Dawn of the Dave - Chapters 1 - 4

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Surviving Relationships (oh, and Zombies)

Chapter One

‘Well, Donald ran off as soon as...as soon as...’Linda broke off, looking sadly down at the floor. Mothers-in-law can be so melodramatic sometimes, I observed.

‘He couldn’t have run very far!’ I joked, perhaps unwisely to a woman who didn’t like me much and just happened to be holding a shotgun. ‘He must weigh at least...’

‘Ignore him.’ implored Sally, giving me a nasty look only a wife can proffer at Christmas. ‘As soon as what, mum?’

‘As soon as Daddy started eating the dog, darling.’ She looked sadly away as Sally lifted a hand to her shocked face, Father Nathaniel tutted in sympathy and I tried to suppress a laugh. I was more than a little intrigued, I must admit.

‘Why don’t we all have a nice tea or coffee and talk about it/’ suggested Father Nathaniel. ‘What does everybody think?’ I wasted no time, barged past the pleasant priest with an ‘I’m for tea!’ and headed for the kitchen. Father Nathaniel had hit upon the first priority on my list, the second being what had happened to my sandal wearing, slightly obese Father-in-Law Graham.

**********

Oh what sheer bliss! Seven a.m. on a December morning, Christmas Eve at that. The birds a’ twittering in the trees, the leaves going a’ rustling past their feathers and my pregnant wife Sally a’ screaming my name from the bathroom.

‘Dave, what have I told you about the sodding toilet seat?!’ Am I really supposed to put the seat back down after every time I use the ablutions? That doesn’t point to a future defined by an equal marriage. I never ask Sally to leave the seat up after she’s finished. No, because I’m a free spirit, a lone wolf, sneering at convention, laughing in the face of authority and eventually calling back ‘Yes, love. I’ll remember next time for sure. Sorry.’ James Dean would be proud.

I walked to the kitchen, ‘my’ kitchen, and made tea with the kettle ‘I’d’ picked out and toast with the four slice toaster and its semi-operating pop-up lever facility that ‘I’d’ paid for. This might sound very petty but when it comes to possessions one can become pretty bloody petty after seven years of marriage. ‘Oh, don’t touch my phone’, or ‘don’t get change from my handbag’ she’ll moan. Why? ‘Because it’s PRIVATE!’ You would think that after ten years of experiencing every inch of each other’s anatomy, of suffering every moment of wind, gas and morning ‘death breath’ to come out of those gradually ageing bodies, then the idea of privacy becomes absurd. Are my wages a matter of privacy when she spends them on her ‘tops’ from Nexty Debeny Spencyshop? Or is ‘my’ phone private when I catch her scrawling through my texts when she thinks I’m safely tucked up on the toilet carpet with a good book? But I digress.

As I waited for the bread and water to do their respective transformations into items of edible joy, I looked out at the street beyond the cat-paw smeared kitchen window. I wouldn’t have minded if the cat had been ours or if we had even had a cat, but unfortunately Sally hated cats (but loved dogs) whereas I loved both but refused to look after either through a strongly held practice of bloody-minded laziness. So we relied on neighbouring animals to smear their paws and saliva over our windows, before, of course, fouling my carefully mown lawn. It gave us something to shout about on those long winter nights.

The usual traffic and accompanying racket of white vans, mopeds and Ford Fiesta’s was markedly absent this morning. Strange for Christmas Eve, I thought. Instead of traffic there was, well, nothing. Just silence. No cars, no pedestrians walking past with their dogs or pushing their crisp guzzling offspring, no pensioners off to the corner post office in order to lie in wait for me in case I had to send off some heavy packets of books in a hurry. Sally thinks I’m paranoid but as soon as I come around that corner with anything heavier than an envelope the grey Ninja’s communicate with low frequency grumbles and move with surprising stealth into the post office. Once inside they congeal into a queue, a faceless snake of nattering voices clad in a skin of nana coats and topped with identically short, grey perms. The line never moves, never seems to get shorter. I stand, a living tribute to the British refusal to complain, my temper and knees buckling under the knowledge that I’d only come in for a second class stamp, my head beginning to swoon with the sound of all that nattering about ‘my Denise’s son at university’ and ‘never, never been the same since the prostate op’. How they find such endless fascination in each other’s illnesses is beyond me. I swear that if I survive the present disaster and eventually get varicose veins and the seemingly common ‘bit of nasty gip right at the top of me leg’, then I shall keep such misfortunes to myself. (Also, for those of the post-undead times, a second class stamp was something we bought if we had to mail responses to bills or cards to relatives we didn’t really like.)

