The Cut Page 24

  Immediately, I regret it. I grab a bottle of brandy and slurp down a couple of hard shots. I’ve got this vague memory of having imbibed Buckfast at some point this evening, too – shit, I can’t have been that desperate. Someone told me once that it’s the most popular drug in Glasgow.

  The room is red and smoky, filled with shadows flitting their fingers and gyrating their arms. This party has suddenly turned into the outer vestibule of hell. Expect the wasps any minute. But I don’t imagine any bright, gleaming Virgil is going to step through the door and offer me his hand.

  Cranes are on the stereo. ‘Shining Road’. You can usually judge my mood by Cranes. If I think that the woman’s got a lovely, ethereal, angelic voice then things are going great. If I think she sounds like a whiny schoolgirl, it’s time to smash something. Right now, my needle is hovering dangerously close to ‘remove crockery’.

  I want to find Imelda and see if she can patch things up between us, but right now it’s hard to get up off the floor. How long has elapsed since JJ stormed out? Ten minutes? Fifteen? Does it matter?

  Someone steps up the music to full wall-shattering, bone-cracking intensity for the opening chords of Therapy? ’s ‘Screamager’. My head is not happy. It’s asking for something from one of those Pan Pipes Moods albums (‘the haunting woo-woo-woo-woo-woooo-woo, the memorable wooo-wooo!’ . . .)

  ‘You all right down there, Bel?’

  It’s Damien. He’s grinning cheerfully as he pours himself something. I’m not too drunk to notice that his neck is decorated with a glistening, vampiric love-bite.

  ‘Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. You . . . getting on well? Or getting off well, I should say, huh?’

  He shrugs. ‘Not bad. See you later.’

  ‘Don’t forget the garlic,’ I mutter, and heave myself to my feet. Still clutching my bottle – no one’s having that, I can tell you – I stagger upstairs, pausing on the way to shake various people by the shoulder and ask if they have seen Imelda. Someone vaguely points to the next floor up. Oh, hell. I’m going to have to interrupt something. Well, tough.

  Slowly, I haul myself up, pausing for a brief shot of brandy on the way. It burns my throat but I’m getting there step by step, steadying myself on each creaking section of the white handrail.

  I get to Jon and Kate’s room, where various swathes of flesh are making out. I momentarily startle them by flashing the light on and off, but there’s no sign of Imelda.

  The only place she can be is the spare room.

  I knock over the linen basket on my way there. A week’s fetid washing – a description of all our lives scrawled in the hieroglyphics of clothes – spews on the landing and the stairs. My black dress is there, and the underwear I wore when I went with that guy. One of Kate’s double-D bras. A shirt of Jon’s.

  I kick it all aside and reach the door. I listen up against it. I hear a giggle, definitely Imelda’s, and the sound of a glass being clinked.

  Briefly, I consider knocking, but I throw the idea aside. I go in, not looking up just in case it’s an awkward moment.

  ‘Imelda?’ I call into the dimness. ‘Imelda, can I see you for a bit?’

  The noises seem to have stopped. I am conscious of various things. Of the thud of the party below. Of two people in the room trying to breathe very, very quietly. And of the pungent, scampi-and-lemon scent of sex in the room.

  I swallow hard. I reach for the light, which is a dimmer-switch, and tease just a small glow out of it.

  Imelda McCann, tousle-haired, breathing hard, is sitting on the edge of the big double bed, where it looks like she’s just sat up in something of a hurry. She’s pulled the flower-print quilt over her breasts with her right hand. The wrist of her left hand is tied firmly to the bedpost with her own belt. There’s a glass of white wine on the bedside table. Her body glistens from hair to cleavage with something which is also probably wine, mingled with sweat.

  Crouching next to her, red-faced, dressed only in an unbuttoned shirt, is her nephew Joshua James McCann, known to me as JJ.

  *

  In my wobbly fury, I push past several couples. I hurtle down the stairs, knocking against shoulder-blades. I am dimly conscious of shouts pursuing me along the landing. Damien is there, can in hand, propping up the wall. He’s trying to talk to a Gothic-looking creature who’s festooned with chains between her nose and ears and eyebrows.

  ‘Nah,’ he says, ‘no idea what attracted them all. I mean, there I was just minding my business, having a quiet drink, and licking my eyebrows. Bizarre, really . . . All right, Bel, everything OK?’

