PREY

 

The four of them shared a house in one of the newer estates that had sprung up on the edge of the city during the boom. A three-bedroom semi with all mod cons, the online ad had said. Kate Berry and Tom Finn, a couple of two years standing, along with Ruby Mee and Breffni Ashton, singletons who—though not averse to one another’s charms—were content to keep things platonic. Simply put: the randomness of a lettings website was what brought these four together.

On the surface at least the living arrangements were working reasonably well. Everybody got along okay even if the others found Breffni’s behaviour a tad odd. Notwithstanding this fact, the cooking, cleaning, shopping and watching of TV in the evening, all ran to a smooth order.

However, the awkward matter remained: none of the other three knew the full extent of Breffni’s drug problem.

Although he masked it superbly, he was a man in the throes of a chronic cocaine addiction. Colombian marching powder, Florida snow, prime time—the slang terms for the pernicious white powder were endless, and its phenomenal power controlled Breffni’s every move. Its potency, meantime, was slowly killing him. 

To his housemates, though, he was just the jobless, talkative guy—slightly wired in truth—who kept their spirits up with his seeming endless zest for life.

He had told them that he was between jobs—let go recently from his position of petrol pump attendant—and very much on the lookout for new work. At night, in the cosy living room, he made a great show of scanning recruitment websites in full view of Ruby, Kate and Tom while the television—their main source of entertainment—flickered steadily in the corner.

Breffni also invented tall tales of interviews he’d attended—tales to which the rest of them listened with growing scepticism. This time round, he said, he would seek a job more suited to his qualifications and talents. He claimed to have a degree in English—a fabrication on his part—and expressed a wish to work in the education sector, preferably as a lecturer. As he spoke thus, the others could do nothing but roll their eyes to heaven. He’d only taken the pump job, he elaborated, in order to have more time to write, for he harboured ambitions to be an author; for some reason, though, he never seemed to get started in that department.

It was probably the fact of his ever-buoyant mood that caused his fellow tenants to think of him as such a good egg. Of course, this buoyancy was purely down to the drug that he consumed with such neediness on a daily basis.

How does an unemployed former petrol pump attendant finance a rampant coke habit? At minimum he needed a hundred goldmarks a day to feed this monster, and his weekly welfare payment certainly didn’t cover such an outlay.

Well, like so many others, he had been lucky in the good times to’ve been given a generous credit card by a stupid bank. Now, since Götterdämmerung, said card was, unfortunately for Breffni, maxed out to its three grand limit.

Working at the petrol station, it had been easy to keep up the payments—to balance his own books so to speak; however, because of a shambolic approach to his work, he had lost the forecourt job and then simply lost all control of his money. In a short space of time, he went from being a functioning addict—someone who could maintain a façade of normalcy in the maelstrom of daily life—to a man spiralling out of control.

His dealer was a psychopathic scuzzbucket by the name of Kimo Bellamy whom Breffni was now in hock to to the tune of two thousand goldmarks—overdue! Bellamy’s signature calling card was a dead animal, usually mutilated, at the home of those whom he chased for debts. Invariably, this chilling delivery was a precursor to something infinitely worse for the individual involved.

As a teenager Kimo had made the newspapers in a notorious case of facial mutilation. An addict had failed to pay a small debt to the then 18-year-old Bellamy and had had his nostrils sliced open as recompense.

“You’ll snort no more free coke o’ mine, ya junkie fuck!” Kimo was reported to have said, as he wielded his switchblade with sadistic skill.

For this, his first offence, Bellamy was sent down for two years. Finding chokey challenging to put it mildly, he’d never been sent down since—employing his considerable reserves of low cunning to remain on the correct side of prison’s walls.

Speaking of low cunning, Breffni’s inner addict took immense pleasure from the lies and deception he engaged in in the house. The character he’d created—that affable guy, just tryin’ to get by—was simply another way of escaping the self he loathed for so long and with such intensity.

However, the house of cards was starting to collapse.

Those with whom he houseshared were beginning to see through Breffni. It was becoming clear that here was a man grappling with some form of addiction. Nevertheless, as long as it didn’t affect them in any seismic way, they were generally too tired to care. Tom worried slightly about the “no drugs” clause in the lease that they had signed, but remained confident that things wouldn’t get as far as a confrontation with the landlord—Breffni seemed discreet enough and not the type to land them in the soup. Let him on with his artifice, was the general attitude of the housemates—it was amusing if nothing else!

