Made of the Night

Made of the night

It's finally here and available on Kindle and Paperback here.. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did writing it and if you feel overwhelmed by generosity then do give me a nice review on Amazon and those reviews really really help!

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I've dropped the prologue and the first two chapters for you RIGHT HERE for free! Enjoy.

Prologue

Sein moved slowly down the pavement; he kept well away from the cars. His mother had told him that morning, and countless times before; that all it would take was one careless driver. An elderly woman had been hit by a car. The shock had seemed to quieten the village for a week. The scene was gruesome but had somehow felt imminent. “Just because she was old, doesn’t mean you won’t be next.” Her voice had sounded strange and Sein thought he smelled alcohol on her breath, but it had only been 9 o’clock in the morning; even for her that would have been early. His fourteen year old mind searched around for what he thought an acceptable time for her to start drinking. He found the comprehension too much and became lost in thought.

He was making his way home from Justin’s house; it was 6pm and his father would soon be home. Usually he left Justin buoyant by a fine visit and the relief from being away from home. He wasn’t sure why but it was usually when he saw his house that his fingers began to tap either inside his jacket or on his thigh in a frantic rhythm.

When he opened the front door he heard music being played loudly and he knew where his mother would be. When he found her she was, as she always was, lying with her legs stretched out on the sitting room sofa. He went unnoticed at first until the door made a creek.

“Your food isn’t ready yet. Your father will be home soon.” Her wine glass was half empty, lolling gently in her hand, her sentence ending with a soft slur. He opened his mouth to speak but did not know what to say. He closed the door and made for his bedroom. This was the habitual routine that existed between them. On this occasion she met the closing of the door with silence. There had been moments more recently that she had playfully thrown the glass on the floor; he felt like she was a sinister sibling, not a mother. The week previously she had thrown the glass at the door and it had shattered. He had wondered whether to go in and clean it up but had stopped.

The night was almost upon him as he sat up in his bed listening to a record his father had leant him. He had given it to Sein two weeks previously and it had been all that he had listened to. They had spent half a Saturday evening discussing Mozart, his father taking great patience with him. The entire time his mother could be heard storming around the house like a jealous child. They had laughed and his father had given him a long reassuring embrace when it was time for him to leave. Sein felt that the mere presence of his father in his life was enough to bring him all the security he required. In his father there was safety, an anchor and somewhere outside of his father was his mother, a world of confusion and, as yet, a not fully understood chaos.

He had been home an hour and almost the entire time he had thought about nothing else other than Justin. He and Justin had been in the kitchen. Sein had stared too long at Justin’s lips. He had clumsily moved in to kiss him, almost playfully. Justin had moved away in half revolt, walking briskly to the living room. Shortly after Sein made an excuse and left for home. Sitting in his bed, Sein felt a keen sense of terror idling through him at the thought of losing another friendship.

