Accidental Don. Episode four...

Outside, crows feasted on the insects and grubs that hopped and skipped along the length of the path, selecting their bounty from the patches of weeds, grass and moss that had colonised the cracked concrete. Spooked by something unseen the birds took to the air en masse, cawing noisily as they fled.

Donald's eyes flashed open. He stretched, every joint in his body popping and urging him to moan with sleepy pleasure as he squinted at the bright sunlight peeping around the edge of the tatty curtains. He sat up, slowly orientating himself.

He'd slept on the floor by the bed. As ever, when the opportunity for a night on a mattress arose, Donald had smiled as he sank into it's springy softness. He'd fallen asleep almost immediately but had awoken a couple of hours later with a bad back that had forced him to curl up on the cold, hard floor instead.

He'd removed his dirty clothing last night and taken a spare hanger from the wardrobe, hanging the stained and threadbare rags on the back of the door. Naked, he headed out into the hall.

A physique once softened by good living then ravished by poverty had morphed into a slightly too thin but functionally muscular frame. He paused by the mirror at the top of the creaky staircase and smoothed his beard. The scar that lay beneath his facial hair had now faded, though a crackly line that ran from his jawline to just beneath his left cheek persisted.

Donald liked his scar.

He knew the gas supply to the little cottage still worked, having used the ancient, dusty gas cooker to boil a kettle last night, but the boiler didn't. Donald wanted to bathe and so made the ignition of the pilot light a priority.

He reached out and flicked the switch on the wall by the mirror. A light came on, though not the light he'd expected.

Instead of illuminating the gloomy staircase from overhead, light instead glowed gently from the little, red bulb above the switch. Donald smiled, pulling open the airing cupboard door beside the switch and revealing a big, old, electricity dependent, immersion heater that was now gently humming as it began the process of providing a bath. Or a shower, or both. Donald whistled a happy tune as he headed for the kitchen.

Life was good.

The water in the tank would need flushing out, having been stood for so long. Donald went to the kitchen and turned on the hot tap, wrinkling his nose in disgust when he saw the colour of the water now beginning to splash into the big, old sink.

There was a small larder in the kitchen containing plenty of food, though most of it had laid there so long it would surely, by now, kill a man stone dead. But there were cans of beans, corned beef, hot dogs and spaghetti hoops, an unopened jar of honey, teabags and...

...a door.

He'd not spotted it when he'd helped himself to a dead man's teabags last night, it being semi-camouflaged by the blue striped apron and the big, old coat that hung from hooks on it. Donald opened the door and shivered at the cold blast of air on his naked flesh. Donald loved cellars, the musty smell, the cobwebs, the treasures hidden in tea chests and beneath old curtains. Cellars intrigued Donald.

He went to find a bathrobe and slippers.

____________________

He'd vomited when he'd heard. Right where he was sitting. Sally just stared.

His baby, his princess, Milly. Her death was bad enough, but this?

There were 'concerns', the officer was informing them. She'd been abused, they were certain of that, and it would need to be investigated. Both Donald and Sally were interviewed under caution. The process began and, quite soon, ended. There was no evidence other than that on the dead child, and that evidence proved only that an offence had taken place. It was of no use in helping to identify the abuser.

People thought it was him, he knew they did. But not Sally.

Sally loved him, she knew him. She knew he couldn't do something like that. She'd never have gone near him if she thought he was anything like that, if he were anything like...

...her father.

____________________

The dead man had been a different shape to Donald, but no so great a difference that his clothes didn't fit him. He'd found a robe and slippers in the front bedroom and had started rifling through the wardrobe for something to wear after the bath he would soon be enjoying. Not a very inspiring set of options to choose from, but Donald selected an outfit that would make him look, if not stylish, at least respectable.

He hung the outfit on the back of the bathroom door and turned on the bath taps. Not the greatest of water pressure but the clear liquid that followed the brown sludge into the pink enamel was hot. Donald smiled.

Not only that, but there was half a toilet roll on the holder as well.

Life was good.

____________________

Sally's mother had done the talking.

Her parents wanted him gone and if that meant they lost their daughter too, so be it. Her father remained silent through much of the exchange, setting his jaw and grinding his teeth whenever Donald was mentioned.