Everyone in the house apart from Breffni had such a tiring job after all. Kate, for her sins, worked in a gift shop in one of the tourist traps in town. Her beau, Tom, bravely manned the phones of a call centre selling insurance the livelong day. Ruby, an angel if ever there was one, earned a crust minding children in a crèche from 8 to 6 daily—exhausting work that left her flopped in front of the telly, zombie-like, each night.

It was April now and the evenings had lengthened, giving abundant light for people to play around with. For some folk, there was every reason to be happy and hopeful about the future. For Breffni Ashton, there was just the burden of his habit and a growing terror of Kimo Bellamy.

The deadline for payment of the two grand had well and truly passed and in the last few days the dreaded dealer had upped the ante in pursuit of the money he was owed. He was phoning and texting Breffni almost hourly making increasingly menacing threats against the unfortunate addict. Breffni’s many attempts to stave off payment till “next week” were met with deep rage by Kimo. The upshot of it all seemed to be that some serious harm was heading Ashton’s way—and soon!

A traumatised Breffni fully expected Bellamy to appear at the house at any moment with an array of weaponry and some goons bent on inflicting savage violence. To steady himself Breffni had hit another dealer that morning for four grams on credit and the lines he was doing from these were the only things preventing him from falling asunder. He knew that when that supply of coke ran out and his credit lines were exhausted, his life would enter a new and particularly execrable circle of hell.

A plan to cut and run—some means of flight—was beginning to form in his harried brain. Two escape routes nudged at the edge of his mind: Narcotics Anonymous and a ferry to a new land. However, to his deep sense of consternation, he realised that any escape to a new land would need a goodly amount of something of which he had very little: money.

Still, life continued.

Dinner was over and Kate appeared in the living room with four tennis rackets and some balls

“I found these under the stairs,” she said, holding up the sports gear. “The last tenants must have left them behind. Let’s go to the park? I fancy a game. We spend far too much time in front of that bloody eye,” and she nodded contemptuously towards the television.

Tom didn’t object and Breffni, not surprisingly, was eager for a game. What better way to suppress one’s worries than to frolic in the sunshine and pretend all was well? At home, his sense of claustrophobia and impending doom was weighing so heavily on his mind that he welcomed the chance to get outside; a trip into the air would help him to think. He could straighten out his thoughts and perhaps even come up with a plan to deal with Bellamy.

He flew upstairs to throw on a tracksuit and some trainers—as well as chopping out three fat lines for some extra pep in his step. As the drug kicked in and his mind flooded with euphoria, he remembered with a smile his days of tennis playing as a teenager. This was going to be fun, he thought, happy with the release of tension brought on by the white powder and the prospect of some tennis outdoors.

Oddly enough—it must have been the extra light that perked her up—even the drained Ruby was open to the notion of some exercise and soon the four friends—now in rudimentary sports attire—set off for the nearby tennis courts.

The courts were a great local amenity, paid for and managed by the city council and popular on spring nights such as this. 

Some light-hearted banter began along the way. Breffni, as usual, was hiding his difficulties with aplomb. To look at him, no one would imagine that here was a man with the wheels coming off the ramshackle truck that was his life.

He regaled the others with tales of his tennis playing as a youngster and joked that his opponents this evening could expect a sound thrashing. It was typical Breffni bravado and the housemates simply acted as they always did when he carried on like this: laughed and threw their eyes skyward.

They reached the courts and, although many citizens had already gathered, they managed to find a free one. It was decided—principally by Breffni—to play mixed doubles. Ruby and he paired up against (ever the couple!) Kate and Tom.

Breffni stood on the court and began a quick recap of the rules of tennis. Although it had been many years since he’d last played, he found the whole thing coming back to him with ease. Tom, too, who loved all forms of sport, was well up on the regulations and concurred with Breffni’s synopsis. The girls just listened, willing participants in the plans of the menfolk. It was decided to play just one set of seven games; the feeling being that that was all that time and stamina would allow for.

Everybody took up their positions and the fun commenced. Ruby served first and some gentle back and forth ensued—nothing too strenuous as everyone was rather rusty in the field of athletics.

