Читать книгу By any means - Kurt Ellis - Страница 7

The year 2000

The wind was warm. It whispered to him. And if he inhaled deeply enough, and if he really concentrated, Kyle could swear he smelt the scent of the ocean on its breath.

He was walking down Sparks Road, alone, his hands stuffed deep into his pockets, his head turned down to the earth. A black cap pulled down low over his brow. He loved that cap. It allowed him to disappear into the shadows. Away from the judging or pitying looks of people.

His eyes were glued to the pavement ahead of him as he softly whistled the tune of a song by the Bee Gees, “How deep is your love?” It had been his mother’s favourite.

The tarred surface of the road glistened from the heavy rain that had fallen earlier that evening but which had now eased into a light, warm drizzle. A devil’s rainbow in the middle of the road caught his attention. When he was younger, he’d been told by older kids that this was a rainbow made by the devil himself, and that if he walked over one, he would die. He had since realised it was just an oil patch reflecting the different hues of the spectrum. He shook his head slowly and smiled a wry smile. He was such an idiot to have believed them.

He was limping ever so slightly. Pain spread dully from his left knee with each step he took. This was the result of a fierce and hostile soccer game earlier that day. A game in which he had performed exceptionally well at the heart of the Villa Park defence, which he had marshalled as captain of the team. He just hoped that he had done enough to impress the academy scout from Birmingham in England. Charlie, his coach, thought he had.

The sound of nearby voices drew his attention. Kyle took his eyes off the toes of his tackies and looked up in the direction of Butcher Road. There, in the park that lay like an island amidst a sea of roads, stood a group of six men: six husbands tasting the bitter lips of their mistresses, the beer bottles. Their drunken banter drifted on the warm wind and caught his ear. They shared tales of wives who did nothing but complain, and stories of children who treated them with scant respect and who were getting up to all kinds of mischief. Kyle glanced at his watch. It was thirty minutes past midnight. In the morning, these men would be gone, but their beer bottles and their zol pipes would remain, like proud memorials amongst the rusted swings and merry-go-rounds on which the children played. And he knew that the next evening these men would return, and do the same. And the same the evening after that, and the evening after that.

There was a gunshot in the distance, followed by a chorus of barking dogs. It was actually a quiet night. Perhaps that was why he had struggled to fall asleep.

He continued down Sparks Road and crossed over Randles Road, which bisected it. He walked past the doctor’s rooms and into the passage between the bottle store and the video rental shop. Cautiously, so not to hurt his knee any further, he climbed the stairs of the block of flats. The stench of urine set his nostrils on fire, but he wrestled down the urge to vomit. Finally, he reached the graffiti-emblazoned wooden door at the top of the stairwell and pushed it open into the now unfamiliar smell of fresh air.

He breathed in deeply and let the aroma of rain-soaked cement fill his nose. The scent of moisture lifted his leaden spirits. With eyes shut tight, he sighed. Where he had felt alone and uneasy only a few minutes ago, he now felt calm and safe. He now felt … at peace. He removed his black Liverpool FC cap and allowed his long black hair to fall around his face. Turning his face to the night sky, he felt the gentle kisses of rain trickle down his cheeks. Cleansing him. Re-baptising him.

He walked over to the edge and looked down at the shining road surface below. The streetlights reflected off the mirrorlike surface of the street. Swinging his legs over the edge, he sat on the brink of a seven-storey fall and looked out over the cardboard-like rooftops of Sydenham.

He remembered the first time he came up here. It had been soon after it happened, and his mind had been numb yet aching at the same time. He hadn’t known how to describe the feelings he’d had at the time, except to say he felt forgotten. He’d felt alone and in agony. His soul was screaming for help and no one, not even God, cared to listen to his pleas. So when he first climbed these piss-soaked stairs, he had done so with the intention of ending his torment. To give everyone, including God himself, the middle finger and to soar over the edge. Maybe someone would hear him then.

But once he got to the roof, something changed. He somehow found peace. He felt safe and free from all the shit that was going on in his life. This place became his special place of thought and reflection. He came up here to talk to God. Not pray. No, never to pray, but to talk. To ask Him why. Why the fuck was he being punished? What the hell had he done to deserve this torment? He never received an answer, but he always felt a little better having asked.

Kyle felt removed from the world around him. He imagined that this was what people who’d had near-death experiences described when they said they had left their bodies and looked down on themselves from another, ethereal plane. Everything looked different. Smelt different. Even time was different.

Kyle thought he’d been up on the roof for only five minutes, but when he looked at his watch, he saw that another thirty minutes had disappeared. He listened to the wind serenade him and he observed the world at his feet. Calm. Black. Empty. His eyelids eventually began to feel a little heavy, so he decided that it was time to go back. It was a school night, after all. He hated having to go back to his aunt’s matchbox house, but a seventeen-year-old boy did not have much of an option. Not just yet, anyway. But, hopefully, soon.