Sally had tried to reason with her mother, ignoring her father as he tried to ignore the injustice of Donald's presumed guilt. Her father, the policeman. The pervert.

They had somewhere to go, the butcher's had a reasonably large, one bed flat above it. It wasn't so bad.

Until the graffiti appeared on the front door. Unimaginative and badly spelt, but everyone read through the typo.

“Peedo”. Donald had vomited again. He'd been sure he'd heard someone laughing as he wretched.

The windows were smashed with increasing regularity, once while there were customers inside. Takings dropped significantly, though the wage bill was lower after some of his staff, people he'd known for years, quit their jobs. Donald had eventually been forced to shut up shop and do what he now wished he'd done years ago, he put the family business on the market.

The fire that destroyed the butcher's shop and all his possessions was started deliberately. Donald was never prosecuted, but the insurance company were suspicious. They'd deliberated on paying out and quickly come to the conclusion that they'd have to do so one day but fortunately, by the time that day had arrived, Donald had already “died”. Alone, forgotten and in poverty and, better still from the underwriter's point of view, with no next of kin.

Sally had been rescued first. The paramedics tried to save her, but she'd died without regaining consciousness, lay on the pavement with her husband watching from behind an oxygen mask.

____________________

What was it, a year? Two years? Donald had no idea.

He wore no shoes or socks and the bottoms of the brown chinos he wore were rolled up. Likewise, the sleeves of the white shirt he wore beneath his diamond patterned, predominantly brown, woollen tank top.

The filthy water spilled out of the back door and began a less destructive path towards the grid as Donald whistled a tune and used a yard brush to direct the water away from the flooded kitchen in which he paddled. He'd have been really pissed off if he were still capable of caring.

A long soak in the bath had been followed by a slightly less long and tepid shower, the hot water being gone long before the bath had been run. Still, it was invigorating and, to a man with nothing, a delight.

There were deodorants in the bathroom cabinet. Donald had realised he loved deodorant, something he'd not appreciated while he was still alive. He found a set of nail clippers and some scissors, razor blades and shaving foam. He ran a sink full of (still only tepid) hot water and cursed the low pressure.

Shit.

He suddenly realised that the pressure was so low because the kitchen tap was part way through it's attempt to flood the house. He charged down stairs, his gown doing nothing to conceal his modesty as he leapt and swung around the newel post, it flapping in the air behind him like a cape and burst into the kitchen.

Water was cascading over the lip of the big, old, Belfast sink, creating a Tsunami along the worktops and a noisy waterfall that crashed onto the stone floor.

Donald turned off the tap and went to the shed where he'd found the large, stiff brush he was now using

Once the majority of the deluge was dealt with, Donald washed a pan and ate breakfast in the silent kitchen. Through the kitchen window he watched the birds feeding in the trees and on the overgrown lawn.

Corned beef and spaghetti hoop casserole ingested, he remembered the cellar.

Shit.

It was bound to be flooded down there. He grabbed the brush and went to check.

The fluorescent light made a “pinc-pinc-pinc” noise and flickered into life as he flicked the switch. The wooden staircase was soaked. He followed the trail of the water downwards and was surprised to find, when he turned the corner at the bottom of the stairs and discovered the train set, very little damage. The stone floor was wet where the water had passed, but there were no puddles. The floor had funnelled it's flow toward the centre of the room, somewhere beneath the enormous child's toy, and into a drain. Panic over, Donald took a look at the model.

It was old, he could tell that from the controls. Large dials on Bakelite panels ran along the edge closest to the cellar's entrance.

The three toy trains on the tracks were all steam trains, miniature representations of some beautiful examples of British engineering from a bygone time when stuff still looked cool. Donald turned one of the dial, it clicked but nothing happened. He looked around and found the only plug socket. The socket was feeding an extension lead, the other end of which was screwed to the underside of the plywood base. The aging transformers hummed into life as the wheels began to turn on the three little trains. Donald smiled as he watched the toys follow each other around the same closed loop, through the tunnel and across the bridge that spanned the painted river until passing through the quaint, and exceptionally detailed, little train station that marked the end and the beginning of the journey. Past motionless cows, plastic trees, a church, a pub and a German tank at a level crossing the tiny trains thundered. One line branched off from the main loop, terminating in a miniature train shed. The nose of a sleek, matt black train protruded from the doors. The train had an enamel badge on the front. A white badge with, what was that?

