* * *
Though the necessary preparations seem to drag on for days, at least with Daniel slipping ever further into his own private hell the covert operation can become bolder; gathering things, testing strategies, practising moves. Securing provisions proves to be straightforward enough. He discovers in the fridge a plastic container of mashed potato and swede; purpose-made for the stealing. And there’s bottled water too. Dressing himself is quite unthinkable, but in the light of their first venture outdoors they’d established a code whereby a shiver with the shoulders signalled a need for more layers. Of course to ask for these in the flat would be to raise suspicion. But after one of their trips he’d been left for over an hour to swelter in his coat and scarf. If he’s lucky, perhaps he can engineer this again: get back to the flat, cause a bit of a distraction, quickly take himself off to his room and slip fully dressed into bed.
Daniel is spending more and more time out on the streets, vanishing into the night and rolling back, half-dead, around midnight. While it alarms and upsets him, Alex knows this will be his opening. The signs are easy enough to read: the pouring of the extra large drink, supercharged from the bottle in the kitchen drawer; their brief circuit of the block together, then the order for him to stay out of trouble while Daniel slips out again alone.
Four thirty… five… watching Daniel plough through his daily grind like he’s wading through sludge. And then it happens: the tumbler pulled from the filthy dishwater, whisky down from the cupboard, the dregs of the bottle half-filling the glass. Alex’s skin becomes sticky with anticipation – as if the drink were entering his own bloodstream. Opening the drawer by the sink now and out with the medicine bottle and pipette. Into the scotch, a quick swirl round and down it goes. At any moment, the command will be given to go through to the bedroom to be dressed.
Alex waits.
And he waits. Why tonight of all nights is Daniel savouring his drink like some connoisseur?
And he waits; Daniel staring through the kitchen window, lost in thought.
And he waits. Finally, Daniel is talking.
“It’s starting to rain. I don’t think we’ll be going out tonight.”
A surge of desperation hits Alex’s frayed nerves. He forces the chair up to the sink, pushing Daniel aside, and strains his neck upwards to look through the bars at the angry evening sky, doing all he can to signal that he’s fine with it; that they should go regardless. A hand falls upon his shoulder.
“I said no, Alex.”
The kind of no that puts an end to matters. Already Daniel is back at the drinks cupboard, this time emptying the last of the vodka into his glass. His spirits also tumbling, Alex swivels from the window and wheels himself back towards his room.
“Okay, come on then. I need to go to the off-licence. You might as well come too.”
At first, only his jacket and jeans go on over the pyjamas. But the shiver code delivers well: coat, hat and gloves, a thick rug across his knees and a scarf knotted snugly around his neck. By the time they move out into the hallway to collect their shoes Alex is almost fainting from the heat. Hitting the chilled night air is genuine relief. He’s beginning to see himself at the church, rations consumed, stretching out on a pew beneath blankets and waiting out the night for someone to come.
Daniel is bound to go out later, despite what he said. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d declared an intention to give the backstreets a miss, only to disappear off without warning. Even if he stays in, with the fresh stocks of alcohol they’re now off to buy he’ll be out of his skull within a couple of hours. From Sedgefield Court to the top of Cooper’s Hill is about a quarter of a mile. The hill begins gently, steepens sharply for a time and then levels out again towards the church. As the journey begins, Alex tries to imagine propelling himself up it, and is forced to admit that really he can’t. Even Daniel is struggling now, pausing for breath every few paces. Before their trip to Devon he’d whisked this chair up to those shops in a flash. Now, the self-neglect is really starting to tell. The promise of a full drinks cupboard is maybe the only thing keeping him going.
