Dead Wrong

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‘Do ya know ’ow old I’d be if I was still alive?’ There was a hint of brightness in the old man’s eyes. ‘I’d be ’undred an’ three. Makes yer think dunnit?’

 

Lawrence was a middle aged sort of man who sat older. He was hunched into the torn, cigarette pierced corner of the bench in the Red Lion Hotel half listening to this old man talking nonsense. He slowly took one more sip of whisky and burped. An empty home was no place to rush to at Christmas and the hazy alcoholic atmosphere, even this revolting old man, allowed him some pretence that he’d got company. Although his tired suit and loose tie was long past its prime he looked distinctly sartorial next to this grey faced codger who had suddenly appeared out of the laughing crowds milling around the bar. He wore no jacket and a collection of holes held together by strands of cardigan revealed a filthy shirt with no collar. White matted hair hung like wet knots down to his shoulders.

 

Why had the old man picked this table? It was early evening and there were still empty chairs around. He hadn’t even asked if he minded.

 

‘It’s the cold weather y’know,’ he’d said as he gripped the edge of the table, coughed quietly onto his chest and made a tentative but successful attempt at sitting down. ‘Goes right through yer.’

 

Lawrence looked up from his whisky.

 

‘Come out like that, what d’ya’xpect,’ he managed to say and burped again.

 

‘This is all I got mate. No good coming high and mighty with me, with yer fancy clothes. You wouldn’t last a night. I’ve seen twenty eight winters, since me accident that is.’

 

He was cut off by another blast of silent coughing, his shoulders shaking and his head bowed. Lawrence took another swig of whisky and watched the old man’s shuddering body. He didn’t really care too much. Just kept wondering how he was going to spend the next few days alone while the rest of the world indulged itself. He took a cigarette out of the packet on the table and lit up.

 

‘Yeah. Twenty eight years,’ said the old man when he’d recovered his breath. ‘Road accident it was. Car came round the corner, just up the ’ill toward the station. Couple o’ young lads, laughing and cussing they were out o’ the windas. Didn’t even see me. Caught me legs, rolled me over and went right over me chest. Didn’t even stop. I saw ’em though. Never forgot the driver’s face. Didn’t even stop.’

 

 

The old man bent to the table to cough silently once more while Lawrence stared through the alcoholic haze. How many whiskies had he had? It was getting difficult to concentrate. He took a deep drag on his cigarette and allowed the smoke to waft between them.

 

‘Bet that put you in hospital,’ he said disinterestedly.

 

The old man met his eyes and stared back. ‘Nah. The morgue. Killed outright I was.’

 

Was he supposed to smile? He tried to sober up. Alcohol never made him smile. It just depressed him.

 

‘Well you don’t look too bad for a corpse.’

 

He thought he’d humour the old man for a bit but when he started to explain how old he would have been that was different. It started to look like facts and even with a belly full of liquor that felt very uncomfortable.

 

‘Being dead’s really boring,’ continued the old man. ‘But then life was anyway. I got to keep the cough I ‘ad so all I do is ‘ide me crushed chest and nobody notices. When I said the cold goes right through yer, I meant it. But I can rest for ever after tonight.’

‘Why’s that then?’

‘I’ll ’ave finished me job.’

‘Job? What job?’

‘Getting the buggers who killed me. I’m allowed up for a while each year to search.’

 

Lawrence could feel real discomfort now. The conversation was getting out of hand and he began to think of excuses to walk out of the pub without offending the old man too much. Though he was just a nutter, the thought of millions of dead taking an anniversary walk amongst the living made him shudder.

 

‘If yer die right yer rest in peace. If yer die wrong yer can’t rest till it’s sorted. We help each other out.’

‘Well I’m off home now,’ said Lawrence and rapidly downed the rest of his drink.

‘It took me years to track down the first of ‘em,’ continued the old man. ‘He’d been living in Java or sommat like that. Put me off the scent. Came back to see his mate who worked in the ’igh street.’

 

The old man looked into the distance and smiled for a while then turned to stare at him with time weary eyes.

 

‘E never got there.’

 

Lawrence froze in his seat. Twenty eight years ago. They’d been on the razzle the Christmas before their finals. Tom had been driving and he’d been in the passenger seat beside him, head hanging out of the window throwing up. He saw the old tramp step off the kerb but he was too far gone to shout a warning. Right under the wheels. The sickening crunch. Poor old Tom. Never got over it. Lost his licence, got a modest degree and took off for some God forsaken corner of the Far East. But that meant.... God this bloody drink. He couldn’t think straight. The old man couldn’t possibly know this.

