The Grave (12 page)

An Italian restaurant in a refurbished fruit market restored
their flagging energy with pasta and wine.  Later, doing the tourist thing,
swinging carrier bags from their fists coaxed them from watchful to careless.
They looked at the river sliding past on the way to Ireland and the great white
birds watching out from their shackled perches high above the Three Graces.  They
wandered the old streets and the new malls. Sylvie was entranced, for her
Liverpool was grubby, scarred and weathered, rebuilt, refreshed and renewed, a diverse
melange with a magic of its own, maybe part imagined but none the less she felt
it.

On the walk back to the bus station she cried out.

“Oh look, what’s that?  See there, the sculpture, do you
know what it is Samuel?”

He shook his head as they walked across the pavement to stand
beside the bronze of a woman perched on a bench feeding birds. It was poignant
and beautiful. Eleanor Rigby.

Sylvie swiped away a stray tear, both were lost in their own
thoughts of what might have been, hopes of what could be and wishes too
precious to be acknowledged.

“Poor little thing, she looks so lonely, so brave but, oh I
don’t know, empty. I know it’s because of the song but doesn’t she look lonely
Samuel.”

He nodded at her, the little plaque, “To all the lonely
people” touched him. It was him wasn’t it, lonely, brutalised and unwanted and
Sylvie, though she had lived with people, they’d didn’t value her, didn’t care
and so she was just as alone in her different way. Marie, in those last
moments, dying on the street while he was  thousands of miles away, even though
she carried their child, had she been lonely and frightened. He couldn’t bear
it, couldn’t let the thoughts creep in again, he had driven them away and no
matter what he must not go there again.  All the lonely people.

He turned and strode off drawing her after him and in
silence they made their way back to the bus stop and the number thirty six.

The little hotel welcomed them, the windows blazed with
orange light and the sign in the car park was a beacon in the gathering dusk,
it was a happy thing that they had a place to come home to.

They collected the key and toted the bags upstairs, it was
warm after the rawness of the wind and they were looking forward to the shower,
a lie down and then they would venture out again in their new clothes, to find
somewhere to eat.

As the door swung open their fragile world spun and
collapsed into a vortex of disbelief and fear.

“Ah, you’re back, at last.” The voice was calm, quiet and
yet immensely threatening, the gun was terrifying and the atmosphere electric.

Samuel pushed Sylvie behind him, tried to shield her from
the man sitting at ease on the bed. He was thrusting her away trying to force
her back into the hallway.

“Christ Sylvie, run. Run!”

She was petrified by fear and indecision and the moment was
lost. The hefty thug had left the bed, crossed the room and pushing against the
wood installed himself between them and the only means of escape. The gun was
levelled directly at Sylvie, she had instinctively reached out towards Samuel
but her hand was grasped and twisted backwards so, with an ease born of long
experience, he held her captive and in pain in front of him, a shield where
none was needed for the only thing Samuel carried were the jeans and tops they
had shopped for in their other existence short hours ago.

“Let her go. Just let her go. She has nothing to do with
anything. Let her go.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” as he spoke the gunman twisted
Sylvie’s arm causing her to screech. “Quiet now bitch, don’t want you raising
an alarm, quiet or I’ll just off your boyfriend here and now, then we’ll see
what fun we can have you and me.”

She gulped back the tears, her body shook, she stared at
Samuel the terror in her eyes tearing at his heart. He hadn’t had a chance to
take it in yet, reality had turned on its head in an instant leaving no time to
react.

“Better still, why don’t we just get it together now, I’m
sure you’d enjoy a little pantomime wouldn’t you Samuel? How are you anyway, it
seems like such a long time since we saw you. You’ve been missed, you have no
idea how much we wanted to see you, to have some time with you. I wanted to
show you this for one thing.”

He held out his hand, the one holding the gun, the skin was
puckered and red, the little finger missing and the ring finger twisted and
deformed.

“Now how do you think that happened? Well, I burned it you
see, on a red hot door handle. Silly of me wasn’t it.”

