A Gathering of Twine Read online

  Danielle was intrigued by the premise. “These would be your Raven Men, I suppose?”

  Freeman nodded. “Yes. I think that’s what came through Anna Hyde’s monitor. Or maybe its essence.”

  “Ok,” Danielle replied. “I’ll buy it. So if something did come through, and her behaviour did change, who noticed?”

  Freeman’s pause was longer this time. “Her husband,” he said eventually. “And Anna made him do terrible things.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Matthew 27: 4

  “I have sinned,” he said, “for I have betrayed innocent blood.”

  “What is that to us?” they replied. “The responsibility is yours alone.”

  My name is Ryan Hyde and I am an alcoholic. It has been fifteen years since my last drink, which was on 16th April 2010. It was the day that I left the things that had once been my wife and child. I would never see them again.

  Thursday 7th December 2006

  Ryan was down in it.

  The day had not started well, and it was not until after lunch that he had got out of bed. He was in a black mood.

  How dare my wife not say goodbye to me. How dare she!

  Of course, the other voice had answered, even though he had not asked it to.

  Why would she?

  And so he had a drink. Just a small one. To get warmed up. To get the old engine going. To quieten the voice a little. That had been around twelve-thirty.

  It was now gone six and he still had not showered. And there had been a few more drinks. Quite a few more drinks. Ok, a lot, even by his standards. But he was alright. He would just have a coffee and some toast before his darling wife came back. Maybe wash his teeth too. For his darling wife.

  The little bitch! It’s gone six! Where is she?!

  The dirty dishes from last night’s meal looked back at him. The washing machine winked accusingly, reminding him that it had done its job some hours ago and he would do well to do his.

  He did not move but looked at his laptop screen. His document was empty. He had not written a single thing that afternoon. He was reminded of that Kubrick film with Jack Nicholson. It would be easy to copy and paste All work and no sex makes Ryan very VERY angry.

  He hit the keyboard briefly, deleted it, and looked around. He did not mind the house. It was a small Victorian mid-terrace three bed. But the third bedroom was really a box room. Ryan thought it had once been the bathroom that had been converted when the extension was put on the ground floor.

  And wasn’t that a bodge job!

  Single skin brickwork, mouldering wooden frames. Anna and he had taken it on as a project. With the rise in the property prices, they could do it up and make a quick buck. But then Anna had got pregnant.

  Little bitch did that on purpose! To trap me!

  Ryan knew that was not true. Not even lying to himself made him feel any better. He wanted to rail against everything. To blame everything. Everyone.

  This is not the way things were supposed to be.

  This is not who he was supposed to be.

  In all honesty, he wanted to cry. He felt the bubble of shame well up inside of him. He felt that a lot these days. As if everyone had somehow swum away from him, leaving him bobbing on an ocean. He could see them all in the distance. Getting smaller. Not even waving goodbye.

  Of course, he knew that his life had not left him. He had left it. And it was not that everyone was getting smaller. He was just getting further away. He quite liked that idea and typed that last thought onto the screen.

  It sounded self-pitying, and he deleted it.

  The empty document stared back again.

  He took another noisy slurp from his tumbler. The harsh alcohol did not even burn anymore. He felt the comforting warmth slide down into his belly where it rested for a few minutes before slowly fading.

  What? It’s not like I’m on hard drugs. It’s just a little drink.

  Somewhere deep inside him, Ryan knew the truth. It was not the one little drink that was the problem. It was the nine or ten that followed it that was the problem. And it was a big problem.

  But when is a problem a problem? I’m not hurting anybody, he reasoned.

  You’re hurting yourself. That was his grandmother’s voice. God, he missed her. She had been that kindly silver-haired woman who had always told him stories of the blitz and working in a munitions factory and how his grandfather had been ground crew for the RAF in Egypt, and would show him the one telegram she had received from him, now yellow and brittle with age.

  Gran, how come paper goes yellow with age, but people go grey?

  His Gran had laughed. She was not the most educated woman and she knew it, having left school at twelve. Yet she always had a way of empowering him - making him feel that he could do anything. He had always imagined her stories in black and white, like the old films they had watched together. She had cried at Brief Encounter. He did not understand at the time. He did now.

  He heard the front door unlock.

  He still had not tidied the kitchen

  Or had a shower.

  And yet still he was relieved. His wife was home. His darling wife was home!

  Anna stood in the doorway to the lounge, surveying both the state of her husband and the kitchen beyond. Ryan stood and went to hug her. The room swam and he sat back down. Hard.

  He looked up at his wife, expecting another angry monologue born of frustration. Something was different about her. He could not put his finger on it. Was she taller?

  People don’t just get taller! The voice inside mocked.

  Paler? What was it?

  “Ryan?”

  Ryan frowned and tried to focus. “Have you had a haircut?”

  Anna did not reply but carried on looking at him curiously as if she was not entirely sure what it was that she was seeing.

  “Anna? You ok?” He stood up and was able to counter the slow spin of the room this time.

  “Yes. You are my husband.”

