Real Monsters Read online

  A loud yell from the other side of the square interrupted them. ‘THAT’S ENOUGH LADIES…’ We all turned to see Jim makin his way towards us. ‘We’ve got more than enough problems without you two actin like a pair of bitches. It looks like the camel-fuckers abandoned this festering shit heap at least a hundred years ago. We’re out of food and we’re almost out of water. Now I reckon we bed down in one of these huts for the night and in the morning we… holy shit Corporal, is that a cat you’re holding? I didn’t think you liked pussy?’

  You gotta hand it to Jim – his timing was perfect. I thought Cal was gonna have a fuckin seizure he was laughin so hard. Suddenly there was a sharp squawk, followed by a flash of fur as the kitten shot across the square and disappeared into one of the houses. ‘You fuckin pricks!’ Doggie yelled, holdin up his hand to show a long scratch down the side of his arm, a thin trickle of blood runnin down towards his elbow. ‘You fuckin scared her… ’

  We fell silent for a moment as we watched Doggie lumber off after his precious cat, desperately callin her as he ran. ‘Here Lucky… C’mon Lucky.’ As he passed I got a look at his face, his eyes all red as if he were about to start blubberin any minute. We watched him disappear then looked away, kickin the dirt, not sayin anythin.

  It was a small wedding. Danny had explained how he didn’t want too much of a fuss, which suited me just fine seeing as I only had my sister and nieces left to invite. Danny was an only child and his mum had passed when he was young, so there wasn’t much of an issue on his side either. The only odd one was his dad. I’d only ever heard him talk about him once, late one night when he’d come back wasted – something he’d been doing more and more often since being called up. He’d told me this story about how when he was a kid his ‘old man’ used to get so drunk and violent that Danny took to sleeping in his tree house. Apparently one night he woke to a loud crack and looked down to see his dad stood at the bottom of the tree, axe in hand. Danny just about managed to scramble free from the branches before the whole thing came crashing down, wiping out half their garage in the process.

  It sounded horrific, but the whole time he was talking Danny laughed his head off, like it was the funniest thing in the world. However, any time I’d tried to bring up the topic of his father since, he’d tensed up and changed the subject. I didn’t even know whether he was alive or dead, and so when the wedding came round and Danny didn’t mention him I decided it was best to follow suit.

  In the end it was just the seven of us who stood huddled in the small, grey council offices one wet September morning; Me, Danny, my sister, my nieces and the judge, plus an old drinking buddy of Danny’s called Mike, who we drafted in at the last minute when we realised we were a witness short. The whole ceremony was over in twenty minutes and we held our reception – which Mike hilariously insisted on calling ‘the wake’ – at a bar around the corner. From there we headed straight off on our honeymoon, which in reality consisted of two nights at a budget motel about three blocks from our apartment. Still, the whole thing was a lot of fun. We took some good photos and I got to pretend I was a grownup for a few days. Plus Danny was unbelievably sweet, most of the time. Only on one occasion did things threaten to turn ugly, when the receptionist at the motel, a sweet, brown skinned girl, mixed up our dinner reservation. Danny started muttering under his breath, a deluge of dark, disgusting words I’d never heard him use before oozing out of his mouth before he caught the look on my face and shrugged it off as a joke.

  Mostly though things were great, with Danny making all these grand statements about how we were a ‘real family now’ and how he’d always ‘honour and protect me’ and all this other clichéd nonsense I’m sure he’d only ever heard people say to each other in movies. Honestly, he gave me a run for my money in the melodrama stakes.

  But the saddest thing of all?

  I believed him.