Silence. Just the sound of the kettle slowing boiling and my wife quickly peeing in the toilet downstairs, audibly demonstrating her relief.

Suddenly there is movement. I almost missed it. I was turning away from the window in readiness to wrestle with the right toaster-lever when what seemed like someone running quickly along the pavement beyond flashed in the corner of my eye. I turned back to the window and there she was, a woman this time, pelting past the house nine to the dozen. I recognised her from the neighbourhood watch meetings. Mrs Hackett. In fact, I should say she is the neighbourhood watch – its president, police liaison and most enthusiastic ‘activist’. Last year she wrestled a 21yr old man to the floor outside number 16 after seeing him walking around the house ‘suspiciously’ trying the door handles. Unfortunately the man was the grandson of the old couple at number 16 who’d asked him to watch the place while they were on holiday but had forgotten to leave a key for him. Despite a grazed knee and bruised gonads he declined to press charges against Mrs Hackett.

‘What’s she in a hurry for?’, I wondered as I began buttering the toast. I placed the toast on a pre-warmed plate and carried it through to the dining table where Sally was waiting, quite still and silent. I began munching away and after a couple of minutes’ silence I looked up. She was still sat there, quietly staring at the window behind me. Though not one for conversation whilst eating at the best of times, this was unusual even for Sally. It was the look on her face that disturbed me the most. Fixed. Frozen. Terrified. I doubt I shall ever forget it.

I turned around to see what she was staring at and I must admit that what I saw caused me to drop my toast onto the floor. Usually this annoys the hell out of me but given the circumstances I decided to let it pass without comment.

Outside the window, with a bloodied face and hands irritatingly pressed against my recently cleaned windows was a young man, about nineteen judging by his acne and poor dress sense, staring at the both of us and groaning. I’m no fool. I’ve been to shopping centres, or ‘malls’ as our American cousin’s call them, and the sight of staring, groaning teenagers is so common that one gets used to it. But this was different. M’laddo had over stepped the mark as far as I was concerned. Hip kicking frenzy approaching.

Chapter Two

Not only does he trespass on my property, he has the bloody nerve to smear his injuries all over my clean windows. If he needed a plaster or a bandage or something, why not ring the bell? £3.20 that window cleaner charges. God alone knew if he’d charge extra to clean blood off! My natural desire to avoid all forms of confrontation was quickly being superseded by the desire to kick this little git in the hip.

I stood up and through the glass gesticulated with raised fingers and mouthed obscenities what I would like him to do with himself. He just continued staring and groaning, smearing my windows beyond the limits of decency. My anger and middle class indignation was rising. Although being at first sorely tempted to write a particularly strong letter of complaint to the lad’s parents, the combination of ruined toast, a missed morning cup of tea and then dirty windows on Christmas Eve...something had to give!

‘Right!’ I shouted, limbering up to deliver a decent hip-kicking. I passed into the hall and opened the door.

‘Out of it! Come on, P*#$ off!’ but to no avail. He just continued his routine against my window, ignoring my protests. ‘National Service, that’s what you need sunshine!’, I thought. Yeah, a couple of years of demeaning humiliation and being trained to kill. That’s what our youth’s need.

I picked up a stone by the front door and threw it at his back. He stopped smearing, staring and groaning and began snarling, walking and clawing towards me.

‘Bugger.’ I thought. I quickly nipped back inside and slammed the door shut, to which he began applying his body as a battering ram. Sally was behind me now, in the hallway, hands on hips and giving me the disapproving look only a wife can give.

‘Well done.’ she said sarcastically, clapping her hands. ‘You’ve gone and provoked a chav. On Christmas Eve.’

‘Well, what do you suggest I do?!’ I spat back, trying to hold myself against the door in case it gave way under the battering.

‘Oh, I don’t know’ she said, rolling her eyes and folding her arms ‘the Police perhaps, or the Neighbourhood Watch?’ I had her there. Point one to Dave coming up.

‘Sorry, I’ve just seen Hackett running down the street. I don’t think she’ll be much help.’

‘Well, you’d better think of something. I’m off for a shower.’ And with that she was gone. Unbelievable! Here I was wedging myself against the door whilst some maniac tries to break through and there she goes, sauntering off to the shower chewing the last of the toast. The toast! ‘Yes, that’s it!’, I shouted.

‘What?’ called Sally in unwanted reply.

‘Nothing!’ I shouted back crossly. ‘Don’t forget to shave your feet!’

I ran to the kitchen and unplugged the toaster from the wall, and carried it back to the hallway. I shouted through the door.

‘Now listen ‘mate’’ I could talk ‘street’ when I wanted to. ‘I’ve got a very heavy and expensive toaster here and if you don’t stop you’ll get a face full of it!’

