Chapter Four
Lucy. Martin changed her name twice in three different drafts. Anna. Nicola. Lucy. He watched her, writing as a breeze from the opened window stroked her hair and shadows moved across her sleeping face; her delicate hands trembled as she held the syringe and all the tension of the moment; her echoing hours, waiting for Gregor.
* * *
She hears a knock. Where is it coming from? Somewhere in the distance. Focus. In the room? No. Again, two knocks. Archie will answer it. She feels around for the thin cover and pulls it over her. Archie’s feet thump down the hallway. She can let her mind slump back, and everything slides away from her, like the tide going out.
Archie looks through the spyhole. In the dark corridor is the skeleton of Bradley. The blue tracksuit hangs like plastic bags on a scarecrow. He picks the loose skin at the side of his face. He shifts his weight from foot to foot. Archie pulls back the bolt lock and opens the door.
“You took your time,” he says.
Bradley just looks back at Archie and scratches his face. That’s the wrong answer, his eyes say. Archie puffs his chest out. He is in his vest, underpants, and socks, with remote control in hand.
“What? You needing another hit? You going to come and get it then? This shit won’t just walk out of here and sell itself.”
Bradley takes a step back. Archie steps into the hallway, the carpet sticking to his socks. Bradley turns his head and closes his eyes, his face contorting to a grimace. Fucking junkies, Archie thinks. He reaches his hand to Bradley’s shoulder to pull him inside, then sees movement from the corner of his eye.
A bright light of pain blinds him, his right knee explodes, and everything in his head is sharp and jagged. As he falls he is caught by strong arms and his mind wildly flips to the cover of a romance novel. He looks up at the face of his attacker. Gregor, with a lump hammer, dragging him one-handed back into the flat.
Archie throws his head around desperately looking for a way to break free, he reaches out to catch the doorframe, but the pain has broken up his senses and his arms flail uselessly. In the corridor he sees Bradley still standing like a plastic Halloween figure with a frozen fear in his eyes. Bradley mouths, “I’m sorry.”
Gregor kicks the door shut.
Archie’s looks up again to see Gregor’s face in grim concentration as he raises his arm. Archie tries to turn away but Gregor’s elbow lands on his nose. Blood fills his mouth and he chokes and tries to cough it out. Bolts of pain rush up from his leg and he gasps and gags. Gregor drops him to the floor.
Gregor pushes the door to his left. Old water stands in the bath, grey with a thin film of brown and white scum on the surface. He turns. There is a door on the right. He steps over Archie who writhes around in his own blood, gurgling and coughing.
He listens at the door for a second, then steps back and kicks it open. In the dark the blonde girl screams. She is crouching on the other side of the bed, the sheet twisted around her, trying to hide behind it. He strides across the room and grabs her arm. She is wearing only a pair of boxer shorts and the sheet trails behind her as he pulls her screaming to her feet, out of the dark and into the light of the hallway. When she sees Archie lying there like roadkill, twitching and bleeding, she falls silent and pulls the sheet around her to cover her breasts.
Gregor pulls Archie to his feet and juggles him down the hallway. Archie spills into the main room, illuminated only by the television.
Archie moans hoarsely, “Fuck, fuck.”
Gregor shouts at the blonde, “Get in here.”
She jumps, then starts to move. He points at the lump hammer at her feet. “Bring it,” he commands.
She picks up the hammer as she comes into the room. A shouting and knocking on the wall starts from next door. Gregor points next to Archie.
“Sit down.”
She sits and Archie whimpers and reaches out to her. She recoils, disgusted by his broken face. Gregor stands over them. The television screen behind Gregor fills the wall. It’s on pause. A bikini-clad woman in heels is walking through a warehouse toward a group of white men. Archie coughs more blood onto the floor and sees his knee for the first time. A bone sticks out from beneath it, poking through his skin. He screams.
From next door the sound of the television being turned up full comes through the walls, the sound of cars and sirens and gunshots swimming around the room. Gregor squats down in front of Lucy. His eyes are deep brown, and his short hair is greying at the temples. His hands are tanned and smooth as he takes the hammer from her, placing it out of reach. He reaches inside his black leather jacket, and with a single movement and a sound like a whip pulls out a flick knife. Its blade reflects and shines. It is smooth at the top and serrated at the base. He holds it in front of the blonde before turning to Archie.
