A Gathering of Twine Read online

  “The Raven Men. They say we are just playing games.”

  “Who are the Raven Men, Eric?”

  Kandian shrugged again. “Just the Raven Men. They say the faithful never sleep, but still, they don’t see. They tell us they do. But we know. And we still see them,” he tapped at the dim constellation.

  “We?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who is the 'we'?”

  “All of us. You and me and Mandy and Dr Roberts and all of us.”

  “Do you mean everyone at the nursing home?”

  “No.”

  “Everyone in the world?”

  Kandian nodded. “Everyone everyone everyone.”

  Cullum paused. He heard heavy footsteps from the adjoining room. George’s nephew must be leaving. He didn’t stay long.

  “How long has everyone lived there?” he asked gently.

  “Always. It’s our home.”

  “Where are you now?” Cullum could feel that he was pushing Kandian’s delusion to its limit. If he could let him find the flaw in it, then he might pull out of it himself.

  “This place?”

  “Yes. The nursing home.”

  “Oh, this should not be,” Kandian answered quite cheerfully.

  “But it is. This home is real.”

  “Yes. But only for now. When it is not now, then it will not be.”

  Cullum felt he was engaging in a battle of wits with a Zen Master, and he was losing.

  “When will it not be now?” he asked.

  Kandian laughed. “Always. It’s never now.”

  Cullum knew he had lost. One last try. “Eric, can you see New York now?”

  Kandian gazed out of the window, peering intently beyond the line of trees. “No,” he said eventually. “The curtain is drawn.”

  “The curtain?”

  Kandian just shook his head and offered no explanation.

  Cullum gave up. “Well, I like your paintings, Eric. I like them very much. Will you paint some more for me?” he said, standing from his chair.

  “Yes. But can you turn the music down?”

  This again.

  “I tell you what Eric, I’ll go next door with Nurse Arnold, and see if I can turn the music down, and you paint some more for me. Ok?”

  Kandian nodded.

  As he got up, Cullum thought he heard something. Like a distant chanting, and then it was gone. He strained to catch it again, but nothing.

  Cullum crossed the room. Standing in the doorway, so that Kandian could see him, he said very clearly, “Nurse Arnold, could you please ask...”

  Kandian screamed.

  Cullum knew that scream. It was not the scream of the demented or the insane. It was the piercing shriek of absolute terror. The shrill cry that goes through absolutely every soul without question and says Do not turn, do not look. RUN! Just RUN!

  In the split-second that followed, Cullum was dimly aware of a roar, as if a prehistoric beast had awoken, startled and ravenous. He half turned, and fancied he saw a faint purple light through the window.

  And then his world went utterly black.

  *

  [Maiden Castle Stele 37]

  Danu sent Greine to rescue her daughter Kore, first child of Riah, who had been imprisoned for giving out apples to the peasantry, and setting them free from the evil Lord Shemel. Greine freed Kore and the peasants but was chased by Lord Shemel on a steed of thunder when he discovered that Kore had stolen his magic rod. The peasants were turned into rivers by Danu, and Greine and Kore escaped by sailing away leaving Lord Shemel to drown.

  Danu gave Shemel’s steed of thunder to Gofannon that he might provide a mate with it and so produce a herd of war horses for Greine’s army.

  *

  Cullum coughed, and opened his eyes. He was lying on the floor. His brain was trying to process information, but his ears were ringing, and he could feel liquid dripping across his face and onto his lips. He instinctively tasted it. Blood.

  It was stiflingly hot, and he was already covered with a thick sheen of sweat.

  He tried to raise himself, but he was pinned. He moved his arm a little, sweeping aside some dust. He recognised the carpet. He was still in Paternoster House. For a moment his mind mused at how different things looked from this perspective.

  His eyes fluttered up, and he could just make out a form in front of him slumped against a pile of rubble. Nurse Lisa Arnold. She was not moving, and judging by the amount of blood pooling around her, she probably never would again.