When they do make it to the general store, being parked in sight of the church spire just across the street is sheer torture, almost a vindictive act. He prays that Daniel will forget all about him and set off absent-mindedly for home alone. But they’re back on the street within minutes, and Sedgefield Court is approaching all too quickly. Whatever substance Daniel has taken, it needs to kick in properly before they reach the flat. In that weird, affected state he would be far less likely to remember to remove the extra clothing. Suddenly inspired, Alex throws the long end of the scarf over the side and lets it tangle in among the spokes of the wheel. They say some famous person or other was killed this way. Immediately it yanks tight around his neck and thrusts him down into his seat. For a moment, he fears Daniel won’t understand the problem before he chokes. Lights begin to flash at the edges of his vision; the arteries in his neck throb violently; the roadway turns black – he’s to be the scarf strangler’s second victim. But fortunately Daniel does see – he gives out a startled yelp, slams on the brakes, scoots around to the front and begins tearing wildly at the scarf. Unable to free it, he pulls his brother from the chair onto the cold ground against the wheel and unzips his coat in order to work the knot around his throat. Enough slack is achieved to partially restore Alex’s blood supply, but the bitter cold jabbing at his exposed neck only substitutes one pain for another. For over twenty minutes Daniel battles on, the drug steadily taking hold and sending him completely to pieces. When at last the knot comes free, he is in too much of a frenzy to think of anything beyond getting home, too much in a sweat to notice Alex’s violent shivering. For the last leg of the journey, with the scarf flapping angrily behind the chair like a wind sock, his other garments stuffed into its rear pouch, Alex is left to face the blistering wind in nothing but a jacket and jeans. By the time they’re through the door, Daniel is on fire and Alex frozen through to the marrow.
The heat of the flat has never felt more welcoming. Suddenly the need for warmth and bed outweighs all else. He doesn’t care now if Daniel strips him of his other clothes, so long as those sheets and blankets take their place. Daniel looms over him, reaching for his jacket, then hesitating, swaying on his feet and closing his eyes. When he reopens them and tries to refocus, steadying himself against the back of the chair, his hands change course, their original task forgotten. They snatch instead at the carrier bag on Alex’s lap and begin pulling out the bottles. It helps bring Alex to his senses. This is his moment to get into bed and wait for Daniel to forget about him completely.
Ten minutes later, he hears first the front door and then the outer entrance door slam shut.
So, now for the difficult part. He just needs a moment longer. Five minutes to let the solitude calm him. Another ten to ease the pain in his throat, fifteen more to gather his strength and let body heat thaw out his limbs. The pillow embraces him. It cradles his bruised neck; it caresses his hair like a motherly hand. He could be back home, slotted into his bunk, gazing over at a crowded dockland of model ships, buffeted by the wind and swayed by the rhythms of the sea. The wooden slats above shield him like a cabin roof. Framed by the bedposts, the silhouette of a figure, leaning across from the side, grows larger and closer. He closes his eyes for his mother’s kiss, opens them again when it doesn’t land and finds himself staring up at the brutish face of a large fat man. The child’s arms refuse to defend him; the little legs won’t kick out. A suffocating weight pins him to the mattress. A smell of lavender water. It’s his own desperation for air that finally winds him out of sleep.
The image of that man hangs in the air a second longer; a moment’s premonition or a brief window onto a forgotten memory. Before Alex can decide which, it has gone. All the same, he’s in a panic now. How long has he been out? How much time has he wasted? And with no idea how long Daniel’s drinking binge will last. Alex almost tumbles out of bed in his urgency to re
ach the wheelchair. Getting into it takes far too long. Trying to remember the details of his plan, he pushes on through to the kitchen, reaches into the fridge and knocks the Tupperware box out into his lap. He sees the water bottle too, but realises now that its screw cap is impossible. Hopefully there’ll be water in the church. The scarf and coat are still irretrievably wedged deep down inside the wheelchair’s back pocket, but the blanket is there on the stool by the table. It will have to do. He’ll need the crutches too. He tracks them down to the wall by the front door and lays them across his knees, using the blanket to help keep them in place. Thanks to the new handles, the front door can be opened with a single downwards push. And to lock it after him is simply to let it slam. As he reaches out, he sees Daniel returning home to an empty flat, his outburst of fury giving way to an avalanche of fear and panic. The stab of guilt stops his hand, but only for a moment. Daniel will thank him in the long run; when they find him at the church, when they work out who he is, and when the authorities finally come to their rescue. Out in the corridor, he swings the chair around and forces the fingers of his left hand through the letterbox. With the other hand he drives the chair backwards in an arc, the movement just sufficient to bring the door shut with a tell-tale click. The point of no return.