The record came to an end and Sein got up languidly to change it over, as he did he heard a screeching of tyres from somewhere outside the house. He peered over the windowsill and then heard a cracking sound. The sound of metal meeting brick. His immediate thought was of another crash. His father loathed the regularity of the crashes on their road. From his bedroom window he saw a car balancing over the middle of the bridge. The bridge being some hundred metres from his house he could see it was a black car. His fathers car was black. A gasping rush of panic filled his chest. In a blind numbing cloud of confusion he sprinted from his bedroom to the front door, his mother slowly calling after him. He was halfway to the bridge when he began pleading with reason that this was not his father. Another car had stopped and a man was running from it to the passenger door of his father’s car. There was a terrible screeching sound as the underside scraped over the edge of the bridge sending bricks and debris into the swollen river. Within a moment Sein was close enough to the car to see that it was, after all, his father’s. The car lost its balance and slowly, sickeningly, fell over the side of the bridge and into the river. A few seconds later Sein was dashing down the side of the river bank as voices screamed at him to stop. He heard his own voice hysterical, gasping for air as he saw the roof of his father’s car go under the water. Sein threw himself into the river. He plunged under the water feeling the car with his feet and then his hands. He pulled himself down along to the passenger door and heaved at the handle. The car was almost full with water and Sein could see the mounting disturbance in his father's eyes as he failed to open the door. Sein again and again heaved at the handle, eventually it broke off in his hand, blood pouring from his palm. Unable to hold his breath anymore he thrashed upwards for air then he thrust himself, again, under the water. When he found the car, his father’s face was pressed in a panic, to a corner of the roof. Desperately he was seeking out the remaining oxygen being held in a diminishing pocket by the windscreen. Sein saw a rock on the river bed and mindlessly swam for it. He smashed at the window; a crack developed and he saw a mad flicker of hope in his father’s eyes. Suddenly the hope turned. Sein felt the shudder and weight of the car as it toppled on its side, sending the rock from his hand. Again gasping for air Sein darted to the surface and down once again, his legs cramping violently. He swam for the drivers side where his father was pounding at the window with his feet, the dull knocking sound booming in the water. Sein saw there was now no air left. His eyes rolled in his head frantically, as he saw his father rything with his fists at the window. Sein beat the window with his fists too, gave up and started at the door handle once again. Suddenly his father stopped hitting the window and his face moved forward, blue and ghostly. His father placed a hand on the window and somehow he smiled a soft smile at Sein. Sein’s every thought left him as his father’s eyes slowly glazed over. His father slowly melted away from the window and back into the car. All Sein could hear was his heart beat, and the agony for air from his lungs. He wanted to stay with his father, the music, he wanted to play music to his father. He couldn’t leave him. Surely there was a way into the car, surely? After that all he knew was a lasting darkness.

Chapter 1

Sein changed down the gears realising it could now hardly stay in gear unless he kept a watchful hand gently on the stick. He moved into Woodlands Drive hoping the clutch that had begun to stick, would hold out just a moment longer. The van’s engine would rev to a wretched volume and there was nothing Sein could do about it. There was no charm to be had and he felt helpless.

He parked at the mouth of the road and instantly felt out of place; he held his breath as if to pause himself from existing. Down the road on either side sat houses like stacks of enormous privilege. Doors thickset, impregnable, serving their purpose to the minds of the have-nots.

His van shuddered as Sein turned the key towards him, killing the engine, putting it to rest, mercifully. He let out his breath and stared at the leaflets on the passenger seat. They told a story about a willing gardener with a varying degree of competence. The leaflets stopped short of sounding cheap but there was that air of desperation that seemed to have followed Sein around these past few months, from winter into Spring. The despair was not completely evident and yet he felt vulnerable all the same. Sein felt he did not belong in Woodlands drive. He was there now, on the mouth of the road, and the impulse to move would come soon, he thought.

The door slammed shut behind him and Sein was down the street with a hand bursting with leaflets. He wore his work clothes; he felt the need to appear ready. Woodlands Drive was the jumping off point for Sein, the place he wanted to start.

There was a part in this entire process that he could not help but feel had a vague sense of the grotesque attached to it. He felt shame and as he glanced down at his leaflets, desperation also. He never saw himself as grotesque; shame, yes, but grotesque was new and it brought an uncomfortable lump to his throat. Sein was approaching his first house when he felt the presence of somebody behind him.

“Good morning, young man.” The voice came sharply and felt more like a question. Sein immediately swung round, startled.

“Morning…” Not sure whether or not he should answer, he chose to remain open-mouthed, patient.

“What’s your business?” It was a man in his mid sixties, hair long but combed back. He did not strike Sein as somebody wanting small talk.

“I’m a gardener-” His voice broke in octaves like a child’s.

“We’ve got plenty of those already around here.” The man gave a spiteful smile.

“Well, it can’t hurt to try”-

“No, we've got plenty already. I’m not sure you understand-we've got enough junk mail. This street probably isn’t for you.” The man walked around Sein as if fearful of catching something. Sein walked slowly onwards, his head bowed. As Sein reached the next house the man raised his voice.