  Once our honeymoon was over we went back to the apartment and Danny set about packing up his things. He only had a couple of days before he was due to begin training and regardless of what he said I could tell he was nervous, folding and refolding his clothes dozens of times until they took up the smallest possible space in his trunk. He was touchy too. One evening we were sat together when a current affairs programme came on the TV, two middle-aged white men yelling at each other in front of a live studio audience. I reached for the remote control, knocking up the volume as I tried to follow the thread of their argument. One of the men was stood up behind his desk, jabbing his finger at the other man as he demanded for all troops to return home with immediate effect. Before he could finish though, the screen went blank. I turned to find Danny gripping the remote so tightly his hand was shaking, the veins bulging in his powerful neck. ‘What the hell?’ I said. ‘I was watching that.’ Danny didn’t answer though, jumping up and disappearing to the bedroom without a word. It was only once he’d gone that I realised he’d taken the remote with him.

  The next morning I woke early to find I was alone in bed. Now this wasn’t entirely unheard of – I knew Danny had trouble sleeping sometimes – yet for some reason I had a bad feeling. My mouth dry, I crept out of the bedroom to investigate, terrified I was about to find Danny hurt, or still angry from the night before. Or worse:

  Gone.

  As I tip-toed into the kitchen I was relieved to see him sat there, looking happy. To my surprise, the table had also been laid for breakfast, a decadent feast fanned out across the crisp white table cloth: freshly squeezed orange juice, croissants, toast, a range of condiments heaped in small silver pots I didn’t even know we owned. ‘I couldn’t sleep,’ Danny said by way of explanation. ‘Maybe you shouldn’t sleep more often!’ I said, taking a seat and helping myself to a slice of toast. ‘This is incredible!’ It was then I noticed the brush resting in Danny’s hand.

  ‘I didn’t know you were an artist?’ I leant round him to get a better view of the small, wet-looking painting lying next to his empty plate. ‘It’s nothing,’ he shrugged, dipping his brush into a glass, a blue mist unravelling in the water. ‘When I was a kid I used to paint sometimes. In the tree house. I just felt like trying again... ’

  I scrunched up my face, trying to make sense of the smudge of primary colours. ‘What is it?’ I asked. He held up the picture for me to see. ‘It’s us,’ he said, pointing to a pair of stick figures sat on a small blob of yellow. ‘Or it will be. This is an island. You see the palm tree, the sandcastles? Once I’m finished with the army I reckon we should move. Look for the good life – sun, sand…’ ‘Sea?’ I smiled, pointing to a scrappy patch of blue. ‘Exactly,’ he said. I stared at the painting. It was rough and child-like, but kind of sweet at the same time. I could tell he’d put some time into it. ‘It’s good,’ I said. ‘It’s like a Picasso or something. I like it. But who’s this?’ Further on down the page was a smaller figure, one stick leg outstretched towards a blob of baby-blue sea. Danny grinned awkwardly. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘That’s somebody who doesn’t exist yet. That’s… ’

  Our son.

  The day Danny left I cried for eight hours straight. It was weird – the whole time he was packing, even when I drove him down to the bus station and kissed him goodbye and stood there waving with all the other heartbroken wives and girlfriends and mothers, I kept telling myself it was a good thing. It was fourteen weeks out of a lifetime together. It was nothing. Most of all, it was what Danny wanted.

  It wasn’t until I got back to the apartment that I fell apart. I think it was the sight of our bed that did it, the pillow still creased from where his head had lain only a few hours before. Instantly I felt all of my courage dissolve. I was bereaved all over again – lost and alone in the world. I pulled out one of Danny’s dirty gym shirts from the wash and wrapped it around me, enveloping myself in his scent as the self-pity bubbled from my nose and eyes, sobbing in a small, pathetic heap on the bed until it got dark.

  And then I got up and pulled myself together.

  The first thing I did was quit my
job. I’d hardly been in since I’d returned from my mum’s funeral, but that wasn’t going to deny me the satisfaction of walking into my manager’s office and officially resigning. While it wasn’t quite the socialist uprising I’d fantasised about (my manager shook my hand and promised me a good reference), I nevertheless took satisfaction in walking out of the building with my head held high, determined never to return. With my job out of the way, I was free to start planning my next move. Miraculously, Mum actually had some life insurance in place when she died, and even once her many creditors were paid off there was still a fairly substantial sum left over. In other words, I didn’t need to work, a situation which, while on one hand was unbelievably fortunate, also made me realise I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life.

