Going For The Wire

GOING FOR THE WIRE

Everyday Stories of Escape

By

Chris Leicester

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Published by Chris Leicester on Smashwords

Going For The Wire

Copyright © 2013 by Chris Leicester

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Discover other titles by Chris Leicester:

‘The Last Train To Jordan Road’

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/344957

‘Charlie Bangers’

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/344073

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GOING FOR THE WIRE

Everyone hides when the wolves come; a cave, a meadow, a magical place. It's as hard as a rock or as soft as a dream, but every where's safe, every where's real.

ALIEN BABY

KIRK OUT

SAILING IN THE CHRISTINA

*****

Table of Contents

Alien Baby

Alien Baby Chapter 1

Alien Baby Chapter 2

Alien Baby Chapter 3

Alien Baby Chapter 4

Alien Baby Chapter 5

Alien Baby Chapter 6

Alien Baby Chapter 7

Alien Baby Chapter 8

Alien Baby Chapter 9

Alien Baby Chapter 10

Alien Baby Chapter 11

Kirk Out

Kirk Out Chapter 1

Kirk Out Chapter 2

Kirk Out Chapter 3

Kirk Out Chapter 4

Kirk Out Chapter 5

Kirk Out Chapter 6

Kirk Out Chapter 7

Kirk Out Chapter 8

Kirk Out Chapter 9

Kirk Out Chapter 10

Kirk Out Chapter 11

Sailing In The Christina

Sailing In The Christina Chapter 1

Sailing In The Christina Chapter 2

Sailing In The Christina Chapter 3

Sailing In The Christina Chapter 4

Sailing In The Christina Chapter 5

Sailing In The Christina Chapter 6

Sailing In The Christina Chapter 7

Sailing In The Christina Chapter 8

Sailing In The Christina Chapter 9

Sailing In The Christina Chapter 10

Sailing In The Christina Chapter 11

Sailing In The Christina Chapter 12

Sailing In The Christina Chapter 13

Sailing In The Christina Chapter 14

Sailing In The Christina Chapter 15

Sailing In The Christina Chapter 16

Sailing In The Christina Chapter 17

Sailing In The Christina Chapter 18

About The Author

Past Reviews

ALIEN BABY

Chapter 1

They’d got a fourteen million to one chance of ever getting back again. Ben hated the lottery. They’d been a proper family before they’d started playing that. But it wasn’t the playing that affected his parents, only the losing. It was all smiles up to eight o’clock but then the misery would come. And the higher the prize, the heavier the cloud that hung over the house. And when the rollover was won it was as though someone had died. But of course they had. A little bit more of them passed away two times every week.

But the Prices weren’t gamblers; that was the irony. They were only like this now because they’d never taken risks, not properly anyway, not when it mattered. They’d played safe all their lives, grown older, got to this and regretted every sullen year. And the more they regretted things, the more dull and unattractive they became - to others, to each other, and sadly, mostly to Ben. They watched the news when comedy was on, they ate indoors when the barbies were burning and they let everyone else ride on the Ferris wheel. They were amateurs, but not amateur photographers, footballers or magicians; nothing as exciting as that. They were simply amateur parents. But Ben was eight years old, he was normal and growing, he needed stimulation, fun and adventures, drives, input; he needed attention maybe.

The previous owner of the house had picked up trophies for his garden as easily as some people pick up colds. But not much of his fine kingdom remained, very little had survived the changes; the neglect, the bodges, the misplaced crazy paving. They’d kept the compost heap though because things could be dumped there. It was as far away from the house as possible, which suited Ben perfectly. Distant again, detached; just like the house they yearned for. And on cold days it steamed like a huge pudding and looked like the entrance to a wonderful secret place.

Ben settled into the old plastic seat he’d left there and looked up at the sky. It was late October and a frost hung on everything. The sun tried to shine through but never really made it. God had covered the world in icing for the next few days. Only the thaw and rain would melt it or the strong winds blow it away. Ben took out the photograph carefully from his coat pocket. He’d never really understood this feeling. It was if he had a great big hole in the middle of his tummy. He wondered if everyone had one. He wondered if they’d missed something out when they were making him.

‘Do you remember how he chased the butterflies?’ a kind voice said, breaking into his daydream. Ben looked up and saw a familiar warming shape silhouetted against the darkening afternoon sky.

‘Uncle Dave!’ Ben whooped, suddenly coming to life, ‘Uncle Dave!’

