The Bristol Savages

  The Bristol Savages

  JG Alva

  PROLOGUE

  The man wasn’t dead.

  Just paralysed.

  It was no less than he deserved.

  After coming back upstairs, Slim had turned on the lamp beside the bed; he needed light to work by. The lamp was strange, almost an antique, and the bulb only threw a small cone of light out, like a halo. But it was enough.

  Jeffrey hadn’t moved much – he couldn’t, of course – but he had sweated enough to fully dampen his vest all down his back and at his armpits. He lay face down on the bed, in the position he had been sleeping in when Slim had entered the room, his face buried in a pillow. A horrible way to sleep, but everybody did things their own way. Slim had smashed the top of his vertebrae with a hammer so that he wouldn’t run or fight back; a sensible solution to a difficult problem. Curiously, Jeffrey’s right arm, hanging over the edge of the bed, continued to twitch, but it could not be from any conscious control.

  Slim put the small pot of paint and the paintbrush on the bedside cabinet. He had written down the message so he wouldn’t forget, and he checked it again now, a long passage he had copied out on to the notepad beside the phone.

  He knew he was stalling. Best to get it over with so he could get out of here.

  He grabbed the back of Jeffrey’s head and turned it toward him – and toward the light – uncovering Jeffrey’s face. Jeffrey was breathing rapidly, and his face was sweaty too. His one visible eye rolled up toward Slim fearfully, like the eye of a cow. The screwdriver was in his front right pocket. He brought it out and then held it up for a moment. Jeffrey’s cow eye fixed on it.

  Slim brought the screwdriver down with all the force he could muster.

  *

  CHAPTER 1

  Anna backed into a parking space by the main gate, pulled on the handbrake, turned off the ignition.

  She did not get out however. She sat for a moment, listening to the cooling tick of the engine, and stared through the windscreen at the building opposite. Crown Bonding Distribution. She didn’t want to go in.

  Looking up, she noticed the rear view mirror was slightly out of true, and reached up to adjust it, so that it lined up with the roof of the car.

  *

  Alan Crown was already in the seventh floor Conference Room.

  He stood at the long wall of windows, looking out at the car park. The owner and Managing Director of Crown Bonding Distribution, he was fifty two but looked older. He had white fluffy hair, green eyes, and a mild face, but the mildness was only to disguise his shrewdness…and perhaps his ruthlessness too. He had built this company from his garage, and by all accounts it had not been easy. If the stories around the office were true – a partner that stole his wife, bank foreclosures, a drinking problem, a fire started by a disgruntled employee, a lawsuit by a competitor – then it had not been easy at all.

  He smiled when he saw her, but the smile quickly turned down at the edges.

  “I’m concerned that this could turn ugly,” he said, with a careful eye on her.

  “Really, Alan, I’m fine,” she said, with a smile.

  “Try not to react to whatever he says. He’ll try to make it personal. Don’t let him.”

  *

  “…Know the criteria that these redundancies are based on,” Anna was saying. They were seated at the end of the oval table by the windows, she and Alan on one side, Mike Bottomley three seats away on the other. She counted the criteria off on her fingers. “Quality of service, length of service, and attendance-“

  “I’ve been here nine years,” Mike said. “Which should automatically preclude me from your selection criteria.”

  As a younger man, Mike had been good looking, but now in his early forties the good looks of his youth were fading: he was going grey, getting fat, and losing his hair. A dark foppish mop, it was getting thin at the front and back, and the close cropped beard he sported was more salt than pepper. And his teeth were going bad. Yellow. Ew.

  His voice was as cold and hostile as she had ever heard it.

  He spoke directly to Alan, and had done so throughout the meeting. At no time had he acknowledged Anna. He would not even look at her. It was like she did not exist.

  “I’m afraid not, Mike,” Anna said. “We do have two other criteria in which-“

  “Alan. Why is she even here?” Mike asked, with an unconcealed sneer.

  “Because she’s the Chief Human Resources Officer,” Alan said.

