What I Tell You In the Dark by John Samuel Read Free Book Online Page A

from a recent watering, and there’s no gaudy neon sign shining out from next door (the Sunny Side Up ‘tanning salon and social club’, whatever that’s supposed to mean). Thedoor, too warped to close without a significant shove, is standing slightly ajar, suggesting that it’s one of those pubs that welcomes the early drinker.
    Before I go in, though, I decide to cover all the bases and fire off a quick email too. It takes a certain amount of faffing with Will’s iPhone to get it done (it’s funny, I see these things being used all the time, but actually doing it yourself, skating the fingertips across the screen, bringing glowing fragments of information swimming up to meet them, that’s something else). I have to sift through a ton of addresses – mostly journalists and PR people by the look of it – before I find Natalie. The first tap selects her, the second tap sends the mail. I could do this all day, it’s so satisfying.
    Inside The Lamb, the first thing I notice is the smell of beer-soaked wood, which I find immediately reassuring. There are two men already at the bar, sat several stools apart, but neither one of them bothers to look up as I walk over and order my drink. The barmaid serves me my whisky then disappears to some unseen task, leaving us to our muffled, stale silence. Outside, the distantly layered sounds of car horns and sirens seem remote and irrelevant. I feel entirely relaxed, and as the whisky lights its small and warming fire in my chest, I am finally able to kick back for a minute and marvel at yet another new sensation. I thought the tea was good but this, it’s a whole new level of drama, a tiny sun forming and then silently imploding around my third rib level. A small belch of whisky aftertaste delivers itself into my mouth as proof of what just happened.
    It’s a good thing, her not being here right away. I needed this bit of down time – pun very much intended. A jump-in takes it out of you, especially if you’re not used to it. It was different when I did it last time, I was fresh, I sprang right back into shape. But things have changed. It’s been a long, bitter haul. This time, I’m going to need a little rest.
    Maybe if I scrunched around in this chair a bit and let this stubborn body just unkink itself, like that – now that’s what I’m talking about – just get the back to scooch down a little further and the legs can start to flop out to the sides, and the belly, here you go, now I’m starting to get there, the belly just pushes up into a nice little pillow for my hands, and the –
    A loud noise, crisp and sharp as a gunshot, brings me jangling up from my slump, stomach churning, head spinning.
    Help!
    It’s such a violent shock that I think I may have actually shouted this word – its echo is still rattling in the corners of the room. The barmaid, unnoticed by me, had snuck to the table next to mine and snapped down her can of polish with a resounding crack.
    â€˜You can’t sleep here, babe,’ she announces, then squirts the table a couple of times, wipes it and moves on.
    My heart is beating up in my throat, like it’s some creature I’m trying to swallow. I lever myself up on the back of a nearby chair and teeter away to the dimly lit bathroom.
    It takes a while before I’m ready to come out again. When I do, there is a man standing next to the dust-thick curtains on the far side of the bar, staring up at the sky. When he sees me emerge, he stares at me instead. He is in his mid-fifties, I would say, about a head smaller than me – he would appear to be another local. The barmaid seems to know him.
    I nod in greeting, trying not to look like I’ve just been resting my head against the greasy tiles in the toilets. I go to smooth my hair with my hand then I remember that Will’s hair is clippered down to a stubble. I give it a pensive rub instead.
    He is