Suspended In Dusk (21 page)

It doesn’t feel like his bedroom. He has always been able to distinguish the familiar surroundings when any of his fears jerked him awake. He could think that someone—his daughter Simone or son Daniel, most likely—has denied him light to pay him back for having spent too much of their legacy on the private room. However much he widens his eyes, they remain coated with blackness. He parts his dry lips to call someone to open the curtains, and then his tongue retreats behind his teeth. He should deal with the bedclothes first. Nobody ought to see him laid out as if he’s awaiting examination. In the throes of the nightmare he has pulled the entire quilt under him.

He grasps a handful and plants his other hand against the padded headboard to lift his body while he snatches the quilt from beneath him. That’s the plan, but he’s unable to take hold of the material. It’s more slippery than it ought to be, and doesn’t budge. Did his last bout of rage leave him so enfeebled, or is his weight pinning down the quilt? He stretches out his arms to find the edges, and his knuckles bump into cushions on both sides of him. But they aren’t cushions, they’re walls.

He’s in some kind of outsize cot. The walls must be cutting off the light. Presumably the idea is to prevent him from rolling out of bed. He’s furious at being treated like this, especially when he wasn’t consulted. He flings up his hands to grab the tops of the walls and heave himself up to shout for whoever’s in the house, and his fingertips collide with a padded surface.

The sides of the cot must bend inwards at the top, that’s all. His trembling hands have flinched and bruised his sunken cheeks, but he lifts them. His elbows are still pressed against the bottom of the container when his hands blunder against an obstruction above his face. It’s plump and slippery, and scrabbling at it only loosens his nails from the quick. His knees rear up, knocking together before they bump into the obstacle, and then his feet deal it a few shaky kicks. Far too soon his fury is exhausted, and he lies inert as though the blackness is earth that’s weighing on him. It isn’t far removed. His family cared about him even less than he suspected. They’ve consigned him to his last and worst fear.

Can’t this be another nightmare? How can it make sense? However prematurely eager Simone’s husband may have been to sign the death certificate, Daniel would have had to be less than professional too. Could he have saved on the embalming and had the funeral at once? At least he has dressed his father in a suit, but the pockets feel empty as death.

Coe can’t be sure until he tries them all. His quivering fists are clenched next to his face, but he forces them open and gropes over his ribs. His inside breast pocket is flat as a card, and so are the others in the jacket. When he fumbles at his trousers pockets he’s dismayed to find how thin he is—so scrawny that he’s afraid the protrusion on his right hip is a broken bone. But it’s in the pocket, and in his haste to carry it to his face he almost shies it out of reach. Somebody cared after all. He pokes at the keypad, and before his heart has time to beat, the mobile phone lights up.

He could almost wish the glow it sheds were dimmer. It shows him how closely he’s boxed in by the quilted surface. It’s less than a hand’s breadth from his shoulders, and when he tilts his face up to judge the extent of his prison the pudgy lid bumps his forehead. Around the phone the silky padding glimmers green, while farther down the box it’s whitish like another species of mould, and beyond his feet it’s black as soil. He lets his head sink onto the pillow that’s the entire floor and does his desperate best to be aware of nothing but the mobile. It’s his lifeline, and he needn’t panic because he can’t remember a single number. The phone will remember for him.

His knuckles dig into the underside of the lid as he holds the mobile away from his face. It’s still too close; the digits merge into a watery blur. He only has to locate the key for the stored numbers, and he jabs it hard enough to bruise his fingertip. The symbol that appears in the illuminated window looks shapeless as a blob of mud, but he knows it represents an address book. He pokes the topmost left-hand key of the numeric pad, although he has begun to regret making Daniel number one, and holds the mobile against his ear.

There’s silence except for a hiss of static that sounds too much like a trickle of earth. Though his prison seems oppressively hot, he shivers at the possibility that he may be too far underground for the phone to work. He wriggles onto his side to bring the mobile a few inches closer to the surface, but before his shoulder is anything like vertical it thumps the lid. As he strives to maintain his position, the distant phone starts to ring.

