thethemeis: Reunions
theauthoris: LiamD
Jack
pushes open the vaguely familiar heavy wooden doors and trudges slowly towards
the unfamiliar man standing behind a counter on the right hand side of the
room. He feels the man’s eyes bore further into him with each
step he takes, and quickly grows tired of his expression that does all but
scream, What are you
doing back here?! You have no place here anymore; we all know what you did, we
all know what you are and you won’t get away with it!
But, Jack knows, for this unknown face in front of him to actually be forming
such thoughts would be impossible; nobody knows what he is. For that matter,
there would be very few people remaining who even know who
he is. Nobody knows what he did; he’s already
gotten away with it. So instead of succumbing to his fear, turning there and
then, and bolting back through the heavy doors he’s not long
entered, Jack completes his inevitable journey to this man who cannot know him
and, in a voice that betrays all of the weight of the world that is piled
heavily upon his shoulders, states:
“I’ll have a
Foster’s.”
The
unfamiliar man nods silently and begins to pour a pint of bubbling orange piss
into a clear glass marked with a circled white ‘F’, and by the
time the man says
“That’ll be £3.50,”
any
real fears Jack might have had have been alleviated.
The
cold sip of the beer makes Jack realise just how hot he is in his suit and tie,
so he unravels the cheap black polyester from around his neck, unfastens his
top button, and removes the suit jacket for good measure. The funeral had been
an all-round unpleasant affair, as most funerals are, but this was more so than
others. Jack’s
brother Nick had always been very open with his close friends when he was
alive, and those who had arranged and attended the funeral had known exactly
what type of a role model Jack had been to his younger, belated brother.
He
had not given a speech; in what he thought of as an honourable gesture that
would most likely never be appreciated, Jack had kept out of the funeral
arrangements, leaving it to those who had known and loved Nick most. Initially
he believed they’d recognise his distance as a mark of
respect, a final dignity for his brother. But as he sat in the crematorium,
watching the box containing what used to be his brother trundle inexorably
towards the flames, he felt their glares all the same. In a room of people
united by their grief, Jack had cried alone. It was all too much for him, and
as soon as the service had ended, he caught the first train to Wembley Park
with only one destination in mind. He had twenty-four hours until the 17:40
Easyjet left for Krakow; plenty of time to erase the day from his memory with his
sweet amber nectar.
For
the first time, Jack focuses on something other than the bottom of his beer
glass or the barman, and surveys the room. The Fleadh is quite a small pub, and
there are only a few patrons other than himself inside. A middle-aged, grey
haired man sits on a stool a little further down the bar and eyes Jack
suspiciously whilst dipping his bulbous nose into a pint of pale ale. To his
left, on a small table in the far corner of the room, sit three younger men,
each wearing t-shirts and stonewashed jeans. They laugh loudly and often,
making inappropriate jokes about the reports of a celebrity accused of paedophilia
being shown on the large LCD opposite them, and the lives he may or may not
have ruined.
Behind
him, a young couple sitting at a small table talk quietly and urgently, and
Jack wonders if his ears are beginning to burn. He overhears snippets of ‘…at the bar, in
a suit…’
and ‘…like
he’s
just been to a funeral…’ He does his best to ignore
them and orders another drink. The barman makes no attempt at conversation, and
Jack is beginning to think the room has conspired to loathe him without
bothering to find an excuse first. This doesn’t surprise
him, and neither does the loud giggle that bursts from the mouth of the young
woman on the table behind him; he guesses he must look pretty funny, to the
casual observer. He drinks some more. After three quick mouthfuls, he has
already finished half the glass, and he quickly downs the rest. As he lowers the drink,
he hears footsteps creeping quietly towards him from behind. In the bottom of
his glass, he sees the reflection of a well-built, grinning man approaching him.
Jack
turns around and his eyes widen slightly as his brain recognises the man now
standing in front of him. It is the man who laughed; the man who pulled the
trigger; the man who killed Lauren Healy in front of him one year ago today.
