Dead Wolf Walking

Hey Jon,

It seems like forever since you last wrote, yet it was only yesterday. As you know, it’s usually boring as anything around here, and even though I’m busy at work then in the evenings filling the time caring for my mum, I still get lonely. Your letters are all that keep me going. Well, your emails, anyway. Just a short line will do more often. Not a hundred times a day or anything, just… Well, you know what I mean. And now I feel like an arsehole for pushing, when you left because of Barry pushing you out of town.

Sorry.

Right, here’s the news.

Bastard Barry—thought I’d get him out of the way first. He’s going to end up in the nick one of these days, you mark my words. Our words. We’ve always said that, though, haven’t we? That he’d go to prison. He threw a full can of unopened Carlsberg as a weapon this morning. Outside the Tesco Express. Didn’t hit who he wanted it to, though. Got some old dear in the side of the head instead. He ran—as usual, what a surprise—and no one said it was him, so he’s got away with it again. 

I’m tired of him, Jon, like you were, but I’m stuck here. Can’t leave, because then who would care for my mum? I feel selfish about that, thinking of walking out of this shithole of a town and coming to you when she’s so sick and whatnot. She tells me to go all the time, to live my life, but what sort of kid leaves their parent when they need them the most?

Sorry. Again. I didn’t mean that to come out as it sounded. Your case is different. Your mum—well, she’s an old cow, to be honest. I wouldn’t have stuck around for her, either. 

I’ll change the subject.

Lennon married Judy yesterday. I looked for you in the church, at the wedding. Stupid of me, but I’d hoped you would’ve turned up. I understand why you didn’t come, so did Lennon, but he was upset—had to tell you that, buddy, he asked me to say. In a joking way, mind, but you know how he is. I can see why he was upset, though, us three being mates all our lives, but hey, we get why you’re gone.

Whenever I write to you, I always seem to mess things up, don’t I? I type without thinking, just say whatever comes into my head like I would if you were here, then I sit and stare at the words for ages and tell myself to hit delete. But then I wouldn’t be being myself, and it’d feel like I’m hiding things from you—hiding me—and I don’t want that. I doubt you want that.

What was it you said to me once? ‘Always be honest with me, Vince. Don’t be like her and lie or keep secrets.’ I’m sad your mum lied so much. Sad that what she did throughout your life means you’re a bit shaky on the trust side. Sorry for quite a bit, actually. But I’m more sorry about what I have to say next. As usual, I’ve been beating around the bush. Everything I’ve written so far is like an easing in to what I’m really writing to you for. 

This sucks.

Anyway, we need you back here, okay? And this isn’t just some whim. This is serious. You’re the only wolf left, apart from your mum, and things have got a bit hairy. As in, old farmer Potter is scared. Proper scared. Barry’s acting up more than usual, and you know how that ended last time.

Look, there’s no easy way to say this, so I’m going to just get it out. 

The crows are falling again, Jon.

All my love,

Vince

 Jon always printed out Vince’s emails, and this one was no different. He scrunched the paper in his hand, his guts rolling and sweat breaking out on his forehead and under his arms. Why did this have to happen? Why did it work out that he had to go back?

Fuck.

Last time the crows had fallen he’d—

He stared at his hands, at the letter, and wanted to read it all over again but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. The words were imprinted in his head now, anyway, so what would be the point? That sodding Barry. Needed teaching a lesson, he did, but no one in Northchurch had the balls to do it—least of all Jon. He’d left town because of him, and he’d vowed never to go back. And now look what had happened. He’d have to go back. And he’d see his mum, Barry, everyone. Vince and Lennon were all right, Judy, Potter and his wife, and Vince’s mum, but the others?

Jon shuddered. To say that life wasn’t fair was an understatement. He knew damn well it wasn’t fair. Couldn’t be if it let people like his mum carry on the way she had—and probably still did. He’d read once that people who were scarred by their parents during childhood turned into the same kind of person. That wasn’t true. Jon wasn’t nasty, and if anything, her treatment of him had turned him into a better person than he perhaps might have been. It was all down to personality, he reckoned. You had to have it in you to be an arsehole, and if you did, couple that with an abusive upbringing and you were well on your way to being Dickhead of the Year.

He sighed. Thinking about all the other things in the email was saving him from thinking about the most important thing. Or things. Vince. The falling crows. With the birds dropping from the skies, it meant something bad was going to happen in Northchurch again, which, in turn, meant Vince could get hurt. Jon might have left the love of his life behind, torturing himself with loneliness and longing while he was at it, but he couldn’t stay away now he’d received that sort of news.

Leaning back on his battered brown sofa, he cast his gaze around his bedsit. A bit of a dump, but it was home. Had been for a year now. The wallpaper was peeling off in one corner, damp and mold peering at him from behind it. Wasn’t good for his lungs, but still, beggars couldn’t be choosers, so Vince’s mum used to say. 

