Garbage Man (22 page)

Despite the fading haze of cider and the clearing marijuana fog, Ray knew he wasn't imagining it this time. The trash from the landfill was alive. The garbage man was coming. Ray couldn't move.

When it reached the perimeter of the landfill, it stopped and scanned its surroundings again. Its gaze fell on something to its right. Ray held his breath - stupid really, there was no way the thing could have heard him breathing from this distance. The urge to crouch back into the trees was strong but his desire to see what the creature would do next overcame it. It turned in the direction of its stare. Ray tried to see what it was seeing. There was nothing there but open fields and power lines. The garbage man began to walk again, that in itself was spectacle enough. Ray wished he could see better how the thing worked, what it was made up of. It stepped over the perimeter fence of the landfill and approached one of the pylons. It was about the same height as the structure, almost an inanimate skeletal version of itself. For a moment, Ray felt pity for the giant garbage man. It was merely searching for a companion. In the pylon, it had found a false friend, one that would burn or destroy it. Ray found himself on the point of calling out, even though it was already too late and there was no way the giant could hear him.

He didn't get the opportunity. The garbage man had taken hold of one of the power lines and yanked it free of the towering skeleton's grip. There was a blue flash which left Ray blind for a second or two, then the sound of a distant electrostatic snap reached his ears. The garbage man held a writhing snake of raw voltage in its hands. Blue sparks poured from the snake's severed neck in a bright arcing fountain. Parts of the garbage man's body lit up red and orange and yellow. It juddered, rooted to the earth. Then it clumped back to the perimeter fence, hauling the live cable behind it. It bucked in his grip like a thin black eel, spitting neon poison. The cable just reached the edge of the landfill. The garbage man knelt and thrust the power-spewing ligament deep into the rubbish.

For a few moments, nothing happened.

Then the surface of the landfill began to pulsate and liquefy. It began to boil. Embryonic shadows, too small and distant to define, began to slither and crawl from the deep pits of trash. They left it from every side, in every direction. And all the while, the garbage man knelt at the edge of his domain like a rain god siphoning water into a desert. He brought forth life.

Ray was down the bank and onto the path before his mind registered he was running.

He didn't stop until he'd reached his flat. He double-locked the door behind him, dived into the bathroom and bolted that door too. He sat down on the toilet, his legs shaking with exertion. He held his head and in between his gasps for air he cried like a little boy.

15

Kevin watched Tamsin open the door, catch the smell in the air and march towards the kitchen. She stopped in the doorway, hands on hips.

‘What do you think you're doing?'

He was more nervous than he'd hoped to be. Her voice hinted at nothing but total self-belief, her face showed no cracks. Already he was wondering how he was going to win this war; win it and finish it in a single engagement.

‘Smoking cigarettes.'

It was, at least, obvious she knew something was up. That much showed in the flicker of her eyes as he tapped ash into his second empty coffee mug. It was a stupid habit he'd picked up at college and never quite lost. Stupid because, while it was temporarily convenient, it meant he had to strain soggy fag-ends out of the sink when the dregs of coffee were finally thrown away. Tammy hated it and had told him so the first time she'd seen him smoke at home. It had mattered back then, what she thought. It mattered now, too, but only because he knew how much it irritated her. She was seeing the challenge in his actions, the rebellion. That was exactly what he wanted.

‘When did you take that up again?'

‘I never stopped.'

Something there. A pause. Another flicker of - what?

Calculation? Hesitation? - then she was normal. A placid lake. She shrugged, dropped her handbag on the kitchen counter and swept out of the kitchen without saying anything more.

She should have bitten by now. Snapped, more like. She had every right to lose her cool; he'd deceived her. She was holding back. Why?

She trotted up the stairs. Unusual. She was fit, of course, but her gestures, her way of moving was in general more leisurely, more regal. Tammy didn't trot.

