He put the sheet of paper inside his briefcase which he clipped shut with a terse click. He stood up to leave and Mrs. Barker issued her final instructions without looking at him, " When I die you will send a telegram to Mr. Munroe informing him of my death. He will then go to your office and you will make all the necessary arrangements."
Mr. Hodgekins nodded grimly and left without a word.
Mrs. Barker looked at Joe, she was weary and dawn. " You must go too young Joe. Our business is complete. Its all signed and sealed and soon will be delivered. "
" Thank you Mrs. Barker."
She softened and accepted his gratitude, " Call me Clare."
" Thank you Clare" he said. And he left with what he thought he wanted.
" Don't thank me Joe." But he could not hear her sad words through the doors that had already closed between them.
.
.
.
Saturday 20 June 2015
STARSHINE, THE OCEAN AND THE UNICORN
Chapter three The Godson Part one
The cherry red porsche rode fast over the smooth surface of a road that wove its way through a patchwork world of green and brown fields outlined with hedgerows like a blanket spread over gentle hills, dips and slopes, its colours muted by a white veil of morning frost. The winter sun sat small and high in a blue cloudless sky that was clean and cold. And so too was Joe's mind clean and cold. All visions and memories of greyness were forgotten. His easy control of the car and its speed freed him as he drove on, over an empty road from horizon to horizon, through a landscape of no one but himself.
He entered a leafless wood. An ancient graveyard of twisted trees, cracked and dry like grey bones. Their roots stood in an eerie darkness and their gnarled branches arched overhead where the sun's rays fell through them like white ghosts. Joe drove through patterns of shadow and weird light.
The road was open again and the wood was behind him when he saw and recognised the house. It was high on a hilltop. As the wheels of the porsche crunched over the gravel lane that ran up the slope in a straight line from the road to the house, he saw on either side of him,grass of frosted velvet green. He knew he had been here before but he did not know when and he did not know why he was here now, but he was.
He pulled up in front of the garden gate and got out of the car. He entered the garden to the sound of the gate's rusted iron hinges. The garden was wild and tangled. Winter stripped bushes mixed with evergreen shrubs of all shades, and long thorny branches crept, straggled and draped themselves like lethal ropes ready to ensnare. The grass was tough and high and stiff with the frost that glittered like a mesh of tiny crystals. Joe looked up at the house and every strange detail was known to him; the stone tiled roof patched with lichen, the capped turrets, the tall chimneys, the falls of ivy over the walls and the speckled colours in the grey stonework. He looked in through the window and the black silence beyond them was also known to him. He felt heavy and bewildered with the clear recognition of a house he had never seen and the exact recollection of a place he had never been. He walked up the path that was half hidden by long grass. He climbed the steps of the curved, stone stairway, treading over cracks where green weeds pushed through grey stone. He looked at the oaken door a while and his hand reached out to the vile brass face on the doorknocker he knew that this too was a repetition of something remembered and forgotten.
Joe's eyes and mind were drawn and spurned by a small gargoyle face, when the door was opened a crack and a woman's old and gentle voice said to him "Its to keep away evil."
"I'm not evil." Joe did not understand his own sudden response, full of fear and guilt, unveiled and ugly like the doorknocker's blank, bulbous eyes and empty leering mouth. And then the door was wide open and Joe's eyes were on the old woman standing in its frame. She was thin and wrinkled. Her eyes were deep brown, her grey hair was drawn back and pinned up. The soft careful tones of her voice were full of strength and goodness.
"My dear boy, nobody said you were." They looked at each other and in the silence Joe felt her eyes move through his soul where everything was bared and judged, and he shrank. " Come in !" Her command was natural and offhand as if his visit had been expected. She turned and walked into the house with a grace that had stiffened with age. Joe followed her.