  ‘No. Everything is not fucking OK.’

  ‘Ah. Well, nevermin’, have a drink. This is, ah, this is.’ He waves at the girl with the wild black hair.

  ‘Ellie?’ she offers with a long-suffering look.

  ‘Yeah. Ellie,’ says Damien with a lopsided grin, and tries to fondle her hair.

  I’ve already given him a shove that sends him sprawling against the door, accompanied by a shriek from the Ellie creature.

  I blunder down to the lounge. Various people are sprawled about in states of drunkenness or dopiness. Red and blue lights illuminate my arrival. Portishead reverberates through the lounge. Someone raises a hand in greeting as I wade through piles of paper plates and cigarette packets. I feel like they are the floor, and that it’s going to collapse, dragging me down into the mud. I open my mouth to say something, but I’m aware that there is a firm, reverberating beat outside. Someone has put another record on, in the hall. It’s echoing through the house.

  I spin towards the door. One or two of the lost souls slumped around me start to stir, and one of them, a spindly blond guy called Joe, staggers to the window.

  ‘Shit,’ he says. ‘Bel – there’s some guys –’

  I’m out in the hall.

  There are two bodies stirring at the foot of the stairs, but I’m not concerned with them.

  My eyes are fixed on the thick red carpet of the hall, where the pieces of the smashed fanlight lie in a random pattern.

  The door is shaking.

  I stand there, as if the carpet really has grabbed my shoes with furry arms and won’t let go.

  A stupid girl called Emma is there behind me, gripping my elbow. ‘Shit, Bel, should we . . . call the police or something?’

  With my eyes still fixed on the door, I shake my head briefly.

  ‘Bel –’

  ‘Get lost, Emma.’

  The wood around the lock splinters and cracks. They’re through.

  A dart of cold air pierces the sweaty warmth of the house, as the door swings back and hits the wall. A pair of DMs kicks aside the hall table, smashing Kate’s favourite vase.

  I back away as porcelain crunches underfoot. The vase is the least of my worries.

  The sixteen-stone chunk of meat standing in the door is wrapped in a grubby patchwork jacket and adorned with a face full of jewellery, including three rings through its piggy nose. The beats and howls continue to haunt the lounge, as no one has yet smashed or turned off the CD player. One or two people are grabbing their jumpers, bottles or partners and heading for the exits. A realistic approach.

  He swaggers forward. His arm’s up inside his jacket but his right hand is firmly gripping a dark, oily wrench, protruding from the sleeve like some cyborg attachment, ready to dispense lethal justice. There are other large shadows in the doorway behind him.

  ‘Belinda Archard?’ he says in a deep-down, substantially abused voice.

  ‘I’ll . . . get her for you,’ I manage to croak.

  *

  The hall’s being wrecked behind me. Shouts and screams fill the house as people realize what’s happening, and disperse, either out through the kitchen or through various windows. I notice some of Kate’s ornaments – the shepherdess, the gilded violinist – being trampled underfoot. I’m trapped in the middle, whirling this way and that.

  There’s an explosion of glass from the lounge. I rush in and see the patio doors shattered,
and a familiar figure standing there with a vicious fire-axe in his hand. Camouflage jacket, ripped jeans, twisted and stumpy hair. It’s Dreads. He stares at me and twirls the axe between his grubby fingers.

  I back away from him.

  ‘Look,’ I say to Dreads, ‘I really don’t know what you want. We don’t need any trouble.’

  ‘Tell me where Cassie is.’ His voice is low, deliberately not threatening. It’s so matter-of-fact that it chills me. I recognize Grinner and Chewer, his mates from Ashwell Heights, coming in behind him. ‘We’re going to turn this place over until you tell me.’

  ‘Cassie?’

  ‘She left with you that night!’ he snarls.

  Birthmark. Right. So he doesn’t know.

  ‘Look, I wasn’t driving,’ I say to him. ‘You’ll have to talk to JJ about it, won’t you?’

  Dreads tilts his head slightly. ‘JJ?’ he asks.

  I nod furiously. ‘He’s upstairs. Shall I go and get him?’ I edge towards the portable phone on the coffee-table.