  “Yeah. For about ten minutes.”

  Three months, you asshole.

  “Can we try to keep this pleasant please, Mike,” Alan said.

  “Pleasant,” Mike scoffed. “What’s pleasant about discussing my dismissal?”

  “Alright. Then can we keep it civilized?” Mike did not reply. “Please continue, Anna.”

  “As I was saying,” Anna continued, “we do have two other criteria, in which you do not excel. Would you like me to go into this in more detail?”

  Mike stared at Alan. He did not even turn his head. It was almost comical.

  “Very well,” Anna said, referring to the file folder in front of her. “As regards attendance, your Bradford factor is incredibly high. Three hundred and forty eight points. You are well aware of how the Bradford factor works. We calculate a figure from the number of incidents of absenteeism, against the amount of days you are absent. Anything over a score of a hundred automatically dictates a warning.”

  Mike’s tone turned to pleading then, but still he would look only at Alan.

  “Alan, you know why that is,” Mike said. “It’s my son. My stupid bitch of an ex-wife-“

  “Mike,” Alan said, shifting uncomfortably over the female derogative and looking apologetically at Anna. She shook her head: it didn’t matter.

  “She wants to scale back my visits to once a month,” Mike continued, with hardly a pause. “I’ve been in and out of court trying to fight her. You know that.”

  Anna paused before replying, “you’ve made us fully aware of your personal situation.”

  Even to her own ears, she sounded cold. But she could not feel bad about it. Previous to her CHRO role, she had worked in Inside Sales under Mike. It had not been pleasant.

  “This is revenge,” Mike said acidly, perhaps picking up on her thoughts; now he was looking at her. The full weight of his hate had been levelled at her, much like an accusatory finger…or laser sights from a sniper rifle. “For perceived slights, when you worked for me. Wrongly perceived slights, I might add.”

  “Mike, you know we are making cutbacks from every department,” she said, meeting his heat with an equal coolness. “This is not personal. This is because we have identified certain aspects of your behaviour where you are not meeting your contractual obligations-“

  “I made that department!” He shouted suddenly. He was coming unravelled. “There wasn’t even a department there when I started. You don’t like me. Alan, she doesn’t like me. She’s afraid of me. Because of what I know of Crown Bonding, because of how long I’ve worked there.” He did level an accusatory finger at her then. “You’re threatened by me-“

  It was an embarrassing rhetoric, and now Anna did feel bad for him; he sounded like a child.

  “This is not helping yourself,” Alan said, looking distinctly unhappy.

  “It’s true, Alan,” Mike continued. “It’s all true. She bided her time. I’ve got to hand it to her. She’s like a python. Waiting. Insidious. Slimy.”

  Anna raised her eyebrows; that was a bit much.

  “Mike, please,” Alan said, again looking uncomfortable.

  “Don’t think I haven’t noticed how she’s got you wrapped around her little finger.”

  Alan put a hand over
his eyes.

  “I bet it was even her suggestion to get rid of me,” Mike said, spit flicking out over the table between them, in his impatience to vent his vitriolic frustration. “I’ve seen you talking with Sally and Liz. I bet you cooked it up between you. A fucking dyke coup de grace-“

  “That is enough,” Alan said, slamming his hand down on the table.

  Mike twitched, and Anna jumped. At least Mike stopped talking.

  Alan looked mad. Anna didn’t think she had ever seen him so mad.

  “This meeting has devolved into…” Alan paused. “I don’t know what the hell it’s devolved into, but it’s completely unproductive. As such, I’m going to suggest that we end it. And you, Mike, are going to agree. Is that understood?”

  Alan stared at Mike until he acquiesced with a nod.

  “In which case, we will speak to you again in a week,” Alan continued. “I suggest you spend that time considering constructive arguments as opposed to unconstructive ones…like name calling. This is not a school playground, and you are far from being a child. Pull yourself together. I’ll expect more at our next meeting.”

