Independent events/ Don’t take what doesn’t belong to you / There’s always some bigger and clever – even if they are dead. . .
Dave is at home doing the washing up at the sink next to the glass back door listening to a Radio4 current affairs program. Occasionally he looks out through the door at the little concrete garden, walled on all sides and the back of the of Lidl’s supermarket beyond. There, a shadow in the garden!
There have been an increased number of break-ins on the road recently. He starts unlocking the door and calls to Em, “There’s somebody in the garden!” Wrenching the door open Dave races out into the darkness to confront the intruder but he garden is empty and silent.
Standing in the doorway Em laughed, “You’ve been hanging around with Billy to long. You’ve become too aware of your own shadow”. They hear the sound of a plant pot being knocked over, it rolls across the concrete”.
“Can I help you?” Dave questions the empty space.
Nobody answers but he can feel somebody is this there. His skin tingles at the thought. He sensed somebody walk past him and the tinkle becomes a full on somebody walked over your grave shiver. Unnerved Dave walks slowly back into the kitchen, locking the door. Behind him he heard the sound of a heavy footstep on the 2 stairs in the hall. Dave’s course body hairs feel rigid his like spines on a cold hedgehog. Turning towards the hall he can see the dragon mobile that hang at the bottom of the stairs slowly rotate.
In the living room Emma screamed, “Dave! Dave!”
Dave ran up the stairs and into the room. Everything was being swept off the surfaces and thrown up in the air, something is tearing through the flat. On the uncarpeted floors they could hear frantic footsteps.
“What’s happening?” Cried Em.
“They are looking for something”. Said Dave coolly, surprised by his own sense of detachment and lack of panic.
“What the fuck are you talking about? Have you gone mad?”
They looked at one another as the frantic untidying continued.
“What does it want?”
Dave stood motionless watching, transfixed, something in his psyche, the way he viewed the world had been undone.
Livery appeared fleeting in front of him. Dave recognised Livery from the photos. Again, Dave was unsurprised. Almost greeting Livery as an old friend.
Quietly almost imperceptibly, through the gap in his teeth, he breathed
“ . . . Eveready …..”.
Instantly whatever it was, was gone and the room fell silent.
“What the fuck!” Cried Emma. “What the fuck is going on?”
“What we have is very pissed off, very bent copper on the other side of the spiritual divide.”
“What?”
Dave sit’s down stunned. “Can you get me a fag? I really need a fag”.
But you’ve given up.
“I always keep some. In case of emergencies like this. They’re in top of that draw.”
Having lit up, inhaled deeply and came clean about the theft and the passing of the artifact to Eveready.”
“So what about Eveready? Are you going to warn him?”
“Warn him? What good would that do against the undead? That thing will get to him long before I can. I don’t have his number, that’s the way we used to like it before all this weird shit. If the police picked you up you were just a clean slate”.
“Great. That thing’s gonna wipe his slate if it finds him”.
“I’ll drop by 177 tomorrow.”
“Go now!”
Dave returned home in a little over an hour. “His phones off, Em. There were mental crowds peering over the edge of London Bridge.”
Back through the locks to the open river
Eveready out goes to see he’s parents at Little Venice. He bobs up from the underground at Warwick Avenue tube station into the familiar surroundings of Little Venice, like a puffin resurfacing amongst its family. Hurriedly he crossed the road traffic going towards Paddington & the A40. He steps onto the large central reservation composed of 4 x 4 cars & crosses the more leisurely traffic heading up to Maida Hill. He enters a in the cobbled street of Warwick Place and through the door of the Warwick Castle, a small wood paneled pub and up to the carved wooden bar.
“Eveready! Hey are you, my Man! What brings you round these parts?”
“Oh, I need something evaluating” he paused and then smiled, “Just trying to put a bit of business the old man’s way”.
What will it be?
“Heineken, please Joe!”
Joe picks up a glass and started pouring the beer. He looked up at Eveready “So what have you got for the old man, this time? Something you found in a charity shop or picked up with a bit of selective looting during the riots?”
“Huh”, Eveready appreciated the line, “It’s a friend’s” he stopped himself before finishing the word sliding into ‘private client’s, actually. Rather Hush-hush”.
“£5.50” Joe replied.
