Long Way to Get to Me

Marc Lindon

Description

Kevin loves sex... or rather an idealised version of it. The reality has often proven less successful, and always more traumatic. Fortunately his imagination - at least when the day job of settling bets in the local bookmakers permits - keeps him one step removed from the real thing, and that suits him just fine. But when Laura enters the frame, it looks as if fantasy and reality might collide. Meanwhile Monday night will always be poker night and, as the chips fly and mental warfare is waged, acts of social nuisance and vandalism are recounted and become a source of indignation and rage. And if the police won't do anything...David always wanted to be a policeman, but circumstances dictated otherwise. Nepotism secured him the consolationprize of a station-basement bolthole and a loosely defined role as a glorified hand holder. The price he pays is constantresentment and ridicule from the regular officers. But he is convinced that a gang of vigilantes is operating locally,complete with calling card. And just maybe this is a case the he can solve and prove them all wrong.An emotionally charged and relentlessly funny coming-of-age story - in more ways than one.

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 14 décembre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781838597887
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Copyright © 2020 Marc Lindon

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.


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ISBN 9781838597887

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Matador® is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

For J 3 R

What a strange thing man is;
And what a stranger thing woman.

Lord Byron
Contents
Prologue

April 2007
Monday
Sunday
Thursday
Sunday
Monday
Wednesday
Sunday (very early)
Monday

NETHERCOTT
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Lower Sixth Year
Upper Sixth Year

May 2007
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Saturday
Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Friday
Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
Monday
Tuesday