  Cullum tried to turn his head to face the other way, but could not. He was held firmly down by something on top of him. Something very big and very heavy. And that something was slowly crushing the breath from him.

  Despite his predicament and the carnage around him, Cullum felt a sense of serenity. There seemed to be some unspeakably twisted irony to the situation, and his dry sense of humour appreciated the cosmic joke. A man renowned for his penchant for control was now utterly helpless as events moved on without considering him.

  How long had he been here? Perhaps an hour? Maybe more. He struggled to catch his breath. Nothing felt broken. Plenty of bruises. Maybe one or two cuts. Probable concussion. He waggled his fingers, and then his toes. Everything worked there.

  Cullum tried to assess the situation. Clearly, something had happened. With all the dust, maybe part of the building had collapsed. He tried to recall the events before his had blacked out. He was talking to Kandian. Then he went into the corridor. And then... Something hovered on the edge of his memory. What? A sound? A voice? Maybe it would come back to him later.

  Cullum returned to his idea of building collapse. Why? Paternoster House was purpose-built, albeit with a Jacobean style frontage to match the nearby manorial house. A structural defect was unlikely. So then what? An explosion maybe? But from where? His mind instantly went to the gas store, where they stored the oxygen cylinders and other gasses. For as long as he could remember he had told the management that the room needed to be temperature controlled. Or moved to an outside store. They had fobbed him off. Budget pressures and the like.

  So there had been an explosion, and he was trapped. Probably under some ceiling tiles, and maybe some beams or rubble for good measure. His options were limited. He could barely move, and there was nothing to hand that he could prop against the dead weight on his back.

  After nine-eleven there had been numerous documentaries about building collapse and miraculous tales of survival from within a zone known as a Triangle of Life. An area where beams and struts had fallen in such a way as to create a small space that someone could survive in. Cullum presumed that judging by the pressure on his back, he was not in one.

  Whichever way he looked at it, he wanted to laugh. He was completely helpless. There was nothing he could do. No tools he could reach. No-one nearby that he could signal to. All he could do was lay there. And he found that he really needed the toilet.

  He tried to call out, to cry for help. Only a low rasp came out.

  Best save your energy, Andy.

  Cullum tried to take a breath to call out again and felt a catching. Possibly a broken rib. Maybe serious.

  He was amused by the things that were now running through his mind. He had broken that rib as a teenager when his youthful exuberance had seen him take up kickboxing with his younger brother. Tom had not lasted long. He never did. He was the feckless sort who drifted from one thing to another without really giving it a proper try. How many times had he tried university? Four? Five?

  Cullum, on the other hand, had enjoyed the martial arts. There was always the odd knock or scrape, but one time, when sparring, a side kick had caught him flush on his lowest rib. He had felt it break, and the air evaporated from him. It was not bad, but his mother had hugged him like she was never going to let him go. That was his first serious injury as a child, and it probably took her some time to get used to the idea.

  His father, by contrast, had seemed almost proud of the injury. Fighting w
as a Man’s sport. And when you fought someone got hurt. Next time it would not be his son. Because his son would learn, and fight back harder. Like a Man.

  Cullum half smiled to himself, at the memory of his father. A local John Wayne. Shuddup and drink your milk pilgrim. His father had often done that impression at breakfast. His two sons had always laughed along like it was the best joke ever.

  He winced as the rib began to dig in.

  Even now the rib was nobbly where it had broken. Amanda had caressed it on their first night together, and he had told her the story. She had been horrified that such violence was allowed in these classes. She did not understand. Few people ever did. It was a way of life. The discipline. The sweat. The camaraderie. Cullum was not a man with many friends. Plenty of associates. But few friends. And of those friends, he had met the majority at that kickboxing club.

  His bladder reminded him that the need to urinate was becoming increasingly urgent.

