8
“Where you been?” A heavy hand came
down on Jack’s shoulder. It grabbed him and spun him round.
For a moment he knew it was a
policeman as certainly as he’d known he was going to die as he fell from the
bridge, then he recognised the voice. Jack stared into the darkness, trying to
piece what light there was into an image as his eyes became accustomed.
“I said, where you been?” His
landlord released him, pushing him back.
“I was out of town.”
The glimmer from the front door was
behind the man. His body drew the shadows in. They intensified in his chest and
in his lowered face as he stepped to the side of the corridor. “Yeah. Well,
you’re out of here now.”
Jack raised his eyebrows. “What?”
Jameson’s features were becoming
clear. The darkness was taking shape into the familiar odorous wood veneer and
damp-stained walls around him. His arcing forehead was much clearer in the
gloom than the pit of his brow or his eyes. “Rent’s not been paid dipshit!
You’re out!”
“What do you mean?”
“The rent’s not been paid! You’re out! That
check of yours was worthless!”
“God, really?” said Jack, genuinely
surprised. “I’m sorry.” He reined himself in, the impossible situation
nonetheless begging him to let his anger come. It wasn’t as intense by far as
it had been in that little hotel in Bristol but it was made from the same
substance, as though that first outburst had opened a sluice gate in his mind
to a reservoir of anger he hadn’t known existed. He drew in a long breath,
consciously eliminating the tension in his voice. “Look, there must be some
money left in my account. I can’t believe—”
“If you’d wasted less time painting
it wouldn’t be coming to this. I’ve already chucked out all that rubbish.”
“My pictures?”
Jameson sneered. “It was all crap
anyway.”
“Could you give me some more time?”
“You’ve had your time.”
A frightening thought came to Jack
suddenly: that it didn’t matter now if he killed again. He was a murderer.
Nothing could change that. Would it really make a difference if he took another
life? Each possible response rose in his mind, the angry ones still jostling
for recognition. It would be weak to back down; to turn away; he would be
giving up. There were voices in his head: friends, books, his father, Dominic.
They told him how to react with perfectly conflicting moral clarity. He
maintained his gaze with Jameson; then he smiled warmly. “You want me to leave
right now?”
Jameson nodded. “All your stuff’s
gone already.”
“Okay Mr Jameson.” He crossed to the
front door.
“Oh yeah,” said the landlord, “I
forgot.” He pointed a meaty thumb over his shoulder at the pay phone on the
wall. “Been taking bloody messages for you while you been gone and that ain’t
my job neither.”
Again there came a positive guilty
dread that the police had been calling.
“That uncle of yours. Rang four or
five times. Called just now. I’m sick of being your answering service.”
“But you do it so well.”
“What you say?”
Jack smiled. “Not a thing. Was there
any message?”
“No.”
“Right. Well. Thank you for your
sensitivity and charm.” Jack took the worn brass front door handle in his
fingers, feeling it as the key to homelessness that it was; the key to poverty.
He glanced back and as kindly as he could manage said, “Goodbye.”
He closed the front door and walked
down the steps onto the pavement. There was no way now to put it off. He had to
go and see Dominic, to find out who was trying to find him and why.
As he walked away the metaphorical
jaws of the huge bear trap that was only pretending to be a house quivered, but
did not snap closed.
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