While neither Bradley nor I trespassed too far into each other’s pasts, my gut instinct was that he was a reliable sort. My history was as irrelevant to me as it was to anyone else, so I would never have voluntarily revealed my true colours to him.
Such aloofness was a self-defence mechanism born out of bad experiences. Because the more you trust in someone, the more opportunities you give them to shatter your illusions about them. But as much as I cared to think of myself as a solitary unit – and as much as it was against my better judgement – I still needed a Dougie Reynolds in my life. Bradley came close to filling that vacancy.
It was during a lock-in at the village pub a decade earlier, and with several pints of Guinness loosening our lips, that Dougie had revealed the disease running through his family. Out of the blue, he confessed his father was a violent wife-beater who regularly knocked the living daylights out of Elaine.
Sometimes he’d hone his skills in front of his family, but for the most part, he kept his hobby behind the bedroom door. Dougie explained it was why she had encouraged his friends to spend time at their house. Because if left alone, some minor incident would likely occur and inspire Dougie Senior to hurt her again. Our friendship offered them a temporary stay of execution. He’d used me.
I masked my ever-increasing dismay while he tearfully recalled his family’s swift departure from Scotland. Elaine had been attacked so badly that she’d been hospitalised for a fortnight – her husband’s lightning-bolt blows broke her jaw and five ribs. Instead of offering their support to Elaine, Dougie Senior’s colleagues encouraged her not to press charges against one of their own, and offered them a fresh start elsewhere.
But my disappointment wasn’t directed at the culprit – it was towards his son. Dougie had urged me to buy into his idyllic home, knowing full well what it had meant to me. Any sympathy or understanding he should have expected as a result of his disclosure was greeted by stone-faced, silent selfishness instead. The snow globe in which I’d placed the Reynoldses had been shaken so vigorously, the contents would never settle again. He’d cheated me out of the only stability I had known. Ignorance was bliss, and I’d liked bliss.
I was also disappointed with Elaine’s failure to remove herself from the side of a sadist. At least my mother had had the strength to leave us for a reason, no matter how weak it was. Elaine had plenty of them but she’d stayed and she’d lied, like all women do.
Eventually, Dougie must have read my expressionless face and realised my lack of compassion meant he’d confided in the wrong friend. So the conversation petered out, was brushed under the carpet and never discussed again.
Years later, I learned Dougie wasn’t all he seemed, either. If I allowed myself the opportunity to know Bradley better, he’d probably disappoint me too, so I kept him at arm’s length. It was better to remain on my island than drown in somebody else’s sea.
7 October
‘He’s dead, man. Shit.’
Bradley gently rolled Darren’s rigid body onto his back. He lay there with his eyes clammed shut. His forehead was as pale as a frosty morning and just as cold.
‘He certainly is,’ I sighed, then pulled a patchwork blanket up over his bare chest and covered the face devoid of expression. ‘He looks quite peaceful. It doesn’t look like he suffered.’
‘My grandpa looked the same when he died of a heart attack in his sleep. Good way to go, right? Bet that’s what happened to our guy. Better call the doc, then.’ Bradley picked himself up and walked towards the reception’s payphone.
With my eyes fixed on my friend’s movements, my hands darted under the dead man’s bed to find his backpack. I relied on touch to open the metal fasteners and fumbled around until I found my prize. I crammed it into my pocket just as Bradley hung up the receiver and turned around.
‘Doc’s on his way,’ he shouted.
Darren Glasper had appeared on our doorstep a month or so before his sudden demise. Our hostel was cheerful and – most importantly for the traveller on a budget – inexpensive. And like myself, the intoxicating lure of the town’s unfettered, relaxed anonymity was all it took to persuade Darren to remain there longer than first planned.
He told me over supper one night that, as the youngest of a family of eight, his motivation was to discover his own identity away from those who’d shaped it. At first, he’d succumbed to family convention by leaving school and becoming immersed in an unrewarding career in Sheffield’s steel mills and foundries. But Darren craved more than a lifetime of manual labour in a job he despised. So, to his loved ones’ surprise, he announced he was leaving to travel the world and educate himself, before returning home to educate others as a trainee teacher.
Despite his family’s inevitable attempts to persuade him he was being foolish, he upped and left. Nevertheless, he beamed with pride when he spoke of them, and the wall behind his bunk bed was plastered with family photographs. He’d arranged them like a protective halo around his head and introduced me to them one by one. They all looked so much like one another – even, somehow, his parents.
Summer was a fertile period for the hostel and it had been filled to bursting with guests. However, the closing days of the season were quieter and allowed the building to loosen its belt and exhale. It gave me space to sink my teeth into my renovation work, and Darren and others were more than willing to act as my labourers.
He’d been afforded a four-bedroom dormitory to himself, but when neither Bradley nor I had seen him that day, his lack of presence concerned us.
At some point, Darren had checked out of the world he was so keen to be a part of.
The town’s doctor arrived within the hour to officially pronounce him dead from a suspected heart attack. I’d joined Darren’s smiling family in keeping his body company while we awaited the police and an ambulance to take him to the morgue for an autopsy.
I wondered how his family’s lives would be affected by his death. I pitied them when I realised they’d probably never come to terms with being robbed of the opportunity to say goodbye to a son and brother, or apologise to him for arguing against his wanderlust.
For a moment, I contemplated how Catherine had coped when I too had followed my heart. But my thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of two officers, so I left the room and wandered into the courtyard for a cigarette.
Alone, I put my hand into my pocket and removed Darren’s passport. His need to leave his old world behind would live on through me. I was enjoying my time at the hostel, using it as a place of redemption and healing. But I knew I’d develop itchy feet when I eventually finished my project. And possessing no passport or international identification meant that leaving for fresh pastures would be problematic. But not now.