  He still tried to train at the club. But with work and now with Amanda, it was getting harder and harder to get down there. It had been at least a month since he had last been. His instructor was relaxed about it. He had been teaching for over thirty years, and he was used to seeing the cycles in his students’ lives. Sometimes they came back to the club. Sometimes they did not. But they would always be part of the family.

  Cullum had tried to get Amanda interested, and she had come along once and watched him training. But training is not a spectator sport, and he was unsurprised that she had decided not to take it further.

  He tried to breathe again and felt himself wheezing.

  The memory of his mother’s hug came rushing back in an instant. Cullum remembered the old photos - how impossibly young they had all looked. His mother without a grey hair. Him without a line or a wrinkle. It was another time. Another life. When his father had still been alive.

  Cullum remembered when his father had become ill, and when they knew it was terminal. The Old Man had laughed it off. The wheel still turns, son. What starts ends.

  He had never known his father to be philosophical, but those words often returned to him. The wheel still turns. He supposed it was true. That we are ultimately heading back to wherever it was we had come from, whatever that might be.

  Even though they knew it was coming, his mother had cried when the end came for his father. He cried too, but he knew he could cry. He did not know his mother could cry. That seemed silly now, but Cullum reflected briefly on how he had viewed his parents as demi-gods. Of course, the roles were reversed now. The Cancer was eating away at his mother, much the same way it had his father. The consultant had been honest with him. Brutally honest. His mother was happy to let go. She wanted to see her husband again. It was just the length of time it was taking.

  At this rate, he would beat her to it.

  He wheezed again. It hurt more this time. Whatever it was that was on his back was slowly pressing him insistently into the floor, like a rolling pin flattening some particularly lumpy pastry. He did not know where the break on the rib was, but he could guess, and if he was unlucky it would puncture his lung. He would survive for a while on the other, but if he kept on being crushed into the carpet... well best not to dwell on these things.

  He hated the thought of someone having to tell his mother that he was dead. Please don’t let it be Tom.

  It had been years since he had spoken to his brother. Despite the similarity of their appearance, their personalities were near polar opposites. He had left home as soon as A Levels were over. University. Then training. Rented a place with friends. Then bought. He saw his parents often enough, but he never moved back.

  Tom on the other hand... well, he never seemed to get going. He had done great at A Levels, better than his older brother, but then he had stalled. He tried a semester at university but that had not worked out. So he moved back home. Various retail jobs had wound up with him on a management training scheme, but he quit that before he could finish. More retail jobs, then a call centre. Still living at home. Then a decision to be a teacher. He had quit that half way through. Somehow he had then reached a decision to run a bar. That folded within a year. Back to the call centre. And now what? To be a DJ? Still at home. And through all of this, even though he and his mother had worried about him, Tom had seemed oblivious. His mother’s enduring support had probably not helped, but that is what his mother did – encouraged regardless.

  His bladder felt like it was bursting.

  Cullum probably would have let his younger brother drift along, but when Tom started trying to force him to prescribe heavy drugs, Cullum guessed that perhaps all was not as great as his brother claimed. Shortly after that, Tom confessed his debt problems. They were sizeable.

  Cullum did not tell his mother. He knew what the worry would do to her. Cullum had tried to strike a deal with Tom; he would clear his debts if his brother would knuckle down to something. He even offered to rent a flat for him, so he could move out. Get some independence. That conversation had not gone well, and the vitriolic recriminations that ended what had started as a reasonable discussion had been the last time they had talked.

  Cullum wheezed again and this time, he felt the rib bite physically deeper. He tried to relax. Maybe help would come. Maybe not. Best to give them a sporting chance.

  Tom had tried to make contact. A year or so after the argument he had emailed him. But it was more of the same. “I’ve been doing this and that and little of such.” Cullum just did not have the energy to deal with him.

  He kept tabs on Tom via the myriad of social networking sites, albeit as anonymously as possible. His mother always gave him positive news about his brother, but he knew that, at best, that was gloss, and more often than not she had been fed out-and-out lies.