Jack smiles a smile that he hopes doesn’t look
anywhere near as forced as it feels, and greets his old acquaintance.
“Jesus Christ,
alright Tom? I didn’t know you still lived ‘round here!”
*
Tom had seen Jack enter the
pub about twenty minutes earlier. That is, he noticed a weather-beaten,
defeated looking man trudging miserably towards the bar and remaining there to
drown his heavy sorrows. Tom had probably even stood next to him as he got the
first round in, but focusing, as he was, on how best to get Jess drunk, out of
her tastefully plain office clothes, and back to his bed, he hadn’t
thought much of the establishment’s other clientele. In fact, it
was only when Jess had interrupted his detailed explanation of his current
training regime (for, he knew, no woman can resist a well maintained six-pack)
to comment on how sad and lonely the solitary figure at the bar looked, that he
paid enough attention to recognise the face.
“Shit… I
used to know him.” He muttered when the penny dropped. Never one to think for
too long before speaking, Tom sent most of his thoughts on a live stream to his
mouth. If he had stopped to think, he might have kept this one to himself.
“Didn’t you
like him?” Against the backdrop of Tom’s thoughts about his and Jack’s dark
past, Jess’s face was the portrait of innocence.
“Yeah I
did… once… it’s complicated,” he told her, and after seeing
the naked confusion on her face hastily added, “I’m not
fucking bent, we were good mates who fell out!”
Jess giggled at this, and Tom
realised she’d been winding him up. He quite liked this girl, he’d
decided.
Not three hours ago, he hadn’t
known she’d existed. The Spartan Singles speed dating event had been a
complete waste of time, as far as Tom was concerned. The smoking hot lap dancer
called Mindy that he was chatting to online hadn’t turned up and all of the
other female attendees had proved to be ugly, boring or both. That was, until
he’d sat at table four and got chatting to the slightly chubby
office bird with the subtle, rimless glasses and mundanely bun-tied hair. Ok,
she was no knock-out, he knew that, and sure, she looked like she might have
had a stick up her arse. Yet, in spite of all of that, she was definitely the
fittest girl in the room, as little an achievement as that may have been. Aside
from the challenge of sexual conquest though (something that Tom knew he was
more than up to), he had genuinely come to enjoy her company as the afternoon
progressed. There was something familiar about her, something comfortable, and
he liked how feisty she was.
“Why don’t you
invite him over for a drink with us?” she suggested. “Maybe
you can patch things up.” If Tom hadn’t already drank four pints of lager on an empty stomach, he
might have thought this an odd thing for a girl he was (presumably) dating to
ask. But since he was half-cut by this point, he welcomed the idea as if he’d
thought of it himself.
“I’ll
bring him over. Want another drink?”
“No,
thanks.” Tom had known what her answer would be before he’d
asked the question; her glass was still full from the previous round, but no
one could say he hadn’t offered. Standing up, he made his way towards the bar.
*
Tom briefly wonders why the
smile on Jack’s face looks so forced, before ignoring it entirely. He asks
the barman for two pints of Fosters and two shots of vodka and has paid before
Jack has had the chance to make an excuse to object.
“I don’t
really,” says Tom. Jack gives him a puzzled look, so he elaborates: “Live
around here, I mean. I moved to Romford a while back. I only came by today to
see a man about a dog.” He laughs a laugh that might be infectious to an innocent
bystander who has never heard it in the right context. Jack is not infected. He
wonders about the type of men and the kind of dogs Tom might have had business
with since becoming a murderer. Tom, meanwhile, thinks that there are some
things you just don’t admit to your mates, and the fact you’ve
been speed dating is one of them.
“What
are you doing in these parts? I thought you’d left the country.”
“I did,” Jack
replies. “I live in Poland, but my brother died last week; I’m back
for his funeral.”