  Mike stared belligerently at Alan, cast one last fishing line of hate at Anna, and then jack knifed out of his seat, leaving the Conference Room in a stiff, harried run.

  Anna stared after him.

  “God,” she said eventually, releasing a sigh.

  “He’s gotten worse,” Alan said, looking, of all things, sad. “At least we were conversing last time.”

  “Should we allow him to continue working?” She asked.

  Alan sighed.

  “He’s unhinged,” she continued.

  “Unfortunately, we have to. Legally, I mean.”

  “Not if we put him on garden leave.”

  Alan looked at her.

  “Do you think that’s necessary?”

  Anna made a face.

  “Alan,” Anna said. “You saw what he was like. He’s losing it.”

  “Can you blame him? His life is coming apart at the seams.”

  There was silence a moment between them.

  “I remember what he was like when he first started here,” he said. “That’s all.”

  “Has he really changed that much?”

  “You wouldn’t know him. When he started, he was courteous, respectful, soft spoken, almost achingly polite. I suppose a divorce and the fact that he is losing what little custody he has of his son has eroded the better parts of him.” Alan held up his hands: who would have guessed it?

  “A divorce didn’t do that to you,” Anna pointed out.

  “Ah,” Alan said, with a ghost of humour, “but that’s because I’m stubborn. And incapable of change.”

  Anna smiled.

  “Well.”

  Alan looked thoughtful when he said, “Anna, some people…some people, they just go sour. Do you know what I mean? I’ve seen it before. I think…I think they have an idea in their mind, a vision of what their life is going to be like, and when it doesn’t quite turn out like they expect, they feel they’ve been cheated somehow. Am I making any sense?”

  Anna nodded solemnly. She was aware of the phenomenon.

  “Don’t ever let me catch you turning out like that,” he warned sagely.

  “I’ll do my best not to,” Anna promised.

  Alan smiled.

  “Well. I’ve got to get back. Crown Bonding doesn’t run itself. Contrary to popular belief.” He paused. “Let’s hope things run more smoothly at the next meeting.”

  “Garden leave?” She asked again, to be sure.

  Reluctantly, he gave her his consent, patted her on the arm, rose, and then left the room.

  *

  In the seventh floor bathroom, she stared at her face in the mirror.

  She had done this many times over the years, trying to see beyond familiar lines to the unfamiliar, from the face that greeted her every morning to the one that strangers and intermittent acquaintances saw in the street or at the restaurant. As a young woman she had been whippet thin and had looked hunted; the face that stared back at her now was so much different, was that of a married woman in her thirties, happy, if a little uncertain of her place in the world, and with herself. But definitely happy. And, she dared to hope, wiser.

  She had been called beautiful before, but she did not consider herself to be beautiful. Beautiful was softness, beautiful was perfection…and her features were too defined, too hard, to be really beautiful. But she had her good points: her hair and eyes were very dark, almost black. As a young woman she had worn her hair long, almost to the middle of her back, but over the years practicality had won out over aesthetics: now she wore it cut back to her jaw line. Her mouth was nice, thick lipped and wide, and her teeth weren’t half bad, in good condition and naturally even (except for an incisor in her bottom jaw that was slightly askew). Her nose she had given up on: it was a large hooked thing in the middle of her face she could do nothing about. A family heirloom. A reminder of her father.

  Stepping back, she inspected the rest of herself in the mirror. Nice shoulders, good boobs she had always been proud of, all of which were constrained under the tight grey of her suit jacket, white blouse and sports bra. Her stomach and thighs were another matter altogether, and needed constant care and attention; she went to the gym four times a week for that very purpose.

  All in all, she was passable, she thought. Handsome more than beautiful. At one time she had cursed her attractiveness, but now she accepted it for what it was: her…but not her. At least not all of her anyway.

  The door banged shut, making her jump.

  She turned.

  It was Mike.