The drawing room was musty with dust and neglect. The walls were lined with bookcases filled with leather bound books. Balding persian rugs covered the floor. There was a clutter of cabinets, sideboards and small tables of various antique shades and grains of mahogany, rosewood and walnut. There was a grandfather clock at the far end of the room. Its hands were stuck at half past five, its pendulum did not swing, it made no sound. There was a suite of two armchairs and a chaise-longue upholstered in faded velvet of greying salmon pink. The old woman told him to sit down, so he sat on one of the velvet chairs between a circular card table and the fireplace. The chair felt awkward, he could not relax in it. First he folded his arms, then he put them on the chair arms, then he put his hands on his knees and was acutely conscious of the fact that he had never in his life sat with a hand on each knee. he moved and fidgeted but each alien position simply led to another as ridiculous. He looked at the old lady. She looked back at him with her calm, steady eyes. She stood at the sideboard, picked up the receiver of an old fashioned telephone and began dialling, letting the dial run back slowly to its beginning between each number. Her poise was graceful and tranquil. She was dressed in black, in the style and simple elegance of the twenties. Joe's blue jeans and cream jacket suddenly felt shabby and ill fitting. He heard the ringing tone at the other end of the call. He felt the warmth from the hearth where orange and yellow flames licked and curled over blackened logs. He looked at the card table next to him, there was an inlaid chess board in its centre. Joe was examining the perfect squares of dark ebony and light boxwood when he heard the old lady's words. "Hello!" Could I have a word with your nice Mr. Hodgekins please dear?" Her voice was full of kindness but for Mr. Hodgekins her words became sterner with a stubborn authority, edged with charm. "Mr. Hodgekins? Its me Mrs. Barker. I'd like you to come round right away. I've decided to make out a Will after all." She paused, then as an afterthought she added, "My godson has just arrived. Having made her cryptic announcement she casually replaced the receiver.
Chapter three The Godson Part one
The cherry red porsche rode fast over the smooth surface of a road that wove its way through a patchwork world of green and brown fields outlined with hedgerows like a blanket spread over gentle hills, dips and slopes, its colours muted by a white veil of morning frost. The winter sun sat small and high in a blue cloudless sky that was clean and cold. And so too was Joe's mind clean and cold. All visions and memories of greyness were forgotten. His easy control of the car and its speed freed him as he drove on, over an empty road from horizon to horizon, through a landscape of no one but himself.
He entered a leafless wood. An ancient graveyard of twisted trees, cracked and dry like grey bones. Their roots stood in an eerie darkness and their gnarled branches arched overhead where the sun's rays fell through them like white ghosts. Joe drove through patterns of shadow and weird light.
The road was open again and the wood was behind him when he saw and recognised the house. It was high on a hilltop. As the wheels of the porsche crunched over the gravel lane that ran up the slope in a straight line from the road to the house, he saw on either side of him,grass of frosted velvet green. He knew he had been here before but he did not know when and he did not know why he was here now, but he was.
He pulled up in front of the garden gate and got out of the car. He entered the garden to the sound of the gate's rusted iron hinges. The garden was wild and tangled. Winter stripped bushes mixed with evergreen shrubs of all shades, and long thorny branches crept, straggled and draped themselves like lethal ropes ready to ensnare. The grass was tough and high and stiff with the frost that glittered like a mesh of tiny crystals. Joe looked up at the house and every strange detail was known to him; the stone tiled roof patched with lichen, the capped turrets, the tall chimneys, the falls of ivy over the walls and the speckled colours in the grey stonework. He looked in through the window and the black silence beyond them was also known to him. He felt heavy and bewildered with the clear recognition of a house he had never seen and the exact recollection of a place he had never been. He walked up the path that was half hidden by long grass. He climbed the steps of the curved, stone stairway, treading over cracks where green weeds pushed through grey stone. He looked at the oaken door a while and his hand reached out to the vile brass face on the doorknocker he knew that this too was a repetition of something remembered and forgotten.
Joe's eyes and mind were drawn and spurned by a small gargoyle face, when the door was opened a crack and a woman's old and gentle voice said to him "Its to keep away evil."
"I'm not evil." Joe did not understand his own sudden response, full of fear and guilt, unveiled and ugly like the doorknocker's blank, bulbous eyes and empty leering mouth. And then the door was wide open and Joe's eyes were on the old woman standing in its frame. She was thin and wrinkled. Her eyes were deep brown, her grey hair was drawn back and pinned up. The soft careful tones of her voice were full of strength and goodness.
"My dear boy, nobody said you were." They looked at each other and in the silence Joe felt her eyes move through his soul where everything was bared and judged, and he shrank. " Come in !" Her command was natural and offhand as if his visit had been expected. She turned and walked into the house with a grace that had stiffened with age. Joe followed her.