Donald snorted. It was a Swastika. He picked the train up. A little, black, Nazi train.

He inspected the macabre children's toy in his hand, turning it over and feeling its cool, smooth surface. He didn't notice two of the trains currently thundering around the track getting closer and closer, the lead train having the less efficient motor. There was a clatter of die cast metal on die cast metal as the faster train caught up and tried to overtake the slower on the same track. The carriages and engines became derailed and crashed to the floor.

Donald crouched to collect them. A few of the little metal wheels had fallen off some of the carriages and lay scattered around the wet floor. Donald had to crawl beneath the model to collect the last few pieces.

The water that had drained through the centre of the room had marked it's passage, the stone being of a darker grey where the deluge had passed over. It narrowed as it approached the grid, except...

...there was no grid.

It appeared the water had seeped through a joint between two of the stone flags that made up the floor. Donald was intrigued, how could the cellar have drained so quickly and efficiently through the earth beneath that joint? He put the trains down and crawled forward.

He could hear dripping, the plip-plop-plip of water into water. He ran his hands over the surface of the flag and explored the joints on all four sides with his fingertips. Nothing special, just a flag like all the others. He put his ear close to the point the water had disappeared and felt a cold draught on his cheek. Donald took one of the wheels he held and slotted it into the gap. Once half inserted, he pressed it.

It popped through the joint and, almost instantaneously, Donald thought he heard a tinkle. He repeated the experiment, again and again, each time not quite sure that he could hear anything until, unseen in the darkness below, one wheel fell and struck another wheel that was already lying there.

“Ping”.

Donald went to fetch tools.

____________________

Owen paused at the college gates, ostensibly to tie a lace that hadn't needed tying until he's undone it.

“Hiya”, Owen heard the greeting and set his best smile in place before looking up at the greeter.

“Oh, hiya Mandy. I didn't see you there.” He lied

Owen and Mandy chatted lots about very little as they walked towards the little precinct and it's legion of cheap takeaways and benches. It was lunch time, the sun was shining and Mandy was, in Owen's words, “proper fit”. Owen smiled.

Life was good.

The pair sat side by side on the wooden bench outside the sandwich shop they'd recently patronised. Mandy loved the sound of her own voice and she loved to use it. Her conversation wasn't scholarly (it bordered on facile) but, goodness, she was attractive.

Owen listened to her, for a while.

He bagan to gaze around as she spoke. A tramp was putting the remains of a boot in a bin. Owen watched as he then limped by, wearing a recently acquired Pound Bakery carrier bag stuffed with copies of the Metro where others would wear a right shoe.

“Look at the fucking state of that.” Owen said.

“I know. Scruffy bastards.” Mandy sneered as she spoke, “The council should do something about that lot, I bet he's got more money than me, that one.” She gestured at the tramp who'd clearly heard, but chosen to ignore, her vitriol.

“I meant that the poor bastard's got no fucking shoes.” Owen stood up and began to walk away, a look on his face like he was fleeing a fart.

“Hey, where you going? What's the matter with you? He's only a fucking tramp.”

“And I'd put money on it that he's a better person than you.” He span around slowly, arms outstretched as he addressed the fit girl from college, but didn't stop moving away from her.

Mandy blushed, she was raging.

Mandy was fit, Mandy knew she was fit, Mandy wasn't used to being spoken to like that. For the first time in a long time, Mandy was lost for words.

“Oh, fuck off.” She spat the words after him and, with that, Owen and the fit girl's fledgling flirtations finished.

____________________

Donald had once loved reading. He'd spent many a happy hour lost in someone else's fantasy, trying to anticipate the outcome of the adventure on the page. He'd read both classics and pulp fiction alike and, with very few exceptions, had loved them all.

In the days following the events at the petrol station he had wandered. He couldn't remember sleeping and he was sure he didn't eat or drink. During his trek he'd seen things he couldn't have seen. Characters from beloved books, places described in their pages, adventures had by their heroes, all these things played out around him. In reality, he was running from reality. His mind knew him well enough to know he couldn't handle the current reality from his perception, so it went missing for a while. On a sabbatical, to slowly return as his fear and panic had turned first to anger and then acceptance.