Archie tries to struggle away, but Gregor grabs his chin and holds his face still. Archie’s face is cracked in the middle like a ripped photograph and his cheekbones are swelling up beneath his eyes. One of his eyes has turned red. It looks like the blue pupil is floating on a ball of blood. Gregor presses the edge of the blade to Archie’s face.
“Where is it?”
Archie splutters and grabs Gregor’s forearm to try and break his grip. Gregor grips his face tighter and pushes him back on the floor, turning his head and holding his face to the floor with his knee. The girl leans forward, her eyes widening as Gregor pulls Archie’s ear tight and with one cut, slices through the cartilage. Archie’s mouth opens wide and a tremulous shriek rushes out, a higher pitch than before, the rasp in his throat like a drill behind the screams.
The volume from next door’s television ramps up and noise swills around the room. Gregor turns to the girl, the piece of ear in his hand. Drops of blood are spattered on her face.
“What’s your name?” he says.
“What?” she shouts back.
“What is your name?” he shouts.
“Lucy,” she yells. She sees him say it to himself, as if trying it out.
He closes the flick knife and puts it back in his pocket. As Archie’s scream subsides, Gregor takes his knee from his face and pulls him up to a sitting position. He holds half of Archie’s right ear in front of his face.
“Where is it?”
Archie clutches the side of his head, coating his hand in a bloody glove.
“The coke is all here, right by the table.”
“Not the fucking coke, Archie, you know what I’m talking about.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what you want.”
Gregor yanks his head back as though preparing him for slaughter. Archie’s face is sticky with blood and saliva and mucus, and he is spitting as he breathes, heaving foul coppery breath.
“Where is it?”
“What? What? Tell me what the fuck … I don’t know what the fuck—”
“Spiral, Archie. Where is it?”
“I don’t know, Gregor, I don’t …”
Lucy shouts and points. “The sink. Under the sink. The bag.”
She speaks with an accent, a sharpness which Gregor recognises as deep Eastern Europe, maybe Russia. He knows why she is there, sleeping in Archie’s bed. Another junkie.
But there is something more about her. How was she so calm? Once she saw Archie was down, she stopped screaming. She knows him for the lowlife that he is.
Gregor lets go of Archie, who flops back. The channel in the room next door has changed and now there is an excited voice, bells, and applause. He moves over in front of Lucy again. She is young. There is a strength in her which cannot be taught. He takes hold of her face. She doesn’t resist but holds his gaze. He considers her for a moment like a breeder considering a new animal. Then he turns and goes to the kitchen.
In the dark space under the sink among detergents and plastic bags there is a dark hold-all. He unzips it and looks into it before zipping it back up and coming back to Archie. He pulls Archie’s limp body back up.
“Is it all here?”
Archie is choking as he tries to respond. His voice is a rasp.
“Where did you … that bag is not mine, I don’t know man. Gregor, please, I never saw the fucking—”
“You always have been shit at lying. Don’t lie to me Archie.”
He flicks the blade out again, next to Archie’s bloodied ear. Archie shakes. His head rolls back and he splutters, “Please, no, no, it’s all there, take anything, anything …” Gregor lets him fall back onto the floor.
He stands Lucy up and slides his coat off his shoulders and onto hers. The noises from the neighbours disappear. It is quiet for a moment as she feels the warmth of Gregor seep from his jacket into her skin. Then the silence breaks, she hears laughter and applause from next door. Gregor zips up the jacket.
“Have you got shoes?”
Archie blubbers, “Bitch … you fucking bitch.…”
Gregor hands Lucy the bag and picks up the lump hammer. He stands over him.
“You always were a fucking low life piece of shit, Archie. What a favour I’d be doing the world to just take you out now.”
Lucy stands beside him, wild-haired and spattered with blood. “Go on, do it,” she says.
Gregor grabs the hold-all and takes Lucy by the elbow away from Archie and into the corridor. He lets the door stand wide.
Archie stays on the ground, turning on his side, heaving and retching through his swollen face in the light of the television screen. Lucy waves to him over her shoulder as she and Gregor head for the stairs, and out onto the street. They walk together through the noise and uneven light. Outlined in dull pulsing neon, they pass, as if ghosts, along the peopled street.
***