The drawing room was musty with dust and neglect. The walls were lined with bookcases filled with leather bound books. Balding persian rugs covered the floor. There was a clutter of cabinets, sideboards and small tables of various antique shades and grains of mahogany, rosewood and walnut. There was a grandfather clock at the far end of the room. Its hands were stuck at half past five, its pendulum did not swing, it made no sound. There was a suite of two armchairs and a chaise-longue upholstered in faded velvet of greying salmon pink. The old woman told him to sit down, so he sat on one of the velvet chairs between a circular card table and the fireplace. The chair felt awkward, he could not relax in it. First he folded his arms, then he put them on the chair arms, then he put his hands on his knees and was acutely conscious of the fact that he had never in his life sat with a hand on each knee. he moved and fidgeted but each alien position simply led to another as ridiculous. He looked at the old lady. She looked back at him with her calm, steady eyes. She stood at the sideboard, picked up the receiver of an old fashioned telephone and began dialling, letting the dial run back slowly to its beginning between each number. Her poise was graceful and tranquil. She was dressed in black, in the style and simple elegance of the twenties. Joe's blue jeans and cream jacket suddenly felt shabby and ill fitting. He heard the ringing tone at the other end of the call. He felt the warmth from the hearth where orange and yellow flames licked and curled over blackened logs. He looked at the card table next to him, there was an inlaid chess board in its centre. Joe was examining the perfect squares of dark ebony and light boxwood when he heard the old lady's words. "Hello!" Could I have a word with your nice Mr. Hodgekins please dear?" Her voice was full of kindness but for Mr. Hodgekins her words became sterner with a stubborn authority, edged with charm. "Mr. Hodgekins? Its me Mrs. Barker. I'd like you to come round right away. I've decided to make out a Will after all." She paused, then as an afterthought she added, "My godson has just arrived. Having made her cryptic announcement she casually replaced the receiver.
Saturday 13 June 2015
Wednesday 10 June 2015
STARSHINE, THE OCEAN AND THE UNICORN
Chapter Two Part Seven
Joe moved quietly with the shadows. The warehouse was a place of ghosts. A wide open space stilled and trapped in acres of roof and walls, denied the movements of the wind and and the changes of the sky. The rain hammered outside and the rays of paling dawn showed through the small square windows , high up where the walls joined the roof. But there was still darkness below where Joe stood, near an old entrance closed off with weathered planks nailed up. He felt the slow Thames moving by, watching him through the gaps, waiting to witness his crime before carrying his dark secret down river.
Far away at the end of the warehouse Joe could see the tiny head of a torch wavering with the movement of its bearer's footsteps, as the security guard began to walk down the corridor of freight, on his last tour of inspection before his shift came to an end. The dark shape of stacked crates began to show in the first light that filtered down from the windows. Joe found a gap between the crates and squeezed in. They were empty and moved easily. One almost toppled, Joe steadied it and shifted it quietly back into position, then he crouched and waited. Chill rain still ran from his hair and through his clothes. But the cold over his body did not register to an already cold mind. Too many changes, too many forced adaptions had overlooked his thoughts and left a daze he now had to shun in order to concentrate and prepare for his second precise and skillful act of murder. He visualised the the photograph Jason had given him. Joe's imagination shut down. There was no life, no family, no daily routine for a photograph, just an exit from nothing.
The footsteps came into earshot. Joe slowly rose from his crouching position. The torch moved from left to right over the walls of boxed freight. Joe squinted through the dim light and checked the identity of the security guard, then he sank like a slow shadow back to the crouch. More footsteps, then shiny boots and perfectly creased uniform trousers stopped and stood inches in front of Joe. The torch's beam, weakened by the morning light, swang in an arc from the left, across the floor and up to the right. The boots scuffed on the concrete floor and began to move on as Joe made his smooth and accurate move and his gloved fingers tightened the wire loop. Joe saw the whites of his victim's eyes as he squeezed life from the man's throat.
Joe finished nailing up he crate. The memory of the guard's hat falling to the ground, exposing a smooth shaven head, sent a fear that screamed through Joe's brain but could not penetrate his dazed reasoning. He looked for a way out. It was time to get clear.
Outside the air was fresh after the rain. It cleared away immediate memories. Joe walked across the waterlogged wasteland. Behind him a panda car raced passed the scene of his undiscovered crime, its blue light flashing through a pink dawn. He squatted down beside a puddle that reflected clouds tinged with the colours of morning. The reflections were disturbed as Joe dropped the ferryman's black pennies into the shallow water and then carefully washed their sour smell from his hands.