  Dreads sees me. ‘Leave that!’ he snaps, but I’ve scooped it up and I’ve pressed the 9 button once.

  ‘Get out, or I’m calling the police.’

  Chewer and Grinner – still performing their eponymous habits – seem to find this amusing.

  From the noises behind me, it sounds as if the heavies have gone upstairs to scour the rest of the house.

  ‘I mean it,’ I say to them. I realize I must look pretty stupid – my hair a wreck, my teeth bared, gripping the phone with both hands like a weapon. ‘You get out now, or I dial another nine.’ My finger hovers over the button. ‘And then another. Who wants to take the risk?’

  His reactions are fast. Dreads smashes his axe into the top of the TV. I wince, expecting an explosion, but there’s just a scattering of wood and plastic.

  He steps slowly towards me. ‘She’s frightened,’ he mutters to his henchmen. ‘She must be lying. It’s her we want.’

  I raise my eyebrows, gesturing with the phone, jabbing the aerial at him.

  Dreads makes a contemptuous sound by blowing air from between his lips. He edges forward again and I see his foot nudge something. An upturned pottery ashtray in the shape of a shell. I suddenly remember how that got there and I feel too bloody stupid and wrecked to care.

  The ashtray spins towards me. I jump aside and it cuts the air just beside my ear, before smashing into chunks against the wall.

  My finger contacts the 9 button again. The bleep is as loud as a gunshot in the lounge.

  From upstairs, there is the echo of walls being thumped and various other breakable objects meeting their end. I wonder briefly if they’ve got as far as the top bedroom.

  ‘All right,’ I say to the Fallies. ‘Who feels lucky?’

  There’s a commotion behind me and I whirl around. One of the heavies pushes a snivelling wretch into the room.

  ‘I found this in the bathroom,’ he says, hefting his crowbar with evident lascivious delight.

  Red-nosed, damp-haired, sniffing, wrapped in a fluffy red towel, it’s the delightful Marcie herself.

  ‘Tell her, bitch,’ says the heavy, and gives Marcie a slap round the head (sending droplets of water flying).

  Marcie, rubbing her head, lifts her eyes to look at me. ‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘They came looking for me. I told them.’

  ‘Told them?’ My finger hovers over the 9.

  ‘Where to find you. I said to come tonight.’

  *

  Lights smudge. I sink back into the taxi seat, hoping it will all go away, trying to remember how it all got so out of control.

  *

  I stare at Marcie in horror.

  ‘You?’ I eventually manage to gasp.

  So she has betrayed me as well.

  ‘Yeah.’ She huddles herself into the towel, not daring to look at me. ‘Pretty good for a stupid Fally girl who’s never going to come to anything, wouldn’t you say?’

  I’m shaking with fury. I slam the phone to the ground. Dreads and his friends move in.

  ‘Come on,’ says Chewer, his mouth thick with saliva and chewing-gum. ‘Let’s finish it off.’

  I’m not quite sure how it happens, but he doesn’t get further than reaching for me before he bends double, screaming, clutching at the red gash on his arm.

  I whirl around, the knife held out in front of me. Marcie gives a satisfyingly melodramatic scream. I’m seized with the urge to cut right down her red towel and let the blood come pouring out.

  ‘Back off her,’ Dreads mutters. ‘Now.’

  The coffee-table rolls on its castors, right in Dreads’ path. I hurl the bottle, and hear it smash, then I hit the hall running, leaving chaos behind me.

  I’m dimly aware of shouts and screams from up above me in the house. Heavy footsteps shake the stairs. Time to leave.

  Cold air is punching through the smashed door. I’ve got the presence of mind to grab something warm – it’s a midnight-blue cloak of Kate’s. I’m out in the drive, and without looking back I run for the main road.

  The night is clear and still, speckled with the phantoms of sodium-light. It’s just cold enough to crisp my breath to little jets as I run towards the lights of the town, far below me. Everything looms from the darkness as if trying to intercept me – a post box, lampposts, a jutting branch. My heart’s trying to beat a way out of my chest, but I hurry on.

  I’ve no way of knowing whether the Fallies came in a car. If I can’t outrun them, I’m probably dead.

  I make it to the roundabout, where cars are zooming off to the motorway in their hundreds. I stick my arm out and jump up and down, all the time keeping an eye on the dark, tree-covered road up to the house, expecting them to come down it at any minute.