‘I heard what happened to him,’ Dave explained as he whisked Ben off the ground and into his arms. ‘Cars. Bahhh! Nasty things,’ he said, hugging him tight. ‘I thought I’d better come round and cheer you up.’

Ben always noticed how much power his uncle had in his body and how weak his father seemed.

‘What are you doing up here?’ Dave asked, looking around. ‘Where’s your mum and dad?’

‘They’re not back from work yet,’ Ben replied, sounding dull again as he spoke about them. ‘They won’t trust me with a key. They make me go round to the Johnson’s when they’re late, but I don’t want to. They’re always working late nowadays. I don’t know what they’re doing.’

Dave sat down next to him.

‘I still miss him too, you know,’ he said softly. Ben looked pitifully up to the sky again.

‘Oh, where’s he gone to, Uncle Dave? Where’s he gone?’

Dave seemed to struggle for a moment. Like most people he was probably no good with death, the possibility of absolutely everything ending disturbing him. But he pulled himself straight, as if he couldn’t be negative with Ben, not here, not now.

‘Imagine you’re out with your friends?’ he began as best he could. ‘You’re hurrying, you’re late, you’re going to miss the bus, so you send whoever’s quickest on ahead to hold it when it comes. Well, maybe it’s like that, Ben, maybe it’s like that. Maybe he’s just gone ahead, that’s all.’

Ben felt a little happier. At least he had something to hold on to now, just something at all. Dave noticed he’d been crying, the trails like faint pencil lines where the tears had come then dried, then more had come, then more again, treading out two sad salty paths down his cheeks.

‘You know, there’s a field somewhere that he’s in right now, jumping through the grass, pawing at the bees,’ Dave said, brushing a picture on to an invisible canvas in front of them with his hand.

‘There is?’

‘Sure there is. I can see it right now.’

‘How can you see it?’

‘Come on,’ Dave whispered. ‘Close your eyes. I bet you can see it too.’

Ben resisted, then tried it, cautious at first, but soon eagerly keen.

‘Is he there?’

Suddenly Ben’s face lit up and he pinched his eyelids tighter together in case the image might slip out through them like a liquid.

‘I can see him!’ he laughed happily, ‘Yeah, I can see him!’

Dave looked back at the tatty house for a moment then returned. Ben saw him force a smile through the anger that was building inside him.

‘Always keep your imagination and you’ll never be alone,’ he said as Ben moved his head chasing after the image, letting himself fall deeper and deeper into it.

‘Is he really there?’ Ben asked, not daring to let it go, ‘Is he really there?’

Ben followed his uncle’s eyes; paint peeling off the window frames, drips from the guttering still coming down. He read his expression; why wouldn’t they just put it right? Dave looked sadly back at him.

‘If you can see him, then he’s there, Ben,’ he said, sounding so certain anyone would have believed him. Ben opened his eyes and threw his arms around Dave’s neck.

‘Mum says he was only a cat.’

‘Oh, no, he was much more than that.’

‘She says I’m just being silly.’

‘Well, then I’m just being silly too then, aren’t I?’

‘I know she never liked him.’

‘Well, I liked him, Ben. I liked him a lot. In fact, I liked him so much I came back halfway around the world when I heard about what had happened to him.’

Ben pulled back excitedly.

‘Halfway around the world?’

Dave nodded, and then grinned.

‘I’m on an adventure again.’

‘Oh, I wish I could go on an adventure,’ Ben sighed, his little body crumpling down with dejection. Dave sat him back in his seat.

‘Well, maybe you can,’ he said, settling down to talk to him better. ‘Maybe you can.’

Chapter 2

The flight over to Brisbane felt longer than ever. Still, there was the usual feeling of calm and safety when he landed. He was sure they had their fair share of murders and horrible things, but Dave just couldn’t imagine them here. Maybe it was the glorious weather and the design of the place, the way the city always stood out, proud and loud, crisp and sharp; assured and certain.

‘Hot? You must be bloody joking, mate!’ the shopkeeper exclaimed, answering the banter, handing over the can. ‘Where the hell have you been, Siberia?’

‘English,’ Dave smirked. The shopkeeper smiled back.

‘Same difference,’ he said as he gave him back his change.

Dave drank it by the river, from one of the bridges, looking upstream to the rest of them, spanning the smoothed-out dough flowing water. They were elegant, like fine hands spreading a fan. Even the concrete seemed friendly, easy, warm, unmarked, no etchings from angst-up minds; left.