Chapter Two Part Seven
Joe moved quietly with the shadows. The warehouse was a place of ghosts. A wide open space stilled and trapped in acres of roof and walls, denied the movements of the wind and and the changes of the sky. The rain hammered outside and the rays of paling dawn showed through the small square windows , high up where the walls joined the roof. But there was still darkness below where Joe stood, near an old entrance closed off with weathered planks nailed up. He felt the slow Thames moving by, watching him through the gaps, waiting to witness his crime before carrying his dark secret down river.
Far away at the end of the warehouse Joe could see the tiny head of a torch wavering with the movement of its bearer's footsteps, as the security guard began to walk down the corridor of freight, on his last tour of inspection before his shift came to an end. The dark shape of stacked crates began to show in the first light that filtered down from the windows. Joe found a gap between the crates and squeezed in. They were empty and moved easily. One almost toppled, Joe steadied it and shifted it quietly back into position, then he crouched and waited. Chill rain still ran from his hair and through his clothes. But the cold over his body did not register to an already cold mind. Too many changes, too many forced adaptions had overlooked his thoughts and left a daze he now had to shun in order to concentrate and prepare for his second precise and skillful act of murder. He visualised the the photograph Jason had given him. Joe's imagination shut down. There was no life, no family, no daily routine for a photograph, just an exit from nothing.
The footsteps came into earshot. Joe slowly rose from his crouching position. The torch moved from left to right over the walls of boxed freight. Joe squinted through the dim light and checked the identity of the security guard, then he sank like a slow shadow back to the crouch. More footsteps, then shiny boots and perfectly creased uniform trousers stopped and stood inches in front of Joe. The torch's beam, weakened by the morning light, swang in an arc from the left, across the floor and up to the right. The boots scuffed on the concrete floor and began to move on as Joe made his smooth and accurate move and his gloved fingers tightened the wire loop. Joe saw the whites of his victim's eyes as he squeezed life from the man's throat.
Joe finished nailing up he crate. The memory of the guard's hat falling to the ground, exposing a smooth shaven head, sent a fear that screamed through Joe's brain but could not penetrate his dazed reasoning. He looked for a way out. It was time to get clear.
Outside the air was fresh after the rain. It cleared away immediate memories. Joe walked across the waterlogged wasteland. Behind him a panda car raced passed the scene of his undiscovered crime, its blue light flashing through a pink dawn. He squatted down beside a puddle that reflected clouds tinged with the colours of morning. The reflections were disturbed as Joe dropped the ferryman's black pennies into the shallow water and then carefully washed their sour smell from his hands.
Sunday 7 June 2015
STARSHINE, THE OCEAN AND THE UNICORN
Chapter two Part six
Out in the street Joe glanced inside the paper bag. He saw a length of wire coiled round. There was a photograph too, he picked it out. It was a West Indian, a security guard with a full head of afro hair and a moustache. On the back of the photograph there were some details of shift hours and a warehouse on Surrey Docks. Joe put the bag back inside his jacket and did up the zip against the cold, grey afternoon. The low, heavy sky threatened but the rain held off. The pavements were full so Joe walked in the road and followed the double yellow lines to the core of Soho where music blared from peep show doorways and voices invited him in to see nude girls live on stage. Joe kept his head down, it was too cold to think about nudity. He doubted whether the erotic airbrush posters of girls with stars over their nipples and pubes corresponded to the bodies of blue and goosefleshed dancers.
The sweet, smokey smell of hot chestnuts came from a street corner where an old, squat, leathery woman in a fur hat and a blanket round her shoulders, roasted them over a fire in a rusted oil drum. Joe bought a white paper cone full.
A red neon light ran round and round the entrance of an adult book and video shop. Joe walked in through a curtain of coloured streamers. Two men were talking business at the counter. One was the owner of the shop, a tall thin man with eyes the same blue as Joe's and short cropped, orange hair. The other was an over the top pimp in a white suit, a wolf fur coat and carrying a silver topped cane. Joe waited for them to finish their bartering. He leafed through some magazines and grinned at some video titles as he ate his chestnuts. They burned his numb fingertips as he chipped away the thin brown shells. He threw the shells on the floor and chewed the warm, delicate , creamy kernels. The pimp left the shop. "Hello cousin Carrot Top! Know of any jobs going? said Joe offering him a nut.
