Resolution Way by Carl Neville Read Free Book Online Page B

always have been.
    Don’t take it personally. I’m just saying. Maybe it’s time to claim some of what is rightfully yours. You have a legacy, Robert Gillespie.
    It was time to go home. He had that dinner party coming up, if he missed it Karen would be furious and besides he wanted to see Dominic, get moving on getting some representation, getting the new work out there. He could tell that Robert Gillespie, for all his apparent hostility, would prove to be manageable. He decided to try to make it all the way back to London without stopping; he felt wired, alive, as though sleep was a distant concern, something other people needed. He put Crane’s CD on, skipped forward a couple of tracks, and set off .
    Belinda Carlisle? He remembered this from when he was a kid. Crane was a strange man. He could remember some of the words and found he was singing quietly along.
    You come around
    I am waiting in my room
    When the night comes down
    Checking his phone he found that the combination of flooding and a third day of disturbances in the capital, Woolwich this time, meant there was a heightened security situation, something he hoped would be at least partially resolved by the time he got there.
    I look outside
    The street’s full of kids ,
    Taking over the night
    During the drive his mind went racing and leaping ahead of itself. So Paula had one part of the book, that was accessible, outsourcing the work to Gillespie would eventually yield the other two, Nick’s he had, the couple in New Zealand would eventually get back to him, and as long as he had the final section he thought he could retro-engineer a missing part. He was a highly skilled pasticheur if nothing else.
    We start to dance in each other’s arms
    We are safe now and we can’t be harmed
    Spinning up into the starry sky
    I know this world can be paradise .
    New Zealand may literally be the other side of the world but to him distance was nothing, time was nothing. He will get on a plane if he needs to meet them, persuade them. He will persuade them. He can persuade anyone.
    Sometimes when I get down
    You come running from across town
    And you make me see
    And you help me hear
    What your voice says to me
    We are starting to understand
    Our life is part of some greater plan
    All the fear that I felt before
    I just don’t feel it anymore
    It seemed as though this single track had been playing for a long time and he slowly became aware that a few lines were repeating again and again.
    All the fear that I felt before
    I just don’t feel it anymore
    Is it stuck or is this intentional? Is it changing, the vocal getting a little faster and higher each time, the sound of the crackle of the vinyl growing slower and louder, like a rent opening up in the fabric of the night, silvered around the edge, full of stars?
    He decided, even if it was stuck, not to stop it, not to skip. His hands stayed on the wheel, the road unfurling.
    The voice was slowing now, growing deeper, the crackle sharpening, a bright scar across the gently coagulating skin of the sound.
    I just don’t feel it anymore
    His left eye started watering again. Irritating, blurring his vision of the road ahead, his head suddenly heavy as he felt the edge of the seat belt cutting into his neck, aware that he was leaning forward, almost as if he were going to topple over, the oscillation, the slow expansions and contractions of the sound, silently depressurising the car, pulling him in atom by atom.
    Suddenly, elastically, the song snapped back into the tune, playing normally.
    Baby, baby, when I see your face
    Earth and Heaven are a single place
    Love is what gives our life worth
    Life in heaven is our life on earth
    Earth and Heaven are a single place
    Alex sat back in his seat, suddenly exhausted, his left eye repeatedly closing, shaking his head to keep himself awake. These shifts from hyper alert to sudden chronic, mountainous fatigue were a side effect of the Deveretol no doubt; there are always side effects.