Kevin wasn't used to chain smoking. He dropped the half-finished cigarette into the half-finished coffee. It died with a hiss. He lit another, beginning to feel a little light-headed, a little nauseous.

Upstairs he heard water running. It was the shower. Again, unusual. Too brisk for Tammy. Baths were more her style. Perhaps she felt more distant in the shower cubicle with the glass door pulled shut. More separate.

Fine.

He took his cigarette and the rest of the pack with him and followed her up. He didn't take an ashtray.

He opened the bathroom door, breaking another marital protocol. He took her towel from the hook while she was turned away from him and sat on the toilet. He pushed the door shut with his foot. Smoke and steam mingled. She knew he was there but he watched her ignoring him through the glass.

Ignoring him.

While she must have thought it was the greatest act of nonchalance ever performed, Kevin found it half amusing and half disturbing. There was only one reason she would pretend not to be bothered by this. She had something to hide. The kind of secret that came out when non-smoking husbands started smoking again. The kind of secret that would come out in an argument.

What had the letter said? Something about him not being alone in sin.

He was suddenly dead certain that Tamsin was afraid of confronting him. Tamsin thought he was smoking and belligerent because he'd already discovered something about her. What could it be?

What the hell else? An affair. That was definitely her style.

The water in the shower stopped running but she didn't get straight out. He could sense her tension now even through the cloudy glass. First she'd felt safe. Now she was trapped.

She stepped out and reached for the towel that wasn't there.

Without her usual poise and confidence she stood, naked and dripping on the shower mat. He blew out a long stream of smoke in her direction.

‘Got the smell of his spunk off now?'

‘
What
?'

‘Who is he?'

‘Can you pass me my towel, please?'

‘No. I can't.'

She lunged for the door but he had his foot against it and her wet hands failed to even turn the handle.

‘Give me the fucking towel, Kevin.'

‘Answer the question.'

‘I don't know what you're talking about.'

He sighed deeply, acting far more laboured and weary than he really was.

‘We've been married six years, Tammy. Not bad really, when you think about it. Not bad in this day and age. So, I'm going to give you one more chance to be honest with me. I think I owe you that much.' He drew on the cigarette.

‘Who is he?'

He watched her carefully. There was a lot going on behind those eyes. Computation, assessment, analysis of risk. She looked like she might have thought in this way a lot. All her life, perhaps. He couldn't understand why he hadn't noticed it before. Or maybe he had and had mistaken it for intelligence. But this wasn't benign intelligence. This was deviousness. It took split seconds, that was all, but he could see it nonetheless.

‘Open the door and let me out or I'm going to start screaming.'

Part of him wanted that. Yes, screaming. A struggle. Something worse. Ignoring her threat, he said,

‘I've seen the photographs. They're not very good but they show everything. What you fail to understand here, Tammy, is that I'm not giving you the opportunity to deny this. We're way past that now. All I want is an answer to my question: Who is he?'

It was a crazy bluff but he was past caring. He'd seen no photos but it was reasonable to assume that if Mavis Ahern had pressured him with visual evidence, she'd done the same to Tamsin. After all, her motive wasn't to squeeze them for money; it was to bring them back together in the sight of God.

He was looking forward to telling Mavis Ahern that they'd been married in a registry office, in a civil ceremony, without a Bible in sight. That would keep, however.

Meanwhile, he was watching Tammy. Every move. Every twitch. The gooseflesh had risen on her now that she was beginning to cool in the tarry bathroom air. The calculations inside her head seemed to have slowed and become more specific.

‘You can't hurt him.'

‘No? Why not?'

‘Because he's just . . . you know why.'

‘No, I don't. Tell me why I shouldn't hurt him, Tammy.'

‘He's only a kid.'

‘Only a . . .' Kevin put a hand to his forehead, touched it ever so lightly. ‘It's the paper boy, isn't it? You've been screwing the fucking paper boy.'

He stood up and took hold of Tammy's wet hair in his left fist. With his right hand, he put out his cigarette against the wet strands. He wasn't absolutely sure what he was going to do with her, all he knew was that he wasn't going to hold back.

