Gary McMahon - The Concrete Grove

When she’d called him on the telephone earlier, desperate to hear his voice once Hailey had left her alone in the flat, he had seemed distant and elusive. When he had asked her to meet him here, at a point suspended above the River Tyne, she had at first been filled with trepidation, but then her desire to see him had overcome any doubts prompted by his odd request. Of course she would come, she’d agreed. Of course she would meet him on the bridge.

What else was she supposed to do?

The riverside air was cold. The water below her looked as thick and black as crude oil. People stared at the water from the riverbank on either side — Gateshead and Newcastle — and watched as a small working boat moved slowly under the bridge, following the flow of the river towards its mouth, and then possibly out to the open sea.

Tom didn’t turn to greet her when she approached. He just stayed in the same position, staring eastward along the Tyne, perhaps looking for a way to follow that little boat out to sea.

“So what’s with all this Man from Uncle shit?” She tried to glimpse what it was he was looking at, but all she could see were the things right in front of her: the low-set red and white Swing Bridge with its stumpy blue watchtower, the green-webbed assemblage of the Tyne Bridge, and the broad curve of the river as it swung around to the right beyond these manmade structures. “I mean, why are we meeting here like spies, at the middle of the bridge?”

“I… I’m not sure.” He kept staring along the river. Then his gaze drifted down and off to the right, towards the tacky nightclub-boat that was always docked at the south side, beside a grubby concrete access road. His hands remained inside his pockets. “It’s just, this has always been my favourite place. Ever since I was a kid, when I used to come down here with my parents, I loved it, the sense of being cut off and standing above everything. And I didn’t want to meet you in that awful place — the Grove.”

“Why not?” She looked at him. The side of his face was slightly swollen, the skin shiny and red. She’d not noticed before, but there were fresh bruises smudged along the edge of his jaw. “I don’t understand.”

Finally he turned to look at her, and as he lowered his face towards her the sun blazed behind his head, creating a glaring nova. “Neither do I. There’s been some stuff happening that I just don’t get. It’s like I’m living inside a dream.”

“Or like a dream that was living inside you has finally broken free?”

“You, too?”

She nodded. “It isn’t just you. I can’t explain anything that’s been happening, but the only part of it that feels real — feels right — is us. You and me. What we seem to have between us.” She lifted her hand and opened the fingers, like a pale pink flower. Sunlight bulged through the gaps.

Tom removed one hand from his coat pocket and grasped her wrist. “What’s going on? What have we started?” He licked his lips. The nova around his head dimmed as he shifted position, turning fully to face her. He held both of her hands with his own, squeezing them firmly but not so tight that it hurt.

“I don’t think it has anything to do with us. Not really. A lot of different things are combining to create something that’s bigger than us all. Hailey’s condition, that loan shark Monty Bright, his hired hands… and it all starts with the Concrete Grove. I think what’s coming through the cracks we’ve created has always been there, and that it’s using our desperation as a doorway.” She tried to laugh but all she managed was a sort of croaking sound. “I know how stupid and melodramatic this all sounds, but I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. I’ve seen things, stuff that I could never have thought of as real before now.”

“I’ve seen things, too.” Tom smiled but it seemed to pain him. He raised a hand and touched the side of his face.

“Those bruises,” said Lana. “What happened?”

“Last night. I fell down the stairs. I’d been drinking, and thinking about us.”

She could see that he was lying. He couldn’t even maintain eye contact; his gaze drifted back to the river, the route to the sea at Tynemouth.

“Don’t start lying to me, not now. I think all we have is the truth. If we lose that, then everything will just turn into a series of fictions, all linked by whatever’s in the Grove. Like a giant spider in a web.” She didn’t quite understand her own analogy, but something about the words made sense. It was the image of a giant spider, sitting at the centre of a web made of human life lines and spinning its own stories. Somehow that seemed right: it was an apt image. She could feel it, right down in the marrow of her bones. “Just be honest with me.”

Tom stared down at the ground. A soft wind ruffled his hair. He looked back up again, and there were tears in his eyes. “My wife. Helen. You know about her, of course, that she’s a paraplegic. She lost the use of her lower body, from the waist down, when the car her lover was driving crashed.”

“Yes. You told me all about it.” She moved closer to him. A group of teenagers ran by on the other side of the bridge, laughing and throwing coins into the river. Several cars and a bus drove towards the Newcastle side of the river, thumping over the steel joints in the tarmac decking.

“She did this to me.” He turned his face so that she could see clearly the bruising. “Last night, she… changed. She became something monstrous and she attacked me. She hasn’t been out of that fucking bed in years, but last night she managed to get out and drag herself after me through the house. I fell. She grabbed me and tried to smother me…” he turned away again, ashamed.

The sunlight flashed, making Lana close her eyes for a second. Then she couldn’t stop blinking. When he had mentioned monsters, she couldn’t fail to think of Hailey: and of the things she’d been carrying inside her. The monsters — if that’s what they truly were — she had delivered. Along with these thoughts came ones about Monty Bright. The deformities on his body; the screaming faces trapped in his flesh.

“We can help each other, you and me. If we stick together and use the strength we seem to have when we’re side by side.” She took a step back. More cars passed them on the roadside. A young couple strolled by, hand in hand; the man stared at Tom, as if he could see something strange about him. Then he looked away. “Last night I went to see Monty Bright. He and his men… they did things to me. Raped me.”

Tom made a sound deep in his throat: half sob, half moan.

“I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought they’d leave us alone if I went there, and did what they wanted. But it didn’t work out that way.” She kept her eyes on his battered face, refusing to look away in shame. Even though she’d kept quiet about what had happened with Hailey last night, she felt that she was being as honest with Tom as she ever had with anyone. She realised now that she’d placed her heart in his hands. All he need do was to squeeze it tight, or open his fingers and let it fall. Either way, it would hurt; but one way would cause far less pain than the other.

“I don’t know what you want me to say.” His mouth was a slit in his face. His eyes were now hard and empty.

“I want you to tell me that it doesn’t make any difference. That you still want me, and still want me to want you. I want you to say that you’ll help me. We’ll help each other.”

Another bus chugged by. Raised voices were carried to them from the riverbank. To Lana, the moment felt as if it might shatter like glass at any minute. “Of course I still want you. I mean, you’re the only person I know who’s as fucked up as I am.”