Now he must tackle the outer door, the one he’s never really had a chance to research. But an obstacle far greater than any door meets him as he rounds the corner. In those wasted minutes that he’d slept, three bikes have been secured to the stair rails, the outer one stacked at an angle, front wheel turned arrogantly into what space remains. Someone could maybe push past on foot, but it’s unthinkable for him to collapse the chair and erect it again on the far side. He remembers Daniel, lashing out at those bikes on the day he first brought him here. Their revenge, to make him their captive in return for all those kickings.
With no way forwards or back, he can do nothing but wait. The cyclists are unlikely to come for their bikes before morning. Another resident might pass through and move them aside for him. Or perhaps Daniel will arrive first, give him a bollocking and place him under house arrest, putting paid to all hopes of any future escape. Alex listens for sounds from the street. For now, there is nothing. Muffled noises from behind paper-thin walls filter down from above. After a wait of ten or fifteen minutes, he hears a door closing, laughter growing louder on an upper landing and the clip-clop of high heels on the stairs, joined shortly after by a foretaste of cigarette smoke. As the meaty legs of two teenage girls appear through the rails, backsides cling-wrapped in Lycra, he calls out from the shadows. Both nearly jump out of their skirts; one gives a little squeal. The taller one gawps for a second when she turns and sees him with arm outstretched towards the bikes, before covering her mouth to stifle a giggle. The other at once seizes her elbow and pulls her away.
He watches them go, hopes fading with the clack of their footsteps. Time is too precious to sit waiting for other help. Daniel could walk through that door at any moment. Maybe the gap is not so impossible. If he were to turn the handlebar and straighten the wheel he might just squeeze past. He lines the chair up against the far wall and edges forward, rough breeze-block chafing the skin from his right knuckles. The chair’s protruding footrest just clears the bike’s pedal, but in no way is going to make it past the front wheel, or his shoulder clear the handlebars. A nervous check of the entrance door – still nothing. Steadying the chair, he leans forward to push against the bike’s handgrip with his left hand. A tremor has begun travelling his arm from the shoulder. Slowly the front fork turns and straightens, allowing a small advance. But to move now means releasing the handlebars; without both hands his chair will simply career into the spokes. The tremor worsens; it becomes a shaking that rocks the whole bike. Hastily he lets go, leaving the hand to hang helplessly just millimetres away, and miraculously the straightened wheel stays. He nudges forward, even an air current enough now to tip the balance. The front of the chair creeps ahead of the bike. He checks on the clearance behind. It is still good.
A slammed door somewhere upstairs makes him jump.
His shoulder catches the tip of the brake lever, drawing it back; the handlebars swing round and lock horns with the chair. When he tries to reverse the two simply knit tighter together; moving forward only drags the bike with him, in turn disturbing the one to which it has been chained. He tries furiously to think. Get down on the floor, turn himself around, untangle the parts and push the chair back while supporting the bicycle with his shoulder. Secure the bike and start over. A tall order for an invalid. But it is all he can try. He’s already down on all fours when the sound he most dreads booms out across the hallway; the slam of the front door behind him. One set of footsteps, definitely male. It has to be Daniel. He’s come this close to an escape, and all for nothing.
But the cry of ‘Alex!’ never comes; the footsteps continue in silence – almost silence – just a growl, deep and menacing, then a hiss through pursed lips and a strangled yelp. “Shut it, Hess,” orders the voice – not Daniel’s – a rough Midlands voice. Alex twists around.
“What you lookin’ at? Fuckin’ spaz, I seen you ’ere before. Should let the dog on you, finish you off.” Reined in behind the salivating Rottweiler, a tattoo-plastered skinhead pins him with a withering stare.
“First the Pakis, then the Polacks, now we gotta put up wiv a fuckin’ spaz. They’ll ’ave the fuckin’ fudge-packers in ’ere before we know it.”
He snarls, and spits something solid onto the floor.