“Shit,
sorry mate, I had no idea,” says Tom. He tries to think of something sympathetic to
say, but comes up at a loss. In the end he goes with, “Come
and sit with us.”
“Us?” Jack
remembers as soon as he’s asked that Tom has been sitting with a young girl. “Your
girlfriend?” he asks, hopefully.
“Well I
haven’t had a chance to fuck her yet, but we’ll
soon fix that,” he sneers.
“Heh,
good one,” Jack laughs unenthusiastically. Tom, who had initially been
excited about catching up with Jack, starts to recall why they’d
grown apart in the first place, before concluding that Jack hasn’t
changed a bit.
He’s still acting all fucking
weird around me, he
thinks.
“Are we
doing these shots, or what?” he says.
They knock back their 35ml
glasses of Smirnoff and walk over to the table, lagers in hand.
“Hi,
Jack!” The girl greets him as he takes a seat. “I’m
Jess.” Jack thinks it a bit creepy how she calls him by his name
before he’s told her what it is, but then he remembers the way they
were so obviously talking about him before Tom came over, and wonders just how
much she’s been told about him. He smiles politely to her.
“Pleased
to meet you,” There’s something homely about this girl, something familiar and
comforting, and Jack can’t help but smile as he says it. It actually cheers him up a
little, before he thinks of the danger she might be in with Tom around.
A slightly awkward silence
ensues while Tom takes a generous mouthful of beer, and from the small speakers
of the LCD, a newsreader can be heard.
“…no
sign of high-street worker Lauren Healy, after twelve months of investigation.
Police were optimistic about the case when a confessional suicide note was
found by the body of Paul Wright in Harrow last October, but ten months on, and
Detective Chief Inspector Samuel Porter admits that they are no closer to
finding Lauren or the remaining perpetrators…”
If Jess notices the awkward
movements Jack makes at the mention of Paul Wright, she doesn’t mention
it. Jack listens to the news pensively, wondering what might have been, had
Paul not felt the urge to take his own life. Tom looks at Jack enquiringly.
“So,
out of all the countries you could have moved to,” he begins, “why
the fuck did you choose Poland?”
“Dunno
really, just fancied a change.” Jack talks sheepishly, as if in fear of ridicule.
“I’ve
heard it’s a beautiful country,” Jess puts in cheerily. Jack
gives her a grateful smile.
“Yeah,
maybe,” Tom replies, “if you like your countries
full of builders and fast food workers.” He sneers and takes another
huge swig of his pint. He slams his glass down and assesses the amount of lager
remaining in Jack’s glass.
“Are
you gonna drink that, or just sit there nursing it?” Jack
no longer thinks it a wise idea to stay in The Fleadh all night, but he isn’t
about to tell Tom. He takes a long
enough gulp to satisfy him. Tom turns to Jess.
“Are
you sure you don’t want another drink?” She declines with a smile,
and Tom wonders how he’s ever going to get her drunk enough to bed. Perhaps I can spike her drink, he jokes
to himself darkly.
Jack finds some small talk. “What
do you do then, Jess?”
“Oh, I
work for-” She begins to respond, but is interrupted by Tom.
“Fuckin’ hell – look
who’s just walked in.” He stands up, shouting: “Rob,
over ‘ere!”
*
Rob was three sheets to the
wind, which was not unusual; his view on alcohol was that it was a useful
coping aid for the guilt and sorrows of everyday life. What was unusual, was for Rob to be a happy
drunk. Tonight, Rob wasn’t just happy – he was singing.
They had done it, and Rob was
ecstatic. It had been a real nail-biter, and there were times Rob was sure that
they weren’t going to make it, but somehow they had gotten through it,
and they had done it.
Charlton Athletic had beaten
Millwall.