  I almost miss the taxi, its bright orange sign lit and ready, as if especially for me. I leap inside in relief. It’s warm and soft and smells of pine air-freshener.

  ‘All right, love,’ says the driver, a fat Indian bloke with a little moustache. He leans round and gives me a friendly grin full of well-kept ivory. ‘Cold night, eh? Where to, then?’

  I think hard. I’ve got no money, so it’s got to be somewhere I can get out easily.

  ‘Westonbourne,’ I tell him. ‘The seafront arcade.’

  And I sink back into the seat, my head buzzing with betrayal, my mouth clogged with old and angry drink, and watch the lights whizzing past like carefree, blitzed-out ghosts on their way to a haunted rave.

  *

  Imelda is calling me from the room, shouting my name in desperation. I don’t want to go back.

  It was them.

  All the time. Knowing, watching.

  I have been known in too many senses, and I have been watched. I have been unsafely penetrated by future-history.

  I’m feeling my way down the top stairs like a mad, blind woman, like a Mrs Rochester come to join in the party. I can feel it throbbing through the banisters.

  It was them. Jesus Christ. Stupid Bel.

  Take time back.

  Give me a chance to think about this thing.

  Chapter Twenty-Five – Final Cut?

  One by one, they all turned the tables on me. When I thought I was ahead, I was behind.

  Of course, it all fits now. Isn’t that what the hopeless police inspector says, when Miss Marple or Sherlock Holmes has shown them the pieces of the puzzle, dazzled them with the truth? It all fits now. And you were the bumbling idiot all along, shown up by amateurs. I guessed the end. Yeah, like hell you did.

  Little things slide into place and begin to make sense. Suddenly, harshly illuminated. Like Damien at Ashwell Heights, sneering at JJ. ‘We know why you’re so moody tonight.’ Just after Imelda had gone.

  My stomach tightens as I imagine what he must have been thinking that night. Waiting to get back to her, waiting to slip into bed beside her.

  And then there’s the whole lesbian thing. It’s always seemed quite real for Imelda, not just a pseudo-cool, chic adornment as it was fo
r some of the girls I knew in the sixth form. For all I know, she might really have all these babes on the go. But she also had a little sideline. Her cute little nephew. For the first time, I think properly about the way JJ looks like a girl. Perhaps that’s what she likes.

  My life skims past like the misty orange street lamps above the taxi, scene after scene unfolding in my head, shot on a jerky, hand-held camera. Faces loom and leer, their eyes fishy and glistening, their mouths obscenely huge, licking the lenses.

  If I can only outrun the Fallies, I can perhaps escape it all.

  Some headlights have been tailing us for a while.

  *

  After about ten minutes, we come to Westonbourne. It seems late, as so much has happened, but this place is still alive, and it’s just getting going for the night.

  This is a town which has respect and quality. Maybe it had a few more riots than us in the eighties and so earned more money. This town, unlike mine, has not only seen it all, it’s got it taped and boxed and ready to sell to eager punters.

  ‘Where you want dropping, love?’ asks the taxi driver.

  It’s a bright night in this far-from-last resort. It looks like a place where the fish would be smooth and flaky when the chips are down. A seaside you like to be beside. Streets with more wine bars than winos. A glittering pier, festooned with colour, trips like a gaudy puppet show out into the backcloth of the night sea. Great searchlight-cones of illumination fill the sky with a V, announcing that this is a winning town, crisply spoofing the two-fingered salute of the chimney smoke at the End of the World.

  And those headlights behind us are definitely matching our pace.

  ‘Where you want dropping, love?’ asks the driver.

  Well-kept bright young things throng the Parade. They flit between designer lamps which look like gob-stopper globes on sticks of humbug. Or limbless matchstick-men with glowing heads, marching in single file down the Parade. (Shit, I knew I shouldn’t have mixed those drinks.) Even now, with the nights getting colder, the princes and princesses are in their clubbing gear: the girls shivering in lemon satin mini-dresses and Cathy Gale boots, the boys in Blur-chic of Fred Perry T-shirts and pressed black jeans. They jostle, they laugh, they push each other along the Parade, light each other’s cigarettes. This town will smell of perfume and Lynx aftershave and steaks and soft sand.