“It’s quite pointless!” Sein felt the moment of conflict finally pass. The hostility aimed at him seemed to reinforce his sense of self loathing. He went to the next house with a growing unease. Pushing the second leaflet through the door, a slight blade of anger flickered on the surface of his pale skin. Was it something to do with his appearance that had led the man to show such hostility toward him? Sein doubted it. The look the man had given him was something quite different, something Sein was not familiar with, and yet there was a part of him that recognised that look.

Sein could not help but fix his eyes on the details of the houses he approached. The stone paths that led up to the door frames with heavy knockers or the ornate figureheads of a lion or in some cases, deer and foxes. When he peered at these frozen, set faces they seemed mythical. He thought of C.S. Lewis, Lewis’s wife and her death and Lewis’s loneliness; but mostly he felt detached. Letterboxes that snapped shut on his fingers pinched and he kept having to remind himself that it was not the door's intention to hurt him; it seemed absurd to him, but he felt there was an overarching hostility, even from dead objects.

After thirty minutes Sein found himself at the last two houses on the street. The houses so far possessed a dead weight to them; solid in age and size, Sein could not help but admire them. He forgot about the wealth that somebody would have to acquire to buy such a place; he simply breathed in their magnificents.

As he came to number eighteen he saw a curtain flicker in the downstairs window and now,for the first time, he felt watched. He saw a face behind the crack in the curtain of number eighteen and he smiled quickly. He held up a flyer and offered a weak wave to the arrested face. The entire figure dissolved slowly into a grey haze and from far away he heard the ringing of a telephone, quite shrill. He thought he could hear Mozart from deep within the house. Clumsily he fumbled the last few flyers in his hand and bent down to pick them up. The pavement was bowing from the roots of the trees and the cracks seemed like wounds, as if blood would seep out at any minute. Whilst retrieving the leaflets from the pavement he lifted his head slightly to his left and saw the house, number twenty.

The facade of the house was distinctly different from its counterparts. Sein felt that an air of neglect clung to it. It looked helpless. For the first time he felt a dash of hope twist through him. Sometimes neglect meant opportunity.

The letterbox of the house was nearly rusted shut but there was enough room to squeeze a flyer through, which he did, biting his bottom lip. When the letterbox closed he heard a tiny sound like that of a triangle echo round the hallway as the letterbox pinged shut. Holding his breath he stepped back onto the pathway and gave the facade a cursory glance, one that he was not entirely in control of, because as he tried to move his eyes away, he found he could not. Fastened to the first floor windows, Sein noticed that the timber of the window sill was coming away from the window’s edge. He wondered that perhaps something was amiss. He momentarily struggled to comprehend how this house existed amongst the others. He felt the sense of misplacement leave him for a moment, this house seemed twinned with him in a way he could not quite comprehend. Perhaps he would not be all that out of place here.

The front door of number twenty cracked open slightly. Sein started, and he made to move on hurriedly. The door opened and there stood a man. Sein guessed him to be in his late sixties although he seemed youthful, somehow. The man squinted slightly and raised his hand to Sein.

“The man with the leaflets?” He half coughed his words shaking off the morning. The man seemed neutral about Sein’s presence, Sein felt immediately relieved,but took a step or two, moving away.

“I’m a Gardener, yes.” He felt the urge to keep moving, the mixture of misplacement and hope cluttering his mind. The man’s question was not unkind.

“Yes…” He felt trapped and the feeling of walking away gripped him. You are still pointless, he thought to himself.

“I see. My wife and I need a gardener.” The man straightened slightly. Sein’s silence was something of an amusement to the man, who walked slowly down the path towards him.

“Poor state, isn’t it?” The man turned slightly and passed a light glance over the garden that clearly caused him some embarrassment. Sein’s breathing relaxed. He understood something about himself that he hadn’t given consideration to for weeks now. He felt comforted by people’s shame.