Silence. Maybe he’s gone away, I thought. Not so.

The door burst from its hinges and fell forwards into the hallway, followed by the lumbering, blood-covered teen. It was only then that I realised that he had no discernible wound upon him, which could only mean the blood was something or someone else’s. ‘Typical’, I sighed. He moved towards me, arms outstretched, but I was in no mood to ‘hug a hoodie’. I swung the toaster backwards over my head and had to stop due to a shower of crumbs pouring on my face. I turned it around and swung it back over my head. With a determined jerk, I threw the toaster at his head where it connected with a dull, metallic thud and rattle of innards. The lad stumbled back and promptly collapsed forwards onto the fallen door.

I stood there in stunned silence for a few seconds. Blood oozed from the side of the lads broken head and I looked down at my dented toaster.

‘Well that’s my breakfast down the drain, isn’t it?!’ I shouted at his apparently lifeless frame. I stepped past the lad to retrieve the toaster when suddenly his hand jolted out and grabbed my ankle. He moved his head towards my leg and made to bite it. Luckily for me, and subsequently unluckily for him, Sally’s bag-less vacuum cleaner was to hand. I grabbed it quickly and brought it crashing down on his head, ending the biting issue for good. Thank God for the play things of the Middle Class, I say.

Even before she came down I pretty much guessed what she would say. ‘There’ll be trouble with the neighbours now. No one likes a murderer Dave’ blah blah. There’d be no concern for me in all this, I thought. Just worry about whether Mrs Hackett would cross the road to avoid us, or stop the Christmas Carollers coming to the door. Bloody scroungers taking advantage of my goodwill and Christmas spirit, that’s what they are.

As so often in marriage your spouse can suddenly surprise you. Where you expect reproach, they bring support, consolation and love. This was not one of those times. As I stood there over the bloodied body of some teenager, wondering if I’m going to get his four kids knocking at my door seeking compo, Sally’s feet appeared on the stairs, descending towards me. Body wrapped in white dressing gown and hair wrapped in those turban thingy only women can achieve, she stopped about three steps from the bottom and pointed at the dead youth at my feet.

‘My door! My white carpet! Ruined!’ I thought she was missing the point somewhat. Suddenly she screamed, an anguished, choking, blood curdling scream.

‘My bag-less!’

With that she fainted, falling forwards as she did so. I made a quick leap and caught her slumbering frame before she and her bump joined the scene on the hallway floor. Pregnant women, despite their size prior to pregnancy, become quite heavy during it. As men we try to spare their feelings and tell them that they are as light as a feather and will always have a place on our laps for a comforting cuddle. It’s the least we can do after all.

Chapter Three

Having promised to buy her a new bagless cleaner on my next pay day (I wouldn’t, but it’s always good to offer a little hope) and with no idea as to how I would get blood stains out of a twenty year old axminster carpet, my thoughts turned to more important issues. Most important of all, I thought, was the fact that, despite his having been a jerk that enjoyed smearing his pubescent excretions on my newly cleaned windows, I had just killed a teenager with a bagless upright cleaner and I was pretty sure that there were a lot of people out there who would fail to see the funny side. Battering a hoody to death on Christmas Eve doesn’t exactly put you up there on the MBE list.

To tell the truth I wasn’t that bothered about the hallway carpet. It was ugly, it came with the house and I had home insurance with excellent coverage, so everyone’s a winner!...except, of course, the dead teenager lying on the ugly, pre-owned and wonderfully insured carpet. I wasn’t really bothered about Sally’s bloodied and battered bagless cleaner either, a monstrosity that came with a thousand attachments that I had never used, or was ever likely to use.

What really bothered me was the thought of all the fuss that was probably about to be kicked up – police; forensics; reporters; questions.

Damn it! Why did this sort of thing have to happen to me? I enjoy my Christmas’s! I look forward to them as any sane, grown man does. Christmas is a time of organised, carefully choreographed television watching interspersed with trips to the Welsh Dresser for a handful of chocolates and sweets that you can’t bear to look at three days later. In the middle of all the TV and sweets and presents is an exaggerated version of the Sunday lunch, often featuring the American tradition of roast turkey as its centre piece.

Sally suggested that we attend the Christmas morning Mass that year at St David’s, what with our first baby on the way. The deal had always been that we go to midnight mass on Christmas Eve in order to justify lying in the next morning. So, after some skilful manipulation on my part, involving reminding her that Mary Poppins, her favourite movie, was on in the morning at the same time as Mass and adding that all I wanted to do was to watch her smiling face as she sat back and relaxed on the sofa as I brought her mince pies and hot chocolate, we agreed not to go in the morning.