Lazybones

PART TWO

27 NOVEMBER, 1996

Stooping to pick up the car keys he'd dropped, Alan Franklin winced in pain. A fortnight shy of retirement, and his body, like a precision alarm clock, was telling him that it was just the right time. The back pain and the talk of retirement cottages abroad had begun on almost exactly the same day…

He straightened up, his noisy exhalation echoing around the almost deserted car park. They'd probably talk about it again tonight, the two of them, over a bottle of wine. Sheila was leaning towards France while he fancied Spain. Either way, they would be off. There was nothing to keep them, after all. The three children he'd had with Emily were grown up and producing kids of their own. He'd miss the grandchildren, of course he would, but it wasn't like he and Sheila were going to be far away. They had no real ties.?. He fumbled for the key to the Rover, pushed it towards the lock. Sheila would probably get her way in the end of course, she usually did. It had to be said that more often than not she was right. She'd been right this morning, telling him that it was going to freeze, that he needed to wrap up warm.

He turned the key, popped up the central locking. As he reached for the door handle, something passed in front of his eyes with a swish and bit back, hard into his neck, pulling him off his feet… He hit the floor before his briefcase did, before he had a chance to cry out, one leg broken and bent behind, the other straight out in front of him, hands flying to his throat, fingers wedging themselves between line and neck. Hands scrabbled at his own, tearing at his fingers, pulling them away. A fist crashed into the side of his head and as he rocked with the impact, he felt his fingers, numb and running with blood, slipping from beneath the line. And hot breath on the back of his neck…

He watched his leg shooting out, the foot kicking desperately against the Rover's dirty, grey hubcap.

He remembered suddenly the face of the woman underneath him. Smelt himself; the aftershave he used to love. Felt again that strength in his arms. He saw her legs kicking out against the boxes piled high on either side of the stockroom. Heard the dull thud of her stockinged feet on the cardboard. He felt the movement beneath him die down and then stop, saw her eyes close tight.

It seemed to be getting dark very quickly. Perhaps the lights in the car park were on some sort of timer. Fading to save electricity. He could just make out his foot, the heel of his brogue still crashing into the hubcap, again and again. Cracking the cheap plastic.

Then, just black and the rushing of his blood, and the sound of his heartbeat which thumped inside his eyeballs as the line tightened. He saw his wife, smiling at him from the garden, and the woman beneath him trying to turn her head away, and his wife, and then the woman, and finally the woman where his wife should have been, telling him how cold it was going to get.

Laughing, and reminding him not to forget his scarf.