It continues when he risks sinking back, but that’s all. He’s close to pleading, although he doesn’t know with whom, by the time the shrill insistent pulse is interrupted. The voice isn’t Daniel’s. It’s entirely anonymous, and informs Coe that the person he’s calling isn’t available. It confirms Daniel’s number in a different voice that sounds less than human, an assemblage of digits pronounced by a computer, and invites him to leave a message.

“It’s your father. That’s right, I’m alive. You’ve buried me alive. Are you there? Can you hear me? Answer the phone, you… Just answer. Tell me that you’re coming. Ring when you get this. Come and let me out. Come now.”

Was it his breath that made the glow flicker? He’s desperately tempted to keep talking until this chivvies out a response, but he mustn’t waste the battery. He ends the call and thumbs the key next to Daniel’s. It’s supposed to contact Simone, but it triggers the same recorded voice.

He could almost imagine that it’s a cruel joke, even when the voice composed of fragments reads out her number. At first he doesn’t speak when the message concludes with a beep, and then he’s afraid of losing the connection. “It’s me,” he babbles. “Yes, your father. Someone was a bit too happy to see me off. Aren’t you there either, or are you scared to speak up? Are you all out celebrating? Don’t let me spoil the party. Just send someone who can dig me up.”

He’s growing hysterical. These aren’t the sorts of comments he should leave; he can’t afford to antagonise his family just now. His unwieldy fingers have already terminated the call—surely the mobile hasn’t lost contact by itself. Should he ring his son and daughter back? Alternatively there are friends he could phone, if he can remember their numbers—and then he realises there’s only one call he should make. Why did he spend so long in trying to reach his family? He uses a finger to count down the blurred keypad and jabs the ninth key thrice.

He has scarcely lowered the phone to his ear when an operator cuts off the bell. “Emergency,” she declares.

Coe can be as fast as that. “Police,” he says while she’s enquiring which service he requires, but she carries on with her script. “Police,” he says louder and harsher.

This earns him a silence that feels stuffed with padding. She can’t expect callers who are in danger to be polite, but he’s anxious to apologise in case she can hear. Before he can take a breath a male voice says “Gloucestershire Constabulary.”

“Can you help me? You may have trouble believing this, but I’m buried alive.”

He sounds altogether too contrite. He nearly emits a wild laugh at the idea of seeking the appropriate tone for the situation, but the policeman is asking “What is your name, sir?”

“Alan Coe,” says Coe and is pinioned by realising that it must be carved on a stone at least six feet above him.

“And where are you calling from?”

The question seems to emphasise the sickly greenish glimmer of the fattened walls and lid. Does the policeman want the mobile number? That’s the answer Coe gives him. “And what is your location, sir?” the voice crackles in his ear.

Coe has the sudden ghastly notion that his children haven’t simply rushed the funeral—that for reasons he’s afraid to contemplate, they’ve laid him to rest somewhere other than with his wife. Surely some of the family would have opposed them. “Mercy Hill,” he has to believe.

“I didn’t catch that, sir.”

Is the mobile running out of power? “Mercy Hill,” he shouts so loud that the dim glow appears to quiver.

“Whereabouts on Mercy Hill?”

Every question renders his surroundings more substantial, and the replies he has to give are worse. “Down in front of the church,” he’s barely able to acknowledge. “Eighth row, no, ninth, I think. Left of the avenue.”

There’s no audible response. The policeman must be typing the details, unless he’s writing them down. “How long will you be?” Coe is more than concerned to learn. “I don’t know how much air I’ve got. Not much.”

“You’re telling us you’re buried alive in a graveyard.”

Has the policeman raised his voice because the connection is weak? “That’s what I said,” Coe says as loud.

“I suggest you get off the phone now, sir.”

“You haven’t told me how soon you can be here.”

“You’d better hope we haven’t time to be. We’ve had enough Halloween pranks for one year.”

