Nicholas Royle - Regicide

I walked up the Great North Road as unobtrusively as possible, feeling I ought to do something about my appearance but reluctant to do so as it would be like admitting I was stuck here for longer than I wanted to be. People brushed by on both sides, many carrying their brown paper packages stencilled with the letter M. Soon — when the pavement began to empty as they turned off into old, greasy-looking side streets — I realised no one was talking. In place of a buzz of conversation there was only a shuffle of feet, the slap of leather on slabs and cobbles. Had the police and street-corner judges cowed the people so much they were too afraid to speak? What did they have to hide?

I neared a kiosk selling newspapers, tobacco and confectionery. Some of the remaining pedestrians stopped to make silent exchanges with the vendor, an old grey man with heavy glasses. Crumpled old notes passed between them and the old man folded them into his pocket, handing out coins from his other pocket, taken seemingly at random. No one inspected their change. They just tucked their paper under a free arm or dropped a packet of cigarettes into a shopping bag. The kiosk looked like a stand in a railway station but more old-fashioned, with a timbered, lean-to, almost unfinished look about it. I tried to peep around the back to see if it was only half-finished but a small crowd pressed close to me and to avoid drawing their attention I was forced to move on. As I passed by, I read the blurred billboards that proclaimed: NEW LEADS IN HUNT FOR REGICIDE.

A police car growled past and I looked the other way, wishing I could have gone back for a newspaper, but caution made me carry on walking.

Since entering the outskirts the night before when I’d seen the ice-skater perform her impossible jumps I’d seen nothing else to suggest this was the city of my dreams. The dogs, the police presence, the general level of paranoia and this apparent hunt for some king killer suggested something quite different. I didn’t want to think about it.

I concentrated on finding the motorway. I’d left the map now and as I walked further north-west I was becoming increasingly isolated. If a police car came by they’d be sure to pick me up. There were fewer shops, and gaps had started to appear between buildings. I looked down the side streets on my left but always at the bottom there was just another street of redbrick terraces running across. I heard a car with an ominous, low, rumbling engine and slipped through the first shop doorway I came to.

There was a sound, which was oddly familiar, and it was only when I took in my surroundings that I recognised it as the empty hiss of a runout groove. I was in a record shop. The smell of old much-thumbed sleeves washed over me. There were racks around the walls holding stacks of LPs, and a free-standing unit in the centre of the small, musty shop. At the far side was the counter and an old-fashioned till. Behind the counter was a door that was ajar but there was no one tending the shop. I was the only customer. Faint noises came from the half-open doorway. I also heard the police car cruise past the shop but instead of heading straight back outside I turned to one of the racks and flicked through the sleeves. They were all blank. I selected one at random and withdrew the contents. The transparent paper in the centre crinkled as I slid the record itself from the yellowed inner sleeve. The black vinyl shone like my father’s shoes and when I looked close I could see a tracery of small scratches and insignificant scuff marks like those he had always tried to hide by slapping on Cherry Blossom Shoe Polish and brushing until he could see his face in the shoe.

I wondered what the record was. The label, like the sleeve, was blank. Over the loudspeakers I could still hear the stylus bumping around the runout groove of whatever record had been playing. I made my way over to the counter and looked around for the turntable. It was on a ledge below the counter and my heart stopped when I saw the record was only halfway through. The noise I was hearing had been recorded. I remembered the white label I’d dreamt the Siouxsie lookalike had brought me and I felt my stomach muscles contract. Then I heard something that made me shiver: a high-pitched squealing sound accompanied by the drumming of running feet. It was coming from the half-open doorway.

As I ducked under the counter and stepped through the doorway I slipped back twenty years.

I was coming downstairs first thing in the morning. My father was out doing some strange shift work. My mother was getting dressed upstairs and above the tinkle of her jewellery and the rustle of Radio Two on her transistor I could hear the pitter-pat of scampering feet and the squeal of the fast turning wheel. I trailed my fingers against the raised knobbly paint patterns — like purple waves breaking on some dream shore — on the hall wall and turned into the dining room. The squealing got louder, the feet ran faster. I went and crouched down in the corner and watched our second hamster as he ran on and on against the gravity which meant he would never climb to the top of his wheel but would be condemned forever to run on the spot. I knelt down in front of the cage and watched him run. His little black eyes seemed to register the futility of the effort and yet he carried on running, even despite my close attention. If anything he started to run faster.

At the end of the short passage behind the shop I stepped into a semi-dark dusty room. There was some machine cranking away in the far corner that was responsible for the squealing and drumming I had heard. Straight ahead of me was another doorway which led to an uncarpeted staircase and to the back door. Through the glass in this I could see that evening was coming on. The sky was turning red. The machine drummed on. I realised there was a familiar smell that reminded me of some place but I couldn’t think where. I had started to sweat. I could still hear the record playing from the shop — even though the machine’s drumming noise was getting louder — as if someone had turned up the volume. A shadow extended down the old wooden stairs. I retreated into the shadows of the room, imagining angry shopkeepers coming at me from both directions. After all, I was trespassing. The shadow lengthened on the stairs and I took another step back and bumped into the pounding, shrieking machine. I caught my hand in something and felt a sudden sharp pain. I looked at my hand. The end of the short third finger of my left hand was burnt black and the pain quickly receded as the finger went numb.

Then I realised what the smell was — I remembered the toilet cubicle on the train and the dog that smashed its head through the window. I spun around and saw my ‘machine’ clearly for the first time. It was a large running wheel constructed out of two bicycle wheels spinning on an axis. The diameter of the wheel was increased by wooden extensions and the perimeters were two four-foot-wide hoops of beaten metal. Wooden slats were affixed between the two metal hoops, creating a wheel which spun around the central axis.

Running inside the wheel was a dark mottled pit bull terrier, its eyes flashing, ropes of saliva flying from its hanging jaw. It was staring at me as it ran, its nailed feet hammering on the wooden slats. The bicycle wheels squealed. The dog ran. I couldn’t move.

Someone appeared in the doorway, having come down the stairs.

It was a girl in a dark, sliver-flecked skating dress.

‘This way,’ she hissed at me. ‘Quickly.’ She nodded towards the passage that led to the shop and even this close to the dog I could hear the dull booms and ghostly clicks of the endless ‘groove’ music.

I moved towards the girl, noticing that the hairs on my arms were standing on end and my legs felt weak. As I got closer I could see her long black hair shining in the yellowish light from the shop. Was she the girl from my dream? Or was she the skater I’d seen on the night I’d entered the City? I didn’t trust her. I didn’t trust my eyes. She wasn’t real. I darted back into the passage towards the shop.