He lingered there being willingly enveloped, then he left for his walk to the motel. It was a long way but he didn’t mind. The air was fresh and it was nice not to be drawing it out of bottles for a change.

There was a curious poster above the reception desk. It showed the cockpit of a Boeing heavy, a constant and deliberate reminder of a previous life.

‘Suppose I’ll have to share with the bloody cockroaches again?’ Dave projected to the top of a head that was poking out from under the counter.

‘Nah,’ the man replied without looking up, ‘There’s no room for them now the rats have moved in.’

The greeting was typically Rex, typically Australian. It was harsh and soft at the same time. There was a strong willingness to display, and an equally strong need to hide. It was cold, but with a sort of un-admitted love lurking in there somewhere. The man stood and held out his hand, then he smiled with the kind of smile explorers might give to each other.

‘How the hell are you?’ Dave asked. It wasn’t a vigorous shake, more a clasping with the other hand placed firmly over the top of it, securing it, not wanting it to escape.

‘Not as good as you by the looks of it, mate,’ Rex replied, pulling Dave into a close embrace, the kind of embrace brothers might give to each other.

Things were stuck in the change now. Six o’clock and the sun had gone down. There were theories about what it did, how it affected people. A lot of them found their own solutions though, Rex included. He just obliged the seasons by drinking earlier too.

‘Oh, what the hell. If I can't fiddle the books, who can?’ he grinned as he bypassed the till again and handed Dave another beer. ‘So, what’s taking you out there this time?’

Dave poured half straight down his throat without hesitating, like he was dousing something. He knew he had some catching up to do. He was back in Oz now with one of their masters, one of their self-appointed champenes.

‘Some rich bloke wants me to spend his money again.’

‘How rich?’

‘Film company rich,’ Dave managed through his intake. ‘They're looking for World War Two wrecks, especially those nobody’s found yet.’

‘What the hell do they want those ruddy old things for?’

‘God knows, they haven't told us much,’ Dave answered, shaking his head, ‘Zippo job.’

The extinguishing was working, the pace impressive.

‘You greedy bastard,’ Rex gasped, standing, admiring the accumulating scrap metal, ‘You greedy bastard!’ he laughed, walking back to the bar to replenish the stocks, to rebuild the line-up.

Dave was heading out to a battlefield. A place where the war came to, uninvited. A place where Japan met half an angry world and lost, significantly. A place of ruins now. There were scores of unexplored troop carriers, frigates and aircraft littering the shallows of the islands. There were even destroyers and submarines down there, but many more had been lost forever, hit far away from the safety of the atolls, they’d plunged down fourteen thousand feet into the consuming abyss below.

Rex returned from his fridge and looked sternly at his friend.

‘I know its paradise mate, but just you watch those bloody great whites. They hang around places like that, you know.’

‘Around places like what?’ Dave asked. Rex smiled.

‘You still don’t believe in the magic then?’

Dave looked serious for a moment, then nudged him with a soft punch.

‘I'll just tell them I know you then they'll soon bugger off, eh?’ he said then he held up his glass again. Rex pulled a face and threw another over to him.

‘Christ for a Pom you can't half shift ’em!’ he laughed. ‘Thank God you’re not living in, you'd have me out of business within a bloody month!’

The 737 pilot worked tremendously hard on the way over to Honiara. There was all sorts of navigation trickery to show him the way in, but he’d taken manual control early. They banked around the huge thunderstorm clouds that sat in the middle of the flight path as if they were taking bends around a racetrack. Only one person complained as they bounced around the sky. A grizzly American in first class, still poised, still pouting, waiting for her accustomed pampering.

‘Welcome to the Solomon Islands, Lady!’ the stewardess chortled as she shoved a tequila under her nose. Everyone else carried on chatting and laughing. They were just grateful to be in the air again. The government had been late with the lease repayment for the sixth consecutive month so Qantas had grounded the plane. It was only because the Prime Minister had dipped into his private funds that they were up there at all. Bailed out by his casino account, airborne because the chips were holding, cruising on the back of a good run.

The base turn was incredibly tight as they cut inside the mountains. The aircraft leaned ferociously as they searched for the field, then snapped wildly back level again just before they came into land. The passengers spontaneously applauded as the undercarriage reached out and gratefully grasped the tarmac, like a free-climber finding a hold. They were appreciative and polite with this just like they were with everything here. This might well have been paradise, but they certainly knew it. There were fish in the sea, fruit on the trees, a sun in the sky and rain in the clouds. Nobody would ever starve, nobody could ever starve. This was their land of plenty and they were devoted to it. But it held itself together precariously. The islands lay just inside the southern typhoon belt and every so often horrors would rage their way through decimating everything. ‘Big Fellah Wind’, they’d called them. God’s brush sweeping the place clean again. So they made the most of the good times and learned not to fear the bad ones. And it showed in their personalities. These bold, warm, lovely, gracious, happy people.