As he spoke he swung his fist sideways.  The flying blow
connected with Samuel’s face, the grip of the gun tore at his cheek and split
his lip, blood flooded down his chin to drip onto the front of his jacket. He
staggered backwards but didn’t fall, Sylvie squealed again.

“Oh see, I just can’t control it, all spoiled and bent as it
is.”

He powered the deformed hand back the other way, Samuels jaw
cracked upwards and he yelled out as a splinter of tooth flew across the space
between him and Sylvie. Her knees buckled as her world spun and reddened, the
brute holding her had to bend and wrap his arm around her waist to hold her
upright.

“Now then, boys and girls, here’s what we’re going to do.
You,” he pointed at Samuel who was leaning back against the bed holding his
bleeding mouth, “are going to sit down and be very, very quiet. You,” he bent
over so his cheek was touching Sylvie’s, she tried to pull away but he simply
tightened his grip around her stomach, she gasped. “You are going to be a very
good girl, a very good little girl.”

He dragged her towards the small chair in the corner and
pushed her roughly into it. Moving round to stand directly in front of her he
bent low.  She could smell garlic and tobacco on his breath, his eyes were
cold, brown stones lit by tiny starbursts where the light from the hotel sign
in the garden glinted on the irises.

Samuel had straightened.  Possibly he had hoped to make use
of the moment to launch an attack, possibly he was dizzied and disoriented by
the blows to his face.  No matter, he moved, the gunman swung in an instant and
the world exploded in noise and flash, Sylvie screamed as, for a moment, the
universe froze.

As her hearing returned Sylvie’s head filled with the sound
of slamming doors, shouts and thundering footsteps, the whole overlaid by a
high-pitched whistling deep inside. Despite his earlier cool the gunman was now
obviously panicked. It was clear he had acted spontaneously and this wasn’t the
way he had intended the scene to play out.

He strode to the door and yanked it open. Already the uproar
had begun to subside. It had been one loud bang then nothing and in the absence
of alarms and sirens most people seemed to be accepting nothing too awful had
happened.

He pushed the door closed, turned and glanced down at the
floor beside the bed.  Sylvie couldn’t see where Samuel was lying but the look
on the gunman’s face chilled her. She didn’t believe she had screamed and was
glad, as rational thoughts began to form she saw that the less fuss the better,
for the moment at least. If the room had been invaded the results would have
been disastrous.  This man was a cold killer, evil and twisted and who knew how
many people would have been hurt had there been any interference from outside.
She gripped the chair arms, not daring to speak, unable to move, though every
cell in her body screamed that she must go to Samuel. She could hear and see
nothing of him.  It was hard to breathe and her vision was blurred with tears
of fear and panic but still she held her peace, waiting, praying and hoping.

He glanced at her and grinned, raised the gun, she felt a
wet patch form on her pants as her stomach flipped over and her bladder let her
down. He was going to shoot her, kill her now and it would all be over. She
didn’t want to die, was afraid of the pain of a bullet; she had never been so
terrified.

“Samuel.” The whispered word brought a grin to the dark face
of the thug.

“Oh, no good you trying to talk to him, no good at all. You
want to see, you want to come over here and have a little look?  Come on, get
yourself over here and see what happens when you cross me. Come on. Now!”

She pushed herself from the chair, jelly legs threatened to
betray her but she stiffened the muscles and drove herself forward. Staring
straight into the eyes of the killer she staggered the few steps across the
room.

Samuel lay in a red flood; it splattered across the carpet
and oozed from a wound in his chest. His grey top was dark with it and it slid
in a gush down his arm, dripping from his finger ends to a spreading river on
the floor. His eyes were closed and a dribble of pink fluid bubbled at the
corner of his lips. From where she stood it wasn’t possible to determine
whether he was breathing but surely the bubbles in the blood said yes.

She cried out, part scream, part sob a sound she wouldn’t
have known she could make, so full of anguish it sounded to her ears, inhuman.

