Slow Poison - Chapter Two

Chapter Two

There was a pause. Sounds filtered through. Trickles. Foreign voices, tram rumbles. The two friends stood side by side, relieving themselves.

“I can't fucking stand the thought of going back to fucking Saudi. I've fucking had it.”

“I though you loved it out there. The money and everything.”

“It’s a fucking, shitty Hellhole! I’ve fucking had it! Fucking had it!”

“I thought you were set up for life…”

Work was tough under the fierce sun. Fred was constantly homesick and full of regret that he had not looked harder, closer to home. He missed Hillier’s skinless sausages. He missed his pint. He missed his selfish sex. Oh sure, he missed that. He relieved himself when the hormones raged, climaxing to images of string and peeling paint. And he missed Becky.

“You got no idea what it's fucking like.”

“I'm sorry Fred; I thought you had a cushy number. Honest.”

“I’d sooner top myself than go back, mate.”

Glyn didn't know how to reply. He shook himself dry and zipped up. Fred continued with his steady stream as Glyn washed his hands and dried them under the noisy blower. Fred was still there as Glyn left the toilet and climbed up the dainty stairs. Fred was just finishing off as Glyn returned to the table. The Victoria felt like a different place now, all the tables occupied. The bar was full of animated small talk from the noisy shoppers that had flooded in, keen for a drink.

Glyn lifted his glass of Drambuie to his lips and swallowed the contents in one gulp. Becky and Janet were fingering their diamonds and didn't notice how disturbed Glyn looked. The Six had watched Glyn return to his seat. Four of them headed loudly for the foyer, for the Gents'

“CITY!”

Trim slipped a ten guilder note under the coaster, pulled his fine black kid gloves over his delicate fingers and followed in the shadow of the four, hands deep in camel pockets, caressing poisoned steel. The four were drunk. They were approaching the stage when the brain numbs, when blue clouds the vision, when atrophy begins. Trim felt he could almost control them. Time to stoke up the tired engine a little.

“CITY!”

The four filled the narrow spiral stair, only to find their way blocked by Fred’s bulk. He too was drunk. He was still zipping his fly.

“Well, look who it fuckin’ isn’t! Mister Fuckin’ Nice Guy!” Den hollered at him. Den was small, but as brave as a jackal when surrounded by the pack.

“Out of the fuckin’ way, Grandpa!”

“Shit!” said Fred, under his breath. He decided to brazen it out, to use his scrumhalf shoulders to push up and through. He braced himself for the uphill shove, steadied himself for the effort the manoeuvre would require and began the push. Fred could not see how many there were. 

Fred surprised the four with his strength as they teetered on the dainty treads.

“Come on you wankers, put some fuckin’ muscle into it.”

Fred roared like an ox and had the advantage at last. He pushed past two of them, pummelling with his fists as he squeezed through. He kneed one of them in the groin and the bugger spat in his face. The noise had grabbed everyone’s attention and dinner ceased as the melee began. Others in the foyer, near the top of the stairs were jostled out of the way. The waiter, Trim and one of the Americans attempted to side step the trouble, but they were all drawn into the scrum. Fred and the four were near the top, Fred’s bulk winning the day. Veins stood out on his neck as his face reddened. His heart pounded dangerously close to breaking point, but he was not ready to let these bullyboys win this fight. He made it almost to the top.

“Right, you bastards!”

Pete and Ritchie left the Bechstein and piled in for the fight without a second thought to anyone in their way.

“Let’s get the fucker!”

Then Fred felt a pain so intense that he lost his grip on the ironwork of the banister. He clutched at his heart and reeled backward unable to breathe. Fred tried to grasp hold of something to steady his balance. He found Mart’s studded belt and Kev’s ankle as they all tumbled down into the well of the stairway. They slammed into a squirming heap at the bottom of the stairs, with Fred, the sum of their weight, crushing the breath out of them. He let out another roar filled to the brim with pain.

“BECKY!”

He rose briefly and hovered for a second before falling backward and banging his head on the terracotta tiles. He lay back, quite still now, a steady trickle of blood seeping from his cracked skull.