His single bed, over in the corner there, topped with a flat-as-hell quilt and an even flatter pair of pillows, had only ever seen action with him in it alone. He’d stay faithful to Vince for as long as he lived—he’d promised, and he wouldn’t go back on that. And the pine ladderback dining chair beside it, one that his downstairs neighbor had chucked out for the council to collect, was decorated with yesterday’s clothes and an empty crisp packet. A cup from last night’s hot chocolate sat on the floor between the chair’s two front legs, looking for all the world as though it was between a rock and a hard place.

Like him.

His kitchenette on the right didn’t live up to the name. One tall larder cupboard, a smaller wall cupboard and a sink unit with a bit of counter top beside it didn’t constitute such a grand name. But still, yeah, it was home now.

He scuffed his feet against the itchy brown carpet. Well, carpet tiles he’d bought for a bargain when Goodwin’s Floors had gone out of business a few months ago. Fifty pence a tile hadn’t been a bad price at all, and he smiled at the memory of him lugging piles of them up the stairs and getting down to business right away by laying them. He’d been so proud of the place back then, his first solo home, somewhere he wasn’t frightened, and where the walls didn’t hold wicked memories that seeped out and bit him in the middle of the night.

He’d be back. He’d return to Northchurch, sort out the problem, then come home. Leaving Vince all over again would be the kicker, though. They’d promised that when Vince’s mum passed away, they’d be together here—not in the bedsit, but in a cottage here in Fiddlesgate. Glorious village, it was, with a quaint little church they hoped to get blessed in after they married at the registry office. A pipe dream for now, but a reality in the future. He had to believe that—it had been the only thing to keep him going the past twelve months.

Funny that he was going back to Northchurch almost a year to the day he’d left.

He forced himself off the sofa and walked to the alcove where he stored all his clothes. Shirts and tops hung from the rail, and all his other bits and pieces were folded in the ancient mahogany chest of drawers beneath. He’d bought it from a car boot sale for a fiver, scratched and dinted as anything but serviceable enough. He’d sanded it down, varnished it, and now it appeared as good as new, or as close as he’d been able to get it.

Squashed down the side of the drawers, his rucksack had a thin layer of dust on the top, the handle a bit furry with it, but it’d soon come clean once he brushed it off. He tugged it out, getting a waft of the house he’d grown up in, and it gave him pause—and a shit ton of memories he thought he’d suppressed. Ones to do with his mother and that bloke of hers, Barry.

Shoving the images away, he dumped the rucksack on his bed and sprayed it with Febreze, inside and out. He should have done that ages ago, but hindsight and all that. While he waited for it to dry off, he took what clothes he would need for a short stay and laid them on the bed. A couple of pairs of jeans, some joggers, a few T-shirts and the hoody he already had on should do it. Socks, boxers and a washbag containing his toothbrush, shower gel and shampoo. He’d use Vince’s toothpaste, assuming that was where he’d be staying.

Jon walked over to the window and gazed out at Fiddlesgate, the cottages opposite, the farmer’s fields beyond. To the right and round the corner were the shops, the pub, the church and the road that led to Northchurch. He’d be getting in his car and driving that way soon enough, and he contemplated whether he should just turn up or let Vince know he was coming. Probably best to warn him. He’d want to make up the spare bed and give his mum a bit of a sprucing up, because God forbid she have any visitors and she looked a sight. 

Jon loved Noreen. He’d say as much as he loved his own mother if he’d had a decent relationship with his, but he could safely admit he loved Noreen more. She had been the one to mop up his tears, stick a plaster on a grazed knee and give him a cuddle when things hadn’t been going so well. The question of how he could have left her snuck into his head again, souring his mind like weeks-old milk. He’d left her because he’d had to—to preserve his sanity and give him and Vince a chance. If he’d stayed, their relationship wouldn’t have gone much further. Jon would have been more depressed, burdened with the guilt that he wasn’t giving Vince his best, dragging Vince down into the Black Dog hole with him.

Barry had a lot to answer for, and so did his mother.

He puffed out a stream of air and returned to the bed. Tapped out a quick email to Vince to say he was on his way. The rucksack was dry now, so he packed his clothes and washbag inside, zipping it all up and wishing he didn’t have to do this. He could only be grateful that he didn’t have a boss to report to, seeing as he was the handyman around here, working as and when jobs came in. He had nothing on at the moment so only needed to nip downstairs and let Sarah know he was going away for a bit. She’d pass it on to any villagers who called round to see him.

He couldn’t put it off any longer. Grabbing the rucksack’s handle, he gave his bedsit the once-over. It was a bloody wrench, leaving like this, and so suddenly, too, but he’d do anything to make sure Vince was okay.

Images of crows cluttered his mind. He closed his eyes, the burn strong behind them. He snapped them open to walk out of his little place, downstairs to Sarah’s, then he got into his car parked on the curbside. 

Northchurch bound. Fucking Northchurch.