“It needs some work….” Sein felt the word work was wrong in his mouth. Wrong in the context of this particular road.

“I’m Richard. You’re from round here?” Richard turned his head and moved with a lethargy that reminded Sein of somebody from an old Shepperton Studios film. There was a grace in his movement. His mind flashed to an image of Kenneth Moore walking casually into an officer's mess. It was familiar.

“I’m from Guildford but It’s just a quick drive up the A3, not far-”

“We’re not really part of the inner community but we are aware of people’s loathing of the garden. Take a look in the back, would you?” Richard narrowed his eyes and smiled a thin curving smile. Sein felt a twitch, a lack of comprehension stirring in him. For a brief moment he stood there looking at Richard’s smile. As Richard moved off to the side of the house Sein realised he was meant to follow.

“What’s your name?”

“Sein.”

“We haven’t done a thing with the garden in years, my wife isn’t too well.” Richard turned his head, their eyes met briefly. The return was overrun with brambles that climbed from the walls and a cracked path.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Sein hoped he had sounded sincere but the truth was he was desperate to see the garden, too desperate to truly care.

“She was a good gardener. Here it is.” Richard stopped as they reached an opening.

Sein had never seen such a wilderness before, the vast neglect stretched from the rear of the house for some one hundred metres into what was something that resembled a boundary. A great horn sounded from the rear of the garden, like a warning, and he jumped slightly.

“The train, bloody loud.” Richard began to talk again but Sein found he was unable to hear him over the pounding of the train. The sound began to distort and soon he felt as if he could hear a smashing of metal chains. He squinted and tried to lip read Richard, who had clearly given up raising his voice over the train.

“But that’s where we are now, and we have tried to clear it over the years. They all want so much money.” He had only heard part of what Richard had said and had simply nodded, too frigid with his insecurities to ask him to speak up. They stared at one another. Aware he was now meant to speak, Sein blinked in quick dashes.

“Well, I suppose it’s quite a project.” He finally said.

“Quite. What’s your rate? Sorry, what is your name? I didn’t catch that part.” Sein was sure that he had already told him. Richard leaned back and as he did so both his hands slipped easily into his pockets as if quite independently from him. Sein was drawn to the motion, and he felt a grim sense of wanting come over him. He wanted the ability to ease back in conversations. All of Sein’s movements were maladroit in nature. He was aware of what he wanted from his body, and yet unable to co-opt it into complicity.

“Sein, it’s Spanish. It means innocence. It’s spelt differently but it’s just like Sean Bean…or any regular Sean.`` He spelt it out emphasising the E then I with an attempt at a grin.

“I see. Innocent.” Richard licked his lips and smiled then carried on.

“We’d like a regular visit, if possible. Where would you-how many hours-where would you start?” Richard’s smile flickered across his face. Sein noticed that Richard hadn’t the smallest grasp of the job at hand, and at once began to wonder why his wife was not out with them; Had she not once loved this garden?

“I think I’d start from the gate, then the side return and make my way-I think the return needs some work-I could then move slowly-thoroughly into the rest of the garden.” He swallowed hard with nerves.

“Yes, I see.” Sein turned his head and saw what must have been Richard’s wife standing at the window. Richard had not noticed her, she was gently motioning to Richard.

“Oh! April. Sorry, my wife.” His hands erupted from their pockets as if rudely awoken, and Richard moved in three great strides to the kitchen door.

“Sein, this is April.” He moved his body stiffly, cautiously, not entirely sure how to proceed. He lifted his hand and waved but April was facing Richard and the gesture went unnoticed. April was draped in a long white loose dress that seemed withered yet there was a weight in the style with which it was worn. She moved with a tender grace from the steps of the kitchen door into the garden. Her dress threatened to be caught up on any one of the clawing brambles.

“Your name means innocent? How charming.” She let a hand guide itself to Richard’s shoulder to support herself but from the way Sein was looking it was as if she floated.

