Idlebones

Next Door Part 1

October 19, 2006 – 23:40

 

 

 

I had awoken with a jerk. I was bolt upright in my bed before I realised it had been a dream. My bare back glistened in sweat, cooling with the light breeze than came in from the open window behind me. Even as I wiped the sweat from my clammy forehead, I could feel the dread ebbing away, my shoulders aching slightly as the muscles relaxed once more. For a moment there, I had to fight the urge to jump out of bed and tear into the front room to look out it’s window into the street for the Garda cars and Ambulances I had felt certain must be there. Blowing my cheeks out and letting myself fall back against my bed, it occured to me that Scott, my tenant, may not have appreciated his naked sweaty landlord bursting into his room at this hour. I glanced at the red LED display on the clock radio by my bed. Four am.

I let my mind drift back and examine the dream I had just had, trying to colour in the images that had woken me with such violence.

Violence.

That’s what had woken me. A ruby red flower of blood blossomed against a window. A spiders web cracked glass pane, bursting, and a falling body. It tumbled interminidably, turning head over heel in a slow, wheeling spin, arms and legs outstreched like spokes in a broken wheel. The figure was a solid black outline, a 2 dimensional shadow, with no features, but I knew who it was. Above the figure, as it wheeled slowly below the window, not seeming to be falling, but hanging suspended by invisible wires, drifting dead in space, was the figure of a woman. The sillouette of her hair stood out in starck contrast to the light of the bedroom behind her framed in a jagged hole in the window. She looked like a human shaped cut-out that had been punched from the scene. I could see the familiar outline of a shock of unkept hair, but I could also see a steely white eclpise of teeth, as her mouth drew back in a maniacal grin. Even now, I found the rememberance of the evil looking smile so disconcerting that I immediately put it out of my mind and flicked on the bedside light. Obstensively, it was so that i could read my book, but part of me did not want to be caught in the dark with that horrible image. As I picked my book from off the table, a last flickering image passed by a window in my mind. A flash of of steel, a gleaming shard of moonlight against the knife the figure in the window had been clutching as she watch the bloody body of Mark o’Leary fall.

I made hot milk in the kitchen, letting it form a bubbling skin in a pot on the hob as I back the patio door to let the tendrils of smoke from a ciggarette dissapate into the warm night air. Stepping out onto the decking I couldn’t help turning to look up at my neighbours window. Of course there was no broken glass, no hideous figure against the bedroom light. Just the dark outline of a curtained window like all the rest in the tearrce. I felt a chill run through me, then quickly admonished myself with a snort, and flicked the half smoked cigarette into the rose bush. I poured a large Starbucks mug full of the warm milk and went back to bed.

When i finally awake the next morning, it was 11 o’clock. I had not set an alarm, due to my fractious sleep. It was Saturday after all. Jessica was sitting at the kitchen table reading the morning paper. She worked nights at the hostpital as a nurse, and had probably only been home an hour. I clicked on the kettle, weighing it first to see if it held water, and watched the back of her head for one admiring moment before she notices me. Her blonde shoulder lenght hair was tied up into a pony tail, displaying her slender neck, which she rubbed absently with her index and forefingers as she cupped her jaw in the palm of her hand. Her back was sore again, I knew, but i knew better than to draw attention to something I couln’t fix. She turned to greet me with a warm, tired smile.

“Morning hun” she said, as i bent to kiss the crown of her head, and took a seat opposite her.

“Morning sweetie” I gave her offered hand a gentle squeeze in my own larger paw. “How was your night?”

I would never say it to her, but i loved the way she looked when she came home in the mornings. Her face was soft and warm with fatigue, her eyes sleepy and dream like as she relaxed in her favourite ritual. A cup of tea, to slices of warm buttered toast, and the morning paper. Very soon she would go to bed, removing her nurses uniform for me to tidy away in to the wash basket, lift her legs into our bed, and cuddle herself into a ball in the duvet and fall into a sleep.