Happily for Breffni, old skills from his teenage years kicked in quite quickly. The fresh air and the play—not to mention the surfeit of coke he’d snorted a little earlier—all helped him to forget the troubles besieging him so strongly back at home. If only this were my life, he wished, healthy pursuits in pleasant company with no rabid fiends snapping at my heels. He looked towards Ruby, his doubles partner: prancing, pretty and swift. In a perfect world, he thought, she’d be my lover and I could discard the powdery poison I so depend upon each hour.

Ruby, too, was taking a keener than ever interest in her tennis partner, Mr. Ashton. The pair of them made a great team and won the first game with no difficulty. Watching him sprint and lunge about the court, scooping up balls and smashing serves, she was flooded with a feeling of good old-fashioned lust for him. His handsomeness seemed more to the fore than ever and she started to seriously consider him as a potential boyfriend. Whatever about this doubles lark, she thought, I certainly wouldn’t mind some tonsil tennis—and the rest!—with him later in the evening. She decided she’d try to instigate something around bedtime and determined to make her move at a propitious moment.

Breffni’s enthusiasm could be infectious at times—he had an ability to inspire all around him with his energy—and now was one such occasion. Everyone’s spirits seemed to lift by dint of this simple tennis match, and for Breffni in particular the problem of Kimo Bellamy drifted for a spell to the back of his mind.

What was it about him? Ruby wondered. He was always so upbeat and seemed to have an untrammelled optimism about life and how it should be lived. Could he be taking something? Kate and Tom had hinted as much the other night. Breffni had gone up to the bathroom. He was forever dashing to the loo—a weak bladder he claimed—on telly nights. He would come back down to the room and practically bounce into his chair again. Tom was convinced that there was more to it than a constant need to pee.

“He’s definitely on something,” he said. “Just look at him. I mean really look at him. His eyes are like saucers and all that babbling that he comes out with!”

Once back in his chair, Breffni would start a rapid-fire commentary on whatever programme happened to be on the box at that moment—no matter how inconsequential its nature. He once expounded for an entire ten minutes—until Kate begged him to shut up—on the relative merits and demerits of the weather forecast. On another occasion he spoke ad nauseum—till the others left the room in fact—re the aesthetic value of a bread advertisement.

Looking at him now, grunting gaily in the sunlight, Ruby felt an intense urge to mother him and to help him through any drug problem he might have.

The set continued—they had reached game four—but their initial enthusiasm for playing was flagging fast. Ruby and Breffni had won the first three games and Tom and Kate were unwilling to take any more punishment.

Breffni, too, had sort of lost interest. A far more pressing problem plagued him than performing well at tennis: an awful comedown feeling had started to show itself on the horizon of his mind. This sense of psychological hellishness would have to be alleviated sooner rather than later with more lines back at the house. He knew that that stash was rapidly dwindling and that the problem of Bellamy—the nutter!—had not gone away. The brief respite that the tennis had brought him from his troubles was coming to an end. He thought of Narcotics Anonymous again. He had checked them out on the web the other night as a possible solution to his woes. In a moment of clarity, he saw how the drug was slowly killing him and longed to cut the chains of his habit. Their programme seemed simple enough—Keep It Simple was actually one of their slogans—but he could hardly tell Bellamy to give him a few weeks to pay while he went to NA.

No, the sad realisation struck him that if he wished to keep his life, he would have to flee. Maybe in another country—safely settled—he would start to attend the fellowship?

Breffni at this point signalled to the others that he’d had enough by throwing his racket to the ground and crossing his arms before bending over to catch his breath.

Everyone else was happy to finish now as well. Ruby and Breffni were the clear winners overall and would have won the fourth game, too, had it not stopped prematurely.

All now stood on the tramlines wiping the sweat from their brows. Each agreed that the trip to the park had been a success and remarked that it was something that they must do more often. The general feeling was that the endorphins were flowing more freely following the exercise, and that the endeavour had been perfectly healthy and stimulating—here, Breffni averted his eyes as the horror of his own comedown began to make its presence felt. He craved cocaine more than ever and was delighted when the little party of amateur sports people began to wend its way back towards their rented house. First things first, when he got home he would treat his nose to a nice chunk of candy. On that front, he reckoned he had about a day’s supply left. He needed desperately to cobble some money together and to get out of town; he was under no illusion about the threat to his life. Even as they sauntered, texts and missed calls were clogging up his phone—which he had kept on silent for the duration of the jaunt. He knew that by ignoring Bellamy like this he was further incensing the sociopath. The guy wouldn’t think twice about killing him, of that Breffni was sure. Getting some money is the key, he decided, and then hopefully I can make my way abroad.