“JESUS CHRIST! BLOOD”

Den and the others dragged themselves from under Fred and crawled away across the slippery tiles. Kev and Mart stared stupidly at Fred laying a foot away from them, blood seeping from the knife wound in his chest, the crack in his skull. Urine ran down Den’s legs and mingled with the blood that washed over the tiles. Blood. Dog had fainted. Noise, sweat, panic. Blood.

Someone in the foyer made a phone call in near perfect Dutch. Glyn pushed his way through the scrum at the top of the spiral stair running at the noise. Becky and Janet abandoned their diamonds and flew with the flock. Janet could almost see and she held Becky back. She could hear Glyn shouting above the noise.

“YOU BASTARDS! YOU BASTARDS! WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU DONE?”

Fred could just make out the blur of faces through ribbons of pain, through the muffled sickening sounds. His head had cracked painfully upon the terracotta tile, his elbows had grazed, his head and his heart hurt him badly, and he tasted soap. He could see quite clearly the rows of pegs and hats and coats, rows of teeth bearing down upon him. ‘Why are you here?’ ‘I said bugger, Miss.’

Fred felt himself slip away into a pain-filled nightmare of willow arrows and stinging nettles and string and peeling paint and dank smells of creosote and carbolic. His torn heart beat absurdly fast, pumping blood, losing the battle. Becky screamed so loud that her lungs hurt with the effort.

Five, six, seven minutes passed in the eternal void of the dying moments. The squad cars and ambulances added their descant siren wails to the demonic orchestration of chaos.

“Let us through. Please, let us through.”

The paramedics pushed their way into the hotel by way of the main entrance angled across from the Sint Nicolas Church. One carried a stretcher roll under his arm; another carried a large ribbed aluminium case filled with emergency equipment. A third followed, flanked by several armed policemen. One look at the stairwell filled with the familiar tribal colours told them what they already expected.

“Godverdomme!”

“Stand back, please. Everybody! Stand back. Police!”

The dinner crowds, the coffee crowds, the kitchen crowds edged back from the precipice, suddenly uninvolved, simply curious.

“You! YOU BOYS BELOW, YOU MUST REMAIN. NO ONE IS TO LEAVE!” one of them shouted. Pete and Ritchie were cornered over by the wall phones. Den, Dog, Mart, Kev, the DJ and the waitress were trapped by the flow of blood creeping toward the darkened disco. Noise. Blood. A solid wall of red cacophony.

Janet held Becky away from the stairs, brief timeless moments spiralling away.

“He has been stabbed. The knife is here.”

One policeman bagged the knife, another marked the spot with chalk scratches and squeaks.

The paramedics followed closely behind. They leaned over Fred, assessing the damage, stemming the flow with thick layers of cotton wadding. Fred was bound to the stretcher. He was as heavy as he looked and the paramedics exchanged worried glances as two of them strained to lift the dead weight. Not quite dead. Almost. Sweating profusely, they bumped and tripped him painfully step by step up the delicate treads.

Becky saw him for the first time. It was more terrible than she could have ever imagined. She had steeled herself for a heart attack, or a fall, but not for this bloodstained brutalised body that was being manhandled past her.

“Oh Freddy, Freddy.” she whispered.

She freed herself from Janet’s grip and moved shakily to touch him.

“Are you the wife?” someone asked her.

Janet nodded for her.

“Then you may come with us.”

Looking back, she would not remember leaving the hotel. She would remember the chirpy barrel organ playing “All my Loving”, her breath clouds filling the open space before her, obscuring her memory, drawing a mist filled night. She would remember the feeling of abject panic, clawing at her abdomen like the echoes of the final contraction, but she would remember little else.

“Mevrouw Farthing, someone will later come to the hospital to talk with you. I wish you much strength”

The ambulance howled off toward the Ij Tunnel. Fred lay in his winding sheet, deathly pale. Becky had no words for the men who sat on either side of Fred with their tubes and machinery. In the antiseptic air of the ambulance, their life together was reeling away, but she had no words at all.

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