Honiara was barely a mile long. It clung to a straggly spine of a single road that ran parallel to the coast line. It was a dusty place in the morning and a muddy place by four in the afternoon when the rains arrived for an hour. Anticipated, dependable, like an over-indulgent regular. Too much money, too little will power, in for the habit every day. Expected, never doubted, not welcome particularly, but missed if he didn’t show.

‘Howbro?’ Dave greeted an approaching familiar face, testing out his Pidgin English again. He loved the language, just like the response he received. A hand offered in friendship, a welcoming smile. It was colourful, humorous, soft and enchanting.

He walked to the hotel at the far side of town. It was huddled into the hillside like something hiding there, looking out to the harbour and the sea beyond.

‘So, what’s happened in the last twelve months?’ Dave asked Mister Chinn, the owner of the place as they sipped tea on the patio together. He was a tiny, weaselly old man and he peeked out from inside his huge cup to reply like someone climbing out of a barrel.

‘Happened?’ he asked kindly, letting out one of his famous laughs. ‘You’re back in the islands, my friend.’ Then something caught his eye on the floor. ‘Ah’, he croaked alarmingly.

‘Jesus!’ Dave gasped as he lifted his feet.

‘At least it shows they’re fresh,’ Mister Chinn giggled as he stood and moved the huge three foot coconut crab back to its box by the wall. Even though it was tied it had managed to shuffle its way to what it obviously thought was freedom. But direction is everything, Dave thought, and can be so disappointing.

‘You heard about the ferry sinking?’ Mister Chinn continued, sitting again, looking out to the docks. Dave shook his head. ‘About three months ago,’ he went on, ‘Twelve got killed. Sharks mainly.’

‘My God, that’s terrible.’

‘Maybe.’

‘How do you mean, ‘maybe’?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Come on, it can’t be maybe, can it?’

‘It can here.’

‘What?’

‘Well, it might have been an honour for some of them.’

Dave felt perplexed.

‘Sorry?’

‘You have to understand it.’

‘Yeah, I’m trying to.’

Mister Chinn touched Dave’s arm as if to comfort him.

‘Look, forty years ago this place was still in the stone age. Some parts still are. But this is their world, Dave.’ He began to pour him another cup of tea. ‘We might find it strange but it all means something to them, even the sharks. It all fits together. They’re gods to some of these people, revered. A collection of souls built up through countless generations. So they’ve become part of that, part of it all again. And maybe they wanted to. Don’t you see?’

Dave sipped his tea as if it was an antidote to the wild, unsavoury images that had started to build in his head. Then Mister Chinn threw another one in on to the big sturdy pile.

‘It’s just the same with the head-hunters, the cannibals,’ he said with half a grin, seeing how Dave was suffering. ‘There’s an old man out on Choisel Island who told me he ate his last victim in 1932, and I’ve got no reason to disbelieve him.’

Mister Chinn held out the remnants of a packet of chocolate chip cookies. Dave shook his head. He wondered where he put it all. Mister Chinn took out another three and lined them up ready.

‘They ate the body, sure,’ he said, carrying on. ‘But they took the head for the wisdom it held.’

‘Remind never to visit Choisel,’ Dave said, galloping down the last drops of his tea, still looking for a cure.

‘Many people think they’re backward,’ Mister Chinn said wistfully as his mobile suddenly twittered into life on the table. He killed it without even seeing who was calling. ‘When I first arrived, I might have agreed with them,’ he went on, then hesitated and looked deeply at Dave. ‘But they’ve had twenty three different races living side by side in perfect harmony for centuries. So you tell me who’s got things right, you tell me who’s backward, eh?’

Dave finished unpacking his case in his room. He’d wrapped a towel in an old Sainsbury’s Christmas carrier bag. This way he could keep it away from the dry stuff later if he needed to. He looked at the cleverly engineered plastic before he eagerly put it to one side. He remembered the stupidity he’d been caught up in. Enforced insanity over the course of a few days. Four by fours bullying each other for the last remaining space by the door. Near fights over the stay-fresh medium white sliced bread. Then back home to TV ads that had more substance than the programmes they punctuated. He looked out to the harbour again. This was a small place, but suddenly everything back in England seemed so much smaller. So much, much smaller.