  That’s odd.

  Ryan grinned. “Yes, I am,” and made an overblown attempt to bow. His ears popped and he felt the room shift around him. He sat back down quickly.

  “I am your wife,” said Anna. She had half cocked her head, as though listening for a distant voice.

  “Uh-huh,” he replied, rubbing his eyes. His ears popped again, and he felt the room’s spin resume. He closed his eyes, and tilted his head back, fighting a wave of nausea. Ryan heard the footsteps of his approaching wife on the carpeted floor and then felt the warmth of her body as she straddled him, pushing her hips into his.

  Ryan’s eyes snapped open. They had not touched like this in months.

  His wife was looking down at him, unblinking and impassive. “I am your wife,” she said again and ground her hips into his. Her kiss was savage, more teeth than anything else. Ryan tasted blood in his mouth and some primitive part of him, long dormant in a lagoon of alcohol, stirred and then rose. He went to flip her over so that he was on top, but she remained firm, pinning him to the sofa.

  *

  That night, Anna moved Christopher’s cot into the nursery. Ryan noticed how sinewy her arms had become, bristling with definition. Had they always been like that?

  The child had seemed ill at ease with Anna at first, but they put it down to a difficult day at nursery, and some late teeth that were still making their way through.

  In bed, their bodies entwined again. Anna was as vigorous and insistent as she had been earlier. Again Ryan tried to turn her over, and again she pinned him down, making him work from underneath.

  Her hands pressed down his chest, and one of them worked its way towards his throat. “You love me, don’t you?” she said between exaggerated gasps.

  “Wha...?” his reverie broken.

  “You love me, don’t you?” Her hand began to paw at his throat.

  “Yeah sure.”

  “Say it!” She tightened around him.

  “I... I love you!” He gasped, eyes bulging.


  “And you would do anything for me.” Her grip had not relaxed.

  “Yea...”

  “Say it!” She carried on squeezing.

  “I would do anything for you.” His ears popped for the third time that day, causing him to wince.

  With three quick thrusts, she finished him off and dismounted.

  Ryan barely slept that night. He felt something inside of him - cold like thousands of tiny snakes slithering through his veins. During the snatched interludes of sleep he dreamed of a home that was not his own, and yet there were similarities. The doorways were distorted; twelve feet high, culminating in crude and brutal misshapen peaks. Around him were once members of his family, long since dead. His father, serenely gazing out of a kitchen window, bathed in a faint purple light, turned to face his son.

  “The Third Twine has risen. The key is joined. Find the gate,” the old man said, and then turned back to the window, oblivious to his son’s presence. Outside, his garden seemed to stretch to an impossible distance. Below him the ground had opened, revealing an immense pit, with steps that wound down into the darkness. As he went to place his foot on the first step he realised that it was not a hole in the ground at all, but rather that his garden had become an immense pool, perfectly reflecting the sky above him. Dark and thunderous clouds hinted at impossible horrors within, and the air felt greasy against his skin as he realised that the yawning chasm that had been in front of him was now in the heavens above him.

  Ryan was startled from his doze and saw that Anna was awake, eyes open and looking at the ceiling. Looking through the ceiling. In the shadows of their bedroom, even her irises looked black.

  *

  At seven-thirty the next morning, Anna saw Christopher into Jane’s waiting car, and then returned inside.

  Ryan had awoken and was painfully thirsty. “Are you not going to work?” he said, gulping water noisily.

  “No. I quit.”

  Ryan was stunned. “What? Why?”

  Anna looked at him coldly. “It was not what I wanted to do.”

  “But what about our agreement? What will we do for money?”

  Anna tilted her head to one side as if she was listening to a distant voice.

  Ryan realised that she was looking through him to the pile of dirty dishes behind him. He felt a felt a flush of shame and anger rise up within himself. He reddened, began to protest, and then thought better of it.

  “Come with me.” She barked. It was an order rather than a request and her new puppet obeyed without thought.

  Wordlessly, they dressed, and then headed out into the crisp morning. There had been a light frost the night before, and the cobwebs in their neighbours’ holly bush were picked out like constellations from another time and place.

  They spent the morning walking. Occasionally Anna would stop, look around herself, as if she was seeing Enfield and its residential sprawl for the first time, and then carry on. The silence grated on Ryan. He felt like a chastened dog. He wanted to protest, to say something, anything, but the words caught in his throat.

  It was just a few minutes after noon when they came into the town centre. They had zigzagged through the back streets, avoiding the arterial roads, except when they had to cross the Great Cambridge Road, until eventually they had come through Bush Hill Park, and passed the children on the swings. A small group of them, no more than half a dozen, all three or four years old, laughing and running about. Pre-schoolers.

  It was here that Anna had paused longest. Just watching them with no emotion on her face. The intensity of her focus made Ryan uneasy.

  After a short time, she had moved off and Ryan had followed. Now he could see the pub. “Lunch?” he said, as cheerily as he could.

  Anna looked at him coldly. “Have you been good?”

  “What?”

  “Have you been good?” irritation had entered her voice.

