D. Mitchell - The King of Terrors

She saw him look in her general direction and she turned away, pretended to look at one of the prints on the gallery wall. When she raised her head and glanced over her shoulder he had melted into the crush of people. Not yet, she thought. I can’t meet you yet; but it has to be soon, she thought. Very soon.

A tiresome, middle-aged man engaged her in conversation, but she saw through his game and abandoned him with scarce a word. He laughed sheepishly into his glass and flitted to an altogether more willing pretty flower.

She picked up her two framed prints, which had been wrapped in paper for her and then made her way to the exit. She was headed off at the pass by the gallery owner.

‘Leaving already?’ Clive said.

‘I have what I came for,’ she replied.

‘They will give you great pleasure,’ he said, nodding at the prints under her arm.

‘More than you’ll know,’ she said.

‘I can introduce you to him,’ he said. ‘You showed interest earlier…’

She held up her hand. ‘No thank you. Perhaps another time.’

‘You look familiar…’ he said, his fingers waving briefly in front of his chin. ‘Have we met before?’

The woman cocked her head slightly and her lips broke out into a warm smile, but he noticed there was sadness deep in her eyes. ‘Dear me, Mr Foster, that is such an old chat-up line!’ She walked past him and to the door. Here she paused and turned back. ‘Can you tell him one thing for me?’

‘By all means.’

‘Tell him his sister was here.’

‘Sister?’

She went out, onto the street. He watched her retreating figure, bemused, till someone called out his name and he switched off from her as if she had never existed.

She stepped into the taxi waiting for her. ‘Take me to Camden,’ she told the driver.

He tried to make conversation along the way but she ignored his efforts and in the end he gave up. She had the prints on her lap. Every now and again she’d unconsciously pass the flat of her hand over them.

‘Pull over and wait here for me,’ she said at length.

As she left the prints on the seat and got out he wound the window down. ‘You sure this is the place, miss? I mean, it’s not the kind of place you ought to be out alone, if you get my meaning.’

‘I’ll be no more than fifteen minutes. Please wait for me.’

The street was deserted, the buildings dark and close together, looming over her, the sound of her footsteps hollow and incongruous in the still night. In the background was the ever-constant drone of traffic.

She saw a man separate from the shadows of a wall and head towards her. ‘Do you have them?’ she asked.

‘The money?’

She nodded, holding out her hand. He studied her through narrow, distrustful eyes. He gave her a brown envelope. She rifled through the documents inside.

‘High quality, as ever…’ he said.

‘They should be. It cost me enough,’ she observed. She appeared satisfied. Handed him a thick wad of cash. ‘It’s all there,’ she said flatly.

‘I trust you.’ He slipped the money into his pocket. ‘Always a pleasure.’ She didn’t answer. She turned on her heel and left him. ‘Till the next time,’ he called after her.

There will be no next time, she thought. At least, not with you.

She got back to the taxi and the driver seemed relieved to see her. ‘Take me to Camden tube station,’ she said. When eventually they arrived there she got out and leaned towards his window. ‘There’s three hundred pounds,’ she said. ‘You never saw me tonight and you never drove me to Camden.’

‘Fine by me,’ he said, taking the money. ‘Never set eyes on you.’

She headed through the turnstiles and took the escalator down to the tube.

The evening was drawing to a natural close. Clive Foster was wearing his Cheshire Cat grin, which meant the exhibition had gone well. He went over to Gareth to congratulate him and discuss business.

‘By the way,’ he said, waving goodbye to a young couple leaving the gallery, ‘the woman of whom I spoke about earlier — the pretty one…’

‘They’re all pretty to you, Clive,’ Gareth observed wryly.

He thought about that and nodded. ‘Anyway, it was your sister.’

Gareth frowned and then laughed hollowly. ‘I don’t think so, Clive.’

‘That’s what she said to me. She said to tell you your sister has been here. What is it, are you two not on speaking terms or something?’

‘Clive, I don’t know who she was, or why she should say that. She was pulling your leg. I don’t have a sister. I never have.’

‘That’s rather bizarre, then,’ said Clive. ‘I know now why I thought I’d seen her somewhere before — she bore a distinct likeness to you.’

Billy Crudd had big plans. So many plans his head was fit to burst with them all, like they were bored and angry teenagers confined within the constraints of a stuffy classroom, staring out of the windows, craving freedom and causing trouble purely because it broke the grinding monotony. Lots of fists pounding on the glass of his skull, things demanding to be let out. They taunted him in bed as he lay awake at night, and all but screamed at him as he stuffed yet another tin of baked beans into the ever-hungry maw of a dull stretch of supermarket shelving. Plans. Plans designed to hoist him out of this drudgery, to scoop him out of the shit that was his miserable life.

He stood in front of the bathroom mirror, swept away the mist on the mirror with the palm of his hand, but it crept back like grey fungus and his reflection remained blurred. Not that he particularly wanted to see himself in the mirror. He knew he was not blessed with good looks. His hair, at only twenty-eight years of age, was already as patchy as a lawn in a drought, and he blamed his fucking dad for that; in fact he blamed both his parents for ever bringing together their woeful combination of genes and passing the obnoxious concoction on to him. From his mother, oily, spotty skin, overly large, uneven teeth, a chin that was a little bit too long; from his dad that sorry thatch on his head, a pigeon chest and thin frame on which muscle refused to accumulate in spite of his many, if sporadic and failed, attempts with weights and muscle-bulking drinks.

He brushed his teeth. A quick ten seconds because what was the point? They weren’t up to much anyway and were more fillings than enamel. He glanced at his watch. He had to get a move on if he wasn’t to be late again. He’d already been called into Slimer’s office — Slimer being the supermarket manager — and warned with some ferocity about being five minutes late again. Five fucking minutes! Damn that clocking-in machine. It used to be fine until they cracked down on workmates clocking in for you if you couldn’t quite make it in time. And the last thing he wanted to be told was that there were plenty of people on the dole who would gladly do his job if he didn’t want it. ‘Christ, Billy, you only live five fucking minutes away!’ Slimer had growled. ‘There isn’t even half an excuse you could give me!’

Well, thought Billy Crudd, they could have their fucking job. It wouldn’t be long before he would be able to tell Slimer he could stuff his job where the sun doesn’t shine. He smiled at the thought, playing the scene in his head like he was the hero in his own movie, standing there and telling the jumped-up gobshite all the hateful things he’d stored up, the same way he’d stacked those crummy shelves with crummy foreign food year after stinking year, and laughing at his manager’s terrified, beaten face as he spun haughtily on his heel and strode proudly out of his poky little office.