It was getting late. Dave headed off to the Mendana Hotel for a quick drink. Only thirty-eight rooms but it was the largest hotel for fifteen hundred miles. It had a distinct colonial feel about it. There were bits of the British still there in the place, especially in the bar; the kind of gin they served, The Queen still smiling down, the timing of everything, ghosts from 1978 when liberty came calling again.

The Gilbertese girls were entertaining with their traditional dancing. Everyone was transfixed with their angel looks and the stunning aquamarines they wore. At the end of their performance they looked for volunteers to dance with them on stage. Dave was first up to make a fool of himself. But it was worth it, he reckoned. He got a cheer and a free drink from the bar for his efforts. And where else could you rhythm and sway with the most beautiful women in the world?

Dave settled down to enjoy his prize and nodded to the man at the end of the bar.

‘You’re still using George then, Louis?’ he asked the barman. Louis grinned.

‘Oh yeah,’ he replied with a touch of envy. ‘Everyone still listens to George.’

Drink was the new curse of the islands. First the Europeans brought malaria on their ships with their rats, and now they brought alcohol. And there seemed to be a nationwide obligation not to resist the temptation. This lust for the import, combined with naturally inbuilt hedonism, led to big problems, not just in health issues, but for bar owners too. There were no regulations. Licensing hours meant nothing, like much of the law out here. If you could stand and make it to the bar, then you could drink. And after that, if you could fumble and find the ignition with your key, then you could drive. People quite literally didn’t know when to stop. This was where George came in, the human sink. He could throw anything down himself and it would just go. He could out-drink anyone in the islands and everybody knew it. Dave remembered the first time he’d met him.

‘What time do you close?’ he’d asked the staff.

‘George will tell you.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You’ll understand,’ they said and he did shortly afterwards and he waited for it again now.

Thump! George fell off his chair. He hit the floor and stayed there like a beetle on its back. Strangely, no one rushed over to help him. Instead they all checked their watches and began to finish their drinks. Eventually George was picked up and wobbled to the door. Because that’s how it worked. If George had had enough, then so had you. The bar began to empty. Dave looked cynically at his complicitous bottle before downing it and joining the migration outside.

It was easy for a wreck to go unnoticed for this long, to outside eyes at least. Access to the outer islands was difficult. Eight hundred of them, strung together, the entire length of France. Travelling tip-to-toe was some journey and besides, there were easier pickings. People didn’t need to come out all this way to find something interesting to dive on. The destruction had made sure of that. Guadalcanal and Iron Bottom Sound probably meant little to anyone nowadays, but in the last war they were places that helped decide the fortunes of the whole planet.

Dave stood in front of the crude iron cross that marked the spot where it had all been finally settled. He suddenly felt lonely and cold. He wondered what it must have looked like then in the middle of that horror that fed the sharks so well. Then he looked away and out to sea to the dive site and turned to Abba, his local dive buddy.

‘What have they found down there?’ he asked.

‘The Ten Maru; supply ship,’ Abba replied as he double-checked their air.

‘Supply ship!’ Dave exclaimed. ‘They’ve brought us all the way out here just to reccie a supply ship?’

‘Yes, but wait till you see it what it was supplying, Dave,’ Abba said. ‘Come on, we can swim out, it’s just under a kilometre.’

Abba pointed to the two piles of equipment he’d laid out on the gritty little pebbles, one for each of them.

‘Do you know this wreck?’ Dave asked, starting to kit up.

‘Oh yeah. Some lost tourist banged into it a few months back. But we found it years ago. It’s only you lot that like to discover things, isn’t it? We’ve just left it alone, that’s all.’

‘Why?’ Dave asked slowly, suspiciously. Abba hesitated.

‘You’ll understand when you go in. I can see why they chose it though,’ he said.

Dave’s film company man was a producer. He worked for a studio that was unfeasibly large and unhealthily influential. They’d whetted appetites with their blockbuster sequels and already people were ravenous for the next one. Things seemed to go in cycles. The run of the fluffy films about new men and perfect relationships had been bludgeoned to death by the epic adventure once again. But the more sequels they made, the less interesting they became. The good guys were still just kicking the asses of bad guys. Plots became bland and characters cloned. The only things they could change were the locations they filmed in and the stunts they performed there. And so here they were; two hundred and fifty miles out in the Solomon Sea, sequelling again.

‘Nervous?’ Abba asked Dave as he helped him on with his tanks.