‘I can't believe how long I've put up with your bullshit. You know,' he said, ‘If you really want to start screaming, now would probably be a good time.'

***

She watched the silver Z3 pull up outside her flat and knew that everything was about to change. Something about the way he slammed it up beside the kerb. When he got out, she saw a mark on his face for a split second. Then he turned away, walked to the passenger side door and hefted out a large sports bag. Her stomach fluttered as she ran to the front door of the shared downstairs corridor to let him in.

There was a fresh cut across his cheek bone, the blood only just dried. For a few moments he stood on the doorstep without speaking. She lost faith then, wondered if he'd really go all the way.

And then:

‘I've left her.'

Still, he didn't move forward.

She stood out of his way. The tension dropped out of his shoulders, the pinch left his mouth and eyes. He stepped over the threshold and dropped the bag in the hallway. He was shaking his head, not understanding what he was doing, moving by instinct not thought.

She led him through her front door to the sofa. Returning to the entryway she collected his bag and dropped it inside the flat. She sat down beside him.

‘What happened?'

‘It got . . . physical. I wanted to hurt her. Really hurt her. I dragged her into the bedroom. I don't know what I thought I was going to do. And then, suddenly, all the anger went out of me. I knew it would be crazy to give in to the rage. I thought about the future. I thought about you. I didn't want . . . didn't want . . . to jeopardise it. Us. So I just stopped. And when she realised it, she spun around with the nearest thing to hand - our wedding photo, as it happened - and hit me in the face with it.'

‘But why, Kev? I mean, what had she done to make you so angry?'

‘She was having an affair.'

‘So were you.'

‘I know. But . . .'

‘There's no justification. You're as culpable as she is.'

‘There's more to it than that. Years of her . . . disdain. And control. It was so typical of her. And the poor . . . it doesn't matter. He was just such a mark, such an easy target. She's evil. She gets off on chaos.'

He was quiet then and she went to the kitchen to make coffee. She didn't believe he was a violent man. Despite what she'd said to him, she knew his rage was appropriate - who wouldn't be angry in that situation? But if he'd acted on the emotion, that would have been unforgivable. She'd have thought differently of him then. But he hadn't. He'd risen above it. Because of her.

As she splashed boiling water into the two mugs she became aware of him standing behind her.

‘What?' she said, pouring in the milk.

‘Can I stay?'

She kept her back to him as she stirred the sugar into her cup. Finally, she turned and held out a mug.

‘I was hoping you'd ask me that.'

***

There were other people Ray could have phoned; the authorities perhaps. But who else would believe what he had to say? And who else did he owe this knowledge to?

Ray pressed dial. The phone rang several times and cut to voice mail. He hung up and dialled a second time without leaving a message. Same thing again. His heart was still banging hard and his breathing nowhere near recovering. It didn't matter. He hung up and dialled again.

Please . . .

This time she answered.

‘Ray?'

He had no idea what to say.

‘Yeah, it's me.'

‘What is it? You sound . . . are you all right?'

‘No. Not really.'

‘Look, Ray, I don't want you thinking you can just phone me any time. As far as I'm concerned you and I are finished.'

‘I know that. This isn't . . . about that. It's . . .'

He heard a man's voice in the background; he assumed it was the man he'd seen her with at The Barge. Unless she'd gone completely . . . He didn't want to think about it. Still, despite the terror he felt, despite the sensation that something was yanking the rug of reality out from under him, he recognised jealousy rising up through all of it.
Was
that the real reason he'd phoned her?

‘Make it quick, Ray, this isn't a good time for me.' He took a deep breath.

‘There's no easy way to say this, Jenny. I'm not even sure I believe it myself. But I had to tell you. I wanted you to have the best chance to get away.'

‘Get away?'

‘The thing we found. By the side of the road -' Her voice tightened.

‘No, Ray. Don't do this.'