  Cullum had seen it before with his patients. Families rally around ne’er-do-wells who had been admitted for whatever it was they had done too much of this time. They always believed that this was a turning point. This was just the scare they needed. It seldom was. It tended to be nothing more than a slow spiral into oblivion and those personalities were like black holes – stand too close, and you got sucked down with them.

  He had seen it once. A boy, not even eighteen, came in with his uncle. The uncle had overdosed, and the nephew had called the ambulance. What had emerged was a history of cocaine abuse, a long stint in prison, and when he had come out, the Uncle’s sister – the boy’s mother - had taken him in. Even though she had two young sons, she had promised her husband that her brother was clean and would get his life back on track. He just needed a place to stay for a year or two.

  The husband knew otherwise, but what could he say to his wife? The uncle had taken a cleaning job and, for a while, it looked like he was going to stay sober. It did not last. Before the twelve months were out, he was back on the smack, and when his sister had refused to give him money, he put in as many windows of their house as he could before the police had arrived. She had not wanted to press charges, but the husband would not let him back in. Cullum could not blame him. And so the Uncle drifted from sofa to sofa until he found himself in a squat. Somehow he had got hold of his eldest nephew’s mobile number and begged to meet him, probably in the hope of getting some cash. What had happened in-between was hazy, but it seemed the Uncle was unable to cope, and when the nephew found him he was unconscious. He never came round.

  Best intentions and all that. But always get as far away as possible from black-hole personalities. Cullum had to cut Tom loose.

  Cullum wheezed again. The bite was deeper this time. A lot deeper. Nearly time Andy.

  He sighed, and let his bladder go. He felt the warm liquid spreading over his trousers, and seep into the carpet. Too quickly it started to go cold.

  Cullum wondered if his vocation had made him cynical. He loved the idea of a wife and kids. He had seen how happy it had made his friends. But he had also seen the flipside with his patients. Shifts within A&E were a mandatory part of the training, and that w
as where he had seen the worst. Car accidents where the baby seat had not been strapped in properly. Cabinets full of bleach that had not been locked. Stabbings at a school. Who takes a knife to school?

  It did not matter how old the child was. The mother's howl was always the same. It came from a deep place. The core of her being. The father grim-faced desperately trying to physically hold his wife or girlfriend together as she fell apart from the inside.

  Cullum hoped his mother would pass away before the news of his death reached her.

  Wheeze...gurgle.

  Cullum felt the bite sinking in. He knew it was probably only a quarter-inch or so, but it felt like it had gone all the way through him.

  He groaned involuntarily.

  Despite the immense pressure on his back, he felt relaxed. He had often wondered how his life would end. Being suffocated by a carpet had not made his top ten, and yet here he was.

  If dealing with parents was bad, dealing with a partner or spouse was worse. Or so he thought. Others would disagree. The old ones he could handle. People who had lived their lives. That seemed ok. It was the young ones. Those in their late teens or early twenties, who were just on the cusp of discovering the world.

  Multiple vehicle pileups. A shooting. Alcohol poisoning. And the partner: hysterical, tears streaming down their face, begging them not to go. Begging them to hold on. That their world would end without them. A memory surfaced like a bubble, unbidden. A girl. Probably eighteen or nineteen. Her boyfriend had collapsed and had been brought in convulsing. No alcohol. No knocks to the head. By the time they had figured it out, he had arrested three times. When the fourth time came it was the end.

  Undiagnosed brain cancer – two tumours at the back, the size of apples. It had probably been there for years. Sometimes it just happens like that. But that would have been no comfort to the girl. He remembered her face. The tears streaking down her cheeks. A nurse tried to hold her as she fell apart.

  It was times like those that he realised how fragile it all was. How tightly we all cling to the edge of life. The girl had sobbed. Huge racking gasping sobs from her very soul. He could still hear them all these years on.