"I do as it 'appens" said his cousin. Joe looked at him, startled.
"Yeah!"
"Scot's geezer just came down and set up. He needs drivers."
"What, getaway stuff?"
"No,just moving cars around. He's got a garage in John's Mews off Grays Inn Road where he sprays them up and fixes the plates."
"Thanks Carrot Top, thanks a lot." said Joe.
"Pleasure. mate. How's Roy?"
" Oh, not too clever." Joe threw his cousin another chestnut on his way out.
The air was heavy and the rain began to fall in big drops that spotted the cobblestones in John's Mews. The motorised rasping sounds of soldering and spraying came fro behind a black garage door in a whitewashed wall. One half of the door was slightly ajar. Joe looked inside. A man in white overalls was putting the finishing touches to a freshly sprayed cherry red porsche,its windows and windscreen covered in newspaper. Another overalled man wearing a visor was at the far end of the workshop where hot sparks flew around him. Joe shouted over the noise and asked where the governor could be found. The sprayer signalled through the wall with his thumb. So Joe went next door and pressed the buzzer. The entry phone was answered and the door clicked open. There was a closed in stairway and an office door at the top. The office was tiny and stuffy with cigar smoke. The scotsman sat back in his chair, his beer belly between him and his desk. His shirt sleeves were rolled up to show his hairy forearms, completely blue with tatoos. His fair hair was thinning and drink and high blood pressure had broken the veins in his flabby face. He pierced Joe with his small piggy eyes. Joe stood with his back against the wall because there was nowhere else to stand.
Morgan Alexander had soon warmed to Joe's confident smile. A spoken contract had been suggested and then agreed on with the shaking of hands and the smoking of cigars. Joe's trial run would be a drive down to Southampton and a train journey back. He already had a train ticket in his pocket and would pick up the car keys at seven o' clock sharp on monday morning. But thoughts of monday's country roads and the cherry red porsche were killed by others of Jason's wire noose and Maria's candles. Sunday was yet to come.
Joe was back in the West End. The rain washed through Berwick Street market. Passers by were few and far between and so to were the barrow boys shouts that came out muffled and unenthusiastic. Rotten fruit and old newspapers lay in the road, sodden and mushy, disintegrating in the rain. Little of this came through Joe's senses. His mind was so far away he could not bring it back to fill his blankness. His eyes watched his feet putting one trainer in front of the other. The laces were too long and wet with the black dirt of puddles. He continued to turn corners of a blind route and found himself home.
His room waseven colder without its door. It seemed silly to put the fire on to heat the hall and stairs but he did it anyway and the electric bars burned orange in the fading light of early evening. He took a few sips from a mug of sour coffee and threw the rest down the sink. He undressed, climbed into a cold bed and pulled the blankets over his head.
............He was in a land of hills that were black like the night. And the house was high up and far away like the moon, shining blue and white. He walked uphill towards it. He could feel the loose stones of the gravel road beneath his feet and could sense the frost on the grass on either side of him. But there was no sound. He walked on, listening to the silence and hearing only his own deafness. He neared the house and kept to the path, wary of the garden and its wilderness. The moonlight had gone. The walls were grey like shadows and the windows and the door and the ivy were black and soundless. Joe felt the darkness that as fear. Then the door was open without being opened and light spilled out over the steps. His movements were motionless. He reached the doorway to everything, when the door was closed without having closed and there was nothing but the doorknocker's face and its dull gleam..........
Chapter two Part six
Out in the street Joe glanced inside the paper bag. He saw a length of wire coiled round. There was a photograph too, he picked it out. It was a West Indian, a security guard with a full head of afro hair and a moustache. On the back of the photograph there were some details of shift hours and a warehouse on Surrey Docks. Joe put the bag back inside his jacket and did up the zip against the cold, grey afternoon. The low, heavy sky threatened but the rain held off. The pavements were full so Joe walked in the road and followed the double yellow lines to the core of Soho where music blared from peep show doorways and voices invited him in to see nude girls live on stage. Joe kept his head down, it was too cold to think about nudity. He doubted whether the erotic airbrush posters of girls with stars over their nipples and pubes corresponded to the bodies of blue and goosefleshed dancers.
