Days 3-10, Part 2
10,111 words total. I’d enjoy coming back to parts 13 & 14 (Last Man Standing & Small World) one day to rewrite. The first bit (Chance Encounter) is quite weak. That’d go entirely in an edit, I suppose.
10. Chance Encounter
Sara finished work. The world outside was shrouded in the same half-light as it was when she’d arrived that morning. It was as if the day had never happened. She decided to go for a drink before facing the commute home. She headed straight for the nearest pub, where she ordered herself a “double vodka, no ice, no lemonade, no nothing,” and sat in a quiet corner, alone, facing the window with her back to the rest of the bar.
She thought casually about her life, about the choices she could have made but never made. She feared she’d end up like her boss—bullied by everyone he ever met, spineless, weak-willed.
Outside she watched her fellow commuters shuffle past. It was only early evening, but from the colour of the sky it could just as easily been midnight. As always at this time of year, the long period of steady darkening had ended prematurely with a sudden lights-out. Sara got herself another drink. When she returned to her seat she noticed it had started raining outside. The wind had picked up too, she could hear it whistling against the window. The commuters turned their collars up, wrestled with umbrellas, covered their heads with free newspapers. She toasted them silently and drank.
Adjusting her gaze to her own reflection in the window made her feel uncomfortable. The young woman staring back at her was gaunt and pallid, long and narrow. Sara hated her reflection more than she hated how she believed she actually looked. She had always held mirrors responsible for her poor self-image. She often thought that she’d find herself a lot more attractive if she didn’t have to see herself.
She finished her drink and left. Not yet wanting to face the tube home, she wrapped herself tightly in her long coat and headed down the Euston Road. Without really thinking about where she was going, she took a right onto Eversholt Street, where she stopped for another quick drink in the Prince Arthur. Five minutes later she was out again, lighting a cigarette and continuing towards Mornington Crescent. Eventually, cold and tired, she made it to Camden Tube.
Before heading down to the trains, she decided she might like one more drink and headed into The World’s End opposite. She ordered herself a double vodka and once again positioned herself near the window, looking out. And again she fell into a reverie, staring out of the window, somewhere towards the middle of the road. However, slowly, by increments, a familiar voice nudged at her thoughts. At first, she thought she was imagining it but by the time she turned her full attention to it, she knew she couldn’t be mistaken.
“Moan, moan, moan,” the voice said. “Woe is me! Life is terrible! God, man, will you listen to yourself? Now, what are you drinking? Another beer?”
Sara turned round slowly. The voice was talking to the barman. “I’ll have a whiskey, and a beer for Rod here.”
Her brother Rowan was clearly drunk. He seemed to have picked up some kind of tramp, too, and odd-looking red-haired little man. Sara’s first thought was to slip out before her brother saw her, but it was already too late. She’d been spotted. “Sara! Sara! Hey! Sara!” Rowan was shouting. “What are you drinking, sis? Vodka?”
Sara nodded and made her way over to them. Rowan was paying for the drinks with with a huge pile of coins, which he had laid out on the bar.
“Where did you get all that from?” Sara asked him, taking her drink.
“Begging,” Rowan said. “And stealing, a bit. Rod’s got a talent for the begging—”
“…and Rowan’s good with the stealing,” Rod added. They both laughed at that.
Sara downed her vodka. To her brother, she said, “Who is this guy?”
“Rod!” he said. “A friend.”
“He looks like a tramp.”
“Hey!” protested Rod.
“You’re not looking too great yourself, Rowan.”
“Yeah, well, it was a pretty rough night,” he admitted.
“Well, I can’t stay,” Sara said. “Will you be home tonight?”
“Maybe,” Rowan said. “One thing’s for sure, I won’t be ending up on the street again…”
“Hey!” protested Rod. “You told me—”
Sara wasn’t interested. Without another word she tightened her jacket and left. The two men drank in silence for a while. “I don’t know if we’ve got enough for another round,” Rowan said, studying the coins in his hand carefully.
“Sure we have,” Rod said, waving a ten pound note in the air. “You’re not the only one who can steal, you know…”
“Where did that come from?”
“Her back pocket.”
“Sara’s back pocket?”
Rod nodded.
“My sister’s back pocket?”
Rod nodded again, this time a little uncertainly.
“Well then, Rod old pal, make mine a vodka. To Sara! A better sister, I couldn’t hope for…”
11. Dice
At 6pm, while Camille was out with Mark, Sara was drinking alone and Rowan was helping Rod shoplift a bottle of whiskey from a Camden off-licence, Jim was in his bedroom.
Fred Wallace’s concern over Jim’s obsessive dice-rolling was, in some ways, justified. For weeks he had been rolling dice and recording the results. So far he’d rolled and recorded more than ten thousand numbers. So far, the distribution of rolls was more or less even.
Jim was determined to prove that if a die is rolled enough times, the tally of results will not be evenly distributed.