 

‘’E fell dahn a trench,’ the old man said. ‘They were laying phone cables but ’e didn’t see it. Broke his neck. Nobody could explain how the barriers and lights were missing. Local press made a big thing of it. Tom Norton was ’is name. Remember it?’

 

Yes, he remembered. Tom had come back on leave and had phoned him at the office but they never got to meet. The police had contacted him through the phone number they found on his body. The one friend he’d managed to retain in decades and he’d lost him. It had been an appalling Christmas. This one was turning out as bad.

 

‘Yes, I think I do. Rings a bell.’

 

The old man stared hard and leaned towards him. ‘Come on now my ol’ mate,’ he whispered, ‘you can do better than that. You remember it very well. You were the chum he was supposed to meet. Lawrence Wright ’aint it?’

 

He grinned at Lawrence and started to chuckle. ‘No need to worry. You’ll meet him again very soon.’

 

The old man’s shoulders began to tremble with mirth as the chuckle turned into a cough that bowed his head to the table. He raised himself up again.

 

‘’Course, I’ve known about you for a long time, but I had to wait until your mate came back to see you. You were the bait, see?’

 

Lawrence stared at the old man.

 

‘So you keep newspaper clippings. Who are you, a friend of the guy who got killed?’

 

The old man ignored the question. ‘You two ‘ave ‘ad a pretty miserable time since the crash ’aven’t ya? You can’t go around drivin’ over people without yer comeuppance.’

 

‘Well it’s a good story, I’ll give you that.’ Lawrence looked at his watch. ‘Gotta be off home now.’

 

He stumbled to the men’s room and leant against the porcelain. As he relieved himself he could feel the sweat on his hands and neck, the deep, fast beats of his heart and his rapid breathing. Perhaps this was just a nightmare. May be it wasn’t. The old buffoon could have picked up nearly all the detail from newspapers. Explanations came and went without conviction. He thought of Dicken’s Ghost of Christmas Past. Perhaps he’d been too mean. You can’t keep friends easily if you’re mean. Maybe if he stayed drunk he could conjure up one for the future. No, he didn’t want to know the future.

 

He didn’t want ‘now’ either. The last thing he wanted at that moment was to walk back into the saloon but other men were eyeing him suspiciously and he couldn’t hang around a urinal for ever. He opened the door gingerly, determined to head straight for the street no matter how tortuous the journey. The saloon was very busy now, hazy with smoke. His seat in the corner had been taken by a couple of youths. No old man.

 

He breathed heavily with relief. A nightmare after all. He stood at the bar and downed another double in celebration. Damned hallucinations. He was really going to give up alcohol. Maybe tomorrow.

 

Home would still be cold and grey but it seemed more welcoming now. He stepped into the frosted night and looked around. A swirl of fog gave headlights a subdued subtlety, still clearly visible but with little penetration.

 

‘Lawrence!’

 

A man called from the other side of the street. Lawrence turned. Amongst the kaleidoscope of brightness and gloom as cars passed between them, he could make out a shape he recognised. The hair was receding but he knew it was Tom. Reality and fantasy started to get mixed up in his head. He must have been dreaming but which bit was real? Tom’s accident never happened. He’d just arrived back today. He didn’t phone last year. It was this afternoon. It all made sense.

 

‘Tom!’ he shouted and started to cross the road.

 

The blast of a car horn pierced his ears. He jumped back onto the pavement. His head was clearing now. If the old man was telling the truth, he had to be careful. But that would also mean it couldn’t be Tom. Could be just his imagination or even one of the old man’s mates. He said they helped each other. If there was going to be any risk he wasn’t going to be the one to take it.

 

‘Over here, Tom,’ he shouted.

 

The shadow moved toward him, staring straight ahead and oblivious of its surroundings. This time the car had no chance. With a screech of tyres it swerved away and toward the pub. Lawrence ran back to the wall. The open cellar yawned behind him. His unsteady legs gave way at the edge of the chasm and he fell back onto the concrete floor below, blood gushing from his head as he lay motionless among the barrels.

 

The driver got out of the car. ‘Someone walked straight out in front of me,’ he said to anyone within earshot. ‘I tried to avoid him. Stupid bloody idiot.’

 

The landlord had fought his way out of the saloon through the stunned crowd and stared at the open cellar. ‘It was locked,’ he said. ‘I know it was. I checked it myself this afternoon.’

 

Lawrence heard none of it. Neither did he see the white haired old tramp who shuffled along the pavement through the crowd, paused and looked into the blackness of the cellar for a few moments.

 

‘You should have stopped,’ he mumbled and shuffled on. ‘And it’s no use thinking you can play the same trick on me,’ he called as he disappeared into the night.