  “Of course...”

  “Have you been faithful?”

  “Wha..?”

  Anna walked up to him on the busy street, grabbed his crotch, and began to squeeze. “Have you been faithful?” She was looking right up at him now, demanding an answer.

  “Yes, Jesus... Yes!”

  Nearby shoppers turned at his last yelp, noticing how Ryan had come up onto his toes.

  Anna did not let go.

  A hooded teenager called from across the road. “Go on love! Woo!” She had brought out a mobile phone and was holding it up, presumably recording the spectacle.

  Anna half turned, realising for the first time the very public nature of her actions, and released her husband.

  *

  The George Public House was one of the oldest establishments in Enfield, and even though it had been through numerous refurbishments over the years, it still managed to hold on to the smell of old sweat, fetid beer, and stale smoke. Given that it had been a full six months since anyone had been allowed to light up inside, Ryan thought the lingering smell of stale nicotine was impressive.

  At first glance, the pub’s most recent incarnation looked quite modern with a number of booths lining two of the walls, and big sofas in the middle. However, a closer inspection revealed well-established glass marks on the table tops, and worn seats with stuffing trying to escape through holes that had once been cigarette burns but were now more sizeable. The floor had that tacky feeling of too many spilt cocktails from Friday night’s Happy Hour, and no amount of cleaning would ever change that. It had become part of the fabric of the old building, just as the silence had become a part of Anna and Ryan’s relationship.

  They sat in a booth by the window, watching the pedestrians wander by, bracing themselves against the chill December wind that had arrived without warning only a few hours ago. Ryan was nursing a half-finished pint, and looking forlornly at the three empty tumblers that had been chasers. Just enough to dull the edge, but not enough to take it away completely.

  Anna sat, gazing through the pane of glass, her wine completely untouched.

  Few words had passed between them. Whatever Anna had asked, Ryan had agreed to. His balls were still sore. If he had suspected that the balance of power between them had been shifting, he was now in no doubt that the process was now over. He felt like a dog that had been kicked but still returned to its master.

  Outside, it began to rain a watery half-sleet. Slowly at first, and then increasing in intensity. A real December downpour. Visibility quickly fell until neither of them could make out the other side of the road.

  The wind picked up, trying to drive the deluge to a horizontal angle, rattling The George’s single-glazed window. Pedestrians quickly got undercover as umbrellas were turned inside out in an instant.

  It reminded Ryan of the weather they had experienced when they lived in Edinburgh, just after they had graduated. It had only been a year or two, working for small companies before London called. What had it been? The Christmas Storm of ninety-eight? Their flat had lost power early on. They were luckier than most. Chimney stacks had been blown down, caving in a neighbours’ roof. Advertising hoardings had been ripped from buildings and had gone through windows. Fences had blown down as the East Coast had been battered by the most severe storms in living memory. But they had not cared. They had each other and for three days had done nothing but snuggle under the duvet in the darkness. He had almost been disappointed when the lights came back on.

  Now Anna looked out at the rain, a sense of wonder on her face as if it was the first time she had seen such weather.

  “How long will it last?” she asked, her hand reaching out to touch the cool glass.

  Ryan frowned, shrugged, and looked down into his pint. “It can’t rain all the time,” he muttered.

  Anna looked baffled. “Of course it can’t.”

  Ryan felt something rise up inside of him. A bubble of fear that made him feel sick. “It can’t rain all the time,” he said again, more cautiously.

  Anna continued to look at him blankly.

  Now Ryan knew.
Something was wrong. Something was very wrong indeed. Their first proper date, away from the University, Halls, and big woolly jumpers had been to see an afternoon re-run of The Crow at the local cinema. It was Brandon Lee’s last film and Ryan had loved every minute of it. He knew that Anna had been less keen, but enjoyed it because he enjoyed it.

  During a scene where things had looked desperate, one of the characters has said “It can’t rain all the time,” and the theme had been repeated.

  Their first year after university had been difficult. They were suddenly facing the prospect of having to budget. No longer receiving their grants, they had to find the money to pay the rent, the council tax, the heating, the electric, the food. Early jobs had not paid enough, and there were more than a few times when they had sat around what they called a dining table in the small galley kitchen, with nothing but a single light on, and a lonely crisp sandwich between them. And that line – that theme – had become theirs. “It can’t rain all the time.” Things will get better. It had become the motto of their relationship.

  Ryan had no idea how many times they had said that to each other over the years. Hundreds probably. “It can’t rain all the time,” followed by a big hug. And now Anna was looking at him like he was an idiot whilst the rain pounded against the window pane incessantly.

  Maybe that is because you are an idiot, his black dog growled to him.

  Ryan wanted another drink to choke out that voice. He wanted a very large shot of something very strong. Anna continued to stare at him unblinking.

  He excused himself and went to the toilet. His bladder was suddenly desperate to be relieved. As he washed his hands, he caught himself in the mirror. Even underneath the four-day stubble, he could tell that he looked old. Old, and very, very scared. His imagination took flight.