He had just rolled three sixes in a row when his mother Valerie knocked on his door. She looked around his room and shook her head. “Always such a mess, Jim,” she said. “You’re not a teenager anymore, you know. You should start to clean up after yourself.” Her words were admonishing but her tone was kind. The truth was, she felt closer to Jim than any of her other children. She just wished he could be a little more motivated.
Jim paid her no attention at all. Cautiously, she stepped forward into his room, moved some magazines from his bed to the floor and perched where the magazines had been. His bedroom would have bee completely dark, were it not for the small lamp on his desk that pointed a narrow shaft of reddish light over his notebook, onto which he rolled his ruby-red die. In fact, he had three dice, which he alternated, believing that this would have no effect on the outcome of any given roll. Dimly, piles of books, coins and other miscellany could be made out around the room. Valerie scanned it all with a mother’s eye as she spoke. “So… I was thinking we could watch a film together? You can’t stay in your room all the time like this, it’s no good for you.”
Jim rolled a three, noted it and looked up at his mother. “What do you mean, ‘all the time’?”
Valerie spoke as gently as she could. “You haven’t left the house in days, Jim.”
“You wouldn’t let me shower!”
“That was only this morning, and you know it.”
Jim rolled again. This time it was a one. He noted it. Rolled a five. Noted that, too. “Don’t you have any plans for this evening?”
“No…” said Valerie. And then, brightly, “We don’t have to watch a film here. We can go to the cinema!”
“No.”
“Oh, come on Jim. It’ll be—”
“No.”
“But it’s been years since—”
“No, mum. No.”
“Well, I’ll go to the video shop and pick something out. It’s up to you if you come and watch it with me or leave me alone…”
Jim nodded without looking up. He rolled two threes in a row. Popular maths claimed there was a one in thirty-six chance of that occurring. Jim was trying to prove that otherwise. Popular maths was wrong in so many common sense ways, it was just a matter of proving it—“So I’ll let you know when I’m back, then, Jim, okay?”—It’s like the lottery: Popular maths would claim that the odds of the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 being drawn is the same as, for instance, 34, 45, 12, 23, 9 and 22 being drawn. Not true! Jim sought to prove what everyone already knew that the numbers one to six will never be drawn as the winning balls. Popular maths was—”Okay, I’m off now… Jim? Jim, please don’t ignore me…”—wrong.
The door slammed as Valerie left, but Jim barely registered. He’d just rolled five fours in a row.
He wasn’t sure what it meant, but he was pretty sure it was significant.
12. Parrot-Like
Valerie was like any other mother: she wanted the best for her kids, she worried for her kids, she often felt exasperated by her kids.
But tonight, she was determined to get her way with at least one of her kids. She and Jim were going to watch a video together, and that was that. Maybe she’d see if they had one about numbers, he’d like that.
She enjoyed time alone with Jim very much, although there wasn’t much of it anymore. The others, though, concerned her deeply.
Camille was her first born, and a real headache for Valerie. She was obsessed with men. It was rare she brought one home, but she often stayed out for the night, and rarely with the same man twice. And these days, what with all the rapists and murderers, anything could happen. And she had such an awful tempter, too. She could fly off the handle at just about anything, but mostly rejection. Valerie supposed that was her fault somehow. Valerie supposed most things were her fault, somehow.
No-one in the family had a temper quite like Rowan, though. His antics with her lipstick that morning were the tip of the iceberg. Over the past few years, since the onset of puberty, she’d been called to pick him up from police stations, hospitals, pubs, clubs, the gutter… It was terrible, just terrible. The doctors said he was ill. There was a man he went to see—Dr Jenkins—who tried to help with his behaviour but it didn’t seem to be working. Rowan was her fault, too, no doubt about it. He may be ill, but he was still her child, her responsibility.
And then there was Sara, who she simply did not understand. Seemingly disengaged from life itself, yet the only one of her children to have any regular work to speak of. They were mother and daughter in blood alone, neither could fathom the other; more often than not, they couldn’t stand each other.
It could have been a very lonely life.
Thankfully, Valerie was never completely alone. She was accompanied wherever she went. Even as she made her way through the chill London evening to the video shop, she had someone with her. Someone close, intimate, even; someone to keep her warm. Someone who told her to steer clear of the group of boys hanging round outside the petrol station. Someone who told her it’s okay to find the young man in the video shop attractive so long as she steered her mind clear of any indecent thoughts.
Valerie asked the young man what he recommended, baring in mind that her son liked statistics and so on. She was reminded of when Jim was a young boy and she used to try and describe games he wanted to toy shop owners. With some sadness it occurred to her that she had never really understood what any of her children were interested in. Not really.
The young man had a couple of options for her, and she chose one about an Oscar winner Mathematician. It was called A Beautiful Mind.
On the walk back she tried to remember what her life had been like before the children. She couldn’t. Her existence was tied to them entirely. To them, and to the voice of comfort, that whispered guidance in her ear, always.
