Acid Bubbles (19 page)

“Tell me the end bit again, Lenny,” I said.

Lenny started to say…

Then I was on fire, the acid causing a burning sensation that consumed my entire body. Everywhere was burning, even my eyeballs. I could feel them crinkling up like big black raisins in my eye sockets. I could barely speak as the skin around my neck tightened crushing my windpipe. This was excruciating. I could even feel my genitals burning away. I managed to scream out in a blinding agony, “Stop this! For God's sake, stop this!'”

A gentle breeze, then a wind, then a gale, then the storm followed by the hurricane, or was it a tornado? The immense force would have blown me off the world if it had not been for someone holding me. My eyes were starting to clear from the burning acid, and I could see I was being held in place by the Irish wolfhound. His teeth gripped my leather belt, a very large stout belt around my waist. This belt was more like a weightlifter's belt, constructed with leather strong enough to stop me blowing away.

The wolfhound seemed to be anchored into the ground as if he was growing from it. So rock solid was the dog's stance it was miraculous.

With my clearing vision I could see the little pixie holding a tiny golden straw which was connected to the enormous rucksack by a tube no thicker than a piece of string. From the end of this tiny golden tube came this immense storm blowing away the agony of the big grey bubble. The violent wind removing the deep burning pain and the immense rucksack was getting smaller and smaller. By the time I felt no pain it was no bigger than any normal bag on a pixie's back. But what is a normal bag on a pixie's back?

I closed my eyes in relief, but could feel tugging at the large mysterious belt around my waist. When I opened my eyes I'd been transported into the open once again. I was sitting outside the pub with a drink in one hand and Jennifer pulling me playfully towards her to give me a kiss. Our lips touched with soft passion that turned into a long lingering kiss. This took away any final traces of pain, that only moments before had been so intense I wanted to die to be free of it.

Jennifer's kiss held intense desire, I wanted to be alive, and stay here with her.

“We'll cycle for the rest of the day if you like, and explore many things,” she said. And we did.

So there I was, only a few short hours into my awakening after two years of what? I was on my knees with my face buried in my girlfriend's mother's best Italian underwear with a very diaphanous possibility of any plausible explanation. No excuse could explain why I was softly resting my head on her mother's freshly laundered seductive lace. I was locked in a slow motion time vortex. Each second was an awful long wait for the explosion. I was using every infinite second to work on an excuse. “My cheque book, I dropped it the other day and your mother told me she'd put it somewhere safe.” I tried that one.

Vicky was standing aggressively with one foot thrust forward and her hands placed on her hips. Her unflinching gaze was taunting me to say something even more ridiculous. The second silence was longer than the first. Vicky was waiting, I think, with a secret delight for me to grab a large spade to dig my own grave. She stared at me with unblinking eyes, and tapped her foot with a doom laden continuous beat like the drums of an oncoming superior army.

“Are you trying to sniff it out?” she suggested. I was about to reply when she continued, “Have you got a thing about my mother? You're always having a laugh with her. If she wasn't my mother and so bloody old I'd think you were shagging her,” was her dagger-sharp comment. I don't think she knew how sharp the blade was.

I rose to my feet with the sort of hands out expression Frenchmen give you after they've run into the back of your car. The expression said “Who me?” My own body was trying to betray me. Yesterday morning's passionate sex lesson pushed its way into my head. I couldn't force it back. A blush bloomed across my face and this started an enormous one sided argument. Vicky didn't think I was having an affair with Samantha, but was jealous that I enjoyed her mother's company so much, worse still she was so terribly old and boring.

I'd had no real conversation with Vicky, none that I could remember anyway. I wasn't saying anything. Vicky was doing all the talking, or should I say shouting, building her rage until it became a rant solely about how weird I'd become since last week.

This was a bit of useful news. I was about to ask, when she lambasted me over Saturday night, not yesterday but the week before. It was evident we'd planned something special that I didn't attend. I'd postponed, going off to the nearby city for a night out with, as she described it, “that Nazi twin of yours”.

“What do you mean Nazi twin?” I asked.

“You told me! Have you forgotten everything? It's something Harry the Pocket told you about Nazis in the SS,” Vicky replied.

“Remind me?” I continued.

“You are really weird since last weekend. The Nazi thing is something to do with your teeth,” Vicky said, with growing irritation.

“Go on Vic's. Tell me,” I begged, pressing the point.

“You only call me Vic's when you're after something, and I'm telling you fuck all. You're nuts!”

“Oh, I see.”

“You've gone really weird!” she said, and immediately pushed the subject to where I didn't want it to go…“What are you doing? What are you really up to? Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera,” so she continued.