They had a good long chat, the pub, save one or two of its upper class drinkers, was empty. Dusk was falling as Eveready stepped back onto the cobbled street turning right towards the inky water of Browning’s pool, better known as at Little Venice. Browning’s pool is the junction of Grand Union Canal with early 19th Century Regent’s Canal built to link the River Thames at Limehouse. The calm, barely moving water was almost a perfect mirror, reflecting the surrounding buildings, the trees, and the red and blue hints of the evening sky. The lake is outlined by a white band painted on the edge of towpath & down to the water line. Eveready looked at the island in the middle of the pool, remembering how growing up he thought all traffic islands would be surrounded by water. He turned left, taking a few steps along the road, which was sparsely lined with trees and sealed off from the canal by black railings. The road gently arced away from the water to accommodate the pool. Below the railings was the concreted towpath, the delineating by a thick white line, he remembered how the British Waterway workmen scraping off the line and repainting it every other year. They told him “You’d be amazed how many people miss of ignore this warning & fall in”. Permanently moored in the pool is the Floating boater Restaurant, a puppet theatre and next to that the British Waterway workmen’s barge that belches out thick smoke on winter lunch times. Eveready arrived at his parent’s house, one of the large white stucco fronted villas set quite near to the road, with large windows flush with the wall peering out over Browning’s pool. He covered the small, neat front garden in 4 easy paces & arriving at the broad front door he knocked.
Mr Devereux, a short dark man, opened the door to admit his son. They walk through the hallway to sit at the kitchen table. Mr Devereux boiled the kettle and made a pot of tea. “It was with extreme sadness & Disappointment that I heard you had been involved in the rioting Everard. I do hope you haven’t ascertained an even longer criminal record. You’ll soon be well beyond employability should they need a CRB check”.
“Well, in the foreseeable future I don’t think I’ll be hostage to one”.
After the formalities, Mr Devereux addresses his son “I believe you have something you would like my opinion on.”
“Yes”.
“Interesting, let’s go upstairs and glove up”.
“Can’t you just have a look at it here? Nobody else has been handling it with kid gloves.”
“You know my rules. One can’t be to careful.”
Eveready and his dad go up to the front room on the second floor. Mr Devereux carefully unlocks the door, they enter & don cotton gloves that were resting on a glass cabinet. Eveready removes the piece from a cotton bag handing it observantly to his father. Eveready goes over to the window, leaning against the frame he looks out past his reflection into the darkness of the canal basin. He feels somebody is coming, the trees rustle and a breeze shakes the window. He hunches his shoulders as the breeze shivers through him it whispers his street name. “Eveready”.
“This is an ancient & rare object. It’s undoubtedly extremely valuable. You could really make as a collector, I don’t know why you choose to . . . “
As his father was about to finish the sentence Eveready starred impassively at him, gently rubbing his chin. When he caught the old man’s eye Eveready raised his eyebrows, suggesting he had heard similar arguments before and was interested in the piece his father held.
“Tell me where did you get it?”
“It belongs to a friend’s of mine. He’s thinking of selling and wants to know what he’s got. What is it? A broach?”
“Ha! A broach? Clearly they taught you nothing at Oxford. Now be careful here Everard there are not too many of these in circulation. It is a representation Ixtab or Rope Woman the Yucatec Mayan goddess of suicide. It’s of the Mayan Pre-Classic period so I would estimate as being at least”
“Two to Four thousand years old. My god.”
“Yes. I stand corrected, you did adsorb something up at Oxford –by osmosis, no doubt.”
“I think only one or two such artifacts are known about, one was rumored to be in the UK, in a Victorian collection in about 1851 as part of the Victorian obsession with the Cult of Death. In Yucatec society, suicide, especially suicide by hanging, was under circumstances considered an honorable way to die. Ixtab would accompany such suicides to paradise. Mr Devereux pleased with his analysis looked up at his son. “Everard. You’ve gone very pale are you OK?”
“The last bit you said. Did you say suicide hanging?”
“Yes”.
“Oh. It’s just . . . I think my friend who is thinking of selling said a close relative of his had hung himself recently”.
“Really? How awful. Perhaps you should sit down”.
At that moment the doorbell rang.
“Are you OK Everard?”
“Yes”.
“Are you OK to hold this? Good. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll see who that is and bring you up a drink. Just don’t touch anything else, OK?”
