Jonathan Barnes - The Domino Men

A few minutes later and feeling no better, I succumbed to the inevitable, got to my feet, tiptoed outside the sitting room door and tried my best to eavesdrop.

Streater sounded calm and laid-back, his voice wheedling and full of flattery. Abbey was less controlled, quickly sliding into tearful hysteria. I realized that I’d never heard her like that before. She’d always struck me as essentially unflappable.

Should we pity Henry Lamb? There’s something so pathetic about the man we can never quite bring ourselves to do it. The idea that someone like his landlady would ever look twice at him were she not recovering from the abrupt cessation of an earlier entanglement is palpably absurd. The idiot Lamb was never much more to her than a man-sized comfort blanket.

Even now, I’m not sure what passed between the two of them, but the first time I was able to catch exactly what they were saying, it was his voice that I heard.

These are the words of Joe Streater: “A new world is on its way. And if you wanna survive then you’ve gotta come with me. Stay here, and everything you know and love is gonna burn.”

I leaned closer, trying to hear more, but just as Streater finished his speech, the door was flung open and I scurried goonishly backward, almost tripping up.

Abbey hovered, tear stained, in the doorway. “Were you listening?”

I stuttered out a denial.

Behind her — friend Joe, grinning snarkily.

My landlady stepped out into the corridor and pulled the door shut on Streater.

“I can’t believe you were listening,” she said.

“Well, wouldn’t you?”

“Just give us a couple of minutes, OK? There’s lots of stuff we need to talk through.”

I spoke as evenly as I could. “I can imagine.”

“This is difficult for me. I’m confused.”

“Well, how do you think I feel?”

“Sweetheart, please.”

I managed a bitter sort of smile. “Do you know, he’s not at all how I expected?”

Abbey conjured up a little smile — tentative, hopeful. “Oh? Why’s that?”

“I didn’t think he’d be so fucking ugly.”

A long, brittle silence. “That’s disappointing.” There was a flinty pragmatism in her eyes which I’d never seen there before. “That’s unworthy of you.”

She opened the door to the sitting room and for an instant I caught an almost subliminal glimpse of Streater. I can’t be sure that this is what I saw or whether it’s something I’ve imagined since, filling in the gaps with all that I’ve learnt, but I’m almost positive that I saw him brandishing a syringe, filled with pale pink, effervescent liquid.

Then Abbey slammed the door and I saw no more.

You can imagine the true scene here. A pretty girl, resigned to sitting out the apocalypse in the company of a bloodless mummy’s by, is overjoyed at the arrival of an old flame. The contest is over, before it has begun, the better man is victorious and all that remains is to find a way to eliminate the lodger.

The rest was sound effects — a muffled declaration of affection, a wet, puckering sound, a moan of pleasure, a round of male laughter. The swift strides across the room, the snap of the door as it wrenched open and Joe Streater was back in my face.

“Henry Lamb!” he said, walking up to me. “Weird coincidence.”

“I don’t believe in coincidence,” I said, trying not to flinch. “No such thing.”

The blond man flashed another savage smile. Silently, as though this was just another chore to carry out, quickly and briskly, before getting on with the rest of his life, he punched me hard in the stomach. Unprepared for this eruption of violence, I jackknifed in pain. My mouth bubbled with nausea. Streater pulled me upright and then he did it again — administered another pile-driving punch to my gut. As I stumbled, totally unable to muster the least defense, I saw Abbey watching as her boyfriend expertly beat me up, evidently appalled, her hand hovering toward her face as though to ward off what she was witnessing.

Fancy that.

It is our theory that the girl was laughing and that the hand hovering near her mouth was merely a device to disguise her smile.

Streater dragged me into the sitting room, grabbed a chair from the table and forced me down into it. I made a grim, scuttling attempt at escape, which was quickly and permanently proved to be futile. Joe produced a thick roll of duct tape from somewhere (I wouldn’t put it past him to have brought it with him) and lashed me to the chair, taping up my hands and ankles with practiced efficiency, winding a strip tight around my mouth. Already there was blood on my teeth, the taste of metal and, with it, the promise of vomit.

When he was finished, Joe Streater winked at me. “All right, chief?”

Abbey put a hand on the blond man’s arm. “Is this really necessary?”

Streater answered her with a kiss and I had no choice but to watch as she met his lips with hers and gave every impression of liking it.

Joe came up for air. “Take me next door,” he said, his voice filled with casual authority, with the certainty that he would never be disappointed. My Abbey smiled and led him from the room.

The next few minutes were a little difficult, trussed up in that chair, immobile, tasting blood and shame in equal measure as, from next door, I heard it all. Abbey and Joe in their scrabble to undo shoelaces, the clink of belts being unstrapped, the rustle of clothes being torn away and then — the creak of the mattress, the persistent rhythm of the headboard, the moans and squeals and ululations of delight. I wonder if she enjoyed it. I wonder how she possibly can have done.

Of course she enjoyed it. How could she not? The fumbling ministrations of Henry Lamb, gauchely performed and inexpertly delivered, had scarcely raised her heartbeat. Her mind was ever on the lithe form of Joseph Streater. All the time she was with Henry, whenever the lodger kissed, caressed or tentatively nibbled, she was thinking of Joe. And when Streater took her to bed that afternoon, it was like coming home. It as a glorious, orgiastic vindication of her choice.

Once it was over, Abbey came to say goodbye.

She asked me if I was crying. Grimly, I shook my head.

“I suppose you must be wondering why… why I’ve chosen him and not you. It has to sting, all this. It has to rankle.”

Through the duct tape, I groaned in affirmation.

“I hate to say it, Henry, but in the end it wasn’t difficult.”

I groaned again.

“You’re too nice,” she said. “You’ve got to have a bit of steel in you and Joe… Well, Joe’s iron straight through.”

This isn’t you, I wanted to say. God, Abbey, this isn’t you at all.

“Joe knows what I want,” she said. “And the thing is — you never got to know me at all.” She smiled sadly. “But we’re still friends, aren’t we? We’ll be better as friends, I think. Better as mates.”

I shook my head.

“Listen, Joe and I have to go now. There’s a lot for us to do. I’m sorry. Truly.” She kissed me on the forehead and walked away.

I heard the smack of the front door, the snap of the key in the lock, and for a short while, all was silence.

I think I must have passed out. When I opened my eyes, it had grown dark, the blood on my wrists had dried to crusts and I felt a burning desire to urinate. But I wasn’t alone. I could hard people moving about outside.

Someone come to find me? Abbey returned, stricken with conscience? Granddad?

I heard the rattle of the door, footsteps coming toward me, whispers which spoke my name. A faint hope reignited itself within me.

There was light in my eyes. A torch in my face. Hands reaching toward me.