The sweet, smokey smell of hot chestnuts came from a street corner where an old, squat, leathery woman in a fur hat and a blanket round her shoulders, roasted them over a fire in a rusted oil drum. Joe bought a white paper cone full.
A red neon light ran round and round the entrance of an adult book and video shop. Joe walked in through a curtain of coloured streamers. Two men were talking business at the counter. One was the owner of the shop, a tall thin man with eyes the same blue as Joe's and short cropped, orange hair. The other was an over the top pimp in a white suit, a wolf fur coat and carrying a silver topped cane. Joe waited for them to finish their bartering. He leafed through some magazines and grinned at some video titles as he ate his chestnuts. They burned his numb fingertips as he chipped away the thin brown shells. He threw the shells on the floor and chewed the warm, delicate , creamy kernels. The pimp left the shop. "Hello cousin Carrot Top! Know of any jobs going? said Joe offering him a nut.
"I do as it 'appens" said his cousin. Joe looked at him, startled.
"Yeah!"
"Scot's geezer just came down and set up. He needs drivers."
"What, getaway stuff?"
"No,just moving cars around. He's got a garage in John's Mews off Grays Inn Road where he sprays them up and fixes the plates."
"Thanks Carrot Top, thanks a lot." said Joe.
"Pleasure. mate. How's Roy?"
" Oh, not too clever." Joe threw his cousin another chestnut on his way out.
The air was heavy and the rain began to fall in big drops that spotted the cobblestones in John's Mews. The motorised rasping sounds of soldering and spraying came fro behind a black garage door in a whitewashed wall. One half of the door was slightly ajar. Joe looked inside. A man in white overalls was putting the finishing touches to a freshly sprayed cherry red porsche,its windows and windscreen covered in newspaper. Another overalled man wearing a visor was at the far end of the workshop where hot sparks flew around him. Joe shouted over the noise and asked where the governor could be found. The sprayer signalled through the wall with his thumb. So Joe went next door and pressed the buzzer. The entry phone was answered and the door clicked open. There was a closed in stairway and an office door at the top. The office was tiny and stuffy with cigar smoke. The scotsman sat back in his chair, his beer belly between him and his desk. His shirt sleeves were rolled up to show his hairy forearms, completely blue with tatoos. His fair hair was thinning and drink and high blood pressure had broken the veins in his flabby face. He pierced Joe with his small piggy eyes. Joe stood with his back against the wall because there was nowhere else to stand.
Morgan Alexander had soon warmed to Joe's confident smile. A spoken contract had been suggested and then agreed on with the shaking of hands and the smoking of cigars. Joe's trial run would be a drive down to Southampton and a train journey back. He already had a train ticket in his pocket and would pick up the car keys at seven o' clock sharp on monday morning. But thoughts of monday's country roads and the cherry red porsche were killed by others of Jason's wire noose and Maria's candles. Sunday was yet to come.
Joe was back in the West End. The rain washed through Berwick Street market. Passers by were few and far between and so to were the barrow boys shouts that came out muffled and unenthusiastic. Rotten fruit and old newspapers lay in the road, sodden and mushy, disintegrating in the rain. Little of this came through Joe's senses. His mind was so far away he could not bring it back to fill his blankness. His eyes watched his feet putting one trainer in front of the other. The laces were too long and wet with the black dirt of puddles. He continued to turn corners of a blind route and found himself home.
His room waseven colder without its door. It seemed silly to put the fire on to heat the hall and stairs but he did it anyway and the electric bars burned orange in the fading light of early evening. He took a few sips from a mug of sour coffee and threw the rest down the sink. He undressed, climbed into a cold bed and pulled the blankets over his head.
............He was in a land of hills that were black like the night. And the house was high up and far away like the moon, shining blue and white. He walked uphill towards it. He could feel the loose stones of the gravel road beneath his feet and could sense the frost on the grass on either side of him. But there was no sound. He walked on, listening to the silence and hearing only his own deafness. He neared the house and kept to the path, wary of the garden and its wilderness. The moonlight had gone. The walls were grey like shadows and the windows and the door and the ivy were black and soundless. Joe felt the darkness that as fear. Then the door was open without being opened and light spilled out over the steps. His movements were motionless. He reached the doorway to everything, when the door was closed without having closed and there was nothing but the doorknocker's face and its dull gleam..........
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