Bad Things. Michael Marshall

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      As I stood there, I realized that, of all places in the world, this would be the one where I would most expect to lose control. It was, after all, the very last place where my son had spoken, and breathed, and been alive. But it did not happen here either. I felt wretched, but my eyes stayed dry.

      * * *

      I can only ever think about that afternoon in the third person. I do not think ‘I’ did this, or felt that, and despite the distance I've tried to put between it and me, my recollection is locked in the present tense. From the moment at which I emerge onto the deck, it's as if it's happening again now. Perhaps this is nothing more than another defence mechanism, a way of making it feel like a fantasy, continually fresh-minted in my head, rather than an event with a genuine place in history.

      But it has such a place. There was an afternoon, three years ago, when my son died in front of my eyes, when I'd dived into the water and then stood exactly where I was now, holding something in my arms for which I had made a sandwich four hours before; when I stood knowing that the person for whom I'd slapped cold cuts and cheese between bread, and then sliced the result into the preferred triangular form, had gone away and was no longer there; and that the wet, heavy thing that remained was nothing but a lie.

      What is the difference between those two states? Nobody has a clue. The local doctors and the coroner certainly didn't. All they could tell me was that Scott had been dead before he hit the water, and they had no idea how or why.

       I'm sorry, Mr Henderson. But he just died.

      This difference is why our species makes sacrifices, performs rituals, repeats forms of words to ourselves in the dark watches of the night. Gods are merely foils in this process, an audience for the supplications of metaphor in the face of the intractable monolith of reality. We need someone to listen to these prayers because, without a listener, they cannot come true, and therefore there must be gods, and they must be kind, else they would never grant our wishes – in which case why would we pray to them in the first place? It is a circular argument, like all neuroses, a hard shell around emptiness.

      If gods exist then they are deaf or indifferent. They commit their acts, and then move on.

      * * *

      I knew it was time for me to get on to the next thing, whatever that was. Finding something to eat back in Black Ridge, most likely, then a quiet evening in a no-frills motel room before flying back to Portland and finding a ride to Marion Beach. Good friend though he had been, I knew I wasn't in the mood for Bill Raines's offer of a night's drinking and talking up old times, for any number of reasons.

      As I turned back from Murdo Pond, however, something made me pause. A wind had picked up, and the leaves on the trees around the house were moving against each other with a sound like the papery breaths of someone not entirely well. The water in the lake was lapping against the jetty supports, like a tongue being moved around inside a dry mouth. The combination of the two sounds was disconcerting, and for a moment the air didn't feel as cold as it should, but then felt very cold indeed. It struck me that no one in the world knew where I was, and though that thought has sometimes been a source of comfort, right then it was not. Though I had owned this jetty, those woods, that house, it did not in that instant feel like a place where I should be.

      A stronger wind suddenly came down out of the mountains to the west – presumably the source of the cold blast I had just felt – provoking a long, creaking noise to come out of the woods. A tree that was dry and not long for this world, presumably, bending for the second-to-last time. Still I did not start walking. I found I did not want to go back toward the house or the trees. My feet felt unsecured, too, as if something more than the water's gentle movements was moving the jetty's supports. Gradually this increased in intensity, until it was like a vibration buzzing against one leg, as if…

      ‘You moron,’ I said, out loud. I stuffed my hand in my jeans pocket. The vibration was just my phone.

      I stuck it to my ear. ‘Who is this?’

      It was Ellen Robertson.

       Chapter 11

      I got to the Mountain View a little after eight o'clock. It was the only place in Black Ridge I could bring to mind, and I wanted to sound at least slightly in charge of the situation. I did not suggest my motel because you do not do that with women you do not know. She agreed and did not ask where the bar was. She said she'd be there some time between eight-thirty and ten, but couldn't be more precise and would not be able to stay for long.

      I walked back along the jetty, up the lawn, and climbed back over the gate. The house did not look like anything other than an empty dwelling, but I did not walk any slower than necessary.

      I did hesitate for a moment at the top of the rise, however, turned and said goodbye, before I walked off down the drive. It did not feel as if I had done anything of consequence.

      The bar was largely empty when I arrived. Lone drinkers held each corner of the room, like tent pegs. There was no one at the counter, generally the first roosting place of the professional drinker – for ease of access to further alcohol, and the faux-conviviality of shooting it back and forth with the bartender. I guessed I was between shifts, that the place never did that much hardcore business, or that Black Ridge was slowly sinking into the swamp and the drinkers had worked it out first. The Marilyn Manson playing on the jukebox probably wasn't helping either. Not everyone enjoys the company of music that sounds like it means them harm.

      I stood waiting for a couple of minutes before I heard someone coming out of the rear area. When I turned I was surprised to see the woman I'd spotted while sitting on the bench opposite, earlier in the afternoon.

      She looked at me a moment, raised an eyebrow. ‘Am I in trouble?’

      ‘I have no idea,’ I said. ‘I just want a beer.’

      The eyebrow went back down and she slapped each of the pumps in turn and told me what was in them.

      ‘What's popular?’ I asked.

      ‘Money and happiness,’ she said, quick as a flash. ‘We don't have either on draught.’

      I nodded at the one in the middle. ‘Can I smoke in here?’

      ‘Oh yeah,’ she said. ‘We are not afraid.’

      I watched her as she leaned over to the other side to get me an ashtray. I guessed she was probably in her late twenties. Tall and skinny, with a high forehead and strong features, hair that had been dyed jet black and cut in an artfully scruffy bob. Her skin was pale, her movements quick and assured.

      ‘You want to pay, or run it?’ she said.

      ‘For a while,’ I said. ‘I'm meeting someone.’

      ‘Oh yeah – who?’

      I hesitated, and she winked. I wasn't sure I'd ever seen a woman wink before.

      ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I get it.’

      ‘You don't,’ I said. ‘It's just an old friend.’

      ‘Whatever you say.’

      One of the tent pegs СКАЧАТЬ