  I passed the days trawling the internet and local papers, trying and failing to find something to capture my imagination and fill up my time (should I learn Mandarin? Study astrophysics? Develop my assertiveness?), while starting to wonder if this was perhaps why so many lottery winners ended up killing themselves. It wasn’t as if I was suddenly, fabulously rich – I’d calculated that even pulling my belt in I’d only manage about eighteen months before I’d need to start looking for paid work again – yet without the daily drudge of a steady routine, with no mundane chores to occupy my mental processes, I could quite easily imagine myself going into a tailspin. Getting up that little bit later each morning, pouring my drinks that little bit stiffer. Now that I had all this time on my hands – and more importantly, this freedom to think – I found that I didn’t actually have that much to think about. Which is why, in desperation more than anything, I found myself entering a dingy social club early one Monday morning, looking for the headquarters of the Military Spouses Meet-up Club.

  The website had made it sound like a lot of fun. There would be wine tasting, karaoke, shopping trips, movie nights; all in the company of women who ‘understood the privileges and responsibilities of having a partner serving in the armed forces’. I’d had an image of a warm circle of women – sisters in solidarity – nights out and giggles and advice and sympathy. It would be like having a family again.

  However, when I finally located the drab, nicotine-stained meeting room I found myself staring at six miserable faces; hollow husks of women, all of them at least two decades older than me. Realising I’d made a terrible mistake, I immediately tried to back away through the doors, but it was too late. One of them had noticed me and was gesturing for me to come inside. Swallowing down my misgivings, I forced a big fake smile on to my face and introduced myself to the group. ‘Hi everybody, my name’s Lorna… ’ I said. One of the other women glanced up from her magazine and looked me over suspiciously. ‘If you’re lookin for AA sweetie, it’s next door.’

  The meeting that followed was undoubtedly the longest hour of my life. After the women had introduced themselves (or rather, introduced their husbands, all of them having the same weird habit of stating their partner’s job title rather than their own name, as if they only existed as a sort of appendage to their husband’s career) we played a couple of rounds of bingo, a Sub-Lieutenant’s wife calling out the numbers in a dull monotone, before breaking for frothy instant coffee and stale shortbread. I was sat in the furthest corner of the room, desperately wishing the world would end so I wouldn’t have to spend another second there, when I heard a faint rasping behind me and I turned to see one of the women hovering directly behind me. ‘Lesley,’ she barked, holding out her hand for me to shake, before adding, ‘Warrant Officer’s wife. So I take it your hubby just joined up? You being so young and all…’ I smiled at her with as much enthusiasm as I could muster. ‘He’s at training at the moment. He’s only been gone a week and I miss him so much already. I don’t know how you ladies do it.’ The Warrant Officer’s wife nodded knowingly. ‘Basic, huh? He called you yet?’ I shook my head.

  It was true I hadn’t heard from Danny since I’d dropped him at the station, but I wasn’t too worried. He’d warned me the first month would be tough and I expected he hadn’t had a chance yet. ‘No?’ the woman said, her face suddenly contorting into a sour grin. ‘Well don’t count on it honey. Once he gets together with those boys he’ll forget all about your skinny ass in about two seconds flat.’ I felt my stomach lurch in protest. ‘No, I don’t think that’s it at all…’ I began, but the woman cut me off. ‘Like a bunch of goddamned dogs they are, sniffing at the crack of any two-bit whore who crosses their path. When my Charlie got back he was so riddled with the clap it looked like his dick had rotted off…’ I stood up and grabbed my bag, realising too late that the woman was obviously mad. ‘But I still got on my knees and sucked it. And do you know why? Because I’m a goddamned patriot and that’s my duty, you hear me lady?’