She shouted at me for possibly ten minutes, perhaps even longer, or the tirade was much shorter, terrible in its fury. I was concentrating on every word, trying to glean any information from her. Possible clues as to why I'm suffering amnesia, or what happened in the past to give me the amnesia. The John Smith thing was of interest. Had he poisoned me last weekend with some type of drug?

I've got to admit most things she was saying passed over my head. I was concentrating so hard on keywords that a lot of the stuff about us I ignored. The apparent lack of concern fuelled the fire of anger keeping her in an almost endless rant which finished with the words, “I really don't know why I bother with you? I loved you, you were great fun. Now you are a sad pillock. Mothers underwear drawer? You sad…bastard!”

Vicky finished with those words, I think. The truth is I can't remember, I was concentrating on the jigsaw puzzle of ideas she'd spat at me during her rampant judgements of my character. She was probably right about everything.

Vicky threw me out of the house, but she didn't take the keys off me. I wouldn't have let her. She was cold and icy as she drove me back to my flat in her rather battered 1966 Mini. At least she'd stopped screaming at me. I was wondering if I could placate her, but looking across at her rigid in the driver's seat gave me no desire to try and coerce affection from her.

I mentioned that she could ask her mother if she'd seen my cheque book somewhere, because I'd lost it. These were the only word spoken. She didn't ask me when I would be around again so perhaps she was going off me. I just wondered why I had been so attractive in the first place. Should I have asked? I knew the answer. I'd been shallow and she had a body I wanted to touch, and obviously a mother who I desired.

Back in my broken flat it looked like a bomb had exploded ripping the building apart. The signed prints of Mike and Jim remained on the floor torn apart by shotgun blasts, and the rest of the place totally wrecked by my frantic search. I had to do something. I'd either hidden all the money and drugs, or they'd been stolen from me and I was being fixed up to take the fall. In my panic I was thinking of the safe warmth in the old family home. This got me to thinking about visiting Jane and laying everything I knew out in plain terms, a third-party eye view might reveal something I'd missed.

The flat was so shattered a complete redecoration was necessary. It would have taken a week to tidy. Picking all the glass up and vacuuming from top to bottom would solve nothing. Then it struck me. I hadn't looked in the vacuum cleaner. Who would? I wasn't sure where I kept it but vaguely recalled seeing one somewhere in the kitchen during my search.

Sure enough it was in a cupboard covered in the debris from my previous frantic searching. Of course the only place you can hide anything in a vacuum cleaner is in the bag. Sure enough, in all the dusty filth of matted hair, fluff and God knows what, I found an envelope. The thick brown manila envelope contained a lot of money, a lot of money by 1973 standards. This gave me something to flash in front of the gang, some money to suggest I had more, or to run with! Not the ten thousand pounds, it was, however, one thousand pounds, wrapped with a seal announcing the bundle contained fifty £20 notes. The seal was handwritten, and not in my handwriting? So some money existed, but where was the rest?

I'd had a bit of luck, but I didn't want to carry the money and decided to push it up behind the back of the kitchen sink. In the narrow space the fat envelope would wedge nicely. Nobody would bother searching because the flat was already in tatters. I secreted the money after peeling off £40. The search continued.

I was convinced more money was concealed somewhere. Finally I gave up physically exhausted by the constant uninspired searching. I was like a blind man searching for one strand of brightly coloured hay in a barn. I was blinded by amnesia. I was leaving to see Jane but couldn't lock up, the flat was a shattered mess and with my chances of long-term survival did it matter? Habits die hard. I've always locked doors and the shattered door swinging loosely on its hinges begged to be secured. I was trying to figure out some way of securing the door when a voice from behind broke the silence.

“I wouldn't bother with that if I were you, I'll only kick in again. Might have a look round. Might even go to the toilet on your poxy sofa,” Dave said. At his comment the lovely Hartley Sparrow accompanied by the weasel burst out laughing. I was immensely relieved I'd hidden the thousand pounds, or to be more precise the £960. I didn't know what these two wanted but money was certainly one of their primary desires.

It looked as though Dave didn't have Millicent with him. They were making a rare social visit, though I did notice they both sported rather sturdy boots. The shotgun was less worrying than the boots which would make less noise as they used them on me. He could only kill me the once, but beating me to death with his brutal boots would take longer. I held onto the bleak hope that the sadistic Dave would prefer to shoot me in the stomach and watch me bleed to death burning in my own stomach acids. I'm sure he would‘ve enjoyed either method, like a stroll in the park with a tasty relish of extreme violence.