“It’s a bit silly really.” Sein let his head fall, whilst allowing a parachute of a smile to ease his head down.

“Oh, it’s sweet.” April’s head bowed slightly as if to greet a lost child; she and Richard grinned gently. It appeared that Sein had miscalculated Richard’s age. As Richard grinned he appeared to be a great deal younger; late fifties, he guessed. It all seemed as if things were constantly moving.

“I’m sure it’s not silly.” April spoke without looking at her husband, a habit Sein guessed was natural to the both of them. He wondered if they went entire days without looking at one another whilst still maintaining conversations.

“Since when do you go in for names and their meaning? Sorry, Sein, we’re rather dry people.” Richard laughed, his head tilting back calmly. April’s mouth remained closed, a long smile resting there. Holding Sein’s gaze she began to smoothly approach him. As she did so she held out her hand for him to take. Sein was suddenly ten again lost in a world of awkward pre-adolescence. April’s hand moved from his forearm up to his shoulder; they both turned to face the garden. He could not feel her hand but it was there, he knew that.

“It is a shame, isn’t it?” A thin voice came from April’s body like a falling vale.

“Well there’s a lot of work.” Sein said.

“I think you will do a good job, as I did.” April’s tone changed and a forlorn note was struck that resonated through her hand and into his. He was lost for words.

“What’s your hourly rate?” Richard pierced the tiny moment that had built.

“Twenty.” Owing to Sein’s proximity to April he was free of the tension that he usually felt when discussing money. The number twenty coming so freely from his lips gave him a degree of relief that it was over.

“Yes, reasonable. Friday?”

“Friday is fine-” Sein said quickly.

“Look, it’s not that we’re tight, but I think half a day at a time, don’t you?” Rocking slightly on his heels Richard moved towards the kitchen door.

“Yes. That works.” Richard placed a foot on the kitchen step and looked at April. April moved,slowly towards Sein. She moved with her husband’s movements. He felt a residual look from Richard, directed at himself, that he was not entirely sure he had imagined.

“Richard, what time should Sein begin?”

“That’s up to Sein, isn’t it?” Richard laughed. As he spoke, a warm layer within the laugh reassured Sein.

“Is nine OK?” Sein’s head turned upward to Richard but his eyes stayed on April.

“We’ll have been up for hours by then.” Said April, her eyes flickering and her smile turning down into what may have been a tender sadness. When Sein looked at Richard he found he had all but gone into the house. Sein moved away from April and as he did so Richard took his leave entirely with a nod of his head. Without looking at her husband April began floating back towards him.

Chapter Two

Sien’s key struggled in the door, which it had done for months. The lock was ruined on the inside, and on occasion this gave way to moments of rage. The drive home had been something he had not expected. For the first half he had allowed his mind to be occupied in a state near to that of joy. How many times was it sensible to play something over in his head before it became too much, before it felt like a kind of perversity? Richard’s hands moving in and out of his pockets and April’s sense of the ethereal. Yet it was slowly poisoned when he glanced at the needle on the petrol gage. It hovered over empty. When the warning light flashed and sounded he was startled. A shallow beep, yet so damn grating.

When he was nearly home he wiped his palms on his jeans, a begrudging degree of anxiety that he was now used to. That a warning light on his dashboard could evoke such a degree of terror bothered him like a tick in the corner of his eye. How would he pay for the fuel to even get up to Richard and April’s? It was Wednesday evening, and tomorrow he had to find something to do that involved staying afloat, keeping his mind straight.

The door to the flat opened and immediately the smell of a deep damp hit him. He began talking to himself. He spoke out loud as if he was greeting a cat or a dog, even a friend. The mouse that had moved into his tiny shell of a kitchen had moved out weeks ago, there wasn’t enough food to sustain it.