But where in the name of God was he going to find some money? This desperate question tormented him, although, as ever, he kept his desperation concealed from his companions.

Ruby was still warming to Breffni and, if anything, the favourable light in which she saw him was increasing in radiance as the evening wore on. Breffni couldn’t help but notice this dewy-eyed attention that she was throwing his way. He reciprocated with some gentle smiles but in reality his mind was far too preoccupied to think seriously about romance.

He had always considered Ruby attractive—the night he moved into the house she’d caught his eye straightaway—but he’d never made any advances towards her as he knew all too well how a relationship would interfere with the great love of his life: the gutter glitter. However, looking at her beauty in the dusk now he had a glimpse of how life could be—and an immense sadness washed over him. For it was not for Breffni Ashton to experience the things that would bring him peace: the love of a beautiful girl and a clean lifestyle. Instead, he was mere quarry: hunted, abject and more fearful than ever; exhausted from the chase and longing to change. He was at the end of his rope feeling utterly unable to go on as he was. But he knew also that it would require a herculean effort on his part to kick his habit—and he was far from certain that he had it within him to make such an effort.

On the subject of desire, the cocaine in fact had left his libido rather stymied—not to mention playing havoc with his emotional health. When high, he would often find himself aroused—surfing page upon page of reprehensible websites—but he remained singularly incapable of, ahem, following through. He couldn’t tell you the last time he had ejaculated; it was just another harsh penalty he paid for being such an addict.

The awful comedown feeling was intensifying and he needed to get to his supply pronto. So, no, he would not be falling in love with Ruby and settling down with her. Rather, he would be grasping round for a fix before plotting a course away from the troubles smothering his soul. He knew that, when it came to men, Ruby could do far better than the likes of him.

But what course could he plot to escape Bellamy’s retribution? If he didn’t act soon he would surely be tortured and killed. He made a vow to himself, there and then, that if he escaped this dreadful situation he would renounce drugs for good and ever and get clean. He longed for a new life of love and health on a better shore. He could see it tantalisingly in his mind’s eye. He would seek out NA and comply with whatever strictures they laid down. He never wanted to read another text message that talked about putting a bullet in his head. He longed to experience how it felt to wake in the morning and not to crave cocaine.

With the dusk turning rapidly to night they neared the house. They were all tired now, their movements slow, their conversation diminished. Breffni started to wonder if he could rob his housemates to solve his problems and felt a stab of shame at how low his addiction had brought him—though the stab of shame quickly passed; Tom often mentioned his distrust of banks. There could well be a pretty penny hidden somewhere in his and Kate’s room. Breffni just needed enough to get a place to live in the new country. Once he had got on his feet—clean and sober—he would even repay them, or so he told himself anyway.

Before long their walking was done and, under a rising moon, they reached home. The band of four tired tenants walked up the garden path before pausing in horror upon reaching the porch: Bellamy had left his calling card.

Lying on the doormat was a stomach-churning spectacle of gore. Immediately, the girls started screaming as Tom stared, his mouth agape, too shocked to speak. Breffni hovered, merely feigning shock, for he knew full well ‘twas the handiwork of his nemesis. And what a piteous sight it was, too: apparently, a puppy—possibly a labrador—whose body had been split in half (perhaps with an axe) and now lay splayed on the porch floor; not for the squeamish; the poor, poor creature.

The girls jumped over the cleaved carcass and fled to the living room, where they huddled together in teary trauma.

“Jesus Christ! What the fuck?” said Tom looking at Breffni inquiringly.

Tom was more convinced than ever of Ashton’s drug taking and felt sure that the loquacious layabout had some hand, act or part in this grotesque on the doorstep.

“I’ve no idea, Tom,” said Breffni, shrugging his shoulders and keeping his eyes firmly downcast.

Breffni, rattled in extremis, was beset with an image of himself as a cut-up corpse and was determined to stop such a dark vision from coming to pass. He would have to act fast, though, as the killer Kimo was clearly circling. There was nothing else for it. He needed to get to the ferry port and take the midnight sailing.

Stepping gingerly over the mess, the two men entered the house. Tom went straight to the shed in the back garden and fetched a shovel and a black sack into which he quickly disposed of the dead animal’s parts.