Coe feels faint and breathless, which is dismayingly like suffocation, but he manages to articulate “You think I’m playing a joke.”

“I’d use another word for it. I advise you to give it up immediately, and that voice you’re putting on as well.”

“I’m putting nothing on. Can’t you hear I’m deadly serious? You’re using up my air, you––Just do your job or let me speak to your superior.”

“I warn you, sir, we can trace this call.”

“Do so. Come and get me,” Coe almost screams, but his voice grows flat. He’s haranguing nobody except himself.

Has the connection failed, or did the policeman cut him off? Did he say enough to make them trace him? Perhaps he should switch off the mobile to conserve the battery, but he has no idea whether this would leave the phone impossible to trace. The thought of waiting in the dark without knowing whether help is on the way brings the walls and lid closer to rob him of breath. As he holds the phone at a cramped arm’s length to poke the redial button, he sees the greenish light appear to tug the swollen ceiling down. When he snatches the mobile back to his ear the action seems to draw the lid closer still.

An operator responds at once. “Police,” he begs as she finishes her first word. “Police.”

Has she recognised him? The silence isn’t telling. It emits a burst of static so fragmented that he’s afraid the connection is breaking up, and then a voice says “Gloucestershire Constabulary.”

For a distracted moment he thinks she’s the operator. Surely a policewoman will be more sympathetic than her colleague. “It’s Alan Coe again,” Coe says with all the authority he can summon up. “I promise you this is no joke. They’ve buried me because they must have thought I’d passed on. I’ve already called you once but I wasn’t informed what’s happening. May I assume somebody is on their way?”

How much air has all that taken? He’s holding his breath as if this may compensate, although it makes the walls and lid appear to bulge towards him, when the policewoman says in the distance “He’s back. I see what you meant about the voice.”

“What’s wrong with it?” Coe says through his bared teeth, then tries a shout, which sounds flattened by padding. “What’s the matter with my voice?”

“He wants to know what’s wrong with his voice.”

“So you heard me the first time.” Perhaps he shouldn’t address her as if she’s a child, but he’s unable to moderate his tone. “What are you saying about my voice?”

“I don’t know how old you’re trying to sound, but nobody’s that old and still alive.”

“I’m old enough to be your father, so do as you’re told.” She either doesn’t hear this or ignores it, but he ensures she hears “I’m old enough for them to pass me off as dead.”

“And bury you.”

“That’s what I’ve already told you and your colleague.”

“In a grave.”

“On Mercy Hill below the church. Halfway along the ninth row down, to the left of the avenue.”

He can almost see the trench and his own hand dropping a fistful of earth into the depths that harboured his wife’s coffin. All at once he’s intensely aware that it must be under him. He might have wanted to be reunited with her at the end––at least, with her as she was before she stopped recognising him and grew unrecognisable, little more than a skeleton with an infant’s mind––but not like this. He remembers the spadefuls of earth piling up on her coffin and realises that now they’re on top of him. “And you’re expecting us to have it dug up,” the policewoman says.

“Can’t you do it yourselves?” Since this is hardly the best time to criticise their methods, he adds “Have you got someone?”

“How long do you plan to carry on with this? Do you honestly think you’re taking us in?”

“I’m not trying to. For the love of God, it’s the truth.” Coe’s free hand claws at the wall as if this may communicate his plight somehow, and his fingers wince as though they’ve scratched a blackboard. “Why won’t you believe me?” he pleads.

“You really expect us to believe a phone would work down there.”

“Yes, because it is.”

“I an’t hea ou.”

The connection is faltering. He nearly accuses her of having wished this on him. “I said it is,” he cries.

“Very unny.” Yet more distantly she says “Now he’s aking it ound a if it’s aking up.”

Is the light growing unreliable too? For a blink the darkness seems to surge at him––just darkness, not soil spilling into his prison. Or has his consciousness begun to gutter for lack of air? “It is,” he gasps. “Tell me they’re coming to find me.”