He laughed, the animal at her side laughed.

“Aw, now look Samuel,” he kicked at the motionless legs.
“See how upset she is. Shall I put her out of her misery, shall I?”

Again he turned the gun to point directly at Sylvie. She
faced him square on, calm now, all feeling fled as a surreal acceptance of her
fate swept through her. It was comforting, better than the panic she had felt
such a short time ago. If Samuel was dead then she didn’t really care what
happened any more. She had struggled and fought all her life and now if it was
her fate to lose then so be it.

She took one small step forward and stretched out her hands.
Wrapping her fingers around the short barrel of the gun she pulled it forward.
The dark face before her twisted in puzzlement, the eyes confused. She held it
to her chest, the hardness of it against her breast was something real on which
to concentrate.  She felt the tears running down her face and snot on her upper
lip, it didn’t matter, she didn’t care, nothing mattered any more.

“Go on then, pull the trigger, go on, do it.”

His eyes widened in excitement, she heard him draw in a
breath. She was ready, calm and prepared, gripped by the emotion of the moment.

With an animal roar Samuel launched himself from the floor,
blood spread and flicked from his chest and his hand as he fell on the
intruder.

“NO.”

The sudden change in atmosphere forced Sylvie back into the
real world, the gunman staggered under the blow from a bleeding and desperate
Samuel and she snatched at the barrel of the pistol and wrenched it. The damaged
hand was weak and missing fingers compromised his grip, unbelievably she had
the thing. She had never shot a gun before and was unprepared for the power of
the kick and the sheer shock of it all. She didn’t aim, couldn’t look, musn’t
think but she squeezed the trigger and felt power jerk the barrel upwards. His
face disintegrated, blood, bone and brain spat out showering her face and body
with gore. For a long moment it seemed she would never again be able to
breathe, she struggled to drag oxygen into her lungs, choking and gasping.  She
sucked at the air trying to stall the dizziness threatening to take her to a
dark place, she couldn’t go there, not yet.

The gun had fallen from her hand and lay, a lustrous piece
of metal and plastic, harmless on the floral carpet. Samuel had collapsed
against the bed, the desperate effort had caused the bleeding to start anew and
even as she knelt before him sobbing his eyes began to cloud. She grasped his
hands, rubbing at them, pleading with him.

“No, Samuel, no. Please, please don’t die, stay with me,
Samuel I love you, please don’t go.”

His lids flickered and his lips moved. She leaned close in,
ignoring the splatter of blood as he coughed and tried to speak.

His voice was weak and by now the noise in the hotel had
reached a crescendo, someone was hammering on the room door, people were
yelling and she heard the distant sound of a siren.

“Sylvie.”

He closed his eyes now and she believed she could feel the
vital force leave him. There came a great sigh from his ruined lungs and,
sobbing inconsolably, she laid her head on his blood soaked chest.  The door
burst open and in a totally different reality from that of the distraught and
sobbing Sylvie a woman screamed.

Chaos and confusion swept around her.  A maelstrom of noise,
questions, screams and faces, dozens of faces drifting into Sylvie’s field of
vision, the mouths moving, sounds throbbing in her ringing ears and she made no
sense of any of it. They had pushed her away from where Samuel lay and like a
child she had moved to the end of the bed and sat now slumped and silent,
waiting, believing he was already gone.  

The police arrived and a sort of calm descended.  Already
two teams of paramedics were working in the confined space of the room, it was
a kaleidoscope of horror.  Blood was splashed over the bed, the carpets and
wall, Sylvie had vomited at some stage, she vaguely remembered someone dragging
her away from Samuel and leaning over, pain in her stomach easing as she
retched and heaved.

One paramedic team were simply standing back, they had known
immediately that the patient they had come for didn’t need them and they should
leave things as they were for the police.  The other team were working quietly
and efficiently, a police woman stood beside them holding a plastic bag of
clear fluid, a tube snaked down disappearing behind the bed.  The ambulance men
spoke urgently to each other, opened packs and bandages and in a tiny world
apart from the rest of the room they did what they could for Samuel.  So, not
dead, not beyond help, maybe, she dared not hope but tried not to grieve.