Karma Garda

June 2007

Epilogue
About the Author
Prologue
Victims?
It’s the same every morning. There is a moment upon first awakening, the very briefest of moments, when she feels nothing. Or more to the point, she just doesn’t feel.
And in that vacuum, there is a sense of ease that she longs to retain, but which, as soon as she becomes conscious of it, is swept from her by a wave of profound emotion that leaves her floundering. And she’s back in the place she left the night before, when sleep rescued her. A place of loss. Regret. Of stifling loneliness.
She has but one weapon at her disposal and with perverse satisfaction she shifts her limbs to ignite jolts of pain that rack her body. Where once she had bemoaned this early morning blight, she now sees it as the lesser of two evils. It’s a battle she can at least compete in.
Welcoming the distraction, she tentatively shifts and stretches until the aches start to back off. She has to grab this moment before she’s enveloped once more, so she heaves herself into a seated position and reaches over to turn on the radio. The voices are welcome guests, and with company she can turn more easily to the day ahead.
Her senses now free to wander, she notices two things. It is late, almost ten o’clock – Ernest would never have permitted such wantonness – and unseasonably warm; a welcome forerunner of the spring to come that had warranted leaving the bedroom window open last night. But there’s something else layered on top. A stale and sickly-sweet aroma that she can’t quite place.
Deciding it must be coming from outside, she lowers her feet to the floor, painfully stands, shuffles over to the window and pulls the curtains apart.
Oh dear God. The lawn. His lawn. His pride and joy.
And that smell…
*
Her face puckers as she contemplates the depressing juxtaposition of the cushioned comfort of last night’s stalls seats at the Palais Garnier and the disconcertingly stained fabric of the taxi’s upholstery, on which she now shifts distastefully; while up front Lionel is performing; that intensely irritating ‘social chameleon’ thing – his words, never hers – he takes such idiotic pride in, waffling moronically about cricket and football with the ghastly little driver. The marks of the man those tasteless, tasselled cushions on the parcel shelf, the wooden-beaded seat cover and whatever that ethnic thing is hanging from the rear-view mirror. Is there a white taxi driver left in High Wycombe?
As they near home, the sight of scaffolding at The Birches further sours her mood; an unwelcome reminder of a rare battle lost. But a builder’s van outside Ravencroft brings a renewed sense of purpose. She’ll need to keep an eye on that one.
The reassuring crunch and crackle of the gravel heralds their arrival and she gratefully escapes the car’s clammy clutches, leaving Lionel to say goodbye to his new best friend.
As she enters the hall, she knows immediately that there’s something not quite right. The light is all wrong.
She walks through to the drawing room.
“Lionel?” she calls out.
“Yes, darling?”
“The conservatory.”
“Yes, darling?”
“It’s gorn.”
*
There’s no good time to see your mother with an erect penis clasped in her hand.
Once seen, it’s never forgotten.
And that is the sight before the eyes of seven-year-old Laura, who has taken up her usual evening vantage point at the top of the stairs behind the laundry basket, affording the much-prized view between the banister posts of half the sitting room below. Normally this encompasses the TV screen and, occasionally, the lower half of a pair of outstretched legs, but tonight there’s a strange sight indeed, one that’s beyond a young mind to fully comprehend, though it tries nonetheless…
Mr Chivers, who Mummy says lets us stay in this house, has the zip on his trousers undone and his thingy is sticking out, which is naughty, and it is pointing up at the ceiling. Mummy is standing right behind him and is giving him a hug. But her hand is by mistake actually touching his thingy, which is naughty and a bit yucky and Mr Chivers is mumbling ‘no’ over and over again. That means he wants to get away and he’s much stronger than Mummy so he could do so easy. But I don’t think he does really want to get away because he’s squeezing Mummy’s bottom lots and has got a smile on his face. I can’t see Mrs Chivers. Maybe she’s on the sofa or making tea or something. She could maybe help. Now they’re moving around the room and Mummy still won’t let go. It’s like they’re stuck together. Mr Chivers has stopped saying ‘no’ but Mummy must be doing something else because he’s moaning a lot. Now he’s saying ‘yes’ and ‘oh dear’ and Mummy’s being really rough with his thingy. And Mr Chivers says they should go to the sofa and I can’t see them anymore. But I can hear him and he’s saying naughty words and he still sounds like he’s in pain and then he shouts out and then he starts whimpering. And then it all goes quiet and I creep off to the bedroom. I hope this doesn’t mean Mr Chivers will say we can’t live here anymore.
*
There’s a warm sensation spreading in his crotch, then a trickle running down his leg. Muscles too numbed by fear to contract. But he’s in a place far beyond embarrassment. The pain from whatever it was that struck him is a fading sideshow to this paralysis. He just wants to be home. Wants his mum – how was your day love?… meal almost ready… wash your hands – the comfort of the sofa; something rubbish on telly; arguments with his little sister over the remote control; Mum shouting at them to cut it out or she’ll turn it off and tell Dad.
Wants anything but this.
Home is only a hundred yards or so in distance, a half-minute sprint at most. But it might as well be miles. The first contact, a thud on his back, had brought him to a halt. The second, a glance to the side of his head, had sent him to the ground in a heap, the sound of something bouncing along the pavement duetting with the ringing in his ears. Instinctively he’d struggled up and tried to walk on, head bowed, as though by ignoring it, this couldn’t be happening. But then they’d appeared and surrounded him. Four of them, all with woolly hats over their heads. Holes cut out for eyes and mouths. He’d taken a few more steps, as if they weren’t there, and when they’d made it clear there was no way past, he’d resorted to wittering polite talk, desperately trying to script a more palatable reality; even tried to laugh it off. But then they’d started talking about hurting him and now the situation, like his body, is out of his control and they’re scaring the hell out of him.
“It’s really very simple,” continues a muffled voice. “You say sorry, you promise never to do it again, you take your medicine and if you or your little gang of pals ever step out of line again, we’ll be back. And next time we won’t be so pleasant about it. So, let’s start with that apology, shall we?”
“Lad’s pissed himself.”
A sob wrenches itself clear of his heaving chest.
“I’m sorry,” he splutters. “I promise.”
“Good boy. Now pick a finger.”
*
Same route. Same time; just after midnight. Same thrill. Same release. Five nights a week.
He takes the corner at thirty and twists the throttle. There’s a lag as it’s countered by the sudden incline, but soon he feels the pull; a delicious surge of speed kicks in and he sweeps, glides and rolls through the corners as the unlit lane curls and rises into the darkness. Never below forty; nudging fifty.
He breasts the summit and guns it along the straight stretch. Off the accelerator as he takes the bend. Then the bike disappears from under him and he’s sliding, skimming across a lake of pitch black… waiting for the inevitable impact.
*
“Mummy.”
“Go d