But it’ll be alright. Martin can lend me thirty or so, and you’ll see, you’ll be alright. My God, twenty an hour that’s eighty quid to start with. Fuel. Do you remember last winter? You made it through that on just eight hours a week. Richard and April will have friends with gardens….

Later that evening, when he had showered and was moving slowly round his kitchen drawing out the process of making his supper, he began to wonder if he shouldn’t invite Martin over. Martin did sound responsive to the idea of watching Contact. Jodie Foster was an actor Martin and Sein admired. Two years ago they had watched it together and laughed at some of the more unbelievable moments in the film. When the laughter died down they kissed quite slowly and Sein found that Martin was shaking.

“90’s Sci-Fi.” Martin had pulled away, grinning. Sein was stuck, suspended, his heart fluctuating, and Martin grinned.

“Sein? Are you alright?”

“Yes.” Sein had moved to the window and closed it.

“Oh God please don’t tell me you’re going to have a meltdown over this will you? You’ve fancied me for ages. “I have?” Sein could play this scene out in his head several times in an evening but the level of discomfort it brought him varied. Tonight owing to the tonic Richard and April had given him, he was able to get to the heart of the moment without layers of darkness fogging his mind. Sein left the kitchen and sat himself on the window ledge that overlooked the steep road. He closed his eyes and saw Martin’s hand pass over onto the back of his as they sat in a state of playful arousal watching Jodie Foster float through space. When Martin leaned in again for another kiss Sein had to brush away a tear from the corner of his face. The memories stuck.

“Are you alright?”

“What, why?” He had not noticed the tear, nor that he was wiping it away.

“God, you’re pathetic, are you crying?” Martin had glanced at the TV screen as if by doing so he gave Sein a way out.

“It’s a good film.”

Martin and Sein had gone to bed together that same night, and Sein had been persistent in stopping Martin from playfully arousing him. From the window ledge Sein looked back into the bedroom and pursing his lips he blew out a long breath of air. Regret began to simmer in him as he saw Martin’s hand crawl spider-like under the bed sheet and lie open palmed over his crotch. He had softly removed Martin’s hand. This was the final straw for Martin. Martin rolled over and within ten minutes was breathing the soft rhythm of sleep. Sein found he couldn’t talk, even alone with himself about that night but more specifically removing Martin’s hand from between his legs. He had hated doing it.

The reality that had become a habitual obsession was the lapping trauma of his fathers death. Sein had lost the ability to engage with any man physically if emotions had become even a remote possibility. His own mother had said it best “How can you expect a child to ever recover fully from seeing his own father drown.” She had said it when quite drunk. Any vulnerability for Sein was met with the slow desperation of Sein’s father’s drowning eyes.

The next morning Martin had left, and even when Martin had persisted with phone calls and text messages Sein had melted away into the corners of his flat, aching from the shame of his decision to block Martin from his life. Better than what vulnerability produced, he thought.

After his supper he thought about messaging Martin.

He picked up his phone and began to message him. Although they had not seen one another on a consistent basis for two years Martin still made the effort to reach Sein.

I hope it’s not too much to ask but….could I borrow £30?....pay you back next week. X

He sighed and without sending the message flung the phone onto the sofa in front of him. Moving into the kitchen he dumped his plate in the sink and went back into the living room. A beam of sun was breaking through the sky low on the horizon. The clocks had gone forward, and today had been a day that told him spring was coming. He flopped onto the sofa, imagining what it would be like to actually relax into a moment. He pressed send on the message and within two minutes Martin had replied with a single X.

Sein smiled at this and within five minutes Martin had transferred the money into his account with the reference ‘git’ attached to it. The fact that he could now feed himself and fuel his van allowed a brief calm to settle on him. The calm did not travel far, it settled like a soft drizzle on his arm hair, evaporating almost instantly.

Finally around ten o’clock he did his rituals in the bathroom and ambled to bed. He lay in bed for some fifteen minutes before he finally fell asleep aided as he was by the vision of Richard’s hands gliding in and out of his pockets.