Breffni offered to make the girls some sweet tea, telling them that it would help to calm their nerves. They accepted his suggestion and he put the kettle on. While it boiled, he flew upstairs to his room. There, at his wits’ end, he reached into the pocket of an old jacket in his wardrobe and pulled out the bag of cocaine he’d managed to acquire on credit that morning—and what a tale of promise he had had to spin in order to win that prize! It was another debt that he would never repay. The four gram bag, already depleted, was his only lifeline at this time of acute stress. On the bedside locker, in great haste, he chopped out several large lines of the accursed substance. Hoovering them into his nose by means of a small straw, he immediately felt that familiar jolt to the back of his head as the temporary joy began again. With this instant bounce he headed back down stairs.

The snivelling girls remained huddled on the sofa, still stunned by what they had seen. Tom was pacing the floor in front of them talking about calling the police and saying, too, that the landlord would need to be informed. Breffni brought in the tea to the girls who took it from him warily, suspecting him now of some involvement in the misdeed. Tom had alleged just that, minutes earlier while Breffni was upstairs. Breffni tried soothing the atmosphere with some calming words but it wasn’t working. Kate and Ruby slurped their tea and went on crying while Tom continued walking up and down in agitation. The tennis game and all the fun it had been was well and truly forgotten at this stage.

Presently, Tom cooled his heels and exclaimed:

“That’s it. I’m calling the police!”

At this, Breffni felt, more than ever, like a cornered rat.

He pretended to agree with Tom saying it was an excellent idea. And, still acting, he suggested calling the landlord into the bargain. Then, once more, he scampered upstairs—his usual reason: the call of nature. However, on this occasion, he had something far more urgent in mind.

He had reached his nadir and would forage the rooms to see what money he could steal. His own coffers, now at a mere fifty goldmarks, were only sufficient for a taxi fare to the port and his ferry ticket, plus a meal at best. He would need a lot more than that to make his anticipated fresh start.

In Ruby’s bedroom he found nothing in the way of cold hard cash. Evidently, she was a girl who believed in the safety of banks. It was a different story, though, when he padded over to Kate and Tom’s turf: pay dirt. In an envelope in their wardrobe a bundle of notes awaited his grabbing hand; money that the couple—disinclined to use banks—were saving for a house of their own. Breffni figured there must be at least three thousand goldmarks there, if not more. Stuffing it into his trousers, he dared to feel elated as though his prayers had been answered. The amount was just what he needed. He grew excited thinking that in one bold leap he could be free.

He went to his own bedroom next and threw some clothes and his passport into a small bag before returning downstairs. He racked his brains to think of a plausible excuse to leave the house. Bingo! Sticking his head inside the living room door he told Tom that he was heading to the 24-hour shop for some disinfectant to clean the porch. Tom told him to hurry back as the police were on their way.

Once outside, Breffni walked briskly to the taxi rank on the main road. He went to a black cab at the top of the queue and got in, telling the driver to take him to the ferryport. An agonizing death at the hands of Kimo Bellamy was a terrifying prospect. This was going to be the greatest escape since Houdini got out of the East River.

After half an hour they reached the port. Breffni paid the driver and proceeded to the ticket desk, purchasing a one-way ticket to the Continent. He intended to disappear into the large crowd of a billion people—never to return to his homeland.

Fortuitously, it was sailing hour as he boarded and went up on deck. There was no time for doubts or second thoughts about the course of action upon which he was embarking. Standing in the moonlight he heard the engines of the ferry gunning and turned to look at the lights of the famous bay for the last time. He would make his way to Londinium first and then on to the Low Countries. Ultimately, he hoped to settle in some peaceful town in Gaul—where he could renew his soul day after heavenly day.

He snapped out of this reverie quickly enough when a fresh cocaine craving assailed him of a sudden. He went down to starboard, to one of the ship’s bars, and took a hit in a toilet cubicle. Coming out of the gents with his brain buzzing once more, he ordered a beer and finally relaxed. Sitting at a table he surveyed the simple scene—passengers quietly drinking and staff about their business—and a sense of peace descended upon him.

Meanwhile, in the portside bar, a passenger was paying for a beer by credit card.

“Enjoy your journey, Mr Bellamy,” said the barkeep, handing the Visa back to the man with the intense eyes.

A psychopath to the very fibre of his being, he’d followed Breffni to the ferry and got on board. Kimo sat down with his drink, too. His nostrils twitched; he could almost smell Breffni; he would savour this.

© Brian Ahern 2011