Дэвид Муди - Hater

Hold on a minute. Finally there’s something moderately interesting on screen. A banner saying ‘Breaking News’ has just appeared and they’ve cut to a reporter standing on a city centre street corner. I recognise where they’re broadcasting from. It’s a place in town, not far from where I work. What’s happened there? I try to read the scrolling text captions at the bottom of the screen but my eyes are tired and the words are moving too quickly. I turn up the volume and listen as a windswept reporter starts talking about something that’s happened at Exodus, one of the trendy bars right in the centre of town. There are people milling around in the street behind him. Christ, someone’s been killed. He’s talking about an attack that happened in the last hour or so. Hold on, no… there have been several attacks. They must have been connected. Sounds like some lunatic has gone on the rampage. Worst time of the week for it to have happened. The middle of town is always heaving with people on Saturday nights. Everyone’s there. Everyone except sad bastards like me, that is, stuck at home with the kids and a partner who’s asleep by half-past nine.

I can feel my eyes starting to close again. I try to stay awake and concentrate on what’s being said but it’s difficult. It’s getting late and…

That bloody reporter is still talking.

I try and focus on the clock on the shelf. I must have nodded off for a few minutes. Hang on, the clock says three-thirty. I’ve been asleep on the floor for hours. No wonder my bones ache. Christ, whatever happened in town tonight must have been pretty serious to warrant this much coverage on national TV. It looks like they’re still broadcasting live from town. I wouldn’t want to have that bloke’s job, stuck out on a street corner for hours on end. Still, at least he gets out…

My back hurts. I should have gone to bed hours ago when Lizzie did.

I sit up quickly and get ready to move. I hate waking up like this. I feel sick and my arms and legs feel heavy and numb. I get up and I’m about to switch the TV off when something the reporter says makes me stop. He’s not just talking about the same few attacks he was reporting on earlier. Sounds like there’s been more trouble. There’s a map of the city up on the screen now with a load of markers on it. Looks like there’s been a hell of a lot more trouble. That’s the problem with binge drinking and Saturday nights. There are so many people out there and it only takes one idiot to start a fight. Someone gets hurt then someone retaliates, someone else tries to stop them and, before you know it, you’ve got a real problem on your hands. It looks like that’s what’s happened tonight. From what I can gather there was some trouble in a bar which spilled out onto the street. They’re showing footage of crowds of people fighting now, fuelled by drink and drugs. Riot police have been sent to the scene to try and restore some order. Almost makes me glad to be boring and stuck indoors. The map on the screen has been updated now to show the location of four fatalities and more than thirty arrests. It’s always the mindless minority who ruin it for everyone else. Bloody hell, they’ve just said something about the body of a police officer that’s been found with more than forty stab wounds. Christ, what kind of animal could do that to another human being?

Wonder how long that reporter’s going to be stuck out there?

I’m tired. Before I fall asleep again I switch off the TV and the lights and feel my way through the dark flat to the bedroom.

SUNDAY

iv

Susan Myers woke up next to Charlie, her husband of thirty-three years. She lay in silence in the semi-darkness, taking care not to move. She didn’t want him to know that she was awake. She didn’t want to have to speak to him. Through half-open eyes she watched the curtain as it gusted back and forth in the wind from the vented window, revealing snatched glimpses of the bright world outside. Was there any point in getting up? During the week she managed to fill her time with friends, shopping and social appointments but her weekends, Sundays in particular, were long, bleak and empty. Since Charlie had retired eleven months ago their lives had become increasingly dull and monotonous. Most of her friends had their children and extended families to keep them busy but all she had was him and he bored her. He seemed happy doing nothing but she couldn’t stand it. He wanted to potter around the house and garden, she wanted to be out. She wanted to scream and shout at him and make him understand how she felt but she knew it would be pointless. He didn’t even know she was unhappy.

Here we go, she thought as he shuffled and turned over in bed beside her. Maybe — just maybe — he’d roll over to face her this morning and put his arm around her tell her that he loved her and start kissing her and touching her like he used to. It had been so long since they’d made love that she’d almost forgotten what it felt like. And on the very rare occasions she’d managed to get him in the mood (she was always the one who had to make the first move these days) he’d get himself so fired-up and over-excited that their passion, if it could be called that, was generally over and done with in a matter of a few desperately short and empty minutes. If it had been months since they’d made love, it had been years since she’d been satisfied.

Maybe she should have an affair? She’d thought about it before but never had the nerve to do it. Charlie probably wouldn’t notice if she did. There was a man at one of the mid-week dancing classes she went to who she’d caught looking in her direction too many times for it to have just been coincidence. The idea of seeing someone else tempted her, but she knew she’d be putting a lot at risk if she ever actually did it. She was worried that she might end up losing everything she’d worked for with Charlie just for a little short-term excitement and adventure. She loved her grand house and her expensive clothes and all the associated trimmings. She loved the elevated social status it gave her and she didn’t want to let any of it go. But what if the man at the dance class could give her all that and sex too…?

‘Cup of tea?’

That was how Charlie started every day. No ‘good morning’ or ‘how are you today?’ or ‘I love you’ or anything like that anymore. Just a short, unemotional, truncated question. Should she answer or should she stay silent and pretend to still be asleep?

‘Yes please,’ she grunted, still with her back to her husband. She felt him throw back the covers and then slide out of bed before neatly tucking the bedding back into place again as he always did. Everything he did was predictable and safe. She could anticipate every move he was going to make. She knew he’d go to the bathroom next where he’d use the toilet, break wind, apologise to himself and then wash and shave humming the same damn tune he hummed under his breath every bloody morning. Then he’d put on his dressing gown, come back to the bedroom to fetch his slippers from under the foot of the bed where he’d put them last night, and go down to the kitchen. She knew he’d stop on the fifth step down to open the curtains and blow the dust off the top of the employee of the year trophy his employers had awarded him almost fifteen years ago…

She screwed her eyes tightly shut, buried her face in the duvet and thought of the man from the dance class again. She felt empty and depressed, trapped and angry. Sometimes she wanted to kill her husband. That, she decided, would be the answer to all her problems.

‘Lovely day today,’ Charlie said brightly as he returned to the bedroom with two cups of tea.

‘It’s always a bloody lovely day,’ Susan silently screamed to herself. ‘Even when it’s raining and there’s a force ten gale outside he says it’s a bloody lovely day.’