Blood Life, just as much as First?
Lost to me, that was where.
I could feel Ruby slipping.
4
‘Looks worse today, doesn’t she?’ Wednesday was peering into your still face, her sour mouth pulled down at one side. ‘Another accident earlier. They get like that at this stage, although I know it’s part of the job. Oh yes, I’ve seen a lot of clients go downhill fast when they’re close to--’
‘Shut your bleeding mush, all right?’ I threw myself away from the wall and down onto my knees next to you, as you lay entombed under the white sheets, as if I could protect you from the likes of Wednesday and every poisonous word, which dripped from her venomous lips. I grasped your limp fingers between mine, stroking the backs of your hands, in the way you always loved. They were cold. But I knew you could feel me. I just sodding knew it, all right? Affronted, Wednesday had raised her sharp eyebrow. ‘Just…don’t yammer on like… Not in front of her.’
‘I see. You really think your… grandma , is it?’ Wednesday inflected the word with cruel mockery. ‘That she can still hear us? She’s lost to the world. I’m putting a brew on.’
Wednesday bustled down the stairs, sniffing loudly. I flinched, when I heard her banging the mugs about.
What the bloody hell did any of it matter ?
As soon as the lazy bitch had slurped her tea, her time would be up, and I could sign her timesheet. Then she’d bugger off for another night, leaving us alone together, like it’s always been - well, for you.
For me? There was my First Life, followed by a century of Blood Life with Ruby.
Yet when I think about it, it’s odd how alone I still was, until we…
I never knew it though. Or admitted it. We’re all practised liars to ourselves.
Funny thing, the lives we paint in pretty pictures, drawing ourselves a world to trick our minds, hearts and Souls that we’re part of something dead important. Even a great love.
Love - yeah, I was always one for that.
MAY 1964 BRIGHTON, ENGLAND
‘By heaven, look at these ruffianly roaring boys. This is it - your tonic - to get back into the fray. The blood and heat of it.’
I’d nicked a bright red Jaguar E-Type (beautiful little number), and we’d tonned it up to the coast for Whitsun Bank Holiday. Yet now we’d found ourselves caught in a war between two gangs.
A Mod in smart Italian suit and fish-tailed Parka sped past us on his Lambretta Li150, only to be blocked by a wall of hard men Rockers, in dirty motorcycle jackets, who were swinging heavy bike chains. The poor git was dragged away by his lapels, like a fancy sacrificial offering to the gods of leather.
‘What do they want?’
Ruby shrugged. ‘What do First Lifers ever want? Question is, what do we want?’
I hesitated, before grinning. ‘The Bedlam. To revel in the madness, like we used to. I want--’
That’s when Ruby kissed me. She hauled me close, as her tongue thrust deep, like she’d only just discovered me again after a long absence: I realised she only just had. When she drew back, we were both smiling. ‘To live in the world again?’
I nodded.
Screams? The shattering of glass? Curling smoke on the night air?
I was bloody alive once more .
Ruby and I swaggered through the shadowed streets, towards the promenade and Palace Pier - her in crimson silk, me in military Great Coat - two creatures from another world and time, unnoticed by these petty First Lifers because we weren’t painted in the colours of their tribe. We twirled each other round, dancing in the carnage and the flames.
Mods fleeing, with gashes on their foreheads, their coats flapping behind them. Couples sprawled under the stars, on a beach where the pebbles met the sea, as turned on by the violence and danger as any Blood Lifer, pretending to be oblivious to a ring of Mods, who were kicking a curled foetus of a Rocker bloody with their sharp winklepickers. Deckchairs smouldering in orange bonfires,
Lost to me, that was where.
I could feel Ruby slipping.
4
‘Looks worse today, doesn’t she?’ Wednesday was peering into your still face, her sour mouth pulled down at one side. ‘Another accident earlier. They get like that at this stage, although I know it’s part of the job. Oh yes, I’ve seen a lot of clients go downhill fast when they’re close to--’
‘Shut your bleeding mush, all right?’ I threw myself away from the wall and down onto my knees next to you, as you lay entombed under the white sheets, as if I could protect you from the likes of Wednesday and every poisonous word, which dripped from her venomous lips. I grasped your limp fingers between mine, stroking the backs of your hands, in the way you always loved. They were cold. But I knew you could feel me. I just sodding knew it, all right? Affronted, Wednesday had raised her sharp eyebrow. ‘Just…don’t yammer on like… Not in front of her.’
‘I see. You really think your… grandma , is it?’ Wednesday inflected the word with cruel mockery. ‘That she can still hear us? She’s lost to the world. I’m putting a brew on.’
Wednesday bustled down the stairs, sniffing loudly. I flinched, when I heard her banging the mugs about.
What the bloody hell did any of it matter ?
As soon as the lazy bitch had slurped her tea, her time would be up, and I could sign her timesheet. Then she’d bugger off for another night, leaving us alone together, like it’s always been - well, for you.
For me? There was my First Life, followed by a century of Blood Life with Ruby.
Yet when I think about it, it’s odd how alone I still was, until we…
I never knew it though. Or admitted it. We’re all practised liars to ourselves.
Funny thing, the lives we paint in pretty pictures, drawing ourselves a world to trick our minds, hearts and Souls that we’re part of something dead important. Even a great love.
Love - yeah, I was always one for that.
MAY 1964 BRIGHTON, ENGLAND
‘By heaven, look at these ruffianly roaring boys. This is it - your tonic - to get back into the fray. The blood and heat of it.’
I’d nicked a bright red Jaguar E-Type (beautiful little number), and we’d tonned it up to the coast for Whitsun Bank Holiday. Yet now we’d found ourselves caught in a war between two gangs.
A Mod in smart Italian suit and fish-tailed Parka sped past us on his Lambretta Li150, only to be blocked by a wall of hard men Rockers, in dirty motorcycle jackets, who were swinging heavy bike chains. The poor git was dragged away by his lapels, like a fancy sacrificial offering to the gods of leather.
‘What do they want?’
Ruby shrugged. ‘What do First Lifers ever want? Question is, what do we want?’
I hesitated, before grinning. ‘The Bedlam. To revel in the madness, like we used to. I want--’
That’s when Ruby kissed me. She hauled me close, as her tongue thrust deep, like she’d only just discovered me again after a long absence: I realised she only just had. When she drew back, we were both smiling. ‘To live in the world again?’
I nodded.
Screams? The shattering of glass? Curling smoke on the night air?
I was bloody alive once more .
Ruby and I swaggered through the shadowed streets, towards the promenade and Palace Pier - her in crimson silk, me in military Great Coat - two creatures from another world and time, unnoticed by these petty First Lifers because we weren’t painted in the colours of their tribe. We twirled each other round, dancing in the carnage and the flames.
Mods fleeing, with gashes on their foreheads, their coats flapping behind them. Couples sprawled under the stars, on a beach where the pebbles met the sea, as turned on by the violence and danger as any Blood Lifer, pretending to be oblivious to a ring of Mods, who were kicking a curled foetus of a Rocker bloody with their sharp winklepickers. Deckchairs smouldering in orange bonfires,
Similar Books