‘Can’t wait, after what you’ve just said,’ Dave answered with a smirk. He noticed Abba’s huge hands as they passed close to his head and laughed. ‘Are you still battering people with those damned great things?’ he asked.

‘Oh yes,’ Abba smiled modestly, ‘I’m still dishing it out.’

Abba had been the middleweight boxing champion of the islands. He’d done pretty well in Oz too where he’d lived for ten years. He’d sort of semi-retired now, but he was still on the bag. He ignored his age as if it was some passing affliction like a snuffly nose. He’d dig in like a terrier and could still hold out for well over eight rounds.

‘Right, let’s see what they’ve got for us,’ Dave said turning backwards, walking into the water, snapping his mask airtight on to his face as he went. Abba followed. The water started to settle. The bubbles popped and dissipated and soon there was hardly a trace of them ever being there at all.

The first thing to go was the sound. That must be one of the most terrifying things about drowning, Dave thought; the all consuming silence. Then the absolute compliance came as they were taken by the mass of the water. They became weightless, something else’s property, totally at the mercy of its will.

Dave signed ‘OK’ to Abba and they swam out from the land tracking the sea bed. At thirty metres down the world above was already half forgotten, but the shafts of sunlight still managed to battle through, blazing down, lighting up the coral. Then the fantastic live show began as a giant manta ray glided majestically past, down into the depths. Dave felt better now. He was starting to relax as exhilaration began filling in where anxiety had once been. He felt special, privileged and honoured to be part of it all, just like he always did when he was down here. Here in his own paradise, here in his own heaven under water.

Chapter 3

The Newscaster seemed ageless. He'd been around for decades and he always made bad news seem easier to bear for everyone. He’d be the man they’d choose to tell the nation Armageddon was here. He’d make us all see the reason for it somehow.

‘The war planes carried out two hundred and forty sorties during the night,’ he said clearly but carefully, looking around for snipers and shells as he spoke from under the hastily assembled weak light. ‘Both RAF and American Air Force planes were used in the attack. There were no casualties in this, one of the biggest military manoeuvres since the Second World War.’

‘Serves the bastards right!’ Mister Price shouted out as if people ought to listen to him.

‘Richard!’ his wife screamed at him, but not because of his language, but because she was trying to take a nap. But this was her; people were trying to engineer peace or destruction in the world and all she was bothered about was sleeping. ‘And that's something else we need to sort out,’ she declared, too angry to settle now, sitting up and snatching the remote. ‘Your brother!’

She killed the set quickly along with Mister Price’s lifeline to the outside world and she looked safer now with them both in her web.

‘I don't want him seeing Ben!’ she proclaimed.

‘Don’t be silly, Ben likes him,’ Mister Price replied, rustling the pages of his newspaper as though a gun might fall out.

‘I came home and he was there in the garden with him. He’d just wandered right in as if he owned the place.’

Mister Price shook his head. She made him sound like he was some kind of straying animal.

‘He’d got some leave so he grabbed a cheap flight. He said he was worried about him,’ he retorted, still turning the pages, still looking for the weapon.

‘And that’s just typical. Planting ideas in his head without thinking things through. He should never have bought him that damned cat. I’m glad it’s gone. Blasted hairs everywhere. I don’t want him seeing him again. D’you hear?’

Mister Price peered past the edges.

‘Why?’ he asked, sounding sensible, sounding brave. Then he hid himself quickly again. ‘Besides, you can’t stop him seeing him,’ he said smugly from behind his imagined wall of steel, ‘He’s his Godfather.’

In one single movement Missis Price leapt from her chair and yanked back the sheets, glaring into his instantly paling face.

‘Well he shouldn’t have been, should he?’ she bellowed at him, finding the wound perfectly again before leaving for the kitchen. And so it went on, her silly jealous vendetta. And it never occurred to either of them, it never registered at all that Ben could hear every word they were saying.

Ben turned over in bed. He wondered if it was natural and right to hate them like this. He felt like an object, some thing, not a little boy. They talked about him like he was in the way, some obstruction, something troublesome, something dead, like meat on a plate on a shelf in the fridge. And their timing? Why did they always pick these moments to make him feel as bad as this?

There was something about Sunday nights. Ben swore that if he was thrown on to a desert island with watches and calendars removed, he’d still be able to pick them out. He loathed them, just as he loathed this time of year.

It was only half past six but it had been dark for ages. The sky had long lost its kind face of summer. It was months until it would have to show the next one, so it didn't seem