Nicholas Royle - Regicide

‘What would you like, Carl?’ Maxi asked. ‘To drink?’

I had a small glass of the City’s fruit brandy. Although clearly made from tinned fruit, it was less vile than the cigarettes. Since we were inside and Stella had indicated Maxi’s place was quite safe, I took out my Camels and offered the pack around. Both women smoked but preferred their own brand. I lit up and at Maxi’s invitation sat down in the reclining chair.

Maxi was a tiny woman, more like a little girl dressed up in her mother’s clothes, and she wore exaggerated make-up which made her look slightly clownish. I assumed she changed before going out, like Stella swopping her skating tutu for a baggy jumper and leggings.

‘How come you’ve got this place?’ I asked Maxi.

She looked at Stella who replied for her. ‘Dental care is not a priority in the City. Most people don’t live long enough to lose their teeth. We perform our own extractions if necessary.’

I winced.

‘There are lots of squats like this,’ Stella said. ‘We might be able to find you something similar.’

‘I’m not planning to stick around long enough to put down roots, but thanks for the offer.’

Maxi spoke to me. ‘Stella says you need a new look.’

I shrugged. ‘What do you think?’

‘I’m surprised you’re still walking around.’ She jumped to her feet. ‘So let’s get started.’

I sat back in the chair and Maxi came up behind me, taking a handful of my hair. I wanted to wriggle out of her grasp and run away. I was attached to my hair. But before I realised what she was doing she was sawing through it with a huge pair of dressmaker’s scissors. In dismay I watched my magnificent mane hit the floor. Let go, I told myself. It’ll grow back.

Maxi continued cutting. My impression was that she was more enthusiastic than proficient. Her scissors tugged at my scalp. It seemed to me she wasn’t taking a lot of care to layer the cut and I would more than likely have to pay a visit to Jerry’s Gentlemen’s Barbers when I got back to London. I suddenly felt overwhelmingly homesick. When I’d started to let my hair grow I still went back to see Jerry and watch him do his stuff on a couple of customers. It only ever took him the time it took to smoke one cigarette. He’d stick a Raffles between his lips, light up and start working his magic scissors. He never took the cigarette out of his mouth but instead let the ash droop until inevitably it fell into your hair and he dealt with it in his next stroke.

‘That’s enough, surely,’ I said sharply, coming back to my senses as Maxi yanked too hard again.

‘Not really,’ said Stella, who must have been watching from behind.

‘Let me see,’ I insisted. ‘Give me a mirror.’

Stella handed Maxi a mirror and she held it behind my head. I sat up to see myself reflected in one of the cabinet doors and there was only a split second in it: I saw Maxi’s eyes sliding away from a door in the far corner of the room and knew I’d been set up. For some reason I felt Stella wasn’t part of it so I shouted, ‘Stella, get out of here now ,’ as I launched myself from the chair, batting a hand backwards to ward off Maxi’s scissors just in case. Even as I was still turning, the door in the far corner burst inward and a spitting, frenzied ball of vicious flesh and teeth spun into the room.

Stella had gone for the door we’d come in by but already my way was cut off by the intruders. I whirled around as they came for me. There were windows — my only hope. In one fluid movement I yanked the overhead light from above the chair and had enough leverage on it to smash it into the nearest attacker’s face. Maxi clutched the scissors to her chest, clearly hoping her stillness and twisted loyalty would stand her in good stead with them. I didn’t much care. OK, she’d double-crossed me and Stella, but that was nothing compared to what she’d done to my hair. I plucked the scissors from her hand and as the second creature leapt I thrust them out in front of me. It gored itself spectacularly, spraying Maxi and me with steaming hot blood.

They were like the things that had come for me in the record shop.

The other one was already regaining its stance and I sensed more creatures or shock troops about to emerge from the far door, so I picked up the instrument trolley, bottles of fruit brandy toppling and smashing on the tiled surgery floor, and hurled it at the biggest window. I followed it, shielding my face with my arm, and fell into the street in a roll. I picked myself up and ran. I knew that more of them would be after me within seconds.

I ran over the little bridge over the canal, thought about jumping down onto the tow path but before I’d had chance to consider it I was halfway across the big square. I could hear faint cries behind me. I hoped Stella was safe. There was no sign of her and no evidence of anyone else. Just to add to my problems it was obviously curfew now as well. The thought of forcing open the concertina doors and hiding in the articulated bus occurred to me as well but as an idea it was only marginally better than shinning up a street lamp and hoping to stay up there until my pursuers got bored and slunk away, tails, if they had them, between their legs. Creatures like these didn’t get bored. They were perfect machines.

I turned off as soon as there was a side street to turn into, then immediately took a left and then a right, until I had lost all sense of direction. Some bizarre logic suggested that if I lost my way the things would lose theirs too, as if they were somehow in my control. I ran through nameless streets that all looked the same. My heart was pumping furiously, my head amazingly clear. I was sorry to have lost Stella and felt soiled after almost becoming trapped in Maxi’s sticky web of betrayal. At least I’d managed to make a mess of her post-modern surgery squat, I thought with grim satisfaction, but then realised I didn’t actually hold a grudge against her. In this city you had to sell yourself and others in order to postpone your ride in the open-topped trailer I’d seen earlier that evening.

I stopped for breath. The night was humid and prickly. Bent over, hands on knees, I listened but couldn’t hear the creatures any more. Could I really have outrun them?

No clatter of pursuit, but the telephone was loud and clear in the night.

It was only a couple of streets away, or so it seemed. I had to stop it ringing before it attracted unwelcome attention. As I ran I caught sight of my reflection in the oily blackness of a ground-floor window. My hair was uneven and scraggy. If anything I stuck out more than before. From my pocket I pulled out the black beanie Stella had given me and put it on.

I stopped in front of the house the ringing was coming from. The air was very still and heavy like just before a storm, the streets behind me quiet, but I sensed my pursuers couldn’t be far away. I ran up the three steps, stepped across to the window ledge and smashed a single pane with my elbow. Reaching in to release the catch, I jumped down into the room, landing as softly as an eleven-stone man in cowboy boots can.

I followed the ringing out of the front room and into the hall which was cast in a ghostly half-light by coloured glass in the front door. The end of the hall, however, lay in darkness. I walked slowly, my heart hammering, sweat trickling down the back of my neck. There were two doors. I opened the first and stepped inside.

I looked across to the far side of the room. There was something there but it wasn’t a telephone. I stood there for a few seconds feeling every hair on my body stand stiffly erect. Fear filled me up like gas fills up a room.

I took three steps back, turned around and closed the door behind me. I twisted the knob to open the second door and suddenly the ringing was much louder. I could see the telephone sitting like a lobster on a table covered with a sheet. Feeble starlight made the room’s shadows grainy and thick. There seemed to be dust sheets covering all the furniture and the sheets were smeared with something dark. The deep carpet impeded my progress, catching at my boot heels.