Mr Devereux carefully handed the artifact back to Eveready & went downstairs to answer the door. The doorstep was empty. Sometimes the neighbours come round and if you can’t get downstairs quickly enough they disappear around the corner. Mr Devereux walked up to the gate and peered over measuring the bend in the road on either side, looking for the elusive knock and run neighbours. The front door slammed behind him. Mr Devereux turned sharply & returned to the front door. He rang the bell a couple of times & called up at the first floor window “Everard the door’s closed!” The light in the upstairs room dimmed, flickered and went out. After a second all the lights around the house repeated this shimmer before extinction. Not quite simultaneously, but as if in the order of some moving around the house very quickly turning them on then off. Mr Devereux stood at the front door craning his neck backwards to look at the window, wondering what had happened to the electrics and who was responsible for fucking them up so badly. He was about to call again when he heard a tremendous thud of something slamming against the front door. The door shuddered after the impact. Before the door had stopped shaking another blow was delivered, again the thud and shudder. Something was trying to force it’s way out.
This time he shouted, “Everard! What is going on?”
The door flung open & Eveready emerged. In the darkness against the light of the hall Mr Devereux could see blood around Eveready’s eye sockets.
Wailing Eveready was raced out straight into the road, careering into the railings surrounding the canal, down the steps leading to the towpath and out into the inky blackness of the lake. Mr Devereux seemed to stop to weigh up was happening and what the appropriate course of action might be. “E-V-E-R-E-A-D-Y!” He ran after Eveready & flung himself into the shallow water.
When the neighbours and emergency services final fished Mr Devereux out of the canal they stood on the bank starring back a the water. Little Venice was a black hole only reflecting a slither of the neon lighting surrounding it.
“Like a fish. Like a fish”. Mr Devereux repeated “Like a fish”.
Hours later the electric supply has returned to normal Mr Devereux is sitting stunned at his kitchen table.
It occurs to him to look into his collection room. Wearily he trudges upstairs. It’s gone. Devereux looks around his room. The Ixtab is the only thing that, along with Eveready, has gone.
Is it good to talk?
Dave is sitting finally having the fag he’s wanted, trying to stitch it all together. . . He exhales a cloud of smoke, “What the fuck is going on? I’ve been fine for so many years, now it seems every person I meet dies. A whole load of shit is happening all at once. . . What’s Happing Em?”
“It’s probably just, probability, co incidence, or something. Weird things happen occasionally”.
“It’s more than that. Something else is going on”.
She stares back. “Dunno, Dave, you tell me?”
“Livery, I broke into his house . . . is dead but has been kind enough to come to visit us from beyond the grave. Eveready, I gave him what I stole from Livery’s house . . . is most probably dead. People I don’t know, but I’ve just crossed paths with are . . . dead, or will soon be dead”.
“You broke in Livery’s and stole something?”
“Yeah, how do you think we got in? Nothing serious. The house had lots of crazy masks and stuff, you remember Billy showed you the pictures, you seemed quite happy about it at the time. Well I took something small, it looked. . .” he shrugged “like it might be of interest to the right person. So I passed it to Eveready. Now this dead prick shows up, uninvited, riffles through the house & I reckon goes in search of Eveready. It’s not looking good. . . . we’re lucky is didn’t kill us.”
“So, this small, insignificant thing seems to be causing us a bit of trouble Dave. What do you think we should do?” Emma asked. “Call the police. Call Ghostbusters. Most Haunted. Call for psychiatric help for you. Call Billy? I don’t know!”
“The police will be here soon enough. Not sure we should call Billy. Hhm, If he’s still alive. . . 2 days ago I knew what was up and what as down, but now? It was Billy’s interest in Livery that got this ball rolling, I know he’s mixed up in all of this somehow, I’m not sure we should talk to him more.”
“Are you serious? 2 days ago you were questioning Billy’s ability & . . . his state of mind. If I remember correctly your were calling him a crank! Now he’s what? . . A . . supernatural Megamind?”
“I know. I know it’s . . . all very, very weird.” Dave stubbed out the fag. “I think I’ll just lay low for a while – disappear”.
“What good would that do? If can find Eveready when you’ve got know idea where he is. It will find you AGAIN when it wants to. I think the least we can do is speak to Billy – if it hasn’t got to him. Call Jess, tell her we’re coming over. Get her to find out if Billy’s in & get her to keep him there until we get over there. This need to sorted A-S-A-P.”
As they left the flat and set off for Havelock Mews Emma asked, “Not taking the Bike?”
“Your crazy. No way. Not today! I’m lying low, remember? It gotta a be the bus. The P4 I think. It goes from in front of Mackey-D’s. Just blend in with the populous & don’t do anything weird”. Dave lit his spliff.
