Thomas

 

I had a meeting on the outskirts of Bristol, which was a perfect excuse to swing by home turf for some self-torture.

I forced myself back into the heart of my previous life every time I was in the vicinity, just for the up close and personal reminder as to why I was so committed to making the hard ass decisions I’d grown used to. Our small-time town was on the outskirts of Gloucestershire, a quaint little place that looked lovely on the drive through, but was hell on earth for a kid like me growing up in it.

Small town, small minds.

I parked up well off the beaten track, behind the old butchers down at the bottom of the High Street. I made sure to keep myself concealed behind the main thoroughfares, well accustomed to blending into the shadows from my experience as a boy. Polly’s bakery was in the centre square, opposite a scabby little coffee shop that brought me out in dirty shivers. I went in there just to experience the disgust afresh.

My mother worked in this place for a while when I was still in primary school, scrabbling to claw her life back to some semblance of financial security after the blow out which cost her everything. Cost us everything.

I wondered where she was these days and if she’d remarried yet again. Sometimes I sent her an anonymous payment to her same old bank account, just to be sure she still had the bones to keep her alive.

Some parts of me at least still passed as vaguely human.

I saw Polly slipping out through the main bakery doors at lunchtime, my heart lurching for just a moment at the prospect she might call in for a mug of the cheap shit stuff they served here. She didn’t.

She looked right, left, then right again at the traffic lights like a good girl, brushing a stray red curl behind her ear as she crossed the street further down with her head down low.

She was thinner, her face more gaunt than I remembered from last checking in on her. Her shoes were flat and entirely practical, her trouser legs baggy on slender thighs.

In another world I’d have loved to run up to her and take her face in my hands, telling her just how much I missed her in the city. Maybe she’d listen and greet me with a smile, or maybe she’d tell me to go fuck myself the way I deserved her to. Either way, it didn’t matter. I wouldn’t be running up to anyone, not in this lifetime.

The town bus pulled into the stop opposite, the same bright yellow as the one I used when I was a kid. I remembered the smell of it, the walkway so narrow as I stepped on board, praying that there’d be a seat free near the front so that I wouldn’t be near the bullies who always crowded at the back and made me the target of their asshole ridicule.

I imagined many of them were still around these parts, hanging out in the same old pubs with the same old people, rattling off tales about their adolescence like it was a whole barrel of fun. For them I guess it was.

Brett and Grace used to parade through these streets like they owned the place, hand in hand as the other kids looked on with jealous stares. I’d watched them too, only not so obviously. I was much more covert in my malice, my jealousy far more potent and far more justified than any of the other onlookers, pulsing deep through my veins every single day of my childhood worth remembering.

Polly was long out of sight by the time I forced down the rest of my putrid coffee. I slipped out of the building with my head as low as hers had been, cursing this place and its memories with as much venom as ever as I decided to punish that sad little boy inside a little bit harder.

I took a right turn at the memorial cross, pacing fast out of town and down to the churchyard on the outskirts, stepping into the grounds through the wrought iron gates with a feeling of dread pulsing deep.

The flowers were withering in the steel vase in front of the gravestone, no doubt feeling the neglect that a couple of years in the ground brings your rotting body. I lit up a cigar as I faced off those cursed letters, a whole lot more malice springing up in light of recent events.

FOSTER.

“He’s not all that, your precious boy,” I said to the headstone. “His pretty hotel is destined for bankruptcy, I’m sure you’re turning down there at the thought of it. I hope it pains you to know I fucked his sweet little Grace in front of him. She liked it. Loved it, in fact. At least someone worthwhile will finally be able to pass the judgement that I’m better than him in every way that matters. She’ll see it soon enough, if she hasn’t already, don’t you worry. Bankrupt, desolate, unloved. Your boy has it all to look forward to. Let’s see if he picks himself up from the floor even a sliver as well as I did. I’m sure you’ll be smiling down proud when he’s on his knees.” I laughed at the sky. “Except you won’t, will you? You’ll be just as much of a dismissive cunt to him as you were back then to me.”

I knew I was insane for talking to nothing, but it didn’t matter. This was as close as I’d ever get to the utter bastard who’d destroyed my world.

A couple walked by with grief-stricken faces, frowning in disapproval of the bitter smile on my face and the cigar in my fingers.

I flicked the butt onto the bastard’s grave as I finished up and walked away, hating how the defeat still chased me afresh after all this time.

It was when I reached the safety of my car I decided that the end of the Foster’s marriage would finally be the end of my torture.

I only hoped it would come soon, so I’d never have to visit this godforsaken little shit hole ever again.