The Championship playoff final
had been a close, tough contest, with each team scoring three goals apiece over
the course of the first eighty-eight minutes. In the eighty-sixth, Green had
given away a penalty, and everyone at Wembley was convinced at that point that
Charlton had thrown it away. But somehow, Hamer had managed to not only save
the shot from Morison but he had actually held onto it, and sent it down the
left wing to give life to a swift counter attack. It had all happened so
quickly, and fifteen seconds later the Addicks fans erupted as Johnnie Jackson
coolly placed the ball neatly past Forde in the Millwall goal, securing
Charlton’s place in the Premiership next season.
Rob had been singing all the
way to the pub, although somewhere along the way he’d lost
the words, so that by the time he arrived outside The Fleadh, it sounded less
like song and more like a sequence of drunken ‘whey’s and ‘ah’s.
He didn’t find
it surprising that he’d ended up at The Fleadh. It was really the only pub he knew
in the area. He pushed open the wooden doors, like another two men of a similar
age had done previously that night, and marched to the bar.
“I’ll
have a Fosters please!” he exclaimed merrily.
The barman seemed to be
weighing up his options of serving him or not, as he asked, “How
many have you had, mate?”
“One
for every goal!” Rob told him. In his intoxicated state, he still musters
enough self-control not to tell him about the additional shots he’d been
doing for each foul. It was a derby, after all.
The barman looked like he was
about to refuse service, until they were interrupted by a shout from a table
opposite the bar.
“Rob,
over ‘ere!”
*
Rob looks towards the table
behind him and sees the grinning face that has haunted his darkest nightmares
for the last nine months, when he’s been sober enough to dream.
At some point in the confused trail of his drunken thoughts, a voice tells him
to leave the pub now, to catch the next tube to Kings Cross and journey home to
Sheffield while he still can, but the thought slips away from him, as his mind
prioritises his concentration on the more important tasks of standing straight
and acting sober. So, instead of shouting or crying or running, he sings,
“Wheyyyy,
Tommy boy, Tommy boy, Tommy boy!”
as if it’s a
well-known football chant.
“It’s
alright mate, he’s with us,” Tom tells the barman, as if this is perfectly valid
criteria for serving alcohol to someone who is clearly on the verge of
hospitalisation. The barman mutters something inaudible that sounds a lot like “it’s his
funeral”, but protests no further.
Rob buys a fresh round of
drinks, much to Jack’s dismay, and joins them at the small table.
“Who’s the
lady?” asks Rob. Swimming around somewhere in his head is the
notion that he’s seen her somewhere before, but he can’t
quite grasp it.
“Jess.
Pleasure to meet you,” says Jess.
“Met
her today,” Tom explains, before adding in a stage whisper “I
think she likes me,” and giving Jess a wink. To her credit, Jess doesn’t bat
an eyelid.
“Well,
we’re having a right fucking reunion today!” he
declares, before turning back to Rob. “Why are you back round this neck of the woods?”
“Playoff
final, weren’t it.” He starts chanting we
are going up and Jess giggles at his drunken behaviour.
“Fuck
me, you won the lottery or something?” Tom asks. Rob was always the
poor one in the group.
“Nah, I
won the tickets in a competition.” He stumbles over the last
word and then burps loudly. Jess continues to giggle.
“Wha’bout
you two?”
“Funeral…”
mutters Jack.
“This
an’ that.” shrugs Tom. He decides to change the subject. “Enough
of this small talk shit, let’s get these drinks down us.”
And so it comes to be that
Jack (who stays reluctantly), Rob (who at this stage couldn’t
decline another beer if his life depended on it) and Tom (who is just happy to
be seeing his old friends again) spend their evening drinking more than is
healthy for them until the late closing hours of The Fleadh.
*
Jess looks around the table at
the three men she’s spent the evening with and marvels at how easy the chance
meeting was to manufacture. She’d been anxious all evening about how the affair would pan
out, but once Rob had walked through the door singing in that ridiculous
inebriated fashion, she had barely been able to contain her feelings of
accomplishment. It has become late and the drinking pace has slowed to a crawl.
All three men are very drunk.
Tom stands up urgently and
shouts “Gotta go toilet!” before sauntering off to the
urinals.
