Philip Nutman - Cities of Night

“Hello, Alex, luv, how are yer?”

“Fine, Mrs. R.”

She stood in the living room doorway, a cigarette in her yellowed fingers, pink plastic curlers in her hair. Same old Mrs. R., irredeemably tacky: food stains on her blouse, smudged mascara around her eyes, and cheap sherry on her breath.

Staff stamped out through the tiny, cluttered kitchen at the hall’s end, ignoring his mother as he headed for the garden.

“What are you up to?”

“Shut up, you old cow,” he muttered under his breath.

Alex smiled with practiced ease. If Mrs. R. had heard her son, she took no notice and shuffled back into the living room to return her attention to Crossroads and her bottle.

As Alex emerged from the kitchen into the garden, Staff was bent over the still-moving crow, pulling a lighter from the pocket of his ripped jeans. He flicked the Bic as Alex neared, burning the bird’s feet. The crow cawed in pain, trying to push itself away from the flame. After a minute of this, Staff stood, placed the gun to the bird’s head and pulled the trigger, a tight grin on his face, his blue eyes glaring from beneath his mane of long, greasy hair. An off-white liquid shot from the bird’s blasted cranium, splattering the soil like semen flecked with blood.

“What do you want to do?” Staff was calmer now, his attention focused on the crow’s corpse.

“Score some weed from Dawson. Have a pint or two at The Five Bells. Maybe go see the late show. I think it’s Straw Dogs tonight. You know, Peckinpah.”

Staff snorted, turning to Alex, a leer on his lips. “I’ve got a better idea.” He brought his right foot down on the bird’s body, the twiglike bones breaking under the onslaught of the steel-toed Martens as he slowly ground the crow into the frozen soil. “Let’s crash Tully’s party.”

Jamie Hurst looked at the Arthur Rackham illustration of Poe’s “The Raven” above his desk for inspiration.

Nothing.

His mind was empty, the unfinished essay on Hardy’s Jude The Obscure lay in front of him slashed with red ink marks, and the silence in the house did nothing to relieve the tension, squeezing him like a sumo wrestler. Anxiety gouged his concentration. He’d been feeling weird all day since waking drenched with sweat and dread from a nightmare he couldn’t clearly recall. Just a sense of speed, of being out of control, the bright orange eyes of a huge beast rushing towards him through blackness. He’d assumed it was an anxiety dream rather than a venting dream, his subconscious responding to preexamination pressures, yet the idea of his life out of control was stupid. The next few years were carefully mapped out, and all was going to plan: get his “O” Levels, then Sixth Form and “A” Levels, leading to University and a degree in English. Beyond that he was confident that a promising career as a journalist lay ahead, and maybe — just maybe — a novel or two. But as he poured over the lit essay, he couldn’t dispel the sensation of doom hanging over the room like musty drapes in a gothic mansion.

He shivered.

Stop it.

The only thing wrong with him was a slight temperature — the start of a cold he’d been fighting all week — and an overactive imagination.

Time for a change of scenery.

He got up from the desk. The mundane activity of putting away groceries might help. Friday was his mother’s bridge night, and she’d dropped the shopping off in the hallway because she was running late. Friday also signalled Alex’s weekend disappearing act with Stafford Rivers, whom Jamie didn’t like.

There was something unsettling about Rivers’s blue eyes. Their slow, suspicious movements indicated to him the cerulean irises concealed secrets. But the effect Rivers had on his brother bothered Jamie more.

Alex, the distant, erratically dutiful son, turned into a shit in Rivers’s company, prompting Jamie to feel like Abel faced with Cain whenever their mother was absent, which was often. Despite a company pension, their late father’s only legacy, bringing up two young sons with another about to start university had been a tremendous struggle for Mrs. Hurst. She had sacrificed a social life and borne the burden of two jobs, leaving the boys to spend their after-school hours with neighbours indifferent to their needs. Time alone was nothing new to Jamie; in fact, he preferred it to the sullen presence of Alex, who, as soon as Mother appeared, played upon her sympathies. Like Rivers, there was something cold behind Alex’s eyes, a barrier Jamie couldn’t penetrate. Right now he wished Alex was home playing Hendrix records loudly in his room. Anything was better than the preternatural silence.

He picked up the shopping bags in the hall and headed for the tidy kitchen. The silence seemed louder, emptier as he began to unload the food, and he hummed an Aerosmith tune to break the terrible sense of nothingness. He wished it wasn’t bridge night, wished Mother was home so they could watch TV together. Why, he couldn’t rationalize. He was fifteen, for cryin’ out loud, not a little kid. A sense of a reassurance had warmed him when she returned with the groceries, although she only stayed a moment because Dot Wicking, her bridge partner, waited in the car outside. How could he have told her he was afraid?

(of what?)

That he didn’t want her to go, couldn’t face the evening alone? The unnatural feeling smothering the house rubbed away at his nerves like sandpaper on skin.

“Nobody here but us spooks,” he said aloud and forced a laugh as he placed a leg of lamb in the refrigerator.

He picked up a carton of eggs.

Then it happened.

One minute he was standing in the middle of the kitchen, the next he felt cold wind hitting his face, and he couldn’t see. Blackness. Then a smell of exhaust fumes, a rapid acceleration, and an adrenal rush from a sensation akin to travelling at high speed on his bicycle.

(Push it!)

Cold, dark, exciting.

Dread clutched at his back with the desperation of a drowning man.

(Do it! Yeah, go for it!)

The it shifted.

Sparks.

Bumping.

Flying sensation through blackness.

Two viewpoints — neither making sense — converging.

He shook his head to clear it.

(What?…)

And realized he’d dropped the eggs, a dozen size sixes, all over the floor. Nausea rushed up from his bowels. He stepped over the egg massacre to the sink, retching. Once. Twice. Three times. Nothing came up; he hadn’t eaten for hours. Retch number four leapt, hurting his insides, but that wasn’t why he gasped. As he looked at the window, his eyes widened at his reflection.

Alex’s reflection.

Not his.

Alex stared back at him, his deep-set eyes hooded like a cobra’s. Jamie frowned at the optical illusion.

(No it isn’t)

And then it was his face staring back at him.

Oh, God, I’m cracking up.

He felt the room spin. Then the darkness took him as he fainted.

“Sixteen.”

“Inflation,” Alex said, “or daylight robbery?”

Staff sat beside him on the bench, disinterest writ large across his ragged face.

“It’s a steal at that price,” replied Dawson. “Supply and demand. You know how many people have been busted this month? Isn’t much about. But if you don’t—”

“What d’you think?” Alex turned to Staff. Rivers grunted and lit a Marlboro. He knew too much about getting busted.

“Pay him.”

Alex pulled out a fistful of crumpled notes. Dawson took the money as he stood.

“It’s good stuff.”

Alex took the proffered envelope, glancing around as he did so. It was almost dark, twilight’s last gleaming hanging onto the horizon by its fingertips. A man walking a dog on the other side of the rec ground, and what Dawson said was true: too many busts. Best be careful.