No attempt to help Alex out before stomping upstairs, not so much as a word about his predicament, but at least the thug hasn’t ordered his dog to rip him apart. Alex should probably thank him: seeing those bared yellow teeth and drooling jowls has given him just the adrenaline boost he needs to start tangling again with the bikes. Little by little, the retreat is made, the squeal of steel against steel and rubber against concrete ricocheting up through three floors, until only the bike’s rear wheel and the chair’s footrest need separating. His back alone now holds the bike from falling. It’s only when the chair finally comes free, when he pushes it safely back from the stairs, that he realises something has caught in his jacket – his sudden movement yanking the bike’s frame. The second bike holds it for an instant; Alex freezes and sucks on his lip, then that bike too begins to topple, in turn unbalancing the third. The three have been padlocked together concertina fashion: first bike to the railings around its rear frame, the second to the first by its front fork, the third to the second again at the rear. Before he quite knows it, Alex is being buried under a cascade of tumbling metal parts. He shuts his eyes and waits for the pain.
The clatter rings on through the lobby long after the movement has stopped. Something sharp is left digging into his shoulder, something else squashing his ankle, but his hands at least can reach out without disturbing the bikes further. Pressing on his forearms, he slowly pulls forward, pausing at each move for the heap above him to resettle. It takes all his strength to dig himself out, the thing against his shoulder insisting on signing its name all down his back as he does so. But at last he is free. The chair too is free. The pair of them are back at the starting line.
And with the carnage of bicycles still denying them freedom.
It’s quite pointless to think of trying again. Short of sitting it out till he can hand himself in, there remains only one other option: if truly set on escape he must tackle that marathon hill-climb on crutches. He’s looking at five times the effort, five times as long to reach safety, five times the risk of failure, and no way to take blankets or food supplies. It would make for a tough night. Is it really so important to get away? The answer seems less certain now. Things might work themselves out eventually. If he could just get Daniel off the booze. If he could get into that drawer and dispose of that medicine bottle. If there were some way he could make Gulnaz come back and put things right. Would she ever come? Would he really want her to? Could he bear to see her getting hurt, really hurt
next time – as Daniel sets off on another of his psychotic rants? She had missed being struck by that mug only by seconds. And Alex himself had come within a hair’s breadth of a beating.
And a dread he can’t put his finger on – of the fat man smelling of lavender water.
It’s enough to draw Alex to his feet. He places the food box on the seat, covers the chair as best he can with the blanket, and wedges it beneath the stairwell out of sight. He picks his way carefully past the malevolent bicycles, battles for a while with the front door, and finally steps out into the stinging night air.
Since their earlier escapade, Cooper’s Hill has plunged from wintry to arctic. The winds have swung north-westerly, icy air spiralling down from the hilltop, pushing hard against his efforts to climb. Within seconds his lungs are gasping for oxygen. He’s regressed to a total novice again on crutches – forget swing-through crutch gait; it’s all he can do to work one stick at a time, one limb at a time. At this speed it’ll take forever. A pain barrier is fast approaching that even Malik Abdelgadir would struggle to pull him through.
But neither the hill nor the cold prove in the end to be his prime enemy. In fact the two partially cancel each other out. The physical exertion soon has him in a sweat. There’s no danger of freezing, provided he keeps on going. Even in the church there is every chance of finding a blanket, maybe candles for extra warmth. But at the edge of the night sky a new enemy is gathering for attack. Rain. If water gets through his clothes to the skin he can forget about ever getting warm again. Rain would spell deep trouble, possibly the end.
It begins with a few spits, then a fine spray carried on the wind, and then all hell breaking loose. Someone over the road starts running for cover. Two guys coming his way grab at the hoods of their cagoules; a woman’s umbrella is hastily erected and immediately abandoned as the gusts flip it inside out. It flaps on the pavement like an injured bat. Before long, the gutters are gurgling, storm drains drowning and pavements flooding. The puddles soon reach to his ankles. Through the blizzard he can just make out the bus shelter. Sooner or later a bus must arrive. Only one stop to the top of the hill. Can he force out the words Saint Bartholomew? Not necessary; just ‘Church’ would do. Abdelgadir again, his vocal work-out: forcing the long vowel to prise open his jaw. ‘Chhhhh-uuuuur-chhhh.’
The shelter does keep out the rain, and to some extent the wind, but offers few other home comforts; no seating, no lighting, and no list of bus times – not that Alex has a watch. The pavements are emptying of people, the streets being abandoned to the mercy of cars.