Rob also arises as steadily as
he can manage, which, given the circumstances, isn’t very
steadily at all, and slurs “Going home… shouldn’t have stayed… he’s a
bad man…” incoherently. He stumbles towards the pub’s
entrance, but trips on a stray leg of furniture on the way and falls to the
ground in a crash of tables and chairs.
The barman helps him up. “Come
on mate, let’s get you in a cab,’ he says, and leads him out of
the front door.
Jess giggles again, and looks
over at Jack, who is probably the least trashed of the three men. She smiles at
him sweetly. It makes Jack feel guilty. While he may have drank far too much
over the course of the night, he has still been worrying about this innocent
girl’s future with Tom. Waiting for the opportunity to warn her
about him is the only reason he’s stayed as long as he has. At least, that’s what
he’s been telling himself. There is a loud thump from the
direction of the men’s toilet, and Jack decides to tell her before he loses the
opportunity.
“There’s
something you need to know, Jess. About Tom,” he begins.
“I
always suspected you were the nice one, Jack. You were the wildcard, you know.
I didn’t know if you’d come.” She’s
still smiling as she says it, and this makes Jack all the more confused.
“Seriously
Jess, listen to me. You can’t meet up with him again; he’s an evil man.” The
alcohol hasn’t been making it easy to hold onto his thoughts, but he
feels that if he can just convince her of this, it won’t
matter. Behind them the barman has returned and is making his way to the
toilets to investigate the noise.
“I
mean, Tom was easy. He thinks with nothing but his cock. I send him one message
from a fake account on a dating site and he’s begging to meet up.”
Jack hears what she is saying
but finds it difficult to process. His head is starting to feel numb and a prickling
pins and needles sensation is tickling the nape of his neck.
“Jess,
please, I’m not joking.”
“Rob
was harder, but I still knew he wouldn’t be able to resist the lure
of seeing his beloved team at Wembley. I work for Sky Sports, you know. It was
me who drew his name as the competition winner.” Jack thinks he understands
what she is implying, but it still makes no sense to him. Why would she have
brought them together?
“But
then there was you, Jack. Nine hundred miles away on the cusp of Eastern
Europe. I didn’t think I was going to be able to bring you back. But then I
remembered your brother. I couldn’t be sure that you were close,
not with your track record, but I didn’t have any other ideas.”
“What… who
are you?” Jack has to really concentrate to force the words out. The
numbness has been spreading the whole time she’s been talking, and his head
is beginning to droop towards the table.
“My
name is Jess, Jack. You know that. Jessica Healey.” She
is still smiling at him, but what he previously thought of as sweet in the
smile he now recognises as malice.
“Jessica…
Healey?” He’s struggling intensely not to succumb to the anaesthesia
tugging at his brain, beckoning him into a deep sleep. Before he follows its
lead, a rush of connected thoughts informs him as to why he found this girl so
familiar, why he’d felt the strong urge to protect her. He knows now that she
has drugged him, knows that she is taking a form of twisted revenge. He uses
his last ounce of strength to tell her the one thing that can save him.
“But it
was Tom,” he manages, “Tom killed Lauren…”
“Maybe
it was. Maybe he ended her life. But you all ensured that she was never found.
You all ran away, and you all hid the truth. For that, I will never forgive
you.”
The barman returns from the
toilet, dragging an unconscious Tom out towards the heavy double doors.
“What
do you want done with them?” he asks Jess.
“There’s a van
in the car park. The rear doors are open, stick the three of them in there.
Andy’s driving, he’ll give you a hand.” She
looks at Jack’s head as it rests on the table in front of her and a
uncontrollable rage shifts through her body as she remembers her sweet sister. She
waits for it to subside and looks to the barman again “I
really appreciate this, Pete.”
He clears Jack’s limp
body from her view, and she sits at the table alone, finally drinking the vodka
and orange juice Tom bought her two hours ago.