I wondered if I could walk past them, so I strode with no confidence down the hallway towards them. I expected them to bar my way. They both stood aside like gentlemen courtiers and ushered me through. I was wondering if they were going to trip me at the top of the stairs, cosh me on the back of the head, or like big children spit over the balustrade on to my hair. None of these things happened. I walked past them, down the stairs and outside. My Ford Cortina GT GLX2 litre had a big white arrow painted across the shattered windscreen. The aerosol painted arrow pointing down into the car with a word written above. All it said was “Look”.

The footpath didn't pass the car. I had to walk twenty yards out of my way to look inside it. There wasn't a dead dog on the seat, nor was there a dead cat, or even in Mafia parlance a horse's head. No, one of them, I suspected Smiggy, had shit all over the front seat. It was a huge solid mass, quite the most disgusting thing I'd seen since leaving the farm. It festered there on the seat, and the most appalling thing of all: no toilet paper! My one dominating thought wasn't the defilement of my car, but the dirty little sod hadn't used toilet paper. I wouldn't ever use the car again, or shake his hand!

They were driving a green and white Vauxhall VX 490, and they didn't offer me a lift. As I walked they followed me through the estate creeping along like kerb crawlers. I think they were delighted watching me get progressively wetter in the light drizzle. I did the alleyway trick again to lose them and it was easy. They were reluctant to leave the warmth of the car.

In the next street I had a bit of luck, something that would hasten my getaway. A battered minicab with a mismatching coloured front wing was coming my way. These things are not supposed to be hailed, I stuck my thumb out in hope, and it stopped. The woman driving it I think was young, but she looked old, with a thin face, cracked lips, and thin hair.

“I'm not supposed to pick people up. Give you a lift if you tip me well, she said.

I was back in handmade shoes, and didn't desire the walk. “Yes I'll tip you generously, I need the lift.”

Through my fog of disorientation I realised this was Sunday evening and I knew my sister would be avoiding the family circus around the table. I gambled that Jane would be with the other bikers. I was forced to revisit the oil and grease cafe, knowing she'd be hanging out there. The only bonus was some of the characters in there were tough, proper tough, though probably not as murderous as Dave and his metal girlfriend.

The really murderous prospect in all my troubles was the frightening John Smith who wanted his cut of the proceeds, his percentage. He was an unknown, the real danger. He could kill me somewhere quiet after taking all I had, and claim later to Harry that I'd done a runner. I didn't understand my relationship with John Smith and perhaps never will. I did feel safer in the aggressive atmosphere of the motorcyclists' café than as a passenger in John's car. Somehow I felt safer with my sister backing me. This, of course, was total illusion.

It was late into the evening as I arrived at the cafe. Only a handful of motorcycles were outside glimmering in the wetness, illuminated by the neon lights and reflected in the cafe windows. It was difficult to see individually what make the bikes were. I did see a Triumph Trident which was a new machine and quite rare. My spirits lifted, Jane was in the cafe.

As I entered the greasy place her boyfriend Steve rolled his eyes at me as if to say, “Here again, pest”! He did get up and go to the counter to get coffees for me and my sister. He then hung around the pinball machine looking hard and sexy. At least that's what Steve thought he looked! Smoking and talking bikes with the other guys while waiting for my dominant sister, she was the boss. I was going to tell her every single fact I knew in the hope she could put two and two together. The lacy contents of, and my discovery in the underwear drawer would remain forever private, Perhaps?

Jane's theory was my amnesia was drug induced. It was possible John Smith or Harry the pockets sidekicks had dosed me the other night in an effort to steal the money, leaving me to take the blame in my drugged ignorance. They would be away scot free with everything. Another disturbing scenario was suggested: did I know everybody involved? Other people unknown to me could be tracking me down at this moment for their cut. Could it get any better? Jane ran through the known facts for me one by one, even using a napkin to make notes. She started to use salt and pepper pots, and sauce bottles. It was beginning to look like a chess board, and I was beginning to look like the sacrificial first move, the pawn.

This game of chess had a bit more spice. When the winner called checkmate the loser wouldn't just have his king pushed over. (A bottle of HP sauce) No, the special loser would discover the joys and solitude of the countryside. This wasn't a traditional chess match played in Iceland by grandmasters. This match was being played out by grand bastards and the ice wasn't on the land but in their souls.

As we talked the Buck Rogers pinball machine was rattling away in the background. The ball being battered around mindlessly inside the machine, the final result it would fall down a black hole. The ball reminded me of the way I was rushing around, achieving nothing, bounced from one place to another. The ball was hard and made of steel, I wasn't.

I told Jane they were probably watching me right now, so could she give me a lift on the back of the bike. A terrifying thought! I was actually asking for this? Jane could take me to the town house, but first head in the direction of the farm to mislead my watchers into believing I was spending the night there, a place where I might be safe from their violent intrusions.