Acceptance. Maybe even satisfaction, of a kind. All that had suffered had long ceased suffering when he found himself sat at a bus stop, sheltering from the rain he loved so much.

“Excuse me,” The old lady stood a few paces away from where he sat, nervously holding a carrier bag before her. “I hope you don't mind, it's just a few sandwiches.”

Donald looked up at the woman but remained otherwise motionless.

“They're clean,” She said, “please. You look like...” She tailed off for a moment, then continued, “you look like you could do with them.” She smiled.

“Thank you.” Donald's voice hadn't been used for a day or two and his throat was as dry as sandpaper. His words crackled.

“Is your face okay? That looks sore,” She indicated the burn on his cheek, “Have you had it looked at?”

He touched the raw flesh on his face gently with his filthy fingertips.

“Yes.” Less croaky this time.

“There's a bottle of water in there, too. If you're here tomorrow at this time, I'll fetch you more.” Then she left.

Donald watched her cross the street and enter a small block of flats. His eyes had scanned the front of the building until he'd spotted her again, framed in her kitchen window and watching him. He opened the bag.

Inside the bag, individually wrapped in cellophane, were enough sandwiches to choke a pig. Each sandwich contained a different filling and had been carefully cut into two equal triangles. Donald waved at the lady, the lady waved back.

Donald didn't go back the next day, or any day.

He'd been grateful for the old lady's act of kindness, it had quite possibly saved his life, but if he went back she might talk to him. He might like her.

He didn't like the thought of liking anymore.

____________________

“Here, mate” Owen panted as he jogged after the tramp, “Hang on a minute.”

The tramp was nervous. He spent most of his life nervous and this lad was chasing him down a back alley. He backed into a doorway, a huge man appearing to cower from the grinning Owen.

“Phew, thanks, fuck me...” Owen panted as he bent forward, his hands on his knees and smiling up at the figure in the doorway, “That bird, her I was with, the one with the tits,” He used the universally recognised hand signal for a well endowed lady, “you know?”

“Yes. She called me a “scruffy bastard””

“That's the one, yes. Well,” He straightened up and took a deep breath, “she's a fucking prick, mate. A proper prick. I mean, fit, but, nah, fucking horrid.”

The tramp remained nervous.

“Anyway, look, I got you these.” Owen pulled a pair of new, brown boots from the bag he carried and placed them on the green, plastic skip by the doorway in which the tramp stood, “and these too...”, he added a couple of pairs of socks.

The tramp hoped they were size eleven, ten at a pinch. His most recent boots had fitted him, it was a luxury he would be sad to lose.

“They're size eleven, mate. I checked the one you'd thrown away,” Owen grinned and winked a wink, “Down there for dancing.” He pointed at his own feet as he danced a little jig. “I'm sorry about her, mate. I was on the streets myself not so long ago, fucked up when I got out of nick.”

The tramp nodded.

“You too?” Owen asked.

“Yes.” The tramp had sat in a doorway and was beginning to remove his unconventional footwear, “well, no. Sort of. Forces.”

“Similar I suppose.” Owen laughed. “I'm Owen. What's your name, mate?” He held out a hand. The tramp took it.

“Mick, I'm Mick.” It was the second time in as many days he'd been asked that question, his social life was certainly looking up.

“Pleased to meet you, Mick.” Owen smiled.

Mick sat on the floor in the little doorway and began to pull his new socks over his gnarled toes and fungus festooned feet.

“I'll give you some privacy.” Owen began to walk away, slowly and backwards. “I'm here every Monday lunchtime, if you ever fancy a chat. You can tell me about your adventures in the army. Or not, whatever.” He smiled and turned away, “Take care, Mickey.”

“Mick, it's Mick.”

“Sorry mate.” Owen turned back as he apologised, now nearing the corner, and waved, “bye-bye, Mick.”

The fire-door by which Mick was sitting opened fast as a man carrying a large bucket of kitchen waste barged the bar from within and backed out into the alley. He hadn't expected a tramp to be changing his footwear on the floor by the bins and yelled loudly as he stumbled over him, falling into the street and spilling the cocktail of potato skins and fish flesh he was carrying.