  Before she could do anything he rushed her. He put a hand over her mouth and pushed her back against the sink; it felt like she was in danger of having her spine severed. She felt paralysed: her arms hung uselessly at her sides. She could smell Mike, smell his sweat; she thought she might be sick.

  She felt his erection then, felt it digging into her stomach. Panic crawled up her neck. She knew this feeling, this paralysing sensation when events too large or too traumatic overwhelmed her senses. Fuck fuck fuck fuck.

  Mike whispered, “isn’t it always the way: the biggest cunt has the biggest mouth. Almost like you were made to be fucked. I could fill up all your holes. Maybe I will. Be careful walking home at night. You never know who might be watching you.”

  He pressed into her again, his erection pushing into her, and then with a final shove that sent her reeling and sliding to land on the floor, he turned and left the bathroom.

  It was some moments before she could breathe again, and still more time before she got to her feet. Oh God. She hadn’t been prepared. That was the problem. If she’d been prepared, she could have handled it.

  Now, she felt ragged, spent, depleted, used, shitty, and slightly ashamed.

  She leant on one of the sinks, breathing hard, covered in a light patina of sweat, her heart pounding furiously. Her arms were trembling, and she regarded them curiously, almost as if they were separate from her.

  She was a woman in control of herself. She had to remember that.

  She looked up into the mirror and what she found looking back was a shock to her: it was a rigid, blotchy mask of anger; red, strained, ugly. Not her.

  She pushed herself back from the sink and kicked it, the heel connecting with the ceramic. They were Camille Stripe Court work shoes, hardly designed for kicking, and the only damage the sink sustained was a small black smudge. This seemed to enrage her more, and she kicked it again, and again, and again, fully in the grip of her rage, refusing or unable to suppress it any longer.

  What finally stopped her was the three and a half inch heel snapping off.

  It went wide, passing a foot from her face and skittering across the tiled floor, and hitting the base of the wall on the opposite side of the bathroom.

  She was gulping air like she had run a marathon. Her hair was a mess, and she could feel sweat pooling at the
base of her throat and her armpits. She didn’t want to look in the mirror, couldn’t, afraid of what she might see reflected back there. The Other Anna.

  She pulled toilet paper from one of the cubicles and patted her forehead with it, her top lip, her chest, the hollow of her throat, and then delved with it under her blouse and bra. She was drenched. How long had she been attacking the sink anyway? She looked at it; there was a crack. She bent down, took off her broken shoe and examined her foot: it looked red and tender. Her leg was aching too. Chalk this one up to self-control, she thought with humour, and laughed. The laugh sounded strange, flat and unreal bouncing around the acoustics of the bathroom.

  She retrieved the heel and with one last look around to make sure she had left no permanent indication of her episodic temper tantrum – other than the crack in the sink – she banged out of the bathroom.

  *

  Mac liked to start every meeting with a reading.

  The Meeting Room was quiet. Anna didn’t think that they were like any other support group in the country; there was no idle talk, no laughing; they were each an isolated unit. Mac’s readings sometimes made members embarrassed. Nobody believed in God here, and Anna wondered why that might be so. Was it because power and control was the one thing they all sought, and to give it up to somebody else was just not possible?

  Anna had been so glad to be told that there was a meeting that evening. She needed it today more than she had needed it in a long time.

  Mac began, “the reading I am going to start with tonight is from the Bible. John, Chapter one, verses seven to nine.” Mac looked at them all with a stern eye before reading: “but if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness…”

  Anna looked around at the others as Mac spoke, all of whom seemed intent on Mac, even if their body language betrayed them. Jacob, a thin man in his late twenties, with unkempt, dirty blonde hair, fidgeted the most, but this was more from who he was than any real discomfort or boredom. Jacob suffered through an array of small ticks and other strange body movements that ran in sequences. As she watched, he bumped his shoulders and patted the back of his head. In a moment, there would be another one. Three fingers of his left hand were strapped together with black electrician’s tape, as were three of his toes, she knew. Her heart went out to a man so trapped by his own mind.