13. The Last Man Standing
Rowan and Rod stood outside the Dublin Castle in Camden and urinated onto the road, trying to hit passing cars. Fortunately for local drivers, their aim wasn’t very good and their bladders weren’t very full. This was particularly disappointing for Rowan. “Should have found a sleeping bag to piss in instead,” he joked, although being very drunk, he wasn’t really in a joking mood. Rod didn’t reply. Instead, he swayed drunkenly in the cold wind with his eyes closed, dripping urine onto his battered trainers.
“Right then!” said Rowan brightly, slapping his new friend on the back. “Where to now then?” Rod jerked forward unsteadily into the street, where he began duelling with an invisible enemy, using his penis as a makeshift sword. “Sheath that and get back on the pavement!” Rowan told him.
Rod seemed to come to his senses, a look of confusion came across his face. It was as if he had just woken from a dream. He staggered for a moment, uncertain of what to do next. Then he looked down at his hand and laughed a little before trying to do his flies up.
The next few minutes seemed to pass in a kind of haze for Rowan. It was as if everything slowed down, as if he were watching a movie.
He looked on as Rod tugged up at his flies sharply, but the zip didn’t move. So Rod pulled again, this time much more firmly. The zip shot up suddenly. It must have torn through skin because Rod screamed with such raw pain that it sent a horrified shiver down Rowan’s spine.
Then there was the blood. Rod saw it dripping on his hand and screamed in horror. His flies were still half undone, his penis twisted in the zip. “Fuck, Rowan!” he yelled as he fell back in the middle of the road. “My fucking dick!”
A car turned the corner and headed towards Rod, who was writhing on the floor in agony. Its headlights seemed to illuminate just the red: the blood and his hair. Rowan knew what was coming. He opened his mouth to shout out, but closed it again. What was the point? The wheel of fate couldn’t be stopped.
In this case the wheel of fate ran right over Rod’s thighs as if he was a speed bump.
The driver was a young woman called Beth who was absolutely devastated by what she’d done. Despite Rowan’s protests that he’d never met the little red-haired man in the middle of the road before, Beth persuaded him to accompany her to the hospital. He finally managed to slip away at 3am. He spent the last of his money on a can of cider, exactly as he had the night before. Eventually, he passed out in a heap, glad the ordeal was over.
Meanwhile, the doctors operated to save Rod’s life while Beth answered the police’s questions as best she could.
“I saw him too late,” she told them. “He was lying in the middle of the road. It looked like he was masturbating.”
14. Small World
Mark Selwyn woke up the following morning at the usual time. He brushed his teeth, showered and had breakfast exactly as he always did. He even dressed himself normally, in a smart suit and cheery tie.
But something wasn’t right.
It began as a dull nagging in the back of his mind, like an audible ache of some kind, and developed quickly into a physical feeling in his stomach. And then, as he picked up his keys, it turned into a full-blown cringe—a physical and spiritual shudder.
It all came pouring back:
He’d ended up with Camille Barrett.
No, it was worse—
He’d ended up with Camille Barrett, and she’d told him he was awful in bed.
Mark was shaking. How had it happened? He’d got drunk, and sure, she wasn’t unattractive, but the thought of actually—he pushed the thought out of his mind. He needed to get to work, at least that would give him something to focus on. He took a deep breath and stood. Was it his imagination or could he still smell her? Her scent, her perfume, her hair? That sickly sweet aroma like bubble gum from his childhood… was it there or was it in his mind? It didn’t matter—he needed to get out.
The weather was terrible. The rain outside was torrential and the wind swept it almost horizontally. Umbrellas were next to useless. Mark fought his way through it, choosing to walk to the tube rather than catch the bus.
She accused him of rape! God, what if she did it again? She could go to the police, she could say anything! Well, DNA would prove they never had sex, but it would be too late by then. No smoke without fire, that’s what people say in those cases. It might only be a few percent of men who are charged with rape that are found guilty by the courts, but it’s only a few percent of men who are charged with rape that are found innocent by their peers. Everyone knows that.
Mark walked faster, pushing himself harder against the elements.
And what did she mean, awful? No woman had ever described him as that before. One woman had described him as adequate once before, which was bad enough in itself but technically wasn’t negative. But maybe.. in retrospect… would anyone wanting to give a compliment do so with such a word? “How was your tea?”; “Adequate.” No. No, now he thought about it, it wasn’t a good thing at all. But still, it wasn’t as bad as awful. The only thing worse than that was awful, Mark supposed, was that was against my will.
Mark got on the tube, got too hot, got off the tube into the cold again.
He made his way into the office. He was late, he realised. His secretary passed a stack of notes for him. Call this person; call that person; urgent, urgent, urgent. “I had a terrible night,” he explained. “I was with this awful woman and…”
Sara listened for a while, but tuned out eventually. She was definitely finished with temping, she decided. This guy Mark, in his suit, with his accountant’s salary: what right did he have to moan? He’d called in sick yesterday! He’d clearly not been ill at all—just off galavanting with some middle-class slut by the sound of things.
“Try spending a day in my shoes, being around my family” she thought. “Then you’d have something to complain about.”
