Free Blind Needle by Trevor Hoyle Page B

circling
    Head swaying
    â€˜I pay rates!
    Damn bloody vandals!
    My wife frightened
    My child sick!’
    The policemen shrug
    â€˜What do you expect
    Mr Patundi
    When you stay open
    All fucking hours
    Allah sends?’
    A peaked cap turns
    Glances this way
    I squeeze back
    Into the doorway
    And my heel
    Touches and topples
    An empty milk bottle
    He frowns and stares
    With my toe
    I catch it
    Stop it rolling
    Hold it still
    Hold my breath
    The Indian rants
    â€˜Three white youths!
    Catch them!
    Catch them!’
    The policemen turn away
    Weary and indifferent
    Get in the car
    Drive off
    The shop door shuts
    The light goes out
    The street is dark again
    And empty
    I look up
    Face numb cold
    Through the slanting drizzle
    At the unlit window
    Where Holford sleeps
    And dreams
    His tortured dreams

Chapter Four
1
    Dr Morduch’s waxy, heavily lined face came down, a syringe in his gloved hand. ‘Hold him still, can’t you?’ he said irritably.
    I twisted against the straps. Somebody was squeezing my ankles as if they wanted to break them off. I was gagged and couldn’t scream.
    â€˜Now then, old chap,’ murmured Dr Morduch in his best avuncular manner. ‘You’ll feel better for it, I promise you. No more bad dreams. Right – hold him still!’
    The hollow point bore down, a drop of pinkish liquid gathering at the tip like a dew-drop. The needle went in, burrowed into the vein, forming a long thin mound. The mound travelled along my arm, a tiny vindictive mole working away industriously towards my heart. If it ever reached my heart I would be dead and done for.
    Dr Morduch’s broad thumb pressed home the plunger.
    A molten river of spite coursed through me. I jerked, strained against the straps, went slack as my nervous system was knocked out of action. My eyeballs weighed a neutron star apiece.
    â€˜He’s going … he’s going … going …’
    â€˜Gone and never called me mother,’ said the moon-faced man with the vice-like grip.
    Somebody was wailing. I thought it was me until I opened my eyes, and the wailing went on. I expected to hear the gnashing of teeth and other sounds of lamentation. It was the radio, or perhaps a record, from below. I lay back on the flock bolster, still shaking, my neck stiff from the strain, watching the plume of my breath ascending to the ceiling like the smoke from a funeral pyre. For the past two nights I hadn’t dreamt of S –, which I took to be a good omen. Perhaps I really had shaken him off, and he was still wandering up and down theM6, a ghost looking for a phantom.
    The dirge-like voice kept to the same high monotonous pitch, a soul in torment, though to Mr Patundi’s ears it might have been bubble-gum music, number three in the Calcutta charts.
    After a quick wash in cold water I went out.
    The street was muffled in damp sea-mist. I welcomed it as protection, another layer of disguise. It was a pity I couldn’t alter my appearance in some way, but I had no moustache or beard to shave off, and my hair was already cropped. The barber along the street couldn’t be of assistance.
    Where I came from we called a chill mist borne on the wind moor-grime, but this was from the sea and I didn’t know if the locals had a name for it. Shrouded ghostly figures passed by. The cars in the high street had their lights on; lorries revved and groaned, frustrated by the creeping pace and the narrow corners. Their trailers clanked emptily.
    At a newsagents I bought a morning paper and asked the girl behind the counter where B-H Haulage was. She was vague – second left after the traffic lights, up the hill, or was it the third? – picking at a spot on her chin with a fingernail from which the polish was flaking. I wandered off without hope in that general direction, but in fact I found the place easily enough: metal bollards painted in black and white stripes were set into the