He waits for maybe an hour without seeing a single bus in either direction. He’s realised in any case that he has no money for a bus. Perhaps he’ll have more luck hitching. The road is getting busier; it’s probably pub-chucking-out time. The cars rev hard to make it up the hill through the wet and the wind, their lights briefly sweeping the scene but choosing to see nothing. Gradually their numbers begin to dwindle again. When at last two lads in a Mini do spot him, slowing the car down on its approach, one sticks his head out of the window, tells him he’s missed the last bus because ‘It’s Sunday, mate,’ laughs, shows him a finger and chucks a bottle. Alex turns in time to see it smash in the far corner of the shelter. The car speeds off, carefully targeting the largest puddle it can find and spraying his back with filthy water.
If they’re right, then it’s over. Actually, even if they’re wrong. The moment it stops raining he will go home.
When he finally hauls himself in through the gateway to the flats, the whole of Sedgefield Court is in darkness. No streetlights now, only a vestigial glow of town sky remains. It must be well after midnight. Nobody is going to thank him for ringing the bell at this hour. More to the point, nobody is going to answer. He might just find his way round the back to Daniel’s bedroom – something that’s sure to go down well. He can just picture the scene. Another wretched night of boozing, Daniel having drifted home and blacked out the instant he crashed onto his bed, probably fully clothed. He may not even have made it that far, perhaps only to the settee, or just the floor – wherever his head first landed. Then, dragged from deep, drunken sleep by Alex’s rap on the window, he’d stagger across the room, probably swearing like a trooper, maybe taking up some kind of blunt instrument. His pinprick eyes would peer menacingly into the inky blackness, at first seeing nothing, then clocking Alex lurking in the shadows. And after that? Juggling various scenarios as the sticks feel their way down the side passage, Alex almost misses the sound of the front door. He turns around in time to see a figure heading across the forecourt and out onto the street. There is no time to attract attention. But what had he actually heard? The door opening, then footsteps. No sound of it closing again. It was a small chance, but worth the trouble of a look.
A rare moment of good luck: the visitor had been either too careless or in too much of a hurry to worry about security. Alex is in.
More amazing still, his passage is clear. The third bike has been taken and the two others repositioned; enough room left now to go through and collect the wheelchair. The two remaining bikes face him head on, challenging him to make another escape, antlers poised to impale him once more. But Alex is way past all that. He can now barely stand, can hardly keep his eyes open, and can no longer feel his arms. He’ll take whatever punishment Daniel deems fit and then collapse into bed.
At the turn in the corridor he stops. For the front door of the flat to be ajar like this bodes something other than good fortune. Daniel’s paranoia would never let him forget to close his own door. The flat has no intruder alarm but one is already jangling loud and clear through Alex’s head. He crosses nervously into the hall to listen. An inner voice screams at him to turn back; that scent of lavender in the air again. But all is still, and he stays. The little light over the cooker hob is the only light on in the flat. As quietly as his crutches will allow, he edges forward into the kitchen. The door to the sitting room is also half open. The light picks out Daniel’s ankles poking out from behind, shoes and socks still on his feet. Tonight for Daniel is a floor night. Pitiful.
Only now can Alex really be sure he’s got away with it. If Daniel hadn’t even had the presence of mind to shut the door then he certainly wouldn’t have thought to check in on his brother before falling unconscious. It gives him all the time he needs to get out of these muddy clothes and slip into bed. He’s learned how to remove his own jacket, by standing with his back to the door and hooking the handle under the waist, then drawing down the string Daniel had tied to the zip and pulling forwards, allowing the garment to be stripped from his arms. His shoes won’t be a problem; they slip easily on and off. And his trousers too are loose enough to step out of, once the fly is undone and he’s jiggled about for a while. Tonight, it will all be ten times harder than usual; the wet garments hug tight to his body and he hasn’t an ounce of strength left in him. But Alex doesn’t care; he’s home, he’s safe and he has all the time he needs.
Pulling off the jacket opens up the tear inflicted by the bike. And the only way to prise off his soaked trousers is to drag himself painfully along the floor on his backside. The trousers too are ripped across one leg. Later he must cover his tracks. But for now, none of that really matters. It’s enough that he can now sleep. Enough just to have made it back. If need be, he’ll try the same escape tomorrow, and again the next day – every day until his luck changes, or until he runs out of clothes.