Mick had both boots on by now, though he'd yet to lace them. He sprang to his feet and extended a helping hand to the prone man in the pile of rotting food.

“I'm so sorry, here, let me...”

“What the fuck you think you doing?” The man shouted in an accent that should have been exotic but was spoiled by the anger, “you filthy fucking peasant.”

“I'm sorry, please, let me...”

The man with the accent stood. A large chap with hands like plates, he loomed over Mick.

“You dirty bastards, hanging round here, pissed all fucking time, all fucking time. You piss and you shit, shoot up, you fucking cockroaches.” He spat on the floor, though some hit one of Mick's new toecaps. “You fuck off now, fucking fuck off you fucking druggy. Fuck off.”

Mick looked down at his soiled boot and slowly back up.

“Go, fucking go...” The big man lashed out and slapped the top of Mick's head. Mick cowered back into the doorway.

“...fucking hobo, fuck off...” Another slap. Mick raised his hands and tried to absorb the next one, pressed into the corner.

The next blow didn't arrive, though it's sound did.

The blow, delivered to the back of the slapping man's balding head by the young lad on his lunch break, was a fine blow indeed. Owen had intended to try and placate the man and then to help Mick clean up the mess, but...

He'd spat on him. And now he was slapping him. And Mick wasn't defending himself but the man had slapped him again. Owen hated bullies.

The man fell forward, landing on his hands and knees and half in, half out of the still open door. Owen raised a foot and stamped on the helpless bully, knocking the air from his lungs and slamming him into the floor along with the cigarette butts and piss.

Owen grabbed the door, swinging it wide before slamming it into the spitter's shoulder. Then again. And again, punctuating ever painful slam with a word.

“You...”

Slam.

“...dirty...”

Slam.

“...fucking...”

Slam.

“...BASTARD!”

Owen stopped, fists clenched and chest heaving he stared down at the chap now whimpering and using his non-battered arm to drag himself away..

“You've been to prison?” Mick asked Owen.

“What? Yes, yes, I told you that.” Owen's head swam and he panted.

“Then you should be more careful.” Mick used his cuff to wipe the edge of the door where his benefactors fingers had gripped, “you might as well sign it as leave your dabs, son.”

“Thanks. Thanks, man.”

“You're welcome. Next Monday, then?” He didn't smile, but Owen did.

“Next Monday, yes.”

Mick turned and began walking away in his unlaced boots.

“I'd be on my toes if I were you, lad.” Mick called over his shoulder. “He'll be on the phone to the old Bill by now.”

Owen looked back along the alley toward the shopping precinct, then looked at his watch.

“Wait up, man,” He jogged after his new, pungent friend, “I fancy a Nandos.”

He caught up with the old soldier.

“You like Nandos? My shout, man. We might have to get carry out, though, they're pretty fussy about who they let in,” He smiled at Mick, “and I'm wearing trainers.”

____________________

Had Donald examined the underside of the plywood just inches above his shoulders he'd have seen, held in place by tool clips, a wheel brace. Had he gone on to further inspect the intriguing flagstone, he'd have found a point midway along the right hand edge that was chipped and worn, the damaged area being the same size as the tip of the wheel brace above and, had he put two and two together, Donald would have saved himself the trip to the little shed from which he was now returning.

A spade, a sledgehammer and a torch.

Donald needed space to work in. He stood the spade against the wall, set the torch on the ground and smashed off two of the legs that supported the train set with the hammer. Pieces of the dead perverts second favourite pastime tumbled to the ground as Donald took a hold of the still supported edge of the plywood and heaved, flipping it over so it came to rest upside down and destroying the painstakingly recreated representation of a northern landscape in the process.

And still he didn't notice the wheel brace.

The ceiling wasn't high enough to afford Donald a proper, satisfying swing, so it took half a dozen attempts to crack the stone right through and send the pieces crashing down into the pitch black depths, striking metal on their journey. Donald grabbed the torch.

-----------

The old cottage was very old indeed, and stood on the foundations of another, much older, cottage. Those deep foundations provided the cellar in which the obliterated train set now lay and turned the original cellar, once suitably underpinned, into a sub-cellar.