  I backed away from her, my head spinning. ‘Shut up! SHUT UP!’ I screamed, the other women all turning to stare at me now. ‘Oh give it a rest, Lesley,’ someone yelled, before turning to me. ‘Pay no attention to her, sweetie. She’s just bitter that her husband upgraded to a younger, slimmer model.’ But the Warrant Officer’s wife kept calling after me, even as I reached the door, her words ringing in my ears as I ran for the street. ‘You think you’re different honey? Special? He’ll be just like all the others. You mark my word. Just you wait and see… ’

  Just you wait and see.

  Ever since I can remember I’ve had the same dream. Reccurrin sort of, ’cept it’s not identical every time. Details change and shift around, but the main bits are all there. The bones. It always starts the same way. I’m walkin home from school. Now this is my first school you understand, from when I was around your age. I walked that route every goddamned day when I was a kid, and even though it’s been twenty years since I’ve been back I still know every inch of it, like it’s burnt into me or somethin.

  For some reason it’s always autumn. It’s cold. Some people say they only dream in black and white, or without sound or smell or touch or taste. Not me though. I can see my breath billowin smoke-like against the grey-blue sky, feel the tingle of chilblains in my fingertips and toes. The road is varnished with a mush of dead leaves, oranges and reds, yellows and browns. There’s not a dog turd in sight. I said it was vivid, not realistic ha.

  I’m with three or four of my friends. Well, I guess they’re my friends. I can’t see their faces for the complicated arrangements of home-knitted balaclavas and scarves that coil around their necks and shoulders. For some reason in my dream I’m never wearing a hat or scarf. No gloves neither. My hands are the colour of rare steak. We’re walkin pretty slowly. Meanderin like, as if we ain’t got no place better to be, despite the weather. You noticin a theme here son? Always with the walkin, awake or asleep. What I wouldn’t give jus’ for once to have a dream where I’m sat on a bus or a train – a goddamned horse even. Jus’ so my poor legs could take a load off for a while. As we drift along I listen to my friends talkin. They’re all deep in conversation, though I never quite manage to catch the thread of what they’re sayin, their voices muffled and weirdly out of sync with each other. In the end I jus’ nod along and laugh in the gaps. I guess ’cos it’s a dream or whatever no one stops to point out that I look like a total dick.

  The road we’re on seems to go on forever and ever, and one by one my friends start to peel off, wavin goodbye and yellin things in their strange distorted voices until finally I’m left alone. That’s when I see the man. He’s standin on the other side of the road with his back turned to me. He’s wearing a hat and smokin a cigarette, so that from behind it looks like the top of his head is on fire. I think I recognise him. He’s roughly the same height and build as my own father – your granddaddy, God rest his soul. Somethin about his jacket is familiar too, a long, old-fashioned trench coat, loosely belted at the hip. I think I remember playin dress-up in it as a kid, pretendin I was a detective or somethin. Damn fine coat it was. Mum used to say it made him look like a movie star. I remember baggin it up and throwin it out with the rubbish ten years later on
ce the bottle finally got the better of the ol’ man.

  Suddenly the guy across the road starts runnin. Jus’ bolts off, back in the direction I came from. Well naturally I start runnin too, chasin after him as he abruptly veers off the main street and starts down some winding alley that I’ve never seen before and which I suspect doesn’t really exist. Still I keep runnin. It’s weird, no matter how fast I pump my legs I never seem to gain any distance on him. He’s always nine or ten steps ahead of me, his coat whippin out behind him, his face forever hidden from view. Eventually the alley yawns open to reveal a large clearin, a deserted green field fringed by trees on three sides. The man moves to the centre of the field and stops dead on the spot, still keepin his back to me. I stop too, my heart poundin in my chest, my lungs screamin, a sense of dread risin in me now. Because I know what is about to happen.

  Because it happens like this every time.

  Slowly the man begins to twist, pivotin at the waist so that the lower half of his body is still facin forwards. And everythin is plunged into ultra slow-motion, a bead of sweat on my forehead frozen mid-trickle, the wings of a nearby fly slowed from a blur to a beat. And still the man turns.

  And if you were watchin me sleep son, you’d know I’d reached this part of the dream because I’d start thrashin my arms and kickin my legs and whimperin and moanin. I know I do it – your mother told me so.