“It was fine. Busy as usual, but no big drama. Ellen didn’t turn in again”

I shook my head in digust.

“She’s a liabilty that girl. The sooner they find a replacement the better” I said, sweepinng a palm accross the table, distributing the remains of last nights ciggerette ashes onto the floor.

Jessica inclined her head and sucked in through her teeth. I knew she would defend her friend again, despite the amount of times she had been let down by her.

“You know she’s been through a lot” she sighed, “she’s never been comfortable since the fight that night. She lit a silk cut blue and held it between her thumb and forefinger, tiping the ash instictively into an ashtray before her.

She swept her palm slowly over he forehead and brushed her fringe back from her face, for a moment framing her petite looks under her hand. She has a wonderfully pretty face, my Jessica. Her small, full lips like opposing pink hearts as she pursed her mouth once more. She rose from her seat and I could see down the opening in her uniform to her small breasts as she bends over the table to kiss my forehead. It feels warm and sweet, and lingers there long after she has turned and climbed the stair to our bed. I sip the remains of her tea, feeling the soft burn of her kiss absorb into my skin. I worried for her when she worked nights. Her friend Ellen had been there one night a few months ago when a fight had broken out between to drunken travellers. Hospital cut backs had led to there being only one security guard on duty, and he had been in the bathroom when Ellen had tried to intercide, earning herself a slashed forearm for her trouble.

The bathroom door opened into the kitchen and Scott emerged in his dressing gown in plume of steam.

“Quite an entrance” I say, as he turned, still rubbing his head with a large white towel.

“Naturally” he replies, spoting me from beneath the towel. Scotts large frame ambled forward out of the steam and sat itself down in the chair Jessica had vacated. His salt and pepper hair stood in tight wet curls as he nodded towards my cup.

“Made the tea have you? Good man!”. His Yorkshire accent is thick and goodnatured.

I grinned and pointed to the steaming kettle by the hob.

“Buffet service this morning mate”.

Scott had been staying at our house for a year now, ever since we had bought the place at the very edge of what we could afford. We hadn’t been keen on sharing our home with a stranger, but needed his rent to help pay the mortgage. As it happened we had been fortunate to have him. He worked away from Monday to Friday, only coming home late on the fridays, when he would toss his bags in his room, poke his head in the front room and say hello, before dissapearing down the pub for the night.

“You look like shite, by the way” he says, straightforward as ever, over his shoulder as he rose to retrieve the teabags from the side board and pour himself a cup of tea. “Heavy night was it?”

“Ta” I reply sarcastically. “Bad dream, thats all. Was awake at 4am pacing the kitchen drinking hot milk”

Scott widens his eyes in mock surprise.

“Hot milk? Red blooded Irishman you are, eh?” he laughs.

I scrunch my face up in agreement to his distaste for hot milk.

“Well, it was a nightmare. Woke me up in a cold sweat it did. I dreampt yer one next door had killed the husband”

Scott stared at me and carved a look of disgust into his weather beaten looks.

“you had a dream about the bag lady next door?! Jesus. No wonder you look like shite” he whistles.

“Yes. I know. Bloody awful it was”

A thought seems to occur to him. He looks at me quizzically as he sits down facing me, placing his tea in front of him. He Bends in towards me with a look of concern on his face, tempered by a hint of smile

“Oh Jesus” he whispers. “She wasn’t naked was she?”

“Feck….Off!” I twist my own expression in disgust, smacking my lips as if trying to expell a bad taste from my mouth.

“Jesus, I didn’t think the nightmare could get any worse, but thanks for that image”

Later, I shower and stand toweling myself off in front of the mirror. I do look like shite, I think, as I wipe a streaked swipe accross the glass and catch sight of the grey half moons under each eye. My wet hair is swept back over my head, my pale scalp showing through my thinning hair line. Every morning as I shave, my hair is showing signs of my 34 years by not being there quite so much as it used to. The morning role call is getting shorter and shorter, I muse.