A metal ladder was bolted in place to provide access through what had once been a trapdoor but that had, until recently, been replaced with a flagstone liberated from beneath the cooker in the kitchen.

The floor space in the sub cellar was far smaller than the one above, much heavy engineering having gone in to ensuring a strong foundation. These reinforcements had impinged on the area within, but good use had been made of what little space there was.

A square of light containing Donald's silhouette shone on the floor below but made little impact on the space around. Donald flicked on the torch and a soft, orange light reflected from the glass doors on the display cabinets that someone had built into every available gap in the structural reinforcements. The torch's battery struggled to provide much power and so the bulb glowed rather than shone, too dim to sufficiently illuminate the contents of the cabinets. Donald clicked it off, tapped his pocket to check he had a box of matches and climbed down the little ladder.

He stood on the cold floor, illuminated in the square spot-light, and struck a match. The light flickered and danced on his own face but on little else beside. He put out a hand and edged forward, jumping back suddenly and stifling a yell having taken two, shuffling paces. Something had brushed his face.

He saw the string swinging in the air before him as the flame from the match he held finally reached his fingertips. Donald didn't scream nor release his grip. He screwed his face into a mask of anger and waited for the pain to subside, muttering threats and obscenities under his breath as he stared at his sizzling fingerprints.

Once calm again, Donald reached out and grabbed the string. He pulled.

Click.

The harsh light of a strip light, fixed to the wall Donald was facing, burst forth with the enthusiastic energy of a dog that's found the gate's been left open, it's blinding brightness bursting forth and flooding the small space. Donald flinched and turned away from the fizzing light fitting.

“Oh my fucking word!” Donald's jumped back, ready to defend himself from the tall figure in the cap. He pulled back his arm and prepared to throw a punch at the face...

...but there was no face. Just a smooth, beige, face shaped blankness half hidden as if behind a mask by the shadow cast by the peak of the cap the figure wore. A black cap, with a little skull and cross bones on it. Donald laughed.

A mannequin stood before him, dressed from head to toe in the uniform of a Nazi, or an SS officer, whatever. Donald wasn't big on that kind of thing.

Most of the cabinets held badges, medals, knives, pamphlets and letters written in German, buttons and pieces of shrapnel attached to labels of brown card. Pieces of canons, tanks, aircraft and spent munitions. Others held treasures of a less atrocity-based nature. Among other things not so easily recognised were wallets, a broken doll, pages and articles from newspapers mounted in frames, the skulls of a few birds and small mammals.

The mannequin had a briefcase, though no hand to hold it. Donald picked it up from where it sat by the ghostly Nazi's right foot and set it down on a cabinet. Small, brass, combination locks secured the case. Donald examined the wheels for a moment, before picking up the case and slamming it down on the glass surface. The cabinet immediately and noisily yielded to the assault, allowing Donald to liberate the World War II, German military issue bayonet that had taken several lives before it's original owner had thrown himself on a grenade (since which time it had remained in a forest in Belgium before being found and, eventually, sold on eBay) from within. He stabbed the point of the blade into first the left and then the right clasps, twisting the bayonet's handle and destroying the mechanism to gain access.

He was expecting papers, authentic looking papers with Swastikas festooned across them. This Nazi's briefcase held a laptop. Donald thought it surprising they'd not won the war if their technology had been this sophisticated. Apparently they had iPhones too, as the white cable tucked away with the charger seemed to prove. He opened the laptop up and pressed the power key, setting the hard drive whirring and the screen flickering into life. Donald folded the screen back down and closed the case.

There was a metal filing cabinet, the key still in the lock, hidden away in the corner. The brown paint on the sides was scratched and rusting, the damage running vertically after it had been squeezed through the same tiny access point through which Donald had more recently entered. He began opening and investigating drawers.

Cardboard dividers that now had nothing to divide other than themselves filled the upper two drawers. Drawer number three contained a large, locked, metal cash box that didn't rattle but that felt too heavy to be empty when Donald set it on the top of the cabinet.

As Donald crouched and began to slide open the lowest, and final, of the four drawers, two floors above his head four fresh feet fell upon the kitchen flags.

Episode five

(29/04/16)