They let her go in the ambulance, a police woman with a
downturned mouth but kind eyes sat beside her.  She clung to Samuel, just his
hand, careful not to touch the needle which was poking into a vein, he didn’t
move, hadn’t spoken.  In truth she couldn’t tell whether he was really alive or
just breathing because they were making him with their tubes and oxygen and
determination. 

The ride was rocky and bumpy, a reflection of the blue light
on the roof of the emergency vehicle beat in time with Sylvie’s heart, she
could feel blood pounding through her veins, surely madness was but a beat
away, she couldn’t bear this, how could she bear this? The siren screamed into
the night and as her hearing continued to improve she wanted to pitch her own
voice with it and scream and scream until it all stopped, until the horror went
away.

At the hospital they took him into a place of machines and
lights and activity while a woman in a nurse’s uniform led Sylvie to a side
room.  The policewoman made small noises, words that crept into her brain but
made no sense.  They offered her tea and she didn’t respond, they asked her if
she was alright, the question was ludicrous how could anything ever be alright
again.  She stared at them with horror filled eyes and tears tracked unnoticed
down her  pale cheeks to drip into the blood stains on her sweatshirt.

Outside she heard muffled business, footfalls, muted voices
the occasional slam of a door, it was through a veil of unreality and she
floated in it shocked to a state approaching catatonia.

The policewoman pulled her chair to a place directly in
front of Sylvie’s. 

“We need you to be strong.  They are doing what they can for
your friend but we need to know what happened.  We need to know who you are and
who the men are who were with you.  What happened in the room?  Is there
someone we can call, someone who can be with you now?

“You know don’t you that the other man is dead? I’m sorry,
was he your friend as well?” 

A nurse came in with steaming cups of tea, she held Sylvie’s
hand, made her raise the cup to her lips and drink.  The touch of skin on her
own and the feel of hot sweet liquid in her mouth, her throat, stirred her senses,
she looked around.  She had known it was the hospital, had been aware of the
ambulance and Samuel but now things snapped back into focus, she felt the cold
draft from the window the hardness of the chair and the comfort of the warm
drink.  She sipped again and smiled her thanks at the nurse who moved away to
stand near the door. Sylvie lifted her gaze, the policewoman smiled
encouragingly, noting the difference in her eyes as reality regained its hold.

“This is awful for you, what can I call you?”

“Sylvie, I’m Sylvie.”

“Good, that’s good.  What’s your surname Sylvie?”

She didn’t know what to say, she couldn’t remember the name
Samuel had signed them in with but surely this woman would know it, from the
hotel register, or did she.  Was she as kind as she seemed or was it a trap,
she needed Samuel, she needed him to tell her what to do, show her how to do
this now. She turned back again to the nurse.

“Samuel, what are they doing to him, is he dead?”

“He’s very badly hurt, they are doing all they can.  Is it
your husband?  Can you tell us about him, his name, can you help me to fill in
the forms?”

Could she, no, she couldn’t, she knew so little and yet he
had said they were married.  She knew only that he was a sad and grieving man who
had shown her kindness. She knew he was in deep trouble and now so was she. 
With fresh horror she faced the fact she had killed someone, in a moment of
dreadful danger and with no other choice she had fired a gun but he was dead,
his brains sprayed over the hotel room and surely she was now a murderer.  This
thought led onward to the next, Phil, she had been there when he had died, knew
she was involved, she was in desperate trouble and she didn’t know what to do.

She put down the cup and lowered her head into her hands.  The
nurse came back and sat beside her, wrapping warm arms around the thin
shoulders, as great gulping sobs shook Sylvie’s entire body.  All was lost, her
life